The slavery thread to end all slavery threads

[Pete Richert]

I resisted even reading the thread "The North Won the South got kicked around like a panzie so enough!!!" simply because of the foolishness of such a statement, but I wished I had because . . .

KenH makes a valid point that every time the southern supporters attempt to defend states rights (with respect to the civil war) the "yankees" always chime in about slavery. This is probably true.

However, I think the reverse happened where since some wished to support the south in the war, they must then somehow prove that this paticular form of slavery was biblical, or, not as bad, etc. Must we have one with the other?

Let us agree on a few things.
Some sort of slavery was going on in Romans times which Paul takes no steps toward's abolishing.
Slavery in the US, wasn't always the brutal treatment depicted in movies.
Some slaves benefited from being in the US.
MOST blacks today in the US enjoy a higher standard of living then MOST blacks in Africa.
Some Blacks even owned white slaves.

Okay, now that all the good things about slavery has been said, let's look at the bad. MOST (not all) slaves were kidnapped from there lands are otherwise taken in a way that most fundies on this board (while defending their rights to keep guns) would have fight against if it happened to THEIR own children. MOST slaves came over on slave ships they did NOT want to be on. Hopefully, the southerns who saw the ships arrived did not think this were indentured servents, selling themselves into slavery, as they had shakels around their knecks, etc.

All in all, the slavery, as an institution that existed in the united states, was sinful.

So what about the civil war? Can we agree that perhaps the south had a valid cause to rebel agaist the north to do states rights, or suprresive economies, etc, while still being wrong on the position of slavery? If the south had won the war, would you hope that the same institution of slavery still existed today, with the great great great grandchildren of slaves still being own and working for whites in the CSA?
Why or why not?

 

[ChurchBoy]

Originally posted by Pete Richert:
Can we agree that perhaps the south had a valid cause to rebel agaist the north to do states rights, or suprresive economies, etc, while still being wrong on the position of slavery? If the south had won the war, would you hope that the same institution of slavery still existed today, with the great great great grandchildren of slaves still being own and working for whites in the CSA?
Why or why not?

I do agree that the south had the right to rebel just like the original 13 colonies. However, they last the Civil War and justly had to suffer the conseqences of their actions. If the 13 colonies had lost the war they, too, would have suffered consequences from England.

 

[Tanker]

>>>>So what about the civil war? Can we agree that perhaps the south had a valid cause to rebel agaist the north to do states rights, or suprresive economies, etc, while still being wrong on the position of slavery?<<<<<<

One might maintain that the south had a right to rebel for reasons other than slavery, but if you want to know the reasons that they rebelled, it is easy enough to find in the words of the leading rebels themselves. These leaders were aware of the fact that future generations would want to know why they rebelled. So they told us in no uncertain terms. In a nutshell they rebelled because of slavery. I challenge anyone who disagrees with that to quote the southern leadership as to other reasons for the rebellion. Why do some people in the present era cite other reasons for the rebellion? It makes their sympathy with the south have a more respectable basis.

There are some organizations now that seem bent on rehabilitating the confederacy in moral terms. But they are using some very unethical means to attempt that, such as presenting as fact, some claims about the civil war which are just not true. It is not generally known but some of these organizations are in fact laying the groundwork for a secessionist movement in modern times. I don't think it will make any progress, but that is one reason why they are lying so much about the civil war. The League of the South is one such organizaton and there are others.

 

[KenH]

Originally posted by Tanker:
The League of the South

The League of the South has a great website - www.dixienet.org. Thanks for the
publicity for it.

 

[rlvaughn]

Pete, I think that any valid look at the war between the CSA & USA comprehends that there was not one cause of the war, and that all right was not on one side and all wrong was not on the other side. When we see too much of that we know we have an apologist for one side or the other rather than someone seeking the facts. That doesn't mean those who have studied the facts will never disagree on the details and implications. In the South the economy and slavery were intertwined; the economy and states' rights were intertwined; slavery and states' rights were intertwined. In the north the economy and federalism were intertwined; abolitionism and federalism were intertwined; the economy and abolitionism were intertwined. There were abolitionists in the South and slave masters in the North. Some anti-slavers advocated gradual emancipation as did some slave owners, etc., etc. There was in the early 1800's America a conflux of events in both North and South which all taken together produced the regional sectarianism which led to secession and the "civil" war. To suppose that only one part of the mix produced the historical sequence of events is to suppose that baking soda fizzes without adding vinegar.

 

[Frogman]

Citations would be good from each side Tanker.

This request from an inbred Native American. If believing that states' rights should take precedent over a federal government labels me pro-slavery I cannot help that; however, all this type of reaction does is divert from the remaining problem of bigger and less efficient government. IMHO of course.

BTW, my native american ancestors mingled with poor white trash and neither group was historically counted with as much worth as a slave.

It is always, again IMHO, too easy to forget that the USA was never what any migrant thought it was once they were here. Do a study of the Irish experience, the Japanese, the Chinese, or the Mexican.

