Fragmentation of the CSA

[DValdron]

Originally Posted by Jaded_Railman

Oh, I get it. The Confederacy is evil, full of evil men who do evil things.

The Civil War was about slavery, and not about anything else. That's what the Confederates said. Go read Alexander Stephens keystone speech. It's not worth debating.

They will never do anything not evil, so they will not industrialize.

Whether they're evil as you describe, or whether the society had merely devolved into something sociopathic, paranoid and delusional, as I would prefer to say, doesn't speak to the issue one way or the other at all.

Through history there have been societies that for one reason or another became sociopathic, paranoid and delusional. The general rule is that they don't last. It's happened before, sadly it may happen again. It's nothing remarkable.

That doesn't have anything to do on whether they would or would not industrialize. I don't think that they would, and I laid out my position as clearly as possible.

You argue that they would industrialize, but the foundation of your argument appears to be based on magic beans from Jack in the Beanstalk. That's very well and good. But I don't buy it.

This isn't a debate worth having.

Well, given that digging into your argument shows that you are requiring alien space bats to come to the rescue, I suspect you're right. Your argument requires large infusions of capital to spring from nonexistent sources and to be deployed in nonrational ways to create an outcome that you apparently treasure. Well, okay, it's your fantasy, I guess, and good on you. But I don't think I'm obliged to pretend its not ASB, or to treat it as a likely scenario. Best wishes. Don't go away mad.

[DValdron]

Originally Posted by David S Poepoe

From what I can recall the construction and management of several railways in Latin America were funded by British investments. It was fairly typical of the British to build the necessary infrastructure to be able to exploit access to raw materials and markets.

Hmmm. Good point. I do acknowledge specific infrastructure projects like the Suez Canal and Nicaragua Canal project that was undertaken by Colonial powers. So without spending a lot of time, I'll concede you're right.

But infrastructure investments by Colonial powers didn't lead to Industrialization anywhere in the Colonies, where presumably, there's an arguable vested interest to invest and build up the place and maximize the wealth return. If anything, Colonial ownership and investment had the effect of freezing or de-industrializing. This was one of Ghandi's arguments against the British in India. Remember that whole 'spinning wheel' shtick he used to do. It certainly didn't lead to industrialisation in Latin America.

So what makes you think that British infrastructure investment would spur Confederate industrialisation? Wouldn't British infrastructure investments be aimed at furthering British economic policy - ie, buying cotton and selling manufactured goods? That seems anti-industrial to me.

But hey, you've scored a point, so maybe you're on to something. Feel free to develop your ideas on this area.

The Confederacy will be a very good place to invest.

Hmmm. Why would you say that? Can you justify that statement.

One would have to probably spend more time negotiating with the various individual state governments, but it wouldn't be too much more difficult that pre-1860 America.

That doesn't necessarily sound like a good place to invest, at least on that ground. And the Confederacy wouldn't be competing with pre-1860 America, so that point is kind of limited.

[King Gorilla]

Originally Posted by DValdron

But infrastructure investments by Colonial powers didn't lead to Industrialization anywhere in the Colonies, where presumably, there's an arguable vested interest to invest and build up the place and maximize the wealth return. If anything, Colonial ownership and investment had the effect of freezing or de-industrializing. This was one of Ghandi's arguments against the British in India. Remember that whole 'spinning wheel' shtick he used to do. It certainly didn't lead to industrialisation in Latin America.

Not to mention the fact that the Confederate constitution would have been a major barrier towards any concerted effort to industrialize. Not only did it forbid the establishment of protective tariffs to shelter it from its more developed industrial competitors, it denied its congress the right to fund and construct infrastructure. The south probably wouldn't be completely de-industrialized, but its industrial development would more likely than not be foreign owned and almost entirely towards providing export commodities versus finished goods and products.

[David S Poepoe]

Originally Posted by King Gorilla

Not to mention the fact that the Confederate constitution would have been a major barrier towards any concerted effort to industrialize. Not only did it forbid the establishment of protective tariffs to shelter it from its more developed industrial competitors, it denied its congress the right to fund and construct infrastructure. The south probably wouldn't be completely de-industrialized, but its industrial development would more likely than not be foreign owned and almost entirely towards providing export commodities versus finished goods and products.

Market forces will probably create and promote the growth of local industry, its always done that historically.

[David S Poepoe]

Originally Posted by DValdron

Hmmm. Why would you say that? Can you justify that statement.

That doesn't necessarily sound like a good place to invest, at least on that ground. And the Confederacy wouldn't be competing with pre-1860 America, so that point is kind of limited.

The Confederacy would be a good place to invest since there are so many things and services they need. The British and French would also be investing into a market before the Northerns probably figure out that there were investment oppurtunities there.

Isn't investing overseas, now and in the past, all about potential of returns on one's investment? Also local industry and commerce will be stimulated by whatever infrastructures are built. The simple movement of people is also the movement of ideas between points.

[DValdron]

Originally Posted by David S Poepoe

The Confederacy would be a good place to invest since there are so many things and services they need.

Such as....

Off the top of my head, I can really only think of cotton and tobacco, and that's simply going to continue to drive an agricultural economy. It's not going to encourage industrial investment.

Even there, the Confederacy's attractiveness wanes. Egyptian cotton undermines the Confederate market. Britain, France, Belgium, Portugal, Netherlands, Germany, Italy and even Spain, Japan and the Ottoman maintain colonies in sub-tropical or tropical agricultural regions whose cash crops will increasingly compete.

So what are all these 'many things and services they need'....

The British and French would also be investing into a market before the Northerns probably figure out that there were investment oppurtunities there.

As opposed to investing in their own countries, or their own colonies? I don't see substantive European investment providing much in the way of any significant industrial base. You're going to have to make a better case.

Isn't investing overseas, now and in the past, all about potential of returns on one's investment?

Very true. But how does this help your case? Again, you need to do a little better here.

