The Comparative Apologetics of Racially Regressive Laws in the Confederate States of America and the South African Republic or How Did They Live with Themselves?

Many ordinary' persons of Anglo-European stock participated, without qualm, in systems of slavery and apartheid. James M. McPherson, on examining the letters and diaries of 374 Confederate soldiers, finds that only twenty percent expressed pro-slavery sentiment. 2 "They took slavery for granted as part of the southern way of life for which they fought, and did not feel compelled to discuss it." 3 Likewise, white South Africans "were conditioned to regard apartheid society as normal, its critics as communists or communist-sympathizers. How did this ideological complacency endure the growing hostility of neighbor sovereigns? Why did the citizens of these particular regimes defy world opinion in defense of their "peculiar institutions"?