4 ms·

This sentence leapt out at me: "That includes borrowing that may have been used to compensate slave owners when slavery was abolished." You mean to tell me tha

This sentence leapt out at me: "That includes borrowing that may have been used to compensate slave owners when slavery was abolished." You mean to tell me that after the horrors of slavery finally ceased, it was the slaveholders that got reparations?

minot 12y ago
> You mean to tell me that after the horrors of slavery finally ceased, it was the slaveholders that got reparations? How would you have done things differently? The slave holders were powerful people. Even the Church of England apparently owned slaves. Compromise is a part of life. Yes, even difficult compromises like these...
altoz 12y ago
Believe it or not, the alternative was much worse. In the US, the Civil War cost roughly $8 billion (in 1860 dollars) and 600,000 lives. There were roughly 4 million slaves in the US at that time and using the New Orleans auction prices of that time you get an estimate of $2.7-$3.7 billion for the entire slave population of the United States. Basically, NOT compensating slaveholders cost more than twice as much and many more lives in the US. http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/40820/straight-dope-could-the-civil-war-have-been-avoided-by/ http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/40820/straight-d...
- dredmorbius 12y ago
  Ah, but t'weren't t' North 'as started shootin': Hostilities began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, a key fort held by Union troops in South Carolina. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War Some transactions are more than strictly financial.
  - logfromblammo 12y ago
    Sometimes the first bullet that flies is not the first shot of the war. Some scholars claim that the USA committed the first act of war well before the CSA opened fire on Ft. Sumter. Obfuscating the adversarial acts that occurred before battle is joined is a choice made by historians. I recall my history teachers teaching about the Stamp Act and the Intolerable Acts prior to Lexington and Concord, but somehow Fort Sumter started the Civil War? That situation would be a lot like petitioning for divorce, getting the house in the settlement, and coming home that night to find that your ex-spouse was still living in the garden shed. But I think it is safe to say that there were plenty of jerkfaces on both sides of the conflict, and they got a lot of good people killed, along with the bad. I can't say for certain what would have avoided the bloodshed, if anything, because we cannot A/B test history. I believe that war then was substantially similar to war now; it is usually a handful of people who stand to benefit, maneuvering other people into a false choice between losing and losing more. By the time the actual shooting starts, the bets have already been placed, and all that remains is to wait for the dice to stop rolling. It's nice that slavery was abolished in the whole USA in the aftermath of the war, but on the whole, the UK way of doing it was much better. If the worst aftereffect they are feeling now is some outstanding 4% consols, that's hardly worrisome at all, compared to the lingering legacies of abolition in the US.
    - dredmorbius 12y ago
      The deeper point is that the conflict wasn't strictly about property allocation, as was suggested by the comment I responded to. Instead it was a power play between two sets of states, not simply a matter of compensating former slave-owners. Which wasn't itself the nominal matter under discussion at the beginning of the Civil War in any regard (though the matter of slavery was in the offing, largely as pertained new states joining the Union). I'm also not arguing the that the Civil War was the best way of settling the dispute. I will note that in the case of the UK The point remains, however, that the Confederacy was the first aggressor.
ars 12y ago
You can read it for yourself: http://www.pdavis.nl/Legis_07.htm http://www.pdavis.nl/Legis_07.htm Slavery was not considered a "horror" at the time, it was considered "injust" and it was seen as equally "injust" to take away a right society had given someone and not compensate them. It's interesting that they also say "expedient". To me that means they felt their economy would continue just fine without the slaves. And they were freeing them as a sort of "eh, why not". Remember these slave holders were not people on the fringes of society, they were ordinary people. Society did not consider what they did to be evil, so why would that same society punish them? You have to look at people's actions through the lens of their own life, not the lens of yours. Well, you can look at them through your own lens, but that only lets you condemn the result, not the people, and not the actions.
- arethuza 12y ago
  It clearly was considered a "horror" in the late 18th and early 19th century - that's why it got banned in places like the UK. Consider William Wilberforce's 1789 "Abolition Speech" in the House of Commons: http://www.artofmanliness.com/abolition-speech-by-william-wilberforce/ http://www.artofmanliness.com/abolition-speech-by-william-wi...
  - ars 12y ago
    Did you read the link you gave me? He did not talk at all about freeing the slaves, but rather about the condition of their transport. To me it seemed that if instead of freeing them, they would have instead improved the transport conditions, he would have been satisfied. Or in other words he did not see a problem with owning people. He had a problem with treating them badly.
    - DrJokepu 12y ago
      Except there are plenty of other sources that clearly show that William Wilberforce did, in fact, support the complete abolition of slavery in the British empire.
      - 12y ago
Brakenshire 12y ago
That's one of the factors that damaged Haiti after its independence. In order to normalize trade relations, they had to accept debt at the market rate for the slaves who had been emancipated. This was many, many times their annual income and is probably a major reason why the country became a failed state.
adolph 12y ago
As a matter of historical fact, yes, see link below. As a matter of rhetorical response, wouldn't paying off whomever be worth ending the horrors of slavery? As a matter of imagining a counterfactual, what would the late 19th and 20th centuries have looked like in the US if it had somehow followed a similar route instead of embarking upon the Civil War? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833 http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833
ajuc 12y ago
The people that had slaves lost money because of the new law. They would have rioted and possible reverted the law if they got no compensation. Law change is forever, compensation is short-term - of course it's worth it (that's one thing that paradox grand-strategy games taught me - never grant priviledges to provinces for gold ;) ). BTW there's a lesson there - it shows how we should deal with the CO2 problem and global warming. Countries that industrialized recently won't stop becoming rich just because it's bad for someone else. We can try to make everybody pay, or we can compensate these that need coal industry the most (i.e. developing countries) to make them switch to better (and more expansive) alternatives.

