1. A distinguished scientific gentleman, Mr. Coulomb, the superintendent
of several military works in the French West Indies, gives it as his
opinion, that the slaves do not perform more than one third of the labor
which they would do, provided they were urged by their own interests and
inclinations instead of brute force.
2. A plantation in Barbadoes in 1780 was cultivated by two hundred and
eighty-eight slaves ninety men, eighty-two women, fifty-six boys, and
sixty girls. In three years and three months there were on this
plantation fifty-seven deaths, and only fifteen births. A change was
then made in the government of the slaves. The use of the whip was
denied; all severe and arbitrary punishments were abolished; the laborers
received wages, and their offences were all tried by a sort of negro
court established among themselves: in short, they were practically free.
Under this system, in four years and three months there were forty-four
births, and but forty-one deaths; and the annual net produce of the
plantation was more than three times what it had been before.--(English
Quarterly Magazine and Review, April, 1832.)
3. The following evidence was adduced by Pitt in the British Parliament,
April, 1792. The assembly of Grenada had themselves stated, "that though
the negroes were allowed only the afternoon of one day in a week, they
would do as much work in that afternoon, when employed for their own
benefit, as in the whole day when employed in their master's service."
"Now after this confession," said Mr. Pitt, "the house might burn all its
calculations relative to the negro population. A negro, if he worked for
himself, could no doubt do double work. By an improvement, then, in the
mode of labor, the work in the islands could be doubled."
4. "In coffee districts it is usual for the master to hire his people
after they have done the regular task for the day, at a rate varying from
10d. to 15.8d. for every extra bushel which they pluck from the trees;
and many, almost all, are found eager to earn their wages."
5. In a report made by the commandant of Castries for the government of
St. Lucia, in 1822, it is stated, in proof of the intimacy between the
slaves and the free blacks, that "many small plantations of the latter,
and occupied by only one man and his wife, are better cultivated and have
more land in cultivation than those of the proprietors of many slaves,
and that the labor on them is performed by runaway slaves;" thus clearly
proving that even runaway slaves, under the all-depressing fears of
discovery and oppression, labor well, because the fruits of their labor
are immediately their own.
Let us look at this subject from another point of view. The large sum of
money necessary for stocking a plantation with slaves has an inevitable
tendency to place the agriculture of a slave-holding community
exclusively in the hands of the wealthy, a tendency at war with practical
republicanism and conflicting with the best maxims of political economy.
Two hundred slaves at $200 per head would cost in the outset $40,000.
Compare this enormous outlay for the labor of a single plantation with
the beautiful system of free labor as exhibited in New England, where
every young laborer, with health and ordinary prudence, may acquire by
his labor on the farms of others, in a few years, a farm of his own, and
the stock necessary for its proper cultivation; where on a hard and
unthankful soil independence and competence may be attained by all.
Free labor is perfectly in accordance with the spirit of our
institutions; slave labor is a relic of a barbarous, despotic age. The
one, like the firmament of heaven, is the equal diffusion of similar
lights, manifest, harmonious, regular; the other is the fiery
predominance of some disastrous star, hiding all lesser luminaries around
it in one consuming glare.
Emancipation would reform this evil. The planter would no longer be
under the necessity of a heavy expenditure for slaves. He would only pay
a very moderate price for his labor; a price, indeed, far less than the
cost of the maintenance of a promiscuous gang of slaves, which the
present system requires.
In an old plantation of three hundred slaves, not more than one hundred
effective laborers will be found. Children, the old and superannuated,
the sick and decrepit, the idle and incorrigibly vicious, will be found
to constitute two thirds of the whole number. The remaining third
perform only about one third as much work as the same number of free
laborers.
Now disburden the master of this heavy load of maintenance; let him
employ free able, industrious laborers only, those who feel conscious of
a personal interest in the fruits of their labor, and who does not see
that such a system would be vastly more safe and economical than the
present?
The slave states are learning this truth by fatal experience. Most of
them are silently writhing under the great curse. Virginia has uttered
her complaints aloud. As yet, however, nothing has been done even there,
save a small annual appropriation for the purpose of colonizing the free
colored inhabitants of the state. Is this a remedy?
But it may be said that Virginia will ultimately liberate her slaves on
condition of their colonization in Africa, peacefully if possible,
forcibly if necessary.
Well, admitting that Virginia may be able and willing at some remote
period to rid herself of the evil by commuting the punishment of her
unoffending colored people from slavery to exile, will her fearful remedy
apply to some of the other slaveholding states?
