Re: Treatment of slavery and racism in this film
by Jared-09» 4 days ago (Mon Oct 5 2015 07:18:21)
IMDb member since September 2015
Post Edited:Mon Oct 5 2015 07:27:55
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In that book, you also find these nuggets of information: Northern and Southern leaders were lying when they invoked slavery as a reason for secession and for the war. Northerners were seeking a moral pretext for an aggressive war, while Southern leaders were seeking a threat more concrete than the Northern tariff to justify a drive to political independence. This was political speech meant for mass consumption.
It is telling that one has to believe the leaders were lying when they stated plainly their reasons for secession. Of course, if you first presume that the given reasons were false, then any reason of your choosing can be substituted. This is not just revisionism, it is a scurrilous accusation on the honor of the gentlemen who made the decision to attempt to secede, as recorded int he contemporeneous documents that, fortunately, survived for our study and enlightment as to the actual record.
So, let's please at least be honest in taking our positions. Quoted here are the first two paragraphs of the declaration issued by the State of Mississippi of why it was attempting to secede from the United States of America. (on-line sources are provided so that the reader may verify the quotation and context).
A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union
In the momentous step, which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
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.
Source:
http://www.civil-war.net/pages/mississippi_declaration.aspThe declaration issued by the State of Texas was lengthier and gave more detail. Here are some pertinent quotations. Click on the link following the quotation box to read the whole document:
A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union
The controlling majority of the Federal Government, under various pretences and disguises, has so administered the same as to exclude the citizens of the Southern States, unless under odious and unconstitutional restrictions, from all the immense territory owned in common by all the States on the Pacific Ocean, for the avowed purpose of acquiring sufficient power in the common government to use it as a means of destroying the institutions of Texas and her sister slaveholding States.
Note that the first grievance is that citizens of Texas cannot bring their slaves with them to settle US territories that are not states. And so, the spread of slavery is the first issue.
Continuing:
By the disloyalty of the Northern States and their citizens and the imbecility of the Federal Government, infamous combinations of incendiaries and outlaws have been permitted in those States and the common territory of Kansas to trample upon the federal laws, to war upon the lives and property of Southern citizens in that territory, and finally, by violence and mob law, to usurp the possession of the same as exclusively the property of the Northern States.
And so, the second grievance is specifically that Texans have allegedly been deprived of their property (slaves) when in Kansas.
The Federal Government, while but partially under the control of these our unnatural and sectional enemies, has for years almost entirely failed to protect the lives and property of the people of Texas against the Indian savages on our border, and more recently against the murderous forays of banditti from the neighboring territory of Mexico; and when our State government has expended large amounts for such purpose, the Federal Government has refuse reimbursement therefore, thus rendering our condition more insecure and harassing than it was during the existence of the Republic of Texas.
Third grievance - the north has failed to subsidize Texas law enforcement (putting down of bandits) and genocide (driving out and/or killing the natives). At least that one is not obviously about slavery, but it does blame northerners for not helping Texas enough. Somewhat ironic that a state asserting its soverignty as a nation would complain, basically, that it was not being sufficiently subsidized for the exercise of its local police powers.
These and other wrongs we have patiently borne in the vain hope that a returning sense of justice and humanity would induce a different course of administration.
When we advert to the course of individual non-slaveholding States, and that a majority of their citizens, our grievances assume far greater magnitude.
The States of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa, by solemn legislative enactments, have deliberately, directly or indirectly violated the 3rd clause of the 2nd section of the 4th article [the fugitive slave clause] of the federal constitution, and laws passed in pursuance thereof; thereby annulling a material provision of the compact, designed by its framers to perpetuate the amity between the members of the confederacy and to secure the rights of the slave-holding States in their domestic institutions - a provision founded in justice and wisdom, and without the enforcement of which the compact fails to accomplish the object of its creation. Some of those States have imposed high fines and degrading penalties upon any of their citizens or officers who may carry out in good faith that provision of the compact, or the federal laws enacted in accordance therewith.
Again, it is about slavery. This grievance has to do with the charge that the listed northern states apparently have not been sufficiently diligent in helping Texans return to captivity the few slaves who had managed to escape.
In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color - a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.
For years past this abolition organization has been actively sowing the seeds of discord through the Union, and has rendered the federal congress the arena for spreading firebrands and hatred between the slave-holding and non-slaveholding States.
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And, finally, by the combined sectional vote of the seventeen non-slaveholding States, they have elected as president and vice-president of the whole confederacy two men whose chief claims to such high positions are their approval of these long continued wrongs, and their pledges to continue them to the final consummation of these schemes for the ruin of the slave-holding States.
