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Title: Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments - Comprising the Writings of Hammond, Harper, Christy, - Stringfellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, and Cartrwright on This - Important Subject
Author: Elliott, E. N. [Editor]
Language: English
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Transcriber's Notes:
Spelling and punctuation anomalies were retained, such as
"Masachusettes" and "philanthrophy" on page 40. The table of
contents can be found at the end of this book.
δουλεἱα
COTTON IS KING,
AND
PRO-SLAVERY ARGUMENTS:
COMPRISING THE WRITINGS OF
HAMMOND, HARPER, CHRISTY, STRINGFELLOW, HODGE, BLEDSOE, AND CARTWRIGHT,
ON THIS IMPORTANT SUBJECT.
BY
E. N. ELLIOTT, L.L.D., PRESIDENT OF PLANTERS' COLLEGE, MISSISSIPPI.
WITH AN ESSAY ON SLAVERY IN THE LIGHT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW, BY THE
EDITOR.
PUBLISHED AND SOLD EXCLUSIVELY BY SUBSCRIPTION.
AUGUSTA, GA: PRITCHARD, ABBOTT & LOOMIS. 1860.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by M. P. ABBOTT
AND GEO. M. LOOMIS,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for
the Southern District of Georgia.
INTRODUCTION.
THERE is now but one great question dividing the American people, and
that, to the great danger of the stability of our government, the
concord and harmony of our citizens, and the perpetuation of our
liberties, divides us by a geographical line. Hence estrangement,
alienation, enmity, have arisen between the North and the South, and
those who, from "the times that tried men's souls," have stood shoulder
to shoulder in asserting their rights against the world; who, as a band
of brothers, had combined to build up this fair fabric of human liberty,
are now almost in the act of turning their fratricidal arms against each
other's bosoms. All other parties that have existed in our country, were
segregated on questions of policy affecting the whole nation and each
individual composing it alike; they pervaded every section of the Union,
and the acerbity of political strife was softened by the ties of blood,
friendship, and neighborhood association. Moreover, these parties were
constantly changing, on account of the influence mutually exerted by the
members of each; the Federalist of yesterday becomes the Republican of
to-day, and Whigs and Democrats change their party allegiance with every
change of leaders. If the republicans mismanaged the government, they
suffered the consequences alike with the federalists; if the democrats
plunged our country into difficulties, they had to abide the penalty as
well as the whigs. All parties alike had to suffer the evils, or enjoy
the advantages of bad or good government. But it has been reserved to
our own times to witness the rise, growth, and prevalence of a party
confined exclusively to one section of the Union, whose fundamental
principle is opposition to the rights and interests of the other
section; and this, too, when those rights are most sacredly guaranteed,
and those interests protected, by that compact under which we became a
united nation. In a free government like ours, the eclecticism of
parties--by which we mean the affinity by which the members of a party
unite on questions of national policy, by which all sections of the
country are alike affected--has always been considered as highly
conducive to the purity and integrity of the government, and one of the
causes most promotive of its perpetuity. Such has been the case, not
only in our own country, but also in England, from whom we have mainly
derived our ideas of civil and religious liberty, and even, to some
extent, our form of government. But there, the case of oppressed and
down-trodden Ireland, bears witness to the baneful effects of
geographical partizan government and legislation.
In our own country this same spirit, which had its origin in the
Missouri contest, is now beginning to produce its legitimate fruits:
witness the growing distrust with which the people of the North and the
South begin to regard each other; the diminution of Southern travel,
either for business or pleasure, in the Northern States; the efforts of
each section to develop its own resources, so as virtually to render it
independent of the other; the enactment of "unfriendly legislation," in
several of the States, towards other States of the Union, or their
citizens; the contest for the exclusive possession of the territories,
the common property of the States; the anarchy and bloodshed in Kansas;
the exasperation of parties throughout the Union; the attempt to
nullify, by popular clamor, the decision of the supreme tribunal of our
country; the existence of the "underground railroad," and of a party in
the North organized for the express purpose of robbing the citizens of
the Southern States of their property; the almost daily occurrence of
fugitive slave mobs; the total insecurity of slave property in the
border States;[1] the attempt to circulate incendiary documents among
the slaves in the Southern States, and the flooding of the whole country
with the most false and malicious misrepresentations of the state of
society in the slave States; the attempt to produce division among us,
and to array one portion of our citizens in deadly hostility to the
other; and finally, the recent attempt to excite, at Harper's Ferry, and
throughout the South, an insurrection, and a civil and servile war, with
all its attendant horrors.
All these facts go to prove that there is a great wrong somewhere, and
that a part, or the whole, of the American people are demented, and
hurrying down to swift destruction. To ascertain where this great wrong
and evil lies, to point out the remedy, to disabuse the public mind of
all erroneous impressions or prejudices, to combat all false doctrines
on _this_ subject, and to establish the truth, shall be the aim of the
following pages. In preparing them we have consulted the works of most
of the writers on both sides of this question, as well as the statistics
and history tending to throw light upon the subject. To this we would
invite the candid and dispassionate attention of every patriot and
philanthropist. To all such we would say, in the language of the Roman
bard,
"Si quid novisti vectius istis,
Candidus imperti; si non,
His utere mecum."
In the following pages, the words slave and slavery are not used in the
sense commonly understood by the abolitionists. With them these terms
are contradistinguished from servants and servitude. According to their
definition, a slave is merely a "chattel" in a human form; a _thing_ to
be bought and sold, and treated worse than a brute; a being without
rights, privileges, or duties. Now, if this is a correct definition of
the word, we totally object to the term, and deny that we have any such
institution as _slavery_ among us. We recognize among us no class,
which, as the abolitionists falsely assert, that the Supreme Court
decided "had no rights which a white man was bound to respect." The
words _slave_ and _servant_ are perfectly synonymous, and differ only in
being derived from different languages; the one from Sclavonic, the
other from the Latin, just as feminine and womanly are respectively of
Latin and Saxon origin. The Saxon synonym _thrall_ has become obsolete
in our language, but some of its derivations, as thralldom, are still in
use. In Greek the same idea was expressed by _δοῦλος_, and in Hebrew by
_ebed_. The one idea of servitude, or of obedience to the will of
another, is accurately expressed by all these terms. He who wishes to
see this topic thoroughly examined, may consult "Fletcher's Studies on
Slavery."
The word _slavery_ is used in the following discussions, to express the
condition of the _African race_ in our Southern States, as also in other
parts of the world, and in other times. This word, as defined by most
writers, does not truly express the relation which the African race in
our country, _now_ bears to the white race. In some parts of the world,
the relation has essentially changed, while the word to express it has
remained the same. In most countries of the world, especially in former
times, the _persons_ of the slaves were the absolute property of the
master, and might be used or abused, as caprice or passion might
dictate. Under the Jewish law, a slave might be beaten to death by his
master, and yet the master go entirely unpunished, unless the slave died
outright under his hand. Under the Roman law, slaves had no rights
whatever, and were scarcely recognized as human beings; indeed, they
were sometimes drowned in fish-ponds, to feed the eels. Such is not the
labor system among us. As an example of faulty definition, we will
adduce that of Paley: "Slavery," says he, "is an obligation to labor for
the benefit of the master, without the contract or consent of the
servant." Waiving, for the present, the accuracy of this definition, as
far as it goes, we would remark that it is only half of the definition;
the only idea here conveyed is that of compulsory and unrequited labor.
Such is not our labor-system. Though we prefer the term slave, yet if
this be its true definition, we must protest against its being applied
to our system of African servitude, and insist that some other term
shall be used. The true definition of the term, as applicable to the
domestic institution in the Southern States, is as follows: Slavery is
the duty and obligation of the slave to labor for the mutual benefit of
both master and slave, under a warrant to the slave of protection, and a
comfortable subsistence, under all circumstances. The person of the
slave is not property, no matter what the fictions of the law may say;
but the right to his labor is property, and may be transferred like any
other property, or as the right to the services of a minor or an
apprentice may be transferred. Nor is the labor of the slave solely for
the benefit of the master, but for the benefit of all concerned; for
himself, to repay the advances made for his support in childhood, for
present subsistence, and for guardianship and protection, and to
accumulate a fund for sickness, disability, and old age. The master, as
the head of the system, has a right to the obedience and labor of the
slave, but the slave has also his mutual rights in the master; the right
of protection, the right of counsel and guidance, the right of
subsistence, the right of care and attention in sickness and old age. He
has also a right in his master as the sole arbiter in all his wrongs and
difficulties, and as a merciful judge and dispenser of law to award the
penalty of his misdeeds. Such is American slavery, or as Mr. Henry
Hughes happily terms it, "Warranteeism."
In order that the subject of American slavery may be thoroughly
discussed, we have availed ourselves of the labors of several of the
ablest writers in the Union. These have been taken, not from one section
only, but from both sections of our country. It is true, most of them
are citizens of the Southern States, and for this there is a good and
obvious reason; no one can correctly discuss this subject, or any other,
who is practically unacquainted with it. This was the error of the
French nation, when they undertook to legislate the African savages of
St. Domingo into free citizens of the model republic; of the English
nation when they undertook to interfere in the internal affairs of
their colonies; and thus must it always be, when men undertake to think
or write, or act, in reference to any subject, of whose fundamental
truths, they are profoundly ignorant. It is true, that in every part of
the civilized world there are noble minds, rising superior to the
prejudices of education, and the influence of the society in which they
are placed, and defending the truth for its own sake; to all such we
render their due homage.
It is objected to the defenders of American slavery, that they have
changed their ground; that from being apologists for it as an inevitable
evil, they have become its defenders as a social and political good,
morally right, and sanctioned by the Bible and by God himself. This
charge is unjust, as by reference to a few historical facts will
abundantly appear. The present slave States had little or no agency in
the first introduction of Africans into this country; this was achieved
by the Northern commercial States and by Great Britain. Wherever the
climate suited the negro constitution, slavery was profitable and
flourished; where the climate was unsuitable, slavery was unprofitable,
and died out. Most of the slaves in the Northern States were sent
southward to a more congenial clime. Upon the introduction into Congress
of the first abolition discussions, by John Quincy Adams, and Joshua
Giddings, Southern men altogether refused to engage in the debate, or
even to receive petitions on the subject. They averred that no good
could grow out of it, but only unmitigated evil.
The agitation of the abolition question had commenced in France during
the horrors of her first revolution, under the auspices of the Red
Republicans; it had pervaded England until it achieved the ruin of her
West India colonies, and by anti-slavery missionaries it had been
introduced into our Northern States. During all this agitation the
Southern States had been quietly minding their own business, regardless
of all the turmoil abroad. They had never investigated the subject
theoretically, but they were well acquainted with all its practical
workings. They had received from Africa a few hundred thousand pagan
savages, and had developed them into millions of civilized Christians,
happy in themselves, and useful to the world. They had never made the
inquiry whether the system were fundamentally wrong, but they judged it
by its fruits, which were beneficent to all. When therefore they were
charged with upholding a moral, social, and political evil; and its
immediate abolition was demanded, as a matter not only of policy, but
also of justice and right, their reply was, we have never investigated
the subject. Our fathers left it to us as a legacy, we have grown up
with it; it has grown with our growth, and strengthened with our
strength, until it is now incorporated with every fibre of our social
and political existence. What you say concerning its evils _may_ be true
or false, but we clearly see that your remedy involves a vastly greater
evil, to the slave, to the master, to our common country, and to the
world. We understand the nature of the negro race; and in the relation
in which the providence of God has placed them to us, they are happy and
useful members of society, and are fast rising in the scale of
intelligence and civilization, and the time may come when they will be
capable of enjoying the blessings of freedom and self-government. We are
instructing them in the principles of our common Christianity, and in
many instances have already taught them to read the word of life. But we
know that the time has not yet come; that this liberty which is a
blessing to _us_, would be a curse to _them_. Besides, to us and to you,
such a violent disruption would be most disastrous, it would topple to
its foundations the whole social and political edifice. Moreover, we
have had warning on this subject. God, in his providence, has permitted
the emancipation of the African race in a few of the islands contiguous
to our shores, and far from being elevated thereby to the condition of
Christian freemen, they have rapidly retrograded to the state of pagan
savages. The value of property in those islands has rapidly depreciated,
their production has vastly diminished, and their commerce and
usefulness to the world is destroyed. We wish not to subject either
ourselves or our dependents to such a fate. God has placed them in our
hands, and he holds us responsible for our course of policy towards
them.
This courteous, common-sense, and practical reply, far from closing the
mouths of the agitators, only encouraged them to redouble their
exertions, and to imbitter the epithets which they hurled at the
slave-holders. They exhausted the vocabulary of billingsgate in
denouncing those guilty of this most henious of all sins, and charged
them in plain terms, with being _afraid_ to investigate or to discuss
the subject. Thus goaded into it, many commenced the investigation. Then
for the first time did the Southern people take a position on this
subject. It is due to a citizen of this State, the Rev. J. Smylie, to
say that he was the first to promulgate the truth, as deduced from the
Bible, on the subject of slavery. He was followed by a host of others,
who discussed it not only in the light of revelation and morals, but as
consistent with the Federal Constitution and the Declaration of
Independence; until many of those who had commenced their career of
abolition agitation by reasoning from the Bible and the Constitution,
were compelled to acknowledge that they both were hopelessly
pro-slavery, and to cry: "give us an anti-slavery constitution, an
anti-slavery Bible, and an anti-slavery God." To such straits are men
reduced by fanaticism. It is here worthy of remark, that most of the
early abolition propagandists, many of whom commenced as Christian
ministers, have ended in downright infidelity. Let us then hear no more
of this charge, that the defenders of slavery have changed their ground;
it is the abolitionists who have been compelled to appeal to "a higher
law," not only than the Federal Constitution, but also, than the law of
God. This is the inevitable result when men undertake to be "wise above
what is written." The Apostle, in the Epistle to Timothy, has not only
explicitly laid down the law on the subject of slavery, but has, with
prophetic vision, drawn the exact portrait of our modern abolitionists.
"Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters
worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not
blasphemed. And they that have believing masters, let them not despise
them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because
they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things
teach and exhort. If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to
wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the
doctrine which is according to godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing,
but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy,
strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings, of men of
corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is
godliness; from such withdraw thyself."
Can any words more accurately and vividly portray the character and
conduct of the abolitionists, or more plainly point out the results of
their efforts? Is it any wonder that after having received such a
castigation, they should totally repudiate the authority of God's law,
and say, "Not _thy_ will, but _mine_ be done." It is here explicitly
declared that this doctrine, the obedience of slaves to their masters,
are the words of our Lord Jesus Christ; and the arguments of its
opposers are characterized as doting sillily about questions and strifes
of words, and therefore unworthy of reply and refutation. But the
consequences are more serious; look at the catalogue. Envy, the root of
the evil; strife, see the divisions in our churches, and in our
political communities; railings, their calling slaveholders robbers,
thieves, murderers, outlaws; evil surmisings, can any good thing come
out of Nazareth, or from the Slave States? Perverse disputings of men of
corrupt minds, their wresting the Scriptures from their plain and
obvious meaning to compel them to teach abolitionism. Finally; the duty
of all Christians: from such withdraw thyself.
The monographs embraced in this compendium of discussions on slavery,
were written at different periods; some of them several years ago, and
some of them were prepared expressly for this work, and some have been
re-written in order to continue the subject down to the present time.
There is this further advantage in combining works of different dates,
that by comparing them it is evident that the earlier and later writers
both stood on, substantially, the same ground, and take the same general
views of the institution. The charge of inconsistency must, therefore,
fall to the ground. To the reading public, most of the matter contained
in these pages will be new; as, though some of them have been before the
public for several years, they have had but a limited circulation, no
efforts having been made by the Southern people to scatter them
broadcast throughout the land, in the form of _Sunday school books_, or
_religious tracts_. Nor will it be expected by the reader, that the
authors of the works on the different topics embraced in this
discussion, should have been able to confine their arguments strictly
within the assigned limits. The subjects themselves so inosculate, that
it would be strange indeed if the writers should not occasionally
encroach upon each other's province; but even this, from the variety of
argument, and mode of illustration, will be found interesting.
The work of Professor Christy, on the Economical Relations of Slavery,
contains a large amount of the most accurate, valuable and well arranged
statistical matter, and his combinations and deductions are remarkable
for their philosophical accuracy. He spent several years in the service
of the American Colonization Society, as agent for Ohio, and made
himself thoroughly acquainted with the results, both to the blacks and
whites, both of slavery and emancipation.
Governor Hammond is too well known, as an eminent statesman and
political writer, to require notice here. His letters are addressed to
Mr. Clarkson, of England, who, in conjunction with Wilberforce, after a
long struggle, at last secured the passage, by the Parliament of Great
Britain, of acts to abolish the slave trade and slavery, in the British
West India colonies. The results of this are vividly portrayed by the
author, and his predictions are now history.
Chancellor Harper, with a master hand, draws a parallel between the
social condition of communities where slave labor exists and where it
does not, and vindicates the South from the aspersions cast upon her.
Dr. Bledsoe's "Liberty and Slavery," or Slavery in the Light of Moral
Science, discusses the right or wrong of slavery, exposes the fallacies,
and answers the arguments of the abolitionists. His established
reputation as an accurate reasoner, and a forcible writer, guarantees
the excellence of this work.
Dr. Stringfellow's Slavery in the Light of Divine Revelation, and Dr.
Hodge's Bible Argument on Slavery, form a synopsis of the whole
theological argument on the subject. The plain and obvious teachings, of
both Old and New Testament, are given with such irresistible force as to
carry conviction to every mind, except those wedded to the theory of a
"Higher Law" than the Law of God.
Dr. Cartwright's "Ethnology of the African Race," are the results of the
observation and experience of a lifetime, spent in an extensive practice
of medicine in the midst of the race. He has had the best of
opportunities for becoming intimately acquainted with all the
idiosyncrasies of this race, and he has well improved them. That the
negro is _now_ an inferior species, or at least variety of the human
race, is well established, and must, we think, be admitted by all. That
by himself he has never emerged from barbarism, and even when partly
civilized under the control of the white man, he speedily returns to the
same state, if emancipated, are now indubitable truths. Whether or not,
under our system of slavery, he can ever be so elevated as to be worthy
of freedom, time and the providence of God alone can determine. The most
encouraging results have already been achieved by American slavery, in
the elevation of the negro race in our midst; as they are now as far
superior to the natives of Africa, as the whites are to them. In a
religious point of view, also, there is great encouragement, as there
are twice as many communicants of Christian churches among our slaves,
as there are among the heathen at all the missionary stations in the
world. (See Prof. Christy's statistics in this volume.) What the negroes
might have been, but for the interference of the abolitionists, it is
impossible to conjecture. That their influence has only been unmitigated
evil, we have the united testimony, both of themselves and of the slave
holders. (See Dr. Beecher's late sermon on the Harper's Ferry trials.)
To show what has been the uniform course of Christians in the South
towards the slaves, we will quote from the first pastoral letter of the
Synod of the Carolinas and Georgia, to the churches under their care.
After addressing husbands and wives, parents and children, on their
relative duties, the Synod continues, "But parents and heads of
families, think it not surprising that we inform you that God has
committed others to your care, besides your natural offspring, in the
welfare of whose souls you are also deeply interested, and whose
salvation you are bound to endeavor to promote--we mean your slaves;
poor creatures! shall they be bound for life, and their owners never
once attempt to deliver their souls from the bondage of sin, nor point
them to eternal freedom through the blood of the Son of God! On this
subject we beg leave to submit to your consideration the conduct of
Abraham, the father of the faithful, through whose example is
communicated unto you the commandment of God (Gen. xviii: 19); 'For I
know him,' says God, 'that he will command his children and his
household after him, that they shall keep the ways of the Lord, to do
justice and judgment.'
"Masters and servants, attend to your duty--in the express language of
the Holy Ghost--'servants, obey your masters in all things; not with eye
service, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God; and
whatsoever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not to man. And
you, masters, render to your servants their due, knowing that your
master is also in heaven, neither is there respect of persons with Him.'
And let those who govern, and those who are governed, make the object of
living in this world be, to prepare to meet your God and judge, when all
shall stand on a level before His bar, and receive their decisive
sentence according to the deeds done in the body.
"Servants, be willing to receive instruction, and discourage not your
masters by your stubbornness or aversion. Remember, the interest is your
own, and if you be wise, it will be for your own good; _spend the
Sabbath in learning to read, and in teaching your young ones_, instead
of rambling abroad from place to place; a few years will give you many
Sabbaths, which, if rightly improved, will be sufficient for the
purpose. Attend, also, on public worship, when you have opportunity, and
behave there with decency and good order.
"Were these relative duties conscientiously practiced, by husbands and
wives, parents and children, masters and servants, how pleasing would be
the sight; expressing by your conduct pious Joshua's resolution, as for
me and my house, we will serve the Lord."
The argument on slavery, deduced from the law of nations, we commend to
the special attention of the candid reader. Indeed, it is from the
recognition of the duty of the various races and nations composing the
human family, to contribute their part for the advancement and good of
the whole, not only that slavery has existed in all ages, but also that
efforts have been, and are now being made, to extend the benefits of
civilization and religion to the benighted races of the earth. This has
been done in two different ways; one by sending the teacher forth to the
heathen, the other by bringing the heathen to the teacher. Both have
achieved great good, but the latter has been the more successful. Though
the principles embraced in this general law of nations have been
acknowledged and acted out in all times, it is due to J. Q. Adams, to
state that he first gave a clear elucidation of those principles, so far
as they apply to commerce.
Commending these arguments to the candid consideration of every friend
to his country, we may be permitted to express the hope that they will
redound, not only to the perpetuity of our blood-bought liberties, but
to the glory of God, and the good of all men.
PORT GIBSON, MISS., Jan. 1, 1860.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Strange that we should be compelled to call those _border_ States,
which lie in the very midst of our Union.
COTTON IS KING:
OR,
SLAVERY IN THE LIGHT OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.
BY
DAVID CHRISTY, ESQ.
OF CINCINNATI.
COTTON IS KING:
OR,
SLAVERY IN THE LIGHT OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
THE first edition of COTTON IS KING was issued as an experiment. Its
favorable reception led to further investigation, and an enlargement of
the work for a second edition.
The present publishers have bought the copyright of the third edition,
with the privilege of printing it in the form and manner that may best
suit their purposes. This step severs the author from all further
connection with the work, and affords him an opportunity of stating a
few of the facts which led, originally, to its production. He was
connected with the newspaper press, as an editor, from 1824 till 1836.
This included the period of the tariff controversy, and the rise of the
anti-slavery party of this country. After resigning the editorial chair,
he still remained associated with public affairs, so as to afford him
opportunities of observing the progress of events. In 1848 he accepted
an appointment as Agent of the American Colonization Society, for Ohio;
and was thus brought directly into contact with the elements of
agitation upon the slavery question, in the aspect which that
controversy had then assumed. Upon visiting Columbus, the seat of
government of the State, in January, 1849, the Legislature, then in
session, was found in great, agitation about the repeal of the Black
Laws, which had originally been enacted to prevent the immigration of
colored men into the State. The abolitionists held the balance of
power, and were uncompromising in their demands. To escape from the
difficulty, and prevent all future agitation upon the subject,
politicians united in erasing this cause of disturbance from the statute
book. The colored people had been in convention at the capitol; and felt
themselves in a position, as they imagined, to control the legislation
of the State. They were encouraged in this belief by the abolitionists,
and proceeded to effect an organization by which black men were to
_stump_ the State in advocacy of their claims to an equality with white
men.
At this juncture the Colonization cause was brought before the
Legislature, by a memorial asking aid to send emigrants to Liberia. An
appointment was also made, by the agent, for a Lecture on Colonization,
to be delivered in the hall of the House of Representatives; and
respectful notices sent to the African churches, inviting the colored
people to attend. This invitation was met by them with the publication
of a call for an indignation meeting; which, on assembling, denounced
both the agent and the cause he advocated, in terms unfitted to be
copied into this work. One of the resolutions, however, has some
significance, as foreshadowing the final action they contemplated, and
which has shown itself so futile, as a means of redress, in the recent
Harper's Ferry Tragedy. That resolution reads as follows:
"_Resolved_,--That we will never leave this country while one of our
brethren groans in slavish fetters in the United States, but will remain
on this soil and contend for our rights, and those of our enslaved
race--upon the rostrum--in the pulpit--in the social circle, and upon
the field, if necessary, until liberty to the captive shall be
proclaimed throughout the length and breadth of this great Republic, or
we called from time to eternity."
In the winter of 1850, Mr. Stanley's proposition, to Congress, for the
appropriation of the last installment of the Surplus Revenue to
Colonization, was laid before the Ohio Legislature for approval. The
colored people again held meetings, denouncing this proposition also,
and the following resolutions, among others, were adopted--the first at
Columbus and the second at Cincinnati:
"_Resolved_,--That it is our unalterable and eternal determination, as
heretofore expressed, to remain in the United States at all hazards, and
to 'buffet the withering flood of prejudice and misrule,' which menaces
our destruction until we are exalted, to ride triumphantly upon its
foaming billows, or honorably sink into its destroying vortex: although
inducements may be held out for us to emigrate, in the shape of odious
and oppressive laws, or liberal appropriations."
"_Resolved_,--That we should labor diligently to secure--first, the
abolition of slavery, and, failing in this, the separation of the
States; one or the other event being necessary to our ever enjoying in
its fullness and power, the privilege of an American citizen."
Again, some three or four years later, on the occasion of the formation
of the Ohio State Colonization Society, another meeting was called, in
opposition to Colonization, in the city of Cincinnati, which, among
others, passed the following resolution:
"_Resolved_,--That in our opinion the emancipation and elevation of our
enslaved brethren depends in a great measure upon their brethren who are
free, remaining in the country; and we will remain to be that 'agitating
element' in American politics, which Mr Wise, in a late letter,
concludes, has done so much for the slave."
Many similar resolutions might be quoted, all manifesting a
determination, on the part of the colored people, to maintain their
foothold in the United States, until the freedom of the slave should be
effected; and indicating an expectation, on their part, that this result
would be brought about by an insurrection, in which they expected to
take a prominent part. In this policy they were encouraged by nearly all
the opponents of Colonization, but especially by the active members of
the organizations for running off slaves to Canada.
To meet this state of things, COTTON IS KING was written. The mad folly
of the Burns' case, at Boston, in 1854, proved, conclusively, that white
men, by the thousand, stood prepared to provoke a collision between the
North and the South. The eight hundred men who volunteered at Worcester,
and proceeded to Boston, on that occasion, with banner flying, showed
that such a condition of public sentiment prevailed; while, at the same
time, the sudden dispersion of that valorous army, by a single officer
of the general government, who, unaided, captured their leader and bore
off their banner, proved, as conclusively, that such philanthropists are
not soldiers--that promiscuous crowds of undisciplined men are wholly
unreliable in the hour of danger.
The author would here repeat, then, that the main object he had in view,
in the preparation of COTTON IS KING, was to convince the abolitionists
of the utter failure of their plans, and that the policy they had
adopted was productive of results, the opposite of what they wished to
effect;--that British and American abolitionists, in destroying tropical
cultivation by emancipation in the West Indies, and opposing its
promotion in Africa by Colonization, had given to slavery in the United
States its prosperity and its power;--that the institution was no longer
to be controlled by moral or physical force, but had become wholly
subject to the laws of Political Economy;--and that, therefore, labor in
tropical countries, to supply tropical products to commerce, and not
insurrection in the United States, was the agency to be employed by
those who would successfully oppose the extension of American Slavery:
for, just as long as the hands of the free should persist in refusing to
supply the demands of commerce for cotton, just so long it would
continue to be obtained from those of the slave.
It will be seen in the perusal of the present edition, that Great
Britain, in her efforts to promote cotton cultivation in India and
Africa, now acts upon this principle, and that she thereby acknowledges
the truth of the views which the author has advanced. It will be seen
also, that to check American slavery and prevent a renewal of the slave
trade by American planters, she has even determined to employ the slaves
of Africa in the production of cotton: that is to say, the slavery of
America is to be opposed by arraying against it the slavery of
Africa--the petty chiefs there being required to force their slaves to
the cotton patches, that the masters here may find a diminishing market
for the products of their plantations.
In this connection it may be remarked, that the author has had many
opportunities of conversing with colored men, on the subject of
emigration to Africa, and they have almost uniformly opposed it on the
ground that they would be needed here. Some of them, in defending their
conduct, revealed the grounds of their hopes. But details on this point
are unnecessary. The subject is referred to, only as affording an
illustration of the extent to which ignorant men may become the victims
of dangerous delusions. The sum of the matter was about this: the
colored people, they said, had organizations extending from Canada to
Louisiana, by means of which information could be communicated
throughout the South, when the blow for freedom was to be struck.
Philanthropic white men were expected to take sides against the
oppressor, while those occupying neutral ground would offer no
resistance to the passage of forces from Canada and Ohio to Virginia and
Kentucky. Once upon slave territory, they imagined the work of
emancipation would be easily executed, as every slave would rush to the
standard of freedom.
These schemes of the colored people were viewed, at the time, as the
vagaries of over excited and ignorant minds, dreaming of the repetition
of Egyptian miracles for their deliverance; and were subjects of regret,
only because they operated as barriers to Colonization. But when a
friend placed in the author's hand, a few days since, a copy of the
_Chatham_ (Canada West) _Weekly Pilot_, of October 13, he could see that
the seed sown at Columbus in 1849, had yielded its harvest of bitterness
and disappointment at Harper's Ferry in 1859. That paper contained the
proceedings and resolutions of the colored men, at Chatham, on the 3d of
that month, in which the annexed resolution was included:
"_Resolved_,--That in view of the fact that a crisis will soon occur in
the United States to affect our friends and countrymen there, we feel it
the duty of every colored person to make the Canadas their homes. The
temperature and salubrity of the climate, and the productiveness and
fertility of the soil afford ample field for their encouragement. To
hail their enslaved bondmen upon their deliverance, in the glorious
kingdom of British Liberty, in the Canadas, we cordially invite the free
and the bond, the noble and the ignoble--we have no 'Dred Scott Law.'"
The occasion which called out this resolution, together with a number of
others, was the delivery of a lecture, on the 3d of October last, by an
agent from Jamaica, who urged them to emigrate to that beautiful island.
The import of this resolution will be better understood, when it is
remembered, that the organization of Brown's insurrectionary scheme took
place, in this same city of Chatham, on the 8th of May last. The
"crisis" which was soon to occur in the United States, and the
importance of every colored man remaining at his post, at that
particular juncture, as urged by the resolutions, all indicate, very
clearly, that Brown's movements were known to the leaders of the
meeting, and that they desired to co-operate in the movement. The
spirit breathed by the whole series of the Chatham resolutions, is so
fully in accord with those passed from time to time in the United
States, that there is no difficulty in perceiving that the views,
expectations, and hopes of the colored people of both countries have
been the same. The Chatham meeting was on the night of the 3d October,
and the outbreak of Brown on that of the 16th.
But the failure of the Harper's Ferry movement should now serve as
convincing proof, that nothing can be gained, by such means, for the
African race. No successful organization, for their deliverance, can be
effected in this country; and foreign aid is out of the question, not
only because foreign nations will not wage war for a philanthropic
object, but because they cannot do without our cotton for a single year.
They are very much in the condition of our Northern politicians, since
the old party landmarks have been broken down. The slavery question is
the only one left, upon which any enthusiasm can be awakened among the
people. The negro is to American politics what cotton is to European
manufactures and commerce--the controlling element. As the overthrow of
American slavery, with the consequent suspension of the motion of the
spindles and looms of Europe, would bring ruin upon millions of its
population; so the dropping of the negro question, in American politics,
would at once destroy the prospects of thousands of aspirants to office.
In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the clamor against slavery is
made only for effect; and there is not now, nor has there been at any
other period, any intention on the part of political agitators to wage
actual war against the slave States themselves. But while the author
believes that no intention of exciting to insurrection ever existed
among leading politicians at the North, he must express the opinion that
evil has grown out of the policy they have pursued, as it has excited
the free negro to attempts at insurrection, by leading him to believe
that they were in earnest in their professions of prosecuting the
"irrepressible conflict," between freedom and slavery, to a termination
destructive to the South; and, lured by this hope, he has been led to
consider it his duty, as a man, to stand prepared for Mr Jefferson's
crisis, in which Omnipotence would be arrayed upon his side. This stand
he has been induced to take from principles of honor, instead of seeking
new fields of enterprise in which to better his condition.
But there is another evil to the colored man, which has grown out of
northern agitation on the question of slavery. The controversy is one of
such a peculiar nature, that any needed modification of it can be made,
by politicians, to suit whatever emergency may arise. The Burns' case
convinced them that many men, white and black, were then prepared for
treason. This was a step, however, that voters at large disapproved;
and, not only was it unpopular to advocate the forcing of emancipation
upon the slave States, but it seemed equally repugnant to the people to
have the North filled with free negroes. The free colored man was,
therefore, given to understand, that slavery was not to be disturbed in
the States where it had been already established. But this was not all.
He had to have another lesson in the philosophy of _dissolving scenes_,
as exhibited in the great political magic lantern. Nearly all the
Western States had denied him an equality with the white man, in the
adoption or modification of their constitutions. He looked to Kansas for
justice, and lo! it came. The first constitution, adopted by the free
State men of that territory, excluded the free colored man from the
rights of citizenship! "Why is this," said the author, to a leading
German politician of Cincinnati: "why have the free State men excluded
the free colored people from the proposed State?" "Oh," he replied, "we
want it for our sons--for white men,--and we want the _nigger_ out of
our way: we neither want him there as a slave or freeman, as in either
case his presence tends to degrade labor." This is not all. Nearly every
slave State is legislating the free colored men out of their bounds, as
a "disturbing element" which their people are determined no longer to
tolerate. Here, then, is the result of the efforts of the free colored
man to sustain himself in the midst of the whites; and here is the evil
that political agitation has brought upon him.
Under these circumstances, the author believes he will be performing a
useful service, in bringing the question of the economical relations of
American slavery, once more, prominently before the public. It is time
that the true character of the negro race, as compared with the white,
in productive industry, should be determined. If the negro, as a
voluntary laborer, is the equal of the white man, as the abolitionists
contend, then, set him to work in tropical cultivation, and he can
accomplish something for his race; but if he is incapable of competing
with the white man, except in compulsory labor,--as slaveholders most
sincerely believe the history of the race fully demonstrates--then let
the truth be understood by the world, and all efforts for his elevation
be directed to the accomplishment of the separation of the races.
Because, until the colored men, who are now free, shall afford the
evidence that freedom is best for the race, those held in slavery cannot
escape from their condition of servitude.
Some new and important facts in relation to the results of West India
emancipation are presented, which show, beyond question, that the
advancing productiveness, claimed for these islands, is not due to any
improvement in the industrial habits of the negroes, but is the result,
wholly, of the introduction of immigrant labor from abroad. No
advancement, of any consequence, has been made where immigrants have not
been largely imported; and in Jamaica, which has received but few, there
is a large decline in production from what existed during even the first
years of freedom.
The present edition embraces a considerable amount of new matter, having
a bearing on the condition of the cotton question, and a few other
points of public interest. Several new Statistical Tables have been
added to the appendix, that are necessary to the illustration of the
topics discussed; and some historical matter also, in illustration of
the early history of slavery in the United States.
CINCINNATI, JANUARY 1, 1860.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
"COTTON IS KING" has been received, generally, with much favor by the
public. The author's name having been withheld, the book was left to
stand or fall upon its own merits. The first edition has been sold
without any special effort on the part of the publishers. As they did
not risk the cost of stereotyping, the work has been left open for
revision and enlargement. No change in the matter of the first edition
has been made, except a few verbal alterations and the addition of some
qualifying phrases. Two short paragraphs only have been omitted, so as
to leave the public documents and abolitionists, only, to testify as to
the moral condition of the free colored people. The matter added to the
present volume equals nearly one-fourth of the work. It relates mainly
to two points: _First_, The condition of the free colored people;
_Second_, The economical and political relations of slavery. The facts
given, it is believed, will completely fortify all the positions of the
author, on these questions, so far as his views have been assailed.
The field of investigation embraced in the book is a broad one, and the
sources of information from which its facts are derived are accessible
to but few. It is not surprising, then, that strangers to these facts,
on first seeing them arranged in their philosophical relations and
logical connection, should be startled at their import, and misconceive
the object and motives of the author.
For example: One reviewer, in noticing the first edition, asserts that
the writer "endeavors to prove that slavery is a great blessing in its
relations to agriculture, manufactures, and commerce." The candid reader
will be unable to find any thing, in the pages of the work, to justify
such an assertion. The author has proved that the products of slave
labor are in such universal demand, through the channels named by the
reviewer, that it is impracticable, in the existing condition of the
world, to overthrow the system; and that as the free negro has
demonstrated his inability to engage successfully in cotton culture,
therefore American slavery remains immovable, and presents a standing
monument of the folly of those who imagined they could effect its
overthrow by the measures they pursued. This was the author's aim.
Another charges, that the whole work is based on a fallacy, and that all
its arguments, therefore, are unsound. The fallacy of the book, it is
explained, consists in making cotton and slavery indivisible, and
teaching that cotton can not be cultivated except by slave labor;
whereas, in the opinion of the objector, that staple can be grown by
free labor. Here, again, the author is misunderstood. He only teaches
what is true beyond all question: not that free labor is incapable of
producing cotton, but that it does not produce it so as to affect the
interests of slave labor; and that the American planter, therefore,
still finds himself in the possession of the monopoly of the market for
cotton, and unable to meet the demand made upon him for that staple,
except by a vast enlargement of its cultivation, requiring the
employment of an increased amount of labor in its production.
Another says: "The real object of the work is an apology for American
slavery. Professing to repudiate extremes, the author pleads the
necessity for the present continuance of slavery, founded on economical,
political, and moral considerations." The dullest reader can not fail to
perceive that the work contains not one word of apology for the
institution of slavery, nor the slightest wish for its continuance. The
author did not suppose that Southern slave holders would thank any
Northern man to attempt an apology for their maintaining what they
consider their rights under the constitution; neither did he imagine
that any plea for the continuance of American slavery was needed, while
the world at large is industriously engaged in supporting it by the
consumption of its products. He, therefore, neither attempted an apology
for its existence nor a plea for its continuance. He was writing history
and not recording his own opinions, about which he never imagined the
public cared a fig. He was merely aiming at showing, how an institution,
feeble and ill supported in the outset, had become one of the most
potent agents in the advancement of civilization, notwithstanding the
opposition it has had to encounter; and that those who had attempted its
overthrow, in consequence of a lack of knowledge of the plainest
principles of political economy and of human nature in its barbarous
state, had contributed, more than any other class of persons, to produce
this result.
Another charges the author with ignorance of the recent progress making
in the culture of cotton, by free labor, in India and Algeria; and
congratulates his readers that, "on this side of the ocean, the
prospects of free soil and free labor, and of free cotton as one of the
products of free soil and free labor, were never so fair as now." This
is a pretty fair example of one's "whistling to keep his courage up,"
while passing, in the dark, through woods where he thinks ghosts are
lurking on either side. Algeria has done nothing, yet, to encourage the
hope that American slavery will be lessened in value by the cultivation
of cotton in Africa. The British custom-house reports, as late as
September, 1855, instead of showing any increase of imports of cotton
from India, it will be seen, exhibit a great falling off in its
supplies; and, in the opinion of the best authorities, extinguishes the
hope of arresting the progress of American slavery by any efforts made
to render Asiatic free labor more effective. As to the prospects on this
side of the ocean, a glance at the map will show, that the chances of
growing cotton in Kansas are just as good, and only as good as in
Illinois and Missouri, from whence not a pound is ever exported. Texas
was careful to appropriate nearly all the cotton lands acquired from
Mexico, which lie on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains; and, by
that act, all such lands, mainly, have been secured to slavery. Where,
then, is free labor to operate, even were it ready for the task?
Another alleges that the book is "a weak effort to slander the people of
color." This is a charge that could have come only from a careless
reader. The whole testimony, embraced in the first edition, nearly, as
to the economical failure of West India Emancipation, and the moral
degradation of the free colored people, generally, is quoted from
abolition authorities, as is expressly stated; not to slander the people
of color, but to show them what the world is to think of them, on the
testimony of their particular friends and self-constituted guardians.
Another objects to what is said of those who hold the opinion that
slavery is _malum in se_, and who yet continue to purchase and use its
products. On this point it is only necessary to say, that the logic of
the book has not been affected by the sophistry employed against it; and
that if those who hold the _per se_ doctrine, and continue to use slave
labor products, dislike the charge of being _participes criminis_ with
robbers, they must classify slavery in some other mode than that in
which they have placed it in their creeds. For, if they are not
partakers with thieves, then slavery is not a system of robbery; but if
slavery be a system of robbery, as they maintain, then, on their own
principles, they are as much partakers with thieves as any others who
deal in stolen property.
The severest criticism on the book, however, comes from one who charges
the author with a "disposition to mislead, or an ignorance which is
inexcusable," in the use of the statistics of crime, having reference to
the free colored people, from 1820 to 1827. The object of the author, in
using the statistics referred to, was only to show the reasons why the
scheme of colonization was then accepted, by the American public, as a
means of relief to the colored population, and not to drag out these
sorrowful facts to the disparagement of those now living. But the
reviewer, suspicious of every one who does not adopt his abolition
notions, suspects the author of improper motives, and asks: "Why go so
far back, if our author wished to treat the subject fairly?" Well, the
statistics on this dismal topic have been brought up to the latest date
practicable, and the author now leaves it to the colored people
themselves to say, whether they have gained any thing by the reviewer's
zeal in their behalf. He will learn one lesson at least, we hope, from
the result: that a writer can use his pen with greater safety to his
reputation, when he knows something about the subject he discusses.
But this reviewer, warming in his zeal, undertakes to philosophise, and
says, that the evils existing among the free colored people, will be
found in exact proportion to the slowness of emancipation; and complains
that New Jersey was taken as the standard, in this respect, instead of
Massachusetts, where, he asserts, "all the negroes in the commonwealth,
were, by the new constitution, liberated in a day, and none of the ill
consequences objected followed, either to the commonwealth or to
individuals." The reviewer is referred to the facts, in the present
edition, where he will find, that the amount of crime, at the date to
which he refers, was _six times_ greater among the colored people of
Massachusetts, in proportion to their numbers, than among those of New
Jersey. The next time he undertakes to review KING COTTON, it will be
best for him not to rely upon his imagination, but to look at the facts.
He should be able at least, when quoting a writer, to discriminate
between evils resulting from insurrections, and evils growing out of
common immoralities. Experience has taught, that it is unsafe, when
calculating the results of the means of elevation employed, to reason
from a civilized to a half civilized race of men.
The last point that needs attention, is the charge that the author is a
slaveholder, and governed by mercenary motives. To break the force of
any such objection to the work, and relieve it from prejudices thus
created, the veil is lifted, and the author's name is placed upon the
title page.
The facts and statistics used in the first edition, were brought down to
the close of 1854, mainly, and the arguments founded upon the then
existing state of things. The year 1853 was taken as best indicating the
relations of our planters and farmers to the manufactures and commerce
of the country and the world; because the exports and imports of that
year were nearer an average of the commercial operations of the country
than the extraordinary year which followed; and because the author had
nearly finished his labors before the results of 1854 had been
ascertained. In preparing the second edition for the press, many
additional facts, of a more recent date, have been introduced: all of
which tend to prove the general accuracy of the author's conclusions, as
expressed in the first edition.
Tables IV and V, added to the present edition, embrace some very curious
and instructive statistics, in relation to the increase and decrease of
the free colored people, in certain sections, and the influence they
appear to exert on public sentiment.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
IN the preparation of the following pages, the author has aimed at
clearness of statement, rather than elegance of diction. He sets up no
claim to literary distinction; and even if he did, every man of
classical taste knows, that a work, abounding in facts and statistics,
affords little opportunity for any display of literary ability.
The greatest care has been taken, by the author, to secure perfect
accuracy in the statistical information supplied, and in all the facts
stated.
The authorities consulted are Brande's Dictionary of Science, Literature
and Art; Porter's Progress of the British Nation; McCullough's
Commercial Dictionary; Encyclopædia Americana; London Economist; De
Bow's Review; Patent Office Reports; Congressional Reports on Commerce
and Navigation; Abstract of the Census Reports, 1850; and Compendium of
the Census Reports. The extracts from the Debates in Congress, on the
Tariff Question, are copied from the _National Intelligencer_.
The tabular statements appended, bring together the principal facts,
belonging to the questions examined, in such a manner that their
relations to each other can be seen at a glance.
The first of these Tables, shows the date of the origin of cotton
manufactories in England, and the amount of cotton annually consumed,
down to 1853; the origin and amount of the exports of cotton from the
United States to Europe; the sources of England's supplies of cotton,
from countries other than the United States; the dates of the
discoveries which have promoted the production and manufacture of
cotton; the commencement of the movements made to meliorate the
condition of the African race; and the occurrence of events that have
increased the value of slavery, and led to its extension.
The second and third of the tables, relate to the exports and imports of
the United States; and illustrate the relations sustained by slavery, to
the other industrial interests and to the commerce of the country.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY STATEMENTS.
Character of the Slavery controversy in the United
States--In Great Britain--Its influence in
modifying the policy of Anti-Slavery men in
America--Course of the Churches--Political
Parties--Result, COTTON IS KING--Necessity of
reviewing the policy in relation to the African
race--Topics embraced in the discussion.
THE controversy on SLAVERY, in the United States, has been one of an
exciting and complicated character. The power to emancipate existing, in
fact, in the States separately and not in the general government, the
efforts to abolish it, by appeals to public opinion, have been fruitless
except when confined to single States. In Great Britain the question was
simple. The power to abolish slavery in her West Indian colonies was
vested in Parliament. To agitate the people of England, and call out a
full expression of sentiment, was to control Parliament and secure its
abolition. The success of the English abolitionists, in the employment
of moral force, had a powerful influence in modifying the policy of
American anti-slavery men. Failing to discern the difference in the
condition of the two countries, they attempted to create a public
sentiment throughout the United States adverse to slavery, in the
confident expectation of speedily overthrowing the institution. The
issue taken, that slavery is _malum in se_--a sin in itself--was
prosecuted with all the zeal and eloquence they could command. Churches
adopting the _sin per se_ doctrine, inquired of their converts, not
whether they supported slavery by the use of its products, but whether
they believed the institution itself sinful. Could public sentiment be
brought to assume the proper ground; could the slaveholder be convinced
that the world denounced him as equally criminal with the robber and
murderer; then, it was believed, he would abandon the system. Political
parties, subsequently organized, taught, that to vote for a slaveholder,
or a pro-slavery man, was sinful, and could not be done without violence
to conscience; while, at the same time, they made no scruples of using
the products of slave labor--the exorbitant demand for which was the
great bulwark of the institution. This was a radical error. It laid all
who adopted it open to the charge of practical inconsistency, and left
them without any moral power over the consciences of others. As long as
all used their products, so long the slaveholders found the _per se_
doctrine working them no harm; as long as no provision was made for
supplying the demand for tropical products by free labor, so long there
was no risk in extending the field of operations. Thus, the very things
necessary to the overthrow of American slavery, were left undone, while
those essential to its prosperity, were continued in the most active
operation; so that, now, after more than a thirty years' war, we may
say, emphatically, COTTON IS KING, and his enemies are vanquished.
Under these circumstances, it is due to the age--to the friends of
humanity--to the cause of liberty--to the safety of the Union--that we
should review the movements made in behalf of the African race, in our
country; so that errors of principle may be abandoned; mistakes in
policy corrected; the free colored people taught their true relations to
the industrial interests of the world; the rights of the slave as well
as the master secured; and the principles of the constitution
established and revered. It is proposed, therefore, to examine this
subject in the light of the social, civil, and commercial history of the
country; and, in doing this, to embrace the facts and arguments under
the following heads:
1. The early movements on the subject of slavery; the circumstances
under which the Colonization Society took its rise; the relations it
sustained to slavery and to the schemes projected for its abolition; the
origin of the elements which have given to American slavery its
commercial value and consequent powers of expansion; and the futility of
the means used to prevent the extension of the institution.
2. The relations of American slavery to the industrial interests of our
own country; to the demands of commerce; and to the present political
crisis.
3. The industrial, social, and moral condition of the free colored
people in the British colonies and in the United States; and the
influence they have exerted on public sentiment in relation to the
perpetuation of slavery.
4. The moral relations of persons holding the _per se_ doctrine, on the
subject of slavery, to the purchase and consumption of slave labor
products.
CHAPTER II.
THE EARLY MOVEMENTS ON THE SUBJECT OF SLAVERY; THE CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER
WHICH THE COLONIZATION SOCIETY TOOK ITS RISE; THE RELATIONS IT SUSTAINED
TO SLAVERY AND TO THE SCHEMES PROJECTED FOR ITS ABOLITION; THE ORIGIN OF
THE ELEMENTS WHICH HAVE GIVEN TO AMERICAN SLAVERY ITS COMMERCIAL VALUE
AND CONSEQUENT POWERS OF EXPANSION; AND THE FUTILITY OF THE MEANS USED
TO PREVENT THE EXTENSION OF THE INSTITUTION.
Emancipation in the United States begun--First
Abolition Society organized--Progress of
Emancipation--First Cotton Mill--Exclusion of
Slavery from N. W. Territory--Elements of Slavery
expansion--Cotton Gin invented--Suppression of the
Slave Trade--Cotton Manufactures commenced in
Boston--Franklin's Appeal--Condition of the Free
Colored People--Boston Prison-Discipline
Society--Darkening Prospects of the Colored
People.
FOUR years after the Declaration of American Independence, Pennsylvania
and Massachusetts had emancipated their slaves; and, eight years
thereafter, Connecticut and Rhode Island followed their example.
Three years after the last named event, an _abolition society_ was
organized by the citizens of the State of New York, with John Jay at its
head. Two years subsequently, the Pennsylvanians did the same thing,
electing Benjamin Franklin to the presidency of their association. The
same year, too, slavery was forever excluded, by act of Congress, from
the Northwest Territory. This year is also memorable as having witnessed
the erection of the first cotton mill in the United States, at Beverley,
Massachusetts.
During the year that the New York Abolition Society was formed, Watts,
of England, had so far perfected the _steam engine_ as to use it in
propelling machinery for spinning cotton; and the year the Pennsylvania
Society was organized witnessed the invention of the _power loom_. The
_carding machine_ and the _spinning jenny_ having been invented twenty
years before, the power loom completed the machinery necessary to the
indefinite extension of the manufacture of cotton.
The work of emancipation, begun by the four States named, continued to
progress, so that in seventeen years from the adoption of the
constitution, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, and New Jersey, had also
enacted laws to free themselves from the burden of slavery.
As the work of manumission proceeded, the elements of slavery expansion
were multiplied. When the four States first named liberated their
slaves, no regular exports of cotton to Europe had yet commenced; and
the year New Hampshire set hers free, only 138,328 lbs. of that article
were shipped from the country. Simultaneously with the action of
Vermont, in the year following, the _cotton gin_ was invented, and an
unparalleled impulse given to the cultivation of cotton. At the same
time, Louisiana, with her immense territory, was added to the Union, and
room for the extension of slavery vastly increased. New York lagged
behind Vermont for six years, before taking her first step to free her
slaves, when she found the exports of cotton to England had reached
9,500,000 lbs.; and New Jersey, still more tardy, fell five years behind
New York; at which time the exports of that staple--so rapidly had its
cultivation progressed--were augmented to 38,900,000 lbs.
Four years after the emancipations by States had ceased, the slave trade
was prohibited; but, as if each movement for freedom must have its
counter-movement to stimulate slavery, that same year the manufacture of
cotton goods was commenced in Boston. Two years after that event, the
exports of cotton amounted to 93,900,000 lbs. War with Great Britain,
soon afterward, checked both our exports and her manufacture of the
article; but the year 1817, memorable in this connection, from its being
the date of the organization of the Colonization Society, found our
exports augmented to 95,660,000 lbs., and her consumption enlarged to
126,240,000 lbs. Carding and spinning machinery had now reached a good
degree of perfection, and the power loom was brought into general use in
England, and was also introduced into the United States. Steamboats,
too, were coming into use, in both countries; and great activity
prevailed in commerce, manufactures, and the cultivation of cotton.
But how fared it with the free colored people during all this time? To
obtain a true answer to this question we must revert to the days of the
Pennsylvania Abolition Society.
With freedom to the slave, came anxieties among the whites as to the
results. Nine years after Pennsylvania and Massachusetts had taken the
lead in the trial of emancipation, Franklin issued an appeal for aid to
enable his society to form a plan for the promotion of industry,
intelligence, and morality among the free blacks; and he zealously urged
the measure on public attention, as essential to their well-being, and
indispensable to the safety of society. He expressed his belief, that
such is the debasing influence of slavery on human nature, that its very
extirpation, if not performed with care, may sometimes open a source of
serious evils; and that so far as emancipation should be promoted by the
society, it was a duty incumbent on its members to instruct, to advise,
to qualify those restored to freedom, for the exercise and enjoyment of
civil liberty.
How far Franklin's influence failed to promote the humane object he had
in view, may be inferred from the fact, that forty-seven years after
Pennsylvania passed her act of emancipation, and thirty-eight after he
issued his appeal, _one-third_ of the convicts in her penitentiary were
colored men; though the preceding census showed that her slave
population had almost wholly disappeared--there being but _two hundred
and eleven_ of them remaining, while her free colored people had
increased in number to more than _thirty thousand_. Few of the other
free States were more fortunate, and some of them were even in a worse
condition--_one-half_ of the convicts in the penitentiary of New Jersey
being colored men.
But this is not the whole of the sad tale that must be recorded. Gloomy
as was the picture of crime among the colored people of New Jersey, that
of Massachusetts was vastly worse. For though the number of her colored
convicts, as compared with the whites, was as _one_ to _six_, yet the
proportion of her colored population in the penitentiary was _one_ out
of _one hundred and forty_, while the proportion in New Jersey was but
_one_ out of _eight hundred and thirty-three_. Thus, in Massachusetts,
where emancipation had, in 1780, been _immediate_ and unconditional,
there was, in 1826, among her colored people, about six times as much
crime as existed among those of New Jersey, where _gradual_ emancipation
had not been provided for until 1804.
The moral condition of the colored people in the free States, generally,
at the period we are considering, may be understood more clearly from
the opinions expressed, at the time, by the _Boston Prison Discipline
Society_. This benevolent association included among its members, Rev.
Francis Wayland, Rev. Justin Edwards, Rev. Leonard Woods, Rev. William
Jenks, Rev. B. B. Wisner, Rev. Edward Beecher, Lewis Tappan, Esq., John
Tappan, Esq., Hon. George Bliss, and Hon. Samuel M. Hopkins.
In the First Annual Report of the Society, dated June 2, 1826, they
enter into an investigation "of the progress of crime, with the causes
of it," from which we make the following extracts:
"DEGRADED CHARACTER OF THE COLORED POPULATION.--The first cause,
existing in society, of the frequency and increase of crime is the
degraded character of the colored population. The facts, which are
gathered from the penitentiaries, to show how great a proportion of the
convicts are colored, even in those States where the colored population
is small, show, most strikingly, the connection between ignorance and
vice."
The report proceeds to sustain its assertions by statistics, which
prove, that, in Massachusetts, where the free colored people constituted
_one seventy-fourth_ part of the population, they supplied _one-sixth_
part of the convicts in her penitentiary; that in New York, where the
free colored people constituted _one thirty-fifth_ part of the
population, they supplied more than _one-fourth_ part of the convicts;
that, in Connecticut and Pennsylvania, where the colored people
constituted _one thirty-fourth_ part of the population, they supplied
more than _one-third_ part of the convicts; and that, in New Jersey,
where the colored people constituted _one-thirteenth_ part of the
population, they supplied more than _one-third_ part of the convicts.
"It is not necessary," continues the report, "to pursue these
illustrations. It is sufficiently apparent, that one great cause of the
frequency and increase of crime, is neglecting to raise the character of
the colored population.
"We derive an argument in favor of education from these facts. It
appears from the above statement, that about _one-fourth_ part of all
the expense incurred by the States above mentioned, for the support of
their criminal institutions, is for the colored convicts. * * Could
these States have anticipated these surprising results, and appropriated
the money to raise the character of the colored population, how much
better would have been their prospects, and how much less the expense of
the States through which they are dispersed for the support of their
colored convicts! * * If, however, their character can not be raised,
where they are, a powerful argument may be derived from these facts, in
favor of colonization, and civilized States ought surely to be as
willing to expend money on any given part of its population, to prevent
crime, as to punish it.
"We can not but indulge the hope that the facts disclosed above, if they
do not lead to an effort to raise the character of the colored
population, will strengthen the hands and encourage the hearts of all
the friends of colonizing the free people of color in the United
States."
The Second Annual Report of the Society, dated June 1, 1827, gives the
results of its continued investigations into the condition of the free
colored people, in the following language and figures:
"CHARACTER OF THE COLORED POPULATION.--In the last
report, this subject was exhibited at considerable
length. From a deep conviction of its importance,
and an earnest desire to keep it ever before the
public mind, till the remedy is applied, we
present the following table, showing, in regard to
several States, the whole population, the colored
population, the whole number of convicts, the
number of colored convicts, proportion of convicts
to the whole population, proportion of colored
convicts:
Whole Number Proportion Proportion
number of of of
Whole Colored of Colored Colored Colored
Population. Population. Convicts. Convicts. People. Convicts.
Mass. 523,000 7,000 314 50 1 to 74 1 to 6
Conn. 275,000 8,000 117 39 1 to 34 1 to 3
N. York 1,372,000 39,000 637 154 1 to 35 1 to 4
N. Jersey 277,000 20,000 74 24 1 to 13 1 to 3
Penn. 1,049,000 30,000 474 165 1 to 34 1 to 3
"Or,
_Proportion of the _Proportion of the
Population sent to Colored Popu'n
Prison._ sent to Prison._
In Massachusetts, 1 out of 1665 1 out of 140
In Connecticut, 1 out of 2350 1 out of 205
In New York, 1 out of 2153 1 out of 253
In New Jersey, 1 out of 3743 1 out of 833
In Pennsylvania, 1 out of 2191 1 out of 181
EXPENSE FOR THE SUPPORT OF COLORED CONVICTS.
In Masachusetts, in 10 years, $17,734
In Connecticut, in 15 years, 37,166
In New York, in 27 years, 109,166
--------
Total $164 066
"Such is the abstract of the information presented last year, concerning
the degraded character of the colored population. The returns from
several prisons show, that the white convicts are remaining nearly the
same, or are diminishing, while the colored convicts are increasing. At
the same time, the white population is increasing, in the Northern
States, much faster than the colored population."
_Whole No. _Colored
of Convicts._ Convicts._ _Proportion._
In Massachusetts, 313 50 1 to 6
In New York, 381 101 1 to 4
In New Jersey, 67 33 1 to 2
Such is the testimony of men of unimpeachable veracity and undoubted
philanthrophy, as to the early results of emancipation in the United
States. Had the freedmen, in the Northern States, improved their
privileges; had they established a reputation for industry, integrity,
and virtue, far other consequences would have followed their
emancipation. Their advancement in moral character would have put to
shame the advocate for the perpetuation of slavery. Indeed, there could
have been no plausible argument found for its continuance. No regular
exports of cotton, no cultivation of cane sugar, to give a profitable
character to slave labor, had any existence when Jay and Franklin
commenced their labors, and when Congress took its first step for the
suppression of the slave trade.
Unfortunately, the free colored people persevered in their evil habits.
This not only served to fix their own social and political condition on
the level of the slave, but it reacted with fearful effect upon their
brethren remaining in bondage. Their refusing to listen to the counsel
of the philanthropists, who urged them to forsake their indolence and
vice, and their frequent violations of the laws, more than all things
else, put a check to the tendencies, in public sentiment, toward general
emancipation. The failure of Franklin to obtain the means of
establishing institutions for the education of the blacks, confirmed the
popular belief that such an undertaking was impracticable, and the whole
African race, freedmen as well as slaves, were viewed as an intolerable
burden, such as the imports of foreign paupers are now considered. Thus
the free colored people themselves, ruthlessly threw the car of
emancipation from the track, and tore up the rails upon which, alone, it
could move.
CHAPTER III.
State of public opinion in relation to colored
population--Southern views of
Emancipation--Influence of Mr. Jefferson's
opinions--He opposed Emancipation except connected
with Colonization--Negro equality not contemplated
by the Father's of the Revolution--This proved by
the resolutions of their conventions--The true
objects of the opposition to the slave
trade--Motives of British Statesmen in forcing
Slavery on the colonies--Absurdity of supposing
negro equality was contemplated.
THE opinion that the African race would become a growing burden had its
origin before the revolution, and led the colonists to oppose the
introduction of slaves; but failing in this, through the opposition of
England, as soon as they threw off the foreign yoke many of the States
at once crushed the system--among the first acts of sovereignty by
Virginia, being the prohibition of the slave trade. In the determination
to suppress this traffic all the States united--but in emancipation
their policy differed. It was found easier to manage the slaves than the
free blacks--at least it was claimed to be so--and, for this reason, the
slave States, not long after the others had completed their work of
manumission, proceeded to enact laws prohibiting emancipations, except
on condition that the persons liberated should be removed. The newly
organized free States, too, taking alarm at this, and dreading the
influx of the free colored people, adopted measures to prevent the
ingress of this proscribed and helpless race.
These movements, so distressing to the reflecting colored man, be it
remembered, were not the effect of the action of colonizationists, but
took place, mostly, long before the organization of the American
Colonization Society; and, at its first annual meeting, the importance
and humanity of colonization was strongly urged, on the very ground that
the slave States, as soon as they should find that the persons liberated
could be sent to Africa, would relax their laws against emancipation.
The slow progress made by the great body of the free blacks in the
North, or the absence, rather, of any evidences of improvement in
industry, intelligence, and morality, gave rise to the notion, that
before they could be elevated to an equality with the whites, slavery
must be wholly abolished throughout the Union. The constant ingress of
liberated slaves from the South, to commingle with the free colored
people of the North, it was claimed, tended to perpetuate the low moral
standard originally existing among the blacks; and universal
emancipation was believed to be indispensable to the elevation of the
race. Those who adopted this view, seem to have overlooked the fact,
that the Africans, of savage origin, could not be elevated at once to an
equality with the American people, by the mere force of legal
enactments. More than this was needed, for their elevation, as all are
now, reluctantly, compelled to acknowledge. Emancipation, unaccompanied
by the means of intellectual and moral culture, is of but little value.
The savage, liberated from bondage, is a savage still.
The slave States adopted opinions, as to the negro character, opposite
to those of the free States, and would not risk the experiment of
emancipation. They said, if the free States feel themselves burdened by
the few Africans they have freed, and whom they find it impracticable to
educate and elevate, how much greater would be the evil the slave States
must bring upon themselves by letting loose a population nearly twelve
times as numerous. Such an act, they argued, would be suicidal--would
crush out all progress in civilization; or, in the effort to elevate the
negro with the white man, allowing him equal freedom of action, would
make the more energetic Anglo-Saxon the slave of the indolent African.
Such a task, onerous in the highest degree, they could not, and would
not undertake; such an experiment, on their social system, they dared
not hazard; and in this determination they were encouraged to
persevere, not only by the results of emancipation, then wrought out at
the North, but by the settled convictions which had long prevailed at
the South, in relation to the impropriety of freeing the negroes. This
opinion was one of long standing, and had been avowed by some of the
ablest statesmen of the Revolution. Among these Mr. Jefferson stood
prominent. He was inclined to consider the African inferior "in the
endowments both of body and mind" to the European; and, while expressing
his hostility to slavery earnestly, vehemently, he avowed the opinion
that it was impossible for the two races to live equally free in the
same government--that "nature, habit, opinion, had drawn indelible lines
of distinction between them"--that, accordingly, emancipation and
"deportation" (colonization) should go hand in hand--and that these
processes should be gradual enough to make proper provisions for the
blacks in a new country, and fill their places in this with free white
laborers.[2]
Another point needs examination. Notwithstanding the well-known opinions
of Mr. Jefferson, it has been urged that the Declaration of Independence
was designed, by those who issued it, to apply to the negro as well as
to the white man; and that they purposed to extend to the negro, at the
end of the struggle, then begun, all the privileges which they hoped to
secure for themselves. Nothing can be further from the truth, and
nothing more certain than that the rights of the negro never entered
into the questions then considered. That document was written by Mr.
Jefferson himself, and, with the views which he entertained, he could
not have thought, for a moment, of conferring upon the negro the rights
of American citizenship. Hear him further upon this subject and then
judge:
"It will probably be asked, why not retain and incorporate the blacks
into the State, and thus save the expense of supplying by importation of
white settlers, the vacancies they will leave? Deep-rooted prejudices
entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of
the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real
distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances, will
divide us into parties, and produce convulsions, which will probably
never end, but in the extermination of the one or the other race. To
these objections, which are political, may be added others, which are
physical and moral"[3]
Now it is evident, from this language, that Mr. Jefferson was not only
opposed to allowing the negroes the rights of citizenship, but that he
was opposed to emancipation also, except on the condition that the
freedmen should be removed from the country. He could, therefore, have
meant nothing more by the phrase, "all men are created equal," which he
employed in the Declaration of Independence, than the announcement of a
general principle, which, in its application to the colonists, was
intended most emphatically to assert their equality, before God and the
world, with the imperious Englishmen who claimed the divine right of
lording it over them. This was undoubtedly the view held by Mr.
Jefferson, and the extent to which he expected the language of the
Declaration to be applied.[4] Nor could the signers of that instrument,
or the people whom they represented, ever have intended to apply its
principles to any barbarous or semi-barbarous people, in the sense of
admitting them to an equality with themselves in the management of a
free government. Had this been their design, they must have enfranchised
both Indians and Africans, as both were within the territory over which
they exercised jurisdiction.
But testimony of a conclusive character is at hand, to show that quite
a different object was to be accomplished, than negro equality, in the
movements of the colonists which preceded the outbreak of the American
Revolution. They passed resolutions upon the subject of the slave trade,
it is true, but it was to oppose it, because it increased the colored
population, a result they deprecated in the strongest language. The
checking of this evil, great as the people considered it, was not the
principal object they had in view, in resolving to crush out the slave
trade. It was one of far greater moment, affecting the prosperity of the
mother country, and designed to force her to deal justly with the
colonies.
This point can only be understood by an examination of the history of
that period, so as to comprehend the relations existing between Great
Britain and her several colonies. Let us, then, proceed to the
performance of this task.
The whole commerce of Great Britain, in 1704, amounted, in value, to
thirty-two and a half millions of dollars. In less than three quarters
of a century thereafter, or three years preceding the outbreak of the
American Revolution, it had increased to eighty millions annually. More
than thirty millions of this amount, or over one-third of the whole,
consisted of exports to her West Indian and North American colonies and
to Africa. The yearly trade with Africa, alone, at this
period--1772--was over four and a third millions of dollars: a
significant fact, when it is known that this African traffic was in
slaves.
But this statement fails to give a true idea of the value of North
America and the West Indies to the mother country. Of the commodities
which she imported from them--tobacco, rice, sugar, rum--ten millions of
dollars worth, annually, were re-exported to her other dependencies, and
five millions to foreign countries--thus making her indebted to these
colonies, directly and indirectly, for more than one-half of all her
commerce.
If England was greatly dependent upon these colonies for her increasing
prosperity, they were also dependent upon her; and upon each other, for
the mutual promotion of their comfort and wealth. This is easily
understood. The colonies were prohibited from manufacturing for
themselves. This rendered it necessary that they should be supplied with
linen and woolen fabrics, hardware and cutlery, from the looms and shops
of Great Britain; and, in addition to these necessaries, they were
dependent upon her ships to furnish them with slaves from Africa. The
North American colonies were dependent upon the West Indies for coffee,
sugar, rum; and the West Indies upon North America, in turn, for their
main supplies of provisions and lumber. The North Americans, if
compelled by necessity, could do without the manufacures of England, and
forego the use of the groceries and rum of the West Indies; but Great
Britain could not easily bear the loss of half her commerce, nor could
the West India planters meet a sudden emergency that would cut off their
usual supplies of provisions.
Such were the relations existing between Great Britain and the colonies,
and between the colonies themselves, when the Bostonians cast the tea
overboard. This act of resistance to law, was followed by the passage,
through Parliament, of the Boston Port Bill, closing Boston Harbor to
all commerce whatsoever. The North American colonies, conscious of their
power over the commerce of Great Britain, at once obeyed the call of the
citizens of Boston, and united in the adoption of peaceful measures, to
force the repeal of the obnoxious act. Meetings of the people were held
throughout the country, generally, and resolutions passed, recommending
the non-importation and non-consumption of all British manufactures and
West India products; and resolving, also, that they would not export any
provisions, lumber, or other products, whatever, to Great Britain or any
of her colonies. These resolutions were accompanied by another, in many
of the counties of Virginia, in some of the State conventions, and,
finally, in those of the Continental Congress, in which the slave trade,
and the purchase of additional slaves, were specially referred to as
measures to be at once discontinued. These resolutions, in substance,
declare, as the sentiment of the people: That the African trade is
injurious to the colonies; that it obstructs the population of them by
freemen; that it prevents the immigration of manufacturers and other
useful emigrants from Europe from settling among them; that it is
dangerous to virtue and the welfare of the population; that it occasions
an annual increase of the balance of trade against them; that they most
earnestly wished to see an entire stop put to such a wicked, cruel, and
unlawful traffic; that they would not purchase any slaves hereafter to
be imported, nor hire their vessels, nor sell their commodities or
manufactures to those who are concerned in their importation.
From these facts it appears evident, that the primary object of all the
resolutions was to cripple the commerce of England. Those in relation to
the slave trade, especially, were expected, at once, when taken in
connection with the determination to withhold all supplies of provisions
from the West India planters--to stop the slave trade, and deprive the
British merchants of all further profits from that traffic. But it would
do more than this, as it would compel the West India planters, in a
great degree, to stop the cultivation of sugar and cotton, for export,
and force them to commence the growing of provisions for food--thus
producing ruinous consequences to British manufactures and commerce.[5]
But, in the opposition thus made to the slave trade, there is no act
warranting the conclusion that the negroes were to be admitted to a
position of equality with the whites. The sentiments expressed, with a
single exception,[6] are the reverse, and their increase viewed as an
evil. South Carolina and Georgia did not follow the example of Virginia
and North Carolina in resolving against the slave trade, but acquiesced
in the non-intercourse policy, until the grievances complained of should
be remedied. Another reason existed for opposing the slave trade; this
was the importance of preventing the increase of a population that might
be employed against the liberties of the colonies. That negroes were
thus employed, during the Revolution, is a matter of history; and that
the British hoped to use that population for their own advantage, is
clearly indicated by the language of the Earl of Dartmouth, who
declared, as a sufficient reason for turning a deaf ear to the
remonstrances of the colonists against the further importation of
slaves, that "Negroes cannot become Republicans--they will be a power in
our hands to restrain the unruly colonists."
And, now, will any one say, that the fathers of the Revolution ever
intended to declare the negro the equal of the white man, in the sense
that he was entitled to an equality of political privileges under the
constitution of the United States!
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Randall's Life of Jefferson, vol. i. page 370.
[3] Randall's Life of Jefferson, vol. i. page 370, Note.
[4] That Mr. Jefferson was considered as having no settled plans or
views in relation to the disposal of the blacks, and that he was
disinclined to risk the disturbance of the harmony of the country for
the sake of the negro, appears evident from the opinions entertained of
him and his schemes by John Quincy Adams. After speaking of the zeal of
Mr. Jefferson, and the strong manner in which, at times, he had spoken
against slavery, Mr. Adams says: "But Jefferson had not the spirit of
martyrdom. He would have introduced a flaming denunciation of slavery
into the Declaration of Independence, but the discretion of his
colleagues struck it out. He did insert a most eloquent and impassioned
argument against it in his Notes on Virginia; but, on that very account,
the book was published almost against his will. He projected a plan of
general emancipation, in his revision of the Virginia laws, but finally
presented a plan leaving slavery precisely where it was; and, in his
Memoir, he leaves a posthumous warning to the planters that they must,
at no distant day, emancipate their slaves, or that worse will follow;
but he withheld the publication of his prophecy till he should himself
be in the grave."--_Life of J. Q. Adams, page 177, 178._
[5] See a more extended detail of the proceedings in relation to this
subject, both in England and the colonies, in the Appendix.
[6] Providence, Rhode Island.
CHAPTER IV.
Dismal condition of Africa--Hopes of Wilberforce
disappointed--Organization of the American
Colonization Society--Its necessity, objects, and
policy--Public sentiment in its favor--Opposition
developes itself--Wm. Lloyd Garrison, James G.
Birney, Gerrit Smith--Effects of
opposition--Stimulants to Slavery--Exports of
Cotton--England sustaining American
Slavery--Failure of the Niger Expedition--Strength
of Slavery--Political action--Its failure--Its
fruits.
ANOTHER question, "How shall the slave trade be suppressed?" began to be
agitated near the close of the last century. The moral desolation
existing in Africa, was without a parallel among the nations of the
earth. When the last of our Northern States had freed its slaves, not a
single Christian Church had been successfully established in Africa, and
the slave trade was still legalized to the citizens of every Christian
nation. Even its subsequent prohibition, by the United States and
England, had no tendency to check the traffic, nor ameliorate the
condition of the African. The other Europeon powers, having now the
monopoly of the trade, continued to prosecute it with a vigor it never
felt before. The institution of slavery, while lessened in the United
States, where it had not yet been made profitable, was rapidly acquiring
an unprecedented enlargement in Cuba and Brazil, where its profitable
character had been more fully realized. How shall the slave trade be
annihilated, slavery extension prevented, and Africa receive a Christian
civilization? were questions that agitated the bosom of many a
philanthropist, long after Wilberforce had achieved his triumphs. It was
found, that the passage of laws prohibiting the slave trade, and the
extermination of that traffic, were two distinct things--the one not
necessarily following the other. The success of Wilberforce with the
British Parliament, only increased the necessity for additional
philanthropic efforts; and a quarter of a century afterwards found the
evil vastly increased which he imagined was wholly destroyed.
It was at the period in the history of Africa, and of public sentiment
on slavery, which we have been considering, that the American
Colonization Society was organized. It began its labors when the eye of
the statesman, the philanthropist, and the Christian, could discover no
other plan of overcoming the moral desolation, the universal oppression
of the colored race, than by restoring the most enlightened of their
number to Africa itself. Emancipation, by States, had been at an end for
a dozen of years. The improvement of the free colored people, in the
presence of the slave, was considered impracticable. Slave labor had
become so profitable, as to leave little ground to expect general
emancipation, even though all other objections had been removed. The
slave trade had increased twenty-five per cent. during the preceding ten
years. Slavery was rapidly extending itself in the tropics, and could
not be arrested but by the suppression of the slave trade. The foothold
of the Christian missionary was yet so precarious in Africa, as to leave
it doubtful whether he could sustain his position.
The colonization of the free colored people in Africa, under the
teachings of the Christian men who were prepared to accompany them, it
was believed, would as fully meet all the conditions of the race, as was
possible in the then existing state of the world. It would separate
those who should emigrate from all further contact with slavery, and
from its depressing influences; it would relax the laws of the slave
States against emancipation, and lead to the more frequent liberation of
slaves; it would stimulate and encourage the colored people remaining
here, to engage in efforts for their own elevation; it would establish
free republics along the coast of Africa, and drive away the slave
trader; it would prevent the extension of slavery, by means of the slave
trade, in tropical America; it would introduce civilization and
Christianity among the people of Africa, and overturn their barbarism
and bloody superstitions; and, if successful, it would react upon
slavery at home, by pointing out to the States and General Government, a
mode by which they might free themselves from the whole African race.
The Society had thus undertaken as great an amount of work as it could
perform. The field was broad enough, truly, for an association that
hoped to obtain an income of but five to ten thousand dollars a year,
and realized annually an average of only $3,276 during the first six
years of its existence. It did not include the destruction of American
slavery among the objects it labored to accomplish. That subject had
been fully discussed; the ablest men in the nation had labored for its
overthrow; more than half the original States of the Union had
emancipated their slaves; the advantages of freedom to the colored man
had been tested; the results had not been as favorable as anticipated;
the public sentiment of the country was adverse to an increase of the
free colored population; the few of their number who had risen to
respectability and affluence, were too widely separated to act in
concert in promoting measures for the general good; and, until better
results should follow the liberation of slaves, further emancipations,
by the States, were not to be expected. The friends of the Colonization
Society, therefore, while affording every encouragement to emancipation
by individuals, refused to agitate the question of the general abolition
of slavery. Nor did they thrust aside any other scheme of benevolence in
behalf of the African race. Forty years had elapsed from the
commencement of emancipation in the country, and thirty from the date of
Franklin's Appeal, before the society sent off its first emigrants. At
that date, no extended plans were in existence, promising relief to the
free colored man. A period of lethargy, among the benevolent, had
succeeded the State emancipations, as a consequence of the indifference
of the free colored people, as a class, to their degraded condition. The
public sentiment of the country was fully prepared, therefore, to adopt
colonization as the best means, or, rather, as the only means for
accomplishing any thing for them or for the African race. Indeed, so
general was the sentiment in favor of colonization, somewhere beyond the
limits of the United States, that those who disliked Africa, commenced a
scheme of emigration to Hayti, and prosecuted it, until eight thousand
free colored persons were removed to that island--a number nearly
equaling the whole emigration to Liberia up to 1850. Haytien emigration,
however, proved a most disastrous experiment.
But the general acquiescence in the objects of the Colonization Society
did not long continue. The exports of cotton from the South were then
rapidly on the increase. Slave labor had become profitable, and slaves,
in the cotton-growing States, were no longer considered a burden. Seven
years after the first emigrants reached Liberia, the South exported
294,310,115 lbs. of cotton; and, the year following, the total cotton
crop reached 325,000,000 lbs. But a great depression in prices had
occurred,[7] and alarmed the planters for their safety. They had
decided against emancipation, and now to have their slaves rendered
valueless, was an evil they were determined to avert. The Report of the
Boston Prison Discipline Society, which appeared at this moment, was
well calculated, by the disclosures it made, to increase the alarm in
the South, and to confirm slaveholders in their belief of the dangers of
emancipation.
At this juncture, a warfare against colonization was commenced at the
South, and it was pronounced an abolition scheme in disguise. In
defending itself, the society re-asserted its principles of neutrality
in relation to slavery, and that it had only in view the colonization of
the free colored people. In the heat of the contest, the South were
reminded of their former sentiments in relation to the whole colored
population, and that colonization merely proposed removing one division
of a people they had pronounced a public burden.[8]
The emancipationists at the North had only lent their aid to
colonization in the hope that it would prove an able auxiliary to
abolition; but when the society declared its unalterable purpose to
adhere to its original position of neutrality, they withdrew their
support, and commenced hostilities against it. "The Anti-Slavery
Society," said a distinguished abolitionist, "began with a declaration
of war against the Colonization Society."[9] This feeling of hostility
was greatly increased by the action of the abolitionists of England.
The doctrine of "Immediate, not Gradual Abolition," was announced by
them as their creed; and the anti-slavery men of the United States
adopted it as the basis of their action. Its success in the English
Parliament, in procuring the passage of the Act for West India
emancipation, in 1833, gave a great impulse to the abolition cause in
the United States.
In 1832, William Lloyd Garrison declared hostilities against the
Colonization Society; in 1834, James G. Birney followed his example;
and, in 1836 Gerritt Smith also abandoned the cause. The North
everywhere resounded with the cry of "Immediate Abolition;" and, in
1837, the abolitionists numbered 1,015 societies; had seventy agents
under commission, and an income, for the year, of $36,000.[10] The
Colonization Society, on the other hand, was greatly embarrassed. Its
income, in 1838, was reduced to $10,000; it was deeply in debt; the
parent society did not send a single emigrant, that year, to Liberia;
and its enemies pronounced it bankrupt and dead.[11]
But did the abolitionists succeed in forcing emancipation upon the
South, when they had thus rendered colonization powerless? Did the
fetters fall from the slave at their bidding? Did fire from heaven
descend, and consume the slaveholder at their invocation? No such thing!
They had not touched the true cause of the extension of slavery. They
had not discovered the secret of its power; and, therefore, its locks
remained unshorn, its strength unabated. The institution advanced as
triumphantly as if no opposition existed. The planters were progressing
steadily, in securing to themselves the monopoly of the cotton markets
of Europe, and in extending the area of slavery at home. In the same
year that Gerritt Smith declared for abolition, the title of the Indians
to fifty-five millions of acres of land, in the slave States, was
extinguished, and the tribes removed. The year that colonization was
depressed to the lowest point, the exports of cotton, from the United
States, amounted to 595,952,297 lbs., and the consumption of the article
in England, to 477,206,108 lbs.
When Mr. Birney seceded from colonization, he encouraged his new allies
with the hope, that West India free labor would render our slave labor
less profitable, and emancipation, as a consequence, be more easily
effected. How stood this matter six years afterward? This will be best
understood by contrast. In 1800, the West Indies exported 17,000,000
lbs. of cotton, and the United States, 17,789,803 lbs. They were then
about equally productive in that article. In 1840, the West India
exports had dwindled down to 427,529 lbs., while those of the United
States had increased to 743,941,061 lbs.
And what was England doing all this while? Having lost her supplies from
the West Indies, she was quietly spinning away at American slave labor
cotton; and to ease the public conscience of the kingdom, was loudly
talking of a free labor supply of the commodity from the banks of the
Niger! But the expedition up that river failed, and 1845 found her
manufacturing 626,496,000 lbs. of cotton, mostly the product of American
slaves! The strength of American slavery at that moment may be inferred
from the fact, that we exported that year 872,905,996 lbs. of cotton,
and our production of cane sugar had reached over 200,000,000 lbs.;
while, to make room for slavery extension, we were busied in the
annexation of Texas and in preparations for the consequent war with
Mexico!
But abolitionists themselves, some time before this, had, mostly, become
convinced of the feeble character of their efforts against slavery, and
allowed politicians to enlist them in a political crusade, as the last
hope of arresting the progress of the system. The cry of "Immediate
Abolition" died away; reliance upon moral means was mainly abandoned;
and the limitation of the institution, geographically, became the chief
object of effort. The results of more than a dozen years of political
action are before the public, and what has it accomplished! We are not
now concerned in the inquiry of how far the strategy of politicians
succeeded in making the votes of abolitionists subservient to slavery
extension. That they did so, in at least one prominent case, will never
be denied by any candid man. All we intend to say, is, that the cotton
planters, instead of being crippled in their operations, were able, in
the year ending the last of June, 1853, to export 1,111,570,370 lbs. of
cotton, beside supplying near 300,000,000 lbs. for home consumption; and
that England, the year ending the last of January, 1853, consumed the
unprecedented quantity of 817,998,048 lbs. of that staple.[12] The year
1854, instead of finding slavery perishing under the blows it had
received, has witnessed the destruction of all the old barriers to its
extension, and beholds it expanded widely enough for the profitable
employment of the slave population, with all its natural increase, for a
hundred years to come!!
If political action against slavery has been thus disastrously
unfortunate, how is it with anti-slavery action, at large, as to its
efficiency at this moment? On this point, hear the testimony of a
correspondent of Frederick Douglass' Paper, January 26, 1855:
"How gloriously did the anti-slavery cause arise . . . . . . in 1833-4!
And now what is it, in our agency! . . . . . . What is it, through the
errors or crimes of its advocates variously--probably quite as much as
through the brazen, gross, and licentious wickedness of its enemies.
Alas! what is it but a mutilated, feeble, discordant, and half-expiring
instrument, at which Satan and his children, legally and illegally,
scoff! Of it I despair."
Such are the crowning results of both political and anti-slavery action,
for the overthrow of slavery! Such are the demonstrations of their utter
impotency as a means of relief to the bond and free of the colored
people!
Surely, then, if the negro is capable of elevation, it is time that some
other measures should be devised, than those hitherto adopted, for the
melioration of the African race! Surely, too, it is time for the
American people to rebuke that class of politicians, North and South,
whose only capital consists in keeping up a fruitless warfare upon the
subject of slavery--nay! abundant in fruits to the poor colored man; but
to him, "their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of
Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter;
their vine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps."[13]
The application of this language, to the case under consideration, will
be fully justified when the facts, in the remaining pages of this work,
are carefully studied.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] See Table I, Appendix.
[8] The sentiment of the Colonization Society, was expressed in the
following resolution, embraced in its annual report of 1826:
"_Resolved_,--That the society disclaims, in the most unqualified terms,
the design attributed to it, of interfering, on the one hand, with the
legal rights and obligations of slavery; and, on the other, of
perpetuating its existence within the limits of the country."
On another occasion Mr. Clay, on behalf of the society, defined its
position thus:
"It protested, from the commencement, and throughout all its progress,
and it now protests, that it entertains no purpose, on its own
authority, or by its own means, to attempt emancipation, partial or
general; that it knows the General Government has no constitutional
power to achieve such an object; that it believes that the States, and
the States only, which tolerate slavery, can accomplish the work of
emancipation; and that it ought to be left to them exclusively,
absolutely, and voluntarily, to decide the question."--_Tenth Annual
Report, p. 14, 1828._
[9] Gerrit Smith, 1835.
[10] Lundy's Life.
[11] On the floor of an Ecclesiastical Assembly, one minister pronounced
colonization "a dead horse;" while another claimed that his "old mare
was giving freedom to more slaves, by trotting off with them to Canada,
than the Colonization Society was sending of emigrants to Liberia."
[12] This portion of the work is left unchanged, and the statistics of
the increase of slave labor products, up to 1859, introduced elsewhere.
[13] Deuteronomy, xxxii. 32, 33.
CHAPTER V.
THE RELATIONS OF AMERICAN SLAVERY TO THE INDUSTRIAL INTERESTS OF OUR
COUNTRY; TO THE DEMANDS OF COMMERCE; AND TO THE PRESENT POLITICAL
CRISIS.
Present condition of Slavery--Not an isolated
system--Its relations to other industrial
interests--To manufactures, commerce, trade, human
comfort--Its benevolent aspect--The reverse
picture--Immense value of tropical possessions to
Great Britain--England's attempted monopoly of
Manufactures--Her dependence on American
Planters--Cotton Planters attempt to monopolize
Cotton markets--_Fusion_ of these parties--Free
Trade essential to their success--Influence on
agriculture, mechanics--Exports of Cotton,
Tobacco, etc.--Increased production of
Provisions--Their extent--New markets needed.
THE institution of slavery, at this moment, gives indications of a
vitality that was never anticipated by its friends or foes. Its enemies
often supposed it about ready to expire, from the wounds they had
inflicted, when in truth it had taken two steps in advance, while they
had taken twice the number in an opposite direction. In each successive
conflict, its assailants have been weakened, while its dominion has been
extended.
This has arisen from causes too generally overlooked. Slavery is not an
isolated system, but is so mingled with the business of the world, that
it derives facilities from the most innocent transactions. Capital and
labor, in Europe and America, are largely employed in the manufacture of
cotton. These goods, to a great extent, may be seen freighting every
vessel, from Christian nations, that traverses the seas of the globe;
and filling the warehouses and shelves of the merchants over two-thirds
of the world. By the industry, skill, and enterprise employed in the
manufacture of cotton, mankind are better clothed; their comfort better
promoted; general industry more highly stimulated; commerce more widely
extended; and civilization more rapidly advanced than in any preceding
age.
To the superficial observer, all the agencies, based upon the sale and
manufacture of cotton, seem to be legitimately engaged in promoting
human happiness; and he, doubtless, feels like invoking Heaven's
choicest blessings upon them. When he sees the stockholders in the
cotton corporations receiving their dividends, the operatives their
wages, the merchants their profits, and civilized people everywhere
clothed comfortably in cottons, he can not refrain from exclaiming: The
lines have fallen unto them in pleasant places; yea, they have a goodly
heritage!
But turn a moment to the source whence the raw cotton, the basis of
these operations, is obtained, and observe the aspect of things in that
direction. When the statistics on the subject are examined, it appears
that nine-tenths of the cotton consumed in the Christian world is the
product of the slave labor of the United States.[14] It is this monopoly
that has given to slavery its commercial value; and, while this monopoly
is retained, the institution will continue to extend itself wherever it
can find room to spread. He who looks for any other result, must expect
that nations, which, for centuries, have waged war to extend their
commerce, will now abandon that means of aggrandizement, and bankrupt
themselves to force the abolition of American slavery!
This is not all. The economical value of slavery, as an agency for
supplying the means of extending manufactures and commerce, has long
been understood by statesmen.[15] The discovery of the power of steam,
and the inventions in machinery, for preparing and manufacturing cotton,
revealed the important fact, that a single island, having the monopoly
secured to itself, could supply the world with clothing. Great Britain
attempted to gain this monopoly; and, to prevent other countries from
rivaling her, she long prohibited all emigration of skillful mechanics
from the kingdom, as well as all exports of machinery. As country after
country was opened to her commerce, the markets for her manufactures
were extended, and the demand for the raw material increased. The
benefits of this enlarged commerce of the world, were not confined to a
single nation, but mutually enjoyed by all. As each had products to
sell, peculiar to itself, the advantages often gained by one were no
detriment to the others. The principal articles demanded by this
increasing commerce have been coffee, sugar, and cotton, in the
production of which slave labor has greatly predominated. Since the
enlargement of manufactures, cotton has entered more extensively into
commerce than coffee and sugar, though the demand for all three has
advanced with the greatest rapidity. England could only become a great
commercial nation, through the agency of her manufactures. She was the
best supplied, of all the nations, with the necessary capital, skill,
labor, and fuel, to extend her commerce by this means. But, for the raw
material, to supply her manufactories, she was dependent upon other
countries. The planters of the United States were the most favorably
situated for the cultivation of cotton; and while Great Britain was
aiming at monopolizing its manufacture, they attempted to monopolize the
markets for that staple. This led to a fusion of interests between them
and the British manufacturers; and to the adoption of principles in
political economy, which, if rendered effective, would promote the
interests of this coalition. With the advantages possessed by the
English manufacturers, "Free Trade" would render all other nations
subservient to their interests; and, so far as their operations should
be increased, just so far would the demand for American cotton be
extended. The details of the success of the parties to this combination,
and the opposition they have had to encounter, are left to be noticed
more fully hereafter. To the cotton planters, the co-partnership has
been eminently advantageous.
How far the other agricultural interests of the United States are
promoted, by extending the cultivation of cotton, may be inferred from
the Census returns of 1850, and the Congressional Reports on Commerce
and Navigation, for 1854.[16] Cotton and tobacco, only, are largely
exported. The production of sugar does not yet equal our consumption of
the article, and we import, chiefly from slave labor countries,
445,445,680 lbs. to make up the deficiency.[17] But of cotton and
tobacco, we export more than _two-thirds_ of the amount produced; while
of other products of the agriculturists, less than the _one forty-sixth_
part is exported. Foreign nations, generally, can grow their provisions,
but can not grow their tobacco and cotton. Our surplus provisions, not
exported, go to the villages, towns, and cities, to feed the mechanics,
manufacturers, merchants, professional men, and others; or to the cotton
and sugar districts of the South, to feed the planters and their slaves.
The increase of mechanics and manufacturers at the North, and the
expansion of slavery at the South, therefore, augment the markets for
provisions, and promote the prosperity of the farmer. As the mechanical
population increases, the implements of industry and articles of
furniture are multiplied, so that both farmer and planter can be
supplied with them on easier terms. As foreign nations open their
markets to cotton fabrics, increased demands for the raw material are
made. As new grazing and grain-growing States are developed, and teem
with their surplus productions, the mechanic is benefited, and the
planter, relieved from food-raising, can employ his slaves more
extensively upon cotton. It is thus that our exports are increased; our
foreign commerce advanced; the home markets of the mechanic and farmer
extended, and the wealth of the nation promoted. It is thus, also, that
the free labor of the country finds remunerating markets for its
products--though at the expense of serving as an efficient auxiliary in
the extension of slavery!
But more: So speedily are new grain-growing States springing up; so
vast is the territory owned by the United States, ready for settlement;
and so enormous will soon be the amount of products demanding profitable
markets, that the national government has been seeking new outlets for
them, upon our own continent, to which, alone, they can be
advantageously transported. That such outlets, when our vast possessions
Westward are brought under cultivation, will be an imperious necessity,
is known to every statesman. The farmers of these new States, after the
example of those of the older sections of the country, will demand a
market for their products. This can be furnished, only, by the extension
of slavery; by the acquisition of more tropical territory; by opening
the ports of Brazil, and other South American countries, to the
admission of our provisions; by their free importation into European
countries; or by a vast enlargement of domestic manufactures, to the
exclusion of foreign goods from the country. Look at this question as it
now stands, and then judge of what it must be twenty years hence. The
class of products under consideration, in the whole country, in 1853,
were valued at $1,551,176,490; of which there were exported to foreign
countries, to the value of only $33,809,126.[18] The planter will not
assent to any check upon the foreign imports of the country, for the
benefit of the farmer. This demands the adoption of vigorous measures to
secure a market for his products by some of the other modes stated.
Hence, the orders of our executive, in 1851, for the exploration of the
valley of the Amazon; the efforts, in 1854, to obtain a treaty with
Brazil, for the free navigation of that immense river; the negotiations
for a military foothold in St. Domingo; and the determination to acquire
Cuba. But we must not anticipate topics to be considered at a later
period in our discussion.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] See Appendix, Table I.
[15] It may be well here to illustrate this point, by an extract from
McQueen, of England, in 1844, when this highly intelligent gentleman was
urging upon his government the great necessity which existed for
securing to itself, as speedily as possible, the control of the labor
and the products of tropical Africa. In reference to the benefits which
had been derived from her West India colonies, before the suppression of
the slave trade and the emancipation of the slaves had rendered them
comparatively unproductive, he said: "During the fearful struggle of a
quarter of a century, for her existence as a nation, against the power
and resources of Europe, directed by the most intelligent but
remorseless military ambition against her, the command of the
productions of the torrid zone, and the advantageous commerce which that
afforded, gave to Great Britain the power and the resources which
enabled her to meet, to combat, and to overcome, her numerous and
reckless enemies in every battle-field, whether by sea or land,
throughout the world. In her the world saw realized the fabled giant of
antiquity. With her hundred hands she grasped her foes in every region
under heaven, and crushed them with resistless energy."
In further presenting the considerations which he considered necessary
to secure the adoption of the policy he was urging, Mr. McQueen referred
to the difficulties which were then surrounding Great Britain, and the
extent to which rival nations had surpassed her in tropical cultivation.
He continued: "The increased cultivation and prosperity of foreign
tropical possessions is become so great, and is advancing so rapidly the
power and resources of other nations, that these are embarrassing this
country, (England,) in all her commercial relations, in her pecuniary
resources, and in all her political relations and negotiations." . . . .
. . "Instead of supplying her own wants with tropical productions, and
next nearly all Europe, as she formerly did, she had scarcely enough, of
some of the most important articles, for her own consumption, while her
colonies were mostly supplied with foreign slave produce." . . . . . .
"In the mean time tropical productions had been increased from
$75,000,000, to $300,000,000 annually. The English capital invested in
tropical productions in the East and West Indies, had been, by
emancipation in the latter, reduced from $750,000,000, to $650,000,000;
while, since 1808, on the part of foreign nations $4,000,000,000 of
fixed capital had been created in slaves and in cultivation wholly
dependent upon the labor of slaves." The odds, therefore, in
agricultural and commercial capital and interest, and consequently in
political power and influence, arrayed against the British tropical
possessions, were very fearful--six to one. This will be better
understood by giving the figures on the subject. The contrast is very
striking, and reveals the secret of England's untiring zeal about
slavery and the slave trade. Indeed, Mr. McQueen frankly acknowledges,
that "If the foreign slave trade be not extinguished, and the
cultivation of the tropical territories of other powers opposed and
checked by British tropical cultivation, then the interests and the
power of such states will rise into a preponderance over those of Great
Britain; and the power and the influence of the latter will cease to be
felt, feared and respected, amongst the civilized and powerful nations
of the world."
But here are the figures upon which this humiliating acknowledgement is
made. The productions of the tropical possessions of Great Britain and
foreign countries, respectively, at the period alluded to by Mr.
McQueen, and as given by himself, stood as follows:
SUGAR--1842.
British Possessions. | Foreign countries.
|
West Indies, cwts. 2,508,552 | Cuba, cwts. 5,800,000
East Indies, " 940,452 | Brazil, " 2,400,000
Mauritius,(1841) " 544,767 | Java, " 1,105,757
------------------| Louisiana, " 1,400,000
Total 3,993,771 | ------------------
| Total 10,705,757
COFFEE--1842.
West Indies, lbs. 9,186,555 | Java, lbs. 134,842,715
East Indies, " 18,206,448 | Brazil, " 135,000,800
------------------ | Cuba, " 33,589,325
Total 27,393,003 | Venezuela, " 34,000,000
| ------------------
| Total 337,432,840
COTTON--1840.
West Indies, lbs. 427,529 | United States, lbs. 790,479,275
East Indies, " 77,015,917 | Java, " 165,504,800
To China from do. " 60,000,000 | Brazil, " 25,222,828
------------------| ------------------
Total 137,443,446 | Total 981,206,903
[16] See Appendix, Table II.
[17] Table III. For Statistics up to 1859, see chapter VI. and Appendix.
[18] See Appendix, Table II.
CHAPTER VI.
Foresight of Great Britain--Hon. George Thompson's
predictions--Their failure--England's dependence
on Slave labor--Blackwood's Magazine--London
Economist--McCullough--Her exports of cotton
goods--Neglect to improve the proper moment for
Emancipation--Admission of Gerrit Smith--_Cotton_,
its exports, its value, extent of crop, and cost
of our cotton fabrics--_Provisions_, their value,
their export, their consumption--_Groceries_,
source of their supplies, cost of amount
consumed--Our total indebtedness to Slave
labor--How far Free labor sustains Slave labor.
ANTECEDENT to all the movements noticed in the preceding chapter, Great
Britain had foreseen the coming increased demand for tropical products.
Indeed, her West Indian policy, of a few years previous, had hastened
the crisis; and, to repair her injuries, and meet the general outcry for
cotton, she made the most vigorous efforts to promote its cultivation in
her own tropical possessions. The motives prompting her to this policy,
need not be referred to here, as they will be noticed hereafter. The
Hon. George Thompson, it will be remembered, when urging the increase of
cotton cultivation in the East Indies, declared that the scheme must
succeed, and that, soon, all slave labor cotton would be repudiated by
the British manufacturers. Mr Garrison indorsed the measure, and
expressed his belief that, with its success, the American slave system
must inevitably perish from starvation! But England's efforts signally
failed, and the golden apple, fully ripened, dropped into the lap of our
cotton planters.[19] The year that heard Thompson's pompous
predictions,[20] witnessed the consumption of but 445,744,000 lbs. of
cotton, by England; while, fourteen years later, she used 817,998,048
lbs., nearly 700,000,000 lbs. of which were obtained from America!
That we have not overstated her dependence upon our slave labor for
cotton is a fact of world-wide notoriety. _Blackwood's Magazine_,
January, 1853, in referring to the cultivation of the article, by the
United States, says:
"With its increased growth has sprung up that mercantile navy, which
now waves its stripes and stars over every sea, and that foreign
influence, which has placed the internal peace--we may say the
subsistence of millions in every manufacturing country in Europe--within
the power of an oligarchy of planters."
In reference to the same subject, the _London Economist_ quotes as
follows:
"Let any great social or physical convulsion visit the United States,
and England would feel the shock from Land's End to John O'Groats. The
lives of nearly two millions of our countrymen are dependent upon the
cotton crops of America; their destiny may be said, without any kind of
hyperbole, to hang upon a thread. Should any dire calamity befall the
land of cotton, a thousand of our merchant ships would rot idly in dock;
ten thousand mills must stop their busy looms; two thousand thousand
mouths would starve, for lack of food to feed them."
A more definite statement of England's indebtedness to cotton, is given
by McCullough; who shows that as far back as 1832, her exports of cotton
fabrics were equal in value to about two-thirds of all the woven fabrics
exported from the empire. The same state of things, nearly, existed in
1849, when the cotton fabrics exported, according to the _London
Economist_, were valued at about $140,000,000, while all the other woven
fabrics exported did not quite reach to the value of $68,000,000. On
consulting the same authority, of still later dates, it appears, that
the last four years has produced no material change in the relations
which the different classes of British fabrics, exported, bear to each
other. The present condition of the demand and supplies of cotton,
throughout Europe, and the extent to which the increasing consumption of
that staple must stimulate the American planters to its increased
production, will be noticed in the proper place.[21]
There was a time when American slave labor sustained no such relations
to the manufactures and commerce of the world as it now so firmly holds;
and when, by the adoption of proper measures, on the part of the free
colored people and their friends, the emancipation of the slaves, in all
the States, might, possibly, have been effected. But that period has
passed forever away, and causes, unforeseen, have come into operation,
which are too powerful to be overcome by any agencies that have since
been employed.[22] What Divine Providence may have in store for the
future, we know not; but, at present, the institution of slavery is
sustained by numberless pillars, too massive for human power and wisdom
to overthrow.
Take another view of this subject. To say nothing now of the tobacco,
rice, and sugar, which are the products of our slave labor, we exported
raw cotton to the value of $109,456,404 in 1853. Its destination was, to
Great Britain, 768,596,498 lbs.; to the Continent of Europe, 335,271,434
lbs.; to countries on our own Continent, 7,702,438 lbs.; making the
total exports, 1,111,570,370 lbs. The entire crop of that year being
1,305,152,800 lbs., gives, for home consumption, 268,403,600 lbs.[23] Of
this, there was manufactured into cotton fabrics to the value of
$61,869,274;[24] of which there was retained, for home markets, to the
value of $53,100,290. Our imports of cotton fabrics from Europe, in
1853, for consumption, amounted in value to $26,477,950:[25] thus
making our cottons, foreign and domestic, for that year, cost us
$79,578,240.
In bringing down the results to 1858, it will be seen that the imports
of foreign cotton goods has fluctuated at higher and lower amounts than
those of 1853; and that an actual decrease of our exports of cotton
manufactures has taken place since that date.[26] But in the exports of
raw cotton there has been an increase of nearly a hundred millions of
pounds over that of 1853--the total exports of 1859 being 1,208,561,200
lbs. The total crop of 1859, in the United States, was 1,606,800,000
lbs., and the amount taken for consumption 371,060,800 lbs.[27]
Thus, while our consumption of foreign cotton goods is not on the
increase, the foreign demand for our raw cotton is rapidly augmenting;
and thus the American planter is becoming more and more important to the
manufactures and commerce of the world.
This, now, is what becomes of our cotton; this is the way in which it so
largely constitutes the basis of commerce and trade; and this is the
nature of the relations existing between the slavery of the United
States and the economical interests of the world.
But have the United States no other great leading interests, except
those which are involved in the production of cotton? Certainly, they
have. Here is a great field for the growth of provisions. In ordinary
years, exclusive of tobacco and cotton, our agricultural property, when
added to the domestic animals and their products, amounts in value
$1,551,176,490. Of this, there is exported only to the value of
$33,809,126; which leaves for home consumption and use, a remainder to
the value of $1,517,367,364.[28] The portions of the property
represented by this immense sum of money, which pass from the hands of
the agriculturists, are distributed throughout the Union, for the
support of the day laborers, sailors, mechanics, manufacturers, traders,
merchants, professional men, planters, and the slave population. This is
what becomes of our provisions.
Besides this annual consumption of provisions, most of which is the
product of free labor, the people of the United States use a vast amount
of groceries, which are mainly of slave labor origin. Boundless as is
the influence of cotton, in stimulating slavery extension, that of the
cultivation of groceries falls but little short of it; the chief
difference being, that they do not receive such an increased value under
the hand of manufacturers. The cultivation of coffee, in Brazil, employs
as great a number of slaves as that of cotton in the United States.
But, to comprehend fully our indebtedness to slave labor for groceries,
we must descend to particulars. Our imports of coffee, tobacco, sugar,
and molasses, for 1853, amounted in value to $38,479,000; of which the
hand of the slave, in Brazil and Cuba, mainly, supplied to the value of
$34,451,000.[29] This shows the extent to which we are sustaining
foreign slavery, by the consumption of these four products. But this is
not our whole indebtedness to slavery for groceries. Of the domestic
grown tobacco, valued at $19,975,000, of which we retain nearly
one-half, the Slave States produce to the value of $16,787,000; of
domestic rice, the product of the South, we consume to the value of
$7,092,000; of domestic slave grown sugar and molasses, we take, for
home consumption, to the value of $34,779,000; making our grocery
account, with domestic slavery, foot up to the sum of $50,449,000. Our
whole indebtedness, then, to slavery, foreign and domestic, for these
four commodities, after deducting two millions of re-exports amounts to
$82,607,000.
The exports of tobacco are on the increase, as appears from Table VIII
of Appendix, showing an extension of its cultivation; but the exports of
rice are not on the increase, from which it would appear that its
production remains stationary.
By adding the value of the foreign and domestic cotton fabrics,
consumed annually in the United States, to the yearly cost of the
groceries which the country uses, our total indebtedness, for articles
of slave labor origin, will be found swelling up to the enormous sum of
$162,185,240.[30]
We have now seen the channels through which our cotton passes off into
the great sea of commerce, to furnish the world its clothing. We have
seen the origin and value of our provisions, and to whom they are sold.
We have seen the sources whence our groceries are derived, and the
millions of money they cost. To ascertain how far these several
interests are sustained by one another, will be to determine how far any
one of them becomes an element of expansion to the others. To decide a
question of this nature with precision is impracticable. The statistics
are not attainable. It may be illustrated, however, in various ways, so
as to obtain a conclusion proximately accurate. Suppose, for example,
that the supplies of food from the North were cut off, the manufactories
left in their present condition, and the planters forced to raise their
provisions and draught animals: in such circumstances, the export of
cotton must cease, as the lands of these States could not be made to
yield more than would subsist their own population, and supply the
cotton demanded by the Northern States. Now, if this be true of the
agricultural resources of the cotton States--and it is believed to be
nearly the full extent of their capacity--then the surplus of cotton, to
the value of more than a hundred millions of dollars, now annually sent
abroad, stands as the representative of the yearly supplies which the
cotton planters receive from the farmers north of the cotton line. This,
therefore, as will afterward more fully appear, may be taken as the
probable extent to which the supplies from the North serve as an element
of slavery expansion in the article of cotton alone.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] Paganism has, long since, attained its maximum in agricultural
industry, and the introduction of Christian civilization, into India,
can, alone, lead to an increase of its productions for export.
[20] 1839.
[21] ENGLAND AND SLAVERY.--In the _London Times_ of October 7th, 1858,
there is a long and very able and candid article on the subject of
cotton. The proportions of the article used by different nations are
thus stated:
Great Britain, 51.28
France, 13.24
Northern Europe, 6.84
Other foreign ports, 5.91
Consumption of the U. S., 23.58
Thus it appears that England uses more of the raw material than all the
rest of the world. After giving the great facts the writer uses the
following language:
"An advance of one pence per pound on the price of American cotton is
welcomed by the slave-owner of the Southern States as supplying him with
the sinews of war for the struggle now waging with the Northern
abolitionists. This mere advance of one pence on our present annual
consumption is equivalent to an annual subscription of sixteen millions
of dollars toward the maintainance of American slavery."--_American
Missionary._
[22] See the speech of the Hon. Gerrit Smith, on the "Kansas-Nebraska
Bill," in which he asserts, that the invention of the _Cotton Gin_
fastened slavery upon the country; and that, but for its invention,
slavery would long since have disappeared.
[23] This is only the consumption north of Virginia.
[24] This estimate is probably too low, being taken from the census of
1850. The exports of cottons for 1850 were $4,734,424; and for 1353,
$8,768,894; having nearly doubled in four years.
[25] These figures were taken from the official documents for the first
edition. They vary a little from the revised documents from which Table
VII is taken, but not so as to affect our argument.
[26] See Table VII, in Appendix.
[27] See Table VI, in Appendix; and in this connection it may be
explained that the _crop year_ ends August 31st.
[28] See Table II, in Appendix. We have of course to limit our
statements in relation to some of these amounts to the figures used in
the first edition, because they can only be ascertained from the census
tables of 1850. While it will be found that the exports of bread-stuffs
and provisions have increased considerably, it will be seen from Table
VIII that it is not in a greater ratio than the exports of cotton and
tobacco. To show that the statement as it stands was a fair one at the
time, it is only necessary for the reader to look at the last named
table to see that the three years preceding 1853 exported considerably
less than that year.
[29] See Table III, Appendix.
[30] These estimates have not been recast and adapted to 1859, for the
third edition, because, as will be seen from Tables VII, VIII and X,
there has been no great change in the amount of these commodities
consumed since 1853.
CHAPTER VII.
Economical relations of Slavery further
considered--System unprofitable in grain growing,
but profitable in culture of Cotton--Antagonism of
Farmer and Planter--"Protection," and, "Free
Trade" controversy--Congressional Debates on the
subject--Mr. Clay--Position of the South--"Free
Trade," considered indispensable to its
prosperity.
BUT the subject of the relations of American slavery to the economical
interests of the world, demands a still closer scrutiny, in order that
the causes of the failure of abolitionism to arrest its progress, as
well as the present relations of the institution to the politics of the
country, may fully appear.
Slave labor has seldom been made profitable where it has been wholly
employed in grazing and grain growing; but it becomes remunerative in
proportion as the planters can devote their attention to cotton, sugar,
rice, or tobacco. To render Southern slavery profitable in the highest
degree, therefore, the slaves must be employed upon some one of these
articles, and be sustained by a supply of food and draught animals from
Northern agriculturists; and before the planter's supplies are complete,
to these must be added cotton gins, implements of husbandry, furniture,
and tools, from Northern mechanics. This is a point of the utmost
moment, and must be considered more at length.
It has long been a vital question to the success of the slaveholder, to
know how he could render the labor of his slaves the most profitable.
The grain growing States had to emancipate their slaves, to rid
themselves of a profitless system. The cotton-growing States, ever after
the invention of the cotton gin, had found the production of that staple
highly remunerative. The logical conclusion, from these different
results, was, that the less provisions, and the more cotton grown by the
planter, the greater would be his profits. This must be noted with
special care. _Markets_ for the surplus products of the farmer of the
North, were equally as important to him as the supply of _Provisions_
was to the planter. But the planter, to be eminently successful, must
purchase his supplies at the lowest possible prices; while the farmer,
to secure his prosperity, must sell his products at the highest possible
rates. Few, indeed, can be so ill informed, as not to know, that these
two topics, for many years, were involved in the "Free Trade" and
"Protective Tariff" doctrines, and afforded the _materiel_ of the
political contests between the North and the South--between free labor
and slave labor. A very brief notice of the history of that controversy,
will demonstrate the truth of this assertion.
The attempt of the agricultural States, thirty years since, to establish
the protective policy, and promote "Domestic Manufactures," was a
struggle to create such a division of labor as would afford a "Home
Market" for their products, no longer in demand abroad. The first
decisive action on the question, by Congress, was in 1824; when the
distress in these States, and the measures proposed for their relief, by
national legislation, were discussed on the passage of the "Tariff Bill"
of that year. The ablest men in the nation were engaged in the
controversy. As provisions are the most important item on the one hand,
and cotton on the other, we shall use these two terms as the
representatives of the two classes of products, belonging, respectively,
to free labor and to slave labor.
Mr. Clay, in the course of the debate, said: "What, again, I would ask,
is the cause of the unhappy condition of our country, which I have
fairly depicted? It is to be found in the fact that, during almost the
whole existence of this government, we have shaped our industry, our
navigation, and our commerce, in reference to an extraordinary war in
Europe, and to foreign markets which no longer exist; in the fact that
we have depended too much on foreign sources of supply, and excited too
little the native; in the fact that, while we have cultivated, with
assiduous care, our foreign resources, we have suffered those at home to
wither, in a state of neglect and abandonment. The consequence of the
termination of the war of Europe, has been the resumption of European
commerce, European navigation, and the extension of European
agriculture, in all its branches. Europe, therefore, has no longer
occasion for any thing like the same extent as that which she had during
her wars, for American commerce, American navigation, the produce of
American industry. Europe in commotion, and convulsed throughout all her
members, is to America no longer the same Europe as she is now,
tranquil, and watching with the most vigilant attention, all her own
peculiar interests, without regard to their operation on us. The effect
of this altered state of Europe upon us, has been to circumscribe the
employment of our marine, and greatly to reduce the value of the produce
of our territorial labor. . . . . The greatest want of civilized society
is a market for the sale and exchange of the surplus of the products of
the labor of its members. This market may exist at home or abroad, or
both, but it must exist somewhere, if society prospers; and, wherever it
does exist, it should be competent to the absorption of the entire
surplus production. It is most desirable that there should be both a
home and a foreign market. But with respect to their relative
superiority, I can not entertain a doubt. The home market is first in
order, and paramount in importance. The object of the bill under
consideration, is to create this home market, and to lay the foundation
of a genuine American policy. It is opposed; and it is incumbent on the
partisans of the foreign policy (terms which I shall use without any
invidious intent) to demonstrate that the foreign market is an adequate
vent for the surplus produce of our labor. But is it so? 1. Foreign
nations can not, if they would, take our surplus produce. . . . . 2. If
they could, they would not. . . . . We have seen, I think, the causes of
the distress of the country. We have seen that an exclusive dependence
upon the foreign market must lead to a still severer distress, to
impoverishment, to ruin. We must, then, change somewhat our course. We
must give a new direction to some portion of our industry. We must
speedily adopt a genuine American policy. Still cherishing a foreign
market, let us create also a home market, to give further scope to the
consumption of the produce of American industry. Let us counteract the
policy of foreigners, and withdraw the support which we now give to
their industry, and stimulate that of our own country. . . . . The
creation of a home market is not only necessary to procure for our
agriculture a just reward of its labors, but it is indispensable to
obtain a supply of our necessary wants. If we can not sell, we can not
buy. That portion of our population (and we have seen that it is not
less than four-fifths) which makes comparatively nothing that foreigners
will buy, has nothing to make purchases with from foreigners. It is in
vain that we are told of the amount of our exports, supplied by the
planting interest. They may enable the planting interest to supply all
its wants; but they bring no ability to the interests not planting,
unless, which can not be pretended, the planting interest was an
adequate vent for the surplus produce of all the labor of all other
interests. . . . . But this home market, highly desirable as it is, can
only be created and cherished by the protection of our own legislation
against the inevitable prostration of our industry, which must ensue
from the action of FOREIGN policy and legislation. . . . . The sole
object of the tariff is to tax the produce of foreign industry, with the
view of promoting American industry. . . . . But it is said by the
honorable gentleman from Virginia, that the South, owing to the
character of a certain portion of its population, can not engage in the
business of manufacturing. . . . . The circumstances of its degradation
unfits it for manufacturing arts. The well-being of the other, and the
larger part of our population, requires the introduction of those arts.
"What is to be done in this conflict? The gentleman would have us
abstain from adopting a policy called for by the interests of the
greater and freer part of the population. But is that reasonable? Can it
be expected that the interests of the greater part should be made to
bend to the condition of the servile part of our population? That, in
effect, would be to make us the slaves of slaves. . . . . I am sure that
the patriotism of the South may be exclusively relied upon to reject a
policy which should be dictated by considerations altogether connected
with that degraded class, to the prejudice of the residue of our
population. But does not a perseverance in the foreign policy, as it now
exists, in fact, make all parts of the Union, not planting, tributary to
the planting parts? What is the argument? It is, that we must continue
freely to receive the produce of foreign industry, without regard to the
protection of American industry, that a market may be retained for the
sale abroad of the produce of the planting portion of the country; and
that, if we lessen the consumption, in all parts of America, those which
are not planting, as well as the planting sections, of foreign
manufactures, we diminish to that extent the foreign market for the
planting produce. The existing state of things, indeed, presents a sort
of tacit compact between the cotton-grower and the British manufacturer,
the stipulations of which are, on the part of the cotton-grower, that
the whole of the United States, the other portions as well as the
cotton-growing, shall remain open and unrestricted in the consumption of
British manufactures; and, on the part of the British manufacturer,
that, in consideration thereof, he will continue to purchase the cotton
of the South. Thus, then, we perceive that the proposed measure, instead
of sacrificing the South to the other parts of the Union, seeks only to
preserve them from being actually sacrificed under the operation of the
tacit compact which I have described."
The opposition to the Protective Tariff, by the South, arose from two
causes: the first openly avowed at the time, and the second clearly
deducible from the policy it pursued: the one to secure the foreign
market for its cotton, the other to obtain a bountiful supply of
provisions at cheap rates. Cotton was admitted free of duty into foreign
countries, and Southern statesmen feared its exclusion, if our
government increased the duties on foreign fabrics. The South exported
about twice as much of that staple as was supplied to Europe by all
other countries, and there were indications favoring the desire it
entertained of monopolizing the foreign markets. The West India planters
could not import food, but at such high rates as to make it
impracticable to grow cotton at prices low enough to suit the English
manufacturer. To purchase cotton cheaply, was essential to the success
of his scheme of monopolizing its manufacture, and supplying the world
with clothing. The close proximity of the provision and cotton-growing
districts in the United States, gave its planters advantages over all
other portions of the world. But they could not monopolize the markets,
unless they could obtain a cheap supply of food and clothing for their
negroes, and raise their cotton at such reduced prices as to undersell
their rivals. A manufacturing population, with its mechanical
coadjutors, in the midst of the provision-growers, on a scale such as
the protective policy contemplated, it was conceived, would create a
permanent market for their products, and enhance the price; whereas, if
this manufacturing could be prevented, and a system of free trade
adopted, the South would constitute the principal provision market of
the country, and the fertile lands of the North supply the cheap food
demanded for its slaves. As the tariff policy, in the outset,
contemplated the encouragement of the production of iron, hemp, whisky,
and the establishment of woolen manufactories, principally, the South
found its interests but slightly identified with the system--the coarser
qualities of cottons, only, being manufactured in the country, and, even
these, on a diminished scale, as compared with the cotton crops of the
South. Cotton, up to the date when this controversy had been fairly
commenced, had been worth, in the English market, an average price of
from 29 7/10 to 48 4/10 cents per lb.[31] But at this period, a wide
spread and ruinous depression both in the culture and manufacture of the
article, occurred--cotton, in 1826, having fallen, in England, as low as
11 9/10 to 18 9/10 cents per lb. The home market, then, was too
inconsiderable to be of much importance, and there existed little hope
of its enlargement to the extent demanded by its increasing cultivation.
The planters, therefore, looked abroad to the existing markets, rather
than to wait for tardily creating one at home. For success in the
foreign markets, they relied, mainly, upon preparing themselves to
produce cotton at the reduced prices then prevailing in Europe. All
agricultural products, except cotton, being excluded from foreign
markets, the planters found themselves almost the sole exporters of the
country; and it was to them a source of chagrin, that the North did not,
at once, co-operate with them in augmenting the commerce of the nation.
At this point in the history of the controversy, politicians found it an
easy matter to produce feelings of the deepest hostility between the
opposing parties. The planters were led to believe that the millions of
revenue collected off the goods imported, was so much deducted from the
value of the cotton that paid for them, either in the diminished price
they received abroad, or in the increased price which they paid for the
imported articles. To enhance the duties, for the protection of our
manufacturers, they were persuaded, would be so much of an additional
tax upon themselves, for the benefit of the North; and, beside, to give
the manufacturer such a monopoly of the home market for his fabrics,
would enable him to charge purchasers an excess over the true value of
his stuffs, to the whole amount of the duty. By the protective policy,
the planters expected to have the cost of both provisions and clothing
increased, and their ability to monopolize the foreign markets
diminished in a corresponding degree. If they could establish free
trade, it would insure the American market to foreign manufacturers;
secure the foreign markets for their leading staple; repress home
manufactures; force a large number of the Northern men into
agriculture; multiply the growth, and diminish the price of provisions;
feed and clothe their slaves at lower rates; produce their cotton for a
third or fourth of former prices; rival all other countries in its
cultivation; monopolize the trade in the article throughout the whole of
Europe; and build up a commerce and a navy that would make us ruler of
the seas.
FOOTNOTE:
[31] This includes the period from 1806 to 1826, though the decline
began a few years before the latter date.
CHAPTER VIII.
Tariff controversy continued--Mr. Hayne--Mr.
Carter--Mr. Govan--Mr. Martindale--Mr.
Buchanan--Sugar Planters invoked to aid Free
Trade--The West also invoked--Its pecuniary
embarrassments for want of markets--Henry
Baldwin--Remarks on the views of the
parties--State of the world--Dread of the
Protective policy by the Planters--Their schemes
to avert its consequences, and promote Free Trade.
TO understand the sentiments of the South, on the Protective Policy, as
expressed by its statesmen, we must again quote from the Congressional
Debates of 1824:
Mr. Hayne, of South Carolina, said: "But how, I would seriously ask, is
it possible for the home market to supply the place of the foreign
market, for our cotton? We supply Great Britain with the raw material,
out of which she furnishes the Continent of Europe, nay, the whole
world, with cotton goods. Now, suppose our manufactories could make
every yard of cloth we consume, that would furnish a home market for no
more than 20,000,000 lbs. out of the 180,000,000 lbs. of cotton now
shipped to Great Britain; leaving on our hands 160,000,000 lbs., equal
to two-thirds of our whole produce. . . . . Considering this scheme of
promoting certain employments, at the expense of others, as unequal,
oppressive, and unjust--viewing prohibition as the _means_, and the
destruction of all foreign commerce as the _end_ of this policy--I take
this occasion to declare, that we shall feel ourselves, justified in
embracing the very first opportunity of repealing all such laws as may
be passed for the promotion of these objects."
Mr. Carter, of South Carolina, said: "Another danger to which the
present measure would expose this country, and one in which the
Southern States have a deep and vital interest, would be the risk we
incur, by this system of exclusion, of driving Great Britain to
countervailing measures, and inducing all other countries, with whom the
United States have any considerable trading connections, to resort to
measures of retaliation. There are countries possessing vast capacities
for the production of rice, of cotton, and of tobacco, to which England
might resort to supply herself. She might apply herself to Brazil,
Bengal, and Egypt, for her cotton; to South America, as well as to her
colonies, for her tobacco; and to China and Turkey for her rice."
Mr. Govan, of South Carolina, said: "The effect of this measure on the
cotton, rice, and tobacco-growing States, will be pernicious in the
extreme:--it will exclude them from those markets where they depended
almost entirely for a sale of those articles, and force Great Britain to
encourage the cottons, (Brazil, Rio Janeiro, and Buenos Ayres,) which,
in a short time, can be brought in competition with us. Nothing but the
consumption of British goods in this country, received in exchange, can
support a command of the cotton market to the Southern planter. It is
one thing very certain, she will not come here with her gold and silver
to trade with us. And should Great Britain, pursuing the principles of
her reciprocal duty act, of last June, lay three or four cents on our
cotton, where would, I ask, be our surplus of cotton? It is well known
that the United States can not manufacture one-fourth of the cotton that
is in it; and should we, by our imprudent legislative enactments, in
pursuing to such an extent this restrictive system, force Great Britain
to shut her ports against us, it will paralyze the whole trade of the
Southern country. This export trade, which composes five-sixths of the
export trade of the United States, will be swept entirely from the
ocean, and leave but a melancholy wreck behind."
It is necessary, also, to add a few additional extracts, from the
speeches of Northern statesmen, during this discussion.
Mr. Martindale, of New York, said: "Does not the agriculture of the
country languish, and the laborer stand still, because, beyond the
supply of food for his own family, his produce perishes on his hands, or
his fields lie waste and fallow; and this because his accustomed market
is closed against him? It does, sir. . . . . A twenty years' war in
Europe, which drew into its vortex all its various nations, made our
merchants the carriers of a large portion of the world, and our farmers
the feeders of immense belligerent armies. An unexampled activity and
increase in our commerce followed--our agriculture extended itself, grew
and nourished. An unprecedented demand gave the farmer an extraordinary
price for his produce. . . . . Imports kept pace with exports, and
consumption with both. . . . . Peace came into Europe, and shut out our
exports, and found us in war with England, which almost cut off our
imports. . . . . Now we felt how _comfortable_ it was to have plenty of
food, but no clothing. . . . . Now we felt the imperfect organization of
our system. Now we saw the imperfect distribution and classification of
labor. . . . . Here is the explanation of our opposite views. It is
employment, after all, that we are all in search of. It is a market for
our labor and our produce, which we all want, and all contend for. 'Buy
foreign goods, that we may import,' say the merchants: it will make a
market for importations, and find employment for our ships. Buy English
manufactures, say the cotton planters; England will take our cotton in
exchange. Thus the merchant and the cotton planter fully appreciate the
value of a market when they find their own encroached upon. The farmer
and manufacturer claim to participate in the benefits of a market for
their labor and produce; and hence this protracted debate and struggle
of contending interests. It is a contest for a market between the
_cotton-grower and the merchant_ on the one side, and the _farmer and
the manufacturer_ on the other. That the manufacturer would furnish this
market to the farmer, admits no doubt. The farmer should reciprocate the
favor; and government is now called upon to render this market
accessible to foreign fabrics for the mutual benefit of both. . . . .
This, then, is the remedy we propose, sir, for the evils which we
suffer. Place the mechanic by the side of the farmer, that the
manufacturer who makes our cloth, should make it from _our_ farmers'
wool, flax, hemp, etc., and be fed by our farmers' provisions. Draw
forth our iron from our own mountains, and we shall not drain our
country in the purchase of the foreign. . . . . We propose, sir, to
supply our own wants from our own resources, by the means which God and
Nature have placed in our hands. . . . . But here is a question of
sectional interest, which elicits unfriendly feelings and determined
hostility to the bill. . . . . The cotton, rice, tobacco, and
indigo-growers of the Southern States, claim to be deeply affected and
injured by this system. . . . . Let us inquire if the Southern planter
does not demand what, in fact, he denies to others. And now, what does
he request? That the North and West should buy--what? Not their cotton,
tobacco, etc., for that we do already, to the utmost of our ability to
consume, or pay, or vend to others; and that is to an immense amount,
greatly exceeding what they purchase of us. But they insist that we
should buy English wool, wrought into cloth, that they may pay for it
with their cotton; that we should buy Russia iron, that they may sell
their cotton; that we should buy Holland gin and linen, that they may
sell their tobacco. In fine, that we should not grow wool, and dig and
smelt the iron of the country; for, if we did, they could not sell their
cotton." (On another occasion, he said:) "Gentlemen say they _will_
oppose every part of the bill. They will, therefore, move to strike out
every part of it. And, on every such motion, we shall hear repeated, as
we have done already, the same objections: that it will ruin trade and
commerce; that it will destroy the revenue, and prostrate the navy; that
it will enhance the prices of articles of the first necessity, and thus
be taxing the poor; and that it will destroy the cotton market, _and
stop the future growth of cotton_."
Mr. Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, said: "No nation can be perfectly
independent which depends upon foreign countries for its supply of iron.
It is an article equally necessary in peace and in war. Without a
plentiful supply of it, we cannot provide for the common defense. Can we
so soon have forgotten the lesson which experience taught us during the
late war with Great Britain? Our foreign supply was then cut off, and we
could not manufacture in sufficient quantities for the increased
domestic demand. The price of the article became extravagant, and both
the Government and the agriculturist were compelled to pay double the
sum for which they might have purchased it, had its manufacture, before
that period, been encouraged by proper protecting duties."
Sugar cane, at that period, had become an article of culture in
Louisiana, and efforts were made to persuade her planters into the
adoption of the Free Trade system. It was urged that they could more
effectually resist foreign competition, and extend their business, by a
cheap supply of food, than by protective duties. But the Louisianians
were too wise not to know, that though they would certainly obtain
cheap provisions by the destruction of Northern manufactures, still,
this would not enable them to compete with the cheaper labor supplied by
the slave trade to the Cubans.
The West, for many years, gave its undivided support to the
manufacturing interests, thereby obtaining a heavy duty on hemp, wool,
and foreign distilled spirits: thus securing encouragement to its hemp
and wool-growers, and the monopoly of the home market for its whisky.
The distiller and the manufacturer, under this system, were equally
ranked as public benefactors, as each increased the consumption of the
surplus products of the farmer. The grain of the West could find no
remunerative market, except as fed to domestic animals for droving East
and South, or distilled into whisky which would bear transportation.
Take a fact in proof of this assertion. Hon. Henry Baldwin, of
Pittsburgh, at a public dinner given him by the friends of General
Jackson, in Cincinnati, May, 1828, in referring to the want of markets,
for the farmers of the West, said, "He was certain, the aggregate of
their agricultural produce, finding a market in Europe, would not pay
for the pins and needles they imported."
The markets in the Southwest, now so important, were then quite limited.
As the protective system, coupled with the contemplated internal
improvements, if successfully accomplished, would inevitably tend to
enhance the price of agricultural products; while the free trade and
anti-internal improvement policy, would as certainly reduce their value;
the two systems were long considered so antagonistic, that the success
of the one must sound the knell of the other. Indeed, so fully was Ohio
impressed with the necessity of promoting manufactures, that all capital
thus employed, was for many years entirely exempt from taxation.
It was in vain that the friends of protection appealed to the fact, that
the duties levied on foreign goods did not necessarily enhance their
cost to the consumer; that the competition among home manufacturers, and
between them and foreigners, had greatly reduced the price of nearly
every article properly protected; that foreign manufacturers always had,
and always would advance their prices according to our dependence upon
them; that domestic competition was the only safety the country had
against foreign imposition; that it was necessary we should become our
own manufacturers, in a fair degree, to render ourselves independent of
other nations in times of war, as well as to guard against the
vacillations in foreign legislation; that the South would be vastly the
gainer by having the market for its products at its own doors, to avoid
the cost of their transit across the Atlantic; that, in the event of the
repression or want of proper extension of our manufactures, by the
adoption of the free trade system, the imports of foreign goods, to meet
the public wants, would soon exceed the ability of the people to pay,
and, inevitably, involve the country in bankruptcy.
Southern politicians remained inflexible, and refused to accept any
policy except free trade, to the utter abandonment of the principle of
protection. Whether they were jealous of the greater prosperity of the
North, and desirous to cripple its energies, or whether they were truly
fearful of bankrupting the South, we shall not wait to inquire. Justice
demands, however, that we should state that the South was suffering from
the stagnation in the cotton trade existing throughout Europe. The
planters had been unused to the low prices, for that staple, they were
compelled to accept. They had no prospect of an adequate home market for
many years to come, and there were indications that they might lose the
one they already possessed. The West Indies was still slave territory,
and attempting to recover its early position in the English market. This
it had to do, or be forced into emancipation. The powerful Viceroy of
Egypt, Mehemet Ali, was endeavoring to compel his subjects to grow
cotton on an enlarged scale. The newly organized South American
republics were assuming an aspect of commercial consequence, and might
commence its cultivation. The East Indies and Brazil were supplying to
Great Britain from one-third to one-half of the cotton she was annually
manufacturing. The other half, or two-thirds, she might obtain from
other sources, and repudiate all traffic with our planters. Southern
men, therefore, could not conceive of any thing but ruin to themselves,
by any considerable advance in duties on foreign imports. They
understood the protective policy as contemplating the supply of our
country with home manufactured articles to the exclusion of those of
foreign countries. This would confine the planters, in the sale of their
cotton, to the American market mainly, and leave them in the power of
moneyed corporations; which, possessing the ability, might control the
prices of their staple, to the irreparable injury of the South. With
slave labor they could not become manufacturers, and must, therefore,
remain at the mercy of the North, both as to food and clothing, unless
the European markets should be retained. Out of this conviction grew the
war upon Corporations; the hostility to the employment of foreign
capital in developing the mineral, agricultural, and manufacturing
resources of the country; the efforts to destroy the banks and the
credit system; the attempts to reduce the currency to gold and silver;
the system of collecting the public revenues in coin; the withdrawal of
the public moneys from all the banks as a basis of paper circulation;
and the sleepless vigilance of the South in resisting all systems of
internal improvements by the General Government. Its statesmen foresaw
that a paper currency would keep up the price of Northern products one
or two hundred per cent. above the specie standard; that combinations of
capitalists, whether engaged in manufacturing wool, cotton, or iron,
would draw off labor from the cultivation of the soil, and cause large
bodies of the producers to become consumers; and that roads and canals,
connecting the West with the East, were effectual means of bringing the
agricultural and manufacturing classes into closer proximity, to the
serious limitation of the foreign commerce of the country, the checking
of the growth of the navy, and the manifest, injury of the planters.
CHAPTER IX.
Character of the Tariff controversy--Peculiar
condition of the people--Efforts to enlist the
West in the interest of the South--Mr.
McDuffie--Mr. Hamilton--Mr. Rankin--Mr.
Garnett--Mr. Cuthbert--the West still shut out
from market--Mr. Wickliffe--Mr. Benton--Tariff of
1828 obnoxious to the South--Georgia
Resolutions--Mr. Hamilton--Argument to Sugar
Planters.
The Protective Tariff and Free Trade controversy, at its origin, and
during its progress, was very different in its character from what many
now imagine it to have been. People, on both sides, were often in great
straits to know how to obtain a livelihood, much less to amass
fortunes. The word _ruin_ was no unmeaning phrase at that day. The news,
now, that a bank has failed, carries with it, to the depositors and
holders of its notes, no stronger feelings of consternation, than did
the report of the passage or repeal of tariff laws, then, affect the
minds of the opposing parties. We have spoken of the peculiar condition
of the South in this respect. In the West, for many years, the farmers
often received no more than _twenty-five cents_, and rarely over _forty
cents_, per bushel for their wheat, after conveying it, on horseback, or
in wagons, not unfrequently, a distance of fifty miles, to find a
market. Other products were proportionally low in price; and such was
the difficulty in obtaining money, that people could not pay their taxes
but with the greatest sacrifices. So deeply were the people interested
in these questions of national policy, that they became the basis of
political action during several Presidential elections. This led to much
vacillation in legislation on the subject, and gave alternately, to one
and then to the other section of the Union, the benefits of its favorite
policy.
The vote of the West, during this struggle, was of the first importance,
as it possessed the balance of power, and could turn the scale at will.
It was not left without inducements to co-operate with the South, in its
measures for extending slavery, that it might create a market among the
planters for its products. This appears from the particular efforts made
by the Southern members of Congress, during the debate of 1824, to win
over the West to the doctrines of free trade.
Mr. McDuffie, of South Carolina, said: "I admit that the Western people
are _embarrassed_, but I deny that they are _distressed_, in any other
sense of the word. . . . . I am well assured that the permanent
prosperity of the West depends more upon the improvement of the means of
transporting their produce to market, and of receiving the returns, than
upon every other subject to which the legislation of this government can
be directed. . . . . Gentlemen (from the West) are aware that a very
profitable trade is carried on by their constituents with the Southern
country, in _live stock_ of all descriptions, which they drive over the
mountains and sell for cash. This extensive trade, which, from its
peculiar character, more easily overcomes the difficulties of
transportation than any that can be substituted in its place, is about
to be put in jeopardy for the conjectural benefits of this measure. When
I say this trade is about to be put in jeopardy, I do not speak
unadvisedly. I am perfectly convinced that, if this bill passes, it will
have the effect of inducing the people of the South, partly from the
feeling and partly from the necessity growing out of it, to raise within
themselves, the live stock which they now purchase from the West. . . .
. If we cease to take the manufactures of Great Britain, she will
assuredly cease to take our cotton to the same extent. It is a settled
principle of her policy--a principle not only wise, but essential to her
existence--to purchase from those nations that receive her manufactures,
in preference to those who do not. We have, heretofore, been her best
customers, and, therefore, it has been her policy to purchase our cotton
to the full extent of our demand for her manufactures. But, say
gentlemen, Great Britain does not purchase your cotton from affection,
but from interest. I grant it, sir; and that is the very reason of my
decided hostility to a system which will make it her interest to
purchase from other countries in preference to our own. It _is_ her
interest to purchase cotton, even at a higher price, from those
countries which receive her manufactures in exchange. It is better for
her to give a little more for cotton, than to obtain nothing for her
manufactures. It will be remarked that the situation of Great Britain
is, in this respect, widely different from that of the United States.
The powers of her soil have been already pushed very nearly to the
maximum of their productiveness. The productiveness of her manufactures
on the contrary, is as unlimited as the demand of the whole world. . . .
. In fact, sir, the policy of Great Britain is not, as gentlemen seem to
suppose, to secure the _home_, but the _foreign_ market for her
manufactures. The former she has without an effort. It is to attain the
latter that all her policy and enterprise are brought into requisition.
The manufactures of that country are _the basis of her commerce_; our
manufactures, on the contrary are to be _the destruction of our
commerce_. . . . . It can not be doubted that, in pursuance of the
policy of forcing her manufactures into foreign markets, she will, if
deprived of a large portion of our custom, direct all her efforts to
South America. That country abounds in a soil admirably adapted to the
production of cotton, and will, for a century to come, import her
manufactures from foreign countries."
Mr. Hamilton, of South Carolina, said: "That the planters in his section
shared in that depression which is common in every department of the
industry of the Union, _excepting those from which we have heard the
most clamor for relief_. This would be understood when it was known that
sea-island cotton had fallen from 50 or 60 cents, to 25 cents--a fall
even greater than that which has attended wheat, of which we had heard
so much--as if the grain-growing section was the only agricultural
interest which had suffered. . . . . While the planters of this region
do not dread competition in the foreign markets on equal terms, from the
superiority of their cotton, they entertain a well-founded apprehension,
that the restrictions contemplated will lead to retaliatory duties on
the part of Great Britain, which must end in ruin. . . . . In relation
to our upland cottons, Great Britain may, without difficulty, in the
course of a very short period, supply her wants from Brazil. . . . . How
long the exclusive production, even of the sea-island cotton, will
remain to our country, is yet a doubtful and interesting problem. The
experiments that are making on the Delta of the Nile, if pushed to the
Ocean, may result in the production of this beautiful staple, in an
abundance which, in reference to other productions, has long blest and
consecrated Egyptian fertility. . . . . We are told by the honorable
Speaker (Mr. Clay,) that our manufacturing establishments will, in a
very short period, supply the place of the foreign demand. The futility,
I will not say mockery of this hope, may be measured by one or two
facts. First, the present consumption of cotton, by our manufactories,
is about equal to one-sixth of our whole production. . . . . How long it
will take to increase these manufactories to a scale equal to the
consumption of this production, he could not venture to determine; but
that it will be some years after the epitaph will have been written on
the fortunes of the South, there can be but little doubt." . . . .
[After speaking of the tendency of increased manufactures in the East,
to check emigration to the West, and thus to diminish the value of the
public lands and prevent the growth of the Western States, Mr. H.
proceeded thus:] "That portion of the Union could participate in no part
of the bill, except in its burdens, in spite of the fallacious hopes
that were cherished, in reference to cotton bagging for Kentucky, and
the woolen duty for Steubenville, Ohio. He feared that to the entire
region of the West, no 'cordial drops of comfort' would come, even in
the duty on foreign spirits. To a large portion of our people, who are
in the habit of solacing themselves with Hollands, Antigua, and
Cogniac, whisky would still have 'a most villainous twang.' The cup, he
feared, would be refused, though tendered by the hand of patriotism as
well as conviviality. No, the West has but one interest, and that is,
that its best customer, the South, should be prosperous."
Mr. Rankin, of Mississippi, said: "With the West, it appears to me like
a rebellion of the members against the body. It is true, we export, but
the amount received from those exports is only apparently, largely in
our favor, inasmuch as we are the consumers of your produce, dependent
on you for our implements of husbandry, the means of sustaining life,
and almost every thing except our lands and negroes; all of which draws
much from the apparent profits and advantages. In proportion as you
diminish our exportations, you diminish our means of purchasing from
you, and destroy your own market. You will compel us to use those
advantages of soil and of climate which God and Nature have placed
within our reach, and to live, as to you, as you desire us to live as to
foreign nations--dependent on our own resources."
Mr. Garnett, of Virginia, said: "The Western States can not manufacture.
The want of capital (of which they, as well as the Southern States, have
been drained by the policy of government,) and other causes render it
impossible. The Southern States are destined to suffer more by this
policy than any other--the Western next; but it will not benefit the
aggregate population of any State. It is for the benefit of capitalists
only. If persisted in, it will drive the South to ruin and resistance."
Mr. Cuthbert, of Georgia, said: "He hoped the market for the cotton of
the South was not about to be contracted within a little miserable
sphere, (the home market,) instead of being spread throughout the world.
If they should drive the cotton-growers from the only source from whence
their means were derived, (the foreign market,) they would be unable any
longer to take their supplies from the West--they must contract their
concerns within their own spheres, and begin to raise flesh and grain
for their own consumption. The South was already under a severe
pressure--if this measure went into effect, its distress would be
consummated."
In 1828, the West found still very limited means of communication with
the East. The opening of the New York canal, in 1825, created a means of
traffic with the seaboard, to the people of the Lake region; but all of
the remaining territory, west of the Alleghanies, had gained no
advantages over those it had enjoyed in 1824, except so far as steamboat
navigation had progressed on the Western rivers. In the debate preceding
the passage of the tariff in 1828, usually termed the "Woolens' Bill,"
allusion is made to the condition of the West, from which we quote as
follows:
Mr. Wickliffe, of Kentucky, said: "My constituents may be said to be a
grain-growing people. They raise stock, and their surplus grain is
converted into spirits. Where, I ask, is our market? . . . . Our market
is where our sympathies should be, in the South. Our course of trade,
for all heavy articles, is down the Mississippi. What breadstuffs we
find a market for, are principally consumed in the States of
Mississippi, Louisiana, South Alabama, and Florida. Indeed, I may say,
these States are the consumers, at miserable and ruinous prices to the
farmers of my State, of our exports of spirits, corn, flour, and cured
provisions. . . . . We have had a trade of some value to the South in
our stock. We still continue it under great disadvantages. It is a
ready-money trade--I may say it is the only money trade in which we are
engaged. . . . . Are the gentlemen acquainted with the extent of that
trade? It may be fairly stated at three millions per annum."
Mr. Benton urged the Western members to unite with the South, "for the
purpose of enlarging the market, increasing the demand in the South, and
its ability to purchase the horses, mules, and provisions, which the
West could sell nowhere else."
The tariff of 1828, created great dissatisfaction at the South. Examples
of the expressions of public sentiment, on the subject, adopted at
conventions, and on other occasions, might be multiplied indefinitely.
Take a case or two, to illustrate the whole. At a public meeting in
Georgia, held subsequently to the passage of the "Woolens' Bill," the
following resolution was adopted:
_Resolved_, That to retaliate as far as possible
upon our oppressors, our Legislature be requested
to impose taxes, amounting to prohibition, on the
hogs, horses, mules, and cotton-bagging, whisky,
pork, beef, bacon, flax, and hemp cloth, of the
Western, and on all the productions and
manufactures of the Eastern and Northern States.
Mr. Hamilton, of South Carolina, in a speech at the Waterborough
Dinner, given subsequently to the passage of the tariff of 1828, said:
"It becomes us to inquire what is to be our situation under this
unexpected and disastrous conjunction of circumstances, which, in its
progress, will deprive us of the benefits of a free trade with the rest
of the world, which formed one of the leading objects of the Union. Why,
gentlemen, ruin, unmitigated ruin, must be our portion, if this system
continues. . . . . From 1816 down to the present time, the South has
been drugged, by the slow poison of the miserable empiricism of the
prohibitory system, the fatal effects of which we could not so long have
resisted, but for the stupendously valuable staples with which God has
blessed us, and the agricultural skill and enterprise of our people."
In further illustration of the nature of this controversy, and of the
arguments used during the contest, we must give the substance of the
remarks of a prominent politician, who was aiming at detaching the sugar
planters from their political connection with the manufacturers. We have
to rely on memory, however, as we can not find the record of the
language used on the occasion. It was published at the time, and
commented on, freely, by the newspapers at the North. He said: "We must
prevent the increase of manufactories, force the surplus labor into
agriculture, promote the cultivation of our unimproved western lands,
until provisions are so multiplied and reduced in price, that the slave
can be fed so cheaply as to enable us to grow our sugar at _three cents
a pound_. Then, without protective duties, we can rival Cuba in the
production of that staple, and drive her from our markets."
CHAPTER X.
Tariff controversy continued--Tariff of 1832--The crisis--_Secession_
threatened--Compromise finally adopted--Debates--Mr. Hayne--Mr.
McDuffie--Mr. Clay--Adjustment of the subject.
THE opening of the year 1832, found the parties to the Tariff
controversy once more engaged in earnest debate, on the floor of
Congress; and midsummer witnessed the passage of a new Bill, including
the principle of protection. This Act produced a crisis in the
controversy, and led to the movements in South Carolina toward
secession; and, to avert the threatened evil, the Bill was modified, in
the following year, so as to make it acceptable to the South; and, so
as, also, to settle the policy of the Government for the succeeding nine
years. A few extracts from the debates of 1832, will serve to show what
were the sentiments of the members of Congress, as to the effects of the
protective policy on the different sections of the Union, up to that
date:
Mr. Hayne, of South Carolina, said: "When the policy of '24 went into
operation, the South was supplied from the West, through a single
avenue, (the Saluda Mountain Gap,) with live stock, horses, cattle, and
hogs, to the amount of considerably upward of a million of dollars a
year. Under the pressure of the system, this trade has been regularly
diminishing. It has already fallen more than one-half. . . . . In
consequence of the dire calamities which the system has inflicted on the
South--blasting our commerce, and withering our prosperity--the West has
been very nearly deprived of her best customer. . . . . And what was
found to be the result of four years' experience at the South? Not a
hope fulfilled; not one promise performed; and our condition infinitely
worse than it had been four years before. Sir, the whole South rose up
as one man, and protested against any further experiment with this
system. . . . . Sir, I seize the opportunity to dispel forever the
delusion that the South can find any compensation, in a home market, for
the injurious operation of the protective system. . . . . What a
spectacle do you even now exhibit to the world? A large portion of your
fellow-citizens, believing themselves to be grievously oppressed by an
unwise and unconstitutional system, are clamoring at your doors for
justice: while another portion, supposing that they are enjoying rich
bounties under it, are treating their complaints with scorn and
contempt. . . . . This system may destroy the South, but it will not
permanently advance the prosperity of the North. It may depress us, but
can not elevate them. Beside, sir, if persevered in, it must annihilate
that portion of the country from which the resources are to be drawn.
And it may be well for gentlemen to reflect whether adhering to this
policy would not be acting like the man who 'killed the goose which laid
the golden eggs.' Next to the Christian religion, I consider _Free
Trade_, in its largest sense, as the greatest blessing that can be
conferred on any people."
Mr. McDuffie, of South Carolina, said: "At the close of the late war
with Great Britain, every thing in the political and commercial changes,
resulting from the general peace, indicated unparalleled prosperity to
the Southern States, and great embarrassment and distress to those of
the North. The nations of the Continent had all directed their efforts
to the business of manufacturing; and all Europe may be said to have
converted their swords into machinery, creating unprecedented demand for
cotton, the great staple of the Southern States. There is nothing in the
history of commerce that can be compared with the increased demand for
this staple, notwithstanding the restrictions by which this Government
has limited that demand. As cotton, tobacco, and rice, are produced only
on a small portion of the globe, while all other agricultural staples
are common to every region of the earth, this circumstance gave the
planting States very great advantages. To cap the climax of the
commercial advantages opened to the cotton planters, England, their
great and most valued customer, received their cotton under a mere
nominal duty. On the other hand, the prospects of the Northern States
were as dismal as those of the Southern States were brilliant. They had
lost the carrying trade of the world, which the wars of Europe had
thrown into their hands. They had lost the demand and the high prices
which our own war had created for their grain and other productions;
and, soon afterward, they also lost the foreign market for their grain,
owing, partly, to foreign corn laws, but still more to other causes.
Such were the prospects, and such the well-founded hope of the Southern
States at the close of the late war, in which they bore so glorious a
part in vindicating the freedom of trade. But where are now these
cheering prospects and animating hopes? Blasted, sir--utterly
blasted--by the consuming and withering course of a system of
legislation which wages an exterminating war against the blessings of
commerce and the bounties of a merciful Providence; and which, by an
impious perversion of language, is called 'Protection.' . . . . I will
not add, sir, my deep and deliberate conviction, in the face of all the
miserable cant and hypocrisy with which the world abounds on the
subject, that any course of measures which shall hasten the abolition of
slavery, by destroying the value of slave labor, will bring upon the
Southern States the greatest political calamity with which they can be
afflicted; for I sincerely believe, that when the people of those States
shall be compelled, by such means, to emancipate their slaves, they will
be but a few degrees above the condition of slaves themselves. Yes, sir,
mark what I say: when the people of the South cease to be masters, by
the tampering influence of this Government, direct or indirect, they
will assuredly be slaves. It is the clear and distinct perception of the
irresistible tendency of this protective system to precipitate us upon
this great moral and political catastrophe, that has animated me to
raise my warning voice, that my fellow-citizens may foresee, and
foreseeing, avoid the destiny that would otherwise befall them. . . . .
And here, sir, it is as curious as it is melancholy and distressing, to
see how striking is the analogy between the colonial vassalage to which
the manufacturing States have reduced the planting States, and that
which formerly bound the Anglo-American colonies to the British
Empire. . . . England said to her American colonies 'You shall not trade
with the rest of the world for such manufactures _as are produced in the
mother country_.' The manufacturing States say to their Southern
colonies, 'You shall not trade with the rest of the world for such
manufactures as _we produce_, under a penalty of forty per cent. upon
the value of every cargo detected in this illicit commerce; which
penalty, aforesaid, shall be levied, collected, and paid out of the
products of your industry, to nourish and sustain ours.'"
Mr. Clay, in referring to the condition of the country at large, said:
"I have now to perform the more pleasing task of exhibiting an imperfect
sketch of the existing state of the unparalleled prosperity of the
country. On a general survey, we behold cultivation extended; the arts
flourishing; the face of the country improved; our people fully and
profitably employed, and the public countenance exhibiting tranquillity,
contentment, and happiness. And, if we descend into particulars, we have
the agreeable contemplation of a people out of debt; land rising slowly
in value, but in a secure and salutary degree; a ready, though not an
extravagant market for all the surplus productions of our industry;
innumerable flocks and herds browsing and gamboling on ten thousand
hills and plains, covered with rich and verdant grasses; our cities
expanded, and whole villages springing up, as it were, by enchantment;
our exports and imports increased and increasing; our tonnage, foreign
and coastwise, swelled and fully occupied; the rivers of our interior
animated by the perpetual thunder and lightning of countless steamboats;
the currency sound and abundant; the public debt of two wars nearly
redeemed; and, to crown all, the public treasury overflowing,
embarrassing Congress, not to find subjects of taxation, but to select
the objects which shall be liberated from the impost. If the term of
seven years were to be selected, of the greatest prosperity which this
people have enjoyed since the establishment of their present
Constitution, it would be exactly that period of seven years which
immediately followed the passage of the tariff of 1824.
"This transformation of the condition of the country from gloom and
distress to brightness and prosperity, has been mainly the work of
American legislation, fostering American industry, instead of allowing
it to be controlled by foreign legislation, cherishing foreign industry.
The foes of the American system, in 1824, with great boldness and
confidence, predicted, first, the ruin of the public revenue, and the
creation of a necessity to resort to direct taxation. The gentleman from
South Carolina, (General Hayne,) I believe, thought that the tariff of
1824 would operate a reduction of revenue to the large amount of eight
millions of dollars; secondly, the destruction of our navigation;
thirdly, the desolation of commercial cities; and, fourthly, the
augmentation of the price of articles of consumption, and further
decline in that of the articles of our exports. Every prediction which
they made has failed--utterly failed. . . . . It is now proposed to
abolish the system to which we owe so much of the public prosperity. . .
. . Why, sir, there is scarcely an interest--scarcely a vocation in
society--which is not embraced by the beneficence of this system. . . . .
The error of the opposite argument, is in assuming one thing, which,
being denied, the whole fails; that is, it assumes that the _whole_
labor of the United States would be profitably employed without
manufactures. Now, the truth is, that the system _excites_ and _creates_
labor, and this labor creates wealth, and this new wealth communicates
additional ability to consume; which acts on all the objects
contributing to human comfort and enjoyment. . . . . I could extend and
dwell on the long list of articles--the hemp, iron, lead, coal, and
other items--for which a demand is created in the home market by the
operation of the American system; but I should exhaust the patience of
the Senate. _Where, where_ should we find a market for all these
articles, if it did not exist at home? What would be the condition of
the largest portion of our people, and of the territory, if this home
market were annihilated? How could they be supplied with objects of
prime necessity? What would not be the certain and inevitable decline in
the price of all these articles, but for the home market?"
But we must not burden our pages with further extracts. What has been
quoted affords the principal arguments of the opposing parties, on the
points in which we are interested, down to 1832. The adjustment, in
1833, of the subject until 1842, and its subsequent agitation, are too
familiar, or of too easy access to the general reader, to require a
notice from us here.
CHAPTER XI.
Results of the contest on Protection and Free
Trade--More or less favorable to all--Increased
consumption of Cotton at home--Capital invested in
Cotton and Woolen factories--Markets thus afforded
to the Farmer--South successful in securing the
monopoly of the Cotton markets--Failure of Cotton
cultivation in other countries--Diminished prices
destroyed Household Manufacturing--Increasing
demand for Cotton--Strange Providences--First
efforts to extend Slavery--Indian lands
acquired--No danger of over-production--Abolition
movements served to unite the South--Annexation of
territory thought essential to its
security--Increase of Provisions necessary to its
success--Temperance cause favorable to this
result--The West ready to supply the Planters--It
is greatly stimulated to effort by Southern
markets--_Tripartite Alliance_ of Western Farmers,
Southern Planters, and English Manufacturers--The
East competing--The West has a choice of
markets--Slavery extension necessary to Western
progress--Increased price of Provisions--More
grain growing needed--Nebraska and Kansas needed
to raise food--The Planters stimulated by
increasing demand for Cotton--Aspect of the
Provision question--California gold changed the
expected results of legislation--Reciprocity
Treaty favorable to Planters--Extended cultivation
of Provisions in the Far West essential to
Planters--Present aspect of the Cotton question
favorable to Planters--London Economist's
statistics and remarks--Our Planters must extend
the culture of Cotton to prevent its increased
growth elsewhere.
THE results of the contest, in relation to Protection and Free Trade,
have been more or less favorable to all parties. This has been an
effect, in part, of the changeable character of our legislation; and, in
part, of the occurrence of events in Europe, over which our legislators
had no control. The manufaturing States, while protection lasted,
succeeded in placing their establishments upon a comparatively permanent
basis; and, by engaging largely in the manufacture of cottons, as well
as woolens, have rendered home manufactures, practically, very
advantageous to the South. Our cotton factories, in 1850, consumed as
much cotton as those of Great Britain did in 1831; thus affording
indications, that, by proper encouragement, they might, possibly, be
multiplied so as to consume the whole crop of the country. The cotton
and woolen factories, in 1850, employed over 130,000 work hands, and had
$102,619,581 of capital invested in them. They thus afford an important
market to the farmer, and, at the same time, have become an equally
important auxiliary to the planter. They may yet afford him the only
market for his cotton.
The cotton planting States, toward the close of the contest, found
themselves rapidly accumulating strength, and approximating the
accomplishment of the grand object at which they aimed--the monopoly of
the cotton markets of the world. This success was due, not so much to
any triumph over the North--to any prostration of our manufacturing
interests--as to the general policy of other nations. All rivalry to the
American planters from those of the West Indies, was removed by
emancipation; as, under freedom, the cultivation of cotton was nearly
abandoned. Mehemet Ali had become imbecile, and the indolent Egyptians
neglected its culture. The South Americans, after achieving their
independence, were more readily enlisted in military forays, than in the
art of agriculture, and they produced little cotton for export. The
emancipation of their slaves, instead of increasing the agricultural
products of the Republics, only supplied, in ample abundance, the
elements of promoting political revolutions, and keeping their soil
drenched with human blood. Such are the uses to which degraded men may
be applied by the ambitious demagogue. Brazil and India both supplied to
Europe considerably less in 1838 than they had done in 1820; and the
latter country made no material increase afterward, except when her
chief customer, China, was at war, or prices were above the average
rates in Europe. While the cultivation of cotton was thus stationary or
retrograding, everywhere outside of the United States, England and the
Continent were rapidly increasing their consumption of the article,
which they nearly doubled from 1835 to 1845; so that the demand for the
raw material called loudly for its increased production. Our planters
gathered a rich harvest of profits by these events.
But this is not all that is worthy of note, in this strange chapter of
Providences. No prominent event occurred, but conspired to advance the
prosperity of the cotton trade, and the value of American slavery. Even
the very depression suffered by the manufacturers and cultivators of
cotton, from 1825 to 1829, served to place the manufacturing interests
upon the broad and firm basis they now occupy. It forced the planters
into the production of their cotton at lower rates; and led the
manufacturers to improve their machinery, and reduce the price of their
fabrics low enough to sweep away all household manufacturing, and
secure to themselves the monopoly of clothing the civilized world. This
was the object at which the British manufacturers had aimed, and in
which they had been eminently successful. The growing manufactures of
the United States, and of the Continent of Europe, had not yet sensibly
affected their operations.
There is still another point requiring a passing notice, as it may serve
to explain some portions of the history of slavery, not so well
understood. It was not until events diminishing the foreign growth of
cotton, and enlarging the demand for its fabrics, had been extensively
developed, that the older cotton-growing States became willing to allow
slavery extension in the Southwest; and, even then, their assent was
reluctantly given--the markets for cotton, doubtless, being considered
sufficiently limited for the territory under cultivation. Up to 1824,
the Indians held over thirty-two millions of acres of land in Georgia,
Mississippi, and Alabama, and over twenty millions of acres in Florida,
Missouri and Arkansas; which was mostly retained by them as late as
1836. Although the States interested had repeatedly urged the matter
upon Congress, and some of them even resorted to forcible means to gain
possession of these Indian lands, the Government did not fulfill its
promise to remove the Indians until 1836; and even then, the measure met
with such opposition, that it was saved but by one vote--Mr. Calhoun and
six other Southern Senators voting against it.[32] In justice to Mr.
Calhoun, however, it must be stated that his opposition to the measure
was based on the conviction that the treaty had been fraudulently
obtained.
The older States, however, had found, by this time, that the foreign and
home demand for cotton was so rapidly increasing that there was little
danger of over-production; and that they had, in fact, secured to
themselves the monopoly of the foreign markets. Beside this, the
abolition movement at that moment, had assumed its most threatening
aspect, and was demanding the destruction of slavery or the dissolution
of the Union. Here was a double motive operating to produce harmony in
the ranks of Southern politicians, and to awaken the fears of many,
North and South, for the safety of the Government. Here, also, was the
origin of the determination, in the South, to extend slavery, by the
annexation of territory, so as to gain the political preponderance in
the National Councils, and to protect its interests against the
interference of the North.
It was not the increased demand for cotton, alone, that served as a
protection to the older States. The extension of its cultivation, in the
degree demanded by the wants of commerce, could only be effected by a
corresponding increased supply of provisions. Without this, it could not
increase, except by enhancing their price to the injury of the older
States. This food did not fail to be in readiness, so soon as it was
needed. Indeed, much of it had long been awaiting an outlet to a
profitable market. Its surplus, too, had been somewhat increased by the
Temperance movement in the North, which had materially checked the
distillation of grain.
The West, which had long looked to the East for a market, had its
attention now turned to the South, as the most certain and convenient
mart for the sale of its products--the planters affording to the farmers
the markets they had in vain sought from the manufacturers. In the
meantime, steamboat navigation was acquiring perfection on the Western
rivers--the great natural outlets for Western products--and became a
means of communication between the Northwest and the Southwest, as well
as with the trade and commerce of the Atlantic cities. This gave an
impulse to industry and enterprise, west of the Alleghanies,
unparalleled in the history of the country. While, then, the bounds of
slave labor were extending from Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia,
Westward, over Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas, the area of
free labor was enlarging, with equal rapidity, in the Northwest,
throughout Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan. Thus, within these
provision and cotton regions, were the forests cleared away, or the
prairies broken up, simultaneously by those old antagonistic forces,
opponents no longer, but harmonized by the fusion of their
interests--the connecting link between them being the steamboat. Thus,
also, was a _tripartite alliance_ formed, by which the Western Farmer,
the Southern Planter, and the English Manufacturer, became united in a
common bond of interest: the whole giving their support to the doctrine
of Free Trade.
This active commerce between the West and South, however, soon caused a
rivalry in the East, that pushed forward improvements, by States or
Corporations, to gain a share in the Western trade. These improvements,
as completed, gave to the West a choice of markets, so that its Farmers
could elect whether to feed the slave who grows the cotton, or the
operatives who are engaged in its manufacture. But this rivalry did
more. The competition for Western products enhanced their price, and
stimulated their more extended cultivation. This required an enlargement
of the markets; and the extension of slavery became essential to Western
prosperity.
We have not reached the end of the alliance between the Western Farmer
and Southern Planter. The emigration which has been filling Iowa and
Minnesota, and is now rolling like a flood into Kansas and Nebraska, is
but a repetition of what has occurred in the other Western States and
Territories. Agricultural pursuits are highly remunerative, and tens of
thousands of men of moderate means, or of no means, are cheered along to
where none forbids them land to till. For the last few years, public
improvements have called for vastly more than the usual share of labor,
and augmented the consumption of provisions. The foreign demand added to
this, has increased their price beyond what the planter can afford to
pay. For many years free labor and slave labor maintained an even race
in their Western progress. Of late the freemen have begun to lag behind,
while slavery has advanced by several degrees of longitude. Free labor
must be made to keep pace with it. There is an urgent necessity for
this. The demand for cotton is increasing in a ratio greater than can be
supplied by the American planters, unless by a corresponding increased
production. This increasing demand must be met, or its cultivation will
be facilitated elsewhere, and the monopoly of the planter in the
European markets be interrupted. This can only be effected by
concentrating the greatest possible number of slaves upon the cotton
plantations. Hence they must be supplied with provisions.
This is the present aspect of the Provision question, as it regards
slavery extension. Prices are approximating the maximum point, beyond
which our provisions can not be fed to slaves, unless there is a
corresponding increase in the price of cotton. Such a result was not
anticipated by Southern statesmen, when they had succeeded in
overthrowing the protective policy, destroying the United States Bank,
and establishing the Sub-Treasury system. And why has this occurred? The
mines of California prevented both the Free-Trade Tariff,[33] and the
Sub-Treasury scheme from exhausting the country of the precious metals,
extinguishing the circulation of Bank Notes, and reducing the prices of
agricultural products to the specie value. At the date of the passage of
the Nebraska Bill, the multiplication of provisions, by their more
extended cultivation, was the only measure left that could produce a
reduction of prices, and meet the wants of the planters. The Canadian
Reciprocity Treaty, since secured, will bring the products of the
British North American colonies, free of duty, into competition with
those of the United States, when prices, with us, rule high, and tend to
diminish their cost; but in the event of scarcity in Europe, or of
foreign wars, the opposite results may occur, as our products, in such
times, will pass, free of duty, through these colonies, into the foreign
market. It is apparent, then, that nothing short of extended free labor
cultivation, far distant from the seaboard, where the products will bear
transportation to none but Southern markets, can fully secure the cotton
interests from the contingencies that so often threaten them with
ruinous embarrassments. In fact, such a depression of our cotton
interests has only been averted by the advanced prices which cotton has
commanded, for the last few years, in consequence of the increased
European demand, and its diminished cultivation abroad.
On this subject, the _London Economist_, of June 9, 1855, in remarking
on the aspects of the cotton question, at that moment says:
"Another somewhat remarkable circumstance, considering we are at war,
and considering the predictions of some persons, is the present high
price and consumption of cotton. The crop in the United States is short,
being only 1,120,000,000 or 1,160,000,000 lbs., but not so short as to
have a very great effect on the markets had consumption not increased.
Our mercantile readers will be well aware of this fact, but let us state
here that the total consumption between January 1st and the last week in
May was:
=CONSUMPTION OF COTTON.=
=1853.= =1854.= =1855.=
Pounds, 331,708,000 295,716,000 415,648,000
Less than 1855, 83,940,000 119,932,000
Average consumption of
lbs. per week, 15,600,000 14,000,000 19,600,000
"Though the crop in the United States is short up to this time, Great
Britain has received 12,400,000 lbs. more of the crop of 1854 than she
received to the same period of the crop of 1853. Thus, in spite of the
war, and in spite of a short crop of cotton, in spite of dear corn and
failing trade to Australia and the United States, the consumption of
cotton has been one-fourth in excess of the flourishing year of 1853,
and more than a third in excess of 1854. These facts are worth
consideration.
"It is reasonably expected that the present high prices will bring
cotton forward rapidly; but as yet this effect has not ensued. . . . .
Thus, it will be seen that, notwithstanding the short crop in the
States, (at present, they have sent us more in 1855 than in 1854, but
not so much as in 1853,) the supply from other sources, except Egypt,
has been smaller in 1855 than in either of the preceding years, and the
supply from Egypt, though greater than in 1854, is less than in 1853."
[From India, the principal hope of increased supplies, the imports for
1855, in the first four months of the year, were less by 47,960,000 lbs.
than in 1854, and less by 64,000,000 lbs. than in 1853.[34]] "We may
infer, therefore, that the rise in price hitherto, has not been
sufficient to bring increased supplies from India and other places; but
these will, no doubt, come when it is seen that the rise will probably
be permanent in consequence of the enlarged consumption, and the
comparative deficiency in the crop of the United States."
After noticing the increasing exports of raw cotton from both England
and the United States to France and the other countries of the
Continent, from which it is inferred that the consumption is increasing
in Europe, generally, as well as in Great Britain, the _Economist_
proceeds to remark:
"A rapidly increasing consumption of cotton in Europe has not been met
by an equally rapidly increasing supply, and the present relative
condition of the supply to the demand seems to justify an advance of
price, unless a greatly diminished consumption can be brought about.
What supplies may yet be obtained from India, the Brazils, Egypt, etc.,
we know not; but, judging from the imports of the three last years, they
are not likely to supply the great deficiency in the stocks just
noticed. A decrease in consumption, which is recommended, can only be
accomplished by the state of the market, not by the will of individual
spinners; for if some lessen their consumption of the raw material while
the demand of the market is for more cloth, it will be supplied by
others, either here or abroad; and the only real solution of the
difficulty or means of lowering the price, is an increased supply. This
points to other exertions than those which have been latterly directed
to the production of fibrous materials to be converted directly into
paper. Exertions ought rather to be directed to the production of
fibrous materials which shall be used for textile fabrics, and so much
larger supplies of rags--the cheapest and best material for making paper
will be obtained. But theoretical production, and the schemers who
propose it, not guided by the market demands, are generally erroneous,
and what we now require is more and cheaper material for clothing as the
means of getting more rags to make paper.
"Another important deduction may be made from the state of the cotton
market. It has not been affected, at least the production of cotton with
the importation into Europe has not been disturbed by the war, and yet
it seems not to have kept pace with the consumption. From this we infer
that legislative restrictions on traffic, permanently affecting the
habits of the people submissive to them, and of all their customers,
have a much more pernicious effect on production and trade than national
outpourings in war of indignation and anger--which, if terrible in their
effects, are of short duration. These are in the order of nature, except
as they are slowly corrected and improved by knowledge; while the
restrictions--the offspring of ignorance and misplaced ambition--are at
all times opposed to her beneficent ordinances."
The _Economist_ of June 30, in its Trade Tables, sums up the imports for
the 5th month of the year 1855; from which it appears, that instead of
any increase of the imports of cotton having occurred, they had fallen
off to the extent of 43,772,176 lbs. below the quantity imported in the
corresponding month of 1854.
The _Economist_ of September 1, 1855, in continuing its notices of the
cotton markets, and stating that there is still a falling off in its
supplies, says:
"The decline in the quantity of cotton imported is notoriously the
consequence of the smallness of last year's crops in the United
States. . . . . It is remarkable that the additional supply which has
made up partly for the shortness of the American crop comes from the
Brazils, Egypt, and other parts. From British India the supply is
relatively shorter than from the United States. It fails us more than
that of the States, and the fact is rather unfavorable to the
speculations of those who wish to make us independent of the States, and
dependent chiefly on our own possessions. The high freights that have
prevailed, and are likely to prevail with a profitable trade, would
obviously make it extremely dangerous for our manufacturers to increase
their dependence on India for a supply of cotton. In 1855, when we have
a short supply from other quarters, India has sent us one-third less
than in 1853."
The _Economist_ of February 23, 1856, contains the Annual Statement of
Imports for 1855, ending December 31, from which it appears that the
supplies of cotton from India, for the whole year, were only 145,218,976
lbs., or 35,212,520 lbs. less than the imports for 1853. Of these
imports 66,210,704 lbs. were re-exported; thus leaving the British
manufacturers but 79,008,272 lbs. of the free labor cotton of India,
upon which to employ their looms.[35]
This increasing demand for cotton beyond the present supplies, if not
met by the cotton growers of the United States, must encourage its
cultivation in countries which now send but little to market. To prevent
such a result, and to retain in their own hands the monopoly of the
cotton market, will require the utmost vigilance on the part of our
planters. That vigilance will not be wanting.
FOOTNOTES:
[32] Benton's Thirty Year's View.
[33] The Tariff of 1846, under which our imports are now made,
approximates the Free Trade principles very closely.
[34] These figures are taken from a part of the _Economist's_ article
not copied. For the difference between the imports from India, in the
whole of the years 1850 to 1855, see Table I.
[35] The commercial year is five days shorter for 1855 than in former
years.
CHAPTER XII.
Consideration of foreign cultivation of Cotton
further considered--Facts and opinions slated by
the London Economist--Consumption of Cotton
tending to exceed the production--India affords
the only field of competition with the United
States--Its vast inferiority--Imports from India
dependent upon price--Free Labor and Slave Labor
cannot be united on the same field--Supply of the
United States therefore limited by natural
increase of slaves--Limited supply of labor tends
to renewal of slave trade--Cotton production in
India the only obstacle which Great Britain can
interpose against American Planters--Africa, too,
to be made subservient to this
object--Parliamentary proceedings on this
subject--Successful Cotton culture in
Africa--Slavery to be permanently established by
this policy--Opinions of the _American
Missionary_--Remarks showing the position of the
Cotton question in its relations to slavery--Great
Britain building up slavery in Africa to break it
down in America.
THE remark which closes the preceding chapter was made in 1856. An
opportunity is now offered for recording the results of the movements of
Great Britain to promote cotton culture in her own possessions between
that and 1859. The results will be startling. Few anti-slavery men in
the United States expected that Great Britain would so soon be engaged
zealously in establishing slave labor in Africa, or that Lord Palmerston
should publicly commend the measure. The question is one of so much
importance as to demand a full examination. The extracts are taken,
mainly, from the _London Economist_, a periodical having the highest
reputation for candor and fair dealing. On Feb. 12, 1859, the
_Economist_ said:
"We are not surprised that the future supply of cotton should have
engaged the attention of Parliament on an early night of the Session. It
is a question the importance of which can not well be overrated, if we
refer only to the commercial interests which it involves, or to the
social comfort or happiness of the millions who are now dependent upon
it for their support. But it has an aspect far loftier and even more
important. At its root lies the ultimate success of a policy for which
England has made great struggles and great sacrifices--the maintaining
of existing treaties, and perhaps the peace of the world. Every year as
it passes, proves more and more that the question of slavery, and even
of the slave trade, is destined to be materially affected, if not
ultimately governed, by considerations arising out of the cultivation of
this plant. It is impossible to observe the tendency of public opinion
throughout America, not even excepting the Free States, with relation to
the slave trade, without feeling conscious that it is drifting into
indifference, and even laxity. In every light, then, in which this great
subject can be viewed, it is one which well deserves the careful
attention equally of the philanthropist and the statesman.
"It has been said, that in the case of cotton we have found an exception
to the great commercial principle of supply and demand. Is this so? We
doubt it. We doubt if, on the contrary, we shall not find, upon
investigation, that it presents one of the strongest examples of the
struggle of that principle to maintain its conclusions. No doubt the
conditions of its production have made that struggle a severe one; but,
nevertheless, it has not been altogether unsuccessful. Eighteen years
ago, (in 1840) the total supply of cotton imported into this country was
592,488,000 lbs.: with temporary fluctuations, it had steadily grown
until it had reached, in the last three years, upwards of 900,000,000
lbs., showing an increase of more than fifty per cent. Nevertheless, the
demand had been constantly pressing upon the supply, the consumption has
always shown a tendency to exceed the production, and the consequent
result of a high price has, during a majority of those years, acted as a
powerful stimulant to cultivation. But, practically speaking, we possess
but two sources of supply, and both present such powerful obstacles to
extended cultivation, that we are not surprised at the habitual
uneasiness of those whose interests demand a continually increasing
quantity. Those two sources are the United States and British India. It
is true that Brazil, Egypt, the West Indies, and some other countries,
furnish small quantities of cotton; but when we state that of the
931,847,000 lbs., imported into the United Kingdom in 1858, the
proportion furnished by America and India was 870,656,000 lbs., leaving
for all other places put together, a supply of only 61,191,000 lbs.,
notwithstanding the many laudable efforts, both on the part of
Government, and of the mercantile community, to encourage its growth in
new countries, it will be admitted that, as an _immediate_ and practical
question, it is confined to those two sources. They are not only the
sources from whence the largest supplies are received, but they are
also those where the chief increase has taken place.
"In 1840 the supply received from the United States was 487,856,000 lbs.
Since that time, with some considerable fluctuations, it has steadily
increased, until in 1858 it rose to 732,403,000 lbs.--the maximum
quantity having reached in 1856, 780,040,000 lbs. Yet, great as this
increase has been, it appears that it has not been equal to the
increased demand, if we may judge from the price, at the two
periods.[36] The large supplies of the last three years have commanded
prices at least _sixteen per cent._ higher than the smaller supplies
from 1840 to 1842. Every encouragement, therefore, which high and
remunerative prices could give to increased cultivation has been
liberally afforded to the cotton-growing States of America.
"But whatever the price, there is a condition which places an absolute
limit upon the growth. Land in every way suited for the purpose, is
abundant and cheap. Means of transport is of the cheapest and best kind,
and is without limit. The limit lies in the necessary ingredient of
labor. If cotton had been the produce of free labor, no doubt the
principle of supply and demand would have solved the difficulty. The
surplus of the Old World would have steadily maintained the balance
between the two in the New World. Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, the
Southern parts of France, and Portugal, would have sent their surplus
labor to the best market. As it is, the two kinds of labor--that of the
freeman and that of the slave--can not be united in the same
cultivation. The slave States of America are, therefore, dependent for
any increase of labor only upon themselves. The consuming States can
draw supplies only from the breeding States. It is, therefore, exactly
in proportion as the slave population increases that the cotton crop
becomes larger. Taking the average of three or four years at any period
of the history of the United States for the last forty years, it will be
found that the growth of cotton is equal to one bale for each person of
the slave population. The calculation is well known. When the slave
population was two millions, the average produce of cotton was two
millions of bales:--as the one rose the other increased. The slave
population is now about three millions and a half; the cotton crop of
the present year is computed at from 3,500,000 to 3,700,000 bales. The
high price of cotton, and the great profit attached to its cultivation,
have no doubt furnished the greatest stimulant to an increase of that
part of the population. In the competition for more labor, the price of
slaves was enormously increased. Some years ago the price of a slave was
about £100; now they are worth from £200 to £400. But what must be the
tendency of this fearful competition for a limited supply of human
labor--limited as long as the slave trade is prohibited--unlimited as
soon as the slave trade is legalized? What is the actual condition of
the Southern States at this moment? There is on the ground and being
secured, according to computation, the largest cotton crop ever known.
The last estimates vary from 3,550,000 bales to 3,700,000 bales. A very
few years ago it was calculated that cotton at any thing above _four
cents_ the pound for "middling quality" on the spot was a profitable
crop. Now, the price for the same quality on the spot is fully _ten
cents_ the pound;--and it has been about the same or higher for a long
time. What is the consequence? A correspondent writing by the last mail
says: 'The people of this section of the country feel _made of gold_,
and every thing here is, of course, going at full cry--_every planter
wants to open more land and buy more negroes_.' What do these facts
suggest? Do they furnish no explanation of the strong desire in the
Southern States to possess Cuba? Do they furnish no explanation of the
exaggerated irritation got up last year in respect to the West India
squadron, and the demand of the American Government, we fear too
successfully made, that the right of search in the mitigated form in
which it existed should be altogether abandoned? A people familiarized
not only with slavery, but also with the slave trade as between one
class of States and another, can hardly be expected to entertain a very
strong repugnance to a slave trade from beyond the seas. That cargoes of
imported slaves have recently been landed in the United States is not
denied:--that vessels fitted out as slavers have recently been seized in
American ports, we know upon official authority. The same correspondent
whom we have already quoted, says there are two great questions which
occupy the Southern States at this moment. The one is the acquisition of
Cuba. 'The other,' he says, 'is one which has been presented to me
forcibly during my sojourn in the South, and that is the increase of
slave population. You must have noticed an illicit importation of
negroes from Africa landed in Georgia. This has undoubtedly been done,
and I doubt not also that other negroes have been landed. It is of
course the desire of every honest man that the whole force of the
government should be used to put down such a trade, and punish the
offenders; but I fear the profits of the trade are so enormous that it
will be carried on in the face of all opposition. Negroes are now worth
here from 1,000 to 2,000 dollars a-piece. The subject of their being
introduced is being openly discussed, and the propriety of the trade
being again legalized. It is plain this discussion will by and by take
shape. Will not the government be obliged to listen to it, and what will
be the result? When labor is so profitable it will be obtained. How? I
confess to looking upon this subject with great anxiety. The feeling
with regard to slavery both in the North and South has undergone a
material change in the last four years. It is now looked upon with far
less abhorrence.' Is it possible to separate the danger which is here
presented so forcibly from the question of the high price of cotton? We
know by experience the influence which the Southern States can exercise
upon the election of a President. . . . . . . If the free States are
indifferent, we know that, at whatever risk, the slave States will have
their own way; and with them it is plain that much must depend upon the
price of cotton and the motives which it furnishes to '_open more land
and buy more negroes_.'
"But with what an enormous interest does this view of the case invest
the cultivation of cotton in India. It is the only real obstacle that we
can interpose to the growing feeling in favor of slavery, to the
diminishing abhorrence of the slave trade in the United States. It is
the only field, competition with which can, for many years to come,
redress the undue stimulant which high prices are giving to slave labor
in America. Nor do the facts as regard the past discourage the hope that
it may be successfully used for that purpose. In 1840 the supply of
cotton from India was 77,011,000 lbs.;--in 1858 it had risen to
138,253,000 lbs.: having been in the immediately preceding year no less
than 250,338,000 lbs. The average importation for four years from 1840
to 1843 amounted to 83,300,000 lbs.:--the average importation for the
last four years has been 178,000,000 lbs. or somewhat more than double
that of the former period. In some important respects the conditions of
supply from India differ very much from those which attach to and
determine the supply from America. In India there is no limit to the
quantity of labor. There may be said to be little or none to the
quantity of land. The obstacle is of another kind; it lies almost
exclusively in the want of cheap transit. Our supplies of India cotton
are not even determined by the quantity produced, but by that which,
when produced, can profitably be forwarded to England. It is, therefore,
a question of price whether we obtain more or less. A rise in the price
of _one penny_ the pound in 1857, suddenly increased the supply from
180,000,000 lbs. in 1856 to 250,000,000 lbs. in 1857. A fall in the
price in 1858 again suddenly reduced it to 138,000,000 lbs. It was not
that the production of cotton varied in these proportions in those
years, but that at given prices it was possible to incur more cost in
the transit than at others. The same high price, therefore, which at
present renders a large supply possible from India, creates an unusual
demand for slaves in the United States. But would not the same
corrective consequence be produced if we could diminish the cost of
transit in India? Every farthing a pound saved in carriage is equivalent
to so much added to the price of cotton. Four-pence the pound in the
Liverpool market for good India cotton, with a cost of two-pence from
the spot of production, would command just as great a supply as a price
of five-pence the pound if the intermediate cost were three-pence. The
whole question resolves itself into one of good roads and cheap
conveyance. Labor in India is infinitely more abundant than in the
United States, and much cheaper; land is at least as cheap; the climate
is as good;--but the bullock trains on the miserable roads of Hindostan
cannot compete with the steamers and other craft on the Mississippi. No
doubt we have new hopes in the district of Scinde, and in the aid of the
Indus. We have new hopes in the railways which are being
constructed,--not only in cheapening transit, but even more in improving
the condition in which native produce will be brought to market.
Whatever, therefore, be the financial sacrifice which in the first place
must be made for the purpose of opening the interior of India, it should
be cheerfully made, as the only means by which we can hope permanently
to improve the revenues of India, to increase and cheapen the supply of
the most important raw material of our own industry, and to bring in
the abundant labor of the millions of our fellow-subjects in India, to
redress the deficiency in the slave States of America, and thus to give
the best practical check to the growing attractions of slavery and the
slave trade."
On March 5, 1859, the editor resumes the subject, and discusses the
bearing which the movements making in Africa are likely to have upon
these interests.
"We pointed out in a recent number the very close connection between the
traditional policy of England in resisting the slave trade, and the
efforts which are now making to find other sources of cotton supply
besides the United States. We showed that a cry is now arising in the
United States, for the renewal of the slave trade--a cry stimulated
principally by the high price of cotton. We showed that for every slave
in the Southern States there is on the average a bale of cotton produced
annually, and that as the demand for cotton, and consequently the price
of cotton rises, the demand for slaves and the price of slaves rises
with it. In the words of a correspondent whom we then quoted, 'every
planter wants to open more land and buy more negroes.' Hence the demand
in the South for the recently successful attempt to smuggle
slave-cargoes into Georgia. If, then, either in India or any other
quarter of the world, it be possible either to cheapen the carriage or
facilitate the growth of cotton, so as to bring it into the English
markets at a price that can compete successfully with the American
cotton, we are conferring a double benefit on mankind--we are increasing
the supply of one of the most necessary, and, relatively to the demand,
one of the least abundant, articles of commerce, on the steady supply of
which the livelihood of millions, and the comfort of almost every
civilized nation on the face of the earth, depends, and by means of the
increased competition we are diminishing the force of the motive which
is now threatening the United States with a renewal of the slave trade.
We cannot, therefore, well conceive of stronger considerations than
those which are now urging Englishmen to do what may be in their power
for the promotion of an increased supply from cotton-growing countries
other than the States of America.
"Besides these reasons which apply to the promotion of the cotton-supply
in India, or in our own West Indian islands, there is one peculiar to
the case of Africa which makes it important that no opportunities of
encouraging the cotton-growth of that continent should be neglected. The
African supply, if ever it become large, will not only check the rise in
the price of cotton, and therefore of slaves in America,--but it will
diminish the profits of slave exportation on the coast of Africa.
Experience has now sufficiently proved to us, that no one agency has
been so effective in paralyzing the slave trade as the growth of any
branch of profitable industry which convinces the native African chiefs
that they can get a surer and, in the long run, larger profit by
employing their subjects in peaceful labor, than they can even get from
the large but uncertain gains of the slave trade. . . . . Once let the
African chiefs find out, as in many instances they have already found
out, that the sale of the laborer can be only a source of profit _once_,
while his labor may be a source of constant and increasing profit, and
we shall hear no more of their killing the hen which may lay so many
golden eggs, for the sake only of a solitary and final prize."
The _American Missionary_, of April, 1859, gives a condensed statement
of a discussion in the British Parliament, last summer, in which the
condition of cotton culture in Africa was brought out, and its
encouragement strongly urged as a means of suppressing the slave trade,
and of increasing the supplies of that commodity to the manufacturers of
England. S. Fitzgerald, Under Secretary of State, said:
"He did not scruple to say that, looking at the papers which he had
perused, it was to the West Coast of Africa that we must look for that
large increase in our supply of cotton which was now becoming absolutely
necessary, and without which he and others who had studied this subject
foresaw grave consequences to the most important branch of the
manufactures of this country. Our consul at Lagos reported:
"The whole of the Yoruba and other countries south of the Niger, with
the Houssa and the Nuffe countries on the north side of that river, have
been, from all time, cotton-growing countries; and notwithstanding the
civil wars, ravages, disorders and disruptions caused by the slave
trade, more than sufficient cotton to clothe their populations has
always been cultivated, and their fabrics have found markets and a ready
sale in those countries where the cotton plant is not cultivated, and
into which the fabrics of Manchester and Glasgow have not yet
penetrated. The cultivation of cotton, therefore, in the above-named
countries is not new to the inhabitants; all that is required is to
offer them a market for the sale of as much as they can cultivate, and
by preventing the export of slaves from the seaboard render some
security to life, freedom, property, and labor." Another of our consuls,
speaking of the trade in the Bight of Benin in 1856, said:
"'The readiness with which the inhabitants of the large town of
Abbeokuta have extended their cultivation of the cotton plant merits the
favorable notice of the manufacturer and of the philanthropist, as a
means of supplanting the slave trade.'"
"It was worthy of notice that while the quantity of cotton obtained from
America between 1784 and 1791, the first seven years of the importation
into this country was only 74 bales; during the years 1855 and 1856 the
town of Abbeokuta alone exported nearly twenty times that quantity. He
thought he might fairly say that if we succeed in repressing the
slave-trade, as he believed we should, we should in a few years receive
a very large supply of this most important article from the West Coast
of Africa."
"Mr. J. H. Gurney said he had received from Mr. Thomas Clegg, of
Manchester, a few figures, from which it appeared that while in 1852
only 1800 lbs. of cotton had been brought into Great Britain from
Africa, in the first five months of the present year it was 94,400 lbs.
"Mr. Buxton said: 'There was no question now, that any required amount
of cotton, equal to that of New Orleans in quality, might be obtained. A
very short time ago Mr. Clegg, of Manchester, aided by the Rev. H. Venn,
and a few other gentlemen, trained and sent out two or three young
negroes as agents to Abbeokuta. These young men taught the natives to
collect and clean their cotton, and sent it home to England. The result
was, that the natives had actually purchased 250 cotton-gins for
cleaning their cotton. Mr. Clegg stated that he was in correspondence
with seventy-six natives and other African traders, twenty-two of them
being chiefs. With one of them Mr. Clegg had a transaction, by which he
(the African) received £3500. And the amount of cotton received at
Manchester had risen, hand over hand, till it came last year to nearly
100,000 lbs.' Well might Mr. Clegg say, that this was 'a rare instance
of the rapid development of a particular trade, and the more so because
every ounce of cotton had been collected, all labor performed, and the
responsibility borne by native Africans alone.' The fact was, that the
West African natives were not mere savages. In trade no men could show
more energy and quickness. And a considerable degree of social
organization existed. He could give a thousand proofs of this, but he
would only quote a word or two from Lieutenant May's despatch to Lord
Clarendon, dated the 24th of November, 1857. Lieutenant May crossed
overland from the Niger to Lagos, and he says:
"A very pleasing and hopeful part of my report lies in the fact, that
certainly three-quarters of the country was under cultivation. Nor was
this the only evidence of the industry and peace of the country; in
every hut is cotton spinning; in every town is weaving, dyeing; often
iron smelting, pottery works, and other useful employments are to be
witnessed; while from town to town, for many miles, the entire road
presents a continuous file of men, women, and children carrying these
articles of their production for sale. I entertain feelings of much
increased respect for the industry and intellect of these people, and
admiration for their laws and manners."
"Lord Palmerston said: 'I venture to say that you will find on the West
Coast of Africa a most valuable supply of cotton, so essential to the
manufactures of this country. The cotton districts of Africa are more
extensive than those of India. The access to them is more easy than to
the Indian cotton district; and I venture to say that your commerce with
the Western Coast of Africa, in the article of cotton, will, in a few
years, prove to be far more valuable than that of any other portion of
the world, the United States alone excepted.'"
The _London Anti-Slavery Reporter_, as quoted by the _American
Missionary_ of March, 1859, says:
"A few days ago, Mr. Consul Campbell addressed us, saying: 'African
cotton is no myth. A vessel has just arrived from Lagos with 607 bales
on board, _on native account_. Several hundred bales more have been
previously shipped this year.'
"In order to afford our readers some idea of the extraordinary
development of this branch of native African industry and commerce, we
append a statement which will exhibit it at a single glance. We have
only to observe that we are indebted to Mr. Thomas Clegg, of Manchester,
for these interesting particulars, and that the quantities ordered have
been obtained from Abbeokuta alone. He is about to extend the field of
his operations. Four Europeans have gone out, expressly to trade in
native cotton; and several London houses, encouraged by the success
which has attended Mr. Clegg's experiment, are about to invest largely
in the same traffic. The quantity of raw cotton which has already been
imported into England, from Abbeokuta, since 1851, is 276,235 lbs., and
the trade has developed itself as follows:
1851-52 9 Bags or Bales lbs. 1810
1853 37 ditto 4617
1854 7 ditto 1588
1855 14 ditto 1651
1856 103 ditto 11,492
1857 283 ditto 35,419
1858 1819 ditto 220,099
"The last importation includes advices from Lagos up to the 1st of last
November. Since that time, the presses and other machinery sent out,
have been got into full work, and the quantity of the raw staple in
stock has rapidly accumulated, the bulk shipped being on 'native
account.' Each bag or bale weighs about 120 lbs. Let it be borne in mind
that the whole of this quantity has been collected, all the labor
performed and the responsibility borne by native Africans; while the
cost of production, Mr. Clegg informs us, does not exceed one half-penny
a pound in the end. It can be laid down in England at about 4 1/4_d._ a
pound, and sells at from 7_d._ to 9_d._"
The great point of interest in this movement consists in the fact, that
in promoting the production of cotton in Africa, Englishmen are giving
direct encouragement to the employment of slave labor. It is an
undeniable fact, that from eight-tenths to nine-tenths of the population
of Africa are held as slaves by the petty kings and chiefs; and that,
more especially, the women, under the prevailing system of polygamy, are
doomed to out-doors' labor for the support of their indolent and sensual
husbands. Hitherto the labor of the women has, in general, been
comparatively light, as the preparation of food and clothing limited the
extent of effort required of them; but now, the cotton mills of England
must be supplied by them, and the hum of the spindles will sound the
knell of their days of ease. That we are not alone in this view of the
question, will appear from the opinions expressed by the _American
Missionary_, when referring to this subject. It says:
"An encouraging feature in this movement is, that the men engaged in it
all feel that the suppression of the slave trade is absolutely essential
to its success. The necessity of this is the great burden of all their
arguments in its behalf. It thus acts with a double force. There can be
no question that the development of the resources of Africa will be an
effectual means, in itself, of discouraging the exportation of slaves,
while at the same time those who would encourage this development are
seeking the overthrow of that infamous traffic as the necessary removal
of an obstacle to their success.
"There is, however, one danger connected with all this that can not be
obviated by any effort likely to be put forth under the stimulus of
commerce, or the spirit of trade. This danger can be averted only by
sending the missionaries of a pure gospel, a gospel of equal and
impartial love, into Africa, in numbers commensurate with the increase
of its agricultural resources and its spirit of general enterprise.
"The danger to which we allude is not merely that of worldliness, such
as in a community always accompanies an increase of wealth, but that the
slavery now existing there may be strengthened and increased by the
rapid rise in the value of labor, and thus become so firmly rooted that
the toil of ages may be necessary for it removal. All this might have
been prevented if the spirit of Christian enterprise had gone ahead of
that of commerce, and thus prepared the way for putting commerce, under
the influence of Christianity. For years Africa has been open to the
missionary of the cross, to go everywhere preaching love to God and man,
with nothing to hinder except the sickliness of the climate. This evil,
and the dangers arising from it, business men are willing to risk, and
within the next ten years there will be thousands, and tens of
thousands, looking to Africa for the means of increasing their riches."
From all this it appears, that the question of slavery is becoming more
intimately blended with cotton culture than at any former period; and
that the urgent demand for its increased production must establish the
system permanently, under the control of Great Britain, in Africa
itself. Look at the facts, and especially at the position of Great
Britain. The supply of cotton is inadequate to the demands of the
manufacturing nations. Great Britain stands far in advance of all others
in the quantity consumed. The ratio of increased production in the
United States cannot be advanced except by a renewal of the slave trade,
or a resort to the scheme of immigration on the plan of England and
France. It is thought by English writers, that the renewal of the slave
trade by the United States is inevitable, as a consequence of the
present high prices of cotton and slaves, unless the slave traders can
be shut out from the slave markets of Africa. They assume it as a
settled principle, that the immigration system is impracticable wherever
slavery exists; and that the American planter can only succeed in
securing additional labor by means of the slave trade. Then, according
to this theory, to prevent an increased production of cotton in the
United States, it is only necessary to make it impracticable for us to
renew that traffic.
The supply of cotton from India is not on the increase, nor can be,
except when prices rule high in England, or until rail roads shall be
constructed into the interior, a work requiring much time and money. The
renewal of the slave trade by the United States, on a large scale,
would, of course, cheapen cotton in the proportion of the amount of
labor supplied. In this view the writers referred to are correct. They
are right also in supposing that a reduction below present prices, of a
cent or two per pound, would be ruinous to India in the present
condition of her inland transportation. They desire, very naturally,
therefore, that prices should be kept up for the advantage of India, so
that its cotton can bear export. But while high prices benefit India,
they also enrich the American planter, and afford him inducements to
renew the slave trade.
Here Great Britain is thrown into a dilemma. The slave trade to America
must be prevented, in her opinion, or it will ruin the East Indies. To
prevent the renewal of this traffic--to keep up the price of cotton as
long as may be necessary, for the benefit of India, and prevent a supply
of African slaves from reaching the American planter--is a problem that
requires more than an ordinary amount of skill to solve. That skill, if
it exists any where, is possessed by British statesmen, and they are now
employed in the execution of this difficult task. They are convinced
that free labor cannot be found, at this moment, any where in the world,
to meet the growing demands for cotton. To supply this increasing
demand, a new element must be brought into requisition; or rather old
elements must be employed anew. Her cotton spindles must not cease to
whir, or millions of the people of Great Britain will starve at home, or
be forced into emigration, to the weakening of her strength. The old
sources of supply being inadequate, a new field of operations must be
opened up--new forces must be brought into requisition in the
cultivation of cotton. Slave labor and free labor, both combined, are
not now able to furnish the quantity needed. Free labor cannot be
increased, at present, in this department of production. Slave labor,
therefore, is the only means left by which the work can be
accomplished--not slave labor to the extent now employed, but to the
extent to which it may be increased from the ranks of the scores of
millions of the population of Africa.
This is the true state of the case; and the important question now
agitated is: Who shall have the advantages of this labor? Two fields,
only, present themselves in which this additional labor can be
employed--Africa and America. Great Britain is deeply interested in
limiting it to Africa, which she can only do by preventing a renewal of
the slave trade to America: for she takes it for granted that we will
renew the slave trade if we can make money by the operation. South
Africa is unavailable for this purpose, as it is under British rule, and
slavery abolished within its limits by law. Nothing can be done there,
as it is filling up with English emigrants who will not toil, under a
burning sun, in the cotton fields; and they can not be permitted to
reduce the natives again to slavery. West Africa alone, affords the
climate, soil, and population, necessary to success in cotton culture.
To this point the attention of Englishmen is now mainly directed. One
feature in the civil condition of West Africa must be specially noticed,
as adapting it to the purposes to which it is to be devoted. The
territory has not been seized by the British crown, as in South Africa,
and British law does not bear rule within its limits. The tribes are
treated as independent sovereignties, and are governed by their own
customs and laws. This is fortunate for the new policy now inaugurating,
as the native chiefs and kings hold the population at large as slaves.
Heretofore they have sold their slaves at will, as well as their
captives taken in war, to the slave traders. Now they are to be taught a
different policy by Englishmen; and the African slaveholders are to be
convinced that they will make more money by employing their slaves in
growing cotton, than in selling them to be carried off to the American
planters. This done, and the transportation of laborers to the United
States will be prevented. This will put it out of the power of our
planters, to increase their production of cotton so as to reduce prices;
and this will enable India to complete her rail roads, so as to be able
to compete with American cotton at any price whatever.
But this new policy, if successful, will do more than stop the slave
trade, to the supposed injury of the American planter. England will
thereby have the benefit of the labor of Africa secured to herself. With
its scores of millions of population under her direction, she hopes to
compete with American slavery in the production of cotton; and not only
to compete with it, but to surpass it altogether, and, in time, to
render it so profitless as to force emancipation upon us. She will there
have access to a population ten fold greater than that of the slave
population of the United States; and the only doubt of success exists in
the question, as to whether the negro master in Africa can make the
slave work as well there as the white master in America has done here.
But how shall England, in this measure, preserve her "traditional
policy," in which she pledged herself no longer to cherish slave labor.
This will be very easily done. She need not authorize slavery in Western
Africa; but as it already exists among all the tribes "by local law,"
she has only to recognize their independence, and bargain with the
chiefs for all the cotton they can force their slaves to produce. This
has already been done, by Englishmen, at several points in Africa, and
will doubtless be resorted to in many other portions of that country.
The moral responsibility of establishing slavery permanently in Africa,
will thus be thrown upon the chiefs and kings, as it has heretofore been
upon the American planter; and Great Britain can reap all the advantages
of the increased production of slave labor cotton, while her moralists
can easily satisfy the conscience of the people at home, by declaiming
against the system which secures to them their bread.
Here now the policy of British statesmen can be comprehended. They must
have cotton. The products of free labor would be preferred, but as it
can not be had, in sufficient quantities, they must take that of slave
labor. To allow the American planter to supply this want, by renewing
the slave trade, would ruin India and benefit America. To save India,
and, at the same time, to secure the cotton demanded by the
manufacturers, slavery is to be encouraged in Africa; and this is to be
done as a means not only of preventing the slave trade, and checking the
extension of slavery in America, but of multiplying the fields of cotton
cultivation--a policy very essential to the wants of the British nation.
Thus, slavery is to be promoted in Africa as an effectual means of
checking it in America; it is to be converted into a blessing there, and
made instrumental in wiping out its curse here!
And this, now, is the result of England's philanthropic efforts for
African freedom. Her economical errors, in West Indian emancipation, are
to be repaired by the permanent establishment of slavery in Africa! But
what must be the practical moral effect of her policy? What must be the
opinion entertained of the negro race, when Great Britain abandons her
policy in reference to them? This is not hard to divine. It will wipe
out the odium she has managed to cast upon the system; and, so far as
her example is concerned, will justify the American planter in refusing
to emancipate his slaves. Her conduct is a practical acknowledgment of
the Southern theory of the African race--that slavery is their normal
condition, otherwise she must have adopted the same policy in West
Africa that she has in South Africa.
But before closing this part of our investigations, it may be well to
examine the claims of Great Britain in relation to her humanity towards
the African, or any of the inferior races doomed to lives of toil--such
as the coolies of India and the laborers of China.
The contest for the advantages of supplying the increasing demands for
cotton, is between Great Britain operating in India and Africa, and the
American planter operating by an increased amount of labor furnished by
means of the slave trade. The contest between the parties may be
imagined as assuming this form: A portion of the American planters
insist, that they should be allowed to manage this matter; but Great
Britain says, nay: my subjects can do it better than you can. You
Americans are governed by mercenary motives: we Britons by philanthropic
intentions. You Americans have made no sacrifices for the cause of
humanity: we Britons have emancipated our West India slaves.
Aye, aye, replies the American planter; we understand all about the
humanity of which you boast. Your special type of philanthropy is fully
displayed in the history of your West Indies. Look at it. The total
importation of slaves from Africa into your West Indian Islands, was
1,700,000 persons; of whom and their descendants, in 1833, only 660,000
remained for emancipation; we had less than 400,000 imported Africans,
of whom and their descendants there existed among us, in 1850, more than
3,600,000 persons of African descent; that is to say, the number of
Africans and their descendants in the United States, is nearly eight or
ten to one of those that were imported, whilst in the British West
Indies there are not two persons remaining for every five imported.[37]
And besides, we have 500,000 free colored persons among us, a number
nearly equal to that which your emancipation act set at liberty, and
more than the whole number imported. Your slavery seems to have been a
system of wholesale slaughter: ours the reverse.
All true, says Britain: but then we have ceased to do evil, and are
learning to do well. We found "that slavery was bearing our colonies
down to ruin with awful speed; that had it lasted but another half
century, they must have sunk beyond recovery."[38]
What! says the planter; sunk beyond recovery! why, we find our slaves
rapidly increasing, and ourselves almost "made of gold." Be pleased to
explain, why slavery in the hands of Englishmen should be so
destructive, while with the American it is not only profitable to the
slaveholder himself, but the comfort of the slaves has been so well
secured, from the first, that their natural increase has been about
equal to that of any other people in the full enjoyment of the
necessaries of life.
Certainly, says Britain: having done our duty, we are free to confess,
that "what gave the death blow to slavery, in the minds of English
statesmen, was the population returns, which showed the fact, 'the
appalling fact,' that although only eleven out of the eighteen islands
had sent them in, yet in those eleven islands the slaves had decreased
in twelve years, by no less than 60,219, namely: from 558,194 to
497,975![39] Had similar returns been procured from the other seven
colonies (including Mauritius, Antigua, Barbadoes, and Granada,) the
decrease must have been little, if at all, less than 100,000! Now it was
plain to every one that if this were really so, the system could not
last. The driest economist would allow that it would not pay, to let the
working classes be slaughtered. To work the laboring men of our West
Indies to death, might bring in a good return for a while, but could not
be a profitable enterprise in the long run. Accordingly, this was the
main, we had almost said the only, topic of the debates on slavery in
1831 and 1832. Is slavery causing a general massacre of the working
classes in our sugar islands, or is it not, was a question worth
debating, in the pounds, shillings, and pence view, as well as in the
moral one. And debated it was, long and fiercely. The result was the
full establishment of the dreadful fact. The slaves, as Mr. Marryatt
said, were 'dying like rotten sheep.' Whatever then may be said for West
Indian slavery, this damning thing must be said of it, that _the slaves
were dying of it_. Then came emancipation."[40] And in performing this
act--in demonstrating to the world the destructive character of
slavery--Englishmen expected America to follow their example, and to
emancipate her slaves also.
And thereby deceived yourselves, says the planter, into the ruin of your
islands, without effecting any good for the Africans at large, and but
little for those upon whom your bounties were bestowed. And, then, we
cannot see the vastness of your philanthropy, in allowing such
destructive cruelties to prevail so long, and in only emancipating your
slaves when it was apparent they must soon become extinct under the
lash, as applied by the hands of Britons. We know that you claimed that
slavery was the same everywhere, and that humane men in our country were
deceived into the belief that American slavery was as ruinous to life as
British West Indian slavery. We know that the elder Mr. Buxton, in 1831,
used this language, "where the blacks are free they increase. But let
there be a change in only one circumstance, let the population be the
same in every respect, only let them be slaves instead of freemen, and
the current is immediately stopped;" and, in support of this, his
biographer adds: "This appalling fact was never denied, that at the time
of the abolition of the slave trade, the number of slaves in the West
Indies was 800,000; in 1830 it was 700,000; that is to say, in
twenty-three years it had diminished by 100,000."[41] This assertion,
that slavery is always destructive of life, was made by Mr. Buxton, in
the face of the fact, that ten distinct sets of our _Census tables_ were
then accessible to him, in each one of which he had the evidence that
American slavery, instead of reducing the number of our slave
population, tended to its rapid increase. From this and kindred acts of
that gentleman, we came to the conclusion, that, though he might be very
benevolent, he was not very truthful; and was, therefore, a very unsafe
guide to follow, as you must now acknowledge; unsafe, because your
emancipation on a small scale, before securing a general emancipation by
other countries, has thrown you under the necessity of now attempting to
establish slavery elsewhere on a large scale; unsafe, because your negro
population have not made half the moral progress under freedom, that
ours have done under slavery; and because, that, where cultivation has
depended upon the emancipated negro alone, with a single exception, the
islands have almost gone to ruin.[42]
You misinterpret facts, says Britain: our islands are not ruined; no, by
no means. Under slavery they would have been totally ruined; but
emancipation has placed them in a position favorable to a full
development of all their resources. "It is to be borne in mind that the
influx of free labor is exactly one of those advantages of which a land
is debarred by slavery. It is a part of the curse of slavery that it
repels the freeman. When we are told that to judge of the effect of
emancipation we must exclude those colonies that imported coolies, we
reply at once that this useful importation has been one of the many
blessings that freedom has brought in her train."[43]
I understand your views now, says the planter: but for emancipation,
your colonies would have sunk to irretrievable destruction. That measure
has prepared the way for the coolie system; and under its operations the
prosperity of your islands is on the increase. But what is the character
of this coolie system, that is working such wonders? In what does it
differ from the slave trade, of which you desire to deprive us? And what
must be its effects upon the colored population, which have received
their freedom at your hands, and whose moral elevation your Christian
missionaries are laboring to promote? On this point I would not multiply
testimony. The character of the coolie traffic is but too well
understood, and is now believed by all intelligent men to be the slave
trade in disguise. A writer, representing the anti-slavery society of
Great Britain, makes these statements.[44]
"I am prepared to show, that fraud, misrepresentation, and actual
violence are the constituent elements of the immigration system, even as
it is now conducted, and that no vigilance on the part of the government
which superintends its prosecution can prevent the abuses incidental to
it. . . . . In China, especially, this is notoriously the case, and I
refer you to Sir John Bowring's despatches on Immigration from China,
for the fullest revelations. I need only add, that he designates the
Chinese coolie traffic as being in every essential particular 'as bad as
the African slave trade,' and that he recommends its entire prohibition.
. . . . The mortality during the sea-voyage is so great, that the
Emigration Commissioners declare 'these results to be shocking to
humanity, and disgraceful to the manner in which the traffic is carried
on.' I beg to call your special attention to the term 'traffic,' and to
refer you for particulars of the mortality, to the Emigration
Commissioners' Report for 1858. They may be briefly summarised. During
the season 1856-57 the deaths at sea amounted to 17. 26/100 per cent. on
4,094 coolies shipped from Calcutta--a rate which, if computed for the
whole year, instead of 90 days, the term of the voyage, would average
upwards of 70 per cent. The rate of mortality on shipments of Chinese
bound to British Guiana, varied from 14 per cent. to 50. . . . . On
shipments of Chinese bound to Havanna, on board British vessels, the
death-rate fluctuated between 20 per cent. and 60. Yet, sir, immigration
is said, by its advocates, to be now conducted on an improved system. .
. . . We come now to the treatment of the coolie, as soon as he is
discharged from the ship. There is no official evidence, that I am yet
aware of, to show what abuses of authority he is subjected to, but the
Jamaica Immigration Bill, now awaiting the sanction of Her Majesty's
Government, proves that the imported laborer is, during his term of
service, subject to conditions quite incompatible with a system of free
labor, and the same remark applies to other colonies. That the
immigrants are liable to ill usage and neglect, may be gathered from the
reports of travelers who have seen them in every stage of destitution
and misery; and that they are peculiarly affected by the kind of service
they contract to render, and by climate, is sufficiently proved by the
awful mortality during industrial residence, which we are assured the
Immigration Agent General's returns for Jamaica show to be equal to 50
per cent. Sir E. B. Lytton admits it to be 33 per cent. But if we accept
his correction--which I confess I am not prepared to do without knowing
upon what evidence he makes it--I maintain that even this death-rate
establishes the startling fact, that coolie labor in Jamaica is
proportionately more destructive to human life than slave labor in
Cuba."
On the question of the influence that the coolie immigration exerts upon
the emancipated blacks in the West Indies, the Editor of the _London
Economist_ very justly remarks:
"Bringing with them depraved heathen habits, and the detestable
traditions of the worst forms of idolatry, and always looking forward to
their return as the epoch when they will renew their heathen worship and
find themselves again among heathen standards of action,--they are
almost proof against the best influences which can be brought to bear
upon them, and, what is worse, they are not only proof against the good,
but missionaries for evil. They are closely associated in their labor
with a race that is just emerging out of barbarism with the fostering
care of Christianity, and we need not say that their social influence on
such a race is deteriorating in the extreme. The difficulty would be
indefinitely diminished, were the new immigrants a permanent addition to
the population. By careful regulations for that purpose, they might, in
that case, be subdued by the higher influences of their English
teachers; but the prospect of speedy restoration to the country and
habits of their birth, entirely foils such attempts as these. How far
this great difficulty can be overcome; and if it cannot, how far it may
more than balance the moral and physical advantages of a fuller labor
market,--it requires the most careful inquiry to determine." Here now
are four distinct points upon which the testimony shows, conclusively,
that the coolie system is worse than ever the slave trade has been
represented to be; and that as the slave trade is opposed on the ground
of the destruction of human life which attends it, so the coolie system
should be abandoned upon the same grounds. The points are these: 1st,
the frauds and cruelties incident to the procuring of immigrants; 2d,
the mortality during the middle passage; 3d, the mortality in the
islands where they are employed; 4th, the influence of the heathen
coolies in demoralizing the emancipated blacks among whom they are
intermingled. These points demand serious consideration by Britons, as
well as Americans--by those who would reopen the slave trade, as well as
those who would substitute for that traffic the immigration system.
And now, in conclusion, says the planter, I must beg to demur to
Britain's claiming a monopoly of all the philanthropy in the world
toward the African race; and upon that claim founding another which, if
granted, will secure to her the monopoly of all the labor of Africa
itself; and I would beg, further, that myself and my fellow planters may
be excused, if we cannot see any thing more in all her movements than a
determination to have a full supply of cotton, even at the risk of
dooming Africa to become one vast slave plantation.
While a faithful view of the plans and expectations of the British, in
relation to the production of cotton in Africa, has been presented, it
would be doing injustice to the reader not to give a few facts, in
closing, which indicate that their success, after all, may not equal
their anticipations. The Rev. T. J. Bowen,[45] says of African cotton
generally, that "the staple is good, but the yield can not be more than
one-fourth of what it was on similar lands in the Southern States;" and
of Yoruba, in particular, he says, that "both upland and sea island
cotton are planted; but neither produces very well, owing to the extreme
and constant heat of the climate." Of this, Mr. Bowen, who is a native
of Georgia, must be regarded as a good judge. He spent six years as a
missionary of the Baptist Church in exploring the Abbeokuta and Yoruba
country. This cause of short crops in Yoruba is evidently incurable. It
does not exist in equal force in Liberia and its vicinity. Mr. Bowen
says: "The average in the dry season is about 80 degrees at Ijaye, and
82 at Ogbomoshaw, and a few degrees lower during the rains. I have never
known the mercury to rise higher than 93 degrees in the shade, at Ijaye.
The highest reading at Ogbomoshaw was 97.5." These places are from 100
to 150 miles inland.[46]
Another remark. The confidence with which it is asserted, that
immigration is impracticable as a means of obtaining labor, wherever
slavery prevails, will remind the reader of another theory to which
Englishmen long tried to make us converts: that slave labor is
necessarily unprofitable and should be abandoned on economical grounds.
Now they are forced to admit that our planters seem to "be made of
gold." Perhaps these same planters can use immigrant labor as
successfully as slave labor. If necessary, doubtless, they will make the
attempt, notwithstanding the opinions entertained beyond the sea.
FOOTNOTES:
[36] See Table VIII, in Appendix.
[37] Compendium of United States Census, 1850.
[38] Mr. C. Buxton, in _Edinburgh Review_, April, 1859.
[39] Parliamentary Papers, Population Returns for the West Indies, (of
course the decrease by manumission is not included.)
[40] Mr. C. Buxton, in _Edinburgh Review_, April, 1859, from which these
extracts are made.
[41] _North British Review_, August, 1848.
[42] This point will be examined more fully in a subsequent chapter.
[43] Mr. C. Buxton, in _Edinburgh Review_, April, 1859.
[44] _London Economist_, Feb. 12, 1859.
[45] See _African Repository_, October, 1859.
[46] See _African Repository_, October, 1859.
CHAPTER XIII.
