Proslavery

Proslavery is an ideology that perceives slavery as a positive good.

Ancient Greek views

Aristotle claimed that some people were natural slaves, and as a result of this belief, he argued that their enslavement was the only way to serve their best interests. He wrote in book I of the Politics:

Accordingly, those who are as different [from other men] as the soul from the body or man from beast—and they are in this state if their work is the use of the body, and if this is the best that can come from them—are slaves by nature. For them it is better to be ruled in accordance with this sort of rule, if such is the case for the other things mentioned. For he is a slave by nature who is capable of belonging to another–which is also why he belongs to another–and who participates in reason only to the extent of perceiving it, but does not have it.[1]

Medieval Christian views

Among the Church Fathers, the majority opinion was in favour of the moral permissibility of slavery.[2] According to Augustine, God approved of the flogging of disobedient slaves: "You must use the whip, use it! God allows it. Rather, he is angered if you do not lash the slave. But do it in a loving and not a cruel spirit."[2] John Chrysostom wrote that "to discipline and punish ignorant slaves is a great accolade, and not a perchance commendation".[2] Tertullian condemned the Marcionites for their advocacy of the liberation of slaves: "what is more unrighteous, more unjust, more dishonest, than to benefit a foreign slave in such a way as to take him away from his master, claim him who is someone else's property".[2]

Thomas Aquinas argued that slavery was not part of natural law, but nonetheless he defended it as a consequence of human sinfulness and necessary for the good of society. He viewed the natural state of humanity as that which had existed prior to the fall of man, in which slavery was non-existent; on those grounds, many commentators see him as rejecting Aristotle's claim that some people were naturally slaves, although it is a matter of controversy as to whether he fully rejected Aristotle's views on the matter.[3]

Islamic views

Further information: Islamic views on slavery and Slavery in 21st-century Islamism

While Islam traditionally permits slavery, most contemporary Islamic authorities argue that the practice is inapplicable in the modern world. However, a minority of contemporary Islamic jurists defend slavery by arguing that it is still relevant and permissible today, and it is actively practiced by Islamist extremist groups.[4]

In the British Empire

The British proslavery movement opposed the abolition of the slave trade – from when the campaign for its abolition first began in 1783 until its victory in 1807 – and then opposed the abolition of slavery itself in British colonies until that was achieved in 1833. Most of the British defenders of slavery were absentee owners of plantations in the British West Indies who economically benefited from the continuation of the institution.[5][6]

Paula E. Dumas, in her study of the history of the British proslavery movement, draws a distinction between anti-abolitionist and proslavery positions: "Anti-abolition arguments in this period focused on defects in the abolitionist platform, emphasising the illegal, illogical, inhumane, or pro-French nature of their aims. Proslavery arguments, on the other hand, positively promoted slavery and the slave trade". Dumas notes that proslavery (as opposed to anti-abolitionist) positions largely disappeared from the British Parliament after the 1807 abolition of the slave trade.[7]^:3 However, other authors do not so clearly draw such a distinction and include what Dumas calls anti-abolitionism in the topic of proslavery.

Dumas traces the beginning of organised British proslavery to 1787, when the London Society of West India Planters and Merchants formed a subcommittee to organise opposition to abolitionism.[7]^:10

British proslavery thinkers defended slavery on the basis of the Bible. General Isaac Gascoyne MP gave a speech to the House of Commons on 10 June 1806 in which he argued that slavery was authorised by Leviticus 25:44-46.[7]^:40 Similarly, on 23 February 1807, George Hibbert MP gave a speech to the House of Commons defending slavery on the basis of the Old Testament and the Epistle to Philemon.[7]^:41 Dumas notes that attempts to directly defend slavery on the basis of the Bible largely disappeared following the 1807 abolition of the slave trade, but its defenders still drew on religious arguments, such that the institution of slavery (allegedly) benefited slaves by encouraging them to convert to Christianity.[7]^:41

After the abolition of the slave trade, British defenders of slavery drew a distinction between slavery itself and the slave trade, acknowledging the latter to be prohibited by the Bible (in particular, Exodus 21:6, Deut 24:7, 1 Tim 1:9-10), but arguing that the Bible permitted the former.[8]

