Confederate States of America: What Would've Happened if the South Won the Civil War.

[Gxg (G²)]

If the South won, there would be more of the Bible and the commandments in school, and we would still have our liberties. No tyrants would try to censor us or take our guns away.

Not seeing how that logically plays out - as the North also had 10 commandments in school/the Bible.

 

[Douger]

Good news for Mexico and the Indians then?

The French Empire and Napoleon 3rd may have been first to recognise the Confederacy, then perhaps they would have been friends and allies. Then during the Franco-Prussian War when France needed allies against the Prussians then the CSA may have helped France instead of watching from the sidelines like Britain and the USA. Therefore no German Empire, no World War One, No Nazis, No World War Two.

We got two World Wars because we were sleeping in 1871. Perhaps the CSA would have been more watchful.

What could the CSA realistically have done to help France against Prussia? CSA had a small and extremely war weary population, and this was full scale European war we're talking about (Franco-Prussian War).

 

[I Eat Pie]

Not seeing how that logically plays out - as the North also had 10 commandments in school/the Bible.

They don't call it the Bible belt for nothing

 

[Gxg (G²)]

They don't call it the Bible belt for nothing

There are a myriad of churches all over the South - hence, the title of Bible Belt. However, that doesn't mean that there were not schools in the North with Bible in them.

 

[I Eat Pie]

Oklahoma is planning on putting the commandments on the entrances of the state 8)

Your move

 

[Gxg (G²)]

Oklahoma is planning on putting the commandments on the entrances of the state 8)

Your move

That's awesome for Oklahoma - but that's not the same as saying all Northern States had no Bible or 10 commandmentsin their schools.

That goes back to the dynamic of understanding what the Bible Belt is - as it is an informal term for a region in the south-eastern and south-central United States in which socially conservative evangelical Protestantism is a significant part of the culture and Christian church attendance across the denominations is generally higher than the nation's average. Essentially, the Bible belt is simply more conservative southern states..and a 1978 study by Charles Heatwole identified the Bible Belt as the region dominated by 24 fundamentalist Protestant denominations, corresponding to essentially the same area mapped by Zielinski. Some feel the states most qualified for the Bible Belt are West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska..while others are North Dakota, South Dakota, and Indiana.

• Where Is The Bible Belt?javascript:void(0)
• Liberal Grace: The two American Bible Belts

There is a myriad of reactions that can occur - with the Oklahoma case being evidence of one of them. As said best in one article on the issue, in 2005, the Supreme Court ruled that Kentucky’s display of the Ten Commandments violated the Equal Protection clause and had to be removed. But the court also found that a similar monument in Texas could remain, as the memorial had a historical and secular value in additional to a religious character.

 

[I Eat Pie]

To be fair, it's mostly union states who have cultures far from God. Like here in Hollwood, and up north in New York. It's all about showing off your body.

 

[Gxg (G²)]

To be fair, it's mostly union states who have cultures far from God. Like here in Hollwood, and up north in New York. It's all about showing off your body.

Living in the South throughout my life with others, I can assure you that Southern cultures are JUST as far from God as those in the North - as the difference that seems to be that SOUTHERN Culture is more connected to expressing things in the name of Christianity and celebrating church culture while not living according to Christ as he said..often promoting hypocrisy blantantly. It's why many noted that the same "Christianity" others celebrated often advocated many negative/unbiblical concepts like racism, prejudice, adultery, sexual immorality and other forms of hypocrisy.

Folks noted a lot of that espcially during/before and after the Civil Rights era - from Martin Luther King (in the South) to Malcolm X (who was from the North/influential up there primarily) and so many others. It's not to say that other forms of sin do not occur in other places - but it's rampant here. But a lot of folks cover it up due to "going to Church"/claiming they love Jesus.

 

[RDKirk]

For the North, the Civil War was a holy war against the sin of slavery. There was certainly no less fire for Godliness in the North than in the South.

The South was actually attempting to recreate the glory of pagan Greece (hence the plenitude of faux-Greek architecture).

All of Christianity by the late 1700s had acknowledged slavery as a heinous sin. Actually, Christianity had always regarded it at best in the category of vices like gambling, rum running, and prostitution. By the 1803s, all Christianity had determined it was a sin that must be ended for the sake of white men's souls.

