Contextualising or relativising evil? A probe into US antebellum slavery

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the abolition of antebellum slavery in the US through a leftist prism introduced by Michael Parenti. The first part provides a brief explanation of Parenti's theory on an example of the late Roman republic and its politico-economic background, which is depicted in The Assassination of Julius Caesar. In this part is also covered the historical precedent of slavery along with specific scientifically based arguments in favour of slavery developed by Samuel Cartwright. The last chapter gives a description of the process of abolition and eventually an analogy between Roman senatorial democracy and the antebellum slavery is established on a premise that in both the cases the privileged social class influenced historical narration of those events for its own benefit to cover its economic interests. Keywords: Michael Parenti, slavery, historical narrative, exploitation, Samuel Cartwright, the process of abolitio