# When was Irish slavery in the New World illegalized? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 2, 2010, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-irish-slavery-in-the-new-world-illegalized/530937 "2010-03-02T00:17:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-irish-slavery-in-the-new-world-illegalized/530937/41 "2015-07-27T09:55:55Z")
Liam Hogan in the University Of Limerick has done a lot of work in the field. For example,[The Myth of “Irish Slaves” in the Colonies](http://www.academia.edu/9475964/The_Myth_of_Irish_Slaves_in_the_Colonies). ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-irish-slavery-in-the-new-world-illegalized/530937/42 "2015-07-27T10:25:04Z")
> [@barleysinger](#): > > Again…note - Catholics were HATED Some years back, I was part of a group of Spaniards working in Glasgow. I went to see a parade, some sort of celebration. The sight of an embroidered pennant with words along the lines of “kill all Catholics” kind of killed my fun mood. Maybe it was Catholic, like me? > [@md2000](#): > > One of the “evolutions of thought” that I recall reading was the trend toward the belief that Christians should not be enslaved by Christians. > [@Lemur866](#): > > Right, one of the reasons initially Africans were deemed suitable for enslavement is that they weren’t Christians. Isn’t that from the NT? Part of the issue with the Brits and Irish was the division of Christians (those in MY Church) and heretics (those in any other so-called church). **Sampiro**! You’ve been owing us the rest for five years, man! ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-irish-slavery-in-the-new-world-illegalized/530937/43 "2015-07-27T10:26:56Z")
> [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](#): > > The Pilgrims Fathers were English, but they left England due the hostile religious environment. They didn’t head west though, the went to Holland, first to Amsterdam and then to Leiden. They didn’t get on well there either and it was then decided to give America a go. They chose New England precisely because no one else wanted to go there. It was somewhere where they would be left alone. I know it’s a diversion but this is a common misconception. The pilgrims left England because it was TOO tolerant. They wanted to establish a colony where everyone would adhere to their version of intolerant Christianity. > [@](#): > > The pilgrims believed that they were true Christians, determined to “purify” the Christian church and return to a scripture-based service. These “Puritans” were not satisfied with the reforms introduced after the separation of the English church from the Catholic Holy See in Rome. > > Nevertheless, the Puritans were seen both as seditious and heretical for their beliefs. The King’s agents persecuted them. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-irish-slavery-in-the-new-world-illegalized/530937/44 "2015-07-27T10:40:02Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > I know it’s a diversion but this is a common misconception. The pilgrims left England because it was TOO tolerant. They wanted to establish a colony where everyone would adhere to their version of intolerant Christianity. Both reasons can be correct. The Pilgrims may have wished for their very own separatist intolerant colony and have been persecuted in England at the very same time. Neither reason for their voyage to the New World is mutually exclusive. edit: Sorry, your second quote _did_ deal with the point I made. ---
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-irish-slavery-in-the-new-world-illegalized/530937/45 "2015-07-27T14:43:44Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > Liam Hogan in the University Of Limerick has done a lot of work in the field. For example,[The Myth of “Irish Slaves” in the Colonies](http://www.academia.edu/9475964/The_Myth_of_Irish_Slaves_in_the_Colonies). Thanks! A clear and readable explanation of what was really going on. This is an excellent addition to the earlier posts in this thread. White slavery in the Americas simply didn’t happen. The Irish certainly weren’t treated well, but they certainly weren’t treated as badly as the Africans. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-irish-slavery-in-the-new-world-illegalized/530937/46 "2015-07-27T17:10:56Z")
> [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](#): > > I’m English and we were brought up to believe that the smallpox vaccination was an English invention, care of Edward Jenner in around 1796. Man, was my eduction off base. You can see the [1721 text here](http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/7910093?n=9&imagesize=1200&jp2Res=.25). There’s also a Chinese book from 1536, but I’m too dumb to read it. Jenner invented “vaccination”–from the Latin root for “cow.” Because he used cowpox cells instead of smallpox. But he was building on the established practice of “inoculation” —now called “variolation.” Which was quite effective & permanent; vaccination was safer, even if “boosters” were needed. Cotton Mather did pioneer inoculation in New England. Some disagreed with him because they thought he was tampering with God’s Will. Others, because they disliked him… ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-irish-slavery-in-the-new-world-illegalized/530937/47 "2015-07-27T17:16:58Z")
