Crusading Philologist
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« Reply #20 on: May 04, 2012, 03:19:PM » |
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Slavery would have ended in a couple of decades, but I doubt blacks would have been treated as equals anytime soon. Jefferson Davis and others in the South thought that slavery would end, but they never envisioned equal status for blacks.
Also, the Old South was kind of an oligarchy in some respects, not that I think that is necessarily a bad thing.
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Loyalty to a doctrine ends in adherence to the interpretation we give it.
Only loyalty to a person frees us from all self-complacency. - Nicolás Gómez Dávila
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Pilgrim
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« Reply #21 on: May 04, 2012, 03:38:PM » |
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Slavery would have ended in a couple of decades,
Why do you think so? |
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"And so, Lord, do you, who do give understanding to faith, give me, so far as you knowest it to be profitable, to understand that you are as we believe; and that you are that which we believe." -- St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109)
"But Christianity preaches an obviously unattractive idea, such as original sin; but when we wait for its results, they are pathos and brotherhood, and a thunder of laughter and pity; for only with original sin we can at once pity the beggar and distrust the king." -- G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936)
"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." Baudelaire and Verbal Kint from The Usual Suspects
"I'm a practicing Catholic; I'm practicing until I get it right." Martin Sheen
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Phillipus Iacobus
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« Reply #22 on: May 04, 2012, 03:39:PM » |
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Slavery would have ended in a couple of decades,
Why do you think so? And even if it did, those "couple of decades" would have meant a lot to those who lived that life. |
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Pilgrim
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« Reply #23 on: May 04, 2012, 04:10:PM » |
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Leaving aside CP's very good point, it seems to me that the CSA (if it even survived a successful secession bid) would have a vested interest in maintaining the peculiar institution. Prior to secession, anti-abolitionist writers favorably compared enslaved blacks to industrial workers in the North. Indeed, the South was just as anti-industrial as it was anti-abolitionist, so the idea that the Southern plantains would have just let slavery go because of economic pressures doesn't quite wash with me.
I'm not an expert on Civil War America, but it seems to me that when your own vice president writes to his home state of Georgia to tell them to refuse to pay taxes for the defense of the new nation, your Confederacy just isn't going to last too long if it wins independence. What might have happened is that you would have had the Confederacy disintegrate into its component states, which would probably then either get gobbled up by the United States or actively seek to rejoin the Union in order to avoid being co-opted by the British again.
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"And so, Lord, do you, who do give understanding to faith, give me, so far as you knowest it to be profitable, to understand that you are as we believe; and that you are that which we believe." -- St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109)
"But Christianity preaches an obviously unattractive idea, such as original sin; but when we wait for its results, they are pathos and brotherhood, and a thunder of laughter and pity; for only with original sin we can at once pity the beggar and distrust the king." -- G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936)
"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." Baudelaire and Verbal Kint from The Usual Suspects
"I'm a practicing Catholic; I'm practicing until I get it right." Martin Sheen
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Crusading Philologist
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« Reply #24 on: May 04, 2012, 04:27:PM » |
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Slavery would have ended in a couple of decades,
Why do you think so? Well, mainly because it was becoming economically inefficient. People aren't going to keep slaves if it is starting to cost them. I'm sure it would have been replaced by a very paternalistic system, though, which would allow the planter class to carry on with many of the same beliefs that they had used to justify slavery. It wouldn't require any huge change in ideology. Also, slavery was ended relatively peacefully in the rest of the Western Hemisphere, so I see no reason why the same wouldn't have happened in a country that already treated its slaves much more humanely than most other nations. And, as I mentioned above, many Southern leaders had been predicting an end to slavery for some time. Added to all that, slavery was already frowned upon by the European powers, and considering the South's dependence on trade, I think it is easy to assume that they would have been put under pressure to end it. Really, I think it is silly to think that slavery would have continued to the present day. |
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Loyalty to a doctrine ends in adherence to the interpretation we give it.
