Slave-owning founders rationalized their practice as compassionate ownership.

Evidence

In his first piece of public writing, Douglass eloquently cut to the heart of the problem with white Christianity. The “garb of Christianity” and the church covered the injustices of slavery in the social realm, and Christian theology gave “religious sanction” to punishment and cruelty in the personal realm. The churches conferred respectability, and even elevated esteem, on white Christian slaveholders; and the theological blessing of slavery paradoxically lobotomized white Christian consciences, severing what natural moral impulses there may have been limiting violence and cruelty. — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long, 251 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Douglass notes that he initially welcomed the news of Auld’s conversion with some “faint hope” that these newfound Christian beliefs would lead his master to emancipate him and his fellow slaves or at least to treat them more humanely. But Douglass was quickly disappointed, finding that the addition of Christian faith into the household actually made conditions worse; for what Auld found in Christianity was not a prick of conscience leading to moderation or benevolence but rather sturdier support for his cruelty. Douglass saw this perverse dynamic clearly: “Prior to his conversion, he relied upon his own depravity to shield and sustain him in his savage barbarity; but after his conversion, he found religious sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty.” — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long, 246 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Founders who were slave owners employed externalized blame to quiet conscience — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 117; Slaveholders justified slavery through a divinely ordained patriarchal family hierarchy — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long: The Legacy of White…, 236; Acknowledged convenience of slaveholding outweighed stated moral principles even for liberty champions — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 118 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Theological blessing of slavery severed slaveholders’ natural moral impulses #complicates (0.76) — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long, 251
• Religion supplied slaveholders moral sanction rather than conscience for cruelty #complicates (0.74) — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long, 246