South's+problems

Today in class we talked about the slaves in Southern U.S. and how the slaves were used to pick cotton. Back then cotton was the main thing in the south and that is the crop they focused on. But because picking this cotton was such a hassel the southernerns looked for the easy way out. At the time the only solution to this problem was to get slaves; yes it sounds horrible but it is true they used human beings to do their dirty work. The bottom line is the white people did not want to have to put in hours in the fields. The south was always trying to get one step ahead of the north, but it was always the other way around. The solution to being behind was slaves and that is a harsh, but the truth of the matter is they needed extra hands to do work and why not have it be the people who they thought were like animal or beasts or what ever you want to call them. 1204081951

You seem to be very hard on the southerns for something that was so widely excepted for such a long time. Now by this time in history a lot of people had come around to seeing how terrible slavery is but for most of the southerners they had been raised with slaves and didn't see anything wrong with it. They didn't pick to use slaves because it was to much hassle for them to do the work themselves, it was just the way of life for so long and i dont think you can blame the plantation owners for just trying to get by in such a tough world. At that time it was really hard to make a living farming without slaves. You can tell this was true because even the biggest anti-slavery people owned slaves. People like Thomas Jefferson, who were completly against slavery but at the time their was no other way to make decent living off of farming. It had nothing to do with taking the easy way out, it had to do with the way things had been for a long time and making a living so your family can live a decent life. 1204154784

We had a discussion about slavery in my relgion class the other day and my teacher told us some information that really perplexed me. He said that the reason why initally the white people thought they were better and superior colored people is because back then (with an extreme lack of scientific proof or reason) they had come to conclusion and believed that it was a scientific fact that people of white coloring were smarter than people of colored skin. This is **obviously** not true because we've proved it wrong in theory, but then it sort of made sense to me why the people back then thought it was ok to use colored people as slaves. (I am not supporting slavery in any which way, I am just describing how now i understand why back then people believed it was ok).

Think about it: We know that us as humans are smarter than animals. Take dogs for an example. For years and years dogs have been used to help out their owners, which in a way is what slaves did for their owners. We, still in these days, treat dogs as if their are of lower authority. We sell them for money. We can keep them in a cage. We feed them only certain food. Most don't have the luxury of going to the bathroom anywhere they want. We don't let them eat at the table that we eat at. We make them earn treats. We use them to track down scents (to help of solve crimes). We (used to) use them to pull heavy things. We use them to guide us in a certain direction. A lot of these things that we do to dogs is what we despise that the white people did to the colored people back then. Now we don't go to the lengths of hurting our dogs like they did, but we do punish them if they make a mistake like take our food or pee in the house.

I absolutely do not agree with any of the methods of punishment that went on during slavery nor do i agree with the idea of slavery at all, but now that i know this incite about why the whites thought the way they did, i can understand where they are coming from. 1204158560

I understand what agr is coming from. The south needed workers to help keep plantations in business so they can keep using their main resource, cotton. There was basically no choice for the southern plantation owners recruit slaves in order to keep thier economy alive and going strong. That time too they couldn't hire people, because if they hired people the plantations would be hundreds and hundreds of dollars(maybe thousand) in the hole. They couldn't possibly hire people to gather cotton and be payed at the same time. The times were rough when it came to money. But as the government developed and many other financial and economic areas improved through out the years, it was unneccessary to need slaves to work, because we were able to afford to keep corporations at a still pace, which is better than nothing. I'm not saying slavery was good, but if it weren't for it, we wouldn't have able to purchase neccessary goods from stores, because the slaves were able to barely keep the factories or plantations alive since the 1800s. Any corporation or business relating to farms, stock, trades and goods that were able to still keep making an effort and profit, were all thanks to slaves. Slaves who made a difference, were the result of what daily needs that we buy everyday from what we earn to make a living.1204161520

