The White Southern View of Slavery

William Harper's apology 1837

  • whale Harper was the author of a book memoir on slavery defending slavery because cotton could not be grown without slaves
  • he said that slaves were slaves in Africa as well as the United States they just have different masters there
  • that slaves have security and guarantees that free laborers do not
  • few slaves are murdered than free people
  • that whipping slave is the best punishment with the least amount of permanent injury
  • children are whipped and it's not a greeting to them so shouldn't be too great to a slave
  • slaves don't want education because they work with their hands and they don't have leisure time
  • they can't better themselves anyway so why educate his life
  • slave women have low morals and that's why we don't need marriage for slaves
  • slave women when they have children are not a burden but a acquisition for their owners
  • if we stop slavery cotton crops couldn't exist
  • if you had free labor they could strike for more rages
  • two thirds or three force of our foreign commerce is rice and cotton
  • slaves make money to millions of free men
  • these freemen can now settle in the West
  • cotton has progressed civilization by enabling the poor to get cheap clothing it has stimulated being civil

the blessings of the slave 1849

  • Solon Robinson wrote from agricultural magazine lived in Connecticut
  • if you freed slaves they would find poverty
  • wrote that slaves were happy and content
  • but that slaves were clothed and fed better
  • wrote that they were taking care of when they were sick or old and they had comforts of life
  • that overseers of slaves know better than to ask for them to work too hard because like mules they can't be made to do more than a certain amount of work
  • white laborers work a lot harder than slaves
  • white men from the north are the hardest slave masters they try to force slaves to do as much work as someone from New England that it's impossible because white people work harder
  • some people of user slaves just like some men abuse their wives and children
  • slaves are treated better now than they used to be because their masters have become better man
  • we're nice tier slaves there be more cheerful and fateful and obedient
  • the Sabbath is best By slaves and a master in Mississippi
  • slaves go to church better dressed and better behaved than any other class of laborers
  • he almost never saw anyone get whipped and they were very well fed and had nice clothes that are close and he would wear himself some days
  • he only heard of one master down south who was a drunken abuser of his slaves everyone else was great
  • two things hated in the South masters who abuse and start their slaves and abolitionists who pretend like slaves are not well treated

Slaves Don't Strike 1846

  • the South invested its money in human muscle not in machinery they invested in the lash system which means whipping slaves not in the cash system which means paying your employees
  • he tells the story of the new Orleans slaveowner who got rid of all of his slaves and hired 100 Irish and German emigrants at very high wages and in the middle of the harvest they all went on strike asking for double pay he lost $10,000

 

Judgments on the Abolitionist

Webster is critical 1850

  • Daniel Webster was not an abolitionist had a speech about the compromise of 1850 pleading for North and South harmony
  • he was called a Benedict Arnold because he was a son of New England talking about proslavery
  • he said that abolitionist have not proved anything valuable for good
  • he said that they are interfering with the South
  • that all the slaves read the debates in the House of delegates in 1832 about getting rid of slavery slowly
  • they created great agitation in the North against Southern slavery
  • he believes a result of that is that Virginia didn't want to talk about it anymore because the agitating people of the North were interfering in their business

Lincoln Appraises Abolitionism 1854

  • abolitionism and crackpot-ism worse associated in the public mind
  • Abe Lincoln was thought of as a abolitionist even though his wife's family in Kentucky had slaves
  • Abe Lincoln had a speech in P or yet Illinois in 1854 saying that he did not have prejudice against Southern people
  • he said there people on both sides in the North and South that would never owned slaves and some that would introduce slavery again if it ever got out of existence
  • some people from the South releaser slaves and move north and some people from the North move south to go on by slaves
  • if I had all the power in the world he said his first impulse would be to free the slaves and send them back to Liberia
  • but then he said if I sent them all away they would perish in the next 10 days
  • he said he would never own a slave but he can't announce people who do
  • just what to do next free them and make them political and social equals even if I said that they were equal amount sure other white people would so you can't make them equals
  • he will not give them any legislation to reclaim slaves that runaway

The Abolitionist Provoke War 1882

  • abolitionist accused of starting Civil War
  • resistance to slavery in the North and the extension of slavery made the South talk about leaving the union or secession
  • England is responsible for the Civil War because they abolish slavery in the west Indies and that started the movement in America
  • the abolitionist worked against the gigantic system of slavery
  • the Civil War Saudia abolish meant of slavery in the employment of colored troops and citizens
  • it also made the amendments to our Constitution