WEBVTT 00:02.670 --> 00:07.380 Professor David Blight: In a speech before the Virginia 00:07.382 --> 00:11.262 Secession Convention, in 1861, in late April, 00:11.258 --> 00:15.818 in the wake of the firing on Fort Sumter, the newly 00:15.819 --> 00:20.199 elected--sort of appointed--Vice-President of the 00:20.199 --> 00:22.699 Confederacy, Alexander H. 00:22.704 --> 00:27.404 Stephens, gave a speech that became quickly known to history 00:27.395 --> 00:29.855 as his "Cornerstone Speech." 00:29.860 --> 00:32.610 This is Spring, 1861. 00:32.610 --> 00:34.890 Alexander H. Stephens, a Georgian, 00:34.890 --> 00:37.930 a slaveholder, an old friend and colleague of 00:37.930 --> 00:41.110 Abraham Lincoln's, ironically, said the 00:41.107 --> 00:45.667 cornerstone of the Confederacy, the cornerstone of their 00:45.666 --> 00:50.226 political movement, was what he called "American 00:50.232 --> 00:54.842 Negro slavery." It was the cornerstone on which 00:54.843 --> 00:58.283 they had founded their revolution. 00:58.280 --> 01:02.820 The quote goes on: "As a race, the African is 01:02.820 --> 01:05.710 inferior to the white man. 01:05.709 --> 01:11.159 Subordination to the white man is his normal condition. 01:11.159 --> 01:17.049 He is not his equal by nature and cannot be made so by human 01:17.053 --> 01:19.953 laws or human institutions. 01:19.950 --> 01:25.070 Our system, therefore, so far as regards this inferior 01:25.068 --> 01:30.378 race, rests upon this great immutable law of nature." 01:30.380 --> 01:34.750 01:34.750 --> 01:42.220 You always have to get worried in history when people start 01:42.218 --> 01:49.938 talking about how human beings or human behavior is rooted in 01:49.943 --> 01:53.533 nature. But how do we get to 1861 and 01:53.528 --> 01:56.368 that secession crisis with Alexander H. 01:56.370 --> 01:59.590 Stephens delivering this Cornerstone Speech, 01:59.586 --> 02:02.646 declaring that, "Hey folks, it's all about 02:02.652 --> 02:05.422 slavery and its preservation?" 02:05.420 --> 02:07.230 How did we get there? 02:07.230 --> 02:11.630 Today I want to talk about, we're going to dwell on, 02:11.626 --> 02:15.676 ultimately, the Southern defense of slavery--the 02:15.677 --> 02:19.467 arguments over time that they developed, 02:19.470 --> 02:23.040 layer upon layer, drawing upon earlier arguments 02:23.043 --> 02:26.623 and building them into new ones--sometimes quite 02:26.616 --> 02:30.946 original--toward ultimately a virtually utopian defense of 02:30.949 --> 02:35.109 slavery as a perfecting, perfectible, 02:35.107 --> 02:39.017 if not perfected system. 02:39.020 --> 02:43.270 Now, I want to say one other quick thing before we get to the 02:43.270 --> 02:46.560 substance. A thousand times in a thousand 02:46.560 --> 02:51.120 ways anybody who studies the American Civil War period is 02:51.116 --> 02:54.936 inevitably asked, "so what caused this war?" 02:54.940 --> 02:56.740 It's, of course, the question of the first third 02:56.739 --> 02:59.069 of this course. So what caused it? 02:59.069 --> 03:00.199 Yesterday, on M.L. 03:00.202 --> 03:03.982 King Day, I had the privilege of being on at least four radio 03:03.977 --> 03:07.687 programs about this new book I have out called A Slave No 03:07.689 --> 03:10.959 More, some of them quite terrific. 03:10.960 --> 03:14.900 Minnesota Public Radio does a fabulous hour-long program. 03:14.900 --> 03:17.820 But one of them was on a Nashville, Tennessee radio 03:17.824 --> 03:19.934 station, on a program at 5:30 p.m. 03:19.930 --> 03:22.910 called "Drive Time." 03:22.909 --> 03:26.979 And the host was Harry or Pete or whoever he was--I've been on 03:26.976 --> 03:28.306 too many of these. 03:28.310 --> 03:32.040 The first question was, "So Professor, 03:32.042 --> 03:35.272 what was the Civil War about?" 03:35.270 --> 03:38.950 Now do that in a sound byte on a national radio station when 03:38.952 --> 03:40.952 you got two minutes to answer. 03:40.949 --> 03:44.809 "Well Pete, you see, there was this free labor 03:44.805 --> 03:49.855 system and this slave labor system," blah-blah blah-blah. 03:49.860 --> 03:53.010 I tried to sound byte this and I ended up saying something 03:53.008 --> 03:56.158 silly like, "You know Pete, I'm teaching a whole course on 03:56.157 --> 03:56.707 this." 03:56.710 --> 04:02.460 04:02.460 --> 04:06.080 And I finally just ended that particular little exchange 04:06.083 --> 04:09.913 before he went on to rant at me about all that's wrong with 04:09.905 --> 04:14.005 American education by saying, "Pete, it was slavery." 04:14.010 --> 04:18.670 04:18.670 --> 04:20.780 [laughs] In Alexis de Tocqueville's 04:20.782 --> 04:24.012 great Democracy in America, which he published 04:24.014 --> 04:26.334 in 1831, or published in 1837, 04:26.326 --> 04:30.576 after his famous nine-month tour of the United States--the 04:30.578 --> 04:33.278 most famous book, travel book, 04:33.276 --> 04:37.696 ever written about America, by a foreigner. 04:37.699 --> 04:41.719 In Democracy in America there's that famous passage, 04:41.724 --> 04:44.504 or passages, when Tocqueville crosses the 04:44.499 --> 04:47.579 Ohio River, from Ohio into Kentucky, 04:47.575 --> 04:52.915 from free soil into slave soil, free state into a slave state. 04:52.920 --> 04:54.200 Tocqueville, you may know, 04:54.202 --> 04:57.032 didn't spend a great deal of time in the South though he 04:57.025 --> 04:58.765 traveled all across the South. 04:58.769 --> 05:02.079 He spent at least two-thirds of his--more than, 05:02.081 --> 05:06.331 about three-quarters of his time--in the northern states. 05:06.329 --> 05:11.539 But when he crossed into Kentucky, he wrote this letter 05:11.537 --> 05:15.117 to his father. "For the first time"--this was, 05:15.118 --> 05:18.538 of course, the French aristocrat de Tocqueville--"For 05:18.536 --> 05:22.346 the first time we have had the chance to examine the effect 05:22.350 --> 05:24.980 that slavery produces on a society. 05:24.980 --> 05:29.080 On the right bank of the Ohio everything is activity, 05:29.078 --> 05:33.018 industry, labor is honored, there are no slaves. 05:33.019 --> 05:37.359 Pass to the left bank and the scene changes so suddenly that 05:37.362 --> 05:41.192 you think yourself on the other side of the world. 05:41.190 --> 05:45.850 The enterprising spirit seems gone. 05:45.850 --> 05:49.360 There work is not only painful, it's shameful, 05:49.356 --> 05:53.716 and you degrade yourself in submitting yourself to it. 05:53.720 --> 05:58.740 To ride, to hunt, to smoke like a Turk in the 05:58.735 --> 06:04.315 sunshine, there's the destiny of the white man. 06:04.319 --> 06:10.989 To do any other kind of manual labor is to act like a slave." 06:10.990 --> 06:15.960 Now, Tocqueville was of course responding from his own kind of 06:15.962 --> 06:19.552 French aristocratic heart, to some extent. 