wondering wrote:
What was stopping them from shipping more over from Africa?
US law prevented it.
wondering wrote:
What was stopping them from shipping more over from Africa?
US law prevented it.
It could be argued that there existed no law for the slaves.
The American colonization society was made up of many extremely powerful men (Chief Justice Marshall for one) who actively explored Liberia, Panama, the British carribean as alternatives for re population of the salves.
It was an active funded committee during the Lincoln administration...
Soldier of the Great War wrote:
Actually, the North only had to buy all the female slaves to effectively end slavery.
In 1860, there were 3.9 million slaves, with an average value of $800...roughly $3.1 billion in total. The North spent $6.19 billion on the civil war, so buying all the slaves would have been cheaper for them. But, as pointed out above, you couldn’t buy all the slaves at that price. Unless everyone agrees to sell on the same day, the cost per each would increase, likely exponentially, as the supply decreased. Now, if you factor in that the south spent $2.1 billion on their end of the war and the North spent another $3+ billion on pensions for Northern soldiers, maybe the math works out.
Note: Female slaves were more expensive than males (on average) so you couldn’t just half the numbers above.
wondering wrote:
What was stopping them from shipping more over from Africa?
Yeah, this is sort of the flaw that sinks the whole plan immediately. If the North buys all the slaves, the South just takes the revenue and uses it to buy more slaves.
This is sort of like thinking that I can stop my neighbor from playing loud music by buying his speakers from him. It would work perfectly if the speakers I bought from him were the only set of speakers in the world, but in reality the guy would just go buy more.
Luv2Run wrote:
wondering wrote:
What was stopping them from shipping more over from Africa?
US law prevented it.
But would buying all the slaves really have prevented the Civil War, then. Wouldn't the South have just taken the money, then attempted to leave the Union and bring back the slaves while much better capitalized?
not a deterrent for rebels wrote:
Luv2Run wrote:
US law prevented it.
But would buying all the slaves really have prevented the Civil War, then. Wouldn't the South have just taken the money, then attempted to leave the Union and bring back the slaves while much better capitalized?
There was a law that outlawed the importation of slaves passed sometime early in the 19th Century so buying new slaves wouldn't have been possible. Of course they could have taken the money and tried seceding afterward but there would likely have been some agreement that by accepting the money the states were agreeing not to secede. And again, many slave owners were actually looking for a way out of owning slaves so it's unlikely there would have been sentiment for seceding and repurchasing slaves.
A far simpler and cheaper way to end slavery than war or purchasing freedom would have been to overturn the Dred Scott decision and make it clear that any slave who made it to free territory would be free. This would have caused many slaves to attempt an escape to freedom, which would have raised the costs of owning slaves, driving down their value, and undermining the market. With the help of sympathetic people at every level of government and society, this could have effectively ended slavery without killing 600 thousand people.
Of course, is Dred Scott had gone the way I'm recommending then it's possible that the South would have seceded earlier than they did, so the price was probably going to be paid no matter how things fell out.
I would have resulted in the salves bring shot in the back as they attempted to find a free state.
Seriously.
Now Wait. wrote:
I would have resulted in the salves bring shot in the back as they attempted to find a free state.
Seriously.
You would have? Why?
Devil Dog wrote:
[quote]Lorio wrote:
[quote]Devil Dog wrote:
not one single Northern soldier died with any sense of fighting for slaves. Not one. They dies with visions of reunifying the states.
How about the 54th Massachusetts Infantry?
Wars are a great money making opportunity for the wealthy, with little risk because they are not the ones being sent to die. Why would the wealthy citizens of the North spend money on people when they could make money on war?
Econ 101 again wrote:
Obviously there's a lack of concept of supply/demand here.
Obviously you could buy the first however millions black slaves cheap, like $2/per or something.
But once there's only like 10000 or so left, you have to pay more and more per slave. You can't just claim "eminent domain" and give "fair value" for them, the SCOTUS had invented Kelo yet.
By the time it's down to like 100, you're probably paying like collector's item amounts. Look at the ethereum-cats that sold for hundreds of thousands, or art work in the $$millions.
So you really can't with a counterfactual, only that the first few slaves (on the margin) would have been sold for the typical market prices. But after that, who knows?
I was going to say something like that. It is like how buying all of a company's shares costs a lot more than the market cap (number of shares * current price)
maybe I'me way off on this, but this line of thinking seems really flawed.
Why on Earth would slave owners pay more for slaves than the profit the slaves could produce?? It doesn't mater how rare they become, it doesn't make sense to pay $10,000 for a slave if that slave only produces $100 of profit. Yeah, yeah cotton prices would rise blah blah, but I can't imagine cotton prices rising so high that it would justify 'collector prices'.
And if your workforce was reduced from the millions down to 10,000 your whole economy has already collapse or else you've figured out a different method. Or, as the 'economic geniuses' above must think, you just keep bidding up those slave prices and hope those 10,000 slaves can do the work of millions. they should be able to....i mean they cost $42 million each, lol
genius theory guys....genius!
If the Dred Scott decision had gone the other way it might have pushed the South to secede earlier, when Buchanan was president. Buchanan showed no interest in stopping secession while he was still president. Maybe if he hadn't been a lame duck he'd have responded differently but I think it's ;possible that if the South had seceded a year or two earlier they'd have been allowed to leave.