Slavery Argumentative Essay

Frederick Douglass’s Position On Slavery Douglass supports his position that slavery is terrible for slaves because they get mistreated getting whipped, left with scars. ¨Mr.plummer was a miserable….and a savage monster. He always went armed with cowskin and a heavy cudgel . I have known him to cut and slash a woman's head so horribly that even master would be enraged at his cruelty.¨As douglass was saying his first master was ¨captain anthony¨was a very cruel man.

In the short essay “Slavery as a Mythologized Institution” Frederick Douglass works hard to debunk the mythology behind the idea of slavery. In order to do this Douglass discusses how the South in a way romanticized slavery and treated it as though it was okay because the Bible said that it was. When in reality that was not a justifiable reason to enslave African Americans, but all this did was dehumanize them. When trying to justify the act of slavery in the South, the Southerners turned to the Bible in order to do just that.

In The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass presents a new perspective of slavery, which many people paid no attention to. He narrates several situations which prove that slavery not only harms the slaves, but the slaveholders as well. In the narrative, there are several episodes which show how too much power blinds and corrupts people, making them commit the most atrocious acts with clear conscience, which is the case of the slaveholders. In the beginning of the narrative, he talks of white fathers who constantly whip their mulatto children. In such cases, the role shifts from being fathers to being slaveholders.

Even in making their laws, Douglass shows that the states “punish disobedience on the part of the slave” (113). Slaves having the ability to be punished for their actions is nothing but an “acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being” (113). With a clear understanding of a slave’s manhood, Lincoln bolsters

The False Claims of the Defenders of Slavery Back when there was slavery, people understood that owning people was wrong, but if they did not own people then the economy would fall apart. To make sure this is not happen, people came up with reasons to justify having slaves so they could save their economy. The defenders of slavery made the claims that slaves never complain and were happy, they had no human attachments, they had no desire for knowledge, and they had no inclination to work for themselves. However, Frederick Douglass challenges these defenses of slavery in two ways: The practice of slavery that accounts for the claim the defenders make and by telling real life examples. One defense Douglass challenges is the claim that people

Auld’s misinterpretation of the passage emphasizes slave owners use of religion to reinforce their power over their slaves. Christianity rationalized the concept of buying and selling human beings, and that God approved this too. In addition, Douglass used religion as a way to fuel his abolition movement. Under Master Hugh’s, Douglass began to learn how to read and write. Once

Ideally, the reader’s sense of humanity brought them to the conclusion that reprehensible acts of violence against enslaved people should not only be considered punishable under the law, but also be seen as egregious use of power. Moreover, Douglass stated that “killing a slave, or any colored person...was not treated as a crime, either by the courts or by the community”. Perhaps the reader realized dark skin and chained ankles were not permission slips to murder. Douglass emphasized that slave lives should be valued equally, and murder based on skin color was unjustifiable. He noted “it was a common saying, even among little white boys, that it was worth a half-cent to kill a ‘n–,’ and a half-cent to bury one”.

Mia O'Neill Helker Period F AP LANG January 4th, 2023 Frederick Douglass: Attacking Religion to Radicalize the Reader Slavery is a terrific proposition. Natural even. Slave owners provide slaves with food, shelter, and water, and in exchange, only ask for obedience and a sacrifice of personal freedoms. Startlingly, this was the notion that many people in the North and South held during 1845, when slavery was a prosperous institution and on a larger scale than anywhere else in the world.

Slave owners used the Bible to instill guilt and a feeling of inferiority onto the slaves. This helped them gain power as well as superiority above their slaves because they claimed the Bible said that this was right, this was what it was supposed to

Frederick Douglass points out in his book,” Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass,” that slavery was not only negative for slaves but also the slaveholders. The slaveholders had big responsibilities by keeping their reputation, keeping the slaves ignorant, and it also turned good people into cruel human beings. The negative effects on slavery had an impact on everyone involved throughout the process. The slaveholders had to keep a good reputation so they could keep buying slaves. Often masters would whip their slaves.

He describes how slaves were treated like property rather than human beings, and how they were subjected to brutal physical and emotional abuse. Douglass vividly depicts the psychological impact of slavery, describing how it robbed slaves of their sense of self-worth and identity. Another significant issue that Douglass addresses is the hypocrisy of the slave owners and the wider society. He notes that many slave owners claimed to be Christian and yet saw no contradiction in owning slaves. Douglass also highlights the injustice of the legal system, which allowed slave owners to commit crimes against their slaves with impunity.

He rather rejected the manipulation of doctrine utilized by the slaveholders to achieve their end. Douglass wrote that, "the religion of the south is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes,-a justifier of the most appalling barbarity,-a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds,-and a dark shelter under, which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection" (965). Religion was therefore not only a means of false justification for slave owners, but also a source of unified protection against any criticism of slave practices that could arise. Douglass seemed to insist that there was a genuine form of Christianity that was based upon love of God and love of "thy neighbor," but that these Southern practitioners certainly had not converted to the belief in such a doctrine.

People who defended slavery believed that slavery was a good thing and that it wasn't that bad for slaves. Northerners thought that slavery was a good thing and that is wasn't harmful. Douglass´s position is that slavery was a horrible thing and that it was harmful. One piece of evidence is in excerpt 3 paragraph 4 it says ¨Mr. Covey succeeded in breaking me.

During the time when Douglass wrote this book, there were several myths which were used to justify slavery. The slaveholder during his time justified this inhuman practice using different arguments. The first argument they used was the religion. From the narrative, Douglass says that slaveholders called themselves Christians which was the dominant religion by then.

In the minds of many Southerners, without slavery, the South and America as a whole, wouldn’t continue to be a growing economic powerhouse, and would lose its culture as a nation where White Christian, males, ruled society. For many, there was no South, no America, without slavery. History has shown time and time again that power corrupts. To hold onto their power, slave owners made sure their slaves were kept uneducated.