Reply #12: right on

[mark414]

it's also true that most southerners didn't own slaves, as they were very expensive, but that doesn't excuse shit.

the best explanation i've ever heard regarding slavery is this:

(slavery was) "a foul contagion of human nature that fostered a form of human parasitism, in which individuals and groups used intellectual and bodily powers of others to secure their own ease and pleasure, in virtue of superior power, that is recognized and sanctioned by holders and communities and assures the slave's existence as one without power, honor, and natality"