Commentary: Truth blown away in sugarcoated 'Gone With the Wind'

You forgot the part about the sharks that still swim the routes of those ships waiting for slaves to be thrown off. (Am I remembering accurately that it was Rep. Major Owen who told us about all that?)

With Michael Moore as Rhett

Frankly my dear, hand me another bolagna sandwich!?????.....lol

[cr #468] The point remains, and one can argue the hypothetical about the application of slavery to mining, that the southern leadership stilled eyed the southwest.

Every state offered two senators, even those with no potential for slavery.

Here is something offered for debate.

SOURCE: John Remington Graham, A Constitutional History of Secession, pp. 242-47.

Popular historians have sought to attribute monumental significance to the Wilmot Proviso, which was an attempt to exercise, in territories ultimately ceded by Mexico, the power of Congress which had first been employed in the reenactment of the Northwest Ordinance in 1789. But failure of the attempt, on the contrary, did not have the slightest importance.
In Texas, slavery never really got beyond the Nueces River, which flowed as an arch considerably to the north and east of the Rio Grande into the Gulf of Mexico at Corpus Christi. Slave labor was expensive to maintain, because masters were obliged to provide comprehensive care of the wants and needs of their workers from cradle to grave. This feature acquitted slavery, as it was called, of most charges of inhumanity lodged against it, and simultaneously made the system unable to compete whenever cheap seasonal labor was readily available. Between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande, free [nc: cheap?] Mexican labor has always been found in abundance, and for this reason slavery never was or could be established there.
The land belt separating the two rivers served as a buffer zone, because slavery was prohibited in Mexico. Aside from its incapacity to compete successfully with free Mexican labor, slavery could not flourish beyond the Nueces River for the further reason that escape across the Rio Grande brought freedom forever, and so slave property was there unsafe to hold. Nor were the wildest dreams of expanding slavery into Mexico or other parts of Latin American anything but delusions, because, aside from the impossibility of not only conquering but keeping hold of those regions, the huge supply of cheap native labor eager to be hired made slavery entirely out of the question.
Likewise out of the question for the expansion of slavery was western Texas, New Mexico, the Indian lands, Utah, and any part of the Louisiana Purchase north of the line drawn by the Missouri Compromise. In all these regions, the land was largely semi-arid and unforested, or too far from navigable rivers and other means of transportation, or otherwise unfit to implant slavery in any meaningful degree. And coming technology was a further death knell to the future of the institution.
Most politicians in the United States may not yet have come around to the reality, but at the time California petitioned for admission to the Union, neither the Federal territories nor any other lands within reach could absorb any significant expansion of the planter way of life in the old South. The unmistakable trends of immigration, an impossible and moribund system of capitalization of labor, the forthcoming creation of new free States, and generally the beckoning call of the future all weighed irreversibly toward the natural extinction of slavery.
The moment had arrived for the South to negotiate while time remained, exacting a price while a price could still be fetched, and making advantageous transactions for the future. There was one man in the South who could see the future clearly, as before Henry Clay, then representing Kentucky in the Senate. But he was getting on in years. The best the old master could do was get some breathing space for the South, and then hope that someone with sense might take his place before it was too late.
The Senator from Kentucky introduced eight resolutions in the Senate for resolving the conflicting interests of the country, as occasioned by the petition of California for admission to the Union. And out of these resolutions grew the basic statutory elements of the Compromise of 1850: -- California was admitted to the Union as a free State.
-- The western boundary of Texas was adjusted. Land was taken from the State, with its consent, and fitted into Federal territory, in consideration of $10,000,000 in bonds of the United States.
-- All territory acquired from Mexico, aside from Texas and California, was organized into the New Mexico Territory, just to the west of Texas and to the east of California, beneath 37 degrees north latitude, and also the Utah Territory, which was the remainder above 37 degrees north latitude. Each of these territories was made subject to the provision, "That when admitted as a State, the said territory, or any portion of the same, shall be received into the Union, with or without slavery, as its constitution may prescribe at the time of admission."
-- There had been an old fugitive slave law, enacted by Congress when George Washington was President. This old act was amended to give the courts of the Union exclusive jurisdiction, thereby relieving the courts of unwilling States of any duty to participate in this unpleasant business. Criminal penalties were prescribed for obstructing the execution of the act.
-- And the slave trade, but not slavery, was abolished in the District of Columbia.
The legislative engineering of this compromise took many months. In the United States Senate, three famous speeches were delivered, the first by John Calhoun of South Carolina on March 4, 1850, -- the next by Daniel Webster of Massachusetts on March 7, 1850, -- and the last by William Seward of New York on March 11, 1850.
Calhoun delivered his message twenty-seven days before his death, and at the time he was so weak and wan that a colleague from Virginia was obliged to read the text for him. "The North has only to will it to accomplish it," he concluded, "to do justice by conceding to the South an equal right in the acquired territory, and to do her duty by causing the stipulation relative to fugitive slaves to be faithfully fulfilled, to cease the agitation of the slave question, and to provide for the insertion of a provision into the constitution, by an amendment, which would restore to the South in substance the power she possessed of protecting herself before the equilibrium was destroyed by the action of the government."
In 1860, a full decade after Calhoun had been laid to rest, there were probably less than a hundred slaves within the boundaries of Texas beyond the Nueces River, nor did the territories to the north and west of Texas offer any attraction to planters. Slavery had expanded to its furthest natural extremity in those directions.
The new fugitive slave law was of little practical significance, because there were so few runaways, and those slaves who managed to escape were nearly always impossible to find. It was seldom worth the cost and effort even to make an attempt at recovery.
