Will any philanthropist say that the evils, of which I have spoken,

would be brought about only by the obduracy, prejudices, and overweening

self-estimation of the whites in refusing to blend the races by

marriage, and so create a homogenous population?[252] But what, if it be

not prejudice, but truth, and nature, and right reason, and just moral

feeling? As I have before said, throughout the whole of nature, like

attracts like, and that which is unlike repels. What is it that makes so

unspeakably loathsome, crimes not to be named, and hardly alluded to?

Even among the nations of Europe, so nearly homogenous, there are some

peculiarities of form and feature, mind and character, which may be

generally distinguished by those accustomed to observe them. Though the

exceptions are numerous, I will venture to say that not in one instance

in a hundred, is the man of sound and unsophisticated tastes and

propensities so likely to be attracted by the female of a foreign stock,

as by one of his own, who is more nearly conformed to himself.

Shakspeare spoke the language of nature, when he made the senate and

people of Venice attribute to the effect of witchcraft, Desdemona's

passion for Othello--though, as Coleridge has said, we are to conceive

of him not as a negro, but as a high bred Moorish chief.

If the negro race, as I have contended, be inferior to our own in mind

and character, marked by inferiority of form and features, then ours

would suffer deterioration from such intermixture. What would be thought

of the moral conduct of the parent who should voluntarily transmit

disease, or fatuity, or deformity to his offspring? If man be the most

perfect work of the Creator, and the civilized European man the most

perfect variety of the human race, is he not criminal who would

desecrate and deface God's fairest work; estranging it further from the

image of himself, and conforming it more nearly to that of the brute? I

have heard it said, as if it afforded an argument, that the African is

as well satisfied of the superiority of his own complexion, form, and

features, as we can be of ours. If this were true, as it is not, would

any one be so recreant to his own civilization, as to say that his

opinion ought to weigh against ours--that there is no universal standard

of truth, and grace, and beauty--that the Hottentot Venus may perchance

possess as great perfection of form as the Medicean? It is true, the

licentious passions of men overcome the natural repugnance, and find

transient gratification in intercourse with females of the other race.

But this is a very different thing from making her the associate of

life, the companion of the bosom and the hearth. Him who would

contemplate such an alliance for himself, or regard it with patience,

when proposed for a son, or daughter, or sister, we should esteem a

degraded wretch--with justice, certainly, if he were found among

ourselves--and the estimate would not be very different if he were found

in Europe. It is not only in defense of ourselves, of our country, and

of our own generation, that we refuse to emancipate our slaves, but to

defend our posterity and race from degeneracy and degradation.

Are we not justified then in regarding as criminals, the fanatical

agitators whose efforts are intended to bring about the evils I have

described? It is sometimes said that their zeal is generous and

disinterested, and that their motives may be praised, though their

conduct be condemned. But I have little faith in the good motives of

those who pursue bad ends. It is not for us to scrutinize the hearts of

men, and we can only judge of them by the tendency of their actions.

There is much truth in what was said by Coleridge. "I have never known a

trader in philanthropy who was not wrong in heart somehow or other.

Individuals so distinguished, are usually unhappy in their family

relations--men not benevolent or beneficent to individuals, but almost

hostile to them, yet lavishing money and labor and time on the race--the

abstract notion." The prurient love of notoriety actuates some. There is

much luxury in sentiment, especially if it can be indulged at the

expense of others, and if there be added some share of envy or

malignity, the temptation to indulgence is almost irresistible. But

certainly they may be justly regarded as criminal, who obstinately shut

their eyes and close their ears to all instruction with respect to the

true nature of their actions.

It must be manifest to every man of sane mind that it is impossible for

them to achieve ultimate success; even if every individual in our

country, out of the limits of the slaveholding States, were united in

their purposes. They can not have even the miserable triumph of St.

