George Fitzhugh Advocates
Slavery
Background:
In the antebellum period, pro-slavery forces moved from
defending slavery as a necessary evil to expounding it as a positive good. Some
insisted that African Americans were child-like people in need of protection,
and that slavery provided a civilizing influence. Others argued that black
people were biologically inferior to white people and were incapable of
assimilating in free society. Still others claimed that slaves were necessary
to maintain the progress of white society.
George Fitzhugh was a Virginia lawyer and the author of two books and numerous
articles advocating slavery. Says Fitzhugh, "... 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." This is
only one of many arguments which he presents in this piece.
The
Document: "The Universal Law of
Slavery," by George Fitzhugh
He the Negro is but a grown up child, and must be governed as a child, not as a
lunatic or criminal. The master occupies toward him the place of parent or
guardian. We shall not dwell on this view, for no one will differ with us who
thinks as we do of the negro's capacity, and we might
argue till dooms-day in vain, with those who have a high opinion of the negro's
moral and intellectual capacity.
Secondly. The negro is
improvident; will not lay up in summer for the wants of winter; will not
accumulate in youth for the exigencies of age. He would become an insufferable
burden to society. Society has the right to prevent this, and can only do so by
subjecting him to domestic slavery. In the last place, the negro
race is inferior to the white race, and living in their midst, they would be
far outstripped or outwitted in the chaos of free competition. Gradual but
certain extermination would be their fate. We presume the maddest abolitionist
does not think the negro's providence of habits and
money-making capacity at all to compare to those of the whites. This defect of
character would alone justify enslaving him, if he is to remain here. In Africa
or the West Indies, he would become idolatrous, savage and cannibal, or be
devoured by savages and cannibals. At the North he would freeze or starve.
We would
remind those who deprecate and sympathize with negro slavery, that his slavery
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. There, wife-murder has become a mere holiday pastime; and where
so many wives are murdered, almost all must be brutally treated. Nay, more; men who kill their wives or treat them brutally, must be
ready for all kinds of crime, and the calendar of crime at the North proves the
inference to be correct. Negroes never kill their wives. If it be objected that
legally they have no wives, then we reply, that in an experience of more than
forty years, we never yet heard of a negro man killing
a negro woman. Our negroes are not only better off as
to physical comfort than free laborers, but their moral condition is better.
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. The negro
men and stout boys work, on the average, in good weather, not more than nine
hours a day. The balance of their time is spent in perfect abandon. Besides'
they have their Sabbaths and holidays. White men, with so much of license and
liberty, would die of ennui; but negroes luxuriate in
corporeal and mental repose. With their faces upturned to the sun, they can
sleep at any hour; and quiet sleep is the greatest of human enjoyments.
"Blessed be the man who invented sleep." 'Tis happiness in itself--and
results from contentment with the present, and confident assurance of the
future.
A common charge preferred against slavery is, that it induces idleness with the
masters. The trouble, care and labor, of providing for wife, children and
slaves, and of properly governing and administering the whole affairs of the
farm, is usually borne on small estates by the master. On larger ones, he is
aided by an overseer or manager. If they do their duty, their time is fully
occupied. If they do not, the estate goes to ruin. The mistress, on Southern
farms, is usually more busily, usefully and benevolently occupied than any one
on the farm. She unites in her person, the offices of wife, mother, mistress,
housekeeper, and sister of charity. And she fulfills all these offices
admirably well. The rich men, in free society, may, if they please, lounge
about town, visit clubs, attend the theatre, and have no other trouble than
that of collecting rents, interest and dividends of stock. In a well
constituted slave society, there should be no idlers. But we cannot divine how
the capitalists in free society are to put to work. The master labors for the
slave, they exchange industrial value. But the capitalist, living on his income,
gives nothing to his subjects. He lives by mere exploitations.
The Black American
A Documentary History, Third Edition, by Leslie H. Fishel,
Jr. and Benjamin Quarles, Scott, Foresman and
Company, Illinois, 1976,1970