No Moral Right to Independence?

No Moral Right to Independence?

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

Did the South have no moral right to be independent because it permitted and upheld slavery? There's no doubt that slavery was wrong and that it needed to be abolished. But, if the Southern states had no right to form their own government because slavery existed within their borders, then the American colonies had no right to form their own government either, since slavery existed in the colonies and since some of the colonies (especially the New England colonies) upheld and grew rich from the slave trade. British leaders noted this inconsistency during the American Revolution. They pointed out that some of the colonial leaders who were loudly demanding "freedom and independence" were slaveowners. If the existence of slavery within a nation's borders means that nation has no right to exist, then America had no right to exist in the first place. In fact, the slaves may have been freed over thirty years sooner if the British had won the war, since England abolished slavery in 1833.

Every nation and region has its share of social injustices, and the South was certainly no exception. But what about the North? For starters, the New England states made large fortunes from the slave trade and from industries associated with that trade. Nearly all American slave ships were Northern-owned and operated from Northern ports.  Some Northern states continued to profit from the slave trade until just before the war started (John Tilley, The Coming of the Glory, Springfield, Tennessee: Nippert Publishing, 1995, reprint, pp. 1-13). Conditions on the New England slave ships were horrible. The slaves were kept below deck in cramped quarters and forced to sit or lie in their own urine and defecation. Not surprisingly, disease was rampant. The slaves were chained together by twos, hands and feet, and had no room to move around. Tens of thousands of slaves died on those slave ships.  In fact, the number of slaves who died on slave ships was far, far greater than the number of slaves who died from mistreatment on Southern plantations.

The North was home to a cruel form of wage slavery where factory workers, especially those who were immigrants, worked in terrible conditions for wages that were barely sufficient for basic existence. These workers were usually cast aside as soon as they ceased to be productive. On the other hand, many if not most slaves were fed, clothed, and housed for the duration of their lives, even after they grew old and could no longer work.  Even some modern scholars agree that many Northern wage-slave factory workers were materially worse off than most Southern plantation slaves (see, for example, John Garraty and Robert McCaughey, The American Nation: A History of the United States to 1877, New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1987, p. 385).

Most Northern states had "Black Codes" that severely discriminated against free blacks. As mentioned, some Northern states wouldn't even allow free blacks to move into their territory. Let's briefly consider the conditions in one such Northern state, Illinois, the "Land of Lincoln," a state that was described as a "free state" because it had abolished slavery. As of 1845, free blacks could not settle in Illinois unless they could prove their freedom and post a $1,000 bond. If a black did in fact have a certificate of freedom, under Illinois law "he and his family were required to meet reporting and registration procedures reminiscent of a totalitarian state," notes African-American scholar Lerone Bennett (Forced Into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream, Chicago: Johnson Publishing Company, 2000, pp. 184-185). Bennett continues describing the conditions under which free blacks lived in Illinois,

The head of the family had to register all family members and provide detailed descriptions to the supervisor of the poor, who could expel the whole family at any moment.

Blacks who met these requirements were under constant surveillance and could be disciplined or arrested by any White. They could not vote, sue, or testify in court. . . .

With [Abraham] Lincoln's active and passive support, the state used violence to keep Blacks poor. Most trades and occupations were closed to them, and laws and customs made it difficult for them to acquire real estate. . . .

As for the pursuit of happiness . . . Blacks could not play percussion instruments, and any White could apprehend any slave or servant for "riots, routs, unlawful assemblies, trespasses and seditious speeches." It was a crime for any person to permit "any slave or slaves, servant or servants or color, to the number of three or more, to assemble in his, her or their house, out house, yard or shed for the purpose of dancing or reveling, either by night or by day. . . ." (Forced Into Glory, pp. 185-186)

Incidentally, Abraham Lincoln not only supported the Illinois Black Code, but he voted to deny blacks the right to vote and also voted "to tax Blacks to support White schools Black children couldn't, in general, attend" (Forced Into Glory, p. 186).

