Civil War

[on_the_hill]

Also the Union Army was filled with conscripts. There is no real difference in conscripting men and enslaving them

Srsly? Vietnam War era draftees were slaves?

:clapping:

Keep digging.

 

[exnihilo]

The fact that only the USA needed to fight a war to end slavery. It ended peacefully elsewhere.

How can you know that the US needed to fight a war to end slavery? What is the basis for your claim. Again, many countries (Brazil, Cuba) had slavery many years after it ended in the US. How do you know slavery would not have ended peacefully in the US? Assuming only a war could end slavery is unwarranted unless you are omniscient.

And the claim a war was necessary makes no sense given the fact that Lincoln said he was not fighting to war to end slavery but to preserve the Union. You can’t retroactively apply what happened after the war to be the cause of the war when the very people who led the war declared otherwise.

I also find the egotism, smug sense of superiority and self-righteousness held by many Southerners irritating as well.Yeah, states that either were too cowardly to join the CSA or stayed due to some adroit maneuvers by Lincoln who recognized their strategic potential in the war.

It doesn’t seem to me you are interested in debate. Calling states cowardly? You see to have a hatred for the South.

Srsly? Vietnam War era draftees were slaves?

Yes. Conscription is slavery. Conscription is demanding labor from a person. As a consequence the one who is owed the labor can limit the conscript’s freedom. That is exactly what slavery is. Conscription is just a subset of slavery. There is no substantial difference. The words are different but the realities are the same.

The fact that the US is a democracy might obscure the fact that as a conscript you have a master. But the master is a person, the president. I think the enchanting effect of democracy obscures the reality. But if instead of a president we had a king and he was the one conscripting I imagine many would not excuse this form of slavery. Democracy deceives people into thinking they are really the masters.

 

[Captain_America]

All men are created equal by their Maker. Mere human conventions matter not.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Even if it was about economics, (it was not there were plenty of people who opposed slavery on moral grounds) the North still was free and that is morally better no matter how you dice it.

Some argue, and I’m inclined to agree with them, that slavery didn’t have long to live in the U.S. anyway. Slavery was mostly a “big agribusiness” thing, based on high prices for commodities like cotton, tobacco and sugar. They all collapsed shortly after the Civil War because they became cheaper from other sources, and never fully recovered. All are subsidized today or they wouldn’t even be grown here.

Slaves were very expensive, and the photo of the slave with the lash scars on his back has to be anomalyous because of that fact. It would be like a farmer today taking a hammer and crowbar to his new $100,000 tractor. Most slave owners had doctors on call for the same reason.

Most southerners didn’t own slaves or have any prospect of ever owning any. Many opposed slavery as an institution. In states like mine (Mo) there were very few, and the ones there were, were largely similar to “domestic help” or “hired hands” of the same era who worked for bed and board whether slaves or not.

At the same time, northern industry was careless of worker welfare. If one Irishman working for bare subsistence got sick, old or injured by machinery, he was fired and replaced by another Irishman. Granted the Irishman was free to go west if he could somehow get it done, but his condition was otherwise questionably better than that of slaves in a good part of the South.

Not to defend slavery as an institution, because I don’t. But I don’t think it’s accurate to posit some kind of moral superiority for the North, where the working poor were treated abominably. And I don’t think we can do it today, either. Segregation is nowhere more rigid in the U.S. than it is in northern cities.

 

[oldcatholicguy]

Some argue, and I’m inclined to agree with them, that slavery didn’t have long to live in the U.S. anyway. Slavery was mostly a “big agribusiness” thing, based on high prices for commodities like cotton, tobacco and sugar. They all collapsed shortly after the Civil War because they became cheaper from other sources, and never fully recovered. All are subsidized today or they wouldn’t even be grown here.

Slaves were very expensive, and the photo of the slave with the lash scars on his back has to be anomalyous because of that fact. It would be like a farmer today taking a hammer and crowbar to his new $100,000 tractor. Most slave owners had doctors on call for the same reason.

Most southerners didn’t own slaves or have any prospect of ever owning any. Many opposed slavery as an institution. In states like mine (Mo) there were very few, and the ones there were, were largely similar to “domestic help” or “hired hands” of the same era who worked for bed and board whether slaves or not.

