A Southern Stewardship: the Intellectual and the Proslavery Argument

A Southern Stewardship: The Intellectual and the Proslavery Argument

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Citation Faust, Drew Gilpin. 1979. “A Southern Stewardship: The Intellectual and the Proslavery Argument.” American Quarterly 31 (1): 63.

Published Version doi:10.2307/2712487

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Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA A SOUTHERN STEWARDSHIP: THE INTELLECTUAL AND THE PROSLAVERY ARGUMENT

DREW GILPIN FA UST Universityof Pennsylvania

THE SOUTH S SYSTEMATIC DEFENSE OF SLAVERY IN THE THREE decades beforethe Civil War has longpuzzled historians. Yet the very distastefulnessofthe proslavery argument has intriguedmodern scholars, who have soughtto understandhow writers and thinkers-individualsin manyways like themselves-couldturn their talents to such abhorrent purpose.But we havetoo longregarded the proslavery argument either as an objectof moral outrage or as a contributingcause ofthe Civil War. For thosewho elaborated its details, it had a differentmeaning. To understand how slavery'sapologists came to embraceconclusions we findunthinka- ble, we mustlook beyondthe polemics of theslavery controversy. Many of the bewilderingaspects of the defenseof slaveryare best understoodas expressionsof thespecial needs of an alienatedSouthern intellectualclass concernedwith questions more far-reaching, yet in some waysmore immediately personally relevant, than the rights and wrongs of humanbondage. The Southernman of minddid not doubtthat slavery was a social good thatcould be supportedby rationalargument. But in takingup thepublic defense of the peculiar institution, he soughtas well to advance his particularvalues and to definefor himself a respected social rolewithin a cultureknown for its inhospitalityto letters. AntebellumSoutherners themselves recognized that the proslavery ar- gumentwould achieve little in the ideologicalwarfare between the sec- tions. "We thinkit is hardlyto be expected,"one proslaverytheorist concededin 1843,"that anything which can be said at thislate date . .. willat all diminishthe wrongheaded fanaticism and perverseintolerance of the NorthernAbolitionists." This essayist'savowed aim was to do

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"good servicewithin our borders";other defenders of slaverysimilarly hopedto "fix" thepeculiar institution "infinitely more firmly in thepublic opinion"of their own section.The importanceof the proslavery argument,these Southerners suggest, lay withinSouthern civilization itself.' The proslaveryargument thus raises issues that make it morethan just anotherof the peculiarities of the perennially enigmatic South; it must not be seen merelyas evidenceof how differentthe Old Southhad become fromthe rest of thenation. In theirattempt to createa rationaljustifica- tionfor the peculiar institutions of theirsection, slavery's defenders re- vealednot only the world view of the South's intellectual class, butdem- onstratedthe existenceof widespreadsimilarities in outlook among thinkerson bothsides of the Mason-Dixon line. The proslaveryargument restedon intellectualvalues and moral-philosophicalassumptions shared throughoutmid-nineteenth-century America. A numberof twentieth-centuryhistorians have soughtto locate the significanceof the defenseof slaveryin the interactionamong different groupswithin the antebellum South. In 1936,William B. Hesseltineex- plainedthe movement as partof an effortby the upper-class planter to win thenonslaveholder to his side. Morerecent scholars such as CharlesG. Sellers,Jr. and RalphE. Morrowhave characterizedthe argument as an attemptby slaveholdersto establishpeace notwith other groups but with themselves,by alleviatingfeelings of guiltcreated by naggingcontradic- tionsbetween slavery and America'sdemocratic creed. Althoughboth these explanationsseem plausible,there is littleevidence to support either.Overt expression of class resentmentor antagonismwas rarein the Old South; planters'personal papers express few pangsof conscience aboutthe Southern system.2

1 [George Frederick Holmes], "On Slavery and Christianity,"Southern QuarterlyRe- view, 3 (Jan. 1843), 252; James Henry Hammond to Nathaniel Beverley Tucker, Feb. 23, 1849,Tucker-Coleman Collection, Earl GreggSwem Library,College of Williamand Mary, Williamsburg,Va. WilliamGilmore Simms expressed his concern withusing the proslavery argumentto counteractthe indifferenceof "our people of the South" in regardto slavery's defense. Simms to Hammond, Apr. 10, 1845, Mary C. S. Oliphant et al., eds., Letters of William Gilmore Simms, 5 vols. (Columbia, S. C.: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1952- 1956), 2: 50-51. On the South's general inhospitalityto letters see Clement Eaton, The Freedom-of-ThoughtStruggle in the Old South (New York: Harper and Row, 1964). 2 Hesseltine, "Some New Aspects of the Pro-Slavery Argument,"Journal of Negro History,21 (Jan. 1936), 1-14; Morrow, "The ProslaveryArgument Revisited," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 48 (June 1961), 79-94; Sellers, "The Travail of Slavery," in Sellers, ed., The Southerneras American (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1960), 40-71. For otherproponents of this view see WilliamW. Freehling,Prelude to Civil War: The NullificationControversy in South Carolina, 1816-1836 (New York: Harper and Row, 1966); and James M. McPherson, "Slavery and Race," Perspectives in American History,3 (1969), 460-73.

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While Sellers,Hesseltine, and Morrowaccurately characterized the defenseof the peculiarinstitution as a manifestationof stresswithin Southernsociety, they did notseek to relatethese tensions to thesocial locationsof theapologists themselves. In 1970,however, David Donald beganto explorethe social originsof some of slavery'smost prominent defenders."All," he found,"were unhappy men" compensating for "se- verepersonal problems relating to theirplace in Southernsociety." Their proslaverytracts, he concluded,displayed a longingto escape thiscrisis ofsocial identity by returning to a "by-gonepastoral Arcadia," to a world theyhad lost.Slavery's defenders, Donald contended, shared a pervasive "sense of alienation."3 These feelingsof distancefrom the contemporaryworld are evident throughoutproslavery writings. But theydid not representa defensive andhopeless nostalgia. Many proslavery advocates were highly critical of theregion whose peculiar institution they had setforth to justify, and they werefar from consistently backward-looking intheir views. James Henry Hammondand WilliamGilmore Simms, two of Donald's prominent examples,directly opposed the controlthat South Carolina's tradition- boundaristocracy exerted within the state. And instead of seeking a "pas- toralArcadia," a numberof theseSouthern apologists followed the lead of JamesD. B. De Bow in urgingthe developmentof industrialand commercialenterprise to reducedependence on theNorth.4 The dissatisfactionDonald identifiedas characteristicof slavery'sde- fendersarose less froma desireto escape thepresent than from what he identifiedas anxieties"relating to theirplace in Southernsociety." But Donald's essay does notmake the source of thesetensions clear, for, as

