An Argument Against Slavery Being Good

The compromise of 1850 was a settlement on a series of issues plaguing the unity of the states. The primary issue to address was the institution of slavery, which was causing much dissension between the north and the south. Additional items to be addressed were territory issues and to prevent secession by the south. Henry Clay stepped forward to present a compromise, which had Congress in an eight-month discussion known as the “Great Debate”. As a result of the proposal, there were strong oppositions. One outspoken person who opposed the proposal was John C Calhoun. Calhoun was an intellectual southern politician, political philosopher and a proponent to the protection of Southern interests. He was an advocate for states’ rights and

Calhoun bluntly states in his opening sentence he knew that if something was not done about the abolition of slavery it would end in disunion. He claims to have tried to agitate both parties toward some kind of resolve but to no avail. He then asks Congress the pressing question: “How can the Union be preserved?”

At this time it seemed that the issue of slavery was the only problem in the United States, almost as if a slave was being forced down the throats of the freesoilers (Document F). Stephen Douglas drafted the Kansas-Nebraska Acts in hopes of adding two new states: Kansas and Nebraska. Although it seemed that one would be a slave state, and the other a free state, the slavery issue would be decided by popular sovereignty. Many opposed this decision but did not know how to deal with it. The reason they did not know was because the Constitution did not mention it. William Lloyd Garrison said “the Constitution which subjects them to hopeless bondage is one that we cannot swear to support” (Document E). He was trying to say that the constitution can’t answer the question of slavery because the words “slave” and “slavery” are not in the constitution.

In 1828, Congress passed a protective tariff that made the southern states extremely angry, because they felt it only benefited the northern states. Calhoun argued the federal government only existed for the will of the states, so if a state found a federal law unconstitutional and did not support it, the states have the right to "nullify" that law within its borders. This is similar to the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions because they stated that the Alien and Sedation acts were unconstitutional. It argued that the states had the right to declare unconstitutional acts. Also, both of these were written anonymously at the time by vice presidents, Calhoun and Jefferson.

Although they fought for the abolition of slavery, the compromise didn’t succeed for long in approving abolition provisions but instead free state provisions. The North and South constantly fought over the matter of slavery. However in 1833, the North gave into South Carolina’s demands. Subsequently, the Tariff Act of 1832, South Carolina passed a statue of nullification which stated that the federal tariff laws were invalid. The state attempted to threaten to resist by force, any federal attempt to enforce the tariff. The president at the time, Andrew Jackson, led the change by introducing a bill that gave presidential authority to use armed forces to carryout laws. Henry Clay helped prepare the compromise which would be more acceptable to the South. The Tariff of 1833 helped prevent South Carolina from seceding from the Union by resisting against the federal government. John C. Calhoun became a partisan of states' rights, believing that each state was autonomous and that any state could declare an act of Congress as unconstitutional. Calhoun, in protest against the 1832 Tariff Act, led South Carolina in an attempt to invalidate the act. Although this crisis was eventually settled through the Compromise of 1833, Calhoun continued to protect slavery. John C. Calhoun was formerly Jackson's vice-president, and later a South Carolina senator. He said the North should grant the South’s demands to maintain piece. He was a representative for the South and states' rights. The South was fighting for more slave territory, and had brilliant ways of earning them. The South was ungrateful to the North for giving into their demands, and exemplified such by seceding in the

After seeing this weakness in the African race, Whites felt it was their responsibility to help Blacks. God created every one in this world and everyone is equal. “There is no starvation, no begging, no want of employment”(Henry Hammond 1858). This was said because everyone deserved to

Calhoun, also, believed that the South needed the man power behind the slaves as protection against the Union otherwise they would be weakened. Yet, his strongest argument for slavery was that with the institution everyone in the nation and the world have benefitted from the use of slavery. That without it, the nation wouldn’t have been able to be as strong as it is. When you look towards these two men and their arguments either for or against slavery, one thing is very clear, they both believe that the States should have final words towards the allotment of

When referring to the days of slavery, it is often assumed that the south was the sole force behind its continuance. However there were many factors which lead southerners as well as some in the north to quietly accept slavery as a good thing. John Calhoun declared in 1837 “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” (p. 345). This statement was justified by various reasons. There was the fundamental belief that Africans were inferior to their white counterparts. Many saw the slave population as a labor force that

John C. Calhoun’s belief on the subject of the Compromise of 1850 is that it would give an unfair dominance to the North and that it would be unacceptable if it was passed. By putting the compromise into action, the South’s control in the government and the laws that are passed would be heavily suppressed. If California were to be added into the Union as a free state, the balance in the the Senate between the North and the South would become disproportionate. This would lead to the creation of laws that ignore the interests of the South and rather, would result in laws that are created in favor of the interests of the North. He states, “One section has the exclusive power of controlling the government, which leaves the other without any adequate

Lastly, John C. Calhoun in his Address of Southern Delegates in Congress, to Their Constituents, rejects almost every claim that Lincoln made in his speech. Calhoun refers to the North as being aggressive, responding to the disagreement regarding slavery. He says there needs to be an effort made to unite the North to come back to the comfortable idea of utilizing free labor. He continues to talk about how “slavery is a domestic institution. It belongs to the States, each for itself to decide, whether it shall be established or not; and if it be established, whether it should be abolished or not.” This was known as popular sovereignty, a mediocre plan that Lincoln did not support because it threatened republican principles and was overall fundamentally

‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg, slavery or racism? The question of whether racism is the root of slavery, or if slavery caused racism is an ongoing debate that throughout history historians has been batting to answer, and have yet to come to an agreement. Some people think that people were made slaves because of prejudice toward the color of their skin, therefore, racism caused slavery; others believe that people saw slaves as inferior to them, and therefore slavery caused racism. Jordan’s “The Mutual Causation of Racism and Slavery”, Morgan’s “The Paradox of Slavery and Freedom” and Bacon’s Rebellion helps us see where the separation between white and black slaves began in America. Slavery and racism are interconnecting, but by looking at the sources and articles, we can see that slavery caused racism.

‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It

A decade before the Wilmot Proviso was proposed, John C. Calhoun, a southern politician who served as vice president for both John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, foretold the divisive role that slavery would play in the 1840s and 1850s and devised the defense of the institution that would soon take hold in the South. As the North’s calls for slavery’s immediate abolition on moral grounds grew louder in the 1830s, from the likes of William Lloyd Garrison, founder of The Liberator, and Theodore Dwight Weld, Calhoun refuted their critiques in a speech delivered on the Senate floor in 1837. In that speech, Calhoun justified slavery as “a positive good” which must be safeguarded against northern abolitionist interference by a united South. Calhoun and Olmsted demonstrate the sectional split that would come to shape the American political landscape of the mid-to-late 1850s: whereas Calhoun’s plea for a unified South and assertion that slavery was “a positive good” in response to increasing northern abolitionism laid the foundation for the Democratic Party that would dominate the South, Olmsted’s account deconstructs Calhoun’s “positive good” theory and goes further to outline the other strains of antislavery, free soil persuasion that defined the agenda of the Republican

“The fact is, that civilization requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible.” - OSCAR WILDE, The Soul of Man Under Socialism