Religion, as it was in the South, had become twisted and fallen totally out of the mainstream of Christianity. It's as though a demon principality had descended upon the South somewhere around 1830. Why else would white men who did not own slaves fight for a system that kept them poor? It was clearly known even then that slave labor devalued the labor of white men--that was the reason white men of the north fought against slavery in the new western states.

And let's not be naive. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely," and given absolute power over human beings, there was no perversion imaginable that slave owners did not commit against their slaves.

Western expansion depended, ultimately, on the vigorous industry of the north. I don't think history has actually changed the fortunes of either region. The South would still be the region highest in poverty, lowest in education, highest in crime. That demon is still there.

 

[Gxg (G²)]

What could the CSA realistically have done to help France against Prussia? CSA had a small and extremely war weary population, and this was full scale European war we're talking about (Franco-Prussian War).

Agriculture can go a long way...

 

[Douger]

To be fair, it's mostly union states who have cultures far from God. Like here in Hollwood, and up north in New York. It's all about showing off your body.

Showing off your body is far more Christian than owning human slaves.

 

[RDKirk]

Agriculture can go a long way...

A society based on slavery in an industrial age was not going anywhere. White men who intended to prosper would have to emigrate to where their labor was valuable.

 

[Gxg (G²)]

For the North, the Civil War was a holy war against the sin of slavery. There was certainly no less fire for Godliness in the North than in the South.

The South was actually attempting to recreate the glory of pagan Greece (hence the plenitude of faux-Greek architecture).

All of Christianity by the late 1700s had acknowledged slavery as a heinous sin. Actually, Christianity had always regarded it at best in the category of vices like gambling, rum running, and prostitution. By the 1803s, all Christianity had determined it was a sin that must be ended for the sake of white men's souls.

Religion, as it was in the South, had become twisted and fallen totally out of the mainstream of Christianity. It's as though a demon principality had descended upon the South somewhere around 1830. Why else would white men who did not own slaves fight for a system that kept them poor? It was clearly known even then that slave labor devalued the labor of white men--that was the reason white men of the north fought against slavery in the new western states.

And let's not be naive. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely," and given absolute power over human beings, there was no perversion imaginable that slave owners did not commit against their slaves.

Western expansion depended, ultimately, on the vigorous industry of the north. I don't think history has actually changed the fortunes of either region. The South would still be the region highest in poverty, lowest in education, highest in crime. That demon is still there.

Truthfully, for anyone seeing the full side of history, there was a lot of polticial double-talk going on - as many in the North claimed to be against slavery ..but had no issue with blacks being seen as intellectual/moral inferiors and others fought to ensure inequality would remain. It was a much more covert form of racism - with the overt not seeming as "racist" simply because there was not as much of the same language where others "defended slavery" - but neo-slavery/wage slavery and debt slavery were just as much of an issue.

And it was those exact factors that left a BIG mark on the decades to come - one of the reasons many blacks began to feel there was no hope for true justice in the U.S.

Christianity was just as messed up in the North as it was in the South in many respects - and even with slavery, it's interesting whenever it seems that many make it out in North America as if the Northern States were the first to wage war against it since Mexico had actually abolished Slavery.


On this day in 1829, the Guerrero Decree, which abolished slavery throughout the Republic of Mexico except in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, was issued by President Vicente R. Guerrero. He was a major military leader during Mexico's war For Independence and as president ended slavery in his nation on September 15, 1829. In his words:

The President of the United States of Mexico, know ye: That desiring to celebrate in the year of 1829 the anniversary of our independence with an act of justice and national beneficence, which might result in the benefit and support of a good, so highly to be appreciated, which might cement more and more the public tranquility, which might reinstate an unfortunate part of its inhabitants in the sacred rights which nature gave them, and which the nation protects by wise and just laws, in conformance with the 30th article of the constitutive act, in which the use of extraordinary powers are ceded to me, I have thought it proper to decree:

1st. Slavery is abolished in the republic.

2nd. Consequently, those who have been until now considered slaves are free.

