You are the one saying that there were a bunch of other complex reasons besides slavery that led to the civil war. Are you now saying that all these other reasons go away if slavery disappears....making the statement "the civil was fought because of slavery" accurate because without slavery the civil war cannot happen?

Couple of things:

1) All this "they like money stuff so obvi they'd free the slaves" BS is also, IIRC, why you think there were no discriminatory private businesses prior to the Civil Rights Act. There may be a variable you aren't accounting for. Here's your clue: It starts with an "r" and ends with "acism".

2) The importation ban started in 1808, but do you happen to know how that came into existence? It was a compromise in the Constitution. Instead of forcing abolitionists and slaveholders into open conflict, the Founders punted. They gave themselves a 20 year grace period where they hoped that the slave issue would just work itself out, you know all that social norm stuff you're talking about? That was them trying that. 70 years before the civil war they tried your plan.

It didn't take. Over the next 50 years there were dozens of little brushfires of South "states' rights" vs. Northern "basic human decency" where the North kept accepting abominations like the Fugitive Slave Act or the Missouri Compromise in the ultimately futile hope that the South would wise up. For this beneficence the South repaid us with armed revolt. For that revolt we repaid them by murdering them by the thousand and also freeing their slaves. LOLZ!

Oh, but don't worry, maybe after another few decades of KEEPING HUMAN BEINGS AS PROPERTY the South would've finally relented.

CURSE YOU LINCOLN, YOU TYRANT!!!

It's more that they can't free themselves, it's not like they will be able to voluntarily put up the money (which is basically stolen from them to begin with, though). The point is you can get abolishonists to pay for it and have it be worth it right there, though.

Because it wasn't just about slavery. It was about power. They were in a position to take orders (somewhat ironically) from the North. So they left. I'm not sure they anticipated such a response from the North, and at some point a cornered dog just lashes out. The savvy businessmen in the south didn't bear a lot of the brutal costs (they got rubes to do that for them). If they would have won, they would have been in great positions of power. It actually is quite lucky for the North that they were able to win. It's very hard to win wars of rebellions (the mighty British couldn't even do it against the weak US, although they almost did).

I think if you go back in time, show both sides what would be the result, and you see a much different outcome. Perfect knowledge isn't always there.

Man, I regret starting this. Can't we have a stickied Paul thread that only Fermion can post in???

Then all these debates can be in their own threads....

So your argument, in summary, is that the slaveholders deserved to be compensated doubly for the wealth they stole from the slaves.

Nothing more to say.

Not at all, but judging how badly you have been at reading my other posts, I'm not surprised.

My argument is that compensating them would allow it to end faster and more peacefully than otherwise would have occurred. It's a pragmatic approach, not one based in justice. Justice would be to string them all up. I just don't think such a plan would be very effective.

You know what I never hear from Libertarians when they talk about Civil War deaths, WWII, Afghanistan/Iraqi/Iranian/Libyan deaths, bombing "little brown people" drone deaths?

Native American Genocide

Curious, I searched Mises for "Native American", not exhaustively, but down and dirty. I got the results I figured I'd get. Here are the very first results:

Excerpt:
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Title:
Were American Indians Really Environmentalists?

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Title
An Evolutionary Contractarian View of Primitive Law: The Institutions ...

lol that it calls genocide "primitive law".

-----------------------------------
Excerpt:
------------------------

Title:
The American West: A Heritage of Peace - Ryan McMaken - Mises ...

------------------------------------
Title:
American History Is Not What They Say - Jeff Riggenbach - Mises ...

---------------------------
Title: Living on the Reservation
Excerpt:
------------------------

Title:
Did Private Property kill the Native Americans? - The Mises ...

---------------

just lol. I suppose the Native American Genocide throws a wrench into their claims to clear and free title to property?

Also, Madison and War of 1812, which was a Southern War of Aggression imo. Many in the North were against it, but not Madison, Jefferson and the plantation owners. It was also a massive failure. And I never hear the Libertarians talk much about it. Oh, lol, searched Mises. Seems Mises pins money, banking and the income tax as first proposed during the War of 1812.

Not to sidetrack. Still reading through the several pages of this goody of a sub-thread.

facepalm.jpg And it includes slave owners and abolitionists too. Perhaps the slaves might not agree staying in bondage one more day is worth saving any free men at all. You're still considering the slaves as farm animals.

