Slavery A Positive Good Analysis

The marketing strategy of slavery as a “positive good”, which Calhoun crafted for southern Democrats and the South as a whole, insisted that the institution was actually beneficial for blacks. Calhoun argued that since blacks were inferior, slavery operated as a civilizing agent which improved the conditions of slaves. According to Calhoun, “Never before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually.” If blacks were left to toil in the free competition of the North, Calhoun argued, they would not fair nearly as well. Calhoun affirms that slavery protects the slave from ending up in a “forlorn and wretched
Cox, author of Traveling South: Travel Narratives and the Construction of American Identity, Olmsted believed “that the South should model itself on New England.” Further, Cox argues that “Olmstead the traveler depends on the ideal of a stationary, independent yeoman,” and this yeoman perspective shapes his view of the South. In the preface, Olmsted claims to be writing from an impartial perspective, but it is clear that this Yeoman perspective pervades his piece. The most obvious example is that Olmsted writes under the pseudonym “Yeoman.” There is nothing subtle about this and it cannot be ignored. More evidence of Olmsted’s yeoman bias can be seen when Olmsted attributes the impressive organization and administration of Mr. X’s plantation to the “rugged fields, the complicated looms, and the exact and comprehensive counting-houses of New England, which directs the labor.” The aspects of slavery which Olmsted found to be notable were not products of southern ingenuity, but New England labor practices. When viewed through this Yeoman perspective, it is not surprising that Olmsted asks, “where is the advantage [in slavery]?” For Olmstead, slavery deprives the slave of the ability to be “self-dependent,…[and] to provide for the present and future of those loved.” The implication is that the New England yeoman ideal is incompatible with slavery, and that slavery posed a direct threat to the New England Yeoman ideal. The expansion of the former would mean limit the spread of the