How much longer would slavery have lasted if the South won the Civil War?

Great Debates
121

Sampiro, I have been almost in your corner up until now. I am neither a Yankee or a Reb. I am a French Canadian. (By the way, a Pentagon historian once told me that some 20,000 French Canadians fought on both sides in the CW. Seems Quebec was a great source of strong, youngfarm boys that rich Northerners and Southerners could “buy” with a payment to their family to take their place in the army when they were drafted – but I digress.)

I too have much admired Lee. But I cannot see his letter which you quote regarding the evetual elimination of slavery in God’s good time as anything but pious hypocrisy. Time to call a spade a spade.

Was patience a virtue only recommended for slaves? In his first innaugural address, as the Union was falling apart, Lincoln appealed to the seceding states for a little patience, pointing out that there was nothing to be lost by waiting a little. He was appealing to the “angels of their better nature” to cut him some slack and saying that while southerners might not like him, there could be no harm in waiting a little to see if he might prove tolerable as a President.

How much patience was the south willing to show? But slaves apparently had to wait for mysterious eons known only to an eternal God?

Just for fun, I have taken Lee’s letter which you and Captain Amazing have quoted, and rewritten it to address the concerns of white southerners at the moment of secession. Imagine how they would have received such a missive:

“There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that the south has many grievances, and that high tariffs have been little other than a method by which the industrial north has protected its inefficient enterprises from legitimate competition while drawing millions in disguised tribute from southerners who have nothing to gain by the imposition of such burdens. And today, the rapid growth of population and the ever-increasing majority of free states ensure that the interests of the south will forever be subordinated to the desires of northerners who have no interest in, or understanding of, the south’s economic and social institutions.”

“But for the south to rend the facric and unity of this republic for its own benefit is a greater evil which we must not contemplate. The painful discipline southerners are undergoing at the hands of the majority of northern states is necessary for their further instruction as a race, and will prepare them for better things. How long their subjugation to northern interests may be necessary is known and ordered by a merciful Providence. Relief for the long-suffering south will sooner result from the mild and melting influences of Christianity than from the storm and tempest of fiery controversy. This influence, though slow, is sure.”

“While we see the course of the final resolution of southern grievances is still onward, and give it the aid of our prayers, let us leave the progress as well as the results in the hands of Him who, chooses to work by slow influences, and with whom a thousand years are but as a single day.”

Can you imagine the representatives of the new Confederate government meeting in Montgomery, Alabama in February of 1861 receiving such a letter from the North? Can you imagine their reaction?

122

[QUOTE=Sampiro]

Cutting the pontoon bridge was NOT a military necessity. … Read the accounts of Charles Kerr and James Connaly, both of the 126th Illinois, who describe how soldiers stood on the other side of the creek and tossed limbs and boards and branches to the ones in the water.
As a point of fact Wheeler’s cavalry did not have a policy of killing “Contraband”- though they did return them to their owners when they could. …
Now, I have no problem imagining that Wheeler’s Cavalry did not give the stranded slaves a picnic. I would not be surprised to learn that some died or that there were attacks or rapes or other atrocities and I don’t try to justify them in the least. I seriously doubt, though, and there is no evidence that there was a cold blooded butchering as you describe and would like to see what you can provide other than the NYT article. The bulk of the deaths occurred, even by former slave accounts (for the accounts all stated that Wheeler sent them with a small guard to a camp to await return to their owners), were those who drowned trying to stay with Davis.
This is documented fact, not opinion: SHERMAN HAD NO INTEREST WHATEVER IN “FREEING THOSE SLAVES AND GIVING THEM HOPE” ON HIS MARCH TO THE SEA. None. Zilch. Don’t Look For It. It’s not there. He actively did NOT want what he termed “the Contraband” to follow him other than able bodied men who could provide manual labor for his army. Sherman (who made no secret of the fact he had no problem with slavery in letters written before and during the war) specifically told women, children, and old or infirm slaves to go back, that he could not feed them and would not feed them when things became tight (remember he was living off the land),…/QUOTE]

