Pro Slavery Views

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Pro-Slavery Views
During the antebellum years, the United States was divided into two groups regarding slavery. Slavery was the practice of owning African Americans. In the south particularly, they were used as restless and abused laborers by cruel masters. One group supported abolitionism, or the anti- slavery movement. They wanted to free slaves as they believed slavery was a moral evil. On the other hand, those that supported slavery wanted the practice to continue. Caucasians oftentimes had reasons why they believed that the practice was necessary. Some looked to African American’s intellect, religion and society. Supports of slavery believed that African Americans were not intelligent, ordained by God as inferior, in the proper place …show more content…
George Fitzhugh, a social theorist during the 1800’s, had a few opinions on this. He wrote that “the negro is improvident” (Fishel). Also in his writing "The Universal Law of Slavery," he continued to describe how African Americans were unable to live independently and “not lay up in summer for the wants of winter” (Fishel). Another person who favored slavery was James Henry Hammond a former United States Representative. In a speech, he wrote that slaves had a “low order of intellect and but little skill” (Hammond). He also includes that they were strong, obedient, and faithful (Hammond). While this is true, African Americans were seen as incapable of living as an independent group of individuals and required leadership by …show more content…
Cartwright, a physician, wrote that it was, because the master “abuses the power which God has given him over his fellow-man” (Cartwright). This abuse came in the form of making slaves on an equal level as a Caucasian, being cruel in punishment, and not giving the necessities of life (Cartwright). It is important to note that “whipping the devil out of them” was not a form of cruel punishment (Cartwright). He and many others felt that it was not only their right, but their need to support slavery. Hammond included in his speech that freedom would have slaves “elevated from the condition in which God first created them, by being made our slaves” (Hammond). They believed that their religion ordered and influenced them to have slavery
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