Town Hall Meeting - Fredrick Douglas Case Activity

Matthew Amend
Sep 22, 2017
2 min read

On Wednesday, September 20th, my First Year Seminar class engaged in a town hall meeting activity where we debated the Fredrick Douglas Case. Almost every student represented a different historical figure. Two teams argued on the side of pro-slavery and two teams argued against slavery.

Several individuals on the side of abolishing slavery were represented including Frederick Douglass himself, William Lloyd Garrison, the Rev. Henry Highland Garnet, and Sojourner Truth. Pro slavery members included John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, and Samuel Morse.

Thomas Jefferson was an interesting case. He was represented on both the pro and the anti-slavery side. His beliefs fluctuated throughout his life. Arguments for pro-slavery included the fact that he owned a great deal of slaves himself, and that he declared slavery to be a necessary evil. Arguments for the anti-slavery side included the fact that he declared that "... All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights...", and that he believed that slavery was morally wrong.

One idea that stuck out to me was from Elizabeth Cady Stanton. A student shared one of her quotes that predicted the fact that the anti-slavery movement would be used as a model for future movements including women's rights and civil rights.

The historical Figure that I represented was John C. Calhoun. His argument was simple and two-fold. His first idea was that slavery was not a necessary evil but a positive good, because the slaves (somehow) benefited from their enslavement. His other argument was that no prosperous civilization had ever existed without the presence of slavery and thus the Unites States would not thrive without slavery.

No "winner" was declared when the debate ended, but the anti-slavery side definitely had more variety in their arguments. The pro-slavery side argued almost solely from an economic perspective.