And the act abolishing the slave trade in the District of Columbia was likewise cosmetic. The whole slave population in the city of Washington and its immediate surroundings could not much have exceeded a few hundred domestic servants. The slave market there had almost ceased to exist by the middle of the century.
[nc note: the 1860 census indicates there were 3,185 slaves in the District of Columbia.]
Calhoun's great precept of the need for constitutional safeguards against exploitation of minority interests was still sound, but the winds of change were bringing about new alignments within the country, and for this reason the old equilibrium Calhoun spoke of was no longer a serviceable balance for this purpose. There was instead a need to calm the sea of agitation over slavery, let the institution die naturally, and accommodate new alliances of power which were sure to arise.
Daniel Webster was damned in Boston for his "seventh of March" speech. "I speak today for the preservation of the Union. Hear me for my cause!" were his famous opening words as he supported the resolutions of Henry Clay. The thrust of his discourse was an answer to the declamations of the North against the peculiar institution of the South. He did not defend slavery so much as expose hypocrisy, for he had approved of the Wilmot Proviso, but for him the real concern was to avoid further division within the United States. And for this he was lambasted mercilessly. Webster, it was said, had sold his soul to the devil.
Webster was shrewd enough to see what Clay had in mind by his stipulation on New Mexico and Utah: the object was to let the South enjoy a nominal concession which posed no real threat whatever for the expansion of slavery into the West. The need was to build strength of the whole on a foundation of peace among the several States to terminate the cultural insults against the South, and to work on solid progress within the Union. And he was eminently correct.
William Seward opposed Clay's resolutions. He rested his case with grandiloquence: "And now, the simple, bold, and awful question which presents itself is this: -- Shall we, who are founding institutions, social and political, for countless millions, -- shall we, who know by experience the wise and the just, and are free to choose them, and to reject the erroneous and unjust, -- shall we establish human bondage, or permit it by our sufferance to be established?" It sounded glorious, but it was one of the most meaningless political speeches in American history. For never was a single slave held in all the vast stretches of the New Mexico Territory or the Utah Territory.
[nc note: the 1860 census indicates there were 29 slaves in Utah, 15 in Nebraska, 44 total slaves in the territories. In addition, there were 303 free blacks in the territories -- CO, NE, NV, NM, UT, WA]
The triumvirate of Clay, Calhoun, and Webster provided an arrangement made up of legal symbols designed to keep the country cool and occupied, while two political niceties were gracefully addressed: California was admitted to the Union, and the South was reassured of its safety within the Union.
Slavery was set on the path of ultimate extinction by the Compromises of 1820 and 1850. And the people of the South were generally satisfied with the results, as appears from the defeat of secessionists in the Southern elections in 1851. If a little moderation and patience had been shown there would have been a natural and beneficial transformation within the Dixie States and throughout the Union.
By the end of 1852, Clay, Calhoun, and Webster all slept in their graves. And, unfortunately, there were meddlesome politicians, power-brokers, and judges who could not leave well enough alone. Not much time had to pass before the trouble began.
Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois had ambitions of becoming President. Given the realities of popular election, which have usually been more a matter of financial backing than anything else, Douglas became indebted to a group of financiers whose offices were mainly in New York and Philadelphia. They wanted to build a transcontinental railroad along a central route cutting across Federal territories somewhat above the line of the Missouri Compromise. And, in order to obtain necessary support for the favorite project of these financiers, Douglas used his power as Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Territories to engineer a bill containing an element which was deceptively attractive to the South.
The bill established the Kansas Territory, lying to the west of the State of Missouri, from 37 to 40 degrees north latitude, and also the Nebraska Territory consisting of all portions of the Louisiana Purchase then still unorganized and above 40 degrees north latitude. Under Section 8 of the Act of March 6, 1820, slavery was excluded from these territories, but Douglas agreed to repeal this provision in exchange for temporary relin-quishment by senators and representatives in the Southern States of their demands that a transcontinental railroad should be built through Louisiana and Texas. This bait secured enough political support for the central route.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was signed on May 30, 1854. Section 14 stated that "the true intent and meaning of this Act is not to legislate slavery into any State or Territory, or to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way." This idea was called "popular sovereignty." It had a pious ring, but it was a certain recipe for civil war, as was foreseen by Senator Sam Houston of Texas, who pleaded on March 4, 1854, "I adjure you to regard the contract once made to harmonize and preserve the Union. Maintain the Missouri Compromise! Stir not up agitation! Give us peace!" He was the sanest man in the United States when he spoke those words, but he was unheard.
In the great cession from Mexico between Texas and California, there was nary a square mile which settlers from both the North and the South would compete to acquire, and for this reason it was not so important to draw a line between free soil and slave soil in the Federal territories covered by the Compromise of 1850.
But in the lands other than the State of Missouri lying above 36 degrees 30 minutes north latitude in the Louisiana Purchase, there was a limited region along the Missouri and Kansas Rivers, in which a few crops other than cotton, such as hemp and tobacco, might profitably be grown by slave labor. And so, for the sake of domestic peace, a line was established by the Compromise of 1820. The region in question was not very large, and could hardly be expected to support more than a sparse population in bondage. Moreover, as between competing streams of immigrants from the North and from the South, it was a foregone conclusion, dictated by the offerings of geography and the weight of numbers, that Kansas would eventually become a free State.
In fact, this small domain was so minor in value to planters that it was unworthy of any strenuous exertions of the South. Yet there lay a segment of land in eastern Kansas, which Douglas opened up to Dixie squatters for the sake of a railroad. The consequences were disastrous. It caused an explosion of ill-feeling and misunderstanding which had mercifully been laid to rest by Henry Clay's last triumphant act of statesmanship in 1850.

