The reader who has accompanied me thus far, will not need to be informed
that I have designedly omitted many of those remarks on scenery,
manners, and institutions, which were naturally suggested to my own mind
by a retrospect of my sojourn in the United States. On various subjects
of great interest and importance, it would be difficult for me to add
anything new or valuable to the information contained in other and well
known works; while on those points to which my attention was chiefly
directed, I have endeavored, as far as practicable, to incorporate the
results of my inquiries in the preceding narrative. There remain,
however, a few observations, for which, having found no appropriate
place, I would bespeak attention in a concluding chapter.
In the Northern States, education, in the common acceptation of the
term, may be considered as universal; in illustration of which it may be
mentioned, that on the occasion of the late census, not a single
American adult in the State of Connecticut, was returned as unable to
read or write. Funds for education are raised by municipal taxation in
each town or district, to such an amount as the male adults may decide.
Their public schools are universally admitted to be well conducted and
efficient, and combine every requisite for affording a sound, practical,
elementary education to the children of the less affluent portion of the
community. I need scarcely add that in a republican government, this
important advantage being conceded, the road to wealth and distinction,
or to eminence of whatever kind, is thrown open to all of every class
without partiality--the colored alone excepted.
The following extract from a letter received since my return from a
respected member of the Society of Friends, residing in Worcester,
Massachusetts, will give a lively idea of the general diffusion and
practical character of education in the New England States.
"The public schools of the place, like those throughout the State, are
supported by a tax, levied on the people by themselves, in their primary
assemblies or town meetings, and they are of so excellent a character as
to have driven other schools almost entirely out from among us. They are
so numerous as to accommodate amply all the children, of suitable age to
attend. They are graduated from the infant school, where the A B C is
taught, up to the high school for the languages and mathematics, where
boys are fitted for the University, and advanced so far, if they choose,
as to enter the University one or two years ahead. These schools are
attended by the children of the whole population promiscuously; and, in
the same class we find the children of the governor and ex-governor of
the State, and those of their day-laborers, and of parents who are so
poor that their children are provided with books and stationery from the
school fund. Under this system, we have no children who do not acquire
sufficient school learning to qualify them for transacting all the
business which is necessary in the ordinary pursuits of life. A child
growing up without school learning would be an anomaly with us. All
standing thus on a level, as to advantages, talent is developed,
wherever it happens to be; and neither wealth nor ancestral honors give
any advantage in the even-handed contest which may here be waged for
distinction. It is thus that we find, almost uniformly, that our first
men, either in government or the professions, are the sons of
comparatively poor and obscure persons. In places where the wealthier
portion of the community have placed their children in select schools,
they are found much less likely to excel, than when placed in contact
and collision with the mass, where they are compelled to come in
competition with those whose physical condition prepares them for mental
labor, and whose situation in society holds forth every inducement to
their exertions. To this system, which is co-eval with the foundation of
the State, I attribute, in a great degree, that wonderful energy of
character which distinguishes the people of New England, and which has
filled the world with the evidences of their enterprise."
The preceding statements refer to New England, the oldest portion of the
free States. The more recently settled Northern and Western States are
necessarily less advanced, yet their educational statistics would
probably bear comparison with any country in the world, except the most
favored portion of their own. In the slave States the aspect of things
affords a striking contrast. Not only is the slave population, with but
few exceptions, in a condition of heathen barbarism, a condition which
it is the express object of those laws of the slave States, forbidding,
under the heaviest penalties, the instruction of the slaves, to
perpetuate; but the want of common elementary education among large
numbers of the privileged class is notorious. Compare Virginia with
Massachusetts,--"The American Almanac for the year 1841, states, (page
210) there are supposed to be hardly fewer than 30,000 adult white
persons in Virginia who cannot read and write!" An able writer gives the
following facts.
"No one of the slave States has probably so much general education as
Virginia. It is the oldest of them--has furnished one half of the
Presidents of the United States--has expended more upon her University
than any State in the Union has done during the same time upon its
colleges--sent to Europe nearly twenty years since for her most learned
professors; and in fine, has far surpassed every other slave State in
her efforts to disseminate education among her citizens; and yet, the
Governor of Virginia in his message to the legislature, (Jan. 7, 1839)
says, that of four thousand six hundred and fourteen adult males in that
State, who applied to the county clerks for marriage licences in the
year 1837, one thousand and forty seven were unable to write their
names." The governor adds, "these statements, it will be remembered are
confined to one sex: the education of females, it is to be feared, is in
a condition of _much greater neglect_."--The editor of the Virginia
Times published at Wheeling, in his paper of January 23d, 1839,
says,--"We have every reason to suppose that one fourth of the people of
the State cannot write their names, and they have not of course any
other species of education."[A]
[Footnote A: "American Slavery as it is," page 187.]
