Copyright 2011, THEThe Concord CONCORD Review, REVIEW Inc., all rights reserved 85

DEFINING RACE: ANTEBELLUM RACIAL SCIENTISTS’ INFLUENCES ON PROSLAVERY WRITERS

Gabriel Alvarez

As the American abolitionist movement grew in strength in the decades leading up to the Civil War, proslavery southerners felt the need to establish a more cohesive argument in defense of their peculiar institution. This period was also host to the “first generation of American professional scientists” and the founding of the American School of Anthropology, a group of scientists dedicated to documenting the development of human beings, including how racial differences affected this development.1 These 19th century scientists professed a notion of innate differences between the races, using science to support and legitimize their preexisting worldview as members of a race-conscious society. Proslavery writers adapted these findings to their own arguments in favor of continued slavery, framing them in a way that was more accessible to the public and using science as a supposedly unbiased source of corroborating evidence. By the time of the proliferation of proslavery writers and scientists, slavery had already become heavily entrenched in the American economic and social system, a development that began just decades after the first colonies were founded on the American

Gabriel Alvarez is a Senior at the Commonwealth School in Boston, Massachusetts, where he wrote this paper for Melissa Haber’s Advanced Placement United States History course in the 2010/2011 academic year. 86 Gabriel Alvarez THE CONCORD REVIEW 87 continent. Although there is some scholarly debate about the devel- when the Virginia legislature began to strip blacks of civil rights. opment of the race-based slave system in America,2 many historians However, this trend toward racism was not uniform throughout argue that the first Africans brought to America had civil rights the colony, as poor white servants do not appear to have become and a place in society somewhat equal to those of white servants, prejudiced against black slaves as quickly as the state legislators and that only later factors led to the shift from class-based to race- and other wealthy Virginians. This may be in part because poor based social differentiation in southern society.3 Early southern white servants saw many similarities between their situation and colonies had a very small black populations about which very little that of slaves, as both often suffered harsh treatment at the hands is known; Virginia, the largest southern colony at this time, likely of cruel masters.9 During Bacon’s Rebellion, white servants and had under 2,000 black inhabitants before the 1670s. This black black slaves banded together in an unsuccessful attempt to take over population was mostly made up of slaves and servants imported Virginia from Governor Berkeley; as Breen notes, “the presence from Barbados who already had at least a general knowledge of of so many black rebels…provides evidence that many Virginians the English language and the European way of life.4 Not all black in Berkeley’s time regarded economic status, not race, as the es- southerners at this time were slaves; a significant portion worked sential social distinction.”10 Along with several other historians,11 as normal indentured servants and gained freedom after four to Smedley argues that this rebellion scared wealthy Virginians into seven years of labor.5 These blacks were probably not considered developing the notion of a unified white race. According to these a separate class from servants and had some upward mobility, historians, this new worldview unified various groups of Europe- including the opportunity to become landowners, hold slaves ans that had not previously seen themselves as similar, resulting of their own, or even marry a white servant and with little social in a sharp increase in racial prejudice against non-whites.12 This stigma.6 is perhaps an oversimplification, and Breen offers other reasons In contrast with the starvation and harsh struggles that for this change, including a tobacco boom that allowed white had marked the first few decades of its existence, Virginia began indentured servants to rise out of extreme poverty and new regu- to enjoy increased prosperity by the mid-1600s. This prosperity lations in England that led to a decrease in the importation of 13 came for a number of reasons, including the achievement of a indentured servants. Also, merchants at this time began to ship more stable population and the defeat of the local Indian chief black slaves to Virginia directly from Africa, and unlike the first Powhatan, with whom Virginians had previously struggled. This Virginian slaves, these lacked any knowledge of English and ar- victory allowed Virginians access to large tracts of new land, and rived in terrible condition. These factors, Breen argues, made it in order to profit from this land, plantation owners sought a large, impossible for white servants to see anything in common between cheap labor force.7 Blacks were seen as more useful workers to their situation and that of the newly arrived slaves, and they soon 14 fill this role than other possible servant groups (such as enslaved abandoned much of their previous racial tolerance. Whatever Indians), as most had farming skills, were adapted to living in the forces were that motivated this change to a racial worldview hot climates like that of Virginia, and were resistant to Old World among southerners, in the years that followed Bacon’s rebellion, diseases. They were also unlikely to revolt due to a lack of outside race-based slavery rather than indentured servitude increasingly 15 support.8 became seen as an integral part of the southern social order. Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676 would play a large role in As the race-based slave system became more heavily en- assisting the development of racism in the southern colonies, trenched into American society during the 18th century, belief in continuing a trend that had begun at least as early as the 1660s, innate differences between human beings from different areas of 88 Gabriel Alvarez THE CONCORD REVIEW 89 the world began to gain traction with scholars from both Europe physically and mentally, placing them below whites on the Great and America. These thinkers tended to base their arguments on Chain of Being.21 religion and a closely related concept known as the Great Chain During the time of the emerging racial thinkers of the of Being. The Great Chain of Being attempted to establish a hier- mid-to-late 18th-century, the proslavery movement was not yet well archy for all living things on earth, with God at the highest point, defined, as the institution of slavery faced little attack from the 16 followed by angels, humans, animals, and plants. In 1735, Carl outside and thus did not need to be aggressively defended. Before Linnaeus, a Swedish scientist, published his Systema Naturea, which the American Revolution, the English leaders of the colonies did proposed a detailed classification of all living things based on the not dare to attack slavery due to its great economic importance notion of the Great Chain, promoting future hierarchical classifi- to the English system of mercantilism, in which the colonies were 17 cations. Building on Linnaeus’s findings, Johann Blumenbach, used to deliver raw materials for England’s production of manu- a German physician, created a widely-accepted categorization factured goods.22 In a draft of his Declaration of Independence, of humans into five distinct races. Unlike later racial thinkers, Thomas Jefferson criticized this staunch defense of slavery, citing Blumenbach, and his contemporaries adhered to the orthodox England’s refusal to allow colonists to place limits on the slave trade Christian position that God had originally created a single, white and charging the king with “suppressing every legislative attempt race of man which had “degenerated” into the five separate races to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce.”23 American due to environmental factors. Although Europeans pioneered this slavery faced a challenge during the Constitutional Convention of way of thinking, Americans participated in human classification 1787 from a number of abolitionist delegates but remained intact during this period as well; Samuel Smith, for example, published due to the practical arguments of the proslavery delegates, who an essay in 1787 that attempted to fix blacks’ place in nature while made up a majority (but not all) of the convention. The proslavery 18 maintaining the orthodox position of a single creation. These arguments of these delegates focused on the economic and politi- 18th-century scientists usually based their claims not on quantita- cal benefits of slavery and drew somewhat from emerging racial tive measurements but on subjective descriptions of non-whites ideologies.24 During the convention and in the early years of the 19 and cultural stereotypes. As most were writing from Europe and United States, the belief among many southerners and northerners had never seen members of any race other than their own, they alike was that slavery was doomed to die out on its own over time. tended to base their evidence on personal accounts; this second- With some exceptions, northerners tended to view the institution hand nature of their research may account for their relatively as a southern problem, abstaining from taking the type of moral- 20 moderate stance on the origin of the separate races. based action against it that they would in larger numbers during Playing on the concept of the Great Chain of Being, the mid-19th-century. Southern views on slavery were equally lack- those defending slavery in the late 18th century began to use the ing in passion during this time; as Morrison writes, “in 1790, the works of those such as Linnaeus and Blumenbach to dehumanize majority of southerners either quietly accepted the institution of blacks by comparing their characteristics to those of unintelligent chattel slavery or were apologetic about it,”25 demonstrating an animals such as primates. These writings featured comparisons absence of the fiery, aggressive defenses of slavery that would later of black slavery to the servitude of domesticated animals, using characterize the proslavery movement. Slavery’s importance to this comparison as a justification for the slave system. In the late the economic and social order was apparent to most Americans, 1700s, these arguments were found in books such as Edward Long’s who, for this reason, spoke of it as a “necessary evil.”26 1774 History of Jamaica. Long devoted his History almost entirely to showing black inferiority by comparing blacks to primates both 90 Gabriel Alvarez THE