Myths of American Slavery

by Walter Kennedy

  Historical Errors

  ERROR # 1: "Our relationship to African-Americans has been hindered from the beginning [emphasis added] by the role that slavery played in the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention."

  TRUTH # 1: From the very beginning of Baptist churches in the South, black and white Christians have worked and worshiped together much closer than anywhere in the world. For example, in 1786 in Simpson County, Mississippi, one of the first Baptist churches in that state was established by thirteen men-twelve white and one black. In 1858 the congregation had grown to more than 175 members-one hundred white and seventy-five black. The first pastor of the oldest surviving Baptist church in Louisiana was a black free man of color, and yet the church was, and is to this day, a white Baptist church. Noted Southern historian Francis Butler Simkins observed in his textbook on Southern history the close and respectful relationship between the races in the Old South. Simkins stated: "The Baptists did this less by deliberate missionary efforts than by accepting Negro members on a basis of Christian brotherhood that seems strange in the twentieth-century South. There were many instances in which gifted Negroes were allowed to preach to congregations of both races."ts According to this historian, true Christian love was displayed more often during the times of slavery than in modern times of freedom. (What a condemnation on both Yankeeinduced "freedom" and the modern liberal mind-set.)

  The very idea that a Christian slave master could have a positive influence on his slave is to the modern mind unthinkable. (Never mind that such was the example taught by the Apostle Paul and first-century Christianity.) Let us consider the life of Rev. John Jasper. Born a slave, John jasper lived with his Baptist master. It was through the life and example of his Christian master that John's eyes were opened to the good providence of God, and he professed his belief in Jesus Christ and later became a minister of the gospel. As a slave, Rev. Jasper earned the respect of many, including wounded Confederate soldiers to whom he often preached.'U After the War he preached for both black and white people for more than fifteen years. Until his death, he always spoke kindly and with brotherly love of his Christian master. Before Rev. Jasper died, he said that the first thing he wished to do when he got to heaven, after seeing Jesus, was to call on his "dear old marster."`-0 What a shame! Southern Baptists should be celebrating the victories of God's grace, even under the most strange of relationships (strange to modern man), rather than degrading the memory of God-fearing men such as Rev. John jasper and his Christian master.

  ERROR # 2: "Southern Baptist forbears defended the `right' to own slaves, and either participated in, supported, or acquiesced in the particularly inhumane [emphasis added] nature of American slavery."

  TRUTH # 2: Two points jump out at the reader of this bit of liberal "feel-good" sophism. As it is stated here, one is left with the view that only Southerners defended the "right" to own slaves. Not only has slavery existed since the dawn of time in every civilization and race known to mankind, but every American state and/or colony practiced slavery as long as it was needed in that state or colony. The very first colony in America to protect the "right" to own slaves was Massachusetts (not South Carolina). As black historian DuBois demonstrated, during the so-called Civil War more than a thousand slaves were brought to the Western Hemisphere under the protection of the United States flag. These slaves were sold, as were 94 percent of all slaves brought to the New World, in Latin America, not the American South. Even after the defeat of the South in 1865, slavery existed in the New World until 1888. This resolution also conveniently overlooks the thousands of slaves owned by fellow African-Americans in the United States. To all of this should be added the fact that the first colony that attempted to stop the African slave trade was the Southern colony of Virginia.

  Now let us look at the charge that Southern slavery was "particularly inhumane." Most Americans' view of slavery in the South is based upon fictional accounts of the antebellum South. This view is drawn from the works of fiction ranging from Uncle Tom's Cabin and Roots to the Gone With the Wind account. Although interesting to read, fiction is fiction and should never be substituted for truth. The most recent factual study of the life of slaves in the Old South was done by Dr. Robert W. Fogel. Fogel's study of Southern slavery and Western railroads was so complete and impressive that it won for him the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize. Yet, Fogel's work has proven that slavery in the Old South was not the evil and harsh system so often portrayed by the liberal establishment. In his book Time on the Cross, Fogel demonstrated that nowhere in the Western Hemisphere were slaves better treated and cared for than in the South. What is more shocking is that he showed that slaves of the South were treated better than the free blacks in the North. Fogel's study paralleled the study done by the Work Projects Administration during the Great Depression commonly known as the "slave narratives," in which oral histories of former slaves were recorded and published. In this work, 60 to 80 percent of all respondents had only positive things to say about their masters and their life during slave days. The work of a Nobel Prize-winning scientist and the very words of the last living slaves in America refute the Southern Baptist Convention's resolution.

  Political Error

  ERROR # 3: "Racism has led to discrimination, oppression, injustice, and violence."

  TRUTH # 3: Typical of standard liberal logic, the resolution places all blame for the evils of modern society upon the people of European culture (i.e., white people). While most Southerners believe in a society in which merit, not race, is the only limiting factor in a person's advancement, liberals hold to and promote the most vicious forms of discrimination. Yes, discrimination today is based upon skin color, but the color discriminated against is white, not black. Minority set-asides, reverse discrimination, forced busing, all are aimed not at black people, but at white people. Where are the Baptist ministers demanding the end of this form of discrimination? Black conservatives such as senior Hoover Institution fellow Dr. Thomas Sowell and black conservative talk show host Ken Hamblin have warned Americans about the deleterious effect of pursuing this liberal course. The liberal agenda of welfare, reverse discrimination, and slavery-victimization rhetoric has led to more racial division and conflict than anything since the end of the civil rights struggle. Even black Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has spoken out against this liberal agenda. When will the Southern Baptist Convention and its ministers stop and listen to the voices of reason?

