No savage community was ever known to rise unaided to a state of
civilization; and every example of savage society furnishes evidence
that it is a state into which they have fallen by the tendencies of
depraved nature. They are instances in which the government originally
enjoyed--both human and Divine--has failed to preserve to the
individual that liberty of will in the pursuit of the good which
government is designed to secure. The pure intelligence is not
sufficiently developed to constitute an enlightened conscience.
Dwelling apart from civilized society, the absence of all the
artificial wants of civilization is highly favorable to many of the
natural virtues--such as hospitality to strangers, truth, fidelity,
and generosity to their friends; but the undeveloped state of the pure
reason leaves the moral sense in a state of so much immaturity, as to
characterize them as unfaithful, cruel, and revengeful to their
enemies. These are characteristics which, in their condition of
physical maturity, make them terrible to their neighbors.
Now the question is, What are the rights of such a people? It is
useless to discuss this question so far as it relates to mere savage
government; for in this view it is a question of no interest. But the
question, What rights can they claim of a civilized people? is the one
with which we have to deal.
They certainly have a natural right to protection under given
circumstances, and freedom from oppression under all circumstances. If
a civilized people, holding a balance of power in virtue of superior
intelligence, have an undisputed right to protect themselves from the
cruelty and infidelity of neighboring savages, still it will be
admitted that oppression in any proper sense of the term would be an
invasion of their natural rights. They have a right to be left in the
enjoyment of the highest amount of freedom which their mental state
will allow them to use legitimately. And more than this, their natural
rights claim for them reasonable exertions to elevate their moral
condition. Hence the noble efforts now being made by the Christian
people of this country to evangelize the savages on our border, and
the no less commendable efforts of the United States government to
favor this design, by an annual appropriation from the national
treasury. All this is only according them their rights. But do these
rights entitle them to claim social equality with a civilized people?
That which it is the right of another to claim of me, it is my duty to
grant. Is it then my duty to grant social equality to any or to every
wandering savage that may chance to pass my dwelling? Should I not
only extend to him the rights of hospitality due to a wandering
savage--give him food and shelter in given circumstances, and treat
him kindly in all respects--but extend to him true social equality,
such as it is my duty to do to other men in certain states of
civilization! No man--himself not a savage--would dare affirm this!
The savage has no right to claim it. The reason is obvious on the
principles discussed. Certain social rights arise only on certain
conditions of moral development, and the fulfilment of the duties
which attach to that state. The savage has not reached this condition;
hence has not fulfilled its duties, and is not entitled to the right
of social equality which attaches to that state. For a sensible man
to affirm that he has this right in virtue of his mere humanity, would
be simply ridiculous. And this being so, it follows, _a fortiori_,
that it is much less our duty to allow him an equal participation in
the sovereignty of the State--allow him a control in the affairs of
government--share the authority to regulate our relations, domestic
and foreign; and even to participate in governing our families.
The man who should gravely propose in Congress to annex the savage
tribes of our border, as sovereign States of this Union, would, by all
right-minded men, be regarded as insane. No one of the managers of
looms, spindles, and other machinery, among the agrarian portion of
our northern community, with all their boasted knowledge of the
natural rights of man, and their readiness to accord equal rights to
all men, and to protect them in asserting those rights, have, as yet,
made up their minds to go thus far--although we may be at a loss to
account for it that they so far falsify their principles as not to do
so.
Now, as it is not our duty to do this in behalf of a neighboring race
of uncivilized people, for the reason that they have no right to it,
how does the question stand in regard to a numerous class of such
persons, spread through a definite section of our country? Does this
change of position and contact with civilization confer on them
higher rights than it has already been admitted belong to them in a
separate state in virtue of their humanity? Is it our duty to accord
to them equality of political rights? and for the reason that they are
diffused through the mass of society? Can this position be maintained?
