The history of slavery has had a huge impact on both the United States and African Americans in its territory. Gradually, American Society made the transition from the general public approval of slavery to the movement of abolitionism. The North and South of the US also differed significantly in their perception of this practice. While pro-slavery arguments were actively developed and persisted for a long time in the South, the concept of free labor and the first attempts at abolitionism was born in the North. Southerners viewed slavery as morally justified by appealing to the intellectual inferiority of African Americans and the happiness that their masters brought them. Northerners, on the contrary, believed that slavery violated the human rights of African Americans, which did not allow moral justification for this practice. Non-expansionist arguments marked the transitional period between full acceptance and the abolition of slavery, trying to describe the necessary transformations. Pro-slavery, non-expansionist, and abolitionist perspectives on the moral foundations of slavery identify both differences between the North and south of the US and the gradual evolution of the nation’s view of African people.
The pro-slavery view was prevalent in the US South, where the vast plantations needed extensive slave labor. This perspective was partly based on the belief that there were fundamental differences between races. Among the proponents of slavery, there were many proponents of the argument about the physical and mental inferiority of African Americans compared to white people. In particular, James Hunt’s (1864) famous paper presented before the Anthropological Society of London supports the position that “the Negro belongs to a distinct type of Man to the European” (p. 24). Thus, the author emphasizes that African Americans are not equal in characteristics to Europeans, which morally justifies slavery. Most notably in this regard, Hunt (1864) acknowledges the horrors of the slave trade but also considers that slaves in the US are physically and intellectually more advanced than their race in Africa. Thus, the proponents of slavery were convinced that the use of slave labor ennobles African Americans, which constitutes its moral value.
Pro-slavery views were also based on the belief that slave labor was morally justified since masters provided their slaves with comfortable conditions and various benefits. George Fitzhugh (1857) argued that compared to African Americans involved in the free labor common in the North, slaves in the South enjoyed greater privileges. He was convinced that the paternalism of the slave owners provided African Americans with all the necessary benefits and also made them members of the community and family. This view is also supported by Hunt (1864), who argues that slaves care more about their masters and families than their children. Supporters of slavery were convinced that slaves received better conditions and were also protected from the uncertainties of the free labor of the North. This view is also consistent with the physical and mental inferiority of African Americans, as it describes them as needing the patronage of their masters.
Proponents of slavery in the South sought to prove the uniqueness and justification of the way of life in the region. Faust (1979) notes that “the pro-slavery argument rested on intellectual values and moral-philosophical assumptions shared throughout mid-nineteenth-century America” (p. 64). In their desire to determine the moral foundations of slavery, the southerners actively appealed to the Bible as the paramount source of Christian truth. Proponents of slavery were sure that God had chosen slave owners as special people (Faust, 1979). In particular, slavery was morally justified by the fact that Jesus did not deny it in the New Testament, and the apostle Paul clearly viewed it as not contradicting Christian principles. Harper et al. (1852) elaborate on this in The pro-slavery argument and conclude that “it is impossible, therefore, to suppose that Slavery is contrary to the will of God” (p. 107). The search for and description of the moral foundations of slavery became for the inhabitants of the South some attempt to search for the meaning and manifestation of the intellectual independence of the region.
Additionally, Thomas Cooper argued as a utilitarian that the Southern model of slavery brought the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people (Kilbride, 1993). Thus slavery was also considered consistent with the utilitarian moral principle, which supported the pro-slavery argument. Although the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham defined utilitarianism as greater happiness for most people, Cooper was convinced that slavery contributed equally to both slaves and masters (Bentham, 1823; Cooper, 1787). The proponent of slavery concluded that African Americans were intellectually and morally inferior, while enslavement gave them meaning and happiness in life.
Non-expansionist arguments largely reflected the nation’s ongoing transition from the complete acceptance of slavery as the norm of society and the realization of the inevitability of its disappearance in the future. Faust (1979) underlined that for the society of that time, slavery seemed the basis of civilization. The desire of the Southerners for the further expansion of the United States towards Mexico also assumed the use of slave labor for the development of a new region (Fotouhi, 2006). However, the proponents of free labor demanded that slavery be abandoned in the new territories. Further expansion with the use of slaves required, according to the northerners, excessive human resources (Fotouhi, 2006). Thus, non-expansionists did not openly oppose slavery in the existing US territories, realizing its economic necessity, but were against slavery in the newly conquered territories.