Rationale of the Kansas-Nebraska movement--Western
Agriculturists merely Feeders of Slaves--Dry goods
and groceries nearly all of Slave labor
origin--Value of Imports--How paid for--Planters
pay for more than three-fourths--Slavery
intermediate between Commerce and
Agriculture--Slavery not self-sustaining--Supplies
from the North essential to its success--Proximate
extent of those supplies--Slavery the central
power of the industrial interests depending on
Manufactures and Commerce--Abolitionism
contributing to this result--Protection
prostrate--Free Trade dominant--The South
triumphant--Country ambitious of territorial
aggrandizement--The world's peace disturbed--our
policy needs modifying to meet
contingencies--Defeat of Mr. Clay--War with
Mexico--Results unfavorable to renewal of
Protective policy--Dominant political party at the
North gives its adhesion to Free Trade--Leading
Abolition paper does the same--Ditches on the
wrong side of breastworks--Inconsistency--Free
Trade the main element in extending
Slavery--Abolition United States Senators' voting
with the South--North thus shorn of its
power--_Home Market_ supplied by Slavery--People
acquiesce--Despotism and Freedom--Preservation of
the Union paramount--Colored people must wait a
little--Slavery triumphant--People at large
powerless--Necessity of severing the Slavery
question from politics--Colonization the only
hope--Abolitionism prostrate--Admissions on this
point, by Parker, Sumner, Campbell--Other dangers
to be averted--Election of Speaker Banks a Free
Trade triumph--Neutrality necessary--Liberia the
colored man's hope.
FROM what has been said, the dullest intellect can not fail, now, to
perceive the _rationale_ of the Kansas-Nebraska movement. The political
influence which these Territories will give to the South, if secured,
will be of the first importance to perfect its arrangements for future
slavery extension--whether by divisions of the larger States and
Territories, now secured to the institution, its extension into
territory hitherto considered free, or the acquisition of new territory
to be devoted to the system, so as to preserve the balance of power in
Congress. When this is done, Kansas and Nebraska, like Kentucky and
Missouri, will be of little consequence to slaveholders, compared with
the cheap and constant supply of provisions they can yield. Nothing,
therefore, will so exactly coincide with Southern interests, as a rapid
emigration of freemen into these new Territories. White free labor,
doubly productive over slave labor in grain-growing, must be multiplied
within their limits, that the cost of provisions may be reduced and the
extension of slavery and the growth of cotton suffer no interruption.
The present efforts to plant them with slavery, are indispensable to
produce sufficient excitement to fill them speedily with a free
population; and if this whole movement has been a Southern scheme to
cheapen provisions, and increase the ratio of the production of sugar
and cotton, as it most unquestionably will do, it surpasses the
statesman-like strategy which forced the people into an acquiescence in
the annexation of Texas.
And should the anti-slavery voters succeed in gaining the political
ascendency in these Territories, and bring them as free States
triumphantly into the Union; what can they do, but turn in, as all the
rest of the Western States have done, and help to feed slaves, or those
who manufacture or who sell the products of the labor of slaves. There
is no other resource left, either to them or to the older free States,
without an entire change in almost every branch of business and of
domestic economy. Reader, look at your bills of dry goods for the year,
and what do they contain? At least three-fourths of the amount are
French, English, or American cotton fabrics, woven from slave labor
cotton. Look at your bills for groceries, and what do they contain?
Coffee, sugar, molasses, rice--from Brazil, Cuba, Louisiana, Carolina;
while only a mere fraction of them are from free labor countries. As now
employed, our dry goods' merchants and grocers constitute an immense
army of agents for the sale of fabrics and products coming, directly or
indirectly, from the hand of the slave; and all the remaining portion of
the people, free colored, as well as white, are exerting themselves,
according to their various capacities, to gain the means of purchasing
the greatest possible amount of these commodities. Nor can the country,
at present, by any possibility, pay the amount of foreign goods
consumed, but by the labor of the slaves of the planting States. This
can not be doubted for a moment. Here is the proof:
Commerce supplied us, in 1853, with foreign articles, for consumption,
to the value of $250,420,187, and accepted, in exchange, of our
provisions, to the value of but $33,809,126; while the products of our
slave labor, manufactured and unmanufactured, paid to the amount of
$133,648,603, on the balance of this foreign debt. This, then, is the
measure of the ability of the Farmers and Planters, respectively, to
meet the payment of the necessaries and comforts of life, supplied to
the country by its foreign commerce. The farmer pays, or seems only to
pay, $33,800,000, while the planter has a broad credit, on the account,
of $133,600,000.
This was true in 1853: is it so in 1859? The amounts are not now the
same, but the proportions have not varied materially. Reference to Table
VIII, in the Appendix, will show, that while the provisions exported,
for the three years preceding 1859, amounted to a yearly average of
$67,512,812, the value of the cotton and tobacco exported, during the
same period, amounted to an annual average of $147,079,647.
But is this seeming productiveness of slavery real, or is it only
imaginary? Has the system such capacities, over the other industrial
interests of the nation, in the creation of wealth, as these figures
indicate? Or, are these results due to its intermediate position between
the agriculture of the country and its foreign commerce? These are
questions worthy of consideration. Were the planters left to grow their
own provisions, they would, as already intimated, be unable to produce
any cotton for export. That their present ability to export so
extensively, is in consequence of the aid they receive from the North,
is proved by facts such as these:
In 1820, the cotton-gin had been a quarter of a century in operation,
and the culture of cotton was then nearly as well understood as at
present. The North, though furnishing the South with some live stock,
had scarcely begun to supply it with provisions, and the planters had to
grow the food, and manufacture much of the clothing for their slaves. In
that year the cotton crop equaled 109 lbs. to each slave in the Union,
of which 83 lbs. per slave were exported. In 1830 the exports of the
article had risen to 143 lbs., in 1840 to 295 lbs., and in 1853 to 337
lbs. per slave. The total cotton crop of 1853 equaled 395 lbs. per
slave--making both the production and export of that staple, in 1853,
more than four times as large, in proportion to the slave population, as
they were in 1820.[47] Had the planters, in 1853, been able to produce
no more cotton, per slave, than in 1820, they would have grown but
359,308,472 lbs., instead of the actual crop of 1,305,152,800 lbs.; and
would not only have failed to supply any for export, but have barely
supplied the home demand, and been _minus_ the total crop of that year,
by 945,844,328 lbs.
In this estimate, some allowance, perhaps, should be made, for the
greater fertility of the new lands, more recently brought under
cultivation; but the difference, on this account, can not be equal to
the difference in the crops of the several periods, as the lands, in the
older States, in 1820, were yet comparatively fresh and productive.
Again, the dependence of the South upon the North, for its provisions,
may be inferred from such additional facts as these: The "Abstract of
the Census," for 1850, shows, that the production of wheat, in Florida,
Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas, averaged, the year
preceding, very little more than a peck, (it was 27/100 of a bushel,) to
each person within their limits. These States must purchase flour
largely, but to what amount we can not determine. The shipments of
provisions from Cincinnati to New Orleans and other down river ports,
show that large supplies leave that city for the South; but what
proportion of them is taken for consumption by the planters, must be
left, at present, to conjecture. These shipments, as to a few of the
prominent articles, for the four years ending August 31, 1854, averaged
annually the following amounts:
Wheat flour brls. 385,204
Pork and Bacon lbs. 43,689,000
Whisky gals. 8,115,360
Cincinnati also exports eastward, by canal, river and railroad, large
amounts of these productions. The towns and cities westward send more of
their products to the South, as their distance increases the cost of
transportation to the East. But, in the absence of full statistics, it
is not necessary to make additional statements.
From this view of the subject, it appears that slavery is not a
self-sustaining system, independently remunerative; but that it attains
its importance to the nation and to the world, by standing as an agency,
intermediate, between the grain-growing States and our foreign commerce.
As the distillers of the West transformed the surplus grain into
whisky, that it might bear transport, so slavery takes the products of
the North, and metamorphoses them into cotton, that they may bear
export.
It seems, indeed, when the whole of the facts brought to view are
considered, that American slavery, though of little force unaided, yet
properly sustained, is the great central power, or energizing influence,
not only of nearly all the industrial interests of our own country, but
also of those of Great Britain and much of the Continent; and that, if
stricken from existence, the whole of these interests, with the
advancing civilization of the age, would receive a shock that must
retard their progress for years to come.
This is no exaggerated picture of the present imposing power of slavery.
It is literally true. Southern men, at an early day, believed that the
Protective Tariff would have paralyzed it--would have destroyed it. But
the abolitionists, led off by their sympathies with England, and
influenced by American politicians and editors, who advocated free
trade, were made the instruments of its overthrow. No such extended
mining and manufacturing, as the Protective system was expected to
create, has now any existence in the Union. Under it, according to the
theory of its friends, more than one hundred and sixty millions in
value, of the foreign imports for 1853, would have been produced in our
own country. But free trade is dominant: the South has triumphed in its
warfare with the North: the political power passed into its hands with
the defeat of the Father of the Protective Tariff, ten years since, in
the last effort of his friends to elevate him to the Presidency: the
slaveholding and commercial interests then gained the ascendency, and
secured the power of annexing territory at will: the nation has become
rich in commerce, and unbounded in ambition for territorial
aggrandizement: the people acquiesce in the measures of Government, and
are proud of the influence it has gained in the world: nay, more, the
peaceful aspect of the nations has been changed, and the policy of our
own country must be modified to meet the exigencies that may arise.
One word more on the point we have been considering. With the defeat of
Mr. Clay, came the immediate annexation of Texas, and, as he predicted,
the war with Mexico. The results of these events let loose from its
attachments a mighty avalanche of emigration and of enterprise, under
the rule of the free trade policy, then adopted, which, by the golden
treasures it yields, renders that system, thus far, self-sustaining, and
able to move on, as its friends believe, with a momentum that forbids
any attempt to return again to the system of protection. Whether the
Tariff controversy is permanently settled, or not, is a question about
which we shall not speculate. It may be remarked, however, that one of
the leading parties in the North gave its adhesion to free trade many
years since, and still continues to vote with the South. The leading
abolition paper, too, ever since its origin, has advocated the Southern
free trade system; and thus, in defending the cause it has espoused, as
was said of a certain general in the Mexican war, its editors have been
digging their ditches on the wrong side of their breastworks. To say the
least, their position is a very strange one, for men who profess to
labor for the subversion of American slavery. It would be as rational to
pour oil upon a burning edifice, to extinguish the fire, as to attempt
to overthrow that system under the rule of free trade. For, whatever
differences of opinion may exist on the question of free trade, as
applied to the nations at large, there can be no question that it has
been the main element in promoting the value of slave labor in the
United States; and, consequently, of extending the system of slavery,
vastly, beyond the bounds it would otherwise have reached. But the
editors referred to, do not stand alone. More than one United States
Senator, after acquiring notoriety and position by constant clamors
against slavery at home, has not hesitated to vote for free trade at
Washington, with as hearty a good will as any friend of the extension of
slavery in the country!
All these things together have paralyzed the advocates of the protection
of free labor, at present, as fully as the North has thereby been shorn
of its power to control the question of slavery. Indeed, from what has
been said of the present position of American slavery, in its relation
to the other industrial interests of the country, and of the world,
there is no longer any doubt that it now supplies the complement of that
_home market_, so zealously urged as essential to the prosperity of the
agricultural population of the country: and which, it was supposed,
could only be created by the multiplication of domestic manufactures.
This desideratum being gained, the great majority of the people have
nothing more to ask, but seem desirous that our foreign commerce shall
be cherished; that the cultivation of cotton and sugar shall be
extended; that the nation shall become cumulative as well as
progressive; that, as despotism is striving to spread its raven wing
over the earth, freedom must strengthen itself for the protection of the
liberties of the world; that while three millions of Africans, only, are
held to involuntary servitude for a time, to sustain the system of free
trade, the freedom of hundreds of millions is involved in the
preservation of the American Constitution; and that, as African
emancipation, in every experiment made, has thrown a dead weight upon
Anglo-Saxon progress, the colored people must wait a little, until the
general battle for the liberties of the civilized nations is gained,
before the universal elevation of the barbarous tribes can be achieved.
This work, it is true, has been commenced at various outposts in
heathendom, by the missionary, but is impeded by numberless hindrances;
and these obstacles to the progress of Christian civilization, doubtless
will continue, until the friends of civil and religious liberty shall
triumph in nominally Christian countries; and, with the wealth of the
nations at command, instead of applying it to purposes of war, shall
devote it to sweeping away the darkness of superstition and barbarism
from the earth, by extending the knowledge of science and revelation to
all the families of man.
But we must hasten.
There are none who will deny the truth of what is said of the present
strength and influence of slavery, however much they may have deprecated
its acquisition of power. There are none who think it practicable to
assail it, successfully, by political action, in the States where it is
already established by law. The struggle against the system, therefore,
is narrowed down to an effort to prevent its extension into territory
now free; and this contest is limited to the people who settle the
territories. The question is thus taken out of the hands of the people
at large, and they are cut off from all control of slavery both in the
States and Territories. Hence it is, that the American people are
considering the propriety of banishing this distracting question from
national politics, and demanding of their statesmen that there shall no
longer be any delay in the adoption of measures to sustain the
Constitution and laws of our glorious Union, against all its enemies,
whether domestic or foreign.
The policy of adopting this course, may be liable to objection; but it
does not appear to arise from any disposition to prove recreant to the
cause of philanthropy, that a large portion of the people of the free
States are desirous of divorcing the slavery question from all
connection with political movements. It is because they now find
themselves wholly powerless, as did the colonizationists, forty years
since, in regard to emancipation, and are thus forced into a position of
neutrality on that subject.
A word on this point. The friends of colonization, in the outset of that
enterprise, found themselves shut up to the necessity of creating a
Republic on the shores of Africa, as the only hope for the free colored
people--the further emancipation of the slaves, by State action, having
become impracticable. After nearly forty years of experimenting with the
free colored people, by others, colonizationists still find themselves
circumscribed in their operations, to their original design of building
up the Republic of Liberia, as the only rational hope of the elevation
of the African race--the prospects of general emancipation being a
thousand-fold more gloomy in 1859 than they were in 1817.
Abolitionists, themselves, now admit that slavery completely controls
all national legislation. This is equivalent to admitting that all their
schemes for its overthrow have failed. Theodore Parker, of Boston, in a
sermon before his congregation, recently, is reported as having made the
following declaration: "I have been preaching to you in this city for
ten years; and beside the multitudes addressed here, I have addressed a
hundred thousand annually in excursions through the country; and in that
time the area of slavery has increased a hundred fold." Gerrit Smith, in
his late speech in Congress, said, that cotton is now the dominant
interest of the country, and sways Church, and State, and commerce, and
compels all of them to go for slavery. Mr. Sumner, in his thrice
repeated lecture, in New York, in May, 1855, declared, that,
"notwithstanding all its excess of numbers, wealth, and intelligence,
the North is now the vassal of an oligarchy, whose single inspiration
comes from slavery." . . . . . It "now dominates over the Republic,
determines its national policy, disposes of its offices, and sways all
to its absolute will." . . . . "In maintaining its power, the slave
oligarchy has applied a new test for office"--. . . . "Is he faithful to
slavery?" . . . . "With arrogant ostracism, it excludes from every
national office all who can not respond to this test." Hon. L. D.
Campbell, in a letter to the Cincinnati Convention of Colored Freemen,
January 5, 1852, said: "I regard the _present position_ of your race in
this country as infinitely worse than it was ten years ago. The States
which were _then_ preparing for gradual emancipation, are _now_
endeavoring to extend, perpetuate, and strengthen slavery! . . . . A
vast amount of territory which was _then_ free is _now_ everlastingly
dedicated to slavery. . . . . From the lights of the past, I confess, I
see nothing to justify a promise of much to your _future prospects_."
That these gentlemen state a great truth, as to the present position of
the slavery question, and the darkening prospects of emancipation, will
be denied by no man of intelligence and candor. Doubtless, a certain
class of politicians, because of the present dearth of political
capital, of any other kind, will continue to agitate this subject. But,
sooner or later, it must take the form we have stated, and become a
question of minor importance in politics. This result is inevitable,
because the people at large are beginning to realize their want of power
over the institution of slavery, and the futility of any measures
hitherto adopted to arrest its progress, and elevate the free colored
people on terms of equality among the whites.
But, I am told that the North has recently achieved a great victory over
the South, in the election of Mr. Banks, as Speaker.[48] Time was when
such a result would have been considered far otherwise than a Northern
triumph. Mr. Banks is an ultra free trade man, and his sentiments will
assuredly work no ill to the commercial interests of the South. His
election provoked no threats of secession. What, then, has been gained
to the North, in the wild excitement consequent upon the controversy
relative to the Speakership? The opponents of slavery are further than
ever from accomplishing any thing practicable in checking the demand for
the great staple of the South. Cotton is King still.
In such a crisis as this, shall the friends of the Union be rebuked, if
they determine to take a position of neutrality, in politics, on the
subject of slavery; while, at the same time, they offer to guarantee the
free colored people a Republic of their own, where they may equal other
races, and aid in redeeming a Continent from the woes it has suffered
for thousands of years!
FOOTNOTES:
[47] The progressive increase is indicated by the following figures:
=1820.= =1830.= =1840.= =1853.=
Total slaves
in United States, 1,538,098 2,009,043 2,487,356 3,296,408
Cotton exported, lbs., 127,800,000 298,459,102 743,941,061 1,111,570,370
Average export to
each slave, lbs., 83 143 295 337
[48] The remarks in this chapter remain as they were in the first
edition.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE INDUSTRIAL, SOCIAL, AND MORAL CONDITION OF THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR
IN THE BRITISH COLONIES, HAYTI, AND IN THE UNITED STATES; AND THE
INFLUENCE THEY HAVE EXERTED ON PUBLIC SENTIMENT IN RELATION TO SLAVERY,
AND TO THEIR OWN PROSPECTS OF EQUALITY WITH THE WHITES.
Effects of opposition to Colonization on
Liberia--Its effects on free colored people--Their
social and moral condition--Abolition testimony on
the subject--American Missionary Association--Its
failure in Canada--Degradation of West India free
colored people--American and Foreign Anti-Slavery
Society--Its testimony on the dismal condition of
West India free negroes--London Times on same
subject--Mr. Bigelow on same subject--Effect of
results in West Indies on Emancipation--Opinion of
Southern Planters--Economical failure of West
India Emancipation--Ruinous to British
Commerce--Similar results in Hayti--Extent of
diminution of exports from West Indies resulting
from Emancipation--Results favorable to American
Planter--Moral condition of Hayti--Later facts in
reference to the West Indies--Negro free labor a
failure--Necessity of education to render freedom
of value--Franklin's opinion
confirmed--Colonization essential to promote
Emancipation.
We have noticed the social and moral condition of the free colored
people, from the days of Franklin, to the projection of colonization. We
have also glanced at the main facts in relation to the abolition warfare
upon colonization, and its success in paralyzing the enterprise. This
subject demands a more extended notice. The most serious injury from
this hostility, sustained by the cause of colonization, was the
prejudice created, in the minds of the more intelligent free colored
men, against emigration to Liberia. The Colonization Society had
expressed its belief in the natural equality of the blacks and whites;
and that there were a sufficient number of educated, upright, free
colored men, in the United States, to establish and sustain a Republic
on the coast of Africa, "whose citizens, rising rapidly in the scale of
existence, under the stimulants to noble effort by which they would be
surrounded, might soon become equal to the people of Europe, or of
European origin--so long their masters and oppressors." These were the
sentiments of the first Report of the Colonization Society, and often
repeated since. Its appeals were made to the moral and intelligent of
the free colored people; and, with their co-operation, the success of
its scheme was considered certain. But the very persons needed to lead
the enterprise, were, mostly, persuaded to reject the proffered aid, and
the society was left to prosecute its plans with such materials as
offered. In consequence of this opposition, it was greatly embarrassed,
and made less progress in its work of African redemption, than it must
have done under other circumstances. Had three-fourths of its emigrants
been the enlightened, free colored men of the country, a dozen Liberias
might now gird the coast of Africa, where but one exists; and the slave
trader be entirely excluded from its shores. Doubtless, a wise
Providence has governed here, as in other human affairs, and may have
permitted this result, to show how speedily even semi-civilized men can
be elevated under American Protestant free institutions. The great body
of emigrants to Liberia, and nearly all the leading men who have sprung
up in the colony, and contributed most to the formation of the Republic,
went out from the very midst of slavery; and yet, what encouraging
results! It has been a sad mistake to oppose colonization, and thus to
retard Africa's redemption!
But how has it fared with the free colored people elsewhere? The answer
to this question will be the solution of the inquiry, What has
abolitionism accomplished by its hostility to colonization, and what is
the condition of the free colored people, whose interests it volunteered
to promote, and whose destinies it attempted to control?
The abolitionists themselves shall answer this question. The colored
people shall see what kind of commendations their tutors give them, and
what the world is to think of them, on the testimony of their particular
friends.
The concentration of a colored population in Canada, is the work of
American abolitionists. _The American Missionary Association_, is their
organ for the spread of a gospel untainted, it is claimed, by contact
with slavery. Out of four stations under its care in Canada, at the
opening of 1853, but one school, that of Miss Lyon, remained at its
close. All the others were abandoned, and all the missionaries had asked
to be released,[49] as we are informed by its Seventh Annual Report,
chiefly for the reasons stated in the following extract, page 49:
"The number of missionaries and teachers in Canada, with which the year
commenced, has been greatly reduced. Early in the year, Mr. Kirkland
wrote to the committee, that the opposition to white missionaries,
manifested by the colored people of Canada, had so greatly increased, by
the interested misrepresentations of ignorant colored men, pretending to
be ministers of the gospel, that he thought his own and his wife's
labors, and the funds of the association, could be better employed
elsewhere."
This Mission seems never to have been in a prosperous condition. Passing
over to the Eleventh Annual Report, 1857, it is found that the
Association had then but one missionary, the Rev. David Hotchkiss, in
that field. In relation to his prospects, the Report says:
"It has, however, happened to him, as it frequently did to Paul and his
fellow-laborers, that his faithfulness and his success have been the
occasion of stirring up certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, so that
at one time it was thought by some lookers-on that his life was in
danger, and that he might be compelled to leave the scene of his present
labors." He had succeeded, however, in gathering a church of 28 members,
but "on the 21st of June, the house in which the little church worshiped
was burned to the ground. This was undoubtedly the work of an
incendiary, as there had been no fire in it for more than two weeks.
Threats now were freely used against Mr. Hotchkiss and the church, but
he continued his labors, and procured another house, and had it fitted
up for worship. On the 24th of August, this also was burned down. They
have since had to meet in private houses, and much doubt has been felt
relative to ultimate duty. At later dates, however, the opposition was
more quiet, and hopes revived. This field is emphatically a hard one,
and requires much faith and patience from those who labor there."[50]
On the 30th of August, 1858, Mr. Hotchkiss writes: "My wife's school is
in a prosperous condition. She has had nearly forty scholars, and they
learn well. There are numbers who can not come to school for want of
suitable clothing. They are nearly naked."[51]
On a late occasion it is remarked, that "this society seems to meet with
the trouble which accompanies the efforts of other missionary societies
in their endeavors to 'to seek and to save that which was lost.' They
say they find it 'extremely difficult to win the confidence of the
colored people of Canada.'"[52]
But we have a picture of a different kind to present, and one that
proves the capacity of the free colored people for improvement--not when
running at large and uncared for, but when subjected to wholesome
restraint. This is as essential to the progress of the blacks as the
whites, while they are in the course of intellectual, moral and
industrial training:
"Some years ago the Rev. William King, a slave owner in Louisiana,
manumitted his slaves and removed them to Canada. They now, with others,
occupy a tract of land at Buxton and the vicinity, called the Elgin
Block, where Mr. King is stationed as a Presbyterian missionary.
"A recent general meeting there was attended by Lord Althorp, son of
Earl Spencer, and J. W. Probyn, Esq., both members of the British
Parliament, who made addresses. The whole educational and moral
machinery is worked by the presiding genius of the Rev. W. King, to whom
the entire settlement are under felt and acknowledged obligations. He
teaches them agriculture and industry. He superintends their education,
and preaches on the Lord's day. He regards the experiment as highly
successful."[53]
It is not our purpose to multiply testimony on this subject, but simply
to afford an index to the condition of the colored people, as described
by abolition pens, best known to the public. We turn, therefore, from
the British colonies in the North, to her possessions in the Tropics.
West India emancipation, under the guidance of English abolitionists,
has always been viewed as the grand experiment, which was to convince
the world of the capacity of the colored man to rise, side by side, with
the white man. We shall let the friends of the system, and the public
documents of the British Government, testify as to its results, both
morally and economically. Opening, again, the Seventh Annual Report of
the _American Missionary Association_, page 30, where it speaks of their
moral condition, we find it written:
"One of our missionaries, in giving a description of the moral condition
of the people of Jamaica, after speaking of the licentiousness which
they received as a legacy from those who denied them the pure joys of
holy wedlock, and trampled upon and scourged chastity, as if it were a
fiend to be driven out from among men--that enduring legacy, which, with
its foul, pestilential influence, still blights, like the mildew of
death, every thing in society that should be lovely, virtuous, and of
good report; and alluding to their intemperance, in which they have
followed the example set by the governor in his palace, the bishop in
his robes, statesmen and judges, lawyers and doctors, planters and
overseers, and even professedly Christian ministers; and the deceit and
falsehood which oppression and wrong always engender, says: 'It must not
be forgotten that we are following in the wake of the accursed system of
_slavery_--a system that _unmakes man_, by warring upon his conscience,
and crushing his spirit, leaving naught but the shattered wrecks of
humanity behind it. If we may but gather up some of these floating
fragments, from which the image of God is well nigh effaced, and pilot
them safely into that better land, we shall not have labored in vain.
But we may _hope to do more_. The chief fruit of our labors is to be
sought in the _future_, rather than in the _present_.' It should be
remembered, too, (continues the Report,) that there is but a small part
of the population yet brought within the reach of the influence of
enlightened Christian teachers, while the great mass by whom they are
surrounded are but little removed from actual heathenism." Another
missionary, page 33, says, it is the opinion of all intelligent
Christian men, that "nothing save the furnishing of the people with
ample means of education and religious instruction will save them from
relapsing into a state of barbarism." And another, page 36, in speaking
of certain cases of discipline, for the highest form of crime, under the
seventh commandment, says: "There is _nothing_ in public sentiment to
save the youth of Jamaica in this respect."
The missions of this Association, in Jamaica, differ scarcely a shade
from those among the actual heathen. On this point, the Report, near its
close, says:
"For most of the adult population of Jamaica, the unhappy victims of
long years of oppression and degradation, our missionaries have great
fear. Yet for even these there may be hope, even though with trembling.
But it is around the youth of the island that their brightest hopes and
anticipations cluster; from them they expect to gather their principal
sheaves for the great Lord of the harvest."
The _American Missionary_, a monthly paper, and organ of this
Association, for July, 1855, has the following quotation from the
letters of the missionaries, recently received. It is given, as
abolition testimony, in further confirmation of the moral condition of
the colored people of Jamaica:
"From the number of churches and chapels in the island, Jamaica ought
certainly to be called a Christian land. The people may be called a
church-going people. There are chapels and places of worship enough, at
least in this part of the island, to supply the people if every station
of our mission were given up. And there is no lack of ministers and
preachers. As far as I am acquainted, almost the entire adult population
profess to have a hope of eternal life, and I think the larger part are
connected with churches. In view of such facts some have been led to
say, 'The spiritual condition of the population is very satisfactory.'
But there is another class of facts that is perfectly astounding. With
all this array of the externals of religion, one broad, deep wave of
moral death rolls over the land. A man may be a drunkard, a liar, a
Sabbath-breaker, a profane man, a fornicator, an adulterer, and such
like--and be known to be such--and go to chapel, and hold up his head
there, and feel no disgrace from these things, because they are so
common as to create a public sentiment in his favor. He may go to the
communion table, and cherish a hope of heaven, and not have his hope
disturbed. I might tell of persons guilty of some, if not all, these
things, ministering in holy things."
What motives can prompt the American Missionary Association to cast such
imputations upon the missions of the English and Scotch Churches, in
Jamaica, we leave to be determined by the parties interested. Few,
indeed, will believe that the English and Scotch Churches would, for a
moment, tolerate such a condition of things, in their mission stations,
as is here represented.
Next we turn to the Annual Report of the American and Foreign
Anti-Slavery Society, 1853, which discourses thus, in its own language,
and in quotations which it indorses:[54]
"The friends of emancipation in the United States have been
disappointed in some respects at the results in the West Indies, because
they expected too much. A nation of slaves can not at once be converted
into a nation of intelligent, industrious, and moral freemen." . . . .
"It is not too much, even now, to say of the people of Jamaica, . . . .
their condition is exceedingly degraded, their morals woefully corrupt.
But this must, by no means, be understood to be of universal
application. With respect to those who have been brought under a
healthful educational and religious influence, _it is not true_. But as
respects the great mass, whose humanity has been ground out of them by
cruel oppression--whom no good Samaritan hand has yet reached--how could
it be otherwise? We wish to turn the tables; to supplant oppression by
righteousness, insult by compassion and brotherly kindness, hatred and
contempt by love and winning meekness, till we allure these wretched
ones to the hope and enjoyment of manhood and virtue."[55] . . . . "The
means of education and religious instruction are better enjoyed,
although but little appreciated and improved by the great mass of the
people. It is also true, that the moral sense of the people is becoming
somewhat enlightened. . . . . But while this is true, yet their moral
condition is very far from being what it ought to be. . . . . It is
exceedingly dark and distressing. Licentiousness prevails to a most
alarming extent among the people. . . . . The almost universal
prevalence of intemperance is another prolific source of the moral
darkness and degradation of the people. The great mass, among all
classes of the inhabitants, from the governor in his palace to the
peasant in his hut--from the bishop in his gown to the beggar in his
rags--are all slaves to their cups."[56]
This is the language of American abolitionists, going out under the
sanction of their Annual Reports. Lest it may be considered as too
highly colored, we add the following from the _London Times_, of near
the same date. In speaking of the results of emancipation, in Jamaica,
it says:
"The negro has not acquired, with his freedom, any habits of industry or
morality. His independence is but little better than that of an
uncaptured brute. Having accepted few of the restraints of civilization,
he is amenable to few of its necessities; and the wants of his nature
are so easily satisfied, that at the present rate of wages, he is called
upon for nothing but fitful or desultory exertion. The blacks,
therefore, instead of becoming intelligent husbandmen, have become
vagrants and squatters, and it is now apprehended that with the failure
of cultivation in the island will come the failure of its resources for
instructing or controlling its population. So imminent does this
consummation appear, that memorials have been signed by classes of
colonial society hitherto standing aloof from politics, and not only the
bench and the bar, but the bishop, clergy, and ministers of all
denominations in the island, without exception, have recorded their
conviction, that, in the absence of timely relief, the religious and
educational institutions of the island must be abandoned, and the masses
of the population retrogade to barbarism."
One of the editors of the _New York Evening Post_, Mr. Bigelow, a few
years since, spent a winter in Jamaica, and continues to watch, with
anxious solicitude, as an anti-slavery man, the developments taking
place among its colored population. In reviewing the returns published
by the Jamaica House of Assembly, in 1853, in reference to the ruinous
decline in the agriculture of the island, and stating the enormous
quantity of lands thrown out of cultivation, since 1848, the _Post_
says:
"This decline has been going on from year to year, daily becoming more
alarming, until at length the island has reached what would appear to be
the last profound of distress and misery, . . . . when thousands of people
do not know, when they rise in the morning, whence or in what manner
they are to procure bread for the day."
We must examine, more closely, the economical results of emancipation,
in the West Indies, before we can judge of the effects, upon the trade
and commerce of the world, which would result from general emancipation
in the United States. We do this, not to afford an argument in behalf of
the perpetuation of slavery, because its abolition might injuriously
affect the interests of trade and commerce; but because the whole of
these results have long been well known to the American planter, and
serve as conclusive arguments, with him, against emancipation. He
believes that, in tropical cultivation, African free labor is worthless;
that the liberation of the slaves in this country, must, necessarily, be
followed with results similar to what has occurred in the West Indies;
and, for this reason, as well as on account of the profitable character
of slavery, he refuses to give freedom to his slaves. We repeat, we do
not cite the fact of the failure, economically, of free labor in
Jamaica, as an argument for the perpetuation of slavery. Not at all. We
allude to the fact, only to show that emancipation has greatly reduced
the commerce of the colonies, and that the logic of this result
militates against the colored man's prospects of advancement in the
scale of political and social equality. But to the facts:
The British planters, up to 1806, had received from the slave traders an
uninterrupted supply of laborers, and had rapidly extended their
cultivation as commerce increased its demands for their products. Let us
take the results in Jamaica as an example of the whole of the British
West India islands. She had increased her exports of sugar from a yearly
average of 123,979,000 lbs. in 1772-3, to 234,700,000 lbs. in 1805-6. No
diminution of exports had occurred, as has been asserted by some
anti-slavery writers, before the prohibition of the slave trade. The
increase was progressive and undisturbed, except so far as affected by
seasons, more or less favorable. But no sooner was her supply of slaves
cut off, by the act of 1806, which took effect in 1808, than the exports
of Jamaica began to diminish, until her sugar had fallen off from 1822
to 1832, to an annual average of 131,129,000 lbs., or nearly to what
they had been sixty years before. It was not until 1833 that the
Emancipation Act was passed; so that this decline in the exports of
Jamaica, took place under all the rigors of West India slavery. The
exports of rum, coffee, and cotton, were diminished in nearly the same
ratio.
To arrest this ruinous decline in the commercial prosperity of the
islands, emancipation was adopted in 1833 and perfected in 1838. This
policy was pursued under the plea, that free labor is doubly as
productive as slave labor; and, that the negroes, liberated, would labor
twice as well as when enslaved. But what was the result? Ten years after
final emancipation was effected, the exports of sugar from Jamaica were
only 67,539,200 lbs. a year, instead of 234,700,000 lbs., as in 1805-6.
The exports of coffee, during the same year, were reduced to 5,684,921
lbs., instead of 23,625,377 lbs., as in 1805-6; and the extinction of
the cultivation of cotton, for export, had become almost complete,
though in 1800, it had nearly equaled that of the United States. These
are no fancy sketches, drawn for effect, but sober realities, attested
by the public documents of the British government.[57] The Jamaica
negro, ignorant and destitute of forethought, disappointed the English
philanthropists.
In Hayti, emancipation had been productive of results, fully as
disastrous to its commerce, as it had been to that of Jamaica. There was
an almost total abandonment of the production of sugar, soon after
freedom was declared. This took place in 1793. In 1790 the island
exported 163,318,810 lbs. of sugar. But in 1801 its export was reduced
to 18,534,112 lbs., in 1818, to 5,443,765 lbs., and in 1825 to 2,020
lbs.;[58] since which time its export has nearly ceased. Indeed, it is
asserted, that, "at this moment there is not one pound of sugar exported
from the island, and all that is used is imported from the United
States."[59]
The exports of coffee, from Hayti, in 1790, were 76,835,219 lbs.; and of
cotton, 7,004,274 lbs. But the exports of the former article, in 1801,
were reduced to 43,420,270 lbs., and the latter to 474,118 lbs.[60] The
exports of coffee have varied, annually, since that period, from thirty
to forty million pounds; and the cotton exported has rarely much
exceeded one million pounds.[61] At present, "with the exception of
Gonaives, there is not a pound of cotton produced, and only a very
limited quanity there, barely sufficient for consumption; and instead of
exporting indigo, as formerly, they import all they use from the United
States."[62]
According to the authorities before cited, the deficit of free labor
tropical cultivation, as compared with that of slave labor, while
sustained by the slave trade, including the British West Indies and
Hayti, stands as follows:--a startling result, truly, to those who
expected emancipation to work well for commerce, and supersede the
necessity of employing slave labor:
_Contrast of Slave Labor and Free Labor Exports from the West Indies._
SLAVE LABOR.
_Years._ _lbs. Sugar._ _lbs. Coffee._ _lbs. Cotton._
British West Indies, 1807, 636,025,643 31,610,764 17,000,000[63]
Hayti, 1790, 163,318,810 76,835,219 7,286,126
----------- ----------- ----------
Total 809,344,453 108,245,983 24,286,126
FREE LABOR.
_Years._ _lbs. Sugar._ _lbs. Coffee._ _lbs. Cotton._
British West Indies, 1848, 313,306,112 6,770,792 427,529[64]
Hayti 1848, very little. 34,114,717[C] 1,591,454[65]
----------- ---------- ---------
Total 313,306,112 40,885,509 2,018,983
Free Labor Deficit 496,038,341 67,360,474 22,267,143
To understand the bearing which this decrease of production, by free
labor, has upon the interests of the African race, it must be
remembered, that the consumption of cotton and sugar has not diminished,
but increased, vastly; and that for every bale of cotton, or hogshead of
sugar, that the free labor production is diminished, an equal amount of
slave labor cotton and sugar is demanded to supply its place; and, more
than this, for every additional bale or hogshead required by their
increased consumption, an additional one must be furnished by slave
labor, because the world will not dispense with their use. As no
material change has occurred, for several years, in the commercial
condition of the islands, it is not necessary to bring this statement
down to a later date than 1848. The causes operating to encourage the
American planters, in extending their cultivation of cotton and sugar,
can now be understood.
In relation to the moral condition of Hayti, we need say but little. It
is known that a great majority of the children of the island are born
out of wedlock, and that the Christian Sabbath is the principal market
day in the towns. The _American and Foreign Christian Union_, a
missionary paper of New York, after quoting the report of one of the
missionaries in Hayti, who represents his success as encouraging, thus
remarks: "This letter closes with some singular incidents not suitable
for publication, showing the deplorable state of community there, both
morally and socially. There seems to be a mixture of African barbarism
with the sensuous civilization of France. . . . . That dark land needs
the light which begins to dawn thereon."
Thus matters stood when the second edition of this work went to press.
An opportunity is now afforded, of embracing the results of emancipation
to a later date, and of forming a better judgment of the effects of that
policy on the question of freedom in the United States. For, if the
negro, with full liberty, in the West Indies, has proved himself
unreliable in voluntary labor, the experiment of freeing him here will
not be attempted by our slaveholders.
Much has been said, recently, about British emancipation, and the
returning commercial prosperity of her tropical islands. The American
Missionary Association[66] gives currency to the assertion, that "they
yield more produce than they ever did during the existence of slavery."
It is said, also, in the _Edinburgh Review_, that existing facts "show
that slavery was bearing our colonies down to ruin with awful speed;
that had it lasted but another half century, they must have sunk beyond
recovery. On the other hand, that now, under freedom and free trade,
they are growing day by day more rich and prosperous; with spreading
trade, with improving agriculture, with a more educated, industrious and
virtuous people; while the comfort of the quondam slaves is increased
beyond the power of words to portray."[67]
Now all this seems very encouraging; but how such language can be used,
without its being considered as flatly contradicting well known facts,
and what the American Missionary Association, Mr. Bigelow, and others,
have heretofore said, will seem very mysterious to the reader. And yet,
the assertions quoted would seem to be proved, by taking the aggregate
production of the whole British West India islands and Mauritius, as the
index to their commercial prosperity. But if the islands be taken
separately, and all the facts considered, a widely different conclusion
would be formed, by every candid man, than that the improvement is due
to the increased industry of the negroes. On this subject the facts can
be drawn from authorities which would scorn to conceal the truth with
the design of sustaining a theory of the philanthropist. This question
is placed in its true light by the _London Economist_, July 16, 1859, in
which it is shown that the apparent industrial advancement of the
islands is due to the importation of immigrants from India, China, and
Africa, by the "coolie traffic," and not to the improved industry of the
emancipated negroes. Says the _Economist_:
"We find one of the Emigration Commissioners, Mr. Murdock,[68] in an
interesting memorandum on this subject, giving us the following
comparison between the islands which have been recently supplied with
immigrants, and those which have not:
_Sugar, pounds. The _Sugar, pounds.
_Number of three years before the last three
Immigrants._ Immigration._ years._
Mauritius 209,490 217,200,256 469,812,784
British Guiana 24,946 173,626,208 250,715,584
Trinidad 11,981 91,110,768 150,579,072
"With these are contrasted the results in Jamaica and Antigua, where
there has been very little immigration:--
_Sugar, pounds. _Sugar, pounds. The last
The three years after three years._
apprenticeship._[69]
Jamaica 202,973,568 139,369,776
Antigua 63,824,656 70,302,736
Here, now, is presented the key to the mystery overhanging the British
West Indies. Men, high in station, have asserted that West India
emancipation has been an economic success; while others, equally
honorable, have maintained the opposite view. Both have presented
figures, averred to be true, that seemed to sustain their declarations.
This apparent contradiction is thus explained. The first take the
aggregate production in the whole of the islands, which, they say,
exceeds that during the existence of slavery;[70] the second take the
production in Jamaica alone, as representing the whole; and, thus, the
startling fact appears, that the sugar crop of the last three years in
Jamaica, has fallen 63,603,000 lbs., below what it was during the first
three years of freedom. This argues badly for the free negroes; but it
must be the legitimate fruits of emancipation, as no exterior force has
been brought into that island to interfere, materially, with its
workings. In Mauritius, Trinidad, and British Guiana, it will be seen
that the production has greatly increased; but from a very different
cause than any improvement in the industry of the blacks who had
received their freedom--the increase in Mauritius having been more than
double what it had been when the production depended upon them. The
sugar crop, in this island, for the three years preceding the
introduction of immigrant labor, was but 217,200,000 lbs.; while, during
the last three years, by the aid of 210,000 immigrants, it has been run
up to 469,812,000 lbs.
Taking all these facts into consideration, it is apparent that West
India emancipation has been a failure, economically considered. The
production in Jamaica, when it has depended upon the labor of the free
blacks alone, has materially declined in some of the islands, since the
abandonment of slavery, and is not so great now as it was during the
first years of freedom; and, so far is it from being equal to what it
was while slavery prevailed, and especially while the slave trade was
continued, that it now falls short of the production of that period by
an immense amount. In no way, therefore, can it be claimed, that the
cultivation of the British West India islands is on the increase, except
by resorting to the pious fraud of crediting the products of the
immigrant labor to the account of emancipation--a resort to which no
conscientious Christian man will have recourse, even to sustain a
philanthropic theory.
But the Island of Barbadoes is an exception. It is said to have suffered
no diminution in its production since emancipation, and that this result
was attained without the aid of immigrant labor. The _London Economist_
must be permitted to explain this phenomenon; and must also be allowed
to give its views on the subject of the effects of emancipation, after
the lapse of a quarter of a century from the date of the passage of the
Emancipation Act:
"We are no believers in Mr. Carlyle's gospel of the 'beneficent whip' as
the bearer of salvation to tropical indolence. But we can not for a
moment doubt that the first result of emancipation was, in most of the
islands, to substitute for the worst kind of moral and political evil,
one of a less fatal but still of a very pernicious kind. The negroes had
been treated as mere machines for raising sugar and coffee. They were
suddenly liberated from that mechanical drudgery; they became free
beings--but without the discipline needful to use freedom well, and
unfortunately with a larger amount of practical freedom than the
laboring class of any Northern or temperate climate could by any
possibility enjoy. They suddenly found themselves, in most of the
islands, in a position in many respects analagous to that of a people
possessed of a moderate property in England, who can supply their
principal wants without any positive labor, and have no ambition to rise
into any higher sphere than that into which they were born. The only
difference was, that the negroes in most of the West India islands
wanted vastly less than such people as these in civilized
States,--wanted nothing in fact, but the plantains they could grow
almost without labor, and the huts which they could build on any waste
mountain land without paying rent for it. The consequence naturally was,
that when the spur of physical tyranny was removed, there was no
sufficient substitute for it, in most of the islands, in the wholesome
hardships of natural exigencies. The really beneficent 'whip' of hunger
and cold was not substituted for the human cruelty from which they had
escaped. In Barbadoes alone, perhaps, the pressure of a dense
population, with the absence of any waste mountain lands on which the
negroes could squat, rent free, was an efficient substitute for the
terrors of slavery. And, consequently, in Barbadoes alone, has the
Emancipation Act produced unalloyed and conspicuous good. The natural
spur of competition for the means of living, took the place there of the
artificial spur of slavery, and the slow, indolent temperament of the
African race was thus quickened into a voluntary industry essential to
its moral discipline, and most favorable to its intellectual culture."
In further commenting on the figures quoted, the _Economist_ remarks:
"These results, do not of course, necessarily represent in any degree
the fresh spur to diligence on the part of the old population, caused by
the new labor. In islands like Trinidad, where the amount of unredeemed
land suited for such production is almost unlimited, the new labor
introduced cannot for a long time press on the old labor at all. But
wherever the amount of land fitted for this kind of culture is nearly
exhausted, the presence of the new competition will soon be felt. And,
in any case, it is only through this gradual supply of the labor market
that we can hope to bring the wholesome spur of necessity to act
eventually on the laboring classes. Englishmen, indeed, may well think
that at times the good influences of this competitive jostling for
employment are overrated and its evil underrated. But this is far from
true of the negro race. To their slow and unambitious temperament,
influences of this kind are almost unalloyed good, as the great
superiority in the population of Barbadoes to that of the other islands
sufficiently shows."
The _Economist_, in further discussing this question, favors the
introduction of a permanent class of laborers, not only that the
cultivation may be increased, but because there is "no doubt at all that
if a larger supply of labor could be attained in the West Indies,
without any very great incidental evils, the benefit experienced even by
the planters would be by no means so great as that of the negro
population themselves;" and thinks that "the philanthropic party, in
their tenderness for the emancipated Africans, are sometimes not a
little blind to the advantages of stern industrial necessities;" and
that, "what the accident of population and soil has done for Barbadoes,
it cannot be doubted that a stream of immigration, if properly
conducted, might do in some degree for the other islands."
Lest it should be thought that the _Economist_ stands alone in its
representations in relation to the failure of negro free labor in
Jamaica, we quote a statement of the Colonial Minister, which recently
appeared in the _New York Tribune_, and was thence transferred to the
_American Missionary_, February, 1859:
"The Colonial Minister says: 'Jamaica is now the only important sugar
producing colony which exports a considerable smaller quantity of sugar
than was exported in the time of slavery, while some such colonies since
the passage of the Emancipation Act have largely increased their
product.'"
Time is thus casting light upon the question of the capacity of the
African race for voluntary labor. Jamaica included 311,692 negroes, at
the time of emancipation, out of the 660,000 who received their freedom
in the whole of the West Indian islands. This was but little less than
half of the whole number. It was a fair field to test the question of
the willingness of the free negro to work. But what is the result? We
have it admitted by both the _Economist_ and the Colonial Minister, that
there has been a vast falling off in the exports from Jamaica, and that
a spur of some kind must be applied to secure their adopting habits of
industry. The spur of the "whip" having been thrown away, the remedy
proposed is to press them into a corner, by immigration from India and
China, so that the securing of bread shall become the great necessity
with them, and they be compelled to labor or starve, as has been the
case in Barbadoes. This is the opinion of the _Economist_, always
opposed to slavery, but now convinced that the "slow, indolent
temperament of the African race" needs such a "spur" to quicken it "into
a voluntary industry essential to its moral discipline, and most
favorable to its intellectual culture."
The West India emancipation experiments have demonstrated the truth of a
few principles that the world should fully understand. It must now be
admitted that mere personal liberty, even connected with the stimulus of
wages, is insufficient to secure the industry of an ignorant population.
It is intelligence, alone, that can be acted upon by such motives.
Intelligence, then, must precede voluntary industry. And, hereafter,
that man, or nation, may find it difficult to command respect, or
succeed in being esteemed wise, who will not, along with exertions to
extend personal freedom to man, intimately blend with their efforts
adequate means for intellectual and moral improvement. The results of
West India emancipation, it must be further noticed, fully confirm the
opinions of Franklin, that freedom, to unenlightened slaves, must be
accompanied with the means of intellectual and moral elevation,
otherwise it may be productive of serious evils to themselves and to
society. It also sustains the views entertained by Southern
slaveholders, that emancipation, unaccompanied by the colonization of
the slaves, could be of little value to the blacks, while it would
entail a ruinous burden upon the whites. These facts must not be
overlooked in the projection of plans for emancipation, as none can
receive the sanction of Southern men, which does not embrace in it the
removal of the colored people. With the example of West India
emancipation before them, and the results of which have been closely
watched by them, it can not be expected that Southern statesmen will
ever risk the liberation of their slaves, except on these conditions.
FOOTNOTES:
[49] Mr. Wilson, the Missionary at St. Catharines, still remained there,
but not under the care of the Association.
[50] 11th Annual Report, pages 36, 37.
[51] _American Missionary_, October, 1858.
[52] _African Repository_, October, 1859.
[53] _African Repository_, January, 1858.
[54] Page 170.
[55] Extract from the report of a missionary, quoted in the Report, page
172.
[56] Extract from the report of another missionary, page 171, of the
Report.
[57] The average exports from the Island of Jamaica, omitting cotton,
during the three epochs referred to--that of the slave trade, of slavery
alone, and of freedom--for periods of five years, during the first two,
and for the three years separately, in the last, will give a full view
of this point:
_Years of Exports._ _lbs. Sugar._ _P. Rum. lbs._ _Coffee._
Annual average, 1803 to 1807,[A] 211,139,200 50,426 23,625,377
Annual average, 1829 to 1833,[A] 152,564,800 35,505 17,645,602
Annual average, 1839 to 1843,[A] 67,924,800 14,185 7,412,498
Annual exports, 1846,[B] 57,956,800 14,395 6,047,150
Annual exports, 1847,[B] 77,686,400 18,077 6,421,122
Annual exports, 1848.[B] 67,539,200 20,194 5,684,921
[A] _Blackwood's Magazine_ 1848, p. 225.
[B] _Littel's Living Age_, 1850, No. 309, p. 125.--_Letter of Mr.
Bigelow_.]
[58] Macgregor, London ed., 1847.
[59] _De Bow's Review_, August, 1855.
[60] Macgregor, London ed., 1847.
[61] Ibid.
[62] _De Bow's Review_, 1855.
[63] 1800.
[64] 1840.
[65] 1847.
[66] American Missionary Association's Report, 1857, p. 32.
[67] The West Indies as they were and are--_Edinburgh Review_, April,
1859.--The article said to be by Mr. C. Buxton.
[68] The statement was made at a meeting which met to consider the evils
of the Chinese and coolie system of immigration into the West Indies and
Mauritius. It is not stated whether the amounts given are the whole
production or only the exports.
[69] The reader will remember that the Emancipation Act, of 1833, left
the West India blacks in the relation of apprentices to their masters,
but that the system worked so badly that total emancipation was declared
in 1838.
[70] They must refer to slavery in its later years, after the
suppression of the slave trade. Previous to that event, the production
of Jamaica was more than seventy-five per cent. greater than at present.
CHAPTER XV.
Moral condition of the free colored people in
United States--What have they gained by refusing
to accept Colonization?--Abolition testimony on
the subject--Gerrit Smith--New York Tribune--Their
moral condition as indicated by proportions in
Penitentiaries--Census Reports--Native whites,
foreign born, and free colored, in
Penitentiaries--But little improvement in
Massachusetts in seventy years--Contrasts of Ohio
with New England--Antagonism of Abolitionism to
free negroes.
In turning to the condition of our own free colored people, who rejected
homes in Liberia, we approach a most important subject. They have been
under the guardianship of their abolition friends, ever since that
period, and have cherished feelings of determined hostility to
colonization. What have they gained by this hostility? What has been
accomplished for them by their abolition friends, or what have they done
for themselves? Those who took refuge in Liberia have built up a
Republic of their own; and with the view of encouraging them to laudable
effort, have been recognized as an independent nation, by five of the
great governments of the earth. But what has been the progress of those
who remained behind, in the vain hope of rising to an equality with the
whites, and of assisting in abolishing American slavery?
We offer no opinion, here, of our own, as to the present social and
moral condition of the free colored people in the North. What it was at
the time of the founding of Liberia, has already been shown. On this
subject we might quote largely from the proceedings of the Conventions
of the colored people, and the writings of their editors, so as to
produce a dark picture indeed; but this would be cruel, as their voices
are but the wailings of sensitive and benevolent hearts, while weeping
over the moral desolations that, for ages, have overwhelmed their
people. Nor shall we multiply testimony on the subject; but in this, as
in the case of Canada and the West Indies, allow the abolitionists to
speak of their own schemes. The Hon. Gerrit Smith, in his letter to
Governor Hunt, of New York, in 1852, while speaking of his ineffectual
efforts, for fifteen years past, to prevail upon the free colored people
to betake themselves to mechanical and agricultural pursuits, says:
"Suppose, moreover, that during all these fifteen years, they had been
quitting the cities, _where the mass of them rot, both physically and
morally_, and had gone into the country to become farmers and
mechanics--suppose, I say, all this--and who would have the hardihood to
affirm that the Colonization Society lives upon the malignity of the
whites--but it is true that it lives upon _the voluntary degradation of
the blacks_. I do not say that the colored people are more debased than
the white people would be if persecuted, oppressed and outraged as are
the colored people. But I do say that they are debased, deeply debased;
and that to recover themselves they must become heroes, self-denying
heroes, capable of achieving a great moral victory--a two-fold
victory--a victory over themselves and a victory over their enemies."
The _New York Tribune_, September 22, 1855, in noticing the movements of
the colored people of New York, to secure to themselves equal suffrage,
thus gives utterance to its views of their moral condition:
"Most earnestly desiring the enfranchisement of the Afric-American race,
we would gladly wean them, at the cost of some additional ill-will, from
the sterile path of political agitation. They can help win their rights
if they will, but not by jawing for them. One negro on a farm which he
has cleared or bought patiently hewing out a modest, toilsome
independence, is worth more to the cause of equal suffrage than three in
an Ethiopian (or any other) convention, clamoring against white
oppression with all the fire of a Spartacus. It is not logical
conviction of the justice of their claims that is needed, but a
prevalent belief that they would form a wholesome and desirable element
of the body politic. Their color exposes them to much unjust and
damaging prejudice; but if their degradation were but skin-deep, they
might easily overcome it. . . . . Of course, we understand that the evil
we contemplate is complex and retroactive--that the political
degradation of the blacks is a cause as well as a consequence of their
moral debasement. Had they never been enslaved, they would not now be so
abject in soul; had they not been so abject, they could not have been
enslaved. Our aborigines might have been crushed into slavery by
overwhelming force; but they could never have been made to live in it.
The black man who feels insulted in that he is called a 'nigger,'
therein attests the degradation of his race more forcibly than does the
blackguard at whom he takes offense; for negro is no further a term of
opprobrium than the character of the blacks has made it so. . . . . If
the blacks of to-day were all or mainly such men as Samuel R. Ward or
Frederick Douglass, nobody would consider 'negro' an invidious or
reproachful designation.
"The blacks of our State ought to enjoy the common rights of man; but
they stand greatly in need of the spirit in which those rights have been
won by other races. They will never win them as white men's barbers,
waiters, ostlers and boot blacks; that is to say, the tardy and
ungracious concession of the right of suffrage, which they may
ultimately wrench from a reluctant community, will leave them still the
political as well as social inferiors of the whites--excluded from all
honorable office, and admitted to white men's tables only as waiters and
plate-washers--unless they shall meantime have wrought out, through
toil, privation and suffering, an intellectual and essential
enfranchisement. At present, white men dread to be known as friendly to
the black, because of the never-ending, still-beginning importunities to
help this or that negro object of charity or philanthrophy to which such
a reputation inevitably subjects them. Nine-tenths of the free blacks
have no idea of setting themselves to work except as the hirelings and
servitors of white men; no idea of building a church, or accomplishing
any other serious enterprise, except through beggary of the whites. As a
class, the blacks are indolent, improvident, servile and licentious; and
their inveterate habit of appealing to white benevolence or compassion
whenever they realize a want or encounter a difficulty, is eminently
baneful and enervating. If they could never more obtain a dollar until
they shall have earned it, many of them would suffer, and some perhaps
starve; but, on the whole, they would do better and improve faster than
may now be reasonably expected."
In tracing the causes which led to the organization of the American
Colonization Society, the statistics of the penitentiaries down to 1827,
were given, as affording an index to the moral condition of the free
colored people at that period. The facts of a similar kind, for 1850,
are added here, to indicate their present moral condition. The
statistics are compiled from the Compendium of the Census of the United
States, for 1850, and published in 1854.
_Tabular Statement of the number of the native and foreign white
population, the colored population, the number of each class in the
Penitentiaries, the proportion of the convicts to the whole number of
each class, the proportion of colored convicts over the foreign and also
over the native whites, in the four States named, for the year_ 1850:
_Classes, etc._ Mass._ _N. York._ _Penn._ _Ohio._
NATIVE WHITES, 819,044 2,388,830 1,953,276 1,732,698
In the Penitentiary, 264 835 205 291
Being 1 out of 3,102 2,860 9,528 5,954
FOREIGN WHITES, 163,598 655,224 303,105 218,099
In the Penitentiary, 125 545 123 71
Being 1 out of 1,308 1,202 2,464 3,077
COLORED POPULATION, 9,064 49,069 53,626 25,279
In the Penitentiary, 47 257 109 44
Being 1 out of 192 190 492 574
Colored convicts over
foreign, 6.8 times 6.3 times 5 times 5.3 times
Colored convicts over
native whites, 16.1 times 15 times 19.3 times 10.3 times
It appears from these figures, that the amount of crime among the
colored people of Massachusetts, in 1850, was 6 8/10 times greater than
the amount among the foreign born population of that State, and that
the amount, in the four States named, among the free colored people,
averages _five-and-three-quarters_ times more, in proportion to their
numbers, than it does among the foreign population, and over _fifteen_
times more than it does among the native whites. It will be instructive,
also, to note the _moral condition_ of the free colored people in
Massachusetts, the great center of abolitionism, where they have enjoyed
equal rights ever since 1780. Strange to say, there is nearly three
times as much among them, in that State, as exists among those of Ohio!
More than this will be useful to note, as it regards the direction of
the _emigration_ of the free colored people. Massachusetts, in 1850, had
but 2,687 colored persons born out of the State, while Ohio had 12,662
born out of her limits. Take another fact: the increase, _per cent._, of
the colored population, in the whole New England States, was, during the
ten years, from 1840 to 1850, but 1 71/100, while in Ohio, it was,
during that time, 45 76/100.
There is another point worthy of notice. Though the New England
abolition States have offered equal political rights to the colored man,
it has afforded him little temptation to emigrate into their bounds. On
the contrary, several of these States have been diminishing their free
colored population, for many years past, and none of them can have had
accessions of colored immigrants; as is abundantly proved by the fact,
that their additions, of this class of persons, have not exceeded the
natural increase of the resident colored population.[71] Another fact is
equally as instructive. It will be noted, that, in Ohio, the largest
increase of the free colored population, is in the anti-abolition
counties--the abolition counties, often, having increased very little,
indeed, between 1840 and 1850. But the most curious fact is, that the
largest majorities for the abolition candidate for governor, in 1855,
were in the counties having the fewest colored people, while the largest
majorities against him, were in those having the largest numbers of free
negroes and mullatoes.[72] From these facts, both in regard to New
England and Ohio, one of two conclusions may be logically deduced:
Either the colored people find so little sympathy from the
abolitionists, that they will not live among them; or else their
presence, in any community, in large numbers, tends to cure the whites
of all tendencies toward practical abolitionism!
FOOTNOTES:
[71] See Table IV, Appendix.
[72] See Table V, Appendix.
CHAPTER XVI.
Disappointment of English and American
Abolitionists--Their failure attributed to the
inherent evils of Slavery--Their want of
discrimination--The differences in the system in
the British Colonies and in the United
States--Colored people of United States vastly in
advance of all others--Success of the Gospel among
the Slaves--_Democratic Review_ on African
civilization--Vexation of Abolitionists at their
failure--Their apology not to be accepted--Liberia
attests its falsity--The barrier to the colored
man's elevation removable only by
Colonization--Colored men begin to see
it--Chambers, of Edinburgh--His testimony on the
crushing effects of New England's treatment of
colored people--Charges Abolitionists with
insincerity--Approves Colonization--Abolition
violence rebuked by an English clergyman.
The condition of the free colored people can now be understood. The
results, in their case, are vastly different from what was anticipated,
when British philanthropists succeeded in West India emancipation. They
are very different, also, from what was expected by American
abolitionists: so different, indeed, that their disappointment is fully
manifested, in the extracts made from their published documents. As an
apology for the failure, it seems to be their aim to create the belief,
that the dreadful moral depravation, existing in the West Indies, is
wholly owing to the demoralizing tendencies of slavery. They speak of
this effect as resulting from laws inherent in the system, which have no
exceptions, and must be equally as active in the United States as in the
British colonies. But in their zeal to cast odium on slavery, they prove
too much--for, if this be true, it follows, that the slave population of
the United States must be equally debased with that of Jamaica, and as
much disqualified to discharge the duties of freemen, as both have been
subjected to the operations of the same system. This is not all. The
logic of the argument would extend even to our free colored people, and
include them, according to the American Missionary Association, in the
dire effects of "that enduring legacy which, with its foul, pestilential
influences, still blights, like the mildew of death, every thing in
society that should be lovely, virtuous, and of good report." Now, were
it believed, generally, that the colored people of the United States are
equally as degraded as those of Jamaica, upon what grounds could any one
advocate the admission of the blacks to equal social and political
privileges with the whites? Certainly, no Christian family or community
would willingly admit such men to terms of social or political equality!
This, we repeat, is the logical conclusion from the Reports of the
American Missionary Association and the American and Foreign
Anti-Slavery Society--a conclusion, too, the more certain, as it makes
no exceptions between the condition of the colored people under the
slavery of Jamaica and under that of the United States.
But in this, as in much connected with slavery, abolitionists have taken
too limited a view of the subject. They have not properly discriminated
between the effects of the original barbarism of the negroes, and those
produced by the more or less favorable influences to which they were
afterward subjected under slavery. This point deserves special notice.
According to the best authorities, the colored people of Jamaica, for
nearly three hundred years, were entirely without the gospel; and it
gained a permanent footing among them, only at a few points, at their
emancipation, twenty-five years ago; so that, when liberty reached them,
the great mass of the Africans, in the British West Indies, were
heathen.[73] Let us understand the reason of this. Slavery is not an
element of human progress, under which the mind necessarily becomes
enlightened; but Christianity is the _primary_ element of progress, and
can elevate the savage, whether in bondage or in freedom, if its
principles are taught him in his youth. The slavery of Jamaica began
with savage men. For three hundred years, its slaves were destitute of
the gospel, and their barbarism was left to perpetuate itself. But in
the United States, the Africans were brought under the influence of
Christianity, on their first introduction, over two hundred and thirty
years since, and have continued to enjoy its teachings, in a greater or
less degree, to the present moment. The disappearance from among our
colored people, of the savage condition of the human mind--the
incapacity to comprehend religious truths--and its continued existence
among those of Jamaica, can now be understood. The opportunities enjoyed
by the former, for advancement, over the latter, have been _six_ to
_one_. With these facts before the mind, it is not difficult to perceive
that the colored population of Jamaica can not but still labor under
the disadvantages of hereditary barbarism and involuntary servitude,
with the superadded misfortune of being inadequately supplied with
Christian instruction, along with their recent acquisition of freedom.
But while all this must be admitted, of the colored people of Jamaica,
it is not true of those of our own country; for, long since, they have
cast off the heathenism of their fathers, and have become enlightened in
a very encouraging degree. Hence it is, that the colored people of the
United States, both bond and free, have made vastly greater progress,
than those of the British West Indies, in their knowledge of moral
duties and the requirements of the gospel; and hence, too, it is, that
Gerrit Smith is right, in asserting that the demoralized condition of
the great mass of the free colored people, in our cities, is
inexcusable, and deserving of the utmost reprobation, because it is
_voluntary_--they knowing their duty but abandoning themselves to
degrading habits.
This brings us to another point of great moment. It will be denied by
but few--and by none maintaining the natural equality of the races--that
the free colored people of the United States are sufficiently
enlightened, to be elevated by education, in an encouraging degree,
where proper restraints from vice, and encouragements to virtue prevail.
A large portion, even, of the slave population, are similarly
enlightened. We speak not of the state of the morals of either class.
As the public are not well informed, in relation to the extent to which
the religious instruction of the slaves at the South prevails, the
following information will prove interesting, and show that a good work
has long been in progress, and has been producing its fruits:
"The South Carolina Methodist Conference have a missionary committee
devoted entirely to promoting the religious instruction of the slave
population, which has been in existence twenty-six years. The Report[74]
of the last year shows a greater degree of activity than is generally
known. They have twenty-six missionary stations in which thirty-two
missionaries are employed. The Report affirms that public opinion in
South Carolina is decidedly in favor of the religious instruction of
slaves, and that it has become far more general and systematic than
formerly. It also claims a great degree of success to have attended the
labors of the missionaries."
The Report of the Missionary Board, of the Louisiana Conference, of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, 1855, says:[75]
"It is stated upon good authority, that the number of colored members in
the Church South, exceeds that of the entire membership of all the
Protestant missions in the world. What an enterprise is this committed
to our care! The position we, of the Methodist Church South, have taken
for the African, has, to a great extent, cut us off from the sympathy of
the Christian Church throughout the world; and it behooves us to make
good this position in the sight of God, of angels, of men, of churches,
and to our own consciences, by presenting before the throne of His glory
multitudes of the souls of these benighted ones abandoned to our care,
as the seals of our ministry. Already Lousiana promises to be one vast
plantation. Let us--we must gird ourselves for this Heaven-born
enterprise of supplying the pure gospel to the slave. The great question
is, How can the greatest number be preached to?--The building roadside
chapels is as yet the best solution of it. In some cases planters build
so as to accommodate adjoining plantations, and by this means the
preacher addresses three hundred or more slaves, instead of one hundred
or less. Economy of this kind is absolutely essential where the labor of
the missionary is so much needed and demanded.
"On the Lafourche and Bayou Black Missionwork, several chapels are in
process of erection, upon a plan which enables the slave, as his master,
to make an offering towards building a house of God. Instead of money,
the hands subscribe labor. Timber is plenty; many of the servants are
carpenters. Upon many of the plantations are saw mills. Here is much
material; what hindereth that we should build a church on every tenth
plantation? Let us maintain our policy steadily. Time and diligence are
required to effect substantial good, especially in this department of
labor. Let us continue to ask for buildings adapted to the worship of
God, and set apart; to urge, when practicable, the preaching to blacks
in the presence of their masters, their overseers, and the neighbors
generally."
"One of the effects of the great revival among colored people has been
the establishment of a regular system of prayer-meetings for their
benefit. Meetings are held every night during the week at the tobacco
factories, the proprietors of which have been kind enough to place those
edifices at the disposal of the colored brethren. The owners of the
several factories preside over these meetings, and the most absolute
good conduct is exhibited."[76]
"In Newbern, N. C., the slaves have a large church of their own, which
is well attended. They pay a salary of $500 per annum to their white
minister. They have likewise a negro preacher in their employ, whom they
purchased from his master.[77]
And Newbern in this respect is not isolated. For in nearly every town of
any size in the Southern States, the colored people have their churches,
and what is more than is always known at the North, _they sustain their
churches and pay their ministers_,[78]
"_Resolved_, that the religious instruction of our _colored population_
be affectionately and earnestly commended to the ministry and eldership
of our churches generally, as opening to us a field of most obligatory
and interesting Christian effort, in which we are called to labor more
faithfully and fully, by our regard for our social interests, as well as
by the higher considerations of duty to God and the souls of our fellow
men.[79]
The following extracts are copied from the _New York Observer_, of the
present year:
The Presbytery of Roanoke, Virginia, (O. S.) has addressed a Pastoral
letter, on the instruction of the colored people, to the churches under
its care, and ordered the same to be read in all the churches of the
Presbytery, in those that are vacant, as well as where there are pastors
or stated supplies. It commences by saying: "Among the important
interests of the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, which have claimed
our special attention since the organization of the Presbytery in April
last,--that the work of the Lord may be vigorously and efficiently
carried forward within our bounds,--_the religious instruction of the
colored people_, is hardly to be placed second to any other." After
speaking of the obstacles and encouragements to the work, it gives the
following statistics:
"In the Presbytery of Charleston, S. C., 1637 out of 2889 members, or
considerably over one-half, are colored. In the whole Synod of South
Carolina, 5,009 out of 13,074, are colored members. The Presbyteries of
Mississippi and Central Mississippi, of Tuscaloosa and South Alabama, of
Georgia, of Concord, and Fayetteville, also show many churches with
large proportions of colored communicants, from one-third to one-seventh
of the whole. Our own Presbytery reports 276 out of 1737 members. In the
whole of the above mentioned bodies, there are 9,076 colored, out of
33,667 communicants. Among the churches of these Presbyteries, we find
twenty with an aggregate colored membership of 3,600, or an average of
130 to each. We find also, such large figures as these, 260, 333, 356,
525! These facts speak for themselves and forbid discouragement."
Speaking of the obligations to instruct this class, the letter says:
"But these people are _among_ us, at our doors, in our own fields, and
around our firesides! If they need instruction, then the command of our
Lord, and every obligation of benevolence, call us to the work of
teaching them, with all industry, the doctrines of Christ. The _first
and kindest_ outgoings of our Christian compassion should be toward
them. They are not only near us, but are also entirely _dependent_ upon
us. As to all means of securing religious privileges for themselves, and
as to energy and self-directing power, they are but children,--forced to
look to their masters for every supply. From this arises an obligation,
at once imperative, and of most solemn and momentous significance to us,
to make thorough provision for their religious instruction, to the full
extent that we are able to provide it for ourselves. This obligation
acquires great additional force when it is further considered, that
besides proximity and dependence, they are indeed _members of our_
'_households_.' As the three hundred and eighteen 'trained servants' of
Abraham were 'born in his own house;' i. e., were born and bred as
members of his _household_, so are our servants. Of course no argument
is needed, to show that every man is bound by high and sacred
obligations, for the discharge of which he must give account, to provide
his _family_ suitably, or to the extent of his ability, with the means
of grace and salvation.
After dwelling on the duties of the ministry, the letter goes on:
"But the work of Christianizing our colored population can never be
accomplished by the labors of the ministry alone, unaided by the hearty
co-operation of families, by carrying on a system of _home instruction_.
_We must begin with the children._ For if the children of our servants
be left to themselves during their early years, this neglect must of
necessity beget two enormous evils. Evil habits will be rapidly acquired
and strengthened; since if children are not learning good, they will be
learning what is bad. And having thus grown up both ignorant and
vicious, they will have no inclination to go to the Lord's house; or if
they should go, their minds will be found so dark, so entirely
unacquainted with the rudimental language and truths of the gospel, that
much of the preaching must at first prove unintelligible, unprofitable
at the time, and so uninteresting as to discourage further attendance.
In every regard, therefore, masters are bound to see that religious
instruction is provided at home for their people, especially for the
young.
"If there be no other to undertake the work, (the mistress, or the
children of the family,) the master is bound to deny himself and
discharge the duty. It is for him to see that the thing is properly
done; for the whole responsibility rests on him at last. It usually,
however, devolves upon the mistress, or upon the younger members of the
family, where there are children qualified for it, to perform this
service. Some of our young men, and, _to their praise be it spoken_,
still more of our young women, have willingly given themselves to this
self-denying labor; in aid of their parents, or as a duty which they
themselves owe to Christ their Redeemer, and to their fellow creatures.
We take this occasion, gladly, to bid all these 'God speed' in their
work of love. Co-workers together with us, we praise you for this. We
bid you take courage. Let no dullness, indifference, or neglect, weary
out your patience. You are laboring for Christ, and for precious souls.
You are doing a work the importance of which _eternity_ will fully
reveal. You will be blessed, too, in your deed even now. This labor will
prove to you an important means of grace. You will have something to
pray for, and will enjoy the pleasing consciousness, that you are not
idlers in the Lord's vineyard. You will be winning stars for your crowns
of rejoicing through eternity. Grant that it will cost you much
self-denial. Can you, notwithstanding, consent to see these immortal
beings growing up in ignorance and vice, at your very doors?
"The methods of carrying on the home instruction are various, and we are
abundantly supplied with the needful facilities. We need not name the
reading of the Bible; and judiciously selected sermons, to be read to
the adults when they cannot attend preaching, should not be omitted.
Catechetical instruction, by means of such excellent aids as our own
'Catechism for young children,' and 'Jones' Catechism of Scripture
doctrine and practice,' will of course be resorted to; together with
teaching them _hymns_ and _singing with them_. The reading to them, for
variety, such engaging and instructive stories as are found in the
'Children's column' of some of our best religious papers; and suitable
Sabbath school, or other juvenile books, such as 'The Peep of Day,'
'Line upon Line,' etc., will, in many cases, prove an excellent aid, in
imbuing their minds with religious truth. _Masters should not spare
expense or trouble_, to provide liberally these various helps to those
who take this work in hand, to aid and encourage them to the utmost in
their self-denying toil.
"Brethren, the time is propitious to urge your attention to this
important duty. A deep and constantly increasing interest in the work,
is felt throughout the South. Just at this time, also, extensively
throughout portions of our territory, an unusual awakening has been
showing itself among the colored people. It becomes us, and it is of
vital importance on every account, by judicious instruction, both to
guide the movement, and to improve the opportunity.
"We commend this whole great interest to the Divine blessing; and, under
God, to your conscientious reflection, to devise the proper ways; and to
your faithful Christian zeal, to accomplish whatever your wisdom may
devise and approve."
The _Mobile Daily Tribune_, in referring to the religious training of
the slaves, says:[80]
"Few persons are aware of the efforts that are continually in progress,
in a quiet way, in the various Southern States, for the moral and
religious improvement of the negroes--of the number of clergymen of good
families, accomplished education, and often of a high degree of talent,
who devote their whole time and energies to this work; or of the many
laymen--almost invariably slaveholders themselves--who sustain them by
their purses and by their assistance as catechists, Sunday school
teachers, and the like. These men do not make platform speeches, or talk
in public on the subject of their 'mission,' or theorize about the
'planes' on which they stand: they are too busy for this, but they work
on quietly in labor and self-denial, looking for a sort of reward very
different from the applause bestowed upon stump agitators. Their work is
a much less noisy one, but its results will be far more momentous.
"We have very limited information on this subject, for the very reasons
just mentioned, but enough to give some idea of the zeal with which
these labors are prosecuted by the various Christian denominations.
Thus, among the Old School Presbyterians it is stated that about one
hundred ministers are engaged in the religious instruction of the
negroes exclusively. In South Carolina alone there are forty-five
churches or chapels of the Episcopal Church, appropriated exclusively to
negroes; thirteen clergymen devote to them their whole time, and
twenty-seven a portion of it; and one hundred and fifty persons of the
same faith are engaged in imparting to them catechetical instruction.
There are other States which would furnish similar statistics if they
could be obtained.
"It is in view of such facts as these, that one of our cotemporaries,
(the _Philadelphia Inquirer_,) though not free from a certain degree of
anti-slavery proclivity, makes the following candid admission:
"'The introduction of African slavery into the colonies of North
America, though doubtless brought about by wicked means, may in the end
accomplish great good to Africa; a good, perhaps, to be effected in no
other way. Hundreds and thousands have already been saved, temporally
and spiritually, who otherwise must have perished. Through these and
their descendants it is that civilization and Christianity have been
sent back to the perishing millions of Africa.'"
The Fourteenth Annual Report of the Missionary Society of the Methodist
Episcopal Church South, 1859, says:
"In our colored missions great good has been accomplished by the labors
of the self-sacrificing and zealous missionaries.
"This seems to be at home our most appropriate field of labor. By our
position we have direct access to those for whom these missions are
established. Our duty and obligation in regard to them are evident.
Increased facilities are afforded us, and open doors invite our entrance
and full occupancy. The real value of these missions is often overlooked
or forgotten by _Church census-takers_ and statistic-reporters of our
benevolent associations. We can but repeat that this field, which seems
almost, by common consent, to be left for our occupancy, is one of the
most important and promising in the history of missions. At home even
its very humility obscures, and abroad a mistaken philanthropy
repudiates its claims. But still the fact exists; and when we look at
the large number of faithful, pious, and self-sacrificing missionaries
engaged in the work, the wide field of their labors, and the happy
thousands who have been savingly converted to God through their
instrumentality, we can but perceive the propriety and justice of
assigning to these missions the prominence we have. Indeed, the subject
assumes an importance beyond the conception even of those more directly
engaged in this great work, when it is remembered that these missions
absolutely number more converts to Christianity, according to statistics
given, than all the members of all other missionary societies combined."
The Tennessee Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, in
their Report for 1859, says:
"It is gratifying that so much has been done for the evangelization of
this people. In addition to the missions presented in our report,
thousands of this people are served by preachers in charge of circuits
and stations. But still a great work remains to be accomplished among
the negroes within your limits. New missions are needed, and increased
attention to the work in this department generally demanded. Heaven
devolves an immense responsibility upon us with reference to these sable
sons of Ham. Providence has thrown them in our midst, not merely to be
our household and agricultural servants, but to be served by us with the
blessed gospel of the Son of God. Let us then, in the name of Him who
made it a special sign of his Messiahship that the poor had the gospel
preached unto them--let us in his name go forth, bearing the bread of
life to these poor among us, and opening to them all the sources of
consolation and encouragement afforded by the religion of Jesus."
The Texas Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, in their
Report for 1859, say:
"At the last Conference, Gideon W. Cottingham and David W. Fly were
appointed Conference African missionaries, whose duties were to travel
throughout the Conference, visit the planters in person, and organize
missions in regions unsupplied. They report an extensive field open, and
truly white unto the harvest, and have succeeded in organizing several
important missions. All the planters, questioned upon the subject, were
willing to give the missionary access to their servants, to preach and
catechize, not only on the Sabbath, but during the week. And this
willingness was not confined to the professors alone, but the deepest
interest was displayed by many who make no pretensions to religion
whatever. An interest shown not merely by giving the missionary access
to their servants, but by their pledging their prompt support. The
servants themselves receive the word with the utmost eagerness. They are
hungering for the bread of life; our tables are loaded. Shall not these
starving souls be fed? Cases of appalling destitution are found: numbers
who heard for the first time the word of life listened eagerly to the
wonders it unfolded. The Greeks are truly at our doors, heathens growing
up in our midst, revival fire flames around them, a polar frost within
their hearts. God help the Church to take care of these perishing souls!
Our anniversaries are usually scenes of unmingled joy. With our sheaves
in our hands, we come from the harvest field, and though sad that so
little has been done, yet rejoicing that we have the privilege of laying
any pledge of devotion upon the altar."
The Mississippi Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in their
Report for 1859, say:
"We are cheered to see a growing interest among our planters and
slave-owners in our _domestic missions_. Still that interest is not what
the importance of the subject demands. While few are willing to bar
their servants all gospel privileges, there is a great want in many
places of suitable houses for public worship. Too many masters think
that to permit the missionary to come on the plantation, and preach in
the gin, or mill, or elsewhere, as circumstances may dictate, is their
only duty, especially if the missionary gets his bread. None of the
attendant circumstances of a neat church, and suitable Sunday apparel,
etc., to cheer and gladden the heart on the holy Sabbath, and cause its
grateful thanksgiving to go up as clouds of incense before Him, are
thought necessary by many masters.
"Notwithstanding, we are cheered by a brightening prospect. Christian
masters are building churches for their servants. Owners in many places
are adopting the wise policy of erecting their churches so as to bring
two, three, or more plantations together for preaching. This plan is so
consonant with the gospel economy, and so advantageous every way, that
it must become the uniform practice of all our missionary operations
among the slaves. Our late Conference wisely adopted a resolution,
encouraging the building of churches for the accommodation of several
plantations together, wherever it can be done."
The South Carolina Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in
their Report for 1859, say:
"Meanwhile the increasing claims of the destitute colored population
must not be ignored. New fields are opening before us, the claims of
which are pressed with an earnestness which nothing but deeply-felt
necessity could dictate. And the question is pressed upon us, What shall
we do? Must not the contributions of the Church be more liberal and more
systematic? Must not the friends of the enterprise become more zealous?
Will not the wealthy patrons of our society, whose people are served,
contribute a sum equal in the aggregate to the salary of the
missionaries who serve their people? This done, and every claim urged
upon your Board shall be honored.
"This is wondrous work! God loves it, honors it, blesses it! He has
crowned it with success. The old negro has abandoned his legendary
rites, and has sought and found favor with God through Jesus Christ. The
catechumens have received into their hearts the gracious instructions
given by the missionary, and scores of them are converted annually, and
become worthy members of the Church. Here lies the most inviting field
of labor. To instruct these children of Ham in the plan of salvation, to
preoccupy their minds with "the truth as it is in Jesus," to see them
renounce the superstitions of their forefathers, and embrace salvation's
plan, would make an angel's heart rejoice."
Failing in securing the Reports of the Baptists at the South, we are
unable to exhibit in detail, their operations among the slave
population. The same failure has also occurred in reference to the
Cumberland Presbyterians, and some of the other denominations at the
South. The statistics, taken from the _Southern Baptist Register_, will
indicate the extent of their success. The following statement made up
from the Annual Reports of the Churches named, or from the _Register_,
shows the extent to which the slave population, in the entire South,
have been brought under the influence of the gospel, and led to profess
their faith in the Saviour:
Methodist Episcopal Church South, 188,000
Methodist Episcopal Church North,[81] in Va. and Md., 15,000
Missionary and Anti-Missionary Baptist, 175,000
General Assembly Presbyterian, (O. S.,) 12,000
General Assembly Presbyterian, (N. S.,) estimated 6,000
Cumberland Presbyterians, 20,000
Protestant Episcopal Church, estimated 7,000
Christian Church, 10,000
All other denominations, 20,000
-------
Total 453,000
The remark has been made, in two of the reports quoted, that the number
of slaves brought into the Christian Church, as a consequence of the
introduction of the African race into the United States, exceeds all the
converts made, throughout the heathen world, by the whole missionary
force employed by Protestant Christendom. Newcomb's Encyclopedia of
Missions, 1856, gives the whole number of converts in the Protestant
Christian missions in Asia, Africa, Pacific islands, West Indies, and
North American Indians at 211,389; but more recent estimates make the
number approximate 250,000: thus showing that the number of African
converts in the Southern States, is almost double the whole number of
heathen converts. It is well enough to observe here, that these facts
are not given to prove that slavery should be adopted as a means of
converting the heathen, but to call attention to the mode in which
Divine Providence is working for the salvation of the African race.
Our opinion as to the advancement of the free colored people of the
United States, in general intelligence, does not stand alone. It is
sustained by high authority, not of the abolition school. The
_Democratic Review_, of 1852,[82] when discussing the question of their
ability to conquer and civilize Africa, says:
"The negro race has, among its freemen in this country, a mass of men
who are eminently fitted for deeds of daring. They have generally been
engaged in employments which give a good deal of leisure, and stimulus
toward improvement of the mind. They have associated much more freely
with the cultivated and intelligent white than even with their own color
of the same humble station; and on such terms as to enable them to
acquire much of his spirit, and knowledge, and valor. The free blacks
among us are not only confident and well informed, but they have almost
all seen something of the world. They are pre-eminently locomotive and
perambulating. In rail roads, and hotels, and stages, and steamers, they
have been placed incessantly in contact with the news, the views, the
motives, and the ideas of the day. Compare the free black with ordinary
white men without advantages, and he stands well. Add to this
cultivation, that the negro body is strong and healthy, and the negro
mind keen and bright, though not profound nor philosophical, and you
have at once a formidable warrior, with a little discipline and
knowledge of weapons. There is no doubt that the picked American free
blacks, would be five times, ten times as efficient in the field of
battle as the same number of native Africans."
Why is it then, that the efforts for the moral elevation of the free
colored people, have been so unsuccessful? Before answering this
question, it is necessary to call attention to the fact, that
abolitionists seem to be sadly disappointed in their expectations, as to
the progress of the free colored people. Their vexation at the
stubborness of the negroes, and the consequent failure of their
measures, is very clearly manifested in the complaining language, used
by Gerrit Smith, toward the colored people of the eastern cities, as
well as by the contempt expressed by the American Missionary
Association, for the colored preachers of Canada. They had found an
apology, for their want of success in the United States, in the presence
and influence of colonizationists; but no such excuse can be made for
their want of success in Canada and the West Indies. Having failed in
their anticipations, now they would fain shelter themselves under the
pretense, that a people once subjected to slavery, even when liberated,
can not be elevated in a single generation; that the case of adults,
raised in bondage, like heathen of similar age, is hopeless, and their
children, only, can make such progress as will repay the missionary for
his toil. But they will not be allowed to escape the censure due to
their want of discrimination and foresight, by any such plea; as the
success of the Republic of Liberia, conducted from infancy to
independence, almost wholly by liberated slaves, and those who were born
and raised in the midst of slavery, attests the falsity of their
assumption.
But to return. Why have the efforts for the elevation of the free
colored people, not been more successful? On this point our remarks may
be limited to our own free colored people. The barrier to their progress
here, exists not so much in their want of capacity, as in the absence of
the incitements to virtuous action, which are constantly stimulating the
white man to press onward and upward in the formation of character and
the acquisition of knowledge. There is no position in church or state,
to which the poorest white boy, in the common school, may not aspire.
There is no post of honor, in the gift of his country, that is legally
beyond his reach. But such encouragements to noble effort, do not and
cannot reach the colored man, and he remains with us a depressed and
disheartened being. Persuading him to remain in this hopeless condition,
has been the great error of the abolitionists. They accepted Jefferson's
views in relation to emancipation, but rejected his opinions as to the
necessity of separating the races; and thus overlooked the teachings of
history, that two races, differing so widely as to prevent their
amalgamation by marriage, can never live together, in the same
community, but as superiors and inferiors--the inferior remaining
subordinate to the superior. The encouraging hopes held out to the
colored people, that this law would be inoperative upon them, has led
only to disappointment. Happily, this delusion is nearly at an end; and
some of them are beginning to act on their own judgments. They find
themselves so scattered and peeled, that there is not another half a
million of men in the world, so enlightened, who are accomplishing so
little for their social and moral advancement. They perceive that they
are nothing but branches, wrenched from the great African _banyan_, not
yet planted in genial soil, and affording neither shelter nor food to
the beasts of the forest or the fowls of the air--their roots unfixed in
the earth, and their tender shoots withering as they hang pendent from
their boughs.
That this is no exaggerated picture of the discouragements surrounding
our free colored people, is fully confirmed by the testimony of
impartial witnesses. Chambers, of Edinburgh, who recently made the tour
of the United States, investigated this point very carefully. His
opinions on the subject have been published, and are so discriminating
and truthful, that we must quote the main portion of them. In speaking
of the agitation of the question of slavery, he says:
"For a number of years, as is well known, there has been much angry
discussion on the subject between the Northern and Southern States; and
at times the contention has been so great, as to lead to mutual threats
of a dismemberment of the Union. A stranger has no little difficulty in
understanding how much of this war of words is real, and how much is
merely an explosion of _bunkum_. . . . . I repeat, it is difficult to
understand what is the genuine public feeling on this entangled
question; for with all the demonstrations in favor of freedom in the
North, there does not appear in that quarter to be any practical
relaxation of the usages which condemn persons of African descent to an
inferior social status. There seems, in short, to be a fixed notion
throughout the whole of the States, whether slave or free, that the
colored is by nature a subordinate race; and that, in no circumstances,
can it be considered equal to the white. Apart from commercial views,
this opinion lies at the root of American slavery; and the question
would need to be argued less on political and philanthropic than on
physiological grounds. . . . . I was not a little surprised to find,
when speaking a kind word for at least a very unfortunate, if not
brilliant race, that the people of the Northern States, though
repudiating slavery, did not think more favorably of the negro character
than those further South. Throughout Massachusetts, and other New
England States, likewise in the States of New York, Pennsylvania, etc.,
there is a rigorous separation of the white and black races. . . . . The
people of England, who see a negro only as a wandering curiosity, are
not at all aware of the repugnance generally entertained toward persons
of color in the United States: it appeared to amount to an absolute
monomania. As for an alliance with one of the race, no matter how faint
the shade of color, it would inevitably lead to a loss of caste, as
fatal to social position and family ties as any that occurs in the
Brahminical system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"Glad to have had an opportunity of calling attention to many cheering
and commendable features in the social system of the Americans, I
consider it not less my duty to say, that in their general conduct
toward the colored race, a wrong is done which can not be alluded to
except in terms of the deepest sorrow and reproach. I can not think
without shame of the pious and polished New Englanders adding to their
offenses on this score the guilt of hypocrisy. Affecting to weep over
the sufferings of imaginary dark-skinned heroes and heroines;
denouncing, in well-studied platform oratory, the horrid sin of reducing
human beings to the abject condition of chattels; bitterly scornful of
Southern planters for hard-hearted selfishness and depravity; fanatical
on the subject of abolition; wholly frantic at the spectacle of fugitive
slaves seized and carried back to their owners--these very persons are
daily surrounded by manumitted slaves, or their educated descendants,
yet shrink from them as if the touch were pollution, and look as if they
would expire at the bare idea of inviting one of them to their house or
table. Until all this is changed, the Northern abolitionists place
themselves in a false position, and do damage to the cause they espouse.
If they think that negroes are MEN, let them give the world an evidence
of their sincerity, by moving the reversal of all those social and
political arrangements which now, in the free States, exclude persons of
color, not only from the common courtesies of life, but from the
privileges and honors of citizens. I say, until this is done, the uproar
about abolition is a delusion and a snare. . . . .
"While lamenting the unsatisfactory condition, present and prospective,
of the colored population, it is gratifying to consider the energetic
measures that have been adopted by the African Colonization Society, to
transplant, with their own consent, free negroes from America to
Liberia. Viewing these endeavors as, at all events, a means of
encouraging emancipation, checking the slave trade, and, at the same
time, of introducing Christianity and civilized usages into Africa, they
appear to have been deserving of more encouragement than they have had
the good fortune to receive. Successful only in a moderate degree, the
operations of this society are not likely to make a deep impression on
the numbers of the colored population; and the question of their
disposal still remains unsettled."
That the Christian churches of the South are pursuing the true policy
for the moral welfare of the slave population, will be admitted by every
right minded man. The present chapter cannot be more appropriately
closed, than by quoting the language of Rev. J. Waddington, of England,
at a meeting in behalf of the American Missionary Association, held in
Boston, July, 1859. The speakers had been very violent in their
denunciations of slavery, and when Mr. Waddington came to speak, he thus
rebuked their unchristian spirit:
"I have," said Mr. Waddington, "a strong conviction, that freedom can
never come but of vital Christianity. It is not born of the intellect,
it is not the product of the conscience; it can never be the result of
the sword. It was with extreme horror that I heard the assertion made
last night, that it must be through a baptism of blood that freedom must
come. Never! never! The sword can destroy, it can never create. What do
we want for freedom? Expansion of the heart. That we should honor other
men; that we should be concerned for other men. What is it that causes
slavery and oppression? Selfishness, intense, self-destroying
selfishness if you will. Nothing can exorcise that selfishness but the
constraining love of Christ. The gospel alone, by the Spirit of God, can
waken freedom in men, in families, in nations."
Mr. Waddington, also remarked, that "every thing in America was
extremely wonderful and surprising to him; and nothing more surprised
him than the burning words with which his ministerial friends pelted
each other; yet he had no doubt they were the kindest men in the world.
He thought it was not intended that any harm should be done, but only
that the cause of truth should be advanced."[83]
FOOTNOTES:
[73] Rev. Mr. Phillippo, for twenty years a missionary in Jamaica, in
his "Jamaica, its Past and Present Condition."
[74] _New York Evangelist_, 1858.
[75] _New York Observer_, March, 1856.
[76] _Lynchburgh_ (Va.) _Courier_, quoted by _African Repository_,
January, 1858.
[77] _Southern Monitor_, quoted by _African Repository_, January, 1858.
[78] _Express_--Ibid.
[79] Synod of Virginia, quoted by _African Repository_, 1858.
[80] Quoted in _African Repository_, April, 1858.
[81] The Methodist Episcopal Church North, in 1858, had a total of
22,326 of colored members, in all the States.
[82] Page 102.
[83] _American Missionary_, July, 1859.
CHAPTER XVII.
Failure of free colored people in attaining an
equality with the whites--Their failure also in
checking Slavery--Have they not aided in its
extension? Yes--Facts in proof of this
view--Abolitionists bad Philosophers--Colored
men's influence destructive of their
hopes--Summary manner in which England acts in
their removal--Lord Mansfield's
decision--Granville Sharp's labors and their
results--Colored immigration into
Canada--Information supplied by Major
Lachlan--Demoralized condition of the blacks as
indicated by the crimes they committed--Elgin
Association--Public meeting protesting against its
organization--Negro meeting at Toronto--Memorial
of municipal council--Negro riot at St.
Catherines--Col. Prince and the Negroes--Later
cases of presentation by Grand Jury--Opinion of
the Judge--Darkening prospects of the colored
race--Views of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher--Their
accuracy--The lesson they teach.
BUT little progress, it will be seen, has been made, by the free colored
people, toward an approximation of equality with the whites. Have they
succeeded better in aiding in the abolition of slavery? They have not,
as is abundantly demonstrated by the triumph of the institution. This is
an important point for consideration, as the principal object
influencing them to remain in the country, was, that they might assist
in the liberation of their brethren from bondage. But their agency in
the attempts made to abolish the institution having failed, a more
important question arises, as to whether the free colored people, by
refusing to emigrate, may not have contributed to the advancement of
slavery? An affirmative answer must be given to this inquiry. Nor is a
protracted discussion necessary to prove the assertion.
One of the objections urged with the greatest force against
colonization, is, its tendency, as is alleged, to increase the value of
slaves by diminishing their numbers. "Jay's Inquiry," 1835, presents
this objection at length; and the Report of the "Anti-Slavery Society of
Canada," 1853, sums it up in a single proposition thus:
"The first effect of beginning to reduce the number of slaves, by
colonization, would be to increase the market value of those left
behind, and thereby increase the difficulty of setting them free."
The practical effect of this doctrine, is to discourage all
emancipations; to render eternal the bondage of each individual slave,
unless all can be liberated; to prevent the benevolence of one master
from freeing his slaves, lest his more selfish neighbor should be
thereby enriched; and to leave the whole system intact, until its total
abolition can be effected. Such philanthropy would leave every
individual, of suffering millions, to groan out a miserable existence,
because it could not at once effect the deliverance of the whole. This
objection to colonization can be founded only in prejudice, or is
designed to mislead the ignorant. The advocates of this doctrine do not
practice it, or they would not promote the escape of fugitives to
Canada.
But abolitionists object not only to the colonization of liberated
slaves, as tending to perpetuate slavery; they are equally hostile to
the colonization of the free colored people, for the same reason. The
"American Reform Tract and Book Society," the organ of the
abolitionists, for the publication of anti-slavery works, has issued a
Tract on "Colonization," in which this objection is stated as follows:
"The Society perpetuates slavery, by removing the free laborer, and
thereby increasing the demand for, and the value of, slave labor."
The projectors and advocates of such views may be good philanthropists,
but they are bad philosophers. We have seen that the power of American
slavery lies in the demand for its products; and that the whole country,
North of the sugar and cotton States, is actively employed in the
production of provisions for the support of the planter and his slaves,
and in consuming the products of slave labor. This is the constant
vocation of the whites. And how is it with the blacks? Are they
competing with the slaves, in the cultivation of sugar and cotton, or
are they also supporting the system, by consuming its products? The
latitudes in which they reside, and the pursuits in which they are
engaged, will answer this question.
The census of 1850, shows but 40,900 free colored persons in the nine
sugar and cotton States, including Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas,
Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina,
while 393,500 are living in the other States. North Carolina is omitted,
because it is more of a tobacco and wool-growing, than cotton-producing
State.
Of the free colored persons in the first-named States, 19,260 are in the
cities and larger towns; while, of the remainder, a considerable number
may be in the villages, or in the families of the whites. From these
facts it is apparent, that less than 20,000 of the entire free colored
population (omitting those of North Carolina,) are in a position to
compete with slave labor, while all the remainder, numbering over
412,800, are engaged, either directly or indirectly, in supporting the
institution. Even the fugitives escaping to Canada, from having been
producers necessarily become consumers of slave-grown products; and,
worse still, under the Reciprocity Treaty, they must also become growers
of provisions for the planters who continue to hold their brothers,
sisters, wives and children, in bondage.
These are the practical results of the policy of the abolitionists.
Verily, they, also, have dug their ditches on the wrong side of their
breastworks, and afforded the enemy an easy entrance into their
fortress. But, "Let them alone; they be blind leaders of the blind. And
if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch."[84]
But we are not yet prepared to estimate the full extent of the
influence, for ill, exerted by the free colored people upon public
sentiment. The picture of their degraded moral condition, drawn by the
abolitionists, is a dark one indeed, and calculated to do but little
toward promoting emancipation, or in placing themselves in a position of
equality with the whites. According to their testimony, the condition of
the slave, under the restraints of Christian masters, must be vastly
more favorable to moral progress, than that of the majority of those who
have received their freedom. While they have all the animal appetites
and passions fully developed, they seem to remain, intellectually,
child-like, with neither the courage nor the foresight enabling them to
seize upon fields of enterprise that would lead to wealth and fame. Look
at the facts upon this point. They were offered a home and government of
their own in Africa, with the control of extensive tropical cultivation;
but they rejected the boon, and refused to leave the land of their
birth, in the vain belief that they could, by remaining here, assist in
wrenching the chains from the slaves of the South. They expected great
aid, too, in their work, from the moral effect of West Indian
emancipation; but that has failed in the results anticipated, and the
free colored laborer is about to be superseded there by imported coolie
labor from abroad. They expected, also, that the emigrants and fugitives
to Canada, rising into respectability under British laws, would do the
race much honor, and show the value of emancipation; but even there the
hope has not been realized, and it will be no uncommon thing should the
Government set its face against them as most unwelcome visitors. A few
scraps of history will be of service, in illustrating the feeling of the
subjects of the British North American colonies, in relation to the
inroads made upon them by the free colored people.
In 1833, an English military officer, thus wrote:
"There is a settlement of negroes a few miles from Halifax, Nova Scotia,
at Hammond's Plains. Any one would have imagined that the Government
would have taken warning from the trouble and expense it incurred by
granting protection to those who emigrated from the States during the
Revolution; 1200 of whom were removed to Sierra Leone in 1792 by their
own request. Again when 600 of the insurgent negroes--the Maroons of
Jamaica--were transported to Nova Scotia in 1796, and received every
possible encouragement to become good subjects, by being granted a
settlement at Preston, and being employed upon the fortifications at
Halifax; yet they, too, soon became discontented, and being unwilling to
earn a livelihood by labor, were, in 1800, removed to the same colony,
after costing the island of Jamaica more than $225,000, and a large
additional expense to the Province, _i. e._ Nova Scotia. Notwithstanding
which, when the runaway slaves were received on board the fleet, off the
Chesapeake, during the late war, permission was granted to them to form
a settlement at Hammond's Plains, where the same system of discontent
arose--many of the settlers professing that they would prefer their
former well-fed life of slavery, in a more congenial climate, and
earnestly petitioning to be removed, were sent to Trinidad in 1821. Some
few of those who remained are good servants and farmers, disposing of
the produce of their lands in the Halifax market; but the majority are
idle, roving, and dirty vagabonds."[85]
Thus it appears, that as late as 1821, the policy of the British
colonies of North America, was to remove the fugitive negroes from their
territories. The 1200 exported from Halifax, in 1792, were fugitive
slaves who had joined the English during the American Revolutionary war,
and had been promised lands in Nova Scotia; but the Government having
failed to meet its pledge, and the climate proving unfavorable, they
sought refuge in Africa. These shipments of the colored people, from the
British colonies at the North to those of the Tropics, was in accordance
with the plan that England had adopted at home, in reference to the same
class of persons--that of removing a people who were a public burden, to
where they could be self-supporting. This is a matter of some interest,
and is deserving of notice in this connection. On the 22d of May, 1772,
Lord Mansfield decided the memorable Somerset case, and pronounced it
unlawful to hold a slave in Great Britain. The close of that decision
reads thus:
"Immemorial usage preserves a positive law, after the occasion or
accident which gave rise to it, has been forgotten; and tracing the
subject to natural principles, the claim of slavery never can be
supported. The power claimed was never in use here, or acknowledged by
the law. Upon the whole, we can not say the cause returned is sufficient
by the law; therefore the man must be discharged."
Previous to this date, many slaves had been introduced into English
families, and, on running away, the fugitives had been delivered up to
their masters, by order of the Court of King's Bench, under Lord
Mansfield; but now the poor African, no longer hunted as a beast of
prey, in the streets of London, slept under his roof, miserable as it
might be, in perfect security.[86]
To Granville Sharp belonged the honor of this achievement. By the
decision, about 400 negroes were thrown upon their own resources. They
flocked to Mr. Sharp as their patron; but considering their numbers, and
his limited means, it was impossible for him to afford them adequate
relief. To those thus emancipated, others, discharged from the army and
navy, were afterward added, who, by their improvidence, were reduced to
extreme distress. After much reflection, Mr. Sharp determined to
colonize them in Africa; but this benevolent scheme could not be
executed at once, and the blacks--indigent, unemployed, despised,
forlorn, vicious--became such nuisances, as to make it necessary they
should be sent somewhere, and no longer suffered to infest the streets
of London.[87] Private benevolence could not be sufficiently enlisted in
their behalf, and fifteen years passed away, when Government, anxious to
remove what it regarded as injurious, at last came to the aid of Mr.
Sharp, and supplied the means of their transportation and support. In
April, 1787, these colored people, numbering over 400, were put on
shipboard for Africa, and in the following month were landed in Sierra
Leone.[88]
But to return to Canada. We have at hand a flood of information, to
enable us to present a true picture of the colored population of that
Province, and to discern the feelings entertained toward them by the
white inhabitants. On the 27th April, 1841, the Assistant Secretary to
Government, addressed MAJOR ROBERT LACHLAN, Chairman of the Quarter
Sessions for the Western District, requesting information relating to
the colored immigrants in that quarter. Major Lachlan replied at length
to the inquiries made, and kept a record of his Report. This volume he
has had the goodness to place in our hands, from which to make such
extracts as may be necessary to a true understanding of this question.
The Major entered the public service of the British Government in 1805,
and was connected with the army in India for twenty years. Having
retired from that service, he settled in Canada in 1835, with the
intention of devoting himself to agriculture; but he was again called
into public life, as sheriff, magistrate, colonel of militia, Chairman
of the Quarter Sessions, and Associate Judge at the Assizes. In 1857 he
removed to Cincinnati, where he now resides. A true Briton, he is an
enemy of the system of slavery; but having been a close observer of the
workings of society, under various circumstances, systems of law,
degrees of intelligence, and moral conditions, he is opposed to placing
two races, so widely diverse as the blacks and whites, upon terms of
legal equality; not that he is opposed to the elevation of the colored
man, but because he is convinced that, in his present state of ignorance
and degradation, the two races cannot dwell together in peace and
harmony. This opinion, it will be seen, was the outgrowth of his
experience and observation in Canada, and not the result of a prejudice
against the African race. The Western District, the field of his
official labors, is the main point toward which nearly all the
emigration from the States is directed; and the Major had, thus, the
best of opportunities for studying this question. Besides the facts of
an official nature, in the volume from which we quote, it has a large
amount of documentary testimony, from other sources, from which liberal
extracts have also been made.
_To the Honorable S. B. Harrison, Secretary, etc., etc._
COLCHESTER, 28th _May_, 1841.
"SIR:--I have to apologize for being thus late in
acknowledging the receipt of Mr. Assistant
Secretary Hopkirk's letter of the 27th ult.,
requesting me to furnish Government with such
information as I might be able to afford,
'respecting the colored people settled in the
Western District;'[89] and beg to assure you that
the delay has neither arisen from indifference to
the task, nor indisposition to comply with the
wishes of Government upon the subject--being one
upon which I have long and anxiously bent my most
serious reflections,--but owing to bad health, and
want of leisure, coupled with the difficulty I
have experienced, (without entering into an
extended correspondence,) in arriving at any thing
like a correct account of the gradual _increase_
of these people, or even a fair estimate of their
present numbers. I trust, therefore, that should
the particulars furnished by me upon these heads,
be found more meager and defective than might be
expected, it will either be assigned to these
causes, or to others which may be given in the
course of the following remarks: and if these
remarks, themselves, be found to be drawn up with
more of loose unmethodical freedom than official
conciseness, I trust that that feature will rather
be regarded in their favor than otherwise.
"The exact period at which the colored people
began to make their appearance in the Western
District, _as settlers_, I have not been able to
ascertain to my satisfaction; but it is generally
believed to have been about the time of the War
with the Americans, in 1812. Before then, however,
there had been a few scattered about, who,
generally speaking, had, prior to the passing of
the Emancipation Bill, been slaves to different
individuals in the District. From 1813 to 1821,
the increase was very trifling; and they were
generally content to hire themselves out as
domestic or farm servants; but about the latter
period the desire of several gentlemen residing
near Sandwich and Amherstburgh to place settlers
on their lands, induced them, in the absence of
better, to resort to the unfortunate, impolitic
expedient of leasing out or selling small portions
of land to colored people on such inviting
conditions as not only speedily allowed many of
those who had already settled in the country to
undertake 'farming on their own account,' but
encouraged many more to escape from their American
masters, to try their fortunes in this now
far-famed 'land of liberty and promise.' The
stream having thus begun to flow, the secret
workings of the humane, but not unexceptionable
abolitionist societies, existing in the American
States, speedily widened and deepened the channel
of approach, until a flood of colored immigrants,
of the very worst classes, has been progressively
introduced into the District, which had, last
year, reached an aggregate of about 1500 souls,
and which threatens to be doubled in the course of
a very short time, unless it be within the power
of the Government to counteract it;--but which,
_if suffered to roll on unchecked_, will sooner or
later lead to the most serious, if not most
lamentable consequences.
"From my making so strong an observation at the
very threshold of my remarks, it will be readily
perceived that my opinion of these unfortunate
people is unfavorable. I am therefore anxious,
before proceeding further, to shield myself from
the imputation of either groundless antipathy or
pre-indisposition toward men of color, and to have
it thoroughly understood that, as far as I can
judge of my own feelings, _they_ are the very
reverse, having not only been warmly in favor of
the poor enslaved negro, but having for near
twenty years of my life been surrounded by free
colored people, and retained my favorable leaning
toward even the African race, till some time after
my arrival in this Province. Unfortunately,
however, for this pre-disposition, as well as for
the character of this ill-fated race, my attention
was shortly after directed by particular
circumstances to the quiet study of their
disposition and habits, and ended in a thorough
conviction that without a radical change they
would ere long, like the snake in the bosom of the
husbandman, prove a curse, instead of a benefit to
the country which fosters and protects them.
"The first time that I had occasion to express
myself thus strongly on the subject, in an
official way, was less than two years after my
arrival in the District, while holding the office
of sheriff,--when, in corresponding with Mr.
Secretary Joseph, during the troubles in January,
1838, I, in a postscript to a letter in which I
expressed unwillingness to call in aid from other
quarters, while our own population were allowed to
remain inactive, was led to add the following
remarkable words: 'My vote has been equally
decided against employing the colored people,
except on a similar emergency;--in fact, though a
cordial friend to the emancipation of the poor
African, I regard the rapidly increasing
population rising round us, as destined to be a
bitter curse to the District; and do not think our
employing them as our _defenders_ at all likely to
retard the progress of such an event;'--an opinion
which all my subsequent observation and
experience, whether as a private individual, as
Sheriff of the District, as a local Magistrate, as
Chairman of the Quarter Sessions, or as an anxious
friend to pure British immigration, have only the
more strongly confirmed."
After these preliminary remarks, the Records of
Major Lachlan, proceed to the details of the
various points upon which he was required by
Government to report. Much of this, though the
whole is interesting, must be omitted in our
extracts. In speaking of the several townships to
which the colored immigration was directed, he
says of Amherstburgh:
"That place may now be regarded as the Western
rendezvous of the colored race,--being the point
to which all the idle and worthless, as well as
the well disposed, first direct their steps,
before dispersing over other parts of the
District,--a distinction of which it unfortunately
bears too evident marks in the great number of
petty crimes committed by or brought home to these
people,--to the great trouble of the investigating
local magistrates, and the still greater annoyance
of the inhabitants generally,--arising from the
constant nightly depredations committed on their
orchards, barns, granaries, sheep-folds,
fowl-yards, and even cellars." . . . . "In Gosfield,
I am given to understand their general character is
rather above par; . . . . while in the next adjoining
township of Mersea, so much are they disliked by
the inhabitants, that they are, in a manner,
proscribed by general consent--a colored man being
there scarcely suffered to travel along the
highroads unmolested.
"The first thing that forcibly struck me, in these
people, was a total absence of that modest and
unpresuming demeanor which I had been some how led
to expect, and the assumption, instead, of a 'free
and easy' independence of manner as well as
language toward all white inhabitants, except
their immediate employers, together with an
apparent utter indifference to being hired on
reasonable average wages, though, as already
stated, seemingly without any visible means of a
livelihood, and their also, at all times,
estimating the value of their labor on a par, if
not above that of the white man. And I had
scarcely recovered from my surprise, at such
conduct, as a private individual, when, as a
magistrate, I was still more astonished at the
great amount of not only petty offenses, but of
crime of the most atrocious dye, perpetrated by so
small a body of strangers compared with the great
bulk of the white population: and such still
continuing to be the unabating case, Session after
Session, Assize after Assize, it at length became
so appalling to my feelings, that on being placed
in the chair of the Quarter Sessions, I could not
refrain from more than once pointing to it in
strong language in my charges to the Grand Juries.
In July last year, for instance, I was led, in
connection with a particular case of larceny, to
observe . . . . 'The case itself will, I trust,
involve no difficulty so far as the Grand Jury is
concerned; but it affords the magistrates another
opportunity of lamenting that there should so
speedily be furnished no less than five additional
instances of the rapid increase of crime in this
(hitherto in that respect highly fortunate)
District, arising solely from the recent great
influx of colored people into it from the
neighboring United States,--and who unfortunately
not only furnish the major part of the crime
perpetrated in the District, but also thereby a
very great portion of its rapidly increasing
debt,--from the expense attending their
maintenance in jail before trial, as well as after
conviction! . . . .
"In spite of these solemn admonitions, a large
proportion of the criminals tried at the ensuing
September Assizes were colored people; and among
them were two aggravated cases of rape and arson;
the former wantonly perpetrated on a respectable
farmer's wife, in this township, to whom the
wretch was a perfect stranger; the latter
recklessly committed at a merchant's store in the
vicinity of Sandwich, for the mere purpose of
opening a hole through which to convey away his
plunder. And, notwithstanding 'the general jail
delivery' that then took place, the greater part
of the crimes brought before the following mouth's
Quarter Sessions (chiefly larceny and assaults)
were furnished by the same people!--a circumstance
of so alarming and distressing a character, that I
was again led to comment upon it in my charge to
the Grand Jury in the following terms. 'Having
disposed of the law relating to these offenses, I
arrive at a very painful part of nay observations,
in once more calling the particular attention of
the Grand Jury, as well as the public at large, to
the remarkable and appalling circumstance that
among a population of near 20,000 souls,
inhabiting this District, the greater portion of
the crime perpetrated therein should be committed
by less than 2,000 refugees from a life of _abject
slavery_, to a land of _liberty, protection and
comfort_,--and from whom, therefore, if there be
such generous feelings as thankfulness and
gratitude, a far different line of conduct might
reasonably be expected. I allude to the alarming
increase of crime still perpetrated by the colored
settlers, and who, in spite of the late numerous,
harrowing, _convicted examples_, unhappily furnish
_the whole of the offenses now likely to be
brought before you_!'. . . . .
"But, sir, the wide spreading current of crime
among this unfortunate race was not to be easily
arrested;--and I had long become so persuaded that
it must sooner or later force itself upon the
notice of the Legislature, that on feeling it my
duty to draw the attention of my brother
magistrates to the embarrassed state of the
District finances, and to the greater portion of
its expenses arising from this disreputable
source, I was led, in framing the report of a
special committee (of which I was chairman)
appointed to investigate our pecuniary
difficulties, to advert once more to the great
undue proportion of our expenses arising from
crime committed by so small a number of colored
people, compared with the great body of the
inhabitants, in the following strong but
indisputable language: 'It is with pain and regret
that your committee, in conclusion, feel bound to
recur to the great additional burthen thrown upon
the District, as well as the undeserved stigma
cast upon the general character of its population,
whether native or immigrant British, by the late
great influx of colored people of the worst
description from the neighboring States--a great
portion of whom appear to have no visible means of
gaining a livelihood,--and who, therefore, not
only furnish a large proportion of the basest
crimes perpetrated in the country, such as murder,
rape, arson, burglary, and larceny, besides every
other description of minor offense,--untraceable
to the _color_ of the perpetrators in a
miscellaneous published calendar; but also,
besides the constant trouble they entail upon
magistrates who happen to reside in their
neighborhood, produce a large portion of the debt
incurred by the District, from the great number
committed to and subsisted in prison, etc.; and
they would with all respect for the liberty of the
subject, and the sincerest good will toward their
African brethren generally,--whom they would wish
to regard with every kindly feeling, venture to
suggest, for the consideration of Government,
whether any legislative check can possibly be
placed upon the rapid importation of the most
worthless of this unfortunate race, such, as the
good among themselves candidly lament, has of late
inundated this devoted section of the Province, to
the great detriment of the claims of the poor
emigrant from the mother country upon our
consideration, the great additional and almost
uncontrollable increase of crime, and the
proportionate demoralization of principle among
the inhabitants of the country.' . . . . . .
"Notwithstanding all these strenuous endeavors,
added to the most serious and impressive
admonitions to various criminals after conviction
and sentence, no apparent change for the better
occurred; for at the Quarter Sessions of last
January, the usual preponderance of negro crime
struck me so forcibly as again to draw from me, in
my charge to the Grand Jury, the following
observations: 'I am extremely sorry to be unable
to congratulate you or the country on a light
calendar, the matters to be brought before you
embracing no less than three cases of larceny, and
one of enticing soldiers to desert, besides
several arising from that ever prolific source,
assaults, etc. I cannot, however, pass the former
by altogether without once more emphatically
remarking, that it is as much to the disgrace of
the free colored settlers in our District, as it
is creditable to the rest of our population, that
the greater part of the culprits to be brought
before us are still men of color: and I lament
this the more, as I was somewhat in hopes that the
earnest admonitions that I had more than once felt
it my duty to address to that race, would have
been attended with some good effect.'. . . . .
"In spite of all these reiterated, anxious
endeavors, the amount of crime exhibited in the
Calendar of the following Quarter Sessions, in
April last, consisted solely (I think) of five
cases of larceny, perpetrated by negroes; and at
the late Assizes, held on the 20th instant, out of
five criminal cases, one of enticing soldiers to
desert, and two of theft, were, as usual,
committed by men of color!!!
"Having thus completed a painful retrospect of the
appalling amount of crime committed by the colored
population in the District at large, compared with
the general mass of the white population, I now
consider it my duty to advert more particularly to
what has been passing more immediately under my
own observation in the township of Colchester."
The record from which we quote, has, under this head, the statement of
the township collector, as to the moral and social condition of the
colored people of the township, in which he says, "that, in addition to
the black women there were fourteen yellow ones, and fifteen _white_
ones--that they run together like beasts, and that he did not suppose
one third of them were married; and further, that they would be a curse
to this part of Canada, unless there is something done to put a stop to
their settling among the white people.'
In referring to the enlistment of the blacks as soldiers, to the
prejudice of the legitimate prospects of the deserving European
emigrants, the record says: "With regard to continuing to employ the
colored race to discharge--in some instances exclusively, as is now the
case at Chatham--the duties of regular soldiers, in such times as these,
_in a country peopled by BRITONS_, I regard it as not only impolitic in
the extreme, but even _dangerous_ also,--besides throwing a stigma of
degradation on the honorable profession of which I was for twenty-four
years of my life a devoted member. And I even put it to yourself, sir,
what would have been your feelings, if, amid the great political
excitement prevalent during the late Kent election,[90] there had been a
serious disturbance and some unthinking magistrate had called in '_the
aid of the military_' to quell it, and blood had been shed!--for the
thing was within possibility, and for some time gave me much uneasiness.
Had such been the case,--what would have been the appalling, and
probable, nay, almost _certain_ result,--if I may judge from the well
known feelings of the white population generally,--_that that
unfortunate company would have been instantly turned upon, by men of all
parties, and massacred on the spot with their own weapons!_" . . . . .
"Allow me, therefore, at all events briefly to remark, that before any
thing can be accomplished connected with the moral and religious
improvement of the negro settlers, they must be rescued from the hands
of the utterly ignorant and uneducated, yet conceited coxcombs of their
own color, who assume to themselves the grave character and holy office
of ministers and preachers of the gospel, and lead their still more
ignorant followers into all the extravagancies of 'Love Feasts' and
'Camp Meetings,' without at all comprehending their import, and at the
same time utterly neglecting all other essentials!--an object well
deserving of the most serious and anxious consideration of an
enlightened Government, as far as those who are already settled in the
country are concerned; while it would be a most sound and politic
measure to take every lawful step to discourage as much as possible, if
we can not altogether _prevent_ the further introduction of so
objectionable and deleterious a class of settlers into a BRITISH
_colony_." . . . . "Perhaps one of the wisest measures that could be
devised--(since our friends, the American abolitionists, will insist on
peopling Canada with run-away negro slaves)--will be to throw every
possible obstacle in the way of the sadly deteriorating _amalgamation of
color_ already in progress, by Government allotting, at least, a
distinct and separate location to all negro settlers, except those who
choose to occupy the humble but useful station of farm and domestic
servants; and even, if possible, purchasing back at the public expense,
on almost any terms, whatever scattered landed property they may have
elsewhere acquired in different parts of the Province."
The Report of Major Lachlan is very extensive, and embraces many topics
connected with the question of negro immigration into Canada. His
response to Government led to further investigation, and to some
legislative action in the Canadian Parliament. The latest recorded
communications upon the subject, from his pen, are dated November 9th,
1849, and June 4th, 1850, from which it appears that up to that date,
there had been no abatement of the hostile feeling of the whites toward
the blacks, nor any improvement in the social and moral condition of the
blacks themselves.
In 1849, the Elgin Association went into operation. Its object was to
concentrate the colored people at one point, and thus have them in a
more favorable position for intellectual and moral culture. A large body
of land was purchased in the Township of Raleigh, and offered for sale
in small lots to colored settlers. The measure was strongly opposed, and
called out expressions of sentiment adverse to it, from the people at
large. A public meeting, held in Chatham, August 18, 1849, thus
expressed itself:
"The Imperial Parliament of Great Britain has forever banished slavery
from the Empire. In common with all good men, we rejoice at the
consummation of this immortal act; and we hope, that all other nations
may follow the example. Every member of the human family is entitled to
certain rights and privileges, and no where on earth are they better
secured, enjoyed, or more highly valued, than in Canada. Nature,
however, has divided the same great family into distinct species, for
good and wise purposes, and it is no less our interest, than it is our
duty, to follow her dictates and obey her laws. Believing this to be a
sound and correct principle, as well as a moral and a Christian duty, it
is with alarm we witness the fast increasing emigration, and settlement
among us of the African race; and with pain and regret, do we view the
establishment of an association, the avowed object of which is to
encourage the settlement in old, well-established communities, of a race
of people which is destined by nature to be distinct and separate from
us. It is also with a feeling of deep resentment that we look upon the
selection of the Township of Raleigh, in this District, as the first
portion of our beloved country, which is to be cursed, with a systematic
organization for setting the laws of nature at defiance. Do communities
in other portions of Canada, feel that the presence of the negro among
them is an annoyance? Do they feel that the increase of the colored
people among them, and amalgamation its necessary and hideous attendant,
is an evil which requires to be checked? With what a feeling of horror,
would the people of any of the old settled townships of the eastern
portion of this Province, look upon a measure which had for its avowed
object, the effect of introducing several hundreds of Africans, into the
very heart of their neighborhood, their families interspersing
themselves among them, upon every vacant lot of land, their children
mingling in their schools, and all claiming to be admitted not only to
political, but to social privileges? and when we reflect, too, that many
of them must from necessity, be the very worst species of that neglected
race; the fugitives from justice; how much more revolting must the
scheme appear? How then can you adopt such a measure? We beseech our
fellow subjects to pause before they embark in such an enterprise, and
ask themselves, 'whether they are doing by us as they would wish us to
do unto them.' . . . . Surely our natural position is irksome enough
without submitting to a measure, which not only holds out a premium for
filling up our district with a race of people, upon whom we can not look
without a feeling of repulsion, and who, having been brought up in a
state of bondage and servility, are totally ignorant both of their
social and political duties; but at the same time makes it the common
receptable into which all other portions of the Province are to void the
devotees of misery and crime. Look at your prisons and your
penitentiary, and behold the fearful preponderance of their black over
their white inmates in proportion to the population of each. . . . . We
have no desire to show hostility toward the colored people, no desire to
banish them from the Province. On the contrary, we are willing to assist
in any well-devised scheme for their moral and social advancement. Our
only desire is, that they shall be separated from the whites, and that
no encouragement shall hereafter be given to the migration of the
colored man from the United States, or any where else. The idea that we
have brought the curse upon ourselves, through the establishment of
slavery by our ancestors, is false. As Canadians, we have yet to learn
that we ought to be made a vicarious atonement for European sins.
"Canadians: The hour has arrived when we should arouse from our
lethargy; when we should gather ourselves together in our might, and
resist the onward progress of an evil which threatens to entail upon
future generations a thousand curses. Now is the day. A few short years
will put it beyond our power. Thousands and tens of thousands of
American negroes, with the aid of the abolition societies in the States,
and with the countenance given them by our philanthropic institutions,
will continue to pour into Canada, if resistance is not offered. Many of
you who live at a distance from this frontier, have no conception either
of the number or the character of these emigrants, or of their poisonous
effect upon the moral and social habits of a community. You listen with
active sympathy to every thing narrated of the sufferings of the poor
African; your feelings are enlisted, and your purse strings unloosed,
and this often by the hypocritical declamation of some self-styled
philanthropist. Under such influences many of you, in our large cities
and towns, form yourselves into societies, and, without reflection, you
supply funds for the support of schemes prejudicial to the best
interests of our country. Against such proceedings, and especially
against any and every attempt to settle any township in this District
with negroes, we solemnly protest, and we call upon our countrymen, in
all parts of the Province, to assist in our opposition.
"Fellow Christians: Let us forever maintain the sacred dogma, that all
men have equal, natural, and inalienable rights. Let us do every thing
in our power, consistent with international polity and justice, to
abolish the accursed system of slavery in the neighboring Republic. But
let us not, through a mistaken zeal to abate the evil of another land,
entail upon ourselves a misery which every enlightened lover of his
country must mourn. Let the slaves of the United States be free, but let
it be in their own country. Let us not countenance their further
introduction among us; in a word, let the people of the United States
bear the burthen of their own sins.
"What has already been done, can not now be avoided; but it is not too
late to do justice to ourselves, and retrieve the errors of the past.
Let a suitable place be provided by the Government, to which the colored
people may be removed, and separated from the whites, and in this scheme
we will cordially join. We owe it to them, but how much more do we owe
it to ourselves? But we implore you that you will not, either by your
counsel, or your pecuniary aid, assist those who have projected the
association for the settlement of a horde of ignorant slaves in the town
of Raleigh. It is one of the oldest and most densely settled townships,
in the very center of our new and promising District of Kent, and we
feel that this scheme, if carried into operation, will have the effect
of hanging like a dead weight upn our rising prosperity. What is our
case to-day, to-morrow may be yours; join us then, in endeavoring to put
a stop to what is not only a general evil, but in this case an act of
unwarrantable injustice; and when the time may come when you shall be
similarly situated to us, we have no doubt that, like us, you will cry
out, and your appeal shall not be in vain."
On the 3d of September, 1849, the colored people of Toronto, Canada,
held a meeting, in which they responded at length to the foregoing
address. The spirit of the meeting can be divined from the following
resolutions, which were unanimously passed:
"1st. _Resolved_, That we, as a portion of the inhabitants of Canada,
conceive it to be our imperative duty to give an expression of sentiment
in reference to the proceedings of the late meeting held at Chatham,
denying the right of the colored people to settle where they please.
"2d. _Resolved_, That we spurn with contempt and burning indignation,
any attempt, on the part of any person, or persons, to thrust us from
the general bulk of society, and place us in a separate and distinct
classification, such as is expressly implied in an address issued from
the late meeting above alluded to.
"3d. _Resolved_, That the principle of selfishness, as exemplified in
the originators of the resolutions and address, we detest, as we do
similar ones emanating from a similar source; and we can clearly see the
workings of a corrupt and depraved heart, arranged in hostility to the
heaven-born principle of _liberty_, in its broadest and most
unrestricted sense."
On the 9th of October, 1849, the Municipal Council of the Western
District, adopted a Memorial to His Excellency, the Governor General,
protesting against the proposed Elgin Association, in which the
following language occurs:
. . . . . "Clandestine petitions have been got up, principally, if not
wholly, signed by colored people, in order to mislead Government and the
Elgin Association. These petitions do not embody the sentiments or
feelings of the respectable, intelligent, and industrious yeomanry of
the Western District. We can assure your Excellency that any such
statement is false, that there is but one feeling, and that is of
disgust and hatred, that they, the negroes, should be allowed to settle
in any township where there is a white settlement. Our language is
strong; but when we look at the expressions used at a late meeting held
by the colored people of Toronto, openly avowing the propriety of
amalgamation, and stating that it must, and will, and shall continue, we
cannot avoid so doing. . . . . . The increased immigration of foreign
negroes into this part of the Province is truly alarming. We cannot omit
mentioning some facts for the corroboration of what we have stated. The
negroes, who form at least one-third of the inhabitants of the township
of Colchester, attended the township meeting for the election of parish
and township officers, and insisted upon their right to vote, which was
denied them by every individual white man at the meeting. The
consequence was, that the Chairman of the meeting was prosecuted and
thrown into heavy costs, which costs were paid by subscription from
white inhabitants. In the same township of Colchester, as well as in
many others, the inhabitants have not been able to get schools in many
school sections, in consequence of the negroes insisting on their right
of sending their children to such schools. No white man will ever act
with them in any public capacity; this fact is so glaring, that no
sheriff in this Province would dare to summons colored men to do jury
duty. That such things have been done in other quarters of the British
dominions we are well aware of, but we are convinced that the Canadians
will never tolerate such conduct."
A Toronto paper of December 24, 1847, says: "The white inhabitants are
fast leaving the vicinity of the proposed colored settlement, for the
United States."
The _St. Catharines Journal_, June, 1852, under the head of "the fruits
of having colored companies and colored settlements," says: "On the
occasion of the June muster of the militia, a pretty large turn out took
place at St. Catharines. We regret exceedingly that the day did not pass
over without a serious riot. It seems that on the parade ground some
insult was offered to the colored company, which was very properly
restrained by Colonel Clark, and others. If the affair had ended here,
it would have been fortunate; but the bad feeling exhibited on the
parade ground was renewed, by some evil-minded person, and the colored
population, becoming roused to madness, they proceeded to wreak their
vengeance on a company in Stinson's tavern, after which a general melee
took place, in which several men were wounded, and it is likely some
will die of the injuries received. The colored village is a ruin, and
much more like a place having been beseiged by an enemy than any thing
else. This is the reward which the colored men have received for their
loyalty, and the readiness with which they turned out to train, and no
doubt would if the country required their services. This is a most
painful occurrence, and must have been originated by some very ignorant
persons. How any man possessing the common feelings of humanity, to say
nothing of loyalty, could needlessly offer insult to so many men, so
cheerfully turning out in obedience to the laws of the country, exceeds
belief, if it were not a matter of fact. Too much credit cannot be given
to those worthy citizens who used their best efforts to restrain the
excitement, and prevented any further blood-shedding."
But here we have testimony of a later date. Hon. Colonel Prince, member
of the Canadian Parliament in 1857, had resided among the colored people
of the Western District; and, like other humane men, had sympathized
with them, at the outset, and shown them many favors. Time and
observation changed his views, and, in the course of his parliamentary
duties, we find him taking a stand adverse to the further increase of
the negro population in Canada. Hear him, as reported at the time:
"On the order of the day for the third reading of the emigrants' law
amendment bill being called, Hon. Col. Prince said he was wishful to
move a rider to the measure. The black people who infested the land were
the greatest curse to the Province. The lives of the people of the West
were made wretched by the inundation of these animals, and many of the
largest farmers in the county of Kent have been compelled to leave their
beautiful farms, because of the pestilential swarthy swarms.--What were
these wretches fit for? Nothing. They cooked our victuals and shampooned
us; but who would not rather that these duties should be performed by
white men? The blacks were a worthless, useless, thriftless set of
beings--they were too indolent, lazy and ignorant to work, too proud to
be taught; and not only that, if the criminal calendars of the country
were examined, it would be found that they were a majority of the
criminals. They were so detestable that unless some method were adopted
of preventing their influx into this country by the "underground rail
road," the people of the West would be obliged to drive them out by open
violence. The bill before the House imposed a capitation tax upon
emigrants from Europe, and the object of his motion was to levy a
similar tax upon blacks who came hither from the States. He now moved,
seconded by Mr. Patton, that a capitation tax of 5_s_ for adults, and
3_s_ 9_d_ for children above one year and under fourteen years of age,
be levied on persons of color emigrating to Canada from any foreign
country.
"Ought not the Western men to be protected from the rascalities and
villainies of the black wretches? He found these men with fire and food,
and lodging when they were in need; and he would be bound to say that
the black men of the county of Essex would speak well of him in this
respect. But he could not admit them as being equal to white men; and,
after a long and close observation of human nature, he had come to the
conclusion that the black man was born to and intended for slavery, and
that he was fit for nothing else. [Sensation.] Honorable gentlemen might
try to groan him down, but he was not to be moved by mawkish sentiment,
and he was persuaded that they might as well try to change the spots of
the leopard as to make the black a good citizen. He had told black men
so, and the lazy rascals had shrugged their shoulders and wished they
had never ran away from their "good old massa" in Kentucky. If there was
any thing unchristian in what he had proposed, he could not see it, and
he feared that he was not born a Christian."
The _Windsor Herald_, of July 3d, 1857, contains the proceedings of an
indignation meeting, held by the colored people of Toronto, at which
they denounced Colonel Prince in unmeasured terms of reproach. The same
paper contains the reply of the Colonel, copied from the _Toronto
Colonist_, and it is given entire, as a specimen of the spicy times they
have, in Canada, over the negro question. The editor remarks, in
relation to the reply of Colonel Prince, that it has given general
satisfaction in his neighborhood. It is as follows:
"DEAR SIR:--Your valuable paper of yesterday has afforded me a rich
treat and not a little fun in the report of an indignation meeting of
'the colored citizens' of Toronto, held for the purpose of censuring me.
Perhaps I ought not to notice their proceedings--perhaps it would be
more becoming in me to allow them to pass at once into the oblivion
which awaits them; but as it is the fashion in this country not
unfrequently to assume that to be true which appears in print against an
individual, unless he flatly denies the accusation, I shall, at least,
for once, condescend to notice these absurd proceedings. They deal in
generalities, and so shall I. Of the colored citizens of Toronto I know
little or nothing; no doubt, some are respectable enough in their way,
and perform the inferior duties belonging to their station tolerably
well. Here they are kept in order--in their proper place--but their
'proceedings' are evidence of their natural conceit, their vanity, and
their ignorance; and in them the cloven foot appears, and evinces what
they would do, if they could. I believe that in this city, as in some
others of our Province, they are looked upon as necessary evils, and
only submitted to because white servants are so scarce. But I now deal
with these fellows as a body, and I pronounce them to be, as such, the
_greatest curse_ ever inflicted upon the two magnificent western
counties which I have the honor to represent in the Legislative Council
of this Province! and few men have had the experience of them that I
have. Among the many _estimable_ qualities they possess, a systematic
habit of _lying_ is not the least prominent; and the 'colored citizens'
aforesaid seem to partake of that quality in an eminent degree, because
in their famous _Resolutions_ they roundly assert that during the
Rebellion 'I walked arm and arm with colored men'--that 'I owe my
election to the votes of colored men'--and that I have 'accumulated much
earthly gains,' as a lawyer, among 'colored clients.' All Lies! Lies!
Lies! from beginning to end. I admit that one company of blacks did
belong to my contingent battalion, but they made the very worst of
soldiers, and were, comparatively speaking, unsusceptible of drill or
discipline, and were conspicuous for one act only--a stupid sentry shot
the son of one of our oldest colonels, under a mistaken notion that he
was thereby doing his duty. But I certainly never did myself the honor
of 'walking arm in arm' with any of the colored gentlemen of that
distinguished corps. Then, as to my election. Few, very few blacks voted
for me. _I never canvassed them_, and hence, I suppose, they supported,
as a body, my opponent. They took compassion upon '_a monument of
injured innocence_,' and they sustained the monument for a while, upon
the pedestal their influence erected. But the monument fell, and the
fall proved that such influence was merely ephemeral, and it sank into
insignificant nothingness, as it should, and I hope ever will do; or God
help this noble land. Poor Blackies! Be not so bold or so conceited, or
so insolent hereafter, I do beseech you.
"Then how rich I have become among my 'colored clients!' I assert,
without the fear of contradiction, that I have been the friend--the
steady friend of our western 'Darkies' for more than twenty years; and
amidst difficulties and troubles innumerable, (for they are a litigious
race,) I have been their adviser, and I never made twenty pounds out of
them in that long period! The fact is that the poor creatures had never
the ability to pay a lawyer's fee.
"It has been my misfortune, and the misfortune of my family, to live
among those blacks, (and they have lived _upon_ us,) for twenty-four
years. I have employed _hundreds_ of them, and, with the exception of
one, (named Richard Hunter,) not one has ever done for us a week's
honest labor. I have taken them into my service, have fed and clothed
them, year after year, on their arrival from the States, and in return I
have generally found them rogues and thieves, and a graceless,
worthless, thriftless, lying set of vagabonds. That is my very plain and
very simple description of the darkies as a body, and it would be
indorsed by all the western white men with very few exceptions.
"I have had scores of their George Washingtons, Thomas Jeffersons, James
Madisons, as well as their Dinahs, and Gleniras, and Lavinias, in my
service, and I understand them thoroughly, and I include the whole batch
(old Richard Hunter excepted) in the category above described. To
conclude, you 'Gentlemen of color,' East and West, and especially you
'colored citizens of Toronto,' I thank you for having given me an
opportunity to publish my opinion of your race. Call another indignation
meeting, and there make greater fools of yourselves than you did at the
last, and then 'to supper with what appetite you may.'
"Believe me to remain,
Mr. Editor,
Yours very faithfully,
=JOHN PRINCE.=
Toronto, 26th June, 1857."
It is impracticable to extract the whole of the important facts referred
to in Maj. Lachlan's Report, as it would make a volume of itself. In
many places he takes occasion to urge the necessity of education for the
colored people, as the only possible means of their elevation; and also
presses upon the attention of the better classes of that race, the duty
of co-operating with the magistrates in their efforts for the
suppression of crime, as well as the advantages to be derived from the
formation of associations for their intellectual and moral advancement.
On the 23d of May, 1847, he addressed the Right Honorable, the Earl of
Elgin, the Governor of Canada, on the subject of the causes checking the
prosperity of the Western District, the fourth one of which he states to
be "the unfortunate influx into its leading townships of swarms of
run-away negro slaves, of the worst description, from the American
States." After referring to the facts contained in his report of 1841, a
portion of which are presented in the preceding pages, he says: "I shall
therefore rest content with stating, in connection with these extracts,
the simple fact, that on the Province gradually recovering from the
shock given to immigration by the late rebellion, and the stream of
British settlers beginning once more to flow toward the Province, a
considerable number of emigrants of the laboring classes made their way
to the Western District, and for some time wandered about in search of
employment; but with the exception of those who had come to join
relations and friends, and a few others, the greater portion, finding
themselves unable to obtain work, from the ground which they naturally
expected to occupy being already monopolized by negroes, and there being
no public works of any kind on which they could be engaged, became
completely disheartened, and were ultimately forced to disperse
themselves elsewhere; and, most generally, found a refuge in the
neighboring States of Michigan and Ohio. And such, it may be added, has
ever since continued to be the case; while, on the other hand, the
influx of negroes has been greatly on the increase. . . . . Far,
however, be it for me to suppose it possible to abridge for one moment
that noble constitutional principle--that slavery and _British Rule_ and
_British feeling are incompatible_; but still I consider it no trifling
evil that any part of an essentially _British_ colony should be thereby
exposed to be made the receptable of the worst portion of the lowest
grade of the human race, from every part of the American Union, to the
evident serious injury of its own inhabitants, and equally serious
prejudice to the claims of more congenial settlers."
This statement shows, very clearly, how the negro immigration into
Canada operates injuriously to its prosperity by repelling the white
immigrants.
What was true of the colored population of the "Western District of
Canada, in 1841, while Major Lachlan filled the chair of the Quarter
Sessions, seems to be equally true in 1859. The _Essex Advocate_,
contains the following extract from the Presentment of the Grand Jury,
at the Essex Assizes, November 17, 1859, in reference to the jail: "We
are sorry to state to your Lordship the great prevalence of the colored
race among its occupants, and beg to call attention to an accompanying
document from the Municipal Council and inhabitants of the Township of
Anderdon, which we recommend to your Lordship's serious consideration.
"'_To the Grand Jury of the County of Essex, in Inquest assembled_: We,
the undersigned inhabitants of the Township of Anderdon, respectfully
wish to call the attention of the Grand Inquest of the County of Essex
to the fearful state of crime in our township. That there exists
organized bands of thieves, too lazy to work, who nightly plunder our
property! That nearly all of us, more or less, have suffered losses; and
that for the last two years the stealing of sheep has been most
alarming, one individual having had nine stolen within that period. We
likewise beg to call your attention to the fact, that seven colored
persons are committed to stand trial at the present assizes on the
charge of sheep stealing, and that a warrant is out against the eighth,
all from the Town of Anderdon. We beg distinctly to be understood, that
although we are aware that nine-tenths of the crimes committed in the
County of Essex, according to the population, are so committed by the
colored people, yet we willingly extend the hand of fellowship and
kindness to the emancipated slave, whom Great Britain has granted an
asylum to in Canada We therefore hope the Grand Jury of the County of
Essex will lay the statement of our case before his Lordship, the Judge
at the present assizes, that some measure may be taken by the Government
to protect us and our property, or persons of capital will be driven
from the country.'"
We find it stated in the _Cincinnati Daily Commercial_, that the "Court,
in alluding to this presentment, remarked that 'he was not surprised at
finding prejudice existing against them (the negroes) among the
respectable portion of the people, for they were indolent, shiftless and
dishonest, and unworthy of the sympathy that some mistaken parties
extended to them; they would not work when opportunity was presented,
but preferred subsisting by thieving from respectable farmers, and
begging from those benevolently inclined.'"
In September, 1859, Mr. Stanley, a government agent from the West
Indies, visited Canada with the view of inducing the colored people of
that Province to emigrate to Jamaica. The _Windsor Herald_, in noticing
the movement, gives the details of the arguments presented, at the
meeting in Windsor, to influence them to accept the offer. To men of
intelligence and foresight, the reasons would have been convincing; but
upon the minds of the colored people, they seem to have had scarcely any
weight whatever--only one man entering his name, as an emigrant, at the
close of the lecture. They were assured that in Jamaica they could
obtain employment at remunerative salaries, and in three years become
owners of property, besides possessing all the advantages of British
subjects. Only a stipulated number were called for at the present time,
they were told, but if the experiment proved successful, the gates would
be thrown open for a general emigration. The Governor of the Island
guaranteed them occupations on their arrival, or a certain stipend until
such were found, and also their passage thither gratis. Four hundred
emigrants were wanted to commence the experiment, and if they succeeded
in getting the number required, they designed starting for Jamaica in
the space of a month.
The indisposition of the colored people to accept the liberal offer of
the authorites of Jamaica, created some surprise among the whites; but
the mystery was explained when the agent visited Chatham, and made
similar offers to the colored people of that town. As already stated, in
the Preface to this work, they not only rejected the offered boon with
contempt, but gave as their reason, that events would shortly transpire
in the United States, which would demand their aid in behalf of their
fellow countrymen there.[91] This was thirteen days before the Harper's
Ferry outbreak, and Chatham was the town in which John Brown and his
associates concocted their insurrectionary movement. The chief reason
why the Jamaica emigration scheme was rejected, must have been the
determination of the blacks of Canada to co-operate in the Brown
insurrection.
Here, now, are all the results of the Canada experiment, as presented
by the official action of its civil officers and public men. Need it be
said, that the prospects of the African race have only been rendered the
more dark and gloomy, by the conduct of the free colored men of that
Province. And when we couple the results there with those of the West
Indies, it must be obvious to all, that what has been attempted for the
colored race is wholly impracticable; that in its present state of
advancement from barbarism, the attainment of civil and social equality,
with the enlightened white races, is utterly impossible.
It would appear, then, that philanthropists have committed a grave error
in their policy, and the sooner they retrace their steps the better for
the colored people. The error to which we refer, is this: they found a
small portion of colored men, whose intelligence and moral character
equaled that of the average of the white population; and, considering it
a great hardship that such men should be doomed to a degraded condition,
they attempted to raise them up to the civil and social position which
their merits would entitle them to occupy. But in attempting to secure
equal rights to the enlightened negro, the philanthropists claimed the
same privilege for the whole of that race. In this they failed to
recognize the great truth, that free government is not adapted to men in
a condition of ignorance and moral degradation. By taking such broad
ground--by securing the largest amount of liberty for a great mass of
the most degraded of humanity--they have altogether failed in convincing
the world, that freedom is a boon worth the bestowal upon the African in
his present condition. The intelligent colored man, who could have been
lifted up to a suitable hight, and maintained his position, if he had
been taken alone, could not be elevated at all when the whole race were
fastened to his skirts. And this mistake was a very natural one for men
who think but superficially. Despotic government is repugnant to
enlightened men: hence, in rejecting it for themselves, they repudiate
it as a form of rule for all others. This decision, plausible as it may
appear, is not consistent with the philosophy of human nature as it now
is; nor is it in accordance with the sentiments of the profound
statesmen who framed the American Constitution. They held that only men
of intelligence and moral principle were capable of self-government;
and, hence, they excluded from citizenship the barbarous and
semi-barbarous Indians and Africans, who were around them and in their
midst.
In discussing the results of emancipation in the United States, in a
preceding chapter, it is stated that one principal cause, operating to
check the further liberation of the slaves, at an early day in our
history, was, that freedom had proved itself of little value to the
colored man, while the measure had greatly increased the burdens of the
whites; and that until he should make such progress as would prove that
freedom was the best condition for the race, while intermingled with the
whites, any further movements toward general emancipation were not to be
expected. This view is now indorsed by some of the most prominent
abolitionists. Listen to the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher on this subject. In
his sermon in reference to the Harper's Ferry affair, he says:
"If we would benefit the African at the South, we must _begin at home_.
This is to some men the most disagreeable part of the doctrine of
emancipation. It is very easy to labor for the emancipation of beings a
thousand miles off; but when it comes to the practical application of
justice and humanity to those about us, it is not so easy. The truths of
God respecting the rights and dignities of men, are just as important to
free colored men, as to enslaved colored men. It may seem strange for me
to say that the lever with which to lift the load of Georgia is in New
York; but it is. I do not believe the whole free North can tolerate
grinding injustice toward the poor, and inhumanity toward the laboring
classes, without exerting an influence unfavorable to justice and
humanity in the South. No one can fail to see the inconsistency between
our treatment of those among us, who are in the lower walks of life, and
our professions of sympathy for the Southern slaves. How are the free
colored people treated at the North? They are almost without education,
with but little sympathy for their ignorance. They are refused the
common rights of citizenship which the whites enjoy. They can not even
ride in the cars of our city rail roads. They are snuffed at in the
house of God, or tolerated with ill-disguised disgust. Can the black man
be a mason in New York? Let him be employed as a journeyman, and every
Irish lover of liberty that carries the hod or trowel, would leave at
once, or compel him to leave! Can the black man be a carpenter? There is
scarcely a carpenter's shop in New York in which a journeyman would
continue to work, if a black man was employed in it. Can the black man
engage in the common industries of life? There is scarcely one in which
he can engage. He is crowded down, down, down through the most menial
callings, to the bottom of society. We tax them and then refuse to allow
their children to go to our public schools. We tax them and then refuse
to sit by them in God's house. We heap upon them moral obloquy more
atrocious than that which the master heaps upon the slave. And
notwithstanding all this, we lift ourselves up to talk to the Southern
people about the rights and liberties of the human soul, and especially
the African soul! It is true that slavery is cruel. But it is not at all
certain that there is not more love to the race in the South than in the
North. . . . . . Whenever we are prepared to show toward the lowest, the
poorest, and the most despised, an unaffected kindness, such as led
Christ, though the Lord of glory, to lay aside his dignities and take on
himself the form of a servant, and to undergo an ignominious death, that
he might rescue men from ignorance and bondage--whenever we are prepared
to do such things as these, we may be sure that the example at the North
will not be unfelt at the South. Every effort that is made in Brooklyn
to establish churches for the free colored people, and to encourage them
to educate themselves and become independent, is a step toward
emancipation in the South. The degradation of the free colored men in
the North will fortify slavery in the South!"
We think we may safely guarantee, that whenever Northern abolitionists
shall carry out Mr. Beecher's scheme, of spending their time and money
for the moral and intellectual culture of the free colored people, the
South will at once emancipate every slave within her limits; because we
will then be in the midst of the millenium. Intelligent free colored men
will agree with us in opinion, as they have tested them upon this
subject.
One point more remains to be noticed:--the influence which the results
in Canada and Jamaica have exerted upon the prospects of the free
colored man in the United States. We mean, of course, his prospects for
securing the civil and social equality to which he has been aspiring.
His own want of progress has been the main cause of checking the
extension of emancipation. This is now admitted even by Rev. H. W.
Beecher, himself. Then, again, the fact that much less advancement has
been made by the negroes in the British Provinces, than by those in the
United States, operates still more powerfully in preventing any further
liberation of the slaves. These two causes, combined, have dealt a
death-blow to the hope of emancipation, in the South, by any moral
influence coming from that quarter; and has, in fact, put back that
cause, so far as the moral power of the negro is concerned, to a period
hopelessly distant. Loyal Britons may urge upon us the duty of
emancipation as strongly as they please; but so long as they denounce
the influx of colored men as a curse to Canada, just so long they will
fail in persuading Americans that an increase of free negroes will be a
blessing to the United States. The moral power of the free negro, in
promoting emancipation, is at an end; but how is it with his prospects
of success in the employment of force? The Harper's Ferry movement is
pronounced, by anti-slavery men themselves, as the work of a madman; and
no other attempt of that kind can be more successful, as none but the
insane and the ignorant will ever enlist in such an enterprise. The
power of the free colored people in promoting emancipation, say what
they will, is now at an end.
But these are not all the results of the movements noticed. They have
not only rendered the free colored people powerless in emancipation, but
have acted most injuriously upon themselves, as a class, in both the
free and the slave States. In the Northwestern free States, every new
Constitution framed, and every old one amended, with perhaps one
exception, exclude the free negroes from the privileges of citizenship.
In the slave States, generally, efforts are making not only to prevent
farther emancipations, but to drive out the free colored population from
their territories.
Thus, at this moment, stands the question of the capacity of the free
colored people of the United States, to influence public opinion in
favor of emancipation. And where are their champions who kindled the
flame which is now extinguished? Many of them are in their graves; and
the Harper's Ferry act, but applied the match that exploded the existing
organizations. One chieftain--always truthful, ever in earnest--is,
alas, in the lunatic asylum; another--whose zeal overcomes his judgment,
at times--backs down from the position he had taken, that rifles were
better than bibles in the conflict with slavery; another--coveting not
the martyr's crown, yet a little--has left his editorial chair, to put
the line dividing English and American territory between himself and
danger; another--whose life could not well be spared, as he, doubtless,
thought--after helping to organize the conspiracy at Chatham, in
Canada, immediately set out to explore Africa: perhaps to select a home
for the Virginia slaves, and be ready to receive them when Brown should
set them free. These forces can never be re-combined. As for others, so
far as politicians are concerned, the colored race have nothing to hope.
The battle for free territory, in the sense in which they design to be
understood, is a contest to keep the blacks and whites entirely
separate. It is a determination to carry out the policy of Jefferson, by
separating the races where it can be accomplished--a policy that will be
adhered to in the free States, and which the Canadians would gladly
adopt, if the mother country would permit them to carry out their
wishes.
Free colored men of the United States! "in the days of adversity
consider." Are not the signs of the times indicative of the necessity of
a change of policy?
FOOTNOTES:
[84] Matthew's Gospel, xv: 14.
[85] "A Subaltern's Furlough," by Lt. Coke, 45th Regiment, being a
description of scenes in various parts of America, in 1833.
[86] Clarkson's History of the Slave Trade.
[87] Wadstrom, page 220.
[88] Memoirs of Granville Sharp.
[89] The testimony here offered is the more important, as the Western
District is the center of emigration from the United States.
[90] The Hon. Mr. Harrison was one of the candidates at the time alluded
to.
[91] See the resolution copied into the Preface to the present edition.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE MORAL RELATIONS OF PERSONS HOLDING THE _PER SE_ DOCTRINE, ON THE
SUBJECT OF SLAVERY, TO THE PURCHASE AND CONSUMPTION OF SLAVE LABOR
PRODUCTS.
Moral relations of Slavery--Relations of the
consumer of Slave labor products to the
system--Grand error of all Anti-Slavery
effort--Law of _particeps criminis_--Daniel
O'Connell--_Malum in se_ doctrine--Inconsistency
of those who hold it--English
Emancipationists--Their commercial
argument--Differences between the position of
Great Britain and the United States--Preaching
versus practice by Abolitionists--Cause of their
want of influence over the Slaveholder--Necessity
of examining the question--Each man to be judged
by his own standard--Classification of opinions in
the United States, in regard to the morality of
Slavery--Three Views--A case in
illustration--Apology of _per se_ men for using
Slave grown products insufficient--Law relating to
"confusion of goods"--_Per se_ men _participes
criminis_ with Slaveholders--Taking Slave grown
products under _protest_ absurd--World's Christian
Evangelical Alliance--Amount of Slave labor Cotton
in England at that moment--Pharisaical
conduct--The Scotchman taking his wife under
protest--Anecdote--American Cotton more acceptable
to Englishmen than Republican principles--Secret
of England's policy toward American Slavery--The
case of robbery again cited, and the English
Satirized--A contrast--Causes of the want of moral
power of Abolitionists--Slaveholders no cause to
cringe--Other results--Effect of the adoption of
the _per se_ doctrine by ecclesiastical
bodies--Slaves thus left in all their moral
destitution--Inconsistency of _per se_ men
denouncing others--What the Bible says of similar
conduct.
HAVING noticed the political and economical relations of slavery, it may
be expected that we shall say something of its moral relations. In
attempting this, we choose not to traverse that interminable labyrinth,
without a thread, which includes the moral character of the system, as
it respects the relation between the master and the slave. The only
aspect in which we care to consider it, is in the moral relations which
the consumers of slave labor products sustain to slavery: and even on
this, we shall offer no opinion, our aim being only to promote inquiry.
This view of the question is not an unimportant one. It includes the
germ of the grand error in nearly all anti-slavery effort; and to which,
chiefly, is to be attributed its want of moral power over the conscience
of the slaveholder. The abolition movement, was designed to create a
public sentiment, in the United States, that should be equally as potent
in forcing emancipation, as was the public opinion of Great Britain. But
why have not the Americans been as successful as the English? This is an
inquiry of great importance. When the Anti-Slavery Convention, which
met, December 6, 1833, in Philadelphia, declared, as a part of its
creed: "That there is no difference in principle, between the African
slave trade, and American slavery," it meant to be understood as
teaching, that the person who purchased slaves imported from Africa, or
who held their offspring as slaves, was _particeps criminis_--partaker
in the crime--with the slave trader, on the principle that he who
receives stolen property, knowing it be such, is equally guilty with the
thief.
On this point Daniel O'Connell was very explicit, when, in a public
assembly, he used this language: "When an American comes into society,
he will be asked, 'are you one of the thieves, or are you an honest man?
If you are an honest man, then you have given liberty to your slaves; if
you are among the thieves, the sooner you take the outside of the house,
the better.'"
The error just referred to was this: they based their opposition to
slavery on the principle, that it was _malum in se_--a sin in
itself--like the slave trade, robbery and murder; and, at the same time,
continued to use the products of the labor of the slave as though they
had been obtained from the labor of freemen. But this seeming
inconsistency was not the only reason why they failed to create such a
public sentiment as would procure the emancipation of our slaves. The
English emancipationists began their work like philosophers--addressing
themselves, respectfully to the power that could grant their requests.
Beside the moral argument, which declared slavery a crime, the English
philanthropists labored to convince Parliament, that emancipation would
be advantageous to the commerce of the nation. The commercial value of
the Islands had been reduced one-third, as a result of the abolition of
the slave trade. Emancipation, it was argued, would more than restore
their former prosperity, as the labor of freemen was twice as productive
as that of slaves. But American abolitionists commenced their crusade
against slavery, by charging those who sustained it, and who alone, held
the power to manumit, with crimes of the blackest dye. This placed the
parties in instant antagonism, causing all the arguments on human
rights, and the sinfulness of slavery, to fall without effect upon the
ears of angry men. The error on this point, consisted in failing to
discriminate between the sources of the power over emancipation in
England and in the United States. With Great Britain, the power was in
Parliament. The masters, in the West Indies, had no voice in the
question. It was the voters in England alone who controlled the
elections, and, consequently, controlled Parliament. But the condition
of things in the United States is the reverse of what it was in England.
With us, the power of emancipation is in the States, not in Congress.
The slaveholders elect the members to the State Legislatures; and they
choose none but such as agree with them in opinion. It matters not,
therefore, what public sentiment may be at the North, as it has no power
over the Legislatures of the South. Here, then, is the difference: with
us the slaveholder controls the question of emancipation, while in
England the consent of the master was not necessary to the execution of
that work.
Our anti-slavery men seem to have fallen into their errors of policy, by
following the lead of those of England, who manifested a total ignorance
of the relations existing between our General Government and the State
Governments. On the abolition platform, slaveholders found themselves
placed in the same category with slave traders and thieves. They were
told that all laws, giving them power over the slave, were void in the
sight of heaven; and that their appropriation of the fruits of the labor
of the slave, without giving him compensation, was robbery. Had the
preaching of these principles produced conviction, it must have promoted
emancipation. But, unfortunately, while these doctrines were held up to
the gaze of slaveholders, in the one hand of the exhorter, they beheld
his other hand stretched out, from beneath his cloak of seeming
sanctity, to clutch the products of the very robbery he was professing
to condemn! Take a fact in proof of this view of the subject.
At the date of the declarations of Daniel O'Connell, on behalf of the
English, and by the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Convention, on the part of
Americans, the British manufacturers were purchasing, annually, about
300,000,000 lbs. of cotton, from the very men denounced as equally
criminal with slave traders and thieves; and the people of the United
States were almost wholly dependent upon slave labor for their supplies
of cotton and groceries. It is no matter for wonder, therefore, that
slaveholders, should treat, as fiction, the doctrine that slave labor
products are the fruits of robbery, so long as they are purchased
without scruple, by all classes of men, in Europe and America. The
pecuniary argument for emancipation, that free labor is more profitable
than slave labor, was also urged here, but was treated as the greatest
absurdity. The masters had, before their eyes, the evidence of the
falsity of the assertion, that, if emancipated, the slaves would be
doubly profitable as free laborers. The reverse was admitted, on all
hands, to be true in relation to our colored people.
But this question, of the moral relations which the consumers of slave
labor products sustain to slavery, is one of too important a nature to
be passed over without a closer examination; and, beside, it is involved
in less obscurity than the morality of the relation existing between the
master and the slave. Its consideration, too, affords an opportunity of
discriminating between the different opinions entertained on the broad
question of the morality of the institution, and enables us to judge of
the consistency and conscientiousness of every man, by the standard
which he himself adopts.
The prevalent opinions, as to the morality of the institution of
slavery, in the United States, may be classified under three heads: 1.
That it is justified by Scripture example and precept. 2. That it is a
great civil and social evil, resulting from ignorance and degradation,
like despotic systems of government, and may be tolerated until its
subjects are sufficiently enlightened to render it safe to grant them
equal rights. 3. That it is _malum in se_, like robbery and murder, and
can not be sustained, for a moment, without sin; and, like sin, should
be immediately abandoned.
Those who consider slavery sanctioned by the Bible, conceive that they
can, consistently with their creed, not only hold slaves, and use the
products of slave labor, without doing violence to their consciences,
but may adopt measures to perpetuate the system. Those who consider
slavery merely a great civil and social evil, a despotism that may
engender oppression, or may not, are of opinion that they may purchase
and use its products, or interchange their own for those of the
slaveholder, as free governments hold commercial and diplomatic
intercourse with despotic ones, without being responsible for the moral
evils connected with the system, But the position of those who believe
slavery _malum in se_, like the slave trade, robbery and murder, is a
very different one from either of the other classes, as it regards the
purchase and use of slave labor products. Let us illustrate this by a
case in point.
A company of men hold a number of their fellow men in bondage under the
laws of the commonwealth in which they live, so that they can compel
them to work their plantations, and raise horses, cattle, hogs, and
cotton. These products of the labor of the oppressed, are appropriated
by the oppressors to their own use, and taken into the markets for sale.
Another company proceed to a community of freemen, on the coast of
Africa, who have labored voluntarily during the year, seize their
persons, bind them, convey away their horses, cattle, hogs, and cotton,
and take the property to market. The first association represents the
slaveholders; the second a band of robbers. The commodities of both
parties, are openly offered for sale, and every one knows how the
property of each was obtained. Those who believe the _per se_ doctrine,
place both these associations in the same moral category, and call them
robbers. Judged by this rule, the first band are the more criminal, as
they have deprived their victims of personal liberty, forced them into
servitude, and then "despoiled them of the fruits of their labor."[92]
The second band have only deprived their victims of liberty, while they
robbed them; and thus have committed but two crimes, while the first
have perpetrated three. These parties attempt to negotiate the sale of
their cotton, say in London. The first company dispose of their cargo
without difficulty--no one manifesting the slightest scruple at
purchasing the products of slave labor. But the second company are not
so fortunate. As soon as their true character is ascertained, the police
drag its members to Court, where they are sentenced to Bridewell. In
vain do these robbers quote the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Convention,
and Daniel O'Connell, to prove that their cotton was obtained by means
no more criminal than that of the slaveholders, and that, therefore,
judgment ought to be reversed. The Court will not entertain such a
plea, and they have to endure the penalty of the law. Now, why this
difference, if slavery be _malum in se_? And if the receiver of stolen
property is _particeps criminis_ with the thief, why is it, that the
Englishman, who should receive and sell the cotton of the robbers, would
run the risk of being sent to prison with them, while if he acted as
agent of the slaveholders, he would be treated as an honorable man? If
the master has no moral right to hold his slaves, in what respect can
the products of their labor differ from the property acquired by
robbery? And if the property be the fruits of robbery, how can any one
use it, without violating conscience?
We have met with the following sage exposition of the question, in
justification of the use of slave labor products, by those who believe
the _per se_ doctrine: The master owns the lands, gives his skill and
intelligence to direct the labor, and feeds and clothes the slaves. The
slaves, therefore, are entitled only to a part of the proceeds of their
labor, while the master is also justly entitled to a part of the crop.
When brought into the market, the purchaser can not know what part
belongs, rightfully, to the master, and what to his slaves, as the whole
is offered in bulk. He may, therefore, purchase the whole, innocently,
and throw the sinfulness of the transaction upon the master, who sells
what belongs to others. But if the _per se_ doctrine be true, this
apology for the purchaser is not a justification. Where a "confusion of
goods" has been made by one of the owners, so that they can not be
separated, he who "confused" them can have no advantage, in law, from
his own wrong, but the goods are awarded to the innocent party. On this
well known principle of law, this most equitable rule, the master
forfeits his right in the property, and the purchaser, knowing the
facts, becomes a party in his guilt. But aside from this, the "confusion
of goods," by the master, can give him no moral right to dispose of the
interest of his slaves therein for his own benefit; and the persons
purchasing such property, acquire no moral right to its possession and
use. These are sound, logical views. The argument offered, in
justification of those who hold that slavery is _malum in se_, is the
strongest that can be made. It is apparent, then, from a fair analysis
of their own principles, that they are _participes criminis_ with
slaveholders.
Again, if the laws regulating the institution of slavery, be morally
null and void, and not binding on the conscience, then the slaves have a
moral right to the proceeds of their labor. This right can not be
alienated by any act of the master, but attaches to the property
wherever it may be taken, and to whomsoever it may be sold. This
principle, in law, is also well established. The recent decision on the
"Gardiner fraud," confirms it; the Court asserting, that the money paid
out of the Treasury of the United States, under such circumstances,
continued its character as the money and property of the United States,
and may be followed into the hands of those who cashed the orders of
Gardiner, and subsequently drew the money, but who are not the true
owners of the said fund; and decreeing that the amount of funds, thus
obtained, be collected off the estate of said Gardiner, and off those
who drew funds from the treasury, on his orders.
These principles of law are so well understood, by every man of
intelligence, that we can not conceive how those advocating the _per se_
doctrines, if sincere, can continue in the constant use of slave grown
products, without a perpetual violation of conscience and of all moral
law. Taking them under _protest_, against the slavery which produced
them, is ridiculous. Refusing to fellowship the slaveholder, while
eagerly appropriating the products of the labor of the slave, which he
brings in his hand, is contemptible. The most noted case of the kind, is
that of the British Committee, who had charge of the preliminary
arrangements for the admission of members to the World's Christian
Evangelical Alliance. One of the rules it adopted, but which the
Alliance afterward modified, excluded all American clergymen, suspected
of a want of orthodoxy on the _per se_ doctrine, from seats in that
body. Their language, to American clergymen, was virtually, "Stand
aside, I am holier than thou;" while, at the same moment, their
parishioners, the manufacturers, had about completed the purchase of
624,000,000 lbs. of cotton, for the consumption of their mills, during
the year; the bales of which, piled together, would have reached
mountain-high, displaying, mostly, the brands, "New Orleans," "Mobile,"
"Charleston."
As not a word was said, by the Committee, against the Englishmen who
were buying and manufacturing American cotton, the case may be viewed as
one in which the fruits of robbery were taken under _protest_ against
the robbers themselves. To all intelligent men, the conduct of the
people of Britain, in protesting against slavery, as a system of
robbery, while continuing to purchase such enormous quantities of the
cotton produced by slaves, appears as Pharasaical as the conduct of the
_conscientious_ Scotchman, in early times, in Eastern Pennsylvania, who
married his wife under protest against the constitution and laws of the
Government, and especially, against the authority, power, and right of
the magistrate who had just tied the knot.[93]
Such pliable consciences, doubtless, are very convenient in cases of
emergency. But as they relax when selfish ends are to be subserved, and
retain their rigidity only when judging the conduct of others, the
inference is, that the persons possessing them are either hypocritical,
or else, as was acknowledged by Parson D., in similar circumstances,
they have mistaken their _prejudices_ for their _consciences_.
So far as Britain is concerned, she is, manifestly, much more willing to
receive American slave labor cotton for her factories, than American
republican principles for her people. And why so? The profits derived by
her, from the purchase and manufacture of slave labor cotton, constitute
so large a portion of the means of her prosperity, that the Government
could not sustain itself were the supplies of this article cut off. It
is easy to divine, therefore, why the people of England are boundless in
their denunciation of American slavery, while not a single remonstrance
goes up to the throne, against the importation of American cotton.
Should she exclude it, the act would render her unable to pay the
interest on her national debt; and many a declaimer against slavery,
losing his income, would have to go supperless to bed.
Let us contrast the conduct of a pagan government with that of Great
Britain. When the Emperor of China became fully convinced of his
inability to resist the prowess of the British arms, in the famous
"Opium War," efforts were made to induce him to legalize the traffic in
opium, by levying a duty on its import, that should yield him a heavy
profit. This he refused to do, and recorded his decision in these
memorable words:
"It is true, I can not prevent the introduction of the flowing poison.
Gain-seeking and corrupt men will, for profit and sensuality, defeat my
wishes, but nothing will induce me to derive a revenue from the vice and
misery of my people."[94]
Let us revert a moment to the case of robbery, before cited, in further
illustration of this subject. The prisoners serve out their term in
Bridewell, and, after a year or two, again visit London with a cargo of
cotton. The police recognize them, and they are a second time arraigned
before the court for trial. The judge demands why they should have dared
to revisit the soil of England, to offer for sale the products of their
robbery. The prisoners assure his honor that they have neither outraged
the public sentiment of the kingdom, nor violated its laws. "While in
your prison, sir," they go on to say, "we became instructed in the
morals of British economics. Anxious to atone for our former fault, and
to restore ourselves to the confidence and respect of the pious subjects
of your most gracious Queen, no sooner were we released from prison,
than we hastened to the African coast, from whence our former cargo was
obtained, and seizing the self-same men whom we had formerly robbed, we
bore them off, bodily, to the soil of Texas. They resisted sturdily, it
is true, but we mastered them. We touched none of the fruits of their
previous labors. Their cotton we left in the fields, to be drenched by
the rains or drifted by the winds; because, to have brought it into your
markets would have subjected us, anew, to a place in your dungeons. In
Texas, we brought our prisoners under the control of the laws, which
there give us power to hold them as slaves. Stimulated to labor, under
the lash of the overseer, they have produced a crop of cotton, which is
now offered in your markets as a lawful article of commerce. We are not
subjects of your Government, and, therefore, not indictable under your
laws against slave trading. Your honor, will perceive, then, that our
moral relations are changed. We come now to your shores, not as dealers
in stolen property, but as slaveholders, with the products of slave
labor. We are aware that _bunkum_ speakers, at your public assemblies,
denounce the slaveholder as a thief, and his appropriation of the fruits
of the labor of his slaves, as robbery. We comprehend the motives
prompting such utterances. We come not to attend meetings of
Ecclesiastical Conventions, representing the republican principles of
America, to unsettle the doctrines upon which the throne of your kingdom
is based. But we come as cotton planters, to supply your looms with
cotton, that British commerce may not be abridged, and England, the
great civilizer of the world, may not be forced to slack her pace in the
performance of her mission. This is our character and position; and your
honor will at once see that it is your duty, and the interest of your
Government, to treat us as gentlemen and your most faithful allies." The
judge at once admits the justice of their plea, rebukes the police,
apologizes to the prisoners, assures them that they have violated no law
of the realm; and that, though the public sentiment of the nation
denounces the slaveholder as a thief, yet the public necessity demands a
full supply of cotton from the planter. He then orders their immediate
discharge, and invites them to partake of the hospitalities of his house
during their stay in London.
This is a fair example of British consistency, on the subject of
slavery, so far as the supply of cotton is concerned. The English
manufacturers are under the absolute necessity of procuring it; but as
free labor is incapable of increasing its production, slave labor must
be made to remedy the defect.
The reason can now be clearly comprehended, why abolitionists have had
so little moral power over the conscience of the slaveholder. Their
practice has been inconsistent with their precepts; or, at least, their
conduct has been liable to this construction. Nor do we perceive how
they can exert a more potent influence, in the future, unless their
energies are directed to efforts such as will relieve them from a
position so inconsistent with their professions, as that of constantly
purchasing products which they, themselves, declare to be the fruits of
robbery. While, therefore, things remain as they are, with the world so
largely dependent upon slave labor, how can it be otherwise, than that
the system will continue to flourish? And while its products are used by
all classes, of every sentiment, and country, nearly, how can the
slaveholder be brought to see any thing, in the practice of the world,
to alarm his conscience, and make him cringe, before his fellow-men, as
a guilty robber?
But, has nothing worse occurred from the advocacy of the _per se_
doctrine, than an exhibition of inconsistency on the part of
abolitionists, and the perpetuation of slavery resulting from their
conduct? This has occurred. Three highly respectable religious
denominations, now limited to the North, had once many flourishing
congregations in the South. On the adoption of the _per se_ doctrine, by
their respective Synods, their congregations became disturbed, were soon
after broken up, or the ministers in charge had to seek other fields of
labor. Their system of religious instruction, for the family, being
quite thorough, the slaves were deriving much advantage from the
influence of these bodies. But when they resolved to withhold the gospel
from the master, unless he would emancipate, they also withdrew the
means of grace from the slave; and, so far as they were concerned, left
him to perish eternally! Whether this course was proper, or whether it
would have been better to have passed by the morality of the legal
relation, in the creation of which the master had no agency, and
considered him, under Providence, as the moral guardian of the slave,
bound to discharge a guardian's duty to an immortal being, we shall not
undertake to determine. Attention is called to the facts, merely to show
the practical effects of the action of these churches upon the slave,
and what the _per se_ doctrine has done in depriving him of the gospel.
Another remark, and we have done with this topic. Nothing is more
common, in certain circles, than denunciations of the Christian men and
ministers, who refuse to adopt the _per se_ principle. We leave others
to judge whether these censures are merited. One thing is certain: those
who believe that slavery is a great civil and social evil, entailed upon
the country, and are extending the gospel to both master and slave, with
the hope of removing it peacefully, can not be reproached with acting
inconsistently with their principles; while those who declare slavery
_malum in se_, and refuse to fellowship the Christian slaveholder,
because they consider him a robber, but yet use the products of slave
labor, may fairly be classified, on their own principles, with the
hypocritical people of Israel, who were thus reproached by the Most
High: "What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou
shouldst take my covenant in thy mouth?. . . . . When thou sawest a
thief, then thou consentedst with him."[95]
FOOTNOTES:
[92] This is the phrase, nearly verbatim, used by Mr. Sumner in his
speech on the Fugitive Slave Bill. Language, a little more to the point,
is used in "The Friendly Remonstrance of the People of Scotland, on the
Subject of Slavery," published in the _American Missionary_, September,
1855. In depicting slavery it speaks of it as a system "which robs its
victims of the fruits of their toil."
[93] An anecdote, illustrative of the pliability of some consciences, of
this apparently rigid class, where interest or inclination demands it,
has often been told by the late Governor Morrow, of Ohio. An old Scotch
"Cameronian," in Eastern Pennsylvania, became a widower, shortly after
the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. He refused to
acknowledge either the National or State Government, but pronounced them
both unlawful, unrighteous, and ungodly. Soon he began to feel the want
of a wife, to care for his motherless children. The consent of a woman
in his own Church was gained, because to take any other would have been
like an Israelite marrying a daughter of the land of Canaan. On this
point, as in refusing to swear allegiance to Government, he was
controlled by conscience. But now a practical difficulty presented
itself. There was no minister of his Church in the country--and those of
other denominations, in his judgment, had no Divine warrant for
exercising the functions of the sacred office. He repudiated the whole
of them. But how to get married, that was the problem. He tried to
persuade his intended to agree to a marriage contract, before witnesses,
which could be confirmed whenever a proper minister should arrive from
Scotland. But his "lady-love" would not consent to the plan. She must be
married "like other folk," or not at all--because "people would talk
so." The Scotchman for want of a wife, like Great Britain for want of
cotton, saw very plainly that his children must suffer; and so he
resolved to get married at all hazards, as England buys her cotton, but
so as not to violate conscience. Proceeding with his intended to a
magistrate's office, the ceremony was soon performed, and they twain
pronounced "one flesh." But no sooner had he "kissed the bride," the
sealing act of the contract at that day, than the good Cameronian drew a
written document from his pocket, which he read aloud before the officer
and witnesses; and in which he entered his solemn protest against the
authority of the Government of the United States, against that of the
State of Pennsylvania, and especially against the power, right, and
lawfulness of the acts of the magistrate who had just married him. This
done, he went his way, rejoicing that he had secured a wife without
recognizing the lawfulness of ungodly governments, or violating his
conscience.
[94] _National Intelligencer_, 1854.
[95] Psalm 1: 16, 18.
CONCLUSION.
IN concluding our labors, there is little need of extended observation.
The work of emancipation, in our country, was checked, and the extension
of slavery promoted:--first, by the neglect of the free colored people
to improve the advantages afforded them; second, by the increasing value
imparted to slave labor; third, by the mistaken policy into which the
English and American abolitionists have fallen. Whatever reasons might
now be offered for emancipation, from an improvement of our free colored
people, is far more than counterbalanced by its failure in the West
Indies, and the constantly increasing value of the labor of the slave.
If, when the planters had only a moiety of the markets for cotton, the
value of slavery was such as to arrest emancipation, how must the
obstacles be increased, now, when they have the monopoly of the markets
of the world? And, besides all this, a more deadly blow, than has been
given by all other causes combined, is now levelled at negro freedom
from a quarter the least suspected. The failure of the Canadian
immigrants to improve the privileges afforded them under British law,
proves, conclusively, that the true laws of progress for the African
race, do not consist in a mere escape from slavery.
We propose not to speak of remedies for slavery. That we leave to
others. Thus far this very perplexing question, has baffled all human
wisdom. Either some radical defect must have existed, in the measures
devised for its removal, or the time has not yet come for successfully
assailing the institution. Our work is completed, in the delineation we
have given of its varied relations to our agricultural, commercial, and
social interests. As the monopoly of the culture of cotton, imparts to
slavery its economical value, the system will continue as long as this
monopoly is maintained. Slave labor products have now become necessities
of human life, to the extent of more than half the commercial articles
supplied to the Christian world. Even free labor, itself, is made
largely subservient to slavery, and vitally interested in its
perpetuation and extension.
Can this condition of things be changed? It may be reasonably doubted,
whether any thing efficient can be speedily accomplished: not because
there is lack of territory where freemen may be employed in tropical
cultivation, as all Western and Central Africa, nearly, is adapted to
this purpose; not because intelligent free labor, under proper
incentives, is less productive than slave labor; but because freemen,
whose constitutions are adapted to tropical climates, will not avail
themselves of the opportunity offered for commencing such an enterprise.
KING COTTON cares not whether he employs slaves or freemen. It is the
_cotton_, not the _slaves_, upon which his throne is based. Let freemen
do his work as well, and he will not object to the change. The efforts
of his most powerful ally, Great Britain, to promote that object, have
already cost her people many hundreds of millions of dollars, with total
failure as a reward for her zeal; and she is now compelled to resort to
the expedient of employing the slave labor of Africa, to meet the
necessities of her manufacturers. One-sixth of the colored people of the
United States are free; but they shun the cotton regions, and have been
instructed to detest emigration to Liberia. Their improvement has not
been such as was anticipated; and their more rapid advancement can not
be expected, while they remain in the country. The free colored people
of the British West Indies, can no longer be relied on to furnish
tropical products, for they are resting contented in a state of almost
savage indolence; and the introduction of coolie labor has become
indispensable as a means of saving the Islands from ruin, as well as of
forcing the negro into habits of industry. Hayti is not in a more
promising condition; and even if it were, its population and territory
are too limited to enable it to meet the increasing demand. HIS MAJESTY,
KING COTTON, therefore, is forced to continue the employment of his
slaves; and, by their toil, is riding on, conquering and to conquer! He
receives no check from the cries of the oppressed, while the citizens of
the world are dragging forward his chariot, and shouting aloud his
praise!
KING COTTON is a profound statesman, and knows what measures will best
sustain his throne. He is an acute mental philosopher, acquainted with
the secret springs of human action, and accurately perceives who can
best promote his aims. He has no evidence that colored men can grow his
cotton, except in the capacity of slaves. Thus far, all experiments made
to increase the production of cotton, by emancipating the slaves
employed in its cultivation, have been a total failure. It is his
policy, therefore, to defeat all schemes of emancipation. To do this, he
stirs up such agitations as lure his enemies into measures that will do
him no injury. The venal politician is always at his call, and assumes
the form of saint or sinner, as the service may demand. Nor does he
overlook the enthusiast, engaged in Quixotic endeavors for the relief of
suffering humanity, but influences him to advocate measures which tend
to tighten, instead of loosing the bands of slavery. Or, if he can not
be seduced into the support of such schemes, he is beguiled into efforts
that waste his strength on objects the most impracticable; so that
slavery receives no damage from the exuberance of his philanthropy. But
should such a one, perceiving the futility of his labors, and the evils
of his course, make an attempt to avert the consequences; while he is
doing this, some new recruit, pushed forward into his former place,
charges him with lukewarmness, or pro-slavery sentiments, destroys his
influence with the public, keeps alive the delusions, and sustains the
supremacy of KING COTTON in the world.
In speaking of the economical connections of slavery, with the other
material interests of the world, we have called it a _tripartite
alliance_. It is more than this. It is _quadruple_. Its structure
includes four parties, arranged thus: The Western Agriculturists; the
Southern Planters; the English Manufacturers; and the American
Abolitionists! By this arrangement, the abolitionists do not stand in
direct contact with slavery; they imagine, therefore, that they have
clean hands and pure hearts, so far as sustaining the system is
concerned. But they, no less than their allies, aid in promoting the
interests of slavery. Their sympathies are with England on the slavery
question, and they very naturally incline to agree with her on other
points. She advocates _Free Trade_, as essential to her manufactures and
commerce; and they do the same, not waiting to inquire into its bearings
upon _American slavery_. We refer now to the people, not to their
leaders, whose integrity we choose not to indorse. The free trade and
protective systems, in their bearings upon slavery, are so well
understood, that no man of general reading, especially an editor, or
member of Congress, who professes anti-slavery sentiments, at the same
time advocating free trade, will ever convince men of intelligence,
pretend what he may, that he is not either woefully perverted in his
judgment, or emphatically, a "dough-face" in disguise! England, we were
about to say, is in alliance with the cotton planter, to whose
prosperity free trade is indispensable. Abolitionism is in alliance with
England. All three of these parties, then, agree in their support of the
free trade policy. It needed but the aid of the Western farmer,
therefore, to give permanency to this principle. His adhesion has been
given, the _quadruple alliance_ has been perfected, and slavery and free
trade _nationalized_!
Slavery, thus intrenched in the midst of such powerful allies, and
without competition in tropical cultivation, has become the sole
reliance of KING COTTON. Lest the sources of his aggrandisement should
be assailed, we can well imagine him as being engaged constantly, in
devising new questions of agitation, to divert the public from all
attempts to abandon free trade and restore the protective policy. He now
finds an ample source of security, in this respect, in agitating the
question of slavery extension. This exciting topic, as we have said,
serves to keep politicians of the abolition school at the North in his
constant employ. But for the agitation of this subject, few of these men
would succeed in obtaining the suffrages of the people. Wedded to
England's free trade policy, their votes in Congress, on all questions
affecting the tariff, are always in perfect harmony with Southern
interests, and work no mischief to the system of slavery. If Kansas
comes into the Union as a slave State, he is secure in the political
power it will give him in Congress; but if it is received as a free
State, it will still be tributary to him, as a source from whence to
draw provisions to feed his slaves. Nor does it matter much which way
the controversy is decided, so long as all agree not to disturb slavery
in the States where it is already established by law. Could KING COTTON
be assured that this position will not be abandoned, he would care
little about slavery in Kansas; but he knows full well that the public
sentiment in the North is adverse to the system, and that the present
race of politicians may readily be displaced by others who will pledge
themselves to its overthrow in all the States of the Union, Hence he
wills to retain the power over the question in his own hands.
The crisis now upon the country, as a consequence of slavery having
become dominant, demands that the highest wisdom should be brought to
the management of national affairs. Slavery, nationalized, can now be
managed only as a national concern. It can now be abolished only with
the consent of those who sustain it. Their assent can be gained only by
employing other agents to meet the wants it now supplies. It must be
superseded, then, if at all, by means that will not injuriously affect
the interests of commerce and agriculture, to which it is now so
important an auxiliary. None other will be accepted, for a moment, by
the slaveholder. To supply the existing demand for tropical products,
except by the present mode, is impossible. To make the change, is not
the work of a day, nor of a generation. Should the influx of foreigners
continue, such a change may, one day, be possible. But to effect the
transition from slavery to freedom, on principles that will be
acceptable to the parties who control the question; to devise and
successfully sustain such measures as will produce this result; must be
left to statesmen of broader views and loftier conceptions than are to
be found among those at present engaged in this great controversy.
Take a more particular view of this subject, in the light of the
commercial operations of the United States, for the year 1859, as best
indicating the relations of the North and the South, and their mutual
dependence upon each other. The total value of the imports of foreign
commodities, including specie, was $338,768,130.[96] Of this $20,895,077
were re-exported, leaving for home consumption, $317,873,053--an amount
more than eleven times greater than the whole foreign commerce of Great
Britain one hundred and fifty-six years ago, and more than four times
greater than her exports eighty-six years ago.[97]
Let us inquire how this immense foreign commerce is sustained; how these
$317,873,000 of foreign imports are paid for by the American people; and
how far the Northern and Southern States respectively have contributed
to its payment. More than one-half the amount, or $161,434,923, was paid
in raw cotton, and more than one-third of the remainder, or $57,502,305,
in the precious metals; leaving less than $100,000,000 to be paid in the
other productions of the country. More than one-third of this remainder
was paid in cotton fabrics, tobacco, and rice; while the products of the
forest, of the sea, and of various minor manufactures, swelled up our
credits, so that the exports of breadstuffs and provisions, needed to
liquidate the debt, only amounted to a little over $38,000,000.[98] Of
this amount the exports, from the Northern States, of wheat and wheat
flour, made up only $15,262,769, and the corn and corn meal but
$2,206,396. "King Hay," so much lauded for his magnitude and money
value, never once ventured on board a merchant vessel, to seek a foreign
land, so as to aid in paying for the commodities which we imported.[99]
In a word, the products of the forest and of agriculture, exported by
the free States, amounted in value to about $45,300,000; while the same
classes of products, supplied for export by the Slave States, amounted
to more than $193,400,000.[100]
The economical relations of the North and the South can now be
understood more clearly than they could be from the statistics referred
to in the body of this work. The facts, in relation to the commerce of
the United States, for 1859, were not accessible until after the
stereotyping had been completed; and they are only crowded in here by
omitting two or three pages of remarks of another kind, but of less
importance, which closed the volume. By consulting Table XII, and two or
three of the others, which contain similar facts, covering the
commercial operations of the country since the year 1821, the whole
question of the relations of the North and the South can be fully
comprehended. It will be seen that the exports of tobacco, which are
mainly from the South, have equaled in value considerably more than
one-third the amount of that of breadstuffs and provisions; and that, in
the same period, the exports of cotton have exceeded in value those of
breadstuffs and provisions to the amount of $1,421,482,261.[101] Here,
now, a just conception can be formed of the importance of cotton to the
commerce of the country, as compared with our other productions. The
amount exported, of that article, in the last thirty-nine years, has
exceeded in value the exports of breadstuffs and provisions to the
extent of _fourteen hundred and twenty-one millions of dollars_! Verily,
Cotton is King!
Another point needs consideration. It is a fact, not to be questioned,
that the productions of the Northern States amount to an immense sum,
above those of the Southern States, when valued in dollars and cents;
but the proportion of the products of the former; exported to foreign
countries, is very insignificant, indeed, when compared with the value
of the exports from the latter.[102] And, yet, the North is acquiring
wealth with amazing rapidity. This fact could not exist, unless the
Northern people produce more than they consume--unless they have a
surplus to sell, after supplying their own wants. They must, therefore,
find a permanent and profitable market, somewhere, for the surplus
products that yield them their wealth. As that market is not in Europe,
it must be in the Southern States. But the extent to which the South
receive their supplies from the North, cannot be determined by any data
now in the possession of the public. It must, however, be very large in
amount, and, if withheld, would greatly embarrass the Southern people,
by lessening their ability to export as largely as hitherto. So, on the
other hand, if the Northern people were deprived of the markets afforded
by the South, they would find so little demand elsewhere for their
products, that it would have a ruinous effect upon their prosperity. All
that can be safely said upon this subject is, that the interests of both
sections of the country are so intimately connected, so firmly blended
together, that a dissolution of the Union would be destructive to all
the economical interests of both the North and the South. Cut off from
the South all that the North supplies to the planters, in such articles
as agricultural implements, furniture, clothing, provisions, horses, and
mules, and cotton culture would at once have to be abandoned to a great
extent. But would the South alone be the sufferer? Could the Northern
agriculturist, manufacturer, and mechanic, remain prosperous, and
continue to accumulate wealth, without a market for their products?
Could Northern merchants dwell in their palaces, and roll in luxury,
with a foreign commerce contracted to one-third of its present extent,
and a domestic demand for merchandize reduced to one-half its present
amount? Certainly not.
And if the mere necessity of self supply, of food and clothing, such as
existed in 1820, would now be disastrous to the South, and react
destructively upon the North, what would be the effect of emancipation
upon the country at large? What would be the effect of releasing from
restraint three and a half millions of negroes, to bask in idleness,
under the genial sunshine of the South, or to emigrate hither and
thither, at will, with none to control their actions? It is too late to
insist that free labor would be more profitable than slave labor, when
negroes are to be the operatives: Jamaica has solved that problem. It is
too late to claim that white labor could be made to take the place of
black labor, while the negroes remain upon the ground: Canada, and the
Northern States, demonstrate that the two races cannot be made to labor
together peacefully and upon terms of equality. Nothing is more certain,
therefore, than that emancipation would inevitably place the Southern
States in a similar position to that of Jamaica. On this point take a
fact or two.
The _Colonial Standard_,[103] of the 13th January, 1859, in speaking of
the present industrial condition of that Island, says, that there are
not more than twenty thousand laborers who employ themselves in sugar
cultivation for wages. This will seem astonishing to those who expected
so much from emancipation, when it is stated that the black population
of Jamaica, when liberated from slavery, numbered three hundred and
eleven thousand, six hundred and ninety two; and that the exports of
sugar from the Island, in 1805, before the slave trade was prohibited,
amounted to 237,751,150 lbs.;[104] while, in 1859, the exports of that
staple commodity, only amounted to 44,800,000 lbs.[105] It will thus be
seen that the exports of sugar from Jamaica is now less than one-fifth
of what it was in the prosperous days of slavery; and so it must be as
to cotton, in the South, were emancipation forced upon this country. And
what would be the condition of our foreign commerce, and what the effect
upon the country, generally, were the exports of the South diminished to
less than one-fifth of their present amount? Would the lands of the
Northern farmers still continue to advance in price, if the markets for
the surplus products of the soil no longer existed? Would those of the
Southern planters rise in value, in the event of emancipation, to an
equality with the lands at the North, when no laborers could be found to
till the soil? No man entitled to the name of statesman--no man of
practical common sense--could imagine that such a result would follow
the liberation of the slaves in the Southern States. Under the
philanthropic legislation of Great Britain, no such result followed the
passage of the act for the abolition of slavery in her colonies; but, on
the contrary, the value of their real estate soon became reduced to a
most ruinous extent; and such must inevitably be the result under the
adoption of similar measures in the United States. This is the
conviction of the men of the South, and they will act upon their own
judgment.
There are strong indications that the views presented in the first
edition of this work, and reported in the subsequent issues, are rapidly
becoming the views of intelligent and unprejudiced men everywhere. At a
late date in the British Parliament, Lord Brougham made a strong
anti-American cotton and anti-American slavery speech. The _London
Times_, thus "takes the backbone all out of his argument, and leaves
him nothing but his sophistries to stand on," thus:
"Lord Brougham and the veterans of the old Anti-Slavery Society do not
share our delight at this great increase in the employment of our home
population. Their minds are still seared by those horrible stories which
were burnt in upon them in their youth, when England was not only a
slave-owning, but even a slave-trading State. Their remorse is so great
that the ghost of a black man is always before them. They are benevolent
and excellent people; but if a black man happened to have broken his
shin, and a white man were in danger of drowning, we much fear that a
real anti-slavery zealot would bind up the black man's leg before he
would draw the white man out of the water. It is not an inconsistency,
therefore, that while we see only cause of congratulation in this
wonderful increase of trade, Lord Brougham sees in it the exaggeration
of an evil he never ceases to deplore.
"We, and such as we, who are content to look upon society as Providence
allows it to exist--to mend it when we can, but not to distress
ourselves immoderately for evils which are not of our creation--we see
only the free and intelligent English families who thrive upon the wages
which these cotton bales produce. Lord Brougham sees only the black
laborers who, on the other side of the Atlantic, pick the cotton pods in
slavery. Lord Brougham deplores that in this tremendous exportation of a
thousand millions of pounds of cotton, the lion's share of the profits
goes to the United States, and has been produced by slave labor. Instead
of twenty-three millions, the United States now send us eight hundred
and thirty millions, and this is all cultivated by slaves. It is very
sad that this should be so, but we do not see our way to a remedy. There
seems to be rather a chance of its becoming worse.
"If France, who is already moving onwards in a restless, purblind state,
should open her eyes wide, should give herself fair-play, by accepting
our coals, iron, and machinery, and, under the stimulus of a wholesome
competition, should take to manufacturing upon a large scale, even these
three millions of slaves will not be enough. France will be competing
with us in the foreign cotton markets, stimulating still further the
produce of Georgia and South Carolina. The jump which the consumption of
cotton in England has just made is but a single leap, which may be
repeated indefinitely. There are a thousand millions of mankind on the
globe, all of whom can be most comfortably clad in cotton. Every year
new tribes and new nations are added to the category of cotton-wearers.
There is every reason to believe that the supply of this universal
necessity will, for many years yet to come, fail to keep pace with the
demand, and in the interest of that large class of our countrymen to
whom cotton is bread, we must continue to hope that the United States
will be able to supply us in years to come with twice as much as we
bought of them in years past. 'Let us raise up another market,' says the
anti-slavery people. So say we all. . . . . .
"But even Lord Brougham would not ask us to believe that there is any
proximate hope that the free cotton raised in Africa will, within any
reasonable time, drive out of culture the slave-grown cotton of America.
If this be so, of what use can it be to make irritating speeches in the
House of Lords against a state of things by which we are content to
profit? Lord Brougham and Lord Grey are not men of such illogical minds
as to be incapable of understanding that it is the demand of the English
manufacturers which stimulates the produce of slave-grown American
cotton. They are, neither of them, we apprehend, so reckless or so
wicked as to close our factories and to throw some two millions of our
manufacturing population out of bread. Why, then, these inconsequent and
these irritating denunciations? Let us create new fields of produce of
we can; but, meanwile, it is neither just nor dignified to buy the raw
material from the Americans, and to revile them for producing it."
We have said that the more popular belief, in reference to the moral
character of slavery, now prevailing throughout the world, ranks it as
identical in principle with despotic forms of government. Here arises a
question of importance. Can despotism be acknowledged by Christians as a
lawful form of government? Those who hold the view of slavery under
consideration, answer in the affirmative. The necessity of civil
government, they say, is denied by none. Society can not exist in its
absence. Republicanism can be sustained only where the majority are
intelligent and moral. In no other condition can free government be
maintained. Hence, despotism establishes itself, of necessity, more or
less absolutely, over an ignorant or depraved people; obtaining the
acquiescence of the enlightened, by offering them security to person and
property. Few nations, indeed, possess moral elevation sufficient to
maintain republicanism. Many have tried it, have failed, and relapsed
into despotism. Republican nations, therefore, must forego all
intercourse with despotic governments, or acknowledge them to be lawful.
This can be done, it is claimed, without being accountable for moral
evils connected with their administration. Elevated examples of such
recognitions are on record. Christ paid tribute to Cæsar; and Paul, by
appealing to Cæsar's tribunal, admitted the validity of the despotic
government of Rome, with its thirty millions of slaves. To deny the
lawfulness of despotism, and yet hold intercourse with such governments,
is as inconsistent as to hold the _per se_ doctrine, in regard to
slavery, and still continue to use its products.
How far masters in general escape the commission of sin, in the
treatment of their slaves, or whether any are free from guilt, is not
the point at issue, in this view of slavery. The mere possession of
power over the slave, under the sanction of law, is held not to be
sinful; but, like despotism, may be used for the good of the governed.
That Southern masters are laboring for the good of the slave, to an
encouraging extent, is apparent from the missionary efforts they are
sustaining among the slave population. And when it is considered that
the African race, under American slavery, have made much greater
progress than they have ever done in any other part of the world; and
that the elevating influences are now greatly increased among them; it
is to be expected that dispassionate men will be disposed to leave the
present condition of things undisturbed, rather than to rush madly into
the adoption of measures that may prove fatal to the existence of the
Union.
FOOTNOTES:
[96] See Table XII, in Appendix.
[97] See Speech of Edmund Burke, in Appendix.
[98] See Table VIII, in Appendix.
[99] It has been denied that "Cotton is King," and claimed that Hay is
entitled to that royal appellation; because its estimated value exceeds
that of Cotton. The imperial character of Cotton rests upon the fact,
that it enters so largely into the manufactures, trade, and commerce of
the world, while hay is only in demand at home.
[100] See Table XII, in Appendix, for the statistics on this subject.
[101] See Table VIII, in Appendix.
[102] See Table XII.
[103] This paper is published at Kingston, Jamaica, and in confirmation
of the views of the _London Economist_, quoted in the body of the work,
the following extract is copied from its columns:
"Barbadoes, we all know, is prosperous because she possesses a native
population almost as dense as that of China, with a very limited extent
of superficial soil. In Barbadoes, therefore, population presses on the
means of subsistence, in the same way, if not to the same extent, as in
England, and the people are industrious from necessity. Trinidad and
British Guiana, on the other hand, have taken steps to produce this
pressure artificially, by large importations of foreign labor. The
former colony, by the importation of eleven thousand coolies, has
trebled her crops since 1854, while the latter has doubled hers by the
introduction of twenty-three thousand immigrants.
"While Jamaica is the single instance of retrogression, she affords also
the solitary example of non-immigration.
"Mauritius, by importing something like one hundred and seventy thousand
laborers, has increased her exports of sugar from 70,000,000 lbs. in
1844, to 250,000,000 lbs. in 1858. Jamaica, by depending wholly on
native labor, has fallen from an export of 69,000 hhds. in 1848, to one
of 28,000 hhds. in 1859.
"It is believed that there are not at this moment above twenty thousand
laborers who employ themselves in sugar cultivation for wages."
[104] Martin's British Colonies. See also Ethiopia, by the author, page
132, for full details on this question.
[105] The hhd. of sugar, as in Martin's tables, is here estimated at
1,600 lbs. See foot note on page 222.
APPENDIX.
EARLY MOVEMENTS IN THE AMERICAN COLONIES ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION.
SENTIMENTS have been quoted from the proceedings of the public meetings
held by the fathers of the Revolution, which, when taken in connection
with the language of the Declaration of Independence, seem to favor the
opinion that it was their purpose to extend to the colored people all
the privileges to be secured by that struggle. An examination of the
historical records, leads to the conclusion, that no such intention
existed on the part of the statesmen and patriots of that day. The
opinions expressed, with scarcely an exception, show that they viewed
the slave trade and slavery as productive of evils to the colonies, and
calculated to retard their prosperity, if not to prevent their
acquisition of independence. The question of negro slavery was one of
little moment, indeed, in the estimation of the colonists, when compared
with the objects at which they aimed; and the resolutions adopted, which
bound them not to import any more slaves, or purchase any imported by
others, was a blow aimed at the commerce of the mother country, and
designed to compel Parliament to repeal its obnoxious laws. But the
resolutions themselves must be given, as best calculated to demonstrate
what were the designs of those by whom they were adopted. Before doing
this, however, it is necessary to ascertain what were the relations
which the North American Colonies bore to the commerce of the British
Empire, and why it was, that the refusal any longer to purchase imported
slaves would be so ruinous to Great Britain, and her other colonies.
When this is done, and not till then, can the full meaning of the
resolutions be determined. Such were the links connecting these colonies
with England--with the West Indies--and with the African slave trade,
conducted by British merchants--that more than one-half of the commerce
of the mother country was directly or indirectly under their control.
The facts on this subject are extracted from the debates in the British
Parliament, and especially from the speech of Hon. EDMUND BURKE, on his
resolutions, of March 22d, 1775, for conciliation with America.[106] He
said:--
"I have in my hand two accounts; one, a comparative statement of the
export trade of England to its colonies, as it stood in the year 1704,
and as it stood in the year 1772. The other, a state of the export trade
of this country to its colonies alone, as it stood in 1772, compared
with the whole trade of England to all parts of the world, (the colonies
included,) in the year 1704. They are from good vouchers; the latter
period from the accounts on your own table, the earlier, from an
original manuscript of Davenant, who first established the Inspector
General's Office, which has been, ever since his time, so abundant a
source of Parliamentary information.
"The export trade to the colonies, consists of three great branches. The
African, which, terminating almost wholly in the colonies, must be put
to the account of their commerce; the West Indian, and the North
American. All these are so interwoven, that the attempt to separate them
would tear to pieces the contexture of the whole; and if not entirely
destroy, would very much depreciate the value of all the parts. I,
therefore, consider these three denominations to be, what in effect they
are, one trade.
"The trade to the colonies, taken on the export side, at the beginning
of this century, that is, in the year 1704, stood thus:
"Exports to North America and the West Indies $2,416,325
To Africa 433,325
-----------
$2,849,650
"In the year 1772, which I take as a middle year, between the highest
and lowest of those lately laid on your table, the account was as
follows:
"To North America and the West Indies $23,958,670
To Africa 4,331,990
To which, if you add the export trade from Scotland,
which had, in 1704, no existence 1,820,000
-----------
$30,110,660
"From a little over two millions and three quarters, it has grown to
over thirty millions.[107] It has increased no less than twelve fold.
This is the state of the colony trade, as compared with itself at these
two periods, within this century; and this is matter for meditation. But
this is not all. Examine my second account. See how the export trade to
the colonies alone, in 1772, stood in the other point of view, that is,
as compared to the whole trade of England, in 1704.
"The whole trade of England, including that
to the colonies, in 1704 $32,545,000
Export to the colonies alone, in 1772 30,120,000
-----------
Difference $2,425,000
"The trade with America alone, is now within less than two millions and
a half of being equal to what this great commercial nation, England,
carried on at the beginning of this century with the whole world! If I
had taken the largest year of those on your table, it would rather have
exceeded. But, it will be said, is not this American trade an unnatural
protuberance, that has drawn the juices from the rest of the body? The
reverse. It is the very food that has nourished every other part into
its present magnitude. Our general trade has been greatly augmented; and
augmented more or less in almost every part to which it ever extended;
but with this material difference, that of the thirty-two millions and a
half, which, in the beginning of the century, constituted the whole mass
of our export commerce, the colony trade was but one-twelfth part; it is
now considerably more than a third of the whole--[which is $80,000,000.]
This is the relative proportion of the importance of the colonies at
these two periods; and all reasoning concerning our mode of treating
them, must have this proportion as its basis; or it is a reasoning,
weak, rotten, and sophistical."
It is easy to perceive, from what is said by Mr. Burke, the
embarrassments that must fall upon the mother country, in the event of a
rebellion in the North American colonies. Take another illustration of
this point. More than one-third of the exports of Great Britain were
made to North America, the West Indies, and Africa. They stood thus
during the three years ending at Christmas, 1773:
Annual average exports to North America $17,500,000
To the West Indies 6,500,000
To Africa 3,500,000
----------
Total value of exports $27,500,000
But this is not all. The total value of the exports of Great Britain to
all the world, at this date, was $80,000,000. These exports were made
up, in part, of colonial products, tobacco, rice, sugar, etc., to the
amount of $15,000,000;--$5,000,000 to foreign countries, and $10,000,000
to Ireland,--which, when added to the $27,500,000, paid for by the
colonies, exhibits them as sustaining more than one-half of the commerce
of the mother country.[108]
The immediate cause of the alarm which led to the examination of this
subject by the Hon. Edmund Burke, and others, of the British Parliament,
was the adoption, by the North American colonies, of the policy of
non-importation and non-consumption of all English products, whether
from the mother country, or any of her colonies; and the non-exportation
of any North American products to Great Britain, the West Indies, or any
of the dependencies of the crown. This agreement was adopted as a
measure of retaliation upon Parliament, for the passage of the Boston
Port Bill, which ordered the closing of Boston harbor to all commerce.
The measure was first proposed at a meeting of the citizens of Boston,
held on May 13, 1774. It was soon seconded by all the principal cities,
towns, and counties, throughout the colonies; and when the Continental
Congress met at Philadelphia, the terms of the league were drawn up and
adopted, October 20, 1774, and went into operation.
A few extracts from memorials to Parliament, praying that the
difficulties with North America might be adjusted, and the threatened
evils averted, will show how the slave trade was then interwoven with
the commerce and national prosperity of Great Britain, and to what
extent the American league could affect that prosperity.
In the House of Commons, January 23, 1775: "Mr. Burke then presented a
petition of the Master, Wardens, and Commonalty, of the Society of
Merchants Venturers of the city of Bristol, under their common seal;
which was read, setting forth, That a very beneficial and increasing
trade to the British colonies in America, has been carried on from the
port of Bristol, highly to the advantage of the kingdom in general, and
of the said city in particular; and that the exports from the said port
to America, consist of almost every species of British manufactures,
besides East India goods, and other articles of commerce; and the
returns are made not only in many valuable and useful commodities from
thence, but also, by a circuitous trade, carried on with Ireland, and
most parts of Europe, to the great emolument of the merchant, and
improvement of his Majesty's revenue; and that the merchants of the said
port are also deeply engaged in the trade to the West India islands,
which, by the exchange of their produce with America, for provisions,
lumber, and other stores, are thereby almost wholly maintained, and
consequently, become dependent upon North America for support; and that
the trade to Africa, which is carried on from the said port to a very
considerable extent, is also dependent upon the flourishing state of the
West India islands, and America; and that these different branches of
commerce give employment not only to a very numerous body of artists and
manufacturers, but also to a great number of ships, and many thousand
seamen, by which means a very capital increase is made to the naval
strength of Great Britain. . . . . . The passing certain acts of
Parliament, and other measures lately adopted, caused such a great
uneasiness in the minds of the inhabitants of America, as to make the
merchants apprehensive of the most alarming consequences, and which, if
not speedily remedied, must involve them in utter ruin. And the
petitioners, as merchants deeply interested in measures which so
materially affect the commerce of this kingdom, and not less concerned
as Englishmen, in every thing that relates to the general welfare,
cannot look without emotion on the many thousands of miserable objects,
who, by the total stop put to the export trade of America, will be
discharged from their manufactories for want of employment, and must be
reduced to great distress."[109]
January 26, 1775. A petition of the merchants and tradesmen of the port
of Liverpool, was presented to the House, and read, setting forth: "That
an extensive and most important trade has been long carried on, from
said town to the continent and islands of America; and that the exports
from thence infinitely exceed in value the imports from America, from
whence an immense debt arises, and remains due to the British merchant;
and that every article which the laborer, manufacturer, or more
ingenious artist, can furnish for use, convenience, or luxury, makes a
part in these exports, for the consumption of the American; and that
those demands, as important in amount as various in quality, have for
many seasons been so constant, regular, and diffusive, that they are now
become essential to the flourishing state of all their manufactures, and
of consequence to every ndividual in these kingdoms; and that the bread
of thousands in Great Britain, principally and immediately depends upon
this branch of commerce, of which a temporary interruption will reduce
the hand of industry to idleness and want, and a longer cessation of it
would sink the now opulent trader in indigence and ruin; and that at
this particular season of the year, the petitioners have been accustomed
to send to North America many ships wholly laden with the products of
Britain; but by the unhappy differences at present subsisting, from
whatever source they flow, the trade to these parts is entirely at a
stand; and that the present loss, though great, is nothing, when
compared with the dreadful mischiefs which will certainly ensue, if some
effectual remedy is not speedily applied to this spreading malady, which
must otherwise involve the West India islands, and the trade to Africa,
in the complicated ruin; but that the petitioners can still, with
pleasing hopes, look up to the British Parliament, from whom they trust
that these unhappy divisions will speedily be healed, mutual confidence
and credit restored, and the trade of Britain again flourishing with
undecaying vigor."[110]
March 16, 1775. To the question "From what places do the sugar colonies
draw food for subsistence?" the answer, given before Parliament, was, in
part, as follows: "I confine myself at present to necessary food.
Ireland furnishes a large quantity of salted beef, pork, butter, and
herrings, but no grain. North America supplies all the rest, both corn
and provisions. North America is truly the granary of the West Indies;
from whence they draw the great quantities of flour and biscuit for the
use of one class of people, and of Indian corn for the support of all
the others; for the support, not of man only, but of every animal . . .
. . . North America also furnishes the West Indies with rice . . . . . .
North America not only furnishes the West Indies with bread, but with
meat, with sheep, with poultry, and some live cattle; but the demand for
these is infinitely short of the demand for the salted beef, pork, and
fish. Salted fish, (if the expression may be permitted in contrast with
bread,) is the meat of all the lower ranks in Barbadoes and the Leeward
Islands. It is the meat of all the slaves in the West Indies. Nor is it
disdained by persons in better condition. The North American colonies
also furnishes the sugar colonies with salt from Turks' Island, Sal
Tortuga, and Anguilla; although these islands are themselves a part of
the West Indies. The testimony which some experience has enabled me to
bear, you will find confirmed, Sir, by official accounts. The same
accounts will distinguish the source of the principal, the great supply
of corn and provisions. They will fix it precisely in the middle
colonies of North America; in those colonies who have made a public
agreement in their Congress, to withhold all their supplies after the
tenth of next September. How far that agreement may be precipitated in
its execution, may be retarded or frustrated, it is for the wisdom of
Parliament to consider: but if it is persisted in, I am well founded to
say, that nothing will save Barbadoes and the Leeward Islands from the
dreadful consequences of absolute famine. I repeat, the famine will not
be prevented. The distress will fall upon them suddenly; they will be
overwhelmed with it, before they can turn themselves about to look for
relief. What a scene! when rapine, stimulated by hunger, has broken down
all screens, confounded the rich with the poor, and leveled the freeman
with his slave! The distress will be sudden. The body of the people do
not look forward to distant events; if they should do this, they will
put their trust in the wisdom of Parliament. Suppose them to be less
confident in the wisdom of Parliament, they are destitute of the means
of purchasing an extraordinary stock. Suppose them possessed of the
means; a very extraordinary stock is not to be found at market. There is
a plain reason in the nature of the thing, which prevents any
extraordinary stock at market, and which would forbid the planter from
laying it in, if there was; it is, that the objects of it are
perishable. In those climates, the flour will not keep over six or eight
weeks; the Indian corn decays in three months; and all the North
American provisions are fit only for present use."[111]
To the question, what are the advantages of the sugar colonies to Great
Britain? it was answered: "The advantage is not that the profits all
centre here; it is, that it creates, in the course of attaining those
profits, a commerce and navigation in which multitudes of your people,
and millions of your money are employed; it is that the support which
the sugar colonies received in one shape, they give in another. In
proportion to their dependence on North America, and upon Ireland, they
enable North America and Ireland to trade with Great Britain. By their
dependence upon Great Britain for hands to push the culture of the
sugar-cane, they uphold the trade of Great Britain to Africa. A trade
which in the pursuit of negroes, as the principal, if not the only
intention of the adventurer, brings home ivory and gold as secondary
objects. In proportion as the sugar colonies consume, or cause to be
consumed, among their neighbors, Asiatic commodities, they increase the
trade of the English East India Company. In this light I see the India
goods which are carried to the coast of Guinea.[112]
To the question, what proportion of land in the Leeward Islands, being
applied to raising provisions, would supply the negroes with provisions,
on an estate of two hundred hogsheads, for instance? it was answered:
"The native products of the Islands are very uncertain; all so, but
Guinea corn; therefore, much more land would be applied to this purpose
than would be necessary to raise the supply for the regular constant
consumption. They must provide against accidents, such as hurricanes,
excess of wet weather, or of dry weather, the climate being very
uncertain; it is, therefore, impossible to answer this question
precisely; but this I can say, that if they were obliged to raise their
own food, that their food then must be their principal object, and sugar
only a secondary object; it would be but the trifle, which provisions
are now."[113]
The testimony in reference to Jamaica, was very similar to that quoted
in relation to Barbadoes and the Leeward Islands; except that as
Jamaica had more unimproved land, and greater diversity of soil and
climate, it might, in time, stand prepared to meet the shock. But as the
emergency was likely to be sudden and unexpected, much suffering must
ensue in the outset of the non-intercourse policy.
It is only necessary to add a few remarks, from the speech of Mr.
Glover, in summing up the testimony. He said: "From this ground see what
is put in hazard; not merely a monied profit, but our bulwark of
defense, our power in offense--the acts and industry of our Nation.
Instead of thousands and tens of thousands of families in comfort, a
navigation extensive and enlarging, the value and rents of lands yearly
rising, wealth abounding, and at hand for further improvements, see or
foresee, that this third of our whole commerce, that sole basis of our
Empire, and this third in itself the best, once lost, carries with it a
proportion of our national faculties, our treasure, our public revenue,
and the value of land, succeeded in its fall by a multiplication of
taxes to reinstate that revenue, an increasing burden on every
increasing estate, decreasing by the reduced demand of its produce for
the support of Manufactures, and menaced with a heavier calamity
still--the diminution of our Marine, of our seamen, of our general
population, by the emigration of useful subjects, strengthening that
very country you wish to humble, and weakening this in the sight of
rival powers, who wish to humble us.
"To recapitulate the heads of that material evidence delivered before
you, would be tedious in me, unnecessary in itself. Leaving it,
therefore, to its own powerful impression, I here add only, in a general
mode of my own, that of the inhabitants of those Islands, above four
hundred thousand are blacks, from whose labor the immense riches there,
so distinctly proved at your bar, are derived, with such immense
advantage to these kingdoms. How far these multitudes, if their
intercourse with North America is stopped, may be exposed to famine, you
have heard. One-half in Barbadoes and the Leeward Islands, say one
hundred thousand negroes, in value at least twenty millions of dollars,
possibly, it grieves me to say probably, may perish. The remainder must
divert to provisions the culture of the produce so valuable to Great
Britain. The same must be the practice in great part throughout Jamaica
and the new settled acquisitions. They may feel a distress just short of
destruction, but must divert for subsistence so much labor as, in
proportion, will shorten their rich product."[114]
The North American colonies could not have devised a measure so alarming
to Great Britain, and so well calculated to force Parliament into the
repeal of her obnoxious laws, as this policy of non-intercourse. It
would deprive the West Indies of their ordinary supplies of provisions,
and force them to suspend their usual cultivation, to produce their own
food. It would cause not only the cessation of imports from Great
Britain into the West Indies, on account of the inability of its people
to pay, but would, at once, check all demand for slaves, both in the
sugar Islands and in North America--thus creating a loss, in the
African trade alone, of three and a half millions of dollars, and
putting in peril one-half of the commerce of England.
We are now prepared to introduce the resolutions, passed by the North
American colonies, on the subject of the slave trade and slavery. It is
not considered necessary to burden our pages with a repetition of the
whole of the accompanying resolutions. They embraced every item of
foreign commodities, excepting in a few instances where medicines,
saltpetre, and other necessaries, were exempted from the prohibition. In
a few counties, though they condemned the slave trade, they excepted
negroes, and desired to retain the privilege of procuring them. This was
in the early part of the movement. When the Continental Congress came to
act upon it, no such exemption was made.
On May 17, 1774, the citizens of Providence, Rhode Island, met and
acquiesced in the Boston resolutions. Their proceedings closed with this
declaration: "Whereas, the inhabitants of America are engaged in the
preservation of their rights and liberties; and as personal liberty is
an essential part of the natural rights of mankind, the deputies of the
town are directed to use their endeavors to obtain an act of the General
Assembly, prohibiting the importation of negro slaves in this colony;
and that all negroes born in the colony should be free at a certain
age."
