Would the condition of the slaves be ameliorated by emancipation,
under existing circumstances; supposing they continue, either in the
slave, or free States? This is a grave question, and so far as I am
capable, I shall endeavor to give it a candid and impartial answer.
Having resided both in slave and free States, I presume that I have
had as good an opportunity of forming a correct opinion on the subject
as most of others. It has long been my settled conviction, that the
condition of the slaves in the United States, would be in no respect
bettered by emancipation in their present condition, under existing
circumstances; supposing that they continue residents of the United
States. It is in my view, no longer problematical; for I consider it a
settled question, that their condition would in no respect be improved
by emancipation; but on the contrary, I contend, that the condition of
the free negroes in both the slave and free States, is far worse than
that of the Southern slave. I shall again appeal to historical
facts--past experience--and universal observation. Throughout the
slave States, ever since slavery has existed on this continent,
conscientious and benevolent persons have, from time to time
emancipated slaves; and that too, in many instances, under the most
favorable circumstances. And what was the result? In nine cases out of
ten, and I think it probable, that in ninety-nine out of a hundred,
their conditions were evidently made worse thereby. This is an
indisputable fact, well known throughout the South. I resided
forty-four years in the slave States, and had as favorable
opportunities as any man living, for forming correct opinions on the
subject, and I do here most solemnly aver, that of the hundreds of
manumitted slaves, that came under my immediate observation, few,
comparatively very few, appeared to be benefited by the change. The
condition of a large majority of the free blacks in Tennessee and
Virginia, who fell under my observation, was deplorable, and farther
South, I suppose, that it was still worse. I practiced medicine among
them for twenty years, and conversed freely with them; in some
instances on the subject of their emancipation, and they frequently
admitted, that they were in a more comfortable condition while they
were slaves.
A majority of the slaves in the Southern States are professedly pious;
the free negroes more rarely so. A majority of the slaves appear to be
honest; a majority of the free blacks are petty thieves, drunkards,
liars and gamblers. I have frequently known slaves set at liberty on
account of their piety and other good qualities, and within a few
years most of them would undergo a change for the worse--frequently,
in fact, become vicious in the extreme. One instance I will here
record. A gentleman in Western Virginia, by name Carter, held a slave,
Absalom by name. Absalom became a member of the Methodist Episcopal
Church. He began praying in public a short time after his admission
into the church. Soon he was licensed to exhort, next to preach. All
this occurred, I believe, within less than eighteen mouths. He was
powerful in prayer, and eloquent in exhortation. No one doubted his
piety. He was prospectively liberated by a will. Carter, however, told
him verbally, about this time, that he had made provisions in his will
for his liberation, and that henceforth he could go where he chose,
and do as he pleased. That he was a free man. What was the
consequence? It was not long before a young lady belonging to a
respectable family, was delivered of a mulatto child. On being
questioned as to the child's paternity, she stated that it was parson
Absalom's. Those interested, immediately called on him, and he frankly
confessed that he was the father of the child. Poor Absalom, he was
promoted by the church, set at liberty by his master; caressed and
eulogized by the white brethren--it was too much for him--he could not
bear it--until finally, he was "lifted up with pride," and "fell into
the condemnation of the devil." Then might the church mourn, "O
Absalom, my son! how art thou fallen." This is not an isolated case;
many similar ones fell under my observation, but I cannot stop here to
record them. In the city of Knoxville, East Tennessee, where I last
resided while in the South; there were several hundred free negroes,
and I could readily distinguish a free negro from a slave when I met
him in the street. The slaves, to use Southern parlance, looked fat,
saucy, happy and contented, while the free blacks, with a few
exceptions, had a miserable and dejected appearance. When slaves are
liberated in the South they immediately become stupid, indolent and
improvident, though they were previous to their liberation,
industrious and economical. If previous to their liberation they were
pious, they frequently become vicious; if temperate while slaves, they
often become drunkards, after they obtain their freedom; if honest,
thieves; if truthful, liars. There are exceptions, I admit, and they
are but few exceptions. These are undeniable facts--melancholy
truths--would to God that it had fallen to the lot of some one else to
record them.
I have endeavored, in the preceding pages, to show that the condition
of the slaves of the South; so far from being improved; is made worse
by emancipation under existing circumstances. Free negroes meet with
but little sympathy in the South, and with still less in the North. A
residence of a few years in the slave and also in the free States,
will satisfy anyone of the truth of this remark. Free negroes are more
odious to Northern than to Southern people. In all the varied and
multifarious relations of social life, they are told to stand aside.
