Onward and Backward

The secular left tells us that we are progressing ever forward. Destination unknown at this time. But no matter. Life is better. Modern man is morally superior to past generations. Gone are those churchy, superstitious days of old. For the secular elites of our age it is not the New Adam, Jesus, who restores the fallen world to order, but science and reason, fully undisturbed by any considerations outside of the natural world. With every new invention and scientific discovery the evidence mounts that man is better, more civilized, and morally more advanced.

Of course this is nonsense. One brief review of the last hundred years provides proof beyond a reasonable doubt that modern man may enjoy jets and indoor plumbing, and email and MRIs, but he is still a descendent of the first Adam, weighed down and afflicted by the effects of Original Sin, even if he remains in denial, blaming religion for the ills of the modern world. Surely legalized abortion is Exhibit “A” in the proof that modern man is not morally superior to his ancestors, but the same imperfect creature in the same disordered world as them.

One of the great tragedies of this nation of the United States of America was the poison of chattel slavery that infected the American body politic from its birth. Most would argue that the bloody eradication of that poison in the Civil War made it possible for the U.S. to grow into a great and noble country, albeit imperfect.

However, most of us likely do not comprehend how truly destructive and degrading slavery really was. The principal victims of the “peculiar institution” were obviously the slaves themselves, who were treated as no more than expensive livestock. But the poison in the body politic was poison to all parts of that body. All of American society in some degree was ultimately infected. The inhumane treatment of the slaves may have been the direct consequence, but the moral depravity of chattel slavery coarsened sensitivities and devalued all life in all of American society. Indeed, that is always the problem with the culture of death. The deadly virus of dehumanization spreads out like a toxic gas to every part of the society that permits it, and that is no less true today than in ante bellum America. In fact, American chattel slavery has an eerie relation to the current legal status of the fetus, and to much of the experimentation and practices of modern science relating to unborn human life.

What was created human at conception by the union of male and female slaves, and what was thereafter born human from the womb of the female slave was, after birth, made not human by the slave owner acting as a kind of creator intervenor, distorting the Divine Plan. That new being created by God through the cooperation of the mother and father, was socially altered at birth by the slaveholder. The ersatz “creator” looked at the new life, and declared it to be better than a cow or a horse, but not really a human being, and certainly not a legal human person who could claim the protection of the Constitution and laws of this country.

The super structure that supported and held together the institution of slavery, and that which gave the slaveholder creator his power, was the law, and no case made that any more clear than Scott vs. Sandford (1), commonly known as the Dred Scott case. The issue before the Supreme Court in Scott was put by the court as follows:

The question is simply this: can a negro whose ancestors were imported into this country and sold as slaves become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, privileges, and immunities, guaranteed by that instrument to the citizen, one of which rights is suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution?

Sadly, the court answered the question in the negative. In essence the court held that the noble words that “all men are created equal” did not apply to “the enslaved African race.” They were not, and could not, become part of the human community of citizens of the United States, and the protection of its laws.

Through interviews of former slaves the depression era Federal Writers’ Project that was conducted between 1936 and 1938 provides a window into the inhumanity of American slavery that was upheld in Scott. These interviews are a direct and very sharp reminder of the consequences when one group of human beings usurps the role of the true Creator to determine membership in the human community and attempt, in effect, to “un-create” God’s own creation.

The consequences for the men, women, and children who were defined out of the community of human beings, and legal persons entitled to the protection of the law, was not only degradation and cruelty, but an obliteration of their humanness. Consider the words of Willie Williams who was interviewed at the age of 78 at his home in Ft. Worth, Texas in about 1937. He was born into slavery on a plantation in Louisiana:

On dat plantation dere am sort of hospital fix for to care for de sick. Dey uses herbs and sich and sometimes calls de doctor. De small chillens is kep’ dere and de marster sho am ‘ticular ‘bout dem. Lots of times he look dem over and say, “Dat one be worth a t’ousand dollers, “ or “Dat one be a whopper.” You see, ‘twas jus’ like raisin young mules. (2)

Willie Williams doesn’t say, but it is highly doubtful that any of the “de small chillins” in that slave nursery were physically or mentally disabled. Likely the “marster” would have have “terminated” those babies at birth.

Listen also to Reeves Tucker who was born on a plantation in Alabama, separated from his mother as a child, and then brought to Texas to work on a plantation. He was 98 and living in Marshall, Texas when he was interviewed in about 1938:

I’ve saw lots of slaves bid off like stock and babies sold from their mammy’s breast. Some brung ‘bout $1,500, owing to how strong they is. Spec’lators used to ride all over the country near our place and buy up slaves and I’s saw as many as fifty in a gang, like convicts. (3)

The story of Rose Williams is equally descriptive of the inhumanity of slavery. She was interviewed at 90 at her home at 1126 Hampton St., in Ft. Worth, in about 1936, and describes the sale of her family on the auction block:

When we’uns gits to de tradin’ block, dere lots of white folks dere what come to look us over. One man shows de intres’ in pappy. Him named Hawkins. He talk to pappy and pappy talk to him and say, ‘Dem my woman and chiles. “Please buy all of us and have mercy on we’uns.” Massa Hawkins say, “Dat gal am a likely lookin’ one, she am portly and strong, but three am more dan I wants, I guesses.”

