202. MrSocko - Dec. 30, 1998 - 7:17 AM PT
cllrdr:
Have no doubt that Erasmus baby is perfectly capable of being girlish (and churlish, of course).
203. cllrdr - Dec. 30, 1998 - 7:22 AM PT
Pseudo --It's not how slavery would have "come to an end" that interests me, or any other African-American. It's the *fact* of slavery and its *effect* on this society that's at issue. If you want to leap to the finale, why ring up the curtain at all?
"Thick Scum of Irrationality"? Hmmm. If this were the 60's, that might well serve as the name for a San Francisco rock band.
204. Seguine - Dec. 30, 1998 - 8:00 AM PT
"If you want to leap to the finale, why ring up the curtain at all?"
Why do you persist in accusing others of what you IN PARTICULAR are guilty? And why must discussions in this forum constantly be directed by you toward the one realm in which you feel comfortable babbling: preaching about prejudice to the fucking CHOIR?
For god's sake man, NOBODY IN THIS DISCUSSION IS A RACIST. No one here believes slavery was a good thing. And nothing Loar has cited thus far suggests that PE is incorrect in his characterization of _Time on the Cross_ or its authors.
It seems obvious to me that one of the worst, most enduring effects of racism has been the making of people like you just mad as hatters.
205. ScotusAntonovich - Dec. 30, 1998 - 8:05 AM PT
Hmm.
I thought my question in Message #159 was an interesting one.
Oh well. I've been ignored before.
206. davidtudor - Dec. 30, 1998 - 8:15 AM PT
Scotus - there are various posts that in their way address your point, but for a quick response, see Message #199, although Pseudoerasmus does say somewhere up above that many of the economic analysis conclusions of Fogel and Engerman supporting the premise that slavery would not have come to an end without its having been destroyed via military means are controversial.
207. cllrdr - Dec. 30, 1998 - 8:23 AM PT
Good grief, Seguine. "Mad as hatters"? I'm sitting here, calmly, having a cup of coffee and making my morning posts. I'm amazed at the way you get excercized over almost everything I write in the Fray. Relax.
Of course you're just following the Republibot script: Anyone who brings up racism is a racist.
Most amusing.
208. Seguine - Dec. 30, 1998 - 9:29 AM PT
"Of course you're just following the Republibot script: Anyone who brings up racism is a racist."
Again, accusing others of what you yourself are guilty.
I never called you a racist. I said you are insane. Moreover, you did not merely "bring up racism", cllrdr, you implied that Pseudoerasmus is a racist. You had no basis for doing so, just as you have no basis for saying most of what you say, the vast majority of which is accusatory and paranoid. (Which might plausibly be justifiable if you had any sense of intuition at all, but you apparently don't.)
Incidentally, why shouldn't I be exercised? Why shouldn't it irritate *anyone* interested in the topic being discussed here that you wish to drag the discourse into manicheism? Good guys, bad guys, evil bubbas, saintly abolitionists, racist "Republibots", homophobes, virtuous victims...drone, drone, drone.
209. stostosto - Dec. 30, 1998 - 9:32 AM PT
LadyChaos #177
"Northern industry wage labor and Southern plantation slave labor were viewed by both sides as economically incompatible institutions. Fights over tariffs were secondary."
Perhaps you are right. But why exactly would wage labour and slave labour be economically incompatible? I, like PE (and just about every economic historian or economist there is, I should say ), view slaves as capital assets. In economic terms that is. Livestock. I don't know for sure, but I also think that the Southern argument for slavery not being in breach with the "all men are created equal" part of the constitution was that negros were not encompassed by the term "men". They were closer to animals, which rarely have been subjected to moral arguments as to whether they should be freed. And animal ownership is certainly not economically incompatible with also having wage labour. There might be practical problems upholding the system if it is hard to tell a slave from a free man. This is perhaps where racial distinctions may be said to have a "functional" purpose. Skin colour is hard to conceal. (Of course there are other ways of brandishing parts of a population; yellow stars, red caps, etc.).
And MarCellarDoor: I am not in favour of slavery. Nor have I ever been. I do not subscribe to racism in any form and have never done so. In fact, I am vehemently against it and try actively to oppose it wherever I experience it.
210. Raskolnikov - Dec. 30, 1998 - 9:36 AM PT
What I think is getting under Cellar's skin is that several of the findings in Time on the Cross, relating to the material condition of slaves, dovetail very closely with what various slavery apologists have claimed over the years in saying "slaves didn't have it all that bad". In fact, if you check the link to the Amazon web site on the book that I posted earlier, several "reviews" of the book are written by people who I suspect have eyeholes cut into their white pillowcases. The book makes arguments that can be seen as validating specific claims by racists, who use those claims to back up broader claims that I'm sure Fogel and everyone else in the Fray find repugnant.
I don't fault him for having a knee-jerk reaction (although I hope he has been reassured by statements that the material claims are still controversial). Some of the issues have a lot of history and emotional baggage. However, Fogel is a Nobel laureate. Charles Murray is a dipshit. If the media equates the two, this is a failure on the part of the media.
211. Raskolnikov - Dec. 30, 1998 - 9:51 AM PT
The problems in distinguishing free blacks from slaves led to some nasty laws where free blacks could not live in certain states, or if they could not "prove" that they were free, they were returned to slavehood.
212. LadyChaos - Dec. 30, 1998 - 10:10 AM PT
stostosto, Re: Message #209
"But why exactly would wage labour and slave labour be economically incompatible?"
My point was that the two institutions were viewed *at the time* by both sides as being incompatible. With the luxury of hindsight, one could make the argument that they were not, but that has little bearing on what were very emotionally charged views at the time of the war. Southern whites saw factory wage labor as reducing white men to slave-like conditions, whereas Northerners saw slave labor as corruptive and antithetical to yankee notions of individual self-sufficiency. The guys who went to war over these views were not economists.
213. cllrdr - Dec. 30, 1998 - 10:26 AM PT
Where did I accuse Pseudo of being a racist?
What a ridiculous idea. I ask Pseudo a couple of questions and I'm accusing him of being a racist?
