Even the ones who did not own slaves did often rent their services from slaveowners, Also, they usually aspired to someday be wealthy enough to own them themselves. In addition, and this is probably the worst, they were very much in favor of at least having social superioroty to black people, and this alone is why they were committed enough to fight a war even tho they had no actual slaves.
Definitely not the best analogy for slavery, I mean them having an issue losing money and generational wealth while simultaneously being ok with tearing whole family trees apart is pretty evil, especially when by this time the “Am I not a Man and a Brother?” picture was already 30 years old technically 70 years old.
Although only a small population of the United States owned slaves the practice affected the culture of the United States and especially the South greatly.
Arguments that slavery was justified just for economic reliance ignores the white supremacist language of the time that was used to justify the practice and the war.
@@A_reasonable_individual42 what really grinds my gears about the soldiers who fought in the civil war is that every one of them would have been hearing white supremacist speeches and had the secessionist documents read to them. Those speeches and documents made it clear that white supremacy was the reason for secession and the war.
there were 4 million slaves in the south. 5 million citizens there. i have to disagree it was "very minimal comapred to the whole of the united states." 6:35. though i'm sure they were owned by the elite and few and you're correct in that. great video!
In this era slaves were not that expensive and there were massive plantations that took up huge chunks of land so saying only a few owned slaves is downplaying the fact those "few" owned thousands of slaves or more. As mentioned in the video millions of slaves were still owned as property who owned them the masses or a few people is completely irrelevant to the situation. Incorrect about the North not having raw materials. While the south was plentiful in plantation goods the North still has plenty of land with resources. Even though they were more industrialized than the South it still wasn't massive industry like you'd see today they had plenty of necessary materials including farms of their own.
Most of what you wrote I agree with, but slaves were not inexpensive. If they were everyone would have had some. A healthy adult male in 1858 cost approximately $800. That over $32,000 today.
@@bobsylvester88 They weren't cheap but they also weren't luxury goods. Maybe I didn't clarify what I meant in my original post. Also the price of slaves varied a lot so I'm not sure where you got that they cost $800.
note that Lincoln face midterm and presidential elections. And Jefferson Davies did not.It's often conveniently ignored that the CSA was a military dictatorship not a democratic rival to the Union. And that Grant fought over every step into the heavily fortified and prepared mainland of the enemy. Criticizing him for taking losses is like criticizing Eisenhower over normandy and the following push into France and Germany. Grant also made the interesting point in his memoirs that while not every southerner was a slave owner, those in power in those states overwhelmingly were.
I don't know how that argument about support for slavery being purely economic squares when so many of the confederate soldiers who didn't own slaves wrote about preserving the antebellum social order in their diaries. even if it was the primary reason it would be more accurate to call it naked self interest. Also, about the combustion engines, we have etiquette replacements, rich people just don't want to stop making money off of fossil fuels.
Being a historian doesn't end at getting a degree. I relent to call anyone a historian if they aren't willing to keep learning and having good faith discussions about history. This isn't personally directed at anyone I'm just saying I see far too often people who want to shut down discussions about history over their feelings about things which misses the entire point. We study history to learn from it and that learning should never stop. You can have discussions about history that don't need to turn into heated arguments or shouting matches.
This is EXACTLY my reason for what was said. It's a true no no as one officially studies history to be the judge, jury and executioner on the people of the past using a modern lens. I had a whole course on the dangers of "whig historiography, which is exactly that. Especially when it is politically weaponozed to target a current group of people. Things we do today, like eating meat and using combustion engines may be viewed as an inherently evil act by those 200 years from now. As with these things, as well as abortions, we have reasons for still doing them, even if the people involved believe they are wrong. In the case of slavery, I wanted to bring to light that it was not as black and white as people say. There was an entire spectrum that spanned from militant abolitionist to tortuous slave owner. Many in the middle either didn't actively support it, but had to fight for the confederacy, owned slaves, but knew in their heart it was wrong but couldn't take that step. People even worried about how it may have been worse to suddenly release their slaves and what that would actually do to them. Some owners were incredibly kind and treated their slaves decently. Again, not that it makes it right, but as you say, people don't want to talk about this and paint with a giant brush that everyone and everything in the south before 1865 was evil.
@@HistoryBuff But you're missing that causality or reason doesn't matter if the outcome or action is bad. To use your example of combustion engines, whether using fossil fuels is evil or not doesn't matter. It is killing our planet and that's a fact. What matters are the facts and there is no right reason to own slaves. The fact we live 150-200 years beyond the time of American slavery shouldn't be reason for justifying why it happened but given us insight into why it was wrong, regardless of what the views at the time were. This can be applied to any terrible moment in history. They also historically thought it was okay to genocide or torture people that doesn't mean it was ever okay to do. I do however agree that using history to politicize things doesn't help anyone which is why I never side with anyone based on political ideology but just what's best.
