# 1301.11c - Slave Laws and Southern Arguments for Slavery

**Channel:** Chad Tomaselli
**Source:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qRUfizvCwY
**Transcript page:** https://www.withtranscript.ai/video/8qRUfizvCwY

## Chapters

- 0:00 — Slave Codes and Legal Restrictions
- 2:32 — Fugitive Slave Laws and Enforcement
- 4:10 — Southern Defenses of Slavery
- 8:13 — Civilization, Religion, and Pseudoscience
- 12:34 — Extreme Pro-Slavery Arguments

## Transcript

**[0:00]:** now that we have an understanding of what the population and economy of the South look like and what the average um slave life look like we're gonna look at the laws and the arguments for slavery so we're going to keep this at the southern perspective and then we'll switch gears as mentioned slave states created laws we're look going to at slave codes first slave laws and slave codes southern slave states created laws to regulate slaves in their treatment these varied based on the state and the area but like the Black Codes they had a lot of commonalities they also changed over time especially after the few slave revolts that occurred as I said previously punishments were I I guess I didn't say this part punishments were required and harsh punishments were outlawed but not necessarily that part of it wasn't necessarily enforced you weren't supposed to harshly punish you know your slaves because they didn't

**[0:51]:** want to give the outward appearance of uh uh to show outwardly or with evidence how brutal the system was but again that part wasn't enforced because who's going to report you and who's going to actually enforce that we also discussed the legal status of slave Offspring in the last video additionally teaching slaves to read and write was often illegal as this could lead them to learning ideas that could Inspire violence the desire to escape anything else like that some of these uh slave codes limited this the slave's ability to travel drink alcohol join groups of any kind except for churches though that was limited after a rebellion in 1831 that we'll discuss later freed slaves if a slave was freed they were required to leave the state within a certain time after being freed so a lot of a lot of states or a lot of States said if you free your slaves they have

**[1:47]:** to leave that's and that's usually the Deep South which is why when we looked at the map with all the the concentration of the free black class they weren't in the Deep South because those are the states that typically said if you're free you have to get out of course unsurprisingly gun and weapon ownership was completely outlawed I mean these have con these slave codes go all the way back to unit one and Bacon's Rebellion remember one of the the main results of that was the Virginia slave codes of 1705. that was the first of these slave codes and they have evolved and changed or they evolved and changed over time up until the Civil War when slavery goes away and you don't need slave codes anymore

**[2:32]:** um one area of particular emphasis I want to hit here is the fugitive slave laws these are a major set of laws passed by Congress the U.S Congress to require the return of runaway slaves even if they made it to free states or free areas free territories enforcement was left to the national government or to individuals now northern states are going to increasingly refuse to enforce the laws themselves Southern fugitive slave hunters in order to meet the demand for slaves often took to capturing free blacks uh and taken to the South and selling them into slavery this happened even if they had their freedom papers as we discussed under Black Codes or had never been slaves in the first place there are documented cases in the hundreds but the true number is likely in the thousands so the ones we know is in the hundreds that doesn't you know there's likely more there has to

**[3:26]:** be more perhaps the most famous case of this became a movie 12 Years a Slave which is a fantastic but but difficult movie it's a really the the really good movie but one of those that you watch you go yep I've seen it that was good and then probably don't ever watch again um so these laws in particular were about returning slaves but it was it was on the national level that this was supposed to be enforced and we'll talk more about these as I become a political issue in the future and uh they'll be they'll relevant in a big way which is why I've singled them out to the larger political picture what I

**[4:10]:** mean by relevant the second half of what we're talking about in this in this video is the southern Arguments for slavery as we discussed in unit one uh why slavery became a big thing in their colonies are we discussed and and you know when why slavery became a big thing in the colonies which is driven both by economic and racial factors between that time and the Civil War Southerners continued to argue for the institution with a heightened intensity you you've heard the anti-slavery side but I'm betting you've not really heard the pro side this is not to justify their beliefs no not at all but to explain them there's obviously no justifiable morological or reasonable reasonable defense of slavery none and that's not what we're doing here we're explaining why are the arguments they made to try to to justify slavery but there is no justification one more preface and this is an important one

**[5:09]:** most Southerners slave owner or not did not make these justifications they simply use the system because it was what was done and even if they did not own slaves they still benefited from the system in a myriad or multitude of ways with systems like this compliance was acceptance the first major argument and the most common argument at first was the idea that slavery was a necessary evil the most common argument was a generalized view of slavery as a necessary evil this was common in the colonial and early years of the American Republic people like Jefferson recognize the immorality of slavery of the system but believed it was necessary for the U.S economy to function the US and its economy to function they also thought that if slaves were freed it would lead to Major consequences economically and socially especially concerning the possibility of integration crime was also one that was brought up so in the

**[6:11]:** colonial and early years of the the Articles and the Constitution necessary evil was the majority argument from the people who were defending slavery in the South As Time passed and especially after 1820 the argument shifted toward a moral or apologist justification that it was the benefit to all involved that slavery was a positive good the belief that the system was based in benevolence that the system improved the lives of all involved that it was necessary and morally correct and of course none of that is true John C Calhoun was a leading figure in pushing this argument one of the at this point I've only talked about Calhoun and the scope of he was one of the new generation of politicians one of the warhawks the but I mentioned he became the South's leading politician and a champion of of Defending slavery and this is where he starts to come in here other uh this often

