Did Abraham Lincoln Read The Book Of Mormon?

[CV75]

The reality is that without slavery the United States would not be the wealthiest nation on earth. It is possible the U.S. would have collapsed or been conquered if not for slavery. That is - obviously - not meant to justify slavery in any way, shape, or form.

I think the USA could have become wealthy through other avenues of enterprise. The reality is the past is the past; many forebearers got wealthy and passed that wealth along by doing wicked things, whether it was according to the limited light they had or in defiance of that light. Many got wealthy doing good things, too and by hearkening to the light. The nation as a whole is the sum of its parts so hopefully there are more righteous than wicked to avoid the punishment of the wicked affecting an entire whole nation.

[bluebell]

This is a highly questionable assertion.

CFR please.

 

It is an assertion that many historians have made.  It's not a given however.  Most of the economic power that slavery brought to the U.S. came after the invention of the cotton gin, many years after America's birth.  It could be argued that without the dependence upon slavery from the beginning, the U.S. could have come up with something that eventually would have been as economically beneficial as slavery would have been.  We did o.k. before cotton became king, as they say.

 

However, given that the entire southern economy depended upon slavery, and that much of the northern economy did as well (the whole textile industry was dependent upon cotton), if slavery had never existed in the U.S. our economic outlook during those years would have almost inevitably been way behind other most established European countries even if we could have survived, most of whom still relied on slavery to bring in wealth from their colonies.

 

Our economy might have been fine without slavery, but our place as an international power in the world would have been greatly greatly reduced without it.  That would have had an impact not only on our economy, but also on our global interests.  Money is power.

 

But, even with all of that, i'm not personally ready to say that the U.S. absolutely wouldn't have survived without slavery.  It's a valid argument but I just can't discount the blessings that might have come to us from God if we had been able to take the high road. 

[Thinking]

This is an awesome thread!

 

First we have Lincoln  reading the Book of Mormon and using its guidance to issue the emancipation proclamation. Then we have the claim that without slavery the U.S. wouldn't be the wealthiest nation on this planet. I'll see those two and raise you...nope, can't top that, I fold.

[ERayR]

I don't know, you can verify it through multiple sources on the internet or in books.

 

What could have possibly replaced slavery (cotton) as the driving force behind an upstart economy in the United States?

 

Don't believe everything you read.  While cotton was an important export something else would have taken ts place or a different system of production would have been developed sooner, after the civil war they converted to a different system.

[ERayR]

This is an awesome thread!

 

First we have Lincoln  reading the Book of Mormon and using its guidance to issue the emancipation proclamation. Then we have the claim that without slavery the U.S. wouldn't be the wealthiest nation on this planet. I'll see those two and raise you...nope, can't top that, I fold.  Mark this one on the wall.

[omni]

This is an awesome thread!

 

First we have Lincoln  reading the Book of Mormon and using its guidance to issue the emancipation proclamation. Then we have the claim that without slavery the U.S. wouldn't be the wealthiest nation on this planet. I'll see those two and raise you...nope, can't top that, I fold.

 

Don't forget that the Founding Fathers would have all joined the Church had they been alive, and Elvis was investigating and would have joined had he not overdosed, and...

[eddie]

It is an assertion that many historians have made. It's not a given however. Most of the economic power that slavery brought to the U.S. came after the invention of the cotton gin, many years after America's birth. It could be argued that without the dependence upon slavery from the beginning, the U.S. could have come up with something that eventually would have been as economically beneficial as slavery would have been. We did o.k. before cotton became king, as they say.

However, given that the entire southern economy depended upon slavery, and that much of the northern economy did as well (the whole textile industry was dependent upon cotton), if slavery had never existed in the U.S. our economic outlook during those years would have almost inevitably been way behind other most established European countries even if we could have survived, most of whom still relied on slavery to bring in wealth from their colonies.

Our economy might have been fine without slavery, but our place as an international power in the world would have been greatly greatly reduced without it. That would have had an impact not only on our economy, but also on our global interests. Money is power.

