Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Slavery - Not Exactly a Moral Problem, But a Political Issue For the North



            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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