Most educators fail to give the true benefits of slavery, while enhancing the bad. I agree, slavery (or the enslaving of another being for being quote & quote "inferior") is wrong. However, there has to be a reason why there has been slavery for a good part of history, from ancient history all the way up to the just recently.
Before we can talk about the impact of slavery, we should first define the term. Slavery by definition is, a "condition in one human being [is] owned by another... considered by law as property.., and [is] deprived of most rights ordinarily held by free persons. " In this case, this definition mostly just states how it works, while not going into the details (as experience can vary depending on the ownership).
The first problem we can see is <em>ownership</em>. Ownership is defined as "the act, state or right of possessing something". In the case of ownership of slaves, it is the act of possessing another human being. The Constitution states that for slavery to be legal, it must be "as a punishment for crime.... within the United States,... subject to their jurisdiction." However, it is important to note that the 13th amendment (the abolition of slavery, as constituted by the above quote), was not passed during this time, and so was not enforce until during the civil war. In a sense, the argument we can have right now is that 1) Since there is no law restricting the usage, then 2) it is still legal in being able to do so, therefore the South has a point and the right to own slaves. After all, the Founding Fathers themselves failed to ban slavery as they were afraid of protests from the Southern colonies. The slavery problem was looked at in different directions. As to pertaining the ownership, Congress had came up with <em>compensation emancipation</em>, which was enacted in which slave owners can free their slaves in exchange for money. However, this soon proved costly, and so was dropped out of favor. Slavery in itself is wrong, but to destroy someone's livelihood on a viewpoint that may not be shared by all can only be done so militaristically and with force.
The second problem that educators have is the <em>effect of slavery</em>. Slavery was an essential part in the south's economy. The Abolitionists failed to put forth a good enough plan for the south. Many had sunk their fundings into the slaves in an effort to use the extra "cheaper-overall" hands to turn a profit. Afterall, slaves were much more cheaper than farm hands, who instead of having to be paid and insured on top of everything, only need shelter, food, and some form of clothing. Slaves can also be forced to do tasks, while helping hands can choose if they want too or not. Taking away the slaves in such a short time proved detrimental to the south's economy. Their production of already dropping crop prices was further driven down by smaller outputs of materials. The south failed in being initiated into the mechanical world, and would take years to bounce back.
The third problem that educators have is the effects of slavery in today's political world. Apparently, events that happened at least 150 years ago (with some detrimental effects seen in today's world, but as a whole, slavery by definition), seems to be a subject to be brought up today. Granted, there are lessons to be learned from the events and history brought forth from the era of slavery, but to ask for reparation for slavery is a bit too much. After all, this is essentially the essence of the quote, "visiting the iniquity of the father upon the sons to the third and fourth generation". In essence, while we are affected by the history of what has taken place, we are not the source of the problem, therefore we should not have to deal with having the "source" problem placed on us. Educators who typically are influenced and lean certain directions fail to realize this, and impose the idealogy that we failed as if we were there. Instead, we must learn from the events, but not place blame on who is alive today, but rather use the information we gained from the events to ensure that it is not repeated. Educators typically say "slavery is bad, slavery is bad", but fail to give reasons as to why slavery was used in the first place. After all, if slavery was so bad, why was it used? There must be some positive (for at least one party) for something to take place. An analogy that can be used is a worm infested apple. Worm-infested apples are detrimental to health, but why is a certain person eating it? While it is negative overall, there must be some form of positive to force the person to eat the apple, in which case he is trying to fill his stomach, as he has been starving for days. The same can be applies. Why was slavery used? It was imposed as a cheaper way of finding workers, either as there is a population shortcoming towards production, and as a cheaper way to maximize profits.
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