LogFAQs > #942646798

adjl posted...

He's not altogether wrong, if you consider establishing the country and its economy in a timely fashion to be necessary (which the founding fathers did). That would have been substantially more difficult if not for slavery, and America and the world would be a very different place because of such a change. The problem is that saying something like that usually needs to be paired with "and as a result, those of us who are benefiting from that economic success owe a great debt to the class that was oppressed to get it, so have some reparations," otherwise you're defending slavery (read: being a racist bag of moldy feces) instead of expressing regret over the harm that was caused (read: the position every decent person holds).

The actual quote is also a concerning bit of historical revisionism, since he's not saying that himself, he's claiming that was the founding fathers' opinion. There's no reason to believe that - collectively - the founding fathers believed slavery to be evil, even if they felt it was necessary. I'm sure some did, but to suggest that all of them held that position is utter nonsense, and seeks to excuse the past crimes of slavery.

I've heard plenty of historians and economists make the argument that slavery was in fact worse for the economy. That productivity would have been higher without it.

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