As I'm sitting here working on University, Court, and Slave, I realize it may be time for a trivia question related to pre-Civil War southern thought.
What is the building at right? Where is it? Why in the world was it built in this style (and what, by the way, is the style)? And does anyone want to hazard a guess how this might be related to proslavery thought?
The building is the Egyptian Building at the VCU Medical Center. It was the Medical College of Virginia prior to and during the Civil War. It is located in Richmond, Virginia. The architectural style is Egyptian Revival. The building was built in this style because it was believed that the Egyptians were the source of medicine. The use of Egyptian Revival reflects the spiritual connection that the American South had to the slave-dependent society of ancient Egypt and its ruling class. It also references a historic precedence for slavery within a sophisticated and civilized society.
Very nice, Robert!
I find it offensive that anyone would ever consider something as barbaric and cruel as slavery to be "sophisticated and civilized." It's sickening.
Anon–I agree with you, of course. Alas, that was a popular argument among proslavery southerners. I'm hoping to post some more on this shortly, especially how the proslavery mentality made slavery seem like something that was the natural state of humans — and how they turned to history from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, to the West Indies and the rest of the Americas.