Being "Nonjudgmental" Means That There Is No Evil

[expat_panama]

...Slavery was also a moral issue and both the Southern Baptists and the Quakers were able to use the Bible to justify their positions.

....never been a period in time since antiquity where either of the three desert religions have not been the perpetrators of the crimes against humanity...

It's not hard to find historical accounts of people doing bad things in the name of their religion. So if we're concerned about war crimes, then we want to look not just at those committed by nations w/ state churches and Islamic states. The most horrendous, vile, and unspeakable crimes against humanity were committed by nations whose state religion was atheism.

Let's be clear that nobody here is stupid enough to say atheism is wrong because of the bad things done in its name. The point is that only a moron will condemn religion because of crimes committed in the name of god.

 

[alang1216]

It's not clear but you seem to be dismissing the Bible as being shallow and irrelevant w/ regard to human nature and morality.

I wasn't trying to dismiss the Bible or denigrate its importance. What I believe is that morality is not absolute, certainly it isn't in the Bible. Jesus put his own stamp on morality, changing the 'eye for an eye' to 'turn the other cheek'. Morality is a reflection of the current societal mores. Our founding fathers held a very different view on slavery than we of today hold. Were they less moral than we are or has society changed and the moral goalposts along with it? I think it is obviously the latter.

Obviously you don't know the view our founding fathers held on slavery any more than you know than what Jesus did.

Our founding fathers believed that slavery was against the natural law and Jesus did not change the moral law. He rephrased it.

Reality check:

• Different founding fathers held different views on slavery. Both Washington and Jefferson kept slaves so they obviously saw the immorality of slavery being outweighed by other factors. I know it is wrong to speed but sometimes I do since it's really not so bad.
• I think maybe it is you who doesn't really know Jesus. How can you claim 'eye for an eye' and 'turn the other cheek' are morally equivalent?

 

[evenflow1969]

The true path lies somewhere between these two quotes:

To embrace tolerance is to cease to believe in anything
Chesterton

And this….

Biblical law promotes tolerance for minorities. Leviticus 19:34
The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.


Wisdom is the basis for deciding how far non-judgmentalism should go.





1. Under the traditional views gleaned from the Bible, it was clear what was expected, and accepted in society.

"The Bible is the wisdom of the West. It is from the precepts of the Bible that the legal systems of the West have been developed- systems, worked out over millennia, as the result of human interactions and experience for dealing with inequality, with injustice, with greed, reducible to that which Christians call the Golden Rule, and the Jews had propounded as “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.”
David Mamet

It is these rules and laws which form a framework which allows the individual foreknowledge of that which is permitted and that which is forbidden.






2. As a result of the ascendancy of Progressivisim/Liberalism we now have a secular view of society where there are not only more grey areas, but morality has become subjective.

"One change in societal attitude has been the “ecumenical niceness”…don’t fight, share toys, take turns….and never, ever, be judgmental."
Charles Murray




3. Traditional, or Secular: Either one has learned the lessons of the past, or believes that those lessons no longer apply.

"The roots of the view that there is no objective truth, called 'postmodernism,' can be traced to the anthropologist Franz Boas, who, in an effort to study exotic cultures without prejudice, found it useful to take the position that no culture is superior to any other. Thus was born the idea of cultural relativity.

The idea spread like wildfire through the universities, catapulted by the radical impetus of the sixties, ready and willing to reject "the universality of Western norms and principles."
Bawer, "The Victim's Revolution"

4. " When morality became privatized, the questions “what is right” became “what is right for me.” Feelings... became the arbiters of behavior. Rather than traditional taboos, only religiously based moral judgment was deemed taboo. The harm caused to abandoned spouses or children by adultery or desertion- harm that can be objectively documented in rates of ill health, depression, educational underachievement, criminal behavior- was all but ignored, while damage done to people’s feelings by condemnation of their adultery or desertion was considered unforgivable."
"The World Turned Upside Down," Melanie Phillips, chapter 14





If there is no truth, but it varies based on one's views, feelings, or culture….then there is no 'evil.'


Not just for individuals, there are cycles to life and cycles to civilizations. Within each, there are the seeds of their, or its, own destruction. The advancement of Hussein Obama to the presidency represented the blossoming of one of those evil seeds.

