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Jul 25, 2017 21:24:00   #
Homestead
 
Loki wrote:
******

There were issues that the South never addressed. The whole country paid for the Florida territory that greatly expanded the South. So the South intended to take the property for itself and tell the rest of the country to screw. Whatever monies they paid for it was lost?

There were a number of federal forts along the eastern coast line, set up for the defence of the entire country.
These defences were paid for by everybody, did the South just intend to keep them for themselves and stick the rest of the country with the bill for a facility they're taking over for themselves?


You are missing a couple of points. Those forts were paid for with tax monies, from tariffs. 75% or more of those tariffs came from Southern states. The free population of the US at the time was about 27.5 million. Only 5.5 million lived in the seceding states, yet they provided most of the money for these forts.
The South didn't stick anyone with a bill. They had already paid far more than their share, given their percentage of the population.

****
While they were a part of the union, they had the right to vote on foreign treatise and spend taxpayer money on any number of public pieces of infrastructure, some in the South, some in the North.
The South was outvoted consistently by the Northeastern industrial states, especially in the House. The taxpayer money on infrastructure was spent almost entirely in the North. The South, although they provided most of the money, got damn little in return.

******
Was it their intention to force the country to spend monies on projects they favoured and then screw, leaving the rest of the country to pay for items they supported?
No, it was not their intention, it was to stop spending money on projects that benefited the Northeastern industrial states almost exclusively.

******


As Lincoln pointed out, in any contract there is only two ways to break it.
One is by mutual agreement and negotiation. There had to be an accounting of monies spent!
The other is by breach of contract.


An accounting of monies spent? That was the problem. I'd say when the majority of the population gets most of it's money from the minority and spends that money on projects that have little or no benefit for the minority, that would constitute a breach of contract.
The North breached the contract repeatedly by voting against Southern interests and appropriating monies provided mostly by the cotton states for their own infrastructure projects.
The South was less interested in expanding slavery than in preventing an even more lopsided voting bloc.
Lincoln stated more than once that his main concern was the preservation of the Union. The status quo, in which the South paid for the North.
Concerning slavery, there were about 400,000 slaves in the border states that sided with the North. Nothing was said about freeing them until after the war had been concluded. Lincoln supported a plan to repatriate vast numbers of slaves back to Africa. How he planned to do this is a mystery.

Lincoln's clever legalese arguments ignored the fact that it was mostly the Northeastern states that were in violation of the contract, by virtue of the way that monies were appropriated.
****** br br i There were issues that the South ... (show quote)


Nice try on the last part, but, the South was trying to expand slavery. Lincoln was trying to leave it as it was, where the forefathers found it.

The federal government had no authority to outlaw slavery, nor make slavery legal, even though it went against the very nature of the country, in that all men are created equal.

Despite their obvious philosophical differences, Jefferson understood just as well as Madison or Washington the fragility of a republican government. The news of the compromise came “like a fire bell in the night…considered it at once as the knell of the Union.” The legislation drew a very literal line through the Union, dividing it with the majority of free states on one side, and the majority of slave states on the other. Jefferson understands that this is not merely a political dividing line, but a line “coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated.” When the Kansas-Nebraska Act later attempted to obliterate that line, the result was bloodshed and unrest in those territories.
http://www.constitutingamerica.org/blog/tuesday-april-23-2013-essay-47-thomas-jeffersons-letter-to-john-holmes-guest-essayist-james-legee-graduate-fellow-at-the-matthew-j-ryan-center-for-the-study-of-free-institutions-and-the/

*************************************

The History Place - Abraham Lincoln
The Kansas-Nebraska Act

The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by the U.S. Congress on May 30, 1854. It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. The Act served to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30´.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act infuriated many in the North who considered the Missouri Compromise to be a long-standing binding agreement. In the pro-slavery South it was strongly supported.

After the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed, pro-slavery and anti-slavery supporters rushed in to settle Kansas to affect the outcome of the first election held there after the law went into effect. Pro-slavery settlers carried the election but were charged with fraud by anti-slavery settlers, and the results were not accepted by them.

The anti-slavery settlers held another election, however pro-slavery settlers refused to vote. This resulted in the establishment of two opposing legislatures within the Kansas territory.

Violence soon erupted, with the anti-slavery forces led by John Brown. The territory earned the nickname "bleeding Kansas" as the death toll rose.

President Franklin Pierce, in support of the pro-slavery settlers, sent in Federal troops to stop the violence and disperse the anti-slavery legislature. Another election was called. Once again pro-slavery supporters won and once again they were charged with election fraud.

As a result, Congress did not recognize the constitution adopted by the pro-slavery settlers and Kansas was not allowed to become a state.

Eventually, however, anti-slavery settlers outnumbered pro-slavery settlers and a new constitution was drawn up. On January 29, 1861, just before the start of the Civil War, Kansas was admitted to the Union as a free state.
http://www.historyplace.com/lincoln/kansas.htm
*************************
Speech on the Dred Scott Decision

Abraham Lincoln

Speech at Springfield, Illinois

June 26, 1857

I have said, in substance, that the Dred Scott decision was, in part, based on assumed historical facts which were not really true; and I ought not to leave the subject without giving some reasons for saying this; I therefore give an instance or two, which I think fully sustain me. Chief Justice Taney, in delivering the opinion of the majority of the Court, insists at great length that negroes were no part of the people who made, or for whom was made, the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution of the United States.

On the contrary, Judge Curtis, in his dissenting opinion, shows that in five of the then thirteen states, to wit, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and North Carolina, free negroes were voters, and, in proportion to their numbers, had the same part in making the Constitution that the white people had. He shows this with so much particularity as to leave no doubt of its truth; and, as a sort of conclusion on that point, holds the following language:

“The Constitution was ordained and established by the people of the United States, through the action, in each State, of those persons who were qualified by its laws to act thereon in behalf of themselves and all other citizens of the State. In some of the States, as we have seen, colored persons were among those qualified by law to act on the subject. These colored persons were not only included in the body of `the people of the United States,- by whom the Constitution was ordained and established; but in at least five of the States they had the power to act, and, doubtless, did act, by their suffrages, upon the question of its adoption.”

Again, Chief Justice Taney says: “It is difficult, at this day to realize the state of public opinion in relation to that unfortunate race, which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted.” And again, after quoting from the Declaration, he says: “The general words above quoted would seem to include the whole human family, and if they were used in a similar instrument at this day, would be so understood.”

In these the Chief Justice does not directly assert, but plainly assumes, as a fact, that the public estimate of the black man is more favorable now than it was in the days of the Revolution. This assumption is a mistake. In some trifling particulars, the condition of that race has been ameliorated; but, as a whole, in this country, the change between then and now is decidedly the other way; and their ultimate destiny has never appeared so hopeless as in the last three or four years. In two of the five States-New Jersey and North Carolina-that then gave the free negro the right of voting, the right has since been taken away; and in a third-New York-it has been greatly abridged; while it has not been extended, so far as I know, to a single additional State, though the number of the States has more than doubled. In those days, as I understand, masters could, at their own pleasure, emancipate their slaves; but since then, such legal restraints have been made upon emancipation, as to amount almost to prohibition. In those days, Legislatures held the unquestioned power to abolish slavery in their respective States; but now it is becoming quite fashionable for State Constitutions to withhold that power from the Legislatures. In those days, by common consent, the spread of the black man’s bondage to new countries was prohibited; but now, Congress decides that it will not continue the prohibition, and the Supreme Court decides that it could not if it would. In those days, our Declaration of Independence was held sacred by all, and thought to include all; but now, to aid in making the bondage of the negro universal and eternal, it is assailed, and sneered at, and construed, and hawked at, and torn, till, if its framers could rise from their graves, they could not at all recognize it. All the powers of earth seem rapidly combining against him. Mammon is after him; ambition follows, and philosophy follows, and the Theology of the day is fast joining the cry. They have him in his prison house; they have searched his person, and left no prying instrument with him. One after another they have closed the heavy iron doors upon him, and now they have him, as it were, bolted in with a lock of a hundred keys, which can never be unlocked without the concurrence of every key; the keys in the hands of a hundred different men, and they scattered to a hundred different and distant places; and they stand musing as to what invention, in all the dominions of mind and matter, can be produced to make the impossibility of his escape more complete than it is.

