A TRUE DEMOCRAT
"Who can, with patience, for a moment see
The medley mass of pride and misery,
Of whips and charters, manacles and rights,
Of slaving blacks and democratic whites,
And all the piebald policy that reigns
In free confusion o'er Columbia's plains?
To think that man, thou just and gentle God!
Should stand before thee with a tyrant's rod,
O'er creatures like himself, with souls from thee,
Yet dare to boast of perfect liberty!"--Thomas Moore.
EDUCATED in a free state, and marrying a wife who had been a
victim to the institution of slavery, Henry Morton became
strongly opposed to the system. His two daughters, at the age of
twelve years, were sent to the North to finish their education,
and to receive that refinement that young ladies cannot obtain in
the Slave States. Although he did not publicly advocate the
abolition of slavery, he often made himself obnoxious to private
circles, owing to the denunciatory manner in which he condemned
the "peculiar institution." Being one evening at a party, and
hearing one of the company talking loudly of the glory and
freedom of American institutions, he gave it as his opinion that,
unless slavery was speedily abolished, it would be the ruin of
the Union. "It is not our boast of freedom," said he, "that will
cause us to be respected abroad. It is not our loud talk in
favour of liberty that will cause us to be regarded as friends of
human freedom; but our acts will be scrutinised by the people of
other countries. We say much against European despotism; let us
look to ourselves. That government is despotic where the rulers
govern subjects by their own mere will--by decrees and laws
emanating from their uncontrolled will, in the enactment and
execution of which the ruled have no voice, and under which they
have no right except at the will of the rulers. Despotism does
not depend upon the number of the rulers, or the number of the
subjects. It may have one ruler or many. Rome was a despotism
under Nero; so she was under the triumvirate. Athens was a
despotism under Thirty Tyrants; under her Four Hundred Tyrants;
under her Three Thousand Tyrants. It has been generally observed
that despotism increases in severity with the number of despots;
the responsibility is more divided, and the claims more numerous.
The triumvirs each demanded his victims. The smaller the number
of subjects in proportion to the tyrants, the more cruel the
oppression, because the less danger from rebellion. In this
government, the free white citizens are the rulers--the
sovereigns, as we delight to be called. All others are subjects.
There are, perhaps, some sixteen or seventeen millions of
sovereigns, and four millions of subjects.
"The rulers and the ruled are of all colours, from the clear
white of the Caucasian tribes to the swarthy Ethiopian. The
former, by courtesy, are all called white, the latter black. In
this government the subject has no rights, social, political, or
personal. He has no voice in the laws which govern him. He can
hold no property. His very wife and children are not his. His
labour is another's. He, and all that appertain to him, are the
absolute property of his rulers. He is governed, bought, sold,
punished, executed, by laws to which he never gave his assent,
and by rulers whom he never chose. He is not a serf merely, with
half the rights of men like the subjects of despotic Russia; but
a native slave, stripped of every right which God and nature gave
him, and which the high spirit of our revolution declared
inalienable which he himself could not surrender, and which man
could not take from him. Is he not then the subject of despotic
sway?
"The slaves of Athens and Rome were free in comparison. They had
some rights--could acquire some property; could choose their own
masters, and purchase their own freedom; and, when free, could
rise in social and political life. The slaves of America, then,
lie under the most absolute and grinding despotism that the world
ever saw. But who are the despots? The rulers of the country--the
sovereign people! Not merely the slaveholder who cracks the lash.
He is but the instrument in the hands of despotism. That
despotism is the government of the Slave States, and the United
States, consisting of all its rulers all the free citizens. Do
not look upon this as a paradox, because you and I and the
sixteen millions of rulers are free. The rulers of every despotism
are free. Nicholas of Russia is free. The grand Sultan of Turkey
is free. The butcher of Austria is free. Augustus, Anthony, and
Lepidus were free, while they drenched Rome in blood. The Thirty
Tyrants--the Four Hundred--the Three Thousand, were free while they
bound their countrymen in chains. You, and I, and the sixteen
millions are free, while we fasten iron chains, and rivet
manacles on four millions of our fellowmen--take their wives and
children from them--separate them--sell them, and doom them to
perpetual, eternal bondage. Are we not then despots--despots such
as history will brand and God abhor?
"We, as individuals, are fast losing our reputation for honest
dealing. Our nation is losing its character. The loss of a firm
national character, or the degradation of a nation's honour, is
the inevitable prelude to her destruction. Behold the once proud
fabric of a Roman empire--an empire carrying its arts and arms
into every part of the Eastern continent; the monarchs of mighty
kingdoms dragged at the wheels of her triumphal chariots; her
eagle waving over the ruins of desolated countries; where is her
splendour, her wealth, her power, her glory? Extinguished for
ever. Her mouldering temples, the mournful vestiges of her former
grandeur, afford a shelter to her muttering monks. Where are her
statesmen, her sages, her philosophers, her orators, generals?
Go to their solitary tombs and inquire. She lost her national
character, and her destruction followed. The ramparts of her
national pride were broken down, and Vandalism desolated her
classic fields. Then let the people of our country take warning
ere it is too late. But most of us say to ourselves,
"'Who questions the right of mankind to be free?
Yet, what are the rights of the Negro to me?
I'm well fed and clothed, I have plenty of pelf--
I'll care for the blacks when I turn black myself.'
"New Orleans is doubtless the most immoral place in the United
States. The theatres are open on the Sabbath. Bull-fights,
horse-racing, and other cruel amusements are carried on in this
city to an extent unknown in any other part of the Union. The most
stringent laws have been passed in that city against Negroes, yet
a few years since the State Legislature passed a special act to
enable a white man to marry a coloured woman, on account of her
being possessed of a large fortune. And, very recently, the
following paragraph appeared in the city papers:--
"'There has been quite a stir recently in this city, in
consequence of a marriage of a white man, named Buddington, a
teller in the Canal Bank, to the Negro daughter of one of the
wealthiest merchants. Buddington, before he could be married
was obliged to swear that he had Negro blood in his veins, and
to do this he made an incision in his arm, and put some of her
blood in the cut. The ceremony was performed by a Catholic
clergyman, and the bridegroom has received with his wife a fortune
of fifty or sixty thousand dollars.'
"It seems that the fifty or sixty thousand dollars entirely
covered the Negro woman's black skin, and the law prohibiting
marriage between blacks and whites was laid aside for the
occasion."
Althesa felt proud, as well she might, at her husband's taking
such high ground in a slaveholding city like New Orleans.