The destitution of the means of moral and religious improvement is in
like manner very great. A recent number of the "Monthly Extracts from
the correspondence of the American Bible Society," contains the
following extract from the 28th annual report of the Virginia Bible
Society: "The sub-sheriff of one of our Western Counties stated the
following fact to your agent. A jury was to be empannelled in a remote
settlement of this country--he happened to have left his home without a
Bible--there was no Bible in the house where the jury was to sit, and
the sheriff travelled fourteen miles calling at every house, before he
found a Bible. Pious surveyors stated to your agent that they had
traversed every settlement in a remote section of one or two of our
south western counties, that they had frequently inquired among the
settlers for a Bible, but had never seen or heard of one in a region,
say sixty miles by fifty."
There are few things more striking in the free States than the number
and commodiousness of the places of worship. In the New England States,
however general the attendance might be, none would be excluded for want
of room. The other means or accompaniments of religious instruction are
in the same abundance. How is it possible to evade the conclusion that
Christianity flourishes most, when it is unencumbered and uncorrupted by
state patronage? What favored portion of the United Kingdom could
compare its religious statistics with New England?
Religion and morality, viewed on the broad scale, are cause and
effect--a remark which is fully borne out in the Northern States, and in
no instance more remarkably exemplified than in the spread of
temperance. A few years ago the consumption of ardent spirits, and other
intoxicating drinks, was as general as in England, and the effects even
more conspicuous and debasing. It is now very rare, in the free States,
to see a drunken person, even in the most populous cities. At the large
hotels, as far as my observation extended, it is the exception, not the
rule, to take any spirituous or fermented beverage at or after dinner;
and no case of inebriety came under my notice in any of these
establishments. I have already remarked, that some of the first hotels
in the principal cities are established on the strictest temperance
principles. I believe, in private hospitality, intoxicating drinks are,
in like manner, very much discarded. At the tables of members of the
Society of Friends, it is very rare to see either wine or malt liquor
introduced; while, as already noticed, the selling, using, or giving
ardent spirits is so great an offence as to be made the subject of
church discipline. This is, by no means, one of the "peculiarities" of
"Friends," as I believe it may be generally stated that the same
practices, in most other Christian communities, would be considered as
quite incompatible with a profession of religion.
The effects of this great reformation are not confined to the United
States, although the change hitherto has been much more gradual in my
native country; not so, however, in Ireland, now, by a happy reverse, a
scene of light and promise, amidst surrounding gloom and depression. Of
the American facts I have to record, connected with the temperance
movement, the most grateful is the striking contrast that is exhibited
in the Irish emigrants. By the divine blessing on Theobald Mathew's
benevolent labors, they have generally forsaken their besetting sin of
drunkenness in their native land, and if compelled to seek the means of
subsistence in another country, they now at least do not carry with them
habits that tend irresistibly to destitution and degradation. The Irish
movement is likewise re-acting most beneficially on the native Irish,
who have long been settled in America, and who are joining the total
abstinence societies in great number, though hitherto the most
intemperate part of the community.
In short, whether I consider the religious, the benevolent, or the
literary institutions of the Northern States--whether I contemplate the
beauty of their cities, or the general aspect of their fine country, in
which nature every where is seen rendering her rich and free tribute to
industry and skill--or whether I regard the general comfort and
prosperity of the laboring population,--my admiration is strongly
excited, and, to do justice to my feelings, must be strongly expressed.
Probably there is no country where the means of temporal happiness are
so generally diffused, notwithstanding the constant flow of emigrants
from the old world; and, I believe there is no country where the means
of religious and moral improvement are so abundantly provided--where
facilities of education are more within the reach of all--or where there
is less of extreme poverty and destitution.
