Pro Slavery Argument

Although I still do not agree with slavery the lectures by Professor Blight were very educational and showed different points defending slavery. The main idea was Southern slave owners and some of their reasoning's behind why they did have slavery besides that it was the normal thing to do. The eight key points they made are; A biblical argument, Historical, Natural Rights, Economics, Necessary Evil, Slavery being harder on whites rather than blacks, Cynical/Amoral, and a Racially based argument. With these eight reasons Blight helped to explain a small piece behind why slavery had existed.

Using the Religious argument was an extremely strong argument in my opinion because back in the times when slavery occurred people were very religious and anything from or said by God was considered correct. The south used this argument often too convince the north that slavery was actually okay to have in your society. The fact of saying that slavery had always existed right when the world had begun convinced people that it was right to have. In my opinion this argument was one of the strongest arguments used because it is very believable. Another argument used is Historical reasoning. The South saying that the idea has been crucial to great civilization. Also Blight refers to Greece and Rome saying that slavery has been the engine of greatness base of all society must be a labor system. I think this argument is quiet strong too because it is easy to convince someone that a civilization like Greece and Rome was only successful because their society contained slavery. They would say the slaves do the work as the rest of the population advances society.

The argument on Natural Rights I do not think is as strong as the others because it is based off of John Locke's philosophy on natural rights, except they just turned his idea around. The way the argument did this is by saying there is natural inequality and that not everyone is born the same. Another argument that I do not agree with is the racially based one, stating that slaves were put on this earth to be slaves. Everyone was put on this earth with equal opportunity, not to be categorized by their skin color. The two arguments I could give credit to is the first two, The Biblical argument as well as the Historical one, they are the only arguments not based on opinions. I feel they are the strongest and most believable arguments that were stated in Blight's lecture.

Pro Slavery Argument (north)

It seems as if the North pre-civil war was an extremely busy yet content place to live. The Northern states were going through very large changes from the Industrial Revolution. Through the 1800 to the 1830's and 40's the North had been modernizing, industrializing, and specializing throughout the market revolution. With the Industrial Revolution occurring in made the North a much more competitive place and a free economy. The free economy that the North chose to have aloud them to make their own choices, which is great, but also made it more difficult to get jobs. Not everyone in the economy had a job there was now competition. This gave equal opportunity to everyone for a job, but made it much more difficult to get one while they have more freedom it was more difficult to get a job.

The North and the South disagreed mainly on the ways they ran their own government. The North believed in the free market and economy and equal opportunity for everyone. Also, they supported change, while the South did not. The South did not believe in the change that was going on above them in the North and it scared them because the North was their main source of income. The North's talk about not having slavery was crazy talk to the Southerners.