Chief Justice Taney, in his opinion in the Dred Scott case, admits that the language of the Declaration is broad enough to include the whole human family, but he and Judge Douglas argue that the authors of that instrument did not intend to include negroes, by the fact that they did not at once, actually place them on an equality with the whites. Now this grave argument comes to just nothing at all, by the other fact, that they did not at once, or ever afterwards, actually place all white people on an equality with one or another. And this is the staple argument of both the Chief Justice and the Senator, for doing this obvious violence to the plain unmistakable language of the Declaration. I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men, but they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness, in what respects they did consider all men created equal-equal in “certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” This they said, and this meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth, that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet, that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere. The assertion that “all men are created equal” was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain; and it was placed in the Declaration, nor for that, but for future use. Its authors meant it to be, thank God, it is now proving itself, a stumbling block to those who in after times might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant when such should re-appear in this fair land and commence their vocation they should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack.

I have now briefly expressed meaning and objects of that part of the Declaration of Independence which declares that “all men are created equal.”

How differently the respective courses of the Democratic and Republican parties incidentally bear on the question of forming a will-a public sentiment-for colonization, is easy to see. The Republicans inculcate, with whatever of ability they can, that the negro is a man; that his bondage is cruelly wrong, and that the field of his oppression ought not to be enlarged. The Democrats deny his manhood; deny, or dwarf to insignificance, the wrong of his bondage; so far as possible, crush all sympathy for him, and cultivate and excite hatred and disgust against him; compliment themselves as Union-savers for doing so; and call the indefinite outspreading of his bondage “a sacred right of self-government.”
http://teachingamericanhisto

Reply
Jul 25, 2017 21:44:06   #
Loki Loc: Georgia
 
Blade_Runner wrote:
My pleasure. bobby.

Military history is one of my favorite subjects. From all I've read on the Civil War, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson was General Lee's most treasured commander. Military historians consider Jackson as the most gifted tactician of the entire war. He had a very unique command style that Lee trusted implicitly. Stonewall was quite secretive with his plans for action, never apprising his subordinates of his intentions until the last minute. Lee would merely tell Jackson what he wanted done and left the execution entirely in his hands.

His most famous action was his aggressive flanking maneuver to the right of the Union lines at Chancellorsville. Under Lee's orders Jackson took his entire Corps around the Union right flank and this flanking movement would be one of the most successful and dramatic of the war. This attack caught the Union troops completely by surprise and by late afternoon Hooker's army was routed. Unfortunately, after dark, as Jackson and his mounted officers were returning to camp, he was shot three times and mortally wounded by a volley from the 18th North Carolina Infantry. The pickets disregarded his officer's frantic attempts to identify themselves and fired a second volley. Several of Jackson's staff officers were killed. He lost his left arm and died of Pneumonia 8 days later.

General Lee was devastated. He always felt that had Jackson been with him at Gettysburg, the battle may have turned out quite differently.

Side note: Jackson was quite concerned about his health and so was fond of raw fruits and vegetables. During the war, he ate whatever was available including on occasion a raw lemon, rind and all. His favorite was peaches.
My pleasure. bobby. br br Military history is on... (show quote)


He would not eat bell peppers.

Reply
Jul 25, 2017 21:55:03   #
Loki Loc: Georgia
 
Homestead wrote:
Nice try on the last part, but, the South was trying to expand slavery. Lincoln was trying to leave it as it was, where the forefathers found it.

The federal government had no authority to outlaw slavery, nor make slavery legal, even though it went against the very nature of the country, in that all men are created equal.

Despite their obvious philosophical differences, Jefferson understood just as well as Madison or Washington the fragility of a republican government. The news of the compromise came “like a fire bell in the night…considered it at once as the knell of the Union.” The legislation drew a very literal line through the Union, dividing it with the majority of free states on one side, and the majority of slave states on the other. Jefferson understands that this is not merely a political dividing line, but a line “coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated.” When the Kansas-Nebraska Act later attempted to obliterate that line, the result was bloodshed and unrest in those territories.
http://www.constitutingamerica.org/blog/tuesday-april-23-2013-essay-47-thomas-jeffersons-letter-to-john-holmes-guest-essayist-james-legee-graduate-fellow-at-the-matthew-j-ryan-center-for-the-study-of-free-institutions-and-the/

*************************************

The History Place - Abraham Lincoln
The Kansas-Nebraska Act

The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by the U.S. Congress on May 30, 1854. It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. The Act served to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30´.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act infuriated many in the North who considered the Missouri Compromise to be a long-standing binding agreement. In the pro-slavery South it was strongly supported.

After the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed, pro-slavery and anti-slavery supporters rushed in to settle Kansas to affect the outcome of the first election held there after the law went into effect. Pro-slavery settlers carried the election but were charged with fraud by anti-slavery settlers, and the results were not accepted by them.

The anti-slavery settlers held another election, however pro-slavery settlers refused to vote. This resulted in the establishment of two opposing legislatures within the Kansas territory.

Violence soon erupted, with the anti-slavery forces led by John Brown. The territory earned the nickname "bleeding Kansas" as the death toll rose.

President Franklin Pierce, in support of the pro-slavery settlers, sent in Federal troops to stop the violence and disperse the anti-slavery legislature. Another election was called. Once again pro-slavery supporters won and once again they were charged with election fraud.

As a result, Congress did not recognize the constitution adopted by the pro-slavery settlers and Kansas was not allowed to become a state.

Eventually, however, anti-slavery settlers outnumbered pro-slavery settlers and a new constitution was drawn up. On January 29, 1861, just before the start of the Civil War, Kansas was admitted to the Union as a free state.
http://www.historyplace.com/lincoln/kansas.htm
*************************
Speech on the Dred Scott Decision

Abraham Lincoln

Speech at Springfield, Illinois

June 26, 1857

I have said, in substance, that the Dred Scott decision was, in part, based on assumed historical facts which were not really true; and I ought not to leave the subject without giving some reasons for saying this; I therefore give an instance or two, which I think fully sustain me. Chief Justice Taney, in delivering the opinion of the majority of the Court, insists at great length that negroes were no part of the people who made, or for whom was made, the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution of the United States.

On the contrary, Judge Curtis, in his dissenting opinion, shows that in five of the then thirteen states, to wit, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and North Carolina, free negroes were voters, and, in proportion to their numbers, had the same part in making the Constitution that the white people had. He shows this with so much particularity as to leave no doubt of its truth; and, as a sort of conclusion on that point, holds the following language:

“The Constitution was ordained and established by the people of the United States, through the action, in each State, of those persons who were qualified by its laws to act thereon in behalf of themselves and all other citizens of the State. In some of the States, as we have seen, colored persons were among those qualified by law to act on the subject. These colored persons were not only included in the body of `the people of the United States,- by whom the Constitution was ordained and established; but in at least five of the States they had the power to act, and, doubtless, did act, by their suffrages, upon the question of its adoption.”

