Gone With The Wind Reaction:

The movie, Gone With The Wind (1940), portrays the horrific reality of of the Civil War and its destructive effect on everyone and everything involved. 

The movie has a very aged feel to it and the costumes, scenery, and language are all very representative of older times. 

 The film takes place in the South and follows the story of a young woman, Scarlett O'Hara. Scarlett is a part of a wealthy family and is portrayed as a rich and spoiled young woman. Scarlett finds herself in a sort of love triangle with her best friend, Ashley Wilkes, and her love interest, Rhett Butler. She does everything in her power to win over Rhett, but realizes that she is being desperate and is only acting the way she is in order to please him. 

Although the movie highlights the romance of Scarlett O'Hara and the brutality of The Civil War, it had deep rooted topics that are easily identifiable to us today.The is recognized for its questionable and controversial portrayal of African Americans and slavery. The most prominent African American character, Mammy, is played by the Academy Award winning Hattie McDaniel. Between Hattie's performance and the structure of the movie at the time, the aspects of slavery were apparent to more modern audiences. The most prominent example of an offensive slave stereotype was through an African American slave named Prissy. She was shown as being dumb and having trouble speaking properly. The slaves were also abused often and belittled frequently, which shed light to the unfortunate reality of how slaves were actually treated. 

I am not normally a fan of older movies, but I think that Gone With The Wind is a great example of how far we have come as a society. Although the movie displayed uncomfortable and socially unacceptable topics, it did its job to provide our generation and future generations with an idea of how life was back then. 

State Vs. Mann - Mock Trial Reaction:

 Today was the trial of John Mann vs. the state. John Mann was accused of assaulting and attempting to murder a slave. This slave's name was Lydia and she was only working for Mann temporarily under the jurisdiction of her owner, Elizabeth Jones. John Mann had allegedly beat Lydia and in attempt to escape Mann, Lydia tried to run away. This decision led to John Mann shooting Lydia in the. back, heavily wounding her. 

Both Mann and the state presented their perspectives with reasonable and firm arguments.

The state pushed that the actions of John Mann violated the ten commandments by bringing harm to others and by attempting to kill another human being. Slavery is the foundation of the country's economic structure. Without slaves, our economy would collapse, so why can't they be treated with respect? They should not be abused and trafficked like animals. Instead, they should be treated with better living conditions. There has to be a reason that Lydia and slaves alike run away, so maybe if they were not mistreated then they would be more willing to cooperate. In addition, Lydia was not owned by John Mann. He was simply having her work for him under the authority of her owner, Elizabeth Jones. Since Mann did not own her, he had no right to punish her. Mann should have been charged with assault and battery.

John Mann argued that his actions were justified and were within the legal bounds of their situation. Thus he felt that his $10 fine should be appealed. From Mann's perspective, Lydia running away was her "traveling without permission." If he had not taken action, there is no telling what Lydia would have done once she got away and may have caused harm to other people. If she had done this, it would be John Mann's fault as he was in charge of monitoring her for the time being. This made him feel twice as obligated to make sure that she did not cause havoc in the community. It was argued that punishment was a key component in maintaining control of the system, and without it, the entire system would fall.

EOTO 1: The Fugitive Slave Act

 On September 18th, 1850, Congress passed The Fugitive Slave Law Act which was enacted as a supplement of The Missouri Compromise. The act enforced that all slaves must be returned to their owners, regardless if they were in a free state or not. This made is so that both the government and the public were responsible for finding and returning escaped slaves. It is important to note that fugitive slaves were denied their rights to a jury trial. 

The Missouri Compromise, which split the states into free and slave states, was the reason for The Fugitive Slave Act. The Missouri Compromise was "fair" to both the pro and anti-slavery sides, but it had faults that angered the people of the slave states. At this time, slavery was seen as a key factor in the inclining economy. Without the slaves, the farming industries and plantations would fail, causing an economic recession. 

Before The Fugitive Slave Law Act of 1850, any slaves that were able to escape their owners would flee to free states and live in freedom. The Missouri Compromise allowed this which is why after a couple of decades, The Fugitive Slave Law was enacted. This made it much harder for slaves in the slave states to achieve freedom. Once the law was passed, most slaves that escaped their custody and made it to the free states were returned back to their owners and punished. "Slave catching" and kidnapping became encouraged and bounties were placed on runaway slaves to get public assistance in the process of returning fugitive slaves. It almost became a sport to hunt down fugitive slaves, which stripped them even more of their humanity. The federal government also induced policies that would make being a fugitive slave or being a fugitive slave helper extremely regrettable. A penalty of $1,000 was given to those who did not report and turn in said slaves in addition to six months of jail time. This is equivalent to $35,180 as of the year of 2022. The fugitive slaves would also have to face the consequences of their actions by their owners. However, the slave owners were much more physical with their punishments. The punishment took many forms: whippings, torture, mutilation, and being sold to other owners. 

