I am certianly claiming no high ground for anyone on racism in the 1860s. barley even in our day, I hope we are better though.

I am however thinking in terms of let's say Taney's Dred Scott opinion:

"... blacks as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."

In which he thought a court ruling for Scott:

" .... would give to persons of the negro race, ...the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, ...the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. "

And there is Alexander Stephens famous Cornerstone speech.. I'll post it below this, in a separate post. He seems to believe it was Divine Will, but his words, not mine.

The issue we've been discussing, however is around the "draft and emancipate" bill recommended by Lee.

One of Hunter's objections to the bill was this:

" Mr. Hunter then argued the necessity of freeing the negroes if they were made soldiers. There was something in the human heart and head that tells us it must be so; when they come out scarred from this conflict they must be free. If we could make them soldiers, the condition of the soldier being socially equal to any other in society, we could make them officers, perhaps, to command white men. "

Other objections to the bill by Hunter were:

" We had also then contended that whenever the two races were thrown together one must be master and the other slave, and we vindicated ourselves against the accusations of the abolitionists by asserting that slavery was the best and happiest condition of the negro. Now what does this proposition admit? The right of the central Government to put the slaves into the militia, and to emancipate at least so many as shall be placed in the military service. It is a clear claim of the central Government to emancipate the slaves.

If we are right in passing this measure we were wrong in denying to the old government the right to interfere with the institution of slavery and to emancipate slaves. Besides, if we offer slaves their freedom as a boon we confess that we were insincere, were hypocritical, in asserting that slavery was the best state for the negroes themselves. He had been sincere in declaring that the central Government had no power over the institution of slavery, and that freedom would be no boon to the negro.

He now believed, as he had formerly said in discussion on the same subject, that arming and emancipating the slaves was an abandonment of this contest-an abandonment of the grounds upon which it had been undertaken. If this is so who it is answer for the hundreds of thousands of men who had been slain in the war? "

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all that was in the Congressional debate records... and i can find many similar sources...

Since Hunter's side won the debate, I can only conclude he was speaking for a majority of the CSA congressmen.

But Miles, please don't think I am posting a "south is evil, yankees are better" argument. I was speaking of the general tenor of the times. And indeed if Jackson had 3000 blacks as soldiers and up to 90,000 blacks were serving as a book George had me read said was true, it again points out that Hunter and the CSA congress seemed to go out of their way NOT to ackowledge what was going on all around them. It sure seems clear it was easier for them to talk about the virtues of salvery before ackowledging the armed service of black confederates, which clearly made them very uncomfortable, just speaking of the possibility:

" Let it cease at once, in God's name, and in behalf of our common cause! It is paralizing [sic ] to every man here to hear it. It throws a pall over the hearts of the soldiers of this State to hear it. The soldiers of South Carolina will not fight beside a nigger -- to talk of emancipation is to disband our army. We are free men, and we chose to fight for ourselves -- we want no slaves to fight for us. Skulkers, money lenders, money makers, and blood-suckers, alone will tolerate the idea. It is the man who wont [sic ] fight himself, who wants his nigger to fight for him, and to take his place in the ranks. "