Would slavery have ended without the Civil War? (tanks, USA, government)

[Linda_d]

Originally Posted by jtur88

Without going back and reading almost 200 poets, it seems to me that slavery would have lasted quite a bit longer had there been no Civil War. The secession was not about a threat to end slavery in the slave states, but about prohibiting slavery in the new territories to the west. The existing slave states could have retained slavery, without secession and/or war, as long as the traffic would bear, and there was no strong sentiment in the capital for abolition at that time.

Of course, if the US had retained slavery for many more years or decades, the term "Rogue" and "Pariah" would have arisen much sooner in international affairs and diplomacy, and the issue would have needed to have been faced sooner or later. But the South's decision to secede and foment a war merely hastened the abolition.

But once the Emperor of Brazil had struck it down by edict in the last country do so (about a decade later), the future of slavery in the New World would be pretty much a done deal, with war very likely unnecessary.

The problem is that the Southerner slave holders refused to wait. They started the secessionist ball rolling as soon as the election results were in. The Buchanan administration as well as Congressional delegations attempted to work out compromises that were, essentially, total appeasement of the Southern slaveholders. Just about the only things they couldn't/wouldn't offer were the negation of the 1860s elections and the repudiation of the US Constitution.

I think the secession movement was the culmination of 30 or 40 years of the Southern slaveholders' propaganda efforts to legitimize the idea that a state could leave the Union whenever it wanted to do so under the banner of "states' rights". By the 1820s, the South was already significantly different from the North and Midwest because of the growth and expansion of slavery. It skewed the social and economic fabric of the South, leaving it in a virtual time warp where it was more like America in the 1750s than the America of the 1820s.

That divide between the South and the rest of the country grew worse as the decades went by. By the 1850s, slavery was no longer a "necessary evil" but rather "a positive good" that was "ordained by God". Most of the Southern states' wealth was invested in slaves rather than in land and/or machinery. Commerce was limited, and often carried on by non-Southerners. There were some limited industry in the Upper South, but virtually none in the main cotton producing states.

Lincoln's election was the trigger for secession but idea had been gaining momentum for a long time, which is why many non-slaveholding Southerners accepted it.

Originally Posted by Old Gringo

It did almost everywhere else around the globe.

Maybe a program of paying the plantation owners and essentially buying the freedom for the slaves could have prevented that horrible war. And the cost in real monetary terms (not to mention lives) would have been a lot less.

This was never, ever considered by Southern slaveholders, although gradual emancipation had worked successfully in Britain's colonies. Various anti-slavery groups suggested this over the years, and it was repeatedly rejected out of hand. I think that Lincoln's original idea on slavery was compensated emancipation and then the resettlement of blacks either in Africa or out West (much like many Native Americans from east of the Mississippi had been forced to resettle in "Indian Territory" (now Oklahoma)).

Southerners rejected the idea because American slavery wasn't just an economic system with heinous aspects but a social system as well. It not only provided for control of blacks, it largely determined the social standing of whites. Ownership of even one slave raised a farmer's status considerably, even if he and his family worked side by side with said slave.

Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell

That would have been the English textile mills, who were the customers for southern cotton. Unfortunately for the South, public sentiment in England was strongly anti-slavery, so England cut off support for the South at secession.

Actually, the British and French didn't cut off support for the South, but they were constrained from recognizing the Confederate States as an independent country by the strong anti-slavery sentiment in both countries. That was significant because it prevented the Confederacy from getting loans and, more importantly, aid from the British Navy in breaking the Union blockade of Southern ports.

Originally Posted by nightbird47

The south got its immigration earlier, especially Irish, as successive waves of mostly country folk were forced off of their land, and then later as the scot-irish were then forced off the land they'd been invited to settle as English lords organized their estates in Ireland. But these were largely rural people and the US was equally rural. When cities became manufacturing hubs, and the 'excess poor' arrived, there was a ready made place for them in the industrial north. The south didn't really need more poor people. They had plenty of poor non-slaves already.

If you were an immigrant from eastern europe who had fled slave like conditions as eastern serfdom existed LONG past other places, would you want to go to a place where it was the norm? And those who came in the wake of the 1848 revolutions, which were all about ending inequity and personal rights, would you embrase a place where both were selective? The south *could* have been stopped in expanding, instead of the war, and allowed to sink into the third world in time. It's leaders with their heads firmly in the past, and their own perception, would make it like one of the south/central american states where the Spanish ruling class controlled everyone and the non ruling class behaved or rebelled.