214. Jonesatlaw - Dec. 30, 1998 - 11:27 AM PT
I think that there are two fundamental divides between the North and the South prior to the war. One is the economic one between chattel slavery and free workers in the North. The second is a cultural one. The North was largely influenced by religious non-conformists from England, and their cultural traditions and outlook were developed from "roundhead" culture brought from England. The South seems more in keeping with the "royalist" tradition of England and the plantation tradition of the Scots-Irish. The first looks to the church and industry and the second to clan and land.
The real conflict was not as much between Yankee industrialists and the Rebel planters, it was between northern family grain farmers, and slave system "corporate" style farming in the south.
215. jexster - Dec. 30, 1998 - 11:28 AM PT
Just finished Faulkner's "The Unvanquished". Ringo to Bayard Sartoris, his life long buddy, Reconstruction just begun:
"There ain't no more niggers! I done bin 'bolished!"
216. doug1066 - Dec. 30, 1998 - 11:29 AM PT
The question still is, "What was the impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on the United States"? Well simply put the impact has been entirely negative, Many of the posts refer to the lingering antagonism between North and South. This after the country has been "Reconstructed." An early post referred to a confrontation between two people in Mississippi in which one was told "Yankee, go home" and the other was told that his home was "conquered territory". Given the Northern fiction that the Union was on a Holy Crusade to wipe the stain of slavery from our country and 133 years of holding the descendents of slave holders responsible for the sins of their fathers, I can understand why Southerners refuse to forget. Until the Northeastern power elite is willing to recognise the entire legacy of slavery, including the fact that it was LEGAL until 1865 and that many promiment abolitionist families made their fortune in the slave trade, the war and Reconstruction will not be forgotten, Until the South is given its due as a cultrually seperate but economically vital part of the country, this debate will continue. Furthermore, I am tired of the use of the word racist in these debates. The use of insults and name-calling is the mark of an uninformed, ill-prepared debater.
217. ChristiPeters - Dec. 30, 1998 - 11:32 AM PT
"The use of insults and name-calling is the mark of an uninformed, ill-prepared debater."
HERE! HERE!
218. ScotusAntonovich - Dec. 30, 1998 - 11:41 AM PT
Re: Message #206, davidtudor.
"...many of the economic analysis conclusions of Fogel and Engerman supporting the premise that slavery would not have come to an end without its having been destroyed via military means are controversial."
That certainly is a possibility. I would ask, given that, if the edict was given 10 years later if the South wouldn't have fought as hard or maybe wouldn't have stopped being a member of the Union. Given the choice of (relatively) advanced machinery and the prospect of war with the North, I can't see history would be the same.
doug1066:
Well said.
219. Seguine - Dec. 30, 1998 - 11:48 AM PT
Rask & Chaos,
"And animal ownership is certainly not economically incompatible with
also having wage labour. There might be practical problems upholding the system if it is hard to tell a slave from a free man."
Or the work done by one from that done by the other. That is, a 'man' and a 'slave' could probably perform exactly the same work. A man and an animal could not.
OTOH, given the easy visual distinction between slaves and non-slaves, one assumes that certain kinds of work were simply *determined* to be doable only by slaves and other kinds only by whites. And that distinction, I think, is quite likely to have been motivated by some concrete interest and not only by racism, which is why I don't think it's at all silly to assume until proven otherwise that slavery must have been a productive and profitable institution. Since racists to this day make arguments about blacks' "natural" fitness for some kinds of work and not others, I expect the slaveowning South was premised on just such clear-cut distinctions as you suggest. I really can't see how slave and wage labor would have been seen as "incompatible" in the South.
The thing is, if economic considerations alone were at issue, one would expect the North might have found the South's distinctions congenial to its own ends. E.g., why not fill the factories with unusually efficient 'animals' instead of paid human beings?
220. 109109 - Dec. 30, 1998 - 11:49 AM PT
Dolphins?
I mean . . . porpoises?
221. ScottLoar - Dec. 30, 1998 - 12:18 PM PT
"Time on the Cross" (continued): Chapter Two, Occupations and Markets
Although fig.10, pg. 39, A Comparison between the Occupational Distribution of Adult Male Slaves (about 1850) and the Occupational Distribution of All Adult Males (in 1870) shows adult males to grossly outnumber adult male slaves in managerial and professonal positions but the two remain roughly even among the number of artisans and craftsmen and semiskilled positions, and yet even as labour occupied 73% of adult male slaves in 1850 49% of all males were so occupied in 1870 (80% of women slaves were occupied as field labour, the remaining 20% in domestic or quasi-domestic positions). "(T)he fact remains that over 25 percent of (adult male) slaves were managers, professionals, craftsmen, and semiskilled workers", most directly engaged in the slave community as "only a relatively small percentage of slaves (about 6 percent) lived in cities and towns of one thousand or more persons". Even agriculture was variegated as these labourers were occupied in the life of the farm where "participation in a variety of activities was the rule rather than the exception", and so not restricted to simple field labour of one crop. "Cotton was, of course, the single most important crop on large cotton plantations, requiring about 34 percent of the labor time of slaves... the rearing of livestock...about 25 percent... corn bound for human consumption...6 percent...the remaining 34 percent of working time" was spent on a variety of chores, maintenance and improvements.
222. ScottLoar - Dec. 30, 1998 - 12:30 PM PT
As the cash crop economy switched from tobacco culture centered in Maryland and Virginia (where more than 1/2 of the slave population had resided for above a century) to cotton culture at the beginning of the 19th century so, too, did the center of the black population shift from those two states to Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas (fig. 11. pg. 45, The Distribution of the Slave Population in 1790 and 1860). "From a total output of just 3,000 bales in 1790, U.S. cotton production increased to 178,000 bales in 1810, to 732,000 bales in 1830, and to 4,500,000 bales in 1860". Fig. 12, pg.46, The Interregional Movement of Slaves, 1790-1860 shows that 1790-1860 835,000 slaves moved from "exporting states" of Virginia, Maryland and the Carolinas (supplying 85%) to "importing states" of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas which received about 75% of the total. Fig.13, pg. 46, Actual Slave Population of Importing States Compared with the Population that Would Have Existed in These States If Growth Had Been at the National Rate projects a steady incline of 600,000+ compared to the actual population of 2,400,000+.