Here is what Lincoln said on the Dred Scott decision,

http://www.founding.com/library/lbody.cfm?id=321&parent=63

Again and again have I heard Judge Douglas denounce that bank decision, and applaud Gen. Jackson for disregarding it. It would be interesting for him to look over his recent speech, and see how exactly his fierce philippics against us for resisting Supreme Court decisions, fall upon his own head. It will call to his mind a long and fierce political war in this country, upon an issue which, in his own language, and, of course, in his own changeless estimation, was "a distinct and naked issue between the friends and the enemies of the Constitution," and in which war he fought in the ranks of the enemies of the Constitution.

I have said, in substance, that the Dred Scott decision was, in part, based on assumed historical facts which were not really true; and I ought not to leave the subject without giving some reasons for saying this; I therefore give an instance or two, which I think fully sustain me. Chief Justice Taney, in delivering the opinion of the majority of the Court, insists at great length that negroes were no part of the people who made, or for whom was made, the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution of the United States.

On the contrary, Judge Curtis, in his dissenting opinion, shows that in five of the then thirteen states, to wit, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and North Carolina, free negroes were voters, and, in proportion to their numbers, had the same part in making the Constitution that the white people had. He shows this with so much particularity as to leave no doubt of its truth; and, as a sort of conclusion on that point, holds the following language:

"The Constitution was ordained and established by the people of the United States, through the action, in each State, of those persons who were qualified by its laws to act thereon in behalf of themselves and all other citizens of the State. In some of the States, as we have seen, colored persons were among those qualified by law to act on the subject. These colored persons were not only included in the body of ‘the people of the United States,’ by whom the Constitution was ordained and established; but in at least five of the States they had the power to act, and, doubtless, did act, by their suffrages, upon the question of its adoption."

Again, Chief Justice Taney says: "It is difficult, at this day to realize the state of public opinion in relation to that unfortunate race, which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted." And again, after quoting from the Declaration, he says: "The general words above quoted would seem to include the whole human family, and if they were used in a similar instrument at this day, would be so understood."

Chief Justice Taney, in his opinion in the Dred Scott case, admits that the language of the Declaration is broad enough to include the whole human family, but he and Judge Douglas argue that the authors of that instrument did not intend to include negroes, by the fact that they did not at once, actually place them on an equality with the whites. Now this grave argument comes to just nothing at all, by the other fact, that they did not at once, or ever afterwards, actually place all white people on an equality with one or another. And this is the staple argument of both the Chief Justice and the Senator, for doing this obvious violence to the plain unmistakable language of the Declaration. I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men, but they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity.

They defined with tolerable distinctness, in what respects they did consider all men created equal—equal in "certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This they said, and this meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth, that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet, that they were about to confer it immediately upon them.

In fact they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere.

The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain; and it was placed in the Declaration, not for that, but for future use. Its authors meant it to be, thank God, it is now proving itself, a stumbling block to those who in after times might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant when such should re-appear in this fair land and commence their vocation they should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack.

Could you clarify your question?

I was pointing out to one of the other posters that his posts indulged in sectionalist prejudice and general condemnation that had more to do with who was being condemned, than with what they actually did.

The flashpoint is the question of whether Southerners had any Fourth/Fifth Amendment property rights in slaves they held, that other people in the United States were bound to respect.

If the other poster doesn't respect those rights, howbeit that he disagrees with them, then my argument proceeds along the line that by denying Southerners their property rights, he's doing the same thing that Chief Justice Taney said about black slaves in Dred Scott, that they possessed no rights that a white man needed respect. Taney justified his judgment on the fact that slaves were bound to service and were property, whose service and bondage were recognized by the Constitution. The other poster has no such legal and intellectual supports, in his abrogation of Southerners' rights just because he doesn't like them.

ftD #467] When the Missiouri Compromise was revoked, Jefferson said it was like an alarm going off. Jefferson died on July 4, 1826.

Accuse me, you are correct.

It was the Compromise itself that set the alarm off, since, would also set a precedent for congressional acquiescence in the expansion of slavery

I am sure the Kansas-Nebreska act had him rolling over in his grave.

