Topic:  The Proslavery Defense

> Q: How and why was slavery justified in ante-bellum (pre-war) America?

 

PRIMARY SOURCE:  Thomas R. Dew Defends Slavery
Thomas R. Dew, a professor of political economy at the College of William and Mary.

It is said slavery is wrong, in the abstract at least, and contrary to the spirit of Christianity. To this we answer . . . that any question must be determined by its circumstances, and if, as really is the case, we cannot get rid of slavery without producing a greater injury to both the masters and slaves, there is no rule of conscience or revealed law of God which can condemn us. The physician will not order the spreading cancer to be extirpated although it will eventually cause the death of his patient, because he would thereby hasten the fatal issue.

So, if slavery had commenced even contrary to the laws of God and man, and the sin of its introduction rested upon our heads, and it was even carrying forward the nation by slow degrees to final ruin-yet if it were certain that an attempt to remove it would only hasten and heighten the final catastrophe . . . then we would only be found to attempt the extirpation but we would stand guilty of a high offense in the sight of both God and man if we should rashly made the effort. But the original sin of introduction rest[s] not on our heads, and we shall soon see that all those dreadful calamities which the false prophets of our day are pointing to will never, in all probability, occur.

With regard to the assertion that slavery is against the spirit of Christianity, we are ready to admit the general assertion, but deny most positively that there is anything in the Old or New Testament which would go to show that slavery, when once introduced, ought at all events to be abrogated, or that the master commits any offense in holding slaves. The children of Israel themselves were slaveholders wand were not condemned for it. All the patriarchs themselves were slaveholders; Abraham had more than three hundred, Isaac had a "great store" of them; and even the patient and meek Job himself had "a very great household." When the children of Israel conquered the land of Canaan, they made one whole tribe "hewers of wood and drawers of water," and they were at that very time under the special guidance of Jehovah; they were permitted expressly to purchase slaves of the heathen and keep them as an inheritance for their posterity; and even the children of Israel might be enslaved for six years.

When we turn to the New Testament, we find hot one single passage at all calculated to disturb the conscience of an honest slaveholder. No one can read it without seeing and admiring that the meek and humble Saviour of the world in no instance meddled with the established institutions of mankind'; he came to save a fallen work, and not to excite the black passions of man and array them in deadly hostility against each other. From no one did he turn away; his plan was offered alike to all-to the monarch and the subject, the rich and the poor, the master and the slave. He was born in the Roman world, a world in which the most galling slavery existed, a thousand times more cruel than the slavery in our own country; and yet he nowhere encourages insurrection, he nowhere fosters discontent; but exhorts always to implicit obedience and fidelity.

What a rebuke does the practice of the Redeemer of mankind imply upon the conduct of some of his nominal disciples of the day, who seek to destroy the contentment of the slave, to rouse their most deadly passions, to break up the deep foundations of society, and to lead on to a night of darkness and confusion! " Let every man " (says Paul) "abide in the same calling wherein he is called. Art thou called being a servant? Care not for it; but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather" (I Corinth. vii. 20,21) . . . Servants are even commanded in Scripture to be faithful and obedient to unkind masters. "Servants," (says Peter) "be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle but to the froward. For what glory is it if when ye shall be buffeted for your faults ye take it patiently; but if when ye do will and suffer for it, yet take it patiently, this is acceptable with God" (I Peter ii. 18,20). These and many other passages in the New Testament most convincingly prove that slavery in the Roman world was nowhere charged as a fault or crime upon the holder, and everywhere is the most implicit obedience enjoined.

We beg leave . . . to address a few remarks to those who have conscienctious scruples about the hodling of slaves, and tehrefore consider themsleves under an oblicgatio to break all the ties of friendship and kindred-dissovle all the associations of happier days to flee to a land wehre this evil does not exist. We cannot condmen the conscientious actions of mankind, but we must be permitted to say that if the assumption even of these poious gentelmen be correct, we do consider tehir conduct as very unphilosophical; and we will go further still: we look upn it as even immoral upon tehir own principles.

Let us admit that slavery is an evil; and what then? Why, it has been entailed upon us by no fault of ours, and must we shrink from the charges which devolves upon us, and throw the slave, in consequence, unto those hands of those who have no scruples of conscience-those who will not perhaps treat him so kindly? No! This is not philosophy, it is not morality; ,. . .

Look to the slaveholding population of our country and you everywhere find them characterized by noble and elevated sentiments, by humane and virtuous feelings. We do not find among them that cold, contracted, calculating selfishness, which withers and repels everything around it, and lessens or destroys all the multiplied enjoyments of social intercourse. Go into our national councils and ask for the most generous, the most disinterested, the most conscientious, and the least unjust and oppressive in their principles, and see whether the slaveholder will be passed by in the selection . . . .

