Understanding Slavery

Man, oh man, are you ever off base. You really do need to do some reading.

Gettysburg occurred well past the two year mark of the war in 1863.

Let's Bull Run was in the CSA, Shiloh was in the CSA, New Orleans was in the CSA, Richmond was in the CSA, Fredericksburg was in the CSA, Chancellorsville was in the CSA - all of these took place before Gettysburg.

 

Obviously, you Yankees(in spirit if not location ) will never accept the true main reasons as to why the USA invaded the CSA.



Oh well, the war is water under the bridge now. The good guys lost and the bad guys won. What more can I say?

 

>>>>Slavery was not the only reason for the formation of the CSA. I advise you to get a fair and balanced history book, not one written solely from the Yankee aggressor's viewpoint. <<<<<

The speeches of the Confederate vice-president, Alexander Stephens, contradict your viewpoint. I guess he should know, if anyone does. Here is some text from the book, "Lincoln's virtues" that make clear why the south wanted out:

"In the speech that occasioned Lincoln's initial letter Stephens had argued against secession.....but Stephen's reasons for not seceeding hung by a thin thread. .....It would constitute an 'aggressive act' to exclude us, by an act of Congress, from the territories with our slave property"; if that policy of Lincoln and his associates should be carried out, or even attempted, "no man in Georgia would be more willing or ready than myself to defend our rights, interests and honor, at every hazard and to the last extremity". What Stephens was describing as an aggressive act to be resisted to the last extremity, had been the essence of the Republican Party's, and Lincoln's, program for six years. ....Stephens explained that the fears of the slave states were NOT founded on the expectation that a Lincoln administration would attack slavery in the slave states themselves, even indirectly. That "disquietude" arose instead, from the fact that the "central idea" of the triumphant party seems to be simply and wantonly if you please, to put the institution of nearly half the states under the bar of public opinon and national condemnation. That alone is enough to "arouse a spirit not only of general indignation, but of revolt..."

 

>>>>Man, oh man, are you ever off base. You really do need to do some reading.<<<<

The union victory at Vicksburg was at the same time as Gettysburg. Although some significant battles were fought in the south before Gettysburg, only after Vicksburg and Gettysburg did it appear that the south would certainly lose the war.

 

Considering that the North was the one without the slaves, I would posit that they were, indeed, the good guys. And I am from the Deep South myself. Of course, if a similar scenario would happen, I would quickly get myself packed and fight for the North.

 

>>>>>Oh well, the war is water under the bridge now. The good guys lost and the bad guys won. What more can I say?<<<<

Ken, do you think that the Confederate VP, Alexander Stephens, was a good guy? If so, what do you think about his words, that I will quote below:

"The Constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution >slavery< while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested on the assumption of equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the storm came and the wind blew. Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid; its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical and moral truth."

Tell me, KenH, do you agree with Alexander Stephens, the first Vice-President of the Confederacy, that the new government of the Southern states rested "upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man" ? Is that a government that you really admire?

 

That wasn't what you were saying before. You wrote as if no battles took place in the CSA before Gettysburg in the USA. I appreciate your admission of being in error. It speaks well of you.

 

Then I reckon in the 1860's we would have been shooting at each other.

 

A little rewriting of history is not in order. There were in fact slaves in the north.

 

"An advocate of slavery, Stephens campaigned for the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He opposed the election of Abraham Lincoln but argued against immediate secession after the Republican Party victory. Lincoln wrote a letter to Stephens pointing out: "You think slavery is right and ought to be extended; while we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub. It certainly is the only substantial difference between us."

Over the next couple of months seven states seceded from the Union: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. Representatives from these seven states quickly established a new political organization, the Confederate States of America. On 8th February the Confederacy adopted a constitution and within ten days had elected Jefferson Davis as its president and Stephens as vice-president.

During the American Civil War Stephens did not enjoy a good relationship with Davis and later described him as "a weak timid aspirant for military domination". Stephens favoured peace negotiations whereas the president wanted to fight until the bitter end. Stephens made several attempts to talk with Abraham Lincoln about bringing the war to an end. Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, accused him of prolonging the war to satisfy his personal ambition. Others on the right, such as Clement Vallandigham, claimed that Lincoln was waging a "wicked war in order to free the slaves".

After the war Stephens was imprisoned in Fort Warren, Boston, for five months but was eventually pardoned by President Andrew Johnson. After the war Stephens wrote a two-volume book on the conflict: Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States (1868).