The American proslavery movement drew at times on the British proslavery movement as support. For example, Thomas Roderick Dew, in an essay published in September 1832, quoted approvingly British Foreign Secretary (and later Prime Minister) George Canning's speech to the House of Commons of 16 March 1824 opposing abolition, in which he compared emancipated slaves to Shelley's Frankenstein.[9]

John Locke

John Locke discusses slavery in his Second Treatise of Government. He rejects the idea that a person could voluntarily consent to enslavement, saying "a man, not having the power of his own life, cannot, by compact or by his own consent, enslave himself to any one, nor put himself under the absolute, arbitrary power of another" (emphasis in original).[10] However, he goes on to argue that enslavement of those who are guilty of capital offences is permissible.[10] He also defends the enslavement of those captured in war: "This is the perfect condition of slavery, which is nothing else, but the state of war continued, between a lawful conqueror and a captive" (emphasis in original).[11]

James Farr describes John Locke as "a merchant adventurer in the African slave trade and an instrument of English colonial policy who proposed legislation [the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina] to ensure that 'every freeman of Carolina shall have absolute power and authority over his negro slaves'".[12] Farr argues that Locke's theoretical justifications of slavery were inadequate to justify his practical involvement in the enslavement of Africans. He sees this contradiction as ultimately unsolvable:

Locke never addressed, much less resolved, this contradiction. On Afro-American slavery, silence seems to have been his principal bequest to posterity. Locke's silence is all the more difficult to fathom inasmuch as in the Two Treatises he developed a general theory and justification of slavery for captives taken in a just war ... I hope to show that this theory is woefully inadequate as an account of Afro-American slavery and, further, that Locke knew this ... Locke's silence about the Afro-American slave practices that he helped forward remains profoundly unsettling and poses one of the greatest problems for understanding Locke as a theorist and political actor[12]

While Locke criticised slavery as "so vile and miserable an estate of man",[13] Farr argues that this statement was meant primarily as a condemnation of the enslavement of the English (which Locke accused advocates of absolute monarchy as effectively proposing), not necessarily as a judgement of the African slave trade.

In the United States

Main article: Slavery as a positive good in the United States

In the United States, pro-slavery sentiment arose in the antebellum period as a reaction to the growing antislavery movement in the United States in the late 18th century and early 19th century. Zephaniah Kingsley is the author of the most popular pro-slavery tract, self-published in 1828 and reprinted three times. In 1846, Matthew Estes published A defence of Negro slavery, as it exists in the United States.[14] A collection of the most important American proslavery articles is The Pro-slavery argument: as maintained by the most distinguished writers of the southern states : Containing the several essays on the subject, of Chancellor Harper, Governor Hammond, Dr. Simms, and Professor Dew (1853). The authors are William Harper, a South Carolina jurist and politician, James Henry Hammond, South Carolina governor and then senator, J. Marion Sims, an Alabama physician, and Thomas Roderick Dew, president of the College of William & Mary.

Pro-slavery apologists fought against the abolitionists with their own promotion, which invariably stressed their view that slaves were both well treated and happy, and included illustrations which were designed to prove their points.[15] A writer in 1835 asserted that American slavery is the best slavery there ever was:

[W]e...deny that slavery is sinful or inexpedient. We deny that it is wrong in the abstract. We assert that it is the natural condition of man; that there ever has been, and there ever will be slavery; and we not only claim for ourselves the right to determine for ourselves the relations between master and slave, but we insist that the slavery of the Southern States is the best regulation of slavery, whether we take into consideration the interests of the master or of the slave, that has ever been devised.[16]

Abolitionism in the United States

Main article: Abolitionism in the United States

Until the middle of the 18th century, slavery was practiced with little challenge anywhere in the world. For centuries philosophers as varied as Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and John Locke accepted slavery as part of a proper social system. However, across Europe through the last part of the 18th century there were intellectual antislavery arguments based on Enlightenment thought, as well as moral arguments (notably among Quakers, in Great Britain and the United States) which questioned the legitimacy of slavery. Only in the American Revolutionary War era did slavery first become a significant social issue in North America.[17] In the North, beginning during the Revolution and continuing through the first decade of the next century, state by state emancipation was achieved by legislation or lawsuit[18] although in the larger slaveholding states such as New York and Pennsylvania emancipation was gradual. By 1810, 75% of Northern slaves had been freed and virtually all were freed within the next generation.[19]

