As sectional tensions escalated in the l850s, southerners became increasingly defensive or slavery George Fitzhugh produced some of the most sophisticated justifications of the institution, in the process helping to establish the new field of sociology

We hesitated for some work We did not like to employ the newly-coined word Sociology We could, however, find none other in the whole range of the English language, that would even faintly convey the idea that we wished to express We looked to the history of the term We found that within the last half century, disease, long lurking in the system of free society, had broken out into a hundred open manifestations Thousands of authors and schemers, such as Owen, Louis Blanc and Founer, had arisen proposing each a different mode of treatment for the disease - which all confessed to exist Society had...