I would urge everyone on the list to take a look at the 
Virginia WPA slave narratives, published by UVA Press under 
the title WEEVILS IN THE WHEAT.

When I teach Virginia History, I assign this volume.  It 
contains numerous accounts by men and women who recalled 
horrific violence, of men and women who never forgave their 
former masters, and of men and women who drew deeply from 
their Christian conviction to find the spirit of forgiveness.

To my recollection, no serious scholar who has examined the 
evidence has concluded that slavery was a benign institution 
which, given a choice, any rational young person would 
chose.  Given a choice between freedom and slavery, who 
among us would choose slavery?  Very few, I would imagine.

I find it more than a bit scary, frankly, that people here 
would argue *for* slavery.  The willingness of some here to 
conclude that slavery was a benign institution suggests to 
my reading that the commitment to the core values of liberty 
and freedom are weak in our country.  To my mind these 
values are what make the United States a unique and decent 
polity.  Our country fought the Revolution in oppostion to 
what they termed a British effort to reduce Americans to 
slavery.  We fought the Col War in large part because we 
understood the Soviet Union to be a society that enslaved 
its subjects.  This is not just my rhetoric--people at the 
time, in the 1770s and 1780s, and in the 1940s, 1950s, 
1960s, and 1970s,  used the words "slavery" to explain what 
they fought against.  Librty and Freedom are bedrock values 
of Americans, and should be celebrated as such.  Southern 
slavery violated our most basic values, and should be 
condemned for those reasons, among many others.

All best,
Kevin
Kevin R. Hardwick, Ph.D.
Department of History
James Madison University

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