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Old 03-24-2011, 08:00 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ChocLot View Post
If through their slaveholding Washington and Jefferson were able to pay their debtors, wouldn't that attest to the fact that slavery for them was a moneymaking venture? Did they not profit from the work of their slaves? This utopia of concerned slaveholders who only kept their "property" because they were worried about how they would be treated in their old age is definitely a stretch.

RE: slaves consuming more than they produced. I'm sorry, but that's laughable. They ate the entrails & leftovers from their masters food and typically received new clothes/shoes once a year.
It was cyclical debt. Which is typical of farm operations. You get loans to fund your planting and harvesting operations. When you sell the crop, you pay the loans back. And when planting season comes around again, you get loans again. Sometimes, you don't have enough profits when you sell the crops to pay the loans back. Then you do other things, like sell off property, in order to pay off your creditors. Washington and Jefferson were always scrambling for money to meet the demands of creditors.

Some slaveowners treated their slaves well. They didn't feed them entrails. They kept them clothed. They provided shelter and other necessities. Some slaveowners did not treat their slaves well. The mere fact of being stripped of one's humanity is sufficient to make slavery an egregious act. There is no level of care that can justify de-humanizing other people. And when you treat people as a commodity, as chattel, that's what you are doing.
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Old 03-24-2011, 08:19 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JazzyTallGuy View Post
Can you reference a link or any reference information that supports your assertion that plantation agriculture as it relates to cash crops was not a money making propsistion? An initial impresson is your assertion is absolutely absurd based on the fact the system persisted so long and there were some many parties vested in it's continuance.

Slavery in the United States



Slavery for Historical Statstics of the United States

See page 9
If almost half of the wealth that came from slavery was the commodity of slaves, then that wealth is tenuous, isn't it? It's like owning a car lot. How much wealth you have is largely comprised by the presumed value of the cars.

So you have, say 1000 cars, different models, some new, some used. And sometimes people are buying cars, and you can pay the people who work for you, and sometimes there are no buyers, so you have to go to the bank to get a loan to meet your financial obligations. The bank puts a value on those cars, because the cars are collateral. But that value is the result of multiple factors, it's kind of an imaginary number. You don't know that each car will sell, or will sell for it's projected value. The bank doesn't know this.

When they determine the wealth of the antebellum South, there is always a value placed on slaves as property. That value was determined by banks, largely owned by the North, who put a value on slaves in order to use them as collateral for the loans they extended to Southern growers. The values were upheld by Northern insurance companies who were willing and even eager to insure slavery. But that value is kind of an imaginary number.

What happens to the person who owns the car lot, when it's declared illegal to own cars? The bank still wants its loans repaid. The other financial obligations don't go away. What happens to all the people who own cars, when it's declared illegal to own cars?

The problem with the way you try to assert profitability of slavery is that it's a component of an agrarian-based economy. Agrarian economies are typically capital poor, but land rich. Industrialized economies tend to be rich in capital, but land poor. And that was exactly the configuration of the American economy in the 1860's. The wealth of the South is illusory, because it's based on the value of property, which is a matter of speculation. The wealth of the North is in the bank vaults, and while it may fluctuate in terms of inflation or deflation, it doesn't depend on the South to determine its value. The South's wealth was in its land. And when a bank, unregulated capitalist bankers, look at a situation where they can continue to loan money to a plantation owner, or they can just seize the plantation itself. They're going to take the land.
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Old 03-24-2011, 08:23 AM
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Most of the moral objection to slavery was due to some men being ethically unfit to own women. It is why women abolitionist black and white outnumbered men. For the founding fathers Slave ownership was probably quite profitable. Selling Slaves became very lucrative after the African trade was abolished. If they stayed in Europe they would of been Feudal Lords owning Peasants and treating them no worse than they treated Africans
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Old 03-24-2011, 09:15 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JazzyTallGuy View Post
You don't create a document like the Declaration of Independence which specifically stated "We hold these truths be self evident, all men are created equal" and then turn around and justify slavery and racism because "That's all they knew" sorry, it just won't work.

The real story here is the Founding Fathers where just as much merchants, planters, lawyers and businessmen as they were politicians and patriots. Slavery was as vital to Northern bankers, ship builders, ship owners, ship captains, sailors, rum makers, insurance companies and other businesses as it was for Southern plantation owners.

For all the talk about freedom and equality the Founding Fathers struck a bargain based on economic prosperity and convenience to allow slavery to continue as they created the Constitution and formed a new nation.
They were also some of the most enlightened men of their time. The fact of the matter was that slavery existed and had existed on a widespread basis since the beginning of civilization. In fact, a common argument until not long before the American Revolution was that slavery was essential to civilization. Many of the Founding Fathers pointed out that may not be the case.

