From Letters to Lectures
Letters on the Slave Trade, written by Thomas Cooper and reprinted in 1787 was the height of Cooper's anti-slavery sentiment. The series of letters that appear are extremely critical of the African Slave Trade, and the poem on the cover page views slavery itself negatively.
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Lectures on the Elements of Political Economy, also by Thomas Cooper, and printed in 1826 reveals an almost entirely different person. In this work, Cooper explains the need for slavery and gives his support of the peculiar institution.
Two Essays goes even further in depth with explaining pro-slavery ideas. |
Cooper's Stances on SlaveryClick Here for a Brief Podcast...
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a population of free blacks, is the most idle, debauched, thievish and insolent [group] that we have ever witnessed in the United States.” |
Cooper's Ideological Evolution
Cooper began his political career insisting the slave trade and slavery in general were evil. In 1787, he published Letters on the Slave Trade, a series of letters that explain the problems with the African slave trade. Even from the cover page, Cooper denunciation of slavery is evident through his inclusion of an epigraph. In this inscription, the speaker refuses to own a slave and denounces the institution of slavery even as he recognizes the wealth and ease owning a slave brings his master. The weight of the opening line “I would not have a Slave to till my ground,” which is followed by a series of other uses for a slave, implies that the speaker would rather do all his own work than to own a slave who would perform the work for him. As tremendous as the announcement to refuse to work a slave as a wealthy man in 1787, the poem continues in the final line and a half that the speaker would not own and work a slave “for all the wealth/ That sinews bought and sold have ever earn’d.” Cooper’s inclusion of this stanza on the title page shows that in England in the late 1780s, Cooper was opposed to the slave trade and even against personally owning a slave.[1]
In his letters, he was extremely critical of the African slave trade. Pointing out the irony of the masters who partake in trafficking humans, he claimed they were “Christians, followers of that Master whose life was Benevolence, whose name is Love.” Strongly against the slave trade, he claimed that it “involves almost every vice that fills the black catalogue of human iniquity, and wherein fraud, perjury, and cruelty, attend as the handmaids of commercial avarice.” He continued this severe language throughout the entirety of the twenty-eight pages of his strongly worded pamphlet. [2]
In his letters, he was extremely critical of the African slave trade. Pointing out the irony of the masters who partake in trafficking humans, he claimed they were “Christians, followers of that Master whose life was Benevolence, whose name is Love.” Strongly against the slave trade, he claimed that it “involves almost every vice that fills the black catalogue of human iniquity, and wherein fraud, perjury, and cruelty, attend as the handmaids of commercial avarice.” He continued this severe language throughout the entirety of the twenty-eight pages of his strongly worded pamphlet. [2]
According to John Osborne, in Cooper’s “Letter Three” of his America, Cooper described slaves in Norfolk, Virginia in 1793. Instead of opposing the enslavement of these people as he would have just a few years earlier or supporting it like he would a few decades later, he merely observed them. This shows that his views regarding slavery were morphing over time.[3]
Upon his arrival to South Carolina in 1819, Cooper began to abandon his anti-slavery ideas as he became engrossed in Southern antebellum life. Adopting Benthamism and utilitarianism, Cooper argued that slavery provided the best life for the most amount of people including slaves. In this argument, Cooper claimed slavery was moral and applied Jeremy Bentham’s measure of determining the “rightness” of slavery based on happiness of masters and slaves. Coming to the exact opposite conclusion Bentham detailed, Cooper instead determined that slaves are morally and intellectually inferior and therefore are happy to be provided for.[4]
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In South Carolina or Georgia, I doubt if the rich lands could [be] cultivated without slave labor.” |
According to Kilbride, Cooper’s ties to the materialistic views that were born in the latter part of the Enlightenment are what distinguish his support for the peculiar institution from fellow pro-slavery advocates. Cooper worked his arguments to simultaneously support the economics of slavery and to explain it as a moral institution. In his texts, he also asserted that slavery was modern and even "progressive." Common arguments against slavery claimed it was a backwards institution that was not modernizing. Cooper fought particularly with this idea, arguing that slavery was contemporary, sometimes more so than the North.[5]
