This is not meant in any way to justify slavery in the South. Few could be more for liberty and against any form of slavery than me. As a Christian libertarian-minded individual, slavery in all forms, wage labor, indoctrination, ownership of human property, etc., to me, are all proof of a fallen world. Even defenders of slavery, such as James Hammond of South Carolina, admitted slavery was not desired. He said no one in heaven is a slave, and any perfect paradise one could imagine would not include slavery. Slavery, Hammond believed, was a result of a fallen world, and only God could abolish it.
What I aim to do is to take the lawyer’s role of defending the South while searching for a more historically accurate depiction of slavery, in this way we can learn the truth about slavery while still condemning it. What follows will not give an entirely fair account of slavery in the South. It is meant only to tell the side of slavery that is not given to the public. For example, a source I will often use is Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project. This collection is made available online by the Library of Congress. It contains thousands of interviews with former slaves and is an excellent first-hand account of slavery from the perspective of slaves themselves. In this collection, and others like it, which I will also use from time to time, you will find some of the most horrific accounts of torture, rape, beatings, mistreatment, neglect, and murder involved with the slave system in the South. These evils did occur. But you will not see me quote any of these examples for two reasons.
The first is because the typical understanding of slavery we are given in schools, newspapers, books, magazines, and documentaries already includes these undoubted facts. So, there would be no gain from repeating or reinforcing that perception. Secondly, I am here taking the role of a lawyer defending a client, so I seek to only present data that puts my client in a better light. This is not lying or an attempt at being misleading, but it is, in our case, telling more of the truth, the parts that are regularly omitted or overlooked.
We all have learned of the worst evils of slavery in the South; this is not the whole picture, and in some ways is misleading. The Northern Republicans demonized the South and slaveowners to help convince the Northern population they were justified in eradicating the agrarian South. If you want to take others’ wealth on a large scale and mold them to your own image, it helps first to degrade those you steal from to justify your actions. This is what the North has accomplished.
So, I assume we all have had this portrayal of slavery given us. This chapter is meant to provide the rest of the picture to provide a fuller, more historically accurate understanding of the slave system to the reader.
James Kennedy points out that we should also keep in mind that the evils of slavery are common to humanity as a whole. Terrible sins that occurred during slavery can happen whenever one sinful human being has power over another, as the totalitarian governments of the past century displayed. As a Christian, I believe the family unit is a good thing, yet it can also be abused. A father murders a son; a wife kills her husband or child; domestic violence, rape, etc. all occur. But that does not make the family unit wrong, only wrong in the way it was used; it misused its intention. It is the same with police; their job and purpose are good, but there will always be abuse in a fallen world with fallen men.
Again, I am not saying that slavery was an ideal institution, like the family or should be promoted as families are. What I am saying is that looking at only the worst examples and then claiming the whole system was like that is deceitful. It might help demonize a particular section or people who differ from us, but it will obscure rather than reveal the full truth. The latter is what I hope to do here.
Slavery, as we are commonly expected to imagine it, was not the condition of the majority of slaves in the American South. In her book A Grandmother’s Recollections of Dixie, Southerner Mary Bryan said of slavery, “No subject has ever been so misrepresented as has this one.” Our modern view of slavery started with the political works of abolitionists before the Civil War and later post-World War 2, when all the survivors of slavery were deceased. While it is true that horrible things happened during slavery, Southern writers would maintain that these were more the exception, than the rule.
A historical understanding of slavery can show us how loving relationships were formed even in adverse conditions. Black and white share a common history that does not need to cause division today. Nothing is used more in modern politics than slavery to divide and conquer “we the people,” to set us up against each other. I hope to unite us, rather than further divide us.
Further, we should not forget the North maintained slavery in various states throughout the War, and many Southern slave owners were native to the North or still lived in the North. In 1860, in Social Relations in our Southern States, Southern slaveowner Daniel Hundley blamed the vast majority of the evils committed against slaves on former Yankees who had bought plantations in the South over the past 50 years. These owners did not inherit slaves but got in the “business,” caring only for money. In Plantation Life Before Emancipation, Southerner R.Q. Mallard wrote, “while there were many honorable exceptions, as a general rule, the Northerners made the severest masters; and the explanation given was that they had not grown up with and formed attachments to the negro.” In his Ottawa speech in 1858, Abraham Lincoln seemed to agree when he said, “Some Northern [men] go South, and become most cruel slave-masters.” Northerner Joseph Ingraham visited the South and agreed when he said of the planters of Mississippi:
“Many of the planters are Northerners… they become thorough, driving planters… Their treatment of their slaves is also far more rigid. Northerners are entirely unaccustomed to their habits, which are perfectly understood and appreciated by Southerners, who have been familiar with Africans from childhood… Inexperience leads him [the Northern planter] to hold the reins of government over his novel subjects with an unsparing severity, which the native ruler of these domestic colonies finds wholly unnecessary. The slave always prefers a Southern master, because he knows that he will be understood by him. His kindly feelings toward, and sympathies with slaves, as such, are as honourable to his heart as gratifying to the subjects of them. He treats with suitable allowance those peculiarities of their race, which the unpractised Northerner will construe into idleness, obstinacy, laziness, revenge, or hatred. There is another cause for their difference of treatment to their slaves. The Southerner, habituated to their presence, never fears them, and laughs at the idea. It is the reverse with the Northerner: he fears them, and hopes to intimidate them by severity.”
Joseph Ingraham, The South-West by a Yankee
Jeb Smith is the author of four books, the most recent being Missing Monarchy: Correcting Misconceptions About The Middle Ages, Medieval Kingship, Democracy, And Liberty. Before that, he published The Road Goes Ever On and On: A New Perspective on J. R. R. Tolkien and Middle-earth and also authored Defending Dixie’s Land: What Every American Should Know About The South And The Civil War, written under the name Isaac C. Bishop. Smith has authored dozens of articles in various publications, including History is Now Magazine, The Postil Magazine, Medieval History, Medieval Magazine, and Fellowship & Fairydust and featured on various podcasts including The Lepanto Institute.
