arduous and momentous. To restore the blessings of liberty to near a
million[20] of oppressed individuals, who have groaned under the yoke of
bondage, and to their descendants, is an object, which those who trust
in Providence, will be convinced would not be unaided by the divine
Author of our being, should we invoke his blessing upon our endeavours.
Yet human prudence forbids that we should precipitately engage in a work
of such hazard as a general and simultaneous emancipation. The mind of
man must in some measure be formed for his future condition. The early
impressions of obedience and submission, which slaves have received
among us, and the no less habitual arrogance and assumption of
superiority, among the whites, contribute, equally, to unfit the former
for _freedom_, and the latter for _equality_.[21] To expel them all at
once, from the United States, would in fact be to devote them only to a
lingering death by famine, by disease, and other accumulated miseries:
"We have in history but one picture of a similar enterprize, and there
we see it was necessary not only to open the sea by a miracle, for them
to pass, but more necessary to close it again to prevent their return
[Letter from Jas. Sullivan, Esq. to Dr. Belknap.]." To retain them among
us, would be nothing more than to throw so many of the human race upon
the earth without the means of subsistence: they would soon become idle,
profligate, and miserable. Unfit for their new condition, and unwilling
to return to their former laborious course, they would become the
caterpillars of the earth, and the tigers of the human race. The recent
history of the French West Indies exhibits a melancholy picture of the
probable consequences of a general, and momentary emancipation in any of
the states, where slavery has made considerable progress. In
Massachusetts the abolition of it was effected by a single stroke; a
clause in their constitution [Dr. Belknap.]: but the whites at that
time, were as sixty-five to one, in proportion to the blacks. The whole
number of free persons in the United States, south of Delaware state,
are 1,233,829, end there are 648,439 slaves; the proportion being less
than two to one. Of the cultivators of the earth in the same district,
it is probable that there are four slaves for one free white man.--To
discharge the former from their present condition, would be attended
with an immediate general famine, in those parts of the United States,
from which not all the productions of the other states, could deliver
them; similar evils might reasonably be apprehended from the adoption of
the measure by any one of the southern states; for in all of them the
proportion of slaves is too great, not to be attended with calamitous
effects, if they were immediately set free.[22] These are serious, I had
almost said unsurmountable obstacles, to general, simultaneous
emancipation.--There are other considerations not to be disregarded. A
great part of the _property_ of individuals consists in _slaves_. The
laws have sanctioned this species of property. Can the laws take away
the property of an individual without his own consent, or without a
_just compensation_? Will those who do not hold slaves agree to be taxed
to make this compensation? Creditors also, who have trusted their
debtors upon the faith of this visible property will be defrauded. If
justice demands the emancipation of the slave, she also, _under these
circumstances_, seems to plead for the owner, and for his creditor. The
claims of nature, it will be said are stronger than those which arise
from social institutions, only. I admit it, but nature also dictates to
us to provide for our _own_ safety, and authorizes all _necessary_
measures for that purpose. And we have shewn that our own security, nay,
our very existence, might be endangered by the hasty adoption of any
measure for the _immediate_ relief of the _whole_ of this unhappy race.
