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Entry: Bloody kansas Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/bloody_kansas#8289 Post contents: The best summary of the Christian (Catholic) view on slavery as as institution comes from The Catholic Encyclopedia (older edition): http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14039a.htm The article, by Fr. James Fox, comes from volume XIV. While Christians (and the Church) have continuously worked both for the ameliorate the condition of slaves, and to, where and when practical, to end the practice, itself, we need to bear in mind this essential citation from the above-mentioned article: "The fact that slavery, tempered with many humane restrictions, was permitted under the Mosaic law would have sufficed to prevent the institution form being condemned by Christian teachers as absolutely immoral. They, following the example of St. Paul, implicitly accept slavery as not in itself incompatible with the Christian Law. The apostle counsels slaves to obey their masters, and to bear with their condition patiently. This estimate of slavery continued to prevail till it became fixed in the systematized ethical teaching of the schools; and so it remained without any conspicuous modification till towards the end of the eighteenth century. We may take as representative de Lugo's statement of the chief argument offered in proof of the thesis that slavery, apart from all abuses, is not in itself contrary to the natural law: <Slavery consists in this, that a man is obliged, for his whole life, to devote his labour and services to a master. Now as anybody may justly bind himself, for the sake of some anticipated reward, to give his entire services to a master for a year, and he would in justice be bound to fulfil this contract, why may not he bind himself in like manner for a longer period, even for his entire lifetime, an obligation which would constitute slavery? (De Justitia et Jure, disp. VI, sec. 2. no. 14.)> " The final few paragraphs of the article read: "Even granting that slavery, when attended with a due regard for the rights of the slave, is not in itself intrinsically wrong, there still remains the important question of the titles by which a master can justly own a slave. The least debatable one, voluntary acceptance of slavery, we have already noticed. Another one that was looked upon as legitimate was purchase. Although it is against natural justice to treat a person as a mere commodity or thing of commerce, nevertheless the labour of a man for his whole lifetime is something that may be lawfully bought and sold. Owing to the exalted notion that prevailed in earlier times about the patria potestas, a father was granted the right to sell his son into slavery, if he could not otherwise relieve his own dire distress. But the theologians held that if he should afterwards be able to do so, the father was bound to redeem the slave, and the master the was bound to set him free if anybody offered to repay him the price he had paid. To sell old or worn-out slaves to anybody who was likely to prove a cruel master, to separate by sale husband and wife, or a mother and her little children, was looked upon as wrong and forbidden. Another title was war. If a man forfeited his life so that he could be justly put to death, this punishment might be committed into the mitigated penalty of slavery, or penal servitude for life. On the same principle that slavery is a lesser evil than death, captives taken in war, who, according to the ethical ideas of the jus gentium, might lawfully be put to death by the victors, were instead reduced to slavery. Whatever justification this practice may have had in the jus gentium of former ages, none could be found for it now. When slavery prevailed as part of the social organization and the slaves were ranked as property, it seemed not unreasonable that the old juridical maxim, Partus sequitur ventrem, should be accepted as peremptorily settling the status of children born in slavery. But it would be difficult to find any justification for this title in the natural law, except on the theory that the institution of slavery was, in certain conditions, necessary to the permanence of the social organization. An insufficient reason frequently offered in defence of it was that the master acquired a right to the children as compensation for the expense he incurred in their support, which could not be provided by the mother who possessed nothing of her own. Nor is there much cogency in the other plea, i.e. that a person born in slavery was presumed to consent tacitly to remaining in that condition, as there was no way open to him to enter any other. It is unnecessary to observe that the practice of capturing savages or barbarians for the purpose of making slaves of them has always been condemned as a heinous offence against justice, and no just title could be created by this procedure. Was it lawful for owners to retain in slavery the descendants of those who had been made slaves in this unjust way? The last conspicuous Catholic moralist who posed this question when it was not merely a theoretical one, Kenrick, resolves it in the affirmative on the ground that lapse of time remedies the original defect in titles when the stability of society and the avoidance of grave disturbances demand it." Sent at: 2008 07 06