My family writing to relatives in Ireland right after the Revolution, predicted that slavery would and must end, but observed that no one had been able to come up with a way to make it happen. The problem was that almost all of family wealth was found in real estate and property (including slaves) holdings. Many people believed that slavery was immoral, but also was a failure to pass on their estates to their children.
There was lots of rationalizing to justify the institution, especially in the South. The common excuse was patronizing, believing that the poor darkies couldn’t take care of themselves and therefore needed their white masters. The Blacks didn’t not agree with this sentiment.
In the end, the Union Army settled the issue and freed the slaves, and the Reconstruction governments confiscated most of the land for failure to pay property taxes. The South was left in poverty. My family and their neighbors should have thought harder about how to come up with a plan that would work. Of course, it’s easy for me to say.
In my elementary school history classes, we were taught that many Americans, including slave owners, had moral objections to the concept of slavery from the founding of our country, but they saw no other way to feed a nation.
We were told that until the advent of modern engines, tilling soil, planting & harvesting crops required manual labor, thus an agricultural economy depended on slavery.
We were told “Negroes” were deemed better suited to working long days in the sun, because their skin didn’t blister & peel like white people’s skin.
We learned that white sharecroppers were often poorer— that is, were not given basic necessities— than plantation
-dwelling slaves, although whites still had the freedom to pursue upward mobility on their own which slaves could not.
We were taught that the invention of the internal combustion engine is what finally made it possible to begin phasing out slavery. Work formerly done by men & mules with picks & plows could now be done by machines.
We learned that “manumission” — the practice of slave owners freeing individual slaves & their families deemed capable of self-sufficiency— was a common practice.
We learned that “freedmen” themselves often purchased & owned slaves or house servants.
We learned that the first blacks to hold public office soon after the Civil War— example: P.B.B. Pinchback— were elected in the South!
We were taught that the abolition of slavery was ONE issue over which the Civil War was fought. Others included the North’s control of imports & exports, ports & shipping, taxation. “State’s rights” was the South’s rallying cry over all this, not a “dog whistle” for “racism” & “white supremacy.”
We were taught that hanging (”lynching”) was common punishment for white people accused of crimes, too, whether they were guilty or not, because lynch mobs aren’t hard to get riled up.
We were taught. In elementary school.
Great post, but I’d take issue with your comments about “patronizing” southerners, who “didnt think the darkies could take care of themselves.”
Largely true, but I think it was a bit more nuanced.
The dividing line was reading. Many pro-slavery whites feared slaves becoming educated might lead to widespread slave revolts. Some whites were apoplectic at the very idea of blacks ever becoming self sufficient, and IIRC laws were passed that FORBADE teaching slaves to read.
Hard to enforce, plus, it was also argued that reading the Bible was a civilizing influence on the “savages.”
So, many slave owners TAUGHT their slaves to read & encouraged them to learn higher skills in preparation for freedom “some day.”
Manumission— the practice of freeing the most loyal, skilled, & educated slaves (usually “house slaves” / personal servants) who were deemed capable of earning a living in a cash economy— was quite common, long before emancipation became law of the land.
Thus slave owners themselves whittled away at the “peculiar institution” by educating their slaves & encouraging them to become teachers & ministers to other slaves.
OTOH, many slaves resented their more educated brethren who acted “uppity” with their book-learning and ability to “pass” into the white world. This divide in the black community continues today.
“In the end, the Union Army settled the issue and freed the slaves, and the Reconstruction governments confiscated most of the land for failure to pay property taxes.”
The idea that the North “fought to free the slaves” was controversial then and remains so.
No one disputes the North used armed force to destroy most of the South, and later levied confiscatory taxes to confiscate property they wanted.