The Attitude of Servitude
Austin Kemp
In the beginning of the nineteenth century, many pro-slavery politicians and historians
have presented several arguments on the preservation of slavery in the United States. The
common arguments presented by former politicians relate to the religious justifications of
slavery, economical arguments, and several racial theories that led to the justification of slavery.
The preservation of slavery during the nineteenth century came from the production of primary
sources, speeches, etc. from historians and politicians like John Calhoun, James Hammond,
Reverend A. T. Holmes, Edmund Ruffin, and several others. During the nineteenth century,
slavery was the backbone of the United States and the success of our nation, and it was defended
on three main aspects: Economy, Politics, and Religion.
Post-civil war politicians & theorists have written and presented several sources, both
primary and secondary, that justify the prolongation of slavery in the United States. Paul
Finkelman, in his work, Defending Slavery1, provides an insight on the emergence of slavery in
the United States, and he also provides an insight on the emergence of Pro-slavery thought in the
United States. Finkelman includes an overall summary on every primary source that he has
collected on the prolongation of slavery in the United States and introduces several aspects and
ideologies as to how former politicians and theorists tried to justify the preservation of slavery.
The first justification of slavery that Finkelman presents is the pro-slavery thought of
politics and economics in the United States. The main argument that many pro slavery politicians
presented during the nineteenth century was that the use of slavery in the United States was how
1
Finkelman, Paul. Defending Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Old South: A Brief History
with Documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2003.
1
the nation was successful and functioning very high on an economical success rate, and
Finkelman provides his readers with the Slavery is a positive good speech by John Calhoun in
1837 2. John Calhoun’s speech addresses the antislavery petitions that were sent into the senate
during the 1830’s. Calhoun believed that slavery was never the slightest degree of evil, and that
slavery brought an overall happiness to both the African American race and also the Caucasian
race. Calhoun’s opinion was that our nation relied way too much on making compromises and
that the country truly wanted to please the wants and needs of all citizens in the United States,
but they truly could not. . Calhoun began his speech by reading two of the antislavery petitions
sent into the senate, and then he began to speak against them. Slavery was viewed as being
“bestial” or “inhuman” among the northern states and other politicians, but Calhoun questioned
not only the U.S. senators, but also the members of Congress as to how they were going to react
to the other counts of petitions that were sent their way. Calhoun did exclaim that it was pitiful
that the southern region of the United States allowed themselves to be known as a slave society,
but he then praised them for keeping the United States afloat due to the production of several
goods and the labor behind it. Calhoun believed that slavery was the main reason that the
northern region of the United States became so successful due to production of manufactured
goods, such as barrels, ships, etc. which was due to the labor of slaves during the nineteenth
2
John C. Calhoun, “Speech on the Reception of Abolition Petitions, Delivered in the
Senate, February 6th, 1837,” in Richard R. Cralle, ed., Speeches of John C. Calhoun, Delivered
in the House of Representatives and in the Senate of the United States (New York: D. Appleton,
1853), 625-33.
2
century. According to Paul Finkelman, this speech helped characterize the debate on the
Emancipation Proclamation, the civil war and the realities behind the civil war.
James Henry Hammond was a lawyer, a planter, and South Carolina politician that served
as the governor of the state during the years of 1842-44, and he also served as a U.S. senator
during the years of 1857-1860. During March 4th of the year 1858, Hammond presented his
famous Mudsill theory to the U.S. Senate.3 Mr. Hammond was known as a gargantuan supporter
of slavery during the nineteenth century, and he was also an early advocate of secession. This
speech was produced as a defense of the proposed Kansas constitution written by the proslavery
state constitutional convention that gathered in the town of Lecompton, Kansas during the year
of 1857.4 During this speech, Hammond presented several statistics and economical terms that
proved that the south controlled and imposed the success of the world’s economy. Hammond
stated that during the year of 1856, the United States exported approximately around
$279,000,000 worth of manufactured goods, and that $158,000,000 was produced by proslavery
states in the south. This showed a deficit in production in the North as they only produced around
$95,000,000. 5 Finkelman summarized Hammond’s work by stating that the cottonmanufacturing south had immunity from the forces of politics and markets, and that also no state,
nation, or economy would ever dare to “make war on cotton”. 6 This speech was an important
piece within the proslavery agenda as it stated several statistics that the U.S. senate and
abolitionist groups could not disagree with.
James H. Hammond, “Speech on the Admission of Kansas, under the Lecompton
Constitution”, Delivered in the Senate of the United States, March 4, 1858,” in Selections from
the Letters and Speeches of the Hon. James H. Hammond of South Carolina (New York: John F.
