Position:Home>History> Slavery in American? Why is the south called racist? Boston was the HUB of slave

Grant had slaves until the end of the war!. Gen!. Robert E!. Lee freed his years before the war!. There were more slaves in the north in the years prior to the Civil war than there were in the south!.


Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to Horace greeley stated that "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery"

Read it here:http://showcase!.netins!.net/web/creative/!.!.!.

The Civil War wasn't at all about slavery!. it was about preserving the Union!. When Lincoln saw that the war was being lost 2 years after the start of the war!.!.!.then he "freed" the slaves!.
General Robert E!. Lee, a confidant of jefferson Davis (Confederate president) told Jeff davis to free the slaves before the oncoming war or else it would go down in history as a war to free the slaves instead of a war for states rights!. Davis was stubborn and did not want to do that!. And so there the biggest blunder in history was made!.

Today, school books tell us that the Civil war was a war to free the slaves and the south has the stigma of being slave holder states!.

Rarely do you read that the North was just as bad or even worse!. Even former slaves who fled to the north found out that they weren't wanted there either!. Most of the free slaves went to Canada!.

And the "great emancipator" Abraham Lincoln!?
He hated that title!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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The actual hub for slavery was Rhode Island and the most infamous slave trader was who Brown University is named after a "Ivy League Liberal Arts College"!. The Civil war was not fought simply because of slavery!. It was mostly fought due to the norths move to an industrial society and the souths opposition of wanting to remain a agricultural society!. Hence causing the war of northern aggression AKA the civil war!. Slavery was simply a way to get backing from the majority of Northerners who were opposed to slavery because of their view on human rights at the time!.
In fact many southerners did not even own slaves during the time of the civil war!. There were more blacks who owned slaves in states like Louisiana during the time of civil war than whites!. Racist inhumane ignorance is the stigma that people of the south are now stuck with due to others who do not read history books and like to feel better than their fellow southern american citizens!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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Sounds more like a comment than a question!. Why is the south called racist!? Because it is!. (Not every person, but the majority!.) The Jim Crow laws took MUCH longer to die in the south!. A lot more lynchings happened in the south!. Whites working for civil rights were murdered in the south!. Yeah, at one time the whole country was racist and that's what you're referring to, then people gradually got a clue!. Of course it's easier to get a clue when your whole livelihood ISN'T based on slavery!. The northerners weren't better people, they just weren't growing cotton and sugar cane they couldn't harvest themselves!. (The surviving slaves were stronger and more resistant to disease than the whites and they were cheaply bought!.) You're right though implying the Civil War was not about slavery!. It was about states' rights!. Www@QuestionHome@Com

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General Grant actually owned a slave named William Jones, acquired from his father-in-law!. At a time when he could have desperately used the money from the sale of Jones, Grant signed a document that gave him his freedom!.

Grant freed this slave in 1859!.

As for Grant "owning slaves during the Civil War" - Julia Dent, Grant's wife, had the use of four slaves as personal servants; THE RECORD IS UNCLEAR AS TO WHO HELD LEGAL TITLE TO THEM (IT COULD WELL HAVE BEEN JULIA'S FATHER)!. Julia Dent hired out the four slaves she owned!. These slaves were all freed by 1863!.

Julia's father, Colonel Frederick F!. Dent, a Missouri planter, lived until 1873!.
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Actually, it was initially New York City!.
Your generalization re: ALL were imported to the North is wrong!. Many came into Charleston, SC and other Southern ports!.
Maggie - your position is ludicrous!.
And to all who call "it" "The War of Southern Secession" or "The War of Northern Aggression" - they were rats jumping ship thinking they'd be better off - they could keep their slaves!. Lincoln precipitated the treason simply by being elected!.
They (South) started it - they had NO legal basis to support them and it's actually The War of Southern Aggression!. Who did what first!?
I'm sick of everybody postulating b!.s!. theories under the guise of patriotic devotion to a Country that was NOT a sovereign nation!.