06:19.550 --> 06:23.860 He was drawn in a bit to certain kinds of Southern charm. 06:23.860 --> 06:26.660 "The whites," he said, "of the South, 06:26.662 --> 06:31.182 form a veritable aristocracy which combines many prejudices 06:31.176 --> 06:34.286 with high sentiments and instincts." 06:34.290 --> 06:37.620 He probably over-judged the scale of that aristocracy. 06:37.620 --> 06:40.770 06:40.769 --> 06:44.619 "They say, and I am much inclined to believe," said 06:44.620 --> 06:49.170 Tocqueville, "that in the matter of honor these men practice 06:49.165 --> 06:53.165 delicacies and refinements unknown in the North. 06:53.170 --> 06:58.870 They are frank, hospitable and put many things 06:58.865 --> 07:03.075 before money." Well, they'd have loved that. 07:03.079 --> 07:06.589 When we start hearing from our pro-slavery advocates and 07:06.591 --> 07:08.891 writers--they would've loved that. 07:08.889 --> 07:12.569 Because one of the critiques that slavery allowed pro-slavery 07:12.570 --> 07:16.500 writers, ultimately, to make, was a critique of a 07:16.497 --> 07:21.097 certain kind of capitalism, the greedy, grinding, 07:21.100 --> 07:29.370 aggressive, malicious kind of capitalism they believed the 07:29.365 --> 07:33.775 North embodied. But charm alone didn't seem to 07:33.783 --> 07:36.913 make a great society, according to Tocqueville. 07:36.910 --> 07:41.100 "You see few churches and no schools here in the south," he 07:41.096 --> 07:44.666 observed. "Society, like the individual, 07:44.674 --> 07:47.184 seems to provide nothing." 07:47.180 --> 07:52.930 The South would end, he said, by being dominated by 07:52.930 --> 07:56.730 the North. "Every day the latter grows 07:56.730 --> 08:01.390 more wealthy and densely populated while the South is 08:01.391 --> 08:04.261 stationary and growing poor." 08:04.259 --> 08:07.689 Not entirely accurate about that either, from what we now 08:07.692 --> 08:11.552 know about the profitability of slavery and the profitability of 08:11.554 --> 08:16.404 the cotton crop. But he ends that famous section 08:16.400 --> 08:18.620 with this passage. 08:18.620 --> 08:23.290 It is kind of haunting when you think it's only 1831 when he 08:23.285 --> 08:27.555 writes this, and that Civil War is still 30 years away: 08:27.555 --> 08:32.215 "Slavery brutalizes the black population and debilitates the 08:32.221 --> 08:37.101 white. Man is not made for servitude." 08:37.100 --> 08:40.220 08:40.220 --> 08:46.310 Now, in the South what developed--and let's define it 08:46.313 --> 08:53.583 at least quickly--what developed was one of the world's handful 08:53.578 --> 08:56.858 of true slave societies. 08:56.860 --> 08:59.170 What is a slave society? 08:59.169 --> 09:05.479 What do we mean when we use that phrase 'slave society'? 09:05.480 --> 09:09.970 Essentially, it means any society where 09:09.966 --> 09:15.276 slave labor--where the definition of labor, 09:15.279 --> 09:20.519 where the definition of the relationship between ownership 09:20.521 --> 09:23.741 and labor--is defined by slavery. 09:23.740 --> 09:28.600 By a cradle to grave--and some would've even said a cradle to 09:28.603 --> 09:31.363 grave and beyond--human bondage. 09:31.360 --> 09:34.530 Where slavery affected everything about society. 09:34.529 --> 09:38.209 Where whites and blacks, in this case--in America in a 09:38.210 --> 09:40.780 racialized slavery system--grew up, 09:40.779 --> 09:45.549 were socialized by, married, reared children, 09:45.552 --> 09:50.762 worked, invested in, and conceived of the idea of 09:50.759 --> 09:55.069 property, and honed their most basic 09:55.071 --> 10:01.541 habits and values under the influence of a system that said 10:01.544 --> 10:06.124 it was just to own people as property. 10:06.120 --> 10:09.850 The other slave societies in human history--and you can get 10:09.846 --> 10:14.066 up a real debate over this, especially among Africanists, 10:14.065 --> 10:16.905 Brazilianists, Asianists and others, 10:16.907 --> 10:21.457 and it's why slavery is such a hot field in international 10:21.455 --> 10:26.325 history--but the other great slave societies in history where 10:26.328 --> 10:31.038 the whole social structure of those societies was rooted in 10:31.039 --> 10:35.269 slavery, were Ancient Greece and Rome; 10:35.269 --> 10:39.639 certainly Brazil by the eighteenth and nineteenth 10:39.639 --> 10:43.119 century; the whole of Caribbean--the 10:43.115 --> 10:47.575 Great West Indies sugar-producing empires of the 10:47.580 --> 10:50.040 French, the British, 10:50.039 --> 10:56.079 the Dutch, the Spanish, and a few others--and the 10:56.076 --> 11:00.696 American South. Now, there were other localized 11:00.703 --> 11:02.613 slave societies, surely; 11:02.610 --> 11:05.900 certainly within Africa, to a certain degree even before 11:05.895 --> 11:09.355 Europeans arrived and certainly after Europeans arrived, 11:09.360 --> 11:11.790 particularly after the regularization of the Atlantic 11:11.786 --> 11:14.486 slave trade. There were certain localized 11:14.494 --> 11:18.384 slave societies in East Africa, out of Zanzibar by the 11:18.384 --> 11:21.104 eighteenth and nineteenth century. 11:21.100 --> 11:24.820 There were certain localized slave societies in the vast Arab 11:24.821 --> 11:29.721 world, in the Muslim world, well before there was even an 11:29.723 --> 11:33.793 Atlantic slave trade to the Americas. 11:33.789 --> 11:38.429 But the five great slave societies were those five. 11:38.429 --> 11:43.969 All were highly profitable in their primes. 11:43.970 --> 11:51.240 All tended to hinder technological innovation in 11:51.236 --> 11:57.766 those societies. All tended to have a high 11:57.765 --> 12:03.005 slave-to-free ratio of population. 12:03.009 --> 12:07.569 All of those slave societies had a population of slaves that 12:07.568 --> 12:11.588 was from one-quarter to one-half, and sometimes more, 12:11.586 --> 12:13.746 of the total population. 12:13.750 --> 12:21.600 In those slave societies, slaves--as an interest, 12:21.599 --> 12:30.919 as an interest--were both a political and a great economic 12:30.921 --> 12:37.791 institution that defined ways of life. 12:37.790 --> 12:40.880 12:40.879 --> 12:46.659 Now, when exactly did the American South become a slave 12:46.659 --> 12:49.819 society? Is it 1820--the Missouri 12:49.816 --> 12:54.856 Crisis--in that settlement, and at least the beginnings now 12:54.860 --> 12:57.730 of a clarity of its expansion? 12:57.730 --> 13:02.410 Or was it more the 1830s when you've got this booming cotton 13:02.409 --> 13:07.009 production happening finally in Alabama and Mississippi and 13:07.009 --> 13:10.259 Louisiana? Or was it 1840? 