A secular Jew makes a surprising discovery about Christians and American slavery

Acton Institute ^ | Apr 2019 | John B. Carpenter

[CondoleezzaProtege]

"Christians ended slavery." Do you think that’s a conservative simpleton’s mock-worthy bombast, embarrassing the rest of us with his black-and-white, unapologetic caricature of American history? No. It is the considered conclusion of a Nobel laureate, a former communist, a secular Jew, and arguably the foremost scholar on American slavery.

Robert Fogel (1922-2013), the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, was president of Cornell University’s American Youth for Democracy, investing eight years promoting communism. Meanwhile, he married Enid Morgan, an African-American woman, consequently suffering the ugliness of American racism personally. Eventually, he rejected communism. Apparently, the data didn’t support it.

Fogel was driven by data, perhaps the purest pursuer of empirical truth I’ve ever met in academia...

Fogel’s bean-counting approach led to his discovery that plantations, organized in a business-like fashion with their “gang system,” had an assembly line-like efficiency. Hence Southern slavery was fantastically profitable.

He concluded that if the Civil War had not been sparked when it was, the South would have continued to outpace the North, adapt slavery to industrialization, been unconquerable if a later Civil War had broken out, and likely would have spread slavery indefinitely. Slavery was on the ascendancy at the outbreak of the Civil War.

Furthermore – and here it sounds scandalous – most Southern slaves were treated materially well by their “owners.” The average slave consumed more calories and lived longer than the average, white, Northern city-dweller.

The moral question: If Southern slavery was profitable, even providing for the slaves a relatively decent material life, then why is it evil? If slavery is wrong, then, we have to look beyond the beans that can be counted, the dollars that can be earned, the efficiency that can be charted. The answer is found in a system of morality that comes from beyond mere materialism...

[joegoeny]

My understanding is that Jeff Davis was a Roman Catholic. This I got from the Confederate White House in Richmond.

[jeffersondem]

“Yeah, slavery was awesome! That's why no slaves wanted to be free, runaways were unheard of, and there was no need for laws about sending back escapees.”

I was afraid the findings of Nobel laureate Fogel was going to rub some fur the wrong way. I even said so earlier.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

Ah, Fogel! So then you must also agree with Fogel’s idea that the number and price of slaves would have continued to increase because it was a very profitable way to do business.

[jeffersondem]

“So this likely not a case of truth or lie, however much you would like to make it, but simply one interpretation of the data that is not shared by other scholars.”

Even the findings of Nobel laureates can be questioned. I would have been surprised if Fogel’s findings did not rub some fur the wrong way.

I'm not sure I agree with all of his conclusions, based on the article. Prior, I had never heard of the author (Fogel).

[DoodleDawg]

Even the findings of Nobel laureates can be questioned. I would have been surprised if Fogel’s findings did not rub some fur the wrong way.

How is questioning statistics that make no sense being rubbed the wrong way?

I'm not sure I agree with all of his conclusions, based on the article. Prior, I had never heard of the author (Fogel).

He brought cliometrics to the forefront with his work on slavery and railroads. I think his study of slavery was too narrow since it concentrated on the use of slavery in production environments and ignored the use of slaves in the service sector.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp on Founders' alleged non-religion: "And yet they all put "Year of our Lord" into the US Constitution.
Whatever they may have believed, they kept it to themselves and let the people believe they were Christian."

No, sorry, but yet again you missed an important point.
Our Founders are sometimes accused of being deists or theists, or Unitarians or (unlike Lincoln) Freemasons.
Some are even called atheists.
But most of those words did not mean then what they imply today.

1. If a Founder was deistic, he was a Christian Deist.
   
2. If he was a theist, he was a theistic Christian.
   
3. If he was a Unitarian, he was a Christian who took the Bible more literally regarding Trinity theology.
   
4. If he was a Freemason, he was friendly to other religions, especially Judaism, but still Christian.
   
5. No Founder thought of himself as an atheist.
   Even Thomas Paine intended to be buried among Quakers who, iirc, would not have him.

The root cause of all this came largely from Anabaptism, which we can still see today most spectacularly among Quakers, Mennonites, Hutterites & Amish, but also in some Baptists.
Some Anabaptists were not huge fans of Trinity theology, hence the charge of "atheism".

