Slavery
existed in the United States of America and everyone throughout the States was
affected by it one way or another. Individuals of all walks of life either
supported or opposed the institution of slavery for various reasons based on
moralistic ideals, economic agendas, and political reasons. Racism was strong
both in the Northern and Southern States and it was common to hear anti-slavery
views towards the institution, calls for emancipation, but not equality for the
slaves or freedmen. There were Northerners, who supported abolition, while also
stressing no desire for the freed slaves to move into their States in the
North. Free labor for the white race was the desire of the Northerners, which
meant that many did not want the ex-slave to come into competition with it. Northern
displeasure with competition was the driving factor behind high protectionist
tariffs, and cheap slave labor was a problem that they needed to solve. In
order to gain control of the central government to enact Northern political agendas,
the Slave Power of the South had to be stopped from expanding.
The
slavery debates that were rapidly growing during the 1840s were not necessarily
to push the issue as Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “That all men are created
equal.”[1]
No, it is clearly evident that the North was not attempting to elevate the
slaves to equal grounds of all white men through legislation before the Civil
War broke out. Even though the Second Great Awakening did create a movement of
reformers interested in establishing peace on Earth and good will toward men
through freedom, equality, education, and religious reform, abolitionists of
this caliber were the minority throughout the North and South. Politicians also
do not go for the minority vote; they want to be supported by majority of their
representatives and the majority of the white male voters felt superior to the
African race freed or slave inhabiting America.
The
French historian and philosopher, Alexis de Tocqueville, commented on American
racism of the African race during his visit to the United States in the early
1830s. He not only witnessed the “legal barrier” between the two races, but he
also witnessed the prejudice towards the African race.[2]
Naturally, the modern American would expect prejudice to exist in the Slave
States towards the African race; but Tocqueville noticed an even greater degree
of racism in the North. He described that “the prejudice of the race appears to
be stronger in the States which have abolished slavery, than in those where it
still exists; and nowhere is it so intolerant as in those States where
servitude have never been known.”[3]
Despite the North being free from slavery and a land of free blacks,
Tocqueville witnessed segregation in the Northern States that sound much like
the South prior to the 1960s Civil Rights Movement:
It is true, that in the North of
the Union, marriages may be legally contracted between negroes and whites; but
public opinion would stigmatize a man who should connect himself with a negress
as infamous, and it would be difficult to meet with a single instance of such a
union. The electoral franchise has been conferred upon the negroes in almost
all the States in which slavery has been abolished; but if they come forward to
vote, their lives are in danger. If oppressed, they may bring an action at law,
but they will find none but whites amongst their judges; and although they may
legally serve as jurors, prejudice repulses them from that office. The same
schools do not receive the child of the black and of the European. In the
theatres, gold cannot procure a seat for the servile race beside their former
masters; in the hospitals they lie apart; and although they are allowed to
invoke the same Divinity as the whites, it must be at a different altar, and in
their own churches, with their own clergy….The negro is free, but he can share
neither the rights, nor the pleasures, nor the labour, nor the afflictions, nor
the tomb of him whose equal he has been declared to be; and he cannot meet him
upon fair terms in life or in death.[4]
The
South had its institution of slavery and oppressed their slaves in respect to
the free white citizens of the country; however, Tocqueville noticed that
Southerners were more apt to intermingle with their slaves than the Northerners
would with the freedmen.[5]
The slave owners and non-slave owners were known to “sometimes share the labour
and the recreations of the whites.”[6]
This stark contrast between the two sections of the country caused Tocqueville
to question “why the Americans have abolished slavery in the North of the
Union, why they maintain it in the South, and why they aggravate its hardships
there?”[7]
Witnessing that racism was even bigger a problem in the Northern States, he
could only conclude that Northern attacks on slavery was “not for the good of
the negroes, but for that of the whites, that measures are taken to abolish
slavery in the United States.”[8]
Abolitionism
and talks of emancipation during the 1830s and 1840s only created more problems
for the slaves and the free blacks in the North. For the Northerner, they
feared that the freed slave would feel motivated to move north into the States
that supported their emancipation; which would create other problems for both
the white and black race. According to the Ohio newspaper, The Spirit of Democracy, a
New York Senator was quoted as saying that the “abolition of slavery in the
southern States must be followed by a deluge of black population to the North,
filing our jails and poor houses, and bringing destruction upon the laboring portion
of our people.”[9] Not only would the
inundation of ex-slaves wreak havoc on the labor market creating the hated
competition for the Northerner, but according to historian Angela F. Murphy,
fears of racial mixing on such a large scale led to “increasing restrictions on
the rights of free blacks and the solidification of ideas about racial
difference in the North as well as the South.”[10]
Thus, there were many Northerners, who supported anti-slavery sentiments and
abolition, but wanted the ex-slave to stay in the South.
