All Comments on 'The South will Rise Again'

The preambles and articles of secession of the southern states only mention one specific grievance against the United States, interference with slavery. The rest of the articles give legal/constitutional basis for secession.

Examples: "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union.” Dec 24, 1860 They note “an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery” They also objected to interference with the return of fugitive slaves, voting by black men in New England, the establishment of abolitionist societies, and not recognizing "slave transit" by slave holders into non-slaveholding states. There are no reasons cited not directly tied to slavery.

Mississippi, Jan 9, 1861 - "Declaration of Secession" - “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world,”

Read them all, they are online.

The belief that somehow the south paid the taxes while the north benefited is also bogus. The federal government received the vast majority of it's funds from Ad Volorum taxes in the form of tariffs. FY 1859, Total Federal Income $65.4 Million - Tariff income from:

Major Northern ports, $44.994 million

Major Southern ports - $2.830 million,

Other ports $8.576 million.

www.flickr.com/photos/36584779@N05/8512092444/sizes/o/in/photostream/

The cause of The War Between the States, The War of Northern Aggression, The Late Great Unpleasantness, The American Civil War or whatever you may choose to call it was caused by the fear of abolition of slavery and the economic chaos that would most likely ensue.

one thing i can not understand about slavery is why is everybody so absorbed with the idea. yes there were slaves in the south. the civil war was not fought over slavery. it was a puely economic issue. 75% of the federal income was produced by the south. the money was then spent in the north. the south just wanted a bigger portion spent in the south. lincoln was not opposed to slavery.

I agree with you and people no longer have common sense, the people that scream the loudest about racism are the biggest racist. They want you and me to make up for their upbringing.

I agree completely, but this is the age of the hot button and the 30-second sound bite. During the last presidential election a youtube group had one of there group hold up a sign declaring "Obama is a Keynesian" in the DC area. Person after person castigated the sign holder, declaring the President to be a native-born American. People were unable to distinguish Keynesian - a follower of the economic policies initially expounded by Sir John Maynard Keynes, from Kenyan - a person from the African country of Kenya. People do not read and reflect anymore. I am a proud son of the South, but that does not blind me from historical fact.

The South fought to keep their slaves. They were fighting to preserve a monstrous wrong.

By 1860, records show, an 18 year old "Prime Field Hand" sold for between $2000 and $3000. This was a time when common wages for unskilled labor were less than $1/day (a 12 to 16 hour day). The slave owners were responding to the law of supply and demand.

What they didn't realize was that they were paying so much that on the average they would not ever get their money back. Add in 3% interest and other expenses (medicine and Dr. bills) and the real risk that he would get sick and die or escape to the North, and the South was going broke.

Plantation owners were getting deeper and deeper in debt as time went on. Or so my sources say.

So, why did they do it? Why didn't they see why they were going broke?

Partly cultural inertia. Partly because having "power" feels good. Partly because they convinced themselves that the North was somehow cheating them, maybe with the Protective Tariff. But, somehow.

I wonder if the readers of an Erotic site can think of an additional reason?

I post this Anon because I don't want my head bit off by descendents of Southern traitors.

I don't fault the author for mentioning it, it is as he says, a fact of history. Just offering some insight on why the subject continues to invoke such vitriol.

Slavery as practiced in the US was was based on, and justified by, advancing the notion that those being enslaved were less than human, an inferior species, no different from livestock. This notion was so widespread in the society that it was advanced from the pulpits of churches as being part of God's plan for man to be master of all animals.

It is true that slavery has existed throughout human history, but in the past it was based on enslaving defeated enemies or citizens of plundered cities, or sentencing criminals or debtors, things that could and did happen to anyone. US slavery was unique in that it was not only based on enslaving a single race, it was also based on the belief that the slaves were of an inferior, subhuman species that deserved to be enslaved, and not just unfortunate victims of circumstances. The fact that that belief continued long after the end of slavery, and is still widely held today, just makes the slavery and its supporting beliefs all the more evil.

They will not be able to get out of Atlanta traffic...

Go rant and rave like a lunatic somewhere else fanfare. This is not some political website for idiots to post their views. All qhml1 did was to give some history about slavery because of what he wrote. I can only imagine the uproar from people like you if he had used the word niggardly in his story. You'd be there demanding an apology from the steps of Congress. There have been several incidents in the last 10 years or so where people reprimanded for using the word because people who didn't know know what it meant were too lazy to find out. Everything qhml1 stated was true. If you don't believe it, quit reading so many loving wife stories and check it out like I did.

As a student of history, I think I have a moderately blasé vie of the historical flow of secessionists. Their predecessors were traitors a hundred and fifty years ago. They are traitors today. Their successors will be traitors a hundred and fifty years from now. Ho hum, what else is new?

I actually find myself emotionally detached. Once you understand the basis of their ideology is; that they are 'Predestined' and 'Predetermined' to be the ruling caste. Ubermen destined to rule over all the rest of us. How's that delusion going for yah?