[ftD #474] Did "free blacks" and slaves serve voluntarily as soldiers with the Confederate Forces during the American Civil War? This is a subject that has been brought up from time to time by some American Civil War historians, namely ones who espouse the Confederate cause. The short answer is that the Confederate Forces barred the enlistment of blacks, slave or free, from serving as soldiers. Logic should prevail when this question is brought up.

And what am I suppose to be looking at?

http://www.civilwarhome.com/armingslaves.htm

A Confederate Plan For Arming The Slaves [From the Charlotte Observer, November, 1901.] Southern Historical Society Papers. Vol. XXIX. Richmond, Va., January-December. 1901.

It was overlooked at the time of its publication in the Richmond Dispatch, but the New York Sun makes a summary of a strikingly interesting documentary contribution to our Richmond contemporary by Mr. Irving A. Black, who, during the civil war, was assistant adjutant-general on the staff of General Patrick R. Cleburne, who commanded a division in Hardie's corps of the Confederate Army of the Tennessee. The document is a paper prepared by General Cleburne in December, 1863, in which for the first time a military officer of prominence definitely advocated the employment of slaves as soldiers for the South. The paper was submitted to the brigadier-generals of the division, and Mr. Buck's recollection is that the project was approved by them unanimously; but when it was referred to the general officers of the army it was opposed by several of them, though, continues Mr. Buck, "my impression is that Generals Hardie and Johnston, however, declined to forward the paper to the War Department on the ground that in tenor it was more political than military. Subsequently it was sent through another channel to Jefferson Davis, who indorsed on it these words, substantially:

"While recognizing the patriotic motives of its distinguished author, I deem it inexpedient, at this time, to give publicity to this paper, and request that it be suppressed.

"J. D." All copies were supposed to have been suppressed, but a few years ago one was found among the effects of a deceased officer of General Cleburne's staff and sent to the Confederate Record Office of the War Department at Washington, by which it was referred to Mr. Buck for authentication.

General Cleburne in this paper, according to the narrative, described the straits to which the Confederacy was reduced in the latter part of 1863, and said:

"In this state of things it is easy to understand why there is a growing belief that some black catastrophe is not far ahead of us, and that unless some extraordinary change is soon made in our condition we must overtake it."

The "extraordinary change" advised by him was this:

"That we retain in service for the war all troops now in the service, and that we immediately commence training a large reserve of the most courageous of our slaves; and, further, that we guarantee freedom within a reasonable time to every slave in the South who shall remain true to the Confederacy in this war."

He goes on to argue his case with very considerable ability, referring finally, to the military aptitude of negroes as displayed in the Union army and elsewhere, and concluding by saying that "If they can be made to face and fight bravely against their former masters, how much more probable is it that with the allurement of a higher reward, and led by those masters, they would submit to discipline and face dangers?"

General Cleburne--an Irishman born and a gallant spirit--was killed in the battle of Franklin, November 30, 1864. A little while before this event, a bill had been introduced in the Confederate Congress which embodied some of the features of his plan. It was bitterly opposed, a representative from Mississippi saying, for example:

"All nature cries out against it. The negro was ordained to slavery by the Almighty. Emancipation would be the destruction of our social and political system. God forbid that this Trojan horse should be introduced among us." (emphasis added)

Finally, however, the bill was passed, but with a provision "that nothing in this act shall be construed to authorize a change in the relation of the said slaves." But Mr. Hunter, of Virginia, had denounced it as involving emancipation, advancing this argument, among others, that "negroes now are deterred from going to the enemy only by the fear of being put in the army. If we put them in they will all go over." But the bill passed only a few months before General Lee's surrender, and never became operative.

The Sun asks whether or not, if it had been made effective at the time General Cleburne proposed it, it might not have changed the whole course of events. Reason and religion both say no. The seeds of that war were implanted in the Constitution, and their germination was only a question of time. War was inevitable, and, like other things, the manner of its termination was directed by the innate Power. But for the consolation afforded by this belief, the Southern people, at its conclusion, would have been of all men most miserable.

[ftD #474] Why would a person who had been subjugated and brutalized by the institution of slavery wanted to perpetuate their misery?

You make the illogical assumption that all were brutalized. You would not assume they mistreated or brutalized horses or mules, or any other valuable. You also ignore the Stolkholm Syndrome. The dominant-submissive relationship was a way of life.

If the union army destroyed the plantation and all about it, the slave family could starve or freeze to death.

Moreover, some marauding troops could easily have persuaded the Southern black that the Yankee was not his friend.

SOURCE: Horace Greeley, The American Conflict, Vol 2, 1866, p. 245

[nc - In 1862] Gen. Buell's Provost-Marshall, Henry Dent, at Louisville, Ky., issued an order to his (mounted) provost-guard to flog all Blacks, free or slave, whom they should find in the streets after dark; and for weeks the spectacle was exhibited, to the admiration of thousands of active and passive Rebels in that city, of this chivalric provost guard, wearing the national uniform, chasing scores of unquestionably loyal and harmless persons at nightfall through the streets, over the pavements, and down the lanes and alleys, of that city; cutting and slashing them with cowhide and cat, while their screams of fright and agony made merry music for the traitors of every degree. Many were lashed unmercifully; but with no obvious advantage to the national cause, nor even to the improvement of the dubious loyalty of those whom the exhibition most delighted and edified.

