Posted on 07/11/2015 9:54:21 AM PDT by golux
The Confederate Flag Needs To Be Raised, Not Lowered
Ladies and gentlemen, I submit that what we see happening in the United States today is an apt illustration of why the Confederate flag was raised in the first place. What we see materializing before our very eyes is tyranny: tyranny over the freedom of expression, tyranny over the freedom of association, tyranny over the freedom of speech, and tyranny over the freedom of conscience.
In 1864, Confederate General Patrick Cleburne warned his fellow Southerners of the historical consequences should the South lose their war for independence. He was truly a prophet. He said if the South lost, “It means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy. That our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by all of the influences of History and Education to regard our gallant dead as traitors and our maimed veterans as fit subjects for derision.” No truer words were ever spoken.
History revisionists flooded America’s public schools with Northern propaganda about the people who attempted to secede from the United States, characterizing them as racists, extremists, radicals, hatemongers, traitors, etc. You know, the same way that people in our federal government and news media attempt to characterize Christians, patriots, war veterans, constitutionalists, et al. today.
Folks, please understand that the only people in 1861 who believed that states did NOT have the right to secede were Abraham Lincoln and his radical Republicans. To say that southern states did not have the right to secede from the United States is to say that the thirteen colonies did not have the right to secede from Great Britain. One cannot be right and the other wrong. If one is right, both are right. How can we celebrate our Declaration of Independence in 1776 and then turn around and condemn the Declaration of Independence of the Confederacy in 1861? Talk about hypocrisy!
In fact, Southern states were not the only states that talked about secession. After the Southern states seceded, the State of Maryland fully intended to join them. In September of 1861, Lincoln sent federal troops to the State capital and seized the legislature by force in order to prevent them from voting. Federal provost marshals stood guard at the polls and arrested Democrats and anyone else who believed in secession. A special furlough was granted to Maryland troops so they could go home and vote against secession. Judges who tried to inquire into the phony elections were arrested and thrown into military prisons. There is your great “emancipator,” folks.
And before the South seceded, several Northern states had also threatened secession. Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island had threatened secession as far back as James Madison’s administration. In addition, the states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware were threatening secession during the first half of the nineteenth century--long before the Southern states even considered such a thing.
People say constantly that Lincoln “saved” the Union. Lincoln didn’t save the Union; he subjugated the Union. There is a huge difference. A union that is not voluntary is not a union. Does a man have a right to force a woman to marry him or to force a woman to stay married to him? In the eyes of God, a union of husband and wife is far superior to a union of states. If God recognizes the right of husbands and wives to separate (and He does), to try and suggest that states do not have the right to lawfully (under Natural and divine right) separate is the most preposterous proposition imaginable.
People say that Lincoln freed the slaves. Lincoln did NOT free a single slave. But what he did do was enslave free men. His so-called Emancipation Proclamation had NO AUTHORITY in the Southern states, as they had separated into another country. Imagine a President today signing a proclamation to free folks in, say, China or Saudi Arabia. He would be laughed out of Washington. Lincoln had no authority over the Confederate States of America, and he knew it.
Do you not find it interesting that Lincoln’s proclamation did NOT free a single slave in the United States, the country in which he DID have authority? That’s right. The Emancipation Proclamation deliberately ignored slavery in the North. Do you not realize that when Lincoln signed his proclamation, there were over 300,000 slaveholders who were fighting in the Union army? Check it out.
One of those Northern slaveholders was General (and later U.S. President) Ulysses S. Grant. In fact, he maintained possession of his slaves even after the War Between the States concluded. Recall that his counterpart, Confederate General Robert E. Lee, freed his slaves BEFORE hostilities between North and South ever broke out. When asked why he refused to free his slaves, Grant said, “Good help is hard to find these days.”
The institution of slavery did not end until the 13th Amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865.
Speaking of the 13th Amendment, did you know that Lincoln authored his own 13th Amendment? It is the only amendment to the Constitution ever proposed by a sitting U.S. President. Here is Lincoln’s proposed amendment: “No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give Congress the power to abolish or interfere within any state with the domestic institutions thereof, including that a person's held to labor or service by laws of said State.”
