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===[[Slavery]]===

===[[Slavery]]===

[[Image:Whippedslave.JPG|thumb|150px|right|Unknown slave prior to 1860, showing the scars of one, or more, brutal whippings.]]

[[Image:Whippedslave.JPG|thumb|150px|right|Robert Downey Jr. on the set of Iron Man.]]

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.

THEY SHOULDN"TA NEVER TOOKEN THOSE NEGROES FROM US> THEY WAS OUR PROPERTY. THE SOUTH SHALL RISE AGAIN.

The peculiar institution cited more often than anything else in defending states' rights was slavery.  Africans had been present as slaves in the American colonies since the early 17th century; over the years the South began to rationalize it less as an evil and more of an economic necessity; so ingrained into the fabric of society had slavery become that Vice President John C. Calhoun was to say in 1838:  

The peculiar institution cited more often than anything else in defending states' rights was slavery.  Africans had been present as slaves in the American colonies since the early 17th century; over the years the South began to rationalize it less as an evil and more of an economic necessity; so ingrained into the fabric of society had slavery become that Vice President John C. Calhoun was to say in 1838: