CHATTELISM.
The common European notion (and the American, borrowed from it), regards
the American “slave” as a chattel—a thing sold like a horse or dog, and
equally the absolute property of his master. Lord Brougham and others
have denounced this barbarism, as they have called it, with great
bitterness, and the former has declared that it is immoral, abhorrent,
and even illegal “for man to hold property in man”—a declaration that
might be true enough, perhaps, if negroes were black-white men, as
supposed, but which, in view of the actual facts involved, is simply
absurd. They suppose that negroes in America are held by the same tenure
that the Romans and other nations of antiquity held their slaves. But
there is no resemblance whatever, and, in truth, it would be difficult
to find anywhere in history conditions so absolutely and so widely
different. All the so-called heathen nations had slaves, or rather they
had captives taken in war, whose lives were forfeited, and who thus
became the property of their conquerors. The rule or custom seems to
have been universal, and it was only after the introduction of
Christianity that it became obsolete. A Roman army invaded Gaul or
Germany—a great battle or series of battles occurred—those captured on
the field became the property of the victors, while the nation or
country became a Roman province, and ever after paid tribute to the
Roman civil officers. Gaul, Britain, most of Germany, indeed, nearly all
the then known world, were thus overrun by the Roman armies, and the
vast multitudes that were defeated in battle were carried off to Italy
to cultivate the lands of the Roman nobility. There was no question of
freedom or slavery, or of rights of any kind involved—the man risked his
life, and if defeated, this life was forfeited to the victor. The latter
might or might not slay him the next morning, or the next week, or the
next year, or twenty years after, just as he pleased. He might send him
to work on his lands in Italy, keep him as a domestic in his household,
compel him to enter the arena and combat as a gladiator for the popular
amusement, or direct him to be crucified or given to feed his fishes, or
he might sell him to others, who, of course, had the same control over
him; or, finally, by one supreme act of generosity, he might give him
back his forfeited life, when, as a freedman—not freeman—he entered the
ranks of ordinary citizenship and was lost in the mighty mass of Romans
that made up the population of the great city. Freedom or slavery, or
what, in modern times, is called such, had nothing to do with the
matter. It was a question of life and death rather than of freedom and
slavery. The life, the actual physical existence was forfeited—the man
had no right to live, and only did live by the sufferance of the captor
or master, and therefore all subordinate considerations were lost in
this one great, all-dominating fact. Many wise, learned, and
accomplished men were slaves or were of this unfortunate class, and
remained thus through life, subject often, doubtless, to the caprices
and cruelty of illiterate and brutal owners, who at any moment could put
them to the torture or to a cruel death. The rule was universal among
all the ancient nations, except the Hebrews, who, in some respects, or
as regarded their own people, made some humane modifications. It was
entirely personal—the state or government having nothing to do with the
matter either as regarded the original forfeit or the cancelling of the
bonds and the restoration to liberty, or rather to life, of the
unfortunate captive.
There was a certain social prejudice in respect to freedmen, or the
children of those who had been slaves, but there does not appear to have
been any legal or political disability. They had forfeited their
lives—they became absolutely dead in law, mere things, chattels, or
property of their owners, of which the government or state took no more
account than of horses or oxen, or any other property; but the moment
that their lives were restored to them, then they at once entered the
ranks of citizenship with all the rights and privileges common in those
days, and in those relatively barbarous times.
There were some incidental features or phases of this terrible condition
that are too marked to pass over without notice, as they tend to show,
in a very striking manner, the wide and indeed unapproachable distance
between it and that which, in our own times, has been so generally
confounded with it. Servile wars were almost constantly occurring
events. Opinion, even in the rudest times, has always, to a certain
extent, governed the world, and the universal custom of enslaving those
defeated in battle was submitted to in the first instance without a
murmur. It was the fortune of war, and no one disputed the inexorable
rule which doomed them to become the absolute chattels or property of
the victor; but when their numbers increased to any considerable extent
in any locality, the natural instinct which told them they were the
equals, and very often the superiors of those who owned them, could not
be restrained, and the long and terrible servile wars almost always
raging within the bosom of the Roman Empire probably weakened and more
than any other thing prepared it for that awful overthrow which finally
overtook the Roman colossus. Another equally striking feature
distinguished this condition. The slave population never increased
itself in the regular and natural order. Most of them were adult males,
originally, and the small number of females may sufficiently account for
the constant tendency to extinction; but beyond this, the abnormal
condition, the terrible and transcendent wrong of forcing beings like
themselves, with the same wants and the same instincts as their masters,
to lives in absolute and abject subjection to the wills of others, was
necessarily incompatible with a permanent existence.
