ADDENDUM.
_Virginia, Nov. 18, 1856._
WM. LLOYD GARRISON, Esq.:
DEAR SIR--I have observed so much fairness in the manner in which
slavery and other sociological questions are treated in _The Liberator_,
that it has occurred to me you would not consider suggestions from an
ultra pro-slavery man obtrusive, and might deem them worth a place in
your columns. I shall not promise that the example of your liberality
will be followed at the South. It is a theory of mine, that "recurrence
to fundamental principles" is only treason clothed in periphrastic
phrase; and that the right of private judgment, liberty of the press,
freedom of speech, and freedom of religion, are subordinate to these
"principles," and must not be allowed to assail them,--else there can be
no stability in government, or security of private rights. The South
thinks me heretical, but feels that I am right, and takes care to
trammel these sacred rights quite as efficiently by an austere public
opinion, as Louis Napoleon does by law or by mere volition.
I entirely concur in a theory I heard Mr. Wendell Phillips[35] propound
in a lecture at New Haven. I shall not attempt to give his eloquent
words, for I am incapable of doing justice to his language; but the
amount of his theory was, that governments are not formed by man, but
are the gradual accretions of time, circumstance, and human exigencies;
that they grow up like trees, and that man may cultivate, train and aid
their growth and development, but cannot make them out and out. Now, I
accept the theory, and propose, in the first place, to deter men from
applying the axe to the root of our Southern institutions, (that is,
discussing or recurring to "fundamental principles,") by moral suasion
or monition; next, by tar and feathers, and, that failing, by the
halter. The worst institutions that ever _grew up_ in any country are
better than the best that philosophers or philanthropists ever devised.
As for ours, we deem them, since the days of Rome, Athens and Judea, the
crack institutions of the world.
With these preliminary remarks, I will make the following suggestions or
interrogations:--
Is not slavery to capital less tolerable than slavery to human masters?
Where a few, as in England, Ireland and Scotland, own all the lands, are
not the mass, the common laborers, who own no capital, and possess
neither mechanical nor professional skill, of necessity, the slaves to
capital?
Was it not this slavery to capital that occasioned the great Irish
famine, and is it not this same slavery that keeps the large majority of
the laboring class in Western Europe in a state of hereditary
starvation?
In old societies, where the laborers are domestic slaves, and exceed in
number the demand for labor, would not emancipating them subject them at
once to a mastery, or exacting despotism of capital, far more oppressive
than domestic slavery?
Did not the emancipation of European serfs, or villiens, in all
instances, injure their condition as a class?
In the event of the occurrence of such excess of domestic slaves, would
it not be more merciful to follow the Spartan plan, and kill the
surplus, than the abolition plan, which sets them all free, to live on
half allowance, and to "make free labor cheaper than slave labor," by
this fierce competition and underbidding to get employment?
Are there not fewer checks to superior wit, skill and capital, and less
of protection afforded to the weak, ignorant and landless mass in
Northern society, than in any other ever devised by the wit of man?
Is not "_laissez-faire_," in English, "Every man for himself, and devil
take the hindmost," your whole theory and practice of government?
When your society grows older, your population more dense, and property,
by your trading, speculating and commercial habits, gets into a few
hands, will not the slavery to capital be more complete and unmitigated
than in any part of Europe, where a throne, a nobility and established
church, stand between the bosses, bankers and landlords, and the
oppressed masses?
Do not almost all well-informed men of a philosophical turn of mind in
Western Europe and our North, concur in opinion that the whole framework
of society, religious, ethical, economic, legal and political, requires
radical change?
Is not the absence of such opinion at the South, and its prevalence in
free society, conclusive proof of the naturalness and necessity of
domestic slavery?
Would not the North be willing to leave the settlement of the slavery
question in Kansas to the public opinion of Christendom, (for it will be
settled by all Christendom, of whom not one in a hundred will be
slaveholders,) if it were not sensible that public opinion was about to
decide in favor of _negro_ slavery, and, therefore, that it must be
forstalled by Federal legislation?
A SOUTHERNER.
Since our work was in the press, the above has appeared in the
_Liberator_. We embrace the occasion to thank Mr. Garrison for his
courtesy, and to make a few remarks that we hope will not be deemed
ill-timed or impertinent.
A comparison of opinions and of institutions between North and South
will lead to kinder and more pacific relations. Hitherto, such
comparisons could not be made, because the South believed herself
wrong, weak and defenceless; and that Abolition was but an attempt to
apply the brand to the explosive materials of her social edifice. She is
now equally confident of her justice and her strength, and believes her
social system more stable, as well as more benevolent, equitable and
natural, than that of the North. Whilst she will never tolerate radical
agitation and demagoguical propagandism, she is ready for philosophical
argument and discussion, and for historical and statistical comparison.
A Southerner employs the term "discussion," as equivalent to agitation;
for the South does not proscribe the discussion of any subject, by
proper persons, at proper places, and on proper occasions. (Who are
proper persons, and what proper times and places, must be left to a
healthy, just and enlightened public opinion to determine.) But men
shall not lecture our children, in the streets, on the beauties of
infidelity; parsons shall not preach politics from the pulpit; women
shall not crop the petticoat, mount the rostrum, and descant on the
purity of Free Love; incendiaries shall not make speeches against the
right of landholders, nor teach our negroes the sacred doctrines of
liberty and equality.
