What Is Frederick Douglass Rationalize Slavery

In The Narrative of Frederick Douglass, Douglass shares the story of his lifetime in slavery. By revealing the hardships he had to endure, Douglass attempted to gain support for abolition. Throughout the book, Douglass discusses the horrifying whippings and beatings he and other slaves had to suffer through. At 20 years old, after being enslaved for his entire life, Douglass succeeded at escaping from his master in Baltimore. From here he went on to create a life for himself by working hard and earning his own living. Once he became free, Douglass dedicated his life to helping others that were not lucky enough to escape and writing this book was just one step he took in doing that. The southerners false beliefs that it was god wills for them

to own slaves and that black people were incapable of taking care of each other made it possible for Frederick Douglass to effectively help abolition as he was able to disprove the slaveowners.
Douglass was able to gain support for abolition by appealing to religious northerners and showing how slaveowners misused their religion in order to rationalize slavery.

Slaveholders believed that their mistreatment and harsh punishment of slaves was reasonable as black people were designed by God to be inferior and less intelligent than white people. In “White Supremacy and Negro Subordination” written by J.H. Van Evrie he defends the institution of slavery by asserting that black people were produced by God in order to live a different life than white men. He innately believed that southerners were not doing anything wrong by owning slaves, instead they were rightly following God’s will. Since God created all men in his image and therefore equal, southerners then inferred that blacks must not be human, helping themselves rationalize slavery even more. Douglass used this misconception of religion to exploit the southerners and used his intelligence to show that their beliefs of how black people were designed were wrong. He argued that of all slaveholders, religious ones were the worst because they used their religions in order to treat slaves even more harshly. This was an effective way to get support for the abolition of slavery by appealing to religious northerners. If the religious northerners read his book and saw how the south was using their religion, it would anger and embarrass them as their religion was being used to harm an entire race of people. This anger could

cause the northerners to get behind abolition and actively fight to end the misuse of their religion. Douglass also disproved the slaveholders by being a very intelligent person, refuting the assertion that black men were meant to not be as smart or as successful white men. By teaching himself to read and write he demonstrated that he, and many other black people, had the ability to learn if they had the opportunity to be taught.
By creating loving relationships with fellow slaves and his wife, Douglass invalidated the claims made by slaveholders that slaves could not attain successful relationships.

Slaveholders argued that black people were unable to create relationships and look after each other as they were essentially children. In “Sociology for the South”, George Fitzhugh insists that black people actually needed white people to look over and govern them because they only had the abilities of young children. Due to this claim, many southerners actually felt that they were helping black people instead of hurting them as they wouldn’t be able to function on their own or care for others since they couldn’t care for themselves. This was yet another way for slaveowners to justify the terrible conditions in which they managed their slaves. Douglass’s actions disputed the allegation that slaves were incapable of obtaining relationships as he created many relationships while he was enslaved and when he escaped, he got married. One of Douglass’s biggest concerns in terms of his escape was leaving the people he became so close with behind. As a result, he invited them to attempt to escape with him, despite the potential danger of having one of them inform the slaveowners of the escape. Putting himself in danger in order to protect other slaves and preserve their relationship showed that Douglass was mature enough to care for others. His maturity contradicted the statement that slaves had the mental

abilities of children because here, he was selfless enough to try and protect other people, rather than only himself. He again proved the southerners wrong when he got married, displaying that black people were capable of adult relationships and emotions. By showing that he had the ability to create adult relationships, Douglass proved to the northerns that once more, the slaveowners were wrong.
Frederick Douglass was able to effectively help the cause of abolition by informing northerners of the southerners false justifications of slavery. By demonstrating how slaveowners misused religion and incorrectly perceived black people’s abilities, Douglass caused many people to join the fight for abolition. Douglass’s best strategy was using slaveowners’ arguments and using his own stories and experiences to show how flawed these arguments were. This was effective because it showed people that there were no real justifications for slavery since all of the potential ones were being disproved. Douglass’s most helpful factor came from his intelligence. If he had not had this intelligence his story would not have been as widely spread as it would not have been as captivating or as enlightening as it is. His most effective tool was realizing he needed to appeal to the north, rather than convince the south to abolish slavery.