Again, Chief Justice Taney says: “It is difficult, at this day to realize the state of public opinion in relation to that unfortunate race, which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted.” And again, after quoting from the Declaration, he says: “The general words above quoted would seem to include the whole human family, and if they were used in a similar instrument at this day, would be so understood.”

In these the Chief Justice does not directly assert, but plainly assumes, as a fact, that the public estimate of the black man is more favorable now than it was in the days of the Revolution. This assumption is a mistake. In some trifling particulars, the condition of that race has been ameliorated; but, as a whole, in this country, the change between then and now is decidedly the other way; and their ultimate destiny has never appeared so hopeless as in the last three or four years. In two of the five States-New Jersey and North Carolina-that then gave the free negro the right of voting, the right has since been taken away; and in a third-New York-it has been greatly abridged; while it has not been extended, so far as I know, to a single additional State, though the number of the States has more than doubled. In those days, as I understand, masters could, at their own pleasure, emancipate their slaves; but since then, such legal restraints have been made upon emancipation, as to amount almost to prohibition. In those days, Legislatures held the unquestioned power to abolish slavery in their respective States; but now it is becoming quite fashionable for State Constitutions to withhold that power from the Legislatures. In those days, by common consent, the spread of the black man’s bondage to new countries was prohibited; but now, Congress decides that it will not continue the prohibition, and the Supreme Court decides that it could not if it would. In those days, our Declaration of Independence was held sacred by all, and thought to include all; but now, to aid in making the bondage of the negro universal and eternal, it is assailed, and sneered at, and construed, and hawked at, and torn, till, if its framers could rise from their graves, they could not at all recognize it. All the powers of earth seem rapidly combining against him. Mammon is after him; ambition follows, and philosophy follows, and the Theology of the day is fast joining the cry. They have him in his prison house; they have searched his person, and left no prying instrument with him. One after another they have closed the heavy iron doors upon him, and now they have him, as it were, bolted in with a lock of a hundred keys, which can never be unlocked without the concurrence of every key; the keys in the hands of a hundred different men, and they scattered to a hundred different and distant places; and they stand musing as to what invention, in all the dominions of mind and matter, can be produced to make the impossibility of his escape more complete than it is.

Chief Justice Taney, in his opinion in the Dred Scott case, admits that the language of the Declaration is broad enough to include the whole human family, but he and Judge Douglas argue that the authors of that instrument did not intend to include negroes, by the fact that they did not at once, actually place them on an equality with the whites. Now this grave argument comes to just nothing at all, by the other fact, that they did not at once, or ever afterwards, actually place all white people on an equality with one or another. And this is the staple argument of both the Chief Justice and the Senator, for doing this obvious violence to the plain unmistakable language of the Declaration. I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men, but they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness, in what respects they did consider all men created equal-equal in “certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” This they said, and this meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth, that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet, that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere. The assertion that “all men are created equal” was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain; and it was placed in the Declaration, nor for that, but for future use. Its authors meant it to be, thank God, it is now proving itself, a stumbling block to those who in after times might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant when such should re-appear in this fair land and commence their vocation they should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack.

I have now briefly expressed meaning and objects of that part of the Declaration of Independence which declares that “all men are created equal.”

How differently the respective courses of the Democratic and Republican parties incidentally bear on the question of forming a will-a public sentiment-for colonization, is easy to see. The Republicans inculcate, with whatever of ability they can, that the negro is a man; that his bondage is cruelly wrong, and that the field of his oppression ought not to be enlarged. The Democrats deny his manhood; deny, or dwarf to insignificance, the wrong of his bondage; so far as possible, crush all sympathy for him, and cultivate and excite hatred and disgust against him; compliment themselves as Union-savers for doing so; and call the indefinite outspreading of his bondage “a sacred right of self-government.”
http://teachingamericanhisto
Nice try on the last part, but, the South was tryi... (show quote)


What I said was the South had an interest in preventing the huge voting bloc of the Northeastern states from becoming even larger. An expansion of slave states was the best means available for that. Whether they wished it or not. Many Southerners opposed slavery, but since most blacks lived in the South, they realized what the North did not; that you cannot simply free 4 million people,most of whom had no marketable job skills other than picking cotton, and not expect a catastrophic financial upheaval. Many northern states had laws preventing or making it difficult to settle there. They didn't want free blacks in their backyard.
Oregon Territory, Indiana, Ohio, Massachusetts for a time, and Michigan all had laws that seriously hampered the efforts of blacks to settle there.
I find it ironic that so many Northerners who opposed slavery SOLD their slaves to Southern planters, and then demanded that the planters just free them with no remuneration.

Reply
 
 
Jul 25, 2017 23:42:00   #
Carol Kelly
 
Loki wrote:
I prefer to call it by the more accurate name....."The War of Northern Aggression." The sobriquet of "Civil War" is so ignorant Liberals won't get confused.
The fact is that in 1861, there was NO LAW that prohibited secession; and three of the original thirteen states, those being New York, Rhode Island and Virginia, reserved the right of secession as a condition of their ratification of the Constitution. Remember the Tenth Amendment? Reserved Powers.
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 South had every right to secede. Constitutionally and legally, the North did not have a leg to stand on, except greed for the tariffs levied on the South that provided around 3/4 of the Federal Government's operating money.
In all fairness, there was a real fear in the North that the South would once again become, if not a part of England, then a staunch ally. At the time of the War, England was still mistrusted, due to the fact that it had not been that long since the War of 1812, and England was a huge trading partner with the South, which often found it cheaper to buy English goods than to pay the outrageous tariffs on goods manufactured in the US.
I prefer to call it by the more accurate name........ (show quote)


And it was! Thank you for your input. They are still aggressive.

Reply
Jul 26, 2017 06:07:44   #
pftspd
 
AMAZING! Truly! To all of you who have contributed to this stream, thank you! You alert me to the many gaps in my educational spectrum! I am humbled. Please, someone respond and tell me this: Somewhere along the way it was given to me that this was as NOT a war about slavery, but economics. I have understood, and accepted, that the north had virtually all of the industry, and the south was Agrarian. The south wanted industry, and the north refused. The issue of slavery, as I understood, was but the "justification" that was used when the south left the Union. I am learning from what ALL of you here are contributing, and I am so appreciative for this! I am an old fart now, but I can still learn.

Reply
Jul 26, 2017 10:08:24   #
badbobby Loc: texas
 
pftspd wrote:
AMAZING! Truly! To all of you who have contributed to this stream, thank you! You alert me to the many gaps in my educational spectrum! I am humbled. Please, someone respond and tell me this: Somewhere along the way it was given to me that this was as NOT a war about slavery, but economics. I have understood, and accepted, that the north had virtually all of the industry, and the south was Agrarian. The south wanted industry, and the north refused. The issue of slavery, as I understood, was but the "justification" that was used when the south left the Union. I am learning from what ALL of you here are contributing, and I am so appreciative for this! I am an old fart now, but I can still learn.
AMAZING! Truly! To all of you who have contribut... (show quote)


I too have benefited from the responses on this subject
sometimes it seems that we can discuss topics without slurring or dissing another
kudos to all the responders
thank you very much

Reply
Jul 26, 2017 12:11:02   #
Loki Loc: Georgia
 
badbobby wrote:
I too have benefited from the responses on this subject
sometimes it seems that we can discuss topics without slurring or dissing another
kudos to all the responders
thank you very much

Homestead is well-spoken and unlike most of the posters I lambaste, he is courteous and actually has an education.
We usually agree.

