Would we have been better off not fighting the Civil War?

LobsterMobster wrote:

However, the North would think the South was dangerously backward and the South would think the North is dangerously immoral.

That's actually the case now. Living in the South and constantly hearing people rave about how the "South will rise again!" means I'm more than happy with my northern aggressor overlords. I can only imagine what Alabama would look like if the Federal government wasn't there to prevent us from embracing some of our truly crazier ideas. As it is we just spend our tax dollars breaking up electronic bingo parlors and forcing strippers to wear bikinis.

I will say that I certainly don't think America is the best in everything and am far more often criticized for leaning far too much to the other side and being quite vocal about all the incredibly, incredibly crappy things we have done whilst building our country. What I am saying is that, yes, things are far better here than most places, and outside of Western Europe, Canada, and Japan (OK, OK, Australia too), there aren't really any places that can claim to be better. I'm not asserting that America is the best, I'm saying that the current USA has exhibited the kind of strength, growth, and overall "goodness" that saying "things would be better if we hadn't fought the Civil War" is at best totally misguided. If anything, I've noticed lots of traditional "pro-America" people constantly decry our supposed lack of liberty and freedom, even though it's quite clear that we have massive scads of liberty and freedom, liberty and freedom that I, in fact, believe were brought along by that evil, evil federal government that has apparently ruined our lives while helping us having a standard of living that was not even imaginable 100 years ago.

LobsterMobster wrote:
farley3k wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

1 - Our economy is only sustainable because no one is willing to call in their debts.
2 - Our education system is not the envy of the world by far.
3 - Even if we were the best in the world at everything, "best" is no excuse not to reach for "perfect."

And your contention is that the economy of two separate Americas would be sustainable? Would education be better? I guess you believe two Americas would be more "perfect"?

You'll note that I made no reference to the "two Americas." My intent was to caution Milkman away from the common fallacy that, "America is the best so America is perfect." I don't think that's what he was saying but I could see it leading there (and Milkman, your point that different != better is well taken). Now if you'd like to explore these matters and the only way you can get there is to turn my argument into a straw man, let's roll with it.

This is similar to what happened between you and I in that other thread. I don't think you should accuse people of trying to turn your argument into a strawman when all they are doing is assuming you've interpreted their words in the context of the topic of the thread and not as part of the derail you want to go on in order to caution people about a common fallacy that derail might lead to.

I don't *think* you mean to do that, obviously. However, is it possible you don't realize that you haven't sufficiently communicated what you're trying to say to people when you respond to them? That you don't give them enough signals to know you're going off in a different direction when you enter into a line of discussion while thinking you have?

You may have made no reference to the "two Americas" but that's the context this statement was made in, so how are we to know your intent isn't to discuss that unless you make that clear? Maybe before you tell people they've turned your argument into a strawman, you should check to see if there is a reason it could be a simple case of miscommunication?

farley3k wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

1 - Our economy is only sustainable because no one is willing to call in their debts.
2 - Our education system is not the envy of the world by far.
3 - Even if we were the best in the world at everything, "best" is no excuse not to reach for "perfect."

And your contention is that the economy of two separate Americas would be sustainable? Would education be better? I guess you believe two Americas would be more "perfect"?

For me "better off" means less diviseness between North and South and to a lesser extent agrarian and urban. I mean just look at the red/blue political maps and look at the past presedential election maps. Its essentially a split in our country between Union an Confederacy. Wars are horrible terrible things even when they right some terrible injustice. I think there is definetly a scenario where slavery dies a natural death in the 1880-1900 range the union never suffers cracks and there never becomes the incredibly wide gap we have today between North and South running our politics into the ground. Sure it's all speculative but there is a valid argument to be made.

I think the war was inevitable. Despite the entire lost cause argument and the idea that northeners didn't go to war to free the blacks there exists history in direct controversy to this reasoning. Abolishinists were angry, armed and were already fighting a war in Missouri and Kansas, and some , like John Brown, were even resorting to acts bordering on terrorism. And the deep south firebreathers were ready to shoot up the federal legislature over any issue curtailing their slave rights.

To me this is a pro-pacificism argument that basically peace is always the answer. Even in cases where extreme evil is present. The greatest leaders of history have practiced this philosophy, Ghandi, Jesus, MLK, etc and while I personally struggle with it, being a student of History and understanding there is alot of evil in the world, I have 2 young boys and can't help but think there shouldn't be any reason in a modern world for them to ever end up on a battlefield bleeding out screaming for their mother.

jam3 wrote:

I think there is definetly a scenario where slavery dies a natural death in the 1880-1900 range the union never suffers cracks and there never becomes the incredibly wide gap we have today between North and South running our politics into the ground. Sure it's all speculative but there is a valid argument to be made.

Why would slavery have disappeared naturally? The entire economy of the South was based on it. No one gives that up easily, certainly not within a generation of when they were politically and socially willing to secede from the Union over it.

jam3 wrote:

For me "better off" means less diviseness between North and South and to a lesser extent agrarian and urban. I mean just look at the red/blue political maps and look at the past presedential election maps. Its essentially a split in our country between Union an Confederacy. Wars are horrible terrible things even when they right some terrible injustice. I think there is definetly a scenario where slavery dies a natural death in the 1880-1900 range the union never suffers cracks and there never becomes the incredibly wide gap we have today between North and South running our politics into the ground. Sure it's all speculative but there is a valid argument to be made.

edit: Even granting that slavery could die a natural death at that time in a way that means there's no need for a civil rights movement (which is a big factor in explaining that red/blue political map you're talking about) later on, I'd ask the question of whether it's the crack of the Civil War that is responsible for that, or if it is the failures of Reconstruction that account for what we see today.

