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The abolitionists held a broad spectrum of opinions on race. The Puritans’ view on the Indians does not appear to have informed abolitionists’ views of Africans, at least not in all cases.

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Eric and Penman, my apologies for taking so long to get back to you; I actually didn’t understand how the forums worked. I was just clicking on the most recent post, it turns out, and not looking at all the topics that had been posted on.

I would recommend looking at Murray Rothbard’s four-volume history of colonial America, Conceived in Liberty, which has a good treatment of the long-term repercussions in the colonies of the Glorious Revolution. You can find a one-volume edition of Rothbard’s work online here: http://mises.org/document/3006

On the morals of the Dutch, a key issue was Sabbath observance. Puritan and non-Puritan Englishmen alike were scandalized by the Dutch treatment of the Sabbath, which many Englishmen said was treated as if it were just another day, and on which men did not necessarily abstain from labor.

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I’ve written a little bit on this, on pp. 169-174 of my book The Church and the Market. There’s a pretty good discussion of the literature here: http://econlog.econlib.com/library/Enc/IndustrialRevolutionandtheStandardofLiving.html

Your teacher may not realize it, but the standard-of-living debate has essentially been won by the so-called optimists. Even outright Marxists, like E.P. Thompson, finally began to concede that no one any longer argued that everything got worse during the Industrial Revolution.

Historian Ralph Raico is also very good on this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXZBmbvaru8

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I’ll look into this.

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I’ll look into this.

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I have generally seen 10% and (more often) 20% as the figure.

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I don’t think there is a good constitutional objection to the 13th Amendment, so I have no scruples there. One might have a concern about empowering the U.S. government in any capacity, even the capacity to do good. These are indeed difficult questions, with no neat answers. In a debate I saw him do years ago, Walter Block took the view that regardless of constitutional procedure, which to him is secondary (if even that), what it boils down to is this: can group A intervene to make sure group B stops oppressing people? Does group A, even if a government, have the right to do the right thing? Put that way, Walter was OK with it.

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Forcing friends to subscribe! That’s the spirit! 🙂

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We’re already working on this problem. I’ll post something when it’s all fixed.

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We’re already working on this problem. I’ll post something when it’s all fixed.

[Author]

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