"Robert E. Lee and the Question of Loyalty" Topic

Yes, agree that it's tricky. Setting aside the moral issue of enslavement, the cost to owners in "upkeep" of slaves, which Time on the Cross compared as a sort of income to slaves, was substantial. Times' view of a more benign slavery was not entirely convincing to me. The treatment of slaves was not consistent across the board, IMO. It remained a denial of freedom regardless. Some prisons are more benign than others as well. Time on the Cross did not condone slavery, it tried to soften the image. Read it many years ago, I am no expert and recall mostly general impressions.

"Slave labor" in authoritarian states of the 20th century was not seen as having any benefits to the victims. A matter of degrees? The concept of being owned and subject to laws and practices denying freedom and rights embodied in the Declaration could not be disassociated from slavery even if the treatment of slaves was not always based on the lash.

The whole system of slavery in the U.S. was built on the racist idea that Blacks/Africans (whatever label you want to use) were not quite human. Thus could someone like Jefferson write that "All men are created equal" while holding men (and women) in bondage.

Lee was no different than most others in the South of his day (and many in the North) in accepting this view, perhaps without even considering the possibility that it might not be true.

And yet it was Jefferson that included the paragraph that abolished slavery in the draft of the Declaration…

Don, than MOST in the north and worldwide. What Jefferson meant about equality was what John Locke meant: able to reason. Our own enlightened understanding about racial equality came only slowly. It has its roots in Christianity -- all are created in God's image, and if in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, then there is a fundamental equality of some (important) sort. But the church has tended to accept existing social arrangements.

Development of racial indifference was slowed greatly by, e.g., Darwin, and really only collapsed as a respectable view after the Holocaust.

'Locke describes the state of nature as one "of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that creature of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection" (Locke, Treatise, 8).'

"Marijuana is prohibited by federal law while it has become legal and a source of jobs and tax revenue in many states. Driving under the influence includes marijuana."

FWIW, and off topic, drug legalization has led to a lot of death and destruction. Since my state legalized marijuana DUIDs have spiked as have fatal crashes where marijuana was a factor. In my county both have about doubled.

"The whole system of slavery in the U.S. was built on the racist idea that Blacks/Africans (whatever label you want to use) were not quite human."

I would disagree slightly with this. Slavery in the western hemisphere was built on the availability of black slaves. Indian tribes in both North and South America enslaved members of other tribes on a regular basis and there was some enslavement of Indians by Europeans early on. However, it was very difficult to enslave other Europeans or North Africans because they could fight back effectively. Africans lacked technological or societal parity with the Europeans so were easy to enslave.

However, at least in the US, (I'm don't know enough about 19th Century Central and South American societies to comment), the idea that blacks were inferior to whites came about as the system was under attack for being wrong on a moral level. It's the same with the religious defense of slavery. It was an excuse for a system that even it's defenders couldn't really defend.

Kevin, yes, BEFORE the social contract.

And the "not quite human" is simply wrong. Planters routinely referred to their slaves as "the people" or "my people." And in many cases the slaves and masters worshipped together. It was a feudal society, no pretense of equality, but there were well understood mutual obligations.

"The night they drove old Dixie down,
and all the people were singing . . ."

From The Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson:

Page 6-7: ‘The cascade of cotton from the American South dominated the world market, paced the industrial revolution in England and New England, and fastened the shackles of slavery more securely than ever on the Afro-Americans.'

Page 7: ‘The greatest danger to American survival at midcentury, however, was neither class tension nor ethnic division. Rather it was the sectional conflict between North and South over the future of slavery.'

Page 102: ‘By 1857…the main form of commerce they now advocated was a reopening of the African slave trade' which had been outlawed in 1807 by the US government.

Page 113: From the Louisiana Courier: ‘a barbarous people can never become civilized without the salutary apprenticeship which slavery secured…It is the duty and decreed prerogative of the wise to guide and govern the ignorant…through slavery…'

Slavery was also justified by the misuse of the Bible and religion by the slave holders as being both right and moral. The slaves were considered property and not people by the practitioners.

Slavery and the system used to implement it was inherently racist.

