{"id":2535,"date":"2021-03-12T01:53:22","date_gmt":"2021-03-12T01:53:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory1\/?post_type=chapter&#038;p=2535"},"modified":"2022-07-25T19:17:47","modified_gmt":"2022-07-25T19:17:47","slug":"southern-pro-slavery-arguments","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory1\/chapter\/southern-pro-slavery-arguments\/","title":{"raw":"Southern Pro-Slavery Arguments","rendered":"Southern Pro-Slavery Arguments"},"content":{"raw":"<div class=\"textbox learning-objectives\">\r\n<h3>Learning Objectives<\/h3>\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Identify the main proslavery arguments in the years prior to the Civil War<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<h2 data-type=\"title\">Defending Slavery<\/h2>\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"260\"]<img src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images-archive-read-only\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/883\/2015\/08\/23202530\/CNX_History_12_03_Calhoun.jpg\" alt=\"A portrait of John C. Calhoun is shown.\" width=\"260\" height=\"322\" data-media-type=\"image\/jpeg\" \/> <strong>Figure 1<\/strong>. John C. Calhoun, shown here in a ca. 1845 portrait by George Alexander Healy, defended states\u2019 rights, especially the right of the southern states to protect slavery from a hostile northern majority.[\/caption]\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp221969200\" class=\" \">With the rise of democracy during the Jacksonian era in the 1830s, enslavers worried about the power of the majority. If political power went to a majority that was hostile to slavery, the South\u2014and the honor of White southerners\u2014would be imperiled. White southerners keen on preserving the institution of slavery bristled at what they perceived to be northern attempts to deprive them of their livelihood. Powerful southerners like South Carolinian John C. Calhoun\u00a0highlighted laws like the Tariff of 1828 as evidence of the North\u2019s desire to destroy the southern economy and, by extension, its culture. Such a tariff, he and others concluded, would disproportionately harm the South, which relied heavily on imports, and benefit the North, which would receive protections for its manufacturing centers. The tariff appeared to open the door for other federal initiatives, including the abolition of slavery. Because of this perceived threat to southern society, Calhoun argued that states could nullify federal laws. This belief illustrated the importance of the states\u2019 rights argument to the southern states. It also showed enslavers\u2019 willingness to unite against the federal government when they believed it acted unjustly against their interests.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp124111552\">As the nation expanded in the 1830s and 1840s, the writings of abolitionists\u2014a small but vocal group of northerners committed to ending slavery\u2014reached a larger national audience. White southerners responded by putting forth arguments in defense of slavery, their way of life, and their honor. Calhoun became a leading political theorist defending slavery and the rights of the South, which he saw as containing an increasingly embattled minority. He advanced the idea of a <strong>concurrent majority<\/strong>, a majority of a separate region (that would otherwise be in the minority of the nation) with the power to veto or disallow legislation put forward by a hostile majority.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp247962272\">Calhoun\u2019s idea of the concurrent majority found full expression in his 1850 essay \u201cDisquisition on Government.\u201d In this treatise, he wrote about government as a necessary means to ensure the preservation of society, since society existed to \u201cpreserve and protect our race.\u201d If government grew hostile to society, then a concurrent majority had to take action, including forming a new government. \u201cDisquisition on Government\u201d advanced a profoundly anti-democratic argument. It illustrates southern leaders\u2019 intense suspicion of democratic majorities and their ability to effect legislation that would challenge southern interests.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div class=\"textbox key-takeaways\">\r\n<h3>Calhoun's Defense of Slavery<\/h3>\r\nIn this 1837 speech, John C. Calhoun, then a U.S. senator, vigorously defended the institution of slavery and stated the essence of this new intellectual defense of the institution: Southerners must stop apologizing for slavery and reject the idea that it was a necessary evil. Instead, Calhoun insisted, slavery was a \u201cpositive good.\u201d He went further, making legal arguments about the Constitution protecting states\u2019 rights to preserve slavery. Calhoun then offered a moral defense of slavery by claiming it to be a more humane method of organizing labor than the conditions wage laborers faced in industrial cities in Europe and the northern United States.