White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America

by Nancy Isenberg

In 1858, Hammond had publicly aired his ideas before the U.S. Senate in a speech that proved to be widely popular. Its most enduring critique concerned the fixed character of class identity. In all societies, “there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life.” With fewer skills and a “low order of intellect,” the laboring class formed the base of civilized nations. Every advanced society had to exploit its petty laborers; the working poor who wallowed in the mud allowed for a superior class to emerge on top. This recognized elite, the crème de la crème, was the true society and the source of all “civilization, progress, and refinement.” In Hammond’s mind, menial laborers were, almost literally, “mudsills,” stuck in the mud, or perhaps in a metaphoric quicksand, from which none would emerge.