lecture 3, "a southern world-view: the old south and proslavery ideology"
david blight

----------

in a speech before the Virginia secession convention in late-April 1861, the newly-elected, vice-president of the confederacy Alexander Stevens (a slave-holder) argues that the cornerstone of their movement/their freedom was "American Negro slavery." ("as a race, the African is inferior to the white man... he is not equal to the white man... and cannot be made so by the actions of humankind.")

you always have to worry, in history, when people begin to invoke "Nature"

but how do we get to 1861, and Alexander Stevens declaring that it's all about slavery?

today, then, the Southern defense of slavery (and its evolution).

(of course, what caused this war, remains a question--it cannot be "soundbyted" away.)

----------

professor is relating de Tocqueville's account of the "indolent" South. (the enervating effects of slavery on the society, etc. -- his own aristocratic complexes shining through.) "you see few churches and no schools." not accurate, in his estimations of Southern stagnation. but he did predict the Northern domination of the South. ("Man is not made for servitude").

----------

in the South, what developed was one of the world's true "slave societies." what does this mean?

essentially, any society where the relationship between ownership and labor is defined by slavery--where slavery affected everything about social relations in society (where people were socialized by it, married/reared children, and conceived of the idea of property around the institution). other slave societies in human history (controversial this), were Ancient Greece and Rome, Brazil (by 18th and 19th century), the whole of the Carribbean (the West Indies sugar-producing empires of the Dutch, French, British, Spanish, etc.), and the American South.

there were other, localized slave societies, to be sure. particularly in Africa, even before the Europeans arrived (though really consolidated after the regularization of the Atlantic slave trade). East Africa, in the Muslim world (well before Atlantic slave trade, actually).

BUT: the five "great" slave societies were the above. All were enormously profitable. Technological innovation was generally slow (cheap value of labor). High ratio of slaves to free-people. In those societies, slaves as an interest were both a political and great, economic institution--one which defined regular ways of life.

When exactly did the American South become a slave society. Circa 1820, perhaps. Or maybe even more the 1830s, when you have booming cotton crop. Or in the aftermath of the Mexican War. Prof is arguing, surely by the early part of this period.

One aspect of that slave society is that, as Americans ended the foreign slave trade (in 1808, remember, though it didn't entirely end--there were some people in Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana still wanted to reopen it up until the 1850s). as the foreign trade was closed off, for a variety of reasons, the domestic American slave trade absolutely boomed. one of the reasons that the cotton boom could be the cotton boom, prof is arguing, was because one of the unique features of N. American slavery, it was the only slave society in the New World where the slaves naturally reproduced themselves (Brazil managed it, a bit)--this has to do with climate, sex ratio, diet, and movement. (prof emphasizing the latter--the "safety valve" of the West, to move to)

between 1810 and 1820 alone, 137,000 American slaves were forced from N. Carolina and Chesapeake States to move to Alabama, Missisippi.

from 1820 to 1860, roughly 2,000,000 American slaves were sold to satisfy the need of slave labor in the great cotton kingdom of the growing south-west. roughly 2/3 of those 2,000,000 slaves moved from the North/East to the south-west--outright sale. a massive, huge American business.

by the 1830s, there were over 100 men in Charleston, SC making their livings, full-time, as slave traders. many of them owned their own "shops." other cities became major ports--Richmond, Virginia, for example (2-3 major, full-time slave traders--slave, auction-house jail, and kept exact account books). One trader, Hector Davis, made about $120,000 in a week!

the South, in this sense, was part of a Western movement. for slave children, between 1820 and 1860, living in the Upper South or Eastern Seaboard, they had a 30% chance of being sold, outright, away from their parents, before the age of 10.

ads in newspaper would read: "Negros wanted... good front teeth" (book on this: Walter Johnson, "Soul by Soul"). amazing to read the language/letters of slave traders: the complacency, pure racism, business-language on the other.

