Aspects of American History

A Return to Slavery - Delivered July 1966

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: History

Genre: Lecture

Track: 05

Dictation Name: RR251A1

Location/Venue: ________

Year: 1965 – 1966

Slavery is a major fact in human history; it is not a finished fact for it has never been more prevalent than it is today. It is important for us therefore to understand the significance of slavery. To understand its role in history past and present and to understand slavery as it existed in the United States, in order to appreciate the significance of slavery in the modern world and the use made of it today to subjugate the people of the United States.

 

First of all, it’s important for us to define slavery. Slavery in usually defined as property in human beings. But this is not altogether an accurate definition because no man can truly own another man. You cannot have an absolute property in a man.

You cannot possess his thoughts. He may work for you, day after day, but in his heart he may despise you... be rebellious against you... quietly speak against you. And so you have no real property in his mind, or in his being. Slavery is property in the labor of another man. This is the only accurate definition. So that a slave owner owns the labor of his slave.

It is important then for us to understand the three forms in which slavery has existed in history. Because we cannot properly assess the significance of slavery and its role in the modern world unless we realize that there have been three major forms of slavery.

The first is private ownership, and it’s very important. Normally when we think of slavery we think exclusively of this form. Private ownership. But in actuality private ownership has been the most benign form of slavery! In the Bible, slavery as it is outlined there is NOT condemned. It is legitimate. Because slavery as it existed in the Bible was basically voluntary. It recognized that there are many people to whom security is the most important consideration in life and such people will move in terms of security rather than liberty.

Thus many people in biblical times deliberately sold themselves into slavery. They preferred security to the problems of liberty. The biblical law strictly regulated their condition. If a slave ran away -according to Deuteronomy 23:15 following- he was free to depart.

It was a form of security living and if he wanted another master he could go to another master. Man stealing, kidnapping for purposes of enslavement, was strictly forbidden and a capital offence according to Deuteronomy 24: 7 and this is referred to also in 1’st Timothy 1:10. Humane treatment was required according to Leviticus 29 verses 43 and following.

The principal that a laborer is worthy of his reward is emphasized over and over again in scripture in the old and new testament as a fundamental principal with regards to all kinds of labor slave and free.

Slavery therefore is according to the Bible a way of life. An inferior way of life but a legitimate way of life. Many people wanted slavery. This is our problem today, is it not? We are surrounded by people who are basically slaves, but we have declared by definition that all men are free citizens! And we have a problem because the slaves are rapidly taking over.

And this is because our lack of biblical realism. The bible recognized it as a way of life. However, it did not permit the slaves the security of slavery indefinitely- every sabbatical year all slaves were free. If they insisted then on remaining, their ear had to be pierced as a sign that they were not men. The man went and had his ear pierced by the master. Now, a pierced ear is the sign of a woman... to wear earrings. And when a man insisted that he preferred security and after the sabbatical year wanted to remain, he had to have his ear pierced to indicate that he did not have the position of a free man.

Even then, however, his slavery was not permanent, because every year at the Jubilee, all slaves, domestic and foreign, had to be freed. This was a biblical form of slavery.

Other forms were not as benevolent as the biblical form, but they were basically benevolent. For example, Roman slavery is often spoken of as a rather cruel and heartless thing. But, in Rome having a slave was not too much an economic necessity as a statist symbol. So that many people owned slaves who had no need for them. In fact, some owned slaves when they were living in poverty because to have at least one slave was important as a statist symbol.

Let me read to you a passage from the “Economic History Review” (volume nine number two of the second series, nineteen fifty-six) to give you an idea of the role of the slave in Roman life, according to A. H. M. Jones:

 “Personal slaves were always slaves and they were employed in numbers that by modern standards seem very lavish.”

 (Pedanius Secundus, prefix of the city under Nero whose town house was served by a staff of four hundred is a well attested case.)

“Slaves were more over-employed by persons of relatively humble means. Even the poorest of those who paid the war tax, peasant farmers with a holding of six or seven acres might well own a maid servant. Private soldiers in the Roman army quite commonly owned a slave or two.”

