Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Did Any Republicans Own Slaves In 1860

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Still Facing Democratic Oppression

Even though nearly 80% of the nation supports voluntarily spoken prayer in public schools only 13% of Democrats voted for a recent constitutional amendment to permit it. And even though almost 80 percent of the nation supports public displays of the Ten Commandments, only 21 percent of Democrats voted for a congressional bill to allow those displays.

Consider too, the congressional bill to remove IRS control from over what pastors can say. A bill that would reinstate freedom of speech to American pulpits, exactly the way it had been before Lyndon Baines Johnson amended the IRS code in 1954 to restrict speech in churches. Only 5 percent of Democrats voted to allow free speech for churches.

And when there was a vote on protecting under God in the Pledge of Allegiance,  even though 87 percent of Americans support that phrase only 17 percent of Democrats voted to protect it. And on the issue of preserving marriage is ordained in the Scriptures, 72 percent of Americans support traditional marriage but only 15 percent of Democrats in Congress voted to protect it.


The Democrats simply do not have a good voting record on traditional religious issues. Consider also how Democrats deal with the issue of faith-based programs. Current statistics prove that faith-based programs offer the best solutions to many of societys most serious problems. For example, on the issue of drug abuse, the average cure rate for governmental type drug abuse programs is under 10 percent.

The Mcconnell Family Slaves

After NBC News reported earlier this week that McConnell’s great-great-grandfathers had owned 14 slaves, he responded by pointing out that President Barack Obamas ancestors also were slave owners.

“You know, once again I find myself in the same position as President Obama,” he said. “We both oppose reparations, and both are the descendants of slaveholders.”


A USA TODAY Network review of census documents and local property and accounting records show that slave ownership was passed down through generations and persisted in the McConnell family through the Civil War.

Richard Daley, McConnells maternal great-great-grandfather, reported owning five young female slaves in the 1850 U.S. Census Slave Schedule.

But he said that four “mulatto,” or mixed race, slaves ages 20, 18, 4 and 2 were escaped fugitives. One 22-year-old black woman remained at his farm, the document shows.

In the 1860 census, Daley reported owning another five slaves a 30-year-old “mulatto” female, an 11-year-old “mulatto” female and two “mulatto” boys ages 7 and 10 or 12.

They also escaped, according to the document, but one 39-year-old black female slave remained.


The names of slaves and receipts of sale transactions are difficult to trace. Slaves either moved with families from other states into Alabama or were purchased at auctions in Montgomery.

James McConnell, whose farm was next to Daleys, had four female “mulatto” slaves ages 25, 4, 3 and 1 who all escaped, according to the 1860 census.

The Republican Party Becomes The Party Of Rich Northerners

US History Scene


All this while, economic issues were growing more important to Republican politicians. Even before the Civil War, the North was more industrialized than the South, as you can see from this map of railway lines. After it, this industrialization only intensified.

And during the war, the federal government grew a lot bigger and spent a lot more money and that meant people got rich, and owed their wealth to Republican politicians. The partys economic policies, Cox Richardson writes, were creating a class of extremely wealthy men.

Gradually, those wealthy financiers and industrialists took more and more of a leading role in the Republican Party. They disagreed on many issues, but their interests rather than the interests of black Southerners increasingly started to become the partys raison detre.

National Republican Platform Adopted By The National Republican Convention Held In Chicago May 17 1860 Chicago Press And Tribune Office Chicago Illinois 1860 Library Of Congress Rare Book And Special Collections Division Alfred Whital Stern Collection Of Lincolniana Https://googl/lcbfpa


Resolved, that we, the delegated representatives of the Republican electors of the United States in Convention assembled, in discharge of the duty we owe to our constituents and our country, unite in the following declarations:

  • That the history of the nation during the last four years, has fully established the propriety and necessity of the organization and perpetuation of the Republican party, and that the causes which called it into existence are permanent in their nature, and now, more than ever before, demand its peaceful and constitutional triumph.
  • That the maintenance of the principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the Federal Constitution, That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, is essential to the preservation of our Republican institutions; and that the Federal Constitution, the Rights of the States, and the Union of the States must and shall be preserved.
  • . . .

