THE NECESSITY FOR THE INSTITUTION OF DOMESTIC SLAVERY EXEMPLIFIED BY
FACTS.
The attempts made at domestic colonization--The result of the
experiment in the case of our free colored population--The
colonization experiment on the coast of Africa--The example of
the Canaanitish nations--Summary of the argument on the general
point, and inferences.
“That the Africans are not, in point of intellectual and moral
development, fitted for that measure of self-government which is
necessary to political sovereignty: that political equality cannot be
justly claimed for them--they have no right to it: that to them it
could not be an essential good, but an essential evil, a curse; and
that to confer it on them, by an act of direct or gradual
emancipation, would be eminently productive of injury to the whole
country, and utterly ruinous to them.”
This is the general proposition still under consideration. We have
already discussed to some extent the first two points. I reserve the
subject of emancipation for future lectures. I now proceed to
exemplify the truth of the positions discussed on this general
proposition, and thereby show the actual necessity that we sustain, in
the present circumstances of the race, the system of domestic slavery.
And,
First. We adduce the fact of domestic colonization.
This has been frequently attempted in the Southern States, and has as
often failed for the want of success. Eminently humane, though
mistaken men, have tried this experiment with their slaves. Some have
tried it on a small scale: standing only as their nominal owners, and
giving them the control of their time and labor, and the use of
necessary lands for cultivation. Others have tried the same plan on a
more extended scale of operations. But if there is a single successful
experiment now in operation in the Southern country, I am not aware of
it. In every instance the owners have been compelled to resume the
control of their slaves, to prevent them from becoming a tax on the
community, and a nuisance in the neighborhood.
Second. The result of the experiment in the case of the free colored
population, is equally in proof that the race, taken collectively, is
not fitted for self-government.
Humane individuals have, from time to time, freed their slaves. In
this way a large number has been accumulated. There is not a county in
any one of the older States in which there are not many, and in some a
large number. In this experiment we have a full test of what the
African is in the enjoyment of civil liberty, or of his capacity for
self-government, at least in the midst of a people with whom he cannot
amalgamate. The result is daily before our eyes, and may be known and
read of all men. After a few honorable exceptions, the multitude are
by no means as well fed or clothed, and otherwise provided for, as the
slaves in their vicinity. They make but little provision against the
inclemency of winter, and in sickness are often the objects of public
charity. A disposition to live by petty depredations upon society,
instead of by honest industry, and a general depravation of morals,
are characteristic of the caste. Their retrograde tendency is so
obvious, that no doubt is entertained among men of reflection that,
but for the props and checks thrown around them by the laws and usages
of civilization, they would soon relapse into the savage state. These
facts are so obvious as long since to have engaged the attention of
our domestics. Among them, the term “free nigger” is one of deepest
reproach. Those who respect themselves, it is well known, form no
matrimonial alliance with them, from sheer contempt of their
degradation. I have frequently met, in my travels, with old men, in
independent circumstances, who by the doctrines of the pulpit,
enforced by the personal influence of a favorite minister in private
life, were induced, in early life, to free their slaves, who now
confess, with the result of their mistaken piety before their eyes,
that they conferred no boon upon them, but rather inflicted an injury
both upon them and upon society. They console themselves with the
reflection that they intended all for the best. This picture is not
surcharged. You will do me the justice to remember that no dark
picture can be drawn without dipping the pencil in dark colors.
I have an interest in a slave, who is no doubt in the moral condition
of freedom, as before defined. I have assured this man that he ought
to go to Liberia, in Africa, and have insisted on his consenting to
go. But still I am so deeply convinced of the truth and importance of
the facts here stated in regard to our free colored population, that a
sense of duty to him and to the community forbid that he be placed
among the number.
But it may be supposed that a popular feeling of selfish hostility
serves to crush a people who would otherwise rise at once in the scale
of civilization. But this is not so. I repeat, with confidence, this
is not so. The honorable exceptions, to which allusion has already
been made, are universally respected. “John” (to use a general title)
“is as honest a man, and has as much self-respect, as any man in the
neighborhood,” is a meed of praise which is readily accorded to free
blacks, by all intelligent citizens, and with peculiar satisfaction,
whenever it can be done. Such men of course enjoy the confidence and
respect of their white neighbors in a high degree. But, I repeat, that
examples of this kind are rare among our free colored population. No!
an original cause of this general degradation is found in the fact
stated, that is, that they are not prepared for self-government, and
therefore can derive but little, if any, benefit from its political
and social advantages. The crushing weight of ages of barbarism still
presses heavily upon the intellect of the African, and in his present
circumstances, to say the least, he is too feeble to rise. It is the
accident of his position that he is free, and not the law of his
intellectual and moral nature that makes him so. He is a slave in
fact; and without the restraints of the domestic system, the
tendencies of his barbarous nature are left, in a good degree, to take
their downward way. In many counties within our knowledge containing
a large population of free colored persons, I am satisfied that
nothing but the humanity developed by a high state of civilization,
prevents the adoption of a summary process, by which the nuisance
would be abated.