223. Seguine - Dec. 30, 1998 - 12:35 PM PT
Sorry, 219 should have been addressed to Stostosto and Chaos.
224. ScottLoar - Dec. 30, 1998 - 12:38 PM PT
Such a demographic shift begs two questions: breeding of slaves for profit and the break-up of slave families. "Available evidence suggests that 84 percent of the slaves engaged in the westward movement migrated with their owners", and profit selling slaves was scarce, "one quarter of the price of a prime-aged slave in the typical interregional sale was profit", average profit per slaveholder being "less than four dollars per year", which suggests breeding for profit to have been extremely rare. Fully recognizing that some families were broken up for sale still records from New Orleans of slave sales (through which passed 1/3 of interregional slave sales) 18-4-1862 "indicate more than 84 percent of all sales over the age of fourteen involved unmarried individuals... 9.3 percent were children under thirteen" (fig. 14, pg. 50, A Comparison of the Age Distribution of Slaves Sold in New Orleans with the Age Distribution of All Slaves Migrating from East to West) which compares favouably with the estimate of 15.9% of all children at the time under 13 years of age being orphaned. In sum, perhaps "13 percent, or less, of interregional sales resulted in the destruction of marriages". Further, "since sales were only 16 percent of the total interregional movement, it is probably that about 2 percent of the marriages of slaves involved in the westward trek were destroyed by the process of migration".
225. ScottLoar - Dec. 30, 1998 - 12:42 PM PT
Projecting from total slave sales in Maryland 1830-1840 it is estimated that at the national level "total slave sales...1820-1860 averaged about fifty thousand per year. In other words...only one slaveholder out of every twenty-two sold a slave in any given year, and roughly one-third of these were estates of deceased persons". So, too, speculation in cotton futures or railroad bonds was more rewarding than buying-and-selling slaves on the spot market as skills particularly useful to one owner might have little value to another. A review of records from 19 plantations shows that "over a period of ninety years ending in 1865, a mere seven slaves were sold from these plantations. Of these, six were born on their plantations and one was purchased".
226. davidtudor - Dec. 30, 1998 - 12:43 PM PT
Among the (at least partially) non-economic reasons why slavery would not have been abolished in the South voluntarily during any foreseeable time subsequent to the Civil War era surely musst have been what I will characterize as "concern" over what to do with such a large percentage of the region's population suddenly becoming free. Presumably many would in fact have gone to work for their prior masters (!) (I see scrip, bubbaette) but what about those who wouldn't? These were the days long before the one-way bus tickets to the North, but were there ever any 'serious' displacement schemes considered, either back to Africa or perhaps to the Caribbean?
Actually, scratch the word "concern" above. I am sure "fear" is more apt.
227. ScottLoar - Dec. 30, 1998 - 12:48 PM PT
Two markets existed for slaves, the purchase market for long periods of time and the rental market, usually a year. Slave artisans "frequently hired out on their own account. Such slaves operated in virtually the same way as their free counterparts. They advertised their services themselves, negotiated their own contracts, received monies and paid debts themselves, and obtained their own residences adn places of business. The primary difference between such slaves and free artisans was that the slaveS were required to pay their owners a fixed percentage of their income" (pg. 56).
ScottLoar commentary: The institution of slavery, in general and in particular to individuals, shifted to meet market demand and was woven into the very fabric of life.
228. ScottLoar - Dec. 30, 1998 - 12:50 PM PT
Forgive the typographical errors in the text above, but I assure you those errors have not changed the content or its accuracy.
229. ScottLoar - Dec. 30, 1998 - 12:54 PM PT
Erratum: According to the US census for 1850 the 2,800,000 slaves in agriculture were distributed among farms producing:
Cotton - 73%
Tobacco - 14%
Sugar - 6%
Rice - 5%
Hemp - 2%
"Time on the Cross", pg.41.
230. Seguine - Dec. 30, 1998 - 12:56 PM PT
"But why exactly would wage labour and slave labour be economically
incompatible? I, like PE (and just about every economic historian or
economist there is, I should say ), view slaves as capital assets."
Actually, in reconsidering Chaos' remarks, it occurs to me that the alleged incompatibility between slave and wage labor is quite easy to see if one looks at the issue from the standpoint of paid laborers. That is, the fear of the *spread* of slavery could certainly have been instrumental in mobilizing white Northern laborers to war against the South.
However, 1) would such a fear have been justified, and 2) is there evidence it was exploited by Northern leaders, and 3) how much of the population would really have been motivated by the fear of slavery eliminating their jobs (or how influential was that fearful population)?
231. DanDillon - Dec. 30, 1998 - 12:57 PM PT
ScottLoar,
How many non-agriculture slaves were accounted for in 1850, and what were they doing exactly?
232. Seguine - Dec. 30, 1998 - 1:02 PM PT
Rask,
"What I think is getting under Cellar's skin is that several of the
findings in Time on the Cross, relating to the material condition of
slaves, dovetail very closely with what various slavery apologists have claimed over the years in saying "slaves didn't have it all that bad". In fact, if you check the link to the Amazon web site on the book that I posted earlier, several "reviews" of the book are written by people who I suspect have eyeholes cut into their white pillowcases. The book makes arguments that can be seen as validating specific claims by racists, who use those claims to back up broader claims that I'm sure Fogel and everyone else in the Fray find repugnant."
Sorry, I don't agree that these are legitimate reasons for having knee-jerk reactions in response to facts (assuming the "facts" are correct). Knee-jerk reactions are precisely what drive the things we all deplore, *particularly* racism. White trash attired in sheets, you must bear in mind, have a reaction to blacks that is irrational; nevertheless, it serves its psychological purpose, which among other subtleties is to affirm the immanent superiority of the white trash. The same can be said for political correctness: it is rooted in the inevitably self-serving fear that one's own group--an ideologically defined one, rather than a racially defined one--is in danger of being subverted and supplanted by the undeserving and the vile. But there is no reason to assume that this is *always* really true--especially if one is confident in the reasonableness of one's own position, and especially when one's position has enjoyed popular preeminence for many years.
