The Problem of Slavery in Christian America: An Ethical-Judicial History of American Slavery and Racism

by Joel McDurmon

He had just said neither race could have peace or happiness unless the existing system was maintained. In this system, “Never before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved.” Their population growth in America alone “is conclusive proof of the general happiness of the race.” Not just relative to his own history, but to all other systems of labor, for “in few countries so much is left to the share of the laborer, and so little extracted from him, or where there is more kind attention paid to him in sickness or infirmities of age.” This system was so superior to all other relations between capital and labor that, if just given enough time, it will prove itself: [T]he political condition of the slaveholding States has been so much more stable and quiet than that of the North. . . . I venture nothing in predicting that the experience of the next generation will fully test how vastly more favorable our condition of society is to that of other sections for free and stable institutions, provided we are not disturbed by the interference of others. . . . This was not a man looking for the end of slavery in twenty or even fifty years. This was a man—representing a large section of the nation, and the majority view in the South—that