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If you are somehow suggesting slavery wasn't so bad, a sweet deal for the enslaved, I think you're going to have a tough time with that.
If you're saying that slaveowners thought or acted in what they thought was a charitable way towards their human property, OK. But that doesn't make it so.
Larry and John,
I think you're making the point that small scale slavery, one guy with one or two slaves was better than large scale slavery, one guy with a hundred slaves. From the enslaved persons point of view, not necessarily. What if the owner of one slave was an sadist, a lech or callous? What if he lived in an isolated area, and the enslaved man was stuck without a wife or prospects of a wife or children. Wouldn't community of a hundred be better than a community of a half dozen? Frederick Douglass remarked that some slaves took a left handed pride in being part of a large plantation owned by a gentleman.
Actually aren't you just trying to find a way to rationalize that your ancestors were slaveowners and be definition exploiting people?
If you are somehow suggesting slavery wasn't so bad, a sweet deal for the enslaved, I think you're going to have a tough time with that.
If you're saying that slaveowners thought or acted in what they thought was a charitable way towards their human property, OK. But that doesn't make it so.
Larry and John,
I think you're making the point that small scale slavery, one guy with one or two slaves was better than large scale slavery, one guy with a hundred slaves. From the enslaved persons point of view, not necessarily. What if the owner of one slave was an sadist, a lech or callous? What if he lived in an isolated area, and the enslaved man was stuck without a wife or prospects of a wife or children. Wouldn't community of a hundred be better than a community of a half dozen? Frederick Douglass remarked that some slaves took a left handed pride in being part of a large plantation owned by a gentleman.
Actually aren't you just trying to find a way to rationalize that your ancestors were slaveowners and be definition exploiting people?
Many of my ancestors were slave owners. Many of them were indentured servants themselves. Three were bastard sons of Henry I of England and a few were emporers of the western Roman empire. Had an ancestor who was emporer of the Iriquois nation and believed in slavery. I was born in 1947. None of these folks from which I descend ever asked my advice or opinion about their lifestyles or much of anything else. Ozark John and I have both on numerous occasions expressed the belief that slavery was BAD. That's about all we can do. I highly recommend none of us start that practice anew and watch out for those who do! The situation for an individual as you seem to suggest could have been deemed not so good or worse depending on the Owner and the circumstances. Folks here in the South are proud of their past, even the dark spots. At least we admit it, others should do the same. It might help ease your frustrations.
__________________ Ancestors in US Army: 13th TN Cav; 10th TN Cav; 3rd NC Inf
Ancestors in CSA Army: 48th VA; 63rd VA, 5th NC Cav; 37th NC
Wife and Grandson's CSA: 15th AL, 51st GA, 41st TN; 36th TN; GA Mil 1197 Dist
Last edited by larry_cockerham; 05-11-2007 at 08:17 PM.
I guess my point being, the enslaved people were stuck in the situation they were in, good, bad or indifferent. All the power and profit was on one side of the equation. What a horribly hopeless condition. By the way, I know you think slavery was bad, I never thought differently.
Also, a large part of your post to me seems to be replies to things said by other people, not me, without any attempt on your part to clearly indicate the quotes are from someone else. Again, this has nothing to do with me or what I said. That will confuse people as to who said what. It will also make it look like I said things someone else actually said. It is, intentionally or not, deceptive and inaccurate. Please correct this or make a post signifying that you understand it and pointing out who you were actually replying to.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanny
Actually your reply to Ozark was about individual anecdoatal acounts and you wanted the bigger picture, which i went onto describe for you, but aparantly you dont want that after all, your a difficult man to please.
You are being deliberately obtuse here, Hanny. I do note that you have now gone back and edited the post I referred to, and it now includes specific references to who posted what. Obviously, you know that I was correct in pointing it out to you or you would not have made the change.
The post of mine that you were replying to (#97) was made to Texas2nd, in reply to something he had said in post #84 in this thread. Yet you say I was replying to Ozark Iron John, and you replied to three statements from one of Ozark Iron John's posts in a post to me, making it seem I had said them when I had not. Again, it is obvious in your edit pointed out above that you understand this, yet you are still criss-crossing who posted what. Once again, I am not responsible for things you mix-up and confuse for yourself.
If you read the posts, completely and in context, my meaning is clear and it has nothing to do wtih what you have imagined or want to talk about.
Uou asked a specific quation to which there is a specific answer, the number your looking for was around 33% of all emncipated southern slaves were done by death wills.
No, Hanny, your answer has nothing to do with answering the question I asked. Stop, go back and look at it, and answer it if you will. Do not try to set up straw men and then knock them down.
