English Literature

It becomes clear from Douglasss autobiography that the system of slavery worked becausea core group of managers within the plantation system werewilling to systematically torture, abuse, and terrorize slaves--and a great many more people who may not have participatedin such behavior directlynevertheless condoned it, or at least did not object to it. Howcan this be How could an entire society acquiesce to such barbaric behavior

Frederick Douglass was considered one of the leading advocates of the abolition of slavery and he had experienced it himself first hand how the practice of slavery could be evil even though the southern plantation owners who subscribed to it claimed it was something necessary.

Douglass, and several others like him experienced brutality a the hands of their owners or sometimes the so-called,  slave-breakers  whose role was to punish escaped slaves through torture.  Slaves would go through different forms of torture ranging from physical, which mainly consisted of flogging, rape on the part of the women and occasionally murder.  There was also psychological torture as a form of mind control to keep the slaves docile.  This was manifested by keeping them ignorant by discouraging or forbidding them even to read.  Slave owners feared that if slaves were at least literate, they might turn against them.  This was also to ensure their continued domination over them (Douglas, 1845).

It is so strange to see such civilized and cultured people in the South would regard African-Americans as inferior to them and even cite Scripture in justifying their treatment of these people whom did did not regard as people at all but part of their property.  They even called it the  necessary evil  and even tried to use the laws as their shield to prevent this right from being taken away from them.  One can see here that the South practiced a double-standard when dealing with these people.  Economic pragmatism cannot justify something morally wrong.