Southern Argument Against Slavery

In 1619, when slavery began in America, slaves were used as a force of labor to build and work on the new land. Unfortunately, slavery continued on for the next three centuries in the United States. Today, people view slavery as an inhumane and cruel way of treating people, but back then many people saw nothing wrong with the holding of slaves. For the most part, slavery was morally and ethically wrong since the enslavement of people was terrible. In general, slavery is unfitting because Thomas Jefferson once said “...that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights...” (Declaration of Independence). The quote above shows that slavery was morally and ethically wrong due to the fact that

Numerous people in the South believed that ending slavery in the United States would put the nation’s economy in debt. In general, from U.S. History stated, “Defenders of slavery argued that if all the slaves were freed, there would be widespread unemployment and chaos” (“The Southern Argument for Slavery”). In other words, the defenders of slavery thought setting the slaves free would cause massive destruction around the United States and many of the defenders of slavery used biblical verse to get their point across. Specifically, abolitionists argued that there are no laws protecting slaves and that slave owners held to much power. For example, in 1852 a woman named Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote a book called Uncle Tom’s Cabin to portray those thoughts. For instance, author Nicole Bianchi claimed, “ Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin presented the thesis that Southern chattel slavery was immoral...Stowe was able to change the thinking of many Americans. Her compassionate portrayal of the Africans impelled Americans to look upon them as fellow human beings” (The Inkwell Musings). Abolitionists, like Stowe, were able to change the minds of many Americans to show the slave owners were immoral because of that fact they were enslaving innocent people. Many abolitionists believed and argued that African Americans deserve the same rights as everyone else since slaves are human