The Carlyle–Mill Negro Question Debate was an 19th century debate on slavery. The opponents were famous publicists of the time, the economist John Stuart Mill and the writer/historian Thomas Carlyle. The debate was sparked by Carlyle's 1849 essay "Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question", arguing black people were inferior, needed white supervision to make them industrious and peaceable, and supporting the acceptability of using black slaves, published anonymously in Fraser's Magazine.[1] Mill's reply, in the next issue of the magazine, under the title "The Negro question", was also published anonymously.[1]
It was in this essay that Carlyle first introduced the phrase "the dismal science" to characterize the field of economics.