The question stated--The conduct of masters a separate
question--The institution defined--The position of the
abolitionists and that of the Southern people--The presumption
is in favor of the latter--Those who claim freedom for the
blacks of this country failed to secure it to those on whom
they professed to confer it--The doctrine by which they seek to
vindicate the claim set up for them, together with the fact of
history assumed to be true, is false.
Having proved that the abstract principle of the institution of
domestic slavery is a legitimate principle, both in itself, and in
this, that it coincides with the great fundamental principle of
_right_, and does not necessarily conflict with the _right_, and is
therefore in itself _good_, and _not evil_; the next inquiry that
arises is this: “_Is the institution of domestic slavery, existing
among us, and involving this principle, justified by the circumstances
of the case, and therefore right?_”--according to the doctrine evolved
in the second lecture, namely, that the principle of an action, being
itself _right_, the action is right, _provided_ other and coincident
principles justify the action, or, as we usually say, provided the
circumstances require it.
Let it be observed, that the conduct of individual slaveholders, in
the exercise of any discretion conferred on them by the nature of
their relation as masters, is still a separate question, and not here
to be taken into the discussion. We inquire as to the propriety of the
institution: Is it demanded at all by the circumstances of the case?
This is eminently a practical question, and is the only one which
involves the morality of the _institution_ itself, now that the
abstract principle is shown to be legitimate.
Domestic slavery is one of the subordinate forms of civil government.
It may be defined an _imperium in imperio_--a government within a
government: one in which the subject of the inferior government is
under the control of a master, up to a certain limit defined by the
superior government, and beyond which both the master and the slave
are alike subject to control by the superior government. The question
now arises, Is this a suitable government for the negro race in
America? Without doubt, this question is to be settled on the same
general principles by which we should settle a similar question in
regard to the suitableness of any other form of government for any
other people. For example, the same principles which determine the
fitness of a military despotism, a constitutional monarchy, or a
democratic republic, to any particular community of white persons,
will determine the suitableness of this form of government to the
African race in this country. They are all different forms of control,
belonging to the same genus--government; and pervaded by the same
generic elements--the principles of slavery and liberty combined in
different ratios, in order to secure the greatest amount of happiness
to those communities to which they are fitly applied. The claims of
the African might be separately examined in regard to each of these
forms of government; but this course is not demanded by the interests
of this discussion. Nor need we stop to inquire, how the Africans came
into this country: whether lawfully or unlawfully--whether by their
own act, or the act of another. These are in truth side issues, and do
not necessarily attach to this discussion. They will be treated as
incidental to the main question; for although it were allowed that
they are here unlawfully, and that it is our duty to remove them, yet
it is still true that they are here, and cannot be immediately
removed, and must therefore be subjected, as human beings, to some
one of the known forms of civil government. What form of government
shall this be? According to principles well established, and admitted
on all sides, it should be such a form of government as, from its
adaptation to their intellectual, moral, relative, and physical
condition, is best calculated to promote their happiness and the
happiness of those with whom they are necessarily associated. But what
form of government is it which will most probably accomplish this
object?
The anti-slavery party, as well as the abolition faction, claim for
the Africans a democratic republic: that is, that they should have
equal political privileges with the whites, and only be subject with
them to the same modified form of slavery! On the contrary, we of the
South maintain that, from their _present state_ of mental imbecility,
moral degradation, and physical inferiority, they should be placed
under that more decided form of control called domestic slavery. _Who
is right?_
In discussing this question, we take the ground, first, that, in
advance of all direct argument, we are entitled to the full benefit of
the _presumption_ in argument--the burden of proof lies upon those who
dispute our position; and, secondly, that we are right in fact--that
the circumstances of the case demand this form of government on behalf
of the race, as _their right, their blessing_; because this form of
government, duly and properly administered, as it _may_ be, and
_ought_ to be, is calculated to afford them the _highest_, if not the
only amount of political freedom and happiness to which their humanity
is at present adapted, and especially in view of their existing
relations to a higher form of civilization, in the case of those among
whom they dwell.