And yes, slavery played a very large role in the economy both directly and indirectly. They were indeed worried about how abolishing it may effect the economy and the future of the nation. Now that America is the most powerful nation in the world, a lot of people don't seem to realize that was not always the case. The United States in the beginning was merely a collection of former British colonies that had much less in common than one might think and each had their own history, economy, and laws. A lot of the Founding Fathers thought that abolishing slavery would have weakened the new nation politically and economically. There would have also been the question of what to do with the several million slaves as well and how well they would have been assimilated into the general population. You have to work with the cards you have been dealt and not with the ones you would like to have.

Now, this isn't an excuse for slavery and I'm very much aware that many Founding Fathers weren't opposed or even ambivalent about slavery; many were downright pro-slavery. Rather pointing out that it was far more complicated than just racism or even money. I would also like to point out that with the Civil War and with the long-term problems that post-Civil War racist policies contributed to, I think America would have been better off if it had abolished slavery shortly after independence.

Quote:
Originally Posted by thriftylefty View Post
Slave owning was not considered a bad thing. It was a 5000 year old universally accepted means of insuring that labor and real estate stay concentrated in certain families. I might ad that many of the early Abolitionist were Clergy who were dismissed from the Church for advocating on behalf of equality for Blacks. So even the Church thought this was an idea situation for blacks. Many Whites who advocated for ending slavery were tortured, jailed, or killed by mobs consisting of the elite classes,ie., Lawyers, Politicians, Doctors , Businessmen.
History is repeating itself because the same elite classes are making sure we have 20 million people in this country who don't have labor rights.
Yeah, because earning minimum wage is very much comparable to being considered property...

Actually, what I meant to say is that they are completely different things and that was a profoundly stupid thing to say.

Quote:
Originally Posted by SourD View Post
We can ALL thank Muslims for starting the slavery tradition with Africans.
Well, it was the Portuguese that started the African slave trade among European nations. There were already Arab slave traders active for a few hundred years before then, but it was the Portuguese and Spanish that introduced the idea of importing millions of enslaved Africans to work plantations in the New World.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rggr View Post
What makes you think that slavery would be the one thing where there is no evolution of the moral standards? You're citing the Bible as evidence, but then pointing out that the Bible doesn't speak against slavery. Of course there were horrible things done under slavery, but your point was that the Bible spoke against those and not the institution in general, so it's quite possible that there were many people that were against those actions specifically. There were certainly some varied opinions among the founding fathers on the issue.
Yep. The clergymen were also amongst the most rabid opponents a slavery and even though slave owners liked the idea of teaching slaves Christianity to teach them that their oppression was condoned by God, the slaves walked away with a different message. Most of them identified with the story of Moses and the Jews enslaved by the Egyptians and slave preachers often focused on those Biblical stories (obviously in private) than the justifications for slavery found in the Bible and many leaders of slave revolts often compared themselves to Moses and his rebellion.
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Old 03-24-2011, 10:04 AM
 
10,854 posts, read 9,285,354 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DC at the Ridge View Post
If almost half of the wealth that came from slavery was the commodity of slaves, then that wealth is tenuous, isn't it? It's like owning a car lot. How much wealth you have is largely comprised by the presumed value of the cars.

So you have, say 1000 cars, different models, some new, some used. And sometimes people are buying cars, and you can pay the people who work for you, and sometimes there are no buyers, so you have to go to the bank to get a loan to meet your financial obligations. The bank puts a value on those cars, because the cars are collateral. But that value is the result of multiple factors, it's kind of an imaginary number. You don't know that each car will sell, or will sell for it's projected value. The bank doesn't know this.

When they determine the wealth of the antebellum South, there is always a value placed on slaves as property. That value was determined by banks, largely owned by the North, who put a value on slaves in order to use them as collateral for the loans they extended to Southern growers. The values were upheld by Northern insurance companies who were willing and even eager to insure slavery. But that value is kind of an imaginary number.

What happens to the person who owns the car lot, when it's declared illegal to own cars? The bank still wants its loans repaid. The other financial obligations don't go away. What happens to all the people who own cars, when it's declared illegal to own cars?