It is a fact, strongly insisted upon by our Southern brethren as a reason
for the perpetuation of slavery, that their climate and peculiar
agriculture will not admit of hard labor on the part of the whites; that
amidst the fatal malaria of the rice plantations the white man is almost
annually visited by the country fever; that few of the white overseers of
these plantations reach the middle period of ordinary life; that the
owners are compelled to fly from their estates as the hot season
approaches, without being able to return until the first frosts have
fallen. But we are told that the slaves remain there, at their work,
mid-leg in putrid water, breathing the noisome atmosphere, loaded with
contagion, and underneath the scorching fervor of a terrible sun; that
they indeed suffer; but, that their habits, constitutions, and their long
practice enable them to labor, surrounded by such destructive influences,
with comparative safety.
The conclusive answer, therefore, to those who in reality cherish the
visionary hope of colonizing all the colored people of the United States
in Africa or elsewhere, is this single, all-important fact: The labor of
the blacks will not and cannot be dispensed with by the planter of the
South.
To what remedy, then, can the friends of humanity betake themselves but
to that of emancipation?
And nothing but a strong, unequivocal expression of public sentiment is
needed to carry into effect this remedy, so far as the general government
is concerned.
And when the voice of all the non-slave-holding states shall be heard on
this question, a voice of expostulation, rebuke, entreaty--when the full
light of truth shall break through the night of prejudice, and reveal all
the foul abominations of slavery, will Delaware still cling to the curse
which is wasting her moral strength, and still rivet the fetters upon her
three or four thousand slaves? Let Delaware begin the work, and Maryland
and Virginia must follow; the example will be contagious; and the great
object of universal emancipation will be attained. Freemen, Christians,
lovers of truth and justice Why stand ye idle? Ours is a government of
opinion, and slavery is interwoven with it. Change the current of
opinion, and slavery will be swept away. Let the awful sovereignty of
the people, a power which is limited only by the sovereignty of Heaven,
arise and pronounce judgment against the crying iniquity. Let each
individual remember that upon himself rests a portion of that
sovereignty; a part of the tremendous responsibility of its exercise.
The burning, withering concentration of public opinion upon the slave
system is alone needed for its total annihilation. God has given us the
power to overthrow it; a power peaceful, yet mighty, benevolent, yet
effectual, "awful without severity," a moral strength equal to the
emergency.
"How does it happen," inquires an able writer, "that whenever duty is named
we begin to hear of the weakness of human nature? That same nature which
outruns the whirlwind in the chase of gain, which rages like a maniac at
the trumpet call of glory, which laughs danger and death to scorn when
its least passion is awakened, becomes weak as childhood when reminded of
the claims of duty." But let no one hope to find an excuse in hypocrisy.
The humblest individual of the community in one way or another possesses
influence; and upon him as well as upon the proudest rests the
responsibility of its rightful exercise and proper direction. The
overthrow of a great national evil like that of slavery can only be
effected by the united energies of the great body of the people.
Shoulder must be put to shoulder and hand linked with hand, the whole
mass must be put in motion and its entire strength applied, until the
fabric of oppression is shaken to its dark foundations and not one stone
is left upon another.
Let the Christian remember that the God of his worship hateth oppression;
that the mystery of faith can only be held by a pure conscience; and that
in vain is the tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, if the weihtier
matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and truth, are forgotten. Let him
remember that all along the clouded region of slavery the truths of the
everlasting gospel are not spoken, that the ear of iniquity is lulled,
that those who minister between the "porch and the altar" dare not speak
out the language of eternal justice: "Is not this the fast which I have
chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and
to let the oppressed go free?" (Isa. viii. 6.) "He that stealeth a man
and selleth him; or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to
death." (Exod. xxi. 16.1) Yet a little while and the voice of impartial
prayer for humanity will be heard no more in the abiding place of
slavery. The truths of the gospel, its voice of warning and exhortation,
will be denounced as incendiary? The night of that infidelity, which
denies God in the abuse and degradation of man, will settle over the
land, to be broken only by the upheaving earthquake of eternal
retribution.
