# "Slaves lived a life of plenty, of simple pleasures" **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 11, 2004, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaves-lived-a-life-of-plenty-of-simple-pleasures/279273 "2004-12-11T05:17:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaves-lived-a-life-of-plenty-of-simple-pleasures/279273/141 "2004-12-12T13:42:52Z")
> [@smiling bandit](#): > > While the British erased the slave trade, slavery still existed in many of their colonies until not long before the Civil War, and all latin american states still had it. Well… no; we had our own Emancipation Proclamation on October 26 1846, and slavery was totally erradicated by the 1850s; however the first steps towards that began in 1825. ---
**Author:** ![sugaree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@sugaree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sugaree)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaves-lived-a-life-of-plenty-of-simple-pleasures/279273/142 "2004-12-12T14:51:39Z")
> [@Chotii](#): > > Voices and Faces from the Collection > > It’s not a very friendly website. But this page looked straightforward enough. > [@continuity eror](#): > > I don’t know if that site’s supposed to be pro-slavery or anti-slavery, but I thought it was really gross how it wrote the ex-slaves’ testimonials in dialect. It didn’t make the stories seem historically accurate, it made the slaves look like idiots. [One of my favorites!](http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/snhome.html) The page is run by the Library of Congress. The stories are presented as they were originally written during the Depression, with no modern-day editing. Some writers/compilers use dialect; some don’t. Some preserve the question-answer interview format; others present each story as a sort of monologue. Some are more condescending than others, and yes, some of the writers were white while others were black. Using the narratives as a teaching tool could serve as a lesson oon 1930s society and race relations as much as on what slavery was like. Read [Susan Hamilton’s story](http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/S?ammem/mesnbib:@field(AUTHOR+@od1(Hamilton,+Susan))) and compare it to [Susan Hamlin’s](http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/S?ammem/mesnbib:@field(AUTHOR+@od1(Hamlin,+Susan))) (click on view page images). > [@](#): > > \*Susan Hamlin:\*The Lord made t’ree nations, the white, the red and the black, and put dem in different places on de earth where dey was to stay. Dose black ignoramuses in Africa forgot God, and didn’t have no religion and God blessed and prospered the white people dat did remember him and sent dem to teach de black people even if dey have to grab dem and bring dem into bondage till dey learned some sense. The Indians forgot God and dey had to be taught better so dey land was taken away from dem. God sure bless and prosper the white people and He put de red and de black people under dem so dey could teach dem and bring dem into sense wid God. > [@](#): > > \*Susan Hamilton:\*De white race is so brazen. Dey come here an’ run de Indians frum dere own lan’, but dey couldn’t make dem slaves ‘cause dey wouldn’t stan’ for it. Indians used to git up in trees and shoot dem with poison arrow. ‘en dey couldn’t make dem slaves den dey gone to Africa an’ bring dere black brother en’ sister. Dey say ‘mong themselves “we gwine mix dem up en make ourselves king. Dats de only way we’ll git even with de Indians.” Two very different stories, right? But Susan Hamlin and Susan Hamilton were the same person. Guess which of those two interviews was conducted by a black writer, and which by a white writer? > [@monstro](#): > > Actually, the most interesting aspect of the book (which I had read in a black history class taken in college) is that some of the accounts were positive. “Massa” or “Marster” was praised for not being that bad, for instance. I remember one of the former slaves saying something like, “Compared to now [the Depression], slavery wasn’t all that bad.” I remember another one saying something like “Some of these no-account negroes need to go _back_ to slavery.” So it’s not really accurate to say that there were no positive accounts. > > But I think one has to view the accounts with a critical eye. These narratives were collected some seventy years after Emancipation. Most of the former slaves were children during these times. Children weren’t protected from all the horrors of slavery, but they had it generally easier than adults did. I don’t think slave children were protected to any significant degree, and surely the youngest of the freed slaves would grow up hearing up about the horrors from the older members of their communities. The main factor underlying any positive accounts of slavery was probably the eminently practical desire to not piss off this inquisitive white person with the pencil and notebook. And a lot of the “good ol’ days” aspects sound more like the age-old “I don’t know what’s wrong with these kids today” whine than a actual nostaglia for the institution. _If_ the school is indeed exposing kids to all sides of the debate, I support it completely. But I don’t see why they don’t use contemporary period sources rather than a modern booklet of dubious scholarship. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaves-lived-a-life-of-plenty-of-simple-pleasures/279273/143 "2004-12-12T14:52:04Z")
