The subject of slavery for the last thirty-five years has been an
exciting one in the United States. There has been much discussion, and
what is worse, much angry contention on the subject. It has been a
hobby for demagogues, and a fire-brand in the hands of factious
disorganizers. Fanatics and false philanthropists have rolled it as a
sweet morsel under their tongues. It has furnished them with a pretext
to cry liberty! liberty! from the rising to the setting sun. Their
whole souls, bodies, and minds, appear to have been absorbed in the
contemplation of African slavery. They appeared to be wholly engrossed
with this one idea, to be engulphed! swallowed up! lost! confounded
and bewildered in visionary abstractions, and ever and anon, their
plaintive notes were heard throughout the hills and dales, liberty and
oppression, the burden of their songs. They seemed to consider all
crime, all oppression, all injustice, all wrong, as merged in African
slavery and its concomitant evils, and themselves the peculiar, the
special guardians of the rights of man. The North and the South have
been hissed on each other with demoniac fury, and have glutted their
vengeance in attempts to "bite and devour each other." Truth, justice,
and righteousness have been lost sight of, and a fair and impartial
statement of facts has seldom been placed before the public; but in
its stead, crimination and recrimination have been hurled from North
to South, and from South to North.
The North has arraigned the South, and the South has hurled defiance
at the North; or, if the former set up a defense, it was little better
than special pleading. Those who have read the foregoing pages are
apprised, that it was no part of my design in this work, to exonerate
either North or South, there is guilt enough everywhere to humble us
all. But I have long considered the attacks of abolitionists on
slaveholders, as devoid of truth and justice, and that their views on
slavery, were in direct opposition to the revealed will of God.
Abolitionism cannot be of God, because its views, plans, and
machinations, are in direct opposition to the revealed will of God.
Whosoever sows dissension or excites discontent among the slaves, and
influences them to dishonor, despise, or forsake the service of their
masters, in so doing, violates the positive injunctions of the Bible.
Servants are commanded in the New Testament to obey, love, and serve
their masters, and to resign themselves to the will of God, and be
content with their lot. Servants are not only taught to obey their
masters, but to account them worthy of all honor, and to endeavor to
please them in all things. "If any man teach otherwise, (says the
apostle), he is proud, knowing nothing." But abolitionists do teach
otherwise; hence, we find many of the leaders of that party
repudiating the Bible.
I do not suppose that Northern people, where slavery is not legalized,
are any better than the Southern people where it is legalized. Each
section of the Union has its virtues and vices. I do not suppose that
England, where slavery is not legalized, is any better than America
where it is legalized. There is more or less injustice and oppression
everywhere. It looks well in England to talk about oppression in the
United States. "Thou hypocrite, first cast the beam out of thine own
eye." Look at down trodden Ireland, thou despotic tyrant. And ye dukes
and lords, ye pinks of mortality, professing to be Christians, have ye
forgotten the words of Divine inspiration? "He that hath of this
worlds goods, and seeth his brother have need, how dwelleth the love
of God in him?" Look at your tenantry, the millions of miserable
wretches on your own soil, whose condition is far worse than that of
the African slaves in the United States? And ye bishops! ye overseers
of the flock of Christ? with your princely salaries! surrounded by
wealth, splendor, and luxury! Have ye ever thought of the millions,
that are starving around you, not only for the bread of eternal life,
but also for that which is essential to the sustenance of animal life!
Woe to you, ye hypocrites. Ye wolves in sheep's clothing! Bow your
heads with shame, and repent in sack-cloth, or else as surely as there
is a God in heaven, you will have "your portion in the lake that
burneth with fire and brimstone."
Some people at the North are constantly harping on the subject of
slavery, and yet lo! when some one emancipates a slave in the South,
and he straggles off to the North, every one with whom he meets gives
him a kick. Benevolent souls, look at the treatment which the Randolph
negroes received in the state of Ohio. If slaves are emancipated where
are they to go? Where will they find an asylum? Not in the North? For
Northern legislatures are already telling them by prohibitory
enactments, here, you cannot come. "O consistency! thou art a jewel, a
pearl of great price," a virtue rarely met with.
Abolitionists make a great noise about slavery, some of them, no
doubt, conscientious and sincere; but there are many among them,
should they remove to the South, that would in less than five years
own a cotton farm or a sugar plantation well stocked with negroes.
