Slavery, would it have died out in the US without the war?

[creed]

I believe that slavery would have died out, however, I do not believe that we would have Civil Rights as we do today. Blacks would be free but would probably be second-class citizens

[rbenne]

To quote from the reference you provided (http://eh.net/bookreviews/library/weiss.shtml)

"9. Slaves were exploited in the sense that part of the income which they produced was expropriated by their owners. However, the rate of expropriation was much lower than has generally been presumed. Over the course of his lifetime, the typical slave field hand received about 90 percent of the income he produced. "


and this is the main reason I believe slavery was on the way out as a system. Bottom line is, and has always been, money

A slave spent 90% of his time working "for himself" and 10% for the master.

A sharecropper was usually 50% for himself and 50% for the landowner.

The sharecropper system was already beginning to replace slavery in many areas and would have totally replaced slavery, as it eventually did, with or without the war.

Attitudes, etc. don’t stand up to strong economic incentives.

[johan_steele]

Mr Benne... I've got to take issue w/ the idea that attitudes don't stand up to strong economic incentives... How would you explain the extent of the Jim Crow issues or even racism in general? White on Black, Black on white, Black on Asian etc racism is still an annoying issue throughout the US. I know economic incentives have had no effect in stamping it out.

I'm also not certain about the 90% for himself point... I noted it when I read the article and still can't quite come to grips w/ that number. I just can't see a slave receiving 90% of his labors. Theoretically a slave owner provided clothing, shelter & food... often little enough of all of the above. The only way I can see the 90% number being realistic is refrencing tradesman and house servents... ie those who didn't labor the long hours in the fields. That's just my two bits worth.

[jsj7547]

I think there is no question slavery would have died out. Even Before the war slavery is becoming a crippling economic problem in the northern southern states. Such as Virgina . Slavery was actually a very expensive endeavor. Slavery was on its way out anyway before the cotton gin was invented by a northern business man. One thinks of slavery as free labor, but it is far from free. Slaves were not cheap. Slaves who were starving were no good. Slaves had to have a place to live. They had to have food. Even in the off seasons. In the northern southern states they had very short grow seasons. many sit around and think of the slave toiling in the Fields, which he did some of the time, but in reality they had long down periods of doing nothing. The owner still had to feed and house these slaves during the winter months. Therefore the slaves were actually costing them money. You can see this in Virgina the most clearly as many Land owners were in debt and what you refer to as Land poor. In other words outside of owning land and slaves they didn't have a penny to their names. But all that aside with the invention of machines the slave would have been obsolete. Why buy a hundred slaves house and feed them when one machine can do all the work ten times cheaper. The issue of slavery clouding the civil war has been very successful as the North Hoped it would. It has made everyone ignore the facts of why the war was really fought. We can go all the way back to the founding of this nation to see some early problems. One example has become known in history as the Dinner party. Madison And Hamilton had been arguing over the debt after the war. Hamilton believed the debt should be consolidated into one federal Debt. instead of individual state debts on top of the federal. Of course this makes since right? Unless you take into consideration the southern states had paid their debt. Madison Did not see why Virgina after paying her own debt off should now have to pay the Broke Northern States Debts off. It is very clear Hamilton was moving to force the Southern States To pay off the Northern States Debt and at the same time corner the commerce in the north as the dominant power. considering New York Was the Capital at the time. Jefferson settled this argument by getting Hamilton's Party to agree to move the Capital to a Neutral Site. Jefferson in the mind that if we could keep our eye on the government it would remain within its power, joke huh. Madison And Hamilton agree on these terms. In the end the southern states not only paid of their own debt but the Northern States Debts as well. We see the problems already brewing. To further drag themselves out of debt the north outlawed slavery, Slavery had been a bust in northern states. Their very short grow seasons had led them to a more industrial based economy. Slaves are not Worth their weight in a factory. Many Northern Slave Owners Sold their slaves to the south to help build the Less Developed Southern States. The North had no problem with slavery as long as the south paid the national debt off. We can see the Hypocrisy of the north getting rich of an institution that history now shows they opposed. but to the main point. No it was not necessary to kill 700thousand Americans destroy the Republic, and leave the South In ruins to free slaves, but thats not why the war was fought anyway. Thanks

[unionblue]

Joshua,

Then the contention that slavery was a profitable institution and that Southern slave owners, particularly the big plantation owners, had no intention of giving up slavery is not one that you agree with?

From what I gather from you post you are stating slavery was a smoke screen and the real reason for the war was the federal debt? I wish to make sure I understand before I reply in detail.