We are satisfied with our institutions, and are not willing to submit
them to the "experimentum in vile corpus!" If the North thinks her own
worthless, or only valuable as subjects for anatomical dissection, or
chemical and phrenological experiments, she may advance the cause of
humanity, by treating her people as philosophers do mice and hares and
dead frogs. We think her case not so desperate as to authorize such
reckless experimentation. Though her experiment has failed, she is not
yet dead. There is a way still open for recovery.
As we are a Brother Socialist, we have a right to prescribe for the
patient; and our Consulting Brethren, Messrs. Garrison, Greely, and
others, should duly consider the value of our opinion. Extremes
meet--and we and the leading Abolitionists differ but a hairbreadth.
We, like Carlyle, prescribe more of government; they insist on
No-Government. Yet their social institutions would make excellently
conducted Southern sugar and cotton farms, with a head to govern them.
Add a Virginia overseer to Mr. Greely's Phalansteries, and Mr. Greely
and we would have little to quarrel about.
We have a lively expectation that when our Cannibals make their entree,
"Our Masters in the art of War" will greet them with applause, instead
of hisses; with a "feu de joie," or gratulatory salute, instead of a
murderous broadside. We want to be friends with them and with all the
world; and, as the curtain is falling, we conclude with the valedictory
and invocation of the Roman actor--"Vos valete! et plaudite!"
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Not only does Moses evince his knowledge of the despotism of
capital, in forbidding its profits, but also in his injunction, not to
let emancipated slaves "go away empty." Deuteronomy xv. 13, 14.
"And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go
away empty. Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out
of thy floor, and out of thy wine-press: of that wherewith the Lord thy
God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him."
People without property exposed to the unrestricted exactions of capital
are infinitely worse off after emancipation than before. Moses prevented
the exactions of capital by providing property for the new free man.
[2] History of the Poor Laws, p. 120.
[3] 11 Hen. VII. cap. 2.
[4] 22 Hen. VIII. cap. 12.
[5] 27 Hen. VIII. cap. 25.
[6] 1 Ed. VI. cap. 3.
[7] 3 and 4 Ed. VI. cap. 16. 14 Eliz. cap. 5. 39 Eliz. cap. 4.
[8] See Lord Hale's paper at length, in "Burn's History of the Poor
Laws," p. 144.
[9] Robert (du Var.) Hist. de la Classe Ouvriere. Dedicace aux
Travailleurs. tome. I. p. X-XI.
[10] Aulus Gellius, Noct. Alt. lib. XVI, c. X.
[11] Hist. de la Classe Ouvriere. liv. IX. chap. VII. tome. III. p. 100.
[12] Hist. de la Classe Ouv. liv. IX. chap. VII. p. 102, tome. III. p.
102.
[13] Ibid. No. XIV. chap. I. tome. IV. p. 285-6.
[14] Ibid. No. XIII. chap. II. tome. IV. p. 247.
[15] Ibid. No. XII. chap. III. tome. IV. p. 50-105.
[16] Vidal. Repartition des Richesses. ptie. II. chap. III.
[17] The Social Condition and Education of the People of England and
Europe. By Joseph Kay, Esq., M. A., chap. I, vol. I, p. 314.
[18] Kay, Social Condition, &c., of England and Europe. chap. I, vol. 1,
p. 317-318.
[19] Kay, chap. II, vol. I, p. 361.
[20] Kay, chap. II, 2nd vol., p. 370. citing Rev. H. Worsley's Essay on
Juvenile Depravity, p. 53.
[21] Kay, chap. I, vol. I, p. 372-3.
[22] Kay, chap. I, vol. I, p. 395.
[23] Kay, chap. I, vol. I, p. 452-3.
[24] Kay, chap. I, vol. I. p. 4.
[25] Saisset, Sur la Philosophie et la Religion du XIX. Siecle. p. 222.
[26] North British Review, No. XXIV, Art. IX, Feb. 1850. p. 299-300. Am.
Ed.
[27] Edingb. Rev. Oct. 1849. Art. VI, p. 497-8. Engl. Ed.
[28] Chateaubriand. Essays on English Literature. Paris. 1838, cited by
Kay.
[29] Westminster Review, No. CXI. Art. III. Jan. 9. 1852.
[30] Niebuhr. Life and Letters, p. 506.
[31] Niebuhr, Ibid. p. 528. See also, p. 526.
[32] It is, however, but fair to state, that many competent and most
respectable observers declare, that though the _facts_ stated by the
Commissioners may be perfectly true, yet that the tone and spirit of the
Report bears token of material exaggeration.
[33] The colliers in the east of Scotland, however, are excepted.
[34] It is curious to contrast this with a similar comparison instituted
by the Factory Commissioners, and embracing upwards of 1000
children.--(Analysis of the Evidence taken before the Factory
Commissioners, p. 9.)
Boys _not_ in factories averaged 55.56 inches.
Boys in factories, " 55.28 "
-----
Difference, .28!
Girls _not_ in factories, " 54.979 "
Girls in factories, " 54.951 "
------
Difference, .028!! "
[35] Mr. Phillips is, in private life, aside from his abolition and
sectional prejudices, a worthy, accomplished gentleman. He is the most
eloquent and graceful speaker to whom we ever listened. He seems to
distill manna and ambrosia from his lips, but is all the while firing
whole broadsides of hot shot. "He is his own antithesis"--an infernal
machine set to music.
THE END.