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***1860

In 1860 the slavery situation might have looked like the following in the South: Only about 25% of the Southerners owned slaves. 11 % of the slave-owners owned 20 to 50 slaves and worked hard to make a good living. About 1 % of the Southerners were successful planters with fifty and more slaves. Most of those great planters were self made land barons. They were speculators and shrewd businessmen. They had big homes many servants and made their own law on their plantations. These gentlemen believed in taking care of arguments if necessary by duel. Successful planters’ sons studied law or were seeking a career with the military. Planters’ daughters learned to play the piano, to speak French and the art to entertain guests. Each planter would set his own standards for his slaves and many treated them like children in a large patriarchal family.

88% of all slave holders had less than 20 slaves. Many were simple farmers who had one or two slave families to ease the burden of their own labor. Those slave owners lived a simple life, with Spartan houses. Here owner and slave would have to work next to each other to make enough to feed all the mouths. Just below the small slaveholder on the social scale were the yeomen. They were non slave holders with little farms, raising life- stock in barns. These yeomen felt that blacks should be slaves, for such made white people no matter how poor they were feel that they had some superiority over somebody.

The pro-slavery arguments included first and foremost that slavery was natural and proper status for blacks. Second, slavery was sanctioned by the Bible and Christianity. Third, the plantation was seen as an asylum to take care of the people who couldn’t take care of themselves.

*Causes,** leading causes, ***immediate leading causes for a Civil War.

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last updated 02/19/07

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