Must we then quit the subject, in despair of the success of any project
for the amendment of their, as well as our own, condition? I think
not.--Strenuously as I feel my mind opposed to a simultaneous
emancipation, for the reasons already mentioned, the abolition of
slavery in the United States, and especially in that state, to which I
am attached by every tie that nature and society form, is _now_ my
_first_, and will probably be my last, expiring wish. But here let me
avoid the imputation of inconsistency, by observing, that the abolition
of slavery may be effected without the _emancipation_ of a single slave;
without depriving any man of the _property_ which he _possesses_, and
without defrauding a creditor who has trusted him on the faith of that
property. The experiment in that mode has already been begun in some of
our sister states. Pennsylvania, under the auspices of the immortal
Franklin,[23] begun the work of gradual abolition of slavery in the year
1780, by enlisting nature herself, on the side of humanity. Connecticut
followed the example four years after.[24] New-York very lately made an
essay which miscarried by a very inconsiderable majority. Mr. Jefferson
informs us, that the committee of revisors, of which he was a member,
had prepared a bill for the emancipation of all slaves born after
passing that act. This is conformable to the Pennsylvania and
Connecticut laws.--Why the measure was not brought forward in the
general assembly I have never heard. Possibly because objections were
foreseen to that part of the bill which relates to the disposal of the
blacks, after they had attained a certain age.[25] It certainly seems
liable to many, both as to the policy and the practicability of it. To
establish such a colony in the territory of the United States, would
probably lay the foundation of intestine wars, which would terminate
only in their extirpation, or final expulsion. To attempt it in any
other quarter of the globe would be attended with the utmost cruelty to
the colonists, themselves, and the destruction of their whole race. If
the plan were at this moment in operation, it would require the annual
exportation of 12,000 persons. This requisite number must, for a series
of years be considerably increased, in order to keep pace with the
increasing population of those people. In twenty years it would amount
to upwards of twenty thousand persons; which is half the number which
are now supposed to be annually exported from Africa.--Where would a
fund to support this expence be found? Five times the present revenue of
the state would barely defray the charge of their passage. Where
provisions for their support after their arrival? Where those
necessaries which must preserve them from perishing?--Where a territory
sufficient to support them?--Or where could they be received as friends,
and not as invaders? To colonize them in the United States might seem
less difficult. If the territory to be assigned them were beyond the
settlements of the whites, would they not be put upon a forlorn hope
against the Indians? Would not the expence of transporting them thither,
and supporting them, at least for the first and second year, be also far
beyond the revenues and abilities of the state? The expence attending a
small army in that country hath been found enormous. To transport as
many colonists, annually, as we have shewn were necessary to eradicate
the evil, would probably require five times as much money as the support
of such an army. But the expence would not stop there: they must be
assisted and supported at least for another year after their arrival in
their new settlements. Suppose them arrived. Illiterate and ignorant as
they are, is it probable that they would be capable of instituting such
a government, in their new colony, as would be necessary for their own
internal happiness, or to secure them from destruction from without?
European emigrants, from whatever country they arrive, have been
accustomed to the restraint of laws, and to respect for government.
These people, accustomed to be ruled with a rod of iron, will not easily
submit to milder restraints. They would become hordes of vagabonds,
robbers and murderers. Without the aids of an enlightened policy,
morality, or religion, what else could be expected from their still
savage state, and debased condition?--"But why not retain and
_incorporate_ the _blacks into the state_?" This question has been well
answered by Mr. Jefferson,[26] and who is there so free from prejudices
among us, as candidly to declare that he has none against such a
measure? The recent scenes transacted in the French colonies in the West
Indies are enough to make one shudder with the apprehension of realizing
similar calamities in this country. Such probably would be the event of
an attempt to smother those prejudices which have been cherished for a
period of almost two centuries. Those who secretly favour, whilst they
affect to regret, domestic slavery, contend that in abolishing it, we
must also abolish that scion from it which I have denominated _civil_
slavery. That there must be no distinction of rights; that the
descendants of Africans, as men, have an equal claim to all civil
rights, as the descendants of Europeans; and upon being delivered from
the yoke of bondage have a right to be admitted to all the privileges of
a citizen.--But have not men when they enter into a state of society, a
right to admit, or exclude any description of persons, as they think
proper? If it be true, as Mr. Jefferson seems to suppose, that the
Africans are really an inferior race of mankind,[27] will not sound
policy advise their exclusion from a society in which they have not yet
been admitted to participate in civil rights; and even to guard against
such admission, at any future period, since it may eventually depreciate
the whole national character? And if prejudices have taken such deep
root in our minds, as to render it impossible to eradicate this opinion,
ought not so general an error, if it be one, to be respected? Shall we
not relieve the necessities of the naked diseased beggar, unless we will
invite him to a seat at our table; nor afford him shelter from the
inclemencies of the night air, unless we admit him also to share our
bed? To deny that we ought to abolish slavery, without incorporating the
Negroes into the state, and admitting them to a full participation of
all our civil and social rights, appears to me to rest upon a similar
foundation. The experiment so far as it has been already made among us,
proves that the emancipated blacks are not ambitious of civil rights. To
prevent the generation of such an ambition, appears to comport with
sound policy; for if it should ever rear its head, its partizans, as
well as its opponents, will be enlisted by nature herself, and always
ranged in formidable array against each other. We must therefore
endeavour to find some middle course, between the tyrannical and
iniquitous policy which holds so many human creatures in a state of
grievous bondage, and that which would turn loose a numerous, starving,
and enraged banditti, upon the innocent descendants of their former
oppressors. _Nature_, _time_, and _sound policy_ must co-operate with
each other to produce such a change: if either be neglected, the work
will be incomplete, dangerous, and not improbably destructive.
