That Sounds Familiar . . .

I'm working on a new class for spring semester in which we'll spend some time looking at the question of slavery from an historical, biblical, and theological point of view.  I was reviewing my dissertation for reading material and came across this quote from an unnamed antebellum Southern minister interviewed by Philo Tower, quoted in his book Slavery Unmasked: : Being a Truthful Narrative of a Three Years’ Residence and Journeying in Eleven Southern States: To Which is Added the Invasion of Kansas, Including the Last Chapter of Her Wrongs, published in 1856.  This minister said, 

Is it wise . . . on any occasion, to act as though the population of the south were homogeneous?  If our institutions . . . require that a portion of the people of the state should be treated in every place and at all times as a subordinated caste, by what authority, human or divine, does the citizen violate that obligation.  Need I say the experience of the world attests, that the battle of the cross can be no where successfully waged, unless the laws of the land and the established usages of society are faithfully cherished and supported. (pg. 397)

Amazing how much this sounds like Mary Elizabeth Williams in Salon only last week:

Here’s the complicated reality in which we live: All life is not equal. That’s a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about, lest we wind up looking like death-panel-loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-precious-baby storm troopers. Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always.