> [@spooje](#): > > So you are saying that Hell doesn’t exist and no one really **sent** there to suffer for all eternity? No, he’s saying that poor, poor God has no choice but to allow some of his pwecious childwen to burn in Hell for all eternity if that’s what they choose to do. Of course, that presupposes that God cannot change this “natural consequence” of the universe so that people who don’t follow his orders just kind of go off and exist elsewhere instead of dying horribly and painfully over and over and over. It appears to be a viewpoint that sees God as a being who just happened to stumble across this horrible secret of the universe and set out to prevent poor humans from taking the wrong path, instead of being the all-powerful creator of the universe who _set this all up in the first place_. ---
**Author:** ![tiny\_ham](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a183cd/32.png) [@tiny\_ham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tiny_ham)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaves-lived-a-life-of-plenty-of-simple-pleasures/279273/144 "2004-12-12T15:31:16Z")
Hey Reeder, I appreciate it. I think it’s well known that both of us have hot buttons, both of us are highly emotional about those buttons and it can result in hot tempers and quick retorts… You and I don’t agree on much, but like Homer Simpson once said “our sames go right deep down”. We both agree on working towards a world where everyone is given justice and freedom and where everyone has a voice in how we get there. Have a good holiday. ---
**Author:** ![emacularius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@emacularius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacularius)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaves-lived-a-life-of-plenty-of-simple-pleasures/279273/145 "2004-12-12T16:06:18Z")
> [@Zap\_Rowsdower](#): > > I remember reading that during the 1930’s, many ex-slaves were interviewed in a federal works program to get their first hand accounts. These were compiled in to the Slave Narrative Collection by the Federal Writers Project. I recall reading somewhere about the interviewers being very surprised that former slaves did not view it as “a life of plenty, of simple pleasures.” Some interviewers even tried to coax the former slaves to admit that some aspects of their lives weren’t that bad. From what I recall non were willing to admit that some of it was positive. > > I haven’t been able to locate anything yet on that, but I’ll look more when I have time. I feel that these narratives should be used much more than they currently are in our history classes. I was out of school probably 10 years before I learned about the existence of these narratives. This is probably the best way to counter balance the pro-slavery nonsense. After reading through some, which is very moving, I think people will come away with a completely different understanding of that time period. These may be at least close to what you are referring to: [http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/black\_voices/black\_voices.cfm](http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/black_voices/black_voices.cfm) [http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/wpa/index.html](http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/wpa/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaves-lived-a-life-of-plenty-of-simple-pleasures/279273/146 "2004-12-12T16:19:22Z")
> [@](#): > > If you believe that the Bible is historically accurate, and that there was an Exodus, you’re wrong. I have taken no stand on the literal accuracy of the bible. (My position on the subject can be found in numerous posts elsewhere.) I only noted that in the _text_ of the bible, there are explicit commands to refrain from (some) homosexual activity while the commands given to slaves and slaveholders presume the phenomenon of slavery and enjoin both the slaveholders and the slaves to behave in an ethical manner. The Exodus is a special case of God acting for the benefit of his people that stands outside those laws which were addressed to his people, not to the world. Even the Exodus narrative does not indicate that the Egyptians had a moral obligation to free the Hebrews, only that the Hebrews wanted freedom and God supported them in their desire. I recall no statement in the Exodus narrative that claims that slavery is wrong, in itself. * * * As to the OP, itself, I would tend to agree with **dangermom** that I am not sure that I would condemn either the pamphlet or its use in school without reading the actual pamphlet or seeing its use in context. According to the sidebar in the link, the pamphlet makes several claims that seem odd out of context. The three quotes from pages 24 and 25 strike me (out of context) as inaccurate historical revisionism. On the other hand, the quote from page 27 seems to be an accurate assessment of a stuation that did arise. There were, for example, slaves who _chose_ to fight with their masters aginst the Union forces–although that number also gets exaggerated when personal servants are included with actual musket-bearing soldiers, there were a (hotly