Maggie's Farm

There's little doubt slavery was ending in the South with or without the Civil War. The destruction of property and deaths over this issue - a good issue to fight over, mind you, though it's worth noting slavery was legal in some less advanced nations, particularly some Arab ones, until 2007 - probably exceeded the costs of letting it sputter out on its own.

http://listverse.com/2010/12/06/10-surprising-facts-about-the-confederacy/

The Confederacy paid their black soldiers on an equal scale (though a debased currency that was essentially worthless) to its white soldiers while the North paid them less. Sure, the cause was noble, but it wasn't exactly 'fair', was it?

The Confederacy was also planning to end slavery, and it likely would've ended well before the 1900's. The cost of slavery was very high. Remember, even bad slave owners had to pay for housing, food, clothing, and bounties for escaped slaves, as well as pay taskmasters to oversee the slaves. People think slavery was "free labor" but that is far from the truth.

Was the war worth fighting? Depends on your point of view. I tend to think most wars are not worth fighting. The destruction of property and lives more than offsets any perceived gains. There are a few wars, possibly WWII, which do seem worthwhile. We were a better nation when we proclaimed neutrality (though we've rarely ever been neutral in much of anything, at least our costs of defense were lower).

I'm on the fence regarding the Civil War, though. I do tend to think the North, and Lincoln, were spoiling for a fight, despite their claims otherwise. Lincoln knew a resupply of Fort Sumter would ignite a powder keg, and did it anyway. He was hoping to call what he thought was a bluff - though it wasn't much of a bluff considering how quickly the South had mobilized.

Lincoln was also aware he was working with questionable resources at the start. His primary general, Winfield Scott, was old and not very up-to-date. His most experienced (logistically and capably) was McLellan, was not especially fond of the Union's position due to his rather pro-slavery stance and slight distaste for the particulars which had led up to the war. Even so, McLellan was probably the best and most able at the time - though his dawdling cost him on many occasions. I happen to think he had no interest in winning the war, and was more interested in dragging it out to support his own ambitions as a potential contestant in a future election against a (hopefully) embarrassed Lincoln. Clearly, that did not play out.

Lincoln tended to think the best of people until he felt they were not supporting him. But he was steadfast in his views, hiding his firm hand in a false form of 'collaboration' - seeking to draw people into his point of view and abandoning them if they stuck to their own views. It's a popular form of 'collaboration' used today in corporations - though one I find distasteful.

I think Lincoln also wanted to aggregate more control over what he felt was an economy which needed guidance. He was uncomfortable with the complexity of markets and usually disturbed by opposing views to his own. His calm demeanor hid much of this, and he tended to say he was fine with the South maintaining slavery even as he sought to remove it, seeing it correctly as a stain on the nation's Constitution. He chose poorly in his choice to rid the nation of this stain.

There's little doubt slavery was ending. Many historians and economists today recognize this. But one can only guess at what the balance can be, or should have been, in terms of lives. Would 40-60 more years of slavery been a good trade-off for saving the nation from greater centralization, hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of dollars of destruction, and a blurring of the lines in what makes us a Union (Civil War vs. War of Northern Aggression is still a sticky discussion down South)?

I happen to think both are sins, but people will disagree about which sin was greater. I would have voted to maintain the status quo, if my current knowledge was available back then. But it wasn't, to any great extent.

It's like asking if the witch on trial should have been declared a witch. Knowing what I know today - absolutely not. But if I was alive back then, it's hard to for me to say no, in all likelihood I'd have said yes. So I probably would have supported war were I alive in 1860, in the North, as a Republican. It was a moral question at the time which dominated.

Today, with the benefit of greater knowledge and hindsight, I can say with a considerable level of assured faith in authorities on the topic that it was a very, very bad idea.

Hey Dick! Still around pushing your drugs, huh?

As usual, nothing I wrote was wrong - but just didn't fit your meme, so rather than deny any of it, you simply refurbished the facts to suit your needs.

Time to get a new job, Dick. Does it matter when the Confederacy authorized black soldiers? No, it doesn't, especially as they were paid at scale. Freedom is an interesting side note, but hardly an indictment of the fact that this was authorized at all.
I never said they didn't go to war over slavery - I merely pointed out the plan to get rid of it was, in fact, in the works as the war progressed - and sped up as it became clear it was not going to end well. But these are facts that don't fit your meme.

You say it would have hung on for a long time in some states. Depends on what you mean by a long time. I stated well before 1900 - so is 35 years a long time? Why yes, it is....but I could see it ending before that in many states. So, again, facts are a problem for you to deal with when they don't fit your meme.

I never disputed any of the facts you listed. I simply made legitimate points which are all true. But you love to play misdirection and you just hate little bugs in your system, don't you?

http://www.libertyclassroom.com/slavery-and-the-civil-war-revisited/

It's also worth noting the North did not start the war to end slavery. While the South seceded to preserve it, market forces (willingness of foreign nations to recognize their government's legitimacy) eventually caused them to re-think their position. In fact, market forces were undermining their position for several years prior to their secession.

Just because the market doesn't work in a timely fashion, when we want, where we want, doesn't mean it is failing. It simply means there are forces at work which require many other considerations.

The very fact that several Union states were slave-holding states (all border states), and the fact several Union states which had abolished slavery still had slaves (most grandfathered in) and the fact that Grant's wife held slaves through most of the war (if they hadn't left of their own volition, though Grant had released his only slave in 1859) while Lee and Johnston did not even hold slaves and found the institution repugnant is really all you need to know about how bizarre the whole slave issue was.

While it was THE central issue, the catalyst, the prime motivation, it cannot be denied that the right of the Federal government to pass law which overrode state law (a Constitutional fact which is, today, considered a quaint artifact), often in cases where it was clear political favor was being played out (taxes which regularly hampered Southern agricultural product sales, but benefited Northern factories seeking cheap Southern resources), meant there was an over-arching issue of states' rights in play. It certainly was not THE SINGLE issue or even the primary one. But it definitely was an issue, and one which many people are capable of using to claim it as the reason (since, after all, the North didn't really care if the South kept slaves, nor did Lincoln - he had stated many times he was willing to let the South keep slavery intact and did not press hard for the Emancipation Proclamation until 1863, when he had a few key victories to embellish his political position - making him a rather cynical player in the whole drama).

But facts are facts. The Confederacy did, indeed, have a plan to abolish slavery in order to improve their position. It may have come late, but so did the Emancipation Proclamation. Both of these political moves were designed to improve the positions of the institutions which passed them. Cynical? Yes. But all politics is cynical.