George Fitzhugh and Henry Hammond's argument for the institution of slavery (Essay Sample)

Name: Course: Instructor: Date: George Fitzhugh and Henry Hammond’s argument for the institution of slavery According to the Oxford Dictionary of Contemporary English, Slavery is defined as a legally recognized economic system that allows the application of principles of property law to humans, often classifying such humans as property, to be owned, sold, or bought accordingly and has no power to withdraw from the arrangement unilaterally. The industrial revolution in Europe and America, especially the invention of the cotton gin saw many African Americans taken up to work in cotton plantations as slaves. Although slavery conditions were dehumanizing, George Fitzhugh and Henry Hammond have been singled out throughout the history of America as the greatest architects and perpetrators of slavery. The comments at various stages did not only encourage slave trade and slavery but also meant to demeanor the black race and subsequently regard African Americans as second fiddle humans who could only survive as slaves. George Fitzhugh, a Virginia lawyer, once said that the Negro was only but a grown up child who needed the economic and social protection of slavery. According to him, therefore, the black race could only realize social and moral security if they worked as slaves. While further defending slavery, Fitzhugh argued that the Negro was lazy and improvident who risked being an unbearable burden to the American society. ( DuBois ,2010). To cushion the society against such impending burdens, the Negro had to be subjected to domestic slavery. Furthermore, the Negro was an inferior race living amidst the white race and could easily be outstripped or outwitted in the chaos of free competition. Hence, the only best fate for the Negros was gradual but certain extermination. He insisted that there was no safer place for the Negros than working in the plantations. For instance, if the Negros went back to Africa, they would be idolatrous, save and cannibal or even be devoured by savages and cannibals, if they fled to the North, they would either starve or free, and if they chose West Indies, they would be cannibals. George Fitzhugh did not only wish to enslave the African Americans, but he also hated them to the extent that he wanted their extinction. It clearly comes out that his choice to support slavery wasn’t for any economic gain to ensure that the Negros suffered to their death, and not just death but until the entire race could be wiped out. His assumption that the blacks had nowhere to go further justifies his hatred against the race. In fact, he likens the blacks to such vices as idolatry and cannibalism, vices that are associated with hopelessness and dejection in society. During the slavery period, slaves were bought, either for cash or in exchange of goods. These slaves had a place they called home before they were captured and eventually sold to the white plantation owners. Any utterances purporting that slaves had no other safer place to go except the cotton plantation are statements meant to further condemn the blacks to slavery in the pretense that they could feel secure under such dehumanizing conditions that characterized slavery. Fitzhugh isn’t the only known ardent supporter of slavery, his counterpart, James Henry Hammond, a senator and wealthy plantation owner from South Carolina is known to have developed what was later referred to as the mudsill theory of social organization. In his purported theory, Hammond insisted that the elite and wealthy American society needed a lower class race to rest upon so that they might be free to contribute to the development of society. He defended his theory in his famous speech before the American Senate where he argued that the Negros were the only best-suited race to the various forms of labor that undergirded plantation culture. Hammond further argued that blacks, by their inherent inferiority, were natural slaves. Without the labor of a socially inferior race, such as the Negros’s, the society would collapse.(Teich,2013) In a nutshell, Hammond’s arguments on slavery were racially prejudiced. First, he never regarded the black race as equal to the whites in America. Therefore, the only way such differences in racial superiority were to forever enslave them. Hammond also argues that it’s only the elites and rich in the society that could contribute towards the development of the country. The blacks, who by their color could not be regarded as elites, therefore had nothing to contribute towards the economic development of America and hence, they were supposed to take up hard tasks and free up the whites to build the economy. At this point, it can be argued that Hammond never appreciated the contribution of the entire industrial sector in which slaves worked towards the economic progress of America. Both Hammond and Fitzhugh do not offer any good arguments for the institution of slavery. Their justifications of slavery emanate from their personal vendetta against the black race. For instance, it is quite clear that most slaves worked in the extensive coffee plantations owned by wealthy white Americans. The whites, therefore, assumed supervisory roles, ensuring that the slaves worked for the required hours and in line with the right procedures. Therefore, the contribution of the Negros to the progress of the American economy was immense and can never be assumed. (Forret, 2012). The assertions by both Hammond and Fitzhugh that the blacks were lazy and burdensome to the society do not hold any water but are meant to express their hatred and racial prejudice that was meted against the black race. Hammond and Fitzhugh hold onto it that blacks were inferior to the whites and thus there was a way to explicitly show the demarcation between the two races. The need to justify racial superiority cannot warrant slavery; neither can it call for the extermination of the inferior. In their further writings and arguments, Hammond and Fitzhugh knew very well that the continued slavery of the blacks could lead to a revolution. In fact, one reason as to why the Negros were subjected to hard labor and denied basic needs was to ensure that the ...