Is it not a fact known to every man in the South that the most cruel masters are those who have been unaccustomed to slavery. It is well know that Northern gentleman who marry Southern heiresses are much severer masters than Southern gentlemen. . . .There may be many cruel masters, and there are unkind and cruel fathers too; but both the one and the other make all those around them shudder with horror. We are disposed to think that their example in society tends rather to strengthen than weaken the principle of benevolence and humanity.

Every one acquainted with Southern slaves knows that the slave rejoices in the elevation and prosperity of his master; and the heart of no one is more gladdened at the successful debut of the young master or miss on the great theater of the world than that of either the young slave who has grown up with them and shared in all their sports, and even partaken of all their delicacies, or the aged one who has looked on and watched them from birth to manhood, with the kindest and most affectionate solicitude, and has ever met from them all the kind treatment and generous sympathies of feeling, tender hearts . . .

We have often heard slaveholders affirm that they would sooner rely upon their slaves' fidelity and attachment in the hour of danger and severe trial than on any other equal number of individuals; and we all know that the son or daughter who has been long absent from the parental roof, on returning to the scenes of infancy, never fails to be greeted with the kindest welcome and the most sincere and heartfelt congratulations from those slaves among whom he has been reared to manhood. . .

A merrier being does not exist on the face of the globe than the Negro slave of the United States . . . Why, then, since the slave if happy, and happiness is the great object of all animated creation, should we endeavor tot disturb his contentment by infusing into his mind a vain and indefinite desire for liberty--a something which he cannot comprehend, and which must inevitably dry up the very sources of his happiness.

The fact is that all of us, . .. are too prone to judge of the happiness of others by ourselves --we make self the standard and endeavor to draw down everyone to its dimensions-not recollecting that the benevolence of the Omnipotent has made the mind of man pliant and susceptible of happiness in almost every situation and employment. We might rather die than be the obscure slave that waits at our back--our education and our habits generate an ambition that makes us aspire at something loftier, and disposes us to look upon the slave as unsusceptible of happiness in his humble sphere, when he may indeed be much happier than we are, and have his ambition too; but his ambition is to excel all this other slaves in the performance of his servile duties, to please and to gratify his master, and to command the praise of all who witness his exertions.

It has been contended that slavery is unfavorable to a republican spirit; but the whole history of the world proves that this is far from being the case. In the ancient republics of Greece and Rome, where the spirit of liberty glowed with the most intensity, the slaves were more numerous than the freemen. Aristotle and the great men of antiquity believed slavery necessary to keep alive the spirit of freedom. In Sparta the freeman were even forbidden to perform the offices of slaves, lest [they] might lseo the spirit of independence. In modern times, too, liberty has always been more ardently desired by slaveholding communities

. . . . The menial and low offices being all performed by the blacks, there is at once taken away the greatest cause of distinction and separation of the ranks of society. The man to the north will not shake hands familiarity with his servant, and converse and laugh and dine with him, no matter how honest and respectable he may be. But go to the south, and you will find that no white man feels such inferiority of rank as to be unworthy of association with those around him. Color alone here is the badge of distinction, the true mark of aristocracy, and all who are white are equal in spite of the variety of occupation . . .. And it is this spirit of equality which is both the generator and preserver of the genuine spirit of liberty.

[From The Pro-Slavery Argument: As Maintained by the most Distinguished Writers of the Southern States, Containing the Several Essays, on the Subject, of Chancellor Harper, Governor Hammond, Dr. Simms, and Professor Dew. (Charleston: Walker, Richards, 1852) pp. 451-62. Some paragraphing has been added to the original.]

An Excerpt from: Richard H. Colfax's Evidence Against the Views of the Abolitionists, Consisting of Physical and Moral Proofs, of the Natural Inferiority of the Negroes (New York: James T. M. Bleakley Publishers, 1833):

The lengthy arguments concerning the intellect of the negroe drawn from history, and the numerous explanations of his mental inferiority, which have at various times been given, (without supposing him of a distinct species,) are rendered totally useless, if it can be shown, that the portion of his brain, which presides over the animal functions, exceeds, to any great extent, that from which the mental endowments arise. Furthermore, although we are not believers in physiognomy, (as a science,) yet we cannot avoid making a remark upon the negro's face, which may not be entirely overlooked--although we may thereby risk the commission of a tautology.

