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The slaves that were impressed into service were not paid in the beginning and were treated as a contraband of war.
Illustration 13.2 The Union army treated Appalachian slaves like a contraband of war. After a raid on this middle Tennessee plantation, the soldiers conscripted male laborers. The officer is telling them that the elderly, women, and children will not be permitted to accompany the males to the military sites.
After arriving in the city, ex-slaves worked as laborers on the fortifications. They worked for less money and were often exploited. In August of 1862, workers were paid 40 cents, plus rations, a day for work—often they were not paid at all. By November 1863, it was recommended to Barnard that a sum of $1.00 per day to contraband was a fair wage. Additionally, it was recommended that records be kept in order to make sure these workers were treated fairly. source
You certainly do have a very selective definition of slavery since the above examples show that these slaves exchanged a private master for the United States government master. This is the same government that in Dred Scott v Sanford declared slaves to be property not persons.
As for the allegation that this is a baseless claim here's some examples.
Illustration 13.4 The Union army impressed slave women to work as camp laundresses and as aides in military hospitals. These women rarely received their promised wages, and they were frequently evicted from contraband camps when the populations grew too large. Such women faced sexual exploitation and white violence in the camps.
They regularly killed black women who resisted rape. Soldiers in the Union Army had preconceived notions about the relations of slave owners to their female slaves. They believe that black female slaves willingly acquiesced to the sexual seduction of their plantation owners. Not only did the Union soldiers have virulent hatred of the blacks but they also had no appreciation for the actual moral values that the blacks traditionally held. Seven Federal soldiers gang raped a black woman. Thereafter, they held her face down in a nearby puddle of water until she drowned. In Columbia, South Carolina, Union soldiers' gang raped "scores of slave women." source--The Ruling Elite: A Study in Imperialism, Genocide and Emancipation By Deanna Spingola 2011.
So much for being a baseless claim.
That author has no qualifications or credentials other than a recognized conspiracy author. Among her favorite topics include her writing of the International conspiracy of the Illuminati.
On the topic of slavery, she essentially argues that African-Americans were really better off as slaves than after being freed. In short, pro-slavery claiming African-Americans were better off as slaves.
Of course, Ron Paul's view is that 100% of the national wealth - literally every dollar everyone had, 100% of the GNP should have been offered to the most wealthy and evilest people in the USA, the slave owners to avoid the Civil War. In turn, Paul claims that if 100% of national wealth was given to those men - thus giving Southern slaveowners essentially 100% total economic and political power in the country for which literally everyone and the federal government all were deeply in economic debt to them for which all tax money would go to them too - in turn Southern slave owners would agree to turn their slaves into sharecroppers.
He claims if you gave the total national wealth and total power to slaveowners, they would agree to shifted their slaves to indentured sharecroppers, and thus the Civil War would have been avoided because Southern slaveowners then literally would have all the national wealth, everyone in the entire nation working for them, and still have total power over their former slaves that instead would be their segregated indentured sharecroppers and laborers.
I suppose it could be argued that WWII could have been avoided that way. If All of Europe gave all its wealth to Germany and all Europeans agreed to be subserviant to Germany - and if Russia also agreed - meaning if all of Europe, the USA and Russia surrendered to Germany and gave Germany everything and total power, the Western war could have been avoided. And if The USA, China, and all Pacific countries had unconditionally surrendered to Japan for which all those territories became part of Japan, the Eastern war could have been avoided too.
That is Ron Paul's theory of how the Civil War could have been avoided. If all Northern States had surrendered to the Confederacy and agreed to give total power and 100% of all national wealth to slaveholders, in turn they may have agreed to not technically call their slaves "slaves" anymore.
To claim the Emancipation Proclamation and Civil War did not ultimately lead to the end of slavery is absurd on its face and citing conspiracy nutcases and bigoted authors doesn't change that.
Or we can go to other Ron Paul supporters' threads where they advocate a return to racial segregation and discrimination.
Or we can go to Ron Paul supporters' anti-Semitism threads.
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