The Hypocrisy of Good People - Essay Example

The Hypocrisy of “Good People” Slavery is a shameful aspect of our American heritage. While it is unthinkable today to view another person as “property” and therefore having no rights, there was a time in this country when slavery was so ingrained into society that there didn’t seem to be anything that could be done about it. Perhaps this was why so many people that viewed themselves as “good” didn’t do more in ending slavery. Whether a white owner was cruel to the slaves or not, there was no excuse for perpetuating such an abominable practice. When considering Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, we can see how the perpetuation of slavery by “gentle” owners was every bit as immoral as those owners who treated their slaves inhumanely. Just because a situation seems hopeful is no reason to not attempt to change it. This discussion will center around the era of slavery and the disillusion of many, that even “good” people owned slaves. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, we are first introduced to Mr. Shelby, a white slave-owner who considered himself to be more refined in his attitudes than other slave owners. While some slave-owners considered slaves to be incorrigible and deserving of servitude, Mr. Shelby shows himself to believe that Uncle Tom is a good man: “No; I mean, really, Tom is a good, steady, sensible, pious fellow. He got religion at a camp-meeting, four years ago; and he really did get it” 2 (Stowe 6). In this Mr. Shelby demonstrates that he believes that Christianity has the ability to make anyone a good person. It is the standard to which he views people, and it is because Tom has become Christian that he is able to be a good person. This sets up the motif of good people being morally wrong by owning slaves; if these white owners are all Christians, then there would be no way in which they could allow such terrible practices to continue to exist. Mr. Shelby then shows how he views himself as a good, morally righteous person. He tells Haley that he doesn’t wish to split up slave families: “the fact is, sir, I’m a humane man, and I hate to take the boy from his mother, sir” (Stowe 9). This further demonstrates how Mr. Shelby thinks that he is a good man; however, due to financial reasons, Mr. Shelby finds himself forced to sell Tom and split up a family. Eliza and her son Harry are threatened to be split up because Mr. Shelby made poor financial decisions. Mr. Shelby has stated that he is a “humane” man and doesn’t wish to split up a family, but good intentions have no relevance in the real world if they are not followed through. Financial woes are no reason to become a hypocrite and change your views on what is morally right or wrong. Mr. Shelby is a weak man who is responsible for all of the hardships Tom faces and his eventual death. Miss Ophelia is another character that shows the hypocritical attitudes of whites. She feels that the institution of slavery is wrong and acts stunned when she hears of the treatment of slaves: “This is perfectly horrible…you ought to be 3 ashamed of yourselves” (236). The problem with Miss Ophelia is that she is still prejudice and hateful when she is near an actual slave. Her attitudes come more from ignorance as she does not spend time in the presence of slaves until Tom. Though she feels slavery is wrong, he attitudes toward slaves is the attitude that helped to perpetuate slavery by de-humanizing slaves. Frederick Douglass wrote of the evils of slavery from a personal perspective; as a former slave, he was able to describe the sort of difficulties he went through. He had cruel owners and owners who considered themselves to be morally superior and more gentle, but through his descriptions of his treatment he shows that there is no such thing as a morally superior slave owner. All slave owners are every bit as morally responsible for the perpetuation of such a horrible institution. Upon publishing Narrative of Frederick Douglass, he had to seek refuge in England as the laws of the time stated that his owners had rights to seek him out and retrieve their “property” (Sourcebook). Douglass, who was probably the son of the plantation owner, is an example of how corrupt slave owners were. Even though Captain Anthony was the father of Frederick, because he was part black and a slave he did nothing to help end the slavery of his own son. People that took part in slavery were so incorrigible that they could allow their own children to be put through this treatment. What is even worse is that these people called themselves 4 Christians: I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the south is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes - a justifier of the most appalling barbarity, — a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds, — and a dark shelter under which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection (Douglass). After Douglass was on the southern plantation, he was sent to Hugh and Sophia Auld. While plantation slave-owners were secluded from other people, most notably other people that didn’t own slaves, slaves that lived in cities generally lived under less harsh circumstances because the slave-owners did not want to appear cruel to white non-slave owners who lived nearby. Sophia, who had not owned slaves before, was kind to Frederick and even begin teaching him to read. When her husband found out, he demanded that she stop teaching him to read. The Aulds eventually became more cruel to Douglass. This shows