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Increasingly, however, Ruffin turned his attention in the 1850s to politics, especially the defense of slavery and secession. Although he had earlier expressed some doubts about slavery and opened the pages of his agricultural journal to arguments abo ut colonization, by the 1850s Ruffin had become a staunch proponent of slavery and of the racial inferiority of blacks.

This fits with a hypothesis that has been building up in my mind the last few years. By no means am I a formal scholar in this subject. But as I've read about slavery and early American history, it's struck me how strong a concensus existed at the time of the American Revolution that slavery was a moral evil. Many of the Founders were slaveowners, but they themselves clearly expressed recognition that it was an institution they wanted go away. They just couldn't figure out a way to do it without an unacceptable level of societal upheaval and worse, so they optimistically hoped it would wither on its own.

But they did take steps to limit the damage, such as banning the importation of new slaves. I wish they had shown a bit more resolve in doing things like making the children of slaves free, but that's spilled milk.

Anyway, what interests me is how America went from having a concensus that slavery was evil and should be brought to an end at some point, to the bitter polarization of the Civil War. In the decades leading up to the war we find more and more fanatical apologetics (arguments) for slavery and how to justify it. These were in response to the increasingly fierce, uncompromising attacks on slavery and anyone connected with it by the abolitionists.

My basic thought is that the abolitionists, though I agree with them, executed a poor strategy of divisiveness that led to the war. Instead of demonizing their opponents, they could have maintained the concensus view and worked by degrees to cut off the supports for slavery as an institution until it did wither. By demonizing the opposition they caused a reaction that broke the concensus as slaveholders sought to defend and justify themselves. The quote above fits my thesis.

I'm a political hard-liner by nature in the here-and-now, so this carries some cautions for modern conservatives like myself. We have, and know we have, the moral high ground on subjects like abortion. But trumpeting that with a morally judgemental attitude that turns off abortion supporters will not win the pro-life war. I think there is a sincere concensus that abortion is evil and we should work to eliminate it. But if I follow my instinct to demand a sudden ban I wonder if the result might not be worse than the gradual work of persuasion and step-by-step restrictions on it until it becomes a historical relic.

Anyway... just thinking out loud this morning...