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While we think slaves are no good, they might not.

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In history, there is certainly a trap that one might fall into about putting one's modern feelings back to the time under study.

However regarding race based slavery, it is easy to look back at the period and see a segment of the polulation speaking out vociferously against it and calling for the immediate uncompensated end of the institution.. We call them abolitionists.

There was, espesically in the north but also in the south, a segment of the white population against slavery. This group represented by Lincoln, while understanding the basic humanity of the slave did not feel that the black was the equal to the white on a social basis and felt strongly threateded economically by slaves, fromer slaves and free blacks. Along with calling for the eventual end of slavery most of this group wanted the slave to leave the United States and be repatriated back to Africa or somewhere else.

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While I was at the hotel to-day, an elderly gentleman called upon me to know whether I was really in favor of producing a perfect equality between the negroes and white people.... I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races—that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied every thing. I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife.

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~ Lincoln Douglas Debates, Fourth Joint Debate Charleston, September 18, 1858

Another group is represented by Jefferson. One can read his writings and understand that he felt race based slavery was not a moral institution, but he felt compelled culturally and socially to keep slaves to maintain his position and yet given a clear path, might have done something tangible about ending slavery.

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I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. A geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper. I can say, with conscious truth, that there is not a man on earth who would sacrifice more than I would to relieve us from this heavy reproach, in any practicable way. The cession of that kind of property, for so it is misnamed, is a bagatelle which would not cost me a second thought, if, in that way, a general emancipation and expatriation could be effected; and gradually, and with due sacrifices, I think it might be. But as it is,
we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.

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~Jefferson to To John Holmes, Monticello, April 22, 1820

Then we have those unapoligetic fire-eating slave holders who rejected the humanity of the slave and considered them simple property to do with as he or she pleased.

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You can blame people who own slaves now, but you can't blame the founding father because they didn't know better.

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Sorry, but yes they did. The ones that held slaves, or got rich on the slave trade understood that there were other options but they chose the one that brought about their own personal economic growth the fastest. Furthermore, they insulated themselves against criticism culturally and socially by seperating themselves from the north for example and rationalized slavery as the south's own peculiar institution.

[ July 11, 2001: Message edited by: Jay the Obscure ]