The American Civil War didn’t have to happen?

[Artfuldodger]

The southern states, throughout the 1850s, were facing three principle issues affecting their ability to function. One of those issues was certainly slavery, but only about 3% of the non-negro population of the southern states had ever owned a slave or even worked for slave a owner. Slavery was ending in all the states as an economic force.

By 1860, mechanical cotton pickers and a mechanical means to separate the cotton fibers from the seeds, were being introduced. The more numerous rice plantations were still using slaves extensively, but a high wheeled rice planter had already been demonstrated. Slave owners KNEW, in the 1850s, that their business model had to change. The economic model for slaves as industrial, commercial, or agricultural labor was clearly ending. Most plantation owners were unwilling to fight for continuing slave field labor instead of eventual transition to mechanical planting, picking, and preparing their crops. But that leads to economic and political issues that were preventing that transition - more later!

There was another aspect of slavery that was not under threat by the industrial changes. Slaves as personal servants were still economically feasible and socially important as status symbols. For many of the tiny minority of non-negro slave owners the public demonstration that they were "superior" to others because they owned a black slave, was very important. This tiny - racist by today's standards - minority of the southern population, was already experiencing a transition from owning their own slaves as personal servants to hiring those services either from free blacks or slave owners who supplemented their income by hiring out slaves.

When addressing slavery in the United States (including Maryland and Delaware) it is important to remember that many slave owners were NOT white. Free black slave owners outnumbered white slave owners in Charleston, SC in the 1860 census. And not all slaves were actually descended from black Africans. There is ample evidence that Southern Asian (Indian), Southeast Asian, American Indian, and South American peoples were also slaves in the United States. (If their skin was dark enough no one questioned actual race.)

There were greater, more important, issues facing the South. The most immediate was the economic stranglehold over the south by the New England industrialists. The short version of this problem defines the extremely wealthy owners of the many New England factories as a group of democrats who decided to deny the south any industrial development and use their "ownership" of the US House and Senate to take control of all transport and sale of agricultural goods in the South. Yes, the rich democrats of the 1850s and 1860s had bought the majority of all US Senators by paying several governors and key state legislators. And yes, these same democrats had used ballot harvesting, fraudulent vote counts, direct payments to voters, character assassination, false advertising, and outright lies, to get their picked candidates elected to the US House (sound familiar?)

Many federal statutes prevented people in the southern states from opening factories, selling manufactured goods, selling cotton or rice directly to other countries. Southern businesses had to pay special taxes to sell their goods to northern states and then only to certain buyers who cooperated to "fix" the price. From the mid-1850s through 1860 this economic oppression only got worse. It was devastating to plantation owners, but it was also strangling small business in the South, and destroying the economic fabric of the Southern States,

And finally, the entire culture and social fabric of the south was under assault. Not only were the rich under threat of losing the economic benefit of slave ownership and but at the same time the northern Oligarchs were preventing them from developing alternatives. Not only were merchants, factors, shippers, and tradesmen in the south denied markets for southern goods, but northerners and midwesterners were trying to shut them down and eliminate their livelihood. More than just a tiny few slave owners, the MAJORITY of the free population of the southern states believed themselves under attack.

During the election campaigns of 1860 the democrats continued to hold key districts in the northeast, and a majority of Senate seats were clearly controlled by the New England industrialists, but a new party also threatened the south. I don't think very many southern voters cared one little whit what Lincoln, or his republican party, thought about slavery. I believe that - for most voters in the south - the threat Lincoln represented was in the obvious and overt support given to the republican party by the very same super rich northerners who had been paying democrat House members to make the laws that were destroying the south.

Slavery was important as a Constitutionally authorized way of life, and perhaps more important, as a symbol of what the south was losing in the ongoing economic and political assault. In 1860 Abraham Lincoln became, for many in the south, the boogieman who represented everything that was wrong. I am certain that a significant majority of free people in the south believed that Abraham Lincoln ACTUALLY WAS going to commit economic murder and destroy the south by continuing the policies that had already diminished the southern states and further enriched the New England robber barons while pushing even more egregious taxes and regulations.

I am certain because that is exactly what Lincoln did. Beginning in 1861, Lincoln did everything possible to destroy the southern economy and funneled all the money he could gather directly into the hands of those same northeastern industrialists to buy manufactured goods for the war. Lincoln chose to prosecute a violent war against the various state militias of the Confederacy at the same time he pursued a more violent war against the people of the South attempting to starve the southern people and destroy the economies of every Confederate state.

I suggest that what Lincoln actually did proves that the voters of the southern states were absolutely right to fear a Lincoln presidency!