In 1848 Illinois adopted a new constitution that made it illegal for blacks to settle in the state. It, like the previous statute, also prohibited them from voting and from serving in the militia. In 1853, the state legislature made it a crime, punishable by fine, for a black to settle in the state. If the violator couldn't pay the fine, he or she could be sold by the sheriff to pay court costs. The architect of this Negro Exclusion Law was John Logan. During the Civil War, Lincoln named Logan to be a major general in the federal army.

In any discussion on the South and the Confederacy, critics invariably raise the issue of white supremacy. They are quick to point out that Alexander Stephens, the vice president of the Confederate States, said that one of the foundational principles of the new government was that the white race was superior and that blacks were best suited for slavery. Said Stephens,

Our new government . . . 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. (Cornerstone Speech, March 21, 1861)

When critics quote this statement, they almost never inform the reader that, sad to say, most Americans at that time believed that whites were superior and that blacks and other minorities were inferior. One of those Americans was Lincoln himself, who said the following in 1858:

. . . anything that argues me into . . . [the] idea of perfect social and political equality with the negro is but a specious and fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a horse chestnut to be a chestnut horse. . . . I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position. (Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1832-1858, New York: The Library of America, 1989, edited by Don Fehrenbacher, pp. 511-512)

In another speech that he gave that year, Lincoln said much the same thing:

I will say, then, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way, the social and political equality of the white and black races; that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters of the free negroes, or jurors, or qualifying them to hold office, or having them to marry white people. I will say in addition, that there is a physical difference between the white and black races, which, I suppose, will forever forbid the two races living together upon terms of social and political equality, and inasmuch as they cannot so live, that while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and inferior, that I as much as any other man am in favor of the superior position being assigned to the white man. (Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1832-1858, p. 751)

Not only did most Americans believe that blacks and other minorities were inferior, but they believed that America was founded to be ruled by whites and for whites. Senator Stephen A. Douglas, a prominent Northern politician, the leader of the Northern faction of the Democratic Party, and a presidential candidate in 1860, voiced this view in the following words in 1858 during his fourth debate with Lincoln:

I say to you in all frankness, gentlemen, that in my opinion a negro is not a citizen, cannot be, and ought not to be, under the constitution of the United States. . . . I say that this government was established on the white basis. It was made by white men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and never should be administered by any except white men. (Fourth Lincoln-Douglas Debate: Douglas' Reply, in Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1832-1858, p. 673)

What did Lincoln think about this? He agreed, saying, "in point of mere fact, I think so too" (The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 2, edited by Roy P. Basler, Rutgers, 1955, p. 281, as quoted in Bennett, Forced Into Glory, p. 306, emphasis added).

Many Northerners believed that the statement in the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal" did not apply to blacks, but only to whites. Senator Douglas expressed this position in his fifth debate with Lincoln,

The signers of the Declaration of Independence never dreamed of the negro when they were writing that document. They referred to white men, to men of European birth and European descent, when they declared the equality of all men. (Fifth Lincoln-Douglas Debate: Douglas' Speech, in Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1832-1858, p. 697)

Lincoln believed that the "all men are created equal" phrase did not refer to inherent equality but only to legal equality in certain respects, and more than once Lincoln called the Declaration of Independence "the white-man's charter of freedom" (Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1832-1858, pp. 269, 477; see also Bennett, Forced Into Glory, pp. 303-304).

It's interesting to note that of the 3.4 million votes that were cast in the free states in the 1860 election, Senator Douglas received over 800,000 of them.  In addition, during that election Republican candidates described their party as "the true 'White Man's Party' because they wanted to reserve the territories for free white labor" (James McPherson, Ordeal By Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982, p. 123).  The Republican candidate for governor in Ohio assured voters that “the Republican Party is the white man’s party . . . and it labors for the prosperity and liberty of the white man” (Merton L. Dillon, The Abolitionists: The Growth of a Dissenting Minority, Norton Paperback Edition, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1979, p. 240).

