In Favor of Slavery Abolition - Term Paper Example

In Favor of Slavery Abolition 2008 Slavery was the brought to America by Dutch, French and Spanish, who used to take slaves with them during their first expeditions to the New World. Europeans tried to turn Indians into slaves, but vainly. Dark-skinned slaves first arrived in Virginia in 1619 and since then there were chains of crowded cargo vessels. Nearly 12 million Africans were forced to leave their homes for West; only about 10 million of them reached the destination, while only 6% were those who came to North America. Statistical data on the population in the North and South of the U.S. show that about 4 million slaves costing almost $4 billion lived in the United States before the Civil War (Wahl 2001). Slavery became a real plague for the USA, undermining its basic ideological foundations. Being immoral and inhuman, it affected lives of both slaves and their white masters, contradicted the notions of liberty, democracy and equality and spoilt the country’s image in the eyes of the world. Slavery caused human losses during the rebellions of the slaves and resulted in the Civil War between North and South. It led to the political and social split of the nation. Numerous facts spoke in favor of abolition of slavery. The arguments of South against abolition of slavery were few, based on economic interests and racially discriminative attitudes. Slavery supporters often misinterpreted and misquoted the fundamental documents of the country to provide arguments against slavery abolition. They also used to blame Republicans in the problems caused by the institution of slavery itself. Slave-owners presented slavery as a ‘positive good’ and economically beneficial institution. Moreover, they argued that black people were inferior to white people and should not have been treated like humans. They argued that Constitution and the Declaration of the Union supported slavery and the right of white people to own black slaves. They also blamed Northern states for not giving South freedom to decide on its domestic issues. South stated that preserving the peculiar institute they kept to their traditions and values, and observed the customs set by the first settlers. They stated that slaves loved their masters and it was the best life for them. They claimed that slavery was an organic institute of the US economical, social and political system. South feared that abolition of slavery would lead to decline of their economy. The claims of Democrats were easily refuted by Abraham Lincoln. The evidences from historical research and slave narratives revealed the real nature of slavery as a monstrous system harmful for both of the races, for the economy, political and social situation in the country. First of all, slavery was immoral and inhuman. It contradicted the major principles of justice, liberty and humanity, poisoning the minds of masters and ruining the live of slaves. Slavery connived at the evil sides of human nature, permitted revealing the worst inclinations of people. As Frederick Douglas (1852) put it: “There is, in this country, a system of injustice and cruelty, shocking to every sentiment of humanity -- a crime and scandal, making this country a hissing and a bye-word to the world, and liable to the judgements of a righteous God.” He referred to slavery as a “barbarous, monstrous, and bloody”, “murderous system,” as a “giant crime.” Harriet Jacobs, the author of a slave narrative, and Douglas’s contemporary, wrote in the foreword to her novel Incidents in the life of a Salve Girl that her aim was to describe “the depth of degradation involved into that word, Slavery.” Slavery was a monstrous system establishing genocide as a norm of life. According to Nell Irvin Painter (2006), slaves were treated as badly as one can only imagine. They were constantly exposed to physical and psychological traumas. They suffered physically and psychologically from brutal punishments, like amputations or castration, constant beating, nakedness of women before onlookers, etc. Overwork, insufficient clothing and scanty nutrition left their traces on slaves’ bodies. For instance, the remains of slaves’ skeletons found in lower Manhattan demonstrate that almost 50% died before the age of 20, about 40% being preadolescent children with osteomalacia and anemia, arthritis in the neck bones and lesions on the thighbones. Numerous psychological traumas had long-lasting consequences, leading even to psychic disorders. Post-stress syndrome was common among the black. Frederick Douglas and Harriet Jacobs in their slave narratives revealed a vivid picture of the rotten and evil nature of slavery. For instance, in Chapter 9 of Jacobs’ novel, the author colorfully describes the treatment and ‘punishment’ of slaves. The reader is astonished by the scenes of savageness and brutality of the white masters and the sophisticated methods of murder they used to show their power and keep the slaves in obedience. Mr. Litch, Mr. Conant, Mrs. Wade are the portraits of usual planters, who easily sentenced black people to death and moreover got pleasure from the murders and human suffering and terror. One of the most impressible incidents in this chapter is