Category Archives: Quotes

Slavery

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The “Peculiar Institution”

Slavery was a fact in the United States until the cleansing of the Civil War. The bloodshed of the Civil War brought an end to slavery and kept this nation as an undivided union of states. Slavery was the foundation cause of the Civil War. The evil, cruel, brutal, and abhorrent institution of slavery in the United States came to an end through the Civil War.

Am I Not A Man And A Brother?It is important to note that slavery was not unique to the United States. Many European countries had slavery before it came to the New World colonies and grew. Countries like Spain and Portugal had significant counts of slaves before 1492. But, this is no defense of the institution of slavery. The world was guilty of slavery.

In 1619 a Dutch ship arrived at the Virginia colony and sold “20 and odd negroes” to colonists. Some of these blacks became indentured servants (people who worked for a period of years to pay for their passage to the New World, then became free) but others were slaves. Most blacks in the Virginia colony were either free or indentured servants in 1640. Slavery grew and flourished in the colonies, especially in the Southern ones. By 1700 in the Virginia colony, most blacks were in the bondage of that “Peculiar Institution.”

Slavery was a disease of humanity that spread to the colonies of the New World. It should be known that although the United States was guilty of slavery, it fought a war against itself to end this “Peculiar Institution” within its borders. As a result of the Civil War, in which brother literally fought against brother and hundreds of thousands died, slavery ended in the United States.

King Cotton

The South depended on slavery for its agricultural and economic success. Cotton was King in the South and the institution of slavery made it very profitable. Indeed, the South’s economy was based on slavery and cotton. One of the main contributing factors to the Civil War was that the South was willing to go to war with its own fellow countrymen in order to preserve the enslavement of other human beings.

  

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe

In 1808, the importation of slaves was made illegal in the United States of America. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852, as an outcry against slavery after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, slaves were described as victims of the Southern system. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book was a powerful factor in bringing about anti-slavery sentiment in the North, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was very popular book among abolitionists. The expansion of the country westward, with new territories and states coming into being, only fueled debate and conflict over the spread and continuation of slavery. When Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, the South believed he intended to end slavery. Secession, and the Civil War followed. Uncle Tom’s Cabin sold more copies than any book other than the Bible and caused Abraham Lincoln to exclaim upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe during the Civil War: “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!”

 

In 1860, approximately 4,500,000 white people were living in the states that had slavery. Of these 4,500,000 approximately 46,000 of them owned more than 20 slaves. Approximately 4,000,000 slaves lived in America at the start of the Civil War. On January 1, 1863 President Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation that declared free the slaves in the parts of the country which were in rebellion. Only Northern victory and preservation of the Union ensured the end of slavery in the United States.

Distribution Of Slaves In The Southern States

The shown map is: Distribution of Slaves in the Southern States from the book History of the United States by Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard.

  • White areas depict less than 25% slave distribution
  • Light gray areas depict 25 – 50%
  • Dark gray areas depict 50% and greater
Distribution of Slaves in the Southern States

Distribution of Slaves in the Southern States

Quotes By Abraham Lincoln Regarding Slavery

“In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free,–honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve.”

— Abraham Lincoln, from his Second Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862.

“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving the others alone, I would also do that.”

— Abraham Lincoln, from a letter to Horace Greeley of August 22, 1862. (The Emancipation Proclamation had been written but not yet released).

“I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.”

— Abraham Lincoln, from a letter to Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862.

Slavery Was Cruel

Scars of a whipped Mississippi slave.

Scars of a whipped Mississippi slave.

The ugly fact is that slaves were treated as property. Slavery was a brutal, cruel, unfair, and evil thing. Slaves did not have the right to vote. Slaves could not own land. Slaves could not travel. Slave marriages were not recognized by law. Slaves were allowed to work, and work hard from the early morning light until darkness… or longer if the moonlight was bright.

