Classic Quote From Abraham Lincoln on Slavery and Application to Current Issues

Abraham Lincoln:

You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own.

You do not mean color exactly? You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.

But, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest; you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you.

Amy Hall comments:

The arguments for slavery were the same as the arguments now for abortion: Human beings are only instrumentally valuable. Some people are worth less than others because they lack particular qualities that I have. Therefore, my desires trump their rights.

The arguments against slavery were the same as the arguments now against abortion: All human beings are intrinsically valuable and have equal natural rights, regardless of their characteristics.

The arguments are the same then and now because the two options presenting themselves to us haven’t changed and won’t ever change. Slavery and abortion aren’t just random, unconnected controversial issues, they’re rooted in our view of human beings, and they illustrate the two possible directions in which our country can go as we move forward. Will we embrace intrinsic human value or instrumental human value?

Whatever we decide as a nation, don’t think for a moment that the principle we settle on will only be applied to abortion.

Read the rest.


Recommended reading:

• The Case For Life
• Defending Life

The Face of Modern Slavery

NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF:

In my last column, I described a frightened seventh-grade Vietnamese girl who was rescued in a brothel raid that Somaly and I participated in. That raid in the town of Anlong Veng has already had an impact, for six more brothels in the area have closed because of public attention and fear that they could be next. And the seventh-grade girl is recovering from her trauma at a shelter run by Somaly, where a girl named Lithiya has taken her under her wing.

Lithiya, now 15, is one of my favorites in “Somaly’s army,” perhaps because she wants to be a journalist and has taught herself astoundingly good English. Trafficked at age 9 from Vietnam, Lithiya was locked inside a brothel for years before she climbed over a wall and escaped. Now a ninth grader, she is ranked No. 1 in her class.

Srey Pov, Lithiya and Somaly encountered a form of oppression that echoes 19th-century slavery. But the scale is larger today. By my calculations, at least 10 times as many girls are now trafficked into brothels annually as African slaves were transported to the New World in the peak years of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

So for those of you doubtful that “modern slavery” really is an issue for the new international agenda, think of Srey Pov — and multiply her by millions. If what such girls experience isn’t slavery, that word has no meaning. It’s time for a 21st-century abolitionist movement in the U.S. and around the world.

Read the rest.

Lincoln and Obama, Slavery and Abortion

JT:

Jeffrey Anderson and Darren Guerra recently argued that President Obama is more in step with Stephen Douglas and John C. Calhoun than with Abraham Lincoln. An excerpt:

There are significant parallels between these two issues. Each is likely the political or moral issue about which Americans of their era have, or had, the most passionate feelings and the strongest opinions. Each was ultimately decided, at least for a while, by the Supreme Court — in favor of legalized slavery and legalized abortion. And each involves conflicting interpretations of fundamental natural rights — of liberty versus property in the case of slavery, of life versus liberty in the case of abortion. . . .

Both slavery and abortion ultimately reduce to competing claims over unalienable rights. No one can justly take the liberty or life of another if that other qualifies for the rights with which all of humanity is endowed. Thus, debates over slavery eventually became — as debates over abortion eventually become — debates over the humanity of the slave or the fetus. If the slave or the fetus are among those beings who, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, “are created equal” and “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” then their unalienable rights to life (in the case of abortion) and liberty (in the case of slavery) must be secured. If they are not, then a slave-master may be said to have a right to property in a slave, and a pregnant woman may be said to have a right to liberty in the form of abortion.

Read the whole thing (but note that it's two pages, not one--it's hard to tell from the design on their page).

HT: Gene Veith

Slavery in Haiti

John Piper:

It is a good thing that people from all ideologies are talking about the horrors of human trafficking. Don’t let the “trendiness” of it dampen your indignation. If a liberal champions a good cause woe to conservatives who put their head in the sand.

Doug Nichols has been on the cutting edge of caring for street children since before some of you were born. He is one of my heroes. As Founder of Action International, Doug draws my attention to child slavery in Haiti. The children are called restavéks (stay-withs).

He writes: “Let me share a few paragraphs from the recent book A Crime So Monstrous, by Benjamin Skinner:

…[Slaves] are everywhere. Assuming that this is your first trip to Haiti, you won't be able to identify them. But to a lower-middle-class Haitian, their status is 'written in blood.' Some are as young as three or four years old. But they'll always be the small ones, even if they're older. The average fifteen-year-old child slave is 1.5 inches shorter and 40 pounds lighter than the average free fifteen-year-old. They may have burns from cooking for their overseer's family over an open fire; or scars from beatings, sometimes in public, with the martinet, electrical cables, or wood switches. They wear faded, outsized castoffs, and walk barefoot, in sandals or, if they are lucky, oversized shoes...

[Y]ou may see their tiny necks and delicate skulls straining as they tote five-gallon buckets of water on their heads while navigating broken glass and shattered roads.

These are the restavéks, the 'stay-withs,' (child slaves) as they are euphemistically known in Creole. Forced, unpaid, they work from before dawn until deep night. The violence in their lives is unyielding. These are the children who won't look into your eyes. (-6)

Nationwide the number of restavéks ballooned from 109,000 in 1992 to 300,000, or one in ten Haitian children, in 1998, to 400,000 in 2002." (7)

Modern Day Slavery

ThinkChristian.net has a disturbing post called, "Slavery is Alive And Well".

From the post:

Southeast of Port-au-Prince, Skinner quickly finds a slave broker, and in this “banal” conversation—he told NPR it was “as if I was negotiating on the street for a used stereo”—Skinner asks for a nine- to twelve-year-old to cook and clean for him.

[He proceeds to negotiate the price down to $50.] “Here, 600 miles from the United States, and five hours from the desk of the UN Secretary-General,” summarizes Skinner, “you have successfully bargained a human being down to the price of the cab fare to JFK.” Benavil even offered fake adoption papers to transport the girl to the United States. This took place not in the remote past but in October 2005.

Read the whole thing.