I don't argue with that, but where did that moral basis come from? Certainly not the Bible, since the Bible condones and justifies slavery.
This moral basis must have been extra-Biblical, but you can't get some here to admit that morality is based on more than the Bible. It must cause a lot of cognitive dissonance for them.
Deuteronomy 23:15-16
"You shall not hand over to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. He shall live with you in your midst, in the place which he shall choose in one of your towns where it pleases him; you shall not mistreat him."
And here is the text of Philemon, emphasis mine:
"Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, To Philemon our beloved brother and fellow worker, and to Apphia our sister, and to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house:
"Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
"I thank my God always, making mention of you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of the faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus and toward all the saints; and I pray that the fellowship of your faith may become effective through the knowledge of every good thing which is in you for Christ's sake. For I have come to have much joy and comfort in your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, brother.
"Therefore, though I have enough confidence in Christ to order you to do what is proper, yet for love's sake I rather appeal to you--since I am such a person as Paul, the aged, and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus--I appeal to you for my child Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my imprisonment, who formerly was useless to you, but now is useful both to you and to me. I have sent him back to you in person, that is, sending my very heart, whom I wished to keep with me, so that on your behalf he might minister to me in my imprisonment for the gospel; but without your consent I did not want to do anything, so that your goodness would not be, in effect, by compulsion but of your own free will. For perhaps he was for this reason separated from you for a while, that you would have him back forever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. If then you regard me a partner, accept him as you would me.
"But if he has wronged you in any way or owes you anything, charge that to my account; I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand, I will repay it (not to mention to you that you owe to me even your own self as well). Yes, brother, let me benefit from you in the Lord; refresh my heart in Christ. Having confidence in your obedience, I write to you, since I know that you will do even more than what I say.
"At the same time also prepare me a lodging, for I hope that through your prayers I will be given to you.
"Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, greets you, as do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke, my fellow workers. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit."
It appears that Onesimus ran away to Paul and was converted while with him. Apparently Onesimus consented to return to Philemon's service, as it's hard to believe Paul, who looked on him as a son, would force him to go back if he didn't want to--especially as he had Old Testament law to back up his refusal to send him back. It isn't hard to read the subtext of this letter: "If you don't do as you should and free him, you will be sinning and spurning my counsel."
The Old Testament allowed the Israelites to purchase slaves from the surrounding countries, but had laws to protect them from mistreatment. It was absolutely forbidden and punishable by death to sell another Jew into slavery. Israelites who went into service to pay off debts were freed in the year of Jubilee and their debts were forgiven.
The New Testament once again holds God's people to a higher standard. While the early Christians were not required to revolt and try to end the Roman practice of slavery any more than they were to revolt against the Roman's oppression of their people, they were encouraged to free their own slaves. If they refused to free their slaves they were reminded that in God's eyes they were all equal (Gal. 3:26-28, Eph. 6:9, Col. 4:1).
The relative silence of the New Testament on this topic probably arises from the New Testament emphasis on the dignity of service to others--all were to be servants (Mark 10:43-45). As well, the New Testament teaches us to be content in whatever situation we find ourselves in (Phil. 4:11-13). I Corinthians 7:20-24 says, "Each one should remain in the situation which he was in when God called him. Were you a slave when you were called? Don't let it trouble you--although if you can gain your freedom, do so. For he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord is the Lord's freedman; similarly, he who was a free man when he was called is Christ's slave. You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men. Brothers, each man, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation God called him to."
As I stated in a previous post, Biblical law was made up of three types: civil, ceremonial, and moral. The laws regulating slavery in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy were applicable solely to ancient Israel, a nation whose political existence ended in 70 AD. These were civil laws not mandatory for other nations, but were for ancient Israel only. (Virtually all nations on earth had slavery during the time ancient Israel existed as a physical, geographically defined nation. Most of their systems were crueler to the slaves than was the case in the Holy Land.) In the case of ancient Israel, slavery was permitted. However, its existence at that place (the Holy Land) in that time (about 1400 B.C. to 70 AD) does not mean that it was necessarily to be permitted at all times for all nations.
Additionally, slavery in ancient Israel characteristically involved a person surrendering his freedom for the allotted seven year period. In his book, The Sinai Strategy, Christian historian and economist Gary North notes this situation. "Permanent or household slavery in the Old Testament was a vow taken voluntarily. The slave who wished to remain in his master’s house beyond the sixth year, or beyond the jubilee year, could do so. The master drove an awl through the slave’s ear and into the door (Deut. 15:17). It was a bloody symbol of a permanent relationship, even as the blood on the doorpost at the Passover was a sign of a family’s permanent relationship with God (Ex. 12:7). The slave was no longer a chattel slave but an adopted son of the house."