To me this is a pro-pacificism argument that basically peace is always the answer. Even in cases where extreme evil is present. The greatest leaders of history have practiced this philosophy, Ghandi, Jesus, MLK, etc and while I personally struggle with it, being a student of History and understanding there is alot of evil in the world, I have 2 young boys and can't help but think there shouldn't be any reason in a modern world for them to ever end up on a battlefield bleeding out screaming for their mother.

I can see a pacificist argument, but I'd just offer the warning that even pacifists wind up bleeding out screaming out for their mother if they can scream. All three of the people you mention were victims of fatal violence even if it wasn't on a battlefield.

International pressure and economics would have killed it. Even the moral systems changed. We'd have followed the lead of the European countries, most likely on a state by state basis, as that was what Lincoln was trying to set up. I suspect it would have been complete by about 1880, if the Southern core states like South Carolina had been of a mind to negotiate. We'd still have been known as one of the last countries to dump slavery, but that was the case anyway.

What's disturbing is the current move towards Constitutional fundamentalism in the current Supreme Court. Read the beginning of the Dred Scott decision (because I guarantee you won't read the whole thing in one sitting). It's based on the straightforward acknowledgment that despite the common usage of freedom and citizenship at the time, the Founders did not intend that Negroes be given Federal citizenship, the vote, or anything other than the rights granted them by individual states. And I think we're heading back in that general direction. The New Republicans have an inevitable undercurrent of pious racism, simply by virtue of their insistence on a dead Constitution. And frankly, I think that's popular in the South.

If we need to reduce Federal government, then the Civil Rights laws have to be repealed, and indeed there are some who have intimated that they should be. That's where today's American conservatism has taken us. (Another reason I can't understand Thomas Sowell or Clarence Thomas being part of the Federalist Society.)

OG_slinger wrote:
jam3 wrote:

I think there is definetly a scenario where slavery dies a natural death in the 1880-1900 range the union never suffers cracks and there never becomes the incredibly wide gap we have today between North and South running our politics into the ground. Sure it's all speculative but there is a valid argument to be made.

Why would slavery have disappeared naturally? The entire economy of the South was based on it. No one gives that up easily, certainly not within a generation of when they were politically and socially willing to secede from the Union over it.

My guess is slavery as a legal status might have disappeared but for the reasons you mentioned something close to slavery would have been the day-to-day reality. I don't see a reason why plantations wouldn't continue to grow in America when the European powers were meeting their Industrial Era needs for raw materials by creating plantations in Africa.

I think a lot of the 'optimism' about a history with no Civil War/victorious CSA is a result of looking at American history in isolation and not as part of a larger global story, or not realizing how unlike the countries of Europe, we're half colony and half colonizer.

+++++

edit: which has gotten me thinking--no Civil War, no 14th Amendment, no Bill of Rights applied against the states. It's easy to think of all the negatives that flow from an event (if they were negatives in the first place) and the positives you might disagree are positive, but what about all the things we take for granted like the Bill of Rights?

Hey, here's an easy one that might throw things for a curve ball: no Civil War, your state can completely ban firearms.

Robear wrote:

International pressure and economics would have killed it. Even the moral systems changed. We'd have followed the lead of the European countries, most likely on a state by state basis, as that was what Lincoln was trying to set up. I suspect it would have been complete by about 1880, if the Southern core states like South Carolina had been of a mind to negotiate. We'd still have been known as one of the last countries to dump slavery, but that was the case anyway.

Slavery finished by 1880? Barely a generation after the Civil War was waged? Don't think so. Social change of that magnitude just doesn't happen that fast by itself. Without an ass-whooping it would have taken generations for the South to realize slavery was a dead end.

Yeah i am simply pointing out that there is an argument to be made that the death of slavery through natural causes could have been better than war. I don't even know where I come down on that issue. I don't even know where I come down on the issue of pacifism, as was pointed out all the peaceful leaders of history tend to die agonizing deaths. I really like this discussion because apart from thinking about the meaning of the universe or life after death I probably struggle the most with an internal desire for pacifism and an intellectual acknowledgement of humans being a naturally violent animal.

Take your pick though you could imagine slavery dying a natural death anywhere from 1880 to 1960. You could see slavery abolished, no 14th amendment, and serious problems for other ethnicities and genders because theres no equal protection clause.

OG I do think it was possible for slavery to have been mostly gone by 1880, not that people wouldn't own slaves in the south but they could have outlawed the breaking up of families, slaves given freedom on masters death, persons born to slaves given freedom, etc. You could have seeen this especially in states like NC/VA/TN but in the deep south and more of an actual end where no one was being held in slavery probably wouldn't have happened til 1900-1920 or so, but you can easily concieve a scenario where it ended later in the 20th century.

jam3 wrote:

OG I do think it was possible for slavery to have been mostly gone by 1880, not that people wouldn't own slaves in the south but they could have outlawed the breaking up of families, slaves given freedom on masters death, persons born to slaves given freedom, etc. You could have seeen this especially in states like NC/VA/TN but in the deep south and more of an actual end where no one was being held in slavery probably wouldn't have happened til 1900-1920 or so, but you can easily concieve a scenario where it ended later in the 20th century.

