Confederate War Aims

Cotton's economic importance to the United States was extraordinary. So was its amazing rate of growth, especially in the years when production moved west of the Appalachians. Here are the annual numbers in bales for the milestones. From 1790 to 1820 production increased 100-fold. Over the next 15 years (1820-1835) it grew 3-fold. Over the next 7 years, it doubled; and then less than two decades it more than doubled again.

1790 3,135
1815 208,986
1820 334,378
1835 1,000,000
1842 2,000,000
1860 4,500,000

But, its overall importance to the American export economy is consistently exaggerated in many of our discussions. By 1842 cotton was the largest single export; but it was only 36% of total U.S. exports. Coal, iron ore and petroleum were 32%, meat, lard and honey 14%, ships, machinery and building materials (lumber, iron plates, copper) were 14%, and foodstuffs 4%. "The South" was growing ever wealthier; but, after the Great Depression of 1837-1842/3, the rate of growth for its major output was no longer miraculous. It was not even keeping up with the railroads, which was where the smart money Southerners were placing their bets.
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What exactly is your thesis? You open up with cotton's extraordinary importance to the USA but follow up with its overall importance to the export economy is consistently exaggerated. I agree, cotton exports were/are exaggerated, and I also think cotton's overall importance to the USA was/is also exaggerated. If you convert export percentages to GDP percentages: 50% of exports equates to 5% of the national GDP, in real GDP numbers. According to you, cotton exports reached 36% of total exports in 1842, and that's 14% less than 50%, which would equate to 3-4% of the national real GDP. I would argue and I have, that cotton exports were not an economic importance remotely to extraordinary.

cotton gdp.png
 
I didn't invent the analogy to Northern wage slavery; the credit for that goes to Robert Fogel, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1993 for his life's work which was devoted to the econometric analysis of the Southern economy, both comparative with the North's, and longitudinal, from inception in the Western Hemisphere.

You misunderstood Fogel, because you probably read the abstract instead of the study. Fogel was correct when comparing slavery to wage earners in the short term, but was incorrect in the long term.

The Gilded Age(the era right after the Civil War) debunks that northern wage slavery:

By the beginning of the 20th century, gross domestic product and industrial production in the United States led the world. U.S. national income, in absolute figures in per capita, was so far above everybody else's by 1914." Per capita income in the United States was $377 in 1914 compared to Britain in second place at $244, Germany at $184, France at $153, and Italy at $108, while Russia and Japan trailed far behind at $41 and $36(Kennedy, Paul (1987). The Rise and Fall of Great Powers New York: Random House. p. 242).

The rapid expansion of industrialization led to real wage growth of 60% between 1860 and 1890, spread across the ever-increasing labor force. Real wages (adjusting for inflation) rose steadily, with the exact percentage increase depending on the dates and the specific work force. The Census Bureau reported in 1892 that the average annual wage per industrial worker (including men, women, and children) rose from $380 in 1880 to $564 in 1890, a gain of 48%. Economic historian Clarence D. Long estimates that (in terms of constant 1914 dollars), the average annual incomes of all American non-farm employees rose from $375 in 1870 to $395 in 1880, $519 in 1890 and $573 in 1900, a gain of 53% in 30 years(Tregarthen, Timothy D.; Rittenberg, Libby (1999) Macroeconomics (2nd ed.). Worth Publishers. p. 177).

Australian historian Peter Shergold found that the standard of living for industrial workers was higher than in Europe. He compared wages and the standard of living in Pittsburgh with Birmingham, England, one of the richest industrial cities of Europe. After taking account of the cost of living (which was 65% higher in the U.S.), he found the standard of living of unskilled workers was about the same in the two cities, while skilled workers in Pittsburgh had about 50% to 100% higher standard of living as those in Birmingham, England. According to Shergold the American advantage grew over time from 1890 to 1914, and the perceived higher American wage led to a heavy steady flow of skilled workers from Britain to industrial America.
 
What exactly is your thesis? You open up with cotton's extraordinary importance to the USA but follow up with its overall importance to the export economy is consistently exaggerated. I agree, cotton exports were/are exaggerated, and I also think cotton's overall importance to the USA was/is also exaggerated. If you convert export percentages to GDP percentages: 50% of exports equates to 5% of the national GDP, in real GDP numbers. According to you, cotton exports reached 36% of total exports in 1842, and that's 14% less than 50%, which would equate to 3-4% of the national real GDP. I would argue and I have, that cotton exports were not an economic importance remotely to extraordinary.

