The free labor
ideology of the nineteenth century was grounded in the beliefs that
Northern free labor was superior to Southern slave labor. The key factor
that made this system unique was “the opportunity it offers wage earners
to rise to property-owning independence.” [1] It was this free labor ideology and not the republicanism
of the Revolutionary War era that caused slavery to be problematic by
the time of the Civil War. This ideology was comprehensive—it had economic,
social, moral, and political aspects. All facets of the theory need
to be explored in order to fully understand how and why slavery became
such an important issue.
Free labor became
the center of the Republican ideology in 1852, with the foundation of
the Republican Party. It was the result of the economically expanding,
enterprising, and competitive society of the early nineteenth century.
The word “labor” had slowly begun to take on new meaning. Previously,
it meant only those who were involved in the production of goods. Society
was strictly divided into two main groups, those who worked and those
who profited from the work of others. By the 1840s, the wage-earning
labor class was defined as the entire North. It was made up of those
men who owned their own farms, worked their own soil, were educated,
and most importantly, were independent. Free labor ideology drew few
distinctions between classes. A laborer was a craftsman, a merchant,
a small businessman, or a farmer. Northern society offered opportunities
to all who sought them, and enabled most to achieve independence and
property. Northerners believed this economy would lead to a more equal
distribution of wealth, rather than aid the development of an upper
class. They resented and were insensitive to the plight of the poor,
because they believed this condition was due to a lack of efforts to
better themselves. [2]
This concept of
the dignity of labor was not new. Most Americans came from a Protestant
background, in which “nobility of labor was an article of faith.” [3] In Calvinist theology, each man had a divine
calling. In order to properly live life, each man should provide evidence
that he was predestined to enter heaven. Wealth became a way of serving
God on earth in the 17th, 18th, and 19th
centuries. Labor was a religious value and many aspects of a successful
work ethic were obligations. These beliefs were more concentrated in
the Northeast. In Rochester, New York, in the 1830s for example, Charles
Finney, an evangelist during the Second Great Awakening, took part in
this spiritual revival. The Second Great Awakening is known as “a missionary
crusade that transformed America”.
[4] People who wished to slow the social and political
change of the Industrial Revolution and reinforce social control through
Christian values organized this resurgence. They wished for modernity
with Christian self-control.
[5] Charles Finney’s arrival in Rochester provided a solution
to the “social disorder” and “moral confusion” the town was facing.
[6] The town was encountering much uncertainty with its
adjustment to a free labor economy. Therefore, industrial capitalist
beliefs of the free labor ideology became attached to visions of a perfect
moral order based on individual freedoms.
Republicans placed
much emphasis on economic growth and social mobility. It was these
main concepts that led Northerners to justify the supremacy of their
society and extensively criticize the South. Held up to Northern standards,
Southern life appeared wholly different and inferior, and seemed to
pose a threat to the survival of their cherished economy. To Northerners,
slavery was the very basis of all that was wrong with the South. Southern
society seemed an unchangeable hierarchy dominated by the aristocracy
of slaveholders. The economic superiority of free to slave labor became
a major part of their argument against slavery. The conservative Bostonian
Robert Winthrop remarked, “the South is, upon the whole, the very poorest,
meanest, least productive, and most miserable part of creation…”
[7] Republicans noted intricate statistical comparisons
between the North and South, and free states took the lead in population
growth, manufacturing, property values, agriculture, railroads, canals,
and commerce. [8]
These comparisons proved that slave labor was an inefficient failure.
They were far more convincing than the moral arguments presented by
abolitionists and defenders of the Republicanism in the Declaration
of Independence. This is not to suggest, however, that morality was
not at all inherent in the Republican free labor ideology.
Morality was certainly
part of it, but to attribute that to be the main cause is to miss the
complete theory. For example, most moral opposition was centered in
specific parts of the North, such as rural and small town New England,
areas of rural New York, Pennsylvania, and the Midwestern areas settled
by New England migrants. This movement grew from the beliefs of three
main groups—the Quakers, freed people of color, and Evangelicals.
[9] Religiously oriented abolitionism had a profound effect
in the 1830s represented by such activists as William Lloyd Garrison
and Theodore Weld. They stressed the immorality of slavery and asked
for its immediate abolition. As part of their arguments and speeches,
these men spoke of the cruelties and injustices inflicted on slaves.
