Rally Round the Slavery Issue

Now, the next argument that will be raised (I’ve seen it) is that none of that matters. The South was evil because of slavery. The only answer to that is that the North was equally involved in that institution and, indeed, was the primary mover far more so than the South in that the slave trade itself was carried on by the North right up until 1862(!) and slavery existed in the North far longer than people know. Indeed, Abraham Lincoln believed that slavery in New Jersey could be ended in 1914! Furthermore, Jim Crow laws squared existed in the Northern States. Called “black codes”, in many cases these forbade blacks – slave or free – from entering (much less settling) in the states of the North, Mid-West and West. So the point is this: if the debate is going to be “all about slavery (i.e. race)” then let’s at least be accurate about it and not unjustly single out one side for condemnation! Let’s look at slavery from the beginning, that is, blacks selling other blacks to the New England slave ships to the treatment of blacks outside of the South.

We would make a much bigger impact with a DVD focusing on the issue of slavery and getting all the facts out there (including Great Britain’s war against the slave trade not being a moral but an imperialist war against the empires of Spain and Portugal in the New World) in a way that most folks have never seen before. If this is going to be their issue (and obviously it is) then we must meet it head on rather than trying to “prove” it was a peripheral issue. The emotional impact of slavery is such that we aren’t going to marginalize it, neither are we going to be able to distract attention away from it with economic and other cultural issues. Until we address the issue of slavery in a complete and accurate way, they are going to have the “magic bullet” of the “race card” to counter our every argument even about the brutality of the war on the helpless. “They deserved it!” will be the response to Lincoln’s, Sherman’s, Sheridan’s and Grant’s war crimes.

I believe it is essential that we, too, take up the drum-beat of the slavery issue. Anything else appears as if we are avoiding it because we cannot prevail if it is used. We can prevail as soon as we can show that their argument (the South seceded and went to war to protect slavery) is patent idiocy and makes no sense at all! The South could not really win a hard fought shooting war against such a large, wealthy and powerful enemy. The Confederacy could only hope to prevail if [1] secession was peaceful – and Lincoln was adamant that it would not be; [2] that the Union would resist or reject a war if it became more than a 90 day conflict and became too costly or [3] major European powers like Great Britain allied themselves with the Confederacy. A protracted, hard fought war could not be won by the South and I believe that they knew it. So to say that the South willingly went to war to protect an institution that could have been protected in perpetuity by remaining in the Union is simply stupid and anyone who believes it has bovine eschatology for brains.

So the time has come to forget tariffs and culture and religion and Northern tyranny and focus on what they are focusing on because, damn it! we have the better argument.

“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.”

Slavery was not an issue for the war. It was an issue of secession. Therefore the war becomes a war for the right of secession and not slavery. As I like to point out, slavery was only a part of the causes for 4 states, or at least this is how many Casues of secession documents I can find. These 4 states amount less than half of the Confederacy.

GP

[ Edited Fri Dec 31 2010, 05:11PM ]

Yes secession was contrary to slavery. Look at the land the south was actually giving to the North by the act of secession. By secession the Northern then did not have to worry about a free blacks or slaves coming into their boundaries. By secession the abolitionist would have to fold his tent and leave town, there would be no return of fugitive slaves so all those escaping to the North were forever safe. By letting the south go with the slaves, that issue was settled for Lincoln completely. He did not have to find the money in order to “purchase” the slaves freedom, nor worry about how or where to colonize them. These are just what I can think of off hand perhaps there are more benefits for the North, but for the moment these benefits escape me.

GP

GP