Also local industry and commerce will be stimulated by whatever infrastructures are built. The simple movement of people is also the movement of ideas between points.

Yes and no. There are arguments that in some cases foreign investment can actually undermine local industries and local activities. The activities of the United Fruit Company in Central America is a classic example.

[King Gorilla]

Originally Posted by David S Poepoe

Market forces will probably create and promote the growth of local industry, its always done that historically.

Yes because that happened so frequently in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe in the pre-modern era, especially when it came to the construction of capital intensive infrastructure projects.

Realistically the CSA would most likely follow the same developmental path as Latin America. The CSA would remain largely agraian with most of its industrial development centering around commoditites and raw material. Unfortunately the boom bust nature of commodity prices would mean that infrastructure would be built to handle one boom only to fall into disrepair when the inevitable crash occurs, before an alternative commodity can be found to take its place.

[Jaded_Railman]

Originally Posted by King Gorilla

Yes because that happened so frequently in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe in the pre-modern era, especially when it came to the construction of capital intensive infrastructure projects.

Realistically the CSA would most likely follow the same developmental path as Latin America. The CSA would remain largely agraian with most of its industrial development centering around commoditites and raw material. Unfortunately the boom bust nature of commodity prices would mean that infrastructure would be built to handle one boom only to fall into disrepair when the inevitable crash occurs, before an alternative commodity can be found to take its place.

Look guys, you can't just say something's true. The South won't just 'follow the same growth path as Latin America' because you say so. Prior to the Civil War there was already industry and manufacturers in the South, simply not to the same level as the North. IOTL, the Latin American countries had basket case economies with constant financial turmoil. The Europeans kept sending gunboats to their coasts because they kept defaulting on their debts. There is no reason at all to believe the South will face these same problems. It's already got a thriving market economy (and people in a market economy DO work to diversify when faced with adverse conditions, otherwise they go bankrupt and someone else who will gets their available capital), a decent but under-utilized financial system, and a large, rich agricultural base, all the things the North had when it entered a strong industrialization path in the late 19th century.

You can't just draw superificial social similarities and, because you don't like those social similarities, say these two things are the same thing. The South had wealthy elites but, then again, so did the North. When Cotton and other planting activities start to lose their profitability, those elites will shift their economic activities so they can continue making the money they're used to making. It's how markets work. In South America, there was no where near the available capital or the available labor that there would be in a Southern economy that won early enough to not be completely devestated.

I get it, y'all don't like the South very much. That's OK, slavery was a hypocritical, evil practice. But, unfortunately, being evil doesn't necessarily curtail success in this world. Far from it, really.

EDIT: I think, worst of all, you guys seem to be using some bullshit version of the modern 'Third World Dependence Theory' to make these arguments. It ignores the fact that the Latin American countries were already poorer than the North American ones, that their economies were slow and backwards because their financial systems were, and that this image you have of a few, large land-owners dominating their economy and nothing going anywhere is anachronistic to the Civil War period.

[DValdron]

Originally Posted by Jaded_Railman

Look guys, you can't just say something's true. The South won't just 'follow the same growth path as Latin America' because you say so.

That's not precisely what we've said. What we've said is that based on our view, the south is more likely to develop in similar ways to Latin America or other agrarian societies that practice plantation agriculture and populate the third world. There will be inescapable parallels of development.

Seriously Jared, you appear to have some substantial emotional investment here, that compels you to throw in Alien Space Bats.

You can't just draw superificial social similarities and, because you don't like those social similarities, say these two things are the same thing.

We don't. But I have the strong impression that even if you may be relatively expert on certain things, I don't think you understand or appreciate much of Latin America. Your dismissal of Latin American states seems to imply rather ignorant and stereotypical generalizations of situations that were far more diverse and nuanced. No disrespect, but its why I tend to take your 'it's completely different' argument with a certain grain of salt.


"The South had wealthy elites but, then again, so did the North. When Cotton and other planting activities start to lose their profitability, those elites will shift their economic activities so they can continue making the money they're used to making. It's how markets work."

And once again, you invoke magic beans and alien space bats. Your argument has no traction in the real world. Look around you. Did Britain shift gears in Industrial decline to come back out on top? How about General Motors, did it shift gears in a declining car market to become the worlds leading computer manufacturer? Don't think so.

One of the big problems that you insist on overlooking is your notion that capital is infinitely fluid. Well, not true. Indeed, one of the staples of intensive plantation cultures and their ilk is that capital is not fluid at all, its tied up in land.

You have this notion that landowners in a declining agricultural market, where the value of their fixed capital is in decline, are going to miraculously convert it to some fluid value and redeploy it in ways that literally demand a precognitive level of foresight.

Sorry, but you are not being persuasive. I know the subject is near and dear to you, and I'm sorry to gore your ox. But you just aren't making your case.

I get it, y'all don't like the South very much.

I don't care about the south very much. I really don't have any more emotional investment in the South one way or the other, than I have with the Aztecs or the early Spanish colony in Hispanolia.

That's OK, slavery was a hypocritical, evil practice. But, unfortunately, being evil doesn't necessarily curtail success in this world. Far from it, really.

I certainly agree with you there. Say what you want about the Nazis or the Aztecs, but they were arguably quite successful for a while. But so what? How does this apply to your urge towards wishful thinking?

Is it possible that a sociopathic, paranoid and delusional society (my term, rather than just saying evil) could be quite successful? Yes. Could such a society become an industrial power? Under the right conditions and with the right circumstances, sure? Could the south? Doesn't look like it to me.

And I'm perfectly willing to listen to a compelling argument. But frankly, your obvious attachment to the subject matter combined with your inability to make such an argument makes me somewhat skeptical. It seems to me that if there was a real case, you would have made it by now. You're obviously intelligent and passionate.

The fact that you seem unable to make the case without resorting to magic suggests to me that there really isn't a case.

