Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Slavery Was Not the Cause of War Between States; Gene Kizer Jr

The "Country we have today" may very well be far inferior to the Country we might have had if the South had been allowed to secede peacefully.

For one thing, the Constitution would likely be stronger if it had been followed rather than abrogated by applying military force against a Sovereign State. Time would have revealed the wisdom of adhering to it.

When the Southern States rejoined the Union peacefully, they could have been REQUIRED to denounce the right of secession as a requirement for readmission.

The Federal Government would have stayed as the Founders envisioned and would not be the threat to liberty that it is today.

Quit thinking of the Constitution, Gene; Mike doesn't, can't, and won't ever get it.

All good points, except it is arguable just how far future secessions would have been allowed to proceed. Smithwick points out that the Mormons he knew supported the South in principle for that every reason.

Mostly I'm glad that this is all history, I'm pretty sure that you are a better shot than I am.

Birdwatcher

??

28 million total in 1860 minus 9 million free Whites in the Confederate States = 19 million Yankees and slaves.

19 million Yankees and slaves minus 4 million slaves = 15 million Yankees.

Hey, I used a calculator and everything.

Actually, if you'd care to we could move on to the Constitutionality of Indian Removal in the 1830's and 40's and just who exactly on the ground was responsible for that anyway.

Birdwatcher

Without a doubt.

We covered the Indian removal when you started citing Andrew Jackson as a worthwhile source of information. That genocide was unconstitutional for a myriad of reasons and ruled so. Jackson was a despot, and I've been consistent on that point (though you've cited him as backing your position(s), whatever they happen to be at the time).

Notice how Mike ignored that? No surprise, though.

Aside from being spot on, it was intentional on my part. Just remember, the WHEEL, arguably man's greatest invention, was unknown in sub-saharan Africa until (surprise!) Europeans introduced it in the 16th century, not to mention the absence of a written language...

The Constitution is being handled as it was originally intended. Had they wanted it to act as a deterrent there would have been penalties listed for violations.

Which state?

jorgeI,

Do a search on why there are no two story building in Africa, except where non-blacks live. Very surprising.

Not to start another argument, but here is a list of the tallest buildings in Africa(some white/Arab and some black nations). see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Africa

Note the buildings in Tanzania, Kenya, Cameroon, Sudan, Mauritius, etc.

And yet Indian Removal was enormously popular in those Southern states it affected, so much so that Jackson merely had to do nothing to see the Indians forcibly dispossessed, primarily by the actions of the inhabitants of six future Confederate States.

In Tennessee, no less a personage than Davy Crockett sacrificed his political career by being one of the few to oppose Removal, taking this unpopular stance on principle.

The Union soldier at least could claim he was fighting to save the Union.

Birdwatcher

African emancipation from Brit rule? Specifically addressed, go check.

Going for 20,000 words of Sanctimonious BS.

This is worth looking at, the long-term effects of the ruling Planter Class on the collective South...

http://www.civilwarhome.com/slavery.html

One half of all Southerners in 1860 were either slaves themselves or members of slaveholding families. These elite families shaped the mores and political stance of the South, which reflected their common concerns. Foremost among these were controlling slaves and assuring an adequate supply of slave labor....

The rural nature of antebellum slavery had unintended negative effects on the Southern economy. The investment of so much capital in land and slaves discouraged the growth of cities and diverted funds from factories. This meant that the South lacked the industrial base it needed to counter the North when the Civil War began. Indeed, in 1860, the South had approximately the same number of industrial workers (110,000), as the North had industrial plants.

Other detrimental effects arose from the South's devotion to rural slavery. Wealthy planters liked to claim they were living out the Jeffersonian ideal of an agrarian democracy. In truth, the South was agrarian because slave owners found that the best way to maintain their wealth and contain their slaves.

Moreover, its "democracy" was very limited because the planters had enormous influence over how white yeomen cast their votes. Except in remote areas of the South with few slaves or plantations, it was the needs and beliefs of the planter class that shaped Southern politics on the local, state, and national levels.

