When would slavery in the Southern States have ended...

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When would Slavery have ended, had Lincoln not intervened?
By 1875 10%  10%  [ 5 ]
By 1900 14%  14%  [ 7 ]
By 1925 14%  14%  [ 7 ]
By 1950 4%  4%  [ 2 ]
By 1975 12%  12%  [ 6 ]
By 2000 2%  2%  [ 1 ]
By 2025 2%  2%  [ 1 ]
Never 26%  26%  [ 13 ]
Just show the results 16%  16%  [ 8 ]
Total votes : 50

Vigilans
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11 Jun 2012, 2:19 pm

Longshanks wrote:
Delphiki wrote:
Longshanks wrote:
ArrantPariah wrote:
....had either Lincoln not freed the slaves, or the South had won the war, or the Civil War not have been fought....

Some people seem to think that slavery would have ended of natural causes, within a generation of the Civil War (1890-1900, or thereabouts I guess).

At the time of the war, the Southerners didn't seem keen to free their slaves any time soon.


To begin with, the United States has never had a civil war. A civil war is defined as a war between 2 opposing factions for control of the same government (such as the War of the Roses or the Cromwellian Wars). This was not the case with the US. The southernstates were fighting to seperate from our government - and this it was a rebellion or seperatist's war. As for slavery, it would have died of natural causes by the late 1860's. Both Congress and the courts were gearing up to end it anyway. Roger B. Taney, the old fart that ruled on Dred Scott, along with his fellow old farts were "buying the farm". It was inevitable.

Longshanks

Okay it wasn't a civil war, What should he have said, a war between the states? Oh wait, it is always referred to as a civil war, what is the point in calling it a different name for no reason unless we are just trying to confuse people. For example pencil lead. Is it lead? no. Does that mean we should start calling it graphite? Not unless you want people to not know what you are talking about.


I guess having gone to law school, I'm a stickler for historical accuracy. I also obviously read a lot more than you do. But then again, I have always maintained that TV dulls the mind. I take it you watch more TV than read?

Longshanks


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11 Jun 2012, 2:39 pm

androbot2084 wrote:
The problem with emancipation is that the former slaves were left as landless peasants who had to resort to share cropping in order to eek out a living. The Jubilee laws not only address slave emancipation but incorporate land reform which if practiced in them U.S would have meant that every former slave can get 40 acres of land. Of course no slave ever got his 40 acres because the religious right teaches that this is communism.


I have sometimes felt that Southern Whites and Blacks resented northerners, for different reasons.

Whites: for freeing their slaves and eventually forcing Civil Rights down their throats.

Blacks: for not getting their 40 acres and a mule.



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11 Jun 2012, 4:32 pm

ArrantPariah wrote:
AngelRho wrote:

The problem of religion and slavery in the US stems from the competition between the Anglicans and the Baptists in the South. The Anglicans were mostly gentry (including slave-owners) while the Baptists were more "common." Back then the Baptists were predominantly abolitionists. Once slavery became a politicized issue, the Baptists made efforts to "steal" more Anglicans to grow their congregations. And that meant catering to slave-owners. So the Bible was re-interpreted so as to endorse slavery and that was preached as "the gospel truth." And that led to the first big split in the Baptist church. Of course, they should have read their Bibles a little more carefully.



Both sides used Biblically-formed arguments, either to support or to oppose emancipation.

Only recently have Southern Baptists sought to apologize for their roles in both slavery and discrimination:

http://www.sbc.net/resolutions/amresolution.asp?id=899

True, but better late than never.



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11 Jun 2012, 5:57 pm

AngelRho wrote:
ArrantPariah wrote:
AngelRho wrote:

The problem of religion and slavery in the US stems from the competition between the Anglicans and the Baptists in the South. The Anglicans were mostly gentry (including slave-owners) while the Baptists were more "common." Back then the Baptists were predominantly abolitionists. Once slavery became a politicized issue, the Baptists made efforts to "steal" more Anglicans to grow their congregations. And that meant catering to slave-owners. So the Bible was re-interpreted so as to endorse slavery and that was preached as "the gospel truth." And that led to the first big split in the Baptist church. Of course, they should have read their Bibles a little more carefully.