> [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](#): > > I just dug out the [Slave Code of South Carolina](http://www.teachingushistory.org/tTrove/1740slavecode.htm) from 1740 > > That implies that there were no white slaves. History & slave codes varied in the different colonies–even just the English-speaking ones. Virginia was the oldest colony; there were a few African slaves early on but the labor force was mostly indentured. Enslaved Africans only became vital to the economy after the first century. South Carolina was founded later–after the sometimes involuntary indenture of folks from the less fortunate parts of the British Isles had slowed down. African slavery was part of the colony’s initial plan. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-irish-slavery-in-the-new-world-illegalized/530937/48 "2015-07-27T17:41:07Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > One of my Scots ancestors was arrested in the [Monmouth Rebellion of 1685](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monmouth_Rebellion) and sent to Pennsylvania as an indentured servant. He eventually became a successful Philadephia businessman. Now I wonder if he was just very lucky to be sent to the North rather than the South or Caribbean. (Monmouth Rebellion was also cause of Capt. Blood’s slavery (Errol Flynn) – see previous post.) Actually, he was very lucky _not to have been hanged._ I know the idea of slavery is extremely distasteful to us, but as a alternative to execution, it could even be considered merciful. People were not kept much in prisons for crime- they were executed, transported/indentured or given lashes. The prisons were hellholes anyway, except those for the upper class. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-irish-slavery-in-the-new-world-illegalized/530937/49 "2015-07-27T20:53:14Z")
A good way to think of Protestants and Catholics in the “good old days” in Britain is to consider them like the communists and capitalist camps up to 1990… Catholics were supposedly “just another religion” but the protestants considered that they “took their orders” from Rome, much as communism was an idealistic belief, but the western world believed - to some extent true - that the communists took their orders from Moscow. Both Moscow and Rome diverged from their ethereal ideals with very messy politics, and England worried that the Vatican and its puppet-masters was perpetually trying to ensnare and enslave England so it could be ruled by France or Spain. Ireland, where local Catholics and British immigrants lived side by side, was the most virulent of these antagonistic arrangements - it persists into the present. Of course, the rest of England was equally suspicious, as event over the years kept the disagreement in the forefront - there was the gunpowder plot, and also James Ii and the glorious revolution. (he spent much of the Cromwell reign in France, and became Catholic, and the English suspected he was trying to hand the country to France.) After Henry VII, there was Bloody Mary, as the country bounced between Protestant Edward, then Catholic Mary and her Spanish husband (and late mother), then protestant Elizabeth. We may see it as “just religion” but the choice of religion was incredibly tied into politics and international relations. The King was also the head of the Anglican church, so rejection of Anglicanism was implicit disrespect for the King and country and immediately made you an object of suspicion. This is also why the Pilgrims had such a hard time. Rejecting Anglicanism meant the same if the sect were protestant or catholic; plus the nobility had not forgotten the civil war in the mid-1600’s when rabid puritans executed the king and tried to shut down other churches - they were vigilant about allowing any such social movement to gain ground again. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-irish-slavery-in-the-new-world-illegalized/530937/50 "2015-07-27T21:02:51Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > A good way to think of Protestants and Catholics in the “good old days” in Britain is to consider them like the communists and capitalist camps up to 1990… > . Not to mention- when Queen Mary was in charge, Protestants were pretty nastily repressed. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-irish-slavery-in-the-new-world-illegalized/530937/51 "2015-07-27T22:20:15Z")
November 5th, 1605 was the 9/11 of its day - except that it was discovered in time (opinions differ on how much foreknowledge the government had). In the light of it most people would have thoroughly approved of repressing Catholicism. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2015, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-irish-slavery-in-the-new-world-illegalized/530937/52 "2015-07-28T00:58:42Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > One of my Scots ancestors was arrested in the [Monmouth Rebellion of 1685](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monmouth_Rebellion) and sent to Pennsylvania as an indentured servant. He eventually became a successful Philadephia businessman. Now I wonder if he was just very lucky to be sent to the North rather than the South or Caribbean. (Monmouth Rebellion was also cause of Capt. Blood’s slavery (Errol Flynn) – see previous post.) Likewise for a Scots ancestor of mine. A POW from the Battle of Dunbar in 1650, he survived to be sold into servitude at the Saugus Iron Works in Massachusetts. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-irish-slavery-in-the-new-world-illegalized/530937/53 "2015-08-04T17:54:22Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > The problem with this comes when your slaves convert to Christianity. Now you have to let them free. So the reason Africans should be enslaved must not be because they aren’t Christians, there must be some other reason. So now we declare that Africans are naturally inferior to Europeans. Mississippi’s [1861 Declaration of Secession](http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp) adds “[Cotton and sugar cane] are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun.” Ignoring the fact there was no shortage of white farmers who were bearing exposure to the tropical sun, this is one of the most naked bits of admission ever: they don’t try to justify black slavery with the Bible or even racial superiority but in a "they’re a lot more durable than we are, we can’t do without them financially, if they ever get allowed to feel equal we are all in some serious danger, and so we’re bloody keeping them enslaved and keeping them beaten down. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-irish-slavery-in-the-new-world-illegalized/530937/54 "2015-08-04T18:03:47Z")
