The Question of Slavery
Was slavery viewed as positive or negative throughout the United States prior to the Civil War?
Daniel Webster's Remarks in the Senate of the United States on August 12,1848
"It is a peculiar system of personal Slavery, by which the person who is called 'Slave' is transferable, as a chattel , from hand to hand. I speak of this as a fact, and that is the fact, and I will say further, that although Slavery as a system of servitude attached to the earth exists in various countries of Europe, I am not at the present moment aware of any place on the globe in which this property of man in a human being, as a slave transferable as a chattel , exists, except America."
Excerpts from John Calhoun's "Disquisition on Government" (1840)
It follows, from has been stated, that it is a great and dangerous error to suppose that all people are equally entitled to liberty. It is a reward to be earned, not a blessing to be gratuitously lavished on all alike; - a reward reserved for the intelligent, the patriotic, the virtuous and deserving; - and not a boon to be bestowed on a people too ignorant, degraded and vicious , to be capable either of appreciating or of enjoying it"
Excerpt From "The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass"
"I have often been utterly astonished , since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears. At least, such is my experience. I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness. Crying for joy, and singing for joy, were alike uncommon to me while in the jaws of slavery . The singing of a man cast away upon a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion."
Edmund Ruffin's "Slavery and Free Labor Described and Compared" 1860
(Describing the end result of the abolition of slavery on landowners in the South)
"...But suppose, notwithstanding all these reasons and all losses, our farmers, deprived of slave labor, whether gradually or suddenly, would, by their necessity, be compelled to hire the free labor of immigrants, at any price required. At first, and during the greatest scarcity and demand, the price would be exorbitant. And should the high price serve to increase the supply of labor so as to bring it, within some eight or ten years, to fair and uniform rates for free labor, these rates, for the reasons stated, would still be higher than those of slave labor now. During all these changes, the farmers would have to bear either greater or less of annual loss, if counted on their original capital stock ."