General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: "When Are We Going To Stop Persecuting Christians In This Country!" [View all]AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)....after all, it truly was a terribly inefficient system, overall, that worked for & benefitted only for those directly involved in the system itself, and those who directly profitted from it's proceeds.....and it screwed everyone else over, big time. Of course, I think that if it hadn't been for Abe Lincoln and the abolitionists, the Tenth Percenters of that era would no doubt have tried to keep slavery alive as long as possible, at least up until the economic collapse that would have inevitably occurred at some point(though I'm sure many of those neo-Confederates who aren't in complete denial of reality of what the C.S.A. was really about, and their ideological allies, would gladly argue otherwise).
But the thing is, even some of the more solidly prejudiced Northerners of the era, let alone much of the rest of the public(including virtually every social liberal), realized what a raw deal slavery would have yoked them with, if introduced into states such as Illinois, Indiana, etc.; otherwise, do you think the Midwest outside of Missouri would have remained free, if the majority of whites truly thought slavery would benefit them? I really don't think so.
And after the Civil War ended, many of the Tenth Percenters, even some up North, still wished slavery hadn't ended; by the time of Lincoln's election, slavery was no longer just an economic system, but a complete way of life, a system of social control, if you will. The end of slavery, and the start of Reconstruction, ended up presenting a dilemma to them.....which led to their promotion of eugenics, and the KKK, etc., in an effort to revitalize racism and to keep people divided and conquered; and sadly, to some extent, it worked for a while.
But the thing is, we don't often hear about certain of these details, now, do we?