What surprised me the most about myself? Was my visceral reaction to their public renunciation of their Oaths of Allegiance. Me, a materialist atheist and I suddenly find that I am embroiled with a visceral fury against the secessionists acts of blasphemy in violating their oaths of allegiance and their oaths of office.

With the Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson Presidencies methodically rebuilding the Social Order with the enforcement of the Civil Rights legislation, the dixiecrats bolted the Democratic Party. Their inability to form a national coalition against the Civil Rights Movement forced them to find new allies.

Over this same period the Republican Party had to face the bitter facts that population growth among non-republicans left them as obsolete as the Whig Party. They desperately need to re-brand themselves and find allies who actually were increasing in population.

That was when the Republicans took in the Dixiecrats and forged a renewed GOP power structure strong enough to hold back the Democrats. The Old Republican leadership thought they would continue to dominate and control the GOP against the low class Southern parvenu's. But in elections, it is number of votes, both popular votes and in the Electoral College determine the winners.

The Old Black Republican Party died with a whimper more then forty years ago and what we have left is more correctly called the Dixiecrat Party. And no it does not matter what part of the continent they are from or even their race. It is mainly about cultural values.

I do not care about the Popular Vote, it is meaningless noise. What is important is the Electoral College as that majority is determined by the smaller states. That proportionally provide the majority of professional military commissioned and non-commissioned officers. To quote the Ancient Sage Mao Tse-tung "Power flows from the barrel of a gun".

When nearly half a century of Cheney/Bush league corruption and incompetency ended the American Republic and almost strangled the new Empire in it's crib by eviscerating the Global economy, by trying to please the War Profiteers and the Saudi Royal family. It was the support of the Electoral College compelled by the overwhelming demand among military officers to end the Cheney/Bush kleptocracy that would gift Obama with back to back Presidencies.

To add to the discomfort of the Dixiecrats, demographics is a bitch when your faction is in the decline. It will be interesting to observe as Dixiecrats in eminent obsolescence try to find new allies. Pity for them their Saudi paymaster's cannot vote.

people like you are why we havce wars all over the world brought on by hate passed down for decades and centuries. i do not own a slave. never have. i am part native american. mosly white. all of my ancestors got robbed raped and exploited at one point or another. the native american part was just more recent. deal with today. deal with the problems we have now. quit hating because you ancestors did.

" ... and whenever any form of governmemt becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government."

Very well written by a patriot and ratified by every colony in the want-to-be-a-country, mostly north-eastern. I can't imagine anyone honestly being confused by these words. The south exercised their right, but the north won the war, and then raped the south. The comments pretend to care about the plight of opressed people. BULLSHIT! Did you ever read about the new northern plantation owners and their sharecroppers? Guess not. Oppose slavery in public, embrase it in private; or is that "in profit"? The war was over who should own the wealth of the south; just like every war. Wealth. Power. Not right and wrong. I'm a northern boy with a southern heart. Get over the past. We got present enemies in this world.

Eight years AFTER the END of the war of aggression Delaware ended their own slavery. EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION was for the SOUTH ONLY.

If you were born and raised in the U.S., then you ARE a racist. Doesn't matter what race, what age, or what gender you may be, you're going to be making decisions based on data that is influenced by your race. You're going to be influenced by cultural values learned early and reinforced often. You're always going to be viewing your world thru that filter. This doesn't mean you have to 'act' racist, but even defining what is or is not a racist action will tend to vary depending on your race. Back when I was a younger fella (circa the Bronze Age), I worked in a fast food restaurant. One day, a couple (of race A) complained that the young lady (of race B) serving them was treating them in a racist manner. Specifically, she was obviously trying to avoid even touching them (when counting change or handing them their order). She claimed the hand cleanser we were supposed to use was oily and she was only trying not to spread it to the customers. Racist behavior? Maybe, but on who's part?

The facts you've laid out, Q, are pretty much accurate. I don't know about the Irish village, I never came across that one in my studies, but I don't doubt for a minute that it could have happened.

As far as native American tribes were concerned they did practice a form of slavery too. The real crime of the European conquerors, to my mind even worse than slavery of Africans to work the land, was the genocide of the entirety of the extant native population to steal their land. If it happened today the press would cause a popular uprising against all involved. As it occurred, from 1620 until 1900, the press was trumpet cheering on.

If my math is correct less than 160 years ago a US Court in St Louis ruled that Dred Scott had no standing to sue to retain his freedom because he was black and could never be a citizen. Essentially the court ruled he was not even a person. You are right Q that racism abounded North and South up to, and after, the Civil War.

Stating facts is not racism!

