Author: lbwriter

Categories
History

Uncle Tom’s Cabin Touched-Off the Civil War

Harriet Beecher Stowe Illustration

“So you are the little woman who started this big war!” Abraham Lincoln reportedly said to Harriet Beecher Stowe. Actually, that never happened.

The book was an overwhelming bestseller, both in America and in Britain. One million copies were sold in the United States in the first year alone.

Stowe, an avid abolitionist, published it to inspire readers to embrace the abolitionist cause. This was a very unpopular, far left position when she wrote the book in 1852.

So, who were all of these readers?

Abolitionists snapped it up, of course. Beyond that, it was a crackerjack story! I love it! It makes me cheer and it makes me cry. How many non-abolitionist readers became radicals? There is no way to know. Not too many. Abolitionism was still unpopular when the Civil War erupted.

So, did it touch off the Civil War? No.

That said, let’s look at the book as literature.

First, was it historical fiction or contemporary fiction? I’ve found no clue from Stowe, and there are no dates within the book. That makes the casual reader think that the story occurs at or near the time of printing.

Let’s look at a timeline:

Early 1800sAn African-American slave is said to have invented the first machine for help harvesting. This is “George” in the book. We know there were improvements in 1824 and 1836. This is more in line with later book-related dates, but that slave who was African and Native American, unlike George.

1816 Tom Lincoln, father of Abraham, left Kentucky for Indiana. Was he the Tom Lincoln referred to by Stowe? If not, why invent the character? He wasn’t important.

1830s Each state south of the Ohio River and westward passed legislation stating and protecting the rights of slaves. The state congressmen would have included many of the plantation owners, because only they had the time and money to dabble in politics.

1831 The slave trade was abolished. This did not abolish slavery already within the states.

1831 The Nat Turner Rebellion slaughtered whites on several plantations.

1833 Stowe made her only trip from her home in Cincinnati across the Ohio River into Kentucky. While there, she observed one auction and visited one plantation.

1838 The real Eliza crossed the Ohio River on ice blocks to save her son from being sold.

1850 The Compromise of 1850 was passed, which contained the Fugitive Slave Law that inspired Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

1852 Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published.

From this timeline, we can ascertain these points:

  1. There is no logical date for the story. We don’t know if it is historical fiction or contemporary fiction. She lets readers assume the latter.
  2. The historical timeline was completely skewed to serve the story. This would never stand in today’s historical fiction.
  3. The main characters and events were drawn from actual individuals whom she interviewed.
  4. Her knowledge of auctions and plantations was limited to one trip across the Ohio River in 1833 and descriptions given by interviewees. This indicates that her views of the southern states was likely frozen in time before the states’ slave rights legislation took hold. Reports of interviewees would have verified this in her mind, since the majority escaped cruel masters and a few other escapees ran to avoid being sold down the river. Interviewees did not run from kind masters otherwise. So, in reality, Uncle Tom’s Cabin could be said to be set in 1833.
  5. Southern plantation owners are portrayed either as evil or as cowards who are absent when slaves they have sold are picked up. She does not mention what is in the congressional record that family servants were not auctioned, but handled as compassionately as possible in private sales.
  6. Stowe gives the briefest of acknowledgements that the north had anything to do with slavery.
    1. She notes that Legree was from New England, but does not enlarge on how this affects his behavior. The real Legree, Richard McAlpin, was from Connecticut.
    2. Ophelia is made to admit that there is not enough interest in the northern states to handle the flood of blacks due to complete abolition. She admits that northern states had a problem of its own with workers caught in the Industrial Revolution. No more is said about either of these points.
    3. Nothing is said about slavery in the north.

In summary, while this is an intriguing story, it does not meet today’s fiction standards.

Categories
History

Northern States Never Compromised About Slavery

fugitive slave law illo

The truth is that the United States compromised from the Compromise of 1850 through the Emancipation Proclamation. This is the first attempt.

The issue of the westward expansion of slavery and the rights of slave owners were addressed in this important document. It contained five separate bills.

  1. California would be admitted as a free state.
  2. Slavery in New Mexico and Utah would be determined by white voters when applying for statehood.
  3. Texas would be paid ten million dollars for the disputed boundary with New Mexico.
  4. Buying and selling slaves was abolished in Washington (D.C.), but the practice of slavery would continue.
  5. The Fugitive Slave Act demanded that lawmen and all U.S. citizens assist in the capture and return of fugitive slaves.

(By the way, this was true also of sailors of any race, although not on this law. Sailors were considered to belong to the ship in the same way that slaves belonged to the master’s land. However, it was for only one voyage.)

 

Categories
History

The 1828 Tariff Had No Effect on the Civil War

hand holding tariff sign

This is another item that was just not discussed in history class. Indeed, it was barely mentioned.

This tariff was different from previous tariffs because it lacked a common goal, such as paying off war debt. It was also unevenly applied.

