Parallels
To southern men, honor was everything. I dictated their standing in society, whether or not they could own slaves; it basically was a secret caste system. A man held in the highest honor experienced a good life from a social stance in the south. The honor system used in the south was related to the language used by southern gentlemen.# Honor and Slavery by Kenneth S. Greenburg attempts to explain the vernacular and customs used by men in the antebellum south. It would be hard for a person in today's society to understand the way honor was shown; it would have even been a challenge for men living in the Northern United States to understand at that time.# As Greenburg states, "Since the language of honor was the dominant language of the men who ruled the slave South, we will never understand masters, the nature of slavery, or the Civil war without first understanding that language."# To be a powerful man in the south, society also had to consider you to be an honorable man. Honor and power in the South were parallel to each other; a man with a high honor ranking was usually a prominent member of society.#
The white gentlemen of the South used honor as a means for running society and it slightly resembled a monarchic society, as if a person was born into honor whether or not they chose so. It was very important to a Southern man the family name he carried because it would prove his honor in some situations.#
The biggest insult that could be given in the antebellum South was accusing an honorable man of lying.# It could be over something trivial or something serious. Either way, if a man was accused of lying, his very livelihood was being challenged. If a certain person fell out of societies favor an...
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... high honor holdings were usually wealthy also. Today, money is not necessary to achieve honor. Honor is not dictated by social standings but by the actions and decisions that people make on a daily basis. Most consider religious figures, soldiers, doctors, firefighters, etc. to be honorable positions because they make a helpful contribution to society. Honorable people help others even if they cannot gain anything from the situation. An small example of honor would be taking an hour out of your busy schedule to help brighten someone's day. This clashes greatly with the perception of honor in the Old South. We consider slavery to be an illegal act and something bad but the Old South considered most slave masters to be very honorable people. If honor has changed so significantly over the past 150 years just imagine what it will be like in the next years to come.
Slavery is perhaps the most polarizing subject of American history. Because of this, actual conditions of slavery are biased and marred by personal opinion. The abolitionists made use of the plights of slave in order to push their propaganda whereas the pro-slavery apologists maintained ignorance regarding the treatment of slaves. Because of these varied perspectives, the sources regarding the true nature of slavery are littered with bias. This bias leaves the modern historian trying to decipher the truth behind manipulated propaganda tales. This was the norm until 1956. It was this year in which Kenneth M. Stampp released his book entitled, The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South. Stampp successfully managed to create a book regarding slavery in the South without inserting his own personal bias. Because of this, Stampp was able to conclude that slavery was used primarily to exploit labor and to produce substantial revenue gains.
In Myne Owne Ground, the authors argue that it was not inevitable that black men and women were made subordinate to white colonists in colonial Virginia because in the early days there was more about wealth, economic standing, and religion than the color of one’s skin. For example, when a white man, Richard Ackworth, ask John Johnson to give testimony in a suit which Ackworth had filed against another Whiteman (Myne Owne Ground, 16). They were unwilling to allow a black man to testify in legal proceedings involving whites at first, but when they learned that John had been baptized and understood the meaning of an oat, they accepted his statement.
To label slavery a crime is to insist that its white beneficiaries should have known what we know today, or to say that they had information that we now have access to. Southern Honor Ethics and Behavior in the Old South written by Bertram Wyatt-Brown; maintains that honor was the animating force in the antebellum South, the basis of the slaveholding South’s integrity. The white slaveholders valued honor and genuinely trusted their own slaves, loved their families, the people that they were close to and knew best, yet they were convinced that the black race was vile, bestial, and fit for nothing but bondage.
One of the main goals in the life of an elite southern woman was to be continually regarded as a lady. While some southern women privately disagreed with the popular social and political mindsets of their era, most of their opinions were not so strong that they felt the need to publicly advocate for change. This was mainly due to the fact that if a woman expressed her opinion publicly, she would be seen as unladylike, which would be a blow to her reputation, the cornerstone of how she defined herself. In the book Mothers of Invention, Drew Gilpin Faust gives the reader Lucy Wood as an example of an elite southern woman who had a negative opinion of the African slave trade. In a letter to her future husband, Lucy Wood expressed that she felt the African slave trade was “extremely revolting,” however, she was also quick to add “[but] I have no political opinion and have a peculiar dislike of all females who discuss such matters.” (10). This elite southern woman was apparently more concerned with her own ladylike reputation than standing up for ...
