Wednesday, October 2, 2013

"Mexico will Poison Us"

Yes, at this point, our readings may seem to be repetitive, but perhaps that's the point.  This chapter, from Hummel's Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men highlights the degree to which westward expansion (particularly the annexation of Mexico) reshaped the political parties in the United States. 

This begs the question--is it all about money and politics?  Is slavery--an institution that we undeniably regard as a social one today--only considered with regard to its economic and political ramifications? 

Use examples from the text--they always make your discussion hold more water.

8 comments:

  1. I believe the emancipation of slavery was solely based on money and politics. African Americans were the main workers with the harsh jobs down south. These workers getting paid absolutely nothing was a tactic for the master to get all the income. Having these slaves work picking cotton and much more. But slavery could be a political use because some people in some cases would vote for some one based on what there side was either for or against slavery could potentially win the vote just because the view the political leader had

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  2. I agree with Chandler that the emancipation of slavery was based on money and politics. In class today we talked about how much money slave owners spent on their slaves. Each slave owner was probably very concerned with emancipation because they realized 1. that they would have no one to work for them and 2. would have to actually do things themselves. It is also about politics because once people didn't own slaves anymore, there wouldn't be any way for them to show their power.

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  3. I think that slavery and the emancipation of slavery were both completely about money and politics. Everything about them from why they should be free to why they were slaves in the first place had to do with slavery. The emancipation in one area was known as a "national disaster". One of the reasons the south didnt wanna even give up slavery was soley because of money and politics has quite alot to do with money in the first place. It seems just like back then, as it did now, politics sourrounded everything, and at the root of most political arguements is money.

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  4. I think that money and politics had the most impact on slavery and its' emancipation. As Tina recalled how we talked about the cost of slaves in class today, the slave owners were certainly anxious about potentially loosing all of the money they invested in them. If this were to happen, more problems such as debt, loss of workers, loss of income arise. Politics is always about power and before the emancipation, the power over african americans was a way to show superiority and without that the political standpoint about slavery would dissolve.

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  5. There is no doubt that the controversy over slavery was about money and politics and not morals. The Northern politicians tried to contain slavery to the Southern states to stop any African-Americans from moving West because the Northerners didn't want them taking jobs away from white laborers. The Southerners on the other hand were trying to spread slavery because they could make huge amounts of money on slave labor. The political reasons were that the Southern states thought that states should have more rights from the federal government. And the Northern states believed that the federal government should have more power over states, and should use that power to abolish slavery because it went against the nations founding ideals.

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  6. Overall everything in history is all about money and politics. When it comes to slavery of course i is all about the money because the more the slaves work, the more they produce, the more the masters can make money and it overall boosts the economy. From the politics side, even though somewhere deep down they might have known that slavery was bad, they allowed it to go on so long in the south because it was again boosting their economy. In todays world the government doesn't band the use of cigarets because the sale of cigarets contributes to a large sum of money in the economy.

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  7. I do believe that slavery was all about money and that Means that It also was related to politics. Slaves worked picking cotton in huge plantations for to their masters for free which means that the owners of slaves and plantations had a huge benefit since the didn't need to pay the workers. In addition, Southern slaves used to gain political power and dominate the country extending slavery to new western territories that were adding to the country or even they exposed their ideas to territories as Texas when they weren't appended to the U.S yet. (While the north also struggled in their "race" to gain power). In this way I believe that the South could earn more money and more political force.

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  8. Yes, yes and yes. The thought that people actually were worried about the moral injustices of slavery is obscene. It's all about the money. The south had free labor and then with the 3/5 clause finally equality in the political arena, or at least a thinning of the disparity.

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