1860 Political Winds Against Slavery

One of the most contemptible lies still spread by progressives within the Democrat Party is the lie that America supported slavery when it was really only Democrats who defended that evil. The following map shows the truth about our abolitionist dominated nation which was rapidly eliminating slavery from our country in the middle of the 19th century even before the civil war. In 1860 there were 33 states.

Eleven states (shown in red below) were slave states, where the political power within those states still defended slavery even despite a significant minority within those states who opposed the continued tolerance of this evil.

The reality is that most of our founders had opposed slavery since before Independence and only tolerated it for some Southern States to assure their support to gain victory against the British, the greatest power in the world at that time. Forgive the editorial comment. Back to 1860 and our map.

Five states (shown in light blue) were so-called slave states where the majority of the people opposed slavery but where it had not yet been ended as a legal institution. However it was clear that was going to happen shortly.





Seventeen states (shown in dark blue) were free states, where laws tolerating transit by slaves were either already ended or in the process of being ended. They were overwhelmingly dominated by abolitionist sentiment and the majority of the citizens were committed to ending slavery in toto throughout America. In those states a slave could no longer even be brought into the state without immediately gaining their freedom. They were the same states that had ended the importation of slaves to America early in the century.

The practice of slavery was about to end even in that portion of America where it existed. The trend was undeniable.

Faced with this reality -- the Southern States seceded as a desperate act to defend the abomination that slavery represented. Recognizing this reality, why is it that America is still considered by progressives and blacks to rightfully be punished for this evil? The opposition to slavery in America was so strong that the pro-slavery minority left our nation and were only allowed back in when the evil had been abolished?

By what bigotry is this evil blamed, not on the people who lost the civil war defending it, but blamed on the people who defeated the evil at the cost of massive bloodshed?

In a related irony, many blacks of today try to claim they "built America." Yet the truth is that the wealthy region of our nation in 1860 was the 17 states that had banned slavery, where few blacks existed, and where the workers who can be credited with building our nation were overwhelmingly white.

Even in the South, where the black minority were overwhelmingly slaves, they only constituted 13% of our population. Such a small minority can hardly claim to have "built" the South. Most of the more skilled jobs in the South were dominated by free white workers even during the period when slavery existed. Yet the damage to the economy caused by the lack of productivity of the slave institution was the primary reason the South was poor. In the generation following the demise of slavery, the wealth of the South increased significantly because it freed itself of the unproductive institution slavery had represented.

Yet today, America is blamed for this institution even by blacks who voluntarily immigrated to our nation after it ended. That hypocrisy is intolerable and contemptible. It is time the hypocrisy stopped.