Frances Scott Key And His Racial Views (Rome, Egypt, influences)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The Southern Churches supported the institution with some of those churches representing sects which had broken with their northern branches specifically over the issue of slavery. (Baptists and Southern Baptists being the most prominent example.) You were not going to attract a congregation in the south by preaching abolition, so instead there came into being a defense of slavery from southern pulpits which used mentions of slavery in the Bible as proof of its divine backing. They preached to the slaves that their duty to God was humble obedience. Slaves were depicted as perpetual children whose permanent care was entrusted to their white masters. Freeing one wasn't moral, it was an abdication of personal responsibility.
It had not always been that way, the pro slavery doctrines came into being as part of the response to the 1831 Nat Turner rebellion which southern propagandists insisted was what all slaves would be doing if they were not constantly watched and controlled. The southern population would not tolerate talk of moral manumission, so the preachers adapted themselves and their dogma to accommodate their congregations.
This continued through the Civil War with the majority of the southern churches backing the Confederate cause right up to the end. After the war there was further fragmentation when newly freed blacks began setting up their own churches free of white domination and influence.
So, if one is born into a society where the religious leaders are telling everyone that slavery is a moral good, are you immoral for failing to rise above your dominating environment? For accepting the word of ones you have been told are God's representatives on earth?
That would be a question each person would have to ask themselves. Sarah and Angelina Grimke did.
Judging them by modern standards, the sisters were moral and their opposition was not. Judging them by the standards which prevailed in their region at the time, they were boat rocking trouble makers.
There are people alive today who represent what most would see as a fringe or eccentric cause. If in the future, those causes should catch on and become part of a new social conscience, today's eccentrics become tomorrow's retroactive heroes. And those who ignored or scorned them while they lived, become retroactive bad guys, just like all the people of the past who tolerated things which have since been reformed or eliminated. Just like us.
So, if one is born into a society where the religious leaders are telling everyone that slavery is a moral good, are you immoral for failing to rise above your dominating environment? For accepting the word of ones you have been told are God's representatives on earth?
Slavery was a sin by the moral standards of that day.
Abolition began in the US from the very first that blacks were brought specifically as slaves from Africa. Roger Williams (founder of Rhode Island, founder of the first Baptist congregation in America, proponent of the separation of church and state) was also the first Abolitionist.
As the Constitution was being written, even southern slaveholders admitted slavery was a sin--just one they could not economically abandon at the time. Jefferson wrote at the time that slavery would sooner or later bring the wrath of God upon America.
There would be economic benefits to bringing slavery back today, but do you think that would / could ever happen? No, of course not, because we have different standards than those men of the 18th century. It was tolerated as an economic engine back then, today it wouldn't be, regardless of any potential benefits.
The Southern Baptist Convention was created specifically because the American Baptist convention (founded by Roger Williams) condemned slavery. Baptists of the day weren't even permitted to hire domestic servants.
By the time of the Civil War, all of Protestant Europe had declared it a sin, the Pope had condemned it, and northern Evangelicals were ready to fight a war over it.
Slavery in American is condemnable today because they knew even then it was a sin even as they did it.
Your overview of the escalation of the abolition movement that would eventually culminate in the Civil War illustrates my point. The morals of the 18th century indeed dictated that slavery was a sin, BUT, not so much so that it wouldn't be tolerated. As time passed and we as humans progressed and evolved, it became more and more an intolerable practice and was officially abolished. Today, our morals as a people dictate that it wouldn't be tolerated under any circumstance, and so only someone who would hold slaves today can be judged by the morals and standards of today. When judging historical figures, you have to account for the fact that slavery WAS tolerated in their time.
Last edited by WhipperSnapper 88; 09-02-2016 at 01:27 AM..
Or marital rape, which was perfectly legal in all 50 states a half century ago. But we shouldn't condemn a man who in 1966 raped his wife, because that would be projecting our 2016 ideas onto them. Right?
I would have to say, yes. Right. If you grew up in an era where something like marital rape was not only tolerated, but not even thought of as rape, you can not be held to the standards of an era where it is considered intolerable.
Quote:
How about stoning people to death? It's perfectly normal to do in some places in the world today.
Yes again. The people in these countries where stonings occur have grown up in a culture where that sort of thing is accepted. They don't know any different. They cannot be judged any more harshly than those in this country could back when public hangings were the norm.
Quote:
Or not allowing women to vote. Or subjecting gays to prison and/or capital punishment. It's the norm in some places. Who are we to object?
We are perfectly justified in objecting, and providing a better example for the parts of the world where these practices are still tolerated and accepted. In fact, objection is essential in achieving progress. But just because we recognize this type of behavior as wrong, doesn't mean we can judge someone else by our standards when they grew up in a culture where they've been told their entire lives that gay people are an abomination and have never been exposed to any other viewpoint. It's up to us, being further along in our advancement, to show them a better way.
(As a side note, this is one of the biggest objections in the debate over bringing refugees here. Vast differences in culture and beliefs that cannot just be forgotten because they are in a new land with a different culture and beliefs. )
Quote:
Right? Or does this notion only hold when we're protecting the image of revered national figures like Thomas Jefferson?
Nope, it holds true for all humans throughout history.
Last edited by WhipperSnapper 88; 09-02-2016 at 02:43 AM..
Just as another example, are all the parents and kids who go to Sea World to see Shamoo evil people? No, of course not, because we have largely grown up in an environment where keeping whales in captivity was an accepted practice. The needle on that has been slowly moving though, and I predict that in 100 years, people will look back on us and condemn us for accepting these cruel and tortuous practices.