The South before Lincoln is a good example of an economic and political assault. It hindered our development. It wasn't our race though that this assault was based on.
Just a good example to show you how hard it may be to trade and industrialize in a hostile economic environment.
When the other team or teams make it hard on you. Not impossible, just more difficult.
That thought about Southerners being "less than" was still prominent in WWII. My dad met a girl in England that he dated while over their. He said he would have married her but her parents had this stigma that American Southerners were "less than."

 

[Artfuldodger]

The southern states, throughout the 1850s, were facing three principle issues affecting their ability to function. One of those issues was certainly slavery, but only about 3% of the non-negro population of the southern states had ever owned a slave or even worked for slave a owner. Slavery was ending in all the states as an economic force.

By 1860, mechanical cotton pickers and a mechanical means to separate the cotton fibers from the seeds, were being introduced. The more numerous rice plantations were still using slaves extensively, but a high wheeled rice planter had already been demonstrated. Slave owners KNEW, in the 1850s, that their business model had to change. The economic model for slaves as industrial, commercial, or agricultural labor was clearly ending. Most plantation owners were unwilling to fight for continuing slave field labor instead of eventual transition to mechanical planting, picking, and preparing their crops. But that leads to economic and political issues that were preventing that transition - more later!

There was another aspect of slavery that was not under threat by the industrial changes. Slaves as personal servants were still economically feasible and socially important as status symbols. For many of the tiny minority of non-negro slave owners the public demonstration that they were "superior" to others because they owned a black slave, was very important. This tiny - racist by today's standards - minority of the southern population, was already experiencing a transition from owning their own slaves as personal servants to hiring those services either from free blacks or slave owners who supplemented their income by hiring out slaves.

When addressing slavery in the United States (including Maryland and Delaware) it is important to remember that many slave owners were NOT white. Free black slave owners outnumbered white slave owners in Charleston, SC in the 1860 census. And not all slaves were actually descended from black Africans. There is ample evidence that Southern Asian (Indian), Southeast Asian, American Indian, and South American peoples were also slaves in the United States. (If their skin was dark enough no one questioned actual race.)

There were greater, more important, issues facing the South. The most immediate was the economic stranglehold over the south by the New England industrialists. The short version of this problem defines the extremely wealthy owners of the many New England factories as a group of democrats who decided to deny the south any industrial development and use their "ownership" of the US House and Senate to take control of all transport and sale of agricultural goods in the South. Yes, the rich democrats of the 1850s and 1860s had bought the majority of all US Senators by paying several governors and key state legislators. And yes, these same democrats had used ballot harvesting, fraudulent vote counts, direct payments to voters, character assassination, false advertising, and outright lies, to get their picked candidates elected to the US House (sound familiar?)

Many federal statutes prevented people in the southern states from opening factories, selling manufactured goods, selling cotton or rice directly to other countries. Southern businesses had to pay special taxes to sell their goods to northern states and then only to certain buyers who cooperated to "fix" the price. From the mid-1850s through 1860 this economic oppression only got worse. It was devastating to plantation owners, but it was also strangling small business in the South, and destroying the economic fabric of the Southern States,

And finally, the entire culture and social fabric of the south was under assault. Not only were the rich under threat of losing the economic benefit of slave ownership and but at the same time the northern Oligarchs were preventing them from developing alternatives. Not only were merchants, factors, shippers, and tradesmen in the south denied markets for southern goods, but northerners and midwesterners were trying to shut them down and eliminate their livelihood. More than just a tiny few slave owners, the MAJORITY of the free population of the southern states believed themselves under attack.

During the election campaigns of 1860 the democrats continued to hold key districts in the northeast, and a majority of Senate seats were clearly controlled by the New England industrialists, but a new party also threatened the south. I don't think very many southern voters cared one little whit what Lincoln, or his republican party, thought about slavery. I believe that - for most voters in the south - the threat Lincoln represented was in the obvious and overt support given to the republican party by the very same super rich northerners who had been paying democrat House members to make the laws that were destroying the south.

Slavery was important as a Constitutionally authorized way of life, and perhaps more important, as a symbol of what the south was losing in the ongoing economic and political assault. In 1860 Abraham Lincoln became, for many in the south, the boogieman who represented everything that was wrong. I am certain that a significant majority of free people in the south believed that Abraham Lincoln ACTUALLY WAS going to commit economic murder and destroy the south by continuing the policies that had already diminished the southern states and further enriched the New England robber barons while pushing even more egregious taxes and regulations.

I am certain because that is exactly what Lincoln did. Beginning in 1861, Lincoln did everything possible to destroy the southern economy and funneled all the money he could gather directly into the hands of those same northeastern industrialists to buy manufactured goods for the war. Lincoln chose to prosecute a violent war against the various state militias of the Confederacy at the same time he pursued a more violent war against the people of the South attempting to starve the southern people and destroy the economies of every Confederate state.

