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Frederick Douglass And Slavery

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Even though slavery ended over a hundred years ago, there are still many tensions between races today. Around the world there are millions of people still treated as slaves, for reasons ranging from sex to forced labor. According to a world news report in the PanARMENIAN “Some 2.4 million people are being traded at any one time, the United Nations says. Eighty percent of those people are trafficked for sexual exploitation, while 17 percent are traded to perform forced labor, The Washington Post reported.” (UN Report) The same issues Frederick Douglass, a slave turned freeman, had a hard time accepting during his life in the eighteen hundreds. Slavery has been a part of human society for many centuries, and only recently in history has it been …show more content…

Early in his life, being born a slave, Douglass sees many men and women become examples through fear. When a slave acted in a way that the slave holder deemed punishable they could be lashed, even until death. He had a hard time coming to terms with the institution of slavery, in a country that had just fought for freedom, he had no freedoms. A book about slavery and the effect it had on the politics of the time, by Stephen E. Maizlish has contributed to our understanding of the situation. “There was a complex...variety of ways in which slavery entered the politics of the period” (Maizlish). Lao-tzu had a simple mindset about the use of weapons and fear to control a person, which boils down to only using weapons in dire situations. From the Tao-te Ching he says this: “Weapons are the tools of fear; a decent man will avoid them except in the direst necessity” (Lao-tzu). Frederick Douglass would have agreed with this statement, and he could easily see the way slavery had corrupted the country. He was appalled by the cruelty weapons were used for to keep slaves in line, and it pushed him on his road to become a free …show more content…

In a single phrase Machiavellian thought can be summed as “might makes right”. If you have the power to force a group of people to work, then you have the right. The south was built upon this illogical thought process. The slaves had been captured and thus they lost their privilege to be their own person in a southerners eyes. The proslavery movement to combat the abolitionist ideas is stated as the following by the encyclopedia of the United States in the Nineteenth Century. “Proslavery theorists supported slavery using a series of interrelated arguments based on race, economic necessity, history, and religion” (Slavery). Frederick Douglass had an opposing view on the subject that slavery was natural and good for everyone. “That cheerful eye, under the influence of slavery, soon became red with rage; that voice, made all of sweet accord, changed to one of harsh and horrid discord; and that angelic face gave place to that of a demon” (Douglass). His owner’s wife was kind and sweet, but soon became a hateful and spiteful woman towards slaves. Machiavelli said “It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both”. This was how slaveholders in the nineteenth century controlled their slaves, and Frederick Douglass saw its dangerous effect on a person who was very close to

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