Rebecca Latimer Felton Quotes
It was a marvel, an enigma in abolition latitudes, that the slaves did not rise en-masse, at the beginning of hostilities.
Felton, Rebecca Latimer. Country Life in Georgia in the Days of My Youth. Index Printing Company, 1919, p. 89.
There indeed were although the Southerners tended to exaggerate the numbers. However, the more slavery was debated, the more many of the abolitionists came to believe that insurrection and slave rebellion was not only morally justified but was the only recourse that was left by the racist intransigence of the Southern slave holders and politicians.
Darwin was then a very young man, who had personal witnessed the slavery in South America and the Caribbean when he was on his famous expedition on HMS Beagle. See {630961} & {630962}. He was so disgusted with slavery that he hoped there would be armed slave revolutions and takeovers as had occurred in Haiti. Many of the English upper classes were radical when it came to slavery.
This is an important quotation because it shows that slavery was the principle reason that the South succeeded and began their rebellion. In the early 20th century, there was a movement to make the Confederacy and the rebellion more noble by promoting the idea that the Civil War was fought by the South for more lofty reasons such as States Rights, Original Construction, different economic philosophies and the like. This was a more noble cause then the right to deny other human beings their rights, to own other human beings who they could beat, torture, sexually use and even murder them was a pretty selfish and demeaning reason to have started a rebellion that would then cost more Americans their lives than any other American conflict. The succession documents and others of the Southern States and the Confederacy make it clear that slavery was THE issue and fleeting references to any of the others were only made to complain about the potential effect on abolition and the refusal of the abolitionist states to cease aiding and protecting fugitive slaves.
He stated that he had a vision and made these two prophesies that indeed came true. The first was the South Carolina secession starting the Civil War. The second, when the North used former slaves as soldiers who fought their old masters.
The Sally was owned by Nicholas Brown and Company and this voyage was financially unsuccessful with 109 out of 196 slaves dying in board. Brown, of the family that founded Brown University, was discouraged by this voyage and withdrew from the slave trading business. See {641475}. American naval hero, John Paul Jones, served under Hopkins in the American Revolution.
Rebecca Ann Latimer Felton was an American writer, lecturer, reformer, and politician who became the first woman to serve in the United States Senate, although she served for only one day.
