Posted by J. Clarke on June 26, 2009, 7:59 pm
Sean_Q_ wrote:
> ¿ wrote:
>> On the American shores, the Founding Fathers realized that they were
>> making a "deal with the Devil" when they compromised with the South
>> over slavery to get them to join the union.
> I'd like to know more about this quote from John J. Chapman; what work
> it's from or what the occasion was when he said it: "There was never
> a moment in our history when slavery was not a sleeping serpent. It
> was coiled up under the table in the deliberations of the
> Constitutional Convention. Owing to the cotton gin it was more than
> half awake. Thereafter, slavery was on everyone's mind though not
> always on his tongue."
>> The half dozen northern colonies desperately *needed* the South to be
>> in the Union for mutual defense
> They also needed a few other things, like a year-round growing season.
>> as the British could have easily
>> reconquered the South.
> "Easily"??? The Yanks didn't find it all that easy.
They didn't find it all that easy in 1861, but the Constitution was ratified
more than 60 years earlier, and the British attempting to reconquer the
South would not have been supplying it with arms and munitions.
>> The institution of slavery in America probably could have been ended
>> without a
>> disastrous civil war.
> I believe a peaceful secession was more likely than a peaceful
> emancipation. If the Montgomery gov't hadn't fired on the fort
> they'd have had their Confederacy by a _fait accomplis_.
Yep, the secession was well underway in Congress when the fighting broke
out.
Starting a shooting war right then was as bonehead a move as the Japanese
attacking Pearl Harbor prior to the delivery of the declaration of war.
Posted by J. Clarke on June 26, 2009, 7:52 pm
Sean_Q_ wrote:
> wismel@yahoo.com wrote:
>> Dr Albert Schweitzer, who spent most of his life in Africa,
>> "uplifting" Negroes... said... these individuals are a sub-race
> In _Gone With the Wind_ Margaret Mitchell wrote:
> the former field hands ... ran wild -- either from perverse
> pleasure in destruction or simply because of their ignorance.
> freedom became a never-ending picnic, a barbecue every day
> of the week, a carnival of idleness and theft and insolence.
> Country negroes flocked into the cities, leaving the rural
> districts without labor to make the crops. Atlanta was crowded
> with them and still they came by the hundreds, lazy and dangerous
> as a result of the new doctrines being taught them.
> For the first time in their lives the negroes were able to get
> all the whiskey they might want. In slave days, it was something
> they never tasted except at Christmas, when each one received
> a "drap" along with his gift. Now they had not only the Bureau
> agitators and the Carpetbaggers urging them on, but the incitement
> of whiskey as well, and outrages were inevitable. Neither life nor
> property was safe from them and the white people, unprotected by
> law, were terrorized. Men were insulted on the streets by drunken
> blacks, houses and barns were burned at night, horses and cattle
> and chickens stolen in broad daylight, crimes of all varieties were
> committed...
> Well what a surprise to learn that the negroes were subject to the
> same vices and corruption as white people! I am shocked and amazed.
> So then Wismel's quote goes on to say:
> > Never fraternize with them as equals, never accept them as your
> social > equals; or they will devour you; they will destroy you."
> It seems to me Wismel forgets that it was *white folks* who dragged
> millions of these unwilling people to American shores -- and it wasn't
> the Dark Ages, either, it was the Renaissance, supposedly a time
> of "enlightenment" and new ideas about freedom, etc. Surely someone
> back then was enlightened enough to realize that slavery would become
> obsolete sooner or later and then America would have to come to terms
> with 4 (now 12) million people who couldn't be denied human rights
> indefinitely.
> If they were really hurting for farm labour why didn't they just bring
> over more draft animals; after all donkeys and oxen bed down quietly
> in the barn at night, they don't sneak over to other plantations
> or crack corn when the Massa's gone away; and when the first quail
> calls they don't run off for Canada by following the Drinking Gourd
> either.
I guess that they just weren't clever enough to train donkeys and oxen to
pick cotton.
Posted by Sean_Q_ on June 26, 2009, 10:59 pm
Sean_Q_ wrote:
> 4 (now 12) million people
Oops - that should read (now 41) million
[as of 2006 - would be more by now].
SQ
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>> On the American shores, the Founding Fathers realized that they were
>> making a "deal with the Devil" when they compromised with the South
>> over slavery to get them to join the union.
> I'd like to know more about this quote from John J. Chapman; what work
> it's from or what the occasion was when he said it: "There was never
> a moment in our history when slavery was not a sleeping serpent. It
> was coiled up under the table in the deliberations of the
> Constitutional Convention. Owing to the cotton gin it was more than
> half awake. Thereafter, slavery was on everyone's mind though not
> always on his tongue."
>> The half dozen northern colonies desperately *needed* the South to be
>> in the Union for mutual defense
> They also needed a few other things, like a year-round growing season.
>> as the British could have easily
>> reconquered the South.
> "Easily"??? The Yanks didn't find it all that easy.