\r\n<table id=\"fs-idm176290256\" class=\"unnumbered\" style=\"width: 872px;\" summary=\"Table 5.1 \" data-label=\"\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr valign=\"top\">\r\n<td style=\"width: 859.141px;\" data-valign=\"top\" data-align=\"left\">A large portion of the Northern States believed slavery to be a sin, and would consider it as an obligation of conscience to abolish it if they should feel themselves in any degree responsible for its continuance. . . .\u00a0I then predicted that it would commence as it has with this fanatical portion of society, and that they would begin their operations on the ignorant, the weak, the young, and the thoughtless \u2013and gradually extend upwards till they would become strong enough to obtain political control\u00a0. . .<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr valign=\"top\">\r\n<td style=\"width: 859.141px;\" data-valign=\"top\" data-align=\"left\">. . . By the necessary course of events, if left to themselves, we must become, finally, two people. It is impossible under the deadly hatred which must spring up between the two great nations, if the present causes are permitted to operate unchecked, that we should continue under the same political system. The conflicting elements would burst the Union asunder, powerful as are the links which hold it together. Abolition and the Union cannot coexist. As the friend of the Union I openly proclaim it\u2013and the sooner it is known the better. . . . We of the South will not, cannot, surrender our institutions.\u00a0To maintain the existing relations between the two races, inhabiting that section of the Union, is indispensable to the peace and happiness of both. It cannot be subverted without drenching the country in blood . . .<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr valign=\"top\">\r\n<td style=\"width: 859.141px;\" data-valign=\"top\" data-align=\"left\">. . . Be it good or bad, [slavery] has grown up with our society and institutions, and is so interwoven with them that to destroy it would be to destroy us as a people. But let me not be understood as admitting, even by implication, that the existing relations between the two races in the slaveholding States is an evil:\u2013far otherwise; I hold it to be a good, as it has thus far proved itself to be to both, and will continue to prove so if not disturbed by the fell spirit of abolition.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr valign=\"top\">\r\n<td style=\"width: 859.141px;\" data-valign=\"top\" data-align=\"left\">I appeal to facts.\u00a0Never before has the Black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr valign=\"top\">\r\n<td style=\"width: 859.141px;\" data-valign=\"top\" data-align=\"left\">In the meantime, the White or European race, has not degenerated. It has kept pace with its brethren in other sections of the Union where slavery does not exist. It is odious to make comparison; but I appeal to all sides whether the South is not equal in virtue, intelligence, patriotism, courage, disinterestedness, and all the high qualities which adorn our nature. . . .<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr valign=\"top\">\r\n<td style=\"width: 859.141px;\" data-valign=\"top\" data-align=\"left\">. . . I hold that in the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished by color, and other physical differences, as well as intellectual, are brought together, the relation now existing in the slaveholding States between the two, is, instead of an evil, a good\u2014a positive good. . .\u00a0I hold then, that there never has yet existed a wealthy and civilized society in which one portion of the community did not, in point of fact, live on the labor of the other. . . .<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr valign=\"top\">\r\n<td style=\"width: 859.141px;\" data-valign=\"top\" data-align=\"left\">I might well challenge a comparison between them and the more direct, simple, and patriarchal mode by which the labor of the African race is, among us, commanded by the European.\u00a0I may say with truth, that in few countries so much is left to the share of the laborer, and so little exacted from him, or where there is more kind attention paid to him in sickness or infirmities of age.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr valign=\"top\">\r\n<td style=\"width: 859.141px;\" data-valign=\"top\" data-align=\"left\">Compare his condition with the tenants of the poor houses in the more civilized portions of Europe\u2014look at the sick, and the old and infirm slave, on one hand, in the midst of his family and friends, under the kind superintending care of his master and mistress, and\u00a0compare it with the forlorn and wretched condition of the pauper in the poorhouse. . . .