# Ep. 72: There's No Excuse for Slavery (Updated) **URL:** **By** Anthony Comegna **Published:** September 19, 2018 --- This is an updated version of our episode from July 3, 2018. We discuss how John C. Calhoun led the charge in believing slavery to be a "positive good". This is a updated version of "There's No Excuse for Slavery" which was released on July 3rd, 2018. Enjoy! The planters of the South believed that slavery had grown up with American society and its' institutions. John C. Calhoun argued that slavery was a "positive good" because he believed that no well-off society existed in which "one portion of the community did not in point of fact, live on the labor of the other". How did beliefs like these and those of Calhoun's followers further split the Union? How could a man like Jefferson at once declare all humanity's equal, natural rights and yet hold hundreds of people in bondage? What was state-made racism? Who were the beneficiaries of slavery? Who were the Quakers and how did they influence the anti-slavery movement? What is the argument of slavery as a "positive good"? Who really was John C. Calhoun? ## Further Reading: [John C. Calhoun and Slavery as a “Positive Good:” What He Said](https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/clyde-wilson-library/john-c-calhoun-and-slavery-as-a-positive-good-what-he-said/), written by Clyde Wilson [John C. Calhoun: He Started the Civil War](http://www.historynet.com/john-c-calhoun-he-started-the-civil-war.htm), written by Civil War Times Music by Kai Engel ## Related Content: [Libertarians and the Confederacy](https://www.libertarianism.org/videos/libertarians-confederacy), by Jason Kuznicki [Why “Libertarian” Defenses of the Confederacy and “States’ Rights” are Incoherent](https://www.libertarianism.org/essays/why-libertarian-defenses-confederacy-states-rights-are-incoherent), written by Jonathan Blanks [Kansas Changes Everything](https://www.libertarianism.org/podcasts/liberty-chronicles/ep-71-kansas-changes-everything), Liberty Chronicles Episode