In the mid-1800s, slave owners in the South believed in the chattel principle, or the belief that slaves were pieces of moving property and therefore would always belong to their owners. Curiously, while most of them do note that the Bible sanctions slavery, they fail to give definitive proof in the way of specific passages. . Identify the main proslavery arguments in the years prior to the Civil War. When you reach out to him or her, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource. Indeed, Virginians cited Garrison as the instigator of Nat Turners 1831 rebellion. He would travel from early morning to late evening, and he was well received by the slaves. Disquisition on Government advanced a profoundly anti-democratic argument. I have seen them rock to and fro under the influence of their feelings, like a wood in a storm. 7879). Form of Protestantism that was devised by Christian slaves in the Chesapeake and spread to the cotton South as a result of the domestic shave trade. He advanced the idea of a concurrent majority, a majority of a separate region (that would otherwise be in the minority of the nation) with the power to veto or disallow legislation put forward by a hostile majority. Who profited most from the union of slavery and cotton production? According to Fitzhugh: [I]t is clear the Athenian democracy would not suit a negro nation, nor will the government of mere law suffice for the individual negro. promin, Slavery Which description best identifies how Christian slaveholders justified the enslavement of other human beings? National Geographic Society is a 501 (c)(3) organization. . In this 1837 speech, John C. Calhoun, then a U.S. senator, vigorously defended the institution of slavery and stated the essence of this new intellectual defense of the institution: Southerners must stop apologizing for slavery and reject the idea that it was a necessary evil. Lincoln's famous "House Divided" speech of 1858 only. Planters' sons chose military or law careers rather than going into trade. Why was slavery the most important cause of the Civil War? What justification, after all, did white landowners have to enslave Africans except that slavery was a source of cheap labor? Gale Library of Daily Life: American Civil War. To put teeth into the act, Congress passed a law in March 1862 prohibiting the return of slaves. . Those who attended churches where the slaves of several families were active had a chance as well to meet others in their unique predicament; they could have relatively normal conversations without feeling constrained by the yoke they usually wore (Boles 1994, p. 55). what did the Virginia legislature do about slavery in 1831 and 1832? what did black abolitionist David Walker do? Texans were wiped out by Mexican forces. . While many members of the Southern clergy (some of whom were men of national distinction) privately had questions about slavery, many others did notand in fact saw slavery as sanctioned by the Bible. White southerners in the 1830s began portraying free blacks as savages because they were trying to. "When you hear about slavery for 400 years . On the more extreme side were figures like John Brown, who believed an armed rebellion of enslaved people in the South was the quickest route to end human bondage in the United States. Forced to sign a document stating that Texas was independent after losing the Battle of San Jacinto in April 1836. Slaves worked at their own pace with little supervision during an eight-hour day. In what way was the South a paternalistic society during the days of slavery? On one side were advocates like Garrison, who called for an immediate end to slavery. Woolman, John Southern apologists claimed the master-slave relationship was more humane than employer-worker relationships because. Scriptural and Statistical Views in Favor of Slavery. It illustrates southern leaders intense suspicion of democratic majorities and their ability to effect legislation that would challenge southern interests. Members of this group fully supported slavery. In fact, the churches in many communities were biracial; although the slaves and their white masters did not mix with each other socially within the church, both worshipped there together (Boles 1994, p. 46). Why did southern states secede over slavery? What were financial incentives for slavery in the South (products, share of global market) Aaron Sheehan-Dean is the Fred C. Frey Professor of Southern Studies at Louisiana State University. in 1861. . when did white southern abolitionism begin to fade? Harriet Tubman: Tubman was a fugitive enslaved person. Compare his condition with the tenants of the poor houses in the more civilized portions of Europelook at the sick, and the old and infirm slave, on one hand, in the midst of his family and friends, under the kind superintending care of his master and mistress, andcompare it with the forlorn and wretched condition of the pauper in the poorhouse. His newspaper, The Liberator, lived up to its promise that it would not equivocate in its war against slavery. Sig= showed the absolute subjugation of slaves at this time. Harriet Tubman was like Douglass, she too had escapedenslavement and became a prominent abolitionist. There was a greater sense of community and better living conditions on plantations. Washington Irving, The Slavery Issue: Western Politics and the Compromise of 1850, https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/applied-and-social-sciences-magazines/slavery-apologists, Preserving the Institution of Slavery: An Overview. Wrote an autobiography "incidents in the life of a slave girl". Under the pressure of worldwide public opinion, slavery was completely