Both sides used Biblically-formed arguments, either to support or to oppose emancipation.

Only recently have Southern Baptists sought to apologize for their roles in both slavery and discrimination:

http://www.sbc.net/resolutions/amresolution.asp?id=899

True, but better late than never.


Well, they probably should have been on the side that was righteous from the beginning. 1995 makes them a bunch of Johnny-come-Latelies. This was long past the beginning of the time when segregationists and pro-slavery folks no longer had a leg to stand on. If anyone at the Southern Baptist Convention had argued that the SBC should still stand for segregation or slavery in 1995, then he probably wasn't going to be invited to anyone's house for a fried chicken dinner.

Maybe in 2095 they will be apologizing to homosexuals.



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11 Jun 2012, 5:58 pm

I always find it funny when people talk about slavery in America. Slavery in America lasted 300 years now the Irish where inslaved for 800 years now do the math. Who suffered more?



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11 Jun 2012, 6:54 pm

Joker wrote:
I always find it funny when people talk about slavery in America. Slavery in America lasted 300 years now the Irish where inslaved for 800 years now do the math. Who suffered more?


The enslavement of a people is considered far worse than the inslavement of one


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11 Jun 2012, 6:59 pm

More like sometime between 1875 and 1900 I guesstimate.
It was more than just an economic, technological, or feasibility issue but also of status.
In areas with very large numbers of slaves the white populace feared what might happen to society if all the sudden the slaves were freed and considered at least legally equal. That deep concern would have delayed freeing the slaves well enough past the 1860's I believe. A politician that valued his seat would probably want to avoid that issue all together.

In a way slavery didn't really end in 1865. As soon as the slaves were officially liberated the convict lease program started. The black population in southern prisons swelled as blacks were arrested and convicted on petty charges just to add them to the labor pool. This not only fed the need for cheap labor but had the added affect of spreading fear in the black communities.
These convicts were leased out to plantations, logging, and mining operations or wherever a paying client needed them and this lasted up until the 1930s in some states.
There were still chain gangs after that but (legally) not for the sole purpose of commercial use.



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11 Jun 2012, 6:59 pm

Vigilans wrote:
Joker wrote:
I always find it funny when people talk about slavery in America. Slavery in America lasted 300 years now the Irish where inslaved for 800 years now do the math. Who suffered more?


The enslavement of a people is considered far worse than the inslavement of one


The whole country was enslaved not one person.



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11 Jun 2012, 8:06 pm

Chevand wrote:
For the sake of this theoretical discussion, let's say the South won the Civil War, and the CSA was able to retain sovereignty from the United States. Barring any other unforeseen sudden political obstacles to slavery as an institution, it would seem most logical to me that the CSA would only revise its policies when technology had progressed far enough to render them obsolete. The Southern economy was ruled by cotton, and it was because of cotton that slavery was so inexorably ingrained into the culture. Mechanical cotton pickers were implemented practically in 1943. Assuming it might take several years for the cost of the machinery to be offset by the abilities of the machinery to harvest cotton faster than slave labour, I think it would be reasonable to assume that the bulk of harvesting work would be entrusted to machinery by the late 1950s or 1960s. Of course, that doesn't take into account domestic slavery-- but many of the mechanical conveniences we enjoy today began to surface between the 1930s and 1950s.

Let's assume now, also, just for the sake of argument, that the CSA's existence as a political entity didn't totally alter the outcome of the two World Wars. Specifically, let's assume that, despite the history of animus with its northern neighbor, the CSA would still be an Allied Power in WWII, along with the US, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union. The standard of living all across North America during the post-war period was at a high point, and the concept of the suburb exploded as soldiers returned home from the front and desired to live lives of luxury with their families. There was, even in the South, quite a shift away from an agrarian-dominated society. WWII also forced some important progressive changes of some longstanding social norms as regards to gender and race. White and black men alike were called up to join the war effort, and with the men off fighting, women were given industrial jobs. I realize (from a lifetime of personal experience) that the South is a very conservative region, and not exactly a paragon of progressivism, but all of this historical evidence about technological and cultural progress suggests to me that, by the 1950s, the institution of slavery would have eroded so much that it would no longer have a future as a widespread practice outside of a few isolated cases. There likely still would have been a Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and early 1960s, as African Americans returned home from Europe and the Pacific and realized they were being unfairly denied their equal rights to the post-war American dream-- though it may have either taken longer, or been several degrees more intense, if they had had to overcome a status quo of slavery at that time as well. But I believe the outcome would be much the same.

