But, would you prefer to pay a higher price for these items and abolish cheap labor?
If that cheap labour comes at the dignity of the labourers, then I absolutely would pay higher prices, and with gladness. If that cheap labour comes by denying the labourers their self-evidently inalienable rights, the rights that serve as the basis for my own existence, then I would absolutely pay higher prices to avoid such labour.
There is no getting around it, the Confederacy was born of a moral abomination. Even the fathers of the country understood the immorality of slavery, and hoped to see it ended. But the Confederacy aimed to perpetuate it. It was exactly hostile to American philosophy.
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. (James H. Hammond, Congressman from 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. (Methodist Rev. John T. Wightman, preaching at Yorkville, South Carolina. "The Glory of God, the Defence of the South" (1861), cited in Eugene Genovese's Consuming Fire (1998).)
These arguments are not rooted in economics. They are rooted in philosophy, both social and religious. They represent the reigning moral position in the south, and were repeated by the highest Confederate leaders. Below follows its moral opponent.
The abolitionism which I advocate is as absolute as the law of God, and as unyielding as his throne. It admits of no compromise. Every slave is a stolen man; every slaveholder is a man stealer. By no precedent, no example, no law, no compact, no purchase, no bequest, no inheritance, no combination of circumstances, is slaveholding right or justifiable. While a slave remains in his fetters, the land must have no rest. Whatever sanctions his doom must be pronounced accursed. The law that makes him a chattel is to be trampled underfoot; the compact that is formed at his expense, and cemented with his blood, is null and void; the church that consents to his enslavement is horribly atheistical; the religion that receives to its communion the enslaver is the embodiment of all criminality. (William Llyod Garrison)
This is the essential moral choice Americans faced during the nineteenth century. Essentially the slavery debate was moral. When slavery was challenged, it was challenged from a moral position. When it was defended, it was defended from a moral position, with southerners claiming a God-given right to enslave blacks. Surely they aimed to protect the economic benefits of slavery. But at the very core of their argument was the view that slavery was morally right be God's design.
Now then. Given the moral options represented above, where must I stand as a Christian and American? The choice is obvious-- more than obvious. It is self-evident. |
