You know, DOGE, fascist president and corporations dictating what people can do, institutions being ruined, laws being ignored. Is there any way out of that or is it over? Is the USA done?

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[–] 4 points 2 years ago (7 children)

How exactly would slavery have died out “naturally” in a union made up entirely of slave states who’d just fought and won a war to defend it? I get your point about letting the south stand in its own so it could fall, but you are too casually sweeping aside the issue of slavery. “Yeah yeah - that would pass naturally - now let me tell you my MAIN point….”

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (2 children)

    Frankly, it'skind of the opposite: the slavery part of the argument is obvious, simply because IIRC the model of chattel slavery the US south operated on was only viable through the constant flow of new people to feed into the meatgrinder. The "better off" part is kinda dubious.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I’m afraid you do not recall correctly. One of the features of American slavery is that it was population self-sustaining. You can see #4 on this UNESCO page. I like the way they put it: American slavery created a people where there was none before.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (3 children)

    Northerners weren't simply more high minded than southerners concerning slavery - industrialization lessened their dependence on slaves to the point where they could abandon slavery without the economy crumbling.

    Presumably this would happen in the south as they industrialized as well.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (2 children)

    Agriculture still has not eliminated manual labor, son.

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