Slavery Attacked and
Defended
James Henley Thornwell, Frederick Douglass, Lydia Maria Child
Anti-Slavery/Abolitionism
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Enlightenment and American Revolution
American Colonization Society
2d Great Awakening
Immediatism
David Walker’s Appeal
William Lloyd Garrison, Liberator
American Anti Slavery Society
American and Foreign Anti Slavery Society
Moral Suasion to Direct Action
See your Declaration Americans! ! ! Do you understand
your won language? Hear your languages, proclaimed to
the world, July 4th, 1776 -- "We hold these truths to be
self evident -- that ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL! !
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness! !"
Compare your own language above, extracted from your
Declaration of Independence, with your cruelties and
murders inflicted by your cruel and unmerciful fathers and
yourselves on our fathers and on us -- men who have
never given your fathers or you the least provocation! ! ! ! !
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–David Walker, Appeal, In Four Articles: Together With A
Preamble To The Coloured Citizens Of The World, But In
Particular, And Very Expressly, To Those Of The United
States Of America,
I am aware that many object to the severity
of my language; but is there not cause for
severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and
as uncompromising as justice. On this
subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak,
or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a
man whose house is on fire to give a
moderate alarm; tell him to moderately
rescue his wife from the hands of the
ravisher; tell the mother to gradually
extricate her babe from the fire into which it
has fallen; -- but urge me not to use
moderation in a cause like the present. I
am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will
not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch
-- AND I WILL BE HEARD. The apathy of
the people is enough to make every statue
leap from its pedestal, and to hasten the
resurrection of the dead.—W. L. Garrison,
The Liberator, Jan. 1, 1831
Free Soil/Free Labor
• Liberty Party—became Free Soil Party by 1848
• “There are many who main impulse is to secure the new
territories for free white labor.” N. Y. Tribune
• Slavery threatened free white labor, diminished the
dignity of labor.
• “We are opposed to the extension of slavery because . . .
it diminishes the productive power of the population. It is
an obstacle to compact settlements, and to every general
system of public instruction. . . . If the free labor . . . goes
[into the territories] the slave labor of the southern states
will not, and in a few years the country will teem with an
active and energetic population.” –Free Soil Paper
Slavery Defended
• Ancient Example
• Biblical Precept
• Political Economy
Political Economy
• Thomas Roderick Dew, An Essay in Favor
of Slavery (1832)
• George Fitzhugh, Sociology of the South,
or the Failure of Free Society (1854),
Cannibals All, or Slaves without Masters
(1857)
• Henry Hughes, A Treatise on Sociology:
Theoretical and Practical (1854)
Biblical
• Thornton W. Stringfellow, Scriptural and
Statistical Views in Favor of Slavery (1856)
• 1st. The sanction of the Almighty in the
Patriarchal age.
• 2d. That it was incorporated into the only
National Constitution which ever emanated from
God.
• 3d. That its legality was recognized and its
relative duties regulated, by Jesus Christ in his
kingdom; and
• 4th. That it is full of mercy.
Ephesians and the Relative Duties
• 5:22 “Wives, submit yourselves unto your
own husbands, as unto the Lord.”
• 6:1 “Children, obey your parents in the
Lord, for this is right.”
• 6:5 “Servants, be obedient to them that
are [your] masters according to the flesh,
with fear and trembling, in singleness of
your heart, as unto Christ.”
E. N. Elliott, Cotton is King (1860)
Religious Debates/Schisms over
Slavery
• Francis Wayland-Richard Fuller, 1845
• Old School-New School Schism (1837)
• Triennial Convention Schism (1844); SBC
formed 1845
• Methodist General Conference Schism
(1844); MEC,S founded in 1844.