In yet another direction, consider how central religious belief was for both abolitionists and slave owners in either their prosecution or their defense of slavery.
True, the Bible did not prohibit it, and the Old Testament is full of examples of slavery being written of and viewed in a favorable light. Abolitionists can just as easily refer to the New Testament and the teachings of Jesus and his Disciples for quick condemnation of slavery and its inhumanities.
Slaveowners also tended to believe that while a lower form of being than whites, slaves nonetheless had souls, and it was their duty as slaveowners to Christianize them (although they would be prohibited from preaching after the Nat Turner rebellion), and therefore, slavery was justified as the duty of every Christian slaveowner and as the only way for a black slave to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Ironically, the Christian religion was one of the few sources of both unity and hope for southern slaves throughout the antebellum 1800's.
Whatever argument you make, therefore, should have religion at the center of it.
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