To the negative commenters: I doubt Mr. Sowell was in any way defending the abomination that was slavery. He was trying to help us see the thought processes of the time. It's too easy to turn unknown people of the past into devils and angels. Let him open your mind to the nuances.
What an asinine comment. Blacks were immorally enslaved but whites at the time didn't want to fully rectify that. So, if you were wrongly imprisoned your whole life, you think its fair to be debated if you were going to be fully restored to society or not? It's mind boggling how the lack of humanity of some people, but I shouldn't be surprised. America, as great as it is, is replete with people such as you.
@@arsena1816 You are jumping to conclusions hysterically, which is exactly what OP was talking about. Neither Sowell nor OP nor myself is defending slavery. No, it was not fair, at any point in time. In fact to say it was unfair is such a gross understatement that it almost feels obscene to refer to it that way. No one here is denying that for a second. I read the full book that this is excerpted from- there is absolutely nothing in the entire book that is in any way defensive of slavery (which makes sense given that Sowell himself is black). The only point Sowell is making is that it was not, in all cases, a simple matter of people not caring enough, or not thinking slavery was all that bad. There were people who were appalled by slavery and desperately wanted it to end, but were trying to figure out a way to do it that would not end in race war, civil war, the deaths of millions of previously enslaved people, or perhaps all three. You can debate whether those concerns were worth thinking about; the only point being made here is that these were actual concerns that certain people had- even people who were opposed to slavery in principle. This is basically a restatement of the law of unintended consequences: very often when you try to fix a problem, you unintentionally either make things worse, or create a whole suite of new problems. If they rushed into freeing the slaves, only to cause an immediate race war in which many of the freed slaves died, and the ones who remained then gradually starved to death or died from lack of other basic human amenities, because they lacked the skills and education to provide for themselves, having been enslaved- well, would all of them dying in such a way actually be preferable? Perhaps you think it would be; perhaps you feel it’s better to die free than to live enslaved. That is a fair position and I’m not arguing against it, but the point is that it is something that needed to be thought about at the time. That’s it. No one is defending the fact that human beings were enslaved.
@@arsena1816 Well, you share in that asininity somewhat. "Whites at the time didn't want to fully rectify that?" So, you were there? If you were, you wouldn't have said that as you'd also know that not all slave owners were white. What about all the *blacks* who owned slaves all over the South? And why aren't the black Africans who SOLD the slaves into the slave trade in the first place ever mentioned? The blame ALWAYS starts with the white slaveowners in America. You sound like you only hear what you want to. Joan was only saying that Tom Sowell is trying to provide context via insight into the zeitgeist of the day, but without an open mind, one can't see that or anything else for that matter. An open mind is what enables one to learn. Open yours a little.
@@arsena1816 You can say in the abstract the civil war was worth fighting. But if you could have looked Lydia Bixby in the eye when she received news that all five of her sons had died, your faith would have been rocked to its core. Woman like that prove that the quest for a nuanced path prior to the war had not been without merit. Have some compassion!
@@phillyguy2157 So, you don't like the fact that he had to be persuaded to remove a complaint about the Btitish Monarchy allowing the evils of slavery to take root in the colonies from the Declaration of Independence? Or that the only slaves he owned were inherited? I think you need to know a little bit more about Jefferson before rejecting him.
Yes it is. It's running away after from what you deserve happening to you that's hard. If a slave owner thought releasing slaves put their lives in danger, maybe it did. If it did they deserved it.
@@milesjfunk Only a sociopath would agree with you or make your statement. One of the things that has been true throughout history is that those who lack the experience or teaching of personal responsibility cannot function in the world. Look at all the useless degree students who demand that other people pay for their mistakes. Look at the BLM terrorism using the flimsy excuse of a dead violent felon whose death was purely from drug overdose. Part of successfully living free is taking responsibility for yourself and accepting the consequences of your own choices and actions. It wasn't a unwillingness to free slaves that happened in general but determining what would reduce the negative consequences of it. General Lee actually came to what would be viewed as the closest to a good action. Give them the choice to be freed with the support of their former master, that on completion of service they earn a land parcel and home, serve in mixed units with whites, and given the opportunity for education after the war. Multiple slave owners at their own expense and land in were willing to free 30,000 slaves under those conditions. This was approved by all levels of society in the south save ONE. Democrat state Governors who for ego reasons were incensed to the idea and voted it down. Almost everyone of them being opposed by their own state congresses and senates in the matter. You have demonstrated that purely for the hope of praise on the internet to state something simplistic while completely failing to watch the video that explained it in easy to understand terms. That is a act of malicious ignorance all for the sake of personal ego. Much like those Governors in the civil war.
@@milesjfunk I do. Is that what your first comment was addressing; “cowardice”? Honestly, it wasn’t written very well. That’s why I called it gibberish.
Wow, very enlightening elucidation of the issue of resolution of slavery in USA. Too often people think of this subject in simplistic abstract terms without bothering to consider the real contexts and consequences. Burke was a unique intellectual of the time in that he was clear headed, most of his contemporaries too easily swung to either extreme.
Man, reading Thomas Sowell is so enlightening. I'm currently going through his bibliography and every book expands my mind more. This man has been a gift to humanity, I think. A modern day prophet some would say.
It doesn't come up here, but in other passages he speaks of the slaves being simply released on Hispaniola, and the result was a racial bloodbath. He's right, I never dreamed they were dealing with such things.
I never thought of it that way, Thomas Sowell a truly wise man who blesses us with thinking, thank-you Mr Sowell you constantly spark thought for me for us all.
I've been arguing the same point but in more simplified form for a while now. I keep telling people that killing 600000 people in this country burning half of it to the ground and then taking a largely illiterate and ignorant slaves and throwing them out into post war ravaged South and gleefully exclaiming your free was never going to end well. the civil war immediately free the slaves but the vitriol and resentment it created it kept them as 2nd class citizens for generations.
Freedom in and of itself is no gift. Without some sense of direction or purpose, a man freed from the will of another becomes a slave to his own base desires. To be truly free, one needs a context in which to exercise that freedom, in other words, a cause greater than oneself.
Freedom to believe that individuals are unchained and bounded by no single entity in this country to realize their dreams and achieve their ambitions is what this country is today. Chains cannot bind you once you allow your wings to grow.
Yeah, because "intellectuals" is a misnomer for a lot of them. A college degree doesn't mean you're wise. Nowadays, it just means you were dumb enough to spend hundreds of thousands on a certificate that isn't worth much more than a wad of toilet paper, but yet has the same purpose.
Thank you very much for this video. A masterfully presented and very enlightening presentation on the writings of a great educator, Dr. Thomas Sowell. We tend to politicize everything and strip issues of their actual real-life relevance. Dr. Sowell brings the real issues that most of us are unaware of, to the fore.
Wow great video. I'm gonna have to take a moment and think. I used to be mad and say why did it take us so long to free the slaves, now I realize it wasn't easy nor was it gonna end well. I'm just sad that some of us who tried so hard to move forward is up in flames along with our cities.
Thanks Flora, Tom often talks about circumstances surrounding events in the past that are ignored by us in the future, passing judgement on them from a 21st century perspective. Been taking free online courses from Hillsdale College. You sign up with an email. Most very good, occasionally a dull speaker, but the info is the great reward. Taking a course on the Federalist Papers and hearing some of the quotes and struggles the Founders had with slavery is enlightening. They were also balancing forming a country with the slave owning South and didn't want to force abolition and destroy the Union simultaneously. But they did make it illegal in the newer territories and when any new states were formed it would be one allowing and one illegal (I believe - not sure it lasted long enough before the civil war to see it in action). The first draft of the Declaration had an anti-slavery clause, but was removed to not drive the South away before the fledgling country could even get underway. All the Founders agreed is was an evil needing correction, and to our credit, we were the second Major nation to abolish it, UK being first. There may have been a small country that abolished it first, not sure. England dedicated 1/5 of its entire navy to stop the slavers, the most powerful navy tin the world at that time. If you make a time chart of the last 5000 years, you'll see that slavery has existed from our earliest recorded times, with virtually every country and tribal peoples practicing some sort of slavery throughout their existence. Along that timeline with many nations practicing it for thousands of years or the direct descendants of all modern peoples with some form of slavery or serfdom - the USA had it as legal only about 100 years - an invisible spec on the timeline of slavery through history - and we had far less than other great societies of the past. So food for thought Flora. Like you, I love Tom Sowell, elder statesman to us all and leaving us volumes of wisdom to guide us in life, his time is short and he will be sorely missed. His longer interviews, especially those with Peter Robinson of the Hoover Insti. - are well worth the time. Thanks again Flora
@@dongaetano3687 i here you, but the only kind of judgement that is incorrect to pass on them is hypocritical judgement. It's like saying men throughout history have beaten their wives for thousands of years. I only beat you the first couple years of our marriage. For sure, I still treated you very poorly in the years after beating you too, but doesn't the fact that other men beat their wives longer put my beatings in perspective? Heres what I would say to someone who said that: Uh no it doesn't, you absolutely trash human being Now we do have some people who think bashing on people for "beating their wives" makes them moral, while they verbally abuse their own wives. I think that kind of virtue signaling is trash too. But there's no need to minimize abusive behaviors at all, we should just aim at not being abusive people at all, and rectify abuse that took place in the past
@@oakinwol Hey oak, just saw this and understand you have some disagreement with what I said but, honestly, I can't figure out exactly what it is. I can agree "not being abusive people at all". Sounds good to me. I can agree not bashing people who beat their wives - but - I have two instances in my life where I stood up to an abusive husband at the wife's request, we were all friends in two instances. The wives were suffering in silence. I am very small - I did not enjoy it. It did help in one instance permanently, 30 years later they are still together. Lost touch with the other, did stop, but not sure of duration. Non-violent episodes. I used reasoning to expose their denial and lame excuses and blaming. In a third instance, I was in barely moving, stop and go traffic on a summer evening, and as I slowly passed a guy talking to a girl in her car through the window, she pleaded for help. Cars were just about stopped and I got out and walked around and asked the guy what's up? We had a few words and he decided to go back to his own car. She was relieved and thankful. Now I don't know if you agree but I was ready to do whatever I could to keep her safe. This was before cell phones, 70's maybe, I was in my 20's. As far as "rectify abuse that took place in the past", you'll have to explain what you mean, I am against reparations - telling our children they are guilty and saying all whites are racist, etc. So feel free to challenge, offer correction, etc. Old guy off to bed here. Be well.