His lips are thick, his zygomatic muscles, large and full* (*"These muscles are always in action during laughter and the extreme enlargement of them indicates a low mind." Lavater)--his jaws large and projecting,--his chin retreating,--his forehead low, flat and slanting, and (as a consequence of this latter character,) his eyeballs are very prominent,--apparently larger than those of white men;--all of these peculiarities at the same time contributing to reduce his facial angle almost to a level with that of the brute--Can any such man become great or elevated?--the history of the Africans will give a decisive answer. Even the ancients were fully aware of this kind of mutual coincidence, between the facial angle, and the powers of the mind: consequently, in their statues of heroes and philosophers, they usually extended the angle to 90 degrees,--making that of the Gods to be 100: beyond which, it cannot be enlarged without deformity. Modern anatomists have fixed the average facial angle of the European at 80--negro 70,--ourang outang 58--all brutes below 70, the average angle of quadrupeds being about 20. ******

If then it is consistent with science, to believe that the mind will be great in proportion to the size and figure of the brain: it is equally reasonable to suppose, that the acknowledged meanness of the negroe's intellect, only coincides with the shape of his head; or in other words, that his want of capability to receife a complicated education renders it improper and impotitic, that he should be allowed the privileges of citizenship in an enlightened country! It is in vain for the Amalgamationists to tell us that the negroes have had no opportunity to improve, or have had less opportunities than European nations; the public are well aware that three or four thousand years could not have passed away, without throwing advantages in the way of the Africans; yet in all this time, with every advantage that liberty, and their proximity to refined nations could bestow, they have never even attempted to raise themselves above their present equivocal station, in the great zoological chain. (pp. 24-25)

An Excerpt from William John Grayson's The Hireling and the Slave, second edition (Charleston: John Russell, 1855):

Slavery is that system of labour which exchanges subsistence for work, which secures a life-maintenance from the master to the slave, and gives a life-labour from the slave to the master. The slave is an apprentice for life, and owes his labour to his master; the master owes support, during life, to the slave. Slavery is the negro system of labour. He is lazy and improvident. Slavery makes all work, and it ensures homes, food and clothing for all. It permits no ideless, and it provides for sickness, infancy and old age. It allows no tramping or skulking, and it knows no pauperism.

This is the whole system substantially. * * * *

If Slavery is subject to abuses, it has its advantages also. It establishes more permanent, and, therefore, kinder relations between capital and labour. It removes what Stuart ill calls "the widening and embittering feud between the class of labour and the class of capital." It draws the relation closer between master and servant. It is not an engagement for days or weeks, but for life. There is no such thing, with Slavery, as a labourer for whom nobody cares or provides. The most wretched feature, in hireling labour, is the isolated miserable creature who has no home, no work, no food, and in whom no one is particularly interested. This is seen among hirelings only.

I do not say that Slavery is the best system of labour, but only that it is the best, for the negro, in this country. In a nation composed of the same race or similar races, where the labourer is intelligent, industrious and provident, money wages may be better than subsistence. Even under all advantages, there are great defects in the hireling labour system, for which, hitherto, no Statesman has discovered an adequate remedy. In hireling States there are thousands of idlers, trampers, poachers, smugglers, drunkards and thieves, who make theft a profession. There are thousands who suffer for want of food and clothing, from inability to obtain them. For these two classes--those who will not work, and those who cannot--there is no sufficient provision. Among slaves there are no trampers, idlers, smugglers, poachers, and none suffer from want. Every one is made to work, and no one is permitted to starve. Slavery does for the negro what European schemers in vain attempt to do for the hireling. It secures work and subsistence for all. It secures ore order and subordination also.* (*One of the best arrangements for the relief of the hireling labourer, is the provision made in France, of houses where the children of labourers are taken in when the labourers go to work in the morning, are carefully attended during the day, and restored to the parents on their return t night--a similar provision for the care of children is found on every plantation.) The master is a Commissioner of the Poor, on every plantation, to provide food, clothing, medicine, houses, for his people. He is a police officer to prevent idleness, drunkenness, theft, or disorder. I do not mean by formal appointment of law, but by virtue of his relation to his slaves. There is, therefore, no starvation among slaves. There are, comparatively, few crimes. If there are paupers in slave States, they are the hirelings of other countries, who have run away fro their homes. Pauperism began, with them, when serfage was abolished.

****

What more can be required of Slavery, in reference to the negro, than has been done? It has made him, from a savage, an orderly and efficient labourer. It supports him in comfort and peace. It restrains his vices. It improves his mind, orals and manners. It instructs him in Christian knowledge.

* * * *

All Christians believe that the affairs of the world are directed by Providence for wise and good purposes. The coming of the negro to North America makes no exception to the rule. His transportation was a rude mode of emigration; the only practicable one in his case; not attended with ore wretchedness than the emigrant ship often exhibits even now, notwithstanding the passenger law. What the purpose of his coming is, we may not presume to judge. But we can see much good already resulting from it--good to the negro, in his improved condition; to the country whose rich fields he has cleared of the forest and made productive in climates unfit for the labour of the white man; to the Continent of Africa in furnishing, as it may ultimately, the only means for civilizing its people.

(pp. vii-xii)

Excerpts from The Rights and Duties of Slaveholders: Two Discourses Delivered on Sunday, November 27, 1836, in Christ Church, Raleigh, North-Carolina, By George W. Freeman, (Charleston: A.E. Miller, Printer to The Protestant Episcopal Society for the Advancement of Christianity in South-Carolina, 1837):

Discourse I. Colossians IV.I: Masters give unto your servants that which is just and equal, knowing that ye also have a master in heaven.