Being non judgemental means leaving the judging of others up to god like we are told to do in the bible. You may judge yourself in accodance to your faith and beliefs with out pissing off god. Be care full when judging others though! You may piss off the big man upstairs!

 

[alang1216]

...Slavery was also a moral issue and both the Southern Baptists and the Quakers were able to use the Bible to justify their positions.

....never been a period in time since antiquity where either of the three desert religions have not been the perpetrators of the crimes against humanity...

It's not hard to find historical accounts of people doing bad things in the name of their religion. So if we're concerned about war crimes, then we want to look not just at those committed by nations w/ state churches and Islamic states. The most horrendous, vile, and unspeakable crimes against humanity were committed by nations whose state religion was atheism.

Let's be clear that nobody here is stupid enough to say atheism is wrong because of the bad things done in its name. The point is that only a moron will condemn religion because of crimes committed in the name of god.

I generally agree but would take issue with "The most horrendous, vile, and unspeakable crimes against humanity were committed by nations whose state religion was atheism". I don't think anything done by any nation whose state religion was atheism was any worse than what was done by the Israelites during the conquest of Canaan and that episode is proudly detailed in the Bible.

 

[expat_panama]

...I know it is wrong to speed but sometimes I do since it's really not so bad...

Most folks would agree, especially those serving time for DUI vehicular homicide.

...I think maybe it is you who doesn't really know Jesus...

Compared to whom, you? If that's what you're saying then we'll leave you to enjoy your fondly held beliefs. On the other hand if you don't think you really know Jesus then how are you able to tell if someone else does or does not?

 

[alang1216]

Being non judgemental means leaving the judging of others up to god like we are told to do in the bible. You may judge yourself in accodance to your faith and beliefs with out pissing off god. Be care full when judging others though! You may piss off the big man upstairs!

Thanks but I'm not worried, he made his judgement before I was born so there is nothing I can do to change it. Actually I don't believe in an afterlife so I don't worry about the big man upstairs since I know I'm not going to hell. I'd be really scared if I was a believer though since who knows what his would be.

 

[expat_panama]

...I don't think anything done by any nation whose state religion was atheism was any worse than what was done by the Israelites during the conquest of Canaan...

It would simply not be reasonable to most folks here to allege a moral equivalence of biblical accounts of the ancient Israelites to detailed descriptions of what was done by Stalin, the Chinese "cultural revolution", Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, etc.

In fact, I'm finding the idea a bit sick.

 

[PoliticalChic]

The true path lies somewhere between these two quotes:

To embrace tolerance is to cease to believe in anything
Chesterton

And this….

Biblical law promotes tolerance for minorities. Leviticus 19:34
The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.


Wisdom is the basis for deciding how far non-judgmentalism should go.





1. Under the traditional views gleaned from the Bible, it was clear what was expected, and accepted in society.

"The Bible is the wisdom of the West. It is from the precepts of the Bible that the legal systems of the West have been developed- systems, worked out over millennia, as the result of human interactions and experience for dealing with inequality, with injustice, with greed, reducible to that which Christians call the Golden Rule, and the Jews had propounded as “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.”
David Mamet

It is these rules and laws which form a framework which allows the individual foreknowledge of that which is permitted and that which is forbidden.






2. As a result of the ascendancy of Progressivisim/Liberalism we now have a secular view of society where there are not only more grey areas, but morality has become subjective.

"One change in societal attitude has been the “ecumenical niceness”…don’t fight, share toys, take turns….and never, ever, be judgmental."
Charles Murray




3. Traditional, or Secular: Either one has learned the lessons of the past, or believes that those lessons no longer apply.

"The roots of the view that there is no objective truth, called 'postmodernism,' can be traced to the anthropologist Franz Boas, who, in an effort to study exotic cultures without prejudice, found it useful to take the position that no culture is superior to any other. Thus was born the idea of cultural relativity.

The idea spread like wildfire through the universities, catapulted by the radical impetus of the sixties, ready and willing to reject "the universality of Western norms and principles."
Bawer, "The Victim's Revolution"

4. " When morality became privatized, the questions “what is right” became “what is right for me.” Feelings... became the arbiters of behavior. Rather than traditional taboos, only religiously based moral judgment was deemed taboo. The harm caused to abandoned spouses or children by adultery or desertion- harm that can be objectively documented in rates of ill health, depression, educational underachievement, criminal behavior- was all but ignored, while damage done to people’s feelings by condemnation of their adultery or desertion was considered unforgivable."
"The World Turned Upside Down," Melanie Phillips, chapter 14





If there is no truth, but it varies based on one's views, feelings, or culture….then there is no 'evil.'


