Posted on 07/07/2015 3:17:08 AM PDT by dennisw
In 1860 only a small minority of whites owned slaves. According to the U.S. census report for that last year before the Civil War, there were nearly 27 million whites in the country. Some eight million of them lived in the slaveholding states.
The census also determined that there were fewer than 385,000 individuals who owned slaves (1). Even if all slaveholders had been white, that would amount to only 1.4 percent of whites in the country (or 4.8 percent of southern whites owning one or more slaves).
The rare instances when the ownership of slaves by free Negroes is acknowledged in the history books, justification centers on the claim that black slave masters were simply individuals who purchased the freedom of a spouse or child from a white slaveholder and had been unable to legally manumit them. Although this did indeed happen at times, it is a misrepresentation of the majority of instances, one which is debunked by records of the period on blacks who owned slaves. These include individuals such as Justus Angel and Mistress L. Horry, of Colleton District, South Carolina, who each owned 84 slaves in 1830. In fact, in 1830 a fourth of the free Negro slave masters in South Carolina owned 10 or more slaves; eight owning 30 or more (2).
According to federal census reports, on June 1, 1860 there were nearly 4.5 million Negroes in the United States, with fewer than four million of them living in the southern slaveholding states. Of the blacks residing in the South, 261,988 were not slaves. Of thisnumber, 10,689 lived in New Orleans. The country's leading African American historian, Duke University professor John Hope Franklin, records that in New Orleans over 3,000 free Negroes owned slaves, or 28 percent of the free Negroes in that city.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
You do realize that whatever device you're writing this on was made on one of those same Chinese production lines, right?
interesting - I spent some time in the Caribbean islands 60’s and 70’s and a put down was when on native said to another “you black,” meaning he had darker skin therefore was inferior in some way.
A number of years ago some college professor in the US lost his job when he published a paper which claimed, in part, that the Caribbean blacks were physically the better slaves in some way (can’t recall the thesis). Down there they will tell you it is true. The slave ships which had money to purchase supplies, instead would sell their human cargo down island to buy supplies and pocket the supply money telling the owner the slaves died in route and thrown overboard. The island plantation owner would choose the men with the best physiques for working and the women who would be the best producers - large hips and breasts) (as you would buy cattle). Until the missionaries arrived the slaves were not allowed to marry. The cargo remaining was sold in Georgia and South Carolina. So I was told several times by native island bar tenders. I was not a tourist while down there.
For later
As I recall the original Declaration of Independence did have language that all men would be free but the Continental Congress removed it so that the slave states would sign it.
“We guys” weren’t even a state during the civil War. “We guys” (some of my family) came from Virginia by way of Canada. I have ancestors who fought on either side of the conflict. A conflict that ended 150 years ago.
THIS is the type of data that makes Free Republic the best site for conservatives to visit to get FACTS. Bravo for posting this most informative piece!
Understand that. But today’s geographical attitudes still reflect attitudes of those days in some way. Particularly where the aftermath of the North’s ‘benevolence’ can still be seen today.
This business “congress” deciding is BS and a cop out, frankly. The signees should have been able to remove themselves by voting on it themselves.
A “union” is not a union if all the participants aren’t agreeable. To suggest that Congress, an implication of majority, should have the final say so is absurd. That isn’t freedom; it is tyranny.
Which is sort of like saying that the benefit an extortion victim receives is that he gets to continue living.
I grew up in the north with a “traditional” education about the civil war.
I understand the position of states rights, and as I got older and give it two seconds of thought, it was pretty clear that owning a slave was an expensive proposition. I think the part of our education that was lacking significantly was the part where students were taught to “think about slavery” aside from the slave trader stories and the exchange of slaves for the production of rum.
From my own family, I have one side who were dedicated Vermont civil war vets. The story coming down from that side tells us that they were loyal union citizens who wanted to perserve the union and fight against slavery. This comes from family folk history.
Of course, they were pretty simple folk and they did what they were told, and believed in their “patriotic” duty. I am sure they stood across the field with men with whom they had much more in common—poor, farmers, doing what they were told.
The other side of my family was industrialists. They made hundreds of thousands of dollars selling arms and blankets from their mills in Holyoke MA and their armories in New Haven. I can assure you, their treatment of their own immigrant factory workers was only this much (holding my fingers about 1/16th of an inch apart) better than slaves. In fact, after 16 hours of work, my forefathers probably did not a give a $hit their people got fed. Slave owners did.
So, my perspective on the civil war from a familial side differs greatly from the average northerner. My family grew up having access to a portion of an estate that was pretty significant in the 1870’s. I still own 3.5 acres of that estate—five generations removed.
My grandparents (born in the 1890s) were the first of their families to go to college—certainly the sign of an “upper crust” family. By the time my parents came around, the money was gone but not the upper class snobbery. My mom still shows signs of it once in a while as she slides into dementia as she approaches 90 years old.
The lesson of the civil war to me, as I approach my late fifties, is that there was a group of northern industrialists who made a ton of money off from the civil war, sending my fathers ancestors south to fight for something they did not feel THAT strongly about.
The older, more politically savvy member of my generation looks at the southern part of this just as cynically. I believe that the average southern counterpart of my father’s family was doing what they were told, they saw the potential economic collapse of their “system” and they probably had some fear of having to “compete” with the lower class “negro”, whom they considered an inferior race.
On the aristocratic side—more along the lines of my John Parker Lindsay character (Gun maker and inventor)—you saw the economnic class of the south (the slaveholders) fearing for the loss of their fortunes.
As it has been since the dawn of man, the fight was over one side wanting what the other side had.