Too many 'progressives' are not, I suspect, really confident in the tenets of liberalism, any more than southern Klansmen are confident of their class superiority. Each of them wishes too ardently for cartoon villains motivated entirely by repugnant, 'inhuman' interests. I
233. Seguine - Dec. 30, 1998 - 1:07 PM PT
(232 cont.) Too many 'progressives' are not, I suspect, really confident in the tenets of liberalism, any more than southern Klansmen are confident of their class superiority. Each of them wishes too ardently for cartoon villains motivated entirely by repugnant, 'inhuman' interests. I think endorsing that kind of thinking, or excusing it in the context of a rational discussion, is a mistake. The issue is not whether slavery apologists, or Charles Murray, are somehow 'dangerously' right about any particular piece of information having to do with the institution, or blacks, or whomever. The issue is whether they are right, period. There are plenty of superb arguments against slavery, racism, and bigotry in general. There's no *need* to fear the messy details of history--only a need to marshall them honestly in defense of one's own moral position. And if one's moral position is reasonable--for instance, if in a democracy it rests on the notion of simple human reciprocation--that can certainly be done.
234. Seguine - Dec. 30, 1998 - 1:10 PM PT
Doug,
"'What was the impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on the United States'? Well simply put the impact has been entirely negative"
Really? For whom, exactly?
235. 109109 - Dec. 30, 1998 - 1:15 PM PT
Posts 232 and 233 require that I state "mega ditto." Make your own judgments.
236. Raskolnikov - Dec. 30, 1998 - 1:20 PM PT
Seguine: I didn't say they were legitimate, I just said they were understandable. I stand by that.
237. bubbaette - Dec. 30, 1998 - 1:21 PM PT
"Mega Ditto"! I judge that to be inane, although I do agree with the referenced posts.
238. 109109 - Dec. 30, 1998 - 1:22 PM PT
Bubba
You Judge Judy, you.
239. bubbaette - Dec. 30, 1998 - 1:24 PM PT
Watch it buster.
240. 109109 - Dec. 30, 1998 - 1:29 PM PT
I'm sorry, your honor. Nice doilie.
241. Seguine - Dec. 30, 1998 - 1:33 PM PT
"I didn't say they were legitimate, I just said they were understandable. I stand by that."
I gathered from the tenor of your post that you might be of the opinion that understanding is the same thing as forgiving. Apologies, if I was wrong; I do, after all, understand. It's just that I also condemn, as evenhandedly as possible...
242. Seguine - Dec. 30, 1998 - 1:36 PM PT
109! Don't Pee on My Foot and Tell Me It's Raining!
243. 109109 - Dec. 30, 1998 - 1:36 PM PT
I'm not sure how much longer it will be understandable. There is a truly insidious anti-intellectualism to it that snaps a lot of the weak right back into line with many a "no offense" and "not that there is anything wrong with thats". Oh well, such is the lot of the easily herded.
I'm reminded of someone else's recent posts in Impeachment wherein they sullied the GOP by noting that most racists supported many of the same mundane things the GOP espoused. Someone else smartly retorted that most convicted killers may be pro-choice.
244. 109109 - Dec. 30, 1998 - 1:37 PM PT
Seg
Leg! It's leg! And I will never pee on your leg.
245. ChristinO - Dec. 30, 1998 - 1:52 PM PT
It's "head" you two.
246. ChristinO - Dec. 30, 1998 - 1:59 PM PT
Seg,
I assumed that Doug's post was either an oversight or a "well besides the obvious" in relation to the abolition of slavery and the promotion of civil rights. If that's not the case then I think you're on the right track and have my hearty endorsement to lambast the sucker.
If, however, he was referring solely to the lingering antipathy and economic fallout between Southerners and the rest of the country then I think he has a valid point. I'm well aware that I'm touchy about this issue particularly as a Southerner living in California. I've been subjected to no end of insults about "Southerners". We're racist, uneducated, inbred, redneck and generally scum. It gets old quick. There are certainly sterotypes about Northerners, but they tend to be less insulting and less ubiquitous.
247. bubbaette - Dec. 30, 1998 - 2:01 PM PT
Leg I can understand. How would one go about peeing on another person's head?
248. ChristiPeters - Dec. 30, 1998 - 2:03 PM PT
A ladder?
249. davidtudor - Dec. 30, 1998 - 2:06 PM PT
especially when you are both vertically challenged and a shrimp.
Sorry.
Carry on.
250. 109109 - Dec. 30, 1998 - 2:12 PM PT
De Plane! De Plane!
251. CalGal - Dec. 30, 1998 - 2:16 PM PT
Message #246
We don't call them Northerners. We call them Easterners.
There is no real North, except the one in California.
And you do not exaggerate about our view of the South. We call them heathens.
Oh. You mean *that* South.
252. ScottLoar - Dec. 30, 1998 - 2:18 PM PT
re Message #231 DanDillon: In Charleston, as an example of urban skill and labour, about 27% of the adult male slaves were skilled artisans, but on those on the plantations "7.0 percent of the men held managerial positions and 11.9 percent were skilled craftsmen (blacksmiths, carpenters, coopers, etc.). Another 7.4 percent were engaged in semi-skilled and domestic or quasi-domestic jobs: teamsters, coachmen, gardeners, stewards, and house servants", pg. 39, ibid. "While slavery clearly limited the opportunities of bondsmen to acquire skills, the fact remains that over 25 percent of males were managers, professionals, craftsmen, and semiskilled workers. Thus, the common belief that all slaves were menial laborers is false", pg.40, ibid.
ScottLoar commentary: A visit to any of the large plantations whose houses and grounds are still extant shows that every skill needed to maintain the self-sufficiency of a large agriculutural enterprise and great house needed hands in every direction. It was quite beyond the means or capability of one master and mistress to do otherwise; they fully depended on their slaves for everything except the manufacture of luxury goods.
253. Jonesatlaw - Dec. 30, 1998 - 2:41 PM PT
ScottLoar- your commentary hits precisely on what I was attempting to point out earlier. Southern plantation life was much more a continuation of earlier European traditions of the landed classes and the servant classes. The distinguishing feature was that slaves were tied directly to the owner while serfs (and later tenant farmers) were tied to the land itself.
