Slavery and the Civil War
Introduction
The inhumane experience of African Americans in institution of slavery in colonial America is widely acclaimed as the precipice of the Civil War (1860-1865) leading to the abolition of slavery with the enactment of the Thirteenth Amendment in December 1865. A greater number of Americans of African descent questioned the apparent contradiction between the institution of slavery in America and the ringing claim of human equality in the Declaration of Independence. The Civil War came about from the lack of compromise between the North and South pertaining on how address the difference between free states and slave states on the powers of the national government in forbidding slavery in territories yet to be declared states. There was need to maintain parity between the free and slave states so that neither party would be at a disadvantage in Congress. The disagreement over the issue of slavery made the South to threaten secession from the USA as early as 1850, making tensions to steadily build over the years and eventually ending in South’s break away from the Confederacy in 1860 when Abraham Lincoln won the presidency on a pledge of no new slave states. This also effectively marked the outbreak of the Civil War that had major disruption to the way of life slaves in the South.
The Institution of Slavery
Slavery – defined as the possession and exploitation of a human being by another – is one of the longstanding social relationships in history of humankind. Among ancient Greeks, Romans, Aztecs and Incas slavery was the foundation for wealth and prestige of the ancient kingdoms (Rodriguez, 2007). However, the institution of slavery that cropped up in Europe’s American colonies in the sixteenth century and persisted throughout the eighteenth century was drastically different from the slavery of ancient times. Slavery in the New World emerged as a result of the developing capitalist world economy, designed to provide cheap labor for the increased production of raw materials and staple crops that would be exported back to Europe as well sustain the British American colonies (Illingworth, 2011). Unlike the slavery of antiquity, the institution of slavery that emerged in the New World was Chattel Slavery – where captives were bound in servitude as property of a slaveholder, to be purchased and sold.
The institution of slavery was characterized by overly repressive laws on the enslaved, particularly the Blacks (Wood & Edmonds, 2002). The colonial authorities passed laws against interracial marriage together with decisive restrictions on the ability of African American slaves to gain freedom of have any sort of independent life or culture. The colonial elite perceived people of African descent as inherently inferior to the white-skinned Europeans.
The institution of slavery first took root in the tobacco plantation of the Chesapeake colonies and spread to the coastal South Carolina and Georgia where there were rice paddies (Illingworth, 2011). With time slavery became the labor system of choice on Louisiana sugar plantations. However, the invention of the cotton gin in late eighteenth century boosted the institution of slavery as chattel slavery became a crucial part of the existing capitalist world system making it possible for the integration of the South into the thriving international market (Rodriguez, 2007).
Prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, the institution of slavery had long regulated the relationships between African Americans on the one hand, and the European-Americans on the other. Most blacks lived in the slavery bondage, which translated that they subordinate to their white masters. The close contact between the two was necessitated by the need of slaveholders to gain labor from the slave as well as prevent slave uprisings. Some commentators have espoused that the historical necessity of the Civil War as the decisive political solution to the market-initiated problem of slavery (Wood & Edmonds, 2002). In this regard, therefore, America’s most destructive and bloodiest conflict became the answer to the vexing problem that was the morally intolerable institution of slavery.
The Civil War (1861-1865)
The social and economic changes in independent United States of America drove a wedge between the slave South and their free Northern counterparts. Antislavery sentiment stemmed from the economic changes that characterized the free states in the North as small farmers decried the competition posed from the South using slave labor. Northern industrialists argued the slavery was an impediment to the growth of factories and mills, and engaged in disputes with Southern planters over tariff policy (Illingworth, 2011). The North was opposed to the labor system of the South where the workers themselves were purchased as opposed to purchase of the labor power of workers thus discouraging investment in new technology and consequently curtailed industrial development in the Southern states. The North favored the free labor ideology where ordinary people could rise through society to become prosperous businessmen or farmers without exploiting labor from slaves (Woodworth, 1996).
On the other side, the white were hell-bent on growing wealthy through use of slaves who were condemned in poverty and exploitation. As such, there were numerous acts of resistance among the enslaved Blacks in the South but were thwarted by the government (Woodworth, 1996). The slaves in the South sought allies and support from the antislavery Northerners and runaway slaves. The main controversy revolved around the question whether the South’s oppressive labor system needed to be permitted to expand into the newly-acquired western territories. An antislavery majority found in the free states vehemently opposed this, making the southern planters to regard their position in the Union as untenable (Rodriguez, 2007). The Southern politicians of the South questioned the constitutionality of federal interference in the affairs of the South, culminating into their session from Union following the election of Abraham Lincoln as the first Republican in 1860, himself an antislavery.
The Civil War broke out in April 1861 with the South defending the brutal system of human slavery on the one hand, while the North seeking to destroy slavery and enable the Union to be restored (Wood & Edmonds, 2002). Thousand of slaves fled from the South to lend a hand to the North in the Civil War, leading to emancipation and Reconstruction.
References:
Rodriguez, J. P. (2007). Slavery in the United States: A social, political, and historical encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO.
Illingworth, J. (2011). Slavery and the origins of the Civil War. Retrieved from: http://isreview.org/issues/78/feat-civilwarslavery.shtml
Wood, W. B., & Edmonds, J. E. (2002). A history of the Civil War in the United States, 1861-1865. Florida: Simon Publications.
Woodworth, S. E. (1996). The American Civil War: A handbook of literature and research. Westport, Conn. [u.a.: Greenwood Press.