You read it right. Lincoln proposed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution PRESERVING the institution of slavery. This proposed amendment was written in March of 1861, a month BEFORE the shots were fired at Fort Sumter, South Carolina.
The State of South Carolina was particularly incensed at the tariffs enacted in 1828 and 1832. The Tariff of 1828 was disdainfully called, “The Tariff of Abominations” by the State of South Carolina. Accordingly, the South Carolina legislature declared that the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were “unauthorized by the Constitution of the United States.”
Think, folks: why would the Southern states secede from the Union over slavery when President Abraham Lincoln had offered an amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing the PRESERVATION of slavery? That makes no sense. If the issue was predominantly slavery, all the South needed to do was to go along with Lincoln, and his proposed 13th Amendment would have permanently preserved slavery among the Southern (and Northern) states. Does that sound like a body of people who were willing to lose hundreds of thousands of men on the battlefield over saving slavery? What nonsense!
The problem was Lincoln wanted the Southern states to pay the Union a 40% tariff on their exports. The South considered this outrageous and refused to pay. By the time hostilities broke out in 1861, the South was paying up to, and perhaps exceeding, 70% of the nation’s taxes. Before the war, the South was very prosperous and productive. And Washington, D.C., kept raising the taxes and tariffs on them. You know, the way Washington, D.C., keeps raising the taxes on prosperous American citizens today.
This is much the same story of the way the colonies refused to pay the demanded tariffs of the British Crown--albeit the tariffs of the Crown were MUCH lower than those demanded by Lincoln. Lincoln’s proposed 13th Amendment was an attempt to entice the South into paying the tariffs by being willing to permanently ensconce the institution of slavery into the Constitution. AND THE SOUTH SAID NO!
In addition, the Congressional Record of the United States forever obliterates the notion that the North fought the War Between the States over slavery. Read it for yourself. This resolution was passed unanimously in the U.S. Congress on July 23, 1861, “The War is waged by the government of the United States not in the spirit of conquest or subjugation, nor for the purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or institutions of the states, but to defend and protect the Union.”
What could be clearer? The U.S. Congress declared that the war against the South was NOT an attempt to overthrow or interfere with the “institutions” of the states, but to keep the Union intact (by force). The “institutions” implied most certainly included the institution of slavery.
Hear it loudly and clearly: Lincoln’s war against the South had NOTHING to do with ending slavery--so said the U.S. Congress by unanimous resolution in 1861.
Abraham Lincoln, himself, said it was NEVER his intention to end the institution of slavery. In a letter to Alexander Stevens who later became the Vice President of the Confederacy, Lincoln wrote this, “Do the people of the South really entertain fears that a Republican administration would directly, or indirectly, interfere with their slaves, or with them, about their slaves? If they do, I wish to assure you, as once a friend, and still, I hope, not an enemy, that there is no cause for such fears. The South would be in no more danger in this respect than it was in the days of Washington.”
Again, what could be clearer? Lincoln, himself, said the Southern states had nothing to fear from him in regard to abolishing slavery.
Hear Lincoln again: “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it.” He also said, “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so and I have no inclination to do so.”
The idea that the Confederate flag (actually there were five of them) stood for racism, bigotry, hatred, and slavery is just so much hogwash. In fact, if one truly wants to discover who the racist was in 1861, just read the words of Mr. Lincoln.
On August 14, 1862, Abraham Lincoln invited a group of black people to the White House. In his address to them, he told them of his plans to colonize them all back to Africa. Listen to what he told these folks: “Why should the people of your race be colonized and where? Why should they leave this country? This is, perhaps, the first question for proper consideration. You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss; but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think. Your race suffers very greatly, many of them, by living among us, while ours suffers from your presence. In a word, we suffer on each side. If this is admitted, it affords a reason, at least, why we should be separated. You here are freemen, I suppose? Perhaps you have been long free, or all your lives. Your race is suffering, in my judgment, the greatest wrong inflicted on any people. But even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race. The aspiration of men is to enjoy equality with the best when free, but on this broad continent not a single man of your race is made the equal of a single man of our race.”
