Re:OkCupid/IAC Employees Donated Thousands to Anti-Gay Marri...
by peeters on Tuesday April 01, 2014 @06:02PM
(#7512045)
Sorry, to be clear I meant "against emancipation" as "against a particular political proposal to enact emancipation". Maybe call it "capital 'e' Emancipation", for my lack of knowledge of American history. Obviously you're right that to be against the idea of emancipation is to be pro-slavery.
But to oppose a specific political position is much more nuanced. There were many people who opposed Obamacare on the grounds that it didn't go far enough. You couldn't automatically say they were against universal health care.
Many people oppose legislation that they would otherwise support because they are rolled up in an omnibus bill they can't support, or because the devil in the details would make it counterproductive to their cause.
Yes! What other position could there be? You either think human beings can be owned as property or you don't.
I guess theoretically you could have favored some sort of gradual emancipation over immediate freedom, and there were some at the time who argued that freed slaves should have been returned to Africa.
But those are still just variations of an anti-slavery position.
You can't be against emancipation without being pro-slavery any more than you can be against animal cruelty but pro-dog fighting.