Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
When I started the challenge thread, I issued a challenge to discuss slavery sanely and without accusations flung far and wide. While we seem to have reached sanity in our discussion, we really haven't talked about slavery except as a cause of war. We have not even touched on the "peculiar institution" from a black point of view.
Longstreetlass says she cannot speak for blacks. I countered that we can put ourselves in their place just as we do when we reenact as soldiers or civilians. I believe that human nature does not change according to skin color. All humans dream, desire, laugh and cry. I might add we can also speak of slavery from a white point of view. How did the plantation mistress view the "peculiar institution" for instance? There are thousands of diaries with her observations written down covering before the war, during and after. Why are we so reluctant to look at those?
From the same standpoint, there is an enormous cache of documents outlining how individual plantation owners ran their operations. There was also a wide difference between the mega plantations in Georgia and the Carolinas and smaller landholdings in places like Virginia and Missouri. There were also vastly different viewpoints on how to look at blacks, free or otherwise. Thomas Jackson believed it was his duty to Christianize those he came in contact with to prepare them for some future day of freedom. Is it an unrealistic goal for us to look at the way notable leaders perceived and dealt with slavery as individuals? After all, they left us a legacy of their views.
Maybe I ask too much. It's possible that moving beyond causes and slavery, as an economic tool into the human side of bondage is more than our collective white memory can endure.
Am I right? Does examining slavery as a living condition somehow detract from the 600,000 who died on the battlefield? Are the diametrically opposed concepts of "all men are created equal" and slavery an impossible discussion for white Americans even 137 years after passage of the 13th Amendment? Why is it that through nearly 14 decades of technological achievements from railroads to the Internet; six major wars in which blacks played a part and we fought as one country; the civil rights struggles of the 60s; finally having blacks in important national posts; terrorist attacks that has again united the country; and, thousands of CW discussion; we are still incapable of looking at slavery from the human stand-point?
Please understand I am not trying to point any fingers. What happened happened. I don't consider myself responsible for John Brown's radical and murderous actions. I don't consider the southerners who lived in 1860 as personally responsible for an institution that they inherited and wanted to keep intact.
So I guess my challenge is: Can we discuss the living conditions of both black and white on plantations, in the towns and in rural areas during the antebellum period? Can we do it without getting into causes of war or the morality of the institution?
PS: I don't have a lot of hope that we can or that anyone wants to do it, just thought I would try.
Can we do it without getting into causes of war or the morality of the institution?
Good luck. In many ways it is impossible to have an open discussion without getting into moral judgements. In my own opinion, that is one of the basic reasons the issue was such a divisive one in the early 1800's. While most northerners agreed in 1850 that slavery was not a desirable state of affairs, they also had no answer for how it was to be disposed of. In the south, of course, this was a problem that hit much closer to home. It was impossible to seperate the institution of slavery as an abstract idea from the large number of blacks living in their very midst. Whether you were a slaveowner or not, if you lived in the south you were daily faced with the reality of the situation. It was simply impossible for most of these people to see a solution that would not destroy the very fabric of their society. It was the destruction of this society that southerners feared much more than the loss of property that emancipation would cause.
Earlier, I posted in this forum a rather involved look at slave laws in the south. It is impossible to make even a haphazard look at the conditions of slaves in the south without understanding just how horrible the system was. This dawning realization of these conditions by many people in the north was at the base of the problems that soon beset the country. At the same time southerners greatly resented any such moral condemnation of their society. Hence, their subsequent attempts at defending their "peculiar institution". It was this moral condemnation that irritated the south and its spokesmen the most. This was true in 1850 and is often the case in 2002 as well.
For myself, I'd like to read more on lives of the smaller farmers with only 1 or 2 slaves. I understand that, for the most part, the owners didn't live much higher than their slaves, as they virtually shared everything they both produced, working side by side in the fields, the black no harder in most cases than the owner. Unfortunately everything I've heard was only hearsay.