Did you hear what Lincoln said? He said that black people would NEVER be equal with white people--even if they all obtained their freedom from slavery. If that isn’t a racist statement, I’ve never heard one.
Lincoln’s statement above is not isolated. In Charleston, Illinois, in 1858, Lincoln said in a speech, “I am not, nor have ever been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races. I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races from living together on social or political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white.”
Ladies and gentlemen, in his own words, Abraham Lincoln declared himself to be a white supremacist. Why don’t our history books and news media tell the American people the truth about Lincoln and about the War Between the States?
It’s simple: if people would study the meanings and history of the flag, symbols, and statues of the Confederacy and Confederate leaders, they might begin to awaken to the tyrannical policies of Washington, D.C., that precluded Southern independence--policies that have only escalated since the defeat of the Confederacy--and they might have a notion to again resist.
By the time Lincoln penned his Emancipation Proclamation, the war had been going on for two years without resolution. In fact, the North was losing the war. Even though the South was outmanned and out-equipped, the genius of the Southern generals and fighting acumen of the Southern men had put the northern armies on their heels. Many people in the North never saw the legitimacy of Lincoln’s war in the first place, and many of them actively campaigned against it. These people were affectionately called “Copperheads” by people in the South.
I urge you to watch Ron Maxwell’s accurate depiction of those people in the North who favored the Southern cause as depicted in his motion picture, “Copperhead.” For that matter, I consider his movie, “Gods And Generals” to be the greatest “Civil War” movie ever made. It is the most accurate and fairest depiction of Confederate General Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson ever produced. In my opinion, actor Stephen Lang should have received an Oscar for his performance as General Jackson. But, can you imagine?
That’s another thing: the war fought from 1861 to 1865 was NOT a “civil war.” Civil war suggests two sides fighting for control of the same capital and country. The South didn’t want to take over Washington, D.C., no more than their forebears wanted to take over London. They wanted to separate from Washington, D.C., just as America’s Founding Fathers wanted to separate from Great Britain. The proper names for that war are either, “The War Between the States” or, “The War of Southern Independence,” or, more fittingly, “The War of Northern Aggression.”
Had the South wanted to take over Washington, D.C., they could have done so with the very first battle of the “Civil War.” When Lincoln ordered federal troops to invade Virginia in the First Battle of Manassas (called the “First Battle of Bull Run” by the North), Confederate troops sent the Yankees running for their lives all the way back to Washington. Had the Confederates pursued them, they could have easily taken the city of Washington, D.C., seized Abraham Lincoln, and perhaps ended the war before it really began. But General Beauregard and the others had no intention of fighting an aggressive war against the North. They merely wanted to defend the South against the aggression of the North.
In order to rally people in the North, Lincoln needed a moral crusade. That’s what his Emancipation Proclamation was all about. This explains why his proclamation was not penned until 1863, after two years of fruitless fighting. He was counting on people in the North to stop resisting his war against the South if they thought it was some kind of “holy” war. Plus, Lincoln was hoping that his proclamation would incite blacks in the South to insurrect against Southern whites. If thousands of blacks would begin to wage war against their white neighbors, the fighting men of the Southern armies would have to leave the battlefields and go home to defend their families. THIS NEVER HAPPENED.
Not only did blacks not riot against the whites of the South, many black men volunteered to fight alongside their white friends and neighbors in the Confederate army. Unlike the blacks in the North, who were conscripted by Lincoln and forced to fight in segregated units, thousands of blacks in the South fought of their own free will in a fully-integrated Southern army. I bet your history book never told you about that.
If one wants to ban a racist flag, one would have to ban the British flag. Ships bearing the Union Jack shipped over 5 million African slaves to countries all over the world, including the British colonies in North America. Other slave ships flew the Dutch flag and the Portuguese flag and the Spanish flag, and, yes, the U.S. flag. But not one single slave ship flew the Confederate flag. NOT ONE!
