But how is it that the existence of slavery, as with us, will retard the

evils of civilization? Very obviously. It is the intense competition of

civilized life, that gives rise to the excessive cheapness of labor, and

the excessive cheapness of labor is the cause of the evils in question.

Slave labor can never be so cheap as what is called free labor.

Political economists have established as the natural standard of wages

in a fully peopled country, the value of the laborer's existence. I

shall not stop to inquire into the precise truth of this proposition. It

certainly approximates the truth. Where competition is intense, men will

labor for a bare subsistence, and less than a competent subsistence. The

employer of free laborers obtains their services during the time of

their health and vigor, without the charge of rearing them from infancy,

or supporting them in sickness or old age. This charge is imposed on the

employer of slave labor, who, therefore, pays higher wages, and cuts off

the principal source of misery--the wants and sufferings of infancy,

sickness, and old age. Laborers too will be less skillful, and perform

less work--enhancing the price of that sort of labor. The poor laws of

England are an attempt--but an awkward and empirical attempt--to supply

the place of that which we should suppose the feelings of every human

heart would declare to be a natural obligation--that he who has received

the benefit of the laborer's services during his health and vigor,

should maintain him when he becomes unable to provide for his own

support. They answer their purpose, however, very imperfectly, and are

unjustly and unequally imposed. There is no attempt to apportion the

burden according to the benefit received--and perhaps there could be

none. This is one of the evils of their condition.

In periods of commercial revulsion and distress, like the present, the

distress, in countries of free labor, falls principally on the laborers.

In those of slave labor, it falls almost exclusively on the employer. In

the former, when a business becomes unprofitable, the employer dismisses

his laborers or lowers their wages. But with us, it is the very period

at which we are least able to dismiss our laborers; and if we would not

suffer a further loss, we can not reduce their wages. To receive the

benefit of the services of which they are capable, we must provide for

maintaining their health and vigor. In point of fact, we know that this

is accounted among the necessary expenses of management. If the income

of every planter of the Southern States were permanently reduced

one-half, or even much more than that, it would not take one jot from

the support and comforts of the slaves. And this can never be materially

altered, until they shall become so unprofitable that slavery must be of

necessity abandoned. It is probable that the accumulation of individual

wealth will never be carried to quite so great an extent in a

slaveholding country, as in one of free labor; but a consequence will

be, that there will be less inequality and less suffering.

_Servitude_ is the condition of civilization. It was decreed, when the

command was given, "be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth,

and subdue it," and when it was added, "in the sweat of thy face shalt

thou eat bread." And what human being shall arrogate to himself the

authority to pronounce that our form of it is worse in itself, or more

displeasing to God, than that which exists elsewhere? Shall it be said

that the servitude of other countries grows out of the exigency of their

circumstances, and therefore society is not responsible for it? But if

we know that in the progress of things it is to come, would it not seem

the part of wisdom and foresight, to make provision for it, and thereby,

if we can, mitigate the severity of its evils? But the fact is not so.

Let any one who doubts, read the book to which I have several times

referred, and he may be satisfied that it was forced upon us by the

extremest exigency of circumstances, in a struggle for very existence.

Without it, it is doubtful whether a white man would be now existing on

this continent--certain, that if there were, they would be in a state of

the utmost destitution, weakness, and misery. It was forced on us by

necessity, and further fastened upon us by the superior authority of the

mother country. I, for one, neither deprecate nor resent the gift. Nor

did we institute slavery. The Africans brought to us had been, speaking

in the general, slaves in their own country, and only underwent a change

of masters. In the countries of Europe, and the States of our

Confederacy, in which slavery has ceased to exist, it was abolished by

positive legislation. If the order of nature has been departed from, and

a forced and artificial state of things introduced, it has been, as the

experience of all the world declares, by them and not by us.

That there are great evils in a society where slavery exists, and that

the institution is liable to great abuse, I have already said. To say

otherwise, would be to say that they were not human. But the whole of

human life is a system of evils and compensations. We have no reason to

believe that the compensations with us are fewer, or smaller in

proportion to the evils, than those of any other condition of society.

Tell me of an evil or abuse; of an instance of cruelty, oppression,

licentiousness, crime or suffering, and I will point out, and often in

five fold degree, an equivalent evil or abuse in countries where slavery

does not exist.

Let us examine without blenching, the actual and alleged evils of

slavery, and the array of horrors which many suppose to be its universal

concomitants. It is said that the slave is out of the protection of the

law; that if the law purports to protect him in life and limb, it is but

imperfectly executed; that he is still subject to excessive labor,

degrading blows, or any other sort of torture, which a master pampered

and brutalized by the exercise of arbitrary power, may think proper to

inflict; he is cut off from the opportunity of intellectual, moral, or

religious improvement, and even positive enactments are directed against

his acquiring the rudiments of knowledge; he is cut off forever from the

hope of raising his condition in society, whatever may be his merit,

talents, or virtues, and therefore deprived of the strongest incentive

to useful and praiseworthy exertion; his physical degradation begets a

corresponding moral degradation: he is without moral principle, and

addicted to the lowest vices, particularly theft and falsehood; if

marriage be not disallowed, it is little better than a state of

concubinage, from which results general licentiousness, and the want of

chastity among females--this indeed is not protected by law, but is

subject to the outrages of brutal lust; both sexes are liable to have

their dearest affections violated; to be sold like brutes; husbands to

be torn from wives, children from parents;--this is the picture commonly

presented by the denouncers of slavery.

It is a somewhat singular fact that when there existed in our State no

law for punishing the murder of a slave, other than a pecuniary fine,

there were, I will venture to say, at least ten murders of freemen, for

one murder of a slave. Yet it is supposed they are all less protected,

or less secure than their masters. Why they are protected by their very

situation in society, and therefore less need the protection of law.

With any other person than their master, it is hardly possible for them

to come into such sort of collision as usually gives rise to furious and

revengeful passions; they offer no temptation to the murderer for gain;

against the master himself, they have the security of his own interest,

and by his superintendence and authority, they are protected from the

revengeful passions of each other. I am by no means sure that the cause

of humanity has been served by the change in jurisprudence, which has

placed their murder on the same footing with that of a freeman. The

change was made in subserviency to the opinions and clamor of others who

were utterly incompetent to form an opinion on the subject; and a wise

act is seldom the result of legislation in this spirit. From the fact

which I have stated, it is plain that they less need protection. Juries

are, therefore, less willing to convict, and it may sometimes happen

that the guilty will escape all punishment. _Security_ is one of the

compensations of their humble position. We challenge the comparison,

that with us there have been fewer murders of slaves, than of parents,

children, apprentices, and other murders, cruel and unnatural, in

society where slavery does not exist.

But short of life or limb, various cruelties may be practiced as the

passions of the master may dictate. To this the same reply has been

often given--that they are secured by the master's interest. If the

state of slavey is to exist at all, the master must have, and ought to

have, such power of punishment as will compel them to perform the duties

of their station. And is not this for their advantage as well as his? No

human being can be contented, who does not perform the duties of his

station. Has the master any temptation to go beyond this? If he inflicts

on him such punishment as will permanently impair his strength, he

inflicts a loss on himself, and so if he requires of him excessive

labor. Compare the labor required of the slave, with those of the free

agricultural or manufacturing laborer in Europe, or even in the more

thickly peopled portions of the non-slaveholding States of our

Confederacy--though these last are no fair subjects of comparison--they

enjoying, as I have said, in a great degree, the advantages of slavery

along with those of an early and simple state of society. Read the

English Parliamentary reports, on the condition of the manufacturing

operatives, and the children employed in factories. And such is the

impotence of man to remedy the evils which the condition of his

existence has imposed on him, that it is much to be doubted whether the

attempts by legislation to improve their situation, will not aggravate

its evils. They resort to this excessive labor as a choice of evils. If

so, the amount of their compensation will be lessened also with the

diminished labor; for this is a matter which legislation can not

regulate. Is it the part of benevolence then to cut them off even from

this miserable liberty of choice? Yet would these evils exist in the

same degree, if the laborers were the _property_ of the master--having a

direct interest in preserving their lives, their health and strength?

Who but a driveling fanatic has thought of the necessity of protecting

domestic animals from the cruelty of their owners? And yet are not great

and wanton cruelties practiced on these animals? Compare the whole of

the cruelties inflicted on slaves throughout our Southern country, with

those elsewhere, inflicted by ignorant and depraved portions of the

community, on those whom the relations of society put into their

power--of brutal husbands on their wives; of brutal parents--subdued

against the strongest instincts of nature to that brutality by the

extremity of their misery--on their children; of brutal masters on

apprentices. And if it should be asked, are not similar cruelties

inflicted, and miseries endured, in your society? I answer, in no

comparable degree. The class in question are placed under the control of

others, who are interested to restrain their excesses of cruelty or

rage. Wives are protected from their husbands, and children from their

parents. And this is no inconsiderable compensation of the evils of our

system; and would so appear, if we could form any conception of the

immense amount of misery which is elsewhere thus inflicted. The other

class of society, more elevated in their position, are also (speaking of

course in the general) more elevated in character, and more responsible

to public opinion.

But besides the interest of their master, there is another security

against cruelty. The relation of master and slave, when there is no

mischievous interference between them, is, as the experience of all the

world declares, naturally one of kindness. As to the fact, we should be

held interested witnesses, but we appeal to universal nature. Is it not

natural that a man should be attached to that which is _his own_, and

which has contributed to his convenience, his enjoyment, or his vanity?

This is felt even toward animals and inanimate objects. How much more

toward a being of superior intelligence and usefulness, who can

appreciate our feelings towards him, and return them? Is it not natural

that we should be interested in that which is dependent on us for

protection and support? Do not men everywhere contract kind feelings

toward their dependents? Is it not natural that men should be more

attached to those whom they have long known,--whom, perhaps, they have

reared or been associated with from infancy--than to one with whom their

connection has been casual and temporary? What is there in our

atmosphere or institutions, to produce a perversion of the general

feelings of nature? To be sure, in this as in all other relations, there

is frequent cause of offense or excitement--on one side, for some

omission of duty, on the other, on account of reproof or punishment

inflicted. But this is common to the relation of parent and child; and I

will venture to say, that if punishment be justly inflicted--and there

is no temptation to inflict it unjustly--it is as little likely to

occasion permanent estrangement or resentment as in that case. Slaves

are perpetual children. It is not the common nature of man, unless it be

depraved by his own misery, to delight in witnessing pain. It is more

grateful to behold contented and cheerful beings, than sullen and

wretched ones. That men are sometimes wayward, depraved and brutal, we

know. That atrocious and brutal cruelties have been perpetrated on

slaves, and on those who were not slaves, by such wretches, we also

know. But that the institution of slavery has a natural tendency to form

such a character, that such crimes are more common, or more aggravated

than in other states of society, or produce among us less surprise and

horror, we utterly deny, and challenge the comparison. Indeed, I have

little hesitation in saying, that if full evidence could be obtained,

the comparison would result in our favor, and that the tendency of

slavery is rather to humanize than to brutalize.

The accounts of travelers in oriental countries, give a very favorable

representation of the kindly relations which exist between the master

and slave; the latter being often the friend, and sometimes the heir of

the former. Generally, however, especially if they be English

travelers--if they say any thing which may seem to give a favorable

complexion to slavery, they think it necessary to enter their protest,

that they shall not be taken to give any sanction to slavery as it

exists in America. Yet human nature is the same in all countries. There

are very obvious reasons why in those countries there should be a nearer

approach to equality in their manners. The master and slave are often of

cognate races, and therefore tend more to assimilate. There is, in fact,

less inequality in mind and character, where the master is but

imperfectly civilized. Less labor is exacted, because the master has

fewer motives to accumulate. But is it an injury to a human being, that

regular, if not excessive labor, should be required of him? The primeval

curse, with the usual benignity of providential contrivance, has been

turned into the solace of an existence that would be much more

intolerable without it. If they labor less, they are much more subject

to the outrages of capricious passions. If it were put to the choice of

any human being, would he prefer to be the slave of a civilized man, or

of a barbarian or semi-barbarian? But if the general tendency of the

institution in those countries is to create kindly relations, can it be

imagined why it should operate differently in this? It is true, as

suggested by President Dew--with the exception of the ties of close

consanguinity, it forms one of the most intimate relations of society.

