i was reading about the american civil war, and i came to thinking, was slavery immoral? now, of course, i think it was immoral but did the southerner think that it was immoral? the south was very moral and the bible/church was the center of their life yet they own slave. there were three types of southerner in the south, the plantation owners who own slave, the poor farmers, and landless/no poverty crackers.
when the civil war came, many of the landless and poor farmer fight the civil war because they believe in "cotton, slavery, and state rights." these christian southerner justify slavery due to the curse of ham. as anyone know, "The 'curse of Ham' has been used by some members of Abrahamic religions to justify racism and the enslavement of people of African ancestry, who were thought to be descendants of Ham (often called Hamites), either through Canaan or his older brothers...The Curse of Ham (more properly called the curse of Canaan) refers to the curse that Ham's father Noah placed upon Ham's son Canaan, after Ham "saw his father's nakedness" because of drunkenness in Noah's tent. (wikipedia)
the fact is, due to the curse of ham, was it okay as the christian plantation owner to enslave african american? since african american was curse through ham than enslaving them wasn't immoral. so, what is wrong with slavery "if" god had already curse them through ham, as the southerner reason. if slavery was immoral, as the northerner claim, why did the moralistic/christian southerner continue with slavery if the bible/church was the center of their life? some christian slave owner said that they treat their slave very well, and that that the evilness of slavery was exggerated but do that still justify slavery?
the plantation owner also justify slavery by saying that the consitution don't said anything about slavery so it is okay to enslave them as alexander stephen said "They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an
error ... Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea;
its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth
that the negro is not equal to the white man; that
slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal
conditio"
the confederate leader "jefferson Davis stated that a "disparaging discrimination" and a fight
for "liberty" against "the tyranny of an unbridled majority" gave the
Confederate states a right to secede.[36] In 1860, Congressman Laurence M. Keitt
of South Carolina said, "The anti-slavery party contend that slavery is
wrong in itself, and the Government is a consolidated national
democracy. We of the South contend that slavery is right, and that this
is a confederate Republic of sovereign States."
so, what i want to ask you is this, do you believe that slavery was wrong and immoral (i do, but i am trying to make a point here), do you belive that the christian southerner was moral in practing slavery because the african american was curse through ham? since the bible (according to them) had slavery in it and had already curse african american, than was slavery still wrong? if slavery was wrong, than why did the southerner christian slave owner continue to practice it. did their desire for money through slavery trump the immorality of slavery?
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I don't believe they thought it was "just" as much as they believed it "wasn't bad"; More along the lines of "well, everybody's doing it" type of mentality.
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"when you have nothing else to say, "Fwonk" is always the perfect thing."
"yeah well, fwonk"
--Devon
Fanaile Essence,
A-Team Member
Since slavery is in the Bible it's pretty easy to justify it. But even if there wasn't justification that wouldn't really matter. Slavery was money and money has always clouded people's conscience. Just like the Bible says, the love of money is the root of all evil. People love money, therefore they want slavery. Luckily, many northerners started to see the err of their ways, although they had slaves too.
Right or wrong depends on who is in what position. From the viewpoint of the slave of course it was wrong. But the slave owner has to put himself in the slave's position and consider the fact that they are people and might actually have feelings and all that stuff before he sees that slavery is wrong.
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It Changes
I Dance Naked Around A Tree At Midnight
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The Opposite of Equality is Equality
True. Religion was used in many ways. There are verses in the bible that talk about servants humbly serving thier master. Some were also determined that blacks were "Hammites" (from the tribe of Ham) because they had darker skin. So since the Hammites are supposedly a "cursed people" they probably thought God didnt think it wouldnt be too bad to enslave them...Its so sad how religion can be used to destroy and it works so well.