Reply
 
 
Jul 26, 2017 16:03:09   #
Mr Shako Loc: Colo Spgs
 
Blade_Runner wrote:
My pleasure. bobby.

Military history is one of my favorite subjects. From all I've read on the Civil War, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson was General Lee's most treasured commander. Military historians consider Jackson as the most gifted tactician of the entire war. He had a very unique command style that Lee trusted implicitly. Stonewall was quite secretive with his plans for action, never apprising his subordinates of his intentions until the last minute. Lee would merely tell Jackson what he wanted done and left the execution entirely in his hands.

His most famous action was his aggressive flanking maneuver to the right of the Union lines at Chancellorsville. Under Lee's orders Jackson took his entire Corps around the Union right flank and this flanking movement would be one of the most successful and dramatic of the war. This attack caught the Union troops completely by surprise and by late afternoon Hooker's army was routed. Unfortunately, after dark, as Jackson and his mounted officers were returning to camp, he was shot three times and mortally wounded by a volley from the 18th North Carolina Infantry. The pickets disregarded his officer's frantic attempts to identify themselves and fired a second volley. Several of Jackson's staff officers were killed. He lost his left arm and died of Pneumonia 8 days later.

General Lee was devastated. He always felt that had Jackson been with him at Gettysburg, the battle may have turned out quite differently.

Side note: Jackson was quite concerned about his health and so was fond of raw fruits and vegetables. During the war, he ate whatever was available including on occasion a raw lemon, rind and all. His favorite was peaches.
My pleasure. bobby. br br Military history is on... (show quote)


"There stands Jackson like a stonewall; rally 'round the Virginians!"

Reply
Jul 26, 2017 16:42:19   #
Loki Loc: Georgia
 
Mr Shako wrote:
"There stands Jackson like a stonewall; rally 'round the Virginians!"


"Stonewall" beats the crap out of "Tom Fool" which was his sobriquet before Manassas.

Reply
Jul 26, 2017 22:17:41   #
Homestead
 
Loki wrote:
What I said was the South had an interest in preventing the huge voting bloc of the Northeastern states from becoming even larger. An expansion of slave states was the best means available for that. Whether they wished it or not. Many Southerners opposed slavery, but since most blacks lived in the South, they realized what the North did not; that you cannot simply free 4 million people,most of whom had no marketable job skills other than picking cotton, and not expect a catastrophic financial upheaval. Many northern states had laws preventing or making it difficult to settle there. They didn't want free blacks in their backyard.
Oregon Territory, Indiana, Ohio, Massachusetts for a time, and Michigan all had laws that seriously hampered the efforts of blacks to settle there.
I find it ironic that so many Northerners who opposed slavery SOLD their slaves to Southern planters, and then demanded that the planters just free them with no remuneration.
What I said was the South had an interest in preve... (show quote)


First off, you don't limit the problems of too many slaves and the problems of freeing them by expanding the institution of slavery, creating more slaves that need to be freed.

Second, it was that very problem of just freeing the slaves and the misery that would befall them that stopped slavery from being eliminated at the time of the writing of the Constitution.

No one had a solution, that's why slavery was left were it was. The North concentrated on manufacturing which utilized machines, not slave labour.

The North had many more farms than the South, but, they were much smaller enterprises, so the North was able to give up slaves, but, they had the same problem as to what to do with them, as the slaves were unable to do for themselves.

Not all slaves were sold to the South, plenty were set free and were able to set themselves up for themselves.

Finally, the one thing you're not taking into consideration is that once an institution like slavery in instituted, it screws up everything.

The price of cotton and tobacco is set, based on using slave labor. That stops or hinders any farm or plantation that wants to compete against them with paid labor. How do you beat free labor with paid labor?

The other thing is that slaves are bought with borrowed money like any other asset.

You can't buy your house with a mortgage, then give your house away and then tell your creditors to go screw.

Slave owners couldn't do the same with their assets either, they had debts that had to be paid with the assets guaranteeing that payment.

The South had managed to get the right to buy more slaves for a limited amount of time, before the slave trade would end.

So every slave moved to the South from the North meant that there was less demand for more slaves from Africa. So a few Africans that would have been sent to America, was able to stay in Africa because slaves already in existence took their place. And that left the total number of slaves in America the same. The only thing that changed was where they lived.

At the time of the creation of the Constitution, it was generally felt that slavery would die out over time. That it was a dying institution and that the country would eventually be freed of it.

Unfortunately, the cotton Gin was invented and this labor saving device made slave labor very profitable again. There is no use in planting more cotton than you can process. So the amount of acreage you plant and till is tied to the work force you have to process it.

One cotton Gin freed up 99 slaves. That meant you had 99 more slaves to till more acreage and still process it for the same cost, you already have, of maintaining your slaves.

The other thing about cotton is that it is very hard on the soil. So over time, the production of the soil goes down. The solution is more land and with enough cotton gins you can free up enough slaves to tame the land.

As the production of cotton went up, so did the profitability, so did the need and value of more slaves and the need for more land to expand into.

Adding to the problems of slavery is not a solution.

Reply
Jul 27, 2017 07:09:16   #
pftspd
 
LOKI. Will you please give me Your opinion on this shared comment by Homestead? I am a little confused and not REAL sure I fully understand what Homestead is saying here. I suppose my confusion is .. well, I don't really know, except that Homestead's "reasoning" is sort of, of kind of, what I think of as "splitting hairs". My understanding is that there were about as many slaves in the North as there were in the South, and the cotton and the soil issues, although this may be accurate and true, does not supplant the substance of slavery itself, the beginning and the end, and all that was in between. Loki, will you please explain this to me in words that I can better understand?

Reply
 
 
Jul 27, 2017 21:09:07   #
Homestead
 
pftspd wrote:
LOKI. Will you please give me Your opinion on this shared comment by Homestead? I am a little confused and not REAL sure I fully understand what Homestead is saying here. I suppose my confusion is .. well, I don't really know, except that Homestead's "reasoning" is sort of, of kind of, what I think of as "splitting hairs". My understanding is that there were about as many slaves in the North as there were in the South, and the cotton and the soil issues, although this may be accurate and true, does not supplant the substance of slavery itself, the beginning and the end, and all that was in between. Loki, will you please explain this to me in words that I can better understand?
LOKI. Will you please give me Your opinion on this... (show quote)


I'll make it simpler for you.

The price of a slave was falling.

The question you have to ask yourself is, why?

What were the economic reasons for this?

Then the price of a slave started to rise. Why?



As to the number of slaves in the North and South, the fact is that the North did get rid of slavery and there weren't any left in the North any more.

By the time of the Civil War, not one Republican owned a slave.

So where did they go?

If the North sold all of it's slaves to the South, then the slave population in the South should have doubled, if you maintain that there were as many slaves in the North as there were in the South and that the Northern slaves were then sold to the South.

I'm sorry, but, there is no indication that any plantation suddenly doubled it's slave population.

So either the North had far fewer slaves than the South or the majority of the Northern slaves were set free.

Otherwise, where did they go?

