The Justification Of Slavery In The 19th Century

The more cotton that was produced, the greater the slave labor. This production had dramatically increased from 1800-1860. While cotton was used long before the Industrial Era, it played a contributing and important role that would lead to the sectionalism of both the North and the South and eventually lead into the Civil War. The hard part however, was during 1791, slaves had to de-seed and clean cotton by hand. This was a difficult process and made cotton almost pointless in being farmed and manufactured in the United States instead of being imported from other countries.

In the 1800’s, the cotton gin was invented and created an economic boom for the South, but that eventually tear the nation apart. One cotton gin used by one person can process 50 times the amount of cotton done by hand. The cotton gin made cotton processing easier and led to the use of more slave labor because the plantation owners in the South want to plant more cotton to earn more money. This event eventually causes the nation to separate based on their sectional or regional interests. The nation was divided between the North and the South. Their social and political differences contributed to the division of the nation and started the civil war, a war within a country.

Slavery in America can be traced as far back as the first settlement in the New World. The first African slaves were brought to America, in 1619, to assist in the production and cultivation of profitable crops. The habitual use of slavery during the centuries has help sculpt the economic foundation of America. Slavery was proven important to the South’s economy in 1793, by the invention of the cotton gin. By the mid-19th century, America had many growing abolition movements in the North. Those of which would awaken an immense debate over slavery that would split the nation into two causing the American Civil War. During the Antebellum period, the argument of slavery was intense. The north disagreed with the use of slavery while the south continued to make excuses on why the act was of great value. The South produced many reasons and justifications for the need of slaves at the time. Justification of slavery from the South, used a variety of different reasonings such as religion, economics, socialism, humanitarianism, history, and even legality.

Many men and woman were desperately needed to work on the land. The slave’s owners where white bond servants paying their passage across the ocean from Europe through indentured labor, eased but did not solve any of their problems. Slaves were mainly economical on large farms where they labored intensive cash crops, including tobacco, cotton, rice, sugar, and many other farming products that were able to be traded and exported. By the end of the American Revolution, slavery was finally proven unprofitable in the North, so it started dying out. In the South the institution was becoming less and less useful to farmers as tobacco prices fluctuated and began to drop rapidly. That’s is when the cotton gin was invented by Eli Whitney, which “created the growth of southern slavery again and was the central place of cotton in the world economy” (class notes). The cotton replaced the tobacco leading to the South’s main cash crop and slavery became profitable again. That made the international slave trade rise. Although, majority of the Southerners did not own any slaves at all. But, by 1860 the South’s abnormality institution was impossible to separate from the regions economy.

In The Ideology of Slavery by Drew Gilpin Faust, in Chapter 4 which is James Henry Hammond that writes a letter to an English Abolitionist, in a section he describes how he believes that Slavery is not a sin and is approved by Christ. It would seem that while God commanded Moses to free his people that were slaves to the Pharaoh, “man” is overlooking these in the Bible and that they are creating their own law and how their religion differs totally by what they do. “I think, then, I may safely conclude, and I firmly believe, that American Slavery is not only not a sin, but especially commanded by God through Moses, and approved by Christ through his apostles” (Faust 175). When reasoning between what is right and wrong, Americans only found that what they were doing was not necessarily evil or wrong just that God permitted it, and also white Americans found slavery to be very significant for their own lives, due to the fact that their way of making money and making a living involved the owning of humans to make themselves the most profitable.

Slaves were used to cultivate cotton, the South’s main export. (Doc 2) The slaves were more efficient and required less pay than their white counterpart. This caused the South to be more in favor of using slaves, especially when expanding to western territories because they could save money. Some northerners claimed that the conditions that slaves lived in were cruel and brutal, but the South Carolina governor argued in 1835 that “English [factory] operatives” and “millions of paupers” had it worse than southern slaves. (Doc 1) Southern farmers heavily invested in slaves because of their ability to work hard and their inexpense. They did not feel that slavery was unlawful or immoral, because they felt that the black skin color made them inferior to

People used religion as a way to justify the act of slavery. They believed that God determined people’s places in life, so slavery was considered a “misfortune” controlled by God and not a social evil (Shi and Tindall, 91). Africans were also seen as “heathens” which lead people to believe that they had the right to enslave the Africans (Shi and Tindall, 92) The Africans brought the skills they had in Africa with them which made them very desirable in the American economy. Also, there was the creation of the slave code allowed slave owners more control over their slaves activates and movements (The Virginia Slaves

According to an argument slavery was good for the enslaved because as John C. Calhoun said, "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." Furthermore, slavery was accepted in the Bible. The pro-slavery supporters used the Bible to convince others that the Slave Trade was tolerated and approved of by God in the days of Abraham. It was justified in the Bible that slaves were racially inferior and science showed them to be a separate species of humans. Great civilizations such as the Greeks and Romans had slaves.