3rd. When the circumstances of the treasury may permit, the owners of the slaves will be indemnified in the mode that the laws may provide.

And in order that every part of this decree may be fully complied with, let it be printed, published, and circulated. Given at the Federal Palace of Mexico, the 15th of September, 1829. Vicente Guerrero To José María Bocanegra.
​

• Black And Brown: African Americans And The Mexican Revolution, ... - Page 198</DIV>

The decree reached Texas on October 16, but Ramón Músquiz, the political chief of the Department of Texas, withheld its publication because it violated colonization laws which guaranteed the settlers security for their persons and property. The news of the decree did alarm the Texans, who petitioned Guerrero to exempt Texas from the operation of the law. On December 2 Agustín Viesca, Mexican minister of relations, announced that no change would be made respecting the status of slavery in Texas. Though the decree was never put into operation, it left a conviction in the minds of many Texas colonists that their interests were not safe under Mexican rule.

By 1810, boldened by the American Revolution and the French Revolution, Mexicans sought their own revolution...but it'd take time. 1810-1821, the War of Independence, was very big...

Henry Louis Gates spoke in-depth on the subject in his documentary entitled "Black in Latin America" when it came to exploring the history of blacks in Mexican history..and being Black Hispanic myself, it's a big deal.

Black in Latin America E03, Mexico and Peru: The Black Grandma in the Closet

Mexico itself seemed to be a land that many Native Americans and Blacks fled to for refuge.

The book "Black Indians" by William Katz is one of the best addressments on the issue around. Although there were many Native Americans who had already been forced out of the south/other areas colonized and forced to relocate out west on reservations (many dying in the process of the journey)m there were others present in the west who had never encountered settlers. ....and this was significant in light of the battles happening in southern territories against both blacks/Native Americans who held their ground. Black Seminoles are one group that comes to mind amongst many others - with people like the legendary resistance fighter Billy Bowlegs II (1810–64) being one prominent example amongst many.

The Seminoles were a union of Southeastern Indian peoples—especially Creeks—who had lost their lands to English colonists and moved into Spanish-controlled Florida, along with independent communities of escaped black slaves, who became known as Black Seminoles. John Horse was a powerful figure in the war that the Seminoles waged with the United States to fend off forced removal from Florida to Oklahoma. Unwilling to accept a restricted life of defeat in Indian Territory, he led a band of Black Seminoles into Mexico, where he died in 1882. There were, of course, many others who resisted/fought when it came to Indian removal...

As William Katz wisely noted, almost all of the slaves who sought the protection of the Seminoles in Florida also left with them for Oklahoma when that was opened up. Many of their descendants are there today, organized as "Freedmen's Bands," and still living under the aegis of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. A few, who left Oklahoma in 1849 with the famous Florida warrior, Cowák:cuchî or Wild Cat, to fight other Indians in Mexico, returned to Texas and their descendants now live in the tiny town of Bracketville, near the Mexican border.”

As Katz explains, Wild Cat led the offshoot Seminoles into Mexico because politically the pro slavery group held sway in Oklahoma in 1849 even though it was originally an area many blacks had fled to/hoped to gain dominance so that slavery wouldn't be so powerful. They were so effective in helping the Mexican President Santa Ana to police the Rio Grande border that the U.S. army sent Captain Frank Perry to negotiate the black Seminoles crossing into Texas in 1870. In return for their young men pacifying the previously uncontrollable Comanche, Kiowa, Apache, United States and Mexican bandits along the United States side of the border, the Seminoles were promised, ”food, necessities and, eventually, good farming land.” ( page 76) “Seminoles remembered signing this ‘treaty’ with Perry, but the piece of paper, which soon became a bone of contention, disappeared. (page 78).

Although many who went to Mexico were blacks/slaves and Natives seeking freedom from colonial expansion, there were MANY men/women in great numbers who moved to the Texas territory as colonizers who came in search of wealth and adventure, eager to grab up the land Mexico was handing out by the acre. To those in the U.S colonies, as far as they were concerned, Mexico and anything West was up for grabs and simply needing to be cultivated...and in doing so, they agreed to convert to Catholicism and become Mexican citizens. Few did either. Once in Texas, they also realized there was much money to be made in Mexico's cotton industry. Their problem of labor involved was quickly solved through slavery which Mexico had banned.