254. cllrdr - Dec. 30, 1998 - 3:26 PM PT
Seguine -- You still haven't answered my question (see #213): In what post did I call Pseudo a racist?
255. Seguine - Dec. 30, 1998 - 5:34 PM PT
Cellardoor,
In what post did I say you called him a racist outright?
256. cllrdr - Dec. 30, 1998 - 5:39 PM PT
#208
257. Seguine - Dec. 30, 1998 - 6:16 PM PT
"If, however, [Doug] was referring solely to the lingering antipathy and economic fallout between Southerners and the rest of the country then I think he has a valid point."
One I somewhat agree with, except that not all of the South is equally affected by lingering antipathy and economic fallout. Texas, for instance (ideologically South, albeit culturally southwest), seems to be in pretty good financial shape these days. And any antipathy that is felt there...well, I think that's largely the fault of Texans, to be quite honest, and isn't that different from the cultural antipathy people in Idaho and Kansas feel for New Yorkers.
"I'm well aware that I'm touchy about this issue particularly as a Southerner living in California."
Been there, done that, completely intolerable experience.
"I've been subjected to no end of insults about "Southerners". ...There are certainly sterotypes about Northerners, but they tend to be less insulting and less ubiquitous."
NEasterners, actually, and the reason they're less insulting is that, although Californians share southerners' envy of the northeast's historical standing as the US's cultural mecca, CA envy of the NE is tinged with a degree of respect. Southern envy of the NE, OTOH, is based on genuine and total disapproval. And CA disapproval of the South has no component of envy at all: it's just the one place self-righteous, technologically superior, intellectually prole, economically advantaged nouveau riches feel entitled to belittle without hesitation.
258. CalGal - Dec. 30, 1998 - 6:30 PM PT
No, we never say they are "NEasterners". Just Easterners.
And it's not so much respect in general, it's just that education is the *one* sort of aristocracy we value out here, and the East has more of the *very* best universities. We respect the potential hiring pool. But not their ridiculous accents and their dress codes.
And you're wrong about the South being the lowest in our disregard. As awful as we are about the South, 'tis *nothing* compared to our contempt for flyover country. At least the South has beaches. Christin just hasn't noticed because we rarely bother to discuss such a flat and dull place.
Self-righteous? Bullshit.
259. CalGal - Dec. 30, 1998 - 6:31 PM PT
"such a flat and dull place as the Midwest."
Sorry.
260. ChristinO - Dec. 30, 1998 - 6:32 PM PT
Seg,
Over the recent holiday my family was discussing the peculiarities of the Southern v Western identity of Texas. My mother finds that Dallas is distinctly Southern while Ft. Worth less than 40 miles away is distinctly Western. Texas as a whole is a country unto itself in many ways. I haven't travelled extensively in Texas and the only place I lived for any real amount of time was Dallas. It does not feel the same to me as being in Carolina or Georgia or Louisiana, but I'm sure that part of that has to do with geography and vegetation. I'm curious about the more southerly cities like Austin, Houston, SanAntonio and Corpus Christi.
I suppose you are right to specify NorthEast, but when I think North it's pretty much nothing West of Ohio-------which absurdly enough is considered the Midwest, right?
261. ChristinO - Dec. 30, 1998 - 6:35 PM PT
Ah, but CG, you're in Northern California where the attitude is very different from Southern California. I found Sacramento to be very reminiscent of the South and SanFran more like an Eastern city than like the rest of California---except for the accents and dress, of course. (g)
262. CalGal - Dec. 30, 1998 - 6:36 PM PT
I speak only of the true California, and not the heathen southlands.
Sacramento is our Buffalo. Mention it at your peril.
263. Seguine - Dec. 30, 1998 - 6:50 PM PT
Cellardoor, in message #208 I said "...you implied that Pseudoerasmus is a racist" in response to YOUR claim that you had merely 'brought up racism'. (Note that I said "you implied", not that you had the balls to say it outright.) Here is your remark which, as you put it, 'brings up racism':
"Pseudo, would you say that any employer willing to provide "food, clothing, shelter, medical care and other services," the manner and extent of which being up to said employer, need not offer his employees any further compensation?"
Not only had PE not ventured anywhere NEAR that sort of assertion, nothing he has said in the last two years (at least) suggests that he *would*.
But PE was wrong about one thing. Your "question" wasn't stupid. Because it wasn't really a question. It was a deliberate, calculated attempt to raise the expectation that PE *might* answer in the affirmative. It was a "when did you stop beating your wife?" sort of query, the predictable denial of which, you hoped, would suggest to others that *he's really a closet advocate of slavery*.
I think it's safe to conclude you expected to impute to him racist motives for even provisionally agreeing with the premise that slavery was not economically unviable.
264. cllrdr - Dec. 30, 1998 - 6:53 PM PT
Seguine -- As Pseudo would say, you're delusional!
265. toonces - Dec. 30, 1998 - 7:02 PM PT
I accused PE of being a racist once, and he essentially admitted that he was. He said he didn't like anything about Native Americans and said he just felt that way, he couldn't help it.
266. Seguine - Dec. 30, 1998 - 7:04 PM PT
SF Bay Area is the epicenter of self-righteousness, surpassing even Iran.
Re Texas, I've lived in Corpus Christi, Dallas, and Austin. ChristinO is right about Dallas being southern, Foat Wuth being western. Austin is (or was) sort of a schizophrenic version of Santa Cruz, it being the state capitol, full of both right-wing Republicans and anti-Zionist lesbians... Corpus used to be a coastal isolate, sort of a humid and lovely pocket of Mexican immigration, semi-wealthy retirees, and poor white redneck spillover. (And Houston, which I visited once very briefly, must be now somewhat like a hurricane-prone cousin of LA.)
267. glendajean - Dec. 30, 1998 - 7:06 PM PT
ChristinO -- Waco, a 100 miles south of Dallas, a 100 miles north of Austin, was the second largest city in Texas at the turn of the century. There were cotton farms all around there. The cotton was gathered there and then sent to Galveston, the largest city in Texas at the turn of the century, where it was shipped out to markets. Unusual for a Texas city, it still has an anti-bellum Greek Revival home that is now a museum.