13:10.259 --> 13:13.699 Or was it really in the wake of the Mexican War when you get 13:13.704 --> 13:17.324 this massive expansion into the great southwest and the Mexican 13:17.324 --> 13:20.364 Session--which we'll take up actually next week? 13:20.360 --> 13:24.630 That's always open to debate, exactly when the South became a 13:24.631 --> 13:27.481 slave society. But I think it became, 13:27.477 --> 13:31.517 in most ways and in most definitions, a slave society 13:31.515 --> 13:34.305 surely by the 1820s or the 1830s. 13:34.309 --> 13:40.009 Now, one aspect of that slave society then--and I'll focus on 13:40.009 --> 13:45.239 it just at least briefly--is that as Americans ended the 13:45.235 --> 13:50.265 foreign slave trade--and we did in 1808--this is, 13:50.269 --> 13:54.329 this month is the bi-centennial of the legal end of 13:54.326 --> 13:58.296 America's--the United State'--participation in the 13:58.302 --> 14:00.252 foreign slave trade. 14:00.250 --> 14:03.690 Now it didn't entirely end, and there were some South 14:03.691 --> 14:07.201 Carolinians and Georgians who wanted to re-open it, 14:07.200 --> 14:09.690 and a few folks out in Louisiana, who wanted to re-open 14:09.693 --> 14:11.913 it at numerous times in the antebellum period, 14:11.910 --> 14:15.120 especially in the late 1850s. 14:15.120 --> 14:20.900 They were the same people who were always trying to annex 14:20.897 --> 14:22.327 Cuba; about four times over they 14:22.331 --> 14:23.731 tried to annex Cuba, and it's still a bit of mystery 14:23.726 --> 14:24.406 how it never happened. 14:24.409 --> 14:27.979 But as the foreign slave trade was closed off, 14:27.975 --> 14:32.325 for a whole variety of reasons, only one of which was that 14:32.331 --> 14:34.811 there was this passage, sort of a vow, 14:34.808 --> 14:38.418 in the original Constitution that the question would be 14:38.424 --> 14:43.304 re-visited in 20 years, and 1808 was 20 years. 14:43.299 --> 14:47.709 But as the foreign slave trade was cut off the domestic 14:47.710 --> 14:51.060 American slave trade absolutely boomed. 14:51.059 --> 14:54.949 And one of the reasons that the American South could become such 14:54.949 --> 14:58.779 a profitable slave society, one of the reasons that the 14:58.776 --> 15:03.076 cotton boom could be the cotton boom is because one of the 15:03.075 --> 15:06.465 unique features of North American slavery, 15:06.470 --> 15:08.220 U.S. slavery, is or was, 15:08.218 --> 15:12.318 that it was the only slave population in the entire New 15:12.322 --> 15:16.582 World--Brazil managed it now and then but not in the long 15:16.579 --> 15:20.989 run--it's the only slave society in the New World where the 15:20.987 --> 15:24.557 slaves naturally reproduced themselves. 15:24.559 --> 15:28.179 And it has to do with climate, it has to do with sex 15:28.176 --> 15:31.366 ratio--male to female--it has to do with diet, 15:31.367 --> 15:33.847 and it has to do with movement. 15:33.850 --> 15:36.900 15:36.899 --> 15:39.459 If Frederick Jackson Turner had anything right in "The Frontier 15:39.456 --> 15:41.846 Thesis," although he didn't pay hardly any attention to the 15:41.847 --> 15:44.737 South, this idea of a safety valve of 15:44.736 --> 15:48.696 a West to move to was surely there for slavery. 15:48.700 --> 15:51.880 15:51.879 --> 15:55.949 Between 1810 and 1820 alone--this is the decade of the 15:55.948 --> 16:00.398 War of 1812, which caused all kinds of chaos on the Western 16:00.399 --> 16:04.769 frontier--137,000 American slaves were forced to move from 16:04.774 --> 16:09.154 North Carolina or the Chesapeake states to Alabama, 16:09.149 --> 16:12.219 Mississippi, and other western regions. 16:12.220 --> 16:15.240 That's in the one decade of the teens. 16:15.240 --> 16:19.660 Then from 1820 to 1860, the forty years before the war, 16:19.661 --> 16:23.921 an estimated roughly two million American slaves were 16:23.918 --> 16:28.668 sold to satisfy the need of slave labor in the great cotton 16:28.666 --> 16:31.856 kingdom of the growing Southwest. 16:31.860 --> 16:35.350 16:35.350 --> 16:40.820 Now, about roughly two-thirds of those two million slaves 16:40.819 --> 16:47.069 moved from the Eastern seaboard or the Upper South to Alabama, 16:47.070 --> 16:49.220 Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, 16:49.218 --> 16:53.148 et cetera. About two-thirds of those went 16:53.146 --> 16:57.716 by outright sale, by financial speculation, 16:57.719 --> 17:04.249 in now a growing huge American business of the domestic slave 17:04.252 --> 17:06.632 trade. By the 1830s, 17:06.634 --> 17:10.644 1840s, there were over 100 men in Charleston, 17:10.641 --> 17:15.291 South Carolina alone, making their livings full-time 17:15.286 --> 17:17.286 as slave traders. 17:17.289 --> 17:20.659 Their ads were in the newspapers every day. 17:20.660 --> 17:24.200 Many of them owned their own shops and their own--in 17:24.202 --> 17:27.052 effect--jails where they housed people. 17:27.049 --> 17:32.059 Other cities became major ports or places of deportation, 17:32.064 --> 17:34.844 for the domestic slave trade. 17:34.839 --> 17:37.559 Richmond, Virginia, for example, 17:37.555 --> 17:42.805 became a huge slave-trading center by the 1840s and 1850s. 17:42.809 --> 17:47.629 It had two--depending on when you look--to three dozen major 17:47.627 --> 17:49.747 full-time slave traders. 17:49.750 --> 17:53.290 One of the richest was a man named Hector Davis. 17:53.289 --> 17:57.309 Hector Davis owned a two-story slave auction house and jail on 17:57.314 --> 18:01.084 14^(th) and Franklin Streets, just two blocks down the hill 18:01.077 --> 18:04.867 from Thomas Jefferson's glorious capitol building of the State of 18:04.869 --> 18:07.039 Virginia. Just two blocks down the hill 18:07.040 --> 18:09.860 from that great equestrian statue of George Washington, 18:09.859 --> 18:12.969 the Founder, you could find a huge slave 18:12.974 --> 18:15.294 jail owned by Hector Davis. 18:15.289 --> 18:19.519 Hector Davis kept tremendous records, he kept account books, 18:19.523 --> 18:21.033 huge account books. 18:21.029 --> 18:23.749 And one of those account books ended up in the Chicago 18:23.748 --> 18:26.418 Historical Society after the Civil War because it was 18:26.415 --> 18:29.385 confiscated by an Illinois regiment that took it home. 18:29.390 --> 18:32.950 And I worked with that account book, because one of the two 18:32.945 --> 18:36.435 slaves I write about in this new book called A Slave No 18:36.438 --> 18:40.058 More--I publish their two narratives--was indeed a young 18:40.055 --> 18:42.915 14-year-old teenager, sold out of North 18:42.915 --> 18:45.745 Carolina--from Snow Hill, North Carolina, 18:45.752 --> 18:49.372 he was sold in 1860 to Hector Davis in Richmond. 18:49.369 --> 18:52.189 Hector Davis purchased him for $900.00. 18:52.190 --> 18:55.390 For about six months Wallace Turnage worked in Hector Davis's 18:55.386 --> 18:58.686 slave auction house helping organize the auctions every day. 18:58.690 --> 19:00.350 And one day, Wallace was told, 19:00.352 --> 19:02.532 "Today, boy, you're in the auction." 