"N2EY" wrote:
Dwight Stewart wrote:

(my comments here snipped)

I'm looking for the facts. Some of those facts may not be
things anyone today is proud of. I'm not proud that the
founders could "proclaim liberty" and say "all men are
created equal" and then allow slavery to exist in their
country.

In very broad terms, the problem was that the North
industrialized and the South stayed agrarian. The North
rejected slavery in favor of immigration, while the South
allowed slavery to grow to the extent that by 1860 in
at least two states the number of slaves exceeded the
number of free people.


Blacks were obviosuly held as slaves in the South (nobody has denied that)
and I've acknowledged that slavery played a role in the Civil War (the Emac.
Proc. shows that). I simply don't agree slavery was the cause and have given
some reasons why - which you've either ignored or tried to downplay. At the
same time, you've pointed your finger at everyone else (the South, the
founders, and just about anyone else you can think of) while ignoring or
downplaying your own State's involvement in the slave trade. Above, you said
the North rejected slavery. In another message, you said they did so before
they were forced to do so. Both are true. But what you didn't say is that
both are just barely true when it comes to your State. According to the
Central Pennsylvania African American History Web Site
(www.afrolumens.org/slavery/), quoting from the Pennsylvania State Archives
(Harrisburg), slaves were owned in Pennsylvania as late as 1842, only 18
years before the Civil War. Seems like your State got out of the slave trade
just in the nick of time - just in the nick of time for you to look down
your nose at others today.


Only if you ignore indentured, bound, or apprentice,
workers in the North.

Those were not slaves.


It was simply slavery by a different name. Most were sold into indentured
servitude (especially the very poor and blacks) and were held in that
situation by force of law. Most blacks were sold into lifelong servitude.
Indentured workers serving fixed terms were rarely paid, instead promised
money or land afterwards. Of those who were supposedly paid, the money was
often collected back to cover the costs of the employer. Their working and
living conditions were horrible. Many, if not most, were abused by their
employers and, because of working conditions or abuse, many died before
completing their indenture. Of those who did serve out their terms, evidence
suggests most remained poor afterwards, routinely deprived of the things
they were promised. [Source: America, A Narrative History, pgs 118-121,
Norton & Company Publishing, New York/London]


They had *contracts* - BIG difference!


See paragraph above.


Indentured and bound workers were (for the most part)
working off debts. It was common practice for poor
European immigrants to indenture themselves for 7
years to pay for their transatlantic passage. After that 7
years, they were free.


Yes, probably half the white settlers from England, Ireland, and Germany,
entered the country using this method. But we're talking about blacks, not
white settlers from Europe (the living and working conditions were rarely
the same).


Dwight Stewart (W5NET)

http://www.qsl.net/w5net/