More On Rick Santorum's View On Slavery

What is it about the wingnuts and Slavery?



First we had Michele Bachmann. According to Rich Lizza's piece in the New Yorker:

In “Christianity and the Constitution,” the book she worked on with Eidsmoe, her law-school mentor, he argues that John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and John Adams “expressed their abhorrence for the institution” and explains that “many Christians opposed slavery even though they owned slaves.” They didn’t free their slaves, he writes, because of their benevolence. “It might be very difficult for a freed slave to make a living in that economy; under such circumstances setting slaves free was both inhumane and irresponsible.”

I mean The Bible does allow for slavery, doesn't it? - Just not cruel slavery (Leviticus 25:44-46):

If you want slaves, buy them from other nations or from the foreigners who live in your own country, and make them your property. You can own them, and even leave them to your children when you die, but do not make slaves of your own people or be cruel to them.

So as long as you don't whip them or anything, slavery's OK, I guess. Responsible thing to do, even, since setting them free in a bad economy would only make things really bad for them.



That's freedom and slavery for Michele Bachmann, winner of the Iowa straw poll for the Republican Nomination for the President of the United States.



Then there's Rick Santorum, one of the losers. Thinkprogress has video of our favorite ex-Senator discussing freedom:





Their transcript:

Our founders said [our] rights were given to us to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Does anyone here believe that first inalienable right is as whole as it was at the time of our founding? It isn’t. Does anyone believe that our freedom is as whole as it was at the time of our founders? It is not. [bold in original]

From the top of the field to the bottom: for the GOP, slavery was no big deal. Not even worth mentioning when cheering on the great traditions of America.



I guess the GOP doesn't count human slavery as the affront to human freedom that it so obviously is.

More On Michele Bachmann and Slavery

GOP front runner and Tea Party darling Michele Bachmann in the news these past coupla days regarding this Newsweek cover:



From the Washington Post blog:

As soon as Newsweek tweeted this week’s cover of the magazine, featuring a particuarly bad picture of presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, bloggers were up in arms.



NewsBusters argued that Newsweek intentionally chose a photo that made Bachmann look “crazy.” Slate asked whether the picture showed the magazine was “sexist.”

And so on. The charges and counter charges (and their defenses) will quarantine not a small amount of the news cycle. Which is a pity because there's another Bachmann story that might not get the air time it should because of it.



Bachmann's views on antebellum slavery. From Adam Swerver at the American Prospect:

Ryan Lizza's profile of Bachmann reveals that Bachmann's odd perspective on slavery isn't a series of gaffes, but rather "a world view." Lizza explains that Bachmann is a believer in a kind of Christian conservative reimagining of slavery, where "many Christians opposed slavery" but owned them anyway and didn't free them because "“it might be very difficult for a freed slave to make a living in that economy; under such circumstances setting slaves free was both inhumane and irresponsible.” How charitable of them!

Wait, there's more:

She is also a fan of Robert E. Lee biographer J. Steven Williams, (sic) whom Lizza describes as a "leading proponent of the theory that the South was an orthodox Christian nation unjustly attacked by the godless North." Wilkins "approvingly" cites Lee's conviction that abolition was premature because it was necessary for "the sanctifying effects of Christianity” to take their time “to work in the black race and fit its people for freedom.”

Actually it's J. Steven Wilkins but that's besides the point. What did have to say about antebellum slavery? You have to read it for yourself:

Slavery, as it operated in the pervasively Christian society which was the old South, was not an adversarial relationship founded upon racial animosity. In fact, it bred on the whole, not contempt, but, over time, mutual respect. This produced a mutual esteem of the sort that always results when men give themselves to a common cause. The credit for this startling reality must go to the Christian faith

And they're worrying about the photo making Bachmann look crazie?

Welcome To The New History Of America

From the AP:

At South Carolina's Secession Gala, men in frock coats and militia uniforms and women in hoopskirts will sip mint juleps as a band called Unreconstructed plays "Dixie." In Georgia, they will re-enact the state's 1861 secession convention. And Alabama will hold a mock swearing-in of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

Across the South, preparations are under way for the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. And while many organizations are working to incorporate both the black and the white experience, there are complaints that some events will glorify the Old South and the Lost Cause while overlooking the fundamental reason for the war: slavery.

In the New History, we learn the real reason for the Civil War:

Mark Simpson, commander of the South Carolina Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, acknowledged that an event such as the Dec. 20 Secession Gala in Charleston is seen by some Americans as politically incorrect. But "to us it's part of our nature and our culture and our heritage."

"Slavery was a very big issue. Anyone who denies that has his head in a hole somewhere," said Simpson, a Spartanburg businessman who counts 32 ancestors who fought for the South. "But slavery was not the single nor primary cause, and that's where the line gets drawn." [emphasis added.]

Simpson said the primary cause was states' rights — the purported right of states to nullify federal laws and freely leave the Union they voluntarily joined.

See that? The War of Northern Agression was not about slavery as much it was about freedom!

They fought for the Freedom of those freedom-loving southern states to be free of Guv-ment intrusion into their legislative decisions to freely continue their traditional southern culture.

It's real unfortunate that that culture included slavery, doncha think?