Alexander Hamilton Stephens was elected to the 43rd Congress and served from December, 1873 until his resignation in November, 1882. Elected as governor of Georgia in 1882, he served until his death in Atlanta, Georgia, on 4th March, 1883." --www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAstephensA.htm

"After Lincoln’s election in 1860, Cobb and Toombs endorsed secession, but Stephens stood firm against it at the Georgia state convention. When the delegates voted to secede, however, Stephens acquiesced and was later elected Vice President of the Confederacy. He was a leader of the moderate faction of Confederates and an advocate of a peaceful resolution of the war. After the war, he was imprisoned in Boston for five months in 1865, then released, whereupon Georgians reelected him to the U. S. Senate under the terms of President Johnson’s lenient Reconstruction plan. Radical Republicans, however, refused to recognize the new state governments in the South and Stephens was not allowed to take his seat. With the formal end of Reconstruction, he returned to Congress, serving in the House from 1877 until 1882, when he was elected Governor of Georgia. He was the author of A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States (1868-70). He died in Atlanta, Georgia."

"Abraham Lincoln was a great admirer of Alexander Stephens during the early part of his career. He expressed his views in a letter to his friend, William Herndon (2nd February, 1848) -
'I just take up my pen to say, that Mr. Stephens of Georgia, a little slim, pale-faced, consumptive man, with a voice like Logan's has just concluded the very best speech, of an hour's length, I ever heard.'" --www.impeach-andrewjohnson.com/11BiographiesKeyIndividuals/AlexanderStephens.htm

So, Peter101, President Lincoln was an admirer of your whipping boy, Mr. Stephens. So, do you think that Mr. Lincoln was a good guy for admiring your whipping boy?

I don't think I would have cottoned much to Mr. Stephens. I don't think his heart was in it to actually achieve Southern Independence once President Lincoln forced the issue. It sounds like it was a mistake to elect him to the vice-presidency of the CSA.

Although if President Lincoln has listened to Mr. Stephens advice in a letter he wrote to him and had put a lid on the fanaticism of the North instead of raising an army to invade the South, war might have been adverted and 600,000 American lives would not have been lost in war. Let's face it, President Lincoln blew it.

Here are links to a portion of Mr. Lincoln's letter to Mr. Stephens that is still extant, and Mr. Stephen's reply -

users.aol.com/jfepperson/aleck.html
users.aol.com/jfepperson/AHS-AL.html

 

I speak as a foreigner, but I always thought the Civil War had to do with State rights. Slavery became a side issue as things progressed.

Ironically, there were Canadians who served on both sides, including one Canadian who served as advisor to Robert E. Lee and the Southern President.

Montreal, Quebec served as a meeting place between England and the South to transfer financial aid and advise. Slavery was an issue with both Brits and Canadians, so if slavery was the huge issue of the war, I doubt we would have been so involved in fiscal ways. Just my observations.

Cheers,

Jim

 

A little rewriting of history is not in order. There were in fact slaves in the north. </font>[/QUOTE]That's somewhat true, but not completely. From what I've read and understand, all the "original" northern states had outlawed slavery in their constitution except for: Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland and Missouri. This occurred in 1804.

Kentucky later seceded after being invaded. Delaware had proportionally, the largest free black population of any state. Slavery only occurred if a black man was unemployed and "idle and poor," and even then, he only was legally required to be a slave for one year. Missouri was a slave state according to the Missouri Compromise, and I cannot find information concerning when Maryland abolished slavery. So you see, to say that there were "slaves in the north" is quite a misnomer. All of the Northern states except two had abolished slavery in 1804.

What information do you have otherwise?

Oh, and for more on why the states seceded (the slavery issue): http://www.bessel.org/slavecw.htm

 

Scott, check my 3rd post on page one; most of the info (and much more) can be found on the links there. It was legal in District of Columbia until April 1862, a year after Fort Sumter. Maryland abolished slavery in Dec. 1864; Missouri in Jan. 1865. Though some states may have outlawed slavery, it was not abolished in the UNITED STATES until December 1865. Slavery and the war between the USA & CSA is much more complicated than most care to understand. Even President Lincoln believed the North shared blame with the South concerning the issue of slavery: "Now, at the end of three years struggle the nation's condition is not what either party, or any man devised, or expected. God alone can claim it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the North as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God." - last lines of a Letter to Albert Hodges.

I would be interested in getting dates when each state abolished slavery. THIS LINK says that Pennsylvania passed a gradual emancipation act in 1780. Importation of slaves was outlawed in 1808.

 

1857 - Supreme Court declares in Scott v. Sandford that blacks are not U.S. citizens, and slaveholders have the right to take slaves in free areas of the county. - www.nps.gov/boaf/urrchronology.htm

Hey, Peter101, since you think that we should just go along with whatever the federal courts rule and not complain about it, you would have said that the North should have just left the South alone, right?

 

Ken (and the rest of the "southerners" - two questions -

1. Do you believe that slavery was one of the main reasons behind the secession?

2. Do you believe that slavery is enough of an evil that you would have cried out against it if you had lived 150 years ago?