@@dongaetano3687 Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I think my issue is with the way you're discussing it. It's great that you stood up for abused women in the past, and you recognize the kind of justifying and blame shifting attitude that abusers can have. I'm saying apply those same things to slavsry: I only abused you for a "speck of time" in our marriage (not really even true of the US tho because they were released with literally nothing to show for the decades of work so they were immediately transitioned into economic exploitation which is a different form of slavery) I had other considerations that I had to prioritize above not beating you, etc. I understand those considerations were there, but they are all selfish and self serving. Some of the founders might've been against slavery in theory, but many of them in practice owned slaves. The life of a slave was extremely traumatic and dehumanizing. The absolute hypocrisy of them complaining about taxation without representation and feeling that they needed to rectify that for themselves FIRST before dealing with the far more egregious exploitation and oppression they themselves were perpetrating is a textbook example of genuine human depravity. If you are familiar with the biblical adage to remove the log from your own eye before trying to remove the speck from someone else's eyes, this is exactly what thats referring to. The vast majority of them were trash human beings, with the exception of very few who really got it. And it's the same today As for reparations I am against many forms of that that are thrown around, mostly because they're just bad ideas. However, one cannot have their knee on someone's neck for decades and then think that justice or rectifying that entails simply removing your knee from their neck and telling them to have a nice life from here on forward. Especially when in many aspects that knee was simply replaced with an elbow. We have to make that right as a country, that's just our countries responsibility. But in needs to be targeted, as real justice always is. People's children are affected by what happens to their parents. If someone's parent was shot and killed obviously that affects the life of the child. Abuse does not die with one generation
@@oakinwol Thanks oak, I see your thinking. Can only disagree and believe you are judging through the lens of a 20th or now 21st century perspective, not taking into account the conditions of the time or the training and adjustment time needed for the slave population to be ready to act as free citizens. Even soldiers or prisoners nowadays after a far less separation from the greater society may often need help re-adjusting to the society they have already lived most of their lives in. Without the country even formed, where would we have had the programs to facilitate education and vocational training for the new population? My bias is Conservative Independent and besides these videos and I have watched the full Tom interview on this and, listened to the about 2 hr 30 min reading of this chapter 3, of Black Rednecks and White Liberals here on the Tube. Also a took a free online course with a section on it at Hillsdale College. If you could hear the quotes from their discussions you might soften your view. I believe you are in error and demanding an action that the newly forming country could not have taken, or executed properly at the time in those circumstances. Suppose they tried it and the south broke away while still in possession of most all the slaves? What then? Easy to criticize, difficult to consider the whole of any situation. Dr Sowell has found the most accurate assessment in my opinion. Appreciate you clarifying your thinking, sorry to have to disagree. I'm sure your critique is what you believe to be true.
Abandonment. That is the key word in the whole discussion. What do abandoned people do? How do they survive? How do they remain non-violent if they have no honest means to provide for themselves? Most former slaves stayed where they were and became share croppers for their former owner. It was far from ideal, but it kept them alive. Their children did a bit better.
Man, I really despise and resent leftists. I hate that I grew up hearing such a one dimensional version of this matter and wasn't given the complexity that it really entailed. I love having come across Thomas Sowell's work and being able to see the complexities that many of the people involved had to deal with. Judging people in the past with morals of the present is a task reserved for fools.
Though I have seen many of Tom's interviews, it's great to see these well done excerpts, which are most likely to be viewed by a greater number of time short people, who just can't or won't view an hour lecture or read a book. Keep'em coming.
The realists were prescient and their foresight has been born out. However, after 150 years the problems haven't been addressed. In American culture it's the individuals' responsibility to overcome or adapt to their circumstance. Those who are members of a group in the same circumstance can use that membership to elevate the status of the group and it behooves them to do so. Jews are the best but not the only example of this. Nearly every immigrant group has done so despite lacking money, language, education, or cultural familiarity. They worked for it and helped each other achieve success.
Referring to Jews as the best example of foreigners assimilating into another culture is a really, REALLY bad example. I could write a few paragraphs to explain why, but I don't feel like having my RUclips account cancelled, so I'll just have to keep it at that. Let's just say that it didn't work out that way when they became residents in Orthodox Christian Russia.
Still as sharp and wise as he ever was in his nineties. To this white person, he is a hope and an inspriration. I have this book but haven't had the time to finish it. I must make the time.
This is a thoughtful, well-reasoned overview of the dilemma that faced our country in the 18th-19th centuries. Too many won’t give it a second thought and condemn it as bigoted. Yet there were many, even slave owners, who gave much thought on how to end the peculiar institution and recognized that it would eventually happen. Some, like Jefferson Davis who taught his slaves to read and write and Stonewall Jackson who founded and taught in a Sunday School for slaves and taught them those skills at great risk because it was illegal for them to do so, had an eye to eventual emancipation. It’s ironic and sad that our country and Haiti were the only two countries where slavery wasn’t allowed to end peacefully and 126 years later, both are still suffering the consequences of that violent end.
One group was determined to hold on slavery one group was for releasing it. The group against releasing slaves has continued to put roadbloacks towards intergration to date thus fanning racial discord. What is complicated with that?
Good Idea! Ethically cloning is murky water though Dr. Sowell is an American treasure. Godspeed and good health to Dr. Sowell. Ps; I changed ethnically to ethically. Sorry about that sometimes the phone picks the wrong word.
If the media in this country was telling us the truth and had a collective agenda to make this a better country for ALL Americans, Thomas Sowell would be on EVERY news show across the country. INSTEAD, we get Ibram X. Kendi.
More money has been paid to Blacks through welfare that could of ever been claimed to have been generated during slavery. But you should look up Booker T. Washington. He stated flatly that people should look out for and fight against the very race grifters that plague our society today.
@@proctain whaaaaaat? The vast majority of welfare is paid to whites. How can something be justice money if you give it to everyone, and more of it at that. That's just dumb. Blacks weren't able to participate in the GI bill to the same degree or farm subsidies either.
@@tagon70 True that they are not but just because ti goes to other communities does not diminish the fact that more money in welfare programs has been paid out to the black community than the combined profits from slavery in North America. If you read more of Thomas Sowel he has the numbers and figures all laid out in his books and presentations.
@@oakinwol Oh so you want to bring up events from the FDR and not credit it properly to hide facts. FDR Admired Woodrow Wilson. Both were Democrats and both were deeply racist. Wilson openly hated the average American and played Birth Of A Nation at the white house theater. For your information that was a KKK propaganda film that reinvigorated the KKK because of Wilson's open approval. Oh and Wilson died a Dem and was memorialized by dems. As for FDR he and his wife were part of multiple anti-black social societies that looked to keep them out of businesses or living in their communities. So when FDR was drafting his disastrous "new deal" he excluded blacks from the majority of programs on purpose to gain even more support from Dixiecrats and Dem kkk members in the rest of the US. It took Republicans to remove the FDR restrictions. Which happened decades ago. So stop lying it just makes you look ignorant and shows off yoru pathological need to be a victim to get out of taking responsibility for your life. Oh and worse of. Before welfare and single mother subsidies, blacks had less crime and more employment than they do now. Even Jim crow could not change that. But welfare and fatherless homes did what racist laws couldn't, destroy the black community. That is the saddest part you are buying into the very system that objectively does the black community the most harm and then stuff your fingers in your ears when shown the hard numbers and facts.
How about we have men (and women) of great wisdom as parents, teachers, barbers, corner store owners, coaches etc...These are the people who shape future generations.
I heard that a lot of freed slaves cried when told to leave the plantions,I also heard most plantion owners employed their freed slaves to keep working the plantions to keep the plantion going and keep roofs over their paid workers heads,some freed slaves even got left the plantion once the owner died it was in their wills,others got left money etc,this never gets mentioned,it's only the rare moments of cruelty's that are brought forward.each slave punished cruely was a repeat offender of some rule or other on the plantion,nothing has changed rule/law today, breakers get punished regardless of colour today.we are all living on one big plantion all creeds are even whites ,don't look down on anyone to blame but look up at the 1% of elites ,they are the ones enslaving us all,but use their wealth to brainwas you to think it's the little old white lady down the road or young white couple who don't have a pot to piss in.🤷
Hard not to get beat with rules like don't read, and don't do anything I don't say. You're on drugs with your "rare moments of cruelty" nonsense. I mean, really out there.
It certainly wasn’t rare cases of cruelty. But yes there were many slave owners that were not cruel. The problem with most peoples approach to history today is they impose their morals on people who lived long ago not understanding that the morals we have today developed because of those times.
"slave owners that were not cruel" Really? People don't work that way. Nobody's cool with being a slave. I agree it's possible for it to be a better condition than some kinds of death, but not if a person never had a chance. If you can't leave you can't live a life.
Revisionist history always loves to paint all the slave owners as beating their slaves all the time. This is hardly reality. If anything the Irish and Chinese because they were cheaper got beat way more. They were a dime a dozen. The Union wanted division. The abolitionist Marxists wanted blacks to be free but didn't stop to think that hey many if not most knew their "owners" all their lives. They couldn't read, couldn't write, had zero experience dealing with financial matters (most, not all), etc. I believe it was Senator Benjamin Hill who pointed out what the Radical Republicans did. They promised the blacks "40 acres and a mule" but in reality all they did was create dependents for that 40 acres was essentially a wasteland. Therefore, their new master was the United States National government which utterly destroyed our original Federal system. As James G. Blaine, another radical Marxist put it regarding the 14th Amendment which was never ratified in accordance with Article V. "And in making this extension of citizenship, we are not confining the breadth and scope of our efforts to the negro, but the white man as well. We intend to make citizenship National." Now everyone with this citizenship "under the jurisdiction thereof" is in fact a slave as that citizenship was created by the 39th and 40th Congress's unlawfully. The sole reason for the Reconstruction Acts was because State political bodies refused to ratify the 14th Amendment the first time.
Marvelous discussion. Much of what Mr. Sowell notes is also in "The Cotton Kingdom", by Frederick Law Olmsted, written before the War Between the States, which has now been forgotten twice over, once from antiquity, and again by being 'canceled' by the, ah, Socialists. Now Sowell comes to the rescue, and presents again many of the thoughts in "The Cotton Kingdom", and many more of his own. Very good job, Mr. Sowell. I read everything you write, and watch all all your videos. Between you and Jordan Peterson, I believe there is hope for us yet.
In many cases; yes. Didn't matter to them that the flesh & blood humans, that had been wrongly enslaved, died or not just as long as they got the ego boost of being "On the rights side of History"
What would have been the best solution? I think Education and training in gainful trade and profession would have been the solution, which is applicable to any race. I was reading about slavery amongst the Nigerians. Their local slave traders also owned slaves and became very rich and respected citizens in their community.Even today, the Nigerian descendants of slaves, the ohu and osu, fight for equal rights and opportunities in their country. They were discriminated by the diala, the people who were never slaves, and are discriminated within their society. Same people, same color, same race. It's puzzling. People,who don't know history, think slavery is the evil white man abusing the poor black. But its horrors always existed through the history of humanity, only in the late 300 yrs the Africans were enslaved by the europeans and their descendants in America. Before that people would enslave their own neighbors, native Americans did also, and the Ottomans practiced it for 1400 yrs going all the way to Greenland to attack and capture white slaves, as they did along the coastal European cities. Slavery still goes on in Africa as well as in other parts of the world. But for political reasons it's not discussed.
David Livingstone, writing about what he saw in southern parts of Africa (chiefly a strip running east-west from what is now Mozambique to Angola) noted that when slave traders came calling (in what would now be the interior of Angola or points a little further east) leaders in the villages would sell their own people as slaves for the right price - but that they only sold those villagers who were least popular and least useful to them. And that has been the case throughout history. Some were made slaves when they lost wars, some villages were raided by slavers, but for the most part those who were made slaves were those who were already seen as unpopular or nearly useless by their own people, or who had incurred debts that they could not repay. Conversely, those who were captured and enslaved who quickly proved their value to the community were frequently freed within a few years of being captured, in cultures all around the world - often with enticements to keep them in the community in the hope that they would continue to contribute to the community's well-being. So when we talk about the descendants of long term slave communities, frequently (but not always) we are talking about an underclass that remains an underclass not because of prejudice (though that may develop over time) but because of their own actions and habits over time. It is not comfortable for modern westerners who have an unbounded faith in equality to hear that, but those who have to deal with these issues in their everyday lives frequently can't afford the luxury of conforming to theories that bear little resemblance to reality. It is easy to uphold principles at a distance. It is not so easy when your lives and livelihoods are threatened.