Under no circumstances, social, civil or religious, can the white man
and the African, meet on terms of equality and reciprocity. They are
debarred from social intercourse with the whites. They are not
suffered to become, so far as I know, members of any secret society,
association or organization, whatever. Beside the white man at the
hospitable board, they cannot, they dare not sit; and to a seat in the
white man's parlor, and social converse, they dare not aspire. The
carpet of the white man was not spread for them, and around his
cheerful hearth, before his crackling fire, there is no place for
them. They are not suffered to participate in any of the festivities
or amusements of their more highly favored white brethren. If they are
admitted into the same crowd, they must not commingle with the whites;
they are required to stand to one side. If they are admitted into the
same house, a separate apartment is assigned to them, and if to the
same table, they are taught to wait in patience until the white man is
satiated; and then to be content with the fragments and crumbs. If
they enter the same church, a separate bench, or a separate apartment
in the church is allotted to them; for beside the white man they dare
not sit, while engaged in devotional exercises. The black man's
children are not gathered together in the same school room, with the
white man's. They are denied in free, as well as in slave States, the
right of suffrage, or any participation, whatever, in civil affairs.
All this is true of free, as well as slave States, with a few
exceptions. The free negro in no respect betters his condition, by
taking up his residence in a free State. In some respects it is made
worse by the change. They are offcasts from society--loathed and
despised, wherever they go. Nature has interposed an impassable
barrier, between the white and the black man. It is not alone tho
black skin, and the woolly hair of the African that render him so
odious to the Anglo-Saxon. The two races are diverse, mentally and
morally--in their social qualities, habits, tastes and feelings. I
shall not stop here to draw a contrast in detail, but after a few
remarks I shall pass on.
The African differs from the Anglo-Saxon in his physical conformation,
by his black skin, his curly hair, his flat nose and broad flat foot.
Nor is he less distinctly marked by his mental characteristics.
Content to repose on the bosom of his mother _terra firma_, he is not
disturbed by dreams of honor, wealth or fame. He does not with the
white man possess that towering ambition, that soars aloft in climes
ethereal. There is with the African no motive to spur him to action;
no incentive to the acquisition of wealth; no aspiration for power; no
desire for honor or fame. Self reliance and enterprise, are the
peculiar characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon race; on the contrary, the
African in his native state, is content with his hut and his palm-leaf
shade, and he is now what he was centuries ago; there is no
improvement or change whatever. The African under no circumstances, in
any part of the habitable globe, has ever attained a high degree of
civilization. "For centuries on centuries, Africa has remained
stationary, and at the very lowest stage of civilization, but one
remove indeed above brutishness." "Back to that merely animal
existence too, the Jamaica blacks are fast retrograding." The African
is constitutionally indolent and improvident. Work he will not, so far
as he is able to avoid it, nor will he economize what falls into his
hands, I do them no injustice. I appeal to facts. Look at the
condition of the free negroes, North and South! Look at Africa--behold
the African race the world over, and then tell me from whence come
their universal poverty, ignorance and degradation. The African
possesses none of that sensitiveness--that acuteness of
sensibility--that delicacy and refinement of taste, which characterize
the white race. There is with the African a predominance of the animal
propensities, and with him, their gratification, constitutes the sum
total of life and all its enjoyments. He knows no other enjoyment, he
has no higher object, or aim. It is therefore, very clear, that
abolitionists are contending for an impracticability; that the two
races cannot amalgamate and become one people, and enjoy equal rights
and privileges; that they cannot live together on terms of perfect
equality. The white man has the pre-eminence; it is the gift of God;
and the African is doomed to servitude, until he is removed beyond the
white man's reach. The African is not fully prepared for the enjoyment
of liberty. Hence, the universal emancipation of the race, supposing
that they were colonized, would be very likely to throw them back into
their original barbarism; and the idea of liberating the entire slave
population of the Southern States, and letting them loose upon us, is
so ridiculous, that it scarcely deserves notice. It would be to us as
a moral pestilence; a plague, far worse than all the plagues of Egypt!
Yes, far worse, than frogs and lice, and locusts, and flies, and
murrain of beasts, and biles on man, and darkness all combined. Free
negroes would then deluge the great Northern cities. It would be as
tornadoes and volcanoes let loose upon us. Our country is already
deluged with as many vagrants, as she is able to jog along with.