3 Donald, "The ProslaveryArgument Reconsidered," 12, 16. Donald's interpretationof slavery's defenders seems to fit within the genre of "status-anxiety" interpretations- explanationsof ideologies and social movementsas the resultof concern about changing, usually diminishingsocial status. Althoughhe does not explicitlyrefer to "status-anxiety" in the essay on proslavery,this framework seems implicit,as, forexample, in his references to Edmund Ruffinas "frustrated,"to J. D. B. De Bow as "compensating" for his lack of social position and to W. G. Simms as worryingabout his location "on the fringesof society." Ibid., 10-11. For a similar treatmentof antislavery,see Donald, "Toward a Reconsiderationof Abolitionists," in Donald, Lincoln Reconsidered: Essays on the Civil War Era (New York: Knopf, 1956), 19-36. 4 Donald, "The ProslaveryArgument Reconsidered," 17n. For a discussion of the views of Simms, Hammond,George FrederickHolmes, Nathaniel Beverley Tucker, and Edmund Ruffinon these issues see Drew Gilpin Faust, A Sacred Circle: The Dilemma of the Intellec- tual in the Old South, 1840-1860 (Baltimore: JohnsHopkins Univ. Press, 1977). Fitzhugh also encouragedeconomic diversification.See, forexample, "Make Home Attractive,"De Bow's Review, 28 (June 1860), 624. On De Bow as an advocate of industrysee Ottis C. Skipper,J. D. B. De Bow, Magazinistof the Old South (Athens:Univ. of GeorgiaPress, 1958); and the James Dunwoody Brownson De Bow Letters and Papers, ManuscriptDivision, WilliamPerkins Library, Duke Univ.

This content downloaded from 128.103.151.234 on Fri, 28 Mar 2014 10:56:35 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 66 American Quarterly hisarticle indicates, proslavery advocates came from widely varied social positions.Hammond, for example, was descendedfrom New England stockof no particulardistinction and recognizedthat he had "sprungup fromamongst the greatundistinguished mass of the people." Indeed, journalistDe Bow citedthe later wealth and prominence of the Carolinian as livingproof of thereality of social mobilitywithin the region. Simms, son of a bankruptIrish immigrant, and JamesHenley Thornwell, whose fatherwas an overseer,similarly felt themselves strangers to the South Carolinaelite. Like Hammond,they hoped to gainplaces to whichbirth gavethem little claim. By contrast,other apologists for slavery came from moreelevated social positions.Edmund Ruffin, George Fitzhugh, and NathanielBeverley Tucker, for example, were descended from Virginia's finestblood, and theymight accurately be describedas aristocratsof decliningstatus.5 These objectivedifferences among the lives of slavery'sdefenders suggestthe need to explainthe social contextof theirideas in more complexterms than simplemovement up and down withinthe social hierarchy.Although Ruffin's and Tucker's social statusmay have been in somesense declining, while Hammond's, Simms', and Thornwell'swere rising,these men shared feelings of anxiety about the very uncertainty of theirsituations. And thisuncertainty arose not so muchfrom objective economicor class positionas fromtheir own conceptionof themselves and theirrole in Southernsociety. Slavery's defenders were the South's intellectuals.Authors of proslaverytracts were not for the most part the

5Hammond to ColonelH. Caughman,Dec. 29, 1833,James Henry Hammond Papers, ManuscriptDivision, Library of Congress,hereafter cited as HammondPapers, LC. De Bow discusses Hammond in The Interestin Slavery of the SouthernNon-Slaveholder; The Right of Peaceful Secession; The Character and Influence of Abolitionism(Charleston: Evans and Cogswell,1860), 10. The issue of Simms'origins is complex.His nineteenth- centurybiographer William Peterfield Trent stressed Simms' lowly origins, but later scholars havefound Trent's descriptions exaggerated, for they point to one of Simms'ancestors whofought in theRevolution and anotherwho was a sizablelandholder. Simms' position was unclearto himselfas wellas to hisnumerous biographers. Unquestionably, however, he perceivedhimself to be verydistant from the traditional South Carolina elite. See Trent, WilliamGilmore Simms (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1892); John R. Welsh,Jr., "The Mind ofWilliam Gilmore Simms: His Socialand Political Thought," Diss. VanderbiltUniv. 1951; and JonL. Wakelyn,The Politics of a LiteraryMan: WilliamGilmore Simms (Westport,Ct.: GreenwoodPress, 1973), 3. On Thornwellsee theJames Henley Thornwell Papers, South CarolinianaLibrary, Univ. of SouthCarolina, hereafter cited as SCL; and BenjaminM. Palmer,The Life and Lettersof James Henley Thornwell(Richmond: Whittetand Shepper- son, 1875).On Ruffinsee the EdmundRuffin Papers, LC, the EdmundRuffin Papers, VirginiaHistorical Society (hereafter VHS), Richmond,Va., and Avery0. Craven,Ed- mund Ruffin,Southerner: A Study in Secession (1932; rpt. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ.Press, 1966). On Tuckersee theTucker-Coleman Collection and RobertJ. Brugger, BeverleyTucker: Heart over Head in the Old South (Baltimore:Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1978).

