the north certainly did NOT want them but there was ample need of labor in the south transitioning form field to manufacture.



Lincoln was a "republican" only because the Whig Party had self destructed. Mainly they wanted a far "stronger" federal government but had been kept largely in check (ergo the crumbling see Henry Clay). THey were all about larger infrastructure spending (canals and rail were favorites) that ALWAYS failed to produce the promised benefits but never failed to enrich friendly business interests.

So his election ushered in massiove growth in federal government and influence. Then read up on what he did when states for a little fed up with his shenannigans. See that he sent the Army to the Maryland statehouse whenthey were considering stances copntrary to Abe's thinking, see that they carted off dissenters to Amry prisons sans habeus corpus. They took to calling him a glorious dictator and didnt care that he was, in fact, actign like a dictator. Had Bush actually done a tenth of what Lincoln did ther howling would have been ten x. Note also that Lincoln was the only president elected with zero southern electors. You know he was a racist in the text book definition and spent huge sums of government moneyh tryign to find a way to send all, and I do mean all blacks ANYwhere else (one styudy was 500k, back when 500k was a huge sum of money).

Check it out. This guy was astonishing and not in a good way. But the victor writes the history and its only in the decade or so that history is takign a new look at this guy.

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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

true dat.

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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

at the time citizenship was rather iore causally given as we needed the people. they also did not care a bit about discriminating in any way they chose.

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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

There is a difference between a private sector business exercising its Ninth Amendment privilege and immunity to create and dissolve social contracts that may result in employment and institutional forms of racism from the several States.

people like to carp about Jim Crow laws in the south. if you want, research what they did up north. or not. its your life.

lets just say this article was little observed way back when.

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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

Institutional forms of immorality can be difficult to overcome. However, it may have been possible to abolish slavery via the "institution" of eminent domain laws, had Lincoln formulated a better agenda. It may also be possible that the supreme court would have reached a different decision if that had been the case.

I think you would have to go back to the invention of the cotton gin. There is a considerable body of thought that maintains that the invention of the cotton gin prevented slavery from dying out in the South by invigorating the agricultural sector, which was moribund, and intensifying the need for slave labor. Perhaps if the gin was not invented the metals industry and other 19th century southern resources such as coal, timber and ships stores could have became more important. Did anyone on the list server mention the invention of the cotton gin/slavery connection?

I think every serious historian accepts the fact that the cotton gin dramatically increased the demand for agricultural labor in the South, especially after Robert Fogel's landmark economic study laid to rest the old canard that 'slavery wasn't profitable'; it was so profitable that over two thirds of the Southern investment capital was in slaves, hence Lincoln's 'freeing' of southern slaves in an attempt to cause revolts in the South and disrupt its economy. What I was aiming at here is what would have been different if they had diverted some of that investment money into developing a steel industry and other technical industries and if the northern capitalist class would have risked a war with a more industrialized South, with its own armaments and other industries; it would still have been an export driven economy, but would have been in a more solid strategic position, imo.

Like Fogel, I don't consider the southern economy to have been 'backward' re the north, its resources and politics were geared to maximizing its profits and this led to a social and economic 'mono-economy', similar to what states like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have today, as well as many African states, almost entirely dominated by a single industry.

According to commentary I've read over the years, many in the south as early as 1835 expected slavery would have to go at some point, and the problems associated with a slave economy were no secret to anybody back then, either; I have a study on colonial tradesmen that covers the differences between slave economies and the northern freemen crafts that also highlights the complaints and lack of protection for free tradesmen as far back as the late 1690's in colonial days. Google has scanned a lot of old 19th century books and magazines, and Hunt's Merchant's Magazine and Commercial Review has more than one article on southern slavery in its 1840's-1850's issues discussing this very thing.

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"The real question of life after death isn't whether or not it exists, but even if it does, what problems this really solves." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

"A day without sunshine is, you know, night."- Shannon

I can't remember the specific issue the articles I mentioned in my last post are in, but here is a link to Hunt's that have been scanned and are available to download. There is a lot of contemporary sources available now that were only available to those with access to university libraries until recently; Harvard's Widener Library, Cornell's, U of Michigan, Stanford, et al, have all been scanning thousands of their books and putting them online in the last few years, especially economic and travel books from the 19th century. It is a great collection there on Google and Archive.org as well, and I spend a lot of my online time downloading these books. If you like history, these libraries are a must have for reference and are copyright free for the most part.