<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr valign=\"top\">\r\n<td style=\"width: 859.141px;\" data-valign=\"top\" data-align=\"left\">There is and always has been in an advanced stage of wealth and civilization,\u00a0a conflict between labor and capital. The condition of society in the South exempts us from the disorders and dangers resulting from this conflict; and which explains why it is that the political condition of the slaveholding States has been so much more stable and quiet than that of the North.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n<div id=\"fs-idm286907040\" class=\"\" data-type=\"exercise\"><section>\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li id=\"fs-idm177423328\" data-type=\"problem\"><span style=\"font-size: 1rem; orphans: 1; text-align: initial;\">In what ways does Calhoun use legal arguments to defend the idea that Congress cannot interfere in the institution of slavery?<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t<li data-type=\"problem\">How does Calhoun go beyond the traditional legal defenses of slavery and attempt to convince the audience that slavery is, indeed, good for all involved?<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/section><\/div>\r\n<div id=\"fs-idm177146768\" class=\"\" data-type=\"exercise\"><section>\r\n<div data-type=\"problem\"><span style=\"font-size: 1rem; orphans: 1; text-align: initial;\">You can <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/adisquisitionon00cralgoog\/page\/n18\/mode\/2up\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">visit this site<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 1rem; orphans: 1; text-align: initial;\">\u00a0to read John C. Calhoun\u2019s \u201cDisquisition on Government.\u201d Why do you think he proposed the creation of a concurrent majority?<\/span><\/div>\r\n<\/section><\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div class=\"textbox exercises\">\r\n<h3>Link to Learning<\/h3>\r\nWatch <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kdEW2C-6YEY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">this video from Heimler's History channel to learn more about some of the main pro-slavery arguments<\/a>, including the social hierarchy argument, the civilization argument, the economic argument, the racial argument, and the biblical argument.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idm4958832\">White southerners reacted strongly to abolitionists\u2019 attacks on slavery. In making their defense of slavery, they critiqued wage labor in the North. They argued that the Industrial Revolution had brought about a new type of slavery\u2014wage slavery\u2014and that this form of \u201cslavery\u201d was far worse than the slave labor used on southern plantations. Defenders of the institution also lashed out directly at abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison for daring to call into question their way of life. Indeed, Virginians cited Garrison as the instigator of Nat Turner\u2019s 1831 rebellion.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp120708720\">The Virginian George Fitzhugh contributed to the defense of slavery with his book <em data-effect=\"italics\">Sociology for the South, or the Failure of Free Society<\/em> (1854). Fitzhugh argued that laissez-faire capitalism, as celebrated by Adam Smith, benefited only the quick-witted and intelligent, leaving the ignorant at a huge disadvantage. Enslavers, he argued, took care of the ignorant\u2014in Fitzhugh\u2019s argument, the enslaved persons of the South. Southerners provided enslaved persons with care from birth to death, he asserted; this offered a stark contrast to the wage slavery of the North, where workers were at the mercy of economic forces beyond their control. Fitzhugh\u2019s ideas exemplified southern notions of paternalism.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div class=\"textbox key-takeaways\">\r\n<h3>George Fitzhugh\u2019s Defense of Slavery<\/h3>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp222001872\">George Fitzhugh, a southern writer of social treatises, was a staunch supporter of slavery, not as a necessary evil but as what he argued was a necessary good, a way to take care of enslaved persons and keep them from being a burden on society. He published <em data-effect=\"italics\">Sociology for the South, or the Failure of Free Society<\/em> in 1854, in which he laid out what he believed to be the benefits of slavery to both the enslaved persons and society as a whole. According to Fitzhugh:<\/p>\r\n\r\n<blockquote id=\"fs-idp252318688\">\r\n<div>\r\n\r\n[I]t 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 . . . The master occupies towards him the place of parent or guardian. . . . 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.