# R.Dabney's Defense of Virginia



## rmwilliamsjr (May 10, 2005)

*R.Dabney\'s Defense of Virginia*

I'm starting to write out my 3 classes on the American Civil War, and am beginning with a review of Dabney's Defense of Virginia.

here it is so far. looking for help on the main ideas which will be expanded into the classes.



> I first read this probably 25 years ago, and i haven't ceased to be challenged by it ever since. I am in the middle of writing 3 essays on the Civil War and American slavery. This was a reread where i took my time and paused and gazed off into space continually. such a book. a day painfully and thoughtfully spent. I am presbyterian, Dabney is one of my heroes, perhaps after Calvin my favorite theologian, his writing is persuasive, passionate, thoughtful, painful, challenging, etc etc. Leave a whole day for this small book, you will need the time to ruminate under the nearest tree and image yourself in the antebellum South, first as a white man, then as a black slave, then again as a Christian of each race. How do you reconcile the contradictions between "love your neighbor as yourself" and the black backs broken by years of whips and forced labor, where the whips were in the hands oftentimes of people in the pews of the same churches we sit in today? How can a Christian let alone a competent and serious theologian defend slavery after the Civil War?
> 
> The possibilities are pretty well defined:
> 1)he was so effected by his culture, economic needs and socio-political environment that his religion was simply trumped.
> ...



tia

[Edited on 5/10/2005 by fredtgreco]


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## fredtgreco (May 10, 2005)

Please watch the long links.

If you have a long link, turn it into a tinyurl:

http://tinyurl.com/


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## RamistThomist (May 15, 2005)

I don't have the time or energy to give a thorough detailed response. Here goes:

1) The South was chastened God via the North for failing to reform slavery on biblical guidelines.* This is the position of Eugene Genovese.

2) Such a reformation of slavery would have ended it as we know it on this continent. The South (Dabney) was correct to affirm that the Bible sanctioned slavery. They failed in applying all the relevant parts of the Bible to it (The Year of Jubilee, for one. I think that in itself would have ended slavery). 

Both sides bring certain assumptions to the text when they look at the slavery passages. In Ephesians/Philemon the question exists to the nature of Roman slavery: Was it more brutal than Southern Slavery? If yes, then one must ask why Paul counseled the slave to be obedient to the master in the Lord. However, the asking of such a question--and this is a tangent--brings to mind the limits of civil disobedience when an earthly authority commands what Christ has forbidden.

If Roman slavery was less brutal than southern slavery, then the Southrons have--well, not anymore because they are all dead--to shoulder an extra burden of proof for their case. They can no longer appeal to New Testament examples because the slave system was different. If this is the case then appeals to the NT are fallacies of equivocation. 

We must condemn chattel slavery. At the same time it helps to keep in mind that the Constitution today does not categorically condemn every form of slavery. Consider Article 1 of the 13 Amendment:



> Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, *except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted*, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction



We must condemn man-stealing. 
We must also recognize that many of the Abolitionists were driven by the French Revolution and had eventually equated the abolition of slavery with the destruction of the South.

Several questions will probably remain unanswered:
How could an otherwise Christian people tolerate slavery _in that form_?
Why didn't Lincoln make it clear that he wanted to end slavery when his speeches suggested otherwise? This isn't addressed by scholars today.

these are just my thouhts at the moment. Could add more later, probably.


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## RamistThomist (May 15, 2005)

And as a covenantal Christian, we must condemn the break-up of families.


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## RamistThomist (May 15, 2005)

In regard to my first point I must add that God judged the North in the aftermath of the war as we now have Big Government, the loss of the Union (how many people speak of that today?), the loss of republic and the rise of Empire.


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## Fernando (May 15, 2005)

*slavery*

Jacob,

Some good responses. Another point to consider is that the Law does not countenance slavery based on 'race.'


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## BlackCalvinist (May 16, 2005)

hmmm.

Jacob, you condemn (rightly) all of the basic practices of slavery in the US. But you never condemn US slavery outright, only specific practices. But the sum of the practices equal the whole, from my observation. And the socioeconomic and cultural shockwaves of it still rattle through African-American communities today.

Why not condemn the whole thing outright ?


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## WrittenFromUtopia (May 16, 2005)

Why not condemn the whole thing? Because slavery, as a punishment to criminals, is a dang good idea, in my opinion.


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## LawrenceU (May 16, 2005)

Off topic:

In point 1 you have the wrong word. It should read 'affected' not 'effected'. A very common and growing mistake; much like the misuse of reflexive pronouns.


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## ChristianTrader (May 16, 2005)

> _Originally posted by OS_X_
> hmmm.
> 
> Jacob, you condemn (rightly) all of the basic practices of slavery in the US. But you never condemn US slavery outright, only specific practices. But the sum of the practices equal the whole, from my observation. And the socioeconomic and cultural shockwaves of it still rattle through African-American communities today.
> ...



One question is if the shockwaves are truly from Southern slavery or from Reconstruction?

CT


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## BlackCalvinist (May 19, 2005)

> _Originally posted by WrittenFromUtopia_
> Why not condemn the whole thing? Because slavery, as a punishment to criminals, is a dang good idea, in my opinion.



But we're not talking about criminals, are we Gabriel ?

Context.


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## RamistThomist (May 19, 2005)

I am always hesitant to debate this subject. I will stand second to no man in the South's constitutionality of seceeding. At the same time, I hope that I can say evil is evil, even when it pertains to my homeland.


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## rmwilliamsjr (May 20, 2005)

i need to get 3 classes written on the Presbyterian church and the Civil War era
http://dakotacom.net/~rmwillia/hap6.html
http://dakotacom.net/~rmwillia/hap7.html
http://dakotacom.net/~rmwillia/hap8.html

the outlines are online, but the essays, i am finding, are rather hard to write.


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## ChristianTrader (Jun 5, 2005)

Here is a link to Gary North's book Tools of Dominion http://www.freebooks.com/docs/372e_47e.htm

In the first section of it is a chapter caled "A Biblical Theology of Slavery"

A person needs to download DjVu in order to view the online copy of the book. It can be found here: http://www.djvuzone.org/download.html

Hermonta


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