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Look, ya'll. I can't see fairness in blaming a farming society for being farmers!
Even if they (planter) did intice railroad magnets and canal builders to build what big industries would have taken advantage of it? Who would have worked the industries?
The reason that the industries of the South were the scale they were is becasue that is all the South could support.
It has nothing to do with the planters and choices they made. It has to do with the poor South. The underpopulated South. Might could be hanged on the Politicians.
Lastly, As far as readiness for the war was concerned - readiness to execute the anaconda plan - the North wasn't ready either. If they were ready, they'd have moved on it!
But I'm not blaming that on the industrialists - Just the Federal Army, oh and the Presidents leading up the the ACW. Oh, and the politicians.
Texas2nd
First of all, I don't think anyone has "blamed" the South for not having a better industrial base. All that has been done is to point out why they didn't have one, and it was largely a matter of choice as to how they wanted to develop their area of the country to be. That said, they are responsible for their own decisions.
As to readiness, it appears to me the North wasn't ready for the Anaconda Plan, the Civil War, and secession because Northerners had never seriously considered having such events actually take place and took no steps to prevent or prepare for them. We can "blame" them for lack of foresight in understanding their brothers would strike at them if you like.
But there was a sizable group in the South that had worked earnestly for many years (decades for some, such as Rhett, who had been working for secession from the 1820s on) to bring all this about. Perhaps they thought secession would not mean war -- but that makes them pretty naive and foolish in their contingency planning, for which we should "blame" them. If they seriously saw war as a result of secession, then their lack of preparation makes me shudder, and I "blame" them for their own actions.
By 1860, we can find evidence that some Southern states are preparing to at least a limited degree. Still more naiveness is evident. Even after secession, with Fts. Pickens and Sumter besieged, in 1861, the Governor of Mississippi is astonished when Jefferson Davis (then commander of the state Militia) tells him he should be spending every penny he can lay hands on to prepare for war. We can certainly "blame" those who rushed to thrust their people into the furnace of war without taking stock and making preparations.
Here's the real objection I have with "their choices". Prior to the ACW the South was part of the United States - or was the South really seperate but unequal?
Texas2nd, I believe the South was more different as opposed to equal or unequal. The Confederate army was, by the way, kicking northern butt until they ran out of support and manpower. Obvious conclusion: not ready for war. Moral of that story: A good politican and a good attorney, if there is such a thing, should suffer the same fate, as often as possible. Thousands of fine men were drawn into a national brawl, men who hadn't started the fight, but saw a need for action against the foe.
__________________ Ancestors in US Army: 13th TN Cav; 10th TN Cav; 3rd NC Inf
Ancestors in CSA Army: 48th VA; 63rd VA, 5th NC Cav; 37th NC
Wife and Grandson's CSA: 15th AL, 51st GA, 41st TN; 36th TN; GA Mil 1197 Dist
Instructions to the Confederate Envoy James Mason from the Confederate Secretary of State, R.M.T. Hunter, February, 1862.
..."We wage no war of conquest. We do not seek to take from any man anything that is his. We are fighting for our soil, our freedom, our right of self-government."
"....No treaty of peace can be accepted which does not secure the independence of the Confederate States, including Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, the States south of them, and the territories of New Mexico and Arizona."
******
Even by mid-1862, it was apparent that the Confederacy could not hold all the 13 states represented in its battleflag. Even the great victories at Fredricksburg and Chancellorsville, never brought back any of the lost counties of Virginia, west of the Allegheny Mountains.
Many of the Confederate war aims were already lost, permanently, by mid-1862.
West Virginia had the same problem with Virginia that Tennessee had with North Carolina. The capital was geographically nearly unreachable and the distance was far too great with no roads or airplanes. Distance from Memphis to Raleigh is still about 800 miles. West Virginia was simply too rugged to be worth the effort to Richmond.
__________________ Ancestors in US Army: 13th TN Cav; 10th TN Cav; 3rd NC Inf
Ancestors in CSA Army: 48th VA; 63rd VA, 5th NC Cav; 37th NC
Wife and Grandson's CSA: 15th AL, 51st GA, 41st TN; 36th TN; GA Mil 1197 Dist
Here's the real objection I have with "their choices". Prior to the ACW the South was part of the United States - or was the South really seperate but unequal?
