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> Also remember that at this time, the vast majority of the economy is self-sufficient farmers By 1850, 40% of the population was employed in non-agriculture,

> Also remember that at this time, the vast majority of the economy is self-sufficient farmers By 1850, 40% of the population was employed in non-agriculture, GDP of non-agriculture was higher. Its unclear if this number included slaves as part of the population or not, but either way that suggests that either a minority (though a plurality), or a slim majority at most, was employed in subsistence agriculture style work. But I want to reiterate that I'm not disagreeing with your conclusion, just with the line of reasoning that 5% of exports implies only a small amount of the economy. > And the wealth that drew people to the country was mostly created after slavery was abolished. I'm not sure I see the point here beyond "slavery was a long time ago", and given the historically exponential nature of wealth and economic growth most of it will have been acquired recently. That doesn't mean that perturbations to the initial conditions don't matter, just the opposite: their impacts will be magnified many times over. I'll reiterate: could America have flourished without slavery? Probably (there's some questions about early America and investment in the new world without slavery, which I think the 1619 project raises, but if you start from 1776, yeah at that point United States could probably have done fine without slavery, and it's a tragedy that the founders didn't make that choice). But the founders didn't make that choice, so we're left with a United States that did have an economy dependent on slavery. And it was dependent enough on slavery that half the states were willing to fight a war over slavery (I mean also the racism and white supremacy, but economic anxiety was at least one component even then). > That’s a very “original sin” view of slavery, where the country is forever tainted by the fact slavery existed at one time, regardless of whether there are any traceable benefits to people living today resulting from slavery. But, like, there are. I mean you've admitted as much with things like the wealth gap. A significant portion of the white/black wealth gap in the US can be traced back to slavery (and a lot of the rest of it to racist policies since then, some of which still exist today). That's a tangible benefit. I'm willing to concede that the 1619 project is perhaps to focused on slavery specifically, and might better be phrased as "the US was founded on white supremacist principles that continue to exist and benefit many of its citizens at the expense of others, even today, with slavery as but one of the most visible," but I get the feeling you'd object to that also. And those kinds of policies do influence the kinds of people we let immigrate, and who gets VC funding, and who gets hired, and and and. As for "original sin", I think drawing attention to broken systems is important, especially those systems we hold in extremely high regard. The aura around the US as the city on a hill or whatever that people like to push tries to absolve people of responsibility to fix broken systems, either by pretending that there are no problems now, or that there never were any problems to begin with. Yeah sure, an immigrant who came here in the 70s didn't contribute to the creation of slavery and the systems that grew out of it, but as long as those systems persist, they'll be the beneficiaries (or victims, depending) of those systems. And yeah, some of those systems run deep in the American ethos.

DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
> might better be phrased as "the US was founded on white supremacist principles that continue to exist and benefit many of its citizens at the expense of others, even today, with slavery as but one of the most visible," but I get the feeling you'd object to that also. I would certainly object to it, as would most historians, I think. The principles the US was founded on - that is, the principles that drove the colonies to declare independence from Britain and the unique ideas about government that they incorporated into the state constitutions (and eventually the federal Constitution) were not "white supremacist." Most of the world practiced slavery at the time. The empire they were breaking away from was the #1 slave-trading nation in the world at that time. Slavery was a pre-existing fact when the United States was founded. It wasn't the motivation for the founding. In fact, at the time, the principles of the revolution were widely regarded as being in conflict with slavery, which is why the United States became one of the first centers of anti-slavery activism in the world. And it's why the northern states became some of the first places in the world to abolish slavery. Even slaveowners in Virginia began questioning slavery at this time. Jefferson, despite his own ownership of slaves, wrote the clause that forbade slavery in the Northwest Territories, and even proposed a new constitution for Virginia that would have freed anyone born after 31 December 1800. This was extremely early, in an international perspective, in the global anti-slavery movement. Britain wouldn't ban slavery until the 1830s. When later Southern leaders tried to defend slavery, they found the founding principles to be an embarrassing stumbling block. The famous Cornerstone Speech, given by the vice president of the Confederacy, was very self-consciously formulated as a repudiation of the Declaration of Independence, replacing "all men are created equal" with a new supposed "great truth" that people are created unequal. From the "Cornerstone Speech": > The prevailing ideas entertained by him [Jefferson] and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. [...] Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. The fact that the American Revolution did not eliminate slavery does not mean that the principles of the revolution were white supremacist, any more than Athenian democracy's founding principle was mysogeny, because Athens didn't overturn male-dominated society. The American revolution took a society that already had slavery, servitude, etc., and introduced new democratic principles, abolished many forms of servitude, generated opposition to slavery and outlawed slavery in half the new country. Slavery was not something the revolution introduced or ideologically strengthened. Quite the opposite.

DiogenesKynikos 6y ago

> might better be phrased as "the US was founded on white supremacist principles that continue to exist and benefit many of its citizens at the expense of others, even today, with slavery as but one of the most visible," but I get the feeling you'd object to that also. I would certainly object to it, as would most historians, I think. The principles the US was founded on - that is, the principles that drove the colonies to declare independence from Britain and the unique ideas about government that they incorporated into the state constitutions (and eventually the federal Constitution) were not "white supremacist." Most of the world practiced slavery at the time. The empire they were breaking away from was the #1 slave-trading nation in the world at that time. Slavery was a pre-existing fact when the United States was founded. It wasn't the motivation for the founding. In fact, at the time, the principles of the revolution were widely regarded as being in conflict with slavery, which is why the United States became one of the first centers of anti-slavery activism in the world. And it's why the northern states became some of the first places in the world to abolish slavery. Even slaveowners in Virginia began questioning slavery at this time. Jefferson, despite his own ownership of slaves, wrote the clause that forbade slavery in the Northwest Territories, and even proposed a new constitution for Virginia that would have freed anyone born after 31 December 1800. This was extremely early, in an international perspective, in the global anti-slavery movement. Britain wouldn't ban slavery until the 1830s. When later Southern leaders tried to defend slavery, they found the founding principles to be an embarrassing stumbling block. The famous Cornerstone Speech, given by the vice president of the Confederacy, was very self-consciously formulated as a repudiation of the Declaration of Independence, replacing "all men are created equal" with a new supposed "great truth" that people are created unequal. From the "Cornerstone Speech": > The prevailing ideas entertained by him [Jefferson] and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. [...] Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. The fact that the American Revolution did not eliminate slavery does not mean that the principles of the revolution were white supremacist, any more than Athenian democracy's founding principle was mysogeny, because Athens didn't overturn male-dominated society. The American revolution took a society that already had slavery, servitude, etc., and introduced new democratic principles, abolished many forms of servitude, generated opposition to slavery and outlawed slavery in half the new country. Slavery was not something the revolution introduced or ideologically strengthened. Quite the opposite.