But if the objection I am combating be modified and restricted to the
influence of that usage which denies them social freedom, I will agree
that it has weight. It certainly retards the progress of those who are
rising to the moral condition of freedom: hangs like an incubus upon
those who have already risen to that state, and effectually shuts the
door of enjoyment against them. This is no doubt true. But why are
they denied social freedom? The answer is, Because they cannot
amalgamate by a spontaneous intermarriage with the whites. But this is
a disability under which God, by the nature of their physical
constitution, has placed them, and which the progress of civilization
itself forbids the whites to disregard. Therefore it is obvious that
they never can be free in a community of whites. Because, as there is
no essential freedom, but that which is inseparable from social as
well as political freedom, and as there can be no social freedom, but
that which coincides with the law of amalgamation by intermarriage;
and as Divine Providence has closed the door against this, it follows
that the African never can be free in the midst of a community of
whites.
But still, that this is not the primary and essential cause of the
extreme degradation of those Africans upon whom the experiment of
freedom has been tried in this country and found to be a failure, and
that it is originally traceable to the fact that they are not,
intellectually and morally, prepared for self-government, is still
more clearly deducible from a
Third consideration--the colonization experiment on the coast of
Africa.
The colony of Liberia has already taken its place among the nations of
the earth as a free and independent government. No colony has ever
prospered as that has done. As a rising nation, it shares the sympathy
of the civilized world. It is destined to become the asylum of the
Africans of America, and the centre of civilization to the
long-benighted continent of Africa. Thither all eyes are turned as the
oasis of hope in her desert history.
But let us briefly trace the progress of this hopeful colony. How has
it arisen to its present position? It has been built up from the free
colored population of this country--colonized by their own consent.
Herein Divine Providence has wisely discriminated the proper subjects
for this great enterprise. His own established order of things has
effected a judicious discrimination of the proper persons for this
work. The sacrifices to be made were great. The climate was
inhospitable. Extreme hazard of life, in all cases, was to be
encountered in the process of acclimation. A Pagan and savage
population were to be encountered and subdued. Every thing gave
undoubted indications, that if ever the tree of African liberty should
be made to flourish upon that Pagan coast, its roots must be watered
by the blood of many patriot martyrs. In these circumstances, it is
obvious that there would be no volunteers in this work but men of the
right stamp. Those only whose intellects furnished the flint and steel
from which the spark of liberty could be struck, and upon the altar of
whose hearts the fires of freedom could be kindled, to light their
pathway to that far-off and inhospitable land, would embark in this
great work. Those who were in the condition of freedom--whose hearts
throbbed with the pulsations of liberty--were the first to embark in
the cause of African civilization. For several years the work went
on--slowly, but surely. Many fell in the conflict. Still the work went
on! The spirit which animated the patriot colonists is eloquently
expressed in the dying words of the immortal Cox: “Let a thousand
missionaries fall, ere Africa be given up!”
Thus far the work went on in the order of Divine Providence. The
voluntary principle was discriminating. Those who were in the moral
condition of freedom gladly embraced the opportunity. Those who were
below that condition were deaf to the call. But this divinely
sanctioned process was quite too slow for the fiery zeal of
emancipationists. The door of Providence did not open fast enough!
Encouraged by past successes, they attempted to hasten the work.
Forgetful of the original and avowed objects of the Society--the
colonization of the free people of color, _with their own
consent_--the friends of colonization began to preach manumission to
the owners of slaves. Many hearkened to the call as a Macedonian
appeal to their feelings of benevolence. The slaves upon large
plantations were emancipated, and funds placed at the disposal of the
Society, to remove and settle them as free citizens in the new colony.