Well, the opinions of enlisted men on a strategic decision is hardly to be relied upon.
However, it is true that the bulk of the deaths occured while the freed slaves tried to swim across. But why did they try to swim across, even though the danger was clear and obvious? Why would they rather drown than be taken again by such a kind man as Wheeler and returned to their loving owners? Because death was better than the alternative. Sure, slaves were property and the CSA often tried to return them* to their owners - who far too often then beat them to death with bullwhips as an example. The freed slaves would rather die than return to slavery. Nothing exhibits the evils of slavery and the desire for freedom more than those poor souls throwing themselves into the river in desperation. Don’t blame Davis, blame Slavery, the “peculiar insititution” that the South left the Union to protect. Think of how horrible being a slave must have been that men, women and children threw themselfs into the water, in face of almost certain death- rather than be taken again.

Sherman did free many slaves and brought them along- but it is true that as he was on a forced march he only wanted men who could keep up and earn their way. He reluctantly told the others that staying behind was likely better for them, to wait until the war was won. But Sherman talked with them, shook their hands (almost unheard of then), explained the situation, and then tacitly allowed the families to follow along- even though he advised against it.

*(but they did execute those bearing arms)

This is documented fact, not opinion: SHERMAN HAD NO INTEREST WHATEVER IN “FREEING THOSE SLAVES AND GIVING THEM HOPE” ON HIS MARCH TO THE SEA. None. Zilch. Don’t Look For It. It’s not there. He actively did NOT want what he termed “the Contraband” to follow him other than able bodied men who could provide manual labor for his army. Sherman (who made no secret of the fact he had no problem with slavery in letters written before and during the war) specifically told women, children, and old or infirm slaves to go back, that he could not feed them and would not feed them when things became tight (remember he was living off the land),…/QUOTE]

Well, the opinions of enlisted men on a strategic decision is hardly to be relied upon.
However, it is true that the bulk of the deaths occured while the freed slaves tried to swim across. But why did they try to swim across, even though the danger was clear and obvious? Why would they rather drown than be taken again by such a kind man as Wheeler and returned to their loving owners? Because death was better than the alternative. Sure, slaves were property and the CSA often tried to return them* to their owners - who far too often then beat them to death with bullwhips as an example. The freed slaves would rather die than return to slavery. Nothing exhibits the evils of slavery and the desire for freedom more than those poor souls throwing themselves into the river in desperation. Don’t blame Davis, blame Slavery, the “peculiar insititution” that the South left the Union to protect. Think of how horrible being a slave must have been that men, women and children threw themselfs into the water, in face of almost certain death- rather than be taken again.

Sherman did free many slaves and brought them along- but it is true that as he was on a forced march he only wanted men who could keep up and earn their way. He reluctantly told the others that staying behind was likely better for them, to wait until the war was won. But Sherman talked with them, shook their hands (almost unheard of then), explained the situation, and then tacitly allowed the families to follow along- even though he advised against it.

*(but they did execute those bearing arms)

123

Well, the opinions of enlisted men on a strategic decision is hardly to be relied upon.
However, it is true that the bulk of the deaths occured while the freed slaves tried to swim across. But why did they try to swim across, even though the danger was clear and obvious? Why would they rather drown than be taken again by such a kind man as Wheeler and returned to their loving owners? Because death was better than the alternative. Sure, slaves were property and the CSA often tried to return them* to their owners - who far too often then beat them to death with bullwhips as an example. The freed slaves would rather die than return to slavery. Nothing exhibits the evils of slavery and the desire for freedom more than those poor souls throwing themselves into the river in desperation. Don’t blame Davis, blame Slavery, the “peculiar insititution” that the South left the Union to protect. Think of how horrible being a slave must have been that men, women and children threw themselfs into the water, in face of almost certain death- rather than be taken again.