I think the “fight to free the slaves” was a good rallying cry as the battles went on and the thought process of the front line men turned to, “Why the hell am I 1,500 miles from home shooting up some guy and burning his home.” It gave the Union “moral cover.”
In the end, my great, great, great grandfather JPL settled down with his riches and lived off his investments and his large farm in Vermont. In the late 70’s his name, and his descendents names on my college application made me a legacy. I got into my college in three days from application to acceptance.
So, I benefited from my families profiteering from the civil war almost directly. It has been part of my family’s lore since I can remember.
But, bringing this back to the article in question, I understand the point about not everyone owning slaves. Anyone with a sixth grade education understands that owning slaves was a rich man’s game.
I understand the economics of the south and how they were used. I understand at the time slavery was a “norm.”
But the Congregationalist Yankee conservative nature of my moral upbringing just cannot conceive of anyone thinking it was OK to buy and sell another human. I probably would have been a disappointment to my forefathers. I can see myself being an abolitionist. In fact, I see myself as one now—longing for the yoke of slavery to the state being lifted from my shoulders.
Long post, but that’s how I came to my thinking on the civil war.
This is a point I make constantly. It wasn't "the bible" that abolished slavery, it was specifically Christianity with it's principle that we are all children of God and therefore equal in his eyes.
It is the ascendency of Christian ideas which destroyed slavery in Western Civilization. Of course it's still being practice by Muslims and for some strange reason our moral outrage doesn't extend to the point of doing anything about it, but then again, they weren't trying to break away from the rule of Washington D.C.
Western Civ, based on the Bible and classical civilization, was the first civilization in history to reject the idea of slavery and develop notions of inherent human rights. Never crossed the mind of any other civilization.
Exactly right. In fact, slavery is a NECESSARY consequence of Islamic teachings. Islam means "Submission."
I also make this argument quite often. Researching the Natural Born Citizen issue led me back to the Declaration of Independence as the source of both US Citizenship, and the trigger for the Abolition movement that swept the US as a result of those words in the Declaration.
The Declaration started the Nation, AND started the Abolition movement here.
Thanks! Clarification is needed. I want some too about the Civil War and slavery.
Slavery was not a reason why they fought the war? Call the Newspapers! People need to be informed!
If they didn't fight the war to end slavery, why then did they fight the war?
Black men who owned slaves also existed, and I expect in greater numbers than did the Simon Legrees.
Your comment does nothing to address the fact that Simon Legree was a piece of very successful propaganda designed to drive social change, and it did so by causing massive upheaval.
Modern Liberals used coat hangers to represent back alley abortions when they argued for legalization, and in subsequent defense of it. This was their version of "Simon Legree."
That it was true only in a very few cases makes no difference to the cause. They will topple the 99% to rationalize that other 1%.
I'm thinking they aren't the sort of figures for which people would want records kept. This is the sort of thing one does in the dark so as to avoid the moral opprobrium directed at himself by his neighbors and fellow abolitionists.
Some of it could possibly be reconstructed from existing records, but I think a pretty good statistical reconstruction could simply be had by assuming most previously held slaves were sold in the South.
Not anymore, they had already made their money off of them. This aspect of their existence is analogous to the Hydro electric power I mentioned. People who no longer need fossil fuels want to condemn those who still use them. Same thing with Slaves.
The problem was not that slavery would be easy to get rid of. Every reasonable person agreed it would not be easy. Lincoln stated many times that it would be very difficult.
Nobody wants to cut their income stream, even if it is derived in an ill gotten manner. Yes, convincing people that their income stream needs to go, and that they don't get to feed themselves off of the work of others, is a very difficult sale. We've been trying to get Washington D.C. to do it, but it hasn't been working so far. If anything the problem is getting worse.
That’s what Republicans objected to and to support which the original seven states seceded.
Granting that assertion, it doesn't impinge upon their right to leave as expressed by the Declaration of Independence. If they practiced polygamy, incest and gay marriage, they still had a right to leave, and people didn't have a right to stop them simply because they disagreed with their morality.
My point is that the most important principle involved here is not the morality of those seeking to exercise a right, but that their rights were violated by using their bad morality as an excuse for depriving them of their rights.
Their rights do not hinge upon their morality. They can be immoral, yet still be entitled to their rights.
The South Joined with the US voluntarily. As with the manner it was joined, so should it have been allowed to leave.
I attempted once to come up with some numbers from census data. Number of free blacks and slaves in the census before emancipation versus that in the next census.
Got bogged down. Not sure the method is usable. Too many unpredictable variables.
Most people don’t know that in most northern states emancipation was gradual. At least the northeastern states. The midwest states were born free. At least in theory.
If I remember correctly NJ still had a very few slaves in 1860.
Large Industrialized farms, who now do similar things with massive amounts of machinery and huge acreages. They are not at all like the Average farmer, and indeed are more upper 1% types.
150 years later, white people and black people both look back and see slavery, but they tend to see very different impressions of it. And both are correct.
I disagree with your opinion of the cause for which the DoI justified rebellion. It was indeed justified as a moral cause, for the expansion of liberty, not for any random reason they might come up with.
Divorce for cause, if you will, not divorce at pleasure.
The DoI was simply not about whether they had a “right” to rebel and, if successful, be independent. It was t show why their rebellion was moral and justified.
IMO, a rebellion specifically intended to prevent the spread of liberty is in direct contradiction with the principles of the DoI, not in agreement with it.
Ah, you got the joke. Glad someone did. :)
Everybody believed it would just fade away. So they simply let the sleeping dog lie, on the theory he would just die in his sleep.
It would have but for Massachusetts Yankee Eli Whitney. He flipped the profitability equation.
Had he not made it so economically viable, it would likely have succumbed to the social and moral forces that were sweeping it away elsewhere.
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