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.
While I emphatically don't believe my southern ancestors fought to support slavery nor my Union ancestors fought to suppress it, I can see some merit in Union Blue's notion that their actions may have unwittingly supported that general effort.
Thank you, Larry. Sort of like American GIs fighting in Europe coming across concentration camps and saving surviving Jews from the ovens, even when they didn't fully believe or know about such places existing.
What I do believe is that slavery existed. Too many slave markets such as Fayetteville and Memphis survived to suspect otherwise. As for newspapers being a source document, one really wouldn't expect to find a notarized affidavit from a slave that he or she was sold or offered for sale. Preponderance of evidence in the number of newspaper adds suggests some activity was about. Remember that in 1861-65, the yankees, aside from the ones in the US Army, hadn't moved south, so there was still some truth in advertising. Besides, an ad in the paper for goods that didn't exist as noted, could have and probably did, get more than one man shot. I, for one, vote with Union Blue.
Very deeply appreciated, Larry.
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 base this on the fact that it was apparently illegal in two Southern States. Given that, I would conjectiue (and it is only conjecture) that it would be looked down upon in other places. But that is perhaps my 21st Century bias showing through. I do not have any basis other than this for thinking it would have been frowned upon. Might have to do some looking.
__________________ "There must be more historians of the Civil War than there were generals figthing in it... Of the two groups, the historians are the more belligerent." David Donald, Lincoln Reconsidered (1961)
I base this on the fact that it was apparently illegal in two Southern States. Given that, I would conjectiue (and it is only conjecture) that it would be looked down upon in other places. But that is perhaps my 21st Century bias showing through. I do not have any basis other than this for thinking it would have been frowned upon. Might have to do some looking.
timewalker,
I think you have hit the nail on the head with this one.
It seems we all tend to make a judgement call with our own 21st century views showing through. We can't help it as it is almost automatic, as this is the only viewpoint we currently have.
My own opinion is why should there be shame attached to the breeding of property? People bred their cows, sheep, hogs, etc., to increase the herd and the value of that herd.
There was a constant demand for slaves and slave labor. It was not in decline or no longer in demand, just the opposite right up to and through the Civil War. So where do we get this idea that slave-breeding was so awful it had to be conducted in secret or not talked about in public when it seems the very act of it was practiced in effect by EVERY owner of slaves to one degree or another?
It seems it once again comes down to what was viewed as right and proper BEFORE the war, and what was viewed as right and proper AFTER the war.
IMO.
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
Basing it on the understanding that the slave-trader was not usually accepted into polite society. And I'm basing that on biographies of Forrest who did get heavily into trading. The only way he got accepted into Memphis sassity was because he was so overwhelmingly rich.
If the trader was considered socially unacceptable (even though the owners usually relied on his services), how much more unacceptable would be the man who arranged couplings to produce more and better babies? We don't see records of it because it wasn't there? Or because it was not exactly savory?
And there is talk about laws against that sort of thing. One question: In any given area, who controlled the law-enforcement?
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
Basing it on the understanding that the slave-trader was not usually accepted into polite society. And I'm basing that on biographies of Forrest who did get heavily into trading. The only way he got accepted into Memphis sassity was because he was so overwhelmingly rich.
Are we pretty sure that the slave-trader was NOT usually accepted into polite society? Is this just an assumption on our modern, post Civil War, 21st century outlook?
I have not read the biographies you have mentioned on Forrest above, but I understand that Forrest came from a very poor background and was uneducated to the point he could not cypher or spell very well. Could it be because of his poor upbringing and background that he was shunned or looked-down upon and slave-trading bought him a ticket into genteel society? I think we should look very hard at this idea of a society founded upon slavery, yet those who made this society possible, the slave-trader and the slave-breeder, are somehow looked down upon.
I also feel that slave-breeding may have taken on a new importance when the African Slave Trade was finally abolished. When the outside/overseas source was closed off, how did one get more slaves?
If the trader was considered socially unacceptable (even though the owners usually relied on his services), how much more unacceptable would be the man who arranged couplings to produce more and better babies? We don't see records of it because it wasn't there? Or because it was not exactly savory?
Again, I question this view. Is this your own or are you exclusively basing it on your Forrest biographies? Or is this just a basic assumption on your part. Just curious.
And there is talk about laws against that sort of thing. One question: In any given area, who controlled the law-enforcement?
And yet the practice seems widespread and one that other planters and slave-traders were extremely interested in. And what about the idea that when the soil played out in the upper South to cotton and tobacco growing, that those states turned more to slave-breeding to ship off their surplus to the slave-hungry lower South?
ole
Just being curious as to where the views come from, you understand.
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
What hypocrites. The people who bought the slaves looked askance at the sellers. That's a little like pretending you never shop at Walmart because it's considered a little tacky, isn't it?
And how about all the female slaves who were impregnated by ol' massa? He who often held his own children in bondage, or sold them off so that someone else could enslave them? Just another dirty little secret that didn't get talked about in polite society, I guess.
It's really hard to get hold of the Southern mind-set in the 1800s.
__________________ "In leaving this unpretentious record, therefore, I seek to do simply what I would have had my fathers do for me.
KINSMEN OF THE COMING CENTURIES, I BID YOU HAIL AND GODSPEED!"
[From his Introduction to "Memoirs of a Volunteer," by John Beatty - published in 1879
Excellent questions Blue, and I expected some of them.
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Are we pretty sure that the slave-trader was NOT usually accepted into polite society? Is this just an assumption on our modern, post Civil War, 21st century outlook?
Other than the stories about Forrest and his trading days, I have no idea, but I can assure you that nothing was taken from a 20th or 21st perspective.
