Even though a land reform would increase production of cotton. Why am I not surprised?
Hindsight is always 20/20, or so they say.
Even though a land reform would increase production of cotton. Why am I not surprised?
Hindsight is always 20/20, or so they say.
Actually, iirc, most history textbooks were written in the north - but they pretty much accepted the Southern viewpoint. After all, secession was safely defeated now, so why quibble over comparative trifles?
This process began surprisingly fast. As early as 1879, Albion W Tourgee was complaining that at this rate veterans would soon be ashamed to admit that they had fought for the Union.
Where the South did best was probably in romantic novels. In such works, no one with any class would ever have been caught fighting for the north, and I sometimes wonder if the novels didn't have more impact than the textbooks.
There actually wouldn't be a negative impact, and indeed, production might increase. Independent small farmers still have bills to pay and would need to grow cash crops because that would be their only means of income. The experience of the share-cropping system shows this. Sharecroppers grew food for their families and cash crops at the same time to pay their bills, and cotton production increased because, without top-down management of how much cotton was planted, the small farmers put even more land under cotton cultivation than had been the case previously.
Right. All the same, it's not the usual "victors writing the history books" that happens elsewhere. *That* history would have noted that Lee did as well as he did against overly cautious generals who were great organizers and terrible field commanders, painting Grant as the badass in the making, Chattanooga as the moment it all came together, and the Union under Grant as why the South was always foredoomed to lose the moment it fought someone who was able to truly harness the US military as it should have been.
In any history written on that line, Grant would be to the Northern history what Lee was to the Lost Cause. With the advantage of actually winning the war.....![]()
okay. But... the problem with cotton (and tobacco, IIRC) is that it depletes the soil fairly quickly... a small landholder will soon be unable to grow cotton after a while. Despicable as the large plantations were, they were able to rotate around and keep some amount of cotton coming all the time. So, I still wonder if cotton would eventually decrease...
The statistics I have seen say only 10% of Southerners owned slaves and only 1% owned more than 10 slaves.
Also, I do not want to burst anyone's bubble, but the majority of the United States, including Lincoln were ambivalent at best about slavery. President Lincoln himself stated that all he cared about was preserving the Union and if he could do it by not freeing any slaves then he would do it that way, if he could do it by freeing some slaves then he would do it that way and if he could do it by freeing all the slaves then he would go that route. The ending of slavery was the greatest and most noble consequence of the war, but it was not the primary reason for it. Even the Emancipation Proclamation was more political than idealogical, it ensured that Great Britain would stay out of the war.
Course if you take the property of Slaveholders - The Black and Indians Slaveholders will be the ones most Hurt.What if the freed slaves got the land they had worked on all their lives instead of the former slave owners getting to keep it