INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON THE SUBJECT OF AFRICAN SLAVERY IN THE UNITED
STATES.
General subject enunciated--Why this discussion may be regarded
as humiliating by Southern people--Other stand-points, however,
disclose an urgent necessity, at this time, for a thorough
investigation of the whole subject--The results to which it is
the object of these lectures to conduct the mind.
The great question which arises in discussing the slavery of the
African population of this country--correctly known as “Domestic
Slavery”--is this: _Is the institution of domestic slavery sinful?_
The position I propose to maintain in these lectures is, that slavery,
_per se_, is right; or that the great abstract principle of slavery
is right, because it is a fundamental principle of the social state;
and that domestic slavery, as an _institution_, is fully justified by
the condition and circumstances (essential and relative) of the
African race in this country, and therefore equally right.
I confess that it is somewhat humiliating to discuss the question
enunciated--Is the institution of domestic slavery sinful? The
affirmative assumes that an immense community of Southern people, of
undoubted piety, are, nevertheless, involved in great moral
delinquency on the subject of slavery. This is a palpable absurdity in
regard to a great many. For nothing is more certain than this, that if
it be sinful, they either know it, or are competent to know it, and
hence are responsible. And as no plea of necessity can justify an
enlightened man in committing known sin, it follows that all such
Southern people are highly culpable, which is utterly inconsistent
with the admission that they are pious. To say, as some are accustomed
to do, that “slavery is certainly wrong in the _abstract_,” that is,
in plain terms, in itself sinful, but that they cannot help
themselves, appears to me to be wholly unfounded. It assumes that a
man may be absolutely compelled to commit sin. This certainly cannot
be true. All candid minds will readily allow, that so far as Deity
has yet explained himself, he has in no instance enjoined upon man the
observance of any principle as his duty, which he may be compelled, in
the order of his providence, to violate. It is equally false in fact,
for it is not true that we are absolutely compelled to be
slaveholders. If government be, as it undoubtedly is, the agent of the
people, and the people choose, they are certainly competent by this
agent to free themselves from this institution. True, the immense cost
of such an enterprise would be the least in the catalogue of evils
resulting from it; for the total ruin of the African race in this
country may be put down among the rest. But what of all this? Nothing
can justify an enlightened and civilized people in committing sin. No;
not even the sacrifice of life itself. Withal, if the civil society
refuse to make so costly a sacrifice to avoid sin, there is nothing
that can compel any individual citizen to remain a slaveholder. He can
live in the community, as some do, without even hiring or owning a
slave; or he can remove to one of the so-called free States. We should
give no countenance, therefore, to any such mere attempts to
_apologize_ for domestic slavery. The conduct of bad men may sometimes
find apologists. The conduct of good men always admits _of defence_.
Hence, with many others, I have often been grieved by the repeated
attempts of certain pseudo-friends to pass off this flimsy and
ridiculous apology as an able defence of the South.
In maintaining the institution of domestic slavery, we are either
right or wrong, in a moral point of view. We ask no mere apology on
the score of necessity, and we can certainly claim none on the ground
of ignorance. Those who affirm that we are wrong, directly attack our
morals. In doing this, they arraign the character of many thousands,
who are among the most civilized and pious people now living. This
fact alone is a sufficient refutation of so foul an aspersion; and in
this view, it may be readily admitted that any attempt at a more
formal refutation is a humiliating condescension, to which few
Southern men can willingly submit.
But there is another stand-point from which this subject is to be
viewed, and which reflects it in a very different light, and clearly
indicates the duty of submitting it to the test of the soundest
principles of philosophy and religion. It is this: _the ascendency
which certain popular errors on the subject of African slavery have
acquired, and the extent to which they peril the peace of the country,
if not the very liberties of the whole republic_. I allude to the fact
that there are many in the country--and not a few of this number
spread through our Southern States--who would not intentionally
arraign the piety of their fellow-citizens, but whose minds (it is
painfully humiliating to know) are in a state of great embarrassment
on this subject; so much so, that they are constantly liable to be
made the victims of any fanatical influences abroad in the land, no
less than the dupes of that large class of political aspirants who,
reckless of both truth and morals, would secure their elevation at any
price.