CONCORD REVIEW 91 Despite the lack of aggressive proslavery documents in the by birth, were meant to have power, and others were meant to late 18th century, Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia, follow them.33 27 a book written for French intellectuals in 1781, provides strong Despite Gall’s attempts to adhere to the scientific method evidence that southerners during this time were beginning to ac- and use phrenology strictly as a medical science, his followers did cept the argument of black racial inferiority. In his Notes, Jefferson not share the same enthusiasm for scientific rigor and soon trans- proposed a number of racial arguments about slaves that would formed the field into a massively popular mixture of morality and become mainstays of the proslavery cause in the future. Like con- loosely applied pseudoscience. Johann Spurzheim (1776-1832), a temporary scientists of the day, Jefferson based the arguments he disciple of Gall, was the most important figure in this transforma- makes on personal observation and experience, which led him to tion, removing phrenology from legitimate scientific procedure 28 conclude that blacks are “inferior to whites in…body and mind.” and associating brain areas with more abstract faculties such as Like others such as Edward Long before him, Jefferson compared religious nature, coming up with a total of 35 different areas, each blacks with primates, claiming that black women breed with the with a specific function. His changes made the field more accessible “oranootan” and that blacks tend to be animal-like in their emo- to the public, and he was instrumental in the movement’s subse- tions and sexuality. This “inferiority,” wrote Jefferson, posed a quent popularity in the U.S. and Britain. He gained a following 29 great obstacle to the emancipation of black slaves. in these countries by co-authoring publications with Gall in 1810 Another field of so-called science developing around this and 1812 and embarking on a U.S. speaking tour in 1814.34 With time was the practice of phrenology, which eventually became in- the speaking tours and publications, phrenology soon became an extricably linked to the proslavery argument. Although originally important part of American society, and people with virtually no entirely separate from racial theory, the practice strengthened qualifications took up the practice. Phrenologists such as George the developing idea of a connection between a person’s physical Combe, the leading American in the field, won the support of ex- appearance and his or her mental capabilities, a connection sup- tremely influential American icons for the movement (including ported as a justification for slavery. The first phrenologists based future President Garfield, Horace Mann, Massachusetts politician their works on Swiss clergyman Johann Lavater’s fairly popular Josiah Quincy, and Walt Whitman).35 Scientific lectures at this time Physiognomische Fragmente in 1775, which first theorized about lo- served as a prime form of entertainment for the upper-class and calized brain functions.30 Franz Gall (1758-1828), considered to had a great effect on their audiences,36 as well as generating (in be the father of phrenology, launched the movement in earnest, Combe’s case) at $750 per lecture, well over the average income theorizing that a person’s skull shape can be used to determine the in America for a whole year of work.37 Eventually, supporters of quality of each specific area of the brain.31 Although the field of slavery began to use phrenology to argue that the differences in phrenology has since been discredited as pseudoscience, Gall was skull shape made blacks an inferior race, claiming that “people actually a strong advocate of the scientific method of the time and of slanting foreheads,” as blacks were shown to have, “can never made legitimate attempts to verify his claims about brain function become great or elevated.”38 32 systematically. Gall’s work reflected his personal beliefs about As scientists increasingly pointed out differences between heredity, which rejected the Enlightenment idea that all brains the races, some thinkers in both America and Europe began to are equal at birth and that environmental factors determine abil- question the biblical account that all humans descended from ity. Gall taught that education could only shape and modify what one original creation. These thinkers instead proposed a theory was already present in the brain. He believed that some people, known as polygenesis, the theory that God had made a pair of 92 Gabriel Alvarez THE CONCORD REVIEW 93 each race of humans in a number of separate creations. This of mankind and describing them as completely distinct groups.45 belief tied directly into the increasing social acceptance of a race He invented a number of advanced scientific techniques and based worldview. Polygenist thinkers were actually first seen back used skull measurements to determine the brain sizes of people in the Renaissance, but their position had been considered too of each race. Based on these measurements, Morton attempted radical to be accepted by mainstream society. The movement to place the races in order of intelligence; he determined that only began to gain traction during the Enlightenment as popular whites, or “Caucasoids,” had the largest brains, followed by two thinkers such as Voltaire expressed their support of the