Confederate States of German America wrote:Novus America wrote:Of course I am not sure what is being debated.
1) You randomly jumped into someone else’s argument that did not involve you one bit.
This is a discussion forum, if you can't handle debate, don't get into them.
2) You conceded the main point, that the things in the South were NOT better for the average person.
Did I? Pray do tell where I said that/
3) You also cite the CSA government’s size to claim the South had adequate public services. But now claim you are only talking about the antebellum South.
Your arguments are completely confused, so I am of course confused.
We are talking about the Antebellum South, the factoid about the Confederacy constructing such a well organized central government is, however, relevant to the point you raise, no?
But Okay, here is some stuff for you,
“The South’s transportation network was primitive by northern standards. Traveling the 1,460 overland miles from Baltimore to New Orleans in 1850 meant riding five different railroads, two stagecoaches, and two steamboats. Most southern railroads served primarily to transport cotton to southern ports, where the crop could be shipped on northern vessels to northern or British factories for processing.
Various nice cherry pick, as you're citing 1850 instead of 1860 as between those two dates saw massive railway building projects throughout the South. Very prominent example was the development of a Chattanooga to Lynchburg line, completely circumventing the coastal route you'd have to take in 1850.
Because of high rates of personal debt, Southern states kept taxation and government spending at much lower levels than did the states in the North. As a result, Southerners lagged far behind Northerners in their support for public education. Illiteracy was widespread. In 1850, 20 percent of all southern white adults could not read or write, while the illiteracy rate in New England was less than half of 1 percent.
Not supported by Census data, which shows about 90% of the White population literate by 1860.
Because large slaveholders owned most of the region’s slaves, wealth was more stratified than in the North. In the Deep South, the middle class held a relatively small proportion of the region’s property, while wealthy planters owned a very significant portion of the productive lands and slave labor. In 1850, 17 percent of the farming population held two-thirds of all acres in the rich cotton-growing regions of the South.”
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_t ... &psid=3558
See, your problem is you are literally citing a children's textbook that doesn't even provide its own sources. [url=https://www.nber.org/papers/w18396.pdf
]Check out this NBER paper[/url], and specifically look at free households to free households (In other words, controlling for slaves), you'll find that income inequality is essentially the same.
“Even in the agricultural sector, Northern farmers were out-producing their southern counterparts in several important areas, as Southern agriculture remained labor intensive while northern agriculture became increasingly mechanized. By 1860, the free states had nearly twice the value of farm machinery per acre and per farm worker as did the slave states, leading to increased productivity. As a result, in 1860, the Northern states produced half of the nation's corn, four-fifths of its wheat, and seven-eighths of its oats.”
https://www.nps.gov/resources/story.htm%3Fid%3D251
So any evidence things were actually better for the average person? Hmm?
Even by your own claims they were not.
So even if we accept your claims 100% you still must concede that point.
Also read your own sources!
“We also find that the South was initially much richer than the North on the eve of Revolution, but then suffered a severe reversal of fortune, so that by 1840 its white population was already poorer than free Northerners. In terms of inequality, our estimates suggest that American colonists had much more equal incomes than did households in England and Wales around 1774. Indeed, New England and the Middle Colonies appear to have been more egalitarian than anywhere else in the measureable world. Income inequality rose dramatically between 1774 and 1860, especially in the South.”
https://www.nber.org/papers/w18396.pdfThank you. You proved my point.
Even with inequality similar, (but rising much faster in the South) the GDP per capita difference was actually significant. You lied.
The Confederacy having a large government (you did not actually show it was well run) does not in anyway prove it was actually well run.
And says nothing about how well Southern state governments were run.
And okay your data says 10% illiterate instead of 20%.
There could be various reasons for that, (especially given the are 10 years apart, but regardless it was still way worse than the illiteracy rate in New England. Proving the southern governments were not providing a comprehensive education system.
Your data still proves education was inferior.
Even though by 1860 the railway system in the South has improved, it was still in many cases disjointed and inferior to the North. You talk of miles per capita, but miles per area also matters if you want it actually fully connected.
Chattanooga is a still a long ways from New Orleans.
Of course this caused major logistical issues during the war.
And you keep posting that one table. Okay, yes it appears, including the “upper South” (which again was very socially and economic different than the Deep South and a large portion rejected the CSA) corn, referring to maize here, production was not that different.
My source concurs.
Even by your source southern production of maize was not that much higher.
Mine is from 1860, yours 1859. So it seems by 1860 the relatively small gap was gone.
Problem is your source does not allocate the “other grains”, and my source shows the vast majority of the 400 goes to the North.
So your source does not contradict mine. It just bizarrely on allocates two agricultural products (cotton and corn) and does not allocate the rest. Who is cherry picking now?
Why did it not allocate “other grains”.
So how about we do it. 402+300 (702) > 437+100+5 (542).
So allocate the vast majority of that 400 “other grain” to the North, and clearly the north is producing much more agriculture!