Shocked by the rapidly rising rate of white immigration and disgusted by their use of slavery, the Mexican government started slapping on restrictions, which were ignored. The battle of the Alamo was fought over issues like Federalism, slavery, immigration rights, the cotton industry and above all, money. General Santa Ana arrived at San Antonio; his Mexican army with some justice regarded the Texans as murderous barbarians. Many of the American settlers ("Texians" they were called) were Southerners who believed in and practiced slavery. ..with them, again, seeing expansion west as a means of promoting their livelihood of slavery..

Through a series of battles on April 21, 1836 Santa Anna's force of about 1,200 was over-run in broad daylight by a sudden attack on its camp by Sam Houston's entire Texan force, then numbering 918. With the Texan camp only about a mile away over open terrain, Santa Anna had apparently posted no sentinels before retiring for a siesta and letting his tired troops do the same. The Texans lost nine dead and 30 wounded. Houston, who led from the front, lost two horses and was shot in the foot.

Santa Anna, captured the next day in the bushes, agreed to recognize Texas independence and ordered all Mexican forces to evacuate the lone star state. And as said before, it was anything but "just" in the way things were taken.

• Indians of the Dakotas
• Black Women of the Old West
• USII 4a Part 2 Native Americans
• BSRM Book Review - The Black West
• Black Seminoles -- Gullahs Who Escaped From Slavery
• Indian Nations of Texas - Indian Relations in Texas - Texas State
• First Black President In North America Led Mexico 173 Years Ago
• colonial mexico and independence | colonisation | society | mission ...
• North America's 1st Black President? 100 Amazing Facts About the Negro
• Escaping to Destinations South: Keynote address at the 2012 Undergound Railroad Conference
• The Black West: A Documentary and Pictoral History of the African American Role in the Westward Expansion of the United States

​

All that said, had the South won the Civil War several things could have happened. A less unified America not so bent on "manifest destiny" may not have consolidated its forces in the eradication of the Indian nations..and it's possible slavery would have been abolished anyway as technology replaced manual laborers and the aged slaves became increasingly a financial liability..

 

[Gxg (G²)]

A society based on slavery in an industrial age was not going anywhere. White men who intended to prosper would have to emigrate to where their labor was valuable.

I think it really depends on the issue of how one defines slavery and what plays out. For some mean slavery as in indentured servitude where you work to pay off a debt - or voluntarily choose to stay as one man's slave/servant for life...something both blacks and whites did.

• Slavery in the Bible: Does God Approve of It?
• Does God condone slavery in the Bible? - A Christian Thinktankjavascript:void(0)

Slavery in the sense of being forcibly captured/subjectgated to to whatever others want...or in the sense of how it often appears to go down with human trafficking (i.e. rice farms, children stolen to raise chocholate on cocoa farms, etc.) is ALWAYS an injustice and something that'll never be sustainable. The Bible condemned that system repeatedly - as seen as early as the Exodus out of Egypt with the Hebrews in slavery (if remembering the concept of "Let my People GO!!!").....but as it concerns hiring onself out, that's another issue.

I do think that the way the South developed in the industries it favored made a big difference in its willingness to tolerate slavery. Previously, they used tobbacco - and that was a cash crop. However, it depleted the soil ...and thus, it was getting to the point that something else was needed. Cotton came into view - and that was a big cash crop...but it required many hands. THUS, slaves were seen as the means of operating that industry.

Slavery became the heart of southern colonial society and the economy at the turn of the 18th century. When the Dutch monopoly on the slave trade ended in 1690, British merchants began carrying thousands of slaves from Africa and the Caribbean to the southern colonies to work in the tobacco fields. The English and French forced an astounding six million Africans into slavery. Most went to the West Indies and Brazil, but large numbers did go to the Chesapeake region, perhaps as many as 100,000 in the 1700s. As slaves were imported, and as they increased naturally, the southern colonies evolved from a society with slaves to a slave society.