This universal custom prevailed—all men, even the wisest and best, in
their profound ignorance of their own nature, believed slavery to be
right, just as many good men in our own times believe that the European
condition, which dooms the millions to subjection to the few, is right;
but it was so utterly in conflict with natural instinct that the servile
population tended constantly to extinction, and therefore, as observed,
it soon died out when the spirit of Christianity modified the customs of
war, and the conquered became prisoners to be exchanged, instead of
slaves subject to the caprices and cruelties of creatures like
themselves. Some superficial writers, ignorant of the underlying facts,
have supposed that Greece and Rome were great and prosperous because
they had slaves, a process of reasoning quite equal to saying that a man
enjoyed good health because he had a fever-sore on one of his legs!
These nations and all other nations have been prosperous and powerful in
precise proportion to the number of free men, and weak and contemptible
in exact proportion to the multiplicity of slaves—a truth as evident at
this day as in any other, and rendered more palpable in our own history
and condition than ever before. Greece and Rome were great and powerful,
in contrast with the great Oriental empires—Persian, Babylonian,
Egyptian, etc.—because there was a large free population in the former,
while in the latter they were all slaves, or the slaves of slaves. Of
course no such condition could exist in our times, and the most ignorant
and abject portion of the European population could not be placed or
kept in such position a single hour. The Oriental populations still
practice it, to a certain extent, perhaps. The Turks, when they invaded
the lower empire and captured Constantinople, made slaves of their
prisoners, and long trains of unhappy beings, wealthy matrons and
delicately nurtured young girls, chained by the wrists to their own
servants, or to rude soldiers and uncouth peasants, were marched off to
become the abject and miserable slaves of still more gross and brutal
masters. The sale of Circassian girls for Turkish harems is altogether a
different affair, and however revolting to our notions and habits, has
nothing in common with the condition historically known to us as
slavery. The essential fact in this condition, as will be seen, was the
forfeited life; all other facts hinged on that, and the idea of property
or chattelism was incidental—a mere result. When the man’s life was
forfeited, when he was deemed to be dead in law, when his captor could
do as he pleased with him, crucify, torture, or destroy him altogether,
then it necessarily followed that he was a chattel, or a thing that he
would be apt to make as profitable as possible, and this self-interest
was the sole protection of the miserable creature. It therefore was,
doubtless, a great interest—some of the Roman nobles owning many
thousands of them, though, except in respect to the servile wars, almost
constantly raging within some portion of the empire, the government
seems to have had nothing to do with slaves or slavery. It was wont,
however, to resort to terrible punishments to keep them in subjection,
and it was not uncommon to line the highways leading into the city for
forty miles with crosses, on which these wretched beings were suspended,
and left in sight and hearing of each other, until death relieved them
from their sufferings.