minot 12y ago

> You mean to tell me that after the horrors of slavery finally ceased, it was the slaveholders that got reparations? How would you have done things differently? The slave holders were powerful people. Even the Church of England apparently owned slaves. Compromise is a part of life. Yes, even difficult compromises like these...

altoz 12y ago

Believe it or not, the alternative was much worse. In the US, the Civil War cost roughly $8 billion (in 1860 dollars) and 600,000 lives. There were roughly 4 million slaves in the US at that time and using the New Orleans auction prices of that time you get an estimate of $2.7-$3.7 billion for the entire slave population of the United States. Basically, NOT compensating slaveholders cost more than twice as much and many more lives in the US. http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/40820/straight-dope-could-the-civil-war-have-been-avoided-by/ http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/40820/straight-d...

dredmorbius 12y ago
Ah, but t'weren't t' North 'as started shootin': Hostilities began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, a key fort held by Union troops in South Carolina. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War Some transactions are more than strictly financial.
- logfromblammo 12y ago
  Sometimes the first bullet that flies is not the first shot of the war. Some scholars claim that the USA committed the first act of war well before the CSA opened fire on Ft. Sumter. Obfuscating the adversarial acts that occurred before battle is joined is a choice made by historians. I recall my history teachers teaching about the Stamp Act and the Intolerable Acts prior to Lexington and Concord, but somehow Fort Sumter started the Civil War? That situation would be a lot like petitioning for divorce, getting the house in the settlement, and coming home that night to find that your ex-spouse was still living in the garden shed. But I think it is safe to say that there were plenty of jerkfaces on both sides of the conflict, and they got a lot of good people killed, along with the bad. I can't say for certain what would have avoided the bloodshed, if anything, because we cannot A/B test history. I believe that war then was substantially similar to war now; it is usually a handful of people who stand to benefit, maneuvering other people into a false choice between losing and losing more. By the time the actual shooting starts, the bets have already been placed, and all that remains is to wait for the dice to stop rolling. It's nice that slavery was abolished in the whole USA in the aftermath of the war, but on the whole, the UK way of doing it was much better. If the worst aftereffect they are feeling now is some outstanding 4% consols, that's hardly worrisome at all, compared to the lingering legacies of abolition in the US.
  - dredmorbius 12y ago
    The deeper point is that the conflict wasn't strictly about property allocation, as was suggested by the comment I responded to. Instead it was a power play between two sets of states, not simply a matter of compensating former slave-owners. Which wasn't itself the nominal matter under discussion at the beginning of the Civil War in any regard (though the matter of slavery was in the offing, largely as pertained new states joining the Union). I'm also not arguing the that the Civil War was the best way of settling the dispute. I will note that in the case of the UK The point remains, however, that the Confederacy was the first aggressor.

ars 12y ago

You can read it for yourself: http://www.pdavis.nl/Legis_07.htm http://www.pdavis.nl/Legis_07.htm Slavery was not considered a "horror" at the time, it was considered "injust" and it was seen as equally "injust" to take away a right society had given someone and not compensate them. It's interesting that they also say "expedient". To me that means they felt their economy would continue just fine without the slaves. And they were freeing them as a sort of "eh, why not". Remember these slave holders were not people on the fringes of society, they were ordinary people. Society did not consider what they did to be evil, so why would that same society punish them? You have to look at people's actions through the lens of their own life, not the lens of yours. Well, you can look at them through your own lens, but that only lets you condemn the result, not the people, and not the actions.

arethuza 12y ago
It clearly was considered a "horror" in the late 18th and early 19th century - that's why it got banned in places like the UK. Consider William Wilberforce's 1789 "Abolition Speech" in the House of Commons: http://www.artofmanliness.com/abolition-speech-by-william-wilberforce/ http://www.artofmanliness.com/abolition-speech-by-william-wi...
- ars 12y ago
  Did you read the link you gave me? He did not talk at all about freeing the slaves, but rather about the condition of their transport. To me it seemed that if instead of freeing them, they would have instead improved the transport conditions, he would have been satisfied. Or in other words he did not see a problem with owning people. He had a problem with treating them badly.
  - DrJokepu 12y ago
    Except there are plenty of other sources that clearly show that William Wilberforce did, in fact, support the complete abolition of slavery in the British empire.
    - 12y ago

Brakenshire 12y ago

That's one of the factors that damaged Haiti after its independence. In order to normalize trade relations, they had to accept debt at the market rate for the slaves who had been emancipated. This was many, many times their annual income and is probably a major reason why the country became a failed state.

adolph 12y ago

As a matter of historical fact, yes, see link below. As a matter of rhetorical response, wouldn't paying off whomever be worth ending the horrors of slavery? As a matter of imagining a counterfactual, what would the late 19th and 20th centuries have looked like in the US if it had somehow followed a similar route instead of embarking upon the Civil War? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833 http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833

ajuc 12y ago

The people that had slaves lost money because of the new law. They would have rioted and possible reverted the law if they got no compensation. Law change is forever, compensation is short-term - of course it's worth it (that's one thing that paradox grand-strategy games taught me - never grant priviledges to provinces for gold ;) ). BTW there's a lesson there - it shows how we should deal with the CO2 problem and global warming. Countries that industrialized recently won't stop becoming rich just because it's bad for someone else. We can try to make everybody pay, or we can compensate these that need coal industry the most (i.e. developing countries) to make them switch to better (and more expansive) alternatives.