And it goes on to say that “even they very poorest people who owned very little, labored under heavy mortgage, could barely afford to to marry and congratulated themselves if they had only one child, owed money to the baker and had to sell their wife’s trinkets to meet the bill. These unfortunates could afford only three slaves, or even two, who were insolent to their masters because they had not many fellow servants.”

Now this indicates something of the status of the slave. He was a status symbol and he knew it. And he could be very impertinent and insolent toward his master if his master only owned one, two, or three. He wanted to be in a household where there were hundreds! For after all, he had his social status to think of too.

“Moreover, they were often employed for very responsible positions. Slaves were also commonly employed throughout antiquity in secretarial and managerial posts. Bank managers were often slaves, or freed men of the owner.”

And Jones goes on to say that “very often, they bequeathed the bank to the slave because they knew it could be better handled by him, because he had more experience in it.” Now, Jones who was not a conservative also deals with the fact -which is what you hear about mostly, when you have a history of slavery- that there were men, labored contractors, who owned gangs of slaves which they leased out for hard manual labor, such as in the mines. And he said “this is true, but it was a relatively minor thing which occurred only on a few occasions in the long history in Greece and Rome when the market in slaves was very, very cheap.” And he says “it was not significant, it had no effect on free labor. Gang slavery in its crudest form, the use of bought slaves for unskilled labor, flourished only in rather exceptional circumstances. When owing to the prevalence of wars and piracy, prices stood at a rock bottom level. And then only in work in which they could be continuously employed. In these circumstances, slaves tended to replace free labor. But, under normal circumstances, gang slavery tended to die out and did not revive the later empire despite growing insecurity and a consequent fall in the price of slaves. As a result, slaves to not seem to have competed with three persons by cutting prices, because after all the owner had the welfare, the care, the feeding, of the slaves to think about. In skilled employment also, the use of servile labor seems to become rare in the later empire.”

Now, this man is not dealing with slavery from the standpoint of the slaves, but from the economic perspective. So he has no axe to grind. And this is his testimony concerning slavery.

Perhaps the ugliest form of slavery has been under Mohammedan. Because the Muslims are a ruthless people with a religion that is a very thoroughly ugly one. And yet, even among the Muslims we find that very often the slave has a favorite position and very often governs the master. For example, Marios Forte, an Italian explorer who did considerable work in Africa as an explorer has reported at considerable length on the Arabs of East Africa, and this is his comment, writing in nineteen thirty-eight “The mild old Arabs of East Africa were ruled by their slaves! They accepted the scolding’s and tantrums of their Bantoo women like visitations from Allah. Those women were often the mothers of their children, considered mere ploughed fields yielding a full blooded progeny they were lovable human beings, possessing and awakening tender feelings. So that, what was an expedient fiction, gave way in practice to the realities of a long life in common. And so he said, more than once, when he concluded some kind of a business deal, with some old Arab, some elderly Manii would walk in and lay down the law to that Arab and he would sheepishly listen and revoke the business.”

We are of course most familiar with slavery in the south and we are repeatedly told that we should have a guilty conscience concerning it. This is very heavily emphasized today in our history books. A very ugly past in portrayed for the United States. Something we should be ashamed of.

And for example in the U.S. news for February twenty-first that one of the things in process of consideration, which has been approved by the present council of economic advisers was special checks to be mailed to Negros because they are Negros in part payment for what is referred to as three hundred years of systematic denial of equal opportunity in this country. Negro leaders who have suggested this idea in the past have mentioned ten BILLION dollars per year as a reasonable amount!

However, this was outdone in the issue of March the seventh, nineteen sixty-six, U.S. news and World report, page forty-six following. Next a martial plan for Negros. A book has been written proposing this by James Farmer, “Repairing Head of Core” [slightly unintelligible, title could be wrong] and apparently is providing the guidelines for the federal government.

