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.
I don’t know anything about the politics of slavery in the US at the time, but in general, a relevant question is: how strongly did the non-slaveholders desire slavery to be outlawed, as compared to their desires with regard to other issues?
In general, in politics it’s quite common that the majority of the populace has a moderate preference to do X, a much smaller fraction of the populace has a very strong preference to not do X, and the desires of the minority win out. For the majority, the issue might not be important enough that they’d change their vote because of it, especially if the politician in question supports other issues who the people feel are more important. For the minority, however, the issue may be important enough to be the deciding factor in whom they vote. So the politican will maximize their votes by doing what the minority wants with regard to issue X, and what the majority wants with regard to everything else. At the same time, if the minority and majority vote for different politicians, then it’s beneficial for the elected politicians to barter votes, so that the majority “buys” the minority’s support for laws that they might not be able to pass otherwise, in exchange for giving the minority what they want on an issue that feels less important for the majority.
Of course, all of this presumes that the voters act “rationally”, and give their support to the candidates who most accurately match the desires of the voters. Pretty much everything that we know about voter behavior says that this isn’t the case. (Rationally was in scare quotes because, given how little influence a single vote actually has on an election, not bothering to figure out what your candidate actually does may in fact be the most rational use of your time.)
On a somewhat related note, non-slaveholders often bought goods that involved slave labor at some point in the process of their production. It’s quite possible that they at least thought that freeing the slaves would raise the cost of their tobacco, clothes ect.
edited to add
This is a bit more speculative, but I suspect that labor was significaly non-fungibal, and in particular that Northerner’s didn’t consider Southern agricultural jobs to be closely tied to their own labor market.
Why not also vote to prohibit holding capital? People get rich by owning capital, and it’s hard to compete with them if you don’t. What’s the difference?
I think you’re conflating your ethical views on slavery with what you wish other people would decide for consequential reasons.
People have, but it’s not that common. Also, when communism is instituted, it’s often by revolution rather than voting. There is a lot of incentive for the rich and powerful to be against it, but it only takes a comparatively small number of people who’d rather be powerful than rich.
Were there enough historical examples of this happening and failing horribly to stop this? Were the elite just really good at convincing people it was a bad idea? If so, did their ability to do so correlate with it actually being a bad idea?
Perhaps I should have explained better, but that was sort of my point. You ask why an event didn’t happen, and I pointed out that the event seems to be rare. I don’t think it requires a circumstances-specific reason. Or, put more simply: people didn’t do that because people didn’t do stuff like that then.
Also, I don’t think there are many instances of people voting out the capitalists before the Communist Manifesto, which was published in 1848. That’s well after “quickly after the US started”. I don’t think the timing is entirely coincidental.
Can you give me a circumstances-nonspecific reason?
Sure, here are a few off the top of my head, not having done any research. There are strong social norms against taking other people’s property. The prevailing culture of the time held this norm. Other people owning slaves has little direct impact on most people. I don’t think the economic competition argument was one likely to be known or understood by those competing with slaves, so I don’t think they would have made it. People who could make that argument were busy doing other things with their wealth. Status quo bias is generally strong.
For circumstances-specific logic, I’d suggest reading up on the period debates surrounding slavery; there certainly were some at high levels. I think the decisions were mainly made on political grounds, and by people who liked the economics the way they were.
For one thing, one of the main groups suporting seperating from Great Britain (especially in the southern colonies) were slaveholders who were scared that the British were going to outlaw slavery (something that they had threatened to do in response to the revolution).
That would explain why they would try to institute a form of government that would not abolish slavery. I’m more interested in how the particular form of government they instituted would not immediately abolish slavery. CronoDAS largely answered that question.
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.
Looking into it more, it doesn’t quite seem to fit. According to the Wikipedia page on Jacksonian democracy, nearly all requirements to own property were dropped by 1850, and the Voting rights in the United States page seems to imply that it ended completely by 1860, but the civil war wasn’t until 1861. Was it just that people don’t stop it that quickly, and had the South been allowed to leave, they would have outlawed slavery in a few decades?
I still would prefer it if I could find something saying exactly when slavery ended and when voting was allowed for non-property owners.
Also, I’m curious as to how and when slavery ended in different countries. Unfortunately, my schooling has been somewhat biased.
