BOSTON, July 30, 1860.
MY DEAR SIR,--If I forego the opportunity which you offer me
of uniting with the earnest Abolitionists of Massachusetts in
celebrating the anniversary of Emancipation in the British
Islands of the West Indies, I pray you not to believe me
insensible to the magnanimous teachings of that day,--destined, I
doubt not, as men advance in virtue, to take its place yet more
and more among the great days of History.
Nothing shows the desperate mendacity of the partisans of Slavery
more than the unfounded persistence with which they call this act
“a failure.” If it be a failure, then is virtue a failure, then
is justice a failure, then is humanity a failure, then is God
himself a failure; for virtue, justice, humanity, and God himself
are all represented in this act.
Well-proved facts vindicate completely the policy of
Emancipation, even if it were not commanded by the simplest rules
of morality. All testimony, whether from official documents or
from travellers, shows, beyond question, that in these islands
the condition of the negro is improved by emancipation; but this
testimony is especially instructive, when we learn that the
improvement is most strongly manifest in those who have been
born in Freedom. Ask any person familiar with these islands,--as
I have often done,--or consult any unprejudiced authority, and
such will be the answer. This alone is enough to vindicate the
act. Moreover, it is enough, if _men_ are raised in the scale of
being, even though sugar perishes from the earth.
But careful statistics attest that the material interests of
these possessions share the improvement of the population. In
some of the islands, as in Barbadoes and Antigua, the advance is
conspicuous, while in Jamaica itself, which is the instance most
constantly cited of “failure,” the evidence is unanswerable, that
the derangement of affairs cannot be charged upon Emancipation,
but is a natural incident to the anomalous condition of that
island throughout its history, aggravated by insane pretensions
of the Slave-Masters. Two different Governors of this island[165]
have assured me, that, with all their experience there, they
looked upon Emancipation as a “blessing.” Thus is it shown that
the true policy of this world is found in justice. Nothing is
truer than that injustice, beside its essential wickedness, is
folly also. The unjust man is a fool.
Only recently important testimony on this subject has found
place, where it would be hardly expected, in the columns of the
“New York Times”; and similar testimony occurs in other quarters,
both in England and America. And yet, with the truth flashing
in their faces, our Slave-Masters misrepresent the sublime and
beautiful act as a “failure”! This, however, is of a piece with
their whole conduct.
Let me thank you for the invitation with which you have honored
me, and for the good wishes with which you cheer me; and believe
me, my dear Sir,
Very faithfully yours,