Prince George county, Virginia, June 1774, responded to Boston, and
added this resolution: "_Resolved_, That the African trade is injurious
to this colony, obstructs the population of it by freemen, prevents
manufacturers and other useful emigrants from Europe from settling among
us, and occasions an annual balance of trade against the colony."[115]
Culpepper County, Virginia, July 7, 1774 acquiesced in the
non-intercourse policy, and added this resolution: "_Resolved_, That the
importing slaves and convict servants, is injurious to this colony, as
it obstructs the population of it with freemen and useful manufacturers,
and that we will not buy such slave or convict hereafter to be
imported."[116]
The Provincial Convention, at Charleston, South Carolina, July 6, 7, 8,
1774, resolved to acquiesce in the Boston non-intercourse measures, and
the merchants agreed not to import goods or slaves, until the grievances
were redressed.[117]
Nansemond County Virginia, July 11, 1774, gave full assent to the Boston
measures, and also "_Resolved_, That the African trade is injurious to
this colony, obstructs the population of it by freemen, prevents
manufacturers and other useful emigrants from Europe from settling among
us, and occasions an annual increase of the balance of trade against the
colony ."[118]
Caroline County, Virginia, July 14, 1774, cordially acceded to the
Boston policy, and also "_Resolved_, That the African trade is injurious
to this colony, obstructs our population by freemen, manufacturers, and
others, who would emigrate from Europe and settle here, and occasions a
balance of trade against the country that ought to be associated
against."[119]
Surry County, Virginia, July 6, 1774, decided to sustain the Bostonians
and also "_Resolved_, That as the population of this colony, with
freemen and useful manufacturers, is greatly obstructed by the
importation of slaves and convict servants, we will not purchase any
such slaves or servants, hereafter to be imported."[120]
Fairfax County, Virginia, July 18, 1774, took ground strongly with
Boston, and further "_Resolved_, That it is the opinion of this meeting,
that during our present difficulties and distress, no slaves ought to be
imported into any of the British colonies on the continent; and we take
this opportunity of declaring our most earnest wishes to see an entire
stop forever put so such a wicked, cruel, and unnatural trade."[121]
Hanover county, Virginia, July 20, 1774, sustained the Boston
resolutions, and also "_Resolved_, That the African trade for slaves, we
consider as most dangerous to virtue and the welfare of this country; we
therefore most earnestly wish to see it totally discouraged."[122]
Prince Ann County, Virginia, July 27, 1784, adopted the Boston policy,
most distinctly, and also "_Resolved_, That our Burgesses be instructed
to oppose the importation of slaves and convicts as injurious to this
colony, by preventing the population of it by freemen and useful
manufacturers."[123]
The Virginia Convention of Delegates, which met at Williamsburgh, August
1, 1774, fully indorsed the non-intercourse policy, medicines excepted,
and in their resolutions declared: "We will neither ourselves import,
nor purchase any slave or slaves imported by any other person, after the
first day of November next, either from Africa, the West Indies, or any
other place."[124]
The North Carolina Convention of Delegates, which met at Newbern, August
24, 1774, fully indorsed the non-intercourse policy, and also passed
this among their other resolutions: "_Resolved_, That we will not import
any slave or slaves, or purchase any slave or slaves, imported or
brought into this Province by others, from any part of the world, after
the first day of November next."[125]
And, finally, the Continental Congress, which met at Philadelphia, Sept.
5, 1774, in passing its non-importation, non-exportation, and
non-consumption Agreement, included the following as the second article
of that document:
"That we will neither import nor purchase any slave imported after the
first day of December next; after which time we will wholly discontinue
the slave trade, and will neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will
we hire our vessels, nor sell our commodities or manfactures to those
who are concerned in it."[126]
To afford a clear view of the reasons which prompted the colonies to
adopt such stringent measures to compel Parliament to repeal its
oppressive acts, it is only necessary to quote the very brief summary of
grievances of which they complained, as drawn up by the Pennsylvania
Convention, which met in Philadelphia, July 15, 1774:
"The legislative authority claimed by Parliament over these colonies,
consists of two heads: first, a general power of internal legislation;
and, secondly, a power of regulating our trade; both, she contends, are
unlimited. Under the first may be included, among other powers, those of
forbidding us to worship our Creator in the manner we think most
acceptable to him--imposing taxes on us--collecting them by their own
officers--enforcing the collection by Admiralty Courts, or Courts
Martial--abolishing trials by jury--establishing a standing army among
us in time of peace, without consent of our Assemblies--paying them with
our money--seizing our young men for recruits--changing constitutions of
government--stopping the press--declaring any action, even a meeting of
the smallest number, to consider of peaceable modes to obtain redress of
grievances, high treason--taking colonists to Great Britain to be
tried--exempting 'murderers' of colonists from punishment, by carrying
them to England, to answer indictments found in the colonies--shutting
up our ports--prohibiting us from slitting iron to build our houses,
making hats to cover our heads, or clothing to cover the rest of our
bodies, etc."[127]
It was in the midst of grievances such as these, and of efforts of
redress such as the adoption of the Non-Intercourse Agreement was
expected to afford, that the resolutions against the slave trade and
slavery were passed. What, then, was their true import? Did the patriots
of the Revolution contemplate the enfranchisement of the negro, in the
event of securing their own independence? Did their views of free
institutions include the idea that barbarism and civilization could
coalesce and co-exist in harmony and safety? Or did they not hold, as a
great fundamental truth, that a high degree of intelligence and moral
principle was essential to the success of free government? And was it
not on this very principle, that they opposed the further introduction
of negroes from Africa, and afterwards, by a special clause in the
Constitution, excluded the Indians from citizenship?
The resolutions which have been quoted, have given rise to much
discussion, and have often been misrepresented. By severing them from
their connection with the circumstances under which they were adopted,
and associating them with the phrase in the Declaration of Independence,
that "all men are created equal," the impression has been made that the
negroes were to be included in the rights therein claimed. But as they
have not been made participants in the benefits of the Revolution, it
has been argued that the nation has broken its covenant engagements, and
must expect that the judgments of Heaven will be poured out upon her.
Now, what are the facts? The colonists were aiming at a high degree of
mental and moral culture, and were desirous of developing the resources
of the country, by encouraging the influx of freemen from Europe, and
especially of mechanics and manufacturers. They were anxiously looking
forward to the time when they could cast off the yoke of oppression
which the mother country had forced upon their necks. The multiplication
of the negro population was considered as a barrier to the success of
their measures, and as most dangerous to virtue and the welfare of the
country. It was increasing the indebtedness of the citizens to foreign
merchants, and augmenting the balance of trade against the colonies. But
there was no settled policy in reference to the future disposition of
the colored population. Feelings of pity were manifested toward them,
and some expressed themselves in favor of emancipation. The Continental
Congress, in addition to its action in the Non-Intercourse Agreement,
_Resolved_, April 6, 1776, "That no slaves be imported into any of the
thirteen United Colonies."[128] The Delaware Convention, August 27,
1776, adopted, as the 26th article of its Constitution, that "No person
hereafter imported into this State from Africa, ought to be held in
slavery on any pretense whatever; and no negro, Indian, or mulatto slave
ought to be brought into this State, for sale, from any part of the
world."[129]
There was more of meaning in this action, than the resolution, standing
alone, would seem to indicate. On the 11th of July, preceding, Gen.
Washington wrote to the Massachusetts Assembly, that the enemy had
excited the slaves and savages to arms against him;[130] and on November
7th, 1775, Lord Dunmore had issued a proclamation, declaring the
emancipation of all slaves "that were able and willing to bear arms,
they joining his Majesty's troops, as soon as may be, for the more
speedy reducing the colonists to their duty to his Majesty's crown and
dignity."[131]
Previous to the commencement of hostilities, the resolutions of the
colonists, adverse to the slave trade and slavery, were designed to
operate against British commerce; but, after that event, the measures
adopted had reference, mainly, to the prevention of the increase of a
population that had been, and might continue to be, employed against the
liberties of the colonies. That such a course formed a part of the
policy of Great Britain, is beyond dispute; and that she considered the
prosecution of the slave trade as necessary to her purposes, was clearly
indicated by the Earl of Dartmouth, who declared, as a sufficient reason
for turning a deaf ear to the remonstrances of the colonists against the
further importation of slaves, that "Negroes cannot become
republicans--they will be a power in our hands to restrain the unruly
colonists." That such motives prompted England to prosecute the
introduction of slaves into the colonies, was fully believed by American
statesmen; and their views were expressed, by Mr. Jefferson, in a clause
in the first draft of the Declaration of Independence, but which was
afterward omitted.
That the emancipation of the negroes was not contemplated, by those in
general, who voted for the resolutions quoted, is evident from the
subsequent action of Virginia, where the greater portion of the meetings
were held. They could not have intended to enfranchise men, whom they
declared to be obstacles in the way of public prosperity, and as
dangerous to the virtues of the people. Nor could the signers of the
Declaration of Independence have designed to include the Indians and
negroes in the assertion that all men are created equal, because these
same men, in afterwards adopting the Constitution, deliberately
excluded the Indians from citizenship, and forever fixed the negro in a
condition of servitude, under that Constitution, by including him, as a
slave, in the article fixing the ratio of Congressional representation
on the basis of five negroes equaling three white men. The phrase--"all
men are created equal"--could, therefore, have meant nothing more than
the declaration of a general principle, asserting the equality of the
colonists, before God, with those who claimed it as a divine right to
lord it over them. The Indians were men as well as the negroes. Both
were within the territory over which the United Colonies claimed
jurisdiction. The exclusion of both from citizenship under the
Constitution, is conclusive that neither were intended to be embraced in
the Declaration of Independence.
That the colonists were determined, at any sacrifice, to achieve their
own liberties, even at the sacrifice of their slave property, seems to
have been the opinion of intelligent Englishmen. Burke, in his speech
already quoted, thus dissipates the hopes of those who expected to find
less resistance at the South than at the North.
"There is, however, a circumstance attending the [Southern] colonies,
which, in my opinion, fully counterbalances this difference, and makes
the spirit of liberty still more high and haughty than in those to the
Northward. It is that in Virginia and the Carolinas, they have a vast
multitude of slaves. Where this is the case, in any part of the world,
those who are free, are by far the most proud and jealous of their
freedom. Freedom is to them not only an enjoyment, but a kind of rank
and privilege. Not seeing there that freedom, as in countries where it
is a common blessing, and as broad and general as the air, may be united
with much abject toil, with great misery with all the exterior of
servitude, liberty looks, among them, like something that is more noble
and liberal. I do not mean, sir, to commend the peculiar morality of
this sentiment, which has at least as much pride as virtue in it; but I
can not alter the nature of man. The fact is so; and these people of the
Southern colonies are much more strongly, and with a higher and more
stubborn spirit, attached to liberty, than those to the Northward. Such
were all the ancient commonwealths; such were our Gothic ancestors; such
in our days were the Poles; and such will be all masters of slaves, who
are not slaves themselves. In such a people the haughtiness of
domination combines with the spirit of freedom, fortifies it, and
renders it invincible."
FOOTNOTES:
[106] See American Archives, vol i. folio 1749.
[107] His estimates are in pounds sterling. It is here, for sake of
uniformity, reduced to dollars, the pound being estimated at five
dollars.
[108] Investigations before the Committee on the Petition of the West
India Planters. See American Archives, vol i. folio 1736.
[109] American Archives, vol. i. folio 1519.
[110] American Archives, vol. i. folio 1531.
[111] Testimony of Geo. Walker, Esq, American Archives, vol. i. folios
1723-24.
[112] Testimony of Geo. Walker, Esq, American Archives, vol. i. folios
1728-29,
[113] Testimony of Geo. Walker, Esq, American Archives, vol. i. folio
1730.
[114] American Archives, vol i. folio 1737.
[115] American Archives, vol. i. folio 494.
[116] American Archives, vol. i. folio 523.
[117] American Archives, vol. i. folio 525.
[118] American Archives, vol. i. folio 530.
[119] American Archives, vol. i. folio 541.
[120] American Archives, vol. i. folio 593.
[121] American Archives, vol. i. folio 600.
[122] American Archives, vol. i. folio 616.
[123] American Archives, vol. i. folio 641.
[124] American Archives, vol. i. folio 687.
[125] American Archives, vol. i. folio 735.
[126] American Archives, vol. i. folio 914.
[127] American Archives, vol i. folio 573.
[128] American Archives, 4th series, vol. iii. folio 11.
[129] American Archives, 5th series, vol. i. folio 1178.
[130] American Archives, 5th series, vol. i. folio 192.
[131] American Archives, 4th series, vol. iii. folio 1385.
FREE COLORED POPULATION.
WHEN the author was carefully collating the facts from the Record of
MAJOR LACHLAN, in reference to the fugitive slaves in Canada, he was not
aware that he should be so fortunate as to obtain, from other sources,
any testimony in their support. Canada has all along been a sealed book
to the public of the States, so far as the condition of blacks, who had
escaped thither, were concerned. Since the completion of the
stereotyping of the volume, and just as it was about ready for the
press, the _New York Herald_, of January 5, reached us. It embraces a
detailed report on this important subject, which was prepared by a
special agent, who visited the settlements he describes. It is very
interesting to find, that the opinions and predictions of Major Lachlan,
made in 1841 to 1850, as to the results of colored immigration into
Canada, should be so fully sustained and fulfilled, by a report upon the
actual facts in 1859.
It may be remarked, here, that we believe a crisis has arrived in the
history of the free colored people of the United States, which demands
the most calm and serious consideration; and we would remind the more
intelligent colored men, that the honor of conducting their fellow-men
in the road to a high civilization, will be as great as are the honors
heaped upon the few of the white race, who have been the master spirits
in bringing up their fellow-men to the pinnacle of greatness upon which
they now stand. More than one field, for the accomplishment of this
object, now presents itself; and, as the darkest hour is said to be that
which immediately proceeds the dawn of day; it may be hoped that the
lowering clouds now overshadowing their prospects, will soon be
dissipated by a brighter sun, that shall reveal the highway of their
deliverance.
But to the extracts from the _Herald_. After giving a detailed account
of the whole subject of negro immigration into Canada, together with the
particulars of the results of the several attempts at founding
settlements for the refugees, the _Herald's_ reporter sums up the whole
matter thus:
"THE SOCIAL AND MORAL EFFECT OF THE IMPORTATION OF FUGITIVE SLAVES INTO
CANADA.
"While, as we have seen, the British abolitionists in Canada are
laboring with the republican abolitionists of America to entice away the
slave property of the South, and to foment a servile insurrection in the
Southern States, and a disruption of the Union, there are men of sense
and of honor among our neighbors over the borders, who deplore this
interference of their countrymen in the affairs of the republic, and
appreciate the terrible catastrophe to which, if persevered in, it must
eventually lead. I conversed with a prominent abolitionist in Chatham,
holding a public position of trust and honor, who told me that the first
suggestion of the Harper's Ferry attack was made to Brown by British
abolitionists in Chatham, and who assured me that he had himself
subscribed money to aid Brown in raising men for the service in Ohio and
elsewhere in the States. In reply to some questions I put to him, he
stated that he and his associates on the other side looked with
expectation and hope to the day, not far distant, when a disruption of
the Union would take place; for that, in that case, the British
abolitionists would join the republican abolitionists of America in open
warfare upon the slaveholding States. When I reminded him that the
patriotic men of the North would raise a barrier of brave hearts,
through which such traitors would find it difficult to reach the
Southern States, he replied--'Oh, we have often talked over and
calculated upon that; but you forget that we should have the negroes of
the South to help us in their own homes against their oppressors, with
the knife and the fire-brand.'
"I conversed on the other hand with conservative, high-minded men, who
expressed the most serious apprehension that the bold and unjustifiable
association of Canadian abolitionists with the negro stealers and
insurrectionists of America would eventually plunge the two countries
into war.
"We have seen that the immigration of fugitive slaves into Canada is
unattended by any social or moral good to the negro. It is injurious,
also, to the white citizens of Canada, inasmuch as it depresses the
value of their property, diminishes their personal comfort and safety,
and destroys the peace and good order of the community. Mr. Sheriff
Mercer, of Kent county, assured me that the criminal statistics of that
county prove that nine-tenths of the offenses against the laws are
committed by colored persons. The same proportion holds good in Essex
county, and the fact is the more startling when it is remembered that
the blacks do not at present number more than one-fourth of the whole
population.
"In the township of Anderdon, Essex county, this fall, nearly every
sheep belonging to the white farmers has been stolen. The fact was
presented in the return of the Grand Jury of the county, and some twelve
negro families, men, women and children, were committed to jail on the
charge of sheep stealing. The cases of petit larceny are incredibly
numerous in every township containing negro settlements, and it is a
fact that frequently the criminal calendars would be bare of a
prosecution but for the negro prisoners.
"The offenses of the blacks are not wholly confined to those of a light
character. Occasionally some horrible crime startles the community, and
is almost invariably attended by a savage ferocity peculiar to the
vicious negro. If a murder is committed by a black, it is generally of
an aggravated and brutal nature. The offense of rape is unfortunately
peculiarly prevalent among the negroes. Nearly every assize is marked by
a charge of this character. A prominent lawyer of the Province, who has
held the position of public prosecutor, told me that his greatest dread
was of this offense, for that experience had taught him that no white
woman was safe at all times, from assault, and those who were rearing
daughters in that part of Canada, might well tremble at the danger by
which they are threatened. He told me that he never saw a really brutal
look on the human face until he beheld the countenances of the negroes
charged with the crime of rape. When the lust comes over them they are
worse than the wild beast of the forest. Last year, in broad daylight, a
respectable white woman, while walking in the public road within the
town of Chatham, was knocked down by a black savage and violated. This
year, near Windsor, the wife of a wealthy farmer, while driving alone
in a wagon, was stopped by a negro in broad daylight, dragged out into
the road, and criminally assaulted in a most inhuman manner. It was
impossible to hear the recital of these now common crimes without a
shudder.
"The fugitive slaves go into Canada as beggars, and the mass of them
commit larceny and lay in jail until they become lowered and debased,
and ready for worse crimes. Nor does there seem at present a prospect of
education doing much to better their condition, for they do not appear
anxious to avail themselves of school privileges as a general rule. The
worse class of blacks are too poor and too indolent to clothe their
children in the winter, and their services are wanted at home in the
summer. The better class affect airs as soon as they become tolerably
well to do, and refuse to send their little ones to any but white
schools. In Windsor there are two public colored schools, but the
negroes of that place choose to refuse to allow their children to attend
these institutions, and sent them to the schools for whites. They were
not admitted, and two of the black residents, named Jones and Green,
tested the question at law, to try whether the trustees or teachers had
a right to exclude their children. It was decided that the trustees had
such power, when separate schools were provided for colored persons.
"That property is seriously depreciated in all neighborhoods in which
the negroes settle is a well known fact. Mr. S. S. Macdonnel, a resident
of Windsor, and a gentleman of high social and political position, is
the owner of a large amount of real estate in that place. The Bowyer
farm, a large tract of land belonging to him, was partitioned into lots
some few years since, and sold at auction. Some of the lots were bid in
by negroes of means, among others, by a mulatto named De Baptiste,
residing in Detroit. As soon as the white purchasers found that negroes
were among the buyers, they threw up their lots, and since then the
value of the property has been much depressed. In several instances Mr.
Macdonnel paid premiums to the negroes to give up their purchases, where
they had happened to buy in the midst of white citizens. At a subsequent
sale of another property, cut up into very fine building lots, by the
same gentleman, one of the conditions of sale announced was, that no bid
should be received from colored persons. De Baptiste attended and bid in
a lot. When his bid was refused, he endeavored to break up the auction
in a row, by the aid of other negroes, and failing in this, brought an
action at law against Mr. Macdonnel. This Mr. M. prepared to defend, but
it was never pressed to a trial. These incidents, together with the
attempt of the Windsor negroes to force their children into the schools
for whites, illustrate the impudent assumption of the black, as soon as
he becomes independent, and the deeply seated antipathy of the whites in
Canada to their dark skinned neighbors. At the same time it is
observable that the 'free negro' in Canada--that is, the black who was
free in the States--endeavors to hold his head above the 'fugitive,' and
has a profound contempt for the escaped slave.
"As I desired to obtain the views of intelligent Canadians upon the
important questions before me, I requested a prominent and wealthy
citizen of Windsor to favor me with a written statement of his
observations on the effect of the negro immigration and received the
following hastily prepared and brief communication, in reply. The
opinions expressed are from one of the most accomplished gentlemen in
the Province, and are worthy of serious consideration, although the
public position he occupies renders it proper that I should not make
public use of his name:--
"'WINDSOR, Dec. 23, 1859.
"'MY DEAR SIR--In reply to your request, I beg to
say that I would cheerfully give you my views at
length upon the important topics discussed at our
interview, did not my pressing engagements just
now occupy too much of my time to make it possible
that I should do more than hastily sketch down
such thoughts as occur to me in the few moments I
can devote to the subject.
"'The constant immigration of fugitives from
slavery into the two western counties of the
Province of Canada, Kent and Essex, has become a
matter for serious consideration to the landed
proprietors in those counties, both as it effects
the value and salability of real estate, and as
rendering the locality an undesirable place of
abode.
"'It is certain that ever since large numbers of
fugitive slaves have, by means of the organization
known here and in the States as "the Underground
Railroad," and of such associations as the Dawn
and Elgin Institutes and the Refugee Home Society,
been annually introduced into these two counties,
no settlers from the old country, from the States,
or from the eastern part of Canada, have taken up
lands there. And there is every reason to assign
the fact of there being a large colored
population, and that population constantly on the
increase, as the chief cause why these counties do
not draw a portion at least of the many seeking
Western homes.
"'Kent and Essex have been justly styled "the
Garden of Upper Canada." The soil in most parts of
the counties cannot be excelled in richness and
fertility, and the climate is mild and delightful.
There are thousands of acres open for sale at a
moderate price, but it now seldom happens that a
lot of wild land is taken up by a new comer. The
farmer who has achieved the clearing of the land
that years ago was settled upon may wish to extend
his possessions for the sake of his sons who are
growing up, by the acquisition of an adjoining or
neighboring piece of wild land; but seldom or
never is the uncleared forest intruded upon now by
the encampment of emigrant families.
"'It may be broadly asserted, first, in general,
that the existence of a large colored population
in Kent and Essex has prevented many white
settlers from locating there who otherwise would
have made a home in one of those counties; and,
secondly, that in particular instances it
constantly occurs that the sale of a lot of land
is injuriously affected by reason of the near
settlement of colored people.
"'Next, as to the general feeling of the gentry
and farmers who live in the midst of this
population: All regard it with dissatisfaction,
and with a foreboding--an uncomfortable
anticipation for the future, as they behold the
annual inpouring of a people with whom they have
few or no sympathies in common, many of whose
characteristics are obnoxious and bad, and who
have to make a commencement here, in the
development of their better nature, should they
possess any, from perhaps the lowest point to
which the human mind can be degraded,
intellectually and morally.
"'There is undoubtedly hardly a well thinking
person whose heart is not touched with a feeling
of pity for the unfortunates who present
themselves as paupers, in the name of liberty, to
become denizens of our country. And it would,
doubtless, be a great moral spectacle to witness
these escaped slaves, as they are sometimes
pictured by professional philanthropists,
rendering themselves happy in their freedom,
acquiring property, surrounding themselves with
the comforts, if not the elegancies of life, and
advancing themselves intellectually, socially and
politically. But, alas for human nature! If the
negro is really fitted by the Creator to enjoy
freedom as we enjoy it, the habits of mind and of
action, however baneful they may be, that have
been long exercised, are not to be suddenly broken
or changed; and the slave who was idle, and lying,
and thievish in the South, will not obtain
opposite qualities forthwith by crossing the line
that makes him free.
"'This is not said in a spirit of malevolence
toward the colored people that are here and are
brought here, but as presenting their case as it
really is, and as explaining the position in which
residents of these counties are placed, or will be
placed, if this continuous flow from the slave
States is poured in by means of the organizations
and societies formed for that purpose in many of
the Northern States of America, and fostered and
aided by many indiscreet men in our own country.
"'The main argument in favor of the free school
system is, that it is a benefit to all to be
surrounded by an intelligent and moral community,
and for such a benefit every property holder
should be glad to contribute his quota. Is there,
then, any need of asking the question, if the
people of these counties desire the sort of
population that comes to them from the Southern
States?
"'What is the condition of the negroes on their
arrival here? What their progress in the
acquisition of property and knowledge, and their
conduct as citizens?
"'There are very few indeed who arrive here with
sufficient means at once to acquire a farm, or to
enter into business of any kind. The great mass of
them may be called paupers, claiming aid from the
societies through whose agency they are brought
out. Some of these societies hold large tracts of
land, which they sub-divide and sell to new comers
upon long time, but with conditions as to
clearing, residence, etc., that are difficult of
observance. I believe there is much trouble in
carrying out this plan, arising in some measure
from the peculiarities of negro character--a want
of constancy or steadiness of purpose, as well as
from a feeling of distrust as to their having the
land secured to them. If the land is not purchased
from any of these societies, a parcel of ten or
fifteen colored families get together and purchase
and settle upon some other spot.
"While there are instances of colored men
accumulating property here, the great mass of them
fail even in securing a living without charity or
crime. They have but little forethought for the
future, and care only to live lazily in the
present. The criminal records of the county show
that nine-tenths of the offenses are committed by
the colored population, and I think the experience
of every citizen who resides near a settlement
will testify to their depredating habits.
"'I have given you thus hurriedly and
disconnectedly my views on these subjects. They
are important enough to demand more time and
consideration in their discussion, but I believe
the opinions I have advanced you will find shared
in by a large proportion of the residents of the
Province. I am, my dear sir, faithfully yours.'
----- -----.
"In addition to the testimony of the writer of the above communication,
my views upon the subject under examination were confirmed by the
valuable opinion of the Hon. Colonel Prince, the representative of the
county in the Provincial Parliament for a long term of years. Colonel
Prince has bestowed much consideration upon the negro question, and he
has practical experience of the condition and conduct of the colored
population. In June, 1858, in the course of a debate in the Legislative
Council, Col. Prince was reported to have spoken as follows:
"'In the county of Essex the greatest curse that befell them was the
swarm of blacks that infested that county. They were perfectly inundated
with them. Some of the finest farmers of the county of Kent had actually
left their beautiful farms, so as not to be near this terrible nuisance.
If they looked over the criminal calendars of the country they would see
that the majority of names were those of colored people. They were a
useless, worthless, thriftless set of people, too lazy and indolent to
work, and too proud to be taught. . . . . Were the blacks to swarm the
country and annoy them with their rascalities? Honorable gentlemen might
speak feelingly for the negroes, but they had never lived among them as
he had done. Notwithstanding all that he said about them, they would
say, if asked on the subject, that they had no better friend than Col.
Prince. But there was no use in trying to get the white man to live with
them. It was a thing they would not do. There was a great sympathy
always expressed for the black man who escaped from the slave life; but
he had lived with them twenty-five years, and had come to the conclusion
that the black man was born for servitude, and was not fit for any thing
else. He might listen to the morbid philanthropy of honorable gentlemen
in favor of the negro; but they might as well try to change the spots of
the leopard as to change the character of the blacks. They would still
retain their idle and thievish propensities.'
"While Col. Prince claims that he was very inaccurately reported, and
that he never said one word in favor of slavery, which he professes to
abhor with a holy horror, he yet adheres to the opinion that the colored
race is not fit to live and mix in freedom with the whites. He deplores
deeply the action of such of his countrymen as improperly interfere in
the affairs of the States, and condemns the lawless running off of
slaves from the South, and the attempts to raise servile insurrection in
the slaveholding States. As a constitutional British gentleman, he
reveres the laws, and believes that where they are bad, or where the
constitution of a country is unwise, the remedy lies in the power of the
people by legal means. He sees the evil effect, morally and socially, of
the influx of fugitive slaves into Canada, and would shut them out if he
could. He knows that the negroes form an enormous portion of the
criminals of his county, and the county of Kent, and he is doubly
annoyed that men who come from servitude to freedom should abuse their
privileges as the negroes do. He admits that every distinct attempt to
make a settlement of negroes self-supporting and prosperous, has failed,
and he believes that the negro is not yet fit for self-government, and
requires over him a guiding, if not a master's hand.
Col. Prince is a gentleman of the old school--hale, hearty and
whole-souled--and does not fear to express the sentiments he entertains.
"The lessons taught by an examination into the action of the Canadian
abolitionists, and of the condition and prospects of the fugitive slaves
in the Province, should be made useful to the American people. The
history of the past proves that Great Britain would gladly destroy the
Union of the States, which makes the American republic a leading power
among nations. As in days past she sought to accomplish this object
through the instrumentality of traitors and of the foes of the Union, so
now she seeks aid in her designs from the republican abolition enemies
of the confederacy in our own States. The intrigues of the British
emissaries in Canada should stay the hand of every man who fancies that
in helping to rob the South of its slaves he is performing an act of
humanity; for they should teach him that he is but helping on the
designs of those who look eagerly to the slavery agitation and the
sectional passions engendered thereby, to accomplish a disruption of the
Union, and encompass the failure of our experiment of free
government. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"Let our merchants and our farmers carefully consider these facts, and
then reflect upon what they are required by the abolition agitators to
do. To what end are the systematized negro stealing of the North, the
attempts to incite insurrection at the South, and their natural results,
a dissolution of the Union, to lead? Are we to render New York and the
other free States subject to the same deplorable evils as afflict the
western counties of Canada? Are our Northern farmers willing to have the
value of their lands depreciated, and to subject their crops and stock
to constant depredations by inviting here the same class of neighbors
that at present deplete whole Canadian townships of their sheep? Unless
we desire to accomplish such results, why, under a mistaken idea of
charity to the negro, do we take him from a life of usefulness and
content at the South to plant him in freedom and suffering at the North?
Why do we consent to help forward, directly or indirectly, an agitation
that can only incite a disruption of the Union and bring upon us the
very evils we deplore?"
IMPORTANT DECISIONS.
Since the volume was in type, the Supreme Court of Ohio has made a
decision of great importance to the free colored people. We copy from
the _Law Journal_, December, 1859:
"NEGROES AND THE COMMON SCHOOLS.
"The Supreme Court of Ohio, on Tuesday, on a question before them
involving the right of _colored_ children to be admitted into the Common
Schools of the State, decided that the law of the State interfered with
no right of colored children on the subject, and that they were not,
therefore, entitled of _right_ to the admission demanded. The following
is the reported statement of the case:
"'Enos Van Camp _vs._ Board of Equalization of incorporated village of
Logan, Hocking County, Ohio. Error to District Court of Hocking County.
"'Peck J. held:
"'1. That the statute of March 14, 1853, 'to provide for the
reorganization, supervision, and maintenance of Common Schools, is a law
of _classification_ and not of _exclusion_, providing for the education
of _all_ youths within the prescribed ages, and that the words 'white'
and 'colored,' as used in said act, are used in their popular and
ordinary signification.
"'2. That children of three-eighths African and five-eighths white
blood, but who are distinctly colored, and generally treated and
regarded as colored children by the community where they reside, are
not, _as of right_, entitled to admission into the Common Schools, set
apart under said act, for the instruction of white youths.
"'Brinkherhoff, C. J., and Sutliff, J., dissented.'"
(From the Cincinnati Gazette.)
MASSACHUSETTS BLACK MILITIA.
Last Wednesday a bill passed by the Massachusetts Legislature
authorizing colored persons to join military organizations, was vetoed
by Gov. Banks, on the ground that he believed the chapter in the bill
relating to the militia, in which the word "white" was stricken out, to
be unconstitutional. In this opinion he is sustained by the Supreme
Court and by the Attorney General.
The matter was discussed in the House at some length, and the veto
sustained by a vote of 146 to 6.
A new chapter was then introduced on leave, and it being precisely the
same as the other, except that the word "white" was restored, it passed
the House with but one negative vote.
Under a suspension of the rules the new bill was then sent to the
Senate, where, after debate, it was passed by a vote of 11 to 15.
The Governor signed the new bill, and the Legislature adjourned _sine
die_.
SOUTH-SIDE VIEWS.
REV. Dr. Fuller, of Baltimore, has written a long letter to Hon. Edward
Everett, in regard to the present state of things as regards slavery. We
subjoin two or three specimens:--_Cincinnati Gazette._
"In June, 1845, there assembled in Charleston a body of men,
representing almost all the wisdom and wealth of South Carolina. There
were present, also, delegates from Georgia, and I believe from other
States. It was a meeting of the association for the improvement, moral
and religious, of the slave population. The venerable Judge Huger
presided. Having been appointed to address that large and noble
audience, I did not hesitate to speak my whole mind: appealing to
masters to imitate the Antonines and other magnanimous Roman Emperors,
to become the guardians of their slaves, to have laws enacted protecting
them in their relations as husbands and wives and parents; to recognize
the rights which the Gospel asserts for servants as well as masters. In
a word, I pressed upon them the solemn obligations which their power
over these human beings imposed upon them--obligations only the more
sacred, because their power was so irresponsible.
"That august assembly not only honored me with their attention, but
expressed their approval, the presiding officer concurring most
emphatically in the views submitted.
"I need scarcely tell you that no such address would be regarded as wise
or prudent at this time. It is not that masters are less engaged in
seeking to promote the moral and religious well-being of their servants;
but measures which once could have been adopted most beneficially would
now only expose master and servant to the baneful influence of fanatical
intermeddling.
"If any thing is certain, it is that the Gospel does not recognise
hatred, abuse, violence and blood as the means by which good is to be
done. The Gospel is a system of love. It assails no established social
relations, but it infuses love into the hearts of those who are bound
together, and thus unites them in affection."
Again he says:
"I think I speak accurately when I say, that hitherto every sacrifice
for the emancipation of slaves has been made by Southern men; and many
hundred thousand dollars have been expended in such liberations. The
North has wasted large sums for abolition books and lectures; for
addresses calculated to inflame the imaginations of women and children,
and to mislead multitudes of men--most excellent and pious--but utterly
ignorant as to the condition of things at the South. We now find,
indeed, that money has been contributed even for the purchase of deadly
weapons to be employed against the South, and to enlist the most
ferocious passions in secret crusades, compared with which an open
invasion by foreign enemies would be a blessing. I believe, however,
that not one cent has yet been given to set on foot--or even encourage
when proposed--any plausible enterprise for the benefit of the slave."
* * * * *
"I do now believe that the guardianship of a kind master is at this time
a great blessing to the African. If emancipation is ever to take place,
it will be gradually, and under the mild, but resistless influence of
the Gospel. Whether slavery be an evil or not, we at the South did not
bring these Africans here--we protested against their introduction. The
true friend of the African is at the South, and thousands of hearts
there are seeking to know what can be done for the race. There must be
some limits to human responsibility, and a man in New England has no
more right to interfere with the institutions of Virginia, than he has
to interfere with those of England or France. All such interference
will be repelled by the master, but it will prove injurious to the
slave. Dr. Channing was regarded as a leading abolitionist in his day,
but could that noble man now rise up, he would stand aghast at the
madness which is rife everywhere on this subject. 'One great principle,
which we should lay down as immovably true, is, that if a good work
cannot be carried on by the calm, self-controlled, benevolent spirit of
Christianity, then the time for doing it has not yet come.' Such was his
language, when opposing slavery. Were he now living, the delirious
spirit of the day would denounce him, as it denounced Mr. Webster, and
now denounces you and every true patriot. Nay, even Mr. Beecher is
abused as not truculent enough.
"Jesus saw slavery all around him. Did he seek to employ force? He said
'All power in heaven and earth is given unto me, therefore, go teach, go
preach the Gospel.'"
COLORED PEOPLE EMIGRATING FROM LOUISIANA TO HAYTI.
The _New Orleans Picayune_ notices that a vessel cleared from that port
on the previous day, having on board eighty-one free colored persons,
emigrating to Hayti. The _Picayune_ says:
"These people are all from the Opelousas parishes, and all
cultivators--well versed in farming, and in all the mechanical arts
connected with a farm. Among them are brickmakers, blacksmiths,
wheelwrights, carpenters, etc. Some of them are proficient weavers, who
have long been employed making the stuff called Attakapas cottonade, so
favorably known in the market. They take along with them the necessary
machinery for that trade, and all sorts of agricultural and mechanical
implements.
"These eighty-one persons--twenty-four adults and fifty-seven children
and youths--compose fourteen families, or rather households, for they
are all related, and the eighty-one may be called one family. They are
all in easy circumstances, some even rich, one family being worth as
much as $50,000. They were all land owners in this State, and have sold
out their property with the intention of investing their capital in
Hayti."--
_Cincinnati Commercial_, January, 1860.
THE COOLIE TRAFFIC.
It may be well to put upon record one of those extreme cases of hardship
and cruelty which necessarily accompany the transportation of laborers
to the West Indies, whether under the name of the slave trade, or coolie
immigration. The China correspondent of the _New York Journal of
Commerce_, of a recent date, says: The Flora Temple, an English vessel,
had made all arrangements to secure a full cargo of coolies. They were
cheated, inveigled, or stolen, and either taken directly to the ship or
else confined in the barracoons in Macao till the ship was ready to
sail for Havanna--the crew numbering fifty, and the coolies eight
hundred and fifty. The vessel sailed October 8, 1859, when the coolies
soon learned their destiny, and resolved to avert it at all hazards. On
the morning of the 11th, without weapons of any kind, they rushed upon
the guard and killed him. The noise brought the captain and his brother
on deck, fully armed with revolvers, who by rapid firing and resolutely
pressing forward, drove the miserable wretches below; where, without
light and air, they were locked and barred like felons, in a space too
limited to permit their living during the long voyage before them. Think
of eight hundred and fifty human beings all full grown men, pressed into
this contracted, rayless, airless dungeon, in which they were to be
deported from China to Havana, all the long way over the China sea, the
Indian ocean, and the Atlantic!
On the 14th, the vessel struck upon an unknown reef, a gale of wind in
the meantime blowing, and the sea running high. Every effort was made to
save the ship by the officers and crew; the poor coolies, battened down
beneath the decks, being allowed no chance to aid in saving the ship or
themselves. Although the yards were "braced around" and the ship "hove
aback," she struck first slightly, and then soon after several times
with a tremendous crash, the breakers running alongside very high.
Pieces of her timbers and planking floated up on her port side, and
after some more heavy thumps she remained apparently immovable. The
water rapidly increased in the hold till it reached the "between-decks,"
where the eight hundred and fifty coolies were confined.
While this was going on, indeed, almost immediately after the ship first
struck, the officers and crew very naturally became afraid of the
coolies for the treatment they had received, and the captain ordered the
boats to be lowered, not to save the coolies in whole or in part, but to
preserve himself and crew. These boats, even under favorable
circumstances, were not more than sufficient for the officers and crew,
showing that no provision had been made for the poor coolies in case of
disaster. The boats passed safely through the breakers, leaving the ship
almost without motion, all her masts standing, her back broken, and the
sea making a clear break over her starboard and quarter.
When the boats left the ship, and steered away, without making an effort
to save the eight hundred and fifty coolies, or allowing them to do any
thing themselves, with their last look toward the ship they saw that the
coolies had escaped from their prison through doors which the concussion
had made for them, and stood clustering together, helpless and
despairing, upon the decks, and gazing upon the abyss which was opening
its jaws to receive them. My friend assures me that he knows these poor
creatures were completely imprisoned all the night these terrible
occurences were going on, the hatches being "battened down," and made as
secure as a jail door under lock and bars.
The ship was three hundred miles from land when it struck, and after
fourteen days of toil and struggle, one of the boats only succeeded in
reaching Towron, in Cochin-China. The three other boats were never heard
of. Here the French fleet was lying; and the admiral at once sent one of
his vessels to the fatal scene of the disaster, where some of the wreck
was to be seen; but not a _single coolie_! Every one of the _eight
hundred and fifty_ had perished.
TABLE I.
FACTS IN RELATION TO COTTON--ITS GROWTH, MANUFACTURE, AND INFLUENCE ON
COMMERCE, SLAVERY, EMANCIPATION, ETC., CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED.
| Great Britain Annual Import | United States' Annual |
YEARS. | and Consumption of Cotton, | Exports Cotton to Great |
| from earliest dates to | Britain and Europe |
| 1858, in lbs. | generally. |
--------|-----------------------------|--------------------------|
1641 | Cotton manufacture first | |
| named in English history. | |
| | |
| TOTAL IMPORTS. | |
1697 | 1,976,359 | |
1701 | 1,985,868 | |
1700 |} | |
to |} 1,170,881 | |
1705 |} | |
1710 | 715,008 | |
1720 | 1,972,805 | |
1730 | 1,545,472 | |
1741 | 1,645,031 | 1747-48, 7 bags of |
1751 | 2,976,610 | Cotton were shipped from |
1764 | 3,870,392 | Charleston, S. C., to |
1771 |} | England. |
to |} 6,766,613 | |
1775 |} | 1770, 2,000 lbs. shipped |
1781 | 5,198,778 | from Charleston. |
1782 | 11,828,039 | |
1783 | 9,735,663 | |
1784 | 11,482,083 | 71 bags shipped and |
1785 | 18,400,384 | seized in England, on |
1786 | 19,475,020 | the ground that America |
1787 | 23,250,268 | could not produce so |
1788 | 20,467,436 | much. |
1789 | 32,576,023 | |
1790 | 31,447,605 | |
1791 | 28,706,675 | lbs. 189,316 |
1792 | 34,907,497 | 138,328 |
1793 | 19,040,929 | 500,000 |
1794 | 24,358,567 | 1,601,760 |
1795 | 26,401,340 | 6,276,300 |
1796 | 23,126,357 | 6,100,000 |
1797 | 23,354,371 | 3,800,000 |
1798 | 31,880,641 | 9,330,000 |
1799 | 43,379,278 | 9,500,000 |
1800 | 56,010,732 | 17,789,803 |
1801 | 56,004,305 | 20,900,000 |
1802 | 60,345,600 | 27,500,000 |
1803 | 53,812,284 | 41,900,000 |
1804 | 61,867,329 | 38,900,000 |
1805 | 59,682,406 | 40,330,000 |
1806 | 58,176,283 | 37,500,000 |
1807 | 74,925,306 | 66,200,000 |
1808 | 43,605,982 | 12,000,000 |
1809 | 92,812,282 | 53,200,000 |
1810 | 132,488,935 | 93,900,000 |
1811 | 91,576,535 | 62,200,000 |
1812 | 63,025,936 | 29,000,000 |
1813 | 50,966,000 | 19,400,000 |
1814 | 73,728,000 | 17,800,000 |
==================================================================
Great Britain's sources of Cotton supplies other than the |
United States, with total Cotton crop of United States at |
intervals. |
|
-----------------------------------------------------------------|
Previous to 1791 Great Britain obtained her supplies of Cotton |
from the West Indies and South America, and the countries |
around the eastern parts of the Mediterranean. From that date |
she began to receive supplies from the U. S. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1786. _Imports_ by Great Britain from-- |
Br. W. Indies, lbs. 5,800,000 |
Fr. and Spanish Colonies 5,500,000 |
Dutch do. 1,600,000 |
Portuguese do. 2,000,000 |
Turkey and Smyrna, 5,000,000 |
1789. Cotton crop of United States, 1,000,000 lbs. |
1791. _Imports_ by Great Britain from-- |
Br. West Indies, lbs. 12,000,000 |
Brazil, 20,000,000 |
1794. Cotton crop of the U. S., 8,000,000 lbs. |
1796. Cotton crop of the U. S., 10,000,000 lbs. |
1798. India, the first imports from, 1,622,000 lbs. |
1799. Cotton crop of the U. S., 20,000,000 lbs. |
1800. _Exports_ from-- |
India, lbs. 30,000,000 |
West Indies, 17,000,000 |
Brazil, 24,000,000 |
Elsewhere, 7,000,000 |
|
1806. Cotton crop of the U. S., 80,000,000 lbs. |
|
|
|
|
|
1812. War declared between the United States and Great Britain. |
|
|
==================================================================
Dates of Inventions promoting the growth and manufacture of
Cotton, and of movements to elevate the African race.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Previous to the invention of the machinery named below, all
carding, spinning, and weaving of wool and cotton had been done
by the use of the hand-cards, one-spindle wheels, and common
hand-looms. The work, for a long period, was performed in
families; but the improved machinery propelled by steam power,
has so reduced the cost of cotton manufactures, that all
household manufacturing has long since been abandoned, and the
monopoly yielded to capitalists, who now fill the world with
their cheap fabrics.
1762. Carding machine invented.
1767. Spinning Jenny invented.
1769. Spinning Roller-frame invented.
" Cotton first planted in the United States.
" Watt's Steam Engine patented.
1775. Mule Jenny invented.
1776. Virginia forbids foreign slave trade.
1780. Emancipation by Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.
1781. Muslins first made in England.
1784. Emancipation by Connecticut and Rhode Island.
1785. Watts' Engine improved and applied to cotton machinery.
First cotton mill erected, 1783.
1785. New York Abolition Society organized.
1786. Carding and spinning machines erected in Massachusetts.
1787. Power Loom invented.
" First Cotton mill erected in Beverly, Massachusetts.
" Pennsylvania Abolition Society formed.
" Slavery excluded from N. W. Territory, including Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois, &c.
1789. Franklin issues an appeal for aid to instruct the free
blacks.
1792. Emancipation by New Hampshire.
1793. Cotton Gin invented.
1799. Emancipation by New York.
1804. Do. New Jersey.
1800. Cotton consumed in the United States, 200,000 lbs.
1801. United States exported to--
France, lbs. 750,000
England 19,000,000
1803. Louisiana Territory acquired, including the region
between the Mississippi river (upper and lower) and
the Mexican line.
1805. United States export to France, 4,500,000 lbs.
1807. Fulton started his steamboat.
1808. Slave trade prohibited by United States and England.
1808. Cotton manufacture established in Boston.
1810. Cotton consumed in United States, 4,000,000 lbs.
1812. Two-thirds of steam engines in Great Britain employed in
cotton spinning, etc.
1813. United States export to France, 10,250,000 lbs.
==================================================================
| Great Britain Annual Import | United States' Annual |
YEARS. | and Consumption of Cotton, | Exports Cotton to Great |
| from earliest times to | Britain and Europe |
| 1858, in lbs. | generally. |
--------|-----------------------------|--------------------------|
1815 | 96,200,000 | 83,000,000 |
1816 | 97,310,000 | 81,800,000 |
1817 | 126,240,000 | 95,660,000 |
| | |
| Total Consumption. | |
1818 | 109,902,000 | 92,500,000 |
1819 | 109,518,000 | 88,000,000 |
1820 | 120,265,000 | 127,800,000 |
1821 | 129,029,000 | 124,893,405 |
1822 | 145,493,000 | 144,675,095 |
1823 | 154,146,000 | 173,723,270 |
1824 | 165,174,000 | 142,369,663 |
1825 | 166,831,000 | 176,449,907 |
1826 | 150,213,000 | 204,535,415 |
1827 | 197,200,000 | 294,310,115 |
1828 | 217,860,000 | 210,590,463 |
1829 | 219,200,000 | 264,837,186 |
1830 | 247,600,000 | 298,459,102 |
1831 | 262,700,000 | 276,979,784 |
1832 | 276,900,000 | 322,215,122 |
1833 | 287,000,000 | 324,698,604 |
1834 | 303,000,000 | 384,717,907 |
1835 | 326,407,692 | 387,358,992 |
1836 | 363,684,232 | 423,631,307 |
1837 | 367,564,752 | 444,211,537 |
1838 | 477,206,108 | 595,952,297 |
1839 | 445,744,000 | 413,624,212 |
1840 | 517,254,400 | 743,941,061 |
1841 | 460,387,200 | 530,204,100 |
1842 | 477,339,200 | 584,717,017 |
1843 | 555,214,400 | 792,297,106 |
1844 | 570,731,200 | 663,633,455 |
1845 | 626,496,000 | 872,905,996 |
1846 | 624,000,000 | 547,558,055 |
1847 | 442,416,000 | 527,219,958 |
1848 | 602,160,000 | 814,274,431 |
1849 | 624,000,000 | 1,026,602,269 |
1850 | 606,000,000 | 635,381,604 |
1851 | 648,000,000 | 927,237,089 |
1852 | 817,998,048 | 1,093,230,639 |
1853 | 746,376,848 | 1,111,570,370 |
1854 | 761,646,704 | 987,833,106 |
1855 | 775,814,112 | 1,008,424,601 |
1856 | 877,225,440 | 1,351,431,827 |
1857 | 837,406,300 | 1,048,282,475 |
1858 | 884,733,696 | 1,118,624,012 |
1859 | | 1,372,755,006 |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
------------------------------------------------------------------
==================================================================
Great Britain's sources of Cotton supplies other than the |
United States, with total Cotton crop of United States at |
intervals. |
|
-----------------------------------------------------------------|
1815. Peace proclaimed between the United States and Great |
Britain. |
1818. Cotton crop of the U. S., 125,000,000 lbs. |
1821. _Exports_ from-- |
West Indies, lbs. 9,000,000 |
Brazil, 28,000,000 |
India, 50,000,000 |
Turkey and Egypt, 5,500,000 |
Elsewhere, 6,000,000 |
1822. Cotton crop of the U. S., 210,000,000 lbs. |
1828. Cotton crop of the U. S., 325,000,000 lbs. |
_Imports_ by Great Britain from West Indies,-- |
1829. lbs. 4,640,414 |
1830, 3,449,249 |
1831, 2,401,685 |
1834, 2,296,525 |
1832. _Imports_ by Great Britain from-- |
Brazil, lbs. 20,109,560 |
Turkey and Egypt, 9,113,890 |
East Indies and Mauritius 5,178,625 |
British West Indies. 1,708,764 |
Elsewhere, 964,933 |
1838. _Imports_ by Great Britain from-- |
Brazil, lbs. 24,464,505 |
East Indies and Mauritius 40,230,064 |
British West Indies, 928,425 |
1840. _Imports_ by Great Britain from-- |
British West Indies, lbs. 427,529 |
1841. _Imports_ by Great Britain from India, 1835 to 1839, |
annual average, 57,600,000 lbs. |
_Imports_ by Great Britain, 1840 to 1844, during the Chinese |
war, 92,800,000 lbs. |
1845. Do. from Egypt, 32,537,600 lbs. |
1848. _Imports_ by Great Britain from-- |
West Indies and Demarara, lbs. 3,155,600 |
Brazil and Portuguese Colonies 40,080,400 |
East Indies, 91,004,800 |
_Imports_ by Great Britain from-- |
1849. East Indies, lbs. 72,800,000 |
1850. Do. 123,200,000 |
1852. Do. 84,022,432 |
1853. Do. 180,431,496 |
1854. Do. 119,835,968 |
1855. Do. 145,218,976 |
1856. _Imports_ by Great Britain from-- |
British East Indies, lbs. 180,496,624 |
Brazil, 21,830,704 |
Egypt, 34,399,008 |
1857. _Imports_ from-- |
Brazil, lbs. 29,910,832 |
Egypt, 24,532,256 |
1858. _Imports_ from Brazil, lbs. 18,617,872 |
Do. Egypt, 38,232,320 |
------------------------------------------------------------------
==================================================================
Dates of Inventions promoting the growth and manufacture of
Cotton, and of movements to elevate the African race.
------------------------------------------------------------------
1815. Power Loom first used in United States.
1816. First steamboat crossed the British Channel.
1816. Power Loom brought into general use in England.
1817. Colonization Society organized.
1819. Florida annexed.
1820. Slave trade declared piracy by Congress.
1820. Emigrants to Liberia first sent.
1821. Benjamin Lundy published his "Genius of Universal
Emancipation."
1823. United States export to France, 25,000,000 lbs.
1824. Do. do. do. 40,500,000 lbs.
1825. New York and Erie Canal opened.
Production and manufacture of cotton now greatly above the
consumption, and prices fell so as to produce general distress
and stagnation, which continued with more or less intensity
throughout 1828 and 1829. The fall of prices was about 55
per cent.--_Encyc. Amer._
1826. Creek Indians removed from Georgia.
1829. Emancipation in Mexico.
1830. United States export to France, 75,000,000 lbs.
1831. Slave Insurrection in Virginia.
1832. Garrison declares war against the Colonization Society.
1832. Ohio Canal completed.
1833. Cotton consumption in France, 72,767,551 lbs.
1834. Emancipation in West Indies, commenced.
1834. Birney deserted the Colonization Society.
1835. United States export to France, 100,330,000 lbs.
1836. Gerrit Smith repudiates the Colonization Society.
1836. Cherokee and Choctaw Indians removed from Georgia,
Mississippi, and Alabama.
1837. American Anti-Slavery Society had an income of $36,000,
and 70 agents commissioned.
1838. Colonization Society had an income of only $10,900.
1840. Cotton consumed in the United States, 106,000,000 lbs.
1844. Value of cotton goods imported into the United States
$13,286,830.
1845. Texas annexed.
1846. Mexican War.
1847. Gold discovered in California.
1848. New Mexico and California annexed.
1849. United States export to France, 151,340,000 lbs.
Do. Other Continental countries, 128,800,000 lbs.
1850. Cotton consumed in United States, 256,000,000 lbs.
1851. Value of United States cotton fabrics, $61,869,184.
1853. Value of cottons imported, $27,675,000.
1853. United States export to England, 768,596,498 lbs.
1853. Do. do. Continent, 335,271,064 lbs.
1855. United States export to Great Britain and North American
Colonies, 672,409,874 lbs.
1855. Do. do. Continent, 322,905,056 lbs.
1855. Value of Cottons imported, $21,655,624.
The remaining statistics of this column can be found in the
other Tables.
------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE.--Our commercial year ends June 30: that of England January 1. This
will explain any seeming discrepancy in the imports by her from us, and
our exports to her.
N. B.--In 1781 Great Britain commenced re-exporting a portion of her
imports of Cotton to the Continent; but the amount did not reach a
million of pounds, except in one year, until 1810, when it rose to over
eight millions. The next year, however, it fell to a million and a
quarter, and only rose, from near that amount, to six millions in 1814
and 1815. From 1818, her _consumption_, only, of cotton, is given, as
best representing her relations to slave labor for that commodity. After
this date her exports of cotton gradually enlarged, until, in 1853, they
reached over one hundred and forty-seven millions of pounds. Of this,
over eighty-two millions were derived from the United States, and over
fifty-nine millions from India. That is to say, of her imports of
180,431,000 lbs. in 1853, from India, she re-exported 59,000,000.
We are enabled to add, for our second edition, that the imports of
Cotton into Great Britain, from India, for 1854, amounted to 119,835,968
lbs., of which 66,405,920 lbs. were re-exported; and that her imports
from the same for 1855 amounted to 145,218,976 lbs., of which 66,210,704
lbs. were re-exported; thus leaving, for the former year, but 53,430,048
lbs., and for the latter but 79,008,272 lbs. of East India Cotton for
consumption in England. The present condition of cotton supplies from
India up to 1859, will be seen in the extracts from the _London
Economist_.
TABLE II.
TABULAR STATEMENT OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS,
DOMESTIC ANIMALS, ETC., EXPORTED FROM THE UNITED
STATES: THE TOTAL VALUE OF PRODUCTS AND ANIMALS
RAISED IN THE COUNTRY; AND THE VALUE OF THE
PORTION THEREOF LEFT FOR HOME CONSUMPTION AND USE,
FOR THE YEAR 1853. See Patent Office Report;
Abstract of Census; Rep. Com. Nav., etc.
========================================================================
| Value of | Total Value | Value of
| Exports. | of Products | portion left
| | and Animals. | for home
| | | consumption.
-------------------|--------------|--------------------|----------------
Cattle, and their | | |
products, | $3,076,897 | Catt. $400,000,000 | $396,923,103
Horses and Mules, | 246,731 | 300,000,000 | 299,753,269
Sheep and Wool, | 44,375 | Sheep, 46,000,000 | 45,955,625
Hogs and their | | |
products, | 6,202,324 | Hogs, 160,000,000 | 153,797,676
Indian Corn and | | |
Meal, | 2,084,051 | Corn, 240,000,000 | 237,915,949
Wheat Flour and | | |
Biscuit, | 19,591,817 | Wheat, 100,000,000 | 80,408,183
Rye Meal, | 34,186 | Rye, 12,600,000 | 12,565,814
Other Grains, and | | |
Peas and Beans, | 165,824 | 54,144,874 | 53,979,050
Potatoes, | 152,569 | 42,400,00 | 42,247,431
Apples, | 107,283 |(1850) 7,723,326 | 7,616,043
Hay, averaged at | | |
$10 per ton, | |(1850) 138,385,790 | 138,385,790
Hemp, | 18,195 | 4,272,500 | 4,254,305
Sugar--Cane and | | |
maple, etc., | 427,216 |(1850) 36,900,000 | 36,472,784
Rice, | 1,657,658 | 8,750,000 | 7,092,342
|--------------|--------------------|----------------
Totals, | $33,809,126 | $ 1,551,176,490 |$1,517,367,364
|==============|====================|================
Cotton, | $109,456,404 | $128,000,000 | $18,543,596
Tobacco, and its | | |
products, | 11,319,319 | 19,900,000 | 8,580,681
|--------------|--------------------|----------------
Totals, | $120,775,723 | $147,900,000 | $27,124,277
------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE.--This table is left as it was in the first edition. As the census
tables supply a portion of its materials, a new statement cannot be made
until after 1860.
TABLE III.
TOTAL IMPORTS OF THE MORE PROMINENT ARTICLES OF
GROCERIES, FOR THE YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1853;
SPECIFYING ALSO, THE RE-EXPORTS, AND THE
PROPORTIONS FROM SLAVE-LABOR COUNTRIES. See Report
on Commerce and Navigation.
=======================================================================
Coffee, Imported, | Value, $15,525,954 | lbs. 199,049,823
" Re-Exported, | 1,163,875 | " 13,349,319
" Slave-Labor | |
production, | 12,059,476 | " 156,108,569
| |
Sugar, Imported, | $15,093,003 | " 464,427,281
" Re-Exported, | 819,439 | " 18,981,601
" Slave-Labor | |
production, | 14,810,091 | " 459,743,322
| |
Molasses, Imported, | $3,684,888 | gals. 31,886,100
" Re-Exported, | 97,880 | " 488,666
" Slave-Labor | |
production, | 3,607,160 | " 31,325,735
| |
Tobacco, etc., Imported, | $4,175,238 |
" Re-Exported, | 312,733 |
" Slave-Labor | |
production, | 3,674,402 |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE.--A part of the modifications necessary in this table to adopt it
to 1859, can be inferred from some of the tables which follow.
TABLE IV.
FREE COLORED AND SLAVE POPULATION, OF THE STATES
NAMED, IN THE PERIODS OF TEN YEARS, FROM 1790 TO
1850, WITH THE RATIO OF INCREASE OR DECREASE PER
CENT. PER ANNUM, OF THE FORMER.
===========================================================================
STATES AND CLASSES.| 1790. | 1800. | 1810. | 1820. | 1830. | 1840. | 1850.
-------------------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------
PENNSYLVANIA. | | | | | | |
Free Colored | 6,537 | 14,561| 22,492| 30,202| 37,930| 47,854| 53,626
Increase per cent. | | | | | | |
per annum | ......| 12.27| 5.44| 3.42| 2.55| 2.61| 1.20
Slaves | 3,737 | 1,706| 795| 211| 403| 64| ......
MASSACHUSETTS. | | | | | | |
Free Colored | 5,463| 6,452| 6,737| 6,740| 7,048| 8,669| 9,064
Increase per cent. | | | | | | |
per annum | ......| 1.81| .44| .004| .45| 2.29| .45
Slaves | ......| ......| ......| ......| ......| ......| ......
NEW YORK. | | | | | | |
Free Colored | 4,654| 10,374| 25,333| 29,279| 44,870| 50,027| 49,069
Increase or | | | | | | |
decrease per | | | | | | |
cent. per annum | ......| 12.29| 14.41| 1.55| 5.32| 1.14| [D].19
Slaves | 21,324| 20,343| 15,017| 10,088| 75| 4| ......
NEW JERSEY. | | | | | | |
Free Colored | 2,762| 4,402| 7,843| 12,460| 18,303| 21,044| 23,810
Increase per cent. | | | | | | |
per annum | ......| 5.93| 7.81| 5.88| 4.68| 1.49| 1.31
Slaves | 11,423| 12,422| 10,851| 7,557| 2,254| 674| 236
RHODE ISLAND. | | | | | | |
Free Colored | 3,469| 3,304| 3,609| 3,554| 3,561| 3,238| 3,670
Increase or | | | | | | |
decrease per | | | | | | |
cent. per annum | ......| [D].47| .92| [D].15| .01| [D]90| 1.33
Slaves | 952| 381| 108| 48| 17| 5| ......
VERMONT. | | | | | | |
Free Colored | 225| 557| 750| 903| 881| 730| 718
Increase or | | | | | | |
decrease per | | | | | | |
cent. per annum | ......| 11.84| 3.46| 2.04| [D].24|[D]1.71| [D]16
Slaves | 17| ......| ......| ......| ......| ......| ......
===========================================================================
STATES AND CLASSES.| 1790. | 1800. | 1810. | 1820. | 1830. | 1840. | 1850.
-------------------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------
MAINE. | | | | | | |
Free Colored | 538| 818| 969| 929| 1,190| 1,355| 1,356
Increase or | | | | | | |
decrease per | | | | | | |
cent. per annum | ......| 5.20| 1.84| [D].41| 2.80| 1.38| .007
Slaves | ......| ......| ......| ......| 2| ......| ......
NEW HAMPSHIRE. | | | | | | |
Free Colored | 630| 856| 970| 786| 604| 537| 520
Increase or | | | | | | |
decrease per | | | | | | |
cent. per annum | ......| 3.58| 1.33|[D]1.89|[D]2.31|[D]1.10| [D].31
Slaves | 158| 8| ......| ......| 3| 1| ......
CONNECTICUT. | | | | | | |
Free Colored | 2,801| 5,330| 6,453| 7,844| 8,047| 8,105| 7,693
Increase or | | | | | | |
decrease per | | | | | | |
cent. per annum | ......| 9.02| 2.10| 2.15| .25| .07| [D].50
Slaves | 2,759| 951| 310| 97| 25| 17| ......
OHIO. | | | | | | |
Free Colored | ......| 337| 1,899| 4,723| 9,568| 17,342| 25,279
Increase per cent. | | | | | | |
per annum | ......| ......| 46.35| 14.87| 10.25| 8.12| 4.57
Slaves | ......| ......| ......| ......| 6| 3| ......
INDIANA. | | | | | | |
Free Colored | ......| 163| 393| 1,230| 3,629| 7,165| 11,262
Increase per cent. | | | | | | |
per annum | ......| ......| 14.11| 21.29| 19.50| 9.74| 5.75
Slaves | ......| 135| 237| 190| 3| 3| ......
DELAWARE. | | | | | | |
Free Colored | 3,899| 8,268| 13,163| 12,958| 15,855| 16,919| 18,073
Increase or | | | | | | |
decrease per | | | | | | |
cent. per annum | ......| 11.20| 5.88| [D].13| 2.23| .67| .68
Slaves | 8,887| 6,153| 4,177| 4,509| 3,292| 2,605| 2,290
MARYLAND. | | | | | | |
Free Colored | 8,043| 19,587| 33,927| 39,730| 52,938| 62,078| 74,723
Increase per cent. | | | | | | |
per annum | ......| 14.35| 7.32| 1.71| 3.32| 1.72| 2.03
Slaves |103,036|105,635|111,502|107,397|102,994| 89,737| 90,368
VIRGINIA. | | | | | | |
Free Colored | 12,766| 20,124| 30,570| 36,889| 47,348| 49,852| 54,333
Increase per cent. | | | | | | |
per annum | ......| 5.76| 5.99| 2.06| 2.83| .52| .89
Slaves |293,427|345,796|392,518|425,153|469,757|449,087|472,528
==========================================================================
STATES AND CLASSES.| 1790. | 1800. | 1810. | 1820. | 1830. | 1840. | 1850.
-------------------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------
NORTH CAROLINA. | | | | | | |
Free Colored | 4,975| 7,043| 10,266| 14,612| 19,543| 22,732| 27,463
Increase per cent. | | | | | | |
per annum | ......| 4.15| 4.57| 4.23| 3.37| 1.63| 2.08
Slaves |100,572|133,296|168,824|205,017|245,601|245,817|288,548
SOUTH CAROLINA. | | | | | | |
Free Colored | 1,801| 3,185| 4,554| 6,826| 7,921| 8,276| 8,960
Increase per cent. | | | | | | |
per annum | ......| 7.68| 4.29| 4.98| 1.60| .44| .82
Slaves |107,094|146,151|196,365|258,475|315,401|327,038|584,984
GEORGIA. | | | | | | |
Free Colored | 398| 1,019| 1,801| 1,763| 2,486| 2,753| 2,931
Increase or | | | | | | |
decrease per | | | | | | |
cent. per annum | ......| 15.60| 7.67| [D].21| 4.10| 1.07| .64
Slaves | 22,264| 59,404|105,218|149,654|217,531|280,944|381,682
TENNESSEE. | | | | | | |
Free Colored | 361| 309| 1,317| 2,727| 4,555| 5,524| 6,422
Increase or | | | | | | |
decrease per | | | | | | |
cent. per annum | ......|[D]1.44| 32.62| 10.70| 6.70| 2.12| 1.62
Slaves | 3,417| 13,584| 44,535| 80,107|141,603|183,050|239,459
MISSISSIPPI. | | | | | | |
Free Colored | ......| 182| 240| 458| 519| 1,366| 930
Increase or | | | | | | |
decrease per | | | | | | |
cent. per annum | ......| ......| 3.18| 9.08| 1.33| 16.31|[D]3.19
Slaves | ......| 3,489| 17,088| 32,814| 65,659|195,211|309,878
ALABAMA. | | | | | | |
Free Colored | ......| ......| ......| 517| 1,572| 2,039| 2,265
Increase per cent. | | | | | | |
per annum | ......| ......| ......| ......| 17.53| 2.97| 1.10
Slaves | ......| ......| ......| 41,879|117,549|252,532|342,844
MISSOURI. | | | | | | |
Free Colored | ......| ......| 607| 347| 596| 1,574| 2,618
Increase or | | | | | | |
decrease per | | | | | | |
cent. per annum | ......| ......| ......|[D]4.28| 6.39| 17.66| 6.63
Slaves | ......| ......| 3,011| 10,222| 25,091| 58,240| 87,422
KENTUCKY. | | | | | | |
Free Colored | 114| 741| 1,713| 2,759| 4,917| 7,317| 10,011
Increase per cent. | | | | | | |
per annum | ......| 55.00| 13.11| 6.10| 7.82| 4.88| 3.68
Slaves | 11,830| 40,343| 80,561|126,732|165,213|182,258|210,981
===========================================================================
STATES AND CLASSES.| 1790. | 1800. | 1810. | 1820. | 1830. | 1840. | 1850.
-------------------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------
LOUISIANA. | | | | | | |
Free Colored | ......| ......| 7,585| 10,476| 16,710| 25,502| 17,462
Increase or | | | | | | |
decrease per | | | | | | |
cent. per annum | ......| ......| ......| 3.81| 5.95| 5.26|[D]3.15
Slaves | ......| ......| 34,660| 69,064|109,588|168,452|244,809
ILLINOIS. | | | | | | |
Free Colored | ......| ......| 613| 457| 1,637| 3,598| 5,436
Increase or | | | | | | |
decrease per | | | | | | |
cent. per annum | ......| ......| ......|[D]2.54| 25.82| 11.97| 5.10
Slaves | ......| ......| 168| 917| 747| 331| ......
FLORIDA. | | | | | | |
Free Colored | ......| ......| ......| ......| 844| 817| 932
Increase or | | | | | | |
decrease per | | | | | | |
cent. per annum | ......| ......| ......| ......| ......| [D].31| 1.40
Slaves | ......| ......| ......| ......| 15,501| 25,717| 39,310
ARKANSAS. | | | | | | |
Free Colored | ......| ......| ......| 59| 141| 465| 608
Increase per cent. | | | | | | |
per annum | ......| ......| ......| ......| 13.89| 2.29| 1.10
Slaves | ......| ......| ......| 1,617| 4,576| 19,935| 47,100
MICHIGAN. | | | | | | |
Free Colored | ......| ......| 120| 174| 261| 707| 2,583
Increase per cent. | | | | | | |
per annum | ......| ......| ......| 4.50| 5.00| 17.08| 25.53
Slaves | ......| ......| 24| ......| 32| ......| ......
DISTRICT OF | | | | | | |
COLUMBIA. | | | | | | |
Free Colored | ......| 783| 2,549| 4,048| 6,152| 8,361| 10,059
Increase per cent. | | | | | | |
per annum | ......| ......| 22.55| 5.88| 5.19| 3.59| 2.03
Slaves | ......| 3,244| 5,395| 6,377| 6,119| 4,694| 3,687
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOOTNOTE:
[D] DECREASE.
TABLE V.
INFLUENCE OF THE COLORED POPULATION ON PUBLIC SENTIMENT.
TABLE SHOWING THE PROPORTION OF THE FREE COLORED
POPULATION IN THE NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN PORTIONS
OF THE STATE OF OHIO, BY COUNTIES, AS PRESENTED BY
THE CENSUS OF 1840 AND 1850, TOGETHER WITH THE
POPULAR VOTE FOR AND AGAINST THE ABOLITION
CANDIDATE, HON. S. P. CHASE, AT THE ELECTION FOR
GOVERNOR, OCTOBER, 1855.
=================================================
SOUTHERN COUNTIES. | MR. CHASE. ||
-------------------------------|---------------||
COUNTIES. | 1840. | 1850. | FOR |AGAINST||
---------------|-------|-------|-------|-------||
Hamilton, | 2,576| 3,600| 4,516| 18,764||
Clermont, | 122| 412| 2,434| 2,879||
Brown, | 614| 863| 1,571| 2,129||
Adams, | 63| 55| 1,139| 1,629||
Scioto, | 206| 211| 1,042| 1,497||
Lawrence, | 148| 326| 1,092| 1,067||
Gallia, | 799| 1,198| 344| 1,972||
Meigs, | 28| 52| 1,515| 1,504||
Jackson, | 315| 391| 714| 906||
Pike, | 329| 618| 641| 1,156||
Highland, | 786| 896| 1,209| 2,599||
Clinton, | 377| 598| 1,640| 964||
Warren, | 341| 602| 2,306| 1,821||
Butler, | 254| 367| 1,960| 3,235||
Preble, | 88| 77| 1,567| 1,326||
Montgomery, | 376| 249| 2,746| 3,830||
Greene, | 344| 654| 1,953| 1,357||
Fayette, | 239| 291| 909| 757||
Ross, | 1,195| 1,906| 2,160| 2,255||
Vinton, | [E]| 107| 722| 901||
Hocking, | 46| 117| 927| 1,199||
Pickaway, | 333| 412| 1,521| 1,862||
Fairfield, | 342| 280| 2,474| 2,726||
Perry, | 47| 29| 1,772| 1,540||
Athens, | 55| 106| 1,634| 1,072||
Washington, | 269| 390| 2,212| 1,774||
Morgan, | 68| 90| 1,776| 1,235||
Noble, | [E]| [F]| 1,361| 1,030||
Monroe, | 13| 69| 1,451| 1,901||
Belmont, | 742| 778| 1,755| 2,856||
Guernsey, | 190| 168| 1,893| 1,491||
Muskingum, | 562| 631| 2,551| 3,204||
Franklin, | 805| 1,607| 2,487| 4,033||
Madison, | 97| 78| 562| 1,012||
Clarke, | 20| 323| 1,866| 1,404||
Miami, | 211| 602| 1,787| 1,977||
Darke, | 200| 248| 1,685| 1,829||
Champaigne, | 328| 494| 1,353| 1,463||
Union, | 78| 128| 1,222| 829||
Delaware, | 76| 135| 1,602| 1,504||
Licking, | 140| 128| 2,021| 3,252||
Harrison, | 163| 287| 1,712| 1,259||
Jefferson, | 497| 665| 2,156| 1,654||
Shelby, | 262| 407| 955| 1,286||
|-------|-------|-------|-------||
Total, South, | 14,924| 21,745| 72,915| 95,941||
-------------------------------------------------
===============================================
NORTHERN COUNTIES. | MR. CHASE.
-------------------------------|---------------
COUNTIES. | 1840. | 1850. | FOR |AGAINST
---------------|-------|-------|-------|-------
Ashtabula, | 17| 43| 3,772| 1,156
Lake, | 21| 38| 1,640| 521
Geauga, | 3| 7| 1,816| 486
Cuyahoga, | 121| 359| 3,965| 3,545
Trumbull, | 70| 65| 3,109| 1,505
Portage, | 39| 58| 2,660| 1,871
Summit, | 42| 121| 2,242| 1,326
Medina, | 13| 35| 2,032| 1,526
Lorain, | 62| 264| 2,693| 919
Huron, | 106| 39| 2,295| 1,411
Erie, | 97| 202| 1,564| 1,191
Seneca, | 65| 151| 2,332| 1,976
Sandusky, | 41| 47| 1,382| 1,509
Ottawa, | 5| 1| 369| 406
Lucas, | 54| 139| 1,618| 1,156
Fulton, | [E]| 1| 715| 453
Williams, | 2| 0| 890| 878
Defiance, | [E]| 19| 592| 626
Henry, | 6| 0| 440| 511
Wood, | 32| 18| 1,099| 636
Paulding, | 0| 1| 362| 115
Putnam, | [E]| 11| 528| 858
Hancock, | 8| 26| 1,238| 1,359
Vanwert, | 0| 47| 602| 483
Allen, | 23| 27| 1,235| 929
Wyandott, | [E]| 49| 1,143| 1,106
Crawford, | 5| 10| 1,449| 1,753
Richland, | 65| 67| 2,220| 2,329
Ashland, | [E]| 3| 1,580| 1,660
Wayne, | 41| 28| 2,421| 2,585
Starke, | 204| 159| 3,343| 3,044
Mahoning, | [E]| 90| 1,592| 1,552
Columbiana, | 417| 182| 3,118| 2,170
Carroll, | 49| 52| 1,502| 1,082
Tuscarawas, | 71| 89| 2,552| 2,179
Coshocton, | 38| 44| 2,064| 2,014
Holmes, | 3| 5| 1,194| 1,675
Knox, | 63| 62| 2,166| 2,135
Morrow, | [E]| 18| 1,631| 1,371
Marion, | 52| 21| 1,220| 1,184
Hardin, | 4| 14| 903| 725
Logan, | 407| 536| 1,424| 1,119
Mercer, | 204| 399| 492| 968
Auglaise, | [E]| 87| 643| 1,286
|-------|-------|-------|-------
Total, North, | 2,450| 3,524| 73,877| 59,319
-----------------------------------------------
FOOTNOTES:
[E] Not organized in 1840.
[F] Not organized in 1850.
TABLE VI.
TOTAL COTTON CROP OF THE UNITED STATES, WITH THE
AMOUNTS EXPORTED, THE CONSUMPTION OF THE UNITED
STATES, NORTH OF VIRGINIA, AND THE STOCK ON HAND,
SEPTEMBER 1, OF EACH YEAR, FROM 1840 TO 1859, IN
POUNDS.--_London Economist_, 1859.
=======================================================================
| | EXPORTS TO VARIOUS PLACES. |
YEARS.| TOTAL CROP. |-------------------------------------------------|
| | | | OTHER | |
| | ENGLAND. | FRANCE. | POINTS. | TOTAL. |
------|-------------|-----------|-----------|-----------|-------------|
1840 | 871,134,000|498,716,400|178,986,000| 72,698,800| 750,401,200|
1841 | 653,978,000|343,496,800|139,510,400| 42,303,600| 525,290,800|
1842 | 673,429,600|374,252,400|159,251,600| 52,594,800| 586,098,800|
1843 | 551,550,000|587,884,400|138,455,600| 77,714,800| 804,052,000|
1844 | 812,163,600|480,999,200|113,074,000| 57,722,800| 651,796,000|
1845 | 957,801,200|575,722,400|143,742,800|114,037,200| 433,502,400|
1846 | 840,214,800|440,497,600|143,881,200| 81,888,000| 666,716,800|
1847 | 711,460,400|332,363,600| 96,594,400| 67,530,800| 496,488,800|
1848 | 939,053,600|529,706,000|111,668,800|101,929,600|1,743,304,400|
1849 |1,091,437,600|615,160,400|147,303,600|128,672,400| 891,141,600|
1850 | 838,682,400|422,708,400|115,850,800| 77,502,800| 636,062,000|
1851 | 942,102,800|565,306,000|120,534,200|107,634,800| 795,484,000|
1852 |1,206,011,600|667,499,600|168,550,000|141,408,800| 977,458,400|
1853 |1,305,152,800|694,744,000|170,691,200|145,924,800|1,011,360,000|
1854 |1,172,010,800|641,500,000|149,623,200|136,536,000| 927,659,200|
1855 |1,138,935,600|619,886,400|163,972,400|113,824,000| 897,683,600|
1856 |1,411,138,000|768,554,400|192,254,800|221,033,200|1,181,842,400|
1857 |1,175,807,600|571,548,000|165,342,800|164,172,000| 901,062,800|
1858 |1,245,584,800|723,986,400|153,600,800|158,594,800|1,036,181,000|
1859 |1,606,800,000|...........|...........|...........|1,208,561,200|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
========================================
|CONSUMPTION OF |
YEARS.|U. S. NORTH OF | STOCK ON HAND
| VIRGINIA. | 1ST SEPTEMBER.
------|---------------|-----------------
1840 | 118,077,200 | 23,376,800
1841 | 118,915,200 | 28,991,600
1842 | 107,140,000 | 12,722,800
1843 | 130,051,600 | 37,794,400
1844 | 138,697,600 | 63,908,800
1845 | 155,602,400 | 39,368,000
1846 | 169,038,800 | 42,848,800
1847 | 171,186,800 | 85,934,800
1848 | 212,708,800 | 68,587,200
1849 | 207,215,600 | 61,901,200
1850 | 195,107,600 | 67,172,000
1851 | 161,643,200 | 51,321,600
1852 | 241,211,600 | 36,470,400
1853 | 268,403,600 | 54,257,200
1854 | 244,228,400 | 27,120,600
1855 | 237,433,600 | 28,667,200
1856 | 261,091,600 | 25,668,400
1857 | 280,855,200 | 17,703,200
1858 | 184,692,800 | 40,410,000
1859 | 304,087,200 | ..........
----------------------------------------
[Illustration: Right Index] Consumption for Virginia and South of that
State, for 1859, is estimated at 66,973,600 lbs. The _crop_ year closes,
August 31st.
TABLE VII.
STATEMENT OF THE VALUE OF COTTON MANUFACTURES, OF
FOREIGN PRODUCTION, WHICH WERE IMPORTED INTO THE
UNITED STATES; AND THE VALUE OF THE COTTON GOODS
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES, AND EXPORTED,
DURING THE YEARS STATED--THE YEAR ENDING JUNE 30.
===================================================================
| FOREIGN | DOMESTIC || | FOREIGN | DOMESTIC
YEARS.| IMPORTS. | EXPORTS. ||YEARS.| IMPORTS. | EXPORTS.
------|-------------|------------||------|-------------|-----------
1840. | $ 6,504,484 | $3,549,607 ||1850. | $20,108,719 | $4,734,424
1841. | 11,757,036 | 3,122,546 ||1851. | 22,164,442 | 7,241,205
1842. | 9,578,515 | 2,970,690 ||1852. | 19,689,496 | 7,672,151
1843. | 2,958,796 | 3,223,550 ||1853. | 27,731,313 | 8,768,894
1844. | 13,641,478 | 2,898,780 ||1854. | 33,949,503 | 5,535,516
1845. | 13,863,282 | 4,327,928 ||1855. | 17,757,112 | 5,857,181
1846. | 13,530,625 | 3,545,481 ||1856. | 25,917,999 | 6,967,309
1847. | 15,192,875 | 4,082,523 ||1857. | 28,685,726 | 6,115,177
1848. | 18,421,589 | 5,718,205 ||1858. | 17,965,130 | 5,651,504
1849. | 15,754,841 | 4,933,129 ||1859. | 26,026,140 | 8,316,222
--------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE. Of the goods imported, a part were re-exported, and the remainder
was used in the United States. The re-exports stood as follows,
beginning with 1840:--$1,103,489--$929,056--$836,892--$314,040--$404,648
--$502,553--$673,203--$486,135--$1,216,172--$571,082--$427,107--$677,940
--$977,030--$1,254,363--$1,468,179--$2,012,554--$1,580,495--$570,802--
$390,988.--_Congress Report on Finances._
STATEMENT SHOWING THE AMOUNT OF COFFEE IMPORTED
INTO THE UNITED STATES ANNUALLY, WITH THE AMOUNT
TAKEN FOR CONSUMPTION, DURING THE YEARS 1850 TO
1858, INCLUSIVE--THE YEAR ENDING DECEMBER 31.
===============================================
YEARS.| RECEIPTS. | CONSUMPTION.
------|--------------------|-------------------
1850. | lbs. 152,580,310 | lbs. 134,539,736
1851. | 216,043,870 | 181,225,700
1852. | 205,542,855 | 204,991,595
1853. | 193,112,300 | 175,687,790
1854. | 182,473,853 | 179,481,083
1855. | 283,214,533 | 210,378,287
1856. | 230,913,150 | 218,225,490
1857. | 217,871,839 | 172,565,934
1858. | 227,656,186 | 251,255,099
-----------------------------------------------
NOTE. The New York _Shipping and Commercial List_, to which we are
indebted for these statements, says, that it includes the quantity
withdrawn from our markets, and forwarded inland to Canada and the
British Provinces; the amount of which is not ascertained, but will not
vary greatly from 2,230,000 lbs., for the last year.
TABLE VIII.
STATEMENT EXHIBITING THE VALUE OF THE EXPORTS FROM
THE UNITED STATES, OF BREADSTUFFS AND PROVISIONS;
THE AMOUNT AND VALUE OF COTTON EXPORTED, WITH THE
AVERAGE COST, IN CENTS, PER POUND; AND THE AMOUNT
OF TOBACCO EXPORTED, FROM 1821 TO 1859 INCLUSIVE:
THE YEAR FROM 1821 TO 1842 ENDING SEPTEMBER 30,
AND FROM 1844 TO 1859 ENDING JUNE 30,--THE YEAR
1843 INCLUDING ONLY NINE MONTHS.
===========================================================================
| | COTTON. |AVERAGE |
|BREADSTUFFS |------------------------------|COST PER |
| AND | | | lb. IN | TOBACCO
YEARS.|PROVISIONS. | POUNDS. | VALUE. | CENTS. |UNMANUFACTURED.
-----|------------|---------------|--------------|---------|---------------
1821 | $12,341,901| 124,893,405| $20,157,484| 16.2 | $5,648,962
1822 | 13,886,856| 144,675,095| 24,035,058| 16.6 | 6,222,838
1823 | 13,767,847| 173,723,270| 20,445,520| 11.8 | 6,282,672
1824 | 15,059,484| 142,369,663| 21,947,401| 15.4 | 4,855,566
1825 | 11,634,449| 176,449,907| 36,846,649| 20.9 | 6,115,623
1826 | 11,303,496| 204,535,415| 25,025,214| 12.2 | 5,347,208
1827 | 11,685,556| 294,310,115| 29,359,545| 10 | 6,577,123
1828 | 11,461,144| 210,590,463| 22,487,229| 10.7 | 5,269,960
1829 | 13,131,858| 264,837,186| 26,575,311| 10 | 4,982,974
1830 | 12,075,430| 298,459,102| 29,674,883| 9.9 | 5,586,365
1831 | 17,538,227| 276,979,784| 25,289,492| 9.1 | 4,892,388
1832 | 12,424,703| 322,215,122| 31,724,682| 9.8 | 5,999,769
1833 | 14,209,128| 324,698,604| 36,191,105| 11.1 | 5,755,968
1834 | 11,524,024| 384,717,907| 49,448,402| 12.8 | 6,595,305
1835 | 12,009,399| 387,358,992| 64,961,302| 16.8 | 8,250,577
1836 | 10,614,130| 423,631,307| 71,284,925| 16.8 | 10,058,640
1837 | 9,588,359| 444,211,537| 63,240,102| 14.2 | 5,795,647
1838 | 9,636,650| 595,952,297| 61,566,811| 10.3 | 7,392,029
1839 | 14,147,779| 413,624,212| 61,238,982| 14.8 | 9,832,943
1840 | 19,067,535| 743,941,061| 63,870,307| 8.5 | 9,883,957
1841 | 17,196,102| 530,204,100| 54,330,341| 10.2 | 12,576,703
1842 | 16,902,876| 584,717,017| 47,593,464| 8.1 | 9,540,755
1843 | 11,204,123| 792,297,106| 49,119,806| 6.2 | 4,650,979
1844 | 17,970,135| 663,633,455| 54,063,501| 8.1 | 8,397,255
1845 | 16,743,421| 872,905,996| 51,739,643| 5.92 | 7,469,819
1846 | 27,701,121| 547,558,055| 42,767,341| 7.81 | 8,478,270
1847 | 68,701,921| 527,219,958| 53,415,848| 10.34 | 7,242,086
1848 | 37,472,751| 814,274,431| 61,998,294| 7.61 | 7,551,122
1849 | 38,155,507| 1,026,602,269| 66,396,967| 6.4 | 5,804,207
1850 | 26,051,373| 635,381,604| 71,984,616| 11.3 | 9,951,023
1851 | 21,948,651| 927,237,089| 112,315,317| 12.11 | 9,219,251
1852 | 25,857,027| 1,093,230,639| 87,965,732| 8.05 | 10,031,283
1853 | 32,985,322| 1,111,570,370| 109,456,404| 9.85 | 11,319,319
1854 | 65,941,323| 987,833,106| 93,596,220| 9.47 | 10,016,046
1855 | 38,895,348| 1,008,424,601| 88,143,844| 8.74 | 14,712,468
1856 | 77,187,301| 1,351,431,701| 128,382,351| 9.49 | 12,221,843
1857 | 74,667,852| 1,048,282,475| 131,575,859| 12.55 | 20,662,772
1858 | 50,683,285| 1,118,624,012| 131,386,661| 11.70 | 17,009,767
1859 | 38,171,881| 1,372,755,006| 161,434,923| 11.75 | 21,074,038
|------------|---------------|--------------| |---------------
|$961,545,275|$23,366,357,434|$2,383,027,536| |$339,274,520
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE. The articles exported which are not included above, are as
follows, for 1859:--product of the sea, $4,462,974; product of the
forest, $14,489,406; cotton piece goods, manufactured tobacco, spirits,
seeds, hemp, and various other articles, $31,579,008. The value of the
manufactured tobacco, exported in 1859, and included in the last item,
was over $3,334,401, which, added to the $21,074,038, of unmanufactured
included above, makes the total exports of tobacco for that year amount
to $24,408,439.
TABLE IX.
STATEMENT EXHIBITING THE VALUE OF FOREIGN GOODS
IMPORTED AND TAKEN FOR CONSUMPTION, IN THE UNITED
STATES; THE VALUE OF DOMESTIC PRODUCE OF THE
UNITED STATES EXPORTED, EXCLUSIVE OF SPECIE; THE
VALUE OF SPECIE AND BULLION IMPORTED, AND THE
VALUE OF SPECIE AND BULLION EXPORTED, FROM 1821 TO
1859 INCLUSIVE: THE YEAR FROM 1821 TO 1842 ENDING
SEPTEMBER 30, AND FROM 1844 TO 1859 ENDING JUNE
30,--THE YEAR 1843 INCLUDING ONLY NINE MONTHS.
=====================================================================
|IMPORTS ENTERED |DOMESTIC PRODUCE |
|FOR CONSUMPTION,|EXPORTED, | SPECIE AND BULLION.
YEARS.|EXCLUSIVE OF |EXCLUSIVE OF |---------------------------
|SPECIE. |SPECIE. | IMPORTED. | EXPORTED.
------|----------------|-----------------|-------------|-------------
1821 | $43,696,405 | $43,671,894 | $8,064,890 | $10,477,969
1822 | 68,367,425 | 49,874,079 | 3,369,846 | 10,810,180
1823 | 51,308,936 | 47,155,408 | 5,097,896 | 6,372,987
1824 | 53,846,567 | 50,649,500 | 8,379,835 | 7,014,552
1825 | 66,375,722 | 66,944,745 | 6,150,765 | 8,787,659
1826 | 57,652,577 | 52,449,855 | 6,880,966 | 4,704,533
1827 | 54,901,108 | 57,878,117 | 8,151,130 | 8,014,880
1828 | 66,975,475 | 49,976,632 | 7,489,741 | 8,243,476
1829 | 54,741,571 | 55,087,307 | 7,403,612 | 4,924,020
1830 | 49,575,009 | 58,524,878 | 8,155,964 | 2,178,773
1831 | 82,808,110 | 59,218,583 | 7,305,945 | 9,014,931
1832 | 75,327,688 | 61,726,529 | 5,907,504 | 5,656,340
1833 | 83,470,067 | 69,950,856 | 7,070,368 | 2,611,701
1834 | 86,973,147 | 80,623,662 | 17,911,632 | 2,076,758
1835 | 122,007,974 | 100,459,481 | 13,131,447 | 6,477,775
1836 | 158,811,392 | 106,570,942 | 13,400,881 | 4,324,336
1837 | 113,310,571 | 94,280,895 | 10,516,414 | 5,976,249
1838 | 86,552,598 | 95,560,880 | 17,747,116 | 3,508,046
1839 | 145,870,816 | 101,625,533 | 8,595,176 | 8,776,743
1840 | 86,250,335 | 111,660,561 | 8,882,813 | 8,417,014
1841 | 114,776,309 | 103,636,236 | 4,988,633 | 10,034,332
1842 | 87,996,318 | 91,798,242 | 4,087,016 | 4,813,539
1843 | 37,294,129 | 77,686,354 | 22,390,559 | 1,520,791
1844 | 96,390,548 | 99,531,774 | 5,830,429 | 5,454,214
1845 | 105,599,541 | 98,455,330 | 4,070,242 | 8,606,495
1846 | 110,048,859 | 101,718,042 | 3,777,732 | 3,905,268
1847 | 116,257,595 | 150,574,844 | 24,121,289 | 1,907,024
1848 | 140,651,902 | 130,203,709 | 6,360,224 | 15,841,616
1849 | 132,565,168 | 131,710,081 | 6,651,240 | 5,404,648
1850 | 164,032,033 | 134,900,233 | 4,628,792 | 7,522,994
1851 | 200,476,219 | 178,620,138 | 5,453,592 | 29,472,752
1852 | 195,072,695 | 154,931,147 | 5,505,044 | 42,674,135
1853 | 251,071,358 | 189,869,162 | 4,201,382 | 27,486,875
1854 | 275,955,893 | 215,156,304 | 6,958,184 | 41,436,456
1855 | 231,650,340 | 192,751,135 | 3,659,812 | 56,247,343
1856 | 295,650,938 | 266,438,051 | 4,207,632 | 45,745,485
1857 | 333,511,295 | 278,906,713 | 12,461,799 | 69,136,922
1858 | 242,678,413 | 251,351,033 | 19,274,496 | 52,633,147
1859 | 324,258,159 | 278,392,080 | 7,434,789 | 63,887,411
|----------------|-----------------|-------------|-------------
|$5,064,761,199 |$4,540,620,945 |$332,476,827 | $522,100,369
---------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE. There is usually re-exported from twenty to thirty million dollars
worth of the foreign articles imported. In 1859 the re-exports were to
the value of $14,509,971; in 1858 they were $30,886,142; in 1857 they
were $23,975,617; and in 1856, but $16,378,578. By adding the re-exports
to the imports entered for consumption, the product will show the whole
amount of the imports. The above figures are from the Congressional
Report on Finances, 1857-8, and the Report on Commerce and Navigation,
1859.
TABLE X.
STATEMENT SHOWING THE AMOUNT OF CANE SUGAR
CONSUMED IN THE UNITED STATES, ANNUALLY, WITH THE
PROPORTIONS THAT ARE DOMESTIC OR FOREIGN, DURING
THE YEARS STATED--THE YEAR ENDING DECEMBER 31.
----------------------------------------------------------------
-------|------------------|------------------|------------------
YEARS. | FOREIGN. | DOMESTIC. | TOTAL.
-------|------------------|------------------|------------------
1850. | lbs. 319,420,800 | lbs. 283,183,040 | lbs. 603,603,840
1851. | 406,530,880 | 240,661,120 | 646,206,400
1852. | 440,289,920 | 265,796,160 | 706,086,080
1853. | 449,366,400 | 386,128,960 | 835,495,360
1854. | 337,912,960 | 522,954,560 | 863,067,520
1855. | 431,432,960 | 304,731,520 | 846,164,480
1856. | 594,254,080 | 276,568,320 | 848,422,400
1857. | 541,553,600 | 87,360,000 | 628,913,600
1858. | 548,257,920 | 310,740,160 | 870,222,080
-------|------------------|------------------|------------------
STATEMENT SHOWING THE AMOUNT, IN GALLONS, OF
MOLASSES CONSUMED IN THE UNITED STATES, ANNUALLY,
WITH THE PROPORTIONS WHICH ARE FOREIGN OR
DOMESTIC, DURING THE YEARS STATED--THE YEAR ENDING
DECEMBER 31.
----------------------------------------------------------------
-------|------------------|------------------|------------------
YEARS. | FOREIGN. | DOMESTIC. | TOTAL.
-------|------------------|------------------|------------------
1850. | Gals. 24,806,949 | Gals. 12,202,300 | Gals. 37,019,249
1851. | 33,238,278 | 10,709,740 | 43,948,018
1852. | 29,417,511 | 18,840,000 | 48,258,511
1853. | 28,576,821 | 26,930,000 | 55,536,821
1854. | 24,437,019 | 32,053,000 | 56,493,019
1855. | 23,533,423 | 24,251,207 | 47,266,085
1856. | 23,014,878 | 16,584,000 | 39,608,878
1857. | 23,266,404 | 5,242,380 | 28,508,784
1858. | 24,795,374 | 20,373,790 | 45,169,164
-------|------------------|------------------|------------------
NOTE. The above table is taken from the _Shipping and Commercial List,
and New York Price Current_, January 22, 1859. The sources of supply are
the same as when the first edition went to press, and the proportions
from slave labor and free labor countries respectively, has undergone
very little change. The year ends December 31st, while the Congressional
fiscal year ends June 30th.
The value of imports of Sugar, for the year ending June 30, 1858, from a
few principal countries, stood thus: Cuba, $15,555,409; Porto Rico,
$3,584,503; British West Indies, $386,546; British Guiana, $255,481;
British Honduras, $26; Hayti, $851; San Domingo, $5,529.
TABLE XI.
COTTON IMPORTED INTO GREAT BRITAIN FROM VARIOUS
COUNTRIES, QUANTITY RE-EXPORTED, AND STOCK ON HAND
DECEMBER 31, FOR A SERIES OF YEARS, IN POUNDS. BY
DEDUCTING THE EXPORTS AND THE STOCK ON HAND AT THE
END OF EACH YEAR FROM THE WHOLE IMPORTS, THE
REMAINDER IS THE QUANTITY TAKEN FOR CONSUMPTION.
==========================================================
| | | | |
| From | | From | From |
| United | From |Mediterranean.| East |
YEARS.| States. | Brazil. | | Indies. |
------+-----------+-----------+--------------+-----------+
1840.|487,856,504|14,779,171 | 8,324,937| 77,011,839|
1841.|358,240,964|16,671,348 | 9,097,180| 97,388,153|
1842.|414,030,779|15,222,828 | 4,489,017| 92,972,609|
1843.|574,738,520|18,675,123 | 9,674,076| 65,709,729|
1844.|517,218,662|21,084,744 | 12,406,327| 88,639,776|
1845.|626,650,412|20,157,633 | 14,614,699| 58,437,426|
1846.|401,949,393|14,746,321 | 14,278,447| 34,540,143|
1847.|364,599,291|19,966,922 | 4,814,268| 83,934,614|
1848.|600,247,488|19,971,378 | 7,231,861| 84,101,961|
1849.|634,504,050|30,738,133 | 17,369,843| 70,838,515|
1850.|493,153,112|30,299,982 | 18,931,414|118,872,742|
1851.|596,638,962|19,339,104 | 16,950,525|122,626,976|
1852.|765,630,544|26,506,144 | 48,058,640| 84,922,432|
1853.|658,451,796|24,190,628 | 28,353,575|181,848,160|
1854.|722,151,346|19,703,600 | 23,503,003|119,836,009|
1855.|681,629,424|24,577,952 | 32,904,153|145,179,216|
1856.|780,040,016|21,830,704 | 34,616,848|180,496,624|
1857.|654,758,048|29,910,832 | 24,882,144|250,338,144|
1858.|732,403,840|16,466,800 | 34,867,840|138,253,360|
------+-----------+-----------+--------------+-----------+
==================================================================
| West | | | |
| Indies | | | |
| and | Other | Total | Amount | Stocks,
YEARS.| Guiana. |Countries.| Imported. | Exported. |December 31.
------+--------------------+-------------+-----------+-----------
1840.| 866,157|3,649,402 | 592,488,010| 38,673,229|233,600,000
1841.|1,533,197|5,061,513 | 487,992,355| 37,673,586|247,760,000
1842.| 593,603|4,441,250 | 531,750,086| 45,251,248|269,760,000
1843.|1,260,444|3,135,224 | 673,193,116| 39,620,000|368,280,000
1844.|1,707,194|5,054,641 | 646,111,304| 47,222,560|414,760,000
1845.|1,394,447| 725,336 | 721,979,953| 42,916,384|478,160,000
1846.|1,201,857|1,140,113 | 467,856,274| 65,930,704|263,520,000
1847.| 793,933| 598,587 | 474,707,615| 74,954,320|204,760,000
1848.| 640,437| 827,036 | 713,020,161| 74,019,792|239,440,000
1849.| 944,307|1,074,164 | 755,469,012| 98,893,536|263,760,000
1850.| 228,913|2,090,698 | 663,576,861|102,469,696|248,960,000
1851.| 446,529|1,377,653 | 757,379,749|111,980,400|237,600,000
1852.| 703,696|3,960,992 | 929,782,448|111,894,303|322,960,000
1853.| 350,428|2,084,162 | 895,278,749|148,596,680|327,000,000
1854.| 409,110|1,730,081 | 887,333,149|123,326,112|282,520,000
1855.| 468,452|6,992,755 | 891,751,952|124,368,100|226,600,000
1856.| 462,784|6,439,328 |1,023,886,304|146,660,864|197,080,000
1857.|1,443,568|7,986,160 | 969,318,896|131,928,720|217,040,000
1858.| 9,862,272 | 931,847,056|153,035,680|184,782,000
------+--------------------+-------------+-----------+-----------
AVERAGE WEEKLY CONSUMPTION OF COTTON IN EUROPE, FOR A SERIES OF YEARS,
IN POUNDS.[135]
==================================================================
COUNTRIES. | 1850. | 1851. | 1852. | 1853. |
---------------------|----------|----------|----------|----------|
France | 2,830,800| 2,869,200| 4,230,000| 3,607,200|
Belgium | 453,600| 446,000| 653,600| 615,200|
Holland | 415,200| 415,200| 546,000| 469,200|
Germany | 661,200| 846,000| 976,800| 1,107,600|
Trieste | 915,200| 884,400| 1,038,400| 792,400|
Genoa, Naples, etc. | 223,200| 238,400| 376,800| 392,000|
Spain | 592,400| 707,200| 730,400| 653,600|
Russia, Norway, etc. | 1,169,200| 1,169,200| 1,622,800| 1,600,000|
|----------|----------|----------|----------|
Total on Continent | 7,260,800| 7,575,600|10,174,800| 9,237,200|
Add Great Britain |11,650,000|12,795,200|14,316,000|14,545,200|
|----------|----------|----------|----------|
Total weekly | | | | |
European Consumption |18,910,800|20,370,800|24,490,800|23,882,400|
------------------------------------------------------------------
===========================================================================
COUNTRIES. | 1854. | 1855. | 1856. | 1857. | 1858.
--------------------|----------|----------|----------|----------|----------
France | 3,400,000| 3,684,400| 4,046,000| 3,438,400|
Belgium | 538,400| 484,400| 615,200| 438,400|
Holland | 661,200| 684,400| 761,200| 753,200|
Germany | 1,592,400| 822,800| 1,900,000| 444,800|
Trieste | 715,200| 651,200| 746,000| 576,800|
Genoa, Naples, etc. | 322,800| 439,400| 846,000| 692,000|
Spain | 715,200| 876,800| 938,400| 692,000|
Russia, Norway, etc.| 1,030,800| 961,600| 1,769,200| 1,538,400|
|----------|----------|----------|----------|----------
Total on Continent | 8,976,000| 9,414,000|11,622,000| 9,786,000|
Add Great Britain |15,131,600|16,161,200|16,794,800|15,626,000|16,533,200
|----------|----------|----------|----------|----------
Total weekly | | | | |
European Consumption|24,107,600|25,575,200|28,416,800|25,412,000|
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOOTNOTE:
[135] The _London Economist_, from which we copy, observes, that the
figures in this table differ slightly from some other estimates, as must
be the case in all computations that are not official, but that from
examination it has reason to think them as near the truth as any
practical object can require. The quantities consumed in each country
include the direct imports from the producing countries, as well as the
indirect imports, chiefly from England. The consumption on the
Continent, for 1858, was not known. January 15, 1859, the date of
publication of the _Economist_. The bales are estimated at 400 lbs.
each.
TABLE XII.
SUMMARY STATEMENT OF THE VALUE OF EXPORTS OF THE
GROWTH, PRODUCE, AND MANUFACTURE OF THE UNITED
STATES, FOR THE YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1859; THE
PRODUCTIONS OF THE NORTH AND OF THE SOUTH,
RESPECTIVELY, BEING PLACED IN OPPOSITE COLUMNS;
AND THE ARTICLES OF A MIXED ORIGIN BEING STATED
SEPARATELY.--_Report on Com. and Nav._, 1859.
=========================================================================
EXPORTS OF THE NORTH. | EXPORTS OF THE SOUTH.
|
PRODUCT OF THE FOREST. | PRODUCT OF THE FOREST.
|
Wood and its products, $7,829,666 | Wood and its products, $2,210,884
Ashes, pot and pearl, 643,861 | Tar and pitch 141,058
Ginseng, 54,204 | Rosin and turpentine, 2,248,381
Skins and furs, 1,361,352 | Spirits of turpentine, 1,306,035
|
PRODUCT OF AGRICULTURE. | PRODUCT OF AGRICULTURE.
|
Animals and their |
products, 15,262,769 | Animals and their products, 287,048
Wheat and wheat flour, 15,113,455 | Wheat and wheat flour, 2,169,328
Indian corn and meal, 2,206,396 | Indian corn and meal, 110,976
Other grains, biscuit, | Biscuit or ship bread, 12,864
and vegetables, 2,226,585 | Rice, 2,207,148
Hemp, and Clover seed, 546,060 | Cotton, 161,434,923
Flax seed, 8,177 | Tobacco, in leaf, 21,074,038
Hops, 53,016 | Brown sugar, 196,935
----------- | ------------
$45,305,541 | $193,399,618
ARTICLES OF MIXED ORIGIN.
Refined sugar, wax, chocolate, molasses, $ 550,937
Spirituous liquors, ale, porter, beer, cider, vinegar, linseed oil, 1,370,787
Household furniture, carriages, rail-road cars, etc. 1,722,797
Hats, fur, silk, palm leaf, saddlery, trunks, valises, 317,727
Tobacco, manufactured and snuff, 3,402,491
Gunpowder, leather, boots, shoes, cables, cordage, 2,011,931
Salt, lead, iron and its manufactures, 5,744,952
Copper and brass, and manufactures of, 1,048,246
Drugs and medicines, candles and soap, 1,933,973
Cotton fabrics of all kinds, 8,316,222
Other products of manufactures and mechanics, 3,852,910
Coal and ice, 818,117
Products not enumerated, 4,132,857
Gold and silver, in coin and bullion, 57,502,305
Products of the sea, being oil, fish, whalebone, etc. 4,462,974
------------
$97,189,226
Add Northern exports, 45,305,541
Add Southern exports, 193,399,618
------------
Total exports, $335,894,385
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
EXPLANATORY NOTE.--The whole of the exports from the ports of Delaware,
Baltimore, and New Orleans, are placed in the column of Northern
exports, because there is no means of determining what proportion of
them were from free or slave States, and it has been thought best to
give this advantage to the North. Taking into the account only the
heavier amounts, the exports from these ports foot up $11,287,898; of
which near one-half consisted of provisions and lumber. The total
imports for the year were $338,768,130. Of this $20,895,077 were
re-exported, which, added to the domestic exports, makes the total
exports $356,789,462, thus leaving a balance in our favor of
$18,021,332.
[Illustration]
LIBERTY AND SLAVERY:
OR,
SLAVERY IN THE LIGHT OF MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
BY
ALBERT TAYLOR BLEDSOE, LL. D.,
PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA.
LIBERTY AND SLAVERY:
OR,
SLAVERY IN THE LIGHT OF MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY,
INTRODUCTION.
THIS work has, for the most part, been thought out for several years,
and various portions of it reduced to writing. Though we have long
cherished the design of preparing it for the press, yet other
engagements, conspiring with a spirit of procrastination, have hitherto
induced us to defer the execution of this design. Nor should we have
prosecuted it, as we have done, during a large portion of our last
summer vacation, and the leisure moments of the first two months of the
present session of the University, but for the solicitation of two
intelligent and highly-esteemed friends. In submitting the work, as it
now is, to the judgment of the truth-loving and impartial reader, we beg
leave to offer one or two preliminary remarks.
We have deemed it wise and proper to notice only the more decent,
respectable, and celebrated among the abolitionists of the North. Those
scurrilous writers, who deal in wholesale abuse of Southern character,
we have deemed unworthy of notice. Their writings are, no doubt, adapted
to the taste of their readers; but as it is certain that no educated
gentleman will tolerate them, so we would not raise a finger to promote
their downfall, nor to arrest their course toward the oblivion which so
inevitably awaits them.
In replying to the others, we are conscious that we have often used
strong language; for which, however, we have no apology to offer. We
have dealt with their arguments and positions rather than with their
motives and characters. If, in pursuing this course, we have often
spoken strongly, we merely beg the reader to consider whether we have
not also spoken justly. We have certainly not spoken without
provocation. For even these men--the very lights and ornaments of
abolitionism--have seldom condescended to argue the great question of
Liberty and Slavery with us as with equals. On the contrary, they
habitually address us as if nothing but a purblind ignorance of the very
first elements of moral science could shield our minds against the force
of their irresistible arguments. In the overflowing exuberance of their
philanthropy, they take pity of our most lamentable moral darkness, and
graciously condescend to teach us the very A B C of ethical philosophy!
Hence, if we have deemed it a duty to lay bare their pompous inanities,
showing them to be no oracles, and to strip their pitiful sophisms of
the guise of a profound philosophy, we trust that no impartial reader
will take offense at such vindication of the South against her accusers
and despisers.
In this vindication, we have been careful throughout to distinguish
between the abolitionists, our accusers, and the great body of the
people of the North. Against these we have said nothing, and we could
say nothing; since for these we entertain the most profound respect. We
have only assailed those by whom we have been assailed; and we have held
each and every man responsible only for what he himself has said and
done. We should, indeed, despise ourselves if we could be guilty of the
monstrous injustice of denouncing a whole people on account of the
sayings and doings of a portion of them. We had infinitely rather suffer
such injustice--as we have so long done--than practice it toward others.
We cannot flatter ourselves, of course, that the following work is
without errors. But these, whatever else may be thought of them, are not
the errors of haste and inconsideration. For if we have felt deeply on
the subject here discussed, we have also thought long, and patiently
endeavored to guard our minds against fallacy. How far this effort has
proved successful, it is the province of the candid and impartial reader
alone to decide. If our arguments and views are unsound, we hope he will
reject them. On the contrary, if they are correct and well-grounded, we
hope he will concur with us in the conclusion, that the institution of
slavery, as it exists among us at the South, is founded in political
justice, is in accordance with the will of GOD and the designs of his
providence, and is conducive to the highest, purest, best interests of
mankind.
CHAPTER I.
THE NATURE OF CIVIL LIBERTY.
The commonly-received definition of Civil
Liberty.--Examination of the commonly-received
definition of Civil Liberty.--No good law ever
limits or abridges the Natural Liberty of
Mankind.--The distinction between Rights and
Liberty.--The Relation between the State of Nature
and Civil Society.--Inherent and Inalienable
Rights.--Conclusion of the First Chapter.
FEW subjects, if any, more forcibly demand our attention, by their
intrinsic grandeur and importance, than the great doctrine of human
liberty. Correct views concerning this are, indeed, so intimately
connected with the most profound interests, as well as with the most
exalted aspirations, of the human race, that any material departure
therefrom must be fraught with evil to the living, as well as to
millions yet unborn. They are so inseparably interwoven with all that is
great and good and glorious in the destiny of man, that whosoever aims
to form or to propagate such views should proceed with the utmost care,
and, laying aside all prejudice and passion, be guided by the voice of
reason alone.
Hence it is to be regretted--deeply regretted--that the doctrine of
liberty has so often been discussed with so little apparent care, with
so little moral earnestness, with so little real energetic searching and
longing after truth. Though its transcendent importance demands the best
exertion of all our powers, yet has it been, for the most part, a theme
for passionate declamation, rather than of severe analysis or of
protracted and patient investigation. In the warm praises of the
philosopher, no less than in the glowing inspirations of the poet, it
often stands before us as a vague and ill-defined _something_ which all
men are required to worship, but which no man is bound to understand. It
would seem, indeed, as if it were a mighty something not to be clearly
seen, but only to be deeply felt. And felt it has been, too, by the
ignorant as well as by the learned, by the simple as well as by the
wise: felt as a fire in the blood, as a fever in the brain, and as a
phantom in the imagination, rather than as a form of light and beauty in
the intelligence. How often have the powers of darkness surrounded its
throne, and desolation marked its path! How often from the altars of
this _unknown idol_ has the blood of human victims streamed! Even here,
in this glorious land of ours, how often do the _too-religious_
Americans seem to become deaf to the most appalling lessons of the past,
while engaged in the frantic worship of this their tutelary deity! At
this very moment, the highly favored land in which we live is convulsed
from its centre to its circumference, by the agitations of these pious
devotees of freedom; and how long ere scenes like those which called
forth the celebrated exclamation of Madame Roland--"O Liberty, what
crimes are perpetrated in thy name!" may be enacted among us, it is not
possible for human sagacity or foresight to determine.
If no one would talk about liberty except those who had taken the pains
to understand it, then would a perfect calm be restored, and peace once
more bless a happy people. But there are so many who imagine they
understand liberty as Falstaff knew the true prince, namely, by
instinct, that all hope of such a consummation must be deferred until it
may be shown that their instinct is a blind guide, and its oracles are
false. Hence the necessity of a close study and of a clear analysis of
the nature and conditions of civil liberty, in order to a distinct
delineation of the great idol, which all men are so ready to worship,
but which so few are willing to take the pains to understand. In the
prosecution of such an inquiry, we intend to consult neither the
pecuniary interests of the South nor the prejudices of the North; but
calmly and immovably proceed to discuss, upon purely scientific
principles, this great problem of our social existence and national
prosperity, upon the solution of which the hopes and destinies of
mankind in no inconsiderable measure depend. We intend no appeal to
passion or to sordid interest, but only to the reason of the wise and
good. And if justice, or mercy, or truth, be found at war with the
institution of slavery, then, in the name of God, let slavery perish.
But however guilty, still let it be tried, condemned, and executed
according to law, and not extinguished by a despotic and lawless power
more terrific than itself.
§ I. _The commonly-received definition of civil liberty._
"Civil liberty," says Blackstone, "is no other than natural liberty so
far restrained as is necessary and expedient for the general advantage."
This definition seems to have been borrowed from Locke, who says that,
when a man enters into civil society, "he is to part with so much of his
_natural liberty_, in providing for himself, as the good, prosperity,
and safety of the society shall require." So, likewise, say Paley,
Berlamaqui, Rutherforth, and a host of others. Indeed, among jurists and
philosophers, such seems to be the commonly-received definition of civil
liberty. It seems to have become a political maxim that civil liberty is
no other than a certain portion of our natural liberty, which has been
carved therefrom, and secured to us by the protection of the laws.
But is this a sound maxim? Has it been deduced from the nature of
things, or is it merely a plausible show of words? Is it truth--solid
and imperishable truth--or merely one of those fair semblances of truth,
which, through the too hasty sanction of great names, have obtained a
currency among men? The question is not what Blackstone, or Locke, or
Paley may have thought, but what is truth? Let us examine this point,
then, in order that our decision may be founded, not upon the authority
of man, but, if possible, in the wisdom of God.
§ II. _Examination of the commonly-received definition of civil
liberty._
Before we can determine whether such be the origin of civil liberty, we
must first ascertain the character of that natural liberty out of which
it is supposed to be reserved. What, then, is natural liberty? What is
the nature of the material out of which our civil liberty is supposed to
be fashioned by the art of the political sculptor? It is thus defined by
Locke: "To understand political power right, and derive it from its
original, we must consider what state all men are naturally in; and that
is a state of perfect freedom to order their actions and dispose of
their possessions and persons as they think fit, _within the bounds of
the law of nature_, without asking leave or depending upon the will of
any other man."[136] In perfect accordance with this definition,
Blackstone says: "This natural liberty consists in a power of acting as
one thinks fit, without any restraint or control, unless by the laws of
nature, being a right inherent in us by birth, and one of the gifts of
God to man at his creation, when he endowed him with the faculty of
free-will." Such, according to Locke and Blackstone, is that natural
liberty, which is limited and abridged, as they suppose, when we enter
into the bonds of civil society.
Now mark its features: it is the gift of God to man at his creation; the
very top and flower of his existence; that by which he is distinguished
from the lower animals and raised to the rank of moral and accountable
beings. Shall we sacrifice this divine gift, then, in order to secure
the blessings of civil society? Shall we abridge or mutilate the image
of God, stamped upon the soul at its creation, by which we are capable
of knowing and obeying his law, in order to secure the aid and
protection of man? Shall we barter away any portion of this our glorious
birthright for any poor boon of man's devising? Yes, we are told--and
why? Because, says Blackstone, "Legal obedience and conformity is
infinitely more valuable than _the wild and savage liberty which is
sacrificed to obtain it_."
But how is this? _Now_ this natural liberty is a thing of light, and
_now_ it is a power of darkness. Now it is the gift of God, that moves
within a sphere of light, and breathes an atmosphere of love; and anon,
it is a wild and savage thing that carries terror in its train. It would
be an angel of light, if it were not a power of darkness; and it would
be a power of darkness, if it were not an angel of light. But as it is,
it is both by turns, and neither long, but runs through its Protean
changes, according to the exigencies of the flowing discourse of the
learned author. Surely such inconsistency, so glaring and so portentous,
and all exhibited on one and the same page, is no evidence that the
genius of the great commentator was as steady and profound as it was
elegant and classical.
The source of this vacillation is obvious. With Locke, he defines
natural liberty to be a power of acting as one thinks fit, _within the
limits prescribed by the law of nature_; but he soon loses sight of
this all-important limitation, from which natural liberty derives its
form and beauty. Hence it becomes in his mind a power to act as one
pleases, without the restraint or control of any law whatever, either
human or divine. The sovereign will and pleasure of the individual
becomes the only rule of conduct, and lawless anarchy the condition
which it legitimates. Thus, having loosed the bonds and marred the
beauty of natural liberty, he was prepared to see it, now become so
"wild and savage," offered up as a sacrifice on the altar of civil
liberty.
This, too, was the great fundamental error of Hobbes. What Blackstone
thus did through inadvertency, was knowingly and designedly done by the
philosopher of Malmesbury. In a state of nature, says he, all men have a
right to do as they please. Each individual may set up a right to all
things, and consequently to the same things. In other words, in such a
state there is no law, exept that of force. The strong arm of power is
the supreme arbiter of all things. Robbery and outrage and murder are as
lawful as their opposites. That is to say, there is no such thing as a
law of nature; and consequently all things are, in a state of nature,
equally allowable. Thus it was that Hobbes delighted to legitimate the
horrors of a state of nature, as it is called, in order that mankind
might, without a feeling of indignation or regret, see the wild and
ferocious liberty of such a state sacrificed to despotic power. Thus it
was that he endeavoured to recommend the "Leviathan," by contrasting it
with the huger monster called Natural Liberty.
This view of the state of nature, by which all law and the great
Fountain of all law are shut out of the world, was perfectly agreeable
to the atheistical philosophy of Hobbes. From one who had extinguished
the light of nature, and given dominion to the powers of darkness, no
better could have been expected; but is it not deplorable that a
Christian jurist should, even for a moment, have forgotten the great
central light of his own system, and drawn his arguments from such an
abyss of darkness?
Blackstone has thus lost sight of truth, not only in regard to his
general propositions, but also in regard to particular instances. "The
law," says he, "which restrains a man from doing mischief to his
fellow-citizens diminishes the natural liberty of mankind." Now, is this
true? The doing of mischief is contrary to the law of nature, and hence,
according to the definition of Blackstone himself, the perpetration of
it is not an exercise of any natural right. As no man possesses a
natural right to do mischief, so the law which forbids it does not
diminish the natural liberty of mankind. The law which forbids mischief
is a restraint not upon the _natural liberty_, but upon the _natural
tyranny_, of man.
Blackstone is by no means alone in the error to which we have alluded.
By one of the clearest thinkers and most beautiful writers of the
present age,[137] it is argued, "that as government implies restraint,
it is evident we give up a certain portion of our liberty by entering
into it." This argument would be valid, no doubt, if there were nothing
in the world beside liberty to be restrained; but the evil passions of
men, from which proceed so many frightful tyrannies and wrongs, are not
to be identified with their rights or liberties. As government implies
restraint, it is evident that something is restrained when we enter into
it; but it does not follow that this something must be our natural
liberty. The argument in question proceeds on the notion that government
can restrain nothing, unless it restrain the natural liberty of mankind;
whereas, we have seen, the law which forbids the perpetration of
mischief, or any other wrong, is a restriction, not upon the _liberty_,
but upon the _tyranny_, of the human will. It sets a bound and limit,
not to any right conferred on us by the Author of nature, but upon the
evil thoughts and deeds of which we are the sole and exclusive
originators. Such a law, indeed, so far from restraining the natural
liberty of man, recognizes his natural rights, and secures his freedom,
by protecting the weak against the injustice and oppression of the
strong.
The way in which these authors show that natural liberty is, and of
right ought to be, abridged by the laws of society, is, by identifying
this natural freedom, not with a power to act as God wills, but with a
power in conformity with our own sovereign will and pleasure. The same
thing is expressly done by Paley.[138] "To do what we will," says he,
"is natural liberty." Starting from this definition, it is no wonder
that he should have supposed that natural liberty is restrained by civil
government. In like manner, Burke first says, "That the effect of
liberty to individuals is, _that they may do what they please_;" and
then concludes, that in order to "secure some liberty," we make "a
surrender in trust of the whole of it."[139] Thus the natural rights of
mankind are first caricatured, and then sacrificed.
If there be no God, if there be no difference between right and wrong,
if there be no moral law in the universe, then indeed would men possess
a natural right to do mischief or to act as they please. Then indeed
should we be fettered by no law in a state of nature, and liberty
therein would be coextensive with power. Right would give place to
might, and the least restraint, even from the best laws, would impair
our natural freedom. But we subscribe to no such philosophy. That
learned authors, that distinguished jurists, that celebrated
philosophers, that pious divines, should thus deliberately include the
enjoyment of our natural rights and the indulgence of our evil passions
in one and the same definition of liberty, is, it seems to us, matter of
the most profound astonishment and regret. It is to confound the source
of all tyranny with the fountain of all freedom. It is to put darkness
for light, and light for darkness. And it is to inflame the minds of men
with the idea that they are struggling and contending for liberty, when,
in reality, they may be only struggling and contending for the
gratification of their malignant passions. Such an offense against all
clear thinking, such an outrage against all sound political ethics,
becomes the more amazing when we reflect on the greatness of the authors
by whom it is committed, and the stupendous magnitude of the interests
involved in their discussions.
Should we, then, exhibit the fundamental law of society, and the natural
liberty of mankind, as antagonistic principles? Is not this the way to
prepare the human mind, at all times so passionately, not to say so
madly, fond of freedom, for a repetition of those tremendous conflicts
and struggles beneath which the foundations of society have so often
trembled, and some of its best institutions been laid in the dust? In
one word, is it not high time to raise the inquiry, Whether there be, in
reality, any such opposition as is usually supposed to exist between the
law of the land and the natural rights of mankind? Whether such
opposition be real or imaginary? Whether it exists in the nature of
things, or only in the imagination of political theorists?
§ III. _No good law ever limits or abridges the natural liberty of
mankind_
By the two great leaders of opposite schools, Locke and Burke, it is
contended that when we enter into society the natural rights of
self-defense is surrendered to the government. If any natural right,
then, be limited or abridged by the laws of society, we may suppose the
right of self-defense to be so; for this is the instance which is always
selected to illustrate and confirm the reality of such a surrender of
our natural liberty. It has, indeed, become a sort of maxim, that when
we put on the bonds of civil society, we give up the natural right of
self-defense.
But what does this maxim mean? Does it mean that we transfer the right
to repel force by force? If so, the proposition is not true; for this
right is as fully possessed by every individual after he has entered
into society as it could have been in a state of nature. If he is
assailed, or threatened with immediate personal danger, the law of the
land does not require him to wait upon the strong but slow arm of
government for protection. On the contrary, it permits him to protect
himself, to repel force by force, in so far as this may be necessary to
guard against injury to himself; and the law of nature allows no more.
Indeed, if there be any difference, the law of the land allows a man to
go further in the defense of self than he is permitted to go by the law
of God. Hence, in this sense, the maxim under consideration is not true;
and no man's natural liberty is abridged by the State.
Does this maxim mean, then, that in a state of nature every man has a
right to redress his own wrongs by the _subsequent_ punishment of the
offender, which right the citizen has transferred to the government? It
is clear that this must be the meaning, if it have any correct meaning
at all. But neither in this sense is the maxim or proposition true. The
right to punish an offender must rest upon the one or the other of two
grounds: either upon the ground that the offender deserves punishment,
or that his punishment is necessary to prevent similar offenses. Now,
upon neither of these grounds has any man, even in a state of nature,
the right to punish an offense committed against himself.
First, he has no right to punish such an offense on the ground that it
deserves punishment. No man has, or ever had, the right to wield the
awful attribute of retributive justice; that is, to inflict so much pain
for so much guilt or moral turpitude. This is the prerogative of God
alone. To his eye, all secrets are known, and all degrees of guilt
perfectly apparent; and to him alone belongs the vengeance which is due
for moral ill-desert. His law extends over the state of nature as well
as over the state of civil society, and calls all men to account for
their evil deeds. It is evident that, in so far as the intrinsic demerit
of actions is concerned, it makes no difference whether they be punished
here or hereafter. And beside, if the individual had possessed such a
right in a state of nature, he has not transferred it to society; for
society neither has nor claims any such right. Blackstone but utters the
voice of the law when he says: "The end or final cause of human
punishment is not by way of atonement or expiation, for that must be
left to the just determination of the supreme Being, but a precaution
against future offenses of the same kind." The exercise of retributive
justice belongs exclusively to the infallible Ruler of the world, and
not to frail, erring man, who himself so greatly stands in need of
mercy. Hence, the right to punish a transgressor on the ground that such
punishment is deserved, has not been transferred from the individual to
civil society: first, because he had no such natural right to transfer;
and, secondly, because society possesses no such right.
In the second place, if we consider the other ground of punishment, it
will likewise appear that the right to punish never belonged to the
individual, and consequently could not have been transferred by him to
society. For, by the law of nature, the individual has no right to
punish an offense against himself _in order to prevent further offences
of the same kind_. If the object of human punishment be, as indeed it
is, to prevent the commission of crime, by holding up examples of terror
to evil-doers, then, it is evidently no more the natural right of the
party injured to redress the wrong, than it is the right of others. All
men are interested in the prevention of wrongs, and hence all men should
unite to redress them. All men are endowed by their Creator with a sense
of justice, in order to impel them to secure its claims, and throw the
shield of its protection around the weak and oppressed.
The prevention of wrong, then, is clearly the natural duty, and
consequently the natural right, of all men.
This duty should be discharged by others, rather than by the party
aggrieved. For it is contrary to the law of nature itself, as both Locke
and Burke agree, that any man should be "judge in his own case;" that
any man should, by an _ex post facto_ decision, determine the amount of
punishment due to his enemy, and proceed to inflict it upon him. Such a
course, indeed, so far from preventing offenses, would inevitably
promote them; instead of redressing injuries, would only add wrong to
wrong; and instead of introducing order, would only make confusion worse
confounded, and turn the moral world quite upside down.
On no ground, then, upon which the right to punish may be conceived to
rest, does it appear that it was ever possessed, or could ever have been
possessed, by the individual. And if the individual never possessed such
a right, it is clear that he has never transferred it to society. Hence,
this view of the origin of government, however plausible at first sight,
or however generally received, has no real foundation in the nature of
things. It is purely a creature of the imagination of theorists; one of
the phantoms of that manifold, monstrous, phantom deity called Liberty,
which has been so often invoked by the _pseudo_ philanthropists and
reckless reformers of the present day to subvert not only the law of
capital punishment, but also other institutions and laws which have
received the sanction of both God and man.
The simple truth is, that we are all bound by the law of nature and the
law of God to love our neighbor as ourselves. Hence it is the duty of
every man, in a state of nature, to do all in his power to protect the
rights and promote the interests of his fellow-men. It is the duty of
all men to consult together, and concert measures for the general good.
Right here it is, then, that the law of man, the constitution of civil
society, comes into contact with the law of God and rests upon it. Thus,
civil society arises, not from a surrender of individual rights, but
from a right originally possessed by all; nay, from a solemn duty
originally imposed upon all by God himself--a duty which must be
performed, whether the individual gives his consent or not. The very law
of nature itself requires, as we have seen, not only the punishment of
the offender, but also that he be punished acccording to a
pre-established law, and by the decision of an impartial tribunal. And
in the enactment of such law, as well as in the administration, the
collective wisdom of society, or its agents, moves in obedience to the
law of God, and not in pursuance of rights derived from the individual.
§ IV. _The distinction between rights and liberty._
In the foregoing discussion we have, in conformity to the custom of
others, used the terms _rights_ and _liberty_ as words of precisely the
same import. But, instead of being convertible terms, there seems to be
a very clear difference in their signification. If a man be taken, for
example, and without cause thrown into prison, this deprives him of his
_liberty_, but not of his _right_, to go where he pleases. The right
still exists; and his not being allowed to enjoy this right, is
precisely what constitutes the oppression in the case supposed. If there
were no right still subsisting, then there would be no oppression.
Hence, as the _right_ exists, while the _liberty_ is extinguished, it is
evident they are distinct from each other. The liberty of a man in such
a case, as in all others, would consist in an opportunity to enjoy his
right, or in a state in which it might be enjoyed if he so pleased.
This distinction between rights and liberty is all-important to a clear
and satisfactory discussion of the doctrine of human freedom. The great
champions of that freedom, from a Locke down to a Hall, firmly and
passionately grasping the natural rights of man, and confounding these
with his liberty, have looked upon society as the restrainer, and not as
the author, of that liberty. On the other hand, the great advocates of
despotic power, from a Hobbes down to a Whewell, seeing that there can
be no genuine liberty--that is, no secure enjoyment of one's rights--in
a state of nature, have ascribed, not only our liberty, but all our
existing rights also, to the State.
But the error of Locke is a noble and generous sentiment when compared
with the odious dogma of Hobbes and Whewell. These learned authors
contend that we derive all our existing rights from society. Do we,
then, live and move and breathe and think and worship God only by rights
derived from the State? No, certainly. We have these rights from a
higher source. God gave them, and all the powers of earth combined
cannot take them away. But as for our liberty, this we freely own is,
for the most part, due to the sacred bonds of civil society. Let us
render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and unto God the things
that are God's.
§ V. _The relation between the state of nature and of civil society._
Herein, then, consists the true relation between the _natural_ and the
_social_ states. Civil society does not abridge our natural rights, but
secures and protects them. She does not assume our right of
self-defense,--she simply discharges the duty imposed by God to defend
us. The original right is in those who compose the body politic, and not
in any individual. Hence, civil society does not impair our natural
liberty, as actually existing in a state of nature, or as it might
therein exist; for, in such a state, there would be no real liberty, no
real enjoyment of natural rights.
Mr. Locke, as we have seen, defines the state of nature to be one of
"perfect freedom." Why, then, should we leave it? "If man, in the state
of nature, be so free," says he, "why will he part with his freedom? To
which it is obvious to answer," he continues, "that though, in the state
of nature, he hath such a right, _yet the enjoyment of it is very
uncertain_, and constantly exposed to the invasion of others; for all
being kings as much as he, every man his equal, and the greater part not
strict observers of equity and justice, the enjoyment of the property he
has in this state is very unsafe, very insecure. This makes him willing
to quit a condition which, _however free, is full of fears and continual
dangers_; and it is not without reason that he seeks out, and is willing
to join in society with, others who are already united, or have a mind
to unite, _for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties, and
estates_, which I call by the general name _property_."[140] What! can
that be a state of perfect freedom which is subject to fears and
perpetual dangers? In one word, can a reign of terror be the reign of
liberty? It is evident, we think, that Locke has been betrayed into no
little inaccuracy and confusion of thought from not having distinguished
between rights and liberty.
The truth seems to be that, in a state of nature, we would possess
rights, but we could not enjoy them. That is to say, notwithstanding all
our rights, we should be destitute of freedom or liberty. Society
interposes the strong arm of the law to protect our rights, to secure
us in the enjoyment of them. She delivers us from the alarms, the
dangers, and the violence of the natural state. Hence, under God, she is
the mother of our peace and joy, by whose sovereign rule anarchy is
abolished and liberty established. Liberty and social law can never be
dissevered. Liberty, robed in law, and radiant with love, is one of the
best gifts of God to man. But liberty, despoiled of law, is a wild,
dark, fierce spirit of licentiousness, which tends "to uproar the
universal peace."
Hence it is a frightful error to regard the civil state or government as
antagonistic to the natural liberty of mankind; for this is, indeed, the
author of the very liberty we enjoy. Good government it is that
restrains the elements of tyranny and oppression, and introduces liberty
into the world. Good government it is that shuts out the reign of
anarchy, and secures the dominion of equity and goodness. He who would
spurn the restraints of law, then, by which pride, and envy, and hatred,
and malice, ambition, and revenge are kept within the sacred bounds of
eternal justice,--he, we say, is not the friend of human liberty. He
would open the flood-gates of tyranny and oppression; he would mar the
harmony and extinguish the light of the world. Let no such man be
trusted.
If the foregoing remarks be just, it would follow that the state of
nature, as it is called, would be one of the most unnatural states in
the world. We may conceive it to exist, for the sake of illustration or
argument; but if it should actually exist, it would be at war with the
law of nature itself. For this requires, as we have seen, that men
should unite together, and frame such laws as the general good demands.
Not only the law, but the very necessities of nature, enjoin the
institution of civil government. God himself has thus laid the
foundations of civil society deep in the nature of man. It is an
ordinance of Heaven, which no human decree can reverse or annul. It is
not a thing of compacts, bound together by promises and paper, but is
itself a law of nature as irreversible as any other. Compacts may give
it one form or another, but in one form or another it must exist. It is
no accidental or artificial thing, which may be made or unmade, which
may be set up or pulled down, at the mere will and pleasure of man. It
is a decree of God; the spontaneous and irresistible working of that
nature, which, in all climates, through all ages, and under all
circumstances, manifests itself in social organizations.
§ VI. _Inherent and inalienable rights._
Much has been said about inherent and inalienable rights, which is
either unintelligible or rests upon no solid foundation. "The
inalienable rights of men" is a phrase often brandished by certain
reformers, who aim to bring about "the immediate abolition of slavery."
Yet, in the light of the foregoing discussion, it may be clearly shown
that the doctrine of inalienable rights, if properly handled, will not
touch the institution of slavery.
An inalienable right is either one which the possessor of it himself
cannot alienate or transfer, or it is one which society has not the
power to take from him. According to the import of the terms, the first
would seem to be what is meant by an inalienable right; but in this
sense it is not pretended that the right to either life or liberty has
been transferred to society or alienated by the individual. And if, as
we have endeavored to show, the right, or power, or authority of society
is not derived from a transfer of individual rights, then it is clear
that neither the right to life nor liberty is transferred to society.
That is, if no rights are transferred, than these particular rights are
still untransferred, and, if you please, untransferable. Be it conceded,
then, that the individual has never transferred his right to life or
liberty to society.
But it is not in the above sense that the abolitionist uses the
expression, _inalienable rights_. According to his view, an inalienable
right is one of which society itself cannot, without doing wrong,
deprive the individual, or deny the enjoyment of it to him. This is
evidently his meaning; for he complains of the injustice of society, or
civil government, in depriving a certain portion of its subjects of
civil freedom, and consigning them to a state of servitude. "Such an
act," says he, "is wrong, because it is a violation of the inalienable
rights of all men." But let us see if his complaint be just or well
founded.
It is pretended by no one that society has the right to deprive any
subject of either life or liberty, _without good and sufficient cause or
reason_. On the contrary, it is on all hands agreed that it is only for
good and sufficient reasons that society can deprive any portion of its
subjects of either life or liberty. Nor can it be denied, on the other
side, that a man may be deprived of either, or both, by a preordained
law, in case there be a good and sufficient reason for the enactment of
such law. For the crime of murder, the law of the land deprives the
criminal of life: _à fortiori_, might it deprive him of liberty. In the
infliction of such a penalty, the law seeks, as we have seen, not to
deal out so much pain for so much guilt, nor even to deal out pain for
guilt at all, but simply to protect the members of society, and _secure
the general good_. The general good is the sole and sufficient
consideration which justifies the State in taking either the life or the
liberty of its subjects.
Hence, if we would determine in any case whether society is justified in
depriving any of its members of civil freedom by law, we must first
ascertain whether the general good demands the enactment of such a law.
If it does, then such a law is just and good--as perfectly just and good
as any other law which, for the same reason or on the same ground, takes
away the life or liberty of its subjects. All this talk about the
inalienable rights of men may have a very admirable meaning, if one will
only be at the pains to search it out; but is it not evident that, when
searched to the bottom, it has just nothing at all to do with the great
question of slavery? But more of this hereafter.[141]
This great problem, as we have seen, is to be decided, not by an appeal
to the inalienable rights of men, but simply and solely by a reference
to the general good. It is to be decided, not by the aid of abstractions
alone; a little good sense and _practical sagacity_ should be allowed to
assist in its determination. There are inalienable rights, we
admit--inalienable both because the individual cannot transfer them, and
because society can never rightfully deprive any man of their enjoyment.
But life and liberty are _not_ "among these." There are inalienable
rights, we admit, but then such abstractions are the edge-tools of
political science, with which it is dangerous for either men or children
to play. They may inflict deep wounds on the cause of humanity; they can
throw no light on the great problem of slavery.
One thing seems to be clear and fixed; and that is, that the rights of
the individual are subordinate to those of the community. _An
inalienable right is a right coupled with a duty; a duty with which no
other obligation can interfere._ But, as we have seen, it is the _duty_,
and consequently, the _right_, of society to make such laws as the
general good demands. This inalienable right is conferred, and its
exercise enjoined, by the Creator and Governor of the universe. All
individual rights are subordinate to this inherent, universal, and
inalienable right. It should be observed, however, that in the exercise
of this paramount right, this supreme authority, no society possesses
the power to contravene the principles of justice. In other words, it
should be observed that no unjust law can ever promote the public good.
Every law, then, which is not unjust, and which the public good demands,
should be enacted by society.
But we have already seen and shall still more fully see, that the law
which ordains slavery is not unjust in itself, or, in other words, that
it interferes with none of the inalienable rights of man. Hence, if it
be shown that the public good, and especially the good of the slave,
demands such a law, then the question of slavery will be settled. We
purpose to show this before we have done with the present discussion.
And if, in the prosecution of this inquiry, we should be so fortunate as
to throw only one steady ray of light on the great question of slavery,
by which the very depths of society have been so fearfully convulsed, we
shall be more than rewarded for all the labor which, with no little
solicitude, we have felt constrained to bestow upon an attempt at its
solution.
§ VII. _Conclusion of the first chapter._
In conclusion, we shall merely add that if the foregoing remarks be
just, it follows that the great problem of political philosophy is not
precisely such as it is often taken to be by statesmen and historians.
This problem, according to Mackintosh and Macaulay, consists in finding
such an adjustment of the antagonistic principles of public order and
private liberty, that neither shall overthrow or subvert the other, but
each be confined within its own appropriate limits. Whereas, if we are
not mistaken, these are not _antagonistic_, but _co-ordinate_,
principles. The very law which institutes public order is that which
introduces private liberty, since no secure enjoyment of one's rights
can exist where public order is not maintained. And, on the other hand,
unless private liberty be introduced, public order cannot be
maintained, or at least such public order as should be established;
for, if there be not private liberty, if there be no secure enjoyment of
one's rights, then the highest and purest elements of our nature would
have to be extinguished, or else exist in perpetual conflict with the
surrounding despotism. As license is not liberty, so despotism is not
order, nor even friendly to that enlightened, wholesome order, by which
the good of the public and the individual are at the same time
introduced and secured. In other words, what is taken from the one of
these principles is not given to the other; on the contrary, every
additional element of strength and beauty which is imparted to the one
is an accession of strength and beauty to the other. Private liberty,
indeed, lives and moves and has its very being in the bosom of public
order. On the other hand, that public order alone which cherishes the
true liberty of the individual is strong in the approbation of God and
in the moral sentiments of mankind. All else is weakness, and death, and
decay.
The true problem, then, is, not how the conflicting claims of these two
principles may be adjusted, (for there is no conflict between them,) but
how a real public order, whose claims are identical with those of
private liberty, may be introduced and maintained. The practical
solution of this problem, for the heterogeneous population of the South
imperatively demands, as we shall endeavor to show, the institution of
slavery; and that without such an institution it would be impossible to
maintain either a sound public order or a decent private liberty. We
shall endeavor to show, that the very laws or institution which is
supposed by fanatical declaimers to shut out liberty from the Negro race
among us, really shuts out the most frightful _license_ and disorder
from society. In one word, we shall endeavor to show that in preaching
up liberty _to and for_ the slaves of the South, the abolitionist is
"casting pearls before swine," that can neither comprehend the nature,
nor enjoy the blessings, of the freedom which is so officiously thrust
upon them. And if the Negro race should be moved by their fiery appeals,
it would only be to rend and tear in pieces the fair fabric of American
liberty, which, with all its shortcomings and defects, is by far the
most beautiful ever yet conceived or constructed by the genius of man.
FOOTNOTES:
[136] Locke on Civil Government, chap. ii.
[137] Robert Hall.
[138] Political Philosophy, chap. v.
[139] Reflections on the Revolution in France.
[140] Locke on Civil Government, chap. ix.
[141] Chap. ii. § x.
CHAPTER II.
THE ARGUMENTS AND POSITIONS OF ABOLITIONISTS.
The first fallacy of the Abolitionist.--The second
fallacy of the Abolitionist.--The third fallacy of
the Abolitionist.--The fourth fallacy of the
Abolitionist.--The fifth fallacy of the
Abolitionist.--The sixth fallacy of the
Abolitionist.--The seventh fallacy of the
Abolitionist.--The eighth fallacy of the
Abolitionist.--The ninth fallacy of the
Abolitionist.--The tenth, eleventh, twelfth,
thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth
fallacies of the Abolitionist; or his seven
arguments against the right of a man to hold
property in his fellow-man.--The seventeenth
fallacy of the Abolitionist; or, the Argument from
the Declaration of Independence.
HAVING in the preceding chapter discussed and defined the nature of
civil liberty, as well as laid down some of the political conditions on
which its existence depends, we shall now proceed to examine the
question of slavery. In the prosecution of this inquiry, we shall, in
the first place, consider the arguments and positions of the advocates
of immediate abolition; and, in the second, point out the reasons and
grounds on which the institution of slavery is based and its justice
vindicated. The first branch of the investigation, or that relating to
the arguments and positions of the abolitionist, will occupy the
remainder of the present chapter.
It is insisted by abolitionists that the institution of slavery is, in
all cases and under all circumstances, morally wrong, or a violation of
the law of God. Such is precisely the ground assumed by the one side and
denied by the other.
Thus says Dr. Wayland: "I have wished to make it clear that slavery, or
the holding of men in bondage, and 'obliging them to labor for our
benefit, without their contract or consent,' is always and everywhere,
or, as you well express it, _semper et ubique_, a moral wrong, a
violation of the obligations under which we are created to our
fellow-men, and a transgression of the law of our Creator."
Dr. Fuller likewise: "The simple question is, Whether it _is
necessarily, and amid all circumstances, a crime to hold men in a
condition where they labor for another without their consent or
contract_? and in settling this matter all impertinences must be
retrenched."
In one word, Dr. Wayland insists that slavery is condemned by the law of
God, by the moral law of the universe. We purpose to examine the
arguments which he has advanced in favor of this position. We select his
arguments for examination, because, as a writer on moral and political
science, he stands so high in the northern portion of the Union. His
work on these subjects has indeed long since passed the fiftieth
thousand; a degree of success which, in his own estimation, authorizes
him to issue his letters on slavery over the signature of "THE AUTHOR OF
THE MORAL SCIENCE." But the very fact that his popularity is so great,
and that he is _the_ author of _the_ Moral Science, is a reason why his
arguments on a question of such magnitude should be subjected to a
severe analysis and searching scrutiny, in order that, under the
sanction of so imposing a name, no error may be propagated and no
mischief done.
Hence we shall hold Dr. Wayland amenable to all the laws of logic.
Especially shall we require him to adhere to the point he has undertaken
to discuss, and to retrench all irrelevancies. If, after having
subjected his arguments to such a process, it shall be found that every
position which is assumed on the subject is directly contradicted by
himself, we shall not make haste to introduce anarchy into the Southern
States, in order to make it answer to the anarchy in his views of civil
and political freedom. But whether this be the case or not, it is not
for us to determine; we shall simply proceed to examine, and permit the
impartial reader to decide for himself.
§ I. _The first fallacy of the abolitionist._
The abolitionists do not hold their passions in subjection to reason.
This is not merely the judgment of a Southern man: it is the opinion of
the more decent and respectable abolitionists themselves. Thus says Dr.
Channing, censuring the conduct of the abolitionists: "They have done
wrong, I believe; nor is their wrong to be winked at because done
fanatically or with good intentions; for how much mischief may be
wrought with good designs! They have fallen into the common error of
enthusiasts--that of exaggerating their object, of feeling as if no evil
existed but that which they opposed, and as if no guilt could be
compared with that of countenancing or upholding it."[142] In like
manner, Dr. Wayland says: "I unite with you and the lamented Dr Channing
in the opinion that the tone of the abolitionists at the North has been
frequently, I fear I must say generally, 'fierce, bitter, and abusive.'
The abolitionist press has, I believe, from the beginning, too commonly
indulged in _exaggerated statement_, in violent denunciation, and in
coarse and lacerating invective. At our late Missionary Convention in
Philadelphia, I heard many things from men who claim to be the exclusive
friends of the slave, which pained me more than I can express. It seemed
to me that the spirit which many of them manifested was very different
from the spirit of Christ. I also cheerfully bear testimony to the
general courtesy, the Christian urbanity, and the calmness under
provocation which, in a remarkable degree, characterized the conduct of
the members from the South."
In the flood of sophisms which the abolitionists usually pour out in
their explosions of passion, none is more common than what is
technically termed by logicians the _ignoratio elenchi_, or a mistaking
of the point in dispute. Nor is this fallacy peculiar to the more vulgar
sort of abolitionists. It glares from the pages of Dr. Wayland, no less
than from the writings of the most fierce, bitter, and vindictive of his
associates in the cause of abolitionism. Thus, in one of his letters to
Dr. Fuller, he says: "To present this subject in a simple light. Let us
suppose that your family and mine were neighbors. We, our wives and
children, are all human beings in the sense that I have described, and,
in consequence of that common nature, and by the will of our common
Creator, are subject to the law, _Thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself_. Suppose that I should set fire to your house, shoot you as you
came out of it, and seizing your wife and children, 'oblige them to
labor for my benefit without their contract or consent.' Suppose,
moreover, aware that I could not thus oblige them, unless they were
inferior in intellect to myself, I should forbid them to read, and thus
consign them to intellectual and moral imbecility. Suppose I should
measure out to them the knowledge of God on the same principle. Suppose
I should exercise this dominion over them and their children as long as
I lived, and then do all in my power to render it certain that my
children should exercise it after me. _The question before us I suppose
to be simply this: Would I, in so doing, act at variance with the
relations existing between us as creatures of God?_ Would I, in other
words, violate the supreme law of my Creator, Thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself? or that other, Whatsoever ye would that men should
do unto you, do ye even so unto them? I do not see how any intelligent
creature can give more than one answer to this question. Then I think
that every intelligent creature must affirm that do this is wrong, or,
in the other form of expression, that it is a great moral evil. Can we
conceive of any greater?"
It was surely very kind in Dr. Wayland to undertake, with so much pains,
to instruct us poor, benighted sons of the South in regard to the
difference between right and wrong. We would fain give him full credit
for all the kindly feeling he so freely professes for his "Southern
brethren;" but if he really thinks that the question, whether arson, and
murder, and cruelty are offenses against the "supreme law of the
Creator," is still open for discussion among us, then we beg leave to
inform him that he labors under a slight hallucination. If he had never
written a word, we should have known, perhaps, that it is wrong for a
man to set fire to his neighbor's house, and shoot him as he came out,
and reduce his wife and children to a state of ignorance, degradation,
and slavery. Nay, if we should find his house already burnt, and himself
already shot, we should hardly feel justified in treating his wife and
children in so cruel a manner. Not even if they were "guilty of a skin,"
or ever so degraded, should we deem ourselves justified in reducing them
to a state of servitude. This is NOT "the question before us." We are
quite satisfied on all such points. The precept, too, Thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself, was not altogether unknown in the Southern
States before his letters were written. A committee of very amiable
philanthropists came all the way from England, as the agents of some
abolition society there, and told us all that the law of God requires us
to love our neighbor as ourselves. In this benevolent work of
enlightenment they were, if we mistake not, several months in advance of
Dr. Wayland. We no longer need to be enlightened on such points. Being
sufficiently instructed, we admit that we should love our neighbor as
ourselves, and also that arson, murder, and so forth are violations of
this law. But we want to know whether, _semper et ubique_, the
institution of slavery is morally wrong. _This is the question_, and to
this we intend to hold the author.
§ II. _The second fallacy of the abolitionist._
Lest we should be suspected of misrepresentation, we shall state the
position of Dr. Wayland in his own words. In regard to the institution
of slavery, he says: "I do not see that it does not sanction the whole
system of the slave-trade. _If I have a right to a thing after I have
gotten it, I have a natural right to the means necessary for getting
it._ If this be so, I should be as much justified in sending a vessel to
Africa, murdering a part of the inhabitants of a village, and making
slaves of the rest, as I should be in hunting a herd of wild animals,
and either slaying them or subjecting them to the yoke."
Now mark the principle on which this most wonderful argument is based:
"If I have a right to a thing after I have gotten it, I have a natural
right to the means for getting it." That is to say, If I have the right
to a slave, now that I have got him, then I may rightfully use all
necessary means to reduce other men to slavery! I may shoot, burn, or
murder, if by this means I can only get slaves! Was any consequence ever
more wildly drawn? Was any _non sequitur_ ever more glaring?
Let us see how this argument would apply to other things. If I have a
right to a watch after I have gotten it, no matter how, then I have a
right to use the means necessary to get watches; I may steal them from
my neighbors! Or, if I have a right to a wife, provided I can get one,
then may I shoot my friend and marry his widow! Such is the argument of
one who seeks to enlighten the South and reform its institutions!
§ III. _The third fallacy of the abolitionist._
Nearly allied to the foregoing argument is that of the same author, in
which he deduces from the right of slavery, supposing it to exist,
another retinue of monstrous rights. "This right also," says Dr.
Wayland, referring to the right to hold slaves, "as I have shown,
involves the right to use all the means necessary to its establishment
and perpetuity, and, _of course, the right to crush his intellectual and
social nature_, and to stupefy his conscience, in so far as may be
necessary to enable me to enjoy this right with the least possible
peril." This is a compound fallacy, a many-sided error. But we will
consider only two phases of its absurdity.
In the first place, if the slaveholder should reason in this way, no one
would be more ready than the author himself to condemn his logic. If any
slaveholder should say, That because I have a right to my slaves,
therefore I have the right to crush the intellectual and moral nature of
men, in order to _establish_ and perpetuate their bondage,--he would be
among the first to cry out against such reasoning. This is evident from
the fact that he everywhere commends those slaveholders who deem it
their duty, as a return for the service of their slaves, to promote both
their temporal and eternal good. He everywhere insists that such is the
duty of slaveholders; and if such be their duty, they surely have no
right to violate it, by crushing the intellectual and moral nature of
those whom they are bound to elevate in the scale of being. If the
slaveholder, then, should adopt such an argument, his logic would be
very justly chargeable by Dr. Wayland with evidencing not so much the
existence of a clear head as of a bad heart.
In the second place, the above argument overlooks the fact that the
Southern statesman vindicates the institution of slavery on the ground
that it finds the Negro race already so degraded as to unfit it for a
state of freedom. He does not argue that it is right to seize those who,
by the possession of cultivated intellects and pure morals, are fit for
freedom, and debase them in order to prepare them for social bondage. He
does not imagine that it is ever right to shoot, burn, or corrupt, in
order to reduce any portion of the enlightened universe to a state of
servitude. He merely insists that those only who are already unfit for a
higher and nobler state than one of slavery, should be held by society
in such a state. This position, although it is so prominently set forth
by every advocate of slavery at the South, is almost invariably
overlooked by the Northern abolitionists. They talk, and reason, and
declaim, indeed, just as if we had caught a bevy of black angels as they
were winging their way to some island of purity and bliss here upon
earth, and reduced them from their heavenly state, by the most
diabolical cruelties and oppressions, to one of degradation, misery, and
servitude. They forget that Africa is not yet a paradise, and that
Southern servitude is not quite a hell. They forget--in the heat and
haste of their argument they forget--that the institution of slavery is
designed by the South not for the enlightened and the free, but only for
the ignorant and the debased. They need to be constantly reminded that
the institution of slavery is not the mother, but the daughter, of
ignorance and degradation. It is, indeed, the legitimate offspring of
that intellectual and moral debasement which, for so many thousand
years, has been accumulating and growing upon the African race. And if
the abolitionists at the North will only invent some method by which all
this frightful mass of degradation may be blotted out _at once_, then
will we most cheerfully consent to "the _immediate_ abolition of
slavery." On this point, however, we need not dwell, as we shall have
occasion to recur to it again when we come to consider the grounds and
reasons on which the institution of slavery is vindicated.
Having argued that the right of slavery, if it exist, implies the right
to shoot and murder an enlightened neighbor, with a view to reduce his
wife and children to a state of servitude, as well as to crush their
intellectual and moral nature in order to keep them in such a state, the
author adds, "If I err in making these inferences, I _err innocently_."
We have no doubt of the most perfect and entire innocence of the author.
But we would remind him that innocence, however perfect or _childlike_,
is not the only quality which a great reformer should possess.
§ IV. _The fourth fallacy of the abolitionist._
He is often guilty of a _petitio principii_, in taking it for granted
that the institution of slavery is an injury to the slave, which is the
very point in dispute. Thus says Dr. Wayland: "If it be asked when,
[slavery must be abandoned,] I ask again, when shall a man begin to
cease doing wrong? Is not the answer _immediately_? If a man is injuring
us, do we doubt as to the _time when_ he ought to cease? There is, then,
no doubt in respect to the time when we ought to cease inflicting injury
upon others."[143] Here it is assumed that slavery is an _injury_ to the
slave: but this is the very point which is denied, and which he should
have discussed. If a state of slavery be a greater injury to the slave
than a state of freedom would be, then are we willing to admit that it
should be abolished. But even in that case, not _immediately_, unless it
could be shown that the remedy would not be worse than the evil. If, on
the whole, the institution of slavery be a curse to the slave, we say
let it be abolished; not suddenly, however, as if by a whirlwind, but by
the counsels of wise, cautious, and far-seeing statesmen, who, capable
of looking both before and after, can comprehend in their plans of
reform all the diversified and highly-complicated interests of society.
"But it may be said," continues the author, "immediate abolition would
be the greatest possible injury to the slaves themselves. They are not
competent to self-government." True: this is the very thing which may
be, and which is, said by every Southern statesman in his advocacy of
the institution of slavery. Let us see the author's reply. "This is a
question of fact," says he, "_which is not in the province of moral
philosophy to decide_. It very likely may be so. So far as I know, the
facts are not sufficiently known to warrant a full opinion on the
subject. We will, therefore, suppose it to be the case, and ask, What is
the duty of masters _under these circumstances_?" In the discussion of
this question, the author comes to the conclusion that a master may hold
his slaves in bondage, provided his intentions be good, and with a view
to set them at liberty as soon as they shall be qualified for such a
state.
Moral philosophy, then, it seems, when it closes its eyes upon facts,
pronounces that slavery should be _immediately_ abolished; but if it
consider facts, which, instead of being denied, are admitted to be "very
likely" true, it decides against its immediate abolition! Or, rather,
moral philosophy looks at the fact that slavery is an _injury_, in order
to see that it should be forthwith abolished; but closes its eyes upon
the fact that its abolition may be a still greater injury, lest this
foregone conclusion should be called in question! Has moral philosophy,
then, an eye only for the facts which lie one side of the question it
proposes to decide?
Slavery is an _injury_, says Dr. Wayland, and therefore it should be
_immediately_ abolished. But its abolition would be a still greater
injury, replies the objector. This may be true, says Dr. Wayland: it is
highly probable; but then this question of injury is one of fact, which
it is not in the province of moral philosophy to decide! So much for the
consistency and even-handed justice of the author.
The position assumed by him, that questions of fact are not within the
province of moral philosophy, is one of so great importance that it
deserves a separate and distinct notice. Though seldom openly avowed,
yet is it so often tacitly assumed in the arguments and declamations of
abolitionists, that it shall be more fully considered in the following
section.
§ V. _The fifth fallacy of the abolitionist._
"Suppose that A has a right to use the body of B according to his--that
is, A's--will. Now if this be true, it is true universally; and hence, A
has the control over the body of B, and B has control over the body of
C, C of D, &c., and Z again over the body of A: that is, every separate
will has the right of control over some other body besides its own, and
has no right of control over its own body or intellect."[144] Now, if
men were cut out of pasteboard, all exactly alike, and distinguished
from each other only by the letters of the alphabet, then the reasoning
of the author would be excellent. But it happens that men are not cut
out of pasteboard. They are distinguished by differences of character,
by diverse habits and propensities, which render the reasonings of the
political philosopher rather more difficult than if he had merely to
deal with or arrange the letters of the alphabet. In one, for example,
the intellectual and moral part is almost wholly eclipsed by the brute;
while, in another, reason and religion have gained the ascendency, so as
to maintain a steady empire over the whole man. The first, as the author
himself admits, is incompetent to self-government, and should,
therefore, be held by the law of society in a state of servitude. But
does it follow that "if this be true, it is true _universally_?" Because
one man who can not govern himself may be governed by another, does it
follow that every man should be governed by others? Does it follow that
the one who has acquired and maintained the most perfect
self-government, should be subjected to the control of him who is wholly
incompetent to control himself? Yes, certainly, if the reasoning of Dr.
Wayland be true; but, according to every sound principle of political
ethics, the answer is, emphatically, No!
There is a difference between a Hottentot and a Newton. The first should
no more be condemned to astronomical calculations and discoveries, than
the last should be required to follow a plough. Such differences,
however, are overlooked by much of the reasoning of the abolitionist. In
regard to the question of fact, whether a man is really a man and not a
mere thing, he is profoundly versed. He can discourse most eloquently
upon this subject: he can prove, by most irrefragable arguments, that a
Hottentot is a man as well as a Newton. But as to the differences among
men, such nice distinctions are beneath his philosophy! It is true that
one may be sunk so low in the scale of being that civil freedom would be
a curse to him; yet, whether this be so or not, is a question of fact
which his philosophy does not stoop to decide. He merely wishes to know
what rights A can possibly have, either by the law of God or man, which
do not equally belong to B? And if A would feel it an injury to be
placed under the control of B, then, "there is no doubt" that it is
equally wrong to place B under the control of A? In plain English, if it
would be injurious and wrong to subject a Newton to the will of a
Hottentot, then it would be equally injurious and wrong to subject a
Hottentot to the will of a Newton! Such is the inevitable consequence of
his very profound political principles! Nay, such is the identical
consequence which he draws from his own principles!
If questions of fact are not within the province of the moral
philosopher, then the moral philosopher has no business with the science
of political ethics. This is not a pure, it is a mixed science. Facts
can no more be overlooked by the political architect, than magnitude can
be disregarded by the mathematician. The man, the political dreamer, who
pays no attention to them, may be fit, for aught we know, to frame a
government out of moonshine for the inhabitants of Utopia; but, if we
might choose our own teachers in political wisdom, we should decidedly
prefer those who have an eye for facts as well as abstractions. If we
may borrow a figure from Mr. Macaulay, the legislator who sees no
difference among men, but proposes the same kind of government for all,
acts about as wisely as a tailor who should measure the Apollo Belvidere
to cut clothes for all his customers--for the pigmies as well as for the
giants.
§ VI. _The sixth fallacy of the abolitionist._
It is asserted by Dr. Wayland that the institution of slavery is
condemned as "a violation of the plainest dictates of natural justice,"
by "the natural conscience of man, from at least as far back as the time
of Aristotle." If any one should infer that Aristotle himself condemned
the institution of slavery, he would be grossly deceived; for it is
known to every one who has read the Politics of Aristotle that he is,
under certain circumstances, a strenuous advocate of the natural
justice, as well as of the political wisdom, of slavery. Hence we shall
suppose that Dr. Wayland does not mean to include Aristotle in his broad
assertion, but only those who came after him. Even in this sense, or to
this extent, his positive assertion is so diametrically opposed to the
plainest facts of history, that it is difficult to conceive how he could
have persuaded himself of its truth. It is certain that, on other
occasions, he was perfectly aware of the fact that the natural
conscience of man, from the time of Aristotle down to that of the
Christian era, was in favor of the institution of slavery; for as often
as it has served his purpose to assert this fact, he has not hesitated
to do so. Thus, "the universal existence of slavery at the time of
Christ," says he, "took its origin from the moral darkness of the age.
The immortality of the soul was unknown. Out of the Hebrew nation not a
man on earth had any true conception of the character of the Deity or of
our relations and obligations to him. The law of universal love to man
had never been heard of."[145] No wonder he here argues that _slavery
received the universal sanction of the heathen world_, since so great
was the moral darkness in which they were involved. This darkness was so
great, if we may believe the author, that the men of one nation esteemed
those of another "as by nature foes, whom they had a right" not only "to
subdue or enslave," but also to murder "whenever and in what manner
soever they were able."[146] The sweeping assertion, that such was the
moral darkness of the heathen world, is wide of the truth; for, at the
time of Christ, no civilized nation "esteemed it right to murder or
enslave, whenever and in what manner soever they were able," the people
of other nations. There were some ideas of natural justice, even then,
among men; and if there were not, why does Dr. Wayland appeal to their
ideas of natural justice as one argument against slavery? If the heathen
world "esteemed it right" to make slaves, how can it be said that its
conscience condemned slavery? Is it not evident that Dr. Wayland is
capable of asserting either the one thing or its opposite, just as it
may happen to serve the purpose of his anti-slavery argument? Whether
facts lie within the province of moral philosophy or not, it is certain,
we think, that the moral philosopher who may be pleased to set facts at
naught has no right to substitute fictions in their stead.
§ VII. _The seventh fallacy of the abolitionist._
"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," is the rule of action which,
in the estimation of abolitionists, should at once and forever decide
every good man against the institution of slavery. But when we consider
the stupendous interests involved in the question, and especially those
of an intellectual and moral nature, we dare not permit ourselves to be
carried away by any form of mere words. We _must_ pause and investigate.
The fact that the dexterous brandishing of the beautiful precept in
question has made, and will no doubt continue to make, its thousands of
converts or victims, is a reason why its real import should be the more
closely examined and the more clearly defined. The havoc it makes among
those whose philanthropy is stronger than their judgment--or, if you
please, whose judgment is weaker than their philanthropy--flows not from
the divine precept itself, but only from human interpretations thereof.
And it should ever be borne in mind that he is the real enemy of the
great cause of philanthropy who, by absurd or overstrained applications
of this sublime precept, lessens that profound respect to which it is so
justly entitled from every portion of the rational universe.
It is repeatedly affirmed by Dr. Wayland that every slaveholder lives in
the habitual and open violation of the precept which requires us to love
our neighbor as ourselves. "The moral precepts of the Bible," says he,
"are diametrically opposed to slavery. These are, 'Thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself,' and 'All things whatsoever ye would that men
should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.' Now, were this precept
obeyed," he continues, "it is manifest that slavery could not in fact
exist for a single instant. The principle of the precept is absolutely
subversive of the principle of slavery." If strong assertion were
argument, we should no doubt be overwhelmed by the irresistible logic of
Dr. Wayland. But the assertion of no man can be accepted as sound
argument. We want to know the very meaning of the words of the great
Teacher, and to be guided by _that_, rather than by the fallible
authority of an earthly oracle. What, then, is the meaning, the real
meaning, of his inspired words?
Do they mean that whatsoever we might, in any relation of life, desire
for ourselves, we should be willing to grant to others in the like
relation or condition? This interpretation, we are aware, has been put
upon the words by a very celebrated divine. If we may believe that
divine, we cannot do as we would be done by, unless, when we desire the
estate of another, we forthwith transfer our estate to him! If a poor
man, for example, should happen to covet the estate of his rich
neighbor, then he is bound by this golden rule of benevolence to give
his little all to him, without regard to the necessities or wants of his
own family! But this interpretation, though seriously propounded by a
man of undoubted genius and piety, has not, so far as we know, made the
slightest possible impression on the plain good sense of mankind. Even
among his most enthusiastic admirers, it has merely excited a
good-natured smile at what they could not but regard as the strange
hallucination of a benevolent heart.
_A wrong desire in one relation of life is not a reason for a wrong act
in another relation thereof._ A man may desire the estate, he may desire
the man-servant, or the maid-servant, or the wife of his neighbor, but
this is no reason why he should abandon his own man-servant, or his
maid-servant, or his wife to the will of another. The criminal who
trembles at the bar of justice may desire both judge and jury to acquit
him, but this is no reason why, if acting in the capacity of either
judge or juror, he should bring in a verdict of acquittal in favor of
one justly accused of crime. If we would apply the rule in question
aright, we should consider, not what we might wish or desire if placed
in the situation of another, but what we _ought_ to wish or desire.
If a man were a child, he might wish to be exempt from the wholesome
restraint of his parents; but this, as every one will admit, is no
reason why he should abandon his own children to themselves. In like
manner, if he were a slave, he might most vehemently desire freedom; but
this is no reason why he should set his slaves at liberty. The whole
question of right turns upon what he _ought_ to wish or desire if placed
in such a condition. If he were an intelligent, cultivated, civilized
man,--in one word, if he were fit for freedom,--then his desire for
liberty would be a rational desire, would be such a feeling as he
_ought_ to cherish; and hence, he should be willing to extend the same
blessing to all other intelligent, cultivated, civilized men, to all
such as are prepared for its enjoyment. Such is the sentiment which he
should entertain, and such is precisely the sentiment entertained at the
South. No one here proposes to reduce any one to slavery, much less
those who are qualified for freedom; and hence the inquiry so often
propounded by Dr. Wayland and other abolitionists, how we would like to
be subjected to bondage, is a grand impertinence. We should like it as
little as themselves; and in this respect we shall do as we would be
done by.
But suppose we were veritable slaves--slaves in character and in
disposition as well as in fact--and as unfit for freedom as the Africans
of the South--what _ought_ we then to wish or desire? Ought we to desire
freedom? We answer, no; because on that supposition freedom would be a
curse and not a blessing. Dr. Wayland himself admits that "it is very
likely" freedom would be "the greatest possible injury" to the slaves of
the South. Hence, we cannot perceive that if we were such as they, we
ought to desire so great an evil to ourselves. It would indeed be to
desire "the greatest possible injury" to ourselves; and though, as
ignorant and blind slaves, we might cherish so foolish a desire,
especially if instigated by abolitionists, yet this is no reason why, as
enlightened citizens, we should be willing to inflict the same great
evil upon others. _A foolish desire, we repeat, in one relation of life,
is not a good reason for a foolish or injurious act in another relation
thereof._
The precept which requires us to do as we would be done by, was intended
to enlighten the conscience. It is used by abolitionists to hoodwink and
deceive the conscience. This precept directs us to conceive ourselves
placed in the condition of others, in order that we may the more clearly
perceive what is due to them. The abolitionist employs it to convince us
that, because we desire liberty for ourselves, we should extend it to
all men, even to those who are not qualified for its enjoyment, and to
whom it would prove "the greatest possible injury." He employs it not
to show us what is due to others, but to persuade us to injure them! He
may deceive himself; but so long as we believe what even he admits as
highly probable--namely, that the "abolition of slavery would be the
greatest possible injury to the slaves themselves"--we shall never use
the divine precept as an instrument of delusion and of wrong. What!
inflict the greatest injury on our neighbor, and that, too, out of pure
Christian charity?
But we need not argue with the abolitionist upon his own admissions. We
have infinitely stronger ground to stand on. The precept, "Thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself," is to be found in the Old Testament as
well as in the New. Thus, in the nineteenth chapter of Leviticus, it is
said, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself;" and no greater love
than this is any where inculcated in the New Testament. Yet in the
twenty-fifth chapter of the same book, it is written, "Of the children
of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of
their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and
they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance
for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they
shall be your bondmen forever." This language is too plain for
controversy. In regard to this very passage, in which the Hebrews are
commanded to enter upon and take possession of the land of the
Canaanites, Dr. Wayland himself is constrained to admit--"The authority
to take them as slaves seems to be a part of this original, peculiar,
and I may perhaps say, anomalous grant."[147] Now, if the principle of
slavery, and the principle of the precept, Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself, be as Dr. Wayland boldly asserts, _always and everywhere_ at
war with each other, how has it happened that both principles are so
clearly and so unequivocally embodied in one and the same code by the
Supreme Ruler of the world? Has this discrepancy escaped the eye of
Omniscience, and remained in the code of laws from heaven, to be
detected and exposed by "the author of the Moral Science"?
We do not mean that Dr. Wayland sees any discrepancy among the
principles of the divine legislation. It is true he sees there the
precept, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," and also this
injunction, "Thou shalt buy them for a possession," and "They shall be
your bondmen forever;" but although this looks very "anomalous" to him,
he dare not pronounce it absurd or self-contradictory. It is true, he
declares, that slavery is condemned _always and everywhere_ by "the
plainest dictates of natural justice;" but yet, although, according to
his own admission,[148] it was instituted by Heaven, he has found out a
method to save the character of the Almighty from the disgrace of such a
law. He says, "I know the word '_shalt_' is used when speaking of this
subject, but it is clearly used as _prophetic_, and not as _mandatory_."
Ay, the words "thou shalt" are used in regard to the buying and holding
of slaves, just as they are used in the commands which precede and
follow this injunction. There is no change in the form of the
expression. There is not, in any way, the slightest intimation that the
Lawgiver is about to prophesy; all seems to be a series of commands, and
is clothed in the same language of authority--"_thou shalt_." Yet in one
particular instance, and in one instance only, this language seems
"clearly" _prophetic_ to Dr. Wayland, and not _mandatory_. Now, I submit
to the candid and impartial reader, if this be not egregious trifling
with the word of God.
Dr. Wayland forgets that he had himself admitted that the very passage
in question clothed the Hebrews with "the authority to take
slaves."[149] He now, in the face of his own admission, declares that
this language "is clearly prophetic," and tells what _would_ or what
_might_ be, and not what _should_ or what _must_ be." The poor Hebrews,
however, when they took slaves by the authority of a "_thou shalt_" from
the Lord, never imagined that they were merely fulfilling a prophecy,
and committing an abominable sin.
This is clear to Dr. Wayland, if we may trust the last expression of his
opinion. But it is to be regretted, that either the clearness of his
perceptions, or the confidence of his assertions, is so often
disproportioned to the evidence before him. Thus, he says with the most
admirable modesty, "It _seems to me_ that the soul is the most important
part of a human being;"[150] and yet he peremptorily and positively
declares that the very strongest language of authority ever found in
Scripture "is _clearly_ used as prophetic and not mandatory!" He may,
however, well reserve the tone of dogmatic authority for such
propositions, since, if they may not be carried by assertion, they must
be left wholly without the least shadow of support. But one would
suppose that strength of assertion in such cases required for its
unembarrassed utterance no little strength of countenance.
"If any one doubts," says Dr. Wayland, "respecting the bearing of the
Scripture precept upon this case, a few plain questions may throw
additional light upon the subject."[151] Now, if we mistake not, the few
plain questions which he deems so unanswerable may be answered with the
most perfect ease. "Would the master be willing," he asks, "that another
person should subject him to slavery, for the same reasons and on the
same grounds that he holds his slave in bondage?" We answer, No. If any
man should undertake to subject Southern masters to slavery, on the
ground that they are intellectually and morally sunk so low as to be
unfit for freedom or self-control, we should certainly not like the
compliment. It may argue a very great degree of self-complacency in us,
but yet the plain fact is, that we really do believe ourselves competent
to govern ourselves, and to manage our affairs, without the aid of
masters. And as we are not willing to be made slaves of, especially on
any such humiliating grounds, so we are not willing to see any other
nation or race of men, whom we may deem qualified for the glorious
condition of freedom, subjected to servitude.
"Would the gospel allow us," he also asks, "if it were in our power, to
reduce our fellow-citizens of our own color to slavery?" Certainly not.
Nor do we propose to reduce any one, either white or black, to a state
of slavery. It is amazing to see with what an air of confidence such
questions are propounded. Dr. Channing, no less than Dr. Wayland, seems
to think they must carry home irresistible conviction to the heart and
conscience of every man who is not irremediably blinded by the
detestable institution of slavery. "Now, let every reader," says he,
"ask himself this plain question: Could I, can I, be rightfully seized
and made an article of property?" And we, too, say, Let every reader ask
himself this plain question, and then, if he please, answer it in the
negative. But what, then, should follow? Why, if you please, he should
refuse to seize any other man or to make him an article of property. He
should be opposed to the crime of kidnapping. But if, from such an
answer, he should conclude that the institution of slavery is
"everywhere and always wrong," then surely, after what has been said,
not another word is needed to expose the ineffable weakness and futility
of the conclusion.
This golden rule, this divine precept, requires us to conceive ourselves
placed in the condition of our slaves, and then to ask ourselves, How
should we be treated by the master? in order to obtain a clear and
impartial view of our duty to them. This it requires of us; and this we
can most cheerfully perform. We can conceive that we are poor, helpless,
dependent beings, possessing the passions of men and the intellects of
children. We can conceive that we are by nature idle, improvident, and,
without a protector and friend to guide and control us, utterly unable
to take care of ourselves. And, having conceived all this, if we ask
ourselves, How should we be treated by the masters whom the law has
placed over us, what is the response? Is it that they should turn us
loose to shift for ourselves? Is it that they should abandon us to
ourselves, only to fall a prey to indolence, and to the legion of vices
and crimes which ever follow in its train? Is it that they should set us
free, and expose us, without protection, to the merciless impositions of
the worst portions of a stronger and more sagacious race? Is it, in one
word, that we should be free from the dominion of men, who, as a general
thing, are humane and wise in their management of us, only to become the
victims--the most debased and helpless victims--of every evil way? We
answer, No! Even the spirit of abolitionism itself has, in the person of
Dr. Wayland, declared that such treatment would, in all probability, be
the greatest of calamities. We feel sure it would be an infinite and
remediless curse. And as we believe that, if we were in the condition of
slaves, such treatment would be so great and so withering a curse, so we
cannot, out of a feeling of love, proceed to inflict this curse upon our
slaves. On the contrary, _we would do as we so clearly see we ought to
be done by_, if our conditions were changed.
Is it not amazing, as well as melancholy, that learned divines, who
undertake to instruct the benighted South in the great principles of
duty, should entertain such superficial and erroneous views of the
first, great, and all-comprehending precept of the gospel? If their
interpretation of this precept were correct, then the child might be set
free from the authority of the father, and the criminal from the
sentence of the judge. All justice would be extinguished, all order
overthrown, and boundless confusion introduced into the affairs of men.
Yet, with unspeakable self-complacency, they come with such miserable
interpretations of the plainest truths to instruct those whom they
conceive to be blinded by custom and the institution of slavery to the
clearest light of heaven. They tell us, "Thou shouldst love thy neighbor
as thyself;" and they reiterate these words in our ears, just as if we
had never heard them before. If this is all they have to say, why then
we would remind them that the _meaning_ of the precept is the precept.
It is not a mere _sound_, it is _sense_, which these glorious words are
intended to convey. And if they can only repeat the words for us, why
then they might just as well send a host of free negroes with good,
strong lungs to be our instructors in moral science.
§ VIII. _The eighth fallacy of the abolitionist._
An argument is drawn from the divine attributes against the institution
of slavery. One would suppose that a declaration from God himself is
some little evidence as to what is agreeable to his attributes; but it
seems that moral philosophers have, now-a-days, found out a better
method of arriving at what is implied by his perfections. Dr. Wayland is
one of those who, setting aside the word of God, appeal to his
attributes in favor of the immediate and universal abolition of slavery.
If slavery were abolished, says he, "the laborer would then work in
conformity with the conditions which God has appointed, whereas he now
works at variance with them; in the one case, we should be attempting to
accumulate property under the blessing of God, whereas now we are
attempting to do it under _his special and peculiar malediction_. How
can we expect to prosper, when there is not, as Mr. Jefferson remarks,
'an attribute of the Almighty that can be appealed to in our
favor'?"[152] If we may rely upon his own words, rather than upon the
confident assertions of Dr. Wayland, we need not fear the curse of God
upon the slaveholder. The readiness with which Dr. Wayland points the
thunders of the divine wrath at our heads, is better evidence of the
passions of his own heart than of the perfections of the Almighty.
Again he says: "If Jefferson trembled for his country when he remembered
that God is just, and declared that, 'in case of insurrection, the
Almighty has no attribute that can take part with us in the contest,'
surely it becomes a _disciple of Jesus Christ_ to pause and reflect."
Now let it be borne in mind that all this proceeds from a man, from a
professed disciple of Jesus Christ, who, in various places, has truly,
as well as emphatically, said, "_The duty of slaves_ is also explicitly
made known in the Bible. They are bound to _obedience_, _fidelity_,
_submission_, and respect to their masters,"[153] etc., etc.
Such, then, according to Dr. Wayland himself, is the clear and
unequivocal teaching of revelation. And such being the case, shall the
_real_ "disciple of Jesus Christ" be made to believe, on the authority
of Mr. Jefferson or of any other man, that the Almighty has no attribute
which could induce him to take sides with his own law? If, instead of
submission to that law, there should be rebellion,--and not only
rebellion, but bloodshed and murder,--shall we believe that the
Almighty, the supreme Ruler of heaven and earth, would look on well
pleased? Since such is the express declaration of God himself respecting
the duty of slaves, it surely becomes a disciple of Christ to pause and
reflect whether he will follow his voice or the voice of man.
We owe at least one benefit to the Northern abolitionists. Ere the
subject of slavery was agitated by them, there were many loose, floating
notions among us, as well as among themselves, respecting the nature of
liberty, which were at variance with the institution of slavery. But
since this agitation began, we have looked more narrowly into the
grounds of slavery, as well as into the character of the arguments by
which it is assailed, and we have found the first as solid as adamant,
the last as unsubstantial as moonshine. If Mr. Jefferson had lived till
the present day, there can be no doubt, we think, that he would have
been on the same side of this great question with the Calhouns, the
Clays, and the Websters of the country. We have known many who, at one
time, fully concurred with Mr. Jefferson on this subject, but are now
firm believers in the perfect justice and humanity of negro slavery.
§ IX. _The ninth fallacy of the abolitionist._
We have already seen that the abolitionist argues the question of
slavery as if Southerners were proposing to catch freemen and reduce
them to bondage. He habitually overlooks the fact, that slavery results,
not from the action of the individual, but from an ordinance of the
State. He forgets that it is a civil institution, and proceeds to argue
as if it were founded in individual wrong. And even when he rises--as he
sometimes does--to a contemplation of the real question in dispute, he
generally takes a most narrow and one-sided view of the subject. For he
generally takes it for granted that the legislation which ordains the
institution of slavery is _intended_ solely and exclusively for the
benefit of the master, without the least regard to the interests of the
slave.
Thus says Dr. Wayland: "Domestic slavery proceeds upon the principle
that the master has a right to control the actions--physical and
intellectual--of the slave for his own (that is, the master's)
individual benefit,"[154] etc. And again: "It supposes that the Creator
intended one human being to govern the physical, intellectual, and moral
actions of as many other human beings as, by purchase, he can bring
within his physical power; and that _one human being may thus acquire a
right to sacrifice the happiness of any number of other human beings,
for the purpose of promoting his own_."[155] Now, surely, if this
representation be just, then the institution of slavery should be held
in infinite abhorrence by every man in Christendom.
But we can assure Dr. Wayland that, however ignorant or heathenish he
may be pleased to consider the people of the Southern States, we are not
so utterly lost to all reverence for the Creator as to suppose, even for
a moment, that he _intended any one human being to possess the right of
sacrificing the happiness of his fellow-men to his own_. We can assure
him that we are not quite so dead to every sentiment of political
justice, as to imagine that any legislation which intends to benefit the
one at the expense of the many is otherwise than unequal and iniquitous
in the extreme. There is some little sense of justice left among us yet;
and hence we approve of no institution or law which proceeds on the
monstrous principle that any one man has, or can have, the "_right to
sacrifice the happiness of any number of other human beings for the
purpose of promoting his own_." We recognize no such right. It is as
vehemently abhorred and condemned by us as it can be abhorred and
condemned by the author himself.
In thus taking it for granted, as Dr. Wayland so coolly does, that the
institution in question is "intended" to sacrifice the happiness of the
slaves to the selfish interest of the master, he incontinently begs the
whole question. Let him establish this point, and the whole controversy
will be at an end. But let him not hope to establish any thing, or to
satisfy any one, by assuming the very point in dispute, and then proceed
to demolish what every man at the South condemns no less than himself.
Surely, no one who has looked at both sides of this great question can
be ignorant that the legislation of the South proceeds on the principle
that slavery is beneficial, not to the master only, but also and
_especially_ to the slave. Surely, no one who has either an eye or an
ear for facts can be ignorant that the institution of slavery is based
on the ground, or principle, that it is beneficial, not only to the
parts, but also to the whole, of the society in which it exists. This
ground, or principle, is set forth in every defense of slavery by the
writers and speakers of the South; it is so clearly and so unequivocally
set forth, that he who runs may read. Why, then, is it overlooked by Dr.
Wayland? Why is he pleased to imagine that he is combating Southern
principles, when, in reality, he is merely combating the monstrous
figment, the distorted conception of his own brain,--namely, the right
of one man to sacrifice the happiness of multitudes to his own will and
pleasure? Is it because facts do not lie within the province of the
moral philosopher? Is it because fiction alone is worthy of his
attention? Or is it because a blind, partisan zeal has so far taken
possession of his very understanding, that he finds it impossible to
speak of the institution of slavery, except in the language of the
grossest misrepresentation?
§ X. _The tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth,
and sixteenth fallacies of the abolitionist; or his seven arguments
against the right of a man to hold property in his fellow-man._
"This claim of property in a human being," says Dr. Channing, "is
altogether false, groundless. No such right of man in man can exist. A
human being cannot be justly owned." The only difficulty in maintaining
this position is, according to Dr. Channing, "on account of its
exceeding obviousness. It is too plain for proof. To defend it is like
trying to confirm a self-evident truth," etc., etc. Yet he advances no
less than seven "arguments," as he calls them, in order to establish
this self-evident position. We shall examine these seven arguments, and
see if his great confidence be not built on a mere abuse of words.
"The consciousness of our humanity," says he, "involves the persuasion
that we cannot be owned as a tree or a brute." This, as every body
knows, is one of the hackneyed commonplaces of the abolitionist. He
never ceases to declaim about the injustice of slavery, because it
regards, as he is pleased to assert, a man as a mere thing or a brute.
Now, once for all, we freely admit that it were monstrously unjust to
regard or treat a man otherwise than as a man. We freely admit that a
human being "can not be owned as a tree or a brute."
A tree may be _absolutely_ owned. That is to say, the owner of a tree
may do what he pleases with his own, provided he do no harm or injury
with it. He may cut it down; and, if he please, he may beat it as long
as he has the power to raise an arm. He may work it into a house or into
a piece of furniture, or he may lay it on the fire, and reduce it to
ashes. He may, we repeat, do just exactly what he pleases with his own,
if his own be such a thing as a tree, _for a tree has no rights_.
It is far otherwise with a brute. The owner of a horse, for example, may
not do what he pleases with his own. Here his property is not
_absolute_; it is _limited_. He may not beat his horse without mercy,
"for a good man is merciful to his beast." He may not cut his horse to
pieces, or burn him on the fire. For the horse has rights, which the
owner himself is bound to respect. The horse has a right to food and
kind treatment, and the owner who refuses these is a tyrant. Nay, the
very worm that crawls beneath our feet has his rights as well as the
monarch on his throne; and just in so far as these rights are
disregarded by a man is that man a tyrant.
Hence even the brute may not be regarded or treated as a mere thing or a
tree. He can be owned and treated no otherwise than as a brute. The
horse, for example, may not be left, like a tree, without food and care;
but he may be saddled and rode as a horse; or he may be hitched to the
plough, and compelled to do his master's work.
In like manner, a man cannot be owned or treated as a horse. He cannot
be saddled or rode, nor hitched to the plough and be made to do the work
of a horse. On the contrary, he should be treated as a man, and required
to perform only the work of a man. The right to such work is all the
ownership which any one man can rightfully have in another; and this is
all which any slaveholder of the South needs to claim.
The real question is, _Can one man have a right to the personal service
or obedience of another without his consent?_ We do not intend to let
the abolitionist throw dust in our eyes, and shout victory amid a clamor
of words. We intend to hold him to the point. Whether he be a learned
divine, or a distinguished senator, we intend he shall speak to the
point, or else his argument shall be judged, not according to the
eloquent noise it makes or the excitement it produces, but according to
the _sense_ it contains.
_Can a man, then, have a right to the labor or obedience of another
without his consent?_ Give us this right, and it is all we ask. We lay
no claim to the soul of the slave. We grant to the abolitionist, even
more freely than he can assert, that the "soul of the slave is his own."
Or, rather, we grant that his soul belongs exclusively to the God who
gave it. The master may use him not as a tree or a brute, but only as a
rational, accountable, and immortal being may be used. He may not
command him to do any thing which is wrong; and if he should so far
forget himself as to require such service of his slave, he would himself
be guilty of the act. If he should require his slave to violate any law
of the land, he would be held not as a _particeps criminis_ merely, but
as a criminal in the first degree. In like manner, if he should require
him to violate the law of God, he would be guilty--far more guilty than
the slave himself--in the sight of heaven. These are truths which are
just as well understood at the South as they are at the North.
The master, we repeat, lays no claim to the soul of the slave. He
demands no spiritual service of him, he exacts no divine honors. With
his own soul he is fully permitted to serve his own God. With this soul
he may follow the solemn injunction of the Most High, "Servants, obey
your masters;" or he may listen to the voice of the tempter, "Servants,
fly from your masters." Those only who instigate him to violate the law
of God, whether at the North or at the South, are the men who seek to
deprive him of his rights and to exercise an infamous dominion over his
soul.
Since, then, the master claims only a right to the labor and lawful
obedience of the slave, and no right whatever to his soul, it follows
that the argument, which Dr. Channing regards as the strongest of his
seven, has no real foundation. Since the master claims to have no
property in the "rational, moral, and immortal" part of his being, so
all the arguments, or rather all the empty declamation, based on the
false supposition of such claim, falls to the ground. So the passionate
appeals, proceeding on the supposition of such a monstrous claim, and
addressed to the religious sensibilities of the multitude, are only
calculated to deceive and mislead their judgment. It is a mere thing of
words; and, though "full of sound and fury," it signifies nothing. "The
traffic in human souls," which figures so largely in the speeches of the
divines and demagogues, and which so fiercely stirs up the most
unhallowed passions of their hearers, _is merely the transfer of a right
to labor_.
Does any one doubt whether such a right may exist? The master certainly
has a right to the labor of his apprentice for a specified period of
time, though he has no right to his soul even for a moment. The father,
too, has a right to the personal service and obedience of his child
until he reach the age of twenty-one; but no one ever supposed that he
owned the soul of his child, or might sell it, if he pleased, to
another. Though he may not sell the soul of his child, it is universally
admitted that he may, for good and sufficient reasons, transfer his
right to the labor and obedience of his child. Why, then, should it be
thought impossible that such a right to service may exist for life? If
it may exist for one period, why not for a longer, and even for life?
If the good of both parties and the good of the whole community require
such a relation and such a right to exist, why should it be deemed so
unjust, so iniquitous, so monstrous? This whole controversy turns, we
repeat, not upon any consideration of abstract rights, but solely upon
the highest good of all--upon the highest good of the slave as well as
upon that of the community.
"It is plain," says Dr. Channing, in his first argument, "that if any
one may be held as property, then any other man may be so held." This
sophism has been already sufficiently refuted. It proceeds on the
supposition that if one man, however incapable of self-government, may
be placed under the control of another, then all men may be placed under
the control of others! It proceeds on the idea that all men should be
placed in precisely the same condition, subjected to precisely the same
authority, and required to perform precisely the same kind of labor. In
one word, it sees no difference and makes no distinction between a Negro
and a Newton. But as an overstrained and false idea of equality lies at
the foundation of this argument, so it will pass under review again,
when we come to consider the great demonstration which the abolitionist
is accustomed to deduce from the axiom that "all men are created equal."
The third argument of Dr. Channing is, like the first, "founded on the
essential equality of men." Hence, like the first, it may be postponed
until we come to consider the true meaning and the real political
significancy of the natural equality of all men. We shall barely remark,
in passing, that two arguments cannot be made out of one by merely
changing the mode of expression.
The second argument of the author is as follows: "A man cannot be seized
and held as property, because he has rights. . . . A being having rights
cannot justly be made property, _for this claim over him virtually
annuls all his rights_." This argument, it is obvious, is based on the
arbitrary idea which the author has been pleased to attach to the term
_property_. If it proves any thing, it would prove that a horse could
not be held as property, for a horse certainly has rights. But, as we
have seen, a limited property, or a right to the labor of a man, does
not deny or annul all his rights, nor necessarily any one of them. This
argument needs no further refutation. For we acknowledge that the slave
has rights; and the limited or qualified property which the master
claims in him, extending merely to his personal human labor and his
lawful obedience, touches not one of these rights.
The fourth argument of Dr. Channing is identical with the second. "That
a human being," says he, "cannot be justly held as property, is apparent
from _the very nature of property_. Property is an exclusive right. It
shuts out all claim but that of the possessor. What one man owns cannot
belong to another." The only difference between the two arguments is
this: in one the "_nature of_ property" is said "to annul all rights;"
and in the other it is said "to exclude all rights!" Both are based on
the same idea of property, and both arrive at the same conclusion, with
only a very slight difference in the mode of expression!
And both are equally unsound. True; "what one man owns cannot belong to
another." But may not one man have a right to the labor of another, as a
father to the labor of his son, or a master to the labor of his
apprentice; and yet that other a right to food and raiment, as well as
to other things? May not one have a right to the service of another,
without annulling or excluding all the rights of that other? This
argument proceeds, it is evident, on the false supposition that if any
being be held as property, then he has no rights; a supposition which,
if true, would exclude and annul the right of property in every living
creature.
Dr. Channing's fifth argument is deduced from "the universal indignation
excited toward _a man_ who makes another his slave." "Our laws," says
he, "know no higher crime than that of reducing a man to slavery. To
steal or to buy an African on his own shores is piracy." "To steal a
man," we reply, is one thing; and, by the authority of the law of the
land, to require him to do certain labor, is, one would think, quite
another. The first may be as high a crime as any known to our laws; the
last is recognized by our laws themselves. Is it not wonderful that Dr.
Channing could not see so plain a distinction, so broad and so glaring a
difference? The father of his country held slaves; _he did not commit
the crime of man-stealing_.
The sixth argument of Dr. Channing, "against the right of property in
man," is "drawn from a very obvious principle of moral science. It is a
plain truth, universally received, that every right supposes or involves
a corresponding obligation. If, then, a man has a right to another's
person or powers, the latter is under obligation to give himself up as
a chattel to the former." Most assuredly, if one man has a right to the
service or obedience of another, then that other is under obligation to
render that service or obedience to him. But is such an obligation
absurd? Is it inconsistent with the inherent, the inalienable, the
universal rights of man that the "servant should obey his master?" If
so, then we fear the rights of man were far better understood by Dr.
Channing than by the Creator of the world and the Author of revelation.
Such are the seven arguments adduced by Dr. Channing to show that no man
can rightfully hold property in his fellow-man. But before we quit this
branch of the subject, we shall advert to a passage in the address of
the Hon. Charles Sumner, before the people of New York, at the
Metropolitan Theatre, May 9, 1855. "I desire to present this argument,"
says he, "on grounds above all controversy, impeachment, or suspicion,
even from slave-masters themselves. Not on triumphant story, not even on
indisputable facts, do I now accuse slavery, but on its character, as
revealed in its own simple definition of itself. Out of its own mouth do
I condemn it." Well, and why does he condemn it? Because, "by the law of
slavery, man, created in the image of God, is _divested of his human
character_ and declared to be a _mere_ chattel. That the statement may
not seem to be put forward without precise authority, I quote the law of
two different slave States." That is the accusation. It is to be proved
by the law of slavery itself. It is to be proved beyond "all
controversy," by an appeal to "indisputable facts." Now let us have the
facts: here they are. "The law of another polished slave State, says Mr.
Sumner, "gives this definition: 'Slaves shall be delivered, sold, taken,
reputed, and adjudged in law to be chattels personal, in the hands of
their owners and possessors, and their executors, administrators, and
assignees, to all intents, constructions, and purposes whatsoever.'"
Now, _mark_; the learned Senator undertook to prove, beyond all doubt
and controversy, that slavery _divests the slave of his human
character_, and declares him to be a _mere_ chattel. But he merely
proves that it declares him to be a "chattel personal." He merely proves
that the law of a Southern State regards the slave, not as real estate
or landed property, but as a "chattel personal." Does this divest him of
his human character? Does this make him a _mere_ chattel? May the
slave, in consequence of such law, be treated as a brute or a tree? May
he be cut in pieces or worked to death at the will and pleasure of the
master?
"We think that a learned Senator, especially when he undertakes to
demonstrate, should distinguish between declaring a man to be "a chattel
personal," and a _mere_ chattel. No one doubts that a man is a thing;
but is he therefore a _mere_ thing, or nothing more than a thing? In
like manner, no one doubts that a man is an animal; does it follow,
therefore, that he is a _mere_ animal, or nothing but an animal? It is
clear, that to declare a man may be held as a "chattel personal," is a
very different thing from declaring that he is a _mere_ chattel. So much
for his honor's "precise authority."
In what part of the law, then, is the slave "divested of his human
character?" In no part whatever. If it had declared him to be a _mere_
thing, or a _mere_ chattel, or a _mere_ animal, it would have denied his
human character, we admit; but the law in question has done no such
thing. Nor is any such declaration contained in the other law quoted by
the learned Senator from the code of Louisiana. It is _merely_ by the
interpolation of this little word _mere_, that the Senator of
Massachusetts has made the law of South Carolina divest an immortal
being of his "human character." He is welcome to all the applause which
this may have gained for him in the "Metropolitan Theatre."
The learned Senator adduces another authority. "A careful writer," says
he, "Judge Stroud, in a work of juridical as well as philanthropic
merit, thus sums up the laws: 'The cardinal principle of slavery--that
the slave is not to be ranked among _sentient_[156] beings, but among
things--as an article of property--a chattel personal--obtains as
undoubted law in all these (the slave) States.'" We thus learn from this
very "careful writer" that slaves among us are "not ranked among
_sentient_ beings," and that this is "the cardinal principle of
slavery." No, they are not fed, nor clothed, nor treated as sentient
beings! They are left without food and raiment, just as if they were
stocks and stones! They are not talked to, nor reasoned with, as if they
were rational animals, but only driven about, like dumb brutes beneath
the lash! No, no, not the lash, for that would recognize them as
"sentient beings!" They are only thrown about like stones, or boxed up
like chattels; they are not set, like men, over the lower animals,
required to do the work of men; the precise work which, of all others,
in the grand and diversified economy of _human_ industry, they are the
best qualified to perform! So far, indeed, is this from being "the
cardinal principle of slavery," that it is no principle of slavery at
all. It bears not the most distant likeness or approximation to any
principle of slavery, with which we of the South have any the most
remote acquaintance.
That man may, in certain cases, be held as property, is a truth
recognized by a higher authority than that of senators and divines. It
is, as we have seen, recognized by the word of God himself. In that
word, the slave is called the "possession"[157] of the master, and even
"his money."[158] Now, is not this language as strong, if not stronger,
than that adduced from the code of South Carolina? It certainly calls
the "bondman" his master's "money." Why, then, did not the Senator from
Massachusetts denounce this language, as divesting "a man of his human
character," and declaring him to be _mere_ money? Why did he not proceed
to condemn the legislation of Heaven, as well as of the South, out of
its own mouth? Most assuredly, if his principles be correct, then is he
bound to pronounce the law of God itself manifestly unjust and
iniquitous. For that law as clearly recognizes the right of property in
man as it could possibly be recognized in words. But it nowhere commits
the flagrant solecism of supposing that this right of the master annuls
or excludes all the rights of the slave. On the contrary, the rights of
the slave are recognized, as well as those of the master. For, according
to the law of God, though "a possession," and an "inheritance," and "a
bondman forever," yet is the slave, nevertheless, a man; and, as a man,
is he protected in his rights; in his rights, not as defined by
abolitionists, but as recognized by the word of God.
§ XI. _The seventeenth fallacy of the abolitionist; or the argument from
the Declaration of Independence._
This argument is regarded by the abolitionists as one of their great
strongholds; and no doubt it is so in effect, for who can bear a
superior? Lucifer himself, who fell from heaven because he could not
acknowledge a superior, seduced our first parents by the suggestion that
in throwing off the yoke of subjection, they should become "as gods." We
need not wonder, then, if it should be found, that an appeal to the
absolute equality of all men is the most ready way to effect the ruin of
States. We can surely conceive of none better adapted to subvert all
order among us of the South, involving the two races in a servile war,
and the one or the other in utter extinction. Hence we shall examine
this argument from the equality of all men, or rather this appeal to all
men's abhorrence of inferiority. This appeal is usually based on the
Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident:
that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness." We do not mean to play upon these words; we
intend to take them exactly as they are understood by our opponents. As
they are not found in a metaphysical document or discussion, so it would
be unfair to suppose--as is sometimes done--that they inculcate the wild
dream of Helvetius, that all men are created with equal natural
capacities of mind. They occur in a declaration of independence; and as
the subject is the doctrine of human rights, so we suppose they mean to
declare that all men are created equal with respect to natural rights.
Nor do we assert that there is no truth in this celebrated proposition
or maxim; for we believe that, if rightly understood, it contains most
important and precious truth. It is not on this account, however, the
less dangerous as a maxim of political philosophy. Nay, falsehood is
only then the more dangerous, when it is so blended with truth that its
existence is not suspected by its victims. Hence the unspeakable
importance of dissecting this pretended maxim, and separating the
precious truth it contains from the pernicious falsehood by which its
followers are deceived. Its truth is certainly very far from being
self-evident, or rather its truth is self-evident to some, while its
falsehood is equally self-evident to others, according to the side from
which it is viewed. We shall endeavor to throw some light both upon its
truth and its falsehood, and, if possible, draw the line which divides
them from each other.
This maxim does not mean, then, that all men have, by nature, an equal
right to political power or to posts of honor. No doubt the words are
often understood in this sense by those who, without reflection, merely
echo the Declaration of Independence; but, in this sense, they are
utterly untenable. If all men had, by nature, an equal right to any of
the offices of government, how could such rights be adjusted? How could
such a conflict be reconciled? It is clear that all men could not be
President of the United States; and if all men had an equal natural
right to that office, no one man could be elevated to it without a wrong
to all the rest. In such case, all men should have, at least, an equal
chance to occupy the presidential chair. Such equal chance could not
result from the right of all men to offer themselves as candidates for
the office; for, at the bar of public opinion, vast multitudes would not
have the least shadow of a chance. The only way to effect such an object
would be by resorting to the lot. We might thus determine who, among so
many equally just claimants, should actually possess the power of the
supreme magistrate. This, it must be confessed, would be to recognize in
deed, as well as in word, the equal rights of all men. But what more
absurd than such an equality of rights? It is not without example in
history; but it is to be hoped that such example will never be copied.
The democracy of Athens, it is well known, was, at one time, so far
carried away by the idea of equal rights, that her generals and orators
and poets were elected by the lot. This was an equality, not in theory
merely, but in practice. Though the lives and fortunes of mankind were
thus intrusted to the most ignorant and depraved, or to the most wise
and virtuous, as the lot might determine, yet this policy was based on
an equality of rights. It is scarcely necessary to add that this idea of
equality prevailed, not in the better days of the Athenian democracy,
but only during its imbecility and corruption.
If all men, then, have not a natural right to fill an office of
government, who has this right? Who has the natural right, for example,
to occupy the office of President of the United States? Certainly some
men have no such right. The man, for example, who has no capacity to
govern himself, but needs a guardian, has no right to superintend the
affairs of a great nation. Though a citizen, he has no more right to
exercise such power or authority than if he were a Hottentot, or an
African, or an ape. Hence, in bidding such a one to stand aside and
keep aloof from such high office, no right is infringed and no injury
done. Nay, right is secured, and injury prevented.
Who has such a right, then?--such natural right, or right according to
the law of nature or reason? The man, we answer, who, all things
considered, is the best qualified to discharge the duties of the office.
The man who, by his superior wisdom, and virtue, and statesmanship,
would use the power of such office more effectually for the good of the
whole people than would any other man. If there be one such man, and
only one, he of _natural right_ should be our President. And all the
laws framed to regulate the election of President are, or should be,
only so many means designed to secure the services of that man, if
possible, and thereby secure the rights of all against the possession of
power by the unworthy or the less worthy. This object, it is true, is
not always attained, these means are not always successful; but this is
only one of the manifold imperfections which necessarily attach to all
human institutions; one of the melancholy instances in which natural and
legal right run in different channels. All that can be hoped, indeed,
either in the construction or in the administration of human laws, is an
approximation, more or less close, to the great principles of natural
justice.
What is thus so clearly true in regard to the office of President, is
equally true in regard to all the other offices of government. It is
contrary to reason, to natural right, to justice, that either fools, or
knaves, or demagogues should occupy seats in Congress; yet all of these
classes are sometimes seen there, and by the law of the land are
entitled to their seats. Here, again, that which is right and fit in
itself is different from that which exists under the law.
The same remarks, it is evident, are applicable to governors, to judges,
to sheriffs, to constables, and to justices of the peace. In every
instance, he who is best qualified to discharge the duties of an office,
and who would do so with greatest advantage to all concerned, has the
natural right thereto. And no man who would fill any office, or exercise
any power so as to injure the community, has any right to such office or
power.
There is precisely the same limitation to the exercise of the elective
franchise. Those only should be permitted to exercise this power who are
qualified to do so with advantage to the community; and all laws which
regulate or limit the possession of this power should have in view, not
the equal rights of all men, but solely and exclusively the public good.
It is on this principle that foreigners are not allowed to vote as soon
as they land upon our shores, and that native Americans can do so only
after they have reached a certain age. And if the public good required
that any class of men, such as free blacks or slaves, for example,
should be excluded from the privilege altogether, then no doubt can
remain the law excluding them would be just. It might not be equal, but
would be _just_. Indeed, in the high and holy sense of the word, it
would be equal; for, if it excluded some from a privilege or power which
it conferred upon others, this is because they were not included within
the condition on which alone it should be extended to any. Such is not
an equality of rights and power, it is true; but it is an equality of
justice, like that which reigns in the divine government itself. In the
light of that justice, it is clear that no man, and no class of men, can
have a natural right to exercise a power which, if intrusted to them,
would be wielded for harm, and not for good.
This great truth, when stripped of the manifold sophistications of a
false logic, is so clear and unquestionable, that it has not failed to
secure the approbation of abolitionists themselves. Thus, after all his
wild extravagancies about inherent, inalienable, and equal rights, Dr.
Channing has, in one of his calmer moods, recognized this great
fundamental truth. "The slave," says he, "cannot rightfully, and should
not, be owned by the individual. But, like every citizen, _he is subject
to the community_, AND THE COMMUNITY HAS A RIGHT AND IS BOUND TO
CONTINUE ALL SUCH RESTRAINTS AS ITS OWN SAFETY AND THE WELL-BEING OF THE
SLAVE DEMANDS." Now this is all we ask in regard to the question of
equal rights. All we ask is, that each and every individual may be in
such wise and so far restrained as the public good demands and no
further. All we ask is, as may be seen from the first chapter of this
Essay, that the right of the individual, whether real or imaginary, may
be held in subjection to the undoubted right of the community to protect
itself and to secure its own highest good. This solemn right, so
inseparably linked to a sacred duty, is paramount to the rights and
powers of the individual. Nay, as we have already seen,[159] the
individual can have no right that conflicts with this; because it is
his _duty_ to co-operate in the establishment of the general good.
Surely he can have no right which is adverse to duty. Indeed, if for the
general good, he would not cheerfully lay down both liberty and life,
then both may be rightfully taken from him. We have, it is true,
inherent and _inalienable rights_, but among these is neither liberty
nor life. For these, upon our country's altar, may be sacrificed; but
conscience, truth, honor may not be touched by man.
Has the community, then, after all, the right to compel "a man," a
"rational and immortal being," to work? Let Dr. Channing answer: "If he
(the slave) cannot be induced to work by rational and natural motives,
_he should be obliged to labor, on the same principle on which the
vagrant in other communities is confined and compelled to earn his
bread_." Now, if a man be "confined, and compelled" to work in his
confinement, what becomes of his "inalienable right to liberty?" We
think there must be a slight mistake somewhere. Perhaps it is in the
Declaration of Independence itself. Nay, is it not evident, indeed, that
if all men have an inalienable right to liberty," then is this sacred
right trampled in the dust by every government on earth? Is it not as
really disregarded by the enlightened Commonwealth of Massachusetts,
which "confines and compels" vagrants to earn their bread, as it is by
the Legislature of Virginia, which has taken the wise precaution to
prevent the rise of a swarm of vagrants more destructive than the
locusts of Egypt? The plain truth is, that although this notion of the
"inalienable right" of all to liberty may sound very well in a
declaration of independence, and may be most admirably adapted to stir
up the passions of men and produce fatal commotions in a commonwealth,
yet no wise nation ever has been or ever will be guided by it in the
construction of her laws. It may be a brand of discord in the hands of
the abolitionist and the demagogue. It will never be an element of
light, or power, or wisdom, in the bosom of the statesman.
"The gift of liberty," continues Dr. Channing, "would be a mere name,
and worse than nominal, were he (the slave) to be let loose on society
under circumstances driving him to commit crimes, for which he would be
condemned to severer bondage than he had escaped." If then, after all,
liberty may be worse than a mere name, is it not a pity that all men
should have an "inalienable right" to it? If it may be a curse, is it
not a pity that all men should be required to embrace it, and to be even
ready to die for it, as an invaluable blessing? We trust that "no man,"
that "no rational and immortal being," will ever be so ungrateful as to
complain of those who have withheld from him that which is "worse than
nominal," and a curse. For if such, and such only, be his inalienable
birthright, were it not most wisely exchanged for a mess of pottage? The
vagrant, then, should not be consulted whether he will work or not. He
should be "confined and compelled" to work, says Dr. Channing. Nor
should the idle and the vicious, those who cannot be induced to work by
rational motives, be asked whether they will remain pests to society, or
whether they will eat their bread in the sweat of their brow. "For they,
too," says Dr. Channing, "should be compelled to work." But how? "The
slave should not have an owner," says Dr. Channing, "but he should have
a guardian. He needs authority, to supply the lack of that discretion
which he has not yet attained; but it should be the authority of a
friend, an official authority, conferred by the State, and for which
there should be responsibility to the State." Now, if all this be true,
is not the doctrine of equal rights, as held by Dr. Channing, a mere
dream? If one man may have "a guardian," "an official authority,"
appointed by the State, to compel him to work, why may not another be
placed under the same authority, and subjected to the same servitude?
Are not all equal? Have not all men an equal right to liberty and to a
choice of the pursuits of happiness? Let these questions be answered by
the admirers of Dr. Channing; and it will be found that they have
overthrown all the plausible logic, and blown away all the splendid
rhetoric, which has been reared, on the ground of equal rights, against
the institution of slavery at the South.
We are agreed, then, that men may be compelled to work. We are also
agreed that, for this purpose, the slaves of the South should be placed
under guardians and friends by the authority of the State. Dr. Channing
thinks, however, that the owner is not the best guardian or the best
friend whom the State could place over the slave. On the contrary, he
thinks his best friend and guardian would be an official overseer, bound
to him by no ties of interest, and by no peculiar feelings of affection.
In all this, we think Dr. Channing greatly mistaken; and mistaken
because he is an utter stranger to the feelings usually called forth by
the relation of master and slave. But, be this as it may, since such are
the concessions made by Dr. Channing, it is no longer necessary to
debate the question of slavery with him, on the high ground of abstract
inalienable rights. It is brought down to one of practical utility, of
public expediency.
And such being the nature of the question, we, as free citizens of the
South, claim the right to settle the matter for ourselves. We claim the
right to appoint such guardians and friends for this class of our
population as we believe will be most advantageous to them, as well as
to the whole community. We claim the right to impose such restraints,
and such only, as the well-being of our own society seems to us to
demand. This claim may be denied. The North may claim the right to think
for us in regard to this question of expediency. But it cannot be denied
that if liberty may be a curse, then no man can, in such case, have a
right to it as a blessing.
If liberty would be an equal blessing to all men, then, we freely admit,
all men would have an equal right to liberty. But to concede, as Dr.
Channing does, that it were a curse to some men and yet contend that all
men have an equal right to its enjoyment, is sheer absurdity and
nonsense. But Dr. Channing, as we have seen, sometimes speaks a better
sense. Thus, he has even said, "It would be cruelty, not kindness, to
the latter (to the slave) to give him a freedom which he is unprepared
to understand or enjoy. It would be cruelty to strike the fetters from a
man whose first steps would infallibly lead him to a precipice." So far,
then, according to the author himself, are all men from having an
"inalienable right" to liberty, that some men have no right to it at
all.
In like manner, Dr. Wayland, by his own admission, has overthrown all
his most confident deductions from the notion of equal rights. He, too,
quotes the Declaration of Independence, and adds, "That the equality
here spoken of is not of the means of happiness, but in the right to use
them as one wills, is too evident to need illustration." If this be the
meaning, then the meaning is not so evidently true. On the contrary, the
vaunted maxim in question, as understood by Dr. Wayland, appears to be
pure and unmixed error. Power, for example, is one means of happiness;
and so great a means, too, that without it all other means would be of
no avail. But has any man a right to use this means of happiness as he
wills? Most assuredly not. He has no right to use the power he may
possess, nor any other means of happiness, as he will, but only as
lawful authority has willed. If it be a power conferred by man, for
example, such as that of a chief magistrate, or of a senator, or of a
judge, he may use it no otherwise than as the law of the land permits,
or in pursuance of the objects for which it was conferred. In like
manner, if it proceed from the Almighty, it may be used only in
conformity with his law. So far, then, is it from being true that all
men possess an equal right to use the means of happiness as they please,
that no man ever has, or ever will, possess any such right at all. And
if such be the meaning of the Declaration of Independence, then the
Declaration of Independence is too evidently erroneous to need any
further refutation. Unless, indeed, man may put forth a declaration of
independence which shall annul and destroy the immutable obligations of
the moral law, and erect _one's will_ as the rule of right. But is an
equal exemption from the restraints of that law liberty, or is it
universal anarchy and confusion?
It were much nearer the truth to say that all men have an equal right,
not to act as "one wills," but to have their wills restrained by law. No
greater want is known to man, indeed, than the restraints of law and
government. Hence, all men have an equal right to these, but not to the
same restraints, to the same laws and governments. All have an equal
right to that government which is the best for them. But the same
government is not the best for all. A despotism is best for some; a
limited monarchy is best for others; while, for a third people, a
representative republic is the best form of government.
This proposition is too plain for controversy. It has received the
sanction of all the great teachers of political wisdom, from an
Aristotle down to a Montesquieu, and from a Montesquieu down to a Burke.
It has become, indeed, one of the commonplaces of political ethics; and,
however strange the conjunction, it is often found in the very works
which are loudest in proclaiming the universal equality of human rights.
Thus, for example, says Dr. Wayland: "The best form of government for
any people _is the best that its present moral condition renders
practicable. A people may be so entirely surrendered to the influence of
passion, and so feebly influenced by moral restraints, that a
government which relied upon moral restraint could not exist for a day_.
In this case, a subordinate and inferior principle remains--_the
principle of fear, and the only resort is to a government of force_ or a
military despotism. And such do we see to be the fact." What, then,
becomes of the equal and inalienable right of all men to freedom? Has it
vanished with the occasion which gave it birth?
But this is not all. "Anarchy," continues Wayland, "always ends in this
form of government. [A military despotism.] After this has been
established, and habits of subordination have been formed, while the
moral restraints are too feeble for self-government, an hereditary
government, which addresses itself to the imagination, and strengthens
itself by the influence of domestic connections, may be as good a form
as a people can sustain. As they advance in intellectual and moral
cultivation, it may advantageously become more and more elective, and,
in a suitable moral condition, it may be wholly so. For beings who are
willing to govern themselves by moral principles, there can be no doubt
that a government relying upon moral principle is the true form of
government. There is no reason why a man should be oppressed by taxation
and subjected to fear who is willing to govern himself by the law of
reciprocity. It is surely better for an intelligent and moral being to
do right from his own will, than _to pay another to force him to do
right_. And yet, as it is better that he should do right than wrong,
even though he be forced to do it, it is well that he should pay others
to force him, if there be no other way of insuring his good conduct. God
has rendered the blessing of freedom inseparable from moral restraint to
the individual; and hence it is vain for a people to expect to be free
unless they are first willing to be virtuous." Again, "There is no
self-sustaining power in any form of social organization. The only
self-sustaining power is in individual virtue.
"And the form of a government will always adjust itself to the moral
condition of a people. A virtuous people will, by their own moral power,
frown away oppression, and, under any form of constitution, become
essentially free. A people surrendered up to their own licentious
passions must be held in subjection by force; for every one will find
that force alone can protect him from his neighbors; and he will submit
to be oppressed, if he can only be protected. Thus, in the feudal ages,
the small independent landholders frequently made themselves slaves of
one powerful chief to shield themselves from the incessant oppression of
twenty."
Now all this is excellent sense. One might almost imagine that the
author had been reading Aristotle, or Montesquieu, or Burke. It is
certain he was not thinking of equal rights. It is equally certain that
his eyes were turned away from the South; for he could see how even
"independent landholders" might rightfully make slaves of themselves.
After such concessions, one would think that all this clamor about
inherent and _inalienable_ rights ought to cease.
In a certain sense, or to a certain extent, all men have equal rights.
All men have an equal right to the air and light of heaven; to the same
air and the same light. In like manner, all men have an equal right to
food and raiment, though not to the same food and raiment. That is, all
men have an equal right to food and raiment, provided they will earn
them. And if they will not earn them, choosing to remain idle,
improvident, or nuisances to society, then they should be placed under a
government of force, and compelled to earn them.
Again, all men have an equal right to serve God according to the
dictates of their own consciences. The poorest slave on earth possesses
this right--this inherent and inalienable right; and he possesses it as
completely as the proudest monarch on his throne. He may choose his own
religion, and worship his own God according to his own conscience,
provided always he seek not in such service to interfere with the rights
of others. But neither the slave nor the freeman has any right to
murder, or instigate others to murder, the master, even though he should
be ever so firmly persuaded that such is a part of his religious duty.
He has, however, the most absolute and perfect right to worship the
Creator of all men in all ways not inconsistent with the moral law. And
wo be to the man by whom such right is denied or set at naught! Such a
one we have never known; but whosoever he may be, or wheresoever he may
be found, let all the abolitionists, we say, hunt him down. He is not
fit to be a man, much less a Christian master.
But, it will be said, the slave has also a right to religious
instruction, as well as to food and raiment. So plain a proposition no
one doubts. But is this right regarded at the South? No more, we fear,
than in many other portions of the so-called Christian world. Our
children, too, and our poor, destitute neighbors, often suffer, we fear,
the same wrong at our remiss hands and from our cold hearts. Though we
have done much and would fain do more, yet, the truth must be confessed,
this sacred and imperious claim has not been fully met by us.
It may be otherwise at the North. There, children and poor neighbors,
too, may all be trained and taught to the full extent of the moral law.
