Posted on 09/26/2004 8:41:19 AM PDT by GaryL
The FReeper Foxhole: As the federal government grows bigger, stronger, and more corrupt with each passing year, maybe its time to dream about how life would be today if the South had won the Civil War.
Richmond Times-Dispatch, Dateline: July 4th, 1863, Gettysburg, PA:
PICKETTS CHARGE SMASHES NORTHERN CENTER YANKS FLEE IN DISARRAY! WEARY LINCOLN SUES FOR PEACE! CONFEDERACY VICTORIOUS!
Am I the only one who dares to speculate about how life would be today if the South had actually won the Civil War? I know, I know .How dare he bring this up! Arrest this raving racist at once! Send for the Though Police! It has to be the ultimate violation of political correctness to even broach this subject!
As conservatives, can we be happy that a segment of the country that fought valiantly for limited government, states rights, and the rule of law under a strong constitution was defeated? Indeed, one of the most malicious consequences of the war was the beginning of the vast shift of political power to the central government in Washington, with the resultant monopoly of power that the federal government extends over us today. This shift came, of course, at the expense of traditional Jeffersonian personal liberty and freedom, and a concomitant emasculation of the power of the individual states. It was also accompanied by a gradual corrupting of the Executive branch (which was virtually completed in the scandalous administration of Bill Clinton}, a corrupting of the rule of law, and a progressive coarsening of the culture - all outcomes, I might add, that serve as testimony to the wisdom of Lord Acton a strong contemporary defender of the South about the corrupting influence of absolute power. This is hardly what I would call a favorable result. As a matter of fact, Id term it an absolute disaster the Founding Fathers worse nightmare! Isnt this the reason they fought the Revolution in the first place?
But, you say, had the South won, America would never have become the great nation that it became in the 20th century. Well, my response is that monopolies of power are never good especially in government, as the totalitarian governments of the 20th century have shown us. . If the South had gained its freedom, there would have been two separate governments competing with each other to be efficient and honorable. Explain to me why this is bad. If either government fell short of these ideals, people would have had the option to vote with their feet and option that doesnt exist today. Competition is always good.
And, no, maybe we wouldnt have become the world power that we became in this the latter half of the 20th century. Why do we assume that this would have been necessarily bad? Consider this: its highly unlikely that the two separate nations would have experienced anything besides limited involvement in World War I, especially since one of them the South would have been adhering to the wise admonition of George Washington to avoid foreign entanglements. And, as Pat Buchanan and others have suggested, WWI was an unmitigated disaster for Western civilization. Instead of making the world safe for democracy, we helped make it safe for Bolshevism, Fascism, Socialism, and Nazism.
Follow me on this. With limited American involvement, England and Germany would likely have fought it out to a resource-draining stalemate. There would have been no clear-cut winner and no clear-cut loser and outcome, I might add, immeasurable more favorable than what actually did occur. Our involvement unquestionably tipped the balance against Germany. Without a victorious England and a defeated, humiliated Germany, there would have been no vengeful, retribution-extracting Versailles treaty sapping the German people of their pride and resources. And, it follows, there would have been no occasion for the rise of militant German nationalism, no Hitler, and, quite possibly, no World War II. All and all, not a bad tradeoff, wouldnt you say? Oh, and I forgot to mention, no victorious Soviet empire after WWII extending communism over half the world.
But, you say, slavery was a monumental evil that had to end! Yes, I agree that slavery was terrible but I simply disagree with the way it ended. Wouldnt a period of gradual emancipation which many Southern leaders were favoring by the 1860s, although with terms not to be dictated by the North have been immensely better for all involved, most especially the black slaves themselves? Gradual emancipation over a period of about sixty years was exactly how the North itself ended its association with slavery. Why couldnt the South be allowed the same solution?
The problem with the Civil War as the solution to slavery was that it destroyed the fabric of Southern society, leading to immense poverty and destitution for the entire South. Would anybody deny that the worse part of this societal destruction was experienced by the freed slaves themselves? And the North wanted no part of the social problems created by freeing the slaves, as the many racist laws restricting the settlement of freedmen in the North indicate. What was the value of receiving freedom without justice?