Nor need we wonder at the ascendency of erroneous opinions on the
subject of slavery, any more than at the results which they threaten.
At an early period in our history, Thomas Jefferson denounced domestic
slavery as sinful, _per se_, and declared that “there was no attribute
in the Divine mind which could take sides with the whites in a
controversy between the races:” thus assuming in this remark, that the
providences as well as the attributes of the Deity are against the
slaveholder. Owing to the prominence given by our Puritan fathers to
the higher institutions of learning, together with the fact that the
soil and the climate of New England were unfavorable to agricultural
pursuits, citizens of these States have, from an early period in the
history of the republic, supplied the most of the text-books for the
schools and colleges of the whole country. This grossly offensive
error of Mr. Jefferson has been more or less diffused through the
whole of these text-books. It has been among the first of speculations
upon abstract truth presented to the minds of the American people. It
has been studiously inculcated from professors’ chairs in colleges and
universities in the Northern States, while Southern literary
institutions have been for the most part silent. The pulpits of the
South have also lent their aid, and in some instances have been
zealous and active in propagating this error.
As early as 1780, the Methodists declared, in a general convention of
preachers, that “slavery is contrary to the laws of God, man, and
nature, and hurtful to society; contrary to the dictates of conscience
and pure religion; doing that which we would not that others should do
to us and ours; and that we pass our disapprobation upon all our
friends who keep slaves, and advise their freedom.” This doctrine was
reässerted after the organization of the Church in 1784, and, with
short intervals of time, and unimportant variations of phraseology,
the essential features of this doctrine have been adhered to until the
present time, by this most numerous body of professing Christians in
this country. At an early day, Bishop Coke, of the M. E. Church,
openly advocated this doctrine in the pulpits of the country, until
silenced by the force of public opinion; yet he did not cease, while
he remained in the country, to exert the full amount of his personal
influence in private and social circles against the institution of
domestic slavery. His example was followed by a large number of his
preachers, and many ministers of other Christian denominations, who
imbibed the same doctrine and were animated by the same spirit of
hostility to the institution; and who, like himself, were only held in
abeyance by the same force of public opinion. Many politicians, also,
there were, from time to time, who did not scruple to avow Mr.
Jefferson’s doctrine, and like him affect to foresee dreadful
calamities overhanging the country as a consequence of domestic
slavery. In view of these facts, it cannot be a matter of surprise
that abolition opinions and sentiments should pervade the
non-slaveholding sections of the country; and that at least a private
but painful impression or suspicion that there must be something wrong
in the principle of domestic slavery, should be found to pervade a
portion even of the Southern mind. Reluctant as we may be to admit the
truth, necessity compels us to do so. Let the following facts bear
witness.
No communities on earth are so free from domestic insurrections, and
the disturbing influences which come up from the lower orders of
society as those of the Southern States of this Union. The social
condition of England and Ireland, and the states of the continent of
Europe, are perpetually subject to the disturbing and ruinous
influence of local, and often widely spread, insurrectionary movements
against the social order, and even the safety of the governments. Nor
are the Northern States of this Union any more free from these
agrarian movements, than may be accounted for by the relative
sparseness of their population. Yet a general feeling of security
pervades all these people, whilst it is notorious that there are a
great many in Southern communities who are in a constant state of
feverish excitement on the subject of domestic insurrections. Any
announcement of that kind is sufficient to convulse a whole community.
The trifling affair of Nat. Turner (trifling compared with the
frequent disturbances and loss of life common in the communities just
referred to) painfully agitated the whole State of Virginia; and
occupied her Legislature through a whole winter in grave discussions
as to the “best means of freeing the State from the incubus of
slavery.” These results have all followed from the causes at which we
have glanced.
In this state of things, it is in vain to appeal to the fact that Mr.