The strict meaning of the word here rendered servants, is bondmen or slaves. In this sense, particularly when applied, as here, to a distinct class of men, it is believed to be uniformly employed in the New Testament, especially in the Epistles.

Slavery, it appears, is of great antiquity. It has existed in the world, in some form or other, even from the times immediately following, if not before the flood. It may be regarded as one of the penal consequences of sin--an effect of that doom pronounced upon the human race in consequence of the disobedience of our first parents, whereby perpetual labour was entailed upon man as the only means of sustaining life--"Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. In the swat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground."

Though this sentence was passed upon mankind generally, it was not to be expected, that its effects would continue for any length of time to be felt by all alike. There would, of necessity, very soon arise an inequality e men. The Father, s the head of the family, would of course direct and command the labours of his children; and as the number of these increased, and the operations of the household became, in consequence, expanded, his time would be more and more occupied in planning and superintending the labours of the rest, until, in process of tie, he would find it essential to the welfare of the whole, that he should withdraw entirely from manual toil, and devote himself exclusively to cares and labours of a different kind.

So, also, as society advanced and the human race multiplied in the earth, the idleness of some, the incapacity of others, and the vices of a still greater number, would lead to greater inequalities. The wants of the idle and improvident, would, after a while, constrain them to enter the service of the more industrious and prudent; the incapable and weak would naturally become dependent upon the intelligent and strong; and a regard to the common safety, if o other cause, would ultimately lead to something like the enslaving of the lawless and violent.

To such a state of things had the world advanced long before the establishment of the Mosaic Institutions. Subordination in society existed everywhere. Servitude was recognized as a necessary condition, and patiently, if not cheerfully, submitted to, in every variety of form. Patriarchs, or heads of families, held in subjection to their authority, not only the inferior branches of their respective tribes, together with their hired labourers and menials, but also servants "bought with their money," or "born in their houses"--that is, slaves.* (See Genesis xiv. 24, 25--svi. 6,90--xvii. 12. 13.)

[Note: Here the author goes on to describe the nature and extent of slavery in the Roman world.]*****

Such were the nature and extent of slavery in the world, when our Saviour appeared, to proclaim "peace on earth, and good will to men"--to preach the glad tidings of salvation to a ruined world--to redeem us from sin and everlasting death, and to "open the kingdom of Heaven to all believers." And how did he regard it? What had he to say of this institution, as he found it existing among the people he came to save? Did he condemn it as anti-scriptural and unjust? Did he enjoin on his disciples an immediate emancipation of their slaves? Did he so much as caution his followers against purchasing them in the future? Not a word, disapproving the practice, ever fell from his lips. As a settled civil institution of the Empire, he meddled not with it, of course--for his "kingdom", as he declared "was not of this world." He came not to remodel the governments--he came not to reform the civil institutions of the world--he came "to seek and to save that which was lost." But in the course of his ministry, he must have come in contact with many individuals who were holders of slaves; and surely, had he regarded them as living in the habitual commission of a 'moral wrong,' he would scarcely have forborne, on some occasion, to express his indignation. And did he never rebuke them for holding their fellow-men in bondage? Did he never give them to understand that, if they would be his disciples, they must set their slaves at liberty? No, Brethren, nothing of the kind occurs in his whole history. On the contrary, it appears that he habitually inclined to discountenance the dissevering of those ties which he found binding society together. He sought to reform the hearts and lives of men, and to fit them for Heaven; not to change their relative condition on earth. Indeed, so far was he from anathematizing those who were owners of slaves, it seems he once passed a very high encomium on one of this class--on a Heathen Slave-holder! Of the Centurion--a n officer in the Roman army--who applied to him on behalf of a sick servant, upon his declining the honor of a personal visit from our Lord, and arguing, "Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof; but speak the word only, and my servant (slave) shall be healed; for I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me; and I say unto one, go, and he goeth, and to another come, and he cometh, and to my servant (so slave) do this, and he doeth it"--of him, we are told, that Jesus "said to them that followed, verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith; no, not in Israel.