[King Gorilla]

Originally Posted by Jaded_Railman

Look guys, you can't just say something's true. The South won't just 'follow the same growth path as Latin America' because you say so. Prior to the Civil War there was already industry and manufacturers in the South, simply not to the same level as the North. IOTL, the Latin American countries had basket case economies with constant financial turmoil. The Europeans kept sending gunboats to their coasts because they kept defaulting on their debts. There is no reason at all to believe the South will face these same problems. It's already got a thriving market economy (and people in a market economy DO work to diversify when faced with adverse conditions, otherwise they go bankrupt and someone else who will gets their available capital), a decent but under-utilized financial system, and a large, rich agricultural base, all the things the North had when it entered a strong industrialization path in the late 19th century.

You can't just draw superificial social similarities and, because you don't like those social similarities, say these two things are the same thing. The South had wealthy elites but, then again, so did the North. When Cotton and other planting activities start to lose their profitability, those elites will shift their economic activities so they can continue making the money they're used to making. It's how markets work. In South America, there was no where near the available capital or the available labor that there would be in a Southern economy that won early enough to not be completely devestated.

I get it, y'all don't like the South very much. That's OK, slavery was a hypocritical, evil practice. But, unfortunately, being evil doesn't necessarily curtail success in this world. Far from it, really.

EDIT: I think, worst of all, you guys seem to be using some bullshit version of the modern 'Third World Dependence Theory' to make these arguments. It ignores the fact that the Latin American countries were already poorer than the North American ones, that their economies were slow and backwards because their financial systems were, and that this image you have of a few, large land-owners dominating their economy and nothing going anywhere is anachronistic to the Civil War period.

Yes the south had quite a bit of industry prior to the civil war. However this was when Southern industry was surrounded by nice American tariff barriers. The confederate constitution bans these said tariffs which means that the South's fledgling industries will very very quickly need to compete with the already developed industrial bases of Great Britain, France, and the North. Could they complete successfully? Perhaps but they aren't going to be facing their industrial competitors on even grounds. Nor will fledgling industrialists have the convenience of having the federal government ready built all of the necessary industrial infrastructure for them. I'm sure British, French and American investment will fill part of the gap, but since the government cannot subsidize their construction, infrastructure will be built solely to facilitate specific exports. This also means that the profits earned by said ventures will probably leave the country as soon as they are made rather than reinvested ala Argentina.

I also question how effective southern capital will be in independently creating a new industrial economy, considering 2/3rds of it was already tied into land and slaves. Neither are terribly fluid, and given its allocation, southern lenders aren't terribly likely to support anything that disrupts the status que. This also means when the price of commodities such as cotton and tobacco crash, they will have a much more drastic effect on the confederate economy.

Of course there is always the factor of the entrepenor, and entrepenors could undoubtably work miricles. However an independent confederacy is unlikely to produce as many of these miricle workers as the north. The reasons for this will be less immigration, as the south is very much unlikely to give out vast chunks of free land ala the homestead act, it has a much more stratified society, and it has less industrial jobs from the git go. The south also has at this time a much weaker educational system compared to the north, both locally and in terms of universities. This is not to say that it won't produce its share of geniuses, but it will mean that it will have in general a much less educated population when it comes to producing both skilled workers and innovation. This is ontop of the fact that roughly a third of the southern population is denied any education as a means of social control.

I'm not saying that the confederacy is doomed, it just has a hell of a lot of factors work against it if it wants to become anysort of industrial power.

[mowque]

Originally Posted by King Gorilla

Of course there is always the factor of the entrepenor, and entrepenors could undoubtably work miricles. However an independent confederacy is unlikely to produce as many of these miricle workers as the north. The reasons for this will be less immigration, as the south is very much unlikely to give out vast chunks of free land ala the homestead act, it has a much more stratified society, and it has less industrial jobs from the git go. The south also has at this time a much weaker educational system compared to the north, both locally and in terms of universities. This is not to say that it won't produce its share of geniuses, but it will mean that it will have in general a much less educated population when it comes to producing both skilled workers and innovation. This is ontop of the fact that roughly a third of the southern population is denied any education as a means of social control.

Good post, common sense.

[robertp6165]

Originally Posted by DValdron

The Civil War was about slavery, and not about anything else. That's what the Confederates said. Go read Alexander Stephens keystone speech. It's not worth debating.

It's actually called the "Cornerstone Speech." How about reading the ENTIRE speech, and not just the last paragraph? Or didn't you realize that there was more to the speech than the passages which get quoted in the high school history texts from which you evidently learned your history? Stephens in fact talks about the issues of protective tariffs, diversion of federal revenues to internal improvement projects in the States, and other issues that he felt were solved by secession...all of them before he ever mentions a word about slavery.

But then, that would require that you actually READ the speech, and not just cherry-picked quotations out of it. Of course, that might actually lead to some neurons being unduly exercised. Can't have that, can we? Easier to get your history in pre-disgested form, eh?

[robertp6165]

Originally Posted by AmIndHistoryAuthor

OTH, there was a repressive streak in the Confederacy that many don't acknowledge. Not just in enslaving millions because there was profit in it...

As did the Union both before the Confederacy existed and after.

Originally Posted by AmIndHistoryAuthor

...but also in how it treated its white citizens, voter suppression...

Interesting. Even James M. McPherson's landmark history of the war, BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM, makes no mention of this, and McPherson is anything but a Southern sympathiser. However, it is a fact that in the 1864 election, Union soldiers were stationed at polling places all over the North, particularly in the mid-west States. I'm sure that gave Democratic voters a warm and fuzzy feeling as they went to the polls.

Originally Posted by AmIndHistoryAuthor

...widespread censorship...

I think you have your "repressive regimes" confused. Abraham Lincoln shut down over 300 newspapers which opposed the war and his administration. How many did Jeff Davis shut down? Exactly zero. The only restriction of freedom of the press the Confederate government enacted during the war...and this over Davis's opposition...was a regulation stating that troop movements could not be reported. Even this was flagrantly ignored with no consequences (source...historian Hudson Strode's biography of Davis).

