Firelock76Certainly there would have been a continuance of the "staus quo" trade situation between the South and Europe, but that would have changed after a while.
I agree, Wayne. Had there been no American Civil War there is no reason to believe trading relations between the Confederate States of American and Britain and Europe would have changed. As it happened in 1861 there was a cotton glut in Britain so prices were very low. However, over the long run as the market picked up trading would no doubt have resumed.
In 1860 Britain obtained about 80 per cent of its raw cotton from the US. The trade had been very profitable to both sides. With reduction or elimination of the tariff the true price of cotton to the British would have fallen.
Personally I would not venture a guess on the "pariah nation" issue. However, there is no reason to believe that there would be any change in the mutually beneficial long term trading relations.
John
John, I'm pretty sure "pariah nation" status would have happened. Reason being, as the Southern cotton began to run out in Europe due to the American war, the British and French found a very good substitute in Egyptian cotton, and it came from a closer source as well. So, a "clean up your act or we'll do business elswhere" situation might very well have developed as the 20th Century approached. Again, just a guess, but I could see it happening.
Wayne
Firelock76as the Southern cotton began to run out in Europe due to the American war, the British and French found a very good substitute in Egyptian cotton, and it came from a closer source as well.
Without looking up a lot of references, my own information is that Egyptian cotton was always valued by the British and French. It is long staple cotton similar to the Sea Island cotton grown on the coast of Georgia and the Carolinas. It is strong and has a smooth silky finish. Even today you won't find any better cotton goods than those made from Egyptian cotton.
But the short staple southern cotton was cheap. It grew so easily in the American south that it was a noxious weed before the cotton gin. It was more difficult to weave as the threads were prone to breaking. However, over the years plantation owners used selective breeding to improve their short stable cotton and by 1860 there were much improved varieties. Because it was so cheap the British sold a lot of it in India where many people were very poor.
I've also read that the British tried cotton grown in India but they could never get the quality they could get from the US.
Finally, we are talking about trading relations had the war never occurred. That means there would have been no blockade and no barrier to trade.
OK Overmod, good points, so let me answer in turn.
You're speaking of the world and midset of the year 1860. However, remember things change over time, societies look at things differently as the years go on. Slavery existed in all Thirteen Colonies at the time of the Amercan Revolution, but by the end of the War of 1812 it had been abolished in seven of them. At first there was the realization of the fact it didn't pay, then the idea it was in "bad taste" and then eventually, morally repugnant. The British didn't see anything wrong with slavery in the mid 18th Century, but had abolished their own slave trade by 1807 in spite of fierce opposition from the Liverpool shipping magnates, and then, as you said, abolished it completely by 1835.
As far as Christian justification of slavery, remember the biggest proponants of same were the Southern slaveholders, not anyone else. They were just fooling themselves of course. There's little evidence anyone else bought into that, at least by the mid 19th Century. In fact, most anti-slavery societys were Christian in basis. The Quakers were some of the most militant, providing a lot of stations on the Underground Railroad.
As far as international pressure, remember I said in the beginning I was making a guess. Just because it never needed to happen doesn't mean it would NEVER have happened. We just don't, and never will know.
And what happened after Reconstruction? Well, it happened because Reconstruction was a total foul-up from start to finish. Post-war planning just never seems to have been an American strong suit, the occupations of Germany and Japan after WW2 were the exception, not the rule. There were no plans for what was to be done with over four million former slaves who were for the most part uneducated and without skills. The alienation and disenfranchisement of the surviving Southern upper classes in spite of what Lincoln wanted was a mistake, it left a legacy of bitterness even worse than the war did. In fact, Reconstruction was such an embarrasment it was only a "blip" in most history books until fairly recently, you had to dig to find anything about it at all.
Just to reiterate: Things change, people change, philosophies change. What one nation's government finds acceptable in one decade it may not find acceptable two or three decades later. What a society finds acceptable in one decade it may not find acceptable two or three decades later, or vice versa. Who knows what some future society looking back on ours might think of what we accepted as the norm in day to day living?
