One point you might make to this guy is that--at this time--there was no equality anywhere in the world, and it was this group of white Protestants who set this country up (as had NEVER been done before) so that we would be in a position to lead the world in Freedom and Liberty and evolve as an equal opportunity Republic. And, about 70 years post-Convention, over 600,000 American would die in order to free Africans from slavery.Thomas Sowell makes the point that slavery was an accepted institution worldwide and throughout history - until Christians rejected the legitimacy of the institution during the Enlightenment period. That means that there is no other culture - not Hindus, not Confuscians, not pagans, not atheists, not Shintoists, not Jews, certainly not Muslims, nobody - other than Christians who have ever put their bodies on the line for the freedom of people unrelated to themselves. And that there is not only no literature other than Christian literature promoting the abolition of slavery, there is no literature other than (southern American) Christian literature defending the retention of slavery - because the institution was not controversial anywhere else but among Christians.And among Christians, Protestants were more hostile to slavery earlier than Catholics, and English speaking Protestants were more hostile to slavery earlier than other Protestants. Britain established a naval squadron to interdict the slave trade between Africa and the Western Hemisphere (at significant expense and for no monetary benefit to Britain) - and was unable to give its sailors shore leave in Africa because their sailors were so hostile to the slavery which was so common in Africa that they would inevitably get into riots.
The Christians of the American South were uniquely situated to be the last Christians to reject the legitimacy of the institution of slavery - they had a tiger by the tail, and knew it. In fact, although Abolition went mainstream during/after the Civil War, outright Abolitionists were on the fringe of American political opinion before then because everyone knew that southern whites had a tiger by the tail.
I would tell your History teacher friend that history is a story of events that people didn't know would happen before they happened. Which only means that current knowledge of those past events doesn't make anyone morally superior to those who, having lived earlier, could not know those facts.
William WilberforceBlack Rednecks and White Liberals - Thomas Sowell
Thanks for posting...and links.