SLAVES AND MASTERS

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SLAVES AND MASTERS
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Definitions

• Slavery--
• Denial of freedom
• Social death
• Freedom (liberal definition)
• Enjoyment of individual rights, choice
• contractarian basis of social relations
• Liberal slavery
• Denial of rights

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Master Management Slave Resistance

• Crossed purposes
• Planters purpose raise a good crop
• Slaves purpose resist bondage
• Mistreatment
• Not in planters interest
• response to slave resistance
• Conflict in two areas
• regulation of labor
• regulation of life

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Regulation of Labor

• Problem Maximize production from unmotivated
  labor force
• Solution rules to manage time, production
• Slave resistance--disobey rules
• Work slowdowns
• Break tools
• Run away

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Regulation of Life

• Good Treatment makes sense
• Problem Good Treatment a daily reminder of
  unfreedom
• Slaves inspected for personal hygiene
• Slave housing specified, inspected
• Slave diet, clothing controlled
• Slave families controlled
• Not legally recognized

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Paradox of Slavery Close yet Hostile
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Slavery, Law, and Politics

• Southern Government Supports Slavery
• Governs masters in their control of slaves
• Slavery cannot exist without the state
• State determines who can be enslaved
• State determines whether a slave can be freed
• State upholds a standard of treatment
• State restrains masters
• Problem How Far Can Government Restrain Masters?

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Extent of Governmental Restraint

• Humanitarian reform abolishes wanton murder of
  slave as cruel and unusual
• Liberal government protects RIGHTS
• But liberal slavery denies rights
• Prohibition of murderright to life?
• Other protectionsother rights?
• Grant of rights, diminishes the essence of
  slavery

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Legal Conflict State v. Mann

• Manns slave Lydia runs away
• Mann shoots and wounds
• Mann indicted for battery
• Justice Thomas Ruffin, N. Carolina Supreme Court
• Mann Acquitted
• Masters power over slave property absolute,
  state interference violates masters rights

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Legal Conflict State v. Will

• Will runs away from overseer Baxter
• overseer shoots at, then chases Will down
• Will stabs Baxter to death, indicted for murder
• Justice William Gaston, N.C. Supreme Court
• Reduced Wills sentence because masters power
  not absolute--right to life permits self-defence

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Slavery in a Liberal Society An Inescapable
Contradiction

• Liberalism assumes freedomequal entitlement of
  all to minimal rights
• Slaveryfreedoms denialrightlessness
• Slave resistance forces state to consider
  extending rights to slaves
• Conflict becomes National through
• Abolitionist publicity
• Federal cases

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The Inescapable Contradiction goes National

• Through Abolitionist publicity
• Weld, American Slavery as it Is
• Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Toms Cabin
• Federal cases
• North Freedom of all inhabitants presumed
• Southern Slave Power challenge on Federal level
• Fugitive Slave Law
• Dred Scott Decision
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