And it will be more and more so, the longer it continues to exist. The

harshest features of slavery were created by those who were strangers to

slavery--who supposed that it consisted in keeping savages in subjection

by violence and terror. The severest laws to be found on our statute

book, were enacted by such, and such are still found to be the severest

masters. As society becomes settled, and the wandering habits of our

countrymen altered, there will be a larger and larger proportion of

those who were reared by the owner, or derived to him from his

ancestors, and who therefore will be more and more intimately regarded,

as forming a portion of his family.

It is true that the slave is driven to labor by stripes; and if the

object of punishment be to produce obedience or reformation, with the

least permanent injury, it is the best method of punishment. But is it

not intolerable, that a being formed in the image of his Maker, should

be degraded by _blows_? This is one of the perversions of mind and

feeling, to which I shall have occasion again to refer. Such punishment

would be degrading to a freeman, who had the thoughts and aspirations of

a freeman. In general, it is not degrading to a slave, nor is it felt

to be so. The evil is the bodily pain. Is it degrading to a child? Or if

in any particular instance it would be so felt, it is sure not to be

inflicted--unless in those rare cases which constitute the startling and

eccentric evils, from which no society is exempt, and against which no

institution of society can provide.

_The slave is cut off from the means of intellectual, moral, and

religious improvement, and in consequence his moral character becomes

depraved, and he addicted to degrading vices._ The slave receives such

instruction as qualifies him to discharge the duties of his particular

station. The Creator did not intend that every individual human being

should be highly cultivated, morally and intellectually, for, as we have

seen, he has imposed conditions on society which would render this

impossible. There must be general mediocrity, or the highest cultivation

must exist along with ignorance, vice, and degradation. But is there in

the aggregate of society, less opportunity for intellectual and moral

cultivation, on account of the existence of slavery? We must estimate

institutions from their aggregate of good or evil. I refer to the views

which I have before expressed to this society. It is by the existence of

slavery, exempting so large a portion of our citizens from the necessity

of bodily labor, that we have a greater proportion than any other

people, who have leisure for intellectual pursuits, and the means of

attaining a liberal education. If we throw away this opportunity, we

shall be morally responsible for the neglect or abuse of our advantages,

and shall most unquestionably pay the penalty. But the blame will rest

on ourselves, and not on the character of our institutions.

I add further, notwithstanding that _equality_ seems to be the passion

of the day, if, as Providence has evidently decreed, there can be but a

certain portion of intellectual excellence in any community, it is

better that it should be _unequally_ divided. It is better that a part

should be fully and highly cultivated, and the rest utterly ignorant. To

constitute a society, a variety of offices must be discharged, from

those requiring but the lowest degree of intellectual power, to those

requiring the very highest, and it should seem that the endowments ought

to be apportioned according to the exigencies of the situation. In the

course of human affairs, there arise difficulties which can only be

comprehended or surmounted by the strongest native power of intellect,

strengthened by the most assiduous exercise, and enriched with the most

extended knowledge--and even these are sometimes found inadequate to the

exigency. The first want of society is--leaders. Who shall estimate the

value to Athens, of Solon, Aristides, Themistocles, Cymon, or Pericles?

If society have not leaders qualified, as I have said, they will have

those who will lead them blindly to their loss and ruin. Men of no great

native power of intellect, and of imperfect and superficial knowledge,

are the most mischievous of all--none are so busy, meddling, confident,

presumptuous, and intolerant. The whole of society receives the benefit

of the exertions of a mind of extraordinary endowments. Of all

communities, one of the least desirable, would be that in which

imperfect, superficial, half-education should be universal. The first

care of a State which regards its own safety, prosperity, and honor,

should be, that when minds of extraordinary power appear, to whatever

department of knowledge, art or science, their exertions may be

directed, the means should be provided for their most consummate

cultivation. Next to this, that education should be as widely extended

as possible.

Odium has been cast upon our legislation, on account of its forbidding

the elements of education to be communicated to slaves. But, in truth,

what injury is done to them by this? He who works during the day with

his hands, does not read in intervals of leisure for his amusement, or

the improvement of his mind--or the exceptions are so very rare, as

scarcely to need the being provided for. Of the many slaves whom I have

known capable of reading, I have never known one to read any thing but

the Bible, and this task they impose on themselves as matter of duty. Of

all methods of religious instruction, however, this, of reading for

themselves, would be the most inefficient--their comprehension is

defective, and the employment is to them an unusual and laborious one.

There are but very few who do not enjoy other means more effectual for

religious instruction. There is no place of worship opened for the white

population, from which they are excluded. I believe it a mistake, to say

that the instructions there given are not adapted to their

comprehension, or calculated to improve them. If they are given as they

ought to be--practically, and without pretension, and are such as are

generally intelligible to the free part of the audience, comprehending

all grades of intellectual capacity,--they will not be unintelligible to

slaves. I doubt whether this be not better than instruction, addressed

specially to themselves--which they might look upon as a devise of the

master's, to make them more obedient and profitable to himself. Their

minds, generally, show a strong religious tendency, and they are fond of

assuming the office of religious instructors to each other; and perhaps

their religious notions are not much more extravagant than those of a

large portion of the free population of our country. I am not sure that

there is a much smaller proportion of them, than of the free population,

who make some sort of religious profession. It is certainly the master's

_interest_ that they should have proper religious sentiments, and if he

fails in his duty toward them, we may be sure that the consequences will

be visited not upon them, but upon him.

If there were any chance of their elevating their rank and condition in

society, it might be matter of hardship, that they should be debarred

those rudiments of knowledge which open the way to further attainments.

But this they know can not be, and that further attainments would be

useless to them. Of the evil of this, I shall speak hereafter. A

knowledge of reading, writing, and the elements of arithmetic, is

convenient and important to the free laborer, who is the transactor of

his own affairs, and the guardian of his own interests--but of what use

would they be to the slave? These alone do not elevate the mind or

character, if such elevation were desirable.

If we estimate their morals according to that which should be the

standard of a free man's morality, then I grant they are degraded in

morals--though by no means to the extent which those who are

unacquainted with the institution seem to suppose. We justly suppose,

that the Creator will require of man the performance of the duties of

the station in which his providence has placed him, and the cultivation

of the virtues which are adapted to their performance; that he will make

allowance for all imperfection of knowledge, and the absence of the

usual helps and motives which lead to self-correction and improvement.

The degradation of morals relate principally to loose notions of

honesty, leading to petty thefts; to falsehood and to licentious

intercourse between the sexes. Though with respect even to these, I

protest against the opinion which seems to be elsewhere entertained,

that they are universal, or that slaves, in respect to them, might not

well bear a comparison with the lowest laborious class of other

countries. But certainly there is much dishonesty leading to petty

thefts. It leads, however, to nothing else. They have no contracts or

dealings which might be a temptation to fraud, nor do I know that their

characters have any tendency that way. They are restrained by the

constant, vigilant, and interested superintendence which is exercised

over them, from the commission of offenses of greater magnitude--even if

they were disposed to them--which I am satisfied they are not. Nothing

is so rarely heard of, as an atrocious crime committed by a slave;

especially since they have worn off the savage character which their

progenitors brought with them from Africa. Their offenses are confined

to petty depredations, principally for the gratification of their

appetites, and these for reasons already given, are chiefly confined to

the property of their owner, which is most exposed to them. They could

make no use of a considerable booty, if they should obtain it. It is

plain that this is a less evil to society in its consequences and

example, than if committed by a freeman, who is master of his own time

and actions. With reference to society then, the offense is less in

itself--and may we not hope that it is less in the sight of God? A slave

has no hope that by a course of integrity, he can materially elevate his

condition in society, nor can his offense materially depress it, or

affect his means of support, or that of his family. Compared to the

freeman, he has no character to establish or to lose. He has not been

exercised to self-government, and being without intellectual resources,

can less resist the solicitations of appetite. Theft in a freeman is a

crime; in a slave, it is a vice. I recollect to have heard it said, in

reference to some question of a slave's theft which was agitated in a

Court, "Courts of Justice have no more to do with a slave's stealing,

than with his lying--that is a matter for the domestic forum." It was

truly said--the theft of a slave is no offense against society. Compare

all the evils resulting from this, with the enormous amount of vice,

crime, and depravity, which in an European, or one of our Northern

cities, disgusts the moral feelings, and render life and property

insecure. So with respect to his falsehood. I have never heard or

observed, that slaves have any peculiar proclivity to falsehood, unless

it be in denying or concealing their own offenses, or those of their

fellows. I have never heard of falsehood told by a slave for a

malicious purpose. Lies of vanity are sometimes told, as among the weak

and ignorant of other conditions. Falsehood is not attributed to an

individual charged with an offense before a Court of Justice, who pleads

_not guilty_--and certainly the strong temptation to escape punishment,

in the highest degree extenuates, if it does not excuse, falsehood told

by a _slave_. If the object be to screen a a fellow slave, the act bears

some semblance of fidelity, and perhaps truth could not be told without

breach of confidence. I know not how to characterize the falsehood of a

slave.

It has often been said by the denouncers of slavery, that marriage does

not exist among slaves. It is difficult to understand this, unless

willful falsehood were intended. We know that marriages are contracted;

may be, and often are, solemnized with the forms usual among other

classes of society, and often faithfully adhered to during life. The law

has not provided for making those marriages indissoluble, nor could it

do so. If a man abandons his wife, being without property, and being

both property themselves, he cannot be required to maintain her. If he

abandons his wife, and lives in a state of concubinage with another, the

law cannot punish him for bigamy. It may perhaps be meant that the

chastity of wives is not protected by law from the outrages of violence.

I answer, as with respect to their lives, that they are protected by

manners, and their position. Who ever heard of such outrages being

offered? At least as seldom, I will venture to say, as in other

communities of different forms of polity. One reason doubtless may be,

that often there is no disposition to resist. Another reason also may

be, that there is little temptation to such violence, as there is so

large a proportion of this class of females who set little value on

chastity, and afford easy gratification to the hot passions of men. It

might be supposed, from the representations of some writers, that a

slaveholding country was one wide stew for the indulgence of unbridled

lust. Particular instances of intemperate and shameless debauchery are

related, which may perhaps be true, and it is left to be inferred that

this is the universal state of manners. Brutes and shameless debauchees

there are in every country; we know that if such things are related as

general or characteristic, the representation is false. Who would argue

from the existence of a Col. Chartres in England, or of some individuals

who might, perhaps, be named in other portions of this country, of the

horrid dissoluteness of manners occasioned by the want of the

institution of slavery? Yet the argument might be urged quite as fairly,

and really it seems to me with a little more justice--for there such

depravity is attended with much more pernicious consequences. Yet let us

not deny or extenuate the truth. It is true that in this respect the

morals of this class are very loose, (by no means so universally so as

is often supposed,) and that the passions of men of the superior caste,

tempt and find gratification in the easy chastity of the females. This

is evil, and to be remedied, if we can do so, without the introduction

of greater evil. But evil is incident to every condition of society, and

as I have said, we have only to consider in which institution it most

predominates.

Compare these prostitutes of our country, (if it is not injustice to

call them so,) and their condition with those of other countries--the

seventy thousand prostitutes of London, or of Paris, or the ten thousand

of New York, or our other Northern cities. Take the picture given of the

first from the author whom I have before quoted. "The laws and customs

of England conspire to sink this class of English women into a state of

vice and misery below that which necessarily belongs to their condition.

Hence their extreme degradation, their troopers' oaths, their love of

gin, their desperate recklessness, and the shortness of their miserable

lives.