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South'slargest slaveholders, nor were they compensating for not occupy- ing thisparticular highly-valued status. Rather, these individualswere collegeprofessors, ministers, writers, journalists, and others who defined themselvesprimarily in termsof theirmental gifts and undertookthe defenseof slaveryas but one of a varietyof intellectualventures. The frustrationswhich Donald identifies arose above all fromtheir perception of themselvesas menof mindin a societywhich accorded little impor- tanceto abstractspeculation and renderedintellectual endeavor about as rewarding,Simms remarked, as "drawingwater in a sieve." 6 This Southernintelligentsia was so smallthat a surprisingnumber of defendersof thepeculiar institution had cometo knowone anothereven beforethey launched their proslavery crusade. Thomas Roderick Dew, authorof thefirst famous "positive good" argumentwas, forexample, a colleagueand close friendof Nathaniel Beverley Tucker's at Williamand Mary.Tucker in turncorresponded regularly with other such prominent proslaveryapologists as GeorgeFrederick Holmes, Edmund Ruffin, Abel ParkerUpshur, William Gilmore Simms, and JamesHenry Hammond. Hammondwas intimatewith both Ruffin and Simms,as well as with self-styledethnologist Josiah Clark Nott, authorAugustus Baldwin Longstreet,and hisown former legal mentor, Chancellor William Harper, authorof thewidely read Memoir on Slaveryand cousinto bothTucker and Holmes.Holmes corresponded with Simms, Thornwell, De Bow and GeorgeFitzhugh, and servedon thefaculties of boththe Universityof Virginiaand the Universityof Mississippiwith Albert Taylor Bledsoe.7 The ties amongslavery's apologists were so extensiveand intertwined thatthey are perhapsbetter illustrated on the followingchart than de- scribedin words.To take the place of the intellectualinstitutions the South lacked, these men of mindcreated an "invisiblecollege" that

6 Simmsto Hammond,May 10, 1845,Oliphant et al., eds. Letters,2, 61. For a compilation and analysis of 275 defendersof slavery,North and South, between 1701and 1865 see Larry E. Tise, "Proslavery Ideology: A Social and IntellectualHistory of the Defense of Slavery in America, 1790-1840," Diss. Univ. of North Carolina 1975. See Dew, Review of the Debate in the VirginiaLegislature of 1831 and 1832 (Richmond: T. W. White, 1832) and the Dew Family Papers, Earl Gregg Swem Library, College of Williamand Mary; the Edmund RuffinPapers, VHS; ThornwellPapers; George Frederick Holmes Papers, ManuscriptDivision, LC; George Frederick Holmes Papers, Manuscript Division, WilliamPerkins Library, Duke University;De Bow Lettersand Papers; Augustus Baldwin LongstreetPapers, SCL; AlbertTaylor Bledsoe Papers, ManuscriptDivision, LC; William Porcher Miles Papers, Southern Historical Collection, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. There are numerousNott-Hammond letters in the Hammond Papers, LC and Upshur-Tuckerletters in the Tucker-ColemanCollection. On the particularlyintimate rela- tionshipamong Hammond,Simms, Ruffin, Tucker, and Holmes see Faust, A Sacred Circle.

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N. B. Tucker J. H.Thornwell

William Grayson W. G. Simms

J. H. Hammond A. T. Bledsoe

T. R. Dew William Harper

Thomas Cooper J .Nt

J. D. B. De Bow D ; B~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~. N.D Elliott

Thornton Stringfellow P. Upshur

George Fitzhugh Holmes

W.P. Miles Edmund Ruffin

PERSONAL INTERACTIONS AMONG SLAVERY'S DEFENDERS servedas a vehiclefor the exchange of ideas and theprovision of mutual support.8 One area of agreement-andconcern-among these thinkers was the sorrystate of intellectualendeavor in the region.Southern literary pe- riodicals,they complained, seemed inevitably to fail;regional publishing facilitieswere inadequate; Southern colleges, George Frederick Holmes charged,were often institutions of higherlearning only "in name." The South had become a land, VirginianThornton Stringfellow remarked, "defiledwith ignorance." Though "The firstcare of a State," William Harperobserved, ought to be to "provideminds of extraordinary power ... [with] the means . . . for theirmost consummatecultivation," the Southseemed to exhibitwhat Hugh Swinton Legare perceived as a de- cided "prejudiceagainst bookish men." 9

8 On "invisiblecolleges" as a formof organizationand interchangein scientificcom- munitiessee Diana Crane, Invisible Colleges: Diffusionof Knowledge in ScientificCom- munities(Chicago: Univ. of ChicagoPress, 1972). 9 GeorgeFrederick Holmes to LavaletteFloyd Holmes, June 15, 1846,Holmes Papers, Duke; ThorntonStringfellow, Richmond Religious Herald, February25, 1841; William

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But the commonplight that they shared as thinkersin such a region appearedto these individualsas a problemof morethan just personal social import.The neglectof theintellectual, they believed, was simply one manifestationof much broaderprocesses of culturaland moral changeengulfing their mid-nineteenth-century world; a crisisof belief seemed to challengethe foundationsof all truth.Alarming social de- velopmentsgrew directly out ofa decliningfaith in traditionalmoral and intellectualauthority. The difficultiesthat the South confronted in the late antebellumperiod were only particularexamples of these widespread failings.Political corruption, Abel Upshurproclaimed, grew out of the region'sfailure to provideits citizenrywith the moraleducation that wouldtransform them from politicians into statesmen. The causes of soil erosion,Ruffin similarly concluded, "may be summedup in the single word,ignorance." Simms agreed, declaring that the onlysalvation for agriculture,and forthe South as a whole,lay in "the loyaltyof ... [the] people to theirleading intellects." In jeremiadsagainst their region the menof mindassailed the South's multifarious shortcomings as theresult of her neglectof transcendentmoral concerns and of thoseindividuals whose superiorminds best equipped them to defendsuch principles.10 Regardingthemselves as rightfulcustodians of truthand scientistsof morals,these Southernthinkers set out to claimtheir appointed social place; theywould reform the degenerate South, convert her to a respect forabstract principles and scientificspeculation, and in so doing,con- vince her to recognizetheir particular moral and intellectualtalents. Thesethinkers thus became involved in a varietyof endeavors directed at regionalimprovement. Some, like Ruffin, became prophets of agricultural rationalism;others, like Hammondand De Bow, advocatedeconomic diversification.Dew and Stringfellowflirted in theearlier decades of the movementwith temperance; Simms called on his friendsto aid in the creationof a Southernliterature; Holmes and HenryHughes in turn dedi-

Harper, "Slavery in the Light of Social Ethics," in E. N. Elliott, ed., Cotton Is King and Pro-SlaveryArguments (Augusta: Pritchard,Abbot and Loomis, 1860), 577; Legare, quoted in Linda Rhea, Hugh Swinton Legare, A Charleston Intellectual (Chapel Hill: Univ. of NorthCarolina Press, 1934), 77. On Stringfellowsee Faust, "Evangelicalism and the Mean- ingof the ProslaveryArgument: The ReverendThornton Stringfellow of Virginia," Virginia Magazine of Historyand Biography,85 (Jan. 1977), 3-17. 10 Referencesin thisparagraph are in orderfrom Upshur, "Domestic Slavery," Southern LiteraryMessenger, 5 (Oct. 1839), 677-87; Claude H. Hall, Abel Parker Upshur,Conserva- tive Virginian,1790-1844 (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1963), 110; Ruffin,"Sketch of the Progressof Agriculturein Virginiaand the Causes of Decline and PresentDepression: An Address to the Historical and Philosophical Society of Virginia,"Farmers' Register, 3 (Apr. 1836), 754; [Simms], "Agriculturein South-Carolina," Magnolia, 2 (Mar. 1843), 201.