Douglas was criticized for "buying' his freedom. I see it as, through his hard work and tenacity, he played the "game" and won on his own merits and not gained his freedom by legislation or by permission of someone else.
So the enslaved man “did it the right way” and earned his freedom. You make it sound like having to buy your freedom is something better than freedom being granted because it’s the most basic human right
@@brandonbluegold No! Maybe if you read his writings and look at his life through HIS eyes and not filter the life of others through a warped political agenda!
It's so interesting to consider the larger ramifications of abolishing a thousands-year old practice. People today don't consider nuances. They think everything is black & white (no pun intended) but social, legal, economic consequences make up all the grey that needed to considered.
Do you really think slaves cared about socio-economic considerations of their freedom? You just don't get it. You're too far removed. If you need air you need air, if you need freedom you need freedom, the rest is for another time. That's how a slave thinks. People trying to "consider ramifications" are just covering their asses, not helping anyone else.
There’s nuance but you’re also dealing with human lives here not cattle. It’s just like America, create a problem, try to fix it and then create another problem
Too many want to look only at exceptional free Blacks, and assume that every freed slave had the same capabilities from Day1. Realities is that the skills and resources to function in a free society are not learned overnight, and who is going to feed, clothe and house those who are still learning, without reducing them to dependency? We are still seeing the consequences of paying “sit-down money” to communities .... consequences in terms of violent crime, sexual abuse and substance abuse that are orders of magnitude higher than in the general population. Ideologues commonly ignore the downsides. As long as they feel good, the consequences are “somebody else’s problem”.
Consider present day big tech, some of us would like to not change the slavery of the 3rd world for our gains and some of us would like the immediate freedom of said 3rd world country.
Great point.. echoes of the more "comfortable" (an illusion at best) house slave compared to the brutal life of the field slave. Yet both today..and their families, are still oppressed regardless of academic, financial or service to country achievements. M. Garvey had the correct solution...leave. 🙏🏽
I think his point about complicated realities vs. abstract principles is absolutely essential-but it’s difficult to employ much of the time. We use abstractions precisely because they strip away much of the complications of the real world; they simplify questions and make convoluted problems seem more tractable. Abstract reasoning about liberty, law, and morality can be elucidating; but trying to base policies purely on abstract reasoning is like asking a mathematician to fix your car. It’s not going to work.
Oh come on. You know if you kept a man in a cage, and you were scared to let him out because he'd hurt you, you still deserve it. That's a cowards argument even if it saves your family.
@@norman6694 Actually, "genius," they stayed because there was no where better to go. They had no jobs skills, and were illiterate. Not all blacks were treated so badly that they had to flee.
@@norman6694 A few were skilled. Overwhelming majority were not. Plantation owners knew that if they treated blacks badly, they'd be left with no laborers on their farm and would go bankrupt. Check out the book, 'Baruch My Own Story', the first third of it, to better understand why they remained on the plantation by choice.
@@societyofrobots I don't know what your idea of treating people nicely means but most black people in the south were treated like trash, black people migrated out of the south by the thousands as soon as they could
From a pragmatic perspective the British solution to end slavery by compensating the slave owners was way less destructive than the American Civil War.
@@norman6694 Good question. For everybody in different ways. Black South Africans are deeply and furiously racist and antisemites. As a black I haven't suffered a single prejudice from whites there. They are not the "evil" people media talk about, on the contrary. I remember during the apartheid we were lost in Johannesburg and white policemen so gently offered themeselves to escort us to the right place.
Alot of problems AA deal with today is due to fact we remained in a backwards part of the country too long. Poverty among AAs didn't really drop until the great migrations.
@@brandonbluegold The Ottoman Empire caused a resurgence in slavery after the High Medieval Christian paradigm had previously been phasing it out over a thousand years following the fall of the Pagan Roman Empire and the rise of Western Catholicism and Byzantium. Eventually a Free Peasantry was born guided by the wisdom of the Guilds. But the Ottoman greed was infectious. Much of European colonialism was motivated in the desire to compete with them. No excuses. But we’re all sinners. Do not forget that.
Amazing. Proves the whole slavery abolition was more complicated than it's presented. The lack of context of the economy, politics, and social norms of of the time that is missing from modern conversation is quite sad. The concept of "being prepared for freedom" is never considered.
The fact that people say civilised is a problem because it almost says there were no civil black people before hand. But my other thoughts are that the uprisings were always going to continue so they had to eventually free slaves. Also, one a black person was free from slavery, I could not fault them for wanting to kill their old masters. Especially if they were treated poorly. But the answers has alot of moving parts with different opinions of the right path.
This video makes a lot of outstanding points, but for some reason nobody ever talks about the immigrants that have come from Europe, who are worried about freed black slaves saturating the job markets of the North, which in turn, drive the immigrants to the Democrats. Europe's influence within the Democratic party can still be illustrated to this day.
The freeing of Slaves was extremely complicated due to the lack of an education for the Black Slaves. How would an uneducated Slave be able to compete in an educated society? What skills and/or skills had they developed to live unassisted as free people? The truth of those concerns is made evident when one considers that an estimated 1 million Slaves perished in Union Relocation Camps in the 5 years after the passage of the 13th Amendment. In my mind it was completely unacceptable that people would be gathered together in great numbers via the promise of food, shelter and vocational training. What they actually got was starvation and disease.
How much does this ring true for western society in general today? The average person has never had so much freedom, and yet here we are in a crumbling society because of it, because so many dont recognise that freedom and riot for greater freedoms in a reality that allows them to freely express their disdain on behalf of others that they 'feel' have less freedom than them selves, and have so much freedom now that they can violently riot with little to no recourse. And even more I fear whats coming on the other side of this, when society shifts too far to one side too abruptly, like a rubber band it will violently snap back to the other side, whats coming will be a sudden shift from hyper liberalism to hyper conservativism, being a centrist myself I see no good in either extreme.
In all my watching I have never seen a proper balance toward correctness. It's always trying to fix it by going all the way to the other extreme. Love the rubber band example.
If only newly freed slaves had been given their reparations of farm land and a mule most would've just gotten busy with building their lives and raising solid families
@@monacoofthebluepacific2571 The point is free slaves were given the opportunity to escape the political and social injustices of the US and It didn’t work out very well for the people who decided to leave. Your comment seems to insinuate black people don’t have solid families because they weren’t given 40 acres and a mule 150 years ago. What doesn’t make sense is the black family was more stable in 1960 when racism and poverty were far worse than today? Why were they able to build their lives and raise solid families in 1960 but not today?
Ending slavery in America answered all three of Thomas Sowell's questions. 1. Compared to what? 2. What hard evidence do you have? 3. At what cost? Freeing the slaves helped move us one step closer to realizing our national stated goal of a more perfect union and that all men are created equal. The evidence was self evident as stated in our founding documents and the price in human life, property, and misery was enormous.
Finally someone said it the civil war was fought for MANY reasons not just 1 it was a complex subject however which requires abstract thinking something the youth doesn’t have today unfortunately they think its a 1 sided coin
I always find it funny some people bring up "reparations". But no one talks about "refunds". If Africa provides a refund (money back for the people), it should be used for reparations.
This is ridiculous. Slavery existed for almost 100 years in America. That would be like me buying a dog, breeding it several times, and then going back to where I got my original dog and trying to ask for my money back for its great grand child
@MichaelKingsfordGray Of course I am not free, that's why I appreciate freedom. I didn't say I am, so there is no hypocrisy from my part, but there is stupidity from your part.
It is an interesting statistic, and I wonder if it includes the number of slaves whose deaths were caused by Union troops during and after the war? These numbers almost certainly are in the hundreds of thousands, deaths caused by starvation, exposure, or disease after Union troops stole or destroyed the food stores, livestock, and sometimes housing on which the slaves depended, but most of these deaths were never officially documented, and they have not traditionally been included in the number of deaths caused by the war - especially those that died after the war was officially over.
Very true. Very controversial. The civil war was unpreventable. It is good the slaves were freed. My views on reconstruction are extremely controversial. My views on Abraham Lincoln are so favorable as to ultimately generate criticism.
The manner in which slaves came to this country is very much steeped in tribal African and Arab tribal traditions, and is very important to remember. African tribal Chiefs and Arab slavers sold blacks into slavery according to their tribal customs, customs that had no place in the West then, and to our present day. Because such tribal custom treats the out-group as inhuman. Behavior that today's Left is very much involved in. Slaves came to this country when it was a fraction of it's present size. Knowledge of the African interior for Westerners didn't extend very much passed the coast line, until the days of Livingston, by that time slavery had been outlawed in the West. Since Westerners were not active in the processes of capturing other human beings to sell into slavery they were able to maintain a world without these tribal customs in it, and develop beyond the crude rudimentaries of tribal life. When you cross the border into the West, you leave your tribal customs behind you. Discarding tribal custom is part of life in the West.
Thank you Dr. Thomas Sowell. Appreciate all you do to bring us the True History. If we had more Educators like Dr. Thomas Sowell. Parents wouldn’t have to worry about someone Transgenderlysing and Indoctrinating our Children. All day long Yahoo
I do believe that Abraham Lincoln had the thought of deporting all freed slaves/blacks to South America because he felt that the country would NEVER get over the issue of slavery in USA.
There had been attempts to send freed slaves to Africa and the colony of Liberia was established there for that purpose. There were also considerations for establishing a new colony in Central America. Long before the war many southern leaders were interested in the idea and supported it, but once they discovered that the majority of these freed slaves died of tropical diseases shortly after arrival they shut that program down as they considered it inhumane under those conditions. Abraham Lincoln was in favor of the idea, and was still working on implementation the week before he died. His earlier efforts had been foiled when the man he had put in charge of the project absconded with the funds.
Were these guys on the forefront of developing CRT, being able to recognize the potential problems that could stem from the history of inhumane treatment or lack of education etc..?
The complexity of this problem of treating any group of human beings in the way Africans as well as many other groups in the past have been treated is almost beyond belief. The conviction I have is that all human beings, all of them are children of the Living God. As such we should all always treat each other from this perspective. Many if not all isssues of abuse, inequality, selfishness, and the tendency of human beings to become proud and thinking of themselves as better than their fellowman in many aspects. This is an issue of human nature to become self in the extreme to the point humans can rationalize any behavior. Each of us individually is responsible for our own behaviors and how they affect this and other essential problems that human beings suffer from.
I'm Irish, between the 15th and 17th century, my ancestors, along with millions of other Europeans living on the coasts of western Europe, were abducted and sold into slavery by the Moors, black Africans of a certain religion! This is a story that goes back thousands of years, all over the world, so please, before you start trying to paint a picture of Africans being the sole historical victims, and whites the sole perpetrators of slavery, actually learn some history! There's not one single culture, race or religion on the planet that isn't guilty of the crime of enslaving another!
So, even though some states (Massachusetts mentioned at 3:03 ) had no slaves,they still had resentment, antipathy for the slaves. That the idea of abolishing slavery was not welcome. Unless I'm missing something. After all, the history of civil war showed that the majority could care less about the fate of slaves , as long as their interests were not at stake. Edit: timestamp
The northerners didn't support slavery. The fear was that abolitionists would stoke civil war and the horrors that would follow, not that they were afraid of freed slaves. As fast as the interest of the Northerners goes they just didn't want to get their heads' blown off in said war.
