Posted on 12/12/2004 12:21:53 PM PST by mac_truck
Students at one of the area's largest Christian schools are reading a controversial booklet that critics say whitewashes Southern slavery with its view that slaves lived "a life of plenty, of simple pleasures." Leaders at Cary Christian School say they are not condoning slavery by using "Southern Slavery, As It Was," a booklet that attempts to provide a biblical justification for slavery and asserts that slaves weren't treated as badly as people think.
Principal Larry Stephenson said the school is only exposing students to different ideas, such as how the South justified slavery. He said the booklet is used because it is hard to find writings that are both sympathetic to the South and explore what the Bible says about slavery.
"You can have two different sides, a Northern perspective and a Southern perspective," he said.
'SOUTHERN SLAVERY, AS IT WAS' Here are some excerpts from the booklet:
* "To say the least, it is strange that the thing the Bible condemns (slave-trading) brings very little opprobrium upon the North, yet that which the Bible allows (slave-ownership) has brought down all manner of condemnation upon the South." (page 22)
* "As we have already mentioned, the 'peculiar institution' of slavery was not perfect or sinless, but the reality was a far cry from the horrific descriptions given to us in modern histories." (page 22)
* "Slavery as it existed in the South was not an adversarial relationship with pervasive racial animosity. Because of its dominantly patriarchal character, it was a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence." (page 24)
* "Slave life was to them a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes, and good medical care." (page 25)
(Excerpt) Read more at newsobserver.com ...
I think it is presumptive of the people today to look at the past and pronounce them innocent by way of ignorance, "they don't know no better".
I don't disagree with you too often, but I have to disagree on this question of cultural limitations.
Do you really believe that Julius Ceasar knew he was doing wrong in invading Gaul? That the Babylonians knew they were doing wrong in enslaving the Jews?
It's a rare individual who stands head and shoulders above his era, who sees further.
I believe that wills are binding so long as they don't require something be done that was illegal. Unlike some other southern states manumission was not illegal in Virginia. However, the freed slaves had 12 months in which to leave Virginia or else they could be sold into slavery again. No doubt that was the reason why Lee paid passage for some of his former slaves back in the 1840's or 50's.
I believe that you are mistaking Lee with a post-war quote by James Longstreet.
What is your evidence?
"Northerners who fought for the union, their country, and the form of constitutional and representative government they grew up with"
Woah, there. If Lincoln hadn't decided to invade the South to prevent them from seceeding, the United States would still have had "their country, and the form of constitutional and representative government they grew up with." Just with fewer states in it. So don't let's get carried away with the nobility of the north, either.
"by those who would whitewash Southern slavery."
Every time somebody says, "See it for as bad as it was, but no worse," that's "whitewashing" slavery.
"I believe that you are mistaking Lee with a post-war quote by James Longstreet."
"What is your evidence?"
Aw, jeez, now I have to start dusting off dead-tree editions of actual books.
That's gonna take some time.
"I believe that wills are binding so long as they don't require something be done that was illegal."
So, then, Lee couldn't have freed those slaves earlier than the five years stipulated in the will?
"I don't see the problem with teaching both sides of an historical dispute"
OK,then would it be all right to teach the Nazi view of the Holocaust in the interest of fair and balanced treatment of an historical issue?
History isn't going to support that interpretation either. You have to ignore the whole history of the 1850s to take slavery out and put tariffs in the forefront. And the "discriminatory laws" objected to most were those that concerned property in slaves.
It's certainly the case that Southern nationalism and indignation were riding high in 1861. Both Northerners and Southerners were swept up in a wave of emotion that went far beyond specific causes and convictions. So plenty of Confederates were fighting what they regarded as a defensive war for the defense of their "Southern way of life." That's an broad, umbrella term. It doesn't just mean slavery, but it definitely doesn't exclude slavery and some sort of racial subjugation.
You could draw a parallel to the situation in the 1950s and 1960s -- within living memory. "State's rights" then didn't just mean segregation alone. But for plenty of people who used the phrase, segregation -- or the kind of order built on segregation -- was definitely included in the term. Some one who comes along later -- after slavery or segregation is no longer a live issue -- and doesn't see how important they were at the time misses an important aspect of the way things were.
The will stipulated that the slaves be freed within 5 years, so he could have freed them at any time. Lee waited until just after 5 years after his death to free them
I have no idea what they could possibly say to justify what they did but only presenting selected facts is never satisfactory.
The truth will always out if all information is available.
It seems that way to you. It didn't to them. They could forsee a generation of civil war, the distruction of national institutions, the intervention of foreign powers. So naturally they were alarmed.
So don't let's get carried away with the nobility of the north, either.
I simply argue that there was some honor and justice in their cause as they saw it. So many people here are so in love with the Southern cause that they don't credit the other side with honorable motives. I don't say that they were entirely in the right or wholly noble, just that they had a case that many people haven't heard or don't acknowledge.
A lost cause always wins a lot of romantic support from people who imagine that things would have been much better had it succeeded. Well, consider that if the secessionists had won, we'd be able to blame all that's wrong in the world on them, and there might have been quite a lot to blame on them if they'd gotten their way, and broken up the country. There'd be a precedent of taking up arms whenever one lost an election, and a break-up of the country into nations and factions that truly hated each other.
“History isn't going to support that interpretation either.”
I think it does.
“You have to ignore the whole history of the 1850s to take slavery out and put tariffs in the forefront.”
And you have to ignore the whole history of European immigration to North America to put slavery in the forefront.
“And the "discriminatory laws" objected to most were those that concerned property in slaves.”
No, the North had conceded that runaway slaves were property to be returned. The issue, aside from visceral dislike between two very different cultures, was the attempt by the North to bleed wealth from the South.
