Imagine you lived as a Southerner in mid-1800s America. Would you be opposed to slavery or would you support it?

Lets get something sensible said here since ignorance seems to rule this subject.

1. The majority of whites living in the south before slaves were being brought in in large numbers were likely working for those same plantation owners and lost at least began seeing their wages go through the floor and even lost their jobs and had to pull up stakes and find work somewhere else.

2. The few whites that had low enough expenses to stay were likely single males with a stomach for abusing the living. Probably sadistic scum that no southern woman wanted to marry.

3. I hadn't been the cultural "norm" for the non wealthy in the European lands where they came to the new world seeking freedom from religious oppression so I really doubt that the majority of the masses were the ones who decided that since there was no established code forbidding such then why not?

4. Only the super rich could afford to sail ships back and forth across the Atlantic.

5. The common class majority wage earners are unsupportive of cheap labor through illegal hiring now. Doesn't it make infinite sense they would be even more opposed to free labor through kidnapping humans from another country?

This isn't even a well considered reply. I think it makes the point tho.

I would have been entirely opposed to it.
I don't think I would have been very vocal about it, but I would have found quiet ways to show my support for those who needed it just like I do now. Or who knows, maybe I would grow up out of my own hypocrisy, fear and cowardice and really be there for the oppressed as much as a woman of the 1800's could have been.

that's an interesting question. since most people thought it was okay - and even the preachers told people from the pulpit that it was god's will - where would the idea that it was wrong come from?

literacy wasn't that strong

there wasn't mass media

i think racism and the notion of racial inferiority is taught by your upbringing....im guessing the majority of people in the south went along with slavery without blinking an eye. me personally, i dont think id have the liberty to really have an opinion on slavery anyways in the 1800s. id most likely be sent off to build railroads or get deported back to asia somewhere

keep in mind things are further separated from that time now.... i have no clue all i know is i'm decedent of slaves and they're still here today and always will be.

long as i got work and a GOOD 'home'.

I've never had a problem with fighting social norms, it more or less defines a lot of mycharacter. But I'm pretty sure I'd move north, rather than martyr myself or go along with it

It was the cultural norm, and I'm a southerner in a southern family. I'm sure I would have accepted it, while being "simply appalled at the cruelty of some plantation men."

Most southerners were not slave owners. I don't think I would've been supportive of such an evil institution. But I might have had to move away and join some kind of Quaker community.

categorically opposed, 100%. i would expect to be treated harshly for my stance, and possibly even killed. i know myself. i would not bend to the 'social norm'.

I'm sure I would have been as militant as I am now when it comes to injustice

If I were white I'd know that I wouldn't want to be a slave, nor would I want that for any of my loved ones. But it would depend whether or not I had been raised to accept the racist beliefs of the majority, that whites were superior and deserved to subjugate all people of color.

It's hard to say. I'd love to say that I would definitely oppose it but, if I had been brought up by people who taught that me it was good and right, who knows?