Although The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 hindered the abolition movement, there were some people that tried to combat the law. One example of this, is The Boston Anti-Man-Hunting League, which worked diligently to capture the slaveholders. The most prominent activists of this group were: Austin Bearse, Samuel Gridley Howe, Lewis Hayden, and Joshua B. Smith. The idea of this group was to abduct the slave owners before their slaves could be returned back to them. One of the founders, Henry Bowditch, wrote detailed letters of the organization and it's methods to countering the Fugitive Slave Act. The league would use coded letters to warn each other of the tactics and numbers of the slave catchers. These messages were indecipherable by anyone that was not initiated into the league. Members of the league would also arm themselves in order to practice self-defense and preserve the strength of their force. 

Town Hall Reaction

 The Town Hall meeting today was met with the opposing sides of slavery. Both of the pro and anti-slavery arguments were presented by prominent figures and speakers which made this a truly captivating argument. 

The slave owners that were in favor of slavery mainly argued their point of views from an economic standpoint. The primary point being the fact that without slaves, the economy would collapse. Slavery was the only reason why the farming industry and plantations were so successful. In addition, it was said that slavery almost acted as a shield to those who were slaves. The slaves were given a stable life with a purpose, a place to sleep, and meals to eat. Slavery was argued as a necessity that benefits the slaves, the owners, the economy, and everyone else that is involved. Members of the meeting including Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun spoke to the constitutional side of slavery. Webster argued that although the Missouri Compromise was in place, which split the states into "free states" and "slave states," that there could be no loopholes for the slaves in the slave states to escape. This was backed by the Fugitive Slave Law Act which made it a requirement to return runaway slaves back to their proper owners in their home states. Bounties and "slave catchers" were also put into play to incentivize the cooperation of the public with the federal law. 

On the other hand, the anti-slavery side argued that slavery was not a political or economical argument, but rather an issue of morality. Slaves were treated as possessions and property and were stripped away of their humanity and basic rights as living beings. They were also unrightfully violated and punished by their owners. It was argued that slavery was evil and that if all men were created equal, as it says in The Bible, then all men should be treated with such equality...

Plessy Vs. Ferguson: Religious Perspective

 Today I will be speaking on behalf of Homer Plessy, a seven-eighths white man who was arrested after seating himself in a whites-only car. As a man who was not entirely white it was said that he was in violation of the 1890 Louisiana Separate Car Law. This supported Jim Crow ideals with a "separate but equal" seating arrangement in which whites and blacks would be placed in separate cars of a train. Although these laws were in place, it can be argued that Louisiana's segregation law violated both the 13th Amendment's banning of slavery as well as the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. 

In addition to this, I believe that this was a violation of Homer Plessy's religious rights. The Bible teaches that humanity is that of both diversity and equality. According to (Genesis 1:26-28), we are all made equally in God's image. "The rich and the poor have this in common: The Lord made them both (Proverbs 22:2). "All are born under sin, have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Jesus spoke to the differences of good and evil, women and men, and different ethnicities. Although people may be, look, and act differently, it does not change that they are still human. Nor should it change how said individuals are treated. "All people are morally equal before the throne of God facing the law and His mercy. We all have equal responsibility to use what we have to the glory of God. Every human being is the object of the love of God (John 3:16). We were not created to judge each other; our final judgment will be determined by our creator. 

We need to stop challenging the idea of equality and instead embrace it. After all, that's what God intended for when he created us. It is important to recognize the differences in every person, but we need to be more careful about which differences we allow ourself to make an impression on. Inequality will always exist in our society and that is something that we have to accept. There are both controlled and uncontrolled differences that we allow to influence our actions and thoughts. Traits that we are born with, such as skin color, should not be used as a justified excuse to treat people differently. Would it be reasonable for us to judge people and treat them differently based off of eye color? No. This is exactly why the basis of judging someone by the color of their skin is completely ludicrous. 

Achieving total equality as a society is unrealistic. As humans, the only things that we can rely on being equal is the fact that we all live and we all die. Every other aspect of our lives is not going to be equal to one another. The Lord created everyone differently and chose the ones to be poor, rich, black, white, male female, etc. What's important is that we recognize the differences between inequality and diversity and use that to come to a more appropriate solution regarding the issues of segregation.