    Republican Platform Of 1860. A reprint of the original broadside containing the Republican Platform of 1860, adopted by the National Republican Convention held in Chicago, 1860. Library of Congress, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/rbpe.0180010b.

    Study Questions

    Q: Where Did Enslaved People Live In The White House

    LINCOLN TAKES OFFICE NOV 7, 1860


    A: Enslaved individuals working in the White House often slept in the attic or in the Ground Floor rooms. Their living arrangements varied by administration. Accounts suggest these spaces were uncomfortable with extreme temperature disparity. In particular, the Ground Floor level was often damp and rodent infested.

    The Fugitive Slave Law Repealed By Republicans

    Frederick Douglass was in attendance at one such midnight rally, waiting for the proclamation to become official. When that moment arrived a celebration erupted and Douglas exclaimed, It was one of the most affecting and thrilling occasions I will witness and a worthy celebration of the first step on the part of the nation and his departure from the of the ages.

    These gatherings were the origin of the modern day watch night services held every year at thousands of churches across the country. They are New Years Eve meetings where churchgoers gather to greet the entry of the new year and its glories and hopeful prospects with times of prayer and thanksgiving to God.


    In 1864 following the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation several civil rights laws and laws preparing to facilitate civil rights were passed. One of them was this bill establishing the Freedmens Bureau. Another was this bill equalizing pay for soldiers in the military whether white or black. The Fugitive Slave Law was also repealed that year over the almost unanimous opposition of the Northern Democrats still in Congress.

    Democratic Party And Its Factions

     

    There have been voices that get lost over time, overlooked in popular memory, left unattended in historical study.  In 1860, the United States loomed on the brink of war. Violence had erupted in growing western terror ties as Americans struggled to determine the future of slavery in the states. The variety of opinion over territorial policies proved too powerful for young Americas two party political systems. Certainly, two parties existed the Republicans and the Democrats. The Republican Party, united behind the illustrious Abraham Lincoln, has often over overshadowed its Northern opponents in historical memory. Yet even in the Union stronghold of Pennsylvania, the Democrats received a considerable amount of popular support. On the surface, it would be easy to paint the Democrats as one monolithic group, unable match the popular support of Lincolns Republican party. Yet a closer looks shows the Democrats were a popular party in Pennsylvania that had been dangerously divided in its beliefs about war, slavery, and civil liberties both before and after the fateful attacks on Fort Sumter.


     

    James A. McPherson. Battle Cry of Freedom. New York: Ballantine Books, 1989.

    Campbell, James to Franklin Pierce. October 22, 1860, Pierce Letter Collection. Library of    Congress. Microfilm, Reel 5. Pennsylvania State University Libraries.

    Shankman, Arnold M. The Pennsylvania Antiwar Movement, 1861-1865. Madison, Wisc.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1980. 24.


    A Teachable Moment: Dinesh Dsouza Refuses To Take Back False Claim About Republicans Owning Slaves In 1860

    See below the post for an update.

    For Dinesh DSouza watchers, this headline is as shocking as proclaiming that water is wet. I post this incident because it is a clear and convincing demonstration that DSouza shows zero interest in academic integrity.  Let me lay out the basics. First, DSouza claimed in a speech that no Republican owned slaves in 1860. Here is the speech:

    Do you know how many Republicans owned slaves in 1860, the year before the Civil War started?

    The answer may surprise you if you listen to progressive historians.

    Dinesh DSouza June 10, 2019

    He said one Republican who owned a slave in 1860 would require him to take back his claim.

    Historians on Twitter, led by Princetons Kevin Kruse, quickly rose to the occasion and found ten. Follow the thread below for the receipts.

    Weve provided clear evidence that at least ten Republicans owned slaves in 1860, and yet DSouza keeps retweeting this video insisting there werent any and promising hed take it back if anyone proved otherwise.

    Kevin M. Kruse June 10, 2019

    To go directly to the thread with the breakdown of the ten found thus far, .

    In essence, the method of finding Republican slave owners involves an examination of those who attended the Republican convention as delegates and then comparing that list with registries of slave owners.