The CLEBURNE paper was published as part of the Official Records of the War of Rebellion.

http://www.ehistory.com/uscw/library/or/110/0586.cfm

OFFICIAL RECORDS: Series 1, vol 52, Part 2 (Supplements)

Page 586 SW. VA., KY., TENN., MISS., ALA., W. FLA., & N. GA. Chapter LXIV.

[JANUARY 2, 1864.]

COMMANDING GENERAL, THE CORPS, DIVISION, BRIGADE, AND REGIMENTAL COMMANDERS OF THE ARMY OF TENNESSEE:

GENERAL: Moved by the exigency in which our country is now placed, we take the liberty of laying before you, unofficially, our views on the present state of affairs. The subject is so grave, and our views so new, we feel it a duty both to you and the cuse that before going further we should submit them for your judgment and receive your suggestions in regard to them. We therefore respectfully ask you to give us an expression of your views in the premises. We have now been fighting for nearly three years, have spilled much of our best blood, and lost, consumed, or thrown to the flames an amount of property equal in value to the specie currency of the world. Through some lack in our system the fruits of our struggles and sacrifices have invariably slipped away from us and left us nothing but long lists of dead and mangled. Instead of standing defiantly on the borders of our territory or harassing those of the enemy, we are hemmed in to-day into less then two-thirds of it, and still the enemy menacingly confronts us at every point with superior forces. Our soldiers can see no end to this state of affairs except to our own exhaustion; hence, instead of rising to the occasion, they are sinking into a fatal apathy, growing weary of

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*See VOL. XXXII, Part II, p. 506.

+For reply, see ibid, p. 517.

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http://www.ehistory.com/uscw/library/or/110/0587.cfm

hardships and slaughters which promise no results. In this state of things it is easy to understand why there is a growing belief that some black catastrophe is not far ahead of us, and that unless some extrodinary change is soon made in our condition we must overtake it. The consequencesof this condition are showing themselves more plainly every day; restlessness of morals spreading everywhere, manifesting itself in the army in a growing disregard for private rights; desertion spreading to a class of soldiers it never dared to tamper with before; military commissions sinking in the eestimation of the soldier; our supplies failing; our firesides in ruins. If this state continues much longer we must be subjugated. Every man should endeavor to understand the meaning of subjugation before it is too late. We can give but a faint idea when we say it means the loss of all we now hold most sacred-slaves and all other personal property, lands, homesteads, liberty, justice, safety, pride, manhood. 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 the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, our maimed veterans as fit objects for derision. It means the crushing of Southern manhood, the hatred of our former slaves, who will, on a spy system, by our secret police. The conqueror's policy is to divide the conquered into factions and stir up animosity among them, and in trainining an army of negroes the North no doubt holds this throught in perspective. We can see three great causes operating to destroy us: First, the inferiority of our armies to those of the enemy in point of numbers; second, the poverty of our single source of supply in comparisonwith his several sources; third, the fact that slavery, from being one of our chief sources of strength at the commencement of the war, has now become, in a military point of view, one of our chief sources of weakness.

The enemy already opposes us at every point with superior numbers, and is endeavoring to make the preponderance irresistible. President Davis, in his recent message, says the enemy "has recently ordered a large conscription and made a subsequent call for volunteers, to be followed, if ineffectual, by a still further draft." In addition, the President of the United States announces that "he has already in training an army of 100,000 negores as good as any troops," and every fresh raid he makes and new slice of territory he wrests from us will add to this force. Every soldier in our army already knows and feels our numerical inferiority to the enemy. Want of men in the field has prevented him from reaping the furits of his victories, and has prevented him from having the furlough he expected after the last reoganization, and whethe wasting armies in the field to look at the source of supply, he finds nothing in the prospect to encourage him. Our single source of supply is that portion of our white men fit for duty and not now in the ranks. The enemy has three sources of supply: First, his own motley population; secondly, our slaves; and thirdly, Europeans whose hearts are fired into a crusade against us by fictitious pictures of the atrocities of slavery, and who meet no himdrance from their Governments in such enterprise, because these Governments are equally antagonistic to the institution. In touching the third cause, the fact that slavery has become a military weakenss, we may rouse prejudice and passion, but the time has come when it would be madenss not to look at our danger from every point of view, and to probe it to the bottom. a Part from the assistance that home and foreign

http://www.ehistory.com/uscw/library/or/110/0588.cfm

prejudice against slavery has given to the North, slavery is a source of great strength to the enemy in a purely military point of view, by supplying him with an army from our granaries; but it is our most vulnerable point, a continuedembarrassment, and in some respects an insidious weakness. Wherever slavery is once seriously disturbed, whether by the actual presence or the approach of the enemy, or even by a cavalry raid, the whites can no longer with safety to their property openly syampthize with our cause. The fear of their slaves is continually haunting them, and from silence and apprehension many of these soon learn towish the war stopped on any terms. The next stage is to take the oath to save property, and they become dead to us, if not open enemies. To prevent raids we are forced to scatter our forces, and are not free to move and strike like the enemy; his vulnerable points are carefully selected and fortified depots. ours are found in every point where the reis a slave to set free. All along the lines slavery is comparatively valueless to us for labor,d increasing worth to the enemy for information. It is an omnipresent spy system, pointing our our valuable men to the enemy, revealing our positions, purposes, and resources, and yet acting so safely and secretly that there is no means to guard against it. Even in the heart of our country, where our hold upon this secret espionage is firmest, it waits but the opening fire of the enemy's battle line to wake it, like a torpid serpent, int venomous activity.

