# Can a Slaveholder Ever Be Considered a Good Person? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 11, 2007, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-slaveholder-ever-be-considered-a-good-person/407591 "2007-06-11T18:11:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-slaveholder-ever-be-considered-a-good-person/407591/61 "2007-06-12T06:07:16Z")
[QUOTE=pizzabrat] Among whom? The slaves were around at that time. Do you think there was consensus among them that slaveholders were good? [/QUOTE] The question is not whether slaveholders as a group were good, but whether any slaveholder can be good. And yes, there were some slaves who regarded some masters as “good;” I read a number slave narratives while in grad school, and some of them made a point of referencing good masters. I specifically remember one runaway account whose author said that he never would have run if he had not been sold from his “good master” to a bad one. Of course, slaves could think this way because they had been habituated to accept racialized slavery as normal; just as their masters had. ---
**Author:** ![Reepicheep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@Reepicheep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reepicheep)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-slaveholder-ever-be-considered-a-good-person/407591/62 "2007-06-12T08:48:23Z")
[QUOTE=Martin Hyde] Even in the American South there are incidents in which freed blacks, who were formerly slaves, went on to own slaves themselves. I don’t have a name handy, but one of the wealthiest Southern slaveholders in (I think) South Carolina was a former slave himself, who owned something like 1,000+ slaves. [/QUOTE] Don’t have the name but I think I have some source material ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-slaveholder-ever-be-considered-a-good-person/407591/63 "2007-06-12T11:14:51Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] I don’t think so. Plenty of people who were victimized by the system turned around and victimized others as soon as they had the chance. [/QUOTE] Yeah–and plenty of others [led a revolution](http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/DIASPORA/HAITI.HTM). I wasn’t claiming that all slaves thought the system sucked. I was claiming that there was not “near-universal” approval for the system. Pointing out that some freed slaves went on to become slaveowners in no way indicates that no slaves objected to the system. **Martini** , I think this addresses your point, with one addendum: the Romans didn’t practice chattel slavery, to the best of my knowledge. I restricted my discussion to chattel slavery specifically to avoid such side issues. Was slavery considered immoral at the time of the revolution? Here’s some Wikipedia, plus a primary source: > [@](#): > > After the war, Washington often privately expressed a dislike of the institution of slavery. Despite these privately expressed misgivings, Washington never criticized slavery in public. In fact, as President, Washington brought nine household slaves to the Executive Mansion in Philadelphia. By Pennsylvania law, slaves who resided in the state became legally free after six months. Washington rotated his household slaves between Mount Vernon and Philadelphia so that they did not earn their freedom, a scheme he attempted to keep hidden from his slaves and the public and one which was, in fact, against the law. > [@](#): > > Adams never bought a slave and declined on principle to employ slave labor.[21] Abigail Adams opposed slavery and employed free blacks in preference to her father’s two domestic slaves. He spoke out against a bill to emancipate slaves in Massachusetts, opposed use of black soldiers in the Revolution, and tried to keep the issue out of national politics. > [@](#): > > Jefferson owned many slaves over his lifetime. Some find it baffling that Thomas Jefferson owned slaves yet was outspoken in saying that slavery was immoral and it should be abolished. Biographers point out that Jefferson was deep in debt and had encumbered his slaves by notes and mortgages; he chose not to free them until he finally was debt-free, which he never was.[39] Jefferson seems to have suffered pangs and trials of conscience as a result. > [@Thomas Paine](#): > > To Americans: > > That some desperate wretches should be willing to steal and enslave men by violence and murder for gain, is rather lamentable than strange. But that many civilized, nay, Christianized people should approve, and be concerned in the savage practice, is surprising; and still persist, though it has been so often proved contrary to the light of nature, to every > principle of Justice and Humanity, and even good policy, by a succession of eminent men, and several late publications. And that’s just the white dudes. I’m having trouble finding commentary published by slaves on the issue, for some reason. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-slaveholder-ever-be-considered-a-good-person/407591/64 "2007-06-12T13:17:42Z")
