The percentage of freed slaves was actually increasing up through the early 1800's. Then the plantation owners went to the states and federal government getting various laws passed which because of the state and federal legislators actually prolonged slavery. Statism not the South prolonged slavery and ended up provoking the CSA and the War Between The States.
Slavery as a way for the South was declining until helpful legislators passed those laws.
Plus slavery was boosted by NY capitalists using Yankee skippers to import slaves. Mainly because the Northern mills could then get cheap cotton. Slavery was also thus prolonged by Northern capitalists.
PLUS a little known event when Lincoln raised the tariffs to 48%. Guess who got hit by that little tariff tax real bad. Then the CSA declared they would have a tariff of 10%. Guess what that did to the Northerners who were licking their lips over the windfall they would get but no one in the South to enhance waterways and canals and manufacturing plants and roadways up North?
For the South economically speaking the best thing the South could have done was to have freed all the slaves and then let them go to work for the highest paying plantation owner or farmer and using an expanded version of share cropping. The South would have then become the bread basket of the US for those times.
Speaking as an anarcho-capitalistic Libertarian since when is there the: lawful federal government? When there ain't nuttin lawful about it?
I don't buy the "wait and your rights will eventually come to you over time" argument in either historic or contemporary contexts, for a simple reason -- I'm gay and I hear the same arguments often advanced about gay people as well.
The slaves' constitutional rights were clearly being violated from day one, and yes, the federal government does have a lawful role to play in protecting them. The Jim Crow and governmental segregation laws that followed up almost to a century after the war ended underscore the reality that without the federal government defending the constitutional status of black Americans as citizens, they would have remained "1/2" or "2/3" citizens.
Too often, the central government is seen as *universally* bad and "states' rights" as universally good, when some of the most tyrannical initiatives in American history (including present-day history) are imposed by state and local governments. The dark chapters of slavery and their follow-ups of segregation and Jim Crow are excellent examples of how the federal government -- not the state governments -- guaranteed the civil liberties of American citizens who formed an unpopular minority.
To the extent that the federal government intervenes -- using force if necessary -- to protect the constitutional rights of the individual, than I (and most Libertarians) should say "hurrah." It's not an *ideal* hurrah, but the notion that federal action is, ipso-facto, *always* bad doesn't strike me as a libertarian position.
We *do* hold government to some positions of responsibility -- protecting the constitutional rights of citizens located within the country from being violated by other governments (state, local, or foreign) are primary amongst these.
Cheers,
Brian
Ron Getty <tradergroupe@...> wrote:
Dear Brian;
A couple of footnotes to that.
The percentage of freed slaves was actually increasing up through the early 1800's. Then the plantation owners went to the states and federal government getting various laws passed which because of the state and federal legislators actually prolonged slavery. Statism not the South prolonged slavery and ended up provoking the CSA and the War Between The States.
Slavery as a way for the South was declining until helpful legislators passed those laws.
Plus slavery was boosted by NY capitalists using Yankee skippers to import slaves. Mainly because the Northern mills could then get cheap cotton. Slavery was also thus prolonged by Northern capitalists.
PLUS a little known event when Lincoln raised the tariffs to 48%. Guess who got hit by that little tariff tax real bad. Then the CSA declared they would have a tariff of 10%. Guess what that did to the Northerners who were licking their lips over the windfall they would get but no one in the South to enhance waterways and canals and manufacturing plants and roadways up North?
For the South economically speaking the best thing the South could have done was to have freed all the slaves and then let them go to work for the highest paying plantation owner or farmer and using an expanded version of share cropping. The South would have then become the bread basket of the US for those times.
Speaking as an anarcho-capitalistic Libertarian since when is there the: lawful federal government? When there ain't nuttin lawful about it?