disputed) number of blacks who did actually _fight_ for the South. I would take issue with **dangermom** ’s characterization of the pamphlet as an important historical documant; it seems to be a cut-and-paste modern _apologia_ that has already had to be taken out of print for reasons of plagiarism. However, finding and presenting the source documents on which it was based could be a valuable historical lesson. (I have more trouble with the idea that the pamphlet was originally given to sixth graders to offset Uncle Tom’s Cabin: presenting a purported history book to fight a work of fiction to sixth graders does not seem a legitimate exercise. However, since it is now restricted to ninth graders, my main objection would be my standard objection to all U.S. history courses: that we should be using original documents rather than boiled pap to let kids see what actually was said and done at the times studied. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaves-lived-a-life-of-plenty-of-simple-pleasures/279273/147 "2004-12-12T16:28:53Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > What are you implying here? I wouldn’t call Quakers “fundies”. Here is the [google](http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&lr=&oi=defmore&q=define:Fundamentalist) definition for a fundie. > [@](#): > > A christian who still believes in the basic, literal interpretation of the bible. A conservative believer… in its narrow meaning, a fundamentalist is a conservative Protestant who believes in the five fundamentals: the sole authority of Scripture; the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ; the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement of the death of Christ; the physical, bodily resurrection of Christ; and the literal Second Coming of Christ to judge the world. In its larger meaning, fundamentalist has come to mean any rigidly conservative adherent to a belief system, who regards all those outside the belief system as without hope of salvation, and who treats the sacred text of the tradition as an infallible guide to belief and action. Here is a [declaration of their faith](http://www.fum.org/about/declarationfaith.htm) I can’t find anything that would contradict my assertion that the Quakers were fundamentalists.Perhaps you can find something to support your assertion. What am I implying ? Perhaps the western ideal of separation of church and state (which I subscribe to) so often cited by members here as “fundamental” to a just society could have impeded the march towards the abolition of slavery if the ACLU were there to argue for the separation as they do today. That is ironic. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaves-lived-a-life-of-plenty-of-simple-pleasures/279273/148 "2004-12-12T16:43:12Z")
> [@spooje](#): > > So you are saying that Hell doesn’t exist and no one really **sent** there to suffer for all eternity? Yes, of course. If Heaven exists, then Hell cannot because, as Jesus teaches, “the light puts out the darkness”. The burning lakes of fire and whatnot are metaphorical images in parables, just like the wheat, the pearl, the vinyards, and so on. Heaven is not made of physical things like wheat. Parables are analogies, often allegories. God gives men what they treasure, and what they treasure is what they seek because their treasure is the desire of the heart. “Where your treasure is,” Jesus teaches, “there your heart is also.” Neither Heaven nor the so-called Hell is a physical place. Again, Jesus teaches that you cannot look here or look there and see the kingdom of God, because “the Kingdom of God is within you”. Hell is just a perspective of one subjective reference frame from another. If it helps to understand it, you may think of it as an accessibility relation such that where v ranges over w and u ranges over w, v and u are identical. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaves-lived-a-life-of-plenty-of-simple-pleasures/279273/149 "2004-12-12T16:44:45Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > Well… no; we had our own Emancipation Proclamation on October 26 1846, and slavery was totally erradicated by the 1850s; however the first steps towards that began in 1825. There was slavery in Brazil for more than 20 years after it ended in the U.S. I read an article about the last living New World person who was born into legal slavery. She was an infant when slavery was abolished in Brazil and was still alive in the early 1990’s. Haj ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaves-lived-a-life-of-plenty-of-simple-pleasures/279273/150 "2004-12-12T16:44:57Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > No, he’s saying that… Don’t do that. Are not your own affairs sufficient burden for you? If you want to speak for me and live my life, pay my mortgage. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaves-lived-a-life-of-plenty-of-simple-pleasures/279273/151 "2004-12-12T16:46:30Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > Yeah, slavery, it was great, that’s why we had a war about it, and so many people died because of it. Asshats. The Civil War was not fought to end slavery. Slavery is often presented as the cause of the war. It wasn’t. The war was about the issue of state’s rights. Slavery was the focal point of the state’s rights issue, however, and as such, it is often confused with the real issue. Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation as a military tactic, hoping that two things would happen: 1. The newly freed slaves would then rise up against their former master and in effect put the South in the position of having to fight a war and at the same time put down domestic insurrection. The idea was that the South would not be able to do that and would collapse immediately. 2. The freed slaves would join the Northern Army and fight against the South. Good plan, but it didn’t work because the former slaves did NOT rise up as planned. Yes, many of them did join the Northern army, that part of it was somewhat successful. Lincoln never intended to free the slaves wholesale at that time. The EP was specifically limited to the states that had seceded and were still in active conflict. It did not cover the north, nor did it cover southern territory that had been conquered and reclaimed by the north. As an institution in and of itself, slavery would probably have collapsed within 20 more years. There’s a real arguement to be made that we didn’t need to fight the Civil War at all. All the northern states would have had to do was wait and then pick up the pieces after the collapse of the Southern Confederacy. Makes for some fascinating “what if?” speculation, doesn’t it! [http://home.fuse.net/juneteenth/history.htm](http://home.fuse.net/juneteenth/history.htm) [http://www.archives.gov/exhibit\_hall/featured\_documents/emancipation\_proclamation/transcript.html](http://www.archives.gov/exhibit_hall/featured_documents/emancipation_proclamation/transcript.html) ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaves-lived-a-life-of-plenty-of-simple-pleasures/279273/152 "2004-12-12T16:47:06Z")
> [@](#): > > Perhaps the western ideal of separation of church and state (which I subscribe to) so often cited by members here as “fundamental” to a just society could have impeded the march towards the abolition of slavery if the ACLU were there to argue for the separation as they do today. That is ironic. Not sure how. The ACLU never opposed political statements by religious groups or actions by religious groups to persuade their own members to agitate for change. Numerous churches and synagogues were active in the 1950s and 1960s, agitating for Civil Rights, and the ACLU never attempted to prevent their _private_ activities. The notion of PACs vs tax-exempt status is a later development and I suspect that the ACLU supports laws denying tax exemptions to organizations that donated money to _elections_, but given that the ACLU has defended the rights of students to read the bible and pray in schools–provided the readings or prayers were not assigned or organized by the school staff–I see no reason to believe that they would have opposed Quaker activity. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaves-lived-a-life-of-plenty-of-simple-pleasures/279273/153 "2004-12-12T17:10:32Z")
> [@](#): > > The Civil War was not fought to end slavery. Slavery is often presented as the cause of the war. It wasn’t. > > The war was about the issue of state’s rights. Your first sentnce is correct. Your second sentence is in error. No one fought the war to end slavery, but the South seceded to preserve and expand slavery. The North initially fought to preserve the Union, and, since the South made slavery _the_ issue, the North was quite willing to use that as a wedge between the Confedracy and any European supporters, however the South was only interested in States Rights on those occasions when those rights supported slavery. There were no calls in the South to repeal the Fugitive Slave Act on the grounds that it interferred with the right of states such as Ohio or Pennsylvania to declare escaped slaves free. As Mike Buckner has had to remind us on several occasions, [most recently in July, 2003](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=3668493#post3668493), several of the states _explicitly_ named slavery as the point on which they decided to secede. When Virginia got a coalition of states together to declare war in 1812, “Mr. Madison’s War,” harming the economy of New England\*, the New Englanders gathered on several occasions, ultimately leading to the Hartford Convention, to discuss withdrawing from the Union. At that time, the editorials in Southern papers and comments on the floors of Southern legislative bodies were filled with denuncation of the “treason” of which they accused the New Englanders. That rhetoric simply came back to bite them, later. - (If one wishes to examne irony, consider the aspect of the non-mercantile South declaring a war purportedly over the issue of seaman impressment where the states most directly affected by impressment did not want to engage in war.) ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaves-lived-a-life-of-plenty-of-simple-pleasures/279273/154 "2004-12-12T17:11:56Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > Well… no; we had our own Emancipation Proclamation on October 26 1846, and slavery was totally erradicated by the 1850s; however the first steps towards that began in 1825. > [@hajario](#): > > There was slavery in Brazil for more than 20 years after it ended in the U.S. I read an article about the last living New World person who was born into legal slavery. She was an infant when slavery was abolished in Brazil and was still alive in the early 1990’s. Ale’s location is listed as “Uruguay”. I believe that’s a different country than Brazil. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaves-lived-a-life-of-plenty-of-simple-pleasures/279273/155 "2004-12-12T17:12:29Z")
