Since I retired from active employment a few months ago, I have found myself with more time to read, study, and think about a great many things. One topic that has truly taken up residence within a deep crevasse in my mind is Racism. White folks like me usually shy away from this. We don’t like confrontation with a violent and oppressive past that none of us ever experienced. For many of us, our forebears didn’t even emigrate to the U.S. until well after the Civil War had decided the fate of chattel slavery once and for all. How, then, can we be held accountable for any of that foul history that still rises as a stench, like the gases that seep upward from a long ignored landfill, over this land?
For those of you who know me can attest, I am not afraid to ask questions. Nor, am I afraid to confront the answers that I find.
With that in mind, I’m going to share a few thoughts. Take them for what they are, simply my musings.
Recently, there has been a lot of talk about something called systemic racism. For many of us that’s simply stating the obvious. While I don’t endorse everything that was stated in the NYT “1619 Project,” one thing stands out. The United States owes a great deal of its economic wealth and strength to the fact that it enjoyed over 200 years of free labor through the institution of African slavery. There is no doubt about that. We enjoy what we have as a direct result of the economic structures that were erected, particularly during the early 19th century, that have allowed the U.S. to become one of the two most powerful economies that the world has ever known.
So, it’s no wonder that many states in the South fought tooth and nail to preserve that institution.
However, while the institution of chattel slavery was the most publicly voiced reason for the South to challenge the U.S. government. It was not the only one.
To be clear, the South was clearly pissed off that the North was trying to tell them what to do. That’s where the claim that the war was simply about the rights of States to govern their own affairs. Yet, as I read through some of the Articles of Secession from those states, I found one common theme. That theme can best be shown by a quote from Mississippi’s Articles:
“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.”
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp
Please note how slaves are spoken of in this quote. They are “products” and “material interest.” Nowhere are they considered human beings who share in the inalienable rights of all people. No. They are property and objects over whom white landowners have complete control.
PLEASE NOTE THIS!
From the position of the Southern states the so called “War Between the States” was all about slavery.
That may seem obvious to most of us who took high school history. There were chapters in our books that at least mentioned that slavery was the primary issue that sparked the fire that burned half of the nation.
However, there are other concerns and forces that were in play at the time that we were not taught. These are the kinds of things that the publishers of history books conveniently tend to overlook. (Like how the Indigenous People of the continent were abused and killed and dislocated for the benefit of white expansion. But, that’s a topic for another time.)
I owe much of the insight for the next part of this post to an article written by Dr. Matthew Karp, Ph.D. in the Catalyst titled “The Mass Politics of Antislavery.” Dr. Karp is teacher at Princeton University. His area of study and expertise is the U.S. Civil War era and it’s place in the world of the Nineteenth Century.
Humans really like to simplify things. Keep It Simple Stupid is our mantra for pretty much anything and everything we think or do. Evolution may have helped us in this. I can imagine our ancient ancestors in Africa saying, “Ok. You run straight out there and grab the fruit. Then come straight back. Maybe that tiger won’t eat you.”
Simple; straightforward; easy-peasy.
As with all things, we like to think of complex issues like the Civil War in simple terms.
It was all about slavery.
Dr. Karp presents another take on things, though. A take that we may be able to relate to over 150 years later.
(Note: All quotes are from that article by Dr. Karp in the Catalyst.)
Like so many, many other things, we can be encouraged to Follow the Money.
William Seward, yes THAT Seward, was also a staunch abolitionist. But, his reasons were not all about the human cost of slavery. He seemed to be more concerned about politics and economics. In an 1850 speech he stated,
“So long as slavery shall possess the cotton-fields, the sugar-fields, and the rice-fields of the world,so long will Commerce and Capital yield it toleration and sympathy.”
Linking Northern economic concerns to slavery in the South alone would make doing away with slavery, at best, difficult. We all know how hard it is today to ask people to give up anything in order to benefit the “Other.”
Seward saw the need to build a political consensus that would necessitate the erasure of slavery. He stated how developing that consensus might look and how it could be employed in that same speech,
“Emancipation is a democratic revolution.”
Dr. Karp explained that by
“Likening the struggle against American slavery to the struggle against European aristocracy, Seward argued that any challenge to the power of the slaveholding class must come through mass democratic politics.”
Seward, and others, would need to show that the Economy of Slavery was incompatible with, and hostile to, our American democracy.
As I reflected on this, I began to see how Seward’s attempt to spin the story about slavery was both politically expedient and wise. While slavery had been debated ever since the Continental Congress sat down to consider the future of the American colonies, it had always been pretty much a local issue. There were states, like Massachusetts, where Black folks fleeing the horrors of slavery could go without much fear of being sent back into that dark world of the lash. Other states chose to abide by the Fugitive Slave Act that required runaway slaves be returned to their “rightful owner.” There was a degree of ambivalence among much of the population of the U.S. concerning slavery.
Too many people benefited by the institution of slavery for Emancipation to be a ‘slam-dunk.’
The complexity of the issue was a threat to the very Democracy that was still trying to find its way in the world.
The questions that I have revolve around “How was this a threat?”
And, even if it was a threat, why should I think about that today?
Are there issues from this period of the 19th century that are even relevant in the 21st?
I will chase some of these questions in another post.
Stay tuned!