IDK. There was zero incentive to stop breaking up families or grant slaves freedom after the death of their masters 15 years after the Civil War took place. There wasn't even a nascent movement to ban breaking up families or granting them freedom upon the death of the masters, so I just have a hard time thinking it would suddenly be a force to reckon with by 1880. Besides, at that point slaves were going for the price of a nice car in today's dollars ($30,000+). People don't give up that much wealth out of the kindness of their hearts. They fight tooth and nail to protect it.

Additionally, slave ownership was highly concentrated. Barely a third of the white population owned slaves and even if they did, they only owned one or two. It was the fraction of a fraction of that population that owned the bulk of slaves (i.e., those people were rich as all get out) and they had absolutely no reason to peaceably give up all that wealth.

I could see slavery becoming economically unfeasible in the decades after the turn of the last century due to cheap labor imported from Europe, but those extra years of slavery would have just made the South more of an economic backwater than it already was. I mean slavery might have been eradicated in 1865, but sharecropping (which was effectively slavery without the chains) continued until the 1950s even with the Civil War. Without the war, you could expect that a worse version of sharecropping would have become the norm. Again, people just don't change their beliefs that fast unless they have a gun to their head.

kaostheory wrote:

Maybe this is all a little silly. Has there ever been a time where the average people living in a larger society have really felt like they could effect change on the situation at hand?

Yes. In fact, this has been the case far more often in the United States than ever before. Average people can and have made huge positive (and negative) differences in our country and way of life. Women achieved the vote through the actions average people. The Civil Rights movement was successful entirely due to the actions of average people. In societies that are more free, the actions of average people are far more important and have far more impact than ever before.

OG_Slinger wrote:

I could see slavery becoming economically unfeasible in the decades after the turn of the last century due to cheap labor imported from Europe, but those extra years of slavery would have just made the South more of an economic backwater than it already was. I mean slavery might have been eradicated in 1865, but sharecropping (which was effectively slavery without the chains) continued until the 1950s even with the Civil War. Without the war, you could expect that a worse version of sharecropping would have become the norm. Again, people just don't change their beliefs that fast unless they have a gun to their head.

I think OG_Slinger has the right of it. However, it should be noted that such an outcome must be balanced against the millions of dead, disfigured, and refugee Americans that were the casualties of the Civil War, as well as the terrible destruction that was inflicted on the South by Grant and Sherman. As bad as OG_Slinger's outcome might have been, it simply pales in comparison to the Civil War and the terrible legacy it left behind. I think as a people we would have been far better off without the war, even if the country had been split in two. It's too easy to forget just how awful the war was.

Attempting to change Southern beliefs by force was an abject failure and had terrible consequences, many of which we are still dealing with and suffering from today. A constructive comparison is the Civil Rights movement: a peaceful, mostly nonviolent movement that actually dealt with the real problem the Civil War had only papered over.

What I think kaostheory is hitting on is the concentration of power. The issue is not directly with the Federal system, but rather the Federal Government's continuing expansion of its own power at the expense of its citizens. The scale of the system doesn't really matter - as Robear pointed out, many states had governments that at times have been worse than our current Federal system. Any concentration of power is a problem, in my opinion, especially when that power is simply taken by force rather than voluntarily given.

I think the big mistake of the Civil War was that we let anyone in the CSA over the rank of lieutenant keep his land or voting rights.

Aetius wrote:
kaostheory wrote:

Maybe this is all a little silly. Has there ever been a time where the average people living in a larger society have really felt like they could effect change on the situation at hand?

Yes. In fact, this has been the case far more often in the United States than ever before. Average people can and have made huge positive (and negative) differences in our country and way of life. Women achieved the vote through the actions average people. The Civil Rights movement was successful entirely due to the actions of average people. In societies that are more free, the actions of average people are far more important and have far more impact than ever before.

[/quote]

I would say you're hugely mischaracterizing the Civil Rights movement there. The Civil Rights movement was successful because average people took a stand. And then were, in many cases, utterly brutalized by local and state governments, finally only being protected and achieving equality when--wait for it--the federal government exercised its power. I find it stunningly ironic that, in a discussion about the Civil War, this comes up.

OG_Slinger wrote:

I could see slavery becoming economically unfeasible in the decades after the turn of the last century due to cheap labor imported from Europe, but those extra years of slavery would have just made the South more of an economic backwater than it already was. I mean slavery might have been eradicated in 1865, but sharecropping (which was effectively slavery without the chains) continued until the 1950s even with the Civil War. Without the war, you could expect that a worse version of sharecropping would have become the norm. Again, people just don't change their beliefs that fast unless they have a gun to their head.

I think OG_Slinger has the right of it. However, it should be noted that such an outcome must be balanced against the millions of dead, disfigured, and refugee Americans that were the casualties of the Civil War, as well as the terrible destruction that was inflicted on the South by Grant and Sherman. As bad as OG_Slinger's outcome might have been, it simply pales in comparison to the Civil War and the terrible legacy it left behind. I think as a people we would have been far better off without the war, even if the country had been split in two. It's too easy to forget just how awful the war was.