As morals have an intimate connection with politics, I do not think it
out of place here to record my conviction, that the great principle of
popular control, which is carried out almost to its full extent in the
free states, is not only beautiful in theory, but that it is found to
work well in practice. It is true that disgraceful scenes of mob
violence and lynch-law have occurred; but perhaps not more frequently
than popular outbreaks in Great Britain; while, generally, the supremacy
of law and order have been restored, without troops, or special
commissions, or capital punishments. It is also true, that these
occurrences are, for the most part, directly traceable, not to the
celebrated declaration of the equal and inalienable right of all men to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which is the fundamental
principle of the constitution; but to the flagrant violation of that
principle in the persons of the colored population, of whom those in
most of the free states are actually or virtually deprived of political
rights; and the rest, constituting a majority of the population in some
of the Southern States, are held in abject slavery. The corruptions and
disorders that obscure the bright example of the American people, and
detract from the estimation in which their institutions and policy would
otherwise be held, generally spring from this source. So long as slavery
and distinction of color exist, America will always be pointed at with
the finger of scorn, for her flagrant violation of all truth and
consistency. But let us not forget that this odious institution is the
disgraceful legacy of a monarchy--that it is no necessary effect of
republican institutions, but the reverse. Our quarrel, therefore, is not
with the declaration of rights, but that this celebrated declaration
should be regarded, in the instance of one class in the community, as a
mere rhetorical flourish, and should thus be deprived of its legitimate
practical effect.
The great feature of the political arrangements of the free States is,
the absence of the aristocratic element. A pure despotism in the hands
of one man has seldom been seen, except in the instances of those
renowned military chiefs, whom a retributive Providence has at intervals
employed as the scourge of guilty nations. An aristocracy under various
forms and names, has usually been the governing power, and as the too
frequent result, laws have been made and administered for the benefit of
the few, and not for the many. Yet the United States of North America
exhibit, however, notwithstanding their political theory to the
contrary, an aristocracy of the worst kind, _an aristocracy of color_;
in the free States of the many against the few, in affirming these to be
a degraded race, as long as African blood runs in their veins; and in
the slave States, for a no better reason, reducing them even when they
are the majority; to the condition of brute beasts, to be held and sold
as goods and chattels. And this leads me to observe that the writer who
mistakes the general government of the confederacy, with its limited
scope and powers, for the chief source of laws and administration in the
separate States will unavoidably present a confused and distorted
representation of existing facts. Each State constitutes within itself a
distinct republic, virtually independent of the general government, so
long as its legislation does not conflict with the specific articles of
the constitutional compact; all the rights and powers of sovereignty,
not specifically delegated to the Government in that instrument, being
retained by the States. Hence nothing can present a wider contrast than
the slavery-blackened code of South Carolina, and the statutes of
Massachusetts, characterized by republican simplicity and equality.
The preceding observations in favor of the democratic institutions of
the northern States, are therefore to be understood as of local
application; and I would explicitly admit that a well-ordered and a
well-working government on such principles must in a great measure
depend upon the amount of virtue and intelligence in the community: but
while a government which is based upon the principles of impartial
justice requires a virtuous people properly to administer it, it has, I
believe, within itself one of the most powerful elements for the
formation of such a community.
On the subject of peace my inquiries elicited an almost uniformly
favorable response. If we except those who would encourage the war
spirit, from hopes of sharing in the plunder, or those to whom it would
open up the path to distinction and emolument, there are comparatively
few who do not desire the maintenance of peace. In the religious part of
the community, there is a rapidly spreading conviction of the
unchristian character of war, in every shape; and the President, in his
late message to Congress, in stating that "the time ought to be regarded
as having gone by when a resort to arms is to be esteemed as the only
proper arbiter of national differences", has expressed the sentiments of
the great bulk of the intelligent citizens of the United States. I
believe also that the majority would be found willing to assent to any
reasonable and practical measure that should preclude the probability of
an appeal to arms, or of keeping up what are absurdly called "peace
establishments" of standing armies and appointed fleets for the
protection of national safety or honor. The late excitements on the
Boundary and McLeod questions were confined to comparatively few of the
population, and the report of them was magnified by distance.
