U.S. to 1877 – Fall 2013 – Page 5 – Just another My blog Sites site

November 20, 2013

A “Great Experiment”: British Abolition and Southern Paranoia

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From the racism of John Henry Hammond to the staunch support of slavery by John Calhoun, we’ve addressed the various manifestations of the Southern proslavery ideology. But I don’t think we’ve entirely understood why such radical sentiment arose. Sure, we’ve postulated slavery’s economic incentives and the fear of slave revolts as possible motives for certain policy measures. But neither of these, I don’t think, sufficiently explain the vitriol of slavery’s Southern defenders. So, why were the proslavery ideologues so radical? While it’s certainly not a complete explanation–for proslavery radicalism in particular—I think that David Brion Davis provides a fair explanation for the rise of anti-abolitionism in the South. Great Britain, he insists, was largely responsible.

As we’ve discussed a number of times already in class, “anglophobia” was prevalent in the US for much of this period, particularly during the War of 1812 and the subsequent demise of the Federalist Party. But, as Davis points out, the pervasive opinion that Britain was “America’s ‘natural enemy'” led many to perceive British abolitionism as a veiled threat of imperialism (272). In fact, some Southern leaders, such as Robert Turnbull, feared that the rise of abolitionist sentiment in Britain in the 1820s coupled with the effects the abolition of the slave trade would drive an “entering wedge” into the public minds of non-slaveholders, leading to the destruction of plantations, human chattel, and the slave economy (281). Such fears, Davis suggests, explain why the nullification movement coincided with British abolition and were no doubt aggravated by the declaration of Lord Aberdeen, Britain’s Foreign Secretary, that “Great Britain . . . is constantly exerting herself to procure the general abolition of slavery throughout the world” (282). Humanitarianism appeared, to many Southerners, a very present threat to humanity, a British conspiracy to undue American prosperity.

As abolitionist sentiment slowly disseminated into the Northeast, Southern antipathy escalated as the “Northeast was becoming a perfect replica of the British enemy” (286). Not only had Northern states—with the exceptions of Delaware and Maryland—abolished slavery but much of the industrialized North was fraught, like Britain, with wage-labor issues. In many Southern minds, this illustrated the failure of the “great experiment” of abolition not only in Britain, but more generally (281). Just as Britain had experienced economically decline following the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, so too did Southerners speculate that the US would suffer economic turmoil were emancipation declared nationwide. The Southern press subsequently published editorials from the London Times exclaiming that “slave emancipation had been a colossal failure” (285). Meanwhile, Southern leaders, such as Secretary of State Abel Upshur, sponsored American reports on the state of the free British colonies, stating that “England has ruined her own colonies, and . . . wishes to see other countries . . . in a similar state” (284). Restoring the memories of the anglophilic Hartford Convention and the Garrisonians’ support of British abolition, the Southerners stigmatized the North as in league with the British. The so-called humanitarian threat had formed on the home front.

I think Davis’ explanation of Southern radicalism might also explain certain features of our conversation in Tuesday’s class. In his post “The Mouth of the South,” Justin Hill notes the abuse of the Irish at the hands of the British as well as how “along with their mistreatment [by the British], the nativists of the north attacked the Irish immigrants” (http://sites.davidson.edu/his141/the-mouth-of-the-south/). Such injustices, he suggests, explain why Irish immigrants headed south. I agree. But I also think that, when viewed in light of Southern anglophobia, one might suggest that a shared animosity toward both the British and the Northeast more generally likely influenced Southerners’ acceptance of Irish immigrants.

So, reevaluating last class’ discussion, I would like to ask the class: Were Irish immigrants so willing to join the Confederacy merely because of their sense of “belonging” in the South? Or might the perceived threat of a British conspiracy brewing in the Northeast have inspired the Irish to join the Southern ranks?

November 20, 2013

The Delaying Compromise of 1850

It comes as no surprise that there were many political tensions between the North and South in the ante-bellum period. One of these main issues was the institution of slavery and its possible expansion into new territories.Each side feared that with the inclusion of new states that whether they be free or slave that it would tilt the balance of power to one side which would allow the stronger side to either further enforce slavery or to abolish it. The two sides needed to come to some form of agreement in hopes of maintaining the balance of power. Many compromises occurred to curb the spread of slave states to the west such as the Missouri Compromise while not outright restricting growth. One major compromise Compromise of 1850.

In 1850, congress wished to allow the territory of California to be admitted as a free state, as well as New Mexico. The southerns were outraged by this expansionary policy and believed it was a move for the North to gain more political power. Clay offered a more “fair” alternative to this plan. In this plan, Texas releases its claim to New Mexico and allow the future states New Mexico and Arizona to have the decision to be free or slave. California would still be admitted as a free state. The South gained a stronger Fugitive Slave act to enforce slavery.