[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness] Yeah–and plenty of others [led a revolution](http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/DIASPORA/HAITI.HTM). I wasn’t claiming that all slaves thought the system sucked. I was claiming that there was not “near-universal” approval for the system. Pointing out that some freed slaves went on to become slaveowners in no way indicates that no slaves objected to the system. [/QUOTE] Once again you are conflating “slavery” with “slavery as practiced in the Americas around the time of the American Revolution”. You’ll note that in my very first post in this thread I said in response to whether Madison could be judged by modern standards: > [@JM](#): > > I’m pretty much in this camp, except that Madison lived at a time when slavery was starting to be viewed as bad. I guess the question is where we expect someone like him to be on the learning curve. So, I never claimed there was near-universal approval at the time of the American Revolution, although there might have been in earlier times. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-slaveholder-ever-be-considered-a-good-person/407591/65 "2007-06-12T13:19:32Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot] Considering that the worst forms of female genital mutilation are done by women who have had it done to their own daughters and nieces and granddaughters, I’ll vote a big, “No” on that one. My opinion isn’t based on cultural relativism in the slightest. It’s based on the idea that not all forms of slavery throughout history are created equal, and there are a few I’d engage in myself - yes, _as the slave_. (Better than being stuck in a convent by a grumpy father, anyway.) “Freedom” is a mighty lofty ideal when you’ve got an empty belly and starving babies. If selling myself as a slave meant I’d get fed twice a day and my kids would be sold to good homes with good food and a chance at buying their freedom someday? “Freedom” just lofted right away… [/QUOTE] That’s exactly right. I agree with you that it’s not a matter of moral relativism…it’s more a reflection that cultures and situations are much more complicated than “right” or “wrong.” ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-slaveholder-ever-be-considered-a-good-person/407591/66 "2007-06-12T14:03:57Z")
I agree with the points raised by **LHoD** and **monstro**. Can a slaveholder ever be considered a good person? You could just as easily ask the same question about an SS officer in Nazi Germany. Or a Jackson supporter during the Trail of Tears. Or a sacrifice-practicing Aztec. Or a member of the Taliban. Or a person who is cruel to animals because they were raised to treat animals like dirt. Why does it seem like this particular question of goodness is frequently raised with slaveholders moreso than other kinds of historical personages? Just because the forefathers of our proud, great country partook in slavery doesn’t make them exempt from the judgements few of us spare when talking about the people I mentioned above. Moving on, though, I believe that its appropriate to focus on the contributions made by historical figures, and leave the moralizing out of it. What does it matter if Madison was a “good person”? He’s not famous for being a good person. He’s famous for his role in birthing a nation. We can hold him in high esteem for that, while acknowledging that like many during his day, he profited from a horrible practice that actually undermined the same principles he espoused. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-slaveholder-ever-be-considered-a-good-person/407591/67 "2007-06-12T14:19:30Z")
[QUOTE=Sophistry and Illusion] I think confusing these two issues is what is leading \*\*Revenant Threshold \*\* and \*\*Der Trihs \*\* to accuse \*\*John Mace \*\* (wrongly) of moral relativism. For example, it was always bad to oppress homosexuals and pagans, but you can hardly hold a 15th-century Catholic responsible for not knowing this. [/QUOTE] I suppose it all hinges on whether someone can be blamed for causing or perpetuating a bad situation when they don’t see any other choices, or think that situation is reasonable. If slavery itself is bad, we can say that slaveowners certainly continued a bad situation, but can we say that bad can be attributed to the slaveowner, or the culture? I do think some of the blame can be lied at the feet of the general culture and social situation. But I also don’t think that we can let slaveowners completely off the hook; even though it was normal and acceptable i’m not comfortable saying that they were totally victims of fate. I think that they _should_ have thought about it, and while i’m prepared to say that in some cases freeing slaves would have been a bad idea for all concerned, they should have worked to do something to help. In reference to the original question, though, yep, I think slaveowners can be good people. But they’d have to do some pretty spectacular stuff to make up for it. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelQReilly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@MichaelQReilly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelQReilly)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-slaveholder-ever-be-considered-a-good-person/407591/68 "2007-06-12T14:46:01Z")
