Artisan Workers in the Upper South: Petersburg, Virginia, 1820-1865

6. Between Class and Caste: The Culture of Southern Antebellum Artisans

176 6 Between Class and Caste The cuLTure of souThern anTeBeLLuM arTisans As the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence approached in 1826, members of the Petersburg Benevolent Mechanic Association (PBMA) busied themselves with special preparations in celebration of the “Jubilee of American Freedom.” The master mechanics used the opportunity to “congratulate each other” on the arrival of this patriotic event, and established a special committee to plan the association’s participation in the town’s July Fourth parade .1 Like their northern counterparts, white Petersburg mechanics embraced a tradition of republicanism, rooted in the Revolution, which celebrated the role of manual labor and the independence of small producers in America. Despite sharing an attachment to independence and the virtues of republicanism , southern artisans were different from those who lived and worked in the North. The institution of chattel slavery in southern society brought direct and indirect benefits to white workers, and complicated their views of republicanism and their interpretation of free labor. While the arrangement committee of the PBMA made diligent plans to celebrate Independence Day, at least half of all the organization’s members owned slaves. Slaveholding offered artisans membership in the South’s master class. Owning the labor of others gave them a stake in the perpetuation of the institution and complicated workers’ political response to the industrialization of southern society. The common bond of slaveholding, or the aspiration of slaveholding, bound artisans to the southern planter class and formed a caste system more significant than the evolving class divide. Their celebration of a free labor ideology included a dimension that supported unfree labor and often sought it out. This important distinction highlights the difference between workers in the antebellum North and South.2 1. Minutes, 16 June 1826, Petersburg Benevolent Mechanic Association Records, 1826– 1836, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond (hereafter cited as ViHi). 2. For an examination of southern artisan ideology in the Revolutionary era, see Charles G. Steffen, The Mechanics of Baltimore: Workers in the Age of Revolution, 1763–1812 (Urbana: 177 Slavery and race were constant points in question for southern workers. While some white southern mechanics benefited from slavery through direct participation in the institution, all enjoyed the elevated status that their whiteness afforded. Yet slavery had its disadvantages for white southern mechanics . When Petersburg journeymen and middling artisans organized to protest competition from black labor in 1857, their declaration that “we do not aim to conflict with the interests of slave owners” was lauded in the local newspaper. In a column following the mechanics’ meeting, the newspaper editor expressed relief that the group was not condemning slavery, warning “that would have been bad and dangerous ground to have trod on.”3 Property in slaves formed the backbone of the southern economy, and mechanics’ protests against slave labor often fell on deaf ears. Southerners would always put their right to protect their property in slaves before the rights and demands of the white working class. Through their participation in or acceptance of slavery, southern artisans necessarily lived different lives from northern masters and journeymen.4 Despite this meaningful distinction, through the formal language of republicanism mechanics in both regions voiced many common concerns. Exploring the contradictions between republicanism and slavery helps to give meaning to their commonalities and differences. In the years following the American Revolution, artisan workers espoused a republicanism that emphasized their role in upholding the values of virtue, equality, citizenship, and especially, independence. Linking these concepts with a producer ideology, their republicanism celebrated the contribution skilled workers made to the community and the economy. Perhaps most important , artisan republicanism rested on the belief that society was dependent University of Illinois Press, 1984). For the late antebellum artisan experience, see Frank Towers , The Urban South and the Coming of the Civil War (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2004). For the southern free labor ideology, see James L. Huston, Calculating the Value of the Union: Slavery, Property Rights, and the Economic Origins of the Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 40–49. 3. “The Mechanics’ Meeting of Saturday Night,” Daily Southside Democrat, 18 August 1857 (first quotation); and “The Mechanics’ Meeting Saturday Night,” ibid., 19 August 1857 (second quotation). 4. Michele Gillespie, Free Labor in an Unfree World: White Artisans in Slaveholding Georgia , 1789–1860 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2000), 133; and Towers, Urban South, 142–143. the culture of southern antebellum artisans artisan...