Need Help with Essay question about African Americans in the 19th century?

~White slave owners did not have to "rationalize" slavery. Slavery was an institution protected by the US Constitution (see Article I, section 2, Article IV, sections 2 and 9 and Amendments IV, V, IX and X)

African slavery was around long before Jamestown was founded. Slavery itself is almost as ancient and honored a tradition as prostitution. The only way slavery was going to be abolished was by state law or constitutional amendment. There wasn't enough support in the north to ratify such an amendment in the antebellum years, forget the south. In fact, in 1861, the Corwin Amendment was passed by northern dominated Congress. The war intervened and it was never ratified. Had it been, the amendment would have been Amendment XIII to the constitution and would have prohibited any constitutional amendment to abolish slavery.

Abolitionists were a small minority in 1860. Abolition would have had devastating dire consequences. Imagine what would have happened if suddenly four million people were turned loose on society, homeless, uneducated, unemployed, unemployable with no marketable job skills and no means of support, hated in the north and south alike for the color of their skin and racial differences. It was with that in mind that congress passed the illegal and unconstitutional Confiscation Acts and Lincoln a few months later promulgated his equally illegal and unconstitutional Emancipation Proclamation.

By the way, those African Americans so opposed to slavery? Many tens of thousands served valiantly and voluntarily in the Confederate Army. Their love of country was stronger than their opposition to the institution of slavery. They may not have known or understood that the CSA states had the absolute right to secede from the union but they did know the Massah Lincoln was invading their homeland in a war of aggression and they wanted to defend their homes just as much as their former owners wanted to defend theirs.

Take some of the bias out of your premise and learn a little about the facts of the situation before writing your paper based on the mythology.

First off researching the civil war wouldn't help you at all. Were it between the slaves and the slave owners then I'd say go for it, but since it wasn't and slavery was just the final straw and not the real reason for the war I don't think it would do you much good.

You might try looking up slavery in the old south, antebellum slavery, the antebellum south and figures like Frederick Douglas and Harriet Tubman.

I don't have many links, but you'd really be better off with books in this instance I think. But I'll give you what I have.

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