Neither do we find anything in the writings of the Apostles condemnatory of slavery. The relation of Master and Slave is frequently spoken of, but never with one word of disapprobation. The relative duties of each are inculcated with freedom and earnestness, in the same manner as are those of other relations subsisting among men, such as parents and children, husbands and wives, magistrates and citizens; while no intimation whatever is given that that particular one is more inconsistent with the principles and spirit of the gospel than the rest. Indeed we are furnished with one remarkable instance, in which an Apostle appears to have been instrumental, not in setting at liberty, (as some over-benevolent persons in our day are forward to do) but in reclaiming and sending back to his master, A FUGITIVE SLAVE! I allude to the case of Onemsimus. Phileon, it appears, was a Christian--a convert of St. Paul's--and a slaveholder. His slave Onesimus had eloped from his master; but meeting St. Paul in his travels, he became a convert to the Christian Faith, and now, under the influence of Christian principle set home to his conscience, doubtless by the faithful exertion of the Apostle, he resolved on returning to his master's service. This occasion sees to have led to the writing of the "Epistle to Philemon," of which this very Oensimus was the bearer.*

*Footnote: Some strenuous advocates of emancipation, the author is aware, have sought to give this transaction a somewhat different aspect. From the expressions used by the Apostle (vs. 16-21) they have inferred that he did not mean to consign Onesimus again to bondage; confidently trusting that since his conversion he would no longer be regarded by Philemon as a slave, but be received and acknowledged not only as a Christian brother, but as an equal. A candid examination of the Epistle, however, must, it is thought, satisfy every impartial mind that the view given above is the correct one. Certainly, it is the one maintained by the generality of commentators. Bloom field (notes on the Greek Testament) on the expression (v. 15) "that thou shouldst receive him forever," remarks, "this is not only meant to engage that he shall not run away again, but to suggest another and affecting consideration; 'for if,' as Dr. Burton observes, 'Onesimus had continued a heathen, Philemon might have had him a servant for life, but after that they would have been separated; now, they would be companions forever, in this world and the next."'(pp.5-11)

An Excerpt from "Slavery in the Light of Social Ethics," by Chancelor Harper, printed in Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavry Arguments: Comprising the Writings of Hammond, Harper, Christy, Stringfellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, and Cartwright, on This Important Subject, E.N. Elliott, ed. (Augusta, GA: Pritchard, Abbott & Loomis, 1860):

In one thing I concur with the abolitionists; that if emancipation is to be brought about, it is better that it should be immediate and total. But let us suppose it to be brought about in any manner, and then inquire what would be the effects.

The first and most obvious effect, would be to put an end to the cultivation of our great Southern staple. And this would be equally the result, if we suppose the emancipated negroes to be in no way distinguished from the free labourers of other countries, and that their labor would b equally effective. . . Imagine an extensive rice or cotton plantation cultivated by free laborers, who might perhaps strike for an increase of wages, at a season when the neglect of a few days would insure the destruction of the whole crop. Even if it were possible to procure laborers at all, what planter would venture to carry on his operations under such circumstances? I need hardly say that these staples cannot be produced to any extent where the proprietor of the soil cultivates it with his own hands. He can do little more than produce the necessary food for himself and his family.

And what would be the effect of putting an end to the cultivation of these staples, and thus annihilating, at a blow, two-thirds or three-fourths of our foreign commerce? Can any sane mind contemplate such a result without terror? I speak not of the utter poverty and misery to which we ourselves would be reduced, and the desolation which would overspread our own portion of the country. Our slavery has not only given existence to millions of slaves within our own territories, it has given the means of subsistence, and therefore, existence, to millions of freemen in our confederate States; enabling them to send forth their swarms to overspread the plains and forests of the West, and appear as the harbingers of civilization. The products of the industry of those States are in general similar to those of the civilized world, and are little demanded in their markets. By exchanging them for ours, which are everywhere sought for, the people of these States are enabled to acquire all the products of art and industry, all that contributes to convenience or luxury, or gratifies the taste of the intellect, which the rest of the world can supply. Not only on our own continent, but on the other, it has given existence to hundreds of thousands, and the means of comfortable subsistence to millions. A distinguished citizen of our own Stat, than whom none can be better qualified to form an opinion, has lately stated that our great staple, cotton, has contributed more than anything else of later times to the progress of civilization. By enabling the poor to obtain cheap and becoming clothing, it has inspired a taste for comfort, the first stimulus to civilization. Does not self-defense, then, demand of us steadily to resist the abrogation of that which is productive of so much good? It is more than self-defense. IT is to defend millions of human beings, who are far removed from us, from the intensest suffering, if not from being struck out of existence. It is the defense of human civilization. (pp. 617-618)

 

SECONDARY SOURCE:  Professor D. Wilkes
Published in slightly different form in Flagpole Magazine, p. 8 (November 17, 1999).

“Nothing is more susceptible to oblivion than an argument, however ingenious, that has been discredited by events; and such is the case with the body of writing which was produced in the antebellum South in defense of Negro slavery.”  So wrote Eric McKitrick in a history book he edited, Slavery Defended: The Views of the Old South (1963).  McKitrick was correct.  At the end of the twentieth century very few people are aware of the existence, much less the contents, of the vast mass of books, essays, pamphlets, magazine and newspaper articles, and printed sermons and speeches in which the institution of black slavery was enthusiastically and aggressively defended, even extolled, by proslavery advocates in the Old South.

