# Why did we free the slaves? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 18, 2019, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139 "2019-05-18T03:28:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Barack\_Obama](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/dc4da7/32.png) [@Barack\_Obama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barack_Obama)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2019, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/1 "2019-05-18T03:28:27Z")
Elaborate, what was the reason and incentive behind freeing slaves, and the north’s tolerance towards refugee runaways, and people who would be considered slaves. Was there any particular reason, doesn’t seem like the world really wanted to get it’s shit together until hitler did his thing. So I imagine there was some incentive for the US to abolish slavery, and the north’s tolerance towards slaves. I understand there was less of a need for slavery up north due to factories but that can’t be the entire reason. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2019, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/2 "2019-05-18T03:32:37Z")
The US Congress outlawed the importation of slaves in 1808 which was the earliest date they could do that under the Constitution. The UK outlawed slavery in 1833. Why do you not think that at least part of the reason was that many people thought slavery was wrong and needed no other reason. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2019, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/3 "2019-05-18T03:32:59Z")
I know it’s hard to believe but some people thought slavery was a bad idea. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2019, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/4 "2019-05-18T03:58:52Z")
Yes, and some even thought God was against it, even though you can find passages in the Bible that say slaves should be subservient to their masters. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2019, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/5 "2019-05-18T04:12:44Z")
In addition to the obvious moral reasons for opposing slavery, there were some strong economic and political reasons. Slave labor was seen as the backbone of the Confederate economy; so offering freedom to Confederate slaves handicapped the CSA in the middle of a war it was fighting with the United States. (The British had offered freedom to American slaves for the same reason during the Revolution and the War of 1812.) And people at the time saw the slavery had become too divisive a political issue; by ending slavery, the American government prevented the possibility that it would need to fight another war over that same issue a generation later. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2019, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/6 "2019-05-18T04:20:44Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > Yes, and some even thought God was against it, even though you can find passages in the Bible that say slaves should be subservient to their masters. The Quakers in particular were a driving force behind the abolitionist movement. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2019, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/7 "2019-05-18T04:43:52Z")
[Harriet Beecher Stowe](https://ehistory.osu.edu/articles/harriet-beecher-stowe-little-woman-who-wrote-book-started-great-war). ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2019, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/8 "2019-05-18T05:45:24Z")
> [@Barack\_Obama](#): > > … what was the reason and incentive behind freeing slaves… Because humans are not a hive mind and those among them with a strong moral compass opposed the factions who exploited other people cruelly and for selfish gains. It was the right thing to do and that alone was enough for them. But you already knew that. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2019, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/9 "2019-05-18T08:55:29Z")
Even people who did not believe in the equality of the white and black “races” might still think that slavery–buying and selling people at auction and tearing apart families–was fundamentally wrong on moral grounds. Even if many of those people didn’t yet support immediate, unconditional, uncompensated abolition, their disapproval of slavery might incline them to support the Republican Party, which was an anti-slavery party at its core and was committed to keeping slavery from expanding, even if it was not (in 1860) proposing to march down and free the slaves in South Carolina and Mississippi. In addition to moral concerns about the injustice of enslaving African-Americans, many Northerners were increasingly unhappy about what they saw as the threat to the republican system of government posed by the [“Slave Power”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_Power). In this view slavery was seen in terms of excessive concentrations of wealth and political influence in the hands of a small group of people who _owned_ other people, and were thus likely to have the sort of mindset that made running roughshod over the rights of other people (perhaps even including their fellow white citizens) seem perfectly natural and proper–and whose concentrated wealth gave them the means to do just that. The often misunderstood [Three-Fifths Compromise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Fifths_Compromise)\* meant that the Slave Power had a permanent advantage baked into the Constitution. (One could, of course, oppose slavery on the grounds of its injustice to the slaves _and_ also fear the threat to republican values posed by the Slave Power.) This point of view was pretty strongly reinforced when–in the eyes of a lot of Northerners–the Slave Power tried to destroy the country by breaking up the Union through unilateral secession because they lost a free election, and starting a huge and bloody civil war. From there, you eventually got around to the idea of striking at the root of the Slave Power by abolishing slavery, which would satisfy both the ethical impulse of opposition to slavery on the grounds of its injustice to the enslaved, and also destroy the Slave Power which many blamed for trying to destroy the Union. \*The Three-Fifths Compromise wasn’t about “counting black people as three-fifths of a human being” or anything like that. Slave-owners would have preferred to count slaves as _five_-fifths, for the purposes of representation in Congress, and the non-slave-owners didn’t want to count them at all. The Three-Fifths Compromise meant that the slave states had extra votes in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College, representing a class of people who–under the system of slavery–had no political rights and (unlike minor children) had no prospect of getting political rights in a few years when they were older. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2019, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/10 "2019-05-18T11:57:39Z")