The south did have a choice, they could have had their sons and daughters plow the fields, rather than importing people as labor, like we now imprt cars. People are not property. Like the constitution says, all men are created equally. Slavery, at the time was not considered evil. I just don't get how half the country was OK with slavery. Now, as we look back in time-as we all look back- we all agree it was SO wrong. I think abortion may be similar. It, too, is a crime against humanity. I would not be suprised if in 2050 we look back, and with all the medical knowledge we'll have on the developement of fetuses, we say"my God how could we have allowed millions of babies to die. The point is that the obvious moral thing too do is sometimes not the most popular. With time, though, as society advances, it can look back and see the immorality of it's former ways.. 1204257694

Don't be ridiculous the sons and daughters of the plantation owners could not make up for hundreds of slaves. it is unreasonable to even think that the plantation owners could have survived without slaves. And even if there hadn't been slaves i can promise you there would be some form of feudalism and serfs occuring in the place of slavery. Just like was happening in France before the revolution. The fact is that no matter what the laws were people were going to be mistreated. And there are very simple reasons why half the county was ok with slavery. Slavery had been going on in the world since the Muslims had gain power in Asia. That was hunderds of years before America was created. The ideas of anti-slavery were much younger. It was a way of life that the son and daughters of plantation owners grew up with and thought nothing of. now i really dont want to sound like i support slavery because i dont. but i have strong beliefs that we cannot blame the southerners for holding slaves. The problem goes back much farther than them. and we cannot put all of the blame on them. If we want to blame people we should blame the Africans that were capturing and selling their own people back when they were trading with the Muslims. 1204508173

The south had many problems for one we talked about today. They invested all their bananas in one basket and filled it with slavery. Basically they messed up big time, not only on the slavery front but on the stupidity front. Plus another problem they had was they had no real way to make guns, the north were the ones who had all the manufacturing companies and stuff. Why would they give guns to someone they knew they were going to go to war with? To throw something on the south’s side they did have some good generals because in the beginning of the war they beat a lot of people with a lot less people. Yeah the south did have some problems but they did fight their hearts out and they did believe in what they were fighting for so you do have to give them credit for what they did. The other thing the south had that the north didn’t were some discipline fighter, they really trained there men on how to fight which I really don’t think the north did so well at. The north and the south had their problems which turned out to make for a really, really bloody battle.

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Slavery alone, is one of my favorite topics to discuss in history. Back when slavery was "legal" it was common for wealthy white folk to be **slave owners**, and people of color to be **slaves**. The reason for slaves was for the benefit of the wealthy people. Even though, to me that doesn't make any sense. Why would wealthy people need to be benefited? That is what theory states. Personally, I don't agree with "theory." I think that the reason white people felt the need to degrade black people was to build their own confidence level up. They felt the need to physically and mentally hurt another person because they felt they had more power because of skin color. I also think that slavery was "put into affect" for white people and white authority to gain the power that **they** felt **they** deserved. __I__ do not think that owning slaves and putting down people of color gave them the power they were hoping for. I personally feel that it gave them satisfaction in themselves, and a whole lot of negative attention. In our society today, a similar occurence is taking place. In school for example, there are the many different types of groupes or cliques where many different types of people are involved. It usually seems the case is the "higher class" or more wealthy people are degrading against the people they think have lower value. 1204260871

That is a completely ridiculous statement to make. The wealthy white land owners created slavery to oppress black people? Yeah right, what did they do all come together for a meeting and talk what they could do to keep the blacks down? Slavery is not something that is unique to America and America certainly did not create the idea. Slavery is an age old idea that goes back to before Western Europe even knows America is there. Slavery had nothing to do with putting other people down to help the wealthy white people to feel good about themselves. Slavery was about survival and the plantation owners used their slaves to get by and put food on their tables. it had nothing to do with gaining power or building up their own confidence level. 1204673423

One thing that we need to remember when we discuss the issue of slavery is that the idea of slavery was not something that the people of the south had invented to opress the black people. True, slavery was terribly wrong, but it has something that has been around for thousands of years. All sorts of people had slaves of all races. IF you do some research on the topic you will also learn that almost all of our early presidents had slaves. Although it was terribly wrong it was what happened back then, and many people we look up to were slave holders. Just some food for thought. mme

im going to start off by saying thank God for abe lincoln. For two reasons he was the one guy that stopped the slavery, he was the only one who started something to stop this slavery. Most people are like wars dont solve anything well for all the people who say that what about the civil war. One of the best things to ever happen to us. Now i dont understand why the southerners went threw so much to keep slavery. how lazy can you be, honestly pick cotten yourself. Now i realize that racism was a popular thing back then if you didnt have slaves you werent cool. I cant say the southeners were horrible people but they had to realize that it is not a good thing to do. Well the point im trying to get out is slavery is kind of a bad thing.1204684617

