Originally posted by Bunyon:
I have no reason to assume that my ancestor's had in intrest in slavery. It would have seemed normal to them I am sure, but did they support it. That is quite and assumption. It is like that line in the north and south when the Idelisitic northern soldier tells the confederate he is fighting for slavery, and the confederates says, "I ant't fighten for no Darkies, I'm fighten for my rights". I think slavery was a non issue for alot of the nation until late in the war, but I am sure the average dirt poor southerner could care less one way or the other about an intitution that was only a part of the aristocracy.
1. That quote is from "Killer Angels" (book) and "Gettysburg (movie).
2. There were several social groups in the South, not just two or three.
a. The "mountain whites" were, as the name implies, the "hillbillies," and were the poorest of the white classes economically. By and large, they were against slavery and against the Confederacy.
b. There were some landless (or nearly landless) white immigrants from Germany and Ireland--sufficient enough to have Irish brigades in the Confederate army. They worked for a wage, often doing work (like demolition, blasting, and roofing) that was considered too dangerous for slaves, each of whom constituted a significant finacial investment to the owner.
c. There were the "Po white trash," (Po, because they could not even afford the "or"
who were not slave owners but who did side with the Confederacy. They were poor, but at least they were above the slave in class, in their own minds. Their cooperation with the Confederate cause was essential, but also is mystifying, except that they were largely illiterate and ignorant of the world around their immediate area. There were comparatively very few public schools in the antebellum South, since the elites mostly educated theirs at home or in private schools.
d. There were small farmers who had a few slaves and worked beside them in the field--they usually existed on the fringe of society. They supported slavery and they supported the Confederacy.
e. There were the merchants and skilled artisans who constituted a small middle class, along with the overseers, teachers, professors, doctors, etc., including those in the slave business, like Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was a slave trader before the war.
f. There were the planter elite--the large plantations of 100 slaves or more--and there were about 1700 families throughout the South that belonged to this class.
g. Then there were a few free blacks, on the very fringe economically, and always facing the danger of re-enslavement.
3. Historically, the slave issue became the main one after Antietam, when Lincoln felt confident enough to write the Emancipation Proclamation.
. Seriously though, we are all products of our time, the standards of the LORD will never change but those around us will and for better or worse so will those of Christians.