As tobacco markets grew stronger after 1730 and England signed contracts with France to sell the French as much tobacco as they demanded, the southern colonies growing tobacco increased production to take advantage of the rising prices. In order to preserve and expand their labor system, planters chose not to work their slaves as brutally as masters did in the West Indies. Slave masters in the southern colonies paid attention to their slaves’ health, clothing, and food supply. Not so much from a sense of humanity, but because the masters wanted the slaves to form families and reproduce. This would lessen demand for expensive imported slaves. As a result by the 1750s, American-born slaves outnumbered African slaves in the North American colonies.

Other crops made a difference as well. Between 1700 and 1770, about 270,000 African enslaved were brought to North America where they found themselves on the bottom rung of the social ladder. In the Carolinas, planters searching for a staple crop along the lines of sugar and tobacco found it in rice, which was a staple of West Africa. Carolina planters, with the help of their West African slaves, built enormous rice plantations in the swampy low country. Ironically, slaves from West Africa taught masters how to grow the crop, which required a good deal of expertise. So as English planters developed the region’s economy around this staple crop, slaves provided not only the labor, but the knowledge behind the crop’s success. The rice economy soon overshadowed all other pursuits. A successful rice-based economy meant more slaves. Within a few years Carolina was a bustling colony of rice planters who were importing thousands of slaves from the Caribbean and West Africa. Carolina became a place where the pursuit of profit though rice dominated life, so much so that in 1719, the King of England took over Carolina, made it a royal colony, and split the region in two: South Carolina—where all the rice was produced—and North Carolina where tobacco farming dominated. As a handful of rice planters became the richest men in America, the proportion of slaves in the Carolina lowcountry population rose to eighty percent. Like the Chesapeake, South Carolina became a slave society. But the Carolinas evolved in the eighteenth century to look more like the West Indies than the Chesapeake. Like West Indies planters, Carolina planters chose to leave their fields and slaves in the hands of overseers and live in town.

In addition to economic incentives, racial tensions further solidified the state of slavery in the North American colonies. Specifically, Bacon’s Rebellion pushed the colonials of Virginia and Maryland to use slaves over white indentured servants. In 1676, Virginia’s Governor, William Berkley, grew angry with poor whites on the frontier for raiding Indian settlements. Berkeley wanted to maintain cordial relations with the natives who were selling him deer skins and furs, which he was then exporting to Europe. Frontier settlers, who wanted permission to enslave Indians, fought back by joining with Nathaniel Bacon, a wealthy Englishman who felt he was unjustly being excluded from the Chesapeake political elite.

In many ways, it seems that if the South had won - it'd be largely an agricultural based economy predominantly - much as Latin America and South America was for many places - and yet it'd be a place that had dominance due to the goods they supplied and their trading networks. They would also have it out where they would not necessarily be in a 3rd world status as many Central/South American and West Indian cultures.

As another said best elsewhere on the issue:

I see slavery as an issue that is neither right nor wrong in itself. The problem is, it is extremely easy to abuse the slaves and turn it into a wrong. What happened in the Southern United States is a good example of slavery being a very big wrong. The issue of slavery was so big back then tho, so I do not know the best way that we should have went about it. I do believe tho that it was handled very poorly by the Gov. Though it is clear that the slave system should not have continued.

As for the issue of secession, I believe that the South was in the right on this issue. ....doing a little bit of research, it seems the Southern United States had much more in common with the many Latin American countries than compared to the North, especially New England. It was almost like two civilizations united under one big government, the United States. When the foundations of different parts of a country are so fundamentally different, I think it is natural that they should separate.

 

[Gxg (G²)]

Western expansion depended, ultimately, on the vigorous industry of the north. I don't think history has actually changed the fortunes of either region. The South would still be the region highest in poverty, lowest in education, highest in crime. That demon is still there.

There was actually a lot of the same things you noted with the South happening on the SAME level in the North - from mob riots to murders, harrassment and many things blacks suffered through.

As it is, Western Expansion (which was in connection with Manifest Destiny - #111 ) was not necessarily a GOOD thing since it also relied on exploitation of other groups - and all of that in the NAME of God, despite how corrupt it was and how others were mistreated. Native Americans took the most heat in this - all of that being directly after the Trail of tears. Not many think on how this country was built - and forget that despite all the terms of "Western expansion"/developing America, Europeans/Caucasians weren't native to North America.