Attacks
on the South’s economic institution of slavery only forced them to dig in
deeper to protect it. Their slave laws became more restrictive to keep their
slaves from being influenced by abolitionist literature, which could incite servile
insurrection. Southerners were not too pleased with Northern do-gooders pushing
Southern slaves to revolt; since they would not be the ones potentially killed
in their sleep they took their freedom. Also, many of the Southerners felt the
North hypocritical in regards to emancipation, since the Northern States “had
elected to gradually end the institution of slavery.”[11]
In fact, Southerners often criticized how and why the North abolished slavery
in their own States. Again, the North was just a racist in the 1840s, if not
more so, than when they initiated emancipation prior to this period. The South
accessed that the North’s true purpose in freeing their slaves was due to the
lack of profitability in the institution of slavery within their borders.
On
November 2, 1849, the Wilmington Journal
published an article written by a Southerner named N.C. Whiteville about the
cause of “the origin and cause of the quarrel between the North and the South,
and the political confusion which pervades our land.”[12]
As Whiteville explains it, the whole problem was economical and a result of the
“Tariff.”[13] Like many other before
and after him, Whiteville expounds on how the Northern States were not ideal
for the type of industry that would benefit from the African based slave labor,
nor were their race of people “well adapted” for their climate in the North.[14]
Since their labor was unprofitable and the white population was increasing to
meet their labor needs, Northern slave owner decided to sell their property to
the South, “lay out their capital in manufactories and employ therein white
labor; they then brought about a system of emancipation, allowing themselves
ample time to transport their slaves South.”[15]
All then was going well for both the Northern and Southern industries until
competition came in between the businessmen. In anti-capitalism form—in which
capitalism would promote free trade and competition that would benefit consumer
prices—Northern businessmen, whose “chief interest became manufacturing… discovered
that they could not well compete with foreign manufacturers;” they attempted to
have the Federal government impose “a high duty” to protect the American
market.[16]
By removing cheaper foreign goods in the American market through these high
protectionist tariffs, Southerners felt that the “agriculturalist of the South [was
being forced] to pay a tax for the support of the Northern manufacturer. It was
calling upon the General Government to advance a local, at the expense of the
general interest. In a word, it would have placed the agriculturalist virtually
in the power of the manufacturer.”[17]
These actions by the Northern manufacturers seeking special favors from their
elected officials to protect their industries, while forcing a high tax upon
Southern industries drove the wedge deeper and deeper between the two sections
of the United States.