I suggest that what Lincoln actually did proves that the voters of the southern states were absolutely right to fear a Lincoln presidency!

Getting back to the op this really sums up why the South seceded as soon a Lincoln took office. Thanks!

 

[GeorgiaBob]

The South before Lincoln is a good example of an economic and political assault. It hindered our development. It wasn't our race though that this assault was based on.
Just a good example to show you how hard it may be to trade and industrialize in a hostile economic environment.
When the other team or teams make it hard on you. Not impossible, just more difficult.
That thought about Southerners being "less than" was still prominent in WWII. My dad met a girl in England that he dated while over their. He said he would have married her but her parents had this stigma that American Southerners were "less than."

We should not neglect the messages of history. Since the founding of the "modern" democrat party with Andrew Jackson, the unspoken rule of the democrats is the definition of democrats as morally superior and others (specifically those who are different in color, race, or beliefs) are inferior, or "less than." All of the slave owners in 1860 were democrats. All of the New England industrialists of the 1850s were democrats.

The party that voted for the relocation of Native Americans to Oklahoma Territory (Trails of Tears) was democrat. The party that fought against the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments was the democrat party. The party that voted for "Jim Crow" laws was democrat. The party that supported and hosted the KKK in Washington, D.C. was the democrat party. The party that fought against the civil right movement was democrat right up until the moment LBJ decided to use the Civil Rights Act as an election tool.

To this day, democrats use identity politics to divide and identify "others" as less than.

The pity and the pain of the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, is that the actual Republican Party was anti-slavery and supportive of a more equitable economic policy (one that might have helped the southern states), but Lincoln himself was a tool of the industrialists. Those democrat industrialists did not change parties, or moderate their extreme goals. They recognized an opportunity to control two sides of a split government and backed a candidate they could control.

It took the struggling Republican Party 100 years to build the strength to effectively oppose the racist, industrialist, bigots who controlled the democrats (and most of the country. It has only been since the democrats began openly espousing socialist ideas that the Republicans gained any ground. And, as the election of Donald Trump has proven, the democrats are the entrenched and controlling party of the machinery of government. Anyone opposed to the elite democrat controllers is, "less than."

 

[Jethro Bodean]

We should not neglect the messages of history. Since the founding of the "modern" democrat party with Andrew Jackson, the unspoken rule of the democrats is the definition of democrats as morally superior and others (specifically those who are different in color, race, or beliefs) are inferior, or "less than." All of the slave owners in 1860 were democrats. All of the New England industrialists of the 1850s were democrats.

The party that voted for the relocation of Native Americans to Oklahoma Territory (Trails of Tears) was democrat. The party that fought against the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments was the democrat party. The party that voted for "Jim Crow" laws was democrat. The party that supported and hosted the KKK in Washington, D.C. was the democrat party. The party that fought against the civil right movement was democrat right up until the moment LBJ decided to use the Civil Rights Act as an election tool.

To this day, democrats use identity politics to divide and identify "others" as less than.

The pity and the pain of the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, is that the actual Republican Party was anti-slavery and supportive of a more equitable economic policy (one that might have helped the southern states), but Lincoln himself was a tool of the industrialists. Those democrat industrialists did not change parties, or moderate their extreme goals. They recognized an opportunity to control two sides of a split government and backed a candidate they could control.

It took the struggling Republican Party 100 years to build the strength to effectively oppose the racist, industrialist, bigots who controlled the democrats (and most of the country. It has only been since the democrats began openly espousing socialist ideas that the Republicans gained any ground. And, as the election of Donald Trump has proven, the democrats are the entrenched and controlling party of the machinery of government. Anyone opposed to the elite democrat controllers is, "less than."

Very good post.

Funny how up until Clinton, almost everyone is the South always voted Democrat. But back then, Democrats were usually quite conservative, and were actually for the "little man", and the working man, being compassionate, caring, and against big government. Now, democrats (notice that I didn't capitalize the modern name?) are quite different. They don't truly care about anything except more votes, destroying anything the Republicans do, and they are very much for big government controlling every little aspect of your life.

I have always viewed Andrew Jackson as a true piece of (you know what). He was a double-crossing you-know-what. He got the Cherokee to help him wipe out the Creek, then he turned around and marched them to Oklahoma, killing about 4,000 of them along the way. And many people consider him to be a true American hero. I could say similar things about Lincoln. I think he pulled the slavery issue out of his butt when he saw that the Union wasn't winning the war. And in doing so, he made sure that the war was won, and the the imperial nation could keep on going as it was. I consider the Civil War to be the Revolutionary War II.