@@rinck17 There were northerners who had no problem with slavery and southerners who abhorred it. It’s a far more complex issue than anyone today has the capacity to realize.
@@noodlyappendage6729 "They", being the American government and the abolitionists who wanted to rid their hands of the responsibility of reacclimating enslaved people back into a functional society. The formerly oppressed became the oppressors themselves once they encountered the Native Liberian people and subjugated them under a system of segregation and who were thus denied basic civil rights like the blacks back in America. If you think Liberia was such a good plan, explain the devastating economic state of the country and it's lack in progression and corruption in sociopolitical development of the nation as well. It's a warzone, they dropped us off and left us to fend for ourselves, depriving the people of proper education in running a country, an economy, and managing it's people. These were not native Africans, these were a tampered people who were psychologically codependent on the assistance of their white counterparts,. If you're going to argue that, I'm arguing with a very unintelligent person.
One of the great issue's involved with teaching history in our time is the tendency to generalize, simplify and exaggerate. The reality is that there are as many stories in history as there were people to experience it, and it's a travesty that so many in our own time look at those in the past as caricatures, either all evil or all good. Never as real people confronted with issue's that appeared far more complicated in their time then they do today. What I love about Thomas Sowell is his capacity to take on every nuance, to recognize the challenges as the people of the time saw them. It takes a far greater intellectual capacity to entertain idea's so foreign to the modern mindset, and so as to allow for a better understanding of the past as a whole. The left treats our founders as if they should have been able to see the future with 20/20 clarity, and never even consider the social, economics and political consequences of their actions in their own time. It is the height of arrogance to think you would know better than they about the world they lived in. Honestly the last 3 years is the ultimate proof in my mind that those who so fervently condemn those in the past for not being sufficiently pro-slavery would be the most ardent supporters of it had they lived then,
If you had a kidnapped person, what argument would you make for keeping them? I mean, I'm just curious, because obviously, you'd make one. You wouldn't put yourself in danger to correct the mistake, you made that clear.
I can only assume what Americans thought after emancipation. All of a sudden, there is a large number of former slaves, unable to read or write, lack any employable skills beyond agriculture perhaps, how will they be able to sustain themselves as there were no welfare options back then? How would they survive without being cared for, for food and shelter? Perhaps they could grow their own, but how without land if not hired to farm. Bingo.
In those days many white people could not read or write and had few employable skills. But there were plenty of manual labor jobs that did not require literacy special skills or training. They supported themselves and their families by day labor or by starting some small business of their own.
@@mrdanforth3744 interestingly, there a few black groups of very talented builders in the South, who due to racism, sought better paying opportunities in the North. This was when the labor unions were created to keep out these black Southern laborers.
Contrary to his statement at 8:16, the Civil War did not settle the issue of slavery. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation expired at the end of hostilities and Congress assumed control of the slavery issue by promoting the 13th amendment. Now we will find why Northerners and Congress fought the Civil War; it wasn't to end slavery. Amendment 13 Section 2, "Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." In the Dred Scott vs. Sandford case, Justice Taney said the slaves could not access judicial relief because they were not counted as a Citizen and could never be a Citizen. By Section 2 of the 13th amendment, Congress declares no freed slave will have access to the judicial power for relief; all court cases will be administrative in nature. By the 14th amendment, these freed slaves were made "persons ... subject to the jurisdiction of the United States" having only "privileges and immunities," not rights. Congress could not make them Citizens on par with the Citizens of the several states, NOR DID CONGRESS WANT ANY MORE CITIZENS LIKE THIS. Congress wants persons on whom they could directly legislate, within the bodies of the states, having no access to judicial power. The Civil War continues this day through legal process. Look beyond your personal lives for the future you and your great family will endure. Please visit talkradiomore dot you know the rest for the unfolding story.
This current chaos is the result of the welfare state of the 1960's, and is now being pushed out into the mainstream of society. Listen to more of Sowell's interviews on how life was in the Black city areas when he was growing up. There was extremely low crime, two parent households, men who worked and provided for their families. The State destroyed that with LBJ's Great Society and created this mess.
Wow. I never considered the fact that capital-A Abolitionists might be considered extremists by little-a abolitionists in much the same way that suffragettes were considered extremists by suffragists. It seems that the main requirement to be an extremist is to hold black and white opinions (no pun intended).
Sowell has alternately argued that slaves were highly skilled and flourished immediately following emancipation in other writings, were quickly represented in home and property ownership in an argument against paternalistic and insulting charitable efforts immediately following the civil war that it was largely unnecessary. So this is a very different and contradictory argument.
@@Pdmc-vu5gj This entire video has been Sowell presenting stances and positions of contemporary men on the subject without attributing anything of his own unto them, I don't know the broader context this segment was taken from but there's certainly nothing 'weak' about it.
The only problem is the superficial deprecation of theory. A good theory is good because it is good from all points of view. The "good for society" perspective killed the chance at any resolution in theory and practice.
We have a similar problem today. If freeing so many slaves all at once caused such social turmoil as to how to look after all the freed slaves? What about all of these illegal immigrants today how are they supposed to be looked after and what are the illegal immigrants supposed to do? It seems in a sense history is repeating itself.
I’ve always wondered how many freed slaves died in the years following the Civil War. War deaths + refugee deaths + destruction of the South + creation of hate groups vs waiting a few years. It’s certainly worth consideration.
It's the slight of hand that kills me, this gives the impression that because you were an abolitionist you cared about black people. But as always, narrative and agenda trumps truth and practicality. Ahh well
Yup, the problem of freeing slaves with no planning. I'm sure their were folks selling themselves for food and shelter. Imagine being an old slave who is free but you need to find work and no one wants you so you slave yourself and imagine even at that they'd kick you out for being old. We are still slaves now. Especially those jobs that provide you a company phone so you are on call 24/7 while the employment letter says 5 day week office hours.
This has been the problem with hiw we have portrayed the civil war since the 80s. It was not a group of rebel slave owners against a group a noble emancipators.... Can someone do me a favor? Speak up, slavery isnt over. If you dont believe me go find a sugar field...
To the negative commenters: I doubt Mr. Sowell was in any way defending the abomination that was slavery. He was trying to help us see the thought processes of the time. It's too easy to turn unknown people of the past into devils and angels. Let him open your mind to the nuances.
What an asinine comment. Blacks were immorally enslaved but whites at the time didn't want to fully rectify that. So, if you were wrongly imprisoned your whole life, you think its fair to be debated if you were going to be fully restored to society or not? It's mind boggling how the lack of humanity of some people, but I shouldn't be surprised. America, as great as it is, is replete with people such as you.
!aa000000000000000000000000
@@arsena1816 You are jumping to conclusions hysterically, which is exactly what OP was talking about. Neither Sowell nor OP nor myself is defending slavery. No, it was not fair, at any point in time. In fact to say it was unfair is such a gross understatement that it almost feels obscene to refer to it that way. No one here is denying that for a second. I read the full book that this is excerpted from- there is absolutely nothing in the entire book that is in any way defensive of slavery (which makes sense given that Sowell himself is black). The only point Sowell is making is that it was not, in all cases, a simple matter of people not caring enough, or not thinking slavery was all that bad. There were people who were appalled by slavery and desperately wanted it to end, but were trying to figure out a way to do it that would not end in race war, civil war, the deaths of millions of previously enslaved people, or perhaps all three. You can debate whether those concerns were worth thinking about; the only point being made here is that these were actual concerns that certain people had- even people who were opposed to slavery in principle.
This is basically a restatement of the law of unintended consequences: very often when you try to fix a problem, you unintentionally either make things worse, or create a whole suite of new problems. If they rushed into freeing the slaves, only to cause an immediate race war in which many of the freed slaves died, and the ones who remained then gradually starved to death or died from lack of other basic human amenities, because they lacked the skills and education to provide for themselves, having been enslaved- well, would all of them dying in such a way actually be preferable? Perhaps you think it would be; perhaps you feel it’s better to die free than to live enslaved. That is a fair position and I’m not arguing against it, but the point is that it is something that needed to be thought about at the time. That’s it. No one is defending the fact that human beings were enslaved.
@@arsena1816 Well, you share in that asininity somewhat. "Whites at the time didn't want to fully rectify that?" So, you were there? If you were, you wouldn't have said that as you'd also know that not all slave owners were white. What about all the *blacks* who owned slaves all over the South? And why aren't the black Africans who SOLD the slaves into the slave trade in the first place ever mentioned? The blame ALWAYS starts with the white slaveowners in America. You sound like you only hear what you want to. Joan was only saying that Tom Sowell is trying to provide context via insight into the zeitgeist of the day, but without an open mind, one can't see that or anything else for that matter. An open mind is what enables one to learn. Open yours a little.
@@arsena1816
You can say in the abstract the civil war was worth fighting.
But if you could have looked Lydia Bixby in the eye when she received news that all five of her sons had died, your faith would have been rocked to its core. Woman like that prove that the quest for a nuanced path prior to the war had not been without merit. Have some compassion!
People should listen to this before tearing down a statue of Thomas Jefferson or removing his name from a high school. Thank you, Thomas Sowell.
Stupid Marxists like easy answers: Like children they hear "Jefferson", "slavery", and nothing else.
Modern society is about Quick pleasures. History is a second thought.
no history should every be removed
Your comment shows you are White!
Only a White person would post a comment such as yours. I reject Thomas Jefferson!!!!!
@@phillyguy2157 So, you don't like the fact that he had to be persuaded to remove a complaint about the Btitish Monarchy allowing the evils of slavery to take root in the colonies from the Declaration of Independence? Or that the only slaves he owned were inherited? I think you need to know a little bit more about Jefferson before rejecting him.
Thank you, Thomas Sowell. Slavery is abhorrent. But ending it isn't simple.
Yes it is. It's running away after from what you deserve happening to you that's hard. If a slave owner thought releasing slaves put their lives in danger, maybe it did. If it did they deserved it.
@@milesjfunk Only a sociopath would agree with you or make your statement. One of the things that has been true throughout history is that those who lack the experience or teaching of personal responsibility cannot function in the world. Look at all the useless degree students who demand that other people pay for their mistakes. Look at the BLM terrorism using the flimsy excuse of a dead violent felon whose death was purely from drug overdose.
Part of successfully living free is taking responsibility for yourself and accepting the consequences of your own choices and actions. It wasn't a unwillingness to free slaves that happened in general but determining what would reduce the negative consequences of it.
General Lee actually came to what would be viewed as the closest to a good action. Give them the choice to be freed with the support of their former master, that on completion of service they earn a land parcel and home, serve in mixed units with whites, and given the opportunity for education after the war. Multiple slave owners at their own expense and land in were willing to free 30,000 slaves under those conditions. This was approved by all levels of society in the south save ONE.
Democrat state Governors who for ego reasons were incensed to the idea and voted it down. Almost everyone of them being opposed by their own state congresses and senates in the matter.
You have demonstrated that purely for the hope of praise on the internet to state something simplistic while completely failing to watch the video that explained it in easy to understand terms. That is a act of malicious ignorance all for the sake of personal ego. Much like those Governors in the civil war.
@@milesjfunk Gibberish.
@@SimonKnight1023 They kept slaves longer out of fear. Not for the slaves.
Do you understand what cowardice is?
@@milesjfunk I do. Is that what your first comment was addressing; “cowardice”? Honestly, it wasn’t written very well. That’s why I called it gibberish.
