Understanding History: Slavery and the American South

EverVigilant.net ^ | 06/09/2005 | Lee R. Shelton IV

[veeceeque]

You are not versed in history enough to be making desultory comments towards others.

The Constitution guaranteed the States the right to freely enter and LEAVE the Union. It also spelled out the right that they did not have to ratify any amendment they disagreed with and said that they could not be compelled by federal government to do so. Also, check your history lessons to find that four of the Confederate States succeeded only AFTER the federal goverment raised the threat of military action. They strongly believed in states' rights enough to defend them.

Hmmmmm.....the federal government compelled them not to leave the Union. This entire struggle was for the consolidation of federal and economic power.



You keep saying that we must focus our attention on terroism. I agree that that is one area that must be observed. Also, the power of the federal government must be carefully checked. That is the heart of this entire debate. If the federal government takes over all power, then the door is open towards a gross abuse of freedom.

There are more problems facing our country that are just as devastating as terrorism.

IMHO

SGT C.
Baghdad, Iraq

[ConservativeDude]

"Exactly. A PR move."

Uh...no. It's more like the CIA encouraging an overthrow in some third world country. My idea of PR is holding press conferences and sending out press releases. It doesn't usually include armed resistance, killing people and encouraging the same from others. That's how war is waged. And it is far different from public relations.

[Ditto]

So my understanding is correct, that Emancipation was a military ploy, hatched in the hopes of fomenting a slave rebellion in "rebel" states. Not so high-minded.

No. Your "understanding" is ridiculous. The EP was indeed an order of military expedience in that removing "property" from Confederate service it helped shorten the war. Slave labor was used extensively by the Confederate forces for everything from food production to construction of fortifications. It also had a 100 day notice before taking effect, in the hope that rebellious states would reconsider and return to the Union fold before they lost their "property"

As to inciting "slave rebellion" which was every Southerner's worst nightmare, it in fact had the opposite effect. Instead of slaves taking their lives in their hands by revolting while most of the white men were off at war, they understood that they need only walk to the sound of Union guns to gain their freedom. Over a million slaves did that in the months after it was issued, and over 100,000 of them joined the Union Army once they crossed the lines. The EP probably prevented slave uprisings that would have been far more disastrous to the civilian population than anything Sherman did.

[TexConfederate1861]

Ridiculous.....I won't even dignify such a assinine statement with a rebuttal.

[TexConfederate1861]

Economically, slavery was almost at an end, even though the planters didn't want to admit it. The Industrial Revolution would have forced an end to slave labor.

[TexConfederate1861]

The basic premise of freedom is to live and let live.
And Southerners are certainly anti-abortion, for the most part.

[TexConfederate1861]

I would say that by the 1870's, it would have happened. The Industrial Revolution would have made slave labor obsolete.

[Ditto]

If slavery was all the Condfederacy wanted, all that was necessary for legalized slavery to continue was to remain in the union.

Keeping slavery was not what they were concerned with and the Corwin Amendment simply reaffirmed the existing status quo --- i.e. slavery was constitutional, and the political reality that there was not a sufficient constitutional majority to change that dynamic. It was a meaningless Amendment.

What the Slave Power demanded was expansion of slavery to all states and territories, and on that point, Lincoln refused to budge an inch.

[TexConfederate1861]

Well, slavery WAS legal. And moral or not, men who owned slaves had a huge economic investment for not ending it. The bottom line is that slavery or not, states-rights dictated the right of the states to decide the issue, NOT Abe Lincoln, and a Republican Congress.

[x]

How can Lincoln claim that he had the moral high ground, while sending troops to kill and maim fellow Americans in a civil war?

He could claim that he was standing up for the country and the constitution against an illegal and unconstitutional rebellion.

We can see that it was wrong now, and it was wrong then. Lincoln may have won a war, but he inflamed passions that run deep even until today.

You are kidding, right? Passions were inflamed before he came on the scene, and more inflamed in the South than in the North.

This whole "Blame Abe" thing has gotten pretty tiresome.