What is available in this area, if anything with any real base of fact?
I've read a few , short, slave accounts and also the Jacob's diary, several years ago when I discovered it online. That book was so graphic it brought tears to my eyes. Have not even opened that book since I read it, but the pictures she painted still are deeply ingrained in my mind. The short accounts, and descriptions of plantation life from other books and diaries I've read over the years did little to convince me that Jacobs wrote more than the real truth.
At a local Civil War book discussion group, that I attended while working days, one of the books talked about was "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave".
The gentleman hosting the series, a well respected retired doctor, was of the opinion that the book was not the truth, but written worse than conditions actually were at the urgings of the abolitionist Douglass worked with. The host thought that the killing of slaves was not likely due to their 'value'.And he also thought that slaves were taken better care of than normally described, because you don't want to kill ingure the goose that lays the golden egg.
I asked if he had ever read a slave diary, and he replied no, but that he had read enough in histories to think he knew what he was talking about.
I described some of the material from Jacobs diary and he just shrugged it off. The rest in the group would only concede that some cruelty may have occurred but nothing as bad as Douglass described.
And no one would agree that a slave diary would make a good topic of discussion.
After this experience I think you might be right that there is not much hope on discussions of this nature, outside of the Annual Seminar on Slavery, which I really wish some, at least, of the papers presented were published online to the public and not hidden away in the ivory towers of the scholars or in very obscure and ponderous books.
Chuck in Il.
Hoping to seed the pot a bit for rational discussion, allow me tell you about the Fain family of Tennessee.
In 1861 when war began, living at the Fain farm were Richard and Eliza Fain, their 12 children, a daughter-in-law, eight slaves and Caroline, a slave for hire. When her husband and three adult sons joined the CSA army, Eliza wrote: "My soul is troubled to its greatest depth, but my servants have been so loyal to me ever since these difficulties have commenced." Gus, a slave they had owned for six years said to Eliza: "Miss Liza I never have felt so troubled when Master Richard was from home."
As happened all over the nation - north and south - Eliza was suddenly faced with challenges she was completely unprepared for by her culture and upbringing. For the first time, she had to make decisions regarding the extended family while buffeted by all sorts of deprivations and shortages. Eliza had a long road ahead of her as mother, wife, caretaker, slave manager and nurse.
In addition, as the war continued Eliza found that she had to work harder and harder just to keep bread on the table and the farm running smoothly. Unused to physical labor in the fields and elsewhere, Eliza's health suffered intermittent spells of indisposition.
With the realities of the battlefield losses and accompanying fears of Union occupation, Eliza also worried what would become of her "black family." She was an avowed proponent of slavery as a benign institution and her diary is littered with articulating the benefits of slavery and the great care she gave to their slaves. Eliza was convinced that slavery was part of God's plan for the salvation of the black race. She believed that whites were charged with christianizing Africans within the only acceptable vehicle for doing so -- chattel slavery. She frequently challenged (in her diary) northern women to come and see how slavery was and like Lee, Eliza was determined that slavery must last until providence brought it to an end. Even after the war, Eliza would remain affixed to this concept and did not accept that God had finally spoken when slavery was officially ended.
In October 1863, the Union army finally arrived at the Fain farm, drove off their oxen and then quartered themselves in her home. When the main body left to set up camp elsewhere a guard was left behind to protect them from looters. When "Mr. Finley" the guard from the 70th Ohio Reg. was still at the Fain farm as confederates reoccupied the area, Eliza hid Finley from capture.
Eliza was surprised to discover that Lewis one of her slaves left with the Federals and immediately began to pray for her "poor misguided" slave. Later Eliza was equally stunned when she ordered her oldest slave Ahab to sit with a dying confederate soldier and he refused. "Had he been a young Negro, I could have told him to go but an old Negro gray-headed has privileges which others do not." While Eliza does not explain Ahab's refusal, my assumption is that Ahab saw the rebel soldier as his enemy, a concept that Eliza probably could not fathom. She was also unable to understand or accept Lewis' reasons for leaving.
