“Accepting slavery allowed the states to unify, ratify the Constitution and form the nation that we know.”
Who accepted slavery?
Did those who were held in slavery voluntarily accept slavery?
Were slaves consulted to see if they accepted slavery?
1. Slaveholders, businesses in the south and North that profited from slave labor, etc.
2.No one was held in slavery voluntarily, unless you mean the hundreds of 1000s of indentured men and women. But no slave from Africa was in bondage voluntarily. Ya think?
3. No.
Are you ignorant or just trying to bait the issue?
I think you’re either being intentionally obtuse or you’re a closet lefty. Of course the slaves didn’t accept their bondage and of course they weren’t consulted about the decision to continue to allow slavery. I’m not intending to excuse slavery, just providing an explanation for why it was allowed to continue to exist. The FOUNDERS were the ones who decided not to try to end slavery in the late 18th century. Most of them believed slavery was morally wrong, but allowed it to continue as a necessary evil. They indeed thought that economic forces at work (namely massive immigration and industrialization) that had essentially killed slavery in the North would likewise eventually do so in the South. Massive demand for cotton as a result of industrialization of the textile industry combined with the invention of the cotton gin, allowing the crop to be easily processed by unskilllabor, thwarted that vision.
Obviously this led to the entrenchment of slavery in the South, with all of the rationalizations that Southerners put forth in its defense — the Bible sanctions slavery, the slaves are better taken care of and better off than poor immigrant factory workers in the North, etc. It’s pretty easy to rationalize a system when ending that system would completely uproot your society and plunge nearly everyone into poverty.
Be careful of judging people on the basis of your own morality. It isn’t all that far fetched that future generations will look back upon us and judge us harshly. Yes, slavery was wrong, but it certainly wasn’t an American invention. Slavery has been the norm throughout most of human history. It still is the norm in some parts of the world.