in purely logistical terms. How is one supposed to enforce property rights (which slaves were most certainly considered property under any framework which might conceivably be referred to as permitting 'slavery') if not via government assistance? By local fiat in contradiction to national/federal law?
Seriously, think about this from the standpoint of being a local farmer who doesn't own any slaves. Would it behoove you to assist the plantation master's slaves in fleeing their bondage, thereby raising the cost of labor (and your own daily wages along with it)? Of course it would. So how could the wealthy slave owners prevent this from taking place en masse? Any answer you can logically conceive of inevitably leads you to the conclusion that slavery requres state force in order to exist.
Non-slave-owners were often required to form posses to round up escaped slaves as part of their civic obligation under law, and that requirement was handed down by local government--not the plantation owners individually. If the plantation owners were indeed the sole authors and providers of the framework under which escaped slaves would be returned, it would be in the direct opposite interests of non-slave-owners to participate in such returns.
There is a wealth of information available on slavery in America that I encourage you to read. YouTube abounds with historians (both amateur and professional) who describe contemporaneous ordinances and legal frameworks required in slavery-tolerating jurisdictions. It is absolutely fascinating to see just how much the state and federal governments were 'in the slavery business' from day one. Again, if slaves are considered property, one of the government's primary obligations is to secure the property of its citizenry.
As for wanting to help others, that is indeed a laudable directive :-) Where you and I differ, I surmise, is that I think helping others should be largely confined to charitable works directly sponsored and undertaken by the people wishing to contribute such help, and that it be delivered directly to the recipients desired by the generous and charitable benefactors. Otherwise you end up with situations like in Haiti, where the Red Cross built a handful of houses after receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in disaster relief donations following that devastating earthquake. Not only that, but as Jeff correctly suggests, once 'charity' is no longer voluntary but is coerced at gunpoint (how else does one describe the collection of taxes in any society?) we have fundamentally changeed the act of 'giving' into one that is no longer pure and good, but one which is instantly and irrevocably tainted by the act of coercing support instead of graciously accepting the support that is offered.
We were discussing privilege, no? Generally speaking, the group of people who gets accused of possessing the most privilege are white Europeans/Americans, so my example of the Philippines was simply to describe how this concept of 'privilege' can appear when cranked up a few notches on the dial--which has downstream effects both positive and negative, as I described. I was not suggesting that this experience was analogous to that of any ethnic subset living in the USA; I was simply demonstrating that I understand pretty clearly what the concept of 'privilege' is by providing a fairly extreme example of it.
And I still think it's bonkers, regressive, subversive and self-destructive for a society to adopt a Proletariat/Bourgeoisie framework by which people are encouraged to conduct themselves.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
To my mind, that statement stands in direct opposition to the notion that some of us require, and will always require based on some arbitrary dint of birth, state force in order to succeed while others must be actively held back to permit that occurrence.