The time between the American Revolution and the Civil War was a period of change in the United States. While the Northern states moved over time to eliminate the use of slavery, the South wanted to cultivate slavery because significance it had in the southern economy. The Southern states, during this time period, attempted to reason for merits of slavery and pushed against abolitionist ideas of a slave society being iniquitous. George S. Sawyer’s writes of Abolitionist’s arguments against slavery, in his piece Southern Institutes, when he states, “It is objected to the prevalence by the free-soil party that it is deleterious to the interests of free labor, paralyzes industrial pursuits, corrupts religion and public morals, and impedes …show more content…
He makes the argument that the institution of slavery in the South has been a positive force for religion. He makes this argument using a number of different statistics that compare churches of the abolitionist North with the facetiously stated “fire-eaters” in the South. His analysis of these statistics is given when he writes, “These five Southern States, with only a free population of 2,198 greater than the six New England States, have nearly double the number of churches capable of accommodating a million more worshippers at but little over half the cost!” This statement supports his argument that slavery has a positive effect on religion by saying that in slave holding states people are more likely to practice Christianity and that people are more likely to give to churches in order that more people have the ability to go to worship services. What is also interesting is that he includes the cost of these churches. His explanation for why that particular statistic is included when he writes that a Northerner Christian “seeks to glorify himself rather than his God, by the erection of costly temples from which the humble Christian is excluded, “as well as when he writes that in the North, “there are 200,000 more who cannot find a seat in the house of God!” This example is interesting because it plays on the Southern idea that Northerners are more interested in self-veneration rather than the glorification of …show more content…
Sawyer’s document depicts the massive emphasis of the necessity of slaves southerners had during the period leading up to the Civil War. While abolitionist movements worked in the North, pro-slavery sympathizers were creating documents, like this, in order to provide reasoning for cultivating a pro-slavery environment. Southern defended the Southern slave system and stated that it had a positive effect on society by asserting that it is a positive ally for religious entities, arguing that it is beneficial for the overall physical and moral health of the populations of slave-holding states, as well as by claiming that it is a necessity for the United States economy. After analyzing Sawyer’s reasoning for keeping slavery as an institution in the United States one has the ability to evaluate current assessments of controversial institutions in today’s world and calculate the value of those
By using the Bible as an authoritative text, Sloan liberally uses the absent authority to project his own (and confederate) views on slavery. Moreover, he exploits the Bible “by ascribing radically new ideas to ancient figures'' (cited in Martin 2017, 124 ) to justify slavery. Furthermore, he presents several views such as slavery being a sin and the Christian right to sustain a social hierarchy to maintain the natural order. Further reinforcing his ideals of White supremacy. Subsequently, it becomes mandatory for slave owners to perpetuate the slave-master relationship as part of God's intelligent device.
Slavery has sadly been in America from the start. Many have different opinions about slavery whether it should stay or be abandoned and forgotten. Although one person has written to Thomas Jefferson about one of history’s most important subject. Banneker starts it off by writing his strong views on how wrong slavery is not just listing all the problems, but in a letter that he uses strategies to make his view convincing. Benjamin Banneker uses rhetorical strategies such as ethos, logos, and various style elements to argue against slavery.
You say This, But do That Benjamin Banneker employs techniques of imagery and irony, as well as tools of diction to enhance his idea of slavery needing to be stopped by pointing out Thomas Jefferson’s hypocrisy without attacking. Banneker employs imagery through allusions to help convince to help show how Jefferson is go against his common beliefs to a point. Banneker alludes religion by talking about “the pecular blessings” given “by their creator” (Banneker). Banneker points out how not being enslaved whether it be not being under British rule, or being an actual slave forced to work without anything in return is a gift from God. Due to Christianity being the main religion then Banneker uses to point out how Jefferson is not giving all
Auld’s misinterpretation of the passage emphasizes slave owners use of religion to reinforce their power over their slaves. Christianity rationalized the concept of buying and selling human beings, and that God approved this too. In addition, Douglass used religion as a way to fuel his abolition movement. Under Master Hugh’s, Douglass began to learn how to read and write. Once
The texts The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass both do well to paint a picture of how slavery was easily accepted in the American Society. These books show us how many white slaveholders were able to justify slavery with religion, dehumanization, and by convincing themselves that the slaves themselves were content with their situations. In both of these books we are shown how many white slaveholders seem to justify their cruelty and the horror that is slavery through religion. In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, We are presented with a quote about his master Captain Auld.