Attempting to change Southern beliefs by force was an abject failure and had terrible consequences, many of which we are still dealing with and suffering from today. A constructive comparison is the Civil Rights movement: a peaceful, mostly nonviolent movement that actually dealt with the real problem the Civil War had only papered over.

What I think kaostheory is hitting on is the concentration of power. The issue is not directly with the Federal system, but rather the Federal Government's continuing expansion of its own power at the expense of its citizens. The scale of the system doesn't really matter - as Robear pointed out, many states had governments that at times have been worse than our current Federal system. Any concentration of power is a problem, in my opinion, especially when that power is simply taken by force rather than voluntarily given.

I can't think of any reason why things would be better. Was attempting to change Southern beliefs by force an abject failure? I'd say no. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the average view of race in the South today is significantly more enlightened than it was 60 years ago. Racism still exists, obviously, but I've never heard one compelling argument how the free market would have magically wiped away ingrained prejudice.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:
Aetius wrote:
kaostheory wrote:

Yes. In fact, this has been the case far more often in the United States than ever before. Average people can and have made huge positive (and negative) differences in our country and way of life. Women achieved the vote through the actions average people. The Civil Rights movement was successful entirely due to the actions of average people. In societies that are more free, the actions of average people are far more important and have far more impact than ever before.

I would say you're hugely mischaracterizing the Civil Rights movement there. The Civil Rights movement was successful because average people took a stand. And then were, in many cases, utterly brutalized by local and state governments, finally only being protected and achieving equality when--wait for it--the federal government exercised its power. I find it stunningly ironic that, in a discussion about the Civil War, this comes up.

Heh--everyone forgets that the Civil Rights movement began with enforcement at the point of bayonets:

IMAGE(http://www.corbisimages.com/images/67/571EF91C-7F5A-4034-B0A3-E969486CBA50/BE032442.jpg)

and LBJ correctly predicted (if he did say it) upon signing the 1964 Civil Rights Act: ''We have lost the South for a generation." Weren't we just talking about Rand Paul and this in another thread, about how legally mandated desegregation of private businesses was some huge government intervention at the cost of personal liberty?

Also, to beat a dead horse, there is a difference between the Civil War and Reconstruction. And to bring something new to the party, stumbled across this interesting theory looking for that picture up above; not sure if I agree, but it does put a different spin on things:

If Johnston and Shafer are right, their work should raise a debate far beyond the country's political science departments. If economics had more to do with the realignment than race, then Democrats lost the South for the same reasons they have had a hard time breaking into the suburban middle class around the country-namely, a failure to win consistent majorities of white middle-class voters.

Slavery finished by 1880? Barely a generation after the Civil War was waged? Don't think so. Social change of that magnitude just doesn't happen that fast by itself. Without an ass-whooping it would have taken generations for the South to realize slavery was a dead end.

Remember, the scenario is that the war was never fought. In order for the Union to remain together, the Northern states would have had to accede to the demands of the South. This would have allowed the debate to continue. I believe that the changes in Christianity's attitude towards slavery, the economic weakness of the system, international pressure and the example of the Northern states would have put paid to slavery within a generation; ie, maybe 20 years after 1860. And this hinges on the South being willing to remain within the Union, and thus participating in the debate.

To those who believe as OG does that change would not come without a gun to the head, how do you explain the fact that most (or all?) of the European countries had given up slavery peacefully before 1860? (With the exception of Spain, which continued exporting slaves to it's colonies until 1880, European powers had all ended slavery by 1854.) Also, how were states like Vermont "forced" to outlaw slavery?

I think that thesis neglects the very real changes in morality driven by the Enlightenment and the idea of the Rights of Man. My question to you is, if that was enough to bring about change in other Christian countries, why not in the Union?

Robear wrote:

Remember, the scenario is that the war was never fought. In order for the Union to remain together, the Northern states would have had to accede to the demands of the South. This would have allowed the debate to continue. I believe that the changes in Christianity's attitude towards slavery, the economic weakness of the system, international pressure and the example of the Northern states would have put paid to slavery within a generation; ie, maybe 20 years after 1860. And this hinges on the South being willing to remain within the Union, and thus participating in the debate.

I know the scenario is that the war was never fought. What I'm saying is that the South was willing to go to the mat over the issue of slavery in 1861 making it completely unfeasible to say they'd be willing to just give it up 20 years later.

On top of that you had the issue of the South wanting to entrench slavery in the new territories and states being formed in the west. Rather than making slavery go away, that would just expanded it.

Robear wrote:

To those who believe as OG does that change would not come without a gun to the head, how do you explain the fact that most (or all?) of the European countries had given up slavery peacefully before 1860? (With the exception of Spain, which continued exporting slaves to it's colonies until 1880, European powers had all ended slavery by 1854.) Also, how were states like Vermont "forced" to outlaw slavery?

I think that thesis neglects the very real changes in morality driven by the Enlightenment and the idea of the Rights of Man. My question to you is, if that was enough to bring about change in other Christian countries, why not in the Union?

Perhaps because slavery was something far removed from their day-to-day lives? Slavery for European countries largely meant they used slaves in their colonies, which were thousands of miles from its citizens. That distance made it much easier not to worry about the few slave holders that would be affected since you really don't have to interact with them or hear their side of the story. As for the aristocrats that owned the slaves, as long as they got compensated what did they care? They were politically savvy enough to know that fighting a social movement wasn't a good idea.