“So plenty of Confederates were fighting what they regarded as a defensive war for the defense of their "Southern way of life." That's an broad, umbrella term.”
But hardly meaningless. A concept isn’t discredited by calling it an “umbrella term.”
“It doesn't just mean slavery, but it definitely doesn't exclude slavery and some sort of racial subjugation.”
It doesn’t exclude it, but neither does it rely primarily on it, either. For that matter, Lincoln assumed that segregation would be desirable after emancipation.
“Some one who comes along later -- after slavery or segregation is no longer a live issue -- and doesn't see how important they were at the time misses an important aspect of the way things were.”
I remember segregation quite well, thank you. I can remember the first time I ever spoke to a black person of my own age, at a Boy Scout Jamboree. I never sat in a classroom with a black person until college.
Of course, I don’t remember the years between 1620 and 1860, so I have to rely on histories and oral traditions. My mother’s family goes back to the founding of St. Augustine. My mother was born in 1911, my maternal grandmother in the 1880s, (my maternal grandfather was an Irish immigrant), and my maternal great-grandparents were civil-war era.
Here’s something it took me a long time to get my mind wrapped around: a lot of people who supported segregation didn’t dislike blacks at all. It’s just that they had been brought up to believe that blacks were rightfully lower in grand scheme of things than whites. My mother’s cousin in Florida was one such. He firmly believed that whites were higher than blacks, but when a black subordinate got sick, he and his wife were first to rush over there bringing food, and even paying their rent and utilities out of their own pockets.
Is that “whitewashing” segregation? No, racial discrimination is evil. It’s just trying to see it for what it was, instead of settling for a comic-book caricature.
The War of Northern Aggression was fought to keep the South from seceding. The North would have attacked even if the South had abolished slavery before seceding. Lincoln himself was willing to tolerate slavery, so long as the South remained in the Union, and if you want a measure of the degree to which abolitionist sentiment burned in the hearts of the northerners, John Brown himself had trouble getting funding.
Of course, the war becomes noble if fought to free the slaves rather than to deny the South the right to self-government, so we overlook all that, we overlook the fact that Lincoln didn’t issue the emancipation proclamation until months into the war, and then only as a political move to prevent England from coming in on the side of the South. We overlook the fact that the EP didn’t free slaves in territories not in “rebellion.” We overlook whatever we have to overlook to pretend that the war was fought to free the slaves, and then we can feel really good about ourselves.
I see.
"Jefferson Davis - the first 'selected, not elected' president"
If Jefferson Davis was a president, then the Confederacy must have been a nation.
I got appointed President of the Kensington Valley Homeowners Association a few years back. That didn't make us a nation.
"They could forsee a generation of civil war"
So they started one? By the way, a civil war is a situation in which two factions are fighting for control of a nation. The South never tried to take control of the US, nor would they have. They just wanted self-government.
"the distruction of national institutions, the intervention of foreign powers."
The US without the Confederacy would still have been stronger than in 1789, and national institutions would have remained...just without southern participation.
"So naturally they were alarmed."
I'll grant that the US with the southern states is stronger than without. After all, most of our good soldiers have been Southerners. And at least three really *bad* presidents. Just think, if Lincoln had let the South go, you wouldn't have been afflicted with Johnson, Carter, or Klintstone.
"I simply argue that there was some honor and justice in their cause as they saw it."
As they saw it, of course. But which is the higher good: preserving the Union, or the God-given right to self-government?
"So many people here are so in love with the Southern cause that they don't credit the other side with honorable motives."
I don't think that's true at all. IMV, so many are in love with the image of the north fighting to free the slaves that they don't credit the South with any valid, much less honorable, motives.
The men who actually fought for the north had a much higher opinion of the South than is mainstream today.
"just that they had a case that many people haven't heard or don't acknowledge."
I regard it as inconceivable that there is a single American today who hasn't had that case rammed down his throat like a goose being fattened up for pate.
"A lost cause always wins a lot of romantic support from people who imagine that things would have been much better had it succeeded."
I don't imagine that. I'm pretty confident that we're better off today than we would have been had the South prevailed.
What I object to is the way some people attempt to reduce the complex issues involved to slavery alone, and on that basis deny that the South had any honorable motives, then demonize not just the WNA-era South, but Southerners and the South today.
I also object to the hagiography of the north. The southern states voluntarily ratified the Constitution, many on the specific condition that they had the right to withdraw. It should be noted that, even if Lincoln's decision to precipitate a bloody war resulted in the better outcome, he had no legal or moral right to do so.
And one thing that really bothers me is that people who bleed buckets over what Sherman did to the Indians shed nary a tear over what he did to Southern non-combatants. People who weep themselves dry over maternity leave at factories in Bangladesh sneer at the abuses of reconstruction.
I just want things seen for what they were, not some fantasy of angelic northerners smiting demonic southerners.
"I got appointed President of the Kensington Valley Homeowners Association a few years back. That didn't make us a nation."
But presidents of such associations are often selected. To say that he was the "first" clearly refers to the national level.
I'm very familiar with the Biblical concept of slavery.
That is why in the NT the idea of a believer being a 'bond servant' (doulos) is so powerful. Then remember that the master was to take care of the slave partially because the condition of the slave reflected the standing of the master. The implications certainly are there that Christ the Lord should really take care of His servants, right?
But even in OT times, slavery was not thought to be a sin, however the slave trade was considered at least very distasteful.
So why do so many call slavery things like unspeakable evil when the Bible doesn't?
IMO, some of that is ultra PC for conservatives. It somehow demonstrates how non-bigoted they are.
What truly amazed me is how that no one has yet jumped on me to accuse me of defending slavery! That is what normall happens.
Defending slavery is like defending cancer. Both are part of the human condition.
Apples/oranges, slavery sucked but it wasn't genocide.
You read my mind.
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