This godlike work may be fully done by our Christian brethren of the
North. They certainly have a large surplus of benevolence to bestow on
us. But if this glorious work has not been fully done by them, then let
him who is without sin cast the first stone. This simple thought,
perhaps, might call in doubt their right to rail at us, at least with
such malignant bitterness and gall. This simple thought, perhaps, might
save us many a pitiless pelting of philanthropy.
But here lies the difference--here lies our peculiar sin and shame. This
great, primordial right is, with us, denied by law. The slave shall not
be taught to read. Oh! that he might be taught! What floods of sympathy,
what thunderings and lightnings of philanthropy, would then be spared
the world! But why, we ask, should the slave be taught to read? That he
might read the Bible, and feed on the food of eternal life, is the
reply; and the reply is good.
Ah! if the slave would only read his Bible, and drink its very spirit
in, we should rejoice at the change; for he would then be a better and a
happier man. He would then know his duty, and the high ground on which
his duty rests. He would then see, in the words of Dr. Wayland, "_That
the duty of slaves is explicitly made known in the Bible_. They are
bound to obedience, fidelity, submission, and respect to their
masters--not only to the good and kind, but also to the unkind and
froward; not, however, on the ground of duty to man, but _on the ground
of duty to God_." But, with all, we have some little glimpse of our
dangers, as well as some little sense of our duties.
The tempter is not asleep. His eye is still, as ever of old, fixed on
the forbidden tree; and thither he will point his hapless victims. Like
certain senators, and demagogues, and doctors of divinity, he will
preach from the Declaration of Independence rather than from the Bible.
He will teach, not that submission, but that _resistance_, is a duty. To
every evil passion his inflammatory and murder-instigating appeals will
be made. Stung by these appeals and maddened, the poor African, it is to
be feared, would have no better notions of equality and freedom, and no
better views of duty to God or man, than his teachers themselves have.
Such, then, being the state of things, ask us not to prepare the slave
for his own utter undoing. Ask us not--O most kind and benevolent
Christian teacher!--ask us not to lay the train beneath our feet, that
_you_ may no longer hold the blazing torch in vain!
Let that torch be extinguished. Let all incendiary publications be
destroyed. Let no conspiracies, no insurrections, and no murders be
instigated. Let the pure precepts of the gospel and its sublime lessons
of peace be everywhere set forth and inculcated. In one word, let it be
seen that in reality the eternal good of the slave is aimed at, and, by
the co-operation of all, may be secured, and then may we be asked to
teach him to read. But until then we shall refuse to head a conspiracy
against the good order, the security, the morals, and against the very
lives, of both the white and the black men of the South.
We might point out other respects in which men are essentially equal, or
_have equal rights_. But our object is not to write a treatise on the
philosophy of politics. It is merely to expose the errors of those who
push the idea of equality to an extreme, and thereby unwisely deny the
great differences that exist among men. For if the scheme or the
political principles of the abolitionists be correct, then there is no
difference among men, not even among the different races of men, that is
worthy the attention of the statesman.
There is one difference, we admit, which the abolitionists have
discovered between the master and the slave at the South. Whether this
discovery be entirely original with them, or whether they received hints
of it from others, it is clear that they are now fully in possession of
it. The dazzling idea of equality itself has not been able to exclude it
from their visions. For, in spite of this idea, they have discovered
that between the Southern master and slave there is a difference of
color! Hence, as if this were the only difference, in their political
harangues, whether from the stump or from the pulpit, they seldom fail
to rebuke the Southern statesman in the words of the poet: "He finds his
fellow guilty of a skin not colored like his own;" and "for such worthy
cause dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey." Shame and confusion
seize the man, we say, who thus dooms and devotes his fellow-man,
because he finds him "guilty of a skin!" If his sensibilities were only
as soft as his philosophy is shallow, he would certainly cry, "Down with
the institution of slavery!" For how could he tolerate an institution
which has no other foundation than a difference of color? Indeed, if
such were the only difference between the two races among us, we should
ourselves unite with Mr. Seward of New York, and most "affectionately
advise all men to be born white." For thus, the only difference having
been abolished, all men would be equal in fact, and consequently
entitled to become equal in political rights, and power, and position.
But if such be not the only difference between the white and the black
man of the South, then neither philosophy nor paint can establish an
equality between them.
Every man, we admit, is a man. But this profound aphorism is not the
only one to which the political architect should give heed. An equality
of conditions, of political powers and privileges, which has no solid
basis in an equality of capacity or fitness, is one of the wildest and
most impracticable of all Utopian dreams. If in the divine government
such an equality should prevail, it is evident that all order would be
overthrown, all justice extinguished, and utter confusion would reign.
In like manner, if in human government such equality should exist, it
would be only for a moment Indeed, to aim at an equality of conditions,
or of rights and powers except by first aming at an equality of
intelligence and virtue, is not to reform--it is to demolish--the
governments of society. It is, indeed, to war against the eternal order
of divine Providence itself in which an immutable justice ever regins.
"It is this aiming after an equality," says Aristotle, "which is the
cause of seditions." But though seditions it may have stirred up, and
fierce passions kindled, yet has it never led its poor deluded victims
to the boon after which they have so fondly panted.
Equality is not liberty. "The French," said Napoleon, "love equality:
they care little for liberty." Equality is plain, simple, easily
understood. Liberty is complex, and exceedingly difficult of
comprehension. The most illiterate peasant may, at a glance, grasp the
idea of equality; the most profound statesman may not, without much care
and thought, comprehend the nature of liberty. Hence it is that
equality, and not liberty, so readily seizes the mind of the multitude,
and so mightily inflames its passions. The French are not the only
people who care but little for liberty, while they are crazy for
equality. The same blind passion, it is to be feared, is possible even
in this enlightened portion of the globe. Even here, perhaps, a man may
rant and rave about equality, while, really, he may know but little
more, and consequently care but little more, about that complicated and
beautiful structure called civil liberty, than a horse does about the
mechanism of the heavens.
Thus, for example, a Senator[160] of the United States declares that the
democratic principle is "Equality of natural rights, guaranteed and
secured to all by the laws of a just, popular government. For one, I
desire to see that principle applied to every subject of legislation, no
matter what that subject may be--to the great question involved in the
resolution now before the Senate, and to every other question." Again,
this principle is "the element and guarantee of liberty."
Apply this principle, then, to every subject, to every question, and see
what kind of government would be the result. All men have an equal right
to freedom from restraint, and consequently all are made equally free.
All have an equal right to the elective franchise, and to every
political power and privilege. But suppose the government is designed
for a State in which a large majority of the population is without the
character, or disposition, or habits, or experience of freemen? No
matter: the equal rights of all are natural; and hence they should be
applied in all cases, and to every possible "subject of legislation."
The principle of equality should reign everywhere, and mold every
institution. Surely, after what has been said, no comment is necessary
on a scheme so wild, on a dream so visionary. "As distant as heaven is
from earth," says Montesquieu, "so is the true spirit of equality from
that of extreme equality." And just so distant is the Senator in
question, with all his adherents, from the true idea of civil and
political freedom.
The Senator thinks the conduct of Virginia "singular enough," because,
in presenting a bill of rights to Congress, she omitted the provision of
"her own bill of rights," "that all men are born[161] equally free and
independent." We think she acted wisely. For, in truth and in deed, all
men are born absolutely dependent and utterly devoid of freedom. What
right, we ask, has the new born infant? Has he the right to go where he
pleases? He has no power to go at all; and hence he has no more a right
to go than he has to fly. Has he the right to think for himself? The
power of thought is as yet wholly undeveloped. Has he the right to
worship God according to his own conscience? He has no idea of God, nor
of the duties due to him. The plain truth is, that no human being
possesses a right until the power or capacity on which the enjoyment of
that right depends is suitably developed or acquired. The child, for
instance, has no right to think for himself, or to worship God according
to the dictates of conscience, until his intellectual and moral powers
are suitably developed. He is certainly not born with such rights. Nor
has he any right to go where he pleases, or attempt to do so, until he
has learned to walk. Nor has he the right then, for, according to the
laws of all civilized nations, he is subject to the control of the
parent until he reaches the lawful age of freedom. The truth is, that
all men are born not equally free and independent, but equally without
freedom and without independence. "All men are born equal," says
Montesquieu; but he does not say they "are born equally free and
independent." The first proposition is true: the last is diametrically
opposed to the truth.
Another Senator[162] seems to entertain the same passion for the
principle of equality. In his speech on the Compromise Bill of 1850, he
says that "a statesman or a founder of States" should adopt as an axiom
the declaration, "That all men are created equal, and have inalienable
rights of life, liberty, and choice of pursuits of happiness." Let us
suppose, then, that this distinguished statesman is himself about to
establish a constitution for the people of Mississippi or Louisiana, in
which there are more blacks than whites. As they all have a natural and
"inalienable right" to liberty, of course he would make them all free.
But would he confer upon all, upon black as well as upon white, the
power of the elective franchise? Most certainly. For he has said, "We of
New York are guilty of slavery still by withholding the _right of
suffrage_ from the race we have emancipated." Surely, if he had to found
a State himself, he would not thus be guilty of slavery--of the one
odious thing which his soul abhors. All would then be invested with the
right of suffrage. A black legislature would be the consequence. The
laws passed by such a body would, we fear, be no better than the
constitution provided by the Senator--by the statesman--from New York.
"All men are born equal," says Montesquieu; but in the hands of such a
thinker no danger need be apprehended from such an axiom. For having
drank deeply of the true spirit of law, he was, in matters of
government, ever ready to sacrifice abstract perfection to concrete
utility. Neither the principle of equality, nor any other, would he
apply in all cases or to every subject. He was no dreamer. He was a
profound thinker and a real statesman. "Though real equality," says he,
"be the very soul of a democracy, _it is so difficult to establish, that
an extreme exactness in this respect is not always convenient_."
Again, he says: "All inequalities in democracies ought to be derived
from the nature of the government, and even from the principle of
equality. For example, it may be apprehended that people who are obliged
to live by labor would be too much impoverished by public employment, or
neglect the duties of attending to it; that artisans would grow
insolent; and that _too great a number of freemen would overpower the
ancient citizens_. IN THIS CASE, THE EQUALITY IN A DEMOCRACY MAY BE
SUPPRESSED FOR THE GOOD OF THE STATE."
Thus to give all men equal power where the majority is ignorant and
depraved, would be indeed to establish equality, but not liberty. On the
contrary, it would be to establish the most odious despotism on
earth,--the reign of ignorance, passion, prejudice, and brutality. It
would be to establish a mere nominal equality, and a real inequality.
For, as Montesquieu says, by introducing "too great a number of
freemen," the "ancient citizens" would be oppressed. In such case, the
principle of equality, even in a democracy, should be "suppressed for
the good of the State." It should be suppressed, in order to shut out a
still greater and more tremendous inequality. The legislator, then, who
aims to introduce an extreme equality, or to apply the principle of
equality to every question, would really bring about the most frightful
of all inequalities, especially in a commonwealth where the majority are
ignorant and depraved.
Hence the principle of equality is merely a standard toward which an
approximation may be made--an approximation always limited and
controlled by the public good. This principle should be applied, not to
every question, but only to such as the general good permits. For this
good it "may be suppressed." Nay, it must be suppressed, if, without
such suppression, the public order may not be sustained; for, as we have
abundantly seen, it is only in the bosom of an enlightened public order
that liberty can live, or move, or have its being. Thus, as Montesquieu
advises, we deduce an inequality from the very principle of equality
itself; since, if such inequality be not deduced and established by law,
a still more terrific inequality would be forced upon us. Blind passion
would dictate the laws, and brute force would reign, while innocence and
virtue would be trampled in the dust. Such is the inequality to which
the honorable senators would invite us; and that, too, by an appeal to
our love of equality! If we decline the invitation, this is not because
we are the enemies, but because we are the friends, of human freedom. It
is not because we love equality less, but liberty more.
The legislators of the North may, if they please, choose the principle
of equality as the very "element and guarantee" of their liberty; and,
to make that liberty perfect, they may apply it to every possible
"subject of legislation," and to "every question" under the sun. But, if
we may be permitted to choose for ourselves, we should beg to be
delivered from such an extreme equality. We should reject it as the very
worst "element," and the very surest "guarantee" of an unbounded
licentiousness and an intolerable oppression. As the "element and
guarantee" of freedom for ourselves, and for our posterity, we should
decidedly prefer the principle of an enlightened public order.
FOOTNOTES:
[142] Channing's Works, vol. ii. p. 126.
[143] Elements of Moral Science, Part ii. chap. i. sec. 11.
[144] Moral Science, Part ii. chap. i. sec. 2.
[145] Letters on Slavery, p. 89.
[146] Ibid, p. 92.
[147] Letters, p. 50.
[148] Letters, p. 50.
[149] Letters, p. 50.
[150] Letters, p. 113.
[151] Moral Science, Part ii. chap. i. sec. 2.
[152] Letters, p. 119, 120.
[153] Moral Science Part ii. chap. i. sec. 2.
[154] Moral Science, Part ii. chap. i. sec. 2.
[155] Ibid.
[156] The _Italics_ are our own.
[157] Lev. chap. xxv.
[158] Exod. chap. xxi.
[159] In the first chapter.
[160] Mr. Chase, of Ohio.
[161] "By nature," in the Original Bill of Rights.
[162] Mr. Seward, of New York.
CHAPTER III.
THE ARGUMENT FROM THE SCRIPTURES.
The Argument from the Old Testament.--The Argument from the New
Testament.
IN discussing the arguments of the abolitionists, it was scarcely
possible to avoid intimating, to a certain extent, the grounds on which
we intend to vindicate the institution of slavery, as it exists among us
at the South. But these grounds are entitled to a more distinct
enunciation and to a more ample illustration. In the prosecution of this
object we shall first advert to the argument from revelation; and, if we
mistake not, it will be found that in the foregoing discussion we have
been vindicating against aspersion not only the peculiar institution of
the Southern States, but also the very legislation of Heaven itself.
§ I. _The argument from the Old Testament._
The ground is taken by Dr. Wayland and other abolitionists, that slavery
is always and everywhere, _semper et ubique_, morally wrong, and should,
therefore, be instantly and universally swept away. We point to slavery
among the Hebrews, and say, There is an instance in which it was not
wrong, because there it received the sanction of the Almighty. Dr.
Wayland chooses to overlook or evade the bearing of that case upon his
fundamental position; and the means by which he seeks to evade its force
is one of the grossest fallacies ever invented by the brain of man.
Let the reader examine and judge for himself. Here it is: "Let us reduce
this argument to a syllogism, and it will stand thus: Whatever God
sanctioned among the Hebrews he sanctions for all men and at all times.
God sanctioned slavery among the Hebrews; therefore God sanctions
slavery for all men and at all times."
Now I venture to affirm that no man at the South has ever put forth so
absurd an argument in favor of slavery,--not only in favor of slavery
for the negro race so long as they may remain unfit for freedom, but in
favor of slavery for all men and for all times. If such an argument
proved any thing, it would, indeed, prove that the white man of the
South, no less than the black, might be subjected to bondage. But no one
here argues in favor of the subjection of the white man, either South or
North, to a state of servitude. No one here contends for the subjection
to slavery of any portion of the civilized world. We only contend for
slavery in certain cases; in opposition to the thesis of the
abolitionist, we assert that it is not always and everywhere wrong. For
the truth of this assertion we rely upon the express authority of God
himself. We affirm that since slavery has been ordained by him, it
cannot be always and everywhere wrong. And how does the abolitionist
attempt to meet this reply? Why, by a little legerdemain, he converts
this reply from an argument against his position, that slavery is always
and everywhere wrong, into an argument in favor of the monstrous dogma
that it is always and everywhere right! If we should contend that, in
some cases, it is right to take the life of a man, he might just as
fairly insist that we are in favor of having every man on earth put to
death! Was any fallacy ever more glaring? was any misrepresentation ever
more flagrant?
Indeed we should have supposed that Dr. Wayland might have seen that his
representation is not a fair one, if he had not assured us of the
contrary. We should have supposed that he might have distinguished
between an argument in favor of slavery for the lowest grade of the
ignorant and debased, and an argument in favor of slavery for all men
and all times, if he had not assured us that he possesses no capacity to
make it. For after having twisted the plea of the most enlightened
statesmen of the South into an argument in favor of the universal
subjection of mankind to slavery, he coolly adds, "I believe that in
these words I express the argument correctly. If I do not, it is solely
because I do not know how to state it more correctly." Is it possible
Dr. Wayland could not distinguish between the principle of slavery for
some men and the principle of slavery for all men? between the
proposition that the ignorant, the idle, and the debased may be
subjected to servitude, and the idea that all men, even the most
enlightened and free, may be reduced to bondage? If he had not
positively declared that he possessed no such capacity, we should most
certainly have entertained a different opinion.
It will not be denied, we presume, that the very best men, whose lives
are recorded in the Old Testament, were the owners and holders of
slaves. "I grant at once," says Dr. Wayland, "that the Hebrews held
slaves from the time of the conquest of Canaan, and that Abraham and the
patriarchs held them many centuries before. I grant also that Moses
enacted laws with special reference to that relation. . . . . I wonder
that any should have had the hardihood to deny so plain a matter of
record. I should almost as soon deny the delivery of the ten
commandments to Moses."
Now, is it not wonderful that directly in the face of "so plain a matter
of record," a pious Presbyterian pastor should have been arraigned by
abolitionists, not for holding slaves, but for daring to be so far a
freeman as to express his convictions on the subject of slavery? Most
abolitionists must have found themselves a little embarrassed in such a
proceeding. For _there_ was the fact, staring them in the face, that
Abraham himself, "the friend of God" and the "father of the faithful,"
was the owner and holder of more than a thousand slaves. How, then,
could these professing Christians proceed to condemn and excommunicate a
poor brother for having merely approved what Abraham had practiced? Of
all the good men of old, Abraham was the most eminent. The sublimity of
his faith and the fervor of his piety has, by the unerring voice of
inspiration itself, been held up as a model for the imitation of all
future ages. How, then, could a parcel of poor common saints presume,
without blushing, to cry and condemn one of their number because he was
no better than "Father Abraham?" This was the difficulty; and, but for a
very happy discovery, it must have been an exceedingly perplexing one.
But "Necessity is the mother of invention." On this trying occasion she
conceived the happy thought that the plain matter of record "was all a
mistake;" that Abraham never owned a slave; that, on the contrary, he
was "a prince," and the "men whom he bought with his money" were "his
subjects" merely! If, then, we poor sinners of the South should be
driven to the utmost extremity,--all honest arguments and pleas failing
us,--may we not escape the unutterable horrors of civil war, by calling
our masters princes, and our slaves subjects?
We shall conclude this topic with the pointed and powerful words of Dr.
Fuller, in his reply to Dr. Wayland: "Abraham," says he, "was 'the
friend of God,' and walked with God in the closest and most endearing
intercourse; nor can any thing be more exquisitely touching than those
words, 'Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?' It is the
language of a friend who feels that concealment would wrong the
confidential intimacy existing. The love of this venerable servant of
God in his promptness to immolate his son has been the theme of apostles
and preachers for ages; and such was his faith, that all who believe are
called 'the children of faithful Abraham.' This Abraham, you admit, held
slaves. Who is surprised that Whitefield, with this single fact before
him, could not believe slavery to be a sin? Yet if your definition of
slavery be correct, holy Abraham lived all his life in the commission of
one of the most aggravated crimes against God and man which can be
conceived. His life was spent in outraging the rights of hundreds of
human beings, as moral, intellectual, immortal, fallen creatures, and in
violating their relations as parents and children, and husbands and
wives. And God not only connived at this appalling iniquity, but, in the
covenant of circumcision made with Abraham, expressly mentions it, and
confirms the patriarch in it, speaking of those 'bought with his money,'
and requiring him to circumcise them. Why, at the very first blush,
every Christian will cry out against this statement. To this, however,
you must come, or yield your position; and this is only the first
utterly incredible and monstrous corollary involved in the assertion
that slavery is essentially and always 'a sin of appalling magnitude.'"
Slavery among the Hebrews, however, was not left merely to a tacit or
implied sanction. It was thus sanctioned by the express legislation of
the Most High: "Both thy bondmen and thy bond-maids, which thou shalt
have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye
buy bondmen and bond-maids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers
that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families
that are with you, which they begat in your land; and they shall be your
possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children
after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen
forever."[163] Now these words are so perfectly explicit, that there is
no getting around them. Even Dr. Wayland, as we have seen, admits that
the authority to take slaves _seems_ to be a part of "this original,
peculiar," and perhaps "anomalous grant." No wonder it appeared
_peculiar_ and _anomalous_. The only wonder is, that it did not appear
impious and absurd. So it has appeared to some of his co-agitators, who,
because they could not agree with Moses, have denied his mission as an
inspired teacher, and joined the ranks of infidelity.
Dr. Channing makes very light of this and other passages of Scripture.
He sets aside this whole argument from revelation with a few bold
strokes of the pen. "In this age of the world," says he, "and amid the
light which has been thrown on the true interpretation of the
Scriptures, such reasoning hardly deserves notice." Now, even if not for
our benefit, we think there are two reasons why such passages as the
above were worthy of Dr. Channing's notice. In the first place, if he
had condescended to throw the light in his possession on such passages,
he might have saved Dr. Wayland, as well as other of his admirers, from
the necessity of making the very awkward admission that the Almighty had
authorized his chosen people to buy slaves, and hold them as "bondmen
forever." He might have enabled them to see through the great
difficulty, that God has authorized his people to commit "a sin of
apalling magnitude," to perpetrate as "great a crime as can be
conceived;" which seems so clearly to be the case, if their views of
slavery be correct. Secondly, he might have enabled his followers to
espouse the cause of abolition without deserting, as so many of them
have openly done, the armies of the living God. For these two reasons,
if for no other, we think Dr. Channing owed it to the honor of his cause
to notice the passages of Scripture bearing on the subject of slavery.
The Mosaic Institutes not only recognize slavery as lawful; they contain
a multitude of minute directions for its regulation. We need not refer
to all of them; it will be sufficient for our purpose if we only notice
those which establish some of the leading characteristics of slavery
among the people of God.
1. Slaves were regarded as property. They were, as we have seen, called
a "possession" and an "inheritance."[164] They were even called the
"money" of the master. Thus, it is said, "if a man smite his servant or
his maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall surely be
punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be
punished, for he is his money."[165] In one of the ten commandments this
right of property is recognized: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's
house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor _his_ man-servant,
nor _his_ maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is
thy neighbor's."
2. They might be sold. This is taken for granted in all those passages
in which, for particular reasons, the master is forbidden to sell his
slaves. Thus it is declared: "Thou shalt not make merchandise of her,
because thou hast humbled her." And still more explicitly: "If a man
sell his daughter to be a maid-servant, she shall not go out as the
men-servants do. If she please not her master who hath betrothed her to
himself, then shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her to a strange
nation, he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with
her.[166]
3. The slavery thus expressly sanctioned was hereditary and perpetual:
"Ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to
inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen forever." Even
the Hebrew servant might, by his own consent, become in certain cases a
slave for life: "If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve;
and in the seventh shall he go out free for nothing. If he came in by
himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife
shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have
borne him sons or daughters, the wife and the children shall be her
master's, and he shall go out by himself. And if the servant shall
plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go
out free: then his master shall bring him unto the judges: he shall also
bring him to the door or unto the door-post, and his master shall bore
his ear through with an awl, and _he shall serve him forever_."
Now it is evident, we think, that the legislator of the Hebrews was not
inspired with the sentiments of an abolitionist. The principles of his
legislation are, indeed, so diametrically opposed to the political
notions of the abolitionist, that the latter is sadly perplexed to
dispose of them. While some deny the authority of these principles
altogether, and of the very book which contains them, others are
content to evade their force by certain ingenious devices of their own.
We shall now proceed to examine some of the more remarkable of these
cunningly-devised fables.
It is admitted by the inventors of these devices, that God expressly
permitted his chosen people to buy and hold slaves. Yet Dr. Wayland, by
whom this admission is made, has endeavored to weaken the force of it by
alleging that God has been pleased to enlighten our race progressively.
If, he argues, the institution of slavery among His people appears so
very "peculiar and anomalous," this is because he did not choose to make
known his whole mind on the subject. He withheld a portion of it from
his people, and allowed them, by express grant, to hold slaves until the
fuller revelation of his will should blaze upon the world. Such is,
perhaps, the most plausible defense which an abolitionist could possibly
set up against the light of revelation.
But to what does it amount? If the views of Dr. Wayland and his
followers, respecting slavery, be correct, it amounts to this: The
Almighty has said to his people, you may commit "a sin of appalling
magnitude;" you may perpetrate "as great an evil as can be conceived;"
you may persist in a practice which consists in "outraging the rights"
of your fellow-men, and in "crushing their intellectual and moral"
nature. They have a natural, inherent, and inalienable right to liberty
as well as yourselves, but yet you may make slaves of them, and they may
be your bondmen forever. In one word, _you_, my chosen people, may
degrade "rational, accountable, and immortal beings" to the "rank of
brutes." Such, if we may believe Dr. Wayland, is the first stage in the
divine enlightenment of the human race! It consists in making known a
part of God's mind, not against the monstrous iniquity of slavery, but
in its favor! It is the utterance, not of a partial truth, but of a
monstrous falsehood! It is the revelation of his will, not against sin,
but in favor of as great a sin "as can be conceived." Now, we may
fearlessly ask if the cause which is reduced to the necessity of
resorting to such a defense may not be pronounced desperate indeed, and
unspeakably forlorn?
It is alleged that polygamy and divorce, as well as slavery, are
permitted and regulated in the Old Testament. This, we reply, proves, in
regard to polygamy and divorce, exactly what it proves in regard to
slavery,--namely, that neither is in itself sinful, that neither is
_always_ and _everywhere_ sinful. In other words, it proves that
neither polygamy nor divorce, as permitted in the Old Testament, is
"_malum in se_," is inconsistent with the eternal and unchangeable
principles of right. They are forbidden in the New Testament, not
because they are in themselves absolutely and immutably wrong, but
because they are inconsistent with the best interests of society;
especially in civilized and Christian communities. If they had been
wrong in themselves, they never could have been permitted by a holy God,
who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, except with inifinite
abhorrence.
Again, it is contended by Dr. Wayland that "Moses intended to abolish
slavery," because he forbade the Jews "to deliver up a fugitive slave."
The words are these: "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant
that is escaped from his master unto thee: "He shall dwell with thee,
even among you, in that place which he shall choose in one of the gates
where it liketh him best: thou shalt not oppress him."[167] "This
precept, I think," says Dr. Wayland, "clearly shows that Moses intended
to abolish slavery. How could slavery long continue in a country where
every one was forbidden to deliver up a fugitive slave? How different
would be the condition of slaves, and how soon would slavery itself
cease, were this the law of compulsory bondage among us!"
The above passage of Scripture is a precious morsel with those who are
opposed to a fugitive slave law. A petition from Albany, New York, from
the enlightened seat of empire of the Empire State itself, signed, if we
recollect right, by one hundred and fifty persons, was presented to the
United States Senate by Mr. Seward, praying that no bill in relation to
fugitive slaves might be passed, which should not contain that passage.
Whether Mr. Seward was enlightened by his constituents, or whether he
made the discovery for himself, it is certain that he holds an act for
the reclamation of fugitive slaves to be "contrary to the divine law."
It is certain that he agrees with his constituents, who, in the petition
referred to, pronounced every such act "immoral," and contrary to the
law of God. But let us look at this passage a little, and see if these
abolitionists, who thus plant themselves so confidently upon "a higher
law," even upon "the divine law" itself, be not as hasty and rash in
their interpretation of this law as they are accustomed to be in their
judgment respecting the most universal and long-established institutions
of human society.
In the first place, if their interpretation be correct, we are at once
met by a very serious difficulty. For we are required to believe that
one passage of Scripture grants an "authority to take slaves," while
another passage is designed to annul this authority. We are required to
believe that, in one portion of the divine law, the right of the master
to hold his slaves as "bondmen" is recognized, while another part of the
same law denies the existence of such right. In fine, we are required to
believe that the legislator of the Jews intended, in one and the same
code, both to establish and to abolish slavery; that with one hand he
struck down the very right and institution which he had set up with the
other. How Dr. Channing and Mr. Sumner would have disposed of this
difficulty we know full well, for they carry within their own bosoms a
higher law than this higher law itself. But how Dr. Wayland, as an
enlightened member of the good old orthodox Baptist Church, with whom
the Scripture is really and in truth the inspired word of God, would
have disposed of it, we are at some loss to conceive.
We labor under no such difficulty. The words in question do not relate
to slaves owned by Hebrew masters. They relate to those slaves only who
should escape from heathen masters, and seek an asylum among the people
of God. "The first inquiry of course is," says a learned divine,[168]
"in regard to those very words, 'Where does his master live?' Among the
Hebrews, or among foreigners? The language of the passage fully develops
this and answers the question. 'He has escaped from his master unto the
Hebrews; (the text says--_thee_, _i. e._ Israel;) _he shall dwell with
thee, even among you . . . in one of thy gates_.' Of course, then, he is
an _immigrant_, and did _not dwell among them_ before his flight. If he
had been a Hebrew servant, belonging to a Hebrew, the whole face of the
thing would be changed. Restoration, or restitution, if we may judge by
the tenor of other property-laws among the Hebrews, would have surely
been enjoined. But, be that as it may, the language of the text puts it
beyond a doubt that the servant is a _foreigner_, and has fled from a
_heathen master_. This entirely changes the complexion of the case. The
Hebrews were God's chosen people, and were the only nation on earth
which worshiped the only living and true God. . . . . In case a slave
escaped from them (the heathen) and came to the Hebrews, two things were
to be taken into consideration, according to the views of the Jewish
legislator. The first was that the treatment of slaves among the heathen
was far more severe and rigorous than it could lawfully be under the
Mosaic law. The heathen master possessed the power of life and death, of
scourging or imprisoning, or putting to excessive toil, even to any
extent that he pleased. Not so among the Hebrews. _Humanity_ pleaded
there for the protection of the fugitive. The second and most important
consideration was, that only among the Hebrews could the fugitive slave
come to the knowledge and worship of the only living and true God."
Now this view of the passage in question harmonizes one portion of
Scripture with another, and removes every difficulty. It shows, too, how
greatly the abolitionists have deceived themselves in their rash and
blind appeal to "the divine law" in question. "The reason of the law,"
says my Lord Coke, "is the law." It is applicable to those cases, and to
those cases only, which come within the reason of the law. Hence, if it
be a fact, and if our Northern brethren really believe that we are sunk
in the darkness of heathen idolatry, while the light of the true
religion is with them alone, why, then, we admit that the reason and
principle of the divine law in question is in their favor. Then we admit
that the return of our fugitive slaves is "contrary to the divine law."
But if we are not heathen idolaters, if the God of the Hebrews be also
the God of Southern masters, then the Northern States do not violate the
precept in question--they only discharge a solemn constitutional
obligation--in delivering up our "fugitives from labor."
§ II. _The argument from the New Testament._
The New Testament, as Dr. Wayland remarks, was given, "not to one
people, but to the whole race; not for one period, but for all time."
Its lessons are, therefore, of universal and perpetual obligation. If,
then, the Almighty had undertaken to enlighten the human race by
degrees, with respect to the great sin of slavery, is it not wonderful
that, in the very last revelation of his will, he has uttered not a
single syllable in disapprobation thereof? Is it not wonderful, that he
should have completed the revelation of his will,--that he should have
set his seal to the last word he will ever say to man respecting his
duties, and yet not one word about the great obligation of the master to
emancipate his slaves, nor about the "appalling sin" of slavery? Such
silence must, indeed, appear exceedingly peculiar and anomalous to the
abolitionist. It would have been otherwise had he written the New
Testament. He would, no doubt, have inserted at least one little precept
against the sin of slavery.
As it is, however, the most profound silence reigns through the whole
word of God with respect to the sinfulness of slavery. "It must be
granted," says Dr. Wayland, "that the New Testament contains no
_precept_ prohibitory of slavery." Marvellous as such silence must needs
be to the abolitionist, it cannot be more so to him than his attempts to
account for it are to others. Let us briefly examine these attempts:
"You may give your child," says Dr. Wayland, "if he were approaching to
years of discretion, permission to do an act, while you inculcate upon
him principles which forbid it, for the sake of teaching him to be
governed by principles, rather than by any direct enactment. In such
case you would expect him to obey the principle, and not avail himself
of the permission." Now we fearlessly ask every reader whose moral sense
has not been perverted by false logic, if such a proceeding would not be
infinitely unworthy of the Father of mercies? According to Dr. Wayland's
view, he beholds his children living and dying in the practice of an
abominable sin, and looks on without the slightest note of admonition or
warning. Nay, he gives them permission to continue in the practice of
this frightful enormity, to which they are already bound by the triple
tie of habit, interest, and feeling! Though he gives them line upon
line, and precept upon precept, in order to detach them from other sins,
he yet gives them permission to live and die in this awful sin! And why?
To teach them, forsooth, not to follow his permission, but to be guided
by his principles! Even the guilty Eli remonstrated with his sons. Yet
if, instead of doing this, he had given them permission to practice the
very sins they were bent upon, he might have been, for all that, as pure
and faithful as the Father of mercies himself is represented to be in
the writings of Dr. Wayland. Such are the miserable straits, and such
the impious sophisms, to which even divines are reduced, when, on the
supposition that slavery is a sin, they undertake to vindicate or defend
the word which they themselves are ordained to preach!
Another reason, scarcely less remarkable than the one already noticed,
is assigned for the omission of all precepts against slavery. "It was no
part of the scheme of the gospel revelation," we are told by Dr.
Wayland, (who quotes from Archbishop Whately,) "to lay down any thing
approaching to a complete system of _moral precepts_--to enumerate every
thing that is _enjoined_ or _forbidden_ by our religion." If this method
of teaching had been adopted, "the New Testament would," says Dr.
Wayland, "have formed a library in itself, more voluminous than the laws
of the realm of Great Britain." Now, all this is very true; and hence
the necessity of leaving many points of duty to the enlightened
conscience, and to the application of the more general precepts of the
gospel. But how has it happened that slavery is passed over in silence?
Because, we are told; "every thing" could not be noticed. If, indeed,
slavery be so great a sin, would it not have been easier for the divine
teacher to say, Let it be abolished, than to lay down so many minute
precepts for its regulation? Would this have tended to swell the gospel
into a vast library, or to abridge its teachings? Surely, when Dr.
Wayland sets up such a plea, he must have forgotten that the New
Testament, though it cannot notice "every thing," contains a multitude
of rules to regulate the conduct of the master and the slave. Otherwise
he could scarcely have imagined that it was from an aversion to
minuteness, or from an impossibility to forbid every evil, that the sin
of slavery is passed over in silence.
He must also have forgotten another thing. He must have forgotten the
colors in which he had painted the evils of slavery. If we may rely upon
these, then slavery is no trifling offense. It is, on the contrary, a
stupendous sin, overspreading the earth, and crushing the
faculties--both intellectual and moral--of millions of human beings
beneath its odious and terrific influence. Now, if this be so, then
would it have been too much to expect that at least one little word
might have been directed against so great, so tremendous an evil? The
method of the gospel may be comprehensive, if you please; it may teach
by great principles rather than by minute precepts. Still, it is
certain that St. Paul could give directions about his cloak; and he
could spend many words in private salutations. In regard to the great
social evil of the age, however, and beneath which a large majority of
even the civilized world were crushed to the earth, he said nothing,
lest he should become too minute,--lest his epistles should swell into
too large a volume! Such is one of Dr. Wayland's defences of the gospel.
We shall offer no remark; we shall let it speak for itself.
A third reason for the silence in question is the alleged ease with
which precepts may be evaded. "A simple precept or prohibition," says
Dr. Wayland, "is, of all things, the easiest to be evaded. Lord Eldon
used to say, that 'no man in England could construct an act of
Parliament through which he could not drive a coach-and-four.' We find
this to have been illustrated by the case of the Jews in the time of our
Saviour. The Pharisees, who prided themselves on their strict obedience
to the _letter_, violated the _spirit_ of every precept of the Mosaic
code."
Now, in reply to this most extraordinary passage, we have several
remarks to offer. In the first place, perhaps every one is not so good a
driver as Lord Eldon. It is certain, that acts of Parliament have been
passed, through which the most slippery of rogues have not been able to
make their escape. They have been caught, tried, and condemned for their
offenses, in spite of all their ingenuity and evasion.
Secondly, a "principle" is just as easily evaded as a "precept;" and, in
most cases, it is far more so. The great principle of the New Testament,
which our author deems so applicable to the subject of slavery, is this:
"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Now, if this be the great
principle intended to enlighten us respecting the sin of slavery, we
confess it has been most completely evaded by every slave State in the
Union. We have, indeed, so entirely deceived ourselves in regard to its
true import, that it seems to us to have not the most remote application
to such a subject. If any one will give our remarks on this great
"principle" a candid examination, we think he will admit that we have
deceived ourselves on very plausible, if not on unanswerable, grounds.
If slavery be a sin,--_always and everywhere_ a monstrous
iniquity,--then we should have been far more thoroughly enlightened with
respect to its true nature, and found evasion far more difficult, if
the New Testament had explicitly declared it to be such, and commanded
all masters everywhere to emancipate their slaves. We could have driven
a coach-and-four neither through, nor around, any such express
prohibition. It is indeed only in consequence of the default, or
omission, of such precept or command, that the abolitionist appeals to
what he calls the principles of the gospel. If he had only one such
precept,--if he had only one such precise and pointed prohibition, he
might then, and he _would_, most triumphantly defy evasion. He would
say, There is _the word_; and none but the obstinate gainsayers, or
unbelievers, would dare reply. But as it is, he is compelled to lose
himself in vague generalities, and pretend to a certainty which nowhere
exists, except in his own heated mind. This pretense, indeed, that an
express precept, prohibitory of slavery, is not the most direct way to
reveal its true nature, because a precept is so much more easily evaded
than a principle, is merely one of the desperate expedients of a forlorn
and hopeless cause. If the abolitionist would maintain that cause, or
vindicate his principles, it will be found that he must retire, and hide
himself from the light of revelation.
Thirdly, the above passage seems to present a very strange view of the
Divine proceedings. According to that view, it appears that the Almighty
tried the method of teaching by precept in the Old Testament, and the
experiment failed. For precepts may be so easily evaded, that every one
in the Mosaic code was violated by the Pharisees. Hence, the method of
teaching by precept was laid aside in the New Testament, and the better
method of teaching by principle was adopted. Such is the conclusion to
which we must come, if we adopt the reasoning of Dr. Wayland. But we
cannot adopt his reasoning; since we should then have to believe that
the experiment made in the Old Testament proved a failure, and that its
Divine Author, having grown wiser by experience, improved upon his
former method.
The truth is, that the method of the one Testament is the same as that
of the other. In both, the method of teaching by precept is adopted; by
precepts of greater and of lesser generality. Dr. Wayland's principle is
merely a general or comprehensive precept; and his precept is merely a
specific or limited principle. The distinction he makes between them,
and the use he makes of this distinction, only reflect discredit upon
the wisdom and consistency of the Divine Author of revelation.
A third account which Dr. Wayland gives of the silence of the New
Testament respecting the sin of slavery, is as follows: "If this form of
wrong had been singled out from all the others, and had alone been
treated preceptively, the whole system would have been vitiated. We
should have been authorized to inquire why were not similar precepts in
other cases delivered? and if they were not delivered, we should have
been at liberty to conclude that they were intentionally omitted, and
that the acts which they would have forbidden are innocent." Very well.
But idolatry, polygamy, divorce, is each and every one singled out, and
forbidden by precept, in the New Testament. Slavery alone is passed over
in silence. Hence, according to the principle of Dr. Wayland himself, we
are at liberty to conclude that a precept forbidding slavery was
"intentionally omitted," and that slavery itself "is innocent."
Each one of these reasons is not only exceedingly weak in itself, but it
is inconsistent with the others. For if a precept forbidding slavery
were purposely omitted, in order to teach mankind to be governed by
principle and to disregard permissions, then the omission could not have
arisen from a love of brevity. Were it not, indeed, just as easy to give
a precept forbidding, as to give one permitting, the existence of
slavery? Again, if a great and world-devouring sin, such as the
abolitionists hold slavery to be, has been left unnoticed, lest its
condemnation should impliedly sanction other sins, then is it not worse
than puerile to suppose that the omission was made for the sake of
brevity, or to teach mankind that the permissions of the Most High may
in certain cases be treated with contempt, may be set at naught, and
despised as utterly inconsistent, as diametrically opposed to the
principles and purity of his law?
If the abolitionist is so completely lost in his attempts to meet the
argument from the silence of Scripture, he finds it still more difficult
to cope with that from its express precepts and injunctions. _Servants,
obey your masters_, is one of the most explicit precepts of the New
Testament. This precept just as certainly exists therein as does the
great principle of love itself. "The obedience thus enjoined is placed,"
says Dr. Wayland, "not on the ground of duty to man, but on the ground
of duty to God." We accept the interpretation. It cannot for one moment
disturb the line of our argument. It is merely the shadow of an attempt
at an evasion. All the obligations of the New Testament are, indeed,
placed on the same high ground. The obligation of the slave to obey his
master could be placed upon no higher, no more sacred, no more
impregnable, ground.
Rights and obligations are correlative. That is, every right implies a
corresponding obligation, and every obligation implies a corresponding
right. Hence, as the slave is under an obligation to obey the master, so
the master has a right to his obedience. Nor is this obligation
weakened, or this right disturbed, by the fact that the first is imposed
by the word of God, and rests on the immutable ground of duty to him.
If, by the divine law, the obedience of the slave is due to the master,
then, by the same law, the master has a right to his obedience.
Most assuredly, the master is neither "a robber," nor "a murderer," nor
"a manstealer," merely because he claims of the slave that which God
himself commands the slave to render. All these epithets may be, as they
have been, hurled at us by the abolitionist. His anathemas may thunder.
But it is some consolation to reflect, that, as he was not consulted in
the construction of the moral code of the universe, so, it is to be
hoped, he will not be called upon to take part in its execution.
The most enlightened abolitionists are sadly puzzled by the precept in
question; and, from the manner in which they sometimes speak of it, we
have reason to fear it holds no very high place in their respect. Thus,
says the Hon. Charles Sumner, "Seeking to be brief, I shall not
undertake to reconcile texts of the Old Testament, which, whatever may
be their import, are all absorbed in the New; nor shall I stop to
consider the precise interpretation of the oft-quoted phrase, _Servants,
obey your masters_; nor seek to weigh any such imperfect injunction in
the scales against those grand commandments on which hang all the law
and the prophets."[169] Now this is a very significant passage. The
orator, its learned author, will not stop to consider the texts of the
Old Testament bearing on the subject of slavery, because they are all
merged in the New! Nor will he stop to consider any "such _imperfect
injunction_" as those contained in the New, because they are all
swallowed up and lost in the grand commandment, "Thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself!"
If he had bestowed a little more attention on this grand commandment
itself, he might have seen, as we have shown, that it in no wise
conflicts with the precept which enjoins servants to obey their masters.
He might have seen that it is not at all necessary to "weigh" the one of
those precepts "in the scales against" the other, or to brand either of
them as imperfect. For he might have seen a perfect harmony between
them. It is no matter of surprise, however, that an abolitionist should
find imperfections in the moral code of the New Testament.
It is certainly no wonder that Mr. Sumner should have seen imperfections
therein. For he has, in direct opposition to the plainest terms of the
gospel, discovered that it is the first duty of the slave to fly from
his master. In his speech delivered in the Senate of the United States,
we find among various other quotations, a verse from Sarah W. Morton, in
which she exhorts the slave to fly from bondage. Having produced this
quotation "as part of the testimony of the times," and pronounced it "a
truthful homage to the inalienable rights" of the slave, Mr. Sumner was
in no mood to appreciate the divine precept, "Servants, obey your
masters." Having declared fugitive slaves to be "the heroes of the age,"
he had not, as we may suppose, any very decided taste for the
commonplace Scriptural duties of submission and obedience. Nay, he
spurns at and rejects such duties as utterly inconsistent with the
"inalienable rights of man." He appeals from the oracles of eternal
truth to "the testimony of the times." He appeals from Christ and his
apostles to Sarah W. Morton. And yet, although he thus takes ground
directly against the plainest precepts of the gospel, and even ventures
to brand some of them as "imperfect," he has the hardihood to rebuke
those who find therein, not what it really contains, but only a
reflection of themselves!
The precept in question is not an isolated injunction of the New
Testament. It does not stand alone. It is surrounded by other
injunctions, equally authoritative, equally explicit, equally
unequivocal. Thus, in Eph. vi. 5: "Servants, be obedient to them that
are your masters according to the flesh." Precisely the same doctrine
was preached to the Colossians: (iii. 22:) "Servants, obey in all
things your masters according to the flesh; not with eye-service, as
men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God." Again, in St.
Paul's Epistle to Timothy, he writes: "Let as many servants as are under
the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of
God and his doctrine be not blasphemed." Likewise, in Tit. ii. 9, 10, we
read: "Exhort servants to be obedient to their own masters, and to
please them well in all things; not answering again; not purloining, but
showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our
Saviour in all things." And in 1 Pet. ii. 18, it is written: "Servants,
be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and
gentle, but also to the froward." Yet, in the face of these passages,
Mr. Sumner declares that it is the duty of slaves to fly from bondage,
and thereby place themselves among "the heroes of the age." He does not
attempt to interpret or explain these precepts; he merely sets them
aside, or passes them by with silent contempt, as "imperfect." Indeed,
if his doctrines be true, they are not only imperfect--they are
radically wrong and infamously vicious. Thus, the issue which Mr. Sumner
has made up is not with the slaveholders of the South; it is with the
word of God itself. The contradiction is direct, plain, palpable, and
without even the decency of a pretended disguise. We shall leave Mr.
Sumner to settle this issue and controversy with the Divine Author of
revelation.
In the mean time, we shall barely remind the reader of what that Divine
Author has said in regard to those who counsel and advise slaves to
disobey their masters, or fly from bondage. "They that have believing
masters," says the great Apostle to the Gentiles, "let them not despise
them because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they
are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach
and exhort. If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome
words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine
which is according to godliness, _he is proud, knowing nothing_." Mr.
Sumner congratulates himself that he has stripped "from slavery the
apology of Christianity." Let servants "count their own masters worthy
of all honor," and "do them service," says St. Paul. "Let servants
disobey their masters," says Mr. Sumner, "and cease to do them service."
"These things teach and exhort," says St. Paul. "These things denounce
and abhor," says Mr. Sumner. "If any man teach otherwise," says St.
Paul, "he is proud, knowing nothing." "I teach otherwise," says Mr.
Sumner. And is it by such conflict that he strips from slavery the
sanction of Christianity? If the sheer _ipse dixit_ of Mr. Sumner be
sufficient to annihilate the authority of the New Testament, which he
professes to revere as divine, then, indeed, has he stripped the
sanction of Christianity from the relation of master and slave.
Otherwise, he has not even stripped from his own doctrines the burning
words of her condemnation.
Dr. Wayland avoids a direct conflict with the teachings of the gospel.
He is less bold, and more circumspect, than the Senator from
Massachusetts. He has honestly and fairly quoted most of the texts
bearing on the subject of slavery. He shows them no disrespect. He
pronounces none of them imperfect. But with this array of texts before
him he proceeds to say: "Now, I do not see that the scope of these
passages can be misunderstood." Nor can we. It would seem, indeed,
impossible for the ingenuity of man to misunderstand the words, quoted
by Dr. Wayland himself, "Servants, _obey_ in all things your masters
according to the flesh." Dr. Wayland does not misunderstand them. For he
has said, in his Moral Science: "The _duty of slaves_ is explicitly made
known in the Bible. They are bound to obedience, fidelity, submission,
and respect to their masters, not only to the good and kind, but also to
the unkind and froward." But when he comes to reason about these words,
which he finds it so impossible for any one to misunderstand, he is not
without a very ingenious method to evade their plain import and to
escape from their influence. Let the reader hear, and determine for
himself.
"I do not see," says Dr. Wayland, "that the scope of these passages can
be misunderstood. They teach patience, meekness, fidelity, and
charity--duties which are obligatory on Christians toward all men, and,
of course, toward masters. These duties are obligatory on us toward
enemies, because an enemy, like every other man, is a moral creature of
God." True. But is this all? Patience, meekness, fidelity,
charity--duties due to all men! But what has become of the word
_obedience_? This occupies a prominent--nay, the most prominent--place
in the teachings of St. Paul. It occupies no place at all in the
reasonings of Dr. Wayland. It is simply dropped out by him, or
overlooked; and this was well done, for this word _obedience_ is an
exceedingly inconvenient one for the abolitionist. If Dr. Wayland had
retained it in his argument, he could not have added, "duties which are
obligatory on Christians toward all men, and, of course, toward
masters." Christians are not bound to obey all men. But slaves are bound
to obey "their own masters." It is precisely upon this injunction to
obedience that the whole argument turns. And it is precisely this
injunction to obedience which Dr. Wayland leaves out in his argument. He
does not, and he cannot, misunderstand the word. But he can just drop it
out, and, in consequence, proceed to argue as if nothing more were
required of slaves than is required of all Christian men!
The only portion of Scripture which Mr. Sumner condescends to notice is
the Epistle of St. Paul to Philemon. He introduces the discussion of
this epistle with the remark that, "In the support of slavery, it is the
habit to pervert texts and to invent authority. Even St. Paul is vouched
for a wrong which his Christian life rebukes."[170] Now we intend to
examine who it is that really perverts texts of Scripture, and invents
authority. We intend to show, as in the clear light of noonday, that it
is the conduct of Mr. Sumner and other abolitionists, and not that of
the slaveholder, which is rebuked by the life and writings of the great
apostle.
The epistle in question was written to a slaveholder, who, if the
doctrine of Mr. Sumner be true, lived in the habitual practice of "a
wrong so transcendent, so loathsome, so direful," that it "must be
encountered _wherever it can be reached_, and the battle must be
continued, without truce or compromise, until the field is entirely
won." Is there any thing like this in the Epistle to Philemon? Is there
any thing like it in any of the epistles of St. Paul? Is there anywhere
in his writings the slightest hint that slavery is a sin at all, or that
the act of holding slaves is in the least degree inconsistent with the
most exalted Christian purity of life? We may safely answer these
questions in the negative. The very epistle before us is from "Paul, a
prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother, unto Philemon, _our
dearly-beloved, and fellow-laborer_." The inspired writer then proceeds
in these words: "I thank my God, making mention of thee always in my
prayers. Hearing of thy love and faith, which thou hast toward the Lord
Jesus, and toward all saints; that the communication of thy faith may
become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in
you in Christ Jesus. For we have great joy and consolation in thy love,
because the bowels of the saints are refreshed by thee, brother."
Now if, instead of leaving out this portion of the epistle, Mr. Sumner
had pronounced it in the hearing of his audience, the suspicion might
have arisen in some of their minds that the slaveholder may not, after
all, be so vile a wretch. It might even have occurred to some, perhaps,
that the Christian character of Philemon, the slaveholder, might
possibly have been as good as that of those by whom all slaveholders are
excommunicated and consigned to perdition. It might have been supposed
that a Christian man may possibly hold slaves without being as bad as
robbers, or cut-throats, or murderers. We do not say that Mr. Sumner
shrunk from the reading of this portion of the epistle in the hearing of
his audience, lest it should seem to rebuke the violence and the
uncharitableness of his own sentiments, as well as those of his brother
abolitionists at the North. We do say, however, that Mr. Sumner had no
sort of use for this passage. It could in no way favor the impression
his oration was designed to make. It breathes, indeed, a spirit of
good-will toward the Christian master as different from that which
pervades the speeches of the honorable Senator, as the pure charity of
Heaven is from the dire malignity of earth.
"It might be shown," says Mr. Sumner, "that the present epistle, when
truly interpreted, is a protest against slavery, and a voice for
freedom." If, instead of merely asserting that this "might be done," the
accomplished orator had actually done it, he would have achieved far
more for the cause of abolitionism than has been effected by all the
splendors of his showy rhetoric. He has, indeed, as we shall presently
see, made some attempt to show that the Epistle to Philemon is an
emancipation document. When we come to examine this most extraordinary
attempt, we shall perceive that Mr. Sumner's power "to pervert texts and
to invent authority," has not been wholly held in reserve for what
"might be done." If his view of this portion of Scripture be not very
profound, it certainly makes up in originality what it lacks in depth.
If it should fail to instruct, it will at least amuse the reader. It
shall be noticed in due time.
The next point that claims our attention is the intimation that St.
Paul's "real judgment of slavery" may be inferred "from his
condemnation, on another occasion, of 'manstealers,' or, according to
the original text, slave-traders, in company with murderers of fathers
and murderers of mothers." Were we disposed to enter into the exegesis
of the passage thus referred to, we might easily show that Mr. Sumner is
grossly at fault in his Greek. We might show that something far more
enormous than even trading in slaves is aimed at by the condemnation of
the apostle. But we have not undertaken to defend "manstealers," nor
"slave-traders," in any form or shape. Hence, we shall dismiss this
point with the opinion of Macknight, who thinks the persons thus
condemned in company with murderers of fathers and mothers, are "they
who make war for the inhuman purpose of selling the vanquished as
slaves, as is the practice of the African princes." To take any free
man, whether white or black, by force, and sell him into bondage, is
manstealing. To make war for such a purpose, were, we admit, wholesale
murder and manstealing combined. This view of the passage in question
agrees with that of the great abolitionist, Mr. Barnes, who holds that
"the _essential_ idea of the term" in question, "is _that of converting
a free man into a slave_" . . . . the "changing of a freeman into a
slave, especially by traffic, subjection, etc." Now, as we of the South,
against whom Mr. Sumner is pleased to inveigh, propose to make no such
changes of freemen into slaves, much less to wage war for any such
purpose, we may dismiss his gross perversion of the text in question. He
may apply the condemnation of the apostle to us now, if it so please the
benignity of his Christian charity, but it will not, we assure him,
enter into our consciences, until we shall not only become
"slave-traders," but also, with a view to the gain of such odious
traffic, make war upon freemen.
We have undertaken to defend, as we have said, neither "slave-traders,"
nor "manstealers." We leave them both to the tender mercies of Mr.
Sumner. But we have undertaken to defend slavery, that is, _the_ slavery
of the South, and to vindicate the character of Southern masters against
the aspersions of their calumniators. And in this vindication we shrink
not from St. Paul's "real judgment of slavery." Nay, we desire, above
all things, to have his real judgment. His judgment, we mean, not of
manstealers or of murderers, but of slavery and slaveholders. We have
just seen "his real judgment" respecting the character of one
slaveholder. We have seen it in the very epistle Mr. Sumner is
discussing. Why, then, does he fly from St. Paul's opinion of the
slaveholder to what he has said of the manstealer and the murderer? We
would gather an author's opinion of slavery from what he has said of
slavery itself, or of the slaveholder. But this does not seem to suit
Mr. Sumner's purpose quite so well. Entirely disregarding the apostle's
opinion of the slaveholder contained in the passage right before him, as
well as elsewhere, Mr. Sumner infers his "real judgment of slavery" from
what he has said of manstealers and murderers! He might just as well
have inferred St. Paul's opinion of Philemon from what he has, "on
another occasion," said of Judas Iscariot.
Mr. Sumner contents himself with "calling attention to two things,
apparent on the face" of the epistle itself; and which, in his opinion,
are "in themselves an all-sufficient response." The first of these
things is, says he: "While it appears that Onesimus had been in some way
the servant of Philemon, it does not appear that he had ever been held
as a slave, much less as a chattel." It does not appear that Onesimus
was the slave of Philemon, is the position of the celebrated senatorial
abolitionist. We cannot argue this position with him, however, since he
has not deigned to give any reasons for it, but chosen to let it rest
upon his assertion merely. We shall, therefore, have to argue the point
with Mr. Albert Barnes, and other abolitionists, who have been pleased
to attempt to bolster up so novel, so original, and so bold an
interpretation of Scripture with exegetical reasons and arguments.
In looking into these reasons and arguments,--if reasons and arguments
they may be called,--we are at a loss to conceive on what principle
their authors have proceeded. The most plausible conjecture we can make
is, that it was deemed sufficient to show that it is possible, by a bold
stroke of interpretation, to call in question the fact that Onesimus was
the slave of Philemon; since, if this may only be questioned by the
learned, then the unlearned need not trouble themselves with the
Scripture, but simply proceed with the work of abolitionism. Then may
they cry, "Who shall decide when doctors disagree?"[171] and give all
such disputings to the wind. Such seems to us to have been the principle
on which the assertion of Mr. Sumner and Mr. Barnes has proceeded;
evincing, as it does, an utter, total, and reckless disregard of the
plainest teachings of inspiration. But let the candid reader hear, and
then determine for himself.
The Greek word δοῦλος, applied to Onesimus, means, according to Mr.
Barnes, either a slave, or a hired servant, or an apprentice. It is not
denied that it means a _slave_. "The word," says Mr. Barnes himself, "is
that which is commonly applied to a slave." Indeed, to assert that the
Greek word δοῦλος does not mean _slave_, were only a little less
glaringly absurd than to affirm that no such meaning belongs to the
English term _slave_ itself. If it were necessary, this point might be
most fully, clearly, and conclusively established; but since is is not
denied, no such work of supererogation is required at our hands.
But it is insisted, that the word in question has a more extensive
signification than the English term _slave_. "Thus," says Mr. Barnes,
"it is so extensive in its signification as to be applicable to any
species of servitude, whether voluntary or involuntary." Again: "All
that is necessairly implied by it is, that he was, in some way, the
servant of Philemon--whether _hired or bought cannot be shown_." Once
more, he says: "The word denotes _servant_ of any kind, and it should
never be assumed that those to whom it was applied were slaves." Thus,
according to Mr. Barnes, the word in question denotes a slave, or a
hired servant, or, as he has elsewhere said, an apprentice. It denotes
"servant of _any_ kind," whether "voluntary or involuntary."
Such is the positive assertion of Mr. Barnes. But where is the proof?
Where is the authority on which it rests? Surely, if this word is
applied to hired servants, either in the Greek classics or in the New
Testament, Mr. Barnes, or Mr. Sumner, or some other learned
abolitionist, should refer us to the passage where it is so used. We
have Mr. Barnes' assertion, again and again repeated, in his very
elaborate Notes on the Epistle to Philemon; but not the shadow of an
authority for any such use of the word. But stop: in making this
assertion, he refers us to his "Notes on Eph. vi 5, and 1 Tim. vi."
Perhaps we may find his authority by the help of one of these
references. We turn, then, to Eph. vi. 5; and we find the following
note: "Servants. Οἱ δοῦλοι. The word here used denotes one who is bound
to render service to another, whether that service be free or voluntary,
and may denote, therefore, either a slave, or one who binds himself to
render service to another. _It is often used in these senses in the New
Testament, just as it is elsewhere._"[172] Why, then, if it is so often
used to denote a hired servant, or an apprentice, or a voluntary servant
of any kind, in the New Testament, is not at least one such instance of
its use produced by Mr. Barnes? He must have been aware that one such
authority from the New Testament was worth more than his bare assertion,
though it were a hundred times repeated. Yet no such authority is
adduced or referred to; he merely supports his assertion in the one
place by his assertion in the other?
Let us look, in the next place, to his other reference, which is to 1
Tim. vi. 1. Here, again, we find not the shadow of an authority that the
word in question is applicable to "hired servants," or "apprentices." We
simply meet the oft-repeated assertion of the author, that it is
applicable to _any_ species of servitude. He refers from assertion to
assertion, and nowhere gives a single authority to the point in
question. If we may believe him, such authorities are abundant, even in
the New Testament; yet he leaves the whole matter to rest upon his own
naked assertion! Yea, as Greek scholars, he would have us to believe
that δοῦλος may mean a "hired servant," just as well as a slave; and he
would have us to believe this, too, not upon the usage of Greek writers,
but upon his mere assertion! We look for other evidence; and we intend
to pin him down to proof, ere we follow him in questions of such
momentous import as the one we have in hand.
Why is it, then, we ask the candid reader, if the term in question mean
"a hired servant," as well as a slave, that no such application of the
word is given? If such applications be as abundant as our author asserts
they are, why not refer us to a single instance, that our utter
ignorance may be at least relieved by one little ray of light? Why
refer us from assertion to assertion, if authorities may be so
plentifully had? We cannot conceive, unless the object be to deceive the
unwary, or those who may be willingly deceived. An assertion merely,
bolstered up with a "See note," here or there, may be enough for such;
but if, after all, there be nothing but assertion on assertion piled, we
shall not let it pass for proof. Especially, if such assertion be at war
with truth, we shall track its author, and, if possible, efface his
footprints from the immaculate word of God.
If the term δοῦλος signifies "a hired servant," or "an apprentice," it
is certainly a most extraordinary circumstance that the best
lexicographers of the Greek language have not made the discovery. This
were the more wonderful, if, as Mr. Barnes asserts, the word "is often
used in these senses" by Greek writers. We have several Greek lexicons
before us, and in not one of them is there any such meaning given to the
word. Thus, in Donnegan, for example, we find: "δοῦλος, a slave, a
servant, as opposed to δεσποτης, a master." But we do not find from him
that it is ever applied to hired servants or apprentices. In like
manner, Liddell and Scott have "δοῦλος, a _slave_, _bondman_, strictly
one born so, opposed to ανδραποδον." But they do not lay down "a hired
servant," or "an apprentice," as one of its significations. If such,
indeed, be found among the meanings of the word, these celebrated
lexicographers were as ignorant of the fact as ourselves. Stephens also,
as any one may see by referring to his "Thesaurus, Ling. Græc., Tom I.
art. Δοῦλος," was equally ignorant of any such use of the term in
question. Is it not a pity, then, that, since such knowledge rested with
Mr. Barnes, and since, according to his own statement, proofs of its
accuracy were so abundant, he should have withheld all the evidence in
his possession, and left so important a point to stand or fall with his
bare assertion? Even if the rights of mankind had not been in question,
the interests of Greek literature were, one would think, sufficient to
have induced him to enlighten our best lexicographers with respect to
the use of the word under consideration. Such, an achievement would, we
can assure him, have detracted nothing from his reputation for
scholarship.
But how stands the word in the New Testament? It is certain that,
however "often it may be applied" to hired servants in the New
Testament, Mr. Barnes has not condescended to adduce a single
application of the kind. This is not all. Those who have examined every
text of the New Testament in which the word δοῦλος occurs, and compiled
lexicons especially for the elucidation of the sacred volume, have found
no such instance of its application.
Thus, Schleusner, in his Lexicon of the New Testament, tells us that it
means slave as opposed to, ελευθερος, _freeman_. His own words are:
Δοῦλος, ου, ὁ, (1) proprie: _servus, minister, homo non liber nec sui
juris_, et opponitur τῷ ελευθερος. Matt. viii. 9; xiii. 27, 28; 1 Cor.
vii. 21, 22; xii. 13; εἴτε δοῦλοι, εἴτε ἐλεύθεροι. Tit. ii. 9."
We next appeal to Robinson's Lexicon of the New Testament. We there find
these words: "δοῦλος, ου, ὁ, _a bondman, slave, servant, pr. by birth_;
diff. from ανδραποδον, 'one enslaved in war,' comp. Xen. An., iv. 1,
12," etc. Now if, as Mr. Barnes asserts, the word in question is so
often applied to hired servants in the New Testament, is it not passing
strange that neither Schleusner nor Robinson should have discovered any
such application of it? So far, indeed, is Dr. Robinson from having made
any such discovery, that he expressly declares that the δοῦλος "WAS
NEVER A HIRED SERVANT; _the latter being called_ μισθιος, μισθωτος." "In
a family," continues the same high authority, "the δοῦλος was _bound to
serve, a slave_, and was the property of his master, 'a living
possession,' as Aristotle calls him."
"The Greek δοῦλος," says Dr. Smith, in his Dictionary of Antiquities,
"like the Latin _servus_, corresponds to the usual meaning of our word
slave. . . . . Aristotle (Polit. i. 3.) says that a complete household
is that which consists of slaves and freemen, (οἰκία δὲ τέλειος εκδουλων καὶ
ελευθερων,) and he defines a slave to be a living working-tool and
possession. (Ὁ δοῦλος ἔμφυχον, ὄργανον, Ethic. Nicim. viii. 13; ὁ δοῦλος κτημα
τι εμφυχον, Pol. i. 4.) Thus Aristotle himself defines the δοῦλος to be, not
a "servant of any kind," but a slave; and we presume that he understood
the force of this Greek word at least as well as Mr. Barnes or Mr.
Sumner. And Dr. Robinson, as we have just seen, declares that it never
means a hired servant.
Indeed, all this is so well understood by Greek scholars, that Dr.
Macknight does not hesitate to render the term δοῦλος, applied to
Onesimus in the Epistle to Philemon, by the English word _slave_. He has
not even added a footnote, as is customary with him when he deems any
other translation of a word than that given by himself at all worthy of
notice. In like manner, Moses Stuart just proceeds to call Onesimus "the
slave of Philemon," as if there could be no ground for doubt on so plain
a point. Such is the testimony of these two great Biblical critics, who
devoted their lives in great measure to the study of the language,
literature, and interpretation of the Epistles of the New Testament.
Now, it should be observed, that not one of the authorities quoted by us
had any motive "to pervert texts," or "to invent authorities," "in
support of slavery." Neither Donnegan, nor Liddell and Scott, nor
Stephens, nor Schleusner, nor Robinson, nor Smith, nor Macknight, nor
Stuart, could possibly have had any such motive. If they were not all
perfectly unbiassed witnesses, it is certain they had no bias in favor
of slavery. It is, indeed, the abolitionist, and not the slaveholder,
who, in this case, "has perverted texts;" and if he has not "invented
authorities," it is because his attempts to do so have proved abortive.
Beside the clear and unequivocal import of the word applied to Onesimus,
it is evident, from other considerations, that he was the slave of
Philemon. To dwell upon all of these would, we fear, be more tedious
than profitable to the reader. Hence we shall confine our attention to a
single circumstance, which will, we think, be sufficient for any candid
or impartial inquirer after truth. Among the arguments used by St. Paul
to induce Philemon to receive his fugitive slave kindly, we find this:
"For perhaps he therefore departed _for a season_, that thou shouldest
receive him _forever_." This verse is thus paraphrased by Macknight: "To
mitigate thy resentment, consider, that _perhaps also for this reason he
was separated_ from thee _for a little while_, (so προς ὡραν signified,
1 Thess. ii. 17, note 2,) _that thou mightest have him_ thy slave _for
life_." Dr. Macknight also adds, in a footnote: "By telling Philemon
that he would now have Onesimus forever, the apostle intimates to him
his firm persuasion that Onesimus would never any more run away from
him." Such seems to be the plain, obvious import of the apostle's
argument. No one, it is believed, who had no set purpose to subserve, or
no foregone conclusion to support, would view this argument in any other
light. Perhaps he was separated for a while as a slave, that "thou
mightest have him forever," or for life. How have him? Surely, one
would think, as a slave, or in the same capacity from which he was
separated for a while. The argument requires this; the opposition of the
words, and the force of the passage, imperatively require it. But yet,
if we may believe Mr. Barnes, the meaning of St. Paul is, that perhaps
Onesimus was separated for a while _as a servant_, that Philemon might
never receive him again as a servant, but forever as a Christian
brother! Lest we should be suspected of misrepresentation, we shall give
his own words. "The meaning is," says he, "that it was possible that
this was permitted in the providence of God, _in order_ that Onesimus
might be brought under the influence of the gospel, and be far more
serviceable to Philemon as a Christian than he could have been in his
former relation to him."
In the twelfth verse of the epistle, St. Paul says: "Whom I have sent
again," or, as Macknight more accurately renders the words, "Him I have
sent back," (ὅν ανεπεμφα.) Here we see the great apostle _actually
sending back a fugitive slave to his master_. That act of St. Paul is
not, and cannot be, denied. The words are too plain for denial. Onesimus
"_I have sent back_." Surely it cannot be otherwise than a most
unpleasant spectacle to abolitionist eyes thus to see Paul, the
aged--perhaps the most venerable and glorious hero whose life is upon
record--assume such an attitude toward the institution of slavery. Had
he dealt with slavery as he always dealt with every thing which he
regarded as sin; had he assumed toward it an attitude of stern and
uncompromising hostility, and had his words been thunderbolts of
denunciation, then indeed would he have been a hero after the very
hearts of the abolitionists. But, as it is, they have to _apologize_ for
the great apostle, and try, as best they may, to deliver him from his
_very equivocal position_! But if they are true apostles, and not false,
then, we fear, the best apology for his conduct is that he had never
read the Declaration of Independence, nor breathed the air of Boston.
This point, however, we shall not decide. We shall examine their
apologies, and let the candid reader decide for himself. St. Paul, it is
not denied, sent back Onesimus. But, says Mr. Barnes, he did not
_compel_ or _urge_ him to go. He did not send him back against his will.
Onesimus, no doubt, desired to return, and St. Paul was moved to send
him by his own request. Now, in the first place, this apology is built
on sheer assumption. There is not the slightest evidence that Onesimus
requested St. Paul to send him back to his master. "There may have been
many reasons," says Mr. Barnes, "why Onesimus desired to return to
Colosse, and no one can prove that he did not express that desire to St.
Paul, and that his 'sending' him was not in consequence of such
request." True; even if Onesimus had felt no such desire, and had
expressed no such desire to St. Paul, it would have been impossible, in
the very nature of things, for any one to prove such negatives, unless
he had been expressly informed on the subject by the writer of the
epistle. But is it not truly wonderful, that any one should, without the
least particle or shadow of evidence, be pleased to imagine a series of
propositions, and then call upon the opposite party to disprove them? Is
not such proceeding the very stuff that dreams are made of?
No doubt there may have been reasons why Onesimus should desire to
return to his master. There were certainly reasons, and reasons of
tremendous force, too, why he should have desired no such thing. The
fact that Philemon, whom he had offended by running away, had, according
to law, the power of life and death over him, is one of the reasons why
he should have dreaded to return. Hence, unless required by the apostle
to return, he _may_ have desired no such thing, and no one can prove
that an expression of such desire on his part was the ground of the
apostle's action. It is certain, that he who affirms should prove.
In the second place, if St. Paul were an abolitionist at heart, he
should have avoided the appearance of so great an evil. He should not,
for a moment, have permitted himself to stand before the world in the
simple and unexplained attitude of one who had sent back a fugitive
slave to his master. No honest abolitionist would permit himself to
appear in such a light. He would scorn to occupy such a position. Hence,
we repeat, if St. Paul were an abolitionist at heart, he should have let
it be known that, in sending Onesimus back, he was moved, not originally
by the principles of his own heart, but by the desire and request of the
fugitive himself. By such a course, he would have delivered himself from
a false position, and spared his friends among the abolitionists the
necessity of making awkward apologies for his conduct.
Thirdly, the positions of Mr. Barnes are not merely sheer assumptions;
they are perfectly gratuitous. For it is easy to explain the
determination of St. Paul to send Onesimus back, without having recourse
to the supposition that Onesimus desired him to do so. Such
determination was, indeed, the natural and necessary result of the well
known principles of the great apostle. He had repeatedly, and most
emphatically, inculcated the principle, that it is the duty of slaves to
"obey their masters," and to "count them worthy of all honor." This duty
Onesimus had clearly violated in running away from his master. If St.
Paul, then, had not taught Onesimus a different doctrine from that which
he had taught the churches, he must have felt that he had done wrong in
absconding from Philemon, and desired to repair the wrong by returning
to him. "It is," says Mr. Barnes, "by no means necessary to suppose that
Paul felt that Onesimus was under _obligation_ to return." But we must
suppose this, unless we suppose that Paul felt that Onesimus was under
no obligation to obey the precepts which he himself had delivered for
the guidance and direction of all Christian servants.
We shall now briefly notice a few other of Mr. Barnes' arguments, and
then dismiss this branch of the subject. "If St. Paul sent back
Onesimus," says he, "this was, doubtless, at his own request; for there
is not the slightest evidence that he _compelled_ him, or even urged
him, to go." We might just as well conclude that St. Paul first required
Onesimus to return, because there is not the slightest evidence that
Onesimus made any such request.
"Paul," says Mr. Barnes, "had no power to send Onesimus back to his
master unless he chose to go." This is very true. But still Onesimus may
have chosen to go, just because St. Paul, his greatest benefactor and
friend, had told him it was his duty to do so. He may have chosen to go,
just because the apostle had told him it is the duty of servants not to
run away from their masters, but to obey them, and count them worthy of
all honor. It is also true, that "there is not the slightest evidence
that he _compelled_ him, or even _urged_ him, to go." It is, on the
other hand, equally true, that there is not the slightest evidence that
any thing more than a bare expression of the apostle's opinion, or a
reiteration of his well-known sentiments, was necessary to induce him to
return.
"The language is just as would have been used," says our author, "on
the supposition, either that he requested him to go and bear a letter to
Colosse, or that Onesimus desired to go, and that Paul sent him
agreeably to his request. Compare Phil. ii. 25: 'Yet I suppose it
necessary _to send_ Epaphroditus, my brother, and companion in labor,'
etc.; Col. iv. 7, 8: 'All my estate shall Tychicus declare unto you, who
is a beloved brother, and a faithful minister and fellow-servant in the
Lord: whom I have _sent_ unto you for the same purpose, that he might
know your estate.' But Epaphroditus and Tychicus were not sent against
their own will,--nor is there any more reason to think that Onesimus
was." Now there is not the least evidence that either Epaphroditus or
Tychicus _requested_ the apostle to _send_ them as he did; and, so far
as appears from his statements, the whole thing originated with himself.
It is simply said that he _sent_ them. It is true, they were "not sent
against their own will," for they were ready and willing to obey his
directions. We have good reason, as we have seen, to believe that
precisely the same thing was true in regard to the sending of Onesimus.
But there is another case of _sending_ which Mr. Barnes has overlooked.
It is recorded in the same chapter of the same epistle which speaks of
the sending of Epaphroditus. We shall adduce it, for it is a case
directly in point. "But ye know the proof of him, (_i. e._ of Timothy,)
that, as a son with the father, he hath served with me in the gospel.
Him, therefore, I hope to _send_ presently, so soon as I shall see how
it will go with me." Now, here the apostle proposes to send Timothy, not
so soon as Timothy should request to be sent, but so soon as he should
see how it would go with himself as a prisoner at Rome. "As a son with
the father," so Timothy, after his conversion, served with the great
apostle, and, not against his own will, but most cheerfully, obeyed his
directions. And in precisely the same ineffably endearing relation did
Onesimus stand to the apostle. As a recent convert,--as a sincere and
humble Christian,--he naturally looked to his great inspired teacher for
advice, and was, no doubt, with more than filial affection, ready to
obey.
Hence, we insist that Paul was responsible for the return of Onesimus to
his master. He might have prevented his return, had he so desired; for
he tells us so himself, (ver. 13.) But he chose to send him back. And
why? Because Onesimus requested? The apostle says not so. "I would have
retained him with me," says he to Philemon, "that in thy stead he might
have ministered unto me in the bonds of the gospel. BUT WITHOUT THY MIND
WOULD I DO NOTHING." Nay, whatever may have been his own desires, or
those of Onesimus, he would do nothing without the mind of Philemon.
Such is the reason which the apostle assigns for his own conduct, for
his own determination not to retain the fugitive slave.
"What the apostle wrote to Philemon on this occasion is," says Dr.
Macknight, "highly worthy of notice; namely, that although he had great
need of an affectionate, honest servant to minister to him in his bonds,
such as Onesimus was, who had expressed a great inclination to stay with
him; and although, if Onesimus had remained with him, he would only have
discharged the duty which Philemon himself owed to his spiritual father,
yet the apostle would by no means detain Onesimus without Philemon's
leave, because it belonged to him to dispose of his own slave in the way
he thought proper. Such was the apostle's regard to justice, and to the
rights of mankind!"
According to Mr. Barnes, however, the apostle was governed in this
transaction, not by a regard to principle or the rights of mankind, but
by a regard for the feelings of the master! Just listen, for one moment,
to his marvellous discourse: "It is probable," says he, "that _if_
Onesimus had proposed to return, it would have been easy for Paul to
have retained him with him. He might have represented his own want of a
friend. He might have appealed to his gratitude on account of his
efforts for his conversion. He might have shown him that he was under no
moral obligation to go back. He might have refused to give him this
letter, and might have so represented to him the dangers of the way, and
the probability of a harsh reception, as effectually to have dissuaded
him from such a purpose. But, in that case, it is clear that this might
have caused hard feeling in the bosom of Philemon, and rather than do
that, he preferred to let him return to his master, and to plead for him
that he might have a kind reception. It is, therefore, by no means
necessary to suppose that Paul felt that Onesimus was under _obligation_
to return, or that he was disposed to _compel_ him, or that Onesimus was
not inclined to return voluntarily; but all the circumstances of the
case are met by the supposition that, if Paul had retained him, Philemon
might conceive that he had injured _him_."
Alas! that so much truth should have been suppressed; and that, too, by
the most glorious champion of truth the world has ever seen. He tells
not his "son Onesimus" that he is under no moral obligation to return to
his master. On the contrary, he leaves him ignorant of his rights--of
his inherent, sacred, and eternal rights. He sees him blindly put off
"the hero," and put on "the brute" again. And why? Because, forsooth, if
he should only speak, _he might cause hard feeling in the bosom of his
master_! Should he retain Onesimus, his son, he would not injure
Philemon at all. But then Philemon "might _conceive_" that he had
injured him. Ah! when will abolitionist again suppress such mighty
truth, lest he disturb some _fancied_ right, or absurd feeling ruffle?
When the volcano of his mind suppress and keep its furious fires in,
lest he consume some petty despot's despicable sway; or else, at least,
touch his tender sensibilities with momentary pain? "_Fiat justitia,
ruat cœlum_," is a favorite maxim with other abolitionists. But St.
Paul, it seems, could not assume quite so lofty a tone. He could not
say, "Let justice be done, though the heavens should fall." He could not
even say, "Let justice be done," though the feelings of Philemon should
be hurt.
It is evident, we think, that St. Paul needs to be defended against Mr.
Barnes' defenses of him, and vindicated against his apologies. If,
indeed, he were so pitiful a pleader of "the innocent cause" as Mr.
Barnes would have us to believe he is, then, we ask if those
abolitionists are not in the right who despise both the apostle and his
doctrine? No other abolitionist, it is certain, will ever imitate his
example, as that example is represented by Mr. Barnes. No other
abolitionist will ever suppress the great truths--as he conceives them
to be--with which his soul is on fire, and which, in his view, lie at
the foundation of human happiness, lest he should "cause hard feelings"
in the bosom of a slaveholder.
It may be said, perhaps, that the remarks and apology of Mr. Barnes do
not proceed on the supposition that Onesimus was a slave. If so, the
answer is at hand. For surely Mr. Barnes cannot think it would have been
dishonorable in the apostle to advise, or even to urge, "a hired
servant," or "an apprentice," to return and fulfill his contract. It is
evident that, although Mr. Barnes would have the reader to believe that
Onesimus was merely a hired servant or an apprentice, he soon forgets
his own interpretation, and proceeds to reason just as if he himself
regarded him as a slave. This, if possible, will soon appear still more
evident.
The apostle did not, according to Mr. Barnes, wholly conceal his
abolition sentiments. He made them known to Philemon. Yes, we are
gravely told, the letter which Onesimus carried in his pocket, as he
wended his way back from Rome to Colosse, was and is an emancipation
document! This great discovery is, we believe, due to the abolitionists
of the present day. It was first made by Mr. Barnes, or Dr. Channing, or
some other learned emancipationist, and after them by Mr. Sumner.
Indeed, the discovery that it appears from the face of the epistle
itself that it is an emancipation document, is the second of the two
"conclusive things" which, in Mr. Sumner's opinion, constitute "an
all-sufficient response" to anti-abolitionists.
Now supposing St. Paul to have been an abolitionist, such a disclosure
of his views would, we admit, afford some little relief to our minds.
For it would show that, although he did not provoke opposition by
proclaiming the truth to the churches and to the world, he could at
least run the risk of hurting the feelings of a slaveholder. But let us
look into this great discovery, and see if the apostle has, in reality,
whispered any such words of emancipation in the ear of Philemon.
In his note to the sixteenth verse of the epistle, Mr. Barnes says: "Not
now as a servant. The adverb rendered 'not now,' (οὐκέτι) means _no
more_, _no further_, _no longer_." So let it be. We doubt not that such
is its meaning. Hence, we need not examine Mr. Barnes' numerous
authorities, to show that such is the force of the adverb in question.
He has, we admit, most abundantly established his point that οὐκέτι
means _no longer_. But then this is a point which no anti-abolitionist
has the least occasion to deny. We find precisely the same rendition in
Macknight, and we are perfectly willing to abide by his translation. If
Mr. Barnes had spared himself the trouble of producing these
authorities, and adduced only one to show that δοῦλος means _a hired
servant_, or _an apprentice_, his labor would have been bestowed where
it is needed.
As the passage stands, then, St. Paul exhorts Philemon to receive
Onesimus, "no longer as a servant." Now this, we admit, is perfectly
correct _as far as it goes_. "It (_i. e._ this adverb) implies," says
Mr. Barnes, "that he had been in this condition, _but was not to be
now_." He was _no longer_ to be a servant! Over this view of the
passage, Mr. Sumner goes into quite a paroxysm of triumphant joy.
"Secondly," says he, "in charging Onesimus with this epistle to
Philemon, the apostle announces him as 'not now a servant, but above a
servant,--a brother beloved;' and he enjoins upon his correspondent the
hospitality due only to a freeman, saying expressly, 'If thou count me,
therefore, as a partner, _receive him as myself_;' ay, sir, not as
slave, not even as servant, but as a brother beloved, even as the
apostle himself. Thus with apostolic pen wrote Paul to his disciple
Philemon. Beyond all doubt, in these words of gentleness, benediction,
and EMANCIPATION,[173] dropping with celestial, soul-awakening power,
there can be no justification for a conspiracy, which, beginning with
the treachery of Iscariot, and the temptation of pieces of silver, seeks
by fraud, brutality, and violence, through officers of the law armed to
the teeth like pirates, and amid soldiers who degrade their uniform, to
hurl a fellow-man back into the lash-resounding den of American slavery;
and if any one can thus pervert this beneficent example, allow me to say
that he gives too much occasion to doubt his intelligence or his
sincerity."
Now in regard to the spirit of this passage we have at present nothing
to say. The sudden transition from the apostle's "words of blessing and
benediction," to Mr. Sumner's words of railing and vituperation, we
shall pass by unnoticed. Upon these the reader may make his own
comments. It is our object simply to comment on the words of the great
apostle. And, in the first place, we venture to suggest that there are
several very serious difficulties in the way of Mr. Barnes' and Mr.
Sumner's interpretation of the passage in question.
Let us, for the sake of argument, concede to these gentlemen that
Onesimus was merely the hired servant, or apprentice, of Philemon. What
then follows? If they are not in error, it clearly and unequivocally
follows that St. Paul's "words of emancipation" were intended, not for
slaves merely, but for hired servants and apprentices! For servants of
any and every desrciption! Mr. Sumner expressly tells us that he was to
return, "not as a slave, _not even as a servant_, but as a brother
beloved." Now such a scheme of emancipation would, it seems to us, suit
the people of Boston as little as it would those of Richmond. It would
abolish every kind of "servitude, whether voluntary or involuntary," and
release all hired servants, as well as apprentices, from the obligation
of their contracts. Such is one of the difficulties in their way. It may
not detract from the "sincerity," it certainly reflects no credit on the
"intelligence," of Mr. Sumner, to be guilty of such an oversight.
There is another very grave difficulty in the way of these gentlemen.
St. Paul writes that the servant Onesimus, who had been unprofitable to
Philemon in times past, would now be profitable to him. But how
profitable? As a servant? No! he was no longer to serve him at all. His
"emancipation" was announced! He was to be received, not as a slave, not
even as a servant, but _only_ as a brother beloved! Philemon was,
indeed, to extend to him the hospitalities due to a freeman, even such
as were due to the apostle himself? Now, for aught we know, it may have
been very agreeable to the feelings of Philemon, to have his former
servant thus unceremoniously "emancipated," and quartered upon him as "a
gentleman of elegant leisure;" but how this could have been so
_profitable_ to him is more than we can conceive.
It must be admitted, we think, that in a worldly point of view, all the
profits would have been on the side of Onesimus. "But," says Mr. Barnes,
"he would now be more profitable as a Christian brother." It is true,
Onesimus had not been very profitable as a Christian brother before he
ran away, for he had not been a Christian brother at all. But if he were
sent back by the apostle, because he would be profitable merely as a
Christian brother, we cannot see why any other Christian brother would
not have answered the purpose just as well as Onesimus. If such, indeed,
were the apostle's object, he might have conferred a still greater
benefit upon Philemon by sending several Christian brethren to live with
him, and to feast upon his good things.
Thirdly, the supposition that St. Paul thus announced the emancipation
of Onesimus, is as inconsistent with the whole scope and design of the
passage, as it is with the character of the apostle. If he would do
nothing without the consent of Philemon, not even retain his servant to
minister to himself while in prison, much less would he declare him
emancipated, and introduce him to his former master as a freeman. We
submit to the candid reader, we submit to every one who has the least
perception of the character and spirit of the apostle, if such an
interpretation of his words be not simply ridiculous.
It is certain that such an interpretation is peculiar to abolitionists.
"Men," says Mr. Sumner, "are prone to find in uncertain, disconnected
texts, a confirmation of their own personal prejudices or
prepossessions. And I,"--he continues, "who am no divine, but only a
simple layman--make bold to say, that whosoever finds in the gospel any
sanction of slavery, finds there merely a reflection of himself." He
must have been a very simple layman indeed, if he did not perceive how
very easily his words might have been retorted. We venture to affirm
that no one, except an abolitionist, has ever found the slightest
tincture of abolitionism in the writings of the great apostle to the
Gentiles.
The plain truth is, that Philemon is exhorted to receive Onesimus "no
longer as a slave ONLY, but above a slave,--a brother beloved." Such is
the translation of Macknight, and such, too, is the concurrent voice of
every commentator to whom we have access. Pool, Clarke, Scott, Benson,
Doddridge--all unite in the interpretation that Onesimus was, in the
heaven-inspired and soul-subduing words of the loving apostle, commended
to his master, not as a slave _merely_, but also as a Christian brother.
The great fact--the "words of emancipation," which Mr. Sumner sees so
clearly on "the face of the epistle,"--they cannot see at all. Neither
sign nor shadow of any such thing can they perceive. It is a sheer
reflection of the abolitionist himself. Thus, the Old Testament is not
only merged in the New, but the New itself is merged in Mr. Charles
Sumner, of Massachusetts.
We shall notice one passage more of Scripture. The seventh chapter of
the Epistle to the Corinthians begins thus: "Now concerning the things
whereof ye wrote unto me;" and it proceeds to notice, among other
things, the relation of master and slave. This passage was designed to
correct the disorders among the Christian slaves at Corinth, who,
agreeably to the doctrine of the false teacher, _claimed their liberty,
on pretense that, as brethren in Christ, they were on an equality with
their Christian masters_." Here, then, St. Paul met abolitionism face
to face. And how did he proceed? Did he favor the false teacher? Did he
recognize the claim of the discontented Christian slaves? Did he even
once hint that they were entitled to their freedom, on the ground that
all men are equal, or on any other ground whatever? His own words will
furnish the best answer to these questions.
"Let every man," says he, "abide in the same calling wherein he was
called. Art thou called, being a servant? _care not for it._" Thus, were
Christian slaves exhorted to continue in that condition of life in which
they were when converted to Christianity. This will not be denied. It is
too plain for controversy. It is even admitted by Mr. Barnes himself. In
the devout contemplation of this passage Chrysostom exclaims: "Hast thou
been called, being a slave? Care not for it. Continue to be a slave.
Hast thou been called, being in uncircumcision? Remain uncircumcised.
Being circumcised, didst thou become a believer? Continue circumcised.
For these are no hindrances to piety. Thou are called, being a slave;
another, with an unbelieving wife; another, being circumcised.
[Astonishing! Where has he put slavery?] As circumcision profits not,
and uncircumcision does no harm, so neither doth slavery nor yet
liberty."
"The great argument" against slavery is, according to Dr. Channing and
other abolitionists, drawn from the immortality of the soul. "Into every
human being," says he, "God has breathed an immortal spirit, more
precious than the whole outward creation. No earthly nor celestial
language can exaggerate the worth of a human being." The powers of this
immortal spirit, he concludes, "reduce to insignificance all outward
distinctions." Yea, according to St. Paul himself, they reduce to utter
insignificance all outward distinctions, and especially the distinction
between liberty and slavery. "Art thou called," says he, "being a slave?
care not for it." Art thou, indeed, the Lord's freeman and _as such_
destined to reign on a throne of glory forever? Oh, then, care not for
the paltry distinctions of the passing world!
Now, whom shall the Christian teacher take for his model?--St. Paul, or
Dr. Channing? Shall he seek to make men contented with the condition in
which God has placed them, or shall he stir up discontent, and inflame
the restless passions of men? Shall he himself, like the great apostle,
be content to preach the doctrines of eternal life to a perishing
world; or shall he make politics his calling, and inveigh against the
domestic relations of society? Shall he exhort men not to continue in
the condition of life in which God has placed them, but to take his
providence out of his hands, and, _in direct opposition to his word_,
assert their rights? In one word, shall he preach the gospel of Christ
and his apostles, or shall he preach the gospel of the abolitionist?
"Art thou called, being a servant? care not for it; but if thou mayest
be made free, use it rather." The Greek runs thus: αλλ' εἱ καἱ δὑνασαι
ἑλἑὑθερος γενἑσαι μαλλον χρἡσαι,--literally, "but even if thou canst
become free, rather make use of." Make use of what? The Greek verb is
left without a case. How, then, shall this be applied? To what does the
ambiguous _it_ of our translation refer? "One and all of the native
Greek commentators in the early ages," says Stuart, "and many expositors
in modern times, say that the word to be supplied is δουλεἱα, i. e.
_slavery, bondage_. The reason which they give for it is, that this is
the only construction which can support the proposition the apostle is
laboring to establish, viz.: 'Let every man abide in _statu quo_.' Even
De Wette, (who, for his high liberty notions, was banished from
Germany,) in his commentary on this passage, seems plainly to accede to
the force of this reasoning; and with him many others have agreed. No
man can look at the simple continuity of logic in the passage without
feeling that there is force in the appeal." Yet the fact should not be
concealed, that Stuart himself is "not satisfied with this exegesis of
the passage;" which, according to his own statement, was the universal
interpretation from "the early ages" down to the sixteenth century. This
change, says he, "seems to have been the spontaneous prompting of the
spirit of liberty, that beat high" in the bosom of its author.
Now have we not some reason to distrust an interpretation which comes
not exactly from Heaven, but from a spirit beating high in the human
breast? _That_ is certainly not an unerring spirit. We have already seen
what it can do with the Scriptures. But whether it has erred in this
instance, or not, it is certain that it should never be permitted to
beat so very high in any human breast as to annul the teachings of the
apostle, or to make him contradict himself. This has been too often
done. We too frequently hear those who admit that St. Paul exhorts
"slaves to continue in slavery," still contend that "if they may be
made free," they should move heaven and earth to attain so desirable an
object. They "should continue in that state," and yet exert all their
power to escape therefrom!
Conybeare and Howson, who are acknowledged to be among the best
commentators of the Epistles of St. Paul, have restored "the continuity
of his logic." They translate his words thus: "Nay, though thou have
power to gain thy freedom, seek rather to remain content." This
translation certainly possesses the advantage that it makes the doctrine
of St. Paul perfectly consistent with itself.
But let us return to the point in regard to which there is no
controversy. It is on all sides agreed, that St. Paul no less than three
times exhorts every man to continue in the condition in which Providence
has placed him. "And this rule," says he, "ordain I in all the
churches." Yet--would any man believe it possible?--the very
quintessence of abolitionism itself has been extracted from this passage
of his writings! Let us consider for a moment the wonderful alchemy by
which this has been effected.
We find in this passage the words: "Be not ye the servants of men."
These words are taken from the connection in which they stand,
dissevered from the words which precede and follow them, and then made
to teach that slaves should not submit to the authority of their
masters, should not continue in their present condition. It is certain
that no one but an abolitionist, who has lost all respect for revelation
except when it happens to square with his own notions, could thus make
the apostle so directly and so flatly contradict himself and all his
teaching. Different interpretations have been given to the words just
quoted; but until abolitionism set its cloven foot upon the Bible, such
violence had not been done to its sacred pages.
Conybeare and Howson suppose that the words in question are intended to
caution the Corinthians against "their servile adherence to party
leaders." Bloomfield, in like manner, says: "The best commentators are
agreed," that they are "to be taken figuratively, in the sense, 'do not
be blindly followers of men, conforming to their opinions,' etc." It is
certain that Rosenmüller, Grotius, and we know not how many more, have
all concurred in this interpretation. But be the meaning what it may,
_it is not_ an exhortation to slaves to burst their bonds in sunder,
unless the apostle has, in one and the same breath, taught
diametrically opposite doctrines.
Yet, in direct opposition to the plain words of the apostle, and to the
concurrent voice of commentators and critics, is he made to teach that
slaves should throw off the authority of their masters! Lest such a
thing should be deemed impossible, we quote the words of the author by
whom this outrage has been perpetrated. "The command of the 23d verse,"
says he, "'be not ye the servants of men,' is equally plain. There are
no such commands uttered in regard to the relations of husband and wife,
parent and child, as are here given in regard to slavery. _No one is
thus urged to dissolve the marriage relation. No such commands are given
to relieve children from obedience to their parents_," etc.[174] Nor is
any such command, we repeat, given to relieve slaves from obedience to
their masters, or to dissolve the relation between them.
If such violence to Scripture had been done by an obscure scribbler, or
by an infidel quoting the word of God merely for a purpose, it would not
have been matter of such profound astonishment. But is it not
unspeakably shocking that a Christian man, nay, that a Christian
minister and doctor of divinity, should thus set at naught the clearest,
the most unequivocal, and the most universally received teachings of the
gospel? If he had merely accused the Christian man of the South, as he
has so often done in his two stupid volumes on slavery, of the crimes of
"swindling," of "theft," of "robbing," and of "manstealing," we could
have borne with him well; and, as we have hitherto done, continued to
pass by his labors with silent contempt. But we have deemed it important
to show in what manner, and to what extent, the spirit of abolitionism
can wrest the pure word of God to its antichristian purpose.
We shall conclude the argument from scripture with the following just
and impressive testimony of the Princeton Review: "The mass of the pious
and thinking people in this country are neither abolitionists nor the
advocates of slavery. They stand where they ever have stood--on the
broad Scriptural foundation; maintaining the obligation of all men, in
their several places and relations, to act on the law of love, and to
promote the spiritual and temporal welfare of others by every means in
their power. They stand aloof from the abolitionists for various
reasons. In the first place, they disapprove of their principles. The
leading characteristic doctrine of this sect is that slaveholding is in
all cases a sin, and should, therefore, under all circumstances, be
immediately abandoned. _As nothing can be plainer than that slaveholders
were admitted to the Christian church by the inspired apostles, the
advocates of this doctrine are brought into direct collision with the
Scriptures. This leads to one of the most dangerous evils connected with
the whole system, viz., a disregard of the authority of the word of God,
a setting up a different and higher standard of truth and duty, and a
proud and confident wresting of Scripture to suit their own purposes._
THE HISTORY OF INTERPRETATION FURNISHES NO EXAMPLES OF MORE WILLFUL AND
VIOLENT PERVERSIONS OF THE SACRED TEXT THAN ARE TO BE FOUND IN THE
WRITINGS OF THE ABOLITIONISTS. THEY SEEM TO CONSIDER THEMSELVES ABOVE
THE SCRIPTURES; AND WHEN THEY PUT THEMSELVES ABOVE THE LAW OF GOD, IT IS
NOT WONDERFUL THAT THEY SHOULD DISREGARD THE LAWS OF MEN. Significant
manifestations of the result of this disposition to consider their own
light a surer guide than the word of God, are visible in the anarchical
opinions about human governments, civil and ecclesiastical, and on the
rights of women, which have found appropriate advocates in the abolition
publications. Let these principles be carried out, and there is an end
to all social subordination, to all security for life and property, to
all guarantee for public or domestic virtue. If our women are to be
emancipated from subjection to the law which God has imposed upon them,
if they are to quit the retirement of domestic life, where they preside
in stillness over the character and destiny of society; if they are to
come forth in the liberty of men, to be our agents, our public
lecturers, our committee-men, our rulers; if, in studied insult to the
authority of God, we are to renounce in the marriage contract all claim
to obedience, we shall soon have a country over which the genius of Mary
Wolstonecraft would delight to preside, but from which all order and all
virtue would speedily be banished. There is no form of human excellence
before which we bow with profounder deference than that which appears in
a delicate woman, adorned with the inward graces and devoted to the
peculiar duties of her sex; and there is no deformity of human
character from which we turn with deeper loathing than from a woman
forgetful of her nature, and clamorous for the vocation and rights of
men. It would not be fair to object to the abolitionists the disgusting
and disorganizing opinions of even some of their leading advocates and
publications, did they not continue to patronize those publications, and
were not these opinions the legitimate consequences of their own
principles. Their women do but apply their own method of dealing with
Scripture to another case. This no inconsiderable portion of the party
have candor enough to acknowledge, and are therefore prepared to abide
the result."
FOOTNOTES:
[163] Lev. xxv. 44, 45, 56.
[164] Lev. xxv. 44, 45, 46.
[165] Exod. xxi. 20, 21.
[166] Exod. xxi. 7, 8.
[167] Deut. xxiii. 15, 16.
[168] Moses Stewart, a divine of Massachusetts, who had devoted a long
and laborious life to the interpretation of Scripture, and who was by no
means a friend to the institution of slavery.
[169] Speech in the Metropolitan Theatre, 1855.
[170] Speech at the Metropolitan Theatre, 1855.
[171] Fools may hope to escape responsibility by such a cry. But if
there be any truth in moral science, than every man should examine and
decide, or else forbear to act.
[172] The Italics are ours.
[173] The emphasis is ours.
[174] Elliott on Slavery, vol. i. p. 205.
CHAPTER IV.
THE ARGUMENT FROM THE PUBLIC GOOD.
The Question--Emancipation in the British
Colonies--The manner in which Emancipation has
ruined the British Colonies--The great benefit
supposed, by American Abolitionists, to result to
the freed Negroes from the British Act of
Emancipation--The Consequences of Abolition to the
South--Elevation of the Blacks by Southern
Slavery.
WE have not shunned the abstractions of the abolitionist. We have, on
the contrary, examined all his arguments, even the most abstract, and
endeavored to show that they either rest on false assumptions, or
consist in false deductions. While engaged in this analysis of his
errors, we have more than once had occasion to remind him that the great
practical problem of slavery is to be determined, if determined at all,
not by an appeal to abstractions, but simply by a consideration of the
public good. It is under this point of view, or with reference to the
highest good of the governed, that we now proceed to consider the
institution of slavery.
The way is open and clear for this view of the subject. For we have
seen, we trust, that slavery is condemned neither by any principle of
natural justice, nor by any precept of divine revelation. On the other
hand, if we mistake not, it has been most clearly shown that the
doctrines and practices of the abolitionist are at war with the most
explicit words of God, as well as with the most unquestionable
principles of political ethics. Hence, without the least disrespect to
the eternal principles of right, we may now proceed to subject his
doctrines to the only remaining test of political truth, namely, _to the
test of experience_. Having examined the internal qualities of the tree
and found them bad, we may now proceed to inquire if "its fruits" be not
poison. And if the sober lessons of history, if the infallible records
of experience, be found in perfect harmony with the conclusions of
reason and of revelation, then shall we not be triply justified in
pronouncing abolitionism a social and a moral curse?
§ I. _The Question._
Here, at the outset, we may throw aside a mass of useless verbiage, with
which our inquiry is usually encumbered. We are eternally told that
Kentucky has fallen behind Ohio, and Virginia behind Pennsylvania,
because their energies have been crippled, and their prosperity
over-clouded, by the institution of slavery. Now, it is of no importance
to our argument that we should either deny the fact, or the explanation
which is given of it by abolitionists. If the question were, whether
slavery should be introduced among us, or into any non-slaveholding
State, then such facts and explanations would be worthy of our notice.
Then such an appeal to experience would be relevant to the point in
dispute. But such is not the question. We are not called upon to decide
whether slavery shall be established in our midst or not. This question
has been decided for us. Slavery--as every body knows--was forced upon
the colonies by the arbitrary and despotic rule of Great Britain, and
that, too, against the earnest remonstrances of our ancestors. The thing
has been done. The past is beyond our control. It is fixed and
unalterable. The only inquiry which remains for us now is, whether the
slavery which was thus forced upon our ancestors shall be continued, or
whether it shall be abolished? The question is not what Virginia, or
Kentucky, or any other slave State, _might_ have been, but what they
would be in case slavery were abolished. If abolitionists would speak to
the point, then let them show us some country in which slavery has been
abolished, and we will abide by the experiment. Fortunately for us, we
need not look far for such an experiment;--an experiment which has been
made, not upon mere chattels or brutes, but upon the social and moral
well-being of more than a million of human beings. We refer, of course,
to the emancipation of the slaves in the British colonies. This work, as
every one knows, was the great vaunted achievement of British
abolitionists. Here, then, we may see their philosophy--if philosophy it
may be called--"teaching by example." Here we may see and taste the
fruits of abolitionism, ere we conclude to grow them upon our own soil.
§ II. _Emancipation in the British Colonies._
It is scarcely in the power of human language to describe the
enthusiastic delight with which the abolitionists, both in England and
in America, were inspired by the spectacle of West India Emancipation.
We might easily adduce a hundred illustrations of the almost frantic joy
with which it intoxicated their brains. We shall, however, for the sake
of brevity, confine our attention to a single example,--which will, at
the same time, serve to show, not only how wild the abolitionist himself
was, but also how indignant he became that others were not equally
disposed to part with their sober senses. "The prevalent state of
feeling," said Dr. Channing in 1840, "in the free States in regard to
slavery is indifference--an indifference strengthened by the notion of
great difficulties attending the subject. The fact is painful, but the
truth should be spoken. The majority of the people, even yet, care
little about the matter. A painful proof of this insensibility was
furnished about a year and a half ago, when the English West Indies were
emancipated. An event surpassing this in moral grandeur is not recorded
in history. In one day, probably seven hundred thousand of human beings
were rescued from bondage to full, unqualified freedom. The
consciousness of wrongs, in so many breasts, was exchanged into
rapturous, grateful joy. What shouts of thanksgiving broke forth from
those liberated crowds! What new sanctity and strength were added to the
domestic ties! What new hopes opened on future generations! The crowning
glory of this day was the fact that the work of emancipation was wholly
due to the principles of Christianity. The West Indies were freed, not
by force, or human policy, but by the reverence of a great people for
justice and humanity. The men who began and carried on this cause were
Christian philanthropists; and they prevailed by spreading their own
spirit through a nation. In this respect, the emancipation of the West
Indies was a grander work than the redemption of the Israelites from
bondage. This was accomplished by force, by outward miracles, by the
violence of the elements. That was achieved by love, by moral power, by
God, working, not in the stormy seas, but in the depths of the human
heart. And how was this day of emancipation--one of the most blessed
days that ever dawned upon the earth--received in this country? While in
distant England a thrill of gratitude and joy pervaded thousands and
millions, we, the neighbors of the West Indies, and who boast of our
love of liberty, saw the sun of that day rise and set with hardly a
thought of the scenes on which it was pouring its joyful light. The
greater part of our newspapers did not refer to the event. The great
majority of the people had forgotten it. Such was the testimony we gave
to our concern for the poor slave; and is it from discussions of slavery
among such a people that the country is to be overturned?"
Such were the glowing expectations of the abolitionists. It now remains
to be seen whether they were true prophets, or merely "blind leaders of
the blind." Be that as it may, for the present we cannot agree with Dr.
Channing, that the good people of the free States were insincere in
boasting of their "love of liberty," because they did not go into
raptures over so fearful an experiment before they had some little time
to see how it would work. They did, no doubt, most truly and profoundly
love liberty. But then they had some reason to suspect, perhaps, that
liberty may be one thing, and abolitionism quite another. Liberty, they
knew, was a thing of light and love; but as for abolitionism, it was,
for all they knew, a demon of destruction. Hence they would wait, and
see. We do well to rejoice at once, exclaims Dr. Channing. If a
man-child is born into the world, says he, do we wait to read his future
life ere we rejoice at his birth? Ah, no! But then, perhaps, this
offspring of abolitionism is no man-child at all. It may, for aught we
know, be an abortion of night and darkness merely. Hence, we shall wait,
and mark his future course, ere we rend the air with shouts that he is
born at last.
This man-child, or this monster, is now seventeen years and four months
old. His character is developed, and fixed for life. We may now read
his history, written by impartial men, and determine for ourselves,
whether it justifies the bright and boundless hopes of the
abolitionists, or the "cold indifference," nay, the suspicions and the
fears, of the good people of the free States.
We shall begin with Jamaica, which is by far the largest and most
valuable of the British West Indies. The very first year after the
complete emancipation of the slaves of this island, its prosperity began
to manifest symptoms of decay. As long as it was possible, however, to
find or invent an explanation of these fearful signs, the abolitionists
remained absolutely blind to the real course of events. In 1839, the
first year of complete emancipation, it appeared that the crop of sugar
exported from the island had fallen off no less than eight thousand four
hundred and sixty-six hogsheads. But, then, it was discovered that the
hogsheads had been larger this year than the preceding! It is true,
there was not exactly any proof that larger hogsheads had been used all
over the island, but it was rumored; and the rumor was, of course,
eagerly swallowed by the abolitionists.
And besides, it was quite certain that the free negroes had eaten more
sugar than while they were slaves, which helped mightily to account for
the great diminution in the exports of the article. No one could deny
this. It is certain, that if the free negroes only devoured sugar as
eagerly as such floating conjectures were gulped down by the
abolitionists, the whole phenomenon needed no other cause for its
perfect explanation. It never once occured, however, to these reasoners
to imagine that the decrease in the amount of rum exported from another
island _might_ be owing to the circumstance that the free blacks had
swallowed a little more of that article as well as of sugar. On the
contrary, this fact was held up as a most conclusive and triumphant
proof that the free negroes had not only become temperate themselves,
but also so virtuous that they scorned to produce such an article to
poison their fellow-men. The English abolitionists who rejoiced at such
a reflection were, it must be confessed, standing on rather delicate
ground. For if such an inference proved any thing, it proved that the
blacks of the island in question had, at one single bound, passed from
the depths of degradation to an exaltation of virtue far above their
emancipators, the English people themselves; since these, as every
reader of history knows, not only enforced the culture of opium in
India, but also absolutely compelled the poor Chinese to receive it at
the mouth of the cannon!
It also appears that, for 1839, the amount of coffee exported had fallen
off 38,554 cwt., or about one third of the whole amount of the preceding
year. "The coffee is a very uncertain crop," said a noted English
emancipationist, in view of this startling fact, "and the deficiency, on
the comparison of these two years, is not greater, I believe, than has
often occurred before." This is true, for a drought or a hurricane had
before created quite as great a deficiency. But while the fact is true,
it only proves that the first year of emancipation was no worse on the
coffee crop than a drought or a hurricane.
"We should also remember," says this zealous abolitionist, "that, both
in sugar and coffee, the profit to the planter may be increased by the
saving of expense, even where the produce is diminished." Such a thing,
we admit, is possible; it _may_ be true. But _in point of fact_, as we
shall soon see, the expense was increased, while the crop was
diminished.
But after every possible explanation, even Dr. Channing and Mr. Gurney
were bound to admit "that some decrease has taken place in both the
articles, in connection with the change of system." They also admitted
that "so far as this decrease of produce is connected with the change of
system, _it is obviously to be traced to a corresponding decrease in the
quantity of labor_."
May we not suppose, then, that here the ingenuity of man is at an end,
and the truth begins to be allowed to make its appearance? By no means.
For here "comes the critical question,"--says Mr. Gurney, "the real
turning point. To what is this decrease in the quantity of labor owing?
I answer deliberately but without reserve, '_Mainly_ to causes which
class under slavery and not under freedom.' It is, for the most part,
the result of those impolitic attempts to force the labor of freemen
which have disgusted the peasantry, and have led to the desertion of
many of the estates."
Now suppose this were the case, is it not the business, is it not the
duty, of the legislator to consider the passions, the prejudices, and
the habits of those for whom he legislates? Indeed, if he overlook
these, is he not a reckless experimenter rather than a wise statesman?
If he legislates, not for man as he _is_, but for man as he _ought to
be_, is he not a political dreamer rather than a sound philosopher?
The abolitionist not only closed his eyes on every appearance of decline
in the prosperity of the West Indies, he also seized with avidity every
indication of the successful operation of his scheme, and magnified it
both to himself and to the world. He made haste, in particular, to paint
in the most glowing colors the rising prosperity of Jamaica.[175] His
narrative was hailed with eager delight by abolitionists in all parts of
the civilized world. It is a pity, we admit, to spoil so fine a story,
or to put a damper on so much enthusiasm. But the truth, especially in a
case like the present, should be told. While, then, to the enchanted
imagination of the abolitionist, the wonderful industry of the freed
negroes and the exuberant bounty of nature were concurring to bring
about a paradise in the island of Jamaica, the dark stream of
emancipation was, in reality, undermining its prosperity and glory. We
shall now proceed to adduce the evidence of this melancholy fact, which
has in a few short years become so abundant and so overwhelming, that
even the most blind and obstinate must feel its force.
After describing the immense sources of wealth to be found in Jamaica,
an intelligent eye-witness says: "Such are some of the natural resources
of this dilapidated and poverty-stricken country. Capable as it is of
producing almost every thing, and actually producing nothing which might
not become a staple with a proper application of capital and skill, its
inhabitants are miserably poor, and daily sinking deeper into the utter
helplessness of abject want.
"'Magnas inter opes inops.'
"Shipping has deserted her ports; her magnificent plantations of sugar
and coffee are running to weeds; her private dwellings are falling to
decay; the comforts and luxuries which belong to industrial prosperity
have been cut off, one by one, from her inhabitants; and the day, I
think, is at hand when there will be none left to represent the wealth,
intelligence, and hospitality for which the Jamaica planter was once
distinguished."[176]
"It is impossible," says Mr. Carey, "to read Mr. Bigelow's volume,
without arriving at the conclusion that the freedom granted to the negro
has had little effect except that of enabling him to live at the expense
of the planter so long as any thing remained. Sixteen years of freedom
did not appear to its author to have 'advanced the dignity of labor or
of the laboring classes one particle,' while it had ruined the
proprietors of the land, and thus great damage had been done to the one
class without benefit of any kind to the other.
From a statistical table, published in August, 1853, it appears, says
one of our northern journals, that, since 1846, "the number of sugar
estates on the island that have been totally abandoned amounts to one
hundred and sixty-eight, and the number partially abandoned to
sixty-three; the value of which two hundred and thirty-one estates was
assessed, in 1841, at £1,655,140, or nearly eight millions and a half of
dollars. Within the same period two hundred and twenty-three
coffee-plantations have been totally, and twenty partially, abandoned,
the assessed value of which was, in 1841, £500,000, or two millions and
a half of dollars; and of cattle-pens, (grazing farms,) one hundred and
twenty-two have been totally, and ten partially, abandoned, the value of
which was a million and a half of dollars. The aggregate value of these
six hundred and six estates, which have been thus ruined and abandoned
in the island of Jamaica, within the last seven or eight years, amounted
by the regular assessments, ten years since, to the sum of nearly two
and a half millions of pounds sterling, or twelve and a half millions of
dollars."[177]
In relation to Jamaica, another witness says: "The marks of decay
abound. Neglected fields, crumbling houses, fragmentary fences,
noiseless machinery--these are common sights, and soon become familiar
to observation. I sometimes rode for miles in succession over fertile
ground, which used to be cultivated, and which is now lying waste. So
rapidly has cultivation retrograded, and the wild luxuriance of nature
replaced the conveniences of art, that parties still inhabiting these
desolated districts have sometimes, in the strong language of a speaker
at Kingston, 'to seek about the bush to find the entrance into their
houses.'
"The towns present a spectacle no less gloomy. A great part of Kingston
was destroyed, some years ago, by an extensive conflagration: yet
multitudes of the houses which escaped that visitation are standing
empty, though the population is little, if at all, diminished. The
explanation is obvious. Persons who have nothing, and can no longer keep
up their domestic establishments, take refuge in the abodes of others,
where some means of subsistence are still left; and in the absence of
any discernible trade or occupation, the lives of crowded thousands
appear to be preserved from day to day by a species of miracle. The most
busy thoroughfares of former times have now almost the quietude of a
Sabbath.
"'The finest land in the world,' says Mr. Bigelow, 'may be had at any
price, and almost for the asking.' Labor 'receives no compensation, and
the product of labor does not seem to know how to find the way to
market.'"[178]
From the report made in 1849, and signed by various missionaries, the
moral and religious state of the island appears no less gloomy than its
scenes of poverty and distress. The following extract from that report
we copy from Mr. Carey's "Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign:"--
"Missionary efforts in Jamaica are beset at the present time with many
and great discouragements. Societies at home have withdrawn or
diminished the amount of assistance afforded by them to chapels and
schools throughout this island. The prostrate condition of its
agriculture and commerce disables its own population from doing as much
as formerly for maintaining the worship of God and the tuition of the
young, and induces numbers of negro laborers to retire from estates
which have been thrown up, to seek the means of subsistence in the
mountains, where they are removed in general from moral training and
superintendence. The consequences of this state of matters are very
disastrous. Not a few missionaries and teachers--often struggling with
difficulties which they could not overcome--have returned to Europe, and
others are preparing to follow them. Chapels and schools are abandoned,
or they have passed into the hands of very incompetent instructors."
We cannot dwell upon each of the West India Islands. Some of these have
not suffered so much as others; but while some, from well-known causes,
have been partially exempt from the evils of emancipation, all have
suffered to a fearful extent. This, as we shall now show, is most amply
established by English authorities.
Mr. Bigelow, whose "Notes on Jamaica in 1850" we have noticed, is an
American writer; a Northern man; and, it is said, by no means a friend
to the institution of slavery. It is certain that Mr. Robert Baird, from
whom we shall now quote, is not only a subject of Great Britain, but
also a most enthusiastic advocate of "the glorious Act of British
Emancipation." But although he admires that act, yet, on visiting the
West Indies for his health, he could not fail to be struck with the
appalling scenes of distress there exhibited. In describing these, his
object is not to reflect shame on the misguided philanthropy of Great
Britain; but only to urge the adoption of other measures, in order to
rescue the West Indies from the utter ruin and desolation which must
otherwise soon overtake them. We might easily adduce many impressive
extracts from his work; but, for the sake of brevity, we shall confine
our attention to one or two passages.
"Hope," says Mr. Baird, "delights to brighten the prospects of the
future; and thus it is that the British West Indian planter goes on from
year to year, struggling against his downward progress, and still hoping
that something may yet turn up to retrieve his ruined fortunes. But all
do not struggle on. Many have given in, and many more can and will
confirm the statement of a venerable friend of my own--a gentleman high
in office in one of the islands above-mentioned--who, when showing me
his own estate and sugar-works, assured me, that for above a quarter of
a century they had yielded him nearly £2000 per annum; and that now,
despite all his efforts and improvements, (which were many,) he could
scarcely manage to make the cultivation pay itself. Instances of this
kind might be multiplied till the reader was tired, and even heart-sick,
of such details. But what need of such? Is it not notorious? Has it not
been proved by the numerous failures that have taken place of late years
among our most extensive West Indian merchants? Are not the reports of
almost all the governors of our colonial possessions filled with
statements to the effect that great depreciation of property has taken
place in all and each of our West Indian colonies, and that great has
been the distress consequent thereupon? These governors are, of course,
all of them imbued, to some extent, with the ministerial policy--at
least it is reasonable to assume that they are so. At all events,
whether they are so or not, their position almost necessitates their
doing their utmost to carry out, with success, the ministerial views and
general policy. To embody the substance of the answer given by a
talented lieutenant-governor, in my own hearing, to an address which set
forth, somewhat strongly, the ruined prospects and wasted fortunes of
the colonists under his government: 'It must, or it ought to be, the
object and the desire of every governor or lieutenant-governor in the
British West Indian Islands, to disappoint and stultify, if he can, the
prognostications of coming ruin with which the addresses he receives
from time to time are continually charged?' Yet what say these
governors? Do not the reports of one and all of them confirm the above
statement as to the deplorable state of distress to which the West
Indian planters in the British colonies are reduced?"[179]
Again, he says: "That the British West Indian colonists have been loudly
complaining that they are ruined, is a fact so generally acknowledged,
that the very loudness and frequency of the complaint has been made a
reason for disregarding or undervaluing the grounds of it. That the West
Indians are always grumbling is an observation often heard; and, no
doubt, it is very true that they are so. But let any one who thinks that
the extent and clamor of the complaint exceeds the magnitude of the
distress which has called it forth, go to the West Indies and judge for
himself. Let him see with his own eyes the neglected and abandoned
estates,--the uncultivated fields, fast hurrying back into a state of
nature, with all the speed of tropical luxuriance--the dismantled and
silent machinery, the crumbling walls, and deserted mansions, which are
familiar sights in most of the British West Indian colonies. Let him,
then, transport himself to the Spanish islands of Porto Rico and Cuba,
and witness the life and activity which in these slave colonies prevail.
Let him observe for himself the activity of the slavers--the
improvements daily making in the cultivation of the fields and in the
processes carried on at the Ingenios or sugar-mills--and _the general
indescribable air of thriving and prosperity which surrounds the
whole_,--and then let him come back to England and say, if he honestly
can, that the British West Indian planters and proprietors are
grumblers, who complain without adequate cause."[180]
Great Britain has shown no little solicitude to ascertain the real state
of things in her West India colonies. For this purpose, she appointed,
in 1842, a select committee, consisting of some of the most prominent
members of Parliament, with Lord Stanley at their head. In 1848, another
committee was appointed by her, with Lord George Bentinck as its
chairman, to inquire into the condition of her Majesty's East and West
India possessions and the Mauritius, and to consider whether any
measures could be adopted for their relief. The report of both
committees show, beyond all doubt, that unexampled distress existed in
the colonies. The report of 1848 declares: "That many estates in the
British West India colonies have been already abandoned, that many more
are in the course of abandonment, and that from this cause a very
serious diminution is to be apprehended in the total amount of
production. That the first effect of this diminution will be an increase
in the price of sugar, and the ultimate effect a greater extension to
the growth of sugar in slave countries, and a greater impetus to slavery
and the slave-trade." From the same report, we also learn that the
prosperity of the Mauritius, no less than that of the West India
Islands, had suffered a fearful blight, in consequence of the "glorious
act of emancipation."
A third commission was appointed, in 1850, to inquire into the condition
and prospects of British Guiana. Lord Stanley, in his second letter to
Mr. Gladstone, the Secretary of the British colonies, has furnished us
with the following extracts from the report of this committee:--
"Of Guiana generally they say--'It would be but a melancholy task to
dwell upon the misery and ruin which so alarming a change must have
occasioned to the proprietary body; but your commissioners feel
themselves called upon to notice the effects which this wholsale
abandonment of property has produced upon the colony at large. Where
whole districts are fast relapsing into bush, and occasional patches of
provisions around the huts of village settlers are all that remain to
tell of once flourishing estates, it is not to be wondered at that the
most ordinary marks of civilization are rapidly disappearing, and that
in many districts of the colony all travelling communication by land
will soon become utterly impracticable.'
"Of the Abary district:--'Your commission find that the line of road is
nearly impassable, and that a long succession of formerly cultivated
estates presents now a series of pestilent swamps, overrun with bush,
and productive of malignant fevers.'
"Nor are matters," says Lord Stanley, "much better further south.
"'Proceeding still lower down, your commissioners find that the public
roads and bridges are in such a condition that the few estates still
remaining on the upper west bank of Mahaica Creek are completely cut
off, save in the very dry season; and that with regard to the whole
district, unless something be done very shortly, travelling by land will
entirely cease. In such a state of things it cannot be wondered at that
the herdsman has a formidable enemy to encounter in the jaguar and other
beasts of prey, and that the keeping of cattle is attended with
considerable loss from the depredations committed by these animals.'
"It may be worth noticing," continues Lord Stanley, "that this
district--now overrun with wild beasts of the forest--was formerly the
very garden of the colony. The estates touched one another along the
whole line of the road, leaving no interval of uncleared land.
"The east coast, which is next mentioned by the commissioners, is better
off. Properties, once of immense value, had there been bought at nominal
prices; and the one railroad of Guiana passing through that tract, a
comparatively industrious population--composed of former laborers on the
line--enabled the planters still to work these to some profit. Even of
this favored spot, however, they report that it 'feels most severely the
want of continuous labor.'
"The commissioners next visit the east bank of the Demerara River, thus
described:--
"'Proceeding up the east bank of the river Demerara, the generally
prevailing features of ruin and distress are everywhere perceptible.
Roads and bridges almost impassable are fearfully significant exponents
of the condition of the plantations which they traverse; and Canal No.
3, once covered with plantains and coffee, presents now a scene of
almost total desolation.'
"Crossing to the west side, they find prospects somewhat brighter: 'A
few estates, are still 'keeping up a cultivation worthy of better
times.' But this prosperous neighborhood is not extensive, and the next
picture presented to our notice is less agreeable:--
"'Ascending the river still higher, your commissioners learn that the
district between Hobaboe Creek and "Stricken Heuvel" contained, in 1829,
eight sugar and five coffee and plantain estates, and now there remain
but three in sugar, and four partially cultivated with plantains, by
petty settlers; while the roads, with one or two exceptions, are in a
state of utter abandonment. Here, as on the opposite bank of the river,
hordes of squatters have located themselves, who avoid all communication
with Europeans, and have seemingly given themselves up altogether to the
rude pleasures of a completely savage life.'
"The west coast of Demerara--the only part of the country which still
remains unvisited--is described as showing _only_ a diminution of fifty
per cent. upon its produce of sugar; and with this fact the evidence
concludes as to one of the three sections into which the colony is
divided. Does Demerara stand alone in its misfortunes?
"Again hear the report:--'If the present state of the county of Demerara
affords cause for deep apprehension, your commissioners find that
Essequibo has retrograded to a still more alarming extent. In fact,
unless a large and speedy supply of labor be obtained to cultivate the
deserted fields of this once flourishing district, there is great reason
to fear that it will relapse into total abandonment.'
"Describing another portion of the colony--they say of one district,
'Unless a fresh supply of labor be very soon obtained, there is every
reason to fear that it will become completely abandoned.' Of a second,
'speedy immigration alone can save this island from total ruin.' 'The
prostrate condition of this once beautiful part of the coast,' are the
words which begin another paragraph, describing another tract of
country. Of a fourth, 'the proprietors on this coast seem to be keeping
up a hopeless struggle against approaching ruin.' Again, 'the once
famous Arabian coast, so long the boast of the colony, presents now but
a mournful picture of departed prosperity. Here were formerly situated
some of the finest estates in the country, and a large resident body of
proprietors lived in the district, and freely expended their incomes on
the spot whence they derived them.' Once more, 'the lower part of the
coast, after passing Devonshire Castle, to the river Pomeroon, presents
a scene of almost total desolation.' Such is Essequibo!
"Berbice," says Lord Stanley, "has fared no better. Its rural population
amounts to 18,000. Of these, 12,000 have withdrawn from the estates, and
mostly from the neighborhood of the white man, to enjoy a savage freedom
of ignorance and idleness, beyond the reach of example and sometimes of
control. But on the condition of the negro I shall dwell more at length
hereafter; at present it is the state of property with which I have to
do. What are the districts which together form the county of Berbice?
The Corentyne coast--the Canje Creek--east and west banks of the Berbice
River--and the west coast, where, however, cotton was formerly the chief
article produced. To each of these respectively the following passages,
quoted in order, apply:--
"'The abandoned plantations on this coast,[181] which, if capital and
labor could be procured, might easily be made very productive, are
either wholly deserted, or else appropriated by hordes of squatters, who
of course are unable to keep up at their own expense the public roads
and bridges; and consequently all communication by land between the
Corentyne and New Amsterdam is nearly at an end. The roads are
impassable for horses or carriages, while for foot passengers they are
extremely dangerous. The number of villages in this deserted region must
be upward of 2500, and as the country abounds with fish and game, they
have no difficulty in making a subsistence. In fact, the Corentyne coast
is fast relapsing into a state of nature.'
"'Canje Creek was formerly considered a flourishing district of the
county, and numbered on its east bank seven sugar and three coffee
estates, and on its west bank eight estates, of which two were in sugar
and six in coffee, making a total of eighteen plantations. The coffee
cultivation has long since been entirely abandoned, and of the sugar
estates but eight still now remain. They are suffering severely for want
of labor, and being supported principally by African and Coolie
immigrants, it is much to be feared that if the latter leave and claim
their return passages to India, a great part of the district will
become abandoned.'
"Under present circumstances, so gloomy is the condition of affairs
here,[182] that the two gentlemen whom your commissioners have examined
with respect to this district, both concur in predicting "its slow but
sure approximation to the condition in which civilized man first found
it."'
"'A district[183] that in 1829 gave employment to 3635 registered
slaves, but at the present moment there are not more than 600 laborers
at work on the few estates still in cultivation, although it is
estimated there are upward of 2000 people idling in villages of their
own. The roads are in many parts several feet under water and perfect
swamps, while in some places the bridges are wanting altogether. In fact
the whole district is fast becoming a total wilderness, with the
exception of the one or two estates which yet continue to struggle on,
and which are hardly accessible now but by water.'
"'Except in some of the best villages,[184] they care not for back or
front dams to keep off the water; their side-lines are disregarded, and
consequently the drainage is gone, while in many instances the public
road is so completely flooded that canoes have to be used as a means of
transit. The Africans are unhappily following the example of the Creoles
in this district, and buying land on which they settle in contented
idleness; and your commissioners cannot view instances like these
without the deepest alarm, for if this pernicious habit of squatting is
allowed to extend to the immigrants also, there is no hope for the
colony.'"[185]
We might fill a volume with extracts to the same effect. We might in
like manner point to other regions, especially to Guatemala, to the
British colony on the southern coast of Africa, and to the island of
Hayti, in all of which emancipation has been followed by precisely
similar results. But we must hasten to consider how it is that
emancipation has wrought all this ruin and desolation. In the mean time,
we shall conclude this section in the ever-memorable words of Alison,
the historian: "The negroes," says he, "who, in a state of slavery, were
comfortable and prosperous beyond any peasantry in the world, and
rapidly approaching the condition of the most opulent serfs of Europe,
_have been by the act of emancipation irretrievably consigned to a state
of barbarism_."
§ III. _The manner in which emancipation has ruined the British
Colonies._
By the act of emancipation, Great Britain paralyzed the right arm of her
colonial industry. The laborer would not work except occasionally, and
the planter was ruined. The morals of the negro disappeared with his
industry, and he speedily retraced his steps toward his original
barbarism. All this had been clearly foretold. "Emancipation," says Dr.
Channing in 1840, "was resisted on the ground that the slave, if
restored to his rights, _would fall into idleness and vagrancy, and even
relapse into barbarism_."
This was predicted by the West Indian planters, who certainly had a good
opportunity to know something of the character of the negro, whether
bond or free. But who could suppose for a moment that an enlightened
abolitionist would listen to slaveholders? His response was, that "their
unhappy position as slaveholders had robbed them of their reason and
blunted their moral sense." Precisely the same thing had been foretold
by the Calhouns and the Clays of this country. But they, too, were
unfortunately slaveholders, and, consequently, so completely "sunk in
moral darkness," that their testimony was not entitled to credit. The
calmest, the profoundest, the wisest statesman of Great Britain likewise
forewarned the agitators of the desolation and the woes they were about
to bring upon the West Indies. But the madness of the day would confide
in no wisdom except its own, and listen to no testimony except to the
clamor of fanatics. Hence the frightful experiment was made, and, as we
have seen, the prediction of the anti-abolitionist has been fulfilled to
the very letter.
The cause of this downward tendency in the British colonies is now
perfectly apparent to all who have eyes to see. On this point, the two
committees above referred to both concur in the same conclusion. The
committee of 1842 declare, "that the principal causes of this diminished
production, and consequent distress, are the great difficulty which has
been experienced by the planters in obtaining _steady_ and _continuous_
labor, and the high rate of remuneration which they give for even the
_broken_ and _indifferent_ work which they are able to procure."
The cry of the abolitionist has been changed. At first--even before the
experiment was more than a year old--he insisted that the industry of
the freed black was working wonders in the British colonies. In the West
Indies, in particular, he assured us that the freed negro would do "an
infinity of work for wages."[186] Though he had been on the islands, and
had had an opportunity to see for himself, he boasted that "the old
notion that the negro is, by constitution, a lazy creature, who will do
no work at all except by compulsion, _is now forever exploded_."[187] He
even declared, that the free negro "understands his interest as well as
a Yankee."[188] These confident statements, made by an eye-witness, were
hailed by the abolitionists as conclusive proof that the experiment was
working admirably. "The great truth has come out," says Dr. Channing,
"that the hopes of the most sanguine advocates of emancipation have been
realized--if not surpassed--by the West Indies." What! the negro become
idle, indeed! "He is more likely," says the enchanted doctor, "to fall
into the civilized man's cupidity than into the filth and sloth of the
savage." But all these magnificent boasts were quite premature. A few
short years have sufficed to demonstrate that the deluded authors of
them, who had so lamentably failed to predict the future, could not even
read the present.
Their boasts are now exploded. Their former hopes are blasted; and their
cry is changed. The song now is,--"Well, suppose the negroes will not
work: they are FREE! They can now do as they list, and there is no man
to hinder." Ah, yes! they can now, at their own sweet will, stretch
themselves "under their gracefully-waving groves," and be lulled to
sleep amid the sound of waterfalls and the song of birds.
Such, precisely, is the paradise for which the negro sighs, except that
he does not care for the waterfalls and the birds. But it should be
remarked, that when sinful man was driven from the only Paradise that
earth has ever seen, he was doomed to eat his bread in the sweat of his
brow. This doom he cannot reverse. Let him make of life--as the Haytien
negroes do--"one long day of unprofitable ease,"[189] and he may dream
of Paradise, or the abolitionists may dream for him. But while he
dreams, the laws of nature are sternly at their work. Indolence benumbs
his feeble intellect, and inflames his passions. Poverty and want are
creeping on him. Temptation is surrounding him; and vice, with all her
motley train, is winding fast her deadly coils around his very soul, and
making him the devil's slave, to do his work upon the earth. Thus, the
blossoms of his paradise are _fine words_, and its fruits are _death_.
"If but two hours' labor per day," says Theodore Parker, "are necessary
for the support of each colored man, I know not why he should toil
longer." You know not, then, why the colored man should work more than
two hours a day? Neither does the colored man himself. You know not why
he should have any higher or nobler aim in life than to supply his few,
pressing, animal wants? Neither does he. You know not why he should
think of the future, or provide for the necessities of old age? Neither
does he. You know not why he should take thought for seasons of
sickness? Neither does he; and hence his child often dies under his own
eyes, for the want of medical attendance. You know not that the colored
man, who begins with working only two hours a day, will soon end with
ceasing from all regular employment, and live, in the midst of filth, by
stealing or other nefarious means? In one word, you know not why the
colored man should not live like the brute, in and for the present
merely--blotting out all the future from his plans of life? If, indeed,
you really know none of these things, then we beg you will excuse us, if
_we_ do not know why you should assume to teach our senators wisdom;--if
we do not know why the cobbler should not stick to his last, and all
such preachers to their pulpits.[190]
Abolitionism is decidedly progressive. The time was when Dr. Channing
thought that men should work, and that, if they would not labor from
rational motives, they should be compelled to labor.[191] The time was,
when even abolitionists looked upon labor with respect, and regarded it
as merely an obedience to the very first law of nature, or merely a
compliance with the very first condition of all economic, social, and
moral well-being. But the times are changed. The exigencies of
abolitionism now require that _manual labor, and the gross material
wealth_ it produces, should be sneeringly spoken of, and great swelling
eulogies pronounced on the infinite value of the negro's freedom. For
this is all he has; and for this, all else has been sacrificed. Thus,
since abolitionists themselves have been made to see that the freed
negro--the pet and idol of their hearts--will not work from rational
motives, then the principles of political economy, and the affairs of
the world, all must be adjusted to the course _he_ may be pleased to
take.
In this connection we shall notice a passage from Montesquieu, which is
exactly in point. He is often quoted by the abolitionists, but seldom
fairly. It is true, he is exceedingly hostile to slavery _in general_,
and very justly pours ridicule and contempt on some of the arguments
used in favor of the institution. But yet, with all his enthusiastic
love of liberty,--nay, with his ardent passion for equality,--he saw far
too deeply into the true "Spirit of Laws" not to perceive that slavery
is, in certain cases, founded on the great principles of political
justice. It is precisely in those cases in which a race or a people will
not work without being compelled to do so, that he justifies the
institution in question. Though warmly and zealously opposed to slavery,
yet he was not bent on sacrificing the good of society to abstractions
or to prejudice. Hence, he could say: "But as all men are born equal,
slavery must be accounted unnatural, THOUGH IN SOME COUNTRIES IT BE
FOUNDED ON NATURAL REASON; and a wide difference ought to be made
betwixt such countries, and those in which natural reason rejects it, as
in Europe, where it has been happily abolished."[192] Now, if we inquire
in what countries, or under what circumstances, he considered slavery
founded on natural reason, we may find his answer in a preceding portion
of the same page. It is in those "countries," says he, "where the excess
of heat enervates the body, and renders men so slothful and dispirited,
that nothing but the fear of chastisement can oblige them to perform any
laborious duty," etc. Such, as we have seen, is precisely the case with
the African race in its present condition.
"Natural slavery, then," he continues, "is to be limited to some
particular parts of the world."[193] And again: "Bad laws have made lazy
men--they have been reduced to slavery because of their laziness." The
first portion of this remark--that bad laws have made lazy men--is not
applicable to the African race. For they were made lazy, not by bad
laws, but by the depravity of human nature, in connection and
co-operation with long, long centuries of brutal ignorance and the most
savage modes of life. But, be the cause of this laziness what it may, it
is sufficient, according to the principles of this great advocate of
human freedom and equality, to justify the servitude in which the
providence of God has placed the African.
No doubt it is very hard on lazy men that they should be compelled to
work. It is for this reason that Montesquieu calls such slavery "the
most cruel that is to be found among men;" by which he evidently means
that it is the most cruel, though necessary, because those on whom it is
imposed are least inclined to work. If he had only had greater
experience of negro slavery, the hardship would have seemed far less to
him. For though the negro is naturally lazy, and too improvident to work
for himself, he will often labor for a master with a right good will,
and with a loyal devotion to his interests. He is, indeed, often
prepared, and made ready for labor, because he feels that, in his
master, he has a protector and a friend.
But whether labor be a heavy burden or a light, it must be borne. The
good of the lazy race, and the good of the society into which they have
been thrown, both require them to bear this burden, which is, after all
and at the worst, far lighter than that of a vagabond life. "Nature
cries aloud," says the abolitionist, "for freedom." Nature, we reply,
demands that man shall work, and her decree must be fulfilled. For ruin,
as we have seen, is the bitter fruit of disobedience to her will.
It is now high time that we should notice some of the exalted eulogies
bestowed by abolitionists upon freedom; and also _the kind of freedom_
on which these high praises have been so eloquently lavished. This,
accordingly, we shall proceed to do in the following section.
§ IV. _The great benefit supposed by American abolitionists to result to
the freed negroes from the British act of emancipation._
We have, in the preceding sections, abundantly seen that the freed
colored subjects of the British crown are fast relapsing into the most
irretrievable barbarism, while the once flourishing colonies themselves
present the most appalling scenes of desolation and distress. Surely it
is no wonder that the hurrahing of the English people has ceased. "At
the present moment," says the London Times for December 1st, 1852, "if
there is one thing in the world that the British public do not like to
talk about, or _even to think about_, it is the condition of the race
for whom this great effort was made." Not so with the abolitionists of
this country. They still keep up the annual celebration of that great
event, the act of emancipation, by which, in the language of one of
their number, more than half a million of human beings were "turned from
brutes into freemen!"
It is the freedom of the negro which they celebrate. Let us look, then,
for a few moments, into the mysteries of this celebration, and see, if
we may, the nature of the praises they pour forth in honor of freedom,
and _the kind of freedom on which_ they are so passionately bestowed.
We shall not quote from the more insane of the fraternity of
abolitionists, for their wild, raving nonsense would, indeed, be
unworthy of serious refutation. We shall simply notice the language of
Dr. Channing, the scholar-like and the eloquent, though visionary,
advocate of British emancipation. Even as early as 1842, in an address
delivered on the anniversary of that event, he burst into the following
strain of impassioned eulogy: "Emancipation works well, far better than
could have been anticipated. _To me it could hardly have worked
otherwise than well._ It banished _slavery_, that wrong and curse not to
be borne. It gave _freedom_, the dear birthright of humanity; and had it
done nothing more, I should have found in it cause for joy. Freedom,
simple freedom, is 'in my estimation just, far prized above all price.'
_I do not stop to ask if the emancipated are better fed and clothed than
formerly._ THEY ARE FREE; AND THAT ONE WORD CONTAINS A WORLD OF
GOOD,[194] unknown to the most pampered slave." And again, he says,
"Nature cries aloud for freedom as our proper good, our birthright and
our end, and resents nothing so much as its loss."
In these high-sounding praises, which hold up personal freedom as "our
proper good," as "our end," it is assumed that man was made for liberty,
and not liberty for man. It is, indeed, one of the fundamental errors of
the abolitionist to regard freedom as a great substantive good, or as in
itself a blessing, and not merely as a relative good. It may be, and
indeed often is, an unspeakable benefit, but then it is so only as a
means to an end. The end of our existence, the _proper good_, is the
improvement of our intellectual and moral powers, the perfecting of our
rational and immortal natures. When freedom subserves this end, it is a
good; when it defeats this end, it is an evil. Hence there may be a
world of evil as well as a world of good in "this one word."
The wise man adapts the means to the end. It were the very hight of
folly to sacrifice the end to the means. No man gives personal freedom
to his child because he deems it always and in all cases a good. His
heart teaches him a better doctrine when the highest good of his child
is concerned. Should we not be permitted, then, to have something of the
same feeling in regard to those whom Providence has placed under our
care, especially since, having the passions of men, with only the
intellects of children, they stand in utmost need of guidance and
direction?
As it is their duty to labor, so the law which compels them to do so is
not oppressive. It deprives them of the enjoyment of no right, unless,
indeed, they may be supposed to have a right to violate their duty.
Hence, in compelling the colored population of the South to work, the
law does not deprive them of liberty, in the true sense of the word;
that is, _it does not deprive them of the enjoyment of any natural
right_. It merely requires them to perform a natural duty.
This cannot be denied. It has been, as we have shown, admitted both by
Dr. Wayland and Dr. Channing.[195] But while the _end_ is approved, the
_means_ are not liked. Few of the abolitionists are disposed to offer
any substitute for our method. They are satisfied merely to pull down
and destroy, without the least thought or care in regard to
consequences. Dr. Channing has, however, been pleased to propose another
method, for securing the industry of the black and the prosperity of the
State. Let us then, for a moment, look at this scheme.
The black man, says he, should not be owned. He should work, but not
under the control of a master. His overseer should be appointed by the
State, and be amenable to the State for the proper exercise of his
authority. Now, if this learned and eloquent orator had only looked one
inch beneath the surface of his own scheme, he would have seen that it
is fraught with the most insuperable difficulties, and that its
execution must needs be attended with the most ruinous consequences.
Emancipate the blacks, then, and let the State undertake to work them.
In the first place, we must ignore every principle of political economy,
and consent to the wildest and most reckless of experiments, ere we can
agree that the State should superintend and carry on the agricultural
interests of the country. But suppose this difficulty out of the way, on
what land would the State cause _its slaves_ to be worked? It would
scarcely take possession of the plantations now under improvements; and,
setting aside the owners, proceed to cultivate the land. But it must
either do this, or else leave these plantations to become worthless for
the want of laborers, and open new ones for the benefit of the State! In
no point of view could a more utterly chimerical or foolish scheme be
well conceived. If we may not be allowed to adhere to our own plan, we
beg that some substitute may be proposed which is not fraught with such
inevitable destruction to the whole South. Otherwise, we shall fear
that these self-styled friends of humanity are more bent on carrying out
their own designs than they are on promoting our good.
But what is meant by the freedom of the emancipated slaves, on which so
many exalted eulogies have been pronounced? Its first element, it is
plain, is a freedom from labor[196]--freedom from the very first law of
nature. In one word, its sum and substance is a power on the part of the
freed black to act pretty much as he pleases. Now, before we expend
oceans of enthusiasm on such a freedom, would it not be well to see
_how_ he would be pleased to act?
Dr. Channing has told us, we are aware, of the "indomitable love of
liberty," which had been infused into the breast of "fierce barbarians"
by their native wildernesses.[197] But we are no great admirers of a
liberty which knows no law except its own will, and seeks no end except
the gratification of passion.[198] Hence, we have no very great respect
for the liberty of fierce barbarians. It would make a hell on earth. "My
maxim," exclaims Dr. Channing, "is anything but slavery!" Even slavery,
we cry, before a freedom such as his!
This kind of freedom, it should be remembered, was born in France and
cradled in the revolution. May it never be forgotten that the "Friends
of the Blacks" at Boston had their exact prototypes in "_les Amis des
Noirs_" of Paris. Of this last society Robespierre was the ruling
spirit, and Brissot the orator. By the dark machinations of the
one,[199] and the fiery eloquence of the other, the French people--_la
grande nation_--were induced, in 1791, to proclaim the principle of
equality to and for the free blacks of St. Domingo. This beautiful
island, then the brightest and most precious jewel in the crown of
France, thus became the first of the West Indies in which the dreadful
experiment of a forced equality was tried. The authors of that
experiment were solemnly warned of the horrors into which it would
inevitably plunge both the whites and the blacks of the island. Yet,
firm and immovable as death, Robespierre sternly replied, then "Perish
the colonies rather than sacrifice one iota of our principles!"[200] The
magnificent colony of St. Domingo did not quite perish, it is true; but
yet, as every one, except the philanthropic "Ami des Noirs" of the
present day, still remembers with a thrill of horror, the entire white
population soon melted, like successive flakes of snow, in the furnace
of that freedom which a Robespierre had kindled.
The atrocities of this awful massacre have had, as the historian has
said,[201] no parallel in the annals of human crime. "The negroes," says
Alison, "marched with spiked infants on their spears instead of colors;
they sawed asunder the male prisoners, and violated the females on the
dead bodies of their husbands." The work of death, thus completed with
such outbursts of unutterable brutality, constituted and closed the
first act in the grand drama of Haytien freedom.
But equality was not yet established. The colored men, or mulattoes,
beheld, with an eye burning with jealousy, the superior power and
ascendency of the blacks. Hence arose the horrors of a civil war.
Equality had been proclaimed, and anarchy produced. In this frightful
chaos, the ambitious mulattoes, whose insatiable desire of equality had
first disturbed the peace of the island, perished miserably beneath the
vengeance of the very slaves whom they had themselves roused from
subjection and elevated into irresistible power. Thus ended the second
act of the horrible drama.
This bloody discord, this wild chaos of disgusting brutalities, of
course terminated not in freedom, but in a military despotism. With the
subsequent wars and fearful destruction of human life our present
inquiry has nothing to do. We must confine our attention to the point
before us, namely, the kind of freedom achieved by the blacks of St.
Domingo. We have witnessed the two great manifestations of that freedom;
we shall now look at its closing scene. This we shall, for obvious
reasons, present in the language of an English author.
"An independent negro state," says he, "was thus established in Hayti;
but the people have not derived all the benefits which they sanguinely
expected. Released from their compulsory toil, they have not yet learned
to subject themselves to the restraints of regular industry. The first
absolute rulers made the most extraordinary efforts to overcome the
indolence which soon began to display itself. The _Code Rural_ directed
that the laborer should fix himself on a certain estate, which he was
never afterward to quit without a passport from the government. His
hours of labor and rest were fixed by statute. The whip, at first
permitted, was ultimately prohibited; but as every military officer was
allowed to chastise with a thick cane, and almost every proprietor held
a commission, the laborer was not much relieved. By these means Mr.
Mackenzie supposes that the produce of 1806 was raised to about a third
of that of 1789. But such violent regulations could not continue to be
enforced amid the succeeding agitations, and under a republican
_régime_. Almost all traces of laborious culture were soon obliterated;
large tracts, which had been one entire sugar garden, presented now only
a few scattered plantations."[202]
Thus the lands were divided out among the officers of the army, while
the privates were compelled to cultivate the soil under their former
military commanders, clothed with more than "a little brief authority."
No better could have been expected except by fools or fanatics. The
blacks might preach equality, it is true, but yet, like the more
enlightened ruffians of Paris, they would of course take good care not
to practice what they had preached. Hence, by all the horrors of their
bloody resolution, they only effected a change of masters. The white man
had disappeared, and the black man, one of their own race and color, had
assumed his place and his authority. And of all masters, it is well
known, the naturally servile are the most cruel. "The earth," says
Solomon, "cannot bear a servant when he reigneth."[203]
"The sensual and the dark rebel in vain:
Slaves by their own compulsion, in mad game
They burst their manacles, to wear the _name_
Of Freedom, graven on a heavier chain."
COLERIDGE.
Thus "the world of good" they sought was found, most literally, in "the
word;" for the word, the name of freedom, was all they had achieved--at
least of good. Poverty, want, disease, and crime, were the substantial
fruits of their boasted freedom.
In 1789, the sugar exported was 672,000,000 pounds; in 1806, it was
47,516,531 pounds; in 1825, it was 2020 pounds; in 1832, it was 0
pounds. If history had not spoken, we might have safely inferred, from
this astounding decline of industry, that the morals of the people had
suffered a fearful deterioration. But we are not left to inference. We
are informed, by the best authorities,[204] that their "morals are
exceedingly bad;" and that under the reign of liberty, as it is called,
their condition has, in all respects, become far worse than it was
before. "There appears every reason to apprehend," says James Franklin,
"that it will recede into irrecoverable insignificance, poverty, and
disorder."[205]
Mr. T. Babington Macaulay has, we are aware, put forth certain notions
on the subject of liberty, which are exactly in accordance with the
views and the spirit of the abolitionists, as well as with the
cut-throat philosophy of the Parisian philanthropists of the revolution.
As these notions are found in one of his juvenile productions, and
illustrated by "a pretty story" out of Ariosto, we should not deem it
worth while to notice them, if they had not been retained in the latest
edition of his Miscellanies. But for this circumstance, we should pass
them by as the rhetorical flourish of a young man who, in his most
mature productions, is often more brillant than profound.
"Ariosto," says he, "tells a pretty story of a fairy, who, by some
mysterious law of her nature, was condemned to appear at certain seasons
in the form of a foul and poisonous snake. Those who injured her during
the period of her disguise were forever excluded from participation in
the blessings which she bestowed. But to those who, in spite of her
loathsome aspect, pitied and protected her, she afterward revealed
herself in the beautiful and celestial form which was natural to her,
accompanied their steps, granted all their wishes, filled their houses
with wealth, made them happy in love, and victorious in war. Such a
spirit is Liberty. At times she takes the form of a hateful reptile. She
grovels, she hisses, she stings. But wo to those who in disgust shall
venture to crush her! And happy are those who, having dared to receive
her in her degraded and frightful shape, shall at length be rewarded by
her in the time of her beauty and her glory."
For aught we know, all this may be very fine poetry, and may deserve the
place which it has found in some of our books on rhetoric. But yet this
beautiful passage will--like the fairy whose charms it celebrates--be so
surely transformed into a hateful snake or venomous toad, that it should
not be swallowed without an antidote. Robespierre, Danton, Marat,
Barrière, and the black Dessalines, took this hateful, hissing,
stinging, maddening reptile to their bosoms, and they are welcome to its
rewards. But they mistook the thing: it was not liberty transformed; it
was tyranny unbound, the very scourge of hell, and Satan's chief
instrument of torture to a guilty world. It was neither more nor less
than Sin, despising GOD, and warring against his image on the earth.
We do not doubt--nay, we firmly believe--that in the veritable history
of the universe, _analogous_ changes have taken place. But then these
awful changes were not mere fairy tales. They are recorded in the word
of God. When Lucifer, the great bearer of light, himself was _free_, he
sought equality with God, and thence became a hateful, hissing serpent
in the dust. But he was not fully cursed, until "by devilish art" he
reached "the organs of man's fancy," and with them forged the grand
illusion that equality alone is freedom.
For even sinless, happy Eve was made to feel herself oppressed, until,
with keen desire of equality with gods, "forth reaching to the fruit,
she plucked, she ate:"--
"Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat,
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of wo,
That all was lost."
How much easier, then, to effect the ruin of poor, fallen man, by
stirring up this fierce desire of equality with discontented thoughts
and vain hopes of unattainable good! It is this dark desire, and not
liberty, which, in its rage, becomes the "poisonous snake;" and, though
decked in fine, allegoric, glowing garb, it is still the loathsome
thing, the "false worm," that turned God's Paradise itself into a
blighted world.
If Mr. Macaulay had only distinguished between liberty and license,
than which no two things in the universe are more diametrically opposed
to each other, his passion for fine rhetoric would not have betrayed him
into so absurd a conceit respecting the diverse forms of freedom.
Liberty is--as we have seen--the bright emanation of reason in the form
of law; license is the triumph of blind passion over all law and order.
Hence, if we would have liberty, the great deep of human passion must be
restrained. For this purpose, as Mr. Burke has said, there must be power
somewhere; and if there be not moral power within, there must be
physical power without. Otherwise, the restraints will be too weak; the
safeguards of liberty will give way, and the passions of men will burst
into anarchy, the most frightful of all the forms of tyranny. Shall we
call this liberty? Shall we seek the secure enjoyment of natural rights
in a wild reign of lawless terror? As well might we seek the pure light
of heaven in the bottomless pit. It is, indeed, a most horrible
desecration of the sacred name of liberty, to apply it either to the
butcheries and brutalities of the French Revolution, or to the more
diabolical massacres of St. Domingo. If such were freedom, it would, in
sober truth, be more fitly symbolized by ten thousand hissing serpents
than by a single poisonous snake; and by all on earth, as in heaven, it
should be abhorred. Hence, those pretended friends and advocates of
freedom, who would thus fain transmute her form divine into such
horribly distorted shapes, are with her enemies confederate in dark,
misguided league.
§ V. _The consequences of abolition to the South._
"We have had experience enough in our own colonies," says the
_Prospective Review_, for November, 1852, "not to wish to see the
experiment tried elsewhere on a larger scale." Now this, though it comes
to us from across the Atlantic, really sounds like the voice of genuine
philanthropy. Nor do we wish to see the experiment, which has brought
down such wide-spread ruin on all the great interests of St. Domingo and
the British colonies, tried in this prosperous and now beautiful land of
ours. It requires no prophet to foresee the awful consequences of such
an experiment on the lives, the liberties, the fortunes, and the morals,
of the people of the Southern States. Let us briefly notice some of
these consequences.
Consider, in the first place, the vast amount of property which would be
destroyed by the madness of such an experiment. According to the
estimate of Mr. Clay, "the total value of the slave property in the
United States is twelve hundred millions of dollars," all of which the
people of the South are expected to sacrifice on the altar of
abolitionism. It only moves the indignation of the abolitionist that we
should for one moment hesitate. "I see," he exclaims, "in the
immenseness of the value of the slaves, the enormous amount of the
robbery committed on them. I see 'twelve hundred millions of dollars'
seized, extorted by unrighteous force."[206] But, unfortunately, his
passions are so furious, that his mind no sooner comes into contact with
any branch of the subject of slavery, than instantly, as if by a flash
of lightning, his opinion is formed, and he begins to declaim and
denounce as if reason should have nothing to do with the question. He
does not even allow himself time for a single moment's serious
reflection. Nay, resenting the opinion of the most sagacious of our
statesmen as an insult to his understanding, he deems it beneath his
dignity even to make an attempt to look beneath the surface of the great
problem on which he condescends to pour the illuminations of his genius.
Ere we accept his oracles as inspired, we beg leave to think a little,
and consider their intrinsic value.
Twelve hundred millions of dollars extorted by unrighteous force! What
enormous robbery! Now, let it be borne in mind, that this is the
language of a man who, as we have seen, has--in one of his lucid
intervals--admitted that _it is right to apply force_ to compel those to
work who will not labor from rational motives. Such is precisely the
application of the force which now moves his righteous indignation!
This force, so justly applied, has created this enormous value of twelve
hundred millions of dollars. It has neither seized, nor extorted this
vast amount from others; it has simply created it out of that which, but
for such force, would have been utterly valueless. And if experience
teaches any thing, then, no sooner shall this force be withdrawn, than
the great value in question will disappear. It will not be restored; it
will be annihilated. The slaves--now worth so many hundred millions of
dollars--would become worthless to themselves, and nuisances to
society. No free State in the Union would be willing to receive
them--or a considerable portion of them--into her dominions. They would
be regarded as pests, and, if possible, everywhere expelled from the
empires of freemen.
Our lands, like those of the British West Indies, would become almost
valueless for the want of laborers to cultivate them. The most beautiful
garden-spots of the sunny South would, in the course of a few years, be
turned into a jungle, with only here and there a forlorn plantation.
Poverty and distress, bankruptcy and ruin, would everywhere be seen. In
one word, the condition of the Southern States would, in all material
respects, be like that of the once flourishing British colonies in which
the fatal experiment of emancipation has been tried.
Such are some of the fearful consequences of emancipation. But these are
not all. The ties that would be severed, and the sympathies crushed, by
emancipation, are not at all understood by abolitionists. They are,
indeed, utter strangers to the moral power which these ties and
sympathies now exert for the good of the inferior race. "Our patriarchal
scheme of domestic servitude," says Governor Hammond, "is indeed well
calculated to awaken the higher and finer feelings of our nature. It is
not wanting in its enthusiasm and its poetry. The relations of the most
beloved and honored chiefs, and the most faithful and admiring subjects,
which, from the time of Homer, have been the theme of song, are frigid
and unfelt, compared with those existing between the master and his
slaves; who served his father, and rocked his cradle, or have been born
in his household, and look forward to serve his children; who have been
through life the props of his fortune, and the objects of his care; who
have partaken of his griefs, and looked to him for comfort in their own;
whose sickness he has so frequently watched over and relieved; whose
holidays he has so often made joyous by his bounties and his presence;
for whose welfare, when absent, his anxious solicitude never ceases, and
whose hearty and affectionate greetings never fail to welcome him home.
In this cold, calculating, ambitious world of ours, there are few ties
more heart-felt, or of more benignant influence, than those which
mutually bind the master and the slave, under our ancient system, handed
down from the father of Israel."
Let the slaves be emancipated then, and, in one or two generations, the
white people of the South would care as little for the freed blacks
among us, as the same class of persons are now cared for by the white
people of the North. The prejudice of race would be restored with
unmitigated violence. The blacks are contented in servitude, so long as
they find themselves excluded from none of the privileges of the
condition to which they belong; but let them be delivered from the
authority of their masters, and they will feel their rigid exclusion
from the society of the whites and all participation in their
government. They would become clamorous for "their inalienable rights."
Three millions of freed blacks, thus circumstanced, would furnish the
elements of the most horrible civil war the world has ever witnessed.
These elements would soon burst in fury on the land. There was no civil
war in Jamaica, it is true, after the slaves were emancipated; but this
was because the power of Great Britain was over the two parties, and
held them in subjection. It would be far otherwise here. For here there
would be no power to check--while there would be infernal agencies at
work to promote--civil discord and strife. As Robespierre caused it to
be proclaimed to the free blacks of St. Domingo that they were naturally
entitled to all the rights and privileges of citizens; as Mr. Seward
proclaimed the same doctrine to the free blacks of New York; so there
would be kind benefactors enough to propagate the same sentiments among
our colored population. They would be instigated, in every possible way,
to claim their natural equality with the whites; and, by every
diabolical art, their bad passions would be inflamed. If the object of
such agitators were merely to stir up scenes of strife and blood, it
might be easily attained; but if it were to force the blacks into a
social and political equality with the whites, it would most certainly
and forever fail. For the government of these Southern States was, by
our fathers, founded on the VIRTUE and the INTELLIGENCE of the people,
and there we intend it shall stand. The African has neither part nor lot
in the matter.
We cannot suppose, for a moment, that abolitionists would be in the
slightest degree moved by the awful consequences of emancipation.
Poverty, ruin, death, are very small items with these sublime
philanthropists. They scarcely enter into their calculations. The
dangers of a civil war--though the most fearful the world has ever
seen--lie quite beneath the range of their humanity.
Indeed, we should expect our argument from the consequences of
emancipation to be met by a thorough-going abolitionist with the
words,--"Perish the Southern States rather than sacrifice one iota of
our principles!" We ask them not to sacrifice their principles to us;
nor do we intend that they shall sacrifice us to their principles. For
if perish we must, it shall be as a sacrifice to our own principles, and
not to theirs.
NOTE.--It has not fallen within the scope of our
design to consider the effects of emancipation,
and of the consequent destruction of so large an
amount of property, on the condition and
prosperity of the world. Otherwise it might easily
have been shown that every civilized portion of
the globe would feel the shock. This point has
been very happily, though briefly, illustrated by
Governor Hammond, in his "Letters on Slavery."
Nor has it formed any part of our purpose, in the
following section, to discuss the influence of
American slavery on the future destiny and
civilization of Africa. This subject has been ably
discussed by various writers; and especially by an
accomplished divine, the Rev. William N.
Pendleton, in a discourse published in the
"Virginian Colonizationist," for September, 1854.
§ VI. _Elevation of the Blacks by Southern slavery._
The abolitionists, with the most singular unanimity, perseveringly
assert that Southern slavery degrades its subjects "into brutes." This
assertion fills us with amazement. If it were possible, we would
suppose, in a judgment of charity, that its authors knew nothing of the
history of Africa or of the condition of our slaves. But such ignorance
is not possible. On the other hand, we find it equally impossible to
believe that so many men and women--the very lights of
abolitionism--could knowingly utter so palpable a falsehood. Thus we are
forced to the conclusion, that the authors of this charge are so
completely carried away by a blind hatred of slavery, that they do not
care to keep their words within the sacred bounds of eternal truth. This
seems to be the simple, melancholy fact. The great question with them
seems to be, not what is true or what is false, but what will most
speedily effect the destruction of Southern slavery. Any thing that
seems to answer this purpose is blindly and furiously wielded by them.
The Edinburgh Review, in a high-wrought eulogy on an American authoress,
says that she assails slavery with arrows "poisoned by truth." Her
words, it is true, are dipped in flaming poison; but _that_ poison is
not truth. The truth is never poison.
The native African could not be degraded. Of the fifty millions of
inhabitants of the continent of Africa, it is estimated that forty
millions were slaves. The master had the power of life and death over
the slave; and, in fact, his slaves were often fed, and killed, and
eaten, just as we do with oxen and sheep in this country. Nay, the hind
and fore-quarters of men, women, and children, might there be seen hung
on the shambles and exposed for sale! Their women were beasts of burden;
and, when young, they were regarded as a great delicacy by the palate of
their pampered masters. A warrior would sometimes take a score of young
females along with him, in order to enrich his feasts and regale his
appetite. He delighted in such delicacies. As to his religion, it was
even worse than his morals; or rather, his religion was a mass of the
most disgusting immoralities. His notion of a God, and the obscene acts
by which that notion was worshiped, are too shocking to be mentioned.
The vilest slave that ever breathed the air of a Christian land could
not begin to conceive the horrid iniquities of such a life. And yet, in
the face of all this, we are told--yea, we are perseveringly and
eternally told--that "the African has been degraded into a brute" by
American slavery! Indeed, if such creatures ever reach the level of
simple brutality at all, is it not evident they must be elevated, and
not degraded, to it?
The very persons who make the above charge know better. Their own
writings furnish the most incontestable proof that they know better. A
writer in the Edinburgh Review,[207] for example, has not only asserted
that "slavery degrades its subjects into brutes," but he has the
audacity to declare, in regard to slavery in the United States, that "we
do not believe that such oppression is to be found in any other part of
the world, civilized or uncivilized. We do not believe that such
oppression ever existed before." Yet even this unprincipled writer has,
in the very article containing this declaration, shown that he knows
better. He has shown that he knows that the African has been elevated
and improved by his servitude in the United States. We shall proceed to
convict him out of his own mouth.
"The African slave-trade was frightful," says he; "but its prey were
savages, accustomed to suffering and misery, and to endure them with
patience almost amounting to apathy. The victims of the American
slave-trade have been bred in a highly-cultivated community. Their
dispositions have been softened, their intellects sharpened, and their
sensibilities excited, by society, by Christianity, and by all the
ameliorating but enervating influences of civilization. The savage
submits to be enslaved himself, or have his wife or his child carried
off by his enemies, as merely a calamity. His misery is not embittered
by indignation. He suffers only what--if he could--he would inflict. He
cannot imagine a state of society in which there shall not be masters
and slaves, kidnapping and man-selling, coffles and slave-traders, or in
which any class shall be exempt from misfortunes which appear to him to
be incidental to humanity."
Thus, according to this very sagacious, honest, consistent writer, it
matters little what you do with the native African: he has no moral
sense; he feels no wrong; he suffers only what he would inflict. But
when you come to deal with the American slave, or, as this writer calls
him, "the civilized Virginian," it is quite another thing! His
dispositions have been softened, his intellect sharpened, and his
sensibilities roused to a new life, by society and by Christianity! And
yet, according to this very writer, this highly civilized Virginian is
the man who, by American slavery, has been degraded from the native
African into a brute! We dismiss his lawless savage, and his equally
lawless pen, from our further consideration.
We proceed, in like manner, to condemn Dr. Channing out of his own
mouth. He has repeatedly asserted that slavery among us degrades its
subjects into brutes. Now hear him on the other side of this question.
"The European race," says he, "have manifested more courage, enterprise,
invention; but in the dispositions which Christianity particularly
honors, how inferior are they to the African? When I cast my eyes over
our Southern region,--the land of bowie-knives, lynch-law, and duels, of
'chivalry,' 'honor,' and revenge; and when I consider that Christianity
is declared to be a spirit of charity, 'which seeketh not its own, is
not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and endureth all things,' and is
also declared to be 'the wisdom from above,' which is 'first pure, then
peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good
fruits;' can I hesitate in deciding to which of the races in that land
Christianity is most adapted, and in which its noblest disciples are
most likely to be reared?"[208]
It was by casting his eyes over "our Southern region" that Dr. Channing
concluded "that we are holding in bondage one of the best races of the
human family." If he had cast them over the appallingly dark region of
Africa, he would have been compelled, in spite of the wonder-working
power of his imagination, to pronounce it one of the very worst and most
degraded races upon earth. If, as he imagines, this race among us is now
nearer to the kingdom of heaven than we ourselves are, how dare he
assert--as he so often has done--that our slavery has "degraded them
into brutes?" If, indeed, they had not been elevated--both physically
and morally--by their servitude in America, it would have been beyond
the power of even Dr. Channing to pronounce such a eulogy upon them. We
say, then, that he knew better when he asserted that we have degraded
them into brutes. He spoke, not from his better knowledge and his
conscience, but from blind, unreflecting passion. For he knew--if he
knew any thing--that the blacks have been elevated and improved by their
contact with the whites of this enlightened portion of the globe.
The truth is, the abolitionist can make the slave a brute or a saint,
just as it may happen to suit the exigency of his argument. If slavery
degrades its subjects into brutes, then one would suppose that slaves
are brutes. But the moment you speak of selling a slave, he is no longer
a brute,--he is a civilized man, with all the most tender affections,
with all the most generous emotions. If the object be to excite
indignation against slavery, then it always transforms its subjects into
brutes; but if it be to excite indignation against the slaveholder, then
he holds, not brutes, but a George Harris--or an Eliza--or an Uncle
Tom--in bondage. Any thing, and every thing, except fair and impartial
statement, are the materials with which he works.
No fact is plainer than that the blacks have been elevated and improved
by their servitude in this country. We cannot possibly conceive, indeed,
how Divine Providence could have placed them in a better school of
correction. If the abolitionists can conceive a better method for their
enlightenment and religious improvement, we should rejoice to see them
carry their plan into execution. They need not seek to rend asunder our
Union, on account of the three millions of blacks among us, while there
are fifty millions of the same race on the continent of Africa, calling
aloud for their sympathy, and appealing to their Christian benevolence.
Let them look to that continent. Let them rouse the real, active,
self-sacrificing benevolence of the whole Christian world in behalf of
that most degraded portion of the human family; and, after all, if they
will show us on the continent of Africa, or elsewhere, three millions of
blacks in as good a condition--physically and morally--as our slaves,
then will we most cheerfully admit that all other Christian nations,
combined, have accomplished as much for the African race, as has been
done by the Southern States of the Union.
FOOTNOTES:
[175] Life of Joseph John Gurney, vol. ii. p. 214.
[176] Bigelow's Notes on Jamaica in 1850, as quoted in Carey's "Slave
Trade, Foreign and Domestic."
[177] Quoted by Mr. Carey.
[178] Carey's Slave Trade.
[179] "The West Indies and North America," by Robt. Baird, A. M., p.
145.
[180] "The West Indies and North America," by Robt. Baird, A. M., p.
143.
[181] The Corentyne.
[182] East bank of the Berbice River.
[183] West bank of the Berbice River.
[184] West coast of Berbice River.
[185] Quoted in Carey's Slave Trade.
[186] Gurney's Letters on the West Indies.
[187] Ibid.
[188] Ibid.
[189] Dr. Channing.
[190] We moot a higher question: Is he fit for the pulpit,--for that
great conservative power by which religion, and morals, and freedom,
must be maintained among us? "I do not believe," he declares, in one of
his sermons, "the miraculous origin of the Hebrew church, or the
Buddhist church, or of the Christian church, nor the miraculous
character of Jesus. I take not the Bible for my master--nor yet the
church--nor even Jesus of Nazareth for my master. . . . . . He is my
best historic ideal of human greatness; not without errors--not without
the stain of his times, and I presume, of course, not without sins; for
men without sins exist in the dreams of girls." Thus, the truth of all
miracles is denied; and the faith of the Christian world, in regard to
the sinless character of Jesus, is set down by this very modest _divine_
as the dream of girls! Yet he believes that half a million of men were,
by the British act of emancipation, turned from slaves into freemen!
That is to say, he does not believe in the miracles of the gospel; he
only believes in the miracles of abolitionism. Hence, we ask, is he fit
for the pulpit,--for the sacred desk,--for any holy thing?
[191] See extract, p. 156.
[192] Spirit of Laws, vol. i. book xv. chap. vii.
[193] Spirit of Laws, vol. i. book xv. chap. viii.
[194] The emphasis is ours.
[195] See pages 155, and 159, 160.
[196] See chap. i. § 2.
[197] Works, vol. v. p. 63.
[198] See chap. i. § 2.
[199] We have in the above remark done Boston some injustice. For New
York has furnished the Robespierre, and Massachusetts only the Brissot,
of "les Amis des Noirs" in America.
[200] This reply is sometimes attributed to Robespierre and sometimes to
Brissot; it is probable that in substance it was made by both of these
bloody compeers in the cause of abolitionism.
[201] See Alison's History of Europe, vol. ii. p. 241.
[202] Encyclopædia of Geo. vol. iii. pp. 302, 303.
[203] Prov. xxx. 22.
[204] Encyc. of Geo., vol. iii. p. 303. Mackenzie's St. Domingo, vol.
ii. pp. 260, 321.
[205] Franklin's Present State of Hayti, etc., p. 265.
[206] Dr. Channing's Works, vol. v. p. 47.
[207] April No., 1855.
[208] Dr. Channing's Works, vol. vi. p. 50, 51.
CHAPTER V.
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
Mr. Seward's Attack on the Constitution of his
Country--The Attack of Mr. Sumner on the
Constitution of his Country--The Right of Trial by
Jury not impaired by the Fugitive Slave Law--The
Duty of the Citizen in regard to the Constitution
of the United States.
WE have, under our present Union, advanced in prosperity and greatness
beyond all former example in the history of nations. We no sooner begin
to reason from the past to the future, than we are lost in amazement at
the prospect before us. We behold the United States, and that too at no
very distant period, the first power among the nations of the earth. But
such reasoning is not always to be relied on. Whether, in the present
instance, it points to a reality, or to a magnificent dream merely, will
of course depend on the wisdom, the integrity, and the moderation, of
our rulers.
It cannot be disguised that the Union, with all its unspeakable
advantages and blessings, is in danger. It is the Fugitive Slave Law
against which the waves of abolitionism have dashed with their utmost
force and raged with an almost boundless fury. On the other hand, it is
precisely the Fugitive Slave Law--that great constitutional guarantee of
our rights--which the people of the South are, as one man, the most
inflexibly determined to maintain. We are prepared, and we shall
accordingly proceed, to show that, in this fearful conflict, the great
leaders of abolitionism--the Chases, the Sewards, and the Sumners, of
the day--are waging a fierce, bitter, and relentless warfare against the
Constitution of their country.
§ I. _Mr. Seward's attack on the Constitution of his country._
There is one thing which Mr. Seward's reasoning overlooks,--namely, that
he has taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States.
We shall not lose sight of this fact, nor permit him to obscure it by
his special pleadings and mystifications; since it serves to show that
while, in the name of a "higher law," he denounces the Constitution of
his country, he at the same time commits a most flagrant outrage against
that higher law itself.
The clause of the Constitution which Mr. Seward denounces is as follows:
"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws
thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or
regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall
be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may
be due." This clause, as Mr. Seward contemptuously says, is "from the
Constitution of the United States in 1787." He knows of only one other
compact like this "in diplomatic history;" and that was made between
despotic powers "in the year of grace 902, in the period called the Dark
Ages." But whether this compact made by the fathers of the Republic, or
the sayings and doings of Mr. Seward in regard to it, are the more
worthy of the Dark Ages, it is not for him alone to determine.
"The law of nature," says he, "disavows such compacts; the law of
nature, written on the hearts and consciences of freemen, repudiates
them." If this be so, then it certainly follows that in founding States
no such compacts should be formed. For, as Mr. Seward says, "when we are
founding States, all these laws must be brought to the standard of the
laws of God, and must be tried by that standard, and must stand or fall
by it." This is true, we repeat; but the Senator who uttered this truth
was _not_ founding States or forming a constitution. He was living and
acting under a constitution already formed, and one which he had taken
an oath to support. If, in the construction of this instrument, our
fathers really followed "as precedents the abuses of tyrants and
robbers," then the course of the Senator in question was plain: _he
should have suffered martyrdom rather than take an oath to support it_.
For the law of nature, it is clear, permits no man first to take an oath
to support such compacts, and then repudiate them. If they are at war
with his conscience, then, in the name of all that is sacred, let him
repudiate them, but, by all means, without having first placed himself
under the necessity of repudiating, at the same time, the obligation of
his oath.
There is a question among casuists, whether an oath extorted by force
can bind a man to act in opposition to his conscience. But this was not
Mr. Seward's case. His oath was not extorted. If he had refused to take
it, he would have lost nothing _except an office_.
"There was deep philosophy," says he, "in the confession of an eminent
English judge. When he had condemned a young woman to death, under the
late sanguinary code of his country, for her first theft, she fell down
dead at his feet. 'I seem to myself,' said he, 'to have been pronouncing
sentence, not against the prisoner, but against the law itself.'" Ay,
there was something better than "deep philosophy" in that English judge;
there was stern integrity; for, though he felt the law to be hard and
cruel, yet, having taken an oath to support it, he hardly felt himself
at liberty to dispense with the obligation of his oath. We commend his
example to the Senator from New York.
But who is this Senator, or any other politician of the present day,
that he should presume to pass so sweeping and so peremptory a sentence
of condemnation on a compact made by the fathers of the Republic and
ratified by the people of the United States? For our part, if we wished
to find "the higher law," we should look neither into the Dark Ages nor
into his conscience. We had infinitely rather look into the great souls
of those by whom the Constitution was framed, and by every one of whom
the very compact which Mr. Seward pronounces so infamous was cordially
sanctioned.
"Your Constitution and laws," exclaims Mr. Seward, "convert hospitality
to the refugee from the most degrading oppression on earth into a crime,
but all mankind except you esteem that hospitality a virtue." Not
content with thus denouncing the "Constitution and laws," he has
elsewhere exhorted the people to an open resistance to their execution.
"It is," says he, in a speech at a mass-meeting in Ohio, "written in the
Constitution of the the United States," and "in violation to divine
law,[209] that we shall surrender the fugitive slave who takes refuge at
our fireside from his relentless pursuer." He then and there exhorts the
people to resist the execution of this clear, this unequivocal, this
_acknowledged_, mandate of the Constitution! "Extend," says he, a
"cordial welcome _to the fugitive who lays his weary limbs at your
door_, and DEFEND HIM AS YOU WOULD YOUR HOUSEHOLD GODS."
We shall not trust ourselves to characterize such conduct. In the calm,
judicial language of the Chancellor of his own State such proceeding of
Mr. Seward will find its most fitting rebuke. "Independent, however,"
says Chancellor Walworth, "_of any legislation on this subject either by
the individual States or by Congress_, if the person whose services are
claimed is in fact a fugitive from servitude under the laws of another
State, _the constitutional provision is imperative that he shall be
delivered up to his master upon claim made_." Thus far, Mr. Seward
concurs with the chancellor in opinion; but the latter continues--"and
any state officer or private citizen, who owes allegiance to the United
States, and has taken the usual oath to support the Constitution
thereof, cannot, WITHOUT INCURRING THE MORAL GUILT OF PERJURY, do any
act to deprive the master of his right of recaption, when there is no
real doubt that the person whose services are claimed is in fact the
slave of the claimant."[210] Yet, regardless of the question whether the
fugitive is a slave or not, the life and labors of Mr. Seward are, in a
great measure, dedicated to a subversion of the constitutional clause
and right under consideration. He counsels open resistance! Yea, he
exhorts the people to protect and defend fugitive slaves _as such_, and
though they had confessed themselves to have fled from servitude! But we
doubt not that "the law of nature, written on the hearts and consciences
of freemen," will reverse this advice of his, and reaffirm the decision
of the chancellor of his own State. Nay, wherever there exists a freeman
with a real heart and conscience, there that decision already stands
affirmed.
As Mr. Seward's arguments are more fully elaborated by Mr. Sumner, of
Massachusetts, so they will pass under review when we come to examine
the speech of that Senator. In the mean time, we beg leave to lay before
the reader a few living examples of the manner in which the law of
nature, as written on the hearts and consciences of freemen, has
expressed itself in regard to the points above considered.
"I recognize, indeed," says the Hon. R. C. Winthrop, of Boston, "a power
above all human law-makers and a code above all earthly constitutions!
And whenever I perceive a clear conflict of jurisdiction and authority
between the Constitution of my country and the laws of my God, my course
is clear. I shall resign my office, whatever it may be, and renounce all
connection with public service of any sort. Never, never, sir, will I
put myself under the necessity of calling upon God to witness my promise
to support a constitution, any part of which I consider to be
inconsistent with his commands.
"But it is a libel upon the Constitution of the United States--and, what
is worse, sir, it is a libel upon the great and good men who framed,
adopted, and ratified it; it is a libel upon Washington and Franklin,
and Hamilton and Madison, upon John Adams, and John Jay, and Rufus King;
it is a libel upon them all, and upon the whole American people of 1789,
who sustained them in their noble work, and upon all who, from that time
to this, generation after generation, in any capacity,--national,
municipal, or state,--have lifted their hands to heaven in attestation
of their allegiance to the government of their country;--it is a gross
libel upon every one of them, to assert or insinuate that there is any
such inconsistency! Let us not do such dishonor to the fathers of the
Republic and the framers of the Constitution."
Mr. Ashman, of Massachusetts, after reciting the clause in the
Constitution which demands the restoration of fugitive slaves, proceeds
as follows: "This reads very plainly, and admits of no doubt but that,
so far as fugitive slaves are concerned, the Constitution fully
recognizes the right to reclaim them from within the limits of the free
States. It is the Constitution which we have all sworn to support, and
which I hope we all mean to support; and I have no mental reservation
excluding any of its clauses from the sanction of that oath. It is too
late now to complain that such a provision is there. Our fathers, who
formed that entire instrument, placed it there, and left it to us as an
inheritance; and nothing but an amendment of the Constitution, or a
violation of our oaths, can tear it out. And, however much we may abhor
slavery, there is no way for honorable, honest--nay, conscientious--men,
who desire to live under our laws and our Constitution, but to abide by
it in its spirit."
In like manner, the Hon. S. A. Douglas, of Illinois, declares: "All I
have to say on that subject is this, that the Constitution provides that
a fugitive from service in one State, escaping into another, 'shall be
delivered up.' The Constitution also provides that no man shall be a
Senator unless he takes an oath to support the Constitution. Then, I
ask, how does a man acquire a right on this floor to speak, except by
taking an oath to support and sustain the Constitution of the United
States? And when he takes that oath, I do not understand that he has a
right to have a mental reservation, or entertain any secret equivocation
that he excepts that clause which relates to the surrender of fugitives
from service. I know not how a man reconciles it to his conscience to
take that oath to support the Constitution, when he believes that
Constitution is in violation of the law of God. If a man thus believes,
and takes the oath, he commits perfidy to his God in order that he may
enjoy the temporary honors of a seat upon this floor. In this point of
view, it is simply a question of whether Senators will be true to their
oaths and true to the Constitution under which we live."
§ II. _The attack of Mr. Sumner on the Constitution of his country._
If we have not noticed the arguments of Mr. Chase, of Ohio, it is
because they are reproduced in the celebrated speech of Mr. Sumner, and
because he has so fully indorsed the history and logic of this speech as
to make it his own. Hence, in replying to the one of these Senators, we
at the same time virtually reply to the other.
We select the speech of Mr. Sumner for examination, because it is
generally considered the more powerful of the two. It is, indeed, the
most elaborate speech ever made in the Senate of the United States, or
elsewhere, on the subject of the Fugitive Slave Law. Even Mr. Weller
found it "so handsomely embellished with poetry, both Latin and English,
so full of classical allusions and rhetorical flourishes," as to make it
more palatable than he supposed an abolition speech could possibly be
made. As to the abolitionists themselves, they seem to know no bounds in
their enthusiastic admiration of this sublime effort of their champion.
We should not wonder, indeed, if many a female reformer had gone into
hysterics over an oration which has received such violent bursts of
applause from grave and dignified Senators. "By this effort," says Mr.
Hale, he has placed "himself side by side with the first orators of
antiquity, and as far ahead of any living American orator as freedom is
ahead of slavery. I believe that he has formed to-day a new era in the
history of the politics and of the eloquence of the country; and that in
future generations the young men of this nation will be stimulated to
effort by the record of what an American Senator has this day done,"
etc.
We have no doubt that young men may attempt to imitate the speech in
question; but, as they grow older, it is to be hoped that their taste
will improve. The speech in question will make a "new era" in the
tactics of abolitionism, and that is all. We shall see this when we come
to examine this wonderful oration, which so completely ravished _three
Senators_, and called forth such wild shouts of applause from the whole
empire of abolitionism.
Mr. Chase seems almost equally delighted with this marvellous effort. "I
avow my conviction, now and here," says he, "that, logically and
historically, his argument is impregnable--entirely impregnable." . . .
. . . "In my judgment," he continues, "the speech of my friend from
Massachusetts will make a NEW ERA in American history." Indeed, Mr.
Sumner himself does not seem altogether dissatisfied with this effort,
if we may judge from the manner in which it is referred to in his other
speeches. We do not blame him for this. We can see no reason why he
should be the only abolitionist in the universe who is not enraptured
with his oration. But when he so "fearlessly asserts" that his speech
"has never been answered," we beg leave to assure him that it _may_ be
refuted with the most perfect ease. For, indeed, its history is half
fiction, and its logic wholly false: the first containing just enough of
truth to deceive, and the last just enough of plansibility to convince
those who are waiting, and watching, and longing to be convinced.
The first thing which strikes the mind, on reading the speech of Mr.
Sumner, is the strange logical incoherency of its structure. Its parts
are so loosely hung together, and appear so distressingly disjointed,
that one is frequently at a loss to perceive the design of the oration.
Its avowed object is to procure a repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law of
1850; but no one would ever imagine or suspect such a thing from the
title of the speech, which is as follows: "Freedom, national; Slavery,
sectional." It is difficult, at first view, to perceive what logical
connection this title, or proposition, has with the repeal of the
Fugitive Slave Law. But if there be little or no logical connection
between these things, we shall soon see how the choice of such a title
and topic of discourse opens the way for the rhetorician to make a most
powerful appeal to the passions and to the prejudices of his readers. We
say, of his readers, because it is evident that the speech was made for
Buncombe, and not for the Senate of the United States.
Mr. Sumner deems it necessary to refute the position that slavery is a
national institution, in order to set the world right with respect to
the relations of the Federal Government to slavery. "The relations of
the Government of the United States," says he,--"I speak of the National
Government--to slavery, _though plain and obvious, are constantly
misunderstood_." Indeed, nothing in history seems more remarkable than
the amount of ignorance and stupidity which prevailed in the world
before the appearance of the abolitionists, except the wonderful
illuminations which accompanied their advent. "A popular belief at this
moment," continues Mr. Sumner, "makes slavery a national institution,
and, of course, renders its support a national duty. The extravagance of
this error can hardly be surpassed." In truth, it is so exceedingly
extravagant, that we doubt if it really exists. It is certain, that we
have no acquaintance, either historically or personally, with those who
have fallen into so wild an absurdity.
It is true, there is "a popular belief"--nay, there is a deep-rooted
national conviction--that the Government of the United States is bound
to protect the institution of slavery, in so far as this may be done by
the passage of a Fugitive Slave Law. This national conviction has spoken
out in the laws of Congress; it has been ratified and confirmed by the
judicial opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, as well as
by the decisions of the Supreme Courts of the three great
non-slaveholding States of Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania.
But no one, so far as we know, has ever deduced this obligation to
protect slavery, in this respect, from the absurd notion that "it is a
national institution." No such deduction is to be found in any of the
arguments of counsel before the courts above-mentioned, nor in the
opinions of the courts themselves. We shrewdly suspect that it is to be
found nowhere except in the fertile imagination of Mr. Sumner.
We concede that slavery is _not_ "a national institution." In combating
this position, Mr. Sumner is merely beating the air. We know that
slavery is not national; it is local, being confined to certain States,
and exclusively established by local or State laws. Hence, Mr. Sumner
may fire off as much splendid rhetoric as he pleases at his men of
straw. "Slavery national!" he indignantly exclaims: "Sir, this is all a
mistake and absurdity, fit to take a place in some new collection of
'Vulgar Errors' by some other Sir Thomas Browne, with the ancient but
exploded stories that the toad has a stone in its head and that
ostriches digest iron." These may be very fine embellishments; they
certainly have nothing to do with the point in controversy. The question
is not whether slavery is a national institution, but whether the
National Government does not recognize slavery as a local institution,
and is not pledged to protect the master's right to reclaim the fugitive
from his service. This is the question, and by its relevancy to this
question the rhetoric of Mr. Sumner must be tried.
We do not say it has no such relevancy. Mr. Sumner beats the air, it is
true, but he does not beat the air in vain. His declamation may have no
logical bearing on the point in dispute, but, if you watch it closely,
you will always find that it is most skillfully adapted to bring the
prejudices and passions of the reader to bear on that point. Though he
may not be much of a logician, yet, it must be admitted, he is "skillful
of fence." We should do him great injustice as an antagonist, at least
before the tribunal of human passion, if we should suppose that it is
merely for the abstract glory of setting up a man of straw, and then
knocking it down, that he has mustered all the powers of his logic and
unfurled all the splendors of his rhetoric. He has a design in all this,
which we shall now proceed to expose.
Here are two distinct questions. First, Is slavery a national
institution? Secondly, Has Congress the power to pass a Fugitive Slave
Law? These two questions are, we repeat, perfectly distinct; and hence,
if Mr. Sumner wished to discuss them fairly and honestly, he should have
argued each one by itself. We agree with him in regard to the first; we
dissent _toto cœlo_ from him in regard to the last. But he has not
chosen to keep them separate, or to discuss each one by itself. On the
contrary, he has, as we have seen, connected them together as premiss
and conclusion, and he keeps them together through the first portion of
his speech. Most assuredly Mr. Sumner knows that one of the very best
ways in the world to cause a truth or proposition to be rejected is to
bind it up with a manifest error or absurdity. Yet the proposition for
which we contend--that Congress has the power to support slavery by the
passage of a Fugitive Slave Law--is bound up by him with the monstrous
absurdity that "slavery is a national institution;" and both are
denounced together as if both were equally absurd. One instance, out of
many, of this unfair mode of proceeding, we shall now lay before our
readers.
"The Constitution contains no power," says he, "to make a king or to
support kingly rule. With similar reason it may be said that it contains
no power to make a slave, or to support a system of slavery. The absence
of all such power is hardly more clear in one case than in the other.
But, if there be no such power, all national legislation upholding
slavery must be unconstitutional and void."
Thus covertly, and in company with the supposed power of Congress to
make slaves or to institute slavery, Mr. Sumner denounces the power of
Congress to enact a Fugitive Slave Law! He not only denounces it, but
treats it as absurd in the extreme; just as absurd, indeed, as it would
be to assert that Congress had power "to support kingly rule!" We can
listen to the arguments of Mr. Sumner; but we cannot accept his mere
opinion as authority that the power of Congress to enact such a law is
so glaringly unconstitutional, is so monstrously absurd; for, however
passionately that opinion may be declaimed, we cannot forget that a
Fugitive Slave Law was passed by the Congress of 1793, received the
signature of George Washington, and, finally, the judicial sanction of
the Supreme Court of the United States. Mr. Sumner is but a man.
This advantage of mixing up with a glaring falsehood the idea he wishes
to be rejected is not the only one which Mr. Sumner derives from his man
of straw. By combating the position--"the popular belief," as he calls
it--that "slavery is a national institution," he lays open a wide field
for his peculiar powers of declamation. He calls up all the
fathers--North and South--to bear witness against slavery, in order to
show that it is not a national institution. He quotes colleges, and
churches, and patriots, against slavery. Not content with this, he pours
down furious invectives of his own, with a view to render slavery as
odious as possible. But, since the simple question is, _What saith the
Constitution_--why this fierce crusade against slavery? In deciding this
very question, namely, the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Law
of 1793, a high judicial authority has said that "the abstract
proposition of the justice or injustice of slavery is wholly irrelevant
here, and, I apprehend, ought not to have the slightest influence upon
any member of this court."[211]
It ought not to have--and it did not have--the slightest influence on
the highest judicial tribunal of New York, in which the above opinion
was delivered. Much as the author of that opinion (Mr. Senator Bishop)
abhorred slavery, he did not permit such an influence to reach his
judgment. It would have contaminated his judicial integrity. But
although before a judicial tribunal, about to decide on the
constitutionality of a Fugitive Slave Law, the abstract proposition of
the justice or injustice of slavery is out of place, yet at the bar of
passion and prejudice it is well calculated, as Mr. Sumner must know, to
exert a tremendous influence. Hence, if he can only get up the horror of
his readers against slavery before he comes to the real question,
namely, the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Law, he knows that
his victory will be more than half gained. But we admonish him that
passion and prejudice can only give a temporary éclat to his argument.
So much for the unfairness of Mr. Sumner. If we should notice all such
instances of artful design in his speech, we should have no space for
his logic. To this we would now invite the attention of the reader, in
order to see if it be really "impregnable."
As we have already intimated, Mr. Sumner does not, like Mr. Seward,
openly denounce the Constitution of his country. On the contrary, he
professes the most profound respect for every part of that instrument,
not even excepting the clause which demands the restoration of the
fugitive from labor. But an examination of his argument, both
_historical_ and _logical_, will enable us, we trust, to estimate this
profession at its real intrinsic worth.
We shall begin with his argument from history. In the examination of
this argument, we beg to excuse ourselves from any further notice of all
that vast array of historical proofs to show that "freedom is national
and slavery sectional."[212] We shall consider those proofs alone which
relate to the real point in controversy, namely, Has Congress the power
to pass a Fugitive Slave Law?
Mr. Sumner argues, from the well-known sentiments of the framers of the
Constitution with respect to slavery, that they intended to confer no
such power on Congress. Thus, after quoting the sentiments of Gouverneur
Morris, of Elbridge Gerry, of Roger Sherman, and James Madison, he adds:
"In the face of these unequivocal statements, it is absurd to suppose
that they consented _unanimously_ to any provision by which the National
Government, the work of their own hands, could be made the most
offensive instrument of slavery." Such is the historical argument of Mr.
Sumner. Let us see what it is worth.
Elbridge Gerry had said: "We ought to be careful NOT _to give any
sanction to slavery_;"--language repeatedly quoted, and underscored as
above, by Mr. Sumner. It is absurd, he concludes, to suppose that a man
who could use such language had the least intention to confer a power on
Congress to support slavery by the passage of a Fugitive Slave Law. This
is one branch of his historical argument. It may appear perfectly
conclusive to Mr. Sumner, and "entirely impregnable" to Mr. Chase; but,
after all, it is not quite so invulnerable as they imagine. Mr. Sumner
stopped his historical researches at a most convenient point for his
argument. If he had only read a little further, he would have discovered
that this same identical Elbridge Gerry was in the Congress of 1793, and
VOTED FOR the Fugitive Slave Law then passed!
It fares no better with the historical argument to prove the opinion or
intention of Roger Sherman. He had declared, it is true, that he was
opposed to any clause in the Constitution "acknowledging men to be
property." But we should not, with Mr. Sumner, infer from this that he
never intended that Congress should possess a power to legislate in
reference to slavery. For, unfortunately for such a conclusion, however
confidently it may be drawn, or however dogmatically asserted, Roger
Sherman himself was in the Senate of 1793, and was actually on the
committee which reported the Fugitive Slave Law of that session! Thus,
although the premiss of Mr. Sumner's argument is a historical fact, yet
its conclusion comes directly into conflict with another historical
fact!
We cannot, in the same way, refute the argument from the language of
Gouverneur Morris, who said "that he never would concur in upholding
domestic slavery," because he was not in the Congress of 1793. But
Robert Morris was there, and, although he helped to frame the
Constitution in 1787, he uttered not a syllable against the
constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Law. Indeed, this law passed the
Senate by resolution simply, _the yeas and nays not having been called
for_!
The words of Mr. Madison, who "thought it wrong to admit in the
Constitution the idea that there could be property in man," are four or
five times quoted in Mr. Sumner's speech. As we have already seen,[213]
there cannot be, in the strict sense of the terms, "property in man;"
for the soul is the man, and no one, except God, can own the soul. Hence
Mr. Madison acted wisely, we think, in wishing to exclude such an
expression from the Constitution, inasmuch as it would have been
misunderstood by Northern men, and only shocked their feelings without
answering any good purpose.
When we say that slaves are property, we merely mean that their masters
have a right to their service or labor. This idea is recognized in the
Constitution, and _this right is secured_. We ask no more. As Mr.
Madison, and the whole South, had the _thing_, he did not care to
wrangle about the _name_. We are told, again and again, that the word
_slave_ does not appear in the Constitution. Be it so. We care not,
since our slaves are there recognized as "persons held to service" by
those to whom "such service is due." It is repeated without end that the
"Constitution acts on slaves as _persons_, and not as property."
Granted; and if Northern men will, according to the mandate of the
Constitution, only deliver up our fugitive servants, we care not whether
they restore them as persons or as property. If we may only reclaim them
as persons, and regain their service, we are perfectly satisfied. We
utterly despise all such verbal quibbling.
Mr. Madison was above it. He acted wisely, we repeat, in refusing to
shock the mind of any one, by insisting upon a mere word, and upon a
word, too, which might not have conveyed a correct idea of his own
views. But that Mr. Madison could, as he undersood the terms, regard
slaves as property, we have the most incontestable evidence. For in the
Convention of Virginia, called to ratify the Constitution of the United
States, he said, "Another clause secures us that _property_ which we now
possess. At present, if any slave elopes to any of those States where
slaves are free, he becomes emancipated by their laws, for the laws of
the States are uncharitable to one another in this respect." He then
quotes the provision from the Constitution relative to fugitives from
labor, and adds: "This clause was expressly inserted to enable _owners_
of slaves to reclaim them." So much for Mr. Sumner's main argument from
the language of the members of the Convention of 1787.
Arguing from the sentiments of that convention with respect to slavery,
he concludes that nothing could have been further from their intentions
than to confer upon Congress the power to pass a uniform Fugitive Slave
Law. He boldly asserts, that if a proposition to confer such a power
upon Congress had "been distinctly made it would have been distinctly
denied." "But no person in the convention," he says, "_not one of the
reckless partisans of slavery, was so audacious as to make the
proposition_." Now we shall show that the above statement of his is
diametrically opposed to the truth. We shall show that the members of
the convention in question were perfectly willing to confer such a power
upon Congress.
The reason why they were so is obvious to any one who has a real
knowledge of the times about whose history Mr. Sumner so confidently
declaims. This reason is well stated in the language of the Chancellor
of New York whom we have already quoted. "The provision," says he, "as
to persons escaping from servitude in one State into another, appears by
their journal to have been adopted by a unanimous vote of the
convention. At that time the existence of involuntary servitude, or the
relation of master and servant, was known to and recognized by the laws
of every State in the Union except Massachusetts, and _the legal right
of recaption by the master existed in all_, AS A PART OF THE CUSTOMARY
OR COMMON LAW OF THE WHOLE CONFEDERACY." Hence, instead of shocking the
convention, a clause recognizing such right would have been merely
declaratory of the "customary or common law," which then universally
prevailed. The "history of the times" confirms this view, and furnishes
no evidence against it.
Mr. Sumner tries to make a different impression. He lays great stress on
the fact that it was not until late in the convention that the first
clause relative to the surrender of fugitive slaves was introduced. But
this fact agrees more perfectly with our view than with his. There was
no haste about the introduction of such a provision, because it was well
known that, whenever it should be introduced, it would pass in the
affirmative without difficulty. And, in fact, when it was introduced, it
"WAS UNANIMOUSLY ADOPTED." This single fact speaks volumes.
Let us now attend, for a moment, to Mr. Sumner's historical proofs. He
quotes the following passage from the Madison Papers:--"Gen. (Charles
Cotesworth) Pinckney was not satisfied with it. He seemed to wish some
provision should be included in favor of property in slaves." "But," by
way of comment, Mr. Sumner adds, "he made no proposition. Unwilling to
shock the convention, and uncertain in his own mind, he only _seemed_
to wish such a provision." Now, a bare abstract proposition to recognize
property in men is one thing, and a clause to secure the return of
fugitive slaves is quite another. The first, it is probable, would have
been rejected by the convention; the last was actually and unanimously
adopted by it.
Mr. Sumner's next proof is decidedly against him. Here it is "Mr. Butler
and Mr. Charles Pinckney, both from South Carolina, now moved openly to
require 'fugitive slaves and servants to be delivered up like
criminals.' . . . . . . Mr. Wilson, of Pennsylvania, at once objected:
'This would oblige the executive of the State to do it at the public
expense.' Mr. Sherman, of Connecticut, saw no more propriety in the
public seizing and surrendering a slave or servant than a horse! Under
the pressure of these objections the offensive proposition was quietly
withdrawn."
Now mark the character of these objections. It is objected, not that it
is wrong to deliver up fugitive slaves, but only that they should not be
"delivered up like criminals;" that is, by a demand on the executive of
the State to which they may have fled. And this objection is based on
the ground that such a requisition would oblige the public to deliver
them up at its own expense. Mr. Sherman insists, not that it is wrong to
surrender fugitive slaves or fugitive horses, but only that the
executive, or public, should not be called upon to surrender them.
Surely, if these gentlemen had been so violently opposed to the
restoration of fugitive slaves, here was a fair occasion for them to
speak out; and as honest, outspoken men they would, no doubt, have made
their sentiments known. But there is, in fact, not a syllable of such a
sentiment uttered. There is not the slightest symptom of the existence
of any such feeling in their minds. If any such existed, we must insist
that Mr. Sumner has discovered it by instinct, and not by his researches
in history.
The statement that "under the pressure of these objections the offensive
propositon was _quietly withdrawn_" is not true. It was not quietly
withdrawn; on the contrary, it was withdrawn with the assurance that it
would be again introduced. "Mr. Butler withdrew his proposition," says
Mr. Madison, "_in order that some particular provision might be made_,
apart from this article."[214] Accordingly, the very next day he
introduced a provision, which, as Mr. Madison declares, "was expressly
inserted to enable owners of slaves to reclaim them."
These glosses of Mr. Sumner on the history of the times will appear
important, if we view them in connection with his design. This design is
to bring into doubt the idea that slaves are embraced in the clause of
the Constitution which requires fugitives from service or labor to be
delivered up. We should not suspect this design from the hints here
thrown out, if it were not afterward more fully disclosed. "On the next
day," says Mr. Sumner, "August 29th, profiting by the suggestions
already made, Mr. Butler moved a proposition, substantially like that
now found in the Constitution, _not directly for the surrender of_
'_fugitive slaves_,' as originally proposed, but as 'fugitives from
service or labor,' which, without debate or opposition of any kind, was
unanimously adopted." Was it then unanimously adopted because it was a
clause for the surrender of "fugitives from service or labor" only, and
not for the surrender of fugitive slaves?
Such appears to be the insinuation of Mr. Sumner. Be this as it may, it
is certain that he has afterward said that it may be questioned whether
"the language employed" in this clause "can be judicially regarded as
justly applicable to fugitive slaves, _which is often and earnestly
denied_." . . . . "_Still further_," he says, in italics, "_to the
courts of each State must belong the determination of the question, to
which class of persons, according to just rules of interpretation, the
phrase 'persons held to service or labor' is strictly applicable._"
Mr. Sumner doubts, then, whether this provision, after all, refers to
"fugitive slaves." Now, although he has said much in regard to "the
effrontery of the Southern members of the convention" that formed the
Constitution, we may safely defy him, or any other man, to point to any
thing in their conduct which approximates to such audacity. What! the
clause in question not designed to embrace fugitive slaves? Mr. Butler,
even before he introduced the clause, declared, as we have seen, that
such would be its design. It was so understood by every member of the
convention; for there was not a man there who possessed the capacity to
misunderstand so plain a matter; and it has been so understood by every
man, of all parties and all factions, from that day down to the present.
Not one of the hired advocates who have been employed, in different
States, to argue against the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave
Law, has ever had the unblushing effrontery to contend that the clause
in question is not applicable to fugitive slaves. Nay, more, until Mr.
Sumner appeared, the frantic zeal of no abolitionist had ever so
completely besotted his intellect as to permit him to take such ground.
By Dr. Channing, by Mr. Seward, and by Mr. Chase, such application of
the words in question is unhesitatingly admitted; and hence we dismiss
Mr. Sumner's discovery with the contempt it deserves.
But to return. "The provision," says Mr. Sumner, "which showed itself
thus tardily, and was so slightly noticed in the National Convention,
was neglected in most of the contemporaneous discussions before the
people." No wonder; for it was merely declaratory of the "customary or
common law" of that day. "In the Conventions of South Carolina, North
Carolina, and Virginia," he admits, "it was commended as securing
important rights, though on this point there was a difference of
opinion. In the Virginia Convention, an eminent character,--Mr. George
Mason,--with others, expressly declared that there was 'no security of
property coming within this section.'"
Now, we shall not stickle about the fact that Mr. Sumner has not given
the very words of Mr. Mason, since he has given them in substance. But
yet he has given them in such a way, and in such a connection, as to
make a false impression. The words of Mr. Mason, taken in their proper
connection, are as follows: "We have no security for the property of
that kind (slaves) which we already have. There is no clause in this
Constitution to secure it, _for they may lay such a tax as will amount
to manumission_." This shows his position, not as it is misrepresented
by Mr. Sumner, but as it stands in his own words. If slave property may
be rendered worthless by the taxation of Congress, how could it be
secured by a clause which enables the owner to reclaim it? It would not
be worth reclaiming. Such was the argument and true position of Mr.
George Mason.
"Massachusetts," continues Mr. Sumner, "while exhibiting peculiar
sensitiveness at any responsibility for slavery, seemed to view it with
unconcern." If Massachusetts had only believed that the clause was
intended to confer on Congress the power to pass a Fugitive Slave Law,
into what flames of indignation would her sensitiveness have burst! So
Mr. Sumner would have us to believe. But let us listen, for a moment, to
the sober voice of history.
It was only about four years after the government went into operation
that Congress actually exercised the power in question, and _passed a
Fugitive Slave Law_. Where was Massachusetts then! Did she burst into
flames of indignation? Her only voice, in reply, was as distinctly and
as emphatically pronounced in favor of that law as was the voice of
Virginia itself. With a single exception, her whole delegation in
Congress,[215] with Fisher Ames at their head, voted for the Fugitive
Slave Law of 1793! Not a whisper of disapprobation was heard from their
constituents. As Mr. Sumner himself says, the passage of that act "drew
little attention." Hence he would have us to believe that Massachusetts
would have been stirred from her depths if the convention had conferred
such a power upon Congress, and yet that she was not moved at all when
Congress proceeded, as he maintains, to _usurp_ and exercise that power!
This is not all. Every member from the free States, with the exception
of five, recorded his vote in favor of the same law.[216] In the Senate,
as we have already said, it was passed by resolution, and not by a
recorded vote. No one, in either branch of Congress, uttered a syllable
against the constitutionality of the law, though many of the most
distinguished members of the very convention which framed the
Constitution itself were there. Not to mention others, there were James
Madison, and Roger Sherman, and Elbridge Gerry, and Rufus King, and
Caleb Strong, and Robert Morris, and Oliver Elsworth; and yet from not
one of these illustrious framers of the Constitution was a syllable
uttered against the constitutionality of the law in question. Nay, the
law was supported and enacted by themselves. What, then, in the face of
these indubitable facts, becomes of all Mr. Sumner's far-fetched
arguments from "the literature of the age" and from his multitudinous
voices against slavery? It is absurd, says Mr. Sumner, to suppose that
such men intended to confer any power upon Congress to pass a Fugitive
Slave Law. It is a _fact_, we reply, that as members of Congress they
proceeded, without hesitation or doubt, to exercise that very power. It
"dishonors the memory of the fathers," says Mr. Sumner, to suppose they
intended that Congress should possess such a power. How, then, will he
vindicate the memory of the fathers against the imputation of his own
doctrine that they, as members of Congress, must have knowingly usurped
the power which, as members of the convention, they had intended not to
confer?
One more of Mr. Sumner's historical arguments, and we are done with this
branch of the subject. He deems it the most conclusive of all. It is
founded on the arrangement of certain clauses of the Constitution, and
is, we believe, perfectly original. We must refer the reader to the
speech itself if he desire to see this very curious argument, since we
cannot spare the room to give it a full and fair statement.
Nor is this at all necessary to our purpose, inasmuch as we intend to
notice only one thing about this argument, namely, the wonderful effect
it produces on the mind of its inventor. "The framers of the
Constitution," says he, "were wise and careful men, who had a reason for
what they did, and who understood the language which they employed." We
can readily believe all this. Nor can we doubt that they "had a design
in the peculiar arrangement" of the clauses adopted by them. That
design, however, we feel quite sure, is different from the one
attributed to them by Mr. Sumner. But let us suppose he is right, and
then see what would follow.
The design attributed to them by Mr. Sumner was to make every one see,
beyond the possibility of a mistake, that the Constitution confers no
power on Congress to pass a Fugitive Slave Law. "They not only decline
all addition of any such power to the compact," says he, "but, _to
render misapprehension impossible,--to make assurance doubly sure,--to
exclude any contrary conclusion_, they punctiliously arrange," etc. Now,
if such were the case, then we ask if design of so easy accomplishment
were ever followed by failure so wonderful?
They failed, in the first place, "to exclude a contrary conclusion" from
the Supreme Courts of Massachusetts, of New York, and of Pennsylvania,
all of which tribunals have decided that they _did_ confer such a power
upon Congress. In the second place, although those wise men labored to
make "misapprehension impossible," yet, according to Mr. Sumner, the
Supreme Court of the United States has entirely misapprehended them. So
far from seeing that the power in question is not granted to Congress,
this high tribunal decides that it is clearly and unquestionably
granted. This is not all. The most marvellous failure is yet to come.
For, after all their pains to make the whole world see their meaning,
these wise men did not see it themselves, but went away, many of them,
and, in the Congress of 1793, helped to pass a Fugitive Slave Law!
It is to be feared, indeed, that the failure would have been absolutely
total but for the wonderful sagacity of a few abolitionists. For the
design imputed to the framers of the Constitution, and which they took
so much pains to disclose, had remained profoundly concealed from nearly
all men, not excepting themselves, until it was detected by Messrs.
Sumner, Chase, and company. But these have, at last, discovered it, and
now see it as in a flood of light. Indeed, they see it with such
transcendent clearness, with such marvellous perspicacity of vision, as
to atone for the stupidity and blindness of the rest of mankind.
So much for Mr. Sumner's historical argument. His logical argument is,
if possible, still more illogical than his historical. In regard to
this, however, we shall be exceedingly brief, as we are sick of his
sophisms, and long to be delivered from the pursuit of them.
He encounters, at the outset, "a difficulty" in the legislation of the
Congress of 1793 and in the decision of the Supreme Court of the United
States." But "on examination," says he, "this difficulty will
disappear." Perhaps difficulty so great never vanished so suddenly from
before any other man.
The authority of the Congress of 1793, though it contained so many of
the most distinguished framers of the Constitution, is annihilated by a
few bold strokes of Mr. Sumner's pen. One short paragraph, containing
two ineffably weak arguments, does the business.
The first of these arguments is as follows: "The act of 1793 proceeded
from a Congress that had already recognized the United States Bank,
chartered by a previous Congress, which, though sanctioned by the
Supreme Court, has been since in high quarters pronounced
unconstitutional. If it erred as to the bank, it may have erred also as
to fugitives from labor." We cannot conceive why such an argument should
have been propounded, unless it were to excite a prejudice against the
Congress of 1793 in the minds of those who may be opposed to a National
Bank. For if we look at its conclusion we shall see that it merely aims
to establish a point which no one would deny. It merely aims to prove
that, as the Congress of 1793 was composed of fallible men, "so it may
have erred!" We admit the conclusion, and therefore pass by the inherent
weaknesses in the structure of the argument.
His second argument is this: "But the very act contains a capital
error[217] on this very subject, so declared by the Supreme Court, in
pretending to vest a portion of the judicial power of the nation in
state officers. _This error takes from the act all authority as an
interpretation of the Constitution_. I DISMISS IT." This passage,
considered as an argument, is simply ridiculous. How many of the best
laws ever enacted by man have, in the midst of much that is as clear as
noonday, been found to contain an error! Should all, therefore, have
been blindly rejected? As soon as the error has been detected, has any
enlightened tribunal on earth ever said, "I dismiss" the whole?
By such a process we might have made as short work with Mr. Sumner's
speech. If, after pointing out one error therein, we had dismissed the
whole speech as worthless, we should have imitated his reasoning, and in
our conclusion have come much nearer to the truth. If we should say,
indeed, that because the sun has a spot on its surface it is therefore a
great ball of darkness, our argument would be exactly like that of Mr.
Sumner. But that great luminary would not refuse to shine in obedience
to our contemptible logic. In like manner, the authority of the
illustrious Congress of 1793, in which there were so many profound
statesmen and pure patriots, will not be the less resplendent because
Mr. Charles Sumner has, with Titanic audacity and Lilliputian weakness,
assailed it with one of the most pitiful of all the pitiful sophisms
that ever were invented by man.
In regard to the decision of the Supreme Court he says: "Whatever maybe
the influence of this judgment as a rule to the judiciary, it can not
arrest our duty as legislators. And here I adopt, with entire assent,
the language of President Jackson, in his memorable veto, in 1832, of
the Bank of the United States." He then quotes this language, in which
he italicizes the following sentence: "_Each public officer, who takes
an oath to support the Constitution, swears that he will support it as
he understands it, and not as it is understood by others._" With these
authoritative words of Andrew Jackson," says he, "I dismiss this topic.
The early legislation of Congress and the decisions of the Supreme Court
can not stand in our way. I advance to the argument." We shall let him
advance.
But we must say a few words in conclusion. Mr. Sumner swears to support
the Constitution as he understands it; but how is it supported by him?
Is it supported by him at all or in any way? Let us see. The clause
respecting "persons held to service or labor," says he, imposes an
obligation, not upon "the National Government, but upon the States." Is
he then in favor of the States passing any law, or doing any act, by
which fugitive slaves may be delivered up? "Never," he replies.
Massachusetts will never do any such thing by his advice or consent.
Surely, then, he will speak a kind word to the good people of
Massachusetts, and advise them to do nothing in violation of this solemn
compact of the Constitution. If he will do nothing to support the
compact, surely he will do nothing to break it down. He will not permit
us to indulge any such charitable hope. For it is his _avowed_ object,
by speech-making and by agitation, to create such a "public opinion" as
"shall blast with contempt, indignation, and abhorrence, all who, _in
whatever form_, or _under whatever name_, undertake to be agents"[218]
in reclaiming fugitive slaves. Yea, upon the very officers of the law
themselves, who, for this purpose, act under and by authority of the
supreme laws of the land, he pours down scorn and derision. Even these,
though in the discharge of an official duty, are--if it be in the power
of Mr. Sumner--to be blasted with abhorrence, indignation, and contempt!
The Constitution declares that the fugitive slave "shall be delivered
up." He shall NOT "be delivered up," says Mr. Sumner; and, in order to
make his words good, he means to create a "public opinion," which no
Southern master dare encounter. Nay, he rejoices to believe that such
public opinion is, in some localities, already created and prepared for
open resistance to the Constitution of the United States. "There are
many," says he, "who will never shrink at any cost, and, notwithstanding
all the atrocious penalties of this bill, from efforts to save a
wandering fellow-man from bondage. They will offer him the shelter of
their houses, and, IF NEED BE, WILL PROTECT HIS LIBERTY BY FORCE."[219]
Horrible words! Words tending directly to a conflict in which the
brightest hopes of humanity must perish, and the glory of the Republic
be extinguished in oceans of blood.
In the face of such things, we are imperiously constrained to doubt Mr.
Sumner's regard for the obligation of the oath which binds him to
support the Constitution of his country. It is certain that he can
rejoice in the breach of this obligation by others. A certain judge in
Vermont, who, like every other State officer, had taken an oath to
support the Constitution of the United States, just set Constitution,
laws, evidence, all at defiance, and boldly declared that the fugitive
should _not_ be delivered up, "_unless the master could show a bill of
sale from the Almighty_." This deed, which, in the language of
Chancellor Walworth, is stamped with "the moral guilt of perjury,"
appears heroic to Mr. Sumner, by whom it is related with evident
delight. It would seem, indeed, as if the moral sensibility of an
abolitionist of his stamp is all drawn to a single point of his
conscience, so that it can feel absolutely nothing except slavery. It
seems dead to the obligation of an oath, to the moral guilt of perjury.
Nay, it seems to rejoice in the very bravery of its perpetration,
provided it only enables a fugitive slave to effect his escape.
Perhaps Mr. Sumner would seek to justify himself by declaring that the
language _fugitive from services_ does not include fugitive slaves. If
so, we reply that the Vermont judge, whose infamous decision he
approves, had no such fine pretext. It is Mr. Sumner, as we have seen,
who first suggested this most excellent method of reconciling conscience
with treachery to the Constitution. Though he professes the most
profound respect for that instrument, he deliberately sets to work to
undermine one of its most clear and unequivocal mandates. He does not,
like Mr. Seward, openly smite the Constitution with his hand, or
contemptuously kick it with his foot. _He betrays it with a kiss._
Mr. Sumner admires the conduct of the Vermont judge; but he can heap the
most frantic abuse on the acts of the best men America has produced.