The vast majority of Americans are racists. (Black, White, North and South)

This country was founded on the premise that non-White people have no rights that White people are bound to respect. Europeans came to someone elses country, moved in, took over, and murdered anyone who resisted. Their behavior was acceptable because they believed that non-White people lived beyond the grace of god. (like the other lower animals) They attempted to enslave the Native Americans. But it is difficult to enslave someone on their home turf, in a isolated and hostile environment. So they imported Africans. Our founding fathers are murders and rapists and child traffickers. The average American is simply not civilized enough to be embarrassed or ashamed. In fact they are proud. They believe they can compare themselves favorably with the worst that humanity has to offer. There is a reason why so many Americans (particularly Southerners) believe in capital punishment, just like other brutal people around the world. We emprison a larger percentage of our population than other industrialized nations. We spend more on the military than all other nations. We are a barbaric people.

Europeans/Americans proved to be the consumate predators. They turned oppression and exploitation into "high art". Like all predators, they have no honor, or integrity. They simply prey on the weak and helpless. There is a reason why predators go after the young, the old and the infirm. The only thing predators respect is larger predators. Non-White people around the would do well to arm themselves, or Americans are guaranteed to attempt to intimidate, butalize and murder them for their land, resources, and/or cheap labor. (without an ounce of remorse)

The "Southern way of life", isn't just about economic exploitation. It's about a culture of brutality and dehumanization. It's a predatory culture adopted by all who grow up here, or are influenced by the good old U S of A. People who live with predators learn to think like predators or prey or both. (smaller predator are often the prey of larger predators). And Southerners attempt to perpetuate the image of gentility, by ignoring the underpinnings of the culture. They focus on the benefits to the white economic elite, and ignore the cost to both Blacks people, and poor White people. Even today, White Southerners are trying to convince everyone to honor their White Southern ancestors, who fought for the right to enslave and oppress the ancestors of their Black neighbors. Now that's true "Southern hospitality and graciousness"! Southerners are the kind of people that will spit in your face, on a regular basis, but they do it with a "warm" smile.

Robert

When I was born I didn't get to choose my great great grandfather, the one buried in Elmira NY, at the Yankee prison camp. I didn't get to choose my grandfather who baked bread in Mobile and made special loafs to give away in the depression. I didn't get to choose my father who help integrate the schools in Georgia.

What I hear from people is that I have to bear their collective scorn because I was born a son of the south. Well, scorn away, I'm pretty sure I will live.

In fact I live rather well on your scorn and superior attitude. The minute I realize a yankee is taking a superior attitude with me my whole diction and selection of words changes. My wife thinks its a hoot, she is a yankee by the way, I talk slower and drag out my words and make them feel like they are gonna skin this old stupid redneck. It never works out the way they expected.

I'm sorry that the south had slaves, but on the other had I had no choice in the matter, didn't get a vote any more the the people that were brought over. I suppose that Lincoln had the best solution and we should have returned all the black folks to Africa, but I didn't get a vote in that either.

Just sayin, I am only feeling guilty for the things I do and did. Tired of people finding excuses to hate for things that weren't done to them, and certainly by me. The time for crying is over, pick yourself up, brush yourself off and get back in the game.

I knew a guy in college that insisted his home was in Atlanta, O.G. as in 'Occupied Georgia'. He would argue endlessly that 'The War Between the States' was about State's Rights, not slavery. You didn't dare call it 'The Civil War' unless you wanted to set off another rant (which we frequently did). I appreciate what you're trying to do, but facts aren't going to sway this crowd.

I don't think you are a racist.

I have a mixed opinion of your description and view of slavery. On one hand, you are absolutely correct that slavery is one of the most pervasive aspects of human society in history. Virtually all cultures, at one time or another, practiced slavery in some form. It is also true that slavery, even in the America's, existed primarily to meet an economic need. It is also true that slave traders were not primarily from the South (although the importing of slaves had been banned nation-wide early in the 19th century, so most slave traders at the time of the Civil War were a) not Americans and b) smugglers).

It is also true that that the majority of slaves were sold to European's by other Africans, which brings me to my chief criticism. In your paper (and by most people when discussing slavery), there is no distinction made between slavery in different cultures. All slaves were not treated equally. You mention Moses, who was a slave in ancient Egypt. Egyptian slavery, though, was a considerably different parctice that slavery in the US. Egyptian slaves had numerous legal rights, were allowed to own property, and were considered to be just as human as their owners. The biblical account of Moses killing an Egyptian for beating a Hebrew is suspect, as beating a slave (even your own) was a serious crime in Egypt.

Slaves in the South, on ther hand, enjoyed no legal protections of any kind. This is much more like Roman slavery than Egyptian, and it is the latter that was practised by Africans in the 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, and is more prevalent in history. American slavery was by no means the only slave system in history, but it was among the most brutal and oppressive, and existed in a time when slavery was not only relativly uncommon, but in a society that viewed itself as being exceptionally just and compassionate.

The South is frequently criticized for slavery, frequently to excess. But the fact remains that the South practiced a system of oppression that was, even by the standards of the time, cruel, opressive, and amoral, and fought tooth and nail to preserve that system. That is something that Southerners cannot forget. It is a stain that can never be erased.

Trust me. I'm German.

QHML1 don't use verifiable facts it just angers and confuses people that have already made up their mind. You have to laugh at the sheer lunacy of it.

I don't have a problem with your reasoning. Shango I do have a problem with.

Didn't this open a debate, and for me personally touched on something that has been niggling away at me recently, so I'm going to air my views just a little. Britain (and others in Europe) have a glorious history that we now seem to be increasingly ashamed of. I won't go into extensive details, but will recount a recent visit to Greenwich in South east London, which apart from being the centre of the earth (OK, so that's where the zero meridian is) is also where I was born quite a few years ago. I visited the Maritime museum, which I remember from my youth as being THE place to go and find out about the glories and wonders of 'our' (and we share a lot of that with 'you' lot over there) naval history and all it's wonderful and memorable victories, that made the great in Great Britain. Think of Nelson, Trafalgar, Drake and if you want, more recently, the sinking of the Bismark and even more recently the successful retaking of the Falkirk islands, the longest ranging invasion force ever to be attempted, and possibly the last of any size.

I was astonished at the museum, and very disappointed, to find that the glorious museum of my childhood had been turned into, by the current custodians, to a mass apology for all that we see in todays eyes, that our ancestors did wrong. RUBBISH!

Ok, so times were hard and awful things happened, but to judge what happened in years gone by, by todays standards is stupid beyond belief, but that is what we seem to be intent on doing these days throughout the western world, and that's why this story (from an author that I follow) touched a cord with me.

I've said enough -finished! Well done anyway.

. . . for the well-written piece. I'm not a historian, so I don't vouch for the accuracy of your historic summary. I nonetheless appreciate that you care enough to write and post it, and I very much appreciate the fact that it will continue to stimulate thought and conversation. From my point of view, we are all slaves; we are all oppressors; we are all thieves; we are all victims and survivors. There is no reason for any of us to disown any part of our collective history. Thanks for adding to the conversation.

Your reasoning is also highly flawed. The "Everybody is doing it excuse"? Puh-leeze! By your own admission, every atrocity EVER committed is okay. The bit about your folks never owning any Slaves DID NOT lessen the point they fought tooth and nail for others to do so. But thanks for the heads up! I can now skip your stuff. Yeah, the South shall rise again because, for the most part, shit floats!

EXCELLENT!!!! Only the near sighted will not agree with your examples.

Hello again, and to answer those who asked or sent me feedback about the "House" I meantioned in Washington DC.

1. I don't know the name of the house. As far as I know it doesn't have a name.

2. I don't know the address of the house, I just know it is there. So do the police and the newspapers who raided and reported on the story.

3. It is just that... a House; a dwelling, a resedence. a place where one is supposed to live. It's not a titty bar or club.

The pictures you will find show a brick faced upper middle class house on a main street. When raided, they found fifteen undocumented women from east aisa and former soviet block countries.

But... that isn't the point. The point is, that it, and many others like it exist, are known by the powers that be, and can do a successful business in human sexual SLAVERY in the capital of this nation that proponets FREEDOM!

Thank you

Myhands316

Take a look at the Emancipation Proclamation you folks from the North and South. Especially as to who was "freed" from the bonds of slavery. If you see that only the slaves in the rebellious states where freed, than what of those in the North. That's right, they remained slaves.

"Despite this expansive wording, the Emancipation Proclamation was limited in many ways. It applied only to states that had seceded from the Union, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy that had already come under Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union military victory." (http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/emancipation_proclamation)

This brings up a different aspect of the Bill of Rights. Specifically the taking of property without just compensation. Can the descendants of the persons who slaves were freed now sue to the federal government for this compensation? And what measure of damages would be used? The price at the slave block auction or the economic loss that is associated with a loss of use. i.e. The taking of an viable business is not that of just the block and mortar of the building, but can also include loss profits.

Just saying, that you should think and research before you mimic the teachings of your schools. The Emancipation Proclamation did not free all the slaves in the United States, even though that is the impression that is being served to the masses.

As an aside, but could be the thought process of the people living at that time. Some 100 years earlier, these people forefathers penned the following thoughts:

"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." Hmmm, the right to alter or abolish a government. Kind of radical don't you think. The quote is from the Declarations of Independence. Yes, that document that purports to allow the "Colonies" to succeed from Great Britain, but which we latter learn from the Civil War that succession is not allowed.

Thanks.

Indentured servants DID in fact want to come America. The indentured period of servitude paid for their transport to the "New" World. Their servitude may have been — and was often — unpleasant but there was a light at the end. Not true for slaves. For them, there was no light.

The New Mind of the South by Tracy Thompson

review: http://www.alternet.org/culture/what-everyone-should-know-about-south

and I think that you were right in pointing out, for example, that the triangle trade was a big money maker for northerners, northern ship captains brought the slaves back from Africa, they transported the rum that slaves created down in the caribbean, it was all tied in, northern woolen mills used southern cotton, and so forth. And the fact is that northerners were not majority abolitionist, abolitionism only really gained fire when the fugitive slave acts came into being, and northerners were angry at their sovereignty being violated, in part thanks to the Senate giving the south a lot of sway (there were more southern senators then northern ones, thanks to the 2 senators per state).