I would like to leave you with some thoughts from the book, "Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery."

1. The purchase of a slave during that time was generally seen as a highly profitable investment which yielded rates of return that compared favorably with the most outstanding investment opportunities in manufacturing.

2. Slavery was not unprofitable. Quite the contrary; as the Civil War approached, slavery as an economic system was never stronger and the trend was toward further entrenchment and expansion. The system was far from dying out or being a burden to the slave owner, at least the major ones of the big plantations.

3. Slaveowners were not becoming pessimistic about the future of their 'peculiar institution' during the decade that preceded the Civil War. The rise of the secessionist movement coincided with a wave of optimism. On the eve of the Civil War, slaveholders anticipated an era of unprecedented prosperity. And remember, the Panic of '57 had little or no impact on the South leaving many of its leaders to bragg about how much better the system of slavery was compared to the wage earning system of the North.

4. Per information and statistics from the book, slave agriculture was not inefficient compared with free agriculture. Economies of large-scale operation, effective management, and intensive utilization of labor and capital made southern slave agriculture 35% more efficient than the northern system of family farming.

5. Far from being a burden to the South, the slave-driven economy of the antebellum South grew quite rapidly. Between 1840 and 1860, per capita income increased more rapidly in the south than in the rest of the nation. By 1860 the south attained a level of per capita income which was high by the standards of the time.

While what you say is true that the North had pretty much sold their slaves south or gotten rid of slavery, this does not mean the south did not use them or they were a burden to the south.

It simply means that large, central run style plantations were not the norm in the North and the style of agriculture was different from the plantations, therefore not slavery intensive. The climate of the South could make it easier for large slave-run plantations to exist for such labor intensive crops as sugar, cotton, tobacco, indigo and such.

As for the idea the slaves were costing their masters money, true as far as it goes. When reading about what slaves ate, had to wear and where they had to live and how long they worked each day, these factors more than make up the expense of clothing, food and shelter.

I think also if you do a bit of searching and research, you will find that Virginia was making its money by the sale of slaves to the lower South as a form of taking up the slack with farming problems in the state.

I am anxious to see your reply to my observations and await your response along with others on this board.

Respectfully,
Unionblue

[jsj7547]

Well. I dont disagree with what you say, and i never said that slavery was a burden on all the south. Only The Northern SLave States. Your deep south states On the sugar plantations were a different story. Yes it is true Virgina was selling the slaves further South. Because Virgina Was not well off economically. Their Soil Was dead from over use. As i said many were land poor. They sold off the slaves to solve some of the debt problem. They Also Rented Their Slaves out to northern Factories and Farmers . Your comment that the amount of work the slaves did each day made up for the overhead is incorrect. Cotton does not grow all year round. Sugar does not grow all year round. The slaves would spend Quite a few months out of the year doing nothing. This is a factor you have to consider. Slaves sitting around doing nothing in the winter months are not producing you profit. Even Robert E Lee when he inherited the slaves from his father in law comments on this. The fact is the slaves did not work 365 days a year. Now the situation on the deep southern Sugar plantation are different story, but none the less they did not work all year round. This is a myth. Unlike an employee who you dont pay off the clock. The slaves in the down months or off seasons still had to be cared for. This is where they lose money. The question was would slavery had faded out without the war?, and the answer is yes. Machines can pick an entire Sugar Cane crop in a matter of hours at half the price a hundred slave hands could do it. I in no way defended the institution of slavery. But to say the entire South or the states that would become the confederacy were getting rich of slavery is not true. Certainly the slave traders made tons of money. And no the war was not fought over debt but money. If anyone was getting rich off the peculiar institution it was the Government. And the Northern States. South Carolina And Alabama Alone were paying 50 percent of the national debt. Though they paid this amount in taxes Very Little of the revenue found its way back south. The north had no problem with getting rich off slavery. Union Pacific Railroad was paid for with Southern Tax revenue. Most of the federal Buildings that were being built in DC were being paid for from southern Tax revenue. The Forts Built after 1812 being paid for through Southern Tax revenue, Including fort Sumter. So if anyone was getting rich off slavery it was the north. The statistics shown the amount of revenue being taken from the south through terr ifs and taxation all the slaves states combined in the south were paying almost 70 percent of the entire national debt. Now Mind you i say Southern Slave States, because States not part of the confederacy owned slaves, and Linicolns emancipation did not free these slaves. in Fact it went out of its way not to free these slaves. North did not care about the slaves as long as the south paid the terrifs. it is Hypocrisy to point the finger at the south and blame the south for slavery when the North Profited off it just as much if not more than the south did, and its also laughable to me that the government and the Rich Northern Investors started a war to end this profit. So Perhaps that clears it up. perhaps not. thanks

