William Harper’s Take on Slavery

I am William Harper. I have years of experience as a lawyer, senator, and a member of the House in South Carolina. I am most known for my work promoting slavery. I had a lecture in 1838 that later was added to a published book, Memoir on Slavery. In this, I refer to slavery as “not merely a necessary evil, but a positive social good.” This conveys how slavery is a necessity to keep our South economically successful.

My main idea is the following quote, “slavery anticipates the benefits of civilization, and hinders the evils of civilization." In simplified terms, slavery keeps and builds on what strengthens our country, while simultaneously lessening the negative parts of our society. I highlight how the south has a working balance of prosperous economic status while avoiding the chaotic city atmosphere. We are able to support ourselves, while not becoming overwhelming and overrun by filth and low lives. When observing other countries under just the categories of slave holding and non-slave holding it is clear which of the two is flourishing- slaveholding. Non-slaveholding northern countries are contaminated by overwhelming inequality and political radicalism. Non-slaveholding southern countries are rapidly becoming barbaric. Only us slaveholding countries are progressing.

Slavery is a social good because of it’s social and economic benefits for the country as a whole. The good of our country is imperative to defend. I am famously quoted saying, “Slavery has done more to elevate a degraded race in the scale of humanity; to tame the savage; to civilize the barbarous; to soften the ferocious; to enlighten the ignorant, and to spread the blessings of Christianity among the heathen, than all the missionaries that philanthropy and religion have ever sent forth."

Slavery gives purpose and meaning to those who are not born equal. Slavery creates a needed structure, improving the wellbeing of African Americans. Christianity completely supports this claim. In my work in Memoir on Slavery, I explain how servitude is the natural way of civilization. God commanded, "be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth, and sub- due it," later adding, "in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread”. God here is advocating for slavery. Who are we as mere people to say what God, himself, predicates is wrong?

https://delphi.tcl.sc.edu/library/digital/slaveryscc/alumni.html

https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/767297