Final answer:
George Fitzhugh argued in favor of slavery by criticizing capitalism and promoting a paternalistic view of slaveholders caring for their slaves, contrasting this with the economic struggles of the free laborers in the North.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Virginian George Fitzhugh defended slavery in his work, Sociology for the South, or the Failure of Free Society (1854), where he critiqued laissez-faire capitalism and argued that it benefits only the intelligent and quick-witted, leaving others at a disadvantage. He asserted that slaveholders cared for their slaves from birth to death, contrasting this with the wage slavery of the North. Fitzhugh's argument was based on a paternalistic worldview, suggesting that the enslaved were better off under the care of their owners than they would be in a free market system. This idea was part of a larger sociopolitical defense of the institution of slavery in the antebellum South.