Garrison’s New England newspaper The Liberator became the vessel
for much of the era’s anti-slavery publications, such as Joshua Giddings’
1858 speech “American Fidelity” in which all opponents of abolitionist
activities were branded “infidels”. [10] Through these fighters for
the cause, an extensive framework was developed and many peoples’ views
were changed about slavery. In spite of this, not all Republicans shared
this accepting attitude.
Many shared the
nativist outlook, which included the complete renunciation of all immigrants
of their Old World traditions. They desired all to share a commitment
to assimilation of white America’s customs and beliefs. Many strongly
maintained that races were not all created equal, but that a Protestant
toleration of all ethnicities and religious groups was necessary. On
the other hand, there were some who thought newcomers were to blame
for the increasing social problems in urban areas. A nativist group,
called the Know-Nothing Party, sought governmental regulation on the
number of immigrants allowed into the nation. However, Republicans
were against any sort of legislation by the United States government
that would prohibit these groups from advancing economically or socially,
if they desired to do so by their own will. William H. Seward, a leading
Republican, as well as many others believed “that the combined influx
of immigrant labor would help secure the free labor ideal of social
mobility and a steadily improving standard of living for Americans”.
[11] Restricting immigration conflicted with two major
goals of the free labor ideology—free labor control of the Western territories,
and Northern economic expansion.
Northerners became
united in their free labor, anti-slavery beliefs in the mid nineteenth
century. It was not a sudden resurgence of obligation to the Republicanism
of the Declaration of Independence that began “all men are created equal”.
The fathers of the country thought it best not to make any statement
about slavery, in the political arena at least; because they were aware
of the repercussions such an argument would have on the nation. During
the making of the Constitution of 1787 it was noted many disapproved
of the slave trade, but that the issue should be ignored. The representative
from Connecticut was recorded by James Madison as saying “it was expedient
to have as few objections as possible to the proposed scheme of government”
and “he thought it best to leave the matter as we find it”, which was
unhappily unresolved.
[12] What was resolved at this meeting was “The migration
or importation of such persons as the several States now existing shall
think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Legislature prior
to the year 1808.” [13] George Washington did not endorse
any mention of slavery because “believing as he did that slavery was
a cancer on the body politic of America that could not at present be
removed without killing the patient.” [14] Many politicians in the years
following the Convention of 1787 claimed the Constitution endorsed slavery.
John Laurance, representative of New York to Congress in 1790, argued
certain provisions of the document recognized the existence of slavery
and provided temporary protection for those states wishing to import
Africans, thereby condoning it.
Other legislation
passed after 1800 acknowledged and supported slavery. Slavery and slave
holding were created in areas of national jurisdiction as the United
States began to expand westward. Slavery was permitted in the areas
of Louisiana and Florida, and finally the Missouri Compromise (1820)
allowed slavery to cross the Mississippi River. At this time, slavery
was not allowed North of the southern border of Missouri, which was
located at 36°30’. The annexation of Texas and the Compromise of 1850
only compounded Northern aggressions and belief in a conspiratorial
Slave Power grew. By the passage of a more strict Fugitive Slave Law
(part of the Compromise of 1850), and the decree of popular sovereignty
in the new territories acquired through the Mexican War (1846-1848),
many Northerners had had the proverbial “last straw”. The lands won
from that war completed America’s desire for manifest destiny and included
modern-day California, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona, for example.
Popular sovereignty would allow the people in the territories to vote
on whether they would enter the Union as slave or free states.
[15] Any former faith in the republican ideals of the Revolution
was long forgotten.
Many blacks—slave
and free, rural and urban, artisan and field worker, illiterate and
literate—tried to claim freedom on the grounds of Revolutionary ideals
in the late eighteenth century. Around 1765, slave unrest was more
intensive and widespread than any other period. Northern blacks, more
concentrated in urban areas, which were mostly native-born and English
speaking, were generally well versed in the ideology of the times.
They cited the philosophical arguments that white revolutionaries were
making in their own oppressive battles. [16] However, in
the South, the commitment to slavery was much more involved, and few
educated blacks there perceived the ideology of aristocracy.
Some blacks gained
their freedom through services rendered in the Revolutionary War, in
this manner consistent with the Republican ideals of the time. Many
blacks fought on the side of the British and were promised their liberty,
believing in the cause of their own freedom. [17] For example, Lord Dunmore, the royal governor
of Virginia, was forced to recruit slaves due to the shortage of loyalists.
