By an imperious law of nature
The other day I saw a bit of the Mississippi Declaration of Secession, and stared with the usual surprise. The things people can convince themselves of: they surprise me.
In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.
Does it leave you reeling? It did me.
Oh I see, only “the black race” can put up with being in the tropical sun. Ok well a few questions occur to me. One, what about all the members of the white race who lived there too? They weren’t all rich, they didn’t all own slaves, they couldn’t all stay inside when it was hot. How is it that they could put up with it?
Two, even if that were true and made sense, it most certainly doesn’t follow that therefore the answer is to force members of the black race to do backbreaking work from dawn to dusk FOR NO PAY and under threat of being whipped or worse. It doesn’t follow that the answer is to decide white people get to own black people and force them to do hard dangerous exhausting work for the profit of those white people.
Three, even if the products have become necessities of the world, it doesn’t follow that plantation-havers can’t provide them by paying workers a salary in the normal way.
It boils down to saying “We’re making a good thing (for us) out of this system of forcing other people to do our work and you can’t stop us.”
And one thing a lot of people convince themselves of today: the Civil War wasn’t over slavery, it was over state’s rights. Yeah, right. State’s rights to own slaves.
And I question whether tobacco was really necessary for the world. Cotton, maybe, but not tobacco.
But…but….but….it was ALL ABOUT STATES’ RIGHTS, dontcha know? And HERITAGE. Can’t forget the heritage!
AND THE WILL O’ GAWD
“Tis sad that ultimately “the south” won the war. Or at least the peace. Trump and Reagan were perfet Confederate presidents.
Don’t forget about malaria. A cracker with a shirt on can take the Mississippi sun for most of the day, but malaria became endemic to the American South and the Caribbean very quickly. English and French colonists to the area dropped like flies, but many Africans had inherited resistance.
The text of all of the declarations of secession form the best response to those who claim the Civil War wasn’t about slavery. Back then, they made it very clear that that’s exactly what it was about.
Also the Constitution of the Confederate States of America has several provisions preserving the right to own slaves. (Curiously, also a provision forbidding the importation of slaves from Africa — can’t have anyone bidding the price down I guess.)
Now I’m going to have to read all the declarations.
Well I can explain. You see, I’m pretty sure that was in the time before the invention of hats. Dark-skinned people do not need hats as much as white people do, and I’m pretty sure that even after they were invented, there were never enough to go round. So in daylight hours, the whites’ only option was to saty inside reading their Bibles, which assured them in Genesis 9 that the blacks were of descent from Ham and ordained to their lot, which was slavery, by God himself.
The slaves got closer to God, the whites’ minds were improved, and God’s will was done. Had to be a win-win-win all round. And I’m pretty sure near 100% that’s right, too.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress, here’s then-Senator Jefferson Davis in a speech on the floor:
Earlier in the same speech, he extols the praises of slavery because, by giving all the menial labor to blacks, it allows all whites to be true equals of each other. It’s kind of amazing the things they said out loud in those days. I was familiar with the notion of treating blacks like shit so that poor white folks can feel superior to somebody, but I didn’t realize how open they were in advancing that justification:
This is one of the “distinguished statesmen” of the South. (Oh, and I’m no historian, but I’m raising a big fucking eyebrow at the notion that a lower class white man could knock on the door of some plantation house and be invited in for dinner.)
Slavery wasn’t some unfortunate mistake that they regretted but gosh, how you gonna pick all that cotton otherwise. They knew exactly what they were doing. It was all about not extending humanity to one group of people so that others could profit, or at least feel better about their own lot in life.
It is amazing the things they said aloud. For that matter it’s amazing the things they said in Gone With the Wind almost a century later.
I forget where I read it–it might have been Heather Cox Richardson–but someone pointed out that, before the Civil War, it was the northern states who were advocating for states rights–specifically, the right to recognize the freedom of Blacks in their states despite any former enslavement–and the southern states who were fighting against those rights (and successfully in the Dred Scott case).
The Fugitive Slave Act was one instance of that.
In other words, states rights can be used for good or for evil.
Yes, and yes.
@Screechy #8
Well spotted, sir. There is no way in hell the landed gentry would let shoeless yokels in the front door. Caste is even bigger in the South than the North. There were plenty of white indentured servants and white sharecroppers, not to mention perpetually indebted miners and the like. These lofty, racist promises were mostly a way to keep the white lumpens from rising up; at least they were superior to someone. They were not serious except about the racism.
Oh hush yersel’ now, ain’t y’all heard of our famous Southern hospitality? Why, we’re famously hospitable and ya kin take that to the bank.