Slavery in White and Black
Subtitle: class and race in the southern slaveholders' new world order
By: Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Eugene D. Genovese.
Contributors: Genovese, Eugene D., 1930-
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2008
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 332
ISBN-13: 9780521897006; 9780521721813
Subjects: Slavery -- Moral and ethical aspects -- Southern States -- History -- 19th century; Slavery -- Southern States -- Justification; Slavery and the church -- Southern States -- History -- 19th century; Working class -- United States -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Labor -- United States -- History -- 19th century; Industrialization -- United States -- Social aspects -- 19th century; Capitalism -- United States -- History -- 19th century; Southern States -- Intellectual life -- 19th century
Description: Southern slaveholders proudly pronounced themselves orthodox Christians, who accepted responsibility for the welfare of the people who worked for them. They proclaimed that their slaves enjoyed a better and more secure life than any laboring class in the world. Now, did it not follow that the lives of laborers of all races across the world would be immeasurably improved by their enslavement? In the Old South but in no other slave society a doctrine emerged among leading clergymen, politicians, and intellectuals -- "Slavery in the Abstract," which declared enslavement the best possible condition for all labor regardless of race. They joined the Socialists, whom they studied, in believing that the free-labor system, wracked by worsening class warfare, was collapsing. A vital question: to what extent did the people of the several social classes of the South accept so extreme a doctrine? That question lies at the heart of this book.--Publisher.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The impending collapse of capitalism; title: Hewers of wood, drawers of water; title: Travelers to the South, Southerners abroad; title: The squaring of circles; title: The appeal to social theory; title: Perceptions and realities; title: Afterword