Without the immigration that they did, you have this:

​

The ways that development of the land came at the cost of continually immigrating into the land of others is intriguing. Historically, there was systematic eradication of American Indians and breaking of treaties made for them - for with the American Indians, they were like people doing their own thing/feeling caught in the middle. Obviously, The United States was not always divided into the 50 states we know today. Many distinct Indian tribes originally inhabited each of the regions that are now part of the country.

Living on land that other settlers came in, built communities within - and then when those communities got big enough, they began to have arguments on how they didn't want a large government telling them what to do - and yet they understood that you couldn't have a Sovereign nation living within another Sovereign nation.

Because of those realities, even the States trying to secede were willing to do the same things they complained about/crush the American Indians who lived within their areas and yet didn't have the same ideas or concepts about land that they had. To the American Indians, you couldn't buy land since it was a communal resource available for EVERYONE - and even though treaties were made to give them reservations, when a group of settlers found another reason to take more land to benefit them, they were kicked out further.

And with other nations having their own agendas, all of the land purchases were significantly high profile...and the Indian Territory (although limited and at one point set somewhat) continually getting smaller and smaller.

At one point, In 1830, the Indian Removal Act, set forth by president Andrew Jackson, insured that the government had the power they needed to move those Natives remaining east of the Mississippi, either through coercion or force. They typically made offers of land and cash, getting tribal leaders to sign whatever treaty it was that would move their particular tribe. Of course, once they got there, they discovered they had been duped, finding themselves on whatever land had the least value to the U.S. government and its settlers.

​

As of 1828, Indian Territory covered Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska, which also happened to be an integral portion of the Old West. However, despite the term "territory" being in the title, it was not treated as a legal territory, meaning they had no rights to protect their new lands. Instead, settlers of the area could outline a new territory they wished to establish (for instance, Kansas Territory), and get it legally defined as a new territory of the United States, further encroaching on Native lands. ...and things got steadily worse.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 took the remaining areas outside of present-day Oklahoma away from the Natives living there, sqaushing Indian Territory down to one portion of present-day Oklahoma, next to Oklahoma Territory.

When the Civil War began, many Natives fought on the side of the Confederacy, which further wounded them at the end of the war. A law was passed in 1862 that allowed the U.S. government to break treaties with any Indian tribes that had fought with the Confederacy. The U.S. government took this opportunity to stop following the concept of Indian Removal, instead moving on to Assimilation. While this policy of Assimilation paved the way for land allotments, it also shrunk the area of Indian Territory. Adding insult to injury, more tribes were moved into Indian Territory from the plains.

In 1905, the Native population of Indian Territory tried to be legally entered into the union as the state of Sequoyah. When this failed, Oklahoma was instead admitted as one state, in entirety, in 1907. Indian Territory was no more.

__________________
​

Outside of the ways that the Native Americans were harmed by the continual Western expansion, there are other groups often forgotten like the Chinese Americanswere abused during the government building of the transinternational railroad systems throughout the history of the U.S...with many still having their rights consistently ignored by the government.

It's a big deal seeing the first wave of immigration from China to the Pacific coast of the United States. The first sojourners arrived in San Francisco and Los Angeles mainly, in the beginning and into the mid-nineteenth century (the age of the Californios) and their era lasted almost one hundred years, well past the creation of Los Angeles' New Chinatown in the 1930's.​

As historian Suellen Cheng explains in one of her interviews with us, many of these immigrants came from the southeastern area of China, namely Canton or Kwantung in the Pearl River Delta, as well as the rural regions of Toishan, Sam Yup and Chun Song. Known as the sojourners, these immigrants usually came to "Gam Saan" - the West Coast had been dubbed "Gold Mountain" in Cantonese - in search of gold, but most found themselves working on building the railroad. When the Union Pacific tracks were connected with those of the Central Pacific Railroad in 1868, making the Transcontinental Railroad some say it was Chinese workers who laid the last rails somewhere in Utah. Prejudice against the sojourners led to anti-immigration legislation, culminating with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 which made it almost impossible for Chinese nationals to enter and work in the United States legally. Smugglers had transported illegal workers to work on the Transcontinental and Pacific railroads, and the Exclusion Act prevented many of these immigrants from bringing their families into the U.S. once they had settled. The use of cheap immigrant labor was seldom (if ever) addressed when the workers did their railroad jobs in excellence...but were not paid fair wages. (more here, here and here ), although it changed later in some ways.

