The second major challenge was not to
slavery as an institution, but to slavery and all other forms of occupational cleavage as barriers to brotherhood.
Bales reminds us that while today's 27 million may be the largest number of slaves ever held at one time, historically it is the smallest proportion of slaves relative to the world's total population, which suggests that
slavery as an institution is declining.
It should be noted that
slavery as an institution existed throughout the world long before the American Revolution.
While the film and the memoir have been given the unfair label of being ONLY ABOUT «slavery is bad» (as if that fact alone would not be worthy) many of the more subtle points have been ignored, but is best summed up this way, «It is notable not only for its lucid description of plantation life, with detailed passages on the methods by which cotton and sugarcane were harvested and processed, and how slaves were fed, housed and punished, but also for the author's evenhanded treatment of his subject: although he denounces
slavery as an institution, Northup expresses his gratitude to the masters who treated him with gentleness and generosity, and shows a surprising ability to forgive even the most unimaginable cruelties.»
The picture is, primarily, a study of
slavery as an institution.
These naturally flow from the ignorance that most Americans have about enslaved Africans as people and about
slavery as an institution.
Nevertheless, Lincoln the lawyer lays out his arguments, building to the unassailable conclusion that the Founding Fathers saw
slavery as an institution that would wither and die with time and isolation.
Not exact matches
This is to affirm that, while the
institution of Israelite prophetism developed relatively slowly and attained maturity relatively late, the essence of the prophetic was present from the Mosaic era, inherent in the faith of ancient Israel from her formation
as a people out of Egyptian
slavery.
We reject
slavery as absolutely immoral — such rejection of
slavery on moral ground clearly has its roots in the Bible, yet is far beyond the way
slavery,
as a moral issue or a social and economic
institution, is discussed in the Bible.
When Othello was first performed in 1603 or 1604, it was rare for
slavery to be seen
as an
institution exclusively imposed by Europeans and Arabs upon black Africans, but this would soon change.
So far
as slaves were concerned, nowhere in the Bible is the
institution of
slavery,
as such, attacked or even questioned.
Among the Hebrews,
as always where
slavery has flourished, the
institution presented an endless series of moral and legal problems.
Just
as the
institution of
slavery is not ideal, perhaps hierarchy in marriage is not ideal either.
Still later, in a third major Old Testament collection of torah known
as the Holiness Code, Leviticus 17 - 26, the very
institution of the
slavery of an Israelite to an Israelite is abolished (Lev.
However, those approaching the picture
as an overdue tribute to an overlooked icon are apt to be richly rewarded, and perhaps even inspired by this self - empowerment flick which arrives at a time when the world is sorely in need of another such hero, given the re-emergence of the
institution of
slavery in The Sudan and elsewhere.
It has been said that Harriet Beecher Stowe helped start the Civil War with her novel, «Uncle Tom's Cabin,» which enumerated the evils of
slavery in shocking detail to a nation that had all but turned a blind eye to what was known
as «the peculiar
institution.»
Animal use and
slavery have at least one important point in common: both
institutions treat sentient beings exclusively
as resources of others.