Slavery existed in ALL of the original 13 States and was explicitly recognized by the US Constitution. The Confederate constitution specifically forbade the importation of negroes. The first state to legalize slavery was Mass in 1654. The first state to oppose slavery was Virginia.
The first slaves were native-Americans, then both black and white indentured servants. White indentured servants were poor working people who could not afford to pay for their passage to America. They were required to work for their masters for 7 years to pay their debts. In many cases their owners cheated them and required them to continue working after the original contract had expired.
The Georgia Colony began as a white penal colony where the exiles were little more than slaves. These white exiles were sent to Georgia for the crime of being poor and were forced to work in the first chain gangs on government plantations.
When the agricultural colonies proved unable to supply the quota of products demanded by the Federal Government (England); negroes were imported by the English Crown.
Originally the blacks were indentured servants who were allowed to work out a contract or buy their freedom after a certain period of time. The first slave-owner to demand that slaves be held for life was a black man; himself a former slave who had bought his freedom and had later become a prosperous slave owning planter.
American slave ships were based out of Mass., New York, and Rhode Island. The South owned no slave ships, nor did it import negroes directly through it's ports. Even though the Constitution banned importation in 1808, New England continued to import slaves illegally right up until 1860 That year, 15,000 were smuggled in thru New York harbor.
Many Southern slaveowners saw slavery as a necessary evil that they hoped could be phased out of existence over time.
The radical abolitionists did more to bring about the war than any other cause. Their open and deliberate action to incite murder and rebellion caused both sides to hate each other and brought about the end of any hope for a peaceful resolution.
Prior to their meddling in the internal affairs of the Southern States there were more anti-slavery societies in the South than the north. These societies worked with their state legislatures to secure more rights and protections for the Negroes and were working towards the gradual, peaceful end of slavery. The first abolitionist newspaper was printed in the South shortly after the war of 1812. By 1840 there were more free blacks in the South than in the north.
Dwight L. Dumond - considered the leading historian of the antislavery movement of his era- traced northern abolition efforts to the pioneering efforts of three Southern abolitionists: Charles Osborn, John Rankin, and Elihu Embree.
The first integrated army in the continental U.S. was the Confederate Army. Approximately 65-90,000 Blacks served in the field. By law they received the same rations, clothing and pay as their white counterparts. As of Feb. 1865 there were 1,150 Black seamen in the Confederate Navy. 15,000 Hispanics and 3,500 Jews also served in the Confederate military.
The first military monument in the U.S. Capitol that honors a Black soldier is the Confederate monument at Arlington National Cemetery, which was designed by Moses Ezekial, a Jewish-Confederate, in 1914. He wanted to correctly portray the racial makeup of the Confederate Army. A black Confederate soldier is depicted marching in step alongside the white troops. There is also a depiction of a white soldier giving his child to a back woman for safe-keeping.
The Confederacy was the first to officially free the slaves. In 1863, Confederate general Patrick Clebourne advocated officially enlisting Negroes into the Southern army and granting them their freedom. Numerous other generals approved of the plan including Robert E. Lee. By 1864, President Jefferson Davis approved a plan that proposed the emancipation of slaves, in return for the official recognition of the Confederacy by Britain and France. Although Blacks hadn't been officially enrolled as soldiers, thousands had been voluntarily serving since the beginning of the war. This changed when the South took progressive measures to rebuild it's depleted ranks with the creation of the Confederate States Colored Troops. The law called for the enlistment of 300,000 blacks. Had the South been successful, it would have created the worlds largest army of of black soldiers. This would have given the Confederacy a much different appearance than what modern day racist, anti-Confederate liberals conjecture. Jefferson Davis proposed that Black - Confederates receive bounty lands for their service. In March 1865, Confederate Secretary of State, Judah P. Benjamin promised freedom for blacks who served, and $100 bounty was offered for their enlistment. Benjamin said Let us say to every negro who wants to go into the ranks, go and fight, and you are free. Fight for your masters and you shall have your freedom. Confederate officers were ordered to treat them humanely and protect them from injustice and oppression. In Richmond alone, 83% of the black male population volunteered. Southern slavery was over.
The U.S didn't officially free it's slaves until AFTER the war, in 1866.
HIGH TAXES...THE REAL CAUSE OF SECESSION:
The South paid an undue proportion (87%) of all Federal taxes in 1860. They paid 83% of the $13 million federal fishing bounties paid to New England and paid $35 millon to northern shipping interests which had an iron-fisted monoply on all Southern shipping. The South was paying tribute to the north
The 1860 Republican platform called for much higher tariffs and was adopted by the new congress as the Morill tariff act of March 1861. It imposed the highest tariffs in U.S.. history; over 50% duty on iron products, and 25% on clothing, all tax rates averaged 47%.
The first amendment in U.S. history to be signed by a president was the original Thirteenth Amendment, signed by A. Lincoln. The Joint Resolution to amend the Constitution of the United States, approved March 2, 1861. Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Legislatures of the several States as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by three-fourths of said legislatures, shall be valid, to all intents and purposes, as part of said Constitution, viz.: Article Thirteen.
... No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorise or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.
NOTE: If the reason the South fought the War For Southern Independence was to protect slavery, as modern historians allege; then, why didn't the Southern States just stay in the Union and ratify the amendment which had been passed by the Northern controlled Congress OVER A MONTH BEFORE THE FIRING ON FORT SUMPTER???
Under Federal legislation, the exports of the South have been the basis of the Federal revenue. Virginia, the two Carolina's, and Georgia, may be said to defray 3/4 of the annual expense of supporting the Federal government; and of this great sum, annually furnished by them, nothing or next to nothing is returned to them, in the shape of government expenditures. That expenditure flows in an opposite direction-- it flows north, in one uniform, uninterrupted and perennial stream. This is the reason why wealth disappears from the South and rises up in the north. Federal legislatation does this. ...Senator Thomas Hart Benton
When asked by Horace Greely why he didn't just let the Southern States go in peace ; A. Lincoln replied, I can't let them go. Who would pay for the government?
The northern onslaught upon slavery was no more than a piece of specious humbug designed to conceal it's desire for economic control of the Southern States. ...Charles Dickens 1862
Honest Abe ON SECESSION:
Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable a most sacred right, a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government, may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much territory as they inhabit. from an 1848 speech given by Abe Lincioln in support of the Marxist Revolt in Europe.
In 1861, Lincoln the consummate politician said that secession was illegal and rebellious. Then without Congressional approval, he ordered the States to supply him with troops to invade the newly formed Confederate States of America; which was recognized as an independent defacto nation by England and France.
Honest Abe The Great Emancipator?
Suspended habeas corpus, ordered the arrest of Chief Justice Taney after his ruling that Lincon's act was unconstitutional, replaced civilian courts with military courts martial and imprisoned 14,000 of his own people because they opposed the war. He also shut down 300 northern newspapers for their opposition to Lincolns war.
