Recently, we had Hunter Wallace back on the SNN podcast to get his response to Mark Vogl’s letter to the Sons of Confederate Veterans and subsequent SNN interview. Mr Wallace is the editor of Occidental Dissent, where he recently ran an article critiquing Mr Vogl’s ideas on morality, slavery, race, political-correctness and the Southern movement today. His article generated a great deal of Internet traffic and dialog. In this interview Mr Wallace talks about where his moral, historical and political perspectives differs from those of Mr Vogl.
Click here for the audio (duration: 23:51)
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I will admit that I haven’t had a chance to listen to this podcast. But I did read Hunter’s opinion piece. In that piece it is implied that he is pro slavery. I know that he and others takes the position that the Bible condoned slavery that occurred in the West from the 16th century up to the latter part of the 19th century. However, how is Exodus 21:16 to be reconciled with this viewpoint?
Exodus 21:16 (KJV)
” And he that stealeth a man,and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand,he shall surely be put to death.”
Anti-Federalists, Neither HW nor I are pro-slavery – I don’t know anyone who wants to bring slavery back today. Both of us take the position that it’s pointless to apologise for slavery today and that it will just be taken as weakness by our enemies. As well, while you quote one Bible verse that appears to be anti-slavery there are many others that appear to be pro-slavery. Christianity was never anti-slavery until very recently. Slavery was a integral part of Roman society, for example, and there is no record of Jesus condemning it. Even after Christianity became the Roman state religion slavery continued. And throughout the Middle Ages when Christianity was the state religion throughout all of Europe serfdom (which is a form of slavery) was widespread. So, from the historical record it can not be argued that Christianity is anti-slavery. It certainly was not traditionally considered to be sin, as Mark Vogl says it is. But beyond this, we both take a position against the PC Confederate ideology. That is what this entire debate is really about. Vogl is arguing for a Confederate ideology that is very similar to the universalist, multiculturalist ideology of the US Empire.
Michael, I didn’t mean to infer that you personally are pro slavery. The term pro slavery is a term taken directly from Hunter Wallace’s opinion piece. Here is the quote:
” 1.) The internet is a free market of opinion: the anti-racist faction of the Southern movement is free to make its case on the basis of anti-racism and anti-slavery,but the racialist and pro-slavery faction is also free to compete with that position –I predict the latter will win the contest in the long run.”
Hunter did not explicitly say that he is pro slavery. However, I would think from reading his opinion piece that he is in the “racialist, pro-slavery faction” that he speaks of. I don’t believe that you or Southerners in general should have to apologize for slavery. I agree with you that this is a sign of weakness to your enemies. However, you are playing into your enemies hand when you attempt to rationalize/legitimize slavery. I think the whole issue of slavery is unrelated to your political goals.
Anti-Federalist, I would generally agree that the issue is unrelated to our political goals as well. However, what brought the issue up was Mr Vogl’s letter to the SCV encouraging them to apologise for the ‘sin’ of slavery. My original piece was written to address this, which I considered to be bad advice. It all started from there. It was a productive conversation though, I think, because it did get at some root disagreements in the broader Southern movement and focused in large part on the competing ideologies at play. As I see it, the PC Confederate ideology is on the decline and that’s a good thing. The era of its supremacy has been marked by continual defeat, retreat and decline.
Michael, the question that should be asked of people Mr Vogl and those who think like him is why has he chosen to single out Southerners for an apology. Throughout history there have been countless instances of people been conquered/subjugated/enslaved by others. However, it’s only Southerners who have been berated into constantly apologizing, denounce their ancestors, and to constantly feel ashamed of themselves. People like Vogl should be asked why he choses to single out Southerners. If he is concerned about past sins of slavery, why hasn’t he demanded an apology from black African slave traders? The honest truth is that even though Southerners purchased slaves, the cast majority of blacks were initially enslaved by other blacks in Africa. I think when you encounter people like Vogl turn the question around on him and ask why he demands that you apologize, show contrition, sounds your ancestors and not demand this of others. Ask him why doesn’t he demand an apology from the Feds for conquering the South. Or how about demanding an apology from the Turks for conquering Europe and converting their children to Islam. The lust can go on and on.
Sorry for the typos above. I pecked that last post on my smartphone.
http://www.occidentaldissent.com/2012/07/13/slavery-a-positive-good/
After saying in this podcast that he didn’t want a return to slaver, today he posts a blog entry saying the opposite. That’s not very helpful, regardless of how valid his points are.
To clarify:
(1) I said in the SNN podcast and in my response to Vogl that I don’t advocate a return to slavery.
