There's a reason the North wiped out the South: free men create, innovate and prosper, slavery freezes development in place. By 1861, the difference was stark.
Good summary of what Juneteenth should stand for. Although I believe the celebration of Juneteenth should be temporary: until the time we truly achieve the goal of MLK, that all persons should be judged by their character and not by the color of their skin. Until our society is truly color blind. And if that requires the total destruction of the Democrat party, so be it.
My third great grandfather came to Texas in 1853, applied for citizenship in 1857 and achieved it in 1860. Besides being a farmer, he was a journalist who wrote articles celebrating the opportunities in Texas back to those he left behind in Czechia. At the same time he wrote articles against slavery and secession, to the anger and consternation of his planter neighbors who issued death threats. He survived, but one of his three sons was killed on a trip delivering cotton to be sold in Mexico during the Civil War.
Understandably, I am totally against reparations of any kind. Rewarding someone who hasn't been harmed in any way by punishing someone who didn't have anything to do with creating the harm is ridiculous on its face.
>>"Slavery casts a long shadow. What it doesn’t do is build wealth. Rather, it entrenches backwardness and poverty."
One can argue that it is the same with the "Great Society" and its progeny of multi-generational illegitimate birth rates and welfare dependency - as experience has now shown, so negating those programs stated purpose(s), even if they were initiated with noble intentions.
Same too with the Left's / Democrats' "psy-op" to convince Blacks that their woes are due to "institutional racism," "built on the backs of slavery" and so on.
I don't dispute your arguments about the economic superiority of the "American system" to the slavery economy. But I'm always grieved that we celebrate the Civil War as if it was primarily about freedom for the Southern slaves when it was primarily economically motivated (as Lincoln himself said as the war commenced). And Lincoln chose to engage in a conflict that slaughtered 2% of the population (that would be the equivalent of 7 million of today's U.S. population!). That was a grotesque misstep, whatever the South's provocation. Other western nations ended slavery without a war of mass death and destruction. I don't think Lincoln was statesman enough to find a more peaceful path forward, and we continue to suffer the consequences from the trajectory of oppressive federal superiority locked into our national system by Lincoln. We need a sober view of slavery and the war, free of the hagiography through which Lincoln is always viewed. But again, your economic arguments are sound, but economics is not the moral center of America's exceptionalism, or ought not be.
I am very familiar with the scholarship in both directions. But I come down on the other side of it. The war started because the South stupidly fired on a federal fort. Had they not done that, Lincoln never would have gone to war at all, not because he didn't want to, but because there was virtually no political support for such a course in the North.
Had the South avoided armed conflict, it would have succeeded in secession. But the Southern Democrats were plagued with hubris.
Once the war started, Lincoln's reasons are immaterial. The South's were perfectly clear. 13 states (including rump legislatures in Kentucky and Missouri) passed ordinances of secession. 12 of them explicitly state that their reason for leaving the Union is to preserve slavery.
So the South (Democrats) started the war, and they told us why they did so. And then they spent the next century subjugating poor blacks and poor whites in typical Democrat fashion.
As a matter of fact, a rather large chunk of my education was a fellowship at Cambridge that focused on the drafting and ratification of the U.S. Constitution. I have read literally everything the principal Founding Fathers (and many of the lesser ones) ever wrote aside from grocery lists and love letters, as well as most of the documents pertaining to the state ratifying conventions. And I can tell you with great certainty: not one state would have ratified the Constitution if they'd thought they couldn't leave.
Not one.
Obviously opinion had become divided by 1860, but that's where we began, and I do believe in original intent.
Very helpful. Thank you! I just wish Lincoln had found a way to let the South go. I believe they'd have realized their mistake soon enough, and without all the carnage. I know... Fort Sumter. (So there's still room for a PhD in the Founders' grocery lists? Good to know.)
Great article with excellent deductive reasoning! Truth backed up by the historical numbers is hard to refute, even though some will try.
Good summary of what Juneteenth should stand for. Although I believe the celebration of Juneteenth should be temporary: until the time we truly achieve the goal of MLK, that all persons should be judged by their character and not by the color of their skin. Until our society is truly color blind. And if that requires the total destruction of the Democrat party, so be it.
My third great grandfather came to Texas in 1853, applied for citizenship in 1857 and achieved it in 1860. Besides being a farmer, he was a journalist who wrote articles celebrating the opportunities in Texas back to those he left behind in Czechia. At the same time he wrote articles against slavery and secession, to the anger and consternation of his planter neighbors who issued death threats. He survived, but one of his three sons was killed on a trip delivering cotton to be sold in Mexico during the Civil War.
Understandably, I am totally against reparations of any kind. Rewarding someone who hasn't been harmed in any way by punishing someone who didn't have anything to do with creating the harm is ridiculous on its face.
>>"Slavery casts a long shadow. What it doesn’t do is build wealth. Rather, it entrenches backwardness and poverty."
One can argue that it is the same with the "Great Society" and its progeny of multi-generational illegitimate birth rates and welfare dependency - as experience has now shown, so negating those programs stated purpose(s), even if they were initiated with noble intentions.
Same too with the Left's / Democrats' "psy-op" to convince Blacks that their woes are due to "institutional racism," "built on the backs of slavery" and so on.
Absolutely.
I don't dispute your arguments about the economic superiority of the "American system" to the slavery economy. But I'm always grieved that we celebrate the Civil War as if it was primarily about freedom for the Southern slaves when it was primarily economically motivated (as Lincoln himself said as the war commenced). And Lincoln chose to engage in a conflict that slaughtered 2% of the population (that would be the equivalent of 7 million of today's U.S. population!). That was a grotesque misstep, whatever the South's provocation. Other western nations ended slavery without a war of mass death and destruction. I don't think Lincoln was statesman enough to find a more peaceful path forward, and we continue to suffer the consequences from the trajectory of oppressive federal superiority locked into our national system by Lincoln. We need a sober view of slavery and the war, free of the hagiography through which Lincoln is always viewed. But again, your economic arguments are sound, but economics is not the moral center of America's exceptionalism, or ought not be.
I am very familiar with the scholarship in both directions. But I come down on the other side of it. The war started because the South stupidly fired on a federal fort. Had they not done that, Lincoln never would have gone to war at all, not because he didn't want to, but because there was virtually no political support for such a course in the North.
Had the South avoided armed conflict, it would have succeeded in secession. But the Southern Democrats were plagued with hubris.
Once the war started, Lincoln's reasons are immaterial. The South's were perfectly clear. 13 states (including rump legislatures in Kentucky and Missouri) passed ordinances of secession. 12 of them explicitly state that their reason for leaving the Union is to preserve slavery.
So the South (Democrats) started the war, and they told us why they did so. And then they spent the next century subjugating poor blacks and poor whites in typical Democrat fashion.
Thanks for that. Just curious, do you believe the Constitution allows for secession?
As a matter of fact, a rather large chunk of my education was a fellowship at Cambridge that focused on the drafting and ratification of the U.S. Constitution. I have read literally everything the principal Founding Fathers (and many of the lesser ones) ever wrote aside from grocery lists and love letters, as well as most of the documents pertaining to the state ratifying conventions. And I can tell you with great certainty: not one state would have ratified the Constitution if they'd thought they couldn't leave.
Not one.
Obviously opinion had become divided by 1860, but that's where we began, and I do believe in original intent.
Very helpful. Thank you! I just wish Lincoln had found a way to let the South go. I believe they'd have realized their mistake soon enough, and without all the carnage. I know... Fort Sumter. (So there's still room for a PhD in the Founders' grocery lists? Good to know.)