[Footnote 20: The number of slaves in the United States at the time of
the late census, was something under 700,000.]
[Footnote 21: Mr. Jefferson most forcibly paints the unhappy influence
on the manners of the people produced by the existence of slavery among
us. The whole commerce between master and slave, says he, is a perpetual
exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism
on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children
see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This
quality is the germ of education in him. From his cradle to his grave he
is learning what he sees others do. If a parent had no other motive
either in his own philanthropy or his self love, for restraining the
intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should always be a
sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not
sufficient. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the
lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller
slaves, gives a loose to his worst of passions; and thus nursed,
educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it
with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his
manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. And with what
execrations would the statesman be loaded, who permitting one half the
citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms them
into despots, and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one
part, and the amor patriae of the other. For if a slave can have a
country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that in
which he is born to live and labour for another; in which he must lock
up the faculties of his nature, contribute as far as depends on his
individual endeavours to the evanishment of the human race, or entail
his own miserable condition on the endless generations proceeding from
him. With the morals of the people, their industry also, is destroyed.
For in a warm climate, no man will labour for himself who can make
another labour for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of
slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labour. And can
the liberties of a nation be ever thought secure when we have removed
their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people, that
these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated
but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that
God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever: that considering
numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of
fortune, an exchange of situation is among possible events: that it may
become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no
attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.--But it is
impossible to be temperate and to pursue this subject through the
various considerations of policy, of morals, of history, natural and
civil. We must be contented to hope they will force their way into every
one's mind. I think a change already perceptible, since the origin of
the present revolution. The spirit of the master is abating, that of the
slave rising from the dust; his condition mollifying; the way I hope
preparing, under the auspices of Heaven, for a total emancipation, and
that this is disposed in the order of events, to be with the consent of
their masters, rather than by their extirpation. Notes on Virginia,
298.]
[Footnote 22: What is here advanced is not to be understood as implying
an opinion that the labour of slaves is more productive than that of
freemen.--The author of the Treatise on the Wealth of Nations, informs
us, "That it appears from the experience of all ages and nations, that
the work done by freemen comes cheaper in the end than that done by
slaves. That it is found to do so, even in Boston, New-York and
Philadelphia, where the wages of common labour are very high." Vol. 1.
pa. 123. Lond. edit. oct. Admitting this conclusion, it would not remove
the objection that emancipated slaves would not willingly labour.]
[Footnote 23: Doctor Franklin, it is said, drew the bill for the gradual
abolition of slavery in Pennsylvania.]
[Footnote 24: It is probable that similar laws have been passed in some
other states; but I have not been able to procure a note of them.]
[Footnote 25: The object of the amendment proposed to be offered to the
legislature, was to emancipate all slaves born after a certain period;
and further directing that they should continue with their parents to a
certain age, then be brought up, at the public expence, to tillage,
arts, or sciences, according to their geniuses, till the females should
be eighteen, and the males twenty-one years of age, when they should be
colonized to such a place as the circumstances of the time should render
most proper; sending them out with arms, implements of household and of
the handicraft arts, seeds, pairs of the useful domestic animals, &c. to
declare them a free and independent people, and extend to them our
alliance and protection, till they shall have acquired strength; and to
send vessels at the same time to other parts of the world for an equal
number of white inhabitants; to induce whom to migrate hither, proper
encouragements should be proposed. Notes on Virginia, 251.]