Also, slavery was just part of the European economies, not the entire economy as it was in the South. It's much easier to give up something that only affects a small part of your economy than it is to give up the thing your entire economy is based on.

That distance between the European countries and slaves in their colonies also made it easier to think that slavery was a sin and the slaves should be treated as equals. Now compare that to how Southerners viewed blacks...even up until today. There's very little chance that the average Southerner of the time would go from thinking blacks are naturally inferior in every way to white men and that God Himself effectively supports the institution of slavery to they're his equals and God doesn't want them enslaved.

Besides, I doubt you could get a minister in the South to even preach that slavery was a sin. Without that moral backing there'd be little chance of the same change happening in the South.

Aetius wrote:

I think OG_Slinger has the right of it. However, it should be noted that such an outcome must be balanced against the millions of dead, disfigured, and refugee Americans that were the casualties of the Civil War, as well as the terrible destruction that was inflicted on the South by Grant and Sherman. As bad as OG_Slinger's outcome might have been, it simply pales in comparison to the Civil War and the terrible legacy it left behind. I think as a people we would have been far better off without the war, even if the country had been split in two. It's too easy to forget just how awful the war was.

And it's too easy to forget just how awful slavery was. There were five million slaves in the States in 1860, 13% of the entire population of the country. It would take a lot of death and destruction to begin to equal the evil of being enslaved.

Aetius wrote:

Attempting to change Southern beliefs by force was an abject failure and had terrible consequences, many of which we are still dealing with and suffering from today. A constructive comparison is the Civil Rights movement: a peaceful, mostly nonviolent movement that actually dealt with the real problem the Civil War had only papered over.

I see it as the North didn't go far enough and the 'South will rise again' crap is proof of it. That means that South didn't see itself as really losing the war so the North should have continued to let Sherman systematically dismantle every Southern city and all its infrastructure until every Johnny Reb understood that they were utterly and completely defeated. Like an addict, they really didn't hit rock bottom, which meant they still kept hold of their racist beliefs. The North should have taken them pit of Hell and made them stare over the edge.

LobsterMobster wrote:

.. the North would think the South was dangerously backward and the South would think the North is dangerously immoral.

Though I have heard this thought voiced several times in recent years lol.

My immediate thoughts are that 1)it's highly unlikely that blacks would question the validity of fighting the Civil War and 2)what kind of response would a divided America have been able to provide during WW II?
It's interesting food for thought though, similar to alternative history regarding the south winning the Civil War.

As frustrated as I become with impasses in our political process, as in nature the US is better served by its heterogeneity than not, IMO. Were one section of the country is weak, another is strong...etc.

Robear wrote:

To those who believe as OG does that change would not come without a gun to the head, how do you explain the fact that most (or all?) of the European countries had given up slavery peacefully before 1860?

Forgive me for repeating something from earlier in the thread, but it's simple: they found it far more profitable to run plantations in their colonies with technically 'free' people of color in Africa and elsewhere than in Europe. A lot more rubber plants in the Congo than in Brussels, just like it's way easier to grow cotton in Texas--and India--than in London.

Moved this bit for clarity:

My question to you is, if that was enough to bring about change in other Christian countries, why not in the Union?

Remember: America is not exactly a European country. It is as much a colony as it is a metropole.

I think that thesis neglects the very real changes in morality driven by the Enlightenment and the idea of the Rights of Man.

I think it's more that such a counterargument neglects the equally real changes in morality tied up in the New Imperialism. The Enlightenment and the idea of the Rights of Man were pre-industrial intellectual developments. Slavery *was* sort of drifting out of existence when America was established--remember, Britain and America passed legislation outlawing the international slave trade in the same year of 1807.

edit: Then came the cotton gin--invented shortly after the Constitution was adopted--and the textile mill, and slavery went from an antiquated institution to an economically viable option. Adam Smith's 'division of labor' went from skilled workers like the "smith who has been accustomed to make nails" to less skilled workers like textile mill employees and totally unskilled workers like those you find on a cash crop plantation, whether in Africa or the American South. Smith talked about the revolutionary effect of the division of labor on things like button and pin making; the other half of that equation is supplying the raw material to keep those factories running: "twelve pounds of pins in a day" requires twelve pounds of raw material from somewhere, and everything changed in ways the Founders could not have possibly anticipated.

Forgive me for repeating something from earlier in the thread, but it's simple: they found it far more profitable to run plantations in their colonies with technically 'free' people of color in Africa and elsewhere than in Europe. A lot more rubber plants in the Congo than in Brussels, just like it's way easier to grow cotton in Texas--and India--than in London.

And this is exactly the system which was established under the Jim Crow laws, so I fail to see why a generation would not be enough time to create this as a sort of "worst option". And better outcomes are possible, too.

I know the scenario is that the war was never fought. What I'm saying is that the South was willing to go to the mat over the issue of slavery in 1861 making it completely unfeasible to say they'd be willing to just give it up 20 years later.

We're talking at cross-purposes, because I'm explicitly assuming they were *not* willing to go to the mat, and going from there. Otherwise, the war would have been fought.