Domingo--of advancing through scenes of atrocity, blood and massacre, to

the restoration of barbarism. They may agitate and perplex the world for

a time. They may excite to desperate attempts and particular acts of

cruelty and horror, but these will always be suppressed or avenged at

the expense of the objects of their truculent philanthropy. But short of

this, they can hardly be aware of the extent of the mischief they

perpetrate. As I have said, their opinions, by means to us inscrutable,

do very generally reach our slave population. What human being, if

unfavorably distinguished by outward circumstances, is not ready to

believe when he is told that he is the victim of injustice? Is it not

cruelty to make men restless and dissatisfied in their condition, when

no effort of theirs can alter it? The greatest injury is done to their

characters, as well as to their happiness. Even if no such feelings or

designs should be entertained or conceived by the slave, they will be

attributed to him by the master, and all his conduct scanned with a

severe and jealous scrutiny. Thus distrust and aversion are established,

where, but for mischievous interference, there would be confidence and

good-will, and a sterner control is exercised over the slave who thus

becomes the victim of his cruel advocates.[253]

An effect is sometimes produced on the minds of slaveholders, by the

publications of the self-styled philanthropists, and their judgments

staggered and consciences alarmed. It is natural that the oppressed

should hate the oppressor. It is still more natural that the oppressor

should hate his victim. Convince the master that he is doing injustice

to his slave, and he at once begins to regard him with distrust and

malignity. It is a part of the constitution of the human mind, that when

circumstances of necessity or temptation induce men to continue in the

practice of what they believe to be wrong, they become desperate and

reckless of the degree of wrong. I have formerly heard of a master who

accounted for his practicing much severity upon his slaves, and exacting

from them an unusual degree of labor, by saying that the thing (slavery)

was altogether wrong, and therefore it was well to make the greatest

possible advantage out of it. This agitation occasions some slaveholders

to hang more loosely on their country. Regarding the institution as of

questionable character, condemned by the general opinion of the world,

and one which must shortly come to an end, they hold themselves in

readiness to make their escape from the evil which they anticipate. Some

sell their slaves to new masters (always a misfortune to the slave) and

remove themselves to other societies, of manners and habits uncongenial

to their own. And though we may suppose that it is only the weak and the

timid who are liable to be thus affected, still it is no less an injury

and public misfortune. Society is kept in an unquiet and restless state,

and every sort of improvement is retarded.

Some projectors suggest the education of slaves, with a view to prepare

them for freedom--as if there were any method of a man's being educated

to freedom, but by himself. The truth is, however, that supposing that

they are shortly to be emancipated, and that they have the capacities of

any other race, they are undergoing the very best education which it is

possible to give. They are in the course of being taught habits of

regular and patient industry, and this is the first lesson which is

required. I suppose that their most zealous advocates would not desire

that they should be placed in the high places of society immediately

upon their emancipation, but that they should begin their course of

freedom as laborers, and raise themselves afterward as their capacities

and characters might enable them. But how little would what are commonly

called the rudiments of education, add to their qualifications as

laborers? But for the agitation which exists, however, their education

would be carried further than this. There is a constant tendency in our

society to extend the sphere of their employments, and consequently to

give them the information which is necessary to the discharge of those

employments. And this, for the most obvious reason, it promotes the

master's interest. How much would it add to the value of a slave, that

he should be capable of being employed as a clerk, or be able to make

calculations as a mechanic? In consequence, however, of the fanatical

spirit which has been excited, it has been thought necessary to repress

this tendency by legislation, and to prevent their acquiring the

knowledge of which they might make a dangerous use. If this spirit were

put down, and we restored to the consciousness of security, this would

be no longer necessary, and the process of which I have spoken would be

accelerated. Whenever indications of superior capacity appeared in a

slave, it would be cultivated; gradual improvement would take place,

until they might be engaged in as various employments as they were among

the ancients--perhaps even liberal ones. Thus, if in the adorable

providence of God, at a time and in a manner which we can neither

foresee nor conjecture, they are to be rendered capable of freedom and

to enjoy it, they would be prepared for it in the best and most

effectual, because in the most natural and gradual manner. But

fanaticism hurries to its effect at once. I have heard it said, God does

good, but it is by imperceptible degrees; the devil is permitted to do

evil, and he does it in a hurry. The beneficent processes of nature are

not apparent to the senses. You cannot see the plant grow, or the flower

expand. The volcano, the earthquake, and the hurricane, do their work of

desolation in a moment. Such would be the desolation, if the schemes of

fanatics were permitted to have effect. They do all that in them lies to

thwart the beneficent purposes of providence. The whole tendency of

their efforts is to aggravate present suffering, and to cut off the

chance of future improvement, and in all their bearings and results,

have produced, and are likely to produce, nothing but "pure, unmixed,

dephlegmated, defecated evil."