"English women of this class, or rather girls, for few of them live to

be women, die like sheep with the rot; so fast that soon there would be

none left, if a fresh supply were not obtained equal to the number of

deaths. But a fresh supply is always obtained without the least trouble;

seduction easily keeps pace with prostitution or mortality. Those that

die are, like factory children that die, instantly succeeded by new

competitors for misery and death." There is no hour of a summer's or a

winter's night, in which there may not be found in the streets a ghastly

wretch, expiring under the double tortures of disease and famine. Though

less aggravated in its features, the picture of prostitution in New York

or Philadelphia would be of like character.

In such communities, the unmarried woman who becomes a mother, is an

outcast from society--and though sentimentalists lament the hardship of

the case, it is justly and necessarily so. She is cut off from the hope

of useful and profitable employment, and driven by necessity to further

vice. Her misery, and the hopelessness of retrieving, render her

desperate, until she sinks into every depth of depravity, and is

prepared for every crime that can contaminate and infest society. She

has given birth to a human being, who, if it be so unfortunate as to

survive its miserable infancy, is commonly educated to a like course of

vice, depravity, and crime.

Compare with this the female slave under similar circumstances. She is

not a less useful member of society than before. If shame be attached to

her conduct, it is such shame as would be elsewhere felt for a venial

impropriety. She has not impaired her means of support, nor materially

impaired her character, or lowered her station in society; she has done

no great injury to herself, or any other human being. Her offspring is

not a burden but an acquisition to her owner; his support is provided

for, and he is brought up to usefulness; if the fruit of intercourse

with a freeman, his condition is, perhaps, raised somewhat above that of

his mother. Under these circumstances, with imperfect knowledge, tempted

by the strongest of human passions--unrestrained by the motives which

operate to restrain, but are so often found insufficient to restrain the

conduct of females elsewhere, can it be matter of surprise that she

should so often yield to the temptation? Is not the evil less in itself,

and in reference to society--much less in the sight of God and man? As

was said of theft--the want of chastity, which among females of other

countries is sometimes vice, sometimes crime--among the free of our own,

much more aggravated; among slaves, hardly deserves a harsher term than

that of weakness. I have heard of complaint made by a free prostitute,

of the greater countenance and indulgence shown by society toward

colored persons of her profession, (always regarded as of an inferior

and servile class, though individually free,) than to those of her own

complexion. The former readily obtain employment; are even admitted into

families, and treated with some degree of kindness and familiarity,

while any approach to intercourse with the latter is shunned as

contamination. The distinction is habitually made, and it is founded on

the unerring instinct of nature. The colored prostitute is, in fact, a

far less contaminated and depraved being. Still many, in spite of

temptation, do preserve a perfectly virtuous conduct, and I imagine it

hardly ever entered into the mind of one of these, that she was likely

to be forced from it by authority or violence.

It may be asked, if we have no prostitutes from the free class of

society among ourselves. I answer, in no assignable proportion. With

general truth, it might be said, that there are none. When such a case

occurs, it is among the rare evils of society. And apart from other and

better reasons, which we believe to exist, it is plain that it must be

so, from the comparative absence of temptation. Our brothels,

comparatively very few--and these should not be permitted to exist at

all--are filled, for the most part, by importations from the cities of

our confederate States, where slavery does not exist. In return for the

benefits which they receive from our slavery, along with tariffs,

libels, opinions, moral, religious, or political--they furnish us also

with a supply of thieves and prostitutes. Never, but in a single

instance, have I heard of an imputation on the general purity of

manners, among the free females of the slaveholding States. Such an

imputation, however, and made in coarse terms, we have never heard

here--_here_ where divorce was never known--where no court was ever

polluted by an action for criminal conversation with a wife--where it is

related rather as matter of tradition, not unmingled with wonder, that a

Carolinian woman of education and family, proved false to her conjugal

faith--an imputation deserving only of such reply as self-respect would

forbid us to give, if respect for the author of it did not. And can it

be doubted, that this purity is caused by, and is a compensation for the

evils resulting from the existence of an enslaved class of more relaxed

morals?

It is mostly the warm passions of youth, which give rise to licentious

intercourse. But I do not hesitate to say, that the intercourse which

takes place with enslaved females, is less depraving in its effects,

than when it is carried on with females of their own caste. In the first

place, as like attracts like, that which is unlike repels; and though

the strength of passion be sufficient to overcome the repulsion, still

the attraction is less. He feels that he is connecting himself with one

of an inferior and servile caste, and that there is something of

degradation in the act. The intercourse is generally casual; he does not

make her habitually an associate, and is less likely to receive any

taint from her habits and manners. He is less liable to those

extraordinary fascinations, with which worthless women sometimes

entangle their victims, to the utter destruction of all principle, worth

and vigor of character. The female of his own race offers greater

allurements. The haunts of vice often present a show of elegance, and

various luxury tempts the senses. They are made an habitual resort, and

their inmates associates, till the general character receives a taint

from the corrupted atmosphere. Not only the practice is licentious, but

the understanding is sophisticated; the moral feelings are bewildered,

and the boundaries of virtue and vice are confused. Where such

licentiousness very extensively prevails, society is rotten to the

heart.

But is it a small compensation for the evils attending the relation of

the sexes among the enslaved class, that they have universally the

opportunity of indulging in the first instinct of nature, by forming

matrimonial connections? What painful restraint--what constant effort to

struggle against the strongest impulses are habitually practiced

elsewhere, and by other classes? And they must be practiced, unless

greater evils would be encountered. On the one side, all the evils of

vice, with the miseries to which it leads--on the other, a marriage

cursed and made hateful by want--the sufferings of children, and

agonizing apprehensions concerning their future fate. Is it a small good

that the slave is free from all this? He knows that his own subsistance

is secure, and that his children will be in as good a condition as

himself. To a refined and intellectual nature, it may not be difficult

to practice the restraint of which I have spoken. But the reasoning from

such to the great mass of mankind, is most fallacious. To these, the

supply of their natural and physical wants, and the indulgence of the

natural domestic affections, must, for the most part, afford the

greatest good of which they are capable. To the evils which sometimes

attend their matrimonial connections, arising from their looser

morality, slaves, for obvious reasons, are comparatively insensible. I

am no apologist of vice, nor would I extenuate the conduct of the

profligate and unfeeling, who would violate the sanctity of even these

engagements, and occasion the pain which such violations no doubt do

often inflict. Yet such is the truth, and we can not make it otherwise.

We know that a woman's having been before a mother, is very seldom

indeed an objection to her being made a wife. I know perfectly well how

this will be regarded by a class of reasoners or declaimers, as imposing

a character of deeper horror on the whole system; but still, I will say,

that if they are to be exposed to the evil, it is mercy that the

sensibility to it should be blunted. Is it no compensation also for the

vices incident to slavery, that they are, to a great degree, secured

against the temptation to greater crimes, and more atrocious vices, and

the miseries which attend them; against their own disposition to

indolence, and the profligacy which is its common result?

But if they are subject to the vices, they have also the virtues of

slaves. Fidelity--often proof against all temptation--even death

itself--an eminently cheerful and social temper--what the Bible imposes

as a duty, but which might seem an equivocal virtue in the code of

modern morality--submission to constituted authority, and a disposition

to be attached to, as well as to respect those, whom they are taught to

regard as superiors. They may have all the knowledge which will make

them useful in the station in which God has been pleased to place them,

and may cultivate the virtues which will render them acceptable to him.

But what has the slave of any country to do with heroic virtues, liberal

knowledge, or elegant accomplishments? It is for the master; arising out

of his situation--imposed on him as duty--dangerous and disgraceful if

neglected--to compensate for this, by his own more assidious

cultivation, of the more generous virtues, and liberal attainments.

It has been supposed one of the great evils of slavery, that it affords

the slave no opportunity of raising himself to a higher rank in society,

and that he has, therefore, no inducement to meritorious exertion, or

the cultivation of his faculties. The indolence and carelessnes of the

slave, and the less productive quality of his neighbor, are traced to

the want of such excitement. The first compensation for this

disadvantage, is his security. If he can rise no higher, he is just in

the same degree secured against the chances of falling lower. It has

been sometimes made a question whether it were better for man to be

freed from the perturbations of hope and fear, or to be exposed to their

vicissitudes. But I suppose there could be little question with respect

to a situation, in which the fears must greatly predominate over the

hopes. And such, I apprehend, to be the condition of the laboring poor

in countries where slavery does not exist. If not exposed to present

suffering, there is continual apprehension for the future--for

themselves--for their children--of sickness and want, if not of actual

starvation. They expect to improve their circumstances! Would any person

of ordinary candor, say that there is one in a hundred of them, who

does not well know, that with all the exertion he can make, it is out of

his power materially to improve his circumstances? I speak not so much

of menial servants, who are generally of a superior class, as of

agricultural and manufacturing laborers. They labor with no such view.

It is the instinctive struggle to preserve existence, and when the

superior efficiency of their labor over that of our slaves is pointed

out, as being animated by a free man's hopes, might it not well be

replied--it is because they labor under a sterner compulsion. The laws

interpose no obstacles to their raising their condition in society. 'Tis

a great boon--but as to the great mass, they know that they never will

be able to raise it--and it should seem not very important in effect,

whether it be the interdict of law, or imposed by the circumstances of

the society. One in a thousand is successful. But does his success

compensate for the sufferings of the many who are tantalized, baffled,

and tortured in vain attempts to attain a like result? If the individual

be conscious of intellectual power, the suffering is greater. Even where

success is apparently attained, he sometimes gains it but to die--or

with all capacity to enjoy it exhausted--worn out in the struggle with

fortune. If it be true that the African is an inferior variety of the

human race, of less elevated character, and more limited intellect, is

it not desirable that the inferior laboring class should be made up of

such, who will conform to their condition without painful aspirations

and vain struggles?

The slave is certainly liable to be sold. But, perhaps, it may be

questioned, whether this is a greater evil than the liability of the

laborer, in fully peopled countries, to be dismissed by his employer,

with the uncertainty of being able to obtain employment, or the means of

subsistence elsewhere. With us, the employer can not dismiss his laborer

without providing him with another employer. His means of subsistence

are secure, and this is a compensation for much. He is also liable to be

separated from wife and child--though not more frequently, that I am

aware of, than the exigency of their condition compels the separation of

families among the labering poor elsewhere--but from native character

and temperament, the separation is much less severely felt. And it is

one of the compensations, that he may sustain these relations, without

suffering a still severer penalty for the indulgence.

The love of liberty is a noble passion--to have the free, uncontrolled

disposition of ourselves, our words and actions. But alas! it is one in

which we know that a large portion of the human race can never be

gratified. It is mockery, to say that the laborer any where has such

disposition of himself--though there may be an approach to it in some

peculiar, and those, perhaps, not the most desirable, states of society.

But unless he be properly disciplined and prepared for its enjoyment, it

is the most fatal boon that could be conferred--fatal to himself and

others. If slaves have less freedom of action than other laborers, which

I by no means admit, they are saved in a great degree from the

responsibility of self-government, and the evils springing from their

own perverse wills. Those who have looked most closely into life, and

know how great a portion of human misery is derived from these

sources--the undecided and wavering purpose--producing ineffectual

exertion, or indolence with its thousand attendant evils--the wayward

conduct--intemperance or profligacy--will most appreciate this benefit.

The line of a slave's duty is marked out with precision, and he has no

choice but to follow it. He is saved the double difficulty, first of

determining the proper course for himself, and then of summoning up the

energy which will sustain him in pursuing it.

If some superior power should impose on the laborious poor of any other

country--this as their unalterable condition--you shall be saved from

the torturing anxiety concerning your own future support, and that of

your children, which now pursues you through life, and haunts you in

death--you shall be under the necessity of regular and healthful, though

not excessive labor--in return, you shall have the ample supply of your

natural wants--you may follow the instinct of nature in becoming

parents, without apprehending that this supply will fail yourselves or

your children--you shall be supported and relieved in sickness, and in

old age, wear out the remains of existence among familiar scenes and

accustomed associates, without being driven to beg, or to resort to the

hard and miserable charity of a work-house--you shall of necessity be

temperate, and shall have neither the temptation nor opportunity to

commit great crimes, or practice the more destructive vices--how

inappreciable would the boon be thought! And is not this a very near

approach to the condition of our slaves? The evils of their situation

they but lightly feel, and would hardly feel at all, if they were not

seduously instructed into sensibility. Certain it is, that if their fate

were at the absolute disposal of a council of the most enlightened

philanthropists in Christendom, with unlimited resources, they could

place them in no situation so favorable to themselves, as that which

they at present occupy. But whatever good there may be, or whatever

mitigation of evil, it is worse than valueless, because it is the result

of _slavery_.