Not to get to culturally relativist, but whenever I see arguements like these that try to judge the past by the standards of today, it makes me want to bang my head against a wall. You can’t have this discussion without realizing that our fundamental outlook is built on a diffent set of principles than people in the past. Modern Western society’s worldview is largely built on the ideals articulated in the Declaration of Independence: life, liberty, and the pursuit of hapiness. We base our ideas of good and bad on these principles. Things that infringe upon an individuals’ rights to these things are considered bad to us. Thus it is a crime and is evil to steal; or to deprive a person of thier liberty and pursuit of hapiness by enslaving them. This outlook is fundamentaly differnt than that of the pre-modern world, and was only in its infancy in the 18th century. Just as today we hold it as plain, undeniable fact that all people are born equal, people of the past felt in the exact same way that all people were NOT created equal. All they had to do is look at the world around them to see that this was the case. To people of this time the main principle that thier worldview was built upon was the idea of duty. To them, the world was a hierarchy with God on the top followed by kings, priests, and all the rest of the social classes. Each group had a duty to those above and below them. Their ethic wasn’t built upon life, liberty, and hapiness. In fact pursuing those things in lieu of doing one’s duty was considered to be bad. One was expected to put their duty to society above thier wants as an idividual. In an unequal world with the concept of duty as the basis thier morality system, the ideas of liberty and freedom as we know them ceases to exist, because no one can ever be free of his or her duties. Does this change the fact that reducing a human being to little more than a draft animal is plainly abhorent to the innate morals that we as a species have develped in response to living in groups/societies for 1000’s of years? No, of course not. But it does show how a particular belief system allows otherwise good people to justify bad things. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelQReilly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@MichaelQReilly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelQReilly)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-slaveholder-ever-be-considered-a-good-person/407591/69 "2007-06-12T14:57:05Z")
Also, what I wanted to add is basically what you are seeing in the American Revolution and with the founding fathers is one worldview being replaced by the other as the changing times invalidate the old one. But it should come as no suprise that a change like that wouldn’t happen overnight. Which is why we see incongruities like chatel slavery persisting even while people are otherwise fighting for the rigths they now percieve as thiers as part of the new worldview. Add in the fact that completely changing would pretty much cause a collapse in the economic system that thier wealth was derived from, and again, it is easy to see where the apparent inconsistencies come from. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-slaveholder-ever-be-considered-a-good-person/407591/70 "2007-06-12T15:12:32Z")
How can FDR be considered a good person when he ordered the internment of hundreds of thousands of Americans of Japanese, German and Italian ethnicity during WWII. And not just adults-- children, too. Children! Surely he is a bad person, right? What the hell is his face doing on Mt Rushmore? I guess he fits right in with those other bad people there-- Washington and Jefferson. Edit: Oops, that’s Teddy, not FDR on Mt Rushmore. Still, you get what I mean. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-slaveholder-ever-be-considered-a-good-person/407591/71 "2007-06-12T15:26:05Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] How can FDR be considered a good person when he ordered the internment of hundreds of thousands of Americans of Japanese, German and Italian ethnicity during WWII. [/QUOTE] I guess I’ve never been one to talk about how a good person is when I don’t personally know them, so your particular argument is not resonating with me. But I don’t blame anyone for thinking FDR is a bad guy because of what he did, just as I don’t blame anyone for thinking he is good because what he did. FDR (or Teddy) did great things. So did Jefferson. So did MLK. So did Benjamin Franklin. So did a boatload of others. Should we consider them “good people” because of their achievements and positive contributions, and overlook their flaws? If so, how is that any better than the converse? ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-slaveholder-ever-be-considered-a-good-person/407591/72 "2007-06-12T15:37:15Z")
[QUOTE=BobLibDem] You can’t apply the standards of today to people of the past. [/QUOTE] Exactly. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-slaveholder-ever-be-considered-a-good-person/407591/73 "2007-06-12T15:40:09Z")
