Quote :

"and FYI, I've got a fucking clue to the history of the Civil War, I was a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans myself. I've got archive records of my great-great-grand who served in the Confederacy's 36th Artillery Regiment NC Troops out of Beaufort NC, under Col William Lamb. I've been to reenactments. Ive documented all their battles including the failed battle for Fort Fisher and the subsequent fighting retreat back to Salisbury."

Oh, excuse me. What I should have said is that you have no fucking clue as to the history of the build-up to the Civil War. You've watched reenacted battles and your great fag-uncle fought as a Confederate. That does not mean you know shit about the lead-up. The reason everyone only talks about slavery is because the winners dictate how history is written. Lincoln didn't free the slaves because he was an abolitionist. He wasn't. Lincoln freed them because it was a way of trying to steal the ranks of the Confederacy, whom had many blacks (free and otherwise) fighting in its army.

1/30/2007 10:47:44 AM

^^This is very true. Winners do get to tell there side of history. The Civil War was not just about slavery. In fact if you want to know who should get credit along side of Lincoln then its Harriet Beecher Stowe. Lincoln said to Stowe when he first met her "So this is the little lady who made this big war." Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin help light the fire of slavery as a issue so that the north could gain support to fight the South. The north had to do alot of work to win the war because in convetional war without assistance the north would have lost if it hadn't gained some support in the south.

1/30/2007 11:17:07 AM

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any wars that started for just one or even a couple of reasons. Massive undertakings like those come out of a complex set of circumstances.

So yes, tariffs and other issues were at play, probably more largely than they get credit for the education system; and no, we didn't fight it for the purpose of ending slavery. But to deny that it was a major reason for the conflict is just intellectually dishonest.

Quote :

"why were all union-supporing counties/states exempt from the emancipation proclamation?"

Because in either event the Union wasn't going to get to free any slaves if it lost the war. This necessitated appeasing areas that were tentatively on its side.

Quote :

"What I have never heard argued satsfactorily is the Union's justification and motivation for invasion of the South."

Well I think he also saw the writing on the walls, namely that the South was going to stop listening to Washington and break away. Not many leaders (or the people they lead) would be OK with a huge chunk of their country deciding to leave, for obvious reasons. So, since it was inevitable at that point that they were going to try to leave and, as a result, that there would be a fight, I don't think it's so unreasonable that Lincoln played things to his advantage by getting the South to fire the first shot of a war he was sure was coming.

Quote :

"slavery was ending with or without the war "

You are taking the most superficial conceivable view of the matter. The fact that slavery was ending is one of the biggest causes of the war -- as JCASH explained (very lucidly, I thought), the obvious erosion of the institution of slavery meant that the Southern elites were losing power. Other factors played into that sentiment as well.

1/30/2007 12:50:18 PM

What we can be sure of is that it certainly wasn't about a state's right to leave the union.

1/30/2007 12:58:56 PM

Quote :

"joe_schmoe, if the war was about freeing the slaves then why were all union-supporing counties/states exempt from the emancipation proclamation?"

i never said that the *north* went to war to fight for the slaves freedom. anyone who says that is wrong. The north went to war to keep the south from seceding.

i said the SOUTH pushed for SECESSION due to the singular most important issue, Slavery, the institution was being forced by abolitionists to be outlawed in the western states as they joined the union, thus outnumbering the slave states in Congress.

sure there were other issues, and the whole thing was packaged under states' rights to sell it to the common man who didnt have any interest in the slave economy. But make no mistake, it was slavery that drove the southern push for secession.

1/30/2007 1:16:26 PM

Quote :

"bgmims: You've watched reenacted battles and your great fag-uncle fought as a Confederate"

brilliant argumentation.

and it would be my great-fag-grandfather. not uncle.

get it straight.






[Edited on January 30, 2007 at 1:22 PM. Reason : ]

1/30/2007 1:17:59 PM

in short, the south hated america. god damn terrorists.

1/30/2007 1:18:01 PM

Quote :

"slavery was ending with or without the war sometimes I wonder if some of you people even believe the shit you say on here"

bullfuckingshit. the mines in the west were becoming a spot for slavery.

1/30/2007 1:27:02 PM

with or without the war, slavery was going to end no mater what...

it was not economically viable anymore


thats what I am saying, fighting over just slavery was pointless


ok, black slave labor was over in the south for agricultural purposes

still didn't stop the rich people from using the irish or chinese

[Edited on January 30, 2007 at 1:27 PM. Reason : better??]

