Slavery as a positive good in the United States facts for kids
Before the American Civil War, many politicians and thinkers in the Southern United States had a strong belief. They thought that slavery was not just a "necessary evil" (something bad but needed) or a crime against humanity. Instead, they argued it was a "positive good." This idea meant they saw the legal enslavement of people as a helpful system. They believed it was good for society and the economy. They also claimed that slave owners were like caring parents to the enslaved people. Some even said it was a system given by God, better than the free labor system in the North.
This way of thinking grew because more and more people were speaking out against slavery. This anti-slavery movement became very strong in the late 1700s and early 1800s. For a long time, slavery had been practiced in North America and around the world. But during the American Revolution, it became a big social issue. At first, many arguments against slavery focused on how it was bad for the economy and society. However, this changed quickly. The world needed more sugar and cotton from America, and the Louisiana Purchase opened up huge new lands perfect for large farms (plantations).
By the early 1800s, arguments against slavery started to focus on how it was morally wrong. In response, people who supported slavery began to use their own moral arguments. They often said that enslaved people were treated well and were happy. One writer in 1835 even claimed that American slavery was the best kind of slavery ever:
We...deny that slavery is sinful or inexpedient. We deny that it is wrong in the abstract. We assert that it is the natural condition of man; that there ever has been, and there ever will be slavery; and we not only claim for ourselves the right to determine for ourselves the relations between master and slave, but we insist that the slavery of the Southern States is the best regulation of slavery, whether we take into consideration the interests of the master or of the slave, that has ever been devised.
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Why Some Defended Slavery as a "Positive Good"
At the start of the 1800s, many white plantation owners in the South did not truly believe that enslaved Black people were happy or would not try to escape. Historian Douglas R. Egerton explained that people who lived during the American Revolution knew that enslaved people were kept in chains only by the power of the white military.
However, a new story began to spread. This story said that enslaved African people lived a carefree and comfortable life. At first, this argument mainly focused on how slavery was good for the economy, even though it meant controlling and degrading human beings. But by the 1810s, a new idea appeared. People started to say that legal enslavement was a "positive good," not just a "necessary evil" for the economy.
One of the first people to say this was Robert Walsh in 1819. He claimed that the physical condition of enslaved Black people in America was "positively good." He said they did not suffer from the worries that poor factory workers and farmers in England faced.
This idea that enslavement was "good" for the enslaved became more common in the 1820s. By the late 1820s, people defending slavery said it helped everyone: the state governments, the slave owners, and the enslaved people themselves. Legal enslavement was no longer just seen as an economic system. It became a political and philosophical idea that was important for the whole country. It was even said to bring more tax money to the states.
Early Political Views on Slavery's Benefits
A famous example of this new way of thinking came from Governor Stephen D. Miller in 1829. He spoke to South Carolina's lawmakers and said:
Slavery is not a national evil; on the contrary, it is a national benefit. The agricultural wealth of the country is found in those states owning slaves, and a great portion of the revenue of the government is derived from the products of slave labor—Slavery exists in some form everywhere, and it is not of much consequence in a philosophical point of view, whether it be voluntary or involuntary. In a political point of view, involuntary slavery had the advantage, since all who enjoy political liberty are then, in fact, free.
Soon after Governor Miller's speech, the general defense of slavery changed. It began to focus on the idea that slavery created a "proper social order" and was a "foundation of social welfare."
Another economic argument for enslaved labor came from economist Thomas Roderick Dew. He was a professor and later president of the College of William and Mary. Dew played down the wrongness of owning humans. This happened after the Virginia House of Burgesses almost passed a law to free enslaved people in 1832. Dew supported slavery using ideas from philosophy, economics, and the Bible. He argued that owning people was not necessarily wrong. He said that Southern society, based on slavery, was "superior" to the free society in the North. This turned his argument into a "positive good" defense.
James Henry Hammond and the Mudsill Theory
On February 1, 1836, Congressman James Henry Hammond from South Carolina gave a long speech. He talked about the dangers of the abolitionist movement. He attacked those who supported human rights in the North. At the same time, he defended the social and economic benefits of slavery for white people in the South. Hammond's speech was seen as a new moment in the American Congress. It was called the "first clear defense of slavery as a positive good."
In that 1836 speech, Hammond tried to explain why slavery was good:
Slavery is said to be an evil… But is no evil. On the contrary, I believe it to be the greatest of all the great blessings which a kind Providence has bestowed upon our glorious region… As a class, I say it boldly; there is not a happier, more contented race upon the face of the earth… Lightly tasked, well clothed, well fed—far better than the free laborers of any country in the world,… their lives and persons protected by the law, all their sufferings alleviated by the kindest and most interested care....