This content downloaded from 128.103.151.234 on Fri, 28 Mar 2014 10:56:35 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 70 American Quarterly catedthemselves to a reformof knowledge-a newBaconian instauration whichwould establish scientific truths about the social orderand thus guidehuman progress." No area ofreformist interest was exclusivelythe concern of any single intellectual,but the issue on whichall convergedwas whatthey called the "philosophical"defense of slavery.Because of its combinedmoral and socialimport the problem of slavery seemed logically to belongto menof intellectualand moralsuperiority. Only such individualscould evaluate thepeculiar institution in accordancewith the principles of scienceand religionthat formed the basis of all truth.On thisissue, as in all the thinkers'concerns, the tenets of moralphilosophy would structure their outlook.Moral science, which formed the central component in themid- nineteenth-centuryintellectual world view and servedas thecapstone of everycollege career, would provide the foundation of slavery's defense.12 The imageryand vocabularyof the proslavery argument offer the most strikingevidence for its origins in theneeds of theSouthern intellectual. The thinkers'apologies served to definetheir particular system of values as thebest justification for the section'smost distinctive and important institution.In the proslaveryargument the cause of intellectbecame unitedwith the cause ofthe South. The region'sneed for a plausiblesocial philosophy,George Frederick Holmes recognized, would make the South regrether past failures to accord"material support and publicfavor" to learning."[W]e shall be indebted,"Holmes anticipated,"to the con- tinuanceand asperityof thiscontroversy for the creationof a genuine southern literature ...."13 Rather than the product of a social or economicelite, the proslavery argument was thecreation of an intellectual class seekingto proveitself indispensable in defendingthe South's peculiarway of life.

" Ruffin,An Essay on Calcareous Manures (Shellbanks,Va., 1835);Ruffin, Essays and Notes on Agriculture(Richmond, 1855); Simms, "Southern Literature,"Magnolia, 3 (Feb. 1841),69-74; [Holmes],"Philosophy and Faith,"Methodist Quarterly Review, 33 (Apr. 1851),187. On HenryHughes see BertramWyatt-Brown, "Modernizing Southern Slavery: The ProslaveryArgument Reinterpreted," unpublished manuscript lent by theauthor. On Stringfellowsee Faust,"Evangelicalism and theMeaning of theProslavery Argument." 12 Moralphilosophy served as whatNorman S. Fieringhas calleda "semi-secularway station"between a worldof faithand one of science.It was designedto demonstratethe compatibilityof reasonand religionby marshalingscience in supportof morality.Fiering, "PresidentSamuel Johnson and the Circle of Knowledge," William and MaryQuarterly, 3d Ser., 28 (Apr. 1971),233. On moralphilosophy generally see Donald H. Meyer,The In- structedConscience: The Shaping of the American National Ethic (Philadelphia: Univ. of PennsylvaniaPress, 1972). 13 [Holmes],"Uncle Tom's Cabin,"Southern Literary Messenger, 18 (Dec. 1852), 725; [Holmes],"Bledsoe on Libertyand Slavery,"De Bow's Review,21 (Aug. 1856),133. On Holmes' moregeneral views see Neal C. Gillespie, The Collapse of Orthodoxy:The Intellec- tual Ordeal of George FrederickHolmes (Charlottesville:Univ. of VirginiaPress, 1972).

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The desireto legitimatetheir own social aspirationsmay make these intellectuals'professed idealism seem transparentlyself-serving. But everybelief system functions in thismanner. An individualembraces a particularconfiguration of ideas because it appealsto his emotionaland social as wellas his cognitiveneeds. These Southernersfelt both cultur- ally and sociallyadrift; they confronted an irreduciblehuman need for meaning,for a solid foundationfor truth and value in a worldbeset by doubt.This crisis of belief was no less personallyimportant to themthan thesocial dilemmas that seemed to be itsdirect product. Indeed, to Bever- ley Tucker,it appearedremarkable that "my ambitionand myconvic- tionscoincide.''94 Designedto providelegitimacy for the Southernman of mindand his values,the defense of slaveryhad in substanceand methodto meetthe criteriaof objectivitywhich he believedcharacterized all intellectualendeavor;it must be withoutpassion or prejudice. Discussion of the peculiar institution,Albert Taylor Bledsoe urged,should be based "upon purely scientificprinciples," with "no appeal to passionor to sordidinterest." E. N. Elliott,editor of the proslavery anthology Cotton Is King,boasted thatSouthern apologists did not stoop to the "vituperativedenuncia- tion," "gross exaggerationsand . . . willfulfalsehoods" that charac- terizedabolitionist tracts. Slavery's defenders, he observed,maintained the "spirit,tone and styleof . . . Christiancandor and fairnessof argu- mentthat should characterizethe search aftertruth .... " The examina- tionof slavery,Holmes agreed, must be "removedfrom the domain of sectionalcontroversy and political warfare ... to themore temperate and authoritativetribunal of soberand cautiousreflection"; it must,in other words,become the province of theintellectual.'5 Like mostscholarly inquiries of the mid-nineteenth century, this search fortruth began with the Bible. In the Old Testament,divine intentions seemedunmistakable, for God's chosenhad been a slaveholdingpeople. Christmade no attackon slaveryin theNew Testament,and his apostle Paulhad explicitly recognized it to be consistentwith Christian principles. But foran age increasinglyenamored of thevocabulary and methodsof naturalscience Biblical guidance was not enough.Man could and must determinehis moral duties scientifically as well by examining the progres-

14 Tuckerto Hammond,May 7, 1850,Hammond Papers, LC. 15Bledsoe, "Liberty and Slavery:or, Slaveryin the Lightof PoliticalPhilosophy," in Elliott,ed., CottonIs King, 274; Elliott,"Concluding Remarks," ibid., 897; [Holmes], "Failure of Free Societies," Southern LiteraryMessenger, 21 (Mar. 1855), 129; "Aris- totleon Slavery,"MS., HolmesPapers, LC. On thesubstance of the proslavery argument the classic work is WilliamS. Jenkins,Pro-Slavery Thought in the Old South (Chapel Hill: Univ.of NorthCarolina Press, 1935).

