Gautam Mukunda asks
... was Southern defeat inevitable? I would actually say, in
retrospect, that it's actually fairly improbable.
This is a nice question. The early 1860s were the first period in
which the North had the economic power to fund a civil war and win.
But it just barely had that ability.
Yes, it was important, as Gautam points out, that
Lincoln was a poor farmer's son. So was Grant. The two most
important figures in the Union war effort were "up from poverty"
types.
The North benefited from the greater supply of talent its action/guilt
society provided than the South for which Gautam cannot
..think of a single high officer ... who wasn't a part of the
planter aristocracy.
However, it was equally important that the North be able to afford the
war.
Before 1860, the South was the richer part of the US. After 1860, the
North. This is because Northern manufacturing grew so much.
Nearly every successfully developing country goes through a fast
growth stage that lasts a generation or two. China is the current
example. Japan was earlier. The US was even earlier. Its fast
manufacturing growth stage took place in the middle 19th century, and
primarily in the North.
By 1860, the US had been going through its `double manufacturing
output every 7 years' period for 15 or 20 years. (Maybe longer, but
if I remember correctly, the period of 10% per year manufacturing
growth started in 1840 - 1845; does someone know the figures better?)
(The only successful country that did not go through a fast growth
stage was Britain, the first country to develop economically in the
modern manner. Generation by generation, Great Britain maintained a
1.7% or 1.8% per year growth rate from the latter third of the
eighteenth century to the latter third of the twentieth century,
except for a generation lost on account of WWI. I don't know
Britain's growth rate since I looked, which would have been in the
late 1960s or 70s. Does anyone know of long run British figures
brought up to date and more likely to be accurate? Is my thesis
reasonable? As for an explanation: Britain did not grow faster
because people first had to invent the technologies; and then
investors had to discover which were profitable.)
Back to the US: suppose Lincoln had not been elected President in
1860 and suppose there had been no civil war and no succession. Would
the North have become so much more successful economically in another
15 or 20 years and the South so weak, that slavery became irrelevant?
This would be a argument that Lincoln should never have become
President.
Or were the early 1860s the last time the Southern leadership could
see themselves as having a chance? Were they much like the leaders of
the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1914, who, as far as I know, decided
`better to fight now, which a chance of victory, that face sure defeat
in the future' (on account both their ally Germany and their enemy
Russia were advancing ahead of them)?
If the latter, not only would such thinking explain why the South
decided to face Lincoln in war, but tell us that Lincoln was relevant.
What does anyone know?
--
Robert J. Chassell Rattlesnake Enterprises
http://www.rattlesnake.com GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
http://www.teak.cc [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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