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0521850657 - The Mind of the Master Class: History and Faith in the Southern
Slaveholders’ Worldview
Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese
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The Mind of the Master Class
History and Faith in the Southern Slaveholders’ Worldview
The Mind of the Master Class tells of America’s greatest historical tragedy. It
presents the slaveholders as men and women, a great many of whom were intelligent, honorable, and pious. It asks how people who were admirable in so
many ways could have presided over a social system that proved itself an enormity and inflicted horrors on their slaves. The South had formidable proslavery
intellectuals who participated fully in transatlantic debates and boldly challenged an ascendant capitalist (“free-labor”) society. Blending classical and
Christian traditions, they forged a moral and political philosophy designed to
sustain conservative principles in history, political economy, social theory, and
theology while translating them into political action. Even those who judge
their way of life most harshly have much to learn from the probing moral and
political reflections on their times – and ours – beginning with the virtues and
failings of their own society and culture.
Elizabeth Fox-Genovese is Eléonore Raoul Professor of the Humanities at
Emory University, where she was founding director of Women’s Studies. She
serves on the Governing Council of the National Endowment for the Humanities (2002–2008). In 2003 President George W. Bush honored her with
a National Humanities Medal, and the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars honored her with its Cardinal Wright Award. Among her books are: The Origins
of Physiocracy: Economic Revolution and Social Order in Eighteenth-Century
France; Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old
South; and Feminism without Illusions: A Critique of Individualism.
Eugene D. Genovese, a retired professor of history, has written, among other
books, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made; The Slaveholders’
Dilemma: Southern Conservative Thought, 1820–1860; and A Consuming
Fire: The Fall of the Confederacy in the Mind of the White Christian South.
Fox-Genovese and Genovese serve on the editorial boards of a number of scholarly journals and are co-authors of Fruits of Merchant Capital: Slavery and
Bourgeois Property in the Rise and Expansion of Capitalism. In 2004 The Intercollegiate Studies Institute presented them jointly with its Gerhard Niemeyer
Award for Distinguished Contributions to Scholarship in the Liberal Arts.
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0521850657 - The Mind of the Master Class: History and Faith in the Southern
Slaveholders’ Worldview
Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese
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Publication of this book has been aided by the generosity of
the Earhart Foundation, the L. J. and Mary C. Skaggs Foundation,
and the Watson–Brown Foundation, Inc.
© Cambridge University Press
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Cambridge University Press
0521850657 - The Mind of the Master Class: History and Faith in the Southern
Slaveholders’ Worldview
Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese
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The Mind of the Master Class
History and Faith in the
Southern Slaveholders’ Worldview
ELIZABETH FOX-GENOVESE
EUGENE D. GENOVESE
© Cambridge University Press
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0521850657 - The Mind of the Master Class: History and Faith in the Southern
Slaveholders’ Worldview
Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese
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cambridge university press
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Cambridge University Press
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© Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese 2005
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2005
Printed in the United States of America
A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data
Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth, 1941–
The mind of the master class : history and faith in the Southern slaveholders’ worldview /
Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Eugene D. Genovese.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 0-521-85065-7 – isbn 0-521-61562-3 (pbk.)
1. Slaveholders – Southern States – Social life and customs. 2. Slaveholders – Religious
life – Southern States. 3. Slaveholders – Southern States – Intellectual life. 4.
Slavery – Southern States – Justification. 5. Slavery – Moral and ethical aspects – Southern
States – History. 6. Slavery – Political aspects – Southern States – History. 7. Southern
States – Social life and customs – 1775–1865. 8. Southern States – Religious life and
customs. 9. Southern States – Intellectual life. 10. Southern States – History – Philosophy.
I. Genovese, Eugene D., 1930– II. Title.
f213.f69 2005
306.3620975 – dc22
2005047136
isbn-13 978-0-521-85065-0 hardback
isbn-10 0-521-85065-7 hardback
isbn-13 978-0-521-61562-4 paperback
isbn-10 0-521-61562-3 paperback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for
the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or
third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication
and does not guarantee that any content on such
Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
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0521850657 - The Mind of the Master Class: History and Faith in the Southern
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Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese
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For Msgr. Richard Lopez,
Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta
A token of our love and of our appreciation for the immeasurable and
inexpressible difference he has made in our lives
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Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese
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The necessity of rejecting and destroying some things that are beautiful is the
deepest curse of existence.