Originally Posted by AmIndHistoryAuthor

...violent intimidation and jailing of dissidents.

Like the 10,000 people Abraham Lincoln had arrested (compared to about 3,000 arrested by Confederate authorities, according to a recent study by historian Mark Neely)? Like the arrest of the Maryland legislature by Lincoln (Jeff Davis never did that)? Like Lincoln ordering the arrest of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (again, something the likes of which Jeff Davis never did)?

It wasn't Jeff Davis's Secretary of State who told a visitor that there was a little bell on his desk that, if he decided to ring it, he could send the visitor to a dark place where nobody would ever see or hear from him again. It was William Seward, Lincoln's Secretary of State.

[Hobelhouse]

Originally Posted by Jaded_Railman

In fact, by the time of the Civil War, only New York, Boston, and Philadelphia could credibly be said to be all that different from the major industrial Southern cities of the time, and that was the result of immigration, not policy.

What major industrial Southern cities? The only two I can think of off the top of my head are New Orleans (which owes its existence to being on the mouth of the Mississppi, not its own industry) and possibly Birmingham (was Birmingham steel made during this time period?) The reason immigrants came was because of industry and the economic opportunity it provided. No industry, no jobs for immigrants.

The South simply did not have the geographic and resource advantages of the North (except in certain spots such as Birmingham). In the north, iron, coal, oil and timber were all concentrated in close proximity, AND the Great Lakes enabled massive shipments of food to the new cities.

[DValdron]

Originally Posted by robertp6165

It's actually called the "Cornerstone Speech." How about reading the ENTIRE speech, and not just the last paragraph? Or didn't you realize that there was more to the speech than the passages which get quoted in the high school history texts from which you evidently learned your history? Stephens in fact talks about the issues of protective tariffs, diversion of federal revenues to internal improvement projects in the States, and other issues that he felt were solved by secession...all of them before he ever mentions a word about slavery.

But then, that would require that you actually READ the speech, and not just cherry-picked quotations out of it. Of course, that might actually lead to some neurons being unduly exercised. Can't have that, can we? Easier to get your history in pre-disgested form, eh?

Thank you Robert. By way of preamble I would note that I did I read your 'Guns of Tawasinta' timeline and enjoyed it thoroughly. Good job, you should be proud. On the other hand, I regret that our first contact should occur with you bearing such a huge chip on your shoulder.

I would like to assure you that I did in fact read the entirety of the 'Cornerstone Speech' (and thank you for correcting that). But I did not encounter it in high school, the American civil war wasn't a huge topic in my high school, strange to say.

Rather, it came years later, after university, when I got interested in the Civil War, Jim Crow, slavery, race relations and that whole cluster of topics. I read quite a few books, and after a while started to read the primary sources.

As nearly as I can tell, your argument seems to be that the civil war wasn't about slavery because Stephens presents quite a list of grievances and slavery, though present, comes later. Even on its own terms, your argument doesn't hold up because like it or not, the slavery issue remains a significant part of the speech, and you can't pretend its not there.

The real problem, with your argument, however, is that you seem utterly ignorant or perhaps deliberately oblivious of 19th century rhetorical technique. Let me set it out for you: There were no teleprompters in the 19th century, there was no instantaneous media prepared to take quotes out of context, there was no electronic amplification, there was no radio, there was no television as a cool medium. This may seem like I'm being trite but bear with me.

There was none of that stuff. What there was, was a man mounting a small stage or podium (sometimes nothing more than a tree stump), and roaring/half shouting with no more resources than his own lungs, and trying to hold and interest a crowd with his wits and the origin. It was a hell of a task, and the men who were good at it, were very good. Speeches and debates hours long were not uncommon. And to make a speech like that, to hold an audience, you had to tell a story, there had to be rhythm, there had to be pacing, you had to build your ideas like architecture, but always with a slight of hand, so the audience could never quite get there ahead of you. You had to present it, so that notions followed one after another, built up on top, so that the whole thing seemed the plainest common sense. And on top of that, you had to make it stirring. Emotionally engaging.

Just reading it on paper, it can be hard to get a sense of how the whole thing put together, and it can be tempting to try and break it into equal pieces, or add or subtract weight to different parts. But as a live speech, it was powerful, it was unapologetic, and it married reason and passion into a powerful ideological statement.

So when it comes right down to it, Stephens really is talking about slavery. The emotional and intellectual core of his speech, the passion, the conviction, the climax comes down to this: That it is a profound and self evident truth that even the American founders did not understand that men are naturally unequal and that blacks are made to be slaves. That the south is a nation and an institution founded entirely upon the principle of slavery, and that this principle is worth fighting for, its worth killing for, and it is worth breaking the union for. And every other thing is a piece of that great big principle, tariffs and states rights and internal diversion, for him these are all bricks in the wall, little pieces of the big picture, and he leads his audience beautifully and passionately and reveals the big picture.

So, in answer to you: Yes, I actually read the whole thing. I read it not as a callow high school student, but as a man with a reasonable historical grounding, and a certain degree of historiographical school. I read it with an eye towards the historical context of its making and performance. And having read it, I came to conclusions that you don't like. But these conclusions are sound.

I recognize that there are arguments and assertions that the Civil War was not about slavery but about other issues - tariffs or whatever. But looking at the arguments, they don't hold up. They depend on a whole lot of cherry picking, a lot of selective blindness and avoidance, some careful evasion or misrepresentation of the historical record and a reliance on irrelevancies. It's the same sort of shabby tactics we see in Holocaust deniers, and those people are rightly dismissed as shabby cranks. It seems to me that with the civil war 150 years in the past, we should be able to dispense with such nonsense. I see no basis for trying to whitewash the words and actions of ancestors five generations in the past, particularly when those ancestors at least had the courage of their convictions.

