Nancy Isenberg Quotes

By 1863, Negro troops were being used to fill in gaps in the Union forces. Many union generals resisted having colored troops under their command. Thomas, however, welcomed them, and won several major battles where black soldiers were instrumental in victory.

While this assessment was true up until the 1980s. By the 21st century there were almost no serious historians who thought that the motivation of the Confederate States for the Civil War was anything but slavery and the economic impact that abolition might bring. However, one of your advantages having this collection of historical quotations is that you can see for yourself why the Southern states say they were seceding. This following are four of the official secession resolution documents. Read these and you will see that all the claims that there were other major reasons for secession are just attempts to make the Confederacy a little less brutal and greedy. See {621371}, {619793}, {621372}, {621375}

loyalty oath to the King of England His “Ethiopian Regiment” was the first Black military regiment in North America. Soon after, Rhode Island organized a Black military unit—see {613949}.

This quotation explains why so many of the Southern poor so actively supported the racist Slavery system even though they could not afford slaves and received no direct benefit from slavery or the discrimination against free Blacks. The poor were not at the bottom of the totem pole, and therefore had a dignity and social status, that the poor in a racially integrated society never possessed.

After the Civil War and Reconstruction, the American nation was still bitterly divided intelelctually, socially, emotionally and poliotically. In an effort to bring more unity to America, most of the power stucture and the influentials of the nation began to avoid those issues that would divide North and South and try and promote a narrative that both sides might be able to live with. And this is what Zeitz describes in this quotation. America went through a period of Revisionist History that even in the 21st century was held by many people. It wasn't until the middle of the 20th century that the real history and narrative of the Civil War and Reconstrution emerged from the few academics who had all along criticized the fabricated narritive that did unify the country at the cost of historical accuracy and truth. Many scholars point out that the price that America paid for this unity was the Jim Crow era and a century of legalized racism. Much of the nation was built on the labor of Negro slaves and the victims of the slavery era, also bore the brunt of American unity and reconcilliation.

As just one example of Southern States' reasons, see {583044}. Many of the Northern States had passed laws declaring everyone in the state was free and making it illegal to return or assist in the returning of escaped slaves. The Southerners got the Federal Fugitive Slave Act passed which required all Americans to assist in recapturing escaped slaves. It was the Northern States who claimed states' rights were being trampled. The South was vehemently opposed to States' Rights when it came to allowing individual states to decide who was free and who was not. The Southerners had only one fundamental reason for secession—the maintenance of the Negro slavery system on which much of their economy depended as did their sociology, culture, and way of life.

Benjamin was the Confederacy’s strongest proponent for use of Negro troops in exchange for a promise of freedom. Ironically, the racial prejudice of the Southern soldier may well have doomed the South’s last chance for independence. Lee, although he personally favored such a course of action, could not get a general sentiment from the army as a whole.

Washington and his staff had throughout the Revolution wanted to enlist Negroes but were thwarted by the Southern and conservative blocs of the Continental Congress when they tried it in the South. However, they finally succeeded in Rhode Island. Other states followed when it was clear that the Rhode Island experiment had been successful. See {614120} for the policy statement of the legislature and {614119} for the motto and a picture of the Negro regiment. This was however not the first Black military unit in North America. The Loyalist Governor of Virginia had formed a regiment comprised of slaves who he emancipated. See {636965}.

Miller was the first Black American admitted to a Graduate Program—Johns Hopkins—in Mathematics

This letter was signed by a local white Priest and two other leading planters. This quotation gives us a marvelous feeling for what occurred when parts of the South was occupied by the Union Army shortly after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. Minor and his fellows just did not “get it.” The concept of freedom of the slaves was intellectually so foreign to them, that they wanted the Union Army to “compel” the freed slaves to work. They were horrified that slaves went wherever they wanted, and they were most outraged when former slaves who had enlisted in the Army, would “visit” their old plantation setting such a terrible example. The letter gives us a perspective on how difficult it was to change the mental set of Southern Whites and why Reconstruction was so difficult. The year of the letter is somewhat uncertain as the original letter appears to be dated 1862 but the writing is not clear and that date does not comport with the history of the era and we believe 1863 was the correct year. The photograph is of the first official colored troops mustered into the Union Army. They were called the Louisiana Native Guards and contained the ex slaves who went over to the Union side just before the time this slave owner complained. These ex slaves, in uniform, and with arms would sometimes visit the plantations where they and been enslaved, thrilling the remaining slaves and infuriating owners like Minor.

There were so many Blacks fighting for the Americans in the Revolution that the British Commander had to issue a special proclamation which would make slaves of any Negro captured but issued freedom to those who would desert. Despite the greater risk to Negro Revolutionaries than their white counterparts many volunteered and few deserted.

Hammond’s rhetorical tactic was to then argue that it was better to have Blacks be the lower class than whites—hence slavery was a logical conclusion.

When the Confederate Government realized that the Union was planning to arm escaped slaves and induct them into the Union Army, they quickly passed a law that declared any escaped slave who joined the Union Army or wore its uniform was guilty of Treason and would be executed. Most Union Generals one way or another got word to the Confederate Officers that they had better treat all Negro Union Soldiers as prisoners of war. Even President Lincoln warned the South. Butler, however, had a large number of Negro troops in his area and had heard threats of some of the Southerners to execute Black prisoners of war. He had a way of making things very clear, and he was able to prevent murder of any of his Negro troops despite the Treason law.

There was a huge amount of racial interbreeding during the early slavery times of America. Some was consensual as people will be people, but much was the rape of Black slaves my white masters—a concept that was never considered rape by law as one cannot commit a crime against one’s own property. The result after time was every possible combination of white/black mixture. There were names for many of the combinations: Quadroons were one fourth Negro. Octaroons, one-eighth. During and after reconstruction, for purposes of discriminatory law, who was a Negro? The Louisiana “one drop rule” said that if there was ANY trace of Negro ancestry, that person was a Negro and would be discriminated against. Of course, what would happen was that many mixed race children were light skinned and looked white and many were black and all shades in between. It was relatively easy for the lighter skinned “one drop” Negroes to pass as white especially if the left the state. But if anyone accused them of being Negro, they would have been guilty of committing crimes. Some in modern times have little comprehension of how the white plantation slave owners and other whitrd could condemn their own children to a second class life of vicious discrimination, but that is exactly what they did. The great irony here lies with the modern KKK, Nazi, and other White Supremacy Groups. They still hold to the “one drip rule for their viciousness. However, under the one drop rule, almost all of them would be Negroes if they went back far enough, and ALL ARE BLACK under the one drop rule as with modern DNA and genetic analysis, we now know that every human alive today emanated from a Black woman in Africa.

This Civil War recruiting poster was described by the Free Library of Philadelphia as “Civil War recruitment print targeting African Americans by evoking the freedoms granted by the Emancipation Proclamation. Depicts a montage of symbolic scenes centered around an African American Union soldier triumphantly holding up a sword and an American flag with the banner "Freedom to the Slave." He stands near broken shackles upon a tri-color flag adorned with a coiled snake. The flag is tugged upon by one of three joyous slaves freed by an African American soldier. Other scenes depict an African American man reading a newspaper on a rocking chair near a plow and child, African American children entering a "Public School" near a church, and a regiment of "U.S. Colored Troops" marching across a battlefield strewn with dead bodies.”

One of the most amazing things about Abraham Lincoln is the way he grew and matured over time. In 1854 he was not sure that the Negro could be the equal of the white. As he met more Black leaders, saw more, reflected more, and had more responsibility, he grew and developed his views on race. But it was statements like this that led to the great distrust that the very strong abolitionists like Wendell Phillips had in him.