Facts have in many instances verified the truth of this assertion. Men
have frequently emigrated from the free states to the South,
professedly abolitionists, and after getting into one or two
difficulties with the excitable Southerners, they would all at once
throw off their garb of abolitionism, and then, they too, must have
slaves. Perhaps they thought that a change of location justified a
change of opinion; or, it may be, that they reasoned thus: poor
creatures, they are in bondage, and why should they not as well belong
to us as to any one else? We can treat them as well as any one. The
Southern slaves, however, tell a different tale. They say that
Northern men have no business with slaves, for the reason, that they
are very hard masters. The negroes of the South have as little
sympathy for the Yankees, as their pro-slavery masters.
I have said that we all are guilty; yes, England is guilty! America is
guilty! The Northern states are guilty! The Southern states are
guilty! There is guilt everywhere! We should therefore beware how we
censure one another. Mother England furnished her American colonies
with slaves, and pocketed the money, and now she tells us, that we
have no right to that property which she forced on us, when we were a
weak and defenceless people, and could not do otherwise than obey her
commands. The eagle eyed, shrewd, and sagacious Yankees, ever alive to
all that pertains to their own pecuniary interests, with that
keen-witted penetration and over-reaching foresight, for which they
are remarkable, soon made the discovery, that slave labor in a
Northern latitude, and on a comparatively barren soil, must prove
unproductive. Hence, they strike a bargain with their Southern
neighbors. The Yankees say to the Southern planters, gentlemen, you
can employ these slaves profitably in the cultivation of tobacco and
cotton. Your climate and soil is adapted to slave labor, ours is not,
take our slaves, and let us have in return, gold and silver. It will
be a profitable investment on your part, and will relieve us of a
species of property, which, to us, is unprofitable. The Southern
planters accept their offer and purchase their slaves, and what next?
The Yankees turn around and say to the Southern men, you have no right
to hold these slaves as property. Kentucky and Tennessee might now,
with equal propriety and consistency sell their slaves to the Texan
planters, pocket the money, turn on their heels and say, why
gentlemen, it is true that we sold you these slaves, and you have paid
us for them; but you have no right to hold them in bondage. Refund our
money, cry the Texan planters. If you have sold us property which we
have no right to hold as property, refund our money? No, say the
sturdy Kentuckian and the stalwart Tennessean, not we. Help yourselves
the best way you can, we have got your money, and we shall hold on to
it. We make no children's bargains, and thus the matter ends.
If slave labor had been profitable in the North, Northern men would
have remained in possession of their slaves to the present day. No
one, I suppose, doubts it, and it is a good and sufficient reason why
they should be a little more modest in their denunciation of their
Southern brethren. Slavery is perpetuated by selfishness. Northern
men, to say the least, are as selfish as Southern men; and it would
require nothing, but a change of location, to make them as oppressive
task-masters. Where there is most selfishness, there we will find most
oppression; provided, that surrounding circumstances are favorable.
Most men, in this world, consult their own pecuniary interests. If
they are enhanced by African slavery, African slaves they will have,
provided they can get them; but if they cannot get African slaves,
they will make slaves of unfortunate and ignorant individuals of their
own color. It is the same dominant principle the world over. The
Northern man with his leagues of land, surrounded by ignorant,
indigent and impoverished families, is virtually a slaveholder. He
gets all their labor, and what do they receive in return? A bare
subsistence. Southern slaves get that. These tenants spend their lives
in laboring for their landlords, and receive in return, barely a
sufficiency of coarse food and coarse clothing, to keep soul and body
together through a protracted and miserable existence; the condition
of many of them being worse than that of a majority of Southern
slaves. Most of operatives who live on their daily wages, do nothing
more than earn their victuals and clothes, and slaves are generally as
well clothed, and better fed than they are. It is clear to my mind,
that a majority of slaves are better compensated for their labor, than
the poorer class of people, North or South. I base this conclusion on
the fact, that neither the one, nor the other, receive any thing more
than their victuals and clothes, and the slave is better fed, and
better clothed than the poor white man. This is neither a far-fetched
conclusion, nor yet an exaggeration. It is literally true. I repeat,
that the slaves of the South are generally better provided for, than
the generality of the tenantry, North or South. Hence, the slave is
better paid for his labor than the white man, under these
circumstances, slaves are also exempt from those corroding cares,
perplexities and anxieties, which embitter the lives of the poorer
class of white people. He has but to finish his task, and eat and
sleep; the cares of the family devolve on master and mistress. The
storms of adversity, the losses and crosses incident to all families,
pass over his humble hut. The poor white man has bread and meat
to-day, but God only knows from whence it will come to-morrow. Not so
with the slave, he knows well from whence his bread and meat is to
come "for the morrow." Master is bound to make provision for him, and
he feels no concern about the matter. "He takes no thought for the
morrow." Well, but says one, the white man has liberty, poor as he may
be. He can work to-day, and forbear to-morrow, if it suits his ease,
convenience, or inclination. Very true, and the misfortune is, that he
too often works to-day, and gets drunk to-morrow; or, otherwise,
squanders away his time foolishly. Indigence and ignorance subject men
to oppression in all countries, and under all circumstances, it
matters not whether you call them slaves or freemen. There is
oppression and injustice everywhere. It originates in the supreme
selfishness of our natures--our self-love. It was the original design
of Christianity to eradicate this principle from the human heart.
