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None need lament the passing of slavery. But who cannot but lament the damage to both white and black that has occurred as a consequence of the way it was abolished? We are forced to say that, in many ways, the remedy which has been applied has been far worse than the disease ever was.

The issue of slavery was used to provoke a revolution in 1861. That revolution has continued to this day, and slavery has increased in our land as a result. It is time for us to stand and declare the truth about slavery and to expose the failures of the abolitionist worldview. Having done this, we must go on to proclaim the only truth which can set all men truly free from slavery — the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Endnotes

1We refer our readers to Douglas Jones, The Biblical Offense of Racism (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 1996).

2R.L. Dabney, A Defense of Virginia and the South (Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 1977), p. 356.

3Consider the following from "Debate on Slavery: Held in the City of Cincinnati , on the First, Second, Third, and Sixth Days of October, 1845, Upon the Question: Is Slave-Holding in Itself Sinful, and the Relation Between Master and Slave, a Sinful Relation?" This was originally published in 1846 by Wm. H. Moore & Co., reprinted in 1969 by Negro Universities Press, New York , NY ). The participants in the debate were the Rev. J. Blanchard, Pastor of the Sixth Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati , and Dr. N.L. Rice, Pastor of the Central Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati .

From Dr. Rice: "Mr. Blanchard's second argument is, that slave-holding is only kidnapping continued, or drawn out; and therefore it is in itself sinful. The slaves were originally kidnapped in Africa ; and therefore the present owners of them have only a kidnapper's title to them. This argument is founded upon a principle nowhere recognized as true, viz.: that a man can have no just title to any property, unless all who possessed it before him obtained it justly. What would

be the consequence of carrying out this principle? Much of the land in these United States was obtained from the Indians by force or by fraud. Consequently, all the present owners of these lands are chargeable withholding them by unjust and unlawful titles, and must either give them up, or be expelled from the church. Wi11 the gentleman take this ground?"

4Dabney, Defense, p. 27.

5The entire subject of the slave trade has yet to be considered in its full and much more complicated light. We must remember that the "slave trade" was not initiated by white Europeans. A thriving intra continental slave trade existed within Africa itself (between African tribes as well as with the Muslims of Arabia) long before the Portuguese arrived in the fifteenth century. The vast majority of Negro slaves were not "kidnapped" out of the jungles by white