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Posted by Sean_Q_ on June 26, 2009, 5:17 pm
wismel@yahoo.com wrote:
show/hide quoted text
> 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:
show/hide quoted text
> 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.
SQ
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Posted by =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=BF?= on June 26, 2009, 5:54 pm
show/hide quoted text
> 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.
As I recall, king Louis 14th outlawed slavery in France during his
reign, but when the former slaves in Haiti demanded their rights under
the French Revolution document of The Rights of Man, they were opposed
by the French government.
Napoleon even considered reinstituting slavery...
Surely someone
show/hide quoted text
> 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.
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.
The half dozen northern colonies desperately *needed* the South to be
in the Union for mutual defense, as the British could have easily
reconquered the South.
James Michener wrote an excellent popularization of the evolution of
the Constitution of the US, it's called "Legacy".
The institution of slavery in America probably could have been ended
without a
disastrous civil war. It probably could have been peacefully ended by,
say, 1880.
Brazil had a similar history with ending slavery, and it was over by
about 1880.
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Posted by Sean_Q_ on June 26, 2009, 6:27 pm
¿ wrote:
show/hide quoted text
> 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."
show/hide quoted text
> 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.
show/hide quoted text
> as the British could have easily
> reconquered the South.
"Easily"??? The Yanks didn't find it all that easy.
show/hide quoted text
> 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_.
SQ
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Posted by J. Clarke on June 26, 2009, 7:59 pm
Sean_Q_ wrote:
show/hide quoted text
> ¿ 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.
show/hide quoted text
>> 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.
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Posted by J. Clarke on June 26, 2009, 7:52 pm
Sean_Q_ wrote:
show/hide quoted text
> 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.
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> "uplifting" Negroes... said... these individuals are a sub-race