Not just for individuals, there are cycles to life and cycles to civilizations. Within each, there are the seeds of their, or its, own destruction. The advancement of Hussein Obama to the presidency represented the blossoming of one of those evil seeds.

Being non judgemental means leaving the judging of others up to god like we are told to do in the bible. You may judge yourself in accodance to your faith and beliefs with out pissing off god. Be care full when judging others though! You may piss off the big man upstairs!

Au contraire.

Having free will and intelligence implies that we are to be judgmental.


At the heart of religion....and by religion I mean the Judeo-Christian faith.....
....is free will.
And that free will is animated by the gift of intelligence.

Have you seen the cloak on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel...the cloak behind God?
It is a cerebrum.

The Brain on the sistine Chapel Ceiling
That is the clear outline of a cerebrum.

Free will along with intelligence, are God's gifts to mankind.
It is through the use of those gifts that we make decisions to perform good or evil acts.



On the other hand, Oscar Wilde put it this way: "There is no sin except stupidity."

 

[evenflow1969]

Being non judgemental means leaving the judging of others up to god like we are told to do in the bible. You may judge yourself in accodance to your faith and beliefs with out pissing off god. Be care full when judging others though! You may piss off the big man upstairs!

Thanks but I'm not worried, he made his judgement before I was born so there is nothing I can do to change it. Actually I don't believe in an afterlife so I don't worry about the big man upstairs since I know I'm not going to hell. I'd be really scared if I was a believer though since who knows what his would be.

Well then the only people you are going to piss off with judments are the ones being judged. Let's be frank here, you must spend some time making judgments about people or you will be surrounded by terrible people or at least people that are not compatable with you. You should be the best jusge of who is evil or incompatable to you, where you start to err and can get your self in trouble is when you apply those judgements of compatability for other people. Evil or incompatable with you may not hold true to another persons judgement. That same person that destroys your life may enhance an others life! So what I have to say on the matter is make your judgements and protect your self just be extremely carefull who you share your judgements with! Unless the person is my child or a child I let each person be their own judge and keep my big fat nose out of it.

 

[evenflow1969]

The true path lies somewhere between these two quotes:

To embrace tolerance is to cease to believe in anything
Chesterton

And this….

Biblical law promotes tolerance for minorities. Leviticus 19:34
The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.


Wisdom is the basis for deciding how far non-judgmentalism should go.





1. Under the traditional views gleaned from the Bible, it was clear what was expected, and accepted in society.

"The Bible is the wisdom of the West. It is from the precepts of the Bible that the legal systems of the West have been developed- systems, worked out over millennia, as the result of human interactions and experience for dealing with inequality, with injustice, with greed, reducible to that which Christians call the Golden Rule, and the Jews had propounded as “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.”
David Mamet

It is these rules and laws which form a framework which allows the individual foreknowledge of that which is permitted and that which is forbidden.






2. As a result of the ascendancy of Progressivisim/Liberalism we now have a secular view of society where there are not only more grey areas, but morality has become subjective.

"One change in societal attitude has been the “ecumenical niceness”…don’t fight, share toys, take turns….and never, ever, be judgmental."
Charles Murray




3. Traditional, or Secular: Either one has learned the lessons of the past, or believes that those lessons no longer apply.

"The roots of the view that there is no objective truth, called 'postmodernism,' can be traced to the anthropologist Franz Boas, who, in an effort to study exotic cultures without prejudice, found it useful to take the position that no culture is superior to any other. Thus was born the idea of cultural relativity.

The idea spread like wildfire through the universities, catapulted by the radical impetus of the sixties, ready and willing to reject "the universality of Western norms and principles."
Bawer, "The Victim's Revolution"

4. " When morality became privatized, the questions “what is right” became “what is right for me.” Feelings... became the arbiters of behavior. Rather than traditional taboos, only religiously based moral judgment was deemed taboo. The harm caused to abandoned spouses or children by adultery or desertion- harm that can be objectively documented in rates of ill health, depression, educational underachievement, criminal behavior- was all but ignored, while damage done to people’s feelings by condemnation of their adultery or desertion was considered unforgivable."
"The World Turned Upside Down," Melanie Phillips, chapter 14





If there is no truth, but it varies based on one's views, feelings, or culture….then there is no 'evil.'