The southern states were a slave society, and were known to being the way of life. It was the root to everything in the south, and southerners were very protective about it. In the south southerners “feared that without slavery’s expansion, the abolitionist faction would come to dominate national politics and an increasingly dense population of slaves would lead to bloody insurrection and race war” (The American Yawp, Chap.13), and southerners did not want to jeopardize their way of life. The south would press on the notion that racial mixing and racial wars would break out, and that blacks were a threat to white supremacy. Besides the racial fears the south would speak out on, they also stressed that slaves were property, which entitles them to their owner. People in the south also used the bible to justify slavery because it was present in the bible. The southern states believed in the ‘mudsill’ theory. James Henry Hammond speech on the ‘mudsill’ theory explained the theory. Hammond and other pro slavery southerners defined slavery as a good thing. Paternalism was another justification, to influence their belief that slavery was a caring establishment. That south argued that they took care of their slaves, and that the north did not treat their workers with such

During the 19th century, so known “peculiar institution” of slavery dominated labor systems of the American South, also dominated most production in the US and led to a boost of the economy of the New Republic. By the 1850 's, US had become a country segregated into two regional identities, known as the Slave South and the Free North. While the South maintained a pro-slavery identity that supported and protected the expansion of slavery westward, the North largely held abolitionist views and opposed the slavery’s westward expansion. Until the 1850 's the nation uncertainly balanced the slavery subject between the two opponents. However, the acquisition of the Louisiana territories in 1803 by the Jefferson administration doubled the size of the US and the victory in the Mexican-American War extended the territory to the Pacific which quadrupled the area of the US. Ultimately, the territorial expansion led to the spread of slavery. In this essay, I will describe some of the reasons for the expansion of slavery including its influence in national politics, and consequences such as political debates and crises of 1850’s.

Christian defense of slavery was the justification of enslaving the blacks. A lot of these defenses based their arguments on the idea of caring for childlike and inferior slaves as part of a Christian duty. In the bible, Slaves belonged to the same

Supporters of slavery often pointed to the bible as an advocate for slavery. Nowhere did Jesus say that slavery was inhumane, cruel, or otherwise immoral. In fact the bible even mentions that it is a slave’s duty to serve their master. Those in favor of slavery interpreted this as favoring their cause. For those who were religious, Christianity gave strong reasoning for why

During the 19th century slavery was a very prominent and controversial issue between the north and the southern states. In the South, most people believed that slavery was a profitable way of life and if the slavery was to be abolished it would then affect their economy. On the hand the northern had different opinions about slavery and intended to stop it. The fact that the perception were different between the two led to a very difficult situation in resolving the issue.

Slave owners quoted the bible to justify their actions. For example, Leviticus 25:44–46 which stated “you may purchase male and female slaves from among the nations around you. You may also purchase the children of temporary residents who live among you, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat them as slaves, but you must never treat your fellow Israelites this way.” Slave owners believed that all they need was the word of God to justify the abuse and dehumanization of blacks. But the bible also says we shouldn’t do others so depending on what you want to live by the bible can be positive as well as negative depending on our own

American’s who live in the 21st century know that slavery is terrible and also a touchy subject. But Americans used to rely heavily on slavery, how we perceive slavery in today’s society can either be the same or different from how others thought of slavery living within mid 1800s. People who resided in the northern region of American found slavery wrong as we do today. Americans who lived farther south however liked, and relied on slavery. In today’s world, we Americans almost all agree that slavery had been a negative factor of our country. But within the 1840s and 1870s, Americans had been divided by slavery. People that were against slavery created the union as the pro slavery citizens created the confederates. Today, we can see why people of the mid 19th century either supported slavery or rebelled against it by reviewing sources.