 

[I Eat Pie]

Showing off your body is far more Christian than owning human slaves.

No it's not. Showing your body is a sin, but slavery is allowed according to the Bible.

 

[Adaephon]

No it's not. Showing your body is a sin, but slavery is allowed according to the Bible.

If you ignore the entire New Testament, and any sense of nuance, in your attempt to defend a racist abomination, maybe.

 

[Gxg (G²)]

And let's not be naive. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely," and given absolute power over human beings, there was no perversion imaginable that slave owners did not commit against their slaves.

Western expansion depended, ultimately, on the vigorous industry of the north. I don't think history has actually changed the fortunes of either region. The South would still be the region highest in poverty, lowest in education, highest in crime. That demon is still there.

Historically, there's something to be said on how the reality of Western Expansion was always connected to the history of the South which helped to set a foundation. I think it's interesting to consider the history behind why the South may've been more desperate in wanting seperation than the North...for they seemed to have come from sharper backgrounds.

There were many sent to places in the South from the British Empire like Georgia, as they were sent there due to being prisoners and folks who either committed crimes or had enormous debts they couldn't pay off.....and yet when they got there, they made an enormous economical giant that competed with the empire's interest.

British used North America as a penal colony both in the usual sense and through the system of indentured servitude from the 1610s to the American Revolution. Convicts would be transported by merchants and auctioned off to plantation owners upon arrival in the colonies. It is estimated that some 50,000 British convicts were sent to colonial America, representing perhaps one-quarter of all British emigrants during the 18th century. The reason than the ship Mayflower could reach the United States without restriction from Britain was because the land was not 'the land of opportunity' yet. Rather, North America was a land of wretched people, who were almost castigated by being transported to such a distant place from Britain.

As time passed, the United States lost its purpose as a prison, but still indentured servitude existed to continue to provide the labor for the colonies. Among many American colonies of Britain, especially Georgia served its role as a penal colony. When that avenue closed in the 1780s after the American Revolution, Britain began using parts of what is now known as Australia as penal settlements. Some of these included Norfolk Island, Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) and New South Wales. But the British still felt that American territory should've stayed in the position it was.

And when success started to develop, part of the British mindset was that they should still "pay off their debt" via taxes - even if they were allowed a greater level of independence with what they set up when in exile. After the French-Indian war, the British were very strapped for cash due to how much heavy borrowing had come to finance the war....and thus, they looked to their own colonists as a means of handling things. Having far-flung colonial possessions (besides serving as a penal colony) was to generate wealth for the mother country and the private companies working there.

Of course, it's not argued that all the colonists were "prisoners" - but for many who later rebelled, it is odd to consider their actions in light of their roots/ancestors who came over. When the British strategy in America concentrated on a campaign in the southern colonies (as said best in Southern Campaigns of the Revolutionary War ) - as the British commanders saw the "southern strategy" as a more viable plan since the south was perceived as being more strongly Loyalist - prison debt and penal colony backgrounds were not forgotten.

For reference:

• Exploring Corrections in America - Page 33
• Pushes & Pulls: Why Do People Migrate? - Page 16
• Prison & Slavery - A Surprising Comparison - Page 4
• Australia and the American Revolution - The Order of the Founders ...
• Sweet Land of Security: America's Responses to Terror--From the
• TheCommon Law Abroad: Constitutional and Legal Legacy of the ... - Page 317
• Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: An International ... - Volume 1 - Page 465

From a British perspective, to have prisoners/British citizens who should've technically be doing time choosing to rebel against their authority was one reason amongst many as to why they felt the Revolution was without proper foundation. The war of independence was declared by the governments of the colonies. In most cases, these were elected governments, often with leaders appointed by England.

