Gradual emancipation, the popular plan--It would operate to
collect the slaves into a few States, cut them off from contact
with civilization, and reduce them to barbarism--It would make
an opening for Northern farmers and their menials to come into
those States from which they retired--The modifications which
the system of slavery has undergone within late years--A
comparison of the menials of the free and of the slave States,
and the only plan of emancipation admissible--The gospel the
only remedy for the evils of slavery--Paul’s philosophy and
practice, 1 Tim. vi. 1-5.
Immediate emancipation is the scheme of the abolitionists proper,
whilst gradual emancipation is the favorite plan of the anti-slavery
party. The ground we should take is this, that no plan of
emancipation, either immediate or gradual, is adapted to the present
moral condition and relative circumstances of our African population.
Nothing of the kind could at this time be attended with good, but only
with evil.
I limit this discussion to the subject of gradual emancipation,
because the reasons by which we invalidate this doctrine will, _a
fortiori_, disprove the doctrine of immediate emancipation.
It is said that a system of gradual emancipation succeeded well in the
Northern States, and that it would succeed equally well in the
Southern. But I deny the assumption in each case.
There never was a large slave population in the Northern States, owing
to the unsuitableness of the climate. The question arises, How did
this system operate with the few they had? It is well known that the
owners anticipated the time appointed for the law of emancipation to
go into operation, and sold their slaves in the South! This law only
operated to transfer the slaves, for the most part, to a climate and
soil more congenial to their constitution and habits. The operation of
the scheme, therefore, resulted only in the emancipation of a few of
the whole number, (see Lecture I., page 22;) and these few, as has
been proved, have, by the social, and, we may add, in many instances,
by the municipal regulations of the States within which they reside,
been essentially injured by the change instead of benefited. Hence the
scheme did not succeed well in the Northern States. And can it be
assumed that it would succeed better in the Southern States? On the
contrary, the result would be much more fatal in the Southern, for
the reason that we have a much larger African slave population than
existed in the Northern States at the time their emancipation laws
were adopted. Now, suppose (what, however, can scarcely, if at all, be
allowed a supposable case) that all the Southern States should
simultaneously pass laws, providing for the gradual emancipation of
the slaves, and hence, ultimately, effect their emancipation, as
provided for by law, for the reason that there would be no market open
for the sale of them, as was the case when the scheme was attempted at
the North: even in such a state of things, you cannot fail to perceive
that the propriety of such a measure turns entirely upon the truth or
error of a position already discussed.
If my position be correct, (and it is evidently established by the
facts adduced in the preceding lecture,) that their mental imbecility
and moral degradation is such that, whilst it remains a fact that for
physical and uncontrollable causes they cannot amalgamate, any
material addition to our present number of free colored population
would result in their extermination, humanity, leaving all other
reasons out of the account, would forbid the measure! Nor can I
persuade myself that there is an emancipationist, however fanatical,
this side the strange delirium of a deliberately wicked purpose to do
wrong, who would not “pause upon the brink of this Rubicon,” when
assured that the Southern people generally believed that extermination
would, in all probability, be the result of his priceless experiment.
But it is extremely idle to suppose that all the Southern States would
simultaneously pass such a law; nor does the scheme assume that they
would do so. No: the plan advocated is, that the District of Columbia,
and the States of Delaware and Maryland, should first emancipate their
slaves; then Virginia, then Kentucky, then Missouri, and so on, until
the work should be consummated by a gradual process, requiring several
years in each State. Let us now inquire what this plan promises.
If the owners of slaves in the States which first in order passed such
a law, did not anticipate the time of its taking effect, (as in the
case before referred to,) and sell them in the States where no such
law had, as yet, been passed, the result would be, as already stated,
an accumulation of free colored population, with its inevitable
consequences. But this would certainly not be the general operation of
such a law. For if cupidity should not prompt a different course, the
owners, foreseeing the results of such an accumulation of free colored
population, both to the whites and the blacks, would anticipate the
law, in by far the greater number of instances, and sell their slaves
in the States in which no such law had been passed. Still, many, no
doubt, would not take this course: a want of forecast, and most
generally a mistaken notion of humanity, would prevent its adoption.
In this way, we cannot hesitate to believe that the accumulation of
free colored population would be so great as to induce their
extermination at no distant day. This calamity could be averted only
by a sale of the slaves into some other State in anticipation of the
law providing for their manumission.