Your statement only says that 1 out of 3 of emancipated slaves was freed by death wills. If three slaves were freed, 1 would be done this way, you say. But that was not my question nor does it have anything to do with my point as was very clear. It is simply you trying to go off on a tangent and turn the discussion to something else. Go ahead if you will; just do not claim it has anything to do with me, for that would be deceptive.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanny
Im using the federal law system that allows such things, there are 000s of such cases in USSC records, it was the basis of DS in the first palce, MO had granted DS freedom on those grounds. i can post other such cases for you if you like, it was after common place in almost every state.
Please note that you are misrepresenting the facts here. Scott first filed suit in 1846 and lost in 1847. A second trial was allowed by the judge. A jury did give them their freedom on the basis of "once free, always free" , the Missouri State Supreme Court overturned that decision in 1852, ruling that Scott and his wife were still slaves because "Times now are not as they were when the previous decisions on this subject were made." Obviously, by 1852 the Missouri State Supreme Court believed that what you are claiming no longer applied, and it would appear they were referring to the uproar known as the Compromise of 1850.
The Dred Scott case was then brought to the Federal courts, starting in 1854. The Scotts lost, and the case was appealed. In 1857 the US Supreme Court presented the Dred Scott decision, declaring that everything you are saying did not apply, throwing out the laws that pointed otherwise, such as the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and the Missouri Compromise of 1820.
Before you start citing cases, take heed of what Chief Justice Taney said in his 1857 Opinion: "It is needless to accumulate cases on this subject." Anything you might cite from before that date is worthless in the discussion at hand because of this -- not because of me, but because of the US Supreme Court -- just as the Missouri State Court in 1852 is telling the jury and the lower Missouri Court that what went before that was now worthless. Things had changed, and you must acknowledge that -- and also realize that I was simply telling you the facts here, and well-known, long-established facts at that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanny
No under the constition they had every right to do so.
Not according to the Missouri State Supreme Court, Federal Courts, and the US Supreme Court during the decade before the Civil War. This is all a matter of clear record you are trying to ignore, although I do not know why you would bother to make such an effort.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanny
Clearly im referncing things that are new to you, so ill post tommorrow the US court rullings on a number of then for you. How many would you like?.
Clearly not new to me. Again, I urge you to take heed of Chief Justice Taney's words in the Dred Scott decision: "It is needless to accumulate cases on this subject." He has already thrown out for you anything before that date in 1857, so don't bother citing anything from there. The only cases that would do you any good would have to pass through the courts AFTER Dred Scott in 1857. That only gives you the period from 1857 to 1860, so let's see what you have.
Quote:
Originally Posted by trice
No, just normal effort to justify what you say in open debate. My teachers started pushing me to do so sometime around seventh grade, and were hard at it by high school. Heck, we kids used to provide more evidence than this in arguments about who was a better centerfielder: Mays or Mantle? People provide such support all the time in online forums.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanny
Perhaps you can reply to the substance of my posts then, rather than compain about presentation?.
Not presentation, Hanny, just very mundane requests for people to back up what they say as free and open debate requires. My complaint, if any, is about your attempts to deny well-known facts, and to go off on tangents of your own while claiming I had said something I never did.
There are all kinds of facts and figures out there. These are supposed to be compiled from the 1860 Census.
Of course the majority of Southerners did not fight for slavery...neither did all the Union Soldiers.
Before ya'll all poison pen me, all this is well documented and you don't have to agree with it.
Young Southern men were fighting just because there was a fight. I can clearly see that as truth cause I have a sixteen yr old boy. Ooh, we hope we get him growed...there is nothing as immortal as a 16 yr old boy!
The Peculiar Instituion was written (1956) as a direct antithesis to the earlier works such as American Negro Slavery which painted a flowers and song vision of slavery - which I am not.
What I am saying, popular or not, is that after the ACW, after the reconstruction years, there were relationships that existed between human beings...relationships that sprang from the sorry state of slavery, relationships that endured through war and reconstruction...and from my POV, relationships that recognized the responsibility of one human to another.
c
Texas2nd
There were still power relationships during Reconstruction. Blacks were the victims of a systematic campaign of terrorism to keep them "in their place." It was unhealthy for a black person during Reconstruction to be anything but outwardly friendly and indeed outwardly obsequious to whites. Things happen in context. While I'm sure there were a few instances of some genuine friendship, you have to take into account the context in which blacks and whites lived, and every case that seemed to be one of friendship has to be viewed with skepticism.
Of course the majority of Southern soldiers did not fight for slavery...neither did all the Union soldiers.
Before ya'll all posion pen me, all this is well documented and you don't have to agree with it.
Sorry, Texas2nd, but I don't agree with it and just because I do not, doesn't mean I am using a 'posion pen' to do so.