Jefferson, though a profound statesman, and to some extent a
logician, was neither a divine nor a metaphysician; and that no people
on the globe have shared more largely in the blessings of a bountiful
Providence than those of the Southern States of this Union. In the
progress of civilization and religion, they have advanced more rapidly
than any communities in the country. Still, Mr. Jefferson’s name does
not lose its enchantment; and having already learned to despise the
unexampled blessings of Providence, many of the Southern people
actually believed--until railroad communications began to dispel the
illusion--that their own happy States were really falling back in
civilization to the darkness of the middle ages. Add to all this, the
halls of legislation continue to echo the opinion that “domestic
slavery is a great moral, political, and social evil.” In this
connection, the phrase, moral evil, is restricted to its appropriate
meaning, _sin_. No doubt, Messrs. Doddridge, Rives, Clay, Webster, and
many others--illustrious names!--who have substantially used this
language in various connections, only meant to deprecate the evils of
slavery in strong terms, that they might propitiate a more favorable
consideration of what they had to say in its defence. But if we be
correct in the position already postulated, it is quite time our
politicians, no less than our ecclesiastics, had learned to chasten
their language on this subject. The fountains of public thought and
feeling have, to a great extent, been poisoned: that is, the abstract
opinions and religious sentiments of the people have been corrupted
and perverted.
The three great Protestant denominations[1] of the country have been
torn asunder. The flags of their time-honored unions are trailing in
the dust; and they have ceased to operate as bonds to our political
union. A secret suspicion of the morality of African slavery in the
South, occupies the minds of many of our best citizens--citizens who
are at a vast remove from the fanaticism which stigmatizes those who
are known as the ultra abolitionists of the country. The great family
of Methodists in the District of Columbia, the slave States of
Delaware and Maryland, in Western Virginia, and a part of Missouri,
retain their connection with the abolition division of the M. E.
Church. All along the line of division between the M. E. Church,
North, and the M. E. Church, South,--running through Virginia,
Kentucky, and Missouri,--the evils resulting from the conflict and
strife of opinions on this subject are daily multiplying. The
experiment of abolition fanaticism is progressing; and the souls as
well as the bodies of men are in the crucible. It is clear that
“whilst we have slept, an enemy hath sown these tares,” in our
literature, our politics, and our theology.
[1] The Methodists and Baptists, it is well known, divided
directly upon the subject of slavery; and the Presbyterians
mediately upon a question of constitutional law; but there is
reason to believe that the slavery agitation in the
Presbyterian Church precipitated a division, which otherwise
would probably have been averted.
Two striking phenomena remain to be noticed and accounted for. Amid
all the conflict of opinion and feeling upon this subject,--which was
inseparable from doctrines so utterly at war with the practices of the
country--a conflict which at an early period found its way into the
halls of legislation, civil and ecclesiastical, and has not ceased to
the present time to modify the federal politics of the country,--the
African population has yielded only to certain physical and moral laws
as to the place of its location; whilst the institution of slavery,
which embodies the great mass of that population in the country, has
held on the even tenor of its way, unchecked in the slightest degree
by the antagonistic doctrines and sentiments which have warred so
fiercely against it, and which at so many periods have threatened the
country with a legion of disastrous consequences. In the first place,
the African population has gradually receded to those sections of the
Union which, from their climate and soil, were better adapted to
slave labor. Why did not the abstract opinions and sentiments set
forth by Mr. Jefferson and the M. E. Church, and which are supposed to
have given birth to the emancipation laws of the Northern States,
operate to retain within those States the large portion of slave
population then held, and secure their practical freedom? Why did they
escape the supposed charity of these doctrines, and find their way,
not as freemen, but as slaves, to a climate and soil more congenial to
their nature and destiny? Are these doctrines real abstract truths, as
their advocates profess to believe them to be? Then they are
fundamental--they are vital--they are life-giving, and can never fail
to impress their own essential character upon every system to which
they are applied. The citizens of the Northern States adopted these
doctrines. Then it was an affair of conscience. Emancipation laws were
said to be the result. But that these laws, supposed to be founded in
the belief of certain great abstract truths, which secured to the
African his civil freedom, should operate only to transfer him to a
climate and soil better suited to his condition as a slave, is a
phenomenon for which the hypothesis does not account. And again, the
institution itself, of domestic slavery, by reason of causes which are
evidently, though mysteriously, at work, is this day more firmly
grounded in the confidence of the great mass of the Southern people,
and more extensively ramified and interlocked with other civil
institutions of the whole country, than at any former period of its
history! How is this? The abstract opinions and sentiments in
question, pervading our literature, our politics, and our theology,
have been adopted by so many of our citizens as to entitle the