Now, I suspect that you might be puzzled or annoyed that I've taken so long to say all this. You might not particularly like what I've had to say, or the manner in which I've said it. But before you judge it, know that I've taken this time and effort because of respect, because I've read some of your work and felt it thoughtful and interesting. And I felt that out of courtesy, I should at least lay out my thoughts and views for you fully. So here we are.

I hope that as we cross paths, whether we agree or disagree, we can maintain a reasonable level of civility, and even where it gets hot, we can at least respect each other.

Is that fair, or what?

But I do have to say, that I don't appreciate your condescending trash talk to me, and if you figure that's the way to keep on playing it, maybe think that over. Where I come from, its fun and games when someone loses an eye, and I like fun.

So anyway, to recap: nice to hear from you, thanks for the correction, liked your work, will hold to my own opinion, but best wishes, and its a good idea to keep it friendly.

[robertp6165]

Originally Posted by DValdron

I would like to assure you that I did in fact read the entirety of the 'Cornerstone Speech' (and thank you for correcting that). But I did not encounter it in high school, the American civil war wasn't a huge topic in my high school, strange to say.

Rather, it came years later, after university, when I got interested in the Civil War, Jim Crow, slavery, race relations and that whole cluster of topics. I read quite a few books, and after a while started to read the primary sources.

As nearly as I can tell, your argument seems to be that the civil war wasn't about slavery because Stephens presents quite a list of grievances and slavery, though present, comes later. Even on its own terms, your argument doesn't hold up because like it or not, the slavery issue remains a significant part of the speech, and you can't pretend its not there.

I don't pretend it's not there. What I object to is people like you pointing to that speech and then saying, "This proves the Civil War was ONLY about slavery." The speech does nothing of the kind.

The problem I have with people like you, is that you try to reduce history down to a simple level and claim that great events like the Civil War come about because of only one issue. That is NEVER the case. In the case of the Civil War, I don't deny that slavery was ONE of the factors which lead the South to secede. I don't even deny that it was, far and away, the most important reason for the secession. What I deny is that it was the ONLY one. And even the very evidence you cited...the Cornerstone Speech...bears that out.

Originally Posted by DValdron

The real problem, with your argument, however, is that you seem utterly ignorant or perhaps deliberately oblivious of 19th century rhetorical technique. Let me set it out for you: There were no teleprompters in the 19th century, there was no instantaneous media prepared to take quotes out of context, there was no electronic amplification, there was no radio, there was no television as a cool medium. This may seem like I'm being trite but bear with me.

There was none of that stuff. What there was, was a man mounting a small stage or podium (sometimes nothing more than a tree stump), and roaring/half shouting with no more resources than his own lungs, and trying to hold and interest a crowd with his wits and the origin. It was a hell of a task, and the men who were good at it, were very good. Speeches and debates hours long were not uncommon. And to make a speech like that, to hold an audience, you had to tell a story, there had to be rhythm, there had to be pacing, you had to build your ideas like architecture, but always with a slight of hand, so the audience could never quite get there ahead of you. You had to present it, so that notions followed one after another, built up on top, so that the whole thing seemed the plainest common sense. And on top of that, you had to make it stirring. Emotionally engaging.

Just reading it on paper, it can be hard to get a sense of how the whole thing put together, and it can be tempting to try and break it into equal pieces, or add or subtract weight to different parts. But as a live speech, it was powerful, it was unapologetic, and it married reason and passion into a powerful ideological statement.

So when it comes right down to it, Stephens really is talking about slavery. The emotional and intellectual core of his speech, the passion, the conviction, the climax comes down to this: That it is a profound and self evident truth that even the American founders did not understand that men are naturally unequal and that blacks are made to be slaves. That the south is a nation and an institution founded entirely upon the principle of slavery, and that this principle is worth fighting for, its worth killing for, and it is worth breaking the union for. And every other thing is a piece of that great big principle, tariffs and states rights and internal diversion, for him these are all bricks in the wall, little pieces of the big picture, and he leads his audience beautifully and passionately and reveals the big picture.

I am fully aware of 19th century rhetorical method, thank you. Probably more than you are. And there is some truth to what you say about the ordering and pacing of the speech. But to draw the conclusion that you draw from it...that Stephens was saying that the South seceded solely to preserve slavery...you have to completely ignore everything that was said prior to the last paragraph of the speech. It's not a matter of how to weight the various issues which were raised in the speech. Even if I grant that Stephens was saying the slavery issue was more important than all the other issues, even though it was mentioned last as a rhetorical device...which I am perfectly willing to do...you still can't just dismiss everything else in the speech and claim it supports your position, when it doesn't.

Originally Posted by DValdron

I recognize that there are arguments and assertions that the Civil War was not about slavery but about other issues - tariffs or whatever. But looking at the arguments, they don't hold up. They depend on a whole lot of cherry picking, a lot of selective blindness and avoidance, some careful evasion or misrepresentation of the historical record and a reliance on irrelevancies. It's the same sort of shabby tactics we see in Holocaust deniers, and those people are rightly dismissed as shabby cranks. It seems to me that with the civil war 150 years in the past, we should be able to dispense with such nonsense. I see no basis for trying to whitewash the words and actions of ancestors five generations in the past, particularly when those ancestors at least had the courage of their convictions.

You talk about "cherry picking," "selective blindness and avoidance," "careful evasion or misrepresentation of the historical record?" YOU, who are basing your your whole position on the LAST PARAGRAPH of a speech, IGNORING everything else in the speech? What's that old saying about a pot calling a kettle black? No, actually, that doesn't apply, because you are the only one "cherrypicking" here. You are both the pot AND the kettle in this case! I almost feel like I'm talking to a character out of a certain George Orwell novel.

[David S Poepoe]

Originally Posted by Hobelhouse

What major industrial Southern cities? The only two I can think of off the top of my head are New Orleans (which owes its existence to being on the mouth of the Mississppi, not its own industry) and possibly Birmingham (was Birmingham steel made during this time period?) The reason immigrants came was because of industry and the economic opportunity it provided. No industry, no jobs for immigrants.

