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George Fitzhugh Quotes

George Fitzhugh was an American social theorist who published racial and slavery-based sociological theories in the antebellum era. He argued that the negro "is but a grown up child" who needs the economic and social protections of slavery. Fitzhugh decried capitalism as practiced by the Northern United States and Great Britain as spawning "a war of the rich with the poor, and the poor with one another", rendering free blacks "far outstripped or outwitted in the chase of free competition." Slavery, he contended, ensured that blacks would be economically secure and morally civilized.

Fitzhugh practiced law and was a painter for years, but attracted both fame and infamy when he published two sociological tracts for the South. He was a leading pro-slavery intellectual and spoke for many of the Southern plantation owners. Before printing books, Fitzhugh tried his hand at a pamphlet, "Slavery Justified" . His first book, Sociology for the South was not as widely known as his second book, Cannibals All! . Sociology for the South is the first known English-language book to include the term "sociology" in its title.Fitzhugh differed from nearly all of his southern contemporaries by advocating a slavery that crossed racial boundaries. In 1860 Fitzhugh stated, "It is a libel on white men to say they are unfit for slavery" and suggested that if Yankees were caught young they could be trained, domesticated and civilized to make "faithful and valuable servants." Writing in the Richmond Inquirer on 15 December 1855, Fitzhugh proclaimed, "The principle of slavery is in itself right, and does not depend on difference of complexion", "Nature has made the weak in mind or body slaves ... The wise and virtuous, the strong in body and mind, are born to command", and "The Declaration of Independence is exuberantly false, and aborescently fallacious." Wikipedia  

✵ 4. November 1806 – 30. July 1881
George Fitzhugh photo
George Fitzhugh: 52 quotes0 likes

Famous George Fitzhugh Quotes

“The normal state of a free society is a state of famine.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), p. 335

“What is falsely called Free Society, is a very recent invention. It purposes to make the weak, ignorant and poor, free, by turning them loose in a world owned exclusively by the few.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), p. 108

“The weak in mind or body require guidance, support and protection; they must obey and work for those who protect and guide them—they have a natural right to guardians, committees, teachers or masters. Nature has made them slaves, all that law and government can do, is to regulate, modify and mitigate their slavery.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 178

“[T]he unrestricted exploitation of so-called free society is more oppressive to the laborer than domestic slavery.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), p. ix

“Property is not a natural and divine, but conventional right; it is the mere creature of society and law… if private property generally were so used to injure, instead of promote public good, then society might and ought to destroy the whole institution.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 185

“Man is a social and gregarious animal, and all such animals hold property in each other. Nature imposes upon them slavery as a law and necessity of their existence… The husband has a legally recognized property in his wife’s services, and may legally control, in some measure, her personal liberty. She is his property and his slave.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), p. 341

George Fitzhugh: Trending quotes

“No association, no efficient combination of labor can be effected till men give up their liberty of action and subject themselves to a common despotic head or ruler. This is slavery, and towards this socialism is moving.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 61

“[T]he capitalists now live entirely by the proceeds of poor men’s labor, which capital enables them to command.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), p. 325

“The Abolitionists and Socialists, who, alone have explored the recesses of social science, well understand that they can never establish their Utopia until private property is abolished or equalized. The man without property is theoretically, and, too often, practically, without a single right.”

George Fitzhugh

Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857)

George Fitzhugh Quotes

“The capitalist cheapens their wages; they compete with and underbid each other, for employed they must be on any terms. This war of the rich with the poor and the poor with one another, is the morality which political economy inculcates.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), pp. 22-23

“The vampire capitalist class impose all the taxes, and pay none.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), p. 175

“We conclude that about nineteen out of every twenty individuals have ‘a natural and inalienable right’ to be taken care of and protected; to have guardians, trustees, husbands, or masters; in other words, they have the natural and inalienable right to be slaves.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), pp. 102-103

“What a glorious thing to man is slavery, when want, misfortune, old age, debility and sickness overtake him.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 68

