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.
80. The Movement against the Slave-Trade Laws. It was not altogether a mistaken judgment that led the constitutional fathers to consider the slave-trade as the backbone of slavery. An economic system based on slave labor will find, sooner or later, that the demand for the cheapest slave labor cannot long be withstood. Once degrade the laborer so that he cannot assert his own rights, and there is but one limit below which his price cannot be reduced. That limit is not his physical well-being, for it may be, and in the Gulf States it was, cheaper to work him rapidly to death; the limit is simply the cost of procuring him and keeping him alive a profitable length of time. Only the moral sense of a community can keep helpless labor from sinking to this level; and when a community has once been debauched by slavery, its moral sense offers little resistance to economic demand. This was the case in the West Indies and Brazil; and although better moral stamina held the crisis back longer in the United States, yet even here the ethical standard of the South was not able to maintain itself against the demands of the cotton industry. When, after 1850, the price of slaves had risen to a monopoly height, the leaders of the plantation system, brought to the edge of bankruptcy by the crude and reckless farming necessary under a slave régime, and baffled, at least temporarily, in their quest of new rich land to exploit, began instinctively to feel that the only salvation of American slavery lay in the reopening of the African slave-trade.
It took but a spark to put this instinctive feeling into words, and words led to deeds. The movement first took definite form in the ever radical State of South Carolina. In 1854 a grand jury in the Williamsburg district declared, "as our unanimous opinion, that the Federal law abolishing the African Slave Trade is a public grievance. We hold this trade has been and would be, if re-established, a blessing to the American people, and a benefit to the African himself."1 This attracted only local attention; but when, in 1856, the governor of the State, in his annual message, calmly argued at length for a reopening of the trade, and boldly declared that "if we cannot supply the demand for slave labor, then we must expect to be supplied with a species of labor we do not want,"2 such words struck even Southern ears like "a thunder clap in a calm day."3 And yet it needed but a few years to show that South Carolina had merely been the first to put into words the inarticulate thought of a large minority, if not a majority, of the inhabitants of the Gulf States.
Regards,
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
81. Commercial Conventions of 1855–56. The growth of the movement is best followed in the action of the Southern Commercial Convention, an annual gathering which seems to have been fairly representative of a considerable part of Southern opinion. In the convention that met at New Orleans in 1855, McGimsey of Louisiana introduced a resolution instructing the Southern Congressmen to secure the repeal of the slave-trade laws. This resolution went to the Committee on Resolutions, and was not reported.4 In 1856, in the convention at Savannah, W.B. Goulden of Georgia moved that the members of Congress be requested to bestir themselves energetically to have repealed all laws which forbade the slave-trade. By a vote of 67 to 18 the convention refused to debate the motion, but appointed a committee to present at the next convention the facts relating to a reopening of the trade.5 In regard to this action a pamphlet of the day said: "There were introduced into the convention two leading measures, viz.: the laying of a State tariff on northern goods, and the reopening of the slave-trade; the one to advance our commercial interest, the other our agricultural interest, and which, when taken together, as they were doubtless intended to be, and although they have each been attacked by presses of doubtful service to the South, are characterized in the private judgment of politicians as one of the completest southern remedies ever submitted to popular action.... The proposition to revive, or more properly to reopen, the slave trade is as yet but imperfectly understood, in its intentions and probable results, by the people of the South, and but little appreciated by them. It has been received in all parts of the country with an undefined sort of repugnance, a sort of squeamishness, which is incident to all such violations of moral prejudices, and invariably wears off on familiarity with the subject. The South will commence by enduring, and end by embracing the project."6 The matter being now fully before the public through these motions, Governor Adams's message, and newspaper and pamphlet discussion, the radical party pushed the project with all energy.
Regards,
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
82. Commercial Conventions of 1857–58. The first piece of regular business that came before the Commercial Convention at Knoxville, Tennessee, August 10, 1857, was a proposal to recommend the abrogation of the 8th Article of the Treaty of Washington, on the slave-trade. An amendment offered by Sneed of Tennessee, declaring it inexpedient and against settled policy to reopen the trade, was voted down, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Virginia refusing to agree to it. The original motion then passed; and the radicals, satisfied with their success in the first skirmish, again secured the appointment of a committee to report at the next meeting on the subject of reopening the slave-trade.7 This next meeting assembled May 10, 1858, in a Gulf State, Alabama, in the city of Montgomery. Spratt of171 South Carolina, the slave-trade champion, presented an elaborate majority report from the committee, and recommended the following resolutions:—
1. Resolved, That slavery is right, and that being right, there can be no wrong in the natural means to its formation.
2. Resolved, That it is expedient and proper that the foreign slave trade should be re-opened, and that this Convention will lend its influence to any legitimate measure to that end.
