I think this is a conclusion without sufficient supporting evidence to make it. From what I have read, people who really hated black people absolutely did not want them in the territories or even in their own states.
People who opposed slavery in the territories often did so because they had moral objection to slavery.
Some did, but from everything I read, this portion of the population was a teeny tiny minority, not unlike the "gay rights" people of today. Most people didn't want slavery in the territories because they wanted to keep them strictly white.
If their voters really didn’t like Black people, and that was their primary motivation, all they had to do was to support slavery in the South and turn back runaways, but they didn’t do that.
Years ago I watched Errol Flinn as "Robin Hood", and in the movie he picks a fight with the Sheriff of Nottingham over a peasant hunting on the King's land.
I got the impression that he wasn't so much concerned about the welfare of the peasant as he was with using him as an excuse to pick a fight with the Sheriff.
I now wonder how much of helping runaways had to do with "sticking it to the man" rather than helping them for moral reasons. As has been noted, the underground railroad ran all the way to Canada, rather than to just the Northern "free", states.
You damn them for any reason and for no reason.
I try to see things realistically. I have become aware that I have been lied to all my life about what happened and why. I've been led to believe this was all a moral fight, and then you find out how much Northern whites hated black people and didn't care about them at all.
So yes, i've become quite cynical about what they have tried to make me believe all these years, and I no longer give that side the benefit of the doubt as to whether or not they are telling me the truth.
I keep seeing evidence that contradicts the official narrative, and this evidence dovetails quite nicely with the money and power motive that I think is inherent in human nature.
In other word, it makes more sense than the official narrative. People simply aren't motivated by the milk of human kindness so much as they are by greed and power.
If they were far from the frontier, that’s bad.
Well yeah. What people do in other lands should be up to the people in the other lands, not meddlesome troublemakers from elsewhere.
If they were close to the frontier, that’s bad.
I'm not sure where you got that from anything i've written. It is the people who occupy the ground who should have a say as to how their society should operate.
My teachers told me that racism was a big factor behind the Free Soil movement, but I’ve come to see that they were exaggerating.
Well here you and I different. I have *NEVER* heard that racism was a big factor in opposition to slavery in the territories. I have always heard it was simply moral opposition to slavery.
It’s part of the “racist America” narrative that you’ve bought into.
If you don't believe both North and South were very racist in the 1860s, then you are not being realistic. Of course they were racist, and unapologetically so.
That being said, many overcame it and went on to see black people as worthy of incorporation into society.
If you lived in Maine or Vermont, you probably didn't expect African-Americans to move en masse to your state or community. You might have one or two black families in town and wouldn't object to them. You might have read or seen the play of Uncle Tom's Cabin and been appalled by slavery. It was an issue to you. You might even help runaways, and while Canada would be secure destination for them, some would stay in your state and find employment. If you lived in Wisconsin or Michigan the situation would be similar.
If you lived in Ohio or Illinois, by contrast, you might be more concerned about African-Americans crossing the river and moving in next door. You might vote for a party that wanted to keep slavery out of the territories, but you might also vote for a party that wanted to keep slavery in place where it was and protect it and demand that runaway slaves be returned to their masters. That was another way of keeping Blacks out.
Most people were racist by today's standards, but you are making pathological Negrophobia something more common than it was, and ignoring the fact that many of the most racist people had no problem at all with owning slaves.
I try to see things realistically. I have become aware that I have been lied to all my life about what happened and why. I've been led to believe this was all a moral fight, and then you find out how much Northern whites hated black people and didn't care about them at all.
Then you, or your teachers, must be very, very old. Since the 1970s, it's been the fashion to put down Civil War era Northerners as racist above all else. Those of us who went through that have come to see things in a more balanced way.
>>If they were far from the frontier, that’s bad.
>Well yeah. What people do in other lands should be up to the people in the other lands, not meddlesome troublemakers from elsewhere.
>>If they were close to the frontier, that’s bad.
>I'm not sure where you got that from anything i've written. It is the people who occupy the ground who should have a say as to how their society should operate.
You say that opponents of slavery expansion were "meddlesome troublemakers" (as well as racists) if they live far away and racists if they live near-by. You attack both groups, though you deny it now. You don't allow for people having moral objections to slavery expansion. You vilify them for having political objections. And you paint those who objected on other grounds as worse than those who wanted to bring slaves and slavery into the territories. If virtually everyone was racist why make those who objected to slavery out to be more racist than those who were comfortable with slavery, loved it, and saw it as the wave of the future?
If you don't believe both North and South were very racist in the 1860s, then you are not being realistic. Of course they were racist, and unapologetically so.
I never denied that virtually everybody back then was "racist" by modern standards. But nonetheless, many people did object to slavery on moral grounds. The "racist America" narrative that you present denies this. It denies that people who didn't meet today's moral standards could still have had moral convictions that were outraged by slavery.
That being said, many overcame it and went on to see black people as worthy of incorporation into society.
That contradicts what you've been saying for years. Most of the people alive at the time assumed that Blacks and Whites would remain separate and thought all their lives. Some wanted segregation enforced by law. Others just figured that Blacks and Whites had their own lives to live, as Protestants and Catholics or members of different denominations did. You paint Northerners as pathologically anti-Black and ignore the fact that many Northerners even before the Civil War had no problem at all with having a few Black neighbors.