Analyze ways in which supporters of slavery, defended slavery.
The main issue in America politics during the years of the late 1840's to the late 1870's was slavery. Southerners wanted to keep the tradition of slave labor alive, and were justifying slavery in any way possible. Through economical, religious, and legal justifications the South also targeted the Negroes themselves and made worthy arguments supporting the Southern beliefs of slavery. .
During this time the North was pushing for full emancipation of slavery through the emancipation proclamation. The Southerners brought up the consequences of the immediate emancipation of slaves. If all slaves and free labor were lost at once in the South, cotton could not be harvested and this would bring the fall of the Southern economy. The slave owners depended on the cheep labor and this would help them profit more by spending little or no money on help. Also while the slaves would have more children, the more slaves that the farmers would acquire without having to purchase them. Then they brought the point of how would Northern textile mills be able to produce goods to be shipped around the world? Without the cotton produced by the South the textile mills in the North would eventually fall as well, making a horrible cycle of destruction of the economy all over America. Whether people liked it or not the economy was based on the backs of slavery and America needed them to survive.
The South often turned to a religious view to rationalize thraldom. They would use the so-called "Curse of Ham." In this doctrine the Biblical figure Noah had cursed his son Ham with blackness and the condition of slavery. Although this justification was misconstrued and Canaan not Ham was cursed, they continued to use this example because it was the first justification of slavery based on ethnicity. Even before the pseudo-scientific racism provided the basic justification for slavery, Europeans associated whiteness with purity.
The decision to make was whether the new land gained should be either proslavery or non-slavery; and at this time period America was split with the decision because the south's sentiment towards the slavery issue was proslavery, but to contradict that was the north's sentiment of non-slavery. ...
Fletcher returns to his home two weeks before Christmas, where Fletcher established himself as a huge proslavery person who will someday take over his father's plantation. ... Wee see the Quakers themselves convert Fletcher from a proslavery planter to an antislavery abolitionist. ...
There, he became the leader of antislavery guerillas and fought a proslavery attack against the antislavery town of Lawrence. The following year, in retribution for another attack, Brown went to a proslavery town and brutally killed five of its settlers. ...
In 1855 John Brown traveled to Kansas with his five sons where he began to retaliate against proslavery actions. ... This was an act of civil unrest between proslavery and anti slavery advocates for the control and power of the new Kansas territory. ...
The decision that would keep Scott from being a freeman is "just the kind of guarantee for slave labor [proslavery firebrands] sought. ... It was imperative that Scott win his freedom or else the south would win again and proslavery would further spread, even to the free states. ...
This event took place during a period of time when the state of Missouri was proslavery. ... The Southern states, with their proslavery beliefs and attitudes were not willing to give up slavery and to allow the blacks to become free, for fear of losing their wealth and material possessions. ...
On January 29, 1850, the 70-year-old Henry Clay presented a compromise. For eight months members of Congress, led by Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun, senator from South Carolina debated the compromise. With the help of Stephen Douglas, a young Democrat from Illinois, a series of bills that...
May 23, 1856 Today as I watched from the window of my house, I saw one of my white overseers almost beat a slave man to death. The overseer beat the slave in one of his gangs (and for quite a good reason) because he tripped while working on draining the marshlands for the sugar canes (I like to ...
A Well Regulated Militia by Saul Cornell elaborately describes the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms. The Second Amendment is one of the most important laws enacted to protect the right of people of the United States. It gives the people the right to protect themselves, their families and the...