That they were not allowed to leave has been one of the reasons why we are such a large country with such diversity, and that young men who only knew their own little place were shown a much wider world and ceased to think of themselves as only from where they were born is why we can hold together, for we have a wider identity than just where you live.

Excellent points, nightbird. Where later immigrants did settle in the South, such as the Germans who settled in the Texas hill country around Fredericksburg in the 1850s, they were notably non-slaving and Unionist in their sentiments. Also I think it's very important to remember that the Southern leaders, who were all slaveholders, glorified Britain's landed aristocracy and saw themselves as heirs to that tradition -- at the very time that Britain's landholders were being beleaguered by falling agricultural (and consequently, land) prices.

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally Posted by Linda_d

It was illegal to teach slaves in the antebellum South to read or write. It was forbidden to free slaves. Slaves were forbidden to be off their owner's plantation or farm without a written pass. Slaves were forbidden to gather in large groups without specific permission from their masters. Slaves were forced to worship at the church selected by their masters. Any slave could be stopped anywhere by any white man and questioned about his business. But, yeah, slavery wasn't about social control.

Arguing that the North was racist doesn't mitigate the South's guilt for slavery and the ensuing century of Jim Crow any more than arguing that Stalin was a butcher mitigates the Nazis' guilt for the Holocaust.

Regarding social control, I never made the assertion that slavery wasn't about social control. I made the argument that social control was not the main REASON for slavery. Rather, it was the result of slavery. Social control was the main reason for Jim Crow.

I prefer to think of the North/South guilt issue the opposite way. The fact that the South was the perpetrator of slavery doesn't mitigate the racism of the North and of Northerners who like to pretend that they are absolved of guilt because they bash the South. Just like lots of Southerners aren't really helped by their argument that their personal ancestors never owned slaves. See, it's typically the non-Southerners pointing the finger of blame and guilt at the South - not the other way around. Southerners typically just stick to defending themselves from hypocritical non-Southerners who want to cast them as the one and only villain. As if to say the Southeast had the corner on evil.

It's like arguing that Nazi holocaust guilt makes Stalin's murder of 10,000,000 people all the more forgettable. And the fact that the world went to war against Hitler is scarcely ground to forgive the world for it's utter disregard of the utter savagery of global communism during the Cold War period.

[Rush71]

The so-called American "Civil War" was NOT a civil war. It was a war for independence of the CSA states and an invasion of those nations by the remaining members of the USA confederation of nations and war of aggression by the USA confederacy to conquer, subjugate and annex those nations. That the USA was a confederacy of independent, autonomous, sovereign nations who had established a FEDERAL, not NATIONAL, governing agency to legislate only over limited and express areas of common interest while retaining the individual sovereignty granted to them by the British Parliament via the Treaty of Paris of 1783 is far to complex too explain here. The reasons why secession from the confederacy of the USA was an implicit if not explicit right is likewise too complex to explain in the space available. Suffice to say that the core precept of the Declaration of Independence is that it is the right of a people to change or leave a government that no longer protects, defends or serves the interests of the governed and the nations of the CSA passed the Ordinances of Secession through their duly and democratically elected representatives and then ratified those Ordinances at the polls or in convention. Threatened by the loss of the cash cow upon which they so heavily relied (by 1860, fully 75% of federal funds were raised in the south but 75% of that tax money was spent in the north and the northern business, banking, mercantile, industrial and shipping interests were dependent not only of the federal funds but on the southern cash crops to make and sustain their fortunes), the USA confederation invaded.

To those who buy into the ridiculous myth that the southern states seceded to protect the right to own slaves (or that the north went to war to free them) I commend your attention to Article I, Sections 2 and 9, Article IV, Section 2 and Amendments IV, V, IX and X of the US Constitution, all of which in one war or another guaranteed the right to own human chattel. The only way slavery could be abolished was by state law or constitutional amendment. The very first attempt to abolish slavery by constitutional amendment was made in 1864, with the southern states absent. It failed to pass. Had it passed, it would have gone down in flames during the ratification process in the north, forget the south. In 1861, the Republican dominated northern majority in Congress did pass the Corwin Amendment. If ratified, Corwin would have become Amendment XIII and would have barred any future attempt to constitutionally abolish slavery. When the CSA states seceded anyway, the measure was tabled and never submitted for ratification. With the right to own human chattel already guaranteed and a promise to extend that right into perpetuity, how can anyone believe the foolishly false propaganda that the CSA states seceded over the right to own their slaves (especially when so few southerners owned slaves and many who owned only one or two had to rent them out in order to afford them)? Slavery was a dying institution by 1860 and would have died a peaceful natural death with the advent of mechanized farming. Northern industrialists had already proved hiring wage slaves was far cheaper than owning slaves, but given the lack of a labor pool in the south and the need for a guaranteed labor force to keep the cash crops coming, large southern slave owners didn't have the luxury of hiring hands. Given the all but universal financial dependence on the slaves in the north as well as the south, no one was about to deny the owners that right (except for the tiny, albeit extremely vocal, minority of abolitionists).

