Posted on 09/17/2007 2:35:27 PM PDT by Delacon
I beg to differ. It plays almost as much as one's race does on this particular subject.
I don't understand why the enslavement of Africans in North America seems to trump all other slavery and for that matter all unsavory things relative to their time in history in the eyes of many young folks today except to say the revisionists kicked my generations ass in the brainwashing department.
I would like to see the high and mighty on black race issues attack thug culture or abortion or inner city crime or black hatred of whites with the same vigor they do the Confederate Battle Flag or Dixie.
Perfectly valid points.
The South gets a bad name over slavery for two major reasons.
1. It was the only part of the world to fight a major war to try to preserve a dying institution.
2. It was the last part of the (western) world that attempted to justify and defend an institution that the rest of the civilized world had rejected decades before.
A contributing reason is the fact that the South refused to accept the verdict of the war they lost and reimposed a social system for over half a century that wasn’t greatly different from slavery in practice.
BTW, I recently read a book called “What This Cruel War Was Over,” which tracks the changing attitudes towards slavery over the course of the war among white unionists, black unionists, and white southerners by compiling data from their letters home and diaries. Very interesting book.
I should have said machined tools and products produced by machinery like cheap cloth and farm implements. But then you already knew that. You site stats. Can you tell me what percentage of state gdp came from agricultural output in the north as compared to that of the south? I don’t know. Its important to this discussion.
You write too well not to know that a number of nations in the West ended slavery several decades after the Civil War here ....one of which Brasil had exponentially more slaves than we had here.
And that said war probably contributed to that accelerated demise of slavery in the West.
I agree though that after Britain ended slavery that the handwriting was on the wall and that cooler heads should have found a way to phase it out here but between sanctimonious Yankees and hotheaded Southerners and all the cultural bad blood between them anyhow besides slavery that it did not happen but I wish it had.
It should be noted though that all those folks on both sides were racists by today’s lofty benchmarks including even the radicals.
Likewise, the South did not reimpose slavery..hardly though they did organize to re enfranchise whites and send the occupation forces home and limit black enfranchisement. They were afraid of too much black political power. It's a sticky situation. Just give up and let blacks rule the South? that is exactly what would have happened and how would that have turned out? Would that have been what northern whites wanted or just what northern radicals might have liked to have had to exploit to their own ends? Blacks run nearly every Southern city of note today. Come down and see for yourself and let me know what you think. These issues are so damned hard. Folks spout what they believe to be the correct answer...the backslapping, "yep I love black folks here in rural Wisconsin" answer but yet they ignore harsh realities, human nature and glaring empirical observations staring them down in the real world.
I don't have the answers but I'm living the problems....
I blame the cotton gin too....invented by a Yankee..lol
sorry though I just don't pass every notion thatb pops into my head as to how it relates to minorities and identity politics
the truth is what it is
Why so much energy to demonize the South and 150 year old slavery and yet ignore other slavery and the sharp decline of black culture the past 40 years accompained by a rise in racist black attitudes to whites?
I do not know one white supremacist personally, not one. yet I see rampant and institutional racist attitudes by blacks towards whites and that is tolerated by too many folks same as blacks calling one another ni&&er.
Yet instead, let's drone on and on about how bad slavery was and Southerners are wicked etc....and for God's sake let's not judge those wicked old southerners by the times they lived in
Never mind the 1000 pound gorilla in the room. The South bashing barrage on this forum from about 30-40 loud freepers has always seemed an ill fit here.
It meant something different to Jefferson and the framers. Locke heavily influenced the framers, especially Jefferson and Locke's Two Treatises of Government. From volume II, Locke writes, 'To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.'
Continuing, 'A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another: there being nothing more evident than that creatures of the same species and rank promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection, unless the Lord and Master of them all should, by any manifest declaration of his will, set one above another and confer on him by an evident and clear appointment an undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty.'
Nice job. Though from what I know about the Civil War. Wasn’t it the Democaratic Party southerners that wanted to keep the slaves. Hence the Dred Scott decision.
Furthermore, wasn’t it the Northern Democrats who with their carpet bags went to the South to suck an already improverished people a little more.
Actually, I believe the carpetbaggers were Republicans. Ergo, after reconstruction, it was over a century before a Republican could be elected dogcatcher in the South
Good post. What would have happened to America if we had had universal suffrage from day one? What would America look like if participants at the Constitutional Convention had been “balanced” in terms of race and gender?