Not just for individuals, there are cycles to life and cycles to civilizations. Within each, there are the seeds of their, or its, own destruction. The advancement of Hussein Obama to the presidency represented the blossoming of one of those evil seeds.

Being non judgemental means leaving the judging of others up to god like we are told to do in the bible. You may judge yourself in accodance to your faith and beliefs with out pissing off god. Be care full when judging others though! You may piss off the big man upstairs!

Au contraire.

Having free will and intelligence implies that we are to be judgmental.


At the heart of religion....and by religion I mean the Judeo-Christian faith.....
....is free will.
And that free will is animated by the gift of intelligence.

Have you seen the cloak on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel...the cloak behind God?
It is a cerebrum.

The Brain on the sistine Chapel Ceiling
That is the clear outline of a cerebrum.

Free will along with intelligence, are God's gifts to mankind.
It is through the use of those gifts that we make decisions to perform good or evil acts.



On the other hand, Oscar Wilde put it this way: "There is no sin except stupidity."

Well if you are a christian it is right in the bible "Judge not lest thee be judged!". Not a lot of ways to take this. You beleive your bible or you do not! This is either god's word or it is not! See a later post where I explain my view on this! But spoiler alert I am for the most part with you on this! Make no judgemnts or make poor ones you end up six foot under!

 

[PoliticalChic]

The true path lies somewhere between these two quotes:

To embrace tolerance is to cease to believe in anything
Chesterton

And this….

Biblical law promotes tolerance for minorities. Leviticus 19:34
The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.


Wisdom is the basis for deciding how far non-judgmentalism should go.





1. Under the traditional views gleaned from the Bible, it was clear what was expected, and accepted in society.

"The Bible is the wisdom of the West. It is from the precepts of the Bible that the legal systems of the West have been developed- systems, worked out over millennia, as the result of human interactions and experience for dealing with inequality, with injustice, with greed, reducible to that which Christians call the Golden Rule, and the Jews had propounded as “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.”
David Mamet

It is these rules and laws which form a framework which allows the individual foreknowledge of that which is permitted and that which is forbidden.






2. As a result of the ascendancy of Progressivisim/Liberalism we now have a secular view of society where there are not only more grey areas, but morality has become subjective.

"One change in societal attitude has been the “ecumenical niceness”…don’t fight, share toys, take turns….and never, ever, be judgmental."
Charles Murray




3. Traditional, or Secular: Either one has learned the lessons of the past, or believes that those lessons no longer apply.

"The roots of the view that there is no objective truth, called 'postmodernism,' can be traced to the anthropologist Franz Boas, who, in an effort to study exotic cultures without prejudice, found it useful to take the position that no culture is superior to any other. Thus was born the idea of cultural relativity.

The idea spread like wildfire through the universities, catapulted by the radical impetus of the sixties, ready and willing to reject "the universality of Western norms and principles."
Bawer, "The Victim's Revolution"

4. " When morality became privatized, the questions “what is right” became “what is right for me.” Feelings... became the arbiters of behavior. Rather than traditional taboos, only religiously based moral judgment was deemed taboo. The harm caused to abandoned spouses or children by adultery or desertion- harm that can be objectively documented in rates of ill health, depression, educational underachievement, criminal behavior- was all but ignored, while damage done to people’s feelings by condemnation of their adultery or desertion was considered unforgivable."
"The World Turned Upside Down," Melanie Phillips, chapter 14





If there is no truth, but it varies based on one's views, feelings, or culture….then there is no 'evil.'


Not just for individuals, there are cycles to life and cycles to civilizations. Within each, there are the seeds of their, or its, own destruction. The advancement of Hussein Obama to the presidency represented the blossoming of one of those evil seeds.

Being non judgemental means leaving the judging of others up to god like we are told to do in the bible. You may judge yourself in accodance to your faith and beliefs with out pissing off god. Be care full when judging others though! You may piss off the big man upstairs!

Au contraire.

Having free will and intelligence implies that we are to be judgmental.


At the heart of religion....and by religion I mean the Judeo-Christian faith.....
....is free will.
And that free will is animated by the gift of intelligence.