theory.39 different groups of Asians, “Mongoloids” and “Malays,” then However, it was during the U.S. antebellum period that the move- Native Americans, and finally Negroes. Morton argued that the ment truly took off, as those defending slavery increasingly voiced differences between races were innate and not caused by climate, their support for the polygenist theory, which allowed them to rendering them entirely separate species.46 This argument was treat blacks as a separate, subhuman species. Unlike some aspects based on an adherence to the biblical creation date of 4,000 BC, of the proslavery argument, polygenesis was never universally as Morton deemed it impossible for each separate race to “de- accepted among southerners, as it went against the teachings of generate” from a single pair of humans in such a short period the Bible and undermined the religious proslavery arguments of of time.47 Without ever explicitly voicing support of polygenesis, many southerners.40 Polygenesis actually went against many known Morton strongly implied that he accepted the theory, stating that scientific facts about species, but those scientists that promoted “the physical characteristics which distinguish the different races… it invariably ignored these problems, using their science as a way are independent of external cause,” leaving a separate creation to achieve the specific result of the inferiority of blacks they had as the only possibility for how these differences came about.48 In decided on beforehand.41 his works, Morton challenged the existing guidelines for species, Beginning in the 1830s, a new group of American scientists which considered the ability to produce fertile offspring to be known as the American School of Anthropology, led by Samuel evidence that two organisms were of the same species, an obstacle George Morton, began to focus on scientifically classifying the for believers in races as separate species. Morton instead defined differences between races. These scientists increasingly argued species as a “primordial organic form,” removing this test from 49 that the various races were too different to belong to the same consideration in determining species. species or even have the same origin, bringing together elements After Morton’s death in 1851, his cause was taken up by of phrenology and polygenist theories in one scientific field. In more explicitly polygenist scientists such as Josiah Clark Nott 1830, Charles Caldwell, a North Carolina scientists, applied the and Louis Agassiz, who took his arguments further and applied findings of phrenology to create the first “explicitly polygenist” them directly to black inferiority. Nott, who has been described book written in English, bringing the theory into American public as a “bigoted, narrow-minded racist,” became the head of the discourse and setting the scene for Morton’s teachings.42 Morton American School of Anthropology and continued Morton’s work, gained fame with his highly influential and acclaimed Crania writing that “Morton was the first to conceive the proper plan; but, Americana in 1839, followed by Crania Aegyptiaca in 1844, in which unfortunately, lived not to carry it out.”50 Agassiz, a Swiss scientist he used some elements of phrenology to classify races based on originally studying fossil fish, gained a large following in the U.S. their skulls.43 As is demonstrated in a number of letters attributed (especially in the Boston area) after he moved there in 1846 and to him, Morton was personally quite racist, and this racism was began giving speaking tours on geology and theology.51 Growing reflected in his works.44 Morton directly challenged the idea that up in Europe, Agassiz was originally a proponent of monogen- races formed a spectrum, promoting Blumenbach’s five varieties ism.52 During his time in America, however, he saw blacks for the 94 Gabriel Alvarez THE CONCORD REVIEW 95 first time while dining with wealthy southern planters in cities marriages as “staining the blood of the master,” and arguing that such as Charleston and was completely shocked, believing there if slaves were freed, they were “to be removed beyond the reach was no way black and white people could possibly be of the same of mixture.”61 Morton was an important contributor to this type origin.53 As he maintained relations with southerners, he gradually of thinking; due to his belief that races were separate species, he adopted their proslavery worldview and used science in his books referred to biracial people as “hybrids,” charging them with being and speaking tours to argue in favor of slavery and of polygenesis.54 particularly inferior and making claims about their possible infer- This worldview led him to profess the belief that “human affairs tility, comparing them to mules.62 Later scientists such as Nott and with reference to the colored races would be far more judiciously Agassiz continued to make completely unfounded claims about conducted if…we were guided by a full consciousness of the real biracial people, again questioning their fertility and claiming difference existing between us and them…rather than treating they had an increased chance of birth defects.63 In his extremely them on terms of equality.”55 To support the theory of polygenesis, popular 1856 book, The Hireling and the Slave, William J. Grayson Agassiz used ideas based on Spurzheim’s phrenology, and his wide- argued against