This content downloaded from 128.103.151.234 on Fri, 28 Mar 2014 10:56:35 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 72 American Quarterly sive revelationof God's designsin history,which would provide,as Holmesobserved, the needed "basis ofour inductions" about the proper social order.The studyof humanbondage would be empirical-inthe wordsof the ReverendThornton Stringfellow, at once "Scripturaland Statistical";the proslavery argument would meet the positivistic stand- ardsthe nineteenth-century intellectual was comingto acceptfor assess- mentof all socialproblems. A defenseof slaverywould essentially be, as HenryHughes explicitly defined it, a Treatiseon Sociology.Like conser- vativesthroughout the nation, proslavery thinkers would call foran em- piricalscience of societyto counteractthe dangerousabstractions of abolitionismand otherill-supported theories of social reform.Social facts,which Calhoun found "as unquestionableas ... gravitationor any otherphenomenon of the material world," would best reveal both divine and naturalpurpose.16 Historyinevitably served as one vehiclefor empirical investigation into theproblem of human bondage. From Greece and Rome to theAmerican South,these thinkers proclaimed, slavery had servedas thefoundation of all great civilizations.The "continued durationof the institution. . . its almostuniversal extension" seemed to EdmundRuffin irrefutable evi- dencethat it was "establishedby God." 17 Implicitin this appeal to historyas a catalogueof social experiments lay a challengeto the conceptsof naturallaw thathad been establishedas fundamentalAmerican principle at thetime of the Revolution. Social law as revealedin historymade clear that men had notin realitybeen created equal and free,as Jeffersonhad asserted.Nature produced individuals strikinglyunequal in both qualities and circumstances. Simms argued that a trulynatural right was "not intendedto makethe butcher ajudge, or the baker a president;but to protectthem, according to theirclaims as butcherand baker." Conformitywith scientific realities prescribed a

16 [Holmes],"Observations on a Passagein the Politics of Aristotle Relative to Slavery," SouthernLiterary Messenger, 16 (Apr. 1850), 197; Hughes, Treatiseon Sociology: Theoreti- cal and Practical(Philadelphia, 1854). For what Hammond called the "best scripturalargu- ment" for slavery see ThorntonStringfellow, Scriptural and Statistical Views in Favor of Slavery(Richmond: J. W. Randolph,1856) cited in Hammondto Simms,June 11, 1852, Hammond Papers, LC. JohnC. Calhoun, A Disquisition on Government(1853; rpt. New York:Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1953),3. 17 Ruffin,Address to the VirginiaState AgriculturalSociety, on the Effectsof Domestic Slavery... (Richmond:P. D. Bernard,1853), 19. On slaveryand historysee Hammond, "Hammond's Letters on Slavery," in The Pro-SlaveryArgument; as Maintained by the Most Distinguished Writersof the Southern States . . . (Charleston: Walker, Richards, 1852), 154; Ruffin,The Political Economy of Slavery; or, The InstitutionConsidered in Regard to its Influenceon Public Wealthand the General Welfare(Washington: L. Towers, 1857), 3; [Holmes], "Slavery and Freedom," Southern QuarterlyReview, I (Apr. 1856), 86.

This content downloaded from 128.103.151.234 on Fri, 28 Mar 2014 10:56:35 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions A SouthernStewardship 73 hierarchicallystructured society reproducing nature's orderly differ- entiations.The Revolutionaryconcepts of naturallaw were thustrans- mutedinto the tenets of social organicism; the prestige of modern science servedto legitimatetradition and conservatism.'8 Redefiningnatural rights necessitated a redefinitionof freedom.De- spite its "transcendentimportance," Bledsoe foundthat libertyhad "been, forthe most part, a themefor passionate declamation, rather than of severeanalysis or of protractedand patientinvestigation." True free- domwas notjust theabsence of restraint.Rather it had a morepositive aspect. A manwas mostfree, Simms declared, when permitted "to occupy his properplace. He, only,is the slave, who is forced intoa position in society whichis below the claim of his intellectand moral." Southern slaverywas merelya benevolentinstitutionalization ofthese principles of inherentinequality. "Fed, clothed,protected," the slave, WilliamJ. Graysonproclaimed, was far betteroff than the Northernoperative whoseemployer had no interestin his healthor even his survival."Free but in name," Northernlaborers had libertyto starve.The Southern thinkersagreed with Chancellor Harper that there existed "some formof slaveryin all ages and countries."The Southernsystem of humanbondage simplystructured this interdependence in accordance with the princi- plesof morality and Christianity.The humanitarianarrangements of slavery,the Southerners proclaimed, contrasted strikingly with the avaricious materialismof the "miscalled" free society of the North. While the Yan- kees caredonly about the wealth their operatives might produce, South- ernersaccepted costly responsibility for the lives of the humanbeings God had "entrusted"to them.A numberof defenderseven maintained, likeHarper, that "slave laborcan neverbe so cheapas whatis calledfree labor." Nevertheless,Hammond piously advised, slavery's moral pur- poses dictatedthat "We must . . . contentourselves with . . . the consol- ing reflectionthat what is lost to us, is gained to humanity.. . ." In the proslaveryargument, the Southern intellectual asserted his oppositionto thegrowing materialism of themodern age.19

18 Simms, "The Morals of Slavery," in The Pro-SlaveryArgument, 256. See Hammond's manuscripton "Natural Law" which he sent to Tucker, Tucker-ColemanCollection, and also his repudiationof Jeffersonin "Hammond's Letterson Slavery," 110; see also Bledsoe, "Liberty and Slavery," 271. 19 Bledsoe, "Liberty and Slavery," 273; Simms, "The Morals of Slavery," 258; Grayson, "The Hirelingand the Slave," in Eric L. McKitrick,ed., Slavery Defended: The Views of the Old South (Englewood Cliffs,N. J.: Prentice-Hall,1963), 57-68 (quotations on pp. 66, 68); Harper, "Slavery in the Lightof Social Ethics," in CottonIs King, 553, 569; Hammond, "Hammond's Letters," 122. See also [Holmes], "Slavery and Freedom," 84, fora similar remark.

