The Origin of American Freedom

The Preservation of Slavery In a Free World How is it possible that the New World, started by people who dedicated themselves to liberty and human dignity preserved such an inhuman institute such as slavery? Some could argue that the founding fathers were simply prejudice against the African people, and they believed that they were an inferior race. But according to Edmund Morgan, there were more in depth reasons for keeping slavery in the colonies that would eventually become the United States. He stated that major figures such as Thomas Jefferson, who believed in human equality, saw that was slavery was necessary to keep social and economic order in the young world. Morgan also stated that slavery offset the rebelliousness of the other white laborers and at the same time bring a sense of unity to the white inhabitants of the southern colonies.

I would like to argue why the narrow perspective of slaves as the victim and not factors in slavery is ahistorical. It doesn’t include people of african descent in modernity and discredits slaves as dependent on their chains. First off, without slavery capitalism would never have been able to prosper in the Atlantic Slave Trade. In America government transformed over the issue of slavery and shaped society even creating the ⅗ rule stating the more slaves the more political power. The support of slavery built America’s economic success which makes it the superpower nation it is today.

As the slave population in the United States of America grew to 500,000 in 1176, documenting slavery as part of the American Revolution became increasingly important. America was rooted in slavery; and it contributed to the economy and social structure. The revolution forced citizens of the new nation to be conscious of slavery and its potential dismissal from every day life. Two articles that prove slavery only succeeded because of the false reality that slave owners created and the conformity to this reality by slaves are; George Fitzhugh who defends the proslavery argument and Frederick Douglass who supports a desire for freedom. The history of abolition directly relates to the many obstacles Americans faced when trying to change societies laws and ideas about slavery.

Abolitionist would have returned the statement addressing that slaves are the ones who care for the whites and their families. Slavery advocates viewed the subjugation of African-Americans as fundamental to the social hierarchy and economy. In return, abolitionist believed pro-slavery advocates would not have their way of life or luxuries if not for the suffering of slaves. Where a pro-slavery advocate viewed slaves as ungrateful and selfish, an abolitionist would question why should they be grateful? The importance of comparing and contrasting the different views during this time allows for a better understanding of American history and gives insight on the events that shaped this nation.

Slavery was also seen as a threat to democracy; Northerners believed that a corrupt oligarchy of rich planters, the Slave Power, dominated Southern politics, and national politics as well. Northerners also objected on moral grounds to being legally required to enforce fugitive slave laws. [edit] Abolitionism as a cause of the war By the 1830s, a small but outspoken abolitionist movement arose, led by New Englanders and free blacks, including William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and Lucretia Mott. Many people North and South considered slavery an undesirable institution, but by the 1840s the militant abolitionists went much further and declared that owning a slave was a terrible sin, and that the institution should be immediately abolished. Southerners bitterly resented this moralistic attack, and also the stereotypical presentation of slave owners as heartless Simon Legrees in the overwhelmingly popular (in the North) book and play by Harriet Beecher Stowe, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1852).

American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia Edmund Morgan begins American Slavery, American Freedom the Ordeal of Colonial Virginia with a paradox. He presents his readers with the passionate rhetoric of men like Thomas Jefferson: belief in liberty and abhorrance for slavery and reminds us that he, and others like him, were slaveholders. Morgan asserts that the rise in such beliefs accompanied and in fact were dependent upon slavery. He claims that this contradiction is "American" and it is important, as Americans, that we understand its origins and development (5). Morgan feels that the key to the paradox lies in the story of colonial Virginia; that the political and economic developments that took place in the colony during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries explain the seemingly impossible symbiosis of freedom and slavery.

Their whole economy was bases around the economics of slavery. The North did not realize that there was more than freeing the slaves to do with the war. The economics of the south was free labor caused by slavery. The black slave was a God sent for the Southern states in that it allowed them to make a great profit off their crops. William Freehling said, “Posterity thinks of slavery as the South’s leading economic interest” (239).

African slave trading became the main problem dividing Americans, and could even of been a factor of many, which led to the American Civil War. Why did the South not abolish slavery altogether? It wasn't as simple as that; slavery was crucial for economical, political, social and even religious reasons; of which the greatest was economical. Slavery was vital to the Southern colony's continuation of economic profit, and therefore was chiefly economically based. The conditions of the Southern colonies were much suited to plantation agriculture, which provided the basis of the South's wealth.

In James Oakes, the Ruling Race, the author tackles many of the toughest questions that arose in southern history. In the Ruling Race, Oakes argues against Eugene Genovese ' American slavery 's ideology of paternalism. The author believes that paternalism died by the end of the colonial era and as a result, there came new slaveholders who were diverse, and influenced by the materialistic buildup in the South due to their search for economic opportunity. Oakes views most slave owners as greedy capitalists who embraced the marketplace. When Oakes says “the ideology and culture of slaveholding were not fully developed when Americans declared their independence from Great Britain” (p.34) we see that paternalism is viewed by Oakes as a superior force that was caused due to the American Revolution.

The Northerners valued a unified, slave-free America based on a free-soil, industrial economy, whereas the Southerners valued the preservation of the antebellum period through secession. Although both sides had conflicting perspectives and values, they did not engage in a Civil until they evaluated the relative costs and benefits of violence. It is important to understand the differences in perspectives, values, and relative analysis of costs and benefits that shaped the social, political, and economic transactions during the Civil War because this era created a nation that values freedom. A perspective is a specific way of viewing things depending on one’s beliefs, character, and associations. When a subject or thing is discu... ... middle of paper ... ...ver slavery expansion.