I am aware, that however often answered, it is likely to be repeated

again and again--how can that institution be tolerable, by which a large

class of society is cut off from the hope of improvement in knowledge;

to whom blows are not degrading; theft no more than a fault; falsehood

and the want of chastity almost venial, and in which a husband or parent

looks with comparative indifference, on that which, to a freeman, would

be the dishonor of a wife or child?

But why not, if it produces the greatest aggregate of good? Sin and

ignorance are only evils, because they lead to misery. It is not our

institution, but the institution of nature, that in the progress of

society a portion of it should be exposed to want, and the misery which

it brings, and therefore involved in ignorance, vice, and depravity. In

anticipating some of the good, we also anticipate a portion of the evil

of civilization. But we have it in a mitigated form. The want and the

misery are unknown; the ignorance is less a misfortune, because the

being is not the guardian of himself, and partly on account of that

involuntary ignorance, the vice is less vice--less hurtful to man, and

less displeasing to God.

There is something in this word _slavery_ which seems to partake of the

qualities of the insane root, and distempers the minds of men. That

which would be true in relation to one predicament, they misapply to

another, to which it has no application at all. Some of the virtues of a

freeman would be the vices of slaves. To submit to a blow, would be

degrading to a freeman, because he is the protector of himself. It is

not degrading to a slave--neither is it to a priest or woman. And is it

a misfortune that it should be so? The freeman of other countries is

compelled to submit to indignities hardly more endurable than

blows--indignities to make the sensitive feelings shrink, and the proud

heart swell; and this very name of freeman gives them double rancor. If

when a man is born in Europe, it were certainly foreseen that he was

destined to a life of painful labor--to obscurity, contempt, and

privation--would it not be mercy that he should be reared in ignorance

and apathy, and trained to the endurance of the evils he must encounter?

It is not certainly foreseen as to any individual, but it is foreseen as

to the great mass of those born of the laboring poor; and it is for the

mass, not for the exception, that the institutions of society are to

provide. Is it not better that the character and intellect of the

individual should be suited to the station which he is to occupy? Would

you do a benefit to the horse or the ox, by giving him a cultivated

understanding or fine feelings? So far as the mere laborer has the

pride, the knowledge, or the aspirations of a freeman, he is unfitted

for his situation, and must doubly feel its infelicity. If there are

sordid, servile, and laborious offices to be performed, is it not better

that there should be sordid, servile, and laborious beings to perform

them? If there were infallible marks by which individuals of inferior

intellect, and inferior character, could be selected at their

birth--would not the interests of society be served, and would not some

sort of fitness seem to require, that they should be selected for the

inferior and servile offices? And if this race be generally marked by

such inferiority, is it not fit that they should fill them?

I am well aware that those whose aspirations are after a state of

society from which evil shall be banished, and who look in life for that

which life will never afford, contemplate that all the offices of life

may be performed without contempt or degradation--all be regarded as

equally liberal, or equally respected.[238] But theorists cannot control

nature and bend her to their views, and the inequality of which I have

before spoken is deeply founded in nature. The offices which employ

knowledge and intellect, will always be regarded as more liberal than

those which require the labor of the hands. When there is competition

for employment, he who gives it bestows a favor, and it will be so

received. He will assume superiority from the power of dismissing his

laborers, and from fear of this, the latter will practice deference,

often amounting to servility. Such in time will become the established

relation between the employer and the employed, the rich and the poor.

If want be accompanied with sordidness and squalor, though it be

pitied, the pity will be mixed with some degree of contempt. If it lead

to misery, and misery to vice, there will be disgust and aversion.

What is the essential character of _slavery_, and in what does it differ

from the _servitude_ of other countries? If I should venture on a

definition, I should say that where a man is compelled to labor at the

will of another, and to give him much the greater portion of the product

of his labor, there _slavery_ exists; and it is immaterial by what sort

of compulsion the will of the laborer is subdued. It is what no human

being would do without some sort of compulsion. He can not be compelled

to labor by blows.[239] No--but what difference does it make, if you can

inflict any other sort of torture which will be equally effectual in

subduing the will? if you can starve him, or alarm him for the

subsistence of himself or his family?[240] And is it not under this

compulsion that the _freeman_ labors? I do not mean in every particular

case, but in the general. Will any one be hardy enough to say that he is

at his own disposal, or has the government of himself? True, he may

change his employer if he is dissatisfied with his conduct toward him;

but this is a privilege he would in the majority of cases gladly

abandon, and render the connection between them indissoluble. There is

far less of the interest and attachment in his relation to his employer,

which so often exists between the master and the slave, and mitigates

the condition of the latter. An intelligent English traveler has

characterized as the most miserable and degraded of all beings, "a

masterless slave." And is not the condition of the laboring poor of

other countries too often that of masterless slaves! Take the following

description of a _free_ laborer, no doubt highly colored, quoted by the

author to whom I have before referred.

"What is that defective being, with calfless legs and stooping

shoulders, weak in body and mind, inert, pusillanimous and stupid, whose

premature wrinkles and furtive glance, tell of misery and degradation?

That is an English peasant or pauper, for the words are synonymous. His

sire was a pauper, and his mother's milk wanted nourishment. From

infancy his food has been bad, as well as insufficient; and he now feels

the pains of unsatisfied hunger nearly whenever he is awake. But half

clothed, and never supplied with more warmth than suffices to cook his

scanty meals, cold and wet come to him, and stay by him with the

weather. He is married, of course; for to this he would have been driven

by the poor laws, even if he had been, as he never was, sufficiently

comfortable and prudent to dread the burden of a family. But though

instinct and the overseer have given him a wife, he has not tasted the

highest joys of husband and father. His partner and his little ones

being like himself, often hungry, seldom warm, sometimes sick without

aid, and always sorrowful without hope, are greedy, selfish, and vexing;

so, to use his own expression, he hates the sight of them, and resorts

to his hovel, only because a hedge affords less shelter from the wind

and rain. Compelled by parish law to support his family, which means to

join them in consuming an allowance from the parish, he frequently

conspires with his wife to get that allowance increased, or prevent its

being diminished. This brings beggary, trickery, and quarrelling, and

ends in settled craft. Though he have the inclination, he wants the

courage to become, like more energetic men of his class, a poacher or

smuggler on a large scale, but he pilfers occasionally, and teaches his

children to lie and steal. His subdued and slavish manner toward his

great neighbors, shows that they treat him with suspicion and harshness.

Consequently, he at once dreads and hates them; but he will never harm

them by violent means. Too degraded to be desperate, he is only

thoroughly depraved. His miserable career will be short; rheumatism and

asthma are conducting him to the work-house; where he will breathe his

last without one pleasant recollection, and so make room for another

wretch, who may live and die in the same way." And this description, or

some other not much less revolting, is applied to "the bulk of the

people, the great body of the people." Take the following description of

the condition of childhood, which has justly been called eloquent.[241]

"The children of the very poor have no young times; it makes the very

heart bleed, to overhear the casual street talk between a poor woman and

her little girl, a woman of the better sort of poor, in a condition

rather above the squalid beings we have been contemplating. It is not

of toys, of nursery books, of summer holidays, (fitting that age,) of

the promised sight or play; of praised sufficiency at school. It is of

mangling and clear starching; of price of coals, or of potatoes. The

questions of the child, that should be the very outpourings of curiosity

in idleness, are marked with forecast and melancholy providence. It has

come to be a woman, before it was a child. It has learnt to go to

market; it chaffers, it haggles, it envies, it murmurs; it is knowing,

acute, sharpened; it never prattles." Imagine such a description applied

to the children of negro slaves, the most vacant of human beings, whose

life is a holiday.

And this people, to whom these horrors are familiar, are those who fill

the world with clamor, concerning the injustice and cruelty of slavery.

I speak in no invidious spirit. Neither the laws nor the government of

England are to be reproached with the evils which are inseparable from

the state of their society--as little, undoubtedly, are we to be

reproached with the existence of our slavery. Including the whole of the

United States--and for reasons already given, the whole ought to be

included, as receiving in no unequal degree the benefit--may we not say

justly that we have less slavery, and more mitigated slavery, than any

other country in the civilized world?

That they are called free, undoubtedly aggravates the sufferings of the

slaves of other regions. They see the enormous inequality which exists,

and feel their own misery, and can hardly conceive otherwise, than that

there is some injustice in the institutions of society to occasion

these. They regard the apparently more fortunate class as oppressors,

and it adds bitterness that they should be of the same name and race.

They feel indignity more acutely, and more of discontent and evil

passion is excited; they feel that it is mockery that calls them free.

Men do not so much hate and envy those who are separated from them by a

wide distance, and some apparently impassable barrier, as those who

approach nearer to their own condition, and with whom they habitually

bring themselves into comparison. The slave with us is not tantalized

with the name of freedom, to which his whole condition gives the lie,

and would do so if he were emancipated to-morrow. The African slave sees

that nature herself has marked him as a separate--and if left to

himself, I have no doubt he would feel it to be an inferior--race, and

interposed a barrier almost insuperable to his becoming a member of the

same society, standing on the same footing of right and privilege with

his master.

That the African negro is an inferior variety of the human race, is, I

think, now generally admitted, and his distinguishing characteristics

are such as peculiarly mark him out for the situation which he occupies

among us. And these are no less marked in their original country, than

as we have daily occasion to observe them. The most remarkable is their

indifference to personal liberty. In this they have followed their

instincts since we have any knowledge of their continent, by enslaving

each other; but contrary to the experience of every race, the possession

of slaves has no material effect in raising the character, and promoting

the civilization of the master. Another trait is the want of domestic

affections, and insensibility to the ties of kindred. In the travels of

the Landers, after speaking of a single exception, in the person of a

woman who betrayed some transient emotion in passing by the country from

which she had been torn as a slave, the authors add: "that Africans,

generally speaking, betray the most perfect indifference on losing their

liberty, and being deprived of their relatives, while love of country is

equally a stranger to their breasts, as social tenderness or domestic

affection." "Marriage is celebrated by the natives as unconcernedly as

possible; a man thinks as little of taking a wife, as of cutting an ear

of corn--affection is altogether out of the question." They are,

however, very submissive to authority, and seem to entertain great

reverence for chiefs, priests, and masters. No greater indignity can be

offered an individual, than to throw opprobrium on his parents. On this

point of their character I think I have remarked, that, contrary to the

instinct of nature in other races, they entertain less regard for

children than for parents, to whose authority they have been accustomed

to submit. Their character is thus summed up by the travellers quoted:

"The few opportunities we have had of studying their characters, induce

us to believe that they are a simple, honest, inoffensive, but weak,

timid, and cowardly race. They seem to have no social tenderness, very

few of those amiable private virtues which could win our affections, and

none of those public qualities that claim respect or command admiration.

The love of country is not strong enough in their bosoms to incite them

to defend it against a despicable foe; and of the active energy, noble

sentiments, and contempt of danger which distinguishes the North

American tribes and other savages, no traces are to be found among this

slothful people. Regardless of the past, as reckless of the future, the

present alone influences their actions. In this respect, they approach

nearer to the nature of the brute creation, than perhaps any other

people on the face of the globe." Let me ask if this people do not

furnish the very material out of which slaves ought to be made, and

whether it be not an improving of their condition to make them the

slaves of civilized masters? There is a variety in the character of the

tribes. Some are brutally and savagely ferocious and bloody, whom it

would be mercy to enslave. From the travelers' account, it seems not

unlikely that the negro race is tending to extermination, being daily

encroached on and overrun by the superior Arab race. It may be, that

when they shall have been lost from their native seats, they may be

found numerous, and in no unhappy condition, on the continent to which

they have been transplanted.

