LAPhil Loc: Los Angeles, CA

No, I think you miss the point. Slavery is and always has been an abomination regardless of the reasons for its existence or its practicality. Why shouldn't it be judged by today's standards? Can we judge something by any other standards? And yes, it was ended by morals, the machinery notwithstanding. Slavery was ended by a lot of people who recognized it for the abomination that it was. The practicality of it just gave those who didn't care about its immorality a rationalization for its existence.

Loki Loc: Georgia

Slavery was ended because it was becoming unprofitable. Some of the more prominent abolitionists in New England and the northeast were from families who made fortunes in the slave trade, and, seeing the writing on the wall, (that slavery was on the way out due more to it's unprofitability compared with mechanization than any moral odiousness that might attach to it ), sold their slaves for a substantial profit and then began demanding that slave owners in the South free theirs with no compensation.
If the Romans had developed machinery to, let's say, extract salt from their Thracian salt mines, there would have been no need for slaves to work the mines, save as a punishment of some sort, because the machines could have done it better. Think this through...... there was NO moral outcry to end slavery until a viable alternative became more widely available with industrialization. Morals followed mechanization.
You are the one who has missed the point. As I said, you are sitting in the midst of plenty in a world that could not have been imagined 150 years ago when mere existence was sometimes a struggle, passing judgement on people who were surviving in a world in which you probably could not have prospered. Beliefs are propogated by circumstances, actions are impelled by them. No one is saying that slavery is right, but it was a workable solution at a time when there were not many options.

LAPhil Loc: Los Angeles, CA

It still sounds like you're rationalizing. Even if all that was true, and I don't doubt that it was, all I'm talking about is the principle of slavery being an abomination. Some institutions are immoral, regardless of their profitability or practicality. For instance, I'm not sure how you feel about abortion, but a lot of people believe it's the taking of a life and therefore should not be done, regardless of the inconvenience to the mother. Following a moral principle may not always be in one's best interest, but the principle is no less valid and at the end of the day should be followed. Making a slave of another human being is immoral, period, regardless of how practical or convenient it was at any given time or to any given group of people. I somehow don't think you would disagree.

CounterRevolutionary

This photograph was taken when the old dolly was having a bad hair day. It would be proper for an artist to make a more flattering portrait of Harriet in a traditional etching or engraving, as done for our founders, to render her in a joyful, victorious disposition.

CounterRevolutionary

Just remember that the English textile industry paid far higher prices for cotton than the Yankies up north. The cotton gin was invented in 1793, some 70 years prior the Civil War and could not be the defining motive to end slavery. It was the White southerners who became Progressive Democrats, later backing Karl Marx, Lenin, Mussolini, and Hitler who all enslaved fellow Whites, responsible for the deaths of over 100 million at the end of WWII. Any man who will enslave another race will enslave his own. They are the nouveaux educated, too arrogant and to lazy to do their own work. What is that old cliché? "A little education is a dangerous thing." College students today ring up $100,000 of debt and refuse to help with the harvest during summer vacation to pay off their loans. The students are too smart to work? We taxpayers bail them out. Who are the salves now? Go figure.

CounterRevolutionary

Paul, do you really think slavery is an issue of race, "white men," or is it an issue of human subjugation? Look at the centuries of ongoing strife between the Scotts and the English, or Irish, not to mention the Spanish, or Roman empire. When Christ walked the earth, 75% of all humanity was enslaved. Have you ever worked under a woman tyrant, where the oppressed become the oppressors?

