Revisionist History: What If the South Had Won the Civil War? (Editorial)

Spetember 26, 2004 | Gary L. Livacari

[stand watie]

you're wasting your time. "heyworth the hateful" seemingly incapable of understanding such complicated concepts. (i strongly suspect that "his correspondent",Dr Lubar was PATRONIZING him as he would have a backward child.)

what he IS good at is parroting (ad nauseum) the drivel & bilge promulgated by the most extreme, leftist, REVISIONIST, south-HATING, poison-ivy league academic elitists. (most of the same damnyankee apologists also hate the USA, btw. i wonder if he knows that???)

free dixie,sw

[nolu chan]

[Heyworth #100] You apparently seem to believe that the DeBow's number is from the 1860 census. It is not. It is from the 1850 census.

[Heyworth #98] That means the 1860 census results showing 30.8% of white households in the seceding states were also slaveholding households is correct, right?

I was just answering the question that was asked. If -you- meant the 1850 census, perhaps you should not have said the -1860- census.

[Heyworth]

My point is that, if it's actual enumerations that you're accepting, the figures from the 1860 census should be as acceptable as those from 1850, which you've already accepted.

[Heyworth]

(i strongly suspect that "his correspondent",Dr Lubar was PATRONIZING him as he would have a backward child.)

You could always write to him yourself and see. I told him you might.

Do you need his e-mail address?

I'm still wondering why you said he was the agricultural curator, though.

[nolu chan]

[Heyworth #100] So DeBow is talking about the 1850 census, which was not as detailed, forcing DeBow to his calculated estimate. Whether that estimate is accurate, however, is irrelevant if we're only counting the actual enumeration and considering it academically acceptable, as you've said.

What I actually said in my #97, which you incorrectly paraphrased, was:

DeBow gives the enumerated figure of 347,255 persons as being slave-holders. That is the only slave-holder figure given by DeBow which may withstand scrutiny as "academically-acceptable evidence."

I did not say the enumerated figure was academically acceptable. I said it was the only figure provided by DeBow which "may withstand scrutiny as 'academically-acceptable evidence.'" It is the only figure provided by DeBow which meets the threshhold where it deserves to be considered and scrutinized.

The census is well known to be notoriously inaccurate. How many illegal aliens would you estimate were missed in the most recent census, using the most modern methods of census taking?

Recall that DeBow simply assumed the enumerated number to be correct.

[Heyworth #100] DeBow's 1854 report on the 1850 census cited a number of shortcomings in the methodology of counting slaves and slaveowners, and his suggestions were incorporated into the 1860 census.

You said you had provided "academically-accepted evidence" of a particular statistic. Here you present an allegation with nothing to back it up. It may be accurate, it may not be. No evidence was provided of what was, or was not, incoporated into the 1860 census, nor was any evidence presented to show that the 1860 census numbers were imbued with an accuracy which seeming has escaped all other census results.

[Heyworth #100] That census yields much more detail, including the number of free white households and slaveholders. While you can search the database I linked to above, here's the relevant results on a nice table:

What -I- am discussing and addressing is the Heyworth assertion that "I've [Heyworth] posted academically-accepted evidence that about 30% of southern FAMILIES owned slaves...."

That is discussing the posting of academically-accepted evidence, past-tense. It is supposedly already posted. We are not now on a quest to find it somewhere off in cyberworld or at the Library of Congress or elsewhere. You asserted you had, past tense, posted academically-accepted evidence. That is evidence you have already posted which has already been accepted academically as evidence proving your specifically stated assertion, i.e., "about 30% of southern families owned slaves."

All you need do is provide the link or links to where Heyworth posted, (prior to Heyworth #58 posted on 10/04/2004 11:44:23 AM CDT on this thread) what has been academically-accepted as evidence that about 30% of southern families owned slaves.

Where is the evidence that you posted, past tense, to prove your point, which was academically accepted, past tense?

Thread: A Free (And Christian) South Carolina?

9/14/2004 #348 to sw "I can show scholarly analysis all day, as well as contemporary sources like DeBow to support my claim that about a third of sourthern families owned slaves."