De sale start and ‘fore long pappy am put on de block. Massa Hawkins wins de bid for pappy and when mammy am put on de block, he wins de bid for her. Den dere am three or four others sold befo’ my time comes. Den Massa Black calls me to de block and de auction man say,”What am I offer for dis portly, strong young wench. She’s never been ‘bused and will make de good breeder.”

I wants to hear Massa Hawkins bid, but him say nothin’. Two other men am biddin’ ‘gainst each other and I sho has de worryment. Dere am tears comin’ down my cheeks cause I’s being’ sold to some man dat would make sep’ration from my mammy. One man bids $500.00 and de auction man ask, “Do I hear more? She am gwine at $500.00.” Den someone say $525.00 and de auction man say, “She am sold for $525.00 to Massa Hawkins.” Am I glad and ‘cited? Why, I’s quiverin’ all over. (4)

So here we are in the 21st century. How morally superior is modern man? Have we made much progress from 19th century slave breeders?

Under the banner of the unlimited abortion license over 50 million innocent human beings have been killed in the womb and on the way out of the birth canal. Chopped, sliced, burned, poisoned, crushed, stabbed, and dismembered by medical vacuum cleaners. The aborted ones include not only the “products of rape” of Planned Parenthood propaganda, but also the healthy but unwanted, the mentally retarded, dwarfs, the female instead of the desired male (or vice versa), fetal reduction after the fertility drug finally works (too well), and an assortment of other “undesirable” human beings. Then there are the thousands, maybe millions, of human beings at the embryonic stage of growth who have been killed in research or fertility procedures. Also there are the thousands of human beings in a so called “persistent vegetative state” who have been denied food and water and starved to death. Terri Shiavo was only the case that made the national news. And if all of this blood were not enough “moral advancement,” radical leftists like Peter Singer at Princeton University are pushing us to go the way of the Dutch who, like the Nazis who invaded their county during World War II, have extended their euthanasia project to include not only the terminally ill, but even disabled children. Finally, we have in this county a determined segment of the scientific community moving steadily ahead toward their goal of cloning human beings to serve their “creators.”

The “cloning,” selection, and reduction methods of the ante bellum slave traders and slave breeders may have been primitive, relying on whips and brute force to subdue and “change” human beings into expensive livestock, to select the wanted, and to reduce the unwanted, but socially and legally they clearly were effective. The moral result is just as clear: The inhuman degradation of some human beings to an inhuman status for the service of other human beings who have the power and the law.

Are 21st century practices and purposes any different? Is the breeding of human embryos for the purpose of experimentation to serve other humans any different than the breeding of “strong” and “portly” slaves? Is the sale of embryos or fetal tissues any different than selling slaves? Is abortion for organ transplants, for gender selection, the eradication of the disabled, or for “reductions” of “excessive embryos” after in vitro fertilization any different than breeding and selections that took place on the plantation or the sales that occurred on the sale block at a slave auctions?

Pope Benedict XVI reminds us that “we are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is necessary.” (5) On cloning and humanly degrading medical experimentation he makes his point without ambiguity:

To fabricate man and make him a product of our chemical arts or any other technology is a fundamental attack on the dignity of man, who is no longer considered, no longer realized as an immediate creature of God and his immortal vocation… It is essential to respect the unique dignity of man, who is wanted and created immediately by God, through a new miracle of creation. [Through cloning] the human person becomes our product, a product of our art: thus his dignity as a human person is violated from the start. (6)

And what about the law? Law is supposed to be, at some level, a reflection of our moral foundation. Is our law today actually morally superior to Scott vs. Sandford? The Supreme Court concluded in Scott that those human beings called negroes existed wholly outside of the human community, and, therefore, were completely beyond the protection of the law and not entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They were not human citizens (not even second class), but a kind of sub species, with only such legal protection that might come indirectly from the law’s protection of the owner’s right to protect his personal slave property.

In Roe vs. Wade (7) the Supreme Court held that abortion on demand is legal because in the gaseous vapors of the Constitution there is a right of privacy that is virtually absolute and which trumps every other right. It further held that the unborn child exists outside of the human community, and is not a legal person who may claim the protection of law. The child’s humanity was dismissed out of hand with but a flip of a statement: “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.” (8)

In effect, the Court decided that the human being in the womb is not a real human being at all, but a kind of sub-species, with no claim to the protection of the law other than the indirect protection that may arise from the protection of the mother’s right to protect her personal fetal property. See Scott vs. Sandford for precedent! So much for moral and legal advancement.

As Reeves Tucker or Rose Williams might say: “Hm. Sho do sound like things am not changed much. I’s thinks I’s hears de massa. Hopes you am strong and portly, and wanted.”

(1) Scott V. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393, 403 (1857).

(2) Federal Writers’ Project; Interview #420121; pp 2, 3; collection pages 188, 189.

(3) Federal Writers’ Project; Interview #420005; pp 1, 2; collection pages 116, 117.

(4) Federal Writers’ Project; Interview #420140; pp 1, 2; collection pages 174, 175.

(5) ) Benedict XVI, Homily at his Inauguration Mass, April 24, 2005.

(6) Vatican Radio, March 7, 1997, M. Bardozzi, In the Vineyard of the Lord: The Life, Faith, and Teachings of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI (New York: Rizzoli, 2005), 111-12.

(7) Roe vs. Wade, 419 U.S. 113 (1973).

(8) Id at 160.