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> If monarchy was indeed both socioeconomically important and a deal-breaker for founding the EU to a comparable extent as slavery in the United States, then I
by bhupy 5y ago
> If monarchy was indeed both socioeconomically important and a deal-breaker for founding the EU to a comparable extent as slavery in the United States, then I would think it's fair to call it a founding pillar.
The disagreement is that it's not accurate to call it a founding pillar even in such cases. "The founding pillar" of most unions has nothing to do with the specifics of members of that union, unless explicitly stated. And in fact, as I pointed out above, the Framers added systems to incentivize its abolition, so not only is it inaccurate to argue that slavery was a foundational pillar, it's arguably the opposite.
We actually have a rich set of literature outlining what the so called "founding pillars" were, and they were the Federalist Papers. The outlined "founding pillars" were (in no particular order): federalism, bicameralism, minority rights, republicanism, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
> My impression is that the textile industry (which was intimately tied to Southern cotton production) was hugely important to the North for at least 50 years after the northern states had started restricting slavery. And from what I can tell, Pennsylvania was the first of the colonies to "abolish slavery," and that wasn't until 1780 and more importantly it didn't free existing slaves. It abolished importing slaves, and made children subsequently born to slaves indentured servants.
There was certainly trade between Southern and Northern States, but the North was overwhelmingly industrialized, whereas the South was an agrarian slave-driven economy. When the Civil War ended, the North continued to prosper, while the South's economy was decimated; in fact when slavery was abolished, the GDP of the US increased(https://www.econlib.org/archives/2014/09/ending_slavery.html https://www.econlib.org/archives/2014/09/ending_slavery.html).
And although you're correct that Pennsylvania didn't abolish slavery until 1780, the US Constitution wasn't drafted until 1787; until then the States were governed by the Articles of Confederation. By 1787, every single Northern State except New Jersey (1806) had abolished slavery. And FYI, abolition meant freeing existing slaves, not just banning the importation. By 1806, all former slaves in the Northern states were free.
- tshaddox 5y agoYou seem to be using "founding pillars" to mean "what the founders claimed or intended the founding pillars to be." That's not what I'm talking about. For an actual physical building, it doesn't matter what the architect claims or intends are the parts of the building which are necessary for its structural integrity. Removing a chunk of the building either causes it to collapse or doesn't. Looking at the architect's plans and intentions may be useful, but it's clearly not the final source of truth.
- bhupy 5y agoGreat, so by the logic you just set out, I think it's pretty clear that the "founding pillar" of the United States was a system that allowed us to eventually create laws that would be forced upon the slave states on account of the fact that they had originally agreed to join the Union. In other words, the pragmatic decision to keep mum about slavery (at a time when the abolitionists just didn't have the numbers on their side), is what ultimately led to its downfall after the Civil War and Reconstruction. And another FYI, slavery was abolished in the Northern States before it was abolished in France, the UK, and the Netherlands. No reasonable person would call slavery a "founding pillar" of either of those countries.
- tshaddox 5y agoThat’s close enough to the notion that supporters of slavery deserve credit for the abolition of slavery, because without slavery existing it never could have been abolished. I’m not really interested in continuing that discussion.
- bhupy 5y ago> That’s close enough to the notion that supporters of slavery deserve credit for the abolition of slavery, because without slavery existing it never could have been abolished Um, that's not remotely close to what's being contended here. What we're talking about is tradeoffs; i.e. what do you do when you want to coerce other States to abolish a regime that's politically unpopular in your State, but politically popular in the State in question? You can either do nothing, and let that system continue to exist (in perpetuity), or you can set up a new system that enables us to eventually abolish that institution from the top-down. You have to consider the alternative: Founders that didn't create a Union, an independent South, and no real incentive or force to act as a check on slavery, and potentially allowing it to exist in the South beyond the 1860's. This is a hypothetical that's pretty easy to imagine considering that those Southern states tried creating a Confederation with slavery literally being enshrined in its Constitution (a "founding pillar", to use your framing) in 1861. A world in which the South just agrees to join the Union in 1787 and also simply agree to abolish slavery is a fantasy. A world in which the North creates a slavery-free Union without the South is one in which slavery exists in a Confederate constitution well past the 1860's. Given those options, I'll take our reality any day of the year: the one where we created a Union that allowed us to eventually outnumber the South, elect Abraham Lincoln, and abolish slavery once and for all. That was the Founders' gambit, and the Confederates admitted just as much in their Cornerstone Speech I cited above.