19:02.529 --> 19:05.929 And he was sold for $1000.00 to an Alabama cotton planter who 19:05.926 --> 19:08.696 came up to Richmond twice a year to buy slaves. 19:08.700 --> 19:11.930 And 72 hours by train he found himself on a huge cotton 19:11.927 --> 19:15.837 plantation, near Pickensville, Alabama, on the--in west 19:15.839 --> 19:19.339 central Alabama, on the Mississippi border, 19:19.337 --> 19:20.917 at 14-years-old. 19:20.920 --> 19:24.460 19:24.460 --> 19:26.530 More on Wallace Turnage later in the course. 19:26.529 --> 19:30.349 He'll be sold again, by the way, a third time, 19:30.350 --> 19:33.070 for $2000.00, in Mobile, Alabama, 19:33.067 --> 19:35.527 at the Mobile Slave Jail. 19:35.529 --> 19:39.459 I calculated in Hector Davis's account book that the biggest 19:39.460 --> 19:43.720 week he had--and he had some big weeks--but he had a week in 1859 19:43.724 --> 19:46.904 where he made a cool, approximately, 19:46.896 --> 19:52.166 $120,000.00 in profit, just from selling slaves. 19:52.170 --> 19:56.010 I mean, the equivalent of a healthy teenage male slave, 19:56.009 --> 20:00.059 if you could sell him for $1000.00 in 1860--it's about the 20:00.061 --> 20:03.191 same price of a good Toyota Camry today. 20:03.190 --> 20:08.340 20:08.339 --> 20:11.989 And when I go to the A-1 Toyota for my service or to buy my new 20:11.987 --> 20:15.217 Camry, which I've done every four years for the last two 20:15.223 --> 20:18.023 decades, I don't always think of a slave 20:18.020 --> 20:20.650 market but it does occur to me that--. 20:20.650 --> 20:23.780 [laughter] They just sell those Toyotas, 20:23.782 --> 20:26.352 they tell you, "Here's the price, 20:26.352 --> 20:28.122 we don't bargain." 20:28.120 --> 20:34.440 20:34.440 --> 20:38.820 The South was part of the westward movement. 20:38.819 --> 20:42.499 For slave children--one other little point about this, 20:42.500 --> 20:46.600 so we can get a sense of this system that is now about to be 20:46.596 --> 20:49.856 justified and defended--for slave children, 20:49.859 --> 20:54.149 between 1820 and 1860, living in the Upper South or 20:54.148 --> 20:58.608 the Eastern Seaboard, they had approximately a thirty 20:58.608 --> 21:03.748 percent chance of being sold outright away from their parents 21:03.754 --> 21:06.074 before they were ten. 21:06.070 --> 21:09.870 21:09.869 --> 21:14.459 Now, just to give you a sense of how cold and calculated this 21:14.459 --> 21:17.749 business was, and how in many ways the first 21:17.748 --> 21:21.648 defense or justification of slavery in America is of 21:21.650 --> 21:26.390 course--it certainly is by the late Antebellum Period--it is an 21:26.392 --> 21:29.802 unabashed economic defense, as we'll see. 21:29.800 --> 21:33.510 21:33.509 --> 21:36.649 Ads in newspapers, like this one in Charleston, 21:36.651 --> 21:38.701 would read, "Negroes wanted. 21:38.700 --> 21:43.770 I am paying the highest cash prices for young and likely 21:43.770 --> 21:49.030 Negroes, those having good front teeth and being otherwise 21:49.025 --> 21:52.555 sound." It's all about market forces 21:52.556 --> 21:57.046 and the health and the condition of your product. 21:57.049 --> 21:59.189 Probably the best book written on this, particularly on the 21:59.190 --> 22:00.630 language of the domestic slave trade, 22:00.630 --> 22:03.980 is Walter Johnson's book called Soul by Soul, 22:03.976 --> 22:08.036 a book--I highly recommend you read it sometime in your reading 22:08.043 --> 22:10.573 lives. But it's amazing to read the 22:10.574 --> 22:14.524 letters and the language of slave traders when they write to 22:14.522 --> 22:17.002 each other, the complacency, 22:17.002 --> 22:22.302 the mixture of just pure racism on the one hand and just 22:22.303 --> 22:25.583 business language on the other. 22:25.579 --> 22:30.839 "I refused a girl 20-years-old at $700.00 yesterday," one 22:30.844 --> 22:34.044 trader wrote to another in 1853. 22:34.039 --> 22:37.859 "If you think best to take her at 700, I can still get her. 22:37.859 --> 22:40.629 She is very badly whipped but has good teeth." 22:40.630 --> 22:44.140 22:44.140 --> 22:47.490 "Bought a cook yesterday," wrote another trader, 22:47.492 --> 22:51.702 "Bought a cook yesterday that was to go out of the state. 22:51.700 --> 22:56.850 She just made the people mad, that was all." 22:56.849 --> 23:01.639 "I have bought a boy named Isaac," wrote another trader, 23:01.639 --> 23:05.849 "for $1100.00." He writes this in 1854 to his 23:05.852 --> 23:08.812 partner. "Bought a boy named Isaac. 23:08.810 --> 23:12.180 I think him very prime. 23:12.180 --> 23:15.230 He is a house-servant, first-rate cook, 23:15.231 --> 23:17.721 and splendid carriage driver. 23:17.720 --> 23:22.530 He is also a fine painter and varnisher, and says he can make 23:22.527 --> 23:24.127 a fine panel door. 23:24.130 --> 23:28.450 Also, he performs well on the violin. 23:28.450 --> 23:31.700 He is a genius. And strange to say, 23:31.695 --> 23:34.185 I think he's smarter than I am." 23:34.190 --> 23:42.650 23:42.650 --> 23:48.510 Truth always creeps through all of our language--it doesn't 23:48.507 --> 23:53.457 always but sometimes--creeps through our language, 23:53.455 --> 23:58.165 doesn't it? Now, how is slavery defended? 23:58.170 --> 24:04.090 24:04.090 --> 24:06.770 In many ways, to say the least. 24:06.769 --> 24:11.659 But I want to give you at least some sense of the development of 24:11.663 --> 24:15.623 the pro-slavery argument, the kinds of arguments that 24:15.623 --> 24:19.973 were used, how they changed over time, who made the arguments. 24:19.970 --> 24:23.120 24:23.119 --> 24:27.549 Now, the best way to begin to understand pro-slavery ideology, 24:27.548 --> 24:31.468 whether we're in the early period of its defense in the 24:31.468 --> 24:34.848 1820s--actually, a quite virulent defense of 24:34.847 --> 24:38.347 slavery begins early, it isn't something that just 24:38.345 --> 24:43.195 sprung from Southern pens in the 1850s during all this expansion, 24:43.200 --> 24:44.650 it comes very early. 24:44.650 --> 24:49.050 But a framework in which to understand it is that 24:49.049 --> 24:52.529 pro-slavery ideology was, at its heart, 24:52.532 --> 24:57.392 a kind of deeply conservative, organic worldview. 24:57.390 --> 25:01.180 And by that I mean a Burkean conservatism, 25:01.182 --> 25:06.642 a set of beliefs that says the world is ordered as it is, 25:06.640 --> 25:12.100 for reasons, and that human beings ought not 25:12.099 --> 25:16.669 tinker with that order, very much. 25:16.670 --> 25:22.850 It was a set of beliefs in the sustenance of a social order as 25:22.849 --> 25:25.789 it is. It was a belief in a 25:25.792 --> 25:30.382 hierarchical conception of not only society, 25:30.377 --> 25:34.937 but of people. That people were conceived, 25:34.935 --> 25:39.815 whether by nature or by God or even by evolution, 25:39.816 --> 25:45.196 with a certain order to them; some born to do this and some 25:45.198 --> 25:48.278 born to do that and some born to do that. 25:48.279 --> 25:50.889 It's an organic conception of the world. 