The North had very little moral authority, if any, to criticize the South over slavery

The North had very little moral authority, if any, to criticize the South over slavery

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

Fourth Edition

"In the first half of the nineteenth century, state legislatures in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut took away Negroes' right to vote; and voters in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Maine, Iowa, and Wisconsin approved new constitutions that limited suffrage [the right to vote] to whites. In Ohio, Negro males were permitted to vote only if they had "a greater visible admixture of white than colored blood." (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 54)

"The Indiana constitutional convention of 1851 adopted a provision forbidding black migration into the state. This supplemented the state's laws barring blacks already there from voting, serving on juries or in the militia, testifying against whites in court, marrying whites, or going to school with whites. Iowa and Illinois had similar laws on the books and banned black immigration by statute in 1851 and 1853 respectively. These measures reflected the racist sentiments of most whites in those states." (McPherson, Ordeal By Fire, p. 80)

"There can be no doubt that many blacks were sorely mistreated in the North and West. Observers like Fanny Kemble and Frederick L. Olmsted mentioned incidents in their writings. Kemble said of Northern blacks, 'They are not slaves indeed, but they are pariahs, debarred from every fellowship save with their own despised race. . . . All hands are extended to thrust them out, all fingers point at their dusky skin, all tongues . . . have learned to turn the very name of their race into an insult and a reproach.' Olmsted seems to have believed the Louisiana black who told him that they could associate with whites more freely in the South than in the North and that he preferred to live in the South because he was less likely to be insulted there." (John Franklin and Alfred Moss, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000, p. 185. Incidentally, Franklin and Moss are African-American scholars.)

". . . Lincoln also knew how deep and widespread racial prejudice was in the North. 'The colored man throughout this country was a despised man, a hated man,' he admitted. Even many fervent opponents of slavery detested Negroes. 'You loathe them as you would a snake or a toad, yet you are indignant at their wrongs,' a southerner accused his New England cousin in Uncle Tom's Cabin. 'You would not have them abused; but you don't want to have anything to do with them yourselves.' A reporter in Washington once heard Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio, a leading antislavery radical, railing about too many 'nigger' cooks in the capital; Wade complained that he had eaten meals 'cooked by Niggers until I can smell and taste the Nigger all over.'" (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 53)

"For all the good intentions of many early white abolitionists, blacks were not especially welcome in the free states of America. Several territories and states, such as Ohio, not only refused to allow slavery but also had passed laws specifically limiting or excluding any blacks from entering its territory or owning property." (Davis, Don't Know Much About the Civil War, p. 54)

"So pervasive was racism in many parts of the North that no party could win if it endorsed full racial equality." (McPherson, Ordeal By Fire, p. 81)

". . . in 1862 white laborers erupted into mob violence against blacks in a half-dozen cities across the North. . . . The mobs sometimes surged into black neighborhoods and assaulted people on the streets and in their homes. . . .

". . . Republicans ruefully admitted that large parts of the North were infected with racism. 'Our people hate the Negro with a perfect if not a supreme hatred,' said Congressman George Julian of Indiana. Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois conceded that 'there is a very great aversion in the West--I know it to be so in my State--against having free negroes come among us. Our people want nothing to do with the negro.' The same could be said of many soldiers. . . ." (McPherson, Ordeal By Fire, p. 275)

". . . discouragement was deepened by the outcome of three Northern state referendums in the fall of 1865. The legislatures of Connecticut, Wisconsin, and Minnesota placed on the ballot constitutional amendments to enfranchise [allow to vote] the few black men in those states. Everyone recognized that, in some measure, the popular vote on these amendments would serve as a barometer of Northern opinion on black suffrage. . . . Republican leaders worked for passage of the amendments but fell short of success in all three states. . . . the defeat of the amendments could be seen as a mandate against black suffrage by a majority of Northern voters." (McPherson, Ordeal By Fire, p. 501)

"Numerous [Union] army officials who advocated the use of black troops viewed Negroes as little more than cannon fodder. 'For my part,' announced an officer stationed in South Carolina, 'I make bold to say that I am not so fastidious as to object to a negro being food for powder and I would arm every man of them.' Governor Israel Washburn of Maine agreed. 'Why have our rulers so little regard for the true and brave white men of the north?' asked Washburn. 'Will they continue to sacrifice them? Why will they refuse to save them by employing black men? . . . Why are our leaders unwilling that Sambo should save white boys?'" (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 93)

"A more urgent situation existed in South Carolina's Sea Islands. There, nearly 10,000 former slaves abandoned by their masters received little comfort from Union Army commanders, who generally ignored them; by January, many of the Negroes were starving or seriously ill." (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 103)

"The contrabands [escaped slaves] crowded into improvised camps, where exposure and disease took a fearful toll. Yankee soldiers sometimes 'confiscated' the meager worldly goods the blacks had managed to bring with them." (McPherson, Ordeal By Fire, p. 394)

"Union conquests along the south Atlantic coast and in the lower Mississippi Valley had brought large numbers of slaves into proximity to the Yankees. Many of them escaped their owners and sought refuge--and freedom--in Union camps.

"Sometimes their welcome was less than friendly. While northern soldiers had no love for slavery, most of them had no love for slaves either. . . . While some Yanks treated contrabands with a degree of equity and benevolence, the more typical response was indifference, contempt, and cruelty. Soon after Union forces captured Port Royal, South Carolina, in November 1861, a private described an incident there that made him 'ashamed of America': 'About 8-10 soldiers from the New York 47th chased some Negro women but they escaped, so they took a Negro girl about 7-9 years old, and raped her.' From Virginia a Connecticut soldier wrote that some men of his regiment had taken 'two nigger wenches [women] . . . turned them upon their heads, and put tobacco, chips, sticks, lighted cigars and sand into their behinds.' Even when Billy Yank welcomed the contrabands, he often did so from utilitarian rather than humanitarian motives. 'Officers and men are having an easy time,' wrote a Maine soldier from occupied Louisiana in 1862. 'We have Negroes to do all fatigue work, cooking and washing clothes.'" (McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 497)

"When [Union] General Nathaniel Banks replaced General Butler in New Orleans [after Union forces had occupied the city], he forced all of the Negro officers of the colored regiments to resign. Convinced that Negroes were 'a race unaccustomed to military service,' he then disbandedthe Negro regiments and used the troops to guard prisoners of war and sugar plantations." (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, pp. 243-244)

". . . the fall elections of 1867. . . . Ohio rejected a Negro suffrage amendment by 38,000 votes. . . . New Jersey refused to delete 'White' from its suffrage requirements, and Maryland adopted a new law that gave the right to vote to whites only." (John Franklin, Reconstruction After the Civil War, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961, p. 74)