The guy was born in 1724 and was documenting to his son his ethical qualms about what was a normal and “Christian” practice for the time. 20,000 sterling was a princely sum in those days (literally…well beyond the dreams of most commoners). His will would likely have been overthrown on the grounds that he had gone mad, for denying his children their rightful inheritance. This was a reasonable fear. He needed to get his children on board for the manumitting to work, legally and permanently.
He is wrestling with his conscience, 100 years before the country as a whole caught up with him. Instead of judging him by 2014 standards, consider how far ahead of his time he was. It would be wonderful if no one had ever enslaved anyone in the history of the world – heck, it would be peachy keen if it stopped now, finally – but that’s not how humans work.
The history podcast, BackStory just re-ran their mental health episode, which covered drapetomania, and also the crazyass idea, which stayed relatively popular even into the late 60s, that protesting for civil rights was both a sign of and a cause of schizophrenia.
We’re reading the same text differently, is rather the case.
There was already a strong and growing sense of the horror of slavery among Americans and Britons in the eighteenth century, one that exploded in the public discourse right at the time of the Revolution, the exact date of Laurens’ letter. It’s not the majority view, to be sure, but it’s one that would have been available to a cultured, educated gentleperson of the time, especially one whose career was built on slavery. These texts are in all the anthologies and online: the Library of America has a good selection in the first few hundred pages of its Antislavery Writings anthology. Again, not the majority opinion, to be sure, but far from some kind of unheard-of crazytalk that somehow came into being with Lincoln. Americans wrestled with the issue right from the git-go.
Witness Laurens’ own son, John, in a letter to a friend in May of 1776:
I think we Americans at least in the Southern Colonies, cannot contend with a good Grace, for Liberty, until we shall have enfranchised our Slaves. How can we whose Jealousy has been alarm’d more at the Name of Oppression sometimes than at the Reality, reconcile to our spirited Assertions of the Rights of Mankind, the galling abject Slavery of our negroes. . . . If as some pretend, but I am persuaded more thro’ interest, than from Conviction, the Culture of the Ground with us cannot be carried on without African Slaves, Let us fly it as a hateful Country…
John Laurens later worked to enlist freed slaves in the Continental Army, which is another story: and John Laurens was very much a radical outlier. To be sure, there’s a kinder reading of Laurens pere than mine, but to paint him as some kind of progressive on the issue would be inaccurate. And I think it’s more than fair to snarkily point out just how materially comfortable he was while his tortured conscience wrestled over the issue.
It’s easy to make grand claims of how one would act if wealthy. Warren Buffett stands out in our current time as being one of the only wealthy people in the world who has chosen to not leave more than a tiny percentage of his wealth to his children for ethical reasons. Reality is, a conscience – tortured or otherwise – is very rare when significant wealth is involved…
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
ERM… I read The Economist, and I think slavery is one of the most abhorrent things about my countries history (up there with our treatment of the American Indians, supporting eugenics, and our bellicose nature). It doesn’t resonate with me, and I don’t long for the days of slavery. Also, a lot of the economists readership aren’t Americans, but British, which makes this a bit more perplexing.
Not reading the book, I can only say that the reviewer was a moron, but one can right a biased account of history, even if they are advocating out modern concept of justice. Howard Zinn’s history of America was a horrible history book, even if I agreed with him much of the time. Again, I have no clue if this is the case.
That is quite a statement… I would revise it as “the modern theory and application of capitalism is immoral”. But the underpinnings of capitalism are as old as human communities, and is the natural result of unequal distribution of resources and skill.
Further, I don’t think anyone has ever come up with a viable alternative that doest rely on crushing the rights of individuals in even more horrific ways.
[quote=“Treefingers, post:76, topic:40618, full:true”]
People aren’t able to identify all of their idelogical biases.[/quote]
Never said they were. We exist in an incompletely knowable universe. Hope uncertainty is not existentially unbearable for you.
We disagree rather badly here if by “objectivity” you mean something like a “perspectiveless perspective” or “god’s eye view” on nature. In any case, all definitions of objectivity are socially constructed which means they must inherently be plural, contested, contradicting and value-laden, so in my book, no, not approachable.
Surely, and we agree quite strongly here. But I do not believe that the tools of the research, the agenda of the research, the formation of the researchers, the social networks of the researchers or the premises of the researcher are value-free. They never are, nor can they be, nor ought they be. And pretending they are moves into that aforementioned shell game.
And here we are into the realm of “surely we all agree on this?” only, what if “we” do not?
There is a lot of good to be said about the Economist, current article are Iraq cheer leading aside (hell, one of my intellectual heroes, Christopher Hitchens, went that way too, for some reason). If you’re smart, and can weed out of of the obvious biases, it really is a smart periodical. I’d rather read something smart with opposing views than something that only agrees with me (like The Nation… Which is nothing but a progressive circle jerk/ echo chamber).
I’m not defending their often bone-headed moments, but it is hard to find anything, or anyone who doesn’t, on occasion, fail spectacularly.
I’m African-American & Afro-Caribbean. I’ve been to Nigeria, Brazil, all over the Caribbean and the lives of Black people all over the world have been scarred by capitalism. Capitalism is based on slavery. In textbooks we change the term to ‘cheap labor’ what’s cheaper than free?
Capitalism is based on the exchange of goods, and not slavery. One historical application of capitalism (sadly) was based on slavery. One can have very modern progressive ideals, and still practice capitalism. Everything is in the application, not the beast itself.
Cheap labor isn’t slavery. Cheap labor is cheap labor, slavery is bondage and stripping the rights and personhood from individuals; turning people into objects and property. Wage “slaves” are still people, they have all the same rights as “skilled labor”.
There really isn’t any other kind. An economic system that propagates iniquity is not a good economic system, no matter how “natural” it might seem.
I’m pretty sure it isn’t the coming up with viable alternatives that is the problem. Anyway, I’d say slavery’s pretty bad as far as “crushing the rights of individuals” goes.
I see and hear that all the time when people talk about First Nations here in Canada (slavery was almost nonexistent and banned many decades before it happened in the US). But here in Canada, and most particularly here in BC, we have an ongoing issue of blatantly illegal land appropriation and a century and a half of genocide by policy that most of us have a really hard time acknowledging.
I have heard someone respond to a comment about the century long genocidal ‘residential schools’ program (which only finally ended in 1996!) with a racist generalization about natives, or a ‘we conquered them’ bogus justification a ridiculous number of times.
My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? “Forgive me my foul murder”?
That cannot be; since I am still possess’d
Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition and my queen.
May one be pardon’d and retain the offence?
Oh yes, it is well known that the employers of wage slaves have a vested interest in keeping their employees safe and healthy in order to increase their productivity.
One thing I found interesting/disturbing about the review was the insistence that it held about some beliefs - an effort to suggest that things “might not have been so bad”. That insistence could be easily disproven by ongoing trends in treatment of poor and migrant workers. How could anyone be so blind?
Slave owners surely had a vested interest in keeping their “hands” ever fitter and stronger to pick more cotton. Some of the rise in productivity could have come from better treatment.
Today’s migrant workers aren’t treated kindly so that they can more easily work the fields. Here’s an article on how well they do in society as free workers. They live poor, die young, and many women are raped. That’s true even today.
