CHAPTER 6
Slavery: The Slow Path to Abolition
"At the present time in our country we regard slaves as chattel. Now people
are all the same. How could there be a principle by which one person regards
anothcr person as his property?'"
"Only if a person is a slave do others make them labor. and only if a person
is a slave is he made to labor for others."2SLAVERY AND MORALITY IN WORLD HISTORY
Throughout the history of slavery in the West the unhappy lot of the slave was
often recognized and deplored, but only rarely was slavery itself attacked as con-
trary to social norms, ethical precepts, or religious standards. The Greek polis
depended on servile or slave labor for the maintenance of its warriors and philoso-
phers. Plato by his silence on the matter in The Republic implied the necessity
of slavery as the labor force for his guardians or philosophers in the ideal soci-
ety of his vision, and in The Laws he acknowledged slavery as an essential part
of the existing mores of Athenian society. Aristotle, of course, went further by
justifying slavery on the grounds of a natural human inequality. Since both
philosophers assumed that the governing class should be restricted to men of
wisdom and talent, their toleration or support for slavery was a logical reflec-
tion of their hierarchical model of society.3
Both Stoics and Christians who shared belief in ideas of equality, humanity,
and compassion for the common man, might have provided a theoretical basis
for a critique of slavery as an institution, but they did not, however, develop a
strong antislavery position or social movement. The presumed equality of all
men in the quest for mental peace or mystical union with the cosmos in Sto-
icism took precedence over any attempt to level society. As long as the ultimate
objective of Christian doctrine remained salvation and bliss in the afterlife, Chris-
tians preferred to relegate social issues to the realm of Caesar and accept slav-
ery as one of those unavoidable curses of the imperfect temporal world. Later,
with the increased emphasis on original sin that came with St. Augustine and
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