****************************************************

King Cotton: White Gold

The title, King Cotton, comes from the fact that cotton was the major export of the United States in the early 1800s just prior to the Civil War time frame. By the 1850s, the cotton grown, shipped, and sold by southerners was worth more than all the rest of America's exports put together.

As the primary crop, cotton overtook tobacco, which had been planted and depleted many of the minerals in the soil. When the Constitution was ratified and went into effect in 1789, tobacco was the most important crop grown in the South. Also, Thomas Jefferson and many other people, in the South as well as the North, thought that slavery would soon disappear in the United States. However, the invention of the cotton engine (shortened to "gin") revolutionized cotton production. Cotton became the most valuable crop grown at that time—the intrinsic value of cotton then is comparable to the intrinsic value of oil today. It became an economic as well as political instrument.

Cotton influenced financial and political decisions. Over time, cotton generated great wealth for some of the southern landowners. From their great staple crops—mainly cotton, tobacco, rice, and sugar cane—southerners received much of their cash income. Most, though not all, of these staple crops were grown on large plantations, although many small subsistence farms existed also. The need for southern farmers to find other fertile land on which to grow cotton, which had depleted the minerals from local landscapes, enticed them westward into the lands included in the Louisiana Purchase.

Slavery became reinvigorated as more labor was needed as cotton production increased. A large labor force was needed for growing and harvesting. That labor force consisted mostly of cheap labor, like black slaves brought from Africa and the West Indies as well as some poor indentured whites who were treated much differently than blacks. Then, large southern land- and slave-owners wanted to protect their major money source. Subsequently, pro- and anti-slavery beliefs split the nation and was a major cause of the Civil War.
http://www.americaslegacylinks.com/king_cotton.html
*******************************************
Here's an economic study on the price of slaves prior to the Civil War. (Civil War of 1861-1865)
But, it includes the time period in which Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. (1793 or 1794)


Slave Prices and The Economy of the Lower South, 1722-1809

Peter C. Mancall

University of Kansas

Joshua L. Rosenbloom

University of Kansas and NBER

Thomas Weiss

University of Kansas and NBER

Introduction

Slavery shaped the economic growth of the lower South in the eighteenth century. The region's primary export staples--rice and indigo--were both produced primarily on large plantations relying on slave labor (1). The importance of slavery was clearly reflected in the region's population statistics. With the introduction of rice at the beginning of the century, the slave population of South Carolina grew nearly five-fold between 1700 and 1720, at which time blacks outnumbered whites in the colony by a margin of more than two to one. Although the share of whites crept upwards after 1720, it was not until the rapid expansion of settlement in the backcountry after the Revolution that South Carolina's free population outnumbered its slave population. Once the prohibition of slavery was lifted in Georgia in 1749, the slave population of that colony also shot upward rapidly, reaching 45 percent by 1770 (2). Only in North Carolina, where lack of accessible ports inhibited the growth of export oriented agriculture was slavery's role more limited; and even here, over one third of the population were slaves by the Revolution.

Inspection of Figure 1 suggests that the history of slave prices in South Carolina can be divided into two periods. During the first period--running from the 1720s through the 1740s--prices fell gradually. During the second period--starting in the 1750s and continuing through the first decade of the nineteenth century--prices were generally rising. From 1740-49 to 1800-09 prices more than tripled, rising from $125 to $381.

Slave Prices and Wealth in the Lower South

Previous research using probate inventories for the lower South has noted a striking rise in wealth over much of the colonial period. According to Peter Coclanis (1989, p. 90), the scholar who has looked most closely at this subject: "The performance of the low country's economy·was truly remarkable·For nowhere else in British North America or perhaps in the world for that matter did so sizable a population live so well." Because slaves made up a substantial share of probate wealth, the rising level of slave prices was an important factor contributing to the increasing prosperity of the region. According to Bentley's (1977) calculations slaves' contribution to inventoried wealth increased from 45 percent in the 1720s to about 51 percent in the late 1750s and early 1760s. Our calculations based on the sample of inventories drawn by Joyce Chaplin indicate that the proportion of wealth held in slaves was even higher: around 70 percent for the entire period from 1740 to 1809. To examine the role that rising slave prices played in increasing wealth, we have constructed a counterfactual series of average wealth figures that hold slave prices constant.

Between the 1720s and 1742 adjusting for increases in slave prices has little impact on Bentley's wealth estimates. During this period average slave holdings among those individuals owning slaves rose substantially--increasing from 7.7 in the 1720s, to 13.3 in the 1730s, and 19.2 in the 1740s12. Thereafter, however, average slave holdings actually fell slightly (to 16.5) in the 1750s, and it appears that about half of the increase in wealth was attributable to rising prices of slaves rather than the accumulation of additional assets. Our calculations based on Chaplin's data indicate that almost all of the increase in wealth that occurred after 1740 was due to the rising value of slaves. For those inventories listing slaves, the average number of slaves per probated individual was roughly constant from the 1740s through the 1790s, before falling in the first decade of the nineteenth century12. Given the stability in slave numbers, holding slave prices constant produces a substantially different pattern of wealth accumulation. In the counterfactual case probate wealth per inventoried individual fell nearly 20 percent from the 1740s through the 1760s, recovered briefly in the 1770s, and then fell steadily over the next three decades. While these calculations do not controvert previous research that has emphasized the considerable prosperity of South Carolina, they place such findings in a rather different light. Rather than reflecting the accumulation of real assets, the region's rising wealth was the consequence primarily of asset price increases driven by world demand for the region's primary staple commodities.

Conclusion

Based on data from probate inventories from the lower South it is possible to construct estimates of slave prices between 1722 and 1809. Although these prices fell gradually until the 1740s, they then began to rise, more than doubling by the first decade of the nineteenth century. Although the long-run supply of slaves was probably close to perfectly elastic, lags in adjustment meant that the short-run supply of slaves was relatively inelastic. In these circumstances the sharply rising world demand for rice was largely responsible for the increase in slave prices after the middle of the eighteenth century.

These findings have several important implications for our understanding of the economy of the lower South. As we have shown, they suggest that previous estimates of productivity growth in rice production are implausibly high. Further research into the behavior of land and capital prices is necessary to establish this conclusively, however. The rise in slave prices also appears to have been responsible for much of the increase in the region's prosperity in this period. This finding suggests that rather than accumulating more physical assets, slaveholders were becoming wealthy through capital gains realized because strong demand for the region's primary product drove up the value of labor. As long as the short-run supply of slaves remained relatively inelastic, the owners of this scarce resource were able to capture significant scarcity rents.
http://www.cliometrics.org/conferences/ASSA/Jan_00/rosenbloom.shtml

Reply
Jul 27, 2017 21:56:56   #
Loki Loc: Georgia
 
Homestead wrote:
I'll make it simpler for you.

The price of a slave was falling.

The question you have to ask yourself is, why?

What were the economic reasons for this?

Then the price of a slave started to rise. Why?



As to the number of slaves in the North and South, the fact is that the North did get rid of slavery and there weren't any left in the North any more.

By the time of the Civil War, not one Republican owned a slave.

So where did they go?

If the North sold all of it's slaves to the South, then the slave population in the South should have doubled, if you maintain that there were as many slaves in the North as there were in the South and that the Northern slaves were then sold to the South.

I'm sorry, but, there is no indication that any plantation suddenly doubled it's slave population.

So either the North had far fewer slaves than the South or the majority of the Northern slaves were set free.