On the contrary, the change of position, and the service which in that
position they render to the cause of civilization, which is assumed to
acquire for them a right that does not belong to their class of
persons in a separate position, so far from affording a vindication of
this doctrine, furnishes a still stronger reason against it. They are
not only uncivilized, but are now in a position to exert an evil
influence, which in a separate state they could not do, although they
might dwell upon our border. In a separate state, the artificial wants
of civilized life are unknown to them. The great sources of temptation
to do wrong by invading the rights of neighbors, is not supplied to
them by their position. But when in immediate contact with
civilization, a great many of these artificial wants are learned by
them, and felt to be objects of desire. These desires, by a fixed law
of the human mind, must be a constant source of temptation--they
clamor for gratification. If the indulgence should not be restrained,
either by a system of laws which reached the case, or by the motives
which a state of civilization supplies, they would inevitably result
in a disregard of the rights of property, and a general depravation of
morals. They are without the latter, for they are uncivilized. Hence
the demands of their position must be met by laws appropriate to an
uncivilized people. The laws appropriate to a state of civilization,
coöperating as they do with the motives supplied by that state, are
not more than equal to the task of restraining the passions of
civilized men. To rely upon them in the case of uncivilized men would
be the grossest folly. Hence if it were not our duty to share our
political rights with such a people, dwelling upon our border, in a
separate state, for a much stronger reason it is not our duty to do
this for those dwelling in our midst. If it is not our duty to do it,
it cannot be their right to claim it; for rights and duties are always
reciprocal. But, on the contrary, for the same general reasons by
which it becomes the duty of a civilized state to place all its minors
under the despotism of parental control, as before defined, it is the
duty of the state to place an uncivilized race which may chance to
dwell within its borders, under a similar form of government. This
despotism need not be oppressive in the one case any more than in the
other. It is the proud boast of all our native citizens that they
have always lived under a free government; and yet they were brought
up to the age of twenty-one under a pure despotism. But this does not
deprive them of their right to boast. True, the government conferred
almost absolute control upon the parent, or guardian, or master of the
apprentice! These might have oppressed them. But the government, which
stood ready to vindicate their rights, did not do it. The government,
in what it did, only accorded them their natural rights, as we have
seen--provided to confer on them the highest amount of freedom of
which their condition would admit. It was to them essentially a free
government, though in one of the forms of despotism. So in that form
of despotism appropriate to a race of uncivilized people dwelling in
the midst of a civilized people, if adapted to their condition, or
securing to them (as in the case of minors) their natural rights, it
is, _for_ them, and _to_ them, a _free government_. So far from being
a curse, as many of our philosophers teach, it is a blessing, which
their essential rights entitle them to claim. Any other form of
government would be, in their case, as well as in that of minors, a
practical denial of their rights; because it would result in the
annihilation of their essential rights; that is, the enslavement of
their wills to the basest passions of fallen nature.
Hence, we find that government, both human and Divine, is a special
necessity of man’s fallen condition, and coeval with the history of
the race: that its legitimate object is to preserve him from that
annihilation of his essential liberty of will which would inevitably
follow if there were no government, and to secure him in the enjoyment
of the highest amount of this liberty which his condition will allow:
that to do this, various forms of civil government are admissible; and
that the one best adapted to the condition of the people is the one
that should be applied, and is the only strictly _free government_ for
the people to whom it is appropriate. A democracy applied to minors or
savages, in the midst of a civilized people, would be the most
grinding of all oppressions. We have seen that the _means_ appropriate
to government are suitable penalties addressed to our passions of hope
and fear: that the only _right_ which a man has to exercise his
inherent liberty--that is, the only right he has of self-control--is
the authority to do that which, in itself, _is right_--not a right to
do _wrong_: that the exclusive authority of government is to restrain
man from doing _wrong_, and to protect and encourage him in doing
_right_--restrain his _power_ to do wrong, not his power to do
right--this it seeks to strengthen. We have seen that the rights of
man in a state of minority--and the same of uncivilized men dwelling
in a community of the civilized--are to the benefits of an absolute
form of government; any other would be only a system of ruinous
oppression to them: that at his maturity as a civilized man, he should
be protected in the exercise of all the rights which naturally belong
to a state of maturity, and also the enjoyment of all those rights
which he has acquired by availing himself of the privileges afforded
by his condition. Of his acquired rights, we see that on certain
conditions he is entitled to social equality; and that on certain
further conditions, he is entitled to the right of political
sovereignty.
Now, we ask, in what sense can it be said that legitimate government
is a concession of some rights, in order to secure others? Certainly,
in no good sense, seeing it only limits his power to do _wrong_, by
laying him under suitable disabilities, and that it does this in order
to secure both the power and the privilege of doing right. But by
falsely assuming that government is a concession of rights, and that
the government in which every citizen does not make a voluntary
concession of the rights exercised by government is a cruel
oppression, men fall upon conclusions which, when carried out, (and
principles will tend to work out their results,) lead to agrarianism:
that is, the destruction of all rights, by the annihilation of all
civilization.
And again we ask, How does it follow that the domestic slavery of the
negro in America is an abridgment of his inalienable rights? Certainly
not from the fact that he is placed under an absolute form of control,
for we have seen that, in certain conditions of humanity, that is the
only form of government that will secure any freedom at all: as in the
case of all minors, and the case of an uncivilized race that may
chance to be diffused among the mass of a civilized people. If, then,
his government be an oppression at all, it is because his state of
civilization, and the relative circumstances of his condition, have
acquired for him the _rights of social equality_ and the _rights of
political_ sovereignty. These are questions of fact that will be
considered in their proper place.