12/14/2014

PS-5
Final Paper
Slavery Versus Liberty
Antebellum America, the time after gaining her freedom and before the civil war,
saw heavy emphasis on slavery and liberty, and sectional conflict. There were major
conflicts in political thought between the North and the South. While the North began to
industrialize, the South relied heavily on agriculture, making slave labor ever more a
necessity to the growth of the Souths economy. This institution of slavery made the clear
divide between the North and South. What came about from the rise of slavery in the
South were heavy conflicts with the North, new political agendas and thoughts, and
differences in views of what liberty meant.
From the period of 1820-1860, the Southerners were mainly concerned with the
North gaining control of the government, giving them control over abolishment of
slavery. Davis writes that, the major slaveholding states held only 42 percent of the seats
in the House of Representatives. (Davis, 190). This turned the south into territorial
hounds. As new states were becoming part of the Union, southerners wanted to expand
slavery. There was a sectional balance that coincided with the sectional conflict. The
struggle for keeping a sectional balance lead to the dividing of Missouri half a slave state
and Maine was brought in as a free state reserving the sectional balance. This kept the
Southern states power at bay. For example the Tariff of 1828, was a threat to the South
and a reminder that things could be done to regulate and thwart slavery. The south, in a
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political sense, was weak. But because the North was so dependent on the Souths
agriculture business, the institution of slavery kept growing.
With the growing of slavery in the South, there was a growth in the fight against
it. Like the Protestant revivalism, abolitionist sought to change the country through moral
reform and ridding of the sins committed by the people. But for the abolitionist, the sin
that the country was apart of was slavery. To the abolitionists, slavery was the most
atrocious sin. Abolitionists during the 1830s focused mainly on the immediate and
uncompensated emancipation of slaves and racial equality in forms of moral reform.
Although the North seemed indifferent to the institutions of slavery in the South, the
abolitionist were just as unwanted in the North as they were in the South. According to
Davis, many northerners at least vaguely disapproved of slavery, hoped for its gradual
demise, and favored a policy of non-extension. But few were prepared to take a strong
stand against it. (Davis, 193). Also the abolitionists radical ideas of racial equality
scared the northerners, fearing that the free slaves will steal their jobs and marry their
daughters (Davis, 193). Even though the institution of slavery was not looked at in the
same light as the south to the north, racism was still alive and the fear of blacks kept
northerners to somewhat look the other way. It wasnt a fight that they were too
concerned about winning. A main figure in the abolitionist movement was William Lloyd
Garrison. Garrison essentially started the movement with the publication of The
Liberator, and organizing the New England Anti-Slavery Society. Following his work,
abolitionists from nine other states met and founded the American Anti-Slavery Society
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adopting Garrisons Declaration of Sentiments. The abolitionists found it very important

to change white attitudes towards blacks via moral changes. They believed that there was
a higher law than the government and strongly believed that slavery violated the
fundamental right to liberty. Abolitionists argued that this completely contradicted the
Declaration of Independence. Garrisonian abolitionists focused heavily on moral
persuasion, the principle of immediatism and disunionism.
From this period of Garrisonian thinking emerged Frederick Douglass, a black
abolitionist and an important leader. Before he became a prominent figure in the
abolitionist movement, Douglass was a slave but escaped to New England and became
involved in the antislavery crusade in 1841. When Douglass first started out he firmly
believed in moral persuasion and not using force as a way to wane out slavery. He also
saw the Constitution as a proslavery document, endorsed disunionism, and supported
immediatism. For his speeches Douglass used personal experiences as a slave to bring
light to the cruelty of white southerners. In 1851 Douglass broke off from the
Garrisonians and embraced different philosophies, he embraced political action, rejected
disunionsim and interpreted the Constitution as an antislavery document (Davis 199).
Interpreting the Constitution as an antislavery document rather than a proslavery one was
important because it put the fundamental principles of law on the side of the
Abolitionists rather than conceding to slave holders that the law was on their side.
(Davis, 199). Douglass, after disassociating with the Garrisonians, rejected the idea of
disunionism as well. To him disunionizing would only mean that the North would
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abandon its moral responsibility to end slavery (Davis, 200). Douglass was important
to the political abolitionist movement because he strayed away from the original
Garrisonian thinking that the Constitution was a proslavery document. His change in
interpretation put the power back into the hands of abolitionists with the idea that the
country was founded on ideas of antislavery sentiments.