The opinion which connects form and features with character and

intellectual power, is one so deeply impressed on the human mind, that

perhaps there is scarcely any man who does not almost daily act upon it,

and in some measure verify its truth. Yet in spite of this intimation of

nature, and though the anatomist and physiologist may tell them that the

races differ in every bone and muscle, and in the proportion of brain

and nerves, yet there are some who, with a most bigoted and fanatical

determination to free themselves from what they have prejudged to be

prejudice, will still maintain that this physiognomy, evidently tending

to that of the brute, when compared to that of the Caucasian race, may

be enlightened by as much thought, and animated by as lofty sentiment.

We who have the best opportunity of judging, are pronounced to be

incompetent to do so, and to be blinded by our interest and

prejudices--often by those who have no opportunity at all--and we are to

be taught to distrust or disbelieve that which we daily observe, and

familiarly know, on such authority. Our prejudices are spoken of. But

the truth is, that, until very lately, since circumstances have

compelled us to think for ourselves, we took our opinions on this

subject, as on every other, ready formed from the country of our origin.

And so deeply rooted were they, that we adhered to them, as most men

will do to deeply rooted opinions, even against the evidence of our own

observation, and our own senses. If the inferiority exists, it is

attributed to the apathy and degradation produced by slavery. Though of

the hundreds of thousand scattered over other countries, where the laws

impose no disability upon them, none has given evidence of an approach

to even mediocrity of intellectual excellence; this, too, is attributed

to the slavery of a portion of their race. They are regarded as a

servile caste, and degraded by opinion, and thus every generous effort

is repressed. Yet though this should be the general effect, this very

estimation is calculated to produce the contrary effect in particular

instances. It is observed by Bacon, with respect to deformed persons and

eunuchs, that though in general there is something of perversity in the

character, the disadvantage often leads to extraordinary displays of

virtue and excellence. "Whoever hath any thing fixed in his person that

doth induce contempt, hath also a perpetual spur in himself, to rescue

and deliver himself from scorn." So it would be with them, if they were

capable of European aspirations--genius, if they possessed it, would be

doubly fired with noble rage to rescue itself from this scorn. Of

course, I do not mean to say that there may not be found among them some

of superior capacity to many white persons; but that great intellectual

powers are, perhaps, never found among them, and that in general their

capacity is very limited, and their feelings animal and coarse--fitting

them peculiarly to discharge the lower, and merely mechanical offices of

society.

And why should it not be so? We have among domestic animals infinite

varieties, distinguished by various degrees of sagacity, courage,

strength, swiftness, and other qualities. And it may be observed, that

this is no objection to their being derived from a common origin, which

we suppose them to have had. Yet these accidental qualities, as they may

be termed, however acquired in the first instance, we know that they

transmit unimpaired to their posterity for an indefinite succession of

generations. It is most important that these varieties should be

preserved, and that each should be applied to the purposes for which it

is best adapted. No philo-zoost, I believe, has suggested it as

desirable that these varieties should be melted down into one equal,

undistinguished race of curs or road horses.

Slavery, as it is said in an eloquent article published in a Southern

periodical work,[242] to which I am indebted for other ideas, "has done

more to elevate a degraded race in the scale of humanity; to tame the

savage; to civilize the barbarous; to soften the ferocious; to enlighten

the ignorant, and to spread the blessings of Christianity among the

heathen, than all the missionaries that philanthropy and religion have

ever sent forth."[243] Yet unquestionable as this is, and though human

ingenuity and thought may be tasked in vain to devise any other means by

which these blessings could have been conferred, yet a sort of

sensibility which would be only mawkish and contemptible, if it were not

mischievous, affects still to weep over the wrongs of "injured Africa."

Can there be a doubt of the immense benefit which has been conferred on

the race, by transplanting them from their native, dark, and barbarous

regions, to the American continent and islands? There, three-fourths of

the race are in a state of the most deplorable personal slavery. And

those who are not, are in a scarcely less deplorable condition of

political slavery, to barbarous chiefs--who value neither life nor any

other human right, or enthralled by priests to the most abject and

atrocious superstitions. Take the following testimony of one of the few

disinterested observers, who has had an opportunity of observing them in

both situations.[244] "The wild savage is the child of passion, unaided

by one ray of religion or morality to direct his course, in consequence

of which his existence is stained with every crime that can debase human

nature to a level with the brute creation. Who can say that the slaves

in our colonies are such? Are they not, by comparison with their still

savage brethren, enlightened beings? Is not the West Indian negro,

therefore, greatly indebted to his master for making him what he is--for

having raised him from the state of debasement in which he was born, and

placed him in a scale of civilized society? How can he repay him? He is

possessed of nothing--the only return in his power is his servitude. The

man who has seen the wild African, roaming in his native woods, and the

well fed, happy looking negro of the West Indies, may, perhaps, be able

to judge of their comparative happiness; the former, I strongly suspect,

would be glad to change his state of boasted freedom, starvation, and

disease, to become the slave of sinners, and the commiseration of

saints."[245] It was a useful and beneficent work, approaching the

heroic, to tame the wild horse, and subdue him to the use of man; how

much more to tame the nobler animal that is capable of reason, and

subdue him to usefulness?

We believe that the tendency of slavery is to elevate the character of

the master. No doubt the character--especially of youth--has sometimes

received a taint and premature knowledge of vice, from the contact and

association with ignorant and servile beings of gross manners and

morals. Yet still we believe that the entire tendency is to inspire

disgust and aversion toward their peculiar vices. It was not without a

knowledge of nature, that the Spartans exhibited the vices of slaves by

way of negative example to their children. We flatter ourselves that the

view of this degradation, mitigated as it is, has the effect of making

probity more strict, the pride of character more high, the sense of

honor more strong, than is commonly found where this institution does

not exist. Whatever may be the prevailing faults or vices of the masters

of slaves, they have not commonly been understood to be those of

dishonesty, cowardice, meanness, or falsehood. And so most

unquestionably it ought to be. Our institutions would indeed be

intolerable in the sight of God and man, if, condemning one portion of

society to hopeless ignorance and comparative degradation, they should

make no atonement by elevating the other class by higher virtues, and

more liberal attainments--if, besides degraded slaves, there should be

ignorant, ignoble, and degraded freemen. There is a broad and well

marked line, beyond which no slavish vice should be regarded with the

least toleration or allowance. One class is cut off from all interest in

the State--that abstraction so potent to the feelings of a generous

nature. The other must make compensation by increased assiduity and

devotion to its honor and welfare. The love of wealth--so laudable when

kept within proper limits, so base and mischievous when it exceeds

them--so infectious in its example--an infection to which I fear we

have been too much exposed--should be pursued by no arts in any degree

equivocal, or at any risk of injustice to others. So surely as there is

a just and wise governor of the universe, who punishes the sins of

nations and communities, as well as of individuals, so surely shall we

suffer punishment, if we are indifferent to that moral and intellectual

cultivation of which the means are furnished to us, and to which we are

called and incited by our situation.

I would to heaven I could express, as I feel, the conviction how

necessary this cultivation is, not only to our prosperity and

consideration, but to our safety and very existence. We, the

slaveholding States, are in a hopeless minority in our own confederated

Republic--to say nothing of the great confederacy of civilized States.

It is admitted, I believe, not only by slaveholders, but by others, that

we have sent to our common councils more than our due share of talent,

high character and eloquence.[246] Yet in spite of all these most

strenuously exerted, measures have been sometimes adopted which we

believed to be dangerous and injurious to us, and threatening to be

fatal. What would be our situation, if, instead of these, we were only

represented by ignorant and groveling men, incapable of raising their

views beyond a job or petty office, and incapable of commanding bearing

or consideration? May I be permitted to advert--by no means

invidiously--to the late contest carried on by South Carolina against

Federal authority, and so happily terminated by the moderation which

prevailed in our public counsels. I have often reflected, what one

circumstance, more than any other, contributed to the successful issue

of a contest, apparently so hopeless, in which one weak and divided

State was arrayed against the whole force of the confederacy--unsustained,

and uncountenanced, even by those who had a common interest with her. It

seemed to me to be, that we had for leaders an unusual number of men of

great intellectual power, co-operating cordially and in good faith, and

commanding respect and confidence at home and abroad, by elevated and

honorable character. It was from these that we--the followers at

home--caught hope and confidence in the gloomiest aspect of our affairs.

These, by their eloquence and the largeness of their views, at least

shook the faith of the dominant majority in the wisdom and justice of

their measures--or the practicability of carrying them into successful

effect; and by their bearing and well known character, satisfied them

that South Carolina would do all that she had pledged herself to do.

Without these, how different might have been the result? And who shall

say what at this day would have been the aspect of the now flourishing

fields and cities of South Carolina? Or rather, without these, it is

probable the contest would never have been begun; but that, without even

the animation of a struggle, we should have sunk silently into a

hopeless and degrading subjection. While I have memory--in the extremity

of age--in sickness--under all the reverses and calamities of life--I

shall have one source of pride and consolation--that of having been

associated--according to my humbler position--with the noble spirits who

stood prepared to devote themselves for Liberty--the Constitution--the

Union. May such character and such talent never be wanting to South

Carolina.

I am sure that it is unnecessary to say to an assembly like this, that

the conduct of the master to his slave should be distinguished by the

utmost humanity. That we should indeed regard them as wards and

dependents on our kindness, for whose well-being in every way we are

deeply responsible. This is no less the dictate of wisdom and just

policy, than of right feeling. It is wise with respect to the services

to be expected from them. I have never heard of an owner whose conduct

in their management was distinguished by undue severity, whose slaves

were not in a great degree worthless to him. A cheerful and kindly

demeanor, with the expression of interest in themselves and their

affairs, is, perhaps, calculated to have a better effect on them, than

what might be esteemed more substantial favors and indulgences.

Throughout nature, attachment is the reward of attachment. It is wise,

too, in relation to the civilized world around us, to avoid giving

occasion to the odium which is so industriously excited against

ourselves and our institutions. For this reason, public opinion should,

if possible, bear even more strongly and indignantly than it does at

present, on masters who practice any wanton cruelty on their slaves. The

miscreant who is guilty of this, not only violates the law of God and of

humanity, but as far as in him lies, by bringing odium upon, endangers

the institutions of his country, and the safety of his countrymen. He

casts a shade upon the character of every individual of his

fellow-citizens, and does every one of them a personal injury. So of him

who indulges in any odious excess of intemperate or licentious passion.

It is detached instances of this sort, of which the existence is,

perhaps, hardly known among ourselves, that, collected with pertinacious

and malevolent industry, affords the most formidable weapons to the

mischievous zealots, who array them as being characteristic of our

general manners and state of society.

I would by no means be understood to intimate, that a vigorous, as well

as just government, should not be exercised over slaves. This is part of

our duty toward them, no less obligatory than any other duty, and no

less necessary toward their well-being than to ours. I believe that at

least as much injury has been done and suffering inflicted by weak and

injudicious indulgence, as by inordinate severity. He whose business is

to labor, should be made to labor, and that with due diligence, and

should be vigorously restrained from excess or vice. This is no less

necessary to his happiness than to his usefulness. The master who

neglects this, not only makes his slaves unprofitable to himself, but

discontented and wretched--a nuisance to his neighbors and to society.

I have said that the tendency of our institution is to elevate the

female character, as well as that of the other sex, and for similar

reasons. In other states of society, there is no well-defined limit to

separate virtue and vice. There are degrees of vice, from the most

flagrant and odious, to that which scarcely incurs the censure of

society. Many individuals occupy an unequivocal position and as society

becomes accustomed to this, there will be a less peremptory requirement

of purity in female manners and conduct, and often the whole of the

society will be in a tainted and uncertain condition with respect to

female virtue. Here, there is that certain and marked line, above which

there is no toleration or allowance for any approach to license of

manners or conduct, and she who falls below it, will fall far below even

the slave. How many will incur this penalty?