[Edited on January 30, 2007 at 1:28 PM. Reason : .]

1/30/2007 1:27:12 PM

Quote :

"it was not economically viable anymore"

How the hell does free labor lose economic viability?

1/30/2007 1:28:46 PM

wasn't exactly free


I guess the "ownership" part slipped your mind

or do you think that slaves just appeared on your farm and started working without food, clothing, shelter, water, guards etc


jesus christ I feel stupid for having to explain that to someone

1/30/2007 1:31:43 PM

^^The Southern economy was depressed by tariffs that heavily protected Northern industry over Southern agriculture. I can only assume that is what he was getting at.

1/30/2007 1:41:44 PM

slaves were thrown into the copper mines of Utah, etc. slavery was not dying.

1/30/2007 1:43:00 PM

In some ways, the current situation in Iraq has some parallels from which we can gain perspective. Within the "power class", if I can use that term, a stabilized and American controlled Iraq no doubt would be a boon to Bush's oil buddies and Cheney's Halliburton friends. For these reasons they drummed up a national need for war. Wrapped in the cloak of fighting the terrorist threat (slavery) and sheer patriotism (unionism), and in many ways a crusader mentality, they spun public opinion in favor of invading a foreign country that, while they disagreed with them, may or may not have posed a threat to their safety all things considered.

On the opposite side, Islamic fundamentalists (secesh fire-eaters) drummed up a sensationalism that the Yankees (Yankees) were here to rape all the women and burn all their houses. People flocked to the anti-American cause for various reasons such as Arab pride, independence and dignity, Islamic fundamentalism, or sheer profit. In many ways both Arabs and Southerner's saw their culture (in all its good and bad) being steamrolled by an uninvited foreign ideology.

Needless to say, my intent isn't to turn this into an Iraq debate nor to draw moral parallels between Arabs and Rebs, but it should be obvious that the motivations for war vary greatly from those who stand to gain the most (the power class) and those who stand to lose the most (Johnny Reb - or Joe Arab).

1/30/2007 1:49:00 PM

Quote :

"Perhaps, but his kind of honor placed doing whats right over what is profitable or even human life. While in a sedinatary, materalistic world we find that quaint if not downright backwards, it is precisely that concept of "ideals above self" that motivated the founding of these United States."

Yes, I agree with that statement. The civil war period marked the point in which American values began to turn away from those ideals I reckon.

1/30/2007 2:43:40 PM

Quote :

"How the hell does free labor lose economic viability?"

If the discounted present value of the wage rate falls below the market price of slaves then it is no longer profitable to buy them. This will cause the price to fall.

Much of the profit from having slaves as capital is that they produce more slaves. However, if the market price of a slave falls low enough then that value is gone.

At this point the question is whether or not it is cheaper essentially to own your own labor or to outsource it from free indivduals. Because of monitoring costs and scale adjustments it can be cheaper to outsource.

This is a long winded way of saying that a low enough wage rate implies that slavery is more expensive that hiring workers. This is similar to the fact that it is cheaper for many businesses to lease their space rather than buying it.

As an economist I would say that with cheap labor, it is better not to have a slave because you are not in the human maintance business you are in the cotton growing business. You should outsource your human maintance to indivdual owner/workers.


....


In some sense you can think of freeing a slave as spinning off a subsidary. You no longer get the profit from that subsidary but you are also no longer responsible for the costs. There are times when this is profitable.


[Edited on January 30, 2007 at 3:42 PM. Reason : foo]

1/30/2007 3:38:07 PM

Whatever. There's no way wages could drop below the cost of owning slaves. They were fed at a sustenance level, and the only extra capital required was some shacks and a whip.

1/30/2007 3:55:24 PM

^^Good points. Along those lines, the Northern industrial economy of the era relied heavily on what was for all practical purposes an unlimited supply of low-skilled labor. Labor conditions were deplorable, because the growing population in Northeastern cities (largely due to immigration) meant that if an employee became maimed, broken down, or otherwise unproductive, there were always multiple people to take their place at little cost. Since labor involved no capital investment, there was little incentive to improve the working conditions or longevity of employees.

^You missed the point. The slaves were the capital.

[Edited on January 30, 2007 at 4:02 PM. Reason : .]

1/30/2007 3:58:21 PM

Quote :

"Much of the profit from having slaves as capital is that they produce more slaves. However, if the market price of a slave falls low enough then that value is gone."