[QUOTE=you with the face] I guess I’ve never been one to talk about how a good person is when I don’t personally know them, so your particular argument is not resonating with me. But I don’t blame anyone for thinking FDR is a bad guy because of what he did, just as I don’t blame anyone for thinking he is good because what he did. FDR (or Teddy) did great things. So did Jefferson. So did MLK. So did Benjamin Franklin. So did a boatload of others. Should we consider them “good people” because of their achievements and positive contributions, and overlook their flaws? If so, how is that any better than the converse? [/QUOTE] Actually, I was being facetious. I agree with you that saying someone is a good or a bad person based on one aspect of that person’s life is silly, especially when we are talking about a historical figure and we can’t put ourselves in the mindset of that time in history. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-slaveholder-ever-be-considered-a-good-person/407591/74 "2007-06-12T16:20:45Z")
[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness] **Martini** , I think this addresses your point, with one addendum: the Romans didn’t practice chattel slavery, to the best of my knowledge. I restricted my discussion to chattel slavery specifically to avoid such side issues. [/QUOTE] The primary form of slavery in ancient Rome was chattel slavery. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-slaveholder-ever-be-considered-a-good-person/407591/75 "2007-06-12T17:49:41Z")
[QUOTE=you with the face] I agree with the points raised by **LHoD** and **monstro**. Can a slaveholder ever be considered a good person? You could just as easily ask the same question about an SS officer in Nazi Germany. [/QUOTE] Actually, you can. Admiral Canaris. Was he a good person? He was, as far as I can tell, noble, honorable, and when he realized the monster he was working for, took steps to assassinate him, and the failure cost him his own life. He saved hundreds of jews and other ‘undesirables.’ I submit to you, this is a good man, and yet a member of the Nazi elite. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-slaveholder-ever-be-considered-a-good-person/407591/76 "2007-06-12T18:00:07Z")
[QUOTE=E-Sabbath] Actually, you can. Admiral Canaris. Was he a good person? He was, as far as I can tell, noble, honorable, and when he realized the monster he was working for, took steps to assassinate him, and the failure cost him his own life. He saved hundreds of jews and other ‘undesirables.’ [/QUOTE] Not to nitpick, but Canaris wasn’t a member of the SS. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-slaveholder-ever-be-considered-a-good-person/407591/77 "2007-06-12T18:40:16Z")
[QUOTE=MichaelQReilly] Not to get to culturally relativist, but whenever I see arguements like these that try to judge the past by the standards of today, it makes me want to bang my head against a wall. You can’t have this discussion without realizing that our fundamental outlook is built on a diffent set of principles than people in the past. Modern Western society’s worldview is largely built on the ideals articulated in the Declaration of Independence: life, liberty, and the pursuit of hapiness. We base our ideas of good and bad on these principles. Things that infringe upon an individuals’ rights to these things are considered bad to us. Thus it is a crime and is evil to steal; or to deprive a person of thier liberty and pursuit of hapiness by enslaving them. [/QUOTE] The thing about cultural relativism is that there is a big difference between cultures that have been exposed to more enlightened ideas, and those that haven’t. There are even big differences between individual people within a culture who have been exposed to more enlightened ideas, and those that haven’t. In our time, we can (and should) have less tolerance for cruelty and unfairness, because there are very few societies who have not been exposed to these ideas. Our own culture was different before a few brilliant thinkers formed certain ideals, which _eventually_ came to be accepted as truth. Certainly, none of us can claim that we would have come up with these ideals on our own, in direct opposition to the culture around us. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-slaveholder-ever-be-considered-a-good-person/407591/78 "2007-06-12T18:46:46Z")
[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness] Yeah–and plenty of others [led a revolution](http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/DIASPORA/HAITI.HTM). I wasn’t claiming that all slaves thought the system sucked. I was claiming that there was not “near-universal” approval for the system. Pointing out that some freed slaves went on to become slaveowners in no way indicates that no slaves objected to the system. **Martini** , I think this addresses your point, with one addendum: the Romans didn’t practice chattel slavery, to the best of my knowledge. I restricted my discussion to chattel slavery specifically to avoid such side issues. [/QUOTE] I was talking primarily about “most of human history” not “the last 300 years.” I think **John Mace** was talking about the same period (as he more or less said.) Prior to around 1600, the only places that didn’t practice slavery didn’t practice slavery because it wasn’t economically beneficial. For example feudal European lords found serfdom to be more beneficial within their political/economic system than outright slavery. Although many European serfs lived lives so