That distance between the European countries and slaves in their colonies also made it easier to think that slavery was a sin and the slaves should be treated as equals. Now compare that to how Southerners viewed blacks...even up until today. There's very little chance that the average Southerner of the time would go from thinking blacks are naturally inferior in every way to white men and that God Himself effectively supports the institution of slavery to they're his equals and God doesn't want them enslaved.

I feel the experience of the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic colonies is a good counter to this argument. They had household slavery, and still eliminated it, not just on moral grounds, but on economic ones.

Besides, I doubt you could get a minister in the South to even preach that slavery was a sin. Without that moral backing there'd be little chance of the same change happening in the South.

Up until the 1840's, there were entire sects teaching this in the South. Methodism, for example, was anti-slavery, and the church split in 1844 over the issue. Likewise with other sects; the Southern Baptists separated from mainstream Baptists in 1844 as well. Presbyterians were usually anti-slavery in the South until about 1840 or so; Roman Catholics (especially in Louisiana and Maryland) were anti-slavery throughout. My point is that up to the early 1840's, anti-slavery congregations were plentiful in the South, and that means that there was an established social acceptance, which changed for social and economic reasons, not moral ones. (There were both anti- and pro-slavery congregations after that, in the South, of many denominations.) Some congregations continued these teachings through the war.

I have to say that Reconstruction was a good start; the fact that it was defeated was what brought legitimacy to the social acceptance of racism, and perpetuated the very problems the war should have been enough to solve.

Robear wrote:
Forgive me for repeating something from earlier in the thread, but it's simple: they found it far more profitable to run plantations in their colonies with technically 'free' people of color in Africa and elsewhere than in Europe. A lot more rubber plants in the Congo than in Brussels, just like it's way easier to grow cotton in Texas--and India--than in London.

And this is exactly the system which was established under the Jim Crow laws,

It isn't--Separate But Equal was no walk in the park, but it is better than Apartheid especially on a pragmatic level. Maybe it's just my American ignorance, but I know of nothing comparable to, say, the Historically Black Colleges here in America in colonial Africa, and certainly nothing like the 14th Amendment that made the Civil Rights movement as we know it possible.

And better outcomes are possible, too.

Worse outcomes as well: imagine what a massive slave revolt would have done to the history of America, which leads to...

Up until the 1840's, there were entire sects teaching this in the South. Methodism, for example, was anti-slavery, and the church split in 1844 over the issue. Likewise with other sects; the Southern Baptists separated from mainstream Baptists in 1844 as well. Presbyterians were usually anti-slavery in the South until about 1840 or so; Roman Catholics (especially in Louisiana and Maryland) were anti-slavery throughout. My point is that up to the early 1840's, anti-slavery congregations were plentiful in the South, and that means that there was an established social acceptance, which changed for social and economic reasons, not moral ones. (There were both anti- and pro-slavery congregations after that, in the South, of many denominations.) Some congregations continued these teachings through the war.

Leaving aside how this argument skips over the changes that occurred in Christianity during the period of the "White Man's Burden" imagine this religious sentiment doesn't stay peaceful. Imagine Abolitionism turns more John Brown than Quaker. We've got people bombing abortion clinics today while the connection is drawn between slavery and abortion as it is: imagine an America where religion and rebellion and race get all mixed together.

I makes me wonder if part of the abortion controversy is part of the Lost Cause: a way of showing that white southern Christians are so 'redeemed'--or not in need of redemption in the first place--on the issue of human rights that they've gone past northern liberals on a social issue.

I feel the experience of the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic colonies is a good counter to this argument.
I have to say that Reconstruction was a good start; the fact that it was defeated was what brought legitimacy to the social acceptance of racism, and perpetuated the very problems the war should have been enough to solve.

The experience of the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic colonies is prior to the events that led to the Civil War, events that greatly changed the way society looked at race. I think the issue is you're not taking into account how much change occurred during the 19th century even apart from the Civil War and its effects. The world was well on its way towards legitimizing the social acceptance of racism Civil War or not--I can find no connection between the Civil War and Kipling (whatever his intention may have been in) writing the words "Half devil and half child" to describe colonial subjects.

I know the scenario is that the war was never fought. What I'm saying is that the South was willing to go to the mat over the issue of slavery in 1861 making it completely unfeasible to say they'd be willing to just give it up 20 years later.

We're talking at cross-purposes, because I'm explicitly assuming they were *not* willing to go to the mat, and going from there. Otherwise, the war would have been fought.

No, if the North wasn't willing to go to the mat there would be no war either--I think that's the scenario OG has in mind.

Robear wrote:

Quote:

Forgive me for repeating something from earlier in the thread, but it's simple: they found it far more profitable to run plantations in their colonies with technically 'free' people of color in Africa and elsewhere than in Europe. A lot more rubber plants in the Congo than in Brussels, just like it's way easier to grow cotton in Texas--and India--than in London.

And this is exactly the system which was established under the Jim Crow laws

It isn't--Separate But Equal was no walk in the park, but it is better than Apartheid especially on a pragmatic level. Maybe it's just my American ignorance, but I know of nothing comparable to, say, the Historically Black Colleges here in America in colonial Africa, and certainly nothing like the 14th Amendment that made the Civil Rights movement as we know it possible.