[johan_steele]

Joshua... having lived in SC and Mississippi and grown up on a farm in the upper Midwest I can assure you that there is PLENTY of work to be done year around on an agricultural endeavor. I think the average large plantaion had around 300 slaves on several thousand acres. Subtract a number for house slaves, skilled artisans and others... perhaps 20% from the total. The rest would be used to weed & clear fields, cut firewood, maintain the outbuildings... I could go on and on but the premise that slaves spent the majority or even much of their time on their backside is not well founded by reality. Those slaves that weren't needed at the moment were often rented out to those who did need them.

As to the use of the Cotton Gin and other machines... it was invented in 1797 IIRC and was in widespread use w/in twenty years. In the following forty years prior to the CW cotton production increased dramatically as you would expect, so did the size of plantations and the number of slaves working them. In other words machines such as the cotton gin simply made work more efficient and profitable... slaves still planted cared for and harvested the cotton crop by hand. I would say 1920 or so brought the first mass produced tractors into use... 60 years after the CW. I can only see the tractor in any way making inroads into Slave Labor... Even then who will drive the tractor? Who will maintain it? Who will load the wagons etc.

I've recently read a reference to a slave artisan that was rented out to an arms factory during the CW... he made his master 40 times his purchase price in the coarse of the War. I don't know about you but that sounds like a sound financial investment.

There is ample evidence that slaves worked long hours and were paid NOTHING... so what if you give the field hands a couple days off? It lets them rest and increases their efficiency. Artisans often were allowed to keep a poportion of their labor and they might, after 20 years or so, earn enough to buy themselves free.

A slave owner provides a roof... it doesn't take much of a roof to house someone in the Carolinas, feed them (collard greens, mustard greens, fatback & several other Southern dishes were all refuse that slaves found out you could eat.) Finally clothe them... judging from the volume of pictures available of slaves they were NOT well clothed. The fanciest clothing be hand me downs from the masters family to the house slaves.

Now in modern money (in SC) this equates to a tin shack, salvation army clothing at best and dumpster diving at the local Food Lion. You can build a 100 x 300 steel building for well under $100,000. HVAC isn't needed, maybe a few fans if the master is feeling generous. Add a couple outhouses and a kitchen to feed them... even today slavery would still be profitable if a slaveowner were willing to treat his property like cattle.

Now, there were decent slave owners, not all were dirtbags. But even those saw the majority of their slaves melt into the countryside when the news of freedom arrived.

Slavery had died in the North because of a variety of reasons, industrialization a smaller agricultural and a different immigration mix. 1st generation Germans,Swedes and Swiss were far less understanding of slavery than you might expect.

Blaming the war on Tarriffs has been beat to death... there is another thread refrencing it where you'll find ample support and opposition to the theory that the CW was about tariffs.

The six states that started the Confederacy were slave states where the money and influence was controlled by very wealthy Slave owners. Other states were dragged into the CSA by the wealthy & influential slave owners dragging their state out of the Union kicking and screaming. Several states were less than enthusiastic about Seccession over slavery... those individuals who protested were often violently silenced by the CSA. As to those states that stayed nominally neutral they were simply saying "my names Bennet & I ain't in it!"

As to who was getting rich off of tax revenue? Oh boy that has nothing to do w/ whether Slavery would have ended w/out the CW and is bound to start the ole fires burning.

Incidently the War ended the Southern competition w/ the Union Pacific... the foreign investors made a run for the hills w/ Secession.

As to all the forts built after 1812 being built w/ Southern $... maybe, I don't know. THe question is where were those forts? In the South, protecting the South. I would think that was $ going back to the South.

As to who started it? Who fired on Ft Sumter? IIRC it was an old man from Sumter SC...

[jac]

I don't think I buy the idea that there is a lot of down time on a farm. I know some farmers, and how hard they work, year around....I am WAY too lazy to be a farmer.
Once the initial investment was made on a slave, the slave would be housed in a house or shack built with local materials- have the slave cut the wood to make the house, etc.- labor of the slave, but no further investment. The slave would eat food that he and other slaves raised on the plantation- again, no investment except the slaves' labor.
A lot of plantation owners became very well off from the plantation/slave labor economic model, or else they would have done something else.
I believe the Union Pacific railroad was a post CW development, so I don't believe it was a factor. There had been a lot of talk about transcontinental RR's before the war, but no real effort until after the war, to the best of my knowledge. Stephen Ambrose has a book out about building the transcontinental RR, that is quite interesting.( wish I could recall the title of it).
BTW, a fair number of ex CSA soldiers were involved in the building of the Union Pacific.
In the era immediately after the War of 1812, there were many forts built along the east coast, north and south. To my knowledge, they were financed from Federal tax revenue- in other words, from taxes raised in both the north and the south.

