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The consequences of slavery in america
Negative social impact of slavery
Negative social impact of slavery
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The slave system “is pronounced to be sinful and odious, in the sight of God and man” (Slavery as a Positive Good). I am here to tell you today why this is such a false statement. I cannot sit here in silence as the people of this nation destroy the Union under which we live. I will not allow for the abolitionists to win this fight, because if they do our nation will fall apart. “Abolition and the Union cannot coexist. As the friend of the Union I openly proclaim it – and the sooner it is known the better” (Slavery as a Positive Good). The Union and Abolition cannot coexist, it’s as simple as that, one will fail if the other exists.
In 1838, in my Resolutions Upholding Slavery, I shared that we, the states, entered the Union under the Federal Constitution. We did this because of its view of increased security and its natural, political, and social advantages (Resolutions Upholding Slavery). Before this, we were free, independent and sovereign States, and since we have given the Union its power under the Constitution, the States should retain the power to choose slavery or not. Also, since slavery existed before and during the formation of the Constitution, and we give the Union its power, it is the Unions job to uphold the slave system. If they abolish slavery they are favoring the North, if they impose slavery on everyone they are going against the choice of many Northerners to not own slaves. The Constitution states the equality of rights among the people and if they take away or impose something on either the Southerners or the Northerners, this destroys that equality, and thus destroys the Union itself (Resolutions Upholding Slavery).
Slavery is also beneficial to everyone involved, is important to our society, and is reason ...
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...n with them, that to destroy it would be to destroy us as a people.” If we abolish slavery, it would destabilize our nation’s economy, society, and government. It would also pose a threat to the application of laws. Yet, the abolitionists have no care for our society.
So, as I have stated many times before, slavery is a positive good and not a necessary evil, like so many say it is. All of the benefits to our country due to the slave institutions should be proof enough of that. Also, no wealthy and civilized society has yet existed that did not live on the labor of the other.
The slave system is vital to our society, economy, and government, and should remain intact, as well as remain a choice among the people. So, we must join together and face the abolitionists and the anti-slavery movement head on, and we must do all we can to protect the union and our country.
Slavery is the idea and practice that one person is inferior to another. What made the institution of slavery in America significantly different from previous institutions was that “slavery developed as an institution based upon race.” Slavery based upon race is what made slavery an issue within the United States, in fact, it was a race issue. In addition, “to know whether certain men possessed natural rights one had only to inquire whether they were human beings.” Slaves were not even viewed as human beings; instead, they were dehumanized and were viewed as property or animals. During this era of slavery in the New World, many African slaves would prefer to die than live a life of forced servitude to the white man. Moreover, the problem of slavery was that an African born in the United States never knew what freedom was. According to Winthrop D. Jordan, “the concept of Negro slavery there was neither borrowed from foreigners, nor extracted from books, nor invented out of whole cloth, nor extrapolated from servitude, nor generated by English reaction to Negroes as such, nor necessitated by the exigencies of the New World. Not any one of these made the Negro a slave, but all.” American colonists fought a long and bloody war for independence that both white men and black men fought together, but it only seemed to serve the white man’s independence to continue their complete dominance over the African slave. The white man must carry a heavy
...t and see it as a way to get rid of the moral burden of slavery.
The philosophical tone created through the lofty diction demonstrates that the principles of the Constitution are in actuality unconstitutional in regards to society’s attitudes toward the forced labor system. Cary emphasizes that the inhumane treatment of slaves goes against the moral values of the nation as it takes away the necessities that all are inclined to. Consequently, this led to the mass movement of abolitionists, demanding that they “… [make] our voice heard at home” (Cary 1-2) in a place where
The irony in this lies in the slaveholder’s intentions: they themselves are motivated by fear. They fear a society in which they no longer serve to benefit from slave labor, and so they fear rebellion, they fear objection, they fear events like the Nat Turner Insurrection. The system the slaveholders strive so ardently to protect begins to affect even them, those in power, negatively. They begin to cope with their fear the only way they know how, by projecting it upon the slaves. When the slaveholders transfer this fear by corrupting something even they revere, religion, slavery’s perversive power is shown in horrifying clarity. The slaveholders will stop at nothing, they will leave nothing untouched and unsoiled if it means the preservation of slavery. Slavery isn’t just a physical and mental burden upon the slaves it imprisons; it is a moral burden on the entire society in which it
One of the larger abolitionist groups, The American Anti-Slavery Society, opposed the Acts of 1793, claiming them to be unconstitutional. They, like many, believed that each state had the right to legislate in regards to its policies on abolition and aimed to convince the South that slaveholding was a heinous crime in the sight of God. The Society...
