Far be it from me to cast new bitterness into the gall and wormwood
waters of sectional prejudice. No; I desire peace, the peace of
universal love, of catholic sympathy, the peace of a common interest, a
common feeling, a common humanity. But so long as slavery is tolerated,
no such peace can exist. Liberty and slavery cannot dwell in harmony
together. There will be a perpetual "war in the members" of the
political Mezentius between the living and the dead. God and man have
placed between them an everlasting barrier, an eternal separation. No
matter under what name or law or compact their union is attempted, the
ordination of Providence has forbidden it, and it cannot stand. Peace!
there can be no peace between justice and oppression, between robbery and
righteousness, truth and falsehood, freedom and slavery.
The slave-holding states are not free. The name of liberty is there, but
the spirit is wanting. They do not partake of its invaluable blessings.
Wherever slavery exists to any considerable extent, with the exception of
some recently settled portions of the country, and which have not yet
felt in a great degree the baneful and deteriorating influences of slave
labor, we hear at this moment the cry of suffering. We are told of
grass-grown streets, of crumbling mansions, of beggared planters and
barren plantations, of fear from without, of terror within. The once
fertile fields are wasted and tenantless, for the curse of slavery, the
improvidence of that labor whose hire has been kept back by fraud, has
been there, poisoning the very earth beyond the reviving influence of the
early and the latter rain. A moral mildew mingles with and blasts the
economy of nature. It is as if the finger of the everlasting God had
written upon the soil of the slave-holder the language of His
displeasure.
Let, then, the slave-holding states consult their present interest by
beginning without delay the work of emancipation. If they fear not, and
mock at the fiery indignation of Him, to whom vengeance belongeth, let
temporal interest persuade them. They know, they must know, that the
present state of things cannot long continue. Mind is the same
everywhere, no matter what may be the complexion of the frame which it
animates: there is a love of liberty which the scourge cannot eradicate,
a hatred of oppression which centuries of degradation cannot extinguish.
The slave will become conscious sooner or later of his brute strength,
his physical superiority, and will exert it. His torch will be at the
threshold and his knife at the throat of the planter. Horrible and
indiscriminate will be his vengeance. Where, then, will be the pride,
the beauty, and the chivalry of the South? The smoke of her torment will
rise upward like a thick cloud visible over the whole earth.
"Belie the negro's powers: in headlong will,
Christian, thy brother thou shalt find him still.
Belie his virtues: since his wrongs began,
His follies and his crimes have stamped him man."
Let the cause of insurrection be removed, then, as speedily as possible.
Cease to oppress. "Let him that stole steal no more." Let the laborer
have his hire. Bind him no longer by the cords of slavery, but with
those of kindness and brotherly love. Watch over him for his good. Pray
for him; instruct him; pour light into the darkness of his mind.
Let this be done, and the horrible fears which now haunt the slumbers of
the slave-holder will depart. Conscience will take down its racks and
gibbets, and his soul will be at peace. His lands will no longer
disappoint his hopes. Free labor will renovate them.
Historical facts; the nature of the human mind; the demonstrated truths
of political economy; the analysis of cause and effect, all concur in
establishing:
1. That immediate abolition is a safe and just and peaceful remedy for
the evils of the slave system.
2. That free labor, its necessary consequence, is more productive, and
more advantageous to the planter than slave labor.
In proof of the first proposition it is only necessary to state the
undeniable fact that immediate emancipation, whether by an individual or
a community, has in no instance been attended with violence and disorder
on the part of the emancipated; but that on the contrary it has promoted
cheerfulness, industry, and laudable ambition in the place of sullen
discontent, indolence, and despair.
The case of St. Domingo is in point. Blood was indeed shed on that
island like water, but it was not in consequence of emancipation. It was
shed in the civil war which preceded it, and in the iniquitous attempt to
restore the slave system in 1801. It flowed on the sanguine altar of
slavery, not on the pure and peaceful one of emancipation. No; there, as
in all the world and in all time, the violence of oppression engendered
violence on the part of the oppressed, and vengeance followed only upon
the iron footsteps of wrong. When, where, did justice to the injured
waken their hate and vengeance? When, where, did love and kindness and
sympathy irritate and madden the persecuted, the broken-hearted, the
foully wronged?
In September, 1793, the Commissioner of the French National Convention
issued his proclamation giving immediate freedom to all the slaves of St.
Domingo. Did the slaves baptize their freedom in blood? Did they fight
like unchained desperadoes because they had been made free? Did they
murder their emancipators? No; they acted, as human beings must act,
under similar circumstances, by a law as irresistible as those of the
universe: kindness disarmed them, justice conciliated them, freedom
ennobled them. No tumult followed this wide and instantaneous
emancipation. It cost not one drop of blood; it abated not one tittle of
the wealth or the industry of the island. Colonel Malenfant, a slave
proprietor residing at the time on the island, states that after the
public act of abolition, the negroes remained perfectly quiet; they had
obtained all they asked for, liberty, and they continued to work upon all
the plantations.--(Malenfant in Memoirs for a History of St. Domingo by
General Lecroix, 1819.)
