Morality of Slavery

        Slavery never provided benefits for those that worked. A person who was enslaved never received proper treatment. After a slave was bought, the master made his new work hours and gave him his necessities. Most of the time, slaves were given very little to eat and drink. They would work out in the fields for more than twelve hours, never receiving payment for the duty. The only thing a slave received would be punishment. Normally, a person who worked twelve hours a day would receive a good lump sum of cash at the end of his work week. For slaves, the exact opposite was reality. They were pushed to the extremes and had to adapt without the benefits that we take for granted every day. A big meal to a slave would be the leftovers that most Americans leave on their dinner plates. If a slave received today’s minimum wage and worked the same amount of hours, they could make a living for themselves. Today’s workers are allowed sick days and even use sick days to play hooky. For a slave, everyday was workday. There was no such thing as the benefit of a sick day. Unless you were having a baby, you were working your tail off in the hot summer sun and the cold winter wind. Since the slave owners never thought of the slaves as human beings, they saw these poor conditions and the non beneficial work as tough luck. They were in control and wanted to spend as few dollars as possible to keep the slaves fed and functioning. A person’s self esteem is benefitted from hard work and its outcome. A slave was deprived of this moral benefit. When you receive your very first hard earned paycheck, you feel like you are on top of Mount Everest. Slaves never had this building block. They dreaded work and did it just to receive their daily rations and to keep their lives. If a slave goofed up once, only one person benefitted. That slave driver was getting some very strong arms from cracking that bull whip across the slaves back. Slaves should have been entitled to the benefits that Americans receive. When you enslave another human being, all work benefits are removed. The slave master receives thousands of dollars for the free work of many blacks. Someone might say that a slave does benefit in some ways. They do not have to pay for housing, even if it is a little bit. They are given clothes to put on their body, food to put in their mouth, and a crude roof to give them shelter from Mother Earth. If these people were to go back in time and see how few benefits and how rudimentary their few “benefits” were, their minds might be changed. Everything we take for granted in our workplaces was not there for slaves. If you think about it, “slavery” still happens in today’s workforce. Some people are pushed to the max and don’t receive the right pay. Some bosses require their workers to work above and beyond the limit but only pay them the wages of a first time employee. The work place can be just as makeshift as it was for the slaves in the 1800s. Is it moral to make a young teenager to work the same amount of hours as an adult and put in the same amount of work as an adult, just to be given fewer benefits and less cash? Even though we think of slavery as African Americans in the cotton growing age, it is still going on in today’s workforce. Slaves had no hope for progress and had to live with the conditions and few benefits. Today, we have new laws being established that protect teenagers, raise minimum wage, and regulate health standards. For a slave, there was no chance that things were going to get better. They eventually learned to live with their work benefits. Up until the Emancipation Proclamation made by President Abraham Lincoln, slaves worked for free. Afterwards, the law required slaves to be given benefits such as more food and pay if they chose to stay on their master’s property and work.

        The religious aspect of slavery has been a thriving argument for many decades. People seem to think that it is ok for a person to own another human being. After all, God allowed the Israelites to be put in captivity right? This view has stirred up many disputes. If God allowed his chosen people to become slaves, then why can’t we do it? Many of the slave drivers in the 1800s were devoted church goers. They were taught the events that happened to the Israelites. It did not happen just once to God’s chosen people. Being held captive by the Philistines or another surrounding people was a regular occurrence almost every one hundred years. God allowed his people to be slaves as a method of punishment. The slave masters saw it completely different. God punished the Israelites because they had turned away from him. Nine times out of ten, God’s method was enslavement. When he created Adam and Eve, he intended for every human he made to be equal, just like Jefferson said. God did not make white people superior to African Americans. His morals are the perfect morals. No standard is ever greater then God’s. The slave masters thought it was religiously ok to own another human being. To them, it was fun playing God and having your cotton field as “Earth”. They did not see their treatment of slaves as an evil thing. The preachers in that day preached what people wanted to hear, and that happened to be that slavery was moral. They saw no wrong in it. In the north, it was a completely different story. Their religious view on slavery was that it was immoral to own another human being and make them do your bidding. Slave masters would get mad when their slaves would sing spiritual songs. Blacks knew that just like the Israelites, they would be delivered. It might have taken till Lincoln’s Proclamation for that to be accomplished, but their faith stood.

        The most talked about issue concerning slavery and its morals is the governmental aspect. The south used slavery as an economical crutch. Slavery in the south was lawful. The government of the Confederate States knew that without slavery, their livelihood would become extinct. Every single portion of income was related somehow to slaves in the south. Exports such as cotton and tobacco were harvested by slaves. After the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney, the slavery boom increased. The south could multiply their earnings tremendously now. The government tried everything in their power to say that slavery was moral. Even though they knew that it was cruel and harsh punishment, they continued to do everything that they could legislatively to keep their way of life. Political candidates were chosen based on their views of slavery. Every part of the Confederacy’s government revolved around slavery. Without it, they were nothing. People think that slavery was ok because it preserved their way of life. Demoralizing a person and making a profit out of it is a very corrupt thing. The Confederacy tried their best to prove to the North that slavery was moral and that their way of life was alright. In the end, the North and its morals concerning slavery won the final battle.

          Overall, slavery can be seen as moral and immoral through topics such as government policies, religion, and the slaves themselves. It is safe to say that slavery is immoral and has thankfully been put to an end. Even though slavery has ended, the American people should not stop there. We should strive to raise the standards for our people and make life how it should be. Every human being should be equal to his fellow citizen. In the end, hopefully, America’s morals will stand and make us the greatest nation to ever be, even with our faults.