George Fitzhugh was a powerful advocate for slavery who described his views on this matter in his writing titled "The Universal Law of Slavery". He starts off his paper by saying "he the negro is but a grown up child, and must be governed as child" (Fitzhugh). Right off the bat you can tell this man's take on slavery may be a bit turned around just from his first sentence analogy of negros. Fitzhugh goes on to say that eventually, the black population will only become a burden to the rest of society. Not only is that a ridiculous assumption, but just over a hundred years later our very own commander in chief is of African decent. The author even try's to persuade individuals who sympathized with negros into believing that "his slavery here relieves him from a far more cruel slavery in Africa" (Fitzhugh). In my opinion, saving the negros from slavery in Africa is a completely irrelevant excuse to the controversy of slavery. I believe the controversy of slavery to be the depriving of freedom from another individual. To say you were doing the African American a courtesy by making them your slave is simply a ridiculous statement. It doesn't make sense to say your saving somebody from a terrible world and then virtually creating the same hell for them. Fitzhugh's entire writing goes on to sum up his beliefs to why slavery is needed and ultimately best for the negro population. I agreed with zero of his points and found most of them to be completely flawed.James Henry Hammond was another advocate for slavery in the mid 1800's. As well as Fitzhugh's, Hammond vocally announced his thoughts on slavery to the U.S Senate in a speech titled "The 'Mudsill' Theory". Hammond begins his writing with the argument that "in all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life" (Hammond). With Hammonds first argument I slightly agree. I believe that all societies do need a 'class' to perform certain duties, but that class doesn't have to be a specific race. Every society needs people doing different jobs, some obviously less important than others, but none the less if they weren't performed society wouldn't function correctly. But again I believe that 'class' can be any type of race and in no way should it be performed in any type of slavery. They would obviously have to be compensated for their duties. Hammond goes on to admit that slavery can be ran poorly, but that's why it should be tolerated in the U.S; because they cloth, feed, and home all their slaves. Even though the U.S may have treated their slaves more civilized than others, that's still no excuse to take another mans freedom. Hammond's take on slavery was blatantly much lower key than Fitzhugh's, however, I still did not agree with many things he stated.
George Fitzhugh's and James Henry Hammond both had strong opinions on why slavery should be tolerated in the United States. Fitzhugh's views were completely unrealistic, none of which I agreed with whatsoever. Hammond on the other hand, had some realistic points involved in his speech, but the racism in both mens words were heavily noted. Although Hammond was obviously pro slavery, if a few of his statements were reworded here and there, they might still be tolerated in todays society. Overall, Fitzhugh's and Hammond did not hide the fact that they believed slavery to be a necessity for the United States of America.
Works Cited
Fitzhugh, George. "The Universal Law of Slavery"
Hammond, James H. "The 'Mudsill' Theory"
"Slavery." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Wed. 29 Oct. 2011
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery>.
No comments:
Post a Comment