Wow, very enlightening elucidation of the issue of resolution of slavery in USA. Too often people think of this subject in simplistic abstract terms without bothering to consider the real contexts and consequences. Burke was a unique intellectual of the time in that he was clear headed, most of his contemporaries too easily swung to either extreme.
Man, reading Thomas Sowell is so enlightening. I'm currently going through his bibliography and every book expands my mind more. This man has been a gift to humanity, I think. A modern day prophet some would say.
To many of *our* contemporaries swing to the extremes.
It doesn't come up here, but in other passages he speaks of the slaves being simply released on Hispaniola, and the result was a racial bloodbath. He's right, I never dreamed they were dealing with such things.
its simple really, let slavery be abolished though the heavens fall
millions agreed with burke then and more today on other social issues
I never thought of it that way, Thomas Sowell a truly wise man who blesses us with thinking, thank-you Mr Sowell you constantly spark thought for me for us all.
I've been arguing the same point but in more simplified form for a while now.
I keep telling people that killing 600000 people in this country burning half of it to the ground and then taking a largely illiterate and ignorant slaves and throwing them out into post war ravaged South and gleefully exclaiming your free was never going to end well.
the civil war immediately free the slaves but the vitriol and resentment it created it kept them as 2nd class citizens for generations.
This wasn't wise.
Happy birthday, Thomas Sowell. Happy 91st, and thanks for this great work you do.
Freedom in and of itself is no gift. Without some sense of direction or purpose, a man freed from the will of another becomes a slave to his own base desires. To be truly free, one needs a context in which to exercise that freedom, in other words, a cause greater than oneself.
Excellent remark.
@Rick Steel Not necessarily. It's like Sean Connery said in First Knight - "In serving others, we become truly free."
Freedom to believe that individuals are unchained and bounded by no single entity in this country to realize their dreams and achieve their ambitions is what this country is today. Chains cannot bind you once you allow your wings to grow.
Well said... I think Africa is in deep doodoo because the gift was a little too heavy for us to comprehend.
@Rick Steel our chieftains were complicit... And there was an inner slave trade long before outside trade came.
This is too thoughtful for modern day intellectuals.
Yeah, because "intellectuals" is a misnomer for a lot of them. A college degree doesn't mean you're wise. Nowadays, it just means you were dumb enough to spend hundreds of thousands on a certificate that isn't worth much more than a wad of toilet paper, but yet has the same purpose.
@@ApartmentKing66 As a student, I laughed hard. Very true sadly.
@Gregory Jones How so?
@Gregory Jones Who are some of the original sources?
I love Dr Thomas Sowell's books. I also love this narrator reading his work, he's easy to listen to. God bless
What's is the name of the narrator?
Thank you very much for this video. A masterfully presented and very enlightening presentation on the writings of a great educator, Dr. Thomas Sowell. We tend to politicize everything and strip issues of their actual real-life relevance. Dr. Sowell brings the real issues that most of us are unaware of, to the fore.
@@MrJohnnyDistortion I don't know but he narrates a lot of his books.
@@lindahinojosa299
He sounds very much like TS.
@@MrJohnnyDistortion he sounds like a different person to me. I could be wrong. Maybe when he was younger?
One freed slave said: “They just turned us out like cows. What were we to do?”
They were to be given 40 acres and a mule
@@daniellimo4087 Apparently that legislation was vetoed!
@@talos2373 yep, people who if they were alive today would definitely be republican
@@oakinwol yea like David Duke, who was a kkk member and a Democrat turned Republican.
And the Democratic party still is. The Dems and the Reps never switched sides.
Similar to what Tolstoy said regarding the emancipation of the serfs, 'what now must we do."
Wow great video. I'm gonna have to take a moment and think. I used to be mad and say why did it take us so long to free the slaves, now I realize it wasn't easy nor was it gonna end well. I'm just sad that some of us who tried so hard to move forward is up in flames along with our cities.
Thanks Flora, Tom often talks about circumstances surrounding events in the past that are ignored by us in the future, passing judgement on them from a 21st century perspective.
Been taking free online courses from Hillsdale College. You sign up with an email.
Most very good, occasionally a dull speaker, but the info is the great reward. Taking a course on the Federalist Papers and hearing some of the quotes and struggles the Founders had with slavery is enlightening.
They were also balancing forming a country with the slave owning South and didn't want to force abolition and destroy the Union simultaneously.
But they did make it illegal in the newer territories and when any new states were formed it would be one allowing and one illegal (I believe - not sure it lasted long enough before the civil war to see it in action).
The first draft of the Declaration had an anti-slavery clause, but was removed to not drive the South away before the fledgling country could even get underway.
All the Founders agreed is was an evil needing correction, and to our credit, we were the second Major nation to abolish it, UK being first. There may have been a small country that abolished it first, not sure.
England dedicated 1/5 of its entire navy to stop the slavers, the most powerful navy tin the world at that time.
If you make a time chart of the last 5000 years, you'll see that slavery has existed from our earliest recorded times, with virtually every country and tribal peoples practicing some sort of slavery throughout their existence.
Along that timeline with many nations practicing it for thousands of years or the direct descendants of all modern peoples with some form of slavery or serfdom - the USA had it as legal only about 100 years - an invisible spec on the timeline of slavery through history - and we had far less than other great societies of the past.
So food for thought Flora. Like you, I love Tom Sowell, elder statesman to us all and leaving us volumes of wisdom to guide us in life, his time is short and he will be sorely missed.
His longer interviews, especially those with Peter Robinson of the Hoover Insti. - are well worth the time.
Thanks again Flora
@@dongaetano3687 i here you, but the only kind of judgement that is incorrect to pass on them is hypocritical judgement. It's like saying men throughout history have beaten their wives for thousands of years. I only beat you the first couple years of our marriage. For sure, I still treated you very poorly in the years after beating you too, but doesn't the fact that other men beat their wives longer put my beatings in perspective?
Heres what I would say to someone who said that: Uh no it doesn't, you absolutely trash human being
Now we do have some people who think bashing on people for "beating their wives" makes them moral, while they verbally abuse their own wives. I think that kind of virtue signaling is trash too. But there's no need to minimize abusive behaviors at all, we should just aim at not being abusive people at all, and rectify abuse that took place in the past
@@oakinwol
Hey oak, just saw this and understand you have some disagreement with what I said but, honestly, I can't figure out exactly what it is.
I can agree "not being abusive people at all". Sounds good to me.
I can agree not bashing people who beat their wives - but - I have two instances in my life where I stood up to an abusive husband at the wife's request, we were all friends in two instances.
The wives were suffering in silence.
I am very small - I did not enjoy it.
It did help in one instance permanently, 30 years later they are still together.
Lost touch with the other, did stop, but not sure of duration. Non-violent episodes. I used reasoning to expose their denial and lame excuses and blaming.
In a third instance, I was in barely moving, stop and go traffic on a summer evening, and as I slowly passed a guy talking to a girl in her car through the window, she pleaded for help.
Cars were just about stopped and I got out and walked around and asked the guy what's up? We had a few words and he decided to go back to his own car. She was relieved and thankful.
Now I don't know if you agree but I was ready to do whatever I could to keep her safe. This was before cell phones, 70's maybe, I was in my 20's.
As far as "rectify abuse that took place in the past", you'll have to explain what you mean, I am against reparations - telling our children they are guilty and saying all whites are racist, etc.
So feel free to challenge, offer correction, etc. Old guy off to bed here.
Be well.
@@dongaetano3687 Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I think my issue is with the way you're discussing it. It's great that you stood up for abused women in the past, and you recognize the kind of justifying and blame shifting attitude that abusers can have. I'm saying apply those same things to slavsry:
I only abused you for a "speck of time" in our marriage (not really even true of the US tho because they were released with literally nothing to show for the decades of work so they were immediately transitioned into economic exploitation which is a different form of slavery)
I had other considerations that I had to prioritize above not beating you, etc.
I understand those considerations were there, but they are all selfish and self serving. Some of the founders might've been against slavery in theory, but many of them in practice owned slaves. The life of a slave was extremely traumatic and dehumanizing. The absolute hypocrisy of them complaining about taxation without representation and feeling that they needed to rectify that for themselves FIRST before dealing with the far more egregious exploitation and oppression they themselves were perpetrating is a textbook example of genuine human depravity. If you are familiar with the biblical adage to remove the log from your own eye before trying to remove the speck from someone else's eyes, this is exactly what thats referring to. The vast majority of them were trash human beings, with the exception of very few who really got it. And it's the same today
As for reparations I am against many forms of that that are thrown around, mostly because they're just bad ideas. However, one cannot have their knee on someone's neck for decades and then think that justice or rectifying that entails simply removing your knee from their neck and telling them to have a nice life from here on forward. Especially when in many aspects that knee was simply replaced with an elbow. We have to make that right as a country, that's just our countries responsibility. But in needs to be targeted, as real justice always is. People's children are affected by what happens to their parents. If someone's parent was shot and killed obviously that affects the life of the child. Abuse does not die with one generation
@@oakinwol
Thanks oak, I see your thinking.
Can only disagree and believe you are judging through the lens of a 20th or now 21st century perspective, not taking into account the conditions of the time or the training and adjustment time needed for the slave population to be ready to act as free citizens.
Even soldiers or prisoners nowadays after a far less separation from the greater society may often need help re-adjusting to the society they have already lived most of their lives in.
Without the country even formed, where would we have had the programs to facilitate education and vocational training for the new population?
My bias is Conservative Independent and besides these videos and I have watched the full Tom interview on this and, listened to the about 2 hr 30 min reading of this chapter 3, of Black Rednecks and White Liberals here on the Tube.
Also a took a free online course with a section on it at Hillsdale College.
If you could hear the quotes from their discussions you might soften your view.
I believe you are in error and demanding an action that the newly forming country could not have taken, or executed properly at the time in those circumstances.
Suppose they tried it and the south broke away while still in possession of most all the slaves? What then?
Easy to criticize, difficult to consider the whole of any situation.
Dr Sowell has found the most accurate assessment in my opinion.
Appreciate you clarifying your thinking, sorry to have to disagree. I'm sure your critique is what you believe to be true.
Abandonment.
That is the key word in the whole discussion.
What do abandoned people do? How do they survive?
How do they remain non-violent if they have no honest means to provide for themselves?
Most former slaves stayed where they were and became share croppers for their former owner. It was far from ideal, but it kept them alive. Their children did a bit better.
Exactly
LOL, ridiculous.
@@Pdmc-vu5gj
Provide a cogent rebuttal.
Always greatly educational. Much appreciated.
No it wasn’t
Man, I really despise and resent leftists. I hate that I grew up hearing such a one dimensional version of this matter and wasn't given the complexity that it really entailed. I love having come across Thomas Sowell's work and being able to see the complexities that many of the people involved had to deal with.
Judging people in the past with morals of the present is a task reserved for fools.
@MichaelKingsfordGray yet another sheep.. Educate your self don't hate on things you have no idea about
@MichaelKingsfordGray say, how old are you?
There are a lot of foolish people in today's world.
You're going overboard with your chastisement.
Right on point, thank you.
Though I have seen many of Tom's interviews, it's great to see these well done excerpts, which are most likely to be viewed by a greater number of time short people, who just can't or won't view an hour lecture or read a book.
Keep'em coming.
