Dabney on the Blessing of Christianization
for the African Slaves In America
“Was it nothing that they [Africans] should be brought, by the relation of servitude, under the consciences and Christian zeal of a Christian people, in circumstances which most powerfully enlisted their sense of responsibility, and gave free scope to their labour of love? Let the blessed results answer, of a nation of four millions lifted, in four generations, out of idolatrous debasement, “sitting clothed, and in their right mind;” of more than half a million adult communicants in Christian churches! And all this glorious work has been done exclusively by Southern masters; for never did foreign or Yankee abolitionists find leisure from the more congenial work of slandering the white, to teach or bless the black man in any practical way. This much-abused system has thus accomplished for the Africans, amidst universal opposition and obloquy, more than all the rest of the Christian world together has accomplished for the rest of the heathen.”
— Southern Presbyterian Minister Robert L. Dabney (1820-1898)