1. We are _presumptively_ right. The _onus_ lies wholly upon those who
oppose our position.
In taking this ground, we readily waive the _presumption_ founded upon
the _mere_ fact that domestic slavery is an existing institution, and
is entitled to stand as good, until the contrary is made to appear. We
go back of this. We throw ourselves upon original ground. We say, that
if this were now an original question in the country, the
_presumption_ would be, that this was the appropriate form of
government for the African race in this country.
As an original case, it would be an undisputed fact that the race was
in an uncivilized state. We have demonstrated, in a former lecture,
that an uncivilized people is not adapted to a state of political
freedom. To such a people dwelling in the midst of a civilized people,
it could not be a _right_, because it would not be a _good_, but _an
evil_, _a curse_. There is no reason to assume that to place them in
this condition would elevate them at once to such fitness as would
make it a blessing, but there is every reason to _presume_ that the
reverse would follow an elevation to political freedom. If any think
otherwise, the burden of proof lies upon him.
This presumption is greatly strengthened by the fact that they who
claim political freedom for the Africans now in the country, have
signally failed to secure it for those upon whom they have professed
to confer it. Essential freedom is inseparably interlaced with _social
equality_. Without the latter, the former cannot possibly exist. The
Northern States have long since conferred the forms of civil freedom
upon the African portion of their population, but to the present hour
they have denied them _social equality_. Herein, they extinguish all
the lights and comforts of essential freedom. They settle upon them a
suffocative anhelation, which is truly the most oppressive form of
slavery. The social inequality of the races, it is well known, exists
in a much more modified form at the South than at the North. That
those who have made, as we allow, an honest effort to confer essential
freedom upon them, have signally failed, greatly strengthens the
_presumption_ that we are right in believing that the end they
proposed was impracticable, and that we need not be so unwise as to
imitate their folly.
But this _presumption_ is still further strengthened by the fact that
the basis argument upon which the abolitionists usually rest the
claims of the African, is entirely sophistical. It is this: Slave
property was originally acquired by robbery and violence, and
therefore can never become lawful property. Hence we should confer
upon them political freedom, regardless of whatever consequences may
follow; seeing that an act of robbery can never extinguish the
original right of the person robbed, or confer original title upon the
robber.
The _doctrine_ assumed in this argument is, that possessions unjustly
acquired originally, can never become legal possessions; or that a
state of things originally resulting from _wrong_, can never, by lapse
of time, or the force of any circumstances, become right. The _fact_
assumed as the basis of this doctrine in its application to the
African is, that they were stolen while in a state of freedom, and
reduced to a state of slavery. But we deny both the _doctrine_ and the
hypothetical assumption on which it is based.
1. If the _doctrine_ be true, it will follow that all wrong is without
any remedy, except in the few cases in which things may be restored to
their original state. This would be a deplorable state of things
indeed. It would work special disaster to our Northern brethren. For,
first, if this doctrine be true, they own scarcely one foot of honest
land; nor is there any in the whole country, save the original
purchase of William Penn, and a few other unappreciable portions of
territory. The Indians were the original and rightful owners of this
whole country, according to the theory of rights which forms the basis
of this doctrine. From the most of their possessions they were
forcibly ejected at the peril of life as well as liberty; and from the
remainder they were driven by a policy which in civilized life would
be held and treated as knavery. These lands, according to this
doctrine, should in all honesty be restored to their rightful owners,
or to those who inherit them under their title, or the present holders
are robbers. Second. The Africans, it is said, were stolen! If so,
those who received them in this country can only be regarded as the
receivers of stolen property--no better, if not worse, than the
original thieves. But on this hypothesis, Who stole them? and who
received this stolen property, knowing it to be so stolen? These
questions admit of but one answer: The forefathers of the present
generation of New England population! From their ports, vessels were
fitted out, and employed in this system of “man-stealing.” They