Sir, I do firmly believe that domestic slavery regulated as ours is produces the highest toned, the purest, best organization of society that has ever existed on the face of the earth
Hammond later became Governor of South Carolina in 1842. He was known for strongly defending the South and slavery. After traveling in Europe, Hammond decided that free workers in England and the North were being used unfairly by greedy businesses. He said these workers had "liberty only to starve." He argued that Southerners were more protective, taking "responsibility for every aspect of the lives" of their enslaved people.
Hammond helped write a book called The Pro-Slavery Argument. Other writers like William Harper, Thomas Roderick Dew, and William Gilmore Simms also contributed. They were part of a group of thinkers who supported slavery.
Understanding the Mudsill Theory
In his famous Mudsill Speech (1858), Hammond explained a political idea that supported slavery. This idea was at its strongest from the late 1830s to the early 1860s. Hammond, along with John C. Calhoun, believed that many societies in the past failed because they had a class of poor people who owned no land. This group was seen as unstable and easily controlled. They thought this group often made society as a whole unstable. So, the biggest threat to democracy was seen as class warfare, which could harm a nation's economy, society, and government.
The mudsill theory says that there must always be a lower class for the upper classes to build upon. The "mudsill" is the lowest part of a building's foundation. Hammond used this idea to say that non-white people were naturally willing to do hard, low-paying work. This, he argued, allowed the higher classes to advance civilization. With this in mind, any efforts for equality between classes or races would go against civilization itself.
Southern thinkers who supported slavery said that slavery solved this problem. They claimed it raised all free people to the status of "citizen." It also removed the landless poor (the "mudsill") from politics by enslaving them. This way, those who might threaten stability were not allowed to participate in a democratic society. So, in the minds of those who supported it, slavery protected everyone: the enslaved, the masters, and society as a whole.
These arguments also fought for the rights of wealthy landowners. They saw threats from abolitionists, lower classes, and non-whites who wanted better lives. The slaveholders' own financial interests were definitely a factor. Enslaved people represented a huge amount of wealth. At the time of the Civil War, some historians believe that over 20% of all private wealth in the U.S. was in enslaved people.
John C. Calhoun's "Positive Good" Argument
The most famous political figure to defend Black slavery as a "positive good" was John C. Calhoun. He was a political thinker and the seventh Vice President of the United States. Calhoun was a leader of the Democratic-Republican Party and later joined the Democratic Party. Calhoun believed that slavery was a great benefit for a race he considered inferior. He thought this race could not use their freedom well. Calhoun argued:
Never 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… It came to us in a low, degraded, and savage condition, and in the course of a few generations it has grown up under the fostering care of our institutions.
The idea of slavery as a positive good became very clear in Calhoun's speech on the U.S. Senate floor on February 6, 1837. He tried to calm the moral anger of abolitionists who called slavery "man-stealing." Calhoun, like many Southerners who supported slavery, looked to ancient times to defend it. He especially used Aristotle's idea of natural slavery. Greek democracy and the greatness of the Roman republic made Southerners think that great cultures and slavery went together.
Trying to claim the moral high ground for defending slavery, Calhoun stated:
"But I take higher ground. I hold that, in the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished by colour, 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 — a positive good. I feel myself called upon to speak freely upon the subject, where the honour and interests of those I represent are involved."
In that 1837 speech, Calhoun also argued that slaveholders took care of their enslaved people from birth to old age. He urged those against slavery to "look 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 compare it with the forlorn and wretched condition of the pauper in the poor house" found in Europe and the Northern states.
This claim was based on the idea of kind, father-like care from masters, the glory of past civilizations, and the traditions of white supremacy. Calhoun also tried to show that the North was also guilty of treating and using its free workers like slaves. He said in his speech "that there never has yet existed a wealthy and civilised society in which one portion of the community did not...live on the labour of the other."
Most Southern slaveholders and thinkers liked Calhoun's ideas. They believed that slavery "benefited both master and servant." In this system, the slaveholder got labor, and the enslaved person was given a better life than they could ever achieve on their own.
Calhoun not only defended slavery as a positive good but also criticized the North and its industrial capitalism. He claimed that slavery was "actually superior to the 'wage slavery' of the North." He believed that free workers in the North were just as enslaved as Black workers in the South. However, Calhoun argued that enslaved people in the South were more fortunate because they received special protection from a caring master.
In his important writing, A Disquisition on Government, Calhoun disagreed with the idea that all people are born equal, as stated in the Declaration of Independence. He argued that not everyone was "equally entitled to liberty." To make slavery seem better, he said that liberty was not for everyone. It should be "reserved for the intelligent, the patriotic, the virtuous and deserving." This would exclude both free and enslaved Black people. In 1820, Calhoun also told John Quincy Adams that slave labor was a way to keep social control. He called it the "best guarantee for equality among whites."