Yes, and that reminds us just what kind of **racist fucks** ran the CSA: \*Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin. That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove. … It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction. It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion. … It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain. It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst… It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists. … Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England.\* And yet, they still keep saying “State Rights”. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-irish-slavery-in-the-new-world-illegalized/530937/55 "2015-08-04T20:33:25Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > And yet, they still keep saying “State Rights”. :rolleyes: And they meant - they just don’t often mention that the overriding right they wanted was to be able to own slaves. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-irish-slavery-in-the-new-world-illegalized/530937/56 "2015-08-04T20:56:30Z")
> [@Folacin](#): > > And they meant - they just don’t often mention that the overriding right they wanted was to be able to own slaves. They had that right, too. The right they wanted (and kept getting, until their little temper tantrum) was to expand slavery into the territories and newly created states so they could gain legitimacy and avoid being viewed by the rest of the world as the backwards evil fucks they were. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2015, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-irish-slavery-in-the-new-world-illegalized/530937/57 "2015-08-05T12:46:28Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > A good way to think of Protestants and Catholics in the “good old days” in Britain is to consider them like the communists and capitalist camps up to 1990… > > Catholics were supposedly “just another religion” but the protestants considered that they “took their orders” from Rome, much as communism was an idealistic belief, but the western world believed - to some extent true - that the communists took their orders from Moscow. Both Moscow and Rome diverged from their ethereal ideals with very messy politics, and England worried that the Vatican and its puppet-masters was perpetually trying to ensnare and enslave England so it could be ruled by France or Spain. Considering that the popes issued orders to Catholics in Britain, freeing them from all allegiance to the English Crown, and excommunicating them if they remained loyal to the Crown, and renewed those orders at times of peril to the English government, such as the Armada, there was probably some basis for this belief. [Article on the Papal Bull issued by Pius V and Renewed by Later Popes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regnans_in_Excelsis): > [@](#): > > Regnans in Excelsis (“reigning on high”) was a papal bull issued on 27 April 1570 by Pope Pius V declaring “Elizabeth, the pretended Queen of England and the servant of crime”, to be a heretic and releasing all her subjects from any allegiance to her, even when they had “sworn oaths to her”, and excommunicating any that obeyed her orders.[1] > “We charge and command all and singular the nobles, subjects, peoples and others afore said that they do not dare obey her orders, mandates and laws. Those who shall act to the contrary we include in the like sentence of excommunication.” > … > The Bull was issued in support of, but following, the 1569 “Northern Rebellion” in England, and the first Desmond Rebellion in Ireland, with foreign Catholic support, and hardened her opinion against her landowning Catholic subjects. > … > At the request of the Jesuits and to relieve the pressures on Catholics in England, Pope Gregory XIII issued a clarification or suspension in 1580, explaining that Catholics should obey the queen outwardly in all civil matters, until such time as a suitable opportunity presented itself for her overthrow. > … > In 1588, Pope Sixtus V, in support of the Spanish Armada, renewed the solemn bull of excommunication against Queen Elizabeth I, for the regicide of Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1587 as well as the previously catalogued offences against the Catholic Church ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2015, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-irish-slavery-in-the-new-world-illegalized/530937/58 "2015-08-05T23:32:43Z")