The spread of slavery in the territory of the already independent United States is explained by the increased demand for lops and sugar produced on the Southern plantations. Hammond (2012) notes that the rise of slavery is closely related directly to westward expansion. Although African Americans, as well as Native Americans, actively opposed the expansion of slavery, the economic interests of the southern planters were far more significant. The slavery that existed throughout the country was considered morally justified since it provided the economic foundations for its existence.
A debate developed about how future free African Americans, former slaves, could integrate into society and contribute to its economic prosperity. Proponents of non-expansionism realized the need for slavery as the backbone of economic activity (Engerman, 1986). They understood that the transition to free labor would require a transformation that could slow down US development. The expansion of slavery to the southwest was morally acceptable because “in the interior of the North American continent, slavery and sovereignty often advanced together” (Hammond, 2012, p. 180). The non-expansionists advocated for an end to the northeast expansion of slavery, as they could not effectively control the Southerners.
In particular, slavery was considered morally justified since many, although they understood the need for abolitionism, did not see a way to turn slaves into free workers. Joseph Marryat (1816) speculated: “How to induce men, who have no artificial wants, to devote themselves to daily toil, is a difficulty almost insurmountable” (p. 222). Representatives of the religion also began to actively call on Christians to limit slavery and actively fight against its expansion to new territories (Johnson, 1848). Johnson (1848) urged to set the newly acquired territories for free people and to limit the spread of slavery there by law. From the point of view of the non-expansionist argument, already existing slavery could not be eliminated, but it was possible not to extend this practice to new territories. From a moral perspective, the retention of the slaves was seen as a necessity since they, due to their nature and habits, could not effectively participate in free labor.
The abolitionist movement originated in the North and sought to abolish slavery completely as a morally unacceptable phenomenon. While free labor was actively developing in the North, the Southerners continued to exploit slaves to maintain economic prosperity actively. The main arguments of the abolitionists were that slavery violates human rights and likens it to property, while all people are born free. In fact, in What became of the slaves on a Georgia plantation? Details a slave auction in Georgia where people were bought and sold as property (Doesticks, 1863). From a moral perspective, such an attitude toward people violated their natural rights and deprived them of the opportunity to control their own destinies.
The most convincing evidence in this respect is that slaves were deprived even of the opportunity to be with their loved ones. The practice of taking newborn children from African American slaves was widespread, as described in the autobiography of Frederick Douglass (2009). In particular, he himself was separated from his mother while still an infant and had no opportunity to contact her. Douglass (2009) states that “it is a common custom… to part children from their mothers at a very early age” (p. 16). This is confirmed by Doesticks (1863), who describes that small children were also sold at the slave auction, the value of which increased every year. This is confirmed by Doesticks (1863), who describes that small children were also sold at the slave auction, the value of which increased every year. Slaves were seen as a commodity that had no emotions and no will of their own, which in the second half of the nineteenth century gave rise to the movement of abolitionism.
Abolitionists believed that African Americans were as free as white Americans, which is the natural law. Pleasants (2010) call the emergence of the abolitionist movement a great example of “morally motivated protest” (p. 177). Although he notes that it is likely that a purely moral argument is not enough to abandon the long-standing institutionalized practice of slavery, abolitionism arose to a large extent to protect the human rights of slaves (Pleasants, 2010). In the second half of the nineteenth century, it became clear that limiting the free will of man could not be morally justified by economic needs. These views were actively supported in the North but rejected in the South. The North, by that time, due to active industrialization and trade, integrated free labor into former slaves into its society. The technically and economically obsolete South, however, had to rely on traditional means of production to sustain itself.
In general, from the abolitionist point of view, slavery deprived African Americans of their natural human rights and took away their free will. In turn, such aspects of this practice do not allow moral justification for the economic benefits that slave labor potentially brings. Abolitionists sought to restore the rights of African Americans’ rights and prove that they could exist independently in the United States and did not need the patronage of their masters.
References
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