Have you seen the cloak on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel...the cloak behind God?
It is a cerebrum.

The Brain on the sistine Chapel Ceiling
That is the clear outline of a cerebrum.

Free will along with intelligence, are God's gifts to mankind.
It is through the use of those gifts that we make decisions to perform good or evil acts.



On the other hand, Oscar Wilde put it this way: "There is no sin except stupidity."

Well if you are a christian it is right in the bible "Judge not lest thee be judged!". Not a lot of ways to take this. You beleive your bible or you do not! This is either god's word or it is not! See a later post where I explain my view on this! But spoiler alert I am for the most part with you on this! Make no judgemnts or make poor ones you end up six foot under!

"You beleive (sic) your bible or you do not! "


One of the tests of how well we use that God-given cerebrum is what we choose from the text.

I never let anyone else tell me what to believe or not believe.
You might try that.

 

[alang1216]

...I don't think anything done by any nation whose state religion was atheism was any worse than what was done by the Israelites during the conquest of Canaan...

It would simply not be reasonable to most folks here to allege a moral equivalence of biblical accounts of the ancient Israelites to detailed descriptions of what was done by Stalin, the Chinese "cultural revolution", Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, etc.

In fact, I'm finding the idea a bit sick.

So far as I can see, the Bible accounts were sanctioned, according to the Bible, by God, whereas we don't know how God felt about Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge. If God didn't sanction Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge he certainly took his time extinguishing that evil.

Sanctioned by God or not, the deeds of the Israelites were every bit as bad as those of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge and I find that idea a bit sick. I think Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge were as evil as they come yet what they did was comparable to what God previously sanctioned, am I more moral than God or has our view of morality changed?

 

[expat_panama]

...Actually I don't believe in an afterlife ...

Me neither. Just checked (here) and the word "afterlife" does not appear in any Bible translation that I pinged. As for the nature of the psyche (Greek for "soul") outside our observable universe my guess is that everyone on this forum agrees that:

• in our shared space/time our observable presence is clearly physically limited,
• beyond our shared space/time hard evidence is difficult to come by,
• sacred religious texts suggest that the spiritual realm of our psyche and Creator is not bounded by common space and time limits.

For me the question is on my long list of things that I wish I understood better but right now I'm off to buy some barbecue pork...

 

[expat_panama]

...the deeds of the Israelites were every bit as bad as those of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge...

We're talking about war crimes in the name of god versus those by athiests. Here's the tally:

The point is that rejecting religion because of 33 M deaths is almost as stupid as rejecting atheism because of 88+M deaths. Joshoa's what --a few thousand?-- doesn't even rate a place on the list.

 

[alang1216]

...the deeds of the Israelites were every bit as bad as those of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge...

We're talking about war crimes in the name of god versus those by athiests. Here's the tally:

The point is that rejecting religion because of 33 M deaths is almost as stupid as rejecting atheism because of 88+M deaths. Joshoa's what --a few thousand?-- doesn't even rate a place on the list.

This has nothing to do with my rejection of religion but there are other ways to view these numbers. You gave absolute numbers but if the deaths were shown as a proportion of the total population, the numbers might look very different. Remember Joshua killed 100% of those in Jericho, including the animals.

 

[expat_panama]

This has nothing to do with my rejection of religion...

The only reason for your rejection of religion offered on this thread has been post after post asserting that disparaging religion is justified by bad adherents. If there really was some other reason you had for rejecting religion there we didn't see it --but let's all step back now and be happy that we all agree that the idea is wrong headed.

...but there are other ways to view these numbers. You gave absolute numbers but if the deaths were shown as...

Dang, we're still stuck on the "bad-adherants" theme which has "nothing to do with" our convo. 8P You're not saying it flat out but you clearly sound like you're still trying to assert that theists have done worse things than than atheists have.

So far nobody else here believes that.

 

[BreezeWood]

So far nobody else here believes that.

theism is not a desert religion, it is the desert religion that believes they are theistic by means of their interpretive, self directed documents alone ... where since the 4th century christian bibles creation not one period from that time have those congregations stood to challenge the prevalent evil of any era but were in fact the perpetrators in those crimes.


"Truly I tell you," "this very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times."


the spoken religion preempted the 4th century christian bible by its recognition for the future, and the disillusion to come.