Lincoln himself never joined a church, but his wife's family was instrumental in forming the oldest Presbyterian church in Springfield, Illinois.
The Lincolns held a pew there (#20, 7th row, left side) and about it Mary Todd Lincoln wrote from the White House:

"I had intended requesting Mr Melvin [pew committee chair] to have given me a promise, that on our return to Springfield we would be able to secure our particular pew, to which I was very much attached, and which we occupied some ten years, may I hope that he will be able to do so."
--the White House on April 27, 1861

The First Presbyterian's pastor, Dr. Smith, was a former Deist who wrote a defense of Christianity read by Lincoln himself.

Other Presbyterian US presidents who come to mind are Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan and, yes, Donald Trump.
Presbyterians have a long Heritage of defending our Free Republic when others were too timid, conflicted or religiously prevented, to step up.

[BroJoeK]

joegoeny: "My understanding is that Jeff Davis was a Roman Catholic.
This I got from the Confederate White House in Richmond."

It's curious how little is said about Davis' religious beliefs, but I did find this:

"In 1861, the Episcopal Church split and Davis became a member of the newly founded Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America.
He attended St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Richmond while he was President of the Confederacy.
The two denominations were reunited in 1865.[80] "

[DiogenesLamp]

Those aint the puritans, dude.

I beg to differ. Same totalitarian intolerance for differing opinions, same area of the country. They are the ideological descendants of Puritanism, and I would like to take credit for being the first to notice this, but i've read countless articles pointing out how similar are modern day Massachusetts liberals to Witch Hanging Puritans.

I honestly think the left descended from the old Royalist/Cavalier culture: one class has natural right to rule others. They were transplanted feudal lords. “Progressivism” has never been anything but a return to feudalism under a bureaucratic aristocracy. They just dropped the biblical fig leaf.

I too believe the left sees themselves as the natural aristocracy. I constantly make the point that they see themselves as our "betters", and they feel they have a natural right to lead and control all the rest of us. Yes, Socialism/Communism is nothing more than a return to Feudalism.

Check out Albion’s Seed. Great history of British America.

I've been meaning to read that book for years, and just haven't gotten around to doing it.

No Earthly Lord=A New Social Order.

Amen.

[DiogenesLamp]

Nowhere near so much as slavery is.

Exactly right, and this is why so many Northern laborers (pretty much everybody) hated slavery. They were "scabs" before the term was invented. A slave could be forced to work under conditions a free man would not tolerate, and for no pay, and as such they were seen as a serious threat to a man's ability to earn a living.

There weren't many laws concerning employer-employee relation and fights over wages and unionization could be bitter. But I doubt anybody would give it up to become a slave.

Nobody wanted slaves competing with them. Hence, hatred of slavery.

If a state was already industrialized and had strong unions before the New Deal, it became a closed shop state, so unions are stronger in those states.

And so it's a coincidence that the most Unionized states consistently vote liberal?

Why do you think there seems to be a strong correlation between Unionization and Liberal voting patterns?

[BroJoeK]

Pelham: "What Jefferson was taking aim at in the Declaration was the divine right of kings, something that George III had been asserting to the detriment of his Colonial subjects.
But why read Jefferson’s elegant language in context when everyone thinks that he is waxing philosophically over the injustice of chattel slavery."

But the fact is that many Founders recognized immediately that "all men are created equal" also applied to their own slaves.
And not just Northerners like Franklin and the Adams, but also Southerners like Washington, Jefferson, Madison and even Patrick Henry, famous for "give me liberty or give me death" wrote of slavery: "I will not—I cannot justify it, however culpable my conduct."

George Mason, called "the father of the bill of rights" said in his address to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, "As much as I value an union of all the states, I would not admit the southern states into the union, unless they agreed to the discontinuance of this disgraceful trade, because it would bring weakness and not strength to the union." and
"The augmentation of slaves weakens the states; and such a trade is diabolical in itself, and disgraceful to mankind."

George Washington wrote to a friend and said, "I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of [slavery]."

The list of quotes by Founders, including Southerners, opposed to slavery goes on & on.
So any claims they were somehow ignorant of the conflict between their highest Declaration ideals and the reality of slavery are simply inconsistent with facts of history.

Sure, our Lost Causers like to claim, "13 slaveholding colonies" but on closer look it turns out that in nearly all of them were at least some Founders who understood slavery as morally wrong and in need of abolition, long term.

