Liberty is Radical – Part 3 - Slavery

Two meta-decisions concerning liberty were at issue in the Civil War. One was slavery. That’s the issue everyone knows about.

The slavery meta-decision pitted the property rights of the slave owners against the human rights of the slaves. At bottom, it was about the definition of humanity. The literature of the day described African-Americans as somewhat less than fully human. Defining them thusly was the only way fair-minded people could justify slavery to themselves and others.

If Africans were fully human then slavery was an obvious abomination but if they were less than fully human then slavery was sensible and even humane. Since the argument that Africans were less than fully human was built on sand, its foundation crumbled. Institutionalized slavery in the United States was doomed and good riddance.

As an aside, informal sexual slavery seems to be a growth industry world-wide, including in the United States where local governments are reluctant to interfere with the literal slavery imposed on Muslim women by some Muslim men.

Links to Other Posts in the Special Report: Liberty is Radical