The problem with the way you try to assert profitability of slavery is that it's a component of an agrarian-based economy. Agrarian economies are typically capital poor, but land rich. Industrialized economies tend to be rich in capital, but land poor. And that was exactly the configuration of the American economy in the 1860's. The wealth of the South is illusory, because it's based on the value of property, which is a matter of speculation. The wealth of the North is in the bank vaults, and while it may fluctuate in terms of inflation or deflation, it doesn't depend on the South to determine its value. The South's wealth was in its land. And when a bank, unregulated capitalist bankers, look at a situation where they can continue to loan money to a plantation owner, or they can just seize the plantation itself. They're going to take the land.
I don't think the wealth in the South was illusionary. Let's keep in mind that the agricultural products that slave labor produced were commodites, such as cotton, tobacco, rice, indigo etc. that were sold on international markets. So not only did the value of slaves contribute to the wealth of plantation owners the products that slaves produced were also very profitable. Slave labor and the slave trade where not only immensely profitable to the United States they were profitable to England as well.

Four Essays On The Slave Trade

Quote:
Britain was the most important international consumer of American cotton. By 1860 over 88% of the cotton imported into Britain came from the labour of enslaved Africans in America. Industrialists in Manchester must take
significant responsibility for their part in making the system of slavery in the American South last so long. The Caribbean Historian Eric Williams asserts: 'It was this tremendous dependence on the triangular trade that
made Manchester'. Manchester merchants made big profits at the expense of exploited labour at home and abroad. These merchants were involved in all three sides of the triangle. They bought cotton imported from the southern slavery states of America. They provided finished cottons in exchange for enslaved Africans. They also provided clothing for the enslaved workers on the plantations. As Robin Blackburn put it: 'The pace of capitalist advance in Britain was decisively advanced by its success in creating a regime of extended private accumulation battening upon the superexploitation
of slaves in the Americas'.
Quote:
Banking and insurance: Eric Williams cited several examples of great personal wealth, derived from trading and exploiting enslaved Africans. For instance, David and Alexander Barclay made vast amounts of money from the
transatlantic slave trade in 1756. They later used this money to set up Barclays Bank. The famous Lloyds of London is another banking organisation with its roots in transatlantic slave trading. Slave trading profits allowed it to grow from being a small London coffee house to become one of the world’s largest banking and insurance houses. European expansion: It was not just in Britain that such profits and connections existed. During the 1700s the
West Indies accounted for 20% of France’s external trade – much more than that for the whole of Africa in the present century. The Portuguese made enormous profits from the transatlantic slave trade. Perhaps unfortunately
for Portugal, much of this money passed rapidly out of Portuguese hands into the hands of the more developed Western European nations. These more developed nations supplied Portugal with loans, ships and trade goods. Germany was one of these countries, along with Britain, Holland and France.
Cotton was not the only cash crop

South Carolina – African-Americans – Rice Culture

Quote:
Written by Michael Trinkley of the Chicora Foundation

Rice production in South Carolina increased dramatically after 1705. In the late Colonial period, rice profitability also increased. One historian, Edwin Perkins, in The Economy of Colonial America, observed that
yields were from 2 to 4 barrels per acre, and most plantations had an average of 2 to 3 acres under cultivation for each field hand. Based on an average price of 2.3 ($150) per barrel from 1768 to 1772, slaves generated revenues annually of from 9.2 up to 27.6 ($600 - $1,800), with around 15 ($975) probably the average figure.
Also slaves were not just used in agricultural production. They were used in other industries as well. Here is record from the 1860 census from Augusta Country, Virginia.



Quote:
Industries Using Enslaved Labor

This table shows the data on companies in the manufacturing census in Augusta cross referenced with the Augusta slaveholders census schedule. Slaveholders in Augusta predominated in low-skill industries, while artisans in Augusta rarely owned slaves. Industry No. Man. own Slaves No.

Establishments No. Slaves Employed
Distilleries 13 18 118
Flour Mills 24 43 251
Lumber 5 7 27
Sawmills 12 19 115
Foundries 4 4 48
Wagon Makers 0 2 0
Carriage Makers 1 5 1
Blacksmiths 3 16 6
Coopers 0 5 0
Saddle/Harness Makers 3 4 5