This compromise only proved to delay the inevitable succession of South Carolina and the southern states who followed. It was a vain attempt at compromise that just didn’t do enough. It did not truly limit or allow slavery which caused discontent for both sides leading to future conflict.

November 20, 2013

Lincoln, Moral Idol, Yet Still A Politician

In Inhumane Bondage, Davis gives a broader, less detailed account of history than Wilentz ever does. Although arguably more objective, one can find points to analyze and break down. One thing that stood out to me was the characterization of Lincoln and his stance while running against Douglas. Historically, we see Lincoln as the just idol, always behind equal rights and abolition. One would not think he considered the African American race as inferior morally and intellectually. In reality, Lincoln might have been the perfectly moral character we are taught about in elementary school. But when standing behind the podium or on the political stump, he did not speak in absolutes and extremes. Though he claimed slavery was wrong, he “repeatedly acknowledged that the federal government could not interfere with slavery in the existing states” (Davis 290). So did Lincoln think the Deep South should immediately rid itself of slavery? No. He supported gradual abolition and “…wholly rejected the idea of ‘perfect social and political equality with the negro'” (Davis 290). Is this the Abe Lincoln we all know and revere as a man to model your moral standards after? Among these factors, I still say yes. These questionable quotes don’t necessarily reflect Lincoln’s heart. He is a politician after all and politicians that take extreme stances very rarely are successful. As a politician, especially a Senate and Presidential candidate, Lincoln had to attempt to appeal to more people than those who mirrored his views exactly. If he had run on a promise for the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln would not have an enormous copy of himself sitting in a chair in DC today. Since I am taking a political science class this semester, I recognized and considered the way politicians must be vague and avoid absolutes while running. Lincoln obviously did this and later, stimulated by the secessions all over the south, let out his true, deeply embedded moral motivations.

I look forward to seeing what else Davis has to say about Lincoln’s actions and positions on racial equality because I know we haven’t seen the end at the conclusion of chapter fourteen.

*Note: With the new way we are doing blogs, there are none with similar subjects to mine. I found no way to connect my blog to another’s. I will, however, state that I agree with SPEDWARDS in their post that it was quite interesting that the press would characterize the Craft Affair as a start to a civil war. That seems very extreme and not well placed by the press.

November 20, 2013

Wilentz, Ch. 21-22: Angles of the Argument

Sherwood Callaway

HIS 141, Blog Post 10

I was interested in the different angles used in arguments preceding the Compromise of 1850. Clay suggested a compromise in eight parts, which seemingly favored the southerners, but left the fate of new territories to northerners. His legislative angle kicked off the discussion, and most parties followed suit.

Calhoun also described the issue as a legislative one, in which the north had repeatedly gained favorable national legislation at the expense of the south. As examples, he cited the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which brought an expanse of free northern territory into the Union, and the Missouri Compromise, which restricted the majority of the Louisiana territory from becoming slave-affiliated in 1820. Wilentz adds that, “tarrifs and internal improvements had enriched northern business at the direct expense of the South”, blatantly hinting towards the Tariff of 1828, or the Tariff of Abominations, as it was called in the south (345). These restrictions made manufacturing more profitable in the north, and consumer goods more expensive in the south. Calhoun seemed to believe that the north had negotiated legislation with unfair aggression.

Webster encouraged a legislative compromise, and suggested that legislative taunts such as the Wilmot Proviso be stopped, out of respect for the southern position. Better than other northerners (he was from Massachusetts), Webster seemed to understand the southern predicament—being entrenched economically and culturally in a slave system. He demonstrated that “some sort of compromise was required to keep the nation from falling apart”, deviating from the unreasonable inflexibility he had once shown as a supporter of the Proviso (346). Like Clay and Calhoun, Webster saw the issue from a legislative angle.

But then there’s William Henry Seward, an antislavery northerner who argued on different terms—ideological terms. He was against compromise altogether, “condemning out of hand Clay’s compromise, and any such sectional deal” (346). Furthermore, he attacked the moral foundations for slavery, as “an oppressive and undemocratic institution”, and invoked language from the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution (346). Listeners interpreted his speech as arguing that “the forces of antislavery were above the law” (346). Personally, I respect Seward’s values and determination, but feel that pragmatism would have been a more effective way to disarm the situation. In fact, it seems as if Seward was hardly interested in disarming the situation at all, but in confronting the problem at its root. Maybe Seward’s direction was best, though; as my classmate MIHAN writes, “the truce of 1850 was [ultimately] fruitless, for it once again avoided the question of slavery instead of trying to solve it”.