\r\n\r\nIn 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. . . . Our negroes are not only better off as to physical comfort than free laborers, but their moral condition is better.\r\n\r\n<\/div><\/blockquote>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp298409408\">What arguments does Fitzhugh use to promote slavery? What basic premise underlies his ideas? Can you think of a modern parallel to Fitzhugh\u2019s argument?<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp9316944\">The North also produced defenders of slavery, including Louis Agassiz, a Harvard professor of zoology and geology. Agassiz helped to popularize <strong>polygenism<\/strong>, the idea that different human races came from separate origins. According to this formulation, no single human family origin existed, and Black people made up a race wholly separate from the White race. Agassiz\u2019s notion gained widespread popularity in the 1850s with the 1854 publication of George Gliddon and Josiah Nott\u2019s <em data-effect=\"italics\">Types of Mankind<\/em> and other books. The theory of polygenism codified racism, giving the notion of Black inferiority the lofty mantle of science. One popular advocate of the idea posited that Black people occupied a place in evolution between the Greeks and chimpanzees.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<figure id=\"Figure_12_03_RaceSkulls\">\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"390\"]<img src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images-archive-read-only\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/883\/2015\/08\/23202531\/CNX_History_12_03_RaceSkulls.jpg\" alt=\"Two facing pages of illustrations depict the skulls of various humans and animals. On the first page, these include \u201cApollo Belvidere,\u201d a Greek statuary head shown beside a skull labeled \u201cGreek\u201d; beneath this, \u201cNegro,\u201d a black man\u2019s head shown beside a skull labeled \u201cCreole Negro\u201d; and at the bottom, \u201cYoung Chimpanzee,\u201d a chimpanzee\u2019s head shown beside a skull labeled \u201cYoung Chimpanzee.\u201d On the opposite page, various drawings of animals and black humans are labeled \u201cOrang-Outan\u201d; \u201cHottentot Wagoner\u2014Caffre War\u201d; \u201cChimpanzee\u201d; \u201cHottentot from Somerset\u201d; \u201cMobile Negro, 1853\u201d; and \u201cNegro, 8200 Years Old.\u201d\" width=\"390\" height=\"280\" data-media-type=\"image\/jpeg\" \/> <strong>Figure 2<\/strong>. This 1857 illustration by an advocate of polygenism indicates that the \u201cNegro\u201d occupies a place between the Greeks and chimpanzees. What does this image reveal about the methods of those who advocated polygenism?[\/caption]<\/figure>\r\n<div class=\"textbox tryit\">\r\n<h3>Try It<\/h3>\r\n<p class=\"p1\">https:\/\/assess.lumenlearning.com\/practice\/597e5522-62aa-499c-be1a-9826bcecbd40<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div class=\"textbox learning-objectives\">\r\n<h3>Glossary<\/h3>\r\n<strong>concurrent majority:\u00a0<\/strong>a majority of a separate region (that would otherwise be in the minority of the nation) with the power to veto or disallow legislation put forward by a hostile majority\r\n\r\n<strong>polygenism:\u00a0<\/strong>the idea that Black people and White people come from different origins\r\n\r\n<\/div>","rendered":"<div class=\"textbox learning-objectives\">\n<h3>Learning Objectives<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Identify the main proslavery arguments in the years prior to the Civil War<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<h2 data-type=\"title\">Defending Slavery<\/h2>\n<div style=\"width: 270px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images-archive-read-only\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/883\/2015\/08\/23202530\/CNX_History_12_03_Calhoun.jpg\" alt=\"A portrait of John C. Calhoun is shown.\" width=\"260\" height=\"322\" data-media-type=\"image\/jpeg\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Figure 1<\/strong>. John C. Calhoun, shown here in a ca. 1845 portrait by George Alexander Healy, defended states\u2019 rights, especially the right of the southern states to protect slavery from a hostile northern majority.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"fs-idp221969200\" class=\"\">With the rise of democracy during the Jacksonian era in the 1830s, enslavers worried about the power of the majority. If political power went to a majority that was hostile to slavery, the South\u2014and the honor of White southerners\u2014would be imperiled. White southerners keen on preserving the institution of slavery bristled at what they perceived to be northern attempts to deprive them of their livelihood. Powerful southerners like South Carolinian John C. Calhoun\u00a0highlighted laws like the Tariff of 1828 as evidence of the North\u2019s desire to destroy the southern economy and, by extension, its culture. Such a tariff, he and others concluded, would disproportionately harm the South, which relied heavily on imports, and benefit the North, which would receive protections for its manufacturing centers. The tariff appeared to open the door for other federal initiatives, including the abolition of slavery. Because of this perceived threat to southern society, Calhoun argued that states could nullify federal laws. This belief illustrated the importance of the states\u2019 rights argument to the southern states. It also showed enslavers\u2019 willingness to unite against the federal government when they believed it acted unjustly against their interests.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-idp124111552\">As the nation expanded in the 1830s and 1840s, the writings of abolitionists\u2014a small but vocal group of northerners committed to ending slavery\u2014reached a larger national audience. White southerners responded by putting forth arguments in defense of slavery, their way of life, and their honor. Calhoun became a leading political theorist defending slavery and the rights of the South, which he saw as containing an increasingly embattled minority. He advanced the idea of a <strong>concurrent majority<\/strong>, a majority of a separate region (that would otherwise be in the minority of the nation) with the power to veto or disallow legislation put forward by a hostile majority.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-idp247962272\">Calhoun\u2019s idea of the concurrent majority found full expression in his 1850 essay \u201cDisquisition on Government.\u201d In this treatise, he wrote about government as a necessary means to ensure the preservation of society, since society existed to \u201cpreserve and protect our race.\u201d If government grew hostile to society, then a concurrent majority had to take action, including forming a new government. \u201cDisquisition on Government\u201d advanced a profoundly anti-democratic argument. It illustrates southern leaders\u2019 intense suspicion of democratic majorities and their ability to effect legislation that would challenge southern interests.<\/p>\n<div class=\"textbox key-takeaways\">\n<h3>Calhoun&#8217;s Defense of Slavery<\/h3>\n<p>In this 1837 speech, John C. Calhoun, then a U.S. senator, vigorously defended the institution of slavery and stated the essence of this new intellectual defense of the institution: Southerners must stop apologizing for slavery and reject the idea that it was a necessary evil. Instead, Calhoun insisted, slavery was a \u201cpositive good.\u201d He went further, making legal arguments about the Constitution protecting states\u2019 rights to preserve slavery. Calhoun then offered a moral defense of slavery by claiming it to be a more humane method of organizing labor than the conditions wage laborers faced in industrial cities in Europe and the northern United States.<\/p>\n<table id=\"fs-idm176290256\" class=\"unnumbered\" style=\"width: 872px;\" summary=\"Table 5.1\" data-label=\"\">\n<tbody>\n<tr valign=\"top\">\n<td style=\"width: 859.141px;\" data-valign=\"top\" data-align=\"left\">A large portion of the Northern States believed slavery to be a sin, and would consider it as an obligation of conscience to abolish it if they should feel themselves in any degree responsible for its continuance. . . .\u00a0I then predicted that it would commence as it has with this fanatical portion of society, and that they would begin their operations on the ignorant, the weak, the young, and the thoughtless \u2013and gradually extend upwards till they would become strong enough to obtain political control\u00a0. . .<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr valign=\"top\">\n<td style=\"width: 859.141px;\" data-valign=\"top\" data-align=\"left\">. . . By the necessary course of events, if left to themselves, we must become, finally, two people. It is impossible under the deadly hatred which must spring up between the two great nations, if the present causes are permitted to operate unchecked, that we should continue under the same political system. The conflicting elements would burst the Union asunder, powerful as are the links which hold it together. Abolition and the Union cannot coexist. As the friend of the Union I openly proclaim it\u2013and the sooner it is known the better. . . . We of the South will not, cannot, surrender our institutions.\u00a0To maintain the existing relations between the two races, inhabiting that section of the Union, is indispensable to the peace and happiness of both. It cannot be subverted without drenching the country in blood . . .