In view of the sate of affairs what does our country propose to do? In the words of President Davis "no effort must be spared to add largely to our effective forces as promptly as possible. The sources of supply are to be found in restoring to the army all who are improperly absent, putting an end to substitution, modifying the exemption law, restricting details, and placing in the ransk such of the able-bodied men now employed as wagoners, nurses, cooks, and other employes, as are doing service for which the negroes, cooks, and other employes, as are doing service for which the negores may be found competent." Most of the men improperly absent, together with many of the exempts and men having substitutes, are now without the Confederate lines and cannon be calculated on. If all the exempts capable of bearing arms were enrolled, it will give us the bosy below eighteen, the men above forty-five, and those persons who are left at home to meetthe wants of the country and the army, but this modification of the exemption law will remove from the fields and manufactures most of the skill that directed agricultural and mechanical labor, and, as stated by the President, "details will have to be made to meet the wants of the country," thus sending many of the men to be derived from this source back to their homes again. Independently of this, experience proves that striplings and men above conscript age break down and swell the sick lists more than they do the ranks. The portion now in our lines of the class who have substitutes is not on the whole a hopeful element, for the motives that created it must have been stronger than patriotism, and these motives added to what many of them will call breach of faith, will cause some to be not forthcoming, and others to be unwilling and discontented soldiers. The remaining sources mentioned by the President have been so closely pruned in the Army of Tennessee that they will be found not to yield largely. The supply from all these sources, together with what we now have in the field, will exhaust, the white race, and though it should greatly exceed expectations and put us on an equality with the enemy, or even give us temporary advantages, still we have no reserve to meet unexpected disaster or to supply a protracted struggle. Like past years, 1864 will diminish our ranks by the casualties of war, and what source of repair is there left us? We

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therefore see in the recommendations of the President only a temporary expedient, which at the best will leave us twelve months hence in the same predicament we are in now. The President attempts to meet only one of the depressing causes mentioned; for the other two he has proposed no remedy. They remain to generate lack of confidence in our final success, and to keep us moving down hill as heretofore. Adequately to meet the causes which are now threatening ruin to our country, we propose, in addition to a modification of the President's plans, that we retain in service for the war all troops now in service, and that we immediately commence training a large reserve of the most courageous of our slaves, and further that we guarantee freedom within a reasonable time to every slave in the South who shall remain true to the Confederacy in this war. As between the loss of independence and the loss of slavery, we assume that every patriot will freely give up the latter-give up the negro slave rather than be a slave himself. If we are correct in this assumption it only remains to show how this great national sacrifice is, in all human probabiliies, to change the current of success and sweep the invader from our country.

Our country has already some friends in England and France, and there are strong motives to induce these nations to recognize and assist us, but they cannot assist us without helping slavery, and to do this would be in conflict with their policy for the last quarter of a centurey. England has paid hundreds of millions to emancipate her West India slaves and break up the slave trade. Could she now consistently spend her treasure to reinstate slavery in this country? But this barrier once removed, the symapthy and the interests of these and other nations will accord with our won, and we may expect from them both moral support and material aid. One thing is certain, as soon as the great sacrifice to independence is made and known in foreign countries there will be a complete change of front in our favor of the symapthies of the world. This measure will deprive the North of the moral and material aid which it now derives from the bitter prejudices with which foreigners view the institution, and its war, if continued, will henceforth be so despicable in their eyes that the source of recruiting will be dried up. It will leave the enemy's negore army no motive to fight for, and will exhaust the source from which it has been recruited. The idea that it is their special mission to war against slavery has held growing sway over the Northern people for many years, and has at length ripened into an arme dand bloody crusade against it. This baleful superstitution has so far supplied them with a courae and cnstancy not their own. It is the most powerful and honestly entertained plank in their war platform. Knock this away and what is left? A bloody ambition for more territory, a pretended veneration for the Union, which one of their own most disntuighsed oratoer in his Liverpool speech) openly avowed was only used as a stimulus to stir up the anti-slavery crusade, and lastly the poisonous and selfish interests which aref the fungus growth of the war itself. Mankind may fancy it a great duty to destroy slavery, but what interest can mankind have in puholding this remainder of the Northern war platform? Their interests and feelings will be diametrically opposed to it. The measure we propose will strike dead all John Brown fanaticism, and will compel the enemy to draw off altogether or in the eys of the world to swallow the Declaration of Independence without the sauce and disguise of philanthropy. This delusion of anaticism at an end, thousands of Northern people will have leisure to look at home and to see the gulf of despotism into which they themselves are rushing.

