George Fitzhugh

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George Fitzhugh (November 4, 1806 – July 30, 1881) was an American social theorist who published racial and pro-slavery social theories in the pre-Civil War era. He argued that the negro was "but a grown up child" needing the economic and social protections of slavery. Fitzhugh favorably contrasted slavery in the American South with capitalism in the Northern United States, decrying the latter as "a war of the rich with the poor, and the poor with one another", which rendered 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. Some historians consider Fitzhugh's worldview to be proto-fascist in its rejection of liberal values, defense of slavery, and perspectives toward race. Fitzhugh practiced law 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...

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