Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I do not quite follow what you mean by slavery requiring new lands to plant and clear in order to survive. None of the potential states which could be formed from remaining territories were suitable for cotton or tobacco crops, so it wasn't as though the plantation system was going to expand anywhere with or without slaves.
There actually wasn't much use for slaves in any of the potential new states, unless the idea was to put them to work in the silver mines of Nevada and New Mexico, and that has nothing to do with clearing and planting.
Texas (and present-day Oklahoma) were part of the 19th century cotton belt. Kansas today is a major cotton producer, and would have been a major speculative territory for slave cotton, attracting investment, land purchases, and the importation of slaves.
Cotton, land, and slaves drove enormous capital into the slave states, fueled speculation, and created a thriving industry quite literally built on the backs of slaves. Much like contemporary economic booms, the investment was fueled by anticipated gains. In order to keep attracting investment, the industry needed more cotton, more land, and more slaves. If it stagnated, then the credit-fueled (both land and slaves were typically bought using debt) economic engine would stall and crash (as it did in, for example, 1837).
New Mexico is another State in which cotton grows well. With slavery, New Mexico could well have been another frontier for the slave industry.
I am ashamed to admit that it's only recently that I have been willing to revisit my views on Lincoln. (I was raised with the Prevailing Wisdom on him).
He had some good qualities, but just as many terrible ones. His role in the Civil War was not that which is taught in schools. He played a major role in the deaths of 700,000 people..........that is an unquestionable fact.
He had some good motives. Some were not so pure.
I am considering him a mediocre president at this time, all in all.
Being from the north part of the U.S. I grew up being told that he was one of the greatest men who ever lived. Not directly but you get the point. Never anything bad said about him only hero worship to the nth degree. But I am thinking different about him now. For one thing he was not a popular president back in the days that he got elected but got in by some kind of a fluke in the political system. Also, he ordered the first shots fired of the civil war when he ordered union ships to fire on fort Sumter South Carolina. In the debates between Lincoln and Douglas I thought that Douglas was the realist and was more in tuned to what the issues were about. But also just the fact that he is given this almighty super human aura by the media and historians makes me wonder about the truth of who Lincoln was. Anytime someone says someone is so great I have to catch myself and say lets looks at things closer. The old saying goes if it looks too good to be true it probably is.
I wasn't born yet so I never knew him. Can't say if I liked him or not. I heard he was an honest man and although may not have been popular did the right thing for the right reasons. I also heard he helped out a little in getting rid of human slavery where a human was actually owned by another human and treated or murdered like a barnyard dog. SO I guess I may have liked him had I known him since I'd look a little silly wearing a pointy white hat.
Kansas today is a major cotton producer, and would have been a major speculative territory for slave cotton, attracting investment, land purchases, and the importation of slaves.
.
Kansas was already a state, and a free state which remained loyal to the Union at that.
My question was why slavery needed to continue to expand in order to survive apart from the political factors? If the South had respected the results of the 1860 election and accepted that there would be no more new free states, how would that have damaged slavery within any of the states in which it existed? Why did it constantly need to grow?
As noted, the institution was threatened by the idea that eventually the free states would so badly outnumber the slave states, that a majority might get into the national emancipation business via a constitutional amendment. But that still would have been way down the road. Slavery would have remained untouched for decades unless any of the slave states independently decided to free them. I just don't see why any of that would have been hindered by the failure to have new slave states to expand the institution.
Kansas was already a state, and a free state which remained loyal to the Union at that.
My question was why slavery needed to continue to expand in order to survive apart from the political factors? If the South had respected the results of the 1860 election and accepted that there would be no more new free states, how would that have damaged slavery within any of the states in which it existed? Why did it constantly need to grow?
As noted, the institution was threatened by the idea that eventually the free states would so badly outnumber the slave states, that a majority might get into the national emancipation business via a constitutional amendment. But that still would have been way down the road. Slavery would have remained untouched for decades unless any of the slave states independently decided to free them. I just don't see why any of that would have been hindered by the failure to have new slave states to expand the institution.
Kansas became a State after the inauguration of Lincoln--and the withdrawal of a series of southern Democrats from the Senate--providing the Republicans with a Senate majority to admit Kansas as a Free State. Slavery in the territories was a campaign issue in the 1860 election.
The economy of the slave States in the 19th century was increasingly dominated by cotton. Cotton depended on three inputs: slaves, land, and the capital to acquire the other two. Capital flowed from centers of finance to slaveowners in anticipation of gains. Those gains were not based on quaint, maintenance of existing territory returns. This was a boom. There were wild gains based on spiraling expansion. Stagnation would crumble the credit, slave, and land markets upon which the cotton industry depended.
Lee Harvey Oswald.. who was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He represents neither Texas or Louisiana.
Lee Harvey Oswald was a resident of Texas when he assassinated President Kennedy.
I cannot think of Texas, especially Dallas, without being reminded of the scene of the terrible action that too place. Lee Harvey Oswald is one representative of Dallas, Texas.
