Study Guide for Fitzhugh, Southern Thought

1. Who are the “Extremiss of the South,” with whom Fitzhugh disagrees?

2. What is wrong with Northern and European societies? 

3. Describe Fitzhugh’s understanding of the direction of history, with respect to slavery. (True clue:  Why has freedom everywhere failed and why will slavery everywhere be reinstated?)

4. What is the “political economy of the ‘let alone’” ?  Who are its advocates?

5. What would Skidmore say about Fitzhugh’s critique of the Northern society?  (true clue “. . . that selfish system which teaches that each individual most promotes the good of the other. . . .”)

6. What is Fitzhugh’s opinion of the Declaration of Independence?

7. What is Fitzhugh’s opinion of the Christian Bible? 

8.  What makes the South superior to the North?

9. Is Fitzhugh a racist?  Fitzhugh calls the arguments about race an “infidel procedure.”  What does he mean?  (True clue: Fitzhugh “What a ridiculous and absurd figure does the defender of mere negro slavery cut….”)

10. How does Fitzhugh want to defend slavery?  (True clue:  We must defend the principles of slavery as part of the constitution of man’s nature? ;”…that slave society is a series of subordinations. .  . consistent with Christian morality. . . .”)

11. Where do Fitzhugh’s ideas derive from?  

12.  Could Fitzhugh run for political office in the South?

13.  How might a radical abolitionist (a Garrisonian) deal with Fitzhugh?  How might a  political abolitionist (an adherent of the Liberty party or Free Soil Party) deal with Fitzhugh?