Southerners rejected compensation to end slavery

As a Civil War over the matter of slavery seemed to be an inevitability, many slavery opponents tried to offer ways that it might be achieved peacefully.

Southerners did not necessarily want war, but most had no interest in listening to any idea that that might end the institution.

One idea suggested by many were varying plans that would end slavery gradually and do so through a system of compensating slave owners. Abolitionists hated the idea, believing that slave owners were due nothing. Most Southerners hated it because it would forever end slavery.

Ironically, Southerners believed that stopping slavery deprived them of their “rights.”

On May 2, 1858 the Baton Rouge Tri-Weekly Gazette and Comet issued a retort to a Connecticut newspaper writer Eliha Burritt, who called himself “the learned blacksmith.”

Burritt suggested to begin compensating slave holders, and gradually free slaves until all slaves were free.

The unidentified writer in the Gazette and Comet said that Burritt, “had better take the fool’s advice — open shop — and attend to his own business. Men have been known to get rich by attending to their own business.”

The writer said if Burritt felt compelled to “play the part of emancipationist” then he should work on problems that still existed in New England, though the writer did not explain exactly what those problems might be.

“They will never become Christianized until they learn to do unto others as they would others should do unto them.”

Part of the reason for this attitude was probably that Southerners fully believed that they would win any war between the states and that the North would refuse to take up arms.

On to this week’s stories…

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A BLACK MAN named William (last name unavailable) managed to escape from notorious slave holder Govy Hood in Lebanon, Ky on Nov. 20, 1858.