3. Resolved, That a committee, consisting of one from each slave State, be appointed to consider of the means, consistent with the duty and obligations of these States, for re-opening the foreign slave-trade, and that they report their plan to the next meeting of this Convention.
Yancey, from the same committee, presented a minority report, which, though it demanded the repeal of the national prohibitory laws, did not advocate the reopening of the trade by the States.
Much debate ensued. Pryor of Virginia declared the majority report "a proposition to dissolve the Union." Yancey declared that "he was for disunion now. [Applause.]" He defended the principle of the slave-trade, and said: "If it is right to buy slaves in Virginia and carry them to New Orleans, why is it not right to buy them in Cuba, Brazil, or Africa, and carry them there?" The opposing speeches made little attempt to meet this uncomfortable logic; but, nevertheless, opposition enough was developed to lay the report on the table until the next convention, with orders that it be printed, in the mean time, as a radical campaign document. Finally the convention passed a resolution:—
That it is inexpedient for any State, or its citizens, to attempt to re-open the African slave-trade while that State is one of the United States of America.8
Regards,
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
83. Commercial Convention of 1859. The Convention of 1859 met at Vicksburg, Mississippi, May 9–19, and the slave-trade party came ready for a fray. On the second day Spratt called up his resolutions, and the next day the Committee on Resolutions recommended that, "in the opinion of this Convention, all laws, State or Federal, prohibiting the African slave trade, ought to be repealed." Two minority reports accompanied this resolution: one proposed to postpone action, on account of the futility of the attempt at that time; the other report recommended that, since repeal of the national laws was improbable, nullification by the States impracticable, and action by the Supreme Court unlikely, therefore the States should bring in the Africans as apprentices, a system the legality of which "is incontrovertible." "The only difficult question," it was said, "is the future status of the apprentices after the expiration of their term of servitude."9 Debate on these propositions began in the afternoon. A brilliant speech on the resumption of the importation of slaves, says Foote of Mississippi, "was listened to with breathless attention and applauded vociferously. Those of us who rose in opposition were looked upon by the excited assemblage present as traitors to the best interests of the South, and only worthy of expulsion from the body. The excitement at last grew so high that personal violence was menaced, and some dozen of the more conservative members of the convention withdrew from the hall in which it was holding its sittings."10 "It was clear," adds De Bow, "that the people of Vicksburg looked upon it [i.e., the convention] with some distrust."11 When at last a ballot was taken, the first resolution passed by a vote of 40 to 19.12 Finally, the 8th Article of the Treaty of Washington was again condemned; and it was also suggested, in the newspaper which was the official organ of the meeting, that "the Convention raise a fund to be dispensed in premiums for the best sermons in favor of reopening the African Slave Trade."13
Regards,
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
84. Public Opinion in the South. This record of the Commercial Conventions probably gives a true reflection of the development of extreme opinion on the question of reopening the slave-trade. First, it is noticeable that on this point there was a distinct divergence of opinion and interest between the Gulf and the Border States, and it was this more than any moral repugnance that checked the radicals. The whole movement represented the economic revolt of the slave-consuming cotton-belt against their base of labor supply. This revolt was only prevented from gaining its ultimate end by the fact that the Gulf States could not get on without the active political co-operation of the Border States. Thus, although such hot-heads as Spratt were not able, even as late as 1859, to carry a substantial majority of the South with them in an attempt to reopen the trade at all hazards, yet the agitation did succeed in sweeping away nearly all theoretical opposition to the trade, and left the majority of Southern people in an attitude which regarded the reopening of the African slave-trade as merely a question of expediency.
