We are a demented society. I don’t understand it, and I don’t have any idea how to stop it, and it makes me retch to be a part of it. But I think it’s false to pretend that it’s all those people and not us people. We’re all in this together, folks. For better or for worse, we are who we are and it’s not a pretty sight.
Surfing the web last night, I found this site with quotes from Southerners in the 1800s regarding slavery.
Henry Wise, Congressman (and future governor) from Virginia: “The principle of slavery is a leveling principle; it is friendly to equality. Break down slavery and you would with the same blow break down the great democratic principle of equality among men.”
Such a quote leaves me speechless. How can one respond to that logic, or lack thereof? Slavery is friendly to equality? Uh….
John C. Calhoun, Senator from South Carolina: “The defense of human liberty against the aggressions of despotic power have been always the most efficient in States where domestic slavery was to prevail.”
I guess following the principle of “it takes one to know one,” mini-despots are perfectly suited to defend against big despots?
James H. Hammond, Congressman from South Carolina: “Sir, I do firmly believe that domestic slavery, regulated as ours is, produces the highest toned, the purest, best organization of society that has ever existed on the face of the earth.”
Yes, sir, this IS the life – toiling away for someone else’s profit, being treated like cattle, having marital and parental bonds completely disregarded…does it get any better?
Richmond Enquirer, 1856: “Democratic liberty exists solely because we have slaves . . . freedom is not possible without slavery.”
Atlanta Confederacy, 1860: “We regard every man in our midst an enemy to the institutions of the South, who does not boldly declare that he believes African slavery to be a social, moral, and political blessing.”
Methodist Rev. John T. Wightman, preaching at Yorkville, South Carolina: “The triumphs of Christianity rest this very hour upon slavery; and slavery depends on the triumphs of the South . . . This war is the servant of slavery.” [The Glory of God, the defense of the South (1861), cited in Eugene Genovese’s Consuming Fire (1998).]
I’m pretty sure that the New Testament doesn’t have a chapter on the virtues of owning slaves. If I’m wrong on that, please let me know.
Lawrence Keitt, Congressman from South Carolina, in a speech to the House on January 25, 1860: “African slavery is the corner-stone of the industrial, social, and political fabric of the South; and whatever wars against it, wars against her very existence. Strike down the institution of African slavery and you reduce the South to depopulation and barbarism.”
Ah, yes, the fear tactics. Life will be horrible without slavery. Everyday common (white) folk will suffer, suffer, without slavery. And, after all, these negroes aren’t really people we’re talking about, they’re just slaves:
Alexander Stephens, Vice-President of the Confederacy, referring to the Confederate government: “Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery . . . is his natural and normal condition.” [Augusta, Georgia, Daily Constitutionalist, March 30, 1861.]
Sick, isn’t it? How did we as a society tolerate that? First off, my southern friends, I’m not pointing fingers at you and saying your forefathers were evil. There was support and apathy (and if you are apathetic to human suffering you may as well be in support of human suffering) on both sides of the Mason-Dixon. There were abolitionists on both sides on that line too, so I’m not listening to arguments that we didn’t know any better. We chose, as a society, to tolerate the dehumanization of a particular group of people until we could tolerate it no more, and then we fought a war to give those people that stolen 3/8 of their dignity. {States’ right, schmates’ right…don’t even start with me.}
The situation of the Jews in Nazi Germany was no different. They were less than human and thus it was OK to do medical experiments on them, take away all their rights, and slaughter them.
And today, we have unborn babies. Yesterday, I received in the mail a request for a donation to NARAL. I think Concerned Women for America is mad at me for repeatedly refusing to send them money, so they sold my name and address to the other side…
Dear Michelle,
If you have ever known a woman who has faced an unintended pregnancy (I have, many times), you know the deep and fundamental importance of freedom of choice and the right to privacy (actually, when my best friend told me she was pregnant at the age of 14, abortion was not the first thought that entered my mind and neither was it when my 19 year old sister told me the same news…silly me, we could have reduced the world population by 2).
Personal and private childbearing decisions belong to a woman and whomever she chooses to consult…no one else should interfere; especially not politicians. It’s her life, her body, her choice.
{snip}
Quite simply, anti-choice forces are now poised to directly undermine the legal foundation of a woman’s right to choose…if you and I fail to act today, what little freedom of choice still exists could be taken away.
They’re not human, they’re not equal to living, breathing humans.
…the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man…
Our personal freedoms are in jeopardy if we can’t abort fetuses.
…freedom is not possible without slavery…
The government can’t tell me what to do with my body.
The defence of human liberty against the aggressions of despotic power have been always the most efficient in States where domestic slavery was to prevail.
Slavery, genocide, abortion…what is the difference? If we end abortion, who will be our next victim? If we don’t end abortion, will killing children be enough for our apparent blood-lust?
Reit This Way 