Though they be the deliberate public acts of a Clay, or a Calhoun, or a
Webster, or a GEORGE WASHINGTON, his language is not the less violent,
nor his raving vituperation the less malignant. In regard to the
Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, he says: "And still further, as if to do a
deed which should 'make heaven weep, all earth amazed,' this same
Congress, in disregard of all the cherished safeguards of freedom, has
passed a most cruel, unchristian, devilish act." The great difficulty
under which Mr. Sumner labors, and which all the energy of his soul
struggles to surmount, is to find language violent enough in which to
denounce this "foul enactment," this "detestable and heaven-defying
bill," this "monster act," which "sets at naught the best principles of
the Constitution and the very laws of God!"
Now, this bill, let it be remembered, is liable to no objection which
may not be urged against the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793. It will not be
denied, indeed, that if the one of these laws be unconstitutional so
also is the other, and that both must stand or fall together. Let it
also be borne in mind that, as the one received the support of a Clay,
and a Calhoun, and a Webster, so the other received the sanction and the
signature of George Washington. Yet, in the face of these facts, Mr.
Sumner does not moderate his rage. They only seem to increase the
intensity and the fury of his wrath. "The soul sickens," he cries, "in
the contemplation of this legalized outrage. In the dreary annals of the
past there are many acts of shame--there are many ordinances of
monarchs, and laws which have become a byword and a hissing to the
nations. But when we consider the country and the age, I ask fearlessly,
what act of shame, what ordinance of monarch, what law, can compare in
atrocity with this enactment of an American Congress?"
Not content with pouring floods of abuse on the law itself, Mr. Sumner
proceeds to consign to infamy its authors and all who have given it
their support. For, after furnishing examples of what he deems among the
most atrocious transactions of the past, he adds: "I would not
exaggerate. I wish to keep within bounds; but _I think no person can
doubt_ that the condemnation affixed to all these transactions and to
their authors must be the lot hereafter of the Fugitive Slave Bill, and
of every one, according to the measure of his influence, who gave it his
support. Into the immortal catalogue of national crimes this law has now
passed, drawing with it, by an inexorable necessity, its authors also,
and chiefly him who, as President of the United States, set his name to
the bill, and breathed into it that final breath without which it would
have no life. Other Presidents may be forgotten, but the name signed to
the Fugitive Slave Bill can never be forgotten. There are depths of
infamy, as there are hights of fame. I regret to say what I must, but
truth compels me. Better far for him had he never been born; better for
his memory, and for the name of his children, had he never been
President!"
If neither Mr. Fillmore nor George Washington swore to support the
Constitution as Mr. Sumner understands it, we beg him to consider that
_his opinion was not known_ when they took the oath of office. Mr.
Fillmore had, at that time, no better guide to go by than the decisions
of the most enlightened judicial tribunals of his country, with the
Supreme Court of the United States at their head. He was not so far
raised above other men, nor possessed of so wonderful an insight into
the Constitution, as Mr. Sumner; for he could understand it no better
than its framers. Hence he was, no doubt, so conscious of his own
fallibility that he could hardly look upon modesty as a crime, or upon a
deference to the judicial tribunals of his country as infamous. We
trust, therefore, that his good name will survive, and that his children
will not blush to own it. It is certain that the American people will
never believe, on the bare authority of Mr. Sumner, that, in his course
regarding the Fugitive Slave Law, he planted his feet in the very
"depths of infamy," when they can so clearly see that he merely trod in
the footsteps of George Washington.
If what a man lacks in reason he could only make up in rage, then, after
all, it would have to be concluded that Mr. Sumner is a very respectable
Senator; for, surely, the violence of his denunciations is almost as
remarkable as the weakness of his logic. Fortunately, however, it can
hurt no one except himself or those whom he represents. Certainly, the
brightest names in the galaxy of American statesmen are not to be swept
away by the filthy torrent of his invectives. The Clays, the Calhouns,
the Websters, and the Washingtons of America, are, indeed, as far above
the impotent rage of this Senator as the very stars of heaven are beyond
his arm.[220]
§ III. _The right of Trial by Jury not impaired by the Fugitive Slave
Law._
It is alleged that the power to enact such a law does not reside in
Congress, because no such power has been "expressly delegated," and
because it is not "necessary and proper" to carry any expressly
delegated authority into effect. We should have replied to this
argument; but it has been urged before every tribunal in which the great
question under consideration has been tried, and everywhere refuted. By
Mr. Justice Nelson, in the Supreme Court of New York,[221] by Mr.
Senator Bishop, in the Court of Errors in the same State,[222] and by
Mr. Justice Story, in the Supreme Court of the United States, it has
been so clearly, so powerfully, and so triumphantly demolished as to
leave nothing more to be desired on the subject. And besides, it has
been our object not so much to refute arguments against the law in
question, or to establish that which has been so long established,[223]
as to show on what slender grounds, and yet with what unbounded
confidence, the greatest champions of abolitionism are accustomed to
oppose the Constitution, the laws, the judicial decisions, and the
uniform practice, of the whole government under which we live.
In pursuance of this design, there is another sophism of theirs, which
it now devolves upon us to examine. We allude to the argument that the
Fugitive Slave Law is unconstitutional, because it denies the right of
trial by jury.
Is this still an open question? In the biography of Mr. Justice Story,
published by his son, it is said: "The argument that the Act of 1793 was
unconstitutional, because it did not provide for a trial by jury
according to the requisitions of the sixth article in the amendment to
the Constitution, having been suggested to my father on his return from
Washington, he replied that this question was not argued by counsel nor
considered by the court, and that he should still consider it an open
one." Mr. Sumner adduces this "distinct statement that the necessity of
trial by jury was not before the court;" and adds, "So that, in the
estimation of the judge himself, it was still an open question."
In the case here referred to--Prigg _v._ The Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania, reported in XVI. Peters--it is true that the question of
trial by jury was not argued by counsel nor considered by the court. But
if the greater includes the less, then this question was embraced in the
decision; for, in that case, Prigg had seized the fugitive slave without
process, and carried her away without any certificate from magistrate or
judge in the State of Pennsylvania. The court declared that he had a
right to do so under and by virtue of the Constitution of the United
States. Most assuredly, if he had a constitutional right to such
proceeding, then, in such cases, the Constitution dispenses with the
necessity of trial by jury.
It was urged by counsel that such summary method of reclaiming fugitive
slaves was unconstitutional; but the court decided otherwise. It was
insisted by Mr. Hambly, just as it is now insisted by Mr. Sumner and
others, that such arrest was unconstitutional, because it was made by
the mere will of the party, and not, as the Constitution requires, "by
due process of law." Thus the point was presented by the record, argued
by the counsel, and overruled by the court.
In overruling this argument the court says: "The owner must, therefore,
have the right to seize and repossess the slave which the local laws of
his own State confer upon him as property; and we all know that this
right of seizure and recaption is universally acknowledged in all the
slaveholding States. Indeed, this is no more than a mere affirmance of
the principles of the common law applicable to this very subject." Then,
after a quotation from Blackstone, the court adds: "Upon this ground, we
have not the slightest hesitation in holding that, under and in virtue
of the Constitution, the owner of a slave is clothed with entire
authority in every State in the Union to seize and recapture his slave
whenever he can do it without any breach of the peace or any illegal
violence."
In accordance with this opinion of the court--delivered by Mr. Justice
Story--Mr. Chief Justice Taney says: the master "has a right, peaceably,
to take possession of him, and carry him away, without any certificate
or warrant from a judge of the District or Circuit Court of the United
States, or from any magistrate of the State; and whosoever resists or
obstructs him is a wrong-doer; and every State law which proposes,
directly or indirectly, to authorize such resistance or obstruction, is
null and void, and affords no justification to the individual or the
officer of the State who acts under it. This right of the master being
given by the Constitution of the United States, neither Congress nor a
State Legislature can by any law or regulation impair it or restrict
it.[224]
Hence it would have been well if Mr. Sumner and the son of Judge Story
had looked into this decision again before they proclaimed the opinion
that the right of trial by jury is, in such cases, still an open
question. Mr. Justice Story himself must, on reflection, have seen that
the off-hand expression attributed to him was erroneous. His more
deliberate opinion is recorded, not only in the case of Prigg, but also
in his "Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States." "It is
obvious," says he, "that these provisions for the arrest and removal of
fugitives of both classes contemplate summary ministerial proceedings,
and not the ordinary courts of judicial investigations to ascertain
whether the complaint be well-founded or the claim of ownership be
established beyond all legal controversy. In cases of suspected crimes
the guilt or innocence of the party is to be made out at his trial, and
not upon the preliminary inquiry whether he shall be delivered up. All
that would seem in such cases to be necessary is that there should be
_primâ facie_ evidence before the executive authority to satisfy its
judgment that there is probable cause to believe the party guilty, such
as, upon an ordinary warrant, would justify his commitment for trial.
And in the cases of fugitive slaves there would seem to be the same
necessity of requiring only _primâ facie_ proofs of ownership, without
putting the party to a formal assertion of his rights by a suit at the
common law."[225]
But, since the abolitionists will discuss this point, then let it be
considered an open question, and let them produce their arguments. The
first we shall notice is from Mr. Sumner, who again reasons from the
sentiments of the fathers. "At the close of the National Convention,"
says he, "Elbridge Gerry refused to sign the Constitution, because,
among other things, it established 'a tribunal _without juries_, a Star
Chamber as to civil cases.' Many united in his opposition, and, on the
recommendation of the First Congress, this additional safeguard was
adopted as an amendment." Thus, according to Mr. Sumner, Elbridge Gerry
was the father of the clause in the Constitution which guarantees the
right of trial by jury. Yet Elbridge Gerry never dreamed of applying
this clause to the case of fugitive slaves; for, as we have already
seen, he voted for the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793, in which such
application of it is denied. Nor did any other member of that Congress
propose the right of trial by jury in such cases.
No doubt there would have been opposition to the act of 1793 if any
member of Congress had supposed, for a moment, that it denied the right
of trial by jury to the fugitive slave. It does no such thing. It leaves
that right unimpaired; and if any slave in the Union, whether fugitive
or otherwise, desire such trial, it is secured to him by the
Constitution and laws of the country. But he cannot have such trial
where or in what State he chooses. If he lives in Richmond, he may have
a trial by jury there; but he cannot escape to Boston, and there demand
this as a right. The fugitive from labor, like the fugitive from
justice, has a right to a trial by jury, but neither can claim to have
this trial in any part of the world he pleases. The latter must be tried
in "the vicinage" where the offense is alleged to have been committed,
because there the witnesses are to be found. He has no right to flee
from these and require them to follow him with their testimony. As he
has a constitutional right to be tried in the vicinage of the alleged
offense, so has the commonwealth a right to insist on his trial there.
In like manner, and for a similar reason, if the colored man wishes to
assert his freedom under the law, he may appeal to a jury of the
country; but this must be done in the State under whose laws he is
claimed as a slave and where the witnesses reside. He cannot fly to a
distant State, and there demand a kind of trial which neither the
Constitution, nor the laws, nor public expediency, secures to him. If he
assert this right at all, he must assert it in conformity with the
_undoubted right of the other party_, which is to be sued in this, as in
all other personal actions, in the place where he resides.
In the face of these considerations, it is no wonder that the Congress
of 1793 were so unanimous in regard to the Fugitive Slave Law. Though
this law did not provide for a jury trial, yet its authors all knew that
such trial was not denied to the fugitive slave, if he had a mind to
claim it. Hence the law was passed by that Congress, without even an
allusion to this modern abolition objection to its constitutionality.
Among all the members of that body who had taken part in framing the
Constitution of the United States,[226] not one was found to hint at
such an objection. This objection is of more recent origin, if not of
less respectable parentage.
An amendment to the law in question, allowing a trial by jury to the
fugitive slave in a distant State, would indeed be a virtual denial of
the constitutional right of the master. Either because the jury could
not agree, or because distant testimony might be demanded, the trial
would probably be continued, and put off, until the expense, the loss of
time, and the worriment of vexatious proceedings, would be more than the
slave is worth. The language of Mr. Chief Justice Taney, in relation to
an action for damages by the master, is peculiarly applicable to such a
trial by jury. The master "_would be compelled_," says he, "_to
encounter the costs and expenses of a suit, prosecuted at a distance
from his own home, and to sacrifice perhaps the value of his property
in endeavoring_ to obtain compensation." This is not the kind of
remedy, says he, the Constitution "intended to give. The delivery of the
property itself--its PROMPT AND IMMEDIATE DELIVERY--_is plainly
required, and was intended to be secured_." Such prompt and immediate
delivery was a part of "the customary or common law" at the time the
Constitution was adopted, and its framers, no doubt, intended that this
practice should be enforced by the clause in question, as appears from
the fact that so many of them concurred in the Act of 1793.
But if such right to a prompt and immediate delivery be guaranteed by
the Constitution itself, then, with all due submission, we would ask,
what power has Congress to limit or abridge this right? If under and by
virtue of the Constitution this right to a prompt and immediate delivery
be secured, then what power has Congress to say there shall _not_ be a
prompt or immediate delivery? "This right of the master," says Mr. Chief
Justice Taney, "being given by the Constitution of the United States,
NEITHER CONGRESS NOR A STATE LEGISLATURE CAN BY ANY LAW OR REGULATION
IMPAIR IT OR RESTRICT IT." If this be sound doctrine,--and such we hold
it to be,--then Congress has no constitutional power to impair or
restrict the right in question, by giving the fugitive slave a trial by
jury in the State to which he may have fled. This would not be to give a
"prompt and immediate delivery," such as the Supreme Court declares the
master is entitled to by the Constitution itself; it would be either to
give no delivery at all, or else one attended with such delays,
vexations, and costs, as would materially impair, if not wholly
annihilate, the right in question.
It is right and proper, we think, that questions arising exclusively
under our own laws should be tried in our own States and by our own
tribunals. Hence we shall never consent, unless constrained by the
judicial decision of the Supreme Court of the Union, to have such
questions tried in States whose people and whose juries may, perhaps, be
hostile to our interests and to our domestic institutions. For we are
SOVEREIGN as well as they.
Only conceive such a trial by jury in a Northern State, with such an
advocate for the fugitive slave as Mr. Chase, or Mr. Sumner, or some
other flaming abolitionist! There sits the fugitive slave,--"one of the
heroes of the age," as Mr. Sumner calls him, and the very embodiment of
persecuted innocence. On the other hand is the master,--the vile
"slave-hunter," as Mr. Sumner delights to represent him, and whom, if
possible, he is determined "to blast with contempt, indignation, and
abhorrence." The trial begins. The advocate appeals to the prejudices
and the passions of the jury. He denounces slavery--about which neither
he nor the jury know any thing--as the epitome of all earthly wrongs, as
the sum and substance of all human woes. Now, suppose that on the jury
there is _only one man_, who, like the Vermont judge, requires "a bill
of sale from the Almighty" before he will deliver up a fugitive slave;
or who, like Mr. Seward, sets his own private opinion above the
Constitution of his country; or who, like Mr. Sumner, has merely sworn
to support the supreme law as he understands it; and who, at the same
time, possesses his capacity to understand it just exactly as he
pleases: then what chance would the master have for a verdict? Just none
at all. For that one man, however clear the master's evidence, would
hang the jury, and the cause would have to be tried over again.
But suppose the whole twelve jurors should decide according to the law
and the evidence, and give a verdict in favor of the claimant; would his
rights then be secured? Very far from it. For there is the eager crowd,
which never fails to flock to such trials, and which the inflammatory
eloquence of the advocate has now wrought into a frenzy. Cannot such
crowd, think you, furnish a mob to effect by force what every member of
the jury had refused to accomplish by falsehood? If the master--if the
abhorred "slave-hunter"--should escape from such a crowd with a sound
body only, and without his property, he ought, we think, to deem himself
exceedingly fortunate.
Mr. Winthrop, of Massachusetts, has advocated a trial by jury in such
cases. He was, no doubt, perfectly sincere in the belief expressed by
him, that under such a provision more fugitive slaves would be reclaimed
than under the law as it now stands. But it is equally certain that
neither Mr. Seward nor Mr. Chase was of this opinion when the one
proposed, and the other voted for, a trial by jury in such cases.
Neither of these Senators, we think we may confidently affirm, intended
to aid the master in reclaiming his fugitive slaves.
"At any rate, sir," says Mr. Winthrop, "I shall vote for the amendment
offered by the Senator from New Jersey, as right and just in itself,
whatever may be its effects." That is to say, whatever may be the
effect of a jury trial in such cases, he means to vote for it _as right
and just in itself_! Whether this were a burst of passion merely, or the
deliberate conviction of the author of it, we are not able to determine,
but we shall trust it was the former. For surely such an opinion, if
deliberately entertained, is creditable neither to a Senator nor to a
jurist. Neither this, nor any other mode of trial, is "right in itself;"
and when right at all, it is only so as a means to an end. It is only
right when it subserves the great end of justice; and if it fail to
answer this end it is then worse than worthless. Hence the statesman who
declares that, "_whatever may be the effects_" of a particular mode of
trial, he will nevertheless support it "as right and just in itself,"
thereby announces that he is prepared to sacrifice the end to the
means,--a sentiment which, we venture to affirm, is more worthy of a
fanatical declaimer than of the high-minded and accomplished Senator by
whom it was uttered.
The great objection urged against the Fugitive Slave Law is that under
it a freeman may be seized and reduced to slavery. This law, as well as
every other, may, no doubt, be grossly abused, and made a cover for evil
deeds. But is there no remedy for such evil deeds. Is there no
protection for the free blacks of the North, except by a denial of the
clear and unquestionable constitutional rights of the South? If not,
then we should be willing to submit; but there is a remedy against such
foul abuse of the law of Congress in question, and, as we conceive, a
most ample remedy.
The master may recapture his fugitive slave. This is his constitutional
right. But, in the language of the Supreme Court of New York, already
quoted, if a villain, under cover of a pretended right, proceeds to
carry off a freeman, he does so "_at his peril, and would be answerable
like any other trespasser or kidnapper_." He must be caught, however,
before he can be punished. Let him be caught, let the crime be proved
upon him, and we would most heartily concur in the law by which he
should himself be doomed to slavery for life in the penitentiary.
The Fugitive Slave Law is not the only one liable to abuse. The innocent
may be, and often have been, arrested for crime; but this is no reason
why the law of arrest should be abolished, or even impaired in its
operation. Nay, innocent persons have often been maliciously prosecuted;
yet no one, on this account, ever dreamed of throwing obstacles in the
way of prosecution for crime. The innocent have been made the victims
of perjury; but who imagines that all swearing in courts of justice
should therefore be abolished? Such evils and such crimes are sought to
be remedied by separate legislation, and not by undermining the laws of
which they are the abuses. In like manner, though we wish to see the
free blacks of the North protected, and would most cheerfully lend a
helping hand for that purpose, yet, at the same time, we would maintain
our own constitutional rights inviolate. The villain who, under cover of
the law made for the protection of our rights, should seek to invade the
rights of Northern freemen, is as much abhorred by us as by any
abolitionists on earth. Nor, on the other hand, have we any sympathy
with those who, under cover of a law _to be made_ for the protection of
the free blacks of the North, seek to invade the rights of the South. We
have no sympathy with either class of kidnappers.
Is it not wonderful that, while the abolitionists of the North create
and keep up so great a clamor about the danger their free blacks are in,
they do so little, and ask so little, either by legislation or
otherwise, in order to protect them, except in such manner, or by such
legislation, as shall aim a deadly blow at the rights and interests of
the South? If they really wish to protect their free blacks, and if the
laws are not already sufficient for that purpose, we are more than
willing to assist in the passage of more efficient ones. But we are not
willing to abandon the great right which the Constitution spreads, like
an impenetrable shield, over Southern property to the amount of sixteen
hundred millions of dollars.
The complaint in regard to the want of protection for the free blacks of
the North is without just foundation. In the case of Jack _v._ Martin,
decided in the Court of Errors of New York, we find the following
language, which is here exactly in point:--"It was contended on the
argument of this cause, with great zeal and earnestness, that, under the
law of the United States, a freeman might be dragged from his family and
home into captivity. This is supposing an extreme case, as I believe it
is not pretended any such ever has occurred, or that any complaint of
that character has ever been made; at all events, I cannot regard it as
a very potent argument. The same position might as well be taken in the
case of a fugitive from justice. It might be assumed that he was an
innocent man, and entitled to be tried by a jury of the State where he
was arrested, to ascertain whether he had violated the laws of the State
from which he fled; whereas the fact is, the executive of this State
would feel bound to deliver up the most exalted individual in this
State, (however well satisfied he might be of his innocence,) if a
requisition was made upon him by the executive of another State."
In the same case, when before the Supreme Court of New York, the court
said: "In the case under review, the proceedings are before a magistrate
of our own State, presumed to possess a sympathy with his
fellow-citizens, and _where, upon the supposition that a freeman is
arrested, he may readily procure the evidence of his freedom_. If the
magistrate should finally err in granting the certificate, _the party
can still resort to the protection of the national judiciary. The
proceedings by which his rights have been invaded being under a law of
Congress, the remedy for error or injustice belongs peculiarly to that
high tribunal._ UNDER THEIR AMPLE SHIELD, THE APPREHENSION OF CAPTIVITY
AND OPPRESSION CAN NOT BE ALARMING."
It is evident that when this opinion was pronounced by the Supreme Court
of New York, it had not fathomed the depths of some men's capacity of
being alarmed by apprehensions of captivity and oppression. The
abolitionists will, whether or no, be most dreadfully alarmed. But the
danger consists, not in the want of laws and courts to punish the
kidnapper, but in the want of somebody to catch him. If he does all the
mischief ascribed to him by the abolitionists, is it not wonderful that
he is not caught by them? Rumor, with her thousand tongues, is clamorous
about his evil deeds; and fanatical credulity, with her ten thousand
ears, gives heed to the reports of rumor. But yet, somehow or other, the
abolitionists, with all their fiery, restless zeal, never succeed in
laying their hands on the offender himself. He must, indeed, be a most
adroit, a most cunning, a most wonderful rogue. He boldly goes into a
community in which so many are all eye, all ear, and all tongue, in
regard to the black man's rights; he there steals a free negro, who
himself has the power to tell when, where, and how, he became free; and
yet, in open day, and amid ten thousand flaming guardians of
freedom,[227] he escapes with perfect impunity! Is he not a most
marvelous proper rogue? But perhaps the reason the abolitionists do not
lay hands on him is that he is an imaginary being, who, though
intangible and invisible, will yet serve just as well to create an alarm
and keep up a great excitement as if he were a real personage.
§ IV. _The duty of the Citizen in regard to the Constitution of the
United States._
The Constitution, it is agreed on all sides, is "the supreme law of the
land,"--of every State in the Union. The first duty of the citizen in
regard to the Constitution is, then, to respect and obey each and every
one of its provisions. If he repudiates or sets at naught this or that
provision thereof, because it does not happen to agree with his own
views or feelings, he does not respect the Constitution at all; he makes
his own will and pleasure the supreme law. The true principle of loyalty
resides not in his bosom. We may apply to him, and to the supreme law of
the land, the language of an inspired apostle, that "whosoever shall
keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all."
He is guilty of all, because, by his willful disobedience in the one
instance, he sets at naught the authority by which the whole was
ordained and established.
In opposing the Fugitive Slave Law, it is forgotten by the abolitionists
that, if no such law existed, the master would have, under the
Constitution itself, the same right to reclaim his fugitive from labor,
and to reclaim him in the same summary manner; for, as we have seen, the
Supreme Court of the United States has decided that by virtue of the
Constitution alone the master has a right to pursue and reclaim his
fugitive slave, without even a writ or legal process. Hence, in opposing
the Fugitive Slave Law because it allows a summary proceeding in such
cases, the abolitionists really make war on the Constitution. The
battery which they open against the Constitution is merely masked behind
the Fugitive Slave Law; and thus the nature of their attack is concealed
from the eyes of their non-legal followers.
But, says Mr. Chase, of Ohio, I do not agree with the Supreme Court of
the United States. I oppose not the Constitution, but the decision of
the Supreme Court. "A decision of the Supreme Court," says he, "cannot
alter the Constitution." This is very true; but then, on the other
hand, it is equally true that neither can his opinion alter the
Constitution. But here the question arises, which is the rule of conduct
for the true and loyal citizen,--the decision of the Supreme Court of
the United States, or the opinion of Governor Chase? We decidedly prefer
the former. "Sir," says Mr. Chase, "when gentlemen from the slave States
ask us to support the Constitution, I fear they mean only their
_construction_ of the Constitution." We mean not so. We mean neither
_our_ nor _his_ construction of the Constitution, but that construction
only which has been given to it by the highest judicial tribunal in the
land, by the supreme and final arbiter in all such conflicts of opinion.
But Mr. Chase opposes argument as well as opinion to the decision of the
Supreme Court in regard to slavery. "What more natural," says he, "than
that gentlemen from the slave States, in view of the questions likely to
come before the Supreme Court, should desire that a majority of its
members might have interests like those which they would desire to
maintain! _Certain it is that some care has been taken to secure such a
constitution of the court, and not without success._" If Mr. Chase, or
any other abolitionist, should insinuate that the decision in question
is owing to such an unfair constitution of the Supreme Court, the answer
is as easy and triumphant as the accusation would be infamous and vile;
for, as is well known, the very decision which is so obnoxious to his
sentiments was delivered by the great jurist of Massachusetts, Mr.
Justice Story, and was concurred in by the other Northern members of the
Court. This is not all. How did it happen that substantially the same
decision has been rendered by the Supreme Courts of New York,
Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania? Were these high tribunals also
constituted with reference to the peculiar interests of the South?
The question is not whether the decision of the Supreme Court, or the
opinion of Mr. Chase, the more perfectly reflects the Constitution. Even
if he were infallible, as the Supreme Court certainly is not, we, the
people of the United States, have not agreed that he shall decide such
questions for us. And besides, it would be difficult, perhaps, to
persuade the people that he is, for the determination of such questions,
any more happily constituted than the Supreme Court itself, with all the
manifold imperfections of its Southern members. But, however this may
be, it is certain that until the people shall be so persuaded, and
shall agree to abide by his opinions, it is the duty of the good citizen
to follow the decisions of the great judicial tribunal provided by the
Constitution of his country.
If you, good citizen of the North, have a right to set up your opinion
in opposition to such decisions, then I have the same right, and so has
every other member of the commonwealth. Thus, as many constructions of
the Constitution would necessarily result as there are individual
opinions in the land. Law and order would be at an end; a chaos of
conflicting elements would prevail, and every man would do that which
seemed right in his own eyes. The only escape from such anarchy is a
just and loyal confidence in the judicial tribunals of the land--is a
subjection of the intense egotism of the individual to the will of the
nation, as expressed in the Constitution and expounded by the
constitutional authorities. Hence, we mean to support the Constitution,
not as _we_ understand it nor as _you_ understand it, but as it is
understood by the Supreme Court of the United States. Such, it seems to
us, is the only wise course--nay, is the imperative duty--of every
citizen who does not intend to disorganize the fundamental law and
revolutionize the government of his country.
It may be supposed, perhaps, by those who have reflected little on the
subject, that the controversy respecting the Fugitive Slave Law is
merely about the value of a few slaves. It is, in our opinion, far
otherwise; it is a great constitutional question; and hence the deep
interest which it has excited throughout the nation, as well as in the
Senate of the United States. It is a question, as it appears to us,
whether the Constitution or the abolitionists shall rule the country.
The Fugitive Slave Law is, as we have seen, surrounded by the strongest
possible evidences of its constitutionality; and hence, if this may be
swept away as unconstitutional by the passions of a mad faction, then
may every other legal defence be leveled before like storms, and all
security annihilated. Hence, as the friends of law and order, we intend
to take our stand right here, and defend this Act, which, although
despised and abhorred by a faction, has received the sanction of the
fathers, as well as of the great judicial tribunals, of the land.
We are asked to repeal this law--ay, by the most violent agitator of the
North we are asked to repeal this law--for "_the sake of tranquillity
and peace_!" But how can this bring peace? Suppose this law were
repealed; would tranquillity be restored? We have not forgotten--nor can
we be so easily made to forget--that this very agitator himself has
declared, that slavery is "a wrong so transcendent" that no truce is to
be allowed to it so long as it occupies a single foot of ground in the
United States. Is it not, then, a delusive prospect of peace which is
offered to us in exchange for the law in question?
Nor can we forget what other agitators have uttered respecting the
abolition of slavery in the Southern States. "Slavery," said Mr. Seward,
at a mass-meeting in Ohio, "can be limited to its present bounds; it can
be ameliorated. It can be--and it _must_ be--ABOLISHED, and you and I
can and _must_ do it." Does this look like peace, if the Fugitive Slave
Law were only out of the way? Mr. Seward, from his place in the Senate
of the United States, tells us how we must act among the people of the
North, if, in reclaiming our fugitive slaves, we would not disturb their
peace. But he had already exhorted the people of the North to "extend a
cordial welcome" to our fugitive slaves, and to "defend them as they
would their household gods." What, then, does he mean by peace?
This outcry, indeed, that the peace of the country is disturbed by the
Fugitive Slave Law, is as great a delusion as ever was attempted to be
palmed off on any people. If this law were repealed to-morrow, would
agitation cease? Would the abolitionists of the North cease to proclaim
that their doors are open, and their hospitality is ready, to receive
the poor benighted blacks? (the blacks of the South, we mean; for we
have never heard of their open doors, or cordial hospitality, for the
poor free blacks of their own neighborhood.) But we have heard--from Dr.
Channing himself--of "a convention at the North, of highly respected
men, preparing and publishing an address to the slaves, in which they
are exhorted to fly from bondage, and to _feel no scruple in seizing and
using horse or boat which may facilitate their escape_." Now, if the
Fugitive Slave Law were repealed, would all such proceedings cease? Or
if, under the Constitution as expounded by the Supreme Courts of the
Union and of New York, and without any such law to back him, the master
should seek to reclaim his property, would he be welcomed, or hooted and
resisted, by the defenders of the fugitive from service? Let these
things be considered, and it will be evident, we think, that the repeal
of the law in question would only invite further aggressions, and from
this prostrate outpost the real enemies of the peace of the country
would march, if possible, over every other defense of the Constitution.
Hence, although we most ardently desire harmony and concord for the
States of the Union, we shall never seek it by a surrender of the
Constitution or the decisions of the Supreme Court. If it cannot be
found under these, it cannot be found at all. Mr. Chase assures us,
indeed, that just so long as the rule laid down by the Supreme Court in
the case of Prigg prevails, we must "encounter difficulties, and serious
difficulties."[228] If it must be so, then so be it. If the question be
whether the decisions of the Supreme Court, or the dictation of
demagogues, shall rule our destinies, then is our stand taken and our
purpose immovably fixed.
We have a right to peace under the decisions of that august tribunal. It
is neither right nor proper--it is contrary to every principle of
natural justice--that either party to this great controversy should
decide for itself. Hence, if the abolitionists will not submit to the
decisions of the Supreme Court, we shall most assuredly refuse
submission to their arrogant dictation. We can, from our inmost hearts,
respect the feelings of those of our Northern brethren who may choose to
remain passive in this matter, and leave us--by such aid as the law may
afford--to reclaim our own fugitives from labor. For such we have only
words of kindness and feelings of fraternal love. But as for those--and
especially for those in high places--who counsel resistance to the laws
and to the Constitution of the Republic, we hold them guilty of a high
misdemeanor, and we shall ever treat them as disturbers of the public
peace, nay, as enemies of the independence, the perpetuity, the
greatness, and the glory of the Union under which, by the blessing of
Almighty God, we have hitherto so wonderfully prospered.
FOOTNOTES:
[209] On this point, see page 176.
[210] XIV. Wendell, Jack v. Martin, p. 528
[211] XIV. Wendell's Reports, Jack _v._ Martin.
[212] In asserting that freedom is national, Mr. Sumner may perhaps mean
that it is the duty of the National Government to exclude slavery from
all its territories, and to admit no new State in which there are
slaves. If this be his meaning, we should reply, that it is as foreign
from the merits of the Fugitive Slave Law, which he proposed to discuss,
as it is from the truth. The National Government has, indeed, no more
power to exclude, than it has to ordain, slavery; for slavery or no
slavery is a question which belongs wholly and exclusively to the
sovereign people of each and every State or territory. With our whole
hearts we respond to the inspiring words of the President's Message: "If
the friends of the Constitution are to have another struggle, its
enemies could not present a more acceptable issue than that of a State,
whose Constitution clearly embraces a republican form of government,
being excluded from the Union because its domestic institutions may not,
in all respects, comport with the ideas of what is wise and expedient
entertained in some other State."
[213] Chap. ii § x.
[214] Madison Papers, p. 1448.
[215] One member seems to have been absent from the House.
[216] Annals of Congress; 2d Congress, 1791-1793, p. 861.
[217] This error was by no means a capital one.
[218] Speech in the Senate, in 1855.
[219] Speech in Boston, October 3d, 1850.
[220] Mr. Sumner has a great deal to say, in his speech, about "the
memory of the fathers." When their sentiments agree with his own, or
only seem to him to do so, then they are "the demi-gods of history." But
only let these demi-gods cross his path or come into contact with his
fanatical notions, and instantly they sink into sordid knaves. The
framers of the Constitution of the United States, says he, made "a
compromise, which _cannot be mentioned without shame_. It was that
_hateful bargain_ by which Congress was restrained until 1808 from the
prohibition of the foreign slave trade, thus securing, down to that
period, _toleration for crime_." . . . . "The effrontery of slaveholders
was matched by _the sordidness of the Eastern members_." . . . . "The
bargain was struck, and at this price the Southern States gained the
detestable indulgence. At a subsequent day, Congress branded the slave
trade as piracy, and thus, by solemn legislative act, adjudged this
compromise to be _felonious and wicked_."
But for this compromise, as every one who has read the history of the
times perfectly well knows, no union could have been formed, and the
slave trade might have been carried on to the present day. By this
compromise, then, the Convention did not tolerate crime nor the slave
trade; they merely formed the Union, and, in forming it, _gained the
power to abolish the slave trade in twenty years_. The gain of this
power, which Congress had not before possessed, was considered by them
as a great gain to the cause of humanity. If the Eastern members, from a
blind and frantic hatred of slavery, had blasted all prospects of a
union, and at the same time put the slave trade beyond their power
forever, they would have imitated the wisdom of the abolitionists, who
always promote the cause they seek to demolish.
If any one will read the history of the times, he will see that "the
fathers," the framers of the Constitution, were, in making this very
compromise, governed by the purest, the most patriotic, and the most
humane, of motives. He who accuses them of corruption shows himself
corrupt; especially if, like Mr. Sumner, he can laud them on one page as
demi-gods, and on the very next denounce them as sordid knaves, who, for
the sake of filthy lucre, could enter into a "felonious and wicked"
bargain. Yet the very man who accuses them of having made so infamous
and corrupt a bargain in regard to the slave trade can and does most
eloquently declaim against the monstrous injustice of supposing them
capable of the least act in favor of slavery!
[221] XII. Wendell, p. 314.
[222] XIV. Wendell, p. 530; XVI. Peters, p. 608.
[223] Indeed, if we had produced all the arguments in favor of the
constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Law, it would have carried us
far beyond our limits, and swelled this single chapter into a volume.
[224] This decision of the Supreme Court, which authorizes the master to
seize his fugitive slave _without process_, (see his speech, Appendix to
Congressional Globe, vol. xxii., part 2, p. 1587,) is exceedingly
offensive to Mr. Chase of Ohio; and no wonder, since the Legislature of
his own State has passed a law, making it a penitentiary offense in the
master who should thus prosecute his constitutional right as declared by
this decision. But, in regard to this point, the Supreme Court of the
United States does not stand alone. The Supreme Court of New York, in
the case of Jack _v._ Martin, had previously said: "Whether the owner or
agent might have made the arrest in the first instance without any
process, we will not stop to examine; authorities of deserved
respectability and weight have held the affirmative. 2 Pick. 11, 5 Serg.
& Rawle, 62, and the case of Glen _v._ Hodges, in this court, before
referred to, (in 9 Johnson,) seem to countenance the same conclusion. It
would indeed appear to follow as a necessary consequence, from _the
undoubted position, that under this clause of the Constitution the right
and title of the owner to the service of the slave is as entire and
perfect within the jurisdiction of the State to which he has fled as it
was in the one from which he escaped. Such seizure would be at the peril
of the party_; AND IF A FREEMAN WAS TAKEN, HE WOULD BE ANSWERABLE LIKE
ANY OTHER TRESPASSER OR KIDNAPPER."
[225] Story on Constitution, vol. iii. book iii., chap. xl.
[226] The framers of the Constitution in that Congress were:--"John
Langdon and Nicholas Gilmer, of New Hampshire; Caleb Strong and Elbridge
Gerry, of Massachusetts; Roger Sherman and Oliver Elsworth, of
Connecticut; Rufus King, of New York; Robert Morris and Thomas
Fitzsimmons, of Pennsylvania; George Reid and Richard Basset, of
Delaware; Jonathan Dayton, of New Jersey; Pierce Butler, of South
Carolina; Hugh Williamson, of North Carolina; William Few and Abraham
Baldwin, of Georgia; and last, but not least, James Madison, of
Virginia." Yet from not one of these framers of the Constitution--from
not one of these illustrious guardians of freedom--was a syllable heard
in regard to the right of trial by jury in connection with the Fugitive
Slave Law then passed. The more pity it is, no doubt, the abolitionist
will think, that neither Mr. Chase, nor Mr. Sumner, nor Mr. Seward, was
there to enlighten them on the subject of trial by jury and to save the
country from the infamy of such an Act. Alas! for the poor, blind
fathers!
[227] This crime of kidnapping, says Mr. Chase, of Ohio, is "not
unfrequent" in his section of country; that is, about Cincinnati.
[228] Appendix to Congressional Globe, vol. xxii., part ii., p. 1587.
THE
BIBLE ARGUMENT:
OR,
SLAVERY IN THE LIGHT OF DIVINE REVELATION.
BY
THORNTON STRINGFELLOW, D. D.,
OF RICHMOND, VIRGINIA.
THE BIBLE ARGUMENT:
OR,
SLAVERY IN THE LIGHT OF DIVINE REVELATION.
CIRCUMSTANCES exist among the inhabitants of these United States, which
make it proper that the Scriptures should be carefully examined by
Christians in reference to the institution of slavery, which exists in
several of the States, with the approbation of those who profess
unlimited subjection to God's revealed will.
It is branded by one portion of people, who take their rule of moral
rectitude from the Scriptures, as a great sin; nay, the greatest of sins
that exist in the nation. And they hold the obligation to exterminate
it, to be paramount to all others.
If slavery be thus sinful, it behooves all Christians who are involved
in the sin, to repent in dust and ashes, and wash their hands of it,
without consulting with flesh and blood. Sin in the sight of God is
something which God in his word makes known to be wrong, either by
preceptive prohibition, by principles of moral fitness, or examples of
inspired men, contained in the sacred volume. When these furnish no law
to condemn human conduct, there is no transgression. Christians should
produce a "thus saith the Lord," both for what they condemn as sinful,
and for what they approve as lawful, in the sight of heaven.
It is to be hoped, that on a question of such vital importance as this
to the peace and safety of our common country, as well as to the welfare
of the church, we shall be seen cleaving to the Bible, and taking all
our decisions about this matter, from its inspired pages. With men from
the North, I have observed for many years a palpable ignorance of the
Divine will, in reference to the institution of slavery. I have seen but
a few who made the Bible their study, that had obtained a knowledge of
what it did revea on this subject. Of late their denunciation of
slavery as a sin, is loud and long.
I propose, therefore, to examine the sacred volume briefly, and if I am
not greatly mistaken, I shall be able to make it appear that the
institution of slavery has received, in the first place,
1st. The sanction of the Almighty in the Patriarchal age.
2d. That it was incorporated into the only National Constitution which
ever emanated from God.
3d. That its legality was recognized, and its relative duties regulated,
by Jesus Christ in his kingdom; and
4th. That it is full of mercy.
Before I proceed further, it is necessary that the terms used to
designate the thing, be defined. It is not a name, but a thing, that is
denounced as sinful; because it is supposed to be contrary to, and
prohibited by the Scriptures.
Our translators have used the term servant, to designate a state in
which persons were serving, leaving us to gather the _relation_ between
the party served, and the party rendering the service, from other terms.
The term slave, signifies with us, a definite state, condition, or
relation, which state, condition, or relation, is precisely that one
which is denounced as sinful. This state, condition, or relation, is
that in which one human being is held without his consent, by another,
as property;[229] to be bought, sold, and transferred, together with
increase, as property forever. Now, this precise thing, is denounced by
a portion of the people of these United States, as the greatest
individual and national sin that is among us, and is thought to be so
hateful in the sight of God, as to subject the nation to ruinous
judgments, if it be not removed. Now, I propose to show from the
Scriptures, that this state, condition, or relation, did exist in the
_patriarchal age_, and that the persons most extensively involved in the
sin, if it be a sin, are the very persons who have been singled out by
the Almighty, as the objects of his special regard--whose character and
conduct he has caused to be held up as _models_ for future generations.
Before we conclude slavery to be a thing hateful to God, and a great sin
in his sight, it is proper that we should search the records he has
given us, with care, to see in what light he has looked upon it, and
find the warrant for concluding, that we shall honor him by efforts to
abolish it; which efforts, in their consequences, may involve the
indiscriminate slaughter of the innocent and the guilty, the master and
the servant. We all believe him to be a Being who is the same yesterday,
to-day, and forever.
The first recorded language which was ever uttered in relation to
slavery, is the inspired language of Noah. In God's stead he says,
"Cursed be Canaan;" "a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren."
"Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant." "God
shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and
Canaan shall be his servant."--Gen. ix: 25, 26, 27. Here, language is
used, showing the _favor_ which God would exercise to the posterity of
Shem and Japheth, while they were holding the posterity of Ham in a
state of _abject bondage_. May it not be said in truth, that God decreed
this institution before it existed; and has he not connected its
_existence_ with prophetic tokens of special favor, to those who should
be slave owners or masters? He is the same God now, that he was when he
gave these views of his moral character to the world; and unless the
posterity of Shem and Japheth, from whom have sprung the Jews, and all
the nations of Europe and America, and a great part of Asia, (the
African race that is in them excepted,)--I say, unless they are all
dead, as well as the Canaanites or Africans, who descended from Ham,
then it is quite possible that his favor may now be found with one class
of men who are holding another class in bondage. Be this as it may, God
_decreed slavery_--and shows in that decree, tokens of good-will to the
master. The sacred records occupy but a short space from this inspired
ray on this subject, until they bring to our notice, a man that is held
up as a model, in all that adorns human nature, and as one that God
delighted to honor. This man is Abraham, honored in the sacred records,
with the appellation, "Father" of the "faithful." Abraham was a native
of Ur, of the Chaldees. From thence the Lord called him to go to a
country which he would show him; and he obeyed, not knowing whither he
went. He stopped for a time at Haran, where his father died. From thence
he "took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their
substance that they had gathered, and the souls they had gotten in
Haran, and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan."--Gen. xii: 5.
All the ancient Jewish writers of note, and Christian commentators
agree, that by the "souls they had gotten in Haran," as our translators
render it, are meant their slaves, or those persons they had bought with
their money in Haran. In a few years after their arrival in Canaan, Lot
with all he had was taken captive. So soon as Abraham heard it, he armed
three hundred and eighteen slaves that were born in his house, and
retook him. How great must have been the entire slave family, to produce
at this period of Abraham's life, such a number of young slaves able to
bear arms.--Gen. xiv: 14.
Abraham is constantly held up in the sacred story, as the subject of
great distinction among the princes and sovereigns of the countries in
which he sojourned. This distinction was on account of his great wealth.
When he proposed to buy a burying-ground at Sarah's death, of the
children of Heth, he stood up and spoke with great humility of himself
as "a stranger and sojourner among them," (Gen. xxiii: 4,) desirous to
obtain a burying-ground. But in what light do they look upon him? "Hear
us, my Lord, thou art a mighty prince among us."--Gen. xxiii: 6. Such is
the light in which they viewed him. What gave a man such distinction
among such a people? Not moral qualities, but great wealth, and its
inseparable concomitant, power. When the famine drove Abraham to Egypt,
he received the highest honors of the reigning sovereign. This honor at
Pharaoh's court, was called forth by the visible tokens of immense
wealth. In Genesis xii: 15, 16, we have the honor that was shown to him,
mentioned, _with a list of his property_, which is given in these words,
in the 16th verse: "He had sheep, and oxen, and he-asses, and
men-servants, and maid-servants, and she-asses, and camels." The
_amount_ of his flocks may be inferred from the _number of slaves_
employed in tending them. They were those he brought from Ur of the
Chaldees, of whom the three hundred and eighteen were born; those gotten
in Haran, where he dwelt for a short time, and those which he inherited
from his father, who died in Haran. When Abraham _went up_ from Egypt,
it is stated in Genesis xiii: 2, that he was "_very rich_," not only in
_flocks_ and _slaves_, but in "_silver_ and _gold_" also.
After the destruction of Sodom, we see him sojourning in the kingdom of
Gerar. Here he received from the sovereign of the country, the honors of
equality; and Abimelech, the king, (as Pharoah had done before him,)
seeks Sarah for a wife, under the idea that she was Abraham's sister.
When his mistake was discovered, he made Abraham a large present. Reason
will tell us, that in selecting the items of this present, Abimelech was
governed by the visible indications of Abraham's preference in the
articles of wealth--and that above all, he would present him with
nothing which Abraham's sense of moral obligation would not allow him to
own. Abimelech's present is thus described in Genesis xx: 14, 16, "And
Abimelech took sheep, and oxen, and men-servants, and women-servants,
and a thousand pieces of silver, and gave them unto Abraham." This
present discloses to us what constituted the most highly prized items of
wealth, among these eastern sovereigns in Abraham's day.
God had promised Abraham's seed the land of Canaan, and that in his seed
all the nations of the earth should be blessed. He reached the age of
eighty-five, and his wife the age of seventy-five, while as yet, they
had no child. At this period, Sarah's anxiety for the promised seed, in
connection with her age, induced her to propose a female slave of the
Egyptian stock, as a secondary wife, from which to obtain the promised
seed. This alliance soon puffed the slave with pride, and she became
insolent to her mistress--the mistress complained to Abraham, the
master. Abraham ordered Sarah to exercise her authority. Sarah did so,
and pushed it to severity, and the slave absconded. The divine oracles
inform us, that the angel of God found this run-away bond-woman in the
wilderness; and if God had commissioned this angel to improve this
opportunity of teaching the world how much he abhorred slavery, he took
a bad plan to acomplish it. For, instead of repeating a homily upon
doing to others as we "would they should do unto us," and heaping
reproach upon Sarah, as a hypocrite, and Abraham as a tyrant, and
giving Hagar direction how she might get into Egypt, from whence
(according to abolitionism) she had been unrighteously sold into
bondage, the angel addressed her as "Hagar, Sarah's maid," Gen. xvi: 1,
9; (thereby recognizing the relation of master and slave,) and asks her,
"whither wilt thou go?" and she said "I flee from the face of my
mistress." Quite a wonder she honored Sarah so much as to call her
mistress; but she knew nothing of abolition, and God by his angel did
not become her teacher.
We have now arrived at what may be called an _abuse_ of the institution,
in which one person is the property of another, and under their control,
and subject to their authority without their consent; and if the Bible
be the book, which proposes to furnish the case which leaves it without
doubt that God abhors the institution, here we are to look for it. What,
therefore, is the doctrine in relation to slavery, in a case in which a
rigid exercise of its arbitrary authority is called forth upon a
helpless female; who might use a strong plea for protection, upon the
ground of being the master's wife. In the face of this case, which is
hedged around with aggravations as if God designed by it to awaken all
the sympathy and all the abhorrence of that portion of mankind, who
claim to have more mercy than God himself--but I say, in view of this
strong case, what is the doctrine taught? Is it that God abhors the
institution of slavery; that it is a reproach to good men; that the
evils of the institution can no longer be winked at among saints; that
Abraham's character must not be transmitted to posterity, with this
stain upon it; that Sarah must no longer be allowed to live a stranger
to the abhorrence God has for such conduct as she has been guilty of to
this poor helpless female? I say, what is the doctrine taught? Is it so
plain that it can be easily understood? and does God teach that she is a
bond-woman or slave, and that she is to recognize Sarah as her mistress,
and not her equal--that she must return and submit herself unreservedly
to Sarah's authority? Judge for yourself, reader, by the angel's answer:
"And the angel of the Lord said unto her, Return unto thy mistress, and
submit thyself under her hands."--Gen. xvi: 9.
But, says the spirit of abolition, with which the Bible has to contend,
you are building your house upon the sand, for these were nothing but
hired servants; and their servitude designates no such state,
condition, or relation, as that, in which one person is made the
property of another, to be bought, sold, or transferred forever. To
this, we have two answers in reference to the subject, _before giving
the law_. In the first place, the term servant, in the schedules of
property among the patriarchs, _does designate_ the state, condition, or
relation in which one person is the legal property of another, as in
Gen. xxiv: 35, 36. Here Abraham's servant, who had been sent by his
master to get a wife for his son Isaac, in order to prevail with the
woman and her family, states, that the man for whom he sought a bride,
was the son of a man whom God had greatly blessed with riches; which he
goes on to enumerate thus, in the 35th verse: "He hath given him flocks,
and herds, and silver, and gold, and men-servants, and maid-servants,
and camels, and asses;" then in verse 36th, he states the disposition
his master had made of his estate: "My master's wife bare a son to my
master when she was old, and unto him he hath given all that he hath."
Here, servants are enumerated with silver and gold as part of the
patrimony. And, reader, bear it in mind; as if to rebuke the doctrine of
abolition, servants are not only inventoried as property, but as
property which _God had given to Abraham_. After the death of Abraham,
we have a view of Isaac at Gerar, when he had come into the possession
of this estate; and this is the description given of him: "And the man
waxed great, and went forward, and grew until he became very great; for
he had possession of flocks, and possession of herds, and _great store
of servants_."--Gen. xxvi: 13, 14. This state in which servants are made
chattels, he received as an inheritance from his father, and passed to
his son Jacob.
Again, in Genesis xvii, we are informed of a covenant God entered into
with Abraham; in which he stipulates to be a God to him and his _seed_,
(not his servants,) and to give to his _seed_ the land of Canaan for an
everlasting possession. He expressly stipulates, that Abraham shall put
the token of this covenant upon every servant born in his house, and
upon every servant _bought with his money of any stranger_.--Gen. xvii:
12, 13. Here again servants are property. Again, more than four hundred
years afterward, we find the _seed_ of Abraham, on leaving Egypt,
directed to celebrate the rite, that was ordained as a memorial of their
deliverance, viz: the Passover, at which time the same institution which
makes _property_ of _men_ and _women_, is recognized, and the _servant
bought with money_, is given the privilege of partaking, upon the ground
of his being circumcised _by his master_, while the hired servant, over
whom the master had no such control, is excluded until he _voluntarily_
submits to circumcision; showing clearly that the institution of
involuntary slavery then carried with it a right, on the part of the
master, _to choose_ a religion _for the servant_ who was his money, as
Abraham did, by God's direction, when he imposed circumcision on those
he had bought with his money,--when he was circumcised himself, with
Ishmael his son, who was the only individual beside himself, on whom he
had a right to impose it, except the bond-servants bought of the
stranger with his money, and their children born in his house. The next
notice we have of servants as property, is from God himself, when
clothed with all the visible tokens of his presence and glory, on the
top of Sinai, when he proclaimed his law to the millions that surrounded
its base: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not
covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant,
nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's."--Ex. xx:
17. Here is a patriarchal catalogue of property, having God for its
author, the wife among the rest, who was then purchased, as Jacob
purchased his two, by fourteen years' service. Here the term servant, as
used by the Almighty, under the circumstances of the case could not be
understood by these millions, as meaning any thing but property, because
the night they left Egypt, a few weeks before, Moses, by Divine
authority, recognized their servants as property, which they had bought
with their money.
2d. In addition to the evidence from the context of these, and various
other places, to prove the term servant to be identical in the import of
its essential particulars with the term slave among us, there is
unquestionable evidence, that _in the patriarchal age_, there are two
distinct states of servitude alluded to, and which are indicated by two
distinct terms, or by the same term, and an adjective to explain.
These two terms are first, servant or bond-servant; second, hireling or
hired servant; the first indicating involuntary servitude; the second,
voluntary servitude for stipulated wages, and a specified time. Although
this admits of the clearest proof _under the law_, yet it admits of
proof before the law was given. On the night the Israelites left Egypt,
which was before the law was given, Moses, in designating the
qualifications necessary for the Passover, uses this language,--Exod.
xii: 44, 45: "Every man's servant that is bought for money, when thou
hast circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof. A foreigner and an
hired servant shall not eat thereof." This language carries to the human
mind, with irresistible force, the idea of _two distinct states_--one a
state of _freedom_, the other a state of _bondage_: in one of which, a
person is serving with his consent for wages; in the other of which a
person is serving without his _consent_, according to his master's
pleasure.
Again, in Job iii, Job expresses the strong desire he had been made by
his afflictions to feel, that he had died in his infancy. "For now,"
says he, "should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept:
then had I been at rest. There (meaning the grave) the wicked cease from
troubling, and there the weary be at rest. There the prisoners rest
together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor. The small and the
great are there, and the servant is free from his master."--Job iii: 11,
13, 17, 18, 19. Now, I ask any common-sense man to account for the
expression in this connection, "there the servant is free from his
master." Afflictions are referred to, arising out of _states_ or
_conditions_, from which _ordinarily_ nothing but _death_ brings relief.
_Death_ puts an end to afflictions of body that are incurable, as he
took his own to be, and therefore he desired it.
The troubles brought on good men by a wicked persecuting world, last for
life; but in _death_ the wicked cease from troubling,--_death_ ends that
_relation_ or _state_ out of which such troubles grow. The prisoners of
the oppressors, in that age, stood in a _relation_ to their _oppressor_,
which led the oppressed to expect they would hear the voice of the
_oppressor_ until _death_. But _death_ broke the _relation_, and was
desired, because in the grave they would hear his voice no more.
All the distresses growing out of inequalities in human condition; as
wealth and power on one side, and poverty and weakness on the other,
were terminated by death; the grave brought both to a level: the small
and the great are there, and there, (that is, in the grave,) he adds,
the servant is free from his master; made so, evidently, by _death_. The
_relation_, or _state_ out of which his oppression had arisen, being
destroyed by _death_, he would be freed from them, because he would, by
_death_, be freed from his master who inflicted them. This view of the
case, and this only, will account for the use of such language. But upon
a supposition that a _state_ or _relation_ among men is referred to,
that is _voluntary_, such as that between a _hired servant_ and his
_employer_, that can be _dissolved_ at the pleasure of the _servant_,
the language is without meaning, and perfectly unwarranted; while such a
_relation_ as that of _involuntary_ and _hereditary_ servitude, where
the master had _unlimited power_ over his servant, and in an age when
cruelty was common, there is the greatest propriety in making the
servant or slave, a _companion with himself, in affliction_, as well as
the oppressed and afflicted, in every class where _death alone_
dissolved the _state_ or _condition_, out of which their afflictions
grew. Beyond all doubt, this language refers to a state of _hereditary
bondage_, from the afflictions of which, _ordinarily_, nothing in that
day brought relief but _death_.
Again, in chapter 7th, he goes on to defend himself in his eager desire
for death, in an address to God. He says, it is natural for a servant to
desire the shadow, and a hireling his wages: "As the servant earnestly
desireth the shadow, and as the hireling looketh for the reward of his
work," so it is with me, should be supplied.--Job vii: 2. Now, with the
previous light shed upon the use and meaning of these terms in the
_patriarchal Scriptures_, can any man of candor bring himself to believe
that two states or conditions are not here referred to, in one of which,
the highest reward after toil is mere rest; in the other of which, the
reward was wages? And how appropriate is the language in reference to
these two states.
The _slave_ is represented as earnestly desiring the _shadow_, because
his condition allowed him no prospect of any thing more desirable; but
the _hireling_ as looking for the _reward of his work_, because _that_
will be an equivalent for his fatigue.
So Job looked at _death_, as being to his _body_ as the servant's
_shade_, therefore he desired it; and like the _hireling's wages_,
because _beyond the grave_, he hoped to reap the fruit of his doings.
Again, Job (xxxi:) finding himself the subject of suspicion (see from
verse 1 to 30) as to the rectitude of his past life, clears himself of
various sins, in the most solemn manner, as unchastity, injustice in his
dealings, adultery, contempt of his servants, unkindness to the poor,
covetousness, the pride of wealth, etc. And in the 13th, 14th, and 15th
verses he thus expresses himself: "If I did despise the cause of my
man-servant, or my maid-servant, when they contended with me, what then
shall I do when God rises up? And when he visiteth, what shall I answer
him? Did not he that made me in the womb, make him? And did not one
fashion us in the womb?" Taking this language in connection with the
language employed by Moses, in reference to the institution of
involuntary servitude in _that age_, and especially in connection with
the language which Moses employs _after the law was given_, and what
else can be understood, than a reference to a class of duties that slave
owners felt themselves above stooping to notice or perform, but which,
nevertheless, it was the duty of the righteous man to discharge: for
whatever proud and wicked men might think of a poor servant that stood
in his estate, on an equality with brutes, yet, says Job, he that made
me, made them, and if I despise their reasonable causes of complaint,
for injuries which they are made to suffer, and for the redress of which
I only can be appealed to, then what shall I do, and how shall I fare,
when I carry my causes of complaint to him who is my master, and to whom
only I can go for relief? When he visiteth me for despising _their
cause_, what shall I answer him for _despising mine_? He means that he
would feel self-condemned, and would be forced to admit the justice of
the retaliation. But on the supposition that allusion is had to _hired
servants_, who were _voluntarily_ working for _wages_ agreed upon, and
who were the _subjects of rights_ for the _protection of which_, their
appeal would be to "the judges in the gate," as much as any other class
of men, then there is no point in the statement. For _doing that_ which
can be _demanded as a legal right_, gives us no claim to the character
of _merciful benefactors_. Job himself was a great slaveholder, and,
like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, won no small portion of his claims to
character with God and men from the manner in which he discharged his
duty to his slaves. Once more: the conduct of Joseph in Egypt, _as
Pharaoh's counsellor_, under all the circumstances, proves him a friend
to absolute slavery, as a form of government better adapted to the state
of the world at that time, than the one which existed in Egypt; for
certain it is, that he peaceably effected a change in the fundamental
law, by which a _state, condition, or relation_, between Pharaoh and the
Egyptians was established, which answers to the one now denounced as
sinful in the sight of God. Being warned of God, he gathered up all the
surplus grain in the years of plenty, and sold it out in the years of
famine, until he gathered up all the money; and when money failed, the
Egyptians came and said, "Give us bread;" and Joseph said, "Give your
cattle, and I will give for your cattle, if money fail." When that year
was ended, they came unto him the second year, and said, "There is not
aught left in sight of my Lord, but our bodies and our lands. Buy us and
our lands for bread." And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for
Pharoah.
So the land became Pharoah's, and as for the people, he removed them to
cities, from one end of the borders of Egypt, even to the other end
thereof. Then Joseph said unto the people, "Behold! I have bought you
this day, and your land for Pharoah; and they said, "we will be
Pharoah's servants."--See Gen. xlvii: 14, 16, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25. Having
thus changed the fundamental law, and created a state of entire
_dependence_ and _hereditary bondage_, he enacted in his sovereign
pleasure, that they should give Pharoah one part, and take the other
four parts of the productions of the earth to themselves. How far the
hand of God was in this overthrow of liberty, I will not decide; but
from the fact that he has singled out the greatest slaveholders of that
age, as the objects of his special favor, it would seem that the
institution was one furnishing great opportunities to exercise grace and
glorify God, as it still does, where its duties are faithfully
discharged.
I have been tedious on this first proposition, but I hope the importance
of the subject to Christians as well as to statesmen will be my apology.
I have written it, not for victory over an adversary, or to support
error or falsehood, but to gather up God's will in reference to holding
men and women in _bondage, in the patriarchal age_. And it is clear, in
the first place, that God decreed this state before it existed. Second.
It is clear that the highest manifestations of good-will which he ever
gave to mortal man, was given to Abraham, in that covenant in which he
required him to circumcise all his _male servants, which he had bought
with his money_, and that were _born of them_ in his house. Third. It is
certain that he gave _these servants_ as _property_ to Isaac. Fourth. It
is certain that, as the owner of _these slaves_, Isaac received similar
tokens of God's favor. Fifth. It is certain that Jacob, who inherited
from Isaac his father, received like tokens of divine favor. Sixth. It
is certain, from a fair construction of language, that Job, who is held
up by God himself as a model of human perfection, was a great
slaveholder. Seventh. It is certain, when God showed honor, and came
down to bless Jacob's posterity, in taking them by the hand to lead them
out of Egypt, _they were the owners of slaves that were bought with
money, and treated as property_; _which slaves_ were allowed of God to
unite in celebrating the divine goodness to their _masters_, while
_hired servants_ were excluded. Eighth. It is certain that God
interposed to give Joseph the power in Egypt, which he used, to create a
state, or condition, among the Egyptians, which _substantially agrees_
with _patriarchal_ and _modern slavery_. Ninth. It is certain, that in
reference to this institution in Abraham's family, and the surrounding
nations, for five hundred years, it is never censured in any
communication made from God to men. Tenth. It is certain, when God put a
_period_ to _that dispensation_, he _recognised slaves as property on
Mount Sinai_. If, therefore, it has become sinful since, it cannot be
from the _nature of the thing_, but from the _sovereign pleasure of God
in its prohibition_. We will therefore proceed to our second
proposition, which is--
Second.--That it was incorporated in the only national constitution
emanating from the Almighty. By common consent, that portion of time
stretching from Noah, until the law was given to Abraham's posterity, at
Mount Sinai, is called the patriarchal age; _this is the period we have
reviewed_, in relation to this subject. From the giving of the law until
the coming of Christ, is called the Mosaic or legal dispensation. From
the coming of Christ to the end of time, is called the Gospel
dispensation. The legal dispensation _is the period of time, we propose
now to examine_, in reference to the institution of involuntary and
hereditary slavery; in order to ascertain, whether, during this period,
_it existed at all_, and _if it did exist_, whether with the _divine
sanction_, or in _violation of the divine will_. This dispensation is
called the legal dispensation, because it was the pleasure of God to
take Abraham's posterity by miraculous power, then numbering near three
millions of souls, and give them a written constitution of government, a
country to dwell in, and a covenant of special protection and favor, for
their obedience to his law until the coming of Christ. The laws which he
gave them emanated from his sovereign pleasure, and were designed, in
the first place, to make himself known in his essential perfections;
second, in his moral character; third, in his relation to man; and
fourth, to make known those principles of action by the exercise of
which man attains his highest moral elevation, viz: supreme love to God,
and love to others as to ourselves.
All the law is nothing but a preceptive exemplification of these two
principles; consequently, the existence of a precept in the law, utterly
irreconcilable with these principles, would destroy all claims upon us
for an acknowledgment of its divine original. Jesus Christ himself has
put his finger upon these two principles of human conduct, (Deut. vi:
5--Levit. xix: 18,) revealed in the law of Moses, and decided, that on
them hang all the law and the prophets.
The Apostle Paul decides in reference to the relative duties of men,
that whether written out in preceptive form in the law or not, they are
all comprehended in this saying, viz: "thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself." With these views to guide us, as to the acknowledged design of
the law, viz: that of revealing the eternal principles of moral
rectitude, by which human conduct is to be measured, so that sin may
abound, or be made apparent, and righteousness be ascertained or known,
we may safely conclude, that the institution of slavery, which legalizes
the holding one person in bondage as property forever by another, if it
be morally wrong, or at war with the principle which requires us to love
God supremely, and our neighbor as ourself, will, if noticed at all in
the law, be noticed, for the purpose of being condemned as sinful. And
if the modern views of abilitionists be correct, we may expect to find
the institution marked with such tokens of divine displeasure, as will
throw all other sins into the shade, as comparatively small, when laid
by the side of this monster. What, then, is true? Has God ingrafted
hereditary slavery upon the constitution of government he condescended
to give to his chosen people--that people, among whom he promised to
dwell, and that he required to be holy? I answer, he has. It is clear
and explicit. He enacts, first, that his chosen people may take their
money, go into the slave markets of the surrounding nations, (the seven
devoted nations excepted,) and purchase men-servants and women-servants,
and give them, and their increase, to their children and their
children's children, forever; and worse still for the refined humanity
of our age--he guarantees to the foreign slaveholder perfect protection,
while he comes in among the Israelites, for the purpose of dwelling,
and raising and selling slaves, who should be acclimated and accustomed
to the habits and institutions of the country. And worse still for the
sublimated humanity of the present age, God passes with the right to buy
and possess, the right to govern, by a severity which knows no bounds
but the master's discretion. And if worse can be, for the morbid
humanity we censure, he enacts that his own people may sell themselves
and their families for limited periods, with the privilege of extending
the time at the end of the sixth year to the fiftieth year or jubilee,
if they prefer bondage to freedom. Such is the precise character of two
institutions, found in the constitution of the Jewish commonwealth,
emanating directly from Almighty God. For the fifteen hundred years,
during which these laws were in force, God raised up a succession of
prophets to reprove that people for the various sins into which they
fell; yet there is not a reproof uttered against the institution of
_involuntary slavery_, for any species of abuse that ever grew out of
it. A severe judgment is pronounced by Jeremiah, (chapter xxxiv: see
from the 8th to the 22d verse,) for an abuse or violation of the law,
concerning the _voluntary_ servitude of Hebrews; but the prophet pens it
with caution, as if to show that it had no reference to any abuse that
had taken place under the system of _involuntary slavery_, which existed
by law among that people; the sin consisted in making hereditary
bond-men and bond-women of Hebrews, which was positively forbidden by
the law, and not for buying and holding one of another nation in
hereditary bondage, which was as positively allowed by the law. And
really, in view of what is passing in our country, and elsewhere, among
men who profess to reverence the Bible, it would seem that these must be
dreams of a distempered brain, and not the solemn truths of that sacred
book.
Well, I will now proceed to make them good to the letter, see Levit.
xxv: 44, 45, 46; "Thy bond-men and thy bond-maids which thou shalt have,
shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy
bond-men and bond-maids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers that
do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that
are with you, which they begat in your land. And they shall be your
possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children
after you, to inherit them for a possession they shall be your bond-men
forever." I ask any candid man, if the words of this institution could
be more explicit? It is from God himself; it authorizes that people, to
whom he had become _king and law-giver_, to purchase men and women as
property; to hold them and their posterity in bondage; and to will them
to their children as a possession forever; and more, it allows _foreign
slaveholders_ to _settle_ and _live among them_; to _breed slaves_ and
_sell them_. Now, it is important to a correct understanding of this
subject, to connect with the right to _buy_ and _possess_, as property,
the amount of authority _to govern_, which is granted by the
_law-giver_; this amount of authority is implied, in the first place, in
the law which prohibits the exercise of rigid authority upon the
Hebrews, who are allowed to sell themselves for limited times. "If thy
brother be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not _compel
him_ to serve as a _bond servant_, but as a _hired servant_, and as a
_sojourner_ he shall be with thee, and shall serve thee until the year
of jubilee--_they shall not be sold as bond-men_; thou _shalt not rule
over them with rigor_."--Levit. xxv: 39, 40, 41, 42, 43. It will be
evident to all, that here are _two states_ of servitude; in reference to
_one_ of which, _rigid_ or _compulsory_ authority, is _prohibited_, and
that its _exercise is authorised in the other_.
Second.--In the criminal code, that conduct is punished with death, when
done to a _freeman_, which is not punishable at all, when done _by a
master to a slave_, for the express reason, that the slave is the
_master's money_. "He that smiteth a man so that he die, shall surely be
put to death."--Exod. xxi: 20, 21. "If a man smite his servant or his
maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall be surely
punished; notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be
punished, for he is his money."--Exod. xxi: 20. Here is precisely the
same crime: smiting a man so that he die; if it be a freeman, he shall
surely be put to death, whether the man die under his hand, or live a
day or two after; but if it be a servant, and the master continued the
rod until the servant died under his hand, then it must be evident that
such a chastisement could not be necessary for any purpose of wholesome
or reasonable authority, and therefore he may by punished, but not with
death. But if the death did not take place for a day or two, then it is
to be _presumed_, that the master only aimed to use the rod, so far as
was necessary to produce subordination, and for this, the law which
allowed him to lay out his money in the slave, would protect him
against all punishment. This is the common-sense principle which has
been adopted substantially in civilized countries, where involuntary
slavery has been instituted, from that day until this. Now, here are
laws that authorize the holding of men and women in bondage, and
chastising them with the rod, with a severity that terminates in death.
And he who believes the Bible to be of divine authority, believes these
laws were given by the Holy Ghost to Moses. I understand modern
abolition sentiments to be sentiments of marked hatred against such
laws; to be sentiments which would hold God himself in abhorrence, if he
were to give such laws his sanction; but he has given them his sanction;
therefore, they must be in harmony with his moral character. Again, the
divine Law-giver, in guarding the property right in slaves among his
chosen people, sanctions principles which may work the separation of man
and wife, father and children. Surely, my reader will conclude, if I
make this good, I shall force a part of the saints of the present day to
blaspheme the God of Israel. All I can say is, truth is mighty, and I
hope it will bring us all to say, let God be true, in settling the true
principles of humanity, and every man a liar who says slavery was
inconsistent with it, in the days of the Mosaic law. Now for the proof:
"If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve thee, and in the
seventh he shall go out free for nothing; if he came in by himself, he
shall go out by himself; if he were married, then his wife shall go out
with him; if his master have given him a wife (one of his bond-maids)
and she have borne him sons and daughters, the wife and her children
shall be her master's and he shall go out by himself."--Exod. xxi: 2, 3,
4. Now, the God of Israel gives this man the option of being separated
by the master, from his wife and children, or becoming himself a servant
forever, with a mark of the fact, like our cattle, in the ear, that can
be seen wherever he goes; for it is enacted, "If the servant shall
plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go
out free, then his master shall bring him unto the judges, (in open
court,) he shall also bring him unto the door, or unto the door post,
(so that all in the court-house, and those in the yard may be witnesses,
and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall
serve him forever." It is useless to spend more time in gathering up
what is written in the Scriptures on this subject, from the giving of
the law until the coming of Christ.
Here is the authority, from God himself, to hold men and women, and
their increase, in slavery, and to transmit them as property forever;
here is plenary power to govern them, whatever measure of severity it
may require; provided only, that _to govern_, be the object in
exercising it. Here is power given to the master, to separate man and
wife, parent and child, by denying ingress to his premises, sooner than
compel him to free or sell the mother, that the marriage relation might
be honored. The _preference_ is given of God to _enslaving the father_
rather than _freeing the mother and children_.
Under every view we are allowed to take of the subject, the conviction
is forced upon the mind, that from Abraham's day, until the coming of
Christ, (a period of two thousand years,) this institution found favor
with God. No marks of his displeasure are found resting upon it. It
must, therefore, in its moral nature, be in harmony with those moral
principles which he requires to be exercised by the law of Moses, and
which are the principles that secure harmony and happiness to the
universe, viz: supreme love to God, and the love of our neighbor as
ourself.--Deut. vi: 5.--Levit. xix: 18. To suppose that God has laid
down these fundamental principles of moral rectitude in his law, as the
soul that must inhabit every preceptive requirement of that law, and yet
to suppose he created relations among the Israelites, and prescribed
relative duties growing out of these relations, that are hostile to the
spirit of the law, is to suppose what will never bring great honor or
glory to our Maker. But if I understand that spirit which is now warring
against slavery, this is the position which the spirit of God forces it
to occupy, viz: that God has ordained slavery, and yet slavery is the
greatest of sins. Such was the state of the case when Jesus Christ made
his appearance. We propose--
Third. To show that Jesus Christ recognized this institution as one that
was lawful among men, and regulated its relative duties.
Having shown from the Scriptures, that slavery existed with Abraham and
the patriarchs, with divine approbation, and having shown from the same
source, that the Almighty incorporated it in the law, as an institution
among Abraham's seed, until the coming of Christ, our precise object now
is, to ascertain whether _Jesus Christ has abolished it_, or _recognized
it_ as a _lawful relation_, existing among men, and prescribed duties
which belong to it, as he has other relative duties; such as those
between husband and wife, parent and child, magistrate and subject.
And first, I may take it for granted, without proof, that he has not
abolished it by commandment, for none pretend to this. This, by the way,
is a singular circumstance, that Jesus Christ should put a system of
measures into operation, which have for their object the subjugation of
all men to him as a law-giver--kings, legislators, and private citizens
in all nations; at a time, too, when hereditary slavery existed in all;
and after it had been incorporated for fifteen hundred years into the
Jewish constitution, immediately given by God himself. I say, it is
passing strange, that under such circumstances, Jesus should fail to
prohibit its further existence, if it was his intention to abolish it.
Such an omission or oversight cannot be charged upon any other
legislator the world has ever seen. But, says the abolitionist, he has
introduced new moral principles, which will extinguish it as an
unavoidable consequence, without a direct prohibitory command. What are
they? "Do to others as you would they should do to you." Taking these
words of Christ to be a body, inclosing a moral soul in them, what soul,
I ask, is it?
The same embodied in these words of Moses, Levit. xix: 18; "thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself;" or is it another? It cannot be another,
but it must be the very same, because Jesus says, there are but two
principles in being in God's moral government, _one_ including all that
is _due to God_, the _other_ all that is _due to men_.
If, therefore, doing to others as we would they should do to us, means
precisely what loving our neighbor as ourself means, then Jesus has
added no new moral principle above those in the law of Moses, to
prohibit slavery, for in his law is found this principle, and slavery
also.
The very God that said to them, they should love him supremely, and
their neighbors as themselves, said to them also, "of the heathen that
are round about you, thou shalt buy bond-men and bond-women, and they
shall be your possession, and ye shall take them as an inheritance for
your children after you, to inherit them as a possession; they shall be
your bond-men forever." Now, to suppose that Jesus Christ left his
disciples to find out, without a revelation, that slavery must be
abolished, as a natural consequence from the fact, that when God
established the relation of master and servant under the law, he said to
the master and servant, each of you must love the other as yourself, is,
to say the least, making Jesus to presume largely upon the intensity of
their intellect, that they would be able to spy out a discrepancy in the
law of Moses, which God himself never saw. Again: if "do to others as ye
would they should do to you," is to abolish slavery, it will for the
same reason, level all inequalities in human condition. It is not to be
admitted, then, that Jesus Christ introduced any new moral principle
that must, of necessity, abolish slavery. The principle relied on to
prove it, stands boldly out to view in the code of Moses, as the _soul_,
that must _regulate_, and _control_, the _relation_ of _master and
servant_, and therefore cannot abolish it.
Why a master cannot do to a servant, or a servant to a master, as he
would have them do to him, as soon as a wife to a husband or a husband
to a wife, I am utterly at a loss to know. The wife is "subject to her
husband in all things" by divine precept. He is her "head," and God
"suffers her not to usurp authority over him." Now, why in such a
relation as this, we can do to others _as we_ would they should do to
us, any sooner than in a relation, securing to us what is just and equal
as servants, and due respect and faithful service rendered with good
will to us as masters, I am at a loss to conceive. I affirm then, first,
(and no man denies,) that Jesus Christ has not abolished slavery by a
prohibitory command: and second, I affirm, he has introduced no new
moral principle which can work its destruction, under the gospel
dispensation; and that the principle relied on for this purpose, is a
fundamental principle of the Mosaic law, under which slavery was
instituted by Jehovah himself: and third, with this absence of positive
prohibition, and this absence of principle, to work its ruin, I affirm,
that in all the Roman provinces, where churches were planted by the
apostles, hereditary slavery existed, as it did among the Jews, and as
it does now among us, (which admits of proof from history that no man
will dispute who knows any thing of the matter,) and that in instructing
such churches, the Holy Ghost by the apostles, has recognized the
institution, as one _legally existing_ among them, to be perpetuated in
the church, and that its duties are prescribed.
Now for the proof: To the church planted at Ephesus the capital of the
lesser Asia, Paul ordains by letter, subordination in the fear of
God,--first between wife and husband; second, child and parent; third,
servant and master; _all, as states, or conditions, existing among the
members_.
The relative duties of each state are pointed out; those between the
servant and master in these words: "Servants be obedient to them who are
your masters, according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in
singleness of your heart as unto Christ; not with eye service as men
pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the
heart, with good-will, doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men,
knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he
receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And ye masters do the
same things to them, forbearing threatening, knowing that your master is
also in heaven, neither is there respect of persons with him." Here, by
the Roman law, the servant was property, and the control of the master
unlimited, as we shall presently prove.
To the church at Colosse, a city of Phrygia, in the lesser Asia,--Paul
in his letter to them, recognizes the three relations of wives and
husbands, parents and children, servants and masters, as relations
existing among the members; (here the Roman law was the same;) and to
the servants and masters he thus writes: "Servants obey in all things
your masters, according to the flesh: not with eye service, as men
pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God: and whatsoever you
do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not unto men; knowing that of the
Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for ye serve the
Lord Christ. But he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong he has
done; and there is no respect of persons with God. Masters give unto
your servants that which is just and equal, knowing that you also have a
master in heaven."
The same Apostle writes a letter to the church at Corinth;--a very
important city, formerly called the eye of Greece, either from its
location, or intelligence, or both, and consequently, an important
point, for radiating light in all directions, in reference to subjects
connected with the cause of Jesus Christ; and particularly, in the
bearing of its practical precepts on civil society, and the political
structure of nations. Under the direction of the Holy Ghost, he
instructs the church, that, on this particular subject, _one general
principle_ was ordained of God, applicable alike in all countries and
at all stages of the church's future history, and that it was this: "_as
the Lord has called every one, so let him walk_." "Let every man abide
in the same calling wherein he is called." "Let every man wherein he is
called, therein abide with God."--1 Cor. vii: 17, 20, 24. "_And so
ordain I in all churches_;" vii: 17. The Apostle thus explains his
meaning:
"Is any man called being circumcised? Let him not become uncircumcised."
"Is any man called in uncircumcision? Let him not be circumcised."
"Art thou called, being a servant? Care not for it, but if thou mayest
be made free, use it rather;" vii: 18, 21. Here, by the Roman law,
slaves were property,--yet Paul ordains, in this, and all other
churches, that Christianity gave them no title to freedom, but on the
contrary, required them not to care for being slaves, or in other words,
to be contented with their _state_, or _relation_, unless they could be
_made free_, in a lawful way.
Again, we have a letter by Peter, who is the Apostle of the
circumcision--addressed especially to the Jews, who were scattered
through various provinces of the Roman empire; comprising those
provinces especially, which were the theater of their dispersion, under
the Assyrians and Babylonians. Here, for the space of seven hundred and
fifty years, they had resided, during which time those revolutions were
in progress which terminated the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, and
Macedonian empires, and transferred imperial power to Rome. These
revolutionary scenes of violence left one half the human race (within
the range of their influence,) in abject bondage to the other half. This
was the state of things in these provinces addressed by Peter, when he
wrote. The chances of war, we may reasonably conclude, had assigned a
full share of bondage to this people, who were despised of all nations.
In view of their enslaved condition to the Gentiles; knowing, as Peter
did, their seditious character; foreseeing, from the prediction of the
Saviour, the destined bondage of those who were then free in Israel,
which was soon to take place, as it did, in the fall of Jerusalem, when
all the males of seventeen, were sent to work in the mines of Egypt, as
slaves to the State, and all the males under, amounting to upwards of
ninety-seven thousand, were sold into domestic bondage;--I say, in view
of these things, Peter was moved by the Holy Ghost to write to them,
and his solicitude for such of them as were in slavery, is very
conspicuous in his letter; (read carefully from 1 Peter, 2d chapter,
from the 13th verse to the end;) but it is not the solicitude of an
abolitionist. He thus addresses them: "Dearly beloved, I beseech you."
He thus instructs them: "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for
the Lord's sake." "For so is the will of God." "Servants, be subject to
your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to
the froward."--1 Peter ii: 11, 13, 15, 18. What an important document is
this! enjoining political subjection to _governments of every form_, and
Christian subjection on the part of servants to their masters, whether
good or bad; for the purpose of showing forth to advantage, the _glory
of the gospel_, and putting to silence the ignorance of foolish men, who
might think it seditious.
By "every ordinance of man," as the context will show, is meant
governmental regulations or laws, as was that of the Romans for
enslaving their prisoners taken in war, instead of destroying their
lives.
When such enslaved persons came into the church of Christ let them (says
Peter) "be subject to their masters with all fear," whether such masters
be good or bad. It is worthy of remark, that he says much to secure
civil subordination to the State, and hearty and cheerful obedience to
the masters, on the part of servants; yet he says nothing to masters in
the whole letter. It would seem from this, that danger to the cause of
Christ was on the side of _insubordination among the servants_, and a
_want of humility with inferiors_, rather than _haughtiness among
superiors_ in the church.
Gibbon, in his Rome, vol. 1, pages 25, 26, 27, shows, from standard
authorities, that Rome at this time swayed its scepter over one hundred
and twenty millions of souls; that in every province, and in every
family, _absolute slavery existed_; that it was at least fifty years
later than the date of Peter's letters, before the absolute power of
life and death over the slave was _taken from the master_, and
_committed to the magistrate_; that about sixty millions of souls were
held as property in this abject condition; that the price of a slave was
four times that of an ox; that their punishments were very sanguinary;
that in the second century, when their condition began to improve a
little, emancipation was prohibited, except for great personal merit,
or some public service rendered to the State; and that it was not until
the third or fourth generation after freedom was obtained, that the
descendants of a slave could share in the honors of the State. This is
the _state, condition_, or _relation_ among the _members of the
apostolic churches_, whether among _Gentiles_ or _Jews_; which the Holy
Ghost, by Paul for the Gentiles, and Peter for the Jews, recognizes as
lawful; the mutual duties of which he prescribes in the language above.
Now, I ask, can any man in his proper senses, from these premises, bring
himself to conclude that slavery is _abolished by Jesus Christ_, or that
obligations are imposed by him upon his disciples that are subversive of
the institution? Knowing as we do from cotemporary historians, that the
institution of slavery existed at the time and to the extent stated by
Gibbon--what sort of a soul a man must have, who, with these facts
before him, will conceal the truth on this subject, and hold Jesus
Christ responsible for a scheme of treason that would, if carried out,
have brought the life of every human being on earth at the time, into
the most imminent peril, and that must have worked the destruction of
half the human race?
At Rome, the authoritative centre of that vast theater upon which the
glories of the cross were to be won, a church was planted. Paul wrote a
long letter to them. On this subject it is full of instruction.
Abolition sentiments had not dared to show themselves so near the
imperial sword. To warn the church against their treasonable tendency,
was therefore unnecessary. Instead, therefore, of special precepts upon
the subject of relative duties between master and servant, he lays down
a system of practical morality, in the 12th chapter of his letter, which
must commend itself equally to the king on his throne, and the slave in
his hovel; for while its practical operation leaves the subject of
earthly government to the discretion of man, it secures the exercise of
sentiments and feelings that must exterminate every thing inconsistent
with doing to others as we would they should do unto us: a system of
principles that will give moral strength to governments; peace,
security, and good-will to individuals; and glory to God in the highest.
And in the 13th chapter, from the 1st to the end of the 7th verse, he
recognizes human government as an ordinance of God, which the followers
of Christ are to obey, honor, and support; not only from dread of
punishment, but _for conscience sake_; which I believe abolitionism
refuses most positively to do, to such governments as _from the force of
circumstances_ even _permit_ slavery.
Again. But we are furnished with additional light, and if we are not
greatly mistaken, with light which arose out of circumstances analogous
to those which are threatening at the present moment to overthrow the
peace of society, and deluge this nation with blood. To Titus whom Paul
left in Crete, to set in order the things that were wanting, he writes a
letter, in which he warns him of false teachers, that were to be dreaded
on account of their doctrine. While they professed "to know God," that
is, to know his will under the gospel dispensation, "in works they
denied him;" that is, they did, and required others to do, what was
contrary to his will under the gospel dispensation. "They were
abominable," that is, to the Church and State, "and disobedient," that
is, to the authority of the apostles, and the civil authority of the
land. Titus, he then exhorts, "to speak the things that become sound
doctrine;" that is, that the members of the church observe the law of
the land, and obey the civil magistrate; that "servants be obedient to
their own masters, and please them well in all things," not "answering
again, not purloining, but showing all good fidelity, that they may
adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things," _in that which
subjects the ecclesiastical to the civil authority in particular_.
"These things speak, and exhort and rebuke with all authority; let no
man despise thee. Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and
powers, to obey magistrates."--Titus i: 16, and ii: from 1 to 10, and
iii: 1. The context shows that a doctrine was taught by these wicked
men, which tended in its influence on servants, to bring the gospel of
Christ into contempt in Church and State, because of its seditions and
insubordinate character.
But at Ephesus, the capital of the lesser Asia, where Paul had labored
with great success for three years--a point of great importance to the
gospel cause--the Apostle left Timothy for the purpose of watching
against the false teachers, and particularly against the abolitionists.
In addition to a letter which he had addressed to this church
previously, in which the mutual duty of master and servant is taught,
and which has already been referred to, he further instructs Timothy by
letter on the same subject: "Let as many servants as are under the yoke
count their masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his
doctrine be not blasphemed."--1 Tim. vi: 1. These were unbelieving
masters, as the next verse will show. In this church at Ephesus, the
circumstances existed, which are brought to light by Paul's letter to
Timothy, that must silence every cavil, which men, who do not know God's
will on this subject, may start until time ends. In an age filled with
literary men, who are employed in transmitting historically, to future
generations, the structure of society in the Roman Empire; that would
put it in our power at this distant day, to know the state or condition
of a slave in the Roman Empire, as well as if we had lived at the time,
and to know beyond question, that his condition was precisely that one,
which is now denounced as sinful: in such an age, and in such
circumstances, Jesus Christ causes his will to be published to the
world; and it is this, that if a Christian slave have an unbelieving
master, who acknowledges no allegiance to Christ, this believing slave
must count his master worthy of all honor, according to what the Apostle
teaches the Romans, "Render, therefore, to all their dues, tribute to
whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom is due, fear to whom fear,
honor to whom honor."--Rom. xiii: 7. Now, honor is enjoined of God in
the Scriptures, from children to parents--from husbands to wives--from
subjects to magistrates and rulers, and here by Jesus Christ, from
Christian slaves to unbelieving masters, who held them as property by
law, with power over their very lives. And the command is remarkable.
While we are commanded to honor father and mother, without adding to the
precept "all honor," here a Christian servant is bound to render to his
unbelieving master "all honor." Why is this? Because in the one case
nature moves in the direction of the command; but in the other, against
it. Nature being subjected to the law of grace, might be disposed to
obey reluctantly; hence the amplitude of the command. But what purpose
was to be answered by this devotion of the slave? The Apostle answers,
"that the name of God and his doctrine (of subordination to the
law-making power) be not blasphemed," as they certainly would by a
contrary course on the part of the servant, for the most obvious reason
in the world; while the sword would have been drawn against the gospel,
and a war of extermination waged against its propagators, in every
province of the Roman Empire, for there was slavery in all; and so it
would be now.
But, says the caviler, these directions are given to Christian slaves
whose masters did not acknowledge the authority of Christ to govern
them; and are therefore defective as proof, that he approves of one
Christian man holding another in bondage. Very well, we will see. In the
next verse, (1 Timothy vi: 2,) he says, "and they that have believing
masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren, but
rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers
of the benefit." Here is a great change; instead of a command to a
believing slave to render to a believing master _all honor_, and thereby
making that believing master in _honor_ equal to an unbelieving master,
here is rather an exhortation to the slave _not to despise him, because
he is a believer_. Now, I ask, why the circumstance of a master becoming
a believer in Christ, should become the cause of his believing slave
despising him while that slave was supposed to acquiesce in the duty of
rendering all honor to that master before he became a believer? I
answer, _precisely_, and _only, because_ there were _abolition teachers_
among them, who _taught otherwise_, and consented not to wholesome
words, _even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ_.--1 Timothy vii: 3; and
"to the doctrine which is according to godliness," taught in the 8th
verse, viz: having food and raiment, servants should therewith be
content; for the pronoun us, in the 8th verse of this connection, means
_especially_ the _servants he was instructing_, as well as Christians in
general. These men taught, that godliness abolished slavery, that it
gave the title of freedom to the slave, and that so soon as a man
professed to be subject to Christ, and refused to liberate his slaves,
he was a hypocrite, and deserved not the countenance of any who bore the
Christian name. Such men, the Apostle says, are "proud, (just as they
are now,) knowing nothing," (that is, on this subject,) but "doating
about questions, and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife,
railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds,
and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such
withdraw thyself."--1 Tim. vi: 4, 5.
Such were the bitter fruits which abolition sentiments produced in the
Apostolic day, and such precisely are the fruits they produce now.
Now, I say, here is the case made out, which certainly would call forth
the command from Christ, to abolish slavery, if he ever intended to
abolish it. Both the servant and the master were one in Christ Jesus.
Both were members of the same church, both were under unlimited and
voluntary obedience to the same divine law-giver.
No political objection existed at the time against their obedience to
him on the subject of slavery; and what is the will, not of Paul, but of
the Lord Jesus Christ, immediately in person, upon the case thus made
out? Does he say to the master, having put yourself under my government,
you must no longer hold your brother in bondage? Does he say to the
slave, if your master does not release you, you must go and talk to him
privately, about this trespass upon your rights under the law of my
kingdom; and if he does not hear you, you must take two or three with
you; and if he does not hear them then you must tell it to the church,
and have him expelled from my flock, as a wolf in sheep's clothing? I
say, what does the Lord Jesus say to this poor believing slave,
concerning a master who held unlimited power over his person and life,
under the Roman law? He tells him that the very circumstance of his
master's being a brother, constitutes the reason why he should be more
ready to do him service; for in addition to the circumstance of his
being a brother who would be benefited by his service, he would as a
brother give him what was just and equal in return, and "forbear
threatening," much less abusing his authority over him, for that he (the
master) also had a master in heaven, who was no respecter of persons. It
is taken for granted, on all hands pretty generally, that Jesus Christ
has at least been silent, or that he has not personally spoken on the
subject of slavery. Once for all, I deny it. Paul, after stating that a
slave was to honor an unbelieving master, in the 1st verse of the 6th
chapter, says, in the 2d verse, that to a believing master, he is the
rather to do service, because he who partakes of the benefit is his
brother. He then says, if any man teach otherwise, (as all abolitionists
then did, and now do,) and consent not to wholesome words, "even the
words of our Lord Jesus Christ." Now, if our Lord Jesus Christ uttered
such words, how dare we say he has been silent? If he has been silent,
how dare the Apostle say these are the words of our Lord Jesus Christ,
if the Lord Jesus Christ never spoke them? "Where, or when, or on what
occasion he spoke them, we are not informed; but certain it is, that
Paul has borne false witness, or that Jesus Christ has uttered the words
that impose an obligation on servants, who are abject slaves, to render
service with good-will from the heart, to believing masters, and to
account their unbelieving masters as worthy of all honor, that the name
of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. Jesus Christ revealed to Paul
the doctrine which Paul has settled throughout the Gentile world, (and
by consequence, the Jewish world also,) on the subject of slavery, so
far as it affects his kingdom. As we have seen, it is clear and full.
From the great importance of the subject, involving the personal liberty
of half the human race at that time, and a large portion of them at all
times since, it is not to be wondered at, that Paul would carry the
question to the Saviour, and plead for a decisive expression of his
will, that would forever do away the necessity of inferring any thing by
reasoning from the premises laid down in the former dispensation; or in
the patriarchal age; and at Ephesus, if not at Crete, the issue is
fairly made, between Paul on the one side, and certain abolition
teachers on the other, when, in addition to the official intelligence
ordinarily given to the apostles by the Holy Ghost, to guide them into
all truth, he affirms, that the doctrine of perfect civil subordination,
on the part of hereditary slaves to their masters, whether believers or
unbelievers, was one which he, Paul, taught in the words of the Lord
Jesus Christ himself.
The Scriptures we have adduced from the New Testament, to prove the
recognition of hereditary slavery by the Saviour, as a lawful relation
in the sight of God, lose much of their force from the use of a word by
the translators, which by time, has lost much of its original meaning;
that is, the word _servant_. Dr. Johnson, in his Dictionary, says:
"Servant is one of the few words, which by time has acquired a softer
signification than its original, knave, degenerated into cheat. While
_servant_, which signified originally, a person preserved from death by
the conqueror, and reserved for slavery, signifies only an obedient
attendant." Now, all history will prove that the servants of the New
Testament addressed by the apostles, in their letters to the several
churches throughout the Roman Empire, were such as were perserved from
death by the conqueror, and taken into slavery. This was their
condition, and it is a fact well known to all men acquainted with
history. Had the word which designates their condition, in our
translation, lost none of its original meaning, a common man could not
have fallen into a mistake as to the condition indicated. But to waive
this fact we are furnished with all the evidence that can be desired.
The Saviour appeared in an age of learning--the enslaved condition of
half the Roman Empire, at the time, is a fact embodied with all the
historical records--the constitution God gave the Jews, was in harmony
with the Roman regulations on the subject of slavery. In this state of
things, Jesus ordered his gospel to be preached in all the world, and to
every creature. It was done as he directed; and masters and servants,
and persons in all conditions, were brought by the gospel to obey the
Saviour. Churches were constituted. We have examined the letters written
to the churches, composd of these materials. The result is, that each
member is furnished with a law to regulate the duties of his civil
station--from the highest to the lowest.
We will remark, in closing under this head, that we have shown from the
text of the sacred volume, that when God entered into covenant with
Abraham, it was with him as a slaveholder; that when he took his
posterity by the hand in Egypt, five hundred years afterward to confirm
the promise made to Abraham, it was done with them as slaveholders; that
when he gave them a constitution of government, he gave them the right
to perpetuate hereditary slavery; and that he did not for the fifteen
hundred years of their national existence, express disapprobation toward
the institution.
We have also shown from authentic history that the institution of
slavery existed in every family, and in every province of the Roman
Empire, at the time the gospel was published to them.
We have also shown from the New Testament, that all the churches are
recognized as composed of masters and servants; and that they are
instructed by Christ how to discharge their relative duties; and finally
that in reference to the question which was then started, whether
Christianity did not abolish the institution, or the right of one
Christian to hold another Christian in bondage, we have shown, that "the
words of our Lord Jesus Christ" are, that so far from this being the
case, it adds to the obligation of the servant to render service with
good-will to his master, and that gospel fellowship is not to be
entertained with persons who will not consent to it!
I propose, in the fourth place, to show that the institution of slavery
is full of mercy. I shall say but a few words on this subject. Authentic
history warrants this conclusion, that for a long period of time, it was
this institution alone which furnished a motive for sparing the
prisoner's life. The chances of war, when the earth was filled with
small tribes of men, who had a passion for it, brought to decision,
almost daily, conflicts, where nothing but this institution interposed
an inducement to save the vanquished. The same was true in the enlarged
schemes of conquest, which brought the four great universal empires of
the Scriptures to the zenith of their power.
The same is true in the history of Africa, as far back as we can trace
it. It is only sober truth to say, that the institution of slavery has
saved from the sword more lives, including their increase, than all the
souls who now inhabit this globe.
The souls thus conquered and subjected to masters, who feared not God
nor regarded men, in the days of Abraham, Job, and the patriarchs, were
surely brought under great obligations to the mercy of God, in allowing
such men as these to purchase them, and keep them in their families.
The institution when engrafted on the Jewish constitution, was designed
principally, not to enlarge the number, but to ameliorate the condition
of the slaves in the neighboring nations.
Under the gospel, it has brought within the range of gospel influence,
millions of Ham's descendant's among ourselves, who but for this
institution, would have sunk down to eternal ruin; knowing not God, and
strangers to the gospel. In their bondage here on earth, they have been
much better provided for, and great multitudes of them have been made
the freemen of the Lord Jesus Christ, and left this world rejoicing in
hope of the glory of God. The elements of an empire, which I hope will
lead Ethiopia very soon to stretch out her hands to God, is the fruit of
the institution here. An officious meddling with the institution, from
feeling and sentiments unknown to the Bible, may lead to the
extermination of the slave race among us, who, taken as a whole, are
utterly unprepared for a higher civil state; but benefit them, it
cannot. Their condition, _as a class_, is now better than that of any
other equal number of laborers on earth, and is daily improving.
If the Bible is allowed to awaken the spirit, and control the
philanthropy which works their good, the day is not far distant when
the highest wishes of saints will be gratified, in having conferred on
them all that the spirit of good-will can bestow. This spirit which was
kindling into life, has received a great check among us of late, by that
trait which the Apostle Peter reproves and shames in his officious
countrymen, when he says: "But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or
as a thief, or as an evil doer, or as a busy-body in other men's
matters." Our citizens have been murdered--our property has been stolen,
(if the receiver is as bad as the thief,)--our lives have been put in
jeopardy--our characters traduced--and attempts made to force political
slavery upon us in the place of domestic, by strangers who have no right
to meddle with our matters. Instead of meditating generous things to our
slaves, as a return for gospel subordination, we have to put on our
armor to suppress a rebellious spirit, engendered by "false doctrine,"
propagated by men "of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth," who
teach them that the gain of freedom to the slave, is the only proof of
godliness in the master. From such, Paul says we must withdraw
ourselves; and if we fail to do it, and to rebuke them with all the
authority which "the words of our Lord Jesus Christ" confer, we shall be
wanting in duty to them, to ourselves, and to the world.
THORNTON STRINGFELLOW.
FOOTNOTE:
[229] The property in slaves in the United States is their _service or
labor_. The Constitution guarantees this property to its owner, both in
apprentices and slaves. And the Supreme Court has decided, Judge Baldwin
presiding, that all the means "necessary and proper" to secure this
property, may be constitutionally used by the master, in the absence of
all statute law. The Roman law made the slave of that law, to be, not a
_personal chattel_, held to service or labor only, as is the American
apprentice or slave, but to be a _mere thing_; and guaranteed to the
master the right to do with that _mere thing_, just as he pleased. To
cut it up, for instance, as the master sometimes did, to feed fishes.
Abolitionists are guilty of the inexcusable wickedness of holding up
this ancient Roman slavery, as a model of American slavery; although
they know that the personal rights of apprentices and slaves, are as
well defined and secured, by judicial decisions and statute laws, as the
rights of husband and wife, parent and child.
AN EXAMINATION
OF ELDER GALUSHA'S REPLY TO DR. RICHARD FULLER OF SOUTH CAROLINA.
AFTER my essay on slavery was published in the _Herald_,[230] I sent a
copy of it to a prominent abolition gentleman in New York, accompanied
by a friendly letter.
This gentleman I selected as a correspondent, because of his high
standing, intellectual attainments, and unquestioned piety. I frankly
avowed to him my readiness to abandon slavery, so soon as I was
convinced by the Bible that it was sinful, and requested him, "if the
Bible contained precepts, and settled principles of conduct, in direct
opposition to those portions of it upon which I relied, as furnishing
the mind of the Almighty upon the subject of slavery, that he would
furnish me with the knowledge of the fact." To this letter I received a
friendly reply, accompanied by a printed communication containing the
result of a prayerful effort which he had previously made, for the
purpose of furnishing the very information to a friend at the South,
which I sought to obtain at his hands.
It may be owing to my prejudices, or a want of intellect, that I fail to
be convinced, by those portions of the Bible to which he refers, to
prove that slavery is sinful. But as the support of truth is _my
object_, and as I wish to have the answer of a good conscience toward
God in this matter, I herewith publish, for the information of all into
whose hands my first essay may have fallen, every passage in the Bible
to which this distinguished brother refers me for "precepts and settled
principles of conduct, in direct opposition to those portions of it upon
which I relied, as furnishing the mind of the Almighty upon the subject
of slavery."
1st. His reference to the sacred volume is this: "God hath made of one
blood all nations of men." This is a Scripture truth which I believe;
yet God decreed that Canaan should be a servant of servants to his
brother--that is, an abject slave in his posterity. This God effected
eight hundred years afterward, in the days of Joshua, when the
Gibeonites were subjected to prepetual bondage, and made hewers of wood
and drawers of water.--Joshua ix: 23.
Again, God ordained, as law-giver to Israel, that their captives taken
in war should be enslaved.--Deut. xx: 10 to 15.
Again, God enacted that the Israelites should buy slaves of the heathen
nations around them, and will them and their increase as property to
their children forever.--Levit. xxv: 44, 45, 46. All these nations were
_made of one blood_. Yet God ordained that some should be "chattel"
slaves to others, and gave his special aid to effect it. In view of this
incontrovertible fact, how can I believe this passage disproves the
lawfulness of slavery in the sight of God? How can any sane man believe
it, who believes the Bible?
2d. His second Scripture reference to disprove the lawfulness of
slavery in the sight of God, is this: "God has said a man is better than
a sheep." This is a Scripture truth which I fully believe--and I have no
doubt, if we could ascertain what the Israelites had to pay for those
slaves they bought with their money according to God's law, in Levit.
xxv: 44, that we should find they had to pay more for them than they
paid for sheep, for the reason assigned by the Saviour; that is, that a
servant man is better than a sheep; for when he is done plowing, or
feeding cattle, and comes in from the field, he will, at his master's
bidding, prepare him his meal, and wait upon him till he eats it, while
the master feels under no obligation even to thank him for it because he
has done no more than his duty.--Luke xvii: 7, 8, 9. This, and other
important duties, which the people of God bought their slaves to perform
for them, by the permission of their Maker, were duties which sheep
could not perform. But I cannot see what there is in it to blot out from
the Bible a relation which God created, in which he made one man to be a
slave to another.
3d. His third Scripture reference to prove the unlawfulness of slavery
in the sight of God, is this: "God commands children to obey their
parents, and wives to obey their husbands." This, I believe to be the
will of Christ to Christian children and Christian wives--whether they
are bond or free. But it is equally true that Christ ordains that
Christianity shall not abolish slavery.--1 Cor. vii: 17, 21, and that he
commands servants to obey their masters and to count them worthy of all
honor.--1 Tim. vi: 1, 2. It is also true, that God allowed Jewish
masters to use the rod to make them do it--and to use it with the
severity requisite to accomplish the object.--Exod. xxi: 20,21. It is
equally true, that Jesus Christ ordains that a Christian servant shall
receive for the wrong he hath done.--Col. iii: 25. My correspondent
admits, without qualification, that if they are property, it is right.
But the Bible says, they were property.--Levit. xxv: 44, 45, 46.
The above reference, reader, _enjoins_ the _duty_ of two _relations_,
which God ordained, but does not _abolish_ a third _relation_ which _God
has ordained_; as the Scripture will prove, to which I have referred
you, under the first reference made by my correspondent.
4th. His fourth Scripture reference is, to the _intention_ of Abraham to
give his estate to a servant, in order to prove that servant was not a
slave. "What," he says, "property inherit property?" I answer, yes. Two
years ago, in my county, William Hansbrough gave to his slaves his
estate, worth forty or fifty thousand dollars. In the last five or six
years, over two hundred slaves, within a few miles of me, belonging to
various masters, have inherited portions of their masters' estates.
To render slaves valuable, the Romans qualified them for the learned
professions, and all the various arts. They were teachers, doctors,
authors, mechanics, etc. So with us, tradesmen of every kind are to be
found among our slaves. Some of them are undertakers--some farmers--some
overseers, or stewards--some housekeepers--some merchants--some
teamsters, and some money-lenders, who give their masters a portion of
their income, and keep the balance. Nearly all of them have an income of
their own--and was it not for the seditious spirit of the North, we
would educate our slaves generally, and so fit them earlier for a more
improved condition, and higher moral elevation.
But will all this, when duly certified, prove they are not slaves? No.
Neither will Abraham's _intention_ to give one of his servants his
estate, prove that he was not a slave. Who had higher claims upon
Abraham, before he had a child, than this faithful slave, born in his
house, reared by his hand, devoted to his interest, and faithful in
every trust?
5th. His fifth reference, my correspondent says, "forever sets the
question at rest." It is this: "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master,
the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee--he shall dwell
with thee, even in that place which he shall choose, in one of thy
gates, where it liketh him best; thou shalt not oppress him."
This my distinguished correspondent says, "forever puts the question at
rest." My reader, I hope, will ask himself what question it puts to
rest. He will please to remember, that it is brought to put this
question to rest, "Is slavery sinful in the sight of God?" the Bible
being judge--or "did God ever allow one man to hold property in
another?"
My correspondent admits this to be the question at issue. He asks, "What
is slavery?" And thus answers: "It is the principle involved in holding
man as property." "This," he says: "is the point at issue." He says, "if
it be right to hold man as property, it is right to treat him as
property," etc. Now, conceding all in the argument, that can be demanded
for this law about run-away slaves, yet it does not prove that slavery
or holding property in man is sinful--because it is a part and parcel of
the Mosaic law, given to Israel in the wilderness by the same God, who
in the same wilderness enacted "that of the heathen that were round
about them, they should buy bond-men and bond-women--also of the
strangers that dwelt among them should they buy, and they should pass as
an inheritance to their children after them, to possess them as bond-men
forever."--Levit. xxv: 44.
How can I admit that a prohibition to deliver up a run-away slave, under
the law of Moses, is proof that there was no slavery allowed under that
law? Here is the law from God himself,--Levit. xxv: 44, authorizing the
Israelites to buy slaves and transmit them and their increase as a
possession to their posterity forever--and to make slaves of their
captives taken in war.--Deut. xx: 10-15. Suppose, for argument's sake, I
admit that God prohibited the delivery back of one of _these slaves_,
when he fled from his master--would that prove that he was not a slave
before he fled? Would that prove that he did not remain legally a slave
in the sight of God, according to his own law, until he fled? The
passage proves the very reverse of that which it is brought to prove. It
proves that the slave is recognized by God himself as a slave, until he
fled to the Israelites. My correspondent's exposition of this law seems
based upon the idea that God, who had held fellowship with slavery among
his people for five hundred years, and who had just given them a formal
statute to legalize the purchase of slaves from the heathen, and to
enslave their captives taken in war, was, nevertheless, desirous to
abolish the institution. But, as if afraid to march directly up to his
object, he was disposed to undermine what he was unwilling to attempt to
overthrow.
Upon the principle that man is prone to think God is altogether such an
one as himself, we may account for such an interpretation at the present
time, by men north of Mason & Dixon's line. Our brethren there have held
fellowship with this institution, by the constitutional oath they have
taken to protect us in this property. Unable, constitutionally, to
overthrow the institution, they see, or think they see, a sanction in
the law of God to undermine it, by opening their gates and letting our
run-away slaves "dwell among them where it liketh them best." If I could
be astonished at any thing in this controversy, it would be to see
sensible men engaged in the study of that part of the Bible which
relates to the rights of property, as established by the Almighty
himself, giving in to the idea that the Judge of the world, acting in
the character of a national law-giver, would legalize a property right
in slaves, _as he did_--give full power to the master to govern--secure
the increase as an inheritance to posterity for all time to come--and
then add a clause to legalize a fraud upon the unsuspecting purchaser.
For what better is it, under this interpretation?
With respect to slaves purchased of the heathen, or enslaved by war, the
law passed a clear title to them and their increase forever. With
respect to the hired servants of the Hebrews, the law secured to the
master a right to their service until the Sabbatic year or
Jubilee--unless they were bought back by a near kinsman at a stated
price in money when owned by a heathen master. But these legal rights,
under these laws of heaven's King, by this interpretation, are all
canceled--for the pecuniary loss, there is no redress--and for the
insult no remedy, whenever a "liketh him best" man can induce the slave
to run away. And worse still, the community of masters thus insulted and
swindled, according to this interpretation, are bound to show respect
and afford protection to the villains who practice it. Who can believe
all this? I judge our Northern brethren will say, the Lord deliver us
from such legislation as this. So say we. What, then, does this run-away
law mean? It means that the God of Israel ordained his people to be an
asylum for the slave who fled from heathen cruelty to them for
protection; it is the law of nations--but surrendered under the
Constitution by these States, who agreed to deliver them up. See, says
God, ye oppress not the stranger. Thou shalt neither _vex_ a stranger,
nor _oppress_ him.--Exod. xxii: 21.
His 6th reference to the Bible is this: "Do to others as ye would they
should do to you." I have shown in the essay, that these words of our
Saviour, embody the same moral principle, which is embodied by Moses in
Levit. xix: 18, in these words, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." In this
we can not be mistaken, because Jesus says there are but two such
principles in God's moral government--_one_ of supreme love of
God--_another_ of love to our neighbor as ourself. To the everlasting
confusion of the argument from moral precepts, to overthrow the
positive institution of slavery, this moral precept was given to
regulate the mutual duties of this very relation, which God by law
ordained for the Jewish commonwealth.
How can that which regulates the _duty_, overthrow the _relation_
itself?
His 7th reference is, "They which are accounted to rule over the
Gentiles, exercise lordship over them, but so it shall not be among
you."
Turn to the passage, reader, in Mark x: 42; and try your ingenuity at
expounding, and see if you can destroy one _relation_ that has been
created among men, because the _authority_ given in another relation was
_abused_. The Saviour refers to the _abuse_ of State _authority_, as a
warning to those who should be clothed with _authority_ in his kingdom,
not to _abuse_ it, but to connect the use of it with humility. But how
official humility in the kingdom of Christ, is to rob States of the
right to make their own laws, dissolve the relation of slavery
recognized by the Saviour as a lawful relation, and overthrow the right
of property in slaves as settled by God himself, I know not. Paul, in
drawing the character of those who oppose slavery, in his letter to
Timothy, says, (vi: 4,) they are "proud, knowing nothing;" he means,
that they were puffed with a conceit of their superior sanctity, while
they were deplorably ignorant of the will of Christ on this subject. Is
it not great pride that leads a man to think he is better than the
Saviour? Jesus held fellowship with, and enjoined subjection to
governments, which sanctioned slavery in its worst form--but
abolitionists refuse fellowship for governments which have mitigated all
its rigors.
God established the relation by law, and bestowed the highest
manifestations of his favor upon slaveholders; and has caused it to be
written as with a sunbeam in the Scriptures. Yet such saints would be
refused the ordinary tokens of Christian fellowship among abolitionists.
If Abraham were on earth, they could not let him, consistently, occupy
their pulpits, to tell of the things God has prepared for them that love
him. Job himself would be unfit for their communion. Joseph would be
placed on a level with pirates. Not a single church planted by the
apostles would make a fit home for our abolition brethren, (for they all
had masters and slaves.) The apostles and their ministerial associates
could not occupy their pulpits, for they fraternized with slavery, and
upheld State authority upon the subject. Now, I ask, with due respect
for all parties, can sentiments which lead to such results as these be
held by any man, _in the absence of pride_ of no ordinary character,
whether he be sensible of it or not?
Again, whatever of intellect we may have--can that something which
prompts to results like these be _Bible knowledge_?
Reference the 8th is favorable in _sound_ if not in _sense_. It is in
these words, "Neither be ye called _masters_, for one is your _master_,
even Christ." I am free to confess, it is difficult to repress the
spirit which the prophet felt when he witnessed the zeal of his deluded
countrymen, at Mount Carmel. I think a sensible man ought to know
better, than to refer me to such a passage, to prove slavery unlawful;
yet my correspondent is a sensible man. However, I will balance it by an
equal authority, for dissolving another relation. "Call no man _father_
upon earth, for one is your _father_ in heaven."
When the last abolishes the _relation_ between _parent and child_, the
first will abolish the _relation_ between _master and servant_.
The 9th reference to prove slavery unlawful in the sight of God, is
this: "He that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his
hand, he shall surely be put to death." Wonderful!
I suppose that no State has ever established domestic slavery, which did
not find such a law necessary. It is this institution which makes such a
law needful. Unless slavery exists, there would be no motive to steal a
man. And, the danger is greater in a slave State than a free one.
Virginia has such a law, and so have all the States of North America.
Will these laws prove four thousand years hence that slavery did not
exist in the United States? No--but why not! Because the statute will
still exist, which authorizes us to buy bond-men and bond-women with our
money, and give them and their increase as an inheritance to our
children, forever. So the Mosaic statute still exists, which authorized
the Jews to do the same thing, and God is its author.
Reference the 10th is: "Rob not the poor because he is poor. Let the
oppressed go free; break every yoke; deliver him that is spoiled out of
the hand of the oppressor. What doth the Lord require of thee but to do
justly, love mercy, walk humbly with thy God. He that oppresseth the
poor reproacheth his Maker." This _sounds_ very well, reader, yet I
propose to make every man who reads me, _confess_, that these Scriptures
will not condemn slavery. Answer me this question: Are these, and such
like passages, in the Old Testament, from whence they are all taken,
intended to reprove and condemn that people, for doing what God, in his
law gave them a right to do? I know you must answer, they were not;
consequently, you confess they do not condemn slavery; because God gave
them the right, by law, to purchase slaves of the heathen.--Levit. xxv:
44. And to make slaves of their captives taken in war.--Deut. xx: 14.
The moral precepts of the Old or New Testament cannot make that wrong
which God ordained to be his will, as he has slavery.
The 11th reference of my distinguished correspondent to the sacred
volume, to prove that slavery is contrary to the will of Jesus Christ
and sinful, is in these words: "Masters, give unto your servants that
which is just and equal." The argument of my correspondent is this, that
slavery is a relation, in which rights based upon _justice_ cannot
exist.
I answer, God ordained, after man sinned, that he, "should eat bread
(that is, _have food and raiment_) in the sweat of his face."
He has since ordained, that some should be slaves to others, (as we have
proved under the first reference.) _Therefore_, when food and raiment
are withheld from him in slavery, it is _unjust_.
God has ordained food and raiment, as wages for the sweat of the face.
Christ has ordained that with these, whether in slavery or freedom, his
disciples shall be content.
The relation of master and slave, says Gibbon, existed in every province
and in every family of the Roman Empire. Jesus ordains in the 13th
chapter of Romans, from the 1st to the end of the 7th verse, and in 1
Peter, 2d chapter, 13th, 14th, and 15th verses, that the _legislative
authority_, which created the relation, should be obeyed and honored by
his disciples. But while he thus _legalises_ the _relation_ of master
and slave as established by the civil law, he proceeds to prescribe the
mutual duties which the parties, when they come into his kingdom, must
perform to each other.
The reference of my correspondent to disprove the _relation_, is a part
of what Jesus has prescribed on this subject to _regulate_ the _duties_
of the relation, and is itself proof that the relation existed--that
its legality was recognized--and its duties prescribed by the Son of God
through the Holy Ghost given to the apostles.
The 12th reference is, "Let as many servants as are under the yoke,
count their masters worthy of all honor. And they that have believing
masters, let them not despise them because they are brethren, but rather
do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the
benefit." If my reader will turn to my remarks, in my first essay upon
this Scripture, he will cease to wonder that it fails to convince me
that slavery is sinful. I should think the wonder would be, that any man
ever quoted it for such a purpose.
And lastly. My correspondent informs me that the Greek word "δοῦλος,"
translated servant, means hired servant and not slave.
I reply, that the primary meaning of this Greek word, is in a singular
state of preservation. God, as if foreseeing and providing for this
controversy, has caused, in his providence, that its meaning in Greek
dictionaries shall be thus given, "the opposite of free." Now, readers,
what is the _opposite_ of _free_? Is it a state somewhere _between_
freedom and slavery? If freedom, as a condition, has an opposite, that
opposite state is indicated by this very word "δοῦλος." So says every
Greek lexicographer. I ask, if this is not wonderful, that the Holy
Ghost has used a term, so incapable of deceiving, and yet that that term
should be brought forward for the purpose of deception. Another
remarkable fact is this: the English word servant, originally meant
precisely the same thing as the Greek word "δοῦλος;" that is, says Dr.
Johnson in his Dictionary, it meant formerly a captive taken in war, and
reserved for slavery. These are two remarkable facts in the providence
of God. But, reader, I will give you a Bible key, by which to decide for
yourself, without foreign aid, whether _servant_, when it denotes a
relation in society, where the other side of that relation is _master_,
means _hired servant_. "Every man's servant that is bought for money
shall eat thereof; but a hired servant shall not eat thereof."--Exod.
xii; 44, 45. Here are two classes of servants alluded to--one was
allowed to eat the Passover the night Israel left Egypt; the other not.
What was the difference in these two classes? Were they both hired
servants? If so, it should read, "Every hired servant that is bought for
money shall eat thereof; but a hired servant that is bought for money,
shall not eat thereof." My reader, why has the Holy Ghost, in presiding
over the inspired pen, been thus particular? Is it too much to say, it
was to provide against the delusion of the nineteenth century, which
learned men would be practicing upon unlearned men, as well as
themselves, on the subject of slavery? Who, with the Bible and their
learning, would not be able to discover, that a servant bought with
money was a slave; and that a hired servant was a free man? Again,
Levit. xxv: 44, 45, and 46; "Thy bond-servants shall be of the heathen
that are round about you, and of the children of the strangers that do
sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy. And they shall be your
possession, and ye shall take them as an inheritance, for your children
after you, to inherit them for a possession, they shall be your bond-men
forever."
Reader, were these hired servants? If so, they hired themselves for a
long time. And what is very singular, they hired their posterity for all
time to come. And what is still more singular, the wages were paid, not
to the servant, but to a former owner or master. And what is still
stranger, they hired themselves and their posterity to be an inheritance
to their master and his posterity forever! Yet, reader, I am told by my
distinguished correspondent, that servant in the Scriptures, when used
to designate a relation, means only hired servant. Again, I ask, were
the enslaved captives in Deut. xx: 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, hired
servants?
One of the greatest and best of men ever raised at the North, (I mean
Luther Rice,) once told me when I quoted the law of God for the purchase
of slaves from the heathen, (in order to silence his argument about
"δοῦλος," and hired servant,) I say he told me positively, there was no
such law. When I opened the Bible and showed it to him, his shame was
very visible. (And I hope he is not the only great and good man, that
God will put to shame for being ignorant of his word.) But he never
opened his mouth to me about slavery again while he lived.
If my reader does no _better_ than he did, at least let him not fight
against God for establishing the institution of "chattel" slavery in his
kingdom, nor against me for believing he did do it. But, reader, if you
have the hardihood to insist that these were hired servants, and not
slaves after all, then, I answer, that ours are hired servants, too,
and not slaves; and so the dispute ends favorably to the South, and it
is lawful for us, according to abolition admissions, to hold them to
servitude. For ours, we paid money to a former owner; so did the Jews
for theirs. The increase of ours passes as an inheritance to our
children, so did the increase of the Jewish servants pass as an
inheritance to their children, to be an inheritance forever. And all
this took place by the direction of God to his chosen people.
My correspondent thinks with Mr. Jefferson, that Jehovah has no
attributes that will harmonize with slavery; and that all men are born
free and equal. Now, I say let him throw away his Bible as Mr. Jefferson
did his, and then they will be fit companions. But never disgrace the
Bible by making Mr. Jefferson its expounder, nor Mr. Jefferson by
deriving his sentiments from it. Mr. Jefferson did not bow to the
authority of the Bible, and on this subject I do not bow to him. How can
any man, who believes the Bible, admit for a moment that God intended to
teach mankind by the Bible, that all are born free and equal?
Men who engage in this controversy ought to look into the Bible, and see
what is in it about slavery. I do not know how to account for such men
saying, as my correspondent does, that the slave of the Mosaic law,
purchased of the heathen, was a hired servant; and that both he and the
Hebrew hired servant of the same law, had a passport from God to run
away from their masters with impunity, to prove which is the object of
one of his quotations. Again, New Testament _servants_ and _masters_ are
not the servants and masters of the Mosaic law, but the servants and
masters of the Roman Empire. To go to the law of Moses to find out the
statutes of the Roman Empire, is folly. Yet on this subject the
difference is not great, and so far as humanity (in the abolition sense
of it) is concerned, is in favor of the Roman law.
The laws of each made slaves to be property, and allowed them to be
bought and sold. See Gibbon's Rome, vol. i: pp. 25, 26, and Levit. xxv:
44, 45, 46. The laws of each allowed prisoners taken in war to be
enslaved. See Gibbon as above, and Deut. xx: 10-15. The difference was
this: the Roman law allowed _men_ taken in battle to be enslaved--the
Jewish law required the _men_ taken in battle to be put to death, and to
enslave their wives and children. In the case of the Midianites, the
mercy of enslaving some of the women was denied them because they had
enticed the Israelites into sin, and subjected them to a heavy judgment
under Balaam's counsel, and for a reason not assigned, the mercy of
slavery was denied to the male children in this special case. See
Numbers xxxi: 15, 16, 17.
The first letter to Timothy, while at Ephesus, if rightly understood,
would do much to stay the hands of men, who have more zeal than
knowledge on this subject. See again what I have written in my first
essay on this letter. In addition to what I have there said, I would
state, that the "_other doctrine_," 1 Tim. i: 3, which Paul says, must
not be taught, I take to be a principle tantamount to this, that Jesus
Christ proposed to subordinate the civil to ecclesiastical authority.
The doctrine which was "_according to godliness_," 1 Tim, vi: 3, I take
to be a principle which subordinated the church, or Christ in his
members, to civil governments, or "the powers that be." One principle
was seditious, and when consummated must end in the man of sin. The
other principle was practically a quiet submission to government, as an
ordinance of God in the hands of men.
The abolitionists, at Ephesus, in attempting to interfere with the
relations of slavery, and to unsettle the rights of property, acted upon
a principle, which statesmen must see, would in the end, subject the
whole frame-work of government to the supervision of the church, and
terminate in the man of sin, or a pretended successor of Christ, sitting
in the temple of God, and claiming a right to reign over, and control
the civil governments of the world. The Apostle, therefore, chapter ii:
1, to render the doctrine of subordination to the State a very prominent
doctrine, and to cause the knowledge of it to spread among all who
attended their worship, orders that the very first thing done by the
church should be, that of making supplication, prayers, and
intercessions, and giving God thanks for all men that were placed in
authority, by the State, for the administration of civil government. He
assigns the reason for this injunction, "that we may lead a quiet and
peaceable life in all godliness and honesty."
My correspondent complains, that abolitionists at the North are not safe
when they come among us. They are much safer than the saints of Ephesus
would have been in the Apostolic day, if Paul would have allowed the
seditious doctrine to be propagated which our Northern brethren think it
such a merit to preach, when it subjects them to no risk. How can they
expect, in the nature of things, to lead a quiet and peaceable life when
they come among us? They are _organized_ to overthrow our
sovereignty--to put our lives in peril, and to trample upon Bible
principles, by which the rights of property are to be settled.
Questions and strifes of words characterized the disputes of the
abolitionists at Ephesus about slavery. It is amusing and painful to see
the questions and strifes of words in the piece of my correspondent.
Many of these questions are about our property right in slaves. The
_substance of them_ is this: that the present title is not good, because
the original title grew out of violence and injustice. But, reader, our
original title was obtained in the same way which God in his law
authorized his people to obtain theirs. They obtained their slaves by
purchase of those who made them captives in the hazards of war, or by
conquest with their own sword. My correspondent speaks at one time as if
ours were stolen in the first instance; but, as if forgetting that, in
another place he says, that so great is the hazard attending the wars of
Africa, that one life is lost for every two that are taken captive and
sold into slavery. If this is stealing, it has at least the merit of
being more manly than some that is practiced among us.
A case seems to have been preserved by the Holy Ghost, as if to rebuke
this abolition doctrine about property rights. It is the case of the
King of Ammon, a heathen, on the one side, and Jephtha, who "obtained a
good report by faith," on the other. It is consoling to us that we
occupy the ground Jephtha did--and we may well suspect the correctness
of the other side, because it is the ground occupied by Ammon. The case
is this: A heathen is seen menacing Israel. Jephtha is selected by his
countrymen to conduct the controversy. He sends a message to his
menacing neighbor, to know why he had come out against him. He returned
for answer, that it was because Israel held property to which they had
no right. Jephtha answered, they had had it in possession for three
hundred years. Ammon replied, they had no right to it, because it was
obtained in the first instance by violence. Jephtha replied, that it was
held by the same sort of a title as that by which Ammon held his
possessions--that is to say, whatever Ammon's god Chemosh enabled him to
take in war, he considered to be his of right; and that Israel's God
had assisted them to take this property, and they considered the title
to be such an one as Ammon was bound to acknowledge.
Ammon stickled for the _eternal_ principle of righteousness, and
contended that it had been violated in the first instance. But, reader,
in the appeal made to the sword, God vindicated Israel's title.--Judges
xi: 12-32.
And if at the present time, we take ground with Ammon about the rights
of property, I will not say how much work we may have to do, nor who
will prove the rightful owner of my correspondent's domicil; but certain
I am, that by his Ammonitish principle of settling the rights of
property, he will be ousted.
Reader, in looking over the printed reply of my correspondent to his
Southern friend, which occupies ten columns of a large newspaper, to see
if I had overlooked any Scripture, I find I have omitted to notice one
reference to the sacred volume, which was made by him, for the general
purpose of showing that the Scriptures abound with moral principles, and
call into exercise moral feelings inconsistent with slavery. It is this:
"Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my
brethren, you have done it unto me." The design of the Saviour, in the
parable from which these words are taken, in Matt. xxv, is, to impress
strongly upon the human mind, that _character_, deficient in _correct
moral feeling_, will prove fatal to human hopes in a coming day.
But, reader, will you stop and ask yourself, "What is correct moral
feeling?" Is it abhorrence and hatred to the will and pleasure of God?
Certainly not. Then it is not abhorrence and hatred of slavery, which
seems to be a cardinal virtue at the North. It has been the will and
pleasure of God to institute slavery by a law of his own, in that
kingdom over which he immediately presided; and to give it his sanction
when instituted by the laws of men. The most elevated morality is
enjoined under both Testaments, upon the parties in this relation. There
is nothing in the relation inconsistent with its exercise.
My reader will remember that the subject in dispute is, whether
involuntary and hereditary slavery was ever lawful in the sight of God,
the Bible being judge.
1. I have shown by the Bible, that God decreed this relation between the
posterity of Canaan, and the posterity of Shem and Japheth.
2. I have shown that God executed this decree by aiding the posterity
of Shem, (at a time when "they were holiness to the Lord,") to enslave
the posterity of Canaan in the days of Joshua.
3. I have shown that when God ratified the covenant of promise with
Abraham, he recognized Abraham as the owner of slaves he had bought with
his money of the stranger, and recorded his approbation of the relation,
by commanding Abraham to circumcise them.
4. I have shown that when he took Abraham's posterity by the hand in
Egypt, five hundred years afterward, he publicly approbated the same
relation, by permitting every slave they had bought with their money to
eat the Passover, while he refused the same privilege to their _hired
servants_.
5. I have shown that God, as their national law-giver, ordained by
express statute, that they should buy slaves of the nations around them,
(the seven devoted nations excepted,) and that these slaves and their
increase should be a perpetual inheritance to their children.
6. I have shown that God ordained slavery by law for their captives
taken in war, while he guaranteed a successful issue to their wars, so
long as they obeyed him.
7. I have shown that when Jesus ordered his gospel to be published
through the world, the relation of master and slave existed by law in
every province and family of the Roman Empire, as it had done in the
Jewish commonwealth for fifteen hundred years.
8. I have shown that Jesus ordained, that the legislative authority,
which created this relation in that empire, should be obeyed and honored
as an ordinance of God, as all government is declared to be.
9. I have shown that Jesus has prescribed the mutual duties of this
relation in his kingdom.
10. And lastly, I have shown, that in an attempt by his professed
followers to disturb this relation in the Apostolic churches, Jesus
orders that fellowship shall be disclaimed with all such disciples, as
seditious persons--whose conduct was not only dangerous to the State,
but destructive to the true character of the gospel dispensation.
This being the case, as will appear by the recorded language of the
Bible, to which we have referred you, reader, of what use is it to argue
against it from moral requirements?
They regulate the duties of this and all other lawful relations among
men--but they cannot abolish any relation, ordained or sanctioned of
God, as is slavery.
I would be understood as referring for proof of this summary, to my
first as well as my present essay.
When I first wrote, I did suppose the Scriptures had been examined by
leading men in the opposition, and that prejudice had blinded their
eyes. I am now of a different opinion. What will be the effect of this
discussion, I will not venture to predict, knowing human nature as well
as I do. But men who are capable of exercising candor must see, that it
is not against an institution unknown to the Bible, or declared by its
author to be sinful, that the North is waging war.
Their hostility must be transferred from us to God, who established
slavery by law in that kingdom over which he condescended to preside;
and to Jesus, who recognized it as a relation established in Israel by
his Father, and in the Roman government by men, which he bound his
followers to obey and honor.
In defending the institution as one which has the sanction of our Maker,
I have done what I considered, under the peculiar circumstances of our
common country, to be a Christian duty. I have set down naught in
malice. I have used no sophistry. I have brought to the investigation of
the subject, common sense. I have not relied on powers of argument,
learning, or ingenuity. These would neither put the subject into the
Bible nor take it out. It is a Bible question. I have met it fairly, and
fully, according to the acknowledged principles of the abolitionists. I
have placed before my reader what is in the Bible, to prove that slavery
has the sanction of God, and is not sinful. I have placed before him
what I suppose to be the quintessence of all that can be gleaned from
the Bible to disprove it.
I have made a few plain reflections to aid the understanding of my
reader. What I have written was designed for those who reverence the
Bible as their counsellor--who take it for rules of conduct, and
devotional sentiments.
I now commit it to God for his blessing, with a fervent desire, that if
I have mistaken his will in any thing, he will not suffer my error to
mislead another.
THORNTON STRINGFELLOW.
[The following letter, in substance, was written
to a brother in Kentucky, who solicited a copy of
my slavery pamphlet, as well as my opinion on the
movement in that State, on the subject of
emancipation.]
DEAR BROTHER:--
I received your letter, and the slavery pamphlet which you requested me
to send you, I herewith inclose.
When I published the first essay in that pamphlet, I intended to invite
a discussion with Elder Galusha, of New York; and when I received Mr.
Galusha's letter to Dr. Fuller, I still expected a discussion. But after
manifesting, on his part, great pleasure in the outset, for the
opportunity tendered him by a Southern man, to discuss this subject, he
ultimately declined it. This being the case, I did not at that time
present as full a view of the subject as the Scriptures furnish. I have
since thought of supplying this deficiency; and the condition of things
in Kentucky furnishes a fit opportunity for saying to you, what I said
to a brother in Pennsylvania, who, like yourself, requested me to send
him a copy of my pamphlet.
I do not know that I could add any thing, beyond what I said to him,
that would be useful to you. To this brother I said, among other things,
that Dr. Wayland (in his discussion with Dr. Fuller,) relied principally
upon _two arguments_, used by all the intelligent abolitionists, to
overthrow the weight of Scriptural authority in support of slavery. The
first of these arguments is designed to neutralize the sanction given to
slavery by the law of Moses; and the second is designed to neutralize
the sanction given to slavery by the New Testament.
The Dr. frankly admits, that the law of Moses did establish slavery in
the Jewish commonwealth; and he admits with equal frankness, that it was
incorporated as an element in the gospel church. For the purpose,
however, of destroying the sanction thus given to the legality of the
relation under the _law of Moses_, he assumes two things in relation to
it, which are expressly contradicted by the law. He assumes, in the
first place, that the Almighty, under the law, gave a _special
permission_ to the Israelites to enslave the seven devoted nations, as a
punishment for their sins. He then _assumes_, in the second place, that
this _special permission_ to enslave the seven nations, prohibited, by
_implication_, the enslaving of all other nations. The conclusion which
the Dr. draws from the above assumptions is this--that a _special
permission_ under the law, to enslave a particular people, as a
punishment for their sins, is not a _general permission_ under the
gospel, to enslave all, or any other people. The premises here assumed,
and from which this conclusion is drawn, are precisely the reverse of
what is recorded in the Bible.
The Bible statement is this: that the Israelites under the law, so far
from being permitted or required to enslave the seven nations, as a
punishment for their sins, were expressly commanded to _destroy them
utterly_. Here is the proof--Deut. vii: 1 and 2: "When the Lord thy God
shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and
hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittities, and the
Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites,
and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier
than thou; and when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee,
thou shalt smite them, _and utterly destroy them_, thou shalt make no
covenant with then, nor show mercy unto them." And again, in Deut. xx:
16 and 17: "But the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth
give thee for an inheritance, _thou shalt save alive nothing that
breatheth_. But thou shalt _utterly destroy them_, namely, the
Hittities, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the
Hivites, and the Jebusites, _as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee_."
This law was _delivered_ by Moses, and was _executed_ by Joshua some
years afterward, to the letter.
Here is the proof of it, Josh. xi: 14 to 20 inclusive: "And all the
spoil of these cities, and the cattle, the children of Israel took for a
prey unto themselves; _but every man they smote with the edge of the
sword until they had destroyed them, neither left they any to breathe_."
"_As the Lord commanded Moses_ his servant; so did Moses command Joshua,
and _so did Joshua_; he left nothing undone of all that the Lord
commanded Moses. So Joshua took all that land, the hills and all the
south country, and all the land of Goshen, and the valley and the plain,
and the mountain of Israel, and the valley of the same. Even from the
mount Halak that goeth up to Sier, even unto Baalgad, in the valley of
Lebanon, under mount Hermon, and all their kings he took, and smote
them, and slew them. Joshua made war a long time with all these kings.
There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel, _save
the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon_, all others they took in battle.
For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they should come
against Israel in the battle, _that he might destroy them utterly_, and
that they might have no favor, but that he might destroy them, _as the
Lord commanded Moses_." In this account of their _destruction_, the
Gibeonites, who deceived Joshua, are excepted, and the reason given is,
that Joshua in their case, failed to ask counsel at the mouth of the
Lord. Here is the proof: "And the men took of them victuals, and asked
not counsel of the mouth of the Lord."--Josh. ix: 14. This counsel
Joshua was expressly commanded to ask, when he was ordained some time
before, to be the _executor_ of God's _legislative will_, by Moses. Here
is the proof--Numb. xxvii: 18-23: "And the Lord said unto Moses, Take
thee Joshua, the son of Nun, a man in whom is the spirit, and lay thy
hand upon him; and set him before Eleazar the priest, and before all the
congregation; and give him a charge in their sight. And thou shalt put
some of thine honor upon him, that all the congregation of the children
of Israel may be obedient. _And he shall stand before Eleazar the
priest, who shall ask counsel for him, after the judgment of Urim before
the Lord: at his word shall they go out, and at his word shall they come
in, both he and all the children of Israel with him, even all the
congregation._ And Moses did as the Lord commanded him; and he took
Joshua and set him before Eleazar the priest, and before all the
congregation. And he laid his hands upon him, _and gave him a charge, as
the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses_." These scriptures furnish a
palpable contradiction of the first assumption, that is--that the Lord
gave a _special permission to enslave_ the seven nations. The Lord
ordered that they should be destroyed utterly.
As to the second assumption, so far from the Israelites being prohibited
_by implication_, from enslaving the subjects of other nations, they
were expressly authorized by the law _to make slaves by war, of any
other nation_. Here is the proof--Deut. xx: 10 to 17 inclusive: "When
thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace
unto it. And it shall be if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto
thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein,
shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it
will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou
shalt besiege it. And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thy
hands, then shalt thou smite every male thereof with the edge of the
sword. _But the women and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that
is in the city_, even all the spoils thereof, shalt thou take unto
thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord
thy God hath given thee. _Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which
are very far off from thee which are not of the cities of these nations.
But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee
for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. But
thou shalt utterly destroy them, namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites,
the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, as
the Lord thy God hath commanded thee._" They were authorized also by the
law, to purchase slaves with money of any nation except the seven. Here
is the proof--Levit. xxv: 44, 45, and 46: "Both thy bond-men and thy
bond-maids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are
round about you; (that is, round about the country given them of God,
which was the country of the seven nations they were soon to occupy;) of
them shall ye buy bond-men and bond-maids. Moreover, of the children of
the strangers that do sojourn among you, (that is, the mixed multitude
of strangers which come up with them from Egypt, mentioned in Exod. xii:
38,) of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you,
which they begat in your land; and they shall be your possession. And ye
shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to
inherit them for a possession, they shall be your bond-men forever."
Now, let it be noted that this first law, of Deut. xx: above referred
to, which authorized them to make slaves by war of any other nation, was
executed _for the first time_, under the direction of Moses himself,
when thirty-two thousand of the Midianites were enslaved. These slaves
were not of the seven nations.
And it is worthy of further remark, that of each half, into which the
Lord had these slaves divided, he claimed for his portion, one slave of
every five hundred for the priests, and one slave of every fifty for the
Levites. These slaves he gave to the priests and Levites, who were his
representatives to be their property forever.--Numb. xxxi. These
scriptures palpably contradict the Dr.'s second assumption--that is,
that they were _prohibited by implication_ from enslaving the subjects
of any other nation. The Dr.'s assumptions being the antipodes of truth,
they cannot furnish a conclusion that is warranted by the truth.
The conclusion authorized by the truth, is this: that the making of
slaves by war, and the purchase of slaves with money, was legalized by
the Almighty in the Jewish commonwealth, as regards the subject of _all
nations except the seven_.
The second argument of the Dr.'s, as I remarked, is designed to
neutralize the sanction given to slavery in the New Testament.
The Dr. frankly admits that slavery was sanctioned by the Apostles in
the Apostolic churches. But to neutralize this sanction, he resorts to
two more assumptions, not only without proof, but palpably contradicted
by the Old and New Testament text. The first assumption is this--_that
polygamy and divorce were both sins under the law of Moses, although
sanctioned by the law_. And the second assumption is, that polygamy and
divorce are _known to be sins under the gospel_, not by any gospel
teaching or prohibition, but by the general principles of morality. From
these premises the conclusion is drawn, that although slavery was
sanctioned in the Apostolic church, yet it was a sin, because, like
polygamy and divorce, it was contrary to the principles of the moral
law. The premises from which this conclusion is drawn, are at issue with
the word of God, and therefore the conclusion must be false. The first
thing here assumed is, that polygamy and divorce, although sanctioned by
the law of Moses, were both sins under that law. Now, so far from this
being true, as to _polygamy_, it is a fact that polygamy was not only
sanctioned, when men chose to practice it, but it was expressly enjoined
by the law in certain cases, and a most humiliating penalty annexed to
the breach of the command.--Deut. xxv: 5-9. As sin is defined by the
Holy Ghost to be a transgression of the law, it is impossible that
_polygamy_ could have been a sin under the law, unless it was a sin to
obey the law, and an act of righteousness to transgress it. That
_polygamy_ was a sin under the law, therefore, is palpably false.
As to _divorce_, the Almighty gave it the full and explicit sanction of
his authority, in the law of Moses, for various causes.--Deut. xxiv: 1.
For those causes, therefore, divorce could not have been a sin under
the law, unless human conduct, in exact accordance with the law of God,
was sinful. The first thing assumed by the Dr., therefore, that polygamy
and divorce were both sins, under the law, is proved to be false. They
were lawful, and therefore, could not be sinful.
The Dr.'s second assumption (with respect to polygamy and divorce,) is
this, that they are _known_ under the gospel to be sins, not by the
prohibitory _precepts_ of the gospel, but by the general _principles_ of
morality. This assumption is certainly a very astonishing one--for Jesus
Christ in one breath has uttered language as perfectly subversive of all
authority for polygamy and divorce in his kingdom, as light is
subversive of darkness. The Pharisees, ever desirous of exposing him to
the prejudices and passions of the people, "asked him in the presence of
great multitudes, who came with him from Galilee into the coasts of
Judea beyond Jordan," whether he admitted, with Moses, the legality of
divorce for every cause. Their object was to provoke him to the exercise
of legislative authority; to whom he promptly replied, that God made man
at the beginning, male and female, and ordained that the male and female
by marriage, should be one flesh. And for satisfactory reasons, had
sanctioned divorce among Abraham's seed; and then adds, as a law-giver,
"But I say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, (except for
fornication,) and shall marry another, committeth adultery; and if a
woman put away her husband, and marry again, she committeth adultery."
Here polygamy and divorce die together. The law of Christ is, that
_neither_ party shall put the other away--that _either_ party, taking
another companion, while the first companion lives, is guilty of
adultery--consequently, polygamy and divorce are prohibited forever,
unless this law is violated--and that violation is declared to be
adultery, which excludes from his kingdom.--1 Cor. vi: 9. After the
church was organized, the Holy Ghost, by Paul, _commands_, let not the
wife depart from her husband, but, and if she depart let her remain
unmarried--and let not the husband put away his wife.--1 Cor. vii: 10.
Here _divorce_ is prohibited by _both parties_; a second marriage
according to Christ, would be adultery, while the first companion lives;
consequently, _polygamy_ is prohibited also.
This second assumption, therefore, that polygamy and divorce are known
to be sins by _moral principles_ and _not by prohibitory precepts_, is
swept away by the words of Christ, and the teaching of the Holy Ghost.
These unauthorized and dangerous assumptions are the foundation, upon
which the abolition structure is made to rest by the distinguished Dr.
Wayland.
The facts with respect to polygamy and divorce, warrant precisely the
opposite conclusion; that is, that if slavery under the gospel is
sinful, then its sinfulness would have been made known by the gospel, as
has been done with respect to polygamy and divorce. All three, polygamy,
divorce and slavery, were _sanctioned_ by the law of Moses. But under
the gospel, slavery has been _sanctioned_ in the church, while polygamy
and divorce have been _excluded_ from the church. It is manifest,
therefore, that under the gospel, polygamy and divorce have been made
sins, _by prohibition_, while slavery remains lawful because
_sanctioned_ and _continued_. The _lawfulness_ of slavery under the
gospel, rests upon the sovereign pleasure of Christ, in _permitting it_;
and the _sinfulness_ of polygamy and divorce, upon his sovereign
pleasure in _prohibiting_ their continuance. The law of Christ gives to
the relation of slavery its full sanction. _That law_ is to be found,
first, in the _admission_, _by the apostles_, of slaveholders and their
slaves into the gospel church; second, in the _positive injunction_ by
the Holy Ghost, of obedience on the part of Christian slaves in this
relation, to their believing masters; third, in the _absence_ of any
injunction upon the believing master, under any circumstances, to
dissolve this relation; fourth, in the _absence_ of any instruction from
Christ or the apostles, that the relation is sinful; and lastly, in the
_injunction_ of the Holy Ghost, delivered by Paul, _to withdraw_ from
all such as teach that this relation is sinful. Human conduct in exact
accordance with the law of Christ thus proclaimed, and thus expounded by
the Holy Ghost, in the conduct and teaching of the apostles, cannot be
sinful.
There are other portions of God's word, in the light of which we may add
to our stock of knowledge on this subject. For instance, the Almighty by
Moses legalized marriage between female slaves and Abraham's male
descendants. But under this law the wife remained a slave still. If she
belonged to the husband, then this law gave freedom to her children; but
if she belonged to another man, then her children, though born in lawful
wedlock, were hereditary slaves.--Exod. xxi: 4. Again, if a man marries
his own slave, then he lost the right to sell her--if he divorced her,
then she gained her freedom.--Deut. xxi: 10 to 14, inclusive. Again,
there was a law from God which granted rights to Abraham's sons under a
matrimonial contract; for a violation of the rights conferred by this
law, a _free woman, and her seducer_, forfeited their lives, Deut. xxii:
23 and 24; also 13 to 21, inclusive. But for the same offense, _a slave_
only exposed herself to stripes, and her _seducer_ to the penalty of a
sheep.--Levit. xix: 20 to 22, inclusive. Again, there was a law which
guarded his people, whether free or bond, from personal violence. If in
vindictiveness, a man with an unlawful weapon, maimed his own slave by
knocking out his eye, or his tooth, the slave was to be free for this
wanton act of personal violence, as a penalty upon the master.--Exod.
xxi: 26 to 27, inclusive. But for the same offense, committed against a
free person, the offender had to pay an eye for an eye, and a tooth for
a tooth, as the penalty.--Levit. xxiv: 19, 20, and Exod. xxi: 24 and 25,
inclusive. Again, there was a law to guard the personal safety of the
community against dangerous stock. If an ox, known to be dangerous, was
suffered to run at large and kill a person, if the person so killed _was
free_, then the owner forfeited his _life_ for his neglect,--Exod. xxi:
29. But if the person so killed _was a slave_, then the offender was
fined thirty shekels of silver.--Exod. xxi: 32. In some things, slaves
among the Israelites, as among us, were invested with privileges above
hired servants--they were privileged to eat the Passover, but hired
servants were not, Exod. xii: 44, 45; and such as were owned by the
priests and Levites were privileged to eat of the holy things of their
masters, but hired servants dare not taste them.--Levit. xxii: 10, 11.
These are statutes from the Creator of man. They are certainly
predicated upon a view of things, in the Divine mind, that is _somewhat
different_ from that which makes an abolitionist; and, to say the least,
they deserve consideration with all men who worship the God of the
Bible, and not the God of their own imagination. They show very clearly,
that our Creator is the _author_ of social, moral, and political
inequality among men. That so far from the Scriptures teaching, as
abolitionists do, that all men have ever had a divine right to freedom
and equality, they show, _in so many words_, that marriages were
sanctioned of God as lawful, in which _he enacted_, that the children of
free men should be born hereditary slaves. They show also, that he
guarded the chastity of the free by the price of life, and the chastity
of the slave by the rod. They show, that in the judgment of God, the
life of a free man in the days of Moses, was too sacred for commutation,
while a fine of thirty shekels of silver was sufficient to expiate for
the death of a slave. As I said in my first essay, so I say now, this is
a controversy between abolitionists and their Maker. I see not how, with
their present views and in their present temper, they can stop short of
blasphemy against that Being who enacted these laws.
Of late years, some obscure passages (which have no allusion whatever to
the subject) have been brought forward to show, that God _hated
slavery_, although the work of his own hands. Once for all, I challenge
proof, that in the Old Testament or the New, _any reproof was ever
uttered against involuntary slavery, or against any abuse of its
authority_. Upon abolition principles, this is perfectly unaccountable,
and of itself, is an unanswerable argument that the _relation_ is not
sinful.
The opinion has been announced also of late, that slavery among the Jews
was felt to be an evil, and, by degrees, that they abolished it. To
ascertain the correctness of this opinion, let the following
consideration be weighed: After centuries of cruel _national bondage_
practiced upon Abraham's seed in Egypt, they were brought in godly
contrition to pour out "the effectual fervent prayer" of a righteous
people, to the Almighty for mercy, and were answered by a covenant God,
who sent Moses to deliver them from their bondage--but let it be
remembered, that when this deliverance from bondage to the nation of
Egypt was vouchsafed to them, they were extensive domestic slave owners.
God had not by his providential dealings, nor in any other way, shown
them the sin of domestic slavery--for they held on to their slaves, and
brought them out as their property into the wilderness. And it is worthy
of further remark, that the Lord, _before they left Egypt_, recognized
these slaves _as property_, which they had bought with their money, and
that he secured to these slaves privileges above hired servants, _simply
because they were slaves_.--Exod. xii: 44, 45. And let it be noticed
further, that the first law passed by the Almighty after proclaiming the
ten commandments or moral constitution of the nation, was a law to
regulate property rights in hereditary slaves, and to regulate property
rights in Jewish hired servants for a term of years.--Exod. xxi: 1 to 6,
inclusive. And let it be considered further, that when the Israelites
were subjected to a cruel captivity in Babylon, more than eight hundred
years after this, they were still extensive slave owners; that when
humbled and brought to repentance for their sins, and the Lord restored
them to their own land again, that he brought them back to their old
homes as slave owners. Although greatly impoverished by a seventy years'
captivity in a foreign land, yet the slaves which they brought up from
Babylon bore a proportion of nearly one slave for every five free
persons that returned, or about one slave for every family.--Ezra ii:
64, 65. Now, can we, in the face of these facts, believe they were tired
of slavery when they came out of Egypt? It had then existed five hundred
years. Or can we believe they were tired of it when they came up from
Babylon? It had then existed among them fourteen hundred years. Or can
we believe that God put them into these schools of affliction in Egypt
and Babylon to teach them, (and all others through them,) the sinfulness
of slavery, and yet, that he brought them out without giving them the
first hint that involuntary slavery was a sin? And let it be further
considered, that it was the business of the prophets which the Lord
raised up, _to make known to them the sins for which his judgments were
sent upon them_. The sins which he charged upon them in all his
visitation are upon record. Let any man find involuntary slavery in any
of God's indictments against them, and I will retract all I have ever
written.
In my original essay, I said nothing of Paul's letter to Philemon,
concerning Onesimus, a run-away slave, converted by Paul's preaching at
Rome; and who was returned by the Apostle, with a most affectionate
letter to his master, entreating the master to receive him again, and to
forgive him. O, how immeasurably different Paul's conduct to this slave
and his master, from the conduct of our abolition brethren! Which are we
to think is guided by the Spirit of God? It is _impossible_ that both
can be guided by that Spirit, unless sweet water and bitter can come
from the same fountain. This letter, itself, is sufficient to teach any
man, capable of being taught in the ordinary way, that slavery is not,
_in the sight of God, what it is in the sight of the abolitionists_.
I had prepared the argument furnished by this letter for my original
essay; I afterward struck it out, because at that time, so little had
the Bible been examined at the North in reference to slavery, that the
abolitionists very generally thought that this was the only scripture
which Southern slaveholders could find, giving any countenance to their
views of slavery. To test the correctness of this opinion, therefore, I
determined to make no allusion to it at that time.
Now, my dear sir, if from the evidence contained in the Bible to prove
slavery a lawful relation among God's people under every dispensation,
the assertion is still made, in the very face of this evidence, that
slavery has _ever been_ the greatest sin--_everywhere, and under all
circumstances_--can you, or can any sane man bring himself to believe,
that the mind capable of such a decision, is not capable of trampling
the word of God under foot upon any subject?
If it were not known to be the fact, we could not admit that a
Bible-reading man could bring himself to believe, with Dr. Wayland, that
a thing made lawful by the God of heaven, was, notwithstanding, the
greatest sin--and that Moses under the law, and Jesus Christ under the
gospel, had sanctioned and regulated in practice, the greatest known sin
on earth--and that Jesus had left his church to find out as best they
might, that the law of God which established slavery under the Old
Testament, and the precepts of the Holy Ghost which regulate the mutual
duty of master and slave under the New Testament, were laws and
precepts, to sanction and regulate among the people of God the greatest
sin which was ever perpetrated.
It is by no means strange that it should have taken seventeen centuries
to make such discoveries as the above, and it is worthy of note, that
these discoveries were made at last by men who did not appear to know,
at the time they made them, what was in the Bible on the subject of
slavery, and who now appear unwilling that the teachings of the Bible
should be spread before the people--this last I take to be the case,
because I have been unable to get the Northern press to give it
publicity.
Many anti-slavery men into whose hands my essays chanced to fall, have
frankly confessed to me, that in their Bible reading, they had
overlooked the plain teaching of the Holy Ghost, by taking what they
read in the Bible about masters and servants, to have reference to hired
servants and their employers.
You ask me for my opinion about the emancipation movement in the State
of Kentucky. I hold that the emancipation of hereditary slaves by a
State is not commanded, or in any way required by the Bible. The Old
Testament and the New, sanction slavery, but under no circumstances
enjoin its abolition, even among saints. Now, if religion, or the duty
we owe our Creator, was inconsistent with slavery, then this could not
be so. If pure religion, therefore, did not require its abolition under
the law of Moses, nor in the church of Christ--we may safely infer, that
our political, moral and social relations do not require it in a State;
unless a State requires higher moral, social, and religious qualities in
its subjects, than a gospel church.
Masters have been left by the Almighty, both under the patriarchal,
legal, and gospel dispensations, to their individual discretion on the
subject of emancipation.
The principle of justice inculcated by the Bible, refuses to sanction,
it seems to me, such an outrage upon the rights of men, as would be
perpetrated by any sovereign State, which, to-day, makes a thing to be
property, and to-morrow, takes it from the lawful owners, _without
political necessity or pecuniary compensation_. Now, if it be morally
right for a majority of the people (and that majority possibly a meagre
one, who may not own a slave) to take, without necessity or
compensation, the property in slaves held by a minority, (and that
minority a large one,) then it would be morally right for a majority,
without property, to take any thing else that may be lawfully owned by
the prudent and care-taking portion of the citizens.
As for intelligent philanthropy, it shudders at the infliction of
certain ruin upon a whole race of helpless beings. If emancipation by
law is philanthropic in Kentucky, it is, for the same reasons,
philanthropic in every State in the Union. But nothing in the future is
more certain, than that such emancipation would begin to work the
degradation and final ruin of the slave race, from the day of its
consummation.
Break the master's sympathy, which is inseparably connected with his
property right in his slave, and that moment the slave race is placed
upon a common level with all other competitors for the rewards of merit;
but as the slaves are inferior in the qualities which give success among
competitors in our country, extreme poverty would be their lot; and for
the want of means to rear families, they would multiply slowly, and die
out by inches, degraded by vice and crime, unpitied by honest and
virtuous men, and heart-broken by sufferings without a parallel.
So long as States let masters alone on this subject, good men among
them, both in the church and out of it, will struggle on, as experience
may dictate and justify, for the benefit of the slave race. And should
the time ever come, when emancipation in its consequences, will comport
with the moral, social, and political obligations of Christianity, then
Christian masters will invest their slaves with freedom, and then will
the good-will of those follow the descendants of Ham, who, without any
agency of their own, have been made in this land of liberty, their
providential guardians.
Yours, with affection,
THORNTON STRINGFELLOW.
[It is or ought to be known to all men, that
African slavery in the United States originated
in, and is perpetuated by a social and political
necessity, and that its continuance is demanded
equally by the highest interests of both races.
All writers on public law, from Drs. Channing and
Wayland, among the abolitionists, up to the
highest authorities on national law, admit the
necessity and propriety of slavery in a social
body, whenever men will not provide for their own
wants, and yield obedience to the law which guards
the rights of others. The guardianship and control
of the black race, by the white, in this Union, is
an indispensable Christian duty, to which we must
as yet look, if we would secure the well-being of
both races.]
FOOTNOTE:
[230] These letters were first published in the _Religious Herald_,
Richmond.
STATISTICAL VIEW OF SLAVERY.
To satisfy the conscientiousness of Christians, I published in the
_Herald_, some years past, Bible evidence, to prove slavery a lawful
relation among men. In a late communication you[231] refer to _this
essay_, and express a wish that it should be republished. Many have
expressed a similar wish.
Some who admit the _legality_ of slavery in the sight of God, question
the _expediency of its expansion_. It is believed by them to be an
element that is hostile to the best interests of society, and therefore,
great efforts have been, and are now being made, to exclude it from all
the new States and Territories which may hereafter be organized upon our
soil.
While the _expediency_ of its _expansion_ or _continuance_, are
questions with which I have not heretofore meddled, yet I hold their
_investigation_ to be within the legitimate range of Christian duty.
If unquestionable _facts_ and _experience_ warrant the _conclusion_,
that while slavery is lawful, yet its _continuance_ or _expansion_ among
us is _inexpedient_, then let us act accordingly.
Being _prompted_ by your request, I propose to examine _facts_, which
are admitted the world over, as evidence of prosperity and happiness in
a community, and to compare the evidence thus furnished in different
sections of our country, where the experiment of freedom, and the
experiment of slavery have been fully and fairly upon trial since the
commencement of our colonial existence, that we may see, if possible,
what is true on this subject. This seems to be the _unerring_ method of
coming at the truth. And if it shall appear, by such a
comparison--fairly made--between States of equal age, where slavery and
freedom have had a fair opportunity to produce their legitimate results,
that in all the elements of prosperity, slaveholding States suffer
nothing in the comparison--but that, in almost every particular, are
decidedly in advance of the non-slaveholding States, why then we are
bound to let the testimony of these facts control our judgment.
Every man and woman in the United States should not only be willing, but
desirous to know, what is the matter-of-fact evidence on this
all-absorbing question. It is but lately that any method existed, of
coming at _undisputed_ facts, which would throw light upon this subject.
The Congress of the United States seeing this, thought proper to order
that such facts as tend to demonstrate the relative prosperity of the
different States of the Union, in religion--in morals--in the
acquisition of wealth--in the increase of native population--in the
prolongation of life--in the diminution of crime, etc., etc., should be
ascertained, under oath, by competent and responsible agents, and that
these facts should be published at the national expense for the benefit
of the people: so that the people could, understandingly, apply the
corrective for evils that might be found to exist in one locality, and
profit by a knowledge of the greater prosperity that might be found to
exist in another locality.
Up to that time, the non-slaveholding States affirmed, and the
slaveholding States tacitly admitted, that by this test, the
slaveholding States must suffer in the comparison, in some important
items. The facts which belong to the subject, are now before the world,
in the census of 1850.
It is my purpose to compare some of the most important of these facts,
which have a bearing on this subject. I shall take for the most part,
the six New England States, on one side, and the five old slave States,
(extending from, and including Maryland and Georgia,) on the other side,
for the comparison.
I select _these States_, not because they are the richest, (for they are
not,) but because they all lie on the Atlantic side of the
Union--because they were settled at or near the same time--because they
have (within a fraction) an equal free population--and because it has
been constantly affirmed, and almost universally admitted, that the
advantages of freedom, and the disadvantages of slavery, have been more
perfectly developed in these two sections, than they have been anywhere
else in the United States. There have been no controlling circumstances
at any time, since their first settlement, to neutralize the advantages
of freedom on the one side, or to modify the evils of slavery on the
other. Their mutual tendencies, without let or hindrance, have been in
full and free operation for more than two centuries. This is surely a
length of time quite sufficient to test the question now in controversy
between the North and the South, as to the evils of slavery.
The first facts I shall examine are those which throw light on the
progress made in each of these two localities in religion. Of all the
evils ascribed to slavery by the free men of the North, none equals, in
their estimation, its deleterious tendency upon _religion_ and _morals_.
Indeed, such is the _moral character_, ascribed by many at the North,
who call themselves Christians, to a Southern slaveholder, that no
degree of personal piety, of which he can be the subject, will bring
them to admit that he is any thing but a God-abhorred miscreant, utterly
unfit for the association of honorable men, much less Christian men.
In the outset of this examination, let me remark, that it is just and
proper, in a comparative estimate of the tendency of freedom and slavery
upon religion and morals, in these two sections of our country, that due
allowance be made for the moral and religious character of the materials
by which these two sections were originally settled. New England was
settled by Puritans, who were remarkable for orthodox sentiments in
religion--for high-toned religious conscientiousness, and a rigid
personal piety; while these five slave States were either settled, or
received character from Cavaliers, who rather scoffed at pure religion,
and were highly tinged with infidelity.
The stream does not, in its flow onward, carry with more certainty the
characteristics of the fountain, than does progressive society,
_generally_, the moral, social, and religious characteristics of its
origin. The five slave States, in this comparison originated in a people
of loose morals--strongly tinged with infidelity--and subjected, also,
in their onward progress, to all the evil tendencies (if any there be)
that are ascribed to slavery.
At the end of more than two centuries, we are comparing the progress
which these five slave States have made in religion, with the progress
made by six non-slaveholding States, whose subjects, when originally
organized into communities, were in advance, in personal piety and
religious conscientiousness, of any communities that had then been
founded since the days of the apostles--and that have been, in their
onward progress, from that time until this, free from all the supposed
evils of slavery. If infidelity and slavery be antagonistic elements,
almost, if not altogether, too strong for moral control in a community,
it certainly ought not to seem strange, that with this original odds
against them, these five old slave States should be found very far
behind their more highly favoured Northern neighbors in religious
attainments.
Religion being, at present, the subject of comparison, it may be
appropriate to remark further, that the _Christian religion_ is
propagated by God's blessing upon the observance of his laws.
The fundamental law of God, _for its propagation_ requires the gospel to
be preached to every creature; because, in the divine plan, faith in the
gospel was to make men Christians. The gospel was to be made the _power
of God_ unto salvation, to every one that _believeth_. _This faith_ was
to be originated by hearing the gospel, for "faith comes by hearing."
All those efforts, therefore, in a community, which manifests the
greatest solicitude on the part of the people, that the gospel should be
_heard_, is credible evidence that the people who make these efforts,
are the friends of Christ, and well-wishers to his cause. Now, all those
_means_ which are most likely to secure the ear of the people, are left
by Christ to the _discretion_ of his friends. They may use the
market-place--the highways--the forests--or _any other place_, which in
their judgment is most likely to get the ear of the people when the
gospel is proclaimed. By common consent, however, within the limits of
Christian civilization, they have agreed that suitable houses, in which
the people can meet to hear the gospel, are the most suitable and proper
means for securing the audience of the people, and as a consequence, the
transforming power of the gospel upon the hearts and lives of those who
hear.
With these views to guide us in estimating the value of the facts to be
examined, we proceed to disclosures made by the census of 1850. We there
learn that the free population of New England is two million seven
hundred and twenty-eight thousand and sixteen; and that the free
population of these five slave States is two million seven hundred and
thirty thousand two hundred and fourteen; an excess of only two thousand
one hundred and ninety-eight. This fraction we will drop out, and speak
of them as equals. New England, then, with an equal population, has
erected four thousand six hundred and seven churches; these five slave
States have erected eight thousand and eighty-one churches. These New
England churches will accommodate one million eight hundred and
ninety-three thousand four hundred and fifty hearers; the churches of
the five slave States will accommodate two million eight hundred and
ninety-six thousand four hundred and seventy-two hearers. Thus we see
that these slave States, with an equal free population, have erected
nearly double the number of churches, and furnished accommodation for
upwards of a million more persons, to hear the gospel, than can be
accommodated in New England. In New England, nine hundred and
thirty-four thousand, five hundred and sixty-six of its population
(which is nearly one-third) are excluded from a seat in houses built for
the purpose of enabling people to hear the gospel; while in these five
Southern States, there is room enough for every hearer that could be
crowded into the churches of New England, and then enough left to
accommodate more than a million of slaves.
Including slaves, these five Southern States have a population of seven
hundred and twenty thousand four hundred and ten more than New England;
yet while there are seven hundred and twenty thousand four hundred and
ten persons less in New England to provide for, there are two hundred
thousand more persons in New England who can't find a seat in the house
of God to hear the gospel, than there are in these five slave States.
The next fact set forth in the census, which I will examine, is equally
_suggestive_. These four thousand six hundred and seven churches in New
England are valued at nineteen million three hundred and sixty-two
thousand six hundred and thirty-four dollars. These eight thousand and
eighty-one churches in the five slave States are valued at eleven
million one hundred and forty-nine thousand one hundred and eighteen
dollars. Here is an immense expenditure in New England to erect
churches; yet we see that those New England churches, when erected, will
seat one million three thousand and twenty-two persons less than those
erected by the slave States, at a cost of eight million one hundred and
thirteen thousand five hundred and sixteen dollars less money. What
prompted to such an expenditure as this? Was it worldly pride? or was it
godly humility? Does it exhibit the evidence of humility, and a desire
to glorify God, by a provision that shall enable _all the people_ to
hear the gospel? or does it exhibit the evidence of pride, that seeks to
glorify the wealthy contributors, who occupy these costly temples to the
exclusion of the humble poor? We must all draw our own conclusions. A
mite, given to God from a right spirit, was declared by the Saviour to
be more than all the costly gifts of wealthy pride, which were cast into
the offerings of God. The Saviour informed the messenger of John the
Baptist, that _one of the signs_ by which to decide the _presence_ of
the Messiah, was to be found in the fact that the poor had the gospel
preached to them. When we exclude the poor, we may safely conclude we
exclude Christ.
It is legitimate to conclude, therefore, that all the arrangements found
among a people, which palpably defeat the preaching of the gospel to the
poor, are arrangements which throw a shade of deep suspicion upon the
character of those who make them. _Costly palaces_ were never built for
the poor; they are neither suitable nor proper to secure the preaching
of the gospel to every creature.
There is still another fact revealed in the census, that furnishes
material for reflection when the effects of slavery upon religion are
being tried. The six New England States were originally settled by
_orthodox_ Christians--by men who manifested a very high regard for the
interests of pure religion; the five slave States, by men who scoffed at
religion, and who were subjected, also, to the so-called curse of
slavery; yet, at the end of over two hundred years, we have to deduct
from the four thousand six hundred and seven churches built up by New
England orthodoxy and freedom, the _astonishing number_ of two hundred
and two Unitarian, and two hundred and eighty-five Universalist
churches--while from the five slave States, we have to deduct from the
eight thousand and eighty-one churches which they have built, only one
Unitarian, and seven Universalist churches. New England regards these
four hundred and eighty-seven churches, which she has built, to be the
product of _blind guides_, that are _leaders of the blind_. Is it not
strange (she herself being judge) that New England orthodoxy and
personal freedom should beget this vast amount of infidelity; while
slaveholders and slavery have begotten so little of it in the same
length of time? Is there nothing in all this to render the correctness
of Northern views questionable, as to the deleterious tendency of
slavery? The facts, however, are given to the world in the census of
1850. All are left to draw from these facts their own conclusions. One
of these conclusions must be, that there is something else in the world
to corrupt religion and morals, besides slaveholders and slavery.
It is not improper to refer to some historical facts in this connection,
which are not in the census, but which, nevertheless, we all know to
exist. There are _isms_ at the North whose name is Legion. According to
the universal standard of _orthodoxy_, we are compelled to exclude the
_subjects_ of these isms from the pale of Christianity. What the
relative proportion is, North and South, of such of these isms as have
been nurtured into _organized_ existence, we have no certain means of
knowing--and I do not wish to do injustice, or to be offensive, in
statements which are not susceptible of proof by facts and figures--yet,
I suppose that in the five slave States, a man might wear himself out in
travel, and never find one of these isms with an _organized_ existence.
To find a single individual, would be doing more than most men have
done, with whom I am acquainted. But how is it in New England? The soil
seems to suit them--they grow up like Jonah's gourd. Some are warring
with great zeal against the social, and some against the religious
institutions of society. Why is this? The institution of slavery has not
produced, at the North, the moral obliquity, out of which they grow--a
reverence for the Bible has not produced it. How is their existence,
then, to be accounted for at the North, under institutions, whose
tendency is supposed to be so favorable to moral and religious
prosperity? And how is their utter absence to be accounted for at the
South, where the institution of slavery is supposed to be so fatal to
morality, religion and virtue? I will leave it for others to explain
this fact. It is a mysterious fact, according to the modes of reasoning
at the North. It is assumed by the North, that slavery tends to produce
social, moral, and religious evils. This assumption is flatly
contradicted by the facts of the census. These facts can never be
explained by the _New England theory_. There was an _ancient theory_,
held by men who were righteous in their own eyes, that no good thing
could come out of Nazareth. By that theory Christ himself was condemned.
It is not wonderful, therefore, that his friends should share the same
fate.
The next disclosure of the census, which we will compare, are those
which relate to the social prosperity of a people. Are they wealthy? are
they healthy? are they in conditions to raise families, etc.?
These questions indicate the _elements_ which belong to the item now to
be examined. States are made up of families. Wealth is a blessing in
those States which have it so distributed, as to give the greatest
number of homes to the families which compose them. Wealth, so
distributed in States, as to diminish the number of homes, is a curse to
the families which compose them. Home is the nursery and shield of
virtue. No right-minded man or woman, who had the means, could ever
consent to have a family without a home; and no State should make wealth
her boast, whose families are extensively without homes.
New England has five hundred and eighteen thousand five hundred and
thirty-two families, and four hundred and forty-seven thousand seven
hundred and eighty-nine dwellings. The five slave States have five
hundred and six thousand nine hundred and sixty-eight families, and four
hundred and ninety-six thousand three hundred and sixty-nine dwellings.
Here we see the astonishing fact, that with an equal population, New
England has eleven thousand five hundred and sixty-four more families
than these five slave States, and that these five slave States have
forty-eight thousand five hundred and eighty more dwellings than New
England--so that New England actually has seventy thousand seven hundred
and forty-three families without a home. In New England one family in
every _seven_ is without a home, while in these five old slave States
only one family in every _fifty-two_ is without a home.
According to the average number of persons composing a family, New
England has three hundred and seventy-three thousand seven hundred of
her people thrown upon the world without a place to call home.
It is truly painful to think of the effects upon morals and virtue,
which must flow from this state of things; and it is a pleasure to a
philanthropic heart to think of the superior condition of the
slaveholding people, who so generally have homes, where parents can
throw the shield of protection around their offspring, and guard them
against the dangers and demoralizing tendencies of an unprotected
condition.
There is another class of facts, equally astonishing, disclosed by the
census, and which belong to the comparison we are now making, between
States which were organized originally by Puritan orthodoxy and New
England freedom on one side, and by infidel slaveholders and slavery on
the other. They are facts which relate to natural increase in a State.
One of the boasts of Northern freemen is the _increase_ of their
population. With such a climate as New England, it was to be expected
that the people would increase faster, and live longer, than in the
climate of these five slave States. It is well known that a large
portion of the population of these five Southern States have a fatal
climate to contend with, and that everywhere else on the globe, under
similar circumstances, a diminished increase of births, and an increased
amount of deaths has been the result. But the census, as if disregarding
climate, and slavery, and the universal experience of all ages,
testifies that there is twenty-seven per cent. more of births, and
thirty-three per cent. less of deaths in the five old slave States, than
there is in the six New England States.
New England, with an equal population, and eleven thousand five hundred
and sixty-four more families, has sixteen thousand five hundred and
thirty-four less annual births, and ten thousand one hundred and
fifty-two more annual deaths, than these five sickly old Southern slave
States. The annual births in New England are sixty-one thousand one
hundred and forty-eight; and in the five slave States seventy-seven
thousand six hundred and eighty-three. In New England the annual deaths
are forty-two thousand three hundred and sixty-eight; in the five slave
States thirty-two thousand two hundred and sixteen.
In New England the ratio of births is one to forty-four; in the five
slave States one to thirty-five. In New England the ratio of deaths is
one to sixty-four; in the five slave States it is one to eighty-five.
The slaves are not in this estimate of births and deaths; they are in
the census, however, and that shows that they multiply considerably
faster, and are less liable to die than the freemen of New England.
Here are facts which contradict all history and all experience. In a
sickly Southern climate, among slaveholders, people actually multiply
faster, and die slower, than they do among freemen without slavery, in
one of the purest and healthiest Northern climates in the world. How is
this to be accounted for? Why do people multiply rapidly? Is it because
they live in a healthy climate? Why do they die rapidly? Is it because
they live in a sickly climate? Our census contradicts both suppositions.
Where, then, does the cause lie? Will excluding slavery from a
community cause them to multiply more rapidly and die slower? The
census says, No!
The census testifies that the proportion of births is twenty-seven per
cent. greater, and the proportion of deaths thirty-three per cent. less,
among slaveholders, in a community where slavery has existed for more
than two hundred years, under all the disadvantages of a sickly climate,
than among free men in the pure climate of New England. A man, in his
right mind, will demand an explanation of these astonishing facts. They
are easily explained. The census discloses a degree of _poverty_ in New
England, which scatters seventy thousand families to the four winds of
heaven, and _feeds_ (as we shall presently see) the _poor-house_, with
one hundred and thirty-five per cent. more of paupers than is found in
these slave States. This is no condition of things to increase births,
or diminish deaths, unless brothels give _increase_, and squalid poverty
the requisite sympathy and aid, to recover the sick and dying, from the
period of infancy to that of old age.
We proceed to compare other facts, which have a bearing upon the
relative merits of different institutions in securing social prosperity.
In every country there is a class to be found in such utter destitution,
that they must either be supported by charity, or perish of want. This
destitution arises, generally, from oppressive exactions or excessive
vice, and is evidence of the tendency of social institutions, and the
superiority of one over another, in securing the greatest amount of
individual prosperity and comfort.
With these views to aid us, we will compare some facts belonging to New
England and these five old slave States. With an equal population, New
England has thirty-three thousand four hundred and thirty-one paupers;
these five slave States have fourteen thousand two hundred and
twenty-one. Here is an excess of paupers in New England, notwithstanding
her boasted prosperity, of one hundred and thirty-five per cent. over
these five slave States. And if to these _continual paupers_ we were to
add the number (as given in State returns) that are partially aided in
New England, the addition would be awful. But I suppose New England will
strive to wipe off this stain of regular pauperism, by throwing the
blame of it upon the _foreigners_ among them. It should be remembered,
however, as an offset to this, that these foreigners are all from
non-slaveholding countries. From their infancy they have shared the
blessings of freedom and free institutions; therefore they ought to be
admitted, as homogeneous materials, in the social organizations of New
England, which we are now comparing with Southern slaveholding
communities.
But as foreign paupers are distinguished in the census from native born
citizens, we will now (in the comparison) exclude them in both sections.
The number of paupers will then be, for New England, eighteen thousand
nine hundred and sixty-six; for the five slave States, eleven thousand
seven hundred and twenty-eight--leaving to New England, which is
considered the model section of the world in all that is lovely in
religious and social prosperity, seven thousand two hundred and
thirty-eight more of her native sons in the poor-house, (or nearly
seventy per cent.,) than are to be found in this condition in an equal
population in these five Southern States.
The ratio of New England's _native sons_ in the poor-house is one to one
hundred and forty-three; of these five slave States one to two hundred
and thirty-four. The ratio of New England's _entire population_ in the
poor-house is one to eighty-one; the ratio of the entire population of
these five slave States is one to one hundred and seventy-one.
The Saviour asks if a good tree can bring forth evil fruit, or an evil
tree good fruit. Here is an exhibition of the _fruit_ borne by _New
England freedom_ and _Southern slavery_. The Saviour gives every man a
right to judge the tree by the fruit, and declares such to be righteous
judgment.
There is another item in the census which throws much light on the
comparative comfort and happiness of the people in these two localities.
It is neither physical destitution, criminal degradation, nor mental
suffering; but it is an effect which is known to flow from one, or the
other, or all three of these _conditions_ as causes; therefore it is an
important item in determining the amount of destitution, degradation,
and suffering, which exist in a community.
When we see effects which are known to flow from certain causes--the
causes may be concealed--yet we know that they exist by the effects we
see. With these remarks I proceed to state a fact disclosed in the
census, as it exists in New England, and as it exists in these five old
slave States.
In New England, with an equal population, we find that three thousand
eight hundred and twenty-nine of her white children have been crushed by
sufferings _of some sort_, to the condition of insanity, while in these
five old slave States there are only two thousand three hundred and
twenty-six of her white children who have been called to suffer, in
their earthly pilgrimage, a degree of anguish beyond mental endurance.
Here is a difference of more than sixty per cent. in favor of these five
States, as to conditions of suffering that are beyond endurance among
men. Very poor evidence this, of the superior happiness and comfort of
New England.
But while her white children are called to suffer over sixty per cent.
more of these crushing sorrows than those of these five States, how is
it with her black children in freedom, compared with the family here in
slavery, from which the most of them have fled, that they might enjoy
the blessings of liberty? It is exceedingly interesting to see the
benefits and blessings which New England freedom and Puritan sympathy
have conferred upon them.
Here are the facts of the census upon this subject:
Among the free negroes of New England, one is deaf or dumb for every
three thousand and five; while among the slaves of these States there is
only one for every six thousand five hundred and fifty-two. In New
England one free negro is blind for every eight hundred and seventy;
while in these States there is only one blind slave for every two
thousand six hundred and forty-five. In New England there is one free
negro insane or an idiot for every nine hundred and eighty; while in
these States there is but one slave for every three thousand and eighty.
Can any man bring himself to believe, with these facts before him, that
freedom in New England has proved a blessing to this race of people, or
that slavery is to them a curse in the Southern States? In
non-slaveholding States, _money_ will be the _master of poverty_. These
facts enumerated show the fruits of such a relation the world over. The
slave of money, while nominally free, has none to care for him at those
periods, and in those conditions of his life, when he is not able to
render service or labor. Childhood, old age, and sickness, are
conditions which make sympathy indispensable. Nominal freedom, combined
with poverty, can not secure it in those conditions, because it can not
render service or labor. The slave of the South enjoys this sympathy in
all conditions from birth till death. There is a spontaneous heart-felt
flow of it, to soothe his sorrows, to supply his wants, and smooth his
passage to the grave. Interest, honor, humanity, public opinion, and the
law, all _combine_ to awaken it, and to promote its activity.
Many facts of the character here examined have been disclosed in State
statistics, and others in the Federal census; some of which I shall
hereafter notice, that show with the most unquestionable certainty, that
freedom to this race, in our country, is a curse.
The facts which we have now examined, if they prove any thing, prove
that religion has prospered more among slaveholders at the South, than
it has among free men in New England. Slaveholders have made a much more
extensive and suitable provision for the people of all classes to hear
the gospel, than has been made by the freemen of New England.
Slaveholders have almost entirely frowned down the attempts of
blind-guides to corrupt the gospel, or mislead the people. Among them
organized bodies to overthrow the moral, social, and religious
institutions of society, are unknown.
If the facts already examined prove any thing, they prove that wealth,
among slaveholders, is much more equally distributed--so that very few,
compared with New England, are without homes.
The facts examined prove also, beyond question, that the unbearable
miseries which have their source in the heartless exactions of excessive
wealth, or extreme poverty, are more than sixty per cent. greater in New
England than in these States, and that one hundred and thirty-five per
cent. more of New England's toiling millions have to bear the
degradation of the poor-house, or die of want, than are to be found in
this condition in these five slave States.
The facts we have examined, prove also, that under all the disadvantages
of climate, the natural increase of the slave States is sixty per cent.
greater than it is in New England--twenty-seven per cent. of it by
increased annual births, and thirty-three per cent. of it by diminished
annual deaths. These are the most astonishing facts ever presented to
the world. They speak a language that ought to be read and studied by
all men. In the present state of our country, they ought to be
prayerfully pondered and not disregarded.
But notwithstanding all this, the aggregate wealth of New England is a
source of exultation and pride among her sons. They believe, with a
blind and stubborn tenacity, that slavery tends to poverty, and freedom
to wealth.
It cannot be denied that the aggregate earnings of the toiling
millions--when _hoarded_ by a _few_--may grow faster than it will when
these millions are allowed to take from it a daily supply, equal to
their reasonable wants. And it cannot be denied that New England has
great aggregate wealth.
The facts of the census show, however, that it is very unequally divided
among her people. The question now to be tried is, whether the _few_ in
New England have _hoarded_ this wealth, and can now _show it_, or
whether they have squandered it upon their lusts, and are unable to
_show it_.
This last and prominent boast of increased aggregate wealth in New
England, over that accumulated by slaveholders, we will now test by the
census of 1850. This is the standard adopted by our National Legislature
for its decision.
Before we examine the facts, however, let a few reflections which belong
to the subject be weighed.
The people of these five slave States are now, and ever have been, an
agricultural people. The people of the New England States are a
commercial and manufacturing people. New England has, in proportion to
numbers, the richest and most extensive commerce in the world. In
manufacturing skill and enterprise, they have no superiors on the globe.
They have ever reproached the South for investing their income in
slavelabor, in preference to commerce and manufactures. It has been the
settled conviction among nations, that investments in commerce and
manufactures give the greatest, and those in agriculture the smallest
profits. It is the settled conviction of the non-slaveholding States
that investments in slave labor, for agricultural purposes, is the worst
of all investments, and tends greatly to lessen its profits. This has
been proclaimed to the South so long by our Northern neighbors, that
many here have been brought to believe it, and to regret the existence
of slavery among us on that account, if on no other. With these
observations we turn to the census.
The census of 1850 tells us that New England, with a population now
numbering two million seven hundred, and twenty-eight thousand and
sixteen, with all the advantages of a commercial and manufacturing
investment, and with the most energetic and enterprising free men on
earth, to give that investment its greatest productiveness, has
accumulated wealth, in something over two hundred years, to the amount
of one billion three million four hundred and sixty-six thousand one
hundred and eighty-one dollars; while these five slave States, with an
equal population, have, in the same time, accumulated wealth to the
amount of one billion four hundred and twenty million nine hundred and
eighty-nine thousand five hundred and seventy-three dollars.
Here we see the indisputable fact that these five agricultural States,
with slavery, have accumulated an excess of aggregate wealth over the
amount accumulated in New England in the same time, of four hundred and
seventeen million five hundred and twenty-three thousand three hundred
and two dollars--so that the property belonging to New England, if
equally divided, would give to each citizen but three hundred and
sixty-seven dollars, while that belonging to the five slave States, if
equally divided, would give to each citizen the sum of five hundred and
twenty dollars--a difference in favor of each citizen in these five
slave States of one hundred and fifty-three dollars.
I am aware, however, of an opinion that some other non-slaveholding
States, have been much more successful in the accumulation of wealth,
than the six New England States, and that New York, Pennsylvania, and
Ohio, are of this favored number. Lest a design to deceive, by
concealing this supposed fact, should be attributed to the writer, we
will see what the census says as to these three more favored States. By
the census of 1850 we learn that New York, instead of being able to
divide three hundred and sixty-seven dollars with her citizens, as New
England could with hers, is only able to divide two hundred and
thirty-one dollars; Pennsylvania two hundred and fourteen, and Ohio two
hundred and nineteen. These several averages among freemen at the North,
and in New England, stand against the average of five hundred and twenty
dollars, which these five old impoverished Southern slave States could
divide with their citizens.
These facts must astonish our Northern neighbors, so long accustomed to
believe that slavery was the fruitful source of poverty, with all its
imagined evils; and these facts will astonish many at the South, so
long accustomed to hear it affirmed that slavery had produced these
evils, and while they were without the means of knowing, of course they
feared that it was so.
That every thing may appear, however, which will throw additional light
on the subject, I will state that Massachusetts, which is the _richest_
non-slaveholding State, could divide with each of her citizens five
hundred and forty-eight dollars. But on the other hand, South Carolina
could divide one thousand and one dollars, Louisiana eight hundred and
six dollars, Mississippi seven hundred and two dollars, and Georgia six
hundred and thirty-eight dollars, with their citizens.
Rhode Island, which is the next _richest_ non-slaveholding State to that
of Massachusetts, could divide with her citizens five hundred and
twenty-six dollars; one other non-slaveholding State (Connecticut) could
divide with her citizens three hundred and twenty-one dollars. After
this, the next _highest_ non-slaveholding State could divide two hundred
and eighty; the next highest two hundred and thirty-one; the next
highest two hundred and twenty-eight; the next highest two hundred and
nineteen; the next highest two hundred and fourteen dollars. After this,
the division ranges, among the non-slaveholding States, from one hundred
and sixty-six down to one hundred and thirty-four dollars--which last
sum is the amount that the so-called rich and prosperous Illinois could
divide with her population.
In the slaveholding States that are _less wealthy_ than South Carolina,
Louisiana, Mississippi, and Georgia, already noticed; Alabama could
divide with her citizens five hundred and eleven dollars; Maryland four
hundred and twenty-three; Virginia four hundred and three; Kentucky
three hundred and seventy-seven; and North Carolina three hundred and
sixty-seven. All these States are much _richer_ than the _third richest_
non-slaveholding State of the Union, viz: Connecticut. After this,
Tennessee could divide two hundred and forty-eight dollars, and
Missouri, which is the poorest of all the slave States, one hundred and
sixty-six dollars.
We will now give the _general average_ of the _non-slaveholding States_,
(California excepted, which in 1850 had not had time to exhibit any
fixed character,) and then the _general average_ of the _slaveholding
States_ of the _whole Union_.
The population of all the free States is thirteen million two hundred
and fourteen thousand three hundred and eighty; the free population of
all the slave States is six million three hundred and twelve thousand
eight hundred and ninety-nine. These thirteen million two hundred and
fourteen thousand three hundred and eighty of freemen have accumulated
an aggregate of property estimated at three billion one hundred and
eighty-six million six hundred and eighty-three thousand eight hundred
and twenty four dollars; while these six million three hundred and
twelve thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine of slaveholders have
accumulated an aggregate of two billion seven hundred and seventy-five
million one hundred and twenty-one thousand, six hundred and forty-four
dollars' worth of property.
Here we see that a population of Northern freemen, one hundred and nine
_per cent._ greater than the number of Southern freemen in the slave
States, have accumulated but sixteen _per cent._ _more_ of property.
In a division of the property accumulated by all the non-slaveholding
States, it will give to each citizen two hundred and thirty-three
dollars; while all accumulated by the various slave States, will give to
each citizen four hundred and thirty-nine dollars--nearly double. Were
we to give the slaves an equal share with the whites, in an average
division of aggregate wealth, the slaveholding States, with their slaves
included, would then be able to give each person two hundred and
ninety-one dollars instead of two hundred and thirty-three dollars,
which is all the free States have to divide with their people.
Is it possible, with these facts before us, to believe that slavery
tends to poverty. Such is the testimony of the census on the relative
wealth of these two sections of our country. It proves that slavery, as
an agricultural investment, is more profitable than an investment in
commerce and manufactures. The facts which have been reviewed prove with
equal clearness, that where slavery exists, the white race, and the
black, have prospered more in their religious, social and moral
condition, than either race has prospered, where slavery has been
excluded. We see that an increased amount of poverty and wretchedness
has to be borne in New England by both races. Ecclesiastical statistics
will show an increased amount of prosperity in religion that is
overwhelming.
Such is the prostration of moral restraint at the North, that, in their
cities, standing armies are necessary to guard the persons and property
of unoffending citizens, and to execute the laws upon reckless
offenders. This state of things is unknown in the slave States.
The census shows that slavery has been a blessing to the white race in
these slave States. They have prospered more in religion, they have more
homes, are wealthier, multiply faster, and live longer than in New
England, and they are exempt from the curse of organized infidelity and
lawless violence.
A comparison of the slave's condition at the South, with that of his own
race in freedom at the South, shows with equal clearness, that slavery,
in these States, has been, and now is, a blessing to this race of people
in all the essentials of human happiness and comfort. Our slaves all
have homes, are bountifully provided for in health, cared for and kindly
nursed in childhood, sickness, and old age; multiply faster, live
longer, are free from all the corroding ills of poverty and anxious
care, labor moderately, enjoy the blessings of the gospel, and let alone
by wicked men, are contented and happy.
Ex-Governor Smith, a few years past, in his message to the Legislature
of this State, showed, if I remember correctly, that seven-tenths more
of crime was chargeable to free negroes than to the whites and slaves.
By the census of 1850, the ratio of whites in the Penitentiary of
Virginia, for ten years, was one to twenty-three thousand and three,
while the ratio for the free negroes was one to three thousand and one.
For the same length of time, in the Penitentiary of Massachusetts, the
average of whites was one to seven thousand five hundred and
eighty-seven, instead of one to twenty-three thousand and three, as in
Virginia; and in Massachusetts the average of free negroes in the
Penitentiary, for this length of time, was one to two hundred and fifty,
instead of one to three thousand and one, as in Virginia. Here we see
that for an average of ten years, two hundred and fifty free negroes at
the North, commit annually as much crime as twenty-three thousand and
three white persons at the South; and that two hundred and fifty free
negroes, in a non-slaveholding State, commit annually as much crime as
three thousand and one free negroes in a slaveholding State. We see,
also, that seven thousand five hundred and eighty-seven white persons at
the North, commit annually as much crime as twenty-three thousand and
three white persons commit at the South. In the cities, criminal
degradation at the North is from three to five times greater with the
whites than at the South, and from ten to ninety-three times greater
with the free negroes at the North, than with the whites at the South,
and about twelve times greater than with the free negroes at the South.
The Federal census, and the State records, show not very far from this
proportion of criminal degradation, chargeable to this race of people
when invested with _the freedom of New England_. Can we, with these
facts before us, think that freedom to this race, in our country, is a
blessing to them?
In Africa, the condition of the aborigines in freedom is now, and ever
has been, as much below that of their enslaved sons in these States, as
the condition of a brute, is beneath that of a man. Slavery is becoming,
to this people, so manifestly a blessing in our country, that fugitives
from labor are constantly returning to their masters again, after
tasting the blessings, or rather the awful curse to them, of freedom in
non-slaveholding States; and while I write, those who are lawfully free
in this State, are praying our Legislature for a law that will allow
them to become slaves.
But before I dismiss the subject of wealth entirely, let me remark, that
while the census testifies that an agricultural people, with African
slave labor, increases wealth faster than free labor, employed in
agriculture, manufactures and commerce, yet reason demands that it
should be satisfactorily accounted for. It is well known that laboring
freemen at the North are more skillful, work longer in a day, labor
harder while at it, live on cheaper food, and less of it, than laborers
at the South.
How, then, is it to be accounted for that the aggregate increase of
wealth is less with them than it is with Southern slaveholders? Among
many reasons that might be assigned, I will mention three. The first is,
that half the people at the North (this is ascertained to be about the
amount) live in villages, towns and cities. The second reason is, that
the cost of living in cities (as has been ascertained) is about double
what it is in the country--to this _cost_ we must _add_, for the
_imprudent_ indulgences of _pride_ and _fashion_; and to _this_ we must
_add_, for a thousand _indulgences_, in violation of _moral propriety_,
all of which are almost unknown in country life. The third reason is to
be found in the great amount of pauperism and crime produced by city
life. In the city of New York, for instance, according to the American
Almanac, there were received in 1847, at the principal alms-houses of
the city, twenty-eight thousand six hundred and ninety-two persons, and
_out-door relief_ was given _from the public funds_ to thirty-four
thousand five hundred and seventy-two more--making in all seventy-three
thousand two hundred and sixty-four persons, or one out of every five,
in the city of New York, dependent, more or less, on _public charity_.
The total cost of this, to the city, was three hundred and nineteen
thousand two hundred and ninety-three dollars and eighty-eight cents. In
1849, in the Mayor's message, the estimate for the same thing is four
hundred thousand dollars. In Massachusetts, according to the report of
the Secretary of State in 1848, the number of constant and occasional
paupers, in the _whole State_, was one to every twenty of the whole
population. The proportion in the cities, I suppose, would equal New
York, which, as we have seen, is one to five. To this _public burden_ in
cities, we must add an immense _unknown amount_ of _private charity_,
which is not needed in country life.
_Crime_ in Northern cities keeps pace with _pauperism_. In _Boston_,
according to official State reports a few years past, one person out of
every fourteen males, and one out of every twenty-eight females, was
arraigned for criminal offenses. According to the census of 1850, there
were in the _State_ of Massachusetts, in a population of nine hundred
and ninety-four thousand five hundred and fourteen, the number of seven
thousand two hundred and fifty convictions for crime. In Virginia, the
same year, in a population of one million four hundred and twenty-one
thousand six hundred and sixty-one, there were one hundred and seven
convictions for crime.
In the _State_ of New York the proportion of crime is about the same as
in Massachusetts. In the _city_ of New York, in 1848 or 1849, there were
sentenced to the _State Prison_ one hundred and nineteen men and
seventeen women; to the _Penitentiary_ seven hundred men and one hundred
and seventy women; to the _City Prison_ one hundred and sixty-two men
and sixty-seven women--making a total of one thousand two hundred and
thirty-five criminals. Here is an amount of crime in a single city, that
equals all in the fifteen slave States together. In the _State_ of New
York, according to the census of 1850, there was, in a population of
three million and ninety-seven thousand three hundred and four, the
number of ten thousand two hundred and seventy-nine convictions for
crime; while in South Carolina, in a population of six hundred and
sixty-eight thousand five hundred and seven, (which is considerably over
one-fifth) there were only forty-six convictions for crime.
To live in cities filled with such an amount of poverty and criminal
degradation, as the census discloses, at the North, standing armies of
policemen, firemen, etc., are absolutely necessary to secure the people
against lawless violence. Now subtract from the products of labor the
_cost_ of city life--the cost of vain and criminal indulgences, the
_support_ of _paupers_, and the _machinery_ to guard innocence and
punish crime--and the wonder ceases that wealth accumulates slowly--the
wonder is that it accumulates at all. What is accumulated, must be
principally from commerce and manufactures. The system of abandoning the
country and congregating in cities, tends directly to concentrate wealth
into the hands of a few, and to diffuse poverty and crime among the
masses of the people.
These facts of poverty and crime at the North, which are exhibited by
the census, will help to explain the seeming mystery that the South
multiplies by natural increase faster than the North. In 1845, according
to her statistical report, Massachusetts had seven-eighths of her
marriageable young women working in factories under male overseers. The
census of 1840 shows that, with fewer adults, Virginia had one hundred
thousand more children than Massachusetts. In the census of 1850 the
proportion in favor of Virginia is still greater.
Pauperism, in Massachusetts and New York, according to the State census,
increased between 1836 and 1848 ten times faster than wealth or
population.
In the slaveholding States there is less than a tenth of the people in
cities--pauperism is almost unknown--the people are on farms--the style
of living is less costly by half, but greatly superior in quality and
comfort--according to the census, there is but little crime--almost all
have homes--the amount of agricultural labor does not fluctuate--the
farms are not cultivated by the spade and hoe, but are large enough to
justify a system of enlarged agricultural operations by the aid of horse
power. The result is that more is saved, and the proceeds more equally
distributed between capital and labor, or the rich and the poor.
The South did not seek or desire the responsibility, and the onerous
burden, of civilizing and christianizing these degraded savages; but
God, in his mysterious providence, brought it about. He allowed England,
and her Puritan sons at the North, from the love of gain, to become the
willing instruments, to force African slaves upon the Cavaliers of the
South. These Cavaliers were a noble race of men. They remonstrated
against this outrage to the last. They preferred indented labor from the
mother country, which they were securing as they needed it. A descendant
of theirs, in drafting the Declaration of Independence, made this
outrage one of the prominent causes for dissolving all political
connection with the mother country. But God intended (as we now see) to
bless these savages, by forcing us against our wills, to become their
masters and guardians; and he has abundantly blessed us, also, (as we
now see) for allowing his word to be our counselor in this relation. We
were forced by his word to admit the relation to be lawful, and he
enabled us to admit and feel the great responsibility devolved upon us
as their divinely appointed protectors.
The North, after pocketing the price of these savages, refused to bear
any part of the burden of training and elevating them; and finally, with
France and England, turned them loose by emancipation, and ignored the
word of God in justification of the deed, by declaring that to hold them
in slavery was sinful. The result is, that the portion they held of this
degraded race, is immersed in poverty, wretchedness and crime, without a
parallel in civilized communities, and are less in number now, than the
original importations from Africa, (so says the Superintendent of the
census;) while the portion held by us is in high comfort, regularly
improving in morals and intellect, and multiplying more rapidly than the
white race at the North. It does seem, from the facts of the census,
that this (so-called) philanthropy has been a curse to _both races, at
the North, and in the West Indies_, and that it is displeasing in the
sight of God. The census exhibits unmistakable evidence that, without a
change, the emancipated portion of the race, _in these localities_, will
ultimately perish, and that this catastrophe is to be hastened by
poverty and criminal degradation. The census shows that those who are
_responsible_ for this deed are subjected _in our country_, by annual
_births_ and _deaths_, to a _decrease_ of sixty per cent., and to a much
_heavier per cent._ than this, _of poverty and crime_.
But while these are the results to both races at the North, prosperity,
unequaled in the annals of the world, has attended us (as the census
shows) in almost every thing we have put our hands to, both for this
life and that which is to come. The _satisfaction_ is ours, also, of
_knowing_ that these degraded outcasts, which were thrown upon our
hands, have not only been _cared for_, but _elevated in the scale of
being_, and brought to share largely in the blessings of intellectual,
social, and religious culture.
But for their _enslaved condition_ here, they would have remained until
this hour in their _original degradation_.
_In view of all the facts compared_, I would ask all who feel interested
in the great question now agitating our country, to let these facts be
their guide and counselor in deciding the issue. Are the people of the
North warranted from these facts, in believing they would honor God and
benefit men by overthrowing the institution of slavery, if they could.
These facts testify plainly, that where African slavery has existed in
our country for more than two hundred years, the social and religious
condition of men has improved more rapidly than it has under the best
arrangements of exclusive freedom.
These facts show that, with the advantages of the best location and
climate upon the globe, and a high degree of moral, religious, and
social intelligence to commence with, those communities at the North who
excluded this element from their organizations, are actually behind
slaveholding communities, in religion, in wealth, in the increase of
their race, and in the comforts of their condition. If this be so, (and
the census testifies that it is,) what will justify the North in efforts
to involve both sections of our country in civil war and disunion,
because slavery exists in one section of it? And if the institution of
African slavery has certainly improved the condition of both races in
our country, (and the census testifies that it has,) why should they
hazard all the blessings vouchsafed to the North and the South sooner
than suffer its expansion over new territory?
The expansion of African slavery (according to the test by which we are
now trying it) has never yet done injury in this Union. In Texas
slaveholders were called to organize a State, (not in this Union at the
time,) which in 1850 had a population of two hundred and twelve thousand
five hundred and ninety-two. The individuals composing it originally,
were the most lawless set of adventurers that ever lived. Did slavery
disqualify slaveholders from organizing a social body, even out of these
materials, that could secure the highest results in human progress? What
is now the social, moral, and religious complexion of Texas? In the
essentials of prosperity it is ahead, under equal circumstances, of any
portion of the Union. Slaveholders, in the providence of God, had to
organize States on the Gulf of Mexico, and on the banks of the
Mississippi, after the acquisition of Louisiana from France, and Florida
from Spain. The original materials (numbering upwards of seventy
thousand) of which these States were composed, had been trained under
the most pernicious system of morals that ever existed among a civilized
people. The result in this case, also, will testify that slavery does
not paralyze communities in the accumulation of wealth, or in the
correction of moral, social, and religious evils. The census shows that
in all these items these new slave States which have been added to our
Union, have greatly outstripped their non-slaveholding equals in age.
The temples of the Lord are now seen studding these slaveholding
localities over, and are vocal with his praise--the moral majesty of the
law is a paramount power. The amount of paupers and criminals, in some
of them, is less than one-seventieth part that is chargeable to some of
their twin sisters of equal age, (who are free[232]) nurseries of
literature and science are multiplying rapidly, and promising the
highest results--prosperity, in these slaveholding communities, in
crowning the efforts of good men to arrest vice, to promote virtue, to
diminish want, to create plenty, and to arrange the elements of progress
for the highest social, moral, and religious results.
There is another historical fact which deserves to be weighed, in making
up a judgment on the expansion of slavery. Within the present century,
the colonies of Mexico and South America, in imitation of our example,
threw off the colonial yoke, and established independent governments.
All of these States, except one, preferred the non-slaveholding model,
and _excluded_ the element of _slavery_: that one, which is Brazil,
preferred the model adopted by the Southern States of this Union, and
_retained_ African _slavery_.
All of those States, which _excluded slavery_, have been visited, in
rapid succession, with _insurrection, revolution, and fearful anarchy_;
while Brazil has enjoyed tranquillity, from the commencement of her
independent political existence until the present hour. This remarkable
fact has occurred, too, in a State where the slaves are two to one of
the other race. The slaves in the United States are one to two of the
other race. Is not this fact, like all those examined, _God's
providential voice_? and does He not, in these facts, speak a language
that we can _read and understand_?
Now, shall we, in view of these facts, rebel against the teachings of
His providence, as it is now made known to us in the census, and claim
for ourselves more wisdom than he has displayed, in _allowing such
results_ to be the product of _slaveholding communities_?
We cannot put an end to African slavery, if we would--and we ought not,
if we could--until God opens a door to _make its termination a blessing,
and not a curse_. When He does that, slavery in this Union will end.
With Christian affection, yours,
THORNTON STRINGFELLOW,
FOOTNOTES:
[231] This letter was addressed to ELDER JAMES FIFE.
[232] Texas and Michigan; see also, Arkansas and Indiana, Florida and
Wisconsin.
SLAVERY
IN THE LIGHT OF SOCIAL ETHICS.
BY
CHANCELLOR HARPER,
OF SOUTH CAROLINA.
SLAVERY
IN
THE LIGHT OF SOCIAL ETHICS.
INFLUENCE OF SLAVERY ON SOCIAL LIFE.
Necessity of Investigation--Vindicators of
Slavery--Slavery a means of
Civilization--Prejudices of
Abolitionism--Discussion of the Declaration of
Independence--Rights of
Society--Self-Preservation--The greatest good to
the greatest number--Ambiguity in moral
Investigation--Influence of Slavery on
Civilization--The Slavery of England's
Civilization--How Slavery retards the evils of
Civilization--Servitude Inevitable--Abuses of
Slavery and of Free Labor--Social ties, master and
slave--Intellectual advancement--Morals of
Slavery, and of Free Labor--Marriage relation and
licentiousness--Virtues of Slavery--Security from
Evils--Insecurity of Free Labor--Menial
occupations necessary--Utopianism--Slavery and the
servitude of Civilization contrasted--The African
an inferior variety of the human race--Elevating
influence of Slavery on the slave, on the master,
on statesmen--Duties of master--Elevation of
female character--Necessity of Slavery in tropical
climates--Examples from history--Southern
States--Insurrections impossible--Military
strength of Slavery--Advantageous consequences of
the increase of slaves--Destructive consequences
of Emancipation to our country, and to the
world--Kakistocracy--White
emigration--Amalgamation--Deplorable results of
Fanaticism.
THE institution of domestic slavery exists over far the greater portion
of the inhabited earth. Until within a very few centuries, it may be
said to have existed over the whole earth--at least in all those
portions of it which had made any advances toward civilization. We might
safely conclude then, that it is deeply founded in the nature of man and
the exigencies of human society. Yet, in the few countries in which it
has been abolished--claiming, perhaps justly, to be furthest advanced in
civilization and intelligence, but which have had the smallest
opportunity of observing its true character and effects--it is
denounced as the most intolerable of social and political evils. Its
existence, and every hour of its continuance, is regarded as the crime
of the communities in which it is found. Even by those in the countries
alluded to, who regard it with the most indulgence or the least
abhorrence--who attribute no criminality to the present generation--who
found it in existence, and have not yet been able to devise the means of
abolishing it,--it is pronounced a misfortune and a curse injurious and
dangerous always, and which must be finally fatal to the societies which
admit it. This is no longer regarded as a subject of argument and
investigation. The opinions referred to are assumed as settled, or the
truth of them as self-evident. If any voice is raised among ourselves to
extenuate or to vindicate, it is unheard. The judgment is made up. We
can have no hearing before the tribunal of the civilized world. Yet, on
this very account, it is more important that we, the inhabitants of the
slaveholding States of America, insulated as we are, by this
institution, and cut off, in some degree, from the communion and
sympathies of the world by which we are surrounded, or with which we
have intercourse, and exposed continually to their animadversions and
attacks, should thoroughly understand this subject, and our strength and
weakness in relation to it. If it be thus criminal, dangerous, and
fatal; and if it be possible to devise means of freeing ourselves from
it, we ought at once to set about the employing of those means. It would
be the most wretched and imbecile fatuity, to shut our eyes to the
impending dangers and horrors, and "drive darkling down the current of
our fate," till we are overwhelmed in the final destruction. If we are
tyrants, cruel, unjust, oppressive, let us humble ourselves and repent
in the sight of heaven, that the foul stain may be cleansed, and we
enabled to stand erect as having common claims to humanity with our
fellow-men.
But if we are nothing of all this; if we commit no injustice or cruelty;
if the maintenance of our institutions be essential to our prosperity,
our character, our safety, and the safety of all that is dear to us, let
us enlighten our minds and fortify our hearts to defend them.
It is a somewhat singular evidence of the indisposition of the rest of
the world to hear any thing more on this subject, that perhaps the most
profound, original, and truly philosophical treatise, which has
appeared within the time of my recollection,[233] seems not to have
attracted the slightest attention out of the limits of the slaveholding
States themselves. If truth, reason, and conclusive argument, propounded
with admirable temper and perfect candor, might be supposed to have an
effect on the minds of men, we should think this work would have put an
end to agitation on the subject. The author has rendered inappreciable
service to the South in enlightening them on the subject of their own
institutions, and turning back that monstrous tide of folly and madness
which, if it had rolled on, would have involved his own great State
along with the rest of the slaveholding States in a common ruin. But
beyond these, he seems to have produced no effect whatever. The
denouncers of slavery, with whose production the press groans, seems to
be unaware of his existence--unaware that there is a reason to be
encountered or argument to be answered. They assume that the truth is
known and settled, and only requires to be enforced by denunciation.
Another vindicator of the South has appeared in an individual who is
among those that have done honor to American literature.[234] With
conclusive argument, and great force of expression, he has defended
slavery from the charge of injustice or immorality, and shown clearly
the unspeakable cruelty and mischief which must result from any scheme
of abolition. He does not live among slaveholders, and it can not be
said of him, as of others, that his mind is warped by interest, or his
moral sense blunted by habit and familiarity with abuse. These
circumstances, it might be supposed, would have secured him hearing and
consideration. He seems to be equally unheeded, and the work of
denunciation, disdaining argument, still goes on.
President Dew has shown that the institution of slavery is a principal
cause of civilization. Perhaps nothing can be more evident than that it
is the sole cause. If any thing can be predicated as universally true of
uncultivated man, it is that he will not labor beyond what is absolutely
necessary to maintain his existence. Labor is pain to those who are
unaccustomed to it, and the nature of man is averse to pain. Even with
all the training, the helps, and motives of civilization, we find that
this aversion can not be overcome in many individuals of the most
cultivated societies. The coercion of slavery alone is adequate to form
man to habits of labor. Without it, there can be no accumulation of
property, no providence for the future, no tastes for comfort or
elegancies, which are the characteristics and essentials of
civilization. He who has obtained the command of another's labor, first
begins to accumulate and provide for the future, and the foundations of
civilization are laid. We find confirmed by experience that which is so
evident in theory. Since the existence of man upon the earth, with no
exception whatever, either of ancient or modern times, every society
which has attained civilization, has advanced to it through this
process.
Will those who regard slavery as immoral, or crime in itself, tell us
that man was not intended for civilization, but to roam the earth as a
biped brute? That he was not to raise his eyes to Heaven, or be
conformed in his nobler faculties to the image of his Maker? Or will
they say that the Judge of all the earth has done wrong in ordaining the
means by which alone that end can be obtained? It is true that the
Creator can make the wickedness as well as the wrath of man to praise
him, and bring forth the most benevolent results from the most atrocious
actions. But in such cases, it is the motive of the actor alone which
condemns the action. The act itself is good, if it promotes the good
purposes of God, and would be approved by him, if that result only were
intended. Do they not blaspheme the providence of God who denounce as
wickedness and outrage, that which is rendered indispensable to his
purposes in the government of the world? Or at what stage of the
progress of society will they say that slavery ceases to be necessary,
and its very existence becomes sin and crime? I am aware that such
argument would have little effect on those with whom it would be
degrading to contend--who pervert the inspired writings--which in some
parts expressly sanction slavery, and throughout indicate most clearly
that it is a civil institution, with which religion has no concern--with
a shallowness and presumption not less flagrant and shameless than his,
who would justify murder from the text, "and Phineas arose and executed
judgment."
There seems to be something in this subject which blunts the
preceptions, and darkens and confuses the understandings and moral
feelings of men. Tell them that, of necessity, in every civilized
society, there must be an infinite variety of conditions and
employments, from the most eminent and intellectual, to the most servile
and laborious; that the negro race, from their temperament and capacity,
are peculiarly suited to the situation which they occupy, and not less
happy in it than any corresponding class to be found in the world; prove
incontestably that no scheme of emancipation could be carried into
effect without the most intolerable mischiefs and calamities to both
master and slave, or without probably throwing a large and fertile
portion of the earth's surface out of the pale of civilization--and you
have done nothing. They reply, that whatever may be the consequence, you
are bound to do _right_; that man has a right to himself, and man cannot
have property in man; that if the negro race be naturally inferior in
mind and character, they are not less entitled to the rights of
humanity; that if they are happy in their condition, it affords but the
stronger evidence of their degradation, and renders them still more
objects of commiseration. They repeat, as the fundamental maxim of our
civil policy, that all men are born free and equal, and quote from our
Declaration of Independence, "that men are endowed by their Creator with
certain inalienable _rights_, among which are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness."
It is not the first time that I have had occasion to observe that men
may repeat with the utmost confidence, some maxim or sentimental phrase,
as self-evident or admitted truth, which is either palpably false, or to
which, upon examination, it will be found that they attach no definite
idea. Notwithstanding our respect for the important document which
declared our independence, yet if any thing be found in it, and
especially in what may be regarded rather as its ornament than its
substance--false, sophistical or unmeaning, that respect should not
screen it from the freest examination.
_All men are born free and equal._ Is it not palpably nearer the truth
to say that no man was ever born free, and that no two men were ever
born equal? Man is born in a state of the most helpless dependence on
others. He continues subject to the absolute control of others, and
remains without many of the civil and all of the political privileges of
his society, until the period which the laws have fixed as that at which
he is supposed to have attained the maturity of his faculties. Then
inequality is further developed, and becomes infinite in every society,
and under whatever form of government. Wealth and poverty, fame or
obscurity, strength or weakness, knowledge or ignorance, ease or labor,
power or subjection, mark the endless diversity in the condition of men.
But we have not arrived at the profundity of the maxim. This inequality
is, in a great measure, the result of abuses in the institutions of
society. They do not speak of what exists, but of what ought to exist.
Every one should be left at liberty to obtain all the advantages of
society which he can compass, by the free exertion of his faculties,
unimpeded by civil restraints. It may be said that this would not remedy
the evils of society which are complained of. The inequalities to which
I have referred, with the misery resulting from them, would exist in
fact under the freest and most popular form of government that man could
devise. But what is the foundation of the bold dogma so confidently
announced? Females are human and rational beings. They may be found of
better faculties, and better qualified to exercise political privileges,
and to attain the distinctions of society, than many men; yet who
complains of the order of society by which they are excluded from them?
For I do not speak of the few who would desecrate them; do violence to
the nature which their Creator has impressed upon them; drag them from
the position which they necessarily occupy for the existence of
civilized society, and in which they constitute its blessing and
ornament--the only position which they have ever occupied in any human
society--to place them in a situation in which they would be alike
miserable and degraded. Low as we descend in combating the theories of
presumptuous dogmatists, it cannot be necessary to stoop to this. A
youth of eighteen may have powers which cast into the shade those of any
of his more advanced cotemporaries. He may be capable of serving or
saving his country, and if not permitted to do so now, the occasion may
have been lost forever. But he can exercise no political privilege, or
aspire to any political distinction. It is said that, of necessity,
society must exclude from some civil and political privileges those who
are unfitted to exercise them, by infirmity, unsuitableness of
character, or defect of discretion; that of necessity there must be some
general rule on the subject, and that any rule which can be devised will
operate with hardship and injustice on individuals. This is all that can
be said, and all that need be said. It is saying, in other words, that
the privileges in question are no matter of natural right, but to be
settled by convention, as the good and safety of society may require. If
society should disfranchise individuals convicted of infamous crimes,
would this be an invasion of natural right? Yet this would not be
justified on the score of their moral guilt, but that the good of
society required or would be promoted by it. We admit the existence of a
moral law, binding on societies as on individuals. Society must act in
good faith. No man, or body of men, has a right to inflict pain or
privation on others, unless with a view, after full and impartial
deliberation, to prevent a greater evil. If this deliberation be had,
and the decision made in good faith, there can be no imputation of moral
guilt. Has any politician contended that the very existence of
governments in which there are orders privileged by law, constitutes a
violation of morality; that their continuance is a crime, which men are
bound to put an end to, without any consideration of the good or evil to
result from the change? Yet this is the natural inference from the dogma
of the natural equality of men as applied to our institution of
slavery--an equality not to be invaded without injustice and wrong, and
requiring to be restored instantly, unqualifiedly, and without reference
to consequences.
This is sufficiently common-place, but we are sometimes driven to
common-place. It is no less a false and shallow, than a presumptuous
philosophy, which theorizes on the affairs of men as a problem to be
solved by some unerring rule of human reason, without reference to the
designs of a superior intelligence, so far as he has been placed to
indicate them, in their creation and destiny. Man is born to subjection.
Not only during infancy is he dependent, and under the control of
others; at all ages, it is the very bias of his nature, that the strong
and the wise should control the weak and the ignorant. So it has been
since the days of Nimrod. The existence of some form of slavery in all
ages and countries, is proof enough of this. He is born to subjection as
he is born in sin and ignorance. To make any considerable progress in
knowledge, the continued efforts of successive generations, and the
diligent training and unwearied exertions of the individual, are
requisite. To make progress in moral virtue, not less time and effort,
aided by superior help, are necessary; and it is only by the matured
exercise of his knowledge and his virtue, that he can attain to civil
freedom. Of all things, the existence of civil liberty is most the
result of artificial institution. The proclivity of the natural man is
to domineer or to be subservient. A noble result, indeed, but in the
attaining of which, as in the instances of knowledge and virtue, the
Creator, for his own purposes, has set a limit beyond which we cannot
go.