The bigger picture was the contention between the principle of the ‘Divine Right of Kings’ and the Supremacy of the Pope in Rome. The Papacy behaved like an international corporation with its own tax raising powers and laws within countries. Strong Renaissance Kings like Henry VIII, in his efforts to secure his dynasty by bearing a son, found Martin Luthers religious Protest provided an answer. Luther was protesting about the practice of selling ‘get out of Purgatory early vouchers’ - Indulgences, which was a money making enterprise to finance the building of St Peters Basilica for Pope Leo X. His religious protest argued that there was no religious basis for this sort of thing and went further, questioning the infallibility of the Pope and the Catholic church, when interpreting scripture. Catholicism came with huge political and economic power and this Protest was a direct threat. It was soon denounced as a heresy and its followers persecuted by Inquisitions. However, ambitious Renaissance Kings like Henry saw it as way to strengthen their grip on power. Here was a religious argument that could be used to challenge the authority of Rome. It was consistent with the doctrine that Kings were appointed divinely to rule. Adding to this confrontation was the tendency of Protestantism to divide into sects, each defining their own method of worship, some were against having any head of their church. What followed was a couple of hundred years of religious wars that flared up across Europe. England in the age of Elizabeth I was divided between Catholic and Protestant and teetered on the edge of civil war and the threat of invasion. Many other countries in northern Europe had similar tensions. In Catholic countries there were Inquisitions ordered to deal with heretics by burning at the stake. The losers in civil wars are seldom well treated and transportation to the New World was a softer option. The English Civil war was set Protestant Parliament forces against a Catholic King Charles I, who firmly believed in his divine right and lost his head for it. It raged on through the 1650s and created a problem of how to handle the prisoners. The sugar plantations of the Colonies needed labour and rounding up political prisoners for transportation and use as indentured labour, far away from where they could cause trouble, was a common solution to this problem. Given the severity of other punishments, this was probably one of the softer options. However, plantation owners did not regard these prisoners as a reliable workforce, preferring politically loyal Protestant English, Scottish or Welsh who volunteered to go to the colonies. Moreover, the tropical climate and diseases took its toll. The profits from sugar were considerable but it was a semi-industrialised process that demanded large amounts of labour. Eventually African slaves proved to be a fitter workforce and with the huge expansion of the sugar plantations replaced most of the white slaves. However, the descendants of the white slaves are still there today in islands that were at the centre of the sugar trade such as Barbados. White Barbadians often have Scottish and Irish names and live in marginalised conditions in certain districts. They are known locally as Redlegs and often have Scottish or Irish family names. When was slavery abolished? The slave trade in the British Empire was abolished in 1807. Slavery itself was 1834 was the big date for the abolition of slavery itself across the British Empire. Again religion played a big part in this. Evangelical Christians and Quakers organised a national campaign for abolition arguing on moral and ethical basis against commercial interests. It was a long struggle. There are problems with the definition of slavery. While the ownership of another human being is one definition known as chattel slavery and that was the focus of abolition, there are many other forms. Some types of indentured labour can be very severe and little better than slavery. > **[Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline)** > > The abolition of slavery occurred at different times in different countries. It frequently occurred sequentially in more than one stage – for example, as abolition of the trade in slaves in a specific country, and then as abolition of slavery throughout empires. Each step was usually the result of a separate law or action. This timeline shows abolition laws or actions listed chronologically. It also covers the abolition of serfdom. > Although slavery is technically illegal in all countries tod... The UK has recently passed a Modern Slavery Act to address some of the modern forms of slavery arising from illegal immigration and human trafficking. ---
**Author:** ![aethelred](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@aethelred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aethelred)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-irish-slavery-in-the-new-world-illegalized/530937/59 "2015-08-06T08:05:28Z")
Proleptic apologies for contributing to topic drift 🙂 Regarding the Mississippi Ordinance of Secession and neoconfederate or confederate apologist “states’ rights” revisionism, it might be worth pointing out that the Confederate Constitution rather severely limited its own member States’ rights **not** to maintain the Peculiar Institution (Art IV, Sec 2, (1)). ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-irish-slavery-in-the-new-world-illegalized/530937/60 "2015-08-06T14:21:49Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Yes, and that reminds us just what kind of **racist fucks** ran the CSA: > And yet, they still keep saying “State Rights”. :rolleyes: Well, given that their entire society was based on protecting and expanding slavery, the anti-slavery measures gaining ground in the rest of the Union _would_ have meant their “utter subjugation”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-irish-slavery-in-the-new-world-illegalized/530937.md?page=2)