Jeffersonian Democrats going from anti-slavery to pro-slavery personified in one person.
"Cooper became increasingly pro-slavery over the course of his life. In 1787, Cooper authored Letters on the Slave Trade, attacking the Atlantic slave trade.[18] In the mid to late 1780s Cooper fought passionately against "that infamous and impolitic traffic". He wrote that "negroes are men; susceptible of the same cultivation with ourselves", claimed that "as Englishmen, the blood of the murdered African is upon us, and upon our children, and in some day of retribution he will feel it, who will not assist to wash off the stain". After moving to America, Cooper's views began to shift.[5][2] After moving to South Carolina in 1819, he disavowed his previous anti-slavery views and began to defend slavery on Benthamist utilitarian grounds.
Cooper saw Africans as morally and intellectually inferior and believed they were happy to be provided for within the context of slavery.[4][2] In an 1826 essay, Cooper wrote that the "emancipation of the Slaves, would surely convert them into idle and useless vagabonds, and thieves; as every Southern man conversant with negro habits and propensities well knows".[19] Later that year, Cooper wrote in a private letter that "I do not say the blacks are a distinct species, but I have not the slightest doubt of their being an inferior variety of the human species; and not capable of the same improvement as the whites."
"Cooper became increasingly pro-slavery over the course of his life. In 1787, Cooper authored Letters on the Slave Trade, attacking the Atlantic slave trade.[18] In the mid to late 1780s Cooper fought passionately against "that infamous and impolitic traffic". He wrote that "negroes are men; susceptible of the same cultivation with ourselves", claimed that "as Englishmen, the blood of the murdered African is upon us, and upon our children, and in some day of retribution he will feel it, who will not assist to wash off the stain". After moving to America, Cooper's views began to shift.[5][2] After moving to South Carolina in 1819, he disavowed his previous anti-slavery views and began to defend slavery on Benthamist utilitarian grounds.
Cooper saw Africans as morally and intellectually inferior and believed they were happy to be provided for within the context of slavery.[4][2] In an 1826 essay, Cooper wrote that the "emancipation of the Slaves, would surely convert them into idle and useless vagabonds, and thieves; as every Southern man conversant with negro habits and propensities well knows".[19] Later that year, Cooper wrote in a private letter that "I do not say the blacks are a distinct species, but I have not the slightest doubt of their being an inferior variety of the human species; and not capable of the same improvement as the whites."