However, there is also a lot to be said about slavery you didn't get into. One of the reasons the southern states seceded was not because of abolition (they knew it wouldn't happen, not with the power they had in the senate), it came about because they wanted slavery to expand. It is all great and good to talk about 'king cotton', but a lot of wealth was made in selling slaves into new territories, the 'old south' , virginia, the carolinas, georgia, made a lot more money selling slaves as product to new territories then it did in cash crops (Macpherson and others talk extensively about this). They seceded because they had been stymied in selling slaves into new territories, and felt that if they seceded, new territories could be established as slave states under the confederacy. Keep in mind that bringing new slaves from Africa had been banned since about 1809 or thereabouts, so what was here was a self replicating supply.

What made the slavery so bad was as others said, because slaves were a product to be sold, that farmers weren't just using them on their plantations, slave families could be and were broken up (which has some part of the blame of the problems with black families to this day), slavery elsewhere did not take chattel slavery to the levels it was in the south in the US. The north had slaves, and most places didn't outlaw it until not that long before the civil war, but it was rare, there were only a tiny number of slaveholders or slaves up north, in part, because northern farmers and industrialists didn't want to compete with slave labor.

The major difference? In the south, if you were a slave, you were a slave for life, and so were your kids, you grandkids, and so forth. In most states down south, you couldn't even legally be freed after about 1815, they had banned that (not in all areas)......that kind of slavery, where it was passed down from parents to children, was unique to the south. Someone mentioned indentured servants, what that left out is that indentured servitude lasted only a specified period of time, it was not lifetime, and in many cases it was arranged because the person wanted to emigrate,and made the deal to be a servant for 7 years or whatever, to pay off the cost of passage. Others, like Scots after the war with england in the mid 18th century, were sent here in exile as indentured servants.

The other problem with the antebellum south was it was not a democracy, it was an outright aristocracy. Among other things, the rules down south were such that to vote you needed a certain level of property, and it was not small, so in effect, only the well of planters and larger independant farmers could vote (little known fact: the secession and the war itself was never put to a plebiscite, the legislators voted it, not the people) You had a small group of well off people, and most others were pretty darn poor. Slavery probably hurt most people in the south, no yeoman farmer could compete against slave labor, and given they had slave labor, and could easily trade for what they needed with the north, the south never developed any real industrial base, that might have provided jobs and economic benefits outside king cotton and slavery, that would have benefitted a much larger base. When southerners glorify the CSA, they are ignoring the fact that chances are, as with your ancestors, QHM1, that they probably were pretty poor, given they didn't own slaves, and that what the CSA represented was maintaining what made them poor (the poor bastards who fought in the civil war believed they were doing the right thing, and if you ever read Shelby Foote, you would appreciate the sacrifice those men made, how valiantly they fought, for a system that hurt them. And as in all wars, the people they were fighting for, the plantation class, themselves didn't fight all that much...).

There also is the post civil war Jim Crow, but that is another topic.

History is rarely black and white, and the north had its own problems with race and such, still do, but the reality of slavery in the south meant that comparing it to other forms, or even that the north had slavery, is not an even comparison, that southern slavery, 'their peculiar institution', was very, very different then what had come before, in its scope and yes, brutality, because slaves were property, to be sold like a cow, and because it was an inherited thing. Keep in mind the sheer number of slaves, there were more slaves in the confederacy then free people (ever wonder why a slave counted as 3/5 of a person in the census? Now you know why, there were more slaves).

and pick out which ones were written by dumb as shit s southern red neck mother fuckers

You didn't mention "human trafficking". Out here in CA it is big business today, as it is in many parts of the world. I thought your comments were right no the mark.

Thanks

But I think we should still speak out against it, treatment of Native Americans, company towns, Nazis, sweat shops, etc.. This stuff tends to creep back once you lay off. In a early draft of the Declaration of Independence, there was a line about British introduction of slavery to the colonies. By that time most nations knew it was wring. We may of had reasons, but no excuses. BTW, love your writing.

As with most things, there are a lot of folks who will not want to be confused with the facts!!

I've been doing research on early ferries across the mid Hudson, primarily in the era of the horse powered ferry (roughly 1815-1840). As I investigate ferry service on various crossings, I find over and over that before the introduction of the horse ferry there were ferries on these crossings rowed by slaves. Slavery was not abolished in New York until 1827, about 34 years before the outbreak of the Civil War.

And again we have a bunch of people who can read but fail to comprehend. If you take a look at what the author wrote, and look at it objectively, you'll see he was saying the South shouldn't be the ONLY ones being blamed for slavery. There was more than enough blame to go around, but everyone focuses on the South as this 'superevil'. And the funny part is how people are claiming slaves had it worse during this time period than any other time period. Wow, what a bold claim! I know I'm not a big history buff, but wasn't there a time when slaves were routinely put in a coliseum to fight each other or vicious animals for the mere amusement of their captors?

