Posted on 03/17/2004 8:23:46 AM PST by Global_Warming
Yep ;o)
And I quote from your post 62, "They normally exceeded a year in length and some of the terms went on for decades, all of it involuntary." I paraphrased. So sue me. Your claim was still wrong.
And of course you can provide a link to the 1848 Constitution containing the mysterious missing article?
Interesting. One of your posts mentions the mysterious missing Article XIV, and the other post simply refers to a law preventing it and not a constitutional provision. So which was it? And how can this mysterious missing article be slipped in so neatly between Article XIII and the Schedule, both of which appear in the text of the 1848 constitution that I provided earlier? Looks like a conspiracy of massive proportions to me </sarcasm>.
Yeah, right!
You aren't reading carefully enough. Article XIV, as I previously wrote and as I documented in three separate links, was a separately ratified provision of the Illinois State Constitution in 1848 put before the voters and passed in 1848. The law preventing blacks from crossing the Illinois border was passed by the legislature in 1853 and in accordance with Article XIV of the 1848 Constitution.
And how can this mysterious missing article be slipped in so neatly between Article XIII and the Schedule, both of which appear in the text of the 1848 constitution that I provided earlier?
Considering that you now have both the text of Article XIV and three separate links detailing its nature, how you could consider it either mysterious or missing is beyond me. That said, it is with ease that they placed it where they did because Article XIII was the final provision of that nature. After all, where else were they to place Article XIV except for after Article XIII? Randomly inserted half way through Article III?
Looks like a conspiracy of massive proportions to me
A conspiracy to keep free blacks from living in Illinois and to severely penalize those few who did make it there anyway? Yeah. Pretty much.
Now this is strange...
... a document from 05/28/1855 in St. Clair County, IL for a mulatto "servant" named Abraham Kinney grants him his emancipation upon turning age 21. Remarks on the page however indicate he was "born free," or so to speak. 21 years is definately greater than 1 year, non-seq, and poor Mr. Kinney spent his first two decades of life as a servant of a Mr. John Thomas before being emancipated.
Here's another one. Mulatto "servant" James W. George was emancipated at age 12 on 04/05/1855. His former master, John O. Pierce, stated himself to have known the company of Young Mr. James "FOR ABOUT 12 YEARS." 12 years is also greater than a year, non-seq.
Here's another one from 10/02/1850 for Ishaw, described as "a negroe" age 27. He was determined emancipated on that day on the grounds that "HE CAME OF AGE SIX YEARS AGO" - meaning he spent the first 21 years of his life as John Reynolds' slave...er..."servant" in Illinois
Seems as if your "slave, but only for a year" provision wasn't practiced very much, non-seq.
I'm just considering the source.
A conspiracy to keep free blacks from living in Illinois and to severely penalize those few who did make it there anyway? Yeah. Pretty much.
Obviously they weren't very good at it, given the growth in the black population. Maybe they should have talked to the states that were more successful at it?
I'm not surprised, given you don't seem to have bothered to even read the Black Codes that you condemn so strenuously. Under the original laws, male children born to indentured servent were indentured themselves until they were 35. That was modified to age 21 when the first state constitution was ratified in 1818. A year later the Black Codes mandated that new indentures were limited to a year only. All of which combine to show your claim and that of 4CJ that new indentures as late as the 1860's were for 99 years or some such ridiculous figure.
In 1828 the Illinois Supreme Court ruled on the 1807 Indenture law, calling it an abomination and voiding the law. However, since the state constitution had protected indentures made under that law in Article 6, Setion 3, the court felt that they could not void those indentures. So they continued to their end.
The Black Codes in Illinois were not unique in the U.S. and I agree with the Supreme Court ruling that they were repugnant to the ordinance of 1878 and should never have been enacted in the first place. They were a blot on the history of that great state, but a part of our history that cannot be denied or explained away. But that is where we part company, it seems. I think that all Black Codes were abominations and you seem to have a problem with only the Northern ones. I accept that the North has nobody but themselves to blame for their racist policies, and you blame the North for yours. Total denial on your part.
So you distrust the University of Illinois and the Illinois State Archives on matters of Illinois history.
Obviously they weren't very good at it, given the growth in the black population.
In 1840 there were 3,500 free blacks out of a population just under 500,000. That means blacks were 0.7% of the Illinois population.
In 1860 there were 7,600 blacks out of a population of over 1.7 million. That means blacks were 0.4% of the Illinois population.
So the black population as a percentage of the whole in Illinois actually went DOWN between 1840 and 1860 by almost half at the same time when the white population went up. So yeah, I'd say they were pretty successful at accomplishing what they wanted.
...yet as late as 1855 indentures for children were still running the full 21 year term. As I said, your "slave, but only for a year" claim simply does not seem to be the case in practice.
All of which combine to show your claim and that of 4CJ that new indentures as late as the 1860's were for 99 years or some such ridiculous figure.
I don't believe that I ever said anyone was indentured for 99 years in 1860. I did say and continue to maintain that there were people serving multi-year indentures as late as 1860. This fact is proven by the existence of records showing people who were emancipated in that year and others in its proximity upon the completion of their 21 year indenture from childhood. Do you deny that these records exist?
I think that all Black Codes were abominations and you seem to have a problem with only the Northern ones.
No, non-seq. To date the entirity of your argument for dealing with those northern ones has been the tu quoque - you cite what you believe to be an "equal and opposite reaction" in the form of a southern one then pretend as if the northern one isn't worth talking about EVEN IF the northern ones predated the southern ones by half a century and even if the southern ones were directly based upon the northern ones as a model.
Distrust my alma mater? Perish the thought. You, on the other hand...If you told me the sun rose in the east and set in the west I would double check.
So the black population as a percentage of the whole in Illinois actually went DOWN between 1840 and 1860 by almost half at the same time when the white population went up. So yeah, I'd say they were pretty successful at accomplishing what they wanted.
Nonsense. According to you the actual free black population should have gone down, as it did in several southern states, not doubled.
Well, what can I say? It's so hard to keep your multiple definitions of the term straight.
Then why do you still question that Article XIV existed just as their site says.
You, on the other hand...If you told me the sun rose in the east and set in the west I would double check.
Which is precisely your problem. You refuse to acknowledge plainly observable and easily identified facts because doing so would require you to concede a point to your opponent.
Nonsense.
The last I checked census figures base their calculations on minority group size by percentages of the whole population. It's the statistical standard and its what determines congressional district makeup every redistricting year. They do that because numerical growth in any given minority group is expected. It's the size of that growth in relation to all the others that matters though, and in Illinois the free black population shrunk as a percentage of the whole by almost half.
According to you the actual free black population should have gone down, as it did in several southern states, not doubled.
To date you have offered only a tiny handful of southern states where it went down. One, Louisiana, had complex and unique legal definitions of what constituted blacks, making fluctuations in the numbers frequent from year to year based simply on who was defined as black. The other two, Arkansas and Mississippi, had virtually no significant population of free blacks to begin with. They numbered in the hundreds and weren't a significant group in those states. Thus a fluctuation is statistically meaningless. Complaining that they declined in the 1860 census is about like complaining that the number of Eskimos declined in the most recent census for Morrocco.
Allright, stop the world; I want off.
It wasn't just slavery; slavery was part of the issue of course. It all came together.
Preserving the union was a bigger motivator in most minds than stopping slavery, though.
You've picked up misinformation.
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