[nc] Maybe you can, and maybe you can't, but saying you can do it is not doing it. It is like Bill Clinton's modest middle-class tax cut.

9/13/2004 #346 to sw "What a laugh. Would you like me to post links to about 5000 genealogy links giving 1860 census records?"

[nc] A question implying the existence of 5,000 or 1 million unprovided links is not evidence.

Ibid. "Slaves were owned by the head of the household. Multiply by average family size of 5-6 to get number of families."

This contains no evidence and a false assumption. This assumes all households to include only one adult male.

Slaves could be owned by other than the head of the household. Four bachelor brothers could form a household and each own slaves. Adult male children could own slaves. A Northern congressman in Massachusetts could own slaves held to service in the South.

There appears to be no enumerated number of families. Multiplying households does not yield families. It yields multiple households. The terminology should remain consistent.

Ibid. "I've done some investigating and find that there's nothing out there indicating that the 1860 census is any more flawed than any other census."

[nc] Kudos for your claimed investigation. However, saying you investigated is not evidence.

[nc] Saying the 1860 census is no more flawed than other census is not very high praise. Using the most modern methods, how many illegal aliens were not counted in the 2000 census? How accurate was the 2000 census? In general, census figures are not very reliable.

Ibid. You provide an extensive quote of DeBow to support your point.

[nc] I just destroyed his methodology and demonstrated that his speech was not an academic paper, but a deliberately slanted propaganda effort in support of secession.

[foreverfree]

Wouldn’t a period of gradual emancipation – which many Southern leaders were favoring by the 1860’s, although with terms not to be dictated by the North

Hey Gary, where did you read *that*? That's news to me.

ff

[stand watie]

mt GUESS (and that's what it is), based on >25 years of research, is that chattel slavery would have died out in 5-10 years due to advances/improvements to agriculture AND that "emancipation" would NOT have been "gradual" or "pretty".

i suspect absent TWBTS that one day slaveowners (both north & south)would have simply said to "their people",

"i can't afford you anymore;there's nothing here for you. there's the road. get on it & don't come back."

persons in society act in what they believe to be their OWN self-interest. also, anyone immoral enough to "trade in human flesh" would not have been "decent" about emancipation. (i am NOT an admirer of OR apologist for the plantation aristocracy! especially given the fact that all too many of the slavers COLLOBORATED with our enemies during the first war for dixie independence.)

free dixie,sw

[Heyworth]

The simplest way to show that those census figures are academically accepted is to show how many academics cite them. There's the link to the table I gave above showing the results of the 1860 census, offered by Prof. Benson of Furman University in South Carolina. http://alpha.furman.edu/~benson/docs/shfam60.htm

Here's Prof. Hansen at Virginia Western Community College linking to them: http://www.vw.vccs.edu/vwhansd/HIS121/Census.html

WIlma Dunaway at Virginia Tech uses the 1860 data. http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:dar1FbN1CEAJ:scholar.lib.vt.edu/faculty_archives/mountain_slavery/3tab.pdf+%221860+census%22+slaveholders&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Then of course, there's the University of Virginia, with its database of the census. http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/censusbin/census/cen.pl?year=860

Princeton University cites the 1860 census statistics. http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:Rj2WmbAsS1QJ:pup.princeton.edu/chapters/s7553.pdf+%221860+census%22+slaveholders&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

So, as you can see, the 1860 census statistics are repeated cited by academics for teaching purposes. If that isn't the test for "academically accepted" I don't know what is.

Are the census statistics dead-on accurate? Of course not. No census is. But it is the best source available. It's widely used by the government for any number of functions, not the least of which is the allocation of congressmen. Of course there's margin of error, but as Benson's footnote points out, the errors in the count most likely effectively cancel out.

Naturally, and as I've said before, if you've got some other numbers from another source than the US census, I'd be very happy to see them. But for you to claim that the census is so wrong that it can't be taken as correct within a reasonable margin of error is just plain wrong.

[Darth Gill]

Ping - what a fascinating discussion!!!!