The consequences of this planter dominance was seen in many aspects of the society. The South failed to develop a varied economy even within the agricultural realm. All the most fertile land in the South was owned by slaveholders who chose to grow high-profit staple crops--cotton, tobacco, sugar. That left only marginal land for the vast majority of white farmers....

The antebellum South neglected to provide for the education of its people. Planters controlled the governmental revenues that could have financed public education, but they saw no need to do so. Their slaves were forbidden to learn; their own children were educated by private tutors or in exclusive and expensive private academies.

As a result, most white yeomen were left without access to education. A few lucky ones near towns or cities could sometimes send their children to fee schools or charity schools, but many were too poor or too proud to use either option.

In a similar vein, the dominating slaveholding class saw no need to create the means to produce inexpensive consumer goods for ordinary whites or to build an infrastructure by which such goods could be moved from production sites to markets in the countryside. Wealthy planters acquired what they wanted by importing expensive European or Northern goods. Thus poor whites were left to their own minimal resources and were deprived of goods they might have bought, had they been available.

This lack of consumer production and markets also retarded the growth of Southern transportation. Highways, canals, and railroads were constructed to move crops to ports and bring in luxury items for the planter class. The need of yeomen farmers to transport their crops to local markets was ignored. As a consequence, it was usually cheaper for plantation owners to import food from the North or upper South than to purchase it from white farmers in the same region. This deficiency in the Southern transportation system proved a serious liability for the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Slavery in the antebellum South, then, made a minority of white Southerners--owners of large slaveholdings--enormously wealthy. At the same time, it demeaned and exploited Southerners of African descent, left the majority of white Southerners impoverished and uneducated, and retarded the overall economic, cultural, and social growth of the region.


If we grant the North with 110,000 of those evil "wealthy industrialists", those wealthy industrialists, much as they do today, created jobs. Their profits also created the infrastructure that allowed further growth and diversification of the economy.

On average a Northerner of the period was better educated and had more opportunities for upward mobility than did his Southern counterpart. He also had much better access to actual physical mobility, for himself and any goods he might want to buy or sell.

Slavery was a curse that blighted everything it touched.

Birdwatcher

Amazing to me the extent people, who claim to support limited government and liberty, will go to support a political movement and ideology that was premised on a natural right to own other human beings as if they were cattle.

Blow it out your ass Rob, no one here is supporting slavery.

I'm sure you'll be back later with more of your BS.

The South instituted that most Federal of measures; a forced draft of manpower into military service, in 1862, a whole year before the Union adopted a similar measure.

For the first year of the Confederate draft one could indeed buy a replacement, how often this happened we don't know, we do know that forced draftees comprised roughly one in ten of the manpower of the Confederate Armies, roughly twice by proportion of draftees or their paid replacements in the Union Armies.

One thing about the Confederate draft that might be considered most egregious was the fact that the ruling Planter Class itself, those that owned at least 30 slaves, were exempt throughout the duration of the war. I'm gonna say though that given that they were the major producers of the South's most vital export, being a Planter could legitimately be labelled an essential occupation.

A higher proportion of the Union Army (~95%) in the field were serving voluntarily than was the case in the South (~90%). In the North one could indeed buy a substitute throughout, and three-quarters of "conscripts", tho less than one in twenty of the whole Union Army (IIRC about 10,000 men all told) were actually paid substitutes.

The interesting thing about the Northern paid substitute system is that most who took advantage of this were definitely Middle Class rather than some sort of "wealthy industrialist". The Union draft extended to men up to age 45 (as opposed to age 35 for the Confederate draft) and the prospect to a community of losing all these family men in the prime of their careers was catastrophic.

Whole towns in the North would collectively raise the money for substitutes to cover most of their men,or at least to afford them a say in exactly WHO went.

I am not aware how many "wealthy industrialists" in particular paid their way out of service, certainly there were about ten times as many (110,000) "wealthy industrialists" in the North as there were paid substitutes in the whole Union Army, so the fraction cannot have been all that great.

Birdwatcher

Fly the CBF if you must and most will see you as some antiquated, ignorant hillbilly. The Civil War was about preserving slavery as an institution. Fight a losing battle, again, 150 years later is [bleep] dumb. Move on.