Slavery in America - Thomas Jefferson and Frederick Douglass - Essay Example

Slavery in America: Thomas Jefferson and Frederick Douglass. Slavery was one of the most important issues of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in America. Slavery had been a part of the American social system since colonial times and became an essential part of the economy of the southern states, which was largely based on labor-intensive cotton plantations. As the issue of slavery became increasingly debated, it sharply divided those who supported it from those who strongly opposed it as morally wrong. Both supporters and opponents of slavery felt very strongly about this established practice and a large volume of writing exists discussing both points of view. Supporters of slavery, and abolitionists, used writing to spread their views, state their justifications for their stands and attempt to gather support for their respective positions by mobilizing public opinion. American writers dealt with slavery as one of the most crucial topics of the times. Most of the important American writers of the period, such as Thomas Jefferson and Frederick Douglass, touch upon the issue of slavery in their writings. Jefferson and Douglass are American writers who lived in different centuries and came from different backgrounds. These differences ensured that their writing and position on slavery was not the same. Although both Jefferson and Douglass expressed their opposition to the institution of slavery, they addressed this issue in significantly different ways in their lives and in their writing. In order to understand Jefferson and Douglass’ writing on slavery, it is essential to know their respective backgrounds. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), “an agrarian aristocrat” (Baym et. al, 661), was the son of a wealthy Virginian planter, and inherited 1,750 acres of land. He received a quality education, including the classical languages, music, mathematics, philosophy and law. He served in the Virginia Legislature, was a delegate to the Continental Congress, was the chief architect of the Declaration of Independence and went on to become Secretary of State, Vice-President and was finally elected the third President of the United States of America. Jefferson was an industrious writer and correspondent, and was acknowledged to be an influential writer of his times, although Notes on the State of Virginia is his only book. In this book, Jefferson expressed his views on slavery and these may be seen as a natural consequence of his background and the period in which he lived. The major part of Jefferson’s writing was devoted to other issues, such as legislative matters and details of the state of Virginia. Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), was born into slavery in Maryland. Unlike Jefferson, who had the finest of teachers, Douglass painstakingly learned to read and write on his own, against great odds, and with amazing determination. Douglass experienced, at first-hand, all the brutality of the slave system, was jailed for a failed escape attempt and finally made it to freedom in the North. He experienced discrimination there and went on to become an abolitionist speaker and “the most influential African American leader of the nineteenth century and --- one of the greatest orators of the age” (Baym et. al, 1170). He authored three autobiographies - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and my Freedom and a novella, The Heroic Slave. He also wrote numerous speeches and pamphlets. Douglass entire writing was devoted to the abolitionist cause and he was a spokesperson for the anti-slavery movement. Jefferson and Douglass’ writings on slavery are a reflection of their background and times. Jefferson and Douglass shared a common attitude of opposition to slavery. Jefferson’s view of slavery as morally wrong was in line with the Enlightenment thinking fostered on him by his mentor, Dr. William Strong. In 1769, during his term of office in the Virginia legislature, Jefferson introduced legislation to permit the emancipation of slaves. His move was defeated. Again, he made an open statement of his opposition to slavery in his draft of the Declaration of Independence, where he strongly condemns King George’s license for the slave trade and for waging “cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither” (Jefferson, The Autobiography, 665). Jefferson variously termed the slave trade a “piratical warfare” and “this execrable commerce” and clearly declared his opposition to a system in which “men should be bought and sold” (Jefferson, The Autobiography, 665). In fact, Jefferson gave slavery as one of the causes which compelled the colonies to seek independence from Great Britain. Jefferson was unhappy with the Continental Congress’ refusal to include his condemnation of slavery in the declaration which was finally adopted, “in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who on the contrary still wished to continue it,” and the sensitivities of the slave trading northern states (Jefferson, The Autobiography, 662). As President, Jefferson outlawed the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Douglass was even more vehement in opposing “the whole system of fraud and inhumanity of slavery” (Douglass, Narrative, Ch. 10). The purpose of his work was to bring about the abolition of slavery. He laments that he is a slave who is “Born for anothers benefit” and regrets his “entire dependence on the will of somebody I had never seen” (Douglass, My Bondage, Ch. 2). As a direct victim of the system, Douglass’ objective in writing was to bear testimony to the cruelty of the slave system and rouse public passion against this immoral practice. He tries to arouse the conscience of his readers by giving several accounts of the cruelty of slavery. Douglass writes about the separation of children from their mothers, the breaking up of families, hunger and cruel punishment. He describes in gory detail the whipping of his aunt Hester by Captain Anthony: “I have often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most heart-rending shrieks of an own aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood” (Douglass, Narrative, Ch. 1). Douglass describes the cruelty of Covey who “gave me a very severe whipping, cutting my back, causing the blood to run, and