Fitzhugh's Speech In The Universal Law Of Slavery

God bless the United States of America. The independence experienced in America was such a reason to rejoice and be proud to be an American. This pride, however, was only felt by the white man as he enjoyed the actual freedom that was talked about in the constitution. The black man lived full of fear, resentment, and anger. So what does independence really look like? Who is truly free? Do you have to meet a certain criteria or fit into a certain mold to have liberty? Slavery was real in the Southern states of the United States. Men, women, and children were owned by other individuals and were often beaten or even killed. According to Fitzhugh in “The Universal Law of Slavery” slaves were not capable of taking care of themselves and had to have a master that would serve as their guardian. He saw the negro race as not being as good as the white race and needing the white man to take care of him. (Fitzhugh). This stereotype of the black man was consistent among the pro-slavery individuals. This essay will explore the real meaning of freedom and point out that slavery represented everything that Americans should have been against.

Along with the celebration of the fourth of July came a speech given by Frederick Douglass.

In this speech, he stressed the reason for the celebration. Americans were celebrating that they had “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. (Douglass). However, the black man did not have this luxury. The white man had traded the black man’s life for bondage; their liberty for chains, and the pursuit of happiness for whips. Everything that they should have been celebrating they were mourning. The black man was living in misery at the hands of the white man. There was no reasonable explanation that could make it acceptable for a person to own another person like a

possession.
Anti-slavery writers called on Americans to realize that slavery was against the very idea of what America’s independence was built on. As the colonies were under the rule of Britain, the slaves were under the rule of their masters. American had fought to get their freedom, but then denied the slaves of the same rights. Slavery should be considered a crime, and slaves should be set free. Not only was slavery a crime, but slavery went against the teaching of God. God had not intended for people to be treated as possessions and robbed of their dignity and freedom. (Garrison)
One of the worst parts of the slavery era was the Fugitive Slave Law that allowed white men to hunt down slaves that had escaped. This often led to free black men, women, and children being taken into slavery that had not been slaves. Christians were oblivious to what was going on all around them and allowed themselves to somehow justify that it was acceptable. This took on a deeper hurt because it gave the slaves a bad impression of Christians and Christianity and did more damage than could have ever been realized. The church was often guilty of doing nothing which was as wrong as participating in the wrong that was being done to the slaves. (Douglass)
It is easy to talk about slaves as just another part of history, but carefully reading the writings of these literary works presented slavery in a different light. Men, women, and children were chained, beaten, whipped, and degraded. Children were stripped away from their parents, and women lost their husbands and homes. This was not acceptable in any form or fashion. All men should be treated equally. This was done while freedom was celebrated and often as prayers were raised and sermons were preached. Many looked to God who was the only hope in a dark and misled world. “Our trust for victory is solely in God. We may be personally defeated, but our principles never. Truth, Justice, Reason, Humanity, must and will gloriously triumph.” (Garrison)