Understanding History: Slavery and the American South

Everywhere you turn it seems there is a concerted effort to erase part of America's past by stamping out Confederate symbols. Why? Because no one wants to take the time to truly understand history. The general consensus is that Abraham Lincoln saved the Union and ushered in a new era of freedom by defeating the evil, slave-owning South. Therefore, Confederate symbols have no place in an enlightened society.

Most of this anti-Southern bigotry stems from an ignorance regarding the institution of slavery. Some people cannot grasp the fact that slavery was once a social reality in this country, and at the time of the War Between the States it was practiced in the North as well as the South. In fact, the slaveholding states of Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky and Missouri remained in the Union during the war. It should also be pointed out that, in our history as an independent nation, slavery existed for 89 years under the U.S. flag (1776-1865) and for only four years under the Confederate flag (1861-1865). I have often wondered: If slavery is to be the standard by which all American historic symbols are judged, then why don't we hear more complaints about the unfurling of Old Glory?

To begin to fully understand this volatile issue, it is important to keep a few things in mind. For example, Lincoln (a.k.a. the "Great Emancipator") was not an abolitionist. Anyone even remotely familiar with Lincoln's speeches and writings knows that freeing the slaves was never one of his primary objectives. In 1862, he said, "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery…" It wasn't until his war against the South seemed to be going badly for the North that slavery even became an issue for him.

Contrary to popular belief, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was merely a public relations ploy. It was an attempt to turn an illegal, unconstitutional war into a humanitarian cause that would win over those who had originally been sympathetic to the South's right to secede. It was also meant to incite insurrection among the slaves as well as drive a wedge between the Confederacy and its European allies who did not want to be viewed as supporters of slavery. A note of interest is that the Proclamation specifically excluded all slaves in the North. Of course, to say that Lincoln had the power to end slavery with the stroke of a pen is to assign dictatorial powers to the presidency, allowing him to override Congress and the Supreme Court and usurp the Constitution--which he did anyway.

Another thing to remember is that the Confederate states that had seceded were no longer bound by the laws of the United States. They were beyond Lincoln's jurisdiction because they were a sovereign nation. Even if they weren't--and most people today deny the South ever left the Union--their respective rights would still have been guaranteed under the Constitution (see the 10th Amendment), denying Lincoln any authority at all to single-handedly free the slaves. This is only reinforced by the fact that he did absolutely nothing to free those slaves that were already under U.S. control.

Slavery had been around in the North for over two centuries, with the international slave trade, until it ended in the early 1800's, being controlled by New England. When abolition finally came to those states--mostly due to the growth of an industrial economy in a region where cooler climatic conditions limited the use of slaves in large-scale farming operations--Northern slaves were sold to plantation owners in the agrarian South. In essence, the North continued to benefit from the existence of slavery even after abolition--if not from free labor, then from the profits gained by selling that labor in areas where it was still legal.

It should be noted that the abolitionist movement had little to do with taking a stand against racism. In fact, many abolitionists themselves looked upon those they were trying to free as inferior, uncivilized human beings. Yes, racism was rampant in the northern U.S. as many states had laws restricting the ability of blacks to vote, travel, marry or even own land. Joanne Pope Melish of Brown University, in her book Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and Race in New England, 1780-1860, points out that some militant groups even made a practice of "conducting terroristic, armed raids on urban black communities and the institutions that served them." This animosity exhibited toward blacks in the North may explain why the Underground Railroad, long before passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, ran all the way to Canada.

Despite the wishes of a select few, slavery had already begun to disappear by the mid- to late-1800s. Even Southern leaders realized slavery wouldn't last. In language far more explicit than its U.S. counterpart, the Confederate Constitution included an outright ban on the international slave trade: "The importation of negroes of the African race from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States or Territories of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same." Clearly, there is no reason to believe that slavery wouldn't have died of natural causes in the South as it had in every other civilized part of the world.