Again, from McPherson:

Pages 241-244:

‘What were these rights and liberties for which Confederates contended? The right to own slaves, the liberty to take this property into the territories; freedom from the coercive powers of a centralized government.'

‘So they undertook a campaign to convince nonslaveholders that they too had a stake in disunion. The stake was white supremacy.'

Georgia Governor Joseph Brown stated that slavery ‘is the poor man's best government…Among us the poor white laborer…does not belong to the menial class. The negro is in no sense his equal…He belongs to the only true aristocracy, the race of white men.'

One Alabama newspaper wrote that Lincoln's election ‘shows that the North [intends] to free the negroes and force amalgamation between them and the children of the poor men of the South.'

One secessionist asked non-slaveholders: ‘Do you love your mother, your wife, your sister, your daughter?' ‘…in ten years or less our children will be the slaves of negroes.' ‘
Baptist clergyman James Furman declared that ‘Abolition preachers will be at hand to consummate the marriage of your daughters to black husbands.'

‘Submit to have our wives and daughters choose between death and gratifying the hellish lust of the negro!…Better ten thousand deaths than submission to Black Republicanism.'

‘…Liberty and Equality for white men ‘ against ‘our Abolition enemies who are pledged to prostrate the white freemen of the South down to equality with negroes…freedom is not possible without slavery.'

One of the underpinnings of the slavery system was white supremacy, and that is racist.

Well, yes, of course. I think we all knew that.

But white supremacy was just as much a given for Abraham Lincoln and almost everyone else in the western world.

If the issue is slavery, it is a southern problem. If the issue is racism, it is far wider than that.

I'm reluctant to weigh in here, but can't resist making two points. First, the Old South was not a "Feudal Society", which is a contentious term, but certainly must refer to a system of land tenure in return for military obligation. France in c. 1200 was "feudal" -- the South was not. And so, "not" that I"m not even sure what Doc is talking about.

Second, Brechtel 198 is absolutely correct: slavery was inherently racist. Southern slave holders enthusiastically endorsed the relatively new idea of "polygenesis", which denied that Black Africans were "sons of Adam," but rather the descendants of secondary and inferior creation. Their inherently inferior and subhuman status justified their enslavement. This has all been abundantly documented.

But white supremacy was just as much a given for Abraham Lincoln and almost everyone else in the western world.

But it was Lincoln who freed the slaves and abolished slavery in the United States. That is a significant difference with the policies and practices in the South.

Further, forming black regiments in the US Army was a significant break with past practice. When that idea was broached very late in the war by the South (General Patrick Cleburne was one that endorsed the idea) diehard southerners turned apoplectic about the idea. Even Lee finally endorsed it.

This, and the evidence offered above, support the idea that slavery was the cause of the Civil War.

You've seen GLORY. The portrayal of northern antagonism towards black soldiers was quite accurate.

The proposal by Cleburne (an immigrant) to raise black troops is a fascinating case study, for while it was roundly rejected when made (as you note) the Confederate Congress actually DID something similar a year later (too late, but they didn't know that). Other leaders besides Lee (Chesnut, for example) wanted black recruitment.

The south had two war aims: preservation of slavery, and independence. They understood that arming thousands of slaves would significantly weaken the system. But in early 1865 the Congress DID vote to do that, by a narrow margin. Independence, they decided, was more important than slavery. Too late, too late.

And…?

Glory is an excellent movie which is mostly accurate.

One of the errors in the movie was the portrayal of some of the 54th Massachusetts as freed or escaped slaves. The personnel were recuited in New England, New York, and Canada and they were freedmen who were teachers, sailors, and tradesmen. They were definitely not former slaves.

The best book on the subject is the regimental history, A Brave Black Regiment by Captain Emilio who was the senior unwounded survivor of the assault on Battery Wagner.

I forget whether it was Cobb or Tooms who said: "If slaves will make good soldiers our whole system of government is wrong."

They did, and it was.

And they realized that, or would have.

Kevin, fine, but my point was about northern racism.