Here is a page for Hunt's:

Hunt's Magazine

The earliest Hunt's I have is circa 1841, but I've seen some , or similar type commercial reporters, as early as 1820 on there somewhere. I'm an early railroad fan, and have been able to find stock price and construction cost histories for a lot of the first railroads, especially the Camden and Amboy and those along the Erie Canal that became the New York Central, and of course there are histories of the later ones as well, the Penn RR, Illinois Central, etc as well, and there are stock price manuals from as far back as 1870's, for following not only RR's but steel companies, and whatever stocks were traded in the day; the later ones have articles along with the price tables that cover mergers, bankruptcies, court cases, etc. as well, also interesting stuff to economic history buffs.

One of my favorites:

Standard Oil Stocks

... and these stock price and corporate listings:

Handbook of Securities

__________________
"The real question of life after death isn't whether or not it exists, but even if it does, what problems this really solves." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

"A day without sunshine is, you know, night."- Shannon

Never heard about the dryness of a southern route, do you have the source for this info? I always understood the southern route to be more feasible in terms of cost per mile because of the large flat expanses. Lincoln was asked by a powerful friend to evaluate some land leases in Council Bluffs Iowa. He advised him to purchase them quickly. One of the first landmark cases that Lincoln won was for the Railroads in a dispute involving trestles. Given the fact that the railroad bill was pushed through after the start of the civil war this may play well into your theory as well as pitting Lincoln against Davis pre civil war.

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"It Happens"
Forrest Gump

I don't think the word racist is entirely accurate here. "Racism" as we define it, wasn't thought of at the time. Lincoln believed slaves were as much a human being as anyone else and should be treated as such. That he had to honestly and openly deal with many different sentiments regarding the slavery issue does not make him a racist. Lincoln understood that black and white would not get along together. Given that why would he not look at any and all solutions . He was trying to re unite the country and in doing so solving this issue was entirely necessary. Given the history since the civil war ended, his view was correct.

__________________
"It Happens"
Forrest Gump

I agree with Passfan here. Lincoln was not a racist in the modern sense of the word and his concern was that Balck and White would not be able to get along together. I hve the impression from ronald White's recent biography of Lincoln that he, Lincoln, thought that the Whites would not accept the Black as equals or anything close to equals. He was therefore one of those who thought that Blacks should emigrate when and if they were been released from slavery. He did not hold this position for long however and it would have been interesting to see what his thinking would have been if he had not died in 1865 but lived to guide reconstruction and keep it from becoming the plaything of the radical Republicans.

We've had a death in the family and I have a funeral to go to today, so I will get to this tomorrow, but it was Davis who did the War Dept. surveys when he headed that. It was Davis who did the famous camel experiment trying to make the southern route feasible, if you remember that experiment; there was a movie about it, iirc. I haven't reread this thread and don't remember what I've already posted, so I will have to go through and find the quotes and my personal sources again. I don't recall seeing it on any web page.

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"The real question of life after death isn't whether or not it exists, but even if it does, what problems this really solves." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

"A day without sunshine is, you know, night."- Shannon

From my perspective, reliance on "free" labor delayed the Industrial Revolution in the US and allowed Europe a head start.

I must not have read as many articles as I should have to have a more thorough understanding of the social effects of the cotton gin on pre-emancipated labor.

Ending the institution of slavery through eminent domain could have allowed the US to revolutionize industrially sooner rather than later.

No one is claiming that cost efficiencies cannot be gained from increases in productivity rather than lower wages.

Interesting idea. Can you elaborate on this?

Mills up north and in Great Britain were hungy for cotton that could be made into cheap cloth. Cleaning of cotton previously had been done by hand. It was slow and relatively expensive, a real bottleneck preventing the growth of cotton as a cash crop. By making the cleaning of cotton quick and easy and with the mills ready and able to absorb all the cotton the deep south could produce farmers and planters were able to increase their cotton acreage until it crowed out all other crops. With this increase in acreage in cultivation the demand for additional slaves was great. The slave trade from Africa experienced a rebound to provide them. The cotton gin made the south's fortune and insured tht Blacks would not be emancipated voluntarily.