These readings are difficult to swallow, especially Thomas E. Dew's, but juxtapose them in the time they are written. Remember that the Nat Turner revolt took place in 1831. How does this shape the perspective that these authors take? Who do you think is their intended audience?
Monday, September 16, 2013
The Controversy of Abolition
I know it is difficult for us to empathize with the mindset of slaveowners. To us, abolition and emancipation make sense, because they are the morally justified. The readings for tonight focus not only on justifying slavery, but on refuting the abolition movement and denouncing it as 'impossible.'
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In the reading, he says that with more agitation towards the subject of emancipation it will only cause a separation in the union. He says that the north should stop meddling with their neighbors affairs. He also tells a story of a man who was against the clause until he met a woman that owned a large plantation and many slaves. He then changed sides and started ranting towards north abolition movements, the author feels that if any man from the north had this opportunity, they would then change their mind too. Basically, the north is just trying to get rid of slaves, but they have not experienced having them, there for they do not know the importance of them. This is what the point of the article is.
ReplyDeleteNot saying that I agree with slavery, but i fell that the second author had a point. He said that if we emancipated the slaves right away the South would go into an immediate famine. I think this would be true because with all the plantations now lacking the necessary means to profit, all plantation owners, cotton buyers, cotton fabricators, and cotton wearers would have no way to live. This would also effect the North because in the 18th and 19th century all shirts were made of cotton. If all cotton production stopped it would put a huge burden on all of the citizens of the United States.
ReplyDeleteJust like what you said "these readings are difficult to swallow", yes, they are swallow because they were talking about some opinions that I against to, but they really mentions some points that are considerable. They talked about the economy, which is strongly depended on free slave labor. It is true that if slaves were all free to go the economy would have to face a terrible consequence such as collapse. Slaves actually provided a lot of labor that help the society built strong economy base on high-efficiency and free labor. After relied on slaves for a long time, it was nearly impossible for the society to free slaves easily. At the same time the reading mentioned the relationship between a slaveholder and a slave, it is true that the relationship is just a "master and servant" relationship, servants are not very good friends or relatives so they should be treated differently. I think both reading's intended audience is people (both in North and South) who wanted to abolish slavery.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading both articles, the Thomas R. Dew piece stuck with me. He believed that the slave was unfit for society, and if the slave was set free no good would come of it, streets would be littered and people murdered. Also, there would be a huge downfall in the economic growth in the South due to the lack of workers. It is not for society to dictate whether someone is free or not. Instead of setting them free with no one and nothing, the society should help them acclimate. I think the audience he is trying to reach is the Northerners. Dew is trying to coerce them into thinking they, the Southerners, are not that bad, that they are trying to help the slaves; they are providing them with clothes, food and a family to “grow-up” with.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the two documents I think the "slave owners" or writers of this time are somewhat giving themselves more credit than they should. Yes it is true that if we abolished slavery there would be severe famine and lack of clothing and cotton, but there wouldn't be if the slaves were educated. Often times in these readings I also see the term "good master" or "kind master," and that slaves looked up to these so called "good masters" because they gave them food and shelter, although the writers of these times never seem to account for the awful, brutal masters that also lived in this time period. More likely than not slaves were suffering from unruly masters who disregarded them except when it came to working or giving the master what he wanted. In these two readings I believe the intended articles are directed towards people that believed slavery was the worst thing that ever happened on this planet. I believe they are trying to justify themselves, although if they were right (that slavery was good) why would they have to?
ReplyDeleteThese readings are very tough to read because I feel that people do what is popular in there times. If one person has a slave another will try to get one to and the chain continues from their. These readings also talked about the economy. Everyone is always worried about the economy. The economy during the slave trade was depended on slaves and the crop they produced. Without slaves the economy would have failed immediately. But why start having slaves in the first place if you knew the economy would depend on them? I guess slave owners thought they could take advantage of slaves easily. I think the North is basically trying to get rid of the slaves even though they have no power and have no say in the south's decisions.
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting in these articles that they continue to go on and on about how its right to keep slaves because they are morally unfit, economically unfit, they will cease to produce for society and the country will collapse. So they say thats its almost their obligation to keep slaves, yet they never take into account that its just morally wrong to own another person. Yeah, maybe some of their points hold SOME water, but they are at the expensive of no freedom for slaves and lack of human rights. Due to the Nat Turner revolt the white masters became even more aggressive and outspoken of their support for slavery. Their intended audience is most clearly white people, possibly who can be swayed to support either side.
ReplyDeleteI think their intended audience were people who where thinking whether slavery should be abolished or not. In one of the articles Thomas E. Dew states that even though a slave is free he will feel worthless and because of that it would cause him to act out and start thinking about killing people and committing massacre. This is not necessarily true but if a slave is free, he will not get the same rights as a white man. He would be looked down upon and receive insults from here and there which would make him feel worthless. People are different , some freed slaves might take these situations personally and act out in a bad way or take it as a way to make them stronger and work herder to get a stable life.
ReplyDeleteI believe the Nat Turner revolt probably scared the crap out of people in that they believed if slaves were to be freed, there would be more instances of chaos. That may be why Thomas R. Drew believes immediate emancipation would lead to plots and murders. "Two totally different races, as we have seen before, cannot easily harmonize together."
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