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| George Fitzhugh |
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| James Henry Hammond |
James Henry Hammond and George
Fitzhugh were two Caucasian, American, educated men of the 1800’s who were very
much in favor of slavery. James
Henry Hammond was born and died in South Carolina. He practiced law in South Carolina, and was the state governor
from 1842-1844. In 1857, Hammond
was elected as a democrat to the United States Senate where he served until
1860. Hammond was also a wealthy
southern plantation owner. [i]In a speech
given to the United States Senate on March 4, 1958, Hammond proposed his
“mudsill theory”, “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…Such a class
you must have, or you would not have that other class which leads progress,
civilization, and refinement…We use them for our purpose, and call them
slaves…Our slaves are black, of another and inferior race.”[ii] Hammond’s racial argument was typical
of many white men of the antebellum; white men were biologically superior to
men of color, especially the African Americans.
Another staunch
supporter of slavery, lawyer George Fitzhugh, was a small plantation owner,
best known for two pro-slavery books he authored. In addition to his above
arguments, he justified slavery in terms of being better for slaves than that
in Africa,” We would remind those who deprecate and sympathize with negro
slavery, that his slavery here 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.” [iii] Slavery in
Africa was brutal, but surely it was brutal in the southern plantations as
well. Fitzhugh not only considered the black man inferior, but lazy as well, ”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 chaos of free competition.”[iv]
The black slaves were so busy working on the plantations, that they had no
time, and were given no opportunities of education. It was convenient for slave owners to assume that they were
biologically superior to the black slaves in order to protect their fortunes,
and to justify the system of slavery. Fredrick Douglass was an example of that
time that blacks were not biologically, innately inferior to whites. Douglass was born into slavery but
taught himself to read and write.
In 1838, he borrowed the papers of a black sailor and escaped to the
north; he became the most influential black of the nineteenth century.[v]
Even free blacks of the antebellum were not afforded
the opportunities to prove their equality as Foner points out, ”Barred from
schools and other public facilities, free blacks laboriously constructed their
own institutional life, centered on mutual aid and educational societies, as
well as independent churches, most notably the African Methodist Episcopal
Church…White employers refused to hire them in anything but menial positions,
and white customers did not wish to be served by them. The result was a rapid
decline in economic status, until by mid-century, the vast majority of northern
blacks labored for wages in unskilled jobs and as domestic servants.” [vi]
In addressing the difference between the free blacks of the north and the
slaves of the south, Hammond had this argument,” 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.”[vii] Agreeing with
Hammond, George Fitzhugh had this to say, ”The negro slaves of the South are
the happiest, and, in some sense, the freest people in the world. The children
and the aged and infirm work not at all, and yet have all the comforts and
necessaries of life provided for them. They enjoy liberty, because they are
oppressed neither by care nor labor. The women do little hard work, and are
protected from the despotism of their husbands by their masters.”[viii]
It is well known that many plantation owners abused their
slaves, often raping the women; many considered them as property to be used as
they pleased. Moses Grandy, a fugitive slave reports,” ...We had to work, even
in long summer days, till twelve o'clock, before we tasted a morsel, men,
women, and children all being served alike… Our drink was the water in the
ditches... One black man is kept on purpose to whip the others in the field;
and if he does not flog with sufficient severity, he is flogged himself… There
are men who make a trade of whipping negroes; they ride about inquiring for
jobs of persons who keep no overseer; if there is a negro to be whipped,
whether man or woman, this man is employed when he calls, and does it
immediately; his fee is half a dollar. Widows and other females, having
negroes, get them whipped this way. Many mistresses will insist on the slave
who has been flogged begging pardon for her fault on her knees, and thanking
her for the correction.”[ix] Black
feminist, Michelle Wallace confirms,” She (black slave) was labeled sexually
promiscuous because it was imperative that her womb supply the labor force. The
father might be her master, a neighboring white man, the overseer, a slave
assigned to her by her master; her marriage was not recognized by law.”[x]
It is almost impossible for us in this period of
history to relate to the proslavery arguments of Fitzhugh and Hammond. “As the
sectional controversy intensified after 1830, a number of southern writers and
politicians came to defend slavery less as the basis of equality for whites
than as the foundation of an organic, hierarchical society. Many southern clergymen, in the course
of offering a religious defense of slavery, argued that inequality and hence
the submission of inferior to superior—black to white, female to male, lower
classes to upper classes—was a “fundamental law” of human existence.”[xi] Whether justified under the umbrella of
religion, racial superiority, paternalism, or any other argument of the
antebellum period, slavery is just a concept I cannot defend.
[i] American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Faust,
Drew Gilpin. James Henry Hammond and the
Old South: A Design for Mastery. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
Press, 1982.
[ii] James Henry Hammond, “The Mudsill Theory”, Speech to
the U.S. Senate, March 4, 1858
[iii] Leslie H. Fishel, Jr. and Benjamin Quarles, The Black American: A Documentary History,
Third Edition, Scott, Foresman and Company, Illinois, 1976,1970.
[iv] Leslie H. Fishel, Jr. and Benjamin Quarles, The Black American: A Documentary History,
Third Edition, Scott, Foresman and Company, Illinois, 1976,1970.
[v] Eric Foner,
Give Me Liberty! An American History (New York: Norton and Company, 2009),
375-376.
[vi] IBID
(331-332)
[vii] James Henry Hammond, “The Mudsill Theory”, Speech to
the U.S. Senate, March 4, 1858
[viii] Leslie H. Fishel, Jr. and Benjamin Quarles, The Black American: A Documentary History,
Third Edition, Scott, Foresman and Company, Illinois, 1976,1970.
[ix] Moses Grandy, Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy,
(Boston, 1844), pp. 16 17, 34 41.
[x] Michele Wallace, Black Macho and the Myth of
Superwoman, (New York, 1979) pp. 137-138.
[xi] Eric Foner,
Give Me Liberty! An American History (New York: Norton and Company, 2009), 387.
