An Alabama State Senator running for Congress has written a speech arguing that slavery was justified by the Bible and that it was good for blacks.

The lawmaker, Charles Davidson, a first-term Republican from Jasper, made the arguments in a speech he prepared for a Senate debate over his proposal to fly the Confederate battle flag atop the State Capitol. The measure was quickly tabled on Tuesday before Mr. Davidson could deliver the speech, so he passed out copies of it.

Mr. Davidson referred to Leviticus 25:44 -- "You may acquire male and female slaves from the pagan nations that are around you" -- and quoted I Timothy 6:1 as saying slaves should "regard their own masters as worthy of all honor."

"The incidence of abuse, rape, broken homes and murder are 100 times greater, today, in the housing projects than they ever were on the slave plantations in the Old South," he wrote. "The truth is that nowhere on the face of the earth, in all of time, were servants better treated or better loved than they were in the Old South by white, black, Hispanic and Indian slave owners."