Title: Slavery in White and Black
First published: 2008
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.
Subjects: Capitalism, History, Industrialization, Intellectual life, Justification, Labor, Moral and ethical aspects, Moral and ethical aspects of Slavery, Slavery, Slavery and the church, Social aspects, Social aspects of Industrialization, Social conditions, Working class, Slavery, united states, history, Slavery, justification, Working class, united states, Southern states, intellectual life, Labor, united states
Places: Southern States, United States
Time periods: 19th century
LC classification: E449 .F77 2008