Don, it was Cobb – "The day you make soldiers of them is the beginning of the end of the revolution. If slaves will make good soldiers our whole theory of slavery is wrong."

"Further, forming black regiments in the US Army was a significant break with past practice."

Not really. Black soldiers served in fairly significant numbers during the revolution and a black battalion served with Jackson at New Orleans.

Slavery in and of itself was not racist. As I've noted before American Indians enslaved members of other tribes, and white settlers, American merchant crewmen captured by Barbary Pirates were sold into slavery, and into the late 1700s or early 1800s Arab slavers raided Cornwall for new slaves. Slavery was an accepted practice for thousands of years. The racist aspect of it in the US developed as a defense against the constant attacks on it that started in the early 1800s.

Dn, yes, at least to an extent; in the early decades white indentures worked alongside Africans in the tobacco fields of Virginia, and the differences in status -- even legally -- were confused. The big shift from indentures to chattel slavery came after Bacon's Rebellion. The white workers HAD to be armed on the frontier (which all of Va was, then) and the blacks could NOT be.

And, to the extent that modern slavery became race-based, the Arabs bear most of the responsibility. Their slaving did (and does) focus on black Africa, and was (and is) quite extensive.

@dn Jackson

APDC – as you quoted:

Aapysch20 said:

"The notion of states' rights was used and continues to be used to this day as camouflage for all kinds of repressive measures against African Americans and other minority groups."

Then you said

Name one.

So I indicated all the Jim Crow laws.

Then, You said:

Your example is related to a court decision from 1896 which was overturned in Brown v Board. The original quote that I disagree with states that it is used to this day to justify descrimination. Well, as I said, name one. Name how it is used today to justify discrimination.

However, the original statement that you reacted to referenced both past AND present instances of States Rights used to discriminate.

But, no matter, there are plenty of present day examples.

For Instance:

29 states have constitutions that include bans on same-sex marriage and/or other types of unions, and 31 have statutes that ban same-sex marriage and/or other types of unions, although these are all defunct under the Obergefell ruling.

link

Same for abortion bans: Several states had laws on the books that went into effect when Roe was overturned.

link

And in Shelby County SCOTUS' gutting of the voting rights act resulted in a large number of mostly Southern states to suddenly enact stringent voting requirements; many of them reminiscent of Jim Crow voting restrictions and which severely impacted their African American communities.

link

Equating homosexual marriages and abortions with racial discrimination will not do, I'm afraid. Nice try, though.

Hi Doc.
You have to give them fair marks for "effort" though.

;-)

B

Equating homosexual marriages and abortions with racial discrimination will not do, I'm afraid. Nice try, though.

I don't see why not…All three topics fall under the overall subject of 'civil rights.'

I don't see why not…All three topics fall under the overall subject of 'civil rights.'

The question I was responding to was a challenge by dn Jackson pushing back against States Rights as a tool used as a form of discrimination against "African Americans and other minority groups. He insinuated there exist no examples of this and I gave him three contemporary ones.

There was no limitation to race. However, I did give a race based SR's discriminatory practice example as well.

Doc wrote:
And, to the extent that modern slavery became race-based, the Arabs bear most of the responsibility. Their slaving did (and does) focus on black Africa, and was (and is) quite extensive.

Doc: The 'Arabs' enslaved several races, not just African blacks and had no problem with Blacks being in high government positions, even as slaves. No, if you believe the Southern leaders such as Stevens in his Cornerstone Speech to the CSA Congress in 1861, their notion of slavery and why Black men and women were slaves was quite 'un-Arab'.

Vice President Stevens said in his speech:

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas [from the U.S.]; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone 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.

Thus, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science.

May we not therefore look with confidence to the ultimate universal acknowledgement of the truths upon which our system rests? It is the first government ever instituted upon the principles in strict conformity to nature, and the ordination of Providence, in furnishing the materials of human society.

Many governments have been founded upon the principle of the subordination and serfdom of certain classes of the same race; such were and are in violation of the laws of nature. Our system commits no such violation of nature's laws.

[Italics mine]

This is the government that Lee and others fought for, were loyal to and sacrificed to preserve.