By the way, what happened to Apartheid in South Africa anyway?
John, the reason I brought up Egyptian cotton was IF the British and the French took the moral high ground with an independent Confederacy in an effort to get them to abolish slavery there was an alternative to Southern cotton should they have chosen to boycott it. That's all.
Firelock76 Post-war planning just never seems to have been an American strong suit, the occupations of Germany and Japan after WW2 were the exception, not the rule.
Post-war planning just never seems to have been an American strong suit, the occupations of Germany and Japan after WW2 were the exception, not the rule.
Post-war planning was nobody's strong suit - the Treaty of Versailles is a good example. While Reconstruction was horribly botched, there was at least an intent to rebuild (unfortunately with little follow through), where the Versailles Treaty was more an act of retribution.
The history of the Versailles Treaty was very fresh in the minds of the US government as Truman and most of the senior officers in the military were WW1 vets, giving them strong incentive to avoid a repeat of that disaster.
- Erik
Erikem, I'm hanging my head in shame! HOW could I have forgotten the Treaty of Versailles? And me a student of the First World War as well!
Certainly the Versailles Treaty was an act of retribution. What makes it really incomprehensable was that Woodrow Wilson signed off on it after having lived through Reconstruction himself (as a boy in Georgia) and seeing first-hand what bad post-war planning can do. Go figure.
There's some thought that Wilson contracted a bad case of the 1918 flu while in Paris - he certainly was ill for a period. The speculation is that whatever he came down with weakened him to the point that he had no strength left to argue against the French plans for the treaty. My understanding was that a lot of the people back in the US circa 1919 didn't like the way the treaty came out and that may be related as to why the US stayed out of the League of Nations.
Then again Germany made two horrendous mistakes in 1917, one being provoking the US into war with the Zimmerman telegram and two sending Lenin to Russia in 1917.
Wayne,
Without the American Civil War why would France and Britain suddenly take the high moral ground and refuse to import slave grown cotton when they had never done so before? Especially in Britain spinning and weaving cotton were a very important part of the economy. Also, had they declined to accept slave grown cotton their own goods would have suffered because the US would have had a lot less to pay for them.
In addition was there enough Egyptian cotton available to take the place of American cotton? And could they have gotten that cotton at a low enough price to make it worthwhile? The fact that cloth made with American cotton was very cheap was important to a lot of their customers who could not afford more expensive merchandise.
During the war the Confederates used cotton bonds to trade with Britain and France and these cotton bonds to be paid for in future delivery of cotton were very popular in both countries. The Confederates had no problem in getting whatever supplies they needed by offering cotton bonds. So any revulsion with slavery would have had to come at a much later time if it would come at all.
Finally, after the cotton gin was invented cotton plantations worked by slaves became very profitable. Before the war hugh fortunes were made planters. Slavery was so profitable that Abe Lincoln could not persuade Union slave states to accept compensated emancipation even when he pointed out that realistically slavery was going to have to end due to the "friction and abrasion of war." The cotton gin and the enormous profit it enabled plantation owners to obtain changed the whole perspective on slavery.
Why would Britain and France take the moral high ground concerning American slavery? Why did they take the moral high ground concerning their own use of slaves?
There was opposition to American slavery in the British body politic during the 1860's, from the Whigs (or Liberals, if they were calling themselves that at the time), also from the growing labor movement. I'm not sure about France, but with the literary lights of the time such as Victor Hugo I'd have to believe they were in opposition to it as well, maybe not a major voice, but a growing one.
Look, what I'm trying to say is even if the governments of Britain and France didn't give a *** about American slavery at the time a future election could change that. A "sea change" in public opinion could change that. Anything could change that. And that's all I'm trying to say.