And we can't forget how it was the Europeans who introduced slavery to the African people....oh wait, they already did that. When one tribe was beaten by another, weren't the survivors taken as slaves?

Sigh, slavery isn't new, or something 'white' people made up to help keep all the other races down. If you truly believe that, you're doing more to keep your race down than any 'white' person ever could.

So next time you think of how bad slavery is and want to jump up and proclaim how bad the South was, take some time and think about all the different parts that made up the system that allowed slavery to exist and remember. If not for the entire system; from the collectors, to transporters, to the end users; slavery wouldn't have been the huge thing it was, in this country at least. So spread that hate for it around to all the parts, not just one segment of the whole atrocious system.

Quote from qhml1

"So, while the South gets belittled, they were ultimately only the end users in a long chain of misery"

ONLY the end users???? Without the end users (buyers) imported slavery into the US colonies would have been almost non existent. That "long chain of misery" would have been almost non existent in my opinion.

Imagine, if you will, if no one purchased drugs in this country (imported cocaine, heroine, etc.).

The end user/buyer is the reason why the market exists in the first place.

why is there so much feminist, anti-racist, and working class history around?

What utter garbage---it was okay for Southerners to have millions of slaves because other people had slaves, too? Really? Anti-Semitism has existed for centuries---does that excuse Hitler and the Holocaust? Murder has existed since Cain and Abel---does that justify every murder today? "Little Timmy punched his sister in the face, so I can do it too!!!" is little-kid logic. Slavery is wrong, and indefensible.

Harry you are the dumbest person on here. States entered the union voluntarily and they can leave voluntarily. Read the book: the south was right. It sheds some light on the facts. History is only written by the winners.

the south declared war on the u.s.a.too protect their slavery.and still try to fight the war.

As another comment mentioned, industrial child abuse was @ 30 years after the Civil War. Likewise, Vanderbilt and Morgan made their fortunes long after this war. So when you string together 'facts' they don't necessarily support your argument.

Again, another comment went into interesting detail regarding what the southern plantation owning class did to slaves. The bullet point here is that Southern slavery was harsher than any slavery in history. No other historical slavery sucessfully tore away the slaves existing culture so thoroughly. Most historical slavery was for a finite number of years, and at least held out hope that your children would not be slaves.

The one place in the South that, a little bit, escaped this harshness was New Orleans, where a substantial pre-war class of non-slave blacks existed. Where a tiny amount of African culture survived, in New Orleans, it led to the only Amercian musical form,... jazz.

And here's the kicker that the, "I'm colorblind; pat me on the back; we don't need to talk about race" folks won't acknowledge: This slavery harshness has consequences even today, that still require public policy to address. Disproportionately larger than average visits to Mickey D's is the absence of culture, not a culture. The criminal justice system remains the biggest example of institutional racism.

This is not some acient history book issue. I was raised in Atlanta. I can take you to a forgotten corner of that modern source of civic pride, the huge Lenox Square mall, and show you boarded up, covered over, former Colored Bathrooms.

The way things are going now the South may very well rise again. This time most of the mid-western states will join. Have you seen the red state map lately? People are getting more fed up by the day.

The pure hypocrisy of some of your readers never fails to amuse me - Harry's comments and those of the Anonymous before him immediately come to mind. They're very quick to point out the "despotism" of the West, quickly shifting to scapegoat the Southern USA and ONLY the Southern USA, but the simple fact is that every single country on the planet has indulged in it, some on a scale that makes the freaking South look like a bunch of puling naughty choirboys. Let's recall exactly which slaving nations colonized the USA and had continental reknown shipping industries built on stolen lives. The only true innocents were the slaves, not their white owners, and not their black sellers.

Let's also remember that it wasn't just the south that indulged in slavery but the north as well, and the north that directly profited from the national financial mega-boom that was King Cotton in those early days. The founding fathers certainly had their failings - they drafted this lovely document about the rights of men... yet somehow those rights did not include THEIR VERY OWN SLAVES. OR THEIR WOMEN.

Yeah, so keep on making excuses, Anon & Harry. Blame it all on the South. Claim that anyone who acknowledges reality is a crypto-fascist or some other idiotic labeled designed solely to make you feel better about your enlightened state. As someone whose history is Northern, whose heritage lies partly among the slaughtered natives of this country, and who sees hypocrisy for what it is, I have nothing but fuck yous for your scapegoating.

Two Cents Plus

Like Harry write responses longer than the article, drivel as usual from that source.

Too bad we can't post a "1" for the commentors.