These are hard questions, as you correctly noted. They’re also questions we aren’t permitted to discuss.
True, the DoI did not establish a government.
And if a human has the moral right to fight for freedom, don't other humans have the moral right to help them do so?
According to the Bible, those in slavery are to treat their masters with respect - not murder. But just how many murders are justified?
So all men are created equal, except for those who were created by God to be slaves to the others.
Conveniently, the slavers decided God had, by a “manifest declaration of his will, set one (the white man) above another (the black man),” with the blacks meant to eternally serve the whites. IOW, black slavery is God’s Will and therefore a good thing.
However, it is ahistorical to blame this interpretation of Locke on Jefferson and the Founders. They were all perfectly clear that slavery was a contradiction of the principles of the Declaration, and a Very Bad Thing. They just didn’t know how to get rid of it without disastrous consequences, so they played for time in hopes the situation would resolve itself. Their hope was that slavery would gradually become less profitable and critical to the South’s economy, as it had in the North.
Unfortunately, the cotton gin was invented and slavery became more profitable, not less. Over the first decades of the 1800s southerners gradually developed the notion that slavery was a Good Thing, not unreasonably trying to find a justification for something they were so dependent on economically.
Noy exactly true. Many more slaves were imported to Brazil than to America, something like 40% of all the slaves taken from Africa.
But Brazilians had a less "race" focus on slavery. In particular the children born of a white father and black mother were almost always freed, and usually their mother too. Over time, especially after new blood from Africa was stopped, slaves dropped as a percentage of the total population.
Best I can figure is that at emancipation in 1888 slaves were 15% of a total population of 15M, or about 2.2M. This compares with about 4M in the US in 1860.
all those folks on both sides were racists by today’s lofty benchmarks including even the radicals.
Again, mostly but not entirely accurate. There were northern abolitionists who considered blacks to be absolutely equal, and showed it by their actions.
I cannot disagree with most of your points. We are still trying to deal with the consequences of the abolition of race-based slavery, 150 years later. It should not surprise us if those faced with the actual situation found it even more difficult to handle.
Also according to the Bible, and to Christ specifically, Christians are to respect the government and not rebel against it. Yet Americans chose to rebel against the British King, their legitimate sovereign, on the grounds that he was infringing on their liberties. Presumably you believe they were right to do so.
Yet you think black men and women, sufferers from infinitely greater deprivation of rights than King George ever considered, had no moral right to rebel?
But just how many murders are justified?
This is a question of how the rebellion should be fought, or indeed of whether the cost of rebellion is more than it is worth, not of whether rebellion is morally justified. OTOH, if the masters do not resist, which they not have a moral right to do, presumably there would be few deaths.
It is interesting how attitudes have changed over the centuries. To a modern person, Spartacus is a hero, as the movies made about him have shown. To people of antiquity, he was a great villain and monster.
You're grasping a bit, aren't you? Or do you really expect us to believe that the technological superiority of cheap cloth, plows, and rakes produced in Britain was so much higher than their U.S. counterparts? And if that was so, then wouldn't the Northern farmers be at just as big a disadvantage? So the tariff would have hit them just as hard as the Southern consumer.
Can you tell me what percentage of state gdp came from agricultural output in the north as compared to that of the south?
I don't think that's relevant. You said there were more farmers down South. If Mississippi had 90% of its GDP produced by 10,000 farmers, and Pennsylvania had 50% of its GDP produced by 20,000 farmers then there are still more farmers in Pennsylvania than in Mississippi. And if your scenario is correct then there are more people impacted up North than down South. The fact is that tariffs impacted both regions equally. A consumer in Connecticut paid just as much for a good made by a domestic manufacturer protected by tariffs as a consumer in Texas did. The South did not account for the majority of tariff revenue. In fact, if Alexander Stephens' figures are true, they accounted for less than a quarter.
Romans 13? Citation please. I have no king but Jesus. I might be charged with rendering unto Caesar, but there's no prohibition against changing government, or of resisting unlawful commands. Suppose the government enacts a law that all girls/women are to serve two years as prostitutes, would you continue to support that government? Should Daniel have obeyed the law and refused to pray to God? Peter was commanded not to preach, but continued to do so. Was that unjustified? The apostles replied '[w]e ought to obey God rather than men.'