By the time Lincoln launched his war against the Southern states, slavery was already a dying institution. The entire country, including the South, recognized the moral evil of slavery and wanted it to end. Only a small fraction of Southerners even owned slaves. The slave trade had ended in 1808, per the U.S. Constitution, and the practice of slavery was quickly dying, too. In another few years, with the advent of agricultural machinery, slavery would have ended peacefully--just like it had in England. It didn’t take a national war and the deaths of over a half million men to end slavery in Great Britain. America’s so-called “Civil War” was absolutely unnecessary. The greed of Lincoln’s radical Republicans in the North, combined with the cold, calloused heart of Lincoln himself is responsible for the tragedy of the “Civil War.”
And look at what is happening now: in one instant--after one deranged young man killed nine black people and who ostensibly photo-shopped a picture of himself with a Confederate flag--the entire political and media establishments in the country go on an all-out crusade to remove all semblances of the Confederacy. The speed in which all of this has happened suggests that this was a planned, orchestrated event by the Powers That Be (PTB). And is it a mere coincidence that this took place at the exact same time that the U.S. Supreme Court decided to legalize same-sex marriage? I think not.
The Confederate Battle Flag flies the Saint Andrews cross. Of course, Andrew was the first disciple of Jesus Christ, brother of Simon Peter, and Christian martyr who was crucified on an X-shaped cross at around the age of 90. Andrew is the patron saint of both Russia and Scotland.
In the 1800s, up to 75% of people in the South were either Scotch or Scotch-Irish. The Confederate Battle Flag is predicated on the national flag of Scotland. It is a symbol of the Christian faith and heritage of the Celtic race.
Pastor John Weaver rightly observed, “Even the Confederate States motto, ‘Deovendickia,’ (The Lord is our Vindicator), illustrates the sovereignty and the righteousness of God. The Saint Andrews cross is also known as the Greek letter CHIA (KEE) and has historically been used to represent Jesus Christ. Why do you think people write Merry X-mas, just to give you an illustration? The ‘X’ is the Greek letter CHIA and it has been historically used for Christ. Moreover, its importance was understood by educated and uneducated people alike. When an uneducated man, one that could not write, needed to sign his name please tell me what letter he made? An ‘X,’ why? Because he was saying I am taking an oath under God. I am recognizing the sovereignty of God, the providence of God and I am pledging my faith. May I tell you the Confederate Flag is indeed a Christian flag because it has the cross of Saint Andrew, who was a Christian martyr, and the letter ‘X’ has always been used to represent Christ, and to attack the flag is to deny the sovereignty, the majesty, and the might of the Lord Jesus Christ and his divine role in our history, culture, and life.”
Many of the facts that I reference in this column were included in a message delivered several years ago by Pastor John Weaver. I want to thank John for preaching such a powerful and needed message. Read or watch Pastor Weaver’s sermon “The Truth About The Confederate Battle Flag” here:
The Truth About The Confederate Battle Flag
Combine the current attacks against Biblical and traditional marriage, the attacks against all things Confederate, the attacks against all things Christian, and the attacks against all things constitutional and what we are witnessing is a heightened example of why the Confederate Battle Flag was created to begin with. Virtually every act of federal usurpation of liberty that we are witnessing today, and have been witnessing for much of the twentieth century, is the result of Lincoln’s war against the South. Truly, we are living in Lincoln’s America, not Washington and Jefferson’s America. Washington and Jefferson’s America died at Appomattox Court House in 1865.
Instead of lowering the Confederate flag, we should be raising it.
© Chuck Baldwin
“You seem to think these ghost documents represent majority thinking while ignoring the fact that in your only remaining issues they show the very first grievance in both the South Carolina and Georgia documents describes the failure of the Northern states to respect the Constitution. Texas not withstanding.”
So, exactly what parts fo the Constitution did South Carolina and Georgia complain that the Northern States weren’t respecting? Was it the perhaps the portions regarding the return of Slaves to their owners?
Well I think it's safe to say that the Southern people were certainly inclined to rebel. But they did lack the power, didn't they?