And why should the slave owners feelings and "rights" be given any consideration what-so-ever? The fact that they were allowed to continue living was an act of extreme grace... the fact that they continued owning the farmlands that the most of them couldn't even locate on a map, and the former slaves were simply converted to share-croppers, was almost as evil as slavery itself.

Who's farm land?... the people who live on it and work it!

I'd be ok with this, if after paying the slaveowners, the slaveowners turned all their compensation over to their newly-freed slaves.

Would that have been cool?

Sure. It would have been cool if a unicorn showed up and Santa Claus was on his back too.

I'm not considering them farm animals at all. I'm saying that someone else needs to rescue them somehow. They cannot do it on their own. For someone else to act, they must value the slaves immediate freedom by a certain amount. I am not choosing values here, those who would bear the costs are.

It has nothing to do with the slaveowners feelings. It has to do with getting things done peacefully. Sometimes you must cooperate with scoundrels to get the best results. It's why I pay my taxes.

Of course, you are finding a way to inject your perverted version of slavery and thievery into this thread, but save that fort he MissileDog refuses to answer any questions thread. We can talk about anarcho-slavery there.

So, that social norms thing you were saying? This is it in action. It's not like everyone wakes up one day with the same social norms. They change gradually, and some people don't change as rapidly. People in the north were changing their norms, and people in the South were lagging. When it looked like they were about to change in a big way, the people in the south revolted.

Why not? The former slaves didn't need anyone to "rescue" them in Haiti. How about John Brown and his followers? They valued slaves freedom with their own lives, and paid that price... or is passing $$$ to slave owners the only thing you can understand as a "value"? Why is your only consideration the peace and prosperity of the slave owners? Slavery is violence, flat out. And every second it exists there can never be any peace. How could there be? Once again, ZOMG, what else can I say. I guess to you rejecting the idea of people as farm animals is 'perverted'... ZOMG.

lol @ comparing US slavery to workers in China.

Chinese wages are getting higher, which is driving some businesses back to the USA, or to cheaper places in India, etc.


Back From China: Furniture Maker Returns To N.C.

And, no, northern states dropping out, did not make southern states "richer", relatively, or absolutely.

The cold northern climate, which was shorter and colder and far less conducive to year-round land cultivation, made the prospect of large plantations and many slaves unfeasible, as slaves and lands would be idle for the long winter months, costing owners money to feed and house them. This is why there were a lot fewer slaves per owner in the North, and almost none in Canada.

This is also why it was relatively easy to pass laws forbidding slavery in the North: there were no large and rich plantation owners lobbying against it.

Also, churches in the North were rabidly against slavery, while southern churches seized on the Curse of Ham to justify the large-scale slavery and barbarism that occurred on large plantations.

I believe that this Curse of Ham, and southern churches in general, laid the roots of racism and resistance to Emancipation, of course from the pressure of large and wealthy plantation owners.

I mean, some seem to forget that there were rabid abolitionists in NY, PA, OH, IN, and New England who were very vocal and would not vote for pols who did not get onboard with ending the barbarism that was slavery. It was these people who pushed Lincoln to campaign and talk about abolitionism as possible.

I appreciate many of the points you make but this one that you've been going on about is so bad it makes mythical baby jesus cry. It isn't just libertarians who advocate for the wage system - most everybody thinks the wage system is OK. Do you really live in some fantasy bubble where the wage system wouldn't exist if it weren't for the small % of the population who might identify as libertarian??

We didn't invent Capitalism or money or bankers or politicians or judges or police, we don't vote all of it into existence every year - it's the system the entire modern world operates on. Libertarianism accepts the wage system just like every other practicing political philosophy does, because nobody is advancing a plausible alternative yet.

It's shockingly sad how people keep forgetting that most of those 600k dead were not propertied slave owners at all, but poor people sent to die for a rich mans cause, like always. For some reason I can read Flys posts again and he conveniently forgets that these soldiers are victims on both the Confederate and Union side constantly... but we aren't supposed to give any weight to the deaths of all those people.

Yes slavery is horrendous, and so is sending young people off to die. It would be nice if people stopped pretending there is some clear moral side in all this. It's obvious you guys can fill up all the blogz in the world with your musings on RPs thoughts about the Civil War, but really - it's totally irrelevant to the election and what's really sad is how you guys are expending so much energy avoiding discussing the very real humanitarian benefits of a libertarian presidency.