At the same time, northern industry was careless of worker welfare. If one Irishman working for bare subsistence got sick, old or injured by machinery, he was fired and replaced by another Irishman. Granted the Irishman was free to go west if he could somehow get it done, but his condition was otherwise questionably better than that of slaves in a good part of the South.

Not to defend slavery as an institution, because I don’t. But I don’t think it’s accurate to posit some kind of moral superiority for the North, where the working poor were treated abominably. And I don’t think we can do it today, either. Segregation is nowhere more rigid in the U.S. than it is in northern cities.

Were said Irishmen deemed to be legally, socially, and morally to be non-person property? No, then the comparison doesn’t actually work since slaves were considered legally, socially, and morally to be property not people. You’re basically saying that Mr. Slaveowner was as moral or more moral than Mr. Northern Industry because Mr. Slavehowner treated his property well while Mr. Nothern Industry didn’t view his workers as pieces of property he owned.

 

[on_the_hill]

How can you know that the US needed to fight a war to end slavery? What is the basis for your claim. Again, many countries (Brazil, Cuba) **had slavery many years **after it ended in the US.

How many more years should slavery have been allowed to continue in the U.S.?

Yes. Conscription is slavery. Conscription is demanding labor from a person. As a consequence the one who is owed the labor can limit the conscript’s freedom. That is exactly what slavery is. Conscription is just a subset of slavery. There is no substantial difference. The words are different but the realities are the same.

Conscripts are paid. “Death” isn’t the expected end date for their service.

 

[exnihilo]

Were said Irishmen deemed to be legally, socially, and morally to be non-person property? No, then the comparison doesn’t actually work since slaves were considered legally, socially, and morally to be property not people. You’re basically saying that Mr. Slaveowner was as moral or more moral than Mr. Northern Industry because Mr. Slavehowner treated his property well while Mr. Nothern Industry didn’t view his workers as pieces of property he owned.

Why do you think slaves were not considered people? Slaves could be tried in court. You don’t have donkeys or rocks tried in court. Some slaves were taught to read. You don’t teach a cat to read. Slaves could be given a Sabbath rest. Slaves are probably best considered both persons and property. The only legal ruling that comes to my mind which redefines a person as solely an object is Roe vs. Wade. Maybe we aren’t as advanced as we’d like to think.

How many more years should slavery have been allowed to continue in the U.S.?

Conscripts are paid. “Death” isn’t the expected end date for their service.

Slavery should have continued until the US could peaceably end it. Maybe had the federal government offered to pay for the freed slaves it could have happened quickly. Is Brazil more evil because they didn’t end slavery until 1888?

Conscripts may be paid or they may not be. That isn’t an essential feature of conscription. And slaves would sometimes be paid.

It is funny you mention death when that is exactly what liberates far too many conscripts from their ‘service’.

 

[Mickey_Finn]

And do you say the same to the Union slaves? It may seem ironic but the United States was founded with this tension. It was not the South that invented it.

Also the Union Army was filled with conscripts. There is no real difference in conscripting men and enslaving them other than masters generally tried to keep their slaves from getting killed and generals do not. The world is full of irony.

Your argument is what exactly? That a society should be judged by its excesses? Not all slaves were whipped and not all to that degree. Oh, and do you know that the Union Army whipped soldiers who violated its rules? They also executed deserters. In fact whipping as a punishment continued long after slavery ended. So if you are saying whipping is immoral and any people who do this deserve to be conquered in war, killed and derided then the same would apply to the Union.

Well it has been done by the state. They gave Lincoln a Temple of Jupiter. True it is not as good as Washington’s deification. But the secular religion has offered these ‘heroes’ adoration.

Conscription is not slavery or anything of the sort.

 

[styrgwillidar]

Arguments that the South were wrong in the Civil War because so and so argues that secession is illegal are misguided. The crux of the matter is that the PEOPLE of the South believed during that generation that secession and nullification was legal, so they did not break any contracts in not accepting the election of Lincoln. So how can it not be argued that they had a right to have their own nation?

I disagree with your assessment of the crux of the matter. The crux of the matter is when does a group of people have the right to rebel against the existing government? Same issue as during the revolution. Or as the declaration of independence put it:

" When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

The southern states decided that the existing US government did not meet it’s needs and effectively withdrew their consent to be governed.