You lost me here. Southerners decided to invest their capital and effort in one way. Northerners decided to do it in another. Those choices were made by those people. Naturally, there were effects from the choices they made, because the choices selected caused the effects.
West Virginia had the same problem with Virginia that Tennessee had with North Carolina. The capital was geographically nearly unreachable and the distance was far too great with no roads or airplanes. Distance from Memphis to Raleigh is still about 800 miles. West Virginia was simply too rugged to be worth the effort to Richmond.
Which is why WV ended up more closely tied to Pittsburgh and the Ohio Valley than to Richmond and the Tidewater. Their social interaction and economics went that way -- which is why WV counties tended to support the Morrill Tariff that so many claim was a cause of the Civil War, because they identified more closely with Pittsburgh iron-and-steel industry and the northwest farmers who wanted the Morrill Tariff on wool.
Just as an example, even from Harpers Ferry on the Potomac (an eastern part of what is now WV), the best way to get from there to Richmond was to take the B&O RR East to Baltimore, then a steamer south on the Chesapeake to the James River. Going the overland route within VA took much longer.
Trice, Originally posted by Trice :You lost me here. Southerners decided to invest their capital and effort in one way. Northerners decided to do it in another. Those choices were made by those people. Naturally, there were effects from the choices they made, because the choices selected caused the effects.
The readiness or not of the South and North for the ACW are due to intricately woven, complex historical and political changes, which included industrialization, urbanization, constitutional interpretation, and sectionalism.
Slavery was advanced by technological progress. Most can agree on that. Choices for the South were not really there. Who do you think bought slave-powered cotton?
The choices of the South were limited where they were not limited for the North. The South did not enjoy the diversity of industry by whose choice?
Speech Cotton is King, March 4th 1858 - " No you dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dares to make war upon it. Cotton is King" Using the Panic of '57 as a basis Senator James Hammond of S.C. remainds the North that the South saved Northern speculators by selling the cotton then for 65 million to the North instead of the 100 milliion it would have brought overseas. "35 million we Southerners have put into the charity box for your magnificant financiers, your "cotton lords", your merchant princes".
Margaret Mitchell said it best about the South and their inadequate industry. As I recall Rhett Butler exclaiming -- You have your cotton, your slaves and your arrogance.
The Confederacy paid a heavy price for 'King Cotton' , a king that could defend no state the Confederacy wanted to retain.
The Confederacy wanted to control Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, western Virginia, Maryland and the United States territory of New Mexico.
The Confederacy came up short on logistics, early in the war, losing control of any chance for these territories.
Fredricksburg and Chancellorsville were never going to get back the above land mass.
The readiness or not of the South and North for the ACW are due to intricately woven, complex historical and political changes, which included industrialization, urbanization, constitutional interpretation, and sectionalism.
I am not sure what you are trying to say here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Texas2nd
Slavery was advanced by technological progress. Most can agree on that.
Other than the invention of the cotton gin (which was so easy to duplicate that Eli Whitney was virtually distraught trying to enforce his patent: Southerners simply ripped him off), what "technological progress" advanced slavery in your opinion?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Texas2nd
Choices for the South were not really there. Who do you think bought slave-powered cotton?
Since the South produced about 85% of the world's cotton supply and the US only consumed about 18.5% of the world supply, my guess is that Europeans were buying some 75% of what the South produced. Is that what you are referring to?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Texas2nd
The choices of the South were limited where they were not limited for the North. The South did not enjoy the diversity of industry by whose choice?
What limited them? Northerners imposed no limits. Benefits passed by Congress were available to all the states -- and Southerners were very adept at taking advantage of them in the early days of the country. Henry Clay of Kentucky was the one who developed the "American system" of log-rolling public funding for projects (you vote for my pork, I'll vote for your pork.)
To cite one typical project, somehow a naval yard was built in Memphis TN: 800 miles up the Mississippi, totally unwanted by the US Navy, and inaccessable by deep-sea vessels. Why? So that TN-KY-MO could get "their share" of Federal funding, and so that hemp producers in that area could sell their product to the government (their hemp was inferior in quality to what the Navy was buying cheaper elsewhere, but they had votes in Congress to swap). There was only one Navy officer who favored the project: a Lieutenant named Mallory, who became an important part of the Confederate Navy 20 years or so later. So a million dollars or so went down the tubes in the 1840s, the yard was never completed (except for the "rope walk" to buy that hemp), and was closed down after a few years.
