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What were the moral, political, and economic arguments for slavery?

White Southerners labeled slavery as an imperative aspect of life. Slaveholders and pro-slavery citizens believed that the Africans benefited from slavery; they defended slavery on the grounds that bondage was vital to the economy and that slaves could not legally be deemed as “equals”.

Notably, the condition of Southern slaves was reckoned as desirable as opposed to the lifestyles of native Africans. According to the article “White Southerners’ Defense of Slaveholding: Article Two,” there is profuse evidence to prove that the black man’s lifestyle as a slave is far more preferable than that of a freed man. The slaves were viewed as uneducated and unskilled. Those that gained freedom in the North remained oppressed by white superiority. While slaves gained liberation from the Abolitionists, the Southerners emphasized the Northerners’ reluctance to employ freed slaves and work alongside them. The Southerners claimed that slavery was a mutually beneficial relationship between the master and the slave; the slaveholder and the slave even sat side by side in cars and coaches. In order to establish that slavery was a “positive good” the Southern slave-owners claimed that the North had developed exaggerative, cruel outlooks about the conditions of slavery. Southerners boosted about the willingness and obedience of slaves. Thus, pro-slavery citizens believed that bondage provided the slaves with shelter, food, and clothes.

Many white Southerners argued that slavery was a crucial aspect of the economy. The farmers especially emphasized the importance of free labor. They believed that the abolition of slavery would led to their economic demise. The Southern farmers claimed that hired labor would fail to parallel the profit provided by the forced laborers. Slaves were the prime force of labor in the South; they picked and tended the fields packed with cash crops. The prohibition of slavery would have a devastating effect on the cotton, sugar, and rice economies of the South. These economies relied on a large input of laborers. For the farmer a drastic shift from slave labor to paid labor would consume all profit. Since the Southerners could not afford to employ such a tremendous amount of laborers, they feared that abolition would be accompanied by high unemployment rates and increase competition for the whites.

Chiefly, the Southerners argued that slaves were not citizens. They defined slaves as property and claimed that the Constitution protected the ownership of property. In America’s History, many Southerners supported the Dred Scoot decision. In that case it was ruled that slaves were not considered citizens. This Southern view was also extended to the Declaration of Independence. Although the document states that “All men are created equal,” Chief Justice Roger B. Taney reasoned that it solely applied to white men. The Southerners emphasized the harsh treatment of

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freed slaves in the North. They reasoned that slavery in the South treated the slaves fairly and offered them a reasonable lifestyle. The Southerners believed that the North used abolition as a political tactic.

In conclusion, the South defended slavery by arguing that bondage provided the slaves with a preferable lifestyle, maintained the stability of the economy, and prevented the slaves from being considered as citizens.