The realists were prescient and their foresight has been born out. However, after 150 years the problems haven't been addressed. In American culture it's the individuals' responsibility to overcome or adapt to their circumstance. Those who are members of a group in the same circumstance can use that membership to elevate the status of the group and it behooves them to do so. Jews are the best but not the only example of this. Nearly every immigrant group has done so despite lacking money, language, education, or cultural familiarity. They worked for it and helped each other achieve success.
Referring to Jews as the best example of foreigners assimilating into another culture is a really, REALLY bad example. I could write a few paragraphs to explain why, but I don't feel like having my RUclips account cancelled, so I'll just have to keep it at that. Let's just say that it didn't work out that way when they became residents in Orthodox Christian Russia.
God bless Thomas Sowell!
Amen!
@MichaelKingsfordGray God is real.
Jesus saves!
May God bless you richly 🤗!
Still as sharp and wise as he ever was in his nineties. To this white person, he is a hope and an inspriration. I have this book but haven't had the time to finish it. I must make the time.
@MichaelKingsfordGray Your anger toward God is why you can not see his love for you. You need to see the real adversary.
This is great! These points should be taught in junior high history & social studies.
I would be terrified of showing this video, mainly because of the title.
They used to be.
Ha. So ironic, because you are of course absolutely correct, but the literal antithesis is core curriculum.
These "points" are ridiculous. Sowell has a lot of self hatred.
Mind-boggling reexamination of this old debate. Sowell is a genius.
He's pathetic. Self hatred.
@@Pdmc-vu5gj What's pathetic about appraising the consequences of ending slavery?
This is a thoughtful, well-reasoned overview of the dilemma that faced our country in the 18th-19th centuries. Too many won’t give it a second thought and condemn it as bigoted. Yet there were many, even slave owners, who gave much thought on how to end the peculiar institution and recognized that it would eventually happen. Some, like Jefferson Davis who taught his slaves to read and write and Stonewall Jackson who founded and taught in a Sunday School for slaves and taught them those skills at great risk because it was illegal for them to do so, had an eye to eventual emancipation. It’s ironic and sad that our country and Haiti were the only two countries where slavery wasn’t allowed to end peacefully and 126 years later, both are still suffering the consequences of that violent end.
This is so brilliant. I'm just imagining these people and the history. I need to buy that book.
Thomas Sowell.. although he would deny it, is a Sage of our time.
I dont believe in cloning, but after learning of Mr. Sowell I may change my mind! lol
One group was determined to hold on slavery one group was for releasing it. The group against releasing slaves has continued to put roadbloacks towards intergration to date thus fanning racial discord. What is complicated with that?
Agreed!
Good Idea! Ethically cloning is murky water though Dr. Sowell is an American treasure. Godspeed and good health to Dr. Sowell.
Ps; I changed ethnically to ethically. Sorry about that sometimes the phone picks the wrong word.
I wish more ppl watch Thomas AND ABL ETC...
I'm glad people know both Sowell and Anthony Brian Logan.
If the media in this country was telling us the truth and had a collective agenda to make this a better country for ALL Americans, Thomas Sowell would be on EVERY news show across the country. INSTEAD, we get Ibram X. Kendi.
"1 life per 6 slaves freed"
And people still acting like not enough was done for racial equality
More money has been paid to Blacks through welfare that could of ever been claimed to have been generated during slavery. But you should look up Booker T. Washington. He stated flatly that people should look out for and fight against the very race grifters that plague our society today.
@protain stat pls.. btw blacks are not the only who received welfare
@@proctain whaaaaaat? The vast majority of welfare is paid to whites. How can something be justice money if you give it to everyone, and more of it at that. That's just dumb. Blacks weren't able to participate in the GI bill to the same degree or farm subsidies either.
@@tagon70 True that they are not but just because ti goes to other communities does not diminish the fact that more money in welfare programs has been paid out to the black community than the combined profits from slavery in North America. If you read more of Thomas Sowel he has the numbers and figures all laid out in his books and presentations.
@@oakinwol Oh so you want to bring up events from the FDR and not credit it properly to hide facts. FDR Admired Woodrow Wilson. Both were Democrats and both were deeply racist. Wilson openly hated the average American and played Birth Of A Nation at the white house theater. For your information that was a KKK propaganda film that reinvigorated the KKK because of Wilson's open approval. Oh and Wilson died a Dem and was memorialized by dems.
As for FDR he and his wife were part of multiple anti-black social societies that looked to keep them out of businesses or living in their communities. So when FDR was drafting his disastrous "new deal" he excluded blacks from the majority of programs on purpose to gain even more support from Dixiecrats and Dem kkk members in the rest of the US.
It took Republicans to remove the FDR restrictions. Which happened decades ago.
So stop lying it just makes you look ignorant and shows off yoru pathological need to be a victim to get out of taking responsibility for your life.
Oh and worse of. Before welfare and single mother subsidies, blacks had less crime and more employment than they do now. Even Jim crow could not change that. But welfare and fatherless homes did what racist laws couldn't, destroy the black community.
That is the saddest part you are buying into the very system that objectively does the black community the most harm and then stuff your fingers in your ears when shown the hard numbers and facts.
Thomas Sowell for President
He doesn't want to.
@@MakeMeLo That is a relief.
Amen. Praying that he lives another 20 years.
How about we have men (and women) of great wisdom as parents, teachers, barbers, corner store owners, coaches etc...These are the people who shape future generations.
Even at his advanced age, he is FAR MORE qualified than the clown we have now.
I heard that a lot of freed slaves cried when told to leave the plantions,I also heard most plantion owners employed their freed slaves to keep working the plantions to keep the plantion going and keep roofs over their paid workers heads,some freed slaves even got left the plantion once the owner died it was in their wills,others got left money etc,this never gets mentioned,it's only the rare moments of cruelty's that are brought forward.each slave punished cruely was a repeat offender of some rule or other on the plantion,nothing has changed rule/law today, breakers get punished regardless of colour today.we are all living on one big plantion all creeds are even whites ,don't look down on anyone to blame but look up at the 1% of elites ,they are the ones enslaving us all,but use their wealth to brainwas you to think it's the little old white lady down the road or young white couple who don't have a pot to piss in.🤷
Hard not to get beat with rules like don't read, and don't do anything I don't say. You're on drugs with your "rare moments of cruelty" nonsense. I mean, really out there.
It certainly wasn’t rare cases of cruelty. But yes there were many slave owners that were not cruel. The problem with most peoples approach to history today is they impose their morals on people who lived long ago not understanding that the morals we have today developed because of those times.
"slave owners that were not cruel"
Really? People don't work that way. Nobody's cool with being a slave. I agree it's possible for it to be a better condition than some kinds of death, but not if a person never had a chance. If you can't leave you can't live a life.
Revisionist history always loves to paint all the slave owners as beating their slaves all the time. This is hardly reality. If anything the Irish and Chinese because they were cheaper got beat way more. They were a dime a dozen. The Union wanted division. The abolitionist Marxists wanted blacks to be free but didn't stop to think that hey many if not most knew their "owners" all their lives. They couldn't read, couldn't write, had zero experience dealing with financial matters (most, not all), etc. I believe it was Senator Benjamin Hill who pointed out what the Radical Republicans did. They promised the blacks "40 acres and a mule" but in reality all they did was create dependents for that 40 acres was essentially a wasteland. Therefore, their new master was the United States National government which utterly destroyed our original Federal system. As James G. Blaine, another radical Marxist put it regarding the 14th Amendment which was never ratified in accordance with Article V. "And in making this extension of citizenship, we are not confining the breadth and scope of our efforts to the negro, but the white man as well. We intend to make citizenship National." Now everyone with this citizenship "under the jurisdiction thereof" is in fact a slave as that citizenship was created by the 39th and 40th Congress's unlawfully. The sole reason for the Reconstruction Acts was because State political bodies refused to ratify the 14th Amendment the first time.
I'd much rather encounter a hungry man who can't read over one that doesn't understand keeping people is wrong.
Very complex such an issue. Thank you for the education 👊
Marvelous discussion. Much of what Mr. Sowell notes is also in "The Cotton Kingdom", by Frederick Law Olmsted, written before the War Between the States, which has now been forgotten twice over, once from antiquity, and again by being 'canceled' by the, ah, Socialists. Now Sowell comes to the rescue, and presents again many of the thoughts in "The Cotton Kingdom", and many more of his own.
Very good job, Mr. Sowell. I read everything you write, and watch all all your videos. Between you and Jordan Peterson, I believe there is hope for us yet.
There's no hope only America 🇺🇸
So... abolitionists = PETA is what I'm getting from this. That's a spicy thought.
Or even woke
Abolitionists faced real risk.
In many cases; yes. Didn't matter to them that the flesh & blood humans, that had been wrongly enslaved, died or not just as long as they got the ego boost of being "On the rights side of History"
I’m a Sowell Man!
Very interesting and informative. Thank you.
What would have been the best solution? I think Education and training in gainful trade and profession would have been the solution, which is applicable to any race.
I was reading about slavery amongst the Nigerians. Their local slave traders also owned slaves and became very rich and respected citizens in their community.Even today, the Nigerian descendants of slaves, the ohu and osu, fight for equal rights and opportunities in their country. They were discriminated by the diala, the people who were never slaves, and are discriminated within their society. Same people, same color, same race. It's puzzling. People,who don't know history, think slavery is the evil white man abusing the poor black. But its horrors always
existed through the history of humanity, only in the late 300 yrs the Africans were enslaved by the europeans and their descendants in America. Before that people would enslave their own neighbors, native Americans did also, and the Ottomans practiced it for 1400 yrs going all the way to Greenland to attack and capture white slaves, as they did along the coastal European cities. Slavery still goes on in Africa as well as in other parts of the world. But for political reasons it's not discussed.
Actually, it is discussed. Problem is, we don't wanna know. We like cheap t shirts, we want our diamonds, our smart phones etc. etc.
David Livingstone, writing about what he saw in southern parts of Africa (chiefly a strip running east-west from what is now Mozambique to Angola) noted that when slave traders came calling (in what would now be the interior of Angola or points a little further east) leaders in the villages would sell their own people as slaves for the right price - but that they only sold those villagers who were least popular and least useful to them.
And that has been the case throughout history. Some were made slaves when they lost wars, some villages were raided by slavers, but for the most part those who were made slaves were those who were already seen as unpopular or nearly useless by their own people, or who had incurred debts that they could not repay. Conversely, those who were captured and enslaved who quickly proved their value to the community were frequently freed within a few years of being captured, in cultures all around the world - often with enticements to keep them in the community in the hope that they would continue to contribute to the community's well-being.
So when we talk about the descendants of long term slave communities, frequently (but not always) we are talking about an underclass that remains an underclass not because of prejudice (though that may develop over time) but because of their own actions and habits over time.
It is not comfortable for modern westerners who have an unbounded faith in equality to hear that, but those who have to deal with these issues in their everyday lives frequently can't afford the luxury of conforming to theories that bear little resemblance to reality. It is easy to uphold principles at a distance. It is not so easy when your lives and livelihoods are threatened.
We are concerned with the US. Don't change the topic.
@@SandfordSmythe so you don't care about actual current day slavery, including those that may produce products that are bought in the USA?
@@hamster4618 Straw men and deflection. You would appear very smart on TV
Douglas was criticized for "buying' his freedom. I see it as, through his hard work and tenacity, he played the "game" and won on his own merits and not gained his freedom by legislation or by permission of someone else.
