The attempted hijack of the Scottish independant thread made me think...
In the movie Gods & Generals, one of the Generals, Jackson, I think, says that the Confederates should have abolished slavery and then declared independance.
Given that slavery (or to right to hold slaves if you prefer) was pretty much central to the conflict, was that a feeling generally shared by many of the Confederates officers, or simply the ramblings of a few disgruntled officers that the war wasn't winning itself fast enough?
Likewise, given that some Southerners had anti-slavery sentiment, yet fought for their State, did any Northern officer ever expressed - during the war or shortly before - some form of support toward slavery while at the same time a desire to preserve the Union?
Hmm, support might be too strong a word.
More like an officer who sees his sole duty as protecting the Union and couldn't care less about the status of black people, slaves or free.
There was a LOT of northern sentiment that the war was about preserving the Union, and who gives a shit about slaves. I mean, it isn't like racism wasn't rmapant and the norm in the north.
In fact, I would say that the vast majority of men fighting for the Union who were doing so for ideological reasons (as opposed to being drafted) were doing so not to fight slavery, but to preserve the Union.
That being said, I think a lot of the men fighting for the South were doing so not because of slavery (after all, only a small fraction of southerners owned slaves anyway) but because they felt that their loyalty was to the South.
But I think there is an important distinction to be made between the reasons that the men who fought were willing to fight, and what caused the war. They are not the same thing. The war was fought because of slavery - the men who fought it fought primarily (and of course I am over-generalizing) to preserve the Union, or because they felt the need to protect their culture and country (which included the concept of slavery).
Quote from: viper37 on September 13, 2014, 12:40:19 AM
Given that slavery (or to right to hold slaves if you prefer) was pretty much central to the conflict, was that a feeling generally shared by many of the Confederates officers, or simply the ramblings of a few disgruntled officers that the war wasn't winning itself fast enough?
Antebellum, the measure of success and living the American Dream for the average Yankee was owning a factory and making oneself financially independent; for the average Southerner, it was owning one or more slaves and not having to work the fields manually. While most Confederate soldiers couldn't afford even one slave, the criteria of being successful was having the means to afford at least one to do the work while they participate in their local society, as a Southern gentleman.
Whatever their personal sentiments over slavery was, what they
didn't tolerate was to be told by some holier-than-thou Yankee that their lifestyle was either evil, morally corrupt, or unacceptable in a civilized nation, and that people in Washington who never set foot in the South could dictate what they should or shouldn't do their own State. The ACW is the result of more than a decade of tit-for-tat, back-and-forth hostile politics between North and South; politics which, as the years passed, made things more and more personal and acrimonious to the point that it became
de facto two entirely different societies barely tolerating living under the same flag.
Also keep in mind that some States, like Maryland and Missouri, decided to remain in the Union even though they continued being slave States. Lincoln was shrewd enough to keep in mind that making the war about slavery risked alienating those States away from the Union.
Quote from: viper37 on September 13, 2014, 12:40:19 AM
The attempted hijack of the Scottish independant thread made me think...
In the movie Gods & Generals, one of the Generals, Jackson, I think, says that the Confederates should have abolished slavery and then declared independance.
Given that slavery (or to right to hold slaves if you prefer) was pretty much central to the conflict, was that a feeling generally shared by many of the Confederates officers, or simply the ramblings of a few disgruntled officers that the war wasn't winning itself fast enough?
Likewise, given that some Southerners had anti-slavery sentiment, yet fought for their State, did any Northern officer ever expressed - during the war or shortly before - some form of support toward slavery while at the same time a desire to preserve the Union?
Hmm, support might be too strong a word.
More like an officer who sees his sole duty as protecting the Union and couldn't care less about the status of black people, slaves or free.
I saw G&G once (which was more then enough), I do remember in the movie Gettysburg Longstreet says something to that effect. I don't know if he ever actually said it, but after the war he became a Republican and supported rights for former slaves.