[capitan_refugio]

Southern historian William C. Davis, in his book The Cause Lost: Myths and Realities of the Confederacy, discusses the hypothetical McClellan victory in 1864. He discusses it in Chapter 8, "The Turning Point That Wasn't: The confederates and the Election of 1864."

The bottom line is that McClellan was not the "peace" candidate. He disavowed the peace platform. There no way that McClellan, an egotist of colossal proportions, would have sued for peace given the overwhelming position of the North, even if Meade had failed to win at Gettysburg. The far west was already in Union control. The Trans-Mississippi was not of strategic importance. The campaign in the mid-south was going - well - smashingly.

The fact of the matter was that the south never sucessfully sustained an offensive in Northern territory, and even with a "victory on day 3" at Gettysburg, the Army of Northern Virgina was through. Their losses during the first two days of the battle were irreplacable.

Militarily and politically, it was all but over for the south by July 1863.

[nolu chan]

[Heyworth #108] The simplest way to show that those census figures are academically accepted is to show how many academics cite them. There's the link to the table I gave above showing the results of the 1860 census, offered by Prof. Benson of Furman University in South Carolina. http://alpha.furman.edu/~benson/docs/shfam60.htm

[Heyworth #108] Here's Prof. Hansen at Virginia Western Community College linking to them: http://www.vw.vccs.edu/vwhansd/HIS121/Census.html

This position is ludicrous, as I shall demonstrate below. Citing something does not connote agreement or acceptance of it. Moreover, looking at what the citing source says may be relevant as more than adequately demonstrated below. Should you choose to accept the Virginia Westerm Community College table as authoritative, I am proud of you. You have seen the light. (Or you have not bothered to look at your source material.)

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http://www.vw.vccs.edu/vwhansd/HIS121/Census.html

This link goes to a page with the following title and lists ten (10) hyperlinked tables.

Directly relevant to our discussion is Table 4:

TABLE 4. SLAVES AND SLAVEHOLDERS IN 1860 (SOUTH)

HIS 121/269 Research Document
U.S. Census Data on Slavery in America

TABLE 1. SLAVE POPULATION BY STATE IN 1790 (US)
TABLE 2. SLAVE POPULATION BY STATE IN 1850 (US)
TABLE 3. SLAVES AND IMMIGRANTS IN 1860 (US)
TABLE 4. SLAVES AND SLAVEHOLDERS IN 1860 (SOUTH)
TABLE 5. SLAVE CONCENTRATION IN 1860 (SOUTH)
TABLE 6. MANUFACTURING IN 1860 (US)
TABLE 7. SECESSION AND SLAVERY IN 1861 (SOUTH)
TABLE 8. COLORED PERSONS 1860-1870 (SOUTH)
TABLE 9. COLORED PERSONS IN 1870 (US)
TABLE 10. COLORED PERSONS 1860-1880 (US)

[nc - boldface added]

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http://www.vw.vccs.edu/vwhansd/HIS121/Census1860T4.html

Going to the link to TABLE 4, we get the following page, shown below in full by JPEG image.

HIS 121/269 Research Document
Census Table 4. Slaves and Slaveholders in 1860

The following notation appears:

This table reveals that despite the large number of slaveholders in some states, even in major
slave states like Mississippi, South Carolina and Virginia, they were less than 10% of the free population.

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CENSUS TABLE 4 AT THE LINKED PAGE

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[r9etb]

A hint for you: calling somebody a "damnyankee" is a sure way to make people think that your IQ is less than the number of your teeth -- and also that you haven't got many teeth left.

You're simply spouting opinions again. You have yet to address the documented facts I have presented.

[stand watie]

another hint for you ====>making hateful, stereotypical comments/slurs like the "teeth" one makes EVERYONE here question your IQ,education & your lack of manners.(usually, persons down here that make those sort of comments are considered STUPID, as well as arrogantly IGNORANT.)

identifying someone as a damnyankee in the southland is NOT considered "namecalling", but rather is an identity term for generally-recognised characteristics of certain humans, who have the MISfortune of being HATERS.

being northernborn no more condemns a person to being a damnyankee than it forces one to become a Methodist.