Sherman did free many slaves and brought them along- but it is true that as he was on a forced march he only wanted men who could keep up and earn their way. He reluctantly told the others that staying behind was likely better for them, to wait until the war was won. But Sherman talked with them, shook their hands (almost unheard of then), explained the situation, and then tacitly allowed the families to follow along- even though he advised against it.

*(but they did execute those bearing arms)

124

I trust yours much more.

Stop being a jerk. I never said Wheeler was a kind man or that their owners were loving and I’ll give you $500 of Liberal’s money if you can find where I even implied it. You’re creating straw men (sarcastic ones at that) and that’s usually a sign of losing an argument.

Cite? NOBODY- not I, not anybody, is minimizing the evils of slavery. I acknowledge it was an intrinsically and wholly evil institution and that it was what the war was fought over. I think the notion of slaves being routinely beaten to death with bullwhips is not based in history- they were too valuable. OTOH, I personally would think that being told to take a walk so your owner can rape your 12 year old daughter [when you have absolutely no recourse legal or otherwise] or knowing that your wife, children, parents can be sold and you’ll never see them again or just knowing that your entire life will be spent working in blistering sun for somebody else to have comforts would be worse than a whip. It was a stinking rotting corpse of an institution- no question.

I can think of MANY things that exhibit the evils better than this particular act. Hell, read the story of Minerva, one of Thomas Jefferson’s slaves, and what became of her and her family in 1827- THAT is one of the most powerful illustrations of the evils of slavery and it doesn’t even involve violence or suicide (like most evil). These were far from the first slaves to choose death over slavery- every runaway took that risk. Nobody’s arguing slavery was “bad”, but this isn’t even anywhere near the worst illustration of that. (Of course by your own admission you don’t do well imagining things and by demonstration you don’t know what you’re talking about regarding history of the era.)

Sure. For that matter, don’t blame the masters you mention who beat their slaves to death with bullwhips: blame Slavery. Don’t blame Wheeler: blame Slavery.

I blame BOTH. I admire your boldness for being willing to speak out against such a popularly admired institution on the Dope as slavery, but the thing is that it wasn’t the only evil that befell the people at Ebenezer Creek.

. {emphasis mine-Sampiro}
[/QUOTE]

Please provide a cite that he did it reluctantly.

And he defended the actions of a racist violent subordinate who ordered their abandonment and referred to it as “that negro nonsense” in his letters and stated in his memoirs he didn’t think they should have the right to vote or be equal. Essentially, he supported Jim Crow.

Again and again and again, nobody is defending slavery as an institution or saying the war was not started to preserve slavery. The point is that while slavery was centered in the south (by the time of the Civil War- for most of American history it was practiced in every colony and then state) it was a NATIONAL problem- the north was also involved in the institution and not all atrocities or vile racism (even for the time) came from the south. You can wish the war was strictly Good versus Evil all you want to and even mold the definitions til you find one that fits, but slavery was not a simple issue, neither northerners nor southerners nor slaveowners were uniform in their views towards blacks or slavery, and not all war atrocities were committed by Southerners.

Personally I consider Sherman’s March an atrocity- he intentionally and willfully planned and executed a terror campaign to starve and impoverish civilians, most of them not slaveowners, by feeding 80,000 troops and followers through constant pillaging and looting of farms, burned crops he could not feed his troops, depopulated forests of game even- people literally starved to death in his wake, most of them women and children and old people, and it was intentional. He had two objectives with his march: the first was to reach Savannah as quickly as possible [and that necessitated no supply lines] and that I consider a valid military objective, no question- the second, by his own admission in letters at the time and in his memoirs later, was to create such a terror and such devastation and such total blight and famine that the South would be terrified, and he did this at the expense of civilians (and, at Ebenezer Creek and other instances, of blacks, for whom he had no use- read his writings on the subject from when he was president of [what is now] LSU- he was as bad as any member of the Confederacy in his opinion of the intelligence and equality of blacks.

More later.

125

Back off.

[ /Moderating ]