Republican Party's Indictment of Slavery

This study will compare and contrast the Republicans' indictment of slavery, slaveholding society, and the South, as presented in Eric Foner's Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War, with Harriet Beecher Stowe's indictment of the same entities in her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. The essential position of the study is that the Republicans' indictment is based on practical, pragmatic, and economic grounds, while Stowe's indictment is based on ethics, religion and passion.

It will be the additional argument of the study that racism, religion and "small-r" republican ideology played differing roles, with these differences in part shaped by gender contrasts. That is, Stowe's womanhood, it can be fairly argued, allowed her to consider the ethical and religious issues involved in slavery. This may be in part due to the differences between the socialization of women and men in the United States of the middle 19th century. Women were taught to emphasize their emotional natures, including the compassion and empathy which underlie Stowe's critique of slavery. On the other hand, the male Republican politicians, socialized to consider more practical issues, focused on the economic drawbacks of slavery.

It is also important to note that a successful novelist exercises her passions more than her pragmatism, while a successful politician usually refers more often to the economic interests of the people rather than their religious or ethical

Related Essays

Impact of the Murder of Abraham Lincoln .... in the interests of presenting the indictment fully a .... something." McClellan's replacement was Ulysses S. Grant, a .... and a black-based Republican party - in the .... (9137 37 )

Control of Media in Greece Every country has a mix of media inc .... in 1974, and the present republican constitution was .... positive depictions of the government and party activities .... Banks, Arthur S., Political Handbook of the World .... (2180 9 )

Free Press v. Fair Trial in 3 Countries .... On Friday morning, the police called OJ's attorney to .... protecting the judicial process and the "republican system of .... material which may prejudice a party in a .... (10588 42 )

ieves. The Republican politicians in Foner want the white voter to consider the economic advantages which would be won if slavery were brought to an end and replaced by free labor. Certainly there is a strong argument which can be based on such practical matters. Foner writes, for example, of the role of the border state Republican Cassius Clay in the debate over the abolition of slavery: As early as 1842, Clay requested . . . information and statistics about the comparative wealth, population, educational institutions, and arts and sciences of the free and slave states, adding, "These are better arguments than invective." Clay always insisted that his program for ending slavery and promoting the industrial development of the South was designed "to seek the highest welfare of the white, whatever may be the consequences of liberation to the African" (Foner 63). In other words, if the liberation of slaves resulted from the economic shift away from slavery, then so be it, but it was not the major objective of the Republican politician. Again, such arguments on the part of the Republicans with respect to economic development were certainly sound, but they were hardly enough to inspire the North to wage war against the South. Th

Category: Government - R