Just to add to what Henry says, slavery was enormously profitable and no one in the South thought otherwise. Modern economic historians all agree this is true. On southern enthusiasm for slavery, consider the following:
1: No southern political lead in or out of Congress thought slavery was unprofitable or going away. On the contrary, they all said it was necessary. Go read Senator James Henry Hammond's "Cotton is King" speech. He goes on and on and on about how wonderful slavery was.
2: Southerners were agitating to reopen the slave trade to bring in more slaves; or to annex Cuba to gain the 200,000 or so slaves there. Far from ending slavery they wanted more slaves.,
3: The price of slaves was enormously high, which was part of the argument for opening the trade.
4: The richest people in the US were southern slaveowners. There were no billionaire industrialists in the North -- that would come 30 years later; but in 2012 dollars there were a number of billionaire southern slaveowners and many more who were hugely wealthy.
5: The states that leave the Union before April 1861 all assert they are leaving to protect slavery -- "the greatest material interest in the world" according to Mississippi -- here is the full statement:
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of
slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor
supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most
important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are
peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an
imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to
the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the
world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.
That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point
of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but
submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the
Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.
Or consider Texas's statement:
She was received as a commonwealth holding,
maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery--
the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a
relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness
by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all
future time.
----
Paul Finkelman
President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law
Albany Law School
80 New Scotland Avenue
Albany, NY 12208
518-445-3386 (p)
518-445-3363 (f)
[log in to unmask]
www.paulfinkelman.com
________________________________
From: Henry Wiencek <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Monday, May 7, 2012 10:10 AM
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] The Peculiar Institution's End Without The Intervention Of The Civil War
Lyle -- I think you're working from material that's way out of date.
The institution of slavery was performing beautifully and the
slaveholders had no intention of getting rid of it. I may have posted
this Fogel quote before, but I guess it bears repeating.
Henry Wiencek
From Robert Fogel, "The Slavery Debates, 1952-1990," P. 27:
"During the decade of the 1970s, the growing mountains of evidence
finally made it obvious that the profitability of slavery was
increasing, not declining, on the eve of the Civil War. Moreover, the
sharp rise in the purchase price of slaves relative to their rental
price meant that slave owners were never more confident about the
future of their system than they were during the last half of the
1850s. . . . Far from stagnating, the per capita income of the South
was growing faster between 1840 and 1860 than that of the North."
______________________________________
To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
______________________________________
To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
|
