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Why Slaveholders Restricted Free Speech
RealClear History ^ | 30 Sep, 2024 | Jonathan W. White

Posted on 09/30/2024 10:03:18 AM PDT by 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.”

(Excerpt) Read more at realclearhistory.com ...


TOPICS: History; Society
KEYWORDS: democrats; demonicrats; freespeech; slaveholders
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1 posted on 09/30/2024 10:03:18 AM PDT by MtnClimber
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To: MtnClimber

DemocRATs have not changed so much.


2 posted on 09/30/2024 10:03:28 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page. More photos added.)
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To: MtnClimber

Liberals have been pissed at conservatives ever since conservatives freed the slaves


3 posted on 09/30/2024 10:04:32 AM PDT by Bob434
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To: MtnClimber

Their position on gun control has also been consistent.


4 posted on 09/30/2024 10:05:06 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (My decisions about people are based almost entirely on skin color. I learned this from Democrats.)
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To: MtnClimber
Just another liberal trying to beat down White people. More lies from the Left.

5 posted on 09/30/2024 10:05:24 AM PDT by Governor Dinwiddie (O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is gracious, and His mercy endureth forever. -- Psalm 106)
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To: MtnClimber

Hopefully, somewhere, somehow, consideration is being given to the “...consent of the governed..”. Because we all know that that consent, if not already below 50%, is barely above it and loosing altitude.


6 posted on 09/30/2024 10:13:42 AM PDT by Da Coyote
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To: MtnClimber

In order to “save democracy” you have to kill the bill of rights.


7 posted on 09/30/2024 10:14:47 AM PDT by z3n (Kakistocracy)
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To: MtnClimber

Undoubtedly they restricted free speech among the freedmen.

The massacre of the White people by Desallines in Haiti in 1804 was well known to them. They weren’t interested in a replay.

“In a series of actions meant to prevent any renewal of white dominance over the blacks, who formed more than 80 percent of the population, he confiscated land owned by white people, made it illegal for them to own property, and, perhaps fearing them as potential subversives in the event of another French invasion, launched a campaign of extermination against the country’s white inhabitants in which thousands were killed”

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jean-Jacques-Dessalines

The repression of black people in general in the South both pre- and post war goes back to this and of course has threads to this day now, as they continue with their terrorist campaigns of retribution via riots, mass crime, and racist intimidation. It’s understandable that people who were enslaved would retaliate this way - I would - but of course, being on the receiving end of this stick means we gotta push back...like forever. Ain’t never gonna be a time when everyone shakes hands and lets bygones be bygones.


8 posted on 09/30/2024 10:18:21 AM PDT by Regulator (It's fraud, Jim)
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To: MtnClimber

The democrat ‘press’ in the Old South was just as biased and anti free speech as they are today.

Years ago I had a book that had compiled editorials from newspapers in the South. All racist with the exception of one in Winston County in Mississippi - and that could be the wrong paper - I read the book over 40 years ago.

To say democrats are the same as they were then is an understatement. They’ve changed their victims from blacks to ‘conservative Americans’ but they use the same evil tactics. John ‘effing idiot’ Kerry said a few days ago that it’s hard to get consensus with the first amendment. He wants to shut down free speech.

Democrats think changing their choice of ‘victim’ from blacks to ‘conservative Americans’ means they’re better - they’re not. It’s not the choice of victims that matters, it’s the heavy handed thuggy totalitarian tactics that define them.


9 posted on 09/30/2024 10:18:36 AM PDT by GOPJ (Corrupt ABC referees/mods trying to throw the game to Kamala made Kamala look worse.)
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To: Bob434
Liberals have been pissed at conservatives ever since conservatives freed the slaves

Liberals freed the slaves. The Republicans of 1860 were the extreme liberals by the standards of those days.

10 posted on 09/30/2024 10:27:04 AM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: MtnClimber

Southerners went to great lengths to suppress freedoms and maintain the abomination of slavery.


11 posted on 09/30/2024 10:27:10 AM PDT by Round Earther
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To: 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.

Well it was. There had already been slave rebellions in other countries where all the white people had been killed, and with the slave population in the South often outnumbering the white population in certain areas, a widespread slave rebellion could have killed thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people.

This is exactly what Nut-Job John Brown was hoping for when he attempted to ignite a massive slaver rebellion with his raid on Harper's ferry.

12 posted on 09/30/2024 10:29:16 AM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: GOPJ
To say democrats are the same as they were then is an understatement. They’ve changed their victims from blacks to ‘conservative Americans’ but they use the same evil tactics. John ‘effing idiot’ Kerry said a few days ago that it’s hard to get consensus with the first amendment. He wants to shut down free speech.

1860s Republicans were the liberals. The Democrats were the conservative party in the 1860s.

13 posted on 09/30/2024 10:31:26 AM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: MtnClimber

Obviously not.


14 posted on 09/30/2024 10:39:22 AM PDT by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: DiogenesLamp

That’s right.


15 posted on 09/30/2024 10:39:51 AM PDT by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: Round Earther

And to think it helped to start a civil war.


16 posted on 09/30/2024 10:40:19 AM PDT by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: ClearCase_guy

That’s correct, they didn’t want free blacks to be able to defend themselves from the night riders and the kkk.


17 posted on 09/30/2024 10:41:26 AM PDT by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: Regulator

“It’s understandable that people who were enslaved would retaliate this way - I would - but of course, being on the receiving end of this stick means we gotta push back...like forever. Ain’t never gonna be a time when everyone shakes hands and lets bygones be bygones.”

There’s only one solution to this, dysfunctional, failed “marriage” - divorce, hopefully amicable, but probably not.

Ain’t no way this marriage can be fixed.

Reality is against it. And the reality is this:

“Two groups of people whose members are easily identifiable as belonging to one or the other group, AND, whose group AVERAGE IQ is significantly different, will never be able to peacefully coexist together.”

Whites have only two choices, 1.either they start reasserting themselves and separate themselves by whatever means from the blacks,or 2.continue knuckling down forever in a self-guilting orgie.

South Africa here we come!

What do you think?


18 posted on 09/30/2024 10:44:33 AM PDT by aquila48 (Do not let them make you "care" ! Guilting you is how they control you. )
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To: aquila48

If I were among the enslaved, there would be no one living amongst the slavers if I had any chance to make it so.


19 posted on 09/30/2024 10:52:40 AM PDT by Aeneas2112 (YOU are your own first responder)
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To: aquila48

Only a police state can hold such a “marriage” together.

White separation will be ruthlessly put down as “segregation” which is comical since all nation-states are by definition segregated. That’s the point of a nation.

But the police statists won’t care because extracting wealth from the Eloi will make their lives better then they can ever do on their own. Remember, it isn’t just left half of the IQ curve that’s down for this, it’s also fellow travelers on the right hand side: the fuzzies from the Frankfurt School, the literate but innumerate and indolent Left that benefits from the efforts of the technically capable.

Translation: they need us, we don’t need them. So any attempts by us to Go Galt on them will be met by essentially forced labor. Stalin did that to get his canal built and industrialize the Soviet Union.

Which doesn’t mean we can’t do it, just means no one should have any illusions about what the Ork population is gonna do when they realize they’re gonna end up back in mud huts.


20 posted on 09/30/2024 11:02:51 AM PDT by Regulator (It's fraud, Jim)
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