another aspect of the hypocrisy of white slave-owners. Part of the justification for keeping slaves was because they were supposedly incapable of being educated and contributing to society; keeping slaves uneducated was one way in which whites held power over them. Slaves were kept from reading and writing also because it kept them from 5 telling their story to a wider audience. If a slave was able to write eloquently, then people would realize that this person did not need to be enslaved because they could not contribute to society, and this would spread sympathy for the abolition movement. Once Douglass learned to read, he learned of the abolition movement and other slaves that had escaped to the North. The slaves were only uneducated because they were kept that way out of fear that they would demand freedom. Obviously the justification for slaves being in servitude is ridiculous is they are purposefully kept to be that way. Once Douglass learns to read, he works at teaching others to read as he sees education as the route to freeing slaves and ending slavery. Also, Douglass means to imply that slavery is capable of turning good people into cruel people. Sophia Auld is an example of this. While at first she was kind to him, she eventually becomes cruel to him. We are meant to see that having that kind of power over another person perverts our views and dehumanizes the person being subjected, and this is what allows people to treat other people in such a manner. Slavery is not only bad because of the treatment endured by the slaves, but because it turns good people into bad people. In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, the author focuses more closely on the difficulties that are faced by women in slavery. For one, female slaves were the victims of rape, which Jacobs discusses her own experience with this. Also, female slaves often became pregnant as a result of 6 being raped. They did not, however, love their children any less, though the children were never acknowledged by their fathers. While men could more easily and freely run, women weren’t as able to flee because they had their children to take care of. Jacobs discusses how slave children don’t understand the concept of slavery at first, as she says her “heart was as free from care as that of any free-born white child” (Jacobs 7). If the child is not understanding of the situation, it would be next to impossible to run away to the North, so women were often forced to stay in their situations. Women were forced to take care of the children that were the product of rape by their owners, and this prevented them from seeking their freedom. As was mentioned, the circumstances of the birth did not often did not matter to the women. Jacobs says of her own child that “When I was most sorely oppressed I found solace in his smiles. I loved to watch his infant slumber: but always there was a dark cloud over my enjoyment. I could never forget that he was a slave” (Jacobs 62). The slave owners, though they forced these women into having children, were not sympathetic to these women’s feelings and would separate these families by selling these children. It is not difficult to see the obvious hypocrisy in the selling of one’s own offspring. In a society that favored men over women and white over black, slavery was the most difficult for black women. Jacobs expresses the particular concerns that she felt as a woman. Though slavery was easy for nobody by any 7 means, the particularly cruel hypocrisies of male slave-owners forced conditions upon female slaves that the male slaves could not quite comprehend. When considering the treatment of slaves we can see that the cruelty of the owners was not the only thing that made it wrong. The entire institution of treating another human being as property was unacceptable, whether or not the owners beat their slaves or not. It forced conditions upon the slaves that no human beings should have to endure: the constant threat of rape, children being separated from parents and sold for money, and the forced illiteracy of slaves in order to keep them from attempting to rebel, among many others. Slave owners were right, and slaves that could write did tell their story and gained sympathy for abolition: O, what days and nights of fear and sorrow that man caused me! Reader, it is not to awaken sympathy for myself that I am telling you truthfully what I suffered in slavery. I do it to kindle a flame of compassion in your hearts for my sisters who are still in bondage, suffering as I once suffered (Jacobs 393). Upon hearing of these conditions, the only morally acceptable action to take was to actively work for the ending of slavery. Slave owners that treated their slaves without cruelty, non-slave-owners that were still were prejudiced against black people, and anyone opposed in theory to slavery but did not actively take part in abolition were just as guilty as those cruel and brutal slave owners that perpetuated the most inhumane treatment against their slaves. Only through the widespread support of abolition did slavery come to an end. Works Cited Douglass, Frederick, The Narrative of Frederick Douglass, Cheswold, Delaware, Prestwick House, 2004. Douglass, Frederick, “Modern History Sourcebook: Frederick Douglass: The Hypocrisy of American Slavery, July 4, 1852.” Available from Jacobs, Harriet, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. New York, Dover, 2001. Stow, Harriet Beecher, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, New York, Signet Classic, 1998. Read More