Note that in the context of other economic events happening in the US, slavery hurt the South economically. Compare a slave worker vs. an immigrant worker fresh off the boat. A slave was a major initial investment but was cheaper to maintain. An immigrant was zip initial investment (post-indentured servant days) but cost a bit more to maintain. The North attracted most immigrants and boomed economically. Immigrants couldn’t compete well with the existing slave economy in the South so they avoided it and the South stagnated compared to the North. (This all contributed to the South’s anti-immigrant stance, something that continued with the KKK and into today.) In Ken Burns’ _Civil War_, there was a quote given about traveling on the Ohio River. The towns on the North side were bustling while the ones on the South side were moribund. Throw in the immorality of slavery, etc., and it’s pretty obvious that slavery was a chain around the South’s neck, so to speak. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2019, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/11 "2019-05-18T12:04:30Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > I know it’s hard to believe but some people thought slavery was a bad idea. While this is true, there were plenty of abolitionists who took this stance not because they believed slavery was wrong, but because they did not want negroes of any sort in the U.S. and its territories. In other words, stop importing blacks, there are already too many of them about. mmm ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2019, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/12 "2019-05-18T12:21:24Z")
A fair question. An important one. We freed the slaves because a couple of generations of crazy people ran money-losing newspapers and nutty preachers stood on soap boxes yelling at the crowds. The spent decades being chased out of towns. We freed the slaves because a bunch of idealists dedicated their lives to changing minds, and so the world. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2019, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/13 "2019-05-18T12:43:28Z")
[Moderating] The only possible factual answer to this question would be cites of contemporaneous abolitionists laying out their reasons why they, personally, opposed slavery. But the question has potential for much more scope than that. So I’ll move it over to GD where it can realize that potential. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2019, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/14 "2019-05-18T13:13:25Z")
I like how it’s “we” when it comes to freeing the slaves, but it’s always “they” when it comes to owning them. Who is this “we” we’re talking about? ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2019, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/15 "2019-05-18T14:41:57Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I like how it’s “we” when it comes to freeing the slaves, but it’s always “they” when it comes to owning them. > > Who is this “we” we’re talking about? We white people, of course. You black people had nothing to do with it, being passive the whole time. Ironic, isn’t it, that we got all the moral superiority in the end? Thank goodness it carries over the generations. More seriously, you don’t know how HARD it is for me to avoid exactly these constructions, and these implications, in class. I really am hyper aware of it and do my best, but the ingrained coding that the “we” of American History is Middle Class White People is so tough to shake. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2019, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/16 "2019-05-18T14:52:12Z")
I think Nemo has the right answer. Slavery waa immoral and was banned via the courts or legislatures all over the north before the Civil War. However Lincoln was more concerned with the union than slavery. Eventually Lincoln realized abolishing slavery would help defeat the CSA, so he supported that. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2019, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/17 "2019-05-18T15:41:14Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > We white people, of course. You black people had nothing to do with it, being passive the whole time. Ironic, isn’t it, that we got all the moral superiority in the end? Thank goodness it carries over the generations. > > More seriously, you don’t know how HARD it is for me to avoid exactly these constructions, and these implications, in class. I really am hyper aware of it and do my best, but the ingrained coding that the “we” of American History is Middle Class White People is so tough to shake. Thanks for teaching your kids about this. I have never heard a black person say, “We freed the slaves.” We will use “we” in reference to the enslaved, but not in reference to the society that allowed the enslaving. So black people are guilty of the “we-ing” thing too. It’s just not so…jarring. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2019, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/18 "2019-05-18T15:50:06Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Who is this “we” we’re talking about? I was wondering that myself. I know _I_ can’t take any credit. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2019, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/19 "2019-05-18T16:27:40Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > …there were plenty of abolitionists who took this stance not because they believed slavery was wrong, but because they did not want negroes of any sort in the U.S. and its territories. > > In other words, stop importing blacks, there are already too many of them about. I have no reason to disagree with this assertion, but I don’t think that I’ve heard this before. (If I have, I’ve forgotten…not unusual these days.) Anyway, a bit of Googling did not reveal anything that might support this statement. Are you talking about the American Colonization Society? Can you provide a cite? Thanks. ---
**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:** [May 18, 2019, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/20 "2019-05-18T17:02:20Z")
Plus, legal importation of slaves had stopped in 1808. > **[Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_Prohibiting_Importation_of_Slaves)** > > The Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves of 1807 (2 Stat. 426, enacted March 2, 1807) is a United States federal law that provided that no new slaves were permitted to be imported into the United States. It took effect on January 1, 1808, the earliest date permitted by the United States Constitution. > This legislation was promoted by President Thomas Jefferson, who called for its enactment in his 1806 State of the Union Address. He and others had promoted the idea since the 1770s. It reflecte... [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139.md?page=2)