But were the Negros abused? It is possible to find instances certainly. It is possible also to find instances of parents who are cruel to their children. It is also possible to find instances of pastors, a great many I’m afraid, who have been faithless in their responsibilities, and I dare say if you looked hard enough, you could find instances of officials of the federal government who have been derelict in their duties.

Shall we judge all things in terms of certain exceptional cases? The reality of slavery in the south, was that it was NOT an economical aspect.

And the slave owner was penalized by the fact that he owned slaves. For example Alexander Hamilton Stevens, vice president of the confederacy, had a number of slaves. And of these slaves he had a fair number of whom were pensioners-elderly folk whom he had to take care of. This meant that some of the other slaves were taking care of the older slaves as well as the little ones. So out of his slaves he had two, one man -his valet- and one woman -his cook- who gave him any labor, and their labor was limited since they had a single man to care for.

Stevens demonstrated conclusively that he had to work hard as a lawyer to support the slaves. And if anyone wanted to take over their care from him and give them the same humane care, he was ready to turn over the responsibility to them.

The fact that it’s not mentioned in history books such as that we just had so excellent a report on, is that every state in the South was anti-slavery except South Carolina. Only one man out of eighteen in the South was a slave owner! Virginia came within one vote in its legislator of abolishing slavery. They were ready to abolish it if they knew the answer to the question: what shall we do with the Negros after slavery is abolished?

And if the federal government had been ready to step in and resettle them in Africa -to underwrite the cost- it would have been done. As it was, voluntary societies throughout the north and the south colonized Liberia with freed slaves, at the expense of private persons.

The treatment of the slaves on the whole was good and indulgent. They were valued private property. Most of the slaves were unwilling to see slavery end. They followed their masters around and expected continued care.

I encountered recently one person who stated that when his family moved North most of the slaves followed him until he left home in nineteen fourteen as a young man. Many of the Negros who had been owned by his family in the South, before eighteen sixty-four, still came to his family for care when they were sick or in trouble. Moreover the slaves were not enslaved by the Americans. The Negros who were brought to the United States were slaves in Africa they were owned by their tribes, or by other tribes, by their chief, or people of another area or era.

They moved from one slavery to another, from a very ugly form of slavery to their fellow Africans, usually, to a very indulgent one with the white men. Slaves were the money of Africa! Instead of having gold and silver as the medium of exchange, Africa had men, women, and children! So that all their buying and selling in Africa was done with human beings as the money. This was the major medium of exchange, everything else was secondary.

So that the Negro did not suffer as a result of coming to the United States. He became the most privileged Negro in the world! And we need have no guilty feelings with respect to him. But, we are told, they suffered so! The slave ships were frightful! And the heartbreaking agony of the journey, the brutal treatment, the number who died on the slave ships- this is a frightful incidence in history!

Well indeed you can find instances of slave ships which gave very, very, poor treatment to the slaves as they carried them across, instances where a sizable proportion of the cargo died en route and were tossed overboard. This is true.

But this is NOT the rule! The slaves were valuable property, they were therefor important as merchandise; they had to be kept alive. They were brought to U.S. to be sold, and when they arrived here they were cared for to make sure their appearance was the best possible appearance in order to make their sale easier.

So that we cannot take the unusual cases and overlook the reality that because they were valuable cargo they were well treated. As a matter of fact, if we compare their treatment to that of the immigrants -notably the Irish- the role of the Negro is not too bad by comparison. Certainly it doesn’t compare with a modern luxury cruise to Europe!

But the trip the immigrants made to this country was a very ugly one. And shortly before the Civil Way a Canadian legislative commission investigating the treatment of Irish immigrants on ship board said that their situation was equally as bad as that of the slaves.

But no real study has been made of the major migration to the United States which was the worst. These people were landed here with no one to care for them. They had paid all their funds to make the journey and once they were on shipboard there was no concern for whether they lived or died. No concern for their feeding or for their care. And so they arrived here half-starved and with no place to go and with no funds, and their condition was beyond description. Nor do we have scholars taking time to deal with their condition in the ship as they came over.

