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This paragraph by Tocqueville kind of haunts me. “I see that in a certain portion of the territory of the United States at the present day, the legal barrier w
by jchook 3y ago
This paragraph by Tocqueville kind of haunts me.
“I see that in a certain portion of the territory of the United States at the present day, the legal barrier which separated the two races is tending to fall away, but not that which exists in the manners of the country; slavery recedes, but the prejudice to which it has given birth remains stationary. Whosoever has inhabited the United States must have perceived that in those parts of the Union in which the negroes are no longer slaves, they have in no wise drawn nearer to the whites. On the contrary, the prejudice of the race appears to be stronger in the States which have abolished slavery, than in those where it still exists; and nowhere is it so intolerant as in those States where servitude has never been known.”
Perhaps I was fed a reductionist view of the Civil War in grade school, but this seems to challenge core assumptions we were taught.
My view of the Civil War was further shifted when I learned that Lincoln’s idea of ending slavery never implied amalgamation of former slaves into white society— something he was openly against. He literally tried (and inhumanely failed) to deport all the black people to a remote location.
Before the War, Lincoln publicly complained that the slave states were breeding all the unwanted “mulattos”. The Emancipation Proclamation only applied to the Confederacy, almost like it was a war tactic.
- jfengel 3y agoYou were certainly fed a reductionist view of the Civil War. You're lucky if you avoided a frankly false view of the Civil War, that it was a noble lost cause to be celebrated. The industrial North was very much in fear of anybody taking their jobs. That included immigrant groups as well as blacks, though immigrants were usually able to assimilate within a generation or two, while blacks were permanently discriminated against. There was plenty of discrimination against black people in the north after the war, too. But de Tocqueville was not around for the way southern bias turned into Jim Crow laws and lynching. I think he was misled by the way southerners felt protected from blacks by slavery. They felt no threat, economically or personally. When the slaves were freed, that same emotion became virulent.
- 082349872349872 3y ago> ...but the prejudice to which it has given birth remains stationary "In the South, they don't care how close you get as long as you don't get too rich; in the North, they don't care how rich you get as long as you don't get too close." (tbf I think the situation described has improved since my childhood ... so not exactly stationary, but definitely glacial)
- courgette 3y agoNever heard that one before. I’m not from here but I live in the Deep South. It’s sounds right.
- pixl97 3y ago>the prejudice of the race appears to be stronger in the States which have abolished slavery, than in those where it still exists; Honestly I disagree with the statement, prejudice is still going strong in the south. The civil war did not end slavery. Slavery kept going on until WWII in the US when it became a little too embarrassing for us when the Axis countries where pointing that out. >Knowing Better - NeoSlavery - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4kI2h3iotA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4kI2h3iotA
- jchook 3y agoTocqueville published Democracy in America in 1835.
- MichaelZuo 3y agoAt age 26 too...