The war was about independence, sovereignty, autonomy and freedom from the tyranny of the majority in the south and about money and conquest of the southern cash cow by the north. It was a defensive war by the CSA and an attempt to thwart the invasion of the sovereign nations of that confederation and it was an offensive war of aggression by the USA confederacy. The northern USA confederation also wanted to preclude an opposing confederation of nations on its southern border that might not only ally with European powers and wreak havoc on the financial, political, economic and military balance of power in the Western hemisphere but would also be a very real rival for the theft and annexation of the remaining First Nations lands in the West.

[Rush71]

The CSA states did not secede over the right to own human chattel. The US Constitution granted that right to them (Article I sections 2 and 9, Article IV, section 2, Amendments IV, V, IX and X). Slavery could be abolished only by state law or constitutional amendment. No such amendment had even proposed by 1860 for the simple reason that it would not have passed in Congress and even if it passed there, it would never have been ratified in the polls or in convention. In fact, in 1860, Congress did pass the Corwin Amendment. If ratified, Corwin would have prohibited any future attempt to abolish slavery by constitutional amendment. The CSA states, having been guaranteed the right to own slaves into perpetuity, seceded anyway, so Corwin was never submitted to the ratification process. In 1864, with the southern states absent for obvious reasons, an abolition amendment was proposed. It failed on the floor. Had it passed, it would have gone done in flames during the ratification process.

Although the northern states ( excluding Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky and Missouri and the District of Columbia) had abolished slavery by 1837 (if one carefully reads the abolition statutes, it is clear that slaves still existed in several "abolition" states), the northern money, industrial and shipping interests were still dependent on the southern economy and the slaves that made it run. So was the federal government. In 1860, although 75% of federal spending was in the north, 75% of federal revenues were raised in the south, mostly from taxes on the plantation cash crops. The southern planters were being bled dry and into bankruptcy by federal tax laws and the northern industrial and money interests were making it impossible for the south to industrialize or diversify its economy. The south had no say in the federal government, as the 1860 election proved. Lincoln not only failed to carry a single southern state, he did not even appear on the ballot in several of them. The north controlled the House and the Senate, and was taking control of the Supreme Court.

The core principal of the Declaration of Independence is that if the government no longer serves, defends and protects the rights and interests of the governed, the governed have the right to change or leave the government. Taking the Declaration at face value, the CSA states left. Their right to do so was absolute. When Great Britain granted independence to the colonies by the Treaty of Paris in 1783, thirteen new nations were created. Those nations never subsumed themselves into a larger whole, either by the Articles of Confederation or by the Constitution. The USA was created as a federation of independent nation-states, not as a single entity made up of inferior, subservient political subdivisions called states. That this was so can be seen by Amendments IX and X and by the debates at the Philadelphia (Constitutional) Convention that addressed the issue. The New England States knew they had the right to secede when they threatened to do so in 1803, 1812, 1814 and 1815. States in the north and south alike knew they had the right when they threatened to leave over the illegal and unconstitutional Missouri Compromises of 1820/21 and again over the (Constitutionally correct) Dred Scott decision in 1857. No less than Thomas Jefferson and James Madison knew it when they authored the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions wherein they argued that states had the right to nullify federal law and, by extension, to secede.

