Jordan

“[Orson Pratt] argued that only God could administer curses and that they were specific to a given time and place. In his estimation, enslavers who suggested that biblical curses were still in force had taken it upon themselves 'to execute the curse of Almighty upon that race without being commanded to do it and they will have to be punished for rising up and inflicting this curse upon [the] descendants of Adam.' Even if God did curse Ham or Canaan or Cain in the Bible, Pratt did not believe that such curses passed down to anyone else. He rejected the notion that nineteenth-century enslavers, including Latter-Day Saints, had any authority from God to enslave Black people. 'Shall we assume the right without the voice of [the] Lord speaking to us and commanding us to [introduce] slavery into our territory?' Pratt queried. He was dismayed by such a prospect... People of African descent were not guilty of some premortal sin for which slavery was the penalty, Pratt said. 'Shall we take then the innocent African that has committed no sin and damn him to slavery and bondage without receiving any authority from heaven to do [so]? That they and their children shall be servants to us and our children? The idea is preposterous in my mind,' he demanded. 'For us to bind the African because he is different from us in color [is] enough to cause the angels in heaven to blush![']... 'We have no proof that the Africans are the descendants of old Cain who was cursed, and even if we had that evidence we have not been ordered to inflict that [curse] upon that race.”
― W. Paul Reeve, Let’s Talk About Race and Priesthood