abolished in its last remaining Latin American strongholds, Cuba and Brazil, in 188086 and 188388 respectively, and thus the enslavement of persons of African descent by legal regimes ceased to exist as a Western phenomenon. John Brown: Brown was a radical abolitionist who organized various raids and uprisings, including an infamous raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Reprinted in Early American Writing Abraham, the "father of faith," and all the patriarchs held slaves without God's disapproval (Gen. 21:9-10). ." few did because of the competition with slave labor, a former slave/the Barber of Natchez who owned slaves and property, no, they were prohibited from working in certain occupations and testifying against whites in court; they could be sold back into slavery; some states forbid their entrance, most forbid them from voting, and some forbid them from public schools, no, Congress outlawed it in 1808, but thousands were smuggled in. By the necessary course of events, if left to themselves, we must become, finally, two people. JSTOR Daily readers can access the original research behind our articles for free on JSTOR. How did apologists describe the institution of slavery before the 1830s? In 1833, the same year Britain outlawed slavery, the American Anti-Slavery Society was established. Encyclopedia.com. Before, during, and after the United States Revolutionary War, several of the original 13 British colonies abolished slavery. document.getElementById( "ak_js_3" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); JSTOR Daily provides context for current events using scholarship found in JSTOR, a digital library of academic journals, books, and other material. Reacting to abolitionist attacks that branded its peculiar institution as brutal and immoral, the South intensified its system of slave control, particularly after the Nat Turner revolt of 1831. In 1859 an armed band of abolitionists led by John Brown raided the federal armoury in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now in West Virginia), in an attempt to initiate an armed rebellion of enslaved persons. "(Wilson 1980, p. 40). How Antebellum Christians Justified Slavery. How did the Confederates view slavery during the war? What did Southern apologists believe about slavery quizlet? Gale Library of Daily Life: American Civil War. Sermon delivered in the First Presbyterian Church, New Orleans, Louisiana, November 29, 1860. Must I pause to show how it has fashioned our modes of life, and determined all our habits of thought and feeling, and moulded the very type of our civilization? what was the American Colonization Society? This message was accepted gladly both by whites and a significant number of slaves. She was active in the Underground Railroad, the clandestine network of safe houses and abolitionists that helped escapees reach freedom in the North. The Constitution itself had four clauses that indirectly addressed slavery and the slave trade though it did not actually use those terms. Powerful southerners like South Carolinian John C. Calhounhighlighted laws like the Tariff of 1828 as evidence of the Norths desire to destroy the southern economy and, by extension, its culture. Planters often broke up families and sold family members to distant plantations. What led to the outbreak of the bloodiest conflict in the history of North America? If a former slave could not prove he or she had been legally freed, then he or she was likely to be. During the war, Confederate soldiers were optimistic about the prospects for the survival of the Confederacy and the institution of slavery well into 1864. The seven states of the Deep South seceded before Lincoln took office. Between 1945 and 1969, archaeologists hurriedly surveyed over 20,000 prehistorical sites before the Mississippi River Basin was flooded by dams. For nearly a century, the people and politicians of the Northern and Southern states had been clashing over the issues that finally led to war: economic interests, cultural values, the power of the federal government to control the states, and, most importantly, slavery in American society. 1996 - 2023 National Geographic Society. they founded the American Antislavery Society, along with Wendell Phililps, he ran an abolitionist newspaper in (free) Illinois but was murdered in 1837 after a Missouri pro-slavery group broke into his house and destroyed his equipment, southern abolitionists who grew up on a plantation but thought the idea was wrong; their speeches were successful because of the experience, he was influenced by Charles Grandison Finney and appealed to rural farmers; with help from Arthur and Lewis Tappan, he went to the Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati in 1832; he was expelled for organizing a debate on slavery in 1834 but proceeded to preach antislavery with other Lane Rebels; in 1839, he compiled the propaganda pamphlet American Slavery as It Is, headmaster of the Lane Theological Seminary in the early 1830s, he published the antislavery newspaper The Liberator in Boston beginning in 1831 and proposed ideas as to how to end slavery immediately; on July 4, 1854, he burned a copy of the Constitution. When the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), embodying the principle of popular sovereignty, opened Kansas and Nebraska to slaveryland that had long been reserved for the westward expansion of the free statesNortherners began to organize themselves into an antislavery political party, called in some states the Anti-Nebraska Democratic Party and in others the Peoples Party but in most places the Republican Party. Confederate constitution outlawed the African slave trade, supplying