In his book The Great Hunger Cecil Woodham-Smith, who writes on the famine of the eighteen-forties which killed a million Irish peasants and sent hundreds of thousands to America. In passing he touches on the fact that indeed in every port in Ireland it is extensively reported, but no scholars bothered to go into this. That many rotten ships were loaded with Irish immigrants, and the ships didn’t clear the harbor they were so over loaded and so rotten. They sank. Some died within the sight of their relatives who were standing on the docks, bidding them goodbye as they set sail for the New World.

Moreover, we are told for example, berths on one ship numbered only thirty-six, four of which were taken by the crew. The remaining thirty-two were shared between two-hundred and seventy-six passengers who otherwise slept on the floor. NO sanitary convenience of any kind was provided. The state of the vessel was horrible and disgusting beyond the power of language to describe...

The passage from Kuala, largely through the incompetence of the captain, took eight weeks. The passengers starved and were tortured with thirst, and forty-two people died during the voyage.

Finally the ship broke down and was towed into the Saint Lauren by a steamer sent by Alexander Carlyle ?bue? Canon at his own expense since government regulations did not permit such an expenditure. Now this was routine! But are we getting books telling that we should do something to provide ten billion dollars a year for the dependence of these poor Irish who were so terribly mistreated? Not at all.

The Irish came over here often in far worse condition than the slaves, but they had a desire to be free men. And today they are among the elite of the United States. I’m tempted to add that they contributed a president but perhaps that’s not entirely to their credit... but they have certainly prospered in the United States. And they certainly are a credit to this country.

But the Negro after a hundred years is a slave still and is demanding a martial plan to aid him. This then is private ownership of slavery. A quick glance into history; it is a way of life recognized by the bible as legitimate, but it is a lower and inferior way of life. Private ownership of slavery has been the most benign form of slavery in history. It is relatively a minor thing in the world today it has been extensively abolished, but it does exist in many areas, mainly the Mohammedan areas.

The second form of slavery that we meet with in history, far more common that the first form, is the state ownership of slaves. The state in this form has a property right in the labor of its subjects. Egypt, Assyria, and Rome often had state slaves.

Prisoners of war, or their own people whom they had enslaved and compelled to work to build various public buildings to build the pyramids and other public works.

But such state ownerships of slaves and antiquity was relatively minor compared to the state ownership of slaves in modern world. There are millions of slaves in the slave camp of the soviet union, and we can honestly say that all the slaves of the soviet union and the iron curtain countries are slaves of the state. The state has a property in their labor we can say moreover that throughout what is called the free world the citizens are increasingly being reduced to slaver.

After all, in the United States today, in order to pay a mere local state and federal taxes you have to work into May. This is a sizable share of your income. Well over forty percent! Which is directly or indirectly taken by taxation, so that you are compelled to work for the state. Now the Constitution, the thirteenth amendment and the subsequent amendments, fourteenth and fifteenth, which deal with slavery, have extensively abolished slavery. It has defined it in terms of labor- involuntary servitude.

Now a number of militant conservatives in this country have attempted to go to court to proof that they are being subjected to involuntary servitude. How, as employers the federal government requires them to keep books on the clothing, [?], taxes, and to act as an unpaid, compelled servants of the federal government. This fully qualifies under the definition of involuntary servitude.

But no federal court will accept their case because they know, of course, that the evidence is totally against the federal government. So, by rejecting any case involving involuntary servitude where the federal government is involved, the courts in effect have said that the private ownership of slavery has been abolished by the Constitution and it is now a state monopoly.

There is much talk today about being a free nation. This is an expression which the founding fathers would not have accepted, because it goes hand in hand with the enslavement of the people. A nation can be free and it’s people slaves. And the very purpose of the Constitution was to make the people free by binding the federal government with the chains of the Constitution. So that, the Constitution by intention and by declaration, was to be a chain to bind down the federal government, in order to make possible the freedom of the people.