<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr valign=\"top\">\n<td style=\"width: 859.141px;\" data-valign=\"top\" data-align=\"left\">. . . Be it good or bad, [slavery] has grown up with our society and institutions, and is so interwoven with them that to destroy it would be to destroy us as a people. But let me not be understood as admitting, even by implication, that the existing relations between the two races in the slaveholding States is an evil:\u2013far otherwise; I hold it to be a good, as it has thus far proved itself to be to both, and will continue to prove so if not disturbed by the fell spirit of abolition.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr valign=\"top\">\n<td style=\"width: 859.141px;\" data-valign=\"top\" data-align=\"left\">I appeal to facts.\u00a0Never before has the Black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr valign=\"top\">\n<td style=\"width: 859.141px;\" data-valign=\"top\" data-align=\"left\">In the meantime, the White or European race, has not degenerated. It has kept pace with its brethren in other sections of the Union where slavery does not exist. It is odious to make comparison; but I appeal to all sides whether the South is not equal in virtue, intelligence, patriotism, courage, disinterestedness, and all the high qualities which adorn our nature. . . .<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr valign=\"top\">\n<td style=\"width: 859.141px;\" data-valign=\"top\" data-align=\"left\">. . . I hold that in the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished by color, and other physical differences, as well as intellectual, are brought together, the relation now existing in the slaveholding States between the two, is, instead of an evil, a good\u2014a positive good. . .\u00a0I hold then, that there never has yet existed a wealthy and civilized society in which one portion of the community did not, in point of fact, live on the labor of the other. . . .<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr valign=\"top\">\n<td style=\"width: 859.141px;\" data-valign=\"top\" data-align=\"left\">I might well challenge a comparison between them and the more direct, simple, and patriarchal mode by which the labor of the African race is, among us, commanded by the European.\u00a0I may say with truth, that in few countries so much is left to the share of the laborer, and so little exacted from him, or where there is more kind attention paid to him in sickness or infirmities of age.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr valign=\"top\">\n<td style=\"width: 859.141px;\" data-valign=\"top\" data-align=\"left\">Compare his condition with the tenants of the poor houses in the more civilized portions of Europe\u2014look at the sick, and the old and infirm slave, on one hand, in the midst of his family and friends, under the kind superintending care of his master and mistress, and\u00a0compare it with the forlorn and wretched condition of the pauper in the poorhouse. . . .<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr valign=\"top\">\n<td style=\"width: 859.141px;\" data-valign=\"top\" data-align=\"left\">There is and always has been in an advanced stage of wealth and civilization,\u00a0a conflict between labor and capital. The condition of society in the South exempts us from the disorders and dangers resulting from this conflict; and which explains why it is that the political condition of the slaveholding States has been so much more stable and quiet than that of the North.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<div id=\"fs-idm286907040\" class=\"\" data-type=\"exercise\">\n<section>\n<ul>\n<li id=\"fs-idm177423328\" data-type=\"problem\"><span style=\"font-size: 1rem; orphans: 1; text-align: initial;\">In what ways does Calhoun use legal arguments to defend the idea that Congress cannot interfere in the institution of slavery?<\/span><\/li>\n<li data-type=\"problem\">How does Calhoun go beyond the traditional legal defenses of slavery and attempt to convince the audience that slavery is, indeed, good for all involved?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"fs-idm177146768\" class=\"\" data-type=\"exercise\">\n<section>\n<div data-type=\"problem\"><span style=\"font-size: 1rem; orphans: 1; text-align: initial;\">You can <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/adisquisitionon00cralgoog\/page\/n18\/mode\/2up\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">visit this site<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 1rem; orphans: 1; text-align: initial;\">\u00a0to read John C. Calhoun\u2019s \u201cDisquisition on Government.\u201d Why do you think he proposed the creation of a concurrent majority?<\/span><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"textbox exercises\">\n<h3>Link to Learning<\/h3>\n<p>Watch <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kdEW2C-6YEY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">this video from Heimler&#8217;s History channel to learn more about some of the main pro-slavery arguments<\/a>, including the social hierarchy argument, the civilization argument, the economic argument, the racial argument, and the biblical argument.