Now, whatever of mere selfishness there may be in the proposed
measure, nothing is more certain than that it is entirely destitute of
all humanity for the slave, and of all just regard to his progress in
civilization, and his more speedy elevation to moral fitness for
freedom. For by the time this work had progressed through the District
of Columbia, the States of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky,
Missouri, and, it might be, North Carolina and Tennessee, the far
greater part of the numerous slave population of the whole country
would be accumulated in the remaining States of the South and
South-west. This would be the inevitable result. For the free-soilers,
it seems, are determined, if the effect of agitation can accomplish
it at the ballot-box, that there shall be a cordon of free States,
formed by the newly acquired territory of New Mexico and California;
and in this case there would be no further outlet for the retiring
slave.
Let us now inquire what would be the effect of the accumulation of the
race within the limits of a few States:
At present, that element of slavery which is properly called domestic,
confers incalculable advantages on the slave. By this feature of the
system, as it now operates, the slaves are distributed in small
numbers in different families. There they are brought, every one of
them, into more or less of immediate contact with a high state of
civilization. Many of them pass the early part of their lives in the
dwelling-houses, and around the tables and firesides of their owners,
and in the midst of all the company visiting the house. Others are
engaged in field and mechanical pursuits, requiring frequent
intercourse with the whites. Their Sabbaths are often spent (and it is
daily becoming more and more so) in the midst of our worshipping
assemblies. In all these ways, to go no farther, they enjoy the means
of improvement, and are making daily progress in civilization. This,
without doubt, is the plan indicated by Providence, as affording the
most natural means of accomplishing their ultimate fitness for a more
desirable form of civil liberty.
That it cannot be said of any material portion of them that they have
thrown off the incubus of preceding ages of barbarism, may be true;
yet it is equally true that their progress in civilization, and that
in an increasing ratio, is perfectly obvious to any man whose age and
acquaintance with the race would entitle his opinion to credit. Any
old man amongst us is prepared to speak of the great improvement of
slaves within thirty or forty years past. The domestic element of the
system has accomplished this improvement, and will certainly in
process of time greatly elevate the race above what it now is; and
they are now a very different people from their forefathers who first
came into this country. I have no hesitation in believing that it is
the grand design of Providence that they shall be thus fitted (the far
greater portion of them) for position in Africa as the source of
civilization to that long-benighted continent.
Now, to take from the present system its domestic element, or, what is
virtually the same thing, to place it under such disabilities as to
prevent its benevolent results, would arrest the progress of African
civilization, and put off his moral elevation for ages to come. And
this is precisely the effect which the accumulation of all the slaves
of the whole country within the limits of a few States must have. The
domestic element of the system would be effectually crippled, if not
entirely destroyed. A large number of slaves would be congregated on
single plantations. The whole territory would be in the possession of
but a few wealthy planters. They would chiefly reside in the cities
and more healthy districts of the country. Their plantations would be
under the control of stewards. The steward and his family (usually
small) would constitute the whole white population on a plantation,
numbering, as would often be the case, several hundred slaves; and the
same state of things would exist, to a greater or less extent, through
large districts of country. This would be a condition of the race
essentially different from that in which they are placed by the
present system; and we cannot fail to perceive that they would be
well-nigh cut off from all contact with civilization. Instead of
continuing to rise in the scale of civilization, as they will do under
the present system, they would begin at once to relapse into the
barbarism of their original pagan state. This result would be
inevitable--only so far as their downward progress might be arrested
by the occasional voice of the self-sacrificing missionary, calling to
the altars of Christian worship! Would this be humane? Rather, would
it not be brutal? Yet such would be the result of the scheme of
“gradual emancipation!”
There is, however, another result of this pseudo-philanthropy that I
need not omit to mention: the removal of the slaves from the States
named, and the extermination of the remaining free colored population,
should they be found to exist (as it is most likely they would) in
numbers so great as to constitute a nuisance requiring summary
abatement, would make a fine opening for the enterprising farmers of
the Northern States to come in and possess these fertile hills and
valleys, abounding in wealth and blessed with a most salubrious
climate. It would also afford a fine outlet for their own menial
population, which threatens so many and serious results to them--the
papal vice and ignorance from Ireland and the continent of Europe,
which is now flooding the free States. How far these lofty
considerations may constitute items in the catalogue of motives which
prompt the political agitators of the country to press the subject of
African emancipation, I pretend not to say! One thing, however, I may
say in behalf of the Southern people, and that is, that as they have
no idea of perpetrating these cruel wrongs upon the unfortunate race
which Providence has thrown amongst them, so they expect to have no
use for those depraved and perishing menials. They prefer the slaves,
in any view of the subject. We may conclude, then, that the position
established is not weakened in any degree by considerations of either
direct or gradual emancipation. No: the emancipation and removal to
Africa of those, and those only, whose moral and social condition
entitles them to a higher form of political freedom, as the voluntary
act of the individual owner, is the only natural and safe method of
emancipation. It affords the only hope of Africa, and of the African
in America.