In short - traitors!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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Truth be told, and it seldom is, places like Chicago, Detroit, etc!. are more racist than the south is!. In fact, during the '70's, there were many studies done on this very topic that came to this very conclusion!.

You don't hear people make reference to blacks selling blacks anymore!. It's taboo! But even during the 1990's, Louis Farrakhan made comment to the fact that blacks still sell blacks into slavery in Africa!. Especially around the Ivory Coast!.

Next time you look at the New York City flag, tell me what you see on it!? Black people picking cotton!. Image if that same imagine was on a flag from Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, Tennessee, Georgia, etc!. We wouldn't hear the end of it!Www@QuestionHome@Com

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yeah, i know! but the south wanted to keep the slaves, and were big on plantations and stuff, when the north tried to free the slaves!. the north was also bigger on industries and factories and stuff like that
Hope that helpsWww@QuestionHome@Com

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Boston sucks, go NY Yankees!Www@QuestionHome@Com

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~I guess all the ports in the south that landed slaves and held auctions don't count, nor do the breeding plantations!. You might want to check the numbers again!. The 3/5s compromise found its way into the Constitution because of the vast number of slaves in the south!. By 1837, all northern states (unless you count Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri and Washington D!.C!. as "northern" states) had abolished slavery!.

To Maggie: If you want to lecture on history, at least learn it first!. Lincoln wasn't preserving a nation!. He invaded a sovereign nation in a war of aggression!.

In 1783, 13 independent nations were created in North America by the Treaty of Paris!. They confederated together and created a central government for their common needs and interests, but when they acceded to the constitution, they never surrendered that independence!. Read James Madison's notes on the subject!. Virginia, Massachusetts and New York expressly stated they would not join the confederation unless they had the right to secede when it no longer served or protected their interests!. The other 10 readily agreed!. Thus, Amendments IX and X were added to the Bill of Rights, although the understood and given right of secession had already been guaranteed at Article IV!.

So what!? Well, nothing except that starting in 1860 in South Carolina, 11 states (translated "nation-states") passed Ordinances of Secession!. They were passed by the democratically elected representatives of the people then ratified and approved by the people themselves at the polls or conventions!. Those actions were actions of "We the People", as envisioned by Gouveneur Morris in the Preamble, by the delegates at Convention and by the people when they acceded!. Lincoln wasn't fighting to preserve the union!. He led an invasion into a sovereign land to crush the CSA and to make the CSA government of the people, by the people, for the people perish from the earth!.

When the New England states threatened to secede in 1803, no one questioned the right!. When the New England states threatened to secede in 1812-14, no one questioned the right!. The framers and draftsmen were still alive then and their comments on the subject at the time are instructive!. When South Carolina threatened to secede in 1837, Andy Jackson didn't necessarily question the right!. He simply threatened to send in federal troops!. Doing so would have been illegal, unconstitutional and an impeachable offense, but Andy never did feel himself bound by any authority other than his own ego and thirst for power, fame and glory!. The crisis was averted when the Tariff Laws were modified and the Nullification Acts were repealed, but the secession issue was neither addressed nor resolved!.

By 1837, the north had decided to take another view of the Constitution!. Due to industrialization, and their successful efforts to prevent industrialization in the south, the weak federal government established by the Constitution was a poor tool!. They expanded federal power!. Almost 75% of federal revenues were raised, by tariff laws enacted by the northern majority in Congress!. However, 75% of federal spending was in the north!. The southern planters, forced by the northern industrialists to continue their agrarian society, were going bankrupt!. It was these issues over which South Carolina threatened to secede!. Slavery was not an issue!.