They were sent off in considerable numbers, for several years. The
result was disastrous. It threatened speedily to reduce the whole
colony to a savage state. They were not in the moral condition of
freedom--they were not prepared for that degree or form of
self-government. They could not be absorbed by the body politic,
without imparting their character to the body. The full measure of
their golden dreams was simply liberty to do nothing. We need only
glance at the results. Mr. Ashman, at that time Governor of the
colony, remonstrated, in official communications, with the
Colonization Society in this country: the officers generally, and
other eminent citizens, also remonstrated in private letters to their
friends--all begging to be spared the calamities that awaited them
from so great an influx of population, evidently unprepared for
freedom, and praying that they might be strengthened, as heretofore,
by a judicious selection of persons in some degree, at least,
qualified for civil liberty!
If the colonization experiment has proved the capacity of the African,
under suitable developments, for self-government, (which, in our view,
it has very satisfactorily done,) it has proved, with equal clearness,
that without those developments he is wholly unfit for it; and that
the masses of the race are, as yet, undeveloped, and consequently
unfit for political sovereignty.
These facts are open to the observation of all men. They strongly
rebuke the restless agitators of the country. They clearly confirm our
position that the Africans in America are not, as yet, in the moral
condition for freedom. I have proved in a former lecture that
political sovereignty is not a natural but an acquired right. The
facts here adduced demonstratively prove that they have not yet
acquired this right, and that therefore it cannot be justly claimed
for them. But more than this--they afford the strongest presumption
(and further than the presumption in its favor, I do not design to
notice this topic at this time) that the emancipation of the slaves,
in their present moral condition, confers no benefit upon them, but is
calculated to inflict a deep injury both upon them and upon society.
It is a general, and indeed an almost universal opinion in the South,
that any thing like a system of emancipation, whether direct or
gradual, by which the number of free colored persons should be
materially increased in the Southern States, would inevitably be
followed by their indiscriminate massacre, as the only means of
abating an insufferable nuisance, unless the citizens were to forsake
the soil in favor of a barbarous horde. Such an opinion, (I may
repeat,) so generally entertained by so large a community of
enlightened and virtuous citizens, who are in immediate proximity with
the race, and acquainted with their character from early life, taken
in connection with the historical facts here enumerated, affording to
any mind so clear a proof of the correctness of their opinion, should
be admitted as an authoritative settlement of the position I have
taken on this branch of the subject. Hence, we may conclude that the
law of reciprocity and the law of benevolence require that the
Africans be continued under an inferior and subordinate government.
The question again recurs, What form of government shall this be? Of
course, it must be a modification of a military despotism, or a
modification of the patriarchal form of government. I am free to say
that I can conceive of none so appropriate as that adopted by
civilization, for the purpose of controlling a barbarous or
semi-barbarous race (and especially such as could not amalgamate)
dwelling in the midst of a civilized community: that is, the system of
domestic government now in operation in the Southern States. If any
shall devise another, it will, at least, have the merit of novelty to
commend it to public attention.
The correctness of the doctrine here assumed, that domestic slavery is
the appropriate form of government for a people in the circumstances
of the Africans in America, is very strikingly exemplified by the
history of the remnant of Canaanites, who still dwelt in the land
after its subjugation and settlement by the ancient Israelites. An
inquiry into the Divine policy in regard to these heathen will fully
vindicate this position. The civil code of a nation is admitted to be
the best index of the habits and morals of the people. This remark,
however, cannot always be taken without modification. We shall greatly
underrate the civilization of the Israelites, who first settled the
land of Canaan, if we judge them alone by their civil code. Smiting
and cursing father and mother, brutal assaults upon pregnant married
women, digging pits to destroy neighbors’ cattle, (Ex. xxi.,)
seduction, adultery, dealing with familiar spirits and witchcraft, and
various wickedness which delicacy forbids to repeat, (see Lev.
xviii.,) unnatural marriages, such as with mothers, sisters, children,
and grandchildren, (Lev. xviii.,) are all practices which are
mentioned in a manner that shows they were common in that day. If we
judge the morals of the Israelites by the statutes here referred to,
we shall certainly conclude that they had not the slightest claim to
the character of a civilized people; but it is equally certain that
such judgment would be wide of the truth. For although in many
respects the national morals and standard of public opinion and
feeling were in a feeble condition, as seen in their obvious
proclivity to idolatry, still those laws are far from being
characteristic of the morals of the nation. The Divine record does not
leave us to conjecture the cause for these laws. It is written, Lev.
xviii., “Defile not ye yourselves in any of these; for in all these
the nations are defiled which I cast out before you. For all these
abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and
the land is defiled;” and, “Ye shall not walk in the manners of the
nations which I cast out before you; for they committed all these
things, and therefore I abhorred them.”