The South simply did not have the geographic and resource advantages of the North (except in certain spots such as Birmingham). In the north, iron, coal, oil and timber were all concentrated in close proximity, AND the Great Lakes enabled massive shipments of food to the new cities.

Birmingham, Alabama, was established after the ACW in 1871.

[DValdron]

Originally Posted by robertp6165

.... I object to is people like you ......

....I have with people like you ....

Dude, you don't know a damned thing about me. You seem to have taken up issue with some imaginary 'people like me', well, that's your issue, not mine. If it bothers you, take it up with your therapist.

is that you try to reduce history down to a simple level and claim that great events like the Civil War come about because of only one issue. That is NEVER the case.

Well, I can see your argument, but I don't quite buy it. In one sense, you're philosophically correct in that the world is all a big wiggly wobbly timely whimely ball of tangled up spaghetti string, and that all events have such deep and multi-layered sources of causation so that there is no single cause for anything, and therefore no responsibility, per se. I heard it from philosophers engaged in deep thinking. And I heard it from child molesters and crack dealers avoiding blame for their conduct.

On the other hand, you know what: It really was just one big ass asteroid that kills the dinosaurs. You hear what I'm saying?

Lawyers have a kind of intellectual tool that they use when parsing events and causation: 'but for'. Essentially, it goes 'but for X would Y have happened'? In this case, 'but for slavery, if there had been no slavery, would the civil war have happened?' Take slavery out of the equation, and the entirety of American politics from 1800 to 1860 simply doesn't happen the same way. The Civil War doesn't happen.

I am fully aware of 19th century rhetorical method, thank you.

Your welcome, but since you didn't grasp the point, I really doubt it.

Ah, I suppose I could snip my way through the rest of your response, but there really isn't any reason to.

It seems pretty obvious that this is a subject near and dear to your heart. Well, that's very nice for you. Feel free to go on long crusades against 'us people' and embrace whatever nonsense makes you feel warm and fuzzy. I could care less.

The Confederacy found its way to the scrap heap of history, and as far as I'm concerned, good riddance for bad rubbish. I cry no tears for the Aztecs either. Every now and then history plows up a genuine bad guys, and the Confederacy and its cause falls into that category.

You're free to disagree. Take it up with your Mom or your therapist or whoever. But I'm not going to be part of your emotional landscape.

On this thread, however, two questions have emerged that are sort of interesting: 1) Would the Confederacy have managed to stay together after the Civil War; 2) Would the Confederacy have industrialized or would it have followed a de-industrialized trajectory into something equivalent to third world status.

Now, it doesn't seem to be that you've got anything worthwhile to say about these questions. Good enough.

We're done talking.

[Jared]

Originally Posted by DValdron

That's not precisely what we've said. What we've said is that based on our view, the south is more likely to develop in similar ways to Latin America or other agrarian societies that practice plantation agriculture and populate the third world. There will be inescapable parallels of development.

Seriously Jared, you appear to have some substantial emotional investment here, that compels you to throw in Alien Space Bats.

I'm a bit curious how my name got dragged into this, since I'd never contributed to this thread yet. Anyway...

I've never bought into the comparison that an independent CSA would follow a Latin American route. While there are quite a few paths it could have followed, I don't think that any of them would have corresponded to the OTL development of any Latin American republic. (And yes, I'm well aware that there were considerable differences and nuances between the many states of Latin America). As far as I can tell, any similarities are vastly outweighed by the differences.

The two biggest differences stem from the wholly distinct legal and cultural tradition, particularly around property rights, and the fact that the Confederacy was already a significant industrial power. Secure property rights are an integral part of industrialisation, and economic development and political stability in general. The various Latin American nations, while they had some differences in the details, had inherited a system of property rights from the Iberian peninsula (be it Spain or Portugal) which was extremely different from the one inherited by any of the nations derived from the English tradition. Or Scottish, or French, or German, for that matter.

Private property rights were much less secure throughout Latin America, whether you're talking Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, or anywhere itself. This was part of the general trend of more political instability in those nations (with some exceptions); indeed it was a major contributor toward that political instability. In the Confederacy, however, private property rights were extremely well-protected. Indeed, in one sense it could be argued that the major driver of the ACW was fear over property rights, since property rights included (but were not limited to) owning slaves.

The other difference between the South and Latin America was that the South was, in fact, already a considerable industrial power by 1860. Far ahead of anything in Latin America, and in fact ahead of most of Europe as well. The comparison which I've always remembered is one by Robert William Fogel. If you mentally divide the USA of 1860 in half, and treat the North and South as separate entitites, then the South was the fourth-largest industrial power in the world in 1860. It was, of course, behind the North and Britain. But then Britain was the industrial superpower of the nineteenth century, and the North was an industrial superpower in the making. The South was, however, industrially ahead of almost every nation in continental Europe, including such future economic powerhouses as Prussia.

There seems to be some conception that the South was solely an agricultural power. This was not true in 1860, and had not been true for a generation or two before that. The Southern formula was plantation agriculture and moderate industrialisation, not plantation agriculture alone. The South built and paid for its own railroad network before the war - the third most extensive rail network in the world, in per capita terms - and in fact paid for its own railroads out of its own capital even after the ACW. It built most of its own steamboats too, which were another important part of their transport network. In world terms, they had a significant amount of steel production, mostly concentrated in the Upper South (Tredegar Iron Works in Virginia, Cumberland Iron Works in Tennessee, and various smaller foundries scattered around the place). They had a variety of other industries and manufacturing around the country, too.

Sure, large parts of the OTL South had very little manufacturing, but that was true of much of the North as well, in terms of 1860. What is interesting is that in the period of 1840-1860, during the long cotton boom which drove cotton prices to incredible (and ultimately unsustainable) levels, Southern commerce and manufacturing grew twice as fast as agriculture. So Southern manufacturing and other industries were already significant and growing by 1860. I see every reason to expect that they would continue in an independent CSA.