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Whenthese thinkersdeclared, as theyfrequently did, thatdomestic slaverywas "the basis of all our institutions,"the foundation they en- visionedwas preeminentlymoral rather than economic or political.Their particularvalues seemed realized in theidealized system of bondage they portrayed.Duty and responsibility,not avarice, linked master and slave; theseemingly scientific criteria of racial differentiation structured society; menof superiormind exercised leadership and authority.20 Yet theseintellectuals' repeated criticisms of the Southfor its moral failuresindicate that slavery's defenders recognized that this portrait of theregion reflected their hopes and fearsmore than reality. They sought ultimatelynot to describethe Southbut to inspireit. The onlyway to legitimateslavery, their arguments implicitly warned, was to transform theregion into the moral utopia of their essays. The proslaveryargument was fundamentallya charter for reform. Thismovement to revitalizethe South was foundedin a commitmentto stewardshipas theregion's essential social relationship.The masterwas God's surrogateon earth;the structure of Southern society replicated the orderof the divine cosmos. Slavery encouraged Christian values in whites and servedas a missionaryinstitution for bondsmen. To defendslavery was therefore,as Simmsdescribed it, "a sacred duty," clearlycom- prehendedwithin the concerns of menof special intellectualand moral insight.21The Southernsystem institutionalized the Christianduties of charityin the masterand humilityin the slave. But at the same timeit justifiedthe Southernway of life,stewardship legitimated the thinkers' claimsto authority.It was, afterall, the "intellectual Caucasian," who, as Tuckerobserved, "bore the characteristicsof his race in the highest perfection,"who served as themost natural steward over both whites and blacks.As Simmsproclaimed, "the truebusiness of genius" was "to lift and guide" thelesser members of thehuman race.22 Mindwould serve, they proposed, as thecriterion of all social differentiation.Intelligence rendered blacks unequal to whitesand designated themfor their lowly status; intelligence, slavery's defenders argued, was the distinguishingcharacteristic of the whiterace and evidenceof its superiority.By implication,therefore, works of mindwere the highest achievementsof the race, and the intellectual was itssupreme manifesta- tion.The same hereditariandoctrines which justified black enslavement

20 [Tucker], "Slavery," SouthernLiterary Messenger, 2 (Apr. 1836), 337. 21 Simms, "Morals of Slavery," 275. 22 Tucker, Prescience. Speech Delivered by Hon. Beverley Tucker of Virginia in the Southern Convention Held at Nashville, Tenn., April 13th, 1850 (Richmond: West and Johnson, 1862), 14-15; [Simms], "Headley's Life of Cromwell," Southern QuarterlyRe- view, 14 (Oct. 1848), 507-08.

This content downloaded from 128.103.151.234 on Fri, 28 Mar 2014 10:56:35 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions A SouthernStewardship 75 legitimatedthe social aspirationsof the genius. In histheories of race, as inhis more general social philosophy, the thinker portrayed himself as not just a divinelyappointed steward, but the best example of the "intellectual Caucasian"; he was both selectedby natureand electedby God. Religion,history, and sciencecombined to justify the debasement of the blackand theelevation of theintellectual.23 Such a varietyof argumentsappeared again and again in proslavery tracts.Indeed, these essays generally assumed a stylizedform, for there werefew challenges to thebasic moral-philosophicalassumptions of slavery's defenders.Southerners proudly emphasized that all slavery's apologistsstood, as E. N. Elliottasserted, "on, substantially,the same ground,and take the same general views of the institution." In itsconsist- ency,they believed, rested much of their argument's strength. Even those who tendedto emphasizethe newlyimportant doctrines of a nascent scientificracism regarded the truths of natureprimarily as indicatorsof God's designs."All science," JosiahC. Nottproclaimed, "may be re- gardedas a revelationfrom Him." Thereseemed, as thetitle of one of Nott'sproslavery essays declared,to be a direct"Connection Between theBiblical and PhysicalHistory of Man." 24 But relationshipswithin the proslavery movement were not uniformly harmonious.Because Southernintellectuals regarded the argument as a vehiclefor their self-definition they felt compelled to dissociatethem- selves explicitlyfrom discussions of thepeculiar institution that seemed incompatiblein tone or purposewith their transcendent commitments. This was the basis forthe objectionswhich a numberof thinkersex- pressedabout William Lowndes Yancey's polemical utterances and even JohnCaldwell Calhoun's more self-interested actions. Sometimes, Ham- mondremarked in disgust,Calhoun behaved as if "you have butto say niggerto theSouth to set iton fireas one whistlesto theTurkey to make himgobble." Such use of theproslavery argument as an instrumentfor politicalagitation seemed a desecration.25 George Fitzhugh,the proslaverywriter who has probablyattracted most attentionfrom twentieth-century historians, was particularly criticizedby manyof hiscontemporaries, and thereasons for this dislike

23 Tucker, "An Essay on the Moral and Political Effect of the Relation Between the Caucasian Master and the AfricanSlave," SouthernLiterary Messenger, 10 (June 1844), 332. 24 Elliott,"Introduction," in Elliott,ed., Cotton Is King, xii; Nott, Two Lectures on the ConnectionBetween theBiblical and Physical Historyof Man. Delivered byInvitation From the Chair of Political Economy, etc., of the Louisiana Universityin December 1848 (1849; rpt. Negro UniversitiesPress, 1969), 14. 25 Hammond to Simms, June 20, 1848, Hammond Papers, LC. See also Hammond, "Thoughts and Recollections," March 28, 1852, Hammond Papers, SCL