There were very few published defenses of slavery in the Old South prior to 1830.  The great bulk of the Old South's proslavery writings date from the period 1830 until 1865, during which slavery was not only defended without apology, but often commended as a positive good.  In the 1850's Southern proslavery writings reached their apex, both in terms of quantity and shrillness, whereas Southern antislavery writings, which had always been meager, practically disappeared.

The single most important study of pre-1865 proslavery writings in the South is William S. Jenkins' Pro-Slavery Thought in the Old South (1935), which rightfully emphasizes the enormous energy and huge expenditures of time proslavery writers devoted to defending the peculiar institution from all criticism.  Every conceivable thesis, every possible line of reasoning, and every form of attack that might support slavery was invoked, conjured up, or set forth, and then repeated endlessly with infinite variations and from every possible angle.

Twentieth century historians, including William S. Jenkins, traditionally have believed that the development of a systematic defense of slavery was a phenomenon unique to the Old South.  That belief has, however, been exploded as mythical by Larry E. Tise in his epochal book, Proslavery: A History of the Defense of Slavery in America, 1701-1840 (1987) (published by the UGA Press).  In his monumental treatise, Tise proves beyond any doubt that the earliest systematic defense of slavery in America was made, not by Southerners, but by conservative Northern intellectuals--clergymen, professors, and college presidents--who in their writings and speeches during the first third of the nineteenth century constructed an elaborate conservative ideology which included a vociferous proslavery advocacy as one of its cornerstones.  In defending slavery these nonslaveowning Northerners, many of them New Englanders who were Federalists or ex-Federalists, advanced all of the proslavery arguments which until recently were associated only with the Old South.  “There was nothing unique about the defenses of slavery uttered in the [Old] South,” Tise writes.  “No one [in the Old South] offered a single argument that had not already been used in substantially the same positive language ... in the northern United States early in the nineteenth century.”

Tise further proves in his book that between 1770 and 1830 British and West Indian proslavery writers created an ideological defense of slavery that also featured all the proslavery arguments which flourished in the Old South from 1830 until 1865.  These British and West Indian advocates of slavery  “assumed every moral, philosophical, economic, and social position available to defenders of slavery in the English-speaking world,” Tise writes.  They were, he adds, “responsible for establishing a slaveholders' philosophy well before the first American southerner attempted to [defend slavery].”

Amazingly, therefore, the latest historical scholarship demonstrates that the Old South's defense of slavery was neither unique nor original.  The Old South's proslavery writings were not only wholly despicable; they were also entirely derivative.  Nearly everything Southerners wrote to uphold slavery had already been written by Northern or British proslavery advocates.

The Old South's lengthy list of proslavery publications includes two important books, one nonfiction and the other fiction, written by Georgians.

The first, An Inquiry into the Law of Negro Slavery (1858) (reprinted by the UGA Press in 1999), by the noted Thomas R. R. Cobb, is an erudite treatise on slave law tragically flawed by its glorification of slavery and its curt dismissal of slavery's defects as minor and excusable.  Cobb, a lawyer from Athens, also authored the Confederate Constitution and the Georgia Constitution of 1861, and was one of the founders of the UGA School of Law.  In 1860 when South Carolina became the first state to secede he placed illuminated letters on his Prince Avenue home reading “RESISTANCE TO ABOLITION IS OBEDIENCE TO GOD.”  Later a general in the Confederate army, Cobb was killed in 1862 at the Battle of Fredericksburg within sight of the house where his parents had been married; he is buried in Oconee Hill Cemetery.

The other book is a novel, Nellie Norton: or, Southern Slavery and the Bible, written by an obscure 44-year old Macon Protestant clergyman, Ebenezer Willis Warren.  Published in 1864, Nellie Norton is one of the very last defenses of the institution of black slavery penned in the Old South.  Never reprinted, the novel has languished in obscurity since its publication; the only copy available locally is on microfilm in the UGA Main Library.

The novel begins in a year which is not specified, but appears to be around 1859.  Most of the events in the novel take place between November of that year and the following July.

The childish plot of Nellie Norton is easily summarized.

Nellie Norton, a beautiful, high-minded young woman from New England who fervently believes that slaves are cruelly oppressed by their masters and that slavery should be abolished, travels with her mother by steamboat to Savannah to visit slaveowning relatives who live on a plantation.  During her sojourn in Georgia Nellie's views regarding slavery undergo a sea-change.  She participates in or listens to long discussions on the pros and cons of slavery; she talks and visits with slaves; she attends a slave wedding and a slave funeral; she discovers that slaves are well-fed, well-clothed, and kindly treated; she learns that slaves are happy and do not wish to be emancipated; she comes to realize that black persons benefit from slavery; and, finally, she concludes that Southern slaveowners have been the victims of “malignant abuse” and “wicked and malicious slander” by Northerners ignorant of the virtues of slavery.  As a result Nellie abandons her Abolitionist beliefs and embraces the view that Southern slavery is just and moral.  Nellie falls in love with and marries a slaveowner and moves to Georgia to live with him on his plantation.  When the novel ends the Civil War is raging and Nellie has turned her home into a hospital for wounded Confederate soldiers.

