History

James Henry Hammond on the “Mudsill Theory” In the mid-nineteenth century, southern ideologues developed sophisticated defenses of slavery that purported to justify the institution on economic, social, religious, scientific, and political grounds. James Henry Hammond, an influential (if sometimes scandal-plagued) South Carolina politician, articulated part of the political defense. Over the course of his career, which included serving as South Carolina’s governor and senator, he debated abolitionists and sought to prove that slavery offered a superior social system for the modern world. In the passage here, Hammond argued that slavery offered a foundation of social stability that the North lacked. (Historians refer to his argument as the “mudsill theory,” which highlighted the different material conditions and political rights possessed by the lower classes in the North and South.) Readers of this passage should keep the following questions in mind: What did Hammond mean by a mudsill class and who belonged to it, in the South and the North? Why did Hammond say the North had abolished slavery in name but not in fact? What danger did Hammond see in the mudsill’s class ability to vote? And finally, what role did race play in Hammond’s analysis?

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ever enjoyed upon the face of the earth. Society

precedes government ; creates it, and ought to control

it ; but as far as we can look back in historic times

we find the case different; for government is no sooner

created than it becomes too strong for society, and

shapes and moulds, as well as controls it. In later

centuries the progress of civilization and of intelli

gence has made the divergence so great as to produce

civil wars and revolutions ; and it is nothing now but

the want of harmony between governments and soci

eties which occasions all the uneasiness and trouble

and terror that we see abroad. It was this that

brought on the American Revolution. We threw off

a Government not adapted to our social system, and

made one for ourselves. The question is, how far have

we succeeded ? The South, so far as that is concerned,

is satisfied, harmonious, and prosperous, but demands

to be let alone.

In all social systems there must be a class to do

the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life.

That is, a class requiring but a low order of intellect

and but little skill. Its requisites are vigor, docility,

fidelity. Such a class you must have, or you would

not have that other class which leads progress, civiliza

tion, and refinement. It constitutes the very mud-sill

of society and of political government; and you might

as well attempt to build a house in the air, as to build

either the one or the other, except on this mud-sill.

Fortunately for the South, she found a race adapted

to that purpose to her hand. A race inferior to her

own, but eminently qualified in temper, in vigor, in

docility, in capacity to stand the climate, to answer all

her purposes. We use them for our purpose, and call

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them slaves. We found them slaves by the common

" consent of mankind," which, according to Cicero, " lex

naturae est? The highest proof of what is Nature's

law. We are old-fashioned at the South yet ; slave is

a word discarded now by " ears polite ; " I will not

characterize that class at the North by that term ; but

you have it ; it is there ; it is everywhere ; it is eternal.

The Senator from New York said yesterday that

the whole world had abolished slavery. Aye, the

name, but not the thing ; all the powers of the earth

cannot abolish that. God only can do it when he

repeals the Jlat, "the poor ye always have with you ;"

for the man who lives by daily labor, and scarcely

lives at that, and who has to put out his labor in the

market, and take the best he can get for it ; in short,

your whole hireling class of manual laborers and " ope

ratives," as you call them, are essentially slaves. The

difference between us is, that our slaves are hired for

life and well compensated ; there is no starvation, no

begging, no want of employment among our people,

and not too much employment either. Yours are hired

by the day, not cared for, and scantily compensated,

which may be proved in the most painful manner, at

any hour in any street in any of your large towns.

Why, you meet more beggars in one day, in any

single street of the city of New York, than you would

meet in a lifetime in the whole South. We do not

' aink that whites should be slaves either by law or

necessity. Our slaves are black, of another and in

ferior race. The status in which we have placed them

is an elevation. They are elevated from the condition

in which God first created them, by being made our

slaves. None of that race on the whole face of the

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globe can be compared with the slaves of the South.

They are happy, content, unaspiring, and utterly in

capable, from intellectual weakness, ever to give us

any trouble by their aspirations. Yours are white, of

your own race ; you are brothers of one blood. They

are your equals in natural endowment of intellect,

and they feel galled by their degradation. Our slaves

do not vote. We give them no political power.

Yours do vote, and, being the majority, they are the

depositaries of all your political power. If they knew

the tremendous secret, that the ballot-box is stronger

than " an army with banners," and could combine,

where would you be ? Your society would be recon

structed, your government overthrown, your property

divided, not as they have mistakenly attempted to

initiate such proceedings by meeting in parks, with

arms in their hands, but by the quiet process of the

ballot-box. ' You have been making war upon us to

our very hearthstones. How would you like for us to

send lecturers and agitators North, to teach these

people this, to aid in combining, and to lead them ?

Mr. Wilson and others. Send them along.

Mr. Hammond. You say send them along. There

is no need of that. Your people are awaking. They

are coming here. They are thundering at our doors*

for homesteads, one hundred and sixty acres of land

for nothing, and Southern Senators are supporting

them. Nay, they are assembling, as I have said, with

arms in their hands, and demanding work at $1,000

a year for six hours a day. Have you heard that the

ghosts of Mendoza and Torquemada are stalking in

the streets of your great cities ? That the inquisition

is at hand ? There is afloat a fearful rumor that there