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  1. #41
    Council Member tequila's Avatar
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    Still and all, by the 1850's slavery was pretty much dying out (I can hear you choking on that ). Take a look at what the number one US internal export "crop" for Virginia (and North Carolina I believe) was around 1855, I think you'll be surprised . The particular geography required for cotton was also disappearing as the US moved further west so, unless the US expanded into the Caribbean, you weren't likely to have many more slave states appearing.
    I'd like some more backup on the idea that slavery was dying as an economic institution. I'll have to wait until I get home, but most of my texts on this indicate just the opposite.

    Also, the aforementioned westward expansion of the U.S. was driven to a large extent by slavery, or specifically the influence of slaveowners interested in maintaining a proslavery majority by carving out more slave states from Mexico and the West. The history of the Texas Revolution and the Mexican War and its backers, as well as the filibuster movement which sought to carve out an empire of American slavery in the Caribbean and Central America, points this out.

  2. #42
    Council Member marct's Avatar
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    Hi Tequila,

    Quote Originally Posted by tequila View Post
    I'd like some more backup on the idea that slavery was dying as an economic institution. I'll have to wait until I get home, but most of my texts on this indicate just the opposite.
    It depends on how you measure it, really. To a large extent, slavery was economically untenable outside of cotton (and a few other crops, but mainly cotton). Check out the number of slaves sold to other states from Virginia and North Carolina - that was the "crop" I was referring to . You will also need to look at the increased availability of cotton in India, and the fights between the UK cotton factories and the Indian cotton industry.

    When I said it was "dying", it might have been more accurate to say that it had been diagnosed early on with a terminal disease . The real problem with it was the cost and, once the Brits managed to destroy the Indian cotton industry, that gave them an alternate source under their own control (as an example, look at how quickly they shifted once the Northern blockades were underway).

    Quote Originally Posted by tequila View Post
    Also, the aforementioned westward expansion of the U.S. was driven to a large extent by slavery, or specifically the influence of slaveowners interested in maintaining a proslavery majority by carving out more slave states from Mexico and the West. The history of the Texas Revolution and the Mexican War and its backers, as well as the filibuster movement which sought to carve out an empire of American slavery in the Caribbean and Central America, points this out.
    Sure, and I agree - that was a lot of the political impetus. Still and all, that is dependent upon the economic base, which was dependent on cotton. I'll agree that if the US had expanded into the Caribbean, then that would have given a second crop, sugar cane, that would be quite salable and continue to support slavery. But it's hard to grow sugar cane outside of that area.

    Another point is that by the 1850's there was an increasing resistance to "Buying American" in the European markets because of slavery. This was one of the factors that helped to push the British into destroying the cotton industry in India and using their raw cotton.

    There are a couple of other things to consider, again at the economic level. Up until about the 1820's or so, the vast majority of wealth produced in the US came from the agrarian South. Gradually, that shifted over to manufacturing in the North, and corn and ranching in the West (neither of which works well with slavery). You also had mass waves of immigrants coming into the North, but very few going into the South, so the entire population demographic was changing. Part of the reason for trying to carve out the new slave states was to maintain parity in the Senate, since it had been lost in Congress.

    But this push to grab new slave states in Mexico and the Caribbean could only garner so much support at the national level. How much longer would it be likely that the increasingly populated North and West would support the South through wars of aggression? Sure, you had the Mexican campaign, but do you really think that Congress would have gone for an attack on Spanish colonies in the 1850's-1860's? I really doubt that Britain would have stood by and let that happen.

    BTW, I ever said that slavery wasn't an issue, just that it wasn't the root cause.

    Marc
    Last edited by marct; 12-06-2007 at 04:26 PM. Reason: sticky keys...
    Sic Bisquitus Disintegrat...
    Marc W.D. Tyrrell, Ph.D.
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  3. #43
    i pwnd ur ooda loop selil's Avatar
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    If you want I can get the missus professor to show up and bore you on the topic of slavery like only a former historian can. I sure do prefer talking about C++ code than I do the "Pastoral Letter" and the congregationalist ministers of New England threat towards William Lloyd Garrison and Anglina and Sarah Grimke to stop discussing anti slavery in 1837. It basically shut down a large part of the anti-slavery movement (specifically the woman) in the New England states. (Can you tell I'm being coached?)

    She also says that the westward expansion was part of the slave power conspiracy movement and westward expansion was happening despite slavery or along with it....

    All errors are mine (I can't type as fast as she talks)....

    She's got some bonafides... She's the author of several encyclopedia entries on the subject.

    Ask her about her Turner thesis that somebody else wrote.....
    Sam Liles
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  4. #44
    Council Member tequila's Avatar
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    I'd agree that long-term demographic changes in the U.S. augured ill for slavery, and that indeed this tension was at the heart of the Civil War.

