I think I have an interesting question for you US bods...

[Sarge]

ORIGINAL: ezz

The Irish were not slaves.
My family is irish .. we were never slaves.
1/4 of the family went to the Usa in 1840. Around 1/2 of them came back to Ireland after 6 -10 years the rest stayed. If they wslaves they couldn't have gone to the USA or come back as was their will.

Really ?

Did they pay for passage with servitude ?

And did they make this trip back in during the terms of this servitude ?

[Doggie]

ORIGINAL: ORANGE

The Irish had a choice.

No, they didn't. Unless you call starvation a "choice".

Slaves were too valuable to waste like this

You're not grasping cold hard economic reality. A slave cost a minimum of several hundred dollars. Irishmen cost a dollar a month, if that. Fifty seven dead Irishmen cost nothing. Fifty seven dead slaves meant a loss of several thousand dollars worth of valuable property. That's why slaves weren't used for dangerous work like building railroads and digging coal mines.

It takes a raving nut job to ignore reality in an attempt to rationalize a futile belief in northern moral superiority.

[Capt. Harlock]

The Irish were not slaves.
My family is irish .. we were never slaves.

Happy to hear that for your family. But there were other Irish who weren't so lucky. The British authorities sent a number of their political enemies to the New World as slaves, both from Ireland and from Scotland. (Robert Louis Stevenson's immortal Kidnapped, which is set in an authentic historical background, makes mention of this.) Slavery was not an exclusively African affair for quite some time, until the mid-18th century.

[ORANGE]

ORIGINAL: Doggie

ORIGINAL: ORANGE

The Irish had a choice.

No, they didn't. Unless you call starvation a "choice".

Slaves were too valuable to waste like this

You're not grasping cold hard economic reality. A slave cost a minimum of several hundred dollars. Irishmen cost a dollar a month, if that. Fifty seven dead Irishmen cost nothing. Fifty seven dead slaves meant a loss of several thousand dollars worth of valuable property. That's why slaves weren't used for dangerous work like building railroads and digging coal mines.

It takes a raving nut job to ignore reality in an attempt to rationalize a futile belief in northern moral superiority.

I am not saying the North was morally superior to the South. I am not saying that the Irish or any other poor person during that time period was living a great life. It just sucked being poor. But I still think that comparing indentured servitude to slavery is pretty far out there and I shudder to think of why someone would delude themselves into thinking it.

[Twotribes]

ORIGINAL: ORANGE

ORIGINAL: Doggie

ORIGINAL: ORANGE

The Irish had a choice.

No, they didn't. Unless you call starvation a "choice".

Slaves were too valuable to waste like this

You're not grasping cold hard economic reality. A slave cost a minimum of several hundred dollars. Irishmen cost a dollar a month, if that. Fifty seven dead Irishmen cost nothing. Fifty seven dead slaves meant a loss of several thousand dollars worth of valuable property. That's why slaves weren't used for dangerous work like building railroads and digging coal mines.

It takes a raving nut job to ignore reality in an attempt to rationalize a futile belief in northern moral superiority.

I am not saying the North was morally superior to the South. I am not saying that the Irish or any other poor person during that time period was living a great life. It just sucked being poor. But I still think that comparing indentured servitude to slavery is pretty far out there and I shudder to think of why someone would delude themselves into thinking it.

Because he is a southerner that thinks the south is superior.

[cdbeck]

I'm not sure this debate has any merit. Atrocities were done in all instances, as they were with Chinese immigrants who worked out west building railroads and mining gold. The Mormons were persecuted and driven to Utah (a pretty heinous act even if you do not agree with their religion, particularly in a country that prides its freedom of religion). Native Americans died in droves, partly due to their state of war with the US. Entire islands worth of indigenous peoples died in the Caribbean, to be replaced with African slaves. Rebelling black slaves in Haiti responded to their slavery with bloody massacres of Europeans. Africans helped enslave other Africans.

Face it, history is bloody, messy, and full of human loss. The Irish had it bad, nearly 500K-1.5 million died in the potato famine, only to escape to the US and be forced into wage slavery, poverty, ghettos, and second class status (indentured servitude aside). Sure, more Africans died due to slavery, but the questions then become - how do you rank human suffering and is it useful to place one event against another and say "we had it worse?" Arguments like this are typically politically or nationalistically motivated, often with the ulterior motive of claiming some privilege, right, territory, or reparation.

Suffice to say that many people of many ethnicities paid the price to make the United States what it is. Some willingly, some unwillingly, but all are to credit for America's greatness, just as all are to blame for its atrocities.

SoM

[Marauders]

The Civil War was about states rights, which was about slavery, which was about cotton, which was about money.

It's always about money.

[tanker4145]

All I know is the North was right and God Bless Generals Sherman and Grant!  PS  Please Especially look good on General Sherman.  He was a genius who did nothing but good works on earth in my opinion.  Thank you Lord,

Signed,

Tanker

[cdbeck]

An example of General Grant's good works with the South.



He worked very hard to drain that bottle halfway... and not the whole way.

Something to note: It was after Grant was in Tennessee during the Civil War that suddenly Jack Daniels and Southern Comfort began being produced there... coincidence or conspiracy?!

[ravinhood]

Oh please don't mention Southern Comfort as I had a bad experience with that my first time ever to endulge in it. We mixed it with root beer, bad, bad, bad experience man. lol Not to mention we were really putting on the adult aires as we was smokin cigars as well that cold winters day we skipped school and thought we was sumthin. lol