In view of these and many other facts, it is meet that our own views should be distinctly proclaimed.
We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.
That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.
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Source:
http://www.civil-war.net/pages/texas_declaration.aspAnd so, Texas declared that the major reason was the preservation and expansion of slavery. And, in addition, the federal government wasn't giving them enough aid.
The reader is encouraged to explore the other states declarations as to the cause of secession, also available at the same web site linked above, and elsewhere.
Now, as to "states' rights," the emphasis in the confederacy was on the right of the rebellious states to decide if it was lawful to enslave and own humans as property, and to treat such property as they would. However, the confederate constitution itself severely curtailed states rights in one major respect. Of course, that was with respect to slavery:
From the confederate constitution:
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_csa.aspArticle I, Section 9, Clauses 1 and 2:
The importation of negroes of the African race from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States or Territories of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same.
Congress shall also have power to prohibit the introduction of slaves from any State not a member of, or Territory not belonging to, this Confederacy.
Article I, Section 9, Clause 4:
No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.
Notable in the foregoing is that it specifically guarantees the right to own "negro" slaves. Ownership of slaves of other races may or may not be banned, but the right to own "negro" slaves was to be forever. Thus the confederate constitution not only defined the confederacy itself by slavery, but also by racism.
Notable also is the right of the confederate congress to prohibit of importation of slaves into the confederacy. Of course, this would protect the slave plantations, that is, the plantations where raising slaves for sale was a source of income. Free trade in slaves, they recognized, would lead to lower prices for those raising slaves for sale. And so, the curtailment of foreign trade was a major feature of the confederacy.
Further, no state could exercise a "state's right" to prohibit slavery within its borders inasmuch as the citizens of the other states were guaranteed a right to "transit and sojourn" in any state "secure in the right of property in said slaves," as provided in Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1:
Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1:
The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.
Could a state that outlawed slavery within its borders then prohibit a slaveholder from another state from having those slaves work while in "transit or sojourn" status? That would likely be held to be an impairment of the right of property. And the definition of "transit or sojourn" would be a matter of the confederate supreme court to decide. So, effectively, "negro slavery" could not be prohibited by any individual state when the law could easily be circumvented by use of slaves putatively owned by a citizen of another state and simply "transiting" or "sojourning" in the other state.
Note, then, the hypocrisy of the "states rights" argument. While among the revisionists a major supposed cause for which the confederacy fought was that the states have the supposed retained sovereignty or autonomy to decide on the matter of slavery, not the federal government,
the confederate constitution enshrined a prohibition on any state's right to settle the question of whether "negro slavery" will exist within its borders as well as a bestowing upon the confederate congress
"the power to prohibit the introduction of slaves from any State not a member of, or Territory not belonging to, this Confederacy." Consequently, it clearly did NOT support "states' rights" but enshrined slavery as an institution that the states had no power to abolish or to restrict in any meaningful way. Moreover, it reserved the specific matter of the right to decide if slaves could be imported to the confederate government thus preempting any supposed states' right to decide such question.
Should the confederacy acquire new territory:
Article IV, Section 3, Clause 3,
In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.
And so, any future territorial government would also be prohibited from exercising any autonomy on the issue of "negro slavery."
The importance of slavery could not be more clear. Defining "negroes" as an inferior race, and protecting the ownership, transportation, and commerce of "negroes" wasn't just a major aspect of the Confederacy, it was the central and defining idea of the Confederacy. This is reflected in a transcribed speech given by Confederate Vice-President Alexander Stephens speech on Savannah; Georgia, March 21, 1861, known as the Cornerstone Speech:
http://civilwarcauses.org/corner.htm
The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution - African slavery as it exists amongst us - the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted.
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Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery -- subordination to the superior race -- is his natural and normal condition. [Applause.] This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.
When people argue for and spread romantic revisionist notions of the confederacy as a somehow noble lost cause, a rebellion based in opposition to a tariff, or a "libertarian" or "individualist" struggle, they not only are ignoring the primary historical record, they are doing so to defend, celebrate and commemorate treason, and inhumanity itself.
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J-Street1
9 years ago
It's not a matter of revisionism, it's a matter of looking at the bigger picture. Historical record proves it wasn't all one-sided, and historical fact simply doesn't support the myth of a war to free the slaves, as the following 10 points, some of them surprising, and many of them avoided in school curricula, can attest:
1) South Carolina's secession was prompted specifically by the National Banking Act, which Southerners feared was the final breach in the dam of states' rights. By putting monetary policy squarely in federal hands, they saw it bankrupting the agricultural South in favor of an increasinly industrial North.
