alt.education

"Larry Hewitt" wrote in message
news:fpai4i$ve$1@news04.infoave.net...
>
> "Joe Irvin" wrote in message
> news:fpafmj$u7v$1@news04.infoave.net...
>>
>> "Bob LeChevalier" wrote in message
>> news:6dgfr358sd40947nfpunn95213cpuiccqi@4ax.com...
>>> "Joe Irvin" wrote:
>>>>> What do you mean by "valid"? It can be done, as is evidenced by
>>>>> history. It was considered "moral" then, and at the time of the Civil
>>>>> War, Southerners justified slavery on Biblical terms. So much for
>>>>> absolute morality ...
>>>>
>>>>That is was done is what I meant by 'valid'. IMO, I don't think, even
>>>>most
>>>>Southerners, that owned slaves believed it was moral.
>>>
>>> On the contrary.
>>>
>>>>T Jefferson, a slave holder believed it was wrong.
>>>
>>> Jefferson was a rather exceptional person.
>>
>> New Orleans had a large ex slave population ... G Washington willed that
>> his slaves were to set free after he died. There were slaves that owned
>> land and worked their farms. I think most slave holders knew that
>> slavery was immoral, but supported because slavery supported them.
>>
>
> well, I dsagree.
>
> Even the constittuion counted slaves as less than "human", counting them
> as 3/5 of a person.

It was a compromise ... to get the Constitution ratified. Everyone knows
there can be no 3/5 of a person.

> And laws throughout the country treated slaves as property, not people.

True, but there were freedmen.

> Slaves were alloed abominable housing, poor food and diet, no medical care
> other than what they could provide themselves, had families ripped apart
> as children were sold to other slave owners, raped and beaten, denied
> medical care, and denied equal legal rights with whites --- again, treated
> as property rather than as a person.

True, this happened and I'm not denying it. My argument was that Southern
slave owners knew that owning slaves was immoral. They needed the slaves to
maintain there life styles and plantations so they pretended it wasn't
immoral ... the Southern churches backed this. People in the North did the
same ... they brought slaves over here to sell. It was a bleak time in US
history.

>>>>It was economically profitable, at least at
>>>>first, so they justified slavery ... using the Bible as you stated.
>>>
>>> Some justified it because it was profitable. But even those who did
>>> not own slaves in the South supported slavery, and in the civil war
>>> gave their lives to preserve it, and they weren't doing it for profit.
>>
>> I don't know if they supported slavery or they didn't want the North to
>> tell them what to do ... maybe some of both.
>
> They supported slavery. Read the letter published by South Carolina
> explaining why tey seceded.

Sure they did, so did the whole country ... many of the slave trading ships
were out of the North.

> The regular farmer/landowner had no
>> personal interest in supporing the slave holders.
>
> Except that throughout much of hte south the "regular" farmer was not an
> independet person, but was employed/in debt to the major plantation owners

I don't think this was the rule though ... I'm sure it happened.

> And they made tup the bulk of he confederate army. In south Carolina at
> the tim, for ex., sl;aves made up more than half the population.

I know that, I'm not arguing for slavery ... see above. The South didn't
think it was a power of the Fed Govt to control what the States did
domestically.

Wealthy
> plantation owners were less than a fifth, the rest free white men, mostly
> craftsmen, tradesmen, and journeymen. An army of only plantation owners
> would have been very small.
>
> And when, for ex., Sherman made his march tothe sea through atlanta most
> of the able bodied white men were elsewhere fighting leaving hte defense
> of the state to their women.
>
>
> Many in western No
>> Carolina and eastern Tenn. supported the North.
>>
>
> But the regions at that time were very sparsely populated.

What does the size of population have to do with it ... my point is that
some in the South didn't support the South.
>
> Larry
>