I think that southerners were most afraid of unbending northerners like Seward because they represented the type of northern aggression that Calhoun had described. It was unreasonable and unsympathetic to make such demands of the south, when the south was so deeply a slave society. Whether or not Calhoun considered the institution of slavery morally defendable, he knew it was integral to southern economy and culture, and thus could not be removed without uprooting southern society itself. Legislators like Clay and Webster recognized this, and subsequently proposed compromises instead of making demands. I can imagine that Seward, and other inflexibles like him, made southerners feel as if backed into a corner. But maybe his approach was necessary, and just poorly delivered?

November 19, 2013

Hostility Turns to Violence

In chapters 21 and 22, Wilentz outlines many controversial events leading up to the Civil War. As new states continued to be annexed into the Union, the same recurring theme of slavery followed each one. It seems as though compromise after compromise were passed and none left both the north and south satisfied. In his blog post on 11/19, MIHAN seems to agree with this thought and characterizes the strategy for settling regional differences as “avoiding the question of slavery instead of trying to solve it.” These multiple compromises on slavery only widened the divide between north and south. At this point, it seemed as though the United States was far down the “road” leading to civil war.

I found the Craft affair of 1850 to be one of the most interesting events during this hostile time. After the Compromise of 1850 strengthened slaveowners’ rights to retrieve runaway slaves, a skirmish broke out in Christiana, Pennsylvania between a slaveholder and his posse and multiple slaves. The slaveholder was killed during the fight and his son was critically injured. A Pennsylvania newspaper headlined the story as “Civil War—The First Blow Struck” (351). First, it is quite surprising that a newspaper would categorize a skirmish with only 20 or 30 participants as a “civil war.” Countless larger slave revolts had occurred in previous years and I can guarantee very few people believed a war would ensue. I believe Wilentz presents this title to the reader in order to show that tensions between northern and southern sentiment were rising. A subtitle in chapter 22 reads “on the tip-toe of revolution” (389). At this time, people all around the country knew that the United States was coming to a brink. And with each “compromise” that passed, the United States was practically tip-toeing, slowly but surely, towards a real civil war.

After the slave leaders of the skirmish had been captured, President Fillmore sent a large force of soldiers to Christiana and captured most of the assumed “black resisters” (351). Fillmore’s administration then attempted to accuse the perpetrators of treason in order to stop other black abolitionist from defying the compromise of 1850. This plan did not hold up in court and the government eventually dropped its charges. When I think of Fillmore’s actions, I can’t help but think about George Washington and his powerful actions to putting down the Whiskey Rebellion. It seems as though Fillmore had a similar plan in maintaining the new laws of the United States through the power of the United States army and judicial system. Unfortunately for Fillmore, the plan did not find the same success as Washington’s. Instead it showed the ineffectiveness of the United States Government at quelling slavery and tensions. It also failed to change the sentiment or actions of abolitionists and anti-abolitionists in the years leading up to the Civil War.

November 19, 2013

The Road to Emancipation

After multiple compromises between northern and southern Whigs and Democrats, President Fillmore falsely assumed that, “Congress had achieved a final settlement of sectional discord” (Wilentz, 349). Wilentz emphasizes how the truce of 1850 was in fact fruitless, for it once again avoided the question of slavery instead of trying to solve it. One of the compromises included a much more stringent Fugitive Slave Act, which inadvertently led to intensifying tensions between northerners and southerners. “By denying the fugitives jury trials, it attacked the most democratic aspect of American jurisprudence…and brazenly violated the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause” (353). Slavery had marred the reputation of the Democratic Party, challenging the egalitarian doctrine and democratic principles that the party was originally founded upon. In the Republicans’ eyes, a true democracy could not exist where the institution of slavery existed and denied people their basic human right of freedom.

Wilentz also highlights a different side of the 1850’s nativist movement, one that opposed the expansion of slavery and the bloody consequences of the Kansas-Nebraska conflict. Based on our class discussion and the online article about Charleston’s Irish laborers, the main reason poor Irish immigrants supported the slave system was because they were no longer stuck at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. The massive influx of Irish immigrants during the 1850’s led to increased antipathy towards both free and enslaved blacks by immigrants who wanted to fit in to slave-societies. I believe that nativism, in a way, helped reduce the number of pro-slavery Irish in the South who would eventually side with the Confederates in their fight for slavery.

