> My understanding of your argument is that because certain nice and lofty things were said in certain founding documents we should look at it as a matter of historical inevitability that practices like slavery and racial discrimination were ultimately abolished.
> I just don't buy that, and I think if you try to make this argument for any other country you'll see how silly it is.
Pointing to founding principles is but one of a variety of items I've been using to demonstrate the falsehood of trying to asset that slavery was foundational to the United States (early abolition movements, the fact that slavery comprised ~6% of GNP, that founding figures expressed desire to end slavery, and more). If genuinely believe, "that because certain nice and lofty things were said in certain founding documents we should look at it as a matter of historical inevitability that practices like slavery and racial discrimination were ultimately abolished" describes the points I've been making then I doubt you've been reading my comments in any detail. Did you just forget all the other points I've been making?
> I could similarly argue that say the oppression of the Soviet Union of its own citizens didn't have anything to do with its nature or foundational structure, it was just some temporary mistake. If you read the Soviet constitution it's even more unequivocal about condemning that sort of thing than the equivalent American documents.
One could make a decent argument that the worst aspect of Soviet oppression was a temporary mistake. The worst of Soviet oppression took place during Stalin's purges, and the Soviet government essentially disowned him after his death. Which was more oppressive, the Soviet Union outside of Stalin's reign, or the Tsarist regime that the Soviet Union replaced? Remember under Tsarist Russia a huge portion of the population lived as serfs, which were human property (serfs could be purchased and sold, perhaps not quite identical to slavery but at least in a similar stroke). Both were very bad, and I would be appalled if I had to live under either, but many see the Soviet Union as an overall positive delta.
> For something like 1/3 of the history of the country millions lived out their lives as slaves, if we're being conservative for 2/3rds structural racial inequality was the law of the land.
To be more specific, for 1/3rd of the history of the country, millions lived out their lives as slaves in ~40% of the county in which slavery was legal. Re-framing this to "structural racial inequality" is diverging very far from the claim that the united states was "founded on the enslavement of black people", which is the claim that I am disproving.
> If you'd have talked to supreme court justices, and some of the authors of those founding documents (many of whom had slaves) they'd have been appalled by this modern reading of the text. "All men" is much closer to the contemporary reading of "all [male] citizens [who hold property/are head of households]".
So now we're talking about the lack of female suffrage? This is diverging even further from the claim that slavery was foundational to the United States.
> The page you're linking to makes the opposite case if you take it as a whole instead of selectively quoting from it. It argues that a buyout of the slaves would have been impossible due to the high price.
Sure. That doesn't change the fact that slavery comprised 6% of GNP. But because the South only had 20-25% of the country's GNP, this represented 20-25% of the South's economy. It's not surprising that they would choose to fight. But that does not change the fact that slavery did comprise 6% of GNP - very far from the 25-50% you speculate below.
> Furthermore it's talking about numbers at the time of the civil war, almost 100 years after the period we're discussing, at that time the country had a more diversified economy.
Quite the opposite. Slavery during the time of the United States' founding was much less economically productive than it was during the antebellum period. Cotton, slavery's primary product, was not profitable until the cotton gin was invented which boosted cotton production by a factor of 25-50. Tobacco plantations were more popular than cotton before the invention of the cotton gin. Some scholars even speculate that slavery would have petered out without conflict were it not for the cotton gin. If you want to measure the economic output of slavery at the time of the US founding, it's drastically less as compared to 1860.
> If a sector of your economy is so integral to it that the government wants to get rid of it but can't see itself abolishing it without a war with itself it's pretty foundational to the economy.
Slavery became foundational to the Southern economy, but this was a development that occurred after America's founding. As as explained above, slavery was not economically very productive at the time of the United States' founding. "King Cotton" didn't come about until the invention of the cotton gin and westward expansion.
> Based on your reductive analysis of GNP by sector, but that's not how economies works. Low prices in one sector (e.g. due to slave labor) cascade to other sectors. The page you linked to explains this, it's like oil prices today. The benefit to the economy from reduced oil prices is higher than just the dollar value paid for the oil, it makes everything else cheaper.
> (and later) Although I'd be curious at what percentage of GNP you'd concede it. 25%? 50%?
Slave labor produced cotton, most of which was exported. While some of this did get sold internally to the North, the article I linked writes, "The first half of the nineteenth century witnessed an enormous increase in the production of short-staple cotton in the South, and most of that cotton was exported to Great Britain and Europe." The article does mention that "all regions benefited from the South’s concentration on cotton production" such as the north selling manufactured goods to the South. But it does not claim that this was anywhere near the majority. Again, the entire Southern economy comprised 20-25% of the country's GDP, and slavery accounted for 25% of that figure (5-6% in total). While the indirect contribution you refer to existed, it was not remotely close to the majority. Attempting to quantify this is difficult, because defining what kind of economic activity counts as being supported by slavery is ambiguous, but not scholar would put this figure near the 25 or 50% you speculate.
> But really. I don't see how we're going to get anywhere here (although I'd love to continue the discussion in this increasingly stale thread). How much slavery contributed to the economy is a supporting fact, but it's clearly not the main point.
Then what is the main point? So far we have established that:
* Slavery was not one of the principles the US was founded on.
* Abolition movements started effectively immediately after the US's founding, and the majority of the country was slave-free within half a century.
* Slavery, and economic activity related to slavery, did not comprise even remotely close to the majority of economic activity in the US.
* Most of the country's founders expected slavery to be abolished, including some that owned slaves themselves (e.g. Jefferson)
The only potential justification you have presented that slavery was foundational to the US is the fact that slavery existed at the time of the US's founding - that is insufficient to claim that this was foundational to the US, especially in contrast to the points I listed above.
> The point is that a phrase like "built on slavery" accurately characterizes the country at the time both economically and socially as compared to other notable countries.
No, it does not. America at it's founding at best tolerated slavery, and within a matter of decades society did not tolerate slavery. Economically, it comprised a relatively small portion of the economy. The comparison to other countries is even more egregious, and speaks to a profound ignorance of the role of slavery in other countries [2].
1. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/maps-reveal-slavery-expanded-across-united-states-180951452/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/maps-reveal-slavery-e...
^ This is actually a very good visualization top to show just how much larger slavery was in 1860 as compared to 1790. In the latter slavery was pretty much exclusive to a couple narrow stretches of land on the coasts of Virginia and Georgia. Also note the difference in the legend between slave and free people.
2. https://global.oup.com/us/companion.websites/fdscontent/uscompanion/us/static/companion.websites/9780199389315/maps/ch5/map05_00100.jpg https://global.oup.com/us/companion.websites/fdscontent/usco...