But he who is most advanced in knowledge, is most sensible of his own
ignorance, and how much must forever be unknown to man in his present
condition. As I have heard it expressed, the further you extend the
circle of light, the wider is the horizon of darkness. He who has made
the greatest progress in moral purity, is most sensible of the
depravity, not only of the world around him, but of his own heart, and
the imperfection of his best motives; and this he knows that men must
feel and lament so long as they continue men. So when the greatest
progress in civil liberty has been made, the enlightened lover of
liberty will know that there must remain much inequality, much
injustice, much _slavery_, which no human wisdom or virtue will ever be
able wholly to prevent or redress. As I have before had the honor to say
to this Society, the condition of our whole existence is but to struggle
with evils--to compare them--to choose between them, and, so far as we
can, to mitigate them. To say that there is evil in any institution, is
only to say that it is human.
And can we doubt but that this long discipline and laborious process, by
which men are required to work out the elevation and improvement of
their individual nature and their social condition, is imposed for a
great and benevolent end? Our faculties are not adequate to the solution
of the mystery, why it should be so; but the truth is clear, that the
world was not intended for the seat of universal knowledge, or goodness,
or happiness, or freedom.
_Man has been endowed by his Creator with certain inalienable rights,
among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness._ What is
meant by the _inalienable_ right of liberty? Has any one who has used
the words ever asked himself this question? Does it mean that a man has
no right to alienate his own liberty--to sell himself and his posterity
for slaves? This would seem to be the more obvious meaning. When the
word _right_ is used, it has reference to some law which sanctions it,
and would be violated by its invasion. It must refer either to the
general law of morality, or the law of the country--the law of God or
the law of man. If the law of any country permitted it, it would of
course be absurd to say that the law of that country was violated by
such alienation. If it have any meaning in this respect, it must mean
that though the law of the country permitted it, the man would be guilty
of an immoral act who should thus alienate his liberty. A fit question
for schoolmen to discuss, and the consequences resulting from its
decision as important as from any of theirs. Yet who will say that the
man pressed by famine, and in prospect of death, would be criminal for
such an act? Self-preservation, as is truly said, is the first law of
nature. High and peculiar characters, by elaborate cultivation, may be
taught to prefer death to slavery, but it would be folly to prescribe
this as a duty to the mass of mankind.
If any rational meaning can be attributed to the sentence I have quoted,
it is this:--That the society, or the individuals who exercise the
powers of government, are guilty of a violation of the law of God or of
morality, when, by any law or public act, they deprive men of life or
liberty, or restrain them in the pursuit of happiness. Yet every
government does, and of necessity must, deprive men of life and liberty
for offenses against society. Restrain them in the pursuit of happiness!
Why all the laws of society are intended for nothing else but to
restrain men from the pursuit of happiness, according to their own ideas
of happiness or advantage--which the phrase must mean if it means any
thing. And by what right does society punish by the loss of life or
liberty? Not on account of the moral guilt of the criminal--not by
impiously and arrogantly assuming the prerogative of the Almighty, to
dispense justice or suffering, according to moral desert. It is for its
own protection--it is the right of self-defense. If there existed the
blackest moral turpitude, which by its example or consequences, could be
of no evil to society, government would have nothing to do with that. If
an action, the most harmless in its moral character, could be dangerous
to the security of society, society would have the perfect right to
punish it. If the possession of a black skin would be otherwise
dangerous to society, society has the same right to protect itself by
disfranchising the possessor of civil privilege, and to continue the
disability to his posterity, if the same danger would be incurred by its
removal. Society inflicts these forfeitures for the security of the
lives of its members; it inflicts them for the security of their
property, the great essential of civilization; it inflicts them also for
the protection of its political institutions, the forcible attempt to
overturn which, has always been justly regarded as the greatest crime;
and who has questioned its right so to inflict? "Man can not have
property in man"--a phrase as full of meaning as, "who slays fat oxen
should himself be fat." Certainly he may, if the laws of society allow
it, and if it be on sufficient grounds, neither he nor society do wrong.
And is it by this--as we must call it, however recommended to our higher
feelings by its associations--well-sounding, but unmeaning verbiage of
natural equality and inalienable rights, that our lives are to be put in
jeopardy, our property destroyed, and our political institutions
overturned or endangered? If a people had on its borders a tribe of
barbarians, whom no treaties or faith could bind, and by whose attacks
they were constantly endangered, against whom they could devise no
security, but that they should be exterminated or enslaved; would they
not have the right to enslave them, and keep them in slavery so long as
the same danger would be incurred by their manumission? If a civilized
man and a savage were by chance placed together on a desolate island,
and the former, by the superior power of civilization, would reduce the
latter to subjection, would he not have the same right? Would this not
be the strictest self-defense? I do not now consider, how far we can
make out a similar case to justify our enslaving of the negroes. I speak
to those who contend for inalienable rights, and that the existence of
slavery always, and under all circumstances, involves injustice and
crime.
As I have said, we acknowledge the existence of a moral law. It is not
necessary for us to resort to the theory which resolves all right into
force. The existence of such a law is imprinted on the hearts of all
human beings. But though its existence be acknowledged, the mind of man
has hitherto been tasked in vain to discover an unerring standard of
morality. It is a common and undoubted maxim of morality, that you shall
not do evil that good may come. You shall not do injustice or commit an
invasion of the rights of others, for the sake of a greater ulterior
good. But what is injustice, and what are the rights of others? And why
are we not to commit the one or invade the other? It is because it
inflicts pain or suffering, present or prospective, or cuts them off
from enjoyment which they might otherwise attain. The Creator has
sufficiently revealed to us that _happiness_ is the great end of
existence, the sole object of all animated and sentient beings. To this
he has directed their aspirations and efforts, and we feel that we
thwart his benevolent purposes when we destroy or impede that happiness.
This is the only _natural_ right of man. All other rights result from
the conventions of society, and these, to be sure, we are not to invade,
whatever good may appear to us likely to follow. Yet are we in no
instance to inflict pain or suffering, or disturb enjoyment, for the
sake of producing a greater good? Is the madman not to be restrained who
would bring destruction on himself or others? Is pain not to be
inflicted on the child, when it is the only means by which he can be
effectually instructed to provide for his own future happiness? Is the
surgeon guilty of wrong who amputates a limb to preserve life? Is not
the object of all penal legislation, to inflict suffering for the sake
of greater good to be secured to society?
By what right is it that man exercises dominion over the beasts of the
field; subdues them to painful labor, or deprives them of life for his
sustenance or enjoyment? They are not rational beings. No, but they are
the creatures of God, sentient beings, capable of suffering and
enjoyment, and entitled to enjoy according to the measure of their
capacities. Does not the voice of nature inform every one, that he is
guilty of wrong when he inflicts on them pain without necessity or
object? If their existence be limited to the present life, it affords
the stronger argument for affording them the brief enjoyment of which it
is capable. It is because the greater good is effected; not only to man
but to the inferior animals themselves. The care of man gives the boon
of existence to myriads who would never otherwise have enjoyed it, and
the enjoyment of their existence is better provided for while it lasts.
It belongs to the being of superior faculties to judge of the relations
which shall subsist between himself and inferior animals, and the use he
shall make of them; and he may justly consider himself, who has the
greater capacity of enjoyment, in the first instance. Yet he must do
this conscientiously, and no doubt, moral guilt has been incurred by the
infliction of pain on these animals, with no adequate benefit to be
expected. I do no disparagement to the dignity of human nature, even in
its humblest form, when I say that on the very same foundation, with the
difference only of circumstance and degree, rests the right of the
civilized and cultivated man, over the savage and ignorant. It is the
order of nature and of God, that the being of superior faculties and
knowledge, and therefore of superior power, should control and dispose
of those who are inferior. It is as much in the order of nature, that
men should enslave each other, as that other animals should prey upon
each other. I admit that he does this under the highest moral
responsibility, and is most guilty if he wantonly inflicts misery or
privation on beings more capable of enjoyment or suffering than brutes,
without necessity or any view to the greater good which is to result. If
we conceive of society existing without government, and that one man by
his superior strength, courage or wisdom, could obtain the mastery of
his fellows, he would have a perfect right to do so. He would be morally
responsible for the use of his power, and guilty if he failed to direct
them so as to promote their happiness as well as his own. Moralists have
denounced the injustice and cruelty which have been practiced towards
our aboriginal Indians, by which they have been driven from their native
seats and exterminated, and no doubt with much justice. No doubt, much
fraud and injustice has been practiced in the circumstances and the
manner of their removal. Yet who has contended that civilized man had no
moral right to possess himself of the country? That he was bound to
leave this wide and fertile continent, which is capable of sustaining
uncounted myriads of a civilized race, to a few roving and ignorant
barbarians? Yet if any thing is certain, it is certain that there were
no means by which he could possess the country, without exterminating or
enslaving them. Savage and civilized man cannot live together, and the
savage can be tamed only by being enslaved or by having slaves. By
enslaving alone could he have preserved them.[235] And who shall take
upon himself to decide that the more benevolent course, and more
pleasing to God, was pursued towards them, or that it would not have
been better that they had been enslaved generally, as they were in
particular instances? It is a refined philosophy, and utterly false in
its application to general nature, or the mass of human kind, which
teaches that existence is not the greatest of all boons, and worthy of
being preserved even under the most adverse circumstances. The strongest
instinct of all animated beings sufficiently proclaims this. When the
last red man shall have vanished from our forests, the sole remaining
traces of his blood will be found among our enslaved population.[236]
The African slave trade has given, and will give, the boon of existence
to millions and millions in our country, who would otherwise never have
enjoyed it, and the enjoyment of their existence is better provided for
while it lasts. Or if, for the rights of man over inferior animals, we
are referred to revelation, which pronounces--"ye shall have dominion
over the beasts of the field, and over the fowls of the air," we refer
to the same, which declares not the less explicitly--
"Both the bond-men and bond-maids which thou shalt have, shall be of the
heathen that are among you. Of them shall you buy bond-men and
bond-maids."
"Moreover of the children of strangers that do sojourn among you, of
them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they
begot in your land, and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take
them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them by
possession. They shall be your bond-men forever."
In moral investigations, ambiguity is often occasioned by confounding
the intrinsic nature of an action, as determined by its consequence,
with the motives of the actor, involving moral guilt or innocence. If
poison be given with a view to destroy another, and it cures him of
disease, the poisoner is guilty, but the act is beneficent in its
results. If medicine be given with a view to heal, and it happens to
kill, he who administered it is innocent, but the act is a noxious one.
If they who begun and prosecuted the slave trade, practiced horrible
cruelties and inflicted much suffering--as no doubt they did, though
these have been much exaggerated--for merely selfish purposes, and with
no view to future good, they were morally most guilty. So far as
unnecessary cruelty was practiced, the motive and the act were alike
bad. But if we could be sure that the entire effect of the trade has
been to produce more happiness than would otherwise have existed, we
must pronounce it good, and that it has happened in the ordering of
God's providence, to whom evil cannot be imputed. Moral guilt has not
been imputed to Las Casas, and if the importation of African slaves into
America, had the effect of preventing more suffering than it inflicted,
it was good, both in the motive and the result. I freely admit that, it
is hardly possible to justify morally, those who begun and carried on
the slave trade. No speculation of future good to be brought about,
could compensate the enormous amount of evil it occasioned.
If we should refer to the common moral sense of mankind, as determined
by their conduct in all ages and countries, for a standard of morality,
it would seem to be in favor of slavery. The will of God, as determined
by utility, would be an infallible standard, if we had an unerring
measure of utility. The utilitarian philosophy, as it is commonly
understood, referring only to the animal wants and employments, and
physical condition of man, is utterly false and degrading. If a
sufficiently extended definition be given to utility, so as to include
every thing that may be a source of enjoyment or suffering, it is for
the most part useless. How can you compare the pleasures resulting from
the exercise of the understanding, the taste and the imagination, with
the animal enjoyments of the senses--the gratification derived from a
fine poem with that from a rich banquet? How are we to weigh the pains
and enjoyments of one man highly cultivated and of great sensibility,
against those of many men of blunter capacity for enjoyment or
suffering? And if we could determine with certainty in what utility
consists, we are so short-sighted with respect to consequences--the
remote results of our best considered actions are so often wide of our
anticipations, or contrary to them, that we should still be very much in
the dark. But though we cannot arrive at absolute certainty with respect
to the utility of actions, it is always fairly matter of argument.
Though an imperfect standard, it is the best we have, and perhaps the
Creator did not intend that we should arrive at perfect certainty with
regard to the morality of many actions. If, after the most careful
examination of consequences that we are able to make, with due distrust
of ourselves, we impartially, and in good faith, decide for that which
appears likely to produce the greatest good, we are free from moral
guilt. And I would impress most earnestly, that with our imperfect and
limited faculties, and short-sighted as we are to the future, we can
rarely, very rarely indeed, be justified in producing considerable
present evil or suffering, in the expectation of remote future good--if
indeed this can ever be justified.
In considering this subject, I shall not regard it in the first instance
in reference to the present position of the slaveholding States, or the
difficulties which lie in the way of their emancipating their slaves,
but as a naked, abstract question--whether it is better that the
institution of praedial and domestic slavery should, or should not,
exist in civilized society. And though some of my remarks may seem to
have such a tendency, let me not be understood as taking upon myself to
determine that it is better that it should exist. God forbid that the
responsibility of deciding such a question should ever be thrown on me
or my countrymen. But this I will say, and not without confidence, that
it is in the power of no human intellect to establish the contrary
proposition--that it is better it should not exist. This is probably
known but to one being, and concealed from human sagacity.
There have existed in various ages, and we now see existing in the
world, people in every stage of civilization, from the most barbarous to
the most refined. Man, as I have said, is not born to civilization. He
is born rude and ignorant. But it will be, I suppose, admitted that it
is the design of his Creator that he should attain to civilization: that
religion should be known, that the comforts and elegancies of life
should be enjoyed, that letters and arts should be cultivated; in short,
that there should be the greatest possible development of moral and
intellectual excellence. It can hardly be necessary to say any thing of
those who have extolled the superior virtues and enjoyments of savage
life--a life of physical wants and sufferings, of continual insecurity,
of furious passions and depraved vices. Those who have praised savage
life, are those who have known nothing of it, or who have become savages
themselves. But as I have said, so far as reason or universal experience
instruct us, the institution of slavery is an essential process in
emerging from savage life. It must then produce good, and promote the
designs of the Creator.
I add further, _that slavery anticipates the benefits of civilization,
and retards the evils of civilization_. The former part of this
proposition has been so fully established by a writer of great power of
thought--though I fear his practical conclusions will be found of
little value--that it is hardly necessary to urge it.[237] Property--the
accumulation of capital, as it is commonly called--is the first element
of civilization. But to accumulate, or to use capital to any
considerable extent, the combination of labor is necessary. In early
stages of society, when people are thinly scattered over an extensive
territory, the labor necessary to extensive works cannot be commanded.
Men are independent of each other. Having the command of abundance of
land, no one will submit to be employed in the service of his neighbor.
No one, therefore, can employ more capital than he can use with his own
hands, or those of his family, nor have an income much beyond the
necessaries of life. There can, therefore, be little leisure for
intellectual pursuits, or means of acquiring the comforts or elegancies
of life. It is hardly necessary to say, however, that if a man has the
command of slaves, he may combine labor, and use capital to any required
extent, and therefore accumulate wealth. He shows that no colonies have
been successfully planted without some sort of slavery. So we find the
fact to be. It is only in the slaveholding States of our Confederacy,
that wealth can be acquired by agriculture--which is the general
employment of our whole country. Among us, we know that there is no one,
however humble his beginning, who, with persevering industry,
intelligence, and orderly and virtuous habits, may not attain to
considerable opulence. So far as wealth has been accumulated in the
States which do not possess slaves, it has been in cities by the
pursuits of commerce, or lately, by manufactures. But the products of
slave labor furnish more than two-thirds of the materials of our foreign
commerce, which the industry of those States is employed in transporting
and exchanging; and among the slaveholding States is to be found the
great market for all the productions of their industry, of whatever
kind. The prosperity of those States, therefore, and the civilization of
their cities, have been for the most part created by the existence of
slavery. Even in the cities, but for a class of population, which our
institutions have marked as servile, it would be scarcely possible to
preserve the ordinary habitudes of civilized life, by commanding the
necessary menial and domestic service.
Every stage of human society, from the most barbarous to the most
refined, has its own peculiar evils to mark it as the condition of
mortality; and perhaps there is none but omnipotence who can say in
which the scale of good or evil most preponderates. We need say nothing
of the evils of savage life. There is a state of society elevated
somewhat above it, which is to be found in some of the more thinly
peopled portions of our own country--the rudest agricultural
state--which is thus characterized by the author to whom I have
referred: "The American of the back woods has often been described to
the English as grossly ignorant, dirty, unsocial, delighting in rum and
tobacco, attached to nothing but his rifle, adventurous, restless, more
than half savage. Deprived of social enjoyments or excitements, he has
recourse to those of savage life, and becomes (for in this respect the
Americans degenerate) unfit for society." This is no very inviting
picture, which, though exaggerated, we know not to be without likeness.
The evils of such a state, I suppose, will hardly be thought compensated
by unbounded freedom, perfect equality, and ample means of subsistence.
But let us take another stage in the progress--which to many will appear
to offer all that is desirable in existence, and realize another Utopia.
Let us suppose a state of society in which all shall have property, and
there shall be no great inequality of property--in which society shall
be so much condensed as to afford the means of social intercourse,
without being crowded, so as to create difficulty in obtaining the means
of subsistence--in which every family that chooses may have as much land
as will employ its own hands, while others may employ their industry in
forming such products as it may be desirable to exchange with them.
Schools are generally established, and the rudiments of education
universally diffused. Religion is taught, and every village has its
church, neat, though humble, lifting its spire to heaven. Here is a
situation apparently the most favorable to happiness. I say
_apparently_, for the greatest source of human misery is not in external
circumstances, but in men themselves--in their depraved inclinations,
their wayward passions and perverse wills. Here is room for all the
petty competition, the envy, hatred, malice and dissimulation that
torture the heart in what may be supposed the most sophisticated states
of society; and though less marked and offensive, there may be much of
the licentiousness.
But apart from this, in such a condition of society, if there is little
suffering, there is little high enjoyment. The even flow of life forbids
the high excitement which is necessary for it. If there is little vice,
there is little place for the eminent virtues, which employ themselves
in controlling the disorders and remedying the evils of society, which,
like war and revolution, call forth the highest powers of man, whether
for good or for evil. If there is little misery, there is little room
for benevolence. Useful public institutions we may suppose to be
created, but not such as are merely ornamental. Elegant arts can be
little cultivated, for there are no means to reward the artists; nor the
higher literature, for no one will have leisure or means to cultivate it
for its own sake. Those who acquire what may be called liberal
education, will do so in order to employ it as the means of their own
subsistence or advancement in a profession, and literature itself will
partake of the sordidness of trade. In short, it is plain that in such a
state of society, the moral and intellectual faculties cannot be
cultivated to their highest perfection.
But whether that which I have described be the most desirable state of
society or no, it is certain that it can not continue. Mutation and
progress is the condition of human affairs. Though retarded for a time
by extraneous or accidental circumstances, the wheel must roll on. The
tendency of population is to become crowded, increasing the difficulty
of obtaining subsistence. There will be some without any property except
the capacity for labor. This they must sell to those who have the means
of employing them, thereby swelling the amount of their capital, and
increasing inequality. The process still goes on. The number of laborers
increases until there is a difficulty in obtaining employment. Then
competition is established. The remuneration of the laborer becomes
gradually less and less; a larger and larger proportion of the product
of his labor goes to swell the fortune of the capitalist; inequality
becomes still greater and more invidious, until the process ends in the
establishment of just such a state of things, as the same author
describes as now existing in England. After a most imposing picture of
her greatness and resources; of her superabounding capital, and all
pervading industry and enterprise; of her public institutions for
purposes of art, learning and benevolence; her public improvements, by
which intercourse is facilitated, and the convenience of man subserved;
the conveniences and luxuries of life enjoyed by those who are in
possession of fortune, or have profitable employments; of all, in short,
that places her at the head of modern civilization, he proceeds to give
the reverse of the picture. And here I shall use his own words: "The
laboring class compose the bulk of the people; the great body of the
people; the vast majority of the people--these are the terms by which
English writers and speakers usually describe those whose only property
is their labor."
"Of comprehensive words, the two most frequently used in English
politics, are distress and pauperism. After these, of expressions
applied to the state of the poor, the most common are vice and misery,
wretchedness, sufferings, ignorance, degradation, discontent, depravity,
drunkenness, and the increase of crime; with many more of the like
nature."
He goes on to give the details of this inequality and wretchedness, in
terms calculated to sicken and appal one to whom the picture is new.
That he has painted strongly we may suppose; but there is ample
corroborating testimony, if such were needed, that the representation is
substantially just. Where so much misery exists, there must of course be
much discontent, and many have been disposed to trace the sources of the
former in vicious legislation, or the structure of government; and the
author gives the various schemes, sometimes contradictory, sometimes
ludicrous, which projectors have devised as a remedy for all this evil
to which flesh is heir. That ill-judged legislation may have sometimes
aggravated the general suffering, or that its extremity may be mitigated
by the well-directed efforts of the wise and virtuous, there can be no
doubt. One purpose for which it has been permitted to exist is, that it
may call forth such efforts, and awaken powers and virtues which would
otherwise have slumbered for want of object. But remedy there is none,
unless it be to abandon their civilization. This inequality, this vice,
this misery, this _slavery_, is the price of England's civilization.
They suffer the lot of humanity. But perhaps we may be permitted humbly
to hope, that great, intense and widely spread as this misery
undoubtedly is in reality, it may yet be less so than in appearance. We
can estimate but very, very imperfectly the good and evil of individual
condition, as of different states of society. Some unexpected solace
arises to alleviate the severest calamity. Wonderful is the power of
custom, in making the hardest condition tolerable; the most generally
wretched life has circumstances of mitigation, and moments of vivid
enjoyment, of which the more seemingly happy can scarcely conceive;
though the lives of individuals be shortened, the aggregate of existence
is increased; even the various forms of death accelerated by want,
familiarized to the contemplation, like death to the soldier on the
field of battle, may become scarcely more formidable than what we are
accustomed to regard as nature's ordinary outlets of existence. If we
could perfectly analyze the enjoyments and sufferings of the most happy,
and the most miserable man, we should perhaps be startled to find the
difference so much less than our previous impressions had led us to
conceive. But it is not for us to assume the province of omniscience.
The particular theory of the author quoted, seems to be founded on an
assumption of this sort--that there is a certain stage in the progress,
when there is a certain balance between the demand for labor, and the
supply of it, which is more desirable than any other--when the territory
is so thickly peopled that all can not own land and cultivate the soil
for themselves, but a portion will be compelled to sell their labor to
others; still leaving, however, the wages of labor high, and the laborer
independent. It is plain, however, that this would in like manner
partake of the good and the evil of other states of society. There would
be less of equality and less rudeness, than in the early stages; less
civilization, and less suffering, than in the latter.
It is the competition for employment, which is the source of this misery
of society, that gives rise to all excellence in art and knowledge. When
the demand for labor exceeds the supply, the services of the most
ordinarily qualified laborer will be eagerly retained. When the supply
begins to exceed, and competition is established, higher and higher
qualifications will be required, until at length when it becomes very
intense, none but the most consummately skillful can be sure to be
employed. Nothing but necessity can drive men to the exertions which are
necessary so to qualify themselves. But it is not in arts, merely
mechanical alone, that this superior excellence will be required. It
will be extended to every intellectual employment; and though this may
not be the effect in the instance of every individual, yet it will fix
the habits and character of the society, and prescribe everywhere, and
in every department, the highest possible standard of attainment.
But how is it that the existence of slavery, as with us, will retard the
evils of civilization? Very obviously. It is the intense competition of
civilized life, that gives rise to the excessive cheapness of labor, and
the excessive cheapness of labor is the cause of the evils in question.
Slave labor can never be so cheap as what is called free labor.
Political economists have established as the natural standard of wages
in a fully peopled country, the value of the laborer's existence. I
shall not stop to inquire into the precise truth of this proposition. It
certainly approximates the truth. Where competition is intense, men will
labor for a bare subsistence, and less than a competent subsistence. The
employer of free laborers obtains their services during the time of
their health and vigor, without the charge of rearing them from infancy,
or supporting them in sickness or old age. This charge is imposed on the
employer of slave labor, who, therefore, pays higher wages, and cuts off
the principal source of misery--the wants and sufferings of infancy,
sickness, and old age. Laborers too will be less skillful, and perform
less work--enhancing the price of that sort of labor. The poor laws of
England are an attempt--but an awkward and empirical attempt--to supply
the place of that which we should suppose the feelings of every human
heart would declare to be a natural obligation--that he who has received
the benefit of the laborer's services during his health and vigor,
should maintain him when he becomes unable to provide for his own
support. They answer their purpose, however, very imperfectly, and are
unjustly and unequally imposed. There is no attempt to apportion the
burden according to the benefit received--and perhaps there could be
none. This is one of the evils of their condition.
In periods of commercial revulsion and distress, like the present, the
distress, in countries of free labor, falls principally on the laborers.
In those of slave labor, it falls almost exclusively on the employer. In
the former, when a business becomes unprofitable, the employer dismisses
his laborers or lowers their wages. But with us, it is the very period
at which we are least able to dismiss our laborers; and if we would not
suffer a further loss, we can not reduce their wages. To receive the
benefit of the services of which they are capable, we must provide for
maintaining their health and vigor. In point of fact, we know that this
is accounted among the necessary expenses of management. If the income
of every planter of the Southern States were permanently reduced
one-half, or even much more than that, it would not take one jot from
the support and comforts of the slaves. And this can never be materially
altered, until they shall become so unprofitable that slavery must be of
necessity abandoned. It is probable that the accumulation of individual
wealth will never be carried to quite so great an extent in a
slaveholding country, as in one of free labor; but a consequence will
be, that there will be less inequality and less suffering.
_Servitude_ is the condition of civilization. It was decreed, when the
command was given, "be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth,
and subdue it," and when it was added, "in the sweat of thy face shalt
thou eat bread." And what human being shall arrogate to himself the
authority to pronounce that our form of it is worse in itself, or more
displeasing to God, than that which exists elsewhere? Shall it be said
that the servitude of other countries grows out of the exigency of their
circumstances, and therefore society is not responsible for it? But if
we know that in the progress of things it is to come, would it not seem
the part of wisdom and foresight, to make provision for it, and thereby,
if we can, mitigate the severity of its evils? But the fact is not so.
Let any one who doubts, read the book to which I have several times
referred, and he may be satisfied that it was forced upon us by the
extremest exigency of circumstances, in a struggle for very existence.
Without it, it is doubtful whether a white man would be now existing on
this continent--certain, that if there were, they would be in a state of
the utmost destitution, weakness, and misery. It was forced on us by
necessity, and further fastened upon us by the superior authority of the
mother country. I, for one, neither deprecate nor resent the gift. Nor
did we institute slavery. The Africans brought to us had been, speaking
in the general, slaves in their own country, and only underwent a change
of masters. In the countries of Europe, and the States of our
Confederacy, in which slavery has ceased to exist, it was abolished by
positive legislation. If the order of nature has been departed from, and
a forced and artificial state of things introduced, it has been, as the
experience of all the world declares, by them and not by us.
That there are great evils in a society where slavery exists, and that
the institution is liable to great abuse, I have already said. To say
otherwise, would be to say that they were not human. But the whole of
human life is a system of evils and compensations. We have no reason to
believe that the compensations with us are fewer, or smaller in
proportion to the evils, than those of any other condition of society.
Tell me of an evil or abuse; of an instance of cruelty, oppression,
licentiousness, crime or suffering, and I will point out, and often in
five fold degree, an equivalent evil or abuse in countries where slavery
does not exist.
Let us examine without blenching, the actual and alleged evils of
slavery, and the array of horrors which many suppose to be its universal
concomitants. It is said that the slave is out of the protection of the
law; that if the law purports to protect him in life and limb, it is but
imperfectly executed; that he is still subject to excessive labor,
degrading blows, or any other sort of torture, which a master pampered
and brutalized by the exercise of arbitrary power, may think proper to
inflict; he is cut off from the opportunity of intellectual, moral, or
religious improvement, and even positive enactments are directed against
his acquiring the rudiments of knowledge; he is cut off forever from the
hope of raising his condition in society, whatever may be his merit,
talents, or virtues, and therefore deprived of the strongest incentive
to useful and praiseworthy exertion; his physical degradation begets a
corresponding moral degradation: he is without moral principle, and
addicted to the lowest vices, particularly theft and falsehood; if
marriage be not disallowed, it is little better than a state of
concubinage, from which results general licentiousness, and the want of
chastity among females--this indeed is not protected by law, but is
subject to the outrages of brutal lust; both sexes are liable to have
their dearest affections violated; to be sold like brutes; husbands to
be torn from wives, children from parents;--this is the picture commonly
presented by the denouncers of slavery.
It is a somewhat singular fact that when there existed in our State no
law for punishing the murder of a slave, other than a pecuniary fine,
there were, I will venture to say, at least ten murders of freemen, for
one murder of a slave. Yet it is supposed they are all less protected,
or less secure than their masters. Why they are protected by their very
situation in society, and therefore less need the protection of law.
With any other person than their master, it is hardly possible for them
to come into such sort of collision as usually gives rise to furious and
revengeful passions; they offer no temptation to the murderer for gain;
against the master himself, they have the security of his own interest,
and by his superintendence and authority, they are protected from the
revengeful passions of each other. I am by no means sure that the cause
of humanity has been served by the change in jurisprudence, which has
placed their murder on the same footing with that of a freeman. The
change was made in subserviency to the opinions and clamor of others who
were utterly incompetent to form an opinion on the subject; and a wise
act is seldom the result of legislation in this spirit. From the fact
which I have stated, it is plain that they less need protection. Juries
are, therefore, less willing to convict, and it may sometimes happen
that the guilty will escape all punishment. _Security_ is one of the
compensations of their humble position. We challenge the comparison,
that with us there have been fewer murders of slaves, than of parents,
children, apprentices, and other murders, cruel and unnatural, in
society where slavery does not exist.
But short of life or limb, various cruelties may be practiced as the
passions of the master may dictate. To this the same reply has been
often given--that they are secured by the master's interest. If the
state of slavey is to exist at all, the master must have, and ought to
have, such power of punishment as will compel them to perform the duties
of their station. And is not this for their advantage as well as his? No
human being can be contented, who does not perform the duties of his
station. Has the master any temptation to go beyond this? If he inflicts
on him such punishment as will permanently impair his strength, he
inflicts a loss on himself, and so if he requires of him excessive
labor. Compare the labor required of the slave, with those of the free
agricultural or manufacturing laborer in Europe, or even in the more
thickly peopled portions of the non-slaveholding States of our
Confederacy--though these last are no fair subjects of comparison--they
enjoying, as I have said, in a great degree, the advantages of slavery
along with those of an early and simple state of society. Read the
English Parliamentary reports, on the condition of the manufacturing
operatives, and the children employed in factories. And such is the
impotence of man to remedy the evils which the condition of his
existence has imposed on him, that it is much to be doubted whether the
attempts by legislation to improve their situation, will not aggravate
its evils. They resort to this excessive labor as a choice of evils. If
so, the amount of their compensation will be lessened also with the
diminished labor; for this is a matter which legislation can not
regulate. Is it the part of benevolence then to cut them off even from
this miserable liberty of choice? Yet would these evils exist in the
same degree, if the laborers were the _property_ of the master--having a
direct interest in preserving their lives, their health and strength?
Who but a driveling fanatic has thought of the necessity of protecting
domestic animals from the cruelty of their owners? And yet are not great
and wanton cruelties practiced on these animals? Compare the whole of
the cruelties inflicted on slaves throughout our Southern country, with
those elsewhere, inflicted by ignorant and depraved portions of the
community, on those whom the relations of society put into their
power--of brutal husbands on their wives; of brutal parents--subdued
against the strongest instincts of nature to that brutality by the
extremity of their misery--on their children; of brutal masters on
apprentices. And if it should be asked, are not similar cruelties
inflicted, and miseries endured, in your society? I answer, in no
comparable degree. The class in question are placed under the control of
others, who are interested to restrain their excesses of cruelty or
rage. Wives are protected from their husbands, and children from their
parents. And this is no inconsiderable compensation of the evils of our
system; and would so appear, if we could form any conception of the
immense amount of misery which is elsewhere thus inflicted. The other
class of society, more elevated in their position, are also (speaking of
course in the general) more elevated in character, and more responsible
to public opinion.
But besides the interest of their master, there is another security
against cruelty. The relation of master and slave, when there is no
mischievous interference between them, is, as the experience of all the
world declares, naturally one of kindness. As to the fact, we should be
held interested witnesses, but we appeal to universal nature. Is it not
natural that a man should be attached to that which is _his own_, and
which has contributed to his convenience, his enjoyment, or his vanity?
This is felt even toward animals and inanimate objects. How much more
toward a being of superior intelligence and usefulness, who can
appreciate our feelings towards him, and return them? Is it not natural
that we should be interested in that which is dependent on us for
protection and support? Do not men everywhere contract kind feelings
toward their dependents? Is it not natural that men should be more
attached to those whom they have long known,--whom, perhaps, they have
reared or been associated with from infancy--than to one with whom their
connection has been casual and temporary? What is there in our
atmosphere or institutions, to produce a perversion of the general
feelings of nature? To be sure, in this as in all other relations, there
is frequent cause of offense or excitement--on one side, for some
omission of duty, on the other, on account of reproof or punishment
inflicted. But this is common to the relation of parent and child; and I
will venture to say, that if punishment be justly inflicted--and there
is no temptation to inflict it unjustly--it is as little likely to
occasion permanent estrangement or resentment as in that case. Slaves
are perpetual children. It is not the common nature of man, unless it be
depraved by his own misery, to delight in witnessing pain. It is more
grateful to behold contented and cheerful beings, than sullen and
wretched ones. That men are sometimes wayward, depraved and brutal, we
know. That atrocious and brutal cruelties have been perpetrated on
slaves, and on those who were not slaves, by such wretches, we also
know. But that the institution of slavery has a natural tendency to form
such a character, that such crimes are more common, or more aggravated
than in other states of society, or produce among us less surprise and
horror, we utterly deny, and challenge the comparison. Indeed, I have
little hesitation in saying, that if full evidence could be obtained,
the comparison would result in our favor, and that the tendency of
slavery is rather to humanize than to brutalize.
The accounts of travelers in oriental countries, give a very favorable
representation of the kindly relations which exist between the master
and slave; the latter being often the friend, and sometimes the heir of
the former. Generally, however, especially if they be English
travelers--if they say any thing which may seem to give a favorable
complexion to slavery, they think it necessary to enter their protest,
that they shall not be taken to give any sanction to slavery as it
exists in America. Yet human nature is the same in all countries. There
are very obvious reasons why in those countries there should be a nearer
approach to equality in their manners. The master and slave are often of
cognate races, and therefore tend more to assimilate. There is, in fact,
less inequality in mind and character, where the master is but
imperfectly civilized. Less labor is exacted, because the master has
fewer motives to accumulate. But is it an injury to a human being, that
regular, if not excessive labor, should be required of him? The primeval
curse, with the usual benignity of providential contrivance, has been
turned into the solace of an existence that would be much more
intolerable without it. If they labor less, they are much more subject
to the outrages of capricious passions. If it were put to the choice of
any human being, would he prefer to be the slave of a civilized man, or
of a barbarian or semi-barbarian? But if the general tendency of the
institution in those countries is to create kindly relations, can it be
imagined why it should operate differently in this? It is true, as
suggested by President Dew--with the exception of the ties of close
consanguinity, it forms one of the most intimate relations of society.
And it will be more and more so, the longer it continues to exist. The
harshest features of slavery were created by those who were strangers to
slavery--who supposed that it consisted in keeping savages in subjection
by violence and terror. The severest laws to be found on our statute
book, were enacted by such, and such are still found to be the severest
masters. As society becomes settled, and the wandering habits of our
countrymen altered, there will be a larger and larger proportion of
those who were reared by the owner, or derived to him from his
ancestors, and who therefore will be more and more intimately regarded,
as forming a portion of his family.
It is true that the slave is driven to labor by stripes; and if the
object of punishment be to produce obedience or reformation, with the
least permanent injury, it is the best method of punishment. But is it
not intolerable, that a being formed in the image of his Maker, should
be degraded by _blows_? This is one of the perversions of mind and
feeling, to which I shall have occasion again to refer. Such punishment
would be degrading to a freeman, who had the thoughts and aspirations of
a freeman. In general, it is not degrading to a slave, nor is it felt
to be so. The evil is the bodily pain. Is it degrading to a child? Or if
in any particular instance it would be so felt, it is sure not to be
inflicted--unless in those rare cases which constitute the startling and
eccentric evils, from which no society is exempt, and against which no
institution of society can provide.
_The slave is cut off from the means of intellectual, moral, and
religious improvement, and in consequence his moral character becomes
depraved, and he addicted to degrading vices._ The slave receives such
instruction as qualifies him to discharge the duties of his particular
station. The Creator did not intend that every individual human being
should be highly cultivated, morally and intellectually, for, as we have
seen, he has imposed conditions on society which would render this
impossible. There must be general mediocrity, or the highest cultivation
must exist along with ignorance, vice, and degradation. But is there in
the aggregate of society, less opportunity for intellectual and moral
cultivation, on account of the existence of slavery? We must estimate
institutions from their aggregate of good or evil. I refer to the views
which I have before expressed to this society. It is by the existence of
slavery, exempting so large a portion of our citizens from the necessity
of bodily labor, that we have a greater proportion than any other
people, who have leisure for intellectual pursuits, and the means of
attaining a liberal education. If we throw away this opportunity, we
shall be morally responsible for the neglect or abuse of our advantages,
and shall most unquestionably pay the penalty. But the blame will rest
on ourselves, and not on the character of our institutions.
I add further, notwithstanding that _equality_ seems to be the passion
of the day, if, as Providence has evidently decreed, there can be but a
certain portion of intellectual excellence in any community, it is
better that it should be _unequally_ divided. It is better that a part
should be fully and highly cultivated, and the rest utterly ignorant. To
constitute a society, a variety of offices must be discharged, from
those requiring but the lowest degree of intellectual power, to those
requiring the very highest, and it should seem that the endowments ought
to be apportioned according to the exigencies of the situation. In the
course of human affairs, there arise difficulties which can only be
comprehended or surmounted by the strongest native power of intellect,
strengthened by the most assiduous exercise, and enriched with the most
extended knowledge--and even these are sometimes found inadequate to the
exigency. The first want of society is--leaders. Who shall estimate the
value to Athens, of Solon, Aristides, Themistocles, Cymon, or Pericles?
If society have not leaders qualified, as I have said, they will have
those who will lead them blindly to their loss and ruin. Men of no great
native power of intellect, and of imperfect and superficial knowledge,
are the most mischievous of all--none are so busy, meddling, confident,
presumptuous, and intolerant. The whole of society receives the benefit
of the exertions of a mind of extraordinary endowments. Of all
communities, one of the least desirable, would be that in which
imperfect, superficial, half-education should be universal. The first
care of a State which regards its own safety, prosperity, and honor,
should be, that when minds of extraordinary power appear, to whatever
department of knowledge, art or science, their exertions may be
directed, the means should be provided for their most consummate
cultivation. Next to this, that education should be as widely extended
as possible.
Odium has been cast upon our legislation, on account of its forbidding
the elements of education to be communicated to slaves. But, in truth,
what injury is done to them by this? He who works during the day with
his hands, does not read in intervals of leisure for his amusement, or
the improvement of his mind--or the exceptions are so very rare, as
scarcely to need the being provided for. Of the many slaves whom I have
known capable of reading, I have never known one to read any thing but
the Bible, and this task they impose on themselves as matter of duty. Of
all methods of religious instruction, however, this, of reading for
themselves, would be the most inefficient--their comprehension is
defective, and the employment is to them an unusual and laborious one.
There are but very few who do not enjoy other means more effectual for
religious instruction. There is no place of worship opened for the white
population, from which they are excluded. I believe it a mistake, to say
that the instructions there given are not adapted to their
comprehension, or calculated to improve them. If they are given as they
ought to be--practically, and without pretension, and are such as are
generally intelligible to the free part of the audience, comprehending
all grades of intellectual capacity,--they will not be unintelligible to
slaves. I doubt whether this be not better than instruction, addressed
specially to themselves--which they might look upon as a devise of the
master's, to make them more obedient and profitable to himself. Their
minds, generally, show a strong religious tendency, and they are fond of
assuming the office of religious instructors to each other; and perhaps
their religious notions are not much more extravagant than those of a
large portion of the free population of our country. I am not sure that
there is a much smaller proportion of them, than of the free population,
who make some sort of religious profession. It is certainly the master's
_interest_ that they should have proper religious sentiments, and if he
fails in his duty toward them, we may be sure that the consequences will
be visited not upon them, but upon him.
If there were any chance of their elevating their rank and condition in
society, it might be matter of hardship, that they should be debarred
those rudiments of knowledge which open the way to further attainments.
But this they know can not be, and that further attainments would be
useless to them. Of the evil of this, I shall speak hereafter. A
knowledge of reading, writing, and the elements of arithmetic, is
convenient and important to the free laborer, who is the transactor of
his own affairs, and the guardian of his own interests--but of what use
would they be to the slave? These alone do not elevate the mind or
character, if such elevation were desirable.
If we estimate their morals according to that which should be the
standard of a free man's morality, then I grant they are degraded in
morals--though by no means to the extent which those who are
unacquainted with the institution seem to suppose. We justly suppose,
that the Creator will require of man the performance of the duties of
the station in which his providence has placed him, and the cultivation
of the virtues which are adapted to their performance; that he will make
allowance for all imperfection of knowledge, and the absence of the
usual helps and motives which lead to self-correction and improvement.
The degradation of morals relate principally to loose notions of
honesty, leading to petty thefts; to falsehood and to licentious
intercourse between the sexes. Though with respect even to these, I
protest against the opinion which seems to be elsewhere entertained,
that they are universal, or that slaves, in respect to them, might not
well bear a comparison with the lowest laborious class of other
countries. But certainly there is much dishonesty leading to petty
thefts. It leads, however, to nothing else. They have no contracts or
dealings which might be a temptation to fraud, nor do I know that their
characters have any tendency that way. They are restrained by the
constant, vigilant, and interested superintendence which is exercised
over them, from the commission of offenses of greater magnitude--even if
they were disposed to them--which I am satisfied they are not. Nothing
is so rarely heard of, as an atrocious crime committed by a slave;
especially since they have worn off the savage character which their
progenitors brought with them from Africa. Their offenses are confined
to petty depredations, principally for the gratification of their
appetites, and these for reasons already given, are chiefly confined to
the property of their owner, which is most exposed to them. They could
make no use of a considerable booty, if they should obtain it. It is
plain that this is a less evil to society in its consequences and
example, than if committed by a freeman, who is master of his own time
and actions. With reference to society then, the offense is less in
itself--and may we not hope that it is less in the sight of God? A slave
has no hope that by a course of integrity, he can materially elevate his
condition in society, nor can his offense materially depress it, or
affect his means of support, or that of his family. Compared to the
freeman, he has no character to establish or to lose. He has not been
exercised to self-government, and being without intellectual resources,
can less resist the solicitations of appetite. Theft in a freeman is a
crime; in a slave, it is a vice. I recollect to have heard it said, in
reference to some question of a slave's theft which was agitated in a
Court, "Courts of Justice have no more to do with a slave's stealing,
than with his lying--that is a matter for the domestic forum." It was
truly said--the theft of a slave is no offense against society. Compare
all the evils resulting from this, with the enormous amount of vice,
crime, and depravity, which in an European, or one of our Northern
cities, disgusts the moral feelings, and render life and property
insecure. So with respect to his falsehood. I have never heard or
observed, that slaves have any peculiar proclivity to falsehood, unless
it be in denying or concealing their own offenses, or those of their
fellows. I have never heard of falsehood told by a slave for a
malicious purpose. Lies of vanity are sometimes told, as among the weak
and ignorant of other conditions. Falsehood is not attributed to an
individual charged with an offense before a Court of Justice, who pleads
_not guilty_--and certainly the strong temptation to escape punishment,
in the highest degree extenuates, if it does not excuse, falsehood told
by a _slave_. If the object be to screen a a fellow slave, the act bears
some semblance of fidelity, and perhaps truth could not be told without
breach of confidence. I know not how to characterize the falsehood of a
slave.
It has often been said by the denouncers of slavery, that marriage does
not exist among slaves. It is difficult to understand this, unless
willful falsehood were intended. We know that marriages are contracted;
may be, and often are, solemnized with the forms usual among other
classes of society, and often faithfully adhered to during life. The law
has not provided for making those marriages indissoluble, nor could it
do so. If a man abandons his wife, being without property, and being
both property themselves, he cannot be required to maintain her. If he
abandons his wife, and lives in a state of concubinage with another, the
law cannot punish him for bigamy. It may perhaps be meant that the
chastity of wives is not protected by law from the outrages of violence.
I answer, as with respect to their lives, that they are protected by
manners, and their position. Who ever heard of such outrages being
offered? At least as seldom, I will venture to say, as in other
communities of different forms of polity. One reason doubtless may be,
that often there is no disposition to resist. Another reason also may
be, that there is little temptation to such violence, as there is so
large a proportion of this class of females who set little value on
chastity, and afford easy gratification to the hot passions of men. It
might be supposed, from the representations of some writers, that a
slaveholding country was one wide stew for the indulgence of unbridled
lust. Particular instances of intemperate and shameless debauchery are
related, which may perhaps be true, and it is left to be inferred that
this is the universal state of manners. Brutes and shameless debauchees
there are in every country; we know that if such things are related as
general or characteristic, the representation is false. Who would argue
from the existence of a Col. Chartres in England, or of some individuals
who might, perhaps, be named in other portions of this country, of the
horrid dissoluteness of manners occasioned by the want of the
institution of slavery? Yet the argument might be urged quite as fairly,
and really it seems to me with a little more justice--for there such
depravity is attended with much more pernicious consequences. Yet let us
not deny or extenuate the truth. It is true that in this respect the
morals of this class are very loose, (by no means so universally so as
is often supposed,) and that the passions of men of the superior caste,
tempt and find gratification in the easy chastity of the females. This
is evil, and to be remedied, if we can do so, without the introduction
of greater evil. But evil is incident to every condition of society, and
as I have said, we have only to consider in which institution it most
predominates.
Compare these prostitutes of our country, (if it is not injustice to
call them so,) and their condition with those of other countries--the
seventy thousand prostitutes of London, or of Paris, or the ten thousand
of New York, or our other Northern cities. Take the picture given of the
first from the author whom I have before quoted. "The laws and customs
of England conspire to sink this class of English women into a state of
vice and misery below that which necessarily belongs to their condition.
Hence their extreme degradation, their troopers' oaths, their love of
gin, their desperate recklessness, and the shortness of their miserable
lives.
"English women of this class, or rather girls, for few of them live to
be women, die like sheep with the rot; so fast that soon there would be
none left, if a fresh supply were not obtained equal to the number of
deaths. But a fresh supply is always obtained without the least trouble;
seduction easily keeps pace with prostitution or mortality. Those that
die are, like factory children that die, instantly succeeded by new
competitors for misery and death." There is no hour of a summer's or a
winter's night, in which there may not be found in the streets a ghastly
wretch, expiring under the double tortures of disease and famine. Though
less aggravated in its features, the picture of prostitution in New York
or Philadelphia would be of like character.
In such communities, the unmarried woman who becomes a mother, is an
outcast from society--and though sentimentalists lament the hardship of
the case, it is justly and necessarily so. She is cut off from the hope
of useful and profitable employment, and driven by necessity to further
vice. Her misery, and the hopelessness of retrieving, render her
desperate, until she sinks into every depth of depravity, and is
prepared for every crime that can contaminate and infest society. She
has given birth to a human being, who, if it be so unfortunate as to
survive its miserable infancy, is commonly educated to a like course of
vice, depravity, and crime.
Compare with this the female slave under similar circumstances. She is
not a less useful member of society than before. If shame be attached to
her conduct, it is such shame as would be elsewhere felt for a venial
impropriety. She has not impaired her means of support, nor materially
impaired her character, or lowered her station in society; she has done
no great injury to herself, or any other human being. Her offspring is
not a burden but an acquisition to her owner; his support is provided
for, and he is brought up to usefulness; if the fruit of intercourse
with a freeman, his condition is, perhaps, raised somewhat above that of
his mother. Under these circumstances, with imperfect knowledge, tempted
by the strongest of human passions--unrestrained by the motives which
operate to restrain, but are so often found insufficient to restrain the
conduct of females elsewhere, can it be matter of surprise that she
should so often yield to the temptation? Is not the evil less in itself,
and in reference to society--much less in the sight of God and man? As
was said of theft--the want of chastity, which among females of other
countries is sometimes vice, sometimes crime--among the free of our own,
much more aggravated; among slaves, hardly deserves a harsher term than
that of weakness. I have heard of complaint made by a free prostitute,
of the greater countenance and indulgence shown by society toward
colored persons of her profession, (always regarded as of an inferior
and servile class, though individually free,) than to those of her own
complexion. The former readily obtain employment; are even admitted into
families, and treated with some degree of kindness and familiarity,
while any approach to intercourse with the latter is shunned as
contamination. The distinction is habitually made, and it is founded on
the unerring instinct of nature. The colored prostitute is, in fact, a
far less contaminated and depraved being. Still many, in spite of
temptation, do preserve a perfectly virtuous conduct, and I imagine it
hardly ever entered into the mind of one of these, that she was likely
to be forced from it by authority or violence.
It may be asked, if we have no prostitutes from the free class of
society among ourselves. I answer, in no assignable proportion. With
general truth, it might be said, that there are none. When such a case
occurs, it is among the rare evils of society. And apart from other and
better reasons, which we believe to exist, it is plain that it must be
so, from the comparative absence of temptation. Our brothels,
comparatively very few--and these should not be permitted to exist at
all--are filled, for the most part, by importations from the cities of
our confederate States, where slavery does not exist. In return for the
benefits which they receive from our slavery, along with tariffs,
libels, opinions, moral, religious, or political--they furnish us also
with a supply of thieves and prostitutes. Never, but in a single
instance, have I heard of an imputation on the general purity of
manners, among the free females of the slaveholding States. Such an
imputation, however, and made in coarse terms, we have never heard
here--_here_ where divorce was never known--where no court was ever
polluted by an action for criminal conversation with a wife--where it is
related rather as matter of tradition, not unmingled with wonder, that a
Carolinian woman of education and family, proved false to her conjugal
faith--an imputation deserving only of such reply as self-respect would
forbid us to give, if respect for the author of it did not. And can it
be doubted, that this purity is caused by, and is a compensation for the
evils resulting from the existence of an enslaved class of more relaxed
morals?
It is mostly the warm passions of youth, which give rise to licentious
intercourse. But I do not hesitate to say, that the intercourse which
takes place with enslaved females, is less depraving in its effects,
than when it is carried on with females of their own caste. In the first
place, as like attracts like, that which is unlike repels; and though
the strength of passion be sufficient to overcome the repulsion, still
the attraction is less. He feels that he is connecting himself with one
of an inferior and servile caste, and that there is something of
degradation in the act. The intercourse is generally casual; he does not
make her habitually an associate, and is less likely to receive any
taint from her habits and manners. He is less liable to those
extraordinary fascinations, with which worthless women sometimes
entangle their victims, to the utter destruction of all principle, worth
and vigor of character. The female of his own race offers greater
allurements. The haunts of vice often present a show of elegance, and
various luxury tempts the senses. They are made an habitual resort, and
their inmates associates, till the general character receives a taint
from the corrupted atmosphere. Not only the practice is licentious, but
the understanding is sophisticated; the moral feelings are bewildered,
and the boundaries of virtue and vice are confused. Where such
licentiousness very extensively prevails, society is rotten to the
heart.
But is it a small compensation for the evils attending the relation of
the sexes among the enslaved class, that they have universally the
opportunity of indulging in the first instinct of nature, by forming
matrimonial connections? What painful restraint--what constant effort to
struggle against the strongest impulses are habitually practiced
elsewhere, and by other classes? And they must be practiced, unless
greater evils would be encountered. On the one side, all the evils of
vice, with the miseries to which it leads--on the other, a marriage
cursed and made hateful by want--the sufferings of children, and
agonizing apprehensions concerning their future fate. Is it a small good
that the slave is free from all this? He knows that his own subsistance
is secure, and that his children will be in as good a condition as
himself. To a refined and intellectual nature, it may not be difficult
to practice the restraint of which I have spoken. But the reasoning from
such to the great mass of mankind, is most fallacious. To these, the
supply of their natural and physical wants, and the indulgence of the
natural domestic affections, must, for the most part, afford the
greatest good of which they are capable. To the evils which sometimes
attend their matrimonial connections, arising from their looser
morality, slaves, for obvious reasons, are comparatively insensible. I
am no apologist of vice, nor would I extenuate the conduct of the
profligate and unfeeling, who would violate the sanctity of even these
engagements, and occasion the pain which such violations no doubt do
often inflict. Yet such is the truth, and we can not make it otherwise.
We know that a woman's having been before a mother, is very seldom
indeed an objection to her being made a wife. I know perfectly well how
this will be regarded by a class of reasoners or declaimers, as imposing
a character of deeper horror on the whole system; but still, I will say,
that if they are to be exposed to the evil, it is mercy that the
sensibility to it should be blunted. Is it no compensation also for the
vices incident to slavery, that they are, to a great degree, secured
against the temptation to greater crimes, and more atrocious vices, and
the miseries which attend them; against their own disposition to
indolence, and the profligacy which is its common result?
But if they are subject to the vices, they have also the virtues of
slaves. Fidelity--often proof against all temptation--even death
itself--an eminently cheerful and social temper--what the Bible imposes
as a duty, but which might seem an equivocal virtue in the code of
modern morality--submission to constituted authority, and a disposition
to be attached to, as well as to respect those, whom they are taught to
regard as superiors. They may have all the knowledge which will make
them useful in the station in which God has been pleased to place them,
and may cultivate the virtues which will render them acceptable to him.
But what has the slave of any country to do with heroic virtues, liberal
knowledge, or elegant accomplishments? It is for the master; arising out
of his situation--imposed on him as duty--dangerous and disgraceful if
neglected--to compensate for this, by his own more assidious
cultivation, of the more generous virtues, and liberal attainments.
It has been supposed one of the great evils of slavery, that it affords
the slave no opportunity of raising himself to a higher rank in society,
and that he has, therefore, no inducement to meritorious exertion, or
the cultivation of his faculties. The indolence and carelessnes of the
slave, and the less productive quality of his neighbor, are traced to
the want of such excitement. The first compensation for this
disadvantage, is his security. If he can rise no higher, he is just in
the same degree secured against the chances of falling lower. It has
been sometimes made a question whether it were better for man to be
freed from the perturbations of hope and fear, or to be exposed to their
vicissitudes. But I suppose there could be little question with respect
to a situation, in which the fears must greatly predominate over the
hopes. And such, I apprehend, to be the condition of the laboring poor
in countries where slavery does not exist. If not exposed to present
suffering, there is continual apprehension for the future--for
themselves--for their children--of sickness and want, if not of actual
starvation. They expect to improve their circumstances! Would any person
of ordinary candor, say that there is one in a hundred of them, who
does not well know, that with all the exertion he can make, it is out of
his power materially to improve his circumstances? I speak not so much
of menial servants, who are generally of a superior class, as of
agricultural and manufacturing laborers. They labor with no such view.
It is the instinctive struggle to preserve existence, and when the
superior efficiency of their labor over that of our slaves is pointed
out, as being animated by a free man's hopes, might it not well be
replied--it is because they labor under a sterner compulsion. The laws
interpose no obstacles to their raising their condition in society. 'Tis
a great boon--but as to the great mass, they know that they never will
be able to raise it--and it should seem not very important in effect,
whether it be the interdict of law, or imposed by the circumstances of
the society. One in a thousand is successful. But does his success
compensate for the sufferings of the many who are tantalized, baffled,
and tortured in vain attempts to attain a like result? If the individual
be conscious of intellectual power, the suffering is greater. Even where
success is apparently attained, he sometimes gains it but to die--or
with all capacity to enjoy it exhausted--worn out in the struggle with
fortune. If it be true that the African is an inferior variety of the
human race, of less elevated character, and more limited intellect, is
it not desirable that the inferior laboring class should be made up of
such, who will conform to their condition without painful aspirations
and vain struggles?
The slave is certainly liable to be sold. But, perhaps, it may be
questioned, whether this is a greater evil than the liability of the
laborer, in fully peopled countries, to be dismissed by his employer,
with the uncertainty of being able to obtain employment, or the means of
subsistence elsewhere. With us, the employer can not dismiss his laborer
without providing him with another employer. His means of subsistence
are secure, and this is a compensation for much. He is also liable to be
separated from wife and child--though not more frequently, that I am
aware of, than the exigency of their condition compels the separation of
families among the labering poor elsewhere--but from native character
and temperament, the separation is much less severely felt. And it is
one of the compensations, that he may sustain these relations, without
suffering a still severer penalty for the indulgence.
The love of liberty is a noble passion--to have the free, uncontrolled
disposition of ourselves, our words and actions. But alas! it is one in
which we know that a large portion of the human race can never be
gratified. It is mockery, to say that the laborer any where has such
disposition of himself--though there may be an approach to it in some
peculiar, and those, perhaps, not the most desirable, states of society.
But unless he be properly disciplined and prepared for its enjoyment, it
is the most fatal boon that could be conferred--fatal to himself and
others. If slaves have less freedom of action than other laborers, which
I by no means admit, they are saved in a great degree from the
responsibility of self-government, and the evils springing from their
own perverse wills. Those who have looked most closely into life, and
know how great a portion of human misery is derived from these
sources--the undecided and wavering purpose--producing ineffectual
exertion, or indolence with its thousand attendant evils--the wayward
conduct--intemperance or profligacy--will most appreciate this benefit.
The line of a slave's duty is marked out with precision, and he has no
choice but to follow it. He is saved the double difficulty, first of
determining the proper course for himself, and then of summoning up the
energy which will sustain him in pursuing it.
If some superior power should impose on the laborious poor of any other
country--this as their unalterable condition--you shall be saved from
the torturing anxiety concerning your own future support, and that of
your children, which now pursues you through life, and haunts you in
death--you shall be under the necessity of regular and healthful, though
not excessive labor--in return, you shall have the ample supply of your
natural wants--you may follow the instinct of nature in becoming
parents, without apprehending that this supply will fail yourselves or
your children--you shall be supported and relieved in sickness, and in
old age, wear out the remains of existence among familiar scenes and
accustomed associates, without being driven to beg, or to resort to the
hard and miserable charity of a work-house--you shall of necessity be
temperate, and shall have neither the temptation nor opportunity to
commit great crimes, or practice the more destructive vices--how
inappreciable would the boon be thought! And is not this a very near
approach to the condition of our slaves? The evils of their situation
they but lightly feel, and would hardly feel at all, if they were not
seduously instructed into sensibility. Certain it is, that if their fate
were at the absolute disposal of a council of the most enlightened
philanthropists in Christendom, with unlimited resources, they could
place them in no situation so favorable to themselves, as that which
they at present occupy. But whatever good there may be, or whatever
mitigation of evil, it is worse than valueless, because it is the result
of _slavery_.
I am aware, that however often answered, it is likely to be repeated
again and again--how can that institution be tolerable, by which a large
class of society is cut off from the hope of improvement in knowledge;
to whom blows are not degrading; theft no more than a fault; falsehood
and the want of chastity almost venial, and in which a husband or parent
looks with comparative indifference, on that which, to a freeman, would
be the dishonor of a wife or child?
But why not, if it produces the greatest aggregate of good? Sin and
ignorance are only evils, because they lead to misery. It is not our
institution, but the institution of nature, that in the progress of
society a portion of it should be exposed to want, and the misery which
it brings, and therefore involved in ignorance, vice, and depravity. In
anticipating some of the good, we also anticipate a portion of the evil
of civilization. But we have it in a mitigated form. The want and the
misery are unknown; the ignorance is less a misfortune, because the
being is not the guardian of himself, and partly on account of that
involuntary ignorance, the vice is less vice--less hurtful to man, and
less displeasing to God.
There is something in this word _slavery_ which seems to partake of the
qualities of the insane root, and distempers the minds of men. That
which would be true in relation to one predicament, they misapply to
another, to which it has no application at all. Some of the virtues of a
freeman would be the vices of slaves. To submit to a blow, would be
degrading to a freeman, because he is the protector of himself. It is
not degrading to a slave--neither is it to a priest or woman. And is it
a misfortune that it should be so? The freeman of other countries is
compelled to submit to indignities hardly more endurable than
blows--indignities to make the sensitive feelings shrink, and the proud
heart swell; and this very name of freeman gives them double rancor. If
when a man is born in Europe, it were certainly foreseen that he was
destined to a life of painful labor--to obscurity, contempt, and
privation--would it not be mercy that he should be reared in ignorance
and apathy, and trained to the endurance of the evils he must encounter?
It is not certainly foreseen as to any individual, but it is foreseen as
to the great mass of those born of the laboring poor; and it is for the
mass, not for the exception, that the institutions of society are to
provide. Is it not better that the character and intellect of the
individual should be suited to the station which he is to occupy? Would
you do a benefit to the horse or the ox, by giving him a cultivated
understanding or fine feelings? So far as the mere laborer has the
pride, the knowledge, or the aspirations of a freeman, he is unfitted
for his situation, and must doubly feel its infelicity. If there are
sordid, servile, and laborious offices to be performed, is it not better
that there should be sordid, servile, and laborious beings to perform
them? If there were infallible marks by which individuals of inferior
intellect, and inferior character, could be selected at their
birth--would not the interests of society be served, and would not some
sort of fitness seem to require, that they should be selected for the
inferior and servile offices? And if this race be generally marked by
such inferiority, is it not fit that they should fill them?
I am well aware that those whose aspirations are after a state of
society from which evil shall be banished, and who look in life for that
which life will never afford, contemplate that all the offices of life
may be performed without contempt or degradation--all be regarded as
equally liberal, or equally respected.[238] But theorists cannot control
nature and bend her to their views, and the inequality of which I have
before spoken is deeply founded in nature. The offices which employ
knowledge and intellect, will always be regarded as more liberal than
those which require the labor of the hands. When there is competition
for employment, he who gives it bestows a favor, and it will be so
received. He will assume superiority from the power of dismissing his
laborers, and from fear of this, the latter will practice deference,
often amounting to servility. Such in time will become the established
relation between the employer and the employed, the rich and the poor.
If want be accompanied with sordidness and squalor, though it be
pitied, the pity will be mixed with some degree of contempt. If it lead
to misery, and misery to vice, there will be disgust and aversion.
What is the essential character of _slavery_, and in what does it differ
from the _servitude_ of other countries? If I should venture on a
definition, I should say that where a man is compelled to labor at the
will of another, and to give him much the greater portion of the product
of his labor, there _slavery_ exists; and it is immaterial by what sort
of compulsion the will of the laborer is subdued. It is what no human
being would do without some sort of compulsion. He can not be compelled
to labor by blows.[239] No--but what difference does it make, if you can
inflict any other sort of torture which will be equally effectual in
subduing the will? if you can starve him, or alarm him for the
subsistence of himself or his family?[240] And is it not under this
compulsion that the _freeman_ labors? I do not mean in every particular
case, but in the general. Will any one be hardy enough to say that he is
at his own disposal, or has the government of himself? True, he may
change his employer if he is dissatisfied with his conduct toward him;
but this is a privilege he would in the majority of cases gladly
abandon, and render the connection between them indissoluble. There is
far less of the interest and attachment in his relation to his employer,
which so often exists between the master and the slave, and mitigates
the condition of the latter. An intelligent English traveler has
characterized as the most miserable and degraded of all beings, "a
masterless slave." And is not the condition of the laboring poor of
other countries too often that of masterless slaves! Take the following
description of a _free_ laborer, no doubt highly colored, quoted by the
author to whom I have before referred.
"What is that defective being, with calfless legs and stooping
shoulders, weak in body and mind, inert, pusillanimous and stupid, whose
premature wrinkles and furtive glance, tell of misery and degradation?
That is an English peasant or pauper, for the words are synonymous. His
sire was a pauper, and his mother's milk wanted nourishment. From
infancy his food has been bad, as well as insufficient; and he now feels
the pains of unsatisfied hunger nearly whenever he is awake. But half
clothed, and never supplied with more warmth than suffices to cook his
scanty meals, cold and wet come to him, and stay by him with the
weather. He is married, of course; for to this he would have been driven
by the poor laws, even if he had been, as he never was, sufficiently
comfortable and prudent to dread the burden of a family. But though
instinct and the overseer have given him a wife, he has not tasted the
highest joys of husband and father. His partner and his little ones
being like himself, often hungry, seldom warm, sometimes sick without
aid, and always sorrowful without hope, are greedy, selfish, and vexing;
so, to use his own expression, he hates the sight of them, and resorts
to his hovel, only because a hedge affords less shelter from the wind
and rain. Compelled by parish law to support his family, which means to
join them in consuming an allowance from the parish, he frequently
conspires with his wife to get that allowance increased, or prevent its
being diminished. This brings beggary, trickery, and quarrelling, and
ends in settled craft. Though he have the inclination, he wants the
courage to become, like more energetic men of his class, a poacher or
smuggler on a large scale, but he pilfers occasionally, and teaches his
children to lie and steal. His subdued and slavish manner toward his
great neighbors, shows that they treat him with suspicion and harshness.
Consequently, he at once dreads and hates them; but he will never harm
them by violent means. Too degraded to be desperate, he is only
thoroughly depraved. His miserable career will be short; rheumatism and
asthma are conducting him to the work-house; where he will breathe his
last without one pleasant recollection, and so make room for another
wretch, who may live and die in the same way." And this description, or
some other not much less revolting, is applied to "the bulk of the
people, the great body of the people." Take the following description of
the condition of childhood, which has justly been called eloquent.[241]
"The children of the very poor have no young times; it makes the very
heart bleed, to overhear the casual street talk between a poor woman and
her little girl, a woman of the better sort of poor, in a condition
rather above the squalid beings we have been contemplating. It is not
of toys, of nursery books, of summer holidays, (fitting that age,) of
the promised sight or play; of praised sufficiency at school. It is of
mangling and clear starching; of price of coals, or of potatoes. The
questions of the child, that should be the very outpourings of curiosity
in idleness, are marked with forecast and melancholy providence. It has
come to be a woman, before it was a child. It has learnt to go to
market; it chaffers, it haggles, it envies, it murmurs; it is knowing,
acute, sharpened; it never prattles." Imagine such a description applied
to the children of negro slaves, the most vacant of human beings, whose
life is a holiday.
And this people, to whom these horrors are familiar, are those who fill
the world with clamor, concerning the injustice and cruelty of slavery.
I speak in no invidious spirit. Neither the laws nor the government of
England are to be reproached with the evils which are inseparable from
the state of their society--as little, undoubtedly, are we to be
reproached with the existence of our slavery. Including the whole of the
United States--and for reasons already given, the whole ought to be
included, as receiving in no unequal degree the benefit--may we not say
justly that we have less slavery, and more mitigated slavery, than any
other country in the civilized world?
That they are called free, undoubtedly aggravates the sufferings of the
slaves of other regions. They see the enormous inequality which exists,
and feel their own misery, and can hardly conceive otherwise, than that
there is some injustice in the institutions of society to occasion
these. They regard the apparently more fortunate class as oppressors,
and it adds bitterness that they should be of the same name and race.
They feel indignity more acutely, and more of discontent and evil
passion is excited; they feel that it is mockery that calls them free.
Men do not so much hate and envy those who are separated from them by a
wide distance, and some apparently impassable barrier, as those who
approach nearer to their own condition, and with whom they habitually
bring themselves into comparison. The slave with us is not tantalized
with the name of freedom, to which his whole condition gives the lie,
and would do so if he were emancipated to-morrow. The African slave sees
that nature herself has marked him as a separate--and if left to
himself, I have no doubt he would feel it to be an inferior--race, and
interposed a barrier almost insuperable to his becoming a member of the
same society, standing on the same footing of right and privilege with
his master.
That the African negro is an inferior variety of the human race, is, I
think, now generally admitted, and his distinguishing characteristics
are such as peculiarly mark him out for the situation which he occupies
among us. And these are no less marked in their original country, than
as we have daily occasion to observe them. The most remarkable is their
indifference to personal liberty. In this they have followed their
instincts since we have any knowledge of their continent, by enslaving
each other; but contrary to the experience of every race, the possession
of slaves has no material effect in raising the character, and promoting
the civilization of the master. Another trait is the want of domestic
affections, and insensibility to the ties of kindred. In the travels of
the Landers, after speaking of a single exception, in the person of a
woman who betrayed some transient emotion in passing by the country from
which she had been torn as a slave, the authors add: "that Africans,
generally speaking, betray the most perfect indifference on losing their
liberty, and being deprived of their relatives, while love of country is
equally a stranger to their breasts, as social tenderness or domestic
affection." "Marriage is celebrated by the natives as unconcernedly as
possible; a man thinks as little of taking a wife, as of cutting an ear
of corn--affection is altogether out of the question." They are,
however, very submissive to authority, and seem to entertain great
reverence for chiefs, priests, and masters. No greater indignity can be
offered an individual, than to throw opprobrium on his parents. On this
point of their character I think I have remarked, that, contrary to the
instinct of nature in other races, they entertain less regard for
children than for parents, to whose authority they have been accustomed
to submit. Their character is thus summed up by the travellers quoted:
"The few opportunities we have had of studying their characters, induce
us to believe that they are a simple, honest, inoffensive, but weak,
timid, and cowardly race. They seem to have no social tenderness, very
few of those amiable private virtues which could win our affections, and
none of those public qualities that claim respect or command admiration.
The love of country is not strong enough in their bosoms to incite them
to defend it against a despicable foe; and of the active energy, noble
sentiments, and contempt of danger which distinguishes the North
American tribes and other savages, no traces are to be found among this
slothful people. Regardless of the past, as reckless of the future, the
present alone influences their actions. In this respect, they approach
nearer to the nature of the brute creation, than perhaps any other
people on the face of the globe." Let me ask if this people do not
furnish the very material out of which slaves ought to be made, and
whether it be not an improving of their condition to make them the
slaves of civilized masters? There is a variety in the character of the
tribes. Some are brutally and savagely ferocious and bloody, whom it
would be mercy to enslave. From the travelers' account, it seems not
unlikely that the negro race is tending to extermination, being daily
encroached on and overrun by the superior Arab race. It may be, that
when they shall have been lost from their native seats, they may be
found numerous, and in no unhappy condition, on the continent to which
they have been transplanted.
The opinion which connects form and features with character and
intellectual power, is one so deeply impressed on the human mind, that
perhaps there is scarcely any man who does not almost daily act upon it,
and in some measure verify its truth. Yet in spite of this intimation of
nature, and though the anatomist and physiologist may tell them that the
races differ in every bone and muscle, and in the proportion of brain
and nerves, yet there are some who, with a most bigoted and fanatical
determination to free themselves from what they have prejudged to be
prejudice, will still maintain that this physiognomy, evidently tending
to that of the brute, when compared to that of the Caucasian race, may
be enlightened by as much thought, and animated by as lofty sentiment.
We who have the best opportunity of judging, are pronounced to be
incompetent to do so, and to be blinded by our interest and
prejudices--often by those who have no opportunity at all--and we are to
be taught to distrust or disbelieve that which we daily observe, and
familiarly know, on such authority. Our prejudices are spoken of. But
the truth is, that, until very lately, since circumstances have
compelled us to think for ourselves, we took our opinions on this
subject, as on every other, ready formed from the country of our origin.
And so deeply rooted were they, that we adhered to them, as most men
will do to deeply rooted opinions, even against the evidence of our own
observation, and our own senses. If the inferiority exists, it is
attributed to the apathy and degradation produced by slavery. Though of
the hundreds of thousand scattered over other countries, where the laws
impose no disability upon them, none has given evidence of an approach
to even mediocrity of intellectual excellence; this, too, is attributed
to the slavery of a portion of their race. They are regarded as a
servile caste, and degraded by opinion, and thus every generous effort
is repressed. Yet though this should be the general effect, this very
estimation is calculated to produce the contrary effect in particular
instances. It is observed by Bacon, with respect to deformed persons and
eunuchs, that though in general there is something of perversity in the
character, the disadvantage often leads to extraordinary displays of
virtue and excellence. "Whoever hath any thing fixed in his person that
doth induce contempt, hath also a perpetual spur in himself, to rescue
and deliver himself from scorn." So it would be with them, if they were
capable of European aspirations--genius, if they possessed it, would be
doubly fired with noble rage to rescue itself from this scorn. Of
course, I do not mean to say that there may not be found among them some
of superior capacity to many white persons; but that great intellectual
powers are, perhaps, never found among them, and that in general their
capacity is very limited, and their feelings animal and coarse--fitting
them peculiarly to discharge the lower, and merely mechanical offices of
society.
And why should it not be so? We have among domestic animals infinite
varieties, distinguished by various degrees of sagacity, courage,
strength, swiftness, and other qualities. And it may be observed, that
this is no objection to their being derived from a common origin, which
we suppose them to have had. Yet these accidental qualities, as they may
be termed, however acquired in the first instance, we know that they
transmit unimpaired to their posterity for an indefinite succession of
generations. It is most important that these varieties should be
preserved, and that each should be applied to the purposes for which it
is best adapted. No philo-zoost, I believe, has suggested it as
desirable that these varieties should be melted down into one equal,
undistinguished race of curs or road horses.
Slavery, as it is said in an eloquent article published in a Southern
periodical work,[242] to which I am indebted for other ideas, "has done
more to elevate a degraded race in the scale of humanity; to tame the
savage; to civilize the barbarous; to soften the ferocious; to enlighten
the ignorant, and to spread the blessings of Christianity among the
heathen, than all the missionaries that philanthropy and religion have
ever sent forth."[243] Yet unquestionable as this is, and though human
ingenuity and thought may be tasked in vain to devise any other means by
which these blessings could have been conferred, yet a sort of
sensibility which would be only mawkish and contemptible, if it were not
mischievous, affects still to weep over the wrongs of "injured Africa."
Can there be a doubt of the immense benefit which has been conferred on
the race, by transplanting them from their native, dark, and barbarous
regions, to the American continent and islands? There, three-fourths of
the race are in a state of the most deplorable personal slavery. And
those who are not, are in a scarcely less deplorable condition of
political slavery, to barbarous chiefs--who value neither life nor any
other human right, or enthralled by priests to the most abject and
atrocious superstitions. Take the following testimony of one of the few
disinterested observers, who has had an opportunity of observing them in
both situations.[244] "The wild savage is the child of passion, unaided
by one ray of religion or morality to direct his course, in consequence
of which his existence is stained with every crime that can debase human
nature to a level with the brute creation. Who can say that the slaves
in our colonies are such? Are they not, by comparison with their still
savage brethren, enlightened beings? Is not the West Indian negro,
therefore, greatly indebted to his master for making him what he is--for
having raised him from the state of debasement in which he was born, and
placed him in a scale of civilized society? How can he repay him? He is
possessed of nothing--the only return in his power is his servitude. The
man who has seen the wild African, roaming in his native woods, and the
well fed, happy looking negro of the West Indies, may, perhaps, be able
to judge of their comparative happiness; the former, I strongly suspect,
would be glad to change his state of boasted freedom, starvation, and
disease, to become the slave of sinners, and the commiseration of
saints."[245] It was a useful and beneficent work, approaching the
heroic, to tame the wild horse, and subdue him to the use of man; how
much more to tame the nobler animal that is capable of reason, and
subdue him to usefulness?
We believe that the tendency of slavery is to elevate the character of
the master. No doubt the character--especially of youth--has sometimes
received a taint and premature knowledge of vice, from the contact and
association with ignorant and servile beings of gross manners and
morals. Yet still we believe that the entire tendency is to inspire
disgust and aversion toward their peculiar vices. It was not without a
knowledge of nature, that the Spartans exhibited the vices of slaves by
way of negative example to their children. We flatter ourselves that the
view of this degradation, mitigated as it is, has the effect of making
probity more strict, the pride of character more high, the sense of
honor more strong, than is commonly found where this institution does
not exist. Whatever may be the prevailing faults or vices of the masters
of slaves, they have not commonly been understood to be those of
dishonesty, cowardice, meanness, or falsehood. And so most
unquestionably it ought to be. Our institutions would indeed be
intolerable in the sight of God and man, if, condemning one portion of
society to hopeless ignorance and comparative degradation, they should
make no atonement by elevating the other class by higher virtues, and
more liberal attainments--if, besides degraded slaves, there should be
ignorant, ignoble, and degraded freemen. There is a broad and well
marked line, beyond which no slavish vice should be regarded with the
least toleration or allowance. One class is cut off from all interest in
the State--that abstraction so potent to the feelings of a generous
nature. The other must make compensation by increased assiduity and
devotion to its honor and welfare. The love of wealth--so laudable when
kept within proper limits, so base and mischievous when it exceeds
them--so infectious in its example--an infection to which I fear we
have been too much exposed--should be pursued by no arts in any degree
equivocal, or at any risk of injustice to others. So surely as there is
a just and wise governor of the universe, who punishes the sins of
nations and communities, as well as of individuals, so surely shall we
suffer punishment, if we are indifferent to that moral and intellectual
cultivation of which the means are furnished to us, and to which we are
called and incited by our situation.
I would to heaven I could express, as I feel, the conviction how
necessary this cultivation is, not only to our prosperity and
consideration, but to our safety and very existence. We, the
slaveholding States, are in a hopeless minority in our own confederated
Republic--to say nothing of the great confederacy of civilized States.
It is admitted, I believe, not only by slaveholders, but by others, that
we have sent to our common councils more than our due share of talent,
high character and eloquence.[246] Yet in spite of all these most
strenuously exerted, measures have been sometimes adopted which we
believed to be dangerous and injurious to us, and threatening to be
fatal. What would be our situation, if, instead of these, we were only
represented by ignorant and groveling men, incapable of raising their
views beyond a job or petty office, and incapable of commanding
bearing or consideration? May I be permitted to advert--by no means
invidiously--to the late contest carried on by South Carolina against
Federal authority, and so happily terminated by the moderation which
prevailed in our public counsels. I have often reflected, what one
circumstance, more than any other, contributed to the successful issue
of a contest, apparently so hopeless, in which one weak and divided
State was arrayed against the whole force of the confederacy--unsustained,
and uncountenanced, even by those who had a common interest with her. It
seemed to me to be, that we had for leaders an unusual number of men of
great intellectual power, co-operating cordially and in good faith, and
commanding respect and confidence at home and abroad, by elevated and
honorable character. It was from these that we--the followers at
home--caught hope and confidence in the gloomiest aspect of our affairs.
These, by their eloquence and the largeness of their views, at least
shook the faith of the dominant majority in the wisdom and justice of
their measures--or the practicability of carrying them into successful
effect; and by their bearing and well known character, satisfied them
that South Carolina would do all that she had pledged herself to do.
Without these, how different might have been the result? And who shall
say what at this day would have been the aspect of the now flourishing
fields and cities of South Carolina? Or rather, without these, it is
probable the contest would never have been begun; but that, without even
the animation of a struggle, we should have sunk silently into a
hopeless and degrading subjection. While I have memory--in the extremity
of age--in sickness--under all the reverses and calamities of life--I
shall have one source of pride and consolation--that of having been
associated--according to my humbler position--with the noble spirits who
stood prepared to devote themselves for Liberty--the Constitution--the
Union. May such character and such talent never be wanting to South
Carolina.
I am sure that it is unnecessary to say to an assembly like this, that
the conduct of the master to his slave should be distinguished by the
utmost humanity. That we should indeed regard them as wards and
dependents on our kindness, for whose well-being in every way we are
deeply responsible. This is no less the dictate of wisdom and just
policy, than of right feeling. It is wise with respect to the services
to be expected from them. I have never heard of an owner whose conduct
in their management was distinguished by undue severity, whose slaves
were not in a great degree worthless to him. A cheerful and kindly
demeanor, with the expression of interest in themselves and their
affairs, is, perhaps, calculated to have a better effect on them, than
what might be esteemed more substantial favors and indulgences.
Throughout nature, attachment is the reward of attachment. It is wise,
too, in relation to the civilized world around us, to avoid giving
occasion to the odium which is so industriously excited against
ourselves and our institutions. For this reason, public opinion should,
if possible, bear even more strongly and indignantly than it does at
present, on masters who practice any wanton cruelty on their slaves. The
miscreant who is guilty of this, not only violates the law of God and of
humanity, but as far as in him lies, by bringing odium upon, endangers
the institutions of his country, and the safety of his countrymen. He
casts a shade upon the character of every individual of his
fellow-citizens, and does every one of them a personal injury. So of him
who indulges in any odious excess of intemperate or licentious passion.
It is detached instances of this sort, of which the existence is,
perhaps, hardly known among ourselves, that, collected with pertinacious
and malevolent industry, affords the most formidable weapons to the
mischievous zealots, who array them as being characteristic of our
general manners and state of society.
I would by no means be understood to intimate, that a vigorous, as well
as just government, should not be exercised over slaves. This is part of
our duty toward them, no less obligatory than any other duty, and no
less necessary toward their well-being than to ours. I believe that at
least as much injury has been done and suffering inflicted by weak and
injudicious indulgence, as by inordinate severity. He whose business is
to labor, should be made to labor, and that with due diligence, and
should be vigorously restrained from excess or vice. This is no less
necessary to his happiness than to his usefulness. The master who
neglects this, not only makes his slaves unprofitable to himself, but
discontented and wretched--a nuisance to his neighbors and to society.
I have said that the tendency of our institution is to elevate the
female character, as well as that of the other sex, and for similar
reasons. In other states of society, there is no well-defined limit to
separate virtue and vice. There are degrees of vice, from the most
flagrant and odious, to that which scarcely incurs the censure of
society. Many individuals occupy an unequivocal position and as society
becomes accustomed to this, there will be a less peremptory requirement
of purity in female manners and conduct, and often the whole of the
society will be in a tainted and uncertain condition with respect to
female virtue. Here, there is that certain and marked line, above which
there is no toleration or allowance for any approach to license of
manners or conduct, and she who falls below it, will fall far below even
the slave. How many will incur this penalty?
And permit me to say, that this elevation of the female character is no
less important and essential to us, than the moral and intellectual
cultivation of the other sex. It would indeed be intolerable, if, when
one class of the society is necessarily degraded in this respect, no
compensation were made by the superior elevation and purity of the
other. Not only essential purity of conduct, but the utmost purity of
manners, and I will add, though it may incur the formidable charge of
affectation or prudery,--a greater severity of decorum than is required
elsewhere, is necessary among us. Always should be strenuously resisted
the attempts which have been sometimes made to introduce among us the
freedom of foreign European, and especially of continental manners. This
freedom, the remotest in the world from that which sometimes springs
from simplicity of manners, is calculated and commonly intended to
confound the outward distinctions of virtue and vice. It is to prepare
the way for licentiousness--to produce this effect--that if those who
are clothed with the outward color and garb of vice, may be well
received by society, those who are actually guilty may hope to be so
too. It may be said, that there is often perfect purity where there is
very great freedom of manners. And, I have no doubt, this may be true in
particular instances, but it is never true of any _society_ in which
this is the general state of manners. What guards can there be to
purity, when every thing that _may possibly_ be done innocently, is
habitually practiced; when there can be no impropriety which is not
vice. And what must be the depth of the depravity when there is a
departure from that which they admit as principle. Besides, things which
may perhaps be practiced innocently where they are familiar, produce a
moral dilaceration in the course of their being introduced where they
are new. Let us say, we will not have the manners of South Carolina
changed.
I have before said that free labor is cheaper than the labor of slaves,
and so far as it is so the condition of the free laborer is worse. But
I think President Dew has sufficiently shown that this is only true of
Northern countries. It is matter of familiar remark that the tendency of
warm climates is to relax the human constitution and indispose to labor.
The earth yields abundantly--in some regions almost spontaneously--under
the influence of the sun, and the means of supporting life are obtained
with but slight exertion; and men will use no greater exertion than is
necessary to the purpose. This very luxuriance of vegetation, where no
other cause concurs, renders the air less salubrious, and even when
positive malady does not exist, the health is habitually impaired.
Indolence renders the constitution more liable to these effects of the
atmosphere, and these again aggravate the indolence. Nothing but the
coercion of slavery can overcome the repugnance to labor under these
circumstances, and by subduing the soil, improve and render wholesome
the climate.
It is worthy of remark, that there does not now exist on the face of the
earth, a people in a tropical climate, or one approaching to it, where
slavery does not exist, that is in a state of high civilization, or
exhibits the energies which mark the progress toward it. Mexico and the
South American Republics,[247] starting on their new career of
independence, and having gone through a farce of abolishing slavery,
are rapidly degenerating, even from semi-barbarism. The only portion of
the South American continent which seems to be making any favorable
progress, in spite of a weak and arbitrary civil government, is Brazil,
in which slavery has been retained. Cuba, of the same race with the
continental republics, is daily and rapidly advancing in industry and
civilization; and this is owing exclusively to her slaves. St. Domingo
is struck out of the map of civilized existence, and the British West
Indies will shortly be so. On the other continent, Spain and Portugal
are degenerate, and their rapid progress is downward. Their southern
coast is infested by disease, arising from causes which industry might
readily overcome, but that industry they will never exert. Greece is
still barbarous, and scantily peopled. The work of an English physician,
distinguished by strong sense and power of observation,[248] gives a
most affecting picture of the condition of Italy,--especially south of
the Appenines. With the decay of industry, the climate has degenerated
toward the condition from which it was first rescued by the labor of
slaves. There is poison in every man's veins, affecting the very springs
of life, dulling or extinguishing, with the energies of the body, all
energy of mind, and often exhibiting itself in the most appalling forms
of disease. From year to year the pestilential atmosphere creeps
forward, narrowing the circles within which it is possible to sustain
human life. With disease and misery, industry still more rapidly decays,
and if the process goes on, it seems that Italy too will soon be ready
for another experiment in colonization.
Yet once it was not so, when Italy was possessed by the masters of
slaves; when Rome contained her millions, and Italy was a garden; when
their iron energies of body corresponded with the energies of mind which
made them conquerors in every climate and on every soil; rolled the tide
of conquest, not as in later times, from the South to the North;
extended their laws and their civilization, and created them lords of
the earth.
"What conflux issuing forth or entering in;
Prætors, pro-consuls to their provinces,
Hasting, or on return in robes of state.
Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power,
Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings:
Or embassies from regions far remote,
In various habits, on the Appian road,
Or on th' Emilian; some from furthest South,
Syene, and where the shadow both way falls,
Meroe, Nilotic isle, and more to West,
The realms of Bocchus to the Blackmoor sea;
From th' Asian kings, and Parthian among these;
From India and the golden Chersonese,
And utmost India's isle, Taprobona,
Dusk faces, with white silken turbans wreathed;
From Gallia, Gades, and the British West;
Germans, and Scythians, and Sarmatians, North
Beyond Danubius to the Tauric Pool!
All nations now to Rome obedience pay."
Such was, and such is, the picture of Italy. Greece presents a contrast
not less striking. What is the cause of the great change? Many causes,
no doubt, have occurred; but though
"War, famine, pestilence, and flood and fire,
Have dealt upon the seven-hilled city's pride,"
I will venture to say that nothing has dealt upon it more heavily than
the loss of domestic slavery. Is not this evident? If they had slaves,
with an energetic civil government, would the deadly miasma be permitted
to overspread the Campagna, and invade Rome herself? Would not the soil
be cultivated, and the wastes reclaimed? A late traveller[249] mentions
a canal, cut for miles through rock and mountain, for the purpose of
carrying off the waters of the lake of Celano, on which thirty thousand
Roman slaves were employed for eleven years, and which remains almost
perfect to the present day. This, the government of Naples was ten years
in repairing with an hundred workmen. The imperishable works of Rome
which remain to the present day were, for the most part, executed by
slaves. How different would be the condition of Naples, if for her
wretched lazzaroni were substituted negro slaves, employed in rendering
productive the plains whose fertility now serves only to infect the air!
To us, on whom this institution is fastened, and who could not shake it
off, even if we desired to do so, the great republics of antiquity offer
instruction of inestimable value. They teach us that slavery is
compatible with the freedom, stability, and long duration of civil
government, with denseness of population, great power, and the highest
civilization. And in what respect does this modern Europe, which claims
to give opinions to the world, so far excel them--notwithstanding the
immense advantages of the Christian religion and the discovery of the
art of printing? They are not more free, nor have performed more
glorious actions, nor displayed more exalted virtue. In the higher
departments of intellect--in all that relates to taste and
imagination--they will hardly venture to claim equality. Where they have
gone beyond them in the results of mechanical philosophy, or discoveries
which contribute to the wants and enjoyments of physical life, they have
done so by the help of means with which they were furnished by the
Grecian mind--the mother of civilization--and only pursued a little
further the tract which that had always pointed out. In the development
of intellectual power, they will hardly bear comparison. Those noble
republics in the pride of their strength and greatness, may have
anticipated for themselves--as some of their poets did for them--an
everlasting duration and predominance. But they could not have
anticipated, that when they had fallen under barbarous arms, that when
arts and civilization were lost, and the whole earth in darkness--the
first light should break from their tombs--that in a renewed world,
unconnected with them by ties of locality, language or descent, they
should still be held the models of all that is profound in science, or
elegant in literature, or all that is great in character, or elevated in
imagination. And perhaps when England herself, who now leads the war
with which we are on all sides threatened, shall have fulfilled her
mission, and like the other glorious things of the earth, shall have
passed away; when she shall have diffused her noble race and noble
language, her laws, her literature, and her civilization, over all
quarters of the earth, and shall perhaps be overrun by some Northern
horde--sunk into an ignoble and anarchical democracy,[250] or subdued to
the dominion of some Cæsar,--demagogue and despot,--then, in Southern
regions, there may be found many republics, triumphing in Grecian arts
and civilization, and worthy of British descent and Roman institutions.
If, after a time, when the mind and almost the memory of the republic
were lost, Romans degenerated, they furnish conclusive evidence that
this was owing not to their domestic, but to their political slavery.
The same thing is observed over all the Eastern monarchies; and so it
must be, wherever property is insecure, and it is dangerous for a man to
rise himself to such eminence by intellectual or moral excellence, as
would give him influence over his society. So it is in Egypt; and the
other regions bordering the Mediterranean, which once comprehended the
civilization of the world, where Carthage, Tyre, and Phœnicia
flourished. In short, the uncontradicted experience of the world is,
that in the Southern States where good government and predial and
domestic slavery are found, there are prosperity and greatness; where
either of these conditions is wanting, degeneracy and barbarism. The
former, however, is equally essential in all climates and under all
institutions. And can we suppose it to be the design of the Creator,
that these regions, constituting half of the earth's surface, and the
more fertile half, and more capable of sustaining life, should be
abandoned forever to depopulation and barbarism? Certain it is that they
will never be reclaimed by the labor of freemen. In our own country,
look at the lower valley of the Mississippi, which is capable of being
made a far greater Egypt. In our own State, there are extensive tracts
of the most fertile soil, which are capable of being made to swarm with
life. These are at present pestilential swamps, and valueless, because
there is abundance of other fertile soil in more favorable situations,
which demand all and more than all the labor which our country can
supply. Are these regions of fertility to be abandoned at once and
forever to the alligator and tortoise--with here and there perhaps a
miserable, shivering, crouching _free_ black savage? Does not the finger
of heaven itself seem to point to a race of men--not to be enslaved by
us, but already enslaved, and who will be in every way benefited by the
change of masters--to whom such climate is not uncongenial, who, though
disposed to indolence, are yet patient and capable of labor, on whose
whole features, mind and character, nature has indelibly
written--slave;--and indicate that we should avail ourselves of these in
fulfilling the first great command to subdue and replenish the earth.
It is true that this labor will be dearer than that of Northern
countries, where, under the name of freedom, they obtain cheaper and
perhaps better slaves. Yet it is the best we can have, and this too has
its compensation. We see it compensated at present by the superior value
of our agricultural products. And this superior value they must probably
always have. The Southern climate admits of a greater variety of
productions. Whatever is produced in Northern climates, the same thing,
or something equivalent, may be produced in the Southern. But the
Northern have no equivalent for the products of Southern climates. The
consequence will be, that the products of Southern regions will be
demanded all over the civilized world. The agricultural products of
Northern regions are chiefly for their own consumption. They must
therefore apply themselves to the manufacturing of articles of luxury,
elegance, convenience, or necessity,--which requires cheap labor--for
the purpose of exchanging them with their Southern neighbors. Thus
nature herself indicates that agriculture should be the predominating
employment in Southern countries, and manufactures in Northern. Commerce
is necessary to both--but less indispensable to the Southern, which
produce within themselves a greater variety of things desirable to life.
They will therefore have somewhat less of the commercial spirit. We must
avail ourselves of such labor as we can command. The slave must labor,
and is inured to it; while the necessity of energy in his government, of
watchfulness, and of preparation and power to suppress insurrection,
added to the moral force derived from the habit of command, may help to
prevent the degeneracy of the master.
The task of keeping down insurrection is commonly supposed by those who
are strangers to our institutions, to be a very formidable one. Even
among ourselves, accustomed as we have been to take our opinions on this
as on every other subject, ready formed from those whom we regarded as
instructors, in the teeth of our own observation and experience, fears
have been entertained which are absolutely ludicrous. We have been
supposed to be nightly reposing over a mine, which may at any instant
explode to our destruction. The first thought of a foreigner sojourning
in one of our cities, who is awaked by any nightly alarm, is of servile
insurrection and massacre. Yet if any thing is certain in human affairs,
it is certain and from the most obvious considerations, that we are more
secure in this respect than any civilived and fully peopled society upon
the face of the earth. In every such society, there is a much larger
proportion than with us, of persons who have more to gain than to lose
by the overthrow of government, and the embroiling of social order. It
is in such a state of things that those who were before at the bottom of
society, rise to the surface. From causes already considered, they are
peculiarly apt to consider their sufferings the result of injustice and
misgovernment, and to be rancorous and embittered accordingly. They have
every excitement, therefore, of resentful passion, and every temptation
which the hope of increased opulence, or power or consideration can hold
out, to urge them to innovation and revolt. Supposing the same
disposition to exist in equal degree among our slaves, what are their
comparative means or prospect of gratifying it? The poor of other
countries are called free. They have, at least, no one interested to
exercise a daily and nightly superintendence and control over their
conduct and actions. Emissaries of their class may traverse, unchecked,
every portion of the country, for the purpose of organizing
insurrection. From their greater intelligence, they have greater means
of communicating with each other. They may procure and secrete arms. It
is not alone the ignorant, or those who are commonly called the poor,
that will be tempted to revolution. There will be many disappointed men,
and men of desperate fortune--men perhaps of talent and daring--to
combine them and direct their energies. Even those in the higher ranks
of society who contemplate no such result, will contribute to it, by
declaiming on their hardships and rights.
With us, it is almost physically impossible that there should be any
very extensive combination among the slaves. It is absolutely impossible
that they should procure and conceal efficient arms. Their emissaries
traversing the country, would carry their commissions on their
foreheads. If we suppose among them an individual of sufficient talent
and energy to qualify him for a revolutionary leader, he could not be so
extensively known as to command the confidence, which would be necessary
to enable him to combine and direct them. Of the class of freemen, there
would be no individual so poor or degraded (with the exception perhaps
of here and there a reckless and desperate outlaw and felon) who would
not have much to lose by the success of such an attempt; every one,
therefore, would be vigilant and active to detect and suppress it. Of
all impossible things, one of the most impossible would be a successful
insurrecction of our slaves, originating with themselves.
Attempts at insurrection have indeed been made--excited, as we believe,
by the agitation of the abolitionists and declaimers on slavery; but
these have been in every instance promptly suppressed. We fear not to
compare the riots, disorder, revolt and bloodshed, which have been
committed in our own, with those of any other civilized communities,
during the same lapse of time. And let it be observed under what
extraordinary circumstances our peace has been preserved. For the last
half century, one half of our population has been admonished in terms
the most calculated to madden and excite, that they are the victims of
the most grinding and cruel injustice and oppression. We know that these
exhortations continually reach them, through a thousand channels which
we cannot detect, as if carried by the birds of the air--and what human
being, especially when unfavorably distinguished by outward
circumstances, is not ready to give credit when he is told that he is
the victim of injustice and oppression? In effect, if not in terms, they
have been continually exhorted to insurrection. The master has been
painted as a criminal, tyrant and robber, justly obnoxious to the
vengeance of God and man, and they have been assured of the countenance
and sympathy, if not of the active assistance, of all the rest of the
world. We ourselves have in some measure pleaded guilty to the
impeachment. It is not long since a great majority of our free
population, servile to the opinions of those whose opinions they had
been accustomed to follow, would have admitted slavery to be a great
evil, unjust and indefensible in principle, and only to be vindicated by
the stern necessity which was imposed upon us. Thus stimulated by every
motive and passion which ordinarily actuate human beings--not as to a
criminal enterprise, but as to something generous and heroic--what has
been the result? A few imbecile and uncombined plots--in every instance
detected before they broke out into action, and which perhaps if
undetected would never have broken into action. One or two sudden,
unpremeditated attempts, frantic in their character, if not prompted by
actual insanity, and these instantly crushed. As it is, we are not less
assured of safety, order, and internal peace, than any other people; and
but for the pertinacious and fanatical agitations of the subject, would
be much more so.
This experience of security, however, should admonish us of the folly
and wickedness of those who have sometimes taken upon themselves to
supersede the regular course of law, and by rash and violent acts to
punish supposed disturbers of the peace of society. This can admit of no
justification or palliation whatever. Burke, I think, somewhere remarked
something to this effect,--that when society is in the last stage of
depravity--when all parties are alike corrupt, and alike wicked and
unjustifiable in their measures and objects, a good man may content
himself with standing neuter, a sad and disheartened spectator of the
conflict between the rival vices. But are we in this wretched condition?
It is fearful to see with what avidity the worst and most dangerous
characters of society seize on the occasion of obtaining the countenance
of better men, for the purpose of throwing off the restraints of law. It
is always these who are most zealous and forward in constituting
themselves the protectors of the public peace. To such men--men without
reputation, or principle, or stake in society--disorder is the natural
element. In that, desperate fortunes and the want of all moral principle
and moral feeling constitute power. They are eager to avenge themselves
upon society. Anarchy is not so much the absence of government, as the
government of the worst--not aristocracy, but kakistocracy--a state of
things, which to the honor of our nature, has seldom obtained among men,
and which perhaps was only fully exemplified during the worst times of
the French Revolution, when that horrid hell burnt with its most lurid
flame. In such a state of things, to be accused is to be condemned--to
protect the innocent is to be guilty; and what perhaps is the worst
effect, even men of better nature, to whom their own deeds are
abhorrent, are goaded by terror to be forward and emulous in deeds of
guilt and violence. The scenes of lawless violence which have been acted
in some portions of our country, rare and restricted as they have been,
have done more to tarnish its reputation than a thousand libels. They
have done more to discredit, and if any thing could, to endanger, not
only our domestic, but our republican institutions, than the
abolitionists themselves. Men can never be permanently and effectually
disgraced but by themselves, and rarely endangered but by their own
injudicious conduct, giving advantage to the enemy. Better, far better,
would it be to encounter the dangers with which we are supposed to be
threatened, than to employ such means for averting them. But the truth
is, that in relation to this matter, so far as respects actual
insurrection, when alarm is once excited, danger is absolutely at an
end. Society can then employ legitimate and more effectual measures for
its own protection. The very commission of such deeds is proof that they
are unnecessary. Let those who attempt them, then, or make any
demonstration toward them, understand that they will meet only the
discountenance and abhorrence of all good men, and the just punishment
of the laws they have dared to outrage.
It has commonly been supposed, that this institution will prove a source
of weakness in relation to military defense against a foreign country. I
will venture to say that in a slaveholding community, a larger military
force may be maintained permanently in the field, than in any State
where there are not slaves. It is plain that almost the whole of the
able bodied free male population, making half of the entire able bodied
male population, may be maintained in the field, and this without taking
in any material degree from the labor and resources of the country. In
general, the labor of our country is performed by slaves. In other
countries, it is their laborers that form the material of their armies.
What proportion of these can be taken away without fatally crippling
their industry and resources? In the war of the Revolution, though the
strength of our State was wasted and paralyzed by the unfortunate
divisions which existed among ourselves, yet it may be said with general
truth, that every citizen was in the field, and acquired much of the
qualities of the soldier.
It is true that this advantage will be attended with its compensating
evils and disadvantages; to which we must learn to submit, if we are
determined on the maintenance of our institutions. We are, as yet,
hardly at all aware how little the maxims and practices of modern
civilized governments will apply to us. Standing armies, as they are
elsewhere constituted, we cannot have; for we have not, and for
generations cannot have, the materials out of which they are to be
formed. If we should be involved in serious wars, I have no doubt but
that some sort of conscription, requiring the service of all citizens
for a considerable term, will be necessary. Like the people of Athens,
it will be necessary that every citizen should be a soldier, and
qualified to discharge efficiently the duties of a soldier. It may seem
a melancholy consideration, that an army so made up should be opposed to
the disciplined mercenaries of foreign nations. But we must learn to
know our true situation. But may we not hope, that made up of superior
materials, of men having home and country to defend; inspired by higher
pride of character, of greater intelligence, and trained by an
effective, though honorable discipline, such an army will be more than a
match for mercenaries. The efficiency of an army is determined by the
qualities of its officers, and may we not expect to have a greater
proportion of men better qualified for officers, and possessing the true
spirit of military command. And let it be recollected that if there were
otherwise reason to apprehend danger from insurrection, there will be
the greatest security when there is the largest force on foot within the
country. Then it is that any such attempt would be most instantly and
effectually crushed.
And, perhaps, a wise foresight should induce our State to provide, that
it should have within itself such military knowledge and skill as may be
sufficient to organize, discipline, and command armies, by establishing
a military academy or school of discipline. The school of the militia
will not do for this. From the general opinion of our weakness, if our
country should at any time come into hostile collision, we shall be
selected for the point of attack; making us, according to Mr. Adam's
anticipation, the Flanders of the United States. Come from what quarter
it may, the storm will fall upon us. It is known that lately, when there
was apprehension of hostility with France, the scheme was instantly
devised of invading the Southern States and organizing insurrection. In
a popular English periodical work, I have seen the plan suggested by an
officer of high rank and reputation in the British army, of invading the
Southern States at various points and operating by the same means. He is
said to be a gallant officer, and certainly had no conception that he
was devising atrocious crime, as alien to the true spirit of civilized
warfare, as the poisoning of streams and fountains. But the folly of
such schemes is no less evident than their wickedness. Apart from the
consideration of that which experience has most fully proved to be
true--that in general their attachment and fidelity to their masters is
not to be shaken, and that from sympathy with the feelings of those by
whom they are surrounded, and from whom they derive their impressions,
they contract no less terror and aversion toward an invading enemy; it
is manifest that this recourse would be an hundred fold more available
to us than to such an enemy. They are already in our possession, and we
might at will arm and organize them in any number that we might think
proper. The Helots were a regular constituent part of the Spartan
armies. Thoroughly acquainted with their characters, and accustomed to
command them, we might use any strictness of discipline which would be
necessary to render them effective, and from their habits of
subordination already formed, this would be a task of less difficulty.
Though morally most timid, they are by no means wanting in physical
strength of nerve. They are excitable by praise; and directed by those
in whom they have confidence, would rush fearlessly and unquestioning
upon any sort of danger. With white officers and accompanied by a strong
white cavalry, there are no troops in the world from whom there would be
so little reason to apprehend insubordination or mutiny.
This, I admit, might be a dangerous resource, and one not to be resorted
to but in great extremity. But I am supposing the case of our being
driven to extremity. It might be dangerous to disband such an army, and
reduce them with the habits of soldiers, to their former condition of
laborers. It might be found necessary, when once embodied, to keep them
so, and subject to military discipline--a permanent standing army. This
in time of peace would be expensive, if not dangerous. Or if at any time
we should be engaged in hostilities with our neighbors, and it were
thought advisable to send such an army abroad to conquer settlements for
themselves, the invaded regions might have occasion to think that the
scourge of God was again let loose to afflict the earth.
President Dew has very fully shown how utterly vain are the fears of
those, who, though there may be no danger for the present, yet apprehend
great danger for the future, when the number of slaves shall be greatly
increased. He has shown that the larger and more condensed society
becomes, the easier it will be to maintain subordination, supposing the
relative number of the different classes to remain the same--or even if
there should be a very disproportionate increase of the enslaved class.
Of all vain things, the vainest and that in which man most shows his
impotence and folly, is the taking upon himself to provide for a very
distant future--at all events by any material sacrifice of the present.
Though experience has shown that revolutions and political
movements--unless when they have been conducted with the most guarded
caution and moderation--have generally terminated in results just the
opposite of what was expected from them, the angry ape will still play
his fantastic tricks, and put in motion machinery, the action of which
he no more comprehends or foresees than he comprehends the mysteries of
infinity. The insect that is borne upon the current will fancy that he
directs its course. Besides the fear of insurrection and servile war,
there is also alarm lest, when their numbers shall be greatly increased,
their labor will become utterly unprofitable, so that it will be equally
difficult for the master to retain and support them, or to get rid of
them. But at what age of the world is this likely to happen? At present,
it may be said that almost the whole of the Southern portion of this
continent is to be subdued to cultivation; and in the order of
Providence, this is the task allotted to them. For this purpose, more
labor will be required for generations to come than they will be able to
supply. When that task is accomplished, there will be many objects to
which their labor may be directed.
At present they are employed in accumulating individual wealth, and this
in one way, to wit, as agricultural laborers--and this is, perhaps, the
most useful purpose to which their labor can be applied. The effect of
slavery has not been to counteract the tendency to dispersion, which
seems epidemical among our countrymen, invited by the unbounded extent
of fertile and unexhausted soil, though it counteracts many of the evils
of dispersion. All the customary trades, professions and employments,
except the agricultural, require a condensed population for their
profitable exercise. The agriculturist who can command no labor but that
of his own hands, or that of his family, must remain comparatively poor
and rude. He who acquires wealth by the labor of slaves, has the means
of improvement for himself and his children. He may have a more extended
intercourse, and consequently means of information and refinement, and
may seek education for his children where it may be found. I say, what
is obviously true, that he has the _means_ of obtaining those
advantages; but I say nothing to palliate or excuse the conduct of him
who, having such means, neglects to avail himself of them.
I believe it to be true, that in consequence of our dispersion, though
individual wealth is acquired, the face of the country is less adorned
and improved by useful and ornamental public works, than in other
societies of more condensed population, where there is less wealth. But
this is an effect of that which constitutes perhaps our most conspicuous
advantage. Where population is condensed, they must have the evils of
condensed population, and among these is the difficulty of finding
profitable employment for capital. He who has accumulated even an
inconsiderable sum, is often puzzled to know what use to make of it.
Ingenuity is therefore tasked to cast about for every enterprise which
may afford a chance of profitable investment. Works useful and
ornamental to the country, are thus undertaken and accomplished, and
though the proprietors may fail of profit, the community no less
receives the benefit. Among us, there is no such difficulty. A safe and
profitable method of investment is offered to every one who has capital
to dispose of, which is further recommended to his feelings by the sense
of independence and the comparative leisure which the employment affords
to the proprietor engaged in it. It is for this reason that few of our
citizens engage in the pursuits of commerce. Though these may be more
profitable, they are also more hazardous and more laborious.
When the demand for agricultural labor shall be fully supplied, then of
course the labor of slaves will be directed to other employment and
enterprises. Already it begins to be found, that in some instances it
may be used as profitably in works of public improvement. As it becomes
cheaper and cheaper, it will be applied to more various purposes and
combined in larger masses. It may be commanded and combined with more
facility than any other sort of labor; and the laborer, kept in stricter
subordination, will be less dangerous to the security of society than in
any other country, which is crowded and overstocked with a class of what
are called free laborers. Let it be remembered that all the great and
enduring monuments of human art and industry--the wonders of Egypt--the
everlasting works of Rome--were created by the labor of slaves. There
will come a stage in our progress when we shall have facilities for
executing works as great as any of these--more useful than the
pyramids--not less magnificent than the sea of Moeris. What the end of
all is to be; what mutations lie hid in the womb of the distant future;
to what convulsions our societies may be exposed--whether the master,
finding it impossible to live with his slaves, may not be compelled to
abandon the country to them--of all this it were presumptuous and vain
to speculate.
I have hitherto, as I proposed, considered it as a naked, abstract
question of the comparative good and evil of the institution of slavery.
Very far different indeed is the practical question presented to us,
when it is proposed to get rid of an institution which has interwoven
itself with every fibre of the body politic; which has formed the habits
of our society, and is consecrated by the usage of generations. If this
be not a vicious prescription, which the laws of God forbid to ripen
into right, it has a just claim to be respected by all tribunals of man.
If the negroes were now free, and it were proposed to enslave them, then
it would be incumbent on those who proposed the measure to show clearly
that their liberty was incompatible with the public security. When it is
proposed to innovate on the established state of things, the burden is
on those who propose the innovation, to show that advantage will be
gained from it. There is no reform, however necessary, wholesome or
moderate, which will not be accompanied with some degree of
inconvenience, risk or suffering. Those who acquiesce in the state of
things which they found existing, can hardly be thought criminal. But
most deeply criminal are they who give rise to the enormous evil with
which great revolutions in society are always attended, without the
fullest assurance of the greater good to be ultimately obtained. But if
it can be made to appear, even probably, that no good will be obtained,
but that the results will be evil and calamitous as the process, what
can justify such innovations? No human being can be so mischievous--if
acting consciously, none can be so wicked as those who, finding evil in
existing institutions, run blindly upon change, unforeseeing and
reckless of consequences, and leaving it to chance or fate to determine
whether the end shall be improvement, or greater and more intolerable
evil. Certainly the instincts of nature prompt to resist intolerable
oppression. For this resistance no rule can be prescribed, but it must
be left to the instincts of nature. To justify it, however, the
insurrectionists should at least have a reasonable probability of
success, and be assured that their condition will be improved by
success. But most extraordinary is it, when those who complain and
clamor are not those who are supposed to feel the oppression, but
persons at a distance from them, and who can hardly at all appreciate
the good or the evil of their situation. It is the unalterable condition
of humanity, that men must achieve civil liberty for themselves. The
assistance of allies has sometimes enabled nations to repel the attacks
of foreign power, never to conquer liberty against their own internal
government.
In one thing I concur with the abolitionsts; that if emancipation is to
be brought about, it is better that it should be immediate and total.
But let us suppose it to be brought about in any manner, and then
inquire what would be the effects.
The first and most obvious effect, would be to put an end to the
cultivation of our great Southern staple. And this would be equally the
result, if we suppose the emancipated negroes to be in no way
distinguished from the free laborers of other countries, and that their
labor would be equally effective. In that case, they would soon cease to
be laborers for hire, but would scatter themselves over our unbounded
territory, to become independent land owners themselves. The cultivation
of the soil on an extensive scale, can only be carried on where there
are slaves, or in countries superabounding with free labor. No such
operations are carried on in any portions of our own country where there
are not slaves. Such are carried on in England, where there is an
overflowing population and intense competition for employment. And our
institutions seem suited to the exigencies of our respective situations.
There, a much greater number of laborers is required at one season of
the year than at another, and the farmer may enlarge or diminish the
quantity of labor he employs, as circumstances may require. Here, about
the same quantity of labor is required at every season, and the planter
suffers no inconvenience from retaining his laborers throughout the
year. Imagine an extensive rice or cotton plantation cultivated by free
laborers, who might perhaps _strike_ for an increase of wages, at a
season when the neglect of a few days would insure the destruction of
the whole crop. Even if it were possible to procure laborers at all,
what planter would venture to carry on his operations under such
circumstances? I need hardly say that these staples can not be produced
to any extent where the proprietor of the soil cultivates it with his
own hands. He can do little more than produce the necessary food for
himself and his family.
And what would be the effect of putting an end to the cultivation of
these staples, and thus annihilating, at a blow, two-thirds or
three-fourths of our foreign commerce? Can any sane mind contemplate
such a result without terror? I speak not of the utter poverty and
misery to which we ourselves would be reduced, and the desolation which
would overspread our own portion of the country. Our slavery has not
only given existence to millions of slaves within our own territories,
it has given the means of subsistence, and therefore existence, to
millions of freemen in our confederate States; enabling them to send
forth their swarms to overspread the plains and forests of the West, and
appear as the harbingers of civilization. The products of the industry
of those States are in general similar to those of the civilized world,
and are little demanded in their markets. By exchanging them for ours,
which are everywhere sought for, the people of these States are enabled
to acquire all the products of art and industry, all that contributes to
convenience or luxury, or gratifies the taste or the intellect, which
the rest of the world can supply. Not only on our own continent, but on
the other, it has given existence to hundreds of thousands, and the
means of comfortable subsistence to millions. A distinguished citizen of
our own State, than whom none can be better qualified to form an
opinion, has lately stated that our great staple, cotton, has
contributed more than any thing else of later times to the progress of
civilization. By enabling the poor to obtain cheap and becoming
clothing, it has inspired a taste for comfort, the first stimulus to
civilization. Does not _self-defense_, then, demand of us steadily to
resist the abrogation of that which is productive of so much good? It is
more than self-defense. It is to defend millions of human beings, who
are far removed from us, from the intensest suffering, if not from being
struck out of existence. It is the defense of human civilization.
But this is but a small part of the evil which would be occasioned.
After President Dew, it is unnecessary to say a single word on the
practicability of colonizing our slaves. The two races, so widely
separated from each other by the impress of nature, must remain together
in the same country. Whether it be accounted the result of prejudice or
reason, it is certain that the two races will not be blended together so
as to form a homogenous population. To one who knows any thing of the
nature of man and human society, it would be unnecessary to argue that
this state of things can not continue; but that one race must be driven
out by the other, or exterminated, or again enslaved. I have argued on
the supposition that the emancipated negroes would be as efficient as
other free laborers. But whatever theorists, who know nothing of the
matter, may think proper to assume, we well know that this would not be
so. We know that nothing but the coercion of slavery can overcome their
propensity to indolence, and that not one in ten would be an efficient
laborer. Even if this disposition were not grounded in their nature, it
would be a result of their position. I have somewhere seen it observed,
that to be degraded by opinion, is a thousand fold worse, so far as the
feelings of the individuals are concerned, than to be degraded by the
laws. _They_ would be thus degraded, and this feeling is incompatible
with habits of order and industry. Half our population would at once be
paupers. Let an inhabitant of New-York or Philadelphia conceive of the
situation of their respective States, if one-half of their population
consisted of free negroes. The tie which now connects them, being
broken, the different races would be estranged from each other, and
hostility would grow up between them. Having the command of their own
time and actions, they could more effectually combine insurrection, and
provide the means of rendering it formidable. Released from the vigilant
superintendence which now restrains them, they would infallibly be led
from petty to greater crimes, until all life and property would be
rendered insecure. Aggression would beget retaliation, until open
war--and that a war of extermination--were established. From the still
remaining superiority of the white race, it is probable that they would
be the victors, and if they did not exterminate, they must again reduce
the others to slavery--when they could be no longer fit to be either
slaves or freemen. It is not only in self-defense, in defense of our
country and of all that is dear to us, but in defense of the slaves
themselves, that we refuse to emancipate them.
If we suppose them to have political privileges, and to be admitted to
the elective franchise, still worse results may be expected.[251] It is
hardly necessary to add any thing to what has been said by Mr. Paulding
on this subject who has treated it fully. It is already known, that if
there be a class unfavorably distinguished by any peculiarity from the
rest of society, this distinction forms a tie which binds them to act
in concert, and they exercise more than their due share of political
power and influence--and still more, as they are of inferior character
and looser moral principle. Such a class form the very material for
demogogues to work with. Other parties court them, and concede to them.
So it would be with the free blacks in the case supposed. They would be
used by unprincipled politicians, of irregular ambition, for the
advancement of their schemes, until they should give them political
power and importance beyond even their own intentions. They would be
courted by excited parties in their contests with each other. At some
time, they may perhaps attain political ascendancy, and this is more
probable, as we may suppose that there will have been a great emigration
of whites from the country. Imagine the government of such legislators.
Imagine then the sort of laws that will be passed, to confound the
invidious distinction which has been so long assumed over them, and, if
possible, to obliterate the very memory of it. These will be resisted.
The blacks will be tempted to avenge themselves by oppression and
proscription of the white race, for their long superiority. Thus matters
will go on, until universal anarchy, or kakistocracy, the government of
the worst, is fully established. I am persuaded that if the spirit of
evil should devise to send abroad upon the earth all possible misery,
discord, horror, and atrocity, he could contrive no scheme so effectual
as the emancipation of negro slaves within our country.
The most feasible scheme of emancipation, and that which I verily
believe would involve the least danger and sacrifice, would be that the
_entire_ white population should emigrate, and abandon the country to
their slaves. Here would be triumph to philanthropy. This wide and
fertile region would be again restored to ancient barbarism--to the
worst of all barbarism--barbarism corrupted and depraved by intercourse
with civilization. And this is the consummation to be wished, upon a
_speculation_, that in some distant future age, they may become so
enlightened and improved, as to be capable of sustaining a position
among the civilized races of the earth. But I believe moralists allow
men to defend their homes and their country, even at the expense of the
lives and liberties of others.
Will any philanthropist say that the evils, of which I have spoken,
would be brought about only by the obduracy, prejudices, and overweening
self-estimation of the whites in refusing to blend the races by
marriage, and so create a homogenous population?[252] But what, if it be
not prejudice, but truth, and nature, and right reason, and just moral
feeling? As I have before said, throughout the whole of nature, like
attracts like, and that which is unlike repels. What is it that makes so
unspeakably loathsome, crimes not to be named, and hardly alluded to?
Even among the nations of Europe, so nearly homogenous, there are some
peculiarities of form and feature, mind and character, which may be
generally distinguished by those accustomed to observe them. Though the
exceptions are numerous, I will venture to say that not in one instance
in a hundred, is the man of sound and unsophisticated tastes and
propensities so likely to be attracted by the female of a foreign stock,
as by one of his own, who is more nearly conformed to himself.
Shakspeare spoke the language of nature, when he made the senate and
people of Venice attribute to the effect of witchcraft, Desdemona's
passion for Othello--though, as Coleridge has said, we are to conceive
of him not as a negro, but as a high bred Moorish chief.
If the negro race, as I have contended, be inferior to our own in mind
and character, marked by inferiority of form and features, then ours
would suffer deterioration from such intermixture. What would be thought
of the moral conduct of the parent who should voluntarily transmit
disease, or fatuity, or deformity to his offspring? If man be the most
perfect work of the Creator, and the civilized European man the most
perfect variety of the human race, is he not criminal who would
desecrate and deface God's fairest work; estranging it further from the
image of himself, and conforming it more nearly to that of the brute? I
have heard it said, as if it afforded an argument, that the African is
as well satisfied of the superiority of his own complexion, form, and
features, as we can be of ours. If this were true, as it is not, would
any one be so recreant to his own civilization, as to say that his
opinion ought to weigh against ours--that there is no universal standard
of truth, and grace, and beauty--that the Hottentot Venus may perchance
possess as great perfection of form as the Medicean? It is true, the
licentious passions of men overcome the natural repugnance, and find
transient gratification in intercourse with females of the other race.
But this is a very different thing from making her the associate of
life, the companion of the bosom and the hearth. Him who would
contemplate such an alliance for himself, or regard it with patience,
when proposed for a son, or daughter, or sister, we should esteem a
degraded wretch--with justice, certainly, if he were found among
ourselves--and the estimate would not be very different if he were found
in Europe. It is not only in defense of ourselves, of our country, and
of our own generation, that we refuse to emancipate our slaves, but to
defend our posterity and race from degeneracy and degradation.
Are we not justified then in regarding as criminals, the fanatical
agitators whose efforts are intended to bring about the evils I have
described? It is sometimes said that their zeal is generous and
disinterested, and that their motives may be praised, though their
conduct be condemned. But I have little faith in the good motives of
those who pursue bad ends. It is not for us to scrutinize the hearts of
men, and we can only judge of them by the tendency of their actions.
There is much truth in what was said by Coleridge. "I have never known a
trader in philanthropy who was not wrong in heart somehow or other.
Individuals so distinguished, are usually unhappy in their family
relations--men not benevolent or beneficent to individuals, but almost
hostile to them, yet lavishing money and labor and time on the race--the
abstract notion." The prurient love of notoriety actuates some. There is
much luxury in sentiment, especially if it can be indulged at the
expense of others, and if there be added some share of envy or
malignity, the temptation to indulgence is almost irresistible. But
certainly they may be justly regarded as criminal, who obstinately shut
their eyes and close their ears to all instruction with respect to the
true nature of their actions.
It must be manifest to every man of sane mind that it is impossible for
them to achieve ultimate success; even if every individual in our
country, out of the limits of the slaveholding States, were united in
their purposes. They can not have even the miserable triumph of St.
Domingo--of advancing through scenes of atrocity, blood and massacre, to
the restoration of barbarism. They may agitate and perplex the world for
a time. They may excite to desperate attempts and particular acts of
cruelty and horror, but these will always be suppressed or avenged at
the expense of the objects of their truculent philanthropy. But short of
this, they can hardly be aware of the extent of the mischief they
perpetrate. As I have said, their opinions, by means to us inscrutable,
do very generally reach our slave population. What human being, if
unfavorably distinguished by outward circumstances, is not ready to
believe when he is told that he is the victim of injustice? Is it not
cruelty to make men restless and dissatisfied in their condition, when
no effort of theirs can alter it? The greatest injury is done to their
characters, as well as to their happiness. Even if no such feelings or
designs should be entertained or conceived by the slave, they will be
attributed to him by the master, and all his conduct scanned with a
severe and jealous scrutiny. Thus distrust and aversion are established,
where, but for mischievous interference, there would be confidence and
good-will, and a sterner control is exercised over the slave who thus
becomes the victim of his cruel advocates.[253]
An effect is sometimes produced on the minds of slaveholders, by the
publications of the self-styled philanthropists, and their judgments
staggered and consciences alarmed. It is natural that the oppressed
should hate the oppressor. It is still more natural that the oppressor
should hate his victim. Convince the master that he is doing injustice
to his slave, and he at once begins to regard him with distrust and
malignity. It is a part of the constitution of the human mind, that when
circumstances of necessity or temptation induce men to continue in the
practice of what they believe to be wrong, they become desperate and
reckless of the degree of wrong. I have formerly heard of a master who
accounted for his practicing much severity upon his slaves, and exacting
from them an unusual degree of labor, by saying that the thing (slavery)
was altogether wrong, and therefore it was well to make the greatest
possible advantage out of it. This agitation occasions some slaveholders
to hang more loosely on their country. Regarding the institution as of
questionable character, condemned by the general opinion of the world,
and one which must shortly come to an end, they hold themselves in
readiness to make their escape from the evil which they anticipate. Some
sell their slaves to new masters (always a misfortune to the slave) and
remove themselves to other societies, of manners and habits uncongenial
to their own. And though we may suppose that it is only the weak and the
timid who are liable to be thus affected, still it is no less an injury
and public misfortune. Society is kept in an unquiet and restless state,
and every sort of improvement is retarded.
Some projectors suggest the education of slaves, with a view to prepare
them for freedom--as if there were any method of a man's being educated
to freedom, but by himself. The truth is, however, that supposing that
they are shortly to be emancipated, and that they have the capacities of
any other race, they are undergoing the very best education which it is
possible to give. They are in the course of being taught habits of
regular and patient industry, and this is the first lesson which is
required. I suppose that their most zealous advocates would not desire
that they should be placed in the high places of society immediately
upon their emancipation, but that they should begin their course of
freedom as laborers, and raise themselves afterward as their capacities
and characters might enable them. But how little would what are commonly
called the rudiments of education, add to their qualifications as
laborers? But for the agitation which exists, however, their education
would be carried further than this. There is a constant tendency in our
society to extend the sphere of their employments, and consequently to
give them the information which is necessary to the discharge of those
employments. And this, for the most obvious reason, it promotes the
master's interest. How much would it add to the value of a slave, that
he should be capable of being employed as a clerk, or be able to make
calculations as a mechanic? In consequence, however, of the fanatical
spirit which has been excited, it has been thought necessary to repress
this tendency by legislation, and to prevent their acquiring the
knowledge of which they might make a dangerous use. If this spirit were
put down, and we restored to the consciousness of security, this would
be no longer necessary, and the process of which I have spoken would be
accelerated. Whenever indications of superior capacity appeared in a
slave, it would be cultivated; gradual improvement would take place,
until they might be engaged in as various employments as they were among
the ancients--perhaps even liberal ones. Thus, if in the adorable
providence of God, at a time and in a manner which we can neither
foresee nor conjecture, they are to be rendered capable of freedom and
to enjoy it, they would be prepared for it in the best and most
effectual, because in the most natural and gradual manner. But
fanaticism hurries to its effect at once. I have heard it said, God does
good, but it is by imperceptible degrees; the devil is permitted to do
evil, and he does it in a hurry. The beneficent processes of nature are
not apparent to the senses. You cannot see the plant grow, or the flower
expand. The volcano, the earthquake, and the hurricane, do their work of
desolation in a moment. Such would be the desolation, if the schemes of
fanatics were permitted to have effect. They do all that in them lies to
thwart the beneficent purposes of providence. The whole tendency of
their efforts is to aggravate present suffering, and to cut off the
chance of future improvement, and in all their bearings and results,
have produced, and are likely to produce, nothing but "pure, unmixed,
dephlegmated, defecated evil."
If Wilberforce or Clarkson were living, and it were inquired of them
"can you be sure that you have promoted the happiness of a single human
being?" I imagine that, if they considered conscientiously, they would
find it difficult to answer in the affirmative. If it were asked "can
you be sure that you have not been the cause of suffering, misery and
death to thousands,"--when we recollect that they probably stimulated
the exertions of the _amis des noirs_ in France, and that through the
efforts of these the horrors of St. Domingo were perpetrated--I think
they must hesitate long to return a decided negative. It might seem
cruel, if we could, to convince a man who has devoted his life to what
he esteemed a good and generous purpose, that he has been doing only
evil--that he has been worshiping a horrid fiend, in the place of the
true God. But fanaticism is in no danger of being convinced.[254] It is
one of the mysteries of our nature, and of the divine government, how
utterly disproportioned to each other are the powers of doing evil and
of doing good. The poorest and most abject instrument, that is utterly
imbecile for any purpose of good, seems sometimes endowed with almost
the powers of omnipotence for mischief. A mole may inundate a
province--a spark from a forge may conflagrate a city--a whisper may
separate friends--a rumor may convulse an empire--but when we would do
benefit to our race or country, the purest and most chastened motives,
the most patient thought and labor, with the humblest self-distrust, are
hardly sufficient to assure us that the results may not disappoint our
expectations, and that we may not do evil instead of good. But are we
therefore to refrain from efforts to benefit our race and country? By no
means: but these motives, this labor and self-distrust are the only
conditions upon which we are permitted to hope for success. Very
different indeed is the course of those whose precipitate and ignorant
zeal would overturn the fundamental institutions of society, uproar its
peace and endanger its security, in pursuit of a distant and shadowy
good, of which they themselves have formed no definite conception--whose
atrocious philosophy would sacrifice a generation--and more than one
generation--for any hypothesis.
FOOTNOTES:
[233] President Dew's Review of the Virginia Debates on the subject of
Slavery.
[234] Paulding on Slavery.
[235] I refer to President Dew on this subject.
[236] It is not uncommon, especially in Charleston, to see slaves, after
many descents and having mingled their blood with the Africans,
possessing Indian hair and features.
[237] The author of "England and America." We do, however, most
indignantly repudiate his conclusion, that we are bound to submit to a
tariff of protection, as an expedient for retaining our slaves, "the
force of the whole Union being required to preserve slavery, to keep
down the slaves."
[238] Fourierites, Socialists.
[239] The Irish levee and rail-road laborers are driven by blows.
[240] English papers propose _this_ for the West India negroes.
[241] Essays of Elia.
[242] _Southern Literary Messenger_, for January, 1835. _Note to
Blackstone's Commentaries._.
[243] See Missionary reports, statistics; also, Prof. Christy's
Ethiopia.--_Editor._
[244] Journal of an officer employed in the expedition, under the
command of Captain Owen, on the Western coast of Africa, 1822.
[245] The slaves of the "Wanderer" were returned to Africa against their
wills.--_Editor._
[246] In relation to the Missouri Controversy, J. Q. Adams
said:--_Editor._
"There is now every appearance that the slave question will be carried
by the superior ability of the slavery party. For this much is certain,
that if institutions are to be judged by their results in the
composition of the councils of the Union, the slaveholders are much more
ably represented than the simple freemen."--_Life of J. Q. Adams, by
Josiah Quincy, p. 98._"
"Never, since human sentiment and human conduct were influenced by human
speech, was there a theme for eloquence like the free side of this
question, now before the Congress of the Union. By what fatality does it
happen that all the most eloquent orators are on its slavish
side?"--_Ibid. p. 103._
"In the progress of this affair the distinctive character of the
inhabitants of the several great divisions of this Union has been shown
more in relief than perhaps in any national transaction since the
establishment of the Constitution. It is, perhaps, accidental that the
combination of talent and influence has been the greatest on the slave
side."--_Ibid. p. 118._
[247] The author of England and America thus speaks of the Colombian
Republic:
"During some years, this colony has been an independent state; but the
people dispersed over this vast and fertile plain, have almost ceased to
cultivate the good land at their disposal; they subsist principally,
many of them entirely, on the flesh of wild cattle; they have lost most
of the arts of civilized life; not a few of them are in a state of
deplorable misery; and if they should continue, as it seems probable
they will, to retrograde as at present, the beautiful pampas of Buenos
Ayres will soon be fit for another experiment in colonization. Slaves,
black or yellow, would have cultivated those plains, would have kept
together, would have been made to assist each other; would, by keeping
together and assisting each other, have raised a surplus produce
exchangeable in distant markets; would have kept their masters together
for the sake of markets; would, by combination of labor, have preserved
among their masters the arts and habits of civilized life." Yet this
writer, the whole practical effect of whose work, whatever he may have
thought or intended, is to show the absolute necessity, and immense
benefits of slavery, finds it necessary to add, I suppose in deference
to the general sentiment of his countrymen, "that slavery might have
done all this, seems not more plain, than that so much good would have
been bought too dear, if its price had been slavery." Well may we say
that the word makes men mad.
[248] Johnson on Change of Air.
[249] Eight days in the Abruzzi.--_Blackwood's Magazine_, November,
1835.
[250] I do not use the word democracy in the Athenian sense, but to
describe the government in which the slave and his master have an equal
voice in public affairs.
[251] Example of St. Domingo.
[252] Effects in Mexico and South American republics among the mongrel
races. See Prof. Christy's Ethiopia.
[253] On the abolition of slavery, Mr. Adams observed: "It is the only
part of European democracy which will find no favor in the United
States. It may aggravate the condition of slaves in the South, but the
result of the Missouri question, and the attitude of parties, have
silenced most of the declaimers on the subject. This state of things is
not to continue forever. It is possible that the danger of the abolition
doctrines, when brought home to Southern statesmen, may teach them the
value of the Union, as the only means which can maintain their system of
slavery."--Life of J. Q. Adams, page 177.--_Editor._
[254] Invariably true.
[Illustration]
SLAVERY
IN THE LIGHT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE.
BY
J. H. HAMMOND,
OF SOUTH CAROLINA.
SLAVERY
IN
THE LIGHT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE.
LETTER I.
Statement of the Question--Slave Trade increased
by the efforts made to suppress it--Title to
Slaves, to Lands--Abstract Ideas--Is Slavery
Sin?--Argument from the Old Testament--Argument
from the New Testament--The "Higher
Law"--Political Influence of Slavery--Free Labor
Police--In war, Slavery is Strength--Code of
Honor--Mercantile Credit--Religion and
Education--Licentiousness and Purity--Economy of
Slave Labor, and of Free Labor--Responsibility of
Power--Kindness and Cruelty--Curtailment of
Privileges--Punishment of Slaves, children and
soldiers--Police of Slavery--Condition of
Slaves--Condition of Free Laborers in
England--Slavery a necessary condition of human
Society--Moral Suasion of the
Abolitionists--Coolie Labor--Results of
Emancipation in the West Indies--Revival of the
Slave Trade by Emancipationists--Results of
Emancipation in the United States--Radicalism of
the present Age.
SILVER BLUFF, (SO. CA.,) JANUARY 28, 1845.
SIR: I received, a short time ago, a letter from the Rev. Willoughby M.
Dickinson, dated at your residence, "Playford Hall, near Ipswich, 26th
November, 1844," in which was inclosed a copy of your Circular Letter,
addressed to professing Christians in our Northern States, having no
concern with slavery, and to others there. I presume that Mr.
Dickinson's letter was written with your knowledge, and the document
inclosed with your consent and approbation. I therefore feel that there
is no impropriety in my addressing my reply directly to yourself,
especially as there is nothing in Mr. Dickinson's communication
requiring serious notice. Having abundant leisure, it will be a
recreation to devote a portion of it to an examination and free
discussion of the question of slavery as it exists in our Southern
States: and since you have thrown down the gauntlet to me, I do not
hesitate to take it up.
Familiar as you have been with the discussions of this subject in all
its aspects, and under all the excitements it has occasioned for sixty
years past, I may not be able to present much that will be new to you.
Nor ought I to indulge the hope of materially affecting the opinions you
have so long cherished, and so zealously promulgated. Still, time and
experience have developed facts, constantly furnishing fresh tests to
opinions formed sixty years since, and continually placing this great
question in points of view, which could scarcely occur to the most
consummate intellect even a quarter of a century ago: and which may not
have occurred yet to those whose previous convictions, prejudices, and
habits of thought, have thoroughly and permanently biased them to one
fixed way of looking at the matter: while there are peculiarities in the
operation of every social system, and special local as well as moral
causes materially affecting it, which no one, placed at the distance you
are from us, can fully comprehend or properly appreciate. Besides, it
may be possibly, a novelty to you to encounter one who conscientiously
believes the domestic slavery of these States to be not only an
inexorable necessity for the present, but a moral and humane
institution, productive of the greatest political and social advantages,
and who is disposed, as I am, to defend it on these grounds.
I do not propose, however, to defend the African slave trade. That is no
longer a question. Doubtless great evils arise from it as it has been,
and is now conducted: unnecessary wars and cruel kidnapping in Africa:
the most shocking barbarities in the middle passage: and perhaps a less
humane system of slavery in countries continually supplied with fresh
laborers at a cheap rate. The evils of it, however, it may be fairly
presumed, are greatly exaggerated. And if I might judge of the truth of
transactions stated as occurring in this trade, by that of those
reported as transpiring among us, I should not hesitate to say, that a
large proportion of the stories in circulation are unfounded, and most
of the remainder highly colored.
On the passage of the Act of Parliament prohibiting this trade to
British subjects rests, what you esteem, the glory of your life. It
required twenty years of arduous agitation, and the intervening
extraordinary political events, to convince your countrymen, and among
the rest your pious king, of the expediency of the measure: and it is
but just to say, that no one individual rendered more esessential
service to the cause than you did. In reflecting on the subject, you can
not but often ask yourself: What, after all, has been accomplished; how
much human suffering has been averted; how many human beings have been
rescued from transatlantic slavery? And on the answers you can give
these questions, must in a great measure, I presume, depend the
happiness of your life. In framing them, how frequently must you be
reminded of the remark of Mr. Grosvenor, in one of the early debates
upon the subject, which I believe you have yourself recorded, "that he
had twenty objections to the abolition of the slave trade: the first
was, _that it was impossible_--the rest he need not give." Can you say
to yourself, or to the world, that this _first_ objection of Mr.
Grosvenor has been yet confuted? It was estimated at the commencement of
your agitation in 1787, that forty-five thousand Africans were annually
transported to America and the West Indies. And the mortality of the
middle passage, computed by some at five, is now admitted not to have
exceeded nine per cent. Notwithstanding your Act of Parliament, the
previous abolition by the United States, and that all the powers in the
world have subsequently prohibited this trade--some of the greatest of
them declaring it piracy, and covering the African seas with armed
vessels to prevent it--Sir Thomas Fowel Buxton, a coadjutor of yours,
declared in 1840, that the number of Africans now annually sold into
slavery beyond the sea, amounts, at the very least, to one hundred and
fifty thousand souls; while the mortality of the middle passage has
increased, in consequence of the measures taken to suppress the trade,
to twenty-five or thirty per cent. And of the one hundred and fifty
thousand slaves who have been captured and liberated by British
men-of-war, since the passage of your Act, Judge Jay, an American
abolitionist, asserts that one hundred thousand, or two-thirds, have
perished between their capture and liberation. Does it not really seem
that Mr. Grosvenor was a prophet? That though nearly all the
"impossibilities" of 1787 have vanished, and become as familiar
_facts_,as our household customs, under the magic influence of
steam, cotton, and universal peace, yet this wonderful prophecy
still stands, defying time and the energy and genius of mankind.
Thousands of valuable lives, and fifty millions of pounds sterling,
have been thrown away by your government in fruitless attempts to
overturn it. I hope you have not lived too long for your own happiness,
though you have been spared to see that in spite of all your toils and
those of your fellow laborers, and the accomplishment of all that human
agency could do, the African slave trade has increased three-fold under
your own eyes--more rapidly, perhaps, than any other ancient branch of
commerce--and that your efforts to suppress it, have affected _nothing
more_ than a three-fold increase of its horrors. There is a God who
rules this world--all-powerful--far-seeing: He does not permit his
creatures to foil his designs. It is he who, for his all-wise, though to
us often inscrutable purposes, throws "impossibilities" in the way of
our fondest hopes and most strenuous exertions. Can you doubt this?
Experience having settled the point, that this trade _can not be
abolished by the use of force_, and that blockading squadrons serve only
to make it more profitable and more cruel, I am surprised that the
attempt is persisted in, unless it serves as a cloak to other purposes.
It would be far better than it now is, for the African, if the trade was
free from all restrictions, and left to the mitigation and decay which
time and competition would surely bring about. If kidnapping, both
secretly, and by war made for the purpose, could be by any means
prevented in Africa, the next greatest blessing you could bestow upon
that country would be to transport its actual slaves in comfortable
vessels across the Atlantic. Though they might be perpetual bondsmen,
still they would emerge from darkness into light--from barbarism into
civilization--from idolatry to Christianity--in short from death to
life.
But let us leave the African slave trade, which has so signally defeated
the _philanthropy_ of the world, and turn to American slavery, to which
you have now directed your attention, and against which a crusade has
been preached as enthusiastic and ferocious as that of Peter the
Hermit--destined, I believe, to be about as successful. And here let me
say, there is a vast difference between the two, though you may not
acknowledge it. The wisdom of ages has concurred in the justice and
expediency of establishing rights by prescriptive use, however tortuous
in their origin they may have been. You would deem a man insane, whose
keen sense of equity would lead him to denounce your right to the lands
you hold, and which perhaps you inherited from a long line of ancestry,
because your title was derived from a Saxon or Norman conqueror, and
your lands were originally wrested by violence from the vanquished
Britons. And so would the New England abolitionists regard any one who
would insist that he should restore his farm to the descendants of the
slaughtered red men, to whom God had as clearly given it as he gave life
and freedom to the kidnapped African. That time does not consecrate
wrong, is a fallacy which all history exposes; and which the best and
wisest men of all ages and professions of religious faith have
practically denied. The means, therefore, whatever they may have been,
by which the African race now in this country have been reduced to
slavery, cannot affect us, since they are our property, as your land is
yours, by inheritance or purchase and prescriptive right. You will say
that man cannot hold _property in man_. The answer is, that he can and
_actually does_ hold property in his fellow all the world over, in a
variety of forms, and _has always done so_. I will show presently his
authority for doing it.
If you were to ask me whether I am an advocate of slavery in the
abstract, I should probably answer, that I am not, according to my
understanding of the question. I do not like to deal in abstractions. It
seldom leads to any useful ends. There are few universal truths. I do
not now remember any single moral truth universally acknowledged. We
have no assurance that it is given to our finite understanding to
comprehend abstract moral truth. Apart from revelation and the inspired
writings, what ideas should we have even of God, salvation, and
immortality? Let the heathen answer. Justice itself is impalpable as an
abstraction, and abstract liberty the merest phantasy that ever amused
the imagination. This world was made for man, and man for the world as
it is. We ourselves, our relations with one another and with all matter,
are real, not ideal. I might say that I am no more in favor of slavery
in the abstract, than I am of poverty, disease, deformity, idiocy, or
any other inequality in the condition of the human family; that I love
perfection, and think I should enjoy a millennium such as God has
promised. But what would it amount to? A pledge that I would join you to
set about eradicating those apparently inevitable evils of our nature,
in equalizing the condition of all mankind, consummating the perfection
of our race, and introducing the millennium? By no means. To effect
these things, belongs exclusively to a higher power. And it would be
well for us to leave the Almighty to perfect his own works and fulfill
his own covenants. Especially, as the history of the past shows how
entirely futile all human efforts have proved, when made for the purpose
of aiding him in carrying out even his revealed designs, and how
invariably he has accomplished them by unconscious instruments, and in
the face of human expectation. Nay more, that every attempt which has
been made by fallible man to extort from the world obedience to his
"abstract" notions of right and wrong, has been invariably attended with
calamities dire, and extended just in proportion to the breadth and
vigor of the movement. On slavery in the abstract, then, it would not be
amiss to have as little as possible to say. Let us contemplate it as it
is. And thus contemplating it, the first question we have to ask
ourselves is, whether it is contrary to the will of God, as revealed to
us in his Holy Scriptures--the only certain means given us to ascertain
his will. If it is, then slavery is a sin. And I admit at once that
every man is bound to set his face against it, and to emancipate his
slaves, should he hold any.
Let us open these Holy Scriptures. In the twentieth chapter of Exodus,
seventeenth verse, I find the following words: "Thou shalt not covet thy
neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his
man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any
thing that is thy neighbor's"--which is the tenth of those commandments
that declare the essential principles of the great moral law delivered
to Moses by God himself. Now, discarding all technical and verbal
quibbling as wholly unworthy to be used in interpreting the word of God,
what is the plain meaning, undoubted intent, and true spirit of this
commandment? Does it not emphatically and explicitly forbid you to
disturb your neighbor in the enjoyment of his property; and more
especially of that which is here specifically mentioned as being
lawfully, and by this commandment made sacredly his? Prominent in the
catalogue stands his "man-servant and his maid-servant," who are thus
distinctly _consecrated as his property_, and guaranteed to him for his
exclusive benefit, in the most solemn manner. You attempt to avert the
otherwise irresistible conclusion, that slavery was thus ordained by
God, by declaring that the word "slave" is not used here, and is not to
be found in the Bible, And I have seen many learned dissertations on
this point from abolition pens. It is well known that both the Hebrew
and Greek words translated "servant" in the Scriptures, means also, and
most usually, "slave." The use of the one word, instead of the other,
was a mere matter of taste with the translators of the Bible, as it has
been with all the commentators and religions writers, the latter of whom
have, I believe, for the most part, adopted the term "slave," or used
both terms indiscriminately. If, then, these Hebrew and Greek words
include the idea of both systems of servitude, the conditional and
unconditional, they should, as the major includes the minor proposition,
be always translated "slaves," unless the sense of the whole text
forbids it. The real question, then is, what idea is intended to be
conveyed by the words used in the commandment quoted? And it is clear to
my mind, that as no limitation is affixed to them, and the express
intention was to secure to mankind the peaceful enjoyment of every
species of property, that the terms "men-servants and maid-servants"
include all classes of servants, and establish a lawful, exclusive, and
indefeasible interest equally in the "Hebrew brother who shall go out in
the seventh year," and "the yearly hired servant," and "those purchased
from the heathen round about," who were to be "bond-men forever," _as
the property of their fellow-man_.
You cannot deny that there were among the Hebrews "bond-men forever."
You cannot deny that God especially authorized his chosen people to
purchase "bond-men forever" from the heathen, as recorded in the
twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus, and that they are there designated by
the very Hebrew word used in the tenth commandment. Nor can you deny
that a "BOND-MAN FOREVER" is a "SLAVE;" yet you endeavor to hang an
argument of immortal consequence upon the wretched subterfuge, that the
precise word "slave" is not to be found in the _translation_ of the
Bible. As if the translators were canonical expounders of the Holy
Scriptures, and _their words_, not _God's meaning_, must be regarded as
his revelation.
It is vain to look to Christ or any of his apostles to justify such
blasphemous perversions of the word of God. Although slavery in its most
revolting form was everywhere visible around them, no visionary notions
of piety or philanthropy ever tempted them to gainsay the LAW, even to
mitigate the cruel severity of the existing system. On the contrary,
regarding slavery as an _established_, as well as _inevitable condition
of human society_, they never hinted at such a thing as its termination
on earth, any more than that "the poor may cease out of the land,"
which God affirms to Moses shall never be: and they exhort "all servants
under the yoke" to "count their masters as worthy of all honor:" "to
obey them in all things according to the flesh; not with eye-service as
men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God;" "not only the
good and gentle, but also the froward:" "for what glory is it if when ye
are buffeted for your faults ye shall take it patiently? but if when ye
do well and suffer for it ye take it patiently, this is acceptable to
God." St. Paul actually apprehended a run-away slave, and sent him to
his master! Instead of deriving from the gospel any sanction for the
work you have undertaken, it would be difficult to imagine sentiments
and conduct more strikingly in contrast, than those of the apostles and
the abolitionists.
It is impossible, therefore, to suppose that slavery is contrary to the
will of God. It is equally absurd to say that American slavery differs
in form or principle from that of the chosen people. _We accept the
Bible terms as the definition of our slavery, and its precepts as the
guide of our conduct._ We desire nothing more. Even the right to
"buffet," which is esteemed so shocking, finds its express license in
the gospel. 1 Peter ii. 20. Nay, what is more, God directs the Hebrews
to "bore holes in the ears of their brothers" to _mark_ them, when under
certain circumstances they become _perpetual slaves_. Exodus xxi. 6.
I think, then, I may safely conclude, and I firmly believe, that
American slavery is not only not a sin, but especially commanded by God
through Moses, and approved by Christ through his apostles. And here I
might close its defense; for what God ordains, and Christ sanctifies,
should surely command the respect and toleration of man. But I fear
there has grown up in our time a transcendental religion, which is
throwing even transcendental philosophy into the shade--a religion too
pure and elevated for the Bible; which seeks to erect among men a higher
standard of morals than the Almighty has revealed, or our Saviour
preached; and which is probably destined to do more to impede the
extension of God's kingdom on earth than all the infidels who have ever
lived. Error is error. It is as dangerous to deviate to the right hand
as to the left. And when men, professing to be holy men, and who are by
numbers so regarded, declare those things to be sinful which our Creator
has expressly authorized and instituted, they do more to destroy his
authority among mankind than the most wicked can effect, by proclaiming
that to be innocent which he has forbidden. To this self-righteous and
self-exalted class belong all the abolitionists whose writings I have
read. With them it is no end of the argument to prove your propositions
by the text of the Bible, interpreted according to its plain and
palpable meaning, and as understood by all mankind for three thousand
years before their time. They are more ingenious at construing and
interpolating to accommodate it to their new-fangled and ethereal code
of morals, than ever were Voltaire and Hume in picking it to pieces, to
free the world from what they considered a delusion. When the
abolitionists proclaim "man-stealing" to be a sin, and show me that it
is so written down by God, I admit them to be right, and shudder at the
idea of such a crime. But when I show them that to hold "bond-men
forever" is ordained by God, _they deny the Bible, and set up in its
place a law of their own making_. I must then cease to reason with them
on this branch of the question. Our religion differs as widely as our
manners. The great Judge in our day of final account must decide between
us.
Turning from the consideration of slaveholding in its relations to man
as an accountable being, let us examine it in its influence on his
political and social state. Though, being foreigners to us, you are in
no wise entitled to interfere with the civil institutions of this
country, it has become quite common for your countrymen to decry slavery
as an enormous political evil to us, and even to declare that our
Northern States ought to withdraw from the Confedracy rather than
continue to be contaminated by it. The American abolitionists appear to
concur fully in these sentiments, and a portion, at least, of them are
incessantly threatening to dissolve the Union. Nor should I be at all
surprised if they succeed. It would not be difficult, in my opinion, to
conjecture which region, the North or South, would suffer most by such
an event. For one, I should not object, by any means, to cast my lot in
a confederacy of States whose citizens might all be slaveholders.
I indorse without reserve the much abused sentiment of Governor
M'Duffie, that "slavery is the corner-stone of our republican edifice;"
while I repudiate, as ridiculously absurd, that much lauded but nowhere
accredited dogma of Mr. Jefferson, that "all men are born equal."[255]
No society has ever yet existed, and I have already incidentally quoted
the highest authority to show that none ever will exist, without a
natural variety of classes. The most marked of these must, in a country
like ours, be the rich and the poor, the educated and the ignorant. It
will scarcely be disputed that the very poor have less leisure to
prepare themselves for the proper discharge of public duties than the
rich; and that the ignorant are wholly unfit for them at all. In all
countries save ours, these two classes, or the poor rather, who are
presumed to be necessarily ignorant, are by law expressly excluded from
all participation in the management of public affairs. In a Republican
Government this can not be done. Universal suffrage, though not
essential in theory, seems to be in fact a necessary appendage to a
republican system. Where universal suffrage obtains, it is obvious that
the government is in the hands of a numerical majority; and it is hardly
necessary to say that in every part of the world more than half the
people are ignorant and poor. Though no one can look upon poverty as a
crime, and we do not here generally regard it as any objection to a man
in his individual capacity, still it must be admitted that it is a
wretched and insecure government which is administered by its most
ignorant citizens, and those who have the least at stake under it.
Though intelligence and wealth have great influence here, as everywhere,
in keeping in check reckless and unenlightened numbers, yet it is
evident to close observers, if not to all, that these are rapidly
usurping all power in the non-slaveholding States, and threaten a
fearful crisis in republican institutions there at no remote period. In
the slaveholding States, however, nearly one-half of the whole
population, and those the poorest and most ignorant, have no political
influence whatever, because they are slaves. Of the other half, a large
proportion are both educated and independent in their circumstances,
while those who unfortunately are not so, being still elevated far above
the mass, are higher toned and more deeply interested in preserving a
stable and well-ordered government, than the same class in any other
country. Hence, slavery is truly the "corner-stone" and foundation of
every well-designed and durable "republican edifice."
With us every citizen is concerned in the maintenance of order, and in
promoting honesty and industry among those of the lowest class who are
our slaves; and our habitual vigilance renders standing armies, whether
of soldiers or policemen, entirely unnecessary. Small guards in our
cities, and occasional patrols in the country, insure us a repose and
security known no where else. You can not be ignorant that, excepting
the United States, there is no country in the world whose existing
government would not be overturned in a month, but for its standing
armies, maintained at an enormous and destructive cost to those whom
they are destined to overawe--so rampant and combative is the spirit of
discontent wherever nominal free labor prevails, with its extensive
privileges and its dismal servitude. Nor will it be long before the
"_free States_" of this Union will be compelled to introduce the same
expensive machinery, to preserve order among their "free and equal"
citizens. Already has Philadelphia organized a permanent battalion for
this purpose; New York, Boston and Cincinnati will soon follow her
example; and then the smaller towns and densely populated counties. The
intervention of their militia to repress violations of the peace is
becoming a daily affair. A strong government, after some of the old
fashions--though probably with a new name--sustained by the force of
armed mercenaries, is the ultimate destiny of the non-slaveholding
section of this confederacy, and one which may not be very distant.
It is a great mistake to suppose, as is generally done abroad, that in
case of war slavery would be a source of weakness. It did not weaken
Rome, nor Athens, nor Sparta, though their slaves were comparatively far
more numerous than ours, of the same color for the most part with
themselves, and large numbers of them familiar with the use of arms. I
have no apprehension that our slaves would seize such an opportunity to
revolt. The present generation of them, born among us, would never think
of such a thing at any time, unless instigated to it by others. Against
such instigations we are always on our guard. In time of war we should
be more watchful and better prepared to put down insurrections than at
any other periods. Should any foreign nation be so lost to every
sentiment of civilized humanity, as to attempt to erect among us the
standard of revolt, or to invade us with black troops, for the base and
barbarous purpose of stirring up servile war, their efforts would be
signally rebuked. Our slaves could not be easily seduced, nor would any
thing delight them more than to assist in stripping Cuffee of his
regimentals to put him in the cotton-field, which would be the fate of
most black invaders, without any very prolix form of "apprenticeship."
If, as I am satisfied would be the case, our slaves remained peaceful on
our plantations, and cultivated them in time of war under the
superintendence of a limited number of our citizens, it is obvious that
we could put forth more strength in such an emergency, at less
sacrifice, than any other people of the same numbers. And thus we should
in every point of view, "out of this nettle danger, pluck the flower
safety."
How far slavery may be an advantage or disadvantage to those not owning
slaves, yet united with us in political association, is a question for
their sole consideration. It is true that our representation in Congress
is increased by it. But so are our taxes; and the non-slaveholding
States, being the majority, divide among themselves far the greater
portion of the amount levied by the Federal Government. And I doubt not
that, when it comes to a close calculation, they will not be slow in
finding out that the balance of profit arising from the connection is
vastly in their favor.
In a social point of view the abolitionists pronounce slavery to be a
monstrous evil. If it was so, it would be our own peculiar concern, and
superfluous benevolence in them to lament over it. Seeing their bitter
hostility to us, they might leave us to cope with our own calamities.
But they make war upon us out of excess of charity, and attempt to
purify by covering us with calumny. You have read and assisted to
circulate a great deal about affrays, duels and murders, occurring here,
and all attributed to the terrible demoralization of slavery. Not a
single event of this sort takes place among us, but it is caught up by
the abolitionists, and paraded over the world, with endless comments,
variations and exaggerations. You should not take what reaches you as a
mere sample, and infer that there is a vast deal more you never hear.
You hear all, and more than all, the truth.
It is true that the point of honor is recognized throughout the slave
region, and that disputes of certain classes are frequently referred for
adjustment, to the "trial by combat." It would not be appropriate for me
to enter, in this letter, into a defense of the practice of duelling,
nor to maintain at length, that it does not tarnish the character of a
people to acknowledge a standard of honor. Whatever evils may arise from
it, however, they can not be attributed to slavery, since the same
custom prevails both in France and England. Few of your Prime Ministers,
of the last half century even, have escaped the contagion, I believe.
The affrays, of which so much is said, and in which rifles, bowie-knives
and pistols are so prominent, occur mostly in the frontier States of the
South-West. They are naturally incidental to the condition of society,
as it exists in many sections of these recently settled countries, and
will as naturally cease in due time. Adventurers from the older States,
and from Europe, as desperate in character as they are in fortune,
congregate in these wild regions, jostling one another and often forcing
the peaceable and honest into rencontres in self-defense. Slavery has
nothing to do with these things. Stability and peace are the first
desires of every slaveholder, and the true tendency of the system. It
could not possibly exist amid the eternal anarchy and civil broils of
the ancient Spanish dominions in America. And for this very reason,
domestic slavery has ceased there. So far from encouraging strife, such
scenes of riot and bloodshed, as have within the last few years
disgraced our Northern cities, and as you have lately witnessed in
Birmingham and Bristol and Wales, not only never have occurred, but I
will venture to say, never will occur in our slaveholding States. The
only thing that can create a mob (as you might call it) here, is the
appearance of an abolitionist, whom the people assemble to chastise. And
this is no more of a mob, than a rally of shepherds to chase a wolf out
of their pastures would be one.
But we are swindlers and repudiators? Pennsylvania is not a slave State.
A majority of the States which have failed to meet their obligations
punctually are non-slaveholding; and two-thirds of the debt said to be
repudiated is owed by these States. Many of the States of this Union are
heavily encumbered with debt--none so hopelessly as England.
Pennsylvania owes $22 for each inhabitant--England $222, counting her
paupers in. Nor has there been any repudiation definite and final, of a
lawful debt, that I am aware of. A few States have failed to pay some
installments of interest. The extraordinary financial difficulties which
occurred a few years ago will account for it. Time will set all things
right again. Every dollar of both principal and interest, owed by any
State, North or South, will be ultimately paid, _unless the abolition of
slavery overwhelms us all in one common ruin_. But have no other nations
failed to pay? When were the French Assignats redeemed? How much
interest did your National Bank pay on its immense circulation, from
1797 to 1821, during which period that circulation was inconvertible,
and for the time _repudiated_? How much of your national debt has been
incurred for money borrowed to meet the interest on it, thus avoiding
delinquency in detail, by insuring inevitable bankruptcy and repudiation
in the end? And what sort of operation was that by which your present
Ministry recently expunged a handsome amount of that debt, by
substituting, through a process just not compulsory, one species of
security for another? I am well aware that the faults of others do not
excuse our own, but when failings are charged to slavery, which are
shown to occur to equal extent where it does not exist, surely slavery
must be acquitted of the accusation.
It is roundly asserted, that we are not so well educated nor so
religious here as elsewhere. I will not go into tedious statistical
statements on these subjects. Nor have I, to tell the truth, much
confidence in the details of what are commonly set forth as statistics.
As to education, you will probably admit that slaveholders should have
more leisure for mental culture than most people. And I believe it is
charged against them, that they are peculiarly fond of power, and
ambitious of honors. If this be so, as all the power and honors of this
country are won mainly by intellectual superiority, it might be fairly
presumed, that slaveholders would not be neglectful of education. In
proof of the accuracy of this presumption, I point you to the facts,
that our Presidential chair has been occupied for forty-four out of
fifty-six years, by slaveholders; that another has been recently elected
to fill it for four more, over an opponent who was a slaveholder also;
and that in the Federal Offices and both Houses of Congress,
considerably more than a due proportion of those acknowledged to stand
in the first rank are from the South. In this arena, the intellects of
the free and slave States meet in full and fair competition. Nature
must have been unusually bountiful to us, or we have been at least
reasonably assiduous in the cultivation of such gifts as she has
bestowed--unless indeed you refer our superiority to moral qualities,
which I am sure _you_ will not. More wealthy we are not; nor would mere
wealth avail in such rivalry.
The piety of the South is inobtrusive. We think it proves but little,
though it is a confident thing for a man to claim that he stands higher
in the estimation of his Creator, and is less a sinner than his
neighbor. If vociferation is to carry the question of religion, the
North, and probably the Scotch, have it. Our sects are few, harmonious,
pretty much united among themselves, and pursue their avocations in
humble peace. In fact, our professors of religion seem to think--whether
correctly or not--that it is their duty "to do good in secret," and to
carry their holy comforts to the heart of each individual, without
reference to class _or color_, for his special enjoyment, and not with a
view to exhibit their zeal before the world. So far as numbers are
concerned, I believe our clergymen, when called on to make a showing,
have never had occasion to blush, if comparisons were drawn between the
free and slave States. And although our presses do not teem with
controversial pamphlets, nor our pulpits shake with excommunicating
thunders, the daily walk of our religious communicants furnishes,
apparently, as little food for gossip as is to be found in most other
regions. It may be regarded as a mark of our want of excitability--though
that is a quality accredited to us in an eminent degree--that few of the
remarkable religious _Isms_ of the present day have taken root among us.
We have been so irreverent as to laugh at Mormonism and Millerism, which
have created such commotions further North; and modern prophets have no
honor in our country. Shakers, Rappists, Dunkers, Socialists,
Fourrierists, and the like, keep themselves afar off. Even Puseyism has
not yet moved us. You may attribute this to our domestic slavery if you
choose. I believe you would do so justly. There is no material here for
such characters to operate upon.
But your grand charge is, that licentiousness in intercourse between the
sexes, is a prominent trait of our social system, and that it
necessarily arises from slavery. This is a favorite theme with the
abolitionists, male and female. Folios have been written on it. It is a
common observation, that there is no subject on which ladies of eminent
virtue so much delight to dwell, and on which in especial learned old
maids, like Miss Martineau, linger with such an insatiable relish. They
expose it in the slave States with the most minute observance and
endless iteration. Miss Martineau, with peculiar gusto, relates a series
of scandalous stories, which would have made Boccacio jealous of her
pen, but which are so ridiculously false as to leave no doubt, that some
wicked wag, knowing she would write a book, has furnished her
materials--a game too often played on tourists in this country. The
constant recurrence of the female abolitionists to this topic, and their
bitterness in regard to it, cannot fail to suggest to even the most
charitable mind, that
"Such rage without betrays the fires within."
Nor are their immaculate coadjutors of the other sex, though perhaps
less specific in their charges, less violent in their denunciations. But
recently in your island, a clergyman has, at a public meeting,
stigmatized the whole slave region as a "brothel." Do these people thus
cast stones, being "without sin?" Or do they only
"Compound for sins they are inclined to
By damning those they have no mind to."
Alas that David and Solomon should be allowed to repose in peace--that
Leo should be almost canonized, and Luther more than sainted--that in
our own day courtezans should be formally licensed in Paris, and
tenements in London rented for years to women of the town for the
benefit of the church, with the knowledge of the bishop--and the poor
slave States of America alone pounced upon, and offered up as a
holocaust on the altar of immaculateness, to atone for the abuse of
natural instinct by all mankind; and if not actually consumed, at least
exposed, anathematized and held up to scorn, by those who
"Write,
Or with a rival's or an eunuch's spite."
But I do not intend to admit that this charge is just or true. Without
meaning to profess uncommon modesty, I will say that I wish the topic
could be avoided. I am of opinion, and I doubt not every right-minded
man will concur, that the public exposure and discussion of this vice,
even to rebuke, invariably does more harm than good; and that if it
cannot be checked by instilling pure and virtuous sentiments, it is far
worse than useless to attempt to do it, by exhibiting its deformities. I
may not, however, pass it over; nor ought I to feel any delicacy in
examining a question, to which the slaveholder is invited and challenged
by clergymen and virgins. So far from allowing, then, that
licentiousness pervades this region, I broadly assert, and I refer to
the records of our courts, to the public press, and to the knowledge of
all who have ever lived here, that among our white population there are
fewer cases of divorce, separation, crim. con., seduction, rape and
bastardy, than among any other five millions of people on the civilized
earth. And this fact I believe will be conceded by the abolitionists of
this country themselves. I am almost willing to refer it to them and
submit to their decision on it. I would not hesitate to do so, if I
thought them capable of an impartial judgment on any matter where
slavery is in question. But it is said, that the licentiousness consists
in the constant intercourse between white males and colored females. One
of your heavy charges against us has been, that we regard and treat
those people as brutes; you now charge us with habitually taking them to
our bosoms. I will not comment on the inconsistency of these
accusations. I will not deny that some intercourse of the sort does take
place. Its character and extent, however, are grossly and atrociously
exaggerated. No authority, divine or human, has yet been found
sufficient to arrest all such irregularities among men. But it is a
known fact, that they are perpetrated here, for the most part, in the
cities. Very few mulattoes are reared on our plantations. In the cities,
a large proportion of the inhabitants do not own slaves. A still larger
proportion are natives of the North, or foreigners. They should share,
and justly, too, an equal part in this sin with the slaveholders. Facts
cannot be ascertained, or I doubt not, it would appear that they are the
chief offenders. If the truth be otherwise, then persons from abroad
have stronger prejudices against the African race than we have. Be this
as it may, it is well known, that this intercourse is regarded in our
society as highly disreputable. If carried on habitually, it seriously
affects a man's standing, so far as it is known; and he who takes a
colored mistress--with rare and extraordinary exceptions--loses caste at
once. You will say that _one_ exception should damn our whole country.
How much less criminal is it to take a white mistress? In your eyes it
should be at least an equal offense. Yet look around you at home, from
the cottage to the throne, and count how many mistresses are kept in
unblushing notoriety, without loss of caste. Such cases are nearly
unknown here, and down even to the lowest walks of life, it is almost
invariably fatal to a man's position and prospects to keep a mistress
openly, whether white or black. What Miss Martineau relates of a young
man's purchasing a colored concubine from a lady, and avowing his
designs, is too absurd even for contradiction. No person would dare to
allude to such a subject, in such a manner, to any decent female in this
country.
After all, however, the number of the mixed breed, in proportion to that
of the black, is infinitely small, and out of the towns next to nothing.
And when it is considered that the African race has been among us for
two hundred years, and that those of the mixed breed continually
intermarry--often rearing large families--it is a decided proof of our
continence, that so few comparatively are to be found. Our misfortunes
are two-fold. From the prolific propagation of these mongrels among
themselves, we are liable to be charged by tourists with delinquencies
where none have been committed, while, where one has been, it cannot be
concealed. Color marks indelibly the offense, and reveals it to every
eye. Conceive that, even in your virtuous and polished country, if every
bastard, through all the circles of your social system, was thus branded
by nature and known to all, what shocking developments might there not
be! How little indignation might your saints have to spare for the
licentiousness of the slave region. But I have done with this disgusting
topic. And I think I may justly conclude, after all the scandalous
charges which tea-table gossip, and long-gowned hypocrisy have brought
against the slaveholders, that a people whose men are proverbially
brave, intellectual and hospitable, and whose women are unaffectedly
chaste, devoted to domestic life, and happy in it, can neither be
degraded nor demoralized, whatever their institutions may be. My decided
opinion is, that our system of slavery contributes largely to the
development and culture of those high and noble qualities.
In an economical point of view--which I will not omit--slavery presents
some difficulties. As a general rule, I agree it must be admitted, that
free labor is cheaper than slave labor. It is a fallacy to suppose that
ours is _unpaid labor_. The slave himself must be paid for, and thus
his labor is all purchased at once, and for no trifling sum. His price
was, in the first place, paid mostly to your countrymen, and assisted in
building up some of those colossal English fortunes, since illustrated
by patents of nobility, and splendid piles of architecture, stained and
cemented, if you like the expression, with the blood of kidnapped
innocents; but loaded with no heavier curses than abolition and its
begotten fanaticisms have brought upon your land--some of them
fulfilled, some yet to be. But besides the first cost of the slave, he
must be fed and clothed, well fed and well clothed, if not for
humanity's sake, that he may do good work, retain health and life, and
rear a family to supply his place. When old or sick, he is a clear
expense, and so is the helpless portion of his family. No poor law
provides for him when unable to work, or brings up his children for our
service when we need them. These are all heavy charges on slave labor.
Hence, in all countries where the denseness of the population has
reduced it to a matter of perfect certainty, that labor can be obtained,
whenever wanted, and the laborer be forced, by sheer necessity, to hire
for the smallest pittance that will keep soul and body together, and
rags upon his back while in actual employment--dependent at all other
times on alms or poor rates--in all such countries it is found cheaper
to pay this pittance, than to clothe, feed, nurse, support through
childhood, and pension in old age, a race of slaves. Indeed, the
advantage is so great as speedily to compensate for the loss of the
value of the slave. And I have no hesitation in saying, that if I could
cultivate my lands on these terms, I would, without a word, resign my
slaves, provided they could be properly disposed of. But the question
is, whether free or slave labor is cheapest to us in this country, at
this time, situated as we are. And it is decided at once by the fact
that we can not avail ourselves of any other than slave labor. We
neither have, nor can we procure, other labor to any extent, or on any
thing like the terms mentioned. We must, therefore, content ourselves
with our dear labor, under the consoling reflection that what is lost to
us, is gained to humanity; and that, inasmuch as our slave costs us more
than your free men costs you, by so much is he better off. You will
promptly say, emancipate your slaves, and then you will have free labor
on suitable terms. That might be if there were five hundred where there
now is one, and the continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, was as
densely populated as your Island. But until that comes to pass, no labor
can be procured in America on the terms you have it.
While I thus freely admit that to the individual proprietor slave labor
is dearer than free, I do not mean to admit as equally clear that it is
dearer to the community and to the State. Though it is certain that the
slave is a far greater consumer than your laborer, the year round, yet
your pauper system is costly and wasteful. Supported by your community
at large, it is not administered by your hired agents with that
interested care and economy--not to speak of humanity--which mark the
management of ours, by each proprietor, for his own non-effectives; and
is both more expensive to those who pay, and less beneficial to those
who receive its bounties. Besides this, slavery is rapidly filling up
our country with a hardy and healthy race, peculiarly adapted to our
climate and productions, and conferring signal political and social
advantages on us as a people, to which I have already referred.
I have yet to reply to the main ground on which you and your coadjutors
rely for the overthrow of our system of slavery. Failing in all your
attempts to prove that it is sinful in its nature, immoral in its
effects, a political evil, and profitless to those who maintain it, you
appeal to the sympathies of mankind, and attempt to arouse the world
against us by the most shocking charges of tyranny and cruelty. You
begin by a vehement denunciation of "the irresponsible power of one man
over his fellow men." The question of the responsibility of power is a
vast one. It is the great political question of modern times. Whole
nations divide off upon it and establish different fundamental systems
of government. That "responsibility," which to one set of millions seems
amply sufficient to check the government, to the support of which they
devote their lives and fortunes, appears to another set of millions a
mere mockery of restraint. And accordingly as the opinions of these
millions differ, they honor each other with the epithets of "serfs" or
"anarchists." It is ridiculous to introduce such an idea as this into
the discussion of a mere domestic institution; but since you have
introduced it, I deny that the power of the slaveholder in America is
"irresponsible." He is responsible to God. He is responsible to the
world--a responsibility which abolitionists do not intend to allow him
to evade--and in acknowledgment of which, I write you this letter. He
is responsible to the community in which he lives, and to the laws under
which he enjoys his civil rights. Those laws do not permit him to kill,
to maim, or to punish beyond certain limits, or to overtask, or to
refuse to feed and clothe his slave. In short, they forbid him to be
tyrannical or cruel. If any of these laws have grown obsolete, it is
because they are so seldom violated, that they are forgotten. You have
disinterred one of them, from a compilation by some Judge Stroud of
Philadelphia, to stigmatize its inadequate penalties for killing,
maiming, etc. Your object appears to be--you can have no other--to
produce the impression, that it must be often violated on account of its
insufficiency. You say as much, and that it marks our estimate of the
slave. You forget to state that this law was enacted by _Englishmen_,
and only indicates _their_ opinion of the reparation due for these
offenses. Ours is proved by the fact, though perhaps unknown to Judge
Stroud or yourself, that we have essentially altered this law; and the
murder of a slave has for many years been punishable with death in this
State. And so it is, I believe, in most or all of the slave States. You
seem well aware, however, that laws have been recently passed in all
these States, making it penal to teach slaves to read. Do you know what
occasioned their passage, and renders their stringent enforcement
necessary? I can tell you. It was the abolition agitation. If the slave
is not allowed to read his Bible, the sin rests upon the abolitionists;
for they stand prepared to furnish him with a key to it, which would
make it, not a book of hope, and love, and peace, but of despair, hatred
and blood; which would convert the reader, not into a Christian, but a
demon. To preserve him from such a horrid destiny, it is a sacred duty
which we owe to our slaves, not less than to ourselves, to interpose the
most decisive means. If the Catholics deem it wrong to trust the Bible
to the hands of ignorance, shall we be excommunicated because we will
not give it, and with it the corrupt and fatal commentaries of the
abolitionists, to our slaves? Allow our slaves to read your writings,
stimulating them to cut our throats! Can you believe us to be such
unspeakable fools?
I do not know that I can subscribe in full to the sentiment so often
quoted by the abolitionists, and by Mr. Dickinson in his letter to me:
"_Homo sum humani nihil a me alienum puto_," as translated and
practically illustrated by them. Such a doctrine would give wide
authority to every one for the most dangerous intermeddling with the
affairs of others. It will do in poetry--perhaps in some sorts of
philosophy--but the attempt to make it a household maxim, and introduce
it into the daily walks of life, has caused many a "homo" a broken
crown; and probably will continue to do it. Still, though a slaveholder,
I freely acknowledge my obligations as a man; and that I am bound to
treat humanely the fellow-creatures whom God has intrusted to my charge.
I feel, therefore, somewhat sensitive under the accusation of cruelty,
and disposed to defend myself and fellow-slaveholders against it. It is
certainly the interest of all, and I am convinced that it is also the
desire of every one of us, to treat our slaves with proper kindness. It
is necessary to our deriving the greatest amount of profit from them. Of
this we are all satisfied. And you snatch from us the only consolation
we Americans could derive from the opprobrious imputation of being
wholly devoted to making money, which your disinterested and
gold-despising countrymen delight to cast upon us, when you nevertheless
declare that we are ready to sacrifice it for the pleasure of being
inhuman. You remember that Mr. Pitt could not get over the idea that
self-interest would insure kind treatment to slaves, until you told him
your woful stories of the middle passage. Mr. Pitt was right in the
first instance, and erred, under your tuition, in not perceiving the
difference between a temporary and permanent ownership of them.
Slaveholders are no more perfect than other men. They have passions.
Some of them, as you may suppose, do not at all times restrain them.
Neither do husbands, parents and friends. And in each of these
relations, as serious suffering as frequently arises from uncontrolled
passions, as ever does in that of master and slave, and with as little
chance of indemnity. Yet you would not on that account break them up. I
have no hesitation in saying that our slaveholders are kind masters, as
men usually are kind husbands, parents and friends--as a general rule,
kinder. A bad master--he who overworks his slaves, provides ill for
them, or treats them with undue severity--loses the esteem and respect
of his fellow-citizens to as great an extent as he would for the
violation of any of his social and most of his moral obligations. What
the most perfect plan of management would be, is a problem hard to
solve. From the commencement of slavery in this country, this subject
has occupied the minds of all slaveholders, as much as the improvement
of the general condition of mankind has those of the most ardent
philanthropists; and the greatest progressive amelioration of the system
has been effected. You yourself acknowledge that in the early part of
your career you were exceedingly anxious for the _immediate_ abolition
of the slave trade, lest those engaged in it should so mitigate its
evils as to destroy the force of your arguments and facts. The
improvement you then _dreaded_ has gone on steadily here, and would
doubtless have taken place in the slave trade, but for the measures
adopted to suppress it.
Of late years we have not only been annoyed, but greatly embarrassed in
this matter, by the abolitionists. We have been compelled to curtail
some privileges; we have been debarred from granting new ones. In the
face of discussions which aim at loosening all ties between master and
slave, we have in some measure to abandon our efforts to attach them to
us, and control them through their affections and pride. We have to rely
more and more on the power of fear. We must, in all our intercourse with
them, assert and maintain strict mastery, and impress it on them that
they are slaves. This is painful to us, and certainly no present
advantage to them. But it is the direct consequence of the abolition
agitation. We are determined to continue masters, and to do so we have
to draw the rein tighter and tighter day by day to be assured that we
hold them in complete check. How far this process will go on, depends
wholly and solely on the abolitionists. When they desist, we can relax.
We may not before. I do not mean by all this to say that we are in a
state of actual alarm and fear of our slaves; but under existing
circumstances we should be ineffably stupid not to increase our
vigilance and strengthen our hands. You see some of the fruits of your
labors. I speak freely and candidly--not as a colonist, who, though a
slaveholder, has a master; but as a free white man, holding, under God,
and resolved to hold, my fate in my own hands; and I assure you that my
sentiments, and feelings, and determinations, are those of every
slaveholder in this country.
The research and ingenuity of the abolitionists, aided by the invention
of run-away slaves--in which faculty, so far as improvizing falsehood
goes, the African race is without a rival--have succeeded in shocking
the world with a small number of pretended instances of our barbarity.
The only wonder is, that considering the extent of our country, the
variety of our population, its fluctuating character, and the publicity
of all our transactions, the number of cases is so small. It speaks well
for us. Yet of these, many are false, all highly colored, some occurring
half a century, most of them many years ago; and no doubt a large
proportion of them perpetrated by foreigners. With a few rare
exceptions, the emigrant Scotch and English are the worst masters among
us, and next to them our Northern fellow-citizens. Slaveholders born and
bred here are always more humane to slaves, and those who have grown up
to a large inheritance of them, the most so of any--showing clearly that
the effect of the system is to foster kindly feelings. I do not mean so
much to impute innate inhumanity to foreigners, as to show that they
come here with false notions of the treatment usual and necessary for
slaves, and that newly acquired power here, as everywhere else, is apt
to be abused. I cannot enter into a detailed examination of the cases
stated by the abolitionists. It would be disgusting, and of little
avail. I know nothing of them. I have seen nothing like them, though
born and bred here, and have rarely heard of any thing at all to be
compared to them. Permit me to say that I think most of _your_ facts
must have been drawn from the West Indies, where undoubtedly slaves were
treated much more harshly than with us. This was owing to a variety of
causes, which might, if necessary, be stated. One was, that they had at
first to deal more extensively with barbarians fresh from the wilds of
Africa; another, and a leading one, the absenteeism of proprietors.
Agents are always more unfeeling than owners, whether placed over West
Indian or American slaves, or Irish tenantry. We feel this evil greatly
even here. You describe the use of _thumb screws_, as one mode of
punishment among us. I doubt if a thumb screw can be found in America. I
never saw or heard of one in this country. Stocks are rarely used by
private individuals, and confinement still more seldom, though both are
common punishments for whites, all the world over. I think they should
be more frequently resorted to with slaves, as substitutes for flogging,
which I consider the most injurious and least efficacious mode of
punishing them for serious offenses. It is not degrading, and unless
excessive, occasions little pain. You may be a little astonished, after
all the flourishes that have been made about "cart whips," etc., when I
say flogging is not the most degrading punishment in the world. It may
be so to a white man in most countries, but how is it to the white boy?
That necessary coadjutor of the schoolmaster, the "birch," is never
thought to have rendered infamous the unfortunate victim of pedagogue
ire; nor did Solomon in his wisdom dream that he was counseling parents
to debase their offspring, when he exhorted them not to spoil the child
by sparing the rod. Pardon me for recurring to the now exploded ethics
of the Bible. Custom, which, you will perhaps agree, makes most things
in this world good or evil, has removed all infamy from the punishment
of the lash to the slave. Your blood boils at the recital of stripes
inflicted on a man; and you think you should be frenzied to see your own
child flogged. Yet see how completely this is ideal, arising from the
fashions of society. You doubtless submitted to the rod yourself, in
other years, when the smart was perhaps as severe as it would be now;
and you have never been guilty of the folly of revenging yourself on the
Preceptor, who, in the plenitude of his "irresponsible power," thought
proper to chastise your son. So it is with the negro, and the negro
father.
As to chains and irons, they are rarely used; never, I believe, except
in cases of running away. You will admit that if we pretend to own
slaves, they must not be permitted to abscond whenever they see fit; and
that if nothing else will prevent it, these means must be resorted to.
See the inhumanity necessarily arising from slavery, you will exclaim.
Are such restraints imposed on no other class of people, giving no more
offense? Look to your army and navy. If your seamen, impressed from
their peaceful occupations, and your soldiers, recruited at the
gin-shops--both of them as much kidnapped as the most unsuspecting
victim of the slave trade, and doomed to a far more wretched fate--if
these men manifest a propensity to desert, the heaviest manacles are
their mildest punishment. It is most commonly death, after summary
trial. But armies and navies, you say, are indispensable, and must be
kept up at every sacrifice. I answer, that they are no more
indispensable than slavery is to us--and to _you_; for you have enough
of it in your country, though the form and name differ from ours.
Depend upon it that many things, and in regard to our slaves, most
things which appear revolting at a distance, and to slight reflection,
would, on a nearer view and impartial comparison with the customs and
conduct of the rest of mankind, strike you in a very different light.
Remember that on our estates we dispense with the whole machinery of
public police and public courts of justice. Thus we try, decide, and
execute the sentences, in thousands of cases, which in other countries
would go into the courts. Hence, most of the acts of our alleged
cruelty, which have any foundation in truth. Whether our patriarchal
mode of administering justice is less humane than the Assizes, can only
be determined by careful inquiry and comparison. But this is never done
by the abolitionists. All our punishments are the outrages of
"irresponsible power." If a man steals a pig in England, he is
transported--torn from wife, children, parents, and sent to the
antipodes, infamous, and an outcast forever, though probably he took
from the superabundance of his neighbor to save the lives of his
famishing little ones. If one of our well fed negroes, merely for the
sake of fresh meat, steals a pig, he gets perhaps forty stripes. If one
of your cottagers breaks into another's house, he is hung for burglary.
If a slave does the same here, a few lashes, or it may be, a few hours
in the stocks, settles the matter. Are our courts or yours the most
humane? If slavery were not in question, you would doubtless say ours is
mistaken lenity. Perhaps it often is; and slaves too lightly dealt with
sometimes grow daring. Occasionally, though rarely, and almost always in
consequence of excessive indulgence, an individual rebels. This is the
highest crime he can commit. It is treason. It strikes at the root of
our whole system. His life is justly forfeited, though it is never
intentionally taken, unless after trial in our public courts. Sometimes,
however, in capturing, or in self-defense, he is unfortunately killed. A
legal investigation always follows. But, terminate as it may, the
abolitionists raise a hue and cry, and another "shocking case" is held
up to the indignation of the world by tender-hearted male and female
philanthropists, who would have thought all right had the master's
throat been cut, and would have triumphed in it.
I cannot go into a detailed comparison between the penalties inflicted
on a slave in our patriarchal courts, and those of the Courts of
Sessions, to which freemen are sentenced in all civilized nations; but I
know well that if there is any fault in our criminal code, it is that of
excessive mildness.
Perhaps a few general facts will best illustrate the treatment this race
receives at our hands. It is acknowledged that it increases at least as
rapidly as the white. I believe it is an established law, that
population thrives in proportion to its comforts. But when it is
considered that these people are not recruited by immigration from
abroad, as the whites are, and that they are usually settled on our
richest and least healthy lands, the fact of their equal comparative
increase and greater longevity, outweighs a thousand abolition
falsehoods, in favor of the leniency and providence of our management of
them. It is also admitted that there are incomparably fewer cases of
insanity and suicide among them than among the whites. The fact is, that
among the slaves of the African race these things are almost wholly
unknown. However frequent suicide may have been among those brought from
Africa, I can say that in my time I cannot remember to have known or
heard of a single instance of deliberate self-destruction, and but of
one of suicide at all. As to insanity, I have seen but one permanent
case of it, and that twenty years ago. It cannot be doubted that among
three millions of people there must be some insane and some suicides;
but I will venture to say that more cases of both occur annually among
every hundred thousand of the population of Great Britain, than among
all our slaves. Can it be possible, then, that they exist in that state
of abject misery, goaded by constant injuries, outraged in their
affections, and worn down with hardships, which the abolitionists
depict, and so many ignorant and thoughtless persons religiously
believe?
With regard to the separation of husbands and wives, parents and
children, nothing can be more untrue than the inferences drawn from what
is so constantly harped on by abolitionists. Some painful instances
perhaps may occur. Very few that can be prevented. It is, and it always
has been, an object of prime consideration with our slaveholders, to
keep families together. Negroes are themselves both perverse and
comparatively indifferent about this matter. It is a singular trait,
that they almost invariably prefer forming connections with slaves
belonging to other masters, and at some distance. It is, therefore,
impossible to prevent separations sometimes, by the removal of one
owner, his death, or failure, and dispersion of his property. In all
such cases, however, every reasonable effort is made to keep the parties
together, if they desire it. And the negroes forming these connections,
knowing the chances of their premature dissolution, rarely complain more
than we all do of the inevitable strokes of fate. Sometimes it happens
that a negro prefers to give up his family rather than separate from his
master. I have known such instances. As to willfully selling off a
husband, or wife, or child, I believe it is rarely, very rarely done,
except when some offense has been committed demanding "transportation."
At sales of estates, and even at sheriff's sales, they are always, if
possible, sold in families. On the whole, notwithstanding the migratory
character of our population, I believe there are more families among our
slaves, who have lived and died together without losing a single member
from their circle, except by the process of nature, and in the enjoyment
of constant, uninterrupted communion, than have flourished in the same
space of time, and among the same number of civilized people in modern
times. And to sum up all, if pleasure is correctly defined to be the
absence of pain--which, so far as the great body of mankind is
concerned, is undoubtedly its true definition--I believe our slaves are
the happiest three millions of human beings on whom the sun shines. Into
their Eden is coming Satan in the guise of an abolitionist.
As regards their religious condition, it is well known that a majority
of the communicants of the Methodist and Baptist churches of the South
are colored. Almost everywhere they have precisely the same
opportunities of attending worship that the whites have, and, beside
special occasions for themselves exclusively, which they prefer. In many
places not so accessible to clergymen in ordinary, missionaries are
sent, and mainly supported by their masters, for the particular benefit
of the slaves. There are none I imagine who may not, if they like, hear
the gospel preached at least once a month--most of them twice a month,
and very many every week. In our thinly settled country the whites fare
no better. But in addition to this, on plantations of any size, the
slaves who have joined the church are formed into a class, at the head
of which is placed one of their number, acting as deacon or leader, who
is also sometimes a licensed preacher. This class assembles for
religious exercises weekly, semi-weekly, or oftener, if the members
choose. In some parts, also, Sunday schools for blacks are established,
and Bible classes are orally instructed by discreet and pious persons.
Now where will you find a laboring population possessed of greater
religious advantages than these? Not in London, I am sure, where it is
known that your churches, chapels, and religions meeting-houses, of all
sorts, can not contain one-half of the inhabitants.
I have admitted, without hesitation, what it would be untrue and
profitless to deny, that slaveholders are responsible to the world for
the humane treatment of the fellow-beings whom God has placed in their
hands. I think it would be only fair for you to admit, what is equally
undeniable, that every man in independent circumstances, all the world
over, and every government, is to the same extent responsible to the
whole human family, for the condition of the poor and laboring classes
in their own country, and around them, wherever they may be placed, to
whom God has denied the advantages he has given themselves. If so, it
would naturally seem the duty of true humanity and rational philanthropy
to devote their time and labor, their thoughts, writings and charity,
first to the objects placed as it were under their own immediate charge.
And it must be regarded as a clear evasion and skillful neglect of this
cardinal duty, to pass from those whose destitute situation they can
plainly see, minutely examine, and efficiently relieve, to inquire after
the condition of others in no way intrusted to their care, to exaggerate
evils of which they can not be cognizant, to expend all their sympathies
and exhaust all their energies on these remote objects of their
unnatural, not to say dangerous, benevolence; and finally, to
calumniate, denounce, and endeavor to excite the indignation of the
world against their unoffending fellow-creatures for not hastening,
under their dictation, to redress wrongs which are stoutly and
truthfully denied, while they themselves go but little further in
alleviating those chargeable on them than openly and unblushingly to
acknowledge them. There may be indeed a sort of merit in doing so much
as to make such an acknowledgment, but it must be very modest if it
expects appreciation.
Now I affirm, that in Great Britain the poor and laboring classes of
your own race and color, not only your fellow-beings, but your
_fellow-citizens_, are more miserable and degraded, morally and
physically, than our slaves; to be elevated to the actual condition of
whom, would be to these, _your fellow-citizens_, a most glorious act of
_emancipation_. And I also affirm, that the poor and laboring classes of
our older free States would not be in a much more enviable condition,
but for our slavery. One of their own Senators has declared in the
United States Senate, "that the repeal of the Tariff would reduce New
England to a howling wilderness." And the American Tariff is neither
more or less than a system by which the slave States are plundered for
the benefit of those States which do not tolerate slavery.
To prove what I say of Great Britain to be true, I make the following
extracts from the Reports of Commissioners appointed by Parliament, and
published by order of the House of Commons. I can make but few and short
ones. But similar quotations might be made to any extent, and I defy you
to deny that these specimens exhibit the real condition of your
operatives in every branch of your industry. There is of course a
variety in their sufferings. But the same incredible amount of toil,
frightful destitution, and utter want of morals, characterize the lot of
every class of them.
_Collieries_--"I wish to call the attention of the Board to the pits
about Brampton. The seams are so thin that several of them have only two
feet headway to all the working. They are worked altogether by boys from
eight to twelve years of age, on all-fours, with a dog belt and chain.
The passages being neither ironed nor wooded, and often an inch or two
thick with mud. In Mr. Barnes' pit these poor boys have to drag the
barrows with one hundred weight of coal or slack sixty times a day sixty
yards, and the empty barrows back, without once straightening their
backs, unless they chose to stand under the shaft, and run the risk of
having their heads broken by a falling coal."--Report on Mines, 1842, p.
71. "In Shropshire the seams are no more than eighteen or twenty
inches."--Ibid, p. 67. "At the Booth pit," says Mr. Scriven, "I walked,
rode, and crept eighteen hundred yards to one of the nearest
faces."--Ibid. "Chokedamp, firedamp, wild fire, sulphur and water, at
all times menace instant death to the laborers in these mines." "Robert
North, aged 16: Went into the pit at seven years of age, to fill up
skips. I drew about twelve months. When I drew by the girdle and chain
my skin was broken, and the blood ran down. I durst not say any thing.
If we said any thing, the butty, and the reeve, who works under him,
would take a stick and beat us."--Ibid. "The usual punishment for theft
is to place the culprit's head between the legs of one of the biggest
boys, and each boy in the pit--sometimes there are twenty--inflicts
twelve lashes on the back and rump with a cat."--Ibid. "Instances occur
in which children are taken into these mines to work as early as four
years of age, sometimes at five, not unfrequently at six and seven,
while from eight to nine is the ordinary age at which these employments
commence."--Ibid. "The wages paid at these mines is from two dollar
fifty cents to seven dollars fifty cents per month for laborers,
according to age and ability, and out of this they must support
themselves. They work twelve hours a day."--Ibid.
_In Calico Printing._--"It is by no means uncommon in all the districts
for children five or six years old to be kept at work fourteen to
sixteen hours consecutively."--Report on Children, 1842, p. 59.
I could furnish extracts similar to these in regard to every branch of
your manufactures, but I will not multiply them. Every body knows that
your operatives habitually labor from twelve to sixteen hours, men,
women, and children, and the men occasionally twenty hours per day. In
lace-making, says the last quoted report, children sometimes commence
work at two years of age.
_Destitution._--It is stated by your Commissioners that forty thousand
persons in Liverpool, and fifteen thousand in Manchester, live in
cellars; while twenty-two thousand in England pass the night in barns,
tents, or the open air. "There have been found such occurrences as
seven, eight, and ten persons in one cottage, I cannot say for one day,
but for whole days, without a morsel of food. They have remained on
their beds of straw for two successive days, under the impression that
in a recumbent posture the pangs of hunger were less felt."--Lord
Brougham's Speech, 11th July, 1842. A volume of frightful scenes might
be quoted to corroborate the inferences to be necessarily drawn from the
facts here stated. I will not add more, but pass on to the important
inquiry as to
_Morals and Education._--"Elizabeth Barrett, aged 14: I always work
without stockings, shoes, or trowsers. I wear nothing but a shift. I
have to go up to the headings with the men. _They are all naked there._
I am got used to that."--Report on Mines. "As to illicit sexual
intercourse it seems to prevail universally, and from an early period of
life." "The evidence might have been doubled, which attest the early
commencement of sexual and promiscuous intercourse among boys and
girls." "A lower condition of morals, in the fullest sense of the term,
could not, I think, be found. I do not mean by this that there are many
more prominent vices among them, but that moral feelings and sentiments
do not exist. _They have no morals._" "Their appearance, manners, and
moral natures--so far as the word _moral_ can be applied to them--are in
accordance with their half-civilized condition."--Report on Children.
"More than half a dozen instances occurred in Manchester, where a man,
his wife, and his wife's grown-up-sister, habitually occupied the same
bed."--Report on Sanitary Condition. "Robert Crucilow, aged 16: I don't
know any thing of Moses--never heard of France. I don't know what
America is. Never heard of Scotland or Ireland. Can't tell how many
weeks there are in a year. There are twelve pence in a shilling, and
twenty shillings in a pound. There are eight pints in a gallon of
ale."--Report on Mines. "Ann Eggly, aged 18: I walk about and get fresh
air on Sundays. I never go to church or chapel. I never heard of Christ
at all."--Ibid. Others: "The Lord sent Adam and Eve on earth to save
sinners." "I don't know who made the world; I never heard about God." "I
don't know Jesus Christ--I never saw him--but I have seen Foster who
prays about him." "Employer: You have expressed surprise at Thomas
Mitchel's not hearing of God. I judge there are few colliers here about
that have."--Ibid. I will quote no more. It is shocking beyond endurance
to turn over your records, in which the condition of your laboring
classes is but too faithfully depicted. Could our slaves but see it,
they would join us in lynching the abolitionists, which, by the by, they
would not now be loth to do. We never think of imposing on them such
labor, either in amount or kind. We never put them to _any work_, under
ten, more generally at twelve years of age, and then the very lightest.
Destitution is absolutely unknown--never did a slave starve in America;
while in moral sentiments and feelings, in religious information, and
even in general intelligence, they are infinitely the superiors of your
operatives. When you look around you, how dare you talk to us before the
world of slavery? For the condition of your wretched laborers, you, and
every Briton who is not one of them, are responsible before God and man.
If you are really humane, philanthropic, and charitable, here are
objects for you. Relieve them. Emancipate them. Raise them from the
condition of brutes, to the level of human beings--of American slaves,
at least. Do not for an instant suppose that the _name_ of being
freemen is the slightest comfort to them, situated as they are, or that
the bombastic boast that "whoever touches British soil stands redeemed,
regenerated, and disenthralled," can meet with any thing but the
ridicule and contempt of mankind, while that soil swarms, both on and
under its surface, with the most abject and degraded wretches that ever
bowed beneath the oppressor's yoke.
I have said that slavery is an established and inevitable condition to
human society. I do not speak of the _name_, but the _fact_. The Marquis
of Normanby has lately declared your operatives to be "_in effect
slaves_." Can it be denied? Probably, for such philanthropists as your
abolitionists care nothing for facts. They deal in terms and fictions.
It is the _word_ "slavery" which shocks their tender sensibilities; and
their imaginations associate it with "hydras and chimeras dire." The
thing itself, in its most hideous reality, passes daily under their view
unheeded--a familiar face, touching no chord of shame, sympathy or
indignation. Yet so brutalizing is your iron bondage that the English
operative is a by-word through the world. When favoring fortune enables
him to escape his prison-house, both in Europe and America he is
shunned. "With all the skill which fourteen hours of daily labor from
the tenderest age has ground into him, his discontent, which habit has
made second nature, and his depraved propensities, running riot when
freed from his wonted fetters, prevent his employment whenever it is not
a matter of necessity. If we derived no other benefit from African
slavery in the Southern States than that it deterred your _freedmen_
from coming hither, I should regard it an inestimable blessing.
And how unaccountable is that philanthropy, which closes its eyes upon
such a state of things as you have at home, and turns its blurred vision
to our affairs beyond the Atlantic, meddling with matters which no way
concern them--presiding, as you have lately done, at meetings to
denounce the "iniquity of our laws" and "the atrocity of our practices,"
and to sympathize with infamous wretches imprisoned here for violating
decrees promulgated both by God and man? Is this doing the work of "your
Father which is in heaven," or is it seeking only "that you may have
glory of man?" Do you remember the denunciation of our Saviour, "Woe
unto you, Scribes and Pharisees; hypocrites! for ye make clean the
outside of the cup and platter, but within they are full of extortion
and excess."
But after all, supposing that every thing you say of slavery be true,
and its abolition a matter of the last necessity, how do you expect to
effect emancipation, and what do you calculate will be the result of its
accomplishment? As to the means to be used, the abolitionists, I
believe, affect to differ, a large proportion of them pretending that
their sole purpose is to apply "moral suasion" to the slaveholders
themselves. As a matter of curiosity, I should like to know what their
idea of this "moral suasion" is. Their discourses--yours is no
exception--are all tirades, the exordium, argument and peroration,
turning on the epithets "tyrants," "thieves," "murderers," addressed to
us. They revile us as "atrocious monsters," "violators of the laws of
nature, God and man," our homes the abode of every iniquity, our land a
"brothel." We retort, that they are "incendiaries" and "assassins."
Delightful argument! Sweet, potent "moral suasion!" What slave has it
freed--what proselyte can it ever make? But if your course was wholly
different--if you distilled nectar from your lips, and discoursed
sweetest music, could you reasonably indulge the hope of accomplishing
your object by such means? Nay, supposing that we were all convinced,
and thought of slavery precisely as you do, at what era of "moral
suasion" do you imagine you could prevail on us to give up a thousand
millions of dollars in the value of our slaves, and a thousand millions
of dollars more in the depreciation of our lands, in consequence of the
want of laborers to cultivate them? Consider: were ever any people,
civilized or savage, persuaded by any argument, human or divine, to
surrender voluntarily two thousand millions of dollars? Would you think
of asking five millions of Englishmen to contribute, either at once or
gradually, four hundred and fifty millions of pounds sterling to the
cause of philanthropy, even if the purpose to be accomplished was not of
doubtful goodness? If you are prepared to undertake such a scheme, try
it at home. Collect your fund--return us the money for our slaves, and
do with them as you like. Be all the glory yours, fairly and honestly
won. But you see the absurdity of such an idea. Away, then, with your
pretended "moral suasion." You know it is mere nonsense. The
abolitionists have no faith in it themselves. Those who expect to
accomplish any thing count on means altogether different. They aim,
first, to alarm us: that failing, to compel us by force to emancipate
our slaves, at our own risk and cost. To these purposes they obviously
direct all their energies. Our Northern liberty-men endeavored to
disseminate their destructive doctrine among our slaves, and excite them
to insurrection. But we have put an end to that, and stricken terror
into them. They dare not show their faces here. Then they declared they
would dissolve the Union. Let them do it. The North would repent it far
more than the South. We are not alarmed at the idea. We are well content
to give up the Union sooner than sacrifice two thousand millions of
dollars, and with them all the rights we prize. You may take it for
granted that it is impossible to persuade or alarm us into emancipation,
or to making the first step toward it. Nothing, then, is left to try,
but sheer force. If the abolitionists are prepared to expend their own
treasure and shed their own blood as freely as they ask us to do ours,
let them come. We do not court the conflict; but we will not and we
cannot shrink from it. If they are not ready to go so far; if, as I
expect, their philanthropy recoils from it; if they are looking only for
_cheap_ glory, let them turn their thoughts elsewhere, and leave us in
peace. Be the sin, the danger and the evils of slavery all our own. We
compel, we ask none to share them with us.
I am well aware that a notable scheme has been set on foot to achieve
abolition by making what is by courtesy called "free" labor so much
cheaper than slave labor as to force the abandonment of the latter.
Though we are beginning to _manufacture with slaves_, I do not think you
will attempt to pinch your operatives closer in Great Britain. You
cannot curtail the rags with which they vainly attempt to cover their
nakedness, nor reduce the porridge which barely, and not always, keeps
those who have employment from perishing of famine. When you can do
this, we will consider whether our slaves may not dispense with a pound
or two of bacon per week, or a few garments annually. Your aim, however,
is to cheapen labor in the tropics. The idea of doing this by exporting
your "bold yeomanry" is, I presume, given up. Cromwell tried it when he
_sold_ the captured followers of Charles into _West Indian slavery_,
where they speedily found graves. Nor have your recent experiments on
British and even Dutch constitutions succeeded better. Have you still
faith in carrying thither your coolies from Hindostan? Doubtless that
once wild robber race, whose highest eulogium was that they did not
murder merely for the love of blood, have been tamed down, and are
perhaps "keen for immigration," for since your civilization has reached
it, plunder has grown scarce in Guzerat. But what is the result of the
experiment thus far? Have the coolies, ceasing to handle arms, learned
to handle spades, and proved hardy and profitable laborers? On the
contrary, broken in spirit and stricken with disease at home, the
wretched victims whom you have hitherto kidnapped for a bounty, confined
in depots, put under hatches and carried across the ocean--forced into
"voluntary immigration," have done little but lie down and die on the
_pseudo_ soil of freedom. At the end of five years two-thirds, in some
colonies a larger proportion, are no more! Humane and pious contrivance!
To alleviate the fancied sufferings of the accursed posterity of Ham,
you sacrifice by a cruel death two-thirds of the children of the blessed
Shem--and demand the applause of Christians--the blessing of heaven! If
this "experiment" is to go on, in God's name try your hand upon the
Thugs. That other species of "immigration" to which you are resorting I
will consider presently.
But what do you calculate will be the result of emancipation, by
whatever means accomplished? You will probably point me, by way of
answer, to the West Indies--doubtless to Antigua, the great boast of
abolition. Admitting that it has succeeded there--which I will do for
the sake of the argument--do you know the reason of it? The true and
only causes of whatever success has attended it in Antigua are, that the
population was before crowded, and all or nearly all the arable land in
cultivation. The emancipated negroes could not, many of them, get away
if they desired; and knew not where to go, in case they did. They had,
practically, no alternative but to remain on the spot; and remaining,
they must work on the terms of the proprietors, or perish--the strong
arm of the mother country forbidding all hope of seizing the land for
themselves. The proprietors, well knowing that they could thus command
labor for the merest necessities of life, which was much cheaper than
maintaining the non-effective as well as effective slaves in a style
which decency and interest, if not humanity, required, willingly
accepted half their value, and at once realized far more than the
interest on the other half in the diminution of their expenses, and the
reduced comforts of the _freemen_. One of your most illustrious judges,
who was also a profound and philosophical historian, has said "that
villeinage was not abolished, but went into decay in England." This was
the process. This has been the process wherever (the name of) villeinage
or slavery has been successfully abandoned. Slavery, in fact, "went into
decay" in Antigua. I have admitted that, under similar circumstances, it
might profitably cease here--that is, profitably to the individual
proprietors. Give me half the value of my slaves, and compel them to
remain and labor on my plantation, at ten to eleven cents a day, as they
do in Antigua, supporting themselves and families, and you shall have
them to-morrow, and if you like dub them "free." Not to stickle, I would
surrender them without price. No--I recall my words: My humanity revolts
at the idea. I am attached to my slaves, and would not have act or part
in reducing them to such a condition. I deny, however, that Antigua, as
a community, is, or ever will be, as _prosperous_ under present
circumstances, as she was before abolition, though fully ripe for it.
The fact is well known. The reason is that the African, if not a
distinct, is an inferior race, and never will effect, as it never has
effected, as much in any other condition as in that of slavery.
I know of no _slaveholder_ who has visited the West Indies since slavery
was abolished, and published _his_ views of it. All our facts and
opinions come through the friends of the experiment, or at least those
not opposed to it. Taking these, even without allowance, to be true as
stated, I do not see where the abolitionists find cause for exultation.
The tables of exports, which are the best evidences of the condition of
a people, exhibit a woful falling off--excused, it is true, by
unprecedented droughts and hurricanes, to which their free labor seems
unaccountably more subject than slave labor used to be. I will not go
into detail. It is well known that a large proportion of British
legislation and expenditure, and that proportion still constantly
increasing, is most anxiously devoted to repairing the monstrous error
of emancipation. You are actually galvanizing your expiring colonies.
The truth, deduced from all the facts, was thus pithily stated by the
_London Quarterly Review_, as long ago as 1840: "None of the benefits
anticipated by mistaken good intentions have been realized, while every
evil wished for by knaves and foreesen by the wise has been painfully
verified. The wild rashness of fanaticism has made the emancipation of
the slaves equivalent to the loss of one-half of the West Indies, and
yet put back the chance of negro civilization."--Art. Ld. Dudley's
Letters. Such are the _real fruits_ of your never-to-be-too-much-glorified
abolition, and the valuable dividend of your twenty millions of pounds
sterling invested therein.
If any further proof was wanted of the utter and well-known, though not
yet openly avowed, failure of West Indian emancipation, it would be
furnished by the startling fact, that THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE HAS BEEN
ACTUALLY REVIVED UNDER THE AUSPICES AND PROTECTION OF THE BRITISH
GOVERNMENT. Under the specious guise of "immigration," they are
replenishing those Islands with slaves from the coast of Africa. Your
colony of Sierra Leone, founded on that coast to prevent the slave
trade, and peopled, by the bye, in the first instance, by negroes stolen
from these States during the Revolutionary War, is the depot to which
captives taken from slavers by your armed vessels are transported. I
might say returned, since nearly half the Africans carried across the
Atlantic are understood to be embarked in this vicinity. The wretched
survivors, who are there set at liberty, are immediately seduced to
"immigrate" to the West Indies. The business is systematically carried
on by black "delegates," sent expressly from the West Indies, where, on
arrival, the "immigrants" are _sold into slavery_ for twenty-one years,
under conditions ridiculously trivial and wickedly void, since few or
none will ever be able to derive any advantage from them. The whole
prime of life thus passed in bondage, it is contemplated, and doubtless
it will be carried into effect, to turn them out in their old age to
shift for themselves, and to supply their places with fresh and vigorous
"immigrants." Was ever a system of slavery so barbarous devised before?
Can you think of comparing it with ours? Even your own religious
missionaries at Sierra Leone denounce it "as worse than the slave state
in Africa." And your black delegates, fearful of the influence of these
missionaries, as well as on account of the inadequate supply of
captives, are now preparing to procure the able-bodied and comparatively
industrious Kroomen of the interior, by _purchasing from their headmen_
the privilege of inveigling them to the West India market! So ends the
magnificent farce--perhaps I should say tragedy, of West India
abolition! I will not harrow your feelings by asking you to review the
labors of your life and tell me what you and your brother enthusiasts
have accomplished for "injured Africa," but while agreeing with Lord
Stowell, that "villeinage decayed," and admitting that slavery might do
so also, I think I am fully justified by passed and passing events in
saying, as Mr. Grosvenor said of the slave trade, that its _abolition_
is "impossible."
Yon are greatly mistaken, however, if you think that the consequences of
emancipation here would be similar and no more injurious than those
which followed from it in your little sea-girt West India Islands, where
nearly all were blacks. The system of slavery is not in "decay" with us.
It flourishes in full and growing vigor. Our country is boundless in
extent. Dotted here and there with villages and fields, it is, for the
most part, covered with immense forests and swamps of almost unknown
size. In such a country, with a people so restless as ours,
communicating of course some of that spirit to their domestics, can you
conceive that any thing short of the power of the master over the slave,
could confine the African race, notoriously idle and improvident, to
labor on our plantations? Break this bond, but for a day, and these
plantations will be solitudes. The negro loves change, novelty, and
sensual excitements of all kinds, _when awake_. "Reason and order," of
which Mr. Wilberforce said "liberty was the child," do not characterize
him. Released from his present obligations, his first impulse would be
to go somewhere. And here no natural boundaries would restrain him. At
first they would all seek the towns, and rapidly accumulate in squalid
groups upon their outskirts. Driven thence by the "armed police," which
would immediately spring into existence, they would scatter in all
directions. Some bodies of them might wander toward the "free" States,
or to the Western wilderness, marking their tracks by their depredations
and their corpses. Many would roam wild in our "big woods." Many more
would seek the recesses of our swamps for secure covert. Few, very few
of them, could be prevailed on to do a stroke of work, none to labor
continuously, while a head of cattle, sheep or swine could be found in
our ranges, or an ear of corn nodded in our abandoned fields. These
exhausted, our folds and poultry yards, barns and store-houses, would
become their prey. Finally, our scattered dwellings would be plundered,
perhaps fired, and the inmates murdered. How long do you suppose that we
could bear these things? How long would it be before we should sleep
with rifles at our bedsides, and never move without one in our hands?
This work once begun, let the story of our British ancestors and the
aborigines of this country tell the sequel. Far more rapid, however,
would be the catastrophe. "Ere many moons went by," the African race
would be exterminated, or reduced again to slavery, their ranks
recruited, after your example, by fresh "emigrants" from their
fatherland.
Is timely preparation and gradual emancipation suggested to avert these
horrible consequences? I thought your experience in the West Indies had,
at least, done so much as to explode that idea. If it failed there, much
more would it fail here, where the two races, approximating to equality
in numbers, are daily and hourly in the closest contact. Give room for
but a single spark of real jealousy to be kindled between them, and the
explosion would be instantaneous and universal. It is the most fatal of
all fallacies, to suppose that these two races can exist together, after
any length of time, or any process of preparation, on terms at all
approaching to equality. Of this, both of them are finally and fixedly
convinced. They differ essentially, in all the leading traits which
characterize the varieties of the human species, and color draws an
indelible and insuperable line of separation between them. Every scheme
founded upon the idea that they can remain together on the same soil,
beyond the briefest period, in any other relation than precisely that
which now subsists between them, is not only preposterous, but fraught
with deepest danger. If there was no alternative but to try the
"experiment" here, reason and humility dictate that the sufferings of
"gradualism" should be saved, and the catastrophe of "immediate
abolition" enacted as rapidly as possible. Are you impatient for the
performance to commence? Do you long to gloat over the scenes I have
suggested, but could not hold the pen to portray? In your long life many
such have passed under your review. You know that _they_ are not
"_impossible_." Can they be to your taste? Do you believe that in
laboring to bring them about, the abolitionists are doing the will of
God? No! God is not there. It is the work of Satan. The arch-fiend,
under specious guises, has found his way into their souls, and with
false appeals to philanthropy, and foul insinuations to ambition,
instigates them to rush headlong to the accomplishment of his diabolical
designs.
We live in a wonderful age. The events of the last three quarters of a
century appear to have revolutionized the human mind. Enterprise and
ambition are only limited in their purposes by the horizon of the
imagination. It is the transcendental era. In philosophy, religion,
government, science, arts, commerce, nothing that has been is to be
allowed to be. Conservatism, in any form, is scoffed at. The slightest
taint of it is fatal. Where will all this end? If you can tolerate one
ancient maxim, let it be that the best criterion of the future is the
past. That, if any thing, will give a clue. And, looking back only
through your time, what was the earliest feat of this same
transcendentalism? The rays of the new moral Drummond Light were first
concentrated to a focus at Paris, to illuminate the universe. In a
twinkling it consumed the political, religious and social systems of
France. It could not be extinguished there until literally drowned in
blood. And then, from its ashes arose that supernatural man, who, for
twenty years, kept affrighted Europe in convulsions. Since that time,
its scattered beams, refracted by broader surfaces, have, nevertheless,
continued to scathe wherever they have fallen. What political structure,
what religious creed, but has felt the galvanic shock, and even now
trembles to its foundations? Mankind, still horror-stricken by the
catastrophe of France, have shrunk from rash experiments upon social
systems. But they have been practicing in the East, around the
Mediterranean, and through the West India Islands. And growing
confident, a portion of them seem desperately bent on kindling the
all-devouring flame in the bosom of our land. Let it once again blaze up
to heaven, and another cycle of blood and devastation will dawn upon the
world. For our own sake, and for the sake of those infatuated men who
are madly driving on the conflagration; for the sake of human nature, we
are called on to strain every nerve to arrest it. And be assured our
efforts will be bounded only with our being. Nor do I doubt that five
millions of people, brave, intelligent, united, and prepared to hazard
every thing, will, in such a cause, with the blessing of God, sustain
themselves. At all events, come what may, it is ours to meet it.
We are well aware of the light estimation in which the abolitionists,
and those who are taught by them, profess to hold us. We have seen the
attempt of a portion of the Free Church of Scotland to reject our alms
on the ground that we are "slave-drivers," after sending missionaries
to solicit them. And we have seen Mr. O'Connell, the "irresponsible
master" of millions of ragged serfs, from whom, poverty stricken as they
are, he contrives to wring a splendid privy purse, throw back with
contumely, the "tribute" of his own countrymen from this land of
"miscreants." These people may exhaust their slang, and make blackguards
of themselves, but they cannot defile us. And as for the suggestion to
exclude slaveholders from your London clubs, we scout it. Many of us,
indeed, do go to London, and we have seen your breed of gawky lords,
both there and here, but it never entered into our conceptions to look
on them as better than ourselves. The American slaveholders,
collectively or individually, ask no favors of any man or race who tread
the earth. In none of the attributes of men, mental or physical, do they
acknowledge or fear superiority elsewhere. They stand in the broadest
light of the knowledge, civilization and improvement of the age, as much
favored of heaven as any of the sons of Adam. Exacting nothing undue,
they yield nothing but justice and courtesy, even to royal blood. They
cannot be flattered, duped, nor bullied out of their rights or their
propriety. They smile with contempt at scurrility and vaporing beyond
the seas, and they turn their backs upon it where it is "irresponsible;"
but insolence that ventures to look them in the face, will never fail to
be chastised.
I think I may trust you will not regard this letter as intrusive. I
should never have entertained an idea of writing it, had you not opened
the correspondence. If you think any thing in it harsh, review your
own--which I regret that I lost soon after it was received--and you will
probably find that you have taken your revenge beforehand. If you have
not, transfer an equitable share of what you deem severe, to the account
of the abolitionists at large. They have accumulated against the
slaveholders a balance of invective, which, with all our efforts, we
shall not be able to liquidate much short of the era in which your
national debt will be paid. At all events, I have no desire to offend
you personally, and, with the best wishes for your continued health, I
have the honor to be,
Your obedient servant,
J. H. HAMMOND.
THOS. CLARKSON, Esq.