Trow, 1866), 301-22.
4
Finkelman, Defending Slavery, 80.
5
James H. Hammond, Speech on the Admission of Kansas, 1858.
6
Finkelman, Defending Slavery, 81.
3
3
During the late antebellum period, proslavery theorist Edmund Ruffin wrote an infamous
essay called The Political Economy of Slavery. Ruffin presented several points as to why slave
labor produced higher quality work than paid workers, and also how it was a lot more profitable.
Ruffin stated that slavery has existed from as early time as historical records, and that there has
never been any country, in any point of history, that hasn’t relied on the labor of slaves to
advance the industry or the refinement of the nation. Ruffin justified slavery because he believed
that slavery created a better overall environment for blacks than their current domestic
environment. Ruffin stated even in generally industrious country, there are to be found, in the
lowest grade of free inhabitants, many individuals, families, and communities of many families,
who live in the most abject condition of poverty and privation in which life can be preserved, and
prefer such wretched existence to the alternative of steady labor, by which they might greatly
improve their condition.7 At the end of the Civil War, when the confederacy fell to the union,
Edmund Ruffin decided to take his pistol, and shoot himself in the head. Ruffin believed that he
would have much rather been dead than live in a world without slavery.8 This was due to Ruffin
relying on the labor of slaves during the nineteenth century due to his high success as not only a
plantation owner, but also as a politician.
America was the very first test trial in human history at running a democracy in human
history. The treatment of African Americans has been one of this country’s greatest triumphs,
and also one of its greatest failings. The overall involvement of American blacks was not
marginal, but it created a certain insight to this country – in both of the darkest, and brightest
7
Edmund Ruffin, The Political Economy of Slavery; or, The Institution Considered in Regard to
Its Influence on Public Wealth and the General Welfare (Washington, D.C.: Lemuel Towers,
1853).
8
Finkelman, Defending Slavery, 61
4
aspects, it promised equality and entrenched hierarchy9. African Americans and slaves were sent
to the United States with many false prophecies, even the black men and women who were
granted freedom before the emancipation proclamation in the North. Our government wanted to
falsify the minds of several slaves into believing that coming to the United States, or to the north,
if you are in Africa, that you were going to have a better life. Overall, many slaves did, and this
was thanks to the several politicians and planters that actually cared for their slaves during the
nineteenth century, but overall, the development of this great nation was actually produced due
to the labor of slaves not only on several southern plantations, but also in our nation’s own
capital, Washington D.C.! Paul Finkelman and Donald R. Kennon in their book, In the Shadow
of Freedom: The Politics of Slavery in the National Capital, acknowledge the use of slavery in
our nation’s capital, and how it essentially kept the nation running during the nineteenth century,
and it also discussed how the District of Columbia regulated slavery in the capital and also the
legality of the slave trade within the capital and also the United States. Finkelman and Kennon
state that during the earlier times of American, the few images of our nation was rather
unmistakably than that of slaves in our nation’s capital. In our capital, slaves were seen almost
anywhere, and they could have been found in hotels, restaurants, carriages, and even sometimes
in the prostitution rings around the capital city. Slaves served and maintained the senators and
representatives, the very own people who were creating laws and regulations for the American
Republic, legislators, bureaucrats, jurists, cabinet officials, military leaders, and even the
president, who worked in the highest seat of power in the United States. This is a rather
important aspect in the political justification of slavery in the United States because not only was
9
Michael S. Harper, and Anthony Walton, eds., Introduction to The Vintage Book of African
American Poetry, (New York: Vintage Books, 2000), xxiii-xxiv.
5
our economy relying on the labor of slavery to produced manufactured goods, but we also used
to rely on the labor of slaves to keep our own nation’s capital running efficiently. 10
Although, slavery wasn’t always viewed as a humane ideology to some southern
politicians. John Randolph, a slave-owning congressman from Virginia, wanted to investigate the
“inhumane and illegal” trafficking of slaves to the United States. Randolph’s overall goal was to
end the open transportation of slaves sent to the national’s capital, as he viewed some forms of
slavery in the capital to be degrading and also pitiable. Randolph’s protestation was shot down
by the government and the slave trade because there was no way to create a regime based on
property without providing a consistent market. 11 After the failure of Randolph’s protest,
Washington D.C. was viewed as a true slave city, and although it may have disgusted many
northern states, and satisfied southerners, there were still many people who came to the nation’s
capital to do business regarding how slavery was to be truly used. This showed that the capital of
our nation wanted to keep slavery within their district because they relied on the labor of slaves
to function on a daily basis. Politicians and jurists could have created a regime in order to create
an equal market for the slave trade, but they didn’t want to because this would have caused many
economic issues within not only the nation, but also within the whole slave trade, as all slaves
10
Paul Finkelman, and Donald R. Kennon, In the Shadow of Freedom : The politics of Slavery in
the National Capital, Perspectives on the History of Congress (Athens: Ohio University Press,
2010), 4,
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11
Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Slaveholding Republic: An Account of the United States
Government’s Relations to Slavery (New York, 2001), pp. 66–67
6
would be considered “equal” property, which was false due to slave owners finding qualities in
different slaves, such as larger black men who could work long, rigorous hours in the cotton
fields, or women who could serve as servants, cooks, nurses, etc. The slave trade was
inseparable from slavery itself, and this justified the fact that slaves were property, and property
only, in the eyes of our government and the politicians that ran it.