There were people in the North who supported the South and were pro-slavery. Sympathetic politicians were called "doughfaces". Several Presidents were considered "doughfaces". Abolition of Slavery and preserving the Union were often complimentary views as many people viewed slavery as a danger to the Union itself. This view point grew stronger as the war went on. The Confederacy was always fighting to preserve slavery, the Union did not start off fighting slavery but ended up doing so. I should note that not everyone in the South was keen on the Confederacy. Terror and intimidation were used on the Southern populace to keep it quite and keep men going into the armies. There were a lot of Southerners who fought for the Union rather then the Confederacy.
What Berkut said - similarly the soldiers of Wehrmacht were often fighting in Hitler's wars not because they were nazis or wanted to exterminate the Jews - that does not make the overall cause of the nazi Germany or the confederate South less evil.
I think, generally, the idea (espoused universally or at least by a significant part of the populace) that you can and should refuse to fight in your country's war because you are opposed to its ideological underpinnings is a rather novel idea.
Yeah, HEAVEN FORBID that Maryland and Missouri leave the union. :rolleyes:
Quote from: viper37 on September 13, 2014, 12:40:19 AM
The attempted hijack of the Scottish independant thread made me think...
In the movie Gods & Generals, one of the Generals, Jackson, I think, says that the Confederates should have abolished slavery and then declared independance.
Given that slavery (or to right to hold slaves if you prefer) was pretty much central to the conflict, was that a feeling generally shared by many of the Confederates officers, or simply the ramblings of a few disgruntled officers that the war wasn't winning itself fast enough?
Likewise, given that some Southerners had anti-slavery sentiment, yet fought for their State, did any Northern officer ever expressed - during the war or shortly before - some form of support toward slavery while at the same time a desire to preserve the Union?
Hmm, support might be too strong a word.
More like an officer who sees his sole duty as protecting the Union and couldn't care less about the status of black people, slaves or free.
Read "What They Fought For" by McPherson. He analyzed letters and diaries by over 1000 soldiers when writing it.
NSA wannabe ftw.
Quote from: The Brain on September 13, 2014, 02:20:11 AM
Yeah, HEAVEN FORBID that Maryland and Missouri leave the union. :rolleyes:
Especially since the frontier of Maryland is within 25 miles of Washington DC. :glare:
Union General George Thomas was a Virginian and a slaveholder right up until the start of the war. He never wrote about his opinions on slavery (insofar as I know), but it was, at a minimum, tolerance. He chose to remain with the US Army because he felt that secession was wrong, not because he felt slavery was wrong.
I'd argue that the cause of the war was industrialization more than slavery, per se. In the North, fortunes of "new money" were being made by people lacking any trace of aristocracy. The Southern aristocracy saw that this was going to happen in the South, sooner or later, and that industrialization would make slavery economically unnecessary and ruinously expensive compared to machinery. Further, the political and social power they possessed by being the only ones with education and money would end. They wanted to flee the future, and the only way they could do that was to flee the country where that was possible, taking their society with them. You can just imagine how successful they would have been running a country that was averse to industrialization.
There were a lot of people on both sides who had conflicting views, lots of Northerners were both pro-Union and either pro-Slavery or anti-Abolition, there was always some number of pro-Union, anti-Slavery Southerners as well. Especially the more border states, a lot of Virginians fought for the North considering Virginia had formally seceded from the Union and was at war with it (certainly more fought for the Confederacy.)
I certainly agree with grumbler on industrialization being a major cause of the war (I don't believe in a one-cause explanation for the ACW in any case.) I've oft-remarked one of the many reasons Thomas Jefferson should be vilified is his almost single-handed creation of a philosophic support for the concept of agrarianism as the ideal culture, to the detriment of any attempts to industrialize.
Quote from: Berkut on September 13, 2014, 12:47:50 AM
There was a LOT of northern sentiment that the war was about preserving the Union, and who gives a shit about slaves. I mean, it isn't like racism wasn't rmapant and the norm in the north.