To the members of the religious Society of Friends, I would earnestly
appeal. They have already done much to put away the evil of slavery in
this country and Great Britain. The blessings of many who were ready to
perish have rested upon them. But their faithful testimony must be still
steadily upborne, for the great work is but begun. Let them not relax
their exertions, nor be contented with a lifeless testimony, a formal
protestation against the evil. Active, prayerful, unwearied exertion is
needed for its overthrow. But above all, let them not aid in excusing
and palliating it. Slavery has no redeeming qualities, no feature of
benevolence, nothing pure, nothing peaceful, nothing just. Let them
carefully keep themselves aloof from all societies and all schemes which
have a tendency to excuse or overlook its crying iniquity. True to a
doctrine founded on love and mercy, "peace on earth and good will to
men," they should regard the suffering slave as their brother, and
endeavor to "put their souls in his soul's stead." They may earnestly
desire the civilization of Africa, but they cannot aid in building up the
colony of Liberia so long as that colony leans for support upon the arm
of military power; so long as it proselytes to Christianity under the
muzzles of its cannon; and preaches the doctrines of Christ while
practising those of Mahomet. When the Sierra Leone Company was formed in
England, not a member of the Society of Friends could be prevailed upon
to engage in it, because the colony was to be supplied with cannon and
other military stores. Yet the Foreign Agent of the Liberia Colony
Society, to which the same insurmountable objection exists, is a member
of the Society of Friends, and I understand has been recently employed in
providing gunpowder, etc., for the use of the colony. There must be an
awakening on this subject; other Woolmans and other Benezets must arise
and speak the truth with the meek love of James and the fervent sincerity
of Paul.
To the women of America, whose sympathies know no distinction of cline,
or sect, or color, the suffering slave is making a strong appeal. Oh,
let it not be unheeded! for of those to whom much is given much will be
required at the last dread tribunal; and never in the strongest terms of
human eulogy was woman's influence overrated. Sisters, daughters, wives,
and mothers, your influence is felt everywhere, at the fireside, and in
the halls of legislation, surrounding, like the all-encircling
atmosphere, brother and father, husband and son! And by your love of
them, by every holy sympathy of your bosoms, by every mournful appeal
which comes up to you from hearts whose sanctuary of affections has been
made waste and desolate, you are called upon to exert it in the cause of
redemption from wrong and outrage.
Let the patriot, the friend of liberty and the Union of the States, no
longer shut his eyes to the great danger, the master-evil before which
all others dwindle into insignificance. Our Union is tottering to its
foundation, and slavery is the cause. Remove the evil. Dry up at their
source the bitter waters. In vain you enact and abrogate your tariffs;
in vain is individual sacrifice, or sectional concession. The accursed
thing is with us, the stone of stumbling and the rock of offence remains.
Drag, then, the Achan into light; and let national repentance atone for
national sin.
The conflicting interests of free and slave labor furnish the only ground
for fear in relation to the permanency of the Union. The line of
separation between them is day by day growing broader and deeper;
geographically and politically united, we are already, in a moral point
of view, a divided people. But a few months ago we were on the very
verge of civil war, a war of brothers, a war between the North and the
South, between the slave-holder and the free laborer. The danger has
been delayed for a time; this bolt has fallen without mortal injury to
the Union, but the cloud from whence it came still hangs above us,
reddening with the elements of destruction.
Recent events have furnished ample proof that the slave-holding interest
is prepared to resist any legislation on the part of the general
government which is supposed to have a tendency, directly or indirectly,
to encourage and invigorate free labor; and that it is determined to
charge upon its opposite interest the infliction of all those evils which
necessarily attend its own operation, "the primeval curse of Omnipotence
upon slavery."
We have already felt in too many instances the extreme difficulty of
cherishing in one common course of national legislation the opposite
interests of republican equality and feudal aristocracy and servitude.
The truth is, we have undertaken a moral impossibility. These interests
are from their nature irreconcilable. The one is based upon the pure
principles of rational liberty; the other, under the name of freedom,
revives the ancient European system of barons and villains, nobles and
serfs. Indeed, the state of society which existed among our Anglo-Saxon
ancestors was far more tolerable than that of many portions of our
republican confederacy. For the Anglo-Saxon slaves had it in their power
to purchase their freedom; and the laws of the realm recognized their
liberation and placed them under legal protection.
(The diffusion of Christianity in Great Britain was moreover
followed by a general manumission; for it would seem that the
priests and missionaries of religion in that early and benighted age
were more faithful in the performance of their duties than those of
the present. "The holy fathers, monks, and friars," says Sir T.
Smith, "had in their confessions, and specially in their extreme and
deadly sickness, convinced the laity how dangerous a thing it was
for one Christian to hold another in bondage; so that temporal men,
by reason of the terror in their consciences, were glad to manumit
all their villains."--Hilt. Commonwealth, Blackstone, p. 52.)
To counteract the dangers resulting from a state of society so utterly at
variance with the great Declaration of American freedom should be the
earnest endeavor of every patriotic statesman. Nothing unconstitutional,
nothing violent, should be attempted; but the true doctrine of the rights
of man should be steadily kept in view; and the opposition to slavery
should be inflexible and constantly maintained. The almost daily
violations of the Constitution in consequence of the laws of some of the
slave states, subjecting free colored citizens of New England and
elsewhere, who may happen to be on board of our coasting vessels, to
imprisonment immediately on their arrival in a Southern port should be
provided against. Nor should the imprisonment of the free colored
citizens of the Northern and Middle states, on suspicion of being
runaways, subjecting them, even after being pronounced free, to the costs
of their confinement and trial, be longer tolerated; for if we continue
to yield to innovations like these upon the Constitution of our fathers,
we shall erelong have the name only of a free government left us.