But, even with all of that, i'm not personally ready to say that the U.S. absolutely wouldn't have survived without slavery. It's a valid argument but I just can't discount the blessings that might have come to us from God if we had been able to take the high road.

I disagree, all it would have meant was that plantation owners would have had to pay the workers, and that they would not have been so rich themselves. It would have just would have given more people money.

Farms developed throughout this country without slave labor, the South could have as well. The millionaire plantation owner paying a wage would not have bankrupted him.

[volgadon]

I don't know, you can verify it through multiple sources on the internet or in books.

 

What could have possibly replaced slavery (cotton) as the driving force behind an upstart economy in the United States?

 

A CFR requires you to provide a source, and you cannot simply refer someone vaguely to the internet.

[Stargazer]

I can buy that not every single word of the Constitution was inspired by god.....but to ignore a institution as inhumane, cruel, and just plain devilish as slavery and consider it as essentially not being on God's radar enough to warrant even a line forbidding it in the Constitution seems to be....I don't know, just wrong and not worthy of such a being's adoration.

 

Then to argue that the principles on which the Constitution were structured were divinely directed, well except for that principle in which owning another person and forcing them into a lifelong sentence of hard labor might be wrong, well, that is just plain nuts. If it was about God-given moral agency, did god not consider blacks as having moral agency? Essentially, it was all about the God-given moral agency of white men?

 

You've been told by other posters that it was most certainly not ignored, but was a source of bitter strife at the convention, and was in fact one of the two possible complete roadblocks in the Constitution's eventual adoption, and yet you continue to state that the issue was ignored.   That is worthy of a CFR directed at you to show that it was ignroed, except how does one CFR a negative?  And there's no need.  Please read about this issue HERE.

 

Prior to the Constitutional Convention, in the leadup to the Continental Congress's declaration of Independence, Jefferson's original declaration condemned slavery in the strongest terms.  And was only dissuaded from that condemnation by Franklin, who recognized that no Southern state would vote for Independence with those lines in the declaration -- especially since the other Southerner in the committee to draft the declaration stated this point-blank.  

 

And in the debates in the Constitutional Convention, if the anti-slavery elements had gone for the scorched-earth policy of "No Constitution without Abolishing Slavery", then there would NEVER had been a United States Constitution, and this would have ensured two things:

 

• The Articles of Confederation would have continued to govern the USA, and because of how greatly flawed that model was, the USA would likely have broken up into two or three independent squabbling blocs, and 
• would have ensured that slavery continue on into the indefinite future, because there never would have been a Civil War, because there wouldn't have been a United States to fight over it

Instead, rational heads prevailed, and a compromise was reached, one that at least ended slave trafficking after 20 years, and also ensured the possibility of eventual national emancipation, simply because there would be two sides to the issue in a single, United States of America.

 

What do you want God to have done?  Make Cum-bye-yah happen at the CC, and make all the Southern delegates suddenly realize the evil inherent in their position?  Oh, sure, that would have worked well, don't you think?  Once the delegates returned to their state legislatures with the proposed Constitution that abolished slavery, they would have been instantly disowned, and the Constitution would have failed ratification by a country mile.  Result: Slavery Continues.

 

Or maybe God could have gone still further, and make Cum-bye-yah happen in the Southern legislatures.  In that instance, the people would have voted against ratification, with the Result: Slavery Continues.

 

Or taking this to the absurd extreme, God makes Cum-bye-yah happen to EVERYONE in the South, so they ratify the anti-slavery Constitution.

 

In short, what you positively DEMAND is that God throw up His hands in disgust over the notion that He ever gave humans free agency, and MAKES them do the Right Thing.

 

We got the Constitution we got, which is a flawed but workable document, precisely because men of at least reasonable goodwill compromised over principles important to all of them.  

 

Have you ever heard the saying that "The perfect is the enemy of the Good?"  Apparently not, or if you did, you didn't understand it.

 

God did inspire the founding fathers, first to desire independence, and then to fight for it, and finally to preserve it by creating a government which would preserve the liberties that bloodshed won.  And despite its imperfections, it has continued to preserve those liberties to this day.

