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Tenzer shows that the white Southern slaves produced by a combination of racial mixture and the maternal descent rule were viewed as white people by Northerners, who had good reason to fear that any white person ("mixed" or "pure") could be kidnapped by slave catchers and sold into slavery in the South.
Tenzer also destroys the argument of those neo-Confederates who contend that the Southern states(called The Slave Power in the North) were merely resisting the tyranny of a federal government.
The Slave Power effectively controlled Congress and the presidency for most of the antebellum period. The "3/5 Rule" gave congressmen from the slave states the right to represent slaves (people who obviously couldn't vote), thereby giving them far more power than they would have received if they had been limited to representing free persons.
Free states exercised "states' rights" by passing personal iberty laws to nullify the effects of the federal Fugitive Slave Law. This law gave the accused slave no rights to bring witnesses, have a jury, or any other forms of due process. The judge was authorized by the law to receive a larger fee if he ruled against the slave than if he ruled in his favor. Tenzer also shows that, when you consider the low wages of the average Southern white male, coupled with sharp rises in slave prices, slave catching was a tempting business. The slave catcher would earn more with one kidnapping expedition than he could earn by a year or two of hard labor.
Many American historians ask why Northern whites would fight a civil war to free "blacks" they didn't consider equal. The obvious answer is that they saw slavery as a threat to whites. There was not only the issue of the white slaves, but the constant denigration of a free society by the intellectual defenders of slavery. Slavery apologists constantly stated that their slaves were better off than free white laborers in the North. More than that, the pro-slavery intellectuals defended slavery as a good in and of itself, regardless of "race" or "colour." Tenzer shows that Republican party political literature
of the antebellum period took the threat of white enslavement seriously.
Finally, Tenzer defines his terms well. He reminds us that "The Slave Power" or "the South" represented the planter elite and not Southern people in general. Also, "Negro blood" by itself did not confine anyone to slavery. If the maternal descent line was from a white female or had been broken by manumission, the descendants were free. Southern White persons could legally have more Negro ancestry than some unfortunate slaves.
Tenzer's book helped me understand on an emotional level what would make a northern farmer or tradesman pick up arms and go to fight his countryman in this terrible war. What made a difference was the threat he felt slavery posed to himself, his way of life and to his children and grandchildren. Even now we hear of atrocities in far away places and send money or write our leaders but rarely get personally involved. Tenzer's thesis is that many historical events coincided in the middle 1800s to convince northerners that their own rights and freedoms were or would be threatened by legal slavery and its expansion. He has the historical documentation to show that the eroding line between slave and free was much on the mind of the average person and contributed to the country's willingness to take up arms over an issue that had so far only risen to the level of a disagreement.
While I would like to think that the north was full of abolitionists so disgusted by slavery that they were willing to risk their lives to end it, Tenzer's book suggests that most were only willing to get involved when the threat began more personal. This is sadly consistent with human behavior and struck me as one of the best explanations for why the war happened when it did and received the support it did in the north.
Another part of the book that was fascinating to consider was the discussion of miscegenation and the historical situation of mixed-race people. Too often the subject of propaganda and stereotype, Tenzer shows how statistics on mixed-race people were manipulated to create notions of sickliness and inferiority which still plague that group today. I was stunned to see how much of what was passed off as "science" then (a very self-serving science for a small group of elites) is still largely accepted as fact today.
"The Forgotten Cause" is an important addition to every Civil War buff's reading list. It should stimulate lots of thought including some worrisome questions about why this "cause" has been forgotten in our politically correct times.
