home work for American history class

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G E OR G E F I T Z H U G H

A Defense of Slavery (1854)

In the 1830s abolitionists increasingly began to assault slavery on moral grounds, an approach that

naturally put slave owners on the defensive. The South’s reaction in many cases was to defend—with

varying degrees of sophistication—that region’s “peculiar institution.” Slavery’s apologists employed

biblical justifications (the Old Testament includes numerous rules governing the treatment of Jewish and

non-Jewish slaves), “scientific racism” (allegedly scientific evidence “proved” black inferiority), and history

(after all, slavery dated from ancient times and so must be legitimate) in their published writings. A

number of southern politicians and intellectuals began to make the case that slavery was not a necessary

evil necessitated by their region’s labor needs, as they had previously argued, but that the institution was

in reality a “positive good,” beneficial to slaves as well as masters, given the paternalistic instincts of

benevolent white slave owners.

One of slavery’s most interesting and notorious defenders was George Fitzhugh (1806–1881), an

attorney with close ties to his native Virginia’s planter elite. Fitzhugh lived most of his life in Port Royal,

Caroline County, Virginia, an area where the population was composed mostly of slaves. His close

observations of his own slaves, combined with his voracious and wide-ranging reading, were the basis for

the contents of his book Sociology for the South, published in 1854. Most notably, Fitzhugh defended slavery

by attacking the free society of the North. In the excerpts that follow, consider the role that Fitzhugh’s

writings, along with famous abolitionist works like Uncle Tom’s Cabin, might have played in elevating

sectional tensions and pushing the nation closer to civil war.

From George Fitzhugh, Sociology for the South, or the Failure of Free Society, (Richmond, Va.: A. Morris,

1854), 82–85, 88, 92, 94–95.

e have already stated that we should not attempt to introduce any new theories of

government and of society, but merely try to justify old ones, so far as we could deduce

such theories from ancient and almost universal practices. Now it has been the practice

in all countries and in all ages, in some degree, to accommodate the amount and character of

government control to the wants, intelligence, and moral capacities of the nations or individuals to be

governed. A highly moral and intellectual people, like the free citizens of ancient Athens, are best

governed by a democracy. For a less moral and intellectual one, a limited and constitutional monarchy

will answer. For a people either very ignorant or very wicked, nothing short of military despotism will

suffice. So among individuals, the most moral and well-informed members of society require no other

government than law. They are capable of reading and understanding the law, and have sufficient self-

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control and virtuous disposition to obey it. Children cannot be governed by more law; first, because

they do not understand it, and secondly, because they are so much under the influence of impulse,

passion and appetite, that they want sufficient self-control to be deterred or governed by the distant

and doubtful penalties of the law. They must be constantly controlled by parents or guardians, whose

will and orders shall stand in the place of law for them. Very wicked men must be put into

penitentiaries; lunatics into asylums, and the most wild of them into straight jackets, just as the most

wicked of the sane are manacled with irons; and idiots must have committees to govern and take care

of them. Now, it is clear the Athenian democracy would not suit a negro nation, nor will the

government of mere law suffice for the individual negro. He is but a grown up child, and must be

governed as a child, not as a lunatic or criminal. The master occupies towards him the place of parent

or guardian. We shall not dwell on this view, for no one will differ with us who thinks as we do of the

negro’s capacity, and we might argue till dooms-day, in vain, with those who have a high opinion of

the negro’s moral and intellectual capacity.

Secondly. The negro is improvident; will not lay up in summer for the wants of winter; will not

accumulate in youth for the exigencies of age. He would become an insufferable burden to society.

Society has the right to prevent this, and can only do so by subjecting him to domestic slavery.

In the last place, the negro race is inferior to the white race, and living in their midst, they would be

far outstripped or outwitted in the chase of free competition. Gradual but certain extermination

would be their fate. We presume the maddest abolitionist does not think the negro’s providence of

habits and moneymaking capacity at all to compare to those of the whites. This defect of character

would alone justify enslaving him, if he is to remain here. In Africa or the West Indies, he would

become idolatrous, savage and cannibal, or be devoured by savages and cannibals. At the North he

would freeze or starve.

We would remind those who deprecate and sympathize with negro slavery, that his slavery hero

relieves him from a far more cruel slavery in Africa, or from idolatry and cannibalism, and every brutal

vice and crime that can disgrace humanity; and that it christianizes, protects, supports and civilizes

him; that it governs him far better than free laborers at the North are governed. There, wife-murder

has become a mere holiday pastime; and where so many wives are murdered, almost all must be

brutally treated. Nay, more: men who kill their wives or treat them brutally, must be ready for all kinds

of crime, and the calendar of crime at the North proves the inference to be correct. Negroes never kill

their wives. If it be objected that legally they have no wives, then we reply, that in an experience of

more than forty years, we never yet heard of a negro man killing a negro woman. Our negroes are not

only better off as to physical comfort than free laborers, but their moral condition is better.