[Bikeemikey]

I don't know, you can verify it through multiple sources on the internet or in books.

What could have possibly replaced slavery (cotton) as the driving force behind an upstart economy in the United States?

That is not a sufficient CFR. Please provide a source.

Cotton did not require slaves, it required laborers.

Paid laborers would have likely had a more positive influence on general economic conditions than slaves. More consumers etcetera ...

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

Wait, on one hand, most LDS will argue that the Lord had a hand in the formation of this nation and directly inspired our forefathers in their formation of the United States and particularly it's Constitution, which allowed for the practice of slavery, and now the Lord was directing Lincoln in battling that slavery that the "inspired" forefathers had all but ignored, and thus allowed as a right by way of ommission?

 

Anyone else see a contradiction here?

 

If the war was "divine retribution for national transgressions including slavery," than it was divine retribution for the institution that men inspired by the Lord had condoned? What????

 

If God was not for slavery, so much so that he sought retribution through the mechanism of the bloodiest and most cruel war in the history of our nation, than why didn't he just "inspire" the forefathers to disallow it altogether, as other nations had already done at that time?

The Constitution is and was the foundation upon which one day all our lofty and noble ideas would someday come into being. God (due to free will) can only move at the speed of choice. It would have been wonderful if every possibility in the Contitution came true overnight, but more importantly one day they will all come to pass.

[Bikeemikey]

The Constitution is and was the foundation upon which one day all our lofty and noble ideas would someday come into being. God (due to free will) can only move at the speed of choice. It would have been wonderful if every possibility in the Contitution came true overnight, but more importantly one day they will all come to pass.

Not my lofty ideals... Someone else's maybe.

[Anijen]

The truth is before the invention of the cotton gin slavery was on its way out and plans had been made for the eventual end of slavery. The cotton gin made the expansion of slavery even greater. The northern states made a lot of money because they had all the factories... The U.S. was the worlds largest supplier of cotton up until Jefferson Davis thought the South could make more money if he held off selling it which turned out to be a huge blunder, which allowed Egypt to capture the market.

 

I don't know if Lincoln read the Book of Mormon or not, I kind of like to think he did. He enjoyed his studies and I think it would have been highly plausible that the Book of Mormon was on his list.

 

 

Edited to add Stargazer has it completely correct the slavery idea was left out of the Declaration because there would be no unity on independence without it.

Edited May 3, 2014 by Anijen

[Anijen]

That is not a sufficient CFR. Please provide a source.

Cotton did not require slaves, it required laborers.

Paid laborers would have likely had a more positive influence on general economic conditions than slaves. More consumers etcetera ...

True, but we need to recognize cotton was a southern crop and plantation owners would rather use slaves than paid labor. The positive influence would have only been felt in Northern states regardless of using slaves or paid laborers.

 

 

Edited to add; obviously another positive influence could have been the end of slavery however, that is my presentism slipping in.

Edited May 3, 2014 by Anijen

[Bikeemikey]

True, but we need to recognize cotton was a southern crop and plantation owners would rather use slaves than paid labor. The positive influence would have only been felt in Northern states regardless of using slaves or paid laborers.

Edited to add; obviously another positive influence could have been the end of slavery however, that is my presentism slipping in.

The preferences of the south slaveholders does not change the reality that paid southern laborers would have had a bigger net positive impact on the economy when compared to unpaid slaves.

Not on the white slave owners, but rather on the economy as a total system.

Edited May 3, 2014 by Bikeemikey

[Bikeemikey]

True, but we need to recognize cotton was a southern crop and plantation owners would rather use slaves than paid labor. The positive influence would have only been felt in Northern states regardless of using slaves or paid laborers.

Edited to add; obviously another positive influence could have been the end of slavery however, that is my presentism slipping in.

The preferences of the south slaveholders does not change the reality that paid southern laborers would have had a bigger net positive impact on the economy when compared to unpaid slaves.

Not on the white slave owners, but rather on the economy as a total system.

Edited May 3, 2014 by Bikeemikey

[Anijen]

The preferences of the south slaveholders does not change the reality that paid southern laborers would have had a bigger net positive impact on the economy when compared to unpaid slaves.