When the war was being fought more in the South in 1778, many blacks
flocked to the British lines. When the British left America at the
end of the war, they carried thousands of former slaves to Great Britain,
the West Indies, Canada, and Africa. Numerous slaves were freed by
their British masters and eluded them and stayed in the country. Many
blacks fought with Patriots as well and earned their own freedom, some
grateful masters freed their slaves, and occasionally states liberated
individual slaves by special agreements. [18]
Some politicians
of the time actively pursued the issue of slavery as well. Benjamin
Franklin signed a petition in 1790 that demanded the immediate liberation
of slaves. [19]
After the death of Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, touched by Franklin’s
commitment to the anti-slavery cause, wrote that he knew the neutral
ground on which the national government stood was a violation of Revolutionary
ideals. George Washington made elaborate provisions in his will to
ensure that his slaves be freed upon the death of his wife. He also
guaranteed that Mount Vernon be sold and part of the proceeds used to
support his freed slaves and their children for several decades into
the future. [20]
Despite some of
these conflicting sentiments, the bottom line was that the Founding
Fathers never intended that particular line of the Declaration of Independence
to include everyone. In 1776, for example, when the Continental
Congress had commissioned John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas
Jefferson to design a seal for the United States they produced an emblem
depicting Americans of English, Scottish, Irish, French, German, and
Dutch descent. [21]
There were no blacks or Native-Americans in the picture.
No statesmen ever endorsed, or even contemplated, a biracial society
at that time. In the end, only property-owning white males were intended
to be equal, because those were the only people allowed to vote. It
wasn’t until the fusion of free labor and Christian ideals in the early
nineteenth century that all white males gained the right to vote and
the “Era of the Common Man” began.
[22]
Northerners may
have had many different beliefs about race, abolitionists, nativism,
politics, and many other issues, but they were united in their belief
in the free labor ideology. With the election of Abraham Lincoln, Americans
could uphold a Republican president whose beginnings were in a simple
log cabin. He said, “I am not ashamed to confess that 25 years ago
I was a hired laborer, mauling rails, at work on a flat-boat—just what
might happen to any poor man’s son!”
[23] But Lincoln claimed his belief in the improvement
of his condition, which any free man could have had, was what gave him
hope. The free labor system allowed this. Lincoln stated that lack
of hope, energy and progress in the South was what divided the nation
due to slavery. And although moral and social writers of the time,
such as Harriet Beecher Stowe and her best-selling Uncle Tom’s Cabin
plucked many heartstrings, it was the economic manifestations of slavery
that generated more controversy. George William Curtis observed:
There
is very little moral mixture in the anti-slavery feeling of this country.
A great deal is abstract philanthropy; part is hatred of slaveholders;
a great part is jealousy for white labor, very little is consciousness
of wrong done and the wish to write it.
[24]
The
Republican Party ideology was the comprehensive title of these elements.
None of the above factors could stand alone; they melted into one another
and emerged as the free labor creed. These beliefs surpassed the Revolutionary
ideals of the Founding Fathers and they were the true roots of anti-slavery
sentiments.
Works
Cited
Brown, Richard
D. Major Problems in the Era of the American Revolution, 1760-1791.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000
Ellis, Joseph J.
Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. New York: Alfred
A. Knoph, 2001
Foner, Eric. Free
Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before
the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995
Hall, Jeff. Discussions
taught at Binghamton University 9/10/2001, 10/18/2001, 10/25/2001, 11/14/2001
Johnson, Paul E.
A Shopkeeper’s Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New
York, 1815-1837. New York: Hill and Wang, 1978
McConville, Brendan.
“The New England Way” (9/10/2001) “Great Awakening” (10/1/2001), “To
the Declaration” (10/15/2001), “Republicanism” (10/22/2001), “American
Thermidore” (10/29/2001), “Crisis of the 1790s” (10/31/2001), “Slavery
from Rebellion to Revolution” (11/5/2001), “Early American Industry”
(11/14/2001), “Revival to Reform” (11/21/2001), “Jacksonian Democracy
to Sectional Conflict” (11/28/2001), “The Abolitionists” (12/3/2001).
Lectures given at Binghamton University
McPherson, James
M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. New York: Ballantine Books,
1988
