Slavery: Not Just Something For The South

Slavery: Not Just Something For The South

Part XXVIII

In Dec. 1848, Solon Robinson, a farmer and writer from Connecticut who became agriculture editor for the New York Tribune visited the nation's largest cotton port, New Orleans.

The boats are constantly arriving, so piled up with cotton, that the lower tier of bales on deck are in the water; and as the boat is approaching, it looks like a huge raft of cotton bales, with the chimneys and steam pipe of an engine sticking up out of the centre.

And from New Orleans and the other major cotton ports--Savannah, Charleston, Mobile--most of the cotton was shipped to Liverpool.  If it didn't go directly to Liverpool, it was sent to the North: to Boston for use in the domestic textile industry, or to New York City.  From New York City, it generally went to Liverpool, or elsewhere in Europe.

"But this gives only the slighest hint of the role New York City and the rest of the North played in the cotton trade , or of the lengths the  New York business community was forced to go to protect its franchise." (How the NORTH Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery....COMPLICITY, Anne Farrow, Joel Lang, and Jenifer Frank of the Hartford Courant Ballantine Books, New York, pg. 10.

Just to name a few of the illustrious names involved, all of which I have named before, but will add more information since you need it apparently.  I will also give you more bibliography so that you can read these things for yourself.  By the way, if not mentioned before, this book, COMPLICITY, is now required reading, I believe mentioned in Amazon.com as a freshman history course so apparently it is viewed quite highly.

I've mentioned the "merchant princes" before but will give those names again, along with others so that you won't get the impression that this was just a "few" errant Northerners.  (By the way, the way in which you termed the 9,000,000 Southerners as wealthy indeed, made your impression that  few of 30,000,000 northerners  seem a little strange.  Are we now including every single Southern poor white farmer as a slave owner?

But let me get back to my answering your statement.  Here are some more names, although if you'd read the thread you'd already see some of these:

A.T. Stewart, cotton merchant, he opened the nation's first department store, often called "the marble palace" on Broadway and was thought to be the wealthiest man in New York.

Moses Taylor, sugar importer, banker, coal and railroad magnate; his extensive enterprises for nearly half a century made him  one of the most influential men in  New York City.

Abiel Low: his firm, A.A. Low & Brothers was the most important firm in the new booming China trade.

William Astor: son of fur/real estate mogul John Jacob Astor, the nation's first millionaire.

August Belmont, Wall Street Banker: American agent for the Rothchilds of Germany; married daugher of Commodore Perry and whose absolute adoration of horse racing led to the creation of the Belmont Stakes.

Also invited to that Union Committee at the offices of Richard Lathers, prominent cotton merchant were these others.  Might I remind you this meeting was called because of these peoples' worry over strategies to smooth relations between North and South, 12-15-1860.  The group was panicky over South Carolina's probable secession vote days away , with talk of Alabama following.  The South had to be persuaded to stay in the Union until some kind of compromise in the slavery controversy must be found.  The very "spine" of 19th century money and power attended the meeting.

Other "bigwigs" invited were shipping magnates Wm. Aspinwall & his partners: Robt. Minturn  & Henry Grinnell:  editors of the Journal of Commerce and future mayors, future presidential candidates, Samuel J.  Tilden, & former president Millard Fillmore.

Lathers even directed his opening comments to Southern planters, urging them to "consider their duties to that part of their Northern brethren whose sympathies have always been with Southern rights and against Northern aggression." (from the book, COMPLICITY, pg. 11

The lawyer Chas. O'Conor, a longtime defendent of slavery, argued that in considering whether to leave the Union, the South was just struggling "to keep its head above the rapidly advancing waters of this black sea of abolitionism, which threatens to drown it."
(from COMPLITICY, pg. 12).

This lawyer O'Conor , although paused by eruptions of applause, continued, "There is no source of evil whever in the North except the honest, consciencious mistake of the honest conscientious people of the North, who have drank into their bosoms this dreadful error--that it is their duty...to crush out and trample upton the system of Slavery upon which the prosperity of the South and the permanency of this Union in its present form depend."  (COMPLICITY pg. 13.

As the day lengthend, pleas to the South grew more emotional and John A. Dix, a New Hampshire native, former New York senator, and future New York governor, summed up the sentiments of the day:
"We will not review the dark history of the aggression and insult visited upon you by Abolitionists and their abettors during the last 35 years.  Our detestation of these acts of hostility is not inferior to your own." (COMPLICITY,   

How the North Promited Promoted Slavery:  COMPLICITY, by  Anne Farrow, Joel Lang, and  Jenifer Frank of the the Hartford Courant

Some other bibliographical material used:
First U.S. Census of Connecticut
First U.S. Census of Rhode Island
World of Sorrow, R. E. Conrad
Slave Catchers, Margaret Garner; S.W. Campbell,pp.144-145[/size]

Books, Articles and Unpublished Manuscripts

Foner, Philip S. Business and Slavery: The New Merchants and the Irrepressible Conflict. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1941.

Farrow, Anne. "Beyond Complicity: The Forgotten Story of Connecticut Slaveships."  Northeast, April 3, 2005.

And with that, I bid good evening to all.