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The measure will at once blow strip the enemy of foreign symapthy and assistance, and transfer them to the South; it will dry up two of his three sources of recruiting; it will take from his negro army the only motive it could have to fight against the South, and will probably cause much of it to desert over to us; it will deprive his cause of the powerful stimulus of fanaticism, and will enable him to see the rock on which his so called friends are now piloting him. The immediate effect of the emancipation and enrollment of negroes on the military strength of the South would be: To enable us to have armies numerically superior to those of the North, and a reserve of any size we might think necessary; to enable us to take the offensive, move forward, and forage on the enemy. It would open to us in prospective another and almost untouched source of supply, and furnish us with the means of preventing temporary disaster, and carrying on a protracted struggle. It would instantly remove all the vulnerability, embarrassment, and inherent weakness which result from slavery. The approach of the enemy would no longer find every house hold surrounded by spies; the fear that sealed the master's lips and the avan so many cases, tempted him practically to desert us would alike be removed. There would beno recruits awaiting the enemy with open arms, no complete history of every neighborhood with ready guides, no fear of insurrection in the rear, or anxieties for the fate of loved ones when our armies moved forward. The chronic irritation of hope deferred would be joyfully ended with the negro, and the sympathies of his whole race would be due to his native South. It would restore confidence in an early termination of the war with all its inspiring consequences, and even if contrary to all expectations the enemy should succeed in overrunning the South, instead of finding a cheap, ready-made means of holding it down, he would find a common hatred and thirst for vengance, which would break into acts at every favorable opportunity, would prevent him from settling on our lands, and render the South a very unprofitable conquest. It would remove forever all selfish taint from our cause and place independence above every question of property. The very magnitude of the sacrifice itself, such as no nation has ever voluntarily made before, would appal our enemies, destroy his spirit and his finances, and fill our hearts with a pride and singleness of purpose which would clothe us with new strength in battle. A part from all other aspects of the question, the necessity for more fighting men is upon us. We can only get a sufficiency by making the negroe share the danger and harships of the war. If we arm and train him and make him fight for the country in her hour of dire distress, every consideration of principle and policy demand that we should set him and hiw whole race who side with us free. It is a first principle with mankind that he who offers his life in defense of the State should receive from her in return his freedom and his happiness, and we believe in acknowledgment of this principle. The Constitution of the Southern States has reserved to their respective governments the power to free slaves for meritorious services to the State. It is politic besides. For many years, ever since the agitation of the subject of slavery commenced, the negro has been dreaming of freedom, and his vivid impagination has surrounded that condition with so many gratifications that it has become the paradise of his hopes. To attain it he will tempt field. The hope of freedom not exceeded by the bravest soldier in the field. The hope of freedom is perhaps the only moral incentive that can be applied to him in his present condition. It would be preposterous then to expect him to fight against it with any degree

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of enthusiasm, therefor ew must bind him to our cause by no doubtful bonds; we must leave no possible loop-hole for treachery to creep in. The slaves are dangerous now, but armed, trained, and collected in an army they would be a thousand fold more dangerous; therefore when we make soldiers of them we must make free menof them beyond all question, and thus enlist their symapthies also. We can do this more effectually than the North can now do, for we cangive the negroe not only his own freedom, but that of his wife and child, and can secure it to him in his old home. To do this, we must immediately make his marriage and parental relations sacred in the eys of the law and forbid their sale. The past legislation of the South concedes that a large free middle class of negro blood, between the master and slave, must sooner or later destroy the institution. If, then, we touch the institution at all, we would do best to make the most of it, and by emancipating the whole race upon reasonalbe terms, and within such reasonable time as will prepare both races for the change, secure to ourselves all the advantages, and to our enemies all the disadvantages that can arise, both at home and abroad, from such a sacrifice. Satisfy the negro that if he faitfully adheres to our standard during the war he shall receive his freedom and that of his race. Give him as an earnest of our intentions such immediate immunities as will impress him with our sincerity and be in keeping with his new condition, enroll a portion of his class as soldiers of the Confederacy, and we change the race from a dreaded weakness to a position of strength.

Will the slaves fight? The helots of Sparta stood their masters good stead in battle. In the great sea fight of Lepanto where the Christians checked forever the spread of Mohammedanism over Europe, the galley slaves of portions of the fleet were promised freedom, and called on to fight at a critical moment of the battle. They fought well, and civilization owes much to those brave galley slaves. The negroe slaves of Saint Domingo, fighting for freedom, defeated their white masters and the Frengainst them. The negro slaves of Jamaica revolted, and under the name of Marroons held the mountains against their masters for 150 years; andthe experience of this war has been so far that half-trained negroes have fought as bravely as many other half-trained Yankees. If, contrary to the training of a life time, they can be made to face and fight braverly against their former masters, how much more probable is it that with the allurement of a higher reward, and led by those masters, they would submit to discipline and face dangers. We will briefly notice a few arguments against this course. It is said Republicanism cannot exist without the institution. Even were this true, we prefer any form of government of which the Southern people may have the molding, to one forced upon us by a conqueror. It is said the white man cannot perform agricultural labor in the South. The xperience of this army during the heat of summer from Bowling Green, Ky., to Tupelo, Miss., is that the white man is healthier when doing reasonable work in the open field than at any other time. It is said an army of negroes cannot be spared from the field. A sufficient number of slaves is now administering to luxury alone to supply the place of all we need, and we believe it would be better to take half the able bodied men off a plantation than to take the one master mind that economically regulated its operations. Leave some of the skill at home and take some of the muscle to fight with. It is said slaves will not work after they are freed. We think necessity and a wise legislation will compel them to labor for a living. It is sais it will cause terrible

