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Well, technically, we didn't fight a violent war to rid ourselves of slavery -- as hard as the history book try to push that view. Slavery died out pretty much
by UncleEntity 8y ago
Well, technically, we didn't fight a violent war to rid ourselves of slavery -- as hard as the history book try to push that view.
Slavery died out pretty much everywhere else in the world without bloodshed so it's pretty safe to assume the US wouldn't have been different in that regard, the freeing of the slaves was more of a punitive action against the seceding states than anything else.
Anyhoo, my point being that it isn't a grand example of American exceptionalism. Much better to just link to Kevin Kline's A Fish Called Wanda rant...
And why doesn't my iPhone know how to spellcheck "slavery", are we trying to remove it from the language double-plus fast?
- rmk 8y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFwHQYDqf6c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFwHQYDqf6c I couldn't resist :)
- fixermark 8y agoWorth remembering: slavery was outlawed in the United States after it was outlawed in Great Britain. In the long-view, the whole American Experiment may not have been a net positive for slaves and their descendants relative to a hypothetical alternate history where the Revolutionary War failed and the US was just more British Empire. Nearly impossible to say with certainty, of course, because a Britain that included the US may have had different incentives to push it away from ending slavery.
- rmk 8y agoThe British just exported it to locales outside their own. See the Caribbean, the remote Pacific Islands (Australia, effectively British for practical purposes at that time, enslaved many Pacific Islanders to work in plantations), much of the Indian Subcontinent, Zimbabwe/Rhodesia... shall I go on?