John Calhoun, on the other hand, regarded slavery as a “positive good” because it has slavery has been a part of America, and the world, for decades. He states in his speech that slavery “...has civilized and improved Africans, physically, morally, and intellectually.” John Calhoun continues to explain that slavery is humane and since it
"The American constitution recognized slavery as a local constitution within the legal rights of the individual states. But in the North slavery was not adaptable to the local economy, and to many, it contradicted the vision of the founding fathers for a nation in which all men are to be free. The South considered slavery as a necessary institution for the plantation economy. It was linked to the local culture and society. As the United states expanded, the North worried that the South would introduce slavery into the new territories. Slavery had become both a moral issue and a question of political power." (Kral p61)
In fact, if the tolerance of slavery remains in this document and in the union, then it “will very speedily destroy this union” and it will actually be what tears the union apart (Garrison 2). If the union separates, it is in the better interests of the population because the liberation of slaves is certain. While Garrison believed that the founding fathers intentionally preserved the institution of slavery in the Constitution, Douglass believed that the framers intended that the Constitution was to be an evolving document that could in fact be used as a weapon against slavery, and he denies “that the Constitution guarantees the right to hold property in man” (Douglass 2). He asserts that in Article I of the Constitution, which refers to the twenty-year limit on the importation of African slaves, the framers intended the practice of slavery to end after that date.
“The right to have a slave implies the right in some one to make a slave; that right must be equal and mutual, and this would resolve society into a state of perpetual war.” Senator William Steward, an anti-slavery supporter, issued this claim in his “There is a Higher Law than the Constitution” speech. Steward, like all abolitionist, viewed all of man as equals. This equality came from the “higher law” that is the Bible. Since all men were created by God then all men were equals in God’s eyes. Abolitionist believed that whites had no more right to make a slave out of a African American than the African American had to make a slave out of a white man.
In his speech, Frederick Douglass made it clear that he believed that the continued toleration and support of slavery from both a religious and legal standpoint was utterly absurd when considering the ideals and principles advocated by America’s forefathers. He began by praising the American framers of the Constitution, an...
For most American’s especially African Americans, the abolition of slavery in 1865 was a significant point in history, but for African Americans, although slavery was abolished it gave root for a new form of slavery that showed to be equally as terrorizing for blacks. In the novel Slavery by Another Name, by Douglas Blackmon he examines the reconstruction era, which provided a form of coerced labor in a convict leasing system, where many African Americans were convicted on triumphed up charges for decades.
Slavery is immoral. Why? Because we hold this truth to be self-evident: that all men are created equal? Because life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness are unalienable rights endowed by our Creator? (“Declaration of Independence.” 1776.) Well, not all men are created equal. At least according to our Founding Fathers, African tribes, 18th century Europeans, the ancient Romans and Greeks, and … the Bible. As a matter of fact, slavery has not been immoral from humanity’s (also to be interpreted as America’s) standpoint but for only 150 years. Why then can we so firmly and undeniably declare that slavery is immoral? The answer lies in the writings of great political visionaries like Solon, Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Marx, and Lincoln. Individually they all have differing opinions about slavery. Taken together, however, their works reveal a timeline that shows how slavery has evolved from an accepted to a depraved custom. Slavery’s immorality is not limned in a constitution. Slavery is immoral because time has proven it to be immoral.
There were other advantages to slavery in the 1600 and 1700's other than working on the plantations.
In Philosophical Ethics, Utilitarianism is the doctrine that our actions are right if the outcome of our actions generate the greatest happiness amongst the majority. However, in “What is Wrong with Slavery?” some objectors of utilitarianism have tried to dismiss this moral reasoning as to having any importance by blaming the awful actions of slave traders and slave owners on utilitarianism. They attack this doctrine by saying that utilitarianism is a belief system that can either praise or condemn slavery, and utilitarianism easily commend slavery if a majority of the people visualize a slave-owning society as the most beneficial and generate greatest happiness. In this matter, the slave owners and slave traders can say that slavery is the right action because it generates the greatest happiness amongst themselves, because they may be in the illusion that they represent the majority. In response to these anti-utilitarian’s, R.M. Hare defends Unitarianism through the rebuttal of the anti-utilitarian’s claims. Hare agrees that the nature of utilitarianism can either commend or condemn slavery, but a key factor that anti-utilitarians forget is that utilitarianism shows what is wrong with slavery through reasoning, instead of just bluntly saying slavery is wrong without any proof.
As horrific as slavery may have seemed at the time, I think it may have been a "positive good", simply due to the actuality that at this time, White people were exceedingly ignorant, and without slavery, they possibly would not have a way of dealing with interactions with the slaves. As we look to post-Civil wartime, up to the time of MLK, we see that ignorance was an infestation throughout all of us, without the slavery, Africans were treated with the utmost disrespect. Common rights were stripped from them, and at times they were reduced to being treated like animals. During the period in question, the two races grew into coexisting without any major conflict or altercation.