25:50.890 --> 25:54.270 It just is the way it is. 25:54.270 --> 25:58.450 It's natural. Remember back to Alexander H. 25:58.450 --> 26:03.770 Steven's cornerstone quote -- he uses the word "natural" twice 26:03.772 --> 26:06.852 in that passage. This worldview had, 26:06.853 --> 26:09.853 of course, an obsession with stability. 26:09.849 --> 26:13.789 It's one of the reasons white Southerners didn't like 26:13.790 --> 26:15.640 reformers. It's one of the reasons 26:15.637 --> 26:16.817 Abolitionists are dangerous. 26:16.819 --> 26:18.189 What are Abolitionists calling for? 26:18.190 --> 26:22.460 Upsetting the social order. 26:22.460 --> 26:26.550 They're offering a critique of the social order, 26:26.552 --> 26:31.952 and they even have the audacity to talk about good and evil. 26:31.950 --> 26:36.790 It's a worldview often obsessed, as we said last time, 26:36.793 --> 26:39.813 with notions of honor and duty. 26:39.809 --> 26:44.979 And it's a worldview deeply rooted in the idea or respect 26:44.982 --> 26:51.452 for tradition; tradition and social control. 26:51.450 --> 26:54.070 In this worldview, institutions--human 26:54.073 --> 26:58.543 institutions--evolve only slowly over time and cannot be altered 26:58.539 --> 27:00.949 by abrupt human interventions. 27:00.950 --> 27:05.800 It's dangerous to abruptly intervene in the evolution of 27:05.798 --> 27:07.648 human institutions. 27:07.650 --> 27:12.080 Now, think what's at stake here in this worldview, 27:12.078 --> 27:16.148 especially as we transition next Thursday to a 27:16.145 --> 27:19.935 developing--though by no means unanimous or 27:19.941 --> 27:25.181 homogenous--northern worldview in which reform impulses get 27:25.183 --> 27:26.723 embedded. 27:26.720 --> 27:29.760 27:29.759 --> 27:34.239 White Southern defenders of slavery were--to some 27:34.241 --> 27:38.351 extent--like other Americans--products of the 27:38.349 --> 27:42.479 Enlightenment. Some of them come to really 27:42.482 --> 27:44.482 believe in intellect. 27:44.480 --> 27:48.100 They really do come to believe in the power of reason, 27:48.098 --> 27:51.168 of human beings to figure out the universe. 27:51.170 --> 27:54.360 But to figure it out in different ways. 27:54.359 --> 27:58.409 You can be a product of the Enlightenment and still be 27:58.409 --> 28:00.089 deeply conservative. 28:00.089 --> 28:03.049 You can be a product of the Enlightenment, 28:03.046 --> 28:06.796 with a faith in reason, and not become a Romantic who 28:06.795 --> 28:10.395 begins to believe in the possibilities of man, 28:10.400 --> 28:14.660 or even the perfectibility of man. 28:14.660 --> 28:21.050 Conservativism--deep organic forms of Conservativism--is not 28:21.045 --> 28:24.615 antithetical to the Enlightenment, 28:24.616 --> 28:27.426 at least not entirely. 28:27.430 --> 28:33.010 Although pro-slavery writers will become deeply contemptuous 28:33.007 --> 28:38.867 of Natural Law--of Natural Law doctrine as it can be applied to 28:38.868 --> 28:41.608 the possibilities of man. 28:41.610 --> 28:44.770 28:44.769 --> 28:48.319 Many of them will argue, therefore, that ideas like 28:48.322 --> 28:50.882 freedom--and that idea of liberty, 28:50.880 --> 28:54.100 so much at stake in the age of the American Revolution and 28:54.097 --> 28:57.557 falling off everybody's tongue, and eventually falling off 28:57.555 --> 29:01.355 their tongues and off their pens as well, what they're fighting 29:01.360 --> 29:03.570 for by 1861 were their liberties, 29:03.569 --> 29:06.849 they said, over and over and over and over again. 29:06.849 --> 29:10.819 But in their worldview, the pro-slavery worldview, 29:10.823 --> 29:15.773 ideas like freedom and liberty were simply never absolutes, 29:15.769 --> 29:19.219 and many of them will directly reverse Thomas Jefferson's 29:19.224 --> 29:22.004 Declaration of Independence and simply say, 29:22.000 --> 29:24.730 "Nobody is born equal." 29:24.730 --> 29:27.940 29:27.940 --> 29:31.860 They will argue over and over and over again--some of them 29:31.862 --> 29:35.652 almost in a feudalistic way--that freedom must always be 29:35.648 --> 29:40.398 balanced with order, and that order is rooted in 29:40.403 --> 29:45.463 certain kinds of prescribed stations in life, 29:45.461 --> 29:49.831 for the various statuses of humans. 29:49.830 --> 29:52.960 29:52.960 --> 29:57.460 Or freedom, they will argue, must be balanced with 29:57.458 --> 30:00.748 tradition. The possibilities of freedom 30:00.746 --> 30:05.116 must always, in their view, be balanced with the world as 30:05.120 --> 30:07.620 it as--not as it ought to be. 30:07.619 --> 30:11.399 They are, therefore, going to have an extremely 30:11.402 --> 30:16.172 different point of view--from at least Abolitionists in the 30:16.172 --> 30:19.382 North--on this concept of equality. 30:19.380 --> 30:23.100 Although a lot of Abolitionists had their struggles with this 30:23.099 --> 30:26.299 one too. Southern pro-slavery defenders 30:26.300 --> 30:30.170 are much more likely to stress a human's duty, 30:30.171 --> 30:34.301 than they're ever to stress a human's rights. 30:34.300 --> 30:37.350 30:37.349 --> 30:41.509 They believed the world was made up of a struggle between 30:41.506 --> 30:44.026 human autonomy, on the one hand, 30:44.029 --> 30:48.019 and human dependency on the other, and you should never give 30:48.017 --> 30:49.637 up on that dependency. 30:49.640 --> 30:52.910 30:52.910 --> 30:56.960 As early as 1826 an important pro-slavery writer named Edward 30:56.956 --> 31:00.546 Brown argued that "Slavery," he said, quote: 31:00.549 --> 31:06.309 "had ever been the stepping ladder by which nations have 31:06.305 --> 31:10.695 passed from barbarism to civilization." 31:10.700 --> 31:14.470 There you have the roots and the kernel of the so-called 31:14.473 --> 31:17.153 "positive good thesis" about slavery. 31:17.150 --> 31:21.060 That slavery was a way in which you sustained a social order, 31:21.056 --> 31:23.526 a way in which you built an economy, 31:23.529 --> 31:29.689 a way in which you maximized the possibilities of those who 31:29.685 --> 31:36.685 deserved it, by using those who did not deserve the same fruits. 31:36.690 --> 31:43.690 31:43.690 --> 31:46.750 Pro-slavery writers, you have to understand, 31:46.745 --> 31:50.155 had also a really often a fundamentally different 31:50.155 --> 31:55.295 conception of history itself, or of how history happens, 31:55.298 --> 32:00.248 than will many eventually northern anti-slavery 32:00.250 --> 32:04.550 writers--even, eventually, the political 32:04.547 --> 32:08.687 anti-slavery folks like an Abraham Lincoln, 32:08.692 --> 32:13.532 who was never a real abolitionist but did at least 32:13.527 --> 32:17.867 grow up with anti-slavery in his heart. 