Why is slavery wrong

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Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets CSS if you are able to do so. This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Find out more about page archiving. Ethics guide. Attempts to justify slavery. On this page Attempts to justify slavery Find out more Page options Print this page. Trying to justify slavery A number of arguments have been put forward to try and justify slavery.

It's natural that some people are slaves This argument says that some people are slaves as part of the natural order of the universe, or as part of God's plan, and it is wrong to interfere with this by abolishing slavery - nobody nowadays regards slavery as a natural thing. Slaves are inferior beings This argument says that even if slavery is cruel and degrading, slaves are not fully human and so their suffering is as ethically important or unimportant as the suffering of domestic animals and they do not have any rights that would justify the abolition of slavery.

This group of arguments is nowadays regarded as completely misguided. Slavery is good for slaves This argument teaches that slaves lack the ability to run their own lives and are therefore better-off and happier in a system where their lives are run by others. If the men or women complained, they could be punished or killed.

Most blacks were not considered Americans, and in , the Supreme Court stated in the Dred Scott Decision that blacks were not American citizens. Officially blacks became full American citizens after the 13 th , 14 th , and 15 th Amendments to the Constitution. Although abolitionists and the Underground Railroad helped turn some in the North away from slavery, these other events helped bring the nation to war:. It became a best seller but was banned in the Southern states.

The book made more Northern people aware of the cruelty of slavery, and many of them looked negatively upon the South as a result. The South now thought that most of the people in the North were abolitionist, but this was not true. The Anthony Burns Case in centered on a slave who had been hired out but escaped to Boston. He wrote a letter to his brother, still owned by their slaveowner, who received the letter. Two groups of abolitionists, one small black group and a larger white one, charged the jail in an attempt to free him.

One deputy was killed, and two men who got inside the jail were beaten back. President Franklin Pierce ordered the Marines and some artillery to go to Boston and escort Burns back into slavery. A large crowd watched as the Federal force took Burns back to the South.

The most important issue here was the president of the United States used the United States Marines to bring back a fugitive slave. Think of the cost for bringing back one slave. How did that look to the North, when a slaveowner, backed by the U. Both pro- and anti-slavery groups flocked to the territories and actually fought each other from through the Civil War. This act definitely moved the United States toward Civil War, but Kansas became a free state in Colonel Robert E.

Lee would lead Marines to capture Brown, who was then tried and convicted by the State of Virginia. He was executed, but he became a martyr for the abolitionist cause and rightly predicted that the slavery question would be settled by bloodshed.

The South was horrified: a slave rebellion was led by a Northern white man, using escaped slaves. Every Southern state begin opening military schools, if they did not already have them. War was now imminent.

Slavery is the overwhelming cause of the Civil War. Slavery was the economic system of the South. If you took it away, you took away the wealth of many of the planters. The only way plantations could survive was for slaves to work the property. I have seen wills of large plantation owners where the majority of their wealth was in the value of their slaves. After the war, many of these owners could no longer afford their homes without their slaves.

The North was not innocent, either. Some Northern states did not want any blacks, whether free or slave, to live within their borders. The North was just as racist as the South in this regard. Many white men and white immigrants did not want to compete with slave labor or free blacks, as that would bring down wages and take away some of their jobs.

Inside enslaved quarters at Ben Lomond Historic Site. A former slave woman told her granddaughter the story of a former slave, who got married after the war. One day she and husband talked about their old days in slavery. She told him about her baby boy sold away from her and about a distinctive scar on his arm.

Her husband had that same scar on his arm and when he discussed his story, they found out that they were mother and son. He soon left her because he could not stay married to his mother.

That is a tragedy and they may not have been the only couple that had that problem. There were other stories in that book of families meeting and siblings not recognizing or knowing their kin. After the war, many slaves searched the South to try to connect with their families—some were successful, but most were not!

In this case, I would have the mother put herself in the position of the slave woman. Suppose her children were sold away from her, suppose her husband was put out of their cabin while a slaveowner stayed with her and, when her husband complained, he was severely whipped. An excellent post, but from the standpoint of years after the Civil War. A better question by the woman would have been to express surprise why a system so economically profitable and with powerful Northern allies felt so threatened?

But the Unionists were fueled much more by anti-Southern animus than anti slavery indignation, at least during most of the war. It was, as Lincoln recognized it, a refutation of free labor and personal growth, the very ideals, in an admittedly imperfect way, the North was seeking to achieve.