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Could it be because of his poor upbringing and background that he was shunned or looked-down upon and slave-trading bought him a ticket into genteel society?
I suppose it could be, but the author was rather convincing that it was because of his trading.
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I think we should look very hard at this idea of a society founded upon slavery, yet those who made this society possible, the slave-trader and the slave-breeder, are somehow looked down upon.
I don't suppose that you would be surprised that I disagree. Aristocrats, of any stripe, invent their own rules. Every year the planters borrowed money from norther financiers and paid it back when they harvested. And they had the nads to resent having to do so. In an atmosphere like that, there is nothing impossible.
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I also feel that slave-breeding may have taken on a new importance when the African Slave Trade was finally abolished. When the outside/overseas source was closed off, how did one get more slaves?
In my cobwebbed mind, there is no question that those planters whose land was playing out were selling slaves down the river. The question is, were some raising slaves as a profit center?
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I question this view. Is this your own or are you exclusively basing it on your Forrest biographies? Or is this just a basic assumption on your part. Just curious.
A little of this, a little of that. I do see, or think I do, some truth to the supposition. I could be trying to bunt when a man is on first and there are two outs. But I also think that the aristocrat is predictable. Flip him over and you know where he's going to land.
But these are my thoughts. And, I ramble.
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
What hypocrites. The people who bought the slaves looked askance at the sellers. That's a little like pretending you never shop at Walmart because it's considered a little tacky, isn't it?
And your point is, Jules? I never shop at Walmart. You don't either? There is a goodly touch of hypocrasy tainting each of us.
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And how about all the female slaves who were impregnated by ol' massa? He who often held his own children in bondage, or sold them off so that someone else could enslave them? Just another dirty little secret that didn't get talked about in polite society, I guess.
There is some evidence that a few white fathers of slave children kinda sorta watched over their seed, but the list is a mite short.
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It's really hard to get hold of the Southern mind-set in the 1800s.
Yes it is. I don't guess we'll ever get into that.
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
What hypocrites. The people who bought the slaves looked askance at the sellers. That's a little like pretending you never shop at Walmart because it's considered a little tacky, isn't it?
Jules, I am firmly of the opinion that the people who bought slaves from slave-traders did NOT look down upon them or socially lower them to the bottom of the social ladder.
And how about all the female slaves who were impregnated by ol' massa? He who often held his own children in bondage, or sold them off so that someone else could enslave them? Just another dirty little secret that didn't get talked about in polite society, I guess.
It's really hard to get hold of the Southern mind-set in the 1800s.
From the book, Slave Trading in the Old South, by Frederic Bancroft, Chapter XVII, The Status Of Slave-Trading:
"In the Old South, slave-trading was as lawful as any other business. To have stopped it in any State would have made slavery there moribund. If the National Government had at any time before 1861 forbidden the interstate slave-trade, secession would have been precipitated in every Southern State, except Delaware. This was because such a prohibition would have been considered destructive of what was generally regarded as a vital part of the social and economic organization of the South. Slave-trading and slavery were mutually necessary.
The Charleston Mercury's assertion--that "slaves * * * are as much and as frequently articles of commerce as the sugar and molasses which they produce"--and Dr. Wyeth's opinion--that "the selling and buying of negroes was as common in the cotton-belt of the South at this period as the buying or selling of horses or cattle, or any other merchantable live product."--these truly described the general prevalence of slave-trading."
The rest of the chapter goes on to describe slave-traders as being looked upon as honest businessmen. "The business is conducted by him, and by other regular traders, in such a manner, that there is never any suspicion of unfairness in regard to their mode of acquiring slaves." Another line from the book states, "The most successful large slave-traders held their heads high, confidently proclaiming their own virtues and admitting no sins."
"When traders prospered, were honest, thrifty and bought plantations, like Forrest, the Woolfolks, Isaac Franklin and many others, they enjoyed the esentials of respectability."
"If honest and well-mannered traders had been hated, a judge of the highest character in Mississippi would hardly have volunteered the information that he had bought a slave of Forrest; nor would a judge in another State have written to the author: "He [a famous trader] was a personal friend of my father and first came to my attention * * * when he purchased * * * my nurse Emaline, which intensely excited my childish indigation." Nor ould those Virginia churches have paid their pastors for more than half a century by the hiring out of purchased slave girls and their numerous offspring. Nor would auctioneers, general agents, brokers and commission merchants so eagerly have engaged in slave-trading; nor would factors, bankers, investors and merchants, in their different ways, have been so ready to associate themselves with its financial operations. And how could it have been hateful to trade honestly in the most coveted and prestige-giving property, which guardians and trustees, by order of the courts, brough for widows and orphans? Moreover, if slave-trading, apart from the "n*i*g*g*e*r-trading" type had been hateful, how could there have been such widespread curiosity about high prices and such eagerness to speculate by buying slaves on credit, confident that the rapid rise in price together with the natural increase would produce an enormous percentage of profit?
...No less conclusive was the attitude of Southern newspapers. "The printer" or "the editor" was a willing intermediary, a mediating agent, and, for small sales, was often preferred to the regular trader or the formal agent when secrecy and economy were desired. The leading journals gratefully received and conspicuously displayed advertisements of regular traders and others to sell, buy or hire out slaves. All favorable phases of slave-trading were of prime interest to readers and, therefore, were welcome subjects for the ready editorial pen...
Where such things were possible, frequent and passed without causing comment, honest traders without offensive personal qualities could not have been hated. It all came to virtually to this: whatever respectable persons thought needful in buying or selling slaves was not viewed as having any taint of "hated" slave-trading; yet it early became a fully credited tradition, implicitly accepted generation after generation, that "all traders were hated.""
Submitted for your consideration,
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
__________________ "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
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