Abolitionists also brought forward parallels between slaves and women,
antislavery and womens rights. Two important women in this movement were the
Grimks sisters. They compared women to slaves, women ought to feel a peculiar
sympathy in the colored mans wrong, for, like him, she has been accused of mental
inferiority, and denied the privileges of a liberal education. (Davis, 202). By realizing
this comparison, the Grimks weaved antislavery movements with womens rights
movements in what seemed to be an attempt at killing two birds with one stone. The
sisters emphasized womens duty and right to join the abolitionists. They were a large
contribution to the womens rights movement as well as aiding in the abolitionists
movement.
On the other side of the battleground were those who supported slavery. Two men
who tried to idealize the institution of slavery were John C. Calhoun and George
Fitzhugh. These defenders of slavery were important to developing politically driven
proslavery philosophies. Calhoun thought of slavery as a good, instrumental in
bringing the black race of Central Africa from a low, degraded, and savage condition
(Davis, 206). The notion of a state of nature, social contract and natural rights did not
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exist to Calhoun. To Calhoun all societies were based on class differences and every
thriving society in history, one side of the community lived off the labor of the other.
Slavery was acceptable because according to Calhoun liberty was not a right, but a
reward. This inevitable inequality was good for the greater good of the community
because it made people want to be better to earn their liberty. In Calhouns A Disquisition
on Government, he speaks of a concurrent majority as a means of protecting numerical
minorities from the tyranny of a majority. At first this would seem to defunct his
proslavery sentiment, but taking a closer look Calhoun explained it as a means for a
minority could thwart proposals that seemed to infringe their sovereign power.
Essentially this was a tool to protect slaveholders, the minority, from the northern states.
It gave the southerners authority to veto legislation that obstructed their interests.
(Davis, 206). Calhoun adamantly supported slavery and the idea that individual states had
the right to invalidate the Constitution to support the Souths, concurrent majoritys,
interests. Another defender of slavery was George Fitzhugh. Fitzhugh was more extreme
and probably a little crazy, but his work was important for others to work off of and
articulate further proslavery arguments and philosophies. Fitzhugh argued that inequality
was necessary, otherwise if all men were created equal, there would be chaos, rivalries
and enemies amongst the people whereas inequality brought peace. It seemed as though
to Fitzhugh slavery wasnt just purely about, but also about class and structures of
society. He thought slavery should be stretched to white workers as well. Slavery was the
alternative to capitalism. He rejected all ideas of free labor and free markets, thinking that
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it only benefited the strong and wealthy and only dilutes the weak and poor. This free
society only does harm to the people. Fitzhughs defense for slavery was slightly off beat
but he and other proslavery activists had to politicize the institution of slavery as a
method of defense against the antislavery activists.
Although the institution of slavery was very much saturating the politics of the
1800s, Abraham Lincoln did as much as he could to stay on the side for equality and
liberty and against slavery. Lincoln full heartedly believed that slavery was unjust and
believed that it enables the enemies of free institutionsto taunt us as hypocrites
doubt our sincerity. (Davis, 210). Lincoln refers to a new birth of freedom in his
Gettysburg Address in which he highlights the beginning of turning the nation away from
the ideologies of slavery. This is important because Lincoln is trying to get destruct the
institution of slavery and reconstruct a new meaning to freedom where all men are
created equal.
To southerners the idea that all men are created equal did not apply to black
slaves. Taking from the readings of Calhoun and Fitzhugh, it would seem that most of the
South, the slaveholders, believed that not all men were created equal and that some were
even to be considered as property. The readings presented arguments that tried to justify
slavery, arguing that slavery was necessary for the well being of all. The issue of slavery
in the 1800s was a prominent catalyst to the civil war. This institution was heavily
politicized. While the North was eradicating slavery, the South was fighting to keep it
alive and well. Slavery was a great economic source to the South, they tried very hard to
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establish independence under their own constitution while the North was trying to
preserve the Union. Eventually this heated fight between slavery and liberty for all lead
to the civil war where the issue of slavery and states rights carried on.