Otherwise, where did they go?

****************************************************

King Cotton: White Gold

The title, King Cotton, comes from the fact that cotton was the major export of the United States in the early 1800s just prior to the Civil War time frame. By the 1850s, the cotton grown, shipped, and sold by southerners was worth more than all the rest of America's exports put together.

As the primary crop, cotton overtook tobacco, which had been planted and depleted many of the minerals in the soil. When the Constitution was ratified and went into effect in 1789, tobacco was the most important crop grown in the South. Also, Thomas Jefferson and many other people, in the South as well as the North, thought that slavery would soon disappear in the United States. However, the invention of the cotton engine (shortened to "gin") revolutionized cotton production. Cotton became the most valuable crop grown at that time—the intrinsic value of cotton then is comparable to the intrinsic value of oil today. It became an economic as well as political instrument.

Cotton influenced financial and political decisions. Over time, cotton generated great wealth for some of the southern landowners. From their great staple crops—mainly cotton, tobacco, rice, and sugar cane—southerners received much of their cash income. Most, though not all, of these staple crops were grown on large plantations, although many small subsistence farms existed also. The need for southern farmers to find other fertile land on which to grow cotton, which had depleted the minerals from local landscapes, enticed them westward into the lands included in the Louisiana Purchase.

Slavery became reinvigorated as more labor was needed as cotton production increased. A large labor force was needed for growing and harvesting. That labor force consisted mostly of cheap labor, like black slaves brought from Africa and the West Indies as well as some poor indentured whites who were treated much differently than blacks. Then, large southern land- and slave-owners wanted to protect their major money source. Subsequently, pro- and anti-slavery beliefs split the nation and was a major cause of the Civil War.
http://www.americaslegacylinks.com/king_cotton.html
*******************************************
Here's an economic study on the price of slaves prior to the Civil War. (Civil War of 1861-1865)
But, it includes the time period in which Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. (1793 or 1794)


Slave Prices and The Economy of the Lower South, 1722-1809

Peter C. Mancall

University of Kansas

Joshua L. Rosenbloom

University of Kansas and NBER

Thomas Weiss

University of Kansas and NBER

Introduction

Slavery shaped the economic growth of the lower South in the eighteenth century. The region's primary export staples--rice and indigo--were both produced primarily on large plantations relying on slave labor (1). The importance of slavery was clearly reflected in the region's population statistics. With the introduction of rice at the beginning of the century, the slave population of South Carolina grew nearly five-fold between 1700 and 1720, at which time blacks outnumbered whites in the colony by a margin of more than two to one. Although the share of whites crept upwards after 1720, it was not until the rapid expansion of settlement in the backcountry after the Revolution that South Carolina's free population outnumbered its slave population. Once the prohibition of slavery was lifted in Georgia in 1749, the slave population of that colony also shot upward rapidly, reaching 45 percent by 1770 (2). Only in North Carolina, where lack of accessible ports inhibited the growth of export oriented agriculture was slavery's role more limited; and even here, over one third of the population were slaves by the Revolution.

Inspection of Figure 1 suggests that the history of slave prices in South Carolina can be divided into two periods. During the first period--running from the 1720s through the 1740s--prices fell gradually. During the second period--starting in the 1750s and continuing through the first decade of the nineteenth century--prices were generally rising. From 1740-49 to 1800-09 prices more than tripled, rising from $125 to $381.

Slave Prices and Wealth in the Lower South

Previous research using probate inventories for the lower South has noted a striking rise in wealth over much of the colonial period. According to Peter Coclanis (1989, p. 90), the scholar who has looked most closely at this subject: "The performance of the low country's economy·was truly remarkable·For nowhere else in British North America or perhaps in the world for that matter did so sizable a population live so well." Because slaves made up a substantial share of probate wealth, the rising level of slave prices was an important factor contributing to the increasing prosperity of the region. According to Bentley's (1977) calculations slaves' contribution to inventoried wealth increased from 45 percent in the 1720s to about 51 percent in the late 1750s and early 1760s. Our calculations based on the sample of inventories drawn by Joyce Chaplin indicate that the proportion of wealth held in slaves was even higher: around 70 percent for the entire period from 1740 to 1809. To examine the role that rising slave prices played in increasing wealth, we have constructed a counterfactual series of average wealth figures that hold slave prices constant.

Between the 1720s and 1742 adjusting for increases in slave prices has little impact on Bentley's wealth estimates. During this period average slave holdings among those individuals owning slaves rose substantially--increasing from 7.7 in the 1720s, to 13.3 in the 1730s, and 19.2 in the 1740s12. Thereafter, however, average slave holdings actually fell slightly (to 16.5) in the 1750s, and it appears that about half of the increase in wealth was attributable to rising prices of slaves rather than the accumulation of additional assets. Our calculations based on Chaplin's data indicate that almost all of the increase in wealth that occurred after 1740 was due to the rising value of slaves. For those inventories listing slaves, the average number of slaves per probated individual was roughly constant from the 1740s through the 1790s, before falling in the first decade of the nineteenth century12. Given the stability in slave numbers, holding slave prices constant produces a substantially different pattern of wealth accumulation. In the counterfactual case probate wealth per inventoried individual fell nearly 20 percent from the 1740s through the 1760s, recovered briefly in the 1770s, and then fell steadily over the next three decades. While these calculations do not controvert previous research that has emphasized the considerable prosperity of South Carolina, they place such findings in a rather different light. Rather than reflecting the accumulation of real assets, the region's rising wealth was the consequence primarily of asset price increases driven by world demand for the region's primary staple commodities.

Conclusion

Based on data from probate inventories from the lower South it is possible to construct estimates of slave prices between 1722 and 1809. Although these prices fell gradually until the 1740s, they then began to rise, more than doubling by the first decade of the nineteenth century. Although the long-run supply of slaves was probably close to perfectly elastic, lags in adjustment meant that the short-run supply of slaves was relatively inelastic. In these circumstances the sharply rising world demand for rice was largely responsible for the increase in slave prices after the middle of the eighteenth century.

These findings have several important implications for our understanding of the economy of the lower South. As we have shown, they suggest that previous estimates of productivity growth in rice production are implausibly high. Further research into the behavior of land and capital prices is necessary to establish this conclusively, however. The rise in slave prices also appears to have been responsible for much of the increase in the region's prosperity in this period. This finding suggests that rather than accumulating more physical assets, slaveholders were becoming wealthy through capital gains realized because strong demand for the region's primary product drove up the value of labor. As long as the short-run supply of slaves remained relatively inelastic, the owners of this scarce resource were able to capture significant scarcity rents.
http://www.cliometrics.org/conferences/ASSA/Jan_00/rosenbloom.shtml
I'll make it simpler for you. br br The price o... (show quote)

Very nice. I have some personal things going on right now. I'll get back to you in a day or two.

Reply
Jul 28, 2017 05:37:17   #
pftspd
 
Thank you, Homestead. I understand more now, thanks to you!




Homestead wrote:
I'll make it simpler for you.

The price of a slave was falling.

The question you have to ask yourself is, why?

What were the economic reasons for this?

Then the price of a slave started to rise. Why?



As to the number of slaves in the North and South, the fact is that the North did get rid of slavery and there weren't any left in the North any more.

By the time of the Civil War, not one Republican owned a slave.

So where did they go?

If the North sold all of it's slaves to the South, then the slave population in the South should have doubled, if you maintain that there were as many slaves in the North as there were in the South and that the Northern slaves were then sold to the South.