Perhaps a third of the novel is devoted to tiresome, seemingly interminable debates on slavery between Nellie and her Northern church minister (who has come to visit Nellie in Georgia), both of whom take an antislavery stance, and Nellie's slaveowning relatives and their slaveowning friends, who militantly defend slavery.  In all these discussions the proslavers consistently come out on top, despite their repeatedly making such statements as “the world is wrong [on the issue of human slavery], and the South must set it right;” “the world is in error, and is dependent upon the South for the truth;” “the welfare of the negro is best promoted when he is under the restraints of slavery;” and “slavery is the normal condition of the negro.”

There were a number of standard lines of argument used over and over in defense of slavery in the Old South, and Nellie Norton makes use of almost all of them.

The scriptural, or Bible, argument was, according to William S. Jenkins, “probably ... the most elaborate and systematic statement of any of the types of pro-slavery argument.”  In essence the scriptural argument was the claim that the Bible and the Christian religion favor slavery, including the form of black slavery practiced in the Old South.

Most of the defense of slavery in Nellie Norton involves reliance on the Bible argument, as is evident from the novel's subtitle, A Scriptural Refutation of the Principal Arguments Upon Which the Abolitionists Rely: A Vindication of Southern Slavery From the Old and New Testaments.  According to William S. Jenkins, Leviticus 25:44-46 (relating to the buying, keeping, and inheriting of bondmen and bondmaids) was “the rock of Gibraltar in the Old Testament” justification of slavery, and, sure enough, that passage is quoted and relied upon several times in the novel by proslavery characters.

Other passages in the Old Testament frequently cited by Old South proslavers--for example, Exodus 21:2-6 (relating to the slavery of poor Hebrews) and Deuteronomy 15:16-17 (also relating to the slavery of poor Hebrews)--are invoked in Nellie Norton to prove that God instituted slavery, approved of it, and intended it to be perpetual.  To prove that the black race was particularly intended by God to be the slaves of the white race, Nellie Norton's proslavers cite Genesis 9:26-27 (relating to the curse of Canaan), another passage frequently cited by proslavery advocates in the Old South.  “There is nothing, not one word,” a proslaver says to Nellie, “in the Old Testament to condemn, but very much to establish, enforce, and regulate slavery.”

The apologists for slavery in Nellie Norton also trot out the usual arguments Old South proslavers would make in regard to the New Testament.  The Golden Rule is not inconsistent with human slavery; both Ephesians 6:5-8 (exhorting servants to be obedient to their masters), Titus 2:9-10 (also exhorting servants to be obedient to their masters), and Colossians 3:22-24 (requiring slaves to obey their masters) justify slavery; “in the catalogue of sins denounced by the Savior and His Apostles, slavery is not once mentioned;” “not one word is said by the prophets, apostles, or the holy Redeemer against slavery;” and “the Apostles admitted slaveholders and their slaves to church membership, without requiring a dissolution of the relation.”

Not surprisingly, therefore, Nellie Norton is replete with such dizzying assertions as “slavery is right, and its enforcement is according to the Scripture,” “slavery is taught in the Bible, and instituted in Heaven,” “God has ordained slavery,” “slavery was made perpetual by the positive enactment of heaven,” and “there cannot be found ... in the Bible a single injunction to slaveholders to liberate those held by them in bondage.”  To abominate slavery, Nellie is told by a proslaver who constantly gets the best of her in the slavery debates, “is to abominate the law of God, and the sentiments inculcated by his holy prophets and apostles.”  Therefore, a slave “cannot sunder bonds which bind him to his earthly master, without breaking those which unite him morally to his Redeemer.”

Perhaps the two most absurd statements in this novel brimming with absurd statements occur when Nellie is told, “the Bible is a pro-slavery Bible, and God is a pro-slavery God,” and “the North must give up the Bible and religion, or adopt our views of slavery.”

Apart from the scriptural argument, the defense of slavery most frequently raised by its defenders was the ethnological argument--that black people were physically, mentally, and morally inferior to whites and therefore deserving of being kept as slaves.  As William S. Jenkins notes: “The entire pro-slavery thought was imbued with the belief of Negro inferiority.”  The Old South's proslavery writings were therefore almost always infected with the evils of racism.

Racist attitudes toward black persons pervade the proslavery pronouncements of the slaveowners in Nellie Norton.  Blacks are said to be “exceptions to the common brotherhood” of man; black persons are characterized as “sensual and stupid, lazy, improvident, and vicious,” and as “an ignorant, degraded, indolent people” who could “never ... be equal with the white man.”

