Religious Argument for State vs Mann

 

The following writing is a speech I wrote defending the idea that slavery should be abolished focusing on the idea of religion for the case known as State vs. Mann. This case was the state of North Carolina against John Mann. Mann shot his slave named Lydia and then was told to pay a $10 fine. Unfortunately the state lost this case because the Supreme Court ruled that slaveowners had all legal rights to do what they wanted to their slaves.

Slavery is the devils work. Any person who believes it is moral will be looked down upon by the eyes of God. As Exodus states in 21:16 “Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.” Our Bible even states how we do not condone slavery so why should we support it? Why are so called religious people still choosing to own slaves when our Bible states things like this?

The people who believe in slavery use them to perform there duties on there beautiful farm lands that the lord has blessed them with. This is not right, God bless you with that land, it is for you to take care of and nourish not anyone else. The people who own slaves believe they are superior. God is who we should be trying to please and only him. Listening to the Bible is how we should be doing it. “Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves.” Peter 1:16 People should be free and living through the rules of God not through the rules of someone.Everyone should be able to live their lives freely.  God will punish those who go against him. Those who are with him live without sin and those who betray him walk through their lives as sinners. Does one not feel the guilt of abusing another person? God is always watching, and he knows all. For those who try and hide there slaves from society, God knows. He watches you commit the crimes. It should be gone to many innocent people are getting there lives taken away by slavery. We need to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves and God will back us up. In the eyes of God we are good and we now must go out and preach his words to help end slavery.

http://projects.leadr.msu.edu/youngamerica/exhibits/show/antislaveryreligion/antislaveryreligionusa

https://time.com/5171819/christianity-slavery-book-excerpt/

https://www.biblestudytools.com/topical-verses/bible-verses-about-slavery/

Gone With the Wind Review

 

This film really opened my eyes to a different type of film. I had never seen a film like this one before, one this old. The film has real special effects such as, having to actually light the set on fire, use hundreds of people to create overview scenes, and also use real live animals. This showed be what it really took to create a genuine film like this in a time where they did not have the technology they do today. Without this class, I would most likely had never even had thought to watch this because the idea of an "old" movie would never had been appealing to me.

Gone With the Wind shows a perspective of what it was like during the Civil War. Throughout the film we see how the whites were considered "wealthy" and people of color were treated as slaves. This is what it was like during this time period while the North and South were at war with each other over if slavery was right or wrong.  The film makes the North seem like the "enemy" when in fact they were the ones fighting for slavery to be eliminated, the South believed that they had the right to own them.

The slaves in the film were mostly houseworkers and caregivers, and they played a big role in the film. They go one to treat them as if they were stupid and worth nothing. For example, the female lead named Scarlett was called to help deliver her friends baby but she did not know how and asked a young girl who was her slave. The young girl began to tell Scarlett that she also had no idea how to deliver a baby and then Scarlett began to beat her. This was just one specific example of how the film portrayed the slaves.

As I said before I did really enjoy the film but one thing I did not agree with was how glorified the southerners were. They were shown as perfect and innocent when they were the ones who had owned the slaves. Not the northerners. Maybe this is just my 2022 modern day mindset, but I feel as if it is definitely biased. Overall the film "Gone with the Wind" is a well put together film used to demonstrate life in the Antebellum and Civil War period in time.

Sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/14/movies/gone-with-the-wind-battle.html

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031381/

Bible Team Challenge

 Throughout history, we have seen the idea of slavery take place all over the world. We have focused on the most in the United States, especially in the 1800s. Religion played a massive role in how people viewed slavery because during this time most people were very religious no matter what the religion may have been. In Catholicism, we see that they believed in slavery because their religion never specifically said anything negative about it. Since their religion never preached that the idea of slavery was a sin, they saw nothing wrong with the idea and took it as more of a right. 

Pro-Slavery: Rachel

Since Catholicism was the main religion in the United States throughout the prime years of slavery, it influenced people’s minds the most. According to Ephesians 6:5-8 Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. This shows how the Bible easily tells people it is ok and will not be looked down upon by God. For instance, in Maryland, there was a plantation that was bought by a Jesuit priest in which he used his slaves to spread the word of the Catholic church. The pay that the slaves would receive would go to the building of new churches and new schools. We see here that the Catholic church used the Bible to preach and enforce the idea of slavery.

This photo shows Frank Campbell who was one of the enslaved men on this plantation.