This content downloaded from 128.103.151.234 on Fri, 28 Mar 2014 10:56:35 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 76 American Quarterly are revealing.Holmes was alarmedbecause Fitzhughignored the scien- tificrequirements for disinterested pursuit of truthand even approached polemic.In CannibalsAll! he wentso faras to proclaimhimself no scholar and to denouncephilosophy as a wasteof time.To Holmeshe confided thathe had neverread Aristotle,the equivalentin the mid-nineteenth centuryto admittinghimself uneducated. As thetwo Southernerscorre- spondedbetween 1854 and 1857Holmes grew disenchanted with his new acquaintance.When Fitzhugh acknowledged him in the preface to Canni- bals All! Holmes complainedin his diary,"I dislikenotoriety." As Holmesexplained, Fitzhugh's "utter recklessness of bothstatement and expression"made his work"incendiary and dangerous";he threatened to replace "sober and cautious" reflectionon slaverywith a literary sideshow.26 Moreover,Fitzhugh's ideas contributedlittle to thecrusade. Although he declaredhimself to be the firstto have "vindicatedslavery in the abstract,"many earlier apologists had takensuch a position.Perhaps Dew's 1831essay was too squeamishto be consideredmore than a fledg- ling"positive-good" argument, for Dew emphasizedthe implausibility of alternativelabor systemsmore strongly than the excellenceof slavery. But by thelate 1830s,and wellbefore Fitzhugh began to publishin 1849, Tucker,Simms, Bledsoe, Harper,Upshur, Hammond, Ruffin, Holmes, andothers had defended slavery on theoreticalgrounds, declaring it to be of divineappointment and a benefitto bothmaster and slave.27 EugeneGenovese, however, has foundFitzhugh "a ruthlessand critical theoristwho spelled out the logical outcomeof the slaveholders' philosophyand laid bare its essence." Yet Fitzhughwas in manyways atypicaland even antitheticalto the moral-philosophicalmainstream of proslaverythought-not its logical outcome. By thetime Fitzhugh began to write,the Southern intellectual class had alreadyoutlined the proslavery argumentaccording to its idealistviews and would-besocial role. Obliviousto theseconcerns, which determined the substance of proslaverythought and underlaythe very arguments he borrowed,Fitzhugh was marginalto themovement.28

26 Fitzhughto Holmes, Mar. 27, 1855, Letterbook; Fitzhughto Holmes, Apr. 11, 1855; Holmes Diary, Aug. 9, 1856, Holmes Papers, Duke Univ. Ruffindeclared he found Fitz- hugh's ideas "foolish," Diary, Oct. 26, 1858, RuffinPapers. 27 Fitzhughto Holmes, Mar. 27, 1855, Letterbook,Holmes Papers; Dew, Review of the Debate, 322. 28 Genovese, The World the Slaveholders Made: Two Essays in Interpretation(New York: Pantheon, 1969), 129. On Fitzhughsee also C. Vann Woodward, "George Fitzhugh, Sui Generis," in Fitzhugh,Cannibals All! or Slaves WithoutMasters, Woodward, ed., (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1960), vii-xxxix; Harvey Wish, George Fitzhugh:Prop- agandist of the Old South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1943); Louis Hartz,

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Genovese,however, is less interestedin Fitzhugh'splace withinthe proslaverymovement than in his significance within the broader Southern worldview. In Fitzhugh'sthought, indeed in the values he did sharewith otherapologists, Genovese finds the essence of Southern distinctiveness, the antimaterialist-whathe calls anticapitalistand prebourgeois- outlookupon which Fitzhugh's defenses of slaveryrested. Genovese re- gardsthese attitudes as thelogical product of the particularlySouthern relationshipbetween the ownershipand the means of production,the masterand theslave. Yet theseantimaterialist values in largepart grew out of the needsof thealienated Southern intellectual class fromwhich Fitzhughborrowed the moral-philosophical bases forhis arguments. And theseviews did not so muchreflect the realitiesof Southernlife as the ambivalenceof a groupof intellectualsabout the changes taking place in theirsociety and throughoutthe Westernworld. Ironically, Genovese findsSouthern antimaterialism best exemplifiedin GeorgeFitzhugh, an individualaccused by his contemporariesof consciouslyappropriating theseideas notfor their intrinsic merit but for his own fame and material advancement. Genovesehas accuratelyobserved that many Southerners did indeed challengethe preoccupation with the "cash nexus" whichthey believed characterizedmuch of nineteenth-centuryAmerica. But slaveholders werenot alone in feelingthese anxieties. The moststriking aspect of the proslaveryargument is thatthe values uponwhich it dependedand the confusionsthat it reflectedwere notpeculiar to the South.The menof mindwho constructedslavery's defense sought a plausiblebelief system fortheir society and thusbased theirarguments upon moraland social valuesto whichlarge numbers of Americans both North and Southcould assent.Stewardship, which Genovese defines as theessential principle of the master-slaverelationship, was an importantcharacteristic of the evangelicalismwhich pervaded all ofnineteenth-century America. Histo- rianshave emphasizedits efficacyin theNorth, where it motivatedthe myriadreform movements. In explainingthe acceptance of "directsocial responsibilityfor others" as theproduct of a "prebourgeois"Southern worldview, Genovese ignores the existence of thesecentral aspects of Northerncivilization. The socialideas advanced by the apologists of slav- erywere shared by many Americans in no wayinfluenced by participation in themaster-slave relationship. Indeed, many of theseNorthern "stew- ards" wereamong slavery's harshest opponents.29

The Liberal Traditionin America: An Interpretationof American Political ThoughtSince the Revolution (New York: Harcourt,Brace, 1955). 29 Genovese, The Worldthe Slaveholders Made, 148, 244. Also see LarryTise, "Proslav- ery Ideology," fora considerationof the similaritiesof ideology, North and South.