Since, according to Nellie Norton's slaveholders, the inferiority of blacks to whites was “designed by their creator [i.e., God],” the ethnological argument in the novel dovetails nicely with the Bible argument.

Another standard defense of slavery found in Nellie Norton was what might be deemed the escapist argument.  It involved what historian Ralph E. Morrow calls “the escape into a world of unreality”--justifying slavery by depicting it idyllic terms.  This “vein of sentimentalism in proslavery literature,” as Morrow puts it, is everywhere evident in Nellie Norton.  One proslaver assures Nellie, “The slaves have many rights.  The right of life and limb, the right to be fed and clothed, to be nursed when sick, and cared for in old age when they become helplessly infirm.  They are rightfully entitled to protection from ill treatment.”  Slave children in Nellie Norton are depicted as “fat and saucy, jolly and lively;” they engage in “cheerful songs and merry laughter.” Adult slaves are “happy Ethiopians” with “bright countenance[s], ... smiling face[s], and ivory teeth” who “are fed bountifully, clothed well, nursed when indisposed, and afforded [a] suitable diet,” and who “talk, and laugh, and sing, and pat, and dance,” and spend their time “singing, dancing, laughing, chattering.”  The slaves love and are utterly devoted to their masters, who in turn are “highly cultivated ... men of superior general intelligence, refined, polite, [and] genteel.”  “I know of no case where the master lives on his plantation with his slaves but what they are treated with justice and moderation,” a proslaver says to Nellie.  Like other romanticized accounts of slavery written in the Old South, therefore, Nellie Norton presents what Ralph E. Morrow refers to as “a vision of a paradisical order”--highly romanticized and totally unreal.

Another usual Old South defense of slavery was the historical argument--that history proves there has always been slavery and always will be slavery.  “The truth is, the world never has, and never can exist without slavery in some form,” Nellie is told.  “Where is the country or the period of history wherein slavery did not exist in some shape or other? ... Slavery has always existed, and will continue so long as there is a disparity in the intellect or energy of men.”

Since, according to Nellie Norton, God ordained and sanctioned slavery, and since, moreover, according to the novel, God not only placed blacks under the curse of subjection but also created the racial differences which render blacks fit for slavery, the novel's historical argument for slavery meshes neatly with both the scriptural and ethnological arguments for slavery.

Nellie Norton contains numerous other standard Old South defenses of slavery, but only one of these, the ad hominem argument, will be mentioned here.  It was common for advocates of slavery to demonize the Abolitionists, and Nellie Norton bristles with vituperative castigations of Abolitionists.  Abolitionists are “ruthless” and “fanatical.” Abolitionists take positions “which embody the worst forms of infidelity ever known to the world.”  Abolitionists are sounding “the funeral knell of a pure Christianity.” “I tell you,” one of the proslavers in the novel shouts, Abolitionists are guilty of “an offense against God, the Bible, religion, the peace of the Christian world, and against common sense, and the more enlightened experience of the age.”

Why were books such as Nellie Norton written?  Why did the Old South produce such a torrent of defenses of slavery after 1830, especially in view of the fact that very few criticisms of slavery were being written in the South and that almost all white Southerners (slaveowners and nonslaveowners alike) supported slavery?  Historians disagree on the answer to these questions.  Some historians, including William S. Jenkins, say that the proslavery literature was aimed at proselytizing Northerners and combatting the Abolitionist writings that were being smuggled into the South.  Some historians, including Ralph E. Morrow, say that the real motive of Southerners was to assuage the guilt feelings they felt about holding human beings in bondage.  Historian David Donald suggests that “the proslavery writers ... were not so much defending slavery-as-it-was as they were dreaming of the South-as-it-might-have-been.”

Whatever the validity of these explanations for Southern writings defending slavery, there can be no doubt why Nellie Norton was written.  In the short preface to the novel, author Ebenezer Willis Warren explains that the purpose of the novel was to “set the question [of slavery], as to its moral aspect, forever at rest.”  Like so many white Southerners of the time, Warren thought not only that slavery was morally right, but that this could be conclusively demonstrated.

Nellie Norton's preface is dated May 4, 1864.  Three days later, Gen. William T. Sherman's three powerful Union armies opened the Atlanta campaign by advancing on Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's Confederate army near Dalton.  In less than a year Southern slavery was dead.  This was not because white Southerners rejected slavery; most of them saw in it nothing to be ashamed of.  Nor was it because there was a dearth of proslavery defenders in the South; the number of such defenders was legion.  Finally, it was not because of an absence of proslavery literature; written defenses of slavery flooded the Old South.

Slavery ended because, as on other occasions in American history, Southern intransigence and obtuseness made it necessary for the Federal Government, by force of arms, to compel the American South to give up execrable practices which, as Nellie Norton shows, most white Southerners thought godly.

SOURCE: http://www.law.uga.edu/academics/profiles/dwilkes_more/his29_racism.html