Anne--

In reference to your comment below:

>    An interesting point made, again in favor of the flag,
was that slavery
>wasn't so bad after all, that slaves had "more rights"
under slavery than
>after they were freed. As slaves, he said, they had the
right to a house,
>clothing, and food. These were lost when they were freed.

This was an argument made by apologists for slavery in the
1830s and 1840s.  An excellent, albeit now quite old, essay
by Richard Hofstader explores this argument--it is under the
just wickedly brilliant title "John C. Calhoun:  The Marx of
the Master Class," and is in Hofstader's THE AMERICAN
POLITICAL TRADITION (1948, if I remember correctly).

Paul Finkelman has recently published a short edition of
proslavery arguments, as well as a very useful introductory
essay describing and analyzing them.  The publisher is
Bedford Books.  I believe that Drew Gilpin Faust has also
published a recent anthology of proslavery arguements, but I
am writing from home right now and don't have access to my
full library.  Anyway, Finkelman's book would be quite
useful to you, I suspect--its worth reading.  And too, it
has the advantage of being inexpensive.

I hope this is useful.

Warm regards,
Kevin
Kevin R. Hardwick, Ph.D.
Department of History
James Madison University

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