CONSCIENCE – DEFENSE OF SLAVERY
We find ourselves in adulthood with convictions about our obligations to
others, about what’s right. We might even know how we came to hold those
values, and this knowledge may sometimes challenge us to question our
convictions.
Let’s consider a relevant case, one in which the situation should have made
people question their convictions. There are few examples as clear as this
one: that slavery as practiced in the Americas was deeply wrong, hideously
wrong.
The important question is this: How could anyone ever have thought
otherwise?
Before and during the Civil War, a range of apologetics was written on
behalf of slavery. Let me outline the basic theme that appears in those
works: Occasionally in those works one finds the claim that slaves have
racial characteristics that make their enslavement proper or less onerous
(even suggesting “It’s for their own good”). Some people, went the thinking,
are racially constituted such that they are fruitful or useful or happy only
when they are directed by others.
A second repeated theme in that literature is historical justification:
In theological form, it’s the claim that slavery is sanctioned by the Bible and
by the history of the church. An 1864 epistle went as follows:
The slavery of the heathen races was sanctioned by the divine law in
the Old Testament, and the system of Roman slavery was allowed by
Christians in the New Testament. It was regarded as a providential
arrangement of society by the fathers, the councils, the theologians
and commentators in every branch of the church for more than 18
centuries. There is no question on which the Holy Catholic Church was
more perfectly unanimous. The modern doctrine of abolitionists is an
impious error, therefore, because it opposes the Bible and the church.
A secular version of that argument goes like this: “All the great civilizations
of the world, inc. both ancient Greece and Rome, had been founded on
slavery. Slavery is necessary for civilization as we know it.”
Another common theme in the pro-slavery literature of the time is that
American slavery was a benefit to its slaves in comparison to the lives they
would have lived in Africa. In theological form, the benefits of Christian
conversion far outweigh the disadvantages of slavery. Further, the
expectation is sometimes expressed that those converted to Christianity in
slavery would return to Africa to Christianize that continent as well. “The
ultimate result will be the preparation in due time of the vast host of
missionary labor able to, by their unusual physical peculiarities, enjoy the
climate of Africa which few of the white race can endure” (signed by 95
Protestant Ministers in Richmond, VA, in 1863).
Anecdotal evidence was used to suggest that the lot of American slaves, in
comparison to liberty, was beneficial. Ex-slaves were quoted as regretting
having left their masters and the comforts of being provided for. Here’s a
sample that even attempts to include statistical evidence: “The servants at
the South, for the most part, received good treatment as evidenced by the
census returns of 1860. During that year there were 3,000 servants freed
and 803 escaped to the North, making a total loss to the slave population of
3,803. Taking this as the average for the past decade, there would have
been a loss to the slave population of 38,030. But the slave population in the
South increased no less than 23.39% during the decade while the freed
blacks increased only 12.33%. The women, at times when their health is
delicate, are not required to labor, being taken about as good care of as a
member of the white family under similar circumstances” (source, as above).
What should we make of arguments such as these? It’s impossible to read
this material today without thinking that it’s consciously hypocritical or subconsciously self-deceptive. The reasons given for perpetuating the deepest
of injustices with such transparent rationalizations are built into the
economic foundations of a corrupt culture. To us, the idea that slavery is
somehow of benefit to the enslaved is directly contradicted by experience.
The idea that slavery is appropriate for a certain batch of people also is
contradicted by experience.
Appealing to the bloody injustices of the past is a pitiful way to justify
current injustices. How could they ignore biblical passages that make clear
the fear, the horror, or the humiliation of enslavement: of the Israelites in
Egypt, for example?
Their pseudo-arguments seemed designed to protect their economic
advantages by hiding in the deepest of injustices. Could it be that those
apologetics actually believed what they were saying? My guess is that they
indeed believed, that there were many who inhaled the pseudo-justifications
with every breath even as they lived an otherwise normal life. They pursued
their own struggles, they loved their families, they sacrificed, and they
contributed everyday to the ethically hideous degradation of other human
beings.
Now, let’s draw the lesson to our own case. Can we hold those who believed
those lies responsible for holding corrupted ethical beliefs when these
beliefs were imbibed from childhood, when they were woven into the fabric
of the everyday, when they were echoed as inevitable even from the pulpit?
I think the answer is “Yes, they can be held responsible.” They should have
known better. A glimpse at their own economy and their own history should
have been sufficient to show them that the tissue of ethical justification
was all too pat, all too well tailored to existing patterns of economic
exchange and personal advantage. We didn’t need Karl Marx to show us that
economic advantage can corrupt belief. A glimpse at their history and their
cultural situation should have made them think twice about the ethical lie.
They should have challenged the hideous myths that allowed them to hide
behind their justifications of slavery.
Now let’s come back to ourselves. Their situation is our situation as well.
We too inherit a web of ethical concepts and models that often provide us
with reasons to be suspicious. It’s also OUR responsibility to consider the
history and economic background of our own moral views. When the beliefs
we’ve imbibed are all too comfortable, when they echo how good we are or
how deserving – or at least how free from blame – that’s when the warning
sirens should sound. My precious ethical beliefs may rest all too
comfortably with my advantages. That’s precisely when I should wake from
dogmatic slumber to challenge and change (as C. P. Ellis did).
(Jill’s note: When I toured an old railroad museum in Missouri some years
back, the tour guide pointed to the “separate but equal” facilities on the
train. I queried, “So, the blacks enjoyed the same creature comforts as the
whites – the same comfortable chairs, the same quality food, etc.?” “Well,
no,” she replied. The point is, even to this day, we “lie” to ourselves about
the historical treatment of African Americans in this country.)
Taken verbatim from Grim, P. Lecture 17: “A Genealogy of My Morals.”
Questions of Values. Chantilly, VA: The Teaching Company, 2005.
QUESTION TO PONDER
Under what circumstances is it appropriate to say, “They should have known
better”? Under what circumstances are people responsible for holding the
moral views they have inherited, and under what circumstances are they not
responsible for those views?