Page:Journal of Negro History, vol. 7.djvu/26

10 quence and his family did not suffer from his wrong doings. It was asserted that the slave was happy and loved his master as a father, "looking up to him as his supporter, director, and defender." Dew inquired: "Why, then, since the slave is happy and happiness is the great object of all animated creation, should we endeavor to disturb his contentment by infusing into his mind a vain and indefinite desire for liberty, a something which he can not comprehend and which must inevitably dry up every source of his happiness?"

But the chief argument advanced was that slavery was the price of prosperity and progress of the South. The North had a moderate climate because of the sea breeze and elevation, and thus white men were able to till the soil, while the intense heat of the South rendered it impossible for the white man to work in the fields and made a large supply of black men necessary. As Harper said, "The products of slave labor furnished more than two-thirds of the materials of our commerce, employed in transporting and exchanging; and among the slaveholding States is to be found the greater market for all the productions of their industry, of whatever kind. The prosperity of those States, therefore, and the civilization of their cities have been for the most part created by the existence of slavery." In addition, slavery released the planter from manual labor and gave him more time to cultivate his mind, and thus the Southern planter was highly educated, cultured, and refined. In the mind of the planter, slavery was "the defence of human civilization." Students of economics, however, saw that it was an evil which had to pass away.