Loki Loc: Georgia

My disagreement is not the important part. Moral principles can change, given the proper circumstances. Many people who proselytize about the immorality of taking life make their moral judgements from the safety of never having personally been in deadly danger. Should that circumstance occur, they frequently change their tune. Do you consider prison immoral? There's an example of involuntary servitude. Do you take the position that society has a right to be protected from the depredations of a criminal? That is survival of the society, the same principle driving much of slavery. Many were made slaves because they were criminals, or what the society they existed in called a criminal. Was their slavery any worse than prison today for minor drug offenses that society has deemed dangerous, even though these same drugs have been legal throughout history? Where is your morality now? Many people saw nothing wrong with slavery if the slaves were humanely treated, and there were those who sold themselves into slavery temporarily or permanently to pay debts. Is this worse than a debtor's prison? Irish tenant farmers were treated worse than slaves, because no slave owner was going to see his expensive property mistreated as badly as some of these people were.
I digress. I was pointing out that simply because you or I might believe something wrong, does not make it so in the eyes of others living in entirely different situations. There are more reasons than greed for enslaving people. As I said some became so to pay off debts, or as punishment for crimes. Given the ubiquitious nature of slavery, the buying and selling of humans that were already enslaved was viewed as a perfectly normal activity for most of our history, and in some cases, such as punishment for criminal activity or for a temporary period to pay a debt was not what I would consider immoral. I think that putting criminals in prison and not making them perform some sort of necessary work, or making restitution to their victims is immoral. I personally believe that a criminal should be made to pay back their victims where possible, yet some consider that some sort of immoral slavery. Had you lived, say, 300 years ago and been in less than fortunate circumstances, your morals might prove less immutable than you think.

crazylibertarian Loc: Florida by way of New York & Rhode Island

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Yes, I do know about the law of suppy & demand but there was so much slave trading going on in the world. How much could ours have represented? I forget exactly what it was he wrote that I was responding to but it impressed me as a usual blast for white man guilt.

LAPhil Loc: Los Angeles, CA

What you're arguing here is a lot of cultural relativism, which is one of the problems with today's educational system. It's an attempt to rationalize something as neither right nor wrong because of varying circumstances. This is why so many young people are so confused today. If you believe in God, as I do, then you must realize there are absolutes which do not change according to the times or the desires of the people. At the end of the day, nothing justifies the enslavement of black men, women, and children not now or ever. It is an absolute wrong.

FEDUP

FEDUP

Andrew Jackson was honored by putting him on the twenty dollar bill. I am sure that if we tryied we could find a different way to honor MS. Tubman.

Loki Loc: Georgia

Is it now? Tell me, which God do you believe in? The one who said slavery of non-Israelites was just fine? You can read that in your Holy Bible, in Exodus 21, Leviticus 25: 44-47, and Deuteronomy 20:10-16.
Does it specify that only non-Blacks can be enslaved, and that Blacks are somehow sacrosanct? It allows slavery of anyone who is not an Israelite, and of Israelites also, for temporary periods. It allows slavery of enemies in war, slavery for thieves and other criminals, slavery for debt, voluntary slavery for poverty, and allows free women to be sold to the man of her father's choice.
One more time, which God was it you claim to believe in?

Loki Loc: Georgia

You could start by spelling her name correctly, LOL. Tubman.

LAPhil Loc: Los Angeles, CA

You just keep on deflecting. You understood the point I was making but you keep trying to deny that's it's true. Again, you're playing the moral relativism card. I couldn't care less what the Bible says about slavery. If you truly believe that the morality of it is relative then we have nothing more to discuss.

crazylibertarian Loc: Florida by way of New York & Rhode Island

In this back & forth, can we all just agree that any slavery is an abomination? I do add that the indentured servitude, where someone sells off his future earnings for some kind of current benefit is acceptable. I don't like it but it seems a reasonable exchange. But let's put that aside. Slavery is an abomination that somehow passed muster in just about every society, many including to the twentieth century.

I also submit to all that any economic benefits, whether in the galleys of ships, Thracian salt mines or the tobacco and cotton fields of the old South, are illusory. People just are not going to work to productive capacity for the rewards of others. Thaddeus Russell demonstrated it in his book, "Renegade Histroy of The United States."

That said, I owe nobody anything for what was done by the ancestors of other Americans nor do I for anything done by my ancestors.

And for whateverit's worth, a black reporter for The Washington Post was assigned to East Africa over some event. When he came back, he wrote a book that he was glad his ancestors had been forced to come to The USA because there was no way he'd want to live as those people did. He was castigated for it.