What was the argument for slavery?

[Yorkshire_terrier]

:?: In your opinion what was the argument for slavery? :?:

[JoelHenderson]

First, let me state there is no good argument for slavery.
I agree, but that belief is in the minority: most people-- both in America and the World-- believe that it's ok to enslave people under various circumstances, such as punishment for a crime, the military draft, compulsory school-attendance, jury-duty etc. Those are all forms of slavery or involuntary servitude.
Likewise, many nations have outright chattel slavery, such as Sudan, where slaves are still bought and sold on the open market; however Sudan is nevertheless the chair-nation of the UN Human Rights Council
Finally, all totalitarian nations-- including the Soviet Union-- claim every single person in them as a slave.
And technically, every American is also a slave, but is simply on their own recognizance until called by the government, or released from citizenship.

So as you see, the majority who claims "freedom" are a bunch of hypocrites.

The South, however, never claimed such universal suffrage: nor did the North; a man's wife and children were always considered his property, and likewise slavery was legal in every state in 1776.

Likewise, individual liberty is a very recent concept: prior to 1776, there was no such thing as individual liberty as a national policy; rather, people lived collectively as a group, under an "estate" system. The Ruling Class wasn't a bunch of lazy parasites and tyrants as they are often caricatured by historical illiterates today, but were simply proven capable of governing a vast estate competently; for this reason, they weren't allowed to sell the land they governed, but only govern it in trust-- they didn't own it.
This was the aristocratic system, i.e. "rule by the best," and was handed down from ancient civiizations that developed this system.
Practical democracy was developed only during the Renaissance-era by 17th-century Scottish political philosophers-- which ultimately emerged in England of that century, and later progressed in English colonies in the next. However no state was bound by these ideals-- or anything else, since each was a sovereign nation unto itself.

At the time of the Civil War the argument for slavery was both economic and religious. The greatest argument was economic. The economy of the Southern states was agrarian based and required large amounts of manual labor to sustain. While a relatively small minority of whites owned slaves in the South in 1860, the majority of the white Southern population understood the impact of losing slavery on their economic well being.
Not quite; there was not so much the risk of losing slavery, but representation as the Republicans illegally banned slavery in the territories in order to add new states for their side only, so as to grant them a permanent majority in Congress-- and hence total control of the federal government.
In short, the Republicans were angling for power so as to rob the South of both taxation and representation.

The External slave trade had ended nearly a half century before the war, meaning importation of slaves from outside of the boundaries of the United States was no longer legal. There was, however, a growing internal slave trade. The Southern states were dependent upon slave labor to process their primary products of cotton and tobacco.

This goes against all reason, since the Confederate Constitution expressly forbade the importation of slaves.

The Northern states were also dependent on the Southern economy to supply the raw materials for a growing industrial base and for the taxes collected from the Southern states. While it seemed simple to outlaw slavery, it would have meant economic hardship to many who could not see an economic replacement for slave labor.
Abolitionists were a definite minority in the North; the Republicans embraced them only because they could not form a permanent majority without them.

Many Southern landholders knew that technology would eventually lead to a replacement of slavery. There had been several referendums to abolish slavery brought to the legislatures. Nearly 30 years before the war one of these failed to pass by a handful of votes in Virginia. The movement was tabled for a revote, which was to occur in the 1860s. It is very likely that in Virginia at least, slavery would have been abolished without the war to do so.
Actually, abolition itself would have spelled the end of slavery in less than a decade, if left alone: the most able-bodied and productive slaves on the northern border-states would escape to freedom in days, leaving slave-owners to care for only the disabled and dependent, non-productive slaves; this would force them to demand emancipation-laws, at which point they would re-join the Union for economic benefit.
This would in turn create a "Domino Effect," as the next states on the new Union border would likewise be forced to emancipate.

This was the argument of the Southern states - to be left alone to determine on a state by state basis when and how to abolish the "peculiar institution" of slavery. The argument of many in the Northern states was slavery is immoral and should be abolished immediately.
Only a minority demanded this; the majority simply wanted the right to raise taxes indefinitely. Likewise, federal abolition required billions of dollars in compensation-- which wasn't likely forthcoming from the majority.

When Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860, the Southern states saw this as the tipping point.
Not so simple. Lincoln and the Republicans openly plotted to overturn the Supreme Court, once it ruled agianst them in Dred Scott; prior to this, they swore to submit to to the Court's decision in that case, but threatened to declare war on the South if it tried to secede in response.
Once Dred Scott came down on the side of the South, the Republicans broke their word and plotted to overturn the Court through superior numbers; the Republicans did not seek to abolish slavery where it existed, but only to prevent its expansion into the territories, in order to give them a permanent majority in the Legislature and Executive branches-- i.e. to subvert the Constitution by superior numbers. THIS is why the South seceded-- bad faith by the Republican-Whig mercantile regime.


In the 1800s there were some slaves who were able to earn some money on the side and eventually purchase their freedom. There were even some blacks who owned slaves.

And whites who were slaves-- as well as Indians who owned and were slaves. In fact, the first slaves in American were white; black slaves didn't appear until 10 years later.
As the economy progressed, slaves had to be more educated and skilled, and therefore more in demand; this required them to be paid in order to motivate them. Like any agrarian-economy, simple manual-labor gave way to artisanship.

Many Southern slave owners viewed their slaves as lesser beings, however, as persons not capable of self governance and requiring a "benevolent" master as head of their family.

At the time, science failed to discern nature from nurture; Africa was the most arid and isolated continent of note, and so failed most to develop beyond much beyond paleolithic tribalism, lacking development of money or trade, and still practicing chattel slavery, often traded for manual labor in exchange for much-needed supplies. This gave great to the African slave-trade with the discovery of the New World-- however only 5% of the trans-Atlantic shipments came to the modern United States. The other nations abolished slavery simply because it was unprofitable in the absence of free-markets, and in the presence of abundant native-labor; in contrast, Native Americans were far fewer in comparison-- while white segregation prevented intermarriage with them, leading to mass-extinction from normal European illnesses, to which the Native Americans had no natural immunity-- and unlike the natives of other nations, could not inherit through intermarriage.


The above understanding of the situation is, of course, open to debate. This is the understanding I have from what I have read from the period. I don’t believe anyone today in the United States would support slavery, or even attempt to justify it based on the arguments give above.

Methinks thou doth protest too much; people are quick to accept, rationalize and defend cultural norms based based on summary reasons, and at most will only dissent when it's popular to do so. The draft, jury-duty, compulsory school-attendance, and even income-taxes are forms of slavery that people accept and even defend-- even when they may personally disagree with them; and it's only holier-than-thou ypocrisy that causes people to most loudly condemn others, for things that they'd be the first do themselves in the same circumstances.