Here is a real kicker. Do you know that most Senators drive by a house of slavery to get to work everyday? That's right! In the middle of Washington DC there is a KNOWN house of slavery... sexual slaves from all over the world. In one state, one of the old Govenor's Resedence's is now a house of slavery... Nope, not in the south, but the enlightend West. Do you realize that there are over a thousand Slaves captured every year off American streets? Don't believe me? Look at the news. Look for a college co-ed that disipears into thin air. Look at the laws being passed in states that"Allow for sexual slaves to have all past charges dropped if the can prove thier sexual slavery." These are not isolated cases. You can find them in every state, every city... yes, even in your city. Yes, there were thousands of Black Slaves, but... let us not forget the millions of WHITE slaves, Mexican Slaves, Europian Slaves, Aisian Slaves.... I think I've made my point. Oh, and as a matter of fact, neither side in the "War of Aggression" hands were clean. Both were wrong and both were right, depending on the individual issue.

Myhands316 Chattanooga TN.

QHML1 as a big fan of your stories (except for the last one!!). I really didn't even notice your comments about the south and slavery. As a northerner now living in Central Virginia.... who had three ancestor that fought for the union... I am familiar with both sides of the argument and the cultural differences and the perceptions behind the civil war. I belong to three civil war round tables.. CWPT.. the CIVIL WAR SOCIETY .. and I am a founding member of NORTH AND SOUTH MAGAZINE which over the last several years has become the leading historical and intellectual magazine on the US civil war in American history.

I would not say that you are a apologist for the south or that you are an neo confederate which is very common among the ignorant tea party hacks which seem to dominate much of the Deep south these days. But you come close.

That being said let's take a couple of other facts which often get left out from the southern redneck revision KOOKS which dominate the conservative and republican party and these days.

The confederate states of America was a vile disgusting and deeply repulsive 'thing".

I am extremely proud and happy that guys like William Sherman George Meade and Sam Grant did everything they could to crush destroy and rip up the Deep south . The act of secession was and is unconstitutional and the CSA acts were traitors and unAmerican and in my view essentially crypto fascist.

Your points about child labor and sweatshops in northern factories in the late 1800s is all very true and very accurate. It is also completely irrelevant and just a red herring for people like you to divert us from the reality.

The historical record of the speeches given by Jeff Davis as well as the confederate vice president and all of the state resolutions on secession clearly state the primary reason why the relieving the union was because of the issue of slavery. They believed that because they lost the election of 1860 that the only way to preserve their institution and the economic system-- which is what slavery was-- was to leave the union.

In fact he only way to destroy slavery was for the slave states to leave the union. If they had stayed in the union they had enough political power certainly within the senate to block any sort of abolitionist legislation for the next 30 to 50 years.

The distance from Western Texas to Washington, DC is greater than the distance from Paris to Moscow and if Napoleon had not been able to win and conquer that sort a distance with his great military genius... Surely no one could conquer the CSA.

ENTER SAM GRANT.

In this day and age with most of the conservative movement filled with deep race hatred against the first African American president... it common for tea party hacks and the libertarian kooks to assert that the CSA was a glorious thing... And since the civil war the country has been losing its soul and marching towards a socialist state which has arrived now with Obama. I would NOT go that far but I am NOT going to deny that there are certain aspects of American history since world war two and with the current president which are the essence of big government . And I am NOT going to deny the wearing a way of certain civil liberties by both republicans and democrats.

But the South did not try to leave the union because as they " just wanted to be left alone". Holding onto institution such as slavery given the declaration of independence and what the words were supposed to mean... is a inherent contradiction.

You may have the right to look the Porn in your own home without the government knowing . You have the right to smoke marijuana in your own home without anybody knowing .

You do not have the right to be left alone and own people.

As a student of history, I acknowledge that you have penned an accurate, albeit, sparse, history of slavery. However, you have failed to acknowledge that there were numerous Europeans who held sway over the Africans who assisted with the slave trade, because they promised that in exchange, those tribes who assisted would not be treated to the same brutality as their brethren. European encroachment upon the African continent decimated tribes through war and disease. Why did they invade that vast continent? So that they could steal its wealth of knowledge and natural resources, just as they often continue to do today. Who controls the diamond mines, the gold mines, much of the oil that is produced in countries such as Ghana? Westerners. Who benefits from this production? Westerners. Whenever a country's government makes an attempt to stop the blatant exploitation of its people and its wealth, what happens? Westerners intervene, and arm a greedy "rebel" who is willing to take his country to hell for the sake of lining his pockets.

The southerners were not mere "end users." They were evil despots who embarked upon an unprecedented and systematic brainwashing scheme designed to rob the slaves of their families and their identities for the purpose of ensuring that they would become a permanent underclass. This scheme was brutally enforced as they ripped babies from the arms of their mothers, raped wives in front of their husbands and children, sold entire families apart from one another and turned even the institution of marriage into an unenforceable matter of convenience for the "master." They used slaves like breeding cattle, forcing them to have intercourse so that they could breed larger, stronger slaves, and then used brutality to enslave their minds so that they could tamp down their own fears of their bodies. They imposed ignorance upon a people that has been the most inventive upon the earth. Read about Willie Lynch. Maybe it will open your mind.

