ShmoopTube

Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.

Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos


Period 4: 1800-1848 Videos 18 videos

AP U.S. History 1.1 Period 4: 1800-1848
335 Views

AP U.S. History 1.1 Period 4: 1800-1848. The "separation" that the American Colonization Society advocates for is...what?

AP U.S. History 1.2 Period 4: 1800-1848
274 Views

AP U.S. History 1.2 Period 4: 1800-1848. A growing trend among slaveholders in the South was to argue that slavery was...what?

AP U.S. History 1.3 Period 4: 1800-1848
326 Views

AP US History: Politics in Antebellum America Drill 1, Problem 1. Expanding government and regulation into the Louisiana territory proved chal...

See All

AP U.S. History 1.2 Period 4: 1800-1848 274 Views


Share It!


Description:

AP U.S. History 1.2 Period 4: 1800-1848. A growing trend among slaveholders in the South was to argue that slavery was...what?

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:00

[ musical flourish ]

00:03

And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by flawed logic,

00:06

arguments in need of a little touch-up.

00:08

All right, take a look at this excerpt.

00:10

No argument is necessary... [ mumbles ]

00:13

All right, and the question:

00:14

A growing trend among slaveholders in the South

00:17

was to argue that slavery was...

00:20

What? And here are your potential answers.

00:23

[ mumbles ]

00:28

All right, well since slavery had been an accepted institution

00:30

in American culture from our earliest days...

00:34

Southern slaveholders had never really needed to justify its existence.

00:39

But once Northern abolitionists

00:41

started campaigning against slavery,

00:43

plantation owners were forced to come up with

00:45

ways to defend the horrible practice.

00:47

Let's see which of the answers best describes

00:50

the line of reasoning they used.

00:54

Was their argument that slavery was

00:56

A - a necessary evil in the Southern economy?

01:00

Well, few people in the South argued

01:01

that it was a necessary evil.

01:03

Really, they didn't even see it as being evil...

01:07

given the twisted racial ideology

01:09

they had about Africans being lesser in value than whites.

01:13

So it ain't A.

01:15

Did they believe that slavery was

01:17

B - an institution that would eventually

01:19

die out without outside interference?

01:21

Well, quite the contrary.

01:22

At this point, the Southern economy was so dependent

01:25

on the cotton industry that the entire system

01:27

would've fallen apart if plantation owners all of a sudden

01:29

had to pay their employees.

01:31

What a concept.

01:34

So they didn't see a problem with the institution at all.

01:36

And that eliminates B and D.

01:38

Which means their main argument was that slavery was C -

01:42

a practice that stabilized society and deserved

01:45

the government's protection.

01:46

In their desperation to legitimize

01:49

slavery as a necessary institution...

01:53

slaveholders concocted all sorts of arguments.

01:57

One of these arguments was that slavery was a stabilizing

01:59

factor for society and needed to be

02:01

protected by the government. Really.

02:03

We're not kidding. That makes C the right answer.

02:06

You know how it goes.

02:06

When your ears are full of cotton, well,

02:08

it's really hard to listen.

02:10

[ gasp ] [ how dare you ]

Related Videos

AP U.S. History Exam 2.45
703 Views

AP U.S. History Exam 2.45. The journey shown on the map was an example of...what?

AP U.S. History Exam 2.26
362 Views

AP U.S. History Exam 2.26. This speech reinforced a shift in the focus of the war that Lincoln established by...what?

AP U.S. History Exam 1.2
256 Views

What did the Spanish messengers bring with them to North America? Hint: you probably wouldn't be thrilled to get this for your next birthday. 

AP U.S. History Diagnostic 24
208 Views

AP U.S. History Diagnostic 24. How did the United States choose containment over the National Security Council Report in Latin America?

AP U.S. History Exam 2.25
212 Views

AP U.S. History Exam 2.25. In writing the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln was still working to win over Northern voters who believed that...what?