The secession of a state from the Union depends on the will of the people of such state. The people alone as we have already seen, hold the power to alter their constitution...But in any manner by which a secession is to take place, nothing is more certain that the act should be deliberate, clear, and unequivocal. To withdraw from the Union is a solemn, serious act. Whenever it may appear expedient to the people of a state, it must be manifest in a direct and unequivocal manner."
There is a reason why I inserted the ellipses in your quote; it's because you left out a whole section of the paragraph. That part reads, "The state legislatures have only to perform certain organical operations in respect to it. To withdraw from the Union comes not within the general scope of their delegated authority. There must be an express provision to that effect inserted in the state constitutions. This is not at present the case with any of them, and it would perhaps be impolitic to confide it to them. A matter so momentous, ought not to be entrusted to those who would have it in their power to exercise it lightly and precipitately upon sudden dissatisfaction, or causeless jealousy, perhaps against the interests and the wishes of a majority of their constituents." So if, in Rawle's opinion, the state legislatures lacked the constitutional authority to secede without an addition to their constitution then when were those provisions added and what is the wording?
That the South did not pay the majority of the tariffs but in fact paid a small minority of the tariffs. Clear enough?
So, let’s try this again. I was not talking about countries that they had already recognized, I was talking about recognizing new countries. You would not expect them to withdraw recognition from existing countries. My point is that the distaste of the British people for slavery prevented them from recognizing the CSA. The fact that they recognized Brazil over a generation prior to 1861, and the United States over 4 generations ago is not germane, as at the time of their recognition, the British had slavery themselves. So, back to my original question. Name a major country that had slavery that Britain recognized FOR THE FIRST TIME after 1861 (BTW - I was quite clear on that previously - deliberately misunderstand much?)
So, you’re very clear on your contention that the Parliament didn’t give a damn about their working class consituents and only cared about the ruling elite. So, tell me, why didn’t they recognize the CSA? After all, the owners of all those mills shut down because of the lack of Southern cotton really wanted the cotton that CSA recognition would bring. I mean, if Parliament didn’t care about the working class and only cared about the rich and elite, it stands to reason that they should have recognized the CSA immediately, right?
Remember that just before Sumter, all three branches of the Federal government, and two Presidents endorsed slavery.
The U.S. Government charges an import tax on the diamond, maybe 15%. Who paid that tariff?
If all those dimond merchants were in Charleston then why would they send it to New York?
You did not answer the question.
Are you going to weave a biased story?
Go back and read post 493. You asked for help and when given, you did not bother to read it.
“You should re read the documents for yourself and find out.”
If by documents you are referring to the various Articles of Secession, I have read them all, multiple times. Many of them really don’t give any reason, but of the ones that do (that would be South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, and Florida) all list slavery, or slavery related issues, as the reason they were seceding. They dress them up by complaining that the Northern States are not doing their duty under the Constitution, but the Constitutional duty they are complaining about is the failure to return escaped slaves.
I find your characterization of these as “ghost” documents very interesting. Are you saying that these documents do not exist? Because they do. They were published by the states in question as their defense of the Secession. As far as the entirely laughable contention that they were done by some disgruntled employee who high-jacked a state printing press (and, I presume then distributed these documents all on his own) I have to ask. Why didn’t the States publish retractions? I mean, if this “Lone Printer” (all right, 5 “Lone Printers” – 1 for each state) was publishing wrong information under the imprimatur of the states, wouldn’t they want to set the record straight?
“Remember that just before Sumter, all three branches of the Federal government, and two Presidents endorsed slavery.”
I was not aware that, at any time in our history we had 2 sitting presidents. I mean, we have presidents elect, who are not really presidents and, in any case, while Buchanan would certainly endorse slavery, I can’t see Lincoln doing it. I really don’t think that the Judiciary is in the process of endorsing item, they merely rule on the constitutionality of efforts. So, when did a majority of the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and TWO presidents endorse slavery?
However, this is drifting far afield from my original contention, which is the South seceded due to Slavery as proved by the corporeal Articles of Secession voted on, approve, and printed for posterity by the legislatures of 5 different states. Whether or not the all three branches of the federal government and two (TWO) sitting presidents “endorsed” it or not is immaterial, ah they weren’t the ones doing the Seceding. You also have to remember that the North did not fight the Civil War due to Slavery, only the South did. The North fought to maintain the Union, and also because Confederate forces started the shooting portion of the war by staging an unprovoked attack against the United States forces at Fort Sumter.
