Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
Would you care to answer my other questions that you have been ignoring?
I've looked in vain for questions that require response. I continue to believe that my characterizations of your positions were inferences fairly drawn from the statements you made. You disagree. Each reader is free to review the dialog between us and draw her own conclusions as to which of us is correct.
Although not a question, I will respond to one point you make. You deny that the South was "slavehungry." There is no doubt on this point. The price of slaves was at an all-time high, and some in the Southwest were, indeed, complaining about the shortage of slaves. One Austin, Texas paper estimated in 1858-59 "that Texas needed at least six million more Negroes." (Stampp, Peculiar Institution p. 274) The number was hyperbole (I hope!), but the point is clear.
As to why the South did not therefore reopen the slave trade. A combination of factors:
-- Reopening the slave trade would lower the price of slaves by increasing supply. This was of particular concerns to Virginia and other border areas that were gradually selling slaves to the deep south and west. The Confederacy understood that it could not afford to alienate its northern states.
-- Many southerners perceived that increasing the number of slaves would put white society at even greater risk than it already was, particularly in areas that were already heavily black.
-- As proponents of reopening the slave trade complained, reluctance to reopen the trade was a tacit admission that the slave trade was evil. Even southerners who professed that slavery was a positive good drew the line at the slave trade.
I've looked in vain for questions that require response. I continue to believe that my characterizations of your positions were inferences fairly drawn from the statements you made. You disagree. Each reader is free to review the dialog between us and draw her own conclusions as to which of us is correct.
It's not hard to find. It's post #262 in this thread that you ignored.
You claim your "characterizations" of my positions are correct regardless of what I say? I believe that is what you are saying, I just want to get this straight. You believe you know better than I do what I am saying and what I mean to say? Please, explain your position here. I really hate to jump to conclusions and claim I know you mean something that appears to be ridiculous.
As for readers forming an opinion...this is not a contest. We aren't putting on a show and there will be no blue ribbon. Nobody wins or loses.
Quote:
Originally Posted by elektratig
Although not a question, I will respond to one point you make. You deny that the South was "slavehungry." There is no doubt on this point. The price of slaves was at an all-time high, and some in the Southwest were, indeed, complaining about the shortage of slaves. One Austin, Texas paper estimated in 1858-59 "that Texas needed at least six million more Negroes." (Stampp, Peculiar Institution p. 274) The number was hyperbole (I hope!), but the point is clear.
In 1860 the population of Texas was little over 600,000 with 180,000 additional slaves, well under a million total population. I'll have to pass on Stampp or any other source that claims Texas was calling for 6,000,000 slaves. You claim the South was slavehungry, yet you don't deny the South had put a cap on slave imports. Well, it really can't be both ways.
Quote:
Originally Posted by elektratig
As to why the South did not therefore reopen the slave trade. A combination of factors:
-- Reopening the slave trade would lower the price of slaves by increasing supply. This was of particular concerns to Virginia and other border areas that were gradually selling slaves to the deep south and west. The Confederacy understood that it could not afford to alienate its northern states.
-- Many southerners perceived that increasing the number of slaves would put white society at even greater risk than it already was, particularly in areas that were already heavily black.
-- As proponents of reopening the slave trade complained, reluctance to reopen the trade was a tacit admission that the slave trade was evil. Even southerners who professed that slavery was a positive good drew the line at the slave trade.
So you admit the South had valid reasons not to reopen the slave trade, yet you still claim they were slavehungry. That makes little sense.
Regards,
Rose
__________________ "Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names".--J.F.K.
The War Between the States established... This principle that the Federal Government is, through its courts, this final judge of its own powers.
-- Woodrow Wilson
It is quite possible for slave states to be "slavehungry" and still not reopen the slave trade in their constitution. It's politics.
Virginia and Maryland had a surplus of slaves in that their ground devoted to cotton and tobacco was played out. Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina were approaching that point. Importation would have undercut the value of their "secondary" produce.
Europeans would certainly be reading the new constitution. It simply wouldn't do to announce to the world that the CSA was not only going to keep her slaves, but was going to replenish the supply.
The CSA constitution was open to amendment as soon as the CSA was victorious. (Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink.)
As to slavehungry, I'll leave it to elektratig to elaborate on his meaning. I will, however advance an opinion. Texas needing 6MM slaves was, as elektratip pointed out, probably hyperbole. On the other hand, at the rate Texas was growing, it's not too hard to extrapolate some impressive numbers.
Mississippi was a relatively new state. It was growing and had a lot of trees to clear -- more slaves needed. The cane plantations were hard on field hands. If the work didn't kill them, it broke them. Shorter working life, more slaves needed.
The newer south needed prime field hands. If you will accept that less than half those in bondage would qualify (maybe closer to 1/3 or 1/4), there was a demand. If, as you've insisted, a goodly number of benevolent owners wouldn't sell their good friends down the river or break up families to turn a profit on a prime hand, the number available is further reduced.
Hence, hungry, but politically realistic, at least when it came to border states and Europe.
Ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
Actually, slaves were being imported into the South for much of the 1800s, illegally. Slaves could be legally shipped from Africa to Cuba. Then smugglers would bring the slaves into slave state ports. I don't believe that slavers captured by the US Navy had much to fear from slave state juries.
Virginia and Maryland had a surplus of slaves in that their ground devoted to cotton and tobacco was played out. Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina were approaching that point. Importation would have undercut the value of their "secondary" produce.
