Stanley M. Elkins
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Stanley M. Elkins, in Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life, examines the origins of slavery in the United States, related to freedom and authority, and the creation of what he refers to as the "Sambo" as a type of slave personality. The question of the role of "freedom" in the establishment of the brutal system of American slavery must be qualified. The freedom referred has nothing to do with democratic freedom, and everything to do with the unbridled freedom of capitalism to flourish without regard to the rights or even the humanity of the slaves. The rich, white slaveholders were certainly exercised their own democratic freedom, but the fact that slavery accompanied such freedom must call into question any claim that the United States was indeed democratic while slavery endured. Of course, the freedom of the slaves themselves is also not an issue, for they had no freedom whatsoever. The authority of the slaveowner over the slave was a development of economics rather than politics. The overriding consideration, then, was the financial desire of the slaveowners, and when that desire came into conflict with the rights of slaves--even their right not to be murdered--the economic desire of the slaveowner prevailed. In order to ensure the unhindered development of the economic system which depended on slavery, democratic principles were simply irrelevant. At every point, Elkins makes convincingly clear, the slaveowner's authority over the slave w
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kins 43).
Just as the freedom of capitalism grew unhindered out of a system based on a desire for financial gain, and just as a brutal system of slavery grew out of unhindered capitalism, so did the unhindered authority of the slaveholder over the slave grow out of the same obsession with profits. To "the man of means," "the man responsible for Negro slavery" (elkins 48), the slave was a long-term investment, and only as an investment in capital--and not as a human being with basic human rights--was the slave seen by the capitalist:
The planter was now engaged in capitalistic agriculture with a labor force entirely under his control. . . . For the plantation to operate efficiently and profitably, . . . the necessity of training [the slaves] to work long hours and to give unquestioning obedience to their masters . . . superseded every other consideration. The master must have absolute power over the slave's body, and the law was developing in such a way as to give it to him at every crucial point. Physical discipline was made virtually unlimited, and the slave's chattel status unalterably fixed (Elkins 49-50).
The rich capitalist controlled the "democratic" political system which made the laws which determined the relations
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Approximate Word count = 1556
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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