"damnyankee" is a LEARNED, UNthinking prejudice against the southland, her people & her separate culture.

SADLY, the more i read of your drivel, the closer i am to identifying you as a damnyankee.

free dixie,sw

[r9etb]

You do your cause no good. I suggest that you would best serve it by saying nothing at all.

[r9etb]

I guess the question still remains: how does one define "slave-holder" in the context of the figures you've presented? Are "free persons" counted as the same population as "slave-holders," or is there some difference in definition between them?

Is a "slave-holder" defined as the single person in whose name all property was listed? And, if so, are we asked to accept that the owner's family is not included among the class of "slave-holders?"

Or are we defining "slave-holders" as all members of a family that owned slaves?

You'll agree that it's an important distinction, as the relative percentages are tightly bound to the definitions used to produce the figures you cited.

I suspect that the "slave-holder" figures refer to those who held actual title to the slaves. This does not alter the fact, however, that in some sense the slave-holders' families were in some sense also slave-owners, who gained from the property held by the head of their family.

In this latter case, if we assume an average family size of four (a number I'm pulling out of thin air), then Virginia's 52,128 slave-holders expands to roughly 200,000 slave-owners, which places the percentage closer to 20% of the total population.

Only if we define "slave-holder" as being all members of a slave-owning family, do the percentages cited make sense.

So ... how are we to define slave-holder? Does Prof. Hansen bother to define his figures?

[capitan_refugio]

"... how does one define "slave-holder" in the context of the figures you've presented?"

In the 1860 census, only one slave-holder per household was counted. "Slave-holding families" represented about 30-35% of the white population in the slave-holding states, and a much higher figure in the deep south, cotton states.

[nolu chan]

[r9etb #115] Does Prof. Hansen bother to define his figures?

This is a table apparently by Prof. Hansen dated 09/02. At the bottom he notes: "How to read this chart: Virginia joined the CSA on April 17,1861; according to the 1860 census, the state had 490,865 slaves (30.7% of the state's total population) and 52,128 slaveholders (4.7% of the state's free population). ... Refer to CENSUS DATA for more statistical information."

LINK

[nc note: The below is not an image file. It is a recreation of the table at the link. For precise viewing of the table, see the link.]

HIS 121/269 Research Document
Census Table 7. Secession Date and Slave Popluation (1860)

State	Secession Date	Slaves (S)	S %=20 of Total Pop.	Slave- holders (SH)	SH=20 %-of free persons
S.Carolina	12/20/60	402,406	57.2	26,701	8.9
Mississippi	1/09/61	436,631	55.2	30,943	8.7
Florida	1/10/61	61,745	44.0	5,152	6.5
Alabama	1/11/61	435,080	45.1	33,730	6.4
Georgia	1/18/61	462,198	43.7	41,084	6.9
Louisiana	1/26/61	331,726	46.9	22,033	5.9
Texas	2/1/61	182,566	30.2	21,878	5.2
Virginia	4/17/61	490,865	30.7	52,128	4.7
Arkansas	5/6/61	111,115	25.5	11,481	3.5
N.Carolina	5/20/61	331,059	33.4	34,658	5.2
Tennessee	6/8/61	275,719	24.8	36,844	4.4
Kentucky	NA	225,483	19.5	38,645	4.2
Maryland	NA	87,189	12.7	13,783	2.3
Missouri	NA	114,931	9.7	24,320	2.3

---

How to read this chart: Virginia joined the CSA on April 17,1861; according to the 1860
census, the state had 490,865 slaves (30.7% of the state's total population) and 52,128
slaveholders (4.7% of the state's free population). The Confederacy was formed by
seven states on February 8, 1861; Ft. Sumter was attacked on April 12; four more states
joined the CSA after Lincoln called for volunteers on April 15. In short, the percentage of
slaves and slaveholders generally correlates with the sequence of secession. Refer to
CENSUS DATA for more statistical information.

NA = Not Applicable (border states that did not join the Confederacy)

LH 09/02

---

[nolu chan]

Ignore the "= 20" which appears twice in the headings.