Not on the white slave owners, but rather on the economy as a total system.

As a student of this period I doubt your assertion. "the total number of slaveholders in 1850 was only 347,525 out of a total white population of about six million in the slaveholding areas." source.

 

There would not have been a positive on influence on the economy as a total system as much as you think. Just the North would have prospered and only the 5% of wealthy slave owners would have prospered. I do not think there would have been a boom for both the North and South (just the North). Probably no boom at all since either with slaves or paid laborers only the North benefits.

 

Don't get me wrong I am not arguing for slavery it is, was, and will always be a very evil  practice.

 

Again the greatest boom and positive thing would be the end of slavery, but we were talking economic boom for the total system.

Edited May 3, 2014 by Anijen

[Bikeemikey]

As a student of this period I doubt your assertion. "the total number of slaveholders in 1850 was only 347,525 out of a total white population of about six million in the slaveholding areas." source.

There would not have been a positive on influence on the economy as a total system as much as you think. Just the North would have prospered and only the 5% of wealthy slave owners would have prospered. I do not think there would have been a boom for both the North and South (just the North). Probably no boom at all since either with slaves or paid laborers only the North benefits.

Don't get me wrong I am not arguing for slavery it is, was, and will always be a very evil practice.

Again the greatest boom and positive thing would be the end of slavery, but we were talking economic boom for the total system.

I'm struggling to follow you here.

How would paid laborers replacing slaves (that is assuming the slaves were replaced by paid laborers) not have a net positive impact on the south?

Edited May 3, 2014 by Bikeemikey

[Sleeper Cell]

The reality is that without slavery the United States would not be the wealthiest nation on earth. It is possible the U.S. would have collapsed or been conquered if not for slavery. That is - obviously - not meant to justify slavery in any way, shape, or form.

 

Actually, the United States almost collapsed because of slavery.  It was hardly a given that the North would win the Civil War. IIRC, at one time, it even appeared that the “peace candidate” might defeat Lincoln in the 1864 election.  

 

Most of the wealth accumulated by the slave owning south was destroyed during the Civil War.  To say nothing of the loss of 650,000 young men from both sides. Plus the hundreds of thousands who suffered permanent disabilities (amputees and others who were seriously crippled, those who contracted debilitating diseases, severe mental problems, etc.).  If memory serves, the Ken Burns Civil War documentary stated that the second greatest expenditure in the 1867 Louisiana budget was for artificial limbs.   

[Tiki]

The preferences of the south slaveholders does not change the reality that paid southern laborers would have had a bigger net positive impact on the economy when compared to unpaid slaves.

Not on the white slave owners, but rather on the economy as a total system.

Wow. You make it sound as if every white person in the South owned slaves and there was no paid laborers at all.

"In 1860 only a small minority of whites owned slaves. According to the U.S. census report for that last year before the Civil War, there were nearly 27 million whites in the country. Some eight million of them lived in the slaveholding states.

The census also determined that there were fewer than 385,000 individuals who owned slaves (1). Even if all slaveholders had been white, that would amount to only 1.4 percent of whites in the country (or 4.8 percent of southern whites owning one or more slaves)."

http://americancivilwar.com/authors/black_slaveowners.htm

[Stargazer]

Wow. You make it sound as if every white person in the South owned slaves and there was no paid laborers at all.

"In 1860 only a small minority of whites owned slaves. According to the U.S. census report for that last year before the Civil War, there were nearly 27 million whites in the country. Some eight million of them lived in the slaveholding states.

The census also determined that there were fewer than 385,000 individuals who owned slaves (1). Even if all slaveholders had been white, that would amount to only 1.4 percent of whites in the country (or 4.8 percent of southern whites owning one or more slaves)."

http://americancivilwar.com/authors/black_slaveowners.htm

 

Well, I guess the discussion is running far afield of its original topic.

 

It isn't important whether the slaveholders were white or black, for the sake of the discussion.  

[Bikeemikey]

Wow. You make it sound as if every white person in the South owned slaves and there was no paid laborers at all.