Pelham: "London issued two emancipation proclamations during the Revolutionary War, Dunmore’s and Philipsburg, so had London defeated the colonial rebels slavery would have ended then.
Doesn’t that put King George on the right side of history according to your formulation?"

Dunmore's 1775 Proclamation only offered freedom in exchange for military service and was soon matched by George Washington's promise of freedom for slaves who served the Continental Army.
One result is a British Army observer at Yorktown noted about one in four of Washington's troops were black.
So Dunmore's Proclamation was a non-issue.

Four years later, in 1779 the Brits' Gen. Clinton tried again, this time with the Phillipsburg Proclamation declaring all US slaves free, service or no service.
This, it's claimed, lead nearly 100,000 slaves to attempt leaving their masters -- about 20% of all slaves -- during the war.
Indeed, the numbers were so great in some places Clinton himself ordered them returned to their US slaveholders.

Regardless, the British efforts proved too little, too late and very likely just too insincere to affect the war's outcome.
But the chief lesson learned by our Founders was (pay attention here, DiogenesLamp, you might "get" something): in wartime, or rebellion, a nation might declare its enemies' slaves freed as a tactic of warfare.
In response, George Washington also offered freedom for service and in 1865 that was again the last-gasp dying-effort of Confederate leaders.
So freeing slaves worked for George Washington because he did it early & often.
But it failed for Brits in 1779, and Confederates in 1865, because it was far too little and far too late to change anything.

[GOPJ]

Fogel concluded that it was not economic forces that brought about the end of slavery but a moral revolution rooted in Puritanism. Christians, mainly from Puritan New England and Quaker Pennsylvania, turned the tide of popular opinion in the North against slavery. Remember, originally every state was a slave-state. Slavery was normalcy for America too at its founding. That changed because Christians increasingly agreed that slavery was evil, transforming what had been a slave-holding country into a house divided.

Great post...

[DiogenesLamp]

But the fact is that many Founders recognized immediately that "all men are created equal" also applied to their own slaves.

Ought to apply to their own slaves. Jefferson didn't free any.

In the theoretical, abstract sense, yes. In the practical, painfully economic sense, no.

[Pelham]

‘George Mason, called “the father of the bill of rights” said in his address to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, “As much as I value an union of all the states, I would not admit the southern states into the union, unless they agreed to the discontinuance of this disgraceful trade, because it would bring weakness and not strength to the union.”/

Mason is discussing whether or not to ratify the Constitution. The American union already existed under the Articles. Lincoln would go on to argue that the union pre-existed the states and began in 1774.

Mason’s argument resulted in the compromise that allowed for banning the slave trade in 1808.

“Sure, our Lost Causers like to claim, “13 slaveholding colonies” but on closer look it turns out that in nearly all of them were at least some Founders who understood slavery as morally wrong and in need of abolition, long term.”

Our John Brown Fan Club likes to make excuses for the Founders who were slave owners.

“Regardless, the British efforts proved too little, too late and very likely just too insincere to affect the war’s outcome.”

Well that’s one way to ignore the fact that London issued two emancipation decrees 90 years before Lincoln.

It saves you from addressing the issue of whether or not morality was on the side of King George or the secessionist rebels of 1776.

“So freeing slaves worked for George Washington because he did it early & often.”

His cook Hercules ran away in 1797. Oney Judge escaped in 1796.

George’s slaves were freed upon his death in 1799. Martha’s weren’t. Some were passed down to George Washington Parke Custis, Robert E Lee’s father in law, and freed five years after his death.

[HandyDandy]

Jefferson predicted that Slavery would be the rock upon which the Union would break.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Don't buy into the claim that slavery was the cause of the war.
What caused the war was the South paying 73-85% of all the taxes, as well as losing 40% of their export profits to New York, and not wanting to continue this lopsided deal. "

Just so we're clear on this -- 40% is DiogenesLamp's own little fantasy, invented all on his own, with no help from teacher or parent, he just laid down to sleep one day and woke up with this little brainstorm.

In fact, no Confederate said that, ever.
No Southerner ever said, "let's go to war to win back the 40% New York is stealing from us".
No Northerner ever said, "let's have a war so we can increase 40% to 100%.
Or even, "let's have a war to stop 40% becoming zero."