Waco had six generals who fought in the Civil War. It was a very southern town.
268. CoralReef - Dec. 30, 1998 - 7:13 PM PT
"(And Houston, which I visited once very briefly, must be now somewhat like a hurricane-prone cousin of LA.)" Yeah, sorta. More trucks and less rioting, but otherwise not far off.
269. cllrdr - Dec. 30, 1998 - 7:13 PM PT
"Waco had six generals who fought in the Civil War."
And not one anti-Zionist lesbian among them!
270. Seguine - Dec. 30, 1998 - 7:14 PM PT
Jeez, Cellardoor. Be precise. It's "hallucinating". And I'm not: you're as transparent as the emperor's new clothes.
Toonces: if you want PE to love you, you need only confess to him that you're either a virgin or an expert in the art of, um, oral manipulation.
(As for PE "essentially" admitting to being a racist, I'm just going to sit here and smile and wait very patiently for whatever response may come.)
271. Seguine - Dec. 30, 1998 - 7:18 PM PT
But what really interests me is Loar's synopsis, and its contention that labor among whites and slaves was NOT strictly divided according to tasks considered appropriate for one or the other class of worker. Which lends weight to Chaos' contention that there was or may have been a conflict between slave and paid labor.
Any chance _TOTC_ addresses my previous questions on that topic?
272. Seguine - Dec. 30, 1998 - 7:21 PM PT
Cllrdr,
Sigh. Waco is exactly halfway between Dallas and Austin. Which is to say, 100 miles away from the City of Anti-Zionist Lesbians.
273. CalGal - Dec. 30, 1998 - 7:23 PM PT
"SF Bay Area is the epicenter of self-righteousness, surpassing even Iran."
Oh, there must be a different Bay Area on the planet where you live.
In general, I don't equate self-absorbed (the quintessential attribute of the northern Californian) with self-righteous.
I suppose it is also possible we have different definitions of self-righteous.
274. glendajean - Dec. 30, 1998 - 7:35 PM PT
Funny, I knew a lot of lesbians when I lived in Austin, and I can't think of any of them that I would have labeled as anti-zionist.
Houston, to its credit, has an incredible opera company.
BTW, to get back on thread, James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom, a one volume history of the Civil War written for Oxford University Press in 1988 has a good bibliographic essay at the end, including cites for economic studies on the pre-war period. Also, I believe that the New York Review of Books devoted a couple of issues to Fogel and Engerman a few years ago, perhaps when they reissued the work.
PE has already referred to the multi-volume history by Alan Nevins that is now back in print in paperback. Recently DeCapa re-issued James G Randall's "Lincoln the President," a 4 volume collection of essays on Lincoln in a two volume set of paperbacks. Long out of print, this work has been incredibly difficult to find.
275. CalGal - Dec. 30, 1998 - 7:41 PM PT
GJ,
I read Battle Cry some time ago. I also have the Blue and the Grey book (in the soldiers' own words) that Scott mentions. I've been building a reading list out of this thread, so thanks for the further mentions.
But I haven't seen anyone discuss Johnson in any great detail, or mention any biographies. Have I missed this?
276. ScottLoar - Dec. 30, 1998 - 8:19 PM PT
I am a true lover of oral histories, and pore over memoirs like the forlorn over love letters. To read the words of former slaves all above 20 years old at the end of the Civil War as recorded by the Federal Writers' Project in the 1930's look to "Before Freedom: When I Just Can Remember", edited by Belinda Hurmence, John F. Blair, Publisher, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 1989, and its companion piece "My Folks Don't Want Me To Talk About Slavery", 1984, together comprising the recollections of 48 oral histories of former slaves in North and South Carolina. A sampling:
"Us had tallow candles. Why, everybody knowed how to make tallow candles in them days, that wasn't nothing out of the ordinary. All you had to do was to kill a beef and take the tallow from his tripe and kidneys. See, it the fat you get and boil it out, stew it down just as folks does hog lard these days.
"The candle moulds was made out of tin. For the wicks, all the wrapping string was saved up, and there wasn't much wrapping string in them times. Put the string right down the middle of the mould and pour the hot tallow all around it. The string will be the wick for the candle. Then the moulds was laid in real cold water so that the tallow shrink when it harden, and this allow the candle to drop easy from the mould and not break up. Why, it's just as easy to make tallow candles as it is to fall off a log", pg.51, ibid.
277. arkymalarky - Dec. 30, 1998 - 9:04 PM PT
Scott,
I really appreciate all the effort you've gone to to share your readings with us. It's very enlightening and enjoyable reading.
Years ago one of my students had a great-great-grandmother who was 104 years old. At the time I calculated that her parents must have been slaves. We attempted to interview her on tape, but it was very disappointing. She was by then not very coherent and didn't talk about her parents at all. Our family has a Civil War story that's nothing much (I don't even remember which relative it was, though my great-grandmother told it), but the fact that it was handed down makes it special. The story is simply that when the Yankees came to the farm they ran their horses through the house.
278. cllrdr - Dec. 30, 1998 - 9:21 PM PT
"(As for PE "essentially" admitting to being a racist, I'm just going to sit here and smile and wait very patiently for whatever response may come.)"
279. phillipdavid - Dec. 30, 1998 - 9:29 PM PT
ScotusAntonovich
Message #159
I suppose you are thinking of the Cotton Gin, which sped up the cleaning process of cotton. This machine actually increased the demand for slaves, rather than decreased it because at the same time a new variety of cotton was dicovered which could be grown in a variety of climates and soils. Before the advent of short staple cotton and the Cotton Gin, cotton production was fairly stagnant because the old variety (Sea Island or Long Staple Cotton) could only be grown in a few places (along the coast or on the sea islands off Georgia and South Carolina) and it drained the soil of nutrients rapidly.
But the new kind of cotton and the gin created a gold rush of sorts in the Southwest (the so-called "cotton states"). The prospect of tremendous profits drew settlers by the thousands and the population of slaves grew very quickly between 1820 and 1860 because the new cotton could be grown all over the South-- from Carolinas to Texas-- and cleaned and sold easily. Between 1820 and 1860, the population of slaves in Alabama leaped from 45,000 to 435,000 and in Mississippi from 32,000 to 436,000, for example.