Cooper did, in 1819, rapidly jump from opposing the slave trade and disliking slavery to suddenly advocating for the continuation of slavery. However, his ideas more fully cemented with time. Kilbride remarked that the Lectures on the Elements of Political Economy and Two Essays map Cooper’s shifting stance on slavery. The former, published just seven years after his move to South Carolina, defended slavery based on economics, albeit somewhat hesitatingly. Two Essays, published a few years later in the early 1830s, was even stronger in defending slavery. Spending the final two decades of his life in South Carolina greatly influenced his developing pro-slavery ideas.[6]
During this time in South Carolina, Cooper was also a strong advocate of states’ rights. Dumas Malone stated that Cooper was “the schoolmaster of state rights and the prophet of secession.”[7] Claiming Cooper was not bound by South Carolinian born-and-raised loyalty to the state, Malone exerted that his support for the South Carolinian value of states’ rights grew from his continual desire for freedom, which now expressed itself in the form of protecting the rights of states.[8] While he had been friends with Jefferson and supported his writings initially, by the 1820s, he had publicly denied the sentiment in the Declaration of Independence that all men are “born free, equal and independent.”[9] In his On the Constitution of the United States and the Questions that have arisen under it, in 1826, Cooper entirely sided with states’ rights and a strict interpretation of the constitution in order to ensure the happiness of the people while also maintaining the necessary control over the people. This was a drastic change from his support of anti-Federalism. [10]
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While it would be incorrect to assume Cooper was the main cause for their beliefs, Cooper's influence on his students at South Carolina College as a pro-slavery supporter reinforced Southern views on slavery as opposed to challenging or questioning his students' beliefs. In part as a result of this, twenty-four of his former students became delegates of South Carolina who assisted in the state's secession from the Union.[11]
From the very beginning of his time in South Carolina, Cooper went against his entire belief system regarding slavery. Just by living in South Carolina did he prove his change in beliefs. Previous to his move to South Carolina, Cooper had criticized Maryland and Virginia for how cruelly they treated their slaves. He followed this critique by claiming the worst three states were Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.[12]
Worse than this instance of hypocrisy, Cooper turned against anti-slavery ideas and the writing in his Letters on the Slave Trade to not only support slavery but to also own slaves. He moved to South Carolina in 1819 and almost immediately purchased two slaves: Sancho and his wife. Not long after, he bought two entire families of slaves. This transformation into a slaveholder lasted even past his death. Upon his death, Cooper manumitted Sancho and his wife via his will. However, he chose not to free his other slaves and instead willed them to his children.[13]
Worse than this instance of hypocrisy, Cooper turned against anti-slavery ideas and the writing in his Letters on the Slave Trade to not only support slavery but to also own slaves. He moved to South Carolina in 1819 and almost immediately purchased two slaves: Sancho and his wife. Not long after, he bought two entire families of slaves. This transformation into a slaveholder lasted even past his death. Upon his death, Cooper manumitted Sancho and his wife via his will. However, he chose not to free his other slaves and instead willed them to his children.[13]
Sources
[1] Thomas Cooper, “Letters on the Slave Trade,” Wheeler’s Manchester Chronicle (Manchester: C. Wheeler 1787). 1. [Dickinson College Archives Online]
[2] Thomas Cooper, “Letters on the Slave Trade,” 4. [3] John Osborne, “About the Book: Thomas Cooper: Some Information Respecting America, Collected by Thomas Cooper, Late of Manchester,” 3. [Dickinson College Archives and Special Collections] [4] Daniel Kilbride, “Slavery and Utilitarianism: Thomas Cooper and the Mind of the Old South,” 470. [5] Daniel Kilbride, “Slavery and Utilitarianism: Thomas Cooper and the Mind of the Old South,” 475-476 [6] Ibid, 478. [7] Dumas Malone, “Thomas Cooper and the State Rights Movement in South Carolina, 1823-1830,” The North Carolina Historical Review, vol. 3, no. 2 (1926), 184. [JSTOR] [8] Dumas Malone, “Thomas Cooper and the State Rights Movement in South Carolina, 1823-1830,” 184. [9] Ibid, 185. [10] Ibid, 187-8. [11] Daniel W. Hollis, “Review: The Public Life of Thomas Cooper, 1783-1839 by Dumas Malone,” The South Carolina Historical Magazine vol. 64, no. 2 (1963): 119. [JSTOR] [12] Jamie Diane Wilson, "Evil Communications Corrupt Good Morals: Thomas Cooper and Francis Lieber's Proslavery Transformations," Proceedings Of the South Carolina Historical Association (May 2014). 50. [EBSCOhost] [13] Jamie Diane Wilson, "Evil Communications Corrupt Good Morals: Thomas Cooper and Francis Lieber's Proslavery Transformations," Proceedings Of the South Carolina Historical Association (May 2014). 53. [EBSCOhost] Quote Sources[1] Daniel Kilbride, "Slavery and Utilitarianism: Thomas Cooper and the Mind of the Old South," The Journal of Southern History vol. 59, no. 3 (1993), 481. [JSTOR]
[2] Thomas Cooper, Lectures on the Elements of Political Economy, (Telescope Press: 1826), 96. |