AGR I totallly agree with what your saying! White slave oweners never brought the black people down just to build ther confidence up are you crazy? They had lots of cofiidence, they were making a huge profit and living the high life. They had other people doing there work for them so all they had to do is once in a while check up on them. I dont understand why you think the oweners were doing that. you might have gotten that idea becuase the slave owners highered very poor white people to keep a watch over the slaves to make sure everything was going right and they were supposed to keep the slaves in line. They did not take the job just so they could higher there cofidence level. The only thing that comes to my mind is that the plantation oweners and the people that keep the slave under control was the fact that there were so many slaves then there were white people. Thats the only thing they had to keep in mind. Other wise they were perfectly fine. I would like to know where your coming from MJE. 1204754065ale2

There were so many problems in the south that we don't even know of, and slavery was the biggest of all. Just like sSi2 said that slaves were used for the dirty work. When I myself here the issue of slavery I always think about what it would be like to be a slave. Just imagining waking up every morning and going out into a field to pick cotton, for bascically everyday of your life is hard enough. But something that really freaked me out was when my family and I went to a plantation for a tour. There was a wagon ride with horses that took you along the plantation, with a guide. Then someone brought up the question what happened to the dead slaves? Because of the fact that there were no graveyards in the whole plantation. And the answer to the question was given by our tour guide and she said that most slaves were thrown in with the pigs. And eaten by them. Things like that make slavery so bad, and we all should be thankful for the fact that it has ended, and now everyone is equal. 1204775017

We as Americans all know what the civil war was about. The north beginning with President Abraham Lincoln wanted to abolish slavery and the use of forced labor particularly on African Americans. The south and the north were completely different back then. The south was a land composed of hard labor, to make a living in the south farming was all you had to rely on. While the north was not in the same predicament. They needed no slave labor for they farmed little if any; the north was always a step ahead of the south. It was easier to make ends meet up north, the variety of jobs was vast and the workforce needed to supply the factories and small businesses was ever growing. The south had no means of keeping up with such competition from the north and their fierce economy. The only way for the south to implement the north and its new age technology was slave labor. What better place to find good labor then an African American people of the time thought. They are smarter than any animal, more productive, and yet they can do the labor no one else can or wants to do. This was obviously a horrible point of view, but back then it wasn’t very strange for the south to consider such thoughts because they thought slaves were of less value, in fact if you were born and raised in the south you wouldn’t think any different. But the north knew what was right and had to put an end to it and that’s where the war comes into play. 1205192656

The South had many problems and some we didn’t know about but the most know was slavery. The slaves did all of the chores and labor around the plantations or places their owners had. When the topic of slavery comes up people sometimes shy away but I am not afraid to talk about it. When the topic comes up I always think what it would be like to be a slave or even someone like an [|African-American] [|abolitionist]. Just thinking about every morning waking up to go work on the fields with out any or little pay and no other benefits. We should all be grateful that now slavery has ended and we are all free. We should thank God for every day we have because there are people in this world today that may have a bad situation maybe even as bad as slavery. 1205202178

I think that slavery is a big topic in the United States History. It is a really important one to talk about as well. Even though we are ashamed of it people deserve to know what happened and why it is wrong. Slavery happened all over our country, but eventually the northern states stopped it. But the Southern States kept letting slavery happen. Slavery of the south and freedom in the North were a big issue which caused the civil war. There were slaves that tried to escape, and I think that these slaves were so brave. They would risk their lives just so they can try to get free. Another reason why I think that they are brave is because they knew they were being treated unfair but they weren't treating the white people with disrespect. There were people who were also just as brave as the slaves themselves. These people were abolitionists. Abolitionists were people who would go to plantations and they would help slaves runaway to the North. These Abolitionists were also just as smart and brave and the slaves. I deffinetly think that slavery is wrong, but I do think that it is important to learn about. If we learn about it it will help prevent it from happening again. 1205361566

