The Not So Solid South

[unionblue]

From an article in the New York Times:

The Not So Solid South, by Ira Berlin, in which he comments on the book, Deliver Us From Evil: The Slavery Question in the Old South, by Lacy K. Ford.

The article makes for an interesting read on how the South compromised in its beliefs about slavery in order to justify it with excerpts from the book.

Read the article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/books/review/Berlin-t.html?ref=books&_r=0

A review of the book, Deliver Us From Evil, can be found on amazon at the following website:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0199832439/?tag=civilwartalkc-20

Enjoy,
Unionblue

 

[dvrmte]

If I'm not mistaken someone on this forum called Dr. Ford an Apologist in regards to one of his other books, Origins of Southern Radicalism - The South Carolina Upcountry 1800-1860.

 

[unionblue]

If I'm not mistaken someone on this forum called Dr. Ford an Apologist in regards to one of his other books, Origins of Southern Radicalism - The South Carolina Upcountry 1800-1860.

Lacy K. Ford, University of SouthCA.

http://artsandsciences.sc.edu/hist/lacy-k-ford-jr

Selected works of Lacy K. Ford jr.

http://works.bepress.com/lacy_fordjr/

Unionblue

 

[RobertP]

It's on my Christmas wish list. Crackling fire, cup of hot cocoa and a book on slavery. Can't wait.

 

[Northern Light]

It's on my Christmas wish list. Crackling fire, cup of hot cocoa and a book on slavery. Can't wait.

Made me laugh, then I saw your new avatar. Ohhhhhhh so cute!

 

[James B White]

Reading the reviews only, not the book (so the reviewers may have missed the right emphasis), it seems to cover the basic ground of the split between the slave-producing states and the cotton-producing states, and yes, they had very different interests in the antebellum period. About all they could agree on was they wanted the price of cotton (and cane, rice, etc.) high. But aside from colonization, there was the question of reopening the African slave trade as late as the 1850s--do we want slave prices high or low?--and the ambivalence of buying dumped slaves from the upper south, that caused on and off bans on commercial importation in the deep south.

Is this regional split not basic knowledge for those who study the antebellum south?

One thing that struck me odd is the following, from the New York Times article, apparently speaking about a wide range of time "from the first years of the 19th century and perhaps earlier" but also apparently including some later things like colonization:

Eventually all but a few surrendered any emancipatory pretense. Instead, they embraced a policy of "whitening" that would rid the region of both slavery and black people, free as well as slave, by prohibiting the importation of slaves, selling other slaves farther south, encouraging manumission and deporting — or "colonizing" — freed slaves to Africa or elsewhere beyond the borders of the United States.

The bolded part seems a major impetus for a change in the upper south's whole attitude, and not just one thing to tuck in a list. When they could profitably sell an almost unlimited number of slaves south, beginning, say, in the 1820s and seriously going in the 1830s, slave-owners in the upper south suddenly had to deal with defending their position so they could continue making money, but distancing themselves from those evil slave traders, while keeping at least some veneer of their old self-image. Such raw commercialism was less distasteful for most of the deep south, because they were already making incredible profits with slave labor.

It looks like the book does cover that in more detail, from the following part of the review, so maybe it was just a glich of the reviewer to tuck it in a list:

Disputes over the efficacy of gradual emancipation, the nature of the slave trade, the purpose of manumission and colonization, and the appropriate defense of slavery roiled white Southerners across the region, so much so that Ford concludes that the only thing they could agree upon was opposition to abolition.

 

[jgoodguy]

From an article in the New York Times:

The Not So Solid South, by Ira Berlin, in which he comments on the book, Deliver Us From Evil: The Slavery Question in the Old South, by Lacy K. Ford.

The article makes for an interesting read on how the South compromised in its beliefs about slavery in order to justify it with excerpts from the book.

Read the article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/books/review/Berlin-t.html?ref=books&_r=0

A review of the book, Deliver Us From Evil, can be found on amazon at the following website:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0199832439/?tag=civilwartalkc-20

Enjoy,
Unionblue

Bottom line, cotton kept slavery alive, provided the fuel for the slave ideology and caused the civil war. Just don't quote me on that.

 

[jgoodguy]

It's on my Christmas wish list. Crackling fire, cup of hot cocoa and a book on slavery. Can't wait.

Don't have a place for a wood fire, but make crackling gas logs will be enough. I ordered it as an used ex library book for $7.19 including shipping. Cheap thrills at the price.

 

[jgoodguy]

Reading the reviews only, not the book (so the reviewers may have missed the right emphasis), it seems to cover the basic ground of the split between the slave-producing states and the cotton-producing states, and yes, they had very different interests in the antebellum period. About all they could agree on was they wanted the price of cotton (and cane, rice, etc.) high. But aside from colonization, there was the question of reopening the African slave trade as late as the 1850s--do we want slave prices high or low?--and the ambivalence of buying dumped slaves from the upper south, that caused on and off bans on commercial importation in the deep south.

Is this regional split not basic knowledge for those who study the antebellum south?