 

1. It was a reason. I would say it was a cause of a main reason as the main reason was State soveriegnty, and the North's desire to interfere with slavery was taken as an attack on State sovereignty. The USA was envisioned as a "republic of republics", not a nation with a national government that directed all the details of the nation as we have today.

2. I doubt that I would have. But it is rather difficult to know what one's feelings would have been 150 years ago in a totally different society. I also doubt I would of had a problem with the westward expansion even though it caused problems with Native Americans.

 

I think this relates to the explanation of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. It was in one sense a meaningless document, because it did not emancipate the slaves in the Union nor in parts of the Confederacy controlled by the Union. The slaves it did "emancipate" were totally dependent upon the hope of military conquest of the Union over the Confederacy. This probably means it was more of a calculated political document to alienate the Confederacy from any European interest.

I think that slavery fueled the fire of the States' Rights controversy. While many Northerners may have felt the federal government must solve an issue that the states would not, States' Rights advocates saw the slavery issue as evidence that the federalists would grasp control of the states and make them subservient to the federal government. From my reading, I have concluded that the majority of Northerners were not fighting to eliminate slavery, but to preserve the Union; and the majority of Southerners were not fighting to preserve slavery, but to defend their homes, their families, their neighbours and their states.

Interesting question, in light of the fact that on another thread you noted that slavery itself was morally neutral. But I find the question good food for thought, although I think it a hard one to honestly answer for anyone who gives it sincere and soul-searching thought. There are a lot of parts to consider. First, is slavery itself a moral good, a moral evil, or morally neutral? I find the thought of owning or being owned objectionable, but that is just personal opinion. In light of what I find in the Bible that speaks to the issue, it appears to me that the concept of slavery/servitude itself is neither good nor bad. Second, even if morally neutral, did slavery as practiced in the United States have morally objectionable features to it? If so, would that warrant the abolition of slavery or merely the correction of the evils? I do think there were moral evils that Christian people should not have tolerated (though I do not think them as widespread as what seems to be commonly promoted today) - masters and/or overseers taking sexual liberties with slave girls, masters separating slave husbands & wives and then "remarrying" them to others (that would have been considered adultery among the majority of the white population), etc. Third, being immersed in a society where slavery was the norm, would it really have seemed that bad? It's hard to sit around on our laurels and really even conceive of life in that time. Will people 150 years from now look back on us and be appalled that we Christians didn't rise up in holy indignation over some issue that appears unimportant to us today? Lastly, it's easy to take the 'moral high ground' and affirm that "I would have opposed slavery with every fiber of my being," but do we oppose the moral evils of OUR DAY? I must admit that I am not an activist. I believe in voting for what I think is right (and against what I think is wrong), but mostly in preaching the gospel and hoping that changes peoples' lives from the inside out. Beyond that, I pretty much live and let live. So, to be totally honest if my heart does not deceive me, since I'm not very activist today, I don't expect I would have been then either.

I doubt my personal thoughts will help anyone in "Understanding Slavery," but perhaps some of the facts presented will.

 

Another consideration must be the prevailing theology of the times. The three sons of Noah gave us all the races of the world and the Hamites were to be the slave nations. Hence, slavery was God ordained. This theological view existed even into the 20th century, and was only lately removed from Dutch (South African) theology. I was taught this viewpoint in the late 40's as part of Baptist teachings in England. I must confess, I took other avenues of thought, but still, it was taught.

I would be interested in knowing how many Southern Baptist seminaries taught this up to the Civil Rights days in the South.

Cheers,

Jim

I do remember Billy Graham objecting to the Blacks directed to sit in the balconies during his crusades in the South during his early ministry, and that would have been the late 40's and early 50's.

 

Jim, you raise a good point, because some of the younger generation may not be aware of the significance of that theology in the minds of a slaveholding people (or even aware that it was a prominent idea). I cannot speak to the teachings of SBC seminaries, but I would venture to say that it was a significant idea in the minds of probably a majority of southern whites until at least the 50's & 60's, and it still has followers today. Not to just pick on southerners - let me also say that the before-mentioned (in this thread) idea held by some in the pre-civil war era that the negro was inferior was believed by many northern whites just as well as southerners. Even among people who opposed slavery, some of them held that belief. I have heard it mentioned that Abraham Lincoln was one of these, though I cannot confirm it.

 

Robert, it was common thought in England as well. I might say it still exists in England to-day. The area where I grew up has been taken over largely by East Indians and the old Cockneys have virtually moved out, or adapted to the changes to some degree.

In the early 60's, the Bible Club Movement in Pennsylvania still had segregated camps. I spent a month at both a white camp and a black camp. Frankly, I was shocked when I learned the camps were segregated.

Cheers,

Jim