I'm sure we can all agree that there is no place for slavery in a nation founded on liberty and equality, but that doesn't mean that the South should be written off as an evil "slaveocracy." For one thing, the vast majority of slave owners were not cruel, a stark contrast to how slaves were treated in pagan cultures. In many cases, slaves were considered part of the family--so much so that they were entrusted with helping to raise their masters' children. This is neither an endorsement nor an excuse; it's just a statement of historical fact. Yes, one could argue that the act of one person owning the labor of another is cruel in and of itself, but the same could be said of indentured servitude and other similar arrangements so prominent in our nation's history--not to mention the ability of our modern government to claim ownership of over half of what its citizens earn.

If we are to conclude that antebellum Southerners were nothing but evil, racist slave owners who needed to be crushed, then we must operate under the assumption that the Northerners fighting against them were all noble, loving peacemakers who just wanted everyone to live together in harmony. Neither characterization is true.

Slavery, 140 years after its demise, continues to be a hot-button topic. Yes, it was a contributing factor in Lincoln's war, but only because the federal government sought to intervene on an issue that clearly fell under the jurisdiction of the various states. Trying to turn what Lincoln did into a moral crusade that justified the deaths of over 600,000 Americans is no better than defending the institution of slavery itself.

"Some people cannot grasp the fact that slavery was once a social reality in this country, and at the time of the War Between the States it was practiced in the North as well as the South."

There was a big difference. It was a rarity in the North and it was a dominant feature of society in the South. In a political sense, it was opposed by majorities in the North and supported by majorities in the South. That is not historically insignificant.

"Anyone even remotely familiar with Lincoln's speeches and writings knows that freeing the slaves was never one of his primary objectives. In 1862, he said, 'My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery' It wasn't until his war against the South seemed to be going badly for the North that slavery even became an issue for him. Contrary to popular belief, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was merely a public relations ploy"

You attempt to rewrite history by ignoring facts that incoveniently dispute your "history". One need only read the Lincol-Douglas debates (which happened before Lincoln ran for President) to know that Lincoln was philosophically opposed to slavery. The fact that his "paramount" objective, his primary objective was preserving the Union represents his legal and political intentions within his understanding of what he could do. No one questions the unique times and circumstances in which he later issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and most do question whether or not it would have held up constitutionally, as the nation moved further ahead after the war. That is a moot point, because that proclamation provided the philosophical foundation for the constitutional amendments that immediately followed, to codify the end of slavery in the law. The idea that Lincoln made the Emancipation Proclamation only because he was "losing" the war is wishful thinking on your part, and not supported by the military history of the war.

"It was an attempt to turn an illegal, unconstitutional war into a humanitarian cause that would win over those who had originally been sympathetic to the South's right to secede."

Lincoln correctly understood the southern states - in particular the governments of the souther states - did not have a "right to secede". The United States Consitution is not a contract between the states, it is a contract between the people of the United States, all the people of the whole nation. This was firmly established once the Constitution was ratified. The sovereignty of the independent states became a limited sovereignty, subject to "we the people" of the United States, as a whole. Once the constitution was ratified, the states had no more right to secede, by their own volition, than they did to conduct their own foreign affairs or perform many other "sovereign" "rights" that were subsumed into the federal government. "Secession" was only possible through congressional agreement and constitutional amendment; for which there was no supporting national political majority.

"Another thing to remember is that the Confederate states that had seceded were no longer bound by the laws of the United States. They were beyond Lincoln's jurisdiction because they were a sovereign nation."

You are stating no more than the failed convictions of confederate forces; a conviction which Lincoln, the Congress and the Courts did not agree with; and neither has history.

"Even if they weren't--and most people today deny the South ever left the Union--their respective rights would still have been guaranteed under the Constitution (see the 10th Amendment), denying Lincoln any authority at all to single-handedly free the slaves."

The 10th Amendment does not provide for a right to secede from the Union; which in your own rant you recognize was the immediate "cause" of the war, with slavery only an adjunct to that cause. Yet, in proper perspective slavery was the cause of the war because it was the basis for the reasons that many southern states wanted to secede. Without slavery, there was no southern CAUSE from which secession would have appealed. Attempts to put secession and "states rights" ahead of the underlying reason for them (slavery) does not work, factually, historically or philosophically. Slavery was the issue which created the political conditions which led to the war.

