We can see from this witticism Senator Chesnut’s assumption that he is doing the slaves a favor by housing, feeding, and taking care of them. In other words, they aren’t supporting him; he’s supporting them! He shouldn’t be grateful to them; they should be grateful to him! This is the “happy slave” idea, and many slave owners and southern Democrats believed it, so they could never understand the Republican contention that slaves might not want to be slaves, dismissing it as a form of outside “agitation.”
Historically the argument for slavery is one from necessity, and we find it in Aristotle. Aristotle insisted that some people are naturally inferior and incapable of governing themselves; such people are “natural slaves” and their enslavement is “natural slavery.” Yet Aristotle also recognized that many people were enslaved because they were captives who became the spoils of war. Slavery of this sort, Aristotle wrote, is “conventional slavery,” upheld not because it is right but because of custom or the way of the world.
One might expect Aristotle to say that while natural slavery may be justifiable, conventional slavery is not. Aristotle, however, defends both types of slavery. His reason is practical. In every society, he argues, there is a great deal of hard work to be done, and if there is going to be leisure and art and contemplation, then some people have to do the dirty work so that others are freed up to devote themselves to higher pursuits. Slavery is simply the price that humanity must pay in order to have civilization.
We can see that Aristotle’s justification for slavery is essentially identical to Hillary’s justification for illegal immigration: Who is going to serve us and do the dirty work if not “those people”? Aristotle’s argument hasn’t just reached Democrats today; it also inspired Democrats in the early to middle part of the nineteenth century.
Indeed, leading Democrats in the South picked up Aristotle’s defense of slavery. In his celebrated King Cotton speech to the Senate in 1858, Democratic senator James Hammond argued, “In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life. Such a class you must have, or you would not have that other class which leads progress, civilization and refinement.” So far Hammond is completely in line with his Greek predecessor. We can also trace a very interesting line that goes from Hammond to Hillary.
Hammond, however, goes much further than Aristotle when he continues that slavery “is no evil. On the contrary, I believe it to be the greatest of all blessings.” Providence, he declares, has produced in the slave-owning South “the highest-toned, the purest, best organization of society that has ever existed on the face of the earth.”
Hammond insists that slaves don’t have it too bad in being slaves. “Our slaves are hired for life,” he says, “and well compensated. There is no starvation, no begging, no want of employment.” Remarkably, Hammond goes on to add that free laborers who don’t have food, lodging or health care provided to them are worse off than slaves. He calls them a “hireling class,” that is “hired for the day” and “not cared for,” while slaves, he insists, are provided for in all their basic needs.11
Echoing Hammond, Democratic senator Albert Gallatin of Mississippi contended that slavery was “a great moral, social and political blessing—a blessing to the slave, and a blessing to the master.” According to Gallatin, slavery freed gentlemen to cultivate literature and the arts and devote themselves to public service in contrast to “vulgar, contemptible, counter-jumping” Yankees. At the same time, Gallatin said, slavery benefited the slaves because it took African savages and made them into useful workers, while also giving them lifelong protection and provision.12
We hear the same tune from another southern Democrat, the writer George Fitzhugh, who argued that “slavery is the natural and normal condition of society” while free labor was “abnormal and anomalous.” Fitzhugh didn’t just want slavery to continue; he wanted it to expand. The South would never have independence or equality, he wrote, until “our equal right to increase, expansion, and protection, is fully admitted and acted on.”
The founding doctrine of equality of rights, Fitzhugh insisted, was simply a mechanism for “giving license to the strong to oppress the weak.” While “free laborers must at all times work or starve,” Fitzhugh wrote, “slaves are supported whether they work or not.” Slavery, Fitzhugh concluded, was an early form of social insurance; it may even be termed an embryonic form of socialism.13
Undoubtedly the most notorious defender of slavery was Democratic senator John C. Calhoun from South Carolina. Calhoun was an enthusiastic Andrew Jackson supporter, and in 1828 he became Jackson’s vice president, although the two men would subsequently have a falling out. Progressive historians like to portray Calhoun as a quintessential southerner, in order to italicize their North-South interpretation of the Civil War.
In reality, historian Clyde Wilson points out that Calhoun was controversial even in his home state; he was not a typical southerner. In fact, he may have been just as popular in the North as in the South. According to Wilson, “he had substantial support and admiration in many parts of the North, from Boston to New York to Philadelphia to Cincinnati to Detroit.”
SLAVERY AS A “POSITIVE GOOD”
Calhoun’s “positive good” defense of slavery is laid out in a series of his speeches before the U.S. Senate. In an 1837 speech, Calhoun argued, “There never has yet existed a wealthy and civilized society in which one portion of the community did not, in point of fact, live on the labor of the other.” Here is Calhoun contending that slavery is simply a response, one may say, to Aristotelian necessity.
But Calhoun went further, attacking the Declaration of Independence and thus separating himself from Jefferson. Calhoun attributed the assault on slavery as arising out of “great and dangerous errors that have their origin in the prevalent opinion that all men are free and equal. Nothing can be more unfounded and false.” Men are not equal, Calhoun emphasized, and therefore some are destined for freedom and others are marked for servitude.
