Cost to Buy All of the Slaves
With so much to lose on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line, economic logic suggests that a peaceful solution to the slave issue would have made far more sense than a bloody war. Yet no solution emerged. One “economic” solution to the slave problem would be for those who objected to slavery to “buy out” the economic interest of Southern slaveholders. Under such a scheme, the federal government would purchase slaves. A major problem here was that the costs of such a scheme would have been enormous. Claudia Goldin estimates that the cost of having the government buy all the slaves in the United States in 1860, would be about $2.7 billion (1973: 85, Table 1). Obviously, such a large sum could not be paid all at once. Yet even if the payments were spread over 25 years, the annual costs of such a scheme would involve a tripling of federal government outlays (Ransom and Sutch 1990: 39-42)! The costs could be reduced substantially if instead of freeing all the slaves at once, children were left in bondage until the age of 18 or 21 (Goldin 1973:85). Yet there would remain the problem of how even those reduced costs could be distributed among various groups in the population. The cost of any “compensated” emancipation scheme was so high that even those who wished to eliminate slavery were unwilling to pay for a “buyout” of those who owned slaves.
Cost of the War
In 1860, the year before the American Civil War started, the U.S. Government debt was $64.8 million. Once the war began, debt grew quickly. The financial cost of the war was significant, totaling an estimated $5.2 billion.
The Government had to come up with new ways to pay for this expensive war. Two ways the Government accomplished this were:
Legal Tender Act (1862) allowed the Government to:
- print paper money known as greenbacks
- sell $500 million in bonds to raise money
Before the Legal Tender Act, each bank could print its own form of paper money; paper money had value because it was backed by gold. This means that there is an amount of gold held by the Government that’s equal to the value of the paper money. The money printed by the Government after the Legal Tender Act was not backed by gold because the Government did not have that much gold at the time. The “greenbacks” could, however, be used to pay taxes and buy items from stores.
The National Bank Act (1863) allowed for the creation of:
- a nationwide banking system that loaned money to the Government to pay for the war
- a national system of paper money and coins
By the end of the war in 1865, Government debt had exploded, reaching $2.6 billion. That was more than 40 times what it was only five years earlier at $65 million.
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The current regime is printing money and making the very issues that are enslaving our children. They don’t want free people; they want war, power, debt and destruction. Note that the cost to buy the slaves only included the slaves in the South. The slaves in the North were not included. Just as the slaves in the North were not included in the Emancipation Proclamation and northern escaped slaves were captured and returned to their “owners” during the civil war.
Dear Lord,
Hear my prayer. Let your people fight a righteous war so that all of your children will be free and living in your glory.
Amen.
David DeGerolamo
The Civil War wasn’t fought over slavery. It was fought over taxes on Southern goods.
I know.
I would like to know the source (more than one) to support this statement:
“The slaves in the North were not included. Just as the slaves in the North were not included in the Emancipation Proclamation and northern escaped slaves were captured and returned to their “owners” during the civil war.”
Which part of the statement? The first sentence refers to buying out the economic interests of the slaveholders (see the Source link at the end of the first part of the article) and the second sentence refers to the Emancipation Proclamation, which you can read for yourself.
Have you read The Emancipation Proclamation? There are multiple exceptions listed. Since the Southern states seceded, Lincoln had no jurisdiction over them so the Proclamation was moot.
Your statement is 100% correct.
Maryland and Delaware were slave states that did not join the secession. The slaves in those states were not subject to the thoroughly unconstitutional Emancipation Proclamation. Read it for yourself. It only applied in the Confederate states.
Pennsylvania was anti-slavery but tolerated slaves in small number as did New York in rural areas at least during the first year of the war.
Let us not forget that there were many freed blacks who joined the Confederste Army and formed all black artillery and cavalry units.
Lastly there were thousands of freed blacks who owned slaves in the confederate states. Yes, some of them bought their wives and children out of bondage. One New Orleans freeman is listed in the 1860 Census of owning 36 slaves. It would be eye-opening to read the 1860 Census in each confederste state to learn the total number of freed blacks who owned slaves and the state total owned by said former slaves.
Remember that the Victors Write The History Of The War….. inconvenient facts get buried snd emotional war wounds never get thereby any chance to heal !!
Gentlemen, you may debate who owned, and who did not, slaves until you are out of breath. What’s more important is what we have inherited, worthless paperback dollars, nothing secured by gold, and the fact that we are hanging by our fingers over a long lasting depression. If you have any money in the banks, get it out while you may. We will all be shortly ruled by the whip.
Yes, indeedy.
You missed the point of the article: we too are reliving the tyranny of an out of control government. They are writing the narrative and the causes for our enslavement, confiscation of wealth and our deaths by bioweapons, war and “vaccines”.
Thomas Dilorenzo is the best Civil war historian I’ve seen. His articles appear on the great Lew Rockwell site. Today he did a review of an new book on the acts of terror the North inflicted on the South. Lew Rockwell is a daily morning read for me.
You are absolutely correct, Stan. Everyone should DiLorenzo’s book, The Real Lincoln, which is thoroughly sourced and documented. The late and great Professor Walter E. Williams (a black American patriot) wrote the foreword to the book.
Agree!
A little off topic, but kinda not in its way: TRUMP HAS BEEN INDICTED. Feels a lot like an all cotton long sleeve with epaulets and lotsa buttons in natural but fashionable colors around here now. Maybe a pair of loose fitting cotton trousers with a woven belt and pair of canvas slip on shoes to go with it, yeah? Of course all are way too expensive for working man’s tastes, but think how casual we will all look sipping umbrella drinks at the outdoor tables at Red Robin’s (in our burgeoning BANANA REPUBLIC). Nice. All set to coincide with 1.gender dysphoric day of vengeance 2. April Fool’s Day. Who knows, could be fun…
Rumor is there will be a week long bank holiday in April
“Dear Lord,
Hear my prayer. Let your people fight a righteous war so that all of your children will be free and living in your glory.
Amen.” -- David DeGerolamo
Your prayer is perfect for these times. It is now my prayer too. I stand with you.