The fact is the south was wrong because they lost the war. Discussing whether it was legal or illegal is beside the point, the issue was decided by war, not courts.

 

[oldcatholicguy]

Why do you think slaves were not considered people? Slaves could be tried in court. You don’t have donkeys or rocks tried in court. Some slaves were taught to read. You don’t teach a cat to read. Slaves could be given a Sabbath rest. Slaves are probably best considered both persons and property. The only legal ruling that comes to my mind which redefines a person as solely an object is Roe vs. Wade. Maybe we aren’t as advanced as we’d like to think.

Well I probably think slaves were considered property because Southern leaders and politicians declared them as much during time of the writing of the Constitution and up to and including the Civil War. scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5386&context=faculty_scholarship

 

[Ridgerunner]

Were said Irishmen deemed to be legally, socially, and morally to be non-person property? No, then the comparison doesn’t actually work since slaves were considered legally, socially, and morally to be property not people. You’re basically saying that Mr. Slaveowner was as moral or more moral than Mr. Northern Industry because Mr. Slavehowner treated his property well while Mr. Nothern Industry didn’t view his workers as pieces of property he owned.

I understand the theoretical difference, but it would not have been persuasive to an Irish mother of six who saw her young husband die for lack of money for a doctor when the slaveowner would almost certainly have provided one if he had half a brain.

Unfortunately, those who employ labor are not always attentive to the welfare of the laborer for the best reasons. But if the employer has a financial stake in the life and health of the person employed, he’s more likely to see to it than if he doesn’t. We see that in our own workers’ compensation system in a different way. The employer or insurer has a significant financial interest in getting an injured worker treated, because he can reduce his liability by doing it.

Again, I’m not supporting the idea of slavery, but neither am I supportive of moral superiorities based on mythologies.

 

[oldcatholicguy]

I understand the theoretical difference, but it would not have been persuasive to an Irish mother of six who saw her young husband die for lack of money for a doctor when the slaveowner would almost certainly have provided one if he had half a brain.

Unfortunately, those who employ labor are not always attentive to the welfare of the laborer for the best reasons. But if the employer has a financial stake in the life and health of the person employed, he’s more likely to see to it than if he doesn’t. We see that in our own workers’ compensation system in a different way. The employer or insurer has a significant financial interest in getting an injured worker treated, because he can reduce his liability by doing it.

Again, I’m not supporting the idea of slavery, but neither am I supportive of moral superiorities based on mythologies.

If the argument was that the North was some sort of paradise, then you’d have a point. But, that’s not the argument. On the issue of slavery, which was the root cause of the Civil War, the North did have the moral high ground.

 

[Ridgerunner]

If the argument was that the North was some sort of paradise, then you’d have a point. But, that’s not the argument. On the issue of slavery, which was the root cause of the Civil War, the North did have the moral high ground.

First, it certainly wasn’t the cause of the Civil War in my state, as I have previously explained.

Second, I don’t think a society some of whose most illustrious and well-respected members became rich in the slave trade, and which treated immigrants worse, at times than most slaves, has any moral superiority to claim, and particularly not over another society most of whose members had no slaves and many of whom did not approve of it.

 

[exnihilo]

But if the employer has a financial stake in the life and health of the person employed, he’s more likely to see to it than if he doesn’t.

That seems like such an obvious truth it is a wonder people will not believe it. Most people tend to treat better what they consider their property. Hans-Hermann Hoppe offers the same analysis in comparison of monarchy to democracy. Again, people may not like the conclusion but that doesn’t make it wrong.

On the issue of slavery, which was the root cause of the Civil War, the North did have the moral high ground.

The North had the moral high ground because they had less slaves than the South? The North also had slaves. That would be like saying Vermont has the moral high ground because it performs less abortions than Texas. And that would ignore the fact the state of Texas is trying to ban abortion whereas Vermont fully supports it. In the case of the Union slave states none of them outlawed slavery until after the war when the 13th amendment was passed with the affirmative votes of the former Confederate states.

Well I probably think slaves were considered property because Southern leaders and politicians declared them as much during time of the writing of the Constitution and up to and including the Civil War.

No one disputes that those who supported slavery thought of slaves as property. The question was about whether they were considered persons.