32:17.869 --> 32:20.479 Thomas R. Dew, a very important 32:20.481 --> 32:24.661 pro-slavery writer, who wrote a whole book in the 32:24.660 --> 32:29.800 wake of the state of Virginia's debates in 1831 and '32 over 32:29.796 --> 32:33.536 whether to re-write its Constitution. 32:33.539 --> 32:38.439 And they squarely faced the question of a gradual abolition 32:38.440 --> 32:42.580 plan for the state of Virginia in 1831 and '32. 32:42.579 --> 32:44.859 They had been planning to rewrite their Constitution--an 32:44.858 --> 32:46.928 extraordinary turning point in Southern history. 32:46.930 --> 32:48.450 The problem was, of course, Nat Turner's 32:48.446 --> 32:51.336 Insurrection; it had just occurred in October 32:51.340 --> 32:55.440 of 1831 and they held these debates in the wake of it. 32:55.440 --> 32:58.890 And Dew wrote a forceful defense of slavery in the wake 32:58.894 --> 33:02.604 of this, which became kind of a seminal text for all future 33:02.604 --> 33:04.144 pro-slavery writers. 33:04.140 --> 33:08.090 Among the many things he said, and that was the simple sense 33:08.087 --> 33:09.757 of how history happens. 33:09.759 --> 33:14.289 "There is a time for all things," wrote Dew, 33:14.287 --> 33:20.707 "and nothing in this world should be done before its time." 33:20.710 --> 33:23.820 Now, what would you do if your parents told you that? 33:23.820 --> 33:26.820 They probably have. 33:26.819 --> 33:29.339 What would you do if your professors told you that all the 33:29.340 --> 33:32.600 time? "Stop trying to change things. 33:32.599 --> 33:35.059 Nothing will change before its time." 33:35.060 --> 33:38.640 33:38.640 --> 33:42.630 You'd probably get bored, or angry. 33:42.630 --> 33:45.590 Or who knows? Maybe you would just agree. 33:45.590 --> 33:48.750 I don't know. Youth are supposed to be 33:48.753 --> 33:49.533 impatient. 33:49.530 --> 33:54.990 33:54.990 --> 34:02.560 Now, there are many ways to look at pro-slavery. 34:02.559 --> 34:07.079 Deep, deep in the pro-slavery argument--I'm going to give you 34:07.083 --> 34:11.613 categories here to hang your hats on--deep in the pro-slavery 34:11.606 --> 34:14.316 argument is a biblical argument. 34:14.320 --> 34:17.590 Almost all pro-slavery writers at one point or another will dip 34:17.591 --> 34:20.411 into the Old Testament, or dip into the New 34:20.413 --> 34:25.083 Testament--they especially would dip to the Old--to show how 34:25.083 --> 34:29.123 slavery is an ancient and venerable institution. 34:29.119 --> 34:32.539 Its venerability was its own argument, some said. 34:32.540 --> 34:33.430 It's always been around. 34:33.430 --> 34:35.580 Every civilization has had it. 34:35.579 --> 34:39.479 All those biblical societies had it. 34:39.480 --> 34:42.860 You can read Jeremiah and Isaiah and some of the great Old 34:42.855 --> 34:46.285 Testament prophets in some ways as defenders of slavery. 34:46.289 --> 34:52.909 You can therefore assume it was divinely sanctioned. 34:52.909 --> 34:58.849 You can also look in the New Testament for examples of it, 34:58.852 --> 35:01.252 justifications of it. 35:01.250 --> 35:04.550 "Slaves, be honorable, be dutiful"--be obedient is 35:04.554 --> 35:07.454 usually the word in the King James--"Slaves, 35:07.454 --> 35:09.684 be obedient to your masters." 35:09.679 --> 35:13.469 Slavery is all over the Bible, in one way or another. 35:13.469 --> 35:17.139 The Bible, of course, can breathe anti-slavery into a 35:17.142 --> 35:21.382 situation and it can breathe pro-slavery into a situation. 35:21.380 --> 35:24.910 A second kind of set of arguments, I've already referred 35:24.912 --> 35:26.842 to, are the historical ones. 35:26.840 --> 35:31.390 Here it is not just the venerability of slavery, 35:31.386 --> 35:35.546 how old it is, but it's the idea that it has 35:35.545 --> 35:41.635 been crucial to the development of all great civilizations. 35:41.639 --> 35:46.429 That slavery may have its bad aspects but it has been the 35:46.431 --> 35:49.851 engine of good, it has been the engine of 35:49.853 --> 35:52.333 empires, the engine of wealth, 35:52.331 --> 35:54.061 the engine of greatness. 35:54.060 --> 35:55.930 How would you have had Cicero? 35:55.929 --> 36:00.959 How would you have had the great Roman philosophers and 36:00.956 --> 36:04.016 thinkers? How would you have had the 36:04.017 --> 36:07.227 great Greek playwrights, they would argue, 36:07.230 --> 36:11.070 without the system, the world the Greeks were able 36:11.070 --> 36:13.500 to create with the Helots? 36:13.500 --> 36:17.380 That at the base of all societies there has to be a 36:17.384 --> 36:21.894 labor system that will support the possibility of Plato. 36:21.890 --> 36:26.010 36:26.010 --> 36:30.770 Pro-slavery ideology is also part of--at the same time it's 36:30.766 --> 36:34.776 resistant to--the greatest product arguably of the 36:34.784 --> 36:38.444 Enlightenment, and that is the idea of natural 36:38.437 --> 36:40.617 rights; natural law, 36:40.623 --> 36:44.823 natural rights, rights by birth, 36:44.818 --> 36:50.098 rights from God, being born with certain 36:50.095 --> 36:54.815 capacities. Now pro-slavery writers were 36:54.815 --> 37:00.285 inspired by this to some extent, but many of them will simply 37:00.292 --> 37:04.022 convert it. They will convert it--they'll 37:04.017 --> 37:08.577 take portions of John Locke that they like, and not the 37:08.576 --> 37:13.976 others--and they'll say the real rule of the world is not natural 37:13.978 --> 37:16.668 equality, but it is natural inequality. 37:16.670 --> 37:19.850 37:19.849 --> 37:24.569 Humans are not all born the same, with the same capacities, 37:24.572 --> 37:25.552 abilities. 37:25.550 --> 37:30.450 37:30.449 --> 37:37.519 Now, then there's a whole array of economic arguments, 37:37.518 --> 37:43.118 and the cynic, the economic determinist, 37:43.119 --> 37:47.319 simply goes to the economic conclusions of pro-slavery and 37:47.315 --> 37:48.415 nowhere else. 37:48.420 --> 37:52.030 37:52.030 --> 37:57.180 One of the greatest of these writers was James Henry Hammond, 37:57.180 --> 38:01.640 a South Carolina planter who had plenty of mixed-race 38:01.644 --> 38:04.854 children. He was in some ways the epitome 38:04.846 --> 38:07.266 of the kind of cynical pro-slavery. 38:07.269 --> 38:11.659 In the end of the day, he wasn't bothered by morality. 38:11.659 --> 38:16.859 His argument for slavery was that ultimately it was amoral. 38:16.860 --> 38:21.500 But at the end of the day, he also essentially made a 38:21.500 --> 38:26.230 property argument or a property defense of slavery. 