And permit me to say, that this elevation of the female character is no

less important and essential to us, than the moral and intellectual

cultivation of the other sex. It would indeed be intolerable, if, when

one class of the society is necessarily degraded in this respect, no

compensation were made by the superior elevation and purity of the

other. Not only essential purity of conduct, but the utmost purity of

manners, and I will add, though it may incur the formidable charge of

affectation or prudery,--a greater severity of decorum than is required

elsewhere, is necessary among us. Always should be strenuously resisted

the attempts which have been sometimes made to introduce among us the

freedom of foreign European, and especially of continental manners. This

freedom, the remotest in the world from that which sometimes springs

from simplicity of manners, is calculated and commonly intended to

confound the outward distinctions of virtue and vice. It is to prepare

the way for licentiousness--to produce this effect--that if those who

are clothed with the outward color and garb of vice, may be well

received by society, those who are actually guilty may hope to be so

too. It may be said, that there is often perfect purity where there is

very great freedom of manners. And, I have no doubt, this may be true in

particular instances, but it is never true of any _society_ in which

this is the general state of manners. What guards can there be to

purity, when every thing that _may possibly_ be done innocently, is

habitually practiced; when there can be no impropriety which is not

vice. And what must be the depth of the depravity when there is a

departure from that which they admit as principle. Besides, things which

may perhaps be practiced innocently where they are familiar, produce a

moral dilaceration in the course of their being introduced where they

are new. Let us say, we will not have the manners of South Carolina

changed.

I have before said that free labor is cheaper than the labor of slaves,

and so far as it is so the condition of the free laborer is worse. But

I think President Dew has sufficiently shown that this is only true of

Northern countries. It is matter of familiar remark that the tendency of

warm climates is to relax the human constitution and indispose to labor.

The earth yields abundantly--in some regions almost spontaneously--under

the influence of the sun, and the means of supporting life are obtained

with but slight exertion; and men will use no greater exertion than is

necessary to the purpose. This very luxuriance of vegetation, where no

other cause concurs, renders the air less salubrious, and even when

positive malady does not exist, the health is habitually impaired.

Indolence renders the constitution more liable to these effects of the

atmosphere, and these again aggravate the indolence. Nothing but the

coercion of slavery can overcome the repugnance to labor under these

circumstances, and by subduing the soil, improve and render wholesome

the climate.

It is worthy of remark, that there does not now exist on the face of the

earth, a people in a tropical climate, or one approaching to it, where

slavery does not exist, that is in a state of high civilization, or

exhibits the energies which mark the progress toward it. Mexico and the

South American Republics,[247] starting on their new career of

independence, and having gone through a farce of abolishing slavery,

are rapidly degenerating, even from semi-barbarism. The only portion of

the South American continent which seems to be making any favorable

progress, in spite of a weak and arbitrary civil government, is Brazil,

in which slavery has been retained. Cuba, of the same race with the

continental republics, is daily and rapidly advancing in industry and

civilization; and this is owing exclusively to her slaves. St. Domingo

is struck out of the map of civilized existence, and the British West

Indies will shortly be so. On the other continent, Spain and Portugal

are degenerate, and their rapid progress is downward. Their southern

coast is infested by disease, arising from causes which industry might

readily overcome, but that industry they will never exert. Greece is

still barbarous, and scantily peopled. The work of an English physician,

distinguished by strong sense and power of observation,[248] gives a

most affecting picture of the condition of Italy,--especially south of

the Appenines. With the decay of industry, the climate has degenerated

toward the condition from which it was first rescued by the labor of

slaves. There is poison in every man's veins, affecting the very springs

of life, dulling or extinguishing, with the energies of the body, all

energy of mind, and often exhibiting itself in the most appalling forms

of disease. From year to year the pestilential atmosphere creeps

forward, narrowing the circles within which it is possible to sustain

human life. With disease and misery, industry still more rapidly decays,

and if the process goes on, it seems that Italy too will soon be ready

for another experiment in colonization.

Yet once it was not so, when Italy was possessed by the masters of

slaves; when Rome contained her millions, and Italy was a garden; when

their iron energies of body corresponded with the energies of mind which

made them conquerors in every climate and on every soil; rolled the tide

of conquest, not as in later times, from the South to the North;

extended their laws and their civilization, and created them lords of

the earth.

"What conflux issuing forth or entering in;

Prætors, pro-consuls to their provinces,

Hasting, or on return in robes of state.

Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power,

Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings:

Or embassies from regions far remote,

In various habits, on the Appian road,

Or on th' Emilian; some from furthest South,

Syene, and where the shadow both way falls,

Meroe, Nilotic isle, and more to West,

The realms of Bocchus to the Blackmoor sea;

From th' Asian kings, and Parthian among these;

From India and the golden Chersonese,

And utmost India's isle, Taprobona,

Dusk faces, with white silken turbans wreathed;

From Gallia, Gades, and the British West;

Germans, and Scythians, and Sarmatians, North

Beyond Danubius to the Tauric Pool!

All nations now to Rome obedience pay."

Such was, and such is, the picture of Italy. Greece presents a contrast

not less striking. What is the cause of the great change? Many causes,

no doubt, have occurred; but though

"War, famine, pestilence, and flood and fire,

Have dealt upon the seven-hilled city's pride,"

I will venture to say that nothing has dealt upon it more heavily than

the loss of domestic slavery. Is not this evident? If they had slaves,

with an energetic civil government, would the deadly miasma be permitted

to overspread the Campagna, and invade Rome herself? Would not the soil

be cultivated, and the wastes reclaimed? A late traveller[249] mentions

a canal, cut for miles through rock and mountain, for the purpose of

carrying off the waters of the lake of Celano, on which thirty thousand

Roman slaves were employed for eleven years, and which remains almost

perfect to the present day. This, the government of Naples was ten years

in repairing with an hundred workmen. The imperishable works of Rome

which remain to the present day were, for the most part, executed by

slaves. How different would be the condition of Naples, if for her

wretched lazzaroni were substituted negro slaves, employed in rendering

productive the plains whose fertility now serves only to infect the air!

To us, on whom this institution is fastened, and who could not shake it

off, even if we desired to do so, the great republics of antiquity offer

instruction of inestimable value. They teach us that slavery is

compatible with the freedom, stability, and long duration of civil

government, with denseness of population, great power, and the highest

civilization. And in what respect does this modern Europe, which claims

to give opinions to the world, so far excel them--notwithstanding the

immense advantages of the Christian religion and the discovery of the

art of printing? They are not more free, nor have performed more

glorious actions, nor displayed more exalted virtue. In the higher

departments of intellect--in all that relates to taste and

imagination--they will hardly venture to claim equality. Where they have

gone beyond them in the results of mechanical philosophy, or discoveries

which contribute to the wants and enjoyments of physical life, they have

done so by the help of means with which they were furnished by the

Grecian mind--the mother of civilization--and only pursued a little

further the tract which that had always pointed out. In the development

of intellectual power, they will hardly bear comparison. Those noble

republics in the pride of their strength and greatness, may have

anticipated for themselves--as some of their poets did for them--an

everlasting duration and predominance. But they could not have

anticipated, that when they had fallen under barbarous arms, that when

arts and civilization were lost, and the whole earth in darkness--the

first light should break from their tombs--that in a renewed world,

unconnected with them by ties of locality, language or descent, they

should still be held the models of all that is profound in science, or

elegant in literature, or all that is great in character, or elevated in

imagination. And perhaps when England herself, who now leads the war

with which we are on all sides threatened, shall have fulfilled her

mission, and like the other glorious things of the earth, shall have

passed away; when she shall have diffused her noble race and noble

language, her laws, her literature, and her civilization, over all

quarters of the earth, and shall perhaps be overrun by some Northern

horde--sunk into an ignoble and anarchical democracy,[250] or subdued to

the dominion of some Cæsar,--demagogue and despot,--then, in Southern

regions, there may be found many republics, triumphing in Grecian arts

and civilization, and worthy of British descent and Roman institutions.

If, after a time, when the mind and almost the memory of the republic

were lost, Romans degenerated, they furnish conclusive evidence that

this was owing not to their domestic, but to their political slavery.

The same thing is observed over all the Eastern monarchies; and so it

must be, wherever property is insecure, and it is dangerous for a man to

rise himself to such eminence by intellectual or moral excellence, as

would give him influence over his society. So it is in Egypt; and the

other regions bordering the Mediterranean, which once comprehended the

civilization of the world, where Carthage, Tyre, and Phoenicia

flourished. In short, the uncontradicted experience of the world is,

that in the Southern States where good government and predial and

domestic slavery are found, there are prosperity and greatness; where

either of these conditions is wanting, degeneracy and barbarism. The

former, however, is equally essential in all climates and under all

institutions. And can we suppose it to be the design of the Creator,

that these regions, constituting half of the earth's surface, and the

more fertile half, and more capable of sustaining life, should be

abandoned forever to depopulation and barbarism? Certain it is that they

will never be reclaimed by the labor of freemen. In our own country,

look at the lower valley of the Mississippi, which is capable of being

made a far greater Egypt. In our own State, there are extensive tracts

of the most fertile soil, which are capable of being made to swarm with

life. These are at present pestilential swamps, and valueless, because

there is abundance of other fertile soil in more favorable situations,

which demand all and more than all the labor which our country can

supply. Are these regions of fertility to be abandoned at once and

forever to the alligator and tortoise--with here and there perhaps a

miserable, shivering, crouching _free_ black savage? Does not the finger

of heaven itself seem to point to a race of men--not to be enslaved by

us, but already enslaved, and who will be in every way benefited by the

change of masters--to whom such climate is not uncongenial, who, though

disposed to indolence, are yet patient and capable of labor, on whose

whole features, mind and character, nature has indelibly

written--slave;--and indicate that we should avail ourselves of these in

fulfilling the first great command to subdue and replenish the earth.

It is true that this labor will be dearer than that of Northern

countries, where, under the name of freedom, they obtain cheaper and

perhaps better slaves. Yet it is the best we can have, and this too has

its compensation. We see it compensated at present by the superior value

of our agricultural products. And this superior value they must probably

always have. The Southern climate admits of a greater variety of

productions. Whatever is produced in Northern climates, the same thing,

or something equivalent, may be produced in the Southern. But the

Northern have no equivalent for the products of Southern climates. The

consequence will be, that the products of Southern regions will be

demanded all over the civilized world. The agricultural products of

Northern regions are chiefly for their own consumption. They must

therefore apply themselves to the manufacturing of articles of luxury,

elegance, convenience, or necessity,--which requires cheap labor--for

the purpose of exchanging them with their Southern neighbors. Thus

nature herself indicates that agriculture should be the predominating

employment in Southern countries, and manufactures in Northern. Commerce

is necessary to both--but less indispensable to the Southern, which

produce within themselves a greater variety of things desirable to life.

They will therefore have somewhat less of the commercial spirit. We must

avail ourselves of such labor as we can command. The slave must labor,

and is inured to it; while the necessity of energy in his government, of

watchfulness, and of preparation and power to suppress insurrection,

added to the moral force derived from the habit of command, may help to

prevent the degeneracy of the master.

