Fractional Slavery

"They are going to take you."
--Bryan Mills (Taken)

Two good points made by the author who reflects on a recent appearance of Judge Nap on Jon Stewart's Daily Show. Stewart's objective was to challenge Judge Nap's recent remarks concerning Lincoln, the Civil War, and slavery--remarks that, if you have been reading these pages, are not new nor original to the Judge.

One point was that Thomas Jefferson condemned slavery in his draft of the Declaration. Unfortunately, like so many of the stands against slavery taken by various founders (see Fleming (2013) for a nice review here), it was edited out or ignored for the sake of political expediency (read: compromise).

The other point is his question about what constitutes a slave. Is a slave someone who is completely robbed of his labor? Suppose a person is forced into the fields to labor for someone else one day in seven. Is not that person still a slave?

Taking a person's property by force is theft. Institutionalizing such theft is slavery.

If a fraction of an individual's production is routinely confiscated under conditions of force or threat of force, then that person is a slave.

Reference

Fleming, T. 2013. A disease in the public mind: A new understanding of why we fought the Civil War. New York: Da Capo Press.