Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Every author is of course a product of the society in which he or she grew up, and we certainly shouldn't blame them for having attitudes which different from our own. In the words of Leslie Hartley:
|
Well said, Harry.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
You may like to read Dickens' "American Notes", which is a record of a journey he made through America in 1842. He has a lot to say about slavery in that book, seeing it as an "outside observer".
|
Thanks for the recommendation. It sounds interesting.
Life under the slavery system life was uncertain and a slave's power of choice was extremely limited. As a slave, you had to please the master if you didn't want to end up being sold off and separated from your family and loved ones. Even under the best of masters, your life could be devastated by a downturn in your master's fortunes that forced unpleasant financial decisions upon them. That being said, many slaveholders seemed to hold paternalistic attitudes toward their slaves and believed, or at least sold themselves on the belief that slavery was best of all possible worlds for blacks as well as whites.
Human beings have always been adept at rationalizations, and I don't wish to judge too harshly those in whose shoes I've never walked. As for the
institution of slavery, that's another thing altogether, and I have no reservations about labeling it with a blanket condemnation.
I believe our third president—himself a slaveholder—had it right when he said, "The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting depotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other...."
Further words on that topic (from that same document) seemed absolutely prophetic:
"Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever."
— Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), “Notes on the State of Virginia” (1781-1785).