Editing Master race (section)

=="Master race" in the United States==
=== Origins and context ===
In the United States, the concept of 'master race' arose within the context of master–slave race relations in the slavery-based society of historical America – particularly in the [[Southern United States|South]] in the mid-19th century. It was based upon both the experience of [[Slavery in the United States|slavery]] and the [[Scientific racist#USA: slavery justified|pseudo-scientific justifications for racial slavery]], but also on the relations between whites in the South and [[Northern United States|North]], particularly during the [[American Civil War]].

=== First occurrences ===
[[Benjamin W. Leigh]], representing [[Virginia]] in the [[United States Senate]], said in a speech of January 19, 1836:
<blockquote>There has been in Virginia as earnest a desire to abolish slavery as exists any where at this day. It commenced with the Revolution, and many of our ablest and most influential men were active in recommending it, and in devising plans for the accomplishment of it. The Legislature encouraged and facilitated emancipation by the owners, and many slaves were so emancipated. The leaning of the courts of justice was always ''in favorem libertatis''. This disposition continued until the impracticability of effecting a general emancipation, without incalculable mischief to the master race, and danger of utter destruction to the other, and the evils consequent on partial emancipations, became too obvious to the Legislature, and to the great majority of the people, to be longer disregarded.<ref>[http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ll/llrd/022/0100/01000191.tif Gales &amp; Seaton's Register, 1836, p. 191]</ref></blockquote>

The [[Oxford English Dictionary]] records that [[William J. Grayson]] used the phrase "master race" in his poem ''The Hireling and the Slave'' (1855):
<blockquote><poem>
For these great ends hath Heaven’s supreme command
Brought the black savage from his native land,
Trains for each purpose his barbarian mind,
By slavery tamed, enlightened, and refined;
Instructs him, from a master-race, to draw
Wise modes of polity and forms of law,
Imbues his soul with faith, his heart with love,
Shapes all his life by dictates from above
</poem></blockquote>

where the phrase denotes the relation between the white masters and negro slaves.

By 1860 Virginian author [[George Fitzhugh]] was using the "challenging phrase 'master race', which soon came to mean considerably more than the ordinary master-slave relationship".<ref>Wish, Harvey ''George Fitzhugh: propagandist of the Old South'' Louisiana State University Press (1943) p. 270</ref> Fitzhugh, along with a number of southern writers, used the term to differentiate Southerners from Northerners, based on the [[dichotomy]] that Southerners were supposedly descendants of [[Normans]] / [[Cavaliers]] whereas Northerners were descendants of [[Anglo-Saxons]] / [[Puritans]].<ref>see Watson jr, Ritchie Devon ''Normans and Saxons: Southern Race Mythology and the Intellectual History of the American Civil War'' Louisiana State University Press (2008)</ref>

=== Uses of the concept ===
In 1861, the Southern press bragged that Northern soldiers would "encounter a master race" and knowledge of this fact would cause Northern soldiers' "knees to tremble".<ref>quoted in Grant and Lee: victorious American and vanquished Virginian Praeger (2008) p. 15</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Daniel |first=John Moncure |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DTRcAAAAcAAJ&dq=%22The+consciousness+of+this+fact+will+cause+their+knees+to+tremble%22&pg=PA24 |title=The Richmond Examiner During the War; Or the Writings of John M. Daniel. With a Memoir of His Life, by His Brother, Frederick S. Daniel |date=1868 |publisher=C.A. Alvord |isbn=978-0-608-42800-0 |page=24 |language=en |quote=The [[First Battle of Bull Run|battle of Manassas]] demonstrated, at once and forever, the superiority of the Southern soldiers, and there is not a man in the army, from the humblest private to the highest officer, who does not feel it. Now, this piece of information is extensivelt diffused in the camp of the enemy. They know now that when they go forth to the field they will encounter a master race. The consciousness of this fact will cause their knees to tremble beneath them on the day of battle. It will demoralize them. It has already done so.}}</ref> The ''[[Richmond Whig]]'' in 1862 proclaimed that "the master race of this continent is found in the southern states",<ref>quoted in Conkling, Henry ''An Inside View of the Rebellion: An American Citizen's Textbook'' (1864) p. 7</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Abbott |first=John Stevens Cabot |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z8ALAAAAIAAJ&dq=%22the+master+race+of+this+continent+is+found+in+the+southern+states%22&pg=PA420 |title=The History of the Civil War in America: Comprising a Full and Impartial Account of the Origin and Progress of the Rebellion ... |date=1863 |publisher=G. Bill |pages=419–420 |language=en |quote=The whole experience of the war is an attestation of the truth long since discovered by impartial observers, that the master race of this continent is found in the Southern States. Of a better stock, originally, and habituated to manlier pursuits and exercises, they have ruled in affairs of State by force of the stronger will and larger wisdom that pertain to and distinguish superior races of men, while on the field of battle they have in every contest held a priority of place, conceded to them by their present adversaries.}}</ref> and in 1863 the ''[[Richmond Examiner]]'' stated that "there are slave races born to serve, master races born to govern".<ref>quoted in Senate documents, otherwise publ. as Public documents and Executive documents: 14th Congress, 1st session, 48th congress, 2nd session and special session (1869) p. 670</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=1863-06-03 |title=The Apostles of Slavery. |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1863/06/03/archives/the-apostles-of-slavery.html |access-date=2023-05-05 |issn=0362-4331 |quote=The Richmond Examiner evidently means to prepare the world for the new gospel of slaveholding which the Confederacy is to preach and practice to the conversion of nations, in the article in question, one paragraph of which we reprint as a specimen of the whole: "The establishment of the Confederacy is verily a distinct reaction against the whole course of the mistaken civilization of the age. For ' Liberty Equality, Fraternity,' we have deliberately substituted Slavery, Subordination and Government. Those social and political problems which rack and torture modern society we have undertaken to solve for ourselves, in our own way, and upon our own principles. That among equals equality is right;' among those who arc naturally unequal, equality is chaos; that there are slave races born to serve, master races born to govern. Such are the fundamental principles which we inherit from the ancient world, which we lifted up in the face of a perverse generation that has forgotten the wisdom of its fathers; by those principles we live and in their defence we have shown ourselves ready to die. Reverently we feel that our Confederacy is a God-sent missionary to the nations, with great truths to breach. We must speak them boldly; and whose hath ears to hear let him hear."}}</ref>

