Defending Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Old South: A Brief History with Documents

This collection of mid-nineteenth century writings defending American slavery is excellent in both selection and editing. Nearly all of the writings excerpted are either out of print or available only in terribly expensive editions. (The single exception is George Fitzhugh's Cannibals All!, edited by C. Vann Woodward. Woodward's preface is well worth reading.) Included in this collection are Vice President of the Confederacy Alexander Stephens' "cornerstone speech," in which he categorically declares that the Confederacy is built on the assumption that blacks are racially inferior to whites and ordained for slavery; James Henry Hammond's famous 1858 "cotton is king" speech in which he insists that the southern states are economically independent of their slavery-disapproving neighbors and refers to black slaves as the "mudsill" or inferior foundation (when compared to the "marble" of whites) of society; several "Christian" defenses of slavery, including Thornton Stringfellow's notorious affirmation, which he declares "no man denies," that "Jesus Christ has not abolished slavery by a prohibitory command; ...and has introduced no new moral principle which can work its destruction"; and several documents, including the above-mentioned Fitzhugh's, which purport to prove that blacks are by nature stupid, criminal, lazy, and disease-prone. Reading these documents is an uncanny experience. On the one hand, they're laughable in both their outrageous racist claims as well as their cultural blindspots. (Stephens, for example, insists that blacks are ordained by God to be slaves, and in the very next paragraph insists that the Confederacy is characterized by its high moral character.) But on the other, they're chilling, revealing as they do an utter insensitivity to our shared human nature. After reading these documents, one is thankful that this chapter of American history is in the past. One also worries, however, how much of the sentiments expressed in these documents is still around, just beneath the surface.

Whenever a serious student of history, political science or the law sees a book by Professor Paul Finkelman he is confident it is worth reading and having as a prized possession in his or her library. Paul Finkelman is one of our best illuminators of the American Constitution and this is an invaluable resource for the researcher.