During the 1980's southern blacks from the United States dedicated to migrate to the north with the belief that the north had more opportunities and advantages blacks. Although, Frederick Douglas and Booker T. Washington opposed a migration to the north, millions of blacks migrated northward. The industries for the blacks migrating t o the north was what Douglas and Washington feared, black northern workers being placed in the same situation prior to their movement. Blacks were going to experience the same obstacles and disadvantages as they had in the south just with different situations. Northern blacks were going to experience prejudice, riots and murdering.
In studying the Southern defense of slavery, it appears that southerners were defending a way of life. Many believed that the institution of slavery was the lesser of two evils in terms of providing benefits for workers, others believed that it was at the very foundation of a free society to own slaves and still others saw it merely as an expedient means to an economic end. Although one may acknowledge that the South had understandable political, social and religious reasons for supporting the institution of slavery, the fundamental moral obligation to treat all humans as equals supercedes them all.
Honor can be defined by how one holds them in the public eye. Others may say that honor is how you live your life when none can see your actions. However defined honor can play major roles in how a person will act in a given situation. The Crucible by Arthur Miller has excellent examples of how honor can manipulate people’s decisions in times of importance. John proctor holds his moral standpoint and does not falter into the temptations of selfishness, while Elizabeth would describe honor as how a person lives their lives. Some can even describe honor as what is most important in life; family. Giles believed that his life was the ultimate object he could sacrifice to maintain his family’s happiness. However honor can be defined, one thing is certain; Everyone has some degree of honor in their lives.
There are several factors that contributed to the Old South’s peculiar institution; an institution in which masters would describe their relationship to their slaves as “love” of their “people.” Kolchin tells us that while there is “no one slavery that
During the antebellum period, the North and the South were complete opposites. This led to each side viewing itself as superior and viewing the other as "backward." Each side believed itself to be superior, in all aspects, to the other. The reasons for these opinions can be found in the different economic, social, and cultural systems found in these two regions.
Attempting to describe honor and how it was understood in colonial Latin America we must first know how it is understood today. Thereby giving us a point of reference and judgment. According to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary (m-w.com), honor is defined as "good name or public esteem"; "reputation"; "a person of superior standing". Honor in colonial Latin America was viewed much like today yet threats and reactions to threats have changed over time.
Slavery affected the South’s social structure because the southern elite enjoyed being at the top of the ranks. Although slavery was originally started for economic reasons, social components regarding slavery soon became important to the southern colonists (red). Land and slave owners were at the top of these ranks, and then came poor farmers, and then slaves at the bottom. Virginians had a specific attitude towards others based on the color of one’s skin and the amount of slaves a person had (pink). Generally, the amount of slaves owned by a proprietor established his position and power, measured his affluence, and marked his status. The plantation owners with the most land and slaves held the most power in th...
Slavery thus became an increasingly Southern institution. Abolition of slavery in the North, begun in the revolutionary era and largely complete by the 1830s, divided the United States into the slave South and the free North. As this happened, slavery came to define the essence of the South: to defend slavery was to be pro-Southern, whereas opposition to slavery was considered anti-Southern. Although most Southern whites did not own slaves (the proportion of white families that owned slaves declined from 35 percent to 26 percent between 18...
The antebellum slavery period was characterized by the black freedmen in the North and slaves of the South working under harsh conditions for the few cotton farming elite. While the freedmen did indeed have their freedom, they were equally subject to racism from white people. Cotton production was booming in the south and...
During the Reconstruction era, politicians from northern states were moving south to take advantage of political opportunity in the south (McPhee) and court the freedman’s vote. This practice gave blacks increased influence over the political and financial landscape of southern districts, In essence disenfranchising the white southern elite. Disturbed by their dwindling authority, white southern business owners, landlords, teachers, religious leaders and lawmakers initiated and enforced Jim Crow legislation and etiquette (Shmoop). In an effort to circumvent the newly won freedom gained by slaves (Country Studies), Jim Crow were laws that created a legal, race-based caste system that operated primarily in the southern and border state...
Scholars describe the term “honor” as one that varies from culture to culture. With that in mind, the two focused cultures of this paper are the Greco-Roman and the Mediterranean. In the Greco-Roman world, honor and its counterpart shame, were a psychological means of keeping the social body under control. Honor was attributed to those who conformed most to the value system of the group. Not conforming, not only meant one was disapproved by the social body, but it meant one was socially disrupting the group’s continued existence. The basis of honor was largely projected through maintenance of “agreement and unity” for the good of the larger group. In fact the greek word idiots, was coined after individuals who failed to participate in their civic duty for the common good. For example, shop owners, who instead of shutting down business to joi...