I don't mean that Lincoln and the Northern bourgeoisie were motivated to prevent this by love of the Africans who were enslaved. But the rising industrial bourgeosie wanted the territory for themselves. So the enslaved Africans were the side beneficiaries of the objective movement of industrial capitalism at that time. We' ll take it. Freedom is freedom, whatever your motive. (That's Pragmatism for Justin and James F.)
Oh yes and "FREEDOM NOW !!!. The slaves and abolitionists were not willing to wait for the slow dying process of slavery,vaguely projected. And in fact it might not have died , but lived on in imperial conquest. This meshed with the timetable and strategic aims of the new industrial ruling class in the North, who took over from the slavocracy ruling class of the first period of the American Republic.
Charles Brown
Detroit
>>> Brett Knowlton <brettk at unica-usa.com> 11/10 1:27 PM >>>
Carl wrote:
>The second point is, was it necessary to fight the Civil War at all? I
>have long had a suspicion that the Civil War caused damage -- in terms
>of casualties and regional resentments that endure to this day -- that
>outweighs the benefit of ending slavery quickly (which, in itself,
>seemed an afterthought -- Lincoln appeared much more concerned with his
>fetish of preserving the union, to me a meaningless abstraction). Even
>without the war, how long could slavery have endured without the South
>becoming a pariah state in the 19th century as South Africa did in the
>20th? My position is a pacifist one -- I think wars bring more ills
>than solutions.
And someone else wrote (don't remember who):
>I read a book last year called "Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men"
>by Jeffrey Hummel. He comes at things from a right-libertarian
>viewpoint, but his grasp of the literature is amazing. It's his
>contention that the North should have followed the recommendations of
>abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison and let the south go; that
>without the "enforcement subsidy" of the fugative slave laws, slavery
>was uneconomic and would die on its own.
This is really cool. I think the south should probably have been allowed to seccede. But, whenever I've tried to express my views, or even question the standard interpretation that you get taught in school, I get shouted down by "the Civil War freed the slaves and kept the Union intact and wasn't that great" crowd, who has included everyone but me up until now (I'm from Chicago, which probably has something to do with that).
Anyway, I agree with Carl and the general view that the Civil War was unnecessary and probably counterproductive. I'm not sure it could have been avoided though. Could Lincoln realistically have let the South go, given the political situation in the North?
Brett