We thus see today the progressive enslavement of the people of the world by the states of the world. And of course, the U.N. is nothing but a plan for total enslavement. State ownership of slaves has never been more prevalent in all human history than it is today! And it is quite unlikely that all slaves that have existed, from the beginning of time to the 1900’s, are equal to the number of slaves we have today by Communism.

Thus we live in the great age of slavery. And it is devil talk and brainwash to tell us that the golden age is about to appear because of the growth of Democratic socialism or the U.N. or any of these other things.

One area where there is still some resistance to this growing enslavement is in the United States. And we had better understand what slavery is before it is too late.

The first form of slavery then, is private ownership is varying forms. The second is state ownership of slaves, and the third form is spiritual slavery.

Our Lord, as he faced the people of Jerusalem dealt with this form of slavery. In John 8:31-36 he declares: “If ye continue in My word, then are ye my disciples indeed and ye shall know the Truth and the Truth shall make you free. Verily, verily I say unto you whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.”

When we are in spiritual bondage, when we are outside of Christ, sin and Satan have a property in our labor. And we are spiritually slaves, we are then inwardly slaves. And when men are inwardly slaves they want an outward condition that will conform to their nature.

A true slave therefore seeks a master; he requires a security guaranteed life. He requires cradle to grave security; or to use the English expression, which I think is choice, “womb to tomb” security.

And so he goes and searches for a master to provide it. And today the slave people of the United States, white and black, are demanding that the United States become their slave master and give them the security which is the mark of every slave.

Now as we deal with the fact that slavery is around us in these three forms of slavery, we need to analyze the values of slavery and of freedom. Because slavery does offer certain penalties as well as certain advantages. The penalty of slavery is the surrender of liberty. But to a slave, and this is important, this is no penalty. The thing he wants to saved from is freedom. He fears it above all else! And so he goes in search of a master to deliver him from liberty.

A few years ago I had the association with a professor of economics, who was a Conservative of sorts, he did not want of course to be classified as a right wing extremist so his conservatism was a very, very moderate one. He was deeply shocked on one occasion, when he spoke to a group of college students on a campus in Northern California. He spoke very mildly, that he did speak on the progressive loss of liberty. And then he was asked by the students, “What’s so wonderful about liberty?” The student group he was speaking to was pretty well agreed that his talk had been irrelevant. He was trying to say something they were not interested in.

They had, of course, been reared as slaves by their public school education. Brainwashed into slavery by their textbooks, ready to submit to it, they saw no virtue in liberty.

So the penalty of slavery, the surrender of liberty, is no penalty to the slave! The advantage of security, cradle to grave security. And slavery is simply the life of security. And the Bible recognized quite validly the significance of it, and it required that men who wanted to be slaves submit to the condition of slavery to have their ears pierced to indicate they were not men.

Now liberty offers penalties and advantages also. The penalty is insecurity and the problems thereof. But insecurity is something that a Christian must accept. Because, what does walking by faith mean, we believe as Christians that the basic condition of the Christian life is faith. And faith means walking not in terms of sight, but in terms of things that are invisible. Walking in the confidence that God is God and he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.

But those who live in terms of him law and obey His word shall be blessed. And to believe in liberty is to believe that God’s word is true and that those who walk in terms of the insecurity of liberty are walking in terms of the true security, God’s government, God’s world.

And therefore for the person who believes in liberty to be logical, he must believe in God! Because liberty involves walking by faith. And for free men, insecurity is not a penalty- it is a condition of life, one they accept by faith. In the confidence that their security is in liberty. Liberty is their advantage- it gives them a far greater security and it gives them the privilege of being men under God.

The choice we face therefore is the security of slavery, a legitimate but a lower way of life, or the security of liberty. And we need to tell men of this generation, slavery is a way of life. If you prefer it be honest. If you insist on welfare legislation, you are a slave. On the other hand, liberty is a way of life, if you prefer it live then in terms of it.

Basic to slavery in the modern world is guilt. Guilty men are slaves, they are spiritually slaves. And slaves sought to be rescued as we have seen, from liberty and their greatest fear is freedom.