"The South had wealthy elites but, then again, so did the North. When Cotton and other planting activities start to lose their profitability, those elites will shift their economic activities so they can continue making the money they're used to making. It's how markets work."

And once again, you invoke magic beans and alien space bats. Your argument has no traction in the real world. Look around you. Did Britain shift gears in Industrial decline to come back out on top? How about General Motors, did it shift gears in a declining car market to become the worlds leading computer manufacturer? Don't think so.

While I don't agree with every element of Jaded_Railman's statements, I think that you're conflating two distinct issues here. One is whether the South would go into relative decline when compared to much of the world, much as (say) Britain did during the twentieth century. The other issue is whether Southern capital, labour and investment would remain focused in cotton and planting even when they became economically moribund, or whether it would shift to other economic sectors which would be more profitable than cotton had become.

The first issue is debatable. The second issue is easy to answer, based on historical precedent, and the answer is "of course they would shift." It's not always appreciated that a slave labour economy is actually more flexible in terms of moving labour between economic sectors (and geographically) than a free labour economy is. This is because free workers often have non-economic reasons that they want to stay where they live (friends, familiarity etc), while slaves can be made to move to a new place or a new industry if that's more profitable.

This is, in fact, exactly what happened in the antebellum South, time and again. Planters were acutely aware of what agricultural or industrial pursuit offered the best invesment. Planters were also notorious for shifting slave labour to new place and new sectors if the old ones were unprofitable, either by growing new crops or by moving themselves (or their slaves) to new places if there was a bigger profit to be made - by selling or renting their slaves, if they didn't want to do move themselves.

Take what happened after the American Revolution. Before the Revolution, the big use of slaves was in rice and tobacco, with indigo a secondary market. The indigo market collapsed after the Revolution (no more British subsidies), and rice and tobacco went into relative decline, while cotton became the most profitable. This led to a long-term shift into cotton agriculture as the most profitable use for slaves, so more of the slaves went there. But this wasn't the only shift in slave labour. Virginian planters switched their use of slaves back and forth between wheat (and other small grains) and tobacco depending on the relative profitability of each. Much the same happened in parts of Mississippi and Louisiana which were suitable for either cotton or sugar production - planters switched back and forth.

Even the big cotton boom itself has some interesting patterns. Planters were well aware of cotton prices and their effects on slave prices, and slave labour moved in response to these market signals. When cotton prices went up, slave labour was sucked out of other sources (tobacco and urban manufacturing, mostly) and went into cotton plantations. When cotton prices declined (e.g. during the cotton price crash of the 1830s), slave labour moved out of cotton and into other economic sectors, especially urban manufacturing. If cotton prices decline again in a post-1860 independent CSA - as they would - then slave labour would begin to shift to other economic sectors again.

One of the big problems that you insist on overlooking is your notion that capital is infinitely fluid. Well, not true. Indeed, one of the staples of intensive plantation cultures and their ilk is that capital is not fluid at all, its tied up in land.

Well, no. The capital in plantation cultures - at least in the Southern model - was tied up in the slaves, much more than the land. Slave labour was extremely mobile. In some Latin American republics - Mexican haciendas, for instance - the capital was tied up in the land, since that was what the landowners had. In the South, though, the slaves were much more valuable, and could be moved.

This is why the South was so opposed to internal improvements. Internal improvements were fixed in one place, and Southerners objected to being taxed to pay for them when they might want to move elsewhere with their slaves (or even as free farmers) and those internal improvements would no longer benefit them.

You have this notion that landowners in a declining agricultural market, where the value of their fixed capital is in decline, are going to miraculously convert it to some fluid value and redeploy it in ways that literally demand a precognitive level of foresight.

Fixed capital in land is hard to move. Capital in the form of slaves is easy to redeploy, and historically speaking it was redeployed on multiple occasions in response to market signals. Either a planter sees that he's losing money and sells or redeploys his slaves, or he goes broke, his slaves are auctioned off, and they are bought by the people who can make the most profitable use of them, in whichever agricultural or industrial sector that might be. This is what happened in the antebellum South, and I'm sure that the same process would continue in an independent South.

Originally Posted by King Gorilla

Yes the south had quite a bit of industry prior to the civil war. However this was when Southern industry was surrounded by nice American tariff barriers.

Not high enough to make that much of a difference, actually. Tariff barriers in the USA shot up once the South lost its political influence. It's also debatable whether tariff barriers make that much of a difference in the long run - see below.

The confederate constitution bans these said tariffs which means that the South's fledgling industries will very very quickly need to compete with the already developed industrial bases of Great Britain, France, and the North. Could they complete successfully? Perhaps but they aren't going to be facing their industrial competitors on even grounds. Nor will fledgling industrialists have the convenience of having the federal government ready built all of the necessary industrial infrastructure for them.

Actually, most industrial infrastructure was paid for by private enterprise. The railroads in the South and the North were mostly paid for by private enterprise, for instance, as were steamboats in the South. The transcontinental railroad was something of an exception, but even that was mostly an acceleration of the process - railroads were being built more slowly as the population moved, but government incentives meant that they were quickly built across the whole continent.

I'm sure British, French and American investment will fill part of the gap, but since the government cannot subsidize their construction, infrastructure will be built solely to facilitate specific exports. This also means that the profits earned by said ventures will probably leave the country as soon as they are made rather than reinvested ala Argentina.

There's two questions here. One is whether tariffs made more than a moderate difference to the level of industrialisation. They don't always seem to make that much difference. Australia, for instance, had huge tariffs for much of its history, and never developed much of a manufacturing base. I've also read economic arguments that tariffs didn't actually do much to help places such as Argentina.