marginally different from slaves that on an individual basis the distinctions could be almost non-existent. Your point about the victims of slavery really only holds water after around 1750 or so and in relation to black slaves in the New World. Prior to that, around the world slavery was a fairly common thing to subject conquered peoples to; and in fact many of the earliest African slaves brought to the Americas were from tribes that would be just as willing to sell members of other tribes into slavery if they had simply been fortunate enough to win their battles. Your comments _do_ have merit in regard to race-based slavery after the mid 18th or late 18th century. Because then is when you start to enter into a fairly unique system of slavery not widely seen in the rest of world history. Slavery in the New World became based on race and lineage. It was considered “appropriate” to enslave blacks and only blacks, and it was considered logical that any children born of a slave, were themselves slaves. Persons born into slavery are very different than people who are actually enslaved. Mainly because their voices were often never heard, we’ll never know if a large percentage of them would have bought into the slave-owning system, we do know that a small percentage of free blacks did, in fact, end up owning slaves for profit. However the majority of free black slave owners owned slaves for other reasons (often family members who they could not free because of laws in their state, and it was seen as beneficial to keep them enslaved and keep the family together rather than let them be owned by someone else.) The history of political thought within the United States in regard to slavery is an interesting one. Most of the slave owning Founding Fathers had open reservations about slavery, and many, very gradually, came to the decision that slavery was in fact wrong. They all acted on that feeling in different ways, Washington was one of the few prominent Founding Fathers to free all of his slaves (although he could not free his dower slaves as legally those were considered the property of his wife), the aforementioned George Wythe freed his slaves as well. We were definitely moving in the direction of deciding, morally, that slavery was wrong. To be honest America was one of the first countries to really have that sort of movement, albeit it a very marginal one. People often point to the early dates other countries abolished slavery, but most of those cases I don’t see much historical support for a great moral revolution against slavery, but rather a recognition that it wasn’t economically beneficial. The British Empire went on to do a lot of pretty nasty things after they abolished slavery, I’m not really sure morality had much to do with them abolishing slavery at all. What happened in America is the generation after the Founding Fathers in the South became reactionary, and we moved backwards, not forward, in the South. Part of it was fueled by the economic importance of cotton, the entrenched position of the Southern plantation owners, and general distaste for Northern attempts to legislate their morality onto the South. I think after 1800, American society _overall_ felt that slavery was wrong, but not worth doing anything serious about (until the mid 19th century.) In the American South, I think there was a portion of the population who felt it was wrong, but worth keeping around anyway, and there was a portion of the population who genuinely believed that slavery was good for the blacks and that freedom was injurious to them. Also, the Romans practiced what would certainly be defined as chattel slavery for many hundreds of years. Roman slave owners could kill a slave for any reason whatsoever with impunity. Roman slave owners could sell slaves and buy slaves, like well, chattel. Because that is what they were. Eventually Roman slaves achieved more rights, but not until the time of Augustus and later, and even then their lot wasn’t all that great. Roman slavery was however, indeed distinct from American slavery in that it wasn’t racially based whatsoever, nor was it strictly lineage based. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-slaveholder-ever-be-considered-a-good-person/407591/79 "2007-06-12T18:51:39Z")
[QUOTE=Captain Amazing] Not to nitpick, but Canaris wasn’t a member of the SS. [/QUOTE] True, true. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-slaveholder-ever-be-considered-a-good-person/407591/80 "2007-06-12T19:44:33Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] Since I despise Jesus, that’s not much of an argument for me. I’m perfectly comfortable with saying that all or nearly all past societies were evil, and ours is still fairly evil. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were good individuals in the past, but not Jesus. [/QUOTE] I’m an atheist, and I’m somewhat skeptical that there was even a cult-leader/philosopher named Jesus. But just out of curiosity, what’s your gripe with the J-man personally? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-slaveholder-ever-be-considered-a-good-person/407591.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-slaveholder-ever-be-considered-a-good-person/407591.md?page=5)