Slave Power Conspiracy American History

American History: Slave Power Conspiracy

Slave power conspiracy refers to the power the Southern United States was trying to gain over the Federal government and make slavery legal and universal all over the country from the 1840s to 1850s (Neklason, 2020). This is why the civil war was on the rise since the South had created an image of slavery over the entire country and the government in terms of glorification. This paper aims to analyze the same lionizing of the South of the slave power, how slave power rose by gaining strength from this system via the Three-Fifths clause, and how enslaved Black people reacted towards the slave power and its so-called glory.

South, which was constantly in the struggle to legalize slavery on a mass level, was telling stories that slavery provided those individuals the lifestyle that they could not have imagined building for themselves otherwise in freedom (Neklason, 2020). They had food and a home of great quality that the enslaved people would have no reason left to ask for their liberty.

South was spreading the images to convince the rest of the country, which even Abraham Lincoln was not ready to take, that slavery was the only solution for the betterment of all citizens. Lincoln wrote in his book “House Divided” that it was a powerful plot to nationalize slavery with the help of this conspiracy. In contrast, the word ‘conspiracy’ is strictly used against the mechanisms that certain parties within the country were used to hurt political stability and the American pledge of independence (Epp, 2004).

On the back, Southern America was doing so to use slavery for their good. They wanted to keep slavery so that the slaves kept working on their farms and kept working for them to provide Americans with food and plantations (Wright, 2020). The massive tobacco and rice productions were only possible with the use of large slavery abuse to keep their South economy running (Wright, 2020).

The brutality of slavery was also seen in cotton production, leading to the South’s inability to hire free laborers. South kept negating the allegations of transportation infrastructure and inciting inelasticity of supply within the region to make their side of the economy strong (Wright, 2020). This situation created a high conflict of interest of what Southern America with new colonies settling in wanted and the rest of the country where Lincoln was strongly opposed to what the South was up to. A clear-cut major tension in the political and economic interests of the two sides and that of the slaves who were not willing to live a merciless slave life gave rise to the civil war.

To release this tension, Southern and Northern government created a legislative bond in 1787 called the Three-Fifth clause, in which additional representation of slaves was allowed in the House of Representatives compared with the Free states (Ohline, 1971). The Southern side used this power to abuse their upper hand control further as they wanted to rule with their slave power over the rest of the country.

In return, they did not treat their slaves as the slave owners did not want their slaves to escape. Slave catchers were appointed to prevent them from breaking free from the chains of slavery and capture them back (Ohline, 1971). The Free states also confirmed that the rights of slaves were infringed badly. The slave states were the only ones benefitting the most from this clause since the purpose of representation was misused.

On the other hand, Congress aimed to offer representation to the slaves and step towards the complete abolition of slavery. However, the Southern side was ready to accept this eradication and perpetually distorted the clause for their advantage. It was evident that the Southern side had gained more electoral power, which would have been impossible if the slave community had been entirely excluded.

The disproportion of the South’s slave power was clear in the sense that the addressing of the actual problem was not seen. The evil of the institution, slavery, was not able to detach itself from the Sothern side as with each step the Federal government took to solve the issue, the more the Southern side misused it for their gains. It allowed them to reclaim their “slave power,” no matter how criminal their slavery actions were.

Witnessing the outcomes of the Three-Fifth clause, Fourteenth Amendment came in to rescue the further complications arising in the lives of the slaves. Where the Three-Fifth clause intended to give strength and representation to the slave community to fight for their rights, the Sothern side of the US did not interpret that well. In response, the Fourteenth Amendment repealed this clause within the original Constitution (Epps, 2004).

The Fourteenth Amendment seemed to be a breeze of fresh air, where the Citizenship Clause verified that children born to the slaves of the same country would have automatic citizenship of the country. Although their parents might have migrated from different lands previously, their children would enjoy the rights of a typical US citizen as the rest of the population (Epps, 2004). Also, the right to migrate from one region to another within the US was granted to their children.

Similarly, the Due Process Clause prohibited public officials from questioning the slave citizens who would be granted such rights so that political and economic arrangements could guarantee this right to the slaves (Epps, 2004). The significance of the Fourteenth Amendment is immense in terms of the totality of rights it provided to the slaves and weakened the slave power conspiracy. It could be safely said that the United States might not have been able to reach the strong position of the democratic state that it is today without this amendment (Epps, 2004).

The reactions of slaves, mostly Blacks, were the true narration of the so-called glorified slave power by the Southern US. They wanted to free themselves badly from the torturous life they were spending under slavery (Sweet, 2022). They severely resisted slavery as they knew it was illegal and fundamentally against human nature (Sweet, 2022).

The resistance was most obvious at work when they wanted to be free of coerced labor in the fields, and those who refused to work at the plantations were treated badly in front of their families and children, which was a torment. The punishments sometimes were to an extreme severity where the workload was doubled, the food rations were strictly low to provide for the whole family, and harsh physical violence (Sweet, 2022).

The enslaved people retaliated by breaking the tools they had to work with, acting for the illness, and damaging production (Sweet, 2022). Some clever enslaved people showed their reprisal by stealing from their masters; stealing things like fruits, tobacco, money, and cattle was the common agenda of these enslaved people (Sweet, 2022). The enslaved people believed they were the real owners of all the produced assets and that the production should be equally shared among them and the owners. Others reacted by coming to agreement terms by negotiating the daily ration they had to beg for their families (Sweet, 2022). The enslavers imposed additional terms on them to work harder, faster and more hours than they worked daily to earn what the enslaved people were asking for.

Various other forms of reactions from slavery who did not accept slave power conspiracy were flight and armed rebellions. By flight, it meant that Black men were beginning to evade slavery as the numerical plurality of their evasion increased during the eighteenth century (Sweet, 2022).

Through armed rebellion, nine slave revolts were organized among the enslaved Black people who wanted a revolt against the Southern United States (Sweet, 2022). Looting properties and use of weapons were open demonstrations by the armed rebellions to overthrow slavery and its widespread power conspiracy (Sweet, 2022).