(For those who want more information, try these sources: Douglas A. Irwin had an article in the American Economic Review in May 2002, "Interpreting the Tariff–Growth Correlation of the Late 19th Century" which contains some interesting information. Or for more detail on Argentina, try Fernando Rocchi, "Chimneys in the Desert: Industrialization in Argentina during the Export Boom Years, 1870-1930.")

The other question is whether the South will keep low tariffs indefinitely, regardless of what the C.S. constitution says. What's interesting is that throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, every primary producing country ended up raising tariffs, one way or another. The same pressure would apply to the CSA if it remains focused on primary production, and the Constitution can be gotten around.

The US Supreme Court showed a suprising amount of flexibility on the meaning of the Constitution in OTL, and the CS Supreme Court may well do the same. I'd actually expect one very early precedent for that, in terms of sugar. Sugar planters were a small but wealthy and influential part of the elite, and local production of sugar was very vulnerable to imported competition, especially from Cuban sugar planters. A 'revenue' tariff on imported sugar would probably be passed on imported sugar very early in an independent CSA, and I suspect that the CS Supreme Court would let it go through. Various other tariffs could follow from that precedent.

Failing that, there's always a constitutional amendment, although I doubt that could happen much before, say, 1890, to allow time for the necessary political coalitions to develop.

I also question how effective southern capital will be in independently creating a new industrial economy, considering 2/3rds of it was already tied into land and slaves. Neither are terribly fluid, and given its allocation, southern lenders aren't terribly likely to support anything that disrupts the status que.

As I mentioned above, slave labour was in fact extremely fluid. Slaves were, in fact, a form of capital good. Owners could borrow against the value of their slaves, and often did so. There was even insurance for slaves, available at quite reasonable rates.

This also means when the price of commodities such as cotton and tobacco crash, they will have a much more drastic effect on the confederate economy.

A commodity price crash will have a drastic effect on the Confederate economy as a whole. However, as per previous historical experience (the 1830s, say), it will probably be an enormous boon to Southern industrialists, since they will now be able to get their hands on a lot more slave labour to work with. In the 1840s and 1850s, the owner of the Tredegar Iron Works (whose name escapes me at the moment) was always bemoaning the fact that rising slave prices (thanks to the cotton boom) meant that he could not buy more slaves to work there. He wanted to; he'd found that slave labour was more useful than free labour.

Of course there is always the factor of the entrepenor, and entrepenors could undoubtably work miricles. However an independent confederacy is unlikely to produce as many of these miricle workers as the north. The reasons for this will be less immigration, as the south is very much unlikely to give out vast chunks of free land ala the homestead act, it has a much more stratified society, and it has less industrial jobs from the git go. The south also has at this time a much weaker educational system compared to the north, both locally and in terms of universities.

The relative weakness of the Southern education system is, to my mind, the biggest barrier to Southern economic development, rather than any aspect of being a primary producing country. Primary production can often drive industrialisation - take wheat farming in the American Midwest for instance, which drove industrialisation due to the production of mechanical reapers, and then machine tools, and then transportation of the wheat harvest, etc, etc. But the lack of skilled personnel and inventors would be more of a hindrance. Not necessarily an insurmountable one, but it would be a net negative.

Originally Posted by Hobelhouse

What major industrial Southern cities? The only two I can think of off the top of my head are New Orleans (which owes its existence to being on the mouth of the Mississppi, not its own industry) and possibly Birmingham (was Birmingham steel made during this time period?) The reason immigrants came was because of industry and the economic opportunity it provided. No industry, no jobs for immigrants.

Immigrants tended to avoid areas with slave labour, since they knew full well that they would be competing with slaves. Southern industry mostly started using slaves, since free-born native whites didn't want to work in factories. This was equally true in the North, however. In the nineteenth century, native-born whites in both North and South much preferred to be self-employed, hated working for someone else, and made poor workers even when they did. Free workers in both North and South were notorious for showing up to work drunk, late, or not all, going on strike at inconvenient times, and changing jobs so quickly that training them was pointless.

Northern factory owners got around these problems by using immigrants; the South would likely have to use slaves.

The South simply did not have the geographic and resource advantages of the North (except in certain spots such as Birmingham). In the north, iron, coal, oil and timber were all concentrated in close proximity, AND the Great Lakes enabled massive shipments of food to the new cities.

Hmm. Birmingham is a very big exception. All other things being equal, Birmingham steel should have been cheaper than anything produced in Pittsburgh. It was interfered with by various factors, such as Pittsburgh-plus pricing, where prices for steel where charged with increasing distance from Pittsburgh, even if you were buying steel direct from a Birmingham mill. In an independent South, a lot of these factors would disappear.

Apart from Birmingham, most of the better areas for heavy industry were concentrated in the Upper South - Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky. It will make quite a difference whether an independent CSA includes the whole of Virginia, or Kentucky.

However, not all industry needs to be heavy industry, nor for that matter does it need to be concentrated in large cities. The South would quite likely have relatively more light industry than heavy industry - textiles, and lumber, for instance. Lumber should not be under-estimated as a driving force in industrialisation for significant areas. It was a large part of what drove Sweden's rise as an industrial power, for instance (woodchipping and the like).

Originally Posted by David S Poepoe

Birmingham, Alabama, was established after the ACW in 1871.

It was, but the first attempts to develop the Birmingham site pre-dated the ACW. The first attempt was in the late 1840s, and it had the support of the local planters and the like. It was actually defeated by small-farmer opposition in the Alabama legislature. (This is one example among many that planters were often supportive of industrialisation). A second attempt was building during the late 1850s, and was derailed by the ACW. Once the chaos of the ACW was over, the Birmingham site was then established.

[DValdron]

Sorry, Jared, I obviously meant to be addressing 'Jaded-Railman.' My bad.

On the other hand, thank you for a constructive and interesting post. I'll give it some thought before I respond.

Finally: Re "The Land of Red and Gold", brilliant stuff, a work of heartbreaking genius. You cost me a week of work, because I couldn't tear myself away. I'm a fan.

be well