Before the war, most slaves had a better quality of life than the poor white farmer. The war put an end to that. This massive poverty and total decimation of Southern society also served as the germination for the horrendous, nation dividing post-bellum racial tensions and animosities the ramifications of which we have with us even today. The conditions of emancipated slaves was so bad that seventy-five years after emancipation, in a 1930s government study called the Slave Narratives, over 70% of surviving former slaves stated that their standards of living were better before the war. We can all agree that slavery was a monumental evil, but surely gradual emancipation would have been better than this!
As a conservative who longs for limited government and the ideals of the Constitution, I am not ashamed to speculate that quite possibly we would have a better world today had the South won the Civil War. Maybe Im dreaming, but I think limited government, personal freedom, and higher degrees of racial harmony are what wed be experiencing. In addition, we would have a clear choice between two governments competing for our approbation. Or maybe youre content with the rapacious, out-or-control, ever-expanding, corrupt federal government that is overwhelming us today!
what he IS good at is parroting (ad nauseum) the drivel & bilge promulgated by the most extreme, leftist, REVISIONIST, south-HATING, poison-ivy league academic elitists. (most of the same damnyankee apologists also hate the USA, btw. i wonder if he knows that???)
free dixie,sw
[Heyworth #98] That means the 1860 census results showing 30.8% of white households in the seceding states were also slaveholding households is correct, right?
I was just answering the question that was asked. If -you- meant the 1850 census, perhaps you should not have said the -1860- census.
My point is that, if it's actual enumerations that you're accepting, the figures from the 1860 census should be as acceptable as those from 1850, which you've already accepted.
You could always write to him yourself and see. I told him you might.
Do you need his e-mail address?
I'm still wondering why you said he was the agricultural curator, though.
What I actually said in my #97, which you incorrectly paraphrased, was:
DeBow gives the enumerated figure of 347,255 persons as being slave-holders. That is the only slave-holder figure given by DeBow which may withstand scrutiny as "academically-acceptable evidence."
I did not say the enumerated figure was academically acceptable. I said it was the only figure provided by DeBow which "may withstand scrutiny as 'academically-acceptable evidence.'" It is the only figure provided by DeBow which meets the threshhold where it deserves to be considered and scrutinized.
The census is well known to be notoriously inaccurate. How many illegal aliens would you estimate were missed in the most recent census, using the most modern methods of census taking?
Recall that DeBow simply assumed the enumerated number to be correct.
[Heyworth #100] DeBow's 1854 report on the 1850 census cited a number of shortcomings in the methodology of counting slaves and slaveowners, and his suggestions were incorporated into the 1860 census.
You said you had provided "academically-accepted evidence" of a particular statistic. Here you present an allegation with nothing to back it up. It may be accurate, it may not be. No evidence was provided of what was, or was not, incoporated into the 1860 census, nor was any evidence presented to show that the 1860 census numbers were imbued with an accuracy which seeming has escaped all other census results.
[Heyworth #100] That census yields much more detail, including the number of free white households and slaveholders. While you can search the database I linked to above, here's the relevant results on a nice table:
What -I- am discussing and addressing is the Heyworth assertion that "I've [Heyworth] posted academically-accepted evidence that about 30% of southern FAMILIES owned slaves...."
That is discussing the posting of academically-accepted evidence, past-tense. It is supposedly already posted. We are not now on a quest to find it somewhere off in cyberworld or at the Library of Congress or elsewhere. You asserted you had, past tense, posted academically-accepted evidence. That is evidence you have already posted which has already been accepted academically as evidence proving your specifically stated assertion, i.e., "about 30% of southern families owned slaves."
All you need do is provide the link or links to where Heyworth posted, (prior to Heyworth #58 posted on 10/04/2004 11:44:23 AM CDT on this thread) what has been academically-accepted as evidence that about 30% of southern families owned slaves.
Where is the evidence that you posted, past tense, to prove your point, which was academically accepted, past tense?
Thread: A Free (And Christian) South Carolina?9/14/2004 #348 to sw "I can show scholarly analysis all day, as well as contemporary sources like DeBow to support my claim that about a third of sourthern families owned slaves."
[nc] Maybe you can, and maybe you can't, but saying you can do it is not doing it. It is like Bill Clinton's modest middle-class tax cut.
9/13/2004 #346 to sw "What a laugh. Would you like me to post links to about 5000 genealogy links giving 1860 census records?"
[nc] A question implying the existence of 5,000 or 1 million unprovided links is not evidence.
