How did Southerners defend the institution of slavery in response to abolitionism?
First, lets tackle the defense of slavery issue. This is from a speech given by Thomas Drew in defense of slavery…”Every one acquainted with Southern slaves knows that the slave rejoices in the elevation and prosperity of his master; and the heart of no one is more gladdened at the successful debut of the young master or miss on the great theater of the world than that of either the young slave who has grown up with them and shared in all their sports, and even partaken of all their delicacies, or the aged one who has looked on and watched them from birth to manhood, with the kindest and most affectionate solicitude, and has ever met from them all the kind treatment and generous sympathies of feeling, tender hearts . . . ” It pretty well sums up the feeling of the wealthy Southerners about slavery. they felt they were honestly beneifitting a population of “ignorant savages” who were unfit to care for themselves.