Concealing a hand in one's coat has long signified gentlemanly restraint and was often associated with nobility. "Manly boldness tempered with modesty"
always a bit miffed about "Even Lincoln would not end slvery outright". He couldn't! Even the most hardline abolitionist as president could not cancel it! Because it was state law and the federal government had NO say over it. Only the states could really end it, as they did in the 13th amendment. And i think part of why Lincoln was "cautious in his opposition" was that he (as a lawyer) KNEW that. And he knew that trying it would cause that very split and a civil war. It was just a political reality and Lincoln was a very good politician. For the very same reason the US founding congress did not touch that subject with a barge pole. The southern colonies would just have walked out and there would be no US. Or 2 smaller ones. Or 13 even smaller ones. Probably fighting over the expansion, descending North America into European style chaos. The founding fathers (very aware of european chaos) probably thought let's make sure to found it and solve the problem later. By our (official) standards, ALL of them were horrible racists. But there is a quote from Frederick Douglas, that the only whit person he ever talked to that did not look down on him, that he felt with being respected and talked to as an equal, was Abraham Lincoln. Even and espoecially when they disagreed. And he has very critical of him on many occasions.
Okay...I want to be nice. However, comparing combustion engines to literally owning another human being, is the absolute worst analogy I have ever heard. That was a big swing and a miss. You can't remove the human rights talk, and try to talk about this subject in any justifiable way. It is a human rights issue, period. Yes, you're probably right some of the owners knew it was wrong, and that arguably makes them worse, not better.
Ok, fair enough. You want a better analogy that includes human rights, let's talk about abortion. This is clearly a human rights issue, but the majority have justified it because pregnancy may pose an undue burden on the mother. As a society, we have collectively deemed it "acceptable". Similarly, There are many women who feel it is wrong, but go with it anyways because the alternative isn't ideal. Does that make them worse?
@@HistoryBuff Apples and oranges still. We can debate on how far developed the "human" in question actually needs to be to be considered a human, it's actually debatable. There isn't a debate to be had here, at all. Owning another human being is morally wrong, and if you think otherwise you're objectively wrong, but at least in that case you can argue you didn't think it was wrong. If you knew it was morally wrong, but not only did nothing to try to stop it, but also PROFITED from it anyway yes, I would consider that worse.
@@HistoryBuffbro just couldn't wait to hamfist his conservative talking point under the guise of "history". Why must you make an analogy to modern times to understand history? Are you that desperate to spin a political narrative?
@@HistoryBuffconsider it a human rights issue when it concerns a human, not damn embryo. I care more about the living person than the one that’s yet to live.
I want to preface my comment by saying I liked your reaction. I will be checking out the channel. You guys are the only ones I’ve seen do this in one video and liked that. Usually I wait for the second part to drop and watch them together. Like most people however, you seem to judge most of Abraham Lincoln and the North’s actions based on the standards of today. You stopped the video and took issue with how anti-slavery Lincoln was. He certainly wasn’t up to today’s standards, but he was born 211 years ago. He was very anti-slavery for his time. Abraham Lincoln was an unknown lawyer from the west who became President based on his speeches about the slavery issue. He was so radical for his time, and scared the South so much with his rhetoric, the half the country seceded just because he was elected. That’s like California and New York leaving just if Trump is elected. Lincoln was initially hesitant to emancipate because he was still hoping for a short, mostly bloodless war, an armistice, and negotiations to unification - as he stated at the time. That was impossible if he attempted to free the slaves, something he specifically said he wasn’t going to do during the 1860 election. After the realization the war was going to be personal, because most of the generals were alumni from West Point, ugly, bloody and long, the Emancipation Proclamation was conceived. Ready to be implemented less than a year after the war’s start. It was always the goal of the Republican Congress, and was always Lincoln’s eventual goal. So how anti-slavery was he for his time? His actions on slavery divided the country, caused a savage Civil War that killed approximately 800,000 Americans, and was the reason for his own assassination.
Sorry for the haters. I imagine as a historian you try to look at everything with an unbiased view of our modern lense, but I don't think many people have learned to do that. Keep up the good work.😊
The civil war also wasn’t just fought entirely over slavery. That was a main reason for it yes, but other issues were also at play as well such as states rights to seceed from the union legally etc.
Lincoln didn't let African-Americans loose with nothing. His first attempt was to set up Lincolnia in Central America, which would have been a nation composed of former slaves. This fell through because central American nations argued that this was unfair for a number of reasons. Lincoln turned his attention towards setting up Liberia, which partially succeeded. The reason it did not succeed as much as it could have, was because Frederick Douglas started a movement that sending them to Africa was unfair, since they had been enslaved and tossed aside. I understand this point of view, but I hate Douglas for this particular reason due solely to the fact that moving to Liberia was voluntary and was not forced on anyone. There was no reason to complain they were being tossed aside, because the trip to Liberia was a choice that had to be made by now-free African Americans. In my eyes at least, it seems as though people had a genuine interest in "going home" and Douglas said "No, you shouldn't want that."
I understand the analogy with combustion engines. Doing something that is considered morally wrong, but it is widely accepted by those around you, and even if you don’t like it, you are financially dependent on it. Look at Great Britain at the time. Everybody talks about how they abolished slavery before the US, but what a lot of people don’t talk about is how Great Britain got a lot of their cotton from US plantations. That is why they supported the Confederacy, even though they were, for the most part, morally against slavery. I think they mention this in this video, but I can’t remember.
Yep. Things like eating meat, abortions and driving cars are in this gray area where some find it evil, some don't, some do, but it will greatly affect their lives if they forego it. A lot are saying it's goofy to compare slaves to cars, and by today's standards, it definitely is. But back then, they certainly were considered property.
No, I get what they're saying. I said it was a mindset back then, which didn't automatically make them inherently evil. They're saying that action alone displays evil.
