Antebellum North. For or Against Slavery?

Were Americans in the Antebellum North really against slavery on both moral and economic grounds?

How much did the North really care about the Africans? Were they really against the idea  having another human being considered a lower class, being a slave. The question whether Americans in Antebellum North really against slavery on both moral and economic grounds is not a hard one to answer, the answer is no. The three documents we looked at as a class proved that the North was pro slavery.

 The first article we looked a was "Broadside". In this document there is a meeting held in Boston by citizens and the mayor.During the meeting they discuss the fact that they need slaves. They agreed that the inhumane treatment of slaves like lynching or the Southern mob attacks were too far and unacceptable,  but they still wanted slaves for labor and chores. They made up the excuse that they didn't want to violate people's constitution rights. They said "The south may be solemnly assured, that the body of our people will not countenance any infraction of their rights." They basically used the constitution as a scapegoat. Since the slaves were considered  property it would be against constitutional rights for the government to take away slaves from the people. The real reason they didn't abolish slavery was because they needed slaves. The economy of America at the time relied on slaves to work the plantations and machines. 

Another document we talked about in class that showed why the North was for slavery instead of against it was the "Cotton Production in Lowell". What happened was the North needed more cotton for them to continue to expand there cotton business. Therefore they needed more people to pick the cotton, and it wasn't going to be a free man picking it. The plantation owners were to cheap to pay a free man so they used slaves as their work force. This required the importation of more slaves, much more. In about 30 years the slave population in America increased by 1.6 million. This was caused by the North's need for more cotton so they could expand there mill businesses. This is just another example of how the north supported slavery.

The next document about Lowell Cloth is another example of how the North was pro slavery. Again the reason is economy. You see the Souths, or the slaves job was to pick the cotton and ship it up North to be manufactured. The picking of the cotton was one way the North relied on the South. Then after the North made cloth from the cotton they sold it back to the plantations. The slave owners bought back a great amount of cloth to clothe their slaves. If slavery were to be abolished, the north would lose that big client and they couldn't afford that. This document also shows how deeply rooted slavery was in the economy of America.

The fact of the matter is this, the North knew that slavery was immoral and they were against the moral grounds of it but, slavery was so embedded in the economy of America that they had no choice but to support it. All in all the North wasn't against the economic grounds, but were against the moral grounds.