The popular thought has been that liberal godless force of reason was the diving influence. Not so. As Barone's post points out, it was not past history or new liberal reason that got the balls rolling for the end of the slave trade, but Christianity and the likes of William Wilberforce that deserve the recognition.
Good to remember.
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Choro de Giron
6 years ago
1 comment:
Hi Pete,
I thought I might point out to you that while most white abolishionists where Christian so were most people who were in favor of slavery. Virtually all of the coutry was Christian so it could hardly be any other way. Michael Barone really gives no basis for his assertion that economics had little to do with abolition. Read a little more about this before you accept the rantings of a strongly partisan operative like Barone. Adam Smith in the "Wealth Of Nations", capitalism's manifesto, reasoned slavery was not economical due to the cost of controlling slave populations.
Nothing against good Christian people who did what they could, Wilburforce deserves recognition, but lets not overstate the case. Economics and the slaves themselve were probably the biggest reason for the end of slavery.
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