Have They Always Made the Same Excuses for Enslaving People?

You can click on this picture to enlarge it.

It shows a man being publicly burned for some act of rebellion against a slaveholder.

Believe it or not, the so-called "moderate” abolitionists of the time claimed that slave revolts were harmful to the cause of emancipation. They believed in making arguments that would charm the slaveholders into freeing their slaves.

But ask yourself: Is it possible that slaveowners will be convinced to stop being slaveholders, by sweet-sounding arguments?

Here is how the slaveholders answered that question: by burning men who resisted, and by saying this to abolitionists:

“But if your course was wholly different— if you distilled nectar from your lips and discoursed sweetest music… do you imagine you could prevail on us to give up a thousand millions of dollars in the value of our slaves, and a thousand millions of dollars more in the depreciation of our lands...?”

—That quote is from James Hammond, speaking for the continuation of slavery, in 1845.

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