Posted on 05/04/2021 7:16:47 PM PDT by Olog-hai
“If they had only known the advantages of sharecropping.”
This would have eventually dawned on some clever farmers. And it would have reduced the value of slave ownership.
You misstate John Brown as being just a person who believes that people should not be held in slavery. John Brown was much more than that. He was a religious nutjob terrorist who planned to seize a federal arsenal and then murder many thousands of people for defying God's will as articulated by John Brown.
He is closer to ISIS than he is to a conscientious objector.
Had John Brown been initially successful in his attempts to create an armed slave uprising, it most likely would have resulted in many thousands of blacks being murdered in cold blood. The death toll may have gone into the hundreds of thousands, because once you frighted the slaveowners and filled them with a lust for revenge, it would have become very bloody.
It would have been the New York riots and the Tulsa race riots times a thousand, perhaps worse.
“The 3/5ths clause was part of a tax amendment to the Articles of Confederation debated in 1783, years before there was even a discussion about replacing the Articles.”
Thank you. Believe it or not that info was covered in my sons 8th grade American History book. I was shocked.
That is a surprise. Congratulations to whoever selected that history textbook.
The westward expansion added virtually no suitable land for slavery. What changed slavery in decline was the cotton gin. It suddenly made slave labor very profitable.
The net result was that slavery, rather than dying out as the Founders thought it would, became entrenched in Southern society, so much so that only the cataclysmic events of the 1860s could end it.
Slavery was paying for 3/4ths of the revenue provided to the US government.
John Brown had something in common with Charles Manson with that Helter Skelter business.
The 3/5 issue is a perfect example of leftist ignorance and manipulation.
It’s a great emotional argument to say blacks were treated as only 3/5 of a person.
In fact they were treated as zero because they were enslaved and that was a great evil.
The 3/5 thing was to appease the southerners who wanted more clout to reflect all the people present in their states, even though some were slaves.
It wasn’t done as an insult or appraisal of the human value of a slave. It was a pure political calculation.
Slavery was evil, the 3/5 compromise was just a symptom of that evil.
If they gave the southern states full credit for every slave, that would have further empowered the slave owning southerners. The slaves were not going to be treated as citizens whether or not you counted each slave as one,3/5 or even as 5 people each.
And losing in court isn't proof of anything. Some courts were nuts back then too. I also happen to recall that the Pennsylvania Supreme court (Pennsylvania High Court of Errors and Appeals) made a unanimous ruling in another case that kept a woman in slavery. (Negro Flora v. Graisberry) This was in 1802 I believe.
I think George Washington simply let things be rather than cause a fuss.
Women couldn't vote back then, and neither could children, but both were counted for the purpose of apportionment. For that matter, non land owning white men couldn't vote either.
In those days, you had to own land to be able to vote.
I think their motivations were different but yes, good example. Just the same sort of crazy.
Slave owner want slaves to count one full person for same reason dem want to count illegal.. it given them more power
“Furthermore it was widely believed that slavery was in decline anyway and would end naturally.”
That is the part they don’t teach. Many Southerners wanted to end slavery, but believed it was unacceptable to do it overnight.
Northern states had phased out slavery over many years and compensated owners for the loss in equity.
Southerners had long considered similar processes. They feared the social and economic impact of simply freeing millions of slaves.
“In those days, you had to own land to be able to vote.”
That was true up until around 1830 and then males who did not own land could vote.
Because at that moment, there was this superpower known as “England” that was bitter about losing them, and was wanting to kill them for treason. The military power imbalance was insane and they soon returned. The colonies had to come to a fast and dirty agreement that didn’t really please either of them fully to even have the slightest chance of survival.
The South got reduced representation, and the northerners that didn’t want slavery had to tolerate it a bit longer....to survive.
And there was an elegance to it. The south claimed slaved were not really fully human, and the north said, “Ok cool, does 3/5ths of human sound about right then?”. They used their own philosophy against them.
Had they not come to an agreement, had the South refused to join the union over insisting slaves counted fully, had the north refused to join the union over insisting slavery end immediately, the aforementioned England would have torn them to shreds, one by one.
That’s why.
Bkmk
Thank you, your post has enlightened me.
A point to add is that the STATES had the overwhelming legal and police power at that time. It was not until after the Civil War that that 'balance of power' shifted to the FEDERAL side.
It was. I remember it being taught back when schools actually taught American history.
That is a very good way to construct that argument...thanks!
I’m talking about westward expansion in the context of the late 1700s. That expansion would have been settling states like Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi — that certainly added prime cotton-growing land.
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