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excitement and some disaffection from our cause. Excitement is far preferable to the apathy which now exists, and disaffection will not be among the fighting men. It is said slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up we give up all. Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for. It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of ourrights and liberties. We have now briefly proposed a plan which we believed will save our couimperfect, but in all human probability it would give us our indpendence. No objection ought to outweight it which is not weithtier than independence. If it is worthy of being put in practice it ought to be mooted quickly before the people, and urged earnestly by every man who believes in its efficacy. Negroes will require much training; training will require time, and there is danger that this concession to common sense may come too late.

P. R. Cleburne, major-general, commanding division; D. C. Govan, brigadier-general; John E. Murray, colonel Fifth Arkansas; G. F. Baucum, colonel Eighth Arkansas; Peter Snyder, lieutenant-colonel, commanding Sixth and Seventh Arkansas; E. Warfield, lieutenant-colonel, Second Arkansas; M. P. Lowrey, brigadier-general; A. B. Hardcastle, colonel Thirty-second and Forty-fifth Mississippi; F. A. Ashford, major Sixteenth Alabama; John W. Colquitt, colonel First Arkansas; Rich. J. Person, major Third and Fifth Confederate; G. S. Deakins, major Thirty-fifth and Eighth Tennessee; J. H. Collett, captain, commanding Seventh Texas; J. H. Kelly, brigadier-general, commanding Cavalry Division.

You are looking at a REPORT OF ENROLLMENT OF FREE NEGROES IN THE STATE OF VIRGINIA

It accounts for 1,506 free negroes enrolled as of November 1864, with 112 enrolled during the month of November 1864.

GWTW is one of my top five favorite movies and I'm black.

GWTW is my favorite book and movie of all time, and no liberal can change that. Not no way-Not no how!!

It's not my favorite because of the way it portrays slavery, but for the love story.

Rebel Negro Pickets As Seen Through A Field-Glass

Harper's Weekly, Vol 7, No. 315, Harper's Weekly, A Journal of Civilization, January 10, 1863

Thanks for posting Cleburne's proposal. I've seen it before, but he was very perceptive. Either give up slavery, or become a slave. In the end, the South did both.

But as for the North, they still don't realize what they did.

i wondered how long it would take you to come to this thread & start spreading your "fertilizer" around.

more NONSENSE & PROPAGANDA from FR's very own "heyworth the HATER"!

absent TWBTS, the mule-drawn & steam-driven mechanical cottonpickers would have KILLED the profit of slavery within 10 years. absent PROFIT slavery was DEAD, as all the slavers wanted was $$$$$$$$.

aren't you TIRED of knowledgeable people on FR laughing at your STUPID, easily refuted NONSENSE, evasions & IGNORANT attacks????

inasmuch as the cottonpickers & steam tractors (which you continue to deny existed) are IN the Smithsonian's exhibits (one was built in 1853, according to the machine's data plate) and on PUBLIC DISPLAY, it sure makes you look like a DUMBbunny, a TROLL and/or a FOOL! (which imVho you decidedly ARE!)

free dixie,sw

on the other hand, only a cheap scheming politician & SHYSTER lawyer like "lincoln the 1st of damnyankeeland" & his coven of thugs & radicals would be so STUPIDLY POWER-hungry as to start a NEEDLESS war to keep the southland under the heel of the damnyankee elite's boot.

the ONLY actual reasons for the prosecution of the war, by the lincoln coven of statists, against the new dixie republic were POWER POLITICS & MONEY.

"preservation of the union" and/or the "crusade against slavery" were EXCUSES (and nothing more than that!) for the intent of the banks, insurance companies,railroad interests, the social/"old-monied" elites, industrial & manufacturing interests determination to CONTROL everything in the USA, PERMANENTLY.

free dixie,sw

ACTUALLY, due to the UNreliable cenus data of the 18th/19th century, the ACTUAL number of "free persons of colour" was probably at least TWICE the census enumeration.

NONE of the pre-1900 census data is ACCURATE, particularly that of the "west". at best "the data" was a a GUESS. (for example the 1860 census said that NOBODY lived west of the Trinity River (the bridges over the Trinity were OUT during the census & it was flood season) in TX! (can you say DALLAS & FT WORTH, children??? sure you CAN!)

free dixie,sw

just out of curiousity, are you a "big fan" of Rhett???

was he a KNOWLEDGEABLE source, in YOUR opinion???

MOST people then/now thought he was NUTS.