Ibid. "Slaves were owned by the head of the household. Multiply by average family size of 5-6 to get number of families."
This contains no evidence and a false assumption. This assumes all households to include only one adult male.
Slaves could be owned by other than the head of the household. Four bachelor brothers could form a household and each own slaves. Adult male children could own slaves. A Northern congressman in Massachusetts could own slaves held to service in the South.
There appears to be no enumerated number of families. Multiplying households does not yield families. It yields multiple households. The terminology should remain consistent.
Ibid. "I've done some investigating and find that there's nothing out there indicating that the 1860 census is any more flawed than any other census."
[nc] Kudos for your claimed investigation. However, saying you investigated is not evidence.
[nc] Saying the 1860 census is no more flawed than other census is not very high praise. Using the most modern methods, how many illegal aliens were not counted in the 2000 census? How accurate was the 2000 census? In general, census figures are not very reliable.
Ibid. You provide an extensive quote of DeBow to support your point.
[nc] I just destroyed his methodology and demonstrated that his speech was not an academic paper, but a deliberately slanted propaganda effort in support of secession.
Hey Gary, where did you read *that*? That's news to me.
ff
i suspect absent TWBTS that one day slaveowners (both north & south)would have simply said to "their people",
"i can't afford you anymore;there's nothing here for you. there's the road. get on it & don't come back."
persons in society act in what they believe to be their OWN self-interest. also, anyone immoral enough to "trade in human flesh" would not have been "decent" about emancipation. (i am NOT an admirer of OR apologist for the plantation aristocracy! especially given the fact that all too many of the slavers COLLOBORATED with our enemies during the first war for dixie independence.)
free dixie,sw
Here's Prof. Hansen at Virginia Western Community College linking to them: http://www.vw.vccs.edu/vwhansd/HIS121/Census.html
WIlma Dunaway at Virginia Tech uses the 1860 data. http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:dar1FbN1CEAJ:scholar.lib.vt.edu/faculty_archives/mountain_slavery/3tab.pdf+%221860+census%22+slaveholders&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Then of course, there's the University of Virginia, with its database of the census. http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/censusbin/census/cen.pl?year=860
Princeton University cites the 1860 census statistics. http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:Rj2WmbAsS1QJ:pup.princeton.edu/chapters/s7553.pdf+%221860+census%22+slaveholders&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
So, as you can see, the 1860 census statistics are repeated cited by academics for teaching purposes. If that isn't the test for "academically accepted" I don't know what is.
Are the census statistics dead-on accurate? Of course not. No census is. But it is the best source available. It's widely used by the government for any number of functions, not the least of which is the allocation of congressmen. Of course there's margin of error, but as Benson's footnote points out, the errors in the count most likely effectively cancel out.
Naturally, and as I've said before, if you've got some other numbers from another source than the US census, I'd be very happy to see them. But for you to claim that the census is so wrong that it can't be taken as correct within a reasonable margin of error is just plain wrong.
Ping - what a fascinating discussion!!!!
The bottom line is that McClellan was not the "peace" candidate. He disavowed the peace platform. There no way that McClellan, an egotist of colossal proportions, would have sued for peace given the overwhelming position of the North, even if Meade had failed to win at Gettysburg. The far west was already in Union control. The Trans-Mississippi was not of strategic importance. The campaign in the mid-south was going - well - smashingly.
The fact of the matter was that the south never sucessfully sustained an offensive in Northern territory, and even with a "victory on day 3" at Gettysburg, the Army of Northern Virgina was through. Their losses during the first two days of the battle were irreplacable.
Militarily and politically, it was all but over for the south by July 1863.
[Heyworth #108] Here's Prof. Hansen at Virginia Western Community College linking to them: http://www.vw.vccs.edu/vwhansd/HIS121/Census.html
This position is ludicrous, as I shall demonstrate below. Citing something does not connote agreement or acceptance of it. Moreover, looking at what the citing source says may be relevant as more than adequately demonstrated below. Should you choose to accept the Virginia Westerm Community College table as authoritative, I am proud of you. You have seen the light. (Or you have not bothered to look at your source material.)
http://www.vw.vccs.edu/vwhansd/HIS121/Census.html
This link goes to a page with the following title and lists ten (10) hyperlinked tables.
