Engaging a Pro-Slavery Position in the Classroom

I read everything with an eye on how the book’s arguments and/or evidence might engage my students. This is true for whatever I read, whether it be old or new or whether or not I embrace the argument. I am big on viewpoint diversity. In short, I find that most of what I read has a useful application in the classroom. So with that in mind, today I turn to H. W. Brands’s Heirs of the Founders: Henry Clay, John Calhoun, and Daniel Webster, the Second Generation of American Giants.

Brands’s book is great for a lot of stuff - as it provides succinct overviews on the pressing political issues of the first half of the nineteenth century including: the War of 1812, an inexorable expansion west, the annexation of Texas and resulting war between the United States and Mexico, and of course, the contentions over the future of the institution of slavery. And as the title suggests, it places the second generation of prominent statesmen at the center of the debates, where of course they resided. The yield is some great testimony that will most certainly provide springboards for dynamic discussion in the classroom.

In class, I spend a lot of time looking at how political actors rationalized and justified the institution of slavery in a nation dedicated to “liberty and equality” and how their support of a slave society developed over time…Brands offers some illuminating first hand testimony underscoring the pro-slavery contingent in the national government.

John C. Calhoun of course factors prominently into all of this - asserting that slavery was a positive good, staking claim to the moral high ground, and standing behind the rather odd contention that black people had it waaaaay better as slaves in the South that as free people in the North.

But Calhoun’s was not the only position - in fact, their were a number of prominent statesmen who looked unfavorably upon the institution and wished to see the end of slavery, either gradually or immediately

John Quincy Adams was one of these guys - he said so on multiple occasions, and even offered petition from the enslaved people of Washington D.C. - an effort to abolish the institution in the city, which led to a gag order. Yup, slavers in the South were so threatened by JQA’s position that they threatened to severely restrict his constitutional right to petition to protect their institution.. Hmmmm. As Brands notes, a group of southern congressmen moved to censure Adams:

That John Quincy Adans, a member from the State of Massachusetts, by his attempts to introduce into this House a petition from slaves, for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, committed an outrage on the rights and feelings of a large portion of the people of this Union; a flagrant contempt of the dignity of this House; and, by extending to slaves a privilege only belonging to freemen, directly invites the slave population to insurrection; and that the said member be forthwith called to the bar of the House, to be censured by the Speaker.

I greatly value books that are just loaded with easily digestible materials suitable for classroom discussion. Brands’s work is going to be a fantastic resource for the antebellum period - I mean, just think of the discussions I can generate with my students from this single piece of evidence. I will for sure ask them to contemplate slavers’ conceptions of themselves as free men in an exceptional nation that tolerated (or embraced, depending on who you ask) the institution of slavery. I will also ask them to think about how some might have viewed race-based slavery as a guarantor of their liberty and (white) equality.

Students often have a tough time grappling with these ideas - how on earth could a significant number of people simultaneously endorse human slavery and human liberty? It’s a good question - and I commend any student who asks it. To get a the heart of things, I try to have them analyze testimony on the historical actors’ terms (not ours). If they can see that these guys cannot possibly understand things in the same way as we do, what might seem like glaring inconsistencies to us make perfect sense to the historical actors.

I promise, my classes get deep into this stuff - and we have some heated (but respectful) debates where viewpoint diversity is warmly welcomed. My real joy in reading some of the latest scholarship is getting to bring it to the classroom and let the kids have at it. I’ll let you know how things go with this one in the Fall - until then…

With compliments,

Keith