To the extent that the civil law of ancient Israel could serve as a guideline for governments in the church age, it is clear that the institution of slavery as it existed in the United States and in the British, Dutch, French, Portuguese, and Spanish Empires did not comport with the Biblical guidelines.
* Exodus 21:2 provided a maximum limit of seven years for bondage. Enslavement was for life in the European colonies and the antebellum South (unless the slave bought his freedom).
* There was no provision for multigenerational slavery in ancient Israel. The children of slave women were slaves in the systems of the 16th through 19th Centuries.
* Masters could be punished for killing their slaves in ancient Israel (Exodus 21:20) and would lose their ownership for severely injuring their slaves (Exodus 21: 26-27). American and European colonial slavery lacked this degree of protection.
* There was punishment inflicted if a master had sexual relations with a female slave (Leviticus 19:20). The fact that a majority of African Americans have some white ancestry testifies to the fact that laws prohibiting sexual relations between masters and slaves existed on the books of the British colonies or the Southern states were hardly enforced.
The institution of slavery, as it existed in the European colonies and the United States, more resembled the Graeco-Roman model than the Biblical one. Graeco-Roman law permitted all the abuses (lifetime slavery, multigenerational slavery, little possibility for redress of the physical or sexual abuse of slaves) characterized the practices of the Roman Empire and not those of the commonwealth of ancient Israel. All the colonial powers, save England, which was governed by common law, were subject to laws derived from the Code of Justinian, named after the 6th Century Eastern Roman emperor. England, a relative latecomer to colonial expansion, simply adopted the slavery system the other European powers used to their New World possessions, including those colonies that became the United States.
Scripture does not necessarily permit slavery universally. The slavery that existed in the United States and the European colonial empires from the 16th to the 19th Centuries was derived from Graeco-Roman models and lacked the protective legislation found in the Pentateuch that benefited slaves in ancient Israel. The question must then arise as to whether Biblical principles, at least under the New Covenant, prohibit human bondage.
Firstly, slavery is in itself theft - the uncompensated taking of labor services by force, in contravention of the Eighth Commandment. In the New Covenant, the barriers that previously existed between slave and freeman, Jew and Gentile were lifted. "For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility." (Eph. 2:14) The possibility of unity among all believers, irrespective of race, class, or other status is recognized. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Gal 3:28) In I Timothy 1:10, Paul condemns slave traders (rendered in the KJV as manstealers) as unworthy of being sinful. In the book of Philemon, he pleads for the freedom of Oneismus on the basis of a common brotherhood among believers.
Active opposition to slavery could be found among several Christian groups in early America, including the Quakers, the Mennonites, and the Scottish Covenanters. Among Christian leaders and spokesmen who actively opposed slavery were John Wesley (founder of Methodism), William Wilburforce (responsible for abolishing slavery in the British Empire), John Newton (author of Amazing Grace, Harriet Beecher Stowe (author of Uncle Tom's Cabin), Jonathan Edwards (the first great American revivalist), and Theodore Dwight. (There were also Unitarians and other non-Christians prominent in the American antislavery movement.) I believe all of these individuals drew their opposition to slavery from their understanding of Scripture and not from humanistic sources.
There are areas of liberty where the Bible does not directly address an issue, such as the use of human stem cells from aborted fetuses in medical research. However, in many instance, what the Westminster Standards refer to as the "good and necessary consequences" of direct Biblical teachings lead to answers in many moral matters. Christian theologians have long held to the position of progressive revelation, that is, later statements in the New Testament, such as Peter's vision in Acts 10 declaring all animal flesh as clean, overrule previous standards in the Old Testament, specifically, the dietary laws. Furthermore, the principle of Scripture interpreting itself in terms of the grammatical and historical background of the statements therein was a major development of the Protestant Reformers. Edwards, Wilburforce, and the other Christian opponents of slavery, as heirs to the concepts of progressive revelation and the grammatical-historical method of Bible interpretation, drew their opposition to slavery from the good and necessary consequences of the propositions in Scripture.
My understanding is that the Bible is interpreted. If you'll forgive me, I won't accept your interpretation that it condones and justifies slavery. One can understand the Jews escaping from Egyptian slavery as representing the universal desire of man to be free.
This moral basis [to oppose slavery] must have been extra-Biblical, but you can't get some here to admit that morality is based on more than the Bible. It must cause a lot of cognitive dissonance for them.
I don't know whether Christians who believe that the Bible is the basis of all morality have more or less cognitive dissonance than others regarding morality's first principles. The problem of slavery being "condoned" (in your interpretation) seems easy enough to reconcile.