became the receivers of this stolen property. Those who were not
demanded by their own agricultural pursuits, were sold in Southern
markets. As the climate and soil of the South were better suited to
such labor, the larger portion of all this stolen property was
accumulated in the South. The product of the lands of New England, and
the product of these sales of stolen Africans, have been, from time to
time, invested in commercial and manufacturing pursuits. These
constitute the chief sources of the great wealth of the New England
States, to the present day; and these, it is well known, are mainly
supported by the products of slave labor at the South. This being so,
the great wealth of the Northern States can be regarded only as so
much dishonest gain! Really, it is time they were looking to the duty
of restitution! But the disaster of this doctrine does not exhaust
itself with our Northern brethren. The Norman Conquest of Great
Britain is that by which all the land-titles of England are held to
the present day. All these titles are held under the rights acquired
by this conquest. Now it is well known that the Norman Conquest was
the most lawless piece of injustice and butchery, the record of which
ever disgraced the pages of human history! Upon the basis of the
doctrine in question, it is equally certain that there is scarcely an
honest shilling in all England! Nor is this all: the present titles of
all Europe, Asia, and Northern Africa, are traceable, more or less
remotely, to a source equally cruel and unjust! Thus there is an end
pretty much to all honesty, as to the possessions of the civilized
world! Surely, the absurdity of this conclusion is sufficient to
invalidate the soundness of the doctrine from which it arises.
Now we are far from affirming that _wrong_--which is the negative of
_right_--can ever become, by circumstances or any thing else,
otherwise than it is, that is, _wrong_, namely, not _right_. But the
_state_ or _thing_ which, under one set of circumstances, is _wrong_,
may, under other circumstances, become _right_. It is not the _wrong_
in itself which, in such a case, changes to right; but, by a change of
circumstances, the _wrong_ no longer inheres, but the right inheres in
that which formerly involved the wrong; and therefore the state or
thing which was before wrong, now becomes _right_. Hence, although it
be admitted that the land-titles of the civilized world were
originally founded in _wrong_, and therefore were unjust titles, it
may not follow that those who now hold them, do so by an unjust title,
because the original title was unjust. The facts may be thus stated in
regard to the most of them. The titles were originally acquired by
_wrong_; in many instances, _cruel wrong_! The authors of these wrongs
were usually the heads of government, who, in their circumstances,
were beyond control. _They_ did the wrong. The ultimate results of
their doings, by the lapse of time with its perpetual changes, upset
all the existing relations of society, merged the descendants of the
actors and sufferers in these wrongs into the mass of society, beyond
the power of just discrimination, and introduced an altogether new
state of things. Under these circumstances, the original wrong was
ultimately placed beyond all remedy. The restoration of the lands to
the original and lawful owners became an impossibility. To attempt
such a work could only be followed by the grossest injustice to all
the parties concerned. In this state of things, the question of
title--Who shall own these lands? becomes an original question. And in
this state of the case, the simple fact of present _possession_--there
being no one to claim antecedent possession--according to the
fundamental belief of all mankind, confers moral title, and should
therefore be made legal. Hence the title is just, because the idea of
the _right_ in itself--that which is good--now inheres in the man who
holds property under such circumstances. The argument authorizes this
prescriptive principle in political science: _That when the original_
_wrong cannot be remedied, without inflicting greater injury_, ON ALL
THE PARTIES CONCERNED, _than to permit the existing state of things to
remain, in this state of the case, the existing state of things is in
itself_ RIGHT, _and should be permitted to remain_.
Upon the basis of this principle--without which, we have no scruple to
say, society could nowhere harmonize for a single hour--we have no
difficulty in vindicating the honesty of the descendants of the
Puritans, or the land-titles of the civilized world, or the thousand
other titles which are equally involved by the absurd doctrine under
consideration. Nor do we find any difficulty in allowing them a just
title to all the proceeds of the African traffic, even though it
should be conceded that their forefathers were, as they characterize
them, a set of mere _men-stealers_!