Only loyalty to a person frees us from all self-complacency. - Nicolás Gómez Dávila
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Nicolaus
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Quaerite Veritatem
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« Reply #25 on: May 04, 2012, 05:58:PM » |
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Slavery would have ended in a couple of decades, but I doubt blacks would have been treated as equals anytime soon. Jefferson Davis and others in the South thought that slavery would end, but they never envisioned equal status for blacks.
Also, the Old South was kind of an oligarchy in some respects, not that I think that is necessarily a bad thing.
It wasn't a true oligarchy because of subsidiarity. Our system now is more of an oligarchy with the majority of power centralized in D.C. |
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Jesus saith to him: I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me.
A new commandment I give unto you: That you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another.
Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.
St. Francis Assisi
He who does not embrace the teaching of the Church does not have the habit of faith.
St. Thomas Aquinas
Heretics think false things about God and call it their faith.
St. Augustine
But what is also to the point, let us note that the very tradition, teaching, and faith of the Catholic Church from the beginning was preached by the Apostles and preserved by the Fathers. On this the Church was founded; and if anyone departs from this, he neither is, nor any longer ought to be called, a Christian.
St. Athanasius
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Crusading Philologist
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Personality type: Melancholic-Choleric, INTJ
Posts: 3,412
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« Reply #26 on: May 04, 2012, 06:16:PM » |
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Are subsidiarity and oligarchy necessarily incompatible? Most of the power in the South was held by the planter class. It wasn't a modern mass democracy or anything like that.
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Loyalty to a doctrine ends in adherence to the interpretation we give it.
Only loyalty to a person frees us from all self-complacency. - Nicolás Gómez Dávila
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Nicolaus
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Personality type: Choleric
Posts: 727
Quaerite Veritatem
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« Reply #27 on: May 04, 2012, 07:19:PM » |
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Are subsidiarity and oligarchy necessarily incompatible? Most of the power in the South was held by the planter class. It wasn't a modern mass democracy or anything like that.
Well I guess I always viewed an oligarchy as all the power held in very few hands. Were as in the South the power was distributed among the states, counties, and planters. |
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Jesus saith to him: I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me.
A new commandment I give unto you: That you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another.
Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.
St. Francis Assisi
He who does not embrace the teaching of the Church does not have the habit of faith.
St. Thomas Aquinas
Heretics think false things about God and call it their faith.
St. Augustine
But what is also to the point, let us note that the very tradition, teaching, and faith of the Catholic Church from the beginning was preached by the Apostles and preserved by the Fathers. On this the Church was founded; and if anyone departs from this, he neither is, nor any longer ought to be called, a Christian.
St. Athanasius
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Crusading Philologist
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Personality type: Melancholic-Choleric, INTJ
Posts: 3,412
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« Reply #28 on: May 04, 2012, 07:53:PM » |
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I agree that the South was pretty heavily decentralized. But perhaps a decentralized state needs some oligarchic elements. A limited amount of "rule by the few" can help to protect against the centralizing tendencies of both mass democracies and absolutist systems in which power is held by a dictator or absolute monarch.
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Loyalty to a doctrine ends in adherence to the interpretation we give it.
Only loyalty to a person frees us from all self-complacency. - Nicolás Gómez Dávila
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Phillipus Iacobus
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« Reply #29 on: May 04, 2012, 09:03:PM » |
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For me, the thing is that regardless of the merits of the Confederacy and the grounds it had to leave the United States, the cause will always be intrinsically linked with slavery and racism. I don't think this is unfair, because slavery was an abomination.
I realize this is hypocritical, because Northerns were racist as well.
So, while the guy in the video may love how the Confederacy resisted an out of control Federal government, had a genteel, structured culture "better" or more appealing than the one in the North, etc. etc., he also has to realize that racism was institutional.
Even though it was like this on both sides.
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