Paul,
I thank you covered all the bases with this one.

Anita


>From: Paul Finkelman <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history         
>      <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Madison's slaves (and black descendants?)
>Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 13:42:37 -0400
>
>Of course, with the except of a few Quakers here and there, no one (except 
>the slaves themselves) before about 1750 ever asked the question of "why is 
>this justified." Slavery existed everywhere in the ancient world and in 
>most of Africa and the Middle East and Southern Europe (including Spain) in 
>the late 1400s.  The first slaves in the transatlantic slave trade were 
>Carib Indians brough back to Spain.
>
>Most southern whites accepted most or all of the following justifications 
>for slavery.  For an easy read on this I (self-servingly) recommend my 
>little book Defending Slavery:  Proslavey Thought in the Old South (Bedford 
>Books).
>
>Here are the major proslavery arguments and justifications:
>
>1) people captured in war can be killed (on Geneva Convention on POWs at 
>that time) and thus it is more humane to allow them to live as slaves.  
>This is true for soldiers, but also captured towns. This was a common 
>justification in Rome, Greece, Carthage, Egypt, the ancient middle east and 
>Sub-sahara Africa
>2)  people who cannot pay their debts can be enslaved or they can give away 
>a child or even a wife as a slave.  Common in Rome, Asia and Africa.  Debt 
>slavery (illegel of course) is found in India and other parts of Asia to 
>today)
>3)  in a world with no jails or prisons, slavery is an acceptable form of 
>punishment, since the only alternative is to execute the person.
>4)  ethnic enemies are always enslaveable, and again it is more humane than 
>killing them.
>5)  Europeans argued that slavery was a way to spread Christianity * those 
>"lucky" Africans got to become Chrisitans!
>6)  They are not Moslems so it is ok to enslave the infidel * common 
>throughout North African and Middle East.
>7)  I bought the slave from someone else and it is not *my* problem how the 
>person became a slave
>)  this person was born a slave and that is the law
>and most importantly for the US context
>9)  Cotton is King and without slaves the American economy will collapse
>10)  slavery allows for democracy because it elevates all white voters and 
>removes the lowest classes from the political process.
>11)  God ordains slavery.  The Bible supports it
>12)  God made black people be slaves * the story of Noah and Cannan (the 
>curse of Ham)
>13) Africans and African-Americans cannot live as free people among us * 
>Jefferson said they are "pests on society" * and so we *must* keep them as 
>slaves.
>
>Paul Finkelman
>
>Paul Finkelman
>President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law
>      and Public Policy
>Albany Law School
>80 New Scotland Avenue
>Albany, New York   12208-3494
>
>518-445-3386
>[log in to unmask]
>
> >>> [log in to unmask] 6/11/2007 12:45:23 PM >>>
>I don't understand the justification for slavery, whether it was European 
>or
>African slaves. It is pure and simple a means of taking from one group for
>the economic benefit of another.  Those who owned slaves are now facing the
>God they claimed to worship. These learned men had to have known that
>slavery was immoral, and enslaving another human being was not something
>that any God sanctioned. To bring suffering to another living creature is 
>an
>abomination (IMHO). All we can do is look back and continue to learn from
>those past mistakes.

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