Having invalidated this doctrine as a piece of gross sophistry, we
remark:
2. That we also deny the hypothesis upon the basis of which this false
doctrine has been made to apply to the Africans of this country; that
is, we deny that African slavery in this country had its origin or was
founded in cruelty and robbery.
There is no reason to doubt the statements of history, that many
slave-ships originally (as perhaps is still the case to some extent)
acquired their cargoes, some by robbery and violence, and some by
purchase. The sufferings of what is called the “middle passage” are,
no doubt, correctly stated in history. We have no motive to controvert
these statements, nor indeed to inquire into their authenticity. We
are not even the apologists of any of the actors in these scenes, much
less their defenders. There may have been cruel wrongs, and under
circumstances of even greater aggravation than those recorded in
history. Be it so! The actors have long since gone to their account,
and we may safely leave them to Him who judgeth righteously. The
conduct of these agents, whether cruel or kind, is not an element in
this discussion. Our inquiry goes to the foundation of this
matter--the true producing cause for the introduction of the African
into this country, and his position as a slave. What was this? It will
not be maintained that these agents, whether humane or not, can in any
proper sense be said to be the cause or foundation of African slavery
in this country. With much greater propriety it may be said that the
artisans of Boston were the founders and builders of the city. They
were necessary agents. They might have done their part well. They
might have done it dishonestly, cruelly. Neither hypothesis will
entitle them to rank as the true and proper founders and builders of
the city. So neither are the men in question to be regarded as the
founders and builders of African slavery in America. Whether they did
their part as they should have done, or should not have done; or
whether _they_ did the work at all, or not, is the mere logical
accident of a _cause_, which lay back of all they did, and of all they
might have done, whether good or bad. This cause is evolved by the
inquiry, Why did they bring them into the country at all? If some
potent _cause_ had not been at work, would they or any others have
brought them into the country? Certainly not. This _cause_, then,
whatever it was, is without doubt the true foundation, the immediate
cause, of African slavery in America. What, then, was this cause? But
one answer can be given to this inquiry. On it there can be no
division of opinion. It was the state of public opinion in Great
Britain, and the state of public opinion in her colonies in this
country at the time. This state of public opinion demanded their
introduction and employment as slaves, and hence they were introduced
and so employed. Whatever demerit or merit, then, was in the origin
and maturity of this state of things, is traceable directly to public
opinion, and attaches directly as a virtue or a crime, as the case may
be, to those who controlled public opinion, through the long period
of its inception, formation, and maturity, and to them alone. This
being the true origin and foundation of the system, if it had its
foundation in _robbery_ and _violence_, it was because public opinion,
through that long period, was so eminently corrupt as to set itself,
deliberately and of full purpose, to work to perpetrate _robbery_ and
_violence_, without any redeeming virtue; for such crimes admit of
none. Was this so? Can we be prepared to believe it? In default of all
history at this point to detail the origin and progress of public
opinion on this subject, we are left to form our judgment from our
knowledge of the men whom we know to have participated more largely
than any others in directing public opinion in their day, and to the
history of the times in which they lived.
In the seventeenth century, African slaves were first introduced into
this country, and the practice was continued, under the sanction of
law, until the years 1778 and 1808, inclusive. At an early period,
public opinion was matured on this subject both in England and in the
colonies, and we see that for a long period it sustained the practice
of introducing slaves directly from Africa into this country. Now, we
affirm that the position postulated in regard to this case is among
the most palpable absurdities that can be conceived. The character of
the men who controlled public opinion in that day, and the patriotic
and Christian age in which they lived, utterly disprove the gross
assumption that they yielded themselves up to falsify the truth and
the conscience that was in them, and become a mere corporation of
landpirates and freebooters! If our ignorance of the history of those
times should disqualify us to account for the existence of this state
of public opinion on any strictly rational grounds, common sense would
forbid that we assign for it so unreasonable a cause as this; whilst
the least that charity could suggest would be, that we place it among
those things for which we were unable to account.