  For every action there is a counter reaction. When Southern Baptists "admit" to the guilt of racism and slavery, the intended result is of course better race relations. But, in politics, what one seeks is not always what one gets. Rather than increasing good will, black militants and their liberal allies are now using the "guilt of slavery and racism" resolution to demand more minority set-asides, affirmative action, and reparations. Yes, now at last, we have the likes of "Rev." Jesse Jackson, "Rev." Al Sharpton, and "Rev." Louis Farrakhan all in the same political bed with Southern Baptist ministers!

  Congress has before it a bill that would establish a commission to study how reparations (this could literally and figuratively be called black mail) would be given to African-Americans, due them from white Americans because of the "guilt of slavery and racism." All mainstream liberal organizations such as the NAACP and the ACLU have jumped on the reparations bandwagon. The only result of kowtowing to black militants and other liberals is a further decrease in positive relationship between the two cultures. When it comes to good race relations, liberalism is more deadly than cancer. To quote Ken ("The Black Avenger") Hamblin, "Liberalism, Public Enemy # one; Cancer, Public Enemy # two!"

  Biblical Error

  ERROR # 4: Throughout the resolution, the unspoken idea and/or point that begs to be made is that slavery is sinful. Many passages of scripture are quoted to show that all people were "equal" and that God's plan was for man (and woman) to live on a footing of absolute equality. According to the resolution, slavery denies the existence of absolute equality of hum
ankind, and therefore slavery must be a sin. The main thrust of the liberals' argument is that since slavery is a sin, no one should complain when he or she is ordered to pay his fair share for the horrors of that most sinful of institutions. This logic, or lack of it, follows the lies of earlier liberals known as abolitionists. Confronting this fallacy about slavery, the following letter was submitted to several local newspapers. The author is not arguing that no sin took place within the institution of slavery but rather that there is no biblical justification for charging the institution of slavery in itself to be a sin. The body of the following letter is printed below.

  TRUTH # 4: Only God can define what is a sin.

  In an effort to defend the good name of Southern Baptists of the nineteenth century, the following letter was submitted to a North Louisiana daily paper in 1995. The letter was rejected for publication no less than three times. It was also rejected by the official newspaper of the Louisiana Baptist Convention:

  An innocent man in the Greek play "Antigone" is given a death sentence and laments, "It is a grievous thing when the right judge, judges wrong." The recent slanderous attack upon the good name and honor of deceased Southern Christians by the Southern Baptist Convention, with their apology for the "sins" of slavery and racism, brought forth a similar sense of agony in many Christians.

  One stands astonished by the hypocrisy of modern Baptist Churchmen who dare condemn Christians of the 19th century, vet, no century has produced more death and destruction than the 20th century. Never has this nation seen a people with less civility or respect for law and moral standards than in this 20th century. Never have illegitimacy, murder, rape and divorce been as high as it is today in the 20th century. Compared to our ancestors of the last century, we of the 20th century live in a virtual Sodom and Gomorrah. Yet, Southern Baptists can find nothing better to do than to desecrate the graves of our sainted dead. "Honor thy Father and Mother." I will honor my Christian Father, who is interred alongside his Father and Grandfather (a Confederate Soldier). I will not stand silent as the sycophants of liberal political correctness desecrate the graves of my people.

  If slavery is such a diabolical sin it should be easy to find a clear-cut "thus saith the Lord" repudiation of slavery. I defy the minions of political correctness to come forward and reveal such a text. While they rush to and fro, I direct the reader's attention to Leviticus 25:44-46. In Leviticus, the LORD gives to Israel HIS law on slavery. God's law on slavery not only made provision for the Hebrew slave, who was subject to the law of Jubilee, but also the "stranger" or non-Hebrew slave which would be the property of the Hebrew forever. The listing of slaves along with other property is seen in the Ten Commandments.

  A search of the New Testament will not find one verse that unequivocally condemns slavery as a sin. During the life of Christ, the cruel, pagan, Roman system of slavery brought people from all over the world under its control. Yet, during his ministry, Jesus Christ never condemned slaveholders nor the system of slavery. Christ nor his Apostles saw fit to condemn slavery as sinful.

  In the New Testament we read Paul's Epistle of Philemon where the Apostle returns a runaway slave to his master with a request that the slave be received back with love. If ever there was needed a time for the Holy Spirit to move Paul to condemn slavery here was that opportunity. Yet, nowhere is the slave master nor the institution of slavery condemned as "sinful."

  The Biblical argument for slavery given here is neither Baptist nor Southern. The New England Puritan cleric Cotton Mather, among other Yankees, used Biblical arguments to defend the New England system of slavery and the slave trade. Today, due to liberal education our people, most of all Southerners, know little about the history of slavery under the Puritans of Massachusetts.