The proposition discussed, and, I think, clearly established, relates
to the essential propriety and the fitness of the system of domestic
slavery as an institution. Whether this institution is capable of
improvement, and, if so, what improvements are demanded by the
progress of civilization, are questions quite independent of any thing
yet discussed. These topics may engage our attention at a future
period in these lectures. I would only remark, in this place, that the
system has undergone great modifications since its adoption. Laws and
usages that were, no doubt, eminently adapted to the extremely
barbarous character of the race, when first brought into the country,
have long since become obsolete, and the same may be said of many
subsequent regulations. Even the stringent measures adopted on the
rise of abolition excitement in late years, have had but a brief
authority. The progress of civilization is the same in its results in
this case as in that of any other people. As a state of barbarism
yields to the light of civilization, men are more and more disposed to
do right, and the laws and usages which were before necessary to
compel them to do right, are thereby superseded, and soon grow into
disuse. Hence, many of our Northern citizens who form their opinions
(as many do) of the practical character of this institution at the
present day from the historical account of the laws and usages of a
former period, regardless of the fact that they have become, for the
most part, obsolete, entertain a very incorrect opinion. The
institution at this day is a very different affair, practically, from
what they suppose it to be, judging, as they do, from the laws and
usages appropriate to a more barbarous condition of the race.
I have no hesitation in affirming that in by far the greater number of
instances, the condition of Southern families, embracing domestic
slaves, is much better (that is, both whites and blacks) than that of
the larger number of Northern families, with hired domestics, on large
farms. The labor is much less severe, and the discipline much less
strict. The Northern family has more frequently to appeal to the
authority of civil law, and to the right of dismissing unfaithful
servants, than the Southern has to appeal to domestic discipline. And
still further, the Southern domestic is practically, in all respects
save one, quite as much upon a social footing with the white members
of the family as the Northern domestic is with the family in which he
is employed, whilst the sympathy existing between these different
castes in the Southern family is much greater than that which exists
in the Northern.
I acknowledge but one difference in regard to practical social
equality between the domestics of these families. The white domestic,
from the fact that he belongs to the same race, is capable, by
industry and enterprise, of rising to an entire social footing with
his employer, whilst the African domestic cannot do so. Although the
civil law should confer on him the right to do so, the paramount
usages of civilized life, founded upon his physical condition, would
forbid it. This advantage, we admit, is above all price; but having
its foundation in the wise and inscrutable providence of God, it is
without remedy by any means which we can adopt; and, indeed, why
should we wish even to alter a condition of things founded in physical
nature by Him “who is too wise to err and too good to do wrong,”
simply because to our limited view of the Divine economy it presents
points of friction which, viewing them from another stand-point, we
should desire to avoid! But aside from this advantage, I feel free to
affirm, that in every neighborhood which is brought permanently under
the influence of the apostolic precepts enjoining the relative duties
of master and slave, the practical working of the system secures to
the African a higher degree of essential happiness than is found to
exist with the whites who fill the menial offices of society in the
free States. No white man can be satisfied with the position of a
menial in society. Perpetually chafed by the chains which fetter all
his attempts to rise in the scale of social equality, he is the
subject of a constant and painful irritation. Every failure in an
enterprise which promised to elevate him to social equality with those
around him, is a new cause of heart-burning and jealousy of all about
him, and often an overwhelming source of temptation, not only to
distrust the providence of God, but to employ the political franchise
to unsettle the foundations of society, by levelling down the whole to
a common platform. Hence the agrarian doctrines which find embodiment
in various social organizations in the free States. Nothing but that
religion which both teaches the duty and imparts the moral power to
“be careful for nothing, but in every thing to give thanks,” and in
every condition in which Divine Providence places us, “therewith to
be content,” can reconcile a white menial to his condition in such a
country as ours. The government itself can only be secure in a
republic so long as a pure Christianity (for that only can do it)
operates to elevate the social condition of those laboring classes who
would otherwise be menials, or reconcile them to a station to which
the accident of birth, miscarriage in business, or inferiority in
intellect, inevitably consigns them in the competition of business
life; or so long as pure religion shall so operate as to leave the
balance of political power with those who are either so elevated or so
reconciled to an inferior condition. But little, if any thing, of all
this, so far as it relates to our colored menials, is to be found at
the South. Always conscious of their intellectual inferiority (I speak
of the masses) from constant contact with the superior moral power of
the whites, and equally conscious that their physical condition is an
impassable bar to all social equality by marriage, they not only do
not aspire to it in their feelings, but, in all cases in which they
are treated as the Scriptures require masters to treat their servants,
they learn to be contented with their lot, and, looking to their
owners as their lawful and safe protectors, become affectionately
attached to the whole family, and, dismissing all care, are the most
cheerful and, indeed, merry class of people we have amongst us. A
slave who did not think more of himself, and feel himself to be better
off, in all respects, than the state which agreed with his idea of
what he calls “poor white folks” and “free niggers,” really would not
be worth having as a house servant in any Christian family of my
acquaintance. Indeed, in freedom from care, and all the elements of a
mere temporal happiness, the slaves of an enlightened and well-ordered
family are often in a much more desirable situation than the heads of
the family, who are occupied with the duty of caring for all and of
providing for all. For the master of such a family to plod his weary
way to daily labor on his farm, with a care-worn countenance, which
traces itself in his slow and measured step, whilst the loud laugh of
his merry hearted slaves is echoing around him, is no uncommon thing
in the South. As to the corroding cares which weigh down the spirits
and often bring on premature old age, the condition of heads of
families do not perhaps materially differ in any part of our country.