That, and the enormous physical, human and emotional toll the war itself took. Incidents such as this always remind me that you and your colleagues are required to have a unique skill set which I, for one, lack — the ability to deal professionally with astonishingly ignorant questions. They were handled with a straight face and without a hint of sarcasm or exasperation. The incident you describe also supports my firm belief that we do an abysmal job of teaching US history in our educational system.

Actually, if we only teach United States history without putting our social system in the world context we might create a false negative paradigm, and come to false conclusions.

Slavery, particularly in the earlier years of the Republic, was hardly an exclusively American phenomenon. England could eliminate its own system of slavery due to the growth of their own cotton mills as a source of wealth to replace sugar, as well as the relatively few freedmen residing in the home countries. And for a century, they had been aware that cotton rapidly depleted the existing soil. I personally find it hard to believe that such a question would be asked by any white person of a black one in this day and age in the USA.

The author seems to condemn the woman. Was this woman an American? I thought historians were supposed to take those things into consideration? But we also know that it was perfectly legal THEN. Thomas Jefferson could expound on that. If there is any reason to be disappointed with the question, perhaps any real outrage should be directed at our educational system?

I think this goes beyond the educational system. That there was a teenaged child there and mom still asks such a harebrained question is simply appalling.

None of us were there. Talk to any NPS employee who deals with questions from the visiting public and you will hear things that are astonishingly stupid or callous. Since none of us were there, I see no reason not to accept his account as accurate.

Nothing about his reflection on this suggests otherwise. Or if certain subjects are to be discussed, does that not apply? Just like everybody from California and Florida and elsewhere is, right? But I digress. I will give the benefit of the doubt that she IS a citizen. He did volunteer that she is white. He IS black, and an expert in his field. He says her teenage children were with her. Meg above made mention about them. My point stands. People ask stupid or ignorant questions every day in these settings.

My questions stand. He made it a point to speak about her skin color. You are free to do or believe as you wish about him or what he claims. They are NOT what I question. They are not being obtuse; they genuinely do not know. Like it or not, some adults have the same awareness of History as children. In the case of slavery, and its inherent evil, the answer should be easy for everyone. And in the case of America, a War was fought that brought that evil practice to an end.

My two bob. In I dare say there was even one white man in all of America that thought a black man was his equal. Certainly, there were very few in , but the war came anyway.

Regardless of how history is taught, there will always be people who are generally ignorant of it. They could have the greatest teachers and learn nothing.

I would like to respond to the many comments that I have received of this post. The woman who made this comment made it to one of my white colleagues, but her voice and tone were loud because the Fredericksburg Battlefield Visitor Center was crowded. Her voice was heard by everyone standing close to her, in front of and behind the counter. I was waiting on another visitor when I heard the question.

Her children may or may not have been paying attention to her and I do not know why she asked the question. She may have asked the question because one of her children may have been working on a Civil War project or maybe it was because she was aware that slavery was the major cause of the Civil War. Since she knew that information, I do not think her question was an ignorant one.

I have heard and read far worse, since I have worked at this National Military Park. This family was going on the next guided tour of the Sunken Road and I was going to lead it. I chose to use her question as a teaching experience and spent an extra five to ten minutes to discuss slavery on the tour. I had recently conducted a History at Sunset program with our Chief Historian, John Hennessy, who is an expert on slavery.

Therefore, I discussed slavery using Fredericksburg as my Civil War example. I explained that local, state, and Federal laws protected slavery in Fredericksburg and in the southern states. I briefly explained slavery in Fredericksburg and contrasted it with the surrounding counties. I discussed the first Union occupation of Fredericksburg from April to August , when over 10, slaves escaped from the city and the surrounding counties — including a couple from the Richmond area.

I also touched on my favorite subject, as I told the group that many of those escaped men returned as soldiers in the 23rd United States Colored Troops and became the first African Americans to fight in directed combat against the Army of Northern Virginia. In essence, I did not take her question as one of ignorance, but as one which need a legitimate response.

As far as my background in interacting with white people, in most of my professional life, I have had jobs and two careers, where most of my colleagues were white. I spent 35 years in the financial services industry, working my way up from a part-time teller to an Area Manager and Senior Vice President in Retail Banking.

I have spent the last 14 years in the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park as a volunteer, an Interpretive Park Ranger, and a sales associate, in the bookstores. So I have developed a lot of patience in interacting with people of all races and ethnic groups. So, when I am asked a question, I try to give an intelligent answer or as in this case, give the answer by giving the individual the information in an interpretive talk.

