Posted on 12/16/2003 1:15:09 PM PST by PeaRidge
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Gail Jarvis by Gail Jarvis
People who disagree with me often claim that my historical views do not conform with "modern" interpretations. For my enlightenment, they recommend "modern" history books, books written after the 1960s. However, one correspondent took the opposite approach insisting that I needed to read a book from the past, Uncle Tom's Cabin. Of course, like most of you, I read the book years ago when I was younger. And, although I thought I remembered it, I decided to read it again; this time slowly and analytically.
Its author, Harriet Beecher Stowe was the daughter, sister, and wife of ministers and fervent Abolitionists who used New England pulpits to passionately proselytize against slavery. So it is not surprising that she became an Abolitionist and wrote her influential novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Although the book is the most famous of all anti-slavery polemics, I suspect most people are not aware of many of the opinions held by its author.
In rereading her book, I was first struck by Mrs. Stowe insistence that slavery in the South was no worse than slavery in the North had been. Furthermore, Stowe did not condemn Southern plantation owners but rather placed the onus of slavery on the slave system itself; especially New England slave traders, New York bankers, and other Northern entrepreneurs who profited from slave commerce.
Writer and Civil Rights activist James Baldwin was incensed by her position, stating: "It was her object to show that the evils of slavery were the inherent evils of a bad system, and not always the fault of those who had become involved in it and were its actual administrators." To Baldwin this opinion was racist and abdicated slave owners of personal responsibility.
Civil rights activists were also irritated by Mrs. Stowe’s support of the American Colonization Society’s belief that slaves should be returned to Africa, support she shared with Abraham Lincoln.
Although an Abolitionist, Stowe belonged to the "gradual emancipation" school. She believed that slaves must receive at least a basic education before being freed. And she insisted that they be converted to Christianity. After these two conditions were met, they should be recolonized to Africa.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published two years after the Compromises of 1850. During a hectic two-month period, Congress enacted several laws designed to placate both pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions. The law that especially rankled Mrs. Stowe was the Fugitive Slave Act, which required that all run-away slaves be returned to their owners. She thought it was hypocrisy for Northern congressmen, who publicly condemned slavery, to enact the Compromises of 1850.
Harriet Beecher Stowe decided that she could make her point more dramatically by using a fiction format. Her goal was not to write the great American novel, but, like Charles Dickens, create sympathy for members of an underclass of society, slaves.
The character "Uncle Tom" grew up on the plantation of his first master, Mr. Shelby, a Southerner who was kindly disposed toward his slaves. In the course of events, Mr. Shelby incurs such large debts that he must either sell Tom, his most valuable slave, or sell all the others. This dilemma allows Mrs. Stowe to demonstrate how the economic realities of the slave system itself often precluded humanitarian considerations.
Uncle Tom’s second master, Mr. St. Clare, was also a Southerner and a compassionate slave owner. Mrs. Stowe uses St. Clare’s Vermont cousin, Miss Ophelia, to illustrate the Northern view of slavery. Miss Ophelia chastises St. Clare: "It’s a perfect abomination for you to defend such a system – you all do – all you southerners." But, annoyed by the slipshod manner in which the house servants conduct themselves; she calls them "shiftless." Miss Ophelia is also offended by the close companionship of St. Clare’s daughter, Little Eva, with Tom and the other slaves, which she deems inappropriate.
Uncle Tom’s third and final master is perhaps the most famous villain in American literature – Simon Legree: a New England Yankee. Legree amasses enough money pirating to purchase a plantation in Louisiana. As a plantation owner, he regularly beats, curses and abuses his slaves. In one of his beatings of Tom, Legree's rage boils over and he accidentally kills the noble slave.
Toward the end of the book, an escaped slave, George Harris, realizes he can now achieve his dream of joining the colony in Liberia: "Let me go to form part of a nation, which shall have a voice in the councils of nations, and then we can speak. We have the claim of an injured race for reparation. But, then, I do not want it. I want a country, a nation, of my own."
In a postscript to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe catalogues the evils of the slavery system and then addresses Southerners:
"The author hopes she has done justice to that nobility, generosity, and humanity which in many cases characterizes individuals at the South. Such instances save us from utter despair of our kind. To you, generous, noble-minded men and women of the South – you, whose virtue, and magnanimity, and purity of character are the greater for the severer trial it has encountered – to you is her appeal."