"In 1860 only a small minority of whites owned slaves. According to the U.S. census report for that last year before the Civil War, there were nearly 27 million whites in the country. Some eight million of them lived in the slaveholding states.

The census also determined that there were fewer than 385,000 individuals who owned slaves (1). Even if all slaveholders had been white, that would amount to only 1.4 percent of whites in the country (or 4.8 percent of southern whites owning one or more slaves)."

http://americancivilwar.com/authors/black_slaveowners.htm

Actually you read that into my post. I never referenced any kind of numerical ranking relating to slave owners and I thought most Americans knew that slave owners were a minority.

Just like today, factory owners are a minority.

The number of slave owners does not however represent the % of the workforce that was in slavery. Slave owners often owned dozens of slaves.

number of slaves in 1860: 1860 - U.S. Census. U.S. population: 31,443,321. Total number of slaves in the Lower South : 2,312,352 (47% of total population).

Having up to 47% of the laborers in the economic system as un-remunerated laborers damages the economy as a whole. Making these 47% paid would have a huge net increase in the economic system.

Edited May 3, 2014 by Bikeemikey

[Kenngo1969]

http://www.tooeleonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/9-17-13-Transcript-Bulletin.pdf

 

Here are a few ideas on how the U.S. Constitution was divinely inspired.  (See the middle of Page A4 under the headline “Key features ensured Constitution’s vitality”; the link takes a while to load, because it is a whole newspaper.  Be patient; It’s worth the wait.  Somebody I ... uhhh … know … wrote the op-ed. )

Edited May 3, 2014 by Kenngo1969

[bluebell]

I disagree, all it would have meant was that plantation owners would have had to pay the workers, and that they would not have been so rich themselves. It would have just would have given more people money.

Farms developed throughout this country without slave labor, the South could have as well. The millionaire plantation owner paying a wage would not have bankrupted him.

 

There's definitely room for disagreement.  This is one of those subjects that historians do not agree on.  I believe it is a valid argument that can be supported by evidences, but I believe it's far from fact.

 

There is so much to consider when one is trying to imagine what the U.S. would have been like without slavery:  

 

We wouldn't have much of a black population, for example, and the black population during the early years would have been practically zero.  How would that have affected the labor force that would have been available?  I have no idea but it's interesting to think about.  

 

Would large plantations have even existed without the wealth that was available to the white landowners?  I don't know.  You don't see them in places where slavery wasn't the main labor force so it could be argued that, whether or not it would be possible for someone to make money paying a wage, the benefit to the person financially would be too small for the person to have bothered in the first place. That's not a given either though, obviously.

 

How would the northern economy have developed without the huge cotton production of the South feeding it's textile industry?  I have no idea but I'm sure it would look a lot different-who's to say whether it would be better or worse though.

 

This is both the fun and annoying part of history.  No argument ever really get's settled since no one can go back and do things different to actually see what really would have happened.   

[Tiki]

From the New York Times - Lincoln obtained a Book of Mormon to better understand the Mormons

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/lincoln-and-the-mormons/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

"But the question was far from solved, and on Nov. 18, Lincoln attacked the Mormon question in a most Lincolnian way. Instead of ordering an invasion, Lincoln ordered information. Specifically, he asked the Library of Congress to send him a pile of books about Mormonism, so that the aggregator-in-chief could better understand them. These included “The Book of Mormon” in its original 1831 edition, and three other early studies of the Mormons, with extensive, lurid chapters covering their polygamy. For some reason, he also ordered a volume of Victor Hugo, in French, a language he could not read.

Fortified by his reading, Lincoln came to a great decision. And that decision was to do nothing. Sometimes that, too, can be a form of leadership — what Churchill called “a masterly inactivity.”

Typically, Lincoln reached his decision through a homely parable, told to a Mormon emissary:

When I was a boy on the farm in Illinois there was a great deal of timber on the farm which we had to clear away. Occasionally we would come to a log which had fallen down. It was too hard to split, too wet to burn, and too heavy to move, so we plowed around it. You go back and tell Brigham Young that if he will let me alone I will let him alone."