the punishment of James, who was whipped “from his head to his foot” and “put into the cotton gin, which was screwed down, only allowing him room to turn on his side when he could not lie on his back” (p.75). In five days the man was found dead and half eaten by rats and vermin, and rats must have started gnawing him while he’d been still alive (p.76). James died for his “manliness and intelligence”, “the qualities that made it so hard for him to be a plantation slave” (p.76). Slavery had detrimental effects not only for the black community, but for the white one either. So Jacobs witnessed: I was twenty-one years in that cage of obscene birds. I can testify, from my own experience and observation, that slavery is a curse to the whites as well as to the blacks. It makes the white fathers cruel and sensual; the sons violent and licentious; it contaminates the daughters, and makes the wives wretched. And as for the colored race, it needs an abler pen than mine to describe the extremity of their sufferings, the depth of their degradation (p.81). Further, describing the muster after Nat Turner’s insurrection and the white ransacking as wolves about the black people’s homes, she comments: It was a grand opportunity for the low whites, who had no negroes of their own to scourge. They exulted in such a chance to exercise a little brief authority, and show their subserviency to the slaveholders; not reflecting that the power which trampled on the colored people also kept themselves in poverty, ignorance, and moral degradation (p.98). Frederick Douglas (1852) underlined this idea suggesting that “the United States would rot in its tyranny, if there were not some negroes in this land.” Slavery destroyed the very institute of family and contradicted all the values manifested in American Dream. Genovese-Fox suggested that it constituted “a crime against woman’s essential nature – her natural yearning for virtue, domesticity, and motherhood” (In Miller 2003, p.36). As we can see, the inhuman and immoral nature of the ‘peculiar institution’ had a deteriorating impact on the whole country. Running counter to the concepts of democracy, liberty and equity stated in the Declaration of Independence, slavery ruined the very ideological foundations of the American society and spoilt its image in the world. Vividly depicting the common scenes from the daily life of South how they might have been perceived by the foreigner, F. Douglas finished his picture with a bitter sarcasm: “and over all this was a picture of the Devil himself, looking down with Satanic satisfaction on passing events” (1848). He emphasized that slavery was absolutely against the manifests of liberty, declared in this country. The world perceived the USA as thoroughly hypocritical. Moreover, slavery threatened the US democracy. So in 1852 he stated that if Democrats could prohibit the discussion of the rights of black men, they could eventually prohibit the discussion of the rights of white men. “Freedom of speech” had always been “high constitutional right”. Yet, the institute of slavery was so “false, unnatural, brutal and shocking”, that it could not be discussed. The same points disturbed Abraham Lincoln when in 1854 he wrote that “the monstrous injustice of slavery” was hushed, making American look hypocritical and contradicting “the very fundamental principles of civil liberty” (Lincoln on Slavery). In 1855 he wrote to Joshua Speed: “Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that “all men are created equal.” We now practically read it “all men are created equal, except negroes.” When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read “all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics” (Lincoln on Slavery). Slavery did not fit into the concept of democracy, believed Lincoln. His definition of democracy ran as follows: “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy” (Lincoln on Slavery). For him the phrase “all men are created equal” applied to all people. He also argued that there was not a single line in the Constitution setting the right of the white people to possess black slaves or treat them as inferior and inhuman. Lincoln argued that black people were always referred to as “a person” in servitude. Slavery dehumanized African Americans, depriving them of the right of being men. “I think Slavery is wrong, morally, and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union,” stated Lincoln in 1859. This institution made Americans unworthy the high ideals they declared. He developed these points in the debates with Stephen A. Douglas. Douglas stated that founding fathers knew better when they had established the half-free and half-slave organization of the Union. Lincoln’s major argument was that the ‘founding fathers’, though viewing slavery as absolutely wrong, had leave the half-slave and half-free institution, because “they knew of no way to get rid of it at that time”, and hoping that it would die a natural death (Fifth and Sixth Debates, 1858: Lincoln on Slavery). To support the idea Lincoln conducted a broad research, and laid out precise fact in his Cooper Union Address (1860). He claimed that the thirty-nine framers of the original Constitution did not approve