I’m here to help :( so the reason why the South which would be the defenders wanted slavery so bad wasn’t because they just loved giving them such harsh punishments or love just degrading them but it is because this was their form of income and economy. See they had these huge plantations where they needed these slaves to produce their products for them so that they could trade and sell. The south’s economy was based off that of agricultural. Where the north which would be the detractors didn’t need African American slaves because they had the Irish immigrates who would work in these factories for such low prices. And the south also kinda used this as an argument because in the south’s eyes this was “waged slavery”. Because the north didn’t treat the Irish well they were degraded and discriminated against but it wasn’t nearly as harsh punishments as that of the South.