We can be at no loss to see that the remnant of heathen who survived
the slaughter, and still dwelt in the land which the Israelites
settled, were in such power, and accustomed to such opinions and
habits of bestiality, as to render the progress of civilization, in
unrestrained contact with them, at least a problem, if not an absolute
impossibility.
Equality of political and social condition with the Jews would have
made short work of civilization in that age. Hence we find that bold
lines of demarcation were drawn between the Jews and those depraved
“strangers.” Both political and social equality were forbidden. The
Jews were authorized (Lev. xxv.) to make “bond-men and bond-maids” in
perpetuity (unlike the slavery of their brethren, which was for a
definite period) of the “heathen that were round about them, and of
the children of the strangers that sojourned among them; of them they
should buy and of their families that were with them, which they begat
in the land”--“they should take them as an inheritance for their
children, and they should be their bond-men for ever.” The theory of
certain pseudo-philanthropists of the present day, would have led them
to prate loudly in behalf of equality, and the duty and practicability
of speedily elevating this people in the scale of civilization. But He
who was too wise to err and too good to do wrong, knew better, and
ordered differently. Barbarism--long-continued barbarism--cannot be
speedily elevated by any contact with the forms of civilization. He
who denied them political sovereignty, (except on certain conditions,
which clearly indicated such an appreciation of the privilege as
properly entitled them to the right,) at the same time provided that
they be denied social equality, and reduced to a state of absolute
slavery--they were made bond-slaves in perpetuity. Herein they were
placed under the ban of social as well as political proscription--a
position in which they could do the least possible mischief to the
progress of civilization, but would contribute greatly to its
advancement, and thereby promote their own improvement much beyond any
thing they could have attained in their original heathen state.
The Africans when first brought into this country were not a whit
better in morals, and were greatly inferior in intellect to the
ancient inhabitants of Canaan. And, although it be admitted that they
have improved, the facts given clearly prove that they are still
incompetent to self-government. They are, therefore, no more entitled
to the right of political sovereignty than the Canaanites were. But
more than this, the Canaanites did not materially differ from the Jews
in their physical condition. There were no physical reasons against
amalgamation. Intermarriage, it is true, was forbidden, but it was for
reasons growing out of their heathen state alone. Whilst that state
should last, the common interests of each in civilization forbade such
social equality; but this cause out of the way, the Canaanites could
be absorbed and lost in the stream of posterity. But not so with the
African, as we have shown. He is destined to exist as a separate
people. We do not say he shall not, but he cannot to any material
extent amalgamate with the Caucasian race. If, therefore, it was
proper for the Jews to make slaves of the Canaanites, for a much
stronger reason it is now right for us to retain the African in a
similar state, and until such time as Providence shall--if ever--open
the door for his return to his fatherland.
On the general question, Is the system of domestic government existing
amongst us, and involving the abstract principle of slavery, justified
by the circumstances of the case, and therefore right? we reach an
affirmative conclusion, for the reasons:
I. That the Africans are a distinct race of people, who cannot
amalgamate to any material extent with the whites, and who, therefore,
must continue to exist as a separate class.
II. That they are, as a class, decidedly inferior to the whites in
point of intellectual and moral development, so much so as to be
incompetent to self-government. Although they have shared largely in
the progress of civilization, they have not reached this point. The
proof is:
1. Such is the almost universal opinion of the most intelligent and
pious communities throughout the whole Southern country, who certainly
are well acquainted with their character and capabilities, and
therefore fully competent to judge in their case.
2. The experiments at domestic colonization which have been made in
this country prove it.
3. The experiments in the case of the free colored population spread
through the country are equally in proof.
4. The colonization experiment on the coast of Africa is still more
conclusive.
III. That domestic slavery is the appropriate form of government for a
people in such circumstances, is fully exemplified by the Divine
procedure in the case of the heathen subdued by the ancient
Israelites.
We infer:
1. That they have no right to social equality or to political
sovereignty--that to accord them either, in their present moral
condition, would be a curse instead of a blessing. It would in all
probability lead to the extermination of the race, and inflict a deep
injury both upon the moral and physical condition of the whole
country.
2. That every consideration of humanity and prudence requires that,
until a better form of subordinate government shall be devised, they
must be continued under the system of domestic slavery now in
operation.