But of course, the caveat is that changing something as big as the outcome of the Civil War would very likely have much more drastic unforeseen consequences on subsequent history, so it's difficult to say with any certainty how exactly things would have progressed into the 20th Century.


I was thinking along these lines.
Many, including John Kenneth Galbraith, have said that the modern civil rights movement wouldnt have happened if mechanical cotton picking technology not been invented in the fourties.

So if emancipation hadnt happened in the civil war in 1860's it might well not have happened until the time when the Civil Rights movement actually did happen in the nineteen fiftties for the same reason.



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11 Jun 2012, 8:22 pm

The slaves came over under the stars and stripes not the confederate flag.



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11 Jun 2012, 10:20 pm

ArrantPariah wrote:
Well, they probably should have been on the side that was righteous from the beginning.

Well, at first we WERE. Baptists in the south, like I said, were trying to win over Anglicans; by attracting the gentry, they also got pro-slavery church leaders.

ArrantPariah wrote:
1995 makes them a bunch of Johnny-come-Latelies. This was long past the beginning of the time when segregationists and pro-slavery folks no longer had a leg to stand on.

Maybe. But you also have to take into account that the segregationists became even more entrenched in white Baptist churches during the Civil Rights era. Two things have to happen for change to become evident. First, you have to get enough church leaders willing to stand on principle rather than bending to political pressure. Second, you have to allow enough time to pass for at least two generations of hateful people to die out of the church. OK, so "hateful" might be a little harsh. My grandparents didn't, strictly speaking, harbor any hatred for black people--but they would say that black people have their place and we have ours. OK...so that's not entirely accurate either...they would have used the n-word instead of "black people." But hopefully you get my point. Once a generation passes where concepts like segregation and miscegenation are completely unheard of, it's easy to come forth as a unified body to denounce former sins. Even back in the 1980s there were still quite a few in SBC churches that remember those tumultuous times all too well. Even worse, they were taught by their parents that that's just how it was and how it should be. Coming forth against their behavior during Civil Rights early on might have been the better thing to do, but it also would have destroyed the unity of the church and made all the good that they DID do meaningless. All things considered, I think coming out in 1995 was taking a big risk for us. But also keep in mind that 1995 was a culmination of many, MANY years of SBC leaders discussing and praying about the matter.

ArrantPariah wrote:
If anyone at the Southern Baptist Convention had argued that the SBC should still stand for segregation or slavery in 1995, then he probably wasn't going to be invited to anyone's house for a fried chicken dinner.

I was a senior in high school back in '95 and was nowhere near the Convention that year. I hadn't planned on attending, but neither did I ever plan on attending LifeWay conferences at Ridgecrest, North Carolina until someone gave me the money to do it. So maybe I'll go one of these days. You're probably right, though. However, you know good and well there were likely some older guys there foaming at the mouth over the issue. Many of those people are too old and too few to matter these days. Give it another 15-20 years and you won't even recognize the place.

ArrantPariah wrote:
Maybe in 2095 they will be apologizing to homosexuals.

Not likely. lol It's gonna depend on what they're apologizing for. The thing about slavery is that it's not condoned by the Bible, but neither is it entirely expressly condemned. As I've said before, there are conditions under which involuntary servitude is preferable. Homosexuality has no redeemable qualities expressed by the Bible.



