Regarding "Documents" (Perman & Taylor)
When I finished reading each of the four documents, it became more obvious that each side stridently believed in the cause for which they argued. These primary documents offer a glimpse into why the war was so inevitable. Olmstead, for example, writes that Southerners call themselves gentlemen (p.31), but are hypocritical and not open-minded. Further, Helper matter-of-factly refers to the Southerner as backward, using statistics and other rhetoric to 'prove' that the South is backwards. Both documents point to the fact that slavery is evil and that Southerners must stop their "continual blushing" by sanctifying slavery while pointing to their agricultural superiority as the main need for it.
Hammond and Fitzhugh, on the other hand, defend the South and even make claims that the South is superior. Of course, both sides felt that the "Creator" is with them. However, the latter documents accuse the North of fake piety, of exaggerated claims of riots, etcetera. Here, the North is seen as a "wolf" (p. 34) who preys on the tranquility of the South. I laughed when I read that the only thing causing a mob in the South is an abolitionist, though I doubt it to be wholly true (p. 34). However, the idyllic picture Fitzhugh paints was only in terms of whites, not inclusive of the slaves who raised the South up (literally) on their backs. Yet, one can feel the passion in which they argue the South's cause.
Debow's documents circles the debate utilizing Southern non-slaveholders in his attempt to persuade them to support slavery. Here, he outlines five reasons using economic profit as his basis for supporting slavery. I was surprised (but should not have been) when he refers to slaves as commodities which produce human capital in reason four. This is important, as Schwalm maintains, because women were both productive in slavery and their reproductive capabilities made them assets to the Southerner.
Documents six and seven give opposing views of abolitionists, which furthered my understanding of each side's viewpoints. The rhetoric abolitionists used was impressive because they loaded journals with words such as "man-stealer," "social crime," "merchandise," etc. together with religion to convince that slave-holding is really "heathenism" disguised as other things (p. 38/39). If abolitionists exposed slavery for what it was, Southerners claimed abolitionists themselves were the cause of slaves suffering. Their writings, too, must have convinced many that the South's cause was justified; that indeed, abolitionists were meddlers. That is, he writes that most masters were benevolent!, but that abolitionists' caused masters to sell slaves to "hard-hearted" traders, thereby "increasing the suffering" of slaves (p. 40). The propaganda seen the collective arguements offer many reasons for each side's cause, but the one thing shared was that slavery was the underpinning of all arguements between the N/S.
The last two essays (written by modern historians) offer new ways of looking at the same issue. McPherson's essay shows the flaws in past/present scholarship by questioning how different/similar the South and North were, concluding that although there was a dichotomy, the South was most similar to other European countries. Deyle's essay focused more on how the slave trade entrenched each side in their differences. I enjoyed how each scholar deeply researched his point, and although the essays were different, each points to the glaring, unavoidable fact that the North and the South were dissimilar.It seems that war was inescaple the more time wore on and states were added.
Last but Not Least...A Hard Fight for We
Although I learned so much more than I thought possible via these primary documents, the focus in Schwalm's Hard Fight on gender in lowland rice plantations left me speechless. Turning page after page, the attention given to South Carolina's female slaves, their roles in the slave & white community, and so forth was phenomenal in its' scholarship and left me wondering how much of this has been previously "ignored" or glossed over by past scholars. If we are to be historians, we cannot ignore that social and reproductive labor contributed to/were the heart of those plantations. There were facts most people do not know (overseers, not just owners of plantations, routinely abused these women) and facts that have been passed up in history (the significance, for example, of their roles on/off the fields). I also appreciated the explication of what the work entailed and its' technical aspects (one could almost "see" the conditions under which they labored & the instruments used in which seasons). Schwalm's book fills-in-the-blanks of a time and gender which has previously been a postscript, at best. I cannot wait to write about this book!
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