Antebellum Rights for Blacks
The antebellum period is generally considered the time between 1820and the beginning of the war in 1865. Slavery was an integral component ofthe culture in the United States at that time. Abolitionists abounded inthe North while the 'trade' continued to flourish in the south. Threedocuments from that era present the social as well as legal perspective The first is an article by a prominent doctor, Dr. Samuel Cartwright,entitled, Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race. It was his purposeto validate the ownership of slaves as a means of providing shelter andindustry to a race handicapped to such a degree that they could not prosperon their own. The second document is the opinion of Justice Taney in theDred Scott versus Sanford case of 1857. Here, it is legally determinedblacks of the pre-Civil War era do not have the rights of an Americancitizen. The third document is a speech presented to the United StatesSenate on March 4, 1858 by James Henry Hammond wherein he argues that theblack race are slaves through natural law. All of these documents werewritten in the belief that slavery was a legitimate social institution
Theother symptoms that he describes as part of the disorder are equallyattributable to the normal reaction to slavery. This, however, is a contemporary belief - the people of the timebelieved in Dr. That is, a classrequiring but a low order of intellect and but little skill . Cartwright appeals to the authority of God and his ownobservations. There is no documentation of the physical symptoms spoken of by Dr. It was also considered true that individuals had no common superior, thatthey were not subject to any rule to which they did not have the liberty ofconsent. It differs from every other species of mentaldisease, as it is accompanied with physical signs or lesions of the bodydiscoverable to the medical observer, which are always present andsufficient to account for the symptoms" (Internet source). The assumption that people of any color can be whipped intosubmission and then bred to maintain that submission is without logic ormerit. Itdecreed, in essence, that blacks of the pre-Civil War era did not have therights of an American citizen. Such a classyou must have, or you would not have that other class which leads progress,civilization, and refinement. Freedom may have a myriad of meaning according to the individual, thetime, place and social connotation. The social roles of'blackness' are defined by the power relationships found within the societyitself as well as the real and unreal expectations. Inthe United States, the role of the government is often defined by theruling of the courts. Andthe State may give the right to free Negroes and mulattos, but that doesnot make them citizens of the State, and still less of the United States"(Dred Scott 422, 405).
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Acceptance Essays
