Frederick Douglass Pro Slavery Arguments

Frederick Douglass throws light on the American slave system by writing about his view of slaveholders, the conditions of slavery, and how he escaped. He explained his experience with slaveholders when he states, “He was cruel enough to inflict the severest punishment, artful enough to descend to the lowest trickery, and obdurate enough to be insensible to the voice of a reproving conscience.” (Page 32) This displays the fact that most slaveholders in the south were cruel and inhumane. Frederick Douglass shows the condition slaves had to go through, when he states,”I suffered much from hunger but much more from cold. In hottest summer and coldest winter, I was kept almost naked--no shoes, no stockings, no jacket, no trousers, nothing but a coarse tow linen shirt, reaching only to my knees. … We were not regularly allowanced. Our food

This was called mush… He that ate fastest got most; he that ate the fastest got most.” (Page 36) This shows that slaves, especially children, lived in poor conditions and received very little food.

Frederick Douglass’s position differs from those who supported slavery because people who supported slavery thought that the abolishment of slavery would tear apart the South’s economy. This is shown in the article, “Pro Slavery Arguments in the Antebellum South” when it states, “People who were pro-slavery believed that killing the slavery system would also kill the South’s cotton reliant economy” This shows that the pro-slavery movement in the south’s biggest argument way that abolishing slavery would ruin the economy. Frederick Douglass however, says in his narrative, on page 96, “Here I found myself surrounded with the strongest