—George Santayana
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Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese
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Contents
Preface
List of Abbreviations
Prologue
part one: cradled in the storms of revolution
1 “That Terrible Tragedy”
2 The Age of Revolution through Slaveholding Eyes
3 “The Purest Sons of Freedom”
Entr’acte: The Bonds of Slavery
part two: the inescapable past
4 History as Moral and Political Instruction
5 The Slaveholders’ Quest for a History of the Common People
6 World History and the Politics of Slavery
7 History as the Story of Freedom
page ix
xii
1
11
41
69
88
125
170
201
225
part three: ancient legacies, medieval sensibility, modern men
8
9
10
11
In the Shadow of Antiquity
Coming to Terms with the Middle Ages
The Chivalry
Chivalric Slave Masters
249
305
329
365
12 Chivalric Politics: Southern Ladies Take Their Stand
383
part four: a christian people defend the faith
13 A Christian People
14 Unity and Diversity among the Faithful
15 War over the Good Book
409
444
473
vii
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Contents
viii
16
17
18
19
20
Slavery: Proceeding from the Lord
The Holy Spirit in the Word of God
Jerusalem and Athens – Against Paris
Serpent in the Garden: Liberal Theology in the South
Theopolitics: Golden Rule, Higher Law, and Slavery
Coda: St. John of Pottawatamie
505
528
566
587
613
636
part five: at the rubicon
21 Between Individualism and Corporatism:
From the Reformation to the War for Southern Independence
22 Past and Future Caesars
Epilogue: King Solomon’s Dilemma
649
680
711
Supplementary References
Index
719
793
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Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese
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Preface
In writing of what Yankees call “the Civil War,” what red-blooded Southrons call
“the War of Northern Aggression,” and what we prefer to call “the War for Southern Independence,” we here refer simply to “the War.” For Southerners – liberal
and conservative, black and white – and for no few Northerners as well, there was,
after all, only one war that really mattered. In a few cases, however, we have used
“War for Southern Independence” to avoid ambiguity.
Many articles, pamphlets, and books of the period were published anonymously.
Where we have identified the author, the name appears in brackets; a question mark
indicates that we consider the author in brackets probable. All words in italics were
emphasized in the original sources quoted. We use “sic” only in rare cases in which
it seems indispensable. Thomas Jefferson, John C. Calhoun, and numerous other
Southerners and Northerners often misspelled words, omitted apostrophes in possessive nouns, and lapsed from the King’s (Queen’s) English. We have retained the
original punctuation – for example, dashes for commas – except in a few cases.
Nineteenth-century Americans used commas freely, and we have dropped some to
ensure clarity of meaning.
A few technical terms are defined as follows. Arminianism: Man’s free will and
the resistibility of God’s grace. Arianism: An ancient doctrine that affirmed the
second-order deity of Jesus, attributing to Jesus the Son a nature different from
(and inferior to) that of the Father. Socinianism (sixteenth century): Jesus a human
being with a divine mission – a moral teacher. Pelagianism: Denies the doctrine of
original sin and proclaims free will; sees Jesus as a moral teacher not as God; sees
humanity as intrinsically good; insists that Scripture must conform to reason and
that faith is theoretical, whereas moral action is of supreme importance – men can
earn salvation by leading good lives and avoiding sin.
We have used some postbellum materials as legitimate sources for the antebellum period. Personal reminiscences written after the War (as well as writings on
political theory, theology, and other subjects) must be used with the utmost care,
as we have done our best to do. The War compelled drastic revisions in people’s
thinking, so that thoughts expressed in the 1870s were often far removed from what
the authors had thought before the War. We accept postbellum views only to the
ix
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x
Preface
extent that they clearly represent the essentials of the author’s antebellum thought.
Thus we accept much of, say, Robert Louis Dabney’s Systematic Theology (1871)
as consistent with his long-held views.