“Liberty is an evil which government is intended to correct. This is the sole object of government.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 170

“Were he a slave, he would enjoy in fact as well as in legal fiction, all necessary and essential rights. Pure air and water, a house, sufficient food, fire, and clothing, would be his at all times.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), p. 324

“Liberty of the press, liberty of speech, freedom of religion, or rather freedom from religion, and the unlimited right of private judgement have borne no good fruit, and many bad ones.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), p. 195

“Liberty and equality are not only destructive to the morals, but to the happiness of society.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 236

“…the great truth which lies at the foundation of all society—that every man has property in his fellow-man!”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 69

“We say allowance, not wages; for neither slaves nor free laborers get wages, in the popular sense of the term: that is, the employer or capitalist pays them for nothing of his own, but allows them a part, generally a very small part of the proceeds of their own labor.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), p. 48

“The true greatness of Mr. Jefferson was his fitness for revolution. He was the genius of innovation, the architect of ruin, the inaugurator of anarchy. His mission was to pull down, not to build up… He proposed to govern boys without the authority of masters or the control of religion, supplying their places with Laissez-faire philosophy, and morality from the pages of Lawrence Sterne. His character, like a philosophy, is exceptional—invaluable in urging on revolution, but useless, if not dangerous, in quiet times.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), pp. 201-202

“[Man] is not free because he has no where that he may rightfully lay his head. Private property has monopolized the earth, and destroyed both his liberty and equality.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), p. 324

“The greatest of all communists, if communist he be, Proudhon, has also seen and exposed this tendency of socialism to slavery. He is a thorough-going enemy of modern free society; call property a thief; and would, he says, establish anarchy in place of government.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 62

“The great object of government is to restrict, control and punish man ‘in the pursuit of happiness.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 180

“Money is the great weapon in a free, equal and competitive society, which skill and capital employ in the war of the wits, to exploitate and oppress the poor, the improvident, and the weak-minded. Its evil effects are greatly aggravated by the credit and banking systems.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), p. 303

“A mere verbal formula often distinguishes a truism from a paradox. ‘It is the duty of society to protect the weak;’ but protection cannot be efficient without the power of control; therefore, ‘It is the duty of society to enslave the weak’.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), p. 278

“Socialism, with such despotic head, approaches very near to Southern slavery, and gets along very well so long as the depot lives.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), p. 334

“But slavery does, in practice as well as in theory, acknowledge and enforce the right of all to be comfortably supported from the soil. There was, we repeat, no pauperism in Europe till feudal slavery was abolished.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), pp. 307-308

“Free trade or political economy is the science of free society, and socialism is the science of slavery.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 61

“But the capitalist, living on his income, gives nothing to his subjects. He lives by mere exploitation.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), pp. 44-45

“There is no rivalry, no competition to get employment among slaves, as among free laborers. Nor is there a war between master and slave… His feeling for his slave never permits him to stint him in old age. The slaves are all well fed, well clad, have plenty of fuel, and are happy. They have no dread of the future—no fear of want. A state of dependence is the only condition in which reciprocal affection can exist among human beings—the only situation in which the war of competition ceases, and peace, amity and good will arise. A state of independence always begets more or less of jealous rivalry and hostility. A man loves his children because they are weak, helpless and dependent; he loves his wife for similar reasons.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), pp. 246-247

“Free laborers have not a thousandth part of the rights and liberties of negro slaves. Indeed, they have not a single right or a single liberty, unless it be the right or liberty to die.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), p. 31

“Slavery is a form of communism… The manner to which the change shall be made from the present form of society to that system of communism which we propose is very simple.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), p. 324

“We contend that it was the origin of the capitalist and moneyed interest government, destined finally to swallow up all other powers in the State, and to bring about the most selfish, exacting, and unfeeling class despotism.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), p. 157