What amazes me is that there is plenty of well documented sources that show that slavery was supported by the majority of Southern soldiers, even those who did not own slaves. How anyone misses that is what truely amazes me.
While it is true many a young man, both North and South, joined up for adventure, travel and excitement, there is enough of a written record to show why they enlisted in the first place.
Try reading the following to understand why I feel this is so:
Confederate Emancipation, Southern Plans To Free And Arm Slaves During The Civil War, by Bruce Levine.
The Gray And The Black, The Confederate Debate On Emancipation, by Robert F. Durden.
What This Cruel War Was Over, Soldiers, Slavery, And The Civil War, by Chandra Manning.
And before the same, tired excuse comes up that these are books with a 'neoUnion' or 'Northern' bias, check them out from a library and check the sources listed in the books.
What you will find are a majority of Southern sources from Southern soldiers, politicians, leaders, civilians, editors, etc., and what they felt the war was about and what their feelings were about slavery and the causes they were fighting for.
Many times, I have been accused of looking at the cause of the Civil War through modern, 21st century eyes. I find this accusation tiring and exasperating when it is those mainly of the Southern outlook who go to extreme lengths to justify their ancestors according to current, 21st century values.
While I have no doubt that there were individuals who did not fight for slavery or treated their slaves in what they thought was a 'Christian' manner, the vast majority of the South found no wrong with the institution that they had been told for generations was a 'positive good' and no longer considered a 'neccessary evil' as it once was.
There is simply too much of a historical paper trail with slavery all over it as the primary cause of Southern secession. Whether it be the maintaining of a social system that kept poor, nonslaveholding whites superior or on an equal footing with rich plantation owners or kept a feeling of security over the idea of further slave revolts, the majority of Southern whites supported the institution in an undeniable manner as evidenced in numerous sources.
Texas2nd, in your post #120, are you sure of your numbers concerning the number of slaveholders in the South in 1860? I think the number 46,000 is extremely low.
I'll get back with you on this with the 1860 census data I have found on the web.
Found it. Check out the 1860 census date found here:
Click on the year 1860 and then on the next page that comes up, click on Slaveholders, then click on total slaveholders and then click on the submit query button. It will list the number of slaveholders in each state. Looks like there are over 46,000 slaveholders in various states, let alone the entire South.
There are 41,084 listed in Georgia and 52,128 in Virginia alone on this census, way over 46,000 for just those two states. By adding all the Southern states together, I come up with 393,350 total slaveholders in the South, and I didn't include Delaware or Kansas (587 and 2).
How do you read just 46,000 total with these figures from the 1860 census?
Sincerely,
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
I mean you do know the census data for northern states shows that the ages of males in the prime of life shows they are under represented, because they had been sold of pre emancipation date set for them, and the pop distribution of many nortthern states all showed this as the norm, leaving an anbalnced negrop pop base behind, that without the menas of finacial support of thoat segement of the family unit, ment lower survivabilty for those left behind rigtht?
Not according to the 1860 Census. Which Census in particular are you referring to?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanny
, while its not present in the regions you claim it to exist< so if your going to post opion that is contary to the facts, im game to point out those you do for you.
So far you're the one who's been posting material that is contrary to the facts.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanny
But for your information the break up of negro family structure by sale of family members is a myth, has been show to be a myth for several decades, ever since computers were used to compile the sale of human property and work out the numbers/ages/sex status etc, and Fogel who poierd the work won Nobel prize for impericaly answering questiosn that anecdotal evidence had been used by one side or the other to support there point of view, Of course some familys were broken up, as the records show, but the scale is fantiscly statistcly small, 234 on average under 14 sold out of state per annum, with a 190,000 orphans in the same age group, means thatjust 1 in 810 orphans sale would acount vfor the entire interegional sale of children.
You are aware, aren't you, that Fogel has been contradicted by a number of subsequent studies, such as Berlin and Davis? You are aware, are you not, that Fogel's methodology has been criticized because he was overly dependent on certain plantation records, which dramatically skewed his results? Seems some of his statistics can't be trusted.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanny
UB Philps and other Southern commentators who had argued this from anecdotal sources were thus proved right, Olmstead/Helper/Bancroft etc were proven wrong and all the examples of slave sales breaking up mthe family unit had been put into statitical perspective. There simply was no such thing on a meaningful measurable scale.
Even Thomas Jefferson broke up families. He wrote that he considered it a fair punishment for slaves who attempted to run away to sell them away from their families. A common reason for running away was being separated from their families.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanny
Hard to swallow when the evidence it unplatable you mean?. 95% of the population carried on as before when there was no longer white males to force them to remain, thats from your own figures for 65, use the numbers of 63 and its 99%.