raising ridges on my flesh as large as my little finger” (Narrative, Ch. 10). He indicates the barbarity and immorality of a system which allowed Covey to treat his slave Caroline as “A BREEDER,” and hiring “a married man of Mr. Samuel Harrison, to live with him one year; and him he used to fasten up with her every night!” (Narrative, Ch. 10). Jefferson and Douglass expressed their opposition to slavery in very different kinds of writing. Douglass’ writing passionately condemns slavery with every anecdote and word, while Jefferson’s opposition is more in terms of a quiet moral philosophy. This is in line with their respective experiences of slavery. Jefferson was the owner of more than 135 slaves whom he inherited or purchased. These slaves worked as household servants, agricultural laborers, weavers and factory workers. Jefferson gave his daughters slaves when they married. He sold a runaway slave. It is also generally accepted that Jefferson had a lengthy relationship with Sally Hemings, his slave. Jefferson did not actively work to abolish slavery and his writing condemns slavery as morally wrong in a dispassionate way. In 1770, Jefferson represented a slave in a suit for freedom, arguing that “under the law of nature, all men are born free, and every one comes into the world with a right to . .. liberty” (qtd. in Schwabach, 5). Jefferson’s writing on slavery can be understood in the light of his position as a slave owner. Douglass himself writes that it is only through the personal experience of being a slave that a man can truly understand the cruelty of the system:  “I say, let him be placed in this most trying situation, -- the situation in which I was placed, -- then, and not till then, will he fully appreciate the hardships of, and know how to sympathize with, the toil-worn and whip-scarred fugitive slave” (Douglass, Narrative, Ch. 11). Douglass’ entire writing was an argument against the cruelty and immorality of slavery. Jefferson and Douglass are both aware of the corrupting influence of slavery on the best of men and women. Jefferson writes of the negative influence of slavery on both the master and the slave: “There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of slavery among us.  The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other.  Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal” (Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII). Jefferson warns that slavery makes the master a tyrant and undermines his manners and his morals. He condemns the political system which allows “one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots, and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part, and the amor patriae of the other” (Jefferson, Notes, Query XVIII). He categorically states his “hope preparing, under the auspices of heaven, for a total emancipation” (Jefferson, Notes, Query XVIII). Jefferson believes that slavery destroys the morals and industriousness of men. In the same way, Douglass relates how, in his experience, slavery corrupts even the best natures. One of his best examples of this is in the case of Mrs. Sophia Auld: “When I went there, she was a pious, warm, and tender-hearted woman. ---Slavery soon proved its ability to divest her of these heavenly qualities. Under its influence, the tender heart became stone, and the lamblike disposition gave way to one of tiger-like fierceness” (Douglass, Narrative, Ch. 7). Douglass emphasizes that slavery brutalizes men and turns them into monsters. Jefferson and Douglass were both aware that the immorality of slavery corrupts the soul of man, and turns the master and the slave into brutes. Jefferson was a source of inspiration to Douglass. Douglass openly acknowledged this: “The fathers of this republic waged a seven years’ war for political liberty. Thomas Jefferson taught me that my bondage was, in its essence, worse than ages of that which your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose” (Douglass, Address in Baltimore, Monticello.org). Douglass looks up to Jefferson as the architect of the Declaration of Independence and as a man who denounced slavery as morally wrong. The golden words drafted by Jefferson, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (Jefferson, The Autobiography, 663), are Douglass’ justification for his stand that the American constitution does not support slavery. In his 1872 Address in Richmond, Douglass again acknowledges his debt to Jefferson: “It was, Virginia, your own Thomas Jefferson that taught me that all men are created equal” (Douglass, Monticello.org). “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July,” is considered to be one of Douglass’ greatest speeches. Douglass makes the Declaration the foundation of this speech. He makes the point that slavery is unconstitutional and criticizes Americans for not living up to the ideals of the founding fathers and the Declaration of Independence. He praises the founders for their commitment to freedom: “The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men too. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were “final;” not slavery and oppression” (Douglass, 1251). Douglass considers the Declaration to be an anti-slavery statement. He asks his audience, “Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?” (Douglass, 1251). He declares that the Fourth of July celebrations are exclusively for white Americans and rejects the call to join in the festivities: “To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony” (Douglass, 1251). Douglass considers Jefferson to be an opponent of slavery. However, although Jefferson expressed his opposition to slavery as morally wrong, his writing makes it clear that he was a racist who believed in the physical and moral inferiority of the blacks as a race. On the issue of slavery, “he evinced the same prejudices as most of his contemporaries in the colonies and then the United States” (Baym et al, 661). Jefferson declares that the color of the blacks’ skin is of great importance and is an indicator of inferiority. According to him, blacks have “less share of beauty,” “a very strong and disagreeable odor,” suffer from “a want of forethought,” are “in reason much inferior” to the whites, “in imagination they are dull, tasteless and anomalous” (Jefferson, Notes, 669-670). Jefferson considers blacks to be inferior even to the Indians