| Abstract |
Most students of the southern history has accepted for a long time the view that southern slavery was a static institution during the Ante-Bellum period and in 1860 the peculiar institution was almost... precisely what it had been thirty years before. Dr. Clement Eaton, however, refuted this view in his recent article, saving that it didn't take into account the substantial changes of slavery that the hiring system was effecting in the Upper South. The slave hiring system has seemed to him to have been a disintegrating force which eroded ceaselessly the base of the "peculiar institution" in the decadent stage. Because the hiring system gave greater freedom and a higher status to the hired slave and so tended to break down the rigid disciplines of the institution. Thus he emphasized the antithetical side of the hiring system to the slavery. It seems to me, however, that Dr. Eaton's view makes too little of the fundamental economic relations between the hiring system and slavery. Originally, the practice of slave hiring was born from necessities of helping support plantations and the hired slaves were often called back to their plantations in case of need. For example, there was a remarkable decline during the last decade before the Civil war in the hiring of slaves in the textile factories of the south. Dr. Eaton's view seems to be rather contrary to these facts. In my opinion, the practice of hiring system was not the fundamental antithesis to the peculiar institution and didn't give any significant changes on it.show more
|
Export Mendeley
p075