Kevin,
I would like to add a friendly amendment to your analysis below. The
contemporary (in the era of the slave trade) argument that African enslaving
practices justified the purchase and ownership of slaves by Europeans and
white Americans was in fact a cogent argument used by New England Yankees of
the Puritan persuasion. This notion as been called the "just war" doctrine.
If slaves were taken in a just war, no sin accrued to those who purchased
and used them. If the war were not "just," still the sin accrued to those
who took the slaves, not to those who might be described as end item users.
This was, as I remember my readings in Perry Miller, Herbert W.
Schneider, etc., standard Congregationist (Calvinist) theology. The chief
work that questioned this rationale was judge Samuel Sewell's "The Selling
of Samuel" in the 18th century: a work of legal, not theological logic.
Thus, 17th and early 18th century religious thinkers in New England
justified the practice of slavery and the commerce in slaves (or enslaved
persons.)
This should just remind us that the slaveholding regime was a project of
the 13 Colonies and later of the USA, not of the South alone.
Harold S. Forsythe
----- Original Message -----
From: <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 6:26 PM
Subject: Re: Slave owner or slave
> Let's refresh our memory of the earlier conversation. Mr. South has
> suggested that it is important, in passing moral judgment about slavery in
> Virginia, to take into account the fact that those persons who wound up as
> slaves in Virgina were first enslaved in Africa, by other Africans.
>
> I have suggested that this fact, while quite correct in and of itself, is
> irrelevant. If you believe that slavery contradicts the essential
> premises of our political and constitutional order, then the behaviour of
> people in Africa is irrelevant. Put another way, two wrongs do not make a
> right.
>
> Anita Henderson usefully cautions us against making universal claims. But
> I doubt she has any substantive objection to the argument I am advancing.
> The caveat she suggests is fair enough, but should not distract from the
> larger argument.
>
> Slavery was a viable and thriving institution for much of American
> history. It thrived largely because the people who purchased slaves did
> so with intent to profit from their ownership. The overwhelming majority
> did so despite the fact that in order to do so, they had to perform some
> real violence to the underlying ethical commitments on which our nation is
> constituted.
>
> Put this another way. I am not a moral relativist. I believe it is
> possible to say that some things are morally wrong, and that one of those
> things that is morally wrong is slavery. I think it is possible to
> examine the arguments of people who were for slavery, on the one hand, and
> against it, on the other, and to say with some ethical certitude "this is
> the superior argument." I believe it is possible to say with some
> authority that people like Frederick Douglass or James Forten understood
> American political principles better than did people like Richard Furman,
> Thornton Stringfellow, or George Fitzhugh.
>
> If you would like to read the philosophical arguments against relativism
> and for the notion that it is possible to apprehend ethical truth, I can
> suggest two books: Simon Blackburn, TRUTH: A GUIDE; and Russ
> Shafer-Landau, WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GOOD AND EVIL? Both are technically
> sound and well respected works by academic philosophers--Shafer-Landau's
> is the easier read, and to my mind, also the superior analysis.
> Kevin R. Hardwick, Ph.D.
> Department of History
> James Madison University
>
> ______________________________________
> 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
|
