I think there is a relatively simple test to get at at least some of the dimensions emergent in this conversation. I wish for my daughter to live a rich, fulfilling, decent, and good life. I hope she will experience, in the deepest sense, her human potential. I can imagine various careers she might pursue that would enable or assist her to do that. She could do that, for example, as an engineer, or a lawyer, or a soldier, or a politician, or a hair dresser, or a plumber. Some of those strike me as giving her greater latitude to experience the good, and some less, but I can imagine her achieving the aspirations I have for her in all of them.
But in no possible universe would I wish for her to experience the kind of slavery that slaves endured in Virginia in the 19th century. This is so for large plantations and small, owned by benign masters or malevolent. I suspect that no one on this list would disagree with me here--I suspect that not one of us would claim, even for purpose of argument, that they would entertain the thought, "you know, come the end of the day, I would be ok with it, if my daughter were to wind up living her life as a chattel slave on a Virginia plantation."
The moral question then is why this is so. What is it about the institution of slavery that not just hindered but came close to prohibiting outright pursuit of the good, of the life lived to its fullest and richest human potential? What is it about chattel slavery as a human relationship that stunted the human lives of the persons subject to it?
Some of the answers to this question are obvious, and some less so.
I find these to be interesting questions. But even more interesting is the claim, advanced by thinkers like Sarah and Angelina Grimke, and before them astute men like Thomas Jefferson and George Mason, that the relationships entailed by slavery stunted the human potential not just of the slave, but also of the owners of slaves as well. If this is so, then the civilization created by slave owners was less than it could have been. Slavery, in other words, stunted and corrupted the entire society organized to sustain it. Everyone who lived in such societies then, if the observations of these thinkers are correct, lived lives that were less than they could have been, or at the very least faced serious obstacles to living good, full, complete, decent, and fulfilling lives.
So that raises then the possibility that not only would I not wish my daughter to be a slave, but also, I would not wish for her even to have lived in a society organized to enable possession of slaves.
All best wishes,
Kevin
Sent from my iPad
> On Sep 9, 2014, at 10:08 AM, "Finkelman, Paul" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Not really; the average small slaveowner wanted to become a larger slaveholder
>
>
>
> *************************************************
> Paul Finkelman
> Senior Fellow
> Penn Program on Democracy, Citizenship, and Constitutionalism
> University of Pennsylvania
>
> President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law, Emeritus
> Albany Law School
>
> 518-439-7296 (p)
> 518-605-0296 (c)
>
> [log in to unmask]
> www.paulfinkelman.com
> *************************************************
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Paul Heinegg [[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Monday, September 08, 2014 9:39 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] Out-migration from Virginia early 1810-1840
>
> Is there evidence that a significant number of small slave owners considered
> their slaves to be something other than property?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> ______________________________________
> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
> http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
______________________________________
To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
|
