>  BA> The 1830 census showed about three thousand free black slave 
OWNERS in
>  BA> the south.  Aside from that, slavery was dying out, albeit slowly; 
the 
>  BA> invention of farm machinery after the War of Northern Aggression 
insured 
>  BA> that slavery would die out, one doesn't have to feed or care for
>  BA> machinery when it's not being used
> 
> Uh huh. That's why thought fought a war to keep it alive (and please,
> spare the "states rights" revisionism: it's been shown clearly and
> conclusively that the primary cause of the US Civil War was the South's
> attempts to preserve slavery as an institution).

Remember, Dan, the winners get to write the history books.

In point of fact, due to the population imbalance between the north and 
south, congress was owned by the northern states.  Those northern states 
passed considerable legislation that was harmful - by accident or by 
design - to the southern states.  Import tariffs made the importation of 
manufactured goods too expensive - giving the northern manufacturers a 
captive market in the south; and high export tariffs on cotton insured 
the northern textile mills a steady - and captive - supply of cheap 
cotton.  This particular pot had been boiling for probably 20 years when 
Lincoln was elected.   It was Lincoln's election (on a radical anti-
slavery program) that provided the spark that led to secession.

Slavery was dying out in the south - albeit slowly, and much too slowly 
for the rabid northern abolitionists, such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, 
whose fictional book is credited by some - including Abraham Lincoln - 
for starting the war (Ms. Stowe had never been farther south than New 
York City when she wrote her book).  The invention of farm machinery in 
the late 1800s insured that slavery would go away because machines are 
much less expensive to own and operate than people are.

The south was fighting invading armies.

> But let's assume for a moment that slavery was, in fact, dying out.
> What was to become of the enslaved peoples and their descendants?

Lincoln wanted to pack them off to Africa.  I think they should have been 
resettled into the northern states (and many of them did go there).

> The confederacy was rooted in white supremacy and the desire to 
continue
> owning human beings as property.

I suspect that much of the "white supremacy" ideology came about as a 
result of "Reconstruction."  The KKKI, after all, was organized to combat  
northern carpetbaggers, its persecution of blacks (and Jews, and 
Catholics) came later.
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5
 * Origin: Fido Since 1991 | QWK by Web | BBS.DOCSPLACE.ORG (1:123/140)