From the time they were first introduced into the colonies, about
1620, to the time the system may be considered as permanently
established, makes a period of some hundred and fifty years. Among the
eminent personages who appeared in Great Britain during this period,
and did not fail to impress their genius and moral character upon the
age in which they lived, we may mention, James I., Cromwell, and
William III., Burnet, Tillotson, Barrow, South, with Bunyan and
Milton; and also Newton and Locke.
In the colonies, during this time, there lived Cotton Mather,
Brainerd, Eliot, and Roger Williams; Winthrop, Sir H. Vane, and
Samuel Adams, with Henry, Washington, and Franklin.
These great men, and some of them eminently good men, stood connected
with a numerous class of highly influential men, though inferior in
position, and all together may be regarded as embodying and
controlling public opinion in their day. Some of them were
preëminently distinguished for their patriotic devotion to the rights
of humanity. Many others were men of wide views on all subjects, and
of broad and expansive feelings of benevolence, and indeed of the
soundest piety. Add to all this, many of them are to this day without
a peer in intellectual distinctions, if indeed the same may not be
said of their attainments in literature and science. The age of
Barrow, and of Locke, and Newton, in philosophy, and of Washington and
Franklin, in patriotism, public benevolence, common sense, and general
learning, still stands on the pages of history without a rival. But
these men, and their numerous compeers and co-laborers, were no better
than a hoard of mountain robbers! They coolly coincided with each
other, without formal concert or convention, but by the common
attraction of their natural affinity for power and plunder, to murder,
rob, and enslave thousands of their innocent and defenceless
fellow-creatures--the helpless victims of public cupidity! Such is
the shameless position strangely postulated in regard to these men and
their times! We scruple not to affirm that this is more than a stupid
gratuity! It is a gross calumny upon humanity itself, of which the
authors should be profoundly ashamed!
The advantages enjoyed in this day, by the great success which has
attended the art of printing--an art for which we are indebted to the
genius of a former age--would no doubt afford us a satisfactory
history of the rise and progress of public opinion on such a subject,
if it were to occur in this age. The state of the art at that period,
the proscription of the press, and especially the new and unsettled
condition of the colonies, furnishes good cause for the deficiency. We
may not, therefore, account for public opinion as satisfactorily now,
as might have been done at that time. Still we have abundant materials
for a charitable construction of the conduct of our forefathers--both
here and in England. The savage, and indeed the brutal condition of
the larger portion of Africa, had long since been a matter of history.
All well-informed men were familiar with the facts of African history.
They were not only Pagans, but Pagans of the most stupid and enslaved
kind--without the knowledge of God, or the rudest forms of
civilization. The population was divided into tribes, each governed
by an ignorant petty king, who ruled his equally Pagan subjects as
absolute slaves. In the place of the knowledge and worship of the true
God, which was found to exist among the savages of America, the
African worships the devil--the evil spirit, and that by the most
humiliating and debasing rites of superstition. His superstitions
furnished frequent occasions for wars. These wars were highly
sanguinary--often exterminating, as all wars amongst an ignorant and
highly superstitious people have always been. To spare the life of an
enemy in war, make him a prisoner, guard him as such, or make him
labor as a slave for his support, is an advance of civilization. To
continue to put the enemy to death to the end of the war, is the
necessary condition of a state of war in uncivilized life. Such was
the known condition of all the African population south of Egypt and
the States of Barbary. Did not their condition appeal, as it still
does, to the benevolence of the civilized world? But what could they
do? Send Christian missionaries? No. We, in this country, have
succeeded, to some extent at least, in civilizing the savage tribes
upon our border! But the Indians were not, like the Africans,
idolatrous Pagans. Be this as it may, the competency of missionary
enterprise to civilize and christianize Pagans, was, as it still is
to any very material extent, an untried experiment. The opinion then
obtained, and to this hour it is not wholly invalidated, that to
reduce Pagans to a state of labor was, among other agencies, a
necessary condition of their civilization. What then could Christians
do in that age for African civilization? They could not introduce them