In the end it didn't happen. History took a course we DON'T have to guess about. We took care of the problem ourselves, although it took 600,000 dead to solve it.
Firelock76 Look, what I'm trying to say is even if the governments of Britain and France didn't give a *** about American slavery at the time a future election could change that. A "sea change" in public opinion could change that. Anything could change that. And that's all I'm trying to say.
Well, Wayne, anywhere in this life things can change. But I believe that just as there is physical inertia where things once put in motion stay in motion in the absence of other forces and things at rest stay at rest in the absence of other forces so also there is social inertia.
But you point out that in Britain and France there were other forces acting on the body politic. And those other forces were not favorable to slavery so that as time went on the CSA may well have found itself increasingly isolated in a disapproving world.
During the early part of the war in Britain questions were raised about dealing with the Confederacy because of slavery. However, those questions were answered by people who pointed out that slavery existed and was perfectly legal in the north as well as the south so the war could not possibly be about slavery. In Britain there was also a moral concern as well as a business about the fact that so many people were dying in the war and this was behind the British considerations of suggesting they broker and armistice. France was ready to go with the armistice but would not act without Britain. And Abe Lincoln was well aware of the British deliberations. He did not want an armistice and he did not want an armistice proposed because if he refused it that would give the British and French a reason to violate the blockade. That led him to issue the Emancipation Proclamation in order to make the war a war about slavery so the offer to broker an armistice would not happen. And he succeeded.
But in our hypothet there would be no blockade. And while there was a moral movement against slavery in the British working class that movement had never been so strong as to even reduce our cotton trade with Britain. And the British workers in the spinning and weaving mills in Lancashire were able to resolve the issue sufficiently to earning their living with slave grown cotton.
So it seems to me that the economic issues in France and Britain exerted a pretty robust force on the anti slavery elements of the population to get them to accept slave grown cotton even if they didn't like it.
And if we put ourselves in the shoes of the British workers in the mills who were able to maintain their homes and families provided they were working I can understand why, although they disliked slavery, were not inclined to put their jobs on the line because of that. And with not Civil War I think things would have continued as they had been before.
Firelock76In the end it didn't happen. History took a course we DON'T have to guess about. We took care of the problem ourselves, although it took 600,000 dead to solve it.
Like you, I learned in school that about 600,000 died in the American Civil War. Recently the New York Times reported that number has stood for over a century but recent research and uncovered a total of about 750,000 deaths. Here is the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/science/civil-war-toll-up-by-20-percent-in-new-estimate.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
The number becomes mind numbing.
erikemThere's some thought that Wilson contracted a bad case of the 1918 flu while in Paris - he certainly was ill for a period
That is widely reported by historians and no doubt it is true but there may be more to it.
Several years ago I heard a lecture by a history professor from Rutgers (which is down the road from Princeton). This was at the Princeton Adult School which is run by the Princeton Public School Board. Anyway, he told us that it was well known that when Wilson was President of Princeton he visited prostitutes in Trenton. He contracted a sexually transmitted disease -- probably syphilis -- and that was part of the medical problem he experienced in France. However, such is the prestige of Woodrow Wilson (he went on to say) that this has never been reported in a history book and he himself would not publish the story.
You can take that for what it is worth, Erik.
And, I have read, comparatively recently, (and I do not remember jsut where) that when he proposed marriage to Edith Bolling Galt, she was so startled that she fell out of the bed they were in.
Johnny
Well, the reason I've read Wilson signed on the the Versaille Treaty was it was the price for the other nations to adopt Wilson's pet project of the League of Nations, and he signed onto it in spite of his better judgement. I can't help but think if another negotiator, say Teddy Roosevelt had been in Wilson's place he would have said to France and Britain, privately of course, "Look boys, we were at war with the Kaiser's government, not the German people. The Kaiser's gone, but you're still making war on his people, and that's wrong. If you try to go through with this I'll walk out of this conference, tell the world why I'm walking out, and call in the markers on all the money you people owe us! Wise up! You're sowing the seeds of another war!"