“The negro is improvident; will not lay up in summer for the wants of winter; will not accumulate in youth for the exigencies of age. He would become an insufferable burden to society. Society has the right to prevent this, and can only do so by subjecting him to domestic slavery.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 83

“With thinking men, the question can never arise, who ought to be free? Because no one ought to be free. All government is slavery.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 170

“A Southern farm is beau idea of Communism; it is a joint concern, in which the slaves consume more than the master, of the coarse products, and is far happier, because although the concern may fail; he is always sure of a support.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 245

“The bestowing upon men equality of rights, is but giving license to the strong to oppress the weak. It begets the grossest inequalities of condition.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 233

“Slavery relieves our slaves of these cares altogether, and slavery is a form, and the very best form, of socialism.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 27-28

“Private property destroys liberty and equality.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), p. 323

“Our slaves till the land, do the coarse and hard labor on our roads and canals, sweep our streets, cook our food, brush our boots, wait on our tables, hold our horses, do all hard work, and fill all menial offices. Your freemen at the North do the same work and fill the same offices. The only difference is, we love our slaves, and we are ready to defend, assist and protect them; you hate and fear your white servants, and never fail, as a moral duty, to screw down their wages to the lowest, and to starve their families, if possible, as evidence of your thrift, economy and management—the only English and Yankee virtues.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), p. 320-321

“The negro slaves of the South are the happiest, and, in some sense, the freest people in the world. The children and the aged and infirm, work not at all, and yet have all the comforts and necessaries of life provided for them. They enjoy liberty, because they are opposed neither by care nor labor.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), p. 29

“The failure of laissez-faire, of political economy, is admitted now by its last and lingering votary. Free society stands condemned by the unanimous testimony of all its enlightened members.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 74

“No one will contend that negroes, for instance, should roam at large in puris naturalibus, with the apes and tigers of Africa, and ‘worry and devour each other.’ Nor are they fitted for an Athenian democracy. What form of government short of domestic slavery will suit their wants and capacities?”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 171

“All concur that free society is a failure. We slaveholders say you must recur to domestic slavery, the oldest, the best and most common form of Socialism. The new schools of Socialism promise something better, but admit, to obtain that something, they must first destroy and eradicate man’s human nature.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 72

“Men are not ‘born entitled to equal right! It would be far nearer the truth to say, ‘that some were born with saddles on their backs, and others booted and spurred to ride them’—and the riding does them good.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 179

“Our only quarrel with Socialism is, that it will not honestly admit that it owes its recent revival to the failure of universal liberty, and is seeking to bring about slavery again in some form.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 70

“In the last place, the negro race is inferior to the white race, and living in their midst, they would be far outstripped or outwitted in the chase of free competition.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 84

“We, aided by the Socialists, will try to make it understood by others. Philosophy cannot justify the relation between the free laborer and the idle, irresponsible employer. But ‘tis easy to justify that between master and slave. Their obligations are mutual and equal, and if the master will superintend and provide for the slave in sickness, in health, infancy, and old age—if he will feed and clothe him properly, guard his morals, and treat him kindly and humanely.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), pp. 125-126

“Naturally, Southerners, like slaveholders, are liberal and public spirited.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 186

“Socialism proposes to do away with free competition; to afford protection and support at all times to the laboring class; to bring about, at least, a qualified community of property, and to associated labor. All these purposes, slavery fully and perfectly attains.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 48

“A Southern farm is a sort of joint stock concern, or social phalastery, in which the master furnishes the capital and skill, and the slaves the labor, and divide the profits, not according to each one’s in-put, but according to each one’s wants and necessities.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 48

“None but lawyers and historians are aware how much of truth, justice and good sense, there is in the notions of the Communists, as to the community of property. Laying no stress on the too abstract proposition that Providence gave the world not to one man, or set of men, but to all mankind, it is a fact that all governments, in civilized countries, recognize the obligation to support the poor, and thus, in some degree, make all property a common possession.”

George Fitzhugh

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 47

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