Foreword

Preface

PART ONE: Introduction: Defending Slavery

Northerners, Southerners, and Slavery

The Legitimacy of Slavery in Earlier Times

The Emergence of Slavery in Early America

The American Revolution Threatens Slavery

The Emergence of Proslavery Thought

The Outlines of Antebellum Proslavery Thought

Racial Theory and Ideology: The Key to Proslavery Thought

PART TWO: The Documents

Politics, Economics, and Proslavery Thought

1. Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1787

2. Lucy Kenney, A Refutation of the Principles of Abolition, 1836 3. John C. Calhoun, Speech in the U.S. Senate, 1837

4. Edmund Ruffin, The Political Economy of Slavery, 1853 5. Thomas R. R. Cobb, Effects of Abolition in the United States, 1858

6. James Henry Hammond, The Mudsill, or Cotton is King Speech, 1858

7. Marie Jefferson Carr Mason, Letter of Mrs. Mason, 1860

8. Alexander Stephens, The Cornerstone Speech, 1861

9. Reverend A. T. Holmes, The Duties of Christian Masters, 1851

10. De Bow’s Review, Slavery and the Bible, 1850

11. Protestant Episcopal Convention of South Carolina, Duty of Clergymen in Relation to the Marriage of Slaves, 1859

12. Thornton Stringfellow, The Bible Argument: Or, Slavery in the Light of Divine Revelation, 1860

The Law in Defense of Slavery

13. North Carolina Supreme Court, State v. Mann (Opinion of Justice Thomas Ruffin), 1829

14. U.S. Supreme Court, Dred Scott v. Sandford (Opinion of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney), 1857

15. Thomas R. R. Cobb, What Is Slavery, and Its Foundation in the Natural Law, 1858

Racial Theory, Science, and Slavery

16. Dr. Samuel A. Cartwright, Report on the Diseases of and Physical Peculiarities of the Negro Race, 1851

17. Dr. Josiah C. Nott, Types of Mankind, 1854

18. William J. Grayson, The Hireling and the Slave, 1854

19. George Fitzhugh, Sociology for the South, 1854, and Cannibals All! 1857

20. Dr. Josiah C. Nott, Instincts of Races, 1866

A Slavery Chronology (1619-1870)

Questions for Consideration

Selected Bibliography