Yes, and the wage rate could drop so low that we'd begin replacing automated machinery with people, but that doesn't mean it's likely to happen. It's not very likely that wages would fall below the price of slave upkeep (note it's their upkeep, not just the market price, as it's similar to automated machinery).

Quote :

"At this point the question is whether or not it is cheaper essentially to own your own labor or to outsource it from free indivduals. Because of monitoring costs and scale adjustments it can be cheaper to outsource."

It could, but it is extremely unlikely that it would always be. You're looking at them as a separate kind of labor that you could dump or pick up at will, they're more like machinery, as they depreciate, must be replaced, as well as other associated sunk costs similar to installation (housing, etc). Also like machinery, there is an associated upkeep cost as well as positions that must be filled to oversee them. It's not very likely that slaves or machinery would work themselves out of a market due to the cost advantage they have over wage labor.

Quote :

"As an economist I would say that with cheap labor, it is better not to have a slave because you are not in the human maintenance business you are in the cotton growing business. You should outsource your human maintenance to individual owner/workers."

Ford isn't in the robot maintenance business, but they still do it, because it lowers cost. Surely if they wanted, someone would probably lease them these robots, but they own them and upkeep their equipment because it costs them less.

You're arguing a 'what if the sky fell' scenario, wage rate simply would never drop that low.

[Edited on January 30, 2007 at 4:42 PM. Reason : ]

1/30/2007 4:41:31 PM

The question of slavery is not really relevant to the fact that the North was wrong. You may hold the South in complete contempt and, though I disagree, you can think whatever you want.

The issue is whether the Union is voluntary.

If Lincoln really believed in government of the people, by the people, and for the people, he would not invade and subdue a people that wished only for peace and self-government. The South did not want a war. The North forced it on them.

We can debate whether the secession was warranted or justifiable by the south. That's all fine and good. But that's not the point. The point is what nation are we?

The Forcedly United States of America...or the Voluntarily United States of America.

Hate the South's cause all you like, but that does not justify invasion and occupation.

A question settled by force is a question unsettled forever.

1/30/2007 4:53:45 PM

I just wanted everyone to know that North Carolina was the last state to join the confederacy, but it gave the most men, resources, and money to the war effort.

This is one of the many facts that illustrates why North Carolina is the greatest state in the USA.

[Edited on January 30, 2007 at 5:49 PM. Reason : ]

1/30/2007 5:47:55 PM

^ Bridget, does the fact that NC was the southern state who gave the most amount of Union Soldiers to fight the Confederacy fit into your picture of NC=GreatestState ?

1/30/2007 6:31:38 PM

Quote :

"You're arguing a 'what if the sky fell' scenario, wage rate simply would never drop that low. "

I am not so sure. The United States was experiencing enromous immigration at the time. This was causing the wage rate to collapse.

When the US was discovered, land was still a significant contributer to productivity. The US represented lots of undeveloped land and so the demand for workers was high, this prompted slavery and indentured servitude to get more workers.

As the Irish and other poured in at the in the 1830s the supply of labor increased and the wage fell. There are reports that the living condition among Irish Americans in the 1840s was below that of slaves in the deep south.

Now would slavery have been gone within the next 40 - 50 years without a war? I don't know but it is not an absurd notion.

Quote :

"You're looking at them as a separate kind of labor that you could dump or pick up at will, they're more like machinery, as they depreciate, must be replaced, as well as other associated sunk costs similar to installation (housing, etc). Also like machinery, there is an associated upkeep cost as well as positions that must be filled to oversee them."

Actually I am thinking of them exactly as fixed capital. Machinery has a cost advantage because with a limited amount of labor and increasing productivity rates, wages on average will rise over time.

However, if the supply of labor increases faster than the demand wages will fall and you can have a reversal. This often happens when manufactering is moved overseas. A larger global market basically means a greater supply of labor.

Employers close highly mechanized shops in the US and open low tech shops in the third world because with cheaper labor is better to go low tech.

[Edited on January 30, 2007 at 7:14 PM. Reason : more]

1/30/2007 7:05:38 PM

Quote :

"slaves were thrown into the copper mines of Utah, etc. slavery was not dying."

what the hell does that have to do with slavery in the south, which WAS a dying thing with or without the war

^^ we get it, you hate this state, you moved away from it but still come here and talk shit about it..... whoopdee fuckin doo

1/30/2007 7:08:35 PM

Quote :

"^^ we get it, you hate this state, you moved away from it but still come here and talk shit about it..... whoopdee fuckin doo"

Yeah, first let him remind you he moved to Seattle.... and to get away from people like you

I wonder how many times he's brought it up.

