Recently I spent more than 4,000 words Confederate general Jubal Early’s explanation of the causes of the Civil War, which were, according to Early, slavery and Abolition. I had read historian Gary Gallagher’s book Becoming Confederates in preparing that post. In it Gallagher quoted Early’s post-war notes written about the same time as his book, and I thought you might be interested in some of them.
In his notes on Slavery, Jubal Early wrote of Biblical passages in which Moses received the laws from God which protected the property in slaves. He concluded that; “Thus did that same God who had shown favor to Abraham, and Lot, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Job, all slave-holders, without once rebuking them because they held their fellow man in bondage, give his express sanction to the institution of domestic slavery, by positive law.”
Religious arguments against slavery are, according to the Confederate leader, a modern invention not rooted in God’s teachings. Early wrote:
“It was reserved for the philanthropists of the 19th century, who endeavor to pervert the scriptures to suit their own theories, to make the wonderful discovery that the slavery of the African or negro race, a race that has never, without the agency of slavery, produced a single civilized being, is against the spirit of Christianity.” Early said that this thinking had infected even some former Confederates. He wrote that “some, even among the most faithful adherents of those states in the late struggle, who have become so faint-hearted as to acknowledge that slavery must have been wrong, or Providence would not have permitted us to be overwhelmed in disaster, and slavery itself to be exterminated.” The outcome of the war was not a judgement of God that the South had been wrong to encourage the enslavement of people of African ancestry because “Providence has no more condemned us on account of slavery, and therefore permitted our overthrow by our enemies, than it condemned Job, the ‘perfect and upright man,’ when he was permitted to be so sorely afflicted by Satan. In the dispensations of Providence, it has repeatedly happened that the right has failed, and wrong has been triumphant.”
Quotes from Early were found in Gallagher, Gary W.. Becoming Confederates (Mercer University Lamar Memorial Lectures Ser., 54) (pp. 72-73). University of Georgia Press. Kindle Edition. According to Gallegher, he believes that Early wrote this soon after the Civil War, while in exile. He gives its location in the Library of Congress Jubal A. Early, “Slavery,” undated ms., 1–5, 9, 13–15, folder titled “J. A. Early Addresses and Papers,” vol. 16, Early Papers, LC.
Photo: “General Jubal A. Early, disguised as a farmer, while escaping to Mexico, 1865.” From: Lieutenant General Jubal Anderson Early C.S.A., Autobiographical Sketch and Narrative of the War between the States. Philadelphia; London: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1912.
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Early very clearly set himself AGAINST Robert E. Lee’s views on slavery and race.
Lee never eschewed 100% of his racial prejudices; and while that’s important to note, it’s just as important to note recent arguments about him ‘never changing’ his views about Black Americans are highly incorrect. By the time he died, Lee had come to embrace an attitude that was same or very near to Abraham Lincoln’s on such.
But this is an excellent lead in as to why Early sought to ‘own’ the meaning of Robert E. Lee’s legacy; to be in a position to hide/disavow/scream down/etc, the very real fact that there was no reconciling the image he painted of Lee and the real man, in this particular regard.
By hagiographing Robert E. Lee, he ensured that not only would he not have to do anything that Lee actually espoused in this, but he could also re-mould to a great extent what the Confederate cause had stood for in its time and in memory.
Again, there was at least some merit in other areas of what Early argued historically, (not to mention, no matter how much one may dispute, in part or in whole), in the thesis and school he crafted, but his is a huge historical debt owed to just for documentation and collection of historical primary and secondary evidence.
But I would dispute the title of the post; ‘Confederate’ labor system?
Slavery was an all American institution.
Great post though!