Stephan Schwartz asks me to post this reply to Prof. Finkelman. His "reply" function has hit some glitch. Henry Wiencek I will do so, Paul. Thank you. However,there will have to be something very compelling in the argument that I have missed so far, because Mason seems to have disliked slavery most because he saw it created societal and personal weakness, just as it had in Rome, a comparison which carried far more weight in that day than in this, as I know you know. Mason clearly saw slaves as people. He prided himself on not having illusions, and I think he had none about slavery. It was about owning people and making them do what you wanted. In a world where every human transaction with man, woman, or child, day in and day out, could not help but be freighted with the power relationship that exists between a master and a slave, Mason who came up with the idea that rights accrued by reason of being a human, not from the state or crown, and that this had to be acknowledged in a democracy's foundation documents, surely understood a lack of rights. Mason was a devotedly, notably, faithful mate. He had never been a rake. And he could not have failed to notice the mixed race children on his friend's farms. He grew up in a world where a significant portion of the female population could not say, "No." He watched the boys who lived in that world become men, as he did so himself. He understood the sexuality implicit in slavery. And saw that it often had a negative effect on his friends. And, although he never travelled, he was an international businessman, who actually made the system work. If his choices in 1787 did not make it clear enough, his business correspondence, which is most of what survives, makes it plain that he was also a man who really did care about principles. I don't think Mason had moral outrage about slavery, in the modern sense, it was, and had been, from time immemorial a part of the world. Although it is speculation I think he assumed that most of the Africans, once freed, would go back to work on the plantations where they lived. Nothing Mason did throughout his life, except for the Revolution, bespoke a man in any way interested in social disruption. And he certainly did not see social equality with most whites, let alone Africans. He was a rich man, whose family had been gentry for generations. For Mason I think, the problem was that slavery made white people weak and petty. Mason cherished land. He was vested with 20,000 acres, and died with 80-100,000. He stayed with land projects years after they had been abandoned by others. And he saw land and fortune squandered over and over by stupid decisions of men of his class made weak from the narcisscism slavery engenders. People who are "petty tyrants" are self-indulgent. They don't think smart. We know that Mason hated to be saddled with committee work that required him to work with these planters. Calling most of them"babblers." My view, at this point, is that Mason disliked the slave trade surely because it lowered his investment worth (he was a prudent businessman at all times) but mostly, because it fed the system he wanted to see ended. His concern about slaves was not as pressing, because he understood that all slave owners had to get behind the program for it to work. It would take a generation or more. I think for Mason it was not so much about black people as it was white people. It is no more complicated than that he saw North America as a new start, and slavery as a mistake that should be unravelled before it did more damage. We know he also saw the potential for civil strife over the issue in the future. -- Stephan On 6 Dec 2005, at 00:44, Paul Finkelman wrote: whether Mason "loathed slavery" seems open to question. See the article on Mason and slavery by the Virginia Tech historian Peter Wallenstein in Va. Magazine of History and Biography, April, 1994. He make the careful distinction between the slave trade which he did loathe ( but which also lowered the market value of his own slaves) and slavery, which he did not loathe all that much. paul finkelman To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html