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Slavery: What They Didn’t Teach in My High School
- Thread starter Revmitchell
- Start date
RighteousnessTemperance&
Well-Known Member
Now, no matter who says what, the underlying cause of the American Civil war was slavery. At that time, the South depended upon slavery to cheaply plant, harvest, & mill cotton so the owners could make more $$ without having to pay for hired help, & so they wanted to keep slavery forever.
The North wasn't actually wanting to end slavery all that much, as they knew freed blacks would move northward & compete with white laborers for jobs. Also, the North's primary trading partner & biggest customer was the South. But many Northerners knew deep inside that slavery was wrong & so wanted to end it, job competition or not.
The South tried to flaunt "states' rights" as the cause for the war, but among those states' rights was the right to own slaves.
And I believe God allowed the war to happen as a punishment for slavery. And what a punishment it was ! While a low estimate of 700K people died as a direct result of the war, its effects carried over til the time of WW1 ! There were thousands of vets maimed in the war who were unable to work or even care for themselves completely, many strung out on opioids administered as they recovered from wounds, hundreds of thousands of people who lost everything to battle damage, confiscation by soldiers, etc. who never recovered, & vast disruption of infrastructure. Our punishment was as severe as what God had inflicted on old Israel at times. Abe Lincoln was right when he said people had forgotten God & went on their ways til God punished them.
And it seems that today, people have forgotten God again! But He will step in & remind them He's still in charge some day!
The North wasn't actually wanting to end slavery all that much, as they knew freed blacks would move northward & compete with white laborers for jobs. Also, the North's primary trading partner & biggest customer was the South. But many Northerners knew deep inside that slavery was wrong & so wanted to end it, job competition or not.
The South tried to flaunt "states' rights" as the cause for the war, but among those states' rights was the right to own slaves.
And I believe God allowed the war to happen as a punishment for slavery. And what a punishment it was ! While a low estimate of 700K people died as a direct result of the war, its effects carried over til the time of WW1 ! There were thousands of vets maimed in the war who were unable to work or even care for themselves completely, many strung out on opioids administered as they recovered from wounds, hundreds of thousands of people who lost everything to battle damage, confiscation by soldiers, etc. who never recovered, & vast disruption of infrastructure. Our punishment was as severe as what God had inflicted on old Israel at times. Abe Lincoln was right when he said people had forgotten God & went on their ways til God punished them.
And it seems that today, people have forgotten God again! But He will step in & remind them He's still in charge some day!
A political element to counting of slaves:
Fuzzy history: Were blacks officially considered 3/5 human?
"By only considering three-fifths of all non-free persons (slaves), the pro-slavery South was prevented from politically overpowering the generally anti-slavery North. In other words, had the whole number of slaves been counted, the South’s population would have allotted for a significant number more Representatives in the House and more Electoral votes."
I cannot attest to the validity of this statement, it is repeated in numerous articles.
Fuzzy history: Were blacks officially considered 3/5 human?
"By only considering three-fifths of all non-free persons (slaves), the pro-slavery South was prevented from politically overpowering the generally anti-slavery North. In other words, had the whole number of slaves been counted, the South’s population would have allotted for a significant number more Representatives in the House and more Electoral votes."
I cannot attest to the validity of this statement, it is repeated in numerous articles.
Actually, the 3/5 thingie was a compromise, as many Northerners didn't want slaves counted at all, as they couldn't vote.
WHO WAS JIM CROW ?
We've all heard of the "Jim Crow" laws relegating blacks to 2nd-class citizenship, but for whom were they named?
The character was created by a famous actor, Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice,(1808-1860) who grew up among blacks & had encountered an old black stablehand singing a traditional black folk song called "Jump Jim Crow". Rice memorized the song, re-wrote it with his own words, & created the character in 1832, wearing blackface & a ragged outfit, portraying a dimwitted but agile slave who sang, danced, & told wry jokes with a heavy accent. His character became quite-popular. Rice became quite wealthy, taking his character to Britain, where it was well-received.
Rice's health began to fail in 1840 due to drinking rotgut whiskey that often contained contaminants, & he had to quit performing in 1844. However, he was still wealthy, and continued to drink heavily til his death in 1860.
Other actors began doing Jim Crow, including some actual black men, but the charafcter's popularity had died out by the beginning of the Civil War. However, it was revived during Reconstruction, & helped prolong the perception of blacks by many whites as overall less-intelligent than whites. Most of the laws restricting the rights of blacks were called "Jim Crow laws".
Now, ya know where "Jim Crow" came from !
We've all heard of the "Jim Crow" laws relegating blacks to 2nd-class citizenship, but for whom were they named?
The character was created by a famous actor, Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice,(1808-1860) who grew up among blacks & had encountered an old black stablehand singing a traditional black folk song called "Jump Jim Crow". Rice memorized the song, re-wrote it with his own words, & created the character in 1832, wearing blackface & a ragged outfit, portraying a dimwitted but agile slave who sang, danced, & told wry jokes with a heavy accent. His character became quite-popular. Rice became quite wealthy, taking his character to Britain, where it was well-received.
Rice's health began to fail in 1840 due to drinking rotgut whiskey that often contained contaminants, & he had to quit performing in 1844. However, he was still wealthy, and continued to drink heavily til his death in 1860.
Other actors began doing Jim Crow, including some actual black men, but the charafcter's popularity had died out by the beginning of the Civil War. However, it was revived during Reconstruction, & helped prolong the perception of blacks by many whites as overall less-intelligent than whites. Most of the laws restricting the rights of blacks were called "Jim Crow laws".
Now, ya know where "Jim Crow" came from !
Rockson
Active Member
I'm not sure that it's all that simple. For example if it was a punishment for slavery why then did about half of those 700K who were Northerners die? If as you say they were fighting against slavery why were they punished for trying to stop it?
Well, the regimes of Hitler and Tojo & the rest of the Japanese military were thoroughly evil, but God largely used the equally-evil regime of Stalin to end Hitler, & the USA & Britain had hundreds of thousands killed in that war also.
And in many of ancient Israel's wars, they had casualties as well. And when God ended Saul's reign, the righteous Jonathan, David's best friend, was also killed, so as to clear the way for David's takeover of the throne. (Had David had his way & Jonathan lived, Dave would gladly have served under King Jonathan!)
RighteousnessTemperance&
Well-Known Member
Regardless of simplicity, don't we see an example in Judges 20? Forty thousand Israelites killed by the Benjamites before some 25,000 of the latter fell.
But the obvious answer is that it was a national sin. The slave trade was not at all limited to the South, nor did only the South benefit from slave labor. The North was more than complicit.