[TexConfederate1861]

Not in every state. One of my ancestors was a Texas rancher, who fought for the Confederacy. He had no use for slavery, so why do you suppose he risked his life?

Simple: He felt that coercion and invasion by the Federals was going too far.

[TexConfederate1861]

After such persons as John Brown and William Lloyd Garrison, what would you have expected?

[x]

They couldn't have cared less what race the slaves were. They were trying to stop domination by Northern interests.
whitebyrd

Senator, I don't think that's quite right. If Whites were slaves, I doubt your ancestors would have fought on the same side as the slaveowners. They had the right idea about freedom. They just didn't carry it far enough.

[sheltonmac]

You can't subjectively judge anyone...that is not our place.

No, but that is exactly what is happening with each attack on Southern culture and heritage. People are making subjective judgments based on a minunderstanding of history.

Owning another human being is simply intrinsically evil, end of story.

Slavery was once part of the social construct. The institution itself was neither evil nor good. If it was inherently evil, then how would you explain the fact that the Bible, while not endorsing slavery, doesn't condemn it? The Apostle Paul even sent a slave back to his master.

And the point about pagan cultures is spont-on. Pagans, by definition, don't follow biblical guidelines, and slaves were (and in some countries still are) often worked to death, starved and brutalized in any number of ways. Scripture recognized the reality of slavery, but gave specific instructions as to how slaves were to be treated.

The problem in understanding the historical reality of slavery is that we're separated from it by 140 years. It's difficult to comprehend a society in which one person "owns" the labor of another. It's like women's suffrage. We find it hard to accept that women were denied the right to vote, but they were. Was that evil as well? Or was it simply part of the social construct that we eventually moved beyond?

[TexConfederate1861]

I must tell you that honestly, I don't believe the preamble or the Declaration were including blacks, because in the view of most people, they were not considered humans, as wrong as that belief was. Hell, they were only counted as 3/5 of a person for the purpose of representation according to the Constitution. I don't hold my head up high regarding anything about slavery. My Georgia ancestor freed all 50 of his slaves in Oct. 1861, before he went to war. He thought slavery was morally wrong, and was trying to prove a point.

As for Dred Scott, it is always hilarious to me how some on this board will condemn THAT decision, and say that it is invalid, yet in the same breath defend Texas vs White....

[Ditto]

Economically, slavery was almost at an end, even though the planters didn't want to admit it. The Industrial Revolution would have forced an end to slave labor.

Nonsense. The Planters couldn't even conceive of the industrial revolution reaching the deep south, and it basically didn't until well into the 20th Century. Hell, share cropping (defacto slavery) still existed into the 1960s.

BTW. What about industrialization is incompatible with slavery? Slavery can be very profitable in any task requiring large amounts of non-skilled or semi-skilled labor. (See China). The largest iron works in the South (Tredgear in Richmond) profitably used slave labor -- Picking cotton in Mississippi or mining silver in Nevada or packing beef in Kansas, slave labor would have been just as profitable for the few.

[TexConfederate1861]

While you ramble on about the South threatening Secession, don't forget that New England was the FIRST to try that tactic.

[LWalk18]

It's difficult to comprehend a society in which one person "owns" the labor of another.

An owner did not just own the labor of a person, but the person him or herself could be bought, sold, mortgaged, or traded. If a so-called "good" master went into debt, his slaves could be sold to the highest bidder irregardless of family ties. As a woman, the idea that my offspring could be sold away to who knows where at my master's whim or misfortune illustrates slavery's evil. And unlike many pagan cultures, it was a condition you were born into, died in, and was the fate of their children.

[TexConfederate1861]

I have to disagree about "sharecropping" being slavery. My Great-Grandparents, were very poor sharecroppers, but were very proud people. My Grandmother has told me that if the landowner treated his croppers fairly, it was ok.

[Non-Sequitur]

Economically, slavery was almost at an end, even though the planters didn't want to admit it. The Industrial Revolution would have forced an end to slave labor.

Sheer idiocy. The industrial revolution had been going on for 35 years and slavery had thrived throughout. It wasn't almost at an end. There was nothing to replace it with.