The Abolitionist Movement: James Henry Hammond

The danger for the economic interests of the southern states was presaged by the abolitionist movement. The economy of Southern states was based on the plantation system of cotton and tobacco, supported by slave labor. All the wealth of this part of the United States was produced thanks to slavery. As result, the economy and politics were dominated by the Aryan race in the South. Therefore, residents of the South didn’t dispute the use of slaves to maintain and increase their wealth and power. Furthermore, slaveholders generated a mindset that was built on the basis of aristocratic ideals. Moreover, the southern societies developed an ideological construct to justify not only their differences with the North, but, above all, the existence
Hammond believed in the idea that slaves were mere human tools, and diverse religious ideas gave support to the use of slaves (262; Gray 259). Hammond mentioned in his defense Bible passages that could legitimize slavery against religious indifference on the subject (262). For Hammond and the southern states, it was obvious that some individuals and other races were clearly superior and inferior, and therefore those circumstances compelled the superior race to dominate the inferior race for their own good (262, 263). African slaves, always according to this theory, were inferior to whites in intelligence, and demonstrated an inability to emerge from barbarism without intervention of the white man (262,263). Hammond affirms that the situation of established dependence has been blessed by God (262, 264). The result could not be different to one positive, showing that, until they were forced into slavery, African slaves were in better conditions under the rule of a white master in contrast to free men in the north, and humans of their same race in England (Hammond 263,264). However, testimonies of those years illustrated the drama that existed between the slaves, and the moral and ethical implications of
Turner's confession projects the voice of the slave population exploited and resentful, and the desire of slaves to be free. Those thoughts were from a slave who was able to be freed from the ignorance instilled by whites; he denied the validity of the principles of slaves from the Bible, and began to openly question the validity and truth of other provisions as well (Gray 259). Turner bent over backwards to avenge and liberate Southern slaves who were under the oppression of the white man to degrade the humanity of African slaves which led him to the realization, by "divine inspiration" of an armed rebellion alarming the white community(Gray 260, 261).
The slave was a person possessed by another just as you can have any other thing, and therefore, slaves were dependents on the will of the possessor. A living being without own purpose, converted into mere means or instrument for the purpose of another man, whose domain was subject. A man without any rights of such: the right to life, liberty, independence in their activity, political rights, and family. A man, whose law and rules of right or wrong was the master. This was the slave and this was their