Just wanting to say that I too believe that slavery was evil and that it is not justifiable, but I disagree with the way Mr. Lincoln handled it because I don't believe his motives were any better than his Southern counterparts. Lincoln actually thought the black was inferior to the white, but no one ever speaks of this...why? Because this fact does not serve the purpose of special interest groups. What about those former slaves who were colonized in Africa who resorted to the only means of economic livlihood they knew---the plantation system---BTW, in which they proceeded to enslave Africans? I guess both sides conveniently highlight what seems to place themselves and their views in the best moral light.

Now the federal government does not even know how to operate in accordance with its inherent checks and balances.

Well, I have said enough just to say that just because someone supports state's rights does not automatically mean they would support slavery.

 

[Tanker]

Documentation of the causes of secession is only a few clicks away. I found the following web site in only about 10 seconds and it gives the reasons as given by 4 or 5 states:

http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html

There is mention of slavery in almost every paragraph. I will not quote all of it, but it becomes immediately clear that slavery was the most important cause of the secession. One would expect that the most important cause would be given first, and the Georgians do not disappoint, but immediately launch into a tirade about slavery.


Georgia
[Copied by Justin Sanders from the Official Records, Ser IV, vol 1, pp. 81-85.]
The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic. This hostile policy of our confederates has been pursued with every circumstance of aggravation which could arouse the passions and excite the hatred of our people, and has placed the two sections of the Union for many years past in the condition of virtual civil war. Our people, still attached to the Union from habit and national traditions, and averse to change, hoped that time, reason, and argument would bring, if not redress, at least exemption from further insults, injuries, and dangers. Recent events have fully dissipated all such hopes and demonstrated the necessity of separation. Our Northern confederates, after a full and calm hearing of all the facts, after a fair warning of our purpose not to submit to the rule of the authors of all these wrongs and injuries, have by a large majority committed the Government of the United States into their hands. The people of Georgia, after an equally full and fair and deliberate hearing of the case, have declared with equal firmness that they shall not rule over them. A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia. The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party. While it attracts to itself by its creed the scattered advocates of exploded political heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the advocates of commercial restrictions, of protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption in the administration of Government, anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose. By anti-slavery it is made a power in the state. The question of slavery was the great difficulty in the way of the formation of the Constitution. While the subordination and the political and social inequality of the African race was fully conceded by all, it was plainly apparent that slavery would soon disappear from what are now the non-slave-holding States of the original thirteen. The opposition to slavery was then, as now, general in those States and the Constitution was made with direct reference to that fact. But a distinct abolition party was not formed in the United States for more than half a century after the Government went into operation.

 

[Pete Richert]

You guys are completly missing the point here.

 

[Tanker]

Am I missing the point? Maybe I am missing your point, but the point I intend to make here is to show beyond doubt that the reasons given for secession, by the southern leadership, almost entirely were reasons based on slavery. In fact it is clear that the southern leadership was practically obsessed with the danger to slavery that came with the election of Abraham Lincoln. It is quite clear that the odd claim recently made, that secession was not due to slavery, cannot possibly be correct. There may be those, including some here, who teach that the rebellion was due to states rights, and not to slavery. If there be such, then they are teaching a falsehood and ought to know better. Presumably they have studied the reasons and if so they should have read the historical papers that I am posting here. Incidentally, it is often truthfully said that a small percentage of the population owned slaves and I certainly accept that. But what these statements show is that the slave owning class had control of the state governments. Here are the reasons given by the state leadership in Mississippi:

Mississippi
[Copied by Justin Sanders from "Journal of the State Convention", (Jackson, MS: E. Barksdale, State Printer, 1861), pp. 86-88]
A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove.

The hostility to this institution commenced before the adoption of the Constitution, and was manifested in the well-known Ordinance of 1787, in regard to the Northwestern Territory.

The feeling increased, until, in 1819-20, it deprived the South of more than half the vast territory acquired from France.

The same hostility dismembered Texas and seized upon all the territory acquired from Mexico.

It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction.

It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion.

It tramples the original equality of the South under foot.

It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.

It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst.

It has enlisted its press, its pulpit and its schools against us, until the whole popular mind of the North is excited and inflamed with prejudice.

It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists.

It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.

It has invaded a State, and invested with the honors of martyrdom the wretch whose purpose was to apply flames to our dwellings, and the weapons of destruction to our lives.

It has broken every compact into which it has entered for our security.

It has given indubitable evidence of its design to ruin our agriculture, to prostrate our industrial pursuits and to destroy our social system.

It knows no relenting or hesitation in its purposes; it stops not in its march of aggression, and leaves us no room to hope for cessation or for pause.

It has recently obtained control of the Government, by the prosecution of its unhallowed schemes, and destroyed the last expectation of living together in friendship and brotherhood.

Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England.