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"fs-idm4958832\">White southerners reacted strongly to abolitionists\u2019 attacks on slavery. In making their defense of slavery, they critiqued wage labor in the North. They argued that the Industrial Revolution had brought about a new type of slavery\u2014wage slavery\u2014and that this form of \u201cslavery\u201d was far worse than the slave labor used on southern plantations. Defenders of the institution also lashed out directly at abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison for daring to call into question their way of life. Indeed, Virginians cited Garrison as the instigator of Nat Turner\u2019s 1831 rebellion.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-idp120708720\">The Virginian George Fitzhugh contributed to the defense of slavery with his book <em data-effect=\"italics\">Sociology for the South, or the Failure of Free Society<\/em> (1854). Fitzhugh argued that laissez-faire capitalism, as celebrated by Adam Smith, benefited only the quick-witted and intelligent, leaving the ignorant at a huge disadvantage. Enslavers, he argued, took care of the ignorant\u2014in Fitzhugh\u2019s argument, the enslaved persons of the South. Southerners provided enslaved persons with care from birth to death, he asserted; this offered a stark contrast to the wage slavery of the North, where workers were at the mercy of economic forces beyond their control. Fitzhugh\u2019s ideas exemplified southern notions of paternalism.<\/p>\n<div class=\"textbox key-takeaways\">\n<h3>George Fitzhugh\u2019s Defense of Slavery<\/h3>\n<p id=\"fs-idp222001872\">George Fitzhugh, a southern writer of social treatises, was a staunch supporter of slavery, not as a necessary evil but as what he argued was a necessary good, a way to take care of enslaved persons and keep them from being a burden on society. He published <em data-effect=\"italics\">Sociology for the South, or the Failure of Free Society<\/em> in 1854, in which he laid out what he believed to be the benefits of slavery to both the enslaved persons and society as a whole. According to Fitzhugh:<\/p>\n<blockquote id=\"fs-idp252318688\">\n<div>\n<p>[I]t 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 . . . The master occupies towards him the place of parent or guardian. . . . 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.<\/p>\n<p>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. . . . Our negroes are not only better off as to physical comfort than free laborers, but their moral condition is better.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p id=\"fs-idp298409408\">What arguments does Fitzhugh use to promote slavery? What basic premise underlies his ideas? Can you think of a modern parallel to Fitzhugh\u2019s argument?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"fs-idp9316944\">The North also produced defenders of slavery, including Louis Agassiz, a Harvard professor of zoology and geology. Agassiz helped to popularize <strong>polygenism<\/strong>, the idea that different human races came from separate origins. According to this formulation, no single human family origin existed, and Black people made up a race wholly separate from the White race. Agassiz\u2019s notion gained widespread popularity in the 1850s with the 1854 publication of George Gliddon and Josiah Nott\u2019s <em data-effect=\"italics\">Types of Mankind<\/em> and other books. The theory of polygenism codified racism, giving the notion of Black inferiority the lofty mantle of science. One popular advocate of the idea posited that Black people occupied a place in evolution between the Greeks and chimpanzees.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"Figure_12_03_RaceSkulls\">\n<div style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images-archive-read-only\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/883\/2015\/08\/23202531\/CNX_History_12_03_RaceSkulls.jpg\" alt=\"Two facing pages of illustrations depict the skulls of various humans and animals. On the first page, these include \u201cApollo Belvidere,\u201d a Greek statuary head shown beside a skull labeled \u201cGreek\u201d; beneath this, \u201cNegro,\u201d a black man\u2019s head shown beside a skull labeled \u201cCreole Negro\u201d; and at the bottom, \u201cYoung Chimpanzee,\u201d a chimpanzee\u2019s head shown beside a skull labeled \u201cYoung Chimpanzee.\u201d On the opposite page, various drawings of animals and black humans are labeled \u201cOrang-Outan\u201d; \u201cHottentot Wagoner\u2014Caffre War\u201d; \u201cChimpanzee\u201d; \u201cHottentot from Somerset\u201d; \u201cMobile Negro, 1853\u201d; and \u201cNegro, 8200 Years Old.