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== The Philosophy of Abolitionists ==
[[File:slavesale1853.jpg|thumbnail|300px|Illustration of a slave auction, 1853. Note, an infant is being sold while the child's mother is begging at the feet of her owner.]]
The paradox of slavery is really quite remarkable. In an essay published one month before the start of America’s Revolutionary War, Thomas Paine denounced the practice of slavery. Paine condemns “Traders in MEN (an unnatural commodity!)…who wilfully [''sic''] sacrifice Conscience, and the character of integrity to that golden idol.”<ref>Thomas Paine, “African Slavery in America,” ''Pennsylvania Journal and the Weekly Advertiser,'' March 8, 1775, http://constitution.org/tp/afri.htm.</ref>Succinctly stated, Paine suggests the vehement support for slavery was driven by money whereas abolitionists had the desire to see justice served. They achieved this by returning to the men and women of African descent ''their'' moral ''property;'' freedom.
People were not born in a condition of slavery. In order to be slaves, they had to become slaves. According to Socrates, “all things come to be in this way, opposites from opposites.”<ref>Plato, ''Phaedo,'' 71 a-b.</ref>That being the case, logic dictates that one who became a fugitive was at one time a captive (or slave). Therefore, prior to being a slave, he had to be the opposite of a slave; a free man. There is nothing before freedom; the freedom to choose. This freedom is the original and sole moral property with which one is endowed from birth. That being the case, abolitionists and slave catchers unknowingly had one common interest; they each sought to return stolen property to its rightful owner, thus the dilemma presents itself in the case of chattel property whereby the “owner has a right to reclaim his goods that were stolen…so the slave, who is proper owner of his freedom, has a right to reclaim it, however often sold.”<ref>Paine, "African Slavery in America."</ref>This conundrum is best addressed by analyzing legal rights within the larger arena of moral rights.
In 1850s America, the slave owner had a legal rightto right to possess and capture slaves.However,"that one has a legal right to do something seems to have nothing much to do with the question of whether one has a moral right to do it.”<ref>Diane Jeske and Richard Fumerton, “The Right and the Wrong Ways to think about Rights and Wrongs,” in ''Readings in Political Philosophy: Theory and Applications,'' eds. Diane Jeske and Richard Fumerton (Toronto: Broadview Press, 2012), 312.</ref> Abolitionists deemed freedom to be a moral right thereby rendering the Fugitive Slave Act and all other legislation that legalized the institution of slavery as "bad laws."
Succinctly put, bad laws are those that contradict morality. Whereas defining morality is a complex philosophical endeavor, bad laws can be simplistically defined as being any legal right that one possesses that violates that moral right of another. Bad laws are laws that one “ought not” to have in the first place.<ref>John Stuart Mill, ''Utilitarianism''(1871, repr., Mineola, NY: Dover, 2007), 37.</ref>These laws directly harm specific individuals and also prove detrimental to society as a whole. In the case of slavery, the slave is harmed directly. By oppressing the slave and thereby eliminating his potential for happiness, the slave holder eradicates any future utility the slave’s happiness may have provided for the entire society at large, as it is not feasible to separate an individual from the society in which he lives.
Large planters in the southern United States attempted to convince the growing anti-slavery movements of the northern region that slaves were well cared for and happy in their state of servitude. Most of these claimants cited the struggle for employment and overcrowding in the cities of the northern U.S. as a sound reason as to why they were acting in the best interests of their human property. Viewing African-Americans as racially inferior, owners often dehumanized slaves as a means by which to justify denying them the rights and freedoms enjoyed by white men. In an article published in 1849, Thomas Carlyle went so far as to claim that “Negroes” were created to “be servants to those that are born ''wiser'' [than you], that are born lords [of you]—servants to the whites.”<ref>Thomas Carlyle, “Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question,” ''Fraser Magazine for Town And Country'' Vol. XL (February, 1849) http://www.efm.bris.ac.uk/het/carlyle/occasion.htm.</ref>
Carlyle, like so many others who defended slavery, defined intellect by skin color. Carlyle, writing from England, was referring to the slaves of the West Indies whereas Thomas Paine, writing from the United States, refuted such arguments before they were ever uttered. Although at the time speaking of an inherited monarchy, one can juxtapose Paine’s words based on his consistent anti-slavery opinions. In a small pamphlet entitled, ''Common Sense,'' he wrote that “male and female are the only distinctions of nature, good and bad the distinctions of heaven; but how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth enquiring into.”<ref>Thomas Paine, ''Common Sense''(1776, repr., London:Penguin, 1986), 72.</ref>That unanswered query was the cause of civil war and potentially irreparable harm.
Harm has been deemed too subjective to be succinctly defined. There are some cases of harm that can be considered fairly objective and agreed upon: A woman who is raped is harmed; A child who is taken from his mother never to see her again is harmed, and so is the mother; A man who is stripped to the waist and whipped with a leather strap on his bare skin is harmed; and one who physically labors in the elements from sunrise until sunset without compensation is harmed. These irrefutable harms are also irrefutable facts of slavery. The slave was abused and had no legal right to defend himself. The slave had no right to anything. The denial of the innate right of the freedom to choose is perhaps the greatest harm of all, as from this one harm all of the others grew. Whereas “over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign,” anyone taking action to impede individual sovereignty is causing harm. It is in the prevention of such action that “power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will” (On Liberty, 8). Individuals acting in such a manner to prevent harm are not extraordinary beings but rather they are courageous enough to fulfill the duties of humanity and utilitarian justice.
== How Slavery Harmed All ==
This form of justice can be found in no legal tomes or constitutional doctrines, but rather in the minds of aware and conscientious people. Abolitionists were just such people. They acted for the greater good. Not only did chattel slaves surpass slave owners in quantity, but their condition in life, through no fault of their own, was detrimental to the whole of society. Plantation mistresses flew into fits of rage as they were well aware that the children of slaves bore remarkable resemblances to their husbands. White children became owners of their half-siblings. White farmers who were not as financially well-off as the large planters had no means by which to purchase slaves therefore were unable to compete with those who did not pay for labor. Economic downturns arose as little employment was available to southern whites. The tensions that grew in an expanding nation eventually led to the death of 628,000 men, countless others who were permanently wounded, and the assassination of the President the United States. Slavery——harm——led to all of those things.
[[File:underground_railroad_map.jpg|thumbnail|300px|Map of routes taken by the Underground Railroad.]]
The utilitarian knows that in order for society to thrive, the individuals who compose that society must do the same. Thrive, in this case, is not defined by monetary gain but rather by group cohesion, individual happiness, and collective justice. Sadly, this was not the case in Antebellum America as “so much less do the generality of mankind value liberty than power.”<ref>Mill, ''On Liberty,'' 89.</ref>Abolitionists were different in that they wanted liberty for all of mankind as opposed to the power that slave owners wanted for themselves. The men and women of the Underground Railroad sacrificed their safety and security because they knew it was their duty, thus, if they did not assist a fugitive, they were equally as guilty of harm as the master himself. Wherein the slave owner caused harm by his actions, the free man who did nothing caused an equal amount of harm by his inactions. It is, therefore, the obligation of all people to prevent harm when possible. By doing so, immediate justice will be served and future utility secured.