The property requirements might have kept slavery from being banned while it was getting started, though. As for the whole “not wanting to compete with slaves” thing, that wasn’t actually a factor. As I understand it, slaves weren’t looked on as competition; rather, they were the people even the poorest whites got to look down upon. No matter how low on the proverbial totem pole a white person fell, they could still feel superior to black people. To quote HPMOR:
“To sum up,” Harry finished, “they don’t have any power themselves. They don’t have any wealth themselves. If they didn’t have Muggleborns to hate, if all the Muggleborns vanished the way they say they want, they’d wake up one morning and find they had nothing. But so long as they can say purebloods are superior, they can feel superior themselves, they can feel like part of the master class. Even though your father would never dream of inviting them to dinner, even though there’s not one Galleon in their vaults, even if they did worse on their OWLs than the worst Muggleborn in Hogwarts. Even if they can’t cast the Patronus Charm any more. Everything is the Muggleborns’ fault to them, they have someone besides themselves to blame for their own failures, and that makes them even weaker. That’s what Slytherin House is becoming, pathetic, and the root of the problem is hating Muggleborns.”
People can look down on immigrants too, but that doesn’t keep them from getting mad at them for taking their jobs and trying to enact laws to restrict immigration.
“Vote against slavery” is not something that happens in a vacuum. There isn’t someone reading minds who realizes the country has a majority of people who would prefer slavery be illegal (even if you ignore the minds of the slaves), and calls a vote to happen on the issue of “should slavery be a thing”. In any given district (town, city, country, whatever area), you would have to campaign and convince people both that they would be better off without slavery, AND that this means it should be illegal. There are reasons why people don’t form coalitions of 80 percent to rob the 20 percent.
There isn’t someone reading minds who realizes the country has a majority of people who would prefer slavery be illegal
The politicians have incentive to know what the majority of people think, and they are quite capable of asking people.
and calls a vote to happen on the issue of “should slavery be a thing”.
If a candidate makes it their platform that they’ll free the slaves, that’s basically what the vote will come down to. If it’s clear enough, both candidates will have it in their platform, and there won’t even be a vote.
you would have to campaign and convince people both that they would be better off without slavery,
They seemed to work out that they don’t want immigrants, women, and children taking their jobs. It didn’t happen until the industrial revolution, but they weren’t taking their jobs until then. Why would slaves be different?
AND that this means it should be illegal.
I know they made it illegal for children to work. I don’t remember hearing anything like that about women, though. Also, once slavery started getting outlawed in a few states, you’d think people would be more willing to outlaw in it other states.
There are reasons why people don’t form coalitions of 80 percent to rob the 20 percent.
I remember something about one state mandating that all contracts could be payed in cash (as opposed to gold), knowing full well that their cash was worthless. They essentially forced all the banks to forgive the debts of the farmers.
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.
I don’t know anything about the politics of slavery in the US at the time, but in general, a relevant question is: how strongly did the non-slaveholders desire slavery to be outlawed, as compared to their desires with regard to other issues?
In general, in politics it’s quite common that the majority of the populace has a moderate preference to do X, a much smaller fraction of the populace has a very strong preference to not do X, and the desires of the minority win out. For the majority, the issue might not be important enough that they’d change their vote because of it, especially if the politician in question supports other issues who the people feel are more important. For the minority, however, the issue may be important enough to be the deciding factor in whom they vote. So the politican will maximize their votes by doing what the minority wants with regard to issue X, and what the majority wants with regard to everything else. At the same time, if the minority and majority vote for different politicians, then it’s beneficial for the elected politicians to barter votes, so that the majority “buys” the minority’s support for laws that they might not be able to pass otherwise, in exchange for giving the minority what they want on an issue that feels less important for the majority.
Of course, all of this presumes that the voters act “rationally”, and give their support to the candidates who most accurately match the desires of the voters. Pretty much everything that we know about voter behavior says that this isn’t the case. (Rationally was in scare quotes because, given how little influence a single vote actually has on an election, not bothering to figure out what your candidate actually does may in fact be the most rational use of your time.)
On a somewhat related note, non-slaveholders often bought goods that involved slave labor at some point in the process of their production. It’s quite possible that they at least thought that freeing the slaves would raise the cost of their tobacco, clothes ect. edited to add This is a bit more speculative, but I suspect that labor was significaly non-fungibal, and in particular that Northerner’s didn’t consider Southern agricultural jobs to be closely tied to their own labor market.
Also, poor white Southerners supported slavery because they had racial pride.
Why not also vote to prohibit holding capital? People get rich by owning capital, and it’s hard to compete with them if you don’t. What’s the difference?
I think you’re conflating your ethical views on slavery with what you wish other people would decide for consequential reasons.
Workers compete with other workers, not capitalists. Worker wages are positively associated with the level of capital accumulation in society.
In the slavery example, free workers compete with slaves, not slave owners.
