How can anyone argue that any state ever had the right to sanction the ownership of a human being by another?

Question

There is no other condition as degrading to human beings as slavery. And, states' rights is just a vermin-infested pile of rationalization used to justify the Confederate position. Agree or disagree? I can hardly wait to here some of you start playing the same old tired banjos.

Answer 1

There is no arguement over such a viewpoint being morally wrong and inhumane. Yet, to some degree or another, history often finds an elite few in positions of some power, trying to enslave the rest of the populace.

Answer 2

Alright, where to start? No, there is no other long-term condition worse than slavery, I agree with that. But the "states rights" of the Confederacy was NOT about slavery. HELLO! Slavery was already on the way OUT when the Civil War happened. If the abolitionists had waited but ten more years, it would have been deemed obsolete and out of fashion. Yes, slavery is horrible; it always has been and always will be. And, surprise, it still exists, in case you didn't know. Just not here. But, it was not the "Confederate position." The problem was TRADE, all around, all trade, everything. Since, at that time, people were trade, it of course was affected by their "position." But that was not the only, or even the main, trade they were protecting. It was the trade of cotton. With the changes in laws, processing costs, done in the North, stayed the same, but trade to England dropped because of taxing. At the time, quite a few plantations had gone to tenant farming, not with blacks, but poor, displaced, WHITES. If some would READ, some would know this already.

And no, in no way do I support slavery, or your so-called "Confederate position." I agree that they had a right to make their own laws, of which slavery was not even an issue, North or South.

So, I agree with your first statement. But not your second, because it is the same noble ancestor bs I hear all the time from people who never lived in the South or Midwest, and therefore think they are superior because their ancestors "didn't own slaves."

Answer 3

It was Man's Law not God's Law that sanctioned slavery in the South. And don't think it's not still going on in other countries even today - Africa and Arabia come to mind.
The South was fighting against the War of Northern Aggression. The North was NOT fighting to bring an end to slavery. It just became politically expedient to add it into the mix as time went by and they needed more men. Anyone who believes slavery of any kind is okay is not a human being.

Answer 4

Slavery, while extremely distasteful to us now, has existed since the beginning of civilization. The slaves were often prisoners of war or their descendents. The owners of the slaves probably didn't think too much about whether it was right or wrong it was just the way their society worked. Slavery still exists in the United States in the way of illegal aliens and the sex trade. These current slaves have even fewer rights than the slaves from before the Civil War.

In any civilization there will always be layers in society. Right now in the United States there are multiple layers based on status in society, financial means, family, education and employment. Oprah is currently in one of the upper tiers of our society by virtue of her generosity, fame and wealth. The person who lives in the trailer park who was arrested for being drunk and unclothed in public last weekend is on one of the lowest tiers. One nice thing about our society is that anyone with enough grit and determination can rise to any tier they strive for. Indian society still has the caste system which is technically illegal. I think that the majority of the slaves in the United States were treated much better than their untouchables. In fact, in some areas of the south, the slaves were in a higher tier and thought themselves better than the "white trash".

I have to acknowledge that my direct ancestors were slave holders but in a State that stayed in the Union. After slavery ended, many of them stayed on as paid workers. The family still has contact with descendents of the former slaves. My grandfather recalls the servants fondly and was taught that they deserved his respect or else. I know that this situation is probably pretty unique but I wanted to share this as an example of how that little bit of society worked.

As for the reasons for the Civil War I think that it still can be boiled down to the general "State's Rights" however slave holding was the major driving force for both sides in the war. None of us alive today can undo what was done so many years ago. We can however let go of the old prejudices and simply be kind and considerate to one another. Thanks for a thought provoking question.

Answer 5

Not sure if you asked the right question here, seems it's succeptible to the loopholes created by voluntary slavery. If I have the right to my own life, which is not only guaranteed by the constitution but is also a moral perogative, then I also have the right to sign over that authority to anybody I choose. The states then not only have the right to sanction it, but also the obligation.

Now, if we're talking about sailing over to Africa, clubbing villagers on the head, kidnapping them and forcing them into slavery, that's a totally different matter! Morally that is equivalent to murder and theftand is quite possibly the lowest crime on the morality scale.

Answer 6

No. The Southern states weren't just fighting for the right to own slaves, they were fighting for the right to make and keep their own laws. Slavery just happened to be the convenient issue.

Of course, at the time (and not that I agree with this position at all), part of the issue was also about whether ****** were even human. They were considered by many people to be at best sub-human.

Answer 7

Hmmm .. "right to sanction" is the stumbling block. Certainly on a global scale countries have almost never involved themselves in others business.

Just look at Stalin -- 43 MILLION dead!
or Chairman Mao -- 38 million dead.

The world just looked away, it wasn't until Hitler invaded Poland did the world perk up and do something.

So ... if one state wanted to say ... legalize prostitution, gambling or even slavery .. the other states never get involved.

Answer 8

By "state", do you mean a state of the United States or a country? Slavery is a very old institution: it was practiced in Mesopotamia, China, Egypt and probably almost every other place in the world. Slaves were made to do the kind of work their "masters" didn't want to do themselves (manual labor, building dams, agricultural tasks, etc). Some societies also used slaves in their armies, so they could defeat their enemies and get even more slaves.
Interestingly enough, ancient Africans often made slaves of other Africans during tribal conflicts. The Arabs were probably the first to buy Africans and take them away from Africa, long before Europeans began doing it. BTW, I am certainly NOT defending the Europeans who made slavery one of the first multinational business enterprises.
The problem with your question (in my opinion) is that you seem to be applying modern standards to pre-modern societies. What right do we have to judge those who came before by our own standards? I personally have trouble with what seems to be a fascinating contradiction: Thomas Jefferson, an intelligent and "enlightened" man who wrote the Declaration of Independence, was a slave holder. But I recognize that he was a man of his time and I of mine.

Answer 9

As a white man born in the south ( North Carolina ), I can honestly say that i have never owned a slave.None of my friends have either.
I have also never had the desire to own slaves, and I don't remember ever hearing anybody I know say,"Man, we need some slaves around here".
The fact is, there indeed was a dark period in our nations past when men were allowed to buy and sell other men.
That being said,will you please quit whining about something that has not affected you personally in any way?

Answer 10

there were "white" indentured servants for life!!!and for periods of time....who were not free until they paid their masters in labour and time !!!some were forced to marry against their wills....some endured all sorts of degrding situations just to come to this land of their own choice!!!!!!it wasn't always this nice here in the "colonies"!!!many criminals given the choice to be "transported to either "virginia" or "australia" for indentured chose to be "hung by the neck until they be dead"...instead!!dick gregory, i believe, said "slavery was bad but at least the work was steady!!"feild work was always tough and being under the whip...it's even worse!!!but when a freeman's crops failed ...he had no recource;but to many times become a "sharecropper" on anothers land!!!no crop no share in the profits!!!a single step uo from slavery!!!!we stil have sharecroppers...don't we!!????black and white!!!there are "million's of blacks" whose votes were challenged and thrown out by the republican party in the 2000"s and they think they're free!!!!the voting rights bill was reaffirmed....wasn't it???millions of votes were thrown away!!!democratic "white votes"were thrown away also!!!!dead people were allowed to vote republican...even if they were lifelong democrats!!!the naacp should be ashamed that it even acknowledged the man as being the president!!an old black lady's vote was thrown out because she was a dangerous felon.....problemwas her crime was documented as being committed in 2009!!you tell me who's free!!northerners pretending to be cowboys!!!"carpetbaggers" looting the south!!