The modern state enslaves man in a large measure psychologically before it does physically. And so every attempt is made by the modern state, through every communications, media, and through education to fill man with a sense of guilt. We are told we are guilty with a respect to the Indian. (And sometime I’d like to speak about that- I had indeed one meeting here recently) we are told we guilty with respect to the Negro. That we are guilty with respect to the poor. That we should feel guilty that we’re not doing more for the poor and the starving of the world!

Guilt is inculcated in order to enslave us. So that the first premise of enslavement in the modern world is psychological. In other words, they aim at total enslavement in a way never before imagined. We live in the post Pavlovian world, the era of total slavery, and so faith and morality must be destroyed. Guilt must be bred and cultivated to enslave man.

Thus, the goal of modern politics is to make man guilty in order to enslave him and to have people themselves demand an end to liberty. To have the people demand of Washington and of the U.N. “Here are our hands! Put the chains on! We are afraid of liberty.”

The beginning of true liberty is Jesus Christ, and therefore the first and last target of all subversion is Biblical faith. Hence it is that the church has been the first target of infiltration and subversion, and is the most subverted institution in the United States today.

As I have stated before, there are more people in church any given Sunday then have ever voted in any national election. And these are the influential people of America. And hence, to control the pulpit is to control the minds of America. This is their strategy! And to control people spiritually, to destroy their faith and their morality is to enslave them.

The goal of true Christian preaching is NOT to make men guilty, but to give them a good conscience before God in Jesus Christ. To deliver them through the atoning work of Jesus Christ from sin and death and from the guilt of sin, and to make them free men in Jesus Christ.

And although the Bible says that slavery is a legitimate way of life it tells us that as Christians ye have been bought for a price. Therefore, be ye not the servant of slaves of men. This is for spiritual slaves, not for free men in Christ.

We are called upon today to stand in terms of our Christian liberty against the widespread return of slavery. If the Son makes you free, our Lord said, then are ye free indeed. And this is the premise of our liberty.

Christ or Caesar? Either one or the other will be our Lord. Christ saves us from sin, Caesar from liberty. Christ gives us liberty, Caesar offers security. Christ gives us security in liberty, Caesar gives us security in slavery.

Slavery is a property right in the labor of other men, but God alone has an absolute property right in and over man. And he claims this not to enslave us but to free us! And he summons us through Jesus Christ to the glorious liberty of the sons of God by adoption in Jesus Christ. The scripture says that ‘the earth is the Lords, and they that dwell there in.’ The Christian therefore cannot allow sin or the state to own him. He belongs to God. The Christian therefore must be the strictest and the truest libertarian.

Finally, by way of conclusion, I’d like to tell you about a little incident that happened New Year’s day, 1945, when I was on the Western Shoshone Indian reservation. I was invited for dinner to the home of one young Indian who had just been discharged from the armed forces. And after dinner as we sat around the table, he told me about his experiences in the army. It was a great life for him and he enjoyed his leave especially. Getting roaring drunk in one town after another telling me how many M.P.’s it took to handle him. This was the sort of thing he enjoyed and he made no bones about it. And then, as it grew dark, one of his sisters came forward and lit the gasoline lamp. And as we looked out of the window of this little log cabin across the valley from the mountain side, we could see the lamps being lit in the log cabins across the valley.

And he waved out of the window at the lights that were being lit and he said, “Look at them. My people. Good for nothin’, like me. Just fit to get drunk, and have a roaring good time and a hangover.” and he said, “You know, I’ve been back and forth across the United States, and the white man isn’t much different now. He’s got reservation fever. He wants somebody to put a big fence around the whole country and take care of him, just like Uncle Sam is taking care of us Indians.” and he said the war was not quite over. The Germans and Jap’s aren’t going to do it this time. But some outfit is going to come along one of these days and do it. And then the white man will be happy because he’s got reservation fever.”