[unionblue]

Joshua,

You make some interesting points and I appreciate you clarifying some others, such as your statement that slavery was not a burden on all of the slave states, just those slave states in the upper south (Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Maryland, etc.).

But I still think you have a long way to go to prove that slavery was unprofitable. At the time of the 1860's, slaves were selling for $1,200 to $1,500 ( a prime field hand, in good health, more if the slave was a skilled artisian) and there was some agitation to reopen the African slave trade to get more slave labor right before the war. Doesn't sound too unprofitable to me in that light.

And wasn't Virginia growing other types of cash crops to replace cotton? Tobacco for instance? And that is a labor-intensive (slave labor) crop, requiring many hands and a centralized operation (plantations) to make it work at a profit. True, Virginia was branching out to other types of industries that were not slave-related and even supported a tariff to protect its new industries, but the profit in slavery had not gone away, just off the farm and into the breeding and selling of slaves to the deep south.

My fellow board members, Jank & Shane, have also made some excellent observations on the loss of money and 365 day a year work idea. I too, have read that slaves were very busy, when not picking cotton or working in the fields. Roads, buildings and wells were repaired and many other projects and jobs were attended to and the matter that some slaves were rented out to neighbors and small industries were common during that time.

While I agree with you that not everyone was getting rich off of slavery, slavery was the driving force in the South as everyone's life revolved around that institution. And remember, the most successful members of Southern society were the large, rich plantation owners, the men who owned numerous slaves, were looked upon as the ideal, the top of the economic and social ladder.

The fact of the matter is the slave was not 'off the clock' at any time. While in some regions, weather or growing seasons may have limited the work in the fields, there was much else to do and other ways to make money off the slave, to include your statement that they were hired out to town to work at other projects and industries.

My contention is the institution was viable, profitable and in no way were those men who made such a huge profit off of it were going to let it go. While other countries had ended slavery through legislation and the buying of slaves from masters as a form of compensation, the South could not do it, because of the money involved and the social implications of ridding itself of slavery.

I am certain that slavery, in one form or another, would have lasted well into the 20th century, if not beyond, with blacks performing menial jobs as fruit-pickers, truck farming, trash collectors and any other dirty job that whites would have considered beneath them. and that long-established custom, would have forced them into those jobs.

For in my opinion, its not the jobs, but the attitudes of the system/institution that would have remained the most firmly entrenched if slavery had not been abolished and destroyed by the Civil War.

I realize that you are not defending the institution of slavery, but I think the historical record is pretty clear that the South left the Union over slavery, not tariffs, not debts, nor even railroads. I would very much like to know where you get the idea that the Federal government was getting rich off of slavery and where you get your facts that South Carolina and Alabama were paying 50% of the national debt. Do you mean 50% of the tariff rates? I am curious to know your source of information on these ideas.

Just my .02@ worth, Joshua. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,
Unionblue

Neil,
I am just posting to let you know I am lurking and following this thread with interest. I would like to contribute. But somehow I do not think when asked for sources on why I believe slavery would have ended peacefully AND that the level of equality would be better than it is, even now....that it is fact because "I said so" would not hold up under Neil's scrutiny. I wish I felt better, this is a topic actually know something about lol...a rarity.

I will say this. The slaves in the south got far more respect and comradery before the war than after. The fact the Reconstructionist used them as voting tools to further crush the south really breed hatred.

Also I have studied the institution of slavery throughout history in GREAT depth. From Sumeria, to Sparta, To Rome, The Gauls, The Chinese, To Japan, To Persia, To the Turks, to Moorish Spain, to the slave trade instituted by Europe to help survive after the black plague (which is the beginning of the US slave trade btw)

In all of them. Every one but Sparta. Slavery was gradually diminished. And when it did, former slaves were gradually indoctrinated into the host culture. And in time prospered equally.

I think the south was well on that road when the north buggered it up.

Sorry I am not listing sources etc....but remember...Cause I said so.....grin

I will try to contribute. Patience please....but I'm here lurking...always...I love you guys and gals (where is Thea?)love to read your thoughts as well as the thoughts of others you present.

YMOS
tommy

(Message edited by aphillbilly on September 10, 2003)