FOOTNOTE:
[255] On this subject, J. Q. Adams, in his letter to the citizens of
Bangor, Maine, July 4th, 1843, said: "It is only as _immortal_ beings
that all mankind can in any sense be said to be born equal; and when the
Declaration of Independence affirms as a self-evident truth that all men
are born equal, it is precisely the same as if the affirmation had been
that all men are born with immortal souls."--Life of J. Q. Adams, page
395.--_Editor._
LETTER II.
Ignorance of Abolitionists--Arguments of
Abolitionists refuted--Abolitionism leads to
Infidelity--Law of Force a law of Love--Wages of
Slaves and of hired labor--Results of emancipation
to the world--Falsehoods of Abolitionists--English
estimate of our Northern citizens--British
interference in the politics of our
country--Sensitiveness of the Southern
People--Rise and progress of Fanaticism.
SILVER BLUFF, S. C., March 24, 1845.
SIR--In my letter to you of the 28th January--which I trust you have
received ere this--I mentioned that I had lost your circular letter soon
after it had come to hand. It was, I am glad to say, only mislaid, and
has within a few days been recovered. A second perusal of it induces me
to resume my pen. Unwilling to trust my recollections from a single
reading, I did not, in my last communication, attempt to follow the
course of your argument, and meet directly the points made and the terms
used. I thought it better to take a general view of the subject, which
could not fail to traverse your most material charges. I am well aware,
however, that for fear of being tedious, I omitted many interesting
topics altogether, and abstained from a complete discussion of some of
those introduced. I do not propose now to _exhaust_ the subject; which
it would require volumes to do; but without waiting to learn--which I
may never do--your opinion of what I have already said, I sit down to
supply some of the deficiencies of my letter of January, and, with your
circular before me, to reply to such parts of it as have not been fully
answered.
It is, I perceive, addressed, among others, to "such as have never
visited the Southern States" of this confederacy, and professes to
enlighten their ignorance of the actual "condition of the poor slave in
their own country." I can not help thinking you would have displayed
prudence in confining the circulation of your letter altogether to such
persons. You might then have indulged with impunity in giving, as you
have done, a picture of slavery, drawn from your own excited
imagination, or from those impure fountains, the Martineaus, Marryatts,
Trollopes, and Dickenses, who have profited by catering, at our expense,
to the jealous sensibilities and debauched tastes of your countrymen.
Admitting that you are familiar with the history of slavery, and the
past discussions of it, as I did, I now think rather broadly, in my
former letter, what can _you know_ of the true _condition_ of the "poor
slave" here? I am not aware that you have ever visited this country, or
even the West Indies. Can you suppose, that because you have devoted
your life to the investigation of the subject--commencing it under the
influence of an enthusiasm, so melancholy at first, and so volcanic
afterwards, as to be nothing short of hallucination--pursuing it as men
of _one idea_ do every thing, with the single purpose of establishing
your own view of it--gathering your information from discharged seamen,
disappointed speculators, factious politicians, visionary reformers and
scurrilous tourists--opening your ears to every species of complaint,
exaggeration and falsehood, that interested ingenuity could invent, and
never for a moment questioning the truth of any thing that could make
for your cause--can you suppose that all this has qualified you, living
the while in England, to form or approximate toward the formation of a
correct opinion of the condition of slaves among us? I know the power of
self-delusion. I have not the least doubt, that you think yourself the
very best informed man alive on this subject, and that many think so
likewise. So far as facts go, even after deducting from your list a
great deal that is not fact, I will not deny that, probably, your
collection is the most extensive in existence. But as to the _truth_ in
regard to slavery, there is not an adult in this region but knows more
of it than you do. _Truth_ and _fact_ are, you are aware, by no means
synonymous terms. Ninety-nine facts may constitute a falsehood: the
hundredth, added or alone, gives the truth. With all your knowledge of
facts, I undertake to say that you are entirely and grossly ignorant of
the real condition of our slaves. And from all that I can see, you are
equally ignorant of the essential principles of human association
revealed in history, both sacred and profane, on which slavery rests,
and which will perpetuate it forever in some form or other. However you
may declaim against it; however powerfully you may array atrocious
incidents; whatever appeals you may make to the heated imaginations and
tender sensibilities of mankind, believe me, your total blindness to the
_whole truth_, which alone constitutes _the truth_, incapacitates you
from ever making an impression on the sober reason and sound common
sense of the world. You may seduce thousands--you can convince no one.
Whenever and wherever you or the advocates of your cause can arouse the
passions of the weak-minded and the ignorant, and bringing to bear with
them the interests of the vicious and unprincipled, overwhelm common
sense and reason--as God sometimes permits to be done--you may triumph.
Such a triumph we have witnessed in Great Britain. But I trust it is far
distant here; nor can it, from its nature, be extensive or enduring.
Other classes of reformers, animated by the same spirit as the
abolitionists, attack the institution of marriage, and even the
established relations of parent and child. And they collect instances of
barbarous cruelty and shocking degradation, which rival, if they do not
throw into the shade, your slavery statistics. But the rights of
marriage and parental authority rests upon truths as obvious as they are
unchangeable--coming home to every human being,--self-impressed forever
on the individual mind, and can not be shaken until the whole man is
corrupted, nor subverted until civilized society becomes a putrid mass.
Domestic slavery is not so universally understood, nor can it make such
a direct appeal to individuals or society beyond its pale. Here,
prejudice and passion have room to sport at the expense of others. They
may be excited and urged to dangerous action, remote from the victims
they mark out. They may, as they have done, effect great mischief, but
they can not be made to maintain, in the long run, dominion over reason
and common sense, nor ultimately put down what God has ordained.
You deny, however, that slavery is sanctioned by God, and your chief
argument is, that when he gave to Adam dominion over the fruits of the
earth and the animal creation, he stopped there. "He never gave him any
further right over his fellow-men." You restrict the descendants of Adam
to a very short list of rights and powers, duties and responsibities, if
you limit them solely to those conferred and enjoined in the first
chapter of Genesis. It is very obvious that in this narrative of the
Creation, Moses did not have it in view to record any part of the law
intended for the government of man in his social or political state. Eve
was not yet created; the expulsion had not yet taken place; Cain was
unborn; and no allusion whatever is made to the manifold decrees of God
to which these events gave rise. The only serious answer this argument
deserves, is to say, what is so manifestly true, that God's not
expressly giving to Adam "any right over his fellow-men" by no means
excluded him from conferring that right on his descendants; which he in
fact did. We know that Abraham, the chosen one of God, exercised it and
held property in his fellow-man, even anterior to the period when
property in land was acknowledged. We might infer that God had
authorized it. But we are not reduced to inference or conjecture. At the
hazard of fatiguing you by repetition, I will again refer you to the
ordinances of the Scriptures. Innumerable instances might be quoted
where God has given and commanded men to assume dominion over their
fellow-men. But one will suffice. In the twenty-fifth chapter of
Leviticus, you will find _domestic slavery--precisely such as is
maintained at this day in these States--ordained and established by God,
in language which I defy you to pervert so as to leave a doubt on any
honest mind that this institution was founded by him, and decreed to be
perpetual_. I quote the words:
Leviticus xxv. 44-46: "Both thy bond-men and thy bond-maids which thou
shalt have, shall be of the heathen [Africans] that are round about you:
of _them ye shall buy bond-men and bond-maids_.
"Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you,
of them shall ye buy, _and of their families that are with you which
they begat in your land_ [descendants of Africans?] and they shall be
your possession.
"_And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you,
to inherit them for a possession._ THEY SHALL BE YOUR BOND-MEN FOREVER."
What human legislature could make a decree more full and explicit than
this? What court of law or chancery could defeat a title to a slave
couched in terms so clear and complete as these? And this is the _law of
God_, whom you pretend to worship, while you denounce and traduce us for
respecting it.
It seems scarcely credible, but the fact is so, that you deny this law
so plainly written, and in the face of it have the hardihood to declare
that "though slavery is not _specifically_, yet it is _virtually_,
_forbidden_ in the Scriptures, because all the crimes which necessarily
arises out of slavery, and which can arise from no other source, are
reprobated there and threatened with divine vengeance." Such an unworthy
subterfuge is scarcely entitled to consideration. But its gross
absurdity may be exposed in few words. I do not know what crimes you
particularly allude to as arising from slavery. But you will perhaps
admit--not because they are denounced in the decalogue, which the
abolitionists respect only so far as they choose, but because it is the
_immediate interest_ of most men to admit--that disobedience to parents,
adultery, and stealing, are crimes. Yet these crimes "necessarily arise
from" the relations of parent and child, marriage, and the possession of
private property; at least they "can arise from no other sources." Then,
according to your argument, it is "virtually forbidden" to marry, to
beget children, and to hold private property! Nay, it is forbidden to
live, since murder can only be perpetrated on living subjects. You add
that "in the same way the gladiatorial shows of old, and other barbarous
customs, were not specifically forbidden in the New Testament, and yet
Christianity was the sole means of their suppression." This is very
true. But these shows and barbarous customs thus suppressed were not
_authorised by God_. They were not ordained and commanded by God for the
benefit of his chosen people and mankind, as the purchase and holding of
bond-men and bond-maids were. Had they been they would never have been
"suppressed by Christianity" any more than slavery can be by your party.
Although Christ came "not to destroy but fulfill the law," he
nevertheless did formally abrogate some of the ordinances promulgated by
Moses, and all such as were at war with his mission of "peace and
good-will on earth." He "specifically" annuls, for instance, one
"barbarous custom" sanctioned by those ordinances, where he says, "ye
have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a
tooth; but I say unto you that ye resist not evil, but whosoever shall
smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." Now, in the
time of Christ, it was usual for masters to put their slaves to death on
the slightest provocation. They even killed and cut them up to feed
their fishes. He was undoubtedly aware of these things, as well as of
the law and commandment I have quoted. He could only have been
restrained from denouncing them, as he did the "_lex talionis_," because
he knew that in despite of these barbarities the institution of slavery
was at the bottom a sound and wholesome, as well as lawful one. Certain
it is, that in his wisdom and purity he did not see proper to interfere
with it. In your wisdom, however, you make the sacrilegious attempt to
overthrow it.
You quote the denunciation of Tyre and Sidon, and say that "the chief
reason given by the prophet Joel for their destruction, was, that they
were notorious beyond all others for carrying on the slave trade." I am
afraid you think we have no Bibles in the slave States, or that we are
unable to read them. I can not otherwise account for your making this
reference, unless indeed your own reading is confined to an expurgated
edition, prepared for the use of abolitionists, in which every thing
relating to slavery that militates against their view of it is left out.
The prophet Joel denounces the Tyrians and Sidonians, because "the
children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto
the Grecians." And what is the divine vengeance for this "notorious
slave trading?" Hear it. "And I will sell your sons and daughters into
the hands of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the
Sabeans, to a people far off; for the Lord hath spoken it." Do you call
this a condemnation of slave trading? The prophet makes God himself a
participator in the crime, if that be one. "The Lord hath spoken it," he
says, that the Tyrians and Sidonians shall be _sold into slavery to
strangers_. Their real offense was, in enslaving the chosen people; and
their sentence was a repetition of the old command, to make slaves of
the heathen round about.
I have dwelt upon your scriptural argument, because you profess to
believe the Bible; because a large proportion of the abolitionists
profess to do the same, and to act under its sanction; because your
circular is addressed in part to "professing Christians;" and because it
is from that class mainly that you expect to seduce converts to your
anti-christian, I may say, infidel doctrines. It would be wholly
unnecessary to answer you, to any one who reads the Scriptures for
himself, and construes them according to any other formula than that
which the abolitionists are wickedly endeavoring to impose upon the
world. The scriptural sanction of slavery is in fact so palpable, and so
strong, that both wings of your party are beginning to acknowledge it.
The more sensible and moderate admit, as the organ of the Free Church of
Scotland, the _North British Review_, has lately done, that they "_are
precluded by the statements and conduct of the Apostles from regarding
mere slaveholding as essentially sinful_," while the desperate and
reckless, who are bent on keeping up the agitation at every hazard,
declare, as has been done in the _Anti-Slavery Record_, "If our inquiry
turns out in favor of slavery, IT IS THE BIBLE THAT MUST FALL, AND NOT
THE RIGHTS OF HUMAN NATURE." You can not, I am satisfied, much longer
maintain before the world the Christian platform from which to wage war
upon our institutions. Driven from it, you must abandon the contest, or,
repudiating REVELATION, rush into the horrors of NATURAL RELIGION.
You next complain that our slaves are kept in bondage by the "law of
force." In what country or condition of mankind do you see human affairs
regulated merely by the law of love? Unless I am greatly mistaken, you
will, if you look over the world, find nearly all certain and permanent
rights, civil, social, and I may even add religious, resting on and
ultimately secured by the "law of force." The power of majorities--of
aristocracies--of kings--nay of priests, for the most part, and of
property, resolves itself at last into "force," and could not otherwise
be long maintained. Thus, in every turn of your argument against our
system of slavery, you advance, whether conscious of it or not, radical
and revolutionary doctrines calculated to change the whole face of the
world, to overthrow all government, disorganize society, and reduce man
to a state of nature--red with blood, and shrouded once more in barbaric
ignorance. But you greatly err, if you suppose, because we rely on force
in the last resort to maintain our supremacy over our slaves, that ours
is a stern and unfeeling domination, at all to be compared in
hard-hearted severity to that exercised, not over the mere laborer only,
but by the higher over each lower order, wherever the British sway is
acknowledged. You say, that if those you address were "to spend one day
in the South, they would return home with impressions against slavery
never to be erased." But the fact is universally the reverse. I have
known numerous instances, and I never knew a single one, where there was
no other cause of offense, and no object to promote by falsehood, that
individuals from the non-slaveholding States did not, after residing
among us long enough to understand the subject, "return home" _to defend
our slavery_. It is matter of regret that you have never tried the
experiment yourself. I do not doubt you would have been converted, for I
give you credit for an honest though perverted mind. You would have seen
how weak and futile is all abstract reasoning about this matter, and
that, as a building may not be less elegant in its proportions, or
tasteful in its ornaments, or virtuous in its uses, for being based upon
granite, so a system of human government, though founded on force, may
develope and cultivate the tenderest and purest sentiments of the human
heart. And our patriarchal scheme of domestic servitude is indeed well
calculated to awaken the higher and finer feelings of our nature. It is
not wanting in its enthusiasm and its poetry. The relations of the most
beloved and honored chief, and the most faithful and admiring subjects,
which, from the time of Homer, have been the theme of song, are frigid
and unfelt compared with those existing between the master and his
slaves--who served his father, and rocked his cradle, or have been born
in his household, and look forward to serve his children--who have been
through life the props of his fortune, and the objects of his care--who
have partaken of his griefs, and looked to him for comfort in their
own--whose sickness he has so frequently watched over and
relieved--whose holidays he has so often made joyous by his bounties and
his presence; for whose welfare, when absent, his anxious solicitude
never ceases, and whose hearty and affectionate greetings never fail to
welcome him home. In this cold, calculating, ambitious world of ours,
there are few ties more heartfelt, or of more benignant influence, than
those which mutually bind the master and the slave, under our ancient
system, handed down from the father of Israel. The unholy purpose of the
abolitionists is, to destroy by defiling it; to infuse into it the gall
and bitterness which rankle in their own envenomed bosoms; to poison the
minds of the master and the servant; turn love to hatred, array _"force"
against force_, and hurl all
"With hideous rain and combustion, down
To bottomless perdition."
You think it a great "crime" that we do not pay our slaves "wages," and
on this account pronounce us "robbers." In my former letter, I showed
that the labor of our slaves was not without great cost to us, and that
in fact they themselves receive more in return for it than your
hirelings do for theirs. For what purpose do men labor, but to support
themselves and their families in what comfort they are able? The efforts
of mere physical labor seldom suffice to provide more than a livelihood.
And it is a well known and shocking fact, that while few operatives in
Great Britain succeed in securing a comfortable living, the greater part
drag out a miserable existence, and sink at last under absolute want.
Of what avail is it that you go through the form of paying them a
pittance of what you call "wages," when you do not, in return for their
services, allow them what alone they ask--and have a just right to
demand--enough to feed, clothe and lodge them, in health and sickness,
with reasonable comfort. Though we do not give "wages" _in money_, we do
this for _our slaves_, and they are therefore better rewarded than
_yours_. It is the prevailing vice and error of the age, and one from
which the abolitionists, with all their saintly pretensions, are far
from being free, to bring every thing to the standard of money. You make
gold and silver the great test of happiness. The American slave must be
wretched indeed, because he is not compensated for his services _in
cash_. It is altogether praiseworthy to pay the laborer a shilling a
day, and let him starve on it. To supply all his wants abundantly, and
at all times, yet withhold from him _money_, is among "the most
reprobated crimes." The fact can not be denied, that the mere laborer is
now, and always has been, everywhere that barbarism has ceased,
enslaved. Among the innovations of modern times, following "the decay of
villeinage," has been the creation of a new system of slavery. The
primitive and patriarchal, which may also be called the sacred and
natural system, in which the laborer is under the personal control of a
fellow-being endowed with the sentiments and sympathies of humanity,
exists among us. It has been almost everywhere else superseded by the
modern _artificial money power system_, in which man--his thews and
sinews, his hopes and affections, his very being, are all subjected to
the dominion of _capital_--a monster without a heart--cold, stern,
arithmetical--sticking to the bond--taking ever "the pound of
flesh"--working up human life with engines, and retailing it out by
weight and measure. His name of old was "Mammon, the least erected
spirit that fell from heaven." And it is to extend his empire that you
and your deluded coadjutors dedicate your lives. You are stirring up
mankind to overthrow our heaven-ordained system of servitude, surrounded
by innumerable checks, designed and planted deep in the human heart by
God and nature, to substitute the absolute rule of this "spirit
reprobate," whose proper place was hell.
You charge us with looking on our slaves "as chattels or brutes," and
enter into a somewhat elaborate argument to prove that they have "human
forms," "talk," and even "think." Now the fact is, that however you may
indulge in this strain for effect, it is the abolitionists, and not the
slaveholders, who, practically, and in the most important point of view,
regard our slaves as "chattels or brutes." In your calculations of the
consequences of emancipation, you pass over entirely those which must
prove most serious, and which arise from the fact of their being
_persons_.
You appear to think that we might abstain from the use of them as
readily as if they were machines to be laid aside, or cattle that might
be turned out to find pasturage for themselves. I have heretofore
glanced at some of the results that would follow from breaking the bonds
of so many _human beings_, now peacefully and happily linked into our
social system. The tragic horrors, the decay and ruin that would for
years, perhaps for ages, brood over our land, if it could be
accomplished, I will not attempt to portray. But do you fancy the blight
would, in such an event, come to us alone? The diminution of the sugar
crop of the West Indies affected Great Britain only, and there chiefly
the poor. It was a matter of no moment to capital, that labor should
have one comfort less. Yet it has forced a reduction of the British duty
on sugar. Who can estimate the consequences that must follow the
annihilation of the cotton crop of the slaveholding States? I do not
undervalue the importance of other articles of commerce, but no calamity
could befall the world at all comparable to the sudden loss of two
millions of bales of cotton annually. From the deserts of Africa to the
Siberian wilds--from Greenland to the Chinese wall,--there is not a spot
of earth but would feel the sensation. The factories of Europe would
fall with a concussion that would shake down castles, palaces, and even
thrones; while the "purse-proud, elbowing insolence" of our Northern
monopolist would soon disappear forever under the smooth speech of the
pedlar, scourging our frontiers for a livelihood, or the bluff vulgarity
of the South Sea whaler, following the harpoon amid storms and shoals.
Doubtless the abolitionists think we could grow cotton without slaves,
or that at worst the reduction of the crop would be moderate and
temporary. Such gross delusions show how profoundly ignorant they are of
our condition here.
You declare that "the character of the people of the South has long been
that of _hardened infidels_, who fear not God, and have no regard for
religion." I will not repeat what I said in my former letter on this
point. I only notice it to ask you how you could possibly reconcile it
to your profession of a Christian spirit, to make such a malicious
charge--to defile your soul with such a calumny against an unoffending
people?
"You are old;
Nature in you stands on the very verge
Of her confine. You should be ruled and led
By some discretion."
May God forgive you.
Akin to this, is the wanton and furious assault made on us by Mr.
Macaulay, in his late speech on the sugar duties, in the House of
Commons, which has just reached me. His denunciations are wholly without
measure, and, among other things, he asserts "that slavery in the United
States wears its worst form; that, boasting of our civilization and
freedom, and frequenting Christian churches, we breed up slaves, nay,
beget children for slaves, and sell them at so much a-head." Mr.
Macaulay is a reviewer, and he knows that he is "nothing if not
critical." The practice of his trade has given him the command of all
the slashing and vituperative phrases of our language, and the turn of
his mind leads him to the habitual use of them. He is an author, and as
no copy-right law secures for him from this country a consideration for
his writings, he is not only independent of us, but naturally hates
every thing American. He is the representative of Edinburgh; it is his
cue to decry our slavery, and in doing so he may safely indulge the
malignity of his temper, his indignation against us, and his capacity
for railing. He has suffered once, for being in advance of his time in
favor of abolition, and he does not intend that it shall be forgotten,
or his claim passed over, to any crumb which may now be thrown to the
vociferators in the cause. If he does not know that the statements he
has made respecting the slaveholders of this country are vile and
atrocious falsehoods, it is because he does not think it worth his while
to be sure he speaks the truth, so that he speaks to his own purpose.
"Hic niger est, hunc tu, Romane caveto."
Such exhibitions as he has made, may draw the applause of a British
House of Commons, but among the sound and high-minded thinkers of the
world they can only excite contempt and disgust.
But you are not content with depriving us of all religious feelings. You
assert that our slavery has also "demoralized the Northern States," and
charge upon it not only every common violation of good order there, but
the "Mormon murders," the "Philadelphia riots," and all "the
exterminating wars against the Indians." I wonder that you did not
increase the list by adding that it had caused the recent inundation of
the Mississippi, and the hurricane in the West Indies--perhaps the
insurrection of Rebecca, and the war in Scinde. You refer to the law
prohibiting the transmission of abolition publications through the mail,
as proof of general corruption! You could not do so, however, without
noticing the late detected espionage over the British post office by a
minister of state. It is true, as you say, it "occasioned a general
outburst of national feeling"--from the opposition; and a "Parliamentary
inquiry was instituted"--that is, moved, but treated quite cavalierly.
At all events, though the fact was admitted, Sir James Graham yet
retains the Home Department. For one, I do not undertake to condemn him.
Such things are not against the laws and usages of your country. I do
not know fully what reasons of state may have influenced him and
justified his conduct. But I do know that there is a vast difference in
point of "national morality" between the discretionary power residing in
your government to open any letter in the public post office, and a
well-defined and limited law to prevent the circulation of certain
specified incendiary writings by means of the United States mail.
Having now referred to every thing like argument on the subject of
slavery, that is worthy of notice in your letter, permit me to remark on
its tone and style, and very extraordinary bearing upon other
institutions of this country. You commence by addressing certain classes
of our people, as belonging to "a nation whose character is _now so low_
in the estimation of the civilized world;" and throughout you maintain
this tone. Did the Americans who were "under your roof last summer"
inform you that such language would be gratifying to their
fellow-citizens "having no practical concern with slaveholding?" Or do
the infamous libels on America, which you read in our abolition papers,
induce you to believe that all that class of people are, like the
abolitionists themselves, totally destitute of patriotism or pride of
country? Let me tell you that you are grossly deceived. And although
your stock-brokers and other speculators, who have been bitten in
American ventures, may have raised a stunning "cry" against us in
England, there is a vast body of people here besides slaveholders, who
justly
"Deem their own land of every land the pride,
Beloved by heaven o'er all the world beside,"
and who _know_ that at this moment we rank among the first powers of the
world--a position which we not only claim, but are always ready and able
to maintain.
The style you assume in addressing your Northern friends, is in perfect
keeping with your apparent estimation of them. Though I should be the
last, perhaps, to criticise mere style, I could not but be struck with
the extremely simple manner of your letter. You seem to have thought you
were writing a tract for benighted heathen, and telling wonders never
before suggested to their imagination, and so far above their untutored
comprehension as to require to be related in the primitive language of
"the child's own book." This is sufficiently amusing; and would be more
so, but for the coarse and bitter epithets you continually apply to the
poor slaveholders--epithets which appear to be stereotyped for the use
of abolitionists, and which form a large and material part of all their
arguments.
But, perhaps, the most extraordinary part of your letter is your bold
denunciation of "_the shameful compromises_" of our Constitution, and
your earnest recommendation to those you address to overthrow or
revolutionize it. In so many words you say to them, "_you must either
separate yourselves_ from all political connection with the South, and
make your own laws; or if you do not choose such a separation, you must
break up _the political ascendency which the Southern have had for so
long a time over the Northern States_. The italics in this, as in all
other quotations, are your own. It is well for those who circulate your
letter here, that the Constitution you denounce requires an overt act to
constitute treason. It may be tolerated for an American by birth, to use
on his own soil the freedom of speaking and writing which is guaranteed
him, and abuse our Constitution, our Union, and our people. But that a
foreigner should use such seditious language, in a circular letter
addressed to a portion of the American people, is a presumption well
calculated to excite the indignation of all. The party known in this
country as the abolition party has long since avowed the sentiments you
express, and adopted the policy you enjoin. At the recent presidential
election, they gave over 62,000 votes for their own candidate, and held
the balance of power in two of the largest States--wanting but little of
doing it in several others. In the last four years their vote has
quadrupled. Should the infatuation continue, and their vote increase in
the same ratio for the next four years, it will be as large as the vote
of the _actual slaveholders_ of the Union. Such a prospect is,
doubtless, extremely gratifying to you. It gives hope of a contest on
such terms as may insure the downfall of slavery or our Constitution.
The South venerates the Constitution, and is prepared to stand by it
forever, _such as it came from the hands of our fathers_; to risk every
thing to defend and maintain it _in its integrity_. But the South is
under no such delusion as to believe that it derives any _peculiar_
protection from the Union. On the contrary, it is well known we incur
_peculiar danger_, and that we bear far more than our porportion of the
burdens. The apprehension is also fast fading away that any of the
dreadful consequences commonly predicted will necessarily result from a
separation of the States. And _come what may_, we are firmly resolved
that OUR SYSTEM OF DOMESTIC SLAVERY SHALL STAND. The fate of the Union,
then--but, thank God, not of republican government--rests mainly in the
hands of the people to whom your letter is addressed--the "professing
Christians of the Northern States having no concern with slaveholding,"
and whom with incendiary zeal you are endeavoring to stir up to
strife--without which fanaticism can neither live, move, nor have any
being.
We have often been taunted for our sensitiveness in regard to the
discussion of slavery. Do not suppose it is because we have any doubts
of our rights, or scruples about asserting them. There was a time when
such doubts and scruples were entertained. Our ancestors opposed the
introduction of slaves into this country, and a feeling adverse to it
was handed down from them. The enthusiastic love of liberty fostered by
our Revolution strengthened this feeling. And before the commencement of
the abolition agitation here, it was the common sentiment that it was
desirable to get rid of slavery. Many thought it our duty to do so. When
that agitation arose, we were driven to a close examination of the
subject in all its bearings, and the result has been an _universal
conviction_ that in holding slaves we violate no law of God,--inflict no
injustice on any of his creatures--while the terrible consequences of
emancipation to all parties and the world at large, clearly revealed to
us, make us shudder at the bare thought of it. The slaveholders are,
therefore, indebted to the abolitionists for perfect ease of conscience,
and the satisfaction of a settled and unanimous determination in
reference to this matter. And could their agitation cease now, I
believe, after all, the good would preponderate over the evil of it in
this country. On the contrary, however, it is urged on with frantic
violence, and the abolitionists, reasoning in the abstract, as if it
were a mere moral or metaphysical speculation, or a minor question in
politics, profess to be surprised at our exasperation. In their
ignorance and recklessness, they seem to be unable to comprehend our
feelings or position. The subversion of our rights, the destruction of
our property, the disturbance of our peace and the peace of the world,
are matters which do not appear to arrest their consideration. When
revolutionary France proclaimed "hatred to kings and unity to the
republic," and inscribed on her banners "France risen against tyrants,"
she professed to be only worshiping "abstract rights." And if there can
be such things, perhaps she was. Yet all Europe _rose_ to put her
sublime theories down. They declared her an enemy to the common peace;
that her doctrines alone violated the "law of neighborhood," and, as Mr.
Burke said, justly entitled them to anticipate the "damnum nondum
factum" of the civil law. Danton, Barrere, and the rest were apparently
astonished that umbrage should be taken. The parallel between them and
the abolitionists holds good in all respects.
The rise and progress of this fanaticism is one of the phenomena of the
age in which we live. I do not intend to repeat what I have already
said, or to trace its career more minutely at present. But the
legislation of Great Britain will make it historical, and doubtless you
must feel some curiosity to know how it will figure on the page of the
annalist. I think I can tell you. Though I have accorded and do accord
to you and your party, great influence in bringing about the
parliamentary action of your country, you must not expect to go down to
posterity as the only cause of it. Though _you_ trace the progenitors of
abolition from 1516, through a long stream with divers branches, down
to the period of its triumph in your country, it has not escaped
contemporaries, and will not escape posterity, that England, without
much effort, sustained the storm of its scoffs and threats, until the
moment arrived when she thought her colonies fully supplied with
Africans; and declared against the slave trade, only when she deemed it
unnecessary to her, and when her colonies, full of slaves, would have
great advantages over others not so well provided. Nor did she agree to
West India emancipation, until, discovering the error of her previous
calculation, it became an object to have slaves free throughout the
Western world, and, on the ruins of the sugar and cotton-growers of
America and the Islands, to build up her great slave empire in the East;
while her indefatigable exertions, still continued, to engraft the right
of search upon the law of nations, on the plea of putting an end to the
forever increasing slave trade, are well understood to have chiefly in
view the complete establishment of her supremacy at sea.[256] Nor must
you flatter yourself that your party will derive historic dignity from
the names of the illustrious British statesmen who have acted with it.
Their country's ends were theirs. They have stooped to use you, as the
most illustrious men will sometimes use the vilest instruments, to
accomplish their own purposes. A few philanthropic common places and
rhetorical flourishes, "in the abstract," have secured them your "sweet
voices," and your influence over the tribe of mawkish sentimentalists.
Wilberforce may have been yours, but what was he besides, but a wealthy
county member? You must, therefore, expect to stand on your own merits
alone before posterity, or rather that portion of it that may be curious
to trace the history of the delusions which, from time to time, pass
over the surface of human affairs, and who may trouble themselves to
look through the ramifications of transcendentalism, in this era of
extravagances. And how do you expect to appear in their eyes? As
Christians, piously endeavoring to enforce the will of God, and carry
out the principles of Christianity? Certainly not, since you deny or
pervert the Scriptures in the doctrines you advance; and in your
conduct, furnish a glaring contrast to the examples of Christ and the
apostles. As philanthropists, devoting yourselves to the cause of
humanity, relieving the needy, comforting the afflicted, creating peace
and gladness and plenty round about you? Certainly not, since you turn
from the needy, the afflicted; from strife, sorrow and starvation which
surround you; close your eyes and hands upon them; shut out from your
thoughts and feelings the human misery which is real, tangible, and
within your reach, to indulge your morbid imagination in conjuring up
woes and wants among a strange people in distant lands, and offering
them succor in the shape of costless denunciations of their best
friends, or by scattering among them "firebrands, arrows and death."
Such folly and madness, such wild mockery and base imposture, can never
win for you, in the sober judgment of future times, the name of
philanthropists. Will you even be regarded as worthy citizens? Scarcely,
when the purposes you have in view, can only be achieved by
revolutionizing governments and overturning social systems, and when you
do not hesitate, zealously and earnestly, to recommend such measures. Be
assured, then, that posterity will not regard the abolitionists as
Christians, philanthropists, or virtuous citizens. It will, I have no
doubt, look upon the mass of the party as silly enthusiasts, led away by
designing characters, as is the case with all parties that break from
the great, acknowledged ties which bind civilized man in fellowship. The
leaders themselves will be regarded as _mere ambitious men_; not taking
rank with those whose ambition is "eagle-winged and sky-aspiring," but
belonging to that mean and selfish class, who are instigated by
"rival-hating envy," and whose base thirst is for _notoriety_; who cloak
their designs under vile and impious hypocrisies, and, unable to shine
in higher spheres, devote themselves to fanaticism, as a trade. And it
will be perceived that, even in that, they shunned the highest walk.
Religious fanaticism was an old established vocation, in which something
brilliant was required to attract attention. They could not be George
Foxes, nor Joanna Southcotes, nor even Joe Smiths. But the dullest
pretender could discourse a jumble of pious bigotry, natural rights, and
driveling philanthropy. And, addressing himself to aged folly and
youthful vanity, to ancient women, to ill-gotten wealth, to the
reckless of all classes, who love excitement and change, offer each the
cheapest and the safest glory in the market. Hence, their numbers; and,
from number and clamor, what impression they have made on the world.
Such, I am persuaded, is the light in which the abolitionists will be
viewed by the posterity their history may reach. Unless, indeed--which
God forbid--circumstances should so favor as to enable them to produce a
convulsion which may elevate them higher on the "bad eminence" where
they have placed themselves.
I have the honor to be
Your obedient servant,
J. H. HAMMOND.
THOMAS CLARKSON, Esq.
NOTE.--The foregoing Letters were not originally intended for
publication. In preparing them for the press, they have been revised.
The alterations and corrections made, however, have been mostly verbal.
Had the writer felt at liberty to condense the two letters into one, and
bring up the history of abolition to the period of publication, he might
have presented a more concise and perfect argument, and illustrated his
views more forcibly, by reference to facts recently developed. For
example, since writing the first, the letter of Mr. Clarkson, as
President of the British Anti-Slavery Society, to Sir Robert Peel,
denouncing the whole scheme of "Immigration," has reached him; and after
he had forwarded the last, he saw it stated, that Mr. Clarkson had, as
late as the first part of April, addressed the Earl of Aberdeen, and
declared, that all efforts to suppress the African slave trade had fully
failed. It may be confidently expected, that it will be ere long
announced from the same quarter, that the "experiment" of West India
emancipation has also proved a complete abortion.
Should the terms which have been applied to the abolitionists appear to
any as unduly severe, let it be remembered, that the direct aim of these
people is to destroy us by the most shocking of all processes; and that,
having a large portion of the civilized world for their audience, they
daily and systematically heap upon us the vilest calumnies and most
unmitigated abuse. Clergymen lay aside their Bibles, and females unsex
themselves, to carry on this horrid warfare against slave holders.
FOOTNOTE:
[256] On these points, let me recommend you to consult a very able Essay
on the Slave Trade and Right of Search, by M. Jollivet, recently
published; and as you say, since writing your Circular Letter, that you
"burn to try your hand on another little Essay, if a subject could be
found," I propose to you to "try" to answer this question, put by M.
Jollivet to England: "_Pourquoi sa philanthropie n'a pas daigne, jusqu'
a present, doubler le cap de Bonne-Esperance?_"
[Illustration]
SLAVERY
IN THE LIGHT OF ETHNOLOGY.
BY
S. A. CARTWRIGHT, M.D.
OF LOUISIANA.
SLAVERY
IN
THE LIGHT OF ETHNOLOGY.
PHILOSOPHY OF THE NEGRO CONSTITUTION, ELICITED BY QUESTIONS PROPOUNDED
BY DR. C. R. HALL, OF TORQUAY, ENGLAND, THROUGH PROF. JACKSON, OF
MASSACHUSETTS MEDICAL COLLEGE, BOSTON, TO SAML. A. CARTWRIGHT, M.D., NEW
ORLEANS.
[Reprinted from the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal.]
To PROF. JACKSON, Boston:--
_Dear Sir:_--The paper of mine, alluded to by your London correspondent,
Dr. Hall, which he saw in the medical work you mention, is not, as he
supposes, "_The Report on the diseases and physical peculiarities of the
Negro race_," the physicians of Louisiana, in convention assembled,
appointed me to make; but only some additional observations intended for
students and those persons whose want of knowledge of Comparative
Anatomy prevented them from understanding the Report. The Appendix,
intended for students, was published in the _Charleston_ (South
Carolina) _Medical Journal_, and also in the work you mention, under the
caption of the original Report to the Medical Convention, and _the
Report itself was omitted_ by the editors of those works under the
erroneous impression, that the Appendix for students contained the
substance of that paper; whereas it does so only in the sense that the
four first rules contain the substance of the arithmetic. No wonder your
intelligent correspondent should not find, in the Appendix of the
Report, the information he was seeking, and hence the questions he asks
you to refer to me for solution. I herewith beg leave to send you a copy
of the "_Report on the diseases and physical peculiarities of the Negro
race_," which the Louisiana physicians appointed me to make to the State
Medical Society. In that paper your correspondent will find most of the
questions he asks already answered.
I thank you for the opportunity thus afforded me of supplying an
omission in the Southern works above alluded to, of a paper, very
imperfect and defective, it is true, yet embodying in a small space the
results of the experience and observation of a Southern practitioner,
extending through a period of active service of a third of a century's
duration, and which had the honor to meet with the approbation of the
physicians generally of the South. To the few questions not answered
therein I propose to reply, and at the same time to extend my remarks on
that branch of the subject more directly connected with the particular
object of your correspondent's investigations.
To the question, "Is not Phthisis very common among the slaves of the
slave States and unknown among the native Africans at home?" I reply in
the negative, that Phthisis, so far from being common among the slaves
of the slave States, is very seldom met with. As to the native Africans
at home, little or nothing is known of their diseases. They have no
science or literature among them, and never had. The word Consumption,
is applied to two very different diseases among negroes. The Cachexia
Africana, Dirt-eating of the English, and Mal d'Estomac of the French,
commonly called Negro Consumption, is a very different malady from
Phthisis Pulmonalis, properly so called. The Cachexia Africana, like
other spanœmic states of the system, may run into Phthisis, or become
complicated with it. Dr. Hall asks, in what does the peculiarity of
Negro Consumption consist? It consists in being an anœmatosis and not a
tuberculosis. Not having seen my Report, he may have inferred that it
was a tubercular disease--whereas it is an erythism of mind connected
with spanœmia. Negroes, however, are sometimes, though rarely, afflicted
with tubercula pulmonum, or Phthisis, properly so called, which has some
peculiarities. With them it is more palpably a secondary disease than it
appears to be among white people. European physicians are just beginning
to see and acknowledge the truth taught by our Rush in the last century,
that what is called Phthisis Pulmonalis is not a primary, but a
secondary disease; the tubercles of the lungs not being a cause, but an
effect of the primary or original vice of blood origin, or as he called
it, general debility. For half a century the attention of the medical
profession has been directed to the special and ultimate results of
Phthisis, instead of the primary condition of the system causing the
formation of tubercles. The new knowledge, derived from the
stethoscope, by detecting those abnormal deposits of abortive nutrition,
called tubercles, has been received for more than its worth, and has
greatly served to keep up the delusion of treating effects instead of
causes. The tubercular deposits, revealed by auscultation, are not only
the effects of abortive nutrition, but the latter is itself the effect
of some derangement in the digestive and respiratory functions,
vitiating the nutritive fluids, and producing what Rush called general
debility. The defect in the respiratory organs arises from the fact,
long overlooked, that in a great many persons, particularly the
Anglo-Saxons, the lungs are inadequate to the task of depurating the
superabundant blood, which is thrown upon them at the age of maturity,
unless aided by an occasional blood-letting, active and abundant
exercise of the muscles in the open air, and a nutritious diet, as
advised by the American Hippocrates, Benjamin Rush. White children
sometimes have Phthisis, but here, as everywhere, it is a rare complaint
before maturity (twenty-one in the male and eighteen in the female.) The
lymphatic and nervous temperament predominating until then, secures them
against this fell destroyer of the master race of men. Phthisis is, par
excellence, a disease of the sanguineous temperament, fair complexion,
red or flaxen hair, blue eyes, large blood vessels, and a bony
encasement too small to admit the full and free expansion of the lungs,
enlarged by the superabundant blood, which is determined to those organs
during that first half-score of years immediately succeeding puberty.
Well-formed chests offer no impediment to its inroads, if the volume of
blood be out of proportion to the expansibility and capacity of the
pulmonary organs. Hence it is most apt to occur precisely at, and
immediately following, that period of life known as matureness, when the
sanguineous system becomes fully developed and gains the mastery, so to
speak, over the lymphatic and nervous systems. With negroes, the
sanguineous never gains the mastery over the lymphatic and nervous
systems. Their digestive powers, like children, are strong, and their
secretions and excretions copious, excepting the urine, which is rather
scant. At the age of maturity they do not become dyspeptic and feeble
with softening and attenuation of the muscles, as among those white
people suffering the ills of a defective system of physical education,
and a want of a wholesome, nutritious diet.
Your correspondent asks, "_Do the slaves consume much sugar, or take rum
in intoxicating quantities?_"
They do not consume much sugar, but are occasionally supplied with
molasses. Their diet consists principally of pickled pork and corn
bread, rice, hominy, beans, peas, potatoes, yams, pumpkins and turnips.
Soups, tea, coffee and slops, are seldom used by those in health, and
they object to all such articles of diet, as making them weak. They
prefer the fattest pork to the lean. In the Atlantic States salted fish
is substituted for or alternated with pork--the shad, mackerel and
herring, principally the latter. In Cuba pickled beef is used, but they
prefer pork. Their diet is of the most nutritious kind, and they will
not labor with much effect on any other than a strong, rich diet. With
very few exceptions, they do not take rum or other intoxicating drinks,
except as a medicine, or in holiday times. Something equivalent to the
"_Maine Liquor Law_," (which you can explain to your correspondent,) has
long been in practical operation on all well regulated Southern
plantations. The experience of two centuries testifies to the advantages
of restraining the black population, _by arbitrary power_, from the free
use of intoxicating poisons. Man has no better natural right to poison
himself or his neighbor, than to maim, wound or kill himself or his
neighbor. In regard to intoxicating drinks, the negroes of the South are
under wiser laws than any other people in the Union--those of Maine
excepted. But these wise unwritten laws do not so well protect those
negroes who reside in or near towns and villages, and are not under
proper discipline. The Melanic race have a much stronger propensity to
indulge in the intemperate use of ardent spirits than white people. They
appear to have a natural fondness for alcoholic drinks and tobacco. They
need no schooling, as the fair skin races do, to acquire a fondness for
either. Nearly all chew tobacco or smoke, and are not sickened and
disgusted with the taste of that weed as white men always are when they
first begin to use it. As an instance of their natural love for ardent
spirits, I was called to a number of negro children, who found a bottle
of whisky under a bed, and drank it all without dilution, although it
was the first they had ever tasted. It contained arsenic, and had been
placed where they found it by the father of some of the children, with a
view of poisoning a supposed enemy. But with that want of forethought,
so characteristic of the negro race, he did not think of the greater
probability of his own children finding and drinking the poison than the
enemy he intended it for.
I am asked, "_If I have determined by my own observation the facts in
regard to the darker color of the secretions, the flesh, the membranes
and the blood of the negro than the white man--or is the statement made
on the authority of others?_"
The statement is made on the authority of some of the most distinguished
anatomists and physiologists of the last century, confirmed by my own
repeated observations. The authorities to which I particularly refer are
Malpighi, Stubner, Meckel, Pechlin, Albinus, Sœmmering, Virey and Ebel.
Almost every year of my professional life, except a few years when
abroad, I have made post mortem examinations of negroes, who have died
of various diseases, and I have invariably found the darker color
pervading the flesh and the membranes to be very evident in all those
who died of acute diseases. Chronic ailments have a tendency to destroy
the coloring matter, and generally cause the mucous surfaces to be paler
and whiter than in the white race.
I now come to the main and important question--the last of the series,
and the most important of all, viz: "_How is it ascertained that negroes
consume less oxygen than white people?_"
I answer, by the spirometer. I have delayed my reply to make some
further experiments on this branch of the subject. The result is, that
the expansibility of the lungs is considerably less in the black than
the white race of similar size, age and habit. A white boy expelled from
his lungs a larger volume of air than a negro half a head taller and
three inches larger around the chest. The deficiency in the negro may be
safely estimated at 20 per cent, according to a number of observations I
have made at different times. Thus, 174 being the mean bulk of air
receivable by the lungs of a white person of five feet in height, 140
cubic inches are given out by a negro of the same stature. It must be
remembered, however, that great variations occur in the bulk of air
which can be expelled from the chest, depending much upon the age, size,
health and habits of each individual. But, as a general rule, it may be
safely stated, that a white man, of the same age and size, who has been
bred to labor, is, in comparison to the negro, extra capacious. To judge
the negro by spirometrical observations made on the white man, would
indicate, in the former a morbid condition when none existed. But I am
free to confess that this is a subject open to further observations. My
estimate may be under or over the exact difference of the capacity of
the two races for the consumption of oxygen.
The question is also answered _anatomically_, by the comparatively
larger size of the liver, and the smaller size of the lungs; and
_physiologically_, by the _roule_ the liver performs in the negro's
economy being greater, and that of the lungs and kidneys less, than in
the white man. But I have not the honor to be the first to call
attention to the difference in the pulmonary apparatus of the negro and
the white man, and to the fact of the deficiency in the renal secretion.
The honor is due to Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United
States. In his Notes on Virginia, Mr. Jefferson suggested that there was
a difference in the pulmonary apparatus of negroes, and that they do not
extricate as much caloric from the air by respiration, and
consesequently consume less oxygen. He also called attention to the fact
of the defective action of the kidneys. He remarks, "To our reproach be
it said, that although the negro race has been under our eye for a
century and a half, it has not been considered as a subject of natural
history." Another half century has passed away, and nothing has yet been
done to acquire a knowledge of the diseases and physical peculiarities
of a people, constituting nearly a moiety of the population of fifteen
States of the American confederacy, and whose labor, in cultivating a
single plant, which no other operatives but themselves can cultivate
without sacrificing ease, comfort, health and life, affords a cheap
material, in sufficient abundance, to clothe the naked of the whole
world. Even the little scientific knowledge heretofore acquired
concerning them, has been so far forgotten, that when I enumerated a few
of their anatomical and physical peculiarities, well known to the
medical men of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, I was supposed
by some of my cotemporaries in the South to be broaching novelties and
advancing speculations wild and crude. But I would not be understood as
underrating the editors of the _Charleston Medical Journal_ and some
other Southern writers, for mistaking anatomical facts for wild
speculations, and condemning them as such in their editorial apologies
for not publishing the same. The fault lies not with them, but in that
system of education which seems intended to keep physicians, divines,
and all other classes of men in Egyptian darkness of every thing
pertaining to the philosophy of the negro constitution. It is only the
country and village practitioners of the Southern States (among
professional men,) who appear to know any thing at all about the
peculiar nature of negroes--having derived their knowledge, not from
books or schools, but in the field of experience. It is the latter class
of medical men, by far the most numerous in the South, who have with
great unanimity sustained my feeble efforts to make the negro's peculiar
nature known, and the important fact that he consumes less oxygen than
the white man. Until his defective hæmatosis be made an element in
calculating the best means for improving the negro's condition, our
Northern people ought not to wonder at finding their colored population,
born to freedom by the side of the church and school-house door, in a
lower species of degradation, after trying for half a century or more to
elevate them, than an equal number of slaves any where to be found in
the South. "Will not a lover of natural history," says Mr. Jefferson,
"one who views the gradations in all the races of animals with the eye
of philosophy, excuse an effort to keep those of the department of man
as distinct as nature formed them?" But no effort has since been made to
draw the distinctions between the black and the white races by the knife
of the anatomist, but much false logic has been introduced into our
books and schools, to argue down the distinctions which nature has made.
It is to anatomy and physiology we should look, when vindicating the
liberty of human nature, to see that its dignity and best interest be
preserved. "Among the Romans," says Mr. Jefferson, "emancipation
required but one effort, but with us a second is necessary, unknown to
history." This second belongs properly to natural history; the
difference in the last not being artificial, as among the Romans, or the
present Britons, requiring only an act of legislation or a revolution to
efface forever, but natural, which no human laws or governmental changes
can ever obliterate. The framers of our Constitution were aware of these
facts, and built the Constitution upon the basis of natural distinctions
or physical differences in the two races composing the American
population. A very important difference between the two will be found in
the fact of the greater amount of oxygen consumed by the one than the
other. If the Constitution be worth defending, surely the great truths
of natural history, on which it rests as a basis, are worth being made
known and regarded by our statesmen. That negroes consume less oxygen
than the white race, is proved by their motions being proverbially much
slower, and their want of muscular and mental activity. But to
comprehend fully the weight of this proof of their defective hæmatosis,
it is necessary to bear in mind one of the great leading truths
disclosed by comparative anatomy. Cuvier was the first to demonstrate
beyond a doubt that muscular energy and activity are in direct
proportion to the development and activity of the pulmonary organs. In
his 29th lesson, vol. vii, p. 17, D'Anatomie Comparée, he says, "_Dans
les animaux vertebrés cette quantité de respiration fait connaître
presque par un calcul mathématique la nature particulière de chaque
class_." In the preceding page he says,--"That the relations observed in
the different animals, between the quantity of their respiration and the
energy of their motive force, is one of the finest demonstrations that
comparative anatomy can furnish to physiology, and at the same time one
of the best applications of comparative anatomy to natural history." The
slower motions of the owl prove to the natural historian that it
consumes less oxygen than the eagle. By the same physiological principle
he can tell that the herring is the most active among fish, and the
flounder the slowest, by merely seeing the gills of each: those of the
herring being very large, prove that it consumes much oxygen and is very
active; while the flounder, with its small gills, consumes but little,
and is very slow in its motions as a necessary consequence. Hence the
habitual slower motions of the negro than the white man, is a positive
proof that he consumes less oxygen. The slow gait of the negro is an
important element to be taken into consideration in studying his nature.
I have the authority of one of the very best observers of mankind, that
this element in the negro's economy is particularly worthy of being
studied. It is no less an authority than the father of his country, the
first President of the United States, the illustrious Washington.
Washington knew better, perhaps, than any other man what the white man
could do; his power of endurance and strength of wind under a given
speed of motion. Yet he found that all his observations on the white
race were inapplicable to negroes. To know what they could do, and to
ascertain their power of endurance and strength of wind, new
observations had to be made, and he made them accordingly. He made them
on his own negroes. He saw they did not move like the soldiers he had
been accustomed to command. Their motions were much slower, and they
performed their tasks in a more dilatory manner; the amount of labor
they could perform in a given time, with ease and comfort to themselves,
could not be told by his knowledge of what white men could do. He
therefore noted the gait or movements natural to negroes, and made
observations himself of how much they could effect in a given time,
under the slow motions or gait natural to them. He did this to enable
him to judge of what would be a reasonable service to expect from them,
and to know when they loitered and when they performed their duty. Those
persons unacquainted with the important truth that negroes are naturally
slower in their motions than white people, judging the former by the
latter, often attempt to drive them into the same brisk motions. But a
day's experience ought to be enough to teach them that every attempt to
drive negroes to the performance of tasks equal to what the white
laborer would voluntarily impose upon himself, is an actual loss to the
master; who, instead of getting more service out of them, actually gets
less, and soon none, if such a course be persisted in; because they
become disabled in body and indisposed in mind to perform any service at
all. Every master or overseer, although he may know nothing of the law
above mentioned, discovered by Cuvier, may soon learn from experience
the important fact, that there is no other alternative than to let their
negroes assume, _by their own instincts_, the natural gait or movement
peculiar to them, and then, like Washington, observe what can be
effected in a given time by that given gait or movement, and to ask for
nor expect more. In vol. ii, pages 511 to 512, (Washington's Writings,
published by Jared Sparks) are recorded a few of the observations made
by the father of his country on his own slaves, as an illustration of
the preceding remarks. It is to be regretted that Mr. Sparks, out of
deference to a modern species of idolatry (all fanaticism is idolatry,)
which has taken deep root in Great Britain and despotic Europe, and has
from thence been transplanted into our republic, particularly in the
Northern portion of it, should have suppressed so much of the valuable
observations of Washington on the negro race, as only to publish a small
fragment of the extensive knowledge his comprehensive mind had stored
up on this important subject, well known to his neighbors. The fragment
informs us, that on a certain day he visited his plantations, and found
that certain negro slaves there mentioned, by the names of George, Tom
and Mike, had only hewed a certain number of feet--whereupon Washington
sat down and observed their motions, letting them proceed their own
way," and ascertained how many feet each hewed in one hour and a
quarter. He also made observations on his sawyers at the same time and
in the same manner. From the data thus acquired he ascertained, in the
short space of an hour and a quarter, how many feet would be a day's
work for hewing, and how many for sawing, under their usual slow gait or
movement. This hewing and sawing were of poplar. "What may be the
difference, therefore," says Washington, "between the working of this
wood and other, some future observations must make known." But Mr.
Sparks, out of deference to the new school of idolatry, having its head
quarters in Exeter Hall, omitted, almost entirely, the publication of
any more observations on the subject. It is no less idolatry to set up
an anti-scriptural dogma and to make it a rule of action, than to
worship a block or a graven image in the place of the true God. The true
God has said in the Pentateuch, the most authentic books of the Bible,
"_And of the heathen shall ye buy bond-men and bond-maids_ [slaves] _and
your children shall inherit them after you, and they shall be your
bondmen_ [slaves] _forever._" Leviticus, chap. xxv, verses 44, 45, 46.
But the Dogma or Negro god of Exeter Hall says that "_negro slavery is
sin_," and that it is contrary to the moral sense or conscience.
Medicine was anciently called the divine art; to be entitled to hold
that appellation, ought it not to lend its aid to arrest in this happy
republic the progress of idolatry, which is only another name for
fanaticism? And will your learned correspondent help to arrest it in
England? Or will he, like Prichard, Todd, and others, make science bow
to the policy of his government?--To build up India at the expense of
our Union? The subject of his investigations, tubercular disease, if
properly studied, leads directly to that species of knowledge, enabling
him to determine on physiological principles, which is the best system
of ethics, that taught in the Bible, _to enslave the Canaanite_, or that
taught in Exeter Hall, _to set him free_? It will lead him to the
discovery, that the negro, or Canaanitish race, consume less oxygen
than the white, and that as a necessary consequence of the deficient
aeration of the blood in the lungs, a hebetude of mind and body is the
inevitable physiological effect; thus making it a mercy and a blessing
to negroes to have persons in authority set over them, to provide for
and take care of them. Under the dogma or new commandment to free the
Canaanite, practically exercised in Van Dieman's Land and at the Cape of
Good Hope, the poor negro race have become nearly annihilated. Whereas
under that system of ethics taught in the Bible and made a rule of
action in the Southern States, the descendants of Canaan are more
rapidly increasing in numbers, and have more of the comforts and
pleasures of life, and more morality and Christianity among them than
any others of the same race on any other portion of the globe. They are
daily bought and sold, and inherited as property, as the Scriptures said
they should be. Whereas in all those countries and places in which they
are set free, in obedience to the dogma that "slavery is sin," they
rapidly degenerate into barbarism, as they are doing in the West Indies,
or become extinct as in Van Dieman's Land. The physiological fact that
negroes consume less oxygen indicates the superior wisdom of the
precepts taught in the Bible regarding those people, to any promulgated
from Exeter Hall. Experience also proves the former to be the best. You
hear of the poor negroes, or colored people, as you call them, being
beaten with many stripes by their masters and overseers. But owing to
the fact that they consume less oxygen than white people, and the other
physical differences founded on difference of structure, they beat one
another, when free from the white man's authority, with ten stripes
where they would get one from him. They are as much in slavery in Boston
as in New Orleans. They suffer more from corporeal or other punishments
in the cellars and dark lanes and alleys of Boston, New York and
Philadelphia, by the cruel tyranny practiced by the strong over the weak
and helpless, than an equal number in Southern slavery. In slavery the
stripes fall upon the evil disposed, vicious, buck negro fellows. But
when removed from the white man's authority, the latter make them fall
on helpless women and children, the weak and the infirm. Good conduct,
so far from being a protection, invites aggression.
But what connection have these observations, you may say, with the
subject of Dr. Hall's inquiries, and what light do they throw on
tubercular disease? They show that there exists an intimate connection
between the amount of oxygen consumed in the lungs and the phenomena of
body and mind. They point to a people whose respiratory apparatus is so
defective, that they have not sufficient industry and mental energy to
provide for themselves, or resolution sufficiently strong to prevent
them, when in freedom, from being subjected to the arbitrary, capricious
will of the drunken and vicious of their own color, who may happen to
have greater physical strength and more cunning; they show that Phthisis
is a disease of the master race, and not of the slave race--that it is
the bane of that master race of men, known by an active hæmatosis; by
the brain receiving a larger quantity of aerated blood than it is
entitled to; by the strong development of the circulating system; by the
energy of intellect; by the strength and activity of the muscular
system; the vivid imagination; the irritable, mobile, ardent and
inflammatory temperament, and the indomitable will and love of freedom.
Whereas the negro constitution, being the opposite of all this, is not
subject to Phthisis, although it partakes of what is called the
scrofulous diathesis. In the negro constitution, as the Frenchman would
say, "_l'arbre arteriel cede sa prominance à l'arbre veineuse_,"
spreading coldness, languor and want of energy over the entire system.
The white fluids, or lymphatic temperament, predominating, they are not
so liable as the fair race, to inflammatory diseases of the lungs, or
any other organ; but from the superabundant viscidities and mucosities
of their mucous surfaces, they are more liable to engorgements and
pulmonary congestions than any other race of men. In proof of which I
beg leave to refer your correspondent to a standard work entitled
"Observations sur les Maladies des Negres, par M. Dazille. Paris, 1776."
Pneumonia, without subjective symptoms, is very common among them.
Diphtheretic affections, so common among white children, are very rare
among negroes. Intercurrent Pneumonia is more common among them than any
other class of people. It is met with in Typhoid fevers, Rheumatism and
hepatic derangements, to which they are very liable in the cold season.
The local malady requires a different treatment, to correspond with the
general disorder. Bad, vicious, ungovernable negroes are subject, to
what might properly be termed, Scorbutic Pneumonia--a blood disease,
requiring anti-scorbutics. Scorbutic negroes are always vicious or
worthless. A course of anti-scorbutics will reform their morals, and
make good negroes out of worthless ones. They are liable to suffocative
orthopnœa after measles, and die unless bled and purged. But purgatives
are injurious in almost all their other affections involving the
respiratory organs, except such as act especially on the liver. They
check expectoration, says Dazille, and lay the foundations of those
effusions and depots of matter so often mistaken for genuine Phthisis.
Auscultation cannot well be made available with them. The nose pleads to
the eye and touch to form the diagnosis, without calling into
requisition the ear. A single examination by auscultation, in persons
abounding with so much phlegm, is not sufficient to arrive at a correct
diagnosis. Repeated examinations in various postures are too tedious in
execution, and too offensive to the auscultator, to come into general
use in diagnosing the diseases of the Melanic race. This valuable mode
of exploration, so useful in many cases, as practiced by experts, has of
late years been carried to a ridiculous extreme, in being made to
deceive and delude more practitioners than it enlightens, from the haste
and inexperience of those who practice it. With negroes it is
unnecessary, except in some rare instances. Their diseases, like their
passions, have each its peculiar expression stamped in the countenance.
They are like young children in this respect. They cannot disguise their
countenance like white people. An intelligent and observant observer can
tell from their countenance when they are plotting mischief, or have
committed some crime; when they are satisfied or dissatisfied; when in
pleasure or in pain; when troubled or disturbed in mind; or when telling
a falsehood instead of the truth. An observant physician has only to
bring the old science of prosoposcopia, so much used by Hippocrates in
forming his diagnosis, to bear upon negroes, to be able, by a little
experience, to ascertain the most of them at a glance by the expression
of their countenance.
They are very subject to fevers, attended with an obstructed circulation
of air and blood in the pulmonary organs. Their abundant mucosities
often prevent the ingress of air into the air cells, bloating their lips
and cheeks, which are coated with a tenacious saliva. A cessation of
digestion from too full a meal, or some hepatic or other derangement, is
soon attended with such a copious exudation of mucosities, filling the
air cells and tracheal passages, as to cause apoplexy, which with them
is only another name for asphyxia. The head has nothing to do with it.
So abundant are the mucosities in negroes, that those in the best health
have a whitish, pasty mucus, of considerable thickness on the tongue,
leading a physician not acquainted with them to suppose that they were
dyspeptic, or otherwise indisposed. The lungs of the white man are the
main outlets for the elimination of carbonic acid formed in the tissues.
Negroes, however, by an instinctive habit of covering their mouth, nose,
head and face with a blanket, or some other covering, when they sleep,
throw upon the liver an additional duty to perform, in the excretion of
carbonic acid. Any cause, obstructing the action of the liver, quickly
produces with them a grave malady, the retention of carbonic acid in the
blood soon poisoning them.
Hence with white people a moderate degree of hepatic obstruction, by a
residence in swampy districts, is often found beneficial in diminishing
the exalted sensibility and irritability of phthisical patients. Viscous
engorgements of the lungs destroy more negroes than all other diseases
combined. They are distinguished from inflammatory affections by the
pyrexial symptoms not being strongly marked, or marked at all--by the
puffy or bloated appearance of the face and lips--by the slavering
mouth--the highly charged tongue--and by the torpor of mind and body. In
a word, all the symptoms point to a deficient aeration of the blood, or
a kind of half way asphyxia. A torpid state of the system, listlessness
and inactivity almost approaching to asphyxia from the diminished
quantity of oxygen consumed by the lungs of the negro, form a striking
contrast with the energetic, active, restless, persevering Anglo-Saxon,
with a tendency to phlogosis and phthisis pulmonalis, from the surplus
quantity of oxygen consumed by his lungs. Blistering the nape of the
neck, so irritating in nearly all of the diseases of the Saxon race, is
almost a sovereign remedy or specific for a large proportion of the
complaints that negroes are subject to; because most of them arise from
defective respiratory action. Hence whipping the lungs to increased
action by the application of blisters over the origin of the respiratory
nerves, a remedy so inexpedient and so often contra-indicated in most of
the maladies of the white man, has a magic charm about it in the
treatment of those of the negro. The magic effect of a blister to that
part of the Ethiopian's body, in a large class of his ailments, although
well known to most of the planters and overseers of the Southern
States, is scarcely known at all to the medical profession beyond those
boundaries. Even here, where that portion of the profession who have had
much experience in the treatment of their diseases, and are aware of the
simple fact itself, do not profit by it in many cases where it is
indicated; because they do not perceive the indication clearly, so long
as the rationale of the remedy remains unexplained.
Your asking for the proofs of my assertion, "that the negro consumes
less oxygen than the white man," has led me into a new, extensive and
unexplored field of science, where the rationale of that and many other
important facts may be found springing up spontaneously. We have medical
schools in abundance teaching the art of curing the ailments, and even
the most insignificant sores, incident to the half-starved, oppressed
pauper population of Europe--a population we have not got, never had and
never can have, so long as we have negro slaves to work in the cane,
cotton and rice fields, where the white man, from the physiological laws
governing his economy, _can not labor and live_: but where the negro
thrives, luxuriates and enjoys existence more than any laboring
peasantry to be found on the continent of Europe; yet we have no schools
or any chair in our numerous institutions of medical learning to teach
the art of curing and preventing the diseases peculiar to our immense
population of negro slaves, or to make them more efficient and valuable,
docile and manageable; comfortable, happy and contented by still further
improving their condition, which can only be done by studying their
nature, and not by the North and South bandying epithets--not by the
quackery which prescribes the same remedy, the liberty elixir, for all
constitutions. The two races, the Anglo-Saxon and the negro, have
antipodal constitutions. The former abounds with red blood, even
penetrating the capillaries and the veins, flushing the face and
illuminating the countenance; the skin white; lips thin; nose high; hair
auburn, flaxen, red or black; beard thick and heavy; eyes brilliant;
will strong and unconquerable; mind and muscles full of energy and
activity. The latter, with molasses blood sluggishly circulating and
scarcely penetrating the capillaries; skin ebony, and the mucous
membranes and muscles partaking of the darker hue pervading the blood
and the cutis; lips thick and protuberant; nose broad and flat; scalp
covered with a coarse, crispy wool in thick naps; beard wanting or
consisting of a few scattering woolly naps, in the "_bucks_,"
provincially so called; mind and body dull and slothful; will weak,
wanting or subdued. The study of such opposite organizations, the one
prone to Phthisis and the other not, can not fail to throw some light on
tubercular disease, the subject of your correspondent, Dr. Hall's
present investigation. In contrasting the typical white man, having an
excess of red blood and a liability to inflammatory and tuberculous
complaints and disorders of the digestive system, with the typical
negro, deficient aerated blood, and abounding in mucosites, having an
active liver and a strong digestion, and a proclivity strongly marked to
fall into congestions, or cold humid engorgements approaching asphyxia,
I hope he will be able to find in this unpolished communication
something useful.
I have the honor to be, with great respect,
SAML. A. CARTWRIGHT, M.D.
_New Orleans, July 19th, 1852._
APPENDIX.
NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PROGNATHOUS SPECIES OF MANKIND.
It is not intended by the use of the term Prognathous to call in
question the black man's humanity or the unity of the human races as a
_genus_, but to prove that the species of the genus homo are not a
unity, but a plurality, each essentially different from the others--one
of them being so unlike the other two--the oval-headed Caucasian and the
pyramidal-headed Mongolian--as to be actually prognathous, like the
brute creation; not that the negro is a brute, or half man and half
brute, but a genuine human being, anatomically constructed, about the
head and face, more like the monkey tribes and the lower order of
animals than any other species of the genus man. Prognathous is a
technical term derived from _pro_, before, and _gnathos_, the jaws,
indicating that the muzzle or mouth is anterior to the brain. The lower
animals, according to Cuvier, are distinguished from the European and
Mongol man by the mouth and face projecting further forward in the
profile than the brain. He expresses the rule thus: _face anterior,
cranium posterior_. The typical negroes of adult age, when tried by this
rule, are proved to belong to a different species from the man of Europe
or Asia, because the head and face are anatomically constructed more
after the fashion of the simiadiæ and the brute creation than the
Caucasian and Mongolian species of mankind, their mouth and jaws
projecting beyond the forehead containing the anterior lobes of the
brain. Moreover, their faces are proportionally larger than their
crania, instead of smaller, as in the other two species of the genus
man. Young monkeys and young negroes, however, are not prognathous like
their parents, but become so as they grow older. The head of the infant
ourang outang is like that of a well formed Caucasian child in the
projection and hight of the forehead and the convexity of the vertea.
The brain appears to be larger than it really is, because the face, at
birth, has not attained its proportional size. The face of the Caucasian
infant is a little under its proportional size when compared with the
cranium. In the infant negro and ourang outang it is greatly so.
Although so much smaller in infancy than the cranium, the face of the
young monkey ultimately outgrows the cranium; so, also, does the face of
the young negro, whereas in the Caucasian, the face always continues to
be smaller than the cranium. The superfices of the face at puberty
exceeds that of the hairy scalp both in the negro and the monkey, while
it is always less in the white man. Young monkeys and young negroes are
superior to white children of the same age in memory and other
intellectual faculties. The white infant comes into the world with its
brain inclosed by fifteen disunited bony plates--the occipital bone
being divided into four parts, the sphenoid into three, the frontal into
two, each of the two temporals into two, which, with the two parietals,
make fifteen plates in all--the vomer and ethmoid not being ossified at
birth. The bones of the head are not only disunited, but are more or
less overlapped at birth, in consequence of the largeness of the
Caucasian child's head and the smallness of its mother's pelvis, giving
the head an elongated form, and an irregular, knotty feel to the touch.
The negro infant, however, is born with a small, hard, smooth, round
head like a gourd. Instead of the frontal and temporal bones being
divided into six plates, as in the white child, they form but one bone
in the negro infant. The head is not only smaller than that of the white
child, but the pelvis of the negress is wider than that of the white
woman--its greater obliquity also favors parturition and prevents
miscarriage.
Negro children and white children are alike at birth in one remarkable
particular--they are both born _white_, and so much alike, as far as
color is concerned, as scarcely to be distinguished from each other. In
a very short time, however, the skin of the negro infant begins to
darken and continues to grow darker until it becomes of a shining black
color, provided the child be healthy. The skin will become black whether
exposed to the air and light or not. The blackness is not of as deep a
shade during the first years of life, as afterward. The black color is
not so deep in the female as in the male, nor in the feeble, sickly
negro as in the robust and healthy. Blackness is a characteristic of the
prognathous species of the genus homo, but all the varieties of all the
prognathous species are not equally black. Nor are the individuals of
the same family or variety equally so. The lighter shades of color,
when not derived from admixture with Mongolian or Caucasian blood,
indicate degeneration in the prognathous species. The Hottentots,
Bushmen and aborigines of Australia are inferior in mind and body to the
typical African of Guinea and the Niger.
The typical negroes themselves are more or less superior or inferior to
one another precisely as they approximate to or recede from the typical
standard in color and form, due allowance being made for age and sex.
The standard is an oily, shining black, and as far as the conformation
of the head and face is concerned and the relative proportion of nervous
matter outside of the cranium to the quantity of cerebral matter within
it, is found between the simiadiæ[257] and the Caucasian. Thus, in the
typical negro, a perpendicular line, let fall from the forehead, cuts
off a large portion of the face, throwing the mouth, the thick lips, and
the projecting teeth anterior to the cranium, but not the entire face,
as in the lower animals and monkey tribes. When all, or a greater part
of the face is thrown anterior to the line, the negro approximates the
monkey anatomically more than he does the true Caucasian; and when
little or none of the face is anterior to the line, he approximates that
mythical being of Dr. Van Evrie, a _black white man_, and almost ceases
to be a negro. The black man occasionally seen in Africa, called the
_Bature Dutu_, with high nose, thin lips, and long straight hair, is not
a negro at all, but a Moor tanned by the climate--because his children,
not exposed to the sun, do not become black like himself. The typical
negro's nervous system is modeled a little different from the Caucasian
and somewhat like the ourang outang. The medullary spinal cord is larger
and more developed than in the white man, but less so than in the monkey
tribes. The occipital foramen, giving exit to the spinal cord, is a
third longer, says Cuvier, in proportion to its breadth, than in the
Caucasian, and is so oblique as to form an angle of 30° with the
horizon, yet not so oblique as in the simiadæ, but sufficiently so to
throw the head somewhat backward and the face upward in the erect
position. Hence, from the obliquity of the head and the pelvis, the
negro walks steadier with a weight on his head, as a pail of water for
instance, than without it; whereas, the white man, with a weight on his
head, has great difficulty in maintaining his centre of gravity, owing
to the occipital foramen forming no angle with the cranium, the pelvis,
the spine, or the thighs--all forming a straight line from the crown of
the head to the sole of the foot without any of the obliquities seen in
the negro's knees, thighs, pelvis and head--and still more evident in
the ourang outang.
The nerves of organic life are larger in the prognathous species of
mankind than in the Caucasian species, but not so well developed as in
the simiadiæ. The brain is about a tenth smaller in the prognathous man
than in the Frenchman, as proved by actual measurement of skulls by the
French savans, Palisot and Virey. Hence, from the small brain and the
larger nerves, the digestion of the prognathous species is better than
that of the Caucasian, and its animal appetites stronger, approaching
the simiadiæ but stopping short of their beastiality. The nostrils of
the prognathous species of mankind open higher up than they do in the
white or olive species, but not so high up as in the monkey tribes. In
the gibbon, for instance, they open between the orbits. Although the
typical negro's nostrils open high up, yet owing to the nasal bones
being short and flat, there is no projection or prominence formed
between his orbits by the bones of the nose, as in the Caucasian
species. The nostrils, however, are much wider, about as wide from wing
to wing, as the white man's mouth from corner to corner, and the
internal bones, called the turbinated, on which the olfactory nerves are
spread, are larger and project nearer to the opening of the nostrils
than in the white man. Hence the negro approximates the lower animals in
his sense of smell, and can detect snakes by that sense alone. All the
senses are more acute, but less delicate and discriminating, than the
white man's. He has a good ear for melody but not for harmony, a keen
taste and relish for food but less discriminating between the different
kinds of esculent substances than the Caucasian. His lips are immensely
thicker than any of the white race, his nose broader and flatter, his
chin smaller and more retreating, his foot flatter, broader, larger, and
the heel longer, while he has scarcely any calves at all to his legs
when compared to an equally healthy and muscular white man. He does not
walk flat on his feet but on the outer sides, in consequence of the sole
of the foot having a direction inwards, from the legs and thighs being
arched outwards and the knees bent. The verb, from which his Hebrew name
is derived, points out this flexed position of the knees, and also
clearly expresses the servile type of his mind. Ham, the father of
Canaan, when translated into plain English, reads that a black man was
the father of the slave or knee-bending species of mankind.
The blackness of the prognathous race, known in the world's history as
Canaanites, Cushites, Ethiopians, black men or negroes, is not confined
to the skin, but pervades, in a greater or less degree, the whole inward
man down to the bones themselves, giving the flesh and the blood, the
membranes and every organ and part of the body, except the bones, a
darker hue than in the white race. Who knows but what Canaan's mother
may have been a genuine Cushite, as black inside as out, and that Cush,
which means blackness, was the mark put upon Cain? Whatever may have
been the mark set upon Cain, the negro, in all ages of the world, has
carried with him a mark equally efficient in preventing him from being
slain--the mark of blackness. The wild Arabs and hostile American
Indians invariably catch the black wanderer and make a slave of him
instead of killing him, as they do the white man.
Nich. Pechlin, in a work written last century entitled "De cute
Athiopum," Albinus, in another work, entitled "De sede et causa coloris
Athiop," as also the great German anatomists, Meiners, Ebel, and
Sœmmering, all bear witness to the fact that the muscles, blood,
membranes, and all the internal organs of the body, (the bones alone
excepted,) are of a darker hue in the negro than in the white man. They
estimate the difference in color to be equal to that which exists
between the hare and the rabbit. Who ever doubts the fact, or has none
of those old and impartial authorities at hand--impartial because they
were written before England adopted the policy of pressing religion and
science in her service to place white American republican freemen and
Guinea negroes upon the same platform--has only to look into the mouth
of the first healthy typical negro he meets to be convinced of the
truth, that the entire membraneous lining of the inside of the cheeks,
lips and gums is of a much darker color than in the white man.
The negro, however, must be healthy and in good condition--sickness,
hard usage and chronic ailments, particularly that cachexia, improperly
called consumption, speedily extracts the coloring matter out of the
mucous membranes, leaving them paler and whiter than in the Caucasian.
The bleaching process of bad health or degeneration begins in the
blood, membranes and muscles, and finally extracts so much of the
coloring pigment out of the skin, as to give it a dull ashy appearance,
sometimes extracting the whole of it, converting the negro into the
albino. Albinoism or cucosis does not necessarily imply hybridism. It
occurs among the pure Africans from any cause producing a degeneration
of the species. Hybridism, however, is the most prolific source of that
degeneration. Sometimes the degeneration shows itself by white spots,
like the petals of flowers, covering different parts of the skin. The
Mexicans are subject to a similar degeneration, only that the spots and
stripes are black instead of white. It is called the pinto with them.
Even the pigment of the iris and the coloring matter of the albino's
hair is absorbed, giving it a silvery white appearance, and converting
him into a clairvoyant at night. According to Professors Brown, Seidy
and Gibbs, the negro's hair is not tubular, like the white man's, but it
is eccentrically elliptical, with flattened edges, the coloring matter
residing in the epidermis, and not in tubes. In the place of a tube, the
shaft of each hair is surrounded with a scaly covering like sheep's
wool, and, like wool, is capable of being felted. True hair does not
possess that property. The degeneration called albinoism has a
remarkable influence upon the hair, destroying its coarse, nappy, wooly
appearance, and converting it into fine, long, soft, silky, curly
threads. Often, the whole external skin, so remarkably void of hair in
the healthy negro, becomes covered with a very fine, silky down,
scarcely perceptible to the naked eye, when transformed into the albino.
Mr. Bowen, the celebrated Baptist missionary, [see his work entitled
Central Africa and Missionary Labors from 1849 to 1856, by T. J. Bowen,
Charleston, Southern Baptist Publication Society, 1857,] met with a
great many cases of leucosis in Soudan or Negroland, back of Liberia,
and erroneously concluded that these people had very little, if any
negro blood in them, and would be better subjects for missionary labors
than the blacks of the same country. They are, however, nothing but
_white_ black men, a degeneration of the negro proper, and are even less
capable of perpetuating themselves than the hybrids or mulattoes. Mr.
Bowen is at a loss to account for the depopulation, which he verifies
has been going on in Soudan the last fifty years, threatening to leave
the country, at no distant time, bare of inhabitants, unless roads be
constructed by the Christians of the Southern States for commercial
intercourse, and double exertions made to civilize and Christianize the
waning population of Central Africa before it entirely disappears. The
good missionary, though sent out from Georgia, was evidently taught in
that British school which assumes that there is only a single species in
the genus homo, in opposition to the Bible, that clearly designates
three. That school quotes the references in the sacred volume, implying
unity in the genus--a unity which no one denies--to disprove the
existence of distinct species, and upon this fallacy builds the theory
that negro, Indian and white men are beings exactly alike, because they
are human beings. _Ergo_, the liberty so beneficial to the white man,
would be equally so to the negro--disregarding as a fable those words of
the Bible expressly declaring that the latter _shall be servant of
servants_ to the former--words which would not have been there if that
kind of subordination called slavery was not the normal condition of the
race of Ham. To expect to civilize or Christianize the negro without the
intervention of slavery is to expect an impossibility.
Mr. Bowen's experience and natural good sense occasionally got the
better of his theoretical views. Thus, at page 90, we find him
confessing that "the native African negroes ought to have masters in
obedience to the demands of natural justice." At page 149 he lets us
into the secret of the depopulating process which has been going on in
Central Africa the last fifty years. While standing among some negroes
in Ikata, a town in Central Africa, a capricious mulatto chief sent some
officers among the company, who singled out a poor fellow who had
offended the chief by saying that as he let a white man into town, he
might let in a Dahomey man also, and presented him with an empty bag
with the message: "_The king says you must send me your head._" The Rev.
missionary, who was present at the beheading, made no comment further
than to state the fact. But he might have added that the blood of that
negro, and millions of others, will be required at the hands of Victoria
Regina and the United States for having officiously destroyed the value
of negro property in Africa by breaking up the only trade that ever
protected the native Africans against the butcheries, cruelties and
oppressions of their mulatto, Moorish and Mahommedan tyrants. It is
these butcheries and cruelties, and the little care taken of the black
man in Africa, the last fifty years, since he became valueless through
British and American philanthropy, that lie at the root of the
depopulating process which is going on in the dark land of the Niger.
Empty bags are now filled with heads instead of cowries. Mr. Bowen was
surprised to see so few black men in Soudan, where, half a century ago,
he says they were so numerous. But he rather regards it as a fortunate
circumstance, as he has no hope of Christianizing the typical negro,
except through slavery to Christian masters--and that idea is abhorrent
to the school in which he was taught; but he has more hope from the
mixed races, and these, he confesses, can not be effectually
Christianized until civilized. He deplores the bad example of the black
race, among them, their polygamy, etc., as greatly in the way of
civilizing the mulattoes. But he has overlooked the important fact, as
many do, that the existence of the hybrids themselves depends upon the
existence of the typical Africans. The extinction of the latter must, of
necessity, be soon followed by the extinction of the former, as they can
not, for any length of time, propagate among themselves.
Mr. Bowen inferred that the negroes of Central Africa, although
diminishing in numbers, are rising higher in the scale of humanity, from
the very small circumstance that they do not emit from their bodies so
strong and so offensive an odor as the negro slaves of Georgia and the
Carolinas do, nor are their skins of so deep a black. This is a good
illustration of the important truth, that all the danger of the slavery
question lies in the ignorance of Scripture and the natural history of
the negro. A little acquaintance with the negro's natural history would
prove to Mr. Bowen that the strong odor emitted by the negro, like the
deep pigment of the skin, is an indication of high health, happiness,
and good treatment, while its deficiency is a sure sign of unhappiness,
disease, bad treatment, or degeneration. The skin of a happy, healthy
negro is not only blacker and more oily than an unhappy, unhealthy one,
but emits the strongest odor when the body is warmed by exercise and the
soul is filled with the most pleasurable emotions. In the dance called
_patting juber_, the odor emitted from the men, intoxicated with
pleasure, is often so powerful as to throw the negro women into
paroxysms of unconsciousness, vulgo hysterics. On another point of much
importance there is no practical difference between the Rev. missionary
and that clear-headed, bold, and eccentric old Methodist, Dr. McFarlane.
Both believe that the Bible can do ignorant, sensual savages no good;
both believe that nothing but compulsatory power can restrain
uncivilized barbarians from polygamy, inebriety, and other sinful
practices.
The good missionary, however, believes in the possibility of civilizing
the inferior races by the money and means of the Christian nations
lavishly bestowed, after which he thinks it will be no difficult matter
to convert them to Christianity. Whereas the venerable Methodist
believes in the impossibility of civilizing them, and therefore
concludes that the Written Word was not intended for those inferior
races who can not read it. When the philosophy of the prognathous
species of mankind is better understood, it will be seen how they, the
lowest of the human species, can be made partakers, equally with the
highest, in the blessings and benefits of the Written Word of God. The
plantation laws against polygamy, intoxicating drinks, and other
besetting sins of the negro race in the savage state, are gradually and
silently converting the African barbarian into a moral, rational, and
civilized being, thereby rendering the heart a fit tabernacle for the
reception of Gospel truths. The prejudices of many, perhaps the majority
of the Southern people, against educating the negroes they hold in
subjection, arise from some vague and indefinite fears of its
consequences, suggested by the abolition and British theories built on
the false assumption that the negro is a white man with a black skin. If
such an assumption had the smallest degree of truth in it, the more
profound the ignorance and the deeper sunk in barbarism the slaves were
kept, the better it would be for them and their masters. But experience
proves that masters and overseers have nothing at all to fear from
civilized and intelligent negroes, and no trouble whatever in managing
them--that all the trouble, insubordination and danger arise from the
uncivilized, immoral, rude, and grossly ignorant portion of the servile
race. It is not the ignorant semi-barbarian that the master or overseer
intrusts with his keys, his money, his horse or his gun, but the most
intelligent of the plantation--one whose intellect and morals have
undergone the best training. An educated negro, one whose intellect and
morals have been cultivated, is worth double the price of the wild,
uncultivated, black barbarian of Cuba and will do twice as much work,
do it better and with less trouble.
The prejudice against educating the negroes may also be traced to the
neglect of American divines in making themselves acquainted with Hebrew
literature. What little the most of them know of the meaning of the
untranslated terms occurring in the Bible, and the signification of the
verbs from which they are derived, is mostly gathered from British
commentators and glossary-makers, who have blinked the facts that
disprove the Exeter Hall dogma, that negro slavery is sin against God.
Hence, even in the South, the important Biblical truth, that the white
man derives his authority to govern the negro from the Great Jehovah, is
seldom proclaimed from the pulpit. If it were proclaimed, the master
race would see deeper into their responsibilities, and look closer into
the duties they owe to the people whom God has given them as an
inheritance, and their children after them, so long as time shall last.
That man has no faith in the Scriptures who believes that education
could defeat God's purposes, in subjecting the black man to the
government of the white. On the contrary, experience proves its
advantages, to both parties. Aside and apart from Scripture authority,
natural history reveals most of the same facts, in regard to the negro
that the Bible does. It proves the existence of at least three distinct
species of the genus man, differing in their instincts, form, habits and
color. The white species having qualities denied to the black--one with
a free and the other with a servile mind--one a thinking and reflective
being, the other a creature of feeling and imitation, almost void of
reflective faculties, and consequently unable to provide for and take
care of himself. The relation of master and slave would naturally spring
up between two such different species of men, even if there was no
Scripture authority to support it. The relation thus established, being
natural, would be drawn closer together, instead of severed, by the
inferior imitating the superior in all his ways, or in other words,
acquiring an education.
FOOTNOTE:
[257] Monkey tribes.--_Editor._
ON THE CAUCASIANS AND THE AFRICANS.
SEVERAL years ago we published some original and
ingenious views of Dr. Cartwright, of New Orleans,
upon the subject of negroes and their
characteristics. The matter is more elaborately
treated by him in the following paper:--_De Bows
Review._
THE Nilotic monuments furnish numerous portraits of the negro races,
represented as slaves, sixteen hundred years before the Christian era.
Although repeatedly drawn from their native barbarism and carried among
civilized nations, they soon forget what they learn and relapse into
barbarism. If the inherent potency of the prognathous type of mankind
had been greater than it actually is, sufficiently great to give it the
independence of character that the American Indian possesses, the world
would have been in a great measure deprived of cotton and sugar. The red
man is unavailable as a laborer in the cane or cotton field, or any
where else, owing to the unalterable ethnical laws of his character. The
white man can not endure toil under the burning sun of the cane and
cotton field, and live to enjoy the fruits of his labor. The African
will starve rather than engage in a regular system of agricultural
labor, unless impelled by the stronger will of the white man. When thus
impelled, experience proves that he is much happier, during the hours of
labor in the sunny fields, than when dozing in his native woods and
jungles. He is also eminently qualified for a number of employments,
which the instincts of the white man regard as degrading. If the white
man be forced by necessity into employments abhorrent to his instincts,
it tends to weaken or destroy that sentiment or principle of honor or
duty, which is the mainspring of heroic actions, from the beginning of
historical times to the present, and is the basis of every thing great
and noble in all grades of white society.
The importance of having these particular employments, regarded as
servile and degrading by the white man, attended to by the black race,
whose instincts are not repugnant to them, will be at once apparent to
all those who deem the sentiment of honor or duty as worth cultivating
in the human breast. It is utterly unknown to the prognathous race of
mankind, and has no place in their language. When the language is given
to them they can not comprehend its meaning, or form a conception of
what is meant by it. Every white man, who has not been degraded, had
rather be engaged in the most laborious employments, than to serve as a
lacquey or body servant to another white man or being like himself.
Whereas, there is no office which the negro or mulatto covets more than
that of being a body servant to a real gentleman. There is no office
which gives him such a high opinion of himself, and it is utterly
impossible for him to attach the idea of degradation to it. Those
identical offices which the white man instinctively abhors, are the most
greedily sought for by negroes and mulattoes, whether slave or free, in
preference to all other employments. North or South, free or slave, they
are ever at the elbow, behind the table, in hotels and steamboats; ever
ready, with brush in hand, to brush the coat or black the shoes, or to
perform any menial service which may be required, and to hold out the
open palm for the dime. The innate love to act as body servant or
lacquey is too strongly developed in the negro race to be concealed. It
admirably qualifies them for waiters and house servants, as their strong
muscles, hardy frames, and the positive pleasure that labor in a hot sun
confers on them, abundantly qualify them for agricultural employment in
a hot climate.
Hence, the primordial cell germ of the Nigritians has no more potency
than what is sufficient to form a being with physical power, when its
dynamism becomes exhausted, dropping the creature in the wilderness with
the mental organization too imperfect to enable him to extricate himself
from barbarism. If Nature had intended the prognathous race for
barbarism as the end and object of their creation, they would have been
like lions and tigers, fierce and untamable. So far from being like
ferocious beasts, they are endowed with a will so weak, passions so
easily subdued, and dispositions so gentle and affectionate, as readily
to fall under subjection to the wild Arab, or any other race of men.
Hence they are led about in gangs of an hundred or more by a single
individual, even by an old man, or a cripple, if he be of the white race
and possessed of a strong will. The Nigritian has such little command
over his own muscles, from the weakness of his will, as almost to
starve, when a little exertion and forethought would procure him an
abundance. Although he has exaggerated appetites and exaggerated
senses, calling loudly for their gratification, his will is too weak to
command his muscles to engage in such kinds of labor as would readily
procure the fruits to gratify them. Like an animal in a state of
hibernation, waiting for the external aid of spring to warm it into life
and power, so does the negro continue to doze out a vegeto-animal
existence in the wilderness, unable to extricate himself therefrom--his
own will being too feeble to call forth the requisite muscular exertion.
His muscles not being exercised, the respiration is imperfect, and the
blood is imperfectly vitalized. Torpidity of body and hebetude of mind
are the effects thereof, which disappear under bodily labor, because
that expands the lungs, vitalizes the blood, and wakes him up to a sense
of pleasure and happiness unknown to him in the vegeto-animal or
hibernating state. Nothing but will is wanting to transform the torpid,
unhappy tenant of the wilderness into a rational and happy thing--the
happiest being on earth, as far as sensual pleasures are concerned.
The white man has an exaggerated will, more than he has use for; because
it frequently drives his own muscles beyond their physical capacity of
endurance. The will is not a faculty confined within the periphery of
the body. It can not, like the imagination, travel to immeasurable
distances from the body, and in an instant of time go and return from
Aldabran, or beyond the boundaries of the solar system. Its flight is
confined to the world and to limits more or less restricted--the less
restricted in some than in others. The will has two powers--direct and
indirect. It is the direct motive power of the muscular system. It
indirectly exerts a dynamic force upon surrounding objects when
associated with knowledge. It gives to knowledge its power. Every thing
that is made was made by the Infinite Will associated with infinite
knowledge. The will of man is but a spark of the Infinite Will, and its
power is only circumscribed by his knowledge. A man possessing a
knowledge of the negro character can govern an hundred, a thousand, or
ten thousand of the prognathous race by his will alone, easier than one
ignorant of that character can govern a single individual of that race
by the whip or a club. However disinclined to labor the negroes may be,
they can not help themselves; they are obliged to move and to exercise
their muscles when the white man, acquainted with their character,
_wills_ that they should do so. They can not resist that will, so far as
labor of body is concerned. If they resist, it is from some other cause
than that connected with their daily labor. They have an instinctive
feeling of obedience to the stronger will of the white man, requiring
nothing more than moderate labor. So far, their instincts compel
obedience to will as one of his rights. Beyond that, they will resist
his will and be refractory, if he encroaches on what they regard as
their rights, viz: the right to hold property in him as he does in them,
and to disburse that property to them in the shape of meat, bread and
vegetables, clothing, fuel and house-room, and attention to their
comforts when sick, old, infirm, and unable to labor; to hold property
in him as a conservator of the peace among themselves, and a protector
against trespassers from abroad, whether black or white; to hold
property in him as impartial judge and an honest jury to try them for
offenses, and a merciful executioner to punish them for violations of
the usages of the plantation or locality.
With those rights acceded to them, no other compulsion is necessary to
make them perform their daily tasks than _his will be done_. It is not
the whip, as many suppose, which calls forth those muscular exertions,
the result of which is sugar, cotton, breadstuffs, rice, and tobacco.
These are products of the white man's will, acting through the muscles
of the prognathous race in our Southern States. If that will were
withdrawn, and the plantations handed over as a gracious gift to the
laborers, agricultural labor would cease for the want of that spiritual
power called the will, to move those machines--the muscles. They would
cease to move here, as they have in Hayti. If the prognathous race were
expelled the land, and their place supplied with double their number of
white men, agricultural labor in the South would also cease, as far as
sugar and cotton are concerned, for the want of muscles that could
endure exercise in the smothering heat of a cane or cotton field. Half
the white laborers of Illinois are prostrated with fevers from a few
days' work in stripping blades in a Northern corn field, owing to the
confinement of the air by the close proximity of the plants. Cane and
cotton plants form a denser foliage than corn--a thick jungle, where the
white man pants for breath, and is overpowered by the heat of the sun at
one time of day, and chilled by the dews and moisture of the plants at
another. Negroes glory in a close, hot atmosphere; they instinctively
cover their head and faces with a blanket at night, and prefer laying
with their heads to the fire, instead of their feet. This ethnical
peculiarity is in harmony with their efficiency as laborers in hot,
damp, close, suffocating atmosphere--where instead of suffering and
dying, as the white man would, they are healthier, happier, and more
prolific than in their native Africa--producing, under the white man's
will, a great variety of agricultural products, besides upward of three
millions of bales of cotton, and three hundred thousand hogsheads of
sugar. Thus proving that subjection to his will is normal to them,
because, under the influence of his will, they enjoy life more than in
any other condition, rapidly increase in numbers, and steadily rise in
the scale of humanity.
The power of a stronger will over a weaker, or the power of one living
creature to act on and influence another, is an ordinance of nature,
which has its parallel in the inorganic kingdom, where ponderous bodies,
widely separated in space, influence one another so much as to keep up a
constant interplay of action and reaction throughout nature's vast
realms. The same ordinance which keeps the spheres in their orbits and
holds the satellites in subordination to the planets, is the ordinance
that subjects the negro race to the empire of the white man's will. From
that ordinance the snake derives its power to charm the bird, and the
magician his power to amuse the curious, to astonish the vulgar, and to
confound the wisdom of the wise. Under that ordinance, our four millions
of negroes are as unalterably bound to obey the white man's will, as the
four satellites of Jupiter the superior magnetism of that planet. If
individual masters, by releasing individual negroes from the power of
their will, can not make them free or release them from subordination to
the instinctive public sentiment or will of the aggregate white
population, which as rigidly excludes them, in the so-called free
States, from the drawing room and parlor as it does pots and kettles and
other kinds of kitchen furniture. The subjugation of equals by artifice
or force is tyrrany or slavery; but there is no such thing in the United
States, because equals are on a perfect equality here. The subordination
of the Nigritian to the Caucasian would never have been imagined to be a
condition similar to European slavery, if any regard had been paid to
ethnology. Subordination of the inferior race to the superior is a
normal, and not a forced condition. Chains and standing armies are the
implements used to force the obedience of equals to equals--of one white
man to another. Whereas, the obedience of the Nigritian to the Caucasian
is _spontaneous_ because it is normal for the weaker will to yield
obedience to the stronger. The ordinance which subjects the negro to the
empire of the white man's will, was plainly written on the heavens
during our Revolutionary war. It was then that the power of the united
will of the American people rose to its highest degree of intensity.
Every colony was a slaveholding colony excepting one; yet the people,
particularly that portion of them residing in districts where the black
population was greatest, hastened to meet in the battle-field the
powerful British armies in front of them, and the interminable hosts of
Indian warriors in the wilderness behind them, leaving their wives and
children, their old men and cripples, for seven long years, _to their
negroes to take care of_. Did the slaves, many of whom were savages
recently imported from Africa, butcher them, as white or Indian slaves
surely would have done, and fly to the enemy's standard for the liberty,
land, money, rum, savage luxuries and ample protection so abundantly
promised and secured to all who would desert their master's families?
History answers that not one in a thousand joined their masters'
enemies; but, on the contrary, they continued quietly their daily
labors, even in those districts where they outnumbered the white
population ten to one. They not only produced sufficient breadstuffs to
supply the families of their masters, but a surplus of flour, pork, and
beef was sent up from the slaveholding districts of Virginia to
Washington's starving army in Pennsylvania. [See Botta's History.] These
agricultural products were created by savages, naturally so indolent in
their native Africa, as to prefer to live on ant eggs and caterpillars
rather than labor for a subsistence; but for years in succession they
continued to labor in the midst of their masters' enemies--dropping
their hoes when they saw the red coats, running to tell their mistress,
and to conduct her and the children through by-paths to avoid the
British troopers, and when the enemy were out of sight returning to
their work again. The sole cause of their industry and fidelity is due
to the spiritual influence of the white race over the black.
The empire of the white man's will over the prognathous race is not
absolute, however. It can not force exercise beyond a certain speed;
neither the will nor physical force can drive negroes, for a number of
days in succession, beyond a very moderate daily labor--about one-third
less than the white man voluntarily imposes on himself. If force be used
to make them do more, they invariably do less and less, until they fall
into a state of impassivity, in which they are more plague than
profit--worthless as laborers, insensible and indifferent to punishment,
or even to life; or, in other words, they fall into the disease which I
have named Dysesthæsia Ethiopica, characterized by hebetude of mind and
insensibility of body, caused by over working and bad treatment. Some
knowledge of the ethnology of the prognathous race is absolutely
necessary for the prevention and cure of this malady in all its various
forms and stages. Dirt eating, or Cachexia Africana, is another disease,
like Dysesthæsia Ethiopica, growing out of ethnical elements peculiar to
the prognathous race. The ethnical elements assimilating the negro to
the mule, although giving rise to the last named disease, are of vast
importance to the prognathous race, because they guarantee to that race
an ample protection against the abuses of arbitrary power. A white man,
like a blooded horse, can be worked to death. Not so the negro, whose
ethnical elements, like the mule, restricts the limits of arbitrary
power over him.
Among the four millions of the prognathous race in the United States, it
will be difficult, if not impossible, to find a single individual negro,
whom the white man, armed with arbitrary power, has ever been able to
make hurt himself at work. It is beyond the power of the white man to
drive the negro into this long continued and excessive muscular
exertions such as the white laborers of Europe often impose upon
themselves to satisfy a greedy boss, under fear of losing their places,
and thereby starving themselves and families. Throughout England,
nothing is more common than decrepitude, premature old age, and a
frightful list of diseases, caused by long continued and excessive
muscular exertion. Whereas, all America can scarcely furnish an example
of the kind among the prognathous race. The white men of America have
performed many prodigies, but they have never yet been able to make a
negro overwork himself.
There are other elements peculiar to the Nigritian, on which the
disease, called negro consumption, or Cachexia Africana, depends. But
these belong to that class which subject the negro to the white man's
spiritual empire over him. When that spiritual empire is not maintained
in all its entirety, or in other words, when the negro is badly
governed, he is apt to fall under the spiritual influence of the artful
and designing of his own color, and Cachexia Africana, or consumption,
is the consequence. Better throw medicine to the dogs, than give it to a
negro patient impressed with the belief that he has walked over poison
specially laid for him, or been in some other way tricked or conjured.
He will surely die, unless treated in accordance with his ethnological
peculiarities, and the hallucination expelled.
There never has been an insurrection of the prognathous race against
their masters; and from the nature of the ethnical elements of that
race, there never can be. Hayti is no exception, it will be seen, when
the true history of the so-called insurrection of that island is
written. There have been neighborhood disturbances and bloodshed, caused
by fanaticism, and by mischievous white men getting among them and
infusing their will into them, or mesmerizing them. But, fortunately,
there is an ethnological law of their nature which estops the evil
influence of such characters by limiting their influence strictly to
personal acquaintances. The prognathous tribes in every place and
country are jealous and suspicious of all strangers, black or white, and
have ever been so.
Prior to the emancipation act in the British West Indies, the famous
Exeter Hall Junto sent out a number of emissaries of the East India
Company to Jamaica, in the garb of missionaries. After remaining a year
or two in the assumed character of Christian ministers, they began to
preach insurrectionary doctrines, and caused a number of so-called
insurrections to break out simultaneously in different parts of the
island. The insurgents in every neighborhood were confined to the
personal acquaintances of the Exeter Hall miscreants, who succeeded in
infusing their will only into those who had listened to their incendiary
harangues. This was proved upon them by the genuine missionaries, who
had long been on the island, and had gathered into their various
churches a vast number of converts. For, in no instance, did a single
convert, or any other negro, join in the numerous insurrectionary
movements who had not been personally addressed by the wolves in sheep's
clothing. The Christian missionaries, particularly the Methodists,
Baptist, Moravians, and Catholics, were very exact in collecting the
evidence of this most important ethnological truth, in consequence of
some of the planters, at the first outbreak, having confounded them with
the Exeter Hall incendiaries.
The planters finally left the Christian missionaries and their flocks
undisturbed, but proceeded to expel the false missionaries, to hang
their converts, and to burn down their chapels. The event proved that
they were wrong in not hanging the white incendiaries; because they went
home to England, preached a crusade--traveling all over the United
Kingdom--proclaiming, as they went, that they had left God's houses in
flames throughout Jamaica, and God's people hanging like dogs from the
trees in that sinful island. This so inflamed public sentiment in Great
Britain against the planters, as to unite all parties in loud calls for
the immediate passage of the emancipation act. There is good reason to
believe that the English ministry, in view of the probable effect of
that measure on the United States, and the encouragement it would afford
to the culture of sugar and other tropical products in the East Indies
and Mauritius, had previously determined to make negro freedom a leading
measure in British policy, well knowing that its effect would be to
Africanize the sugar and cotton growing regions of America. The
ethnology of the prognathous race does not stop at proving that
subordination to the white race is its normal condition. It goes
further, and proves that social and political equality is abnormal to
it, whether educated or not. Neither negroes nor mulattoes know how to
use power when given to them. They always use it capriciously and
tyrannically. Tschudi, a Swiss naturalist, [see Tschudi's Travels in
Peru, London, 1848,] says, "that in Lima and Peru generally, the free
negroes are a plague to society. Dishonesty seems to be a part of their
very nature. Free born negroes, admitted into the houses of wealthy
families, and have received, in early life, a good education, and
treated with kindness and liberality, do not differ from their
uneducated brother."
Tschudi is mistaken in supposing that dishonesty is too deeply rooted in
the negro character to be removed. They are dishonest when in the
abnormal condition without a master. They are also dishonest when in a
state of subordination, called slavery, badly provided for and not
properly disciplined and governed. But when properly disciplined,
instructed, and governed, and their animal wants provided for, it would
be difficult to find a more honest, faithful, and trustworthy people
than they are. When made contented and happy, as they always should be,
they reflect their master in their thoughts, morals, and religion, or at
least they are desirous of being like him. They imitate him in every
thing, as far as their imitative faculties, which are very strong, will
carry them. They take a pride in his wealth, or in any thing which
distinguishes him, as if they formed a part of himself, as they really
do, being under the influence of his will, and in some measure
assimilated, in their spiritual nature, to him--loving him with all the
warm and devoted affection which children manifest to their parents. He
is sure of their love and friendship, although all the world may forsake
him. But to create and maintain this happy relation, he must govern them
with strict reference to their ethnological peculiarities. He must treat
them as inferiors, not as equals, as they are not satisfied with
equality, and will despise a master who attempts to raise any one or
more of them to an equality with himself; because they become jealous
and suspicious that their master's favorites will exercise a sinister
influence over him against them.
Impartiality of treatment in every particular, down to a hat or pair of
shoes, is what they all regard as one of their dearest rights. Hence,
any special favors or gifts to one, is an offense to all the rest. They
also regard as a right, when punished, not to be punished in anger, but
with cool deliberation. They will run from an angry or enraged master or
overseer, armed with a gun or a pistol. They regard all overseers who
come into the field armed with deadly weapons as cowards, and all
cowards have great difficulty in governing them. It is not physical
force which keeps them in subjection, but the spiritual force of the
white man's will. One unarmed brave man can manage a thousand by the
moral force of his will alone, much better than an hundred cowards with
guns in their hands. They also require as a right when punished, to be
punished with a switch or a whip, and not with a stick or the fist. In
this particular the ethnical law of their nature is different from all
other races of men. It is exactly the reverse of that of the American
Indian. The Indian will murder any man who strikes him with a switch, a
cowhide, or a whip, twenty years afterward, if he gets an opportunity;
but readily forgets blows, however severe, inflicted on him with the
fist, a cudgel, or a tomahawk. A remarkable ethnological peculiarity of
the prognathous race is, that any deserved punishment, inflicted on them
with a switch, cowhide, or whip, puts them into good humor with
themselves and the executioner of the punishment, provided he manifest
satisfaction by regarding the offense as atoned for.
The negro requires government in every thing, the most minute. The
Indian, on the contrary, submits to government in nothing whatever. Mr.
Jefferson was the first to notice this ethnical law of the red man. [See
his letter to Gilmer, June 7, 1816, vol. iv, page 279, Jefferson's
Correspondence.] "Every man with them," (the Indians,) says Mr.
Jefferson, "is perfectly free to follow his own inclinations; but if, in
doing this, he violates the rights of another, he is punished by the
disesteem of society or tomahawked. Their leaders conduct them by the
influence of their characters only; and they follow or not, as they
please, him of whose character, for wisdom or war, they have the highest
opinion, but, of all things, they least think of subjecting themselves
to the will of one man." Whereas the black man requires government even
in his meat and drink, his clothing, and hours of repose. Unless under
the government of one man to prescribe rules of conduct to guide him, he
will eat too much meat and not enough of bread and vegetables; he will
not dress to suit the season, or kind of labor he is engaged in, nor
retire to rest in due time to get sufficient sleep, but sit up and doze
by the fire nearly all night. Nor will the women undress the children
and put them regularly to bed. Nature is no law unto them. They let
their children suffer and die, or unmercifully abuse them, unless the
white man or woman prescribe rules in the nursery for them to go by.
Whenever the white woman superintends the nursery, whether the climate
be cold or hot, they increase faster than any other people on the globe;
but on large plantations, remote from her influence, the negro
population invariably diminishes, unless the overseer take upon himself
those duties in the lying-in and nursery department, which on small
estates are attended to by the mistress. She often sits up at night with
sick children and administers to their wants, when their own mothers are
nodding by them, and would be sound asleep if it were not for her
presence. The care that white women bestow on the nursery, is one of the
principal causes why three hundred thousand Africans, originally
imported into the territory of the United States have increased to four
millions, while in the British West Indies the number imported,
exceeded, by several millions, the actual population. It is also the
cause why the small proprietors of negro property in Maryland, Virginia,
Kentucky, and Missouri are able to supply the loss on the large Southern
plantations, which are cut off from the happy influence of the presiding
genius over civilization, morality, and population--the white woman.
The prognathous race require government also in their religious
exercises, or they degenerate into fanatical saturnalia. A discreet
white man or woman should always be present to regulate their religious
meetings.
Here the investigation into the ethnology of the prognathous race must
close, at least, for the present, leaving the most interesting part,
Fetichism, the indigenous religion of the African tribes, untouched. It
is the key to the negro character, which is difficult to learn from mere
experience. Those who are not accustomed to them have great trouble and
difficulty in managing negroes; and in consequence thereof treat them
badly. If their ethnology was better and more generally understood,
their value would be greatly increased, and their condition, as a
laboring class, would be more enviable, compared to the European
peasants, than it already is.
SLAVERY
IN THE
LIGHT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW.
BY
E. N. ELLIOTT, L.L.D.,
OF MISSISSIPPI.
SLAVERY
IN THE
LIGHT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW.
THERE are some who deny the unity of the human race; with such we have
no controversy, but it is a part of our religious belief, that "God made
of one blood all nations that dwell on the face of the earth;" and on
this we would base one of our arguments for the subordination of a part
of the human family. It is not necessary to the vindication of our
cause, or of truth, to deny the authority, or to fritter away the
evident meaning of any part of the word of God, as is done by most of
the abolitionists. It is sufficient for our purpose that we have shown
that the negro is an inferior variety of the human race; that he is
inferior in his physical structure, and in his mental and moral
organization. This orgnization incapacitates him for emerging, by his
own will and power, from barbarism, and achieving civilization and
refinement. History teaches the same lesson. We find Africa to-day, just
as it was three thousand years ago. When God created man he said to him,
"Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and
have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air,
and over every living thing that moveth on the face of the earth." And
again, upon the re-creation after the flood, he repeated the command, in
almost the same words, to Noah and his sons. This command shows that God
had a purpose with regard to the physical world, in placing man upon it,
and that man has a mission to fulfill in subduing it, and acquiring a
control, not only over animate but also over inanimate nature. Indeed,
the one is essential to the other. Man can not control and subdue the
inferior animals, until he has acquired some control over the powers of
nature. Place him in the forest naked and unarmed, and many of the
animals are his superiors; but endow his mind with a knowledge of
nature's laws, and thus enable him to make them subservient to his
purposes, and he becomes irresistible; a god on earth. In fulfilling
this command, man elevates his nature as he increases his knowledge, and
thereby extends his powers. God requires that every part of the human
family shall fulfill this great command, and contribute their part in
rendering subservient to human use, all the faculties of nature. Nay,
even where the one talent is misimproved, he takes it away and gives it
to him, who has ten talents. It is on this principle that it is right
and in accordance with the ordinance of God, to dispossess of their
lands, mines, waterpowers, harbors, etc., a savage nation, possessing,
but not improving them, and convert them to the uses of the world of
mankind. This is the warrant for the conflict of civilization with
barbarism. Not to go back to former times, it is this precept which has
converted the former howling wilderness of this Western World, into an
earthly paradise, affording an ample subsistence to happy millions of
the most enlightened of the human family. It is this that causes effete
dynasties and nations to disappear from the face of the world, and their
places to be supplied by those full of life and energy. It is this that
is rolling back and blotting out the mongrel races of the New World, to
make room for the onward march of a higher civilization.
The manifest destiny men are not so far wrong after all; but instead of
destiny, it is the purpose and ordinance of God. Upon this principle has
England acted in reference to India, Australia, China, and in almost
every region of the globe. It is upon this principle that Europe is now
controlling the destinies of the Old World, as the United States, if
they are true to themselves, will control the destinies of the New. This
has governed us in requiring that Japan should open her ports to the
commerce, and her coal mines to the navies of the world; that she should
enrol herself in the brotherhood of nations, and perform her part in the
great drama of life. It is upon this principle that England, France, and
the United States, are requiring the same thing of China; and it is upon
this principle that the vagrant is arrested in your streets and sent to
the work-house.
These principles are clearly enunciated, and ably defended by J. Q.
Adams in his celebrated speech on the Chinese question, delivered in
1841. It is true, that he applies them to the rights of commerce only;
but by legitimate deduction, they are as applicable to the rights of
labor, as to the rights of commerce. Although nations and races have
always acted on these principles, yet at the time of the delivery of
this speech, so startling were the positions assumed by Mr. Adams, that
but few could be found who were prepared to defend them, yet none were
able to controvert them. Their general adoption at the present day only
shows what history has so long taught, that master minds are generally
in advance of their age.
In the "Memoir of J. Q. Adams," by Josiah Quincy, we have a report of
this speech. Speaking of the Chinese war, Mr. Adams says, "that by the
law of nations is to be understood, not one code of laws, binding alike
on all nations of the earth, but a system of rules, varying according to
the condition and character of the nations concerned. There is a law of
nations among Christian communities, which is the law recognized by the
Constitution of the United States, as obligatory upon them in their
intercourse with European States and colonies. But we have a different
law of nations regulating our intercourse with the Indian tribes on this
continent; another between us and the woolly-headed nations of Africa;
another with the Barbary powers; another with the flowery land, or
Celestial empire." Then, reasoning on the rights of property,
established by labor, by occupation, by compact, he maintains "that the
right of exchange, barter--in other words, of commerce--necessarily
follows; that a state of nature among men is a state of peace; the
pursuit of happiness, man's natural right; that is the duty of all men
to contribute, as much as is in their power, to one another's happiness,
and that there is no other way by which they can so well contribute to
the comfort and well-being of one another, as by commerce, or the mutual
exchange of equivalents." These views and principles he thus
illustrates:
"The duty of commercial intercourse between nations, is laid down in
terms sufficiently positive by Vattel, but he afterwards qualifies it by
a restriction, which, unless itself restricted, annuls it altogether. He
says that, although the general duty of commercial intercourse is
incumbent upon nations, yet every nation may exclude any particular
branch or article of trade, which it may deem injurious to its
interests. This can not be denied. But then a nation may multiply these
particular exclusions, until they become general, and equivalent to a
total interdict of commerce; and this, time out of mind, has been the
inflexible policy of the Chinese empire. So says Vattel, without
affixing any note of censure upon it. Yet it is manifestly incompatible
with the position which he had previously laid down, that commercial
intercourse between nations is a moral obligation upon them all."
The same doctrine, with regard to the duties of _individuals_ in a
community, that is here advanced by Mr. Adams with regard to _races_ and
_nations_, is thus set forth in Blackstone's Commentaries, book iv,
chap. xxxiii: "_There is not a more necessary, or more certain maxim, in
the frame and constitution of society, than that every individual must
contribute his share, in order to the well-being of the community._"
The first principle laid down by Mr. Adams is, that the same code of
international law does not apply to all nations alike, but that it
varies with the condition and character of the people; that one code of
laws applies to the enlightened and Christian nations of Europe, but an
entirely different one to the pagan, woolly-headed, barbarians of
Africa. What would be just and right with regard to the African, would
be eminently unjust towards the European. Though it would be a great
wrong to reduce the European to a condition of servitude, it does not
follow that it would be equally wrong to enslave the African. If all the
human races were alike, one code of international laws would apply to
the whole, but so long as the African continues to be an inferior race,
they must be treated as such.
But again, Mr. Adams clearly lays down the principle that no nation or
race can be permitted, in any way, to isolate itself from the community
of nations, but is morally bound to contribute all in its power to the
well-being of the whole race, at the same time that it secures its own.
If it possesses territory which it occupies, but does not improve, it
must yield it to the claims of civiilization. If it has productions
valuable to the world, it is morally bound to exchange them. If it has
ports, harbors, coal mines, or other facilities for commerce and
manufactures, it must allow other nations to participate in its
advantages. If it has a superabundant supply of labor, it must be
rendered available. If, then, it is right that civilization and progress
should appropriate the hunting grounds of the Indian race; if it is
right that China and Japan should be required to open their ports to the
commerce of the world, it must be equally right that the great store
house of labor in Africa should be opened for the benefit of the human
race. In the Western World, a vast continent of fertile land and
propitious climate, was possessed, not improved, by a sparse hunter
race; but the law of God and of nations required that the earth should
be subdued and replenished, and now God has enlarged Japheth, and he
dwells in these tents of Shem. China, Japan, and other regions of Asia,
are inhabited by teeming millions, rich in the productions of art, yet
scarcely able to obtain a meagre sustenance, and rigidly excluding all
intercourse with the outer world, but at the demands of commerce the
barriers are broken down, and they, in common with other nations, are
benefited by the change. Africa has long possessed a superabundant
population of indolent, degraded, pagan savages, useless to the world
and to themselves. Numberless efforts have been made to elevate them in
the scale of existence, in their own country, but all in vain. Even when
partially civilized, under the control of the white man, they soon
relapse into barbarism, if emancipated from this control. But a colony
of them, some two hundred years since, were imported into the Western
World, and placed subordinate to the white race; and now, if we are to
believe the abolitionists, they have improved so rapidly as to have
become equal, if not superior, to the white race. Certainly they are far
superior to their ancestors, or their brethren in Africa. At the same
time, they have conferred an equal benefit on the world. They supply a
demand for labor which can not otherwise be met, and their products not
only clothe the civilized world, but also are the life-blood of its
commerce.
It is not necessary to the discussion of this topic, that we should show
_what_ are the laws of nations, applicable to the different races
enumerated by Mr. Adams; though it is manifest to the most casual
observer, that the laws applicable to them are radically different. What
would be thought of a minister at the court of St. James, who should
propose to carry out with Great Britain, the same course of policy we
pursue towards the Indian tribes; or of the English minister at our
capital, who would exact from us the concessions required of the rajahs
of India, or the chiefs of Australia? The radical difference is this:
among civilized and Christian nations, the law recognizes a perfect
equality, and requires an entire reciprocity; but between an elevated
and a degraded or inferior race, this inequality is recognized, and an
influence and a superiority is accorded to the one, which is denied to
the other. This is well illustrated by our present intercourse with
Mexico, and should we establish a protectorate over that unhappy
country, for their good and our own, it would be in strict accordance
with these principles. With some nations we have diplomatic intercourse,
on terms of perfect equality and reciprocity; others we treat as
inferiors, and assume over them some degree of control, while we
nevertheless recognize them as legitimate governments. But there are
other nations or races, with whom we form no diplomatic relations, and
whose governments we do not recognize. In this latter class are included
most of the inhabitants of Africa, and of Hayti; or in other words, the
_negro race_. The reason is, that those nations performing their duties
to the human race, according to the ordinance of God, are to be
recognized as not needing our assistance, or requiring our guardianship;
those fulfilling only in part, should be considered in a state of
tutelage, but those that fulfill none, or but few of these duties,
require to be made subservient to the superior races, in order that they
may fulfill the great ends of their existence. This subordination has
existed in all times, among all nations, and with all races. But as soon
as any race became so developed as no longer to require it, it ceased to
exist. In this way, and in this alone,--except by the deportation of the
slaves--has slavery ever ceased to exist, in any community; nor can it
be otherwise in the future. Emancipation in name, is not always freedom
in reality. The free blacks of our Northern States and the West Indies,
are, as a mass, more abject slaves than any on our Southern plantations.
Nor is it possible for them to acquire a more elevated position, until
they shall have acquired the requisite qualifications for that position.
At the present time, with the exception of serfdom, peonage, and
political slavery, this subordination is confined to the negro race. Why
is this so? Manifestly because they have shown themselves incapable, in
their own land, of emerging from barbarism, achieving civilization and
refinement, performing their duties to the human race, and becoming
entitled to a position as equals among the nations of the earth. Until
such improvement takes place as shall entitle them to this exalted
position, their own happiness and well-being, their duties to the human
race, the claims of civilization, the progress of society, the law of
nations, and the ordinance of God, require that they should be placed in
a subordinate position to a superior race. Experience also shows us
that this is their normal and natural position. In their native land
they still are what they have always been, a pagan, savage, servile
race, fulfilling their duties neither to themselves, to God, nor to the
human race; but under the tutelage of a superior race, they are elevated
in the scale of existence, improved mentally, morally, and physically,
and are thus enabled to do their part in contributing to the well-being
of the human race. But so far as our experience goes, this development
is not permanent, but is liable to retrogression as soon as the
influence of the superior race is removed. Like the electro-magnet,
whose power is lost the moment it is insulated from the vivifying power
of electricity, so the servile race loses its power when removed from
the control of a superior intellect. The example of our own free blacks,
those emancipated in the West Indies, Sierra Leone, and even Liberia,
are conclusive on this point.
It becomes us not to speculate too curiously concerning God's plan in
governing the world, much less to strive to thwart his purposes with our
puny arms; he will work out his purposes of good to the human race, in
his own good time and way, whether it meets our views or not. But from
the revelation of his purpose concerning the descendants of the three
progenitors of the human race after the flood, it is manifest that the
children of Ham were to be a servile race; as their final
disinthrallment is nowhere spoken of, it is exceedingly improbable that
slavery will cease to exist till the end of time. It is true that
Ethiopia shall stretch forth her hands to God; but this is being
fulfilled on a grander scale than ever before has been witnessed, even
in our midst, in this Western World, where God has enlarged Japheth,
where he dwells in the tents of Shem, and where Cainan is his servant.
PORT GIBSON, MISSISSIPPI, _February 22, 1860_.
DECISION
OF THE
SUPREME COURT
OF THE UNITED STATES
IN THE
DRED SCOTT CASE.
DRED SCOTT DECISION.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES,
DECEMBER TERM, 1856.
DRED SCOTT
_versus_
JOHN F. A. SANDFORD.
DRED SCOTT, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR, _v._ JOHN F. A. SANDFORD.
THIS case was brought up, by writ of error, from the Circuit Court of
the United States for the district of Missouri.
It was an action of trespass _vi et armis_ instituted in the Circuit
Court by Scott against Sandford.
Prior to the institution of the present suit, an action was brought by
Scott for his freedom in the Circuit Court of St. Louis county, (State
court,) where there was a verdict and judgment in his favor. On a writ
of error to the Supreme Court of the State, the judgment below was
reversed, and the case remanded to the Circuit Court, where it was
continued to await the decision of the case now in question.
The declaration of Scott contained three counts: one, that Sandford had
assaulted the plaintiff; one, that he had assaulted Harriet Scott, his
wife; and one, that he had assaulted Eliza Scott and Lizzie Scott, his
children.
Sandford appeared, and filed the following plea:
DRED SCOTT }
_v._ } _Plea to the Jurisdiction of the Court._
JOHN F. A. SANDFORD. }
APRIL TERM, 1854.
And the said John F. A. Sandford, in his own proper person, comes and
says that this court ought not to have or take further cognizance of the
action aforesaid, because he says that said cause of action, and each
and every of them, (if any such have accrued to the said Dred Scott,)
accrued to the said Dred Scott out of the jurisdiction of this court,
and exclusively within the jurisdiction of the courts of the State of
Missouri, for that, to wit: the said plaintiff, Dred Scott, is not a
citizen of the State of Missouri, as alleged in his declaration, because
he is a negro of African descent; his ancestors were of pure African
blood, and were brought into this country and sold as negro slaves, and
this the said Sandford is ready to verify. Wherefore, he prays judgment
whether this court can or will take further cognizance of the action
aforesaid.
JOHN F. A. SANDFORD.
* * * * *
To this plea there was a demurrer in the usual form, which was argued in
April, 1854, when the court gave judgment that the demurrer should be
sustained.
In May, 1854, the defendant, in pursuance of an agreement between
counsel, and with the leave of the court, pleaded in bar of the action:
1. Not guilty.
2. That the plaintiff was a negro slave, the lawful property of the
defendant, and, as such, the defendant gently laid his hands upon him,
and thereby had only restrained him, as the defendant had a right to do.
3. That with respect to the wife and daughters of the plaintiff, in the
second and third counts of the declaration mentioned, the defendant had,
as to them, only acted in the same manner, and in virtue of the same
legal right.
In the first of these pleas, the plaintiff joined issue; and to the
second and third, filed replications alleging that the defendant, of his
own wrong and without the cause in his second and third pleas alleged,
committed the trespasses, etc.
The counsel then filed the following agreed statement of facts, viz:
In the year 1834, the plaintiff was a negro slave belonging to Dr.
Emerson, who was a surgeon in the army of the United States. In that
year, 1834, said Dr. Emerson took the plaintiff from the State of
Missouri to the military post at Rock Island, in the State of Illinois,
and held him there as a slave until the month of April or May, 1836. At
the time last mentioned, said Dr. Emerson removed the plaintiff from
said military post at Rock Island to the military post at Fort Snelling,
situate on the west bank of the Mississippi river, in the Territory
known as Upper Louisiana, acquired by the United States of France, and
situate north of the latitude of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes
north, and north of the State of Missouri. Said Dr. Emerson held the
plaintiff in slavery at said Fort Snelling, from said last-mentioned
date until the year 1838.
In the year 1835, Harriet, who is named in the second count of the
plaintiff's declaration, was the negro slave of Major Taliaferro, who
belonged to the army of the United States. In that year, 1835, said
Major Taliaferro took said Harriet to said Fort Snelling, a military
post, situated as hereinbefore stated, and kept her there as a slave
until the year 1836, and then sold and delivered her as a slave at said
Fort Snelling unto the said Dr. Emerson hereinbefore named. Said Dr.
Emerson held said Harriet in slavery at said Fort Snelling until the
year 1838.
In the year 1836, the plaintiff and said Harriet at said Fort Snelling,
with the consent of said Dr. Emerson, who then claimed to be their
master and owner, intermarried, and took each other for husband and
wife. Eliza and Lizzie, named in the third count of the plaintiff's
declaration, are the fruit of that marriage. Eliza is about fourteen
years old, and was born on board the steamboat Gipsey, north of the
north line of the State of Missouri, and upon the river Mississippi.
Lizzie is about seven years old, and was born in the State of Missouri,
at the military post called Jefferson Barracks.
In the year 1838, said Dr. Emerson removed the plaintiff and said
Harriet and their said daughter Eliza, from said Fort Snelling to the
State of Missouri, where they have ever since resided.
Before the commencement of this suit, said Dr. Emerson sold and conveyed
the plaintiff, said Harriet, Eliza, and Lizzie, to the defendant, as
slaves, and the defendant has ever since claimed to hold them and each
of them as slaves.
At the times mentioned in the plaintiff's declaration, the defendant,
claiming to be owner as aforesaid, laid his hands upon said plaintiff,
Harriet, Eliza, and Lizzie, and imprisoned them, doing in this respect,
however, no more than what he might lawfully do if they were of right
his slaves at such times.
Further proof may be given on the trial for either party.
It is agreed that Dred Scott brought suit for his freedom in the Circuit
Court of St. Louis county; that there was a verdict and judgment in his
favor; that on a writ of error to the Supreme Court, the judgment below
was reversed, and the same remanded to the Circuit Court, where it has
been continued to await the decision of this case.
In May, 1854, the cause went before a jury, who found the following
verdict, viz: "As to the first issue joined in this case, we of the jury
find the defendant not guilty; and as to the issue secondly above
joined, we of the jury find that before and at the time when, etc., in
the first count mentioned, the said Dred Scott was a negro slave, the
lawful property of the defendant; and as to the issue thirdly above
joined, we, the jury, find that before and at the time when, etc., in
the second and third counts mentioned, the said Harriet, wife of said
Dred Scott, and Eliza and Lizzie, the daughters of the said Dred Scott,
were negro slaves, the lawful property of the defendant."
Whereupon, the court gave judgment for the defendant.
After an ineffectual motion for a new trial, the plaintiff filed the
following bill of exceptions.
On the trial of this cause by the jury, the plaintiff, to maintain the
issues on his part, read to the jury the following agreed statement of
facts, (see agreement above.) No further testimony was given to the jury
by either party. Thereupon the plaintiff moved the court to give to the
jury the following instruction, viz:
"That, upon the facts agreed to by the parties, they ought to find for
the plaintiff. The court refused to give such instruction to the jury,
and the plaintiff, to such refusal, then and there duly excepted."
The court then gave the following instruction to the jury, on motion of
the defendant:
"The jury are instructed, that upon the facts in this case, the law is
with the defendant." The plaintiff excepted to this instruction.
Upon these exceptions, the case came up to this court.
It was argued at December term, 1855, and ordered to be reargued at the
present term.
* * * * *
It was now argued by Mr. Blair and Mr. G. F. Curtis for the plaintiff in
error, and by Mr. Geyer and Mr. Johnson for the defendant in error.
* * * * *
Mr. Chief Justice Taney delivered the opinion of the court.
This case has been twice argued. After the argument of the last term,
differences of opinion were found to exist among the members of the
court; and as the questions in controversy are of the highest
importance, and the court was at that time much pressed by the ordinary
business of the term, it was deemed advisable to continue the case, and
direct a reargument on some of the points, in order that we might have
an opportunity of giving to the whole subject a more deliberate
consideration. It has accordingly been again argued by counsel, and
considered by the court; and I now proceed to deliver its opinion.
There are two leading questions presented by the record:
1. Had the Circuit Court of the United States jurisdiction to hear and
determine the case between these parties? And
2. If it had jurisdiction, is the judgment it has given erroneous or
not?
The plaintiff in error, who was also the plaintiff in the court below,
was, with his wife and children, held as slaves by the defendant, in the
State of Missouri; and he brought this action in the Circuit Court of
the United States for that district, to assert the title of himself and
his family to freedom.
The declaration is in the form usually adopted in that State to try
questions of this description, and contains the averment necessary to
give the court jurisdiction; that he and the defendant are citizens of
different States; that is, that he is a citizen of Missouri, and the
defendant a citizen of New York.
The defendant pleaded in abatement to the jurisdiction of the court,
that the plaintiff was not a citizen of the State of Missouri, as
alleged in his declaration, being a negro of African descent, whose
ancestors were of pure African blood, and who were brought into this
country and sold as slaves.
To this plea the plaintiff demurred, and the defendant joined in
demurrer. The court overruled the plea, and gave judgment that the
defendant should answer over. And he therefore put in sundry pleas in
bar, upon which issues were joined; and at the trial the verdict and
judgment were in his favor. Whereupon the plaintiff brought this writ of
error.
Before we speak of the pleas in bar, it will be proper to dispose of the
questions which have arisen on the plea in abatement.
That plea denies the right of the plaintiff to sue in a court of the
United States, for the reasons therein stated.
If the question raised by it is legally before us, and the court should
be of opinion that the facts stated in it disqualify the plaintiff from
becoming a citizen, in the sense in which that word is used in the
Constitution of the United States, then the judgment of the Circuit
Court is erroneous and must be reversed.
It is suggested, however, that this plea is not before us; and that as
the judgment in the court below on this plea was in favor of the
plaintiff, he does not seek to reverse it, or bring it before the court
for revision by his writ of error; and also that the defendant waived
this defense by pleading over, and thereby admitted the jurisdiction of
the court.
But in making this objection, we think the peculiar and limited
jurisdiction of courts of the United States has not been adverted to.
This peculiar and limited jurisdiction, has made it necessary, in these
courts, to adopt different rules and principles of pleading, so far as
jurisdiction is concerned, from those which regulate courts of common
law in England, and in the different States of the Union which have
adopted the common-law rules.
In these last-mentioned courts, where their character and rank are
analagous to that of a Circuit Court of the United States; in other
words, where they are what the law terms courts of general jurisdiction;
they are presumed to have jurisdiction, unless the contrary appears. No
averment in the pleadings of the plaintiff is necessary, in order to
give jurisdiction. If the defendant objects to it, he must plead it
specially, and unless the fact on which he relies is found to be true by
a jury, or admitted to be true by the plaintiff, the jurisdiction can
not be disputed in an appellate court.
Now, it is not necessary to inquire whether in courts of that
description a party who pleads over in bar, when a plea to the
jurisdiction has been ruled against him, does or does not waive his
plea; nor whether upon a judgment in his favor on the pleas in bar, and
a writ of error brought by the plaintiff, the question upon the plea in
abatement would be open for revision in the appellate court. Cases that
may have been decided in such courts, or rules that may have been laid
down by common-law pleaders, can have no influence in the decision in
this court. Because, under the Constitution and laws of the United
States, the rules which govern the pleadings in its courts, in questions
of jurisdiction, stand on different principles and are regulated by
different laws.
This difference arises, as we have said, from the peculiar character of
the Government of the United States. For although it is sovereign and
supreme in its appropriate sphere of action, yet it does not possess all
the powers which usually belong to the sovereignty of a nation. Certain
specified powers, enumerated in the Constitution, have been conferred
upon it; and neither the legislative, executive, nor judicial
departments of the Government can lawfully exercise any authority beyond
the limits marked out by the Constitution. And in regulating the
judicial department, the cases in which the courts of the United States
shall have jurisdiction are particularly and specifically enumerated and
defined; and they are not authorized to take cognizance of any case
which does not come within the description therein specified. Hence,
when a plaintiff sues in a court of the United States, it is necessary
that he should show, in his pleadings, that the suit he brings is within
the jurisdiction of the court, and that he is entitled to sue there. And
if he omits to do this, and should, by any oversight of the Circuit
Court, obtain a judgment in his favor, the judgment would be reversed in
the appellate court for want of jurisdiction in the court below. The
jurisdiction would not be presumed, as in the case of a common-law
English or State court, unless the contrary appeared. But the record,
when it comes before the appellate court, must show, affirmatively, that
the inferior court had authority, under the Constitution, to hear and
determine the case. And if the plaintiff claims a right to sue in a
Circuit Court of the United States, under that provision of the
Constitution which gives jurisdiction in controversies between citizens
of different States, he must distinctly aver in his pleadings that they
are citizens of different States; and he can not maintain his suit
without showing that fact in the pleadings.
This point was decided in the case of Bingham _v._ Cabot, (in 3 Dall.,
382,) and ever since adhered to by the court. And in Jackson _v._ Ashton
(8 Pet., 148,) it was held that the objection to which it was open could
not be waived by the opposite party, because consent of parties could
not give jurisdiction.
It is needless to accumulate cases on this subject. Those already
referred to, and the cases of Capron _v._ Van Noorden, (in 2 Cr. 126.,)
and Montalet _v._ Murray, (4 Cr., 46,) are sufficient to show the rule
of which we have spoken. The case of Capron _v._ Van Noorden strikingly
illustrates the difference between a common-law court and a court of the
United States.
If, however, the fact of citizenship is avered in the declaration, and
the defendant does not deny it, and put it in issue by plea in
abatement, he can not offer evidence at the trial to disprove it, and
consequently can not avail himself of the objection in the appellate
court, unless the defect should be apparent in some other part of the
record. For if there is no plea in abatement, and the want of
jurisdiction does not appear in any other part of the transcript brought
up by the writ of error, the undisputed averment of citizenship in the
declaration must be taken in this court to be true. In this case, the
citizenship is averred, but it is denied by the defendant in the manner
required by the rules of pleading, and the fact upon which the denial is
based is admitted by the demurrer. And, if the plea and demurrer, and
judgment of the court below upon it, are before us upon this record, the
question to be decided is, whether the facts stated in the plea are
sufficient to show that the plaintiff is not entitled to sue as a
citizen in a court of the United States.
We think they are before us. The plea in abatement and the judgment of
the court upon it, are a part of the judicial proceedings in the Circuit
Court, and are there recorded as such; and a writ of error always brings
up to the superior court the whole record of the proceedings in the
court below. And in the case of the United States _v._ Smith, (11
Wheat., 172,) this court said, that the case being brought up by writ of
error, the whole record was under the consideration of this court. And
this being the case in the present instance, the plea in abatement is
necessarily under consideration; and it becomes, therefore, our duty to
decide whether the facts stated in the plea are or are not sufficient to
show that the plaintiff is not entitled to sue as a citizen in a court
of the United States.
This is certainly a very serious question, and one that now for the
first time has been brought for decision before this court. But it is
brought here by those who have a right to bring it, and it is our duty
to meet it and decide it.
The question is simply this: Can a negro whose ancestors were imported
into this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political
community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the
United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights and
privileges and immunities guaranteed to the citizen? One of which rights
is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases
specified in the Constitution.
It will be observed, that the plea applies to that class of persons only
whose ancestors were negroes of the African race, and imported into this
country, and sold and held as slaves. The only matter in issue before
the court, therefore, is, whether the descendants of such slaves, when
they shall be emancipated, or who are born of parents who had become
free before their birth, are citizens of a State, in the sense in which
the word citizen is used in the Constitution of the United States. And
this being the only matter in dispute on the pleadings, the court must
be understood as speaking in this opinion of that class only, that is,
of those persons who are the descendants of Africans who were imported
into this country, and sold as slaves.
The situation of this population was altogether unlike that of the
Indian race. The latter, it is true, formed no part of the colonial
communities, and never amalgamated with them in social connections or in
government. But although they were uncivilized, they were yet a free and
independent people, associated together in nations or tribes, and
governed by their own laws. Many of these political communities were
situated in territories to which the white race claimed the ultimate
right of dominion. But that claim was acknowledged to be subject to the
right of the Indians to occupy it as long as they thought proper, and
neither the English nor colonial Governments claimed or exercised any
dominion over the tribe or nation by whom it was occupied, nor claimed
the right to the possession of the territory, until the tribe or nation
consented to cede it. These Indian Governments were regarded and
treated as foreign Governments, as much so as if an ocean had separated
the red man from the white; and their freedom has constantly been
acknowledged, from the time of the first emigration to the English
colonies to the present day, by the different Governments which
succeeded each other. Treaties have been negotiated with them, and their
alliance sought for in war; and the people who compose these Indian
political communities have always been treated as foreigners not living
under our Government. It is true that the course of events has brought
the Indian tribes within the limits of the United States under
subjection to the white race; and it has been found necessary, for their
sake as well as our own, to regard them as in a state of pupilage, and
to legislate to a certain extent over them and the territory they
occupy. But they may, without doubt, like the subjects of any other
foreign Government, be naturalized by the authority of Congress, and
become citizens of a State, and of the United States; and if an
individual should leave his nation or tribe, and take up his abode among
the white population, he would be entitled to all the rights and
privileges which would belong to an emigrant from any other foreign
people.
We proceed to examine the case as presented by the pleadings.
The words "people of the United States" and "citizens" are synonymous
terms, and mean the same thing. They both describe the political body
who, according to our republican institutions, form the sovereignty, and
who hold the power and conduct the Government through their
representatives. They are what we familiarly call the "sovereign
people," and every citizen is one of this people, and a constituent
member of this sovereignty. The question before us is, whether the class
of persons described in the plea in abatement compose a portion of this
people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they
are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be
included, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and can
therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument
provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the
contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and
inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race,
and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their
authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held
the power and the government might choose to grant them.
It is not the province of the court to decide upon the justice or
injustice, the policy or impolicy, of these laws. The decision of that
question belonged to the political or law-making power; to those who
formed the sovereignty and framed the Constitution. The duty of the
court is, to interpret the instrument they have framed, with the best
lights we can obtain on the subject, and to administer it as we find it,
according to its true intent and meaning when it was adopted.
In discussing this question, we must not confound the rights of
citizenship which a State may confer within its own limits, and the
rights of citizenship as a member of the Union. It does not by any means
follow, because he has all the rights and privileges of a citizen of a
State, that he must be a citizen of the United States. He may have all
the rights and privileges of the citizen of a State, and yet not be
entitled to the rights and privileges of a citizen in any other State.
For, previous to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States,
every State had the undoubted right to confer on whomsoever it pleased
the character of citizen, and to endow him with all its rights. But this
character of course was confined to the boundaries of the State, and
gave him no rights or privileges in other States beyond those secured to
him by the laws of nations and the comity of States. Nor have the
several States surrendered the power of conferring these rights and
privileges by adopting the Constitution of the United States. Each State
may still confer them upon an alien, or any one it thinks proper, or
upon any class or description of persons; yet he would not be a citizen
in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution of the
United States, nor entitled to sue as such in one of its courts, nor to
the privileges and immunities of a citizen in the other States. The
rights which he would acquire would be restricted to the State which
gave them. The Constitution has conferred on Congress the right to
establish an uniform rule of naturalization, and this right is evidently
exclusive, and has always been held by this court to be so.
Consequently, no State, since the adoption of the Constitution, can by
naturalizing an alien invest him with the rights and privileges secured
to a citizen of a State under the Federal Government, although, so far
as the State alone was concerned, he would undoubtedly be entitled to
the rights of a citizen, and clothed with all the rights and immunities
which the Constitution and laws of the State attached to that
character.
It is very clear, therefore, that no State can, by any act or law of its
own, passed since the adoption of the Constitution, introduce a new
member into the political community created by the Constitution of the
United States. It cannot make him a member of this community by making
him a member of its own. And for the same reason it cannot introduce any
person or description of persons, who were not intended to be embraced
in this new political family, which the Constitution brought into
existence, but were intended to be excluded from it.
The question then arises, whether the provisions of the Constitution, in
relation to the personal rights and privileges to which the citizen of a
State should be entitled, embraced the negro African race, at that time
in this country, or who might afterward be imported, who had then or
should afterward be made free in any State; and to put it in the power
of a single State to make him a citizen of the United States, and endue
him with the full rights of citizenship in every other State without
their consent? Does the Constitution of the United States act upon him
whenever he shall be made free under the laws of a State, and raised
there to the rank of a citizen, and immediately clothe him with all the
privileges of a citizen in every other State, and in its own courts?
The court think the affirmative of these propositions cannot be
maintained. And if it cannot, the plaintiff in error could not be a
citizen of the State of Missouri, within the meaning of the Constitution
of the United States, and, consequently, was not entitled to sue in its
courts.
It is true, every person, and every class and description of persons,
who were at the time of the adoption of the Constitution recognized as
citizens in the several States, became also citizens of this new
political body; but none other; it was formed by them, and for them and
their posterity, but for no one else. And the personal rights and
privileges guaranteed to citizens of this new sovereignty were intended
to embrace those only who were then members of the several State
communities, or who should afterward by birthright or otherwise become
members, according to the provisions of the Constitution and the
principles on which it was founded. It was the union of those who were
at that time members of distinct and separate political communities into
one political family, whose power, for certain specified purposes, was
to extend over the whole territory of the United States. And it gave to
each citizen rights and privileges outside of his State which he did not
before possess, and placed him in every other State upon a perfect
equality with its own citizens as to rights of person and rights of
property; it made him a citizen of the United States.
It becomes necessary, therefore, to determine who were citizens of the
several States when the Constitution was adopted. And in order to do
this, we must recur to the governments and institutions of the thirteen
colonies, when they separated from Great Britain and formed new
sovereignities, and took their places in the family of independent
nations. We must inquire who, at that time, were recognized as the
people or citizens of a State, whose rights and liberties had been
outraged by the English Government; and who declared their independence,
and assumed the powers of Government to defend their rights by force of
arms.
In the opinion of the court, the legislation and histories of the times,
and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show, that
neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their
descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged
as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general
words used in that memorable instrument.
It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in
relation to that unfortunate race, which prevailed in the civilized and
enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of
Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed
and adopted. But the public history of every European nation displays it
in a manner too plain to be mistaken.
They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an
inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race,
either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they
had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the
negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.
He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of
merchandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made by it. This
opinion was at that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of
the white race. It was regarded as an axiom in morals as well as in
politics, which no one thought of disputing, or supposed to be open to
dispute; and men in every grade and position in society daily and
habitually acted upon it in their private pursuits, as well as in
matters of public concern, without doubting for a moment the correctness
of this opinion.
And in no nation was this opinion more firmly fixed or more uniformly
acted upon than by the English Government and English people. They not
only seized them on the coast of Africa, and sold them or held them in
slavery for their own use; but they took them as ordinary articles of
merchandise to every country where they could make a profit on them, and
were far more extensively engaged in this commerce, than any other
nation in the world.
The opinion thus entertained and acted upon in England was naturally
impressed upon the colonies they founded on this side of the Atlantic.
And, accordingly, a negro of the African race was regarded by them as an
article of property, and held, and bought and sold as such, in every one
of the thirteen colonies which united in the Declaration of
Independence, and afterward formed the Constitution of the United
States. The slaves were more or less numerous in the different colonies,
as slave labor was found more or less profitable. But no one seems to
have doubted the correctness of the prevailing opinion of the time.
The legislation of the different colonies furnishes positive and
indisputable proof of this fact.
It would be tedious, in this opinion, to enumerate the various laws they
passed upon this subject. It will be sufficient, as a sample of the
legislation which then generally prevailed throughout the British
colonies, to give the laws of two of them; one being still a large
slaveholding State, and the other the first State in which slavery
ceased to exist.
The province of Maryland, in 1717, (chap, xiii, s. 5,) passed a law
declaring "that if any free negro or mulatto intermarry with any white
woman, or if any white man shall intermarry with any negro or mulatto
woman, such negro or mulatto shall become a slave during life, excepting
mulattoes born of white women, who, for such intermarriage, shall only
become servants for seven years, to be disposed of as the justices of
the county court, where such marriage so happens, shall think fit; to be
applied by them toward the support of a public school within the said
county. And any white man or white woman who shall intermarry as
aforesaid, with any negro or mulatto, such white man or white woman
shall become servants during the term of seven years, and shall be
disposed of by the justices as aforesaid, and be applied to the uses
aforesaid."
The other colonial law to which we refer was passed by Massachusetts in
1705, (chap, vi.) It is entitled "An act for the better preventing of a
spurious and mixed issue," etc.; and it provides, that "if any negro or
mulatto shall presume to smite or strike any person of the English or
other Christian nation, such negro or mulatto shall be severely whipped,
at the discretion of the justices before whom the offender shall be
convicted."
And "that none of her Majesty's English or Scottish subjects, nor of any
other Christian nation, within this province, shall contract matrimony
with any negro or mulatto; nor shall any person, duly authorized to
solemnize marriage, presume to join any such in marriage, on pain of
forfeiting the sum of fifty pounds; one moiety thereof to her Majesty,
for and toward the support of the Government within this province, and
the other moiety to him or them that shall inform and sue for the same
in any of her Majesty's courts of record within the province, by bill,
plaint, or information."
We give both of these laws in the words used by the respective
legislative bodies, because the language in which they are framed, as
well as the provisions contained in them, show, too plainly to be
misunderstood, the degraded condition of this unhappy race. They were
still in force when the Revolution began, and are a faithful index to
the state of feeling toward the class of persons of whom they speak, and
of the position they occupied throughout the thirteen colonies, in the
eyes and thoughts of the men who framed the Declaration of Independence
and established the State Constitutions and Governments. They show that
a perpetual and impassable barrier was intended to be erected between
the white race and the one which they had reduced to slavery, and
governed as subjects with absolute and despotic power, and which they
then looked upon as so far below them in the scale of created beings,
that intermarriages between white persons and negroes or mulattoes were
regarded as unnatural and immoral, and punished as crimes, not only in
the parties, but in the person who joined them in marriage. And no
distinction in this respect was made between the free negro or mulatto
and the slave, but this stigma, of the deepest degradation, was fixed
upon the whole race.
We refer to these historical facts for the purpose of showing the fixed
opinions concerning that race, upon which the statesmen of that day
spoke and acted. It is necessary to do this, in order to determine
whether the general terms used in the Constitution of the United States,
as to the rights of man and the rights of the people, was intended to
include them, or to give to them or their posterity the benefit of any
of its provisions.
The language of the Declaration of Independence is equally conclusive:
It begins by declaring "that when in the course of human events it
becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which
have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the
earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and
nature's God entitle them, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind
requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the
separation."
It then proceeds to say: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that
all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable rights; that among them is life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, Governments are
instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the
governed."
The general words above quoted would seem to embrace the whole human
family, and if they were used in a similar instrument at this day would
be so understood. But it is too clear for dispute, that the enslaved
African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the
people who framed and adopted this declaration; for if the language, as
understood in that day, would embrace them, the conduct of the
distinguished men who framed the Declaration of Independence would have
been utterly and flagrantly inconsistent with the principles they
asserted; and instead of the sympathy of mankind, to which they so
confidently appealed, they would have deserved and received universal
rebuke and reprobation.
Yet the men who framed this declaration were great men--high in literary
acquirements--high in their sense of honor, and incapable of asserting
principles inconsistent with those on which they were acting. They
perfectly understood the meaning of the language they used, and how it
would be understood by others; and they knew that it would not in any
part of the civilized world be supposed to embrace the negro race, which
by common consent, had been excluded from civilized Governments and the
family of nations, and doomed to slavery. They spoke and acted according
to the then established doctrines and principles, and in the ordinary
language of the day, and no one misunderstood them. The unhappy black
race were separated from the white by indelible marks, and laws long
before established, and were never thought of or spoken of except as
property, and when the claims of the owner or the profit of the trader
were supposed to need protection.
This state of public opinion had undergone no change when the
Constitution was adopted, as is equally evident from its provisions and
language.
The brief preamble sets forth by whom it was formed, for what purposes,
and for whose benefit and protection. It declares that it is formed by
the _people_ of the United States; that is to say, by those who were
members of the different political communities in the several States;
and its great object is declared to be to secure the blessings of
liberty to themselves and their posterity. It speaks in general terms of
the _people_ of the United States, and of _citizens_ of the several
States, when it is providing for the exercise of the powers granted or
the privileges secured to the citizen. It does not define what
description of persons are intended to be included under these terms, or
who shall be regarded as a citizen and one of the people. It uses them
as terms so well understood, that no further description or definition
was necessary.
But there are two clauses in the Constitution which point directly and
specifically to the negro race as a separate class of persons, and show
clearly that they were not regarded as a portion of the people or
citizens of the Government then formed.
One of these clauses reserves to each of the thirteen States the right
to import slaves until the year 1808, if it thinks proper. And the
importation which it thus sanctions was unquestionably of persons of the
race of which we are speaking, as the traffic in slaves in the United
States had always been confined to them. And by the other provision the
States pledge themselves to each other to maintain the right of property
of the master, by delivering up to him any slave who may have escaped
from his service, and be found within their respective territories. By
the first above-mentioned clause, therefore, the right to purchase and
hold this property is directly sanctioned and authorized for twenty
years by the people who framed the Constitution. And by the second, they
pledge themselves to maintain and uphold the right of the master in the
manner specified, as long as the Government they then formed should
endure. And these two provisions show, conclusively, that neither the
description of persons therein referred to, nor their descendants, were
embraced in any of the other provisions of the Constitution; for
certainly these two clauses were not intended to confer on them or their
posterity the blessings of liberty, or any of the personal rights so
carefully provided for the citizen.
No one of that race had ever migrated to the United States voluntarily;
all of them had been brought here as articles of merchandise. The number
that had been emancipated at that time were but few in comparison with
those held in slavery; and they were identified in the public mind with
the race to which they belonged, and regarded as a part of the slave
population rather than the free. It is obvious that they were not even
in the minds of the framers of the Constitution when they were
conferring special rights and privileges upon the citizens of a State in
every other part of the Union.
Indeed, when we look to the condition of this race in the several States
at the time, it is impossible to believe that these rights and
privileges were intended to be extended to them.
It is very true, that in that portion of the Union where the labor of
the negro race was found to be unsuited to the climate and unprofitable
to the master, but few slaves were held at the time of the Declaration
of Independence; and when the Constitution was adopted, it had entirely
worn out in one of them, and measures had been taken for its gradual
abolition in several others. But this change had not been produced by
any change of opinion in relation to this race; but because it was
discovered, from experience, that slave labor was unsuited to the
climate and productions of these States: for some of the States, where
it had ceased or nearly ceased to exist, were actively engaged in the
slave trade, procuring cargoes on the coast of Africa, and transporting
them for sale to those parts of the Union where their labor was found to
be profitable, and suited to the climate and productions. And this
traffic was openly carried on, and fortunes accumulated by it, without
reproach from the people of the States where they resided. And it can
hardly be supposed that, in the States where it was then countenanced in
its worst form--that is, in the seizure and transportation--the people
could have regarded those who were emancipated as entitled to equal
rights with themselves.
And we may here again refer, in support of this proposition, to the
plain and unequivocal language of the laws of the several States, some
passed after the Declaration of Independence and before the Constitution
was adopted, and some since the Government went into operation.
We need not refer, on this point, particularly to the laws of the
present slaveholding States. Their statute books are full of provisions
in relation to this class, in the same spirit with the Maryland law
which we have before quoted. They have continued to treat them as an
inferior class, and to subject them to strict police regulations,
drawing a broad line of distinction between the citizen and the slave
races, and legislating in relation to them upon the same principle which
prevailed at the time of the Declaration of Independence. As relates to
these States, it is too plain for argument, that they have never been
regarded as a part of the people or citizens of the State, nor supposed
to possess any political rights which the dominant race might not
withhold or grant at their pleasure. And as long ago as 1822, the Court
of Appeals of Kentucky decided that free negroes and mulattoes were not
citizens within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States;
and the correctness of this decision is recognized, and the same
doctrine affirmed, in 1 Meig's Tenn. Reports, 331.
And if we turn to the legislation of the States where slavery had worn
out, or measures taken for its speedy abolition, we shall find the same
opinions and principles equally fixed and equally acted upon.
Thus, Massachusetts, in 1786, passed a law similar to the colonial one
of which we have spoken. The law of 1786, like the law of 1705, forbids
the marriage of any white person with any negro, Indian, or mulatto, and
inflicts a penalty of fifty pounds upon any one who shall join them in
marriage; and declares all such marriages absolutely null and void, and
degrades thus the unhappy issue of the marriage by fixing upon it the
stain of bastardy. And this mark of degradation was renewed and again
impressed upon the race, in the careful and deliberate preparation of
their revised code, published in 1836. This code forbids any person from
joining in marriage any white person with any Indian, negro, or mulatto,
and subjects the party who shall offend in this respect, to
imprisonment, not exceeding six months in the common jail, or to hard
labor, and to a fine of not less than fifty nor more than two hundred
dollars; and like the law of 1786, it declares the marriage to be
absolutely null and void. It will be seen that the punishment is
increased by the code upon the person who shall marry them, by adding
imprisonment to a pecuniary penalty.
So, too, in Connecticut. We refer more particularly to the legislation
of this State, because it was not only among the first to put an end to
slavery within its own territory, but was the first to fix a mark of
reprobation upon the African slave trade. The law last mentioned was
passed in October, 1788, about nine months after the State had ratified
and adopted the present Constitution of the Unitied States; and by that
law it prohibited its own citizens, under severe penalties, from
engaging in the trade, and declared all policies of insurance on the
vessel or cargo made in the State to be null and void. But up to the
time of the adoption of the Constitution, there is nothing in the
legislation of the State indicating any change of opinion as to the
relative rights and position of the white and black races in this
country, or indicating that it meant to place the latter, when free,
upon a level with its citizens. And certainly nothing which would have
led the slaveholding States to suppose that Connecticut designed to
claim for them, under the new Constitution, the equal rights and
privileges and rank of citizens in every other State.
The first step taken by Connecticut upon this subject was as early as
1774, when it passed an act forbidding the further importation of slaves
into the State. But the section containing the prohibition is introduced
by the following preamble:
"And whereas the increase of slaves in this State is injurious to the
poor, and inconvenient."
This recital would appear to have been carefully introduced, in order to
prevent any misunderstanding of the motive which induced the Legislature
to pass the law, and places it distinctly upon the interest and
convenience of the white population--excluding the inference that it
might have been intended in any degree for the benefit of the other.
And in the act of 1784, by which the issue of slaves, born after the
time therein mentioned, were to be free at a certain age, the section is
again introduced by a preamble assigning a similar motive for the act.
It is in these words:
"Whereas sound policy requires that the abolition of slavery should be
effected as soon as may be consistent with the rights of individuals,
and the public safety and welfare"--showing that the right of property
in the master was to be protected, and that the measure was one of
policy, and to prevent the injury and inconvenience, to the whites, of a
slave population in the State.
And still further pursuing its legislation, we find that in the same
statute passed in 1774, which prohibited the further importation of
slaves into the State, there is also a provision by which any negro,
Indian, or mulatto servant, who was found wandering out of the town or
place to which he belonged, without a written pass such as is therein
described, was made liable to be seized by any one, and taken before the
next authority to be examined and delivered up to his master--who was
required to pay the charge which had accrued thereby. And a subsequent
section of the same law provides, that if any free negro shall travel
without such pass, and shall be stopped, seized, or taken up, he shall
pay all charges arising thereby. And this law was in full operation when
the Constitution of the United States was adopted, and was not repealed
till 1797. So that up to that time free negroes and mulattoes were
associated with servants and slaves in the police regulations
established by the laws of the State.
And again, in 1833, Connecticut passed another law, which made it penal
to set up or establish any school in that State for the instruction of
persons of the African race not inhabitants of the State, or to instruct
or teach in any such school or institution, or board or harbor for that
purpose, any such person, without the previous consent in writing of the
civil authority of the town in which such school or institution might
be.
And it appears by the case of Crandall _v._ the State, reported in 10
Conn. Rep., 340, that upon an information filed against Prudence
Crandall for a violation of this law, one of the points raised in the
defense was, that the law was a violation of the Constitution of the
United States; and that the persons instructed, although of the African
race, were citizens of other States, and therefore entitled to the
rights and privileges of citizens in the State of Connecticut. But Chief
Justice Dagget, before whom the case was tried, held, that persons of
that description were not citizens of a State, within the meaning of the
word citizen in the Constitution of the United States, and were not
therefore entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens in other
States.
The case was carried up to the Supreme Court of Errors of the State, and
the question fully argued there. But the case went off upon another
point, and no opinion was expressed on this question.
We have made this particular examination into the legislative and
judicial action of Connecticut, because, from the early hostility it
displayed to the slave trade on the coast of Africa, we may expect to
find the laws of that State as lenient and favorable to the subject race
as those of any other State in the Union; and if we find that at the
time the Constitution was adopted, they were not even there raised to
the rank of citizens, but were still held and treated as property, and
the laws relating to them passed with reference altogether to the
interest and convenience of the white race, we shall hardly find them
elevated to a higher rank any where else.
A brief notice of the laws of two other States, and we shall pass on to
other considerations.
By the laws of New Hampshire, collected and finally passed in 1815, no
one was permitted to be enrolled in the militia of the State but free
white citizens; and the same provision is found in a subsequent
collection of the laws, made in 1855. Nothing could more strongly mark
the entire repudiation of the African race. The alien is excluded,
because, being born in a foreign country, he can not be a member of the
community until he is naturalized. But why are the African race, born in
the State, not permitted to share in one of the highest duties of a
citizen? The answer is obvious; he is not, by the institutions and laws
of the State, numbered among its people. He forms no part of the
sovereignty of the State, and is not therefore called on to uphold and
defend it.
Again, in 1822, Rhode Island, in its revised code, passed a law
forbidding persons who were authorized to join persons in marriage, from
joining in marriage any white person with any negro, Indian, or
mulatto, under the penalty of two hundred dollars, and declaring all
such marriages absolutely null and void; and the same law was again
re-enacted in its revised code of 1844. So that, down to the
last-mentioned period, the strongest mark of inferiority and degradation
was fastened upon the African race in that State.
It would be impossible to enumerate and compress in the space usually
allotted to an opinion of a court, the various laws, marking the
condition of this race, which were passed from time to time after the
Revolution, and before and since the adoption of the Constitution of the
United States. In addition to those already referred to, it is
sufficient to say, that Chancellor Kent, whose accuracy and research no
one will question, states in the sixth edition of his Commentaries
(published in 1846, 2 vols., 258, note _b_,) that in no part of the
country except Maine, did the African race, in point of fact,
participate equally with the whites in the exercise of civil and
political rights.
The legislation of the States therefore shows, in a manner not to be
mistaken, the inferior and subject condition of that race at the time
the Constitution was adopted, and long afterward, throughout the
thirteen States by which that instrument was framed; and it is hardly
consistent with the respect due to these States, to suppose that they
regarded at that time, as fellow citizens and members of the
sovereignty, a class of beings whom they had thus stigmatized; whom, as
we are bound, out of respect to the State sovereignties, to assume they
had deemed it just and necessary thus to stigmatize, and upon whom they
had impressed such deep and enduring marks of inferiority and
degradation; or that when they met in convention to form the
Constitution, they looked upon them as a portion of their constituents,
or designed to include them in the provisions so carefully inserted for
the security and protection of the liberties and rights of their
citizens. It cannot be supposed that they intended to secure to them
rights, and privileges, and rank, in the new political body throughout
the Union, which every one of them denied within the limits of its own
dominion. More especially, it can not be believed that the large
slaveholding States regarded them as included in the word citizens, or
would have consented to a Constitution which might compel them to
receive them in that character from another State. For if they were so
received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities to citizens, it
would exempt them from the operation of the special laws and from the
police regulations which they considered to be necessary for their own
safety. It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognized
as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every
other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass
or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they
pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night
without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for
which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full
liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which
its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political
affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this
would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both
free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination
among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State.
It is impossible, it would seem, to believe that the great men of the
slaveholding States, who took so large a share in framing the
Constitution of the United States, and exercised so much influence in
procuring its adoption, could have been so forgetful or regardless of
their own safety and the safety of those who trusted and confided in
them.
Besides, this want of foresight and care would have been utterly
inconsistent with the caution displayed in providing for the admission
of new members into this political family. For, when they gave to the
citizens of each State the privileges and immunities of citizens in the
several States, they at the same time took from the several States the
power of naturalization, and confined that power exclusively to the
Federal Government. No State was willing to permit another State to
determine who should or should not be admitted as one of its citizens,
and entitled to demand equal rights and privileges with their own
people, within their own territories. The right of naturalization was
therefore, with one accord, surrendered by the States, and confided to
the Federal Government. And this power granted to Congress to establish
an uniform rule of _naturalization_ is, by the well understood meaning
of the word, confined to persons born in a foreign country, under a
foreign Government. It is not a power to raise to the rank of a citizen
any one born in the United States, who, from birth or parentage, by the
laws of the country, belongs to an inferior and subordinate class. And
when we find the States guarding themselves from the indiscreet or
improper admission by other States of emigrants from other countries, by
giving the power exclusively to Congress, we can not fail to see that
they could never have left with the States a much more important
power--that is, the power of transforming into citizens a numerous class
of persons, who in that character would be much more dangerous to the
peace and safety of a large portion of the Union, than the few
foreigners one of the States might improperly naturalize
The Constitution upon its adoption obviously took from the States all
power by any subsequent legislation to introduce as a citizen into the
political family of the United States any one, no matter where he was
born, or what might be his character or condition; and it gave to
Congress the power to confer this character upon those only who were
born outside of the dominions of the United States. And no law of a
State, therefore, passed since the Constitution was adopted, can give
any right of citizenship outside of its own territory.
A clause similar to the one in the Constitution, in relation to the
rights and immunities of citizens of one State in the other States, was
contained in the articles of Confederation. But there is a difference of
language, which is worthy of note. The provision in the Articles of
Confederation was "that the _free inhabitants_ of each of the States,
paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice, excepted, should be
entitled to all the privileges and immunities of free citizens in the
several States."
It will be observed, that under this Confederation, each State had the
right to decide for itself, and in its own tribunals, whom it would
acknowledge as a free inhabitant of another State. The term _free
inhabitant_, in the generality of its terms, would certainly include one
of the African race who had been manumitted. But no example, we think,
can be found of his admission to all the privileges of citizenship in
any State of the Union after these articles were formed, and while they
continued in force. And, notwithstanding the generality of the words
"free inhabitants," it is very clear that, according to their accepted
meaning in that day, they did not include the African race, whether free
or not: for the fifth section of the ninth article provides that
Congress should have the power "to agree upon the number of land forces
to be raised, and to make requisitions from each State for its quota in
proportion to the number of _white_ inhabitants in such State, which
requisition should be binding."
Words could hardly have been used which more strongly mark the line of
distinction between the citizen and the subject; the free and the
subjugated races. The latter were not even counted when the inhabitants
of a State were to be embodied in proportion to its numbers for the
general defense. And it can not for a moment be supposed, that a class
of persons thus separated and rejected from those who formed the
sovereignty of the States, were yet intended to be included under the
words "free inhabitants," in the preceding article, to whom privileges
and immunities were so carefully secured in every State.
But although this clause of the articles of Confederation is the same in
principle with that inserted in the Constitution, yet the comprehensive
word _inhabitant_, which might be construed to include an emancipated
slave, is omitted; and the privilege is confined to _citizens_ of the
State. And this alteration in words would hardly have been made, unless
a different meaning was intended to be conveyed, or a possible doubt
removed. The just and fair inference is, that as this privilege was
about to be placed under the protection of the General Government, and
the words expounded by its tribunals, and all power in relation to it
taken from the State and its courts, it was deemed prudent to describe
with precision and caution the persons to whom this high privilege was
given--and the word _citizen_ was on that account substituted for the
words _free inhabitant_. The word citizen excluded, and no doubt
intended to exclude, foreigners who had not become citizens of some one
of the States when the Constitution was adopted; and also every
description of persons who were not fully recognized as citizens in the
several States. This, upon any fair construction of the instruments to
which we have referred, was evidently the object and purpose of this
change of words.
To all this mass of proof we have still to add, that Congress has
repeatedly legislated upon the same construction of the Constitution
that we have given. Three laws, two of which were passed almost
immediately after the Government went into operation, will be abundantly
sufficient to show this. The two first are particularly worthy of
notice, because many of the men who assisted in framing the
Constitution, and took an active part in procuring its adoption, were
then in the halls of legislation, and certainly understood what they
meant when they used the words "people of the United States" and
"citizen" in that well-considered instrument.
The first of these acts is the naturalization law, which was passed at
the second session of the first Congress, March 26, 1790, and confines
the right of becoming citizens "_to aliens being free white persons_."
Now, the Constitution does not limit the power of Congress in this
respect to white persons. And they may, if they think proper, authorize
the naturalization of any one of any color, who was born under
allegiance to another Government. But the language of the law above
quoted, shows that citizenship at that time was perfectly understood to
be confined to the white race; and that they alone constituted the
sovereignty in the Government.
Congress might, as we before said, have authorized the naturalization of
Indians, because they were aliens and foreigners. But, in their then
untutored and savage state, no one would have thought of admitting them
as citizens in a civilized community. And, moreover, the atrocities they
had but recently committed, when they were the allies of Great Britain
in the Revolutionary war, were yet fresh in the recollection of the
people of the United States, and they were even then guarding themselves
against the threatened renewal of Indian hostilities. No one supposed
then that any Indian would ask for, or was capable of enjoying the
privileges of an American citizen, and the word white was not used with
any particular reference to them.
Neither was it used with any reference to the African race imported into
or born in this country; because Congress had no power to naturalize
them, and therefore there was no necessity for using particular words to
exclude them.
It would seem to have been used merely because it followed out the line
of division which the Constitution has drawn between the citizen race,
who formed and held the Government, and the African race, which they
held in subjection and slavery, and governed at their own pleasure.
Another of the early laws of which we have spoken, is the first militia
law, which was passed in 1792, at the first session of the second
Congress. The language of this law is equally plain and significant
with the one just mentioned. It directs that every "free able-bodied
white male citizen" shall be enrolled in the militia. The word _white_
is evidently used to exclude the African race, and the word "citizen" to
exclude unnaturalized foreigners; the latter forming no part of the
sovereignty, owing it no allegiance, and therefore under no obligation
to defend it. The African race, however, born in the country, did owe
allegiance to the Government, whether they were slaves or free; but it
is repudiated, and rejected from the duties and obligations of
citizenship in marked language.
The third act to which we have alluded is even still more decisive; it
was passed as late as 1813, (2 Stat., 809,) and it provides: "that from
and after the termination of the war in which the United States are now
engaged with Great Britain, it shall not be lawful to employ, on board
of any public or private vessels of the United States, any person or
persons except citizens of the United States, _or_ persons of color,
natives of the United States."
Here the line of distinction is drawn in express words. Persons of
color, in the judgment of Congress, were not included in the word
citizens, and they are described as another and different class of
persons, and authorized to be employed, if born in the United States.
And even as late as 1820, (chap. civ, sec. 8,) in the charter to the
city of Washington, the corporation is authorized "to restrain and
prohibit the nightly and other disorderly meetings of slaves, free
negroes, and mulattoes," thus associating them together in its
legislation; and after prescribing the punishment that may be inflicted
on the slaves, proceeds in the following words: "And to punish such free
negroes and mulattoes by penalties not exceeding twenty dollars for any
one offense; and in case of the inability of any such free negro or
mulatto to pay any such penalty and cost thereon, to cause him or her to
be confined to labor for any time not exceeding six calendar months."
And in a subsequent part of the same section, the act authorizes the
corporation "to prescribe the terms and conditions upon which free
negroes and mulattoes may reside in the city."
This law, like the laws of the States, shows that this class of persons
were governed by special legislation directed expressly to them, and
always connected with provisions for the government of slaves, and not
with those for the government of free white citizens. And after such an
uniform course of legislation as we have stated; by the colonies, by the
States, and by Congress, running through a period of more than a
century, it would seem that to call persons thus marked and stigmatized,
"citizens" of the United States, "fellow-citizens," a constituent part
of the sovereignty, would be an abuse of terms, and not calculated to
exalt the character of an American citizen in the eyes of other nations.
The conduct of the Executive Department of the Government has been in
perfect harmony upon this subject with this course of legislation. The
question was brought officially before the late William Wirt, when he
was Attorney General of the United States, in 1821, and he decided that
the words "citizens of the United States" were used in the acts of
Congress in the same sense as in the Constitution; and that free persons
of color were not citizens, within the meaning of the Constitution and
laws; and this opinion has been confirmed by that of the late Attorney
General, Caleb Cushing, in a recent case, and acted upon by the
Secretary of State, who refused to grant passports to them as "citizens
of the United States."
But it is said that a person may be a citizen, and entitled to that
character, although he does not possess all the rights which may belong
to other citizens; as, for example, the right to vote, or to hold
particular offices; and that yet, when he goes into another State, he is
entitled to be recognized there as a citizen, although the State may
measure his rights by the rights which it allows to persons of a like
character or class resident in the State, and refuse to him the full
rights of citizenship.
This argument overlooks the language of the provision in the
Constitution of which we are speaking.
Undoubtedly, a person may be a citizen, that is, a member of the
community who form the sovereignty, although he exercises no share of
the political power, and is incapacitated from holding particular
office. Women and minors, who form a part of the political family, can
not vote; and when a property qualification is required to vote or hold
a particular office, those who have not the necessary qualification can
not vote or hold the office, yet they are citizens.
So, too, a person may be entitled to vote by the law of the State, who
is not a citizen even of the State itself. And in some of the States of
the Union foreigners not naturalized are allowed to vote. And the State
may give the right to free negroes and mulattoes, but that does not make
them citizens of the State, and still less of the United States. And the
provision in the Constitution giving privileges and immunities in other
States, does not apply to them.
Neither does it apply to a person who, being the citizen of a State,
migrates to another State. For then he becomes subject to the laws of
the State in which he lives, and he is no longer a citizen of the State
from which he removed. And the State in which he resides may then,
unquestionably, determine his _status_ or condition, and place him among
the class of persons who are not recognized as citizens, but belong to
an inferior and subject race; and may deny him the privileges and
immunities enjoyed by its citizens.
But so far as mere rights of persons are concerned, the provision in
question is confined to citizens of a State who are temporarily in
another State without taking up their residence there. It gives them no
political rights in the State, as to voting or holding office, or in any
other respect. For a citizen of one State has no right to participate in
the government of another. But if he ranks as a citizen in the State to
which he belongs, within the meaning of the Constitution of the United
States, then, whenever he goes into another State, the Constitution
clothes him, as to the rights of person, with all the privileges and
immunities which belong to citizens of the State. And if persons of the
African race are citizens of a State, and of the United States, they
would be entitled to all these privileges and immunities in every State,
and the State could not restrict them; for they would hold these
privileges and immunities under the paramount authority of the Federal
Government, and its courts would be bound to maintain and enforce them,
the Constitution and laws of the State to the contrary notwithstanding.
And if the States could limit or restrict them, or place the party in an
inferior grade, this clause of the Constitution would be unmeaning, and
could have no operation; and would give no rights to the citizen when in
another State. He would have none but what the State itself chose to
allow him. This is evidently not the construction or meaning of the
clause in question. It guaranties rights, to the citizen, and the State
can not withhold them. And these rights are of a character and would
lead to consequences which make it absolutely certain that the African
race were not included under the name of citizens of a State, and were
not in the contemplation of the framers of the Constitution when these
privileges and immunities were provided for the protection of the
citizen in other States.
The case of Legrand _v._ Darnall (2 Peters, 664) has been referred to
for the purpose of showing that this court has decided that the
descendant of a slave may sue as a citizen in a court of the United
States; but the case itself shows that the question did not arise and
could not have arisen in the case.
It appears from the report, that Darnell was born in Maryland, and was
the son of a white man by one of his slaves, and his father executed
certain instruments to manumit him, and devised to him some landed
property in the State. This property Darnall afterward sold to Legrand,
the appellant, who gave his notes for the purchase-money. But becoming
afterward apprehensive that the appellee had not been emancipated
according to the laws of Maryland, he refused to pay the notes until he
could be better satisfied as to Darnell's right to convey. Darnall, in
the mean time, had taken up his residence in Pennsylvania, and brought
suit on the notes, and recovered judgment in the Circuit Court for the
district of Maryland.
The whole proceeding, as appears by the report, was an amicable one;
Legrand being perfectly willing to pay the money, if he could obtain a
title, and Darnall not wishing him to pay unless he could make him a
good one. In point of fact, the whole proceeding was under the direction
of the counsel who argued the case for the appellee, who was the mutual
friend of the parties, and confided in by both of them, and whose only
object was to have the rights of both parties established by judicial
decision in the most speedy and least expensive manner.
Legrand, therefore, raised no objection to the jurisdiction of the court
in the suit at law, because he was himself anxious to obtain the
judgment of the court upon his title. Consequently, there was nothing in
the record before the court to show that Darnall was of African descent,
and the usual judgment and award of execution was entered. And Legrand
thereupon filed his bill on the equity side of the Circuit Court,
stating that Darnall was born a slave, and had not been legally
emancipated, and could not therefore take the land devised to him, nor
make Legrand a good title; and praying an injunction to restrain Darnall
from proceeding to execution on the judgment, which was granted.
Darnall answered, averring in his answer that he was a free man, and
capable of conveying a good title. Testimony was taken on this point,
and at the hearing the Circuit Court was of opinion that Darnall was a
free man and his title good, and dissolved the injunction and dismissed
the bill; and that decree was affirmed here, upon the appeal of Legrand.
Now, it is difficult to imagine how any question about the citizenship
of Darnall, or his right to sue in that character, can be supposed to
have risen or been decided in that case. The fact that he was of African
descent was first brought before the court upon the bill in equity. The
suit at law had then passed into judgment and award of execution, and
the Circuit Court, as a court of law, had no longer any authority over
it. It was a valid and legal judgment, which the court that rendered it
had not the power to reverse or set aside. And unless it had
jurisdiction as a court of equity to restrain him from using its process
as a court of law, Darnall, if he thought proper, would have been at
liberty to proceed on his judgment, and compel the payment of the money,
although the allegations in the bill were true, and he was incapable of
making a title. No other court could have enjoined him, for certainly no
State equity court could interfere in that way with the judgment of a
Circuit Court of the United States.
But the Circuit Court as a court of equity certainly had equity
jurisdiction over its own judgment as a court of law, without regard to
the character of the parties; and had not only the right, but it was its
duty--no matter who were the parties in the judgment--to prevent them
from proceeding to enforce it by execution, if the court was satisfied
that the money was not justly and equitably due. The ability of Darnall
to convey did not depend upon his citizenship, but upon his title to
freedon. And if he was free, he could hold and convey property, by the
laws of Maryland, although he was not a citizen. But if he was by law
still a slave, he could not. It was therefore the duty of the court,
sitting as a court of equity in the latter case, to prevent him from
using its process, as a court of common law, to compel the payment of
the purchase-money, when it was evident that the purchaser must lose the
land. But if he was free and could make a title, it was equally the duty
of the court not to suffer Legrand to keep the land, and refuse the
payment of the money, upon the ground that Darnall was incapable of
suing or being sued as a citizen in a court of the United States. The
character or citizenship of the parties had no connection with the
question of jurisdiction, and the matter in dispute had no relation to
the citizenship of Darnall. Nor is such a question alluded to in the
opinion of the Court.
Beside, we are by no means prepared to say that there are not many
cases, civil as well as criminal, in which a Circuit Court of the United
States may exercise jurisdiction, although one of the African race is a
party; that broad question is not before the court. The question with
which we are now dealing is, whether a person of the African race can be
a citizen of the United States, and become thereby entitled to a special
privilege, by virtue of his title to that character, and which, under
the Constitution, no one but a citizen can claim. It is manifest that
the case of Legrand and Darnall has no bearing on that question, and can
have no application to the case now before the court.
This case, however, strikingly illustrates the consequences that would
follow the construction of the Constitution which would give the power
contended for to a State. It would in effect give it also to an
individual. For if the father of young Darnall had manumitted him in his
lifetime, and sent him to reside in a State which recognized him as a
citizen, he might have visited and sojourned in Maryland when he
pleased, and as long as he pleased, as a citizen of the United States;
and the State officers and tribunals would be compelled, by the
paramount authority of the Constitution, to receive him and treat him as
one of its citizens, exempt from the laws and police of the State in
relation to a person of that description, and allow him to enjoy all the
rights and privileges of citizenship without respect to the laws of
Maryland, although such laws were deemed by it absolutely essential to
its own safety.
The only two provisions which point to them and include them, treat them
as property, and make it the duty of the Government to protect it; no
other power, in relation to this race, is to be found in the
Constitution; and as it is a Government of special, delegated, powers,
no authority beyond these two provisions can be constitutionally
exercised. The Government of the United States had no right to interfere
for any other purpose but that of protecting the rights of the owner,
leaving it altogether with the several States to deal with this race,
whether emancipated or not, as each State may think justice, humanity,
and the interests and safety of society, require. The States evidently
intended to reserve this power exclusively to themselves.
No one, we presume, supposes that any change in public opinion or
feeling, in relation to this unfortunate race, in the civilized nations
of Europe or in this country, should induce the court to give to the
words of the Constitution a more liberal construction in their favor
than they were intended to bear when the instrument was framed and
adopted. Such an argument would be altogether inadmissible in any
tribunal called on to interpret it. If any of its provisions are deemed
unjust, there is a mode prescribed in the instrument itself, by which it
may be amended; but while it remains unaltered, it must be construed now
as it was understood at the time of its adoption. It is not only the
same in words, but the same in meaning, and delegates the same powers to
the Government, and reserves and secures the same rights and privileges
to citizens; and as long as it continues to exist in its present form,
it speaks not only in the same words, but with the same meaning and
intent with which it spoke when it came from the hands of its framers,
and was voted on and adopted by the people of the United States. Any
other rule of construction would abrogate the judicial character of this
court, and make it the mere reflex of the popular opinion or passion of
the day. This court was not created by the Constitution for such
purposes. Higher and graver trusts have been confided to it, and it must
not falter in the path of duty.
What the construction was at that time, we think can hardly admit of
doubt. We have the language of the Declaration of Independence and of
the Articles of Confederation, in addition to the plain words of the
Constitution itself; we have the legislation of the different States,
before, about the time, and since, the Constitution was adopted; we have
the legislation of Congress, from the time of its adoption to a recent
period; and we have the constant and uniform action of the Executive
Department, all concurring together, and leading to the same result. And
if any thing in relation to the construction of the Constitution can be
regarded as settled, it is that which we now give to the word "citizen"
and the word "people."
And upon a full and careful consideration of the subject, the court is
of opinion, that, upon the facts stated in the plea in abatement, Dred
Scott was not a citizen of Missouri within the meaning of the
Constitution of the United States, and not entitled as such to sue in
its courts; and, consequently, that the Circuit Court had no
jurisdiction of the case, and that the judgment on the plea in abatement
is erroneous.
We are aware that doubts are entertained by some of the members of the
court, whether the plea in abatement is legally before the court upon
this writ of error: but if that plea is regarded as waived, or out of
the case upon any other ground, yet the question as to the jurisdiction
of the Circuit Court is presented on the face of the bill of exception
itself, taken by the plaintiff at the trial; for he admits that he and
his wife were born slaves, but endeavors to make out his title to
freedom and citizenship by showing that they were taken by their owner
to certain places, hereinafter mentioned, where slavery could not by law
exist, and that they thereby became free, and upon their return to
Missouri became citizens of that State.
Now, if the removal, of which he speaks, did not give them their
freedom, then by his own admission he is still a slave, and whatever
opinions may be entertained in favor of the citizenship of a free person
of the African race, no one supposes that a slave is a citizen of the
State or of the United States. If, therefore, the acts done by his owner
did not make them free persons, he is still a slave, and certainly
incapable of suing in the character of a citizen.
The principle of law is too well settled to be disputed, that a court
can give no judgment for either party, where it has no jurisdiction; and
if, upon the showing of Scott himself, it appeared that he was still a
slave, the case ought to have been dismissed, and the judgment against
him and in favor of the defendant for costs, is, like that on the plea
in abatement, erroneous, and the suit ought to have been dismissed by
the Circuit Court for want of jurisdiction in that court.
But, before we proceed to examine this part of the case, it may be
proper to notice an objection taken to the judicial authority of this
court to decide it; and it has been said, that as this court has decided
against the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court on the plea in abatement,
it has no right to examine any question presented by the exception; and
that any thing that it may say upon that part of the case will be extra
judicial, and mere orbita dicta.
This is a manifest mistake; there can be no doubt as to the jurisdiction
of this court to revise the judgment of a Circuit Court, and to reverse
it for any error apparent on the record, whether it be the error of
giving judgment in a case over which it had no jurisdiction, or any
other material error; and this, too, whether there is a plea in
abatement or not.
The objection appears to have arisen from confounding writs of error to
a State court, with writs of error to a Circuit Court of the United
States. Undoubtedly, upon a writ of error to a State court, unless the
record shows a case that gives jurisdiction, the case must be dismissed
for want of jurisdiction in _this court_. And if it is dismissed on that
ground, we have no right to examine and decide upon any question
presented by the bill of exceptions, or any other part of the record.
But writs of error to a State Court, and to a Circuit Court of the
United States, are regulated by different laws, and stand upon entirely
different principles. And in a writ of error to a Circuit Court of the
United States, the whole record is before this court for examination and
decision; and if the sum in controversy is large enough to give
jurisdiction, it is not only the right, but it is the judicial duty of
the court, to examine the whole case as presented by the record; and if
it appears upon its face that any material error or errors have been
committed by the court below, it is the duty of this court to reverse
the judgment, and remand the case. And certainly an error in passing a
judgment upon the merits in favor of either party, in a case which it
was not authorized to try, and over which it had no jurisdiction, is as
grave an error as a court can commit.
The plea in abatement is not a plea to the jurisdiction of this court,
but to the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court. And it appears by the
record before us, that the Circuit Court committed an error, in deciding
that it had jurisdiction, upon the facts in the case, admitted by the
pleadings. It is the duty of the appellate tribunal to correct this
error; but that could not be done by dismissing the case for want of
jurisdiction here--for that would leave the erroneous judgment in full
force, and the injured party without remedy. And the appellate court
therefore exercises the power for which alone appellate courts are
constituted, by reversing the judgment of the court below for this
error. It exercises its proper and appropriate jurisdiction over the
judgment and proceedings of the Circuit Court, as they appear upon the
record brought up by the writ of error.
The correction of one error in the court below does not deprive the
appellate court of the power of examining further into the record, and
correcting any other material errors which may have been committed by
the inferior court. There is certainly no rule of law--nor any
practice--nor any decision of a court--which even questions this power
in the appellate tribunal. On the contrary, it is the daily practice of
this court, and of all appellate courts where they reverse the judgment
of an inferior court for error, to correct by its opinions whatever
errors may appear on the record material to the case; and they have
always held it to be their duty to do so where the silence of the court
might lead to misconstruction or future controversy, and the point has
been relied on by either side, and argued before the court.
In the case before us, we have already decided that the Circuit Court
erred in deciding that it had jurisdiction upon the facts admitted by
the pleadings. And it appears that, in the further progress of the case,
it acted upon the erroneous principle it had decided on the pleadings,
and gave judgment for the defendant, where, upon the facts admitted in
the exception, it had no jurisdiction.
We are at a loss to understand upon what principle of law, applicable to
appellate jurisdiction, it can be supposed that this court has not
judicial authority to correct the last-mentioned error, because they had
before corrected the former; or by what process of reasoning it can be
made out, that the error of an inferior court in actually pronouncing
judgment for one of the parties, in a case in which it had no
jurisdiction, cannot be looked into or corrected by this court, because
we have decided a similar question presented in the pleadings. The last
point is distinctly presented by the facts contained in the plaintiff's
own bill of exceptions, which he himself brings here by this writ of
error. It was the point which chiefly occupied the attention of the
counsel on both sides in the argument--and the judgment which this court
must render upon both errors is precisely the same. It must, in each of
them, exercise jurisdiction over the judgment, and reverse it for the
errors committed by the court below; and issue a mandate to the Circuit
Court to conform its judgment to the opinion pronounced by this court,
by dismissing the case for want of jurisdiction in the Circuit Court.
This is the constant and invariable practice of this court, where it
reverses a judgment for want of jurisdiction in the Circuit Court.
It can scarcely be necessary to pursue such a question further. The want
of jurisdiction in the court below may appear on the record without any
plea in abatement. This is familiarly the case where a court of chancery
has exercised jurisdiction in a case where the plaintiff had a plain and
adequate remedy at law, and it so appears by the transcript when brought
here by appeal. So also where it appears that a court of admiralty has
exercised jurisdiction in a case belonging exclusively to a court of
common law. In these cases there is no plea in abatement. And for the
same reason, and upon the same principles, where the defect of
jurisdiction is patent on the record, this court is bound to reverse the
judgment, although the defendant has not pleaded in abatement to the
jurisdiction of the inferior court.
The cases of Jackson _v._ Ashton and of Capron _v._ Van Noorden, to
which we have referred in a previous part of this opinion, are directly
in point. In the last-mentioned case, Capron brought an action against
Van Noorden in a Circuit Court of the United States, without showing, by
the usual averments of citizenship, that the court had jurisdiction.
There was no plea in abatement put in, and the parties went to trial
upon the merits. The court gave judgment in favor of the defendant with
costs. The plaintiff thereupon brought his writ of error, and this court
reversed the judgment given in favor of the defendant, and remanded the
case with directions to dismiss it, because it did not appear by the
transcript that the Circuit Court had jurisdiction.
The case before us still more strongly imposes upon this court the duty
of examining whether the court below has not committed an error, in
taking jurisdiction and giving a judgment for costs in favor of the
defendant; for in Capron _v._ Van Noorden the judgment was reversed,
because it did _not appear_ that the parties were citizens of different
States. They might or might not be. But in this case it _does appear_
that the plaintiff was born a slave; and if the facts upon which he
relies have not made him free, then it appears affirmatively on the
record that he is not a citizen, and consequently his suit against
Sandford was not a suit between citizens of different States, and the
court had no authority to pass any judgment between the parties. The
suit ought, in this view of it, to have been dismissed by the Circuit
Court, and its judgment in favor of Sandford is erroneous, and must be
reversed.
It is true that the result either way, by dismissal or by a judgment for
the defendant, makes very little, if any, difference in a pecuniary or
personal point of view to either party. But the fact that the result
would be very nearly the same to the parties in either form of judgment,
would not justify this court in sanctioning an error in the judgment
which is patent on the record, and which, if sanctioned, might be drawn
into precedent, and lead to serious mischief and injustice in some
future suit.
We proceed, therefore, to inquire whether the facts relied on by the
plaintiff entitled him to his freedom.
The case, as he himself states it, on the record brought here by his
writ of error, is this:
The plaintiff was a negro slave, belonging to Dr. Emerson, who was a
surgeon in the army of the United States. In the year 1834, he took the
plaintiff from the State of Missouri to the military post at Rock
Island, in the State of Illinois, and held him there as a slave until
the month of April or May, 1836. At the time last-mentioned, said Dr.
Emerson removed the plaintiff from said miltary post at Rock Island to
the military post at Fort Snelling, situate on the west bank of the
Mississippi river, in the territory known as Upper Louisiana, acquired
by the United States of France, and situate north of the latitude of
thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north, and north of the State of
Missouri. Said Dr. Emerson held the plaintiff in slavery at said Fort
Sneling, from said last-mentioned date until the year 1838.
In the year 1835, Harriet, who is named in the second count of the
plaintiff's declaration, was the negro slave of Major Taliaferro, who
belonged to the army of the United States. In that year, 1835, said
Major Taliaferro took said Harriet to said Fort Snelling, a military
post, situated as hereinbefore stated, and kept her there as a slave
until the year 1836, and then sold and delivered her as a slave, at said
Fort Snelling, unto the said Dr. Emerson hereinbefore named. Said Dr.
Emerson held said Harriet in slavery at said Fort Snelling until the
year 1838.
In the year 1836, the plaintiff and Harriet intermarried, at Fort
Snelling, with the consent of Dr. Emerson, who then claimed to be their
master and owner. Eliza and Lizzie, named in the third count of the
plaintiff's declaration, are the fruit of that marriage. Eliza is about
fourteen years old, and was born on board the steamboat Gipsey, north of
the north line of the State of Missouri, and upon the river Mississippi.
Lizzie is about seven years old, and was born in the State of Missouri,
at the military post called Jefferson Barracks.
In the year 1838, said Dr. Emerson removed the plaintiff and said
Harriet, and their said daughter Eliza, from said Fort Snelling to the
State of Missouri, where they have ever since resided.
Before the commencement of this suit, said Dr. Emerson sold and conveyed
the plaintiff, and Harriet, Eliza, and Lizzie, to the defendant, as
slaves, and the defendant has ever since claimed to hold them, and each
of them, as slaves.
In considering this part of the controversy, two questions arise: 1. Was
he, together with his family, free in Missouri by reason of the stay in
the territory of the United States hereinbefore mentioned? And, 2. If
they were not, is Scott himself free by reason of his removal to Rock
Island, in the State of Illinois, as stated in the above admissions?
We proceed to examine the first question.
The act of Congress, upon which the plaintiff relies, declares that
slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime,
shall be forever prohibited in all that part of the territory ceded by
France, under the name of Louisiana, which lies north of thirty-six
degrees thirty minutes north latitude, and not included within the
limits of Missouri. And the difficulty which meets us at the threshold
of this part of the inquiry is, whether Congress was authorized to pass
this law under any of the powers granted to it by the Constitution; for
if the authority is not given by that instrument, it is the duty of this
court to declare it void and inoperative, and incapable of conferring
freedom upon any one who is held as a slave under the laws of any one of
the States.
The counsel for the plaintiff has laid much stress upon that article in
the Constitution which confers on Congress the power "to dispose of and
make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other
property belonging to the United States;" but, in the judgment of the
court, that provision has no bearing on the present controversy, and the
power there given, whatever it may be, is confined, and was intended to
be confined, to the territory which at that time belonged to, or was
claimed by, the United States, and was within their boundaries as
settled by the treaty with Great Britain, and can have no influence upon
a territory afterward acquired from a foreign Government. It was a
special provision for a known and particular territory, and to meet a
present emergency, and nothing more.
A brief summary of the history of the times, as well as the careful and
measured terms in which the article is framed, will show the correctness
of this proposition.
It will be remembered that, from the commencement of the Revolutionary
war, serious difficulties existed between the States, in relation to the
disposition of large and unsettled territories which were included in
the chartered limits of some of the States. And some of the other
States, and more especially Maryland, which had no unsettled lands,
insisted that as the unoccupied lands, if wrested from Great Britain,
would owe their preservation to the common purse and the common sword,
the money arising from them ought to be applied in just proportion among
the several States to pay the expenses of the war, and ought not to be
appropriated to the use of the State in whose chartered limits they
might happen to lie, to the exclusion of the other States, by whose
combined efforts and common expense the territory was defended and
preserved against the claim of the British Government.
These difficulties caused much uneasiness during the war, while the
issue was in some degree doubtful, and the future boundaries of the
United States yet to be defined by treaty, if we achieved our
independence.
The majority of the Congress of the Confederation obviously concurred in
opinion with the State of Maryland, and desired to obtain from the
States which claimed it a cession of this territory, in order that
Congress might raise money on this security to carry on the war. This
appears by the resolution passed on the 6th of September, 1780, strongly
urging the States to cede these lands to the United States, both for the
sake of peace and union among themselves, and to maintain the public
credit; and this was followed by the resolution of October 10th, 1780,
by which Congress pledged itself, that if the lands were ceded, as
recommended by the resolution above mentioned, they should be disposed
of for the common benefit of the United States, and be settled and
formed into distinct republican States, which should become members of
the Federal Union, and have the same rights of sovereignty, and freedom,
and independence, as other States.
But these difficulties became much more serious after peace took place,
and the boundaries of the United States were established. Every State,
at that time, felt severely the pressure of its war debt; but in
Virginia, and some other States, there were large territories of
unsettled lands, the sale of which would enable them to discharge their
obligations without much inconvenience while other States, which had no
such resource, saw before them many years of heavy and burdensome
taxation; and the latter insisted, for the reasons before stated, that
these unsettled lands should be treated as the common property of the
States, and the proceeds applied to their common benefit.
The letters from the statesmen of that day will show how much this
controversy occupied their thoughts, and the dangers that were
apprehended from it. It was the disturbing element of the time, and
fears were entertained that it might dissolve the Confederation by which
the States were then united.
These fears and dangers were, however, at once removed, when the State
of Virginia, in 1784, voluntarily ceded to the United States the immense
tract of country lying northwest of the river Ohio, and which was within
the acknowledged limits of the State. The only object of the State, in
making this cession, was to put an end to the threatening and exciting
controversy, and to enable the Congress of that time to dispose of the
lands, and appropriate the proceeds as a common fund for the common
benefit of the States. It was not ceded because it was inconvenient to
the State to hold and govern it, nor from any expectation that it could
be better or more conveniently governed by the United States.
The example of Virginia was soon afterward followed by other States,
and, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, all of the States
similarly situated, had ceded their unappropriated lands, except North
Carolina and Georgia. The main object for which the cessions were
desired and made, was on account of their money value, and to put an end
to a dangerous controversy, as to who was justly entitled to the
proceeds when the land should be sold. It is necessary to bring this
part of the history of these cessions thus distinctly into view, because
it will enable us the better to comprehend the phraseology of the
article in the Constitution, so often referred to in the argument.
Undoubtedly the powers of sovereignty and the eminent domain were ceded
with the land. This was essential, in order to make it effectual, and to
accomplish its objects. But it must be remembered that, at that time,
there was no Government of the United States in existence with
enumerated and limited powers; what was then called the United States,
were thirteen separate, sovereign, independent States, which had entered
into a league or confederation for their mutual protection and
advantage, and the Congress of the United States was composed of the
representatives of these separate sovereignties, meeting together, as
equals, to discuss and decide on certain measures which the States, by
the Articles of Confederation, had agreed to submit to their decision.
But this Confederation had none of the attributes of sovereignty in
legislative, executive, or judicial power. It was little more than a
congress of ambassadors, authorized to represent separate nations, in
matters in which they had a common concern.
It was this congress that accepted the cession from Virginia. They had
no power to accept it under the Articles of Confederation. But they had
an undoubted right, as independent sovereignties, to accept any cession
of territory for their common benefit, which all of them assented to;
and it is equally clear, that as their common property, and having no
superior to control them, they had the right to exercise absolute
dominion over it, subject only to the restrictions which Virginia had
imposed in her act of cession. There was, at we have said, no Government
of the United States then in existence with special enumerated and
limited powers. The territory belonged to sovereignties, who, subject to
the limitations above mentioned, had a right to establish any form of
Government they pleased, by compact or treaty among themselves, and to
regulate rights of person and rights of property in the territory, as
they might deem proper. It was by a Congress, representing the authority
of these several and separate sovereignties, and acting under their
authority and command (but not from any authority derived from the
Articles of Confederation,) that the instrument usually called the
ordinance of 1787 was adopted; regulating in much detail the principles
and the laws by which this territory should be governed; and among other
provisions, slavery is prohibited in it. We do not question the power of
the States, by agreement among themselves, to pass this ordinance, nor
its obligatory force in the territory, while the confederation or league
of the States in their separate sovereign character continued to exist.
This was the state of things when the Constitution of the United States
was formed. The territory ceded by Virginia, belonged to the several
confederated States as common property, and they had united in
establishing in it a system of government and jurisprudence, in order to
prepare it for admission as States, according to the terms of cession.
They were about to dissolve this federative Union, and to surrender a
portion of their independent sovereignty to a new Government, which, for
certain purposes, would make the people of the several States one
people, and which was to be supreme and controlling, within its sphere
of action throughout the United States; but this Government was to be
carefully limited in its powers, and to exercise no authority beyond
those expressly granted by the Constitution, or necessarily to be
implied from the language of the instrument, and the objects it was
intended to accomplish; and as this league of States would, upon the
adoption of the new Government, cease to have any power over the
territory, and the ordinance they had agreed upon be incapable of
execution and a mere nullity, it was obvious that some provision was
necessary to give the new Government sufficient power to enable it to
carry into effect the objects for which it was ceded, and the compacts
and agreements which the States had made with each other in the exercise
of their powers of sovereignty. It was necessary that the lands should
be sold to pay the war debt; that a Government and system of
jurisprudence should be maintained in it, to protect the citizens of the
United States who should migrate to the territory, in their rights of
person and of property. It was also necessary that the new Government,
about to be adopted, should be authorized to maintain the claim of the
United States to the unappropriated lands of North Carolina and Georgia,
which had not then been ceded, but the cession of which was confidently
anticipated upon some terms that would be arranged between the General
Government and these two States. And, moreover, there were many articles
of value besides this property in land, such as arms, military stores,
munitions, and ships of war, which were the common property of the
States, when acting in their independent characters as confederates,
which neither the new Government nor any one else would have a right to
take possession of, or control, without authority from them; and it was
to place these things under the guardianship and protection of the new
Government, and to clothe it with the necessary powers, that the clause
was inserted in the Constitution which gives Congress the power "to
dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the
territory or other property belonging to the United States." It was
intended for a specific purpose, to provide for the things we have
mentioned. It was to transfer to the new Government the property then
held in common by the States, and to give to that Government power to
apply it to the objects for which it had been destined by mutual
agreement among the States before their league was dissolved. It applied
only to the property which the States held in common at that time, and
has no reference whatever to any territory or other property which the
new sovereignty might afterward itself acquire.
The language used in the clause, the arrangement and combination of the
powers, and the somewhat unusual phraseology it uses, when it speaks of
the political power to be exercised in the government of the territory,
all indicate the design and meaning of the clause to be such as we have
mentioned. It does not speak of _any_ territory, nor of _Territories_,
but uses language which, according to its legitimate meaning, points to
a particular thing. The power is given in relation only to _the_
territory of the United States--that is, to a territory then in
existence, and then known or claimed as the territory of the United
States. It begins its enumeration of powers by that of disposing, in
other words, making sale of the lands, or raising money from them,
which, as we have already said, was the main object of the cession, and
which is accordingly the first thing provided for in the article. It
then gives the power which was necessarily associated with the
disposition and sale of the lands--that is, the power of making needful
rules and regulations respecting the territory. And whatever
construction may now be given to these words, every one, we think, must
admit that they are not the words usually employed by statesmen in
giving supreme power of legislation. They are certainly very unlike the
words used in the power granted to legislate over territory which the
new Government might afterwards itself obtain by cession from a State,
either for its seat of Government, or for forts, magazines, arsenals,
dock yards, and other needful buildings. And the same power of making
needful rules respecting the territory is, in precisely the same
language, applied to the _other_ property belonging to the United
States--associating the power over the territory in this respect with
the power over movable or personal property--that is, the ships, arms,
and munitions of war, which then belonged in common to the State
sovereignties. And it will hardly be said, that this power, in relation
to the last-mentioned objects, was deemed necessary to be thus specially
given to the new Government, in order to authorize it to make needful
rules and regulations respecting the ships it might itself build, or
arms and munitions of war it might itself manufacture or provide for the
public service.
No one, it is believed, would think a moment of deriving the power of
Congress to make needful rules and regulations in relation to property
of this kind from this clause of the Constitution. Nor can it, upon any
fair construction, be applied to any property, but that which the new
Government was about to receive from the confederated States. And if
this be true as to this property, it must be equally true and limited as
to the territory, which is so carefully and precisely coupled with
it--and like it referred to as property in the power granted. The
concluding words of the clause appear to render this construction
irresistible; for, after the provisions we have mentioned, it proceeds
to say, "that nothing in the Constitution shall be so construed as to
prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular State."
Now, as we have before said, all of the States, except North Carolina
and Georgia, had made the cession before the Constitution was adopted,
according to the resolution of Congress of October 10, 1780. The claims
of other States, that the unappropriated lands in these two States
should be applied to the common benefit, in like manner, was still
insisted on, but refused by the States. And this member of the clause in
question evidently applies to them, and can apply to nothing else. It
was to exclude the conclusion that either party, by adopting the
Constitution, would surrender what they deem their rights. And when the
latter provision relates so obviously to the unappropriated lands not
yet ceded by the States, and the first clause makes provision for those
then actually ceded, it is impossible, by any just rule of construction,
to make the first provision general, and extend to all territories,
which the Federal Goverenment might in any way afterwards acquire, when
the latter is plainly and unequivocally confined to a particular
territory; which was a part of the same controversy, and involved in the
same dispute, and depended upon the same principles. The union of the
two provisions in the same clause shows that they were kindred subjects;
and that the whole clause is local, and relates only to lands, within
the limits of the United States, which had been or then were claimed by
a State; and that no other territory was in the mind of the framers of
the Constitution, or intended to be embraced in it. Upon any other
construction it would be impossible to account for the insertion of the
last provision in the place where it is found, or to comprehend why, or
for what object, it was associated with the previous provision.
This view of the subject is confirmed by the manner in which the present
Government of the United States dealt with the subject as soon as it
came into existence. It must be borne in mind that the same States that
formed the Confederation also formed and adopted the new Government, to
which so large a portion of their former sovereign powers were
surrendered. It must also be borne in mind that all of these same States
which had then ratified the new Constitution were represented in the
Congress which passed the first law for the government of this
territory; and many of the members of that legislative body had been
deputies from the States under the confederation--had united in adopting
the ordinance of 1787, and assisted in forming the new Government under
which they were then acting, and whose powers they were then exercising.
And it is obvious from the law they passed to carry into effect the
principles and provisions of the ordinance, that they regarded it as the
act of the States done in the exercise of their legitimate powers at the
time. The new Government took the territory as it found it, and in the
condition in which it was transferred, and did not attempt to undo any
thing that that had been done. And, among the earliest laws passed under
the new Government, is one reviving the ordinance of 1787, which had
become inoperative and a nullity upon the adoption of the Constitution.
This law introduces no new form or principles for its government, but
recites, in the preamble, that it is passed in order that this ordinance
may continue to have full effect, and proceeds to make only those rules
and regulations which were needful to adapt it to the new Government,
into whose hands the power had fallen. It appears, therefore, that this
Congress regarded the purposes to which the land in this Territory was
to be applied, and the form of government and principles of
jurisprudence which were to prevail there, while it remained in the
territorial state, as already determined on by the States when they had
full power and right to make the decision; and that the new Government,
having received it in this condition, ought to carry substantially into
effect the plans and principles which had been previously adopted by the
States, and which, no doubt, the States anticipated when they
surrendered their power to the new Government. And if we regard this
clause of the Constitution as pointing to this Territory, with a
Territorial Government already established in it, which had been ceded
to the States for the purposes hereinbefore mentioned--every word in it
is perfectly appropriate and easily understood, and the provisions it
contains are in perfect harmony with the objects for which it was ceded,
and with the condition of its government as a Territory at the time. We
can, then, easily account for the manner in which the first Congress
legislated on the subject--and can also understand why this power over
the Territory was associated in the same clause with the other property
of the United States, and subjected to the like power of making needful
rules and regulations. But if the clause is construed in the expanded
sense contended for, so as to embrace any territory acquired from a
foreign nation by the present Government, and to give it in such
territory a despotic and unlimited power over persons and property, such
as the confederated States might exercise in their common property, it
would be difficult to account for the phraseology used, when compared
with other grants of power--and also for its association with the other
provisions in the same clause.
The Constitution has always been remarkable for the felicity of its
arrangement of different subjects, and the perspicuity and
appropriateness of the language it uses. But if this clause is construed
to extend to territory acquired by the present Government from a foreign
nation, outside of the limits of any charter from the British Government
to a colony, it would be difficult to say, why it was deemed necessary
to give the Government the power to sell any vacant lands belonging to
the sovereignity which might be found within it; and if this was
necessary, why the grant of this power should precede the power to
legislate over it and establish a Government there; and still more
difficult to say, why it was deemed necessary so specially and
particularly to grant the power to make needful rules and regulations in
relation to any personal or movable property it might acquire there. For
the words, _other property_, necessarily, by every known rule of
interpretation, must mean property of a different description from
territory or land. And the difficulty would perhaps be insurmountable in
endeavoring to account for the last member of the sentence, which
provides that "nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to
prejudice any claims of the United States or any particular State," or
to say how any particular State could have claims in or to a territory
ceded by a foreign Government, or to account for associating this
provision with the preceding provisions of the clause, with which it
would appear to have no connection.
The words "needful rules and regulations" would seem, also, to have been
cautiously used for some definite object. They are not the words usually
employed by statesmen, when they mean to give the powers of sovereignty,
or to establish a Government, or to authorize its establishment. Thus,
in the law to renew and keep alive the ordinance of 1787, and to
re-establish the Government, the title of the law is: "An act to provide
for the government of the territory northwest of the river Ohio." And in
the Constitution, when granting the power to legislate over the
territory that may be selected for the seat of Government independently
of a State, it does not say Congress shall have power "to make all
needful rules and regulations respecting the territory;" but it declares
that "Congress shall have power to exercise exclusive legislation in all
cases whatsoever over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as
may, by cession of particular States and the acceptance of Congress,
become the seat of the Government of the United States.
The words "rules and regulations" are usually employed in the
Constitution in speaking of some particular specified power which it
means to confer on the Government, and not, as we have seen, when
granting general powers of legislation. As, for example, in the peculiar
power to Congress "to make rules for the government and regulation of
the land and naval forces, or the particular and specific power to
regulate commerce;" "to establish an uniform _rule_ of naturalization;"
"to coin money and _regulate_ the value thereof." And to construe the
words of which we are speaking as a general and unlimited grant of
sovereignty over territories which the Government might afterward
acquire, is to use them in a sense and for a purpose for which they were
not used in any other part of the instrument. But if confined to a
particular Territory, in which a Government and laws had already been
established, but which would require some alterations to adapt it to the
new Government, the words are peculiarly applicable and appropriate for
that purpose.
The necessity of this special provision in relation to property and the
rights or property held in common by the confederated States, is
illustrated by the first clause of the sixth article. This clause
provides that "all debts, contracts, and engagements entered into before
the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United
States under this Government as under the Confederation." This
provision, like the one under consideration, was indispensable if the
new Constitution was adopted. The new Government was not a mere change
in a dynasty, or in a form of government, leaving the nation or
sovereignty the same, and clothed with all the rights, and bound by all
the obligations of the preceding one. But when the present United States
came into existence under the new Government, it was a new political
body, and a new nation, then for the first time taking its place in the
family of nations. It took nothing by succession from the Confederation.
It had no right, as its successor, to any property or rights of property
which it had acquired, and was not liable for any of its obligations. It
was evidently viewed in this light by the framers of the Constitution.
And as the several States would cease to exist in their former
confederated character upon the adoption of the Constitution, and could
not, in that character, again assemble together, special provisions were
indispensable to transfer to the new Government the property and rights
which at that time they held in common; and at the same time to
authorize it to lay taxes and appropriate money to pay the common debt
which they had contracted; and this power could only be given to it by
special provisions in the Constitution. The clause in relation to the
territory and other property of the United States provided for the
first, and the clause last quoted provides for the other. They have no
connection with the general powers and rights of sovereignty delegated
to the new Government, and can neither enlarge nor diminish them. They
were inserted to meet a present emergency, and not to regulate its
powers as a Government.
Indeed, a similar provision was deemed necessary, in relation to
treaties made by the Confederation; and when in the clause next
succeeding the one of which we have last spoken, it is declared that
treaties shall be the supreme law of the land, care is taken to include,
by express words, the treaties made by the confederated States. The
language is: "and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the
authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land."
Whether, therefore, we take the particular clause in question, by
itself, or in connection with the other provisions of the Constitution,
we think it clear, that it applies only to the particular territory of
which we have spoken, and cannot, by any just rule of interpretation, be
extended to territory which the new Government might afterward obtain
from a foreign nation. Consequently, the power which Congress may have
lawfully exercised in this Territory, while it remained under a
Territorial Government, and which may have been sanctioned by judicial
decision, can furnish no justification and no argument to support a
similar exercise of power over territory afterward acquired by the
Federal Government. We put aside, therefore, any argument, drawn from
precedents, showing the extent of the power which the General Government
exercised over slavery in this Territory, as altogether inapplicable to
the case before us.
But the case of the American and Ocean Insurance Companies _v._ Canter
(1 Pet., 511) has been quoted as establishing a different construction
of this clause of the Constitution. There is, however, not the slightest
conflict between the opinion now given and the one referred to; and it
is only by taking a single sentence out of the latter and separating it
from the context, that even an appearance of conflict can be shown. We
need not comment on such a mode of expounding an opinion of the court.
Indeed it most commonly misrepresents instead of expounding it. And this
is fully exemplified in the case referred to, where, if one sentence is
taken by itself, the opinion would appear to be in direct conflict with
that now given; but the words which immediately follow that sentence
show that the court did not mean to decide the point, but merely
affirmed the power of Congress to establish a Government in the
Territory, leaving it an open question, whether that power was derived
from this clause in the Constitution, or was to be necessarily inferred
from a power to acquire territory by cession from a foreign Government.
The opinion on this part of the case is short, and we give the whole of
it to show how well the selection of a single sentence is calculated to
mislead.
The passage referred to is in page 542, in which the court, in speaking
of the power of Congress to establish a Territorial Government in
Florida until it should become a State, uses the following language:
"In the mean time Florida continues to be a Territory of the United
States, governed by that clause of the Constitution which empowers
Congress to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the
territory or other property of the United States. Perhaps the power of
governing a Territory belonging to the United States, which has not, by
becoming a State, acquired the means of self-government, may result,
necessarily, from the facts that it is not within the jurisdiction of
any particular State, and is within the power and jurisdiction of the
United States. The right to govern may be the inevitable consequence of
the right to acquire territory. _Whichever may be the source from which
the power is derived, the possession of it is unquestionable._"
It is thus clear, from the whole opinion on this point, that the court
did not mean to decide whether the power was derived from the clause in
the Constitution, or was the necessary consequence of the right to
acquire. They do decide that the power in Congress is unquestionable,
and in this we entirely concur, and nothing will be found in this
opinion to the contrary. The power stands firmly on the latter
alternative put by the court--that is, as "_the inevitable consequence
of the right to acquire territory_."
And what still more clearly demonstrates that the court did not mean to
decide the question, but leave it open for future consideration, is the
fact that the case was decided in the Circuit Court by Mr. Justice
Johnson, and his decision was affirmed by the Supreme Court. His opinion
at the circuit is given in full in a note to the case, and in that
opinion he states, in explicit terms, that the clause of the
Constitution applies only to the territory then within the limits of the
United States, and not to Florida, which had been acquired by cession
from Spain. This part of his opinion will be found in the note in page
517 of the report. But he does not dissent from the opinion of the
Supreme Court; thereby showing that, in his judgment, as well as that of
the court, the case before them did not call for a decision on that
particular point, and the court abstained from deciding it. And in a
part of its opinion subsequent to the passage we have quoted, where the
court speak of the legislative power of Congress in Florida, they still
speak with the same reserve. And in page 546, speaking of the power of
Congress to authorize the Territorial Legislature to establish courts
there, the court say: "They are legislative courts, created in virtue of
the general right of sovereignty which exists in the Government, or in
virtue of that clause which enables Congress to make all needful rules
and regulations respecting the territory belonging to the United
States."
It has been said that the construction given to this clause is new, and
now for the first time brought forward. The case of which we are
speaking, and which has been so much discussed, shows that the fact is
otherwise. It shows that precisely the same question came before Mr.
Justice Johnson, at his circuit, thirty years ago--was fully considered
by him, and the same construction given to the clause in the
Constitution which is now given by this court. And that upon an appeal
from his decision the same question was brought before this court, but
was not decided because a decision upon it was not required by the case
before the court.
There is another sentence in the opinion which has been commented on,
which even in a still more striking manner shows how one may mislead or
be misled by taking out a single sentence from the opinion of a court,
and leaving out of view what precedes and follows. It is in page 546,
near the close of the opinion, in which the court say: "In legislating
for them," (the territories of the United States,) "Congress exercises
the combined powers of the General and of a State Government." And it is
said, that as a State may unquestionably prohibit slavery within its
territory, this sentence decides in effect that Congress may do the same
in a territory of the United States, exercising there the powers of a
State, as well as the power of the General Government.
The examination of this passage in the case referred to, would be more
appropriate when we come to consider in another part of this opinion
what power Congress can constitutionally exercise in a Territory, over
the rights of person or rights of property of a citizen. But, as it is
in the same case with the passage we have before commented on, we
dispose of it now, as it will save the court from the necessity of
referring again to the case. And it will be seen upon reading the page
in which this sentence is found, that it has no reference whatever to
the power of Congress over rights of person or rights of property--but
relates altogether to the power of establishing judicial tribunals to
administer the laws constitutionally passed, and defining the
jurisdiction they may exercise.
The law of Congress establishing a Territorial Government in Florida,
provided that the Legislature of the Territory should have legislative
powers over "all rightful objects of legislation; but no law should be
valid which was inconsistent with the laws and Constitution of the
United States."
Under the power thus conferred, the Legislature of Florida passed an
act, erecting a tribunal at Key West to decide cases of salvage. And in
the case of which we are speaking, the question arose whether the
Territorial Legislature could be authorized by Congress to establish
such a tribunal, with such powers; and one of the parties among other
objections, insisted that Congress could not under the Constitution
authorize the Legislature of the Territory to establish such a tribunal
with such powers, but that it must be established by Congress itself;
and that a sale of cargo made under its order, to pay salvors, was void,
as made without legal authority, and passed no property to the
purchaser.
It is in disposing of this objection that the sentence relied on occurs,
and the court begin that part of the opinion by stating with great
precision the point which they are about to decide.
They say: "It has been contended that by the Constitution of the United
States, the judicial power of the United States extends to all cases of
admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; and that the whole of the judicial
power must be vested 'in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts
as Congress shall from time to time ordain and establish.' Hence it has
been argued that Congress can not vest admiralty jurisdiction in courts
created by the Territorial Legislature."
And after thus clearly stating the point before them, and which they
were about to decide, they proceed to show that these Territorial
tribunals were not constitutional courts, but merely legislative, and
that Congress might, therefore, delegate the power to the Territorial
Government to establish the court in question; and they conclude that
part of the opinion in the following words: "Although admiralty
jurisdiction can be exercised in the States in those courts only which
are established in pursuance of the third article of the Constitution,
the same limitation does not extend to the Territories. In legislating
for them, Congress exercises the combined powers of the General and
State Governments."