-------

how was slavery defended, then? (and how did the pro-slavery argument develop? and who made them?)

best way to begin, prof is saying, whether in the early defenses of the 1820s, or later, is within the framework of a deeply conservative, organic world-view; a Burkean conservatism--a set of beliefs that says the world is ordered as it is, for reasons. and that human beings ought not to tinker with that order--a set of beliefs in the sustenance of the social order as it was. that people were conceived, by God/Evolution, in line with a certain order--some born to do this, others born to do that (it's "natural"). an obsession with "stability"--the threat of upsetting the social order. bound up with notions of "honor" and "duty"--respect for "tradition."

white, Southern defenders of slavery were, in some respects, products of the Enlightenment--some of them come to really believe in the intellect, in the "power of reason" to figure out the Universe (but, figure it out in different ways). you can be a product of Enlightenment, and still be profoundly conservative. deep, organic forms of conservatism are not antithetical to the Enlightenment, at least not entirely.

many of pro-slavery ideologues will argue that ideas of liberty/freedom, which they constantly referred to, were never absolute. many of them would directly reverse Thomas Jefferson's declaration will argue that "no one is born equal"--many of them would argue that "freedom" must always be balanced with "order and tradition." with the world as it is, not as it ought to be.

southern pro-slavery arguments were much more likely to stress "duty" than to discuss individual "liberty."

edward brown: "slavery" had been the stepping-ladder by which nations had passed from "barbarism" to "civilization"--that slavery was a way in which you built an economy, which would be propserous and benefit those who "mattered."

pro-slavery writers had, in many ways, a fundamentally different conception of how history happened than northern writers (even abraham lincoln--"never a real abolitionist, but at least grew up with anti-slavery in his heart").

categories of the pro-slavery argument:

(a) the biblical: almost all pro-slavery writers would dip into the Old or New Testament--every society has had it, it's always been around. you can read some prophets as justifiying it, thereby concluding that it was divinely sanctioned. (of course it can breath anti-slavery, as well)

(b) the historical: not just the venerability of slavery, but that it has been crucial to the development of all great civilizations. it has been the engine of wealth, of greatness, etc. how would you have had cicero? how would you have had the playrights of greece, etc.? at the base of all societies there has to be a labor system.

(c) natural rights: both part of and resistance to the "greatest product" of the Enlightenment--the idea of rights from birth, rights from God. being born with certain capacities. pro-slavery writers used this, stripping it of its universalism--the real rule of the world is not "natural equality", but "natural inequality."

(d) economic arguments: the cynic, of course, goes straight here--one of the greatest of these writers was James Henry Hammond, who had plenty of mixed-race children. he was the epitomy of pro-slavery activism--ultimately his argument was that it was amoral. a property defense of the institution: roughly, the means by which African-Americans have been made our property are irrelevant--they are our property, and our right to them is sacrosanct. this, in particular, was a "potent" argument, says prof--"it is what it is, deal with it."

(e) some would get guilty/worried, and defend it as a "necessary evil" (and some of these folk were deeply sincere). one man to his fiance: "i am undecided whether i ought to hold slaves... it is unjust... but the question is, in my present circumstances, would the general interest of the slaves be promoted best by emancipation?" (develops a theory of how he will emancipate blacks, within the institution itself).

(f) the racial defense: cf. Alexander Stevens' speech--but all of them went here, and one time or another. George Fitz-Hugh, of course, famously made this case: "the Negro is but a grown-up child... some men are born with saddles on their backs, and others with boots/spurs"

(g) utopian slavery: Henry Hughes, "one strange duck"--a loner who wrote an amazing diary. "Warrenteeism"--he argued that slaves were charges put into the world who were there for slaveholders to protect/take care of. he wanted a strong central state to perfect the slave into a perfect worker. he was also obsessed with racial purity--any intermixing would destroy the master race. he wasn't that widely read, prof admits; but it shows us how far pro-slavery could ultimate good. it wasn't only a positive good, but it was perfection.

--------

all of that is only to argue that there was a deep, abiding, well-rehearsed defense of slavery. and if you want to understand why so many white Southerners went to such great extents to save their society, you need look no further than these arguments and sentiments.

--------

a few final comments, which come at the beginning of lecture 4--when slaveholding politicians begin to organize toward some sort of secession, over this slave society they want to protect, they are writing hundreds and hundreds of pages in defense of their world. pro-slavery anthologies, etc. also, this wasn't all about "abstract" ideology--in 1857, francis ellen watkins harper, said, in the wake of the dred scott decision, "if men had not found out a fearful alchemy by which this blood can be transformed into gold..."