In the United States, the antislavery contention that slavery was both economically inefficient and socially detrimental to the country as a whole was more prevalent than philosophical and moral arguments against slavery.[20] In Virginia, as the economy shifted away from tobacco towards less labor-intensive wheat crops, more slaves were freed between 1783 and 1812 than any time until 1865. There was the potential, in many Southern minds, for a relatively short transition away from slavery. However this perspective rapidly changed as the worldwide demand for sugar and cotton from America increased and the Louisiana Purchase opened up vast new territories ideally suited for a plantation economy.[21]

Only in the early 19th century did abolitionist movements gather momentum, and many countries abolished slavery in the first half of the 19th century. The increasing rarity of slavery, combined with an increase in the number of slaves caused by a boom in the cotton trade, drew attention and criticism to the Southern states' continuation of slavery. Faced with this growing 'antislavery' movement, slaveholders and their sympathizers began to articulate an explicit defense of slavery.

Political proslavery

James Henry Hammond

The famous Mudsill Speech (1858) of James Henry Hammond and John C. Calhoun's Speech to the U.S. Senate (1837) articulated the pro-slavery political argument during the period at which the ideology was at its most mature (late 1830s – early 1860s). These pro-slavery theorists championed a class-sensitive view of American antebellum society.[22] They felt that the bane of many past societies was the existence of the class of the landless poor. Southern pro-slavery theorists felt that this class of landless poor was inherently transient and easily manipulated, and as such often destabilized society as a whole. Thus, the greatest threat to democracy was seen as coming from class warfare that destabilized a nation's economy, society, government, and threatened the peaceful and harmonious implementation of laws.

This theory supposes that there must be, and supposedly always has been, a lower class for the upper classes to rest upon: the metaphor of a mudsill theory being that the lowest threshold (mudsill) supports the foundation for a building. This theory was used by its composer, Senator and Governor James Henry Hammond, a wealthy Southern plantation owner, to justify what he saw as the willingness of the non-whites to perform menial work which enabled the higher classes to move civilization forward. With this in mind, any efforts for class or racial equality that ran counter to the theory would inevitably run counter to civilization itself.

Southern pro-slavery theorists asserted that slavery eliminated this problem by elevating all free people to the status of "citizen", and removing the landless poor (the "mudsill") from the political process entirely by means of enslavement. Thus, those who would most threaten economic stability and political harmony were not allowed to undermine a democratic society, because they were not allowed to participate in it. So, in the mindset of pro-slavery men, slavery was for protecting the common good of slaves, masters, and society as a whole.[23]

These and other arguments fought for the rights of the propertied elite against what were perceived as threats from the abolitionists, lower classes, and non-whites to gain higher standards of living. The economic self-interest of slaveholders certainly played a role, as slaves represented a massive amount of wealth – at the time of the Civil War some historians estimate the over 20% of private wealth in the US was slaves.[24] They saw the abolition of slavery as a threat to their powerful Southern economy: an economy that revolved almost entirely around the plantation system and was supported by the use of black slaves.

Proslavery Christians

Further information: The Bible and slavery, Christian views on slavery, Curse of Ham, and Curse and mark of Cain

Passages in the Bible which justify and regulate the institution of slavery have been used as a justification for the keeping of slaves throughout history, and they have also been used as a source of guidance on how it should be done. Therefore, when abolition was proposed, many Christians spoke vociferously against it, citing the Bible's acceptance of slavery as 'proof' that it was part of the normal condition. George Whitefield, who is famed for his sparking of the Great Awakening of American evangelicalism, campaigned, in the Province of Georgia, for the legalisation of slavery,[25][26] joining the ranks of the slave owners who he had denounced in his earlier years, while contending that slaves had souls and opposing their mistreatment by owners who resisted his evangelism to slaves.[27] Slavery had been outlawed in Georgia, but it was legalised in 1751 due in large part to Whitefield's efforts. He bought enslaved Africans and put them to work on his plantation as well as at the Bethesda Orphanage which he established. Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, who played a major role in financing and guiding early Methodism, inherited these slaves and kept them in bondage.[25]

In both Europe and the United States many Christians went further, arguing that slavery was actually justified by the words and doctrines of the Bible.

[Slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God ... it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation ... it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts.

— Jefferson Davis, President, Confederate States of America[28][29]

... the right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example.

— Richard Furman, President, South Carolina Baptist Convention[30][31]

In 1837, Southerners in the Presbyterian denomination joined forces with conservative Northerners in order to drive the antislavery New School Presbyterians out of the denomination. In 1844, the Methodist Episcopal Church split into Northern and Southern wings over the issue of slavery. In 1845, the Baptists in the South formed the Southern Baptist Convention due to disputes with Northern Baptists over slavery and missions.[32]

Proslavery views in the 20th century

In the 20th century, the American philosopher Robert Nozick defended the notion of voluntary slavery, whereby persons voluntarily sell themselves into slavery. In Anarchy, State and Utopia, Nozick writes that "The comparable question about an individual is whether a free system will allow him to sell himself into slavery. I believe that it would."[33] Commenting on Nozick's views, David Ellerman (writing under the pseudonym "J. Philmore") notes their parallels with provisions in the Institutes of Justinian which permit individuals to sell themselves into slavery.[34]

Another 20th-century advocate of legal slavery was Rousas Rushdoony. Rushdoony, an adherent of theonomy, believed that Old Testament laws should be applied in the present day, including those laws which permitted slavery. Unlike Nozick, who believed that slavery should be limited to those who voluntarily agreed to it, Rushdoony supported the forcible enslavement of all who rejected Christianity.[35][36] Rushdoony also asserted that even though antebellum American slavery was un-Biblical, it was still a positive good.[37]

Jack Kershaw, a notorious racist who also served as an attorney for James Earl Ray, the assassin of Martin Luther King Jr., is famous for saying "Somebody needs to say a good word for slavery."[38][39]

Representative Howard W. Smith (D-VA) had been described by contemporaries as an apologist for slavery who invoked the Ancient Greeks and Romans in its defense.[40]

See also

• Thomas Roderick Dew
• William Harper (South Carolina)
• James Henry Hammond
• George Fitzhugh
• Albert Taylor Bledsoe