But, I repeat, the difference is very great between the menials of
families in the free and in the slave States, and this difference is
greatly in favor of the slaves of the South. The one--especially in
the cities--is often oppressed by a grinding poverty, and an active
discontent which is as corroding to the heart as it is dangerous to
the state; whilst the other is a stranger, for the most part, to real
want--is free from painful cares, contented and cheerful in his
condition--adding daily to the progress of civilization and the
permanency of the government. The emancipation and removal to Africa
of those whose progress in civilization has so far developed their
minds as to constitute them exceptions to this remark, for the reason
that they are by their moral condition fitted for a higher form of
civil freedom, may be allowed as the voluntary act of the owner. But
all other schemes of emancipation, whether immediate or gradual, are
totally inadmissible. For if successful, for the reason that they
cannot share social equality with the whites, they sink in the scale
of civilization, and become a nuisance in the community requiring
abatement; and if the scheme should prove a failure, the result of the
effort can only be, as we have seen, to accumulate large bodies of
slaves within small districts of country, cut them off from a more
direct contact with civilization, and arrest their progress in
improvement. No: emancipation in the popular sense offers no relief to
any of the evils, real or imaginary, of African slavery in America;
but rather aggravates all that now exist, and threatens to multiply
them a thousand-fold. If any in the whole country be moved with
sympathy for the race--as many think themselves to be--let them
diffuse the charities of a pure gospel through the whole extent of our
country. No field was ever more “white to the harvest,” and none
perhaps in which laborers could be employed to greater advantage in
the cause of humanity. They will promote a charity which shall save
the country from discord and civil war. They will give efficiency to
those precepts of the Scriptures which enjoin the duties of masters
and slaves. By doing this they will lighten the task of masters, and,
at the same time, interest them more deeply in all that concerns the
welfare of the slave. They will greatly improve the physical comfort
of the slaves, and, what is of far greater importance, they will
develop their moral natures, and therein add to their present cheerful
and contented state, the enjoyment of that religion which, as it fits
them for the higher walks of life on earth, at the same time fits them
for the rest of heaven. In a word, they will effect all that the most
devoted friend of the slave can reasonably desire. For in this state
of advanced progress, whatever modification of the system or change in
either the condition or location of the race may be demanded by sound
principles, will be readily adopted, and as peaceably effected. Thus
the long-disputed problem of emancipation will be found to solve
itself. But instead of this active and efficient service in the cause
of humanity, to stand aloof and pronounce silly and sluggish
invectives--for such they really are--against the South, for not
following the example of certain Northern States in manumitting their
slaves,--which, by the way, we have shown they never did to any
material extent,--is calculated only to produce an irritation which
must result in the most incurable prejudices. These invectives are
often founded upon certain abstract principles of political philosophy
which are usually misunderstood, and still more frequently misapplied
to the South. Such men, together with the nature and results of their
labors, are graphically described by the Apostle Paul, as “proud,
knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words,
whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil-surmisings, perverse
disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth,
supposing that gain is godliness.” The whole paragraph from which this
quotation is made--1 Tim. vi. 1-5--is commended to particular
attention. And I submit, that if the apostle understood the subject of
domestic slavery, either as a philosophical or a practical question,
the class of men now engaged in agitating our country on the subject
do not!