 

[Ridgerunner]

No one disputes that those who supported slavery thought of slaves as property. The question was about whether they were considered persons.

Chattel slavery, which was different from what it was in other countries and even in Louisiana for a time, resulted from (as I understand it) a lack of experience in slavery in Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence and a certain legalistic rigidity in approaching the subject.

Were slaves “owned”? Well, yes, or at least there was some kind of property-like dominion over them. If so, then, what were they? English law at the time dealt with only two types of property; real property (land) and personal property (chattels…moveables).

Instead of creating a whole new body of law to deal with the subject, as had long been done in the Latin countries, Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence simply applied the “law of chattels” more or less for lack of any other established way to approach it.

Because of that, when Louisiana became a state, there was conflict over what law was to apply, and slavery in southern Louisiana never was quite what it was in other parts of the country where “chattel slavery” was the only legal approach they ever had.

 

[oldcatholicguy]

That seems like such an obvious truth it is a wonder people will not believe it. Most people tend to treat better what they consider their property. Hans-Hermann Hoppe offers the same analysis in comparison of monarchy to democracy. Again, people may not like the conclusion but that doesn’t make it wrong.

The North had the moral high ground because they had less slaves than the South? The North also had slaves. That would be like saying Vermont has the moral high ground because it performs less abortions than Texas. And that would ignore the fact the state of Texas is trying to ban abortion whereas Vermont fully supports it. In the case of the Union slave states none of them outlawed slavery until after the war when the 13th amendment was passed with the affirmative votes of the former Confederate states.

No one disputes that those who supported slavery thought of slaves as property. The question was about whether they were considered persons.

-Your abortion comparison is laughable. First, it ignores that fact that unlike Southern states there were a good number of Northern states which outlawed slavery (Texas outlawing abortion); and second you’re basing it on numbers and not culture (Vermont having less abortions than Texas, with the assumption being that people in Vermont and Texas both have the same view regarding abortion).

-Rather hard to be a person and property at the same time. In fact, the only time slaves appear to have been deemed people was when it was advantageous to the slave owners. Tell me, is a person really a person if their status of being a person is determined on how much this benefits someone else?

 

[oldcatholicguy]

First, it certainly wasn’t the cause of the Civil War in my state, as I have previously explained.

Second, I don’t think a society some of whose most illustrious and well-respected members became rich in the slave trade, and which treated immigrants worse, at times than most slaves, has any moral superiority to claim, and particularly not over another society most of whose members had no slaves and many of whom did not approve of it.

-Did I say the root cause of the Civil War in Missouri, or the root cause of the Civil War?
-You keep claiming not to support slavery, but you keep ignoring the fact that the major difference between the ill treatment of immigrants and “good” treatment of slaves was that one group were considered people and the other someone’s property. But let’s ignore this and look at why slaves were treated so “good” in the South. Was it based on some sort of moral principle or on the self-interest of the owners to keep their property in good condition?

 

[exnihilo]

-Your abortion comparison is laughable. First, it ignores that fact that unlike Southern states there were a good number of Northern states which outlawed slavery (Texas outlawing abortion); and second you’re basing it on numbers and not culture (Vermont having less abortions than Texas, with the assumption being that people in Vermont and Texas both have the same view regarding abortion).

I didn’t ignore the fact that some Union states had outlawed slavery. That is the very heart of my question about it being a matter of numbers since the Union also had slavery. It was not a war between slave and non-slave states. Why did the North have the moral high ground if they also had slaves?

-Rather hard to be a person and property at the same time. In fact, the only time slaves appear to have been deemed people was when it was advantageous to the slave owners.

Not really hard to be both. What is a person and what is property? The article you cited even says this:

“A constant theme of this discussion is how the legal system balanced the dual status of slaves as ‘people’ and as ‘property’”

Tell me, is a person really a person if their status of being a person is determined on how much this benefits someone else?

In what sense do you mean that? A person is a person regardless of opinion or laws. If someone mistreats a person the mistreated is still a person regardless of whether that happens within or without the law. If a person ceases to be a person when someone limits their freedom or forces them to perform labor then children and prisoners would be non-persons in our society.

 

[oldcatholicguy]

I didn’t ignore the fact that some Union states had outlawed slavery. That is the very heart of my question about it being a matter of numbers since the Union also had slavery. It was not a war between slave and non-slave states. Why did the North have the moral high ground if they also had slaves?

