The Pros And Cons Of Slavery

Growing up in the rural south not having the same options of the upper class left me working on the plantations. Roaming around to find to work to support myself I occasionally found work during the harvesting seasons. My father lost our families land and the little comfort we had a decade earlier. The struggle to provide for myself led me to the ditches and mining. These jobs were more dangerous than working in the fields on the farm. Before the nomadic life of running all over the South finding odd jobs I worked near the slaves. My life was rough not having anything to go back to, but they had it far worse. In a way it’s selfish for me to complain about the way I’m living when it’s harder to survive enslavement. Working beside the sick and bruised people it is

Slavery. A topic that should never be brought up in a conversation, should never be said casually, and should never happen. Slavery, despite being illegal in every country, is still going on, and at different odds. Slavery has many forms. Many of which, only the cruelest of minds can think up. Slavery is different than in the 1800s because it has many more forms, has more potential slaves, and more profit.

Slavery is the act of owning a person, making them the legal property of another and forced to obey the defined owner. It was the dominant form of labor in the country of the United States between 1815-1861. This was a country that stood for liberty and freedom, and the way they operated was based off of controlling and forcing others to complete tasks. James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson were President during this time span, and each had different views and morals when it came to slavery. James Madison, the first of the four to run his term, was a key contributor to the Bill of Rights. He believed in human rights especially rights to liberty and property. In an article written to address Madison and other’s views and inputs in the bill, it states “They[George Mason, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson] were men for whom ‘possessing property’ was a natural and an inherited right. And a substantial portion of the property that each owned was slaves”(Roger Wilkins). James Madison wrote in the Bill of Rights each man’s individual liberties and freedoms, and still goes on and with his rights, such as that to own property, he owns other men. James Madison was not someone known to be against slavery, however, he was not a supporter, he merely believed he had the right to property, and with the knowledge that slaves were property he gave himself the right to own slaves.

During the time prior to the twentieth century our world accepted slavery as a normal part of life. Aphra Behn and Phillis Wheatley, both female authors born about 100 years apart, had their own views of slavery and wrote poems and stories about the subject. These women were physically different, Aphra was a Caucasian, and Phillis was an African American, and their lives were rather different as well. Aphra was a spy and playwright, who lived the middle class life and Phillis, was a slave who was taken from her homeland, brought to America, sold into slavery, then later freed. I believe that both writers’ views were difficult to figure out, especially by just reading their works.

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

Slavery and Its Impact on Both Blacks and Whites Slavery and Its Impact on Both Blacks and Whites The institution of slavery was something that encompassed people of all ages, classes, and races during the 1800's. Slavery was an institution that empowered whites and humiliated and weakened blacks in their struggle for freedom. In the book, the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, slave Frederick Douglass gives his account of what it was like being a slave and how he was affected. Additionally, Douglass goes even further and describes in detail the major consequences the institution of slavery had on both blacks and whites during this time period. In the pages to come, I hope to convince you first of the mental/emotional and

If I asked you how does it feel to be beaten and forced to be sold away from your wife and children, would you know? You wouldn’t because you weren’t a slave. Just as Theodore Dwight Weld had written: “Suppose I should seize you, rob you of your liberty, drive you into the field, and make you work without pay as long as you live, would that be justice and kindness, or monstrous injustice and cruelty.” -Theodore Dwight Weld: American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses. When you are educated and privileged with the right to freedom, slaves who are chained, struck over and over with whips, and have no proper education, have to deal with their suffering because they are

African Americans were slaves during the Civil War and most slaves were in the South. After the Civil War, slaves became free due to the 13th Amendment which abolished slavery. But are African Americans truly free even though slavery has been abolished? African Americans were free because of the 13th Amendment but they were not free at the same time because of how they are treated still after the abolishment of slavery, the laws they made only on African Americans in the Southern states, and the African Americans were given a new life, but they did not know what to do because all they were was slaves, so how is it fair to be mistreated when they do not know what to do? This is how they were free but they were not at the same time.

The South side is a cruel, but not just cruel also bloodthirsty side. Imagine working countless hours in all types of weather, farming or blacksmithing. Slave’s body shaking from the coldness of no warm clothing they can wear or overheating in an outrageous humid climate. Working on their hands and knees every single day. South still not pleased about their work. The North is at a attempt to seek to abolish slavery, but the South does not agree with North and to continue slavery. However, slavery should end because slave’s do get beaten, taken away from people they love, and others say that slavery should not be abolished.

There has always been hostility between different groups of people, in the 17th-19th centuries this was no different. This was the time of slavery in the New World. During this time people from Africa were enslaved and brought to the colonies of North America. They were then forced to work under harsh conditions. Although this is a painful memory in our country 's past, without it we wouldn 't be the country we are today.

For Lincoln slavery was morally wrong and it was a curse for the country which should never had happened. In his opinion the slavery should be prohibited on the free states’ territories and new territories and eventually it will die out through the whole country and system of gradual emancipation should be adopted in the country. Abraham Lincoln argued that slavery is an institution that destabilizes the political situation in the United States. He made a good argument that slavery jeopardized the country's free word reputation, referring to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence which was like the Bible for the churchmen, for Americans, as a free willed people this was sympathetic. Lincoln also referred to the Great Fathers who

The people who own slaves try to cover their wrongness with right by saying enslaving them is the only way the enslaved can be helped. For example, Athenians enslaved small cities controlled by Greeks in an effort to make the world a better place but in reality, they were truly only making the world a better place for only themselves. In a thought Athens one and only goal was the safety and protection of their own people. For the allies of the Greeks they were enslaved in an effort to protect and defend them from attackers. Athens was losing support because they only enslaved their allies not their people.

The foundation of this paper will highlight the following questions: How might southern apologists for slavery have used the northern “wage slave” discussed in the last chapter to justify slavery? To what extent do you agree with this argument? How did slaves use religious belief and kinship to temper their plight? Did this strategy play into the hands of slaveholders? How were non-slaveholding whites and “free people of color” affected by the institution of slavery?

“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

In the land of the free, saying slavery is a dark part of the United States’ history would be an understatement. From the early 1600’s until the abolition of the practice in 1865, slavery would be a common sight amongst plantations. The slaves would not stand idly in their predicament, learning how to improve their situations and sometimes reaching compromises or rebelling against slave masters. Slavery during the antebellum United States encompassed the ideals of whites in the North and South, the influential relationships between the whites and blacks, and the controversial lives the slaves led.