 

[alang1216]

This has nothing to do with my rejection of religion...

The only reason for your rejection of religion offered on this thread has been post after post asserting that disparaging religion is justified by bad adherents. If there really was some other reason you had for rejecting religion there we didn't see it --but let's all step back now and be happy that we all agree that the idea is wrong headed.

...but there are other ways to view these numbers. You gave absolute numbers but if the deaths were shown as...

Dang, we're still stuck on the "bad-adherants" theme which has "nothing to do with" our convo. 8P You're not saying it flat out but you clearly sound like you're still trying to assert that theists have done worse things than than atheists have.

So far nobody else here believes that.

People do bad things for a wide variety of reasons, most of which they manage to justify to themselves, religion being a convenient justification. Political ideology is another. No religion I know of says to kill all others, just as no political ideology says to kill all others. Unfortunately there will always be individuals who will convince others of what they must do for the greater good. In short, religion is no more (or less) guilty of abuses than any other 'ism'.

 

[ding]

It's not clear but you seem to be dismissing the Bible as being shallow and irrelevant w/ regard to human nature and morality.

I wasn't trying to dismiss the Bible or denigrate its importance. What I believe is that morality is not absolute, certainly it isn't in the Bible. Jesus put his own stamp on morality, changing the 'eye for an eye' to 'turn the other cheek'. Morality is a reflection of the current societal mores. Our founding fathers held a very different view on slavery than we of today hold. Were they less moral than we are or has society changed and the moral goalposts along with it? I think it is obviously the latter.

Obviously you don't know the view our founding fathers held on slavery any more than you know than what Jesus did.

Our founding fathers believed that slavery was against the natural law and Jesus did not change the moral law. He rephrased it.

Reality check:

• Different founding fathers held different views on slavery. Both Washington and Jefferson kept slaves so they obviously saw the immorality of slavery being outweighed by other factors. I know it is wrong to speed but sometimes I do since it's really not so bad.
• I think maybe it is you who doesn't really know Jesus. How can you claim 'eye for an eye' and 'turn the other cheek' are morally equivalent?

And yet they wrote into the Constitution the earliest date that the importation of slaves could be abolished, abolished the importation of slaves at the earliest possible date allowed by the Constitution and wrote laws preventing the expansion of slavery in new territories.

 

[ding]

Daniel Webster testifies to the fact that the Founding Fathers intended for slavery to perish.

Daniel Webster

THE CONSTITUTION AND THE UNION 1

March 7, 1850

(In the Senate)

http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/Webster7th.pdf

Page 271

"And now, let us consider, sir, for a moment, what was the state of sentiment, North and South, in regard to slavery at the time this Constitution was adopted. A remarkable change has taken place since, but what did the wise and great men of all parts of the country then think of slavery? In what estimation did they hold it in 1787, when this Constitution was adopted? Now it will be found, sir, if we will carry ourselves by historical research back to that day, and ascertain men's opinions by authentic records still existing among us, that there was no great diversity of opinion between the North and the South upon the subject of slavery; and it will be found that both parts of the country held it equally an evil, a moral and political evil. It will not be found, that either at the North or at the South, there was though there was some, invective against slavery as inhuman and cruel. The great ground of objection to it was political; that it weakened the social fabric; that, taking the place of free labor, society was less strong, and labor was less productive; and, therefore, we find, from all the eminent men of the time, the clearest expression of their opinion that slavery was an evil. They ascribed its existence here, not without truth, and not without some acerbity of temper and force of language, to the injurious policy of the mother country, who, to favor the navigator, had entailed these evils upon the colonies. I need hardly refer, sir, to the publications of the day. They are matters of history on the record. The eminent men, the most eminent men, and nearly all the conspicuous politicians of the South, held the same sentiments, that slavery was an "evil," a "blight," a "blast," a "mildew," a "scourge," and a "curse." There are no terms of reprobation of slavery so vehement in the North at that day as in the South. The North was not so much excited against it as the South, and the reason is, I suppose, that there was much less at the North; and the people did not see, or think they saw, the evils so prominently as they were seen, or thought to be seen, at the South. Then, sir, when this Constitution was framed, this was the light in which the convention viewed it..."


Page 273

"...there was an expectation that on the ceasing of the importation of slaves from Africa, slavery would begin to run out. That was hoped and expected."