doctrine to be regarded as a kind of national belief--the sentiment a
kind of national feeling. We are told that all men _believe_ slavery
to be wrong in principle; that is, wrong in itself! and that all men
feel that it is wrong! And certain it is, there is more truth than
fiction in all this! It is strictly true, as to the citizens of the
so-called free States. The same doctrine is not without advocates at
the South; whilst many more, as we have before stated, who may not be
said to believe it, are nevertheless often the subjects of painful
misgivings. They _fear_ it may be true. The causes to which we have
traced this, fully account for it; and we need not fear to state the
truth. But then again, the question recurs--How is this, that the
institution itself, a great practical truth, should daily, for a long
series of years, become more and more practical--a fixed fact in the
country? Truly, this is a phenomenon for which the philosophy of the
day will not account. If those who believed this doctrine were
ruthless fanatics--ultra abolitionists in the strictest sense--if
those who oppose it were really “pro-slavery” men, in the bad sense in
which certain persons understand this phrase, that is, men who, on the
subject of slavery, wickedly do what they know and feel to be wrong:
on either hypothesis we could account for the phenomenon in question.
But these are not the men with whom I deal in these lectures. I lay
all such out of the account. They are men not to be reasoned with. No:
the men of whom I speak, both North and South, are candid, honest men.
I personally know many of them at the North. I have met them on great
battle-fields, where more than blood was shed! I know them to be good
men and true, and I believe the same of the large class they
represent. With many of those at the South who affiliate with them in
opinion as firm believers in Jefferson’s doctrine, or whose embryo
opinions excite painful misgivings of mind, I have often communed
freely, and have equal confidence in their integrity and honesty. The
whole taken together form a very numerous class, and may be safely
regarded as embodying the national belief and feeling on the subject
of slavery. And yet we find that slavery is a great practical truth, a
fixed fact in the country. Now, can it be true that this opinion and
feeling embodies a great abstract truth--a fundamental, vital,
immutable principle, which never did and never can fail to hold
practical error in check, because it takes hold of the conscience of
an honest people--and whose tendency, therefore, is always to an
ultimate practical triumph, with all those who honestly receive it? We
dare not affirm this.
It is not mere belief, nor is it mere honesty, that produces results
in practice; but it is the _reception of the truth in an honest
heart_, which can never fail to result in practice. Now in this case
the people are honest, and the people believe; and if it be essential
truth which they thus believe, then, we say, the fact that in all
those States of this republic in which climate and soil are adapted to
African labor--that precisely there the institution of domestic
slavery should be rooted in the practice of a large portion of this
believing and honest people, and that it should strike its roots into
the federal constitution, and penetrate deeper and deeper every year
into the legislation of the whole country, and thus implicate more and
more the whole mass of this believing people in the sin of it, is a
phenomenon, for which the postulate, that it is the truth they
believe, does not account--nor can it be made to account.
A false principle may be believed to be the truth. And a false
principle believed, has its results, because it is believed; and they
very much resemble the results of truth believed. But we dare not
admit that error can take hold of the conscience as pure principle,
essential truth will do it. But, again, there is another great
psychological fact, which is often overlooked. A false principle may
be honestly believed by minds which, at the same time, adopt
antagonistic principles that are essential truths; but, owing to
various causes calculated to confuse the ideas, the inconsistency is
not perceived. Now, in such a case as this, the principle of essential
truth is really brought into practical antagonism with essential
error, and that in the same minds and upon the same subject. And as
truth is more powerful than error in the minds of all honest people,
the truth holds its way in practical results, in defiance of false
principle, which is relatively powerless in the presence of truth. The
antagonism between the false principle and the practical results of
things may be perceived and acknowledged; whilst the antagonism of the
false principle with the true principle, which underlies and produces
these practical results by a law of its own operation, is not only not
perceived, but actually denied to exist. Now so long as this false
principle is honestly believed to be true, and clearly perceived to be
in conflict with the _practice_, but not perceived to be in conflict
with other and more latent principles, which are in themselves
_truths_, and admitted to be _truths_, and which produce this
_practice_, just so long will this false principle wage war, by the
simple law of belief, against this _practice_. But as this war is not
sufficiently potent to overturn this practice, because it is founded
on the belief of principles _true_ in themselves, the practice will
remain; and so long as this false belief remains, the strife with the
practice must remain. Hence, if this be the state of the public mind
in this country on the subject of African slavery, and it find no
efficient remedy, we can see nothing awaiting us but interminable
strife--men against themselves--the country against the country! We
forbear to sketch the future.
