Open Thread, October 1-15, 2012

David_Gerard

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Why wasn't slavery outlawed quickly after the US started? I would expect the free non-slaveholders would vote against slavery, since they wouldn't want to compete with slaves, and they'd outnumber the slaveholders.

In addition to the other points made in response to your question, a national law abolishing slavery would have needed to pass the US Senate, where each state got two votes, regardless of population. By the time abolition was something that might plausibly have passed the popular vote, the Southern states had formed a unified bloc on the issue. Admission of new states into the Union was explicitly evaluated on the basis of the balance of the Senate until this principle came into too much conflict with the principle of popular sovereignty.

2mrglwrf14y

How are you imagining the US government enforcing the abolition of slavery ca. 1800? Even in a much stronger relative position ca. 1865, it was extremely costly to do so. There was fair less abolitionist sentiment in earlier decades, and in relative terms, the federal government was far weaker and the southern elites far stronger. Attempting to outlaw slavery "quickly after the US started" (I'm assuming a window from about 1790-1810, please correct me if I mis-guestimated) would have been an act of suicide by the central government.

2thomblake14y

As I understand it, people suspected something like the Civil War would happen if they tried that. A lot of compromises were made to forge a single country out of this mess.