Yet Americans chose to rebel against the British King, their legitimate sovereign, on the grounds that he was infringing on their liberties.
Read the DoI again, personal liberties was not the issue. The tyranny of government. The DoI states, '[t]he history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.'
Yet you think black men and women, sufferers from infinitely greater deprivation of rights than King George ever considered, had no moral right to rebel?
They have every right of a white man. Whites were also held as slaves in America, albeit not as many, as were Native Americans. In the annals of history millions more whites have been deprived of rights. Additionally, many slaves (documented by their own words in the Slave Narratives) were treated well, had their own gardens, earned monies, hunted, celebrated holidays, fought for the Confederacy, refused to take the oath of allegiance to the union after capture etc.
But the slaves were deprived of rights first by native African tribes, then by The British and yankee slavers, then sold southward. New York had a huge number of slaves, as did Rhode Island. Have you ever wondered why that states official name is 'Rhode Island and Providence Plantations'?
This is a question of how the rebellion should be fought, or indeed of whether the cost of rebellion is more than it is worth, not of whether rebellion is morally justified.
And what would be acceptable? Let's say that some Wahabi malcontents (aka terrorists) travel to Dearborn Michigan, steal weapons from the armory, and proceed to arm the Muslims, and instigate mass murder/forced conversions, is that defensible?
OTOH, if the masters do not resist, which they not have a moral right to do, presumably there would be few deaths.
Continuing the above, then it would be your policy to submit and convert to Islam?
God placed his own children into slavery.
They were all perfectly clear that slavery was a contradiction of the principles of the Declaration, and a Very Bad Thing.
Agreed.
They just didn’t know how to get rid of it without disastrous consequences, so they played for time in hopes the situation would resolve itself.
Jefferson had submitted a bill to the Virginia Burgess to emancipate all slaves, which was defeated. The King continually negatived colonial laws, which explains why the framers explicitly rejected all attempts to grant the federal government that power. In 1769 Jefferson submitted a bill allowing manumission, a version eventually passed in 1782 which he signed as Governor. He also argued for the freedom of a slave in Howell v Netherland, stating 'under that law [the law of Nature/God's law] we are all born free'.
Their hope was that slavery would gradually become less profitable and critical to the South’s economy, as it had in the North.
I'll give you credit where credit is due, you understand that slavery existed due to economic issues, not that every American simply desired to own a slave.
Over the first decades of the 1800s southerners gradually developed the notion that slavery was a Good Thing, not unreasonably trying to find a justification for something they were so dependent on economically.
There were more abolition societies in the South. The notion that slavery was good was based on the prevailing sentiments of blacks - in their native lands - were barbarians, cannibals, practiced witchcraft etc, so their introduction to Christianity and European culture was seen as benevolent in comparison.
5% of the African slave trade came to the US...north and south at the time.
37% went to Brasil.....that is 7.5 times as many as here which is exponential in my opinion.
they were freed in 1888 and yes you are correct that mulattoes born particularly in northern Brasil were more likely than not freed particularly later in the slave trade but it should be noted slaves were treated much much harsher there than here....for many reasons...religious and economic
a not insignificant number of mulattoes were freed here too which is where many of our freedmen came from...many of whom owned slaves themselves
As for the Brasil numbers, the fact that there were more blacks in the US in 1888 proportionately than in Brasil even given Brasil’s much higher importation rate proves slaves had a much better survivability here.
Haiti somewhat recognized mulattoes a bit too....even today the friction tween them and purer Africans there is pretty hot. The blacks have tried to massacre the mulattoes same as they did the last whites but have never succeeded so far.
That friction is why Baby Doc lost power in 85.
I am only aware of a handful of northern abolitionists who advanced complete racial equality to include for example interracial coupling. Many even toyed with sending them back hence Liberia...an old idea going back to slave owner William Dunbar of Natchez who emancipated his slaves (he was the largest in the south at the time) and tried to send them back to west Africa too....some made it but local slaveowners burned his ships.
The plight of sub Saharan black culture worldwide is more than just due to the slave trade, serfdom (both which they still practice) or even colonialism.
