A journalist condemns that portion of American history that fostered slavery, beginning with the first slaves in Virginia 400 years ago.
Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara defends America.
He explains the essential unfairness of blaming America for slavery because slavery was not a uniquely American institution, that it pre-dated our country, even on the American continent.
His larger point is that statism is form of slavery, differing only in degree.
Reader Trey responds acerbically:
Holy Moley.
“He’s defending slavery now.” was my initial thought when I started reading this ridiculous piece. And he starts off by quibbling over math and that the United States of America isn’t 400 years old, nevermind the fact that the article he references said ‘Slavery was legal in America’ since 1619…
Let me offer Heim a revelatory fact. America is not 400—246 + 154—years old. It is a simple observation. Can Heim really not know that America—the United States of America—was Founded 243 years ago, in 1776? That the inhabitants of Jamestown were not Americans, but English colonists living in North America? What about the philosophical basis of slavery? What about the philosophical case against slavery? Nothing, other than a passing reference to the Declaration of Independence, as if that document is a minor historical artifact, rather than the most Earth-shaking political statement ever adopted as the foundation of a nation.
– Old Man Ashamed of His Country’s Terrible History
Yes, Jamestown was a British colony. Slavery was still legal in America. Jamestown was/is in America. I think, based on context, everyone knows what the author of the cited article meant. But, no, let’s quibble and dismiss.
There’s a lot to chew on, enough to fill books. And it has. But let me make a few essential points.
– “Objectivist*” Grandpa Who Has Totally Read Some of Those Books
Essential, eh?
Historically, slavery was not a uniquely American institution, although Confederate slavery was particularly brutal. Slavery was a world institution. Most African slaves were sent to places other than English colonies, such as Brazil. As Heim correctly states, slavery was inherited, not unique to America or the preceding colonies..
– Old Guy Who Gets His Essential Points from random YouTube Videos
Nowhere does anyone claim that slavery was a uniquely American institution. The “fact” that the United States “inherited” Slavery is irrelevent. Bad faith arguement. We shouldn’t talk about it or address it because
- Slavery existed before America and
- America didn’t start slavery.
- African slaves went elsewhere other than America (USA)
The Declaration and Constitution, they believed, provided that philosophical firepower. They considered the U.S. Constitution to be a glorious liberty document and therefore a powerful anti-slavery document.
– Mr. I Can’t Rationalize the Constitution Hard Enough to Make My Point
He firmly believes this. Like in his core. That doesn’t make him right. You know what would have made the Constitution a “glorious liberty document” and a “powerful anti-slavery document”, by putting an end to slavery. The Constitution made no effort to end Slavery or was not intended to be an Anti-Slavery document. Otherwise Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 would never have been written. It didn’t work to ban Slavery, it accepted Slavery as a way of life.
The injustices that have plagued American blacks in the last 154 years is, in my view, primarily a legacy of racism, not just slavery. True, American slavery was justified in large part by racism—the idea that blacks were inferior beings incapable of living free. But slavery, which existed throughout human history and around the globe, is not in and of itself essentially a racist institution.
– A Man Who Can’t See the Forest for the Trees
Let’s conveniently ignore that the original article wasn’t about global slavery or Roman slavery or Greek Slaver or Arab Slavery or Persian or….. He was talking about 400 years of American slavery.
Then he rants some more about collectivism, and enlightenment, and how America and its formation was unique and blah, blah, blah, blah more things unrelated at all to a school teacher talking about 400 years of Slavery in America.
We shouldn’t let the historical revisionists whitewash these ideals under cover of Teaching America’s truth. America’s truth begins with its philosophy as essentialized in the Declaration of Independence and the ongoing struggle to get everyone to live up to those ideals. It did not begin with 1619 Jamestown. To assert that “For 246 years, slavery was legal in America” is a flagrant distortion of history because it ignores the great principles that actually marked the Founding of America.
– Mr. BUT MAH PRINCIPLES
The revisionists have already whitewashed and romanticized American History. The assertion ignores the ‘great principles’ in much the same way as Michael LaFerrara’s romantic love of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence ignores reality.
In fact, that statement is a truth that modern collectivist-statists don’t want you to learn–or even acknowledge themselves. Slavery was defended by Confederate intellectuals like George Fitzhugh on socialist grounds.
– Mr. I Read These Things and Don’t Understand the Point Being Made
He brings up George Fitzhugh and tries to blame socialism for the continuation of Slavery? 1) Fitzhugh staunchly believed in that Slavery needn’t have a racial component. He believed weak people of any hue should labor for the powerful… which I guess sounds pretty Objectivist to me. 2) He was writing about Socialism in the respect of Master and Slave, where the Master was the Parent and the Slave a child. When you free a slave, it was- to him- akin to releasing a naive, weak child into the world. He argued that Slaves benefited more under the yoke of a Master than on their own. The Socialism here was the spreading of the Master’s weather and protection the same way a parent provides for a child.
Slavery was superior to free labor, argued the slaveocrats, anticipating Marx and today’s Democratic socialists, because it guaranteed cradle-to-grave care in exchange for full guaranteed employment.
– Grandpa I’m Ignorant in an Offensive Way
Guaranteed employment? I can quit my job and get a new job. I am employed. A slave who no longer wanted to be “employed” had to suck it up because they were SLAVES, not EMPLOYEES. I reiterate: Holy. Moley. Also, since when was the definition of Socialism: Guaranteed Cradle-to-Grave Care? I get it now. He has no idea what Socialism is. There are cases against Socialism that can be made without MAKING SHIT UP. Pardon my French.
There was no explosion of general prosperity until the late 18th Century, when the modern dramatic upward trajectory of the generalstandard of living commenced. If slavery is “fundamental to America’s growth” and “the foundation on which this country is built”, why did this dramatic explosion of prosperity and progress only happen in the last 250 years?
– Mr. Pretends to Understand Everything but Understands Nothing
It was called the Industrial Revolution. I believe there are several books on the matter. Which had more to do with the end of Slavery than the Constitution.
The fact is that, in its Founding ideals, the United States of America is the only completely anti-slavery country that ever existed.
– Grandpa Head in the Clouds
This is laughably wrong. The only thing this sentence is missing is a ‘Believe me’ at the end of it.
That’s America’s truth, and any teacher who discusses slavery without orienting the subject around that central truth is not teaching American history. He is “teaching” anti-American indoctrination.
– Michael LaFerrara
Mr. LaFerrara fails to actually articulate what about saying Slavery has been in America for 400 years is
- Wrong or
- Anti-American.
Simply saying it’s “Anti-American” and using “quotation marks” around “words” one doesn’t “like” doesn’t refute anything from the article in the Washington Post.
* [I use the term “Objectivist” in its original meaning of pertaining to being a selfish, reactionary asshole. Again, pardon my French.]