Directly relevant to our discussion is Table 4:
TABLE 4. SLAVES AND SLAVEHOLDERS IN 1860 (SOUTH)
HIS 121/269 Research Document
U.S. Census Data on Slavery in AmericaTABLE 1. SLAVE POPULATION BY STATE IN 1790 (US)
TABLE 2. SLAVE POPULATION BY STATE IN 1850 (US)
TABLE 3. SLAVES AND IMMIGRANTS IN 1860 (US)
TABLE 4. SLAVES AND SLAVEHOLDERS IN 1860 (SOUTH)
TABLE 5. SLAVE CONCENTRATION IN 1860 (SOUTH)
TABLE 6. MANUFACTURING IN 1860 (US)
TABLE 7. SECESSION AND SLAVERY IN 1861 (SOUTH)
TABLE 8. COLORED PERSONS 1860-1870 (SOUTH)
TABLE 9. COLORED PERSONS IN 1870 (US)
TABLE 10. COLORED PERSONS 1860-1880 (US)
[nc - boldface added]
http://www.vw.vccs.edu/vwhansd/HIS121/Census1860T4.html
Going to the link to TABLE 4, we get the following page, shown below in full by JPEG image.
HIS 121/269 Research Document
Census Table 4. Slaves and Slaveholders in 1860
The following notation appears:
This table reveals that despite the large number of slaveholders in some states, even in major
slave states like Mississippi, South Carolina and Virginia, they were less than 10% of the free population.
You're simply spouting opinions again. You have yet to address the documented facts I have presented.
identifying someone as a damnyankee in the southland is NOT considered "namecalling", but rather is an identity term for generally-recognised characteristics of certain humans, who have the MISfortune of being HATERS.
being northernborn no more condemns a person to being a damnyankee than it forces one to become a Methodist.
"damnyankee" is a LEARNED, UNthinking prejudice against the southland, her people & her separate culture.
SADLY, the more i read of your drivel, the closer i am to identifying you as a damnyankee.
free dixie,sw
You do your cause no good. I suggest that you would best serve it by saying nothing at all.
Is a "slave-holder" defined as the single person in whose name all property was listed? And, if so, are we asked to accept that the owner's family is not included among the class of "slave-holders?"
Or are we defining "slave-holders" as all members of a family that owned slaves?
You'll agree that it's an important distinction, as the relative percentages are tightly bound to the definitions used to produce the figures you cited.
I suspect that the "slave-holder" figures refer to those who held actual title to the slaves. This does not alter the fact, however, that in some sense the slave-holders' families were in some sense also slave-owners, who gained from the property held by the head of their family.
In this latter case, if we assume an average family size of four (a number I'm pulling out of thin air), then Virginia's 52,128 slave-holders expands to roughly 200,000 slave-owners, which places the percentage closer to 20% of the total population.
Only if we define "slave-holder" as being all members of a slave-owning family, do the percentages cited make sense.
So ... how are we to define slave-holder? Does Prof. Hansen bother to define his figures?
In the 1860 census, only one slave-holder per household was counted. "Slave-holding families" represented about 30-35% of the white population in the slave-holding states, and a much higher figure in the deep south, cotton states.
This is a table apparently by Prof. Hansen dated 09/02. At the bottom he notes: "How to read this chart: Virginia joined the CSA on April 17,1861; according to the 1860 census, the state had 490,865 slaves (30.7% of the state's total population) and 52,128 slaveholders (4.7% of the state's free population). ... Refer to CENSUS DATA for more statistical information."
[nc note: The below is not an image file. It is a recreation of the table at the link. For precise viewing of the table, see the link.]
HIS 121/269 Research Document
Census Table 7. Secession Date and Slave Popluation (1860)
State
Secession
Date
Slaves
(S)S %=20 of Total Pop. Slave-
holders
(SH)SH=20 %-of
free
personsS.Carolina 12/20/60 402,406 57.2 26,701 8.9 Mississippi 1/09/61 436,631 55.2 30,943 8.7 Florida 1/10/61 61,745 44.0 5,152 6.5 Alabama 1/11/61 435,080 45.1 33,730 6.4 Georgia 1/18/61 462,198 43.7 41,084 6.9 Louisiana 1/26/61 331,726 46.9 22,033 5.9 Texas 2/1/61 182,566 30.2 21,878 5.2 Virginia 4/17/61 490,865 30.7 52,128 4.7 Arkansas 5/6/61 111,115 25.5 11,481 3.5 N.Carolina 5/20/61 331,059 33.4 34,658 5.2 Tennessee 6/8/61 275,719 24.8 36,844 4.4 Kentucky NA 225,483 19.5 38,645 4.2 Maryland NA 87,189 12.7 13,783 2.3 Missouri NA 114,931 9.7 24,320 2.3
NA = Not Applicable (border states that did not join the Confederacy)
LH 09/02
Ignore the "= 20" which appears twice in the headings.