*  *  *

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Would the abolitionists approve of a system of society that set white children free, and remitted

them at the age of fourteen, males and females, to all the rights, both as to person and property,

which belong to adults? Would it be criminal or praiseworthy to do so? Criminal, of course. Now, are

the average of negroes equal in information, in native intelligence, in prudence or providence, to well-

informed white children of fourteen? We who have lived with them for forty years, think not. The

competition of the world would be too much for the children. They would be cheated out of their

property and debased in their morals. Yet they would meet every where with sympathizing friends of

their own color, ready to aid, advise and assist them. The negro would be exposed to the same

competition and greater temptations, with no greater ability to contend with them, with these

additional difficulties. He would be welcome nowhere; meet with thousands of enemies and no

friends. If he went North, the white laborers would kick him and cuff him, and drive him out of

employment. If he went to Africa, the savages would cook him and eat him. If he went to the West

Indies, they would not let him in, or if they did, they would soon make of him a savage and idolater.

*  *  *

But far the worst feature of modern civilization, which is the civilization of free society, remains to

be exposed. Whilst labor-saving processes have probably lessened by one half, in the last century, the

amount of work needed for comfortable support, the free laborer is compelled by capital and

competition to work more than he ever did before, and is less comfortable. The organization of

society cheats him of his earnings, and those earnings go to swell the vulgar pomp and pageantry of

the ignorant millionaires, who are the only great of the present day. These reflections might seem, at

first view, to have little connexion with negro slavery; but it is well for us of the South not to be

deceived by the tinsel glare and glitter of free society, and to employ ourselves in doing our duty at

home, and studying the past, rather than in insidious rivalry of the expensive pleasures and pursuits

of men whose sentiments and whose aims are low, sensual and grovelling.

*  *  *

We deem this peculiar question of negro slavery of very little importance. The issue is made

throughout the world on the general subject of slavery in the abstract. The argument has

commenced. One set of ideas will govern and control after awhile the civilized world. Slavery will

every where be abolished, or every where be re-instituted. We think the opponents of practical,

existing slavery, are estopped by their own admission; nay, that unconsciously, as socialists, they are

the defenders and propagandists of slavery, and have furnished the only sound arguments on which

its defence and justification can he rested. We have introduced the subject of negro slavery to afford

us a better opportunity to disclaim the purpose of reducing the white man any where to the condition

of negro slaves here. It would be very unwise and unscientific to govern white men as you would

negroes. Every shade and variety of slavery has existed in the world. In some cases there has been

much of legal regulation, much restraint of the master’s authority; in others, none at all. The character

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of slavery necessary to protect the whites in Europe should be much milder than negro slavery, for

slavery is only needed to protect the white man, whilst it is more necessary for the government of the

negro even than for his protection. But even negro slavery should not be outlawed. We might and

should have laws in Virginia, as in Louisiana, to make the master subject to presentment by the grand

jury and to punishment, for any inhuman or improper treatment or neglect of his slave.

We abhor the doctrine of the “Types of Mankind;”1 first, because it is at war with scripture, which

teaches us that the whole human race is descended from a common parentage; and, secondly,

because it encourages and incites brutal masters to treat negroes, not as weak, ignorant and

dependent brethren, but as wicked beasts, without the pale of humanity.2 The Southerner is the

negro’s friend, his only friend. Let no intermeddling abolitionist, no refined philosophy, dissolve this

friendship.

Study Questions

1. According to Fitzhugh, what are the chief benefits of slavery to the slaves? In what fundamental

ways did George Fitzhugh hold racist views toward blacks?

2. What did Fitzhugh see as the major problems confronting free northern laborers in the 1850s? Is

his analysis valid? To what extent did Fitzhugh criticize capitalism itself?

3. Fitzhugh claims that “slavery will everywhere be abolished, or everywhere be reinstituted.” How

would readers outside of the South likely have responded to this statement? How does Fitzhugh

anticipate or even help provoke the Civil War?

4. Fitzhugh says in closing, “The Southerner is the negro’s friend, his only friend.” Fully evaluate this

statement. To what degree did Fitzhugh hold sympathetic views toward African Americans? To

what extent would African Americans welcome his sympathy?