In fact, I would say that the vast majority of men fighting for the Union who were doing so for ideological reasons (as opposed to being drafted) were doing so not to fight slavery, but to preserve the Union.
That being said, I think a lot of the men fighting for the South were doing so not because of slavery (after all, only a small fraction of southerners owned slaves anyway) but because they felt that their loyalty was to the South.
Thank you Berkut.
Quote
But I think there is an important distinction to be made between the reasons that the men who fought were willing to fight, and what caused the war. They are not the same thing. The war was fought because of slavery - the men who fought it fought primarily (and of course I am over-generalizing) to preserve the Union, or because they felt the need to protect their culture and country (which included the concept of slavery).
Yes, I understand that, there's been multiple threads on the subject over the years, I was simply unsure if it was a contemporary feeling or something that came up later as a justification for the war.
Quote from: Razgovory on September 13, 2014, 01:41:54 AM
I saw G&G once (which was more then enough), I do remember in the movie Gettysburg Longstreet says something to that effect. I don't know if he ever actually said it, but after the war he became a Republican and supported rights for former slaves.
Could have been Gettysburg, one of the two, certainly not elsewhere.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on September 13, 2014, 03:17:05 AM
Read "What They Fought For" by McPherson. He analyzed letters and diaries by over 1000 soldiers when writing it.
thanks, I've added it to my wishlist.
It was Gettysburg-- the scene where Longstreet is talking to the Brit LTC Fremantle.
Coincidentally, I got the directors cut of Gods & Generals on Blu-ray yesterday. Watched the first hour of 4.5 hours last night. So far it's been about 90% Stonewall Jackson.
The economics of slavery were at their most attenuated right before the Civil War began. Chattel slavery is a great way to produce agricultural goods pre-mechanization; let's remember that the only way that slave-produced cotton became viable was by the invention of the cotton gin. Prior to that, with the collapse of the rice trade out of North America, slave importation had begun to decline; IIRC, one of the major slave auctions didn't happen one year because prices of slaves were too low, and the cost of owning one was getting too high.
http://www.measuringworth.com/slavery.php
Slavery was economically unsustainable already when the Civil War started; Lee manumitted a number of Custis family slaves because he couldn't afford to keep them, which is recounted in the book Gods and Generals, IIRC. It would have been a matter of decades for slavery to die out.
Quote from: Scipio on September 13, 2014, 03:49:50 PM
The economics of slavery were at their most attenuated right before the Civil War began. Chattel slavery is a great way to produce agricultural goods pre-mechanization; let's remember that the only way that slave-produced cotton became viable was by the invention of the cotton gin. Prior to that, with the collapse of the rice trade out of North America, slave importation had begun to decline; IIRC, one of the major slave auctions didn't happen one year because prices of slaves were too low, and the cost of owning one was getting too high. Slavery was economically unsustainable already when the Civil War started; Lee manumitted a number of Custis family slaves because he couldn't afford to keep them, which is recounted in the book Gods and Generals, IIRC. It would have been a matter of decades for slavery to die out.
During the war the South used slaves extensively in its weapons industry and IIRC they did some remarkable things producing weapons given where they were starting from. Any particular reason slaves could not have been used in an industrial setting? Sweat shops have been pretty profitable over time.
Quote from: Berkut on September 13, 2014, 12:47:50 AM
There was a LOT of northern sentiment that the war was about preserving the Union, and who gives a shit about slaves. I mean, it isn't like racism wasn't rmapant and the norm in the north.
In fact, I would say that the vast majority of men fighting for the Union who were doing so for ideological reasons (as opposed to being drafted) were doing so not to fight slavery, but to preserve the Union.
That being said, I think a lot of the men fighting for the South were doing so not because of slavery (after all, only a small fraction of southerners owned slaves anyway) but because they felt that their loyalty was to the South.