"When abolition finally came to those states--mostly due to the growth of an industrial economy in a region where cooler climatic conditions limited the use of slaves in large-scale farming operations--Northern slaves were sold to plantation owners in the agrarian South. In essence, the North continued to benefit from the existence of slavery even after abolition--if not from free labor, then from the profits gained by selling that labor in areas where it was still legal."

You attempt to conflate practices that did happen sometimes as if they were the majority, the only and/or the common practices in the North, together with the supposition that only economics and never sentiment or philosophy played a role in those practices. The facts are that the North was closer than the South was to Fngland, intellectually, where the abolition of slavery had already been accomplished. There were far mar "Northern" slaves who were simply freed than the numbers that were sold to southerners. As a result, by the time of the Civil War, there were already second and third generations of "freed" African-Americans and their ranks included doctors, lawyers and educators in cities like Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston. What you include in the acts of minorities of whites in the north is disputed by how the entire framework of slavery held no majority, politically or popularly in the North. That, not individual acts, is the distinction that made the political and hisotrical difference.

"It should be noted that the abolitionist movement had little to do with taking a stand against racism. In fact, many abolitionists themselves looked upon those they were trying to free as inferior, uncivilized human beings. Yes, racism was rampant in the northern U.S. as many states had laws restricting the ability of blacks to vote, travel, marry or even own land."

Again, you try to point to the exceptions in the north as though they were a dominant theme, comparable to the south, which they were not. I am sure there were instances of "abolitionists" who saw African-Americans as "inferior", yet the historical facts of the movement and the majority who worked in it do not, and did not historically, support such sentiment. Again, the difference in how local laws applied to "slaves" and "freed slaves", between the north and the south is that the use of such local restrictions were in great decline in the north while they were being held fast in the south. Those who wanted them ended were winning in the north while those who wanted them preserved were holding fast in the south. The fact that a minority of people in the north held to the same views as the majority in the south, does not change the fact that the majority of the nation was moving against that view.

"This animosity exhibited toward blacks in the North may explain why the Underground Railroad, long before passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, ran all the way to Canada."

The Underground Railroad went all the way to Canada because until slavery was abolished everywhere, local law enforcement in the northern states did not have the support of the courts to ignore the legal "writs" of southern "owners" trying to retrieve their "property". It was not due to popular or legal support for slavery in most northern states, but the lack of legal means to void the "legal" claims of southern owners who pursued their "property" into the north. In fact, this was one of the activities that helped turn more northerners against slavery and against the south; the majority wanted the legal protection to ignore the demands of the pursuing southern owners and their hired bounty hunters.

"In language far more explicit than its U.S. counterpart, the Confederate Constitution included an outright ban on the international slave trade: "The importation of negroes of the African race from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States or Territories of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same."

This was not done to end slavery in the south. The population growth of the "slaves" in the south was thought to be enough to sustain southern industrial needs. Importation of "foreign" "slaves" would only have cheapened the human "capital" of the existing slaveowners. If the actual sentiments of Southern leaders were as you mistate them to have been, there would have been no war, because they would have accepted the compromise that required all the newly forming western states to be "free" states. The facts are that the southern leaders wanted slavery to be able to expand into the new states and the political dispute of that issue is one of the things that lead to the war. Again, slavery, and specifically the right for it to expand into the new states was one of the issues the south was fighting for. That is the historical, unrevised, record.

Maybe the rest of the country would accept many attributes of "southern" political "culture", if those who want to pomote that "culture" would do as the Germans have tried to do and acknowledge the deep human error (slavery) that the south fought to preserve. You can mince words and site northern exceptions and rights that states do not have and Lincoln's abuses of power and many other things. None of those things can hide what the south fought to save - slavery. And, after the war, slavery was ended, period.

I think most people in the cultural "north" are ready to look past that era. But every time popular sentiment seems to be going that way, some southern apologists starts to offer excuses for the underlying roots of the war, and then the north goes back to wondering if it is time to let it go.

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