Two Question to Discuss

[coltshooter1]

Lincoln wanted to try Compensated Emancipation in the border states, but Congress would not allow passage of the bill.
Actually the argument that southerners were firm believers in the institution of slavery is not fully accepted by many historians. There is one of my college textbooks that I was reading tonight at at work that stated that the common folk were conflicted over the idea of owning a person. They still felt superior to the black race, but many southerners were beginning to change their mind about the institution of slavery.
I will get the textbooks name and post it tommorrow. It has some interesting topics in it about the antebellum period, the war and reconstruction. It has a number of eyeopening essays by prominent historians and is a source of good primary documents.

 

[KeyserSoze]

If a policy of Compensated Emancipation had been developed by a strong Presidential Administration what could have been its result and would sectional differences still lead to a war if the question of slavery had been removed. Try to give a good discussion and exchange of information and not start sniping at each other please.

I'll echo what everyone else has said. Compensated emancipation would have had to be voluntary and there is absolutely no evidence that the Southern slave owners had any interest in giving up their slaves. So no, such a plan offered by President Lincoln would have made no difference at all.

 

[unionblue]

Real slavery is alive and well in many areas of Africa today. White slavery exists in the US and all over Central and South America as well as the arab countries and all the other parts of the world.

Which justifies nothing about the institution, would you not agree?

Unionblue

 

[unionblue]

If a policy of Compensated Emancipation had been developed by a strong Presidential Administration what could have been its result and would sectional differences still lead to a war if the question of slavery had been removed. Try to give a good discussion and exchange of information and not start sniping at each other please.

Compensated emancipation was offered before the war and during the war and it was never accepted in both the border states and the southern states that had seceded.

The biggest problem was the acceptance of southern slaveholders, who always turned this option down. As we are studying history we are left with this one overwhelming problem that I believe no Presidential administration, no matter how strong its plan for compensated emancipation, could overcome.

Sincerely,
Unionblue

 

[jpeter]

Real slavery is alive and well in many areas of Africa today. White slavery exists in the US and all over Central and South America as well as the arab countries and all the other parts of the world.

Could you show me where it is sanctioned by the state or country? Could you tell me where it is legal?

 

[rpkennedy]

Lincoln wanted to try Compensated Emancipation in the border states, but Congress would not allow passage of the bill.
Actually the argument that southerners were firm believers in the institution of slavery is not fully accepted by many historians. There is one of my college textbooks that I was reading tonight at at work that stated that the common folk were conflicted over the idea of owning a person. They still felt superior to the black race, but many southerners were beginning to change their mind about the institution of slavery.
I will get the textbooks name and post it tommorrow. It has some interesting topics in it about the antebellum period, the war and reconstruction. It has a number of eyeopening essays by prominent historians and is a source of good primary documents.

I think it would more accurate to say "a few" historians, rather than many. If there was all this unrest about slavery, where was the outcry against the institution in the South? I think most Southerners accepted the institution for what it was (a social and economic institution) while there were more than a few who actively justified it. I just don't see this conflict about slavery prior to, and during, the Civil War on any significant level. There were a few who felt uncomfortable but there just don't seem to be the numbers to discuss a conflict.

R

 

[cash]

Points taken Cash . I will be the first to admit there are huge holes in my knowledge of US history. I will try to remedy this in time. But the question here was regarding a payment of compensation to the the masters of slaves, not the granting of citizenship or rights to the slaves. As were those gained under the constitutional amendments at the end of a 4 year fight.

Whether such payments would have avoided the conflict is the debatable point. Then the need for reconstruction would be moot if there were no war. Or would it have to come to pass inevitably where any race or creed were denied an equal standing in society.

My points are first, the slave states were not interested in compensated emancipation. Secondly, we know what would have happened with a sudden emancipation of slaves because that's what happened.