Such was Roman slavery, as it has been described by historians of the
time—a condition not at all involving what we call freedom or rights of
any kind, but simply that of a forfeited existence, and which, if given
back by the owner, the man was restored to life, to a legal existence,
to his normal condition, and, without the slightest interference of the
government, was at once absorbed in the general citizenship. Of course
there is no resemblance or even approximation to the social order of the
South; indeed, as observed, it is difficult to conceive of conditions
more utterly opposed or unlike each other. As has been shown elsewhere,
the labor, the service, the industrial forces of the negro were
essential to the cultivation of the soil and the growth of the
indigenous products that belong to the great intertropical regions of
the American continent. Ships, therefore, were fitted out for this
purpose to bring negroes to the New World, not to make slaves of them,
or to transform them into things, but to make their labor available for
the common good of mankind. Much wrong, cruelty, and inhumanity, it is
quite likely, have been practiced, but the motive and the object were
right, of course, for these had their origin in human necessities and
human welfare. The abuses we have nothing more to do with; the object
and the essential fact—the service—remains, and will remain forever, if
the great tropical centre of the continent remains civilized, instead of
being transformed into a barren waste. The service of the negro, his
industrial capacity, his labor, is a thing that may be estimated as
easily and accurately as any other species of property, and therefore is
property, and to the precise extent necessary to enforce this labor or
this service the owner of it has absolute control over the person of the
negro. There is not, nor should there be, any difference between this
property and other property, and to this extent it may be called
chattelism, for, as observed, it may be as easily and precisely fixed or
defined as any other property. The master takes care of him in childhood
and in sickness, clothes, feeds, and provides for his old age, or for
the loss of health, etc., and estimating or comparing these things with
his services, he is able to fix a positive value to the labor of the
negro, and this, like any other property, he may dispose of to any one
else, if he chooses to do so. This property he must have absolute
control over, and therefore, to the precise extent needed to make it
available, he has absolute control over the person of the negro. The
ignorant abolition writer says, “the slave is put upon the
auction-block, examined and handled precisely as the horse, or other
animal, and knocked off to the highest bidder; he follows his master
home, to be dealt with just as any other animal.”
It is true, there is a seeming resemblance, but if we follow them home
and observe what follows, then it will be seen that there is no
resemblance at all. The master takes care of his horse, for such is his
interest; he may even have a liking, a kind of affection for him; but if
sick or worn out, or if he falls and breaks a leg, he blows his brains
out, and after taking off his skin, leaves the carcass to be devoured by
the dogs or vultures. In the case of the negro he also takes care of him
and treats him well, for it is his highest interest to do so, and often
feels an affection, and a very strong one, for him. If ill, he sends for
a surgeon and treats him as men usually treat their children. He is a
part of the household, belongs to the family, and is usually strongly
attached to the master and the master’s children. His own wants are all
attended to. He has his cabin, his patch of garden, his poultry, etc.,
very often his bale of cotton. He is permitted to choose his own wife,
to enjoy all the domestic happiness that his nature is capable of, and
if he fulfils his duty industriously, promptly, and honestly, then the
master may be said to have no more control over him; but should he reach
old age, break his leg, or in any way become disabled and useless, if
the master should blow his brains out he would be hanged as a murderer.
There is surely no resemblance in these things, none whatever; indeed it
may be said that the one essential fact accomplished, the “service” duly
rendered, the master’s absolute control ceases. He must still care for
and protect the negro and provide for him in sickness and old age, but
his absolute rule is always within well-defined limits, and beyond them
the master may not go. He may enforce service, and if the negro
disobeys, punish him, or if he resists the reasonable will of the
master, compel obedience—absolute, unquestioning obedience. But the laws
of every Southern State protect the “slave” from the caprices and
cruelties of the master just as in the Northern States they protect the
child from a sometimes passionate and brutal father.