How the "Positive Good" Argument Affected Society
Before the 1830s, support for slavery was actually getting weaker in the South. Many Southerners at that time agreed that, in general, slavery was wrong. They said they were not responsible for bringing it to America and blamed "old Grandam Britain." However, few Southerners were willing to call slavery "a sin." This led to a situation where "slave states contained a great many more anti-slavery societies than the free states."
But after abolitionists attacked slavery more strongly, Southerners who supported slavery felt threatened. They fought back with their own philosophical and moral reasons to defend it. Those who supported slavery felt they had to take a firm stand. They began to argue strongly that slavery was a positive good that helped both owners and the enslaved. Calhoun believed that "owning Black people" was both a right and a duty. This made thinkers who supported slavery say that it was a caring and socially helpful relationship. They claimed it required enslaved people to perform certain "duties."
Another part of the "slavery as a positive good" idea led some white women in the South to give enslaved people on plantations material goods. They also offered mother-like care to those they thought were "unfit or feeble-minded Black people." However, most white people generally believed that Black people were a naturally inferior race. They thought educating them would be a waste because they could not be taught. Some plantation mistresses spent a lot of time trying to "civilize" their enslaved workers by providing food, shelter, and affection. In this way, Southern women before the Civil War saw the enslaved as childlike and needing protection. While doing this, they also tried to convince the enslaved people, who were not allowed to read abolitionist newspapers, that their lives were much better than those of white or Black factory workers in the industrial North.
George Fitzhugh's Extreme Defense of Slavery
George Fitzhugh was a slave owner and a strong supporter of slavery. He was a thinker who took the "positive good" argument to its most extreme point. Fitzhugh argued that slavery was the correct relationship between all labor and money. He believed it was generally better for all workers to be enslaved rather than free. He insisted that slavery was not about race. He thought that anyone of any race could be enslaved, and that this would benefit both the enslaved and their masters. Fitzhugh claimed that Southern enslaved people had a "guarantee of livelihood, protection and support." He also said that if a master did not do his duties, he could be forced to sell his enslaved people to a more capable slaveholder. In this way, Fitzhugh argued that "Slavery protects the infants, the aged and the sick," along with the healthy and the strong.
Fitzhugh declared that "the unrestricted exploitation of so-called free society is more oppressive to the laborer than domestic slavery." In later years, Fitzhugh not only supported slavery for Black people but also for white people if they were considered unfit. He believed that white people, if trained well, could be as "faithful and valuable servants" as Black people.
Taking a strong, controlling view, Fitzhugh argued that "All government is slavery," and that "No one ought to be free." Yet, like other thinkers who supported slavery, he believed that "slavery ultimately made democracy work." He pointed to the history of Classical Athens, the Roman Republic, and other ancient societies that had democratic features, all of which also had slavery. Fitzhugh summarized his pro-slavery stance with this argument:
'It is the duty of society to protect the weak;' but protection cannot be efficient without the power of control; therefore, 'It is the duty of society to enslave the weak.'
Fitzhugh's ideas were important and widely known in the South. The Richmond Enquirer newspaper thought Fitzhugh's pro-slavery ideas were sound. It stated that the justification of slavery was not just about "mere negro slavery," but that "slavery is a right, natural and necessary." Fitzhugh believed that slavery was the best system to ensure "the rights of man."
The Democratic Party and Slavery's Role
The Democratic Party was founded in 1828. Its success and importance in politics have been linked to its ability to change the issue of slavery. It presented slavery as a "morally beneficial institution," especially to the more extreme Southerners within the party. By the mid-1800s, Democrats had become the strongest defenders of slavery. They were the most important group supporting it.
Andrew Jackson, who owned up to 300 enslaved people during his life, was the first U.S. President (1829–1837) elected from the new Democratic Party. Jackson was accused of beating his enslaved people. He also banned anti-slavery writings from being sent through the mail. He called abolitionists "monsters" who should "atone for this wicked attempt with their lives."
In the Democratic South, many pro-slavery activists and thinkers believed they were simply "upholding the great principles which our fathers bequeathed us." They saw the practice of holding other humans in slavery as a "constitutional freedom" that was protected by the U.S. Constitution.
By 1860, the Democratic Party was seen as "completely tied to the institution of Slavery...hand and heart." As the Southern armies started losing battles, the New York Times newspaper said that the Southern Democrats' dedication to slavery was a "stubbornness of fond infatuation such as the world has seldom seen."
See also
- Anti-Tom literature
- Fire-Eaters
- Holocaust trivialization
- Proslavery
- Tom Cotton's statements about slavery
- White defensiveness
