If we had been holy and moral enough to apply eminent domain laws to the South, we would probably not have most of the racial problems we had or the Jim Crow laws that were enacted.

Simply following our own Constitution would have been better for our political-economy.

In other words, paying a fraction of the cash sale value of the slaves. The slaveowners would never have agreed to this willingly.

"nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." (5th Amendment.)

If the government recognizes a right to property in human beings at all, the Constitution required that any slaves "taken" (i.e. liberated) must be paid for in a "just" manner, i.e. at market value. The only way around this was through the 13th Amendment, which forbade property in human beings; the slaves not being property, their liberation was not taking property from their owners and therefore did not require compensation under the 5th amendment.

Eminent domain could have been applied within the law, but only at ruinous expense.

The 13A is a Civil War Amendment. It was enacted after the ruinous conflict that was our Civil War, occurred. As an opportunity cost, applying eminent domain should be considered less expensive.

There was nothing preventing the use of corporate welfare and eminent domain to achieve a measure of social justice in our republic before the hostilities that led to the conflict.

One of the issues that caused the South to secede, was affirmative action concerning corporate welfare for Northern industries.

In hindsight, yes, but the carnage of the Civil War was not foreseen ahead of time. If it had been, the south wouldn't have seceded at all. (One of my time-travel fantasies involves going back to address the South Carolina legislature prior to the secession, and showing them documentation of what was to come.)

Failure to resolve the slavery issue, along with the other issues of industrialization, was one of the mistakes of the U.S. But mistakes by government are normal, and you cannot expect people to incur large costs to prevent damage that they don't believe will come. Resolving slavery through eminent domain was politically impossible. The complete surrender of the slaveowning class was required.

a 20 yer old slave has more value than a 40 year old one and of course there is a sllding scale. they will eventually age out. the whole world handled it this way, in general peace and without killing the economy. all it takes is a little time.

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Socialism doesn't create a rising tide that lifts all boats. It drains the lake and teaches the boat riders not to help themselves by rowing.

Jesus loves you, allah wants you dead

"Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others."

Ayn Rand

They why didn't our slaveowners and our Congress try to do the same thing? The furthest they went was to ban the importation of slaves, and even that wasn't enforced. (Interestingly, the Confederate Constitution also banned the importation of slaves, while making outlawing slavery or interfering with it in any way unconstitutional.)

You are right that it would have been sensible and logical to do it that way, just as it would have been sensible and logical for the south to industrialize and not try to preserve the planter lifestyle. If anything should be obvious from the Civil War era, though, it's that Americans of that time were not being very sensible or logical.

It may have been impossible for a trained lawyer. It could have been possible if our understanding of economics was sufficient.

The slave owning class had capital investment to protect. It could have protected that investment better, with infrastructure upgrades from corporate welfare and eminent domain.

This is a good thread,and I'm sorry Ihaven't been able to keep up with it. One thig I noticed early on was the question of how the senate and or the congress gets a round to spending money?

The Constitution tells us that the senate had only tow things to do: try for impeachments, and "propose or agree with Bills. That's it. everything else they do, they made up as they went along, and the Constitution does not say that they can't. Congress has done the same thing.

That's not much of an answer. Could you be specific?

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Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush?

--Hunter S. Thompson

If slavery were really the issue then they probably would have worked it out. But it was really nothing more than about power. It was bad enough that those slaves represented 3/5 of a vote, how much worse would it be if they counted a full vote ? ? And nobody trusted what would happen if that came to pass. It was really just the state's rights vs federal thing. Lincoln wanted an overly strong federal and was willing to do anything to get it.

There was relatively little support in the north for abolition among the common folk. The woreking class feared an influx of cheap labor which they already had their hands full with the immigrants comming in from Europe.

At the end of the day, only Lincoln benefittted from the Cival War. Until he was shot. At that point, only croniyism in govt contracts was left to benefit.

Pretty fucking sad.

__________________
Socialism doesn't create a rising tide that lifts all boats. It drains the lake and teaches the boat riders not to help themselves by rowing.

Jesus loves you, allah wants you dead

"Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others."

Ayn Rand

There was no chance of that happening. The slave power in Congress was on the wane, not increasing. That's why the south seceded. 3/5 was the compromise at the time the Constitution was ratified; it was the best deal the slave states could possibly get.

Of course it was about power, but it's ALWAYS about power. There are also always other issues that the struggle for power is itself about, though, and at the time of the Civil War, slavery was the biggest one. It was a conflict between two elites, the planters and the capitalists, but the biggest single quarrel between them was slavery, which was the keystone of the planters' wealth and power. Abolish slavery, and you abolished the planter class.

If you want to understand why the Civil War happened, ignore Abraham Lincoln (for a moment) and look instead at the South Carolina legislature. Without secession, there would have been no Civil War. Why did the states secede? To protect slavery.

Now look back at Lincoln. What did he propose to do that would have threatened slavery? Abolish it? No. But he did want to keep slavery out of the new territories as they became states. Each such state would have meant 2 new anti-slavery votes in the Senate, and at least one (and growing) in the House. Plus one more state that would vote to ratify a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery if such made it out of Congress.

Lincoln also, being a Republican, would support more pro-industry legislation that would strengthen the capitalist elite at the expense of the planters, and they didn't like that, either. But the big issue was slavery. The writing was on the wall, and it was either accept the inevitable or try to secede. They chose the latter.

You're forgetting the capitalist elite. True, the working class in the north did not benefit from emancipation, except morally. The capitalist class, however, benefited greatly, in three ways. One was the expansion of the labor pool which helped them drive wages down. Another was the political victory it handed to the Republican Party, which (then as always) represented their interests. And the third was the total destruction of their rivals, the slave-owning planter elite. After the Civil War, the capitalist class reigned supreme in the U.S., where before they had had to share power with the planters. After that, everything went their way, until the labor wars.

And I have to say, you're also forgetting the slaves. The Civil War may have been at root a cold-blooded power contest between two very nasty elite classes, but for black people held in bondage it also meant freedom. Granted, black people exchanged slavery for a form of serfdom, and were no more truly free than the downtrodden white factory-fodder in the north, but that's still a BIG step up from being someone's chattel.

The constitution was not perfect. It had flaws. Blacks and women were not allowed to vote and blacks had zero rights. Some of the wording of the document was vague enough to cause misinterpretations over the years and we now find ourselves in somewhat of a mess. So, I ASK YOU, what is more important, following the meaning of the exact words of the constitution, as interpreted by others, or following the "original intent" of the founding fathers?

The original intent was to have the Federal government be small, frugile and to allow the states to handle most governing chores. The FEDGOV was mostly created for common defense, to make treaties and to handle disputes between states. That's it. Period. End of story.

If we had continued to have the small, minimal federal government that SOME (not all) of the framers intended, the United States of America would have ceased to exist long ago.

Wild speculation at best. It wouldn't be what it is today, that's for sure. But we'd likely be around in - just in different form.

Anyway, no point ruminating over past mistakes. We have to start from where we are at present. Moving our nation back to the original limited government ideals would do a lot to get us back to a federal government that is focused on protecting it's member states, rather than operating an expansionist empire on behalf of the corporate world.