The traditional South placed great importance on inequality and interdependence “that brings about the beautiful Harmony of Nature.” US Vice President and Southern political theorist John C. Calhoun viewed this as key to governance and social harmony. August O. Spain explains in The Political Theory of John C. Calhoun (Bookman Associates, 1951):
In Southern society, then, a superior race governed and directed the labors of an inferior people for the best moral and material welfare of both. In any complete society a variety of skills and abilities of low and high degree were essential to its efficient functioning. The caste organization of Southern society resting upon the social subordination of the Negro slaves afforded the necessary variety; and, furthermore, it met the requirements of morality by distributing social privilege according to power, knowledge, and virtue. Something of the Platonic conception of justice was included in the emphasis that Dabney, Hammond, and Simms placed upon the necessity of order and rank in society and their identification of them with justice when distributed properly. “Each in his place” made for justice, order, stability, and progress of civilization. The harmony, happiness, and resulting stability of this society were especially impressive to Calhoun ...
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