It’s cultural based and mostly due to bad luck in staying put for so much of history’s timeline in geographic isolation while Europe, Far Asia and Near Asia and North Africa alternately took off. You can see similar cultural awkwardness throughout the Americas with the indigenous or with tribals in rural Australasia.
That does not mean the individual cannot transcend that....many do. But to blame the problems just of Caucasoid oppression is wrong and often self serving...just as self serving as racial supremacy of any sort.
amen to all that and we are all the bias of our perspective...me as much as anyone
i just look for reality
You guys are having a really good discussion!
Slavery was an institution which existed pretty much everywhere in one form or another for centuries. It’s looked upon today as horrible and perhaps the greatest evil in history. That’s fair enough, I suppose, but people need to remember that modern ideas of freedom simply didn’t exist until the economic conditions arose which allowed them. People didn’t pontificate about libertarian ideals circa 267 BC or 834 AD.
Life was very hard until relatively recently in human history. Unless you were extremely wealthy, your daily life was something we would consider unthinkable today. You worked from dawn to dusk at backbreaking labor. You didn’t have the luxury of worrying about what to do with your free time, much less entertain higher questions such as, “Is it right for a man to own another man?” Many people would have been better off owned as a slave by a benevolent rich man than tending to a small plot of land that could be wiped out at any time by a flood, a drought, insects, or other natural occurrences. Slavery was really nothing more than a social services and public works type system where the rich or the taxpayers provided for the poor in return for their forced labor. Some owners and overseers were kind, others brutal, but the system itself was never really questioned. After all, life itself could be either kind or brutal, particularly brutal in those days. That’s why the Bible never outright condemns slavery. It doesn’t mandate it, either. We’re thus free to abolish it as a system.
As capitalism, mercantile economies, and concepts of political liberty grew, slavery was increasingly seen as bad and was phased out or banned in the Western nations. The establishment of colonies, however, brought it back for a time, largely because these new territories were vast, primitive in the beginning, and seen as needing forced labor to get started. This was unfortunate, of course, but it happened. Once something like that happens, you have to look at it in the context of its time, as well as in its overall effects.
The reason slavery became a racially based practice in America (yes, there were whites who traded their freedom for passage to the New World, etc., but ultimately it became racial) was because Africa was teeming with slavery. It had never once crossed the mind of black Africans that slavery was wrong, and they’d likely still be practicing slavery there today if the colonial powers hadn’t eventually put an end to it. So when slavery made its unfortunate revival in America, Africa was a logical source for slave purchases.
Was it a “bad thing”? Yes, but it’s also true that many a slave was well-treated, probably most. And it’s undeniably true that black Americans today are better off because slavery occurred. Should it have been banned? Absolutely, because a society that relishes liberty should not permit someone to be physically owned and enslaved by someone else. It simply doesn’t fit in a society where liberty is cherished, and the South held onto their archaic institution way beyond any point in which it could be justified by arguing that it fit into the social structures of the era.
Should we wallow in guilt over it today? Should we flay ourselves or flay southerners over it? Absolutely not. Someone mentioned the Holocaust earlier. I have a Jewish friend who literally can’t watch movies that deal with the Holocaust. Even though those films (such as Schindler’s List) are designed to remind us of a great evil so that we hopefully never repeat it, she can’t bear to see what happened to her people, and never brings it up unless the topic is somehow invoked by others. It’s interesting that blacks have been conditioned by liberalism to dwell incessantly on the bad things that happened to their ancestors. A few years ago, it was reported that the National Park Service wanted to highlight slavery more in order to attract blacks to Civil War sites. Someone recently e-mailed me an article about blacks and opera. It was argued that more blacks would go to opera, ballet, and classical music concerts if these arts focused on slavery and Jim Crow laws and lynchings.
That’s not the key to black success. The key is to follow the good advice of Herman Cain, Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Michael Steele, and others, and stop demanding benefits because of something bad that happened decades or even centuries ago.
Jefferson served as governor from June 1, 1779 to June 3, 1781 so if he signed such a bill then it was illegal. You also failed to mention that the bill merely made it legal for slave owners to free their own slaves or that it was repealed in 1792 and that in 1806 a law was passed requiring freed slaves to leave the state or be sold back into slavery.
He also argued for the freedom of a slave in Howell v Netherland, stating 'under that law [the law of Nature/God's law] we are all born free'.
He also lost his aruguement.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.