Religion was one of the key factors that politicians and members of society used during
the nineteenth century to justify the use of slavery in the United States. Christians in the north
and south could not brush off the issue of slavery within the nation, but they knew that the
churches within their region(s) would have no chance in stopping the pro-slavery crusade in the
United States. The churches in the United States both knew that they had no reason to reconcile
with the relationship between church and slavery, because they knew that the government would
have their way no matter what went on within the slave trade. 12 The example that was presented
by the Richmond Whig in 1858 explained that when the Christian community sees that nothing
was immoral or inhumane in the purchasing of men, women, children, than why should
politicians put any effort into not reopening the slave-trade?13 Not only did Christians in our
nation find slavery acceptable, but Methodists also supported the aspects of slavery. Reverend
D. Stevenson, who wanted to create a barrier on pro-slavery extremists, exclaimed that some
delegates in the Nashville General Conference expressed a pro-African slave-trade sentiment,
which spread throughout the church’s in the state of Tennessee. 14 This was an important aspect
in not only the development of the slave trade in the United States, but this also showed how our
12
Ronald T. Takaki, A Pro-Slavery Crusade: The Agitation to Reopen the African Slave Trade
(New York: The Free Press, 1971), 134.
13
Richmond Whig, June 4, 1858.
14
D. Stevenson, in Swaney, Episcopal Methodism, p.249.
7
own churches, which included pastors, ministers, and other clergy members, who followed the
word of God, and also supported the institution of slavery in the United States.
Not only was Slavery supported in our own churches, but it was also sought out to be
supported by the word of god to some early American writers and theorists. During the month of
September, in the year of 1850, an anonymous author produced an essay for an issue of De
Bow’s review, which was considered as one of the most important antebellum journals in the
southern region of the United States. The editor of the journal, James D. B. De Bow noted that
this essay was an argument that presented a biblical argument on the justification of slavery.15
The author stated that the United States believed that holding slaves was morally wrong, but he
found it to be taught as acceptable within the bible. His main argument was that Abraham, who
was the chosen servant of God, had his own bonded “servants”, and their conditions were the
same or sometimes worse than of the current slaves of the United States. Abraham considered
them to be his own property, and they were to be bought or sold as any other property in which
he owned. The author then stated that in Genesis xvii, 13, 23, 27, we are told that God demanded
Abraham to circumcise all of his bonded servants that he “bought with his money,” and that
Abraham also accepted God’s commandment on the same day. The anonymous author also
stated that in Genesis xxvi, 14, Isaac has said to have been in possession of flocks and herds, and
also a great store of servants. In other places in Genesis, they are spoken of, but always as
property.16 This was an important aspect because the author presented actual biblical scriptures
that showed how slavery was justified in the bible. The same anonymous author also stated that
while God was instructing Abraham, his selected servant, he told him that slaves were immoral
15
16
Finkelman, Defending Slavery, 108.
Finkelman, Defending Slavery, 109.
8
to use and to purchase his slaves, he demanded from him that he had to execute certain things,
which showed the relationship of master and slave.17 This essay presented several points as to
how slavery was essentially supported within the bible, and how it could be used as a defense on
slavery by proslavery politicians and other theorists.