Next she turns her attention to Northerners:
"Do you say that the people of the free states have nothing to do with it? The people of the free states have defended, encouraged, and participated; and are more guilty for it, before God, than the South. There are multitudes of slaves temporarily owned, and sold again, by merchants in Northern cities; and shall the whole guilt or obloquy of slavery fall only on the South? Northern men, Northern mothers, Northern Christians, have something more to do than denounce their brethren at the South; they have to look to the evil among themselves."
Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published almost ten years before the War Between the States. Harriet Beecher Stowe did as much as anyone to encourage "gradual emancipation" of the New England sort..
December 16, 2003
Gail Jarvis [send him mail], a CPA living in Beaufort, SC, is an advocate of the voluntary union of states established by the founders.
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I think the Maryland legislature did reject secession.
Walt
In the Land o' Lincoln, after the WBTS, Illinois law required Blacks to post a $1,000 bond to enter the state or own property in the state. Assembling for the purpose of dancing or reveling carried a $20 fine.
Prior to the WTBS, an 1853 Illinois law effectively barred Black people from residing in the state. Lincoln never spoke out against this law.
Ward Hill Lamon, friend of Lincoln, said the Illinois Black Code was "of the most preposterous and cruel severity, -- a code that would have been a disgrace to a Slave state, and was simply an infamy in a free one. It borrowed the provisions of the most revolting laws known among men, for exiling, selling, beating, bedeviling, and torturing Negroes, whether bond or free."
The Illinois Black Code said that any Black found without a certificate of freedom was considered a runaway slave and could be apprehended by any White and auctioned off by the sheriff to pay the cost of his confinement.
There is no record of any Lincoln dissent to any of these Black Codes in his home state.
Article XIV of the Illinois State Constitution adopted in 1848 stated:
The General Assembly shall at its first session under the amended constitution pass such laws as will effectually prohibit free persons of color from immigrating to and settling in this state, and to effectually prevent the owners of slaves from bringing them into this state, for the purpose of setting them free."
The architect of "An Act To Prevent the Immigration of Free Negroes into the State" was John A. "Black Jack" Logan. Black Jack Logan was later named a Major General by Abraham Lincoln.
Ebony editor, author and Black historian, Lerone Bennett, Jr. documented how various newspapers condemned the Illinois laws. Frederick Douglass expressed his outrage. "What did Lincoln say? He didn't say a mumblin' word."
Abraham Lincoln, quoted by Jamin B. Raskin, Overruling Democracy, 2003, p. 117.
Quoting Lincoln is about as persuasive as quoting Clinton. The one with the Almight Ruler of Nations on its side will win. Yea, verily! Except when the bad guy wins.
[Walt] You went to a lot of trouble, but the fact is plain that President Lincoln thought the loyal southerners would assert themselves.
Lincoln was NOT that stupid. Was he?
[Walt] Very few people at the start expected a long war; this is pretty well accepted.
It WAS a long war. This is pretty well accepted. What went wrong?
[ONE]
The picturesque hills of New England were dotted with costly mansions, erected with money, of which the Southern planters had been despoiled, by means of the tariffs of which Mr. Benton spoke. Her harbors frowned with fortifications, constructed by the same means. Every cove and inlet had its lighthouse, for the benefit of New England shipping, three fourths of the expense of erecting which had been paid by the South, and even the cod, and mackerel fisheries of New England were bountied, on the bald pretext, that they were nurseries for manning the navy. The South resisted this wholesale robbery, to the best of her ability. Some few of the more generous of the Northern representatives in Congress came to her aid, but still she was overborne; and the curious reader, who will take the pains to consult the "Statutes at Large," of the American Congress, will find on an average,-a tariff for every five years recorded on their pages; the cormorants increasing in rapacity, the more they devoured. No wonder that Mr. Lincoln when asked, "why not let the South go?" replied, "Let the South go! where then shall we get our revenue?"
Admiral Raphael Semmes, Memoirs of Service Afloat, During the War Between The States, Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co., 1869, p. 59.
