"Why do you think the U.S. was the last nation in the industrialized world to permit the institution of slavery?"

12/5/03

Chapter 17 Essay

Topic:

"From it's creation in 1776, the United States has always stood for enlightened concepts and has therefore attracted people from all over the world. The first amendment allows freedom of religion and the rights associated with free expression. Our legal system provides many safeguards for our people against unjust arrest and imprisonment. We have a free enterprise economy. People are allowed to vote and there is 'no taxation without representation.' With all this in mind, why do you think the U.S. was the last nation in the industrialized world to permit the institution of slavery?

Essay:

Slavery has been a problem since the beginning of time. So why should the American colonies be any different? Slavery was introduced into the "new world" in 1606, and it grew rapidly in the south until the time of the revolutionary war in 1775. It then continued until 1865, almost a century after the United States received their independence.

Scars of a whipped slave (April 2, 1863, Baton Rou...

English: source: Immigrant Servants Database autho...

English: The Hunted Slaves

There were many reasons for the delay in the abolishment of slavery, such as social acceptance, economic benefits, and the southern government.

First of all, slavery was socially acceptable in the southern colonies. Yes, there was a selected few that felt it was wrong, but they figured that it was necessary for our economy. However, the vast majority of white southerners felt that slavery was doing the blacks a favor. They justified slavery by saying that the African-Americans were better off working on a plantation then in Africa, which was infected with disease and hostility. The idea of racial inequality began long before the Constitution, but the first document attempting to prove the inequality of races was the Constitution itself. If you look carefully into this great but fallible document, the word "slave" never appears. However, the issue was...