> [@Continuity eror](#): > > What about the coercion of citizens by major multi-national corporations? Corporations should have no rights, and they certainly should be allowed to coerce no one. That’s what government is _for_ — to suppress coercion. Incidentally, your wild and desultory philippics are nothing more than brain farts intended to feed the fetishes of your mental masturbation. There is no weaker argument to be found than one of the form, “if X happened tomorrow, then Y would result”. You sound like a Christian fundamentalist bemoaning what would happen to the world if some random child saw some random celebrity’s bare nipple. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaves-lived-a-life-of-plenty-of-simple-pleasures/279273/156 "2004-12-12T17:48:21Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Don’t do that. Are not your own affairs sufficient burden for you? If you want to speak for me and live my life, pay my mortgage. You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m actually kind of sorry I responded to that in the first place because, while it IS how I interpret that argument, it was unnecessarily snarky and sarcastic. I apologize. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaves-lived-a-life-of-plenty-of-simple-pleasures/279273/157 "2004-12-12T18:04:23Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m actually kind of sorry I responded to that in the first place because, while it IS how I interpret that argument, it was unnecessarily snarky and sarcastic. I apologize. Well, then, that’s the end of that. Onward. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaves-lived-a-life-of-plenty-of-simple-pleasures/279273/158 "2004-12-12T18:23:22Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > - (If one wishes to examne irony, consider the aspect of the non-mercantile South declaring a war purportedly over the issue of seaman impressment where the states most directly affected by impressment did not want to engage in war.) And of course opinion in the South was not uniform about the War. Frex, there’s a county in Georgia named Union County, and it was so named because it was for the Union and not the Confederates prior to the Civil War. This was a fairly common snetiment among folks in the north Georgia mountains, because the smaller plots of arable land to be found in the mountains didn’t tend to support plantations. Hence, there weren’t all that many slaveowners in north Georgia (though there were some). Combined with the insular nature of Appalachian culture, it tended to produce people who weren’t all that crazy about the war. Of course, the general butt-ignorance that was also a part of the culture tended to produce people who were for the war just because it seemed like a chance for a good fight. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaves-lived-a-life-of-plenty-of-simple-pleasures/279273/159 "2004-12-12T19:10:59Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > 1. The newly freed slaves would then rise up against their former master and in effect put the South in the position of having to fight a war and at the same time put down domestic insurrection. The idea was that the South would not be able to do that and would collapse immediately. If there was a widespread slave insurrection, at the least, Lincoln would have been impeached. It would have been disastrous for the Union cause. I can’t see that as one of Lincoln’s motivations > [@](#): > > Lincoln never intended to free the slaves wholesale at that time. The EP was specifically limited to the states that had seceded and were still in active conflict. It did not cover the north, nor did it cover southern territory that had been conquered and reclaimed by the north. Legally, it couldn’t cover the North or southern territory that had already been conquered. Dred Scott had ruled that the federal government couldn’t legally outlaw slavery, and even if they could, Lincoln do it in a proclamation, any more than Bush could issue an executive order seizing your house. Lincoln was able to outlaw slavery in the places in active rebellion as a war power, making the argument that the rebels had forfeited their rights to their slaves. So, therefore, those slaves automatically become the property of the government, which can then free them. In a lot of ways, it was an extension of the Contraband order. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaves-lived-a-life-of-plenty-of-simple-pleasures/279273/160 "2004-12-12T19:16:44Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > And of course opinion in the South was not uniform about the War. A good book to read about that is “Reluctant Confederates”, a look at early Unionism in the Upper South. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaves-lived-a-life-of-plenty-of-simple-pleasures/279273.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaves-lived-a-life-of-plenty-of-simple-pleasures/279273.md?page=9)