So the advent of new machinery was one important factor in making cotton the lynchpen of the southern economy, and slaves were needed to grow it and process it for sale.
280. phillipdavid - Dec. 30, 1998 - 9:36 PM PT
This process is also what made the sale of slaves to the Southwest states an important economic activity in the upper South.
281. seadate - Dec. 30, 1998 - 9:37 PM PT
bitch!
282. phillipdavid - Dec. 30, 1998 - 9:52 PM PT
Seguine and someone else asked about the role of tariffs. Tariffs were always a central bone of contention between the North and South, dating all the way back to Jefferson's "Tariff of Abominations."
The North wanted high tariffs to protect their industrty, and the South wanted low tariffs to protect their pocketbook. Different politicians through the years raised and lowered the tariff in order to garner political support, eg., Polk in the 1840's (46?) lowered the tariff to build support for the Democratic Party. And in the mid 1850's, after the end of the Crimean War had lessened European demand for Northern foodstuffs, which hit the already depression laden North very hard, Buchanan and the Northern Republicans raised the tariff.
So the tariff was a central issue dividing the North and the South, and it was a large factor in process that drove the frustrated economic interests of the North into an alliance with the antislavery elements in the Republican Party.
283. Seguine - Dec. 30, 1998 - 10:23 PM PT
Thank you, PD.
284. Seguine - Dec. 30, 1998 - 10:35 PM PT
"Oh, there must be a different Bay Area on the planet where you live."
Must be. My planet is called, by the sentient creatures who inhabit it with me, "Earth". Maybe you've heard of it where you come from.
BTW, I did once meet a guy who hailed from your world. A refugee, actually; he looked surprisingly like Billy Mumy. And he told me that the name for your planet translates into English as "the plane of conveniently malleable semantics".
Very interesting person, but he really smoked far too much.
285. LadyChaos - Dec. 31, 1998 - 2:58 AM PT
phillipdavid, Message #279 and Message #280,
Don't you mean the Southeast?
Seguine,
"I really can't see how slave and wage labor would have been seen as 'incompatible' in the South. "
That's because you're looking at the issue from the point of view of a fairly sophisticated, late 20th century person. In the antebellum South, slave-holding and planting were looked upon as the properly dignified means for a white man to better himself. Factory wage labor was seen as a condition dangerously close to slavery itself, if not worse. Don't forget that this was before the minimum wage and the forty hour work week. Moreover, most Southerners probably never saw a Northern city much less a Northern factory, but stories of poor immigrant workers living in crowded, disease-ridden conditions in filthy, overcrowded cities invoked real fear in Southern whites that such would be their fate if the North were allowed to abolish slavery and thus take away what Southerners viewed as the one sure path to grace and dignity for white men.
286. ScottLoar - Dec. 31, 1998 - 5:27 AM PT
Phillipdavid's Message #279 and Message #280 are right as rain, for as surely as it was the labour needs of sugar production that initially fueled the trans-Atlantic slave trade so did the expansion of cotton culture launch the massive interregional slave trade from the exporting states of Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas to the importing states of Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas. The figures from "Time on the Cross" also show that had not the US ceased involvement in the international slave trade in 1808 the import of African slaves would have continued well beyond the peak reached in 1790-1808, just as that period surpassed the peak of the ten-year period immediately preceding.
287. ScottLoar - Dec. 31, 1998 - 5:41 AM PT
Arkymalarky re Message #277, I appreciate your appreciation.
My grandmother, born 1888, recounted to me the image of the family patriarch on the maternal side as it was told to her by the very persons who had seen him. Originally from France he was awarded a landgrant for his services in the Revolutionary War, and the children watched him race his horses around the race track he'd made, his long, silvered hair streaming behind him. The paternal side settled in a place they'd discovered with a group while roaming for trouble during the French and Indian War. That man held the hand of the son who held the hand of the son who held the hand of the son who held the hand of the son who held my daughter when she was but a few months old.
288. ScottLoar - Dec. 31, 1998 - 5:50 AM PT
Arky, the story of the horses through the house is good. No matter how much we value such histories I suspect many, just like me and those I'm sure before me, sometimes discover letters or remembrances that we do not wish passed on, and so silently burn them.
289. 109109 - Dec. 31, 1998 - 6:17 AM PT
"Slavery is . . . . a constant reminder of what white America might do."
Derrick Bell
Three points. First, sprung from Bell's generational paranoia are the
questions that nag those who would discuss slavery in a economic analysis. One must always coo, slavery is bad, slavery is bad, to flank the inevitable insinuations regarding one's motives.
Second, Bell's statement is as absurd as noting that 90% of crimes against blacks are perpetrated by other blacks and thereafter declaring, "Crime is . . . . a constant reminder of what black America might do." Sounds sweet, but it is the same unintelligible yahooism as the first incarnation.
Lastly, the slavery question is eye-opening, not only as an economic matter with regard to the Southern states during the Civil War, but in questioning the institution's role in the commission of that War. When less than one third of Southern families owned slaves during the Civil War, when most Europeans lived in some type of involuntary bondage at the time, when Africans gladly sold Africans, free blacks owned black slaves, American Indians owned black slaves (after a rich history of owning each other, contrary to "The West By Kevin Costner"), women and children were considered quasi-property,and
Lincoln wanted to send American blacks back to Africa, the idea that slavery dominated the war as the central struggle has to be scrutinized. In reality, as stated by Grant in his memoirs, the North "did not hold the States where slavery existed responsible for it; and believed that protection shoudl be given to the right of property in slaves until some satisfactory way could be reached to be rid of the institution. Opposition to slavery was not a creed of either political party."