Wrong again. You apparently have never heard of the "20-slave" rule. Whites who owned or oversaw at least 20 slaves were exempt from military duty in order to keep the slaves under control.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanny
the prime field hand was the most under represented group of runaways, (7% of total, artisans/craftsman 80%, who were often hired out of plantation and thus had more abuility to escape)) he had no skills to be self suffiecent should he make it away, so im unsure your starting from a point of any acuracy.
He's far more accurate than you are. Field hands were laborers. They could survive by being laborers as long as they could make it to free territory.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanny
Well you need to recall the distribution of the 180k, thats the number in April 65, and includes more neutral states former slaves than it does secesionsist states negros, and if you look back to 64 or 63 the number falls dramaticly as the Union had yet to gain the former CSA slaves into sevice. Which was not vol btw. So the 180 is made up
A total of 178,892 Negroes officially served in the Union Army, of whom 134,111 were from slave states, with some 93,346 of these from seceded states, so your 94k from a pop of 3.5 million is less than Union desertertions, less than the number who joined the Uk to leqave the US the Colonies, and is as a % of the pop what again?. Goto Nov of 64 and your close to 20k short of that number in federal service.
Slaves in the seceded states normally needed a Union army close by in order to take the chance of running away. This is due to the fact that the slave patrols were still intact, and there were still armed whites on the lookout to keep the slaves in line.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanny
Well this is the unplatable bit i mentioned, by wars end the North had aquired around 95k of former CSA negros slaves into service, from a population of 3.5 million, thats rather a small %, perhaps mil age is a better indicator though (CSA slaves 10-49age group =1088,000, free blacks border states 37,000, free blacks CSA 37,000 free northern) less than the number of slaves who left the colonies in the AWI for freedom promised to them by the UK, from a pop base a fraction of the 1860 one. Or another way to look at it, only a half of the 18k were from the CSA states, and half of them only served from the beggining of 65.
so the *some* you speak off was 90%ish of males of mil age, and 95% of total population who carried on doing what they did and ignored the white folks. The *many* was at wars end around 95k, and considerable less in earlier years, and is only noticible when a Union force is present, and *many others* finding women and children being the only ones holding them to the land simply stayed, when there was no longer any pratcible means to enforce them to do so.
Like I said before, you are apparently unaware of the "20-slave" rule. There was an intact system to keep the slaves under control, which is why the slaves didn't take the risk of running away unless there was a Union army in the area.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanny
We can put this inter breeding to bed to be right now, current genitic studies show the extent of caucasion genitic contribution to the afro american negro, its vanishingly insignificant and thats with a over a century of intr realtionships post war.
Do you just make this stuff up as you go along?
"According to Mark Shriver, professor of genetics and anthropology at the [Penn State] university, DNA testing reveals that 5 percent of white Americans have some African ancestry and 60 percent of black Americans have white bloodlines."
The US laws says the women who bear children become slaves. The probable white on blacks producing ofspring in the south was under 1% of all births using availble census data, and it was ilegal top do it btw, and the social stigma of it in the planation cirles means they were less likly to be the ones doing it, negro prosititutes numbers in southern cities pre war are almost non existant, they numbers of poor white prostitutes was considerable, showing what was in demand, ie not negros.
Wrong on all counts. First of all the US law at the time said that the status of the children depended on the status of the mother. If the mother was free, the child was free. If the mother was a slave, the child was a slave. Mothers who bore children weren't enslaved. As to the number of births producing offspring, your position is contradicted by the people who saw it firsthand.
"God forgive us, but ours is a monstrous system and wrong and iniquity. Perhaps the rest of the world is as bad--this *only* [emphasis in original] I see. Like the patriarchs of old our men live all in one house with their wives and their concubines, and the mulattoes one sees in every family exactly resemble the white children--and every lady tells you who is the father of all the mulatto children in everybody's household, but those in her own she seems to think drop from the clouds, or pretends so to think. Good women we have, but they talk of all nastiness--tho' they never do wrong, they talk day and night of [erasures illegible save for the words 'all unconsciousness'] my disgust sometimes is boiling over--but they are, I believe, in conduct the purest women God ever made. Thank God for my countrywomen--alas for the men! No worse than men everywhere, but the lower their mistresses, the more degraded they must be.
"My mother-in-law told me when I was first married not to send my female servants in the street on errands. They were then tempted, led astray--and then she said placidly, so they told me when I came here, and I was very particular, but you see with what result.
"Mr. Harris said it was so patriarchal. So it is--flocks and herds and slaves--and wife Leah does not suffice. Rachel must be *added* if not *married.* [emphases in original] And all the time they seem to think themselves patterns--models of husbands and fathers."
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