Bucolic, Sarah

Document Interpretation: Slavery Justified

Questions:
1.

What does Fitzhugh consider to be the basic failures of the northern states
and France?

2. According to Fitzhugh, what is the proper status and role of women?

3. Give some examples that illustrate why Fitzhugh considers slavery to be
superior to free labor.
The document I chose to interpret is Slavery Justified by George Fitzhugh.
George Fitzhugh was a huge supporter of slavery and believed that the masterslave relationship was more humane than the one between northern employers and
wage laborers, (Brands, p. 259). Fitzhughs intended audience is the people who
are for slavery and to those who may not have made up their minds on the issue
yet. He is trying to convince everyone that equality doesnt work and slaves are
better off having masters instead of working under free labor. Fitzhughs view is
biased and is against equality because with equality he would no longer be able to
own people (slaves). Fitzhugh was a Virginian who most likely believed in the
southern state legislatures passed Black Codes. Black Codes were laws passed by
southern states immediately after the Civil War to maintain white supremacy by
restricting the rights of newly freed slaves, (Brands p. 358). His reasoning is
biased and therefore the document is not reliable in that sense, but in the sense of
the way people of the southern states believed it is reliable on showing what the
southern slave owners believed to be true and what they wanted others to believe
as well.

1.

Fitzhugh considered the supposed increase of crime and pauperism, riots,

trades unions, strikes for higher wages, discontent breaking out into
revolutions, are evidence that equality failed in France and the northern
states. Fitzhugh believed that free competition is not truly equality. He
thought that free slaves trying to compete in a free competition would fail
and the superior men would knock them down in order to succeed. With
France and the northern states giving the people liberty and equality they

were only setting them up for complete failure and making their lives harder.
2. According to Fitzhugh, the proper status and role of women was to be
subservient to their husbands to remain delicate, weak, and dependent upon
their husbands. A man loves his children because they are weak, helpless
and dependent; he loves his wife for similar reasons, according to the
document. Fitzhugh also stated in his document We do not set children and
women free because they are not capable of taking care of themselves, not
equal to the constant struggle of society. To set them free would be to give
the lamb to the wolf to take care of. Society would quickly devour them.
Womens role was to be the caretaker of the children and the domestic queen
of the home. A woman was not to dirty her hands with outdoor labor and she
wasnt seen as strong enough to endure harsh labor.
3. According to our textbook Fitzhugh believed Slaves had security against
unemployment and a guarantee of care in old age, whereas free workers
might face destitution and even starvation at any time, (Brands p. 259).
Nature compels master and slave to be friends; nature makes employers
and free laborers enemies, according to Fitzhughs document. Fitzhugh also
gave examples that slave owners treat their slaves better than free labor
employers treat their employees. Fitzhugh believed that free labor employers

could cut wages knowing that there would be many other free laborers willing
to work for less. The free laborer would not have stability where a slave
would not be under the same stresses as a free laborer because the master
would not treat his slaves the way an employer would treat their employee.
4.