American Slavery was not a Race Thing

So I got into an argument with a random guy on Facebook regarding the causes of the Civil War. As I state here the causes of the US Civil War goes way beyond slavery. Slavery certainly played a part but it was not the only cause and I would even argue that slavery was a symptom and not the actual cause.

As well, the argument eventually became about race because whenever you begin to talk about slavery in the US it always becomes about race. The key to this guy's argument was after the Civil War we saw the rise of the KKK, Jim Crow laws and all sorts of other laws that allowed for the legal discrimination against Blacks in the South. The one thing about bad behaviour in the South is it distracts from similar behaviour in the North. To many the North were saints who fought against slavery to improve the plight of blacks. 

Hogwash. Many of the discriminatory laws enacted in the South had counterparts in the North. In the North blacks could not work with whites in the factories. They were only allowed to do menial jobs or acting as servants only working for subsistence wages. They certainly could not hold public office or be educated for a very long time after Emancipation. Woe would be the black man that touched white woman let alone attempted to marry her. The examples of systemic racism in the North are just as bad as in the South. After all, some of the worst race riots in US history took place in Detroit, Michigan, a city so far north that Canadians in Windsor could see the smoke rising up from the burning buildings. As well, Dr. King gave his famous "I have a dream" speech within walking distance of the seat of government for the US more that 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. So the North was no better than the South when it came to the treatment of black Americans.

I would also point out that the fact that American slaves were black was the result of an historical accident. Slavery was an institution in the Old world long before the United States became an independent country. Slavery was practiced all over Europe. An interesting aspect of that institution was when it was at its peak the Ottoman Empire was one of the most powerful states in Europe. 

In the 1500 and 1600s, the Ottoman Turks were constantly finding themselves in border wars and skirmishes with their white, Christian, European neighbours. When they won battles against these foes the officers that had money would be ransomed and sent home. The ordinary soldiers on the other hand would find themselves in Constantinople, which had one of the biggest slave markets in the world at the time. Further the Ottoman government allowed its vassal states in North Africa to prey on European merchant shipping in the Mediterranean Sea. When the Barbary Pirates and Corsairs captured these merchant ships they would receive money for the ship and the cargo and the crew, all white Europeans, would wind up being sold at the big slave market in Cairo. Interestingly these two slave markets would have buyers from Europe, men who were more useful as customers of the slave traders than being slaves themselves. They would not buy their fellow Europeans, of course, because as soon as they got them back to Europe they would be freed and their investment would be wasted. So those white Europeans would be sold to whoever else wanted them. The two slave markets sold slaves from as far away as Japan and China, along with people of the Middle East and Europe.

This went on for sometime but three things happened that began to change it. First, one country after another, in Europe, began abolishing slavery. Second, the Ottoman Empire began a slow decline and the supply of war slaves and slaves taken by the Barbary Pirates began to dry up. Third, some European explorers began going up rivers on the East and West Coasts of Africa and found a continent teaming with people, some of which were slavers themselves and who were happy to sell their slaves to these white people.

By the time the United States became an independent country the African Slave trade was the only slave trade in town. It was the only one around because the slave trading centres in the Eastern Mediterranean were a mere shadow of their former selves. So when Americans, from both North and South, wanted to buy slaves they could only buy the ones from Africa.

Americans bought slaves because they believed they needed them. They bought black slaves because they were the only ones available to purchase. They did not buy black slaves because they were black. The South also did not oppose the abolishment of slavery because the slaves were black. They opposed it for political and economic reasons and that is it.

To suggest otherwise is crap.