This
fight went back and forth in the halls of Washington. Sometimes the Northern
agenda was favored for a while and then the Southern agenda would be pushed
forward. There was a delicate balance of power between the two ideals that
quickly became threatened by new States and territories. The South gained its
political power through the Three Fifths Clause, which increased as the number
of slaves grew and slavery expanded. The North was gaining power through
foreign immigration and with each new Free State to be admitted. Both sides
understood that their political power was dependent on the status of the new
States being either free or slave. This led to the great debates and even war
between the States. Whiteville argued why the North attacked Southern slavery:
But since the North could not
succeed in bringing about a high protective, or prohibitory Tariff, so as to
place the whole American market at its command, it has for a long time been
endeavoring, by a peculiar finesse, to use slavery as the great lever by which
to place the reins of Government into its own hands. And how is this to be
effected? Why, by rendering null and void that clause in the constitution which
allows three-fifths of the slaves to be represented. And how is that to be
effected? Why, by its base and mischievous endeavors to bring about
emancipation in the salve holding States, and to make the General Government an
agent for prohibiting its further progress into the Territories. When either of
those plans shall succeed, the North will have accomplished its long desired
and selfish aim. It will then out-vote the South, and the government of affairs
will be almost entirely under its control. It will then bring about as high a
tariff as its manufacturing interest will demand, or any other measures its
selfish aims may dictate, disregarding the justice due to the South, and the
general welfare of the Union.[18]
Naturally,
the Northern view was similar to their neighbors to the South in that they felt
that Southerners were attempting to control the Federal government to promote
their institution of slavery for economic gains. The Voice of Freedom argued in 1847 that the South also utilized
the tariff in their favor: “When the slave power desires a protective tariff,
it is established; and when it desires it no longer it is destroyed.”[19]
This editorial complained that “there is no permanency in any policy.”[20]
However, this only adds to and validates the Southern commentary that the
problem facing the nation is due to high protectionist tariffs. To further
illustrate this point, the Jeffersonian
Republican, a Pennsylvania newspaper, discussed its fears of the economic
ramifications if a tariff was to be imposed on Richmond, Virginia, iron works
on the Northern market. The article stated that, “The greater cheapness of slave labor, which is used in Virginia,
enables the furnaces to turn out the best
charcoal iron, at as low a price as the Pennsylvania furnaces can turn out
their anthracite iron, which is worth
from three to five dollars per ton less than the former.”[21]
The paper maintains that labor cost of the slave was about $120 a year, while
the annual salary of the white Pennsylvania iron worker was $300 a year.[22]
Without a protectionist tariff and government regulation of their own on
Northern goods, the competition of the slave labor would undermine their profit
margin significantly. Not only was slave labor a problem, so was the cheap
European market. This Northern newspaper expressed an ominous warning that “The
iron maker of Pennsylvania must live on the coarse bread of the Swedes, and the
cheap and scanty food of European iron makers, if they would keep the trade;
and unless they do this, the slave iron makers, alone, will be able to keep the
field.”[23]
Depending
on the Northerner and their agenda, the expansion of slavery was attacked for
various reasons. There were individuals, who felt it immoral and a sin to own
another person; but at the same time, they still felt superior to the slave and
freedmen. Abolitionists who also wanted equality for the black race were the
minority in America; and thus, the politicians were not as motivated to placate
to their wishes to ensure their votes. As a result, the question of slavery
expansion was more of an economic issue that was either supported by one side or
attacked by the other side of the aisle politically until the war broke out
between the States in 1861.
[1]
Thomas Jefferson, “Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776,” The Avalon Project, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/declare.asp.
[2]
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in
America, edited by Bruce Frohnen, (Washington D.C.: Regnery Publishing,
Inc., 2002), 283.
[3]
Ibid.
[4]
Ibid.
[5]
Ibid, 283-284.
[6]
Ibid, 283.
[7]
Ibid, 284.
[8]
Ibid.
[9]
The Spirit of Democracy. (Woodsfield,
Ohio), Chronicling America: Historic
American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress, August 2, 1844,
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85038115/1844-08-02/ed-1/seq-1/.
[10]
Angela F. Murphy, American Slavery, Irish Freedom: Abolition, Immigrant
Citizenship, and the Transatlantic Movement for Irish Repeal, (Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 2010), 12.
[11]
Ibid.
[12]
Wilmington Journal. (Wilmington,
N.C.), Chronicling America: Historic
American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress, November 2, 1849,
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026536/1849-11-02/ed-1/seq-2/.
[13]
Ibid.
[14]
Ibid.
[15]
Ibid.
[16]
Ibid.
[17]
Ibid.
[18]
Ibid.
[19]
The Voice of Freedom. Volume (None), Chronicling America: Historic American
Newspapers. Lib. of Congress, April 8, 1847,
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84022687/1847-04-08/ed-1/seq-3/.
[20]
Ibid.
[21]
Jeffersonian Republican.
(Stroudsburg, Pa.), Chronicling America:
Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress, October 1, 1846,
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86053954/1846-10-01/ed-1/seq-2/.
[22]
Ibid.
[23]
Ibid.
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