In the previous chapter it has been shown that the negro is in his
normal condition only when in social subordination to the white man—for
that is the natural relation of the races whenever or wherever they are
in juxtaposition; but the precise form of this subordination may be
modified, perhaps, by time and circumstances. Subordination and
protection exist together—indeed, are inseparable. The strong should
protect the weak: the superior white man, who demands the obedience of
the inferior negro, should also protect this feebler being; and such is
the social condition at the South. Owning the service of the negro, it
is the highest interest of the master to take the utmost care of him,
while the latter has an equal interest—relatively considered—in being
honest, industrious, and faithful to the master. Indeed, it is
impossible to perceive any antagonism of interests in this condition,
and compared with any other, it may be said, without chance of
successful contradiction, that it is the most harmonious in its
essential principles known to our times. It originated in an absolute
want—the service of the negro—that industrial capacity which he alone
can furnish, and this service is the essential feature of the domestic
institutions of the South. It was and is made a property that may be
sold or exchanged as promptly as any other property, and the person of
the negro is subject to the absolute control of the master to an extent
necessary to enforce this power, but no further. There is still a large
margin for self-control, for all the self-government that nature
demands, for the gratification of all his wants and the full development
of all his faculties. This is demonstrated beyond doubt, for he rapidly
multiplies, while if he were denied the rights that nature accords him,
his instincts repressed, his wants forbidden gratification, like the
Roman slave, or like the so-called free negro of the North, he would
become languid and diseased, and tend rapidly to extinction. But while
the existing condition is thus healthy, natural, and just, as before
remarked, it is quite likely that, in the future time, it may be widely
changed in its details. This relation—the subordination with the
inseparable protection—can never be changed without destruction to both,
or without social suicide; but the social condition may some day be
modified sufficiently, perhaps, to do away with any defects, if such
exist at present.
In another place the subject of climate and industrial adaptation is
fully considered, and it will suffice to remark in this place that the
tropics are the natural centre of existence of the negro, and some day
not very remote our negro population, with a few exceptions, perhaps,
will be found within the intertropical region. And when that day comes,
it is quite likely that some modification will be worked out which,
while the essential principles of the existing condition are preserved,
chattelism, or that seeming personal property in the negro now so
extensively associated in the popular mind at the North as wrong, may
disappear altogether. We are only just emerging, as it were, into a
boundless field for progress, for inquiry, for experiment, for social
development, for working out the great problem of humanity. All Europe
is in utter ignorance and blindness; and if the whole political and
social order is not in conflict with the natural order, the latter, is,
at all events, repressed, and forbidden a development. We, ourselves,
have reached a comparatively far advanced position—the grand position
and declaration of the men of 1776, that all men (of course of our own
race) are created equal, and designed by the Almighty for the same
liberty, etc.; and we have based our political order on this fundamental
and everlasting truth; but while in theory we have thus recognized the
relations that nature has decreed between individuals, in practice we
have made but little advance over the people of Europe.
Our cities and towns are filled to overflowing with poverty, ignorance,
vice, and misery, and though much of this is the direct result of the
wrongs and oppressions of the Old World, and all of it legitimate
consequences of the European practice which yet prevails among us,
especially in the States most connected by commerce, literature, and
opinion with the Old World, our social progress is small, indeed,
compared with our political enlightenment. But the masses are, however
slow the progress, becoming more and more intelligent, and consequently
more virtuous and happy, for, however frequent the exceptions among
individuals, morality among the masses always keeps pace with their
intelligence. And though the social condition at the South is less,
infinitely less defective than at the North, and social progress in the
future has a comparatively circumscribed field of action, there are many
things, doubtless, which, in the future time, will be widely altered
from the present. God has organized and fixed the nature and relations
of His creatures, so that there is no conflict of duties, and that which
best secures the happiness of ourselves, also accomplishes the happiness
of others, whether they be our equals or our inferiors, men of our own
race or negroes. Thus, when the dominant race—the citizenship of the
South—comprehend most clearly and truly what their own welfare demands,
then, too, and of necessity, will the best interests of the negro be
secured. The perverse fanatics at the North, who, unmindful of, and
indeed dead to the woes of their suffering brethren, imagine the most
terrible miseries among negroes at the South, can not continue much
longer in their unnatural delusions, and when the pressure of their
attempted interference is withdrawn, earnest and conscientious citizens
will doubtless inquire into those possible social defects that may exist
among them, and strive to apply the appropriate corrections. What these
defects may consist in, the writer does not assume to decide or to
understand, but after a long-continued and patient investigation of the
social condition of the South, he thinks he can not be mistaken when he
declares that they are wholly or mainly confined to the citizenship, and
he is wholly and absolutely incapable of comprehending any wrong
whatever in the fundamental social relations of the races or so-called
slavery of the South.