many Southern cotton plantations with slaves. Moderates believed that slavery should be phased out gradually, in order to ensure the economy of the Southern states would not collapse. The institution of slavery became even more entrenched in the South because of the increasing importance of, The prosperity of the southern yeoman was limited by the lack of, large numbers of surplus slaves were sold from the upper South to the lower South. About the American Prison Newspapers Collection, Submissions: American Prison Newspapers Collection. The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. A slave is usually acquired by purchase and legally described as chattel, Opposition to slavery in British North America began in the late seventeenth century but was limited mostly to a minority of Quakers and a few Purita, Woolman, John Theological justification from their ministers allowed them to believe that not only did God sanction slavery, but slaverys supporters were better Christians and more faithful interpreters of Biblical text than were their opponents. The slave-owning class was small, but it was supported by the overwhelming majority of churches and ministers., Considering they saw themselves as doing Gods work, white Southerners were shocked by the military defeat of the Confederacy. They pushed for an immediate end to the enslavement of people. it required southern postmasters to destroy it and told southern state officials to arrest federal postmasters who did not comply, no, many northerners wanted to keep the clauses on slavery in the Constitution, those who did not want to fully abolish slavery but prevent it from extending it west, an organization created in the Great Depression that hired people to improve culture, including interviewing remaining former slaves from Virginia to Texas for three years; most of the slaves were very old and/or had been very young when enslaved, so they weren't as useful. In Europe, the first significant efforts to ban human trafficking and abolish forced labor emerged in the 18th century. I've since worked with schools and districts all over the country, helping them improve their curriculums and instruction methods. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); From an anti-abolitionist, pro-slavery cartoon, 1800. In making their defense of slavery, they critiqued wage labor in the North. Which identifies a major contradiction in the attitudes of southern yeoman farmers? (Palmer 1860, p. 8). If that were impossible, it was thought, then the North and South should part ways. This was because slavery was defined as akin to a marriage: the power of slave owners over slaves paralleled the power of husbands over wives and of parents over children., The father/master was supposed to be a benevolent and paternalistic overseer of all family (and property) members. did non-slaveowning southern whites support slavery? By nature the most affectionate and loyal of all races beneath the sun, they are also the most helpless: and no calamity can befal [sic] them greater than the loss of that protection they enjoy under this patriarchal system" (Palmer 1860, pp. In the South, however, clergy were confronted with trying to defend slavery. Planters who owned large plantation houses with at least fifty slaves made up ______ percent of the white population in the South in 1860. Calhoun became a leading political theorist defending slavery and the rights of the South, which he saw as containing an increasingly embattled minority. By wars end, the Union had set up over 100 contraband camps in the South. The Confederate version used the word slaves, unlike the U.S. Constitution. Instead, Calhoun insisted, slavery was a "positive good.". It is impossible under the deadly hatred which must spring up between the two great nations, if the present causes are permitted to operate unchecked, that we should continue under the same political system. . They found ample support for slavery in both the Old and New Testaments and pointed out that the great civilizations of the ancient worldEgypt, Greece, and Romewere slave societies. From the 1820s until the start of the U.S. Civil War, abolitionists called on the federal government to prohibit the ownership of people in the Southern states. Southerners provided enslaved persons with care from birth to death, he asserted; this offered a stark contrast to the wage slavery of the North, where workers were at the mercy of economic forces beyond their control. Proslavery theology persisted because religious arguments had situated slavery amidst other forms of household order and had relied upon widely accepted views of womens subordination as a corollary to slaves deprivation of rights. Southern Christians not only kept their antebellum worldview, they reaffirmed it as they helped rebuild the legal and social structures of white supremacy after terrorism and Northern indifference defeated Reconstruction. . Abolitionists were a divided group. However, the date of retrieval is often important. What does this image reveal about the methods of those who advocated polygenism? It came under the leadership of William Lloyd Garrison, a Boston journalist and social reformer. At one end of its spectrum was William Lloyd Garrison, an immediatist, the founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society (183370), who denounced not only slavery but also the Constitution of the United States for tolerating the evil. We of the South will not, cannot, surrender our institutions. slave labor was superior to Northern paid labor since slaves were outside, did not have to worry about unemployment or the economy, and they were cared for when sick or old, an 1836 measure supported by Southerners that was pushed through the House to require antislavery appeals to be postponed without debate; representative JQ Adams repealed it after 8 years. . According to Christian the Virginia people were the abolitionists & the Northern people were pro-slavery. Calhouns idea of the concurrent majority found full expression in his 1850 essay Disquisition on Government. In this treatise, he wrote about government as a necessary means to ensure the preservation of society, since society existed to preserve and protect our race. If government grew hostile to society, then a concurrent majority had to take action, including forming a new government. Garrison was a close ally of Frederick Douglass, who escaped his enslavement and whose 1845 autobiography became a bestseller. Abolitionists were a divided group. Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. The war began because a compromise did not exist that could solve the difference between the free and slave states regarding the power of the national government to prohibit slavery in territories that had not yet become states. They often accompanied their parents and were cared for by older children. Moderates believed that slavery should be phased out gradually, in order to ensure the economy of the Southern states would not collapse. . Sold tons of land to newcomers. Agassizs notion gained widespread popularity in the 1850s with the 1854 publication of George Gliddon and Josiah Notts Types of Mankind and other books. children who required constant supervision. JSTOR is a digital library for scholars, researchers, and students. C. They felt free Black people were treated worse than the enslaved people in the South. Escaped from slavery to become one of the most Slavery is the unconditional servitude of one individual to another. Who was the most influential spokesman for the common school movement? There was, moreover, growing revulsion at the ruthlessness of slave hunters under the Fugitive Slave Law (1850), and the far-reaching emotional response to Harriet Beecher Stowes antislavery novel Uncle Toms Cabin (1852) further strengthened the abolitionist cause. If the South Had Won the Civil War, Slavery Could Have Lasted Until the 20th Century. was the plantation system financially stable? Won an exemption from the Mexican law prohibiting slavery. If you have questions about licensing content on this page, please contact ngimagecollection@natgeo.com for more information and to obtain a license. This 1857 illustration by an advocate of polygenism indicates that the Negro occupies a place between the Greeks and chimpanzees. The sermon, in fact, has been widely credited with giving the moral and popular push to Louisiana's decision to secede from the Union. Baptist and Methodist churches had opposed slaveholding members in the early years of the Republic. The master occupies towards him the place of parent or guardian. They were of the opinion that slaves even had better lives than factory workers. Rather than emphasize that slavery was a profitable labor system essential to the health of the southern economy, apologists turned to the Bible and history. Do American Freshmen Have To Live On Campus? Therefore, secession remained a reserved right of the states. Figure 2. (Palmer 1860, p. 8). The American Board of Foreign Missions (specifically its Northern members) refused to send him on a new mission unless he gave up the slaves. Abolitionist, writer, and speaker In the North, the abolitionist cause was the driving force behind the message from religious institutions and theologians. D. They wanted a gradual end to slavery in the South. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer. What Did The Confederate Constitution Say About Slavery? "The Difference in Race between Northern and Southern People." At the time of the Civil War, there were approximately ________ slaves in the South. Historian Drew Gilpin Faust observed that leaders of the secession movement across the South cited slavery as the most compelling reason for southern independence. Which description best describes the "gang" labor that many slaves performed on large plantations? I'm passionate about helping people achieve their dreams, and I believe that education is the key to unlocking everyone's potential. When the Second Presbyterian Church of Charleston opened in 1850 to serve the slave and free black community, James Henley Thornwell delivered the dedication sermon to a crowd of both white and black congregantsa sermon that underscores how the average Southern preacher saw how slavery and religious values could coexist: The slave has rights, all the rights which belong essentially to humanity, and without which his nature could not be human or his conduct susceptible of praise or blame. . Having split from co-denominations in the North over the theological justification of slavery in the 1840s, southern Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian . Southern Presbyterian Leaders. Once again, the status of slavery in the territories became a hot issue. Actually, it was not. White southerners reacted strongly to abolitionists attacks on slavery. The economic argument, however, failed to address the exploitative nature of slavery. What did Southern apologists believe about slavery? . Through the days leading up to the secession and during the war itself, Palmer and other preachers delivered the same message. The Southern clergy who accommodated slavery did so for two main reasons. Never before has the Black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually. Did the Confederacy have the right to secede? The most profitable commodity bought and sold in the upper tier of