But I think there is an important distinction to be made between the reasons that the men who fought were willing to fight, and what caused the war. They are not the same thing. The war was fought because of slavery - the men who fought it fought primarily (and of course I am over-generalizing) to preserve the Union, or because they felt the need to protect their culture and country (which included the concept of slavery).
You are leaving out an important component here Berkut. Why would these dudes give a crap about preserving the Union if the South wanted to go? The reason was the belief that the country was being destroyed by the 'Slave Power' which had nefariously hijacked the South to defend its own evil slave agenda and was going to use all the land in the West for more slave plantations, taking land away from good white farmers. Opposition to slavery and the slave-holders did not require one to not be racist at all.
Quote from: grumbler on September 13, 2014, 09:30:02 AM
Union General George Thomas was a Virginian and a slaveholder right up until the start of the war. He never wrote about his opinions on slavery (insofar as I know), but it was, at a minimum, tolerance. He chose to remain with the US Army because he felt that secession was wrong, not because he felt slavery was wrong.
The fact he was married to a New York woman was probably the thing that most tipped the scales though.
Quote from: Scipio on September 13, 2014, 03:49:50 PM
The economics of slavery were at their most attenuated right before the Civil War began. Chattel slavery is a great way to produce agricultural goods pre-mechanization; let's remember that the only way that slave-produced cotton became viable was by the invention of the cotton gin. Prior to that, with the collapse of the rice trade out of North America, slave importation had begun to decline; IIRC, one of the major slave auctions didn't happen one year because prices of slaves were too low, and the cost of owning one was getting too high.
http://www.measuringworth.com/slavery.php (http://www.measuringworth.com/slavery.php)
Slavery was economically unsustainable already when the Civil War started; Lee manumitted a number of Custis family slaves because he couldn't afford to keep them, which is recounted in the book Gods and Generals, IIRC. It would have been a matter of decades for slavery to die out.
And that's why slavery doesn't exist anywhere in the world anymore. :rolleyes:
Leave it to Languish to completely dodge the relevancy and power of the Abolitionist movement.
Quote from: Valmy on September 13, 2014, 05:21:46 PM
During the war the South used slaves extensively in its weapons industry and IIRC they did some remarkable things producing weapons given where they were starting from. Any particular reason slaves could not have been used in an industrial setting? Sweat shops have been pretty profitable over time.
Slaves have no incentive to maintain their equipment or produce quality goods. If a machine breaks down in this period, the paid worker gets no pay and does no work. That's a tragedy for him. If a machine breaks down and a slave is the operator, he loses nothing and, in fact, gains in that he doesn't have to work. The Southern experiment with slave labor in factories during the war was a flop; as I recall, the only successes came when the factory managers agreed to pay the thus-not-quite-slaves.
Quote from: Valmy on September 13, 2014, 05:28:35 PM
Quote from: grumbler on September 13, 2014, 09:30:02 AM
Union General George Thomas was a Virginian and a slaveholder right up until the start of the war. He never wrote about his opinions on slavery (insofar as I know), but it was, at a minimum, tolerance. He chose to remain with the US Army because he felt that secession was wrong, not because he felt slavery was wrong.
The fact he was married to a New York woman was probably the thing that most tipped the scales though.
I disagree, but we will never know.
Quote from: grumbler on September 13, 2014, 06:07:43 PM
Slaves have no incentive to maintain their equipment or produce quality goods. If a machine breaks down in this period, the paid worker gets no pay and does no work. That's a tragedy for him. If a machine breaks down and a slave is the operator, he loses nothing and, in fact, gains in that he doesn't have to work. The Southern experiment with slave labor in factories during the war was a flop; as I recall, the only successes came when the factory managers agreed to pay the thus-not-quite-slaves.
I don't remember where it was from (McPherson maybe), but slave equipment had to be far stronger - and therefore for more costly - than free equipment. The damned darkies continued to break their hoes and shovels and had to sit around and wait til better ones came along.