[TWO]
When asked, as President of the United States, "why not let the South go?" his simple, direct, and honest answer revealed one secret of the wise policy of the Washington Cabinet. "Let the South go!" said he, "where, then, shall we get our revenue?"
Albert Taylor Bledsoe, Is Davis a traitor; or, Was secession a constitutional right previous to the war of 1861?, Baltimore: Innes & Company, 1866, pp. 143-144.
[THREE]
Another effort was made to move Abraham Lincoln to peace. On the 22nd, a deputation of six members from each of the five Christian Associations of Young Men in Baltimore, headed by Dr. Fuller, and eloquent clergyman of the Baptist church, went to Washington and had an interview with the President. He received them with a sort of rude formality. Dr. Fuller said, that Maryland had first moved in adopting the constitution, and yet the first blood in this war was shed on her soil; he then interceded for a peaceful separation, entreated that no more troops should pass through Baltimore, impressed upun Mr. Lincoln the terrible responsibility resting on him - that on him depended peace or war - a fratricidal conflict or a happy settlement.
"But," said Lincoln, "what am I to do?"
"Let the country know that you are disposed to recognize the Southern Confederacy," answered Dr. Fuller, "and peace will instantly take the place of anxiety and suspense and war may be averted."
"And what is to become of the revenue?" rejoined Lincoln, "I shall have no government, no resources!"
Robert Reid Howison, History of the War, excerpted in Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. 34, Issue 8, August 1862, Richmond, VA., pp. 420-421.
[FOUR]
"But," said Mr. Lincoln, "what am I to do?" "Why, sir, let the country know that you are disposed to recognize the independance of the Southern States. I say nothing of secession; recognize the fact that they have formed a government of their own; that they will never be united again with the North, and and peace will instantly take the place of anxiety and suspense, and war may be averted."
"And what is to become of the revenue?" was the reply. "I shall have no government - no revenues."
Evert A. Duyckinck, National History of the War For the Union, Civil, Military and Naval. Founded on official and other authentic documents, New York: Johnson Fry & Co., 1861, Vol. I, p. 173.
[FIVE]
In 1861, if the erring sisters had been allowed to go in peace, was not the disturbing question of the hour: Whence is to come national revenue? Had not this very consideration much to do with the policy of coercion?
"Thus," said Mr. Lincoln, "if we allow the Southern States to depart from the Union, where shall we get the money with which to carry on the Government?"
James Battle Avirett, The Old Plantation: How We Lived in Great House and Cabin Before the War, New York: F. Tennyson Neely Co., 1901, p. 18.
[SIX]
It seems obvious that Lincoln's concern over secession, "What then will become of my tariff?" was a serious matter.
When in the Course of Human Events, Charles Adams, 2000, p. 27.
Footnoted to: Robert L. Dabny, Memoir of a Narrative Received of Colonel John B. Baldwin, in Secular (1897; reprint, Harrisburg, VA.: Sprinkle, 1994), 94, 100.
[SEVEN]
Reported in the Baltimore Sun 23 Apr 1861 edition.
[EIGHT]
The quote from Lincoln re: Revenues (meeting with Dr. Fuller) is also substantiated by Benson Lossing, in his "Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War: Journeys Through the Battlefields in the Wake of Conflict", Johns Hopkins Univ Press (Reprint edition), 1997, Vol. 1, p. 420 (reprinted 1997)
Still another embassy, in the interest of the secessionists of Baltimore, waited upon the President. These were delegates from five of the Young Men's Christian Associations of that city, with the Rev. Dr. fuller, of the Baptist Church, at their head. The President received them cordially, and treated them kindly. He met their propositions and their sophisms with Socratic reasoning. When Dr. Fuller assued him that he could produce peace if he would let the country know that he was "disposed to recognize the independence of the Southern States -- recognize the fact they they have formed a government of their own; and that they will never again be united with the North," the President asked, significantly, "and what is to become of the revenue?"
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Note: Most supporting sources originally provided by 4CJ on 28 July 2003 at LINK
Then why did you bother?
Increasing the size of the standing army violated the Constitution as you are very well aware.
Spending funds not authorized by Congress violated the Constitution as you are very well aware.
He could not lawfully take the actions he took without prior approval of Congress.