Other materials, which some readers might expect us to have used, we have used
little or not at all. Poetry enjoyed a privileged place among Southerners’ favorite
genres. Men as well as women read – and wrote – large amounts of poetry, not always discriminating between the good and the bad. According to an apocryphal
but nonetheless famous anecdote, John C. Calhoun forswore writing poetry when
he found himself beginning a poem with, “Whereas . . . .” Not all aspiring poets
were that self-critical, although most erred on the side of flowery sentiment rather
than the side of political discourse. Notwithstanding the aspersions cast by hostile
Northerners, who harbored their own share of amateur poets, educated Southerners recognized and admired superior poetic talent. Many were steeped in the
ancient poets, in Shakespeare and Milton, and in later British and French poets,
as well as in the German Romantics, the French Symbolists, and others, including
such Northerners as Longfellow. Southerners may not instinctively have seen recent and contemporary poetry as a source of information. But if this explanation
is plausible, it is also puzzling. For they held their own most talented poets in high
regard, and those poets, notably Henry Timrod, devoted some of their most celebrated work precisely to historical and political questions. In any case, we do take
some notice of the impact of Dante, Tasso, Goethe, and a few others on southern
historical, philosophical, and religious thought.
Specialists may wish more detailed analyses of certain large themes, which we
expect to provide in volumes now in draft. Most notably, we here discuss only
briefly the southern slaveholders’ critique of capitalism (“free-labor societies”) and
their projection of a world in which some form of personal servitude would be the
ordinary and proper condition of all labor regardless of race. We shall in a more
appropriate place treat at length the rise and development of this unique proslavery ideology – unique in that it appeared in no other modern slave society – and
demonstrate its widespread acceptance by the clergy as well as secular proslavery
theorists and political leaders, including leaders of the yeomanry.
In awe, we thank Jeannette Hopkins, a great editor, for her extraordinary efforts – the more extraordinary since we know she did not always enjoy our interpretations, not to mention our biases.
For helping us to collect materials and for checking references and quotations
we are indebted to Laura Crawley, Mary Margaret Johnston-Miller, Christopher
Luse, and John Merriman. Alex Shulman’s skills kept us sane through assorted
computer problems. Peter Carmichael generously shared with us material he culled
from southern college publications.
Over many years we presented papers at professional meetings and published
articles the substance of which has been woven into this book. A long list of colleagues criticized those papers and helped us to hone our analyses and correct
errors. We could not possibly name them all here but want them to know that
their efforts have not been forgotten. A number of colleagues read late drafts of
this book: Robert Calhoon, Forrest McDonald, David Moltke-Hansen, and Mark
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xi
Noll. Others read substantial sections: Thomas Burns, James Oscar Farmer, Louis
A. Ferleger, William W. Freehling, Donald Kagan, David Konstan, D. G. Hart, E.
Brooks Holifield, Bo Morgan, Robert L. Paquette, Paul Rahe, Jeffrey Burton Russell, and Edwin Yamauchi. We do not want to think about the messes we would be
in were it not for the painstaking criticism and insights of all of these critics. We received Michael O’Brien’s learned two-volume Conjectures of Order after this book
was in the hands of our publisher and thus too late to take it into account. Having
learned a great deal from Dr. O’Brien’s work and from our many discussions – and
friendly arguments – over the years, we are very much in his debt.
This volume enjoyed the support of grants from the National Endowment for
the Humanities, The National Humanities Center in North Carolina, the Earhart
Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation. We have
also benefited more richly than we can ever acknowledge from the gracious assistance of libraries and librarians throughout the South.
Several portions of this book appeared in preliminary form as articles or pamphlets, and we thank the publishers for granting permission to use the material
freely. An early and briefer version of the chapters on the French Revolution and
subsequent revolutions appeared as “Political Virtue and the Lessons of the French
Revolution: The View from the Slaveholding South,” in Virtue, Corruption, and
Self-Interest: Political Values in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Richard K. Matthews
(Lehigh, PA: Lehigh University Press, 1994). For a preliminary version of the chapter on the response to the Middle Ages see “The Southern Slaveholders’ View of the
Middle Ages,” in Bernard Rosenthal and Paul E. Szarmach, eds., Medievalism in
American Culture (Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts & Studies,
1989), and a brief version of the chapters on the response to the Middle Ages appeared as “The Chivalric Tradition in the Old South,” Sewanee Review (2000).
Certain sections of chapters appeared in Southern Cultures: “Olmsted’s Cracker
Preacher” (1998), “The Dulcet Tones of Christian Disputation in the Democratic
Upcountry” (2002), and “King Solomon’s Dilemma – And the Confederacy” (2004);
also see “The Gracchi and Their Mother in the Mind of American Slaveholders,”
Journal of The Historical Society (2002). We have, with permission, lifted freely
from our articles, “Slavery Ordained of God”: The Southern Slaveholders’ View
of Biblical History and Modern Politics (Fortenbaugh Lecture, Gettysburg College, 1985); “The Religious Ideals of Southern Slave Society,” Georgia Historical
Quarterly (1986); “Western Civilization through Slaveholding Eyes: The Social and
Historical Thought of Thomas Roderick Dew” (Andrew Mellon Lecture, Tulane
University, 1986); “The Divine Sanction of Social Order: Religious Foundations
of the Southern Slaveholders’ Worldview,” Journal of the American Academy of
Religion (1987); “The Social Thought of the Antebellum Southern Theologians,”
in W. B. Moore, Jr., and J. F. Tripp, eds., Looking South: Chapters in the Story of
an American Region (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1989).
