Help Requested: Source of "Peculiar Institution

12/1/2004 | dr_pat

[dr_pat]

I hope this community can help me with the original source of the phrase "peculiar institution" to refer to slavery in the U.S. Credit will be given for the first verified reference in a post I am writing on Paper Frigate, where I blog books.

[dr_pat]

Thank you all in advance for your help.

[exnavy]

what?

[exnavy]

Seriously, I'll troll for a little conversation, what are you refering to?

[dr_pat]

If you search on "peculiar institution", you get endless lists of books, essays and articles that use the quoted phrase "peculiar institution" to refer to slavery in the U.S. I'm looking for the original source - who said (or wrote) it first?

[exnavy]

OK

[livius]

John Calhoun. The words are attributed to him by numerous sources. Here's a bit of detail (from the Encylopedia Britannica):

Champion of states' rights

Calhoun was elected vice president in 1824 under John Quincy Adams and was reelected in 1828 under Andrew Jackson. In the 1830s Calhoun became as extreme in his devotion to strict construction of the United States Constitution as he had earlier been in his support of nationalism. In the summer of 1831 he openly avowed his belief in nullification, a position that he had anonymously advanced three years earlier in the essay South Carolina Exposition and Protest. Each state was sovereign, Calhoun contended, and the Constitution was a compact among the sovereign states. Therefore, any one state (but not the United States Supreme Court) could declare an act of Congress unconstitutional. The proponents of the nullified measure, according to the theory, would then have to obtain an amendment to the Constitution—which required a two-thirds vote of each house of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states—confirming the power of Congress to take such action.

Although the tariff was the specific issue in the nullification crisis of 1832–33, what Calhoun was actually fighting for was protection of the South's “peculiar institution,” slavery, which he feared someday might be abolished by a Northern majority in Congress. The tariff, Calhoun put forth in one of his public letters, is “of vastly inferior importance to the great question to which it has given rise…the right of a state to interpose, in the last resort, in order to arrest an unconstitutional act of the General Government.”

To Calhoun's chagrin, a majority of the Southern states formally and vehemently rejected his doctrine of nullification. Even Jefferson Davis, who later served as president of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War, denied the right of a state to nullify a congressional act.

[dr_pat]

I was writing a post about Edward P. Jones' The Known World, and ran across the phrase (already familiar to me from years of seeing it used as a scholarly way to say "slavery"), decided to research it in the Web, and found only works that simply use the phrase with giving any provenance. I thought this community (if anyone did) would know the source.

[dr_pat]

When I add "Calhoun" to my search list, I get several links that appear to resolve this question: Nullification, Secession, and John Caldwell Calhoun: The Philosophy and Thought Which Led a State and John C. Calhoun: Speech on the Reception of Abolition Petitions. In neither quote of John C. Calhoun's words is the phrase set in quotations, but he does seem to expect that peculiar institution and peculiar domestic institution will be understood to mean slavery. Was he quoting someone before him?

(Though I suspect you will be cited as my source, livius!)

[Eastbound]

Couldn't confirm the source, but did spend some time on Google. The phrase is used by many writers, even those describing Washington's problems with his slaves. But did Washington every use the phrase? Don't know.

[Theophilus]

I always thought that slavery was deemed "peculiar" because it was widely thought to be economically detrimental to the society that depends on it, which would be odd, strange and ironic. However I have also learned that "peculiar institution" was merely a euphamism for slavery that stems from the entomology of "peculiar"

Etymology: Middle English peculier, from Latin peculiaris of private property, special, from peculium private property, from pecu cattle; akin to Latin pecus cattle

Hence a direct latin reference to the slaves as chattel.

[dr_pat]

That had occurred to me as well - problem is, that phrase might then apply to any institution involving exchange, purchase or use of property. How (and when) did the phrase come to be applied exclusively - with instant understanding of its meaning - to the keeping of slaves?

Maybe it's as simple as a popular politician, John C. Calhoun, using the phrase "this peculiar institution" with its general meaning applied to the specific "peculiar institution", and the specific meaning subsequently infecting the general as a meme that found fertile ground.

I'm still looking, though I attribute the origin to Calhoun in my blog.

I blog books.

[wda07]

I think you are correct, as some time ago I read samples of George Washington correspondence that was posted on the Library of congress website. I remember seeing "peculiar institution" in one of Washington's letters to...Thomas Jefferson? I remember thinking at the time, "so that's who said it." Months later I tried to relocate it to no avail. Perhaps Joseph Ellis would know.

[Eastbound]

Thanks for the note, wda07. Here's a link you probably already searched. Many references to the words 'peculiar' and 'institution' in Washington's letters, but not following each other. (Library of Congress, second link):

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=washington+letters