One thing that struck me odd is the following, from the New York Times article, apparently speaking about a wide range of time "from the first years of the 19th century and perhaps earlier" but also apparently including some later things like colonization:



The bolded part seems a major impetus for a change in the upper south's whole attitude, and not just one thing to tuck in a list. When they could profitably sell an almost unlimited number of slaves south, beginning, say, in the 1820s and seriously going in the 1830s, slave-owners in the upper south suddenly had to deal with defending their position so they could continue making money, but distancing themselves from those evil slave traders, while keeping at least some veneer of their old self-image. Such raw commercialism was less distasteful for most of the deep south, because they were already making incredible profits with slave labor.

It looks like the book does cover that in more detail, from the following part of the review, so maybe it was just a glich of the reviewer to tuck it in a list:

It may be that much of the same material is in the Road to Disunion series also. As I recall, one of the motivations of the secessionists was that the 'whiting' of the Upper South was putting slavery on the road to extinction. It appears that where the ratio of slave to free was less than 33%, the State did not seceded. VA was at 44%

 

[DanF]

Read the book a few yeafs ago, thought it was pretty good.

 

[Benjamin Davis]

Bottom line, cotton kept slavery alive, provided the fuel for the slave ideology and caused the civil war. Just don't quote me on that.

I've heard that when the Constitution was written many of the Founders simply thought that slavery was just going to fade away within a few decades, it was in decline around 1790...and then man invented a wonderful little device called the cotton gin.

 

[Rebel_Giratina]

Fascinating state-by-state breakdown of slave demographics, jgoodguy! It's blocks of statstics like these that keep up my fascination with history.

I had a feeling MS and SC's % of slaveholding families was high, but nearly half? Mind blown.

 

[brass napoleon]

I've heard that when the Constitution was written many of the Founders simply thought that slavery was just going to fade away within a few decades, it was in decline around 1790...and then man invented a wonderful little device called the cotton gin.

Indeed many did. Here's what delegate James Wilson told the Pennsylvania ratifying convention:

"I consider this as laying the foundation for banishing slavery out of this country; and though the period is more distant than I could wish, yet it will produce the same kind, gradual change, which was pursued in Pennsylvania... If there was no other lovely feature in the Constitution but this one, it would diffuse a beauty over its whole countenance. Yet the lapse of a few years, and Congress will have power to exterminate slavery within our borders."

- James Wilson, to Pennsylvania ratifying convention, about Constitutional ban of African slave trade

Source: Paul Finkelman, An Imperfect Union, Slavery, Federalism and Comity, p. 6
​

Even many Virginians felt the same way. But Georgians and South Carolinians felt differently, as South Carolina delegate Pierce Butler told the convention:

"The security the Southn. States want is that their negroes may not be taken from them, which some gentlemen within or without doors, have a very good mind to do."

- Pierce Butler, SC delegate to constitutional convention, July, 13, 1787

Source: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_713.asp​

 

[James B White]

It may be that much of the same material is in the Road to Disunion series also. As I recall, one of the motivations of the secessionists was that the 'whiting' of the Upper South was putting slavery on the road to extinction. It appears that where the ratio of slave to free was less than 33%, the State did not seceded. VA was at 44%

View attachment 53207

Don't have time to look it up right now, but I wonder how those numbers compared to, say,the 1830 and 1840 censuses? A lot of what the book seems to be talking about is the much earlier period, when Virginia and other upper south states were sending their increase south and the deep southern states were filling up the black belt and other fertile areas.

 

[DR_Hanna]

Bottom line, cotton kept slavery alive, provided the fuel for the slave ideology and caused the civil war. Just don't quote me on that.

So! It was cotton that caused the Civil War, was it! And all this time I thought it was the Abolition movement.

 

[Elennsar]

Wouldn't have been an abolition movement without cotton picking slavery, though, whatever else you want to say about the abolitionists.

 

[DR_Hanna]

Wouldn't have been an abolition movement without cotton picking slavery, though, whatever else you want to say about the abolitionists.

Seriously. Just kidding. Misjudged that my humor would shine through without the requisite smiley.

 

[Elennsar]

Seriously. Just kidding. Misjudged that my humor would shine through without the requisite smiley.

It probably did for most people, but I have a tendency to overreact to people who say things like that because of the people who aren't joking.

Didn't mean to put you in with those guys just for a joke.

 

[Kenneth Almquist]

It may be that much of the same material is in the Road to Disunion series also. As I recall, one of the motivations of the secessionists was that the 'whiting' of the Upper South was putting slavery on the road to extinction. It appears that where the ratio of slave to free was less than 33%, the State did not seceded. VA was at 44%

View attachment 53207

That table indicates that the number of slaves in New Jersey was 0, which I believe is wrong. In 1804, the New Jersey legislature passed an emancipation law, but it only freed children born after the law was passed. This law caused the slave population to decline over time, but there were slaves in New Jersey until slavery was eliminated by the passage of the 13th Amendment. According to to the last footnote on this page, the 1860 census shows 18 slaves in New Jersey.

 

[DanF]

So! It was cotton that caused the Civil War, was it! And all this time I thought it was the Abolition movement.

So thats what they meant when they called it that, "cotton picken war!"