Calhoun, like Hammond, contended that slaves were improved by slavery, making them not only better off than they were before, but also happy. “Never before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually. It came among us in a low, degraded and savage condition, and in the course of a few generations it has grown up under the fostering care of our institutions, to its present comparatively civilized condition. This, with the rapid increase of numbers, is conclusive proof of the general happiness of the race, in spite of all the exaggerated tales to the contrary.”
Calhoun rhapsodized that “every plantation is a little community, with the master as its head, who concentrates in himself the united interests of capital and labor, of which he is the common representative.” In this benign environment, he insisted, the slaves could really thrive. For Calhoun slavery was a veritable “school of civilization,” although not a school from which the slaves were permitted to graduate.14
These arguments by southern Democrats appear to have vanished into the mist of history. They are rarely taught, scarcely read, and hardly remembered. Progressives don’t want us to remember them. Yet they are worth remembering for three separate reasons.
First, they are unique. Historian Eugene Genovese says that nowhere in the new world, outside the Democratic South, did anyone celebrate slavery as a good thing for the slave. In Brazil, for example, there was widespread slavery and, according to Genovese, “slavery was defended as economically necessary and traditionally sanctioned, but no one argued with any discernible conviction that it was a good thing in itself or the proper condition of the laboring classes.”15
Second, the pro-slavery philosophy of the southern Democrats shaped important events in American history. “The right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution.” This sentence is from the Dred Scott decision issued by a Supreme Court dominate
d by Jackson Democrats.16 The statement is a lie. Nowhere does the Constitution distinctly and expressly affirm slavery. This can easily be verified by reading the Constitution today.
Yet the statement does reflect the perverted Democratic interpretation of the Constitution promulgated by the pro-slavery Democratic contingent. These are people who wanted to keep their slaves, and recover slaves who escaped to free states, and so they twisted the Constitution to achieve their self-serving objectives.
No wonder that President James Buchanan, a Democrat, hailed the Supreme Court’s decision. “The right has been established of every citizen to take his property of any kind, including slaves, into the common territories and to have it protected there. Neither Congress nor a territorial legislature nor any human power has any authority to annul or impair this vested right.”17
Ultimately the southern Democrats became so dug in with their “positive good” philosophy that they pressed for secession immediately upon Lincoln’s election. A less recalcitrant group might have stayed in the union; in this case slavery would likely have endured longer than it did. So the “positive good” philosophy was actually instrumental in instigating the Civil War and, against the wishes of its proponents, bringing about a quicker end to slavery than would otherwise have been the case.
Third and finally, the arguments of the southern Democrats are worth recalling because we will see Democrats make very similar arguments—actually, the same ones—once again during the New Deal. Only this time the master had a new name: the federal government, administered by progressives according to progressive principles. Incredibly those “positive good” arguments would be pitched in the 1930s and subsequently not to sympathetic whites but to blacks themselves.
COMPLICITY OF THE NORTHERN DEMOCRATS
The northern Democratic defense of slavery was epitomized by Stephen Douglas, who made a new and ingenious defense of black servitude that went under the banner of “popular sovereignty.” Douglas was no friend of blacks, and routinely referred to them as “niggers.” In his second debate with Lincoln in the Illinois Senate race, for instance, Douglas said, “Those of you who believe that the nigger is your equal and ought to be on an equality with you socially, politically and legally, have a right to entertain those opinions and of course will vote for Mr. Lincoln.”
In the third debate, Douglas bluntly asserted, “I hold that a Negro is not and never ought to be a citizen of the United States. I hold that this government was made on the white basis, made by white men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and should be administered by white men and none others.” Indeed Douglas went on to suggest that since many of the Founders had slaves, clearly they couldn’t have meant what they said that all men are created equal.18
Interestingly, Democrats today make the same point about the Founders, not to defend white supremacy but to suggest that the Founders are hypocrites whose ideals as set forth in the Constitution should give way to progressive alternatives. The resemblance between today’s Democrats and the Democrat Douglas goes even further. Douglas’s argument for popular sovereignty regarding slavery is identical in substance, and very nearly in form, to the Democratic Party’s position on abortion today.
Let’s follow the argument more closely. Douglas professed to be indifferent himself to whether slavery was voted up or down. To the degree he confessed to an opinion, he implied he was “personally opposed” to slavery and would not have slaves himself—as indeed he couldn’t, since he lived in the free state of Illinois. Even so, Douglas contended that popular sovereignty was a democratic solution to an otherwise insoluble problem that threatened to divide the country and plunge it into chaos.
The solution, Douglas said, is for Americans to agree to disagree. Specifically, each state and territory should decide for itself whether to have slavery. Douglas staked his position not on the right or wrong of slavery, but firmly on the “right to choose.” For Douglas, the moral dignity of slavery came not from its own merits but from its affirmation through the democratic process. Douglas sought to resolve the contradiction of the American founding—to eliminate its hypocrisy, if you will, on the slavery issue—by placing slavery itself on a democratic foundation.
