Attitudes about Slavery in Franklin County, Pennsylvania

Worksheet Two

 
Directions: Read the following four articles carefully. Write a short essay comparing the two parties' stances on slaves and slavery. Make specific reference to at least two paragraphs in all three documents. Pay special attention to how the parties used the issue of slavery for their own partisan gain.

Article One

The bark James W. Page has arrived at New York, bringing advices from Monrovia to July 29th. The vessels sent from Baltimore and New York by the African Colonization Society had arrived safely at Liberia, and the cargoes were sold at good profit.--The liberated Africans from the slaver Echo are doing well in Monrovia. Many are distributed among private families, and learn fast the habits and customs of civilized life. The intelligent colored people that have emigrated from the United States to Liberia speak in the highest terms of the latter country. Mr. John W. Hohn, a colored New Yorker, writes to the agent of the Colonization Society in that city:

"When I left New York for Liberia it was under the impression that I would not find the place suited to my desire, which impression arose from a misrepresentation of Liberia to me by a few acquaintances in New York.--But having been privileged to see and tread upon the delightful shores of Liberia, I am prepared to affirm, without any fear of contradiction, that no place under the sun is better adapted to the colored man than Liberia."

 
Article Two

. . . . The President, his Cabinet, the Supreme Court, and every convention of that party, use all the means in their peculiar situations, to exclude free, white, working men and their families from every one of our territories, upon which the haughty slaveholders may see fit to fasten their covetous gaze. This fact is so patent that no sensible man will dare to deny it.

Now, however, another kind of preference for negro labor has developed itself. They are hired to fill offices, in Washington City, which white men would be glad to occupy; thereby excluding Free, White men from Offices which belong as much to them, as to the purse-proud nabobs who fill any of the offices under the Government. They, as the property of wealthy planters, are hired, by the administration of old Mr. Buchanan, to serve as messengers, door keepers, &c., &c., from their aristocratic owners, and the wages for this negro office holding is drawn by the Master. . . . How do the hard-working white men of the North like this preference? When will working men get their eyes open to the true position of the labor-crushing party which professes to be the poor man's friend? All they care about working men is to get their votes. . . . Who ever heard of the like? Negroes holding office under a democratic (?) administration, and hundreds of poor white men out of employment.

 
Article Three

The Missouri Republican State Central Committee in its late address says:--There are now in Missouri at least fifty thousand men who cannot get full employment for their energies and enterprise, owing to the depression of the past two years, and there are now in Missouri more than one hundred thousand slaves, occuping [sic] and filling the most lucrative agricultural and mechanical positions of the interior. It is the demand of the Republican party that slave labor shall make room for free white labor, and take itself away.

 
Article Four

Though I am no advocate of "Women's Rights," save in their appropriate sphere, by the domestic hearth, and in the home department yet I would ask from you a brief space in your paper, that as a wife and mother, and, therefore, holding a large stake in the welfare of our country. . . .

[If] I believed that freedom would be a blessing to the race of slaves at the South, I should be a most strenuous advocate for general emancipation; but believing, as I do from my inmost soul, that it would be a curse, whose blighting influence would be felt alike by masters and slaves, I feel irresistibly impelled to protest against it, though the "still small voice" of my appeal may be lost and unheeded amid the wild warfare of political passion. The fanatics of the North have now entirely thrown off the thin mask they have hitherto worn, and openly proclaim their determination to free the slaves by any means and any sacrifice to the South. They would turn loose on their white brethren a horde of ignorant and ferocious savages, who, freed from all restraints, and owning no law save that of their own unbridled passions, would soon convert the smiling and prosperous homes of the South into waste and barren desserts. A war of races, when once commenced, must be one of extermination, nor would the conflict cease until one or the other was utterly destroyed. But granting that this is an extreme view to take of the case, still the result of emancipation could not be otherwise than ruinous to the South, because only by slave labor can the culture of the great staples of the Southern States be carried on to advantage. . . .

Perfectly intoxicated with their liberty, they would construe it into a right to pass their time either in sleep or lawless revelry, the majority of them would refuse to work for any wages, the rich soil of the South would be an uncultivated waste, and where peace and smiling plenty formerly reigned, would be seen nought but desolation and despair. The lure held out to the laboring classes in the North, to secure the election of the Republican party is, that slave labor once disposed with will render wages higher and work more scarce, an invention truly worthy of the "Father of Lies." No white man could stand the burning sun which is to the swarthy sons of Africa but a genial heat; and to persons not thoroughly acclimated it is almost certain death to breathe the pestilential atmosphere of the rice fields.--But even if white labor could be made equally available, and the planters not be entirely ruined by the freedom of their slaves, how is it intended to dispose of these millions of our sable brethren, so suddenly made their own masters? Do the Christian philanthropists at the North advocate their being sent back to Africa, there to relapse into heathenism--or was it Captain Brown's intention to take them off in a body to the far West, and form a new settlement on utopian principles, where freedom would be allowed a thorough and practical development? . . . .

The North does not understand the slave system, which, as it exists at the South is a Patriarchal form of government, and love, not fear, is generally the ruling principle. . . . The slaves are well fed and clothed. The interest of their owners requires that they should be so. Should sickness occur they have good medical attendance, and are carefully nursed, and when old age incapacitates them from labor, they are taken care of for the sake of former services, until death closes the scenes.

How is it with the white slaves at the North? Go to one of the large factories where the staple of the South is wrought into cloth; do you consider the operatives who toil from morn till night, in an unwholesome atmosphere, and amid the noisy din of machinery, more free and happy than the Southern slaves? So long as the white laborer has health and strength to work, he can obtain needful food and clothing, but when disabled by sickness or accident, are his wages continued by his benevolent master? By no means; with his usefulness ends all claim upon his employer. When helpless with old age or disease, he is thrown upon [his] own resources, and humanity shudders to think of the sufferings which are only known to the All-seeing eye of God! We employ our domestics at the North so long only as they are useful to us; when they become sick or infirm we do not consider ourselves pledged to support them; on the contrary, we believe that we are fully justified in replacing them with more efficient help; with their after fate we have no concern. . . .

How different it is in Southern families. The domestics about the house are considered in the light of humble friends, rather than slaves, and in sickness and old age are sure of kindness and a comfortable support. I spent last winter on a sugar plantation in Louisiana where I had every opportunity of forming an opinion of the institution of slavery as it exists at the South, and but for the want of freedom, which in their case is but an empty name, I consider their situation infinitely preferable to that of the laboring classes at the North. . . . The slaves appeared to me happy and contented, and there was certainly every provision made for their comfort which a kind and considerate master could suggest. I walked around the fields where they were at work, and not a single instance of cruelty or oppression ever came to my knowledge . . . . During the holiday week the annual ball and supper, given to the slaves at the master's expense, took place,--music, dancing and feasting continued until a late hour next morning, and a scene of more perfect enjoyment it would be difficult to find anywhere on earth than existed among these artless children of nature. Nor are they debarred from religious instruction, as many seem to think. On Sunday afternoon, the lady of the mansion assembled all who chose to come-- for there was no compulsion,--read to them in the Scriptures, taught them the "Belief" and the Lord's Prayer, and closed the exercises by repeating a hymn which they delighted to sing. Such is slavery at the South. . . .