Our decision is made. We follow their footsteps. We embrace the alternative of separation; and for the reasons here stated, we resolve to maintain our rights with the full consciousness of the justice of our course, and the undoubting belief of our ability to maintain it.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Tanker]

South Carolina was a little more indirect in stating their reasons for seceeding. Where the previous states got to the point almost immediately in regard to slavery, South Carolina wrote a long preamble before finally stating the reason. I left out the preamble but it can be found at the link I mentioned previously. Here is the last part of the South Carolina declaration and they too give the same reasons as the previously mentioned states. Here is the crucial last part of their declaration. Note that they even have the gall to appeal to God for "the rectitude of our intentions":

"We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the *forms* [emphasis in the original] of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.

On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.

The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy.

Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation, and all hope of remedy is rendered vain, by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanction of more erroneous religious belief.

We, therefore, the People of South Carolina, by our delegates in Convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America, is dissolved, and that the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate and independent State; with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do."

Adopted December 24, 1860

 

[Tanker]

Texas also cited essentially the same reasons as the states previously quoted. I will not bore you with the entire racist statement of Texas, but these few paragraphs will give you the flavor of it. The source is the same link given above:

"In view of these and many other facts, it is meet that our own views should be distinctly proclaimed.

We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.

That in this free government *all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights* [emphasis in the original]; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.

By the secession of six of the slave-holding States, and the certainty that others will speedily do likewise, Texas has no alternative but to remain in an isolated connection with the North, or unite her destinies with the South.

For these and other reasons, solemnly asserting that the federal constitution has been violated and virtually abrogated by the several States named, seeing that the federal government is now passing under the control of our enemies to be diverted from the exalted objects of its creation to those of oppression and wrong, and realizing that our own State can no longer look for protection, but to God and her own sons-- We the delegates of the people of Texas, in Convention assembled, have passed an ordinance dissolving all political connection with the government of the United States of America and the people thereof and confidently appeal to the intelligence and patriotism of the freemen of Texas to ratify the same at the ballot box, on the 23rd day of the present month.

Adopted in Convention on the 2nd day of Feby, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one and of the independence of Texas the twenty-fifth."

 

[Frogman]

An unbiased look at Mr. Lincoln would reveal that he too was a racist according to our standards. Either way you look at the situation there is no getting around the fact the federal government was violating the rights of states.

 

[LadyEagle]

Amen, Frogman, Amen!

And what was the REAL reason Lincoln was assassinated?

http://home.att.net/~rjnorton/Lincoln74.html

 

[KenH]

Let's see, what have we learned? Most Southerners were racists, most Yankees were racists. The South had slavery in 1861, the North had ceased to have slavery due to becoming more industrialized and they no longer had a financial interest in keeping their slaves - if there had been an economic reason to do so, the Yankees would have still had slavery in 1861.

And there are still racists in the North, South, East, and West of these United States today, of all kinds of races.

 

[Tanker]

>>>>>An unbiased look at Mr. Lincoln would reveal that he too was a racist according to our standards. Either way you look at the situation there is no getting around the fact the federal government was violating the rights of states. <<<<<

Why not develope those arguments more fully, with supporting evidence. Just stating it does not make it so.

 

[LadyEagle]

http://www.findarticles.com/m1571/25_16/63323546/p1/article.jhtml

Of course, it's written by an Ebony author, so that might explain calling Lincoln a racist.

 

[KenH]

Originally posted by Tanker:
Why not develop those arguments more fully, with supporting evidence. Just stating it does not make it so.

We've already had quotes in this debate showing what Abraham Lincoln said about
blacks.

Of course, Yankee apologists dismissed those because he also said nice things about blacks and bad things about slavery. Somehow those are supposed to make the racist things he said about blacks palatable. And, of course, Yankee apologists don't dare cut Southerners of the same time period the same slack.

Politicians, for the most part, have always been the same - just say whatever you need to get elected or to get your way politically.

 

[rlvaughn]

Originally posted by KenH:
...we learned...the North had ceased to have slavery due to becoming more industrialized and they no longer had a financial interest in keeping their slaves...

I assume you must mean in a general sense, because if we have not learned that the North still had some slavery in 1861, we haven't been reading my posts. In 1861, slavery was legal in the District of Columbia, Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and, evidently, U. S. territories (www.history.umd.edu/Freedmen/freeterr.htm). Since four states provided for gradual emancipation, some servitude may have still existed in isolated cases within their borders (www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=62;t=000017;p=10). I have found no further information on that thus far.

 

[KenH]

Originally posted by rlvaughn:
I assume you must mean in a general sense

You assume correctly.

 

[Frogman]

Isn't it odd to anyone, or is it just me, that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated and Andrew Johnson who was attempting to follow Lincoln's plan at reconstruction was impeached? I have always thought this to be a strong proof of a conspiracy led by Radical Republicans and northern bankers looking to exploit the South.

Bro. Dallas