Believed that they had discovered natures racial laws

believed that they had “discovered” nature’s racial laws, which were akin to Newton’s laws
of physics. These new laws were given vigorous support in many leading publications as
well as by many prominent politicians. The laws were considered a necessary step for the
southern Christians to validate and protect their beliefs from the abolitionists’ attacks.
The abolitionists argued that slavery was a sin, that it contradicted the Bible,
which claims that all men are equal and that there is only one type of human being. In Acts
17:26 Saint Paul in the Bible tells that "God hath made from one blood all nation which
dwell upon the earth". The Southern Christians, however, saw themselves as modern men
who embraced science. Many of the leaders of Southern Christianity accepted “that a
limited as opposed to a universal flood did not undermine Christian faith”(Polygenesis and
the Defense of slavery, p.390). In many instances the southern clergymen displayed
unrecorded flexibility and tolerance in their acceptance of different scientific discoveries.
They made sure, however, to criticise anything that strayed too far from their interpretation
of the Bible. Ethnology also gave pre-bullum apologetics a powerful argument against one
of the Abolitionists favourite attacks “that slavery destroyed black families”(Polygenesis
and the Defense of slavery, p.390). A number of pre-bellum Christians used ethnology to
claim that blacks had different “moral natures” than white people, and that this led to a lack
of capacity to “emotionally bond”. This alleged flaw would cause black families not feel
the same amount of misery over the separation from a family member as a white family.
The theory is touched upon by Twain in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as
Jim’s sadness of being separated from his family is one of the story’s central themes.

7
Throughout the novel Jim’s “persistent devotion to his lost wife and children”(Twain and
the Endangered Family, p.391), and his relentless pursuit of them is what drives the story
forward down the Mississippi river. Jim’s passion to rebuild his lost family also the basis
for Huck’s growing respect for him and his transformation throughout the novel. (Twain
and the Endangered Family, p.391). In the novel Twain often puts black people’s desire for
family harmony into contrast with white people lack of the same. The most important,
apparent example of this being Huck’s desire to escape his family, his father and his
adopted family the Watts, and Jim’s search for his. Twain also though white and black
people as emotionally equal, that both felt an equal amount of pain facing the loss of
someone dear to them. In chapter 27, after Duke and the King have auctioned off the Wilks
girls’ slaves Huck observe the “poor miserable girls and niggers hanging around each
other’s necks and crying.” ( Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , p.309).