Even with her good natured care and personal kindness, Eliza's slaves apparently still yearned for freedom of choice and began making their own decisions. When black cavalry came to the area, Gus and Caroline defied their mistress' wishes to "go over and see the finely mounted darkies." One morning Eliza woke to find Caroline gone and the next day Gus as well. Gus returned three days later without explaining his whereabouts and Eliza lectured him about who his true friends were, “I told him I did not want him to go away and that I had confidence in him." And then she confided, "I did not want the last remnant of confidence which I had in the African race destroyed by his leaving us." Eliza was hoping to hold her "black family" by applying equal doses of reason and guilt.
After the war and official emancipation Ahab, Gus, Hill and Polly remained in the area and worked for the Fains for small compensation in money or provisions.
Eliza Fain was in some ways unusual. She was well educated for her time and place and kept a diary for 60 years. She was also stoic and accepted what providence dealt her without losing faith. Yet Eliza was also truly a woman of her time and place. Until the end of the war, she was incapable of standing to lead prayer at the table. When her husband and adult sons left, Eliza called in an adult male slave to lead evening prayer. Finally in April 1865, she "was enabled to bow at the family altar myself for the first time in my life. I have long felt the importance of keeping this duty up in the absence of my dear husband but the cross has always seemed too great."
Obviously Eliza was a good and kind woman who took her Christianity seriously. Of course, we only have Eliza's views of slavery at her farm. We do not know how Polly or Gus felt. We know little about them in fact. Gus came in 1854, from where? Was he separated from his family? What happened to Ahab's family? Did he have a wife or children? So many questions unanswered by the white records.
It seems to me that despite the close living arrangements of the Fains and their slaves and the respect that Eliza gave her slaves as individuals, Eliza in the end did not know or understand them. She assumed that her noble motives of christianizing and caring for her chattel were also accepted as a moral right and the way things should be by her slaves.
If I were to go back to 1861 and speak with Eliza and she explained to me how it was God's providence that placed black people in the beneficent care of white society, I would counter with: God in his wisdom kept the races apart by placing them on separate continents. It was slavers, black and white, who placed Africans on American soil for profit, not God. Therefore, there is no evidence that it was God's wish for whites to civilize blacks or to provide for them or to make life better than in the jungle.
Any comments?
Southern Families at War, edited by Catherine Clinton, Chapter 8 The Fains of Tennessee by Daniel W. Stowell
I am disappointed in your good doctor. Assuming that Frederick Douglass lied to boost his cause without any proof is foolish. I could say the same about every white person who left diaries claiming kindness to slaves.
I would ask the good doctor then to explain the motives behind Fanny Kemble, a woman raised in Britain who came here with no preconceived or tainted notions about slavery, but who found many cruelties on her husband’s Georgia plantation and wrote about them as they happened in the 1840s.
As to the pragmatic argument that self-interest dictated kindness to valuable slaves, I can buy that on a limited basis, makes sense. If I own five male slaves who tend my fields and harvest the produce, I would be a fool to maim or kill one or keep them malnourished.
But what about the large plantations where a 1000 or more men, women and children labored in anonymity. If one slave runs away, isn’t it in my best interest for controlling the population to maim or even kill the runaway when he is returned?
James Stirling, was a British writer who visited the American South in 1857. He wrote a book - <u>Letters from the Slave States</u> - which contains interviews with plantation owners as well as his observations as he traveled the south and visited plantations.