as laborers in England, or on the continent of Europe. Such a step
would have denied bread to the multitudes who already filled the
menial offices of society. It was impracticable to do this, and
inhuman to attempt it. Thus for long ages had degraded and enslaved
Africa “stretched forth” her imploring hands, appealing to the
benevolence of the world for relief. But the wisest and best men of
the times saw no means of relief, and attempted none. In this state of
African history, colonial settlements were ultimately effected on the
coast of North America. At an early period an experiment was made by a
Dutch Manhattan, to introduce African labor into the colonies. Here a
wide field was open for their labor. It was greatly demanded. To labor
here denied bread to no other laboring poor, as would have been the
case in England. The idea was caught at in both hemispheres, as a
“_God-send_” for the African--for the colonies, and a common
civilization. No one dreamed of robbery, injustice, or wrong to any
one! All considered it a wide door which a kind Providence had opened,
and which piety itself bade them enter! No man who was worthy of the
age authorized any one to fit out a ship, from the port of Boston or
elsewhere, go to the coast of Africa, steal a cargo of natives, murder
all who stood in the way of his schemes, tumble them into the hold of
their ship, without regard to health or comfort, and make their way
with their piratical cargo to Boston and other markets, and turn them
into money! Those who did this--as many no doubt did--acted on their
own responsibility, and have long since given their dreadful account
to God! But the men who were worthy of the age, and who would be
worthy of any age, did authorize, by a common public opinion, the
practice of going to Africa, and negotiating a purchase with those who
had long held and treated them as slaves, and especially those who by
the usages of barbarous war were condemned to death. They considered
that thus to arrest the practice of putting prisoners to death was
humane, and worthy of a Christian people; that to introduce them into
civilized society, teach them the habits of civilized life, the
principles and experience of Christianity, and ultimately perhaps to
send them back to regenerate their fatherland, was an achievement
worthy of the highest attainments of piety! Hence they had no scruple
to purchase them when brought to the country. The most eminently
patriotic and benevolent of the colonists purchased them. The most
pious members of churches, and distinguished Christian ministers, did
the same. The immortal Whitefield did not scruple to sustain his pious
foundation in Georgia by a large income, for the times, from slave
property. Were they correct in these views? We appeal to facts.
Multitudes were brought to the country who had otherwise perished in
barbarous warfare, or been murdered as captives, and the others would
have remained in a state of Pagan ignorance, superstition, and
slavery. By coming into the country, they have been greatly improved
in their mental, moral, and physical condition. I do not stay to
trouble you with statistical details. But my investigations warrant a
statement, which you can test at your leisure; it is this: the number
of Africans who have died in the communion of the Methodist and
Baptist churches of America to the present time--and who, therefore,
we may assume, were christianized by their residence in this
country--exceeds the whole number of all the heathen who have been
christianized by the labors of all the Protestant denominations of
Christendom since the days of Luther. Hence, we conclude, that
whatever were the cruelties of individuals engaged in the original
slave trade, (for which they were responsible,) and whatever may have
been the abuses of the system since, by individual slave owners, the
system itself was originally founded in a profound view of the
principles of political science, so far as regards this country, and
of political economy, and the claims of Christian benevolence, so far
as it regards the Africans themselves. The resources of this vast
country have been rapidly developed. It is already the asylum of the
oppressed, and the home of the poor, of all lands. Slave labor has had
no small share in all this. The regeneration of the continent of
Africa has already commenced, and the ultimate result is looked to
with increasing confidence.
Thus we have invalidated the _doctrine_, and also the hypothesis,
which form the basis on which the abolitionists rest their argument
against the justice and policy of the South. That their position is
not tenable is no direct proof that ours is right; but it does afford
a _presumption_ that we are right. This _presumption_ we claim, for
the several reasons given. The direct argument in vindication of the
system of domestic slavery, upon its own merits, is reserved for the
next lecture.