13th Amendment

[Salty]

Just found something interesting about the passage of the 13 amendment.

There were 36 States (or commonwealths) ??? of which 27 were needed to pass the amendment.

Two of those States or Commonwealths that passed it before 9 April - the day Gen Lee surrendered - those being Virginia and Louisiana

Five Union States did not approve it until after it was ratified.

 

[SolaSaint]

Salty, me and my wife talked about this after seeing Lincon. Do you think slavery is as it is depicted in movies and books today? Did the majority get whipped and beaten? Weren't many considered just as family servants and treated very well? Not that I'm condoning slavery, but I would bet that many who were freed didn't want to leave their good conditions. They said there were over 4 million slaves freed at the passing of the 13th. How difficult would it have been for a black man/woman to find a decent job to support his family in 1865? There are definitely many aspects to consider in this matter.

 

[just-want-peace]

Considering that these slaves were the "tractors, reapers, plowers etc. of the era" what idiot would act as the destroyer of his own "machinery"?
Excluding what are most likely a few isolated episodes, it just makes common economic sense for the owners to treat their "equipment" so as to keep the production up and the maintenance down, regardless of the love, or lack thereof, toward the slaves.

 

[TCassidy]

Chattel slavery, as practiced in the South, was barbaric and reprehensible. However, most slaves were well treated and considered very valuable property.

Lincoln, on the other hand, was not at all as he is usually portrayed in the media. He was a racist who considered blacks to be considerably less than human. The Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in the Confederacy. It left slavery legal in any state that did not secede. The Emancipation Proclamation was not signed to free slaves in order to better their lot in life. It was signed to cripple the South financially and cause division among the people of the Confederacy. Of the causes of the Civil War, Slavery was not on the top of the list. The primary cause was economic and social differences between the North and the South. The secondary cause was states versus federal rights. Slavery was, at best, a tertiary reason. Slavery was already on the wane in the South and would probably have disappeared altogether by the 1880s.

 

[billwald]

Lincoln's War was mostly about northern industrialists wanting to control southern planters. As I remember because the way the winds blew it was easier to ship cotton to England than to New England and it was cheaper to buy farm tools from England than New England. This could be wrong.