Slave State example essay topic
The fertile soil down there in places like Mississippi was ideal for agriculture. With agriculture, they needed some workers. Because of that, they came to rely upon slave labor. They didn't have the high quality machinery we have today so a large majority of the work had to be done using manual labor. Well, the farmers didn't like it and the slaves were working quite well. They would pick cotton and other goods because they were scared of getting a beating.
Because of that, they worked really hard. With the slaves, the farmers didn't have to worry about their economic growth. They would just treat the slaves harsher in order to get a better harvest. Without a mass of slaves to do the work, farmers would have to work by themselves or risk hiring more people and paying them more money than the cheap labor of slaves. In effect, the slaves were running the economy for the South. Without the slaves to help them work in the fields, they were hopeless because a single family of farmers couldn't compensate for the loss of hoards of slaves.
The South had no factories to rely on like the North. The North was a highly industrialized place without the need for any slave workers. As for a legal approach, I'm not exactly sure on this, but I think I might have an idea. In colonial times, this topic was debated too. Thomas Jefferson wanted to add in an anti-slavery clause in the Declaration of Independence. However, he was stopped by John Rutledge and other Southern delegates.
They might " ve taken that into scope in this situation. Slavery had been allowed since the colonial days. Washington had them and so did Jefferson and many others. They could " ve argued that the founding fathers had used slaves themselves and that they were just doing what was in the aspects of the law. The Southerners took a loose representation of the Constitution and other documents like the Declaration of Independence. If something like slavery wasn't outlawed in any legal document, they felt that they had the right to use that task.
Since slavery was never outlawed by anyone yet, they were free to do so. Since slavery had never been punished for even in the colonial times when the country was being built, they had felt that they were entitled to engage in the act of slavery. With a religious aspect, I have nothing in my mind except for the possible idea of the slaves of Egypt under Rameses. Since the slaves had worked quite well with the Egyptians in building everything, they probably thought that the prosperity of Egypt could also be brought to America through the act of slavery. 1. Well, in the 1850's, the Underground Railroad was bustling and very busy at that time.
All the slaves were escaping and the Northerners were outraged by the passing of the Fugitive Slave Act. In their mind, they felt no need to release slaves back into the oppression of the South. Besides that, there were more and more states being admitted. Nebraska had been debated over forever. The North kept arguing for a free state of Nebraska while the South felt that Nebraska needed to have slavery legalized.
Such arguing broke up Congress and the nation. Everytime a state was called into statehood, people would gripe about it being a free or slave state. They would move into the states in order to sway the public vote into being a slave or a free state. There was constant turmoil.
Out of the political scope, there was a piece of literature that would enrage the South. Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe had debuted to the outer world. She had expressed her deep feelings about the evils of slavery. She had never visited the South before and hadn't known of anything Southern. The Southerners felt that was a book of slander meant to sully the reputation and pride of the South. With Fort Sumter, South Carolina had already seceded from the Union.
They wanted to get rid of the Union troops. They felt that since they had left the Union, Fort Sumter (a Union military base) shouldn't have been on their territory. They ordered the evacuation of the fort. They wanted the Union troops out of their property now. Fort Sumter really wasn't a force to be reckoned with. It was under supplied and really wasn't a huge necessity for the Union.
It was just your average fort that wasn't even a threat to South Carolina. During the standoff, Robert Anderson, the leader of Fort Sumter, refused to give up the fort. As a result. the Southerners attacked and won against the weak fort. Anderson had surrendered. This got the Union's blood boiling. Other Southern states who also felt oppressed by the nation's government eventually got the confidence to leave the Union.
They had seen how the Union army could have been defeated so easily by a single state. With that victory, Southerners got even more rebellious and seceded. All these events escalated to war. I hope this helps. You may want to go more in depth into the topics that I just brought up.