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<title> "The argument has commenced... Slavery will every where be abolished, or every where be re-instituted" </title>
In the mid-nineteenth century the matter of slavery had divided the American Union and its states into two separate parts. Generally speaking, there were, on one hand, the Northern states, where the majority of the population wanted to abolish slavery, and on the other hand the Southern states, where millions of slaves forcefully brought to America were used as free labour, predominantly on the vast cotton fields. Not surprisingly people of the Southern states wanted to maintain slavery.
	In this essay I will present some of the arguments used by the two opposing sides. And I will start in the South, with the arguments for slavery.
One of the main arguments used by the South was that black people, "negroes", were on the same intellectual level as children, inferior to white people, and should therefore be treated as children. If slavery would be abolished, the "negroes" then would be left to their own devices. According to George Fitzhugh in "Sociology for the South" the "negroes" wouldn't stand a chance in a free, competitive world. They would gradually fade, die out, since their low level of capacity would hinder them in their strivings. The white man, the master, should treat his slaves as children and thereby save them from extinction. (9)
	Fitzhugh also points out that he finds it hard to believe that the abolitionists (the opponents of slavery) would have accepted a society where children at the age of fourteen were set free from their parents and given the opportunities to exercise all the rights of adults. And since "negroes" and children were on the same level, when regarding intelligence and moral values, it wouldn't have been only foolish but even irresponsible to set the slaves free. (11)
Fitzhugh also was of the opinion that the slaves were better off in the Southern colonies, protected, christianised and provided for, than they would be elsewhere. If they were to return to Africa or the West Indies, from where they or their ancestors had come, they would be enslaved by the natives, or even eaten by cannibals. In the north they would freeze or starve to death. They were even better off than the free labour. (9)
	An excerpt from William J Grayson's "The Hireling and the Slave" can illustrate Fitzhugh's stance:
"Taught by the Master's efforts, by his care,
 	Fed, clothed, protected, many a patient year,
	[...]
	If bound to daily labour while he lives,
	His is the daily bread that labour gives;
	Guarded from want, from beggary secure,
	He never feels what Hireling crowds endure..." (16)
	Another argument used by the South was that the abolishing of slavery also would be a loss for the cultural world.
By using slaves as labour, instead of letting white men do the hard work, the South was said to establish a very noble type of civilisation (Pollard 20). According to Pollard, since many white men were spared from hard physical work, they were able to develop the people of the Southern states in the fields of culture, social intercourse and education. This, writes Pollard, had given the Southern states a sentimental and refined cultural element that the materialistic and rude people of the Northern states lacked and envied. Pollard states that the Northern opposition to slavery could be derived from envy alone.
	Fitzhugh too stresses the cultural aspect. He claims that the use of slaves had been essential during the antiquity and that without the "despothic authority, like that of a master over his slaves", the architectural achievements of that period wouldn't have been the same. (11) He continues, that ever since the abolition of feudalism the taste and artistic skills of the world had declined.
	The arguments for slavery mentioned here are quite theoretical. However, in the arguments against slavery, the emphasis naturally lay on different aspects of basic human rights. 
Frederick Douglass, once himself a slave, describes in his narrative how he as a very young boy was deprived of all his rights regarding for instance the knowledge of the time of his birth, the background of his father, etc. As he was the son of a black female slave he was born straight into slavery. After his birth he was almost immediately separated from his mother. They were never allowed to meet. In Douglass's opinion this was a way of preventing the children from developing any deep emotions towards the mother. This seems to have worked. When the mother died, Douglass showed no more grief than he probably would have done, had the mother been a complete stranger. (7) On the other hand, Douglass's emotions for his aunt Hester, who was severely beaten by her master, were very strong.
One main reason why the abolitionists wanted to ban slavery, was that the slave owners could treat the slaves anyway they desired without being punished in a court of law. Douglass's aunt Hester was once very badly beaten by her master, as he had found out that - contrary to his orders - Hester had secretly met with a man she felt compassion for, a black man, another slave. As a punishment, Hesters master made her undress, then he hung her from her arms, from a hook in the ceiling and whipped her badly with a cowskin. Douglass happened to witness this and he would never forget it. (21)
	The same problem is brought up also by Lloyd Garrison, author of "The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass" as he describes how slaves were killed by their owners for no reason at all, and without any consequences for the murderers. To put it bluntly, the slaves had no rights at all. (4, 5)
It should be pointed out that the arguments for slavery mentioned above may be superior in numbers, but the ones against are definitely weightier. And as George Fitzhugh suggests in the title, slavery was eventually abolished in all the American states, at least in theory. However, it shouldn't be forgotten that one of the reasons why both sides came up with eloquent arguments for and against slavery, was a strictly financial one. Put in a simplified way: The South needed free labour to expand and grow economically, but the Northern states, wanting to dominate the South, didn't want that to happen. The abolition of slavery, at the end of the 1880s, was a result of the civil war following that conflict.
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