# 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:** 3
**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 19, 2019, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/41 "2019-05-19T11:24:00Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > 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 > [@Railer13](#): > > …Can you provide a cite? Thanks. > [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > I was a little surprised to learn this myself and found it interesting. > > I cannot give an actual cite, but I can tell you I read about it in a [biography of William Henry Harrison](https://www.amazon.com/Mr-Jeffersons-Hammer-Harrison-American/dp/0806141980/ref=sr_1_4?crid=13ADM2P3F3BE6&keywords=william+henry+harrison+biography&qid=1558203278&s=gateway&sprefix=william+henry+harrison%2Caps%2C216&sr=8-4). > > mmm If anyone is still interested I pulled the book off the shelf and found the relevant passage: > [@](#): > > “Anti-slavery sentiment was not necessarily pro-African American; In fact, it was often quite the contrary. Many whites opposed slavery simply because they did not want blacks around.” - Robert M. Owens There is a bit more info but this is the gist. mmm ---
**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 19, 2019, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/42 "2019-05-19T17:48:32Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > 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. I don’t think it was slavery itself that caused the south’s economic problems. Slavery made the plantation system possible and it was that system which hurt the south’s economy. The plantation system concentrated all capital into agriculture at a time when industrial manufacturing was taking off. The south basically decided to stay out of the part of global economy that was growing and, as a result, they got left behind. And the plantation system concentrated most of the south’s wealth into a small group of plantation owners, which left everyone else, white and black, relatively poor. Living in the south didn’t just suck if you were black; it was also a bad place to live if you were white and didn’t happen to own a plantation. The southern middle class was poorer than the northern middle class. And this resulted in white immigrants choosing to move to places outside the south (and it led to a lot of white southerners doing the same). ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2019, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/43 "2019-05-19T22:09:06Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > I think the board would take a dim view of a person calling another “a jap”, or even in referring to the Japanese as “japs”, but this was plainly a reference to the nomenclature of the 1940’s. > > But I bet you knew that. My wife, whose parents spent World War II in an internment camp in Colorado, will accept the use of “Jap” when it is clearly part of the nomenclature of that period, and used to refer to that nation across the Pacific who attacked us. Any other use, and she would ask me to ask a mod for an insta-ban. Carry on. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2019, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/44 "2019-05-19T23:42:59Z")
Another thing, think about if you were a poor white person in the south, where could you get a job? Picking cotton? Nope. Only slaves. Be someones maid, butler, or take care of his horses? Nope, all slave work. This has been brought up in other books where a person, say a new immigrant, opened a store and needed say a young boy to do deliveries. White boys were not allowed to do this so he would have to buy a slave. Or think about a factory in the south. Many slave owners would loan out there slaves to the factories where they would work cheaper than white workers so putting the whites out of work or suppressing wages. So some of the biggest abolitionists were poor white southerners. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2019, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/45 "2019-05-20T00:00:24Z")
There were plenty of arguments against slavery. The hardcore religious folk believed enslaved persons cannot seek salvation. They must be free to choose salvation. Others wanted to prevent the spread of slavery into new territories so that the new territories would be all “white”. Of course slavery would have persisted as it always had done absent the ideology of capitalism presenting new modes of vastly more efficient resource allocation. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2019, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/46 "2019-05-20T13:20:31Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > 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. > [@monstro](#): > > I have lived in the South almost my whole life. Many whites down here are schizoprenic wrt to “we”. “We” fought the Union to defend “our” homeland, but “we” also fought the Indians, the British, the Japs, and Hitler. Also, these people are quick to say they don’t owe the decendants of slavery nothing, since they weren’t a part of that ancient business. But then they turn around and say “we” should be proud of “our” Southern heritage. Robert E. Lee and them all died for “us”. > > It is crazy making. It’s an example of a very common tendency to include ourselves in good stuff but distance ourselves from bad: _we_ did good, _they_ did badly. “Look at what your child did!” never precedes a pretty picture. When the team we follow wins, “we won”; when it loses, “the team lost”. But yeah, it’s important to avoid that emotional insertion whenever one is trying to be factual and those facts being recounted didn’t really include one. ---
**Author:** ![Kimera757](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kimera757/32/3765_2.png) [@Kimera757](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimera757)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2019, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/47 "2019-05-20T13:34:46Z")
I read Voyage of the Beagle last year. Darwin was a racist. He generally categorized ethnic groups as “lower” based on their appearance, “character”, and whether they had become Christian. This included blacks. At one point in the journey, he came across a very large black slave and his master. The master raised his hand, causing the slave to think he would be struck or beaten (the master was just raising his hand for some random reason). Darwin was saddened that the slave, who could have beaten the master easily, had to live in such fear. Despite his generally low opinion of non-white races, he still saw slavery as wrong. He is not the only historical figure I had heard about who had racist feelings yet saw slavery as wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2019, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/48 "2019-05-20T13:37:11Z")
Because enslaving another human being is morally reprehensible. They were kidnapped and torn away from their homeland, put in chains, overworked, underfed, raped, beaten, and murdered. ---