So the enslaved man “did it the right way” and earned his freedom. You make it sound like having to buy your freedom is something better than freedom being granted because it’s the most basic human right
@@brandonbluegold No! Maybe if you read his writings and look at his life through HIS eyes and not filter the life of others through a warped political agenda!
It's so interesting to consider the larger ramifications of abolishing a thousands-year old practice. People today don't consider nuances. They think everything is black & white (no pun intended) but social, legal, economic consequences make up all the grey that needed to considered.
Do you really think slaves cared about socio-economic considerations of their freedom? You just don't get it. You're too far removed. If you need air you need air, if you need freedom you need freedom, the rest is for another time. That's how a slave thinks.
People trying to "consider ramifications" are just covering their asses, not helping anyone else.
There’s nuance but you’re also dealing with human lives here not cattle. It’s just like America, create a problem, try to fix it and then create another problem
Too many want to look only at exceptional free Blacks, and assume that every freed slave had the same capabilities from Day1.
Realities is that the skills and resources to function in a free society are not learned overnight, and who is going to feed, clothe and house those who are still learning, without reducing them to dependency? We are still seeing the consequences of paying “sit-down money” to communities .... consequences in terms of violent crime, sexual abuse and substance abuse that are orders of magnitude higher than in the general population.
Ideologues commonly ignore the downsides. As long as they feel good, the consequences are “somebody else’s problem”.
Very provocative......I'm still pondering.
Haha I wasn't sure why this all sounded like I had heard it before, but then I realized that it was directly from sowell's book I read last year!
Consider present day big tech, some of us would like to not change the slavery of the 3rd world for our gains and some of us would like the immediate freedom of said 3rd world country.
Great point.. echoes of the more "comfortable" (an illusion at best) house slave compared to the brutal life of the field slave. Yet both today..and their families, are still oppressed regardless of academic, financial or service to country achievements.
M. Garvey had the correct solution...leave. 🙏🏽
there are more in slavery today than in all of history
I think his point about complicated realities vs. abstract principles is absolutely essential-but it’s difficult to employ much of the time. We use abstractions precisely because they strip away much of the complications of the real world; they simplify questions and make convoluted problems seem more tractable. Abstract reasoning about liberty, law, and morality can be elucidating; but trying to base policies purely on abstract reasoning is like asking a mathematician to fix your car. It’s not going to work.
Great analogy! πr² alone can't change a tyre.
Amazing. Reality & Truth collide.
Oh come on. You know if you kept a man in a cage, and you were scared to let him out because he'd hurt you, you still deserve it. That's a cowards argument even if it saves your family.
@@milesjfunk Sometimes cowardice is another word for good sense and responsibility.
@@markaguilera493 Who care about what suffering I cause, long as people I think are important are happy?
@@milesjfunk Sometimes yes. Life can be tragic when it is about making the less evil choice.
@@markaguilera493 Less evil based on a slave master's mindset which includes willingness to kidnap and murder generations of people.
Most slaves, after being freed, continued to live and work on the plantation. It was the 2nd and 3rd generations that actually left.
How could they leave genius, they were beaten and robbed if they tried and they were only paid enough to barley survive
@@norman6694 Actually, "genius," they stayed because there was no where better to go. They had no jobs skills, and were illiterate. Not all blacks were treated so badly that they had to flee.
@@societyofrobots total BS...they were black smiths, cooks and carpenters and those that could got the hell away from those slavers.
@@norman6694 A few were skilled. Overwhelming majority were not. Plantation owners knew that if they treated blacks badly, they'd be left with no laborers on their farm and would go bankrupt. Check out the book, 'Baruch My Own Story', the first third of it, to better understand why they remained on the plantation by choice.
@@societyofrobots I don't know what your idea of treating people nicely means but most black people in the south were treated like trash, black people migrated out of the south by the thousands as soon as they could
From a pragmatic perspective the British solution to end slavery by compensating the slave owners was way less destructive than the American Civil War.
No choice
The brutal end of Apartheid in South Africa resulted in something worse than Apartheid.
For who?
@@norman6694 Good question. For everybody in different ways. Black South Africans are deeply and furiously racist and antisemites. As a black I haven't suffered a single prejudice from whites there. They are not the "evil" people media talk about, on the contrary. I remember during the apartheid we were lost in Johannesburg and white policemen so gently offered themeselves to escort us to the right place.
@Briscoe17555 That's sadly true.
Alot of problems AA deal with today is due to fact we remained in a backwards part of the country too long. Poverty among AAs didn't really drop until the great migrations.
There is some truth to that.
Damned if you free them/ damned if you dont. I think we’re realizing some of those expressed problems today....
🖕🏿lol. thank the slave traders
@@brandonbluegold
The Ottoman Empire caused a resurgence in slavery after the High Medieval Christian paradigm had previously been phasing it out over a thousand years following the fall of the Pagan Roman Empire and the rise of Western Catholicism and Byzantium. Eventually a Free Peasantry was born guided by the wisdom of the Guilds. But the Ottoman greed was infectious. Much of European colonialism was motivated in the desire to compete with them. No excuses. But we’re all sinners. Do not forget that.
@@eldermillennial8330 I hear you
Amazing. Proves the whole slavery abolition was more complicated than it's presented. The lack of context of the economy, politics, and social norms of of the time that is missing from modern conversation is quite sad. The concept of "being prepared for freedom" is never considered.
It's like "being prepared" for oxygen. Free will to learn and make a family isn't privilege, or a nice thing some people don't deserve.
@@milesjfunk good point. That is why the freedmans bureau was established after the civil war. But politics got in the way.
Great research as always! Thanks for the re-subscribe tip as well; google did shadow-unsubscribe me...
The fact that people say civilised is a problem because it almost says there were no civil black people before hand. But my other thoughts are that the uprisings were always going to continue so they had to eventually free slaves. Also, one a black person was free from slavery, I could not fault them for wanting to kill their old masters. Especially if they were treated poorly. But the answers has alot of moving parts with different opinions of the right path.
This video makes a lot of outstanding points, but for some reason nobody ever talks about the immigrants that have come from Europe, who are worried about freed black slaves saturating the job markets of the North, which in turn, drive the immigrants to the Democrats. Europe's influence within the Democratic party can still be illustrated to this day.
The freeing of Slaves was extremely complicated due to the lack of an education for the Black Slaves. How would an uneducated Slave be able to compete in an educated society? What skills and/or skills had they developed to live unassisted as free people?
The truth of those concerns is made evident when one considers that an estimated 1 million Slaves perished in Union Relocation Camps in the 5 years after the passage of the 13th Amendment.
In my mind it was completely unacceptable that people would be gathered together in great numbers via the promise of food, shelter and vocational training. What they actually got was starvation and disease.
How much does this ring true for western society in general today? The average person has never had so much freedom, and yet here we are in a crumbling society because of it, because so many dont recognise that freedom and riot for greater freedoms in a reality that allows them to freely express their disdain on behalf of others that they 'feel' have less freedom than them selves, and have so much freedom now that they can violently riot with little to no recourse. And even more I fear whats coming on the other side of this, when society shifts too far to one side too abruptly, like a rubber band it will violently snap back to the other side, whats coming will be a sudden shift from hyper liberalism to hyper conservativism, being a centrist myself I see no good in either extreme.
@michael guillory Except spicy wings, I can never get enough spicy wings...
In all my watching I have never seen a proper balance toward correctness. It's always trying to fix it by going all the way to the other extreme. Love the rubber band example.
If only newly freed slaves had been given their reparations of farm land and a mule most would've just gotten busy with building their lives and raising solid families
They were given a whole country - have you never heard of Liberia?
@@johnharrisjr.7893 They weren't African tho they were American and didn't have to be deported to a continent they knew nothing about.
@@monacoofthebluepacific2571 The point is free slaves were given the opportunity to escape the political and social injustices of the US and It didn’t work out very well for the people who decided to leave. Your comment seems to insinuate black people don’t have solid families because they weren’t given 40 acres and a mule 150 years ago. What doesn’t make sense is the black family was more stable in 1960 when racism and poverty were far worse than today? Why were they able to build their lives and raise solid families in 1960 but not today?
Eat 💩
Ending slavery in America answered all three of Thomas Sowell's questions. 1. Compared to what? 2. What hard evidence do you have? 3. At what cost? Freeing the slaves helped move us one step closer to realizing our national stated goal of a more perfect union and that all men are created equal. The evidence was self evident as stated in our founding documents and the price in human life, property, and misery was enormous.
Brilliant, these are the kind of teachers we so desperately need
Finally someone said it the civil war was fought for MANY reasons not just 1 it was a complex subject however which requires abstract thinking something the youth doesn’t have today unfortunately they think its a 1 sided coin
Should've been given the land, true freedom from tyranny and shown some dignity.
Imagine the present we would have today.
John Randolph's words were prophetic. Great quote!
Ending slavery in the mind will take forever
Brilliant.
Ehhh...
New subscriber thank You
I always find it funny some people bring up "reparations". But no one talks about "refunds". If Africa provides a refund (money back for the people), it should be used for reparations.
This is ridiculous. Slavery existed for almost 100 years in America. That would be like me buying a dog, breeding it several times, and then going back to where I got my original dog and trying to ask for my money back for its great grand child
@@budgetsneakerhead3291 Slavery didn't exist for 150 years after it was ended.
@@Will.C. I’m not even sure what your statement means. From what I saw, it’s started in the 1700s in America and ended in 1865
As we can see now, freedom is valuable only for those who lost it. For the free people, freedom is seldom a burden.
@MichaelKingsfordGray Of course I am not free, that's why I appreciate freedom. I didn't say I am, so there is no hypocrisy from my part, but there is stupidity from your part.
@@goe54 What stupidity has he shown?
@@amraceway Seeing hypocrisy where there is none.
@@goe54 Slavery in the land of the free not hypocritical?
@@amraceway He saw hypocrisy in my comment man, there is none there.
I believe what Dr. Sowell showed in this video exemplifies what Joel Chandler Harris tried to show as metaphors in his children's books.
One life lost for every six slaves freed. I never saw that statistic before.
That is the ratio of the casualties of the Civil war vs. the number of slaves set free.
@@patharvard yes, thank you. I know what the statistic identifies, i was merely saying i had not seen it distinctly.
@MichaelKingsfordGray WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM
@@Loveispatient_2024 He's nuts!
It is an interesting statistic, and I wonder if it includes the number of slaves whose deaths were caused by Union troops during and after the war?
These numbers almost certainly are in the hundreds of thousands, deaths caused by starvation, exposure, or disease after Union troops stole or destroyed the food stores, livestock, and sometimes housing on which the slaves depended, but most of these deaths were never officially documented, and they have not traditionally been included in the number of deaths caused by the war - especially those that died after the war was officially over.
Good to know.
Very true. Very controversial. The civil war was unpreventable. It is good the slaves were freed. My views on reconstruction are extremely controversial. My views on Abraham Lincoln are so favorable as to ultimately generate criticism.
The situation current in SA is a beacon to heed.
Please tell us, from which of Thomas Sowell's books is this passage excerpted?
See description.
@@ThomasSowellTV I thought so, thanks.
@MichaelKingsfordGray why do u call people cowards?
@@Loveispatient_2024 Because he is a big coward himself.
The manner in which slaves came to this country is very much steeped in tribal African and Arab tribal traditions, and is very important to remember.