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11 Jun 2012, 11:28 pm

AngelRho wrote:
Not likely. lol It's gonna depend on what they're apologizing for. The thing about slavery is that it's not condoned by the Bible, but neither is it entirely expressly condemned. As I've said before, there are conditions under which involuntary servitude is preferable. Homosexuality has no redeemable qualities expressed by the Bible.

Someone could come out of the blue and say that the explicit bits about homosexuals are metaphors. Or they could say that "Love thy neighbour" is more important. What the book actually says is secondary when determining how it will be interpreted.

Joker wrote:
Vigilans wrote:
Joker wrote:
I always find it funny when people talk about slavery in America. Slavery in America lasted 300 years now the Irish where inslaved for 800 years now do the math. Who suffered more?


The enslavement of a people is considered far worse than the inslavement of one


The whole country was enslaved not one person.

A whole country under "slavery" is a metaphor; a single person, a reality. The Irish lived under an oppressive rule under the English, but the Irish were not all individually mistreated like the Black slaves were. I don't know much about Ireland, but what happened was probably just about dispossessing landlords and putting Scots and English instead, raising taxes, forcing English as a language and persecuting religious dissidents, with the occasionnal ethnic cleansing or massacre here and there. This is certainly not a good thing, but in no way compares to the life conditions of slaves in the Americas, which were all individually beaten, individually oppressed, individually forced to work, and whose families and communities were all individually dispersed.



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12 Jun 2012, 4:20 am

Don't know if this point has been brought up yet, but one reason why slavery was not about to die due to its costly, backward nature was the fact that it provided slave holders social status. The more slaves you owned, the higher up the south's social totem pole you would get. And this social status in the south back in those days shouldn't by any means be underestimated.
When William Tecumseh Sherman had asked a newly freed, elderly slave why so many poor southerners had fought for the Confederacy when they didn't even own slaves, the old man had answered that the white southern poor were told that with victory, they could own slaves, too.
Kinda reminds me of the modern conservative "promise" to poorer Americans that if they just vote Republican, and give "job creators" another tax break, then they (under class Americans) too can be rich.
Wasn't going to happen with a Confederate victory, and it isn't going to happen now.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer



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12 Jun 2012, 6:41 am

AngelRho wrote:
ArrantPariah wrote:
Well, they probably should have been on the side that was righteous from the beginning.

Well, at first we WERE.


In what alternate universe was this?


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12 Jun 2012, 7:36 am

Kraichgauer wrote:
Don't know if this point has been brought up yet, but one reason why slavery was not about to die due to its costly, backward nature was the fact that it provided slave holders social status. The more slaves you owned, the higher up the south's social totem pole you would get. And this social status in the south back in those days shouldn't by any means be underestimated.
When William Tecumseh Sherman had asked a newly freed, elderly slave why so many poor southerners had fought for the Confederacy when they didn't even own slaves, the old man had answered that the white southern poor were told that with victory, they could own slaves, too.
Kinda reminds me of the modern conservative "promise" to poorer Americans that if they just vote Republican, and give "job creators" another tax break, then they (under class Americans) too can be rich.
Wasn't going to happen with a Confederate victory, and it isn't going to happen now.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer


:roll:
NOTHING makes me more eager to vote straight Republican ticket this November than YOU.



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12 Jun 2012, 7:57 am

auntblabby wrote:


Interesting documentary.

With the end of Reconstruction, slavery did return to the South, with absolutely brutal force. However, instead of individuals specifically owning slaves, the system was being managed by the state governments and courts, through the prison systems.

Reconstruction briefly interrupted slavery, but it did not end by any means.

While eating their fried chicken on Sunday afternoon after church, White folks could say: "Those aren't slaves. Those are convicts. They are getting what they deserve." And they would feel fully satisfied with themselves.

Back in the days of slavery, though, maybe it was better to own a few house slaves. You could always make some money by selling off the children. Rather than the subsequent system, where you had to pay a house servant, and she could leave if she wanted, and you couldn't necessarily hunt her down and kill her.

The convicts, though, could be hunted down and killed. Slavery had become much less democratic after Reconstruction. Being run by the government, it could be termed a Socialist system, but one which only benefited those wealthy enough to pay the wardens.