  What will be the response of our Churchmen when they are met with a demand for an apology for all the years of patriarchy, i.e., male dominance in church and family, or an apology for the homophobic attitude of the church? If current events offers us any guide, get ready for a full scale apology to the feminists and the sodomites. When one starts down the path of rewriting Holy Scripture, all types of apostasy are possible.

  The Sunday after the local paper carried a slanderous attack upon my Southern ancestors, by several local Baptist ministers, I had the pleasure of worshiping in a church where Southern Pride and respect for our people are commonplace. The most often seen flag in that church is the Confederate Flag, twice each year the church is the focal point for Southern Heritage celebrations, and the Pastor is a resolute proponent of Southern Independence. That Sunday and each Sunday thereafter, I look at the congregation and see more racial and cultural diversity in that church than is found in the average Baptist Church. These Christians have no trouble worshiping with people of various races or different cultural background; yet, they display love and respect for their Southern heritage and would never defile the honor of their Southern ancestors. I trust that one day Southern Baptist will learn how to love in this manner.

  Deo Vindice,

  Walter D. Kennedy

  Southerners never like to "talk bad" about churches or ministers. This is just plain good manners that their parents taught them. But, when a long train of abuse continues from the misguided, even if they profess to be ministers of the gospel, Southerners must stand up and demand an accounting. I do not believe that most Baptist ministers and laymen are intentionally attacking Southern families. For the most part, the attack is made because they have not taken the time to study the Southern view of the cause and effects of the War for Southern Independence. Nevertheless, the results from a political point of view are the same-a continuing eroding of the rights of Southerners. Six weeks after local Baptist ministers acquiesced in the attack on Southern culture, it was not surprising at all when black militants and liberals in a city twenty-five miles from the author's home demanded the removable of the Confederate battle flag in that city. After all, it had already been admitted that the "sin" of slavery and racism is common to all Southerners in the area. The sad point is that all Southerners know that the cultural bigots will not stop at the removable of a battle flag. The liberal elite has already said that they will stop at nothing until all vestiges of the South are "gone with the wind."

  Like many modern Southerners, the author has spent the greater part of his life fighting for equal opportunity for all. Nevertheless, we Southerners now find ourselves condemned by liberals and their sycophants as racists. Today the South embraces the belief in the Jeffersonian idea of "equality of opportunity." We Southerners have not changed our views; we continue demanding equal treatment for all Americans-even Southerners. This is something liberals and their sycophants cannot tolerate. Today, it is not the racial bigots that berate and castigate those of us who believe in true Jeffersonian equality, but the liberals and their scalawag dupes. These liberals are nothing less than cultural bigots who will stop at nothing but the total destruction of the South.

  SUMMARY

  The discussion in this chapter is not about whether slavery is or is not a sin. In America today, that would be somewhat of a moot question. Regardless of how one feels about the biblical issue of slavery, it must be recognized that both parties in this debate were making some rather good arguments. This being the case, it behooves modern society not to quickly adopt the view of Radical Abolitionism to the exclusion of other anti-slavery views. Leaders such as Dr. Rice of Ohio and Bishop Hopkins of Vermont were both anti-slavery men, but both opposed the antics of the Radical Abolitionists. Likewise, important men in the South also had different views on how and when slavery was to end. At great personal expense, Robert E. Lee freed his slaves long before the advent of the War for Southern Independence. Others, such as Jefferson Davis, believed that the slaves should be educated and made ready for freedom. On Davis's plantation the idea of educating the slave for freedom was put into practice.2' Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington, among a score of others, represent the numerous Southern slavehol
ders who believed in some system of emancipation. Due to the adoption of the Radical Abolitionists' view of slavery, today all these honorable men are subject to being slandered and abused as "defenders of slavery."

  The puerile demand to judge people of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by the knowledge, experience, and standards of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is inexcusable. For example, using the medical knowledge of the eighteenth and ninetheeth centuries, smallpox was treated by placing stones in bed with the victim; heart problems were treated by bleeding the patient; and the use of anesthetics (crude as they were) for amputating soldiers' limbs, was considered harmful to the morale of the army. This being the case, should we condemn all physicians of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? Furthermore, using the extra-biblical method of the Radical Abolitionists, could we not find abundant proofs of undue pain, suffering, and death at the hands of these physicians to warrant the invention of a new species of "sin"? In the same fashion, we could condemn the great document of English liberties, the Magna Carta. When this document was written, it afforded little freedom to the common man in England. The Magna Carta did limit the power of the king vis-a-vis the English nobles. Therefore, using today's standards, we can truthfully say that the Magna Carta is a hoax and fraud upon the common peoples' liberties. These assessments of physicians and the Magna Carta are just as juvenile and ridiculous as the modern liberal politically correct demand to condemn all anti-slavery advocates who did not agree with the radical approach to abolition. Equally true, the history of Christianity during its first nineteen hundred years demonstrates that slavery was not viewed as a sin in itself; therefore, to condemn Christianity by twentieth- and twenty-first-century views is also juvenile.