It has been urged, that because Washington regretted the impossibility
of devising some feasible means of emancipation, that, therefore, he
was opposed to slavery, as wrong. The precise opposite was the case.
He was too wise to oppose that which he could not overcome. His whole
career was success in overcoming opposition. He might, with us, regret
the barbarism of the African and the impracticability of his release
from servitude, on account of his unfitness for freedom; but he never
could logically or reasonably oppose, as wrong, that which made the
African better and happier, and which protects him from the dangers
and miseries of barbarism, though it placed him in the position to
learn only the rudiments of civilization. To assert that Washington
deemed slavery a wrong to the slave, is to accuse him of knowingly
doing wrong, for he held slaves to the day of his death; and if he
emancipated them then, it was more with the hope than the reasonable
expectation, that even HIS slaves, with all the force of his example
during his whole life, had become fitted for freedom, or that they
would be benefited by the experiment of their own attempted
self-control. Washington could not, therefore, consistently oppose
slavery as a wrong to the slave, nor conscientiously believe it to be
wrong; because he would not oppose that which he could not overcome,
and because his whole life was occupied in doing right. It is against
the prophetic character of Washington's mission, ever crowned with
success; against his wisdom, which was most profound; and against his
judgment, which was unerring,--to presume his hostility to slavery as
wrong, or his opposition to it in a moral point of view, when he knew,
as we know, the emancipation of the slaves to be wrong in itself, and
impossible, even if right or desirable. It is plain, then, that if
Washington had any real aversion to Negro slavery, it was not because
it was wrong so far as any natural right of the slave was involved,
but because of his ability to do without slaves; and notwithstanding
his fortune was ample, he _held_ his slaves during the whole course of
his life; whereas, if he had deemed slavery a wrong to the slaves, he
would undoubtedly have granted them their liberty. What right would he
have had, as a just man, to bestow his generosity upon the public, by
refusing the emoluments of office, justly due him, and unjustly
appropriating the proceeds or avails of the labor of his slaves, if he
knew, or believed they were justly entitled to their freedom. If our
moral view of slavery is clear, he was _just_, as well as _generous_,
and wise as well as successful.