abolition by mockingly charging abolitionists with spread support, especially in the Boston area, earned the theory being in favor of racial mixing in lines such as, “and white and added prestige.56 As with phrenologists Spurzheim and Combe, black amalgamating, prove/the charms that Stone admires, of Agassiz’s speaking to tours were extremely profitable, earning him mongrel love,/erase the lines that erring nature draws/to sever $6,000 in the first six months alone,57 and it is possible (although races, and rescind her laws,”64 which described racial mixture as a cynical thought) that this potential for profit helped to motivate unnatural in a manner similar to that of Grayson’s contemporary Agassiz to focus his science on more controversial topics such as scientists. racial theory that were likely to draw larger crowds. As a reaction to the growing abolitionist movement, pro- In 1854, Nott produced his most influential work, Types of slavery writers during the time of Nott and Agassiz took on a highly Mankind, with a supplement written by Agassiz. Types of Mankind aggressive and plain-spoken tone, attempting to gain mass popular was a 700-page volume classifying the characteristics of each race, appeal. These writers also shifted the basis of their arguments to an explicitly promoting polygenism and, and defining the institution acceptance of black inferiority. The earliest proslavery arguments of slavery.58 Nott presented his basis for black inferiority as separate focused on the religion of slaves rather than their race, casting from theology and rooted in “science” alone, writing that “one of them as heathens who needed their souls saved by Christians.65 the main objects of this volume is to show…that the diversity of As slaves converted to Christianity and abolitionist pressures races must be accepted as fact, independently of theology.”59 These increased, proslavery writers began to use “race” as a method of arguments were especially appealing to a society in which trust dehumanizing blacks;66 as Smedley writes, “the argument that ap- for science was on the rise, as science could claim to be unbiased peared to make more practical sense was that slavery was a means and unmotivated by personal goals.60 of controlling a savage, ignorant, irrational, and potentially violent 67 Morton and his followers during this period were especially population and bringing to it the blessings of civilization.” Early concerned with interracial mixing and concluded that it was “un- slavery documents, such as Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia, natural,” contributing to the widespread fear of racial mixing in were often written for intellectuals and took on a scholarly tone. society and allowing those in favor of slavery to use this fear as a This was not true in general about the wave of proslavery writings weapon against abolitionism. Jefferson had previously displayed produced in the decades leading up to the Civil War. this fear in his Notes on the State of Virginia, referring to interracial 96 Gabriel Alvarez THE CONCORD REVIEW 97 Many of these newer proslavery documents were strongly quality of race.74 These flawed arguments came about due to the worded and unapologetic; for example, as Richard H. Colfax de- acceptance among most proslavery writers of the biblical creation clares in the introduction to his Evidence against the Views of Aboli- date of 4,000 BC, leaving little time for gradual change; as Nott tionists, “the author does not intend to apologize to a certain body notes, “time, as every one can see now, has affected no alteration, of men for speaking what he conceives to be the truth.”68 These even by transfer to the new world, upon African types…for 3,400 writers sought to make the science of Morton, Nott, and Agassiz years downward.”75 As with Morton, Colfax’s notion of the fixed accessible to the public, “stripping the subject of those technicalities qualities of the races led him to come up with new criteria for spe- which have hitherto kept it hidden from almost all but scientific cies (based on Morton’s), that “the figure and the color of animals, men.”69 Works such as these often dropped the cloak of science provided this figure and color can be regularly transmitted from to become scathing and sarcastic, asking questions about blacks one generation to another, is the proper criterion of species.”76 such as “where has any of their native brilliancy (we almost said Another popular argument among proslavery writers, tied 70 mediocrity) been exhibited?” This style of sensational, popular into the idea of “nature,” was that blacks had, since their creation, writing is exhibited in William J. Grayson’s The Hireling and Slave been in a condition of servitude. Nott’s Types of Mankind devotes and in the works of Dr. Samuel Cartwright, who made fiery, radi- an entire section to proving this fact, concluding that, “we have cal claims about blacks, such as his claim in an 1861 article that shown above…that the three ‘Ethiopian’ kings…possess nothing “there are no free Negroes…they are all in the service of Satan Negroid in their visages,”77 and were therefore outsiders of another 71 when deprived of the guardianship of the white man.” Even race ruling over the black Africans. This widely-held belief implied Nott’s Types of Mankind, despite its scientific nature, exhibits this that it was in blacks’ nature to be dominated, leading