    Slave states were dominated politically by the slaveowning aristocracy which saw slavery as key to both economic power and their own particular "gentlemanly" lifestyle. As the threats to this lifestyle loomed, this aristocracy sought to maintain itself through political domination of the national government through the expansion of the number of slaves states so as always to maintain a majority in Congress and control of the Presidency. This political majority was held to be critical to keeping slavery legal and the system intact - the loss of Southern slaveholding control over these institutions was thought to lead inexorably to the banning of slavery.

    Thus the election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency despite the complete opposition of the South was seen as the breaking point for the Union - it meant that non-slaveholding states were finally capable of taking control of a key federal institution despite the near-unified opposition of the slave states. For proslavery radicals, it was the death knell of slavery in the Union and thus the system could only be preserved outside of it.

    Selil - We need more female perspectives on the SWC anyway - bring her on!

  5. #45
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    Quote Originally Posted by marct View Post
    slavery wasn't the root cause.
    If you don't believe Marc, maybe this guy will have more credibility:



    "Actually, there were numerous causes. Aside from the obvious schism between the abolitionists and the anti-abolitionists, there were economic factors, both domestic and international"
    Quote Originally Posted by SteveMetz View Post
    Sometimes it takes someone without deep experience to think creatively.

  6. #46
    Council Member Ken White's Avatar
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    Default And, of course, there was the

    Quote Originally Posted by Rank amateur View Post
    If you don't believe Marc, maybe this guy will have more credibility:

    "Actually, there were numerous causes. Aside from the obvious schism between the abolitionists and the anti-abolitionists, there were economic factors, both domestic and international"
    Scotch Irish factor...

    Not to mention international meddling by those who saw the potential of the US and preferred that it not become goliath...

  7. #47
    Council Member wm's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rank amateur View Post
    "Actually, there were numerous causes. Aside from the obvious schism between the abolitionists and the anti-abolitionists, there were economic factors, both domestic and international"
    Let us not forget the basic social form differences as well. Folks who immigrated to the north of what would become the Mason-Dixon line tended to be more attuned to the notion of an egalitarian society without distinctions of social class while those who landed in the southern half of the 13 colonies were much more likely to have come from a very class-conscious background that took the "patrician-plebian" dichotomy as part of a well-ordered society much more to heart. Thus, Southern culture was more disposed to accept, at least, and perhaps to demand, a society that included a distinctly serf-like serving class. Since there were few peasants native to America (Native Americans hardly fit the laborer-tied-to-the-land/peasant motif), importing slaves filled that void quite nicely.

  8. #48
    Council Member tequila's Avatar
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    Zombie thread, awaken!

    South Carolina chose to begin the Civil War by opening fire on Federal troops at Fort Sumter. At any rate, here is their justification for secession.

    We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

    For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

    This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.

    On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.

    The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy.

    ...

    We, therefore, the People of South Carolina, by our delegates in Convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America, is dissolved, and that the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate and independent State; with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.

  9. #49
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rex Brynen View Post
    ...from the point of view of most aboriginal populations, the "Indian Wars" were all about brutal foreign (white) conquest, forced displacement, and even a little ethnic cleansing of the local population.

    I don't doubt there are operational and strategic lessons to be learned, but lets be a little careful about understanding it as a COIN model

    i think its is important to note that many people view counterinsurgency warfare as a liberal gloss over the tactics of brutal colonialism colonial conquest and, historically, it isn't incorrect. taking Vietnam as an example, you can trace the development of counterinsurgency doctrines used to pacify the country from the "collective punishment" of colonial France to "the oils spot doctrine" of the first Indochina war to the increasing scientifically managed COIN doctrines of anti-colonial liberal Americans whether it be Kennedy and Lansdale or Johnson and Robert Komer. The genesis of counterinsurgency warfare lies in battles to secure colonial domination and there is really no way of getting around that. i think the most interesting question, then, becomes can COIN transcend that or destined to reproduce so colonial logic?

    also, interesting debate on civil war....
    Last edited by relative autonomy; 01-05-2008 at 08:11 PM. Reason: remove repeated words

  10. #50
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default Drifting back to war?

    In 2007 Rex Brynen commented:
    How has Mozambique sustained democracy since 1992, despite having experienced bitter anti-colonial (1962-75) and civil (1975-92) war that left left almost a million people dead through its direct and indirect consequences?
    Six years later this question has become pertinent sadly:
    Suspected Renamo guerrillas killed seven Mozambican soldiers in an ambush on Thursday near the former rebel group's remote mountain hideout, local media said, the latest flare-up in a simmering insurgency.....Analysts say this year's attacks are a reaction to it being pushed into political and economic obscurity by Frelimo, which is expected to dominate municipal elections due next month and nationwide elections in just over a year.
    Link:http://mobile.reuters.com/article/id...31017?irpc=932

    Mozambique rarely gets attention from the MSM.
    davidbfpo

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