(2) In 2012, 2 percent of the population works in agriculture. 98 percent of the people who work in agriculture are White.
(3) Technological progress would have eliminated slavery in the same way that it ended sharecropping.
(4) I suppose you could restore slavery in some areas today. Examples include domestics, construction workers, and fruit and vegetable workers.
(5) That was just a facetious way of poking fun at the people who defend illegal immigration.
Anti-Federalist,
In the 1860s, slavery was a very sensible system. Read my article “Slavery: A Positive Good.” The first commercial oil well wasn’t drilled until 1859 in Pennsylvania.
Think about it: we fought the most destructive war in our history over slavery in America on the eve of the Industrial Revolution which harnessed fossil fuels to make slavery obsolete.
The mechanical cotton picker was invented in Memphis in the 1850s. Slave prices were exploding in the 1850s. They reached an all time high in 1860.
Guess what? If abolition hadn’t destroyed slavery in 1863, slave prices would have increased. This would have spurred the mechanization of agriculture in the South which would have come decades ahead of schedule.
Abolition made cotton and labor dirt cheap. The yeomanry lost their land and spent decades as sharecroppers. Wouldn’t it have been better if the development of the mechanical cotton picker had not languished for decades until the time of the boll weevil and the Great Depression?
“I once was lost,
but now am found.
Was blind
but now I see”.
The last few weeks I have been reflecting on things such as this.
Tragically, because we did not have a William Wilberforce in this country twenty five years earlier, 650,000 to 1,000,000 people died needlessly in the “Civil” War.
Sadly also, too many people today are looking for another William Wallace rather than a William Wilberforce.
America had its own William Wilberforce: William Lloyd Garrison.
It was one thing to abolish slavery in the British West Indies in the Caribbean where 90 to 95 percent of the population was black and most planters were absentees who lived in Britain, not Jamaica, Guiana, or the Leewards and Windwards.
It was another thing altogether to abolish slavery in Dixie, which was a settler society unlike the Caribbean, where blacks were a majority in four states, make them citizens, and give them voting rights, which was tantamount to destroying the Southern economy and handing over control of the government to a black majority to create a gigantic Haiti in our midst.
If the South had listened to Rhett and seceded in 1850 or 1844 instead of 1861, we would have won our independence. Similarly, if the previous generation hadn’t spent forty years digging our grave with inane stuff like focusing on “black Confederates,” we wouldn’t be facing a potentially fatal threat to the preservation of Southern civilization.
You would think that with Mitt Romney at 1 percent with the black vote that “mainstream” conservatives would have learned their lesson.
Dear Mr. HW,
In regards to Wilberforce and Garrison:
Perhaps you are right. However, the main difference I see between the two men is that Wilberforce seemed to be much colder to things like “revolution” and seemed to see things simply as “right and wrong”.
Again, just my opinion.
In both cases, abolition was a disaster.
- In the British West Indies, sugar production collapsed and was driven out of business by slave labor in Cuba and Brazil.
- Just as opponents of abolition had predicted, slavery alone kept blacks on sugar plantations. The British imported Chinese and Indian coolies to the West Indies in a desperate and futile attempt to restore sugar production.
- Jamaica, Guiana, and the other sugar islands sunk into an impoverished Africanized backwater of the Empire. The situation in Jamaica wasn’t much better than Haiti.
- The abolition of slavery destroyed the economy. Slaves were capital goods that became worthless as free laborers. Property values and commerce similarly collapsed in the British West Indies. Wealth evaporated overnight.
- Facing ruin under the prospect of black rule, the remaining Whites in the British West Indies dissolved their own legislatures.
So the result of abolition in the British West Indies was the destruction of the economy, the Africanization of the Caribbean, and the extinction of self-government for Whites. This great triumph of anti-slavery was cited as the definitive proof that abolition would produce a similar disaster in Dixie.
That’s pretty much what happened too. The only difference being that there were far more Whites in Dixie than the British West Indies so the decline wasn’t as bad.
Mr. HW,
Some excellent points. I also know that the scriptures have been used to speak for and against human bondage. While Europe and the New World were built on the backs, by and large, of African slaves, it is my opinion that Europe’s introduction of African slavery was a big mistake in the first place. A lot of problems would have been avoided later on down the road, even though our progress economically, and in many other ways, might have been delayed.
Having said that, I’m not going to bash our ancestors because I realize it was a different planet, 150, 200, and 500 years ago. Again, I will say, however, that many problems would have been avoided. In addition, treating other humans like livestock is just wrong.
Period.
(Again, just my opinions).