References

1. Aristotle, Politics, 1254b16–21; in: Aristotle (1985). The Politics. Translated by Carnes Lord. University of Chicago Press. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-226-02670-1.
2. De Wet, C.L. (2016-10-17). "The punishment of slaves in early Christianity: the views of some selected church fathers". Acta Theologica. 23 (1): 263. doi:10.4314/actat.v23i1S.13. ISSN 1015-8758.
3. Norman Kretzmann; Eleonore Stump (28 May 1993). The Cambridge Companion to Aquinas. Cambridge University Press. pp. 222–226. ISBN 978-0-521-43769-1.
4. Bernard K. Freamon, Isis, Boko Haram, and the Human Right to Freedom from Slavery Under Islamic Law Archived 2016-01-14 at the Wayback Machine, 39 Fordham Int'l L.J. 245 (2015)
5. "Pro-slavery sources". www.bl.uk. Retrieved 2020-01-31.
6. "How did the Abolition Acts of 1807 and 1833 affect the slave trade?". The National Archives. Retrieved 2020-01-31.
7. Paula E. Dumas (15 March 2016). Proslavery Britain: Fighting for Slavery in an Era of Abolition. Palgrave Macmillan US. ISBN 978-1-137-55858-9.
8. Taylor, Michael (2016-01-02). "British Proslavery Arguments and the Bible, 1823–1833". Slavery & Abolition. 37 (1): 139–158. doi:10.1080/0144039X.2015.1093394. ISSN 0144-039X.
9. Rugemer, Edward B. (2004-05-01). "The Southern Response to British Abolitionism: The Maturation of Proslavery Apologetics". The Journal of Southern History. 70 (2): 221–248. doi:10.2307/27648398. JSTOR 27648398.
10. John Locke (1821) [First published 1690]. Two treatises of government. Whitmore and Fenn, and C. Brown. p. 206.
11. John Locke (1821) [First published 1690]. Two treatises of government. Whitmore and Fenn, and C. Brown. p. 207.
12. James Farr (1986). ""So Vile and Miserable an Estate": The Problem of Slavery in Locke's Political Thought". Political Theory. Sage Publications, Inc. 14 (2): 263–289. doi:10.1177/0090591786014002005. ISSN 0090-5917. JSTOR 191463.
13. John Locke (1821) [First published 1690]. Two treatises of government. Whitmore and Fenn, and C. Brown. p. 1.
14. Estes, Matthew (1846). A defence of Negro slavery, as it exists in the United States. Montgomery, Alabama.
15. white, Deborah (2013). Freedom on my mind. Mary. V Dougherty.
16. "The Excitement — The Fanatics". The Liberator. Reprinted from the Washington Telegraph. August 29, 1835. p. 1 – via newspapers.com.CS1 maint: others (link)
17. Kolchin (2003) pp. 63-64
18. African Americans and the End of slavery in Massachusetts http://www.masshist.org/endofslavery/index.php?id=54,
19. Kolchin (2003) p. 78
20. Kolchin (2003) pp. 65-68
21. Wilentz (2005) pp. 218-220
22. Jerome Hampton, Gregory (2015). magining Slaves and Robots in Literature, Film, and Popular Culture. lexington Books. p. 25. ISBN 978-0-7391-9146-0.
23. Jerome Hampton, Gregory (2015). Imagining Slaves and Robots in Literature, Film, and Popular Culture. Lexington Book. p. 25. ISBN 978-0-7391-9146-0.
24. Piketty, Thomas. "Capital in the Twenty-First Century." Harvard University Press, 2014 067443000X, 9780674430006
25. Edward J. Cashin, Beloved Bethesda : A History of George Whitefield's Home for Boys (2001)
26. Arnold Dallimore, George Whitefield: The Life and Times of the Great Evangelist of the Eighteenth Century (1980), Volume 2
27. Piper, John. "I Will Not Be a Velvet-Mouthed Preacher!". February 3, 2009. Retrieved 10 December 2013.
28. [Religious Tolerance. http://www.religioustolerance.org/sla_bibl.htm. Accessed 2009-2-3.]
29. Mason I. Lowance (2003). A House Divided: The Antebellum Slavery Debates in America, 1776-1865. Princeton University Press. p. 60. ISBN 0-691-00227-4.
30. Joe Early, Readings in Baptist History (2008), page 82
31. Michael Corbett and Julia Corbett Hemeyer, Politics and Religion in the United States (1999), page 95
32. Paul S. Boyer; Clifford Clark; Joseph F. Kett; Neal Salisbury; Harvard Sitkoff (2007). The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People. Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-0-618-80161-9.
33. Robert Nozick (2013), Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Basic Books, p. 192, ISBN 978-0-465-06374-1
34. Philmore, J. "The Libertarian Case For Slavery: A Note on Nozick", The Philosophical Forum, vol. XIV, n. 1, Fall 1982, p.46; available online
35. R.J. Rushdoony (1973), The Institutes of Biblical Law, 1, p. 137
36. Julie J. Ingersoll (2015), Building God's Kingdom: Inside the World of Christian Reconstruction, Oxford University Press, p. 205, ISBN 978-0-19-991378-7
37. Rushdoony, Rousas (1995). Politics of guilt and pity. Vallecito, Calif: Ross House Books. ISBN 978-1-879998-07-0.. Cited in Julie J. Ingersoll (1 July 2015). Building Gods Kingdom: Inside the World of Christian Reconstruction. Oxford University Press. p. 223. ISBN 978-0-19-991379-4.
38. Garrison, Joey (June 22, 2015). "Blockage sought of I-65 Nathan Bedford Forrest statue". The Tennessean. Retrieved January 5, 2018.
39. Martin, Douglas (September 24, 2010). "Jack Kershaw Is Dead at 96; Challenged Conviction in King's Death". New York Times. Retrieved January 29, 2018.
40. "Civil Rights Act of 1964". www.encyclopediavirginia.org. Retrieved 2020-04-03.

Bibliography

• Finkelman, Paul. Defending Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Old South. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2003.
• Kennedy, David M., Cohen, Lizabeth, and Bailey, Thomas A. The American Pageant: A History of the Republic 12th Edition. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001.
• Kolchin, Peter. American Slavery 1619-1877. (2003 revision) ISBN 0-8090-1630-3
• Wilentz, Sean. The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln. (2005) ISBN 0-393-05820-4