As you are well aware, he attempted to get Congress to retroactively approve all his un-Constitutional acts by having (Senate Resolution) SR-1 introduced in the Senate. It was crushed in debate and despite the efforts of his administration, it was never even brought to a vote. By the end of the session the opponents of the bill were clamoring for a vote and Lincoln's homestate Senator, Lyman Trumbull terminated the session and avoided an embarrassing vote.
It was a nice change of subject anyway, Walt. It still remains that Lincoln could convene an army but avoided convening Congress which he should have done. In the absence of Congressional approval, some of his actions were UN-Constitutional.
How so?
Gee Walt, do you mean that the commercial interests acted as charitable institutions and did not pass the expense on to the consumer?
The size of the standing army is set by statute.
Not even Lincoln tried to claim his actions were legal. Lincoln said, "These measures, whether strictly legal or not, were ventured upon, under what appeared to be a popular demand, and a public necessity; trusting, then as now, that Congress would readily ratify them."
Lincoln also said, "It is believed that nothing has been done beyond the constitutional competency of Congress."
Lincoln was not Congress. He possessed no competency of Congress and no authority to act as Congress.
Lincoln did not defend his actions on any legal basis, but claimed "popular demand" and "public necessity."
The Militia was not the standing army.
Who you trying to fool?
Walt
How dare Douglas be outraged! </sarcasm>
But Lincoln did ask Congress to legalize his actions ex post facto [which is unconstitutional], and even then they failed to legalize all of them. Lincoln had earlier stated that invasion of a state under any pretext was illegal, and had also said this 23 Jul 1856 in Galena,
"We, the majority, being able constitutionally to do all that we purpose, would have no desire to dissolve the Union. Do you say that such restriction of slavery would be unconstitutional and that some of the States would not submit to its enforcement? I grant you that an unconstitutional act is not a law; but I do not ask, and will not take your construction of the Constitution. The Supreme Court of the United States is the tribunal to decide such questions, and we will submit to its decisions; and if you do also, there will be an end of the matter. Will you? If not, who are the disunionists, you or we? We, the majority, would not strive to dissolve the Union; and if any attempt is made it must be by you, who so loudly stigmatize us as disunionists. But the Union, in any event, won't be dissolved. We don't want to dissolve it, and if you attempt it, we won't let you. With the purse and sword, the army and navy and treasury in our hands and at our command, you couldn't do it. This Government would be very weak, indeed, if a majority, with a disciplined army and navy, and a well-filled treasury, could not preserve itself, when attacked by an unarmed, undisciplined, unorganized minority.'All this talk about the dissolution of the Union is humbug---nothing but folly. We "WON'T" dissolve the Union, and you "SHAN'T".'" [italics in original, emphasis mine]
Abraham Lincoln, "Speech at Galena, Illinois", Collected Works Of Abraham Lincoln, Roy P. Basler, ed., New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953, Vol. II, pp. 354-355
I'm not trying to fool anybody, and you are not succeeding at fooling anybody.
The following is by one of your favorite Lincoln-loving authors, Daniel Farber, from Lincoln's Constitution at page 117-8.
Lincoln took other bold actions. He expanded the regular army by ten regiments and ordered the enlistment of eighteen thousand additional sailors. According to his proclamation, "The call for volunteers hereby made, and the direction for the increase of the regular army, and for the enlistment of seamen hereby given, together with the plan of organization, will be submitted to Congress as soon as assembled." (Oddly enough, this proclamation was the brainchild of Treasury secretary Chase, not Cameron from the War Department.) Lincoln also directed the Navy to purchase and arm fifteen steamboats.... Finally, he authorized the treasury to advance two million dollars to a New York group (John Dix, George Opdyke, and Richard Blatchford), who were instructed to make such payments "as should be directly consdquent upon the military and naval measures necessary for the defense and support of the government." Lincoln bypassed normal government channels and used private citizens for these payments because he feared that much of the bureaucracy was disloyal, Washington being much more of a Southern town than it is today."
