What Really Caused the Civil War?

Kaveena Bullock

Professor Young

AFAM: The New Jim Crow

9 February 2017

What Caused the Civil War?

Prior to this lesson about the Civil War, in high school I remember learning about the Civil War as something smaller in a larger section of American history. I was always taught that the Civil War was a battle between the North and the South, which had the Confederate states. The war was about slavery and how the North wanted to end slavery, which is what they were fighting about. There was a man named General Robert E. Lee that led the Confederate side. He was known in American history as a great General that led our troops. I was also taught that blacks fought in the slave but white men did not want them in the war. Once the war happened, the North won and then slavery was over. I more so remember the movie that was made with Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman called Glory. The teacher would rather play the movie than teach the lesson. We watched the movie at the end of our unit about the Civil War but never taught the specific events that led to the war.

One factor that I do remember about the Civil War was tariffs and how significant they were to the Southern states. The first factor that I learned more about in this lesson was about the Tenth Amendment, which was to state that laws differed depending on the state. I did not know that this caused problems when it came to Congress and representations of each state. The conclusion to this so each state could have a fair say in how many representatives they had was The Great Compromise. This meant that each state had the same amount of representatives in the Senate and their population was based on the representation in the House of Representatives. Because of this, the South wanted more representation than the North. This led to the 3/5 compromise.

The 3/5 compromise meant that every slave counted as 3/5 of a person, not even a full human being. This caused a stir in the North because even though the Tenth Amendment was part of the Bill of Rights, this compromise contradicted what the Declaration of Independence stated. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (Declaration of Independence). In school I was not taught that the South considered slaves 3/5 of a person to count them for more representations. I was also not taught how contradicting laws and declarations are in this country when it came to the Civil War. There was the illusion that this war “fixed” slavery problems until Jim Crow laws and the 1960s era came around. This information taught me that this war was more than just North versus South and that this helped ended slavery.

The Process to Slavery Increase

Kaveena Bullock

Professor Young

AFAM: The New Jim Crow

2 February 2017

“Slavery Increase” Response

Question: The process and system by which slavery increased.

There was more than one process that was done in order to increase the amount of slaves. Not only was there a way to increase slaves, but also a way to keep blacks into captivity permanently. “The system of leasing convicts soon radically altered the implications of the debt enforcement process and the significance of each official involved in it” (Blackmon, 64). There was a system of having blacks being in debt where white officials knew that they were never going to be able to pay it off. This is how the counties kept blacks under a lease.

By the time it was the early 1880s, there were 29 counties in Alabama that were leasing their prisoners (page 65). This was the beginning of more and more black workers increasing. “Because of the financial benefits of leasing convicts rather than sending them to state officials, some counties opted to prosecute men accused of felonies on misdemeanor charges-solely so the sheriff and other locals could receive the proceeds of the prisoner’s lease” (Blackmon, 65). The state was making more money by having prisoners in their counties given to landowners than keeping them in jail.

Another tactic that was used for slavery increase was “’confess judgment’, an archaic legal concept under which the accused confesses his responsibility before being tried” (Blackmon, 67). This would happen with minor situations such as a black person having a weapon or even speaking loudly in front of a white woman. Blacks who did this confess judgment statements did this to be avoid being sold but was traded with labor contracts or to a landowner who they were familiar with, which was better than being sold into slavery. However, the result of this, these blacks were being returned as unpaid workers, beaten and even held in shackles (page 67). The irony of this was that they were treated this way in fields where they were working free before doing a confess judgment.

There were two problems that whites had that misdemeanor convict leasing solved for them. The first one was “it terrorized the larger black population into compliance with a social order in which they willingly submitted to complete domination by whites,” and the second was “it significantly funded the operations of government by converting black forced labor into funds for the counties and states” (Blackmon, 68-69). The value of leasing blacks convicts became popular among the different counties and grew into a large profit.

An example of how these rules were double standard and were made to increase the number of slaves was James Cottingham. He was charged with assault and battery with a weapon. His fine came out to one dollar along with court fines. Of course with that being such a low charge, he was able to pay it and was free. “Little changed over the next two years, with the number of inmates in the county jail never exceeding twenty. All of that transformed as the value of leasing black convicts became more apparent” (Blackmon, 69-70).  

(Picture Source: https://www.google.com/search?q=slavery+increase&espv=2&biw=1396&bih=781&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiHr_XT5_DRAhVCQiYKHSiiCzEQ_AUIBygC#imgrc=F0iI3XJb2qQ2aM:)