[Edited on January 30, 2007 at 7:30 PM. Reason : :]

1/30/2007 7:29:45 PM

Quote :

"Now would slavery have been gone within the next 40 - 50 years without a war? I don't know but it is not an absurd notion."

Yes it is an absurd notion, you're suggesting that people would work for less than the most meager of wages. Slaves barely survived in those conditions, even if there were people who would take those jobs (which there never would), they would be dying off from starvation and terrible working conditions. What you are suggesting is just as absurd, if not moreso, than the idea that wages would get so low that we would begin to replace modern day automated machinery with manual laborers.

Quote :

"Employers close highly mechanized shops in the US and open low tech shops in the third world because with cheaper labor is better to go low tech."

This has happened in a few industries, but slavery, just like machinery, would never be replaced in certain others. You don't see car manufacturers moving to low tech as well as many more industries, the comparative advantage of technology is too great, in the same way, slave labor would never be replaced in certain other industries.

1/30/2007 7:57:59 PM

you don't get it

maybe if you had a clue about something other than communism you would


but you don't

sometimes things come along and replace other things

kinda like how the assembly line is now mostly automated as opposed to 30 years ago

1/30/2007 8:10:50 PM

haha

you don't even understand what side of this arguement I've taken

how cute.

1/30/2007 8:22:03 PM

I'm not that concerned with your position

you imply however, that it was somehow economically sound to continue with slavery


and you're wrong

[Edited on January 30, 2007 at 8:26 PM. Reason : are you gonna be e-cool and "pwn" me, because thats all the rage now]

1/30/2007 8:24:55 PM

More than 125,000 men from North Carolina served in the Confederate Army. The state also had as many as 15,000 black and white troops in Federal (Union) regiments.
http://www.classbrain.com/artstate/publish/printer_NC_civil_war_facts.shtml

NC didn't supply as many troops to the Union army as it did for the southern army. most of the troops that fought for the union were from northern counties of the state.

North Carolina was a confederate state mainly because the north forced the issue. Just like The north sent troops to Maryland to prevent it from succeding too.

1/30/2007 8:32:41 PM

I didn't say they supplied more Union troops than Confederate troops; I said that they supplied more Union troops than any other Confederate state

1/30/2007 8:40:07 PM

Quote :

"Don't do this. Don't try and act like you know all about the civil war since I called you out for clearly being wrong. You clearly didn't know the south had a draft, and you can note that I never said the north didn't. They obviously must have, as most northerners didn't want to fight a war agianst slavery."

Feel free to re-post where I stated southerners were libertarian heroes.

I studied nothing but the Civil War for three months in a history class from a North Carolina-based viewpoint. I most definitely knew the South had a draft.

1/30/2007 8:47:45 PM

Quote :

"you don't get it maybe if you had a clue about something other than communism you would but you don't sometimes things come along and replace other things kinda like how the assembly line is now mostly automated as opposed to 30 years ago"

you missed his point. slavery wouldn't have ended. sure it would have ended in areas where machinery and such took over from the worker, but in other areas where it is impossible to automate everything it would have persisted.

1/30/2007 9:05:48 PM

lol the rampant silliness in this thread really makes me concerned about our public school system :x

1/30/2007 9:14:27 PM

^.

1/30/2007 9:15:13 PM

Quote :

"^ Bridget, does the fact that NC was the southern state who gave the most amount of Union Soldiers to fight the Confederacy fit into your picture of NC=GreatestState ?"

Absolutely. I had family fightin on both sides. Dishonorably even, in that one ancestor repeatedly lost (read: sold) his equipment. We have a copy of the notice he got for how much he owed. The government just doesn't get it...we do what we want down here in NC.

[Edited on January 30, 2007 at 10:16 PM. Reason : ^^It's fun to be silly!]

1/30/2007 10:15:06 PM

Quote :

"you missed his point. slavery wouldn't have ended. sure it would have ended in areas where machinery and such took over from the worker, but in other areas where it is impossible to automate everything it would have persisted."

slavery in the south was ending no matter what

what you are talking about has no bearing on this subject at all

1/30/2007 10:46:16 PM

Quote :

"the War of Northern Aggression"

oh you mean the one where that army preemptively attacked Fort Sumter?

yeah, guess what...

