StoryHistory Hr. 2-324 November 1998Slavery EssayTransformation of Slaverys DefenseDuring the early 1800s the demand for cotton had risen and it was now King of plantations in the southern region of the United States, where the climate was best suited. Now more then ever, slavery had become an essential component of most every cotton producing plantation. The Southerners knew slavery was wrong, but made justifications for it; within a span of 30 years these justifications had changed due to abolitionist movements (in the northern half of the county) and economic reasons which made cotton and slavery more profitable than ever.In the 1830s the Southerners thought, or made themselves think, slavery was a necessary evil. They thought that the Negroes were as helpless as children, without foresight or faculties that would enable them to depended upon anybody else but the white race. Southerners saw themselves as the great people who helped accelerate the transition process of this inferior tribe; the process from barbarianism to civilization. They felt enslavement benefited slaves; heaven forbid slaves were free, they would have to work in the Northern factories in terrible conditions. They thought slavery was humane and one man went as far as to say Negro slaves of the South are the happiest, and, in the the same since, the freest people in the world.This view of slavery changed as the Southerners began to get persecuted from Northern abolitionist. The abolitionist tried to get slavery on the stand point that it was theoretically and morally wrong, backed by the Bible and by the Declaration of Independence Constitution. With this as their argument the abolitionist worked the conscience of slave owners with little success. Other ideas were to buy the slaves and send them back to Africa or to emancipate them. The purchase and release of the slaves would prove too costly, so the only other idea was to free them.At about this same...
