Posted on 12/09/2003 1:33:48 PM PST by albertabound
Opposing slavery and Yankees in U.S. Civil War
As the U.S. Civil War shook North America in the 1860s, Canadian sympathies often lay with the slaveholding South. In his book Dixie & The Dominion, Toronto Star news editor Adam Mayers examines this paradox of public opinion in a country escaped slaves often called "The Promised Land."
When the news reached the Canadian parliament in July, 1861, that the Northern army had been routed at the Battle of Bull Run, the first major conflict of the American Civil War, a spontaneous cheer was raised in the House for the South.
In Canada, the place that escaped slaves called The Promised Land as they travelled to safety along the underground railroad, the colony's political leaders were rooting for the slave owners' cause.
As strange at it may seem, Canadians were able to separate slavery from the cause of the war, which was fought between 1861 and 1865. This apparent absurdity allowed public opinion to support the South, but oppose slavery, be anti-Yankee, but for closer trade ties with New England. It was the paradox of Canada's relationship with its neighbour in the middle years of the 19th century.
In 1861, Canadians had many things in common with the northern United States. There was language, religion and ethnic similarity. Canada's elite were descendants of United Empire Loyalists, the American colonists who had sided with Britain during the American Revolution.
Canadians and Americans lived along a long, artificial border. The frontier was easy to cross and many Canadians had friends and family living along the south side of the lower Great Lakes in upstate New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan. A free trade agreement in 1854 brought closer economic ties and helped Canada's smaller manufacturing industries find new markets.
Canada (then only Ontario and Quebec) could not help but be drawn into the ideological debate about slavery, the issue that dominated the political stage in the years leading up to the war. The practice had been banned in the colonies for almost three-quarters of a century and there was no public support for the institution. Canada was also proud of its role as the terminus of the Underground Railroad.
After 1850, when American law enforcement agencies were compelled by the Fugitive Slave Act to hunt fleeing slaves and return them to their owners, Canada became even more attractive to runaways. They were safe once they crossed the border and could not be extradited to the United States.
Harriet Beecher Stowe's classic Uncle Tom's Cabin caused a sensation when it was published in Toronto in 1852. The Globe newspaper printed excerpts from the book, helping it become a bestseller. The Globe was then a leading Liberal voice and its owner, George Brown, was a staunch abolitionist. Brown pounded away at the anti-slavery cause in the pages of his paper. He was so involved in the issue that when the Rev. John Brown held a secret meeting in Chatham in 1858 hoping to find recruits for a slave rebellion, George Brown was in the audience.
John Brown's raid a year later on a federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry in what is now West Virginia had many political ramifications as America slid toward war. Brown was captured and charged with treason. At his trial, the Chatham meeting was raised in evidence to support a claim in the Southern States that Canada was involved in a plot to undermine the South's way of life.
For many reasons, the anti-slavery sentiment did not translate into support for the North when the Southern States seceded in April, 1861.
The explanation lay in distrust and suspicion of northern motives in waging the war. Britain and Canada had viewed the dramatic growth of the United States during the first half of the century with alarm. The Americans bought Louisiana from France and Florida from Spain. They picked a fight with Mexico and ended up with Texas and California. Through a deal with Britain, Oregon and the Pacific Northwest were added to the U.S. sphere.
Seen through that lens, the war was about the North trying to impose its expansionist will on the South. The South, on the other hand, was trying to preserve its identity against overwhelming Yankee pressure.
The issue became more confusing when President Abraham Lincoln said in his first inaugural address he did not regard himself primarily as the emancipator of slaves, but the protector of the Union.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- `If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it'
Abraham Lincoln
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"My paramount objective in this struggle is to save the Union and is not either to save or destroy slavery," Lincoln said. "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some of the slaves and leaving others alone, I would do that."
So, if the war wasn't about slavery, what was it about? To many Canadians it seemed to be more of the American Revolution. The Canadian elite, like the British upper-class, saw Southerners as having the same right to leave the Union as the original Thirteen Colonies had to break away from the British Empire.
English novelist and social commentator Anthony Trollope visited Canada during the middle of the war and was puzzled by the strong public opinion favouring the South.
"Their sympathies are with the Southern States not because they (favour slavery)," he wrote in North America. "They sympathize with the South from a strong dislike to the aggression, the braggadocio and the insolence they have felt upon their own borders."
Britain sensed a strategic advantage for her five North American colonies in a divided Union. Canada might emerge as a dominant player if the Union dissolved into two smaller powers. Col. Garnet Wolseley was quick to see that during a tour of Canada as part of a general reinforcement of its defences.
Wolseley later became commander-in-chief of the British army. In 1862, he spent a month visiting the Confederacy. He argued in a letter to his superiors that Britain should grant the Confederate States diplomatic status because the division of the republic into two weak countries would strengthen Britain's North American hand.
Wolseley later told a friend that his good wishes for the South stemmed from "my dislike of the people of the United States and my delight at seeing their swagger and bunkum rudely kicked out of them."
The pro-Southern feeling lasted well after the war. On May 30, 1867, Jefferson Davis, ex-president of the Confederate States, came to Toronto immediately after his release from prison. More than 1,000 people greeted him at the wharf at the foot of Yonge St.
As Davis moved down the gangway, a cheer went up from the crowd. The Hamilton Spectator reported the next day that Davis appeared deeply moved. He bowed and said repeatedly: "Thank you, thank you, you are very kind to me."
Davis had been arrested in April, 1865, when the Confederacy collapsed, ending four years of war. When he was in Toronto, he met with other Southerners who lived in exile in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Davis later told Gen. Robert E. Lee about the humiliation of being "hooted at and jeered" at train stations throughout the Northern States, yet being so thoroughly welcomed in Canada.