We weren't discussing apartheid. We were discussing the running of plantations with slaves, then with free people who were effectively slaves. In the US, that was sharecropping. That was the device which kept de facto slavery going, and indeed extended it to poor whites. In other words, the same economic factors applied, and the same "interim" solutions applied, on both sides of the Atlantic.

Quote:

Up until the 1840's, there were entire sects teaching this in the South. Methodism, for example, was anti-slavery, and the church split in 1844 over the issue. Likewise with other sects; the Southern Baptists separated from mainstream Baptists in 1844 as well. Presbyterians were usually anti-slavery in the South until about 1840 or so; Roman Catholics (especially in Louisiana and Maryland) were anti-slavery throughout. My point is that up to the early 1840's, anti-slavery congregations were plentiful in the South, and that means that there was an established social acceptance, which changed for social and economic reasons, not moral ones. (There were both anti- and pro-slavery congregations after that, in the South, of many denominations.) Some congregations continued these teachings through the war.

CP says:
Leaving aside how this argument skips over the changes that occurred in Christianity during the period of the "White Man's Burden" imagine this religious sentiment doesn't stay peaceful. Imagine Abolitionism turns more John Brown than Quaker. We've got people bombing abortion clinics today while the connection is drawn between slavery and abortion as it is: imagine an America where religion and rebellion and race get all mixed together.

As above, we're talking about different things. My thesis is that anti-slavery sentiment existed in the South for many decades, but was essentially shouted down for social and economic and eventually nationalist reasons, moving from an acceptable common sentiment which would have eventually become prevalent to a denigrated but still extant minority for a period leading up to the war. Given the right handling, that could have been maintained and revived, as it was in other countries with similar systems, and it could have been done by 1880, since it had been in the public consciousness since at least the 1770's.

Yes, things could have been worse, but I agree. My point is that there was ample opportunity for peaceful change, had the South decided to compromise with Lincoln and move forward.

I makes me wonder if part of the abortion controversy is part of the Lost Cause: a way of showing that white southern Christians are so 'redeemed'--or not in need of redemption in the first place--on the issue of human rights that they've gone past northern liberals on a social issue.

To me, it simply represents the tendency of social conservatives to dictate behavior and morality to others.

The experience of the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic colonies is prior to the events that led to the Civil War, events that greatly changed the way society looked at race. I think the issue is you're not taking into account how much change occurred during the 19th century even apart from the Civil War and its effects. The world was well on its way towards legitimizing the social acceptance of racism Civil War or not--I can find no connection between the Civil War and Kipling (whatever his intention may have been in) writing the words "Half devil and half child" to describe colonial subjects.

The entire abolitionist movement in dozens of countries stands in opposition. Also, the social acceptance of racism is not slavery, and no one claims that when slavery went, social acceptance had to follow necessarily from it. That's a false equivalency and not really relevant here.

No, if the North wasn't willing to go to the mat there would be no war either--I think that's the scenario OG has in mind.

Considering the North had attempted strenuously to find a compromise acceptable to the South since before Lincoln's inauguration, I'd have to say that they did not "go to the mat". They did everything they could to avoid war short of simply ceding control of Federal territory, which of course would have set an intolerable precedent. (Even that principle, though, was dropped in the last few weeks before South Carolina opened the war, as the Union handed over forts in Florida and elsewhere in a desperate attempt to prevent attacks, while holding on to more defensible ones.) The idea that the North stubbornly refused compromise is propaganda. Even Lincoln's Inaugural speech and others which followed lay out compromises, pretty much everything short of actually splitting the Union. (Compromise would indeed have been viable until Virginia came out against it, which was something of a surprise and a deadly blow to the idea of Union.)

Robear wrote:

We weren't discussing apartheid.

Well I don't know how we can compare the situations if we don't.

We were discussing the running of plantations with slaves, then with free people who were effectively slaves. In the US, that was sharecropping. That was the device which kept de facto slavery going, and indeed extended it to poor whites. In other words, the same economic factors applied, and the same "interim" solutions applied, on both sides of the Atlantic.

But that's not true--like I said, I find no analog of stuff like Historically Black Colleges or the Reconstruction Amendments on the eastern side of the Atlantic.

Leaving aside how this argument skips over the changes that occurred in Christianity during the period of the "White Man's Burden" imagine this religious sentiment doesn't stay peaceful. Imagine Abolitionism turns more John Brown than Quaker. We've got people bombing abortion clinics today while the connection is drawn between slavery and abortion as it is: imagine an America where religion and rebellion and race get all mixed together.

As above, we're talking about different things. My thesis is that anti-slavery sentiment existed in the South for many decades, but was essentially shouted down for social and economic and eventually nationalist reasons,

I know--I'm giving you an alternate thesis that I think is more plausible.

Given the right handling, that could have been maintained and revived, as it was in other countries with similar systems, and it could have been done by 1880, since it had been in the public consciousness since at least the 1770's.

But it wasn't: Christianity by the 1880s was tied up in ideas of colonialism in a way it was not in the 1770s in those countries.

The entire abolitionist movement in dozens of countries stands in opposition.

Are any of those countries comparable in terms of the number of slaves they contained or the existence of natural resources tied up in industrialization in those countries?

Also, the social acceptance of racism is not slavery, and no one claims that when slavery went, social acceptance had to follow necessarily from it. That's a false equivalency and not really relevant here.

