Slavery in the US in 1861 - question

[viper37]

Context, from the American Civil War thread:

A  Quick Union Victory in 1861 would in my view more likely result in a  quick abolition of slavery. No longer needing to placate the border  states after the quick victory and a republican congress refusing to  seat pro-slavery secessionists abolition would have happened quickly as  part of the terms of surrender. I agree, however, that this abolition  would have been performed on southern terms, though on a northern  timetable. More than likely there would be compensation and/or time  limited indentured service of some kind. Slavery was dead as soon as the  south took up arms.

Slavery was dead before  the South took up arms. It was only a matter of time. Quick victory  might have had the effect of dragging out the status quo though, IMO.

So, please enlighten me, how was slavery dead before the South took up arms?  I thought the whole issue was about preventing its export into newer territories?

[Valmy]

Wishful thinking.  Slavery was far more entrenched in 1861 than it had been in 1800.

Heck even after it was outlawed it really just kept right on going through share croping and other such loop holes.

[grumbler]

So, please enlighten me, how was slavery dead before the South took up arms?  I thought the whole issue was about preventing its export into newer territories?

Thee issue wasn't the expansion of slavery per se, but the retention by slaveholders of their ability to block legislation via their seats in the Senate.  They had to make sure they got their "fair share" of new Senate seats.

Slavery was dead because it was inefficient in the machine age.  One of the reasons the South seceded when it did was because its leaders recognized they were failing to keep the industrial revolution out of the South, and the industrial revolution spelled the doom of the planter aristocracy's monopoly on political power.

[dps]

It's an open question how long slavery would have lasted without a war, but, yeah, it would have eventually been ended one way or another.

I tend to be of the rather pessimistic view that it would have taken another 60 years or so to die out.  We had a poll about it on the old forum, and as I recall, most weren't as pessimistic and thought would have ended within 30 years.

[MadImmortalMan]

It did grow after 1800, but it had already hit its peak by 1861 and was destined to become extinct on its own. I'm one who thought 30 years would probably be all it had left, but if it were still in place by the time we got the turn of the century peaks in immigration from Europe that would have been the final nail. Look what happened in Brazil.

[Viking]

So, please enlighten me, how was slavery dead before the South took up arms?  I thought the whole issue was about preventing its export into newer territories?

Slavery could have continued for four or five more decades killed either economically with the invention of cotton picking machinery or socially with conversion to industry. Seccession also made it was unsustainable with the south having a 3 thousand mile frontier with a free country refusing to return escaped slaves. King Cotton diplomacy showed clearly that the south would not have survived a abolitionist motivated boycott and conversion to egyptian and indian cotton. 

I sort of expect that every grain barge from ohio to new orleans would return north with quite a few escaped slaves on board protected by a USA flag on what any secession agreement would be the international waterway that is the mississippi.

[ulmont]

Slavery could have continued for four or five more decades killed either economically with the invention of cotton picking machinery or socially with conversion to industry.

Cotton pickers didn't really take off until the 1950s.  The sharecropping scheme came before that.  Slavery might have been seen as competitive to sharecropping.  And industry took even later to come to the South.

[Razgovory]

Sharecropping was never as profitable as slave owning.  Slavery would have continued in the South so long as the states were allowed to decide if it was legal.

[grumbler]

Slavery could have continued for four or five more decades killed either economically with the invention of cotton picking machinery or socially with conversion to industry.

Cotton pickers didn't really take off until the 1950s.  The sharecropping scheme came before that.  Slavery might have been seen as competitive to sharecropping.  And industry took even later to come to the South.

Mechanical cotton pickers existed in the 1800s, but weren't economically feasible due to the low price of cotton and the cheapness of the labor, two things that might have been changed by a quick end to the war.  Mechanization of cotton historically came about as a result of the need for cotton growers to get their costs below that of the synthetic fibers, which didn't start to see large-scale global production until WW2.  I don't think the sharecropping system would have sprung up if emancipation had been accompanied by compensation.

[Ideologue]

I hear the argument that slavery is automatically obsolete with the advent of industrialization all the time, but am unsure what rationale it's based on.  Why is it impossible for a slave to run a mechanical loom?  Or, for that matter, a T-34 assembly line or a V-2 factory?

[Viking]

I hear the argument that slavery is automatically obsolete with the advent of industrialization all the time, but am unsure what rationale it's based on.  Why is it impossible for a slave to run a mechanical loom?  Or, for that matter, a T-34 assembly line or a V-2 factory?

Agricultural chattel slavery is possible because of the remoteness of the location and the lack of access to transport.

Totalitarian slave industry is possible in guarded camps in remote locations making special goods with three distinct disadvantages
1) The necessity of having armed guards to keep the prisoners from revolting
2) The quick wastage (death) of craftsmen
3) The extra cost of transport for being in remote locations
Totalitarian slave industry is only possible when the state is willing to bear the extra costs for political or war reasons. Note, slaves did not make T-34s, slaves worked the mines supplying the steel smelters supplying the tractor factories making T-34s. The V-2 Concentration Camp inmates were being quickly worked to death.

To have competitive industry you need
1) motivated and trained workers
2) good communications to suppliers and markets

Chattel Slave Industry takes away the two most important control measures over the slaves, the inability to escape and the ability to punish. You can't whip a loom operator and replace him with a "field nigger" on the loom for the two weeks he needs to recover from the whipping. Slaves who worked as overseers were already getting special privileges. What do you call a group of skilled slave loom operators demanding special privileges? Oh, yes, you call that a Union.

[Razgovory]

Er, the South wasn't really remote geographically.  And they had slaves working in industrial jobs as well http://freeuniv.com/mirror/h101w11.htm

[grumbler]

I hear the argument that slavery is automatically obsolete with the advent of industrialization all the time, but am unsure what rationale it's based on.  Why is it impossible for a slave to run a mechanical loom?  Or, for that matter, a T-34 assembly line or a V-2 factory?

Think about it; you have two factories, one run by slaves and one by paid workers.

The machinery in both plants is identical, and will work well only so long as it is properly used and looked after. 

The free worker knows that, if his machine breaks, he is out of a job until it is fixed.  So, he wants to take care of his machine so he can continue to get paid - his best interets are served when the machine is working.

The slave,  also knows that, if his machine breaks, he is out of a job until it is fixed.  So, he wants to break his machine so he can avoid work - his best interets are served when the machine is broken. 

Every chattel slave is a saboteur.  In the fields, there is little to sabotage.  In the factory, there is lots.

[Viking]

Er, the South wasn't really remote geographically.  And they had slaves working in industrial jobs as well http://freeuniv.com/mirror/h101w11.htm

The individual plantations rather than the country itself. The remoteness I refer to is the remoteness of the backwater plantations that most slaves lived on. Your reference doesn't list any manufacturing and has a very broad definition of industry (including tobacco curing among others).

[Razgovory]

XI. Iron works huge employers of slaves: Across the south about 10,000 slaves worked producing iron.

Sounds like manufacturing to me.