Do Slaves Have the Right to Kill in Order to Obtain Their Freedom?

Journal #3: To Secure Freedom, Did Slaves Have the Right to Kill?

     A life in slavery must have surely seemed hopeless, and the thought of freedom would have caused desperation in most slaves. The notion that it is wrong to kill that is universally shared would be severely altered since the slave would have feel as though the master has taken away their life. Killing their master might have seemed like a reasonable way to secure freedom, but it could also have disastrous consequences that limit what small freedoms a slave might have. 

     The founding principles of this country should not just apply when there are good times, but in bad times too. One of this country’s founding principles is the right to life, and although a slave would definitely have had some people in society trying to take advantage of them (slave holders), that does not mean that a slave has the right to deprive the master or anybody else of their life without a credible threat to theirs. It is the rule of law that governs man in this country, not the feelings of one man at one moment. 

     Since I believe that the institution of slavery was wrongful and deprived the enslaved persons of liberty, I would have encouraged them to run away. In that case, there may have been people looking to kill them, and in the event someone was about to cause harm to or kill a slave, I would not see any problem with deadly force in self-defense. In the case of self-defense, any man should and does have the right to kill someone else, so the slave would be morally just by saying since their liberty was being deprived, they ran, and since their life was threatened , they had to use deadly force. The notion though that a slave had the right to kill the master without a threat to their life, I disagree with. The masters often did not intend to harm or kill the slaves, as keeping them alive would be a much better investment. 

     To conclude, although the slaves were in a desperate situation, there are laws that prohibit the deprivation of life, so there would need to be an immediate threat present in order for a slave to justifiably kill their master in order to obtain freedom. 

Response to "Success" (Copied from Tumblr)

I am a strong believer in not making excuses for poor academic performance, and I believe that the hardest workers will eventually rise to the top and stand out, but the system we have now makes it difficult for individuals to develop and learn in their own learning style. The cookie-cutter approach to education that we have, the frenzy to do best on standardized tests, I feel does not prepare one for any real life experiences. Instead of understanding a concept or realizing the historical significance of an event, I am noticing that students are just trying to memorize the information in a short amount of time, so that the tests will be easier; and I do not blame them in the least. The standardized tests that are used now do not encourage teaching for the sake of understanding and learning the material, but teaching so that the students can remember facts for the test. It is undermining how we learn, because when I try to converse with fellow students, it is difficult to find one with a deep understanding of a topic, just a memorized algorithm or timeline. Homework is another one of these ways that school is “sucking the soul” out of students. The student who said that we have to find out what we can get away with not doing is right; homework now takes so much time that it has strayed from the only acceptable explanation, the augmentation of classroom learning, and it interferes with normal life processes, like socialization and outside activities. A worksheet or short reading in each class would be enough to reinforce the day’s lesson, but homework combined from all classed should not exceed more than 1.5 hours. I think that teachers are pressured to give homework because it is so ingrained into the culture that a teacher who minimizes the homework given will be looked at as a bad teacher, when in fact they would just be doing the students a favor. 

I think a college education pays for itself; people who have a college education make much more money during their lifetime, they have a significantly lower unemployment rate, and the actual information makes a person just much more informed. I certainly would not want a teacher that did not go to college, an accountant who knows nothing of the tax code, a surgeon who does not have years of training, a lawyer who does not know the law and so on… Yes, success in life is not only dependent on a college education, but the average person is not Bill Gates, who could have taught his professors more about coding than he could have learned from them. 

The sorry fact is that we are slowly losing our childhoods, a time when we should be with friends and doing activities, to the stress of doing four hours of homework each night and not gaining much more knowledge than an hour would provide. That is why I also think that drug use is so high among teens and young adults. There is not enough time for wholesome and traditional fun, many teens argue, so they must alter their minds and bodies to try to escape the rigors and stresses of schoolwork. 

Regardless of the system in place, the smartest and most creative will still rise to the top of the class and separate themselves from the rest of society, but the average student can still have a fulfilling life without losing their childhood. 

-Matthew Corman