slavery and would have abolished it wholly be entire South a part of the Union. They did all they could to abolish slavery in the North and restrict its spread in the newly-ceded states. Their actions declared that Federal Government had the right to control slavery in the federal territories and that no proper division of local from federal authority must have taken place. South blamed Republicans in provoking an open conflict. Lincoln saw slavery as the source of political and war trouble. First of all, South feared the abolition of slavery, while it could make them fall behind the economically strong North. This fear and discontent, eventually, developed into the Civil War, the one which Lincoln wanted to avoid by all means. Slavery almost led to the split of the country, which was impossible and inadmissible. “Physically speaking, we can not separate. We can not remove our respective sections from each other nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other, but the different parts of our country can not do this. They can not but remain face to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them”, said Abraham Lincoln in his First Inaugural Speech (1860). Even if South was going to start the war, he warned, that didn’t provide solution of the issue. Though Lincoln always claimed to have no intention to interfere with slavery in South, most of his statements revealed that entire abolition of slavery was the best decision for the country. He promoted the idea that hired labor is a more efficient basis of economic sustainability. South denied the abolition of slavery while to their minds it would lead to amalgamation of races. Lincoln argued that slavery was the major reason of amalgamation. In 1850 there were 405,751 mulattoes in the United States, very few of those being the offspring of whites and free blacks. Most of mulattoes were born from black slaves and their white masters. “Separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation but as all immediate separation is impossible the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together,” suggested Abraham Lincoln in his speech on Dred Scott Decision (1957). He debated that it was not moral to leave black people enslaved and “not human enough to have a hearing, even if they were free”. Slavery made black women “subject to the forced concubinage of their masters, and liable to become the mothers of mulattoes in spite of themselves.” Comparing F. Douglas’s and H. Jacobs’ narratives, Jennie Miller (2003) underlined the impact of slavery on black women, concluding that “gender-based experiences caused the horrors of slavery to be more traumatic and difficult to overcome for slave women than slave men” (p.33). As we can see, the abolition of slavery was the only reasonable solution. The ‘peculiar institute’ ran counter to the values and ideals declared in The Declaration of Independence. This system was unnatural, resulting in distorted lives of the whole generations, threatening democracy in the USA and causing strong political and social discord. The founding fathers of the Union viewed slavery as absolutely wrong. This position was reflected in Constitution. Supporting the institute of slavery southerners denied the highest law of the county and promoted separation. While such a separation was not possible for a number of political and economic reasons, the abolition of slavery was necessary. References: Douglas, Frederick (1848). Speech at the Anti-Slavery Association. Douglas, Frederick (1852). Speech Delivered at the mass Free Democratic convention at Ithaca, New York, Oct 14th. In Frederick Douglass Paper, October 22, 1852. Proofed by Rebecca Tippins, Department of History, Furman University. Retrieved February 27, 2008 from history.furman.edu/~benson/docs/fdouglass52.htm - 47k Jacobs, Ann Harriet (1860). Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Written by Herself. Edited by L. Maria Child, Boston, 306 p. Text scanned (OCR) by Carlene Hempel Second edition, 2003, ca. 550K, Academic Affairs Library, UNC-CH, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2003.Retrieved September 15, 2007 from www.gutenberg.org/etext/11030 - 11k Lincoln, Abraham (1857). Speech on the Dred Scott Decision, June 26. Lincoln, Abraham (1860). Cooper Union Address. February 27. Lincoln, Abraham (1861). First Inaugural Address. March 4. Lincoln on Slavery. Lincoln Home. National historic Site, Illinois. The National Park Service. Retrieved February 27, 2008 from: http://www.nps.gov/archive/liho/slavery/al01.htm Miller, Jennie (2003). Harriet Jacobs and the “Double Burden” of American Slavery. International Social Science Review. Volume: 78. Issue: 1-2. pp.31-41 Painter, Nell Irvin. Slavery: A Dehumanizing Institution, An excerpt from: Creating Black Americans: African American History and Its Meanings, 1619 to the Present. Filed in Art , Literature, History on February 14, 2006. Retrieved February 27, 2008 from: blog.oup.com/2006/02/slavery_a_dehum/ - 34k Wahl, Jenny (2001). Slavery in the United States. EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. August 15. Retrieved February 27, 2008 from: http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/wahl.slavery.us Read More