Henry Hughes (1829–1862) was an American lawyer, sociologist, state senator, and Confederate Colonel from Mississippi.
[3][4][5] He studied Law in Port Gibson with John B. Thrasher and in New Orleans, Louisiana, with Thomas Jefferson Durant.
[3] He continued his studies in Paris, France, where he took classes in architecture, social science, anatomy, chemistry, and moral philosophy.
[5] Additionally, Hughes suggested repatriating blacks slaves and replacing them with imported new African warrantees, who would learn the duty of work from their birth to serve the state as opposed to slavery.
[11] According to literary critic Michael Wainwright, Hughes believed in the mythology of the Southern aristocracy as descendants of Anglo-Saxons with "Germanic heredity" and "North and Celtic inheritance".
[10] He believed segregation between blacks and whites was mandatory to preserve this heritage, arguing that social interaction would inevitably lead to sexual intercourse.
[7] According to scholars Stanford M. Lyman and Arthur J. Vidich, his ideas were also echoed by Joseph Le Conte in California, shortly after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
[11] Later, Hughes's ideas influenced President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Keynesian public policy, by demanding that the state ensured all citizens would be working.