The War for Southern Independence ( it was NOT a civil war) was not fought over slavery - in that you are correct!. South Carolina ordered foreign US federal troops to vacate her borders!. They refused to leave!. In a very minor skirmish, SC took Fort Sumter, which was SC territory!. Lincoln retaliated with force and invaded!. The states rights issues which had prompted the New England states and South Carolina to secede earlier were very much alive and unresolved!. The 11 CSA states, in reliance on the constitution and the words of the Declaration of Independence realized the government no longer met their needs or protected their interests and, as was their absolute right, they opted out!. They didn't have to secede to protect their right to own human livestock!. The constitution guaranteed them that right!. Slavery could be abolished only by constitutional amendment and no such amendment was proposed during the antebellum years because it lacked the support for ratification in the north, forget the south!.

As for the Emancipation Proclamation, it was illegal and unconstitutional (see Article I, section 2, Article IV, section 2 and amendments IV, V, IX and X)!. In any case, it was redundant!. Congress had attempted to do the very same illegal, unconstitutional thing months earlier with the First and Second Confiscation Acts!. Read Sumner, Lincoln and Seward on the why!. Emancipation had nothing to do with humanitarian concerns!. It was a weapon of war, intended to wreak havoc in the south, bankrupt the CSA, tear the social fabric of the south asunder and to generally cause chaos!. That is why the Acts and the EP continued in bondage all those slaves in areas under federal control and only purported to 'free' the slaves in those regions where the federal control had no influence!. They were also intended to give generals in the field some guidance as to what they were supposed to do with captured and 'liberated' slaves!. Of course, neither the Acts nor the EP guaranteed the slaves would remain free once the war was over!. Lincoln called the EP "My greatest folly"!.

From his writings, it is clear that Robert E!. Lee reviled slavery while William T!. Sherman was an anti-abolitionist!. Lincoln would have preferred that slavery died a natural death but he acknowledged repeatedly, even in his First Inaugural Address, that he had no intention to abolish it and the he lacked the power or authority to do so!. He preference was to relocate freed slaves to Africa, the Caribbean or uninhabited regions in Texas, Missouri and Indian Territory!.

Only a small minority of southerns still owned slaves in 1860!. West Virginia was (unconstitutionally) admitted to the union as a slave state during the war!. The union border states still sanctioned slavery and Congress abolished it in DC about the time the Confiscation Acts were passed!. Small slave owners, north and south alike, had to rent them out to be able to afford keeping them!. Northern racism was, and is, as vile and rampant as it was, and is, in the south!.

Edit to mr_ljdav!.!.!.: True, the Constitution has nothing to do with 1783!. Read James Madison's notes from the Philadelphia (Constitutional) Convention, though, before assuming what the draftsmen did or did not mean in Article IV or the Bill of Rights!. There is a reason states' rights are addressed amongst the personal liberties of the other amendments!. NY, Va and Ma!. refused to accede to the Constitution unless they were guaranteed the right to secede!. The other 10 participant nations agreed the right was a given!. That was part and parcel of the contract!. Article IV and Amendments IX and X were the consensus language agreed upon to secure the right!. That is why in 1803 and in 1812/14 when the New England states threatened to secede and the draftsmen were still alive and commenting, no one denied the right existed!. Secessionist, no - just a Constitutional scholar!. Federalists were gone with John Adams, in spite of the games Adams played when he left office and in spite of the unethical, intellectually dishonest and constitutionally wrong cop-out of a ruling John Marshall made in Marbury v Madison!. You can't understand states rights until you understand that the original 13 colonies were independent nation states who confederated but never surrendered their sovereignty!. That is why the power of the federal government was so intentionally weak and limited (Article I, Section 8)!. The problems didn't start in 1860, they started at the convention in 1787!. They came to a head in 1860 and were resolved by force of arms, not law!. Lincoln made the 'folly' comment to Boston abolitionist Wendell Phillips, as reported by Phillips!. No one had to fear the loss slaves!. Abolition could occur only by state law or constitutional amendment!. Why secede and risk war to protect what was guaranteed!? Lincoln acknowledged the right, as did everyone else!. The abolitionists were a minority who wanted to end the 'peculiar institution' but they couldn't muster support to present, let alone ratify, the necessary amendment!. Lincoln was careful not to recognize the independence of the CSA states!. He couldn't afford to as it would have given the lie to his claim of "Preserving the Union" rather than leading an invasion and would have given the green light to the rest of the world to treat the CSA as an independent nation, something he gravely feared!. Saying it or not saying it doesn't make it so!. [The Lee Resolution didn't confer independence, for example!.] The rest of the world sat by and waited for the outcome - largely for economic reasons!. History is about interpretation, but one can't interpret unless one reads the words of the participants!. This is particularly true when one considers secession, the nature of the "states" (as in 'nation-states) who joined the confederation in 1789 and the understanding and agreement under which they acceded to the treaty of confederation (ie, the constitution)!. Article VI makes the constitution the "supreme law" as to matters addressed therein!. As to all other matters, Article IV and Amendments IX and X, reserves them to the states!. The Constitution being silent (because consensus on the language couldn't be reached) on secession, it is a matter of state, not federal, purview!. I enjoy your comments and the dialogue, but I'm out of room!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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Slavery's true history
By Sam Allis, Globe Columnist | April 25, 2004
New England has long prided itself as an abolitionist bulwark against slavery!. It was in Boston that William Lloyd Garrison fulminated against the Constitution, which considered each slave to be three-fifths of a human being, as "a covenant with death and an agreement with hell!." Yet while the number of slaves in New England was minuscule compared with the plantation culture of the South, the institution of slavery permeated life in New England for 200 years!.