Colfax and style of writing at times, claiming, “[we] will follow facts wherever others to the conclusion that “the physical and mental differences they may lead, without regard to imaginary consequences…and no between Negroes and white men are sufficient to warrant us in 72 longer have any apologies to offer, nor lenient criticism to ask.” affirming that they have descended from distinct origins and Antebellum proslavery writers supported the teachings of therefore no alteration of the social condition of the Negro can Morton and his followers that species were created with specific be expected to create any change in his nature,” and that “no characteristics that could not change over time, concluding that alteration of their present social condition would be productive blacks were a separate species from whites and could not be treated of the least benefit to them.”78 the same. A major goal of these proslavery writers was to “prove” As mentioned above, writers in the 1700s such as Edward that race was not a long-term effect of climate; to do this, they often Long and Thomas Jefferson had used ideas drawn from the no- used shoddy, anecdotal evidence such as “white-spotted negroes” tion of the Great Chain of Being to dehumanize blacks through or cited the case of a half-black person who “was white in every part comparisons to primates. Later proslavery writers took those argu- with the exception of the right hip and part of the thigh” to show ments much further, transforming “the negro” into a subhuman, 73 that skin color is not affected by climate. Most did not consider half-animal creature based heavily on stereotypes.79 Phrenology the concept of gradual change over long periods of time; as Colfax played a large role in this characterization, as phrenologists saw argued, “if it can be shown that no Europeans who have left their a resemblance between the skulls of blacks and primates, leading native country and settled into climates equally hot with that of proslavery writers such as Colfax to argue that “that portion of Ethiopia have yet manifested any approach towards the negro the brain which presides over the organic or animal functions… peculiarity…our belief will be well founded,” using the fact that will exceed in size the superior or thinking portion.”80 George African colonizers had not become black as “proof” of the fixed Fitzhugh, an influential (though controversial) proslavery intel- 98 Gabriel Alvarez THE CONCORD REVIEW 99 lectual, championed these comparisons in his writings, arguing Although not directly citing science, those supporting paternal- that “like the wild horse, [the negro] must be caught, tamed, and ism drew heavily on the notions of innate black inferiority that domesticated.”81 By far the most involved of these comparisons scientists had helped promote. In his Notes on the State of Virginia, was James Hunt’s 1863 work On the Negro’s Place in Nature, which Jefferson had voiced his support for the civilizing nature of white devoted itself entirely to proving that the differences between society, citing “the improvement of the blacks in body and mind, blacks and whites were far greater than those between blacks and in the first instance of their mixture with the whites.”87 Starting in primates.82 the 1840s, Nott was extremely influential in using Morton’s find- 88 The notion of hierarchical scientific classification went ings to claim a scientific backing for paternalism. In his Types of hand in hand with certain stereotypical characterizations for the Mankind, Nott argued that “Negroes imported to, or born in, the personalities of members of each race, which by the mid-1800s U.S.,” because of their “ceaseless contact with whites, from whom were seen as scientific fact and were increasingly believed by the they derive much instruction,” showed “intellectual improvement.” public. These stereotypes were, most generally, that Indians were Nott then compared American slaves to African natives, claiming courageous and proud but often too much so, that Asians were that “in Africa, owing to their natural improvidence, the Negroes cunning but cowardly, and that blacks were lazy and submissive.83 are, more frequently than not, a half-starved and therefore half- 89 Acceptance of black stereotypes, both of physical and personality developed race.” Part of paternalism consisted of the belief that traits, contributed heavily to the proslavery argument, providing blacks were naturally more prone to vices and criminal activity more ways in which blacks could be described as inferior. Colfax, for than whites, and that, as Colfax argued, “if [abolition] should go example, characterized blacks by their “black color, thick lips, flat into effect we would internally have our prisons filled and our nose, crisped woolly hair, and rank smell,” and went on to describe public charities consumed because of the inability of the negroes 90 laziness as a reason for their “want of capability to receive a com- to obtain respectable employments,” plicated education.”84 These stereotypes showed up in Grayson’s In the Hireling and the Slave, Grayson spent much of his time poem, which cast blacks as lazy by nature in lines such as, “…his extolling slavery and paternalism comparing it to the “hireling” sluggish race/luxuriates in the hot, congenital place…/a care- system of labor, which he cast as cruel and harsh,91 and attesting less life of indolence he lives/fed by the fruits perpetual summer that slavery was the most beneficial labor system for blacks, asking, gives.”85 This stereotype of blacks as submissive invited Fitzhugh “why peril, then, the Negro’s humble joys/why make him free, to compare blacks to children, asking, “would the abolitionist if freedom but destroys?