    For his part, DSouza said the instances offered by the historians are and he repeated his claim this morning.

    Juneteenth The Day Republicans Freed The Democrats Slaves

    Our history and our heritage are being shoved by rioters, looters, and anarchists down the memory hole. This is year zero on their calendar. Everything that came before and every struggle for freedom and human dignity by patriots of all colors is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is now. The only thing that matters is what they tell you. How we got here and what makes us who and what we are may not be pretty or politically correct but it is important. We cant know where were going if we dont remember where weve been.

    The canceling of American history by anarchists, encouraged by cowering Democratic governors and mayors is necessary if they intend on propagating the lie that America is and always has been irredeemably racist. The Republicans are labeled white supremacists and its being pushed that only liberal progressive Democrats can create social justice, which means the absence of resistance to groups like Black Lives Matter, which among other goodies on its website endorses the elimination of the nuclear family. Nothing can be allowed to interfere with the progressive police state they are hoping to establish on Nov. 3, 2020.

    The day after Sen. Elizabeth Warren was rebuked while making a speech critical of Sen. Jeff Sessions , Sen. Ted Cruz blasted Democrats, saying their party is the one rooted in racism.

    He also happens to be a former card-carrying member of the KKK. In fact, he created his own chapter along with 150 of his friends and colleagues.

    The Claim: Historians Do Not Teach That The First Black Members Of Congress Were Republicans

    A viral meme, posted on Instagram, features a well-known lithograph of the first Black members of Congress, with a bold statement.

    History not taught, it says. The first 23 Black congressmen were Republican.

    You wont be taught this, wrote Ryan Fournier, the co-chair of Students for Trump, whose watermark appears on the meme, on his Instagram account. The Republicans were the anti-slavery party.

    It is mostly accurate that the Republican Party formed to oppose the extension of slavery, although up until the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, Abraham Lincoln and other Republicans pledged not to interfere with slavery in states where it existed. And the first 23 African Americans in Congress did belong to the Republican Party, due to the GOPs support of voting rights and the Democratic Partys embrace of white supremacy.

    But the idea that Reconstruction-era historians hid those facts key to understanding the period is false.

    This is just front and center in what we teach all the time, said Kate Masur, a professor of history at Northwestern University who has written extensively about Reconstruction. Its not a big secret.

    A message seeking comment was sent to Fournier on Wednesday.

     

    Mitch Mcconnells Ancestors Owned Slaves According To A New Report He Opposes Reparations

    Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is a direct descendant of two slave owners in his family line, according to an NBC report published Monday.

    James McConnell and Richard Daley, two of the Kentucky Republicans great-great-grandfathers, owned at least 14 slaves in Limestone County, Ala., NBC reported, citing 19th-century census records. All but two of the slaves were female.

    McConnell, who grew up in the area of Limestone County, has said he opposes reparations, the process of giving compensation to the descendants of slaves. The idea of reparations has recently animated the political debate surrounding racial injustice.

    I dont think reparations for something that happened 150 years ago, when none of us currently living are responsible, is a good idea, he said in June before a House committee held hearings on the matter. Weve tried to deal with our original sin of slavery by fighting a civil war, by passing landmark civil rights legislation. Weve elected an African American president.

    McConnell did not return a request for comment from The Washington Post.

    NBC reports:

    NBC reported it did not find any record of McConnell acknowledging his familys history, including in his 2016 memoir, The Long Game. The book mentions slavery twice, including a chapter about Barack Obama that calls it the countrys original sin, saying it was a proud moment when Obama was elected.

    Black writers, activists, scholars testify before House panel on the role of reparations

    Abraham Lincoln And Slavery

    This article is part of a series about

    Abraham Lincoln‘s position on slavery in the United States is one of the most discussed aspects of his life. Lincoln often expressed moral opposition to slavery in public and private. “I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong,” he stated in a now-famous quote. “I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel.” However, the question of what to do about it and how to end it, given that it was so firmly embedded in the nation’s constitutional framework, in Congress, and in the economy of much of the country, was complex and politically challenging. In addition, there was the unanswered question, which Lincoln had to deal with, of what would become of the four million slaves if liberated: how they would earn a living in a society that had almost always rejected them, or looked down on their very presence.