After reading this dicscussion among the studetns I have to say that I agree with Andy. White southern plantation owners did not use black people as a means to make themselves feel better about themselves or just to make them feel bad. Think about it like this: if you are born and raised learning that one thing is right, for example: bullying kids who are not as strong as you, then you will do it and not question it most likely. The southerners were taught that slavery was okay and that black people were not equal because of the coloor of their skin and also they thought that because slavery was mentioned in the Bible that they had God's support. In reality they never really considered treating everyone equally because in their minds equality between colored people and white people did not exist. I don't fully blame them for what they did but none of these acts justifies what actions and crimes were committed against black people. I just know where they were coiming from and i am so incredibly thankful that today we are aware of the advantages of UNITY and accepting others for what and who they are. 1205373153

I also believe that slave owners grew up learning that to have a slave was regular lifestyle. I think that this was the only they knew was right. I do believe that it is wrong in every way possible. Southerners to me, were just too lazy to do the work themselves, because if people in the north didn't need slaves then why did the south need them. Seeing that the southerners wanted to get their work done as fast a possible, they might have just used slaves because they believed that it was a competition between them and the north. I think that even though they had slaves, deep down they knew what they were doing was wrong, but didn't know any other way to survive. 1205428819

I agree with Agr. Slavery wasnt just used in the southern states, it was commonly used throughout the world, long before America was found. As the Europeans discovered new lands, they took the natives of the land to use them as a source of labor. By the time the southerners began to capture africans and use them as slaves, slavery was a common practice throughout the world. We cannot blame them for using a practice that was used commonly at the time. Cotton was the main source of wealth in the southern states, and to stop the practice of slavery, the price of cotton would have increased by a lot. I understand why they had to keep slavery, but the problem was, the way they treated the slaves. Maybe, if they didnt call them slaves, rather just treat them as workers with cheap wages, the conflict would not have been as bad. 1205452012

Well out of all these posts I have read a lot of good points. Slavery in general is one of those issues that could be debated over for forever and you still wouldn't be able to come to one civil agreement. A big part of it is the change in time, life was so different back then. Its like if we compare something small like their schooling to ours and see how different that is. Then we take a huge issue of slavery and try to compare that? It's way to hard, it doesn't even come close. I think that yes slavery was the norm for the people of the south. It was their decision to do it but at the same time I don't they lost much sleep over it either. For one family and plantation they had tons of slaves. So I don't believe they could have made their children do it. Slavery kind of makes me think of today how were hiring illegal immigrants to do the work cheaper therefore putting many American men and women out of work. But I guess thats getting into a whole new argument. 1205462923

Slaves in the south had something that some people take for granted everyday, freedom. Slaves could not do anything without being severely disciplined. They did not have the freedom of life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness, three of our natural born rights as humans. Slavery was a terrible thing to be a part of. Sometimes mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers all got sold to work on different plantations. No one should be penalized because of the color of his or her skin, at least not to that extreme. Although slaves were very useful on the plantations, it does not make it right to have them. 1205469987

We can't blame people for using slavery in the beginning of this country, but unfortunately, the Constitution that built this country expressed things that would eventually and inevitably lead to outlawing slavery. This country has always been about complete equality, and in order to achieve that, we had to not do what other countries had been doing for years, and do what we as a free people believed in. This lead to us becoming one of, if not the, strongest country in the world. 1205470970

The discussion regarding the South’s problems is one consisting of many inequalities. I do not believe that there should be discrimination between different races or ethnicities. It is extremely unfair that the superior race had the power to enslave those of other races to do the tasks that they did not want to do. Using a minority group, particularly African Americans, like in the South, is a practice that should have ended sooner than it did. If slavery would have ended, there is a great chance that the Civil War would not have ended how it did. The enslaving of any individual, regardless of race or ethnicity, is extremely wrong and should never be practiced again.

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