Davis links the British emancipation of slaves to the growing paranoia of southerners over abolitionism. The southern slaveholders’ defense was that the British were the ones who tried to oppress the American people, and the emancipation of slaves had greatly reduced profit from colonies in the Caribbean. However, the British were also the ones who took the initiative in freeing hundreds of thousands of slaves in the West Indies, which was undeniable evidence that the abolishment of slavery in the United States would be the ultimate test of American freedom and democracy. Britain’s emancipation of slavery confirmed the southerners’ senseless fear of northerners allying with Britain to ensure the destruction of slavery in the South. “The overreaction of Southern extremists had made it much easier for moderate Northerners to rally in a political campaign against a home-grown tyranny that threatened the very survival of democracy in America” (Davis 286).

November 18, 2013

America’s Slavery Issues aren’t Black and White

David R. Roediger and John Ashworth discuss the implications and the debate over the term “White Slavery” and how it was used in mid-19th century America. This term, as Roediger says, sparked when the editor of The Plebeian, Levi Slamm, organized a protest referred to as the “coffin handbill protest” using pamphlets that harshly depicted white laborers as slaves to the industrialized wage system. (Roediger 347) However, while Roediger is focused on attempting to define the phrases “white slavery,” “wage slavery,” or “slavery of wages,” I believe Ashworth successfully shows that the issue of wage slavery was merely pinned onto the issue of, as Roediger calls it, chattel slavery and detracts from the abolitionist movement.

As Roediger put it on page 346, “The advantages of the phrase white slavery over wage slavery or slavery of wages lay in the former term’s vagueness and in its whiteness.” Using these words, he says, allowed radical democrats to “cast” abolitionists, free blacks, bankers, factory owners and prison labor, “as villains in a loose plot to enslave white workers.” The idea being democrats could unite their supporters under the term “white slavery,” and use it to attack the wage system. However, this is inherently flawed because the issues of black slavery and the wage system’s oppression are fundamentally different. Roediger admits this contradiction on page 347. He says, “The tendency to indict white slavery and to support Black slavery was especially strong [in New York].” At its core, a white slave abolitionist may very well attack the wage system but not necessarily oppose black slavery, and I think Roediger becomes too focused on defining the different terms and misses this larger picture. As Will pointed out in his blog post, the comparison of a white and a black slave, where the black man is protected, clothed, and fed by his slaver while the white man is alone and overburdened by his multiple “masters,” is a biased and rationalized excuse. Roediger admits in his conclusion, “Chattel slavery was, in this view, better than white slavery, a point fraught with proslavery paternalist implications and not lost on the southern editors who reprinted articles carrying such opinions.”

The problem with Roediger’s essay, as I said before, is that he is misguided in his argument. The coupling of wage slavery with black slavery was detrimental to the abolitionist movement and even to white slavery-abolitionists. For example, because of the comparison of white and black slaves, white workers tried to avoid being associated with African-Americans and bigoted slurs started appearing in the American language. Suddenly, workers who were not preforming well were called “white niggers,” and described as “working like a nigger.”(343) This shows, I think, how linking the wage system battle to slavery hurt the American society and the abolitionist movement in the long run; especially considering that these slurs were still used in America during the Jim-Crow years after the civil war.

In comparison, Ashworth does a better job at looking at the bigger picture. As he quotes Charles Sumner coining a phrase to refer to southern slavery as “labor without wages,” Ashworth shows us that some individuals were trying to point out the injustice in coupling both issues. Sumner was trying to illustrate to his readers that the slave system was more oppressive than the wage system and that the issues were not remotely on the same level. Ashworth asserts that Lincoln realized the underlying issues in both white and black slavery, and rather than trying to solve both together, “Lincoln emphasized social mobility.” (354) Lincoln believed that the “American greatness” could be attributed to the fact that “every man can make himself” in the U.S.

Ashworth describes Lincoln as someone who fought for “equal privileges in the race of life,” and not someone who would fight against the apparent wage slave oppression. Lincoln believed this labor system was part of what made America great; that it contributed to the “American dream” ideal. Ashworth concludes that Lincoln’s fundamental change in American Politics was based on the idea of social mobility, the freedom of each individual to make a life for himself, and the “relationship between the employer and employee.” According to Ashworth, this relationship is “now hailed as a quintessential characteristic of a “free” society. There it remains today.” (357) Rather than attempting to define and solve the wage crisis as Roediger tries to, Ashworth proves to us with Lincoln’s example that the issues were separate and should have been treated as such.

