Southern Opposition to the Slave Trade

With the short-lived exception of Georgia and South Carolina, no Southern colony or State was ever a willing participant in the slave trade, which traffic most Southerners viewed with abhorrence. The English Crown was the leader in the trade throughout the Eighteenth Century, it having been declared by Parliament in 1749 "to be very advantageous to Great Britain, and necessary for supplying the plantations and colonies thereunto belonging with a sufficient number of negroes at reasonable rates." On the other hand, the colonial legislature of Virginia attempted on several occasions to stem the importation of Africans only to be consistently overruled by King George III, who refused to assent to any law "by which the importation of slaves should be in any respect prohibited or obstructed."

The slave deck of the bark "Wildfire"

One of the charges leveled against George III by Thomas Jefferson in the original draft of the Declaration of Independence was that he had "prostituted his negative [veto] for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit, or to restrain, this execrable commerce" and that he, during Great Britain's war with the American colonies, was attempting to incite the slaves "to rise in arms against us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another." Not long after declaring her independence, the fledgling State of Virginia, under the governorship of Patrick Henry, became "the first political community in the civilized modern world" to legislate against the slave trade. In the Act For Preventing the Farther Importation of Slaves of 5 October 1778, it was declared that "no slave or slaves shall hereafter be imported into this Commonwealth by sea or land, nor shall any slaves so imported be bought or sold by any person whatsoever." The penalty provided for violation of this law was the forfeiture of "one thousand pounds for every slave so imported," and "five hundred pounds for every slave so bought or sold." It was further provided that "every slave imported into this Commonwealth, contrary to the true intent and meaning of this act, shall, upon such importation, become free." continued...

Why Is Heritage Defense Important?

Immediately following the events of the War for Southern Independence, the Southern States (the former States of the Confederacy) went into a period of Reconstruction, which is commonly said to have lasted until 1876. This is because that is the time when the actual federal troops were removed from the Southern States. Prior to that time, the Southern States were imposed to martial law, and a rule by the federal army.

During the period of time that the South was under direct Reconstruction (with the actual presence of federal troops), the Southern people were subjected to heavy abuses in the Northern-controlled Congress. In addition to confiscatory taxation rates, which fully benefited Northern interests at the expense of the Southern people, there were also strict rules concerning former Confederate high-ranking officials. Those who were in the Confederate government could no longer serve in elected positions, nor could they even vote.

Meanwhile, during this same time period, there were restrictions on depictions of the Confederacy. For instance, it was routine that men wearing Confederate army jackets were arrested. Also, flags used by the Confederacy were expressly forbidden. This was all a heavy-handed attempt by the Northern-controlled government to replace the Southern people’s devotion to the Confederacy (and the causes for which they fought) with a new reverence for the symbols of the United States (the very government that these people had chosen to separate themselves from).

While the federal troops were there, constant venom was spewed by Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner (among others of their ilk) against the Southern people. These people had an unhidden hatred for the South and their customs, and could not understand why the Southern people held so hard onto what they believed in—including their devotion to the Confederacy, its symbols and flags, and its former leaders. Stevens and the other radical Republican leaders in Congress raged at the fact that the Southern people would give up their heritage, no matter how oppressive the federal government’s Reconstruction programs were on them. continued...

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison

Ousting the Carpetbagger From South Carolina
by Henry T. Thompson
originally published in 1927
paperback; 194 pages

South Carolina had been stigmatized by her enemies as "the nest wherein was hatched the snake of Secession," and it was the purpose of congressional Reconstruction to mete out retribution upon her people and to ensure the ascendency of the radical Republican party. Thus, at the point of the bayonet, was evolved a condition which is without parallel in all history -- the very best and noblest citizens of the State were subjugated to a position of inferiority to their former slaves. This book is a history of the political revolution of 1876 in which South Carolinians, led by General Wade Hampton and his Redshirts, united to throw off the oppressive yoke of "Carpetbag" government and Negro domination. order

The bicentennial observance of the birth of Confederate President Jefferson F. Davis will take place throughout this year, with the highlight being the reopening of Beauvoir, his final home, in Gulfport, Miss., on June 3. The magnificent Southern shrine, which survived a pre-emptive strike by Hurricane Camille in 1969, was devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The cost of the restoration is expected to exceed $4.1 million for the house alone; the total restoration will run about $20 million, and donations are still being accepted. The reopening ceremonies will feature a keynote address by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. more...

The Sons of Confederate Veterans have declared 2008, the "Year of Jefferson Davis." Remembrance events will include the re-opening of "Beauvoir" on Jefferson Davis' 200th birthday---June 3, 2008. This was Davis' last home that was damaged by Hurricane Katrina. The Jefferson Davis Presidential Library and Museum will be rebuilt and re-open about two years after the house. Beauvoir is located on the beautiful Mississippi Gulf Coast. See more at: www.beauvoir.org more...

In the midst of the Civil War centennial in 1962, the South Carolina legislature voted the Confederate flag up to the dome of the Statehouse, adding to a long list of indelicately handled commemorations across the nation highlighting racial divides and old resentments. With about three and a half years until the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, state history buffs are gearing up for the bevy of historic milestones from 2011 to 2015 tied to the bloody four-year conflict. more...

1862: C.S. Major General Sterling Price assumes command of the Army of the West.

1926: The Petersburg Battlefield in Virginia designated a National Military Park.

While a Representative of the State of Illinois, Abraham Lincoln stated:

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right — a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit (excerpt from a speech delivered in the U.S. House of Representatives on 12 January 1848; Congressional Globe, Volume XIX, page 94).

Technically, Lincoln was referring to the "right of revolution" stated in the Declaration of Independence rather than the right of a State under the Constitution to secede from the Union. This was just one of the many times he displayed his bent for inconsistencies. If the thirteen colonies had a right to secede from the British Crown to whom they were subject, why did not the thirteen Southern States have the right to peacefully withdraw from their sister States with whom they were co-equals? If the political condition of the States in 1861 was more mature than it had been in 1776, then so was their right of secession. If the right of secession existed under the royal charters which gave them existence, then it also existed under a Constitution which they, by an act of their sovereign ratification, had brought into existence. The logic is inescapable even though it was later lost on Lincoln when he was President.

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