To Kevin and All,

    Interesting that this claim to virtue is precisely the Puritan 
theological explanation for why they could hold slaves, though in small 
numbers, and not bear any sin from doing so.  As I remember the theological 
argument, slavery was only justified if the slaves are taken as prisoners in 
a just war.  Those who bought those enslaved people from traders were not 
responsible for discovering whether the war was just.  If it was not, the 
sin fell on the slave traders.  Plymouth, Mass Bay, CT., and NH could all 
then justly holding slaves.

Harold S. Forsythe
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2007 12:34 PM
Subject: Re: Official Opposition Events


> The implication here is that the "original sin" of slavery
> rests with Africans, as if that somehow lets everyone else who
> profited from the enslavement of African peoples off the hook.
> But framed that way, the argument is silly.  Human nature
> being what it is, its not all that surprising that African
> peoples bear their share of guilt for the historical thriving
> of the institution.  Every market transaction requires buyers
> and sellers, and both parties in a transaction expect to
> benefit from it.  If the transaction is morally evil, both are
> implicated in it.
>
> The fact that some African nations participated in slavery and
> bear share of the historical responsibility for it does not
> change the fact that, with very rare exceptions, pretty much
> ALL of the victims of the institution were African or Native
> American.  The ancestors of a great many of the victimized
> families live in Africa.  The forced migration of ten million
> or so people, a substantial portion of whom were worked to
> death in Caribbean plantations, is a historical evil.
> Moreover, slavery still exists in the world, so this
> particular evil is not yet an artifact of history.  Under
> these circumstances, it is not at all unreasonable to suggest
> that representatives of those African polities whose citizens
> are the descendants of people victimized by slavery should be
> present to bear witness at Jamestown.
>
> We should pause to ponder just why slavery is evil.  Slavery
> certainly can involve harsh suffering and physical
> deprivation.  But while those things are awful, it is not
> primarily in the physical suffering that the evil of slavery
> resides.  Slavery, as Orlando Patterson noted long ago,
> demands the social death of the slave.  As a consequence,
> slavery, by its nature, strips the slave of autonomy and the
> capacity for self-definition and self-government.
>
> For citizens of the United States of America, slavery is
> especially problematic.  As American thinkers have long
> understood, the continued survival of the American polity
> depends upon the continued public commitment of self-governed
> citizens.  The promise of the American polity is ordered
> liberty--freedom, rightly understood, constrained by right
> reason.  The antithesis of slavery is this fundamental
> American good:  liberty.  It is possible, of course, to
> reconcile slavery with American republican values, by denying
> the slave's full capacity for self-government.  But we know
> today that this attempt to reconcile slavery with American
> public ideals is premised on a lie--that racism has no basis
> in reality.
>
> There can be no moral harm in asking slavery's victims to bear
> witness to its depravity.  But there are especially profound
> reasons for American citizens, of whatever genetic or cultural
> background, to bear witness as well.  The salutary good that
> comes from so doing is to remind ourselves, collectively and
> as a people, what it is that we stand for.  In condemning
> slavery, we affirm the deepest and most valued commitments of
> our public order.
>
> All best,
> Kevin
>
> ---- Original message ----
>>Date: Fri, 11 May 2007 11:53:45 EDT
>>From: [log in to unmask]
>>Subject: Re: Official Opposition Events
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>
>>Why would African heads of state be invited?  It was the
> African  tribal
>>leaders who oversaw the sale of their African brothers into
> slavery in  the first
>>place.
>>
>>J South
> Kevin R. Hardwick, Ph.D.
> Department of History
> James Madison University