JAMES HENRY HAMMOND
Hammond’s rhetorical tactic was to then argue that it was better to have Blacks be the lower class than whites—hence slavery was a logical conclusion.
This is an excellent example of the delusion that many Southerners functioned under regarding the importance of cotton to the economy of the nation. There were New York merchants and some New England ship owners who profited from the export of cotton, but cotton contributed very little to the economy of the North and the Midwest while it was essential to the South representing a huge percentage of their output. Industrialization was growing all over the country except in the South where slavery and cotton both held it back. When the South finally decided on war, they did not realize that the North would be able to embargo their cotton exports nor did they realize how little the rest of the country needed the cotton industry It was another great example of political hubris.
Hammond had published a series of letters attacking the “cruelty” of the industrial factories of the North compared to the relative “humaneness” of Southern slavery.
James Henry Hammond was an attorney, politician, and planter from South Carolina. He served as a United States Representative from 1835–36, the 60th Governor of South Carolina from 1842–44, and United States Senator from 1857 to 1860. He was considered one of the major spokesmen in favor of slavery in the years before the American Civil War.