"Slavery came early to New England and insinuated itself into all aspects of daily life," says Ira Berlin, a luminary in this field of history from the University of Maryland!. "Its death was slow and painful!."
The first records of the enslavement of Africans in New England appeared in the 1620s, according to James Horton of George Washington University, another expert!. The numbers remained small for a long time!. By 1708, he says, there were 400 slaves in Boston!. By 1750, there were 4,000 in Massachusetts and 3,300 in Rhode Island -- about 10 percent of its population!.

For starters, we should erase the very concept of "North" and "South" when discussing slavery!. "It was a continental institution," he says!. "There was a different kind of slavery to the south!."
also, the enslavement of Native Americans in Massachusetts and Rhode Island was far greater than commonly thought!. Pequods and Narragansetts, for example, were often enslaved, and many later married African slaves!. Hundreds of Native Americans captured in King Philip's War (1775-76) were sent as slaves to the plantations on the sugar islands of Barbados and Jamaica!.

Rhode Island was the hub of the New England slave trade!. (Its full name remains the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations!.) A small, slave-holding aristocracy existed in the southern coastal part of the state as a miniature plantation society, says Horton!. In one area, he notes, the ratio of slave to white was 1 in 3!. Berlin adds that wealthy sugar planters from Barbados operated large estates in the southern area, using slaves to tend livestock and produce goods necessary to maintain their lucrative island plantations!.


http://www!.boston!.com/news/local/massach!.!.!.
articles/2004/04/25/slaverys_true_hist!.!.!.

Now US Grant;

On August 28, 1848, Grant married Julia Dent from St!. Louis, the daughter of a slave owner, whose family held slaves!. Grant himself owned a slave named William Jones, acquired from his father-in-law!. At a time when he could have desperately used the money from the sale of Jones, Grant signed a document that gave him (Jones) his freedom!.

Grant's life in Galena was not as drab and poverty stricken as reported!. He and his family lived in a seven-room house high on a hill in the best neighborhood in town!. Julia had a servant, (not a slave) and did none of the housework herself!.

http://faculty!.css!.edu/mkelsey/usgrant/f!.!.!.

Presidential experts typically rank Grant in the lowest quartile of U!.S!. presidents, primarily for his tolerance of corruption!. In recent years, however, his reputation as president has improved somewhat among scholars impressed by his support for civil rights for African Americans!. Unsuccessful in winning a third term in 1880, bankrupted by bad investments, and terminally ill with throat cancer, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which were enormously successful among veterans, the public, and the critics!.

