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A question: in Britain slave-owners were compensated by the state when slavery was abolished. Many think slavery would not have ended without this, as egregious

A question: in Britain slave-owners were compensated by the state when slavery was abolished. Many think slavery would not have ended without this, as egregious as it seems. Whilst it was expensive - the tax payer has only in the last 10 years paid down the debt - it arguably averted violence through the transition. May I ask anyone more knowledgeable than myself why this approach - ie payment of compensation - was not considered in the US at the time?

netizen-936824 5y ago
- cafard 5y ago
  I doubt that Lincoln regarded it as morally satisfactory. But considering the human and financial costs of the war, he thought it a good idea.
- CapitalistCartr 5y ago
  Three-quarters of a million people died to do it our way. I still can't stomach the idea of paying.
  - stirfish 5y ago
    As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  Consider that the alternative also included conscripting men to fight and die for the cause, and that runaway soldiers could be shot
cafard 5y ago
There are several letters from Lincoln on the subject, calculating the cost of compensated emancipation v. the cost of one day or one month of the war. My recollection is that he couldn't get the border-state legislatures to go for it.
jimbob45 5y ago
https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1800-1850/The-House-of-Representatives-instituted-the-%E2%80%9Cgag-rule%E2%80%9D/ https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1800-1850/Th... For some number of years, even the discussion of slavery bans was prohibited in US Congress.
wbsss4412 5y ago
Because ending slavery was only really on the table once the civil war was won. The war didn’t start over whether or not the US would end slavery, only over whether or not we’d end its expansion into new territories.
- sophacles 5y ago
  That seems like a distinction without a difference. The fear of not expanding it was firmly rooted in the fact that once there were more free states than slave states, the abolitionists would do something as unthinkable (to the disgusting insurrectionist southerners anyway): acknowledge that melanin does not make someone subhuman property. The sad part is not much has changed. Those states are still full of people who fear melanin.
  - wbsss4412 5y ago
    How do you get to the point of debating compensation for slaveholders without first seriously debating the abolishment of slavery? It’s a necessary first step. There is a difference, obviously the slave states saw the direction things were going, but to the question at hand it’s a material distinction.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> May I ask anyone more knowledgeable than myself why this approach - ie payment of compensation - was not considered in the US at the time? Because abolition (with or without compensation) didn't have sufficient backing in the US to be a serious policy option until after the Confederacy made it viable by pulling most of the slave states into rebellion. While the new Republican Party was largely ideologically abolitionist, they could only compete effectively by running on a platform of explicitly deferring abolition in the interest of preserving the Union. The current policy debate was over things like whether and under what conditions to allow expansion of slavery into new territories and states, not abolishing it where it already existed. The South expected that falling short of their preferences on this would eventually lead to abolition on some terms, of course, which led to the rebellion to prevent that from ever being an issue.
binarynate 5y ago
Battle Cry of Freedom mentioned that prior to the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln offered to compensate the rebelling states 15% of the total value of their slaves (also hinting that this was better than not getting anything should they wait longer). The South rebuffed this offer. I don't think the book discussed how he landed on the 15% figure. My guess is that the number of slaves was so great that 100% compensation would be more expensive than the cost of seeing the war to its end.
oramit 5y ago
It was proposed but never got any serious traction because the slavery situation in the US was radically different than in Britain. British slaves almost all lived in the colonies not in Britain itself. Freeing all the British slaves caused huge changes in the colonies but it didn't change things at home that much. Freeing all the slaves in the US is a much different ballgame because those former slaves are now citizens living right next door to you. The Southern States feared what would happen if the slaves they had been abusing for generations were freed and were given political power. In some southern states like Mississippi (if memory serves) the number of slaves was greater than the non slave population. That's just one of many big practical reasons, there are many more, but it also can't go unmentioned that the US had built up a racist cult around slavery by this time. It wasn't just that the economic system of the south was intrinsically linked with Slavery, it was that the culture was built around the degradation of an entire race of people. They didn't keep slaves just because of money, but because they honestly believed that subjugating them was "for their own good". You can't buy someone out of a belief like that. This is rigorously documented by the way. They believed they were morally right and didn't shy away from writing it down. All the declarations of Secession by the Confederate states contain similar language but the Texas one is particularly direct on this point: "We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable." https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ref/abouttx/secession/2feb1861.html https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ref/abouttx/secession/2feb1861.htm...
jimmyvalmer 5y ago
I echo oramit's message above or below me, and will add Haiti as another datapoint to highlight the European and American difference. France agreed to sever ties with its colonial possession but at an extraordinary cost to the Haitians who would remit payments for the next 125 years. This was only possible because Haiti was a country with its own resources. Contrast that with the American South; the slaves had nothing to offer to reimburse their owners. Sometimes I feel the removal of TR's statue was an overreaction, and then you recall this shit, and it gives pause.
weeblewobble 5y ago
Slavery was legally abolished in the US only after secession and in the midst of a total war between the Confederacy and the US. Since it was total war, the US had no enforcement capability in the South short of military conquest. At that point the South were in a very poor negotiating position.