You wrote: I have to say that Reconstruction was a good start; the fact that it was defeated was what brought legitimacy to the social acceptance of racism which is what I was responding to.

No, if the North wasn't willing to go to the mat there would be no war either--I think that's the scenario OG has in mind.

Considering the North had attempted strenuously to find a compromise acceptable to the South since before Lincoln's inauguration, I'd have to say that they did not "go to the mat". They did everything they could to avoid war short of simply ceding control of Federal territory, which of course would have set an intolerable precedent.

Well then, that's a different argument over whether it was a tolerable or intolerable precedent. I think OG (and others in this thread) was operating on the premise that it was tolerable, so your disagreement would be over that fact, not the one you were talking about.

edit: In fact giving what you wrote another reading, when you say: "My point is that there was ample opportunity for peaceful change, had the South decided to compromise with Lincoln and move forward" I think most people including the OP are working on the assumption that it's not the South that compromises, so, your disagreements might be due to you having a differing premise.

Aetius wrote:

I think OG_Slinger has the right of it. However, it should be noted that such an outcome must be balanced against the millions of dead, disfigured, and refugee Americans that were the casualties of the Civil War, as well as the terrible destruction that was inflicted on the South by Grant and Sherman. As bad as OG_Slinger's outcome might have been, it simply pales in comparison to the Civil War and the terrible legacy it left behind.

Eh, Japan got nuked by us and they recovered. Not to minimize the death and suffering, but there's no reason there should be a legacy of Grant and Sherman. One of Lincoln's other actions during those years was to sign the Pacific Railway Act, that led to the transcontinental railroad. It's not like Grant and Sherman destroyed irreplaceable infrastructure: the latter half of the 19th century is a period of modernization.

I think we confuse the effects of economic stagnation in the South following the Civil War--for whatever reason--with this idea of their being a legacy of the Civil War itself.

+++++

Thinking about the original post and America being 'divided': so today I'm flipping through the channels, and I see a soccer game, and there's a British Union Jack hanging next to the flag of St. George's Cross. One of the topics on my mind with these recent threads in P&C is history, especially getting too blinkered in one's view of it.

Well, are the divisions in America all that unique so that we have to go looking for unique causes like the Civil War? Czechoslovakia split in the Velvet Divorce; the UK has devolved power to Scotland and I think even Wales to some degree; Spain has issues with both Basque separatists and even the Catalan state; the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia broke up into many different countries; Macedonia is a country for the first time since...Alexander the Great?; Canada of course has the issue of Quebec, and carved out a new territory called Nunavut; edit: OH! I almost forgot the big one: Belgium has been in a Flemish/French crisis for three years now.

So maybe American divisions aren't in need of as much explanation as we think? Maybe they are part of larger historical forces at work?

I think when people talk about the Founding Fathers, such as Dan Carlin in the OP, they forget about Alexander Hamilton. He was the one that wrote most of the Federalist papers. He was George Washington's most favored advisor during his two administrations.

Without Alexander Hamilton the USA would not be an economic powerhouse. He foresaw the industrial revolution for America, was a brilliant economist who read Adam Smith, and the first Treasury Secretary of the USA. I am reading his biography right now.

I have tried to personally distance myself from putting words into the Continental Congress' mouth. It is a bit like when Fred Phelps or Billy Graham mentioned what the Bible taught about homosexuals, evolution, etc. In truth, I find it does a grave disservice to selfishly take words and actions from historical figures to try and win points.

There was an atrocious and misleading Boston Globe article trying to prop up Biblical Creationism with quotes from Jefferson. Glen Beck seems to think Jefferson and Franklin were fundamentalist Christians. As mentioned, so called "state's rights" advocates entirely gloss over Adams, Hamilton, Madison. People who Female Doggo about "judicial activism" and who try to curtail judge's power forget about the essential checks and balances system developed.

For some of our problems the words and actions of those men are invaluable. But there are problems that we faced in the 19th, 20th, and 21st century that they could have never fathomed. Could Thomas Jefferson conceive that the US South was the supreme supplier of raw textile materials in the world? Would Ben Franklin have an opinion governing the aggression of Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor? How would Thomas Payne weight in on airline and bank bailouts?

KingGorilla wrote:

For some of our problems the words and actions of those men are invaluable. But there are problems that we faced in the 19th, 20th, and 21st century that they could have never fathomed. Could Thomas Jefferson conceive that the US South was the supreme supplier of raw textile materials in the world? Would Ben Franklin have an opinion governing the aggression of Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor? How would Thomas Payne weight in on airline and bank bailouts?

This is why I find the notion of pure constitutional interpretation laughable. Our world is not the world of the founding fathers and they envisioned a system that was flexible enough to roll with the changing times. I don't believe they intended for it to be a static, unyielding document.

edit: In fact giving what you wrote another reading, when you say: "My point is that there was ample opportunity for peaceful change, had the South decided to compromise with Lincoln and move forward" I think most people including the OP are working on the assumption that it's not the South that compromises, so, your disagreements might be due to you having a differing premise.

lol That's what I was trying to tell you, I posted it *because* it was a different premise. I'm not going to repost stuff that's already been presented.

Question: If you're for less involvement of the federal government and government in general in people's lives and activities, wouldn't that be a Conservative rather than a Liberal?