From: dickwin@sequent.com (Dick Winningstad)
Subject: Re: What if...
Organization: Sequent Computer Systems, Inc.
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 92 15:08:21 GMT

In article <1992Nov11.211119.9707@Princeton.EDU> glhewitt@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Gary Livingston Hewitt) writes:
>Things have been slow, so let's try a hypothetical "big-issue" question:
>What if Fort Sumter doesn't happen?  (Either Lincoln doesn't attempt to
>resupply it, or the CSA doesn't bother bombing it and works on a
>diplomatic solution).
>
>I'm thinking of a whole variety of results:  What happens to the CSA
>(which is only at this point, Fla, Ala., Ga., SC, Miss, La. and Tx.)?
>What happens to the Union slave states?  Is political stability within
>either the Confederacy or the still divided Union possible?  Disposition
>of western lands?  Future of slavery in upper south?  In lower south?
>Et cetera.
>
>Gary
>--
>  ++====+========+==========+=======+===++
>  ||    |    Gary| L. Hewitt|       |   ||  HELP!  I've been imprisoned
>  || glh|ewitt@ph|oenix.prin|ceton.e|du ||  by my .signature!  HELP!
>  ++====+========+==========+=======+===++

Unfortunately, if Fort Sumpter didn't happen, something else would
have triggered the Civil War in my opinion.  By the 1850's the country
had become so polarized that neither side was willing to speak to the
other.
The north was divided on whether blacks were inferior or not, not
whether slavery should continue.  On the slavery question, the noth
was for abolition (of course to assume 100% proabolition would be
ludicrous).  The U.S.  was in the unfortunate position of having two
moral systems in operation with in its borders and the question had to
be settled forceably by the 1860's because the Union states had by
then a majority in both the house and senate and would have eventually
legislated an end to slavery.  The writing was on the wall with
Lincoln's election (even though he personally was willing to allow
slavery to continue if it would have preserved the union) because the
Republicans as a party were proabolition. And the South's attitudes
had hardened into an uncompromising proslavery stance by the 1850's.

Perhaps if the U.S.  had copied the British in the 1830's the Civil
War might have been averted.  In the 1830's Britain abolished slavery
in the west Indies by compensating the owners, in essence buying them
out.  Perhaps a bit less moral, but a lot more peaceful and respectful
of property rights. Though morally dubious, the big issue for the
British was just compensation for the slave owners as emancipation
involved a taking of ones private property by a government. I am not
a real expert on the British experience, but I think this was the
gist of their policy.

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+Dick Winningstad                                                    +
+                    Italian Wines are Fine                          +
+          I'd rather be on a Moto Guzzi in eastern Oregon.          +
+          Fourth gear curves at 7000 RPM are the greatest!          +
+dickwin@sequent.com                                                 +
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