It's a weak, wrong, and morally reprehensible argument for any FREE person who believes in liberty to try to make.
What a foolish argument. I did not suggest that anyone "liked" his circumstances, whether master or servant, child or adult. I am sure that there were people who were content and there were people--as in every period in the human experience--who were not content. That is totally beside the point. The point is that there was no general slave revolt. The point is that most of the slaves were loyal to their society; just as most of the serfs in Europe were loyal to their societies.
The argument that you are using is that of the propagandist. I did not agree that the evidence (your evidence) was right, in the sense of being dispositive. I conceded for the sake of argument, that you had in fact seen hundreds of accounts of slaves who were rebellious against their condition. That does not mean that slaves in general were rebellious.
In fact, I remember reading some years ago, about the project to gather just such material. It was not gathered for the purpose of objectivity, but to further the aims of groups devoted to confrontational policies. The Left has always tried to exploit all human grievances, and has never scrupled at exaggerating those grievances. The purpose is to drive a wedge of hostility between the races in the South--only the Left gains from that--although many nominal Conservatives have lately been given to singing the praises of some of those who have promoted that hostility.
This tactic, gathering a list of exceptions--not to prove the rule but to prove the exceptions--has been employed effectively by totalitarian movements in the Century just ended. For an obvious example, consider how Hitler poisoned German public opinion against the German Jews, who were for the most part solid, prosperous, German citizens, integrally part of the German community. He picked out every socially reprehensible act by any Jew, and presented that as a case against a whole group. Thus while most Jews were property owners, who believed people should be free to benefit by their honest labor, he pointed out those Jews who had become Communists. Thus, while a great many Jews were playing the classical music, that Hitler loved, in German symphony orchestras, he picked out a few eccentrics, who were experimenting with unusual music forms, and charged the whole group with corrupting German music; etc., etc..
The Communists, in America, picked up every incident, where someone did something cruel or mean spirited towards any identifiable group, and did much the same sort of smear number, on the American mainstream. All forms of Socialists have collected horror stories of the "sweat shops," as well as any actually corrupt deeds committed by Capitalists, for almost two centuries. They did not admit that they were compiling lists of exceptions, rather than painting an accurate picture.
The selected listing or collection of incidents that serve a preconceived purpose, again, is the technique of the propagandist not the Historian.
It's a weak, wrong, and morally reprehensible argument for any FREE person who believes in liberty to try to make.
What is morally reprehensible is to distort history to fit one's contemporary beliefs. The Leftist propaganda that pictures those at the bottom of society, in every age, steaming with hatred against the upper classes, is a very distorted history. In point of fact, those at the bottom almost never revolt, unless and until, they are manipulated by intellectuals from the leisure classes. Thus it was essential to get Lenin back in Russia to organize the uprising of the "Proletariat." Thus intellectuals from the upper classes, in costume, led the mob in Paris against the Bastille. Many of the mob they raised for what followed, had been lining the streets to cheer the royal coach, but shortly before the Revolution.
The myth of Negro hatred of the White Southerner did not really get started until the NAACP was founded in 1909 by White Fabian Socialists, bent upon destroying Booker T. Washington's efforts to build bridges of cooperation between two races that had shared a common history and culture. No one has benefitted from creating hostility out of historic misrepresentation but the agitators.
An interesting fictionalized, but still psychologically astute, picture of the total irrationality of the hate driven mob, pursuing imaginary grievances, is provided in the second half of Dickens' Barnaby Rudge, where the anti-Catholic mob, looting and destroying the property of wealthy London Catholics, is composed in a large part of poor London Catholics. Hate is contageous, once started--as they proved in France in 1789-1795; as they proved in Russia, after 1917; as they proved in Germany after 1933. The American South does not deserve similar treatment.
William Flax
Yes, I'm certain most slaves would have chosen freedom over slavery.
But the reason they didn't revolt in the South, and stayed with their masters, and on the plantations, etc, is something that can't be overlooked.
It was for complex reasons...yes, there was some familial attachment, especially for house slaves. There was also "fear"...where would they go?...who would take care of them?...how would they eat?...where would they sleep?...those thoughts certainly kept many a slave in circumstances that they would not have otherwise chosen given an "ideal" alternative.
If they knew that all they had to do was make it to a certain camp, or location, in the north, and they would be given food, water, clothing, and a bed...and their freedom...well, then I imagine 90% of the blacks in the South would have fled.
But though the Union had promised freedom, they didn't promise anything else. And most slaves probably stayed with their masters, and on their masters property because they were too afraid to do anything else. The "fear of the unknown".
That doesn't mean they stayed becaue they "loved" their masters, or anything...it's much more likely it was because they feared the alternative.
The issue is too complex, I think, to boil down to "most slaves hated their masters and bolted at the first opportunity" or "most slaves loved their masters and stayed with them because of it".