New York Times Article

Over the years the Catholic Church has grown and modernized. One big thing that has changed was when the new Catechism of the Catholic Church (teachings of the Roman Catholic church) was published in 1994. This new idea of teachings truly changes the Catholic’s ideas from pro slavery to against it. In the seventh commandment, it states that “you shall not steal”. This meaning that the idea of slavery is an idea of stealing. You steal their identity, because when slaves were employed they were not given names or self-identities. Also, the employers would steal their incomes and use it on themselves because they believed that they should not get paid. Without the changing of the Catechism of the Catholic church, they would still believe that being treated as an object and stealing one's identity is moral because the church does not say anything against it. “No longer slaves but brothers and sisters,” said has said, Pope Francis.

Pictured is the “Catechism of the Catholic Church” which was published in 1994.

Sources:

https://justiceandpeace.org.au/key-ideas-and-extracts-about-slavery-trafficking/

https://faithmag.com/seventh-commandment-you-shall-not-steal

https://amsterdamnews.com/news/2018/09/18/major-role-catholic-church-played-slavery/

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/

ANTI-SLAVERY: Lauren

Christianity has so much history to it that it is extremely hard to say, “Yes, the Bible was pro-slavery” or “No, the Bible was anti-slavery.” The correct answer to someone asking what the Bible believed about slavery is that it was both pro and anti-slavery. I will be unpacking the anti-slavery side of Christianity. One thing that most people don’t understand is that when the Bible was written, slavery had a completely different meaning, which is why it is hard to come to a verdict on what side the Bible stood. 

Slavery was a completely different concept than it was in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Old Testament talks a lot about slavery. Throughout the O.T., it is clear that slavery existed. In Deuteronomy 27:7 it says: If someone is caught kidnapping a fellow Israelite and treating or selling them as a slave, the kidnapper must die. You must purge the evil from among you. It is evident that slavery was a thing during these times and that people in Israel were struggling. If we take a closer look at Exodus 21, it flat-out condemns the selling and enslavement of people. Although I am supposed to be talking about the anti-slavery side of things, it is not fair to give information about a Bible that supposedly condemns slavery, when there is so much background and history that get to that point. 

(Enslavement in Israel)

So what changed? Why was slavery okay back then but now, any Christian would immediately be against it? What people fail to understand is that slavery as spoken about in the Old Testament was not race-based at all. What one will see if they dive deeper into what the Bible says about slavery, is that it is condoned in both the New Testament and the Old Testament, but less in the New Testament. The Bible states that everyone is made in the image of God. The slave and the master are equally human and protected in our one in Christ. So yes, although the Bible is condoning slavery, is a completely different version of the slavery that we know today. What the New Testament explains better, is that the Bible's main goal was spiritual redemption, not social reform.  

A lot of times in the Bible, "slavery" refers to being a "slave" to Jesus. "When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who is sojourning with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt I am the Lord your God." (Leviticus 19:33-34). One of the reasons people say that the New Testament is more anti-slavery is that it talks more about not submitting yourself to slavery for people other than Jesus. So while the Bible is condemning slavery in a way, it still says that you should be a servant and a slave to Jesus, which is completely different than traditional slavery. In Galatians 3:28, Jesus states, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Jesus Christ." In Ephesians 6:9 Jesus demands, "Masters do the same to them and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their master and yours is in heaven and that there is no partiality with him.” In Ephesians 6:5, Jesus demands, "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ.” 

To conclude our findings, it is fair to say slavery is equally condemned and condoned throughout the Bible and has completely changed over time. The meaning of slavery in the Bible is nothing like the meaning we know today, which is what people fail to understand. There are many different interpretations of what the Bible actually meant by all of these arguments. Religion has played a vital role in the development of slavery, and the Bible has been a critical tool when analyzing if slavery is ethical. 

Sources:

https://www.whatchristianswanttoknow.com/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-slave-of-christ/

https://www.bibleodyssey.org/en/passages/related-articles/slavery-in-the-new-testament

https://emergencenj.org/blog/2019/01/04/does-the-bible-condone-slavery

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/why-wrong-say-bible-pro-slavery/

Frederick Douglas Game: James Henry Hammond

I took the part of being James Henry Hammond who was a governor and state representative in the state of South Carolina. He was extremely opinionated and believed that slavery should exist. Hammond was a very religious man and believed that God has blessed him with his plantations and that his slaves should be blessed and grateful for their lives. This is something I wrote as I played the part of James Henry Hammond:

