Posted by Lilly from ? (160.129.27.22) on Wednesday, June 19, 2002 at 1:02PM :
In Reply to: Slavery was used posted by Lilly from ? (160.129.27.22) on Wednesday, June 19, 2002 at 10:32AM :
Of course, I'm not denying that there were abolitionists (actually, abolitionists were around earlier than the beginning of the 1800's) & other good people who saw the humanity of the slaves (Lincoln) during the Civil War on both sides, but I seriously doubt that many people took ex-slaves seriously after the war. There was nothing there to help them - ex-slaves & then their descendents had to fight an uphill battle ALL the way against rich, powerful, & racist white men. Sure they had "freedom" but exactly how good was that freedom when other people blatantly disregarded it & practically nothing was done to stop it?
It's the mindset - early slave holders viewed their slaves as non-human, as if they were livestock - that's the attrocity, & this way of seeing other humans had been around since the founding of the original 13 colonies. In fact, implicit in the US Constitution was the notion that "man" did not include other races. When they wrote "all men are created equal" - the founding fathers had a completely different notion of what exactly a "man" is. That's the attrocity.
Of course the wealthy were wrong to keep slaves & of course they had their hands in the local politics, but at the same time, so did the corrupt factory owners up North who were paying workers, including children who had an incredibly low survival rate, close to nothing. This is the hypocrisy of that war. Neither side was completely clean - both sides were influenced by people who were guilty of gross human rights abuses, & yet people fought for one side or the other. & after the war a blind eye was (& sometimes still is) turned toward anyone who violated the basic rights of African Americans - all over the US.
-- Lilly
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