Assignment #7

Assignment (Due 11/12): Choose one passage from Thoreau write out the passage and interpret them and explain why you chose them.

Go to the link for African-American Odyssey and under the section Abolition choose two topics from part 1 and part 2, research these topics, and summarize them and explain how they relate to the readings by Thoreau.

"I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe- "That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure"

Thoreau thinks a perfect government should leave the people alone to govern themselves individually. This isn't really something that can happen unless all individuals are willing to obey certain rules of social order without being forced.I chose this passage because i think in some ways people governing themselves would end in a disaster. The lack of agreement among st people would be the number one fail.

PART 1 Fear Of Slave Revolts In addition to numerous published accounts documenting white fear of slave uprisings, many private letters discuss problems brewing on individual plantations. In this letter, John Rutherford, an agent for Virginia plantation owner William B. Randolph, wrote to Randolph indicating that a concerned neighbor near Randolph's Chatworth plantation feared "fatal consequences" if the overseer did not cease his "brutality" toward the Chatworth slaves. After the Chatworth overseer received a demanding letter of inquiry from Randolph, he answered on September 14, 1833, stating that he had whipped some of the slaves because they were idle or had escaped. Although three escapees had not returned, the situation was under control and work was proceeding as usual. John Rutherford to William B. Randolph on the slave mutiny at Chatworth, Richmond, Virginia. September 1, 1833. Manuscript Division. (1-9)

PART 2 Humans For Sale To be sold. . .a cargo of 170 prime young likely healthy Guinea slaves. Savannah, July 25, 1774. Copyprint of a broadside. Prints and Photographs Division. Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-16876 (1-2) Captured Africans were sold at auction as "chattel," like inanimate property or animals. Many literate ex-slaves discussed the degradation and humiliation they felt when they were treated like "cattle." This 1774 broadside, typical of the advertisements used in the North as well as the South before the Civil War, advertises the sale of slaves and land, the availability of employment for an overseer, a recall of debts, and a reward for anyone who captured two runaway slaves. The captors claim that the Angolan Africans, scheduled to be sold at auction in Savannah, Georgia, were "prime, young, likely healthy." The runaway advertisement on this same broadside gives specific information about two African-born male runaways which includes height, complexion, build, and clothing.

First, i would like to start by saying its incredible the type of things i just read about above. The sale of humans, or the maltreatment of the slaves. I now see the positives and negatives of being a self government. In a slave point of view he should definitely rebel and find a way of changing the world. What kind of humanity sells one another. Abuses and mistreat one another. I wouldn't want to only self govern i would want to rebel the world and try and get pay back. Slave owners don't know the pain they are causing these humans until they experience it themselves.