I'm sorry, but, there is no indication that any plantation suddenly doubled it's slave population.

So either the North had far fewer slaves than the South or the majority of the Northern slaves were set free.

Otherwise, where did they go?

****************************************************

King Cotton: White Gold

The title, King Cotton, comes from the fact that cotton was the major export of the United States in the early 1800s just prior to the Civil War time frame. By the 1850s, the cotton grown, shipped, and sold by southerners was worth more than all the rest of America's exports put together.

As the primary crop, cotton overtook tobacco, which had been planted and depleted many of the minerals in the soil. When the Constitution was ratified and went into effect in 1789, tobacco was the most important crop grown in the South. Also, Thomas Jefferson and many other people, in the South as well as the North, thought that slavery would soon disappear in the United States. However, the invention of the cotton engine (shortened to "gin") revolutionized cotton production. Cotton became the most valuable crop grown at that time—the intrinsic value of cotton then is comparable to the intrinsic value of oil today. It became an economic as well as political instrument.

Cotton influenced financial and political decisions. Over time, cotton generated great wealth for some of the southern landowners. From their great staple crops—mainly cotton, tobacco, rice, and sugar cane—southerners received much of their cash income. Most, though not all, of these staple crops were grown on large plantations, although many small subsistence farms existed also. The need for southern farmers to find other fertile land on which to grow cotton, which had depleted the minerals from local landscapes, enticed them westward into the lands included in the Louisiana Purchase.

Slavery became reinvigorated as more labor was needed as cotton production increased. A large labor force was needed for growing and harvesting. That labor force consisted mostly of cheap labor, like black slaves brought from Africa and the West Indies as well as some poor indentured whites who were treated much differently than blacks. Then, large southern land- and slave-owners wanted to protect their major money source. Subsequently, pro- and anti-slavery beliefs split the nation and was a major cause of the Civil War.
http://www.americaslegacylinks.com/king_cotton.html
*******************************************
Here's an economic study on the price of slaves prior to the Civil War. (Civil War of 1861-1865)
But, it includes the time period in which Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. (1793 or 1794)


Slave Prices and The Economy of the Lower South, 1722-1809

Peter C. Mancall

University of Kansas

Joshua L. Rosenbloom

University of Kansas and NBER

Thomas Weiss

University of Kansas and NBER

Introduction

Slavery shaped the economic growth of the lower South in the eighteenth century. The region's primary export staples--rice and indigo--were both produced primarily on large plantations relying on slave labor (1). The importance of slavery was clearly reflected in the region's population statistics. With the introduction of rice at the beginning of the century, the slave population of South Carolina grew nearly five-fold between 1700 and 1720, at which time blacks outnumbered whites in the colony by a margin of more than two to one. Although the share of whites crept upwards after 1720, it was not until the rapid expansion of settlement in the backcountry after the Revolution that South Carolina's free population outnumbered its slave population. Once the prohibition of slavery was lifted in Georgia in 1749, the slave population of that colony also shot upward rapidly, reaching 45 percent by 1770 (2). Only in North Carolina, where lack of accessible ports inhibited the growth of export oriented agriculture was slavery's role more limited; and even here, over one third of the population were slaves by the Revolution.

Inspection of Figure 1 suggests that the history of slave prices in South Carolina can be divided into two periods. During the first period--running from the 1720s through the 1740s--prices fell gradually. During the second period--starting in the 1750s and continuing through the first decade of the nineteenth century--prices were generally rising. From 1740-49 to 1800-09 prices more than tripled, rising from $125 to $381.

Slave Prices and Wealth in the Lower South

Previous research using probate inventories for the lower South has noted a striking rise in wealth over much of the colonial period. According to Peter Coclanis (1989, p. 90), the scholar who has looked most closely at this subject: "The performance of the low country's economy·was truly remarkable·For nowhere else in British North America or perhaps in the world for that matter did so sizable a population live so well." Because slaves made up a substantial share of probate wealth, the rising level of slave prices was an important factor contributing to the increasing prosperity of the region. According to Bentley's (1977) calculations slaves' contribution to inventoried wealth increased from 45 percent in the 1720s to about 51 percent in the late 1750s and early 1760s. Our calculations based on the sample of inventories drawn by Joyce Chaplin indicate that the proportion of wealth held in slaves was even higher: around 70 percent for the entire period from 1740 to 1809. To examine the role that rising slave prices played in increasing wealth, we have constructed a counterfactual series of average wealth figures that hold slave prices constant.

Between the 1720s and 1742 adjusting for increases in slave prices has little impact on Bentley's wealth estimates. During this period average slave holdings among those individuals owning slaves rose substantially--increasing from 7.7 in the 1720s, to 13.3 in the 1730s, and 19.2 in the 1740s12. Thereafter, however, average slave holdings actually fell slightly (to 16.5) in the 1750s, and it appears that about half of the increase in wealth was attributable to rising prices of slaves rather than the accumulation of additional assets. Our calculations based on Chaplin's data indicate that almost all of the increase in wealth that occurred after 1740 was due to the rising value of slaves. For those inventories listing slaves, the average number of slaves per probated individual was roughly constant from the 1740s through the 1790s, before falling in the first decade of the nineteenth century12. Given the stability in slave numbers, holding slave prices constant produces a substantially different pattern of wealth accumulation. In the counterfactual case probate wealth per inventoried individual fell nearly 20 percent from the 1740s through the 1760s, recovered briefly in the 1770s, and then fell steadily over the next three decades. While these calculations do not controvert previous research that has emphasized the considerable prosperity of South Carolina, they place such findings in a rather different light. Rather than reflecting the accumulation of real assets, the region's rising wealth was the consequence primarily of asset price increases driven by world demand for the region's primary staple commodities.

Conclusion

Based on data from probate inventories from the lower South it is possible to construct estimates of slave prices between 1722 and 1809. Although these prices fell gradually until the 1740s, they then began to rise, more than doubling by the first decade of the nineteenth century. Although the long-run supply of slaves was probably close to perfectly elastic, lags in adjustment meant that the short-run supply of slaves was relatively inelastic. In these circumstances the sharply rising world demand for rice was largely responsible for the increase in slave prices after the middle of the eighteenth century.

These findings have several important implications for our understanding of the economy of the lower South. As we have shown, they suggest that previous estimates of productivity growth in rice production are implausibly high. Further research into the behavior of land and capital prices is necessary to establish this conclusively, however. The rise in slave prices also appears to have been responsible for much of the increase in the region's prosperity in this period. This finding suggests that rather than accumulating more physical assets, slaveholders were becoming wealthy through capital gains realized because strong demand for the region's primary product drove up the value of labor. As long as the short-run supply of slaves remained relatively inelastic, the owners of this scarce resource were able to capture significant scarcity rents.
http://www.cliometrics.org/conferences/ASSA/Jan_00/rosenbloom.shtml
I'll make it simpler for you. br br The price o... (show quote)

Reply
Jul 30, 2017 07:08:58   #
Loki Loc: Georgia
 
Homestead wrote:
First off, you don't limit the problems of too many slaves and the problems of freeing them by expanding the institution of slavery, creating more slaves that need to be freed.

Second, it was that very problem of just freeing the slaves and the misery that would befall them that stopped slavery from being eliminated at the time of the writing of the Constitution.

No one had a solution, that's why slavery was left were it was. The North concentrated on manufacturing which utilized machines, not slave labour.