Thus it will be seen by these quotations from the opinion, that the
court, after stating the question it was about to decide in a manner too
plain to be misunderstood, proceeded to decide it, and announced, as the
opinion of the tribunal, that in organizing the judicial department of
the Government in a Territory of the United States, Congress does not
act under, and is not restricted by, the third article in the
Constitution, and is not bound, in a Territory, to ordain and establish
courts in which the judges hold their offices during good behaviour, but
may exercise the discretionary power which a State exercises in
establishing its judicial department, and regulating the jurisdiction of
its courts, and may authorize the Territorial Government to establish,
or may itself establish, courts in which the judges hold their offices
for a term of years only; and may vest in them judicial power upon
subjects confided to the judiciary of the United States. And in doing
this, Congress undoubtedly exercises the combined power of the General
and a State Government. It exercises the discretionary power of a State
Government in authorizing the establishment of a court in which the
judges hold their appointments for a term of years only, and not during
good behaviour; and it exercises the power of the General Government in
investing that court with admiralty jurisdiction, over which the General
Government had exclusive jurisdiction in the Territory.
No one, we presume, will question the correctness of that opinion; nor
is there any thing in conflict with it in the opinion now given. The
point decided in the case cited has no relation to the question now
before the court. That depended on the construction of the third article
of the Constitution, in relation to the judiciary of the United States,
and the power which Congress might exercise in a Territory in organizing
the judicial department of the Government. The case before us depends
upon other and different provisions of the Constitution, altogether
separate and apart from the one above mentioned. The question as to
what courts Congress may ordain or establish in a Territory to
administer laws which the Constitution authorizes it to pass, and what
laws it is or is not authorized by the Constitution to pass, are widely
different--are regulated by different and separate articles of the
Constitution, and stand upon different principles. And we are satisfied
that no one who reads attentively the page in Peters' Reports to which
we have referred, can suppose that the attention of the court was drawn
for a moment to the question now before this court, or that it meant in
that case to say that Congress had a right to prohibit a citizen of the
United States from taking any property which he lawfully held into a
Territory of the United States.
This brings us to examine by what provision of the Constitution the
present Federal Government, under its delegated and restricted powers,
is authorized to acquire territory outside of the original limits of the
United States, and what powers it may exercise therein over the person
or property of a citizen of the United States, while it remains a
Territory, and until it shall be admitted as one of the States of the
Union.
There is certainly no power given by the Constitution to the Federal
Government to establish or maintain colonies bordering on the United
States or at a distance, to be ruled and governed at its own pleasure;
nor to enlarge its territorial limits in any way, except by the
admission of new States. That power is plainly given; and if a new State
is admitted, it needs no further legislation from Congress, because the
Constitution itself defines the relative rights and powers, and duties
of the State, and the citizens of the State, and the Federal Government.
But no power is given to acquire a Territory to be held and governed
permanently in that character.
And indeed the power exercised by Congress to acquire territory and
establish a Government there, according to its own unlimited discretion,
was viewed with great jealousy by the leading statesmen of the day. And
in the Federalist, (No. 38,) written by Mr. Madison, he speaks of the
acquisition of the Northwestern Territory by the confederated States, by
the cession from Virginia, and the establishment of a Government there,
as an exercise of power not warranted by the Articles of Confederation,
and dangerous to the liberties of the people. And he urges the adoption
of the Constitution as a security and safeguard against such an exercise
of power.
We do not mean, however, to question the power of Congress in this
respect. The power to expand the territory of the United States by the
admission of new States is plainly given; and in the construction of
this power by all the departments of the Government, it has been held to
authorize the acquisition of territory, not fit for admission at the
time, but to be admitted as soon as its population and situation would
entitle it to admission. It is acquired to become a State, and not to be
held as a colony and governed by Congress with absolute authority; and
as the propriety of admitting a new State is committed to the sound
discretion of Congress, the power to acquire territory for that purpose,
to be held by the United States until it is in a suitable condition to
become a State upon an equal footing with the other States, must rest
upon the same discretion. It is a question for the political department
of the Government, and not the judicial; and whatever the political
department of the Government shall recognize as within the limits of the
United States, the judicial department is also bound to recognize, and
to administer in it the laws of the United States, so far as they apply,
and to maintain in the Territory the authority and rights of the
Government, and also the personal rights and rights of property of
individual citizens, as secured by the Constitution. All we mean to say
on this point is, that, as there is no express regulation in the
Constitution defining the power which the General Government may
exercise over the person or property of a citizen in a Territory thus
acquired, the court must necessarily look to the provisions and
principles of the Constitution, and its distribution of powers, for the
rules and principles by which its decision must be governed.
Taking this rule to guide us, it may be safely assumed that citizens of
the United States who migrate to a Territory belonging to the people of
the United States, cannot be ruled as mere colonists, dependent upon the
will of the General Government, and to be governed by any laws it may
think proper to impose. The principle upon which our Government rests,
and upon which alone they continue to exist, is the union of States,
sovereign and independent within their own limits in their internal and
domestic concerns, and bound together as one people by a General
Government, possessing certain enumerated and restricted powers,
delegated to it by the people of the several States, and exercising
supreme authority within the scope of the powers granted to it,
throughout the dominion of the United States. A power, therefore, in the
General Government to obtain and hold colonies and dependent
territories, over which they might legislate without restriction, would
be inconsistent with its own existence in its present form. Whatever it
acquires, it acquires for the benefit of the people of the several
States who created it. It is their trustee acting for them, and charged
with the duty of promoting the interests of the whole people of the
whole Union in the exercise of the powers specifically granted.
At the time when the Territory in question was obtained by cession from
France, it contained no population fit to be associated together and
admitted as a State; and it therefore was absolutely necessary to hold
possession of it, as a Territory belonging to the United States, until
it was settled and inhabited by a civilized community capable of
self-government, and in a condition to be admitted on equal terms with
the other States as a member of the Union. But, as we have before said,
it was acquired by the General Government, as the representative and
trustee of the people of the United States, and it must therefore be
held in that character for their common and equal benefit; for it was
the people of the several States, acting through their agent and
representative, the Federal Government, who in fact acquired the
Territory in question, and the Government holds it for their common use
until it shall be associated with the other States as a member of the
Union.
But until that time arrives, it is undoubtedly necessary that some
Government should be established in order to organize society, and to
protect the inhabitants in their persons and property; and as the people
of the United States could act in this matter only through the
Government which represented them, and through which they spoke and
acted when the Territory was obtained, it was not only within the scope
of its powers, but it was its duty to pass such laws and establish such
a Government as would enable those by whose authority they acted to reap
the advantages anticipated from its acquisition, and to gather there a
population which would enable it to assume the position to which it was
destined among the States of the Union. The power to acquire necessarily
carries with it the power to preserve and apply to the purposes for
which it was acquired. The form of government to be established
necessarily rested in the discretion of Congress. It was their duty to
establish the one that would be best suited for the protection and
security of the citizens of the United States, and other inhabitants who
might be authorized to take up their abode there, and that must always
depend upon the existing condition of the Territory, as to the number
and character of its inhabitants, and their situation in the Territory.
In some cases a Government, consisting of persons appointed by the
Federal Government, would best subserve the interests of the Territory,
when the inhabitants were few and scattered, and new to one another. In
other instances, it would be more advisable to commit the powers of
self-government to the people who had settled in the Territory, as being
the most competent to determine what was best for their own interests.
But some form of civil authority would be absolutely necessary to
organize and preserve civilized society, and prepare it to become a
State; and what is the best form must always depend on the condition of
the territory at the time, and the choice of the mode must depend upon
the exercise of a discretionary power by Congress, acting within the
scope of its constitutional authority, and not infringing upon the
rights of person or rights of property of the citizen who might go there
to reside, or for any other lawful purpose. It was acquired by the
exercise of this discretion, and it must be held and governed in like
manner, until it is fitted to be a State.
But the power of Congress over the person or property of a citizen can
never be a mere discretionary power under our Constitution and form of
Government. The powers of the Government and the rights and privileges
of the citizen are regulated and plainly defined by the Constitution
itself. And when the Territory becomes a part of the United States, the
Federal Government enters into possession in the character impressed
upon it by those who created it. It enters upon it with its powers over
the citizen strictly defined, and limited by the Constitution, from
which it derives its own existence, and by virtue of which alone it
continues to exist and act as a Government and sovereignty. It has no
power of any kind beyond it; and it cannot, when it enters a Territory
of the United States, put off its character, and assume discretionary or
despotic powers which the Constitution has denied to it. It cannot
create for itself a new character separated from the citizens of the
United States, and the duties it owes them under the provisions of the
Constitution. The Territory being a part of the United States, the
Government and the citizen both enter it under the authority of the
Constiution, with their respective rights defined and marked out; and
the Federal Government can exercise no power over his person or
property, beyond what that instrument confers, nor lawfully deny any
right which it has reserved.
A reference to a few of the provisions of the Constitution will
illustrate this proposition.
For example, no one, we presume, will contend that Congress can make any
law in a Territory respecting the establishment of religion, or the free
exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or
the right of the people of the Territory peacably to assemble, and to
petition the Government for the redress of grievances.
Nor can Congress deny to the people the right to keep and bear arms, nor
the right to trial by jury, nor compel any one to be a witness against
himself in a criminal proceeding.
These powers, and others, in relation to rights of person, which it is
not necessary here to enumerate, are, in express and positive terms,
denied to the General Government; and the rights of private property
have been guarded with equal care. Thus the rights of property are
united with the rights of person, and placed on the same ground by the
fifth amendment to the Constitution, which provides that no person shall
be deprived of life, liberty, and property, without due process of law.
And an act of Congress which deprives a citizen of the United States of
his liberty or property, merely because he came himself or brought his
property into a particular Territory of the United States, and who had
committed no offense against the laws, could hardly be dignified with
the name of due process of law.
So, too, it will hardly be contended that Congress could by law quarter
a soldier in a house in a Territory without the consent of the owner, in
time of peace; nor in time of war, but in a manner prescribed by law.
Nor could they by law forfeit the property of a citizen in a Territory
who was convicted of treason, for a longer period than the life of the
person convicted; nor take private property for public use without just
compensation.
The powers over person and property of which we speak are not only not
granted to Congress, but are in express terms denied, and they are
forbidden to exercise them. And this prohibition is not confined to the
States, but the words are general, and extend to the whole territory
over which the Constitution gives it power to legislate, including those
portions of it remaining under Territorial Government, as well as that
covered by States. It is a total absence of power everywhere within the
dominion of the United States, and places the citizens of a Territory,
so far as these rights are concerned, on the same footing with citizens
of the States, and guards them as firmly and plainly against any inroads
which the General Government might attempt, under the plea of implied or
incidental powers. And if Congress itself cannot do this--if it is
beyond the powers conferred on the Federal Government--it will be
admitted, we presume, that it could not authorize a Territorial
Government to exercise them. It could confer no power on any local
Government, established by its authority, to violate the provisions of
the Constitution.
It seems, however, to be supposed, that there is a difference between
property in a slave and other property, and that different rules may be
applied to it in expounding the Constitution of the United States. And
the laws and usages of nations, and the writings of eminent jurists upon
the relation of master and slave and their mutual rights and duties, and
the powers which Governments may exercise over it, have been dwelt upon
in the argument.
But in considering the question before us, it must be borne in mind that
there is no law of nations standing between the people of the United
States and their Government, and interfering with their relation to each
other. The powers of the Government, and the rights of the citizen under
it, are positive and practical regulations plainly written down. The
people of the United States have delegated to it certain enumerated
powers, and forbidden it to exercise others. It has no power over the
person or property of a citizen but what the citizens of the United
States have granted. And no laws or usages of other nations, or
reasoning of statesmen or jurists upon the relations of master and
slave, can enlarge the powers of the Government, or take from the
citizens the rights they have reserved. And if the Constitution
recognizes the right of property of the master in a slave, and makes no
distinction between that description of property and other property
owned by a citizen, no tribunal, acting under the authority of the
United States, whether it be legislative, executive, or judicial, has a
right to draw such a distinction, or deny to it the benefit of the
provisions and guarantees which have been provided for the protection of
private property against the encroachments of the Government.
Now, as we have already said in an earlier part of this opinion, upon a
different point, the right of property in a slave is distinctly and
expressly affirmed in the Constitution. The right to traffic in it, like
an ordinary article of merchandise and property, was guaranteed to the
citizens of the United States, in every State that might desire it, for
twenty years. And the Government in express terms is pledged to protect
it in all future time, if the slave escapes from his owner. This is done
in plain words--too plain to be misunderstood. And no word can be found
in the Constitution which gives Congress a greater power over
slave-property, or which entitles property of that kind to less
protection than property of any other description. The only power
conferred is the power coupled with the duty of guarding and protecting
the owner in his rights.
Upon these considerations, it is the opinion of the court that the act
of Congress which prohibited a citizen from holding and owning property
of this kind in the territory of the United States north of the line
therein mentioned, is not warranted by the Constitution, and is
therefore void; and that neither Dred Scott himself, nor any of his
family, were made free by being carried into this territory; even if
they had been carried there by the owner, with the intention of becoming
a permanent resident.
We have so far examined the case, as it stands under the Constitution of
the United States, and the powers thereby delegated to the Federal
Government.
But there is another point in the case which depends on State power and
State law. And it is contended, on the part of the plaintiff, that he is
made free by being taken to Rock Island, in the State of Illinois,
independently of his residence in the territory of the United States;
and being so made free, he was not again reduced to a state of slavery
by being brought back to Missouri.
Our notice of this part of the case will be very brief; for the
principle on which it depends was decided in this court, upon much
consideration in the case of Strader et al. _v._ Graham, reported in
10th Howard, 82. In that case, the slaves had been taken from Kentucky
to Ohio, with the consent of the owner, and afterward brought back to
Kentucky. And this court held that their _status_ or condition, as free
or slave, depended upon the laws of Kentucky, when they were brought
back into that State, and not of Ohio; and that this court had no
jurisdiction to revise the judgment of a State court upon its own laws.
This was the point directly before the court, and the decision that this
court had not jurisdiction turned upon it, as will be seen by the report
of the case.
So in this case. As Scott was a slave when taken into the State of
Illinois by his owner, and was there held as such, and brought back in
that character, his _status_, as free or slave, depended on the laws of
Missouri, and not of Illinois.
It has, however, been urged in the argument, that by the laws of
Missouri he was free on his return, and that this case, therefore, can
not be governed by the case of Strader et al. _v._ Graham, where it
appeared, by the laws of Kentucky, that the plaintiffs continued to be
slaves on their return from Ohio. But whatever doubts or opinions may,
at one time, have been entertained upon this subject, we are satisfied,
upon a careful examination of all the cases decided in the State courts
of Missouri referred to, that it is now firmly settled by the decisions
of the highest court in the State, that Scott and his family upon their
return were not free, but were, by the laws of Missouri, the property of
the defendant; and that the Circuit Court of the United States had no
jurisdiction, when, by the laws of the State, the plaintiff was a slave,
and not a citizen.
Moreover, the plaintiff, it appears, brought a similar action against
the defendant in the State Court of Missouri, claiming the freedom of
himself and his family upon the same grounds and the same evidence upon
which he relies in the case before the court. The case was carried
before the Supreme Court of the State; was fully argued there; and that
court decided that neither the plaintiff nor his family were entitled to
freedom, and were still the slaves of the defendant; and reversed the
judgment of the inferior State court, which had given a different
decision. If the plaintiff supposed that this judgment of the Supreme
Court of the State was erroneous, and that this court had jurisdiction
to revise and reverse it, the only mode by which he could legally bring
it before this court was by writ of error directed to the Supreme Court
of the State, requiring it to transmit the record to this court. If
this had been done, it is too plain for argument that the writ must have
been dismissed for want of jurisdiction in this court. The case of
Strader and others _v._ Graham is directly in point; and, indeed,
independent of any decision, the language of the 25th section of the act
of 1789 is too clear and precise to admit of controversy.
But the plaintiff did not pursue the mode prescribed by law for bringing
the judgment of a State court before this court for revision, but
suffered the case to be remanded to the inferior State court, where it
is still continued, and is, by agreement of parties, to await the
judgment of this court on the point. All of this appears on the record
before us, and by the printed report of the case.
And while the case is yet open and pending in the inferior State court,
the plaintiff goes into the Circuit Court of the United States, upon the
same case and the same evidence, and against the same party, and
proceeds to judgment, and then brings here the same case from the
Circuit Court, which the law would not have permitted him to bring
directly from the State court. And if this court takes jurisdiction in
this form, the result, so far as the rights of the respective parties
are concerned, is in every respect substantially the same as if it had
in open violation of law entertained jurisdiction over the judgment of
the State court upon a writ of error, and revised and reversed its
judgment upon the ground that its opinion upon the question of law was
erroneous. It would ill become this court to sanction such an attempt to
evade the law, or to exercise an appellate power in this circuitous way,
which it is forbidden to exercise in the direct and regular and
invariable forms of judicial proceedings.
Upon the whole, therefore, it is the judgment of this court, that it
appears by the record before us that the plaintiff in error is not a
citizen of Missouri, in the sense in which that word is used in the
Constitution; and that the Circuit Court of the United States, for that
reason, had no jurisdiction in the case, and could give no judgment in
it. Its judgment for the defendant must, consequently, be reversed, and
a mandate issued, directing the suit to be dismissed for want of
jurisdiction
POINTS DECIDED.
I.
1. Upon a writ of error to a Circuit Court of the United States, the
transcript of the record of all the proceedings in the case is brought
before this court, and is open to its inspection and revision.
2. When a plea to the jurisdiction, in abatement, is overruled by the
court upon demurrer, and the defendant pleads in bar, and upon these
pleas the final judgment of the court is in his favor--if the plaintiff
brings a writ of error, the judgment of the court upon the plea in
abatement is before this court, although it was in favor of the
plaintiff--and if the court erred in overruling it, the judgment must be
reversed, and a mandate issued to the Circuit Court to dismiss the case
for want of jurisdiction.
3. In the Circuit Courts of the United States, the record must show that
the case is one in which by the Constitution and laws of the United
States, the court had jurisdiction--and if this does not appear, and the
court gives judgment either for plaintiff or defendant, it is error, and
the judgment must be reversed by this court--and the parties cannot by
consent waive the objection to the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court.
4. A free negro of the African race, whose ancestors were brought to
this country and sold as slaves, is not a "citizen" within the meaning
of the Constitution of the United States.
5. When the Constitution was adopted, they were not regarded in any of
the States as members of the community which constituted the State, and
were not numbered among its "people or citizens." Consequently, the
special rights and immunities guaranteed to citizens do not apply to
them. And not being "citizens" within the meaning of the Constitution,
they are not entitled to sue in that character in a court of the United
States, and the Circuit Court has not jurisdiction in such a suit.
6. The only two clauses in the Constitution which point to this race,
treat them as persons whom it was morally lawful to deal in as articles
of property and to hold as slaves.
7. Since the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, no State
can by any subsequent law make a foreigner or any other description of
persons citizens of the United States, nor entitle them to the rights
and privileges secured to citizens by that instrument.
8. A State, by its laws passed since the adoption of the Constitution,
may put a foreigner or any other description of persons upon a footing
with its own citizens, as to all the rights and privileges enjoyed by
them within its dominion, and by its laws. But that will not make him a
citizen of the United States, nor entitle him to sue in its courts, nor
to any of the privileges and immunities of a citizen in another State.
9. The change in public opinion and feeling in relation to the African
race, which has taken place since the adoption of the Constitution,
cannot change its construction and meaning, and it must be construed and
administered now according to its true meaning and intention when it was
formed and adopted.
10. The plaintiff having admitted, by his demurrer to the plea in
abatement, that his ancestors were imported from Africa and sold as
slaves, he is not a citizen of the State of Missouri according to the
Constitution of the United States, and was not entitled to sue in that
character in the Circuit Court.
11. This being the case, the judgment of the court below, in favor of
the plaintiff on the plea in abatement, was erroneous.
II.
1. But if the plea in abatement is not brought up by this writ of error,
the objection to the citizenship of the plaintiff is still apparent on
the record, as he himself, in making out his case, states that he is of
African descent, was born a slave, and claims that he and his family
became entitled to freedom by being taken by their owner to reside in a
territory where slavery is prohibited by act of Congress--and that, in
addition to this claim, he himself became entitled to freedom by being
taken to Rock Island, in the State of Illinois--and being free when he
was brought back to Missouri, he was by the laws of that State a
citizen.
2. If, therefore, the facts he states do not give him or his family a
right to freedom, the plaintiff is still a slave, and not entitled to
sue as a "citizen," and the judgment of the Circuit Court was erroneous
on that ground also, without any reference to the plea in abatement.
3. The Circuit Court can give no judgment for plaintiff or defendant in
a case where it has not jurisdiction, no matter whether there be a plea
in abatement or not. And unless it appears upon the face of the record,
when brought here by writ of error, that the Circuit Court had
jurisdiction, the judgment must be reversed.
The case of Capron _v._ Van Noorden (2 Cranch, 126) examined, and the
principles thereby decided, reaffirmed.
4. When the record, as brought here by writ of error, does not show that
the Circuit Court had jurisdiction, this court has jurisdiction to
revise and correct the error, like any other error in the court below.
It does not and cannot dismiss the case for want of jurisdiction here;
for that would leave the erroneous judgment of the court below in full
force, and the party injured without remedy. But it must reverse the
judgment, and, as in any other case of reversal, send a mandate to the
Circuit Court to conform its judgment to the opinion of this court.
5. The difference of the jurisdiction in this court in the cases of
writs of error to State courts and to Circuit Courts of the United
States, pointed out; and the mistakes made as to the jurisdiction of
this court in the latter case, by confounding it with its limited
jurisdiction in the former.
6. If the court reverses a judgment upon the ground that it appears by a
particular part of the record that the Circuit Court had not
jurisdiction, it does not take away the jurisdiction of this court to
examine into and correct, by a reversal of the judgment, any other
errors, either as to the jurisdiction or any other matter, where it
appears from other parts of the record that the Circuit Court had fallen
into error. On the contrary, it is the daily and familiar practice of
this court to reverse on several grounds, where more than one error
appears to have been committed. And the error of a Circuit Court in its
jurisdiction stands on the same ground, and is to be treated in the same
manner as any other error upon which its judgment is founded.
7. The decision, therefore, that the judgment of the Circuit Court upon
the plea in abatement is erroneous, is no reason why the alleged error
apparent in the exception should not also be examined, and the judgment
reversed on that ground also, if it discloses a want of jurisdiction in
the Circuit Court.
It is often the duty of this court, after having decided that a
particular decision of the Circuit Court was erroneous, to examine into
other alleged errors, and to correct them if they are found to exist.
And this has been uniformly done by this court, when the questions are
in any degree connected with the controversy, and the silence of the
court might create doubts which would lead to further and useless
litigation.
III.
1. The facts upon which the plaintiff relies did not give him his
freedom, and make him a citizen of Missouri.
2. The clause in the Constitution authorizing Congress to make all
needful rules and regulations for the government of the territory and
other property of the United States, applies only to territory within
the chartered limits of some one of the States when they were colonies
of Great Britain, and which was surrendered by the British Government to
the old Confederation of the States, in the treaty of peace. It does not
apply to territory acquired by the present Federal Government, by treaty
or conquest, from a foreign nation.
The case of the American and Ocean Insurance Companies _v._ Canter (1
Peters, 511) referred to and examined, showing that the decision in this
case is not in conflict with that opinion, and that the court did not,
in the case referred to, decide upon the construction of the clause of
the Constitution above mentioned, because the case before them did not
make it necessary to decide the question.
3. The United States, under the present Constitution, cannot acquire
territory to be held as a colony, to be governed at its will and
pleasure. But it may acquire territory which, at the time, has not a
population that fits it to become a State, and may govern it as a
Territory until it has a population which, in the judgment of Congress,
entitles it to be admitted as a State of the Union.
4. During the time it remains a Territory, Congress may legislate over
it within the scope of its constitutional powers in relation to citizens
of the United States--and may establish a Territorial Government--and
the form of this local Government must be regulated by the discretion of
Congress, but with powers not exceeding those which Congress itself, by
the Constitution, is authorized to exercise over citizens of the United
States, in respect to their rights of persons or rights of property.
IV.
1. The territory thus acquired, is acquired by the people of the United
States for their common and equal benefit, through their agent and
trustee, the Federal Government. Congress can exercise no power over the
rights of person or property of a citizen in the Territory which is
prohibited by the Constitution. The Government and the citizen, whenever
the Territory is open to settlement, both enter it with their respective
rights defined and limited by the Constitution.
2. Congress has no right to prohibit the citizens of any particular
State or States from taking up their home there, while it permits
citizens of other States to do so. Nor has it a right to give privileges
to one class of citizens which it refuses to another. The territory is
acquired for their equal and common benefit--and if open to any, it must
be open to all upon equal and the same terms.
3. Every citizen has a right to take with him into the Territory any
article of property which the Constitution of the United States
recognizes as property.
4. The Constitution of the United States recognizes slaves as property,
and pledges the Federal Government to protect it. And Congress cannot
exercise any more authority over property of that description than it
may constitutionally exercise over property of any other kind.
5. The act of Congress, therefore, prohibiting a citizen of the United
States from taking with him his slaves when he removes to the Territory
in question to reside, is an exercise of authority over private property
which is not warranted by the Constitution--and the removal of the
plaintiff, by his owner, to that Territory, gave him no title to
freedom.
V.
1. The plaintiff himself acquired no title to freedom by being taken, by
his owner, to Rock Island, in Illinois, and brought back to Missouri.
This court has heretofore decided that the _status_ or condition of a
person of African descent depended on the laws of the State in which he
resided.
2. It has been settled by the decisions of the highest court in
Missouri, that by the laws of that State, a slave does not become
entitled to his freedom, where the owner takes him to reside in a State
where slavery is not permitted, and afterwards brings him back to
Missouri.
Conclusion. It follows that it is apparent upon the record that the
court below erred in its judgment on the plea in abatement, and also
erred in giving judgment for the defendant, when the exception shows
that the plaintiff was not a citizen of the United States. And as the
Circuit Court had no jurisdiction, either in the case stated in the plea
in abatement, or in the one stated in the exception, its judgment in
favor of the defendant is erroneous, and must be reversed.
THE
FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
BY
REV. CHARLES HODGE, D.D.
OF NEW JERSEY.
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
NOTE.--We have affixed, by way of comment to "the
decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott
case," the following able paper from the pen of
Prof. Hodge. It lucidly explains the source and
sanction of Civil Government, and deduces
therefrom the duties and responsibilities of the
governed.--ED.
* * * * *
Alleged Immorality of the Law answered--Duty of
Obedience--Government a Divine Institution--The
Warrant of Government is not the consent of the
governed--Infidel Doctrines--Deductions from this
Doctrine--Decision of the Supreme
Court--Objections answered--Conscience and the
Law--Duty of Executive Officers--Duty of Private
Citizens--Objections answered--Right of
Revolution--Summary application of these
principles to the Fugitive Slave Law--Conclusion.
THERE is no more obvious duty, at the present time, resting on American
Christians, ministers and people, than to endeavor to promote kind
feelings between the South and the North. All fierce addresses to the
passions, on either side, are fratricidal. It is an offense against the
gospel, against our common country, and against God. Every one should
endeavor to diffuse right principles, and thus secure right feeling and
action, under the blessing of God in every part of the land. If the
South has no such grounds of complaint as would justify them before God
and the human race, whose trustees in one important sense they are, in
dissolving the Union, how is it with the North? Are they justifiable in
the violent resistance to the fugitive slave bill, which has been
threatened or attempted? This opposition in a great measure has been
confined to the abolitionists as a party, and as such they are a small
minority of the people. They have never included in their ranks either
the controlling intellect or moral feeling at the North. Their
fundamental principle is anti-scriptural and therefore irreligious.
They assume that slaveholding is sinful. This doctrine is the life of
the sect. It has no power over those who reject that principle, and
therefore it has not gained ascendency over those whose faith is
governed by the word of God.
We have ever maintained that the proper method of opposing this party,
and of counteracting its pernicious influence, was to exhibit clearly
the falsehood of its one idea, viz: that slaveholding is a sin against
God. The discussion has now taken a new turn. It is assumed that the
fugitiue slave law of the last Congress, (1850) is unconstitutional, or
if not contrary to the Constitution, contrary to the law of God. Under
this impression many who have never been regarded as abolitionists, have
entered their protest against the law, and some in their haste have
inferred from its supposed unconstitutionality or immorality that it
ought to be openly resisted. It is obvious that the proper method of
dealing with the subject in this new aspect, is to demonstrate that the
law in question is according to the Constitution of the land; that it is
not inconsistent with the divine law; or, admitting its
unconstitutionality or immorality, that the resistance recommended is
none the less a sin against God. We do not propose to discuss either of
the two former of these propositions. The constitutionality of the law
may safely be left in the hands of the constituted authorities. It is
enough for us that there is no flagrant and manifest inconsistency
between the law and the constitution; that the first legal authorities
in the land pronounce them perfectly consistent; and that there is no
difference in principle between the present law and that of 1793 on the
same subject, in which the whole country has acquiesced for more than
half a century. We would also say that after having read some of the
most labored disquisitions designed to prove that the fugitive slave
bill subverts the fundamental principles of our federal compact, we have
been unable to discover the least force in the arguments adduced.
As to the immorality of the law, so far as we can discover, the whole
stress of the argument in the affirmative rests on two assumptions.
First, that the law of God in Deuteronomy, expressly forbids the
restoration of a fugitive slave to his owner; and secondly, that slavery
itself being sinful, it must be wrong to enforce the claims of the
master to the service of the slave. As to the former of these
assumptions, we would simply remark, that the venerable Prof. Stuart in
his recent work, "Conscience and the Constitution," has clearly proved
that the law in Deuteronomy has no application to the present case. The
thing there forbidden is the restoration of a slave who had fled from a
heathen master and taken refuge among the worshipers of the true God.
Such a man was not to be forced back into heathenism. This is the
obvious meaning and spirit of the command. That it has no reference to
slaves who had escaped from Hebrew masters, and fled from one tribe or
city to another, is plain from the simple fact that the Hebrew laws
recognized slavery. It would be a perfect contradiction if the law
authorized the purchase and holding of slaves, and yet forbid the
enforcing the right of possession. There could be no such thing as
slavery, in such a land as Palestine, if the slave could recover his
liberty by simply moving from one tribe to another over an imaginary
line, or even from the house of his master to that of his next neighbor.
Besides, how inconsistent is it in the abolitionists in one breath to
maintain that the laws of Moses did not recognize slavery, and in the
next, that the laws about the restoration of slaves referred to the
slaves of Hebrew masters. According to their doctrine, there could be
among the Israelites no slaves to restore. They must admit either that
the law of God allowed the Hebrews to hold slaves, and then there is an
end to their arguments against the sinfulness of slaveholding; or
acknowledge that the law representing the restoration of slaves referred
only to fugitives from the heathen, and then there is an end to their
argument from this enactment against the law under consideration.
The way in which abolitionists treat the Scriptures makes it evident
that the command in Deuteronomy is urged not so much out of regard to
the authority of the word of God, as an argumentum ad hominem. Wherever
the Scriptures either in the Old or New Testament recognize the
lawfulness of holding slaves, they are tortured without mercy to force
from them a different response; and where, as in this case, they appear
to favor the other side of the question, abolitionists quote them rather
to silence those who make them the rule of their faith, than as the
ground of their own convictions. Were there no such law as that in
Deuteronomy in existence, or were there a plain injunction to restore a
fugitive from service to his Hebrew master, it is plain from their
principles that they would none the less fiercely condemn the law under
consideration. Their opposition is not founded on the scriptural
command. It rests on the assumption that the master's claim is
iniquitous and ought not to be enforced.[258] Their objections are not
to the mode of delivery, but to the delivery itself. Why else quote the
law in Deuteronomy, which apparently forbids such surrender of the
fugitive to his master? It is clear that no effective enactment could be
framed on this subject which would not meet with the same opposition. We
are convinced, by reading the discussions on this subject, that the
immorality attributed to the fugitive slave law resolves itself into the
assumed immorality of slaveholding. No man would object to restoring an
apprentice to his master; and no one would quote Scripture or search for
arguments to prove it sinful to restore a fugitive slave, if he believed
slaveholding to be lawful in the sight of God. This being the case, we
feel satisfied that the mass of people at the North, whose conscience
and action are ultimately determined by the teachings of the Bible, will
soon settle down into the conviction that the law in question is not in
conflict with the law of God.
But suppose the reverse to be the fact; suppose it clearly made out that
the law passed by Congress in reference to fugitive slaves is contrary
to the Constitution or to the law of God, what is to be done? What is
the duty of the people under such circumstances? The answers given to
this question are very different, and some of them so portentous that
the public mind has been aroused and directed to the consideration of
the nature of civil government and of the grounds and limits of the
obedience due to the laws of the land. As this is a subject not merely
of general interest at this time, but of permanent importance, we
purpose to devote to its discussion the few following pages.
Our design is to state in few words in what sense government is a divine
institution, and to draw from that doctrine the principles which must
determine the nature and limits of the obedience which is due the laws
of the land.
That the Bible, when it asserts that all power is of God, or the powers
that be are ordained of God, does not teach that any one form of civil
government has been divinely appointed as universally obligatory, is
plain because the Scriptures contain no such prescription. There are no
directions given as to the form which civil governments shall assume.
All the divine commands on this subject, are as applicable under one
form as another. The direction is general; obey the powers that be. The
propsition is unlimited; all power is of God; i. e., government,
whatever its form, is of God. He has ordained it. The most pointed
scriptural injunctions on this subject were given during the usurped or
tyrannical reign of military despots. It is plain that the sacred
writers did not, in such passages, mean to teach that a military
despotism was the form of government which God had ordained as of
perpetual and universal obligation. As the Bible enjoins no one form, so
the people of God in all ages, under the guidance of his Spirit, have
lived with a good conscience, under all the diversities of organization
of which human government is susceptible.
Again, as no one form of government is prescribed, so neither has God
determined preceptively who are to exercise civil power. He has not
said that such power must be hereditary, and descend on the principle of
primogeniture. He has not determined whether it shall be confined to
males to the exclusion of females; or whether all offices shall be
elective. These are not matters of divine appointment, and are not
included in the proposition that all power is of God. Neither is it
included in this proposition that government is in such a sense ordained
of God that the people have no control in the matter. The doctrine of
the Bible is not inconsistent with the right of the people, as we shall
endeavor to show in the sequel, to determine their own form of
government and to select their own rulers.
When it is said government is of God, we understand the Scriptures to
mean, first, that it is a divine institution and not a mere social
compact. It does not belong to the category of voluntary associations
such as men form for literary, benevolent, or commercial purposes. It is
not optional with men whether government shall exist. It is a divine
appointment, in the same sense as marriage and the church are divine
institutions. The former of these is not a mere civil contract, nor is
the church as a visible spiritual community a mere voluntary society.
Men are under obligation to recognize its existence, to join its ranks
and submit to its laws. In like manner it is the will of God that civil
government should exist. Men are bound by his authority to have civil
rulers for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that
do well. This is the scriptural doctrine, as opposed to the deistical
theory of a social compact as the ultimate ground of all human
governments.
It follows from this view of the subject that obedience to the laws of
the land is a religious duty, and that disobedience is of the specific
nature of sin; this is a principle of vast importance. It is true that
the law of God is so broad that it binds a man to every thing that is
right, and forbids every thing that is wrong; and consequently that
every violation even of a voluntary engagement is of the nature of an
offense against God. Still there is a wide difference between
disobedience to an obligation voluntarily assumed, and which has no
other sanction than our own engagement, and disregard of an obligation
directly imposed of God. St. Peter recognizes this distinction when he
said to Annanias, Thou hast not lied unto men but unto God. All lying is
sinful, but lying to God is a higher crime than lying to men. There is
greater irreverence and contempt of the divine presence and authority,
and a violation of an obligation of a higher order. Every man feels that
the marriage vows have a sacred character which could not belong to
them, if marriage was merely a civil contract. In like manner the divine
institution of government elevates it into the sphere of religion, and
adds a new and higher sanction to the obligations which it imposes.
There is a specific difference, more easily felt than described, between
what is religious and what is merely moral; between disobedience to man
and resistance to an ordinance of God.
A third point included in the scriptural doctrine on this subject is,
that the actual existence of any government creates the obligation of
obedience. That is, the obligation does not rest either on the origin or
the nature of the government, or on the mode in which it is
administered. It may be legitimate or revolutionary, despotic or
constitutional, just or unjust, so long as it exists it is to be
recognized and obeyed within its proper sphere. The powers that be are
ordained of God in such sense that the possession of power is to be
referred to his providence. It is not by chance, nor through the
uncontrolled agency of men, but by divine ordination that any government
exists. The declaration of the apostle just quoted was uttered under the
reign of Nero. It is as true of his authority as of that of the Queen of
England, or that of our own President, that it was of God. He made Nero
Emperor. He required all within the limits of the Roman empire to
recognize and obey him so long as he was allowed to occupy the throne.
It was not necessary for the early Christians to sit in judgment on the
title of every new emperor, whenever the pretorian guards chose to put
down one and put up another; neither are God's people now in various
parts of the world called upon to discuss the titles and adjudicate the
claims of their rulers. The possession of civil power is a providential
fact, and is to be regarded as such. This does not imply that God
approves of every government which he allows to exist. He permits
oppressive rulers to bear sway, just as he permits famine or pestilence
to execute his vengeance. A good government is a blessing, a bad
government is a judgment; but the one as much as the other is ordained
of God, and is to be obeyed not only for fear but also for conscience
sake.
A fourth principle involved in the proposition that all power is of God
is, that the magistrate is invested with a divine right. He represents
God. His authority is derived from Him. There is a sense in which he
represents the people and derives from them his power; but in a far
higher sense he is the minister of God. To resist him is to resist God,
and "they that resist shall receive unto themselves damnation." Thus
saith the Scriptures. It need hardly be remarked that this principle
relates to the nature, and not to the extent, of the power of the
magistrate. It is as true of the lowest as of the highest; of a justice
of the peace as of the President of the United States; of a
constitutional monarch as of an absolute sovereign. The principle is
that the authority of rulers is divine, and not human, in its origin.
They exercise the power which belongs to them of divine right. The
reader, we trust, will not confound this doctrine with the old doctrine
of "the divine right of kings." The two things are as different as day
and night. We are not for reviving a defunct theory of civil government;
a theory which perished, at least among Anglo-Saxons, at the expulsion
of James II. from the throne of England. That monarch took it with him
into exile, and it lies entombed with the last of the Stuarts. According
to that theory God had established the monarchical form of government as
universally obligatory. There could not consistently with his law be any
other. The people had no more right to renounce that form of government
than the children of a family have to resolve themselves into a
democracy. In the second place, it assumed that God had determined the
law of succession as well as the form of government. The people could
not change the one any more than the other; or any more than children
could change their father, or a wife her husband. And thirdly, as a
necessary consequence of these principles, it inculcated in all cases
the duty of passive obedience. The king holding his office immediately
from God, held it entirely independent of the will of the people, and
his responsibility was to God alone. He could not forfeit his throne by
any injustice however flagrant. The people, if in any case they could
not obey, were obliged to submit; resistance or revolution was treason
against God. We have already remarked that the scriptural doctrine is
opposed to every one of these principles. The Bible does not prescribe
any one form of government; it does not determine who shall be
depositories of civil power; and it clearly recognizes the right of
revolution. In asserting, therefore, the divine right of rulers, we are
not asserting any doctrine repudiated by our forefathers, or
inconsistent with civil liberty in its widest rational extent.
Such, as we understand it, is the true nature of civil government. It is
a divine institution and not a mere voluntary compact. Obedience to the
magistrate and laws is a religious duty; and disobedience is a sin
against God. This is true of all forms of government. Men living under
the Turkish Sultan are bound to recognize his authority, as much as the
subjects of a constitutional monarch, or the fellow-citizens of an
elective president, are bound to recognize their respective rulers. All
power is of God, and the powers that be are ordained of God, in such
sense that all magistrates are to be regarded as his ministers, acting
in his name and with his authority, each within his legitimate sphere;
beyond which he ceases to be a magistrate.
That this is the doctrine of the Scriptures on this subject can hardly
be doubted. The Bible never refers to the consent of the governed, the
superiority of the rulers, or to the general principles of expediency,
as the ground of our obligation to the higher powers. The obedience
which slaves owe their masters, children their parents, wives their
husbands, people their rulers, is always made to rest on the divine will
as its ultimate foundation. It is part of the service which we owe to
God. We are required to act, in all these relations, not as
men-pleasers, but as the servants of God. All such obedience terminates
on our Master who is in heaven. This gives the sublimity of spiritual
freedom even to the service of a slave. It is not in the power of man to
reduce to bondage those who serve God, in all the service they render
their fellow-men. The will of God, therefore, is the foundation of our
obligation to obey the laws of the land. His will, however, is not an
arbitrary determination; it is the expression of infinite intelligence
and love. There is the most perfect agreement between all the precepts
of the Bible and the highest dictates of reason. There is no command in
the word of God of permanent and universal obligation, which may not be
shown to be in accordance with the laws of our own higher nature. This
is one of the strongest collateral arguments in favor of the divine
origin of the Scriptures. In appealing therefore to the Bible in support
of the doctrine here advanced, we are not, on the one hand appealing to
an arbitrary standard, a mere statute book, a collection of laws which
create the obligations they enforce; nor, on the other hand, to "the
reason and nature of things" in the abstract, which after all is only
our own reason; but we are appealing to the infinite intelligence of a
personal God, whose will, because of his infinite excellence, is
necessarily the ultimate ground and rule of all moral obligation. This,
however, being the case, whatever the Bible declares to be right is
found to be in accordance with the constitution of nature and our own
reason. All that the Scriptures, for example, teach of the subordination
of children to their parents, of wives to their husbands, has not its
foundation, but its confirmation, in the very nature of the relation of
the parties. Any violation of the precepts of the Bible, on these
points, is found to be a violation of the laws of nature, and certainly
destructive. In like manner it is clear from the social nature of man,
from the dependence of men upon each other, from the impossibility of
attaining the end of our being in this world, otherwise than in society
and under an ordered government, that it is the will of God that such
society should exist. The design of God in this matter is as plain as in
the constitution of the universe. We might as well maintain that the
laws of nature are the result of chance, or that marriage and parental
authority have no other foundation than human law, as to assert that
civil government has no firmer foundation than the will of man or the
quicksands of expediency. By creating men social beings, and making it
necessary for them to live in society, God has made his will as thus
revealed the foundation of all civil government.
This doctrine is but one aspect of the comprehensive doctrine of Theism,
a doctrine which teaches the existence of a personal God, a Spirit
infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power,
justice, holiness, goodness, and truth; a God who is everywhere present
upholding and governing all his creatures and all their actions. The
universe is not a machine left to go of itself. God did not at first
create matter and impress upon it certain laws and then leave it to
their blind operation. He is everywhere present in the material world,
not superseding secondary causes, but so upholding and guiding their
operations, that the intelligence evinced is the omnipresent
intelligence of God, and the power exercised is the _potestas ordinata_
of the Great First Cause. He is no less supreme in his control of
intelligent agents. They indeed are free, but not independent. They are
governed in a manner consistent with their nature; yet God turns them as
the rivers of waters are turned. All events depending on human agency
are under his control. God is in history. Neither chance nor blind
necessity determine the concatenation or issues of things. Nor is the
world in the hands of its inhabitants. God has not launched our globe on
the ocean of space and left its multitudinous crew to direct its course
without his interference. He is at the helm. His breath fills the sails.
His wisdom and power are pledged for the prosperity of the voyage.
Nothing happens, even to the falling of a sparrow, which is not ordered
by him. He works all things after the counsel of his will. It is by him
that kings reign and princes decree justice. He puts down one, and
raises up another. As he leads out the stars by night, marshaling them
as a host, calling each one by its name, so does he order all human
events. He raises up nations and appoints the bounds of their
habitation. He founds the empires of the earth and determines their form
and their duration. This doctrine of God's universal providence is the
foundation of all religion. If this doctrine be not true, we are without
God in the world. But if it is true, it involves a vast deal. God is
everywhere in nature and in history. Every thing is a revelation of his
presence and power. We are always in contact with him. Every thing has a
voice, which speaks of his goodness or his wrath; fruitful seasons
proclaim his goodness, famine and pestilence declare his displeasure.
Nothing is by chance. The existence of any particular form of government
is as much his work, as the rising of the sun or falling of the rain. It
is something he has ordained for some wise purpose, and it is to be
regarded as his work. If all events are under God's control, if it is by
him that kings reign, then the actual possession of power is as much a
revelation of his will that it should be obeyed, as the possession of
wisdom or goodness is a manifestation of his will that those endowed
with those gifts, should be reverenced and loved. It follows, therefore,
from the universal providence of God, that "the powers that be are
ordained of God." We have no more right to refuse obedience to an
actually existing government because it is not to our taste, or because
we do not approve of its measures, than a child has the right to refuse
to recognize a wayward parent; or a wife a capricious husband.
The religious character of our civil duties flows also from the
comprehensive doctrine that the will of God is the ground of all moral
obligation. To seek that ground either in "the reason and nature of
things," or in expediency, is to banish God from the moral world, as
effectually as the mechanical theory of the universe banishes him from
the physical universe and from history. Our allegiance on that
hypothesis is not to God but to reason or to society. This theory of
morals therefore, changes the nature of religion and of moral
obligation. It modifies and degrades all religious sentiment and
exercises; it changes the very nature of sin, of repentance and
obedience, and gives us, what is a perfect solecism, a religion without
God. According to the Bible, our obligation to obey the laws of the land
is not founded on the fact that the good of society requires such
obedience, or that it is a dictate of reason, but on the authority of
God. It is part of the service which we owe to him. This must be so if
the doctrine is true that God is our moral governor, to whom we are
responsible for all our acts, and whose will is both the ground and the
rule of all our obligations.
We need not, however, dwell longer on this subject. Although it has long
been common to look upon civil government as a human institution, and to
represent the consent of the governed as the only ground of the
obligation of obedience, yet this doctrine is so notoriously of infidel
origin, and so obviously in conflict with the teachings of the Bible,
that it can have no hold on the convictions of a Christian people. It is
no more true of the state than it is of the family, or of the church.
All are of divine institution. All have their foundation in his will.
The duties belonging to each are enjoined by him and are enforced by his
authority. Marriage is indeed a voluntary covenant. The parties select
each other, and the state may make laws regulating the mode in which the
contract shall be ratified; and determining its civil effects. It is,
however, none the less an ordinance of God. The vows it includes are
made to God; its sanction is found in his law; and its violation is not
a mere breach of contract or disobedience to the civil law, but a sin
against God. So with regard to the church, it is in one sense a
voluntary society. No man can be forced by other men to join its
communion. If done at all it must be done with his own consent, yet
every man is under the strongest moral obligation to enter its fold. And
when enrolled in the number of its members his obligation to obedience
does not rest on his consent; it does not cease should that consent be
withdrawn. It rests on the authority of the church as a divine
institution. This is an authority no man can throw off. It presses him
everywhere and at all times with the weight of a moral obligation. In a
sense analogous to this the state is a divine institution. Men are bound
to organize themselves into a civil government. Their obligation to obey
its laws does not rest upon their compact in this case, any more than in
the others above referred to. It is enjoined by God. It is a religious
duty, and disobedience is a direct offense against him. The people have
indeed the right to determine the form of the government under which
they are to live, and to modify it from time to time to suit their
changing condition. So, though to a less extent, or within narrower
limits, they have a right to modify the form of their ecclesiastical
governments, a right which every church has exercised, but the ground
and nature of the obligation to obedience remains unchanged. This is not
a matter of mere theory. It is of primary practical importance and has
an all-pervading influence on national character. Every thing indeed
connected with this subject depends on the answer to the question, Why
are we obliged to obey the laws? If we answer because we made them; or
because we assent to them, or framed the government which enacts them;
or because the good of society enjoins obedience, or reason dictates it,
then the state is a human institution; it has no religious sanction; it
is founded on the sand; it ceases to have a hold on the conscience and
to commend itself as a revelation of God to be reverenced and obeyed as
a manifestation of his presence and will. But, on the other hand, if we
place the state in the same category with the family and the church, and
regard it as an institution of God, then we elevate it into a higher
sphere; we invest it with religious sanctions and it become pervaded by
a divine presence and authority, which immeasurably strengthens, while
it elevates its power. Obedience for conscience' sake is as different
from obedience from fear, or from voluntary consent, or regard to human
authority, as the divine from the human.
Such being, as we conceive, the true doctrine concerning the nature of
the state, it is well to inquire into the necessary deductions from this
doctrine. If government be a divine institution, and obedience to the
laws a matter resting on the authority of God, it might seem to follow
that in no case could human laws be disregarded with a good conscience.
This, as we have seen, is in fact the conclusion drawn from these
premises by the advocates of the doctrine "of passive obedience." The
command, however, to be subject to the higher powers is not more
unlimited in its statement than the command, "children obey your parents
in all things." From this latter command no one draws the conclusion
that unlimited obedience is due from children to their parents. The true
inference doubtless is, in both cases, that obedience is the rule, and
disobedience the exception. If in any instance a child refuse compliance
with the requisition of the parent, or a citizen with the law of the
land, he must be prepared to justify such disobedience at the bar of
God. Even divine laws may in some cases be dispensed with. Those which
indeed are founded on the nature of God, such as the command to love Him
and our neighbor, are necessarily immutable. But those which are founded
on the present constitution of things, though permanent as general rules
of action, may on adequate grounds, be violated without sin. The
commands, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Remember the
sabbath day to keep it holy, are all of permanent authority; and yet
there may be justifiable homicide, and men may profane the sabbath and
be blameless. In like manner the command to obey the laws, is a divine
injunction, and yet there are cases in which disobedience is a duty. It
becomes then of importance to determine what these cases are; or to
ascertain the principles which limit the obedience which we owe to the
state. It follows from the divine institution of government that its
power is limited by the design of God in its institution, and by the
moral law. The family, the church and the state are all divine
institutions, designed for specific purposes. Each has its own sphere,
and the authority belonging to each is necessarily confined within its
own province. The father appears in his household as its divinely
appointed head. By the command of God all the members of that household
are required to yield him reverence and obedience. But he can not carry
his parental authority into the church or the state; nor can he appear
in his family as a magistrate or church officer. The obedience due to
him is that which belongs to a father, and not to a civil or
ecclesiastical officer, and his children are not required to obey him
in either of those capacities. In like manner the officers of the
church have within their sphere a divine right to rule, but they can not
claim civil authority on the ground of the general command to the people
to obey those who have the care of souls. Heb. xiii: 17. As the church
officer loses his power when he enters the forum; so does the civil
magistrate when he enters the church. His right to rule is a right which
belongs to him as representing God in the state--he has no commission to
represent God either in the family or the church; and therefore, he is
entitled to no obedience if he claims an authority which does not belong
to him. This is a very obvious principle, and is of wide application. It
not only limits the authority of civil officers to civil affairs, but
limits the extent due to the obedience to be rendered even in civil
matters to the officers of the state. A justice of the peace has no
claim to the obedience due to a governor of a state; nor a governor of a
state to that which belongs to the President of the Union; nor the
President of the Union to that which may be rightfully claimed by an
absolute sovereign. A military commander has no authority over the
community as a civil magistrate, nor can he exercise such authority even
over his subordinates. This principle applies in all its force to the
law-making power. The legislature can not exercise any power which does
not belong to them. They can not act as judges or magistrates unless
such authority has been actually committed to them. They are to be
obeyed as legislators; and in any other capacity their decisions or
commands do not bind the conscience. And still further, their
legislative enactments have authority only when made in the exercise of
their legitimate powers. In other words, an unconstitutional law is no
law. If our Congress, for example, were to pass a bill creating an order
of nobility, or an established church, or to change the religion of the
land, or to enforce a sumptuary code, it would have no more virtue and
be entitled to no more deference than a similar enactment intended to
bind the whole country passed by a town council. This we presume will
not be denied. God has committed unlimited power to no man and to no set
of men, and the limitation which he has assigned to the power conferred,
is to be found in the design for which it was given. That design is
determined in the case of the family, the church and the state, by the
nature of these institutions, by the general precepts of the Bible, or
by the providence of God determining the peculiar constitution under
which these organizations are called to act. The power of a parent was
greater under the old dispensation than it is now; the legitimate
authority of the church is greater under some modes of organization than
under others; and the power of the state as represented in its
constituted authorities is far more extensive in some countries than in
others. The theory of the British government is that the parliament is
the whole state in convention, and therefore it exercises powers which
do not belong to our Congress, which represents the state only for
certain specified purposes. These diversities, however, do not alter the
general principle, which is, that rulers are to be obeyed in the
exercise of their legitimate authority; that their commmands or
requirements beyond their appropriate spheres are void of all binding
force. This is a principle which no one can dispute.
A second principle is no less plain. No human authority can make it
obligatory on us to commit sin. If all power is of God it can not be
legitimately used against God. This is a dictate of natural conscience,
and is authenticated by the clearest teachings of the word of God. The
apostles when commanded to abstain from preaching Christ refused to
obey, and said: "Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto
you more than unto God, judge ye." No human law could make it binding on
the ministers of the gospel, in our day, to withhold the message of
salvation from their fellow-men. It requires no argument to prove that
men can not make it right to worship idols, to blaspheme God, to deny
Christ. It is sheer fanaticism thus to exalt the power of the government
above the authority of God. This would be to bring back upon us some of
the worst doctrines of the middle ages as to the power of the pope and
of earthly sovereigns. Good men in all ages of the world have always
acted on the principle that human laws can not bind the conscience when
they are in conflict with the law of God. Daniel openly, in the sight of
his enemies, prayed to the God of heaven in despite of the prohibition
of his sovereign. Shadrach, Mesheck and Abednego refused to bow down, at
the command of the king, to the golden image. The early Christians
disregarded all those laws of Pagan Rome requiring them to do homage to
false gods. Protestants with equal unanimity refused to submit to the
laws of their papal sovereigns enjoining the profession of Romish
errors. That these men were right no man, with an enlightened
conscience, can deny; but they were right only on the principle that the
power of the state and of the magistrate is limited by the law of God.
It follows then from the divine institution of government, that its
power to bind the conscience to obedience is limited by the design of
its appointment and the moral law. All its power being from God, it must
be subordinate to him. This is a doctrine which, however, for a time and
in words, it may be denied, is too plain and too important not to be
generally recognized. It is a principle too which should at all times be
publicly avowed. The very sanctity of human laws requires it. Their real
power and authority lie in their having a divine sanction. To claim for
them binding force when destitute of such sanction, is to set up a mere
semblance for a reality, a suit of armor with no living man within. The
stability of human government and the authority of civil laws require
that they should be kept within the sphere where they repose on God, and
are pervaded by his presence and power. Without him nothing human can
stand. All power is of God; and if of God, divine; and if divine, in
accordance with his holy law.
But who are the judges of the application of these principles? Who is to
determine whether a particular law is unconstitutional or immoral? So
far as the mere constitutionality of a law is concerned, it may be
remarked, that there is in most states, as in our own, for example, a
regular judicial tribunal to which every legislative enactment can be
submitted, and the question of its conformity to the constitution
authoritatively decided. In all ordinary cases, that is, in all cases
not involving some great principle or some question of conscience, such
decisions must be held to be final, and to bind all concerned not only
to submission but obedience. A law thus sanctioned becomes instinct with
all the power of the state, and further opposition brings the recusants
into conflict with the government; a conflict in which no man for light
reasons can with a good conscience engage. Still it can not be denied,
and ought not to be concealed, that the ultimate decision must be
referred to his own judgment. This is a necessary deduction from the
doctrine that obedience to law is a religious duty. It is a primary
principle that the right of private judgment extends over all questions
of faith and morals. No human power can come between God and the
conscience. Every man must answer for his own sins, and therefore every
man must have the right to determine for himself what is sin. As he can
not transfer his responsibility, he can not transfer his right of
judgment. This principle has received the sanction of good men in every
age of the world. Daniel judged for himself of the binding force of the
command not to worship the true God. So did the apostles when they
continued to preach Christ, in opposition to all the constituted
authorities. The laws passed by Pagan Rome requiring the worship of
idols had the sanction of all the authorities of the empire, yet on the
ground of their private judgment the Christians refused to obey them.
Protestants in like manner refused to obey the laws of Papal Rome,
though sustained by all the authority both of the church and state. In
all these cases the right of private judgment can not be disputed. Even
where no question of religion or morality is directly concerned, this
right is undeniable. Does any one now condemn Hampden for refusing to
pay "ship-money?" Does any American condemn our ancestors for resisting
the stamp-act, though the authorities of St. Stephen's and Westminster
united in pronouncing the imposition constitutional? However this
principle may be regarded when stated in the abstract, every individual
instinctively acts upon it in his own case. Whenever a command is issued
by one in authority over us, we immediately and almost unconsciously
determine for ourselves, first, whether he had a right to give the
order; and secondly, whether it can with a good conscience be obeyed. If
this decision is clearly in the negative, we at once determine to refuse
obedience on our own responsibility. Let any man test this point by an
appeal to his own consciousness. Let him suppose the President of the
United States to order him to turn Romanist or Pagan; or Congress to
pass a bill requiring him to blaspheme God; or a military superior to
command him to commit treason or murder--does not his conscience tell
him he would on the instant refuse? Would he, or could he wait until the
constitutionality of such requisitions had been submitted to the courts?
or if the courts should decide against him, would that at all alter the
case? Men must be strangely oblivious of the relation of the soul to
God, the instinctive sense which we possess of our allegiance to him,
and of the self-evidencing power with which his voice reaches the reason
and the conscience, to question the necessity which every man is under
to decide all questions touching his duty to God for himself.
It may indeed be thought that this doctrine is subversive of the
authority of government. A moment's reflection is sufficient to dispel
this apprehension. The power of laws rests on two foundations, fear and
conscience. Both are left by this doctrine in their integrity. The
former, because the man refuses obedience at his peril. His private
conviction that the law is unconstitutional or immoral does not abrogate
it, or impede its operation. If arraigned for its violation, he may
plead in his justification his objections to the authority of the law.
If these objections are found valid by the competent authorities, he is
acquitted; if otherwise, he suffers the penalty. What more can the state
ask? All the power the state, as such, can give its laws, lies in their
penalty. A single decision by the ultimate authority in favor of a law,
is a revelation to the whole body of the people that it can not be
violated with impunity. The sword of justice hangs over every
transgressor. The motive of fear in securing obedience, is therefore, as
operative under this view of the subject, as it can be under any other.
What, however, is of far more consequence, the power of conscience is
left in full force. Obedience to the law is a religious duty, enjoined
by the word of God and enforced by conscience. If, in any case, it be
withheld, it is under a sense of responsibility to God; and under the
conviction that if this conscientious objection be feigned, it
aggravates the guilt of disobedience as a sin against God an hundred
fold; and if it be mistaken, it affords no palliation of the offense.
Paul was guilty in persecuting the church, though he thought he was
doing God service. And the man, who by a perverted conscience, is led to
refuse obedience to a righteous law, stands without excuse at the bar of
God. The moral sanction of civil laws, which gives them their chief
power, and without which they must ultimately become inoperative, cannot
possibly extend further than this. For what is that moral sanction? It
is a conviction that our duty to God requires our obedience; but how can
we feel that duty to God requires us to do what God forbids? In other
words, a law which we regard as immoral, can not present itself to the
conscience as having divine authority. Conscience, therefore, is on the
side of the law wherever and whenever this is possible from the nature
of the case. It is a contradiction to say that conscience enforces what
conscience condemns. This then is all the support which the laws of the
land can possibly derive from our moral convictions. The allegiance of
conscience is to God. It enforces obedience to all human laws consistent
with that allegiance; further than this it can not by possibility go.
And as the decisions of conscience are, by the constitution of our
nature, determined by our own apprehensions of the moral law, and not by
authority, it follows of necessity that every man must judge for
himself, and on his own responsibility, whether any given law of man
conflicts with the law of God or not.
We would further remark on this point that the lives and property of men
have no greater protection than that which, on this theory, is secured
for the laws of the state. The law of God says: Thou shalt not kill. Yet
every man does, and must judge when and how far this law binds his
conscience. It is admitted, on all hands, that there are cases in which
its obligation ceases. What those cases are each man determines for
himself, but under his two fold responsibility to his country and to
God. If, through passion or any other cause, he errs as to what
constitutes justifiable homicide, he must bear the penalty attached to
murder, by the law of God and man. It is precisely so in the case before
us. God has commanded us to obey the magistrate as his minister and
representative. If we err in our judgment as to the cases in which the
command ceases to be binding, we fall into the hands of justice, both
human and divine. Can more than this be necessary? Can any thing be
gained by trying to make God require us to break his own commands? Can
conscience be made to sanction the violation of the moral law? Is not
this the way to destroy all moral distinctions, and to prostrate the
authority of conscience, and with it the very foundation of civil
government? Is not all history full of the dreadful consequences of the
doctrine that human laws can make sin obligatory, and that those in
authority can judge for the people what is sin? What more than this is
needed to justify all the persecutions for righteousness' sake since the
world began? What hope could there be, on this ground, for the
preservation of religion or virtue, in any nation on the earth? If the
principle be once established, that the people are bound to obey all
human laws, or that they are not to judge for themselves when their duty
to God requires them to refuse such obedience, then there is not only an
end of all civil and religious liberty, but the very nature of civil
government, as a divine institution, is destroyed. It becomes first
atheistical, and then diabolical. Then the massacre of St.
Bartholomew's, the decrees of the French National Assembly, and the laws
of Pagan Rome against Christians, and of its Papal successor against
Protestants, were entitled to reverent obedience. Then, too, may any
infidel party which gains the ascendency in a state, as has happened of
late in Switzerland, render it morally obligatory upon all ministers to
close their churches, and on the people to renounce the gospel. This is
not an age or state of the world in which to advance such doctrines.
There are too many evidences of the gathering powers of evil, to render
it expedient to exalt the authority of man above that of God, or
emancipate men from subjection to their Master in heaven, that they may
become more obedient to their masters on earth. We are advocating the
cause of civil government, of the stability and authority of human laws,
when we make every thing rest on the authority of God, and when we limit
every human power by subordinating it to him. We hold, therefore, that
it is not only one of the plainest principles of morals, that no immoral
law can bind the conscience, and that every man must judge of its
character for himself, and on his own responsibility; but that this
doctrine is essential to all religious liberty, and to the religious
sanction of civil government. If you deny this principle, you thereby
deny that government is a divine institution, and denying that, you
deprive it of its vital energy, and send it tottering to a dishonored
grave.
But here the great practical question arises, What is to be done when
the law of the land comes into conflict with the law of God--or, which
is to us the same thing, with our convictions of what that law demands?
In answer to this question we would remark, in the first place, that in
most cases, the majority of the people have nothing to do, except
peaceably to use their influence to have the law repealed. The mass of
the people have nothing actively to do with the laws. Very few
enactments of the government touch one in a thousand in the population.
We may think a protective tariff not only inexpedient, but unequal and
therefore unjust. But we have nothing to do with it. We are not
responsible for it, and are not called upon to enforce it. The remark
applies even to laws of a higher character, such, _e. g._ as a law
proclaiming an unjust war; forbidding the introduction of the Bible into
public schools; requiring homage or sanction to be given to idolatrous
services by public officers, etc., etc. Such laws do not touch the mass
of the people. They do not require them either to do or abstain from
doing, any thing which conscience forbids or enjoins; and therefore
their duty in the premises may be limited to the use of legitimate means
to have laws of which they disapprove repealed.
In the second place, those executive officers who are called upon to
carry into effect a law which requires them to do what their conscience
condemns, must resign their office, if they would do their duty to God.
Some years since, General Maitland (if we remember the name correctly)
of the Madras Presidency, in India, resigned a lucrative and honorable
post, because he could not conscientiously give the sanction to the
Hindoo idolatry required by the British authorities. And within the last
few months, we have seen hundreds of Hessian officers throw up their
commissions rather than trample on the constitution of their country. On
the same principles the non-conformists in the time of Charles II. and
the ministers of the Free Church of Scotland, in our day, gave up their
stipends and their positions, because they could not with a good
conscience carry into effect the law of the land. It is not intended
that an executive officer should, in all cases, resign his post rather
than execute a law which in his private judgment he may regard as
unconstitutional or unjust. The responsibility attaches to those who
make, and not to those who execute the laws. It is only when the act,
which the officer is called upon to perform, involves personal
criminality, that he is called upon to decline its execution. Thus in
the case of war; a military officer is not the proper judge of its
justice. That is not a question between him and the enemy, but between
his government and the hostile nation. On the supposition that war
itself is not sinful, the act which the military officer is called upon
to perform is not criminal, and he may with a good conscience carry out
the commands of his government, whatever may be his private opinion of
the justice of the war. All such cases no doubt are more or less
complicated, and must be decided each on its own merits. The general
principle, however, appears plain, that it is only when the act required
of an executive officer involves personal criminality, that he is called
upon to resign. This is a case that often occurs. In Romish countries,
as Malta, for example, British officers have been required to do homage
to the host, and on their refusal have been cashiered. An instance of
this kind occurred a few years ago, and produced a profound sensation in
England. This was clearly a case of great injustice. The command was an
unrighteous one. The duty of the officer was to resign rather than obey.
Had the military authorities taken a fair view of the question, they
must have decided that the command to bow to the host, was not
obligatory, because _ultra vires_. But if such an order was insisted
upon, the conscientious Protestant must resign his commission.
The next question is, What is the duty of private citizens in the case
supposed, _i. e._, when the civil law either forbids them to do what God
commands, or commands them to do what God forbids? We answer, their duty
is not obedience, but submission. These are different things. A law
consists of two parts, the precept and the penalty. We obey the one, and
submit to the other. When we are required by the law to do what our
conscience pronounces to be sinful, we can not obey the precept, but we
are bound to submit without resistance to the penalty. We are not
authorized to abrogate the law, nor forcibly to resist its execution, no
matter how great its injustice or cruelty. On this principle holy men
have acted in all ages. The apostles did not obey the precept of the
Jewish laws forbidding them to preach Christ, but neither did they
resist the execution of the penalty attached to the violation of those
laws. Thus it was with all the martyrs; they would not offer incense to
idols, but refused not to be led to the stake. Had Cranmer, on the
ground of the iniquity of the law condemning him to death, killed the
officers who came to carry it into effect, he would have been guilty of
murder. Here is the great difference which is often overlooked. The
right of self-defense is appealed to as justifying resistance even to
death, against all attempts to deprive us of our liberty. We have this
right in reference to unauthorized individuals, but not in reference to
the officers of the law. Had men without authority entered Cranmer's
house, and attempted to take his life, his resistance, even if attended
with the loss of life, would have been justifiable. But no man has the
right to resist the execution of the law. What could be more iniquitous
than the laws condemning men to death for the worship of God. Yet to
these laws Christians and Protestants yielded unresisting submission.
This is an obvious duty, flowing from the divine institution of
government. There is no power but of God, and the powers that be are
ordained of God. Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power resisteth the
ordinance of God; and they that resist shall receive to themselves
damnation. Thus Paul reasoned. If the power is of God, it can not be
rightfully resisted; it must be obeyed or submitted to. Are wicked,
tyrannical, Pagan powers of God? Certainly they are. Does not he order
all things? Does any man become a king without God's permission granted
in mercy or in judgment? Was not Nero to be recognized as emperor? Would
it not be a sin to refuse submission to Nicholas of Russia, or to the
Sultan of Turkey? Are rulers to be obeyed only for their goodness? Is it
only kind and reasonable masters, parents, or husbands, who are to be
recognized as such? It is no doubt true, that in no case is unlimited
authority granted to men; and that obedience to the precepts of our
superiors is limited by the nature of their office, and by the moral
law; but this leaves their authority untouched, and the obligation to
submission where we can not obey, unimpaired.
Have we then got back to the old doctrine of "passive obedience" by
another route? Not at all. The scriptural rule above recited relates to
individuals. It prescribes the duty of submission even to unjust and
wicked laws, on the part of men in their separate capacity; but it does
not deny the right of revolution as existing in the community. What the
Scriptures forbid, is that any man should undertake to resist the law.
They do not forbid either change in the laws or change in the
government. There is an obvious difference between these two things,
viz: the right of resistance on the part of individuals, and the right
of revolution on the part of the people. This latter right we argue from
the divine institution of government itself. God has revealed his will
that government should exist, but he has not prescribed the form which
it shall assume. In other words, he has commanded men to organize such
government, but has left the form to be determined by themselves. This
is a necessary inference. It follows from the mere silence of Scripture
and nature on this subject, that it is left free to the determination of
those to whom the general command is given. In the next place, this
right is to be inferred from the design of civil government. That design
is the welfare of the people. It is the promotion of their physical and
moral improvement; the security of life and property; the punishment of
evil doers, and the praise of those who do well. If such is the end
which God designs government to answer, it must be his will that it
should be made to accomplish that purpose, and consequently that it may
be changed from time to time, so as to secure that end. No one form of
government is adapted to all states of society, any more than one suit
of clothes is proper to all stages of life. The end for which clothing
is designed, supposes the right to adapt it to that end. In like manner
the end government is intended to answer, supposes the right to modify
it whenever such modification is necessary. If God commands men to
accomplish certain ends, and does not prescribe the means, he does
thereby leave the choice of the means to their discretion. And any
institution which fails to accomplish the end intended by it, if it has
not a divine sanction as to its form, may lawfully be so changed as to
suit the purpose for which it was appointed. We hold, therefore, that
the people have, by divine right, the authority to change, not only
their rulers, but their form of government, whenever the one or the
other, instead of promoting the well-being of the community, is unjust
or injurious. This is a right which, like all other prerogatives, may be
exercised unwisely, capriciously, or even unjustly, but still it is not
to be denied. It has been recognized and exercised in all ages of the
world, and with the sanction of the best of men. It is as unavoidable
and healthful as the changes in the body to adapt it to the increasing
vigor of the mind, in its progress from infancy to age. The progress of
society depends on the exercise of this right. It is impossible that its
powers should be developed, if it were to be forever wrapt up in its
swaddling clothes, or coffined as a mummy. The early Christians
submitted quietly to the unjust laws of their Pagan oppressors, until
the mass of the community became Christians, and then they
revolutionized the government. Protestants acted in the same way with
their papal rulers. So did our forefathers, and so may any people whose
form of government no longer answers the end for which God has commanded
civil government to be instituted. The Quakers are now a minority in all
the countries in which they exist, and furnish an edifying example of
submission to the laws which they can not conscientiously obey. But
should they come, in any political society, to be the controlling
power, it is plain they would have the right to conduct it on their own
principles.
The right of revolution therefore is really embedded in the right to
serve God. A government which interferes with that service, which
commands what God forbids, or forbids what he commands, we are bound by
our duty to him to change as soon as we have the power. If this is not
so, then God has subjected his people to the necessity of always
submitting to punishment for obeying his commands, and has cut them off
from the only means which can insure their peaceful and secure enjoyment
of the liberty to do his will. No one, however, in our land, or of the
race to which we belong, will be disposed to question the right of the
people to change their form of government. Our history forbids all
diversity of sentiment on this subject. We are only concerned to show
that the scriptural doctrine of civil government is perfectly consistent
with that right; or rather that the right is one of the logical
deductions from that doctrine.
We have thus endeavored to prove that government is a divine
institution; that obedience to the laws is a religious duty; that such
obedience is due in all cases in which it can be rendered with a good
conscience; that when obedience can not be yielded without sinning
against God, then our duty as individuals is quietly to submit to the
infliction of the penalty attached to disobedience; and that the right
of resistance or of revolution rests only in the body of people for
whose benefit government is instituted.
The application of these principles to the case of the fugitive slave
law is so obvious, as hardly to justify remark. The great body of the
people regard that law as consistent with the constitution of the
country and the law of God. Their duty, therefore, in the premises,
whether they think it wise or unwise, is perfectly plain. Those who take
the opposite view of the law, having in the great majority of cases,
nothing to do with enforcing it, are in no measure responsible for it.
Their duty is limited to the use of peaceable and constitutional means
to get it repealed. A large part of the people of this country thought
the acquisition of Louisiana; the admission of Texas into the Union by a
simple resolution; the late Mexican war; were either unjust or
unconstitutional, but there was no resistance to these measures. None
was made, and none would have been justifiable. So in the present case,
as the people generally are not called upon either to do, or to forbear
from doing, any thing their conscience forbids, all resistance to the
operation of this law on their part must be without excuse. With regard
to the executive officers, whose province it is to carry the law into
effect, though some of them may disapprove of it as unwise, harsh, or
oppressive, still they are bound to execute it, unless they believe the
specific act which they are called upon to perform involves personal
criminality, and then their duty is the resignation of their office, and
not resistance to the law. There is the most obvious difference between
an officer being called upon, for example, to execute a decision of a
court, which in his private opinion he thinks unjust, and his being
called upon to blaspheme, or commit murder. The latter involves personal
guilt, the former does not. He is not the judge of the equity or
propriety of the decision which he is required to carry into effect. It
is evident that the wheels of society would be stopped, if every officer
of the government, and every minister of justice should feel that he is
authorized to sit in judgment on the wisdom or righteousness of any law
he was called upon to execute. He is responsible for his own acts, and
not for the judgments of others, and therefore when the execution of a
law or of a command of a superior does not require him to sin, he is
free to obey.
Again, in those cases in which we, as private individuals, may be called
upon to assist in carrying the fugitive slave law into effect, if we can
not obey, we must do as the Quakers have long done with regard to our
military laws, _i. e._ quietly submit. We have no right to resist, or in
any way to impede the operation of the law. Whatever sin there is in it,
does not rest on us, any more than the sin of our military system rests
on the Quakers.[259]
And finally as regards the fugitives themselves, their obvious duty is
submission. To them the law must appear just as the laws of the Pagans
against Christians, or of Romanists against Protestants, appeared to
those who suffered from them. And the duty in both cases is the same.
Had the martyrs put to death the officers of the law, they would in the
sight of God and man have been guilty of murder. And any one who teaches
fugitive slaves to resort to violence even to the sacrifice of life, in
resisting the law in question, it seems to us, is guilty of exciting men
to murder. As before remarked, the principle of self-defense does not
apply in this case. Is there no difference between a man who kills an
assassin who attempts his life on the highway, and the man who, though
knowing himself to be innocent of the crime for which he has been
condemned to die, should kill the officers of justice? The former is a
case of justifiable homicide, the other is a case of murder. The
officers of justice are not the offenders. They are not the persons
responsible for the law or the decision. That responsibility rests on
the government. Private vengeance can not reach the state. And if it
could, such vengeance is not the remedy ordained by God for such evils.
They are to be submitted to, until the government can be changed. How
did our Lord act when he was condemned by an oppressive judgment, and
with wicked hands crucified and slain? Did he kill the Roman soldiers?
Has not he left us an example that we should follow his steps: who did
no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth; who, when he was reviled,
reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed
himself unto him that judgeth righteously. On this principle did all his
holy martyrs act; and on this principle are we bound to act in
submitting to the laws of the land, even when we deem them oppressive or
unjust.
The principles advocated in this paper appear to us so elementary, that
we feel disposed to apologize for presenting them in such a formal
manner. But every generation has to learn the alphabet for itself. And
the mass of men are so occupied with other matters, that they do not
give themselves time to discriminate. Their judgments are dictated, in
many cases, by their feelings, or their circumstances. One man simply
looks to the hardship of forcing a slave back to bondage, and he
impulsively counsels resistance unto blood. Another looks to the evils
which follow from resistance to law, and he asserts that human laws are
in all cases to be obeyed. Both are obviously wrong. Both would
overthrow all government. The one by justifying every man's taking the
law into his own hands; and the other by destroying the authority of
God, which is the only foundation on which human government can rest. It
is only by acting on the direction of the Divine Wisdom incarnate:
"Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and unto God the things
that are God's," that these destructive extremes are to be avoided.
Government is a divine institution; obedience to the laws is commanded
by God; and yet like all other divine commands of the same class, there
are cases in which it ceases to be obligation. Of these cases every one
must judge for himself on his own responsibility to God and man; but
when he cannot obey, his duty is to submit. The divinely appointed
remedy for unjust or oppressive legislation is not private or tumultuous
opposition, but the repeal of unrighteous enactments, or the
reorganization of the government.
What, however, we have had most at heart in the preparation of this
article, is the exhibition of the great principle that all authority
reposes on God; that all our obligations terminate on him; that
government is not a mere voluntary compact, and obedience to law an
obligation which rests on the consent of the governed. We regard this as
a matter of primary importance. The character of men and of communities
depends, to a great extent on their faith. The theory of morals which
they adopt determines their moral charactcter. If they assume that
expediency is the rule of duty, that a thing is right because it
produces happiness, or wrong because it produces misery, that this
tendency is not merely the test between right and wrong, but the ground
of the distinction, then, the specific idea of moral excellence and
obligation is lost. All questions of duty are merged into a calculation
of profit and loss. There is no sense of God; reason or society takes
his place, and an irreligious, calculating cast of character is the
inevitable result. This is counteracted, in individuals and the
community by various causes, for neither the character of a man nor that
of a society is determined by any one opinion; but its injurious
influence may nevertheless be most manifest and deplorable. No man can
fail to see the deteriorating influence of this theory of morals on
public character both in this country and in England. If we would make
men religious and moral, instead of merely cute, let us place God before
them; let us teach them that his will is the ground of their
obligations; that they are responsible to him for all their acts; that
their allegiance as moral agents is not to reason or to society, but to
the heart-searching God; that the obligation to obey the laws of the
land does not rest on their consent to them, but to the fact government
is of God; that those who resist the magistrate, resist the ordinance of
God, and that they who resist, shall receive unto themselves damnation.
This is the only doctrine which can give stablity either to morals or to
government. Man's allegiance is not to reason in the abstract, nor to
society, but to a personal God, who has power to destroy both soul and
body in hell. This is a law revealed in the constitution of our nature,
as well as by the lips of Christ. And to no other sovereign can the soul
yield rational obedience. We might as well attempt to substitute some
mechanical contrivance of our own, for the law of gravitation, as a
means of keeping the planets in their orbits, as to expect to govern men
by any thing else than the fear of an Infinite God.
FOOTNOTES:
[258] In the _New York Independent_ for January 2, 1851, there is a
sermon delivered by Rev. Richard S. Storrs, Jr., of Brooklyn, Dec. 12,
1850, in which his opposition to the fugitive slave bill is expressly
placed on the injustice of slavery. He argues the matter almost
exclusively on that ground. "To what," he asks, "am I required to send
this man [the slave] back? To a system which . . . no man can contemplate
without shuddering." Again, "Why shall I send the man to this unjust
bondage? The fact that he has suffered it so long already is a reason
why I should NOT. . . . . Why shall I not HELP him, in his struggle for
the rights which God gave him indelibly, when he made him a man? There
is nothing to prevent, but the simple requirement of my equals in the
State; the parchment of the law, which they have written." This is an
argument against the Constitution and not against the fugitive slave
law. It is an open refusal to comply with one of the stipulations of our
national compact. If it has any force, it is in favor of the dissolution
of the Union. Nay, if the argument is sound it makes the dissolution of
the Union inevitable and obligatory. It should, therefore, in all
fairness be presented in that light, and not as an argument against the
law of Congress. Let it be understood that the ground now assumed is
that the Constitution can not be complied with. Let it be seen that the
moralists of our day have discovered that the compact framed by our
fathers, which all our public men in the general and state governments
have sworn to support, under which we have lived sixty years, and whose
fruits we have so abundantly enjoyed, is an immoral compact, and must be
repudiated out of duty to God. This is the real doctrine constantly
presented in the abolition prints; and if properly understood we should
soon see to what extent it commends itself to the judgment and
conscience of the people.
[259] The doctrine that the executive officers of a government are not
the responsible judges of the justice of its decisions, is perfectly
consistent with the principle advanced above, viz: that every man has
the right to judge for himself whether any law or command is obligatory.
This latter principle relates to acts for which we are personally
responsible. If a military officer is commanded to commit treason or
murder, he is bound to refuse; because those acts are morally wrong. But
if commanded to lead an army against an enemy he is bound to obey, for
that is not morally wrong. He is the judge of his own act, but not of
the act of the government in declaring the war. So a sheriff, if he
thinks all capital punishment a violation of God's law, he can not carry
a sentence of death into effect, because the act itself is sinful in his
view. But he is not the judge of the justice of any particular sentence
he is called on to execute. He may judge of his own part of the
transaction: but he is not responsible for the act of the judge and the
jury.
THE BIBLE ARGUMENT ON SLAVERY.
BY CHARLES HODGE, D.D.,
OF PRINCETON, N. J.
NOTE.--This Essay of Dr. Hodge, was designed by
the Editor, to follow that of Dr. Stringfellow,
but the copy was not received until the
stereotyping had progressed nearly to the close of
the volume. PUBLISHER.
* * * * *
Infatuation of the Abolitionists--Necessity of
Correct Opinions--Statement of the
Question--Slavery as Treated by Christ and his
Apostles--Slaveholding not Sinful--Answer to this
Argument--Dr. Channing's Answer--Admissions--Reply
to the Abolition Argument--Mr. Birney's
Admissions--Argument from the Old
Testament--Polygamy and Divorce--Inalienable
Rights.
EVERY one must be sensible that a very great change has, within a few
years, been produced in the feelings, if not in the opinions of the
public in relation to slavery. It is now the most exciting topic of
discussion. Nor is the excitement in society confined to discussion
alone. Designs and plans, of the most reprehensible character, are
boldly avowed and defended. What has produced this lamentable state of
things? No doubt many circumstances have combined in its production. We
think, however, that all impartial observers must acknowledge, that by
far the most prominent cause is the conduct of the abolitionists. . . . .
Nor is it by argument that the abolitionists have produced the present
unhappy excitement. Argument has not been the characteristic of their
publications. Denunciations of slaveholding, as manstealing, robbery,
piracy, and worse than murder; consequent vituperation of slaveholders
as knowingly guilty of the worst of crimes; passionate appeals to the
feelings of the inhabitants of the Northern States; gross exaggerations
of the moral and physical condition of the slaves, have formed the
staple of their addresses to the public.[260] We do not mean to say
that there has been no calm and Christian discussion of the subject. We
mean merely to state what has, to the best of our knowledge, been the
predominent character of the anti-slavery publications. There is one
circumstance which renders the error and guilt of this course of conduct
chargeable, in a great measure, on the abolitionists as a body, and even
upon those of their number who have pursued a different course. We refer
to the fact that they have upheld the most extreme publications, and
made common cause with the most reckless declaimers. The wildest ravings
of the _Liberator_ have been constantly lauded; agents have been
commissioned whose great distinction was a talent for eloquent
vituperation; coincidence of opinion as to the single point of immediate
emancipation has been sufficient to unite men of the most discordant
character. There is in this conduct such a strange want of adaptation
between the means and the end which they profess to have in view, as to
stagger the faith of most persons in the sincerity of their professions,
who do not consider the extremes to which even good men may be carried,
when they allow one subject to take exclusive possession of their minds.
We do not doubt their sincerity, but we marvel at their delusion. They
seem to have been led by the mere impulse of feeling, and a blind
imitation of their predecessors in England, to a course of measures,
which, though rational under one set of circumstances, is the hight of
infatuation under another. The English abolitionists addressed
themselves to a community, which, though it owned no slaves, had the
power to abolish slavery, and was therefore responsible for its
continuance. Their object was to rouse that community to immediate
action. For this purpose they addressed themselves to the feelings of
the people; they portrayed in the strongest colors the misery of the
slaves; they dilated on the gratuitous crime of which England was guilty
in perpetuating slavery, and did all they could to excite the passions
of the public. This was the course most likely to succeed, and it did
succeed. Suppose, however, that the British parliament had no power over
the subject; that it rested entirely with the colonial Assemblies to
decide whether slavery should be abolished or not. Does any man believe
the abolitionists would have gained their object? Did they in fact make
converts of the planters? Did they even pretend that such was their
design? Every one knows that their conduct produced a state of almost
frantic excitement in the West India Islands; that so far from the
public feeling in England producing a moral impression upon the planters
favorable to the condition of the slaves, its effect was directly the
reverse. It excited them to drive away the missionaries, to tear down
the chapels, to manifest a determination to rivet still more firmly the
chains on their helpless captives, and to resist to the utmost all
attempts for their emancipation or even improvement. All this was
natural, though it was all, under the circumstances, of no avail, except
to rouse the spirit of the mother country, and to endanger the result of
the experiment of emancipation, by exasperating the feelings of the
slaves. Precisely similar has been the result of the efforts of the
American abolitionists as regards the slaveholders of America. They have
produced a state of alarming exasperation at the South, injurious to the
slave and dangerous to the country, while they have failed to enlist the
feelings of the North. This failure has resulted, not so much from
diversity of opinion on the abstract question of slavery; or from want
of sympathy among Northern men in the cause of human rights, as from the
fact, that the common sense of the public has been shocked by the
incongruity and folly of hoping to effect the abolition of slavery in
one country, by addressing the people of another. We do not expect to
abolish despotism in Russia, by getting up indignation meetings in New
York. Yet for all the purposes of legislation on this subject, Russia is
not more a foreign country to us than South Carolina. The idea of
inducing the Southern slaveholder to emancipate his slaves by
denunciation, is about as rational as to expect the sovereigns of Europe
to grant free institutions, by calling them tyrants and robbers. Could
we send our denunciations of despotism among the subjects of those
monarchs, and rouse the people to a sense of their wrongs and a
determination to redress them, there would be some prospect of success.
But our Northern abolitionists disclaim, with great earnestness, all
intention of allowing their appeals to reach the ears of the slaves. It
is, therefore, not to be wondered at, that the course pursued by the
anti-slavery societies, should produce exasperation at the South,
without conciliating sympathy at the North. The impolicy of their
conduct is so obvious, that men who agree with them as to all their
leading principles, not only stand aloof from their measures, but
unhesitatingly condemn their conduct. This is the case with Dr.
Channing. Although his book was written rather to repress the feeling of
opposition to these societies, than to encourage it, yet he fully admits
the justice of the principal charges brought against them. We extract a
few passages on the subject. "The abolitionists have done wrong, I
believe; nor is their wrong to be winked at, because done fanatically,
or with good intentions; for how much mischief may be wrought with good
designs! They have fallen into the common error of enthusiasts, that of
exaggerating their object, of feeling as if no evil existed but that
which they opposed, and as if no guilt could be compared with that of
countenancing and upholding it. The tone of their newspapers, as far as
I have seen them, has often been fierce, bitter, and abusive." p. 133.
"Another objection to their movements is, that they have sought to
accomplish their object by a system of agitation; that is, by a system
of affiliated societies gathered, and held together, and extended, by
passionate eloquence." "The abolitionists might have formed an
association; but it should have been an elective one. Men of strong
principles, judiciousness, sobriety, should have been carefully sought
as members. Much good might have been accomplished by the co-operation
of such philanthropists. Instead of this, the abolitionists sent forth
their orators, some of them transported with fiery zeal, to sound the
alarm against slavery through the land, to gather together young and
old, pupils from schools, females hardly arrived at years of discretion,
the ignorant, the excitable, the impetuous, and to organize these into
associations for the battle against oppression. Very unhappily they
preached their doctrine to the colored people, and collected these into
societies.[261] To this mixed and excitable multitude, minute,
heartrending descriptions of slavery were given in the piercing tones of
passion; and slaveholders were held up as monsters of cruelty and
crime." p. 136. "The abolitionists often speak of Luther's vehemence as
a model to future reformers. But who, that has read history, does not
know that Luther's reformation was accompanied by tremendous miseries
and crimes, and that its progress was soon arrested? and is there not
reason to fear, that the fierce, bitter, persecuting spirit, which he
breathed into the work, not only tarnished its glory, but limited its
power? One great principle which we should lay down as immovably true,
is, that if a good work can not be carried on by the calm,
self-controlled, benevolent spirit of Christianity, then the time for
doing it has not come. God asks not the aid of our vices. He can
overrule them for good, but they are not to be chosen instruments of
human happiness." p. 138. "The adoption of the common system of
agitation by the abolitionists has proved signally unsuccessful. From
the beginning it created alarm in the considerate, and strengthened the
sympathies of the free States with the slaveholder. It made converts of
a few individuals, but alienated multitudes. Its influence at the South
has been evil without mixture.[262] It has stirred up bitter passions
and a fierce fanaticism, which have shut every ear and every heart
against its arguments and persuasions. These effects are the more to be
deplored, because the hope of freedom to the slaves lies chiefly in the
dispositions of his master. The abolitionist indeed proposed to convert
the slaveholders; and for this end he approached them with vituperation,
and exhausted on them the vocabulary of abuse! And he has reaped as he
sowed." p. 142.
Unmixed good or evil, however, in such a world as ours, is a very rare
thing. Though the course pursued by the abolitionists has produced a
great preponderance of mischief, it may incidentally occasion no little
good. It has rendered it incumbent on every man to endeavor to obtain,
and, as far as he can, to communicate definite opinions and correct
principles on the whole subject. The community are very apt to sink down
into indifference to a state of things of long continuance, and to
content themselves with vague impressions as to right and wrong on
important points, when there is no call for immediate action. From this
state the abolitionists have effectually roused the public mind. The
subject of slavery is no longer one on which men are allowed to be of no
mind at all. The question is brought up before all of our public bodies,
civil and religious. Almost every ecclesiastical society has in some
way been called to express an opinion on the subject; and these calls
are constantly repeated. Under these circumstances, it is the duty of
all in their appropriate sphere, to seek for truth, and to utter it in
love.
"The first question," says Dr. Channing, "to be proposed by a rational
being, is not what is profitable, but what is right. Duty must be
primary, prominent, most conspicuous, among the objects of human thought
and pursuit. If we cast it down from its supremacy, if we inquire first
for our interests and then for our duties we shall certainly err. We can
never see the right clearly and fully, but by making it our first
concern. . . . Right is the supreme good, and includes all other goods.
In seeking and adhering to it, we secure our true and only happiness.
All prosperity, not founded on it, is built on sand. If human affairs
are controlled, as we believe, by almighty rectitude and impartial
goodness, then to hope for happiness from wrong doing is as insane as to
seek health and prosperity by rebelling against the laws of nature, by
sowing our seed on the ocean, or making poison our common food. There is
but one unfailing good; and that is, fidelity to the everlasting law
written on the heart, and re-written and re-published in God's word.
"Whoever places this faith in the everlasting law of rectitude must, of
course, regard the question of slavery, first, and chiefly, as a moral
question. All other considerations will weigh little with him compared
with its moral character and moral influences. The following remarks,
therefore, are designed to aid the reader in forming a just moral
judgment of slavery. Great truths, inalienable rights, everlasting
duties, these will form the chief subjects of this discussion. There are
times when the assertion of great principles is the best service a man
can render society. The present is a moment of bewildering excitement,
when men's minds are stormed and darkened by strong passions and fierce
conflicts; and also a moment of absorbing worldliness, when the moral
law is made to bow to expediency, and its high and strict requirements
are decried or dismissed as metaphysical abstractions, or impracticable
theories. At such a season to utter great principles without passion,
and in the spirit of unfeigned and universal good will, and to engrave
them deeply and durably on men's minds, is to do more for the world,
than to open mines of wealth, or to frame the most successful schemes of
policy."
No man can refuse assent to these principles. The great question,
therefore, in relation to slavery is, what is right? What are the moral
principles which should control our opinions and conduct in regard to
it? Before attempting an answer to this question, it is proper to
remark, that we recognize no authoritative rule of truth and duty but
the word of God. Plausible as may be the arguments deduced from general
principles to prove a thing to be true or false, right and wrong, there
is almost always room for doubt and honest diversity of opinion. Clear
as we may think the arguments against despotism, there ever have been
thousands of enlightened and good men, who honestly believe it to be of
all forms of government the best and most acceptable to God. Unless we
can approach the consciences of men, clothed with some more imposing
authority than that of our own opinions and arguments, we shall gain
little permanent influence. Men are too nearly upon a par as to their
powers of reasoning, and ability to discover truth, to make the
conclusions of one mind an authoritative rule for others. It is our
object, therefore, not to discuss the subject of slavery upon abstract
principles, but to ascertain the scriptural rule of judgment and conduct
in relation to it. We do not intend to enter upon any minute or extended
examination of scriptural passages, because all that we wish to assume,
as to the meaning of the word of God, is so generally admitted as to
render the labored proof of it unnecessary.
It is on all hands acknowledged that, at the time of the advent of Jesus
Christ, slavery in its worst forms prevailed over the whole world. The
Saviour found it around him in Judea; the apostles met with it in Asia,
Greece and Italy. How did they treat it? Not by the denunciation of
slaveholding as necessarily and universally sinful. Not by declaring
that all slaveholders were men-stealers and robbers, and consequently to
be excluded from the church and the kingdom of heaven. Not by insisting
on immediate emancipation. Not by appeals to the passions of men on the
evils of slavery, or by the adoption of a system of universal agitation.
On the contrary, it was by teaching the true nature, dignity, equality
and destiny of men; by inculcating the principles of justice and love;
and by leaving these principles to produce their legitimate effects in
ameliorating the condition of all classes of society. We need not stop
to prove that such was the course pursued by our Saviour and his
apostles, because the fact is in general acknowledged, and various
reasons are assigned, by the abolitionists and others, to account for
it. The subject is hardly alluded to by Christ in any of his personal
instructions. The apostles refer to it, not to pronounce upon it as a
question of morals, put to prescribe the relative duties of masters and
slaves. They caution those slaves who have believing or Christian
masters, not to despise them because they were on a perfect religious
equality with them, but to consider the fact that their masters were
their brethren, as an additional reason for obedience. It is remarkable
that there is not even an exhortation to masters to liberate their
slaves, much less is it urged as an imperative and immediate duty. They
are commanded to be kind, merciful and just; and to remember that they
have a Master in heaven. Paul represents this relation as of
comparatively little account: "Let every man abide in the same calling
wherein he was called. Art thou called being a servant (or slave), care
not for it; though, should the opportunity of freedom be presented,
embrace it. These external relations, however, are of little importance,
for every Christian is a freeman in the highest and best sense of the
word, and at the same time is under the strongest bonds to Christ," 1
Cor. vii: 20-22. It is not worth while to shut our eyes to these facts.
They will remain, whether we refuse to see them and be instructed by
them or not. If we are wiser, better, more courageous than Christ and
his apostles, let us say so; but it will do no good, under a paroxysm of
benevolence, to attempt to tear the Bible to pieces, or to exhort, by
violent exegesis, a meaning foreign to its obvious sense. Whatever
inferences may be fairly deducible from the fact, the fact itself can
not be denied that Christ and his inspired followers did treat the
subject of slavery in the manner stated above. This being the case, we
ought carefully to consider their conduct in this respect, and inquire
what lessons that conduct should teach us.
We think no one will deny that the plan adopted by the Saviour and his
immediate followers must be the correct plan, and therefore obligatory
upon us, unless it can be shown that their circumstances were so
different from ours, as to make the rule of duty different in the two
cases. The obligation to point out and establish this difference, rests
of course upon those who have adopted a course diametrically the reverse
of that which Christ pursued. They have not acquitted themselves of
this obligation. They do not seem to have felt it necessary to
reconcile their conduct with his; nor does it appear to have occurred to
them, that their violent denunciations of slaveholding and of
slaveholders is an indirect reflection on his wisdom, virtue, or
courage. If the present course of the abolitionists is right, then the
course of Christ and the apostles were wrong. For the circumstances of
the two cases are, as far as we can see, in all essential particulars,
the same. They appeared as teachers of morality and religion, not as
politicians. The same is the fact with our abolitionists. They found
slavery authorized by the laws of the land. So do we. They were called
upon to receive into the communion of the Christian Church, both slave
owners and slaves. So are we. They instructed these different classes of
persons as to their respective duties. So do we. Where then is the
difference between the two cases? If we are right in insisting that
slaveholding is one of the greatest of all sins; that it should be
immediately and universally abandoned as a condition of church
communion, or admission into heaven, how comes it that Christ and his
apostles did not pursue the same course? We see no way of escape from
the conclusion that the conduct of the modern abolitionists, being
directly opposed to that of the authors of our religion, must be wrong
and ought to be modified or abandoned.
An equally obvious deduction from the fact above referred to, is, that
slaveholding is not necessarily sinful. The assumption of the contrary
is the great reason why the modern abolitionists have adopted their
peculiar course. They argue thus: slaveholding is under all
circumstances sinful, it must, therefore, under all circumstances, and
at all hazards, be immediately abandoned. This reasoning is perfectly
conclusive. If there is error any where, it is in the premises, and not
in the deduction. It requires no argument to show that sin ought to be
at once abandoned. Every thing, therefore, is conceded which the
abolitionists need require, when it is granted that slaveholding is in
itself a crime. But how can this assumption be reconciled with the
conduct of Christ and the apostles? Did they shut their eyes to the
enormities of a great offence against God and man? Did they temporize
with a henious evil, because it was common and popular? Did they abstain
from even exhorting masters to emancipate their slaves, though an
imperative duty, from fear of consequences? Did they admit the
perpetrators of the greatest crimes to the Christian communion? Who
will undertake to charge the blessed Redeemer and his inspired followers
with such connivance at sin, and such fellowship with iniquity? Were
drunkards, murderers, liars, and adulterers thus treated? Were they
passed over without even an exhortation to forsake their sins? Were they
recognized as Christians? It can not be that slaveholding belongs to the
same category with these crimes; and to assert the contrary, is to
assert that Christ is the minister of sin.
This is a point of so much importance, lying as it does at the very
foundation of the whole subject, that it deserves to be attentively
considered. The grand mistake, as we apprehend, of those who maintain
that slaveholding is itself a crime, is, that they do not discriminate
between slaveholding in itself considered, and its accessories at any
particular time or place. Because masters may treat their slaves
unjustly, or governments make oppressive laws in relation to them, is no
more a valid argument against the lawfulness of slaveholding, than the
abuse of parental authority, or the unjust political laws of certain
states, is an argument against the lawfulness of the parental relation,
or of civil government. This confusion of points so widely distinct,
appears to us to run through almost all the popular publications on
slavery, and to vitiate their arguments. Mr. Jay, for example, quotes
the second article of the constitution of the American Anti-Slavery
Society, which declares that "slaveholding is a heinous crime in the
sight of God," and then, to justify this declaration, makes large
citations from the laws of the several Southern States, to show what the
system of slavery is in this country, and concludes by saying, "This is
the system which the American Anti-Slavery Society declares to be
sinful, and ought therefore to be immediately abolished." There is,
however, no necessary connection between his premises and conclusion. We
may admit all those laws which forbid the instruction of slaves; which
interfere with their marital or parental rights; which subject them to
the insults and oppression of the whites, to be in the highest degree
unjust, without at all admitting that slaveholding itself is a crime.
Slavery may exist without any one of these concomitants. In pronouncing
on the moral character of an act, it is obviously necessary to have a
clear idea of what it is; yet how few of those who denounce slavery,
have any well-defined conception of its nature. They have a confused
idea of chains and whips, of degradation and misery, of ignorance and
vice, and to this complex conception they apply the name slavery, and
denounce it as the aggregate of all moral and physical evil. Do such
persons suppose that slavery, as it existed in the family of Abraham,
was such as their imaginations thus picture to themselves? Might not
that patriarch have had men purchased with his silver who were well
clothed, well instructed, well compensated for their labor, and in all
respects treated with parental kindness? Neither inadequate
remuneration, physical discomfort, intellectual ignorance, moral
degradation, is essential to the condition of a slave. Yet if all these
ideas are removed from the commonly received notion of slavery, how
little will remain. All the ideas which necessarily enter into the
definition of slavery are deprivation of personal liberty, obligation of
service at the discretion of another, and the transferable character of
the authority and claim of service of the master.[263] The manner in
which men are brought into this condition; its continuance, and the
means adopted for securing the authority and claim of masters, are all
incidental and variable. They may be reasonable or unreasonable, just or
unjust, at different times and places. The question, therefore, which
the abolitionists have undertaken to decide, is not whether the laws
enacted in the slaveholding States in relation to this subject are just
or not, but whether slaveholding, in itself considered, is a crime. The
confusion of these two points has not only brought the abolitionists
into conflict with the Scriptures, but it has, as a necessary
consequence, prevented their gaining the confidence of the North, or
power over the conscience of the South. When Southern Christians are
told that they are guilty of a heinous crime, worse than piracy,
robbery, or murder, because they hold slaves, when they know that Christ
and his apostles never denounced slaveholding as a crime, never called
upon men to renounce it as a condition of admission into the church,
they are shocked and offended, without being convinced. They are sure
that their accusers can not be wiser or better than their divine Master,
and their consciences are untouched by denunciations which they know,
if well founded, must affect not them only, but the authors of the
religion of the Bible.
The argument from the conduct of Christ and his immediate followers,
seems to us decisive on the point, that slaveholding, in itself
considered, is not a crime. Let us see how this argument has been
answered. In the able "Address to the Presbyterians of Kentucky,
proposing a plan for the instruction and emancipation of their slaves,
by a committee of the Synod of Kentucky," there is a strong and extended
argument to prove the sinfulness of slavery, _as it exists among us_, to
which we have little to object. When, however, the distinguished
draughter of that address comes to answer the objection, "God's word
sanctions slavery, and it can not, therefore, be sinful," he forgets the
essential limitation of the proposition which he had undertaken to
establish, and proceeds to prove that the Bible condemns slaveholding,
and not merely the kind or system of slavery which prevails in this
country. The argument drawn from the Scriptures, he says, needs no
elaborate reply. If the Bible sanctions slavery, it sanctions the kind
of slavery which then prevailed; the atrocious system which authorized
masters to starve their slaves, to torture them, to beat them, to put
them to death, and to throw them into their fish ponds. And he justly
asks, whether a man could insult the God of heaven worse than by saying
he does not disapprove of such a system? Dr. Channing presents strongly
the same view, and says, that an infidel would be laboring in his
vocation in asserting that the Bible does not condemn slavery. These
gentlemen, however, are far too clear-sighted not to discover, on a
moment's reflection, that they have allowed their benevolent feelings to
blind them to the real point at issue. No one denies that the Bible
condemns all injustice, cruelty, oppression, and violence. And just so
far as the laws then existing authorized these crimes, the Bible
condemned them. But what stronger argument can be presented, to prove
that the sacred writers did not regard slaveholding as in itself sinful,
than that while they condemn all unjust or unkind treatment (even
threatening), on the part of masters towards their slaves, they did not
condemn slavery itself? While they required the master to treat his
slave according to the law of love, they did not command him to set him
free. The very atrocity, therefore, of the system which then prevailed,
instead of weakening the argument, gives it tenfold strength. Then, if
ever, when the institution was so fearfully abused, we might expect to
hear the interpreters of the divine will, saying that a system which
leads to such results is the concentrated essence of all crimes, and
must be instantly abandoned, on pain of eternal condemnation. This,
however, they did not say, and we can not now force them to say it. They
treated the subject precisely as they did the cruel despotism of the
Roman emperors. The licentiousness, the injustice, the rapine and
murders of those wicked men, they condemned with the full force of
divine authority; but the mere extent of their power, though so liable
to abuse, they left unnoticed.
Another answer to the argument in question is, that "The New Testament
does condemn slaveholding, as _practiced among us_, in the most explicit
terms furnished by the language in which the sacred penman wrote." This
assertion is supported by saying that God has condemned slavery, because
he has specified the parts which compose it and condemned them, one by
one, in the most ample and unequivocal form.[264] It is to be remarked
that the saving clause "slaveholding _as it exists among us_," is
introduced into the statement, though it seems to be lost sight of in
the illustration and confirmation of it which follow. We readily admit,
that if God does condemn all the parts of which slavery consists, he
condemns slavery itself. But the draughter of the address has made no
attempt to prove that this is actually done in the sacred Scriptures.
That many of the attributes of the system as established by law in this
country, are condemned, is indeed very plain; but that slaveholding in
itself is condemned, has not been and can not be proved. The writer,
indeed, says, "The Greek language had a word corresponding exactly, in
signification, with our word servant, but it had none which answered
precisely to our term slave. How then was an apostle writing in Greek,
to condemn our slavery? How can we expect to find in Scripture, the
words 'slavery is sinful,' when the language in which it is written
contained no term which expressed the meaning of our word slavery?" Does
the gentleman mean to say the Greek language could not express the idea
that slaveholding is sinful? Could not the apostles have communicated
the thought that it was the duty of masters to set their slaves free?
Were they obliged from paucity of words to admit slaveholders into the
Church? We have no doubt the writer himself could, with all ease, pen a
declaration in the Greek language void of all ambiguity, proclaiming
freedom to every slave upon earth, and denouncing the vengeance of
heaven upon every man who dared to hold a fellow creature in bondage. It
is not words we care for. We want evidence that the sacred writers
taught that it was incumbent on every slaveholder, as a matter of duty,
to emancipate his slaves (which no Roman or Greek law forbade), and that
his refusing to do so was a heinous crime in the sight of God. The Greek
language must be poor indeed if it can not convey such ideas.
Another answer is given by Dr. Channing. "Slavery," he says, "in the age
of the apostle, had so penetrated society, was so intimately interwoven
with it, and the materials of servile war were so abundant, that a
religion, preaching freedom to its victims, would have armed against
itself the whole power of the State. Of consequence Paul did not assail
it. He satisfied himself with spreading principles, which, however
slowly, could not but work its destruction." To the same effect, Dr.
Wayland says, "The gospel was designed, not for one race or one time,
but for all men and for all times. It looked not at the abolition of
this form of evil for that age alone, but for its universal abolition.
Hence the important object of its author was to gain it a lodgment in
every part of the known world; so that, by its universal diffusion among
all classes of society, it might quietly and peacefully modify and
subdue the evil passions of men; and thus, without violence, work a
revolution in the whole mass of mankind. In this manner alone could its
object, a universal moral revolution, be accomplished. For if it had
forbidden the _evil_ without subduing the _principle_, if it had
proclaimed the unlawfulness of slavery, and taught slaves to _resist_
the oppression of their masters, it would instantly have arrayed the two
parties in deadly hostility throughout the civilized world; its
announcement would have been the signal of a servile war; and the very
name of the Christian religion would have been forgotten amidst the
agitations of universal bloodshed. The fact, under these circumstances,
that the gospel does not forbid slavery, affords no reason to suppose
that it does not mean to prohibit it, much less does it afford ground
for belief that Jesus Christ intended to authorize it."[265]
Before considering the force of this reasoning, it may be well to notice
one or two important admissions contained in these extracts. First,
then, it is admitted by these distinguished moralists, that the apostles
did not preach a religion proclaiming freedom to slaves; that Paul did
not assail slavery; that the gospel did not proclaim the unlawfulness of
slaveholding; it did not forbid it. This is going the whole length that
we have gone in our statement of the conduct of Christ and his apostles,
Secondly, these writers admit that the course adopted by the authors of
our religion was the only wise and proper one. Paul satisfied himself,
says Dr. Channing, with spreading principles, which, however slowly,
could not but work its destruction. Dr. Wayland says, that if the
apostles had pursued the opposite plan of denouncing slavery as a crime,
the Christian religion would have been ruined; its very name would have
been forgotten. Then how can the course of the modern abolitionists,
under circumstances so nearly similar, or even that of these reverend
gentlemen themselves be right? Why do not they content themselves with
doing what Christ and his apostles did? Why must they proclaim the
unlawfulness of slavery? Is human nature so much altered, that a course,
which would have produced universal bloodshed, and led to the very
destruction of the Christian religion, in one age, wise and Christian in
another?
Let us, however, consider the force of the argument as stated above. It
amounts to this: Christ and his apostles thought slaveholding a great
crime, but they abstained from saying so, for fear of the consequences.
The very statement of the argument, in its naked form, is its
refutation. These holy men did not refrain from condemning sin from a
regard to consequences. They did not hesitate to array against the
religion which they taught, the strongest passions of men. Nor did they
content themselves with denouncing the general principles of evil; they
condemned its special manifestations. They did not simply forbid
intemperate sensual indulgence, and leave it to their hearers to decide
what did or what did not come under that name. They declared that no
fornicator, no adulterer, no drunkard could be admitted into the kingdom
of heaven. They did not hesitate, even when a little band, a hundred and
twenty souls, to place themselves in direct and irreconcilable
opposition to the whole polity, civil and religious, of the Jewish
State. It will hardly be maintained that slavery was, at that time,
more intimately interwoven with the institutions of society than
idolatry was. It entered into the arrangements of every family; of every
city and province, and of the whole Roman empire. The emperor was the
Pontifex Maximus; every department of the State, civil and military, was
pervaded by it. It was so united with the fabric of the government that
it could not be removed without effecting a revolution in all its parts.
The apostles knew this. They knew that to denounce polytheism, was to
array against them the whole power of the State. Their divine Master had
distinctly apprized them of the result. He told them that it would set
the father against the son, and the son against the father; the mother
against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; and that a
man's enemies should be those of his own household. He said that he came
not to bring peace, but a sword, and that such would be the opposition
to his followers, that whosoever killed them, would think he did God
service. Yet in view of these certain consequences, the apostles did
denounce idolatry, not merely in principle, but by name. The result was
precisely what Christ had foretold. The Romans, tolerant of every other
religion, bent the whole force of their wisdom and arms to extirpate
Christianity. The scenes of bloodshed, which century after century
followed the introduction of the gospel, did not induce the followers of
Christ to keep back or modify the truth. They adhered to their
declaration, that idolatry was a heinous crime. And they were right. We
expect similar conduct of our missionaries. We do not expect them to
refrain from denouncing the institutions of the heathen, as sinful,
because they are popular, or intimately interwoven with society. The
Jesuits, who adopted this plan, forfeited the confidence of Christendom,
without making converts of the heathen. It is, therefore, perfectly
evident that the authors of our religion were not withheld by these
considerations, from declaring slavery to be unlawful. If they did
abstain from this declaration, as is admitted, it must have been because
they did not consider it as in itself a crime. No other solution of
their conduct is consistent with their truth or fidelity.
Another answer to the argument from Scripture is given by Dr. Channing
and others. It is said that it proves too much; that it makes the Bible
sanction despotism, even the despotism of Nero. Our reply to this
objection shall be very brief. We have already pointed out the fallacy
of confounding slaveholding itself with the particular system of slavery
prevalent at the time of Christ, and shown that the recognition of
slaveholders as Christians, though irreconcilable with the assumption
that slavery is a heinous crime, gives no manner of sanction to the
atrocious laws and customs of that age, in relation to that subject.
Because the apostles admitted the masters of slaves to the communion of
the church, it would be a strange inference that they would have given
this testimony to the Christian character of the master who oppressed,
starved, or murdered his slaves. Such a master would have been rejected
as an oppressor, or murderer, however, not as a slaveholder. In like
manner, the declaration that government is an ordinance of God, that
magistrates are to be obeyed within the sphere of their lawful
authority; that resistance to them, when in the exercise of that
authority, is sinful,[266] gives no sanction to the oppression of the
Roman emperors, or to the petty vexations of provincial officers. The
argument urged from Scripture in favor of passive submission, is not so
exactly parallel with the argument for slavery, as Dr. Channing
supposes. They agree in some points, but they differ in others. The
former is founded upon a false interpretation of Rom. xiii: 1-3; it
supposes that passage to mean what it does not mean, whereas the latter
is founded upon the sense which Dr. C. and other opponents of slavery,
admit to be the true sense. This must be allowed to alter the case
materially. Again, the argument for the lawfulness of slaveholding, is
not founded on the mere injunction, "Slaves, obey your masters,"
analagous to the command, "Let every soul be subject to the higher
powers," but on the fact that the apostles did not condemn slavery; that
they did not require emancipation, and that they recognized slaveholders
as Christian brethren. To make Dr. Channing's argument of any force, it
must be shown that Paul not only enjoined obedience to a despotic
monarch, but that he recognized Nero as a Christian. When this is done,
then we shall admit that our argument is fairly met, and that it is just
as true that he sanctioned the conduct of Nero, as that he acknowledged
the lawfulness of slavery.
The two cases, however, are analogous as to one important point. The
fact that Paul enjoins obedience under a despotic government, is a valid
argument to prove, not that he sanctioned the conduct of the reigning
Roman emperor, but that he did not consider the possession of despotic
power a crime. The argument of Dr. C. would be far stronger, and the two
cases more exactly parallel, had one of the emperors become a penitent
believer during the apostolic age, and been admitted to the Christian
church by inspired men, notwithstanding the fact that he retained his
office and authority. But even without this latter decisive
circumstance, we acknowledge that the mere holding of despotic power is
proved not to be a crime by the fact that the apostles enjoined
obedience to those who exercised it. Thus far the arguments are
analogous; and they prove that both political despotism and domestic
slavery, belong in morals to the _adiaphora_, to things indifferent.
They may be expedient or inexpedient, right or wrong, according to
circumstances. Belonging to the same class, they should be treated in
the same way. Neither is to be denounced as necessarily sinful, and to
be abolished immediately under all circumstances and at all hazards.
Both should be left to the operation of those general principles of the
gospel, which have peacefully ameliorated political institutions, and
destroyed domestic slavery throughout the greater part of Christendom.
The truth on this subject is so obvious that it sometimes escapes
unconsciously from the lips of the most strenuous abolitionists. Mr.
Birney says: "He would have retained the power and authority of an
emperor; yet his oppressions, his cruelties would have ceased; the very
temper that prompted them, would have been suppressed; his power would
have been put forth for good and not for evil."[267] Here every thing is
conceded. The possession of despotic power is thus admitted not to be a
crime, even when it extends over millions of men, and subjects their
lives as well as their property and services to the will of an
individual. What becomes then of the arguments and denunciations of
slaveholding, which is despotism on a small scale? Would Mr. Birney
continue in the deliberate practice of a crime worse than robbery,
piracy, or murder? When he penned the above sentiment, he must have seen
that neither by the law of God nor of reason is it necessarily sinful to
sustain the relation of master over our fellow creatures; that if this
unlimited authority be used for the good of those over whom it extends
and for the glory of God, its possessor may be one of the best and most
useful of men. It is the abuse of this power for base and selfish
purposes which constitutes criminality, and not its simple possession.
He may say that the tendency to abuse absolute power is so great that it
ought never to be confided to the hands of men. This, as a general rule,
is no doubt true, and establishes the inexpediency of all despotic
governments, whether for the state or the family. But it leaves the
morality of the question just where it was, and where it was seen to be,
when Mr. Birney said he could with a good conscience be a Roman emperor,
_i. e._ the master of millions of slaves.
The consideration of the Old Testament economy leads us to the same
conclusion on this subject. It is not denied that slavery was tolerated
among the ancient people of God. Abraham had servants in his family who
were "bought with his money," Gen. xvii: 13. "Abimeleck took sheep and
oxen and men servants and maid servants and gave them unto Abraham."
Moses, finding this institution among the Hebrews and all surrounding
nations, did not abolish it. He enacted laws directing how slaves were
to be treated, on what conditions they were to be liberated, under what
circumstances they might and might not be sold; he recognizes the
distinction between slaves and hired servants, (Deut. xv: 18); he speaks
of the way by which these bondmen might be procured; as by war, by
purchase, by the right of creditorship, by the sentence of a judge, by
birth; but not by seizing on those who were free, an offense punished by
death.[268] The fact that the Mosaic institutions recognized the
lawfulness of slavery is a point too plain to need proof, and is almost
universally admitted. Our argument from this acknowledged fact is, that
if God allowed slavery to exist, if he directed how slaves might be
lawfully acquired, and how they were to be treated, it is in vain to
contend that slaveholding is a sin, and yet profess reverence for the
Scriptures. Every one must feel that if perjury, murder, or idolatry had
been thus authorized, it would bring the Mosaic institutions into
conflict with the eternal principles of morals, and that our faith in
the divine origin of one or the other must be given up.
Dr. Channing says, of this argument also, that it proves too much. "If
usages, sanctioned under the Old Testament and not forbidden under the
New, are right, then our moral code will undergo a sad deterioration.
Polygamy was allowed to the Israelites, was the practice of the holiest
men, and was common and licensed in the age of the apostles. But the
apostles no where condemn it, nor was the renunciation of it made an
essential condition of admission into the Christian Church." To this we
answer, that so far as polygamy and divorce were permitted under the old
dispensation, they were lawful, and became so by that permission; and
they ceased to be lawful when the permission was withdrawn, and a new
law given. That Christ did give a new law on this subject is abundantly
evident.[269] With regard to divorce, it is as explicit as language can
make it; and with regard to polygamy it is so plain as to have secured
the assent of every portion of the Christian churches in all ages. The
very fact that there has been no diversity of opinion or practice among
Christians with regard to polygamy, is itself decisive evidence that the
will of Christ was clearly revealed on the subject. The temptation to
continue the practice was as strong, both from the passions of men, and
the sanction of prior ages, as in regard to slavery. Yet we find no
traces of the toleration of polygamy in the Christian church, though
slavery long continued to prevail. There is no evidence that the
apostles admitted to the fellowship of Christians, those who were guilty
of this infraction of the law of marriage. It is indeed possible that in
cases where the converts had already more than one wife, the connection
was not broken off. It is evident this must have occasioned great evil.
It would lead to the breaking up of families, the separation of parents
and children, as well as husbands and wives. Under these circumstances
the connection may have been allowed to continue. It is however very
doubtful whether even this was permitted. It is remarkable that among
the numerous cases of conscience connected with marriage, submitted to
the apostles, this never occurs.
Dr. Channing uses language much too strong when he says that polygamy
was common and licensed in the days of the apostles. It was contrary
both to Roman and Grecian laws and usages until the most degenerate
periods of the history of those nations. It was very far from being
customary among the Jews, though it might have been allowed. It is
probable that it was, therefore, comparatively extremely rare in the
apostolic age. This accounts for the fact that scarcely any notice is
taken of, the practice in the New Testament. Wherever marriage is spoken
of, it seems to be taken for granted, as a well understood fact, that it
was a contract for life between one man and one woman; compare Rom. vii:
2, 3. 1 Cor. vii: 1, 2, 39. It is further to be remarked on this
subject, that marriage is a positive institution. If God had ordained
that every man should have two or more wives, instead of one, polygamy
would have been lawful. But slaveholding is denounced as a _malum in
se_; as essentially unjust and wicked. This being the case, it could at
no period of the world receive the divine sanction, much less could it
have continued in the Christian church under the direction of inspired
men, when there was nothing to prevent its immediate abolition. The
answer then of Dr. Channing is unsatisfactory, first, because polygamy
does not belong to the same category in morals as that to which
slaveholding is affirmed to belong; and secondly, because it was so
plainly prohibited by Christ and his apostles as to secure the assent of
all Christians in all ages of the church.
It is, however, argued that slavery must be sinful because it interferes
with the inalienable rights of men. We have already remarked, that
slavery, in itself considered, is a state of bondage, and nothing more.
It is the condition of an individual who is deprived of his personal
liberty, and is obliged to labor for another, who has the right to
transfer this claim of service, at pleasure. That this condition
involves the loss of many of the rights which are commonly and properly
called natural, because belonging to men, as men, is readily admitted.
It is, however, incumbent on those who maintain that slavery is, on this
account, necessarily sinful, to show that it is criminal, under all
circumstances, to deprive any set of men of a portion of their natural
rights. That this broad proposition can not be maintained is evident.
The very constitution of society supposes the forfeiture of a greater or
less amount of these rights, according to its peculiar organization.
That it is not only the privilege, but the duty of men to live together
in a regularly organized society, is evident from the nature which God
has given us; from the impossibility of every man living by and for
himself, and from the express declarations of the word of God. The
object of the formation of society is the promotion of human virtue and
happiness; and the form in which it should be organized, is that which
will best secure the attainment of this object. As, however, the
condition of men is so very various, it is impossible that the same form
should be equally conducive to happiness and virtue under all
circumstances. No one form, therefore, is prescribed in the Bible, or is
universally obligatory. The question which form is, under given
circumstances, to be adopted, is one of great practical difficulty, and
must be left to the decision of those who have the power to decide, on
their own responsibility. The question, however, does not depend upon
the degree in which these several forms may encroach upon the natural
rights of men. In the patriarchal age, the most natural, the most
feasible, and perhaps the most beneficial form of government was by the
head of the family. His power by the law of nature, and the necessity of
the case, extended without any other limit than the general principles
of morals, over his children, and in the absence of other regular
authority, would not terminate when the children arrived at a particular
age, but be continued during life. He was the natural umpire between his
adult offspring, he was their lawgiver and leader. His authority would
naturally extend over his more remote descendants, as they continued to
increase, and on his death, might devolve on the next oldest of the
family. There is surely nothing in this mode of constituting society
which is necessarily immoral. If found to be conducive to the general
good, it might be indefinitely continued. It would not suffice to render
its abrogation obligatory, to say that all men are born free and equal;
that the youth of twenty-one had as good a right to have a voice in the
affairs of the family as the aged patriarch; that the right of
self-government is indefeasible, etc. Unless it could be shown that the
great end of society was not attainable by this mode of organization,
and that it would be more securely promoted by some other, it would be
an immorality to require or to effect the change. And if a change
became, in the course of time, obviously desirable, its nature and
extent would be questions to be determined by the peculiar circumstances
of the case, and not by the rule of abstract rights. Under some
circumstances it might be requisite to confine the legislative power to
a single individual; under others to the hands of a few; and under
others to commit it to the whole community. It would be absurd to
maintain, on the ground of the natural equality of men, that a horde of
ignorant and vicious savages, should be organized as a pure democracy,
if experience taught that such a form of government was destructive to
themselves and others. These different modes of constituting civil
society are not necessarily either just or unjust, but become the one or
the other according to circumstances; and their morality is not
determined by the degree in which they encroach upon the natural rights
of men, but on the degree in which they promote or retard the progress
of human happiness and virtue. In this country we believe that the
general good requires us to deprive the whole female sex of the right of
self-government. They have no voice in the formation of the laws which
dispose of their persons and property. When married, we despoil them
almost entirely of a legal existence, and deny them some of the most
essential rights of property. We treat all minors much in the same way,
depriving them of many personal and almost all political rights, and
that too though they may be far more competent to exercise them aright
than many adults. We, moreover, decide that a majority of one may make
laws for the whole community, no matter whether the numerical majority
have more wisdom or virtue than the minority or not. Our plea for all
this is, that the good of the whole is thereby most effectually
promoted. This plea, if made out, justifies the case. In England and
France they believe that the good of the whole requires that the right
of governing, instead of being restricted, to all adult males, as we
arbitrarily determine, should be confined to that portion of the male
population who hold a given amount of property. In Prussia and Russia,
they believe with equal confidence, that public security and happiness
demand that all power should be in the hands of the king. If they are
right in their opinion, they are right in their practice. The principle
that social and political organizations are designed for the general
good, of course requires they should be allowed to change, as the
progress of society may demand. It is very possible that the feudal
system may have been well adapted to the state of Europe in the middle
ages. The change in the condition of the world, however, has gradually
obliterated almost all its features. The villein has become the
independent farmer; the lord of the manor, the simple landlord; and the
sovereign leige, in whom, according to the fiction of the system, the
fee of the whole country vested, has become a constitutional monarch. It
may be that another series of changes may convert the tenant into an
owner, the lord into a rich commoner, and the monarch into a president.
Though these changes have resulted in giving the people the enjoyment of
a larger amount of their rights than they formerly possessed, it is not
hence to be inferred that they ought centuries ago to have been
introduced suddenly or by violence. Christianity "operates as
alterative." It was never designed to tear up the institutions of
society by the roots. It produces equality not by prostrating trees of
all sizes to the ground, but by securing to all the opportunity of
growing, and by causing all to grow, until the original disparity is no
longer perceptible. All attempts, by human wisdom, to frame society, of
a sudden, after a pattern cut by the rule of abstract rights, have
failed; and whether they had failed or not, they can never be urged as a
matter of moral obligation. It is not enough, therefore, in order to
prove the sinfulness of slaveholding, to show that it interferes with
the natural rights of a portion of the community. It is in this respect
analagous to all other social institutions. They are all of them
encroachments on human rights, from the freest democracy to the most
absolute despotism.
It is further to be remarked, that all these rights suppose
corresponding duties, and where there is an incompetence for the duty,
the claim to exercise the right ceases. No man can justly claim the
exercise of any right to the injury of the community of which he is a
member. It is because females and minors are judged (though for
different reasons), incompetent to the proper discharge of the duties of
citizenship, that they are deprived of the right of suffrage. It is on
the same principle that a large portion of the inhabitants of France and
England are deprived of the same privilege. As it is acknowledged that
the slaves may be justly deprived of political rights, on the ground of
their incompetency to exercise them without injury to the community, it
must be admitted, by parity of reason, that they may be justly deprived
of personal freedom, if incompetent to exercise it with safety to
society. If this be so, then slavery is a question of circumstances, and
not a _malum in se_. It must be borne in mind that the object of these
remarks is not to prove that the American, the British, or the Russian
form of society, is expedient or otherwise; much less to show that the
slaves in this country are actually unfit for freedom, but simply to
prove that the mere fact that slaveholding interferes with natural
rights, is not enough to justify the conclusion that it is necessarily
and universally sinful.
Another very common and plausible argument on this subject is, that a
man can not be made a matter of property. He can not be degraded into a
brute or chattel, without the grossest violation of duty and propriety;
and that as slavery confers this right of property in human beings, it
must, from its very nature, be a crime. We acknowledge the correctness
of the principle on which this argument is founded, but deny that it is
applicable to the case in hand. We admit that it is not only an
enormity, but an impossibility, that a man should be made a thing, as
distinguished from a rational and moral being. It is not within the
compass of human law to alter the nature of God's creatures. A man must
be regarded and treated as a rational being, even in his greatest
degradation. That he is, in some countries and under some institutions,
deprived of many of the rights and privileges of such a being, does not
alter his nature. He must be viewed as a man under the most atrocious
system of slavery that ever existed. Men do not arraign and try on
evidence, and punish on conviction, either things or brutes. Yet slaves
are under a regular system of laws which, however unjust they may be,
recognize their character as accountable beings. When it is inferred
from the fact that the slave is called the property of his master, that
he is thereby degraded from his rank as a human being, the argument
rests on the vagueness of the term _property_. Property is the right of
possession and use, and must of necessity vary according to the nature
of the objects to which it attaches. A man has property in his wife, in
his children, in his domestic animals, in his fields and in his forests.
That is, he has the right to the possession and use of these several
objects, according to their nature. He has no more right to use a brute
as a log of wood, in virtue of the right of property, than he has to use
a man as a brute. There are general principles of rectitude, obligatory
on all men, which require them to treat all the creatures of God
according to the nature which he has given them. The man who should burn
his horse because he was his property, would find no justification in
that plea, either before God or man. When, therefore, it is said that
one man is the property of another, it can only mean that the one has a
right to use the other _as a man_, but not as a brute, or as a thing. He
has no right to treat him as he may lawfully treat his ox, or a tree. He
can convert his person to no use to which a human being may not, by the
laws of God and nature, be properly applied. When this idea of property
comes to be analyzed, it is found to be nothing more than a claim of
service either for life or for a term of years. This claim is
transferable, and is of the nature of property, and is consequently
liable for the debts of the owner, and subject to his disposal by will
or otherwise. It is probable that the slave is called the property of
his master in the statute books, for the same reason that children are
called the servants of the parents, or that wives are said to be the
same person with their husbands, and to have no separate existence of
their own. These are mere technicalities, designed to facilitate certain
legal processes. Calling a child a servant, does not alter his relation
to his father; and a wife is still a woman, though the courts may rule
her out of existence. In like manner, where the law declares, that a
slave shall be deemed and adjudged to be a chattel personal in the hands
of his master, it does not alter his nature, nor does it confer on the
master any right to use him in a manner inconsistent with that nature.
As there are certain moral principles which direct how brutes are to be
used by those to whom they belong, so there are fixed principles which
determine how a man may be used. These legal enactments, therefore, are
not intended to legislate away the nature of the slave, as a human
being; they serve to facilitate the transfer of the master's claim of
service, and to render that claim the more readily liable for his debts.
The transfer of authority and claim of service from one master to
another, is, in principle, analagous to transfer of subjects from one
sovereign to another. This is a matter of frequent occurrence. By the
treaty of Vienna, for example, a large part of the inhabitants of
central Europe changed masters. Nearly half of Saxony was transferred to
Prussia; Belgium was annexed to Holland. In like manner, Louisiana was
transferred from France to the United States. In none of these cases
were the people consulted. Yet in all, a claim of service more or less
extended, was made over from one power to another. There was a change of
masters. The mere transferable character of the master's claim to the
slave, does not convert the latter into a thing, or degrade him from his
rank as a human being. Nor does the fact that he is bound to serve for
life, produce this effect. It is only property in his time for life,
instead of for a term of years. The nature of the relation is not
determined by the period of its continuance.
It has, however, been argued that the slave is the property of his
master, not only in the sense admitted above, but in the sense assumed
in the objection, because his children are under the same obligation of
service as the parent. The hereditary character of slavery, however,
does not arise out of the idea of the slave as a chattel or thing, a
mere matter of property, it depends on the organization of society. In
England one man is born a peer, another a commoner; in Russia one man is
born a noble, another a serf; here, one is born a free citizen, another
a disfranchised outcast (the free colored man), and a third a slave.
These forms of society, as before remarked, are not necessarily, or in
themselves, either just or unjust; but become the one or the other,
according to circumstances. Under a state of things in which the best
interests of the community would be promoted by the British or Russian
organization, they would be just and acceptable to God; but under
circumstances in which they would be injurious, they would be unjust. It
is absolutely necessary, however, to discriminate between an
organization essentially vicious, and one which, being in itself
indifferent, may be right or wrong, according to circumstances. On the
same principle, therefore, that a human being in England is deprived, by
the mere accident of birth, of the right of suffrage, and in Russia has
the small portion of liberty which belongs to a commoner, or the still
smaller belonging to a serf, in this country one class is by birth
invested with all the rights of citizenship, another (females) is
deprived all political and many personal rights, and a third of even
their personal liberty. Whether this organization be right or wrong, is
not now the question. We are simply showing that the fact that the
children of slaves become by birth slaves, is not to be referred to the
idea of the master's property in the body and soul of the parent, but
results from the form of society, and is analagous to other social
institutions, as far as the principle is concerned, that children take
the rank, or the political or social condition of the parent.
We prefer being chargeable with the sin of wearisome repetition, to
leaving any room for the misapprehension of our meaning. We, therefore,
again remark that we are discussing the mere abstract morality of these
forms of social organization, and not their expediency. We have in view
the vindication of the character of the inspired writings and inspired
men from the charge of having overlooked the blackest of human crimes,
and of having recognized the worst of human beings as Christians. We
say, therefore, that an institution which deprives a certain portion of
the community of their personal liberty, places them under obligation of
service to another portion, is no more necessarily sinful than one which
invests an individual with despotic power (such as Mr. Birney would
consent to hold); or than one which limits the right of government to a
small portion of the people, or restricts it to the male part of the
community. However inexpedient, under certain circumstances, any one of
these arrangements may be, they are not necessarily immoral, nor do they
become such, from the fact that the accident of birth determines the
relation in which one part of the community is to stand to the other. In
ancient Egypt, as in modern India, birth decided the position and
profession of every individual. One was born a priest, another a
merchant, another a laborer, another a soldier. As there must always be
these classes, it is no more necessarily immoral, to have them all
determined by hereditary descent, than it was among the Israelites to
have all the officers of religion from generation to generation thus
determined; or that birth should determine the individual who is to fill
a throne, or occupy a seat in parliament.
Again, Dr. Wayland argues, if the right to hold slaves be conceded,
"there is of course conceded all other rights necessary to insure its
possession. Hence, inasmuch as the slave can be held in this condition
only while he remains in the lowest state of mental imbecility, it
supposes the master to have the right to control his intellectual
development just as far as may be necessary to secure entire
subjection."[270] He reasons in the same way, to show that the religious
knowledge and even eternal happiness of the slave are as a matter of
right conceded to the power of the master, if the right of slaveholding
is admitted. The utmost force that can be allowed to this argument is,
that the right to hold slaves includes the right to exercise all
_proper_ means to insure its possession. It is in this respect on a par
with all other rights of the same kind. The right of parents to the
service of their children, of husbands to the obedience of their wives,
of masters over their apprentices, of creditors over their debtors, of
rulers over their subjects, all suppose the right to adopt proper means
for their secure enjoyment. They, however, give no sanction to the
employment of any and every means which cruelty, suspicion, or jealousy
may choose to deem necessary, nor of any which would be productive of
greater general evil than the forfeiture of the rights themselves.
According to the ancient law even among the Jews, the power of life and
death was granted to the parent; we concede only the power of
correction. The old law gave the same power to the husband over the
wife. The Roman law confided the person and even life of the debtor to
the mercy of the creditor. According to the reasoning of Dr. Wayland,
all these laws must be sanctioned if the rights which they were deemed
necessary to secure, are acknowledged. It is clear, however, that the
most unrighteous means may be adopted to secure a proper end, under the
plea of necessity. The justice of the plea must be made out on its own
grounds, and can not be assumed on the mere admission of the propriety
of the end aimed at. Whether the slaves of this country may be safely
admitted to the enjoyments of personal liberty, is a matter of dispute;
but that they could not, consistently with the public welfare, be
intrusted with the exercise of political power, is in on all hands
admitted. It is, then, the acknowledged right of the state to govern
them by laws in the formation of which they have no voice. But it is the
universal plea of the depositaries of irresponsible power, sustained too
by almost universal experience, that men can be brought to submit to
political despotism only by being kept in ignorance and poverty. Dr.
Wayland, then, if he concedes the right of the state to legislate for
the slaves, must, according to his own reasoning, acknowledge the right
to adopt all the means necessary for the security of this irresponsible
power, and of consequence, that the state has the right to keep the
blacks in the lowest state of degradation. If he denies the validity of
this argument in favor of political despotism, he must renounce his own
against the lawfulness of domestic slavery. Dr. Wayland himself would
admit the right of the Emperor of Russia to exercise a degree of power
over his present half civilized subjects, which could not be maintained
over an enlightened people, though he would be loth to acknowledge his
right to adopt all the means necessary to keep them in their present
condition. The acknowledgment, therefore, of the right to hold slaves,
does not involve the acknowledgment of the right to adopt measures
adapted and intended to perpetuate their present mental and physical
degradation.
We have entered much more at length into the abstract argument on this
subject than we intended. It was our purpose to confine our remarks to
the scriptural view of the question. But the consideration of the
objections derived from the general principles of morals, rendered it
necessary to enlarge our plan. As it appears to us too clear to admit of
either denial or doubt, that the Scriptures do sanction slaveholding;
that under the old dispensation it was expressly permitted by divine
command, and under the New Testament is nowhere forbidden or denounced,
but on the contrary, acknowledged to be consistent with the Christian
character and profession (that is, consistent with justice, mercy,
holiness, love to God and love to man), to declare it to be a heinous
crime, is a direct impeachment of the word of God. We, therefore, felt
it incumbent upon us to prove, that the sacred Scriptures are not in
conflict with the first principles of morals; that what they sanction is
not the blackest and basest of all offenses in the sight of God. To do
this, it was necessary to show what slavery is, to distinguish between
the relation itself, and the various cruel or unjust laws which may be
made either to bring men into it, or to secure its continuance; to show
that it no more follows from the admission that the Scriptures sanction
the right of slaveholding, that it, therefore, sanctions all the
oppressive slave laws of any community, than it follows from the
admission of the propriety of parental, conjugal, or political
relations, that it sanctions all the conflicting codes by which these
relations have at different periods and in different countries been
regulated.
We have had another motive in the preparation of this article. The
assumption that slaveholding is itself a crime, is not only an error,
but it is an error fraught with evil consequences. It not merely brings
its advocates into conflict with the Scriptures, but it does much to
retard the progress of freedom; it embitters and divides the members of
the community, and distracts the Christian church. Its operation in
retarding the progress of freedom is obvious and manifold. In the first
place, it directs the battery of the enemies of slavery to the wrong
point. It might be easy for them to establish the injustice or cruelty
of certain slave laws, where it is not in their power to establish the
sinfulness of slavery itself.[271] They, therefore, waste their
strength. Nor is this the least evil. They promote the cause of their
opponents. If they do not discriminate between slaveholding and the
slave laws, it gives the slaveholder not merely an excuse but an
occasion and a reason for making no such distinction. He is thus led to
feel the same conviction in the propriety of the one that he does in
that of the other. His mind and conscience may be satisfied that the
mere act of holding slaves is not a crime. This is the point, however,
to which the abolitionist directs his attention. He examines their
arguments, and becomes convinced of their inconclusiveness, and is not
only thus rendered impervious to their attacks, but is exasperated by
what he considers their unmerited abuse. In the mean time his attention
is withdrawn from far more important points;--the manner in which he
treats his slaves, and the laws enacted for the security of his
possession. These are points on which his judgment might be much more
readily convinced of error, and his conscience of sin.
In the second place, besides fortifying the position and strengthening
the purpose of the slaveholder, the error in question divides and
weakens the friends of freedom. To secure any valuable result by public
sentiment, you must satisfy the public mind and rouse the public
conscience. Their passions had better be allowed to rest in peace. As
the anti-slavery societies declare it to be their object to convince
their fellow-citizens that slaveholding is necessarily a heinous crime
in the sight of God, we consider their attempt as desperate, so long as
the Bible is regarded as the rule of right and wrong. They can hardly
secure either the verdict of the public mind or of the public conscience
in behalf of this proposition. Their success hitherto has not been very
encouraging, and is certainly not very flattering, if Dr. Channing's
account of the class of persons to whom they have principally addressed
their arguments, is correct. The tendency of their exertions, be their
success great or small, is not to unite, but to divide. They do not
carry the judgment or conscience of the people with them. They form,
therefore, a class by themselves. Thousands who earnestly desire to see
the South convinced of the injustice and consequent impolicy of their
slave laws, and under this conviction, of their own accord, adopting
those principles which the Bible enjoins, and which tend to produce
universal intelligence, virtue, liberty and equality, without violence
and sudden change, and which thus secure private and public prosperity,
stand aloof from the abolitionists, not merely because they disapprove
of their spirit and mode of action, but because they do not admit their
fundamental principle.
In the third place, the error in question prevents the adoption of the
most effectual means of extinguishing slavery. These means are not the
opinions or feelings of the non-slaveholding States, nor the
denunciations of the holders of slaves, but the improvement,
intellectual and moral, of the slaves themselves. Slavery has but two
natural and peaceful modes of death. The one is the increase of the
slave population until it reaches the point of being unproductive. When
the number of slaves becomes so great that the master can not profitably
employ them, he manumits them in self-defense. This point would probably
have been reached long ago, in many of the Southern States, had not the
boundless extent of the south-western section of the Union presented a
constant demand for the surplus hands. Many planters in Virginia and
Maryland, whose principles or feelings revolt at the idea of selling
their slaves to the South, find that their servants are gradually
reducing them to poverty, by consuming more than they produce. The
number, however, of slaveholders who entertain these scruples is
comparatively small. And as the demand for slave labor in the still
unoccupied regions of the extreme south-west is so great, and is likely
to be so long continued, it is hopeless to think of slavery dying out by
becoming a public burden. The other natural and peaceful mode of
extinction, is the gradual elevation of the slaves in knowledge, virtue,
and property to the point at which it is no longer desirable or possible
to keep them in bondage.[272] Their chains thus gradually relax, until
they fall off entirely. It is in this way that Christianity has
abolished both political and domestic bondage, whenever it has had free
scope. It enjoins a fair compensation for labor; it insists on the moral
and intellectual improvement of all classes of men; it condemns all
infractions of marital or parental rights; in short, it requires not
only that free scope should be allowed to human improvement, but that
all suitable means should be employed for the attainment of that end.
The feudal system, as before remarked, has, in a great measure, been
thus outgrown in all the European states. The third estate, formerly
hardly recognized as having an existence, is becoming the controlling
power in most of those ancient communities. The gradual improvement of
the people rendered it impossible, and undesirable to deprive them of
their just share in the government. And it is precisely in those
countries where this improvement is most advanced that the feudal
institutions are the most completely obliterated, and the general
prosperity the greatest. In like manner the gospel method of
extinguishing slavery is by improving the condition of the slave. The
grand question is, How is this to be done? The abolitionist answers, by
immediate emancipation. Perhaps he is right, perhaps he is wrong; but
whether right or wrong, it is not the practical question for the North.
Among a community which have the power to emancipate, it would be
perfectly proper to urge that measure on the ground of its being the
best means of promoting the great object of the advancement of human
happiness and virtue. But the error of the abolitionists is, that they
urge this measure from the wrong quarter, and upon the wrong ground.
They insist upon immediate abolition because slavery is a sin, and its
extinction a duty. If, however, slaveholding is not in itself sinful,
its abolition is not necessarily a duty. The question of duty depends
upon the effects of the measure, about which men may honestly differ.
Those who believe that it would advance the general good, are bound to
promote it; while those who believe the reverse, are equally bound to
resist it. The abolitionists, by insisting upon one means of
improvement, and that on untenable ground, are most effectually working
against the adoption of any other means, by destroying the disposition
and power to employ them. It is in this way that the error to which we
have referred throughout this article, is operating most
disadvantageously for the cause of human liberty and happiness. The fact
is, that the great duty of the South is not emancipation; but
improvement.[273] The former is obligatory only as a means to an end,
and, therefore, only under circumstances where it would promote that
end. In like manner the great duty of despotic governments is not the
immediate granting of free institutions, but the constant and assiduous
cultivation of the best interests (knowledge, virtue, and happiness) of
the people. Where free institutions would conduce to this object, they
would be granted, and just so far and so fast as this becomes apparent.
Again, the opinion that slaveholding is itself a crime, must operate to
produce the disunion of the States, and the division of all the
ecclesiastical societies in this country. The feelings of the people may
be excited violently for a time, but the transport soon passes away. But
if the conscience is enlisted in the cause, and becomes the controlling
principle, the alienation between the North and the South must become
permanent. The opposition to Southern institutions will become calm,
constant, and unappeasable. Just so far as this opinion operates, it
will lead those who entertain it to submit to any sacrifices to carry it
out, and give it effect. We shall become two nations in feeling, which
must soon render us two nations in fact. With regard to the church, its
operation will be more summary. If slaveholding is a heinous crime,
slaveholders must be excluded from the church. Several of our
judicatories have already taken this position. Should the General
Assembly adopt it, the church is ipso facto, divided. If the opinion in
question is correct, it must be maintained, whatever are the
consequences. We are no advocates of expediency in morals. We have no
more right to teach error in order to prevent evil, than we have a right
to do evil to promote good. On the other hand, if the opinion is
incorrect, its evil consequences render it a duty to prove and exhibit
its unsoundness. It is under the deep impression that the primary
assumption of the abolitionists is an error, that its adoption tends to
the distraction of the country, and the division of the church; and that
it will lead to the longer continuance and greater severity of slavery,
that we have felt constrained to do what little we could towards its
correction.
We have little apprehension that any one can so far mistake our object,
or the purport of our remarks, as to suppose either that we regard
slavery as a desirable institution, or that we approve of the slave laws
of the Southern States. So far from this being the case, the extinction
of slavery, and the amelioration of those laws are as sincerely desired
by us, as by any of the abolitionists. The question is not about the
continuance of slavery, and of the present system, but about the proper
method of effecting the removal of the evil. We maintain, that it is not
by denouncing slaveholding as a sin, or by universal agitation at the
North, but by the improvement of the slaves. It no more follows that
because the master has a right to hold slaves, he has a right to keep
them in a state of degradation in order to perpetuate their bondage,
than that the Emperor of Russia has a right to keep his subjects in
ignorance and poverty, in order to secure the permanence and quiet
possession of his power. We hold it to be the grand principle of the
gospel, that every man is bound to promote the moral, intellectual, and
physical improvement of his fellow men. Their civil or political
relations are in themselves matters of indifference. Monarchy,
aristocracy, democracy, domestic slavery, are right or wrong as they
are, for the time being, conducive to this great end, or the reverse.
They are not objects to which the improvement of society is to be
sacrificed; nor are they strait-jackets to be placed upon the public
body to prevent its free development. We think, therefore, that the
true method for Christians to treat this subject, is to follow the
example of Christ and his apostles in relation both to despotism and
slavery. Let them enforce as moral duties the great principles of
justice and mercy, and all the specific commands and precepts of the
Scriptures. If any set of men have servants, bond or free, to whom they
refuse a proper compensation for their labor, they violate a moral duty
and an express command of Scripture. What that compensation should be,
depends upon a variety of circumstances. In some cases the slaveholder
would be glad to compound for the support of his slaves by giving the
third or the half of the proceeds of his estate. Yet this at the North
would be regarded as a full remuneration for the mere labor of
production. Under other circumstances, however, a mere support, would be
very inadequate compensation; and when inadequate, it is unjust. If the
compensation be more than a support, the surplus is the property of the
laborer, and can not morally, whatever the laws may be, be taken from
him. The right to accumulate property is an incident to the right of
reward for labor. And we believe there are few slaveholding countries in
which the right is not practically acknowledged, since we hear so
frequently of slaves purchasing their own freedom. It is very common for
a certain moderate task[274] to be assigned as a day's work, which may
be regarded as the compensation rendered by the slave for his support.
The residue of the day is at his own disposal, and may be employed for
his own profit. We are not now, however, concerned about details. The
principle that "the laborer is worthy of his hire" and should enjoy it,
is a plain principle of morals and command of the Bible, and can not be
violated with impunity.
Again, if any man has servants or others whom he forbids to marry, or
whom he separates after marriage, he breaks as clearly a revealed law as
any written on the pages of inspiration, or on the human heart. If he
interferes unnecessarily with the authority of parents over their
children, he again brings himself into collision with his Maker. If any
man has under his charge, children, apprentices, servants, or slaves,
and does not teach them, or cause them to be taught, the will of God;
if he deliberately opposes their intellectual, moral, or religious
improvement, he makes himself a transgressor. That many of the laws of
the slaveholding States are opposed to these simple principles of
morals, we fully believe; and we do not doubt that they are sinful and
ought to be rescinded. If it be asked what would be the consequence of
thus acting on the principles of the gospel, of following the example
and obeying the precepts of Christ? We answer, the gradual elevation of
the slaves in intelligence, virtue, and wealth; the peaceable and speedy
extinction of slavery; the improvement in general prosperity of all
classes of society, and the consequent increase in the sum of human
happiness and virtue. This has been the result of acting on these
principles in all past ages; and just in proportion as they have been
faithfully observed. The degradation of most eastern nations, and of
Italy, Spain and Ireland, are not more striking examples of the
consequences of their violation, than Scotland, England, and the
non-slaveholding States are of the benefits, of their being even
imperfectly obeyed. Men can not alter the laws of God. It would be as
easy for them to arrest the action of the force of gravity, as to
prevent the systematic violation of the principles of morals being
productive of evil.
FOOTNOTES:
[260] See Cheever's "God against Slavery," and Wendell Phillips' Speech
on Harper's Ferry, &c., &c.--ED.
[261] Their object, evidently, has been to prevent the free people of
color from emigrating to Liberia, and to retain them in this country as
a cat's paw to work out their own designs.--ED.
[262] But for this, a large proportion of our slaves, instead of being
instructed orally, would have been taught to read the Scriptures for
themselves.--ED.
[263] Paley's definition is still more simple, "I define," he says,
"slavery to be an obligation to labor for the benefit of the master,
without the contract or consent of the servant." Moral Philosophy, book
iii, ch. 3.
[264] Address, etc., p. 20.
[265] Elements of Moral Science, p. 225.
[266] It need hardly be remarked, that the command to obey magistrates,
as given in Rom. xiii: 1-3, is subject to the limitation stated above.
They are to be obeyed as magistrates; precisely as parents are to be
obeyed as parents, husbands as husbands. The command of obedience is
expressed as generally, in the last two cases, as in the first. A
magistrate beyond the limits of his lawful authority (whatever that may
be), has, in virtue of this text, no more claim to obedience, than a
parent who, on the strength of the passage "Children, obey your parents
in all things," should command his son to obey him as a monarch or a
pope.
[267] Quoted by Pres. Young, p. 45, of the Address, etc.
[268] On the manner in which slaves were acquired, compare Deut. xx: 14.
xxi: 10, 11. Ex. xxii: 3. Neh. v: 4, 5. Gen. xiv: 14. xv: 3. xvii: 23.
Num. xxxi: 18, 35. Deut. xxv: 44, 46.
As to the manner in which they were to be treated, see Lev. xxv: 39-53.
Ex. xx: 10. xxii: 2-8. Deut. xxv: 4-6, etc. etc.
[269] "The word of Christ, (Matt. xix; 9), may be construed by an easy
implication to prohibit polygamy: for if 'whoever putteth away his wife,
and _marrieth_ another committeth adultery' he who marrieth another
_without_ putting away the first, is no less guilty of adultery: because
the adultery does not consist in the repudiation of the first wife,
(for, however unjust and cruel that may be, it is not adultery), but in
entering into a second marriage during the legal existence and
obligation of the first. The several passages in St. Paul's writings,
which speak of marriage, always suppose it to signify the union of one
man with one woman."--PALEY'S Moral Phil., book iii, chap. 6.
[270] Elements of Moral Science, p. 221.
[271] Clarkson and Wilberforce were anxious, to have the slave trade
speedily abolished, lest the force of their arguments should be weakened
by its amelioration.--ED.
[272] If the negro is susceptible of this degree of improvement, he
ought _then_ to be free.--ED.
[273] Abolition has impeded this improvement.--ED.
[274] We heard the late Dr. Wisner, after his long visit to the South,
say, that the usual task of a slave in South Carolina and Georgia, was
about the third of a day's work for a Northern laborer.
THE
EDUCATION, LABOR, AND WEALTH OF THE SOUTH.
BY SAMUEL A. CARTWRIGHT, M.D.,
OF LOUISIANA.
NOTE.--This article of Dr. Cartwright's was
designed by the Editor to follow "Cotton is King,"
but the copy was not received until the
stereotyping had progressed nearly to
completion.--PUBLISHER.
* * * * *
It has long been a favorite argument of the
abolitionists to assert that slave labor is
unproductive, that the prevalence of slavery tends
to diminish not only the productions of a country,
but also the value of the lands. On this ground,
appeals are constantly made to the
non-slaveholders of the South, to induce them to
abolish slavery; assigning as a reason, that their
lands would rise in value so as to more than
compensate the loss of the slaves.
That we may be able to ascertain how much truth
there is in this assertion, let us refer to
_figures_ and _facts_. The following deductions
from the Report of the Auditor of Public Accounts
of the State of Louisiana, speak in a language too
plain to be misunderstood by any one, and prove
conclusively, that, so far at least as the slave
States are concerned, a dense slave population
gives the highest value and greatest
productiveness to every species of property.
Similar deductions might he drawn from the
Auditors' Reports of every slave State in the
Union EDITOR.
1. _Annual Report of the Auditor of Public
Accounts of the State of Louisiana._ Baton Rouge,
1859.
2. _Annual Report of the Superintendent of Public
Education._ Baton Rouge, 1859.
3. _Les Lois concernant, les Ecoles Publique dons
l'Etat de la Louisiane_, 1849.
4. _Agricultural Productions of Louisiana._ By
Edward J. Forstal, New Orleans, 1845.
5. _Address of the Commissioners for the Raising
the Endowment of the University of the South._ New
Orleans, 1859.
IT is much easier to acquire knowledge from things cognizable to the
senses than from books. American civilization is founded upon the laws
of nature and upon moral virue. "Honesty is the best policy," says
Washington, its founder. The laws of nature are discovered by
observation and experience. A practical direction is given to them by
that species of knowedge, which is derived from handling the objects of
sense and working upon the materials the earth produces. Moral virtue
puts a bridle on the evil passions of the heart, and, at the same time,
infuses into it an invincible courage in demanding what is right. A
knowledge of nature enables its possessor to bridle the natural forces
of air, earth, fire, and water--to hold the reins and drive ahead. With
its rail-roads and telegraphs, American civilization is waging war with
time and space, and, by its moral power and Christian example, with sin
and evil. With its labor-saving machiney, its thirty millions do more
work for God and man than three hundred millions of such people as
inhabit Asia, Africa, Central, and South America, and Mexico. Its thirty
millions are equal to any hundred millions of most of the governments of
Europe. It is far ahead of the most enlightened nations of Europe,
because its people are in the possession of all the blessings and
comforts that heaven, through nature's laws, accord to earth's
inhabitants, while three-fourths of the two hundred and fifty millions
of Europe are writhing in an artificially created purgatory--deprived of
all the good things of earth. Whoever would catch up with the annals of
American progress, fall into line with American policy, and get within
the influence of the guiding spirit of American policy, must not depend
upon libraries for information, or he will be left far behind the age in
which he lives; must look to the statistics of the churches, to the
reports of legislative and commercial bodies, and to the monthly reviews
recording the principal transactions of the busy world around him. If he
wants to keep pace with the exploits of mankind under European
civilization, in cutting one another's throats, sacking cities,
destroying commerce, and laying waste the smiling fields of agriculture,
the daily press will give the required information; but he can not rely
upon it for these statistical details and stubborn facts which tell what
the Caucasian in America, aided by his black man, Friday, is doing for
Christianity, for liberty, for civilization, and for the good of the
world. Some of these details are regarded as too dry and uninteresting,
and others too long for admission in the daily press. Much is written
and said about the benefits of education. The rudiments are alike
important in both kinds of civilization, American and European. But
after acquiring the rudimentary knowledge, the paths of education in the
two hemispheres diverge from each other at right angles. The further the
American travels in the labyrinths of that system of education, so
fashionable in Europe, purposely designed to bury active minds in the
rubbish of past ages, or tangle them in metaphysical abstractions and
hide from them the beauty of truth and the matter-of-fact world around
them, the less he is qualified to appreciate the blessings and benefits
of republican institutions, and the more apt he is to be found in
opposition to American policy. By hard studies on subjects of no
practical importance, physical or moral, the European system of
education drives independence out of the mind, and virtue out of the
heart, as a pre-requisite qualification for obedience to governments
resting upon diplomacy, falsehood, artificial and unnatural distinctions
among men. But in the United States, the various State governments being
founded on moral truths and nature's laws, and not on the opinions of a
privileged order, our system of education should be in harmony with our
system of government; our youth should be taught to love virtue for
virtue's sake; to study nature, bow to her truths, and to give all the
homage that the crowned heads receive in Europe, to nature and to truth.
Our government sets up no religious creed or standard of morals, but
leaves every one perfectly free in religion and morals, to be governed
by the Bible as _he understands it_, provided he does not trespass upon
the rights of others. The principal books in our libraries give little
or no aid in qualifying our youth for public office or to direct the
legislation or policy of a government resting upon natural laws. The
practical operation of our system is scarcely anywhere else recorded
than in church history, gospel triumph, legislative reports, reviews,
and pamphlets. There the facts may be found, but they are isolated and
disconnected, teaching nothing; but could be made a most potent means,
not only of instruction in the practical operation of our system of
government, but of developing the human faculties, if introduced into
our schools. They are full of objects for comparison. By comparison the
mind is taught the difference between things; comparisons are at the
bottom of all useful and practical knowledge. "They are suggestive,"
says Prof. Agassiz, "of further comparisons. When the objects of nature
are the subjects of comparison, the mind is insensibly led to make new
inquiries, is filled with delight at every step of progress it makes in
nature's ever young and blooming fields, and study becomes a pleasure.
No American knows what a good country he has got until he visits Europe
and draws comparisons between the condition of the laboring classes
there and those at home. Even in London, about half the people have
neither church-room nor school-room."
The _Annual Report of the Auditor of Public accounts of the State of
Louisiana_ abounds with objects which have only to be compared in their
various relations to one another to give the mind a clear perception of
the operation and practical working of some of the most important
natural laws and moral truths lying at the bottom of American
civilization and progress. Without comparisons they are like
hieroglyphical characters telling nothing. Comparisons will decipher
them and make them speak a language full of instruction, which every one
can understand.
The more thorough the education in European colleges, or in American
schools on a similar model, the more there will be to _unlearn_ before
American institutions can be understood or their value appreciated, and
the less will the American citizen be qualified to vote understandingly
at the polls. The reason is, that the system of education which directs
the policy of goverments founded upon artificial distinctions, is from
necessity inimical to a government founded upon natural distinctions and
moral truth. Education on the British model has set the North against
the South, and has waylaid every step of American progress, from the
acquisition of Louisiana to the last foot of land acquired from Mexico
or the Indians, and it now stands across the path of the all-conquering
march of American civilization into Cuba, Central America, and Mexico.
The vicious system of education founded upon the European model has
almost reconquered Massachusetts and several other Northern States,
converting them, in many essential particulars, into British provinces.
The people of the North are virtuous and democratic at heart; but they
have been turned against their own country and the sentiments which
experience teaches to be truths, the obvious benefits of negro slavery,
for instance, by an education essentially monarchical. To sustain
itself, American policy should have its own schools, to guide and direct
it. Heretofore it has been guided and directed almost entirely by the
light and knowledge derived from the great school of experience, in
which the democratic masses are taught without the aid of other books
than the Bible and hymn book. In that school they learned that the negro
was not a white man with a black skin, but a different being, intended
by nature to occupy a subordinate place in society; that school made
known that the only place which nature has qualified him to fill was the
place of a servant. That place was accordingly assigned him in the new
order of civilization called American civilization, founded upon moral
virtue and natural distinctions, and not upon artifice and fraud; upon
nature's laws and God's truths, and not upon the fallacies of human
reason, as that of Europe. They had not even the assistance of book
education to tell them that the white man bore the name of Japheth in
the Bible, and the negro that of Canaan; and that the negro's servile
nature was expressed in his Hebrew name. American theologians had not
paid sufficient attention to the Hebrew, and could not inform the
American reader that both the Hebrew Bible and its Greek translation,
called the Septuagint, plainly, and in direct terms, recognize two
classes or races of mankind, one having a black skin, and the other
being fair or white; and that, besides these two races, it recognizes a
third race under the term Shem, a name which has no reference to color;
but as the other two were plainly designated as _whites_ and _blacks_,
the inference is, that the third class was red or yellow, or of an
intermediate color. In the Septuagint (the Bible which our Saviour
quotes), _Æthiop_ is the term used to designate the sons of Ham, a term
synonymous with the Latin word _niger_, from which the Spanish word
_negro_ is derived. The Bible tells in unmistakable terms that Japheth,
or the white race, was to be _enlarged_. The discovery of the western
hemisphere opened a wide field for the _enlargement_ of the white race,
pent up for thousands of years in a little corner of the eastern
hemisphere. The new hemisphere was found to be inhabited by nomads of
the race of Shem, neither white nor black. The historical fact is, that
the white race is every year _enlarging_ itself by dispossessing the
nomadic sons of Shem, found on the American continent, of their tents,
and dwelling in them; and that the black race are its servants. Thus
literally, in accordance with the prophecy, "_Japheth will be enlarged,
he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan_ (the negro) _shall be
his servant_." The prophecy is not fulfilled, but only in process of
fulfillment. It clearly points to a new order of civilization, in a
wider world for enlargement than the old, in which the black race was to
serve the white. The will of God that such a new order of civilization
should be established, in which the negro and white man should mutually
aid each other, and supply each other's deficiencies, is not only
revealed in Hebrew words, written thousands of years ago, but revealed
also in the laws of nature, and revealed by _Ethiop nowhere else but in
our slaveholding States, stretching forth her arms to God_. American
civilization, founded upon revealed truth and nature's laws, puts the
negro in his natural position, that of subordination to the white man.
The observation and experience of those who founded a government resting
on the basis of moral truth and natural, instead of artificial
distinctions, revealed to them the necessity of consigning to the negro
an inferior position, in order to carry out that democratic principle
which demands a place for every thing, and every thing in its place.
What are called the free States have provided no place for the poor
negro. He is an outcast and a wanderer, hurtful instead of helpful to
society. Mexico, Central and South America, in catching at the shadow,
lost the substance of republicanism. Republican government has utterly
failed with them, because they fell into the error of supposing that all
men of all races are naturally equal to one another. The white race in
those countries, acting upon that error, emancipated the inferior negro
race, and amalgamated with that and with the Indian race. This disregard
of the distinctions made by nature, between the white, black, and Indian
races, was fatal to American civilization in those countries.
Mr. Jefferson never meant to say that negroes were equal to white men;
but that white men, whether born in England or America were equal to one
another. Our fathers contended for their own equality among Englishmen,
which not being granted to them, they declared their independence. But
scarcely had their swords won that independence, when the governing
classes of Great Britain began to teach the rising generation, through
the medium of books, schools, and colleges, that the democratic
doctrine, which declared all white men equal to one another, _included
negroes_. Thus making the learned world believe that democracy and negro
slavery are incompatible--that there can be no such thing as a
democracy, or a government where the people rule, so long as black
people are held in slavery. The schools not only taught the doctrine
that negro slavery is anti-republican, but that it is a moral, social
and political evil, and soon it was denounced from the pulpit as _sin
against God_!
Under the influence of such an education, imported from Europe, the
American people, even in the South, began to regard negro slavery as an
evil--not from any thing they saw, but from what they had been taught.
Thence all manner of experiments were made with the negro to make his
condition better out of slavery than in it. All of which proving a
failure, the South took issue with Old and New England on the question
of negro slavery being an evil, social, political, or moral, and called
for the proof. No proof could be given except that drawn from England,
from hearsay evidence, and from theoretical teaching of that system of
education designed to support European despotisms, and to destroy
American republicanism. This has opened the eyes of the South to the
necessity of establishing schools and colleges of its own to uphold
American civilization. The address of the commissioners for the raising
of the endowment of the University of the South commends it to the
attention of the American people, not as a sectional or Southern
university, but as an American university, to be the house and home of
the spirit of American civilization--a dwelling-place not lighted with
fox-fire tapers or artificial lights to disguise nature, as the
institutions of learning in Europe are, but with the light inherent in
nature's truths and in the revealed word of God, honestly translated and
interpreted. Some schools to aid American civilization have already been
established, but there is a sad outcry for the proper kind of school
books; those of Old and New England being rotten to the core with
abolitionism and with that false democracy which would make the rising
generation believe that the heroes of the American Revolution fought for
ruining the negro by giving him liberty, fought to annul God's decrees,
which made him a servant of servants, instead of fighting for the
principle asserting their own equality with the lords of England and the
crowned heads of Europe. Fortunately the work before us, the _Report of
the Auditor of the Public Accounts of Louisiana_, will answer very well
to supply the want of a proper kind of school book to indoctrinate
beginners in the mysteries of the political institutions of their own
country, and at the same time to discipline and expand their minds. It
is only one of the numerous books of its class, which might be
advantageously pressed into the service of the schools for a similar
purpose. The statistics of the United States Census, and De Bow's
_Industrial Resources_, and the _Minutes of the Progress of the
American Churches_, would prove a very good beginning of a high school
and college library. Comparisons being the basis of all useful and
practical knowledge, in the works just referred to, and in the auditor's
report and others of its class, will be found ample materials for
comparison. Comparison will infuse a soul into the dry bones of the
facts and figures of our religious and political institutions, and make
them declare the hidden truths of nature which lie at the bottom of
American republicanism, Christianity, prosperity, and progress. The task
of comparing will be highly instructive to the youthful mind, and at the
same time agreeable and interesting. As an example, here is the way a
beginning is recommended, for a comparison in secular affairs.
LESSON NO. 1.--Let Lesson No. 1 consist in comparing the counties (or
parishes, as they are called in Louisiana) having the largest white
population and the fewest negroes, with those counties having the
heaviest negro population and the fewest white people.
There are five parishes, or counties, found in the report of the auditor
of public accounts, in which the white population exceeds the negro
slaves three to one. Let these parishes be compared with five others in
which the slave population exceeds the white seven to one.
Table I, represents the first class of parishes, and Table II, the
second. Thus:
TABLE I.
Total acres of /-------------Population---------------\
land owned. Whites. Slaves. Free Negroes.
Calcasieu, 35,486 2,367 947 280
Livingston, 60,885 3,998 1,297 7
Sabine, 85,446[275] 3,585 1,409 ---
Vermillion, 73,654 3,260 1,378 19
Winn, 43,406 4,314 1,007 38
------- ------ ------ ---
298,877 17,524 6,038 343
17,524
------
Total whites and slaves, 23,562
343
------
Aggregate population, 23,905
TABLE II.
Total acres of /-------------Population---------------\
land owned. Whites. Slaves. Free Negroes.
Carroll, 246,582 2,409 9,529 ---
Concordia, 318,395 1,384 11,908 11
Madison, 304,494 1,293 9,863 ---
Tensas, 323,797 1,255 13,285 328
W. Feliciana, 230,966 1,985 10,450 68
--------- ------ ------ ---
1,224,234 8,326 55,035 407
8,326
------
Total whites and slaves, 63,361
407
------
Aggregate population, 63,768
It will be seen from the above, that the white population of the
parishes in table I exceeds the slaves nearly three to one; while, in
the parishes in table II, the slaves exceed the whites nearly seven to
one.
If the land were divided equally among the aggregate population, each
inhabitant of the parishes in table I would have 12 acres, and each
inhabitant of the parishes in table II would have 22 acres. Here lesson
1 ends, by proving that there is not as great a demand for land, by
nearly one half, where the population consists of one white man and
seven negroes. By referring to a map of Louisiana, it will be seen that
the territorial extent of the parishes in table I is much greater than
those in table II. Hence it is not for the want of territory, that a
population consisting of three whites to one negro, owns less land by
nearly one half, than a population consisting of seven negroes to one
white man.
LESSON NO. 2.--Lesson No. I requires the value of the land per acre, in
tables I and II, to be ascertained and compared, with a view of solving
the important problem: "_Which gives the most value to land, a dense
white population with a few negroes, or a dense slave population with a
few white people?_"
By referring to the report of the auditor of accounts of Louisiana, it
will be seen that the assessed value of the lands of the parishes in
table I amounts to $1,642,073, or $5 49 per acre; while that of table II
amounts to $23,446,654, or $16 46 per acre. A population consisting of
seven negro slaves to one white man, makes land three times as valuable
as a population of three white men to one negro. The comparison drawn in
this lesson, puts a soul in the dry bones of the facts and figures
contained in the report of the auditor of public accounts, and makes
them tell what it is which gives value to Southern land.
LESSON NO. 3.--Let this lesson be devoted to drawing comparisons to
ascertain: "_Which pays the most taxes to the State, five parishes
containing 17,524 whites with a few negroes, or five parishes containing
less than half the whites (8,326) with a great many negroes?_" By
referring to the report of the auditor it will be seen, that the 17,524
whites of the five parishes in table I pay the State only $25,487,93, or
less than $1 50 each, while the 8,326 whites in the five parishes in
table II pay the State $169,900 per annum, or upward of $20 each. The
aggregate population of the parishes in table I pay only $1 06 each,
while the aggregate population of the parishes in table II pay $2 66
each. Every three whites and twenty negroes pay the State $61 18. By
making a calculation it will appear that it will require forty-three
whites and fifteen negroes of the parishes in table I, to pay the State
as much as three whites and twenty negroes pay in the parishes in table
II.
COROLLARY.--Three white men with twenty negroes, financially considered,
are worth as much to the State as forty-three white men with fifteen
negroes.
This strange truth meets a steady explanation in the fact found in
Lesson No. 2, that in those parishes where every three white inhabitants
own twenty negroes, the land is more than three times as valuable as in
the parishes, where every forty-three of the white population possess
only fifteen negroes.
LESSON NO. 4.--In the last lesson the truth was brought out that
forty-three white men and fifteen negroes are worth no more to the
State, financially considered, than three white men and twenty negroes.
Let this lesson examine the question: "_Whether forty-three white men in
command of fifteen negroes are worth AS MUCH to the State,
agriculturally and commercially considered, as three white men in
command of twenty negroes?_" This is a bold question and requires some
calculations. In making the calculations to base the comparisons upon,
sugar will be estimated at $60 per hogshead; molasses at $7 per barrel;
corn at $1 per bushel, and cotton at $40 dollars per bale. At these
rates the value of the agricultural productions in the five parishes,
where the white population is nearly three times as great as the negro,
amounts to $446,550, in a population of 17,524 whites, 6,038 negro
slaves, and 343 free negroes--the aggregate population 23,905, which
gives to each inhabitant $18 68.
The value of the agricultural productions in the five parishes, viz:
Carroll, Concordia, Madison, Tensas, and West Feliciana, where the negro
slaves are nearly seven times as numerous as the white population,
amounts to $8,854,770. In other words, 55,035 negroes under the command
of 8,326 whites, in an aggregate population of 63,768 (407 being added
for free negroes), produced $8,854,770 worth of agricultural products in
one year, estimating cotton at $40 per bale, sugar $60 per hogshead, and
corn at $1 a bushel; this amount divided by the aggregate population
gives each individual, black and white, old and young, $138 87. Three
whites in command of twenty negroes produce $3,194 worth of agricultral
products. This lesson was to solve the question whether forty-three
white men in command of fifteen negroes are worth as much to the State,
agriculturally and commercially considered, as three white men in
command of twenty negroes? It has been proved that in those five
parishes where the whites nearly treble the negroes, each inhabitant
only produces $18 68. This would give to forty-three white and fifteen
negroes only $1,081 70 as their share of the value of the agricultural
productions--whereas, the share of three whites and twenty negroes, in
those parishes where the negro population is nearly seven to one of the
white, has been ascertained to be $3,194. The student of political
economy is now prepared to solve another question: "What number of
inhabitants are required in those parishes where labor is isolated or
disassociated, to produce as much as three white and twenty negroes
produce in those parishes where labor is associated? The answer is 171;
viz: 113 whites and 58 negroes. The question is proved to be correctly
solved by multiplying 171 by $18.68 which gives $1,394 25, the exact
amount and a quarter over, that twenty negroes and three whites produce
in those parishes where labor is associated, or where the slave
population is nearly seven times more numerous than the white.
LESSON NO. 5.--Let two more lots of parishes be compared; one in which
the white population is not quite double that of the negro slaves, and
the other in which the negro slaves are not quite double the number of
the whites.
TABLE III.
_Parishes where whites exceed negroes less than two to one._
Whites. Slaves. Free negroes. Val. ag. prod.' 58.
Caldwell, 2,607 1,830 8 $121,920
St. Tammany, 2,588 1,945 -- 67,170
Union, 7,191 4,154 5 691,641
Washington, 2,910 1,551 10 47,532
Jackson, 5,220 3,803 1 702,742
------ ------ -- ----------
20,516 13,283 24 $1,631,005
Dividing the total value of the agricultural products by the aggregate
population, gives $48 22 to each individual, as the average in five
parishes, where the negro slaves are somewhat more than half the whole
population. This is a considerable improvement on the five parishes in
table I, where the whites exceed the negroes nearly three to one, the
average to each inhabitant being only $18 68, instead of $48 22.
TABLE IV.
_Parishes where negroes exceed whites less than two to one._
Whites. Slaves. Free negroes. Val. ag. prod. '58.
Claiborne, 4,618 7,003 58 $857,675
De Soto, 4,459 7,301 29 739,945
Morehouse, 3,620 5,468 14 785,370
Nachitoches, 5,987 7,939 775 1,120,718
Caddo, 4,073 5,978 44 1,056,130
Bossier, 3,646 7,195 11 1,155,010
------ ------ --- ---------
26,403 40,784 931 5,674,848
The total value of the agricultural productions, divided by the
aggregate population, 68,168, gives to each inhabitant $83 25. In table
II the aggregate population was 63,768, nearly seven negroes to one
white man; the value of the agricultural products divided, gave each
$138 07, instead of $83 25. The parishes of table II, with an aggregate
population of 63,768, seven sixths of whom were slaves, produced
$8,854,770 worth of agricultural products; whereas, the parishes of
table IV, containing a population of 68,168, the slaves being less than
double the number of whites, produced three millions less of
agricultural products than a smaller aggregate population produced in
those parishes where the negroes outnumbered the whites nearly seven to
one.
The report of the auditor of public accounts for the year 1859, does not
contain the necessary data for making comparisons in the parishes on the
lower stem of the Mississippi river, by reason of crevasses and other
disastrous causes. The valuable pamphlet of Edward J. Forstale, on the
agricultural products of Louisiana, will supply that deficiency, though
of a much older date. It appears from Mr. Forstale, that, so far back as
1844, "on well conducted estates, the average value of sugar and
molasses, per slave, was $237 50, estimating sugar at 4 cents, and
molasses at 15 cents," while the general average in the sugar district,
per slave, was, in the year 1844, only $150 31, from which he deducted
$75 for expenses. By examining his Monograph, it will be seen that the
great bulk of the sugar and molasses was produced in those parishes
having the heaviest negro population in proportion to the white. Thus,
St. Martin's, with a total population more than three times as large as
St. Charles, and with a negro population more than twice as numerous,
produced, in 1844, only 5,000 hogsheads, while St. Charles produced
upward of 12,000. The white population of St. Charles is only 883, while
that of the slaves is 3,769. The white population of St. Martin is
6,400, and the negro population 8,200. Assumption and Ascension are
adjoining parishes. Assumption contains more than three thousand whites,
and three hundred slaves over and above the population of Ascension. It
has more land than Ascension, yet it pays $2,200 less taxes on lands
than Ascension, and its gross taxes are $1,500 less than Ascension. The
value of its agricultural products is likewise less.
These lessons by comparison might be indefinitely extended, by dropping
the report of the auditor of public accounts of Louisiana, and taking up
the statistics of the churches, and the last United States census. The
statistics of the American churches prove that the slaveholding States
contain more Christian communicants, in proportion to the population,
including black and white, than the non-slaveholding--South Carolina
more than Massachusetts, Virginia more than Pennsylvania, Kentucky more
than Ohio. The report proves that in the cotton and sugar region, the
white people who have few or no negroes, are poor and helpless, but when
supplied with seven times their own number of negroes, they are the
richest and most powerful agricultural people on the earth. The census
will prove that the landed property of those who are thus supplied with
from three to seven times their own number of negroes, if sold at its
assessed value, and the proceeds of sales divided equally among all the
inhabitants, black and white, each individual would have a larger sum
than any Pennsylvanian, New Yorker, or New Englander, would have, if the
land in the richest counties were sold at its assessed value, and the
proceeds of sales divided equally among the inhabitants of the said
county. For instance, if the land in some of the richest counties of
Pennsylvania, say Adams, Berks, Centre, Chester, and Washington, were
all sold, and the proceeds divided among the inhabitants, each
individual would have only about half as much as each negro and white
man would have, if the lands of Carroll, Madison, Concordia, and Tensas,
where the negroes outnumber the whites seven to one, were all sold, and
the proceeds equally divided among blacks and whites.
Comparisons, instituted upon the data furnished by the United States
census, will show that what Virginia wants _is more negroes_, and what
Pennsylvania wants is _more white laborers_. In some counties in
Pennsylvania, Cambria and Carbon for instance, the land, if sold and
proceeds divided, would not give each inhabitant $75 a piece, the most
of the land being uncultivated for want of laborers. Ohio, Wyoming, and
Nicholas counties, in Virginia, with an aggregate population exceeding
thirty thousand, have only 222 negro slaves. The land, if sold and
divided, would not give each inhabitant one hundred dollars. In Accomac,
Albemarle, York, Prince Edward, and Prince George, the negro population
is about equal to the white. The land, if sold and equally divided,
would give each individual from $150 to $220, which is nearly as much as
the inhabitants of the best counties of Pennsylvania would have from the
proceeds of sales of these lands. Land, per acre, is cheaper in Virginia
than in Pennsylvania, because much the largest portion of the Virginia
lands are unimproved for the want of laborers, while the largest portion
of the Pennsylvania lands are under cultivation. The cotton States and
Louisiana are sucking the life-blood out of Virginia by draining that
noble old State of her agricultural laborers. The high price of negroes
is ruining Virginia. In Sussex, Southampton, Northampton, and many other
counties, which send most negroes to the cotton States, the inhabitants
have lost more in the fall in the price of their land, than they have
gained in the high price they got for their negroes. The land, if sold
and divided, would give each individual only fifty-seven dollars, less
than three dollars an acre. Oxford is Great Britain's eye, or rather the
telescope which is used to see afar off, to direct British policy. Mr.
Jefferson saw the importance of a university of the first class, to be
used as a telescope to look into the distance, to direct Virginia, or
what ought to be the same thing, American policy, as Oxford directs
British policy. Hence he devoted the latter years of his life to
establishing an institution for that very purpose.
Long before the West India emancipation act was passed, it was known by
the learned graduates and fellows of Oxford, that negroes would not work
as free laborers; and that their emancipation would ruin the British
West Indies. British policy, however, to build up India, imperatively
demanded the sacrifice to be made, as Russian policy demanded the
sacrifice of Moscow. The African race furnished the only laborers, who
could compete with the Mongolian race in producing the rich products of
tropical agriculture. Great Britain had a hundred and fifty millions of
the bronze and yellow-skin Asiatics under her command, and only wanted
the black-skin Africans out of the way, to monopolize tropical
agriculture. To carry out the British policy of becoming, not only
mistress of the seas, but mistress of the boundless wealth of tropical
and tropicoid climates, the learned graduates of Oxford and Cambridge
raised a hue and cry against the inhumanity of the _middle passage_. So
little truth was there in it, that when the committee of the United
States Senate, appointed to consider the causes of the mortality
prevailing on emigrant ships from Europe to this country, and the means
for the better protection of the health of the passengers, did me the
honor in 1854 to request my views on the subject, I replied (see
"_Report of the Select Committee of U. S. Senate on the Sickness and
Mortality on Emigrant Ships_," pages 119-144--Washington, 1854),
recommending certain rules to be adopted to preserve the health and
ameliorate the condition of emigrants on shipboard, which appeared to me
to be the best. But, subsequently, a little volume fell into my hands
containing the rules of the African slave-traders, half a century ago,
which were so much better than those I had recommended, I called the
attention of the chairman of the Senate's committee, the Hon. Hamilton
Fish, to them, advising him by all means to adopt the African
slave-traders' rules, if he had any regard for the health and comfort of
the European emigrants. In the latter part of the last century no one
pretended, as now, that the negro lost any thing by exchanging slavery
in Africa for the more benign system of slavery in America. But it was
the imaginary sufferings on the middle passage, which brought humanity
with her eyes shut to lend to British policy a helping hand to close
Africa and prevent her sable sons from exchanging their barbarous
masters for civilized ones. America consented to that policy. The
Southern tobacco-planters, believing they had as many negroes as the
cultivation of tobacco required, had petitioned the king before the
Revolution, to close the African slave trade. He did not do it. After
the Revolution it was not only closed, but declared to be piracy, by the
federal government. The policy which closed it may have been good policy
or bad at that time. It soon gave the non-slaveholding States the
ascendency in the Union. The question, whether they shall retain that
ascendency, will depend very much upon whether they continue to abuse
the power they acquired over the South by cutting off the supply of
Southern laborers. Having ascertained that the negro would not work as a
free man, the next move of British policy was, to set those free who
were already in America. All parties in England, some by one artifice
and some by another, were ultimately led to promote the British policy
of negro abolitionism. From England it was brought over to the United
States, took root and grew so rapidly as soon to become a most
disturbing element in both church and state. We had no colleges at the
North, and scarcely any churches which knew the advantages humanity and
Christianity derived from the mutual aid the black and white races
afford each other. The most of them are and were virtually European
colleges located in America. This has enabled those learned men in Great
Britain, who guide and direct British policy, to make a nose of wax of
the great body of the educated classes in the United States. The
prominence given to the Latin language, to the neglect of the Greek and
Hebrew, in our schools and colleges, has greatly tended to fill the
heads of the students with monarchical ideas, and to prevent them from
understanding and appreciating the institutions of their own country.
The study of Homer and the Greek classics favors genuine republicanism,
by fostering a high-toned moral virtue, and by creating a love for
nature and for political institutions founded upon her laws; while the
study of Virgil, and other Latin text-books, used in our schools and
colleges, has a strong tendency to lead to a sickly sentimental
admiration for nominal instead of real freedom, and for governments
founded upon usurpations and artificial distinctions, as that of the
Cæsars was, and as that of Great Britain is. There is as much difference
between Homer and Virgil as between nature and art. The Latin, being a
derivative language, and of very little use, would long since have been
banished from the schools, but for the aid monarchy derives from its
binding men of letters, as Virgil bound the Muses, to the footstool of
thrones, to flatter the frail humanity thereon with the incense of
divine honors. Homer's Muses, like true Americans, pay no higher honors
to the diadem on the king's head than to the gaudy plumage of the
peacock's tail. Young America would derive great advantages from an
intimate acquaintance with Homer. He wrote in a language which gives to
all the arts and sciences their technical terms. Hence, the previous
study of the Greek makes the acquaintance of the various sciences
comparatively easy to the learner. The Greek and Hebrew being original
languages, can be acquired in much less time than the Latin, which is a
derivative language. It is to be hoped that the great University of the
South, about to be established on the cool and salubrious plateau of the
Cumberland Mountains, if it does not banish Latin, will at least give a
greater degree of prominence to the Greek and Hebrew, the two languages
in which the Scriptures were originally written. By comparing "_The
Annual Report of the Superintendent of Public Education_, 1859, with
"_Les Lois concernant les Ecoles Publique dans l'Etat de la Louisiane_,
1849," it will be perceived, that the New England system of public
education is not adapted to Louisiana and the South. The laws are
excellent, if the system itself was in conformity to the spirit of our
political institutions. After ten years' trial, we learn from the Report
of the Superintendent, that they can not be carried out, as no laws can
be, which are theoretical, burdensome, troublesome, expensive, and void
of practical benefits. If a law were passed by the State of Louisiana
appropriating three hundred thousand dollars per annum to furnishing
every family with a loaf of bread every day, it could not be executed.
More than half the families would not accept the bread. The Report of
the Superintendent of Public Education proves that more than half the
families in Louisiana will not accept of the mental food the State
offers to their children. Some parishes will not receive any of it.
Tensas, for instance, which is taxed $16,000 for the support of public
schools, has "not a single public school," says the Report, "in it, yet
nearly every planter has a school in his own house." The truth is, that
government does more harm than good by interfering with the domestic
concerns of our people. If let alone, they would not need governmental
aid in furnishing food for either the body or the mind. The South would
have been far ahead in education, manufactures, and internal
improvements, if the federal government had not interfered, to shut out
the only kind of laborers who can labor in the cane and cotton field and
live. The system of public education, all admit, has failed in the
country, but, it is asserted, has succeeded very well in New Orleans. If
the tree be judged by its fruits it is poisonous instead of salutary, to
republican institutions, in our great cities. If the boys whom it has
taught to read novels, had been put to trades, they could not have been
driven away from the polls after they had grown to be men. There has
been virtually no election in New Orleans, and in many of our large
cities, for the last five or six years; whether from fear or
indifference, it proves that the system of education is defective.
America wants a University to raise the standard of morals, manners, and
learning, so high, that every individual will be as secure from personal
violence at the sacred ballot-box, as at the church altar. America wants
schools to raise the standard of moral virtue so high, that every
American citizen, naturalized or native, may confidently rely upon
government putting forth its whole power to protect him in all the
rights and privileges of an American citizen, both at home and abroad.
FOOTNOTE:
[275] Report of 1857, for the land in this parish.
CONCLUDING REMARKS.
BY THE EDITOR.
HAVING thus finished our labors, and embodied in this work a range of
discussion on slavery, occupying the whole ground, we have a word to say
to those who are engaged in fomenting these mad schemes of the
abolitionists. We ask you candidly and dispassionately to compare the
spirit, tone, and style of argument in the work before you, with the
writings and speeches of the anti-slavery propagandists, such as
Cheever, Channing, Wendell Phillips, and _Sherman's protege_. In
unsparing and vituperative denunciation they certainly excel; but are
they not filled with the most gross exaggerations and misrepresentations,
not to say willful falsehoods. Nowhere do you find that Christian candor
and fairness of argument, that should characterize the search after
truth, but in their stead only positive assertions, and inflammatory
appeals to the most vindictive passions of human nature.
In this crusade of the North against the South, there is a most
unwarrantable and impertinent interference with the concerns of others,
that ought to be most sternly rebuked; and it is one of the encouraging
signs of the times, that the Southern people are at last roused from
their inaction, and are vigorously engaged in adopting means of
self-protection. Many, however, in the North are engaged in this crusade
in order to divert attention from their own plague-spot--AGRARIANISM. We
all recollect the Patroon of Albany and the Van Rensellaer mobs,--the
Fourerism and Socialism of the free States, and the ever-active
antagonism of labor and capital. They are like the fleeing burglar, who,
more loudly than his pursuers, cries stop thief! For the time perhaps
they have succeeded in hounding on the rabble in full cry after the
South, and in diverting attention from themselves. But how will they
fare in the end? It is said of a certain animal, that when once it has
tasted human blood it never relinquishes the chase; so when the mob
shall have tasted the sweets of plunder and rapine in their raids upon
the South, will they spare the hoarded millions of the money-princes and
nabobs of the North? Are there not thousands of needy and thriftless
adventurers, or of starving and vicious poor, in the free States and
cities of the North, who look with ill-concealed envy, or with gloating
rapacity, on the prosperity and wealth of the aristocrats, as they term
them, of the spindle and loom, and of the counting-house? Ye
capitalists, ye merchant princes, ye master manufacturers, you may
excite to frenzy your Jacobin clubs, you may demoralize their minds of
all ideas of right and wrong, but remember! the gullotine is suspended
over your own necks!! The agrarian doctrines will ere long be applied to
yourselves, for with whatsoever measure ye mete, it shall be measured to
you again.
Ye who profess to be the ministers of the Prince of peace, yet are
engaged in preaching Sharp's rifles, or Brown's pikes; who teach that
murder is no crime, if committed by a slave upon his best friend, his
master; that midnight incendiarism is meritorious; that the breach of
every command in the decalogue is commendable, if perpetrated under the
guise of abolition philanthropy; who claim to possess a "higher law"
than the law of God; in fine, who preach every thing except Jesus
Christ, and him crucified; how shall you escape the sentence of holy
writ: "If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him
all the plagues that are written in this book; and if any man shall take
away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away
his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the
things which are written in this book."
Ye politicians, who, for the sake of place, power, and the spoils of
office, are engaged in alienating the feelings of both sections of our
Union; in producing division in our national councils; whose course is
fast bringing about the dissolution of our Union; to whose skirts will
cling the blood of the martyrs of liberty, so vainly shed?
Ye people of the North, our brothers by blood, by political
associations, by a community of interest; why will ye be led away by a
cruel and misguided philanthropy, or by designing demagogues? why will
ye strive to inflict the most irreparable injury upon the objects of
your misplaced sympathy? reduce to ruins this fair fabric of liberty,
and this happy land to desolation? Your own leaders acknowledge that,
hitherto, your agitation, far from bettering the condition of the
slaves, has only made it worse; and in some respects this is true. So
long as you confine yourselves to making or hearing abolition speeches,
or forming among yourselves anti-slavery societies; so long as you
confine the agitation to yourselves, you neither injure nor benefit the
slaves; your exuberant philanthropy escapes through the safety-valve in
the shape of gas. But when you attempt to circulate among them
incendiary documents, intended to render them unhappy, and discontented
with their lot, it becomes our duty to protect them against your
machinations. This is the sole reason why most, if not all the slave
States, have forbidden the slaves to be taught to read. But for your
interference, most of our slaves would now have been able to read the
word of God for themselves, instead of being dependent, as they now are,
on that _oral_ instruction, which is now so generally afforded them.
When emissaries come among them, to give them _oral_ instruction
different from that contained in the word of God, instead of abridging
the privileges of the slave, we deal directly with the emissary, and
justly, too; for we are acting not only in self-defense, but we are
guarding this dependent race, committed by God to our care, from those
malign influences which would work evil, not only to us, but to
themselves, also. Could you succeed in your efforts--which you will find
to be impossible--as the red republicans did in St. Domingo, or as the
English abolitionists did in Jamaica and Barbadoes, so far from having
bettered the condition of the blacks, you would have inflicted on them
an irreparable injury. But of this you will soon have an opportunity of
satisfying yourselves. We have among us a few hundred thousand of this
race, who have been emancipated through a mistaken philanthropy, and
who, though not injurious, are almost useless to us; these we have
concluded to colonize among you, that your lecturers, while lauding the
black man as being far superior to the white race, may never be in want
of a specimen of the genuine article, to point to, as a proof of the
truth of their arguments. Some of the slave States--and most, if not all
of them, will pursue the same policy--have already passed laws for the
removal of the free blacks from their borders, but allowing them the
option of remaining, by choosing their masters, and returning to a state
of servitude; and strange as you may think it, many have already done
so, in preference to going among their friends, the abolitionists. This
is done, not so much because we wish to be rid of this heterogeneous
element of our population, for at worst, they are, _with us_, only a
kind of harmless dead weight, but because we wish to send them North as
missionaries, to convert the abolitionists and free soilers. If we may
judge from the census and votes in the different counties in Ohio, the
experiment will be entirely successful, as those counties having the
largest black population, voted, in 1859, against the anti-slavery
ticket; whilst those which voted for it, possess but a meagre black
population. Is this because an intimate acquaintance with the negro,
convinces the community that freedom is not the normal or proper
condition for him; or is it because he prefers to reside amongst those
who make least pretensions of friendship for him? The anti-slavery men
may take either horn of the dilemma.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR. 8
COTTON IS KING.
Preface to the Third Edition. 19
Preface to the Second Edition. 26
Preface to the First Edition. 31
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY STATEMENTS.
Character of the Slavery controversy in the United
States; In Great Britain; Its influence in
modifying the policy of Anti-Slavery men in
America; Course of the Churches; Political Parties;
Result, COTTON IS KING; Necessity of reviewing the
policy in relation to the African race; Topics
embraced in the discussion. 33
CHAPTER II.
THE EARLY MOVEMENTS ON THE SUBJECT OF SLAVERY; THE
CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER WHICH THE COLONIZATION SOCIETY TOOK
ITS RISE; THE RELATIONS IT SUSTAINED TO SLAVERY AND TO
THE SCHEMES PROJECTED FOR ITS ABOLITION; THE ORIGIN OF
THE ELEMENTS WHICH HAVE GIVEN TO AMERICAN SLAVERY ITS
COMMERCIAL VALUE AND CONSEQUENT POWERS OF EXPANSION;
AND THE FUTILITY OF THE MEANS USED TO PREVENT THE
EXTENSION OF THE INSTITUTION.
Emancipation in the United States begun; First
Abolition Society organized; Progress of
Emancipation; First Cotton Mill; Exclusion of
Slavery from N. W. Territory; Elements of Slavery
expansion; Cotton Gin invented; Suppression of the
Slave Trade; Cotton Manufactures commenced in
Boston; Franklin's Appeal; Condition of the Free
Colored People; Boston Prison-Discipline Society;
Darkening Prospects of the Colored People. 35
CHAPTER III.
State of public opinion in relation to colored
population; Southern views of Emancipation;
Influence of Jefferson's opinions; He opposed
Emancipation except connected with Colonization;
Negro equality not contemplated by the Fathers of
the Revolution; This proved by the resolutions of
their conventions; The true objects of the
opposition to the slave trade; Motives of British
Statesmen in forcing Slavery on the colonies;
Absurdity of supposing negro equality was
contemplated. 41
CHAPTER IV.
Dismal condition of Africa; Hopes of Wilberforce
disappointed; Organization of the American
Colonization Society; Its necessity, objects, and
policy; Public sentiment in its favor; Opposition
developes itself; Wm. Lloyd Garrison, James G.
Birney, Gerrit Smith; Effects of opposition;
Stimulants to Slavery; Exports of Cotton; England
sustaining American Slavery; Failure of the Niger
Expedition; Strength of Slavery; Political action;
Its failure; Its fruits. 48
CHAPTER V.
THE RELATIONS OF AMERICAN SLAVERY TO THE INDUSTRIAL INTERESTS
OF OUR COUNTRY; TO THE DEMANDS OF COMMERCE; AND TO THE PRESENT
POLITICAL CRISIS.
Present condition of Slavery; Not an isolated
system; Its relations to other industrial
interests; To manufactures, commerce, trade, human
comfort; Its benevolent aspect; The reverse
picture; Immense value of tropical possessions to
Great Britain; England's attempted monopoly of
Manufactures; Her dependence on American Planters;
Cotton Planters attempt to monopolize Cotton
markets; _Fusion_ of these parties; Free Trade
essential to their success; Influence on
agriculture, mechanics; Exports of Cotton, Tobacco,
etc.; Increased production of Provisions; Their
extent; New markets needed. 55
CHAPTER VI.
Foresight of Great Britain; Hon. George Thompson's
predictions; Their failure; England's dependence on
Slave labor; Blackwood's Magazine; London
Economist; McCullough; Her exports of cotton goods;
Neglect to improve the proper moment for
Emancipation; Admission of Gerrit Smith; _Cotton_,
its exports, its value, extent of crop, and cost of
our cotton fabrics; _Provissions_, their value,
their export, their consumption; _Groceries_,
source of their supplies, cost of amount consumed;
Our total indebtedness to Slave labor; How far Free
labor sustains Slave labor. 61
CHAPTER VII.
Economical relations of Slavery further considered;
System unprofitable in grain growing, but
profitable in culture of Cotton; Antagonism of
Farmer and Planter; "Protection," and "Free Trade"
controversy; Congressional Debates on the Subject;
Mr. Clay; Position of the South; "Free Trade,"
considered indispensable to its prosperity. 67
CHAPTER VIII.
Tariff controversy continued; Mr. Hayne; Mr.
Carter; Mr. Govan; Mr. Martindale; Mr. Buchanan;
Sugar Planters invoked to aid Free Trade; The West
also invoked; Its pecuniary embarrassments for want
of markets; Henry Baldwin; Remarks on the views of
the parties; State of the world; Dread of the
protective policy by the Planters; Their schemes to
avert its consequences, and promote Free Trade. 73
CHAPTER IX.
Character of the Tariff controversy; Peculiar
condition of the people; Efforts to enlist the West
in the interests of the South; Mr. McDuffie; Mr.
Hamilton; Mr Rankin; Mr. Garnett; Mr. Cuthbert; the
West still shut out from market; Mr. Wickliffe; Mr.
Benton; Tariff of 1828 obnoxious to the South;
Georgia Resolutions; Mr. Hamilton; Argument to
Sugar Planters. 79
CHAPTER X.
Tariff controversy continued; Tariff of 1832; The
crisis; _Secession_ threatened; Compromise finally
adopted; Debates; Mr. Hayne; Mr. McDuffie; Mr.
Clay; Adjustment of the subject. 86
CHAPTER XI.
Results of the contest on Protection and Free
Trade; More or less favorable to all; Increased
consumption of Cotton at home; Capital invested in
Cotton and Woolen factories; Markets thus afforded
to the Farmer; South successful in securing the
monopoly of the Cotton markets; Failure of Cotton
cultivation in other countries; Diminished prices
destroyed Household Manufacturing; Increasing
demand for Cotton; Strange Providences; First
efforts to extend Slavery; Indian lands acquired;
No danger of over-production; Abolition movements
served to unite the South; Annexation of territory
thought essential to its security; Increase of
provisions necessary to its success; Temperance
cause favorable to this result; The West ready to
supply the Planters; It is greatly stimulated to
effort by Southern markets; _Tripartite Alliance_
of Western Farmers, Southern Planters, and English
Manufacturers; The East competing; The West has a
choice of markets; Slavery extension necessary to
Western progress; Increased price of Provisions;
More grain growing needed; Nebraska and Kansas
needed to raise food; The Planters stimulated by
increasing demand for Cotton; Aspect of the
Provision question; California gold changed the
expected results of legislation; Reciprocity Treaty
favorable to Planters; Extended cultivation of
Provisions in the Far West essential to Planters;
Present aspect of the Cotton question favorable to
Planters; London _Economist's_ statistics and
remarks; Our Planters must extend the culture of
Cotton to prevent its increased growth elsewhere. 91
CHAPTER XII.
Consideration of foreign cultivation of Cotton
further considered; Facts and opinions stated by
the London _Economist_; Consumption of Cotton
tending to extend the production; India affords the
only field of competition with the United States;
Its vast inferiority; Imports from India dependent
upon price; Free Labor and Slave Labor can not be
united on the same field; Supply of the United
States therefore limited by natural increase of
slaves; Limited supply of labor tends to renewal of
slave trade; Cotton production in India the only
obstacle which Great Britain can interpose against
American Planters; Africa, too, to be made
subservient to this object; Parliamentary
proceedings on this subject; Successful Cotton
culture in Africa; Slavery to be permanently
established by this policy; Opinions of the
_American Missionary_; Remarks showing the position
of the Cotton question in its relations to slavery;
Great Britain building up slavery in Africa to
break it down in America. 100
CHAPTER XIII.
Rationale of the Kansas-Nebraska movement; Western
agriculturists merely feeders of Slaves; Dry goods
and groceries nearly all of Slave labor origin;
Value of Imports; How paid for; Planters pay for
more than three-fourths; Slavery intermediate
between Commerce and Agriculture; Slavery not
self-sustaining; Supplies from the North essential
to its success; Proximate extent of these supplies;
Slavery, the central power of the industrial
interests, depending on Manufactures and Commerce;
Abolitionists contributing to this result;
Protection prostrate; Free Trade dominant; The
South triumphant; Country ambitious of territorial
aggrandizement; The world's peace disturbed; Our
policy needs modifying to meet contingencies;
Defeat of Mr. Clay; War with Mexico; Results
unfavorable to renewal of Protective policy;
Dominant political party at the North gives its
adhesion to Free Trade; Leading Abolition paper
does the same; Ditches on the wrong side of
breastworks; Inconsistency; Free Trade the main
element in extending Slavery; Abolition United
States Senators' voting with the South; North thus
shorn of its power; _Home Market_ supplied by
Slavery; People acquiesce; Despotism and Freedom;
Preservation of the Union paramount; Colored people
must wait a little; Slavery triumphant; People at
large powerless; Necessity of severing the Slavery
question from politics; Colonisation the only hope;
Abolitionism prostrate; Admissions on this point,
by Parker, Sumner, Campbell; Other dangers to be
averted; Election of Speaker Banks a Free Trade
Triumph; Neutrality necessary; Liberia the colored
man's hope. 123
CHAPTER XIV.
THE INDUSTRIAL, SOCIAL, AND MORAL CONDITION OF THE FREE
PEOPLE OF COLOR IN THE BRITISH COLONIES, HAYTI, AND IN
THE UNITED STATES; AND THE INFLUENCE THEY HAVE EXERTED
ON PUBLIC SENTIMENT IN RELATION TO SLAVERY, AND TO THEIR
OWN PROSPECTS OF EQUALITY WITH THE WHITES.
Effects of opposition to Colonization on Liberia;
Its effects on free colored people; Their social
and moral condition; Abolition testimony on the
subject; American Missionary Association; Its
failure in Canada; Degradation of West India free
colored people; American and Foreign Anti-Slavery
Society; Its testimony on the dismal condition of
West India free negroes; London _Times_ on same
subject; Mr. Bigelow on same subject; Effect of
results in West Indies on Emancipation; Opinion of
Southern Planters; Economical failure of West India
Emancipation; Ruinous to British Commerce; Similar
results in Hayti; Extent of diminution of exports
from West Indies resulting from Emancipation;
Results favorable to American Planter; Moral
condition of Hayti; Later facts in reference to the
West Indies; Negro free labor a failure; necessity
of education to render freedom of value; Franklin's
opinion confirmed; Colonization essential to
promote Emancipation. 132
CHAPTER XV.
Moral condition of the free colored people in
United States; What have they gained by refusing to
accept Colonization? Abolition testimony on the
subject; Gerrit Smith; New York _Tribune_; Their
moral condition as indicated by proportions in
Penitentiaries; Census Reports; Native whites,
foreign born, and free colored, in Penitentiaries;
But little improvement in Massachusetts in seventy
years; Contrasts of Ohio with New England;
Antagonism of Abolitionism to free negroes. 149
CHAPTER XVI.
Disappointment of English and American
Abolitionists; Their failure attributed to the
inherent evils of Slavery; Their want of
discrimination; The differences in the system in
the British Colonies and in the United States;
Colored people of United States vastly in advance
of all others; Success of the Gospel among the
Slaves; _Democratic Review_ on African
civilization; Vexation of Abolitionists at their
failure; Their apology not to be accepted; Liberia
attests its falsity; The barrier to the colored
man's elevation removable only by Colonization;
Colored men begin to see it; Chambers, of
Edinburgh; His testimony on the crushing effects of
New England's treatment of colored people; Charges
Abolitionists with insincerity; Approves
Colonization; Abolition violence rebuked by an
English clergyman. 154
CHAPTER XVII.
Failure of free colored people in attaining an
equality with the whites; Their failure also in
checking Slavery; Have they not aided in its
extension? Yes; Facts in proof of this view;
Abolitionists bad Philosophers; Colored men's
influence destructive of their hopes; Summary
manner in which England acts in their removal; Lord
Mansfield's decision; Granville Sharp's labors and
their results; Colored immigration into Canada;
Information supplied by Major Lachlan; Demoralized
condition of the blacks as indicated by the crimes
they committed; Elgin Association; Public meeting
protesting against its organization; Negro meeting
at Toronto; Memorial of municipal council; Negro
riot at St. Catherine's; Col. Prince and the
Negroes; Later cases of presentation by Grand Jury;
Opinion of the Judge; Darkening prospects of the
colored race; Views of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher;
Their accuracy; The lesson they teach. 172
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE MORAL RELATIONS OF PERSONS HOLDING THE "PER SE"
DOCTRINE ON THE SUBJECT OF SLAVERY, TO THE PURCHASE
AND CONSUMPTION OF SLAVE LABOR PRODUCTS.
Moral relations of Slavery; Relations of the
consumer of Slave labor products to the system;
Grand error of all Anti-Slavery effort: Law of
_particeps criminis_; Daniel O'Connell; _Malum in
se_ doctrine; Inconsistency of those who hold it;
English Emancipationists; Their commercial
argument; Differences between the position of Great
Britain and the United States; Preaching versus
practice by Abolitionists; Cause of their want of
influence over the Slaveholder; Necessity of
examining the question; Each man to be judged by
his own standard; Classification of opinions in the
United States, in regard to the morality of
Slavery; Three Views; A case in illustration;
Apology of _per se_ men for using Slave grown
products insufficient; Law relating to "confusion
of goods;" _per se_ men _participes criminis_ with
Slaveholder; Taking Slave grown products under
_protest_ absurd; World's Christian Evangelical
Alliance; Amount of Slave labor Cotton in England
at that moment; Pharisaical conduct; The Scotchman
taking his wife under protest; Anecdote; American
Cotton more acceptable to Englishmen than
Republican principles; Secret of England's policy
toward American Slavery; The case of robbery again
cited, and the English Satirized; A contrast;
Causes of the want of moral power of Abolitionists;
Slaveholder no cause to cringe; Other results;
Effect of the adoption of the _per se_ doctrine by
ecclesiastical bodies; Slaves thus left in all
their moral destitution; Inconsistency of _per se_
men denouncing others; What the Bible says of
similar conduct. 203
Conclusion. 215
APPENDIX.
Early movements in the American Colonies on the Slavery
question. 227
Free colored population in Canada. 239
Important decisions relating to Negroes in Common Schools. 245
Massachusetts Black Militia. 246
South Side Views. 246
Colored people emigrating from Louisiana to Hayti. 248
The Coolie Traffic. 248
TABLE I.--Cotton, its influence on Commerce, Manufactures,
Slavery, Emancipation, etc., from its earliest use in
England to present date; Sources of its supplies; Dates
of inventions increasing its use; Dates of movements
designed to favor the blacks; Dates of occurrences
antagonistic to their hopes. 250
TABLE II.--Tabular statement of Agricultural products and
products of Animals exported; Total value of products of
Animals and Agriculture raised in the United States; Value
of amount left for consumption and use; Value of Cotton
exported, of total crop, and of amount left for consumption;
Do. of Tobacco, and its products. 254
TABLE. III.--Total imports of more important Groceries for
1853; Re-exports of do.; Proportion from Slave labor
countries. 254
TABLE IV.--Free colored and Slave population of United
States; Diminution of free colored population in New
England; Rapid increase in Ohio, etc. 255
TABLE. V.--Influence of colored population on public
sentiment in Ohio; Vote for and against Abolition
candidate for Governor, by counties. 259
TABLE VI.--Total Cotton crop of United States, with the
amounts exported, the consumption of the United States,
North of Virginia, and the Stock on hand, September 1,
of each year, from 1840 to 1859, inclusive. 260
TABLE VII.--Statement of the value of Cotton Manufactures,
of Foreign Production, which were imported into the United
States; And the value of the Cotton goods Manufactured in
the United States, and exported, during the years stated;
Also a statement showing the amount of Coffee imported into
the United States annually, with the amount taken for
consumption, during the years 1850 to 1858, inclusive. 261
TABLE VIII.--Statement exhibiting the value of the exports
from the United States of breadstuffs and provisions; The
amount and value of Cotton exported, with the average
cost per pound; and the amount of Tobacco exported from
1821 to 1859 inclusive. 262
TABLE IX.--Statement exhibiting the value of Foreign goods
imported and taken for consumption in the United States;
The value of Domestic produce of the United States exported,
exclusive of Specie; The value of Specie and bullion
imported, and the value of Specie and bullion exported,
from 1821 to 1859 inclusive. 263
TABLE X.--Statement showing the amount of Cane Sugar and
Molasses consumed in the United States annually, with
the proportions that are Domestic and Foreign, for 1850
to 1858, inclusive. 264
TABLE XI.--Cotton imported into Great Britain from various
countries, quantity re-exported, and Stock on hand,
December 31, from 1840 to 1858, inclusive; Also, average
Weekly consumption of Cotton in Europe, from 1850 to 1858,
inclusive. 266
TABLE XII.--Cotton is King, Summary statement of the value
of exports of the growth, produce, and manufacture of the
United States, for the year ending June 30, 1859; The
productions of the North and of the South, respectively,
being placed in opposite columns; and the articles of a
mixed origin being stated separately. 267
LIBERTY AND SLAVERY: OR, SLAVERY IN THE LIGHT OF MORAL AND POLITICAL
PHILOSOPHY.
Introduction. 271
CHAPTER I.
THE NATURE OF CIVIL LIBERTY.
The commonly-received definition of Civil Liberty;
Examination of the commonly-received definition of
Civil Liberty; No good law over limits or abridges
the Natural Liberty of Mankind; The distinction
between Rights and Liberty; The Relation between
the State of Nature and Civil Society; Inherent and
Inalienable Rights; Conclusion of the First
Chapter. 273
CHAPTER II.
THE ARGUMENTS AND POSITIONS OF ABOLITIONISTS.
The first fallacy of the Abolitionists; The second
fallacy of the Abolitionists; The third fallacy of
the Abolitionists; The fourth fallacy of the
Abolitionists; The fifth fallacy of the
Abolitionists; The sixth fallacy of the
Abolitionists; The seventh fallacy of the
Abolitionists; The eighth fallacy of the
Abolitionists; The ninth fallacy of the
Abolitionists; The tenth, eleventh, twelfth,
thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth
fallacies of the Abolitionists; or their seven
arguments against the right of a man to hold
property in his fellow-man; The seventeenth fallacy
of the Abolitionists; or, the Argument from the
Declaration of Independence. 290
CHAPTER III.
THE ARGUMENT FROM THE SCRIPTURES.
The Argument from the Old Testament; The Argument
from the New Testament. 337
CHAPTER IV.
THE ARGUMENT FROM THE PUBLIC GOOD.
The Question; Emancipation in the British Colonies;
The manner in which Emancipation has ruined the
British Colonies; The great benefit supposed, by
American Abolitionists, to result to the freed
Negroes from the British Act of Emancipation; The
Consequences of Abolition in the South; Elevation
of the Blacks by Southern Slavery. 380
CHAPTER V.
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
Mr. Seward's Attack on the Constitution of his
Country; The Attack of Mr. Sumner on the
Constitution of his Country; The Right of Trial by
Jury not impaired by the Fugitive Slave Law; The
Duty of the Citizen in regard to the Constitution
of the United States. 380
THE BIBLE ARGUMENT: OR, SLAVERY IN THE LIGHT OF DIVINE REVELATION.
1. Including a full investigation of the Scripture texts
upon this subject. 461
2. Statistical view of Slavery, contrasting the relative
condition of the North and South, in the light of the
Statistics of the United States census. 522
SLAVERY IN THE LIGHT OF SOCIAL ETHICS.
INFLUENCE OF SLAVERY ON SOCIAL LIFE.
Necessity of Investigation; Vindicators of Slavery;
Slavery a means of Civilization; Prejudices of
Abolitionism; Discussion of the Declaration of
Independence; Rights of Society; Self-preservation;
The greatest good to the greatest number; Ambiguity
in moral Investigation; Influence of Slavery on
Civilization; The Slavery of England's
Civilization; How Slavery retards the evils of
Civilization; Servitude Inevitable; Abuses of
Slavery and of Free Labor; Social ties, master and
slave; Intellectual advancement; Morals of Slavery,
and of Free Labor; Marriage relation and
licentiousness; Virtues of Slavery; Security from
Evils; Insecurity of Free Labor; Menial occupations
necessary; Utopianism; Slavery and the servitude of
Civilization contrasted; The African an inferior
variety of the human race; Elevating influence of
Slavery on the slave, on the master, on statesmen;
Duties of master; Elevation of female character;
Necessity of Slavery in tropical climates; Examples
from history; Southern States; Insurrections
impossible; Military strength of Slavery
Advantageous consequences of the increase of
slaves; Destructive consequences of Emancipation to
our country, and to the world; Kakistocracy; White
emigration; Amalgamation; Deplorable results of
Fanaticism. 549
SLAVERY IN THE LIGHT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE.
Statement of the Question; Slave Trade increased by
the efforts made to suppress it; Title to Slaves,
to Lands; Abstract Ideas; Is Slavery Sin? Argument
from the Old Testament; Argument from the New
Testament; The "Higher Law;" Political Influence of
Slavery; Free Labor Police; In war, Slavery is
Strength; Code of Honor: Mercantile Credit;
Religion and Education; Licentiousness and Purity;
Economy of Slave Labor, and of Free Labor;
Responsibility of Power; Kindness and Cruelty;
Curtailment of Privileges; Punishment of Slaves,
children and soldiers; Police of Slavery; Condition
of Slaves; Condition of Free Laborers in England;
Slavery a necessary condition of Human Society;
Moral Suasion of the Abolitionists; Coolie Labor;
Results of Emancipation in the West Indies; Revival
of the Slave Trade by Emancipationists; Results of
Emancipation in the United States; Radicalism of
the present Age. 629
Ignorance of Abolitionists; Argument of
Abolitionists refuted; Abolitionism leads to
Infidelity; Law of Force a law of Love; Wages of
Slaves and of hired labor; Results of emancipation
to the world; Falsehoods of Abolitionists; English
estimate of our Northern citizens; British
interference in the politics of our country;
Sensitiveness of the Southern People; Rise and
progress of Fanaticism. 671
SLAVERY IN THE LIGHT OF ETHNOLOGY.
Philosphy of the Negro constitution, elicited by
questions propounded by Dr. C. R. Hall, of Torquay,
England, through Prof. Jackson of Massachusetts
Medical College, Boston, to Samuel A. Cartwright,
M. D. New Orleans. 691
Natural history of the prognathous species of
mankind. 707
On the Caucasians and the Africans. 717
SLAVERY IN THE LIGHT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW. 731
DECISION OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE
DRED SCOTT CASE. 741
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
Alleged Immorality of the Law answered; Duty of
Obedience; Government a Divine Institution; The
Warrant of Government is not the consent of the
governed; Infidel Doctrines; Deductions from this
Doctrine; Decision of The Supreme Court; Objections
answered; Conscience and the Law; Duty of Executive
Officers; Duty of Private Citizens; Objections
answered; Right of Revolution; Summary application
of these principles to the Fugitive Slave Law;
Conclusion. 807
THE BIBLE ARGUMENT ON SLAVERY.
Infatuation of the Abolitionists; Necessity of
Correct Opinions; Statement of the Question;
Slavery as Treated by Christ and his Apostles;
Slaveholding not Sinful; Answer to this Argument;
Dr. Channing's Answer; Admissions; Reply to the
Abolition Argument; Mr. Birney's Admissions;
Argument from the Old Testament; Polygamy and
Divorce; Inalienable Rights. 837
THE EDUCATION, LABOR, AND WEALTH OF THE SOUTH. 875
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 893
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