The task of keeping down insurrection is commonly supposed by those who

are strangers to our institutions, to be a very formidable one. Even

among ourselves, accustomed as we have been to take our opinions on this

as on every other subject, ready formed from those whom we regarded as

instructors, in the teeth of our own observation and experience, fears

have been entertained which are absolutely ludicrous. We have been

supposed to be nightly reposing over a mine, which may at any instant

explode to our destruction. The first thought of a foreigner sojourning

in one of our cities, who is awaked by any nightly alarm, is of servile

insurrection and massacre. Yet if any thing is certain in human affairs,

it is certain and from the most obvious considerations, that we are more

secure in this respect than any civilived and fully peopled society upon

the face of the earth. In every such society, there is a much larger

proportion than with us, of persons who have more to gain than to lose

by the overthrow of government, and the embroiling of social order. It

is in such a state of things that those who were before at the bottom of

society, rise to the surface. From causes already considered, they are

peculiarly apt to consider their sufferings the result of injustice and

misgovernment, and to be rancorous and embittered accordingly. They have

every excitement, therefore, of resentful passion, and every temptation

which the hope of increased opulence, or power or consideration can hold

out, to urge them to innovation and revolt. Supposing the same

disposition to exist in equal degree among our slaves, what are their

comparative means or prospect of gratifying it? The poor of other

countries are called free. They have, at least, no one interested to

exercise a daily and nightly superintendence and control over their

conduct and actions. Emissaries of their class may traverse, unchecked,

every portion of the country, for the purpose of organizing

insurrection. From their greater intelligence, they have greater means

of communicating with each other. They may procure and secrete arms. It

is not alone the ignorant, or those who are commonly called the poor,

that will be tempted to revolution. There will be many disappointed men,

and men of desperate fortune--men perhaps of talent and daring--to

combine them and direct their energies. Even those in the higher ranks

of society who contemplate no such result, will contribute to it, by

declaiming on their hardships and rights.

With us, it is almost physically impossible that there should be any

very extensive combination among the slaves. It is absolutely impossible

that they should procure and conceal efficient arms. Their emissaries

traversing the country, would carry their commissions on their

foreheads. If we suppose among them an individual of sufficient talent

and energy to qualify him for a revolutionary leader, he could not be so

extensively known as to command the confidence, which would be necessary

to enable him to combine and direct them. Of the class of freemen, there

would be no individual so poor or degraded (with the exception perhaps

of here and there a reckless and desperate outlaw and felon) who would

not have much to lose by the success of such an attempt; every one,

therefore, would be vigilant and active to detect and suppress it. Of

all impossible things, one of the most impossible would be a successful

insurrecction of our slaves, originating with themselves.

Attempts at insurrection have indeed been made--excited, as we believe,

by the agitation of the abolitionists and declaimers on slavery; but

these have been in every instance promptly suppressed. We fear not to

compare the riots, disorder, revolt and bloodshed, which have been

committed in our own, with those of any other civilized communities,

during the same lapse of time. And let it be observed under what

extraordinary circumstances our peace has been preserved. For the last

half century, one half of our population has been admonished in terms

the most calculated to madden and excite, that they are the victims of

the most grinding and cruel injustice and oppression. We know that these

exhortations continually reach them, through a thousand channels which

we cannot detect, as if carried by the birds of the air--and what human

being, especially when unfavorably distinguished by outward

circumstances, is not ready to give credit when he is told that he is

the victim of injustice and oppression? In effect, if not in terms, they

have been continually exhorted to insurrection. The master has been

painted as a criminal, tyrant and robber, justly obnoxious to the

vengeance of God and man, and they have been assured of the countenance

and sympathy, if not of the active assistance, of all the rest of the

world. We ourselves have in some measure pleaded guilty to the

impeachment. It is not long since a great majority of our free

population, servile to the opinions of those whose opinions they had

been accustomed to follow, would have admitted slavery to be a great

evil, unjust and indefensible in principle, and only to be vindicated by

the stern necessity which was imposed upon us. Thus stimulated by every

motive and passion which ordinarily actuate human beings--not as to a

criminal enterprise, but as to something generous and heroic--what has

been the result? A few imbecile and uncombined plots--in every instance

detected before they broke out into action, and which perhaps if

undetected would never have broken into action. One or two sudden,

unpremeditated attempts, frantic in their character, if not prompted by

actual insanity, and these instantly crushed. As it is, we are not less

assured of safety, order, and internal peace, than any other people; and

but for the pertinacious and fanatical agitations of the subject, would

be much more so.

This experience of security, however, should admonish us of the folly

and wickedness of those who have sometimes taken upon themselves to

supersede the regular course of law, and by rash and violent acts to

punish supposed disturbers of the peace of society. This can admit of no

justification or palliation whatever. Burke, I think, somewhere remarked

something to this effect,--that when society is in the last stage of

depravity--when all parties are alike corrupt, and alike wicked and

unjustifiable in their measures and objects, a good man may content

himself with standing neuter, a sad and disheartened spectator of the

conflict between the rival vices. But are we in this wretched condition?

It is fearful to see with what avidity the worst and most dangerous

characters of society seize on the occasion of obtaining the countenance

of better men, for the purpose of throwing off the restraints of law. It

is always these who are most zealous and forward in constituting

themselves the protectors of the public peace. To such men--men without

reputation, or principle, or stake in society--disorder is the natural

element. In that, desperate fortunes and the want of all moral principle

and moral feeling constitute power. They are eager to avenge themselves

upon society. Anarchy is not so much the absence of government, as the

government of the worst--not aristocracy, but kakistocracy--a state of

things, which to the honor of our nature, has seldom obtained among men,

and which perhaps was only fully exemplified during the worst times of

the French Revolution, when that horrid hell burnt with its most lurid

flame. In such a state of things, to be accused is to be condemned--to

protect the innocent is to be guilty; and what perhaps is the worst

effect, even men of better nature, to whom their own deeds are

abhorrent, are goaded by terror to be forward and emulous in deeds of

guilt and violence. The scenes of lawless violence which have been acted

in some portions of our country, rare and restricted as they have been,

have done more to tarnish its reputation than a thousand libels. They

have done more to discredit, and if any thing could, to endanger, not

only our domestic, but our republican institutions, than the

abolitionists themselves. Men can never be permanently and effectually

disgraced but by themselves, and rarely endangered but by their own

injudicious conduct, giving advantage to the enemy. Better, far better,

would it be to encounter the dangers with which we are supposed to be

threatened, than to employ such means for averting them. But the truth

is, that in relation to this matter, so far as respects actual

insurrection, when alarm is once excited, danger is absolutely at an

end. Society can then employ legitimate and more effectual measures for

its own protection. The very commission of such deeds is proof that they

are unnecessary. Let those who attempt them, then, or make any

demonstration toward them, understand that they will meet only the

discountenance and abhorrence of all good men, and the just punishment

of the laws they have dared to outrage.

It has commonly been supposed, that this institution will prove a source

of weakness in relation to military defense against a foreign country. I

will venture to say that in a slaveholding community, a larger military

force may be maintained permanently in the field, than in any State

where there are not slaves. It is plain that almost the whole of the

able bodied free male population, making half of the entire able bodied

male population, may be maintained in the field, and this without taking

in any material degree from the labor and resources of the country. In

general, the labor of our country is performed by slaves. In other

countries, it is their laborers that form the material of their armies.

What proportion of these can be taken away without fatally crippling

their industry and resources? In the war of the Revolution, though the

strength of our State was wasted and paralyzed by the unfortunate

divisions which existed among ourselves, yet it may be said with general

truth, that every citizen was in the field, and acquired much of the

qualities of the soldier.

It is true that this advantage will be attended with its compensating

evils and disadvantages; to which we must learn to submit, if we are

determined on the maintenance of our institutions. We are, as yet,

hardly at all aware how little the maxims and practices of modern

civilized governments will apply to us. Standing armies, as they are

elsewhere constituted, we cannot have; for we have not, and for

generations cannot have, the materials out of which they are to be

formed. If we should be involved in serious wars, I have no doubt but

that some sort of conscription, requiring the service of all citizens

for a considerable term, will be necessary. Like the people of Athens,

it will be necessary that every citizen should be a soldier, and

qualified to discharge efficiently the duties of a soldier. It may seem

a melancholy consideration, that an army so made up should be opposed to

the disciplined mercenaries of foreign nations. But we must learn to

know our true situation. But may we not hope, that made up of superior

materials, of men having home and country to defend; inspired by higher

pride of character, of greater intelligence, and trained by an

effective, though honorable discipline, such an army will be more than a

match for mercenaries. The efficiency of an army is determined by the

qualities of its officers, and may we not expect to have a greater

proportion of men better qualified for officers, and possessing the true

spirit of military command. And let it be recollected that if there were

otherwise reason to apprehend danger from insurrection, there will be

the greatest security when there is the largest force on foot within the

country. Then it is that any such attempt would be most instantly and

effectually crushed.

And, perhaps, a wise foresight should induce our State to provide, that

it should have within itself such military knowledge and skill as may be

sufficient to organize, discipline, and command armies, by establishing

a military academy or school of discipline. The school of the militia

will not do for this. From the general opinion of our weakness, if our

country should at any time come into hostile collision, we shall be

selected for the point of attack; making us, according to Mr. Adam's

anticipation, the Flanders of the United States. Come from what quarter

it may, the storm will fall upon us. It is known that lately, when there

was apprehension of hostility with France, the scheme was instantly

devised of invading the Southern States and organizing insurrection. In

a popular English periodical work, I have seen the plan suggested by an

officer of high rank and reputation in the British army, of invading the

Southern States at various points and operating by the same means. He is

said to be a gallant officer, and certainly had no conception that he

was devising atrocious crime, as alien to the true spirit of civilized

warfare, as the poisoning of streams and fountains. But the folly of

such schemes is no less evident than their wickedness. Apart from the

consideration of that which experience has most fully proved to be

true--that in general their attachment and fidelity to their masters is

not to be shaken, and that from sympathy with the feelings of those by

whom they are surrounded, and from whom they derive their impressions,

they contract no less terror and aversion toward an invading enemy; it

is manifest that this recourse would be an hundred fold more available

to us than to such an enemy. They are already in our possession, and we

might at will arm and organize them in any number that we might think

proper. The Helots were a regular constituent part of the Spartan

armies. Thoroughly acquainted with their characters, and accustomed to

command them, we might use any strictness of discipline which would be

necessary to render them effective, and from their habits of

subordination already formed, this would be a task of less difficulty.

Though morally most timid, they are by no means wanting in physical

strength of nerve. They are excitable by praise; and directed by those

in whom they have confidence, would rush fearlessly and unquestioning

upon any sort of danger. With white officers and accompanied by a strong

white cavalry, there are no troops in the world from whom there would be

so little reason to apprehend insubordination or mutiny.

This, I admit, might be a dangerous resource, and one not to be resorted

to but in great extremity. But I am supposing the case of our being

driven to extremity. It might be dangerous to disband such an army, and

reduce them with the habits of soldiers, to their former condition of

laborers. It might be found necessary, when once embodied, to keep them

so, and subject to military discipline--a permanent standing army. This

in time of peace would be expensive, if not dangerous. Or if at any time

we should be engaged in hostilities with our neighbors, and it were

thought advisable to send such an army abroad to conquer settlements for

themselves, the invaded regions might have occasion to think that the

scourge of God was again let loose to afflict the earth.

President Dew has very fully shown how utterly vain are the fears of

those, who, though there may be no danger for the present, yet apprehend

great danger for the future, when the number of slaves shall be greatly

increased. He has shown that the larger and more condensed society

becomes, the easier it will be to maintain subordination, supposing the

relative number of the different classes to remain the same--or even if

there should be a very disproportionate increase of the enslaved class.

Of all vain things, the vainest and that in which man most shows his

impotence and folly, is the taking upon himself to provide for a very

distant future--at all events by any material sacrifice of the present.

Though experience has shown that revolutions and political

movements--unless when they have been conducted with the most guarded

caution and moderation--have generally terminated in results just the

opposite of what was expected from them, the angry ape will still play

his fantastic tricks, and put in motion machinery, the action of which

he no more comprehends or foresees than he comprehends the mysteries of

infinity. The insect that is borne upon the current will fancy that he

directs its course. Besides the fear of insurrection and servile war,

there is also alarm lest, when their numbers shall be greatly increased,

their labor will become utterly unprofitable, so that it will be equally

difficult for the master to retain and support them, or to get rid of

them. But at what age of the world is this likely to happen? At present,

it may be said that almost the whole of the Southern portion of this

continent is to be subdued to cultivation; and in the order of

Providence, this is the task allotted to them. For this purpose, more

labor will be required for generations to come than they will be able to

supply. When that task is accomplished, there will be many objects to

which their labor may be directed.