\u201d\" width=\"390\" height=\"280\" data-media-type=\"image\/jpeg\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Figure 2<\/strong>. This 1857 illustration by an advocate of polygenism indicates that the \u201cNegro\u201d occupies a place between the Greeks and chimpanzees. What does this image reveal about the methods of those who advocated polygenism?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<div class=\"textbox tryit\">\n<h3>Try It<\/h3>\n<p class=\"p1\">\t<iframe id=\"assessment_practice_597e5522-62aa-499c-be1a-9826bcecbd40\" class=\"resizable\" src=\"https:\/\/assess.lumenlearning.com\/practice\/597e5522-62aa-499c-be1a-9826bcecbd40?iframe_resize_id=assessment_practice_id_597e5522-62aa-499c-be1a-9826bcecbd40\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border:none;width:100%;height:100%;min-height:300px;\"><br \/>\n\t<\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"textbox learning-objectives\">\n<h3>Glossary<\/h3>\n<p><strong>concurrent majority:\u00a0<\/strong>a majority of a separate region (that would otherwise be in the minority of the nation) with the power to veto or disallow legislation put forward by a hostile majority<\/p>\n<p><strong>polygenism:\u00a0<\/strong>the idea that Black people and White people come from different origins<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t <section class=\"citations-section\" role=\"contentinfo\">\n\t\t\t <h3>Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t <div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <div id=\"citation-list-2535\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div class=\"licensing\"><div class=\"license-attribution-dropdown-subheading\">CC licensed content, Shared previously<\/div><ul class=\"citation-list\"><li>US History. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: OpenStax. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/us-history\/pages\/12-3-wealth-and-culture-in-the-south\">https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/us-history\/pages\/12-3-wealth-and-culture-in-the-south<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/\">CC BY: Attribution<\/a><\/em>. <strong>License Terms<\/strong>: Access for free at https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/us-history\/pages\/1-introduction<\/li><li>John C. Calhoun, u201cSlavery as a Positive Good,u201d 1837. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: The Bill of Rights Institute, OpenStax, and contributing authors. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/cnx.org\/contents\/NgBFhmUc@14.3:iQkwpaR_@8\/6-25-%E2%9C%92%EF%B8%8F-John-C-Calhoun-Slavery-as-a-Positive-Good-1837#fs-idm205300544\">https:\/\/cnx.org\/contents\/NgBFhmUc@14.3:iQkwpaR_@8\/6-25-%E2%9C%92%EF%B8%8F-John-C-Calhoun-Slavery-as-a-Positive-Good-1837#fs-idm205300544<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/\">CC BY: Attribution<\/a><\/em>. <strong>License Terms<\/strong>: Download for free at http:\/\/cnx.org\/contents\/36004586-651c-4ded-af87-203aca22d946@14.3<\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t <\/section>","protected":false},"author":23592,"menu_order":11,"template":"","meta":{"_candela_citation":"[{\"type\":\"cc\",\"description\":\"US History\",\"author\":\"\",\"organization\":\"OpenStax\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/us-history\/pages\/12-3-wealth-and-culture-in-the-south\",\"project\":\"\",\"license\":\"cc-by\",\"license_terms\":\"Access for free at https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/us-history\/pages\/1-introduction\"},{\"type\":\"cc\",\"description\":\"John C. Calhoun, u201cSlavery as a Positive Good,u201d 1837\",\"author\":\"\",\"organization\":\"The Bill of Rights Institute, OpenStax, and contributing authors\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cnx.org\/contents\/NgBFhmUc@14.3:iQkwpaR_@8\/6-25-%E2%9C%92%EF%B8%8F-John-C-Calhoun-Slavery-as-a-Positive-Good-1837#fs-idm205300544\",\"project\":\"\",\"license\":\"cc-by\",\"license_terms\":\"Download for free at http:\/\/cnx.org\/contents\/36004586-651c-4ded-af87-203aca22d946@14.3\"}]","CANDELA_OUTCOMES_GUID":"d9852a6f-d9cf-42f1-b29e-4044d6b8ae4b,993fbaed-1cae-4ed0-8270-be46e0804afd","pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-2535","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":355,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/2535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23592"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/2535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8403,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/2535\/revisions\/8403"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/355"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/2535\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=2535"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=2535"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=2535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}