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Abbreviations
BDC
BRPR
DBR
DCA
DD
DGB
DHE
DHI
DHUNC
DNCB
DQR
EC
ERD
ESB
HLW
HT
JCCP
JER
JHTW
Biographical Dictionary of the Confederacy, ed. Jon L. Wakelyn (Westport,
CT, 1977)
Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review – and other titles
De Bow’s Review
Dictionary of Christianity in America, ed. Daniel G. Reid (Downers Grove, IL,
1990)
Robert Lewis Dabney, Discussions: Evangelical and Theological, ed. C. R.
Vaughan, 3 vols. (Carlisle, PA, 1982); DD* indicates material from vol. 4,
also based on Vaughan’s editing (Harrisonburg, VA, 1994)
Dictionary of Georgia Biography, ed. Kenneth Coleman and Stephen Gurr,
2 vols. (Athens, GA, 1983)
A Documentary History of Education in the South before 1860, ed. Edgar W.
Knight, 5 vols. (Chapel Hill, NC, 1949–53)
Dictionary of the History of Ideas, ed. Philip P. Wiener, 5 vols. (New York,
1973–74)
Documentary History of the University of North Carolina, ed. R. D. W.
Connor et al., 2 vols. (Chapel Hill, NC, 1953)
Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, ed. William S. Powell, 6 vols.
(Chapel Hill, NC, 1979–94)
Danville Quarterly Review
Encyclopedia of the Confederacy, ed. Richard N. Current, 4 vols. (New York,
1993)
The Diary of Edmund Ruffin, ed. William Kaufman Scarborough, 3 vols.
(Baton Rouge, LA, 1972–89)
Encyclopedia of Southern Baptists, 4 vols. (Nashville, TN, 1982)
Writings of Hugh Swinton Legaré, ed. [Mary S. Legaré], 2 vols. (Charleston,
SC, 1846)
The Handbook of Texas, ed. Walter Prescott Webb, 3 vols. (Austin, TX,
1952–76)
The Papers of John C. Calhoun, eds. (successively) Robert Lee Meriwether,
Edwin Hemphill, and Clyde N. Wilson, 26 vols. (Columbia, SC, 1959–2003)
Journal of the Early Republic
The Collected Writings of James Henley Thornwell, ed. John Adger and
B. M. Palmer, 4 vols. (Carlisle, PA, 1986)
xii
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Abbreviations
xiii
JMM
JPH
JSH
LCL
LSU
MMQR
Jefferson Monument Magazine
Journal of Presbyterian History
Journal of Southern History
Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA, many editions)
Louisiana State University
Methodist Magazine and Quarterly Review [also Methodist Quarterly
Review]
QRMECS
Quarterly Review of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South
RM
Russell’s Magazine
SBN
The South in the Building of the Nation, ed. J. A. Chandler, 12 vols.
(Richmond, VA, 1909)
SLC
Southern Lady’s Companion
SLJ
Southern Literary Journal
SLM
Southern Literary Messenger
SPR
Southern Presbyterian Review
SQR
Southern Quarterly Review
SR
Southern Review
SRCR
Southern Repertory and College Review [Emory and Henry College]
SWMR
Southern and Western Magazine and Review
TCWVQ
The Tennessee Civil War Veterans Questionnaires, ed. Coleen Morse
Elliott and Louise Armstrong Moxley, 5 vols. (Easley, SC, 1985)
TSW
Complete Works of the Reverend Thomas Smyth, D.D., ed. J. William
Flinn, 10 vols. (Columbia, SC, 1908)
UNC-NCC University of North Carolina – North Carolina Collection
UNC-SHC University of North Carolina – Southern Historical Collection
USC
University of South Carolina
UVA
University of Virginia
VLM
Virginia Literary Museum and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, &c.
VUM
Virginia University Magazine
WMQ
William and Mary Quarterly
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