The position of the fieldhands is very different; of those, especially, who labour on large plantations. Here there are none of those humanizing influences at work which temper the rigour of the system, nor is there the same check of public opinion to control abuse. The 'force' is worked en masse, as a great human mechanism; or, if you will, as a drove of human cattle. The proprietor is seldom present to direct and control. . . There are many estates which the proprietor does not visit at all, or visits perhaps once a year; and where, during his absence, the slaves are left to the uncontrolled caprice of the overseer and his assistants, not another white man, perhaps, being within miles of the plantation. Who can say what passes in those voiceless solitudes. Happen what may, there is none to tell. Whatever the slave may suffer there is none to bear witness to his wrong. It needs a large amount of charity to believe that power so despotic, so utterly uncontrolled even by opinion, will never degenerate into violence. It could only be so if overseers were saints, and drivers angels.
It is often said that the interest of the slaveowner is sufficient guarantee for the good treatment of the slave; that no man will voluntarily injure the value of his property. This reasoning assumes, first, that slaveowners will take an intelligent view of their own interests; and, secondly, that they will be guided by the passion of gain rather than by other passions. . . But even if we grant the restraint placed on the passions of the master by considerations of pecuniary interest, we cannot allow the same effect to be produced on the overseer.
On the contrary, the interest of the overseer is to exhibit a large production as the result of his exertions; and the more remote consideration of being a prudent husbandman of his forces will only affect a superior mind. On this point I prefer giving the opinions of slaveowners themselves. In an article in De Bow's Review, on the management of slaves, I find some interesting remarks on this subject, in a report to a committee of slave-holders. After pointing out the interest of the owners in the good treatment of their slaves, it continues:-'There is one class of our community to whom all the motives referred to, to induce us to kindness to our slaves, do not apply. Your committee refer to our overseers. As they have no property in our slaves, of course they lack the check of selfinterest. As their only aim, in general, is to get the largest possible crop for the year, we can readily conceive the strong inducement they have to overwork our slaves, and masters are often much to blame for inadvertently encouraging this feeling in their overseers.'
It appears, then, that nothing but high principle on the part of the overseer could ensure the good treatment of the slave on large plantations. But all testimony concurs in representing the overseers as a very inferior class in point of character. A Virginian slaveowner used this language to Olmsted:-'They (the overseers) are the curse of this country, sir; the worst men in the community.' Yet these are the men on whom devolves, practically, the management of the great bulk of the agricultural slave population, in the cotton, rice, and sugar districts.
What would the good doctor say is the motive behind James Stirling's observations?
1.) Connie, if you are interested in the living conditions of slaves prior to the War, you may want to read Frederick Law Olmsted's series of "Journey" books. They are generally collected as "The Cotton Kingdom." The edition that I have is from 1969 and edited by Arthur Schlesinger. It offers up a rather interesting picture of how the slaves that Olmsted saw actually lived.
2.) The Douglass Biography. I caused a heck of a ruckus with one of my graduate professors when I pointed out a rather obvious fact: Douglass complains that he never had proper clothing until he was five or six years old, only a dress. Since all male children in this time period wore dresses, why did Douglass consider himself treated badly?
3.) You may also want to read up on Fanny Wright and her Tennessee-based freed man's "commune" of Nashoba near Nashville.
Thanks Kat, I have one of the Douglass biographies. Read it years ago. But didn't know about the Olmstead books. I will have to find them or at least keep my eye out for them. ABE, of course, will help in my search.
You certainly are right about dresses in boys being a universal practice for rich and poor alike. The style was continued into the 1920s. When my uncle was born (died at 3 mos) in 1924, my grandmother shocked the neighbors by skipping the dress bit and dressing him in either short pants or the very new, very modern jumpers.
For years I didn't know why dresses for boys. Finally found out. For one thing it was easier to change a baby. Secondly it was too expensive and too inconvenient to put a child in pants due to the rapid growth from birth until three.
Most infant dresses were very roomy across the shoulders with wide sleeves and deep hems that were let down as baby grew. Often the hems were done in horizontal strip pleats about 1/2 an inch each. Pull the thread and the pleat is gone dropping the hem in 1 inch increments. Quick and neat.
Clothing and fabric were still big chunks out of the family budget and conservation remained a by-word through the 1940s. Since the practice of boys in dresses had been around for centuries even the wealthy did it. Another interesting aside is that until after the CW when we fully understood germ, wet diapers were usually hung up to dry and reused before washing.