You mean the one where you say, "As for the cotton ports themselves, they did not crave enough imports to justify packet lines until 1851, when New Orleans hosted one sailing to Liverpool"?
And yet, despite not craving enough imports to justify regular shipping, the south, with one-quarter the free population (and I think even you will concede that slave didn't consume many imported goods), somehow paid the majority of the tariff. Is that right?
Re-read.
CHAPTER_X
Expansion and Conflict by William E. Dodd
New York.
Her tonnage had increased from a little more than 500,000 in 1830 to nearly 5,000,000 in 1860. The freight and passenger ships, built of iron, and encouraged by liberal subsidies from the Federal Government, employed 12,000 sailors and paid their owners $70,000,000 a year. They carried the manufactures of the East to the Southern plantations, to South America, and to the Far East. This great fleet of commercial vessels was owned almost exclusively in Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania, and its owners were at the end of the decade about to wrest from Great Britain her monopoly of the carrying trade of the world.
The merchants of that city imported three fourths of the European goods consumed in the country, and they in turn exported nearly all of the great crops with which the balance of trade was maintained. New York was also a distributing center for the manufactures of the East which were sent to the South, the West, or the outside world.
The planters, on the other hand, had spread their system over the lower South in a remarkable manner since 1830. From eastern Virginia their patriarchal[Pg 194] establishments had been pushed westward and southwestward until in 1860 the black belt reached to the Rio Grande. Tobacco, cotton, and sugar were still their great staples, and the annual returns from these were not less than $300,000,000; while the growth of their output between 1850 and 1860 was more than one hundred per cent. The number of slaves who worked the plantations had increased between 1830 and 1860 from 2,000,000 to nearly 4,000,000 souls, thus suggesting the comparison with the workers in the mills of the East. The exports of the black belt composed more than two thirds of the total exports of the country; but they were largely billed through Eastern ports, and most of the imports of the South came through New York, where a second toll was taken from the products of the plantation.
I know from long experience not to look to you for rational exchange.
Only you are capable of counting domestic goods as imports.
Show your own data.
"There were difficulties to be overcome before direct importations could be established other than deficiency of capital and credit, the long credit system, or the absence of a thoroughly Southern mercantile class. One lay in the comparatively small amounts of foreign goods consumed in the South. There is no way of calculating accurately the value of the foreign imports consumed in territory naturally tributary to Southern seaports; but the probabilities are that it did not so greatly exceed the direct importations as Southerners generally supposed. Some Southern writers made the palpably untenable assumption that the Southern population consumed foreign goods equal in value to their exports to foreign countries, that is about two-thirds or three-fourths of the nation's exports, or imports.More reasonable was the assumption that the per capita consumption of imported goods in the South was equal to that of the North; but even that would seem to have been too liberal. A much higher percentage of the Northern population was urban; and the per capita consumption of articles of commerce by an urban population is greater than the per capita consumption by a rural population. Southern writers made much of the number of rich families in the South who bought articles of luxury imported from abroad; but there is no doubt that the number of families who lived in luxury was exaggerated. That the slaves consumed comparatively small quantities of foreign goods requires no demonstration. Their clothing and rough shoes were manufactured either in the North or at home. Their chief articles of food (corn and bacon) were produced at home or in the West. The large poor white element in the population consumed few articles of commerce, either domestic or foreign. The same is true of the rather large mountaineer element, because, if for no other reason, they lived beyond the routes of trade. Olmsted had these classes in mind when he wrote: "I have never seen reason to believe that with absolute free trade the cotton States would take a tenth part of the value of our present importations." One of the fairest of the many English travelers wrote: "But the truth is, there are few imports required, for every Southern town tells the same tale."
--ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861
Robert Royal Russel, 1924
Here is some information for you:
1860s....A Decade of Massive Growth in Southern Wealth,
The American nation was built on the vast farmlands that stretch from the South to the midlands. That farmland produced the wealth that funded American industrialization: It permitted the formation of a class of small landholders who, amazingly, could produce more than they could consume. They could sell their excess crops in the east and in Europe and save that money, which eventually became the founding capital of American industry.
Far from stagnating due to its labor pool as many have suggested, the economy of the antebellum South grew quite rapidly. Between 1840 and 1860, per capita income increased more rapidly in the South than in the rest of the nation. By 1860 the south attained a level of per capita income which was high by the standards of the time, surpassing the status of many European countries.
Although primarily a rural land, the South in 1860 had a lively urban population that included merchants and manufacturers centered in 20 cities with over 10,000 population each, the largest of which were Charleston and New Orleans.
By 1860, the South had more than $96,000,000 invested in about 20,000 factories. Nearly 110,000 factory workers were turning out products worth approximately $155,000,000 annually. Many of the laborers toiled in the plants only a portion of their time, for many of the factories still operated on the old domestic or putting-out system.
The professional classes of the South were not unlike anywhere else, except that their prosperity depended upon the success of the planters. The doctors, lawyers, journalists, and career-military officers - economically and socially tied into the planter economy. By 1850, non-slaveholding white farmers were increasing more rapidly as a group than were slaveholders.
The Southern economy had changed greatly in the decade of the 1850’s. Southern banking had grown extensively. At the end of 1859, the amount of money on hand in Southern banks was 20% higher than in Northeastern banks.
The growth in personal wealth in the South in the 1850’s was extensive. From the 1850 census, and state census records in 1858, the value of land and personal property had increased by 57%, while the same measure in the Northeast showed an increase of only 11%.
The typical southern state farm in 1860 had a valuation of $7,101. In the northern states this figure was $3,311.
Other industries that the South had historically ignored were receiving investment. Southern shipbuilding had grown to the point that there were in 1859 145 ship-building locations in the South that turned out 43,000 ship tons constructed that year. Southern shipyards were turning out both steam and sail powered vessels for the coastal and river trade.
The harbor in Charleston was being dredged in order to accommodate deep draft vessels used in transatlantic trade. Neither shipbuilding nor dredging was underwritten by any US Treasury money.
In 1853, the Southern states had 26% of the total railroad mileage in the country for 23% of the US population.
By 1859 according to the Boston Railway Times, there were 27,000 miles of railroads in the United States and that the Southern states percentage had grown to one third of the total of miles built. In addition to this fact, the railroads in the South had been constructed with private monies instead of Federal subsidies, were paid for, and had been cheaper to construct.
Connecting rail lines enabled a complete journey from practically any major Southern city on the Atlantic coast all the way to Monroe, Louisiana. A north/south journey followed connecting rail lines from New Orleans to Memphis and beyond the Ohio River.
In the deep west of the South, connecting rail lines reached from the east coast almost all the way to Little Rock, Arkansas with only a few miles over land in a rural unconstructed segment between the eastern end of the Little Rock line and the western end of the line crossing the Mississippi river.
Of all the CSA states, only Texas was unreachable by rail from the east coast in 1860. Texas had its own rail system stretching from the Sabine River border with Louisiana to Columbus, half way between Houston and San Antonio. Plans had been underway to connect the Sabine end to New Orleans and with it any point on the east coast since the 1850’s but engineering was difficult because the connection had to cross the swamps of western Louisiana.
This railroad capacity, plus the new shipbuilding abilities, meant that the South was becoming highly competitive in the transportation business. Thus the value of shipping from Southern harbors increased.
All the profitable branches of commercialism that thrived on the movement of Southern goods—freighting, brokering, selling, banking, insurance, storage—found in the Northeast, were receiving increased competition from businessmen in the South.
A rapidly growing group of people in the South were the “free blacks”. “Free”, in reference to Southern black Americans who were not slaves. They had been freed by former masters legally, had bought their way out of slavery from masters who allowed it, or had been born to manumitted slaves.
