That Loud Boom You Just Heard ...
Posted
Tuesday, June 26, 2007 2:59 PM
by
Joe Napalm
... Was my mind slapping shut.
Today, I have writer's block -- or maybe it's writer's don't-give-a-pooh. There is so, so much to write about, but I just don't care. I think I have the blahs because of the looming Mexican amnesty bill.
But there is an interesting discussion going on in the Son of Liberty forums (click the link in the margin) about the Civil War. I have kept my distance and read from the sidelines because I haven't had anything to add. Today, I have something. And here it is:
There was a movement in England in the late 1700s to abolish the transatlantic trade of slaves. The conditions on the ships and at the ports were atrocious. Families were divided; men, women and children were shackled together in the 'tween decks for months; and large numbers of humans died terrible deaths of starvation and infection. Anti-slavery politician and Christian, William Wilberforce [link], said, "So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the [slave] trade's wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for abolition. Let the consequences be what they would: I from this time determined that I would never rest until I had effected its abolition."
Since the beginning of the United States, the issue of slavery has been debated. Many of our founding fathers recognized that it was a contradiction to say that all men were born free with rights bestowed by God, yet they continued to own slaves that drove the horrible transatlantic market (see George Washington).
We can debate until we're blue in the face what the Civil War was really about. We can attempt to reason like a 19th Century citizen of the U.S., or we can look at our ancestors and judge them in light of 21st-Century reason. But one thing we can't dispute is that the war was the beginning of the end of the transatlantic atrocity.
Maybe Wesley is right when he says that God was for neither side. God's Word doesn't say that slavery is wrong. In fact, God has commands for slaves. But he also has specific guidelines for masters of slaves; and killing them on the high seas in their own *** breaks his rules. Unfortunately, it took a war between fellow countrymen to effect abolition in the U.S.