Posted on 06/13/2005 6:08:24 AM PDT by sheltonmac
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.
I suppose not but I thought we were discussing slavery. Would any of those sharecroppers rather have been slaves? I don't think so but I suppose someone posting here will try and make that case too.
"Slavery was the dominant force there and EVERYTHING had to support it. ANY opposition to slavery was driven out of the region."
Your BS detector is highly suspect. I'm sitting in a town right now, in NC, in an area that was originally settled by Quakers, who abhorred slavery and were quite outspoken about it. If you'd ever been "there" as you so revealingly put it, you'd realize that "they" were far from monolithic in anything... religion, support of slavery, wealth, ancestry, you name it. You'd probably be astonished to see Levi Coffin's false-bottomed wagon, used to hide the runaway slaves he was transporting.
Read a little before you spout off on something you so obviously know nothing about, please.
Not without amending state Consitutions they couldn't because every southern state that participated in the rebellion had clauses preventing the legislature from passing any laws abolishing slavery. And if any southern state got a wild hair up and decided to end slavery, the confederate constitution guaranteed that anyone "shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property..." So individual states couldn't ban slavery within their borders.
The Confederacy did enact a law that required that Union slaves captured on Union ships to be returned to the state of origin and freed by that state's Governor.
Union slaves on Union ships? Assuming such an incident occured, how could the confederate congress require a Union governor to free a slave?
I have read sources from across the board for fifty years including those beloved by the Defenders of Slaverocracy.
There is nothing important that hasn't been amply handled.
The Rebellion was started by men who had worked throughout the 1850s to destroy the Union and protect slavery. There is no doubt about this. Nor is there any doubt that they would do ANYTHING to protect slavery and that included expansion into the Caribbean, Mexico and Latin America. Fortunately for the world America had a leader who put a stop to their insane plans.
Slavery was an economic impediment to the non-slave South but that didn't matter since power was held by the Slavers and THEY profitted. What did it matter to them if it impoverished the entire region? They cared only about ONE thing, slavery.
"Whether slavery shall go into Nebraska, or other new territories, is not a matter of exclusive concern to the people who may go there. The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these territories. We want them for the homes of free white people. This they cannot be, to any considerable extent, if slavery shall be planted within them." - Abraham Lincoln, Speech on the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)
Well, my real point is that the rich white industrialists of the North didn't give a tinker's dam about the plight of poor, rural Southern blacks any more than did the rich white planters of the south. I think it more likely that the northern "progressives," while not caring about them one way or the other, found the plight of the poor black man to be politically useful, a lever by which the wheels of power could be turned in their favor.
Kind of like today.
And Jeff Davis wanted a lily white south.
"Of course poor Southerners would give up their lives to protect the rich slaveowners they DID just that."
Marxist indoctrination, anyone? My slavery-era ancestors owned a fair amount of land, and by local standards were relatively well-off. They did not own slaves. The sons who went off to war did so to protect their homes from invasion. One died of peritonitis at Point Lookout, MD. One is buried in an unmarked mass grave by the former Gordonsville Receiving Hospital in VA, and one, my second great grandfather, ran off and enlisted at age 14 to try and go find his older brothers. Needless to say, he didn't find them.
In the South ONLY what Slavers wanted mattered. Poor men had no voice or power and were often even looked down on by the slaves of the wealthy. Gone With the Wind amply illustrates that.
In my reaserch there was less than 10% of the South owned slaves and that the practice was coming to an end.
- Jefferson Davis-
Tell that to the Carthaginians.
LoL.
I also note that more than one Southern basher on the FR boards has been outed as a neo-nazi. Careful with the company you keep.
Sharecropping actually deserves to be included in any reasonable discussion of slavery, I think. Of course, that's just my opinion, and worth what you paid for it.
"As Colonies under Royal Governors, they would not have been permitted to end slavery."
LOL. Who was talking about ENDING it, in Massachusetts, the first colony to legalize slavery in 1638? Nice try. The NC state constitution recognized the incompatibility of the institution of slavery with the ideals of liberty, in 1792. What do you make of that?
Replaced by what? There were almost 4 million slaves.
Ok, do they accept collect calls?
However ANY anti-slavery advocate was painted precisely as a fanatical Abolitionist by the Slavers. For their propaganda there was no difference.
" but the North's hands are certainly not clean in that regard."
Halelujah... somebody finally stopped being defensive and admitted this. Thank you.
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