Proslavery

Proslavery is an ideology that perceives slavery as a positive good.Accordingly, those who are as different as the soul from the body or man from beast—and they are in this state if their work is the use of the body, and if this is the best that can come from them—are slaves by nature. For them it is better to be ruled in accordance with this sort of rule, if such is the case for the other things mentioned. For he is a slave by nature who is capable of belonging to another–which is also why he belongs to another–and who participates in reason only to the extent of perceiving it, but does not have it.Locke never addressed, much less resolved, this contradiction. On Afro-American slavery, silence seems to have been his principal bequest to posterity. Locke's silence is all the more difficult to fathom inasmuch as in the Two Treatises he developed a general theory and justification of slavery for captives taken in a just war ... I hope to show that this theory is woefully inadequate as an account of Afro-American slavery and, further, that Locke knew this ... Locke's silence about the Afro-American slave practices that he helped forward remains profoundly unsettling and poses one of the greatest problems for understanding Locke as a theorist and political actorAmong the numerous myths perpetuated by traditional interpretations of proslavery history, none has stood on shakier ground or proved more misleading than the notion that, for all practical purposes, proslavery was a phenomenon that appeared only in the antebellum South. From the age of the abolitionist through recent historiography the impression has remained that the Old South alone deserved the dubious distinction of fostering proslavery thought and building a culture largely defined by its buttressing of slavery. was established by decree of Almighty God ... it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation ... it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts.... the right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example. Proslavery is an ideology that perceives slavery as a positive good. Aristotle claimed that some people were natural slaves, and as a result of this belief, he argued that their enslavement was the only way to serve their best interests. He wrote in book I of the Politics: Among the Church Fathers, the majority opinion was in favour of the moral permissibility of slavery. According to Augustine, God approved of the flogging of disobedient slaves: 'You must use the whip, use it! God allows it. Rather, he is angered if you do not lash the slave. But do it in a loving and not a cruel spirit.' John Chrysostom wrote that 'to discipline and punish ignorant slaves is a great accolade, and not a perchance commendation'. Tertullian condemned the Marcionites for their advocacy of the liberation of slaves: 'what is more unrighteous, more unjust, more dishonest, than to benefit a foreign slave in such a way as to take him away from his master, claim him who is someone else's property'. Thomas Aquinas argued that slavery was not part of natural law, but nonetheless he defended it as a consequence of human sinfulness and necessary for the good of society. He viewed the natural state of humanity as that which had existed prior to the fall of man, in which slavery was non-existent; on those grounds, many commentators see him as rejecting Aristotle's claim that some people were naturally slaves, although it is a matter of controversy as to whether he fully rejected Aristotle's views on the matter. John Locke discusses slavery in his Second Treatise of Government. He rejects the idea that a person could voluntarily consent to enslavement, saying 'a man, not having the power of his own life, cannot, by compact or by his own consent, enslave himself to any one, nor put himself under the absolute, arbitrary power of another' (emphasis in original). However, he goes on to argue that enslavement of those who are guilty of capital offences is permissible. He also defends the enslavement of those captured in war: 'This is the perfect condition of slavery, which is nothing else, but the state of war continued, between a lawful conqueror and a captive' (emphasis in original). James Farr describes John Locke as 'a merchant adventurer in the African slave trade and an instrument of English colonial policy who proposed legislation to ensure that 'every freeman of Carolina shall have absolute power and authority over his negro slaves'' (the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina). Farr argues that Locke's theoretical justifications of slavery were inadequate to justify his practical involvement in the enslavement of Africans. He sees this contradiction as ultimately unsolvable: While Locke criticised slavery as 'so vile and miserable an estate of man', Farr argues that this statement was meant primarily as a condemnation of the enslavement of the English (which Locke accused advocates of absolute monarchy as effectively proposing), not necessarily as a judgement of the African slave trade. While Islam traditionally permits slavery, most contemporary Islamic authorities argue that the practice is inapplicable in the modern world. However, a minority of contemporary Islamic jurists defend slavery by arguing that it is still relevant and permissible today, and it is actively practiced by Islamist extremist groups. In the United States, pro-slavery sentiment arose in the antebellum period as a reaction to the growing antislavery movement in the United States in the late 18th century and early 19th century. Zephaniah Kingsley is the author of the most popular pro-slavery tract, self-published in 1828 and reprinted three times. A collection of the most important American proslavery articles is The Pro-slavery argument: as maintained by the most distinguished writers of the southern states : Containing the several essays on the subject, of Chancellor Harper, Governor Hammond, Dr. Simms, and Professor Dew (1853). The authors are William Harper, James Henry Hammond, J. Marion Sims, and Thomas Roderick Dew.