Leonidas W. Spratt Quotes
Laborers have every disposition to work above the slave, and if there were opportunity would be glad to do so, but without such opportunity they come into competition with him… Already there is disposition to exclude him [the slave] from the trades, from public works, from drays [land transportation of goods], and the tables of hotels; he is even now excluded to a great extent. And when more laborers shall come in greater numbers to the South, they will still more increase the tendency to exclusion; they will question the right of masters to employ their slaves in any works that they may wish for; they will invoke the aid of legislation; they will use the elective franchise to that end; they may acquire the power to determine municipal elections; they will inexorably use it; and thus the town of Charleston, at the very heart of slavery, may become a fortress of democratic power against it.
The letter was also published in the Charleston Mercury, February 13, 1861. Anti slavery sentiment was by no means limited to the North. Moral and competitive objections were made from the earliest colonial times and extended right up to the Civil War.
Leonidas W. Spratt, 19th Century, Editor of The Charleston Mercury, “The Philosophy of Secession; A Southern View, Presented in a Letter Addressed to the Hon. Mr. Perkins of Louisiana, in Criticism on the Provisional Constitution Adopted by the Southern Congress at Montgomery,” Alabama, 1861
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Lincoln, just before the Civil War, quoted Jefferson that if slavery were not ended in America the results would be disastrous. But Lincoln at the time probably did not imagine how right Jefferson was, and Jefferson himself probably 1 how terrible the Civil War would be.
Some whites opposed Slavery and new slave states, not becasue of any sympathy with Negroes or concern for the immorality of slavery, but becasue slavery made it difficult for the working white man to thrive.
Mississippi has always had one of the poorer education systems of the nation. But in the early 20th Century, it was far, far behind other states. It was terrible for whites and abysmal and almost non-existent for Blacks. The Federal Government began some limited aid to education and many segregationists of the South feared that if the money were spent to improve Negro education as well as white education, the Southern, segregationist way of life was threatened. Vardaman was absolutely right to worry for what he and the other racists of the South feared most actually came to pass. See {584325} for another segregationists fear of educating African Americans.
Opposing national attempts to give Blacks the vote in the South:
Ruffin is more widely known as the man who fired the first shot of the Civil War.
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At the time less than 10% of the Southern Blacks were allowed to vote. The result was that Southern segregationists were elected to Congress even in a state like Mississippi which had a majority Black population, The Southern segregationist bloc was large enough that with a few very conservative Republicans, they formed a coalition could block any civil rights legislation including voting rights reform,
This quotation is very interesting historically. Despite the fact that Washington DC was a thoroughly racially segregated city, and the Southern racists controlled much of Congress, Blacks as well as whites were welcome in the Congressional galleries, and they attended many debates. Slavery and equality were not just debated in the 1850s but the issue was in constant friction from the earliest Congress.
The Presidential Palace was under siege by the military with the aid of the American CIA. After making this statement, Allende committed suicide to prevent his being captured and tortured into cooperating with General Pinochet who later was convicted for torture and murder of thousands of Chileans.
This is one of the major reasons that Slavery was so hard to end in the South. At the time, the dollar value of the Southern slaves was greater than the value of all the land, factories, inventory, and capital equipment of the South. Slaves were not only capital, they were the largest component of Southern capital and Southern wealth. There were numerous ideas of paying slave owners for the freedom of their slaves, and if this was done, it would have been far less expensive in money alone than the Civil War cost. However, the Southern leadership, like Fitzhugh, were totally intransient with culture and customs—indeed the Southern concept of manhood—was dependent in Slavery. The result was that no compensation was paid to slave owners and the South was impoverished as a result of its capital loss and it would not recover for 150 years.