This growth of Southern opinion is clearly to be followed in the newspapers and pamphlets of the day, in Congress, and in many significant movements. The Charleston Standard in a series of articles strongly advocated the reopening of the trade; the Richmond Examiner, though opposing the scheme as a Virginia paper should, was brought to "acknowledge that the laws which condemn the Slave-trade imply an aspersion upon the character of the South.14 174 In March, 1859, the National Era said: "There can be no doubt that the idea of reviving the African Slave Trade is gaining ground in the South. Some two months ago we could quote strong articles from ultra Southern journals against the traffic; but of late we have been sorry to observe in the same journals an ominous silence upon the subject, while the advocates of 'free trade in negroes' are earnest and active."15 The Savannah Republican, which at first declared the movement to be of no serious intent, conceded, in 1859, that it was gaining favor, and that nine-tenths of the Democratic Congressional Convention favored it, and that even those who did not advocate a revival demanded the abolition of the laws.16 A correspondent from South Carolina writes, December 18, 1859: "The nefarious project of opening it [i.e., the slave trade] has been started here in that prurient temper of the times which manifests itself in disunion schemes.... My State is strangely and terribly infected with all this sort of thing.... One feeling that gives a countenance to the opening of the slave trade is, that it will be a sort of spite to the North and defiance of their opinions."17 The New Orleans Delta declared that those who voted for the slave-trade in Congress were men "whose names will be honored hereafter for the unflinching manner in which they stood up for principle, for truth, and consistency, as well as the vital interests of the South."18
Regards,
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
85. The Question in Congress. Early in December, 1856, the subject reached Congress; and although the agitation was then new, fifty-seven Southern Congressmen refused to declare a re-opening of the slave-trade "shocking to the moral sentiment of the enlightened portion of mankind," and eight refused to call the reopening even "unwise" and "inexpedient."19 Three years later, January 31, 1859, it was impossible,175 in a House of one hundred and ninety-nine members, to get a two-thirds vote in order even to consider Kilgore's resolutions, which declared "that no legislation can be too thorough in its measures, nor can any penalty known to the catalogue of modern punishment for crime be too severe against a traffic so inhuman and unchristian."20
Congressmen and other prominent men hastened with the rising tide.21 Dowdell of Alabama declared the repressive acts "highly offensive;" J.B. Clay of Kentucky was "opposed to all these laws;"22 Seward of Georgia declared them "wrong, and a violation of the Constitution;"23 Barksdale of Mississippi agreed with this sentiment; Crawford of Georgia threatened a reopening of the trade; Miles of South Carolina was for "sweeping away" all restrictions;24 Keitt of South Carolina wished to withdraw the African squadron, and to cease to brand slave-trading as piracy;25 Brown of Mississippi "would repeal the law instantly;"26 Alexander Stephens, in his farewell address to his constituents, said: "Slave states cannot be made without Africans.... [My object is] to bring clearly to your mind the great truth that without an increase of African slaves from abroad, you may not expect or look for many more slave States."27 Jefferson Davis strongly denied "any coincidence of opinion with those who prate of the inhumanity and sinfulness of the trade. The interest of Mississippi," said he, "not of the African, dictates my conclusion." He opposed the immediate reopening of the trade in Mississippi for fear of a paralyzing influx of Negroes, but carefully added: "This conclusion, in relation to Mississippi, is based upon my view of176 her present condition, not upon any general theory. It is not supposed to be applicable to Texas, to New Mexico, or to any future acquisitions to be made south of the Rio Grande."28 John Forsyth, who for seven years conducted the slave-trade diplomacy of the nation, declared, about 1860: "But one stronghold of its [i.e., slavery's] enemies remains to be carried, to complete its triumph and assure its welfare,—that is the existing prohibition of the African Slave-trade."29 Pollard, in his Black Diamonds, urged the importation of Africans as "laborers." "This I grant you," said he, "would be practically the re-opening of the African slave trade; but ... you will find that it very often becomes necessary to evade the letter of the law, in some of the greatest measures of social happiness and patriotism."30
Regards,
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
86. Southern Policy in 1860. The matter did not rest with mere words. During the session of the Vicksburg Convention, an "African Labor Supply Association" was formed, under the presidency of J.D.B. De Bow, editor of De Bow's Review, and ex-superintendent of the seventh census. The object of the association was "to promote the supply of African labor."31 In 1857 the committee of the South Carolina legislature to whom the Governor's slave-trade message was referred made an elaborate report, which declared in italics: "The South at large does need a re-opening of the African slave trade." Pettigrew, the only member who disagreed to this report, failed of re-election. The report contained an extensive argument to prove the kingship of cotton, the perfidy of English philanthropy, and the lack of slaves in the South, which, it was said, would show a deficit of six hundred thousand slaves by 1878.32 In Georgia, about this time, an attempt to expunge the slave-trade prohibition in the State Constitution lacked but one vote of passing.33 From these slower and more legal movements came others less justifiable. The long argument 177on the "apprentice" system finally brought a request to the collector of the port at Charleston, South Carolina, from E. Lafitte & Co., for a clearance to Africa for the purpose of importing African "emigrants." The collector appealed to the Secretary of the Treasury, Howell Cobb of Georgia, who flatly refused to take the bait, and replied that if the "emigrants" were brought in as slaves, it would be contrary to United States law; if as freemen, it would be contrary to their own State law.34 In Louisiana a still more radical movement was attempted, and a bill passed the House of Representatives authorizing a company to import two thousand five hundred Africans, "indentured" for fifteen years "at least." The bill lacked but two votes of passing the Senate.35 It was said that the Georgian, of Savannah, contained a notice of an agricultural society which "unanimously resolved to offer a premium of $25 for the best specimen of a live African imported into the United States within the last twelve months."36
It would not be true to say that there was in the South in 1860 substantial unanimity on the subject of reopening the slave-trade; nevertheless, there certainly was a large and influential minority, including perhaps a majority of citizens of the Gulf States, who favored the project, and, in defiance of law and morals, aided and abetted its actual realization. Various movements, it must be remembered, gained much of their strength from the fact that their success meant a partial nullification of the slave-trade laws. The admission of Texas added probably seventy-five thousand recently imported slaves to the Southern stock; the movement against Cuba, which culminated in the "Ostend Manifesto" of Buchanan, Mason, and Soulé, had its chief impetus in the thousands of slaves whom Americans had poured into the island. Finally, the series of filibustering expeditions against Cuba, Mexico, and Central America were but the wilder and more irresponsible attempts to secure both slave territory and slaves.