He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans!. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South—sufficient numbers to protect rights of Southern blacks, suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, and prop up Republican governors, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population!. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders!. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870!. Recent historians have emphasized Grant's commitment to protecting Unionists and freedmen in the South until 1876!. Grant's commitment to black civil rights was demonstrated by his address to Congress in 1875 and by his attempt to use the annexation of Santo Domingo as leverage to force white supremacists to accept blacks as part of the Southern political polity!.
Grant confronted an apathetic Northern public, violent Ku Klux Klan organizations in the South, and a factional Republican Party!. He was charged with bringing order and equality to the South without being armed with the emergency powers that Lincoln and Johnson employed

http://en!.wikipedia!.org/wiki/Ulysses_S!._!.!.!.




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The south wasn't called racist!. Nor were they deemed racist, because what they were doing was fairly natural at the time and not considered racism!. I mean, is having a pet inhumane or cruel!? No!. It is what you do with or to your pet/slave!. And having men and women work for you is not inhumane either; it is the way you treat the worker!. And they may be forced to work, but they are getting food and shelter in return!. Many at the time would deem that a fair trade!. But not today!.

And, selling people slaves, then later declaring it illegal!. It is like selling people "insert object", then declaring it illegal to own it!.

What would have been a better solution to slavery, would be declaring that the next generation of slave babies be free citizens of the USA!. And have all adult slaves free after "insert number of years here (ex: 5 yrs!.)" of work on their plantation!. Giving the South an oportunity to think for the future about their plantation, instead of just halting their whole economy (effect of the war)!.


The only ones calling the south racist are the people of today, because we today explode on the facts that given to us!. If you lived back then, and no one told you slaves were bad, you wouldn't think anything of slaves!. But today we teach generation after next that it was bad!. Which is why many people today have the outlook on things like this today!.

Maggie has a great answer!. She went for actual facts of the war, while I went for ideaology!.

Wow, alot of great answers here, mostly just copy paste, but hey, you'd get bored typing all of that stuff!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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Why was the South called racist!? Because they kept slavery and its inhumane actions!. Boston gave up slave trading in the early 1800s, and the slave trade itself was banned in 1808 per act of Congress!. Not to say the Northern states were not racist, but they at least got rid of slavery in the early 1800s, and formed a number of societies to end slavery or stop its spread!.
Incidentally, it needs to be remembered that most Northerners were not abolitionist - they were free soilers!. They didn't want slavery to be ended - they just simply wanted it to be contained, feeling that, as previous practice had showed, Southerners needed to spread West to find more and more fertile lands as cotton and tobacco leached nutrients out of the soil and made it less and less fertile!. Being called an abolitionist was bad - Garrison, for example, was almost killed by a mob in Boston in the 1830s, and Elijah Lovejoy, an abolitionist preacher in Alton, Illinois WAS killed around that same time!.
After 1808 (save the illegal trafficking in slaves - see the Amistad case), the only slave trading was internal, and not importation, and that was all Southerners selling to other Southerners!.

Maggie A, your claim that the North had more slaves than the South is so bizarrely wrong I don't know what to say!. The South had the stigma of being slaveholding states BECAUSE THEY WERE!!!

Bcpmt, your reading of history is!.!.!.interesting!. You seem to be some sort of secession backer!. Unfortunately, the facts don't bear out your argument!. (Fortunately, neither did military matters!.!.!.)

First up, the Constitution:
Amendments IX and X have nothing to do with the confederation of 1783, but as you know, the Bill of Rights to the Constitution, the document which superceded the Articles of Confederation!. Right of secession is not only NOT guaranteed in Article IV, but the issue isn't even expressly raised!. If you want a good Constitutional argument, check out Article VI: "This Constitution!.!.!.shall be the supreme Law of the Land" - ie, superior to the states!.

