Political Arguments Over Slavery

Arguments Over Slavery Political, economic, and legal arguments over slavery appeared during the antebellum period in America and created conversations over the necessity of slavery in the United States. The Northern states did not rely on slavery for their economy, but the Southern states saw slavery as their only foothold in the global economy. Abolition became an influential movement in America, especially in the North, after The Second Great Awakening. The South attempted to combat allegations of slavery being brutal and harsh by publicizing political propaganda depicting slavery as an overall good for the enslaved. The South also used the US Constitution to defend their right to have slaves as property. However, the North used the Constitution …show more content…
The issue of slavery was not between Catholics and Protestants, or men and women, but between the Northern abolitionists and the Southern slaveholders. With the invention of the printing press, ideas could be spread easily to the general public. But, ideas that are not true could also be spread. Southern slaveholders used this to spread propaganda about how good slavery was for slaves. Pictures depicting slaves as being well fed and taken care of sprouted from the Southern states. Document 4 depicts a slaveholder’s wife taking care of slaves. This picture, that was taken from a book from 1832, was a product of the Southern slaveholders attempting to put forth a good image for slavery. They did not want people to see slaves being beaten or being underfed because that would look bad for slavery. Similar to today, people try to ignore what is wrong with a practice and they only focus on the good instead. Contrary to John Pendleton Kennedy’s depiction of slavery, Document 6 shows the potential that abolition has. The juxtaposition of two black children in tattered clothes with the label “As we found them” and the image of two well dressed black children with the label “As they are now” worked to exemplify how abolition would improve the lives of all slaves. Northern abolitionists published this image in order to get their message across to as many people as possible, whether their image was true or not. The publications from each side of the arguments tried to get people to lean toward their side, to create a division between the abolitionists and the slaveholders. Moreover, Document 3 offers a perspective of slavery from a former slave years after slavery was abolished. Barney Alford, a former slave depicted slave motherhood by saying, “Ole mammy ‘Lit’ wus mity ole en she lived in one corner of de big yard en she keered fur all de black