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.
"Freed slaves," Mr. Keith, seem to be the bugaboo here. Most were not freed, they were "self emancipated." I'd wager that within weeks after publication of the EP, very nealy every slave in the south had heard that they were free. (They apparently had a better grapevine than their owners.) Not being as dull as popular opinion held, they could look around them and see that, while they were technically free, in practicality they were not. However, whenever a body of Union troops came close enough, those so inclined emancipated themselves and took off.
What to do with the slaves after freedom was a concern of almost everyone except the radical abolitionists. To Lincoln, it would appear, that concern became secondary to the damage to be done to the Confederate war effort.
Even Sherman (whose racism wasn't as virulent as some would have you believe) advised them to stay home and look after themselves as the time was not yet for them to be busting loose and wandering around looking for an army to feed them.
Is your premise flawed? Only in the supposition that the EP actually freed anyone except those areas that subsequently came under Union jurisdiction. Our shorthand version of history usually holds up the EP as evidence that Lincoln freed the slaves. In a way he did, and I suppose that's one way of registering the thought in a few hours of class. But it ain't exactly true.
Appreciate your input.
Ole
Ole, Once again you have pointed to the crux of the issue.
__________________ -
"It was a very peculiar time." - Franklin D. Cossitt
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A "foreign" government issues an edict and the slaves in the Confederate States were free men? Why didn't the South just call B.S. and go biz as usual? Someone here understand the dynamics of this better than I do?
Why do you think thats not what they did?.
The EP was Lincoln upping the stacks of defeat, if you continue and lose, this is what the consequences will be for you, otoh if you return to the Union now, or more exactaly before adatre in the EP, you can keep your slaves.
__________________ "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote."
Benjamin Franklin, 1759
I doubt if Lincoln thought the CSA would collapse in the next three months(Antietam to Jan. 1st), and that Lincoln was basically saying:"quit now or you'll lose your slaves when we win"
The EP meant that, as long as the North won, American slavery after two centuries was finished. As Lincoln wrote elsewhere, in the mind of the Federals, slavery was bound up with secession. Slavery was wrong, but, to Lincoln, it was also what was wrong with the South, i.e. leading to secession and civil war. Preservation of the Union and of slavery were incompatible.
There is no law saying you have to agree with that reasoning, but its how Lincoln and other Unionists reasoned.
Never the less, it proved to be a positive for the Union.
True. Also, it didn't create the havoc that Lincoln had expected it to in the South. Lincoln, as with most Northerners of the era, underestimated the relationship of master and slave. Most slaves simply remained where they were because it was home and they didn't want to be anywhere else. The rest mostly just slipped off through the night, quietly and peacefully. After all, there were few to give them resistance.
Regards,
Rose
__________________ "Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names".--J.F.K.
The War Between the States established... This principle that the Federal Government is, through its courts, this final judge of its own powers.
-- Woodrow Wilson
I would add Rose, that slaveowners considerably overestimated the bonds between slave and free, when tens of thousands escaped when the opportunity presented itself.
I know some posters have recounted family histories of loyal servant-slaves. While these instances may be true, the large numbers of blacks who "self emancipated" during the war years (The NPS estimated ten thousand escaped slaves passing through Fredericksburg VA during just a few months), obviously felt differently.
I know some posters have recounted family histories of loyal servant-slaves. While these instances may be true, the large numbers of blacks who "self emancipated" during the war years (The NPS estimated ten thousand escaped slaves passing through Fredericksburg VA during just a few months), obviously felt differently.
I have no doubt that Rose is, to an extent, correct. For the most part, 'though, the special relationship is very much a post-war invention -- sometimes called the Lost Cause.
Ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
I would add Rose, that slaveowners considerably overestimated the bonds between slave and free, when tens of thousands escaped when the opportunity presented itself.
I know some posters have recounted family histories of loyal servant-slaves. While these instances may be true, the large numbers of blacks who "self emancipated" during the war years (The NPS estimated ten thousand escaped slaves passing through Fredericksburg VA during just a few months), obviously felt differently.
I doubt slave owners overestimated the will of a slave to escape. And, I'm not claiming the slaves that stayed all did it for love or loyalty to their owners. They did it, for the most part, because they didn't want to leave thier homes, friends, extended family and familiar surroundings for the unknown. Of course there were great numbers of blacks that felt differently, but a lot of them found out that the grass was not greener on the other side of the fence as they thought it would be. Some of them even came back home. Some went on to make new lives in the North, but judging from today's population of where blacks live, I'd say the great majority stayed in the South.
Regards,
Rose
__________________ "Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names".--J.F.K.
The War Between the States established... This principle that the Federal Government is, through its courts, this final judge of its own powers.
-- Woodrow Wilson
I'd opine that, in general, those slaves who left were mostly those who had had a worse lot, particularly on the large plantations, than those who were on small one or two-slave farms, which by nature usually afforded a closer relationship with the owner's family. This is not to say that all small farmers were kind and indulgent slavemasters.
Few of us wish to sever our familiar situations and connections to venture into an entirely unknown environment.
Few of us wish to sever our familiar situations and connections to venture into an entirely unknown environment.
A solid voice of reason. There is as little to be gained by a discussion of how many slaves remained vs how many left as there is in discussing black confederates. The real numbers have little import. There were as many reasons for staying or leaving as there were slaves. For our purposes, enough slaves decamped to further hamper the Confederate war effort.
Ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
The first to address this problem in the field was Gen. Grant who in Nov. 1862 appointed a union chaplain, John Eaton, to the position of superintendent of freedmen, with a vague mandate Eaton reluctantly accepted. This later evolved into the "Freedmens Bureau".
See Grant, Lincoln, and the Freedmen by John Eaton.
__________________ -
"It was a very peculiar time." - Franklin D. Cossitt
Ancestors in USA Army: 6th IA Inf, 11th IL Cav, 1st AL Cav; 122nd NY Inf; 6th MI Cav; 35th MA Inf; 100th IL Inf; 1st CO Inf/Cav; 22nd IN Inf
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