View attachment 391589
Cotton had extraordinary importance because it was the one trade that was financed by the foreign buyers, not the American sellers. For a country that had a chronic deficit in the flows of international money - i.e. gold - even after the discoveries in California, that gave cotton production the same financial pre-eminence that beaver pelts had in an earlier age. What still bewilders me about the barons of the plantations and their embargo of exports during the first year of the war is how they could assume that the British and French, who financed their production, would not take their money and look elsewhere - i.e. India and Egypt.
 
You misunderstood Fogel, because you probably read the abstract instead of the study. Fogel was correct when comparing slavery to wage earners in the short term, but was incorrect in the long term.

The Gilded Age(the era right after the Civil War) debunks that northern wage slavery:

By the beginning of the 20th century, gross domestic product and industrial production in the United States led the world. U.S. national income, in absolute figures in per capita, was so far above everybody else's by 1914." Per capita income in the United States was $377 in 1914 compared to Britain in second place at $244, Germany at $184, France at $153, and Italy at $108, while Russia and Japan trailed far behind at $41 and $36(Kennedy, Paul (1987). The Rise and Fall of Great Powers New York: Random House. p. 242).

The rapid expansion of industrialization led to real wage growth of 60% between 1860 and 1890, spread across the ever-increasing labor force. Real wages (adjusting for inflation) rose steadily, with the exact percentage increase depending on the dates and the specific work force. The Census Bureau reported in 1892 that the average annual wage per industrial worker (including men, women, and children) rose from $380 in 1880 to $564 in 1890, a gain of 48%. Economic historian Clarence D. Long estimates that (in terms of constant 1914 dollars), the average annual incomes of all American non-farm employees rose from $375 in 1870 to $395 in 1880, $519 in 1890 and $573 in 1900, a gain of 53% in 30 years(Tregarthen, Timothy D.; Rittenberg, Libby (1999) Macroeconomics (2nd ed.). Worth Publishers. p. 177).

Australian historian Peter Shergold found that the standard of living for industrial workers was higher than in Europe. He compared wages and the standard of living in Pittsburgh with Birmingham, England, one of the richest industrial cities of Europe. After taking account of the cost of living (which was 65% higher in the U.S.), he found the standard of living of unskilled workers was about the same in the two cities, while skilled workers in Pittsburgh had about 50% to 100% higher standard of living as those in Birmingham, England. According to Shergold the American advantage grew over time from 1890 to 1914, and the perceived higher American wage led to a heavy steady flow of skilled workers from Britain to industrial America.
Real wage changes over 100 yrs periods are not calculated by relying on chain-linked inflation indices, for starters. A far better estimate of the relative value of a dollar in 1860 vs 1969 or 2020 is to rely on nominal per capita GDP calculations. I refer you to the work of U of Ill economist at the website: Measuringworth.com.

I didn't read any abstract, for Christ's sake, i read/studied the whole darn book in detail and every footnote and also possess the 3 volumes of supporting research frequently cited in the book and read many of those articles to better understand the claims he made in "w/o Consent or Contract." I don't think I misunderstood Fogel, and I don't think Fogel misunderstood the economics, and I think I will continue to rely on his claims, despite your misgivings of this Nobel prize winners' claims of 30 yrs ago. I've not seen any significant works since then that take on Fogel's body of work.

Regarding your sources, Kennedy was a card-carrying historian, period. Zero training in economics, of any kind, cliometric or comparative. Any macro text that relies on inflation index to calculate growth in real wages is an inferior text. And what have ur claims of the growth in prosperity in general from 1860 to 1900 got to do with anything anyway. No clue why you find such data persuasive against any claims I may have made.

Again, no clue what your Australian's claims are meant to refute about any claims I made. I'm happy to accept and have long noted that the US GDP grew about 10x during the period from 1860 to 1910. So what. What's that to do with the status of wage slaves in vs chattel slaves in 1860?! Fogel claims in this regard remain unchallenged, and would be hard to challenge, since his claims are careful and his sources are exhaustive, which may explain why he'd get the Nobel prize in 1993 despite the highly controversial nature of his work.