Wilson could be full of himself, of course. It was British Prime Minister Lloyd-George who said sitting between Premier Clemanceau of France and President Wilson was like sitting between Napoleon and Jesus Christ.
Oh, and John, if that professor who gave the lecture said everybody knew Wilson was "gettin' jiggy" with certain citizens of Trenton, chances are the prof was the only person who knew it.
Like you said, I'll take it for what it's worth, which probably isn't much.
Firelock76Well, the reason I've read Wilson signed on the the Versaille Treaty was it was the price for the other nations to adopt Wilson's pet project of the League of Nations, and he signed onto it in spite of his better judgement.
HUH?????
Wilson signed off on Versailles because he believed all the bullcrap that Lloyd George, Clemenceau et al. were feeding him. Can you imagine he would sign off on anything so revanchist otherwise? Or knowingly accede to precisely the kind of agreement he'd already said was the lead-in to the War already??
League of Nations was dead in the water in Congress anyway (and I knew one of the Cabot great-granddaughters who explained some of the 'inside knowledge'!) Perhaps Wilson still thought during the peace conference that the League would be approved as policy -- but there was certainly no indication I have ever seen, looking at the primary sources, that there really was.
If you can find a copy of John Maynard Keynes' "Economic Consequences of the Peace" you'll be a lot closer to understanding where and how things went off the trolley. (I find I can't really blame the Germans for dragging out that *** railroad car when the French knuckled under in 1940!)
I can't help but think if another negotiator, say Teddy Roosevelt had been in Wilson's place he would have said to France and Britain, privately of course, "Look boys, we were at war with the Kaiser's government, not the German people. The Kaiser's gone, but you're still making war on his people, and that's wrong. If you try to go through with this I'll walk out of this conference, tell the world why I'm walking out, and call in the markers on all the money you people owe us! Wise up! You're sowing the seeds of another war!"
And of course those *** European 'statesmen' would have listened carefully and done exactly what he wanted? I would suspect that such an attitude, no matter how truthfully expressed, would have led to ... well, precisely the sort of crap duplicity that the European Allied leaders actually engaged in. Be interesting, too, to have seen what the economic response of such a posture would have been.
Yes, we and the world are probably much the poorer for a strong hand not being taken by us. Another book (admittedly better as an inspiration than something actually to read) is Lippman's 'Drift and Mastery' -- Versailles was the time to assert mastery, and for whatever reason Wilson and Cabot et al. muffed the peace. (Much as Bilbo Baggins muffed the peace dividend and the end of the Cold War ... but that is a different story! ;-} )
There is a curious historiographical fad over the past few years to make Wilson look as bad, evil, fascistic and what-all as possible. Some of this is good, because true. But not when conducted as a systematic revisionistic agenda. (Cf. Gar Alperovitz and 'others of that ilk' leading up to the propaganda about enhanced-radiation weapons).
Why is Wilson any different from FDR and Lucy?
RME
OvermodOh, and John, if that professor who gave the lecture said everybody knew Wilson was "gettin' jiggy" with certain citizens of Trenton, chances are the prof was the only person who knew it.[
That occurred to me, Overmod. That's why I said people should make their own assessments of the story as you are doing.
Well, Overmod me old son, what I said about Wilson giving in on the Treaty is what I've read in my studies of the First World War and it's aftermath, so that's the way it is. Certainly I have to believe he was a bit of a naif on European politics, but a supposed history professor like himself should have known better any way you look at it. The owners manual for the presidency is the history bookshelf at the local library.
And I can't think Wilson thought the Leauge was doomed here in the US, he fought like blazes and gave himself a stroke "whistle stopping" around the country trying to change public opinion but of course in the end it did no good. After the war the american people thought we'd been sold a bill of goods by the Allies, and when the only thing we got out of the war was out, well, here comes the "Return to Normalcy."
