Ending America's Slavery

Ending America’s Slavery Earlier we saw the regional analysis of the Eastern Seaboard of USA during the American Revolution and frank and honest opinion that parts of the newly emerging USA were already ‘aristocratic in nature and government’ and his view that the regional characteristics of a place would not easily change. Therefore despite his view that slavery of black people was wrong and should end he did not see that happening easily and he wasn’t looking for a political solution or populists democratic methods which because of the time when he lived were beyond his thinking. The book ‘Abroad in America’ page 11 has this to say; Chastellux did not believe that it (slavery) would or could disappear rapidly. His analysis of slavery centered on its function of providing higher status to poor whites (Some of the worst outrages that occurred in the five days in 1863 when New York went out of control was the burning and lunching of New York Negros by extremely poor recently arrived Irish who considered that the Negros was the cause of the problem coming north from the plantations and taking the jobs which the Irish believe belong to them) in the essentially aristocratic regions of the United States, and he believed that this created a powerful community of interest in favor of keeping slavery going. Eventually he wrote, it would fall beneath the weight of reason and humanity, as education progressed and the contradiction of slavery to the American ethos of political equality became insufferable. And on that his analysis proved to be correct and despite the fighting of a Civil War essentially with the racial attitudes and actions of what he saw as the ‘Aristocratic Southern States’- Slavery continued in USA until the words …. ‘weight of reason; weight of humanity; education progressing; And Contradiction of Slavery to the American Ethos of Political Equality- Yes when finally Dr Martin Luther King pointed these things out- Yes about 180 years after Chastellux predicted slavery of blacks would come to an end- In the mid 1960s it did! But the reason it took so long- Again despite there being a terrible ‘Civil War’ fought a century before it did finally end- The reason it took so long is found in the first part of his analysis ‘The status of poor whites’ and ‘Essentially aristocratic regions of the United States’ –what happened in the 1960s was that the actual economies of the Southern States changed. Political changes took place. Mechanization replaced the hand picking of cotton. New industries located to the South. The power of some of the Southern Aristocrats was broken or influenced in new ways- then and only then did change happen. Thus while I have enjoyed reading and discussing this important to America French Aristocratic prophet of the early 1780s in style and method he and I differ- Not as to message. He believed ‘Reason’ would triumph- I don’t. Rather having watched a famous Jewish prophet from Bethlehem get crucified and seen Martin Luther King get shot- I know that change comes when we fearlessly lay down our lives and walk with Jesus confident that he can change sinful man.