In addition, westerners have usurped African culture and invention, claiming to have fathered modern medicine when Hippocrates wrote that he was a "child of Imhotep," a royal black African architect who oversaw construction in Egypt and cared for the resulting wounds of the workers there (including some slaves). Who, then, was Hippocrates? A translator. They also claim to have fathered mathematics, when disciplines such as Algebra and Calculus were invented, again, by black Africans. Africans of the Kush Empire founded Greek culture. Africans of the Nubian and Kush Kingdoms founded China. Africans of the Nubian Kingdom founded the cultures of Japan, Pakistan and India. This is just to name a few.

White southern slaveholders had the temerity to use Christianity to tell the sons and daughters of Africa that God wished for them to be enslaved, when they were God's first people. They claim to have fathered Christianity, when the Roman Catacombs clearly show that both Jesus and the disciples were black Africans. The tribe of Israel? Black Africans. Adam and Eve, Moses, Abraham, Joseph, etc., etc.? Black Africans. The oldest and most pure-blooded Jews in the world were found in Ethiopia and India. The rest mixed with Europeans, to create the hue with which you are more familiar today, but African hair still defines their history. By the way, Semite means biracial. Why do I know these things? Science and Anthropology show that there were no white people at those times and in those places. Contemporaneous art shows that these historical figures were not white.

The greatest shame of all? Whites are albino black Africans, who would still have a stake in each of these discoveries, even if they allowed the rest of the world's population to take part in them. Yet, they would rather hoard these things for themselves, and tell black Africans (among other people) that they have no place in history, and that they invented nothing, when Europeans were cave dwellers at a time when Africa was teeming with large and wealthy cities that were the center of learning and culture. Where are those places today? Europeans attacked and burned them, killing intelligent leaders and stealing whatever knowledge they could and setting those people back for generations.

By the way, I don't care whether your people were sharecroppers. They still received benefits through the mere lack of competition by the descendants of slaves due to the imposition of Jim Crow laws, institutional racism and substandard schools.

Yes, slavery is found throughout history. Yet, I challenge you to find another time in history when slaves were treated with the same measure of brutality, and kept in ignorance with the same willful determination as that which occurred in the United States. Slaves were upwardly mobile in other societies, often freed after a certain amount of service or allowed to marry to a non-slave and end their servitude. They were given positions of trust (think Joseph in the Bible) and could, through their service, expect to better their position in life. You see, kingdoms such as Rome may have been brutal, but they did not forget that their slaves were human. That was non the case, here.

I know that you meant well by publishing this essay, but truly your perspective has shown me that you have very little knowledge of true diversity. Please take the time to stop by a site called diversityinc.com. It was founded by a white male baby boomer who had to learn diversity to perform his function in the military. He has made it his mission in life to help all people to understand that diversity and inclusion help us all to profit and to flourish. Perhaps then you will better understand topics such as slavery and white privilege, as even in your learned dissertation, you have displayed a profound ignorance of these subjects, among others.

Qhm1, History is studied for a reason. Those who ignore historical fact pay the price at some point for their ignorance, and certainly look like total fools to anyone with a clue. Giving background historical information in a story is a great thing. Don't pay attention to the ignorant knee jerk idiots -- they are always around to plague us just like our ignorant moronic politicians...

as one 'good ole boy' said; "iffin we knew then, what we knneow now, we woulda picked our own damn cotton." As far as rising goes, the South now has manufactoring, dirty cities, corrupt politics, pollution and exploding populations. We still like BBQ, long necks, pretty girls and the weather is a whole lot better than in the Nawth. Can I get a Hell Yeah!!

No, I have never been a slave, owned a slave, nor know anyone who has been or owned one. That "Peculiar Institution" is gladly gone, yet the remnants sadly remain.

Thanks for all your writing (even tho I do not enjoy your Hogue series.)

I have many friends and relatives that live in places other than the South and invariably when we visit them, we encounter those who think that all white Southerners condoned slavery or even perpetuate it today. Those poor deluded and ignorant souls are a product of a historical bias enforced by the media and even our own goverment. Again, Bravo to an excellent writer. Looking forward to your future postings.

Everything you said is true, so why would anyone want to deny facts? It always amazes me that people live on lies, just look at the political situation in this country. If you repeat a lie often enough it becomes reality for some. Sad, but true. Oh, yes people throw rocks just because it makes them feel better. They want to live in a world of fantasy rather then admit their own shortcomings. Author you're becoming one of my favorite writers. I always enjoy your stories. They entertain, and that's what reading on this site is all about, at least to me. Thank you for your efforts.(ML)

i think that nearly every human, if able to trace the family tree back far enuff, would find an ancestor who was a slave. The industrial revolution essentially started the end of slavery. (not of the sexual variety) As long as greed and the other 7 sins exist, there will always be some kind of slavery. extortion is another form in my opinion. and don't discount how people like to feel self righteous.