At present they are employed in accumulating individual wealth, and this

in one way, to wit, as agricultural laborers--and this is, perhaps, the

most useful purpose to which their labor can be applied. The effect of

slavery has not been to counteract the tendency to dispersion, which

seems epidemical among our countrymen, invited by the unbounded extent

of fertile and unexhausted soil, though it counteracts many of the evils

of dispersion. All the customary trades, professions and employments,

except the agricultural, require a condensed population for their

profitable exercise. The agriculturist who can command no labor but that

of his own hands, or that of his family, must remain comparatively poor

and rude. He who acquires wealth by the labor of slaves, has the means

of improvement for himself and his children. He may have a more extended

intercourse, and consequently means of information and refinement, and

may seek education for his children where it may be found. I say, what

is obviously true, that he has the _means_ of obtaining those

advantages; but I say nothing to palliate or excuse the conduct of him

who, having such means, neglects to avail himself of them.

I believe it to be true, that in consequence of our dispersion, though

individual wealth is acquired, the face of the country is less adorned

and improved by useful and ornamental public works, than in other

societies of more condensed population, where there is less wealth. But

this is an effect of that which constitutes perhaps our most conspicuous

advantage. Where population is condensed, they must have the evils of

condensed population, and among these is the difficulty of finding

profitable employment for capital. He who has accumulated even an

inconsiderable sum, is often puzzled to know what use to make of it.

Ingenuity is therefore tasked to cast about for every enterprise which

may afford a chance of profitable investment. Works useful and

ornamental to the country, are thus undertaken and accomplished, and

though the proprietors may fail of profit, the community no less

receives the benefit. Among us, there is no such difficulty. A safe and

profitable method of investment is offered to every one who has capital

to dispose of, which is further recommended to his feelings by the sense

of independence and the comparative leisure which the employment affords

to the proprietor engaged in it. It is for this reason that few of our

citizens engage in the pursuits of commerce. Though these may be more

profitable, they are also more hazardous and more laborious.

When the demand for agricultural labor shall be fully supplied, then of

course the labor of slaves will be directed to other employment and

enterprises. Already it begins to be found, that in some instances it

may be used as profitably in works of public improvement. As it becomes

cheaper and cheaper, it will be applied to more various purposes and

combined in larger masses. It may be commanded and combined with more

facility than any other sort of labor; and the laborer, kept in stricter

subordination, will be less dangerous to the security of society than in

any other country, which is crowded and overstocked with a class of what

are called free laborers. Let it be remembered that all the great and

enduring monuments of human art and industry--the wonders of Egypt--the

everlasting works of Rome--were created by the labor of slaves. There

will come a stage in our progress when we shall have facilities for

executing works as great as any of these--more useful than the

pyramids--not less magnificent than the sea of Moeris. What the end of

all is to be; what mutations lie hid in the womb of the distant future;

to what convulsions our societies may be exposed--whether the master,

finding it impossible to live with his slaves, may not be compelled to

abandon the country to them--of all this it were presumptuous and vain

to speculate.

I have hitherto, as I proposed, considered it as a naked, abstract

question of the comparative good and evil of the institution of slavery.

Very far different indeed is the practical question presented to us,

when it is proposed to get rid of an institution which has interwoven

itself with every fibre of the body politic; which has formed the habits

of our society, and is consecrated by the usage of generations. If this

be not a vicious prescription, which the laws of God forbid to ripen

into right, it has a just claim to be respected by all tribunals of man.

If the negroes were now free, and it were proposed to enslave them, then

it would be incumbent on those who proposed the measure to show clearly

that their liberty was incompatible with the public security. When it is

proposed to innovate on the established state of things, the burden is

on those who propose the innovation, to show that advantage will be

gained from it. There is no reform, however necessary, wholesome or

moderate, which will not be accompanied with some degree of

inconvenience, risk or suffering. Those who acquiesce in the state of

things which they found existing, can hardly be thought criminal. But

most deeply criminal are they who give rise to the enormous evil with

which great revolutions in society are always attended, without the

fullest assurance of the greater good to be ultimately obtained. But if

it can be made to appear, even probably, that no good will be obtained,

but that the results will be evil and calamitous as the process, what

can justify such innovations? No human being can be so mischievous--if

acting consciously, none can be so wicked as those who, finding evil in

existing institutions, run blindly upon change, unforeseeing and

reckless of consequences, and leaving it to chance or fate to determine

whether the end shall be improvement, or greater and more intolerable

evil. Certainly the instincts of nature prompt to resist intolerable

oppression. For this resistance no rule can be prescribed, but it must

be left to the instincts of nature. To justify it, however, the

insurrectionists should at least have a reasonable probability of

success, and be assured that their condition will be improved by

success. But most extraordinary is it, when those who complain and

clamor are not those who are supposed to feel the oppression, but

persons at a distance from them, and who can hardly at all appreciate

the good or the evil of their situation. It is the unalterable condition

of humanity, that men must achieve civil liberty for themselves. The

assistance of allies has sometimes enabled nations to repel the attacks

of foreign power, never to conquer liberty against their own internal

government.

In one thing I concur with the abolitionsts; that if emancipation is to

be brought about, it is better that it should be immediate and total.

But let us suppose it to be brought about in any manner, and then

inquire what would be the effects.

The first and most obvious effect, would be to put an end to the

cultivation of our great Southern staple. And this would be equally the

result, if we suppose the emancipated negroes to be in no way

distinguished from the free laborers of other countries, and that their

labor would be equally effective. In that case, they would soon cease to

be laborers for hire, but would scatter themselves over our unbounded

territory, to become independent land owners themselves. The cultivation

of the soil on an extensive scale, can only be carried on where there

are slaves, or in countries superabounding with free labor. No such

operations are carried on in any portions of our own country where there

are not slaves. Such are carried on in England, where there is an

overflowing population and intense competition for employment. And our

institutions seem suited to the exigencies of our respective situations.

There, a much greater number of laborers is required at one season of

the year than at another, and the farmer may enlarge or diminish the

quantity of labor he employs, as circumstances may require. Here, about

the same quantity of labor is required at every season, and the planter

suffers no inconvenience from retaining his laborers throughout the

year. Imagine an extensive rice or cotton plantation cultivated by free

laborers, who might perhaps _strike_ for an increase of wages, at a

season when the neglect of a few days would insure the destruction of

the whole crop. Even if it were possible to procure laborers at all,

what planter would venture to carry on his operations under such

circumstances? I need hardly say that these staples can not be produced

to any extent where the proprietor of the soil cultivates it with his

own hands. He can do little more than produce the necessary food for

himself and his family.

And what would be the effect of putting an end to the cultivation of

these staples, and thus annihilating, at a blow, two-thirds or

three-fourths of our foreign commerce? Can any sane mind contemplate

such a result without terror? I speak not of the utter poverty and

misery to which we ourselves would be reduced, and the desolation which

would overspread our own portion of the country. Our slavery has not

only given existence to millions of slaves within our own territories,

it has given the means of subsistence, and therefore existence, to

millions of freemen in our confederate States; enabling them to send

forth their swarms to overspread the plains and forests of the West, and

appear as the harbingers of civilization. The products of the industry

of those States are in general similar to those of the civilized world,

and are little demanded in their markets. By exchanging them for ours,

which are everywhere sought for, the people of these States are enabled

to acquire all the products of art and industry, all that contributes to

convenience or luxury, or gratifies the taste or the intellect, which

the rest of the world can supply. Not only on our own continent, but on

the other, it has given existence to hundreds of thousands, and the

means of comfortable subsistence to millions. A distinguished citizen of

our own State, than whom none can be better qualified to form an

opinion, has lately stated that our great staple, cotton, has

contributed more than any thing else of later times to the progress of

civilization. By enabling the poor to obtain cheap and becoming

clothing, it has inspired a taste for comfort, the first stimulus to

civilization. Does not _self-defense_, then, demand of us steadily to

resist the abrogation of that which is productive of so much good? It is

more than self-defense. It is to defend millions of human beings, who

are far removed from us, from the intensest suffering, if not from being

struck out of existence. It is the defense of human civilization.

But this is but a small part of the evil which would be occasioned.

After President Dew, it is unnecessary to say a single word on the

practicability of colonizing our slaves. The two races, so widely

separated from each other by the impress of nature, must remain together

in the same country. Whether it be accounted the result of prejudice or

reason, it is certain that the two races will not be blended together so

as to form a homogenous population. To one who knows any thing of the

nature of man and human society, it would be unnecessary to argue that

this state of things can not continue; but that one race must be driven

out by the other, or exterminated, or again enslaved. I have argued on

the supposition that the emancipated negroes would be as efficient as

other free laborers. But whatever theorists, who know nothing of the

matter, may think proper to assume, we well know that this would not be

so. We know that nothing but the coercion of slavery can overcome their

propensity to indolence, and that not one in ten would be an efficient

laborer. Even if this disposition were not grounded in their nature, it

would be a result of their position. I have somewhere seen it observed,

that to be degraded by opinion, is a thousand fold worse, so far as the

feelings of the individuals are concerned, than to be degraded by the

laws. _They_ would be thus degraded, and this feeling is incompatible

with habits of order and industry. Half our population would at once be

paupers. Let an inhabitant of New-York or Philadelphia conceive of the

situation of their respective States, if one-half of their population

consisted of free negroes. The tie which now connects them, being

broken, the different races would be estranged from each other, and

hostility would grow up between them. Having the command of their own

time and actions, they could more effectually combine insurrection, and

provide the means of rendering it formidable. Released from the vigilant

superintendence which now restrains them, they would infallibly be led

from petty to greater crimes, until all life and property would be

rendered insecure. Aggression would beget retaliation, until open

war--and that a war of extermination--were established. From the still

remaining superiority of the white race, it is probable that they would

be the victors, and if they did not exterminate, they must again reduce

the others to slavery--when they could be no longer fit to be either

slaves or freemen. It is not only in self-defense, in defense of our

country and of all that is dear to us, but in defense of the slaves

themselves, that we refuse to emancipate them.

If we suppose them to have political privileges, and to be admitted to

the elective franchise, still worse results may be expected.[251] It is

hardly necessary to add any thing to what has been said by Mr. Paulding

on this subject who has treated it fully. It is already known, that if

there be a class unfavorably distinguished by any peculiarity from the

rest of society, this distinction forms a tie which binds them to act

in concert, and they exercise more than their due share of political

power and influence--and still more, as they are of inferior character

and looser moral principle. Such a class form the very material for

demogogues to work with. Other parties court them, and concede to them.

So it would be with the free blacks in the case supposed. They would be

used by unprincipled politicians, of irregular ambition, for the

advancement of their schemes, until they should give them political

power and importance beyond even their own intentions. They would be

courted by excited parties in their contests with each other. At some

time, they may perhaps attain political ascendancy, and this is more

probable, as we may suppose that there will have been a great emigration

of whites from the country. Imagine the government of such legislators.

Imagine then the sort of laws that will be passed, to confound the

invidious distinction which has been so long assumed over them, and, if

possible, to obliterate the very memory of it. These will be resisted.

The blacks will be tempted to avenge themselves by oppression and

proscription of the white race, for their long superiority. Thus matters

will go on, until universal anarchy, or kakistocracy, the government of

the worst, is fully established. I am persuaded that if the spirit of

evil should devise to send abroad upon the earth all possible misery,

discord, horror, and atrocity, he could contrive no scheme so effectual

as the emancipation of negro slaves within our country.

The most feasible scheme of emancipation, and that which I verily

believe would involve the least danger and sacrifice, would be that the

_entire_ white population should emigrate, and abandon the country to

their slaves. Here would be triumph to philanthropy. This wide and

fertile region would be again restored to ancient barbarism--to the

worst of all barbarism--barbarism corrupted and depraved by intercourse

with civilization. And this is the consummation to be wished, upon a

_speculation_, that in some distant future age, they may become so

enlightened and improved, as to be capable of sustaining a position

among the civilized races of the earth. But I believe moralists allow

men to defend their homes and their country, even at the expense of the

lives and liberties of others.