/Why take from him that lot that now approve of the system of society that set white children free, and bestows/more than the Negro elsewhere ever knows.”92 George admitted them at the age of fourteen…to all the rights…which Fitzhugh expressed a similar view in his writings, believing that belong to adults?” And he called such a system “criminal.”86 there would always be a lowest class of society, and that due to The scientific characterization of blacks as inferior “sav- black inferiority and the benefits of paternalism, race-based slav- 93 ages” led to a worldview among proslavery writers that it was the ery was the best way to fill this role. Fitzhugh speculated about job of white southerners to “civilize” blacks through the institution the damage that abolition would cause to blacks and society in of slavery. This tied in heavily with the popular proslavery stance general, fearing that if abolition were to occur, blacks “would be of paternalism, the belief that slavery encouraged white masters far outstripped or outwitted in the chase of free competition,” to treat slaves humanely and care for them like children, an ar- and that because “the negro is improvident; he will not lay up in gument that was of central importance to the proslavery cause. the summer for the wants of winter… he would become an insuf- ferable burden to society.”94 100 Gabriel Alvarez THE CONCORD REVIEW 101 As is evident in the works of the numerous proslavery writers 1 C. Loring Brace, ”Race” is a Four-Letter Word: The of the antebellum period, the findings of racial scientists such as Genesis of the Concept (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005) p. 80 Morton, Nott, and Agassiz had an influential role in mainstream 2 This debate is discussed in: Audrey Smedley, Race southern society. However, with the publication of Darwin’s Origin in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview of Species in 1859, the influence of their works gradually came to an (Colorado: Westview Press, 2007) pp. 98-107, in which Smedley end. In the years that followed the Civil War, the scientific view of presents her own conclusions about the debate, as cited below. the development of species changed dramatically and polygenism 3 Smedley cites the support of “historians Edmund Morgan declined in popularity, forcing scientific racism to take on new (1975), Anthony S. Parent Jr. (2003), and Philip D. Morgan (1998)” for this point. In T.H. Breen, “A Changing Labor Force forms. Even as the passage of the 13th Amendment and the end and Race Relations in Virginia 1660-1710,” Journal of Social of the Civil War signaled the end of American slavery, new move- History Vol. 7, no. 1 (Autumn 1973) pp. 6-7, Breen voices ments founded on racist pseudoscience began to grow in popu- hesitant support for this theory, maintaining that very little is larity. These movements included the idea of Social Darwinism known about the earliest African Americans. and the Eugenics movement, both of which based many of their 4 Breen, p. 6 5 claims on the same principles used by Morton, Nott, and Agassiz. Smedley, p. 99 6 Ibid., pp. 104-105 Although by this point many of the specific findings of these ante- 7 Breen, p. 4 bellum scientists had been discredited, the racial worldview they 8 Smedley, p. 115 had helped create lived on even in a society in which Darwinian 9 Breen, p. 7 Evolution became the mainstream scientific position. 10 Ibid., p. 11 11 See Alan Taylor, American Colonies; Edmund Morgan, American Freedom, American Slavery 12 Smedley, p. 117 13 Breen, p. 16 14 Ibid., p. 16 15 Smedley, p. 118 16 Ibid., p. 183 17 Larry Robert Morrison, The Proslavery Argument in the Early Republic, 1790-1830 (University of Virginia, 1975) pp. 121-122 18 Ibid., pp. 126-127 19 Smedley, p. 172 20 Ibid., p. 174 21 Ibid., p. 188 22 Paul Finkelman, Defending Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Old South (Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2003) p. 15 23 Thomas Jefferson, Draft of Declaration of Independence as quoted on http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h33t.html (accessed April 28, 2011) 24 Finkelman, p. 23 25 Abstract of Morrison, Early Republic 26 Finkelman, p. 3 102 Gabriel Alvarez THE CONCORD REVIEW 103

27 Ibid., p. 47 59 Nott et al., p. 56 28 Jefferson, as quoted in Finkelman, p. 20 60 Smedley, p. 235 29 Ibid., p. 21 61 Jefferson, as quoted in Finkelman, p. 54 30 Brace, p. 66 62 Brace, p. 88 31 Ibid., p. 66 63 Smedley, p. 249 32 Ibid., p. 67 64 William Grayson, “The Hireling and the Slave,” in The 33 Ibid., pp. 67-68 Hireling and the Slave, Chicora: and Other Poems (Charleston, 34 Ibid., p. 68 South Carolina: McCarter & Co., 1856) p. 65 35 Ibid., p. 74 65 Smedley, pp. 115-116 36 Ibid., pp. 71-72 66 Ibid., p. 220 37 Ibid., p. 73 67 Ibid., p. 221 38 Richard H. Colfax, Evidence Against the Views of the 68 Colfax, p. 3 Abolitionists: Consisting of Physical and Moral Proofs, of the 69 Ibid., p. 4 National Inferiority of the Negroes (no publisher, New York: 70 Ibid., pp. 26-27 1833) p. 24 71 As quoted in Smedley, p. 247 39 Brace, pp. 