"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." "Whatsoever ye would that
men should do to you, do ye even so to them." This is the language of
the author of our religion. The great apostle had direct reference to
the selfishness of our hearts when he said, "the love of money is the
root of all evil." While selfishness is the dominant principle of our
hearts, we can neither love God, nor yet our neighbor. The Holy spirit
can never enter our hearts, while this principle reigns supreme
within. He has been trying to expel the monster from the hearts of the
human family, for nearly two thousand years; but as yet he has
accomplished his object but partially. He pleads for entrance, but too
often pleads in vain. We must relinquish our self-love, before we can
love God supremely, and our neighbor as ourselves.
Selfishness, self-love, or the love of money, as the apostle terms it,
stands in the way of all that is noble, generous, and just, in our
intercourse with our fellow creatures. It is "the root of all evil,"
all injustice, all oppression, all unrighteousness, all that mars our
peace and happiness in this world, all tumults, all strife, all
contention, all war, all blood-shed, all hatred, all misery in time,
and all our woes to all eternity.
There are times when my heart sickens within me. I feel, I know that
there is oppression and wrong in our world, and that millions of my
fellow creatures are interested in perpetuating those wrongs. I know
that wherever the human foot has trodden the soil, that _might
triumphs over right_, that the strong oppress the weak, that the poor
and dependent too often become the servants of the rich; that the man
of quick discernment, too often overreaches and takes advantage of his
simple, less gifted, and unsuspecting neighbor. That the master, the
land-lord, those who are endowed with superior knowledge, those who
are in possession of wealth, power, and influence, too often become
oppressive, tyrannical and cruel to their inferiors, servants and
dependants. I know that these evil exist, and that many believe that
they would sustain damage by any attempt to mitigate, or remove them.
Self-love, self-interest, the love of money, the love of ease, the
love of wealth, splendor, and power, stand in the way of any
reformation. Their prejudices, too, that have grown with their growth,
and ripened with their years, must be removed. They moreover imagine
that not only their self-interests, but their honor, their ease and
convenience, their all--all that they hold dear in the world, will be
endangered by any attempt to eradicate the evils alluded to. Will
they, under these circumstances, listen to the calls of suffering
humanity, the voice of reason, the laws of Divine revelation, and the
stern dictates of conscience? Can we expect it, when so many interests
are involved, when so many prejudices must be broken down, and old
institutions rooted up, and a new order of things introduced? Can
moral obligation, a sense of duty, the dictates of conscience,
overcome that instinctive passion of the human soul, the love of gain?
Oh! the love of money, that mighty leveller of power, the golden
serpent that beguiles us to transgress the laws of God, to disregard
the rights of man, and to burst asunder the common ties of humanity,
which were designed in the wisdom and beneficence of the adorable
Creator to bind us all together--the world, every member of the human
family of all nations, kindred, and tongues, high and low, rich and
poor, bond and free, into one common brotherhood. Will men ever
reflect, that we are all brothers, descendants of the same earthly
parent, children of the same heavenly father, having common interests,
alike the subjects of joy and sorrow; that the author of our existence
is no respecter of persons; and, finally, that we must all stand
before a just and righteous Judge, and give an account of the deeds
done in the body, "whether they be good or evil." These are solemn
thoughts, and we look in vain for a correction of the evils under
which the world groans, unless the minds of men can be disentangled
from worldly pursuits, and can be impressed with their responsibility
to the Author of their existence, and the obligation to each other.
Here all our hopes must center, and to this end must all our efforts
tend, if our object is the regeneration of the human race. Men must
understand their true interests, their relations and obligations to
each other, and their accountability to God, before they will "cease
to do evil and learn to do well." If either the writer or the reader,
expects to do anything in behalf of suffering humanity, he must never
lose sight of the corruption of our natures, and the great fountain of
error and misconception, self-love, as the source of all that mars the
peace and happiness of the human family. And what is of paramount
importance, we must bear in mind, that without Divine aid, we write in
vain, we read in vain, that God alone can accomplish the great work,
and that we are but instruments in his hands. We must then, with
unwearied patience and diligence, do our duty, and leave the event to
him who has all power in heaven and earth.