¶ … defense of Southern society, George Fitzhugh argues that Southern culture is cohesive and that slavery is an integral part of social stability. For example, the author claims that income disparity is higher in the North than in the South. Fitzhugh also mentions that the Southern lifestyle was generally more peaceful and civilized than living in Northern urban centers was. However, his point-of-view is most obviously biased by the fact that he lived as a landholding white man, not as a slave. Fitzhugh was also passionately attached to the South. His views reflect his affection for the atmosphere he was familiar with. Especially as ties between North and South grew tenous, his writing reads like political propaganda. Had Fitzhugh put himself in the shoes of slaves he might not so passionately defend the peculiar institution. Still, the document illustrates many of the core logical arguments used by Southerners to defend slavery.
In 1960, Daniel Hundley wrote about the yeomen of the South. The poor white farmers living in the South are given relatively little treatment in history texts because they were out-shadowed by their plantation- and slave-owning counterparts. Hundley was more personally familiar with plantation life than with yeoman life, as he was born on a plantation. However, his familiarity with Southern ways of life enables him to write clearly about the role yeomen played in shaping American history. His document illuminates the nuances of social and economic class in the antebellum South.
1910 document attributed to Uncle Ben describes the personal, first-hand experiences of a slave. The author mentions having to work seven days a week without respite, noting that women were not exempt from hard labor. He describes the field work and the brutal discipline used to keep all slaves in line including physical but also psychological abuse. The document is one of many autobiographical accounts of the cruelty used to keep slaves in line.
The song "Go Down Moses" is one of many American folk songs borne from oppression. The lyrics allude to the Old Testament tale about Moses and the Jews being enslaved in Egypt, aptly comparing African slaves to them. In "I Thank God," the lyrics are about liberation from slavery and show how music reflected the experience of African-Americans.
He consistently mentions how important it is to throw off geographical boundaries and beliefs, and unite in a common goal of freedom and liberty. He also notes that the Constitution is meant to be amended, but it must be treated with respect, rather than used as an instrument of power or greed. He warns against "alterations which will impair the energy of the system," and urges the people to give
In addition, both governments and churches began to grow suspicious of the group, probably because of the "organization's secrecy and liberal religious beliefs" (Watson, 2009). As a result, Portugal and France banned Freemasonry; in fact, it was a capital offense to be a Freemason in Portugal (Watson, 2009). Moreover, "Pope Clement XII forbade Catholics from becoming Freemasons on penalty of excommunication" (Watson, 2009). Feeling pressure in Europe, many Freemasons
Orwellian World The Accuracy of George Orwell's Predictions and What They Hold for Our Future When, in 1949, George Orwell published Nineteen Eighty-Four, the world had just witnessed one of the most trying and tumultuous periods in all of human history. In the space of only thirty-five years, there had been two world wars, a communist revolution, a host of fascist dictators, and a frenzy of slaughter such as had never
Vann Woodward and Jim Crow Evaluating the impact of Reconstruction social policy on blacks is more controversial due to the issue of segregation. Until the publication of C. Vann Woodward Strange Career of Jim Crow in 1955, the traditional view was that after the gains of Reconstruction, Conservative Democrats clamped down on the blacks by instituting an extensive system of segregation and disfranchisement (Woodward, 1974). Woodward, however, argued that there was
Women and the Home Front in Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee during the Civil War This paper examines the living conditions and attitudes that shaped the lives of the women in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee during and after the American Civil War. The thesis statement should deal with the breakdown of long standing ties between the people of the mountains as they chose to fight for the
Social Impact of Cold War & Terrorism The Cold War is often associated with the idea of making great and physical divides between the good and the bad of the world. It was a symbolic representation that extended for about 30 years on the expectation that the greatest powers of the world could, under the right circumstances, impose a sort of benign order on the planet by isolating the evil empires