Quote from: derspiess on September 13, 2014, 12:26:20 PM
Coincidentally, I got the directors cut of Gods & Generals on Blu-ray yesterday. Watched the first hour of 4.5 hours last night. So far it's been about 90% Stonewall Jackson.
it's representative of the entire movie :P
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on September 13, 2014, 10:27:23 AM
There were a lot of people on both sides who had conflicting views, lots of Northerners were both pro-Union and either pro-Slavery or anti-Abolition, there was always some number of pro-Union, anti-Slavery Southerners as well. Especially the more border states, a lot of Virginians fought for the North considering Virginia had formally seceded from the Union and was at war with it (certainly more fought for the Confederacy.)
I certainly agree with grumbler on industrialization being a major cause of the war (I don't believe in a one-cause explanation for the ACW in any case.) I've oft-remarked one of the many reasons Thomas Jefferson should be vilified is his almost single-handed creation of a philosophic support for the concept of agrarianism as the ideal culture, to the detriment of any attempts to industrialize.
I know about the people, I kinda realize societies weren't monolithical blocks at the time too ;)
I was just wondering if these kind of "contrary" opinions on the slavery issue where somewhat prevalent for the higher officers, those who most likely had a carreer in the US army before the war and we stood at a contradicting oath: protect your home or protect your uniform.
Quote from: PDH on September 13, 2014, 06:13:19 PM
I don't remember where it was from (McPherson maybe), but slave equipment had to be far stronger - and therefore for more costly - than free equipment. The damned darkies continued to break their hoes and shovels and had to sit around and wait til better ones came along.
Indeed. Plus you have the costs of the overseers, and the strong chance (in a factory setting) that slave laborers will take shortcuts or even sabotage the product out of spite. The Germans in WW2 had little more luck with slave laborers in factories than did the Confederates; equipment and munitions coming from the slave-labor factories failed at a far higher rate than from conventional factories. Not all forced-labor factory workers were slaves; the majority were conscripted workers, and received pay. I've never seen a reliable breakdown of the quality of forced vice slave labor.
nt
Quote from: grumbler on September 13, 2014, 06:07:43 PM
Quote from: Valmy on September 13, 2014, 05:21:46 PM
During the war the South used slaves extensively in its weapons industry and IIRC they did some remarkable things producing weapons given where they were starting from. Any particular reason slaves could not have been used in an industrial setting? Sweat shops have been pretty profitable over time.
Slaves have no incentive to maintain their equipment or produce quality goods. If a machine breaks down in this period, the paid worker gets no pay and does no work. That's a tragedy for him. If a machine breaks down and a slave is the operator, he loses nothing and, in fact, gains in that he doesn't have to work. The Southern experiment with slave labor in factories during the war was a flop; as I recall, the only successes came when the factory managers agreed to pay the thus-not-quite-slaves.
Except this isn't true. The slave has the same incentive as he has in the fields, he doesn't want to get beaten and unlike a rural slave who may grow his own food, the industrial slave needs to be fed. There is forced labor today working in factories. A few years back there was a scandal in China were people were being used as slaves in a brick factory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_slave_scandal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_slave_scandal)
If slaves were becoming uneconomical, the market should have responded by lowering their price.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 13, 2014, 07:10:48 PM
If slaves were becoming uneconomical, the market should have responded by lowering their price.
Except that there wasn't really much of a market in slaves. Only a relative handful were sold each year. Mostly, people got slaves by inheriting them. When they did come on the market, scarcity drove up the price. No aristocrat sold slaves to make a profit; his slaves were the symbol of his status. The theoretical market value of all the slaves in the South was greater than the value of all the factories and railroads in the North, but their owners were still cash-poor.
I think it was already illegal to import any more for some time previously as well.
Yeah, from Africa. There was brisk business in selling slaves despite Grumbler's baseless assertions.
I don't give a fuck either way.
Slavery is wrong and the North was industrialized while the south was in the opening stages and lagging behind.
Natural social selection.
The most industrialized, free market capitalist society, should own the least industrialized, free market society.