The massive tariffs against importation of manufacturing goods and raw materials was blatantly for the protection of New England manufacturing at the expense of the south and, to a lesser extent, the Northwest Territory and its derivative states. Remember, a “union” exists for the common good. That means that at this point in time, the Union was already broken.This tariff’s use as a weapon to transfer southern wealth to the north caused its nickname The Tariff of Abominations.

Also, southern historians date the beginning of the Civil War from this twisting of the use of tariffs. This was the lighting of the fuse, as the tariffs of the colonies lit the fuse of the American Revolution. Like the colonies, the southern states tried to work out a peaceful solution for years, but finally the break came.

 

Categories
History

Immigration of the 1840s and 1850s had Little Effect on the Civil War

19th Century Immigrant Sketch

This lie was perpetrated by omission of information. I was told that immigrants were extremely important to fill soldier ranks during the war. Nothing else was said.

Immigration law in effect in the antebellum and Civil War periods was based on the Naturalization Act of 1790 and the Naturalization Act of 1795. The first limited citizenship to “free white persons of good character.” This excluded Native Americans, indentured white servants, Asians, and blacks. The second required renunciation of allegiance to any other monarch or state.

States, not the federal government, could place restrictions on entry through their ports, but these were concerned with whether the immigrant could support himself and how to track him for taxation purposes.

Swedish immigrants came for religious freedom, if they were not Lutheran, and/or for opportunity in general. They came from an homogenous culture that celebrated community spirit and sharing. The rich were expected to share with the less fortunate, but everyone was expected to work, if able. Also, families were responsible for the well-being of their members.

Because Swedes did not differentiate between the culture of their homogenous homeland and the American culture serving a diverse population, Swedes were susceptible to socialism instead of capitalism.

No Swede had seen a black person. However, they were anti-slavery by principle and would make good Union soldiers, often in an ethnic militia in which Swedish was spoken instead of English.

Germans also came in large numbers for opportunity and/or religious reasons. They were found on both sides of the Civil War, depending on which state they lived in. Some even went to Texas. Germans in the south often owned slaves. Like their American neighbors, they considered slaves legal property and fought for the Confederates.

Germans in the north did not have an easy time, though, because the same extremists who were shouting for abolition of slavery and women’s rights had also extended temperance to eradication of alcoholic beverages and stretched hard liquor such as rum and whiskey to include beer. Now, beer was not only part of the German national heritage, it was also part of their religion because they believed that God himself had given them beer for the enjoyment of life. Thus, northern state Germans were ambivalent about serving the Union cause.

Germans formed another group of ethnic militias speaking their own language, but they were on both sides of the Civil War.

Closer to the Civil War, the massive Irish immigration fled the potato famine. They were easy marks to fill recruitment quotas. How amazing to step off the boat and be offered a job with good pay!

They did not come with racial bias, but soon absorbed the northern attitude and became extremely biased against all blacks. (Yes, I have three sources.) Perhaps some of it was because it was nice to feel that someone had lower class standing than the Irish!

A group of extremely dangerous radicals entered the country in the 1850s. Monarchies in Central Europe were fighting to regain control and even to protect their lives. The monarchs won.

The radicals, including Communists, were evicted or sensibly left on their own.  Some of these people came to the United States. Most of them were from Germanic states and took part in the violent uprising of 1848. The Civil War would give them the opportunity for violence.

But the states, concerned exclusively with finances, did not screen for a history of violence. Obviously, they could not reject people based on personal beliefs. So some radicals slipped in.

The radicals identified with the United States in fighting against slavery, which they saw as a freedom issue similar to what they fought for in Europe. Some outright Communists were not only Union soldiers, but officers.

The three best known Communist officers were August Willich of Prussian nobility who became brigadier general over all (German?) Indiana troops; Joseph Wademeyer (close collaborator with Karl Marx and spokesman for Marxism in the U.S.), colonel of the 41st Missouri regiment; and Fritz Anneke, who commanded the Second Wisconsin Battery of Light Artillery.

These men heavily influenced the U.S. army by providing Prussian discipline and by organizing pro-Union militias in heavily German states such as Missouri, Wisconsin, and Indiana. Along the way, they spread the Marxist message. It was often unnoticed because they were speaking German.

When Lincoln was elected the second time, Karl Marx sent him a letter of congratulations and commended him for fighting for the oppressed slaves. It is not known if Lincoln actually read the letter.

 

Categories
History

Southern States Were Poorer Than Northern States before the Civil War

coins stacked

This is another lie that was implied rather than told: the southern states were considerably poorer than northern states with the exception of plantation owners.

This is an extremely skewed statement.

First, “wealth” must be defined in the terms of pre-Civil War years, not by today’s standards. That’s a basic historical rule.