There's been alot of nasty stuff said about Wilson in the past few years but in the end I still think he was a fundamentally decent man. That's from a conservative by the way.
Firelock76There's been alot of nasty stuff said about Wilson in the past few years but in the end I still think he was a fundamentally decent man. That's from a conservative by the way.
Actually I think Woodrow Wilson was pretty conservative although I'm not sure people on a railroad forum would agree with me. I didn't intend to cast an aspersion by talking about his visits to Trenton. In those days that was just the way things were with Princeton men.
OvermodWhy is Wilson any different from FDR and Lucy?
Well, when FDR rode the train to see his fancy lady he had not taken the railroad away from its owners first so his privacy was less assured.
John WRActually I think Woodrow Wilson was pretty conservative although I'm not sure people on a railroad forum would agree with me. I didn't intend to cast an aspersion by talking about his visits to Trenton. In those days that was just the way things were with Princeton men.
Trust me when I tell you Princeton men don't go to Trenton. They go to New York or Philadelphia -- or to the circuit of colleges in the North in the fall, and in the South in winter and spring... ;-}
(I can provide you with pointers for cutting if you want them, but Lady would not like that AT ALL.)
Wilson was the antithesis of conservatism as practiced at the time. That was part of his problem. He did not see the difference between correct action to show independence from machine thinking and high-handed action to advance the progress of Col. House's war.
Yes, he ran around trying to get the League approved, and this at the height of his God-like mandate to teach them scruffy furriners how to stop feudin' and live in peace. The problem is that NONE OF HIS WHISTLE-STOPPING AFFECTED CONGRESS. Whether or not there was any love lost between Cabot et al. and Wilson, it's pretty clear that the isolationist view of Avoiding Any Future European Land War would win out over Taking Point With American Lives For Someone Else's Interest (which is one of the reasons for the resurgence of radical Socialism in the period after 1919 ... and let us not forget our little White Russian adventure, still purportedly going on as Wilson did his tour... but that's another topic.)
There is no question he was a fundamentally decent man. So was Jefferson Davis. The measure of a leader in wartime, though, is how he copes with things under pressure. Neither Wilson or Davis could refrain from high-handed -- almost literally Stalinist, in my humble opinion, if you have insight into Stalin's actual motivation -- action based on little more than being powerful and nettled.
Personally, I dislike organized hate propaganda. And brown-shirted patter-rollers. And all the rest of the expedient toolbox contents. There, I've said it.
Princeton men and these days Princeton women certainly go to New York, Philadelphia and other places. But I do understand that for certain purposes they also went to Trenton and the still go there.
The places are, after all, very close to each other.
I could care less about Princeton. I went to Glassboro State. Our motto? "We never heard of you either!"
Now it's Rowan State, so the currrent "Glassboro" students never heard of Glassboro State for that matter.
I lived in Hopewell Township, about 10 miles down the road from Princeton, for 10 years, Wayne. That's when I became really aware of if.
I learned Princeton is one of two things: Either it is a school that provides a rigorous education for our very best and brightest young people all of whom are highly motivated and go on to positions of leadership in the society or
It is a school that has a wide variety of students ("diverse student body" is the way Princeton puts it) who go there and spend 4 years semi inebriated and/or using other recreational substances.
I'm not sure which is true.
Which is true John? Probably a little of both, although I've never heard of Princeton being described as a "Party College."
When I ran into Glassboro alumnus in the 80's who was there around ten years after I left, and he heard I was there in the 70's, he said "The 70's? Oh wow, s#x, d###s, and rock and roll!" I just said "Huh?" somehow I missed it. News to me.
Brown-shirted patter-rollers? Never heard 'em called that before! Say what? By the way, speaking of Princeton, I worked at Vassar College for 11 years from 1980 to 1991. Full of blue-bloods, mostly female. And mostly very attractive. There was some kind of program in effect for the academic year of 1987. Girls would not be accepted for enrollment unless they had 36Cs or better. Good times! It sure seemed like there was such a program. We (the boiler house crew, plumbers, steamfitters, groundskeepers and electricians) weren't complaining.