Southerners were perfectly willing to spend Federal money on tasks that benefitted them, and to insist on building Federal facilities that were constant money losers in their territory (try to find a reason for the Federal Mint in Charlotte, NC that the Confederates took over in 1861, for example). At least the equally useless (in 1861) US Mint in Dahlonega, GA could say it got started in the gold rush there 25 years earlier.
Or take note of the many-years-long survey of the Mississippi River that was just completing in 1861 to recommend flood-control actions, a project largely to the benefit of Southerners.
Southerners were like everyone else. They liked Federal projects that benefitted them, and were outraged by ones that benefitted someone else. Other than that, there were no "limitations" upon them --and, in fact, when the nation started, it was Southerners who generally had the wealth, and Charleston, SC that was the richest, most "cultured" city, often regarded as a miniature London.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Texas2nd
Speech Cotton is King, March 4th 1858 - " No you dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dares to make war upon it. Cotton is King" Using the Panic of '57 as a basis Senator James Hammond of S.C. remainds the North that the South saved Northern speculators by selling the cotton then for 65 million to the North instead of the 100 milliion it would have brought overseas. "35 million we Southerners have put into the charity box for your magnificant financiers, your "cotton lords", your merchant princes".
First, let's be clear who we are talking about here: James Hammond was low-life scum. Someone should have challenged him to a duel and shot him, his former friend Wade Hampton II being the most likely candidate. He, however, apparently decided not to challenge the man to a duel (or to simply show up and beat him to death, which would have been more appropriate) in order to spare the reputation of his four daughters. It apparently didn't work and the gossip must have gotten around, since none of the four ever married -- a highly unusual event for the daughters of what was probably the richest man in the South. We know about this mess, and others, such as the sexual relationship he had with his teenage daughter by a slave woman -- who herself was a teenager when Hammond began with her -- because this complete and total jerk kept diaries about his sexual adventures and fantasies and passed them down to us.
Second, this speech is an example of two things:
a) "King Cotton" arrogance and
b) the equivalent of "fun with numbers" on the part of James Hammond. The South did not give away cotton to Northern merchants in 1857. They did not give them a discount to the market price. All that happened is that there was a financial disaster in the US in 1857, demand for cotton dropped and prices with it because the nation was in a recession.
As to the accuracy of James Hammond's 1858 speech, the record of the Civil War shows that he was completely and totally wrong about the importance of "King Cotton", no matter how much he trumpeted it. Here's the rest of that paragraph you are quoting from, with the part you omitted in blue italics:
===== But if there were no other reason why we should never have war, would any sane nation make war on cotton? Without firing a gun, without drawing a sword, should they make war on us we could bring the whole world to our feet. The South is perfectly competent to go on, one, two, or three years without planting a seed of cotton. I believe that if she was to plant but half her cotton, for three years to come, it would be an immense advantage to her. I am not so sure but that after three years' entire abstinence she would come out stronger than ever she was before, and better prepared to enter afresh upon her great career of enterprise. What would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years? I will not stop to depict what every one can imagine, but this is certain: England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her, save the South. No, you dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dares to make war upon it. Cotton is king. Until lately the Bank of England was king; but she tried to put her screws as usual, the fall before last, upon the cotton crop, and was utterly vanquished. The last power has been conquered. Who can doubt, that has looked at recent events, that cotton is supreme? When the abuse of credit had destroyed credit and annihilated confidence; when thousands of the strongest commercial houses in the world were coming down, and hundreds of millions of dollars of supposed property evaporating in thin air; when you came to a dead lock, and revolutions were threatened, what brought you up? Fortunately for you it was the commencement of the cotton season, and we have poured in upon you one million six hundred thousand bales of cotton just at the crisis to save you from destruction. That cotton, but for the bursting of your speculative bubbles in the North, which produced the whole of this convulsion, would have brought us $100,000,000. We have sold it for $65,000,000 and saved you. Thirty-five million dollars we, the slaveholders of the South, have put into the charity box for your magnificent financiers, your "cotton lords," your "merchant princes."
==========
On the importance of "King Cotton", he was absolutely wrong, as shown by four years of the American Civil War and the reaction of the Europeans he derided. On this supposed $35 million dollars of "charity", he was simply delusional and had no clue as to how economics works if he truly believed the nonsense he is spouting here.
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