I also think the notion that the "Victors write history" suggests that the losers' history/viewpoints are lost or totally condemned, vilified and censored. I haven't found that to be true, particularly with the continual debates over the South, States Rights, the ACW and the Southern Myth created by Southerners. The same could be said of Hitler's Nazis after their defeat, as vilified and condemned as they are. [And rightfully so.]

I have mentioned the Cornerstone speech here before. It does not seem to draw a response. Along with the various secession documents, slavery seems very much a foundational principle of the Confederacy. That it became something else to so many is part of the Lost Cause story.

I believe Lee took legal action to retain his father-in law's slaves, hoping to rent them out for income. He lost his court case in early 1863, as I recall. As has been said, he was not afraid to use corporal punishment on slaves.

Lee must have understood the dominant rationale for secession. He may have loved Virginia, but he was a product of the time and place regarding slavery as well.

I think that when we talk about not using later-day values to judge the people of those times, I feel like that is exactly what the South did in creating its myths over time. It created a revisionist history that finally began to come under objective scrutiny in recent years.

the Arab question was true they did not discriminate on the grounds of colour but on the grounds of religion. members of the faith (Islam) could never be slaves but non-muslim (infidels) were fair game. By adopting islam freedom could be granted = wonder if that worked in the South where slaves adopted christianity.

wonder if that worked in the South where slaves adopted christianity.

Nope. Some owners would allow slaves to earn their freedom. Lee's Father-in-Law Curtiss wrote in his will that his slaves [@50] were to be freed upon his death. The law allowed up to five years for the executor to carry out the freeing. After five years, Lee did not, fighting the will in court. Two slaves who, upset that they were not being freed, escaped and were caught. Lee had both whipped. Lee finally had to free the slaves by law. On the other hand, Lee had two Freed black cooks on campaign who he paid a little more than $8 USD a month.

the Arab question was true they did not discriminate on the grounds of colour but on the grounds of religion. members of the faith (Islam) could never be slaves but non-muslim (infidels) were fair game. By adopting islam freedom could be granted = wonder if that worked in the South where slaves adopted christianity.

A great deal depends upon how fine a line one wants to draw here. I knew some Indian and Pakistanis folks working in Dubai back in the day – early 2000's. Pakistanis and Indian Muslims imported into places like Kuwait, Dubai and the UAE as construction laborers and domestics might not technically have been considered as slaves, but it was/is not uncommon for them to be effectively treated as such by their Arab "employers".

FWIW.

B

Blutarski:
Yeah, very true. Slavery isn't dead, just called something else to blur the lines, to remain clandestine but still everywhere. Qatar did the same kind of thing 'hiring' foreign men to build their World Cup stadiums. Dozens of them died during construction.

However, in the 1860s, slavery was an institution still employed out in the open by a number of societies.

Oh, so the Arabs are responsible for race based slavery? And slavery never had a racist element to it until the abolitionists pushed the South into racism?

Anti-miscegenation laws in the United States date from 1691 and have nothing to do with a sudden, abolitionist provoked, racist revelation. The Arabs had no such laws.

link

Slavery exists in many different forms but they aren't all the same. Southern chattel slavery is one of the worst ever; trying to equate it with other types of slavery is nothing more than an inexplicable attempt to defend and rationalize Slave State deviant behavior.

In fact, the South is somewhat unique in that it did its very best for a century after the ACW to codify racism. Something that's rare and which we cant blame on the Arabs.

In fact, Jim Crow racism was so very thorough that the Nazis gathered at a conference to study it, adopting some of the laws as a model and rejecting others as too harsh. In some ways, the South's regime was proto-Nazi.

link

link

In many ways, the only competent thing ever produced by the CSA and the Jim Crow south was the sinister science of examining people for racial purity. We are the only country to ever create a system where people had to prove they were not black.

link

On top of all this, someone suggested that the dedication to racism and slavery was a result of abolitionists inciting slave revolt and murder; as if this was either outrageous or immoral. Unfortunately, there isnt that much evidence of such incitement taking place but it is true hat it only took one part per million for the Slave States to freak out that everyone was inciting slave insurrection.