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

[unionblue]

Friends,

I have had it said to me on this board that slavery would have died out in the US if there had been no war. It was further stated that 'every other country had gotten rid of slavery by peaceful means' why couldn't the US have done the same?

Your thoughts on this subject?

Sincerely,
Unionblue

[johan_steele]

I don't think so... I did at one time but further reading and being exposed to more and more Lost Causers has firmly convinced me otherwise. The sheer stubborness and contraryness that is part of the American mindset would have made any such change quite difficult and likely violent. The economic crippling of the wealthiest and most influential Southerners would have added to the issue. Some plantations boasted 300+ slaves; at even a minimum value of $400 in 1860's currency that is a healthy investment. The destruction of such financial investments would have been fought tooth and nail.

As it was several SC plantation owners killed all of their slaves rather than let them go free... A peaceful destruction of American slavery was not an option unless some sort of massive and lengthy agricultural disaster had wrecked the cotton and tobacco industries.

Every other country has not eliminated slavery... it still exists in Asia and Africa. Not to mention the "white slavery" trade that is all too plentiful around the world.

If you look at just the Roman Empire (a nation as dependent if not more on slavery as the South) what did it take to remove slavery there? Romes collapse.

Slavery was an accepted concept, in places it still is. People have to see something as either moraly wrong or financially destructive to want it removed as an institution. The South, in general, did not want slavery removed. There were certainly places where the economy didn't permit slavery... I wonder why the majority of those were pro Union?

More of the "Lost Cause" mentality that is starting to irritate the beejesus out of me. Lost Cause = unwilling to change an opinion regardless or facts. And willing to alter facts to present their cause in the most positive light.

[hoosier]

I would tend to think that slavery would eventually have died out if there had been no war, although the war certainly hastened the process.

I think Shane makes a valid point. There is a tendency for people to be stubborn and contrary and resistant to change. I have little doubt that, if they had their druthers, many of the plantation owners would have wanted to continue operating just the way they always had.

Still, I find it hard to envision that, in 2003, the O'Haras (or Butlers, or whoever else Scarlett might eventually have married) would still be using the equivalent of Big Sam and his crew of handpickers to harvest the cotton crop at Tara.

Sooner or later, someone was going to invent technology to harvest cotton cheaper and more efficiently than a gang of slaves could do it. While the majority might have resisted the change at first, some innovative plantation owner would eventually have bought the machinery, and as soon as his neighbors realized how big of a competitive edge the innovator had gained over them, I expect they would have followed suit.

With the machinery doing the work that the slaves used to do, the slaveowners would have been faced with the choice of keeping an idle slave labor force around, retraining them all to perform other duties, or letting them go. My guess is that, eventually, they would have found letting them go to be the cheapest and easiest alternative.

(Message edited by Hoosier on September 05, 2003)

[johan_steele]

George you make a valid point about machines taking over the slaves job. I can see that happening to a degree w/ cotton... but you still have tobacco and all of the other agricultural as well as tasks that slaves were doing. Machinary was already lessening the field work slaves were engaged in but I don't see it eliminating it. My wifes grandmother remembers picking cotton by hand in the fields of SC as a child in the 1930's. That's 70 years after the war. As my Uncle owns a farm and all of my fathers generation were raised on a farm they can attest that if you have someone loafing around you can put them to productive work. There is always a roof that needs to be patched a barn to be cleaned, the list goes on and on. If that labor is free or you have labor to lend out or sell their labor to a neighbor...

There are places today w/ access to machinery that would eliminate slavery but the institution persists... North America is/was not the only place w/ Slavery. It irritates me that people even consider that Slavery was an American only institution. Thousands of Native Americans were shipped to Europe as slaves by the Portugese and Spaniards... a fact that those demanding reparations for slaves and slave descendents tend to forget or are altogether ignorant of. They also have a tendency to conveniently forget about white endentured servants.

Remember the monetary investment involved w/ just one Slave... you don't have to pay a slave. Feed, clothe and house them... very cheap labor. I firmly believe it would have taken an agricultural disaster of unheralded proportions to bring the institution of slavery to it's knees.

Remember, it was thought that eliminating the import of slaves would choke the slave trade... all it did was make those who owned slaves wealthier. I remember reading of the "slave breeders" and shudder at the memory.

Frankly the idea of slavery not being ended in the Civil War scares me. As it was in many ways it was ended in name only until the civil rights movement.

[unionblue]

George,

I tend to lean towards Shane's view on this one. From all that I have read and from the experiences from Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Black Codes and then the fierce opposition to Civil Rights in the 50'w & 60's, I am of the opinion slavery could very well have lasted in the United States into the 20th century and beyond.

And according to some sources, slavery was NOT an inefficient system at production, but was very good at producing cotton, sugar, and other cash crops.

My main contention is that those who owned slaves and made a profit by them, were in power and would not give up the institution for any reason. Your idea that machines would have come along and replaced the slaves I even have doubts of that. Who would run those machines in the fields? By long established tradition, slaves would. Why hire a driver when you don't have to?

