The Slaveholders' Dilemma: Freedom and Progress in Southern Conservative Thought, 1820-1860 (Jack N. and Addie D. Averitt Lecture Series, No. 1)

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Summary: Intellectual arguments in favor of slavery
Review: This book is a small sampling of the intellectual arguments put forward by Southerners in defense of their "peculiar institution", which was a euphemism for slavery. Or, more accurately, their justification for the continued involuntary servitude of persons of African descent. For in this timeframe, only black people were slaves. The people making the arguments sound a great deal like old order European aristocrats, claiming that their society is one that is ordained by the almighty. Furthermore, their argument was that not only would any attempt to destroy slavery lead to the chaos of a class war, but that the slaves were actually better off in their servitude than outside it.
Their main argument is over the value of labor and they compare the situation of the free, yet exploited industrial workers with their slaves. It is pointed out that the factory owners have no obligation to care for the workers outside their menial wages, while the slaveowner must provide food, clothing and shelter for their slaves. In many ways, their points about the plight of industrial workers sound like the statements of Karl Marx.
In arguing in favor of the superiority of their system, they also claim that all other western societies that have banned slavery will eventually understand the error of their ways and reinstitute it in some form. Their position is that only societies with a well-defined social order where the overlords rule wisely and humanely and the workers happily toil without complaint can survive.
From the perspective of almost two hundred years, it is hard to understand their arguments. Although if you do, then you can understand how the American Civil war was inevitable. The industrial revolution was tearing apart the old fabric of society, and their idyllic (largely mythical) agrarian society was about to die. The only question was whether the death would be one where it withered away or was violently terminated. These are people who were defending a way of life that they seemed to understand was about to pass away. Rather than accept that fact, they preferred to die fighting.


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Summary: Essential look at the antebellum South
Review: In this fascinating book, Genovese examines the attemptsmade by antebellum Southern intellectuals like John C.Calhoun, James Henley Thornwell, George Fitzhugh, and others to reconcile the American love of freedom with the slavery they saw all around them. Genovese points out, Yankee propaganda to the contrary, that these men were, in their various fields, as formidable a group of intellects as America has ever produced. But their task was, of course, impossible. As usual, this book is essential for understanding the antebellum South.