In the works of [[John H. Van Evrie]], a Northern supporter of the [[Confederate States of America|Confederacy]], the term was interchangeable with [[white supremacy]], notably in ''White Supremacy and Negro Subordination, Or, Negroes a Subordinate Race and (so-called) slavery its normal condition'' (1861). In ''Subgeneation: the theory of the normal relations of the races; an answer to miscegenation'' (1864) Van Evrie created the words "subgen" to describe what he considered to be the "inferior races" and "subgeneation" to describe the ‘normal’ relation of such inferior races to whites, something which he considered to be the "very [[Cornerstone Speech|corner-stone]] of democracy";<ref>''Subgeneation'' p.42</ref> but these words never entered the dictionary.

The racial term ''[[Untermensch]]'' originates from the title of [[Klansman]] [[Lothrop Stoddard]]'s 1922 book ''The Revolt Against Civilization: The Menace of the Under-man''.<ref>{{cite book| author = Stoddard, Lothrop| author-link = Lothrop Stoddard| year = 1922| title = The Revolt Against Civilization: The Menace of the Under Man| publisher = [[Charles Scribner's Sons]]| location = New York| url = https://archive.org/details/revoltagainstciv00stoduoft}}</ref> It was later adopted by the Nazis from that book's German version ''Der Kulturumsturz: Die Drohung des Untermenschen'' (1925).<ref>
{{cite journal| author = Losurdo, Domenico| author-link = Domenico Losurdo| others = Translated by Marella & Jon Morris| year = 2004| title = Toward a Critique of the Category of Totalitarianism| journal = [[Historical Materialism (journal)|Historical Materialism]]| publisher = [[Brill Publishers|Brill]]| volume = 12| issue = 2| pages = 25–55 [50]| issn = 1465-4466| doi = 10.1163/1569206041551663| url = http://www.pssp.org/bbs/data/document/1/Losurdo___Critique_of_Totalitarianism_%282004%29.pdf| format = PDF, 0.2 MB}}</ref> An advocate of the U.S. immigration laws that favored Northern Europeans, Stoddard wrote primarily on the alleged dangers posed by "[[coloured]]" peoples to white civilization, with his most famous book ''[[The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy]]'' in 1920. [[Alfred Rosenberg]] was the leading Nazi who attributed the concept of the East-European "under man" to Stoddard. As the Nazi Party's chief racial theorist, Rosenberg oversaw the construction of a human racial "ladder" that justified Hitler's racial and ethnic policies. Referring to Russian communists, Rosenbeg wrote in his ''[[Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts]]'' (1930) that "this is the kind of human being that [[Lothrop Stoddard]] has called the 'under man.'" ["...den Lothrop Stoddard als 'Untermenschen' bezeichnete."]<ref>
{{cite book| author = Rosenberg, Alfred| author-link = Alfred Rosenberg| year = 1930| title = Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts: Eine Wertung der seelischgeistigen Gestaltungskämpfe unserer Zeit| trans-title = The Myth of the Twentieth Century| publisher = Hoheneichen-Verlag| location = Munich| page = 214| url = https://www.scribd.com/doc/2628285/Der-Mythus-des-20-Jahrhunderts-Alfred-Rosenberg| language = de| url-status = dead| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20121104014921/http://www.scribd.com/doc/2628285/Der-Mythus-des-20-Jahrhunderts-Alfred-Rosenberg| archive-date = 2012-11-04}}</ref>