290. 109109 - Dec. 31, 1998 - 6:18 AM PT
Grant's matter-of-fact judgment suggests that the conflagration was about many things, slavery being one such component, a component adeptly seized upon by Lincoln. That component evolved during the war, due to Lincooln's adroitness and the uncompromising vigor of the abolitionist movement. This does not minimize the wrongness of slavery, it merely places it in proper context. And from that proper context, we can be disabused that the South was fighting to
the teeth solely to keep involuntary servitude (especially when the overwhelming majority of those doing the dying owned no slaves), and the North was pressing forward at great cost (Grant, in the end, simply figured he had more men and pressed the numbers). And then, it becomes more understandable - but still amazing, in my view - that the nation could heal so quickly after such a brutal fight, and that same nation can celebrate figures such as Lee and Jackson and Pickett (more so in some regions than others) as dewey-eyed dreamers and men of honor, even though, to Derrick Bell, these figures could be nothing more than equivalent Rommels and Goerings and Von Rundstedts.
291. Seguine - Dec. 31, 1998 - 6:21 AM PT
"...stories of poor immigrant workers living in crowded, disease-ridden conditions in filthy, overcrowded cities invoked real fear in Southern whites that such would be their fate if the North were allowed to abolish slavery and thus take away what Southerners viewed as the one sure path to grace and dignity for white men."
Well, what you appear to be saying here is that the South objected to cheap wage labor *and* the abolition of slavery, not that there was a direct "incompatibility" between wage labor and slavery per se. IOW, such an "incompatibility" as you describe here simply wouldn't exist in the absence of the move to abolish slavery altogether, since Southerners would not have had reason to fear their "sure path to grace and dignity" would soon be cut off.
But again, I could certainly understand your assertion about incompatibility if what you meant was that Northern *laborers* favored abolition, and could be motivated to fight a war for it, because the possibility of slavery spreading northward was perceived as a threat to their own access to work, how ever mean and low-paying. (Something like labor unions today opposing NAFTA etc.)
But the issue remains, was there recorded in history this kind of opposition, or the effort to mobilize it, or any other indicators of it? And if it existed, was it widespread or politically important enough to be considered a true "cause" of the Civil War?
292. ChristiPeters - Dec. 31, 1998 - 6:36 AM PT
" ... as surely as it was the labour needs of sugar production that initially fueled the trans-Atlantic slave trade so did the expansion of cotton culture launch the massive interregional slave trade from the exporting states of Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas to the importing states of Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas."
I remember reading once an historian's speculation that without the invention of the cotton gin, slavery as an institution in the US would have "died a natural death". I'm sorry I cannot remember which book this was in. Are any of you also aware of this theory and what do you think of it?
293. 109109 - Dec. 31, 1998 - 6:39 AM PT
Christi
I refer you to the preceding posts by Loar, PE and others on this and similar issues. Since the thread is still manageable, it is probably worth the read.
294. JaDeGoLd - Dec. 31, 1998 - 6:44 AM PT
Message #289 Ahhh, America! Such is the wonder of our society and economy that it can provide employment for 109.
First, nobody can deny that slavery was not profitable. Slaveowners did not enslave people for the sole purpose that it was a neat thing to do. Second, it is beyond dispute that the idea that one race, in the US, could enslave another was predicated on the basis of skin color.
As for Lee, Jackson, Pickett, Forrest, etc.---they are traitors to the US. To extend them honor or accolade is a national disgrace.
295. 109109 - Dec. 31, 1998 - 6:49 AM PT
Jade
You are, if nothing else, timely.
296. glendajean - Dec. 31, 1998 - 6:53 AM PT
The north certainly wasn't monolithic in its feelings about slavery and how to deal with it. Lincoln often balanced ambiguous and competing opinions (within his own cabinet as well as within the rest of the country). The 1864 election reflected those divisions. Lincoln was for continuing to pursue the war and McClellan to bring it to closure as we now say.
But it does seem to me as others have posted that slavery was the cross spot where the differences between the two regions met, and much of the animosity stirred up on both sides centered around slavery.
Wasn't there a conference in 1860, a sort of last ditch effort to deal with the slavery issue prior to Lincoln's election? The failure of that conference and the election of Lincoln sped up the hardening process on slavery that had been building steam for thirty years or so. Buchannan washed his hands of the whole business. The war voices proceeded ahead. Jefferson Davis and others had fought against compromise time and again and didn't have any wriggle room to back down.
297. ScotusAntonovich - Dec. 31, 1998 - 6:53 AM PT
PD & Loar:
Thanks for your comments. Guess I'll have to reformulate.
298. cllrdr - Dec. 31, 1998 - 6:57 AM PT
"And then, it becomes more understandable - but still amazing, in my view - that the nation could heal so quickly after such a brutal fight"
I'm thunderstruck by this notion of the nation's magical healing ability, Niner. Without anasthetic?
Could this ability to heal (or is it heel?) possibly have some far less benign connection to the fact that "that same nation can celebrate figures such as Lee and Jackson and Pickett (more so in some regions than others) as dewey-eyed dreamers and men of honor, even though, to Derrick Bell, these figures could be nothing more than equivalent Rommels and Goerings and Von Rundstedts."
Celebration? I'd call it Denial.
299. 109109 - Dec. 31, 1998 - 6:59 AM PT
glenda
No question that slavery was a critical component as a political question. In fact, the preeminent political question of the time may have been the introduction of new states, and whether those states would be slave or free. But when shots were fired, freeing slaves became more of an intellectual exercise, taking a backseat to regional passions and invasion and matters of primacy. An example of the non-issue that slavery was in the minds of many - Lee was offered the Union Army first, but turned it down because he could not envision invading Virginia. So, he was the number one draft pick (and a blue-chipper - or grey-chipper), and it appears that slavery was really not in his equation (in fact, like most men of his time, he was mixed on the question). And Mary Todd's family owned many a slave.
300. 109109 - Dec. 31, 1998 - 7:02 AM PT
cllrdr
Could this ability to heal (or is it heel?) possibly have some far less benign connection to the fact that "that same nation can celebrate figures such as Lee and Jackson and Pickett (more so in some regions than others) as dewey-eyed dreamers and men of honor, even though, to Derrick Bell, these figures could be nothing more than equivalent Rommels and Goerings and Von Rundstedts."
I don't know what you are asking in this quote. The nation bashed its brains in bloody for four years over a variety of questions - including the moral issue of slavery - yet the regional struggle did not continue over generations, the war did not reemerge, and the culture celebrates heroes of the South just as it celebrates heroes of the North.
Just ask Ted Turner.