But, young gentlemen, I submit if this psychology may not furnish a
solution of the phenomena I have brought to your notice, and also a
remedy against that otherwise interminable strife which has already
done so much to impair the moral power and blight the fairest hopes of
the country. May it not be that in admitting the great abstract
doctrine of Mr. Jefferson, that the principle of African slavery is,
_per se_, sinful, and that, as such, the attributes and providence of
Deity are opposed to all who practice it, we have most unwisely
admitted a false doctrine? And as this false doctrine, though honestly
believed by a number sufficiently large to designate it as the
national belief and the national feeling, has utterly failed to
abolish or even to modify the institution of African slavery, does it
not afford a strong and clear presumption, to say the least, that this
system which has held unbroken dominion over the African race in this
country for over two centuries, and which continues to strike its
roots deeper and deeper into all the relations of society, North and
South--that this system, so potent in practical results, and so
heedless of the fierce war that is waged against it, is, after all,
_underlaid_ somewhere by a _vast mine of principles_--_pure essential
truths_--which are firmly rooted in the belief of all civilized and
honest men, and which, all along, have imparted a spontaneous being
and activity to the system, and will continue to do so perhaps as long
as any considerable portion of the race shall remain in the country?
If this hypothesis shall prove true, the sovereign remedy for the
otherwise interminable strife, so potent for mischief, is at hand. Let
us then free ourselves, let us free the country, of the dominion of
Mr. Jefferson’s philosophy, because it is false. In doing this, we
shall terminate the conflict which now rages with so much violence. We
shall be free to address ourselves to any modifications in the system
of African slavery which may be demanded to adapt it to the progress
of civilization.
Regarding the whole subject in this light, the duty of thoroughly
investigating it seems to me to be laid upon the country as a moral
necessity. It is useless to talk of “delicacy and humiliation,” in the
presence of such fruits as a false philosophy has already borne
plentifully throughout the land.
As your chosen instructor, I owe you a service. I dare not give up
your minds to the dominion of Wayland’s Philosophy, (your text,) nor
to any other text on this subject, now known to the country. I propose
to lead your way in _exploring the mine of truth_ which we may assume
to underlie the system of African slavery. We may look with confidence
to reach these results:
1. That the philosophy of Jefferson is false, and that the opposite is
true, namely, that the great abstract principle of domestic slavery
is, _per se_, RIGHT; and therefore it is not in the use but in the
abuse of this principle that we are liable to sin, and thereby incur
the Divine displeasure.
2. That we should have a Southern literature. Our schools must be
supplied with correct text-books on this subject. The poison which our
texts now contain must be distilled from them by the learned of the
land. The Church should not only right herself as she has done in the
South, but her voice should be heard in the pulpit enforcing _right
principles_, as well as right duties, upon this subject. Truth is at
all times intolerant of any abuse. Her voice should certainly be heard
under circumstances so urgent as the present. It is due to many in
Southern communities whose minds are, more or less, disturbed by the
long-continued abuse of the pulpit, and the social influence of
mistaken ministers of religion in private life. It is due to the
interests of our common country. We have lost much already in
suppressing the truth. We have much to gain by boldly asserting her
claims--for “truth is great, and will prevail.”
“Truth crushed to earth will rise again:
The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes in pain,
And dies amid her worshippers.”