Regards,
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
87. Increase of the Slave-Trade from 1850 to 1860. The long and open agitation for the reopening of the slave-trade, together with the fact that the South had been more or less familiar with violations of the laws since 1808, led to such a remarkable increase of illicit traffic and actual importations in the decade 1850–1860, that the movement may almost be termed a reopening of the slave-trade.
In the foreign slave-trade our own officers continue to report "how shamefully our flag has been used;"37 and British officers write "that at least one half of the successful part of the slave trade is carried on under the American flag," and this because "the number of American cruisers on the station is so small, in proportion to the immense extent of the slave-dealing coast."38 The fitting out of slavers became a flourishing business in the United States, and centred at New York City. "Few of our readers," writes a periodical of the day, "are aware of the extent to which this infernal traffic is carried on, by vessels clearing from New York, and in close alliance with our legitimate trade; and that down-town merchants of wealth and respectability are extensively engaged in buying and selling African Negroes, and have been, with comparatively little interruption, for an indefinite number of years."39 Another periodical says: "The number of persons engaged in the slave-trade, and the amount of capital embarked in it, exceed our powers of calculation. The city of New York has been until of late [1862] the principal port of the world for this infamous commerce; although the cities of Portland and Boston are only second to her in that distinction. Slave dealers added largely to the wealth of our commercial metropolis; they contributed liberally to the treasuries of political organizations, and their bank accounts were largely depleted to carry elections in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut."40 During eighteen months of the years 1859—1860 eighty-five slavers are reported to have been fitted out in New Yo179rk harbor,41 and these alone transported from 30,000 to 60,000 slaves annually.42 The United States deputy marshal of that district declared in 1856 that the business of fitting out slavers "was never prosecuted with greater energy than at present. The occasional interposition of the legal authorities exercises no apparent influence for its suppression. It is seldom that one or more vessels cannot be designated at the wharves, respecting which there is evidence that she is either in or has been concerned in the Traffic."43 On the coast of Africa "it is a well-known fact that most of the Slave ships which visit the river are sent from New York and New Orleans."44
The absence of United States war-ships at the Brazilian station enabled American smugglers to run in cargoes, in spite of the prohibitory law. One cargo of five hundred slaves was landed in 1852, and the Correio Mercantil regrets "that it was the flag of the United States which covered this act of piracy, sustained by citizens of that great nation."45 When the Brazil trade declined, the illicit Cuban trade greatly increased, and the British consul reported: "Almost all the slave expeditions for some time past have been fitted out in the United States, chiefly at New York."46
Regards,
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
The W. E. B. DuBois book The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America 1638-1870, published in 1896, goes on in considerable length. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17700...-h/17700-h.htm
The next sections after the ones I posted are:
88. Notorious Infractions of the Laws.
89. Apathy of the Federal Government.
90. Attitude of the Southern Confederacy.
91. Attitude of the United States.
If you have any interest at all in what was being done and said at the time about the re-opening of the Atlantic Slave Trade, the DuBois book is an excellent place to start your research.
Regards,
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
"And yet it needed but a few years to show that South Carolina had merely been the first to put into words the inarticulate thought of a large minority, if not a majority, of the inhabitants of the Gulf States."
Nonsense.
~
"In 1856, in the convention at Savannah, W.B. Goulden of Georgia moved that the members of Congress be requested to bestir themselves energetically to have repealed all laws which forbade the slave-trade."
From the year that the slave trade was abolished (1808) to the secession of the South (1860-61)...how many Southern congressmen proposed in Congress the re-opening of the slave trade?-
0 (Zero)
How many congressmen proposed the re-opening of the slave trade in the Confederate Congress?-
0 (Zero)
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
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Re-opening of the Atlantic Slave Trade 
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