See Farber at page 136-7
"This brings us to the third category, presidential actions contrary to the expressed will of Congress. Lincoln's unilateral call for volunteers to join the regular military (as opposed to state militias) is not easy to defend constitutionally. Article I gives Congress, not the president, the power to raise armies. That authority, like the power to declare war, was a royal power that the constitution deliberately gave to the legislature rather than the executive. It is hard to think of a check moreimportant than that the commander in chief of the army lacks the power to decide how large the army should be. Lincoln's unauthorized uses of federal funds are even harder to defend constitutionally. He did not claim that any existing appropriations law could be read to justify his diversion of federal funds into private hands in aid of the war effort. With the possible exception of Midwest Oil, where the Court found implicit authorization in a long history of prior congressional acquiescence, the Supreme Court has never upheld a presidential claim to take emergency action in violation of statute.... On balance, Lincoln's transfers of federal funds are probably best regarded as unconstitutional.... Lincoln's actions on their face violated explicit constitutional language. Article I, section 9 provides that "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law."
You must mean Emergency War Powers. Don't be bashful. Here is a link to, and a few quotes from, Senate Report No. 93-549.
Senate Report 93-549and on and on and on for 607 pages. Look at the INTRODUCTION:
War and Emergency Powers ActsFrom data available on the web.
93d Congress
1st Session
Senate Report No. 93-549EMERGENCY POWERS STATUTES:
PROVISIONS OF FEDERAL LAW
NOW IN EFFECT DELEGATING TO THE
EXECUTIVE EXTRAORDINARY AUTHORITY
IN TIME OF NATIONAL EMERGENCY-----------------------------------------------------------
REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON THE
TERMINATION OF THE NATIONAL EMERGENCY
UNITED STATES SENATE
NOVEMBER 19, 1973
-----------------------------------------------------------
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 1973
24-509 O
-----------------------------------------------------------
SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON THE
TERMINATION OF THE NATIONAL EMERGENCYFRANK CHURCH, Idaho Co-Chairman
PHILIP A. HART, Michigan
CLAIBORNE PELL, Rhode Island
ADLAI E. STEVENSON III, Illinois
CHARLES McC MATHIAS, Jr., Maryland
CLIFFORD P. CASE, New Jersey
JAMES B. PEARSON, Kansas
CLIFFORD P. HANSEN, WyomingWILLIAM G. MILLER, Staff Director
THOMAS A. DINE, Professional Staff
II
-----------------------------------------------------------
FOREWORD
-----------------------------------------------------------
Since March 9, 1933, the United States has been in a state of declared national emergency. In fact, there are now in effect four presidentially-proclaimed states of national emergency: In addition to the national emergency declared by President Roosevelt in 1933, there are also the national emergency proclaimed by President Truman on December 16, 1950, during the Korean conflict, and the states of national emergency declared by President Nixon on March 23, 1970, and August 15, 1971.
These proclamations give force to 470 provisions of Federal law. These hundreds of statutes delegate to the President extraordinary powers, ordinarily exercised by the Congress, which affect the lives of American citizens in a host of all-encompassing manners. This vast range of powers, taken together, confer enough authority to rule the country without reference to normal Constitutional processes.
Under the powers delegated by these statutes, the President may: seize property; organize and control the means of production; seize commodities; assign military forces abroad; institute martial law; seize and control all transportation and communication; regulate the operation of private enterprise; restrict travel; and, in a plethora of particular ways, control the lives of all American citizens.
Mr. MATHIAS (for Mr. CHURCH) as co-chairman of the Special Committee on the Termination of the National Emergency, submitted the followingREPORT
[Pursuant to S. Res. 9, 93d Cong.]
INTRODUCTION-----------------------------------------------------------
A - A BRIEF HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE ORIGINS
OF EMERGENCY POWERS NOW IN FORCEA majority of the people of the United States have lived all of their lives under emergency rule. For 40 years, freedoms and governmental procedures guaranteed by the Constitution have, in varying degrees, been abridged by laws brought into force by states of national emergency. The problem of how a constitutional democracy reacts to great crises, however, far antedates the Great Depression. As a philosophical issue, its origins reach back to the Greek city-states and the Roman Republic. And, in the United States, actions taken by the Government in times of great crises have-from, at least, the Civil War-in important ways, shaped the present phenomenon of a permanent state of national emergency.
Actually I was thinking of the Militia Acts, since the Emergency War Powers Acts were passed long after President Lincoln was dead. Nice cut-n-paste, though.
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