But a far stronger guaranty for the permanence of international peace
than any treaties, will be found in the interchange of mutual benefits
by commerce. For this reason he who is successful in promoting a free
and unchecked commerce, is the benefactor, not of his own country alone,
but of the world at large. There are few countries where in practice
free trade is more fully carried out than in the United States, but in
theory the true doctrine of this subject is only in part adopted by her
statesmen and leading minds. They are willing to trade on equal terms,
but will meet prohibition with prohibition. Here undoubtedly they
mistake their real interests, but though such a policy will not advance
the prosperity of America, it will inflict tremendous and lasting injury
on Great Britain. Whatever the event, _we_ cannot complain. The terms
offered by the United States, though not wise, on an enlarged view of
her own interests, are yet _reciprocal_, and therefore fair between
nation and nation. If, however, I possessed any influence with the
enlightened citizens of North America, I should be in no common degree
anxious to exert it against those false views of trade and commerce
which distort alike the maxims and the policy of her rulers. Their
manufactures flourish, not in consequence of protection, but in defiance
of it. With such an extended coast, and such facilities of internal
communication, prohibition is impossible. The manufactures of England
are excluded, not by the revenue laws of the States, but by the corn
laws of Great Britain, which forbid the British manufacturer to take in
exchange the only article of value his American customer has to spare; a
prohibition which, unhappily for the people of this country, our
government has power to enforce. The prohibitory system is, to a great
extent, impracticable in the United States; and just so far as it should
be found practicable, it would prove injurious, by creating fictitious
and dependent interests, which, in the course of time, would become
insupportably burdensome to the commonwealth, and eventually would have
to be relinquished at the cost of a fearful amount of individual
distress and national suffering. Legitimate commerce is that department
of the national welfare, in which it is the business of statesmanship to
do nothing but remove the impediments of its own creating in past times.
In all other respects, commercial legislation is a nuisance; and if
under some circumstances trade is found to flourish concurrently with
such interference, the fact is due either to the restrictions and
regulations being practically inoperative, or more frequently, to the
high profits arising from unexhausted resources, in the absence of
competition, enabling commerce to advance in spite of impediments; in
the same way as cultivation by slave labor, notwithstanding its
expensiveness and inordinate waste, enables the first planter on a
virgin soil, and with an open market for his produce, to roll in his
carriage, though beggary is to be the fate of the second or third
generation of his descendants.
In giving the preceding representation of the religious, the moral, and
the intellectual elevation of the population of the Northern States of
the Union, I have indicated the source we must look to for the abolition
of slavery, to which it is now time to turn our attention, for no
American question can be discussed, into which this important subject
does not largely enter.
Light and darkness, truth and falsehood, are not more in opposition than
Christianity and slavery. If the religion that is professed in the free
States be not wholly a dead letter,--if the moral and intellectual light
which they appear to enjoy be indeed light, and not darkness,--then the
abolition of slavery is certain, and cannot be long delayed. In order to
make this apparent, as well as to vindicate my own proceedings in the
United States, it is incumbent on me to show, that the great contest,
for the abolition of American slavery, is to be decided in the _free_
States, by the power of public opinion. I have distinctly admitted, that
the confederated republics have each their independent sovereignty.
Neither the free States, nor the general Government, can perhaps
constitutionally abolish slavery in any one of the existing slave
States. Yet there are certain objects clearly within the limits of the
constitutional power of the general Government, such as the suppression
of the internal slave-trade, and the abolition of slavery in the
district of Columbia, for which it is undeniably lawful and
constitutional for every American citizen to strive; and the attainment
of which would suffice to cripple, and ultimately destroy slavery in
every part of the Union. The slave-holding power is so sensible of this,
that all its united strength is employed to retain that control over the
general Government, which it has exercised from the date of the
independence, and never more despotically than at the present time.
Amidst the difficulties which beset, and the dangers which threatened
the country, at the period of the formation of the constitution, the
southern States dictated such a compromise as they thought fit; and,
with the great principles of liberty paraded on the face of the
declaration of independence, came into the Union on the express
understanding that those principles should be perpetually violated in
their favor. Of the details of this compromise, by far the most
important, and one which has mainly contributed to consolidate the
political supremacy of the south, is the investiture of the slave
masters with political rights, in proportion to the amount of their
slave property. Every five slaves confer three votes on their owner;
though, in other points of view, a slave is a mere chattel--an article
of property and merchandize,--yet, in this instance, and in _criminal
proceedings against him_, his _personality_ is recognized, for the
express object of adding to the weight of his chains, and increasing the
power of his oppressor.
The North, in voting away the rights and freedom of the laboring
population of the South, surrendered its own liberty. The haughty
slave-holding masters of the great confederacy have from the beginning
chosen the Presidents, and the high officers of state, and have
controlled the policy of the Government, from a question of peace or
war, to the establishment of a tariff or a bank. In the executive
department they have dictated all appointments, from a letter-carrier to
an ambassador; an amusing illustration of which I find in my recent
correspondence. A late member of the Massachusetts legislature, writes
on the Eighth Month (August) 26, 1841:
"One instance of the all-pervading _espionage_ of the slave
power I may mention. The newly appointed postmaster of
Philadelphia employed, among his numerous clerks and
letter-carriers, Joshua Coffin, who, some three years ago, aided
in restoring to liberty a free colored citizen of New York, who
had been kidnapped and sold into slavery. The appointment of the
postmaster not being confirmed, he wrote to his friends in
Congress to inquire the reason, and was told that the delay was
occasioned by the fact that he had employed Coffin as one of his
letter-carriers! Coffin was immediately dismissed, and the
senate in a few days confirmed the appointment! Is not this a
pitiful business?"