Lurid, you misunderstand Fogel's work, the calculation of real wages, and the claims I made about wage slavery. Aside from that, we're in full agreement. BTW, do you have the credentials necessary to be able to full understand his work and my claims? Not that it's required, but such cred can be helpful. My humble bio is complete for all to see.
 
Didn't claim you invented that analogy. But although I am not an expert by any means on Robert Fogel, my understanding is that his work was mainly concerned with the economic arguments that might have been made to justify the system of chattel slavery, in contrast with the cost effectiveness of the economic system of free labor. His thesis has been the subject of much controversy and does not, in any case, equate the non-economic aspects of life under the 2 systems.
No, he wasn't trying to "justify" slavery, he was trying to understand why it was such a powerful institution and so difficult to eradicate, and he discovered something that had been a matter of dispute for centuries, and that is that slavery was an IMMENSELY PROFITABLE economic system, and he by implication it comes as quite a shock to many that when it comes to the concept of "free markets," and their efficiency and profitability, whether the labor part of the equation is wage based or slave based doesn't really affect the system's profitability, as long as most producers and consumers r free to make their buying and selling decisions. Able bodied slaves reached their peak value just before the Civil War began, at about $1000 in 1860, which in terms of relative value would exceed $250,000 in today's dollars. So, understanding this, and that most slaves were purchased on credit with the slave being the collateral for the transaction, this gives a hint as to why the South was willing to sacrifice ⅓ of its able bodied men over the next 4 yrs and be thrown into a desperate poverty (both white and black) that did not regain it's status relative to the North' wealth until WW2, 80 years to recover (to the disparity in wealth that existed between N & S in 1860). That is what Fogel was doing. His work showed that, given the profitability of the slave system, and its total contribution to the South GDP, nothing short of total war could eradicate it, OR, some kind of compensation program, like that used by the UK in 1833, so that Southerners would be willing to accept the compensation (surely below market value) if the alternative was going to war, but the North never ever even made the attempt to pursue manumission using tax dollars to avoid war.
 
By simply freeing them at the war's end, w/o compensation to the owners, even given total victory, that policy put the banks into bankruptcy, which put most southern biz into same, which took 80 yrs to recover from depending on who u read. It was equivalent in some ways to Bush's Iraq gov firing the entire Iraq army and sending them home, penniless?
 
Great. give me some idea when and how much?
March 7, 1862:
1614817251065.png


Additionally, the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act was signed by Lincoln on April 16, 1862. The federal government paid an average of $300 to roughly 900 slave holders in the District to emancipate their slaves.
 
There were no aims other than independence. Slavery was not an issue because the confederates were not trying to force slavery on the US neither were tariffs, the confederates did not care what tariffs the US enacted. When a foreign power declares they are going to collect taxes, custom duties in your country, when they occupy forts on your territory expect armed resistance.
 
Slogans may serve to strengthen morale but I doubt whether they are significant to an actual outcome. The bombardment of Ft. Sumter was the event that served to arouse northern passions to protect the Union and put down the rebellious southern states. That passion was expressed in the term "On to Richmond," but the slogan was simply a byproduct of the emotional appeal that had already been raised.
I would say a good slogan would have been ,"LEAVE US THE H...ALONE'' for the more serious ''FREEDOM.FROM TYRANNY''. The first being kin to ''DO'NT TREAD ON ME''. For the other ,you have to be a Southern patriot of that time to grasp the meaning.
 
March 7, 1862:
View attachment 393058

Additionally, the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act was signed by Lincoln on April 16, 1862. The federal government paid an average of $300 to roughly 900 slave holders in the District to emancipate their slaves.
That's it?! Hardly constitutes a comprehensive plan for manumission to avoid total war? Regardless of Lincoln proposal of Mar 62, it seems the US (Northern) Congress refused to agree to such a plan? As such, the South at large never had the option to turn it down as it was never offered? Surely a mistake not to make the offer, and at least leave it to the South to turn down the offer, which by mid 62 they surely would have done, since their war fortunes had by then begun a massive 180 degree shift with armies East and West on the move to the North, putting Lincoln and the rest of the North into a panic that lasted for the last half of 62, right thru Fredericksburg.
 