I had a classmate in high school who went to Vassar as his first choice. I couldn't figure that out, and asked him. His logic, as yours, was spotless.
Never met a girl from Vassar I didn't like, either. There were three adventuresses that regularly came down to see US, back in the day.
JR: It's not 'either'. My ex-roommate was what we'd now call a 'pothead', was summa in the engineering school, and then went on to a senior position at DuPont. Plenty of drinking, but it never got in the way of the academics -- at least for us it didn't.
We had heard all sorts of propaganda about that color-of-horsesh*t school (if you haven't actually seen manure, it's big and green, not brown) being a top drinking school. We had a couple of Dartmouth guys in one night, so we thought we'd see how the REAL drinking was done. Upshot: not only did we drink them.... literally! ... under the table, but my lady friends from Smith and Columbia ALSO drank them under the table. Some legends die hard, I guess...
Difference, perhaps, is that Princetonians, at least in my day, had some discretion. B6 and zinc and the art of the power-boot will get you a long way. Not drinking low-grade stuff helps, too. (Recipe for the Trinity: one part grain punch, two parts Rose's lime juice, one part straight grain (in those days, Everclear was 190) and a lump of dry ice about the size of a ping-pong ball. Pure Heaven -- and no hangover the next day. That's Science!
Firelock76Which is true John? Probably a little of both, although I've never heard of Princeton being described as a "Party College."
I was a hanger around at Princeton for about 10 years. Mainly I took courses at the Princeton Adult School, the adult branch of the Princeton Regional (public) School system. They have a series called the Anne Klein lectures. Each week you get a different Princeton Professor (occasionally one from Rutgers) who lecture on a central theme. Also, I've taken a couple of course taught by Princeton professors. But I don't know that I'm really qualified to make any assessment of Princeton itself.
Certainly Princeton has produced some national leaders. Woodrow Wilson is one; Dick Cheney is another. But I've also read in my daily paper, The Times published in Trenton, of the problem of public drunkenness by Princeton students. There are allegations that the University protects students from the police and enables the drinking. There are many allegations of that but allegations is what they are as far as I know.
Walter Kirn attended Princeton and has written a book about it, Lost in the Meritocracy: The Under Education of an Over Achiever. He did suffer from social ostracism because he lacked the money to keep up with his fellow students. For him Princeton was a pretty miserable time. If your interested here is a link to an essay about Princeton by Kirn: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2009/05/19/how-i-lost-my-mind-at-princeton.html
Now here was (and may still be) a real party college. The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg Virginia, back in the 18th Century. It had such a reputation at the time that George Washington wouldn't let his step-son Jackie Custis go there. Washington got him enrolled in King's College (now Columbia) in New York. Didn't matter much though, Jackie wasn't made for a scholar.
There were stories about W&M professors having to be retrieved from taverns and cock-fights to teach, to say nothing of the all-night card games between students and faculty. Still, men like Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall and James Monroe got some pretty good educations there.
There is a rumor that W&M was partially funded with pirate money. Donations were gotten like this, usually after the capture of a pirate ship:
"Right then, Captain Psycho, tell us where the money is and help us fund this fine institution or it's up the long ladder and down the short rope with ye!" Sounds like an interesting method of fundraising, doesn't it? A sure-fire way to get the prospective donors attention at any rate.
OK, this has NOTHING to do with Confederate railroads, but to tell the truth I'm getting bored with the thread anyway.
Overmod, he sure was the smart one- Vassar has a policy to be 70% female and 30% male. Half the men were gay and the half of what was left were bi so a straight guy could do OK. A friend of mine got a job as a security guard so he could play for free on the golf course. He married a Vassar girl and eventually became a club pro in Westchester. What a life!
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