7).
Du Bois also points out that the so-called "slave codes" like the Black Codes of the Reconstruction period after the Civil War were written to enforce the notion that slaves "were not considered as men. They had no right to petition. They were devisable like any other chattel. They could own nothing. They could not legally marry, nor could they control their children. They could be imprisoned by their owners" without a trial or any type of legal defense (1992, p. 10). In reality, African-American slaves "were purely and absolutely property to be bought and sold... As a tract of land, a horse or an ox" (Du Bois, 1992, 11). With this in mind, it becomes rather clear that slavery in the United States, although not a "deliberately cruel and oppressive system... with systematic starvation and murder" (Kolchin, 2003, p. 134) was nonetheless a great and grave mistake, one filled to overflowing with racial hatred, bigotry and discrimination and fueled by greed on the part of the wealthy plantation owners.
In conclusion, the suggestion that the establishment and propagation of slavery in the United States was a very grave mistake can be...
To avert this evil, every sacrifice should be made except that of honor, freedom and principle" (Slavery, Internet, p. 144). Of course, Channing is speaking of the Civil War which divided the country as never before and left some five million African-Americans virtually without a nation. However, to say that slavery was merely a mistake is not enough, for in truth, it was a catastrophic error in human judgment, one that changed the very face of America and one that endured well into the 20th century and beyond.
References
Channing, William Ellery. (1843). Slavery. Internet. Retrieved April 21, 2008 at http://www.prism.net/user/fcarpenter/slavery.html.
Du Bois, W.E.B. (1992). Black Reconstruction in America: 1860-1880.
New York: The Free Press.
2005). The Souls of Black Folk. New York: Bantam Classics, Inc.
Eltis, David. (1999). The Rise of African Slavery in the…