Here we see the resemblance to the Democrats’ contemporary pro-choice position on abortion. Both are efforts to take something that destroys the life and liberty of another, and make it into a political good. Both embrace the high ground of freedom or “choice” in order to cancel out the choices of others. Both use the language of democracy to deny the fundamental equality of others who are somehow placed outside the orbit of humanity.
In one case it is the planter who makes the choice; in another, it is the pregnant woman. In one case the choice involves owning and enslaving a black person; in the other it involves destroying an emerging life in the womb. Still, one can hardly deny the similarities; this method of reasoning seems to be part of the Democrats’ political DNA, from their pro-choice arguments about slavery to their pro-choice arguments about abortion.
Douglas’s popular sovereignty doctrine was reflected in the Kansas Nebraska Act, which Douglas maneuvered through the Congress. It was a legislative victory for Douglas, yet the Act also precipitated vehement opposition, leading to the rise of Abraham Lincoln and the founding of the Republican Party. Speaking on behalf of the emerging Republican coalition, Lincoln’s arguments against Douglas expose the façade of the pro-choice position, revealing it as facially neutral but actually a form of oppression. Lincoln’s logic, we will see, applies equally against slavery then as it does against abortion now.
Lincoln destroyed popular sovereignty by exposing the contradiction at the core of the doctrine. Yes, Lincoln said, democracy involves the right to choose, but the right to choose cannot be defended without considering what is being chosen. Pro-choice, in other words, depends for its validity on the content of the choice. How, Lincoln asked, can Douglas Democrats invoke “choice” to deprive black people of their right to choose? Can popular consent legitimately take away other people’s right to consent? Lincoln insisted that it could not.19
With equal acumen, Lincoln destroyed the “positive good” defense of slavery. He compared the position of the Calhoun Democrats to a pack of wolves devouring lambs, while pretending that this was good for the lambs! Lincoln said he was weary of hearing Democrats preach about how good slavery was for the slaves. If slavery was so good, he suggested, why don’t Democrats try it on themselves by becoming slaves?
For Lincoln, slavery was a form of theft. The core of it was summarized in the phrase, “You work, I eat.” The slave owner, in other words, was a thief, stealing not only the labor but also the life of the slave. Democratic apologists for slavery were no better than facilitators and sustainers of this system of theft. Lincoln pointed out that even popular sovereignty—the supposedly moderate position of the northern Democrats—represented not just theft but perpetual theft. Lincoln accused Douglas of placing slavery “where he openly confesses he has no desire there shall ever be an end of it.”
Lincoln found this position abhorrent because he, together with his fellow Republicans, believed that slavery was morally wrong. This belief, of course, did not by itself settle the issue. Lincoln knew that the Founders had allowed slavery in the southern states in order to have a union. He believed that no matter how much he abhorred slavery, it was not within his power or the power of Congress to nullify that original pact. In other words, the federal government was constitutionally prohibited from regulating slavery in the southern states.
The Constitution, however, said nothing about new territories that were coming into the union. Lincoln argued that therefore Congress had every right, and full power, to keep slavery out of these new territories. Lincoln’s position was that, within the parameters established by the Constitution, the evil of slavery should be restricted and contained. His opponents, on the other hand, wanted slavery to continue and expand. As Lincoln neatly summarized the differenc
e, one side believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought to be restricted.
FRUITS OF ONE’S LABOR
By contrast with the Democrats, Lincoln defended the free labor system. Such a system, he contended, not only protected liberty, it was also just. People have a right to the fruits of their labor. Once again, Lincoln spoke in simple terms that everyone could understand. “I always thought the man who made the corn should eat the corn.” The hand that produces bread, Lincoln said, has the right to put that bread into its own mouth. No other man has a claim on that bread, and no other man can justly take away the fruits of another man’s labor.
Lincoln combined his condemnation of slavery with a defense of free labor and earned achievement. He articulated, for his time and ours, the core principle of the Republican Party. Republicans, Lincoln said, were the party of entrepreneurship. Lincoln understood that nothing has raised the American standard of living more than new inventions and innovations. When we contemplate how people’s lives have been improved from a slew of new inventions, from the steam engine to the iPhone, I don’t see how anyone can disagree with Lincoln about this.
In a speech on patents and copyrights, Lincoln defended the patent laws as adding the fuel of interest to the fire of innovation. In other words, people are more likely to build new things that benefit others and raise the overall standard of society when they get to own and benefit from their creations. Lincoln celebrated the American system of “discoveries, inventions and improvements.” Minerals, he pointed out, have long subsisted under the earth’s surface. They lay idle, however, until someone figured out how to get them out and harness them to productive use.
Republicans, according to Lincoln, are not just the party of entrepreneurship and invention; they are also the party of the little guy making his way up the ladder. Sure, that guy may have to start out working for another. But, Lincoln insisted, he must do so as a free man, on terms to which he gave consent. In time, Lincoln hoped, men could free themselves from dependence and work for themselves. And if they were successful, perhaps they would be able to hire others to work for them. This, Lincoln said, is the free labor system, offering what Lincoln termed equal chances in the race of life.
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