It was actually rather common to see blacks and whites worshipping together during the
late antebellum period in the south. There has been discoveries of church records, associational
minutes, ministry diaries, and also tombstone carvings that state that there was a biracial culture
in the churches in the south. Whites would use the gospel as a form of social control, which
related back to the ideology of a master and a slave, and how to be obedient. Many whites and
Christians believed in their faith and that it was their job to bring the message of the Christian
faith into the minds of slaves and also expanding God’s Kingdom. Slavery was essentially
justified with ties to the teaching of god because it was whites were designed to Christianize and
civilize the “heathens” of Africa. White-dominated churches and ministers were actually
supposed to admonish the slaves’ obedience to their own masters on earth, and also their
heavenly master, and bonds people found a sense of happiness and a purpose of living when they
were able to bring the word of God to slaves. 18 Slavery and religion was one of the key factors
into the justification of slavery. It was very difficult for abolitionists to decline the facts that
proslavery politicians and theorists presented because there was physical proof in the word of
God as to how slavery was justified in the world. Although, the bible has many metaphorical
terms and stories, and it can be interpreted in many ways that is why the United States has many
the Bible,” De Bow’s Review 9 (Sept. 1850): 281-86.
Larry M. James, “Biracial Fellowship in Antebellum Baptist Churches,” in Masters and Slaves
in the House of the Lord : Race and Religion in the American South, 1740-1870, ed. John B
Boles (Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1988), 37.
17
“Slavery and
18
9
religions and the freedom of religion because you cannot force people to believe in a certain
faith. When individuals believe in a certain form of faith, they are always going to find ways to
back it up or support it, much like slavery to Pro-slavery politicians did during the late
antebellum period, and also throughout the course of the nineteenth century.
As shown, slavery has been justified by many planters, politicians, and theorists during
the nineteenth century by showing political, economical, and religious justifications. Slavery was
proved to be efficient in defending their institution on a legal basis and also on an ethical basis.
Politicians and theorists presented how slavery could be defended on an economical basis with a
speech produced by James Hammond that stated how slavery dominated the manufactured goods
production the United States, and also an essay produced by Edmund Ruffin that stated how
slave labor was better than free labor, and how the institution of slavery benefited the livelihood
of slaves. Pro-slavery members of society, as shown, also defend slavery with political
justifications produced in the United States, such as how our own nation depended on slavery
during the nineteenth century in order to stay functioning in the capital. Religious based
justifications were also produced that would show how the bible, churches, and ministers would
efficiently justify the bible on many terms. The word of God, especially the book of Genesis,
shows many forms of how God used slavery with the stories of Abraham, his chosen servant.
This was one of the most difficult aspects for abolitionist groups to protest against because
although the bible is based on metaphorical stories, etc., proslavery debaters produced many key
points as to how slavery was justified in the word of God and his stories. Slavery may not have
been humane in the eyes of abolitionists or the north, but southern politicians, theorists, etc.,
defended slavery rather well with their ideologies in religion, politics, and economics.
10
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Calhoun, John C. “Speech on the Reception of Abolition Petitions, Delivered in the Senate,
February 6th, 1837.” In Speeches of John C. Calhoun, Delivered in the House of
Representatives and in the Senate of the United States, edited by Richard R. Cralle, 62533. New York: D. Appleton, 1853.
Hammond, James H. “Speech on the Admission of Kansas, under the Lecompton Constitution”,
Delivered in the Senate of the United States, March 4, 1858.” In Selections from the
Letters and Speeches of the Hon. James H. Hammond of South Carolina, edited by John
F. Trow, 301-22. New York : John F. Trow, 1866.
Ruffin, Edmund. The Political Economy of Slavery; or, The institution Considered in Regard to
Its Influence on Public Wealth and the General Welfare. Washington, D.C. : Lemuel
Towers, 1853.
Richmond Whig, June 4, 1858.
Stevenson, D. “The Episcopal Methodism” in Swaney, p. 249.
De Bow, D. B. James. “Slavery and the Bible” In De Bow’s Review 9, 281-286, September,
1850
Secondary Sources
Fehrenbacher, Don E., The Slaveholding Republic: An Account of the United States
Government’s Relations to Slavery. New York: New York, 2001.
Finkelman, Paul. Defending Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Old South : A Brief History with
Documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2003.
Finkelman, Paul and Donald R. Kennon. In the Shadow of Freedom : The Politics of Slavery in
11
the National Capital. Perspectives on the History of Congress, 1801-1877. Athens: Ohio
University Press, 2010.
http://ezproxy.missouriwestern.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.asp
x?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=359075&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Harper, Michael S., and Walton, Anthony, eds. 2000. Introduction to The Vintage Book of
African American Poetry, xxiii-xxiv. New York: Vintage Books.
James, Larry M. “Biracial Fellowship in Antebellum Baptist Churches.” In The House of the
Lord : Race and Religion in the American South, 1740-1870, edited by John B. Boles, 37.
Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press, 1988.
Takaki, Ronald T., A Pro-Slavery Crusade: The Agitation to Reopen the African Slave Trade.
New York: The Free Press, 1971
12