Deconstructing Slavery and the American Revolution: Truth vs. Revisionist History

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History is always written by the winner, so the maxim goes- but the winner's version is seldom as simple or accurate as the history books would have us believe. In telling their side of the story the winners often ignore the circumstances leading up to what happened- most often at the expense of the truth... such is the case with the "righteous indignation" leading up to both the American Revolution and the War of Northern Aggression. To demonstrate, let's step back in time to the events leading to the conflict with Britain and use facts and common sense to show how distorted the rhetoric actually was.

"No taxation without representation" was the call to arms, to displace the tyranny and oppression of the Crown and replace it with a democratic republic. Let's also put this unbearable, despotic taxation into its proper historical perspective... the Crown had fought a series of very expensive wars on behalf of the Colonies, the most expensive no doubt the French and Indian War- all paid for by the taxpayers in England, not the American Colonies. At the same time, the British East India Company, who footed the bill for ruling India was on the brink of bankruptcy. This would mean that the Crown would have to pay to rule India. The tea produced in India all went to satisfy demand at home in England- the tea in the Colonies had to be smuggled in. The Crown proposed that tea be sent to the Colonies at an exorbitant tax rate of 3%- a symbolic tax to help offset the debt incurred by the French & Indian War... What an outrage!

When you want to get to the bottom of any political issue the rule of thumb is "follow the money." At the time of the Revolution the four richest men in America were George Washington, John Hancock, John Carroll Carrollton and Philip Schuyler. Hancock was a shipping magnate who made his fortune- you guessed it- smuggling tea into the Colonies (among other items). Ironic isn't it that his signature appears first on the Declaration of Independence... one of the most beautiful pieces of political prose ever crafted- and a piece of propaganda worthy of Edward Bernays.

As far as taxation went- the amount that the Crown asked for was miniscule compared to what was required by the Colonial Assemblies. When war broke out taxes rose to over 10X what the Crown asked for. The same distorted manner of revising history applies to the bloodiest war ever fought on American soil... over slavery? Let's follow the money. As real history shows, the anti-slavery movement was driven less by moral outrage and more by pecuniary interests.

In 1807-08 Congress passed a law prohibiting the importation of slaves. Where were the slave markets prior to this law you ask? Not in the South like the history books tell us, but in the major shipping centers- Boston, New York and Philadelphia. It was only after the law that markets opened in the slave states. By the beginning of the War of Northern Aggression (Civil War to the under-informed), applying the laws of supply and demand, the price of a slave was around $2500... an absolute anathema to the Calvinist Protestant Ethos... It was this enormous loss of revenue that fueled the moral outrage over slavery, rather than any genuine feelings- except of course to a very small minority.

It's also important to understand who it was that owned slaves- everyone. By that of course I don't mean EVERYONE, but people from all facets of society. We tend to view slavery through the lens of Uncle Tom's Cabin (another remarkable piece of propaganda) written by Harriet Beecher Stowe (her married name)- who by the way, came from a long line of political mental defectives. Her uncle, Henry Ward Beecher, a Baptist preacher, preached sermons that the Irish Potato Famine was engineered by the Vatican as part of a plot to overthrow America... but I digress. It wasn't only plantation owners that owned slaves, as most believe, but religious orders, Indians owned slaves- the Cherokees (who most of the white "Native Americans" laughably claim kinship to) were perhaps the cruelest slave owners there were. They worked them until they died, providing neither food, clothing or shelter.

Another common misconception is that slavery was racially motivated. People owned slaves as a means of getting work done. Blacks owned slaves as well... in fact the first slave owner in America was a black man. The idea that people owned blacks slaves because "they didn't like them" is ludicrous- think about it... "I hate them blacks, so I think I'll go buy some." It's like saying: "I hate them automobiles- so I think I'll go buy one."

To discover what really precipitated the War of Northern Aggression, look up the procedure for repealing a Constitutional Amendment and then think about how difficult it would have been to get it through both houses of Congress and then get 3/4 of the states to ratify it. Given that the Southern states were in favor of states rights, to repeal the 9th and 10th Amendments (which the war effectively did), it would have been nigh upon impossible... that's what the war was about. Every war is fueled by propaganda to get it started- slavery just happened to be the propaganda that began this one, just as taxation drove the Revolution. By 1861 slavery was no longer viable economically. As I said before by the time war broke out the cost of a slave sold for $2500 (over $100,000 in today's dollars), a pretty hefty investment and not one somebody was likely to mistreat- as portrayed in Uncle Tom's Cabin. Moreover, the Potato Famine in Ireland drove about 1.5 million to America- immigrants who would work for pennies a day and pay their own upkeep. The problem the South had with emancipation wasn't racial, but how to deal with 4 million displaced persons- they wanted the states to determine how to integrate them into society. Had it not been for Reconstruction- things would have gone much smoother and a lot of hard feelings avoided... But then, the federal government knows best.

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