"It is worth recalling that the people of every slave society in the New World save two--Haiti and the United States--managed to terminate this vile institution without immersing themselves in blood. "
I have never agreed with contemporary analysis of the Civil War or the making of Lincoln into some kind of great hero of American freedom. First let me state that estimates are now being revised to be that probably at least 750,000 Americans were killed in that war, millions more wounded and permanently disabled. Second, the presumption is routinely made that Southerners resisted freeing slaves because of their desire for racial superiority and free labor. This is far from the truth as evidenced by the fact that there were a number of black slave plantation owners in the south. In fact, less than 5% of southerners owned slaves, most of the slaves were owned by a few large corporate plantations. These are the guys who bought in chattel slavery and were pushing for slavery in the new territories for their own corporate expansion. These corporations included many northern investors, Wall Street bankers, and textile factory owners who were part of the industry. As to 'free labor', this is absurd as are most arguments as to slavery being free or cheap. Slaves were quite expensive to buy plus they had to be guaranteed the basics of life - food, clothing, shelter, and medical care. When these are compared to wages paid factory workers of the north, slavery was actually expensive. So why its perpetuation? Because of the way agrarian economics worked. When it is time for planting, owners borrow money to cover expenses until harvest and sale of the crops. In borrowing, one has to present financial statements including a b alance sheet showing their wealth which included a monetary value for slaves, assets owned. Freeing slaves would have involved write offs of those assets and a significant loss of wealth and borrowing power. So the European countries ended slavery by the government buying the slaves from their owners and then setting them free. This maintained the balance sheets and wealth of their owners. This was being discussed in DC and southerners were quite receptive to it. This in fact is how slaves in Washington DC were freed. If the war had been fought over slavery, then it is but shame to this country that war was the means. But in truth, freeing the slaves was nothing more than an end of the war so to give justification to what was otherwise a shameful disgrace and slaughter of innocents by the US federal government. Third, I would clarify an issue discussed in your article as to the Emancipation Proclamation and the Fugitive Slave Act. Lincoln's war of Northern Agression was never popular, even in the north. He could not get recruits for the military and ended up implementing a draft. The Fugitive Slave Act prevented him legally from enlisting escaped slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation solved that legal problem. He also thought that he would spur slave rebellions against their owners, causing more problems for them and more slaves would run to the north making them available for enlistement. On Sunday, February 12, 2017 at 8:34:15 AM UTC-6, MJ wrote: > > > May 1, 1997 > > *The Bloody Hinge of American History *By Robert Higgs > > 1 <http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1161> > -- -- Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "PoliticalForum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