    As early as the 1850s, Lincoln was attacked as an . But in 1860 he was attacked as not abolitionist enough: Wm. Lloyd Garrison, editor-publisher of The Liberator, went to the expense of hiring a phonographer to record in full Wendell Phillips‘ May 30 speech attacking Lincoln. According to Phillips, if elected Lincoln would waste four years trying to decide whether to end slavery in the District of Columbia. Many abolitionists emphasized the sinfulness of slave owners, but Lincoln did not. Lincoln was married to Mary Todd Lincoln, the daughter of a slaveowner from Kentucky.

    Horace Greeley Proceedings Of The First Three Republican National Conventions Of 1856 1860 And 1864 78

    John Shermans Struggle to Preserve Democracy: How 1860 ...

  • “Republican Party Platform of 1856, American Presidency Project, at , accessed April 25, 2014.
  • Abraham Lincoln, Speech at Carlinville, Illinois, August 31, 1858, in Abraham Lincoln Association, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy Basler, at , accessed April 25, 2014.
  • Abraham Lincoln, Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863, at United States National Archives, Americas Historical Documents, at , accessed April 25, 2014.
  • University of Richmond Digital Scholarship Lab, Voting America: Presidential Election, 1864, at , accessed January 9, 2014.
  • Causing The Civil War

    The central story told in textbooks is that the industrial revolution, beginning with the first textile mill in New England in the 1790s, created an economy that did not need slaves. Southerners, however, continued to use slave labor on their farms because agriculture was profitable. Closely related to this change, cities rose as population centers in the North created an urban society while the South remained primarily agrarian. Census data on farms and cities, however, reveals that while cities grew rapidly in the North between 1800 and 1860, they did not become leading population centers until 1920, 60 years after the Civil War began. In 1860, there were more farms in the North than in the South, although Southern states, especially in the Cotton Belt, had the majority of large farms .

    The notion that there were no southern cities was also a myth. The U.S. had eight cities with more than 150,000 residents in 1860 and three of themSt. Louis, Baltimore and New Orleanswere in slave states. Several other southern cities, such as Louisville, Mobile, and Charleston, had more than 20,000 residents each and were listed among the largest urban places in the U.S. Similarly, data demonstrate the presence of manufacturing in the South. Richmond, VA, had mills and factories as early as 1800. The 1860 census shows the fairly even spread of manufacturing across the states, with only New York and Pennsylvania recording 17,000 or more manufacturing establishments .

    Elder: Politifact Rates Elder False On Democrats And Slavery But Elder Was Right

    Getting fact-checked cuts two ways. It means the fact-checkers pay attention to what I say. It also means I should expect liberal bias from the checkers.

    In a recent appearance on Fox News, I made the following assertions:

    Republicans did not own slaves. Democrats owned slaves;

    Democrats founded the KKK;

    Democrats opposed the 13th Amendment that freed the slaves, Democrats opposed the 14th Amendment that made the newly freed slaves citizens, and Democrats opposed the 15th Amendment that granted them the right to vote; and

    As a percentage of their party, more Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than did Democrats.

    Here are the claims Im interested in:

    1. Republicans did not own slaves. Democrats owned slaves.

    2. Democrats founded the KKK.

    3. Democrats opposed the 13th Amendment, the 14th Amendment, the 15th Amendment.

    4. As a percentage of their party, more Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than did Democrats.

    Could you please send me any evidence you have in support of these claims?

    I responded: As to no Republicans ever owning slaves, I was wrong, and Ive corrected it on social media. There were at least 10. As for the rest, you should have no difficulty finding sources. Good luck.

    No. 4. Elder: As a percentage of the party, more Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

    PolitiFact: 61% of Democrats and 80% of Republicans voted for the bill to pass the House.

    Game to Elder.

    Game to Elder.

    Game to Elder.

    After The War Radical Republicans Fight For Rights For Black Americans

    When states ratified the 14th Amendment. Republicans required some Southern states to ratify it to be readmitted to the Union.