in reasoning, imagination and art. He holds that blacks are naturally less intelligent than other races saying, “blacks are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind” (Jefferson, Notes, 673). Jefferson also criticized the writing of black writers of the time, such as Phyllis Wheatley and Benjamin Banneker. Douglass counters Jefferson’s racism in his passionate Fourth of July address, saying that the laws enacted by the States are “the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being” (Douglass, What to the Slave, 1253). He asserts that blacks are as human as any other race and condemns America for being a land where “you will see men and women reared like swine for the market” (Douglass, What to a Slave, 1254). Douglass points out the hypocrisy of Americans who support the liberty of Hungary, France and Ireland saying, “and yet, you hold securely, in a bondage which, according to your own Thomas Jefferson, “is worse than ages of that which your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose,” a seventh part of the inhabitants of your country” (Douglass, What to a Slave, 1255). Douglass was aware of Jefferson’s racism. In his Address to the Indian Industrial School he says, “Mr. Jefferson, among other statesmen and philosophers, while he considered slavery an evil, entertained a rather low estimate of the negros mental ability. He thought that the negro might become learned in music and in language, but that mathematics were quite out of the question with him” (Douglass, Monticello.org). However, Douglass continued to respect Jefferson’s support for the end of slavery and his stature as a founding father. It may be argued that Douglass wrote his novella, The Heroic Slave, with the intention of showing that blacks, as personified by Madison Washington, are equal to the whites in courage and intellect. In the story, the narrator, a white man, says, “I felt myself in the presence of a superior man; one who, had he been a white man, I would have followed willingly and gladly in any honorable enterprise” (Douglass, The Heroic Slave, 1282). It may be said that Douglass himself is the best proof with which to refute Jefferson’s argument that the blacks were intellectually inferior to the whites. Jefferson opposed slavery, but was equally opposed to living with emancipated slaves on an equal footing. His solution was the emigration of freed slaves: Freed slaves “should continue with their parents to a certain age, then be brought up, at the public expence, to tillage, arts or sciences, according to their geniusses, till the females should be eighteen, and the males twenty-one years of age, when they should be colonized to such place as the circumstances of the time should render most proper . . . and to send vessels at the same time to other parts of the world for an equal number of white inhabitants; to induce whom to migrate hither” (Jefferson, Notes, 669). Jefferson is convinced that blacks and whites cannot live together as equals in harmony. He fears any circumstance under which the two races may mix. He hopes to avoid any such “staining” of the blood of whites by recommending that, “When freed, (the slave) is to be removed beyond the reach of mixture” (Jefferson, Notes, 673). Jefferson reported, in discussing proposed revisions to the criminal code of Virginia, that “slaves guilty of offences punishable in others by labor, [were] to be transported to Africa, or elsewhere, as the circumstances of the time admit, there to be continued in slavery” (Jefferson, qtd. in Schwabach, 13). On the other hand, Douglass’ writing called for “a multiracial United States offering equal rights and justice for all” (Baym et al, 1171). He opposed all calls for the emigration of the blacks and was certain that the freed slaves had an equal right to America, which they had earned through ancestry and labor. Thomas Jefferson and Frederick Douglass were both American writers who opposed the institution of slavery in their work. However, their attitudes were influenced by their contrasting personal backgrounds and the cultural prejudices of the different times in which they lived. Jefferson opposed slavery as morally wrong, but was himself a slave owner who considered the blacks to be racially inferior to the whites. He was willing to stop the slave trade and emancipate the slaves but would not tolerate co-existence with the blacks in a racially integrated society. In contrast, Douglass experienced at first-hand the brutal results of slavery. He devoted his entire writing to arouse the conscience of Americans to the inhumanity of the system and to ensure that blacks would be accepted on an equal footing with whites. Jefferson’s attitude is very conflicting. It appears as if Jefferson had one definition of liberty for whites and another for blacks. This makes his position on freedom and slavery rather difficult to accept as sincere. In this view, it is Douglass’ writing on slavery which comes across as genuine. It strikes a chord in the heart of the reader and compels sympathy. Douglass’ autobiography itself serves as a powerful testimony to the inhumanity of slavery and is a credible call for its abolition. Works Cited. Douglass, Frederick. The Norton Anthology of American Literature (Eighth Edition). (Vol. Package 1: Vols. A & B) Ed. Baym, Nina, Robert S. Levine, Wayne Franklin, Philip F. Gura, Jerome Klinkowitz, Arnold Krupat, Mary Loeffelholz, Jeanne Campbell Reesman, Patricia B. Wallace. City of Publication: Publisher, Year. Page range of entry. Print. Jefferson, Thomas. The Norton Anthology of American Literature (Eighth Edition). (Vol. Package 1: Vols. A & B) Ed. Baym, Nina, Robert S. Levine, Wayne Franklin, Philip F. Gura, Jerome Klinkowitz, Arnold Krupat, Mary Loeffelholz, Jeanne Campbell Reesman, Patricia B. Wallace. City of Publication: Publisher, Year. Page range of entry. Print. Monticello.org. “Notable Comments on Jefferson – Nineteenth Century.” N.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2014. http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/notable-comments-jefferson-19th-century Schwabach, Aaron. “Thomas Jefferson, Slavery, and Slaves.” Thomas Jefferson Law Review, Vol. 33, p. 1, 2010; Thomas Jefferson School of Law Research Paper No. 1866452. 17 June, 2011. Web. 29 Mar. 2014. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1866452 Read More