The New York Times was indignant that a "war criminal" should be received so well in Canada.
The New York Tribune said the fuss made over Davis "proves that the Canadians are in a very bad condition of mind. They won't recover their equanimity until they are annexed."
On July 1, 1867, a month after Davis arrived in Toronto, Canadians were celebrating Confederation. Since then, Canadians and Americans have enjoyed one of the greatest friendships in the world, a legacy of peaceful co-existence that despite current tensions remains unrivalled among the nations of the world.
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Most scholars agree the South had black soldiers, though they disagree on the numbers. Some interesting research is currently taking place on the topic.
If the NYT is against you, you must be alright.
We look back today and wonder at their short-sightedness, but we have the wisdom of hindsight. They could not imagine that, 140 years in the future, the black citizens of a unified US could become doctors, lawyers, justices of the Supreme Court, fantastically rich entertainers, the Secretary of State, or the National Security Advisor. And many of them were fighting for a beloved homeland that was being invaded by people of a different culture and different beliefs but no less racism than the whites in the South.
The Fugitive Slave Act 1850
Section 4
And be it further enacted, That the commissioners above named shall have concurrent jurisdiction with the judges of the Circuit and District Courts of the United States, in their respective circuits and districts within the several States, and the judges of the Superior Courts of the Territories, severally and collectively, in term-time and vacation; shall grant certificates to such claimants, upon satisfactory proof being made, with authority to take and remove such fugitives from service or labor, under the restrictions herein contained, to the State or Territory from which such persons may have escaped or fled.
Wrong answer Gustav! From the Southern point of view it was about a State's Right of FREEDOM of Self Determination. Slavery was merely a means to economic prosperity for the Plantation owner, however the Southerners were also trying to maintain an economic power parity with the greedy merchants in the North. The damnYankee inhabitants of the Northern States dispised the Southerners culture, thereby they were using slavery as an object to incite anger and hatred against the Southern people. The abolitionists were as zealous as a lot of Muslim extremists are today.
Under the Founders' you must remember that the State Governments had more administrative cognizance of their citizens, and Washington DC had only limited influence over a State's internal affairs. I think this slogan from a Confederate flag summed up the South's position best -
"WE CHOOSE OUR OWN INSTITUTIONS"
A lot of us still use that same lense.
There were few freed Blacks in the Deep South (check out the statistics if you want). There was a unit of "Colored" militia in Louisiana, but it wasn't mustered for action by the Confederacy. In time, that unit fought for the Union.
Many Whites who weren't enthusiastic about slavery were trying to avoid military service, so it's not likely that Blacks would have been clamouring to serve. Doubtless some -- slave or free -- worked for the army and might have picked up a gun at some point, but that there was no serious Black enlistment in the Confederate Army's fighting ranks.
Yep, the NYT is still getting it wrong. Most of the war criminals fought on the other side of the lines (i.e. Sherman, Grant, etc)
Not likely. Many of those Canadians' ancestors had needed to flee the thirteen colonies because they denied the right to break away from the empire. Maybe there was more to it than Schadenfreude or a feeling that the Yanks deserved their comeuppance or the desire to weaken a dangerous neighbor, but many a Canadian must have felt the rich irony or hypocrisy of supporting a "right" that his grandparents had denied and been persecuted for rejecting.
I didn't realize that winning was a war crime, billbears. But I guess it depends on ones point of view.
Exactly so. It's hard to deny the role of Schadenfreude when this very article has stuff like "Wolseley later told a friend that his good wishes for the South stemmed from 'my dislike of the people of the United States and my delight at seeing their swagger and bunkum rudely kicked out of them.' "
The Canadian elite, like the British upper-class, saw Southerners as having the same right to leave the Union as the original Thirteen Colonies had to break away from the British Empire.
Then what the hell were they doing in Canada? Weren't they in Canada precisely because they disputed the notion that the colonies had the right to break away?
Wait, I know - we can tell that they were serious about that right, because of the fact that they themselves shed the trappings of the British empire when they revolted for their own independence. Lemme just look that one up real quick. Hmmm. My sources must be incomplete or something - I can't find a date for the Canadian revolution, just a date when Canada became an autonomous federal state. By act of Parliament. With Royal approval, of course.
Essentially, what this article would have you believe is that Canadians believed in some sort of vague right to revolt if they wished - they just didn't wish to. But I highly doubt that any significant Canadian writers, politicians, or what-have-you of the period could be found expressing such sentiments. And why should they have? By 1864, the movement to Canadian confederation was underway, revolution was unecessary, and such talk would have been inflammatory to the very Parliament whose approval Canadians sought.
The reality is that the Canadians at the time didn't care about any such thing, particularly insofar as non-Canadians were concerned. Initially, sentiment was both anti-slavery and pro-North, but as the war dragged on, fear of annexation began growing in Canada. Any pro-South sentiments grew out of that, a simple fear for their own destiny - supporting the South was simply a way to counterbalance the North and preserve their own independence from the United States. It certainly wasn't because they were predisposed to the South, or to Southerners, or to secession, or any of that stuff - it was a simple political calculation on their part. Like so:
Britain sensed a strategic advantage for her five North American colonies in a divided Union. Canada might emerge as a dominant player if the Union dissolved into two smaller powers. Col. Garnet Wolseley was quick to see that during a tour of Canada as part of a general reinforcement of its defences.
Wolseley later became commander-in-chief of the British army. In 1862, he spent a month visiting the Confederacy. He argued in a letter to his superiors that Britain should grant the Confederate States diplomatic status because the division of the republic into two weak countries would strengthen Britain's North American hand.
Yep, that's your classic Canadian secessionist talk, isn't it? ;)
Just like Ft. Sumter, and the E.P.
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