38:26.230 --> 38:29.220 He wrote, among other things, "The means therefore, 38:29.217 --> 38:32.637 whatever they may have been, by which the African race, 38:32.638 --> 38:35.768 now in this county, have been reduced to slavery, 38:35.769 --> 38:40.079 cannot affect us since they are our property, 38:40.083 --> 38:46.093 as your land is your property, by inheritance or purchase and 38:46.088 --> 38:47.998 prescriptive right. 38:48.000 --> 38:52.090 You will say that man cannot hold property in man. 38:52.090 --> 38:55.770 The answer is that he can, and actually does, 38:55.768 --> 38:59.698 hold property in his fellow, all over the world, 38:59.696 --> 39:03.956 in a variety of forms, and has always done so." 39:03.960 --> 39:06.900 Thank you very much, said Henry Hammond, 39:06.904 --> 39:10.004 don't talk to me about property in man. 39:10.000 --> 39:13.630 39:13.630 --> 39:16.740 Oh, some would get guilty. 39:16.740 --> 39:21.200 Indeed they did. Some would get worried and they 39:21.195 --> 39:24.755 would discuss slavery as a necessary evil--this system 39:24.760 --> 39:26.240 entailed upon them. 39:26.239 --> 39:28.059 God, they wished they were without it. 39:28.059 --> 39:30.199 And some of them, frankly folks, 39:30.204 --> 39:32.284 were deeply sincere in that. 39:32.280 --> 39:36.220 One of the most famous and one of the most prolific was a man 39:36.223 --> 39:40.103 named Charles Colcott Jones who owned a huge rice and partly 39:40.101 --> 39:43.521 cotton plantation system in low-country Georgia, 39:43.520 --> 39:45.950 just south of Savannah. 39:45.949 --> 39:50.149 He and his family wrote literally thousands upon 39:50.146 --> 39:52.196 thousands of letters. 39:52.199 --> 39:55.189 those family letters have been published in a book called 39:55.193 --> 39:58.343 The Children of Pride, and a brilliant book has been 39:58.340 --> 40:01.480 written about Colcott Jones and his extended family by Erskine 40:01.475 --> 40:03.475 Clarke called Dwelling Place. 40:03.480 --> 40:05.600 But one of the fascinating things about Charles Colcott 40:05.601 --> 40:07.371 Jones--born in the late eighteenth century, 40:07.369 --> 40:12.239 rises to adulthood by the teens, 1820s--is he's a classic 40:12.237 --> 40:16.407 example of a highly educated Southern planter. 40:16.410 --> 40:19.820 He came North. He was educated in Theology at 40:19.824 --> 40:23.214 Yale for awhile. He was really affected by it. 40:23.210 --> 40:26.630 And then he went up to Andover Theological Academy and he 40:26.626 --> 40:30.096 taught there and he was affected even more, by New England 40:30.103 --> 40:32.923 theologians. And he began to write back, 40:36.674 --> 40:41.114 Mary, and he was really worried about all the slaves he owned. 40:41.110 --> 40:43.110 And he writes, for example, 40:43.111 --> 40:47.041 to Mary: "I am moreover undecided whether I ought to 40:47.037 --> 40:49.267 continue to hold slaves." 40:49.270 --> 40:50.830 He underlines hold slaves. 40:50.829 --> 40:54.039 "As to the principle of slavery it is wrong. 40:54.039 --> 40:56.409 It is unjust, contrary to nature and 40:56.407 --> 40:58.637 religion, to hold men enslaved. 40:58.639 --> 41:01.519 But the question is, in my present circumstances, 41:01.519 --> 41:04.459 with evil on my hands, entailed from my father, 41:04.460 --> 41:08.170 would the general interest of the slaves and community at 41:08.171 --> 41:10.691 large, with reference to the slaves, 41:10.690 --> 41:14.950 be promoted best by emancipation? 41:14.949 --> 41:19.769 Could I do more for the ultimate good of the slave 41:19.766 --> 41:24.776 population by holding or emancipating what I own? 41:24.780 --> 41:31.320 I know not very particularly how you feel on this point." 41:31.320 --> 41:32.890 And there are many letters like that. 41:32.889 --> 41:37.299 He and his wife Mary write back and forth about how evil slavery 41:37.300 --> 41:40.200 is. But in the end Colcott Jones 41:40.197 --> 41:46.107 becomes a classic example of the guilty pro-slavery slaveholder. 41:46.110 --> 41:49.030 He doesn't know how to free them. 41:49.030 --> 41:53.410 He doesn't know how to go to emancipation. 41:53.409 --> 41:59.459 Instead he develops a highly intricate theory of how he's 41:59.458 --> 42:04.208 going to use slavery to save black people. 42:04.210 --> 42:07.580 He's going to ameliorate their conditions, he's going to make 42:07.576 --> 42:10.266 their slavery on his plantations so effective, 42:10.269 --> 42:14.439 so good, such a even joyous form of labor, 42:14.437 --> 42:20.127 that he will be doing God's work by improving slavery. 42:20.130 --> 42:24.310 42:24.309 --> 42:29.469 It's a genuinely tragic sort of story in his case. 42:29.469 --> 42:32.779 There are plenty of pro-slavery writers who also, 42:32.776 --> 42:35.876 to some extent, whether out of guilt or out of 42:35.875 --> 42:38.875 awareness, saw slavery as wrong, 42:38.880 --> 42:44.520 but they saw it as a problem more for white people than for 42:44.515 --> 42:48.195 black people. Their concern was not the 42:48.201 --> 42:52.721 conditions of blacks but what slavery did to whites; 42:52.719 --> 42:57.389 and usually they ended up in the same situation as Colcott 42:57.393 --> 43:00.393 Jones. There are many pro-slavery 43:00.388 --> 43:04.608 writers who developed, like James Henry Hammond, 43:04.614 --> 43:09.834 what I would call the cynical or amoral form of pro-slavery 43:09.830 --> 43:12.620 argument; and this is a potent form of 43:12.616 --> 43:14.466 argument when you think about it. 43:14.470 --> 43:19.490 43:19.489 --> 43:24.539 One of them was a writer named William Harper who wrote a book 43:24.535 --> 43:28.335 called Memoir Slavery in 1837 or '38. 43:28.340 --> 43:31.650 It's an oft quoted work of pro-slavery writing. 43:31.650 --> 43:34.530 This is just one little passage. 43:34.530 --> 43:38.620 This is this kind of cynical, if you want, 43:38.623 --> 43:40.723 defense of slavery. 43:40.720 --> 43:44.560 It is what it is, deal with it. 43:44.559 --> 43:49.539 He wrote, "Man is born to subjection. 43:49.539 --> 43:53.379 The condition of our whole existence is but to struggle 43:53.378 --> 43:57.758 with evil, to compare them, to choose between them, 43:57.760 --> 44:01.490 evils that is, and so far as we can to 44:01.494 --> 44:06.014 mitigate them. To say that there is evil in 44:06.013 --> 44:12.423 any institution is only to say that it is a human institution." 44:12.420 --> 44:15.660 And Harper's writing in the thir--James Henry Hammond starts 44:15.656 --> 44:19.106 writing in the forties and into the fifties and he takes it much 44:19.111 --> 44:21.651 further, and he writes over and over and 44:21.646 --> 44:24.426 over again that, "The only problem with slavery 44:24.431 --> 44:26.601 in America," said James Henry Hammond, 44:26.600 --> 44:29.270 is that too damn many northerners didn't understand it 44:29.274 --> 44:31.094 is the way of the world as it is, 44:31.090 --> 44:34.230 and they ought to stop talking about the world as it ought to 44:34.228 --> 44:36.888 be. And Hammond even aggressively, 44:36.885 --> 44:39.755 directly, took on Thomas Jefferson. 