DemocRATs have not changed so much.
Liberals have been pissed at conservatives ever since conservatives freed the slaves
Their position on gun control has also been consistent.
In order to “save democracy” you have to kill the bill of rights.
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.
Southerners went to great lengths to suppress freedoms and maintain the abomination of slavery.
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.
Prior to the passage of the 14th Amendment, most of the Bill of Rights applied only to the actions of the federal government. States were free to limit speech, religion, the press, etc.. Including gun possession and ownership.
In the United States, the abolition movement faced much opposition. Bertram Wyatt-Brown notes that the appearance of the Christian abolitionist movement "with its religious ideology alarmed newsmen, politicians, and ordinary citizens. They angrily predicted the endangerment of secular democracy, the mongrelization, as it was called, of white society, and the destruction of the federal union. Speakers at huge rallies and editors of conservative papers in the North denounced these newcomers to radical reform as the same old “church-and-state” zealots, who tried to shut down post offices, taverns, carriage companies, shops, and other public places on Sundays. Mob violence sometimes ensued."[12]
A postal campaign in 1835 by the American Anti-Slavery Society (AA-SS) – founded by African-American Presbyterian clergyman Theodore S. Wright – sent bundles of tracts and newspapers (over 100,000) to prominent clerical, legal, and political figures throughout the whole country, and culminated in massive demonstrations throughout the North and South.[13] In attempting to stop these mailings, New York Postmaster Samuel L. Gouverneur unsuccessfully requested the AA-SS to cease sending it to the South. He therefore decided that he would “aid in preserving the public peace” by refusing to allow the mails to carry abolition pamphlets to the South himself, with the new Postmaster General Amos Kendall affirming, even though he admitted he had no legal authority to do so.[14][15][16][17] This resulted in the AA-SS resorting to other and clandestine means of dissemination.
Many evangelical leaders in the United States such as Presbyterian Charles Finney and Theodore Weld, and women such as Harriet Beecher Stowe (daughter of abolitionist Lyman Beecher) and Sojourner Truth motivated hearers to support abolition. Finney preached that slavery was a moral sin, and so supported its elimination. "I had made up my mind on the question of slavery, and was exceedingly anxious to arouse public attention to the subject. In my prayers and preaching, I so often alluded to slavery, and denounced it.[18] Repentance from slavery was required of souls, once enlightened of the subject, while continued support of the system incurred "the greatest guilt" upon them.[19] Finney clearly stated, "If I do not baptize slavery by some soft and Christian name, if I call it SIN, both consistency and conscience conduct to the inevitable conclusion, that while the sin is persevered in, its[20] perpetrators cannot be fit subjects for Christian communion and fellowship." Finney also conscientiously believed that "the time is not far distant when the churches will be united in this expression of abhorrence against this sin."[21]
Despite such determined opposition, many Methodist, Baptist, Adventist, and Presbyterian members freed their slaves and sponsored black congregations, in which many black ministers encouraged slaves to believe that freedom could be gained during their lifetime. After a great revival occurred in 1801 at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, American Methodists made anti-slavery sentiments a condition of church membership.[22] Abolitionist writings, such as "A Condensed Anti-Slavery Bible Argument" (1845) by George Bourne,[23] and "God Against Slavery" (1857) by George B. Cheever,[24] used the Bible, logic and reason extensively in contending against the institution of slavery, and in particular the chattel form of it as seen in the South. In Cheever's speech entitled, "The Fire and Hammer of God’s Word Against the Sin of Slavery", his desire for eliminating the crime of slaveholding is clear, as he goes so far as to address it to the President.
Other Protestant missionaries of the Great Awakening initially opposed slavery in the South, but by the early decades of the 19th century, many Baptist and Methodist preachers in the South had come to an accommodation with it in order to evangelize the farmers and workers. Disagreements between the newer way of thinking and the old often created schisms within denominations at the time. Differences in views toward slavery resulted in the Baptist and Methodist churches dividing into regional associations by the beginning of the Civil War.[25]- https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Christian_abolitionism&useskin=vector
Most ominously, the Denmark Vesey Conspiracy in Charleston in 1822 intended a general slaughter of whites before the conspirators would take to ships in Charleston harbor to sail away to the free black republic in Haiti. Many of the conspirators were relatively well-treated, trusted, and well-thought of by their white owners and associates, so the Denmark Vesey Conspiracy and the nihilistic violence it intended deeply unsettled the South.
A larger point also deserves mention. The South's fearful unwillingness to think about and discuss slavery and its evils discouraged Southerners against efforts toward reform or abolition. Had such a discussion been had, slavery might have mitigated and abolished gradually on terms that would have been far better than the devastation of the Civil War.
Bkmk
Not stated clearly enough:
Most all southern slaveholders were...
——DRUMROLL——
“Democrats”
But the only thing they’ve cancelled about themselves is their history in that respect.
Since several southern states had more Black slaves than white residents, I am not surprised free speech about slavery was suppressed.