Civil War Actor Kicked out of Park Over Slave Comment

Newsbusters.org ^ | 6/15/06 | Warner Todd Huston

[D1X1E]

Thanks for bringing me up to speed. Hope you dont mind that I refuse to use the term. :)

[LexBaird]

See my tag. No other comment necessary.

[Non-Sequitur]

Manumission was a fairly common practice in Deep South states, and in the Southern ports, there did exist a rather prosperous free black class...

Nonsense. Manumission was actually difficult in most southern states. An 1838 decision by the Alabama Supreme Court, Trotter v Blocker (6 Porter 269), ruled that manumission was a gift and that legally slaves were ineligible for receiving such a gift. A North Carolina case, State v Newsom, ruled that blacks had no legal rights under the Constitution. And an 1822 law in Mississippi required approval of the state legislature to manumit a slave. Every southern state had laws preventing free blacks from moving into the state, and some like Virginia had clauses in their constitutions requiring slaves freed to leave the state within 12 months or be sold back into slavery. Those who were freed in all southern states were restricted as to what work they could do, where they could live, and who they could marry.

...and many of them would go on to form volunteer units for the Confederate Army, granted the lions share of these units originate from Louisiana.

Such units did not exist.

[Mobile Vulgus]

Ha, ha.

No, don't mind at all!

:)

[Non-Sequitur]

Let's not forget, many masters would give their slaves manumission in their wills, and those that didn't, well, more often than not, in their wills, they would leave instructions that would effectively allow their slaves to live as if they were free, often times, this included a large amount of money, and executors were bound by law to carry out these instructions. And, as I alluded to before, there were certain areas in the South where there were concentrations of free blacks.

If that were so then the southern states must have just been swimming in free blacks. But a check of the census records shows that just wasn't so. Alabama had 438,000 black persons, 99.4% of whom were slaves. Mississippi had 773 free blacks, down from the 1850 census. Arkansas had 144, also down from the prior census. Louisiana had more free blacks in 1830, over 25,000, than they had in 1860, less than 19,000. If manumission were as free and open as you claim then these figures couldn't be true.

[AzaleaCity5691]

http://www.press.uillinois.edu/epub/books/schweninger/s4.html

Read # 67. This is the family that I was referencing when I was talking about black planters in the NE part of the county.

[Non-Sequitur]

Read # 67.

Well that backs up what I was saying, manumission wasn't possible without approval of the legislature. I see #66 does the same. I also noticed that #61 references the South Carolina law forbidding blacks from moving into the state, #62 refers to a man who apparently is being expelled from his Mississippi county for being black, #65 is a petition requesting that the state pass a law requiring all free blacks to leave the county, #69 talks of the sale of free blacks into slavery because they remained in Virginia, and so on. Doesn't seem to show that manumission was open and easy as you insist.

Hey, thanks an lot! This is a terrific site! I'm going to have to look at it more closelu

[DJ MacWoW]

Actually Mz. McMillan is not being PC. The lib talking point is that ALL blacks were slaves. And still are. Heaven forbid that anyone get the idea that there even WERE free blacks. Only 3,500 of them in Georgia but still................

[Mobile Vulgus]

...Of COURSE it is their position... but it isn't one they TALK about! That is, until it's time to squeeze money from government coffers!