Most of the 250,000 free blacks lived in Virginia and Maryland, but clusters could also be found in Louisiana, particularly around New Orleans, in North Carolina, Tennessee, and in the border states of Kentucky and Missouri. Free Southern blacks in most communities held unskilled jobs, working usually as farm hands or day laborers. Some were trained as artisans and followed trades such as carpentry or shoemaking.
A few became wealthy, like Thomy Lafon, a New Orleans tycoon who amassed a fortune of over $500,000.
The “Charleston Mercury” reported in its Sunday, September 8, 1861, edition that free blacks in Charleston, South Carolina, had contributed $450 to the Confederate war effort.
Some free blacks became slaveholders themselves. Carter G. Woodson, a pioneer black historian, reported that 4,071 free blacks held 13,446 slaves in 1830. The largest concentration of black slaveholders were around New Orleans (753 owners with 2,351 slaves) Richmond, and in Maryland.
The final class in the South was the black slave. The slave existed in a closed system. Some masters allowed their slaves to purchase their freedom but the vast majority were the unconditional property of their masters. The master defined the slave's role, provided them with a clear and simple script, judged their performance, and rewarded or punished them according to its quality. In this closed system the slave had only limited contacts with free society. The masters provided the food, clothing, and shelter for their slaves.
Many slaves worked under the “task” system. This system provided the slave with a set of tasks to be completed within a given period of time. Should those tasks be completed before the given period of time had elapsed, the slave could then spend time in leisure, hire themselves out (with the foreknowledge of the master), or could work producing goods that could be sold, with the slave retaining all of the profits made from the sale. It was under the task system that some slaves were made able to buy their freedom.
With regard to housing, in the North there were 1.13 families per dwelling. In the West, the housing ratio was 1.02, and the South was 1.01. Therefore, the Southern family had at least the same or better accommodations.
In 1860, Virginia had twenty-three colleges enrolling 2,824 students, as against New York's seventeen colleges listing 2,970 students; and Georgia's thirty-two colleges with 3,302 students nominally overshadowed the eight Massachusetts colleges with 1,733 registrants.
In terms of crime, in the decade of 1850, in the North 1 in 310 blacks were in jail. In the South, 1 in 10,000. Of the white population, in the North 1 in 3000 were in jail. In the South, there were 1 in 5000 in jail.
Net worth of southerners was higher than their counterparts in the North and West.
Personal wealth in ownership of farm implements, machinery, and animals was greater in the South.
When the 1860 Census was completed it was noted that one measure of the census was “True Value of Personal Property” which was the per capita value of owned property. According to this measure of accumulation of personal wealth, the leading and most wealthy states among all of the United States were Mississippi, South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana.
The larger cotton plantations were of such a size and complexity that they were comparable to New England's factories. Lumber and grist mills were typically a part of these plantation's operations. Some had their own cotton gins. Large sugar plantations processed the cane once it was harvested. Some men owned several plantations and, therefore, found hired managers essential.
Slave owners constituted the wealthiest class in the nation. The average slave owner was more than five times as wealthy as the average Northerner; more than ten times as wealthy as the average non-slave holding Southerner.
According to the census, with only 30% of the nation’s (free) population, the South had 60% of the “wealthiest men.” The 1860 individual per capita income in the South was $3,978; in the North it was $2,040.
Former Census Office Director, James DeBow had said in the 1850’s that,
“The proportion (of valuable property ownership) which the slaveholders of the South bear to the entire population is greater than that of the owners of land or houses, agricultural stock, State, Bank or other corporation securities…In the States which are among the largest slaveholding, South Carolina, and Georgia, the land proprietors outnumber nearly two to one, in relative proportion, the owners of the same property in Maine, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.”
Citizens of the South thus tended to invest in crop raw materials, farm animals, machinery for farming, slaves to aid in the work, and tracts of real estate.
Of the more than 8 million whites in the American South in 1860, those who owned slaves numbered 383,637. Of those, 2,292 were large planters who held more than 100 slaves.
Indentured slaves, either through the actions of their owners, or their ability to earn money beyond their regular work schedules, eventually earned their freedom. More than a quarter of a million blacks were free in the South during the years preceding the Civil War.
This meant that there were actually more free blacks in the South than there were in the North during these years.
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