Why Slaveholders Restricted Free Speech

RealClear History ^ | 30 Sep, 2024 | Jonathan W. White

[MtnClimber]

In the years before the Civil War, slaveholders were the greatest threat to free speech in the United States. White Southerners used state laws, a congressional gag rule, suppression of the mail, and physical violence to silence abolitionist speech because they believed it was dangerous.

In 1830, for example, Louisiana penalized anyone using “language in any public discourse, from the bar, the bench, the stage, the pulpit, or in any place whatsoever,” as well as “in private discourses or conversations,” that had “a tendency to produce discontent among the free colored population of this State, or to incite insubordination among the slaves therein.” In other words, those who spoke out against slavery or racial discrimination would be in violation of this law. The mandated punishment ranged from three to 21 years of hard labor to death.

Other states enacted identical statutes. As one South Carolina newspaper declared, the topic of slavery “shall not be open to discussion.”

Speaking out against slavery in the U.S. took courage. If anti-speech laws were not enough, mobs filled in the gaps. Some abolitionists were brutally beaten while others were murdered.

Abraham Lincoln engaged this issue in a speech he delivered at the Cooper Union in New York City in February 1860. Speaking directly to white Southerners, he said, “You consider yourselves a reasonable and a just people. Still, when you speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us a reptiles, or, at the best, as no better than outlaws.” Lincoln pointed out that Southern Democrats were more likely to “grant a hearing to pirates or murderers” than to Republicans.

Indeed, when white Southerners gathered together, Lincoln said that “an unconditional condemnation” of Republicans was “the first thing to be attended to.”

---

TOPICS: History; Society
KEYWORDS: democrats; demonicrats; freespeech; slaveholders

[DiogenesLamp]

Slavery could have been adopted to minining.

In Colorado? Isn't that above the 36° 30' parallel? (Missouri Compromise)

Also there is the issue of white miners absolutely not tolerating that.

The dirty little secret of slavery in the United States is that most of the opposition to it came not from people being concerned about the welfare of the slave, they were mostly concerned about the slave taking jobs away from them.

Slaves picking cotton was a job white people didn't want, so they more or less tolerated it, but the one thing that would have caused an instant confrontation and bloodshed was slaves attempting to do jobs whites wanted.

The parts of the country that were heavily anti-slavery back in the 1850s are the same parts of the country that are heavily Unionized (as in labor unions) today. They saw slaves as "scabs", and they would absolutely not tolerate any slave taking money out of their own pockets.

So no, you would have had an explosion of rage if anyone had attempted to use slaves to do that kind of work. I bet the US government would have stepped in and put a stop to it.

[DiogenesLamp]

Good to see you again!

[Rockingham]

On examination, the tariff claim is bunkum, pure bunkum. I went through the issue in detail when I got my degree in history at Tulane in New Orleans with several courses in the history of the South.

Moreover, as much as the North would, in a pinch, promise not to interfere with slavery, the North would not enforce the highly unpopular Fugitive Slave Act. That put slavery on increasingly shaky ground in the South because slaves could and did flee North to freedom in large numbers.

Lincoln knew that at the start of the Civil War, fighting to free slaves in the South was a less persuasive argument in the North and in essential border states than fighting to preserve the Union. Instinctively, former trial lawyer Lincoln shaped and pitched his case to the country so as to secure victory.

Again, go read the Confederate secession ordinances. Slavery was in every one of them. And the Cornerstone Speech declared that slavery was a positive good because it subordinated the inferior Black race to control and supervision by Whites. Lunacy -- and a clear example of why the Confederacy is worth close study as an example of how essentially good people can believe in foolish and evil things.

[logi_cal869]

Not clear how that’s related to my comment.

[marktwain]

In 1959 Justice Frankfurter declared on behalf of the Supreme Court:

Frankfurter had it wrong. Frankfurter was a progressive who loved government power. He was appointed by FDR in 1939.

I have read speeches made by the Senate sponsor of the Fourteenth Amendment. He clearly stated the purpose of the amendment was to have the first Eight amendments apply to the states.