Dissemble as we may, it is impossible for us to believe, after fully
considering the nature of slavery, that it can much longer maintain a
peaceable existence among us. A day of revolution must come, and it is
our duty to prepare for it. Its threatened evil may be changed into a
national blessing. The establishment of schools for the instruction of
the slave children, a general diffusion of the lights of Christianity,
and the introduction of a sacred respect for the social obligations of
marriage and for the relations between parents and children, among our
black population, would render emancipation not only perfectly safe, but
also of the highest advantage to the country. Two millions of freemen
would be added to our population, upon whom in the hour of danger we
could safely depend; "the domestic foe" would be changed into a firm
friend, faithful, generous, and ready to encounter all dangers in our
defence. It is well known that during the last war with Great Britain,
wherever the enemy touched upon our Southern coast, the slaves in
multitudes hastened to join them. On the other hand, the free blacks
were highly serviceable in repelling them. So warm was the zeal of the
latter, so manifest their courage in the defence of Louisiana, that the
present Chief Magistrate of the United States publicly bestowed upon them
one of the highest eulogiums ever offered by a commander to his soldiers.
Let no one seek an apology for silence on the subject of slavery because
the laws of the land tolerate and sanction it. But a short time ago the
slave-trade was protected by laws and treaties, and sanctioned by the
example of men eminent for the reputation of piety and integrity. Yet
public opinion broke over these barriers; it lifted the curtain and
revealed the horrors of that most abominable traffic; and unrighteous law
and ancient custom and avarice and luxury gave way before its
irresistible authority. It should never be forgotten that human law
cannot change the nature of human action in the pure eye of infinite
justice; and that the ordinances of man cannot annul those of God. The
slave system, as existing in this country, can be considered in no other
light than as the cause of which the foul traffic in human flesh is the
legitimate consequence. It is the parent, the fosterer, the sole
supporter of the slave-trade. It creates the demand for slaves, and the
foreign supply will always be equal to the demand of consumption. It
keeps the market open. It offers inducements to the slave-trader which
no severity of law against his traffic can overcome. By our laws his
trade is piracy; while slavery, to which alone it owes its existence, is
protected and cherished, and those engaged in it are rewarded by an
increase of political power proportioned to the increase of their stock
of human beings! To steal the natives of Africa is a crime worthy of an
ignominious death; but to steal and enslave annually nearly one hundred
thousand of the descendants of these stolen natives, born in this
country, is considered altogether excusable and proper! For my own part,
I know no difference between robbery in Africa and robbery at home. I
could with as quiet a conscience engage in the one as the other.
"There is not one general principle," justly remarks Lord Nugent, "on
which the slave-trade is to be stigmatized which does not impeach slavery
itself." Kindred in iniquity, both must fall speedily, fall together,
and be consigned to the same dishonorable grave. The spirit which is
thrilling through every nerve of England is awakening America from her
sleep of death. Who, among our statesmen, would not shrink from the
baneful reputation of having supported by his legislative influence the
slave-trade, the traffic in human flesh? Let them then beware; for the
time is near at hand when the present defenders of slavery will sink
under the same fatal reputation, and leave to posterity a memory which
will blacken through all future time, a legacy of infamy.
"Let us not betake us to the common arts and stratagems of nations, but
fear God, and put away the evil which provokes Him; and trust not in man,
but in the living God; and it shall go well for England!" This counsel,
given by the purehearted William Penn, in a former age, is about to be
followed in the present. An intense and powerful feeling is working in
the mighty heart of England; it is speaking through the lips of Brougham
and Buxton and O'Connell, and demanding justice in the name of humanity
and according to the righteous law of God. The immediate emancipation of
eight hundred thousand slaves is demanded with an authority which cannot
much longer be disputed or trifled with. That demand will be obeyed;
justice will be done; the heavy burdens will be unloosed; the oppressed
set free. It shall go well for England.
And when the stain on our own escutcheon shall be seen no more; when the
Declaration of our Independence and the practice of our people shall
agree; when truth shall be exalted among us; when love shall take the
place of wrong; when all the baneful pride and prejudice of caste and
color shall fall forever; when under one common sun of political liberty
the slave-holding portions of our republic shall no longer sit, like the
Egyptians of old, themselves mantled in thick darkness, while all around
them is glowing with the blessed light of freedom and equality, then, and
not till then, shall it go well for America!