“My Christian faith taught me always to fight hard but only to fight back with the truth. Sadly, I learned that the opposition to Judeo-Christian faith and family values has never had truth as a requirement.” —Ken Mercer Mercer describes slavery as Evil. Slavery existed in the world for thousands of years before the founding of our thirteen colonies and before the signing of our 1776 Declaration of Independence. Then came ”The Great Awakening” of the Christian faith in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe. The movement to abolish world-wide slavery was born. Article 1 (Section 9) of the Constitution, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the three post-Civil War Constitutional Amendments, are just a few examples of historical events championed by Christian men and women standing firm against powerful and evil forces. This book, Slavery 101, is the first in a series of “Mercer Moments in American History.” Future projects planned include Constitution 101—Separation of Church and State, and In God We Still Trust. Ken Mercer believes: “We will never fully comprehend our Founding Father’s challenge to continuously strive to become a ‘more perfect Union’ unless we understand what makes our United States of America so exceptional. It is the profound impact and unbroken revival of Judeo-Christian values throughout our history.”

Essays that treat the topic of slavery in many ways, especially finding validity for slavery as an abstract principle, both as instituted by the Bible and as a reflection of the authoritarian bases of religious and civil government. Smith argues for the fitness of the system to supply the needs and cater to the limited abilities of slaves, arguing against the idea of equal rights for unequal people. He refutes emancipation, warning that civil chaos would result, asserting that the slave system is beneficial for all Southerners and is related to the greater stability of the South versus the North. The last essay lays out the responsibilities of slave-owners to ask for reasonable work and to provide all the necessities of life to the slave.

Many scholars believe that the existence of slavery stymied the development of the American state because slaveholding Southern politicians were so at odds with a federal government they feared would abolish their peculiar institution. David Ericson argues to the contrary, showing that over a seventy-year period slavery actually contributed significantly to the development of the American state, even as a "house divided." Drawing on deep archival research that tracks federal expenditures on slavery-related items, Ericson reveals how the policies, practices, and institutions of the early national government functioned to protect slavery and thereby contributed to its own development. Here are surprising descriptions of how the federal government increased its state capacities as it implemented slavery-friendly policies, such as creating more stable slave markets by removing Native Americans, deterring slave revolts, recovering fugitive slaves, enacting a ban on slave imports, and not enacting a ban on the interstate slave trade. It also bolstered its own law-enforcement power by reinforcing navy squadrons to interdict illegal slave trading, hiring deputy marshals to capture fugitive slaves and slave rescuers, and deploying soldiers to remove Native Americans and deter slave rescues and revolts. Going beyond Don Fehrenbacher's The Slaveholding Republic, Ericson shows how the presence of slavery indirectly influenced the development of the American state in highly significant ways. Enforcement of the 1808 slave-import ban involved the federal government in border control for the first time, and participation in founding a colony in Liberia established an early model of public-private partnerships. The presence of slavery also spurred the development of the U.S. Army through its many slavery-related deployments, particularly during the Second Seminole War, and the federal government's own slave rentals influenced its labor-management practices. Ericson's study unearths a long-neglected history, connecting slavery-influenced policy areas more explicitly to early American state development and more fully accounting for the money and manpower the federal government devoted to those areas. Rich in historical detail, it marks a significant contribution to our understanding of state development and the impact of slavery on early American politics.