People in the north had very little experience living in the same region as blacks as southerns had lived by or near blacks for over a century. So in our northern eyes(many northerners) we sympathized with blacks without knowing any blacks first hand. One of our first feelings were that all blacks were being supressed etc. When I went south for the first time(being a northerner) I was surprised at blacks and whites communicating in a friendly manner even though there was segregation of races at that time. We didn't understand the south yet passed judgement on them. That is what I think when it came to the issue of slavery.
I definitely don't support segregation or bigotry. But I can understand that some white people are not threatened at all by black advancement and will never live near or work with any minority. They tend to be the most "liberal." In northern cities when civil rights laws put blacks on an equal footing to buy or rent housing they could afford, it was the lower middle class or working class whites who were in line to have competition for jobs and housing they wanted. They quickly joined their southern peers in disliking blacks.
The southerners who were warm and fuzzy on integration tended also to be upper class people who similarly faced no threat to status or employment.
Lee Harvey Oswald was a resident of Texas when he assassinated President Kennedy.
I cannot think of Texas, especially Dallas, without being reminded of the scene of the terrible action that too place. Lee Harvey Oswald is one representative of Dallas, Texas.
Mark Cuban is a better representative, though.
So did the majority of Dallas' population cheer the death of JFK at the hands of a Texas resident? If so, then yea I guess he did represent Dallas!
By your logic, Donald J. Trump, a born and bred New Yorker, is representative of not just NYC but New York State.
tyrant
1. a sovereign or other ruler who uses power oppressively or unjustly.
2. any person in a position of authority who exercises power oppressively or despotically.
Gee, I dunno. Kind of describes Lincoln to a tee.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Unsettomati
The trend I noted early in this thread, the tendencies of Lincoln-loathers, continues - if they're not praising Hitler, then they're just skipping the middle-man and going directly to their obsession with Jews as the behind-the-scenes manipulators of... well, everything.
Not all who articulate an objection to Lincoln, certainly, but the anti-Lincoln crowd includes quite a number of those who either rail against 'the Joos!' or who openly admire those who created an industry dedicated to the wholesale slaughter of Jews. Coincidence? Hardly.
I certainly don't praise Hitler. Nor am I a blame it on the JOOOOOS! wacko.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jbgusa
This has been gone over often in this thread. Slavery was not dying. If it were there would have been mass famine among released slaves. There wasn't. Thus they were earning a significant economic profit for their owners; enough that the slaves were going for some good prices at auctions.
Funny how it seemed to end around most of the rest of the world without killing 750K people. I guess your right though, no way that would have been possible here. Cuz you know, that would make Lincoln look like a fool for getting 750K people killed, unless of course.......there was another reason Lincoln went to war.
Quote:
Originally Posted by phetaroi
Yes! And what we see here quite a bit in this thread is the ongoing effort to paint the Confederacy and slavery as something good and noble. Confederates have been trying to do that for well over a century now, and they just don't get that the concept is, literally, gone with the wind.
The Confederacy wasn't good, and slavery certainly wasn't either. Not approving of the Confederacy and slavery AND not approving of Lincolns actions aren't mutually exclusive.
I support the Union and history is on their side and firmly against the abomination of slavery. I just think the Union had crap leadership and it cost a lot of blood and nearly cost us this country.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheCityTheBridge
The Civil War ended slavery. First the Emancipation Proclamation, then the 13th Amendment, which Lincoln championed, got it done. One must credit Lincoln with ending slavery. There is no justification for the Confederates firing on Ft. Sumter. Ft. Sumter was always a US military base. There was no Confederate right for Ft. Sumter not to exist.
The President requires no Congressional action to repel a sudden attack. The Confederacy suddenly attacked the United States, and the President was thus free to make war against them. Such was the plain intent of the framers, given that Congress' power changed from "make war" to "declare war."
Lincolns main goal wasn't ending slavery, it was preservation of the union at any cost. Its not like the guy was on a righteous crusade to end slavery like is typically depicted in text books.
When Gen Fremont issued his own order freeing slaves, Lincoln reversed it because it was politically better.
The Emancipation Proclamation when passed didn't free a single slave. Lincoln saw it as a tool to weaken the South and nothing more. It was successful at that.
Lincoln had little to do with the 13th Amendment, granted he did campaign for it after reelection but thats about it.
There was no sudden attack to repel. Sure call up troops and get ready to defend, well within his powers. But blockading, which is an act of war, without congressional approval? Whats the rush for that?
As for Ft Sumter, the Confederacy warned Lincoln that any attempt to put more men or weapon in Ft Sumter would be an act of war. He used that to force them into firing the first shots. He got his war he wanted.
As noted, the institution was threatened by the idea that eventually the free states would so badly outnumber the slave states, that a majority might get into the national emancipation business via a constitutional amendment. But that still would have been way down the road.
I've heard this claim, that the Southern states were afraid of a constitutional amendment imposed upon them that would have ended slavery, and had always believed it before. But I now wonder if this is just post-war rationalization.
Consider that an amendment must be ratified by three fourths of the states, and that there were 14 states in 1860 that allowed slavery. If one assumes that no slave state would ever vote for an anti-slavery amendment, and that every non-slave state would definitely vote for such an amendment, then there would need to be 52 non-slave states in order to pass an anti-slavery amendment. That would mean that such an amendment would pass when there were 56 states.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