**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 20, 2019, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/49 "2019-05-20T13:59:48Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Of course slavery would have persisted as it always had done absent the ideology of capitalism presenting new modes of vastly more efficient resource allocation. This is nonsense. Slavery was justified by an extreme form of capitalism - the one which said that the right to own property outweighed all other liberty rights. Capitalism didn’t end slavery. Slavery was ended by government action which overrode capitalist interests. ---
**Author:** ![senoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@senoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senoy)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2019, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/50 "2019-05-20T15:24:47Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > There were plenty of arguments against slavery. The hardcore religious folk believed enslaved persons cannot seek salvation. They must be free to choose salvation. Really? Do you have a cite for that? The early American abolitionists tended to be Quaker, but rooted their distaste for it in equality terms. For instance, Anthony Benezet opened his most famous tract with: > [@](#): > > The intent of publishing the following sheets, is more fully to make known the aggravated iniquity attending the practice of the Slave-Trade; whereby many thousands of our fellow-creatures, as free as ourselves by nature, and equally with us the subjects of Christ’s redeeming grace, are yearly brought into inextricable and barbarous bondage; and many, very many, to miserable and untimely ends. The clear indication is that they were redeemed even in slavery. Benezet spends most of his tract saying how God despises the “the groans, the dying groans, which daily ascend to (Him), the common Father of mankind, from the broken hearts of those his deeply oppressed creatures.” Or we can look at Benjamin Lay, perhaps the first great American abolitionist and he quite clearly says that slavery is sin due to its oppression of God’s creatures: > [@](#): > > No greater sin Hell can invent, than to profane and blaspheme the pure and holy Truth, which is God all in all, and remove God’s creatures made after his own Image [Gen. 1:26], from all the comforts of life, and their country and procure for them, and bring them into all the miseries that dragons, serpents, devils, and hypocrites, can procure and think of. Or Ralph Sandiford who couches black freedom in the idea that humans are all one blood created by God > [@](#): > > ``` > And what greater injustice can be acted, than to rob a man of his liberty, which is more valuable than life, and especially after such a manner as this, to take a man from his native country, his parents and brethren, and other natural enjoyments... And take them amongst a people of a strange language, and unnatural climates, which is hard for them to bear whose constitutions are tendered by the heat of their native country; for God that made the world, and all men of one blood, that dwell upon the face of the Earth > > ``` ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2019, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/51 "2019-05-20T15:51:57Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I don’t think it was slavery itself that caused the south’s economic problems. Slavery made the plantation system possible and it was that system which hurt the south’s economy. > > The plantation system concentrated all capital into agriculture at a time when industrial manufacturing was taking off. The south basically decided to stay out of the part of global economy that was growing and, as a result, they got left behind. > > And the plantation system concentrated most of the south’s wealth into a small group of plantation owners, which left everyone else, white and black, relatively poor. Living in the south didn’t just suck if you were black; it was also a bad place to live if you were white and didn’t happen to own a plantation. The southern middle class was poorer than the northern middle class. And this resulted in white immigrants choosing to move to places outside the south (and it led to a lot of white southerners doing the same). This is not correct. The plantation system was very efficient. Cotton was so valuable that the land which could grow it was very valuable as well. The larger the plantation the greater economies of scale could be which could produce more cotton. The economic problem was two fold, first it was very hard work in a horrible climate and so most people would not want to do it if they had an alternative, the second was that tropical diseases killed most of the immigrants who would have made up the workforce. African slaves solved both these problems because they had no alternatives because they were not free to choose and they had resistance to tropical diseases. The economy of the south could not have replicated the economy of the north because the concentration of people needed for a manufacturing economy could never have been achieved because so many people would have died of disease. Also the cotton growing land was too valuable to be used by subsistence farmers. ---
**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 20, 2019, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/52 "2019-05-20T15:53:05Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > There were plenty of arguments against slavery. The hardcore religious folk believed enslaved persons cannot seek salvation. They must be free to choose salvation. In addition to what others have said: Many of the **defenders** of slavery argued that bringing Africans to America to be slaves was a good thing because it exposed them to Christianity and this allowed them to be saved. ---
**Author:** ![Kimera757](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kimera757/32/3765_2.png) [@Kimera757](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimera757)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2019, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/53 "2019-05-20T18:34:15Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > In addition to what others have said: Many of the **defenders** of slavery argued that bringing Africans to America to be slaves was a good thing because it exposed them to Christianity and this allowed them to be saved. Which is ironic, considering > [@](#): > > Pope John VIII commands under penalty of sin that all Christians who hold other Christians as slaves must set them free. 873 AD. Link: [Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_slavery_and_serfdom#Ancient_times) ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2019, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/54 "2019-05-20T19:03:56Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > It’s an example of a very common tendency to include ourselves in good stuff but distance ourselves from bad: _we_ did good, _they_ did badly. “Look at what your child did!” never precedes a pretty picture. When the team we follow wins, “we won”; when it loses, “the team lost”. > But yeah, it’s important to avoid that emotional insertion whenever one is trying to be factual and those facts being recounted didn’t really include one. I remember getting into an argument about what “WE” did to the indians (he was using WE to refer to himself included). Thing is he was from Britain (heavy accent and all) and I pointed out really the British had little to do with it (at least post 1776). Now if we are talking what the British did to the IRISH, then he should use the word “WE”. But leave an American issue out of it. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2019, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/55 "2019-05-20T19:08:37Z")
> [@Barack\_Obama](#): > > I understand there was less of a need for slavery up north due to factories but that can’t be the entire reason. I suspect it’s a big, big reason. Chattel slavery appeared when landowners couldn’t find a crowd of famished peasant who would work for a pittance, hence began to have an economical use for slaves. It ended when slavery began to be unprofitable. Of course, the ideals of the enlightenment probably played a part, but it’s notable that slavery wasn’t abolished when those ideals took hold (look at the American founding fathers, who were big on this enlightenment thing, but with a blind spot for slavery), but only with the progress of industrialization and farming machinery. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2019, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/56 "2019-05-20T19:09:23Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > This is not correct. The plantation system was very efficient. Cotton was so valuable that the land which could grow it was very valuable as well. The larger the plantation the greater economies of scale could be which could produce more cotton. The economic problem was two fold, first it was very hard work in a horrible climate and so most people would not want to do it if they had an alternative, the second was that tropical diseases killed most of the immigrants who would have made up the workforce. African slaves solved both these problems because they had no alternatives because they were not free to choose and they had resistance to tropical diseases. > > The economy of the south could not have replicated the economy of the north because the concentration of people needed for a manufacturing economy could never have been achieved because so many people would have died of disease. Also the cotton growing land was too valuable to be used by subsistence farmers. Not just cotton. Those are the same conditions in sugar cane fields and maybe a bit worse. Also to an extent - tobacco. Really ALL crops in the 1800’s and even later required massive amounts of labor. Think about “The Grapes of Wrath” in the was about fruit pickers and that was the 1930’s! ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2019, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/57 "2019-05-20T19:14:06Z")
Just a side note. [Here is a listing of prices for USED John Deere cotton picker/stripper.](https://www.tractorhouse.com/listings/farm-equipment/for-sale/list/category/1113/harvesters-cotton-pickers-strippers/manufacturer/john-deere)As a farm person myself I can tell you they cost more than a conventional combine used to harvest say corn or soybeans or wheat. Notice prices start at $93,000 for a 14 year old picker and $430,000 for one only 5 years old! New ones are in the $600,000 range. I could buy a used regular combine for less than $100,000. And you thought YOUR fancy car was worth alot! ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2019, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/58 "2019-05-20T19:19:43Z")
> [@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. It’s not specific to slavery. Because it isn’t as common over here, I notice that Americans use a lot “we” in reference to historical events they of course had no part in (“We won the war against Japan” “We declared independence”). And indeed I also noticed that it becomes much much less common when it comes to negative events ( “Why did they decide to intern the Japanese Americans?”). ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2019, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/59 "2019-05-20T19:21:41Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > I suspect it’s a big, big reason. Chattel slavery appeared when landowners couldn’t find a crowd of famished peasant who would work for a pittance, hence began to have an economical use for slaves. It ended when slavery began to be unprofitable. > > Of course, the ideals of the enlightenment probably played a part, but it’s notable that slavery wasn’t abolished when those ideals took hold (look at the American founding fathers, who were big on this enlightenment thing, but with a blind spot for slavery), but only with the progress of industrialization and farming machinery. That depends. Are you only talking slavery for farm hands? What about the need for cheap domestic labor. People today dont realize that taking care of a family back in the day was hard WORK. A wife spent sometimes 8 hours a day just doing meals. Now think about the difficulty doing laundry (you want work - try using a damn washboard!), making and sewing clothes, churning butter, making your own bread, gardening, and just general things like sweeping the floor and dusting. Back in about the 1920’s my grandmother “worked out” as a domestic for little or sometimes no pay - just room and board. It was one of the few “jobs” she could find in a rural area especially for women. The famous slave turned scientist George Washington Carver’s mother was bought as a slave to be a domestic for an elderly couple. In his case little George was later adopted by his owners/parents. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2019, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139/60 "2019-05-20T19:26:27Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > This is not correct. The plantation system was very efficient. Cotton was so valuable that the land which could grow it was very valuable as well. The larger the plantation the greater economies of scale could be which could produce more cotton. The economic problem was two fold, first it was very hard work in a horrible climate and so most people would not want to do it if they had an alternative, the second was that tropical diseases killed most of the immigrants who would have made up the workforce. African slaves solved both these problems because they had no alternatives because they were not free to choose and they had resistance to tropical diseases. > > The economy of the south could not have replicated the economy of the north because the concentration of people needed for a manufacturing economy could never have been achieved because so many people would have died of disease. Also the cotton growing land was too valuable to be used by subsistence farmers. It was. Thing is growing cotton over time burns out the soil because it doesnt replace the lost nitrogen. It was already happening across the south and accelerated later in the 1870’s and beyond. THEN along came the boll weevil which also wiped out the cotton crops. As I understand it some plantation owners were already selling off excessive slaves or just freeing them because the plantations didnt have the income to support them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-we-free-the-slaves/834139.md?page=4)