The democratically elected representatives of the southern people passed the Ordinances of Secession. The people ratified those ordinances in convention or at the polls. The remaining USA (nation)states could not afford to lose the southern cash cow, did not want competition for the theft of First Nations lands in the west and did not want a potentially adverse nation or nations with possible foreign alliances on its southern boundary. If the CSA states were allowed to secede, the always disgruntled New England states or the western states who had been admitted under unconstitutional restrictions might follow suit. Something had to be done. What was done was the USA states invaded the free and independent nations of the CSA in a war of aggression with the sole goal of conquering and annexing them. It was NOT a civil war. Emancipation Proclamation was a weapon of war. Illegal and unconstitutional it neither abolished slavery not freed any slave in unconquered lands. It also relieved northern commanders of the constitutional duty to return "liberated" slaves to their owners and prohibited those officers from selling "captured" slaves to the highest bidder.

[mco65]

Rush,
That's a lot of writing or perhaps copy/past and I commend you for it but couldn't you have simply said:

The Southern states would have never joined the union in the first place if they didn't think they could simply leave if they saw fit.

[Rush71]

Originally Posted by mco65

Rush,
That's a lot of writing or perhaps copy/past and I commend you for it but couldn't you have simply said:

The Southern states would have never joined the union in the first place if they didn't think they could simply leave if they saw fit.

22 pages of myths and lies on the reasons for the civil war and you complain about my 2 posts? I will try to keep it to 1 to 2 sentences next time.

The 10th amendment. You know, the amendment that got tossed out the window in the ’30s, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” The Constitution does not forbid the states to secede, nor does it empower Congress to wage war upon a state that secedes. Therefore, the 10th amendment implicitly authorizes states to secede.
The president does have power to suppress insurrections, but when a state votes to leave the Union in the same orderly manner in which it entered, it’s hardly an insurrection. Lincoln’s actions were entirely illegal. He should have been shot before the 1860 election.
The Yankee government could not afford to let the southern states secede. Most of the government’s revenue was supplied by tariffs. The South imported more goods from Britain and Europe, and therefore paid the lion’s share of the tariffs.

[mco65]

Rush,
I didn't want to come across complaining.. i meant to put something in there about me being lazy.. which i left out..

Personally, I typically fall on the side of 'secession was legal'.... but don't put up much of a fight with those who claim it was not.. let 'em eat cake.. to the victor go the spoils I guess...

[jackmccullough]

Rush, while you talk about pages upon pages of lies, let's not overlook the lies you have just posted.

You may think you know better why your Confederate heroes seceded than they themselves knew, but their own words convict them of the decision to secede in order to preserve the right to own slaves.

Nothing that was written in the Constitution or Declaration of Independence, no matter how you interpret it, can change that simple fact. If your attitude is typical, though, it tends to support the proposition that people like you would have fought to the death to preserve slavery no matter how long it took. Hence, slavery might not have ended without the Civil War.

[Listener2307]

Originally Posted by jackmccullough

.........that people like you would have fought to the death to preserve slavery no matter how long it took..............

In fact, a lot of people did fight to the death. As was illustrated in the book, Gods and Generals, both sides believed God was on their side and both sides felt it was their duty was to express God's will. (I took that statement from an interview with the author, Jeff Shaara)

But I don't think the average soldier really gave it a whole lot of thought; his country was at war, so away he went. Strike up the band.

[Rush71]

Originally Posted by jackmccullough

Rush, while you talk about pages upon pages of lies, let's not overlook the lies you have just posted.

You may think you know better why your Confederate heroes seceded than they themselves knew, but their own words convict them of the decision to secede in order to preserve the right to own slaves.

Nothing that was written in the Constitution or Declaration of Independence, no matter how you interpret it, can change that simple fact. If your attitude is typical, though, it tends to support the proposition that people like you would have fought to the death to preserve slavery no matter how long it took. Hence, slavery might not have ended without the Civil War.

lies? LMAO? Get a clue! the FACT is the North couldn't pass attempt to abolish slavery by constitutional in 1864, with the southern states absent. It failed to pass. The North also passed the Corwin Amendment, Corwin would have become Amendment XIII and would have barred any future attempt to constitutionally abolish slavery. CSA states seceded anyway.

Abraham Lincoln in his 1st inaugural Address, said of the Corwin Amendment:

"I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution—which amendment, however, I have not seen—has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service....holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.

So it wasn't about the right to own slaves like you keep repeating the kool aid since most in the North couldn't care less if the South kept the slaves as long as the $$$$$$ in taxation kept coming in.


about your last comment, you are childish. My comments here is to expose the lies and propaganda why the North invaded the South and it had nothing to do to free the slaves. It had to do about taxation, revenue and control which most wars are fought over. Im not excusing slavery or whatever you want to paint me here as to kill any debate.