I have seen visitors who ask questions to provoke arguments, make jokes about learning about the Civil War, and just because they were not taught or did not learn about the Civil War. I have had thousands of Civil War conversations in my life. Many of them occur because many of our schools do not teach American History or Civics government , I was lucky because I was taught those subjects in elementary, junior high, and senior high schools.

I learned a significant amount of information about the antebellum period and Civil War because it was my favorite time period in American history.

I have learned a great deal more in my time with the National Park Service. Since I have been at this park, I have learned that all school systems are not the same in teaching Civil War history and so many Americans, young and old, do not know much about the Civil War.

I feel that it is my job to try to educate them, when they go on my tours or ask me questions. I have heard and seen many comments from Americans that show there are a lot of Americans, who are still saying the same things that were said over years ago. There are still people who do not believe slavery was a cause of the war. In fact, there was an Asian American woman, who was visiting Chancellorsville with a group of Germans.

It was after closing, as I was leaving, I was in my park ranger uniform, they asked me some questions about the Civil War. I talked to them about the war for about 30 minutes and at the end, the Asian American woman said that she did not believe that slavery was a cause of the war. I referred her to several sources of Civil War history, plus I informed her that she could read the southern states secession documents.

She just walked away and said she just did not believe it. I had just spent my own time, giving her group a short history of the Civil War and the Germans thanked me, but she walked away in disgust. I find that there are many foreigners who know more about our Civil War, than Americans know.

Whether that Asian American woman even ventured to look at the documents or read any books about the war, I cannot say. Yet centuries later, the lasting impact of slavery continues to be minimized and myths continue to flourish.

To unpack what often gets mistold or misunderstood, we asked five historians to debunk the biggest myths about slavery. Miseducation surrounding slavery in the US has led to an elaborate mythology of half truths and missing information.

Others joined them as they moved to nearby plantations, setting them afire and killing about two dozen enslavers, especially violent overseers. Enslaved Africans resisted and rebelled against individual slave holders and the system of slavery as a whole. Some slipped away secretly to learn to read.

Many simply escaped. Others joined the abolitionist movements, wrote books, and gave lectures to the public about their experiences in captivity. And others led or participated in open combat against their captors. Omitting or minimizing these stories of rebellion helps hide the violent and traumatic experiences enslaved Africans endured at the hands of enslavers, which prompted such revolts. If we are unaware of resistance, it is easier for us to believe the enslaved were happy, docile, or that their conditions were not inhumane.

It then becomes easier to dismiss economic and epigenetic legacies of the transatlantic slave system. In fact, rape of black women by white enslavers was so prevalent that a study revealed These were the enslaved African Americans within the closest proximity to and who spent the longest durations with white men: the ones who toiled in the houses of slave owners.

A study determined that 50 percent of rape survivors develop PTSD. It is hard to imagine that enslaved and freedom-seeking African American survivors of rape — female, male, old, young, no matter their physical or mental abilities — did not experience further anxiety, fear, and shame associated with a condition they could not control in a situation out of control.

Those African Americans with the most European ancestry, those tormented mentally, physically, emotionally, and genetically in the house, knew they had to get out. In fact, they fled the farthest — Southern whites are more closely related to blacks now living in the North than the South. Jason Allen is a public historian and dialogue facilitator working at nonprofits, hospitals, and businesses in New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia.

A common myth about American slavery is that when it ended, white supremacy or racism in America also ended. But the truth is that long after the Civil War, white Americans continue to carry the same set of white supremacist beliefs that governed their thoughts and actions during slavery and into the post-emancipation era. The expansion of the cotton industry from in the Deep South after intervention of the cotton gin led to Southern states to depend on slavery as to their economy. In , the Royal Governor of Virginia said that if slaves volunteered in the war for the British they would be freed.

This proclamation was intended to ruin the Patriots economy considering Virginia had the highest number of slave owners. The Revolutionary War allowed the Americans to create and take charge of their own government and development of a. Cotton, was an intensive business, large numbers of workers required to grow and harvest cotton came from slave labor until the end of the Civil War. Therefore all crops were abanded and replaced by Cotton which caused damage on the soil.

This caused the rebels to be rounded up, and sentenced to death. In , Eli Whitney invented a machine that launched the Industrial Revolution. As well as launched a new phase about black freedom, were overwhelmed by the need for black labor.

To begin, slavery started soon after America was beginning to be colonized. During the s, slavery in the South was considered an important necessity. It was not seen as wrong because slavery was their source of income. However, it brought so much death and sorrow to African Americans across the United States.

Slavery has always been one of the most shocking phenomena in our world. Nevertheless, slavery was a key component in the development of the United States.