Slavery’s Implications Essays

Slavery’s Implications Essays Slavery’s Implications Essay Slavery’s Implications Essay Often times, intelligent people can utterly disagree on a point and all make compelling arguments for their position.   Such contentious issues tend to be ones that are very interesting to discuss.   In fact, one such example can be found in the idea, proposed by Frederick Douglass in his autobiography, that the institution of slavery was as deleterious to some of â€Å"the white owners and overseers† as it was to â€Å"the slaves.†Ã‚   This concept, which as a matter of subjective opinion could be argued almost endlessly with no resolution, still brings up extraordinarily interesting issues.   Indeed, one could argue that the â€Å"white owners and overseers† were harmed by slavery just as much as the slaves were, due to things such as physical harm, societal harm, and moral harm. It would, perhaps, be apropos to begin with what is probably the least detrimental of the damages that slavery visited upon those who wielded it, namely physical harm.   Of course, particularly in light of the many atrocities against slaves that are vividly detailed in Douglass’ autobiography, the idea that slavery physically harmed the slave-owners seems somewhat laughable.   When one examines the question more closely, though, it seems apparent that there was in fact some physical damage done to the slave-owning aristocracy.   For instance, at one point Douglass details the â€Å"management† of his master’s horses by two fellow slaves, both named Barney (Douglass 34).   On the face of things, where exactly is the harm in that to his master, Colonel Lloyd?   There doesn’t outwardly seem to be any.   That, however, is the insidious nature of the harm that is taking place.   Outwardly, the idea of having all the physical labor in one’s life done by someone else does not seem a particularly injurious occurrence.   In truth, though, one is really being robbed of one of life’s most basic gifts, the feeling of an honest day’s labor. Needless to say, that doesn’t really compare to the level of actual physical damage that was done to the slaves themselves.   It is important to remember, however, that pure physical hurt is not necessarily the litmus test for harm.   For instance, in terms of societal harm, the white slave-owners of the south were hurt on a massive scale.   An example of how this is so can be found in Frederick Douglass’ description of Mr. Severe, who â€Å"was rightly named:   he was a cruel man.†Ã‚   (Douglass 29).   Consider the following circumstance, for example, wherein Douglass talks about how he saw Severe, â€Å" ¼whip a woman, causing the blood to run half an hour at the time; and this, too, in the midst of her crying children, pleading for their mother’s release.†Ã‚   (Douglass 29).   Now, in the majority of societies, an individual like Mr. Severe, who seemed to be a sociopathic lunatic, would end up incarcerated or somehow exiled from the remainder of society.   Within the scope of a society employing slavery, though, he instead finds good employment and the perfect venue to display his sickening tendencies.   This is just one example of the sort of damage that slavery did to the slave-owners’ societal fabric. Societal harm, however, pales in comparison to the injuries that slavery visited on the slave-owners morally.   There are myriad ways that one could examine this moral decay, but one exceptional example can be found in Douglass’ analysis of the hypocritical nature of Christianity amongst slave-holders, found in the book’s appendix (Douglass 120).   This is a truly wonderful condemnation of the ethical and moral environment that is allowed to thrive under slavery.   Douglass writes, â€Å"He who sells my sister, for purposes of prostitution, stands forth as the pious advocate of purity.†Ã‚   (Douglass 121).   Truly, such fearsome hypocrisy can only really come to be in a society in which the hypocritical base of power is that some people can own others for wholly arbitrary reasons. Likewise, the institution of slavery also destroyed the natural, intrinsic morality of its biggest proponents.   For example, one might look at the two brutal, evil acts of murder that Douglass describes back to back, the murders of his wife’s cousin and an old man who was oyster fishing (Douglass 41-42).   It is no secret that under slavery all of the darkest, most iniquitous inclinations of the human mind are unleashed.   Things such as rape, incest, murder, and sheer sadism are unleashed when people are given total control to act with impunity towards another human being.   Sometimes, however, it takes actual examples, described in black-and-white terms that are inescapable, to fully manifest the understanding of this in one’s mind.   This is precisely what Douglass does throughout his autobiography.   In the same way that Elie Wiesel chronicled the horrors of the holocaust in his book Night, Douglass systematically depicts the horrors of slavery, all to help those who cannot really conceive of it in their efforts to do so. In conclusion, it seems rather evident that one could make a convincing argument that the white slave-owners were as injured by slavery as were the slaves.   Of course, as Frederick Douglass would’ve almost certainly admitted, self-inflicted injury is significantly less apt to be viewed compassionately compared to the terrible injury that was imposed on the slaves.   On the other hand, the self-inflicted damage is in some ways infinitesimally more severe, due to the fact that there is no moral vindication like there is with the injury that happened to the slaves.   In any case, this highly contentious subject matter is one that will continue to be fascinating and relevant for generations to come.   In fact, the issue of slavery’s full implications is such a rich, deep subject that one could quite easily devote a lifetime, in its entirety, to nothing other than the study of such repercussions.