Posted by
L Gravel on Tuesday, December 19, 2006 11:38:15 PM
An old friend of mine,
Robert Gudmestad, Assistant Professor at the University of Memphis, wrote a book:
A Troublesome Commerce, The Transformation of the Interstate Slave Trade (Amazon rank #732,422). Being a good friend, I read it.
My synopsis: during the era of American slavery, due to economic reasons, slaves in
the Upper South (especially Virginia) were in abundance, while those in
the Lower South (especially Louisiana) were in demand. So
naturally a trade arose, whereby slaves were bought in the former,
transported, and sold in the latter. Unfortunately (as if slavery
weren't "unfortunate" enough), this trade caused husbands, wives and
children to be separated, which along with the difficult transport,
inflicted terrible suffering. Some slaves even committed suicide.
Since slaveowners typically justified slavery on paternalistic grounds
-- they provided the slaves with food, shelter, clothing and
universal health care
medicine -- they had to jump through serious self-denial hoops to
justify the interstate trade. They claimed it wasn't so bad, and
even if it was bad it was the fault of the traders, the slaves
themselves or northern abolitionists.
Also, the slaveowners didn't want the federal government to interfere
with the trade. Which was problematic, since if a slave were
property, then he could be subject to the Constitution's interstate
commerce clause; if he were a person, then transporting him across
state lines without his consent might be a violation of his
rights. So the lawyers of the day ascribed to slaves a dual
nature which any particle physicist could appreciate.
A Troublesome Commerce is an academic book to be sure, but I'm glad I read it. And at two hundred pages, it wasn't too taxing.
Well done, Robert.