Cannibals all! or, Slaves without masters — John Shaqi
Cannibals all! or, Slaves without mastersFitzhugh, George
General
Cannibals all! or, Slaves without masters
Fitzhugh, George
Slave labor; Slavery -- Justification; Slavery -- United States; Working class
Our expose of what the socialists term the exploitation of skill and
capital, will not, we know, be satisfactory to slaveholders even; for,
although there be much less of such exploitation, or unjust exaction, in
slave society; still, too much of it remains to be agreeable to
contemplate. Besides, our analysis of human nature and human pursuits,
is too dark and sombre to meet with ready acceptance. We should be
rejoiced to see our theory refuted. We are sure, however, that it never
can be; but equally sure, that it is subject to many modifications and
limitations that have not occurred to us. We have this consolation,
that in rejecting as false and noxious all systems of moral philosophy,
we are thrown upon the Bible, as containing the only true system of
morals. We have attempted already to adduce three instances, in which
the justification of slavery furnished new and additional evidence of
the truth of Christianity. We will now add others.
It is notorious that infidelity appeared in the world, on an extensive
scale, only cotemporaneously with the abolition of slavery, and that it
is now limited to countries where no domestic slavery exists. Besides,
abolitionists are commonly infidels, as their speeches, conventions, and
papers daily evince. Where there is no slavery, the minds of men are
unsettled on all subjects, and there is, emphatically, faith and
conviction about nothing. Their moral and social world is in a chaotic
and anarchical state. Order, subordination and adaptation have vanished;
and with them, the belief in a Deity, the author of all order. It had
often been urged, that the order observable in the moral and physical
world, furnished strong evidence of a Deity, the author of that order.
How vastly is this argument now strengthened, by the new fact, now first
developed, that the destruction of social order generates universal
scepticism. Mere political revolutions affect social order but little,
and generate but little infidelity. It remained for social revolutions,
like those in Europe in 1848, to bring on an infidel age; for, outside
of slave society, such is the age in which we live.
If we prove that domestic slavery is, in the general, a natural and
necessary institution, we remove the greatest stumbling block to belief
in the Bible; for whilst texts, detached and torn from their context,
may be found for any other purpose, none can be found that even
militates against slavery. The distorted and forced construction of
certain passages, for this purpose, by abolitionists, if employed as a
common rule of construction, would reduce the Bible to a mere allegory,
to be interpreted to suit every vicious taste and wicked purpose.
But we have been looking merely to one side of human nature, and to that
side rendered darker by the false, antagonistic and competitive
relations in which so-called liberty and equality place man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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