[aruanan]

Well of course it was. One does not abuse ones horse or cow or slave if one wants to preserve its value and keep getting work from it. Abuse of slaves was no doubt rare. But that doesn't mean it was a benevolent institution.

Comparing the conditions of slaves in the southern U.S. to conditions of slaves in South America and the Caribbean, slavery in the U.S. south was very benevolent. Comparing conditions of Southern slaves to Northern factory workers at the same time, it was more benevolent than not. Comparing the ~10% lifetime expropriation of the products of labor of Southern slaves (if you don't produce, you get beaten or sold) with the federal government's expropriation of multiple times that (if you don't pay your taxes you'll be imprisoned, fined, and have your remaining property confiscated), it was pretty stinking benevolent. And look how so much of Southern slavery is part of the modern Democrat plan for society: a rational direction of employment, day care, medical care, housing.

[Non-Sequitur]

Comparing the conditions of slaves in the southern U.S. to conditions of slaves in South America and the Caribbean, slavery in the U.S. south was very benevolent. Comparing conditions of Southern slaves to Northern factory workers at the same time, it was more benevolent than not.

Except for that whole 'property, not people' thing. The factory worker could not be sold. His children could not be sold. His could had a chance at an education. He and his children could dream of better lives and quite often achieve it; history is full of men and women who started with nothing and through their own talents and perseverance went on to greater things. Witness Lincoln himself. But a slave was a slave, almost always for their entire lives. Their parents had been slaves. Their children were slaves. Any and all of them could be sold at the drop of a hat. Not a whole lot of upward mobility in that.