The Social Philosophy of the Old South

Rape, Race, and Capital Punishment: An Enduring Cultural Legacy of Lethal Vengeance?

“…Given the abolitionist activities in the northern colonies/states and the withering approval for slavery in England, southern Planters felt the need to defend and preserve their practice. Dodd (1918) describes the efforts of learned elite southern Whites, such as Thomas R. Dew, Chancellor Harper, John C. Calhoun, Thomas Carlyle, George Fitzhugh, and many others, to establish a social philosophy/ideology justifying slavery and the caste system of the colonial and antebellum south. In essence, according to these White southern elite spokespersons, Thomas Jefferson was wrong; all men are not born free or equal; “man is born to subjection…the proclivity of the natural man is to be domineer or to be subservient” (Chancellor Harper as cited by Dodd, 1918, p. 739).…”

“…Dodd (1918) describes the efforts of learned elite southern Whites, such as Thomas R. Dew, Chancellor Harper, John C. Calhoun, Thomas Carlyle, George Fitzhugh, and many others, to establish a social philosophy/ideology justifying slavery and the caste system of the colonial and antebellum south. In essence, according to these White southern elite spokespersons, Thomas Jefferson was wrong; all men are not born free or equal; “man is born to subjection…the proclivity of the natural man is to be domineer or to be subservient” (Chancellor Harper as cited by Dodd, 1918, p. 739). Harper adds:It is the order of nature and of God that the being of superior faculties and knowledge, and therefore of superior power, should control and dispose of those who are inferior.…”

“…It is as much in the order of nature that man should enslave each other as that animals should prey upon each other. (Quoted by Dodd, 1918, p. 738)From such a starting point, Dodd (1918, p. 737), it would be easy to formulate the necessary doctrine to uphold the hegemony of White elites in the south and the enslavement of Blacks:Not all men should vote, but only those who owned property; not all men should be educated at public expense, but only those whose life and business required education and training. Hard labor was for those whose hands were hard, mainly for [B]lack hands.…”

“…Whether a Slave Code, a Black Code, or Jim Crow, these laws permitted and prescribed the unequal, and often harsh, treatment of Blacks relative to Whites. These codes served to preserve White hegemony by regulating even the most mundane behaviors of slaves and free Blacks (Dodd, 1918; Flanigan, 1974; Imes, 1919; Paternoster, 1991). Some of these codes criminalized the behaviors of Blacks, which if engaged in by Whites were not considered crimes.…”

An American Political Economy: Industry, Trade, and Finance in the Antebellum Mind

“…In 1876 a list of the ten 'most saleable works on political economy' registered John Stuart Mill's Principles of Political Economy and Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations at the top of the chart. Joseph Dorfman, The Economic Mind in American Civilization, 1865-1918(New York, 1969, p. 81.…”