And his "73-85%" is also a fantasy, though at least it was shared by some Confederates.
It's a misreading of US government statistics which show about 50% of US exports, including specie, were Deep South cotton.
And 50% is a big number, but it's far from "73-85%".
The difference is claimed "Southern products" which actually came from Union states & regions, tobacco for example.
But even here, none of the "Reasons for Secession" documents claimed they wanted independence because they paid 50% or 73% or 85% of Federal taxes.***
It wasn't true and they didn't say it.
What they said instead was: Lincoln's Black Republicans threatened slavery.

See here for a more detailed analysis of Reasons for Secession documents.

***South Carolina's Rhett did claim 75% of Federal taxes were spent in "the North", but that is only factually true if by "the North" you mean every state north of South Carolina.

[BroJoeK]

Pelham: "Slaves were an expensive proposition.
Most slave holdings were small operations, you can easily see this in antebellum census records.
But that doesn’t make good entertainment so popular fiction and movies center around plantations."

But large cotton plantations are also a very important point for our own DiogenesLamp, who claims that without cotton, slavery had no place to expand.
DiogenesLamp often posts maps showing cotton growing from Texas through New Mexico & Arizona to California and claims they "prove" slavery couldn't expand and so must die out.

It means, says DiogenesLamp, that Northern fears of slavery coming to their own states & territories were simply overblown, indeed, were (what's the word?) "astroturf" issues invented just to rile up Republican voters.

But if Pelham tells us that most slavery operations were small to mid-sized, not huge plantations, that sort of suggests you didn't really need cotton plantations to expand slavery beyond it's Deep South strongholds, doesn't it?
>

[BroJoeK]

Alas Babylon!: "And the Christian thing to do with the African slaves after 1865 was to claim a part of Africa and send them back."

The word for that was "recolonization" and it was official US policy from around 1820 until the end of the Civil War in 1865.
In 1820 under President Madison Congress voted $100,000 (a huge sum for the time) to support recolonization to Africa.
Several state legislatures also contributed, including in the 1850s, Virginia voted $150,000 to support recolonization.

The results were relatively meager -- around 13,000 total freed-blacks emigrated to Liberia from 1820 to 1865, with a large percentage of them dying within a few years of arrival.
This at a time when the US freed-black population rose from about 200,000 to nearly 500,000.

With only one exception I know of (Jefferson in 1821), every proposal for recolonization was voluntary and that may explain why so few went -- bad as conditions were for them here, Africa was seen as even worse.

Jefferson's proposal was somewhat unique in combining compensated emancipation with forced recolonization to, in his proposal, the island of Haiti.

President Lincoln also favored voluntary recolonization, and Congress voted $600,000 to support it, but very little of that was actually spent, and the few freed-black expeditions under Lincoln ended disastrously, so by war's end the whole idea was dropped, in favor of the 13th, 14th & 15th amendments.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "I started to see more and more how so many issues we are dealing with today were put on the path to wrongness by the consequences of the Civil War.
And how did that start?
Well you see, there was this guy named Lincoln..."

Well you see, there was this Democrat guy named Jefferson Davis, whose "integrity" could not be "assailed" without the need to "relieve our territory and jurisdiction of the presence of a foreign garrison" assuming the "more palpable elements of a military problem" to "reduce" Fort Sumter & "capture of Fort Pickens".

Lincoln called that rebellion, Confederates declared war (May 6, 1861) and Civil War was on.
When it was over the USA would never again be the same, but Lincoln cannot be blamed for Democrat Progressivism, New Deal, Great Society, Roe v Wade or Obama-care, among many others.

The people who ended the antebellum USA were the 1860 Fire Eaters who declared secession & war against us.

[BroJoeK]

Pelham to rollo tomasi: "I missed the part where you provided your opinion of George Washington as a slaveholder.
But then I figured you would be afraid to address it."

Like most Founders, Washington favored gradual abolition and unlike many he practiced it in the case of his own slaves, also supported abolitions of international slave imports and of slavery in the Northwest Territories.

But while Northern states like Massachusetts & Pennsylvania, under the influences of Founders like Adams & Franklin, soon began gradual abolition, Washington's home state of Virginia never did, sadly.

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem quoting the article: " 'Contrary to popular myth, slave families were rarely divided up — only about 3% were — and slave-owners rarely used their slaves for sexual indulgence, with only about 2% of slave births being by white fathers.'
This is going to rub some fur the wrong way, especially among liberals."

According to this source on average European ancestry in African Americans runs from 20% to 30%, depending on the study.
This suggests your 2% of white fathers is a bit... ah... understated.