Primary Source Activity: Views on Slavery Teaching American History Understanding Freedom June 21, 2013

Differing Views on Slavery The goal of today’s activity is to use primary sources, including images and quotes, to gain an understanding of the multiple perspectives on American slavery up to the time of the Civil War. This lesson ties in to complexity in historical thinking.

John Brown ( ) *Radical Abolitionist *Fought against proslavery forces in “Bleeding Kansas” *Led failed raid on Harper’s Ferry in 1859 *Executed December 1859 *Viewed as a martyr by many Northerners *Viewed as a dangerous insurrectionist by many Southerners

Thomas Jefferson ( ) *U.S. President, *Author of the Declaration of Independence (1776) *Author of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786) *First Secretary of State *Founder of the Democratic- Republican Party *Virginia planter and slave owner

David Walker ( ) *Born to a slave father and free mother in North Carolina *Settled in Boston *Abolitionist leader *Wrote for the first black abolitionist newspaper

William Lloyd Garrison ( ) *Abolitionist leader *Editor of The Liberator *Co-founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society *Woman’s suffrage activist

John C. Calhoun ( ) *South Carolina Senator and Congressman (Democrat) *Vice President ( ) *Leading spokesman for states’ rights and slavery

Frederick Douglass ( ) *Escaped from slavery *Abolitionist leader *Publisher of The North Star *Bestselling author *Civil rights advocate

Angelina Grimke Weld ( ) *Born in South Carolina *married Northern abolitionist Theodore Weld *Author of An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South *Abolitionist and woman’s suffrage activist

James H. Hammond ( ) *South Carolina Congressman, Senator, and Governor (Democrat) *Coined the phrase “Cotton is King” *Defender of slavery and states’ rights

Mary Boykin Chestnut ( ) *South Carolina socialite *Wife of a U.S. Senator and slave owner *Author of an extensive Civil War diary

Abraham Lincoln ( ) *Illinois lawyer and Whig/Republican *U.S. President, *Author of the Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address

John Brown... I believe to have interfered as I have done,... in behalf of His despised poor, was not wrong, but right. Now, if it be deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children, and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit: so let it be done. Brown’s statement made after his conviction by the court (November 2,1859) html Quote on Slavery:

Thomas Jefferson Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever: that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events… The spirit of the master is abating, that of the slave rising from the dust, his condition mollifying, the way I hope preparing, under the auspices of heaven, for a total emancipation, and that this is disposed, in the order of events, to be with the consent of the masters, rather than by their extirpation. Notes on the State of Virginia (1785) ations-slavery-and-emancipation Quote on Slavery:

David Walker I count my life not dear unto me, but I am ready to be offered at any moment, For what is the use of living, when in fact I am dead. But remember, Americans, that as miserable, wretched, degraded and abject as you have made us in preceding, and in this generation, to support you and your families, that some of you (whites), on the continent of America, will yet curse the day that you ever were born. You want slaves, and want us for your slaves ! ! ! My colour will yet root some of you out of the very face of the earth ! ! ! ! ! ! Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World (1829) Quote on Slavery:

William Lloyd Garrison Assenting to the "self-evident truth" maintained in the American Declaration of Independence, "that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights -- among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," I shall strenuously contend for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave population. … I am aware, that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject (of slavery), I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire, to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hand of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; -- but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD. “To the Public” in The Liberator (January 1831) Quote on Slavery:

John C. Calhoun But I take higher ground. I hold that in the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished by color, and other physical differences, as well as intellectual, are brought together, the relation now existing in the slaveholding States between the two, is, instead of an evil, a good - a positive good. “Slavery a Positive Good” February 6, avery-a-positive-good/ Quote on Slavery:

Angelina Grimke As a Southerner I feel that it is my duty to stand up here to-night and bear testimony against slavery. I have seen it -- I have seen it. I know it has horrors that can never be described. I was brought up under its wing: I witnessed for many years its demoralizing influences, and its destructiveness to human happiness. It is admitted by some that the slave is not happy under the worst forms of slavery. But I have never seen a happy slave, I have seen him dance in his chains, it is true; but he was not happy. Address at Pennsylvania Hall (1838) Quote on Slavery:

Frederick Douglass What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour. “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro” (1852) Quote on Slavery:

James H. Hammond In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life. That is, a class requiring but a low order of intellect and but little skill. Its requisites are vigor, docility, fidelity. Such a class you must have, or you would not have that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement. It constitutes the very mud-sill of society and of political government; and you might as well attempt to build a house in the air, as to build either the one or the other, except on this mud-sill. Fortunately for the South, she found a race adapted to that purpose to her hand. A race inferior to her own, but eminently qualified in temper, in vigor, in docility, in capacity to stand the climate, to answer all her purposes. We use them for our purpose, and call them slaves. Speech to the U.S. Senate (March 4, 1858) Quote on Slavery:

Mary Boykin Chestnut I hate slavery… You say there are no more fallen women on a plantation...to a magnate who runs a hideous black harem, with its consequences, under the same roof with his lovely white wife and his beautiful and accomplished daughters? He holds his head high and poses as the model of all human virtues to these poor women whom God and the laws have given him...You see Mrs. Stowe did not hit the sorest spot. She makes Legree a bachelor. A Diary from Dixie ( ) nu.html Quote on Slavery:

Abraham Lincoln This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it. All honor to Jefferson--to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression. Letter to Henry L. Pierce (April 6, 1859) eeches/pierce.htm Quote on Slavery:

Title:

“Tragic Prelude” by John Steuart Curry ( )

“Southern Chivalry – Argument versus Club’s (1856)

“One Good Turn Deserves Another” from Punch (August 9, 1862) wordpress.com/2011/02/22/frede rick-douglass-fighting-against-a- white-mans-warpart-3/

“Lincoln’s Last Warning” (October 11, 1862) es/item/ /