There’s a great deal of truth to what he had to say. The white man has reservations fever all too extensively, because he is inwardly a slave, and therefore he wants the return of slavery.

But to us the summons of our Lord is “Stand fast therefor in the liberty where with ye have been set free.” This is our conviction.

[END of lecture. Questions and Answers next.]

Audience member: I would like to have your enlightenment on the ministers today that are going to the farm and the __________ and what they’re doing to the farm situation and how it will affect our food from the future with this.

Rushdoony: You have reference of course to the great strike?

Audience member: Right.

Rushdoony: Yes, well of course there is very little question in my mind, and I think in the minds of those people that the great strike involves the far left from start to finish. That this is a step to organize farm labor and to control the farmer primarily. Its purpose is the socialization of agriculture. And unfortunately the senate committee which came recently allowed only one farmer to testify in each place, but they did permit quite a parade of radicals who were organizers.

Moreover I think one the most shameful episodes took place in Baker’s field, when the sheriff was put on the stand and Senator Kennedy grilled him as though he were a criminal with regards to the arrest of certain of the pickets. “Why were they arrested?” “Well,” said the sheriff “because some of the men who were working, the grave diggers, had testified that they had been threatened that if they went out in the fields they were going to be knifed.” And they had this testimony from more than one of the workers. So, he went out and arrested the men. And the senator Kennedy as they recessed said “I suggest that during the recess you read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and remember that we are still in America.” Unfortunately Senator Murphy had little to say by way of criticism of Kennedy or to do anything to provide opportunities to testify as to what actually had gone on.

One of the sad facts of today is, speaking of farms, a labor and farm income, forty percent of farm income today is from federal subsidies. So they are already extensively being socialized.

Audience member: And the culture- it isn’t that peculiar to the crops and poultry.

Rushdoony: The cattlemen so far have successfully resisted it.

[Short pause, then someone is the audience raised their hand]

Rushdoony: Yes?

Audience member: At what point does taxation become slavery?

Rushdoony: Good question. Well, the scripture sets down as God’s percentage of man’s income which is his due since he has the absolute property right in us, ten percent tithe. And various organizations that analyze foundations, such as these groups that collect for various medical causes, heart disease, and cancer, and what have you- eye twitches I guess- and everything else that they can think of, that they have found that an organization that takes more than ten percent for administration to maintain the organization is dangerous one. It has one purpose, to profit itself. And most of them of course take far more than ten percent. Any church organization that uses more than ten percent for administration- and almost all of them do today- it’s perpetuating itself rather than doing the missionary work it extensively is collecting funds for it.

Now, in various fields I have found that organizations which take more than that are interested in perpetuating themselves. So I think that’s a good figure to set.

That if government takes more than ten percent it is claiming to the right to control you more than God does. And I don’t believe that is morally right. And I think it could be cut to a lot less. Actually, the federal government had very little right of taxation except of mainly duties collected from imports. Because the purpose of the federal government was simply to be the union of the states, the protection against foreign enemies, and the assurance of domestic tranquility between states. The basic area of government was not imagined to be the federal government, but the local county governments.

And so you see what has happened is a usurpation, and so when taxation reaches that point it is enslavement. Moreover the Constitution did not permit any direct tax on persons by the federal government. And of course, the sixteenth amendment changed that.

[Short pause, another member in the audience puts up their hand]

Rushdoony: Yes?

Audience member: [indistinguishable question]

Rushdoony: I believe before. Although there are some who would disagree, so I don’t want to be arbitrary here.... [short pause] Yes?

Audience member: Were you aware, I heard that there were debts that were paid for by the [indistinguishable]...

Rushdoony: I don’t know anything about that.

Audience member: [indistinguishable] ... they were looked down upon for... [indistinguishable] horrible... [indistinguishable]

Rushdoony: Well, apparently if this is true it’s a form of bond service.

Audience member: There ya go... [indistinguishable]

Rushdoony: There have been instances of such private bond service, since World War II in that people in Canada and the United States have sent funds to relatives in Europe and said “we will provide for your transportation here if you will work for us for so many years.”