Not really hard to be both. What is a person and what is property? The article you cited even says this:

“A constant theme of this discussion is how the legal system balanced the dual status of slaves as ‘people’ and as ‘property’”

In what sense do you mean that? A person is a person regardless of opinion or laws. If someone mistreats a person the mistreated is still a person regardless of whether that happens within or without the law. If a person ceases to be a person when someone limits their freedom or forces them to perform labor then children and prisoners would be non-persons in our society.

So are you arguing that the limitations of freedoms on children and prisoners are unjust, or that the limitations of freedoms on slaves in the South was just?

 

[Ridgerunner]

-Did I say the root cause of the Civil War in Missouri, or the root cause of the Civil War?
-You keep claiming not to support slavery, but you keep ignoring the fact that the major difference between the ill treatment of immigrants and “good” treatment of slaves was that one group were considered people and the other someone’s property. But let’s ignore this and look at why slaves were treated so “good” in the South. Was it based on some sort of moral principle or on the self-interest of the owners to keep their property in good condition?

If slavery was not the cause in Missouri, then it’s likely, even probable, that it was not in other states as well. Arkansas, for example, according to some historians, seceded even though the majority of Arkansans opposed slavery. Some historian (sorry, can’t remember the name, but might have been Shelby Foote) claimed the only states that really wanted the war were Massachussetts and South Carolina, but they carried everybody else into it with them. Indeed, one of the reasons why Missouri’s government wanted to stay neutral was that, at the time, most Missourians had come from one southern state or another, and they didn’t want to war against their own kind and kin. But there were only two choices, as it turned out, because your people were going to be drafted by one side or the other.

I can’t read the minds of the living, let alone of the dead. Undoubtedly, some of the better treatment of some (though certainly not all) slaves was economic interest and nothing else. But it’s counter-intuitive to imagine that southerners who grew up with slaves and had them as playmates had no human regard for them at all. Undoubtedly, like all things human, it was mixed in a lot of cases.

And no doubt some factory owners in the north actually did care whether their workers lived decently and were afforded at least some minimum of safety. Just as beyond doubt is that some did not, if chronicles at the time are to be credited.

And today, I have known people who work in the workers’ compensation field who could not possibly care less in a human way whether injured workers are treated, recover, or whatever, but just don’t want to deal with a permanent total disability. But some actually do care, and go out of their way to ensure proper treatment, and it’s not all economic.

But I will at least guess this. Some of the Deep South plantations had a great number of slaves, and the owners likely didn’t know many of them, leaving all relationships to overseers. It is well known that “troublesome” slaves were “sold South” into what were considered worse conditions. That’s where the expression “sold down the river” came from. Likely it was more than just a climate change. The really huge plantations were there. I do not maintain that today small employers deal with workers on a more human level than do, say, employers who never learn the name of a single one of them. But I do believe there is less potential for it in large organizations than in small ones.

But I do not concede any moral superiority to the north as a society generally, or to northerners as individuals. Remember the draft riots in NYC in which rioters killed every black they could lay hands on, blaming them for the war?

My own great-grandfather came here from Italy. The only work he could find was in the deep coal mines. It was so hot down there the men worked naked. If there was a rock fall (which happened a lot) and if it was impractical to dig the men out, they were just left. There were no safety provisions whatever. Men were gassed, flooded and killed in rockfalls. The carts were hauled by ponies to the lift. The ponies spent their whole lives there, so the mines reeked of manure, sweat, and urine, both animal and human. If a pony died, there was no rush to haul it to the surface, so it grew ripe in place. Because mice can fall any distance without being killed on impact, the mine was full of them as well. Now and then a pony would go mad and kill miners. It would run wild through the tunnels, attacking here and there until somebody finally managed to deal it a death blow. Where was the “recognition of personhood” in all that? There were blacks in that part of the country, but none of them would work in the deep mines. It was all immigrants, and a lot of them were Italians.

It is, therefore, difficult for me to attribute moral superiority to those northern mine owners, for example, over slaveholders in the South. My great-grandfather’s experience was after the Civil War, (just) but I doubt the mine owners treatment of immigrants deteriorated just because the war was over.