Thread by @historic_ly, Strawman: You cannot judge slaveholders by today's standards. Me: Ok. Let's judge [...]

Historic.ly

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Strawman: You cannot judge slaveholders by today's standards.

Me: Ok.

Let's judge him by what their contemporaries thought of them: https://twitter.com/historic_ly/status/1265817171663499264?s=20

https://twitter.com/historic_ly/status/1265817171663499264?s=20

Samuel Johnson wrote this in response to the declaration of independence

This is from 1791! A pamphlet calling for the boycott of slave-made sugar.

In fact, abolition became so popular that around the late 1780s, the East India Tea Company started to offer the "not made by slaves" label https://twitter.com/historic_ly/status/1265804493763076096?s=20

https://twitter.com/historic_ly/status/1265804493763076096?s=20

Of course, these are just non-slaves protesting.
The slave population repeatedly showed their disapproval of slavery by revolting, burning the crops from the plantations, killing and/or poisoning their slave owners, and running away.

When you mean "standards of that day" you mean "standards of the small slaveholding population in 1776"

Here is the longer version of the passage from Samuel Johnson I screencapped earlier: https://twitter.com/Y_AlNokhitha/status/1274740577360326656?s=20

https://twitter.com/Y_AlNokhitha/status/1274740577360326656?s=20

The fact that Thomas Jefferson et all had to give lip service to why slavery was bad has to show you that even back then, they were ashamed of it and needed a PR cloak.

More judging slave holders by the standards of their time

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/rights/docs/state_trials.htm

The Vermont constitution from 1777 banned slavery.