1/30/2007 11:25:27 PM

Quote :

"we get it, you hate this state, you moved away from it but still come here and talk shit about it"

yeh, you got me.

honestly, i have a love-hate relationship with NC. most of my family still lives there, we've got land that goes back for generations, there are the remains of slaves buried beside my ancestors in the middle of our old tobacco field. NC has beautiful areas and fascinating history.

sometimes i miss it, and want to move back. especially when i look at housing prices out here.

but goddammit theres a bunch of ignorant fucking rednecks that live there.

also, dont forget that, deep down inside, i'm really just another troll.

1/30/2007 11:40:16 PM

Quote :

"you imply however, that it was somehow economically sound to continue with slavery"

How would it not be? The price of wage labor would have to be equal to that of minimal upkeep of a slave for wage labor to surpass slave labor. If ethics played no part, most businesses would own their labor. It's morality that stops us from using slaves, not economic viability.

Quote :

"I studied nothing but the Civil War for three months in a history class from a North Carolina-based viewpoint. I most definitely knew the South had a draft."

Then why'd you ask what compelled these poor southerners to fight, if you knew it was the draft?

1/31/2007 1:17:34 AM

Quote :

"slavery in the south was ending no matter what what you are talking about has no bearing on this subject at all"

I wasn't just talking about that. Furthermore, with the constitution directly banning the african slave trade after a certain date, it became economically sound to go into the market of breeding slaves and sending them through the country because more couldn't be imported. On what basis do you make the argument that slavery would have ended in the south?

1/31/2007 3:29:48 AM

Quote :

"oh you mean the one where that army preemptively attacked Fort Sumter?"

Which was a response to the first Act of War - the North stationing troops without consent in another sovereign nation, the Confederacy.

One side repeatedly begged "All we want is to be left alone." The other side simply refused to accept the possibility of peace. Sumter was entirely an action of Confederate defense, not offense.

Quote :

"They no longer acknowledge that all government derives its validity from the consent of the governed. Theyare about to invade our peaceful homes, destroy our property, and inaugurate a servile insurrection, murder our men and dishonor our women. We propose no invasion of the North, no attack on them, and only ask to be left alone."

-- Major General Patrick Cleburne

Quote :

"We feel that our cause is just and holy; we protest solemnly in the face of mankind that we desire peace at any sacrifice save that of honour and independence; we ask no conquest, no aggrandizement, no concession of any kind from the States with which we were lately confederated; all we ask is to be let alone; that those who never held power over us shall not now attempt our subjugation by arms. "

-- President Jefferson Davis, 29 April, 1861

[Edited on January 31, 2007 at 4:37 AM. Reason : h]

1/31/2007 4:27:23 AM

Slavery would have ended, war or no war. It might have taken a few years longer, but it still would have ended. Can anyone at least concede to that?

1/31/2007 8:41:23 AM

i'll secede to that

1/31/2007 9:04:40 AM

jason and kris

why do you guys not get it?

the slave trade was over
slaves were becoming prohibitively expensive

you had to feed, shelter, dress, provide some type of care (because you don't want your slaves to die)and guard them to keep them from leaving

not to mention it's hard to get work done when someone really is only going to do the bare minimum to stay alive


combine that with the fact that agriculture was about to experience a major technological revolution and slavery was dying

our country has some really shitty history in it's past, some of our ancestors treated people horribly, but the civil war was not fought just over slavery... you can have revisionist PC liberal feel good history all you want, but slavery was dying in the south(and lincoln knew that also) and that was not the reason for the war

1/31/2007 9:22:30 AM

Quote :

"In what later came to be known as the Cornerstone Speech, C.S. Vice President Alexander Stephens, declared that the “cornerstone” of the new government "rest[ed] upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.""

1/31/2007 10:25:34 AM

Quote :

"combine that with the fact that agriculture was about to experience a major technological revolution and slavery was dying"

to be fair, that would increase the demand for slaves and not the contrary

1/31/2007 10:36:31 AM

no it wouldnt .

1/31/2007 10:41:25 AM

Alexander Stephens quotes are more or less useless as an "official" viewpoint of the Confederacy. He was a fringe political figure at odds with Jefferson Davis on many if not most issues, although he did have a significant amount of support among deep south governors.

1/31/2007 10:42:54 AM

what innovation is he talking about then?

1/31/2007 10:46:31 AM