Of course I'm not drawing a moral equivalency between keeping whales in captivity and keeping human beings as slaves, but you get what I'm driving at.
Your overview of the escalation of the abolition movement that would eventually culminate in the Civil War illustrates my point. The morals of the 18th century indeed dictated that slavery was a sin, BUT, not so much so that it wouldn't be tolerated. As time passed and we as humans progressed and evolved, it became more and more an intolerable practice and was officially abolished. Today, our morals as a people dictate that it wouldn't be tolerated under any circumstance, and so only someone who would hold slaves today can be judged by the morals and standards of today. When judging historical figures, you have to account for the fact that slavery WAS tolerated in their time.
You're saying people need only remain willfully immoral--simply refuse to stop doing what they know is immoral--to escape judgment.
And 80 years ago, legalizing gay marriage wouldn't have been possible, and nobody thought twice about it. But like I said, times change and so do people. As we advance as a people, we improve intellectually and become more sophisticated.
I agree with your example of civil rights for LGBT Americans, even 20 years ago, most folks probably could not have conceived of the present day increase in civil rights.
& times, conditions, & the environments that nurture belief systems are ever changing, even in the present day. ("No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river & he's not the same man." ~Heraclitus)
& people too change, although the rate of change when it comes to belief systems is dependent upon various factors. The confluence of factors influence the rate of change in the individual, & in the larger society. Humanity is ever evolving, human beings are, in the moment, as human 'becomings'.
Historians guard against the use of 'presentist interpretations' in the writing of history, the example sometimes given is 'Whig history'. They use 'Whig history' as an example of writing or revising history as a way that used the past to validate their own (then current) political beliefs.
In a similar way, historians explain the 'Lost Cause' phenomenon as a type of 'Triumphalist' interpretation, that is, "the attitude or belief that a particular doctrine, religion, culture, or social system is superior to and should triumph over all others. Triumphalism is not an articulated doctrine but rather a term that is used to characterize certain attitudes or belief systems by parties such as political commentators and historians." For example, here:
Quote:
... Since the late nineteenth century, historians have used the term "Lost Cause" to describe a particular belief system as well as commemorative activities that occurred in the South for decades after the Civil War. Commonly held beliefs were that the war was fought over states' rights and not slavery, that slavery was a benevolent institution that offered Christianity to African "savages," and that the war was a just cause in the eyes of God. Commemorative activities included erecting Confederate monuments and celebrating Confederate Memorial Day.
...For diehard believers in the Lost Cause, the term New South was repugnant and implied that there was something wrong with the values and traditions of the antebellum past. For individuals devoted to the idea of the Lost Cause, the Old South still served as a model for race relations (blacks should be deferential to whites as under slavery), gender roles (women should be deferential to their fathers, brothers, and husbands), and class interactions (poor whites should defer to wealthier whites). Moreover, individuals believed that the Confederacy, which sought to preserve the southern way of life, should be respected and its heroes, as well as its heroines, should be revered. Indeed, white southerners, for whom the Lost Cause was sacred, argued that the members of the Confederate generation fought for a just cause—states' rights—and were to be honored for their sacrifices in defense of constitutional principle.
...Also during the 1890s, the Lost Cause philosophy experienced significant change as the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) came to dominate the leadership of the movement and made vindication of the Confederacy its guiding principle. In addition to honoring the Confederacy and its heroes, these women placed critical importance on preserving and transmitting what they perceived were the traditional cultural values of the South for future generations. Reclaiming Civil War history and infusing it with a pro-southern interpretation became a primary objective of the Lost Cause after 1890.
.... Generations of children were raised on the Lost Cause ideology, and many of them went on to actively resist desegregation at mid-century. Although not all white southerners accepted the ideology of the Lost Cause, those who did included Alabama's Eugene "Bull" Connor and George Wallace. In fact, the successes of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s became the "lost cause" of white supremacists that, like their forbears, draped themselves in the mantle of the Confederate battle flag. Moreover, the racial beliefs found in the Lost Cause were very similar to those held by segregationists. ...
Perhaps, but the question is....is that an acceptable defense? You are viewing matters from the outside looking in, with the advantage of knowing the ultimate outcomes and the ultimate judgments of the trailing generations. The people living inside the dynamic have no such advantages. Rather, they have enormous peer pressure to accept the conditions and face very real negative consequences if they do not.
As I have noted in my other posts, right now we are guilty of crimes which will not be crimes until future generations decide that they are. Are you an immoral person for failing to correctly guess which things which currently are tolerated, later will not be?
Perhaps, but the question is....is that an acceptable defense? You are viewing matters from the outside looking in, with the advantage of knowing the ultimate outcomes and the ultimate judgments of the trailing generations. The people living inside the dynamic have no such advantages. Rather, they have enormous peer pressure to accept the conditions and face very real negative consequences if they do not.
As I have noted in my other posts, right now we are guilty of crimes which will not be crimes until future generations decide that they are. Are you an immoral person for failing to correctly guess which things which currently are tolerated, later will not be?
The slaveholders of the American south by 1835 were very well aware of the opinions of the rest of the Christian world. The Catholic slaveholders were totally aware that the Pope had banned slavery. The Baptist slaveholders were totally aware that the American Baptist Convention opposed their slavery. They were totally aware that Britain and the rest of Europe had banned slavery.
They were in the moral minority and they fully well knew they were.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.