If slavery was legal... would you keep a slave ?

@Ontheroad People have said to me, "you cannot judge those days from a 20th or 21st century perspective."
But in a sense I believe one can, for two reasons:

Those who were enslaved didn’t want to be. There are narratives by former slaves attesting to this, and the existence of the Underground Railroad is further proof.

Nobody free would’ve wanted to be enslaved. That was true then and now. The Revolutionary War had been presumably fought on that premise.

@bijouxbroussard oh, I agree, enslavement is reprehensible, but my point was would it be if we had been enslaving people for hundreds and hundreds of years and it was accepted as being okay?

Would I, if I had grown up in a household where we had a slave or two, think ill of it?

I can say now I wouldn't... couldn't, but what if?

@Ontheroad Or perhaps you would’ve been like those who grew up seeing that reality all their lives and still became abolitionists. 🥹

@bijouxbroussard I want to believe I would, but it makes me wonder. Makes me want to understand more about abolitionists and how/why they started down that path.