If the reader, who wishes further information, will consult William
Jay's work, entitled "A View of the Action of the Federal Government in
behalf of Slavery," he will find ample historical proof that the
internal and external administration of the Union--legislative,
executive, and diplomatic--has been employed, without any deviation from
consistency, to subserve the interests of the slave-holding States. Yet
these States are, in population, numerically weaker than those of the
North, and inferior, to a far greater degree, in wealth, intelligence,
and the other elements of political power. They are strong only in the
compactness of their union, while the citizens of the free States are
divided in interest and opinion. Here, then, is presented a distinct and
legitimate object for those of the abolitionists who regard their
political rights as a trust for the benefit of the oppressed and
helpless, to combine the scattered and divided power of the North into a
united phalanx, which shall wrest the administration of the Federal
Union from the slave-holding interest, and shall purify the general
Government from the contamination of slavery, by reversing its general
policy on that subject, and by the adoption of the specific measures
before mentioned; while, in the States in which they respectively
reside, the abolitionists feel it to be their duty to exert themselves,
to wipe away from the statute book every vestige of that barbarism which
makes political, civil, or religious rights depend upon the color of the
skin.
Yet more important is it, however, to bring the moral force of the North
to bear against slavery, by reforming the prevailing public sentiment of
the religious, moral, and intelligent portion of the community. Here
again, one of the most sagacious leaders of the pro-slavery party, J.C.
Calhoun, has descried the danger from afar, and has publicly proclaimed
it in the senate of the United States, by vehemently deprecating the
anti-slavery proceedings, not as intended to provoke the slaves to a
servile war, but as a crusade against the _character_ of the
slave-holders.
Although the different States are distinct governments, their
geographical boundaries are mere lines upon the map; their inhabitants
speak the same language, and enjoy a communion of citizenship all over
the Union. The North Eastern States have by far the greater part of the
whole commerce of the Union, and are the medium through which the
planter exchanges his cotton for provisions and clothing for his slaves,
implements for his agriculture, and his own family supplies. These
commercial ties create a direct and extensive pro-slavery interest in
the North. Again, the planter is yet more dependent on the North for
education for his children, and for the gratification of his own
intellectual wants, as the slave-holding region has few colleges, and
those of secondary reputation; while I believe it has no periodical of
higher pretension than the political newspapers. The pro-slavery
re-action in this way, on the seminaries of the North, and on the
literature of the United States, is most sensibly felt.
Another powerful cause that contributes to leaven the entire population
into one mind on the subject of slavery, is the double migration that
annually takes place of people of the Southern States to the North, in
summer, and of the inhabitants of the free States to the South in
winter. Hence follow family alliances, the interchange of hospitalities,
and a fusion of sentiments, so that the slavery interest spreads its
countless ramifications through every corner of the free north.
Another cause, and perhaps the most powerful of all, is the community of
religious fellowship in leading denominations. The Episcopalians, the
Methodists, the Baptists, and the Presbyterians of two schools, are
severally but one body, all over the Union, and as a matter of course,
all are tainted with slavery, and for consistency's sake, make common
cause against abolition. The pamphlet of James G. Birney, entitled "The
American Churches the Bulwarks of American Slavery,"[A] offers the
amplest proof that the Methodist Episcopal, the Baptist, the
Presbyterian, and the Anglican Episcopal Churches are committed, both in
the persons of their eminent ministers, and by resolutions passed in a
church capacity, to the monstrous assertion that slavery, so far from
being a moral evil, which it is the duty of the church to seek to
remove, is a Christian institution resting on a scriptural basis; this
assertion is repeated in the numerous quotations of the pamphlet, in a
variety and force of expression that show the utterers were resolved not
to leave their meaning in the smallest doubt. Indeed, it might be
supposed, from the perusal of this pamphlet, that the suppression of
abolitionism, if not the maintenance of slavery, was one of the first
duties of the Christian churches in America.
[Footnote A: Published by Ward & Co., Paternoster-row, London.]