44:39.760 --> 44:43.750 I'm sorry, Harper did, even before him. 44:43.750 --> 44:47.570 Here's Harper on Jefferson: "It is not the first time that 44:47.567 --> 44:51.447 I have had occasion to observe that men may repeat with the 44:51.452 --> 44:54.942 utmost confidence some maxim or sentimental phrase as 44:54.935 --> 44:58.615 'self-evident' or 'admitted truth', 44:58.619 --> 45:02.909 which is either palpably false or to which upon examination it 45:02.906 --> 45:06.416 will be found that they attach no definite idea. 45:06.420 --> 45:09.870 Notwithstanding our respect for the important document which 45:09.871 --> 45:13.711 declared our independence, yet if anything be found in it, 45:13.707 --> 45:17.957 and especially in what may be regarded rather as its ornament 45:17.960 --> 45:21.420 than its substance, false, sophistical and 45:21.419 --> 45:26.509 unmeaning, that respect should not screen it from the freest 45:26.514 --> 45:30.614 examination. All men are born free and 45:30.610 --> 45:34.980 equal?"--he says with a question mark. 45:34.980 --> 45:39.990 "Is it not palpably nearer the truth to say that no man was 45:39.985 --> 45:44.985 ever born free and that no two men were ever born equal? 45:44.989 --> 45:49.459 Man is born in a state of the most helpless dependence on 45:49.462 --> 45:50.742 other people." 45:50.740 --> 45:55.820 45:55.820 --> 46:00.360 And then there's the whole vast category of racial defense and 46:00.360 --> 46:02.370 justification of slavery. 46:02.369 --> 46:05.309 At the end of the day that's where Alexander H. 46:05.311 --> 46:08.121 Stephens went, with his Cornerstone Speech in 46:08.124 --> 46:10.824 1861. That's where all of them went 46:10.816 --> 46:14.316 at one point or another, some less than others. 46:14.320 --> 46:17.990 Probably the most prominent pro-slavery writer to make the 46:17.992 --> 46:21.282 racial case--and they all did--but probably the most 46:21.279 --> 46:23.469 prominent was George Fitzhugh. 46:23.469 --> 46:25.859 In a book called Sociology of the South--he's also the 46:25.862 --> 46:28.102 same George Fitzhugh who wrote a book called Cannibals 46:28.096 --> 46:30.086 All--but in Sociology of the South, 46:30.090 --> 46:36.350 his famous pro-slavery tract in 1854, he wrote this: 46:36.350 --> 46:42.240 "The Negro," he said, "is but a grownup child and 46:42.242 --> 46:46.172 must be governed as a child. 46:46.170 --> 46:52.020 The master occupies toward him the place of parent or guardian. 46:52.019 --> 46:57.929 Like a wild horse he must be caught, tamed and domesticated. 46:57.929 --> 47:01.719 We find slavery repeatedly instituted by God or by men 47:01.715 --> 47:04.925 acting under his immediate care and direction, 47:04.929 --> 47:07.999 as in the instance of Moses and Joshua. 47:08.000 --> 47:12.200 Nowhere in the Old or New Testament do we find the 47:12.199 --> 47:16.569 institution condemned, but frequently recognized and 47:16.570 --> 47:19.870 enforced." And probably his most famous 47:19.866 --> 47:23.606 line, "Men are not born entitled to equal rights. 47:23.610 --> 47:28.550 It would be far nearer the truth to say that some are born 47:28.548 --> 47:33.658 with saddles on their backs and others booted and spurred to 47:33.660 --> 47:37.930 ride them." And lastly, there was a kind of 47:37.934 --> 47:39.954 utopian pro-slavery. 47:39.949 --> 47:44.579 It was best exemplified by a writer in Mississippi named 47:44.577 --> 47:48.617 Henry Hughes. Henry Hughes was one strange 47:48.623 --> 47:51.323 duck. He lived in New Orleans, 47:51.317 --> 47:53.587 he was eccentric as hell. 47:53.590 --> 47:56.380 He wrote an amazing diary. 47:56.380 --> 48:00.790 He was a loner. He urged revival of the 48:00.791 --> 48:05.971 slave-trade in the late 1850s, and he developed a theory of 48:05.965 --> 48:11.045 what he called warranteeism--w- a-r-r-a-n-t-e-e-i-s-m. 48:11.050 --> 48:14.570 He said slaves were not slaves they were warranties. 48:14.570 --> 48:19.760 What he meant was they were the charges put in the world for 48:19.763 --> 48:23.373 slaveholders to care for, and if possible, 48:23.373 --> 48:26.193 even to protect and perfect. 48:26.190 --> 48:29.140 He believed in a strong central state, which was a real 48:29.138 --> 48:32.468 departure for him from the rest of the pro-slavery writers. 48:32.469 --> 48:35.519 He wanted a strong central government to regulate 48:35.515 --> 48:40.855 everything. He wanted huge taxation. 48:40.860 --> 48:45.840 He wanted to build institutions that would be used for the sole 48:45.835 --> 48:50.485 purpose of perfecting the slave into the perfect worker. 48:50.490 --> 48:53.580 He was a bit of a mad scientist. 48:53.579 --> 48:57.999 And he was especially obsessed with racial purity. 48:58.000 --> 49:01.600 His writings are just replete with his fears about hygiene, 49:01.595 --> 49:05.435 that if white and black people touched or if they came together 49:05.438 --> 49:07.358 the whites would be soiled, 49:07.360 --> 49:11.010 49:11.010 --> 49:13.930 and that any kind of intermixing of the races was to 49:13.933 --> 49:15.943 destroy ultimately the intellect, 49:15.940 --> 49:18.450 the ability, the capacity of a master race. 49:18.450 --> 49:22.360 49:22.360 --> 49:27.110 He wasn't that widely read, I must admit, 49:27.111 --> 49:34.001 but it shows us how far pro-slavery could ultimately go. 49:34.000 --> 49:40.210 In Hughes's vision and Hughes's worldview slavery was not only a 49:40.208 --> 49:45.428 positive good--it was the possibility of man finding a 49:45.431 --> 49:49.891 perfected society, with the perfect landowners 49:49.885 --> 49:54.875 fulfilling their obligations, supported by a government that 49:54.879 --> 49:58.179 taxed the hell out of them to do it, 49:58.179 --> 50:05.039 and perfect workers, would make the South into the 50:05.039 --> 50:11.619 agricultural utopian civilization of history. 50:11.619 --> 50:14.889 Now, the clock says I've run out of time. 50:14.890 --> 50:16.720 Let me just leave you with this. 50:16.719 --> 50:22.289 All of that is a way of simply saying it was a deep and abiding 50:22.287 --> 50:27.407 and well-rehearsed--indeed thousands of pages were written 50:27.405 --> 50:29.735 in defense of slavery. 50:29.739 --> 50:35.069 It wasn't just a profitable financial institution. 50:35.070 --> 50:39.370 And if you want to understand why so many white Southerners, 50:39.370 --> 50:44.420 especially in the Deep South, went to such great extents to 50:44.419 --> 50:49.809 save their slave society, remember the kinds of arguments 50:49.805 --> 50:53.455 and language used by its defenders. 50:53.460 --> 50:58.930 Thursday we'll take up the North and the critique of this 50:58.926 --> 50:59.996 ideology.