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04-26-2011, 09:42 AM   #16
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QuoteOriginally posted by seacapt Quote
Give that man a cigar! He's the first person I've seen mention "cotton tariffs" or given any consideration to the economic causes of the War Between the States..
Here is a pretty objective light read with many frequently overlooked FACTS.
Causes of the Civil War-a North Georgia perspective
Funny, I did a word search for "tariff" in the Declaration of Causes of Secession of GA, SC, Miss. and TX, and it came up with no results. Declaration of Causes of Secession

83 mentions of "slave" or "slavery," though.

But I guess that Mr. Golden of N. Ga. Magazine in 2006 knew more about the reasons for the war than those who signed on to secession in 1861.

I grew up in a confederate state and one side of my family probably had slaves. I understood that the war was about slavery, and we are extremely sorry about what our ancestors did to African Americans. I think that ends the war quicker than a lot of revising written history.


Last edited by GeneV; 04-26-2011 at 10:02 AM.
04-26-2011, 10:01 AM   #17
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Clearly the secessions were motivated by State's Rights... At least in the form of the rights of those who held the power in those states. It is funny how those who hold a privilege are loathe to give it up.

I've recently been understanding social behavior as the tussle between "give" and "take" and we each have a certain, sometimes fluid, balance of those polarities.

I have to add a slightly different dimension as well: those who think "this asset is mine" and others who think "this asset is ours".
04-26-2011, 08:29 PM   #18
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QuoteOriginally posted by GeneV Quote
Funny, I did a word search for "tariff" in the Declaration of Causes of Secession of GA, SC, Miss. and TX, and it came up with no results. Declaration of Causes of Secession

83 mentions of "slave" or "slavery," though.

But I guess that Mr. Golden of N. Ga. Magazine in 2006 knew more about the reasons for the war than those who signed on to secession in 1861.

I grew up in a confederate state and one side of my family probably had slaves. I understood that the war was about slavery, and we are extremely sorry about what our ancestors did to African Americans. I think that ends the war quicker than a lot of revising written history.
Funny that without using the word "tariff" the bulk of the first paragraph in the document you posted deals with federal policies that were designed to economically favor or in some cases subsidize the industries of the Northern States at great expense to the South during the 10 years prior to secession.
Those who refuse to acknowledge protectionist and trade policies as events leading up to secession are the ones who are revising written history.
I'm by no means saying that slavery wasn't a major factor in the causes of the war but it was by no means the only one.
The North needed Southern produce and wanted it cheap. They then wanted to hold a monopoly on manufactured items..
If you want to go back generations as a point of discussion , my earliest American ancestors were indentured servants in the Massachusets Bay Collony. Funny how nobody wants to talk about the "White Slaves Of The North" who worked those factories , mines and mills in the Union States.
04-26-2011, 10:19 PM   #19
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QuoteOriginally posted by seacapt Quote
Funny how nobody wants to talk about the "White Slaves Of The North" who worked those factories , mines and mills in the Union States.
Funny how we have been talking about it.
They eventually formed unions.
Funnier still, is how some folks cheer their weakening.
Funny isn't it?

04-27-2011, 05:52 AM   #20
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QuoteOriginally posted by seacapt Quote
Funny that without using the word "tariff" the bulk of the first paragraph in the document you posted deals with federal policies that were designed to economically favor or in some cases subsidize the industries of the Northern States at great expense to the South during the 10 years prior to secession.
Those who refuse to acknowledge protectionist and trade policies as events leading up to secession are the ones who are revising written history.
I'm by no means saying that slavery wasn't a major factor in the causes of the war but it was by no means the only one.
The North needed Southern produce and wanted it cheap. They then wanted to hold a monopoly on manufactured items..
If you want to go back generations as a point of discussion , my earliest American ancestors were indentured servants in the Massachusets Bay Collony. Funny how nobody wants to talk about the "White Slaves Of The North" who worked those factories , mines and mills in the Union States.
There were, for sure, some other reasons why the South was uneasy with the policies of the Federal Government, but any fair reading of that lengthy declaration leaves the conclusion that slavery was the main and decisive reason for seceding. It is the constant refrain that ties the entire document together.

Here are the first two sentences of the first lengthy paragraph from Georgia:

QuoteQuote:
The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic
The discussion of how much the North depends upon government subsidies was to explain why the North did not try to abolish slavery earlier. It could not risk that the federal government be overthrown.

QuoteQuote:
The opposition to slavery was then, as now, general in those States and the Constitution was made with direct reference to that fact. But a distinct abolition party was not formed in the United States for more than half a century after the Government went into operation. The main reason was that the North, even if united, could not control both branches of the Legislature during any portion of that time. Therefore such an organization must have resulted either in utter failure or in the total overthrow of the Government. The material prosperity of the North was greatly dependent on the Federal Government; that of the the South not at all.
The GA declaration now proceeds to describe how much benefit the North receives from the government that would be at risk if there had been overt abolition. After the sentences in the first paragraph on the North's dependence on the Federal Government, the Declaration proceeds back to a direct discussion of the central topic of slavery for 10 paragraphs or so.