James and Lois Horton point out that free blacks in the North had fewer opportunities to engage in skilled labor than did free blacks and slaves in the South:

Opportunities for free black skilled workers seemed limited in the North in some ways that they were not in the South.  Slaves did virtually all types of work, and . . . in the South . . . free blacks were employed at many levels, even in skilled jobs.  It was not unusual to find black carpenters, blacksmiths, and coopers working in Charleston or New Orleans, for example.  One observer noted that in New Orleans skilled work was performed by some white workers but also by a substantial number of blacks, “and of the negroes employed in those avocations a considerable proportion are free.”  One black Virginian reported in the 1840s that in Virginia “both bond (slaves) and free (blacks) had trades” and he “had expected to find the people of color in free New York far better off than those in Virginia.”  Instead, he found that “many tradesmen he knew from the South were . . . cooks and waiters.”  Thus, northern blacks’ occupations reflected both their job skills and the prejudice and discrimination which prevented many from using those skills.

Official records paint a dismal picture of black opportunities for skilled work in Philadelphia.  In 1859 they reported, “Less than two-thirds of (black workers) who have trades follow them,” and “the greater number are compelled to abandon their trades on account of the unrelenting prejudice against their color.”  The exclusion of black artisans was even worse in Boston, where one foreign visitor reported seeing almost no skilled black workers in 1833.  The few exceptions were “one or two employed as printers, one blacksmith, and one shoemaker.”  White workers in New York City pressured authorities to exclude black workers from jobs requiring special authorization.  The city regularly denied African Americans licenses as hackmen or pushcart operators. . . .  As a slave in Baltimore, Frederick Douglass was a skilled ship caulker.  After he escaped slavery and moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, he was unable to find employment as a caulker because, as he was told, “every white man would leave the ship, in her unfinished condition, if I struck a blow at my trade.”  Douglass was forced to take unskilled work at a fraction of the wages he would have made if he could have followed his trade.

White workers in the North generally saw black craftsmen as competitors and tried to exclude them from the work force. . . .  Blacks were barred from membership in the trade associations, dominated by German and some Irish immigrants, which pressured white businesses to hire black workers only for “appropriate” menial employment. (In Hope of Liberty: Culture, Community and Protest Among Northern Free Blacks, 1700-1860, New York: Oxford University Press, 1998 paperback edition, pp. 117-118)

Merton Dillon observes that the abolition of slavery in most of the North in the late eighteenth century actually caused an increase in prejudice against free blacks:

The ending of slavery in the North had not been accompanied by change in the racial attitudes that for so long had supported it.  If anything, prejudice increased as the numbers of free Blacks grew and as the insecurities resulting from rapid economic and social change were felt throughout white society.  Prejudice was not expressed in verbal slurs and social slights alone.  Far more serious was the fact that custom barred most Blacks from economic and educational opportunity.  Although striking examples can be cited of Blacks who overcame all such obstacles, the majority were shut out by prejudice from sharing in the profits and advantages of the growing American economy. (The Abolitionists, pp. 20-21)

Even after the war, racism was alive and well in the North. Herbert Gutman notes that Northern whites not only viewed blacks as inferior but also women and working-class men:

Neither the Civil War nor the Thirteenth Amendment emancipated northern whites from ideological currents that assigned inferior status to nineteenth-century blacks, women, and working-class men. . . .

Northern whites regularly compared the ex-slaves to the northern Irish and other "degraded . . . races or classes." (The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, New York: Pantheon Books, 1976, p. 293)

Several years after the war, prominent Northern leader William Seward, who had served as Lincoln’s Secretary of State, said the following:

The North has nothing to do with the Negroes.  I have no more concern for them than I have for the Hottentots. . . .  They are not of our race.”  (William Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, New York: Viking Press, 2001 p. 295)

I could go on for several pages documenting the fact that, unfortunately, throughout the nineteenth century most Americans, North and South, believed in white supremacy. This is why it's unfair when critics quote Stephens' cornerstone speech but remain silent about the fact that most Northerners held very similar views, and that some Northerners held identical views. It's also unfair when critics quote Stephens' speech but say nothing about the Black Codes that existed in most Northern states. Furthermore, not all Southerners agreed with Stephens' belief that blacks were best suited for slavery, but critics rarely mention this fact either.