Thomas L. Smith Quotes
It is notoriously true that the public mind is seriously agitated with apprehensions of negroes insurrections and that it is becoming more and more so.
Smith, Thomas L. Letter to the Secretary of War. 1831. Records of the Office of the Secretary of War, Record Group 107, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
This was the same man who as a Senator only 4 years before threatened the North that the South was economically and militarily invincible.
He and other founders believed that Blacks freed from slavery would still suppress wages for whites and hurt industry. The possibility of intermarriage was also viewed as a moral degeneration. Approximately 15,000 Blacks chose to emigrate.
This law is meant to curb the The meetings were parties and other forms of recreation.
Buying furniture and equipment for Negro schools was perceived by the White Population as “squandering public funds”. Web returned with the Militia but no one would testify against the Klan. Huggins left the area and went to the North. The Klan did not kill him, but they accomplished their objective of intimidating all the local people Black and White so that Negro schools would not be furnished and getting rid of the only White who tried to improve Negro schools. The methods of terrorists have not changed much since then.
This quotation shows two important historical facts about Southern Racism. The first is now great the social pressures were against any white who would try and alter the status quo. The second was that none the less there have always been whites in the South who, despite the great social penalties, did the right thing and not only improved the situation, but more important, made most Americans realize that Southerners were not all racists any more than all of any group had any negative behavior.
The racial inequality did cause a Black revolution in the 1960s. The arrival and influence of Martin Luther King, at the time Black revolution might have turned violent, and the willingness of a substantial number of whites to implement the Civil Rights revolution functioned as a safety valve so that there was substantial reform towards much more racial equality.
During the slavery era, the Southern slave holders and politicians were always fearful of the possibility of slave uprisings. In most cases, they were dealt with locally with little attempt to share the information lest other slaves be motivated to follow the practice. In addition many of the slave rebellions of very small groups and individuals were not treated as a slave revolt or protest but was considered the act of a “bad apple” that was dealt with. Further, as much as the slave owners feared slave revolts, they also had a large investment in their slaves and executing all who might have supported a rebellion of a few could cost them a great deal of money or even bankrupt them. Therefore there was always a tendency to kill the leaders but provide lesser punishment for the others so that they could survive and return to work. All these factors have made it very difficult to accurately estimate the extent of slave revolts and protests in the ante-bellum South.
Thomas Long "Pegleg" Smith was a mountain man who, serving as a guide for many early expeditions into the American Southwest, helped explore parts of present-day New Mexico. He is also known as a fur trapper, prospector, and horse thief.