People have, but it’s not that common. Also, when communism is instituted, it’s often by revolution rather than voting. There is a lot of incentive for the rich and powerful to be against it, but it only takes a comparatively small number of people who’d rather be powerful than rich.
Were there enough historical examples of this happening and failing horribly to stop this? Were the elite just really good at convincing people it was a bad idea? If so, did their ability to do so correlate with it actually being a bad idea?
Perhaps I should have explained better, but that was sort of my point. You ask why an event didn’t happen, and I pointed out that the event seems to be rare. I don’t think it requires a circumstances-specific reason. Or, put more simply: people didn’t do that because people didn’t do stuff like that then.
Also, I don’t think there are many instances of people voting out the capitalists before the Communist Manifesto, which was published in 1848. That’s well after “quickly after the US started”. I don’t think the timing is entirely coincidental.
Can you give me a circumstances-nonspecific reason?
I haven’t heard of any, but I don’t know much history.
Sure, here are a few off the top of my head, not having done any research. There are strong social norms against taking other people’s property. The prevailing culture of the time held this norm. Other people owning slaves has little direct impact on most people. I don’t think the economic competition argument was one likely to be known or understood by those competing with slaves, so I don’t think they would have made it. People who could make that argument were busy doing other things with their wealth. Status quo bias is generally strong.
For circumstances-specific logic, I’d suggest reading up on the period debates surrounding slavery; there certainly were some at high levels. I think the decisions were mainly made on political grounds, and by people who liked the economics the way they were.
For one thing, one of the main groups suporting seperating from Great Britain (especially in the southern colonies) were slaveholders who were scared that the British were going to outlaw slavery (something that they had threatened to do in response to the revolution).
That would explain why they would try to institute a form of government that would not abolish slavery. I’m more interested in how the particular form of government they instituted would not immediately abolish slavery. CronoDAS largely answered that question.
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.
I was thinking state laws. It doesn’t seem like a national issue, and it was banned in several states pretty early.
The question isn’t why the north didn’t outvote the south. It’s why the south voted against it in the first place.
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.
I meant the state governments. I guess saying when by referring to when the national government started was misleading.
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.
In a lot of places, you had to own property to vote.
(Also, there were plenty of places where slavery was, indeed, outlawed relatively quickly. Just not everywhere.)
That would seem to explain it.
Looking into it more, it doesn’t quite seem to fit. According to the Wikipedia page on Jacksonian democracy, nearly all requirements to own property were dropped by 1850, and the Voting rights in the United States page seems to imply that it ended completely by 1860, but the civil war wasn’t until 1861. Was it just that people don’t stop it that quickly, and had the South been allowed to leave, they would have outlawed slavery in a few decades?
I still would prefer it if I could find something saying exactly when slavery ended and when voting was allowed for non-property owners.
Also, I’m curious as to how and when slavery ended in different countries. Unfortunately, my schooling has been somewhat biased.
The property requirements might have kept slavery from being banned while it was getting started, though. As for the whole “not wanting to compete with slaves” thing, that wasn’t actually a factor. As I understand it, slaves weren’t looked on as competition; rather, they were the people even the poorest whites got to look down upon. No matter how low on the proverbial totem pole a white person fell, they could still feel superior to black people. To quote HPMOR:
People can look down on immigrants too, but that doesn’t keep them from getting mad at them for taking their jobs and trying to enact laws to restrict immigration.
“Vote against slavery” is not something that happens in a vacuum. There isn’t someone reading minds who realizes the country has a majority of people who would prefer slavery be illegal (even if you ignore the minds of the slaves), and calls a vote to happen on the issue of “should slavery be a thing”. In any given district (town, city, country, whatever area), you would have to campaign and convince people both that they would be better off without slavery, AND that this means it should be illegal. There are reasons why people don’t form coalitions of 80 percent to rob the 20 percent.
The politicians have incentive to know what the majority of people think, and they are quite capable of asking people.
If a candidate makes it their platform that they’ll free the slaves, that’s basically what the vote will come down to. If it’s clear enough, both candidates will have it in their platform, and there won’t even be a vote.
They seemed to work out that they don’t want immigrants, women, and children taking their jobs. It didn’t happen until the industrial revolution, but they weren’t taking their jobs until then. Why would slaves be different?
I know they made it illegal for children to work. I don’t remember hearing anything like that about women, though. Also, once slavery started getting outlawed in a few states, you’d think people would be more willing to outlaw in it other states.
I remember something about one state mandating that all contracts could be payed in cash (as opposed to gold), knowing full well that their cash was worthless. They essentially forced all the banks to forgive the debts of the farmers.