Audience member: Well, it’s also as sad enough fact that we ______ slaves, to America _____ and they were enslaved by ______and they _____ much greater problem than that Africans or any place or people. In all kinds of ways!

Rushdoony: Yes, the American Negro is better off than any other African in the world, he is better off by far than the people behind the Iron Curtain, he is better off than many of the peoples of Europe, and this surprised me but it was stated recently by someone who has every reason to know, they are better off than most of the peoples of England who have been living now under socialism for some time and who’s condition is a very sorry one.

Audience member: [indistinguishable] ...you know, they never ever state that we have as many _____that were in much worse condition [indistinguishable] than any number of _______ [indistinguishable]. They never say.

Rushdoony: That’s true and I think anyone who’s traveled around much will find that the Negros who were the worst of are not in the South, they’re in the big cities in the North primarily.

[short pause]

Audience member: I heard you explain one time about the lower... [indistinguishable], they bring themselves out and then prioritize the ______ could you explain that to me?

Rushdoony: Yes. The question is with regard to the lower class Negro. Now a welfare or security program makes possible the perpetuation of the poorest element of any people who are living under slavery or socialism or whatever you want to call it. And it penalizes the best stock in a people.

Now when slavery ended, what happened was this. Those slaves who had any ability quickly went to the top, and the lowest class -the worst element- quickly went down to the bottom. And because they were free, there was no incentive to have children prolifically on the part of the most depressed element, and so the criminal the hoodlum the worst element, began to breed itself out of the Negro population. And the negro population between the civil war and nineteen thirty declined in ratio to the general population of the United States.

Precisely because of this drop of birth rate made necessary by the ______[?] of a free society and survival. And population experts said that in a couple of hundred years of this type of condition the inferior negro would have disappeared- he would have bred himself out and the superior negro would have probably merged into the general population having gradually bred himself up to a condition of the same abilities and aptitudes.

Now what has happened since nineteen thirty, of course, is welfare-ism. Today the lowest element among the negro is most populate not only among the Negro’s but among the United states at large and as of last year fifty-two percent of all negro children were receiving aid and dependent children and the ratio is rising every year.

So that what we are doing is to destroy the Negro genetically, in that whereas freedom was improving the Negro stock, now welfare-ism is destroying it in that it is breeding it downward.

Moreover whatever integration is now taking place it’s of the worst crowd of white element.

So that, what is happening is the white American stock is being improved by this is that we are losing a very bad element, and the Negro is gaining, or really suffering, by the addition of this bad element. Whereas a hundred years ago, whatever mixing there was usually of the best white element. However it was not as much was claimed or as the books infer. Actually, the amount of mixing was very limited. Normally when you have a condition of enslavement of one people by another within fifty to a hundred years, the one race begins to disappear and that didn’t happen to the Negro’s. And it meant very clearly that there was no incentive- it was the exceptional cases where there was any inter-racial relationships, but it’s a statist symbol among Negro’s to claim white blood so that it is very extensively claimed. The lighter the skin, the higher social status. And on Negro college campus’s the caste lines are very ridged.

[short pause]

Rushdoony: Yes?

Audience member: How many Negro’s, when talking about the ratios [indistinguishable] it’s often said that the, uh, that the immigrations in Europe aren’t … [indistinguishable]

Rushdoony: No, because you had immigrations before as well as after and a populations statistics of the birth of Negro’s as contrasted to the birth of white. So that the birth rate, say, for a thousand Negros and a thousand whites has been used to determine this kind of statistic.

So it’s been checked from every angle and the birth rate has been declining.

Well, I think our time is up, so we had better- [audience member interrupts]

Audience member: Can I just say one thing? I hope when you all go down to see this book, you will keep in mind much of what Mr. Rushdoony has said today. Now, I didn’t get into the chapter on slavery, but it is designed to cause racial hatred. Just as the Indians, every time it mentions Indians, rather than ease the situation....

[Tape Ends]