The Founding Fathers also believed that slavery would die out on its own--and they were terribly wrong. Although the economic value of slavery was degrading in the 1850s, it wasn't collapsing and importance of slavery to Southern society was becoming more entrenched with every passing year.
It was a cancer that had to be burned out. I don't see any other way. And as a Southerner and descendant of Confederate veterans, I am so very glad that the South lost. The worst possible outcome for the South in the Civil War would have been victory.
A Glorious Union imagines a Civil War in which the North wins more quickly. It's good.
I vaguely remember that one member of the Constitutional Convention proposed an amendment to prohibit slavery west of the Appalachians. It was shot down. But let's say that it was passed in exchange for further protection of the international slave trade. Then the expansion of slave power could have been inhibited.
That's the only way that I could imagine slavery not growing in the United States and it's pretty far-fetched. Either a civil war or peaceful separation were inevitable.
An independent Confederacy would have given up on formal slavery by no later than the 1890s due to international pressure (c.f. slavery in Brazil). Informal peonage could have continued, though.
I engage in very little readers' advisory. But a readers' advisory reference interview conducted a librarian who really knows that specialty is a sight to behold.
It was a cancer that had to be burned out. I don't see any other way. And as a Southerner and descendant of Confederate veterans, I am so very glad that the South lost. The worst possible outcome for the South in the Civil War would have been victory.
I vaguely remember that one member of the Constitutional Convention proposed an amendment to prohibit slavery west of the Appalachians. It was shot down. But let's say that it was passed in exchange for further protection of the international slave trade. Then the expansion of slave power could have been inhibited.
That's the only way that I could imagine slavery not growing in the United States and it's pretty far-fetched. Either a civil war or peaceful separation were inevitable.
An independent Confederacy would have given up on formal slavery by no later than the 1890s due to international pressure (c.f. slavery in Brazil). Informal peonage could have continued, though.
I engage in very little readers' advisory. But a readers' advisory reference interview conducted a librarian who really knows that specialty is a sight to behold.
It functioned the first time, anyway. The Turtle failed only because the bomb wouldn't attach.
Intoxication is the mother of invention.