"There were estates," he says, "which had neither owners nor managers
resident upon them, yet upon these estates, though abandoned, the negroes
continued their labors where there were any, even inferior, agents to
guide them; and on those estates where no white men were left to direct
them, they betook themselves to the planting of provisions; but upon all
the plantations where the whites resided the blacks continued to labor as
quietly as before." Colonel Malenfant says that when many of his
neighbors, proprietors or managers, were in prison, the negroes of their
plantations came to him to beg him to direct them in their work. "If you
will take care not to talk to them of the restoration of slavery, but
talk to them of freedom, you may with this word chain them down to their
labor. How did Toussaint succeed? How did I succeed before his time in
the plain of the Cul-de-Sac on the plantation of Gouraud, during more
than eight months after liberty had been granted to the slaves? Let
those who knew me at that time, let the blacks themselves be asked. They
will all reply that not a single negro upon that plantation, consisting
of more than four hundred and fifty laborers, refused to work; and yet
this plantation was thought to be under the worst discipline and the
slaves the most idle of any in the plain. I inspired the same activity
into three other plantations of which I had the management. If all the
negroes had come from Africa within six months, if they had the love of
independence that the Indians have, I should own that force must be
employed; but ninety-nine out of a hundred of the blacks are aware that
without labor they cannot procure the things that are necessary for them;
that there is no other method of satisfying their wants and their tastes.
They know that they must work, they wish to do so, and they will do so."
This is strong testimony. In 1796, three years after the act of
emancipation, we are told that the colony was flourishing under
Toussaint, that the whites lived happily and peaceably on their estates,
and the blacks continued to work for them. Up to 1801 the same happy
state of things continued. The colony went on as by enchantment;
cultivation made day by day a perceptible progress, under the
recuperative energies of free labor.
In 1801 General Vincent, a proprietor of estates in the island, was sent
by Toussaint to Paris for the purpose of laying before the Directory the
new Constitution which had been adopted at St. Domingo. He reached
France just after the peace of Amiens, when Napoleon was fitting out his
ill-starred armament for the insane purpose of restoring slavery in the
island. General Vincent remonstrated solemnly and earnestly against an
expedition so preposterous, so cruel and unnecessary; undertaken at a
moment when all was peace and quietness in the colony, when the
proprietors were in peaceful possession of their estates, when
cultivation was making a rapid progress, and the blacks were industrious
and happy beyond example. He begged that this beautiful state of things
might not be reversed. The remonstrance was not regarded, and the
expedition proceeded. Its issue is well known. Threatened once more
with the horrors of slavery, the peaceful and quiet laborer became
transformed into a demon of ferocity. The plough-share and the pruning-
hook gave way to the pike and the dagger. The white invaders were driven
back by the sword and the pestilence; and then, and not till then, was
the property of the planters seized upon by the excited and infuriated
blacks.
In 1804 Dessalines was proclaimed Emperor of Hayti. The black troops
were in a great measure disbanded, and they immediately returned to the
cultivation of the plantations. From that period up to the present there
has been no want of industry among the inhabitants.
Mr. Harvey, who during the reign of Christophe resided at Cape Francois,
in describing the character and condition of the inhabitants, says "It
was an interesting sight to behold this class of the Haytiens, now in
possession of their freedom, coming in groups to the market nearest which
they resided, bringing the produce of their industry there for sale; and
afterwards returning, carrying back the necessary articles of living
which the disposal of their commodities had enabled them to purchase; all
evidently cheerful and happy. Nor could it fail to occur to the mind
that their present condition furnished the most satisfactory answer to
that objection to the general emancipation of slaves founded on their
alleged unfitness to value and improve the benefits of liberty. . . .
As they would not suffer, so they do not require, the attendance of one
acting in the capacity of a driver with the instrument of punishment in
his hand. As far as I had an opportunity of ascertaining from what fell
under my own observation, and from what I gathered from other European
residents, I am persuaded of one general fact, which on account of its
importance I shall state in the most explicit terms, namely, that the
Haytiens employed in cultivating the plantations, as well as the rest of
the population, perform as much work in a given time as they were
accustomed to do during their subjection to the French. And if we may
judge of their future improvement by the change which has been already
effected, it may be reasonably anticipated that Hayti will erelong
contain a population not inferior in their industry to that of any
civilized nation in the world. . . . Every man had some calling to
occupy his attention; instances of idleness or intemperance were of rare
occurrence; the most perfect subordination prevailed, and all appeared
contented and happy. A foreigner would have found it difficult to
persuade himself, on his first entering the place, that the people he now
beheld so submissive, industrious, and contented, were the same people
who a few years before had escaped from the shackles of slavery."
The present condition of Hayti may be judged of from the following well-
authenticated facts its population is more than 700,000, its resources
ample, its prosperity and happiness general, its crimes few, its labor
crowned with abundance, with no paupers save the decrepit and aged, its
people hospitable, respectful, orderly, and contented.
The manumitted slaves, who to the number of two thousand were settled in
Nova Scotia by the British Government at the close of the Revolutionary
War, "led a harmless life, and gained the character of an honest,
industrious people from their white neighbors." Of the free laborers of
Trinidad we have the same report. At the Cape of Good Hope, three
thousand negroes received their freedom, and with scarce a single
exception betook themselves to laborious employments.
But we have yet stronger evidence. The total abolishment of slavery in
the southern republics has proved beyond dispute the safety and utility
of immediate abolition. The departed Bolivar indeed deserves his
glorious title of Liberator, for he began his career of freedom by
striking off the fetters of his own slaves, seven hundred in number.
In an official letter from the Mexican Envoy of the British Government,
dated Mexico, March, 1826, and addressed 'to the Right Hon. George
Canning, the superiority of free over slave labor is clearly demonstrated
by the following facts:--