**[7:17]:** materialized in a paternalistic with a p paternalistic view of the Master Slave relationship Masters in a paternalistic or paternalism view here which often goes hand in hand with the Positive good Masters was saying his caring parents to the slaves that provided food shelter and work slaves therefore were children who needed guidance and provided labor in return this led to an infantilization of black men in particular and that's a major theme not only in the slavery years but also in the post-slavery years it's definitely still a big thing in certain circles today even after this system ended this attitude survived as did the language this is why black men have been called things like boy because they weren't seen as men but as children

**[8:13]:** now obviously that that word boy um that's not the same as saying you know That's my boy it's more of if you've ever watched any movie or TV show set in the Civil Rights era that you'll have a super racist white guy saying well you need to get out of here boy that kind of thing saying boy goes back to this system where slaves were seen as children to the parental slave owners now keep this in mind as we discuss the remaining sub-arguments right this positive good but this paternalistic view of slavery positive good was a paternalistic view of slavery this positive good right so the rest of these are sub arguments under positive good took many forms one of which was civilization that people of color were uncivilized and they needed a quote-unquote proper white person too quote unquote civilized them through overt lessons or simply by being near them this is based on

**[9:13]:** the belief that white Christians were again quote unquote civilized which is a totally false premise considering of course and how uh

**[9:24]:** totally false premise and how civilized our our slaves going to think the people who treat them as chattel or property really are right that you doesn't really work because the slaves know how they're being treated they know how they're looked at and they're not just going to be like yeah let's adopt your ways that's not how that works that's civilization the idea that simply that that the owners were civilized the slaves were uncivilized and simply by being around each other or through overt lessons whatever that means then uh the slaves would become civilized another is religion Southerners will use their faith and the Bible to support slavery this included justifications of helping those quote unquote in need but also verses from the Bible and both from both the New and Old Testaments that supported slavery because there are there and there's plenty of them this led to a split in churches between northern and southern

**[10:20]:** branches I mean there's a reason there's a specific Southern Baptist Church that came from this split over slavery in the pre-civil War era where you have Northern Baptist Churches and the Southern Baptist Church specifically the Southern Baptist convention so religion was used as a justification for slavery both the verses of the Bible uh and and that's directly supports slavery or or other things that they Twisted to fit their worldview another slightly different but still part of this positive good is pseudoscience pseudo meaning false or unproving uh uh basically they're using false or unproven scientific sounding to try to justify slavery such things as like uh people of color were naturally inferior or suited to submissiveness and slavery one example of this is the pseudoscience the false science of phrenology here on the slide the idea that the bumps and dimples in a person's skull can be used to determine

**[11:28]:** their personality and traits and they use this to show or justify that people of color were meant to be Slaves by their physiology it's completely and utterly false but was quite popular at the time the next video after this one is a scene from the film Django Unchained where Leonardo DiCaprio's character Calvin Candide uh or candy sorry candy is a different thing um he engages in this pseudoscience you don't have to watch it but I haven't found a better representation of the the the pseudoscience of phrenology than that I remember sitting in the theater watching that movie and going I'm gonna show that clip in my classes forever um so those are some of the sub arguments under the positive good right the ways that slavery is helping these slaves uh uh oh you know philosophically in a certain way right um or or ways that they Justified it and of course all of this

**[12:29]:** is nonsense

**[12:34]:** let's take a different look now extremism there was extremism amongst these arguments yes as with any set of beliefs there was an extreme end to the justifications for slavery and yes even the pro-slavery crowd Cloud the crowd the leader of this George fits you I said she took all the ideas that we just discussed and it went full crazy with them he tied the moral arguments of slavery with the economic ones he argued that Society most benefited if all laborers or most laborers were enslaved he pointed to the free North where there were slums unemployment and other forms of socio socioeconomic issues the South he argued avoided these issues because of slavery where laborers were guaranteed food and shelter he's not wrong pointing out the issues of the North but that doesn't necessarily justify slavery he started in this these arguments uh with slavery for

**[13:42]:** all people of color but he will expand his ideas over time become more extreme he later argued that he hit the ideal Society fitsu's ideal Society was where one where eighty percent of all people regardless of race were enslaved now of course I said regardless of race that doesn't mean there were going to be any people of color who weren't enslaved but he also meant eighty percent of all people this was too much for many of his contemporaries which is why he was considered an extreme end even they were like ooh I don't know about that here's a quote from Fitzhugh to sum up his views quote it is the duty of society to protect the weak but protection cannot be efficient without the power of control therefore it is the duty of society to enslave the weak and of course this is ridiculous right we understand the moral uh logical legal whatever you word

**[14:49]:** you want to throw in there issues with slavery slavery is wrong in every way possible but this is what they argued these weren't the only arguments but they were the most common or at least the most severe in the case of fits you and fitzhu is one of your excerpts if you're doing the slavery paper assignment so what we're going to look at now is to change gears and flip to the other side we're going to look at how slaves resisted this system