Slavery In John Adams Reflection On The Missouri Question

In John Adams’ Reflection on the Missouri Question, Adam identifies the true motivation behind the expansion of slavery. Adam mentions that it is agreeable that slavery is an evil practice. Along with that statement, Adam points out that the practice of slavery is contradicting to their independence from Great Britain for freedom. Adam identifies the true motivation of expanding slavery is due to people’s soul pride and continue in their condition of being a master. It is not for labor that they want to expand slavery. Instead, it is the feeling of superiority By expanding slavery, they have the opportunity to own more slaves, which could make them feel better about themselves, how they are in a better position than others and have power in …show more content…
In John Adams’ Reflection on the Missouri Question, Adam observed the growing division between the northern and southern states regarding the issue of slavery. Some of the observations were that the northern states were supportive of the abolition of slavery, while the southern states were against the idea of abolishing slavery. This is likely because the southern states living are highly depended on farming, and farming requires a lot of labor. As for the northerners, they focus more on the issue of freedom as opposed to labor. In the northerners’ opinion, the idea of slavery is going against the idea of freedom. In addition, the northern states argued that Missouri should not be a slave state, while the southern states supported Missouri as a slave state. Another observation, Adam notices were that there was this division between the northern states(free side) and southern states (slave side) in regard to the power of Congress. While the free side said that it was Congress’ responsibility to stop more slaves coming into the …show more content…
Trollope supports her statement by mentioning the portraits of Indian chiefs who came to negotiate with the president, how they all had on a similar expression, either warlike daring or gentle, but at the end were treated by the most oppressive act of our great father (founding fathers). Trollope also mentions how she had heard statements from the Americans themselves of the unhappy experience with the Indians, representing themselves as treacherous and false beyond their beliefs. The Americans define freedom and liberty as everyone being treated equally with their unalienable rights, and freedom for one to do what they want. But the treatment of Indians and other non-white people showed that America’s practices are contradicting with their principles. On the one hand, telling people that America grants equality to everyone, and on the other hand, the American society is largely depended on slaves. In addition, they said that everyone has freedom in this country, while slaves are forbidden to do many things, and are often treated