Bryan Callen on the Novel That Might Have Started the Civil War Joe Rogan

Well, I think the fascinating thing is slavery. Slavery was the order of the day and the leading philosophers and moral thinkers of our time, from Jesus to the Buddha to Muhammad to Socrates and Aristotle to all of them, never ever really spoke much about slavery, about owning other human beings, about selling someone's children. It just was never really brought up. I mean, it just wasn't. You just see it. It was just what was done. And then, you know, it really started the abolitionist movement, where they, I mean, the beginnings of the abolition of slavery worldwide, you know, did it? No. The British, in the 1800s. Really? And, you know, did it in specifically evangelical Christians. Wow. The abolition movement was started by what you'd call, you know, fanatic, you know, Christians, but they were, they were, they risked everything and convinced the crown to enforce a ban on slavery in the high seas. So if you were a British naval, you know, ship, even if the Ottoman, if there was a Turkish ship over there, the Ottoman ship over there, and they had slaves, the British were spent years and great costs at basically hanging slave traders, freeing slaves, all that stuff on the high seas. You know, so even though obviously there was a lot of racism that went on, the Brits and their navy were the ones that began the abolition of worldwide slavery. It didn't allow it on the high seas. Now, how amazing is it that that didn't take place until what? 18 what? 1865, sir. Now listen. Well, that's when it was abolished in America. Was that abolished the all countries? No, Britain abolished slavery, I believe, way earlier than America did. So we were 1865. Another thing to remember is the United States has been a country with slavery longer than it's been a country without. So that gives you an idea of how recent that is. Okay, stop and think about that. That number 1865 seems so recent now. It used to, when I was a kid, it felt like it was forever ago. I know. When I was like five years old and I thought about slavery, I thought about it as being like eons and eons in the past. Do you know a book I just read? It's the, and it's the, it is without, besides the Bible, a lot of arguably one of the most influential books ever written in the 19th century. What? Uncle Tom's cabin. Wow. Yeah. I realized I hadn't read it. And, um, well, I mean, I think that it's Harriet Beecher Stowe and I think, um, the legend is that Lincoln said, so you're the little woman that wrote this book that started this great war. Because she, she put this, she had never actually, she was from the North, but she interviewed fugitive slaves and people who, you know, who used to be. And if you read that book, man, it was, it puts such a face on what slavery, the brutality, what it was really about in this country or anywhere where you could take a woman's child, eight year old, and you'd get some money. And it's the story where the slave trader goes, well, I'll buy the kid. He's, he, I could fetch a good price for him down South. And we'll, we'll take him when his mom ain't there. Maybe we could have her go do a chore. So when she comes back, you know, otherwise it's all kinds of hamming and hawning. And they had slave brokers who would come in and go, look, your plantation is in debt. You got to start selling some of your slaves. Now I'm not going to take those guys, but that, that woman, she's got, she's got those two healthy looking boys and they, and you would sell them and she could do nothing about it. That was the reality. And, and Uncle Tom's cabin, controversial book because of the way they describe Uncle Tom as a simpleton and a Negro. But I'll tell you what it did is she, she made you realize in technicolor with a human face, just exactly how horrible it was. And what happened to the women who would have to see their children sold in front of them and they couldn't do anything. Blah, blah, blah. But, but, uh, it was, well, it was, it was for many people, what galvanized the North to say, we can't have, this is crazy. Can't have slavery.