Slave families could be split up by the whims and desires of their owners. Slaves could be beaten and whipped to make them obey. Some slaves were killed either by their owners or by hard work. Disease killed slaves. Slaves worked on plantations and farms, in homes, on docks, in businesses, and anywhere labor was needed.

The history of slavery still haunts the United States to this day. Perhaps only with the coming of each new generation, with its hopefully new and unprejudiced rational understanding, will the scar of slavery completely fade away. That will be a glorious time.

Learn Civil War History Podcast Episode Seven: Freedman Jourdon Anderson Writes A Letter To His Old Master

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The Gettysburg Address

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November 19, 1863

Abraham Lincoln gives a speech to dedicate a cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. A speech that “won’t scour.”

A Few Appropriate Remarks

President Abraham Lincoln

President Abraham Lincoln

On November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln was in Pennsylvania to help dedicate a new national cemetery at a small crossroads town named Gettysburg. The Battle of Gettysburg was fought on July 1-3, 1863. It was a Union victory.

President Lincoln received the below invitation from the organizers of the new cemetery’s dedication ceremony. The invitation asks President Lincoln if, after another speaker has given his speech, he would say “a few appropriate remarks” for the occasion.

“It is the desire that after the oration, you, as Chief Executive of the nation, formally set apart these grounds to their sacred use by a few appropriate remarks.”

Lincoln was not the main speaker at this cemetery dedication. Edward Everett was the keynote speaker, he was a famed orator and supporter of the Union cause. Everett spoke for two hours at Gettysburg.

A Page Of Ordinary Paper

Here is a description of the events at Gettysburg that November day, according to a Philadelphia journalist named John Russell Young:

“The procession from town was a ragged affair. We all seemed to get there as best we could. A crude platform looked out over the battlefield. On one side sat the journalists; the eminent people had the other side. When the President arose, he stood for an instant, waiting for the cheers to cease, slowly adjusted his glasses and took from his pocket what seemed to be a page of ordinary paper, quietly unfolded it and began to read.”

Abraham Lincoln began his “few appropriate remarks” at Gettysburg. His speech was brief.

The Gettysburg Address

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Polite Applause

Lincoln’s speech at Gettysburg lasted about only two minutes and he spoke a mere 272 words. The gathered crowd applauded Lincoln politely, but without much enthusiasm.

Lincoln was displeased with his effort. After he completed his short speech of a few appropriate remarks, Lincoln in his frontier manner of speech, said to Ward Hill (Lamon in the following quote) who had introduced him during the dedication:

“Lamon, that speech won’t scour. It is a flat failure.”

Later, Lincoln would also have this self-criticism of his speech at Gettysburg saying:

“I failed, I failed, and that is about all that can be said about it.”

Flat And Dishwatery Utterances

Others too, were unhappy with Lincoln’s words at Gettysburg. The Chicago Tribune newspaper wrote:

“The cheek of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat and dishwatery utterances of the man who has to be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as the President of the United States.”

Eloquent Simplicity

However, not all thought so poorly of Lincoln’s words at Gettysburg as Lincoln and the Chicago Tribune did. John Hay was Abraham Lincoln’s assistant private secretary. Hay wrote in his diary entry for November 19, 1863:

“The President, in a fine, free way, with more grace than is his wont, said his half dozen words of consecration.”

Edward Everett wrote these words of praise to Lincoln:

“Permit me also to express my great admiration of the thoughts offered by you, with such eloquent simplicity & appropriateness, at the consecration of the cemetery. I should be glad, if I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.”

Everett realized the worth of Lincoln’s speech at Gettysburg.

Lincoln was still not convinced his speech had scoured. His reply to Everett:

“In our respective parts yesterday, you could not have been excused to make a short address, nor I a long one. I am pleased to know that, in your judgment, the little I did say was not entirely a failure.”

The Gettysburg Address is one of the greatest speeches ever made. Abraham Lincoln’s “few appropriate remarks” at Gettysburg scoured fine.

Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address from the movie ‘Saving Lincoln’