Re: [DL] Freeing the Slaves

[balance@tubas.net]

On Thursday, August 1, 2002, at 01:07  AM, Mr. Christopher McGlothlin, 
M.Ed. wrote:

> At 12:38 AM 8/1/2002, Mr. Mark Chiddicks wrote:
>> If the Confederate government freed the slaves except in the direst 
>> need they would be seen as betraying their own people. Whatever 
>> southerners say about the war being fought over States Rights we all 
>> know that the Right that they were talkinga bout was the right to hold 
>> slaves!
>
>         No, and any thorough reading of history (especially the 
> first-person history) puts this to the lie. Slavery mattered to the 
> less than 10% of Southerners who owned slaves; the rest were concerened 
> with other issues, primarily defending their homes and families.
>         Read Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James M. McPherson's 
> authoritative _For Cause and Comrades_. McPherson's made a career 
> burying the South, and even he agrees that very few Southerners were 
> motivated to take up arms to defend slavery. The book will open any 
> reader's eyes.

I thought -and this may be wrong- that I had heard many slave owners by 
the Civil War era had decided it was actually cheaper to free the slaves 
and keep them on as, essentially, a variant on medieval serfs. Sure, 
they are free to do as they please, but 99% of their pay goes into their 
rent, food, etc. and the plantation owner saves on not having to pay 
guards or worry about any sort of expenses.

It's cold hearted, yes...

--
Brett

LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER 
MAN? (Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett)