It is a simply ridiculous idea that there would be slaves in the year 2009. If it wasn't for this document, slavery would've ended by the 1870s. To give you an idea, a single field hand (that's a slave that would just work the field and didn't have any other abilities) would run a plantation owner about $1500 at the time of the War Between the States. It was starting to get cheaper to HIRE someone to pick cotton for a dollar a day rather than buy a slave. By the 1850s slavery was on its last legs because of new technology and the rising cost of a slave. So surely slavery would've died out completely.

 

The emancipation proclamation is not necesarily a prohibition of slavery, emancipate means to let go of, release the hand grip of. Lincon proclaimed that in order to get needed help in defeating the Confederacy.

I agree that eventually slavery would've become cost prohibitive however that would not stop the exploitation of, the marginilization and suspension of civil rights etc for African descent persons in the USA as proven what happened shorty after Reconstruction began, the creation of Jim Crow, the emergence of the KKK and overall DECONSTRUCTION of Black people in the USA who in the short time after the Civil War ended made so many advancements in all aspects of society that it scared white people and the powers that be forcing their hand to stem the tide

 

I think that one factor that the majority of you are overlooking is that the United States is not and definitely was not the center of the world. The second factor is that the United States is one of the last of the powerful nations to abolish slavery. These two tie together, but England had abolished the slave trade even before the Revolutionary War. In effect, this abolished the majority of legal means of obtaining a slave (before the formation of America). A mere thirty years later, Britain did not have legal slavery throughout most of the British Empire (Cuba being a little slower to come around). In 1835, the British Navy assigned 36 ships to hunt down remaining (illegal) slave ships.

England was not even the earliest to abolish slavery. Portugal abolished it more than a dozen years earlier. Russia abolished slavery in 1723. France took longer to come around, but even uit abolished slavery before the Emancipation proclamation came into effect. In essance, much of the world had already abolished slavery as legal ownership of slaves by the time of the Civil War and proclamation. Indentureship was still common, but rapidly decreasing.

With or without the Emancipation, the United States would eventually have been forced to join the rest of the world and abolish slavery. Britain may even have pressed an embargo and blockade, which would have hurt the US severely.

 

Thank ya!

 

Interesting topic of debate. I agree with thevenerablerob. If Abraham Lincoln didn't end slavery, someone else would have.

 

No-------------

Had there never been such a proclamation, it still would not have taken long for a good lawyer to use the 14th amendment (which requires states to act in accordance with the rights guaranteed by the bill of rights) to enforce the 13th (which made slavery unconstitutional) in states where slavery continued to exist.

 

It depends on the definition of slavery. If you mean only people who can be bought or sold as property than no. But if you include all people forced to work through any means (threats, intimidation, debt, etc.) againt their will, then yes slavery not only would exist, but does now.

 

Excellent points Rob. Conveeeeence for you.

 

Cuba and Brasil abolished slavery circa 1881 and 1884