Economic impact of Slavery and Emancipation in America - Dickinson College Wiki

Quote:
Cost of Slaves and Production of Slave Labor

Was the use of slavery beneficial to the south as a whole. In Richard F. America’s “The Wealth of Races†there is a chart discussing the costs of slaves and the production that they constructed. In 1790 the prime slaves in the upper south went for $200 and they would continue to cost $200 until 1820. In those 30 years the slaves earned $385,400,000. If there were 697,889 slaves and they were all a variety of ages and sex they would be sold for an average of $200. If you multiply that by the amount of slaves in 1790 you come up with $139,557,000 that was spent on slaves and in 1790 the owners made $87,700,000 from the slaves labor. The owners of the slaves combined lost around 60 million more dollars on the slaves than they paid for them. Now of course this doesn’t concern the amount the owners spent on food and clothes for the slaves, but in 1790 paying only 60 million dollars was a great price for infinite labor. And this was a one time fee so the slave owners would not have to pay next year for this labor. The owners would make lose combined 60 million dollars if all of the slaves were purchased at the same time this is disregarding what they have to pay to maintain them. In 1800 the number of slaves increased by 195,150, and the price to purchase them stayed the same. This year the price to purchase all of the slaves for the owners was $16,099,875 and their production this year was $117,900,000. That’s around $100 million in profit for the slave owners, excluding holding and feeding of the slaves. These slaves produced on average $122.80 a year in revenue and they were worth on average $200 in 1790. This is only a rough estimate assuming that all slaves are paid the same amount, which is not true because the males at prime age were worth the most. It seems that the south had good economic reasons to want to keep the slaves. Prices for slave labor increased substantially between over the years. From 1790 to 1815 the average slave price jumped to $250, then in 1840 the price rose again to $500. Twenty years later the average price for a slave rose again to around $1,400 to $2,000 per slave. The prices of the slaves the fluctuated very much during the closing of the atlantic trade, but because the slaves were able to keep their mortality rate down they were able to reproduce and the slave population was able to grow.
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Old 03-24-2011, 11:41 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JazzyTallGuy View Post
I don't think the wealth in the South was illusionary. Let's keep in mind that the agricultural products that slave labor produced were commodites, such as cotton, tobacco, rice, indigo etc. that were sold on international markets. So not only did the value of slaves contribute to the wealth of plantation owners the products that slaves produced were also very profitable. Slave labor and the slave trade where not only immensely profitable to the United States they were profitable to England as well.
What you are ignoring is that 44% of the wealth in the South, PER YOUR OWN LINK, was ascribed to being in the form of slaves. It wasn't agricultural products. It wasn't land. It was human bodies. Slaves were a commodity, that banks made loans on, that insurance companies insured. And the value that was placed on human beings as a commodity is illusory. Take that out of the equation. Then talk about the wealth of the South.
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Old 04-29-2014, 10:01 PM
 
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Default Founding Fathers and Hypocrisy

The founding fathers of the United States founded a country that was intended to be ruled by white men for the advancement of white men. Without question, they held racist views and were products of the times that they lived in. When Thomas Jefferson wrote that "all men are created equal," he certainly did not intend to include blacks, because he later on said that blacks were an inferior being to whites.

During the signing of the Declaration of Independence, all thirteen colonies were shareholding colonies and every man who signed the document was a shareholding constituency. None of the shareholding signers freed their slaves at the time of the signing.

In my research, I could only find nine Declaration signers who I could not substantiate as slave owners, and nineteen of the Constitution signers owned slaves, with an average of more than 90 slaves. It's ironic that those who protested the injustices of their king, which they deemed as a threat to their economic and political freedom, endorsed the enslavement of an entire race of people.

I wrote an ebook on the topic of the Founding Fathers and their attitudes towards race and slavery:

Amazon.com: Give Me Liberty eBook: Calvin Evans: Kindle Store
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Old 05-28-2014, 12:23 AM
 
Location: North Bronx
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they where what they where for there time.......I don't respect it or agree with it the way I see it you can respect certain things about them and despise others. Ultimately though my view of someone who owned slaves even if he was a founding father is not going to be overly positive that's just how it is I don't care who he is or what he did to expose such noble speech and such yet be a walking hypocrite is just something I can't get with just because you were a product of your time doesn't excuse stuff like that not in my book.
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Old 05-28-2014, 01:29 AM
 
Location: Unperson Everyman Land
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chicagoland60426 View Post
They were walking contradictions. Thomas Jefferson may have opposed slavery on blacks, but he still saw us biologically inferior. A true racist. So F all of them!

And Benjamin Franklin ideal America was an all English/British descendant one. He wasn't fond of Germans or any non British person for that matter. Even looking at the ancestral lineage of our presidents, most of them were British; even with President Obama(his European side is mostly Welsh or English).


Yes, they did view blacks as inferior, but does a liberal who wants to throw twenty points on your college admission score view you as any less inferior?
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Old 05-28-2014, 01:48 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by saggigga View Post
It's ironic that those who protested the injustices of their king, which they deemed as a threat to their economic and political freedom, endorsed the enslavement of an entire race of people.
It's not ironic at all. That's like saying it's ironic to make murder a crime punishable by death. Execution for a crime is not considered murder. They weren't slaves, so they didn't want to be treated like slaves. Your statement that it is ironic requires judging people who lived two centuries ago by the value systems of modern society.
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