What exactly is your thesis? You open up with cotton's extraordinary importance to the USA but follow up with its overall importance to the export economy is consistently exaggerated. I agree, cotton exports were/are exaggerated, and I also think cotton's overall importance to the USA was/is also exaggerated. If you convert export percentages to GDP percentages: 50% of exports equates to 5% of the national GDP, in real GDP numbers. According to you, cotton exports reached 36% of total exports in 1842, and that's 14% less than 50%, which would equate to 3-4% of the national real GDP. I would argue and I have, that cotton exports were not an economic importance remotely to extraordinary.

View attachment 391589
Whatever cottons importance to export market (which wasn't particularlly large anyway for US at this time?), slavery was nevertheless very important, as the value of the slaves ca 1860 constituted more than ⅓ of the total wealth of the entire country!? and more than ½ of the wealth of the Southern states. Whatever the reason for that value, that value was real and the prospect of having the value TAKEN from the South was enough of an incentive to cause them to fight very, very hard, if w/o success, to keep that loss from happening.
 
That's it?! Hardly constitutes a comprehensive plan for manumission to avoid total war? Regardless of Lincoln proposal of Mar 62, it seems the US (Northern) Congress refused to agree to such a plan? As such, the South at large never had the option to turn it down as it was never offered? Surely a mistake not to make the offer, and at least leave it to the South to turn down the offer, which by mid 62 they surely would have done, since their war fortunes had by then begun a massive 180 degree shift with armies East and West on the move to the North, putting Lincoln and the rest of the North into a panic that lasted for the last half of 62, right thru Fredericksburg.
I believe that was $300 per slave to each slave owner.
 
That's it?! Hardly constitutes a comprehensive plan for manumission to avoid total war? Regardless of Lincoln proposal of Mar 62, it seems the US (Northern) Congress refused to agree to such a plan? As such, the South at large never had the option to turn it down as it was never offered? Surely a mistake not to make the offer, and at least leave it to the South to turn down the offer, which by mid 62 they surely would have done, since their war fortunes had by then begun a massive 180 degree shift with armies East and West on the move to the North, putting Lincoln and the rest of the North into a panic that lasted for the last half of 62, right thru Fredericksburg.
Lincoln had long been a proponent of compensated emancipation before war broke out. Once the southern states seceded, Lincoln's 1862 message was geared to provide "pecuniary aid" to compensate slave holders in the loyal border states. I do not believe there was a particular sum mentioned but the more important issue is that the slave owning faction resisted any attempt at emancipation, regardless of the cost.
 
Lincoln had long been a proponent of compensated emancipation before war broke out. Once the southern states seceded, Lincoln's 1862 message was geared to provide "pecuniary aid" to compensate slave holders in the loyal border states. I do not believe there was a particular sum mentioned but the more important issue is that the slave owning faction resisted any attempt at emancipation, regardless of the cost.
If so, then why was the UK able to come up with a compensated emancipation plan in 1833, that I believe was supposed to be implemented over a period of 20 yrs or so. They agreed w/o a fight? It may be true that free labor would likely not be willing to work the fields at any wage, but that seems counterintuitive. But I think the 1862 offer was doomed not b/c no price was satisfactory, but b/c the South was winning by that time, or seemed to be bouncing back pretty **** well, so nobody should be surprised that they weren't interested in selling out?
 
While Lincoln may have believed in compensated emancipation (and colonization of freed slaves to Central America or Africa), the Republican Party platform upon which Lincoln ran in 1860 did not pose a direct threat to slavery in those states where it already existed. Therefore, that issue would not have been on the table between the time of Lincoln's election in November 1860 and inauguration on March 4, 1861. The so-called Crittenden compromise plan that was raised during that period to forestall secession was mainly predicated on providing permanent protection for slave owners, rather than ending slavery by compensation. So the only real influence that Lincoln had on providing compensation was to those slave holders in the loyal states and the District of Columbia. Whether or not the $300 per slave was sufficient is not the point as it was accepted and successfully carried out.
 
DC was not part of the CSA. Was has this manumission to do with the price of eggs?!
Since your reply "That's it?!" was to @jackt62 's comment that "the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act was signed by Lincoln on April 16, 1862. The federal government paid an average of $300 to roughly 900 slave holders in the District to emancipate their slaves," I simply clarified that the payment to the slave owners was $300 per slave rather than $300 to each slave owner regardless of the amount of slaves each owned.
 
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