African tribal Chiefs and Arab slavers sold blacks into slavery according to their tribal customs, customs that had no place in the West then, and to our present day. Because such tribal custom treats the out-group as inhuman. Behavior that today's Left is very much involved in.
Slaves came to this country when it was a fraction of it's present size. Knowledge of the African interior for Westerners didn't extend very much passed the coast line, until the days of Livingston, by that time slavery had been outlawed in the West.
Since Westerners were not active in the processes of capturing other human beings to sell into slavery they were able to maintain a world without these tribal customs in it, and develop beyond the crude rudimentaries of tribal life.
When you cross the border into the West, you leave your tribal customs behind you. Discarding tribal custom is part of life in the West.
Sometimes half a gift is worse than no gift at all.
I usually but not always agree with Thomas Sowell. Nevertheless his logic is admirably strong so I always have to watch his videos.
Thank you Dr. Thomas Sowell. Appreciate all you do to bring us the True History.
If we had more Educators like Dr. Thomas Sowell. Parents wouldn’t have to worry about someone Transgenderlysing and Indoctrinating our Children. All day long Yahoo
You know what’s weird? I. am getting my comments constantly dropped and on my pc I can’t comment at all! How weird is that…?
Happens to me frequently as well
I do believe that Abraham Lincoln had the thought of deporting all freed slaves/blacks to South America because he felt that the country would NEVER get over the issue of slavery in USA.
@@kittyhissesanddoggiekisses What white folk lamenting the end of slavery?
@wilson alexander Playing the race card still is alive and kicking for you.
There had been attempts to send freed slaves to Africa and the colony of Liberia was established there for that purpose. There were also considerations for establishing a new colony in Central America. Long before the war many southern leaders were interested in the idea and supported it, but once they discovered that the majority of these freed slaves died of tropical diseases shortly after arrival they shut that program down as they considered it inhumane under those conditions.
Abraham Lincoln was in favor of the idea, and was still working on implementation the week before he died. His earlier efforts had been foiled when the man he had put in charge of the project absconded with the funds.
Basically; damned if you do and, damned if you don't; concerning at least de ipso (legally sanctioned) slavery here in the USA.
No, that's nonsense. They simply didn't want to give up the slaves. Free labor.
@@Pdmc-vu5gj Not only free labour. The shit load of cvonsequences Sowell mentions.
Were these guys on the forefront of developing CRT, being able to recognize the potential problems that could stem from the history of inhumane treatment or lack of education etc..?
The complexity of this problem of treating any group of human beings in the way Africans as well as many other groups in the past have been treated is almost beyond belief. The conviction I have is that all human beings, all of them are children of the Living God. As such we should all always treat each other from this perspective. Many if not all isssues of abuse, inequality, selfishness, and the tendency of human beings to become proud and thinking of themselves as better than their fellowman in many aspects. This is an issue of human nature to become self in the extreme to the point humans can rationalize any behavior. Each of us individually is responsible for our own behaviors and how they affect this and other essential problems that human beings suffer from.
I'm Irish, between the 15th and 17th century, my ancestors, along with millions of other Europeans living on the coasts of western Europe, were abducted and sold into slavery by the Moors, black Africans of a certain religion! This is a story that goes back thousands of years, all over the world, so please, before you start trying to paint a picture of Africans being the sole historical victims, and whites the sole perpetrators of slavery, actually learn some history!
There's not one single culture, race or religion on the planet that isn't guilty of the crime of enslaving another!
Very Interesting
And Look what is taking place today....
So, even though some states (Massachusetts mentioned at 3:03 ) had no slaves,they still had resentment, antipathy for the slaves. That the idea of abolishing slavery was not welcome. Unless I'm missing something.
After all, the history of civil war showed that the majority could care less about the fate of slaves , as long as their interests were not at stake.
Edit: timestamp
The northerners didn't support slavery. The fear was that abolitionists would stoke civil war and the horrors that would follow, not that they were afraid of freed slaves.
As fast as the interest of the Northerners goes they just didn't want to get their heads' blown off in said war.
@@rinck17
There were northerners who had no problem with slavery and southerners who abhorred it. It’s a far more complex issue than anyone today has the capacity to realize.
The answer was simple. Liberia 🇱🇷
They set us up to fail with Liberia, unfortunately
@@richportercrewonfiverr5179 Who set you up to fail? And who is you? Cheers.
@@noodlyappendage6729 "They", being the American government and the abolitionists who wanted to rid their hands of the responsibility of reacclimating enslaved people back into a functional society. The formerly oppressed became the oppressors themselves once they encountered the Native Liberian people and subjugated them under a system of segregation and who were thus denied basic civil rights like the blacks back in America. If you think Liberia was such a good plan, explain the devastating economic state of the country and it's lack in progression and corruption in sociopolitical development of the nation as well. It's a warzone, they dropped us off and left us to fend for ourselves, depriving the people of proper education in running a country, an economy, and managing it's people. These were not native Africans, these were a tampered people who were psychologically codependent on the assistance of their white counterparts,. If you're going to argue that, I'm arguing with a very unintelligent person.
You understand that the freed blacks were American citizens, as Douglass reminded Lincoln? As in the14th Amendment. It's so easy to forget, isn't it.
Thank you again
This was never brought up in school. It would have been an interesting debate topic.
One of the great issue's involved with teaching history in our time is the tendency to generalize, simplify and exaggerate.
The reality is that there are as many stories in history as there were people to experience it, and it's a travesty that so many in our own time look at those in the past as caricatures, either all evil or all good. Never as real people confronted with issue's that appeared far more complicated in their time then they do today. What I love about Thomas Sowell is his capacity to take on every nuance, to recognize the challenges as the people of the time saw them. It takes a far greater intellectual capacity to entertain idea's so foreign to the modern mindset, and so as to allow for a better understanding of the past as a whole.
The left treats our founders as if they should have been able to see the future with 20/20 clarity, and never even consider the social, economics and political consequences of their actions in their own time.
It is the height of arrogance to think you would know better than they about the world they lived in. Honestly the last 3 years is the ultimate proof in my mind that those who so fervently condemn those in the past for not being sufficiently pro-slavery would be the most ardent supporters of it had they lived then,
It's always so much more interesting how complex life is Vs the simplistic theories of intellectuals
If you had a kidnapped person, what argument would you make for keeping them?
I mean, I'm just curious, because obviously, you'd make one. You wouldn't put yourself in danger to correct the mistake, you made that clear.
@@milesjfunk So what if he wouldn't put himself in danger? Should he?
@@markaguilera493 Some mistakes can't be fixed without danger. What's the alternative? Keeping slaves? Insane.
@@milesjfunk Stick to your example you've just moved your goalposts.
@@markaguilera493 Then, yes. You should always put yourself in danger to become a better person. Some people call it growing up.
I can only assume what Americans thought after emancipation.
All of a sudden, there is a large number of former slaves, unable to read or write, lack any employable skills beyond agriculture perhaps, how will they be able to sustain themselves as there were no welfare options back then? How would they survive without being cared for, for food and shelter? Perhaps they could grow their own, but how without land if not hired to farm. Bingo.
I heard somewhere that most slaves stayed on their plantation even after being freed. Because they lacked employable skills.
@@Marcusaurelius913 true.
In those days many white people could not read or write and had few employable skills. But there were plenty of manual labor jobs that did not require literacy special skills or training. They supported themselves and their families by day labor or by starting some small business of their own.
@@mrdanforth3744 many people i believe worked on farms, including children. I heard like 70% of all child labor was agricultural with their parents.
@@mrdanforth3744 interestingly, there a few black groups of very talented builders in the South, who due to racism, sought better paying opportunities in the North.
This was when the labor unions were created to keep out these black Southern laborers.
Contrary to his statement at 8:16, the Civil War did not settle the issue of slavery. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation expired at the end of hostilities and Congress assumed control of the slavery issue by promoting the 13th amendment. Now we will find why Northerners and Congress fought the Civil War; it wasn't to end slavery. Amendment 13 Section 2, "Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." In the Dred Scott vs. Sandford case, Justice Taney said the slaves could not access judicial relief because they were not counted as a Citizen and could never be a Citizen. By Section 2 of the 13th amendment, Congress declares no freed slave will have access to the judicial power for relief; all court cases will be administrative in nature.
By the 14th amendment, these freed slaves were made "persons ... subject to the jurisdiction of the United States" having only "privileges and immunities," not rights. Congress could not make them Citizens on par with the Citizens of the several states, NOR DID CONGRESS WANT ANY MORE CITIZENS LIKE THIS. Congress wants persons on whom they could directly legislate, within the bodies of the states, having no access to judicial power.
The Civil War continues this day through legal process. Look beyond your personal lives for the future you and your great family will endure.
Please visit talkradiomore dot you know the rest for the unfolding story.
Freedom at what cost?
160 years later we have nothing but chaos in our cities
This current chaos is the result of the welfare state of the 1960's, and is now being pushed out into the mainstream of society. Listen to more of Sowell's interviews on how life was in the Black city areas when he was growing up. There was extremely low crime, two parent households, men who worked and provided for their families. The State destroyed that with LBJ's Great Society and created this mess.
Wow. I never considered the fact that capital-A Abolitionists might be considered extremists by little-a abolitionists in much the same way that suffragettes were considered extremists by suffragists.
It seems that the main requirement to be an extremist is to hold black and white opinions (no pun intended).
Sowell has alternately argued that slaves were highly skilled and flourished immediately following emancipation in other writings, were quickly represented in home and property ownership in an argument against paternalistic and insulting charitable efforts immediately following the civil war that it was largely unnecessary. So this is a very different and contradictory argument.
Its not. Here he is just outlining what people were afraid of.
@@ramberrebi4911 That's weak.
@@Pdmc-vu5gj This entire video has been Sowell presenting stances and positions of contemporary men on the subject without attributing anything of his own unto them, I don't know the broader context this segment was taken from but there's certainly nothing 'weak' about it.
The only problem is the superficial deprecation of theory. A good theory is good because it is good from all points of view. The "good for society" perspective killed the chance at any resolution in theory and practice.
Thank you facts are important in the journey to save this nation. My prayers to you and yours stay strong.
It's like you don't feed starving people straight off. You have to get their bodies used to food again slowly.
Oooh ok.. so THATS what America has been doing
We have a similar problem today. If freeing so many slaves all at once caused such social turmoil as to how to look after all the freed slaves? What about all of these illegal immigrants today how are they supposed to be looked after and what are the illegal immigrants supposed to do? It seems in a sense history is repeating itself.
I’ve always wondered how many freed slaves died in the years following the Civil War.
War deaths + refugee deaths + destruction of the South + creation of hate groups vs waiting a few years.
It’s certainly worth consideration.
It's the slight of hand that kills me, this gives the impression that because you were an abolitionist you cared about black people.
But as always, narrative and agenda trumps truth and practicality. Ahh well
Right, it was the slave masters that truly cared for their slave property!
Yup, the problem of freeing slaves with no planning. I'm sure their were folks selling themselves for food and shelter. Imagine being an old slave who is free but you need to find work and no one wants you so you slave yourself and imagine even at that they'd kick you out for being old.
We are still slaves now. Especially those jobs that provide you a company phone so you are on call 24/7 while the employment letter says 5 day week office hours.
There was something called the reconstruction. Have you forgotten that?
This has been the problem with hiw we have portrayed the civil war since the 80s. It was not a group of rebel slave owners against a group a noble emancipators....
Can someone do me a favor? Speak up, slavery isnt over. If you dont believe me go find a sugar field...