I think after a while slavery simply became engrained in the South. Probably those exposed to it more (owners) thought it more okay. I'm sure some Southerners thought slavery was wrong. I'm am glad it no longer exists.
they must have known it was wrong but they justified it because they tsomehow found reasons like you listed to make it moral although it is OBVIOUSLY an immoral act and system
"I leave my one and only grain of spiritual sand
to universal scales of humanity, all humanity...
forever is finding a solution to a solution." -Forever Begins, Common
http://www.progressiveu.org/231615-this-is-a-muslim-girls-plight
Every time I learn about black history, I wonder how whites back then could've been thinking. I dont understand how you could see a person suffer, go through pain and sadness, and overcome trials without thinking that they were human. I don't understand.
They called blacks dumb, but who was really the dumber one in this case? I mean, blacks came to America, learned how to do all types of work, and learned a new language...completely different from their native tongue. But the whites...who believed that blacks werent even people, were the smart ones???
To me, it is unreasonable. In the back of my mind, I really do think that white southerners knew that slavery was wrong...but the textbooks say otherwise. So i guess I just have to go with those because I wasn't there and I'm not them. I just don't get how a change in skin would make someone a "beast" and not a person. I don't know how people could think like that.
Desensitization.
These people were raised with slavery; they grew up surrounded by "people" that they were told were less than. That's why they just accepted it, and most never questioned it.
Unfortunately, that's often the way the world works. When you grow up with something, and become comfortable with it, you become less likely to question it. Even if it's a terrible thing. Think about the Nazi's in Germany, and the Hitler Youth. They didn't question many of the things going on around them, because they grew up with Hitler, and to them it was second-nature.
Of this entry and another entry of yours, I like how you seem to have a firm grip on the concept of situational dependency.
I ask myself- What kind of slave owner would you have been self? Hmm. Gee self, maybe not as nice of one as I could fool you into thinking we would be. To which I reply; That's hard to disagree with, perhaps that would have a lot to do with what the slaves were like. Perhaps I would have been more appreciative of audacious self determinism than submissive compliance. Yeah you would think that way.
Restoring Faith In Humanity One Acquaintance At A Time
Remember that the vast, vast, VAST majority of people living in the southern states around and before the Civil War didn't own slaves, and if questioned were likely against slavery.
What they were against was a federal government stepping outside of its bounds of power, taking authority it was not given. that's why the vast, vast, VAST majority of those southerners who fought and died in the civil war did os... why would they fight for slavery? They didn't own slaves... they had nothing to gain and everything to lose.
Instead, they fought against this federal government trying to insert itself into what was a state's right and a state's issue. (Heck, 4 of the 11 states that left the union did so in response to President Lincoln announcing that a federal army was to be raised to force the states back into the union.)
Slavery is a bad thing, though labor is not. someone choosing to work in a field is not bad, but to force someone to and to put them through horrible conditions IS bad.
However, despite what schools teach, the civil war was not over slavery. It was over taxes, federal governments overstepping their bounds and a solidification of power in the north.
The First Shot of the civil war was fired by the south, at an invading union army.
Slavery also exists in non-white societies as well. The Native Americans and many African tribes had slaves as well.
The difference between those slave and "our" slave industries is that their slaves were typically prisoners of war. They were also treated more as "servants" than slaves. They didn't get paid, and didn't have land, but they were still treated as human beings.
Whether or not that was truly moral, I don't know, but it was far better than the way we treated the people we enslaved.
Not all white men were amoral about owning slaves, though.
I like the way Jefferson treated his slaves. Yes, he owned slaves, but he treated them like people. He taught them to read, he gave them land, he let them sell things and keep the profits. He didn't "free" them because he felt that they were better off under his care than out in a world were many people still saw them as inferior. At least as "slaves," they were guaranteed food, clothing, and shelter and sometimes given the opportunity to get more from surplus crops. As free men, they would be forced to deal with harsh discrimination and not be able to get a job, or not get a job that could pay enough to even give them shelter, let alone food. At the time, and under those conditions, slavery was better than freedom.
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
its hard to judge people i hindsight. i mean people 50 years down the road could debate or not what we are doing with stem cell research is moral or not. everything is 50/50. too bad there will never be a completely right or wrong answer