[Footnote 26: It will probably be asked, why not retain the blacks among
us and _incorporate them into the state_? Deep-rooted prejudices
entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections by the blacks, of
the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the _real
distinctions_ which _nature_ has made; and many other circumstances will
divide us into parties and produce convulsions, which will probably
never end but in the extermination of one or the other race. To these
objections which are political may be added others which are physical
and moral. The first difference which strikes us is that of colour.--&c.
The circumstance of superior beauty is thought worthy attention in the
propagation of our horses, dogs, and other domestic animals; Why not in
that of man? &c. In general their existence appears to participate more
of sensation than reflection. Comparing them by their faculties of
memory, reason and imagination, it appears to me that in memory they are
equal to the whites; in reason much inferior; that in imagination they
are dull, tasteless and anamolous. &c. The improvement of the blacks in
body and mind, in the first instance of their mixture with the whites,
has been observed by every one, and proves that their inferiority is not
the effect merely of their condition of life. We know that among the
Romans, about the Augustan age, especially, the condition of their
slaves was much more deplorable, than that of the blacks on the
continent of America. Yet among the Romans their slaves were often their
rarest artists. They excelled too in science, insomuch as to be usually
employed as tutors to their masters' children. Epictetus, Terence, and
Phoedrus were slaves. But they were of the race of whites. It is not
their condition then, but nature, which has produced the distinction.
The opinion that they are inferior in the faculties of reason and
imagination, must be hazarded with great diffidence. To justify a
general conclusion requires many observations. &c.--I advance it
therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a
distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior
to the whites both in the endowments of body and mind. &c. This
unfortunate difference of colour, and perhaps of faculty, is a powerful
obstacle to the emancipation of these people. Among the Romans
emancipation required but one effort. The slave, when made free, might
mix with, without staining, the blood of his master. But with us a
second is necessary, unknown to history.--See the passage at length,
Notes on Virginia, page 252 to 265.
"In the present case, it is not only the slave who is beneath his
master, it is the Negroe who is beneath the white man. No act of
enfranchisement can efface this unfortunate distinction." Chatelleux's
Travels in America.]
[Footnote 27: The celebrated David Hume, in his Essay on National
Character, advances the same opinion; Doctor Beattie, in his Essay on
Truth, controverts it with many powerful arguments. Early prejudices,
had we more satisfactory information than we can possibly possess on the
subject at present, would render an inhabitant of a country where Negroe
slavery prevails, an improper umpire between them.]
The plan therefore which I would presume to propose for the
consideration of my countrymen is such, as the number of slaves, the
difference of their nature, and habits, and the state of agriculture,
among us, might render it _expedient_, rather than _desirable_ to adopt:
and would partake partly of that proposed by Mr. Jefferson, and adopted
in other states; and partly of such cautionary restrictions, as a due
regard to situation and circumstances, and even to _general_ prejudices,
might recommend to those, who engage in so arduous, and perhaps
unprecedented an undertaking.
1. Let every female born after the adoption of the plan be free, and
transmit freedom to all her descendants, both male and female.
2. As a compensation to those persons, in whose families such females,
or their descendants may be born, for the expence and trouble of their
maintenance during infancy, let them serve such persons until the age of
twenty-eight years: let them then receive twenty dollars in money, two
suits of clothes, suited to the season, a hat, a pair of shoes, and two
blankets. If these things be not voluntarily done, let the county courts
enforce the performance, upon complaint.
3. Let all Negroe children be registered with the clerk of the county or
corporation court, where born, within one month after their birth: let
the person in whose family they are born take a copy of the register,
and deliver it to the mother, or if she die to the child, before it is
of the age of twenty-one years. Let any Negroe claiming to be free, and
above the age of puberty, be considered as of the age of twenty-eight
years, if he or she be not registered, as required.