I think many menial, labor intensive jobs would be traditionally reserved for slaves, even into the distant future. Tradition itself would demand it, profits gained at not paying your labor force would entrench it and seeing no wrong in the institution itself would cement it.

It is perception, not advancements in machines or labor-saving devices, that would keep slavery intact. Perceptions that it was an accepted part of society, 'a positive good' instead of an evil to be shunned or done away with.

Sincerely,
Unionblue

[unionblue]

Friends,

Have just stumbled over a book review on a work entitled, Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery," by Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman.

You can view the review of the book at this web site:

http://www.eh.net/bookreviews/library/weiss.html

The review of the book has quite a few surprises and conclusions but one I firmly believe in. The slavery system was not economically near death or about to die out on the eve of the Civil War. There is or was no evidence that economic forces alone would have brought slavery to an end without the necessity of a war or other form of political intervention. Quite the contrary; as the Civil War approached, slavery as an economic system was never stronger and the trend was toward even further entrenchment.

It is my contention that because of this success of the institution of slavery and that wealthy plantation owners felt threatened by Lincoln's election and the potential loss and restriction of slavery, these men and leaders of the South, led their states out of the Union. The idea that slavery was going to quietly fade from the scene is a false one and not based in fact.

I am ordering the book to read it for more information and to see the updates as listed in the review to see if that conclusion remains the same from when the book was first published in 1974.

Should make interesting reading.

Here are two other sites relating to the book and some counters to some of its claims.

The first site is a condensed outline with facts and comments on the economics of slavery.

http://voteview.uh.edu/topic6.htm

This site contains a critique of the book "Time on the Cross and some interesting historical diary entries of a plantation owner on the treatment of his slaves.

http://www2.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/slavery.htm

Sincerely,
Unionblue

(Message edited by Unionblue on September 06, 2003)

(Message edited by Unionblue on September 06, 2003)

(Message edited by Unionblue on September 06, 2003)

[johan_steele]

I Believe General Grant in his memoirs makes his opinion clear that the South was controlled by Slave holders. While I don't believe he felt that slavery was what cemented the Southern Cause during the war his post war reminisces seem to imply that. As a man who commanded the Union Army in the field and was later President of the United States I tend to side w/ him.

[jac]

I don't think slavery would have died a natural death.
Today, we have illegal immigrants doing agricultural work at pay rates most Americans will not accept. If slavery were still legal, might slaves not be doing that work?
Large scale cotton production WOULD have died out- as it did, because of the boll weevil.
Secondly, the political factor. The political structure of the south was dominated by men who were slave owners. They would not have given up the system that brought them great wealth voluntarily, and slavery was a very good economic system for concentrating wealth at the top.
The political factor may be more important than you'd think, because political favor in legislation can be a big help in keeping an economic system (good or bad) alive. Witness today, lobbyists hired by a company or industry lobbying for (and getting) tax breaks and favorable legislation for the industry they are lobbying for. And, campaign contributions supporting political candidates who favor those industries.
I think, absent the moral component that said slavery was wrong, pro slavery political components could have kept slavery alive, whether it was economically viable or not. Slavery might have evolved, but not disappeared.

[hoosier]

While on vacation last month, I had the opportunity to visit the Slater Mill in Pawtucket, RI. This was the first textile mill in the United States, opened in 1792. The textile mill, as well as the nearby machine shop and the house of one of the owners, have been restored and are open for tours by the public. While the site is not directly Civil War-related, I recommend it to any student of history who wants to visit the area.

During my tour, the point was emphasized over and over how many dangers the mill workers faced and how little concern was shown for their safety. The guys who worked in the machine shop, who faced the most dangerous conditions, were paid $12 per week, which was considered very good, compared to what the people who worked in the textile mill (who also faced numerous threats to their health and safety) were being paid. And if someone got sick or hurt, the company simply hired someone else to take their place.

We were also told that the mill workers lived in company housing, were required to do all their shopping at the company store, and were even obliged to attend worship at a company-approved church.

Technically, these workers were not slaves. But I came away with the impression that the company owned them every bit as securely as the plantation owners owned their slaves.

Of course, dangerous conditions were not unique to the textile industry. Upton Sinclair and other muckrakers of the early 20th century exposed the conditions in steel mills, the Chicago slaughterhouses, and other industries, and eventually reforms were achieved.

Had slavery still been in existence by the time those muckrakers started writing, I believe they could have thrown the peculiar institution into such an ill light that reforms would inevitably have come to the labor practices of the agricultural South, just as they did in the industrial North.

[ewc]

I concur with the estimations of my fellow posters. Slavery would eventually have disappeared, but not without convulsions that would have racked the country for generations. As it comes to us through history, the Civil Rights strife of out own time is a vestigial process from Civil War times, Reconstruction, and in fact, from our European origins- (i.e. the perception of superiority of racial type.)

The removal of slavery from our midst as a nation was swift and violent; the removal of the heritage of slavery has been slow and painful. An impoverished South, as well as the country at large, had after the tragic war to establish some way to structure societal order that was now shredded and that slavery had provided. No mean task. that generations passed and that the ripples are now (I trust) ebbed can hardly be wondered at.