    For a very brief period after the end of the Civil War, Republicans truly fought for the rights of black Americans. Frustrated by reports of abuses of and violence against former slaves in the postwar South, and by the inaction of Lincolns successor, Andrew Johnson, a faction known as the Radicals gained increasing sway in Congress.

    The Radicals drove Republicans to pass the countrys first civil rights bill in 1866, and to fight for voting rights for black men at a time when such an idea was still controversial even in the North.

    Furthermore, Republicans twice managed to amend the Constitution, so that it now stated that everyone born in the United States is a citizen, that all citizens should have equal protection of the law, and that the right to vote couldnt be denied because of race. And they required Southern states to legally enact many of these ideas at least in principle to be readmitted to the Union.

    These are basic bedrocks of our society today, but at the time they were truly radical. Just a few years earlier, the idea that a major party would fight for the rights of black citizens to vote in state elections would have been unthinkable.

    Unfortunately, however, this newfound commitment wouldnt last for much longer.

    How Republicans Made Common Cause With Southern Democrats On Economic Matters

    Map: Vox. Data: Barry Hirsch, David Macpherson, Wayne Vroman, Estimates of Union Density by State.

    Roosevelts reforms also brought tensions in the Democratic coalition to the surface, as the solidly Democratic South wasnt too thrilled with the expansion of unions or federal power generally. As the years went on, Southern Democrats increasingly made common cause with the Republican Party to try to block any further significant expansions of government or worker power.

    In 1947, confirming a new alliance that would recast American politics for the next two generations, Taft men began to work with wealthy southern Democrats who hated the New Deals civil rights legislation and taxes, Cox Richardson writes. This new alliance was cemented with the Taft-Hartley bill, which permitted states to pass right-to-work laws preventing mandatory union membership among employees and many did.

    Taft-Hartley stopped labor dead in its tracks at a point where unions were large, growing, and confident in their economic and political power,Rich Yeselson has written. You can see the eventual effects above pro-Democratic unions were effectively blocked from gaining a foothold in the South and interior West, and the absence of their power made those regions more promising for Republicans electoral prospects.

    Compensated Emancipation: Buy Out The Slave Owners

    The thirteenth amendment to abolish slavery, which Lincoln ultimately sent to the states provided no compensation but earlier in his presidency, Lincoln made numerous proposals for compensated emancipation in the loyal border states whereby the federal government would purchase all of the slaves and free them. No state government acted on the proposal.

    President Lincoln advocated that slave owners be compensated for emancipated slaves. On March 6, 1862 President Lincoln, in a message to the U.S. Congress, stated that emancipating slaves would create economic inconveniences and justified to the slave owners. The resolution was adopted by Congress; however, the Southern states refused to comply. On July 12, 1862 President Lincoln, in a conference with Congressmen from Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, and Missouri, encouraged their respective states to adopt emancipation legislation that gave compensation to the slave owners. On July 14, 1862 President Lincoln sent a bill to Congress that allowed the Treasury to issue bonds at 6% interest to states for slave emancipation compensation to the slave owners. The bill was never voted on by Congress.

    In his December 1, 1862 State of the Union Address, Lincoln proposed a constitutional amendment that would provide federal compensation to any state that voluntarily abolished slavery before the year 1900.

    History Of Democrats Vs Republicans On Slavery

    The history of a racist tinge being fought against or allowed into a political party is a long, hard struggle. I continue to be appalled at the stories black friends tell me they have heard from grandparents and great grandparents. It still is not over, even today. Looking back to 1789, after the U.S. Constitution was ratified, Congress made further extensive efforts to end slavery.

    They did this by passing the laws of the Northwest Ordinance. This law outlawed any slavery in federal territories held at that time. It is for this reason that these seven eventually entered the nation as slave-free states:

    • Ohio
    • Michigan
    • Wisconsin

    A couple decades later, Congress continued its fight against slavery by ending slave trade in 1808. A sermon celebrating this was given by the Rev. Absalom Jones. He was the first black bishop in the Episcopal Church in America. This sermon he gave in St. Thomas Church, Philadelphia became .

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