To those living in British America in the 1700’s, religion was a central fixture of everyday life. One’s denomination was intrinsically tied up in one’s ethnic and social identity, and local churches in the mid-Atlantic depended upon the participation and donations of their parishioners to survive. However, as the 18th century progressed, poorer farmers and ministers across the diverse sects of colonial America came to resent the domination of church life by the upper class. In a parallel development, a split had grown between the rationalists, who were typically wealthy, educated and influential men who represented the status quo, and the evangelicals, who disdained the impersonal pretention of the rationalists and promoted a spiritual and
Douglass is relentless when attacking the church, he states, “The American Church is Guilty” (Douglass 1039). This has a slightly taste of irony, because here Douglass, a colored man, is calling out the most “sacred” body of people. It almost as if he was the master and they were the slave now. Next, the main theme expressed by
By using this reference, it illustrated the severity of the alienation of blacks in the Southern United States. In 1619, a Dutch ship “introduced the first captured Africans to America, planting the seeds of a slavery system that evolved into a nightmare of abuse and cruelty that would ultimately divide the nation”. The Africans were not treated humanely, but were treated as workers with no rights. Originally, they were to work for poor white families for seven years and receive land and freedom in return. As the colonies prospered, the colonists did not want to give up their workers and in 1641, slavery was legalized.
“We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.” (Winston Churchill) Since the beginning, the United States have encountered many wars. During these wars, they have also gained great victories. Many of these wars were due to differences, whether economically or religiously. One war, in particular, changed the United States forever.
He is a poor farm renter, and his reputation for breaking slaves is the only reason he can afford his rent. He gets “misbehaved” slaves from wealthy slaveholders for a period of time for free. In return he makes sure these slaves know they are not men and only property. He thinks of himself as a real christian; he is a “professor of religion—a pious soul—a member and a class leader in the Methodist church.”
Religion and its relationship to slavery is a contradictive subject, whether it was forced upon slaves or was a form of hope and freedom is still commonly debated about to this day. However, these individuals were devoted Christians in the abolitionist movement who all
“ I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, woman-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.” (Douglass 100) Douglass does this to show how hypocritical people in the South were being. Churches were teaching the Christian practice of being kind and compassionate while not actually practicing it themselves. Douglass argues that the actions of some people are against religion.
From this, derives a bond with the reader that pushes their understanding of the evil nature of slavery that society deemed appropriate therefore enhancing their understanding of history. While only glossed over in most classroom settings of the twenty-first century, students often neglect the sad but true reality that the backbone of slavery, was the dehumanization of an entire race of people. To create a group of individuals known for their extreme oppression derived from slavery, required plantation owner’s of the South to constantly embedded certain values into the lives of their slaves. To talk back means to be whipped.
One of the strategies Douglass uses to convince his audience slavery should be abolished is by “calling out American hypocrisy in his Fourth of July oration” (Mercieca 1). He shames them with no remorse. He speaks on the opposite treatments that enable whites to live in a state of freedom and liberty, while the blacks are living in a state of bondage. As the audience listens, he reminds them, there are men, women and children still held hostages to the chains of
On September 2nd, 1862, Abraham Lincoln famously signed the Emancipation Proclamation. After that, there’s been much debate on whether Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation truly played a role in freeing the slaves with many arguments opposing or favoring this issue. In Vincent Harding’s essay, The Blood-red Ironies of God, Harding argues in his thesis that Lincoln did not help to emancipate the slaves but that rather the slaves “self-emancipated” themselves through the war. On the opposition, Allen C Guelzo ’s essay, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America, argues in favor of the Emancipation Proclamation and Guelzo acknowledges Lincoln for the abolishment of slavery through the Emancipation Proclamation.