Slaves were legally defined as a kind of property and therefore valuable and easily turned into cash. Both north and south had slaves. The Northwest Territory states were created slave-free and there were several northern states in the process of emancipation with each state determining its own path. Overall, however, there was greater wealth due to slaves in the south, centered in the plantations.

Farming, in general, was more efficient in the south, despite that after initial outlay, farming machinery was more efficient than slaves, because slaves required continued expenditure until dead or sold—unlike factory workers of the north. Machines didn’t. Also, slaves, like horses used in most farming, reproduced and contributed to further wealth.

Manufacturing wealth was decidedly in the north’s favor. There was some manufacturing in the south, but not nearly to the extent of the north. However, the northern manufacturing was often not self-sufficient. The buyers were limited because Europe had its own Industrial Revolution and the southern states were interested but not frequent buyers of manufacturing.

States with more plantations were more self-sufficient. Beside the cash crops of tobacco and cotton, plantations grew their own food and livestock feed. Extra food and feed were sold to local people. This meant that the general public was eating more healthily than in the northern cities, where there were shortages of fresh, healthy foods.

Considering all of this, the average per capita income of the southern states was double that of northern states.

Another source of wealth that I have not seen in the data was the first gold rush. It was in Virginia! Although discovered earlier, commercial extraction of gold began in 1804 at a rate of $500,000 per year! That is not usually figured into the per capita income.

Please recall that before the Civil War, the United States followed the constitution, which included that “state” meant a separate political entity. That’s still the dictionary definition. I looked.

Therefore, all of the gold belonged not to the United States, but to the state of Virginia.

No, the southern states were not poor. They were comparatively wealthy. And avarice bloomed in the northern states. They wanted that wealth!

According to southern historians, that greed was the root cause of the Civil War.

Follow the money!

 

Categories
History

All Famous Abolitionist Speakers Were Northern

abolitionist

Sarah and Angelina Grimke became the first female agents of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1837. They grew up on a South Carolina plantation. Their views were very unwelcome at home, so Sarah, then Angelina moved north.

Although both spoke publically and wrote, it became evident that Angelina was a more effective orator than Sarah, and Sarah was better at writing.

These were also the first prominent public figures to proclaim boldly that the current treatment of women was a form of slavery. They linked women’s rights to black slavery, declaring both must be eradicated.

 

Categories
History

The USA Had Never Supported Secession before the Civil War

 

USA Flag Ripped In Half

Actually, every educated person at the time of the Civil War understood that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution supported secession. Since a union is built on voluntary cooperation for the pursuit of common goals, a member can also leave (secede) from the group if its needs are not being met, if it feels manipulated, if terms of the contract have been broken by the other party, or if the contract no longer serves the needs of the seceding member.

Texas declared the right to secede from Mexico because the contract between them had been broken by Mexico. Independence was declared on March 2, 1836. People in the United States approved. Texas must have felt confused when seceding from the United States during the Civil War for the same reason was harshly denounced!

Oh, well, but that was seceding from Mexico. Did anyone secede from the United States before the Civil War? No, but some New England states threatened to secede in 1803 and 1814.

And then there was secession within a state. During the Civil War, New York City seriously considered seceding from the United States to establish a separate State from New York. It would then declare neutrality and trade with both the USA and CSA!

Also, the United States didn’t object to West Virginia seceding from Virginia during the Civil War because that was to the advantage of the U.S.A. In fact, it was planned by the Lincoln administration.

When I was a child, we said the Pledge of Allegiance daily. Remember the word “indivisible?” Have you ever thought about that?

 

 

Categories
History

The South was Racist, but the North Wasn’t

 

black and white figures on wall

That doesn’t fit the facts.

There are numerous written documents referring to northern states as being much more racist. Here are some examples:

1818-1822: South Carolina Senator Robert Young Hayne described his personal observation of the fate of Southern blacks who fled north: “…there does not exist on the face of the whole earth, a population so poor, so retched, so vile, so loathsome, so utterly destitute of all the comforts, conveniences, and decencies of life, as the unfortunate blacks of Philadelphia, and New York and Boston.”

1831: French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, “Whosoever has inhabited the United States must have perceived that in those parts of the Union in which the negroes are no longer slaves, they have in no wise drawn nearer to whites. On the contrary, the prejudice of the race appears to be stronger in the States which have abolished slavery than in those where it still exists; and nowhere is it so intolerant as in those States where servitude has never been known.”

1837-1841: English writer James Silk Buckingham toured the United States and Canada, visiting all but two states. He wrote, “the prejudice of colour is not nearly so strong in the South as in the North.”

1841: English Quaker Joseph Sturge wrote, “In the course of conversation, the Governor [of Illinois] spoke of the prejudice against colour prevailing here than in the slave States. I may add, from my own observation, and much concurring testimony, that Philadelphia appears to be the metropolis of this odious prejudice, and that there is probably no city in the known world, where dislike, amounting to hatred of the coloured population, prevails more than in the city of brotherly love!”