"Free persons" would be those persons not counted as slaves. It may include non-Whites.
"Slave-holders" would include anyone who held one or more slaves to service.
You are not asked to accept anything. These are census figures. I did not create them or modify them. The census recorded what data it chose to record and that is all we have.
Probably you own a motor vehicle. Are your children motor vehicle owners?
Julia Dent Grant owned slaves. Did that make Ulysses S. Grant a slaveowner?
According to Allen C. Guelzo, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, p. 23, "from 1850 until 1862, Lincoln and his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, were embroiled in litigation in Kentucky over the settlement of the estate of Mary's father, litigation that netted the Lincolns a share in the proceeds of selling the Todd family slaves." When Mary Todd Lincoln's father died, she obtained property interest in the family slaves. Did this make Abraham Lincoln a slaveowner?
[r9etb] Or are we defining "slave-holders" as all members of a family that owned slaves?
There is insufficient data to make any valid determination of the number of family members in addition to each slave-holder. The census counted individual slave-holders. That is the data that is available.
[r9etb] You'll agree that it's an important distinction, as the relative percentages are tightly bound to the definitions used to produce the figures you cited.
I would disagree that the "slave-holder" figure necessarily refers to those who held actual title to the slaves. For example, Massachusetts Congressman Chaffee and his wife, Irene Sanford Emerson Chaffee held actual title to Dred Scott and his wife and two children. Whomever held Dred Scott and his family to service in Missouri may well have been counted as a slave-holder, as distinguished from the holder of the actual title.
[r9etb] This does not alter the fact, however, that in some sense the slave-holders' families were in some sense also slave-owners, who gained from the property held by the head of their family.
In much the same sense that your infant child would be considered a motor vehicle owner and a homeowner.
The census recorded no such statistic. I should like to remind that the issue to which I have dissented is the claim that "academically-accepted evidence" had been (past tense) presented to show that a claimed percentage of Southern families were slaveowners. There is no such census statistic. There is insufficient data to accurately derive such a statistic.
[r9etb] In this latter case, if we assume an average family size of four (a number I'm pulling out of thin air), then Virginia's 52,128 slave-holders expands to roughly 200,000 slave-owners, which places the percentage closer to 20% of the total population.
The average family size for the general population was approximately 5.6. This does not establish that a subset of the general population, comprised of privileged elite wealthy slaveholders had an average family size of 5.6. Their family size may well have been 4.0. There is no statistical data upon which to accurately determine this figure.
In simply multiplying by (arbitrary) family size, the resulting figure purports that infant children are slaveholders. If we were to eliminate minor children, the number would shrink markedly. It might well be that an adult child was given ownership of a slave upon reaching the age of majority. There is simply no data recorded to inform us of how many adult children of slaveholders were also slaveholders. (General Grant's father-in-law apparently gave him a slave.)
Multiplying the number of slave-holders by 4 yields 4 times the number of slave-holders. Multiplying the number of apples by 4 does not yield the number of oranges.
[r9etb] Only if we define "slave-holder" as being all members of a slave-owning family, do the percentages cited make sense.
No. Defining all members of a slave-owning family as slave-holders makes sense only to the extent that a one-month old infant girl should be counted as a slave-owner. Assuming you own your own home, it would not be sensible to count your one-month old daughter as a home-owner.
Virginia had 1,105,453 free persons. It had 52,128 slaveholders. And it had 4.7% slaveholders as a per cent of free persons. Divide 52,128 by 1,105,453 and you get 0.0471553 or 4.7%.
The census data table clearly states what the percentage statistic is. It represents the percentage of free persons (individuals) who were slaveholders.
The census recorded individual slaveholders. It recorded the total number of free persons. It did not record the total number of persons per slaveholding family. It did not record how many families contained more than one slaveholder.
[r9etb] So ... how are we to define slave-holder?
The census data clearly considers it to be an individual who holds slaves to service.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.