With this surplus of slaves in five states how could the remaining deep South states be slavehungry?
Quote:
Originally Posted by ole
Europeans would certainly be reading the new constitution. It simply wouldn't do to announce to the world that the CSA was not only going to keep her slaves, but was going to replenish the supply.
That is one way to look at it and it's certainly in keeping with the, ever so popular, negative image of the Southern states.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ole
As to slavehungry, I'll leave it to elektratig to elaborate on his meaning. I will, however advance an opinion. Texas needing 6MM slaves was, as elektratip pointed out, probably hyperbole. On the other hand, at the rate Texas was growing, it's not too hard to extrapolate some impressive numbers.
I agree it's hyperbole...so why did Electratig even mention it? I don't recall reading of any Southern state that was dissatisfied with the ban on slave imports. Elecktratig offered no proof that any of the CSA states were clammoring for the reopening of slave imports.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ole
Mississippi was a relatively new state. It was growing and had a lot of trees to clear -- more slaves needed. The cane plantations were hard on field hands. If the work didn't kill them, it broke them. Shorter working life, more slaves needed.
Was Mississippi calling for the reopening of slave imports? I've not heard that she was.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ole
The newer south needed prime field hands. If you will accept that less than half those in bondage would qualify (maybe closer to 1/3 or 1/4), there was a demand. If, as you've insisted, a goodly number of benevolent owners wouldn't sell their good friends down the river or break up families to turn a profit on a prime hand, the number available is further reduced.
Your sarcasm does not pass unnoticed. Obviously slave owners were not "good friends" with each and every slave.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ole
Hence, hungry, but politically realistic, at least when it came to border states and Europe.
Perhaps, but I need more to go on than your and Electratig's say so. Not that I disbelieve you, but I have a problem settling an issue (even just for myself) without some proof.
Regards,
Rose
Ole[/quote]
__________________ "Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names".--J.F.K.
The War Between the States established... This principle that the Federal Government is, through its courts, this final judge of its own powers.
-- Woodrow Wilson
You have never read for the call to reopen the slave trade at the Democratic National Convention in 1860? That you never knew that South Carolina called for the reopening of the slave trade?
Sincerely,
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
You have never read for the call to reopen the slave trade at the Democratic National Convention in 1860? That you never knew that South Carolina called for the reopening of the slave trade?
Sincerely,
Unionblue
No, as I told Ole, I was not aware of that. I've just done a google search and it hasn't turned up any mention of reopening the slave trade in the 1860 Democratic Convention. I'll keep looking.
Regards,
Rose
__________________ "Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names".--J.F.K.
The War Between the States established... This principle that the Federal Government is, through its courts, this final judge of its own powers.
-- Woodrow Wilson
With this surplus of slaves in five states how could the remaining deep South states be slavehungry?
Surpluses were sold for top dollar. Many of them were skilled artisans. And, I presume, at least some sentimental attachment existed -- not to mention the aged, infirm, and children. Any surplus represented potential wealth. It would not easily be given away to value reduced by importation.
Quote:
That is one way to look at it and it's certainly in keeping with the, ever so popular, negative image of the Southern states.
And, apparently, in keeping with the ever so popular, negative image of the Northern states.
Quote:
I agree it's hyperbole...so why did Electratig even mention it? I don't recall reading of any Southern state that was dissatisfied with the ban on slave imports. Elecktratig offered no proof that any of the CSA states were clammoring for the reopening of slave imports.
Elektratig suggested it might be hyperbole. The mention is a scrap of evidence that there existed a fairly strong demand for slaves in Texas, if an Austin newspaper can be trusted to accurately evaluate a demand.
Quote:
Was Mississippi calling for the reopening of slave imports? I've not heard that she was.
Not much that I'm aware of calls for reopening imports, probably for political reasons. That her planters were feeling a pinch is only a logical observation. The plank in the 1860 Republican platform promising cessation of importation certainly raised a stink.
Quote:
Your sarcasm does not pass unnoticed. Obviously slave owners were not "good friends" with each and every slave.
No sarcasm intended -- inept word craft. Your contention of the existence of slave contentment and good master/slave relations would naturally lead to the conclusion that interstate sales would be reduced in direct proportion to the prevalence of that condition.
Quote:
Perhaps, but I need more to go on than your and Electratig's say so. Not that I disbelieve you, but I have a problem settling an issue (even just for myself) without some proof.
Your contention is what? That the deep south was not slave-hungry? That importation was forbidden in the CSA in preparation for slavery's ultimate demise? That the CSA constitution's prohibition on import was a logical result of needing no slaves? I agree that proof is essential to settling an issue. Perhaps if we toss the ball back and forth a few times, we can determine what constitutes proof of what, and reach an understanding.
Ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
Matthew,
I have to disagree with you that Southerners imported large amounts of slaves illegally after their importation was banned.Even way down South in Mobile a slaver to elude authorities just released his cargo and tried to escape .That's where Africatown Bridge in Mobile comes from.The place is well known today as is the story locally.Your position would seem to make sense but facts don't support it.
__________________ "The sword is mighty, but principles laugh at swords. Overwhelming force may crush truth to earth but, crushed or not the truth is still the truth." Regards, Ashley
CivilWarTalk.com -
A free and friendly Civil War community. 
No Mirror Image 
Linear Mode