Early 1853: Connecticut landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted wrote, “The railroad company advertise to take colored people in second class but servants seem to go with their masters everywhere. Once, to-day, seeing a lady entering the car at a way-station…I offered my seat which had several vacancies round it. She accepted it, without thanking me and immediately installed in it a stout negro woman; took the adjoining seat herself, and seated the rest of her party before her…They all talked and laughed together; the girls munched confectionary out of the same paper, with a familiarity and closeness of intimacy that would have been noticed with astonishment, if not with manifest displeasure, in almost any chance company at the North.”

1862: Massachusetts justice of the peace John S. Rock wrote, “We are colonized in Boston. It is five times as difficult to get a house in a good location in Boston as it is in Philadelphia, and it is ten times more difficult for a colored mechanic to get employment than in Charleston.”

1862: English writer Edward Dicey wrote, “I hardly ever remember seeing a black employed as a shopman, or placed in any post of responsibility. As a rule, the blacks you meet in the Free States are shabbily, if not squalidly  dressed; and, as far as I could learn, the instances of black men having made money by trade in the North, are very few in number.”

There you have opinions stated by black and white, north and south, foreigner and citizen. They all say the same thing: northern states were decidedly more racist than southern ones.

 

 

 

Categories
History

The South Wasn’t Serious about Emancipating Their Slaves

 

Combine: developed from the McCormick Reaper
Combine: developed from the McCormick Reaper

This was a point of view that was represented without data.

Here are the facts:

  1. The South had led early emancipation efforts, especially in Virginia.
  2. The South’s money crops were cotton and tobacco.
  3. Crop rotation was known and practiced at least to a limited extent because plantations were self-sufficient, growing food for people and livestock.
  4. The cotton gin made slaves’s lives easier, and fewer were required.
  5. Now, in 1831, the first practical reaper was invented by Cyrus McCormick, who was born in Virginia. This cut time and slave effort for standing crops, such as wheat.
  6. Few people owned slaves.
  7. The South was markedly less racist than the north, as noted by many travelers, both foreign and domestic, throughout the years.

Against the facts were these issues:

  1. Although the South was less racist, it was difficult for free blacks to make a living. This had to do with paying blacks less for equal work and certain work not being available to blacks—just as in the North. Southerners felt responsible for the slaves and knew that they lacked the understanding of the enormity of the task of complete self-care. They needed to be taught these things and to be allowed to increase self-care gradually—as was being done by Northern states even into the Civil War.
  2. The plantations, where almost all slaves lived, looked rich, but the wealth was not in cash: it was in land, livestock, and slaves. Many struggled with cash flow, even taking severe economies when not extending hospitality (when it didn’t show). The plantations would not continue to exist with simultaneous loss of slave wealth plus wages required for replacing them—even with the former slaves. In that case, everyone was out of a job. Where would they go to make a living?

The answer, of course, was mechanization. But this was a slow evolution.

  1. The planter had to find money to buy a cotton gin—impossible on plantations that were already mortgaged.
  2. The workforce had to be carefully reduced. The slaves knew the hard times of free blacks. Many, especially house slaves, prided themselves on the plantation to which they belonged. So, after eliminating some positions with the cotton gin (unless the owner bought more land), it would be field hands who were sold. The positions could also be eliminated by the natural attrition of deaths.
  3. The reaper would vacate fewer positions because those crops were grown on fewer acres, but there would be some sales.
  4. But the final emancipations would need to be slaves who paid for their own freedom but chose to stay as paid employees.

That was the only way the plantations would survive. The South was willing, but it wanted to do it its own way and in its own timing—just as Northern states were doing.

All the South wanted was the state independence already allowed to the North.

 

 

Categories
History

Compensated Emancipation Was Never Tested in the Americas

pile of currency

Well, not in the United States. And not on continental North America.

In 1833, the British Parliament passed the Abolition of Slavery Act, abolishing slavery in British colonies, such as those on Caribbean islands.

It pleased no one except some hardcore abolitionists.

1. Slave owners complained that the compensation was so low that it was a bad joke. Compensation was especially inadequate to cover mortgaged estates and did not cover the costs of owners as employers of laborers during the adjustment period. This included continued costs for food, clothing, lodging, and medicine.
2. Slaves did not like that they were not immediately emancipated. Slaves more than six years of age were to work as apprentice laborers without pay as a transition to freedom in 1838. They remained tied to estates, although they could buy their freedom even over the opposition of their employer.
3. British subjects were furious that they were responsible for compensation costs of $20 million: 40% of the national budget! The debt would not be paid off until 2015!

No wonder U.S. Southerners were leery of compensated emancipation!
By the way, Britain also began factory inspections in 1833.

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/