4. Let all such Negroe servants be put on the same footing as white
servants and apprentices now are, in respect to food, raiment,
correction, and the assignment of their service from one to another.
5. Let the children of Negroes and mulattoes, born in the families of
their parents, be bound to service by the overseers of the poor, until
they shall attain the age of twenty-one years.--Let all above that age,
who are not housekeepers, nor have voluntarily bound themselves to
service for a year before the first day of February annually, be then
bound for the remainder of the year by the overseers of the poor. Let
the overseers of the poor receive fifteen per cent. of their wages, from
the person hiring them, as a compensation for their trouble, and ten per
cent. per annum out of the wages of such as they may bind apprentices.
6. If at the age of twenty-seven years, the master of a Negroe or
mulattoe servant be unwilling to pay his freedom dues, above mentioned,
at the expiration of the succeeding year, let him bring him into the
county court, clad and furnished with necessaries as before directed,
and pay into court five dollars, for the use of the servant, and
thereupon let the court direct him to be hired by the overseers of the
poor for the succeeding year, in the manner before directed.
7. Let no Negroe or mulattoe be capable of taking, holding, or
exercising, any public office, freehold, franchise or privilege, or any
estate in lands or tenements, other than a lease not exceeding
twenty-one years.--Nor of keeping, or bearing arms,[28] unless
authorised so to do by some act of the general assembly, whose duration
shall be limitted to three years. Nor of contracting matrimony with any
other than a Negroe or mulattoe; nor be an attorney; nor be a juror; nor
a witness in any court of judicature, except against; or between Negroes
and mulattoes. Nor be an executor or administrator; nor capable of
making any will or testament; nor maintain any real action; nor be a
trustee of lands or tenements himself, nor any other person to be a
trustee to him or to his use.
8. Let all persons born after the passing of the act, be considered as
entitled to the same mode of trial in criminal cases, as free Negroes
and mulattoes are now entitled to.
[Footnote 28: See Spirit of Laws, 12-15.----1. Black Com. 417.]
The restrictions in this place may appear to favour strongly of
prejudice: whoever proposes any plan for the abolition of slavery, will
find that he must either encounter, or accommodate himself to
prejudice.--I have preferred the latter; not that I pretend to be wholly
exempt from it, but that I might avoid as many obstacles as possible to
the completion of so desirable a work, as the abolition of slavery.
Though I am opposed to the banishment of the Negroes, I wish not to
encourage their future residence among us. By denying them the most
valuable privileges which civil government affords, I wished to render
it their inclination and their interest to seek those privileges in some
other climate. There is an immense unsettled territory on this
continent[29] more congenial to their natural constitutions than ours,
where they may perhaps be received upon more favourable terms than we
can permit them to remain with us. Emigrating in small numbers, they
will be able to effect settlements more easily than in large numbers;
and without the expence or danger of numerous colonies. By releasing
them from the yoke of bondage, and enabling them to seek happiness
wherever they can hope to find it, we surely confer a benefit, which no
one can sufficiently appreciate, who has not tasted of the bitter curse
of compulsory servitude. By excluding them from offices, the seeds of
ambition would be buried too deep, ever to germinate: by disarming them,
we may calm our apprehensions of their resentments arising from past
sufferings; by incapacitating them from holding lands, we should add one
inducement more to emigration, and effectually remove the foundation of
ambition, and party-struggles. Their personal rights, and their
property, though limited, would whilst they remain among us be under the
protection of the laws; and their condition not at all inferior to that
of the _labouring_ poor in most other countries. Under such an
arrangement we might reasonably hope, that time would either remove from
us a race of men, whom we wish not to incorporate with us, or obliterate
those prejudices, which now form an obstacle to such incorporation.
[Footnote 29: The immense territory of Louisiana, which extends as far
south as the lat. 25 deg. and the two Floridas, would probably afford a
ready asylum for such as might choose to become Spanish subjects. How
far their political rights might be enlarged in these countries, is,
however questionable: but the climate is undoubtedly more favourable to
the African constitution than ours, and from this cause, it is not
improbable that emigrations from these states would in time be very
considerable.]