Southern Perspective On Slavery

Southern Perspective on Slavery Behind each cotton production stood a bundle of slaves that worked hard to fuel the powerful industry of the United States. The North decided to follow the footsteps of Britain’s Industrial Revolution, while the South’s agricultural production increased exponentially. The South’s point of view on slavery was benign for various reasons in contrast to the North’s perspective. During the nineteenth century, the United States was fiercely divided and slavery impacted the decision of the country’s fate. Factories and mills sprung from the free-states soil in the North. Women and children were needed to work in factories to help support their families’ incomes. Without the invention of air conditioning, the women …show more content…
Support from the Dred Scott Decision , led the South to pursue the idea that the Constitution protected their right to own slaves as property. Southerners claimed that the Bible does not fight against the issue of slavery but rather supports slavery. The South used various biblical allusions to defend their rights to own slaves as well. They state that even Jesus does not address the wrongs of slavery. The South believed that slavery was a natural state of mankind that is seen throughout history in countries such as, Rome, Greece, and …show more content…
They believed that by doing so, would then open the doors to chaos for the United States. One of the main reasons why the South wanted to stay with their slaves was for money. The plethora dollar signs associated with cotton production, made the big businessmen hungry for wealth. Calhoun saw that slavery was necessary and proper since the South’s agricultural productions were allowing the United States to succeed. By releasing their faithful slaves would mean giving up their life’s work of business. If the South no longer did business with the North then the South would cease to thrive off of agricultural productions. In 1850, a slave would be worth about two hundred dollars. If a plantation owner were to lose roughly two hundred of his slaves that would be equivalent to the loss of four hundred thousand dollars. The South made it clear that once slaves were released that would then cause unemployment. The North especially feared this too. Many previous runaway free-blacks were starting to hold jobs in the North, so the North saw this unemployment as a personal threat. The South was also concerned with miscegenation and made it a crucial factor to stop the emancipation of the slaves. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "If you put a chain around the neck of a slave, the other fastens itself around your own." By saying this, Emerson is making a point about taking away another’s freedom is the equivalence to take away your own