Slavery slows down development, so it had to go.
Bottom Line Up Front: Suck my dick and support anything that brings the Technological Singularity closer.
In the future, we will look at the singularity the way we look at the reinasscannse, and wonder why it happen in the West instead of China.
Or the other way around.
Wouldn't the freest market be one that that has fewer restrictions on what goods can be sold i.e. slaves?
Quote from: grumbler on September 13, 2014, 06:07:43 PM
Quote from: Valmy on September 13, 2014, 05:21:46 PM
During the war the South used slaves extensively in its weapons industry and IIRC they did some remarkable things producing weapons given where they were starting from. Any particular reason slaves could not have been used in an industrial setting? Sweat shops have been pretty profitable over time.
Slaves have no incentive to maintain their equipment or produce quality goods. If a machine breaks down in this period, the paid worker gets no pay and does no work. That's a tragedy for him. If a machine breaks down and a slave is the operator, he loses nothing and, in fact, gains in that he doesn't have to work. The Southern experiment with slave labor in factories during the war was a flop; as I recall, the only successes came when the factory managers agreed to pay the thus-not-quite-slaves.
What does pay have to do with whether you're a slave or not?
Quote from: The Brain on September 14, 2014, 02:13:47 AM
Quote from: grumbler on September 13, 2014, 06:07:43 PM
Quote from: Valmy on September 13, 2014, 05:21:46 PM
During the war the South used slaves extensively in its weapons industry and IIRC they did some remarkable things producing weapons given where they were starting from. Any particular reason slaves could not have been used in an industrial setting? Sweat shops have been pretty profitable over time.
Slaves have no incentive to maintain their equipment or produce quality goods. If a machine breaks down in this period, the paid worker gets no pay and does no work. That's a tragedy for him. If a machine breaks down and a slave is the operator, he loses nothing and, in fact, gains in that he doesn't have to work. The Southern experiment with slave labor in factories during the war was a flop; as I recall, the only successes came when the factory managers agreed to pay the thus-not-quite-slaves.
What does pay have to do with whether you're a slave or not?
Don't think I get the distinction either. Whether the owner gives food and clothes to his slaves, or pays them so they buy it themselves does not seem to me to be constitutive traits of slavery.
Quote from: Martinus on September 14, 2014, 03:14:10 AM
Quote from: The Brain on September 14, 2014, 02:13:47 AM
What does pay have to do with whether you're a slave or not?
Don't think I get the distinction either. Whether the owner gives food and clothes to his slaves, or pays them so they buy it themselves does not seem to me to be constitutive traits of slavery.
It's not whether they are slaves or not, but whether producing quality or operating your machinery in a way that maximizes its "up time" is in your best interests. If a worker breaks his machine (in this period), he doesn't get paid, because he can't work. That's a tragedy for him. If a slave breaks his machine, he doesn't get paid, but he doesn't get paid anyway, and he also can't work. That's a holiday for him. Add the resentment the slave feels, and thus the incentive to engage in mischief to get back at his owner , and it becomes clear why slave labor in factories didn't work. Unlike work in the fields, it isn't possible to oversee work in factories to the degree needed to catch small acts of mischief, unless you have so many overseers that you might as well have the overseers do the actual work.
Whoosh.
Quote from: The Brain on September 14, 2014, 05:59:07 AM
Whoosh.
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffilesharingtalk.com%2Fimages%2Fsmilies%2Fwhoosh.gif&hash=d729156ded95d88a285949be17a6d8d016641ec9)
Quote from: Razgovory on September 13, 2014, 05:34:13 PM
Quote from: Scipio on September 13, 2014, 03:49:50 PM
The economics of slavery were at their most attenuated right before the Civil War began. Chattel slavery is a great way to produce agricultural goods pre-mechanization; let's remember that the only way that slave-produced cotton became viable was by the invention of the cotton gin. Prior to that, with the collapse of the rice trade out of North America, slave importation had begun to decline; IIRC, one of the major slave auctions didn't happen one year because prices of slaves were too low, and the cost of owning one was getting too high.
http://www.measuringworth.com/slavery.php (http://www.measuringworth.com/slavery.php)
Slavery was economically unsustainable already when the Civil War started; Lee manumitted a number of Custis family slaves because he couldn't afford to keep them, which is recounted in the book Gods and Generals, IIRC. It would have been a matter of decades for slavery to die out.