So what if Virginia and New York wrote that they would have the right to secede if they wanted to!? The Federal government easily ignored that!. The federal government swept aside any and all of these conditional agreements!. I don't know where you claim Madison agreed with the idea of secession for Virginia - he was a Federalist (PUBLIUS in fact, with Hamilton and Jay), and when pressed by Hamilton over the issue, which had arisen in NY as well, had stated in his official capacity as a Congressman that Congress WOULD NOT CONSIDER A CONDITIONAL RATIFICATION TO BE VALID (see page 285 of volume 18 of the Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution)!.

As for the history:

The South was NOT a sovereign nation!. It was never recognized as a legitimate country by any other country in the world!. I guess the crux of our disagreement is on our reading of this!. I see the secession as illegal!. You apparently do not!.

Your reading of the events of 1860 is also !.!.!. interesting!. "The democratically elected representatives of the Southern people" - Who would these Southern people be!? Not the slaves, not women, not the poor yeomen farmers, not the landless city dwellers!. Just the richest and most elite plantation owners!. Hardly the true representatives of the people!. The representatives of those few granted the franchise, sure!.

also, to discuss secession only with regards to 1860 totally ignores the precedents which had made secession a dirty word - the Hartford Convention, and the South Carolina Nullification crisis, both of which had shown that secession was not acceptable!. The fact that people brought up the idea of secession before then doesn't mean that it was accepted!. The 1803 protest over the Louisiana Purchase, the 1812 protest over the statehood of Louisiana and the protests over the war of 1812 were pretty small and easily dismissed!. Although it may have been bandied about pre-War of 1812, the "second war of Independence" led to a stronger sense of nationalism and a backlash against any attempts or even discussions of secession!. Ask the Federalist Party how well it worked out for them when a few members brought up the idea at the Hartford Convention, which was only a minority view and exceedingly unpopular even within the convention!. Incidentally, the New England states did NOT threaten to secede!. A small faction of the Hartford Convention discussed the idea and were pretty much ignored, and the larger body ultimately said that if their demands were not met, they should have another convention where they might discuss secession in greater detail!. (See the Hartford Convention resolutions) As for SC, even other Southern states refused to back SC on that one!. Johnson did send warships to Charleston Harbor, which, based on the lack of impeachment, doesn't seem to have been an impeachable offense, as you claim!.


As for Lincoln, the Civil War WAS a war to keep the Union together, and any respected historian would agree!. Your paean to the South's right to secede misses one key point: why did the Southern states secede!? Because they were sore losers!. Even with the 3/5ths compromise, they had lost the election of 1860, had previously lost control of the House and the Senate and now feared for the future of slavery!. The Southern states started seceding even before Lincoln took office, fearing he would abolish slavery (a silly fear, since he was not an abolitionist, until the South forced him to be as a matter of winning the war)!. How did the war actually start!? The South Carolina attack on a federal fort!. Doesn't sound like Northern Aggression to me!. ( I suppose Afghan people are calling the US invasion a similar thing!.!.!.)

I'm not sure where you got Lincoln saying the EP was his "greatest folly"!. I've never heard that one before and I googled the phrase and literally nothing save your claim came up!. Please back this one up - I fear it's a fabrication!. I'd love to know where you got it from, if he actually did say it!.

Finally, your claim that "only a small minority of southerns still owned slaves in 1860" is a bit of a weasel - while that is true, those who owned the slaves were the richest and most important people in southern society and politics, dominating all political and economic matters in the South!.

Thanks for a thought-provoking post all the same!.

Update - bc - Thanks for the clarifications!. I'm going to do more digging into this, but I'll maintain that secession is still illegal, and not sanctioned by the constititution!. I'm also going to assume that your reference to the weakness of Article I section 8's powers granted to the federal government is sarcasm (war, taxation, etc seem pretty strong to me)!. I'll also look into the Wendell Phillips comment - I've never come across it before and also want to look into the context!. Thanks again!.
Why can't more Yahoo Answer discussions be this intellectual and enlightening!?Www@QuestionHome@Com

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