southern states was. he published Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World in 1829, she fought for black emancipation and women's rights in New York, he advocated the idea of mass recolonization of Africa, he escaped slavery in 1838 and gave a speech at an 1841 Massachusetts antislavery meeting; he gave lectures and published his autobiography in 1845, a political party founded in 1840 with support from political abolitionists. The master-slave relationship was frequently compared to a parent-child relationship. this video from Heimlers History channel to learn more about some of the main pro-slavery arguments, https://openstax.org/books/us-history/pages/12-3-wealth-and-culture-in-the-south, https://cnx.org/contents/NgBFhmUc@14.3:iQkwpaR_@8/6-25-%E2%9C%92%EF%B8%8F-John-C-Calhoun-Slavery-as-a-Positive-Good-1837#fs-idm205300544. By that time, American abolitionists had realized the failure of gradualism and persuasion, and they subsequently turned to a more militant policy, demanding immediate abolition by law. Palmer then poses the question, "If the South is such a people, what, at this juncture, is their providential trust?" His answer: "[I]t is to conserve and perpetuate the institution of slavery as now existing" (Palmer 1860, p. 6). In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. The principle that a slave was property to be bought and sold. The right which the master has is a right not to the man, but to his labor (White 1911, p. 298). Sig= gave blacks a sense of purpose and greater self esteem. Then he moves on with an appeal to emotional and spiritual elements: Need I pause to show how this system is interwoven with our entire social fabric; that these slaves form parts of our households, even as our children; and that, too, through a relationship recognized and sanctioned in the Scriptures of God even as the other? At one end of its spectrum was William Lloyd Garrison, an "immediatist," the founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society (1833-70), who denounced not only slavery but also the Constitution of the United States for tolerating the evil. Farmer, James O., Jr. How did the Confederate States of Americas constitution differ from the Constitution of the United States of America? ITHAKA. The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History. In the 1830s, southern apologists in the South argued that slavery was a positive good because it allowed an elegant lifestyle for white elites and provided protection for inferior Africans. What did Southern apologists believe about slavery quizlet? The abolitionist movement emerged in states like New York and Massachusetts. Need I pause to show how this system of servitude underlies and supports our material interests; that our wealth consists in our lands and in the serfs who till them; that from the nature of our products they can only be cultivated by labor which must be controlled in order to be certain; that any other than a tropical race must faint and wither beneath a tropical sun? moving blacks back to africa/repatriation. Despite his assurances that he would take no action against slavery where it existed, Lincoln was labeled an "abolitionist" by many Southern leaders. These denominations rapid expansion in the South, however, meant abandoning this position in recognition that upwardly mobile members increasingly included slaveholders. Justification for slavery came with this growth and found its parallels in the biblical subordination of women. Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Vol. sig= showed the extensive process of the slave trade, and what a valuable resource slaves were. I hold then, that there never has yet existed a wealthy and civilized society in which one portion of the community did not, in point of fact, live on the labor of the other. what was expected to happen if war broke out between the north and the south and did it? The negro is improvident; will not lay up in summer for the wants of winter; will not accumulate in youth for the exigencies of age. 1836 Battle between Texans and Mexicans in San Antonio. slavery actually reduced their standard of living. Many Southerners compared their cause to that of the American Revolution of nearly a century earlier, and religious leaders eagerly helped popularize that notion. Consequently, many Northerners remained unwilling to adopt abolitionist policy and were distrustful of abolitionist extremism. Origins of the abolition movement Opposition to slavery started as a moral and religious movement centered on the belief that everyone was equal in the eyes of God. . A video of the rapper Kanye West discussing slavery is a sad reminder of America's historical amnesia about the brutal realities of that institution. Which identifies an important effect of the violent slave rebellion of 1831? A lot of Puritans are in the North as well, and they don't condone slavery as much and believe it a sin (manstealing). What were the 4 main causes of the Civil War? Recent post: Who Is The Catholic Bishop Of South Dakota? Southerners referred to the founding doctrine of the U.S., the Declaration of Independence. Garrisons uncompromising tone infuriated not only Southerners but many Northerners as well and was long treated as though it were typical of abolitionism in general. Enslaved Africans supplied the free labor that helped the British Empire prosper for much of the 18th century. Included Virginia, South Carolina, and Louisiana. Within the Cite this article tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. "The Slavery Apologists He is but a grown up child and must be governed as a child . 2023
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