W.E.B Dubois' Black Reconstruction Chapter 3: The Planter Class
We continue our review of Black Reconstruction in anticipation for our second teach in revolving around W.E.B Dubois. In chapter 3, he explains the white planter class and their interest.
In Chapter Three of Black Reconstruction W.E.B Dubois outlines the nature of the planter class in the South; specifically, how much power they wielded in the Antebellum United States, the degenerate nature of this class, their relation to the Northern capital, and the superstructure they imposed to maintain power. The attempts of the Slave-holders to model themselves after the European feudal aristocracy show in the pro-confederate propaganda since the Civil War and in the architecture of many slave plantations. Like feudal lords, the slavocratic class did not reinvest in production but sought expansion for increasing conspicuous consumption. Much of the pre-Civil War expansion 1westward, specifically the Mexican-American War, was in pursuit of expanding the slave system. Had the American slavocracy continued, it might have expanded into the Caribbean and Mexico.
Much of the slave-owning class that ruled the South sent their children to Europe to be educated. Among the free population, there existed few public schools, and illiteracy was widespread among the white non-planter white working class. The system of slavery not only destroyed the souls and social development of the enslaved but also was very socially destructive to the society that practiced it. The south was a cesspool of degeneracy, much reflected by it’s ruling elite. Much of the societal superstructure that existed during slavery continued into the post-chattel slavery, capitalist South. Many of the ruling capitalists and landowners, though many did not have any direct links to the old planter class, attempted to model themselves after that class during Reconstruction and after.
The planter class had no interest in industrial development, and this showed in the low level of development in the South before and during the Civil War. The South was dependent heavily on European imports of firearms during the war as little investment was made in a domestic arms industry or the logistics necessary for it. Much of the economic interest of the planter class clashed with the developed industrial bourgeoisie in the North, with the South favoring free trade for cheaper manufactured goods. Compare this to the North’s emphasis on protectionism for the newly established industries and the formation of an industrial policy steering development of rail, educational institutions and other pieces of infrastructure. As development in the North and South diverged, so too did the politics of the ruling classes.
As the slave system developed, the racial ideology of the planter class began to harden. Ideas like the mark of Cain were used as biblical justification of slavery, and many mythologies about the African continent were developed to morally/” scientifically” justify it. Much of these ideas continued well after chattel slavery ended, with such ideas being the justification of black codes and Jim crow.
The political power of the planter class rested on slavery, as the enslaved African population provided both exorbitant amounts of wealth to help finance campaigns and provided a pool for representative power that couldn’t demand anything for their supposed representation The power of the planter class was best exemplified in the 3/5ths compromise, when enslaved Africans were counted as 3/5ths of a human when determining seats for the House of representatives. This representation provided the planter class with outsized power within the Federal government. Before the Civil War, the slavocracy in the South had seventeen out of twenty-eight Supreme Court judges, twenty-one out of thirty-three House speakers, eighty out of one hundred and thirty-four foreign ministers, and eleven out of sixteen presidents.
One point that Dubois make indirectly in chapter three is that colonialism was the replacement of the slave trade and the slave system. He compared antebellum dependency on slavery to the simi-slave status of people of Africa and Asia (the coolie system). The capitalist system financed the slavocrats, and Northern industry depended deeply on the slavocracy, but their interest began to diverge, leading to the Civil War. Even after the Civil War, Capitalism still needed a slave system to import very cheep inputs, but outside of the national economy. The pursuit of colonies in Africa, India, and Asia, along with American domination of Latin America, provided the raw imports to the growing international capitalism that the former slave system in the South did, but without it being in direct economic contradiction with the national economies of the colonizing countries (at least for a while).
Dubois also notes the contradiction within the planter class. Specifically, the border states, where slave breeding was common, were in contradiction with the rest of the slave-holding South. They did not want the slave trade reopened like the elite in the deep South, but also didn’t want slavery abolished. These Southern slaveholders had a political back and forth before the Civil War, pursuing interests both for and against the industrial bourgeoisie and the deep South planter class, but ultimately sided with the industrial bourgeoisie as it was apparent that the Slavocracy in the South would come to an end.