Nicholas Cooke Quotes

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.”

Negotiations regarding the exchange of prisoners and property. This was his view of his supposed obligation to return Negro slaves who had escaped and gone to the British during the war. The treaty of peace specified that all “property” including slaves, taken by, the British be returned to the Americans. But he and other officers did not always do so as they thought they had higher moral obligations. See {621936} for example.

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.

Much of the South was so insular that people knew nothing about the notion of abolition and just assumed that no one would ever consider freeing the slaves. Many never knew that it was the South that first fired on the Union troops and flag. If the North won the war, the assumption was that Northerners would then own the plantations and the valuable slaves. In reality, while all slaves were emancipated in the South, very few plantations and farms were confiscated from their Southern owners by Northerners despite the fact that there was political pressure in the North to confiscate the land of all rebels who had committed treason and use the value to repay the Union bonds and care for the wounded Union veterans and the widows of dead Union Soldiers. Eggleston was an accomplished writer who had served in the Confederate army of the Civil War. 20 year after the war he wrote a series of articles for the prestigious Northern Atlantic Monthly trying to convey the war from the Southerner’s point of view.

This law required the treatment of Blacks as whites were then treated with respect to indentured servitude—a limit of 10 years after which the person would be free. However, this law was poorly enforced. The “General Court” was the name for the legislature of the Rhode Island colony.

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.

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.

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.

In early New England the General Court served as both a legislature and a judiciary before separation of powers was introduced. 5 years later the Court banned importing African slaves at all. While slavery was not common in Rhode Island, the laws was not seriously enforced on those who would defy them. It does represent a public anti-slavery sentiment that existed in Early America. It would take 200 years for Rhode Island to finally eliminate all forms of slavery.

The general issued a military order emancipating slaves in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. President Abraham Lincoln rescinded the order feeling it was too premature and it would cause the slave states that stayed in the Union--Delaware, Maryland, and Kentucky--to go over to the Confederates.

Lincoln had promised amnesty to Southerners who would pledge loyalty to the Union. What many feared was that this would include slave owners re-enslaving their former "property," or that the government would allow them to do so in order to stop the rebellion.

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.

The resolution was transmitted to the Provincial Congress on June 6, 1775 where it was tabled. Essentially this position was taken by the Continental Congress and General Washington—See {614018}—and then Washington reversed himself, {614220}

One of the many complaints that many people made at the time about Smith and his Mormons was that they opposed slavery. In fact, Smith not only opposed it be had a plan for compensating the slave owner and a method for paying for it. Smith was not advocating the kinds of personal lifestyle issues of his church the way modern religious leaders do, but was concerned with the much larger issues of expansionism, corruption of the courts and judiciary, and land distribution. He was a classic reform candidate in that sense. Smith had written to most of the then likely Presidential candidates of both major parties asking for their position on the Mormons who were facing persecution wherever they went. None of the politicians would make any satisfactory commitments. Smith took Direct Action and became the only major religious official to have run for the Presidency of the United States until Pat Robertson tried and failed in 2000. Smith’s assassination shortly thereafter cut his run for the Presidency short before it made much headway and politically he had no chance to affect the race.

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.

Earlier {629154} Smith was much more sympathetic with slavery. His views evolved as you can see by the comparison. He stated that he had a vision and made two prophesies {629156} that indeed came true. The last idea of slave buyouts seemed plausible to many abolitionists initially when they were not really knowledgeable about the economics of slavery. However, once they studied it, it became clear what it would not work even if the Southerners would then be willing to accept Blacks as free laborers which most were not, The two biggest problems were: 1) the international slave trade had been abolished. The only source of new slaves for growth was breeding them. Therefore, having slaves had TWO economic values—the work that they could do and the reproduction of themselves. A critical mass of owned slaves produced an income forever. And for Southerners who were culturally adverse to work (see {629169}), just having cash for their slaves was not enough. They were the servants, the farm labor, and their recreational sex. 2) and most important, the value or the slaves of the South was greater than the economic value of all the land, all the farms, all the buildings, all the factories, and all the inventory of the stores of the South all put together. The Southern slaves were the majority of the wealth of the south. There was no asset that could ever produce enough value to pay for the slaves—even over time. It would be like trying to buy all the shares of all the corporations in America today. There is no asset big enough to raise the money to ever finance it. The idea may have worked in Colonial America or even prior to the outlaw of the international slave trade, but by the time anyone took the idea seriously it was economically no longer feasible.

Parker and other escaped slaves in Christiana fought off slave catchers and killed the slave owner leading them. Charged with treason, he escaped to Canada with his family and lived there the rest of his life. While not a polished writer, after he himself had escaped and went to Christiana and leaned to read and write. He wrote this narrative of his life as a slave—one of the few written works we have from slaves.

Jefferson’s views, actions and inactions regarding slavery are very complex and contradictory. This quotation is one example of the many statements and activities to end slavery. Yet he never freed his own slaves (as did George Washington) and he fathered a child by one of his slaves with no attempt at freeing even her and the child. The Andrew Dickson White article is one of the first serious studies of the Jefferson contradictions regarding slavery.