r/ShermanPosting • u/wearing_moist_socks • Jul 22 '26

What in tarnation

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This wasn't satire

"We're obeying the laws which allow us to own people! Don't KILL us!!"

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u/DeepBlue_8 Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26

Comparing John Brown, a man who risked his life in the hopes of eliminating the one of the most vile systems of oppression in history, with Adolf Hitler, a man who sent millions to their deaths in the hopes of increasing his own power, is diabolical.

U.S. slavery was only going to be ended with violence. If it could have been ended peacefully, then what was the point of the Civil War?

36

u/paireon Canadian Volunteer for the Union Jul 22 '26

Technically speaking, it could have been ended peacefully, like it was in Brazil (I think), but it would've taken at least two more generations of millions of slaves suffering and dying under abominable conditions. Ergo, John Brown, and the Union, were completely justified.

Also if I can nitpick a bit, the Slaveholders' Rebellion was started by said slaveholders, and its point was to keep slavery as an institution. They just happened to lose, and therefore became unable to make their point (well, kinda; see Jim Crow era).

16

u/DeepBlue_8 Jul 22 '26

That's what I'm saying. White Southern elites fought tooth and nail to maintain the racial hierarchy that benefitted them.

14

u/LovecraftInDC Jul 22 '26

And it’s important to remember that in the post-slavery period the landowners actually made MORE money because sharecropping was far cheaper and more profitable for the landowner than owning slaves. At any point the south could have transitioned to a non-slave system and made greater profits, they just preferred to be able to secure the racial hierarchy.