Thanks again Kat for the tips on the Olmstead books.
I was watching the news yesterday and the discussion was how women were treated in Saudia Arabia. If they were having a civil war and the opposition was looking to change the status quo and give the same rights to women that men have. How strong would their resolve go to keep the status quo? How may lives would they be willing to sacrifice? I bet a lot... I guess it takes a lot to change a way of life that has been going on for generations- whether it's right or wrong.
"I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause thought that was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse." --Grant's thoughts on Lee's surrender at Appomattox.
I love history. That’s why I come here. I cherish my heritage. I want my grandbabies to remember my wonderful grandparents and so I tell them often about them and share the family stories with them. How sad then . . .
“As nearly as I have been able to learn, I was born near a cross-roads post-office called Hale's Ford, and the year was 1858 or 1859. I do not know the month or the day. Of my father I know even less than of my mother. I do not even know his name. I have heard reports to the effect that he was a white man who lived on one of the near-by plantations. Whoever he was, I never heard of his taking the least interest in me or providing in any way for my rearing.”
Momma and daddy kept me safe. To me going without meant not getting my own pony so I could be Dale Evans. How sad then . . .
My life had its beginning in the midst of the most miserable, desolate, and discouraging surroundings. This was so, however, not because my owners were especially cruel, for they were not, as compared with many others.
Momma tucked me in at night in a warm bed with a plump comforter. She chanted in a soft voice “Bye, baby bunting,. Daddy’s gone a’hunting. To get a little rabbit skin to wrap his baby bunting in” How sad then . . .
The cabin was without glass windows; it had only openings in the side which let in the light, and also the cold, chilly air of winter. . . I cannot remember having slept in a bed until after our family was declared free by the Emancipation Proclamation. Three children -- John, my older brother, Amanda, my sister, and myself -- had a pallet on the dirt floor, or, to be more correct, we slept in and on a bundle of filthy rags laid upon the dirt floor.
Apple pie, a starched apron and Mom. She was always there for me. Skinned knees and runny noses, arithmetic and spelling homework, new shoes that pinched and old jeans that needed patches – all got a kiss, a hug, a few quick stitches and a bandaid. How sad then . . .
“She snatched a few moments for our care in the early morning before her work began, and at night after the day's work was done. One of my earliest recollections is that of my mother cooking a chicken late at night, and awakening her children for the purpose of feeding them. How or where she got it I do not know. I presume, however, it was procured from our owner's farm. Some people may call this theft. . .
The most trying ordeal that I was forced to endure as a slave boy, however, was the wearing of a flax shirt. That part of the flax from which our clothing was made was largely the refuse, which of course was the cheapest and roughest part. I can scarcely imagine any torture, except, perhaps, the pulling of a tooth, that is equal to that caused by putting on a new flax shirt for the first time. It is almost equal to the feeling that one would experience if he had a dozen or more chestnut burrs, or a hundred small pin-points, in contact with his flesh. Even to this day I can recall accurately the tortures that I underwent when putting on one of these garments. ”
“Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts” -- roast beef and smooth as silk gravy, cream corn and flaky biscuits, how the smells still entice. How sad then . . .
I cannot remember a single instance during my childhood or early boyhood when our entire family sat down to the table together, and God's blessing was asked, and the family ate a meal in a civilized manner. . . It was a piece of bread here and a scrap of meat there. It was a cup of milk at one time and some potatoes at another. . . I was required to go to the "big house" at meal-times to fan the flies from the table by means of a large set of paper fans operated by a pulley.
Going to church on Sunday morning with my family was always a treat. How sad then . . .
So far as I can now recall, the first knowledge that I got of the fact that we were slaves, and that freedom of the slaves was being discussed, was early one morning before day, when I was awakened by my mother kneeling over her children and fervently praying that Lincoln and his armies might be successful, and that one day she and her children might be free.
Grandma always had the most wonderful gingersnaps, thin, snappy with a bite that was heavenly. She gave us each a bag on Christmas morning. How sad then . . .
“I remember that at one time I saw two of my young mistresses and some lady visitors eating ginger-cakes, in the yard. At that time those cakes seemed to me to be absolutely the most tempting and desirable things that I had ever seen; and I then and there resolved that, if I ever got free, the height of my ambition would be reached if I could get to the point where I could secure and eat ginger-cakes in the way that I saw those ladies doing.
I think that “kindly master” is the gravest oxymoron. A mom and a dad deserve to cherish, cosset and kiss their babies. Their babies deserve the special love and care that only parents can give. Booker T. Washington was robbed of all the memories that we remember fondly. He was a thing. A mechanism for chasing flies. A non-person in a world of people. I wish I could give him a gingercake so that <u>Up From Slavery</u> would not have been so hard.
It is claimed that slavery was benign, a kindly institution, that protected and cosseted the four million people who were kept in involuntary servitude. It is also suggested that since slaves were a capital investment, self-interest kept the slave owner from abusing the slave. In addition, it has been stated that slaves themselves participated in their victimization and approved of slavery as the natural relationship of the races.
William Wells Brown was an escaped St. Louis slave who published a narrative in 1847 that went through 4 editions and was a best seller. Brown's work is very readable and stated in a matter-of-fact manner. In his later editions Brown also included documentation from area newspapers to confirm (from white sources) many of his recollections. The following is from the introduction of the fourth edition.
"It has been suggested that my narrative is somewhat deficient in dates. From my total want of education previous to my escape from slavery, I am unable to give them with much accuracy. The ignorance of the American slaves is, with rare exceptions, intense; and the slaveholders generally do their utmost to perpetuate this mental darkness. The perpetuation of slavery depends upon it. Whatever may be said of the physical condition of the slaves, it is undeniable that if they were not kept in a state of intellectual, religious, and moral degradation, they could be retained as slaves no longer."
Brown's Appendix also refutes the idea that the combination of kindly massahs and "happy darkies" was not even then an issue with the slave or the escaped slave. It didn't matter. Slavery by definition was degradation.
<u>APPENDIX</u> "Nor am I inclined to apologize for anything which I have said. There are exceptions among slaveholders, as well as among other sinners; and the fact that a slaveholder feeds his slaves better, clothes them better, than another, does not alter the case; he is a slaveholder. I do not ask the slaveholder to feed, clothe, or to treat his victim better as a slave. I am not waging a warfare against the collateral evils, or what are sometimes called the abuses, of slavery. I wage a war against slavery itself, because it takes man down from the lofty position which God intended he should occupy, and places him upon a level with the beasts of the field. It decrees that the slave shall not worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience; it denies him the word of God; it makes him a chattel, and sells him in the market to the highest bidder; it decrees that he shall not protect the wife of his bosom; it takes from him every right which God gave him. Clothing and food are as nothing compared with liberty. What care I for clothing or food, while I am the slave of another? You may take me and put cloth upon my back, boots upon my feet, a hat upon my head, and cram a beef-steak down my throat, and all of this will not satisfy me as long as I know that you have the power to tear me from my dearest relatives.
All I ask of the slaveholder is to give the slave his liberty. It is freedom I ask for the slave. And that the American slave will eventually get his freedom, no one can doubt. You cannot keep the human mind forever locked up in darkness. A ray of light, a spark from freedom's altar, the idea of inherent right, each, all, will become fixed in the soul; and that moment his "limbs swell beyond the measure of his chains," that moment he is free; then it is that the slave dies to become a freeman; then it is felt that one hour of virtuous liberty is worth an eternity of bondage; then it is, in the madness and fury of his blood, that the excited soul exclaims:
<center>"From life without freedom, oh! who would not fly;
For one day of freedom, oh! who would not die?"</center>
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