November 18, 2013

White Slavery

Roediger explained in his essay how and why white freemen, that were earning wages, compared themselves to the slaves in the South and said they were white slaves. The growing abolition movement made it a necessity to define the difference between slavery and freedom. Then came the consideration of ‘white slaver’ as a category as more and more urban laborers and especially artisans publicized their experiences. The workers looked to Britain as an example of reform, just as the abolitionists had done. The labor activists did have some evidence of work place incidents where the workers were subjected to slavery rhetoric. The textile manufacturers mostly employed young single women and called “their management practices as paternalistic.” This obviously led to slavery comparisons. Some employers were even accused of calling their textile workers “their slaves.” Some laborers claimed to have ‘masters’ and be ‘slaves.’ However, some tried to make some almost laughable comparisons about how the labor conditions were worse in the North than the conditions slaves experienced in the South. Activists claimed that the masters in the South were concerned with prolonging the life of the slave as long as possible, whereas northern employers did not care about their workers’ lives. What seems to me as a huge contradiction, many of the advocates for labor reform in the North were proslavery advocates at the same time. Proslavery advocates who were trying to end white slavery. As WIROBERTSON said his post, many of the proslavery advocates were scared of the African Americans slaves taking the jobs for lower pay. WIROBERTSON also said that the poorer whites had a fear of equality with the slaves. This statement agrees with one that Roediger made in his essay. Roediger said that the white workers didn’t want to relate too much with the slaves because that would suggest that they were unworthy of freedom. There was a fine line between comparing the northern workers and artisans to southern slaves and actually relating with them. The labor activists had to walk this tight rope, while still making strong and gripping argument for labor reform.

November 18, 2013

Irish Immigrants and Motives for being Confederates

Charleston, South Carolina was one of the major Irish immigration location. Many of these of these immigrants were young and unskilled laborers and thus had little stake in the slave economy of the South. Yet they sided with the states with which they immigrated to. It seems strange that people who were “just off the boat” would feel an obligation to defend a state that they have only recently come to call home.

It is strange that impoverished immigrants would fell the need to stand up and protect an institution that had nothing to do with them and that a few likely opposed. Actually many Irish immigrants were pro-slavery. The treatment of Irish by the British left a sour taste in the mouth of the Irish and affected their view on social class, since the British believed that Irish were inferior beings. The Irish learned the importance of social inclusion and thus confounds their stance on slavery even more. While some may have supported slavery while others did not, it did not seem like their main motivations for siding with the Confederacy. The Irish wished to rework pro-slavery to meet their ends and views so they could improve their home and increase their social standing, but they also wished to bar slaves from social inclusion showing that they did not consider slaves worthy of social inclusion and thus their support for the South.

Home, a term which relates to the place that we believe that we belong too. These immigrants planned on raising their families in their new home. Thus they would feel that they needed to defend it for the sake of their families future. Since the war would likely bring fighting to the areas in which their families lived and the opposing forces would likely not differentiate who was truly siding with the Confederacy, the Irish feared what could happen to their new homes if they did not assist. Even though the Union forces were going to attack or ransack all who they came across, it was a natural fear of all who lived in the possible war zone.

November 18, 2013

The Mouth of the South

In this week the main topic was Irish immigrants and their involvement in the civil war. It is very questionable to why the Irish chose to join the confederates in their fight for slavery, and the reading throws out numerous reason why this choice made sense although most “were not slave holders but young, impoverished, unskilled workers.” (Joyce 185) The overall reason behind the Irish choice was their knowledge on the need to be included in a group. In their homeland, they were excluded by the English and terribly mistreated as laws prohibited them from “property ownership, jury trial, the vote, and even a Catholic education.” (Joyce 186) Being the lowest of the low before, the Irish knew that they needed to be accepted socially in America in order to not be put in the same position as they were in their homeland. I feel this aligns to what my classmate AlKarout said in her post as she spoke on how the Irish played on slavery to create their identity in the south.

To go along with their mistreatment, the nativists of the north attacked the Irish immigrants; On the contrary, the southern Catholics accepted them. The Nativist attacks brought the thoughts “that social inclusion mattered as much in America as it had in the land they left behind.”(Joyce 193) On the other hand, the churches of the south offered “social services” to the impoverished Irish in times of need like the epidemic of 1852, and these essential moments were essential to gaining the support of these immigrants. (Joyce 190) Without these churches the Irish would have lacked things like hospital care, money for burials, orphanages, and, most important, a sense of belonging to some group.

A final reason pointed out in the reading was the economic competition between the free blacks and the working Irish. They struggled to battle for the same jobs until the Irish pushed to eliminate free black competition from “exclusively white realm of free labour.” (Joyce 188) With these groups battling for jobs, it makes sense that the Irish would support slavery. Without slavery it multiplies the number of people they have to compete with for the few occupations that the impoverished had the chance of getting.