And with the Southern States, they were already coming from a struggling background where there were not as many resources. Thus, as a result, others ended up having to find more innovative means of production - and sadly, with slavery being coupled with agriculture/farming to make development possible, there was a perspective developing from the "ground up" and not wanting that taken away by the North that didn't have

In addition to this, going out WEST was seen as a means of expanding the power of SLAVE-Holding States so that they could increase their power-base. That was something which served to inspire the North to go out West as well since they did not want to be beaten - despite the fact that other groups were harmed in the process. Specifically, one must study the Mexica-American war to see some more in why the South fueled Western Expansion in addition to the North for the Wrong reasons. With the Mexican American War, Abraham Lincoln called the war "unconstitutional"...despite what James K. Polk felt.

The Mexican-American War

As another noted best (for brief excerpt):

In the United States, victory in the war brought a surge in patriotism as the acquisition of new western lands &#8211; the country had also acquired the southern half of the Oregon Country in 1846 &#8211; seemed to fulfill citizens' belief in their country's Manifest Destiny. While Ralph Waldo Emerson rejected war "as a means of achieving America's destiny," he accepted that "most of the great results of history are brought about by discreditable means." The war made a national hero of Zachary Taylor, a Southern Whig, who was elected president in the election of 1848. However, this period of national euphoria would not last long. The war had been widely supported in the southern states but largely opposed in the northern states. This division largely developed from expectations of how the expansion of the United States would affect the issue of slavery. At the time, Texas recognized the institution of slavery, but Mexico did not. Many Northern abolitionists viewed the war as an attempt by the slave-owners to expand slavery and assure their continued influence in the federal government. Henry David Thoreau wrote his essay Civil Disobedience and refused to pay taxes because of this war.​

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There's no escaping the fact that the U.S-Mexican War was connected deeply to the expansion of slavery

• Mexican War
• The Hispanic Experience - Stolen Birthright
• The War Between the United States and Mexico - PBS
• Consequences of the Mexican War « The Historic Present
• The U.S.-Mexican War . The Aftermath of War . A War of Violence
• Reclaiming Their Stolen Birthright &#8211; Mexicans in the American Southwest

On a side note, it is sad to consider that many of the things blacks experienced in the negative (i.e. beatings, lynchings, mob violence, etc.) after the Civil-War era (as well as during/before) were also experienced by other groups like Hispanics - showing shared connection in suffering - and for more, one can go to The Law of the Noose: A History of Latino Lynching - Harvard Civil . That said, as another noted best elsewhere, had the South won the Civil War, several things could have happened -one of them being a less unified America not so bent on "Manifest Destiny" (and thus avoiding many of the expansionist errors that came with it) ...and another being that a less unified America would not have consolidated its forces in the eradication of the Indian nations and further pushing Native Americans out of territory they had been forced into. Another development may've been that the Agricultural South, having more in common with Mexico than the Industrialized North, would probably have strengthened relations with that nation and consequently increasing the divide between North and South..even though Mexico had essentially be a land of freedom for Blacks/Native Americans fleeing there since slavery was banned there ( as said earlier in #33 )..leading to the possibility that the SOuthern States would've had to seriously consider either altering some of their practices or finding significant areas of compromise. . It's possible attempts at the westward expansion would have still happened, although it's likely that it may have been delayed for another 20 or more years....with the territories with Freed Blacks/American Indians being able to develop more in power so as to be able to fight equally with those expanding. Expansion would have to allow for something new to develop out of compromise/respect rather than running over others ...

Going even further into the early 20th century, it could easily have been the case that the American colonies would've chosen to be exceptionally isolationist - perhaps more than it was in our timeline - due to how its influence in the Western Hemisphere would be weakened because of the divisions...and the threat of other nations coming in to subvert things would always be prominent. Some may worry on slavery - but it's possible that forced slavery would have been abolished anyway as technology gradually replaced manual laborers ..and the aged slaves became increasingly a financial liability.

 

[I Eat Pie]

If you ignore the entire New Testament, and any sense of nuance, in your attempt to defend a racist abomination, maybe.

I'm not defending slavery. I'm just letting him know that what he said was wrong.

 

[Gxg (G²)]

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Interesting picture, as it reminds me of all the ways Christ weeps over the world he made - and is grieved, just as Genesis 6 notes when it says the Lord was grieved he made man when man was wicked.