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→Slavery
Before the Civil War, the individual states, particularly in the South, shared a belief that each state was sovereign. Sovereignty included jurisdiction over, and the handling of, each state's affairs, which invariably included their own public and private institutions.
Before the Civil War, the individual states, particularly in the South, shared a belief that each state was sovereign. Sovereignty included jurisdiction over, and the handling of, each state's affairs, which invariably included their own public and private institutions.
Yet the "peculiar institution" cited more often than anything else in defending states' rights was the Southern institution of slavery.
Yet the "peculiar institution" cited more often than anything else in defending states' rights was the Southern institution of slavery. Africans have been present as slaves just after the first English colonists arrived early in the 17th century; over the years the South began to see it less as an evil and more of a necessity; so ingrained into the fabric had slavery become that Vice President John C. Calhoun was to say in 1838 that "many in the South once believed that slavery was a moral and political evil. That folly and delusion are gone. We see it now in its true light, and regard it as the most safe and stable basis for free institutions in the world" (TL 1, pg 40).
The slaves for the most part were treated brutally. Born in bondage, a slave usually began his first work in the fields at the age of twelve. And they would work in the fields from the light of day until, in the words of a Louisiana slave, "until it is too dark to see, and when the moon is full, they often labor until the middle of the night" (TL, pg 48). They were fed and clothed poorly, usually in rags; shoes were uncommon. Disease was rampant; four out of 100 lived past age 60. And they were required to absolute respect to a white. Punishment for infractions was severe, involving stocks, pronged neck collars, and whippings where salt water was used to clear infection, with the result of pain so excruciating a slave recollecting it wrote "the flesh crawls upon my bones" (TL 1, pp 49-58)
===Political machinations and compromises===
===Political machinations and compromises===