The North had many more farms than the South, but, they were much smaller enterprises, so the North was able to give up slaves, but, they had the same problem as to what to do with them, as the slaves were unable to do for themselves.



Not all slaves were sold to the South, plenty were set free and were able to set themselves up for themselves.

Finally, the one thing you're not taking into consideration is that once an institution like slavery in instituted, it screws up everything.

The price of cotton and tobacco is set, based on using slave labor. That stops or hinders any farm or plantation that wants to compete against them with paid labor. How do you beat free labor with paid labor?

The other thing is that slaves are bought with borrowed money like any other asset.

You can't buy your house with a mortgage, then give your house away and then tell your creditors to go screw.

Slave owners couldn't do the same with their assets either, they had debts that had to be paid with the assets guaranteeing that payment.

The South had managed to get the right to buy more slaves for a limited amount of time, before the slave trade would end.

So every slave moved to the South from the North meant that there was less demand for more slaves from Africa. So a few Africans that would have been sent to America, was able to stay in Africa because slaves already in existence took their place. And that left the total number of slaves in America the same. The only thing that changed was where they lived.

At the time of the creation of the Constitution, it was generally felt that slavery would die out over time. That it was a dying institution and that the country would eventually be freed of it.

Unfortunately, the cotton Gin was invented and this labor saving device made slave labor very profitable again. There is no use in planting more cotton than you can process. So the amount of acreage you plant and till is tied to the work force you have to process it.

One cotton Gin freed up 99 slaves. That meant you had 99 more slaves to till more acreage and still process it for the same cost, you already have, of maintaining your slaves.

The other thing about cotton is that it is very hard on the soil. So over time, the production of the soil goes down. The solution is more land and with enough cotton gins you can free up enough slaves to tame the land.

As the production of cotton went up, so did the profitability, so did the need and value of more slaves and the need for more land to expand into.

Adding to the problems of slavery is not a solution.
First off, you don't limit the problems of too man... (show quote)


Interesting. However, several points are either not addressed, or addressed improperly.
Firstly....
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/how-many-slaves-landed-in-the-us/
There were only about 388,000 slaves imported into this country. The population growth came about by the usual means; which was a high birthrate and apparently a higher than previously thought survival rate.
******
You stated that "Second, it was that very problem of just freeing the slaves and the misery that would befall them that stopped slavery from being eliminated at the time of the writing of the Constitution."
In the 1850's, that is precisely what the Abolitionist movement wished for the South to do. The Abolitionists were perhaps motivated by high ideals, but were played like a fiddle by the Northeastern Industrial/Political block. As an example, New York.....
The New York law freeing slaves provided for a gradual emancipation over a period of two decades plus.
http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GGRV_enUS751US751&q=when+was+slavery+abolished+in+new+york&oq=when+was+slavery+abolished+in+New+York&gs_l=psy-

In the early 1800's there was a population of less than 13,000 slaves in New York. They were freed over a period of 27 years.
So you have about 6% of the population as slaves in the early 1800's.
Massachusetts was similar.
https://userpages.umbc.edu/~bouton/History407/SlaveStats.htm

There were never that many slaves in many Northern states, and in places like New York and Massachusetts, they were freed over a period of time, and absorbed into the population. Absorbing 3 or 6 percent of the population is a little simpler than absorbing 30 to 50 percent.
At the beginning of the War Between the States, the slave population of Northern states and Border states that sided with the North was around 300,000. The North certainly did not free all it's slaves. Slaves in New York could not vote and had few rights until passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments. I never said there were a large number of slave owners in many Northern states, as you allege, I said a large number of them sold their slaves to Southern planters.
Your statement that cotton depletes the soil is true. However; the need for more land to grow cotton and more states to vote with the Cotton States were joined at the hip. At the heart of it all was economic conflict, plain and simple. The South felt (with a great deal of justification) that it was being treated unfairly. While providing most of the Federal government's operating capital, it saw very little in the way of infrastructure spending that was almost completely reserved for the Northern States.
*******

I would like to address another of your claims, that the price of cotton is set. In fact the price of cotton fluctuated wildly throughout the first half of the 19th century, cotton gin or no.


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

Cotton prices fluctuated wildly over the years. Prices were high until 1819, then down, up, and down again. In 1837 they hit a crisis low and remained rather low until 1848. Prices rose sharply in 1849 and 1850 but dropped in 1851, though not as low as previously. Throughout the remainder of the 1850s prices rose.

There were more factors involved than the presence or absence of slave labor.
Your statement that slaves were purchased with borrowed money needs some sourcing; otherwise it is nothing more than an opinion.
**********

From another post, several things I take issue with......

As to the number of slaves in the North and South, the fact is that the North did get rid of slavery and there weren't any left in the North any more.
I beg to differ. As I pointed out and documented from the census earlier, there were more than 300,000 slaves left in states that while they were considered Border States, actually sided with the North.

You also stated that

"If the North sold all of it's slaves to the South, then the slave population in the South should have doubled, if you maintain that there were as many slaves in the North as there were in the South and that the Northern slaves were then sold to the South."
I never said there were as many slaves in the North as the South. The fact remains that the 300,000 plus slaves in the Border States that sided with the North are never counted, in spite of the fact that these states were de facto allies of the North.
Your statement that the slave population of the South should have doubled is a little disingenuous, when a glance at the Census for 1850 and 1860 will reveal quite a bit.
The facts are that there were several estimates of the number of slaves imported into what became the US. They range from a low of 388,000 to a high of about 600,000. Out of the 10-12 million who were shipped to the "New World."
The millions of slaves in the South came from natural increase, since importation ceased in 1807.
The causes of the Civil War were economic, rather than moral. Wealthy Northeastern industrialists competing against Wealthy Southern planters. The Northeastern industrial giants did not give a big fat rat's ass about the plight of the American Negro, whether Northern or Southern. For that matter, the majority of people in the North did not care, as is evidenced by laws in so many states forbidding Negroes to own real property, vote, or in the case of some state, forbidding them to move there.
The Southern planters were consistently outvoted by the much more numerous bloc of the Northeasterners and their allies. The South saw that despite the fact that the Federal Government received most of it's operating money from the Southern States, those states saw damn little of the infrastructure spending on industry and railroads. (This brings up, once more, your point about the Forts that the South "took over." Why not? The South mostly paid for them, anyway.)
The price of slaves was tied to the price of cotton, which varied quite a bit during the first half of the 19th century, for reasons including, but not limited to the cotton gin, and soil depletion. You should have also mentioned that 18th and 19th century farming methods left a lot to be desired, and the soil depletion wasn't just limited to cotton. All commercial crops had that effect on the soil.


The economic study you cited sounds very impressive, and brings up some good points, but ignores the fact that the number of slaves grew from a maximum of 600,000, (the actual figure is probably more like 450,000) to more than 3 million by 1860. This is not the "inelastic" figure your study references.


One more thing:
Your statement that "Finally, the one thing you're not taking into consideration is that once an institution like slavery in instituted, it screws up everything." is a statement of your opinion, nothing more. The fact is that slavery has existed since the beginning of recorded history and doubtless before, and it is hard to find a society in the world's history where slavery was not practiced. It did not "screw up everything." Slavery became moribund because of industrialization, which is, historically speaking, a fairly recent development. Slavery is quite profitable in a pre-industrial setting. Slavery in the American North died out from mechanization, not moralization. Ethical considerations are always window dressing; a facade to obscure the less-noble-but-far-more-realistic facts of economics.

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