+1


Good post, but since these guys don't mind poor people dying in rich mens wars (the ones happening TODAY guys - sorry to keep derailing from the Civil War rambling but there is war and institutionalized slavery TODAY to address) I'm sure they can ignore a little real world racist encagement and slavery, and will somehow find a way to justify it by talking about Ron Pauls opinion on the Civil War... oh and Evolution. Yes the murder must go on...

By the way, I hear OBAMA supports the wage system AND the war on drugs AND the never ending WoT. Somebody better go let the fanboys in the Obama containment thread now they are supporting the very worst of em. Hell, ride em about it for 150+ posts... I know youz guys have it in you

OK, I haven't even finished reading this post, but I just have to say that even talking about buying "options" to buy slaves is just ridiculous.

How can someone living in 2012 even be talking about such ridiculous things?

Slave derivatives, yo!

****ing lol..

oh no you didn't,,,

ROFL

Seriously.

Slaveowners were not giving up the institution of slavery and the wealth and luxury it provided, no way no how.

You could have paid them 200% of book value; they still weren't giving up slavery without war, no way no how.

200% of book value <> Discounted cash flow

really looking forward to when this thread gets around to 'Racism in the US: 1970s-2020' and we can all discuss things that are going on in the world today. i expect plenty of outrage.

bookmarked for 2025

LOL...bringing the funnies.

Just stop!

You are comparing people to guns? Not only do you compare them, you say that there really is no difference. wow.

There were plenty of people who didn't accept slavery, thought it was a horrible thing, and were vehemently against slavery. They were called abolitionists. Though most abolitionists were in the North, I imagine that there were some in the South as well. It is silly that you think everyone was just cool with slavery. Why do you think a war broke out over it?

Who was "most threatened by it"? I'm really curious about your answer here. Are you saying that slaveowners, with their vast land and banked wealth were threatened, or that people were just generally threatened by a bunch of free black people?

OMG.

Number 3 was interesting:

legal drugs tho!

And if they don't take it, which most wouldn't, what then? War obviously.

You know slave smuggling, even after the importation ban, was a lucrative business, right?

Freebooters and Smugglers: The Foreign Slave Trade in the United States after 1808. By Ernest Obadele-Starks. The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Making of AfricaTown, USA: Spirit of Our Ancestors. By Natalie S. Robertson

TC, I have found other of your posts to be reasonably coherent, fact-based and logical. But here, well, in the mid-1800's, you are so far beyond coherence, that I'm going to just figure you were hard on the Everclear tonight.

What are you holding onto? Do you have direct ancestors who fought and died in the Civil War? I can understand that. And I am sorry for that. But that is history, a long time ago, and we need to let it go.

I went to college in the South many years ago, but it was only until recently that I considered myself a Northerner. That is, all through my childhood, and through my adult-life, I never considered myself a Northerner. I never looked down on Southerners for decisions made 150 years ago. I never much thought about it outside of HS history classes, even when I was going to school in NC and had friends from South and North.

It's only since the advent of the internet that I have come to learn how fiercely Southerners cling to the past and the Civil War. "Damn Yankees" is a common retort from Southern dudes, half-jokingly and half not. I just don't get it. 150 years ago, dude.

And I don't get why you try to blame ongoing racism on the Civil War. Let's see, we are attacked by mostly white people, led by a white president, who has been talking all this abolition crap, and we start the war by seizing Fort Sumter, we fight hard and long against overwhelming odds, but we end up losing. Instead of executing every officer for treason, and seizing their property, the Union offers amnesty. Could've been worse. So, let's hate black people, b/c they are the reason we had to fight this horrific war? No, your ancestors fought the war b/c they chose to. You had nothing to do with it.

Seriously, 150 years is too long to carry the weight and guilt of the Civil War. Let it go. Stop trying to rationalize it. Visit your ancestors' gravesites and make peace with it. Stop blaming black people for stuff from 150 years ago. That stuff will eat you up and impede your progress.

You keep saying this as if slaves were some kind of ancillary group to this whole discussion, when in many places if you took it by the numbers, slaves were the majority. The red herring of "social norms" is you're only looking at the dominate group's norms and not the society as a whole as you would like to think you are. If the slaves out number the slave owners why are the slave owners given difference in your fantasy land hypotheses?

We can talk about Ron Paul's views on race relations in the 1990's if that's more relevant.