Essay about Calhoun And Douglass

Submitted By cpensabene
Words: 938
Pages: 4

John Calhoun and Fredrick Douglass Slavery was an incredibly controversial topic throughout the many years it existed. Clearly, the southern mostly promoted slavery because agricultural and the need for human labor while the north was against it. As a result, everyone had different views on slavery and this was apparent with Frederick Douglass and John Calhoun. Frederick Douglass was a slave throughout his life and because of the personal experiences was very against it. While John Calhoun was first against slavery became very for it. These were just two people’s opinions, and there were many others like this who had opposing views on slavery. As one can see, Frederick Douglass being a slave was very against slavery due to his personal experiences as a slave throughout a majority of his life, while Calhoun was mostly the opposite and completely for slavery mostly through his life. Frederick Douglass was completely against slavery throughout his entire life. He had many personal experiences as a slave who built up his hatred for slavery. For example, Douglass had cruel masters throughout his experience as a slave. At first he had Captain Anthony who constantly beat his Aunt Hester, and whipped him and his family members constantly. The only master that was not as cruel as the others was Mr. Hopkins who did not last very long as a master. Clearly, cruel masters are a big proponent in Douglass’s hatred towards slavery, because he was constantly whipped and beaten, for sometimes even no reason at all. Also, the slave owners never let the slaves be in much contact with their family, which did not seem as a big deal at the time, but later Douglass realized how important family was and he wasn’t able to have that relationship. Also, he was treated very poorly when it came to food and shelter. He only had one piece of clothing and was fed very little. At some times he let a horse run away on purpose and risked getting beaten just so he could go to a garden to get some food in him. Obviously this is a big reason on why he hated slavery and was completely against it. Also, Frederick Douglass was constantly being moved and sold to different places which irritated him because at one point he was moved to Baltimore which he was whipped much less and enjoyed it much more than the other place, and then he had to go right back to his old place he used to work at a couple years later. Lastly, Frederick Douglass could never find ways to get freedom and never had chances to get freedom throughout his experience as a slave which is another build up to his hatred of slavery. When a slave tried to run away and was caught, there were severe punishments. This exact thing happened to Frederick when another slave ratted him out as he was planning to run away. All in all, due to Frederick Douglass’s personal experiences as a slave, he was completely against it. John C. Calhoun was the complete opposite for most of the time when it came to slavery. Owning slaves was in the blood when it came to the Calhoun family. Calhoun was born in South Carolina, which has always been as big slave state in the South. Johns father owned 30 slaves even where slaves were very rare. Calhoun himself owned many slaves and was a plantation owner, which showed he was not against slavery. Even with just these two things, Calhoun was already very positive about slavery. When slavery