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Positive and Negative Effects of Slavery in Cultural and Social Terms for the Typical Southerner The slavery in the U. S. was abolished more than a century and a half year ago. Slavery itself is referred to as a social institution defined by law and custom as the most absolute involuntary form of human servitude. (Paupp) Being in slavery, people were treated as property, and were forced to serve the others, often through violence and threats, and were subject to the owners will. However, slavery had both positive and negative effects. The present paper critically examines slavery, and explains positive and negative effects of slavery in cultural and social terms for the typical southerner.
The South of the United States had a slave majority, and in these states the slaves were a majority and accounted for a significant per cent of the population. The typical southerner considered it right to have slaves and was firmly convinced that the Bible sanctioned slavery. In such a way, a typical southerner didnt thought slavery to be something immoral. The typical southerner also believed that his slaves were treated better than other slaves, and there was nothing special to have people in his possession. For example, William W. Freehling in his book Road To Disunion wrote, No white, no matter how poor, wants to compete with poor blacks. " (Freehling 16) According to him, this was a message that a typical southerner in the Deep South would say in order to support his standpoint on slavery.
The typical southerner advocated slavery, and supported slavery fervently. The typical southerner would have obviously advocated the rights of the state over the federal government. So, the typical southerner was a slave owner, who didnt saw the eventual dissolution of slavery, but, on contrast, who was fighting in order to retain slavery. On the one had, the southerner positioned himself as a strong supporter for states' rights under the United States Constitution. He advocated religious and civil liberty. However, on the other hand, the typical southerner was sure that slavery was moral, and justified his position by calling slavery a vexed subject and telling that if only slavery wasnt approved by the Bible, he would never own slaves.
The slavery had both positive and negative effects on the typical southerner. The reality of slavery distorted the southerners understanding on claims of liberty, and civil rights. It reduced the claim of equality and citizenship to the argument over the property right. The southerners supported the phenomenon of racial superiority and racial domination in the social, cultural, and legal constructs of the U. S. national life, and pursued their policy in the name of nationalist loyalty to the state and in the name of white unity.
The southerners justified slavery and treated it as an inevitable state of the things. The southerners were engaged in forms of so-called state action, which were specifically aimed to assist in a pattern of reconfiguring state authority through exclusion of the blacks. The slavery denied the basic rights of citizenship's to African Americans and allowed economic and social discrimination. This discrimination was often encouraged by the law, as slavery was legally allowed. Both slaves and their owners, southerners were psychologically damaged. Slavery discouraged self-reliance and independent judgment.
Slavery gave the southerners the feelings that slaves were not to question on anything and could be treated like a property, leading a primitive lifestyle. Some southerners began enjoying the use of force with slaves, and were enjoying slaves's ufferings. Some slave owners were taking advantage of black women. In such a way, slavery had a negative effect on a typical slave owner, who was firmly convinced that slaves are just property and have no rights. Slave owners also claimed that the slaves were sons of Cain and should be punished, and justified slaves' work by claiming that the money that was spent on slaves getting them from their lands, the slaves must work the money off. The relationship between the slaves and the slave owners was very complex.
For example, many slave owners justified their exploitation of slaves by assuming that they were unintelligent and incapable of deep feeling, or by proclaiming that they were like members of the family, fed, clothed, and sheltered. (Antebellum Slavery) The typical southerner centered his arguments in support of slavery on the economic importance of cotton, and believed in the "positive good" theory that slave labor was necessary for the nation's progress, the "scientifically proved" inferiority of the Negro, the belief that the slave class was necessary for the cultural development of the ruling class, and the belief that slaves were better off materially than free blacks or white workers and that the "school of slavery" civilized the "barbarians. " (Antebellum Slavery). In addition to that, as far as blacks were associated with inferiority, even those southerners who did not have slaves also seemed to derive a certain benefit from slavery, since the slavery made them feel part of the ruling class. In conclusion it may be said that although the slavery in the United States was abolished more than a century and a half year ago, it still remains one of the most important issues of the day. Yet, the institution of slavery had mostly negative effects in cultural and social terms for the typical southerner, who treated his slaves as property, forcing them to serve the slave owners, and justified slaves exploitation by assuming that the slaves were inferior human beings, and have no basic rights. Works Cited Antebellum Slavery. 2007. 31 March 2008 < web >. Freehling, William W.
The Road To Disunion. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Paupp, Terrence Edward. THE CONTINUING EFFECTS OF SLAVERY: REPARATIONS AND THE MORAL MANDATE OF APOLOGY. 2003. 31 March 2008 < web >.
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Research essay sample on Positive And Negative Effects Cultural And Social