And that's why slavery doesn't exist anywhere in the world anymore. :rolleyes:
We're not talking about modern economic slavery, dullard.
Quote from: Scipio on September 14, 2014, 07:06:37 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on September 13, 2014, 05:34:13 PM
And that's why slavery doesn't exist anywhere in the world anymore. :rolleyes:
We're not talking about modern economic slavery, dullard.
It's Raz. Just move on. He's being contrary because Raz gotta Raz.
I'm being contrary because these claims don't hold water and have long since been dismissed by economists.
quote author=Scipio link=topic=11895.msg780811#msg780811 date=1410641390]Slavery was economically unsustainable already when the Civil War started; Lee manumitted a number of Custis family slaves because he couldn't afford to keep them, which is recounted in the book Gods and Generals, IIRC. It would have been a matter of decades for slavery to die out.[/quote]
He was required to manumit the Custis slaves per the terms of the will. He actually took a hiatus from his Army career to get the process under way (not finished until 1862 IIRC); the hitch was the Custis family plantation had immense debts, and legally you can't just manumit a slave that is part of collateral, so Lee had to actually get the fiscal house in order at his wife's family's plantation so he could comply with the terms of the will (which required manumission within five years of the will going into effect.) I believe he was able to get it done in the appropriate legal time limit, but it was a close thing and took up a lot of his efforts outside of soldiering.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on September 14, 2014, 12:10:45 PM
He was required to manumit the Custis slaves per the terms of the will. He actually took a hiatus from his Army career to get the process under way (not finished until 1862 IIRC); the hitch was the Custis family plantation had immense debts, and legally you can't just manumit a slave that is part of collateral, so Lee had to actually get the fiscal house in order at his wife's family's plantation so he could comply with the terms of the will (which required manumission within five years of the will going into effect.) I believe he was able to get it done in the appropriate legal time limit, but it was a close thing and took up a lot of his efforts outside of soldiering.
He was in a race with the Emancipation Proclamation, though he didn't know it. I believe he emancipated the few remaining slaves (most had already been "emancipated" by the advancing Union forces) just a few days before Lincoln did so. It's an interesting story that i really have to delve into more deeply some time.
Quote from: Martinus on September 14, 2014, 03:14:10 AM
Don't think I get the distinction either. Whether the owner gives food and clothes to his slaves, or pays them so they buy it themselves does not seem to me to be constitutive traits of slavery.
One of the neat things about Slaves is that they had to feed themselves most of the time. They had a much lower life expectancy then non-slaves.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on September 14, 2014, 12:10:45 PM
quote author=Scipio link=topic=11895.msg780811#msg780811 date=1410641390]Slavery was economically unsustainable already when the Civil War started; Lee manumitted a number of Custis family slaves because he couldn't afford to keep them, which is recounted in the book Gods and Generals, IIRC. It would have been a matter of decades for slavery to die out.
He was required to manumit the Custis slaves per the terms of the will. He actually took a hiatus from his Army career to get the process under way (not finished until 1862 IIRC); the hitch was the Custis family plantation had immense debts, and legally you can't just manumit a slave that is part of collateral, so Lee had to actually get the fiscal house in order at his wife's family's plantation so he could comply with the terms of the will (which required manumission within five years of the will going into effect.) I believe he was able to get it done in the appropriate legal time limit, but it was a close thing and took up a lot of his efforts outside of soldiering.
[/quote]
Ah, was that it?
I knew he couldn't afford them, anyway, but I didn't know it was in the will.