[nolu chan]

[r9etb] I guess the question still remains: how does one define "slave-holder" in the context of the figures you've presented? Are "free persons" counted as the same population as "slave-holders," or is there some difference in definition between them?

"Free persons" would be those persons not counted as slaves. It may include non-Whites.

"Slave-holders" would include anyone who held one or more slaves to service.

You are not asked to accept anything. These are census figures. I did not create them or modify them. The census recorded what data it chose to record and that is all we have.

Probably you own a motor vehicle. Are your children motor vehicle owners?

Julia Dent Grant owned slaves. Did that make Ulysses S. Grant a slaveowner?

According to Allen C. Guelzo, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, p. 23, "from 1850 until 1862, Lincoln and his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, were embroiled in litigation in Kentucky over the settlement of the estate of Mary's father, litigation that net­ted the Lincolns a share in the proceeds of selling the Todd family slaves." When Mary Todd Lincoln's father died, she obtained property interest in the family slaves. Did this make Abraham Lincoln a slaveowner?

[r9etb] Or are we defining "slave-holders" as all members of a family that owned slaves?

There is insufficient data to make any valid determination of the number of family members in addition to each slave-holder. The census counted individual slave-holders. That is the data that is available.

[r9etb] You'll agree that it's an important distinction, as the relative percentages are tightly bound to the definitions used to produce the figures you cited.

I would disagree that the "slave-holder" figure necessarily refers to those who held actual title to the slaves. For example, Massachusetts Congressman Chaffee and his wife, Irene Sanford Emerson Chaffee held actual title to Dred Scott and his wife and two children. Whomever held Dred Scott and his family to service in Missouri may well have been counted as a slave-holder, as distinguished from the holder of the actual title.

[r9etb] This does not alter the fact, however, that in some sense the slave-holders' families were in some sense also slave-owners, who gained from the property held by the head of their family.

In much the same sense that your infant child would be considered a motor vehicle owner and a homeowner.

The census recorded no such statistic. I should like to remind that the issue to which I have dissented is the claim that "academically-accepted evidence" had been (past tense) presented to show that a claimed percentage of Southern families were slaveowners. There is no such census statistic. There is insufficient data to accurately derive such a statistic.

[r9etb] In this latter case, if we assume an average family size of four (a number I'm pulling out of thin air), then Virginia's 52,128 slave-holders expands to roughly 200,000 slave-owners, which places the percentage closer to 20% of the total population.

The average family size for the general population was approximately 5.6. This does not establish that a subset of the general population, comprised of privileged elite wealthy slaveholders had an average family size of 5.6. Their family size may well have been 4.0. There is no statistical data upon which to accurately determine this figure.

In simply multiplying by (arbitrary) family size, the resulting figure purports that infant children are slaveholders. If we were to eliminate minor children, the number would shrink markedly. It might well be that an adult child was given ownership of a slave upon reaching the age of majority. There is simply no data recorded to inform us of how many adult children of slaveholders were also slaveholders. (General Grant's father-in-law apparently gave him a slave.)

Multiplying the number of slave-holders by 4 yields 4 times the number of slave-holders. Multiplying the number of apples by 4 does not yield the number of oranges.

[r9etb] Only if we define "slave-holder" as being all members of a slave-owning family, do the percentages cited make sense.

No. Defining all members of a slave-owning family as slave-holders makes sense only to the extent that a one-month old infant girl should be counted as a slave-owner. Assuming you own your own home, it would not be sensible to count your one-month old daughter as a home-owner.

Virginia had 1,105,453 free persons. It had 52,128 slaveholders. And it had 4.7% slaveholders as a per cent of free persons. Divide 52,128 by 1,105,453 and you get 0.0471553 or 4.7%.

The census data table clearly states what the percentage statistic is. It represents the percentage of free persons (individuals) who were slaveholders.

The census recorded individual slaveholders. It recorded the total number of free persons. It did not record the total number of persons per slaveholding family. It did not record how many families contained more than one slaveholder.

[r9etb] So ... how are we to define slave-holder?

The census data clearly considers it to be an individual who holds slaves to service.