The Peculiar Institution

[2] Stampp's intent is to answer prior historians who had characterized slavery as a mostly benign, paternalistic tradition, helpful in many ways to the slaves, that encouraged racial harmony in the Southern states.

Stampp also condemns those who claim that "to the Negroes, slavery seemed natural; knowing no other life, they accepted it without giving the matter much thought.

Stampp held that the national debate over the morality of slavery, rather than states' rights, was the focal point of the U.S. Civil War.

The book was for Stampp not only about 19th-century history but a necessary examination for Americans in the 1950s, because "it is an article of faith that knowledge of the past is a key to understanding the present", and "one must know what slavery meant to the Negro and how he reacted to it before one can comprehend his more recent tribulations" (vii).

King describes Stampp's "fascinating" depiction of "the psychological indoctrination that was necessary from the master's viewpoint to make a good slave".