Monday, 03.10.08
Abe Lincoln, Slave Trader?
Photo by flicker user Webmb under a Creative Commons license
Encouraging the slave trade
July 1999
Richard Miniter argues that efforts to buy back Sudanese slaves encourages slavery.
Lincoln's Great Depression
October 2005
Joshua Wolf Shenk says Lincoln's clinical depression gave him the tools to save the nation.
It would have been a pricey time for Lincoln to go bullish. At the time of the Civil War, one slave cost as much as five oxen. Nowadays in India, it's down to about five slaves per one ox, the result of a long decline in the price of human chattel.
Try to buy a slave today, and you could end up either behind bars, or feted after you "redeem" the slave (for what? cash and prizes?), or criticized for creating demand for more slaves. Nearly all human-rights organizations advise against buying other human beings. But the economics of buying slaves out of bondage turns out to be complex, with serious economists suggesting that the practice is not entirely insane. Inelastic supply -- there just aren't many potential slaves out there -- makes slave-buying at worst a way to slow the rate at which slavers replace their inventory.
Lincoln's slave-buying gambit was actually a carefully mulled plan, and even though he ultimately rejected it, his pondering the possibility speaks to his fitness for the job of chief executive. He recognized the moral imperative to free slaves, and considered slave-buying only while stipulating that the Southern states abolish slavery soon after. He calculated the problem economically, too, noting the huge hit the Treasury would take, and comparing the cost of slave-buying to the enormous human and monetary cost of the ongoing Civil War. In the end, it's not surprising that he scrapped the plan and went ahead with emancipation six months later. Virginia alone had 491,000 slaves, and it would have been unfeasible to buy and free 40 percent of a state's population. But the whole incident makes one long for a time when presidents thought creatively and ethically about hard problems, rather than just doing the same damn thing over and over again, and expecting different results.
Unintended consequencesTyler Cowen wonders if Nick Kristof encouraged more slavery by buying a sex worker's freedom. |
Beyond a quick fixNick Kristof says buying individuals out of slavery isn't a long term solution, and suggests alternatives. |
Means and endsIan Fisher reports on a Christian group's efforts to buy back Sudanese slaves, and why the effort is being criticized. |
By the numbersDean Karlan and Alan Blinder find that slave redemption is a tricky business, at best. |
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Egad, this is not news. Do they even teach Civil War history any more?
Lincoln was opposed to slavery, but recognized that it was legally sanctioned and he frequently recognized that it (property) was protected by the Constitution. His pre-Emancipation Proclamation efforts involved compensated emancipation. That none of the border states joined in this effort resulted in more drastic measures.
"Newly released." The letters and plan are well-known, but came out online through the University of Rochester archive only recently, as one of the links above clearly states.
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This is not new information... in fact, it was public knowledge at the time. Lincoln put the same numbers before Congress in support of a resolution for compensated emancipation in the spring of 1862.
Posted by Grunthos | March 10, 2008 6:39 PM