Sociological Theory and Race Relations*

The first sociological treatises to be published in the United States were concerned with race relations. In 1854 there appeared Henry Hughes’ Treatise on Sociology, Theoretical and Practical which undertook to demonstrate that the slave system was “morally and civilly good” and that “its great and well-known essentials” should “be unchanged and perpetual.” 1 During the same year there appeared George Fitzhugh’s Sociology for the South: or the Failure of Free Society, which possessed more significance because of the political philosophy upon which it was based. 2 As indicated in the title, this book was not only a justification of Negro slavery, but was opposed to the democratic theory of social organization. Fitzhugh declared that the Declaration of Independence was opposed to “all government, all subordination, all order.” 3 In his attack upon laissez-faire and a competitive society, he stated that a society did not exist in the free countries where each man acted for himself. 4 Expressing a philosophy closely resembling Fascist doctrines, he declared that liberty, equality and freedom had brought crime and pauperism to Europe and that socialism and the struggle of women for equality with men were the results of the failure of a free society. Only in a society built upon slavery and Christianity as the South was built, could morality and discipline be maintained.