38-40 72 Nott et al., pp. 60-61 40 Finkelman, p. 15 73 Colfax, pp. 13-14 41 Smedley, p. 239 74 Ibid., p. 15 It is important to note that as the Civil War approached, 75 Nott et al., p. 255 black inferiority was already so widely accepted across America 76 Colfax., p. 22 that the debate over the validity of polygenesis was not over 77 Nott et al., p. 269 the existence of racial differences but over their extent and 78 Colfax, pp. 8, 30 whether the races were so different they could be considered 79 Smedley, pp. 190-191 separate species. (See Smedley, p. 246) 80 Colfax, p. 24 42 Brace, p. 70 81 Fitzhugh, as quoted in Finkelman, p. 193 43 Ibid., pp. 81-82 82 Smedley, p. 260 44 Ibid., p. 88 83 Brace, pp. 101-102 45 Ibid., pp. 81-82 84 Colfax, pp. 16, 26 46 Ibid., p. 240 85 Grayson, p. 63 47 Ibid., p. 85 86 Fitzhugh, as quoted in Finkelman, p. 192 48 Ibid., p. 83 87 Jefferson, as quoted in Finkelman, p. 52 49 Smedley, p. 242 88 Smedley, p. 242 50 Josiah Clark Nott et al., Types of Mankind (1854), p. 50 89 Nott et al., p. 260 For more general background and biographical information 90 Colfax, p. 31 on Nott, see Brace, p. 101 91 Grayson, p. 18 51 Brace, p. 97 92 Ibid., p. 65 52 Ibid., p. 97 93 Fitzhugh, as quoted in Finkelman, p. 189 53 Smedley, p. 244 94 Ibid., p. 190 54 Brace, p. 100 55 Ibid., p. 102 56 Ibid., p. 99 57 Ibid., p. 97 58 Smedley, p. 243 104 Gabriel Alvarez THE CONCORD REVIEW 105

“Rough Draft of the Declaration of Independence,” http:// Bibliography www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/sh33t.html, accessed April 28, 2011 Brace, C. Loring, “Race” is a Four-Letter Word: The Genesis of the Concept New York: Oxford University Press, 2005 Smedley, Audrey, Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, Breen, T.H., “A Changing Labor Force and Race Relations 2007 in Virginia 1660-1710,” Journal of Social History Vol. 7, no. 1, Autumn 1973, pp. 3-25 Taylor, Alan, American Colonies: the Settling of North America Penguin Books, 2001 Colfax, Richard H., Evidence Against the Views of the Abolitionists: Consisting of Physical and Moral Proofs, of the National Inferiority of the Negroes no publisher, New York: 1833

Finkelman, Paul, Defending Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Old South Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2003

Fitzhugh, George, Sociology for the South: Or, the Failure of Free Society Richmond, Virginia: A. Morris, 1854

Grayson, William, “The Hireling and the Slave,” in The Hireling and the Slave, Chicora: and Other Poems Charleston, South Carolina: McCarter & Co., 1856

Jefferson, Thomas, Draft of Declaration of Independence 1776

Jefferson, Thomas, Notes on the State of Virginia Virginia, 1781

Morrison, Larry Robert, The Proslavery Argument in the Early Republic, 1790-1830 University of Virginia, 1975

Nott, Josiah Clark, George R. Gliddon, Samuel George Morton, Louis Agassiz, William Usher, and Henry S. Patterson, Types of Mankind; or Ethnological Researches, Based upon the Ancient Monuments, Paintings, Sculptures, and Crania of Races, and upon their Natural, Geographical, Philological and Biblical History no publisher, 1854 106 Gabriel Alvarez Elizabeth Longford Welllington, The Years of the Sword London: Panther 1971, pp. 74-75

Among the ‘rubbish’ lay a secret resolve to read. The voyage to India gave it a fine excuse. From Dublin Arthur [Wellington] brought his small library, to which he added in England over fifty pounds’ worth of books. Among the Oriental dictionaries, grammars and maps, the military manuals and histories of India, were works of a more general interest. Voltaire, Rousseau, Frederick the Great, Maréchal de Saxe, Plutarch’s Lives and the Caesaris Commentaria—in Latin; for law, Blackstone’s Commentaries; for economics, Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations; for philosophy, Locke and Human Understanding reappear; for theology, five volumes of Paley, gilt; and for the good of his Anglo-Irish soul, twenty-four volumes of Swift at 2s. 10d. At least one person had an inkling of something else which lay among the ‘rubbish’—something rare but not yet definable. There was a Dr. Warren (probably Richard Warren the court physician) whom Arthur had consulted as well as Dr. Hunter before leaving England. ‘I have been attending a young man,’ says this Dr. Warren to a friend, ‘whose conversation is the most extraordinary I have ever listened to...if this young man lives, he must one day be Prime Minister.’ What was it in Arthur’s manner which told Dr. Warren he had the necessary sense of direction, critical understanding, vigour, personality and vision? Or was it in the subjects he talked about that he revealed the mystic trade-mark? One guess is as good as another. But if this slight young man, recently sick and battered by the incompetence of his superiors, held forth on his prospects in India— his chance to emulate Clive’s victories, to extend the settlement of Cornwallis without the controversy, and to achieve the power of Warren Hastings without his suspected corruption—the doctor may well have thought himself in the presence of either brain fever or genius. Arthur and his trunkload of books followed the 33rd at the end of June. Ireland was already a month away. It had been high time to break out from the Castle, where his spirit had been a prisoner for more than nine years. Perhaps, indeed, he had never yet known what it was to feel truly free.