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Genovese'sanalysis of Fitzhugh is ultimatelycircular, for it defines the Southas "prebourgeois"and thenpoints to the singleSoutherner who openlyattacked capitalism as themost accurate exponent of theregional worldview. Genoveseportrays the tensionswithin the Southernmind brilliantly,but he errsin hisexplanation of these anxieties. These strains werenot the product of slavery, for they were widespread in the North as well,where the challenge to long-acceptedvalues had producedthe mul- titudeof "isms"-from communitarianismto feminism-whichthe Southfound so threatening.Perhaps these anxieties might best be defined as theproduct of conflictsbetween the sacred and theprofane, tensions createdby the modernization and secularizationof society.The language of slavery,with its close relationto questionsof hierarchyand social order,provided a metaphoricalframework within which Americans of all sectionssought to exploreproblems central to a societyundergoing rapid change.The meaningof bothpro- and antislaverythought thus assumed significancewell beyondthe slaverycontroversy and servedto express anxietiesnot directlycorrelated with residence north or southof the Mason-DixonLine. Like the Puritanjeremiads Perry Miller has so sensitivelyexplained, the proslaveryargument was designedto resolve ambivalenceabout changewhich its authorsboth desired and abhorred.30For the Southern intellectualthe defenseof slaveryserved simultaneously to affirmtradi- tionalvalues and to providea meansfor advancement in an increasingly dynamicmodern world. The invocationof sacred principlesreduced tensionsarising from their abandonment as absolutecriteria for behavior and at thesame time provided meaning and cognitive stability to individuals in a worldbeset by change. Southern thinkers thus sought to revitalize theirregion by providingit witha conventionalizedformula of self- affirmationfounded in a reassuringcosmology. By presentingthe proslaveryargument as a comprehensivemoral and social philosophythey hopedto translatethe dilemmas they faced as intellectualsand thosethe Southconfronted as a civilizationinto the same transcendentreligious and culturalterms. As menof mind,they were convinced that both their ownproblems and those of their culture had to be solvedwithin this realm of beliefand values. Theirtransformation of soil exhaustioninto moral corruption,of slaveryinto stewardship,forcefully represented the at-

30 Millerhas writtenthat the jeremiads "constitute a chapterin the emergenceof the capitalistmentality, showing how intelligencecopes with. . . a changeit simultaneously desires and abhors." The New England Mind: From Colony to Province (Cambridge,Mass.: HarvardUniv. Press, 1953), 40. Fora morerecent discussion of the function of the jeremiad see SacvanBercovitch, "Horologicals to Chronometricals:The Rhetoricof the Jeremiad," LiteraryMonographs, 3 (1970), 1-124, 187-215.

This content downloaded from 128.103.151.234 on Fri, 28 Mar 2014 10:56:35 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions A SouthernStewardship 79 temptto deal withwhat sociologistshave definedas the intellectuals' perpetualquandary: the need both to acceptand to transcendtheir tradi- tionand social context. Throughoutthe historyof the South,this universal intellectual plight has assumedparticular poignancy. Thinking Southerners from Thomas Jeffersonto C. VannWoodward have feltcompelled by theintensity of boththeir love and hate fortheir region to explorethe sourcesof this ambivalence.The proslaveryargument represented one sucheffort simul- taneouslyto justify and reform, but the nature of Southern intellectual life of thepast twocenturies has madeit farfrom unique. In theabsence of highlydeveloped institutions for intellectual life and support,Southern men of mindhave had to rely almostexclusively on emotionaland psychological,rather than structural ties with their culture. In whatH. L. Menckencalled the "Sahara ofthe Bozarts," it has alwaysbeen difficult fora writeror scholarto ignorethe issue of his position within his culture, forhe has almostnever occupied a well-definedniche which would ob- viatethe need forconstant scrutiny of therelationship between himself and his surroundings.Moreover, the uncertainties inherent in thissort of interactionbetween mind and societyhave been exacerbated in every era bythe persistent issue of race andthe difficulties of reconcilingthe trans- cendenthumanistic values of intellectualcommitment with the existing social and racialorder.31 The natureof theintellectual's adjustment to theseparticularly South- ernproblems has variedfrom generation to generation,but a remarkable consistencypervades all timeperiods. Thinking Southerners have found themselveslike QuentinCompson in WilliamFaulkner's Absalom! Ab- salom seekingto understandtheir past in orderto transcendit, yet often discoveringthemselves more the victims than the authors of history.Jef- fersoninstinctively condemned human bondage, yet found in therecord of itsAmerican origins a kindof inevitability that offered no escape from slaveholding,either for Jefferson himself or his culture.The nineteenth- centuryproslavery theorists could seek changeand reformin cultural values onlyby acceptingand defendingthe institutionthat made such changeall but impossible.Half a centurylater, Thomas Watson nobly undertooka social and racial revolution,but ultimatelysettled for an embitteredracism as the prerequisitefor any effortat social change. Twentieth-centurySoutherners have continuedto tryto freethemselves fromthese ironies, to maketheir history less a burdenthan an opportu- nity,to enlistSouthern tradition in the serviceof progress.Faulkner,

31 H. L. Mencken,The VintageMencken, Alistair Cooke, ed., (New York: VintageBooks, 1955).

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RobertPenn Warren, and otherstransformed this effort into a Southern LiteraryRenaissance, and academic Southern historians have undertaken a relatedtask. C. Vann Woodward,who- had chronicledthe tragedyof Tom Watson'slife, himself sought in theera followingBrown v. Boardof Educationto heightenSouthern awareness of thepositive aspects of its interracialpast in orderto use traditionas thefoundation for black and whitecooperation in a new desegregatedera.32 The proslaveryargument should therefore seem neitheran aberration nora puzzleto thehistorian. Its contradictionsrepresent those dilemmas confrontedby all intellectualswho seek to be at once relevantand transcendent,to serveboth their own societyand timelessintellectual values, to make theirambitions and convictionscoincide. Yet the particular structureof Southernintellectual life and theever-present moral burden ofrace have madethese chronic problems especially acute. The proslaveryargument thus symbolizes both the universality and thepeculiarity of the Southernexperience. It is a productof feelingsof marginalityand alienationthat have plaguedintellectuals throughout history, but it is at thesame time an episodein thecontinuing struggle of Southernthinkers and writersto deal withthe particular burden of Southerntradition. The proslaverywriters would have understoodvery well QuentinCompson's desperateneed to convincehimself that he did not hate the South.33

32 William Faulkner,Absalom, Absalom! (1936; rpt. New York: Random House, 1964); John C. Miller, Wolfby the Ears: Thomas Jeffersonand Slavery (New York: Free Press, 1977); C. Vann Woodward, Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel (New York: Macmillan Co., 1938); C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1955). 33 Faulkner,378.

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