I'm not sure what you mean by white slavery of the north at the time of the civil war, unless it is the conditions of factories. These did not change in a meaningful way until laws passed under FDR. Slavery and indentured servitude were ills common to the ancestors of all the settlers in America. It would seem that the South was doing less to move past that heritage by preserving the overt ownership of humans.

Last edited by GeneV; 04-27-2011 at 06:05 AM.
04-27-2011, 07:28 AM   #21
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The problem is, if you look at slavery from the big picture, much of it is still in place. There are still rich people who live completely from the labors of others.. there are people who have controlled the system to their benefit so much that 400 americans have as much wealth as the bottom 200 million. There are so many scams that allow these people to become, non of which involve the production of material good or well being. Money is used a a form of enslavement as opposed to the lynch mob. We are more benevalent, but the economic slavery that began when physical slavery began is still in place. We are better off than we were.. but we could have a far more equaitable society. The rich are every bit as willing to defend their percieve right to be better than the rest of us as they ever were. Now they do it in the legislature and the court room. The difference now being, any person has the right to walk away from it. If they're smart enough.. but the Bank managers who cashed in with huge bonuses on bad loans, are part of a class of people that is unregulated and dipping into everyone's pockets, because they control the governement. If you or I stile a loaf of bread from our local supermarket we;d face criminal charges. These peole took billions from the American people and got off scot free. Because these people steal billions all the time by taking advantage of others, be it by trading futures and threatening to deny the population food or gas, or conning the governement into huge bailouts. That's the downside of democracy. The rich still make the laws. And the crimes committed by the rich go largely unpunished. The majority of law enforcemnt is directed at crimes of poverty and stupidity.
04-27-2011, 07:34 AM   #22
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Norm, I think those are all ills that need to be addressed, but they are not slavery. Reducing another human to "property" is a different condition, though it may be a matter of degree.

04-27-2011, 08:26 AM   #23
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QuoteOriginally posted by GeneV Quote
Reducing another human to "property"
And that's the problem with the whole superstructure of arguments that the CW had economic causes distinct from slavery.
04-27-2011, 10:13 AM   #24
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QuoteOriginally posted by shooz Quote
Funny how we have been talking about it.
They eventually formed unions.
Funnier still, is how some folks cheer their weakening.
Funny isn't it?
"White Slaves of the North" -

Lest we forget.
A picture of my Grandfather (right) taken about 1892.
Participated in the Anthracite Coal strikes in E. Pennsylvania in the 1900s.
Died of black lung 1928.

I look at this picture and I know exactly what "Laissez-faire Free Market Forces" mean. I don't need to take Econ 101.

BTW capitalism has its own unions they are called corporations and the US congress.

Last edited by wildman; 05-20-2011 at 12:27 AM.
04-27-2011, 10:59 AM   #25
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QuoteOriginally posted by wildman Quote
I look at this picture and I know exactly what "Laissez-faire Free Market Forces" mean. I don't need to take Econ 101.
Thanks for the picture and the summary of your grandfather's life. It certainly was tough.

(My daughter's writing a paper on the inequalities of the era, by the way)

There was something different back then as compared to now. The life of the worker was much rougher than today. The very wealthy were combining and making huge fortunes. The politicians were bought and paid for to keep laissez-faire. But: a new, larger and more prosperous professional or upper middle class was also coming to being. The relative leisure of this class allowed a lot of social progressivism to take hold, for a real current of social improvement. And this impulse was also popular with the working classes. This class of people today seem relatively uninterested, self-involved... why is that? And why does it seem that the American worker - if we listen to the media and politicians - seems bent to support policies that aren't in their best interest?
04-27-2011, 11:32 AM   #26
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QuoteOriginally posted by Nesster Quote
why does it seem that the American worker - if we listen to the media and politicians - seems bent to support policies that aren't in their best interest?
Your question answers itself.
04-27-2011, 03:26 PM   #27
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Funnier still, is that this thread died.

What is it that the south has against the word UNION?

Perhaps if they re-branded as a worker confederacy?
05-01-2011, 03:56 PM   #28
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Back to the original thread, those who attribute the Civil War to economic causes should read - carefully - Kenneth Stampps' The Peculiar Institution..... This classic, published in 1956 and still in print, discusses the socio-economic-political climate of the South and to a lesser degree the North during the period prior to what so many of us Southerners call "The War of Northern Agression." Stampp uses original sources extensively. The work is thoroughly documented, and well written.

As one raised in the south, though born of "Yankee" parents, I can bring a perspective to the book which many of my contemporaries here in Georgia perhaps cannot. "States rights" was and sadly still remains a code for white hegemony. The "rights" so vehemently supported are the right to profit from the free labor of others or, in more recent times, to deny full humanity to those of a different color.

I graduated from high school in 1961 in a small town near Richmond, Virginia, the erstwhile capital of the Confederacy. As a white, liberal teenager, neither a Baptist nor Methodist, I had learned to keep my head down, most of the time, during discussions of the reprecussions of Brown vs. Board. Remember, this was the period of Massive Resistance, the Doctrine of Interposition (in which the state would stand between the locality facing school integration and those evil federals) and the closure of public schools in Prince Edward County, Virginia.

All this so that little black and white kids wouldn't sit together in school!

Last edited by grhazelton; 05-01-2011 at 04:08 PM. Reason: hit the wrong key
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