It's Confederate History Month in Dixie

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

He said that what is an "injustice" is subjective.

I disagree, but if that is true, the entirety of the law is subjective - how can we rely on it?

As for the other point, Ex post facto law is artibrary and tyrannical, the exact sort of thing a just system of laws is in place to prevent. If you were engaging in a perfectly legal activity today and then heavily penalized for it tomorrow when it was declared illegal, perhaps you would then see why it is not the basis for law. Being in favor of arbitrary government is...well....I don't know. I didn't think anyone is seriously in favor of that.

So if a country made a law saying that it was legal to murder members of a minority group, and you did so, and for whatever reason people realized how terrible that was, we shouldn't at least have you and other murders make restitution to the victim's families?

What business do you know of that keeps, say, 10-20 years of back pay for the workforce just lying around?

What kind of business do you know of that keeps slaves?

This solution would lead to these cases:
Worst case, outright murder of slaves before they get freed, just to keep from going bankrupt.

Slave owners were wonderful people, weren't they.

Financial ruin for just about any business that owned slaves, if they pay. Economic collapse in general.

Honest question, how much of business in America was dependent on slavery?

70 year head start to the KKK, throughout the entire country, with resentment towards African Americans lasting for a very long time.

So, we get a 70 year head start on the civil rights movement.

Less than 5 years after it's implementation, the Brits would come back and clean up the mess, and the country would be a failed experiment, footnote to history. It's completely unworkable.

A common enemy to unite against. Didn't the British offer freedom to slaves who fought for them in the War for Independence? Who knows, they might've been sympathetic.

[drone]

Alright, multi-quote time!

So if a country made a law saying that it was legal to murder members of a minority group, and you did so, and for whatever reason people realized how terrible that was, we shouldn't at least have you and other murders make restitution to the victim's families?

No. Look at why ex post facto laws are illegal. The time to realize how terrible a law is, is before it gets passed.

What kind of business do you know of that keeps slaves?

Your reply/question has no bearing on the argument, since none exist in the country today. What business do you know that has the cash reserves for 10-20 years of back pay?

Slave owners were wonderful people, weren't they.

No, they were people living within the law and with what was culturally acceptable at the time. Some were decent, some weren't. When faced with financial ruin, those that weren't decent would probably just kill their slaves to remove that financial obligation. Since slaves were considered property, this would be legal. Don't forget that slave owners paid for the slaves originally, fed them, housed them, clothed them. Slaves were an investment for the owners. Simple emancipation would cost the owners enough. Tacking on back pay and education costs would break them.

Honest question, how much of business in America was dependent on slavery?

An honest question, does this make the rest rhetoric? I have no idea of the percentages of GDP relied on it. There were almost 700K slaves in what became the US in 1788, roughly 20% of the total population. Mostly concentrated in Virgina, Maryland, and the Carolinas (~600K), with the rest spread out through the other states.

So, we get a 70 year head start on the civil rights movement.

There would be no civil rights movement. A pogrom maybe.

A common enemy to unite against. Didn't the British offer freedom to slaves who fought for them in the War for Independence? Who knows, they might've been sympathetic.

The British, the slaves, or the colonies? I honestly don't get what you are saying here.

[PanzerJaeger]

Slavery isn't a horrible injustice? Fascinating.

That's not exactly what I said...

Certainly by today's standards slavery is an injustice; but by the standards of 1861, things get a bit murkier. Taking things all the way back to 1776, it becomes even more difficult for me to justify land redistribution and reparations without completely ignoring the historical context in which slavery was practiced. As I said, it become subjective.

That’s just me though. You obviously feel differently. That's why the law is important, and why the framers specifically wrote ex post facto language into the Constitution. You're arguing from an emotional level - essentially "the evil slave owners deserved to be punished". However, the question isn't about the morality of slavery - that was decided with the emancipation, but with the legality of retroactively punishing formerly legal behavior - that was decided in the Constitution.

Were the lands given to the people who had worked them, or to peasants in general.

They were given the land on which they lived and worked.

And if we must defend slaveowner's plantations in the name of productivity, what do you think of my suggestion that freed slaves be paid the wages they should've earned if they were white laborers? Keep in mind that that is much less than the value the slaveowners received from having those slaves.

I think that would be equivalent to cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. Damaging the Southern economy more than it already had been during the war in the name of retribution would end up helping no one. Further, as can be seen in the Mexican example, land distribution schemes can have negative repercussions far beyond the immediate generation effected by them. I would venture to say that even after the North abandoned Southern blacks after Reconstruction, they still fared better than most of the Mexican peasantry during the land reform period. Their progeny certainly have.

If we’re looking to give the former slaves a boost after coming out of such conditions, may I suggest looking westward? America in 1865 still had vast tracts of rich, arable land that the government was literally paying people to settle. Aiding the former slaves in homesteading this land could have been the basis of strong and productive communities.

With proper government support in things such as capital investment, social organization, protection from the natives, and education in farming techniques, such a plan could have worked out well.

[Horatius]

I really think the perspective should be kept that the South was fighting for slavery, now I got all of this information from the BBC, but isn't it true that after the war was over the returning confederates with local support waged war against the freed slaves and often killed white supporters? Wasn't that violence even against the expressed instructions of Robert E Lee?

On the same documentary I also learned that the massacre was a favorite tool of the ex rebels, and that local police would massacre political allies of the North during their rallies as long as the military wasn't around in force.

For more see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalawag
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpetbagger

If slavery wasn't the cause of the civil war, why didn't the South just agree to radical reconstruction, and to step forward?

That said I freely agree and admit I know nothing at all about the American Civil War, it is not a field I have touched very much if at all, and I also know the BBC is not unbiased, and wikipedia shouldn't be relied on, so I invite anyone who disagrees with what I said to say why, I'm not trying to start a fight.

[Fisherking]

As for the causes of the war, slavery was not the primary reason. The reasons were economic. Slavery was the heated issue used to stoke the fires in the north for an otherwise unpopular war.

It was not much more popular in the south by the way. There were riots in both places.

As to compensation. Any former slave who asked for it received 40 acres and a mule to start a farm.

Lincoln had proposed sending them all back to their homelands, though no one was sure exactly where that was. Those few who chose to return to Africa founded the nation of Liberia.

I am not going to touch the aftermath of the war nor the causes of racism. But it should be sufficient to say that the people, mostly nonslave holders saw the former slaves as being placed above them for the purpose of retribution and political control.

[Strike For The South]

As for the causes of the war, slavery was not the primary reason. The reasons were economic. Slavery was the heated issue used to stoke the fires in the north for an otherwise unpopular war.
.

Slavery and the Antebellum economy are hand in hand.

The secession speechs bear themselves out, Slavery was the primary reason.

[Fisherking]

Slavery was the emotional issue. Just as abortion takes center stage in arguments over states’ rights today.

But only 10% or less of the population owned slaves. Why was it that South Carolina fired on Ft. Sumter? I don’t think slaves were involved in that.