netizen-936824 5y ago

cafard 5y ago
I doubt that Lincoln regarded it as morally satisfactory. But considering the human and financial costs of the war, he thought it a good idea.
CapitalistCartr 5y ago
Three-quarters of a million people died to do it our way. I still can't stomach the idea of paying.
- stirfish 5y ago
  As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.
s1artibartfast 5y ago
Consider that the alternative also included conscripting men to fight and die for the cause, and that runaway soldiers could be shot

cafard 5y ago

There are several letters from Lincoln on the subject, calculating the cost of compensated emancipation v. the cost of one day or one month of the war. My recollection is that he couldn't get the border-state legislatures to go for it.

jimbob45 5y ago

https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1800-1850/The-House-of-Representatives-instituted-the-%E2%80%9Cgag-rule%E2%80%9D/ https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1800-1850/Th... For some number of years, even the discussion of slavery bans was prohibited in US Congress.

wbsss4412 5y ago

Because ending slavery was only really on the table once the civil war was won. The war didn’t start over whether or not the US would end slavery, only over whether or not we’d end its expansion into new territories.

sophacles 5y ago
That seems like a distinction without a difference. The fear of not expanding it was firmly rooted in the fact that once there were more free states than slave states, the abolitionists would do something as unthinkable (to the disgusting insurrectionist southerners anyway): acknowledge that melanin does not make someone subhuman property. The sad part is not much has changed. Those states are still full of people who fear melanin.
- wbsss4412 5y ago
  How do you get to the point of debating compensation for slaveholders without first seriously debating the abolishment of slavery? It’s a necessary first step. There is a difference, obviously the slave states saw the direction things were going, but to the question at hand it’s a material distinction.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> May I ask anyone more knowledgeable than myself why this approach - ie payment of compensation - was not considered in the US at the time? Because abolition (with or without compensation) didn't have sufficient backing in the US to be a serious policy option until after the Confederacy made it viable by pulling most of the slave states into rebellion. While the new Republican Party was largely ideologically abolitionist, they could only compete effectively by running on a platform of explicitly deferring abolition in the interest of preserving the Union. The current policy debate was over things like whether and under what conditions to allow expansion of slavery into new territories and states, not abolishing it where it already existed. The South expected that falling short of their preferences on this would eventually lead to abolition on some terms, of course, which led to the rebellion to prevent that from ever being an issue.

binarynate 5y ago

Battle Cry of Freedom mentioned that prior to the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln offered to compensate the rebelling states 15% of the total value of their slaves (also hinting that this was better than not getting anything should they wait longer). The South rebuffed this offer. I don't think the book discussed how he landed on the 15% figure. My guess is that the number of slaves was so great that 100% compensation would be more expensive than the cost of seeing the war to its end.

oramit 5y ago

It was proposed but never got any serious traction because the slavery situation in the US was radically different than in Britain. British slaves almost all lived in the colonies not in Britain itself. Freeing all the British slaves caused huge changes in the colonies but it didn't change things at home that much. Freeing all the slaves in the US is a much different ballgame because those former slaves are now citizens living right next door to you. The Southern States feared what would happen if the slaves they had been abusing for generations were freed and were given political power. In some southern states like Mississippi (if memory serves) the number of slaves was greater than the non slave population. That's just one of many big practical reasons, there are many more, but it also can't go unmentioned that the US had built up a racist cult around slavery by this time. It wasn't just that the economic system of the south was intrinsically linked with Slavery, it was that the culture was built around the degradation of an entire race of people. They didn't keep slaves just because of money, but because they honestly believed that subjugating them was "for their own good". You can't buy someone out of a belief like that. This is rigorously documented by the way. They believed they were morally right and didn't shy away from writing it down. All the declarations of Secession by the Confederate states contain similar language but the Texas one is particularly direct on this point: "We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable." https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ref/abouttx/secession/2feb1861.html https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ref/abouttx/secession/2feb1861.htm...

jimmyvalmer 5y ago

I echo oramit's message above or below me, and will add Haiti as another datapoint to highlight the European and American difference. France agreed to sever ties with its colonial possession but at an extraordinary cost to the Haitians who would remit payments for the next 125 years. This was only possible because Haiti was a country with its own resources. Contrast that with the American South; the slaves had nothing to offer to reimburse their owners. Sometimes I feel the removal of TR's statue was an overreaction, and then you recall this shit, and it gives pause.

weeblewobble 5y ago

Slavery was legally abolished in the US only after secession and in the midst of a total war between the Confederacy and the US. Since it was total war, the US had no enforcement capability in the South short of military conquest. At that point the South were in a very poor negotiating position.