"I James Henry Hammond believe there should be a class in our social system that has a low level of intellect and can be used to perform duties. For us southerners and fellow South Carolinans we have found a race that can  answer all these commands. We call them slaves. We do not just have them in the south they appear up north just you northerners keep the status low. We keep them for life, we house them, we feed them, and most importantly offer them employment. We do not have to beg them to stay. All the northerners try to preach is that the world has abolished slavery when no one in this world has that amount of power to do so. Only the man himself known as God has that power. In the north you all hire your slaves daily and then they are pulled into the streets of the towns and are harassed by there employers. You wonder why you need to find new ones every day? The south believes that whites under no law can become slaves, slaves are black, God has blessed them with the position of being our slaves. They are not equals with whites. I firmly believe that. “Slavery is I believe to be one of the greatest of all the great blessings that which a kind of Providence has bestowed upon our glorious region.” That is what I stated in my speech that I made to the Senate in March of 1858. In order for our country to achieve all that is great we need our slaves to support us. We want them with us not against us. Ask our slaves how they feel. They will tell you that they are happy and nothing is missing from their lives because we provide essentials for them. So why should we give up our slaves that are perfectly happy with the lives that we have provided for them? Why should we take away their happiness? Upper class civilians should be treated as upper class. We are the ones who own the land. In order for civilization to continue to grow we need a lower class in order to work for us and take care of our fortunes. Mr. Jefferson states that “all men are created equal” but this is false. Men cannot be created equal. We whites are the landowners and this is our right. We decide what should happen in our region. Our slaves help us in ensuring that our civilization can keep rising.  All the states can justify for themselves but we in South Carolina believe that a white mans right of passage is to own slaves. I do not stand for other states, but as for my own I will continue to fight for what we as a region believe is moral. Why should I allow outsiders to come into my region and dictate what we see fit. I do not trespass into other regions and tell the rulers what to go by. The only eyes I plan to please are Gods and he sees what good this is for our region and we must take and protect what God has given us. We as a nation shall never allow others to take what our righteous father has blessed us with".

Sources:

https://www.nps.gov/people/james-henry-hammond.htm

https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1800-1850/Representative-James-Henry-Hammond-of-South-Carolina/

https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/mud-sill-speech-in-the-senate/

The United States Supreme Court

I used to think that's the United States Supreme Court was just where you went if you committed a very bad crime. My young self thought the past few years when I started to pay more attention to the News and to social media posts. Little did I know I lived in a country that had the strongest court on Earth and followed a 200 year old Constitution. The SCOTUS contains nine people who are known as the Supreme Court Justices, they meet weekly to discuss which cases to accept and which to deny. As a group they only approve around 100 cases per year. This was shocking to me because I did not know how selective they really were. 

                    

Pictured above are the nine current Supreme Court Justices.

Over the past couple of months teenagers in the United States have discovered more about what the Supreme Court is than over there years of education. Now a days you can just be scrolling on Tik Tok or any social media platform and see posts about the supreme court. Personally, I have learned a lot more from social media about the Supreme Court than any of my history classes throughout the year. The power of social media is definitely a blessing and a curse because you can get biased information as well as factual. Social media allows not only residents of the United States to discover decisions made by the SCOTUS but also anyone around the world. 

The most recent decision made by the Supreme Court that received the most publicity was their decision to overturn Roe vs Wade. People all over the world began ranting on all social media platforms about their opinions on the decision. Some users took this to an extent and started righting posts with explicit language and writing personal attacks on others posts. This then made social media platforms take a step to remove their accounts from their platform. For example, Facebook would lock your account and users would call this as being placed in "Facebook jail". You would see posts that state "Abortion is murder" or "My body my choice". These are just two of the many things that people would post all over social media to embrace their opinions. 

Pictured above is a photo from the Roe vs. Wade protests.

Personally I am not one who is interested in discussing my opinions on politics or publicly voicing my opinions on topics like Roe vs. Wade on social media. The major thing that I have taken away from all of this the past few months is the amount of power that the Supreme Court holds. One decision that they make can affect the lives of an entire country. No matter what the decision is they are going to have to face negativity due to everyone having different opinions on different topics. as we saw with the Roe vs. Wade case people started grouping into Republican and Democrat sides even though this had nothing to do with a presidential campaign. As an American citizen I am glad I have had the opportunity to learn more about the Supreme Court and as I have gotten older I now have a better understanding on the amount of power it holds.

Sources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWRoXYRsaeo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca8qSuWxcG8&t=622s