2) Several months elapsed between the secession of seven states (Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas only seceded when war commenced, and only to keep their sons from being forced to fight fellow Southerners) and the outbreak of war. During this time, the federal Congress passed a constitutional amendment, guaranteeing the right of slave-holding states (five of them in the North) to practice slavery in perpetuity. Though the outbreak of war prevented the amendment's ratification, Congress responded to the initiation of hostilities by passing a separate resolution, declaring that Northern war aims did not include the alteration or abolition of any Southern institution.
3) Lincoln, rather more famously, declared that he would do anything to preserve the Union -- specifically including everything from complete emancipation to permanent slavery.
4) During its partial occupation of Southern lands, the Union funded its war effort, in part, by working the land with slave labor.
5) An order was issued allowing Union officers from slave-holding slaves to bring as many as three slaves onto Union Army posts as personal servants.
6) Though the service of thousands of black Union troops is well known, it is rarely mentioned that they were paid at half the rate of white troops. Few know that there were also black Confederate troops (though not nearly as many), and that they were paid the same salary as whites. At last check, one of the top officials in the leading Confederate memorial society was a black professor at American University, whose great-grandfather fought for the South.
7) There is a similar disconnect in our recollection of how each side treated its prisoners. While most of us know that Southern commanders held white Union captives in prison, but summarily executed captured black troops, it is less well known that Northern commanders followed exactly the same policy. When Confederates were captured in the North, white soldiers were imprisoned, though blacks were shot.
8) Lincoln sat on his Emancipation Proclamation (which specifically exempted slaves in Union states!) until Ulysses Grant forced his hand -- demanding its implementation as his price for assuming command of the Union Army, which had been on the verge of defeat under both of his predecessors. While this certainly made slavery an issue after 1863, the circumstances make it a rather artificial one. The fact that Lincoln resisted it for so long also proves his determination to keep slavery out of the war, which, for him, was strictly a question of Union.
9) Though it became convenient, after the fact, to say the war was fought to free the slaves, the argument for a war against slavery in 1861 was the position of a small and radical minority. Nor was slavery the "black and white" issue that politically correct historians might suggest. While it was legally impossible to be black and free in pre-war Arkansas, for instance, fully a third of Louisiana's blacks were free, and included a thriving black professional class in New Orleans. More surprising still, a black family in that city was one of the largest slave-holding families in the entire South, with more than 500 slaves of their own.
10) To borrow a metaphor from Ross Perot, slavery was like the "crazy aunt in the attic." Though it was an underlying factor in the war aims of both sides, it was one neither side wanted to admit. As Thomas Jefferson said, decades earlier, slavery was like holding a wolf by the ears -- you didn't want to hold on, but you were even more afraid of letting go.
Much as we might hate to admit it, America was a very different country in 1861. Most white Americans, including most abolitionists, believed blacks were inherently inferior to whites. Lincoln himself doubted we could ever integrate successfully.
We can all be thankful that slavery ended with the war, but it is a betrayal of history to say slavery was its purpose. Had it been the only issue, the war simply wouldn't have happened. Like most wars, the Civil War was essentially a miscalculation.
The South saw two regions growing apart, and believed that states that had freely entered a federation had an inalienable right to leave it. Most Northerners probably agreed, but few on either side could have imagined that secession would result in four years of slaughter, with 600,000 dead, and a third of the country in ruins.
Even its aftermath deserves serious rethinking. Though blacks were nominally "free," it was a meaningless victory for many, who found themselves landless, penniless, and illiterate -- "free" only to work for slave wages, in a racial atmosphere openly more hostile than it had been under true slavery. There was no Klan before the Civil War, and few lynchings. Afterward, the rules weren't nearly as clear -- a fact which led thousands of blacks to flee to urban poverty in the North, and thousands of Southern whites to start over, often with nothing, in a truly wild West.
Neither North nor South has much reason to celebrate the Civil War itself. Those who fought saw it more realistically than most historians. Far from glory, they recalled only the filth, disease, heat, cold, and starvation.
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Frank_Z
9 years ago
It appears the two of you are talking past each other. Perhaps both of you are correct: without the differences over slavery, the secession and war would not have happened. But on the other hand, the war was not fought in the main for the cause of freeing slaves.
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tigerlynx
8 years ago
Good and accurate points.
The states did have the right to leave the union if they wanted to. That's why there were steps to statehood in the first place. States were territories first, then voted whether or not they wanted statehood, and then had to be admitted to the union. It's ironic that Texas seceded from Mexico, fought a war for their freedom, eventually joined the United States, and then were told by the idiots in Washington D.C. they couldn't secede from the United States.
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