If Wilberforce or Clarkson were living, and it were inquired of them

"can you be sure that you have promoted the happiness of a single human

being?" I imagine that, if they considered conscientiously, they would

find it difficult to answer in the affirmative. If it were asked "can

you be sure that you have not been the cause of suffering, misery and

death to thousands,"--when we recollect that they probably stimulated

the exertions of the _amis des noirs_ in France, and that through the

efforts of these the horrors of St. Domingo were perpetrated--I think

they must hesitate long to return a decided negative. It might seem

cruel, if we could, to convince a man who has devoted his life to what

he esteemed a good and generous purpose, that he has been doing only

evil--that he has been worshiping a horrid fiend, in the place of the

true God. But fanaticism is in no danger of being convinced.[254] It is

one of the mysteries of our nature, and of the divine government, how

utterly disproportioned to each other are the powers of doing evil and

of doing good. The poorest and most abject instrument, that is utterly

imbecile for any purpose of good, seems sometimes endowed with almost

the powers of omnipotence for mischief. A mole may inundate a

province--a spark from a forge may conflagrate a city--a whisper may

separate friends--a rumor may convulse an empire--but when we would do

benefit to our race or country, the purest and most chastened motives,

the most patient thought and labor, with the humblest self-distrust, are

hardly sufficient to assure us that the results may not disappoint our

expectations, and that we may not do evil instead of good. But are we

therefore to refrain from efforts to benefit our race and country? By no

means: but these motives, this labor and self-distrust are the only

conditions upon which we are permitted to hope for success. Very

different indeed is the course of those whose precipitate and ignorant

zeal would overturn the fundamental institutions of society, uproar its

peace and endanger its security, in pursuit of a distant and shadowy

good, of which they themselves have formed no definite conception--whose

atrocious philosophy would sacrifice a generation--and more than one

generation--for any hypothesis.

FOOTNOTES:

[233] President Dew's Review of the Virginia Debates on the subject of

Slavery.

[234] Paulding on Slavery.

[235] I refer to President Dew on this subject.

[236] It is not uncommon, especially in Charleston, to see slaves, after

many descents and having mingled their blood with the Africans,

possessing Indian hair and features.

[237] The author of "England and America." We do, however, most

indignantly repudiate his conclusion, that we are bound to submit to a

tariff of protection, as an expedient for retaining our slaves, "the

force of the whole Union being required to preserve slavery, to keep

down the slaves."

[238] Fourierites, Socialists.

[239] The Irish levee and rail-road laborers are driven by blows.

[240] English papers propose _this_ for the West India negroes.

[241] Essays of Elia.

[242] _Southern Literary Messenger_, for January, 1835. _Note to

Blackstone's Commentaries._.

[243] See Missionary reports, statistics; also, Prof. Christy's

Ethiopia.--_Editor._

[244] Journal of an officer employed in the expedition, under the

command of Captain Owen, on the Western coast of Africa, 1822.

[245] The slaves of the "Wanderer" were returned to Africa against their

wills.--_Editor._

[246] In relation to the Missouri Controversy, J. Q. Adams

said:--_Editor._

"There is now every appearance that the slave question will be carried

by the superior ability of the slavery party. For this much is certain,

that if institutions are to be judged by their results in the

composition of the councils of the Union, the slaveholders are much more

ably represented than the simple freemen."--_Life of J. Q. Adams, by

Josiah Quincy, p. 98._"

"Never, since human sentiment and human conduct were influenced by human

speech, was there a theme for eloquence like the free side of this

question, now before the Congress of the Union. By what fatality does it

happen that all the most eloquent orators are on its slavish

side?"--_Ibid. p. 103._

"In the progress of this affair the distinctive character of the

inhabitants of the several great divisions of this Union has been shown

more in relief than perhaps in any national transaction since the

establishment of the Constitution. It is, perhaps, accidental that the

combination of talent and influence has been the greatest on the slave

side."--_Ibid. p. 118._

[247] The author of England and America thus speaks of the Colombian

Republic:

"During some years, this colony has been an independent state; but the

people dispersed over this vast and fertile plain, have almost ceased to

cultivate the good land at their disposal; they subsist principally,

many of them entirely, on the flesh of wild cattle; they have lost most

of the arts of civilized life; not a few of them are in a state of

deplorable misery; and if they should continue, as it seems probable

they will, to retrograde as at present, the beautiful pampas of Buenos

Ayres will soon be fit for another experiment in colonization. Slaves,

black or yellow, would have cultivated those plains, would have kept

together, would have been made to assist each other; would, by keeping

together and assisting each other, have raised a surplus produce

exchangeable in distant markets; would have kept their masters together

for the sake of markets; would, by combination of labor, have preserved

among their masters the arts and habits of civilized life." Yet this

writer, the whole practical effect of whose work, whatever he may have

thought or intended, is to show the absolute necessity, and immense

benefits of slavery, finds it necessary to add, I suppose in deference

to the general sentiment of his countrymen, "that slavery might have

done all this, seems not more plain, than that so much good would have

been bought too dear, if its price had been slavery." Well may we say

that the word makes men mad.

[248] Johnson on Change of Air.

[249] Eight days in the Abruzzi.--_Blackwood's Magazine_, November,

1835.

[250] I do not use the word democracy in the Athenian sense, but to

describe the government in which the slave and his master have an equal

voice in public affairs.

[251] Example of St. Domingo.

[252] Effects in Mexico and South American republics among the mongrel

races. See Prof. Christy's Ethiopia.

[253] On the abolition of slavery, Mr. Adams observed: "It is the only

part of European democracy which will find no favor in the United

States. It may aggravate the condition of slaves in the South, but the

result of the Missouri question, and the attitude of parties, have

silenced most of the declaimers on the subject. This state of things is

not to continue forever. It is possible that the danger of the abolition

doctrines, when brought home to Southern statesmen, may teach them the

value of the Union, as the only means which can maintain their system of

slavery."--Life of J. Q. Adams, page 177.--_Editor._

[254] Invariably true.

[Illustration]

SLAVERY

IN THE LIGHT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE.

BY

J. H. HAMMOND,

OF SOUTH CAROLINA.

SLAVERY

IN

THE LIGHT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE.

LETTER I.

Statement of the Question--Slave Trade increased

by the efforts made to suppress it--Title to

Slaves, to Lands--Abstract Ideas--Is Slavery

Sin?--Argument from the Old Testament--Argument

from the New Testament--The "Higher

Law"--Political Influence of Slavery--Free Labor

Police--In war, Slavery is Strength--Code of

Honor--Mercantile Credit--Religion and

Education--Licentiousness and Purity--Economy of

Slave Labor, and of Free Labor--Responsibility of

Power--Kindness and Cruelty--Curtailment of

Privileges--Punishment of Slaves, children and

soldiers--Police of Slavery--Condition of

Slaves--Condition of Free Laborers in

England--Slavery a necessary condition of human

Society--Moral Suasion of the

Abolitionists--Coolie Labor--Results of

Emancipation in the West Indies--Revival of the

Slave Trade by Emancipationists--Results of

Emancipation in the United States--Radicalism of

the present Age.

SILVER BLUFF, (SO. CA.,) JANUARY 28, 1845.

SIR: I received, a short time ago, a letter from the Rev. Willoughby M.

Dickinson, dated at your residence, "Playford Hall, near Ipswich, 26th

November, 1844," in which was inclosed a copy of your Circular Letter,

addressed to professing Christians in our Northern States, having no

concern with slavery, and to others there. I presume that Mr.

Dickinson's letter was written with your knowledge, and the document

inclosed with your consent and approbation. I therefore feel that there

is no impropriety in my addressing my reply directly to yourself,

especially as there is nothing in Mr. Dickinson's communication

requiring serious notice. Having abundant leisure, it will be a

recreation to devote a portion of it to an examination and free

discussion of the question of slavery as it exists in our Southern

States: and since you have thrown down the gauntlet to me, I do not

hesitate to take it up.

Familiar as you have been with the discussions of this subject in all

its aspects, and under all the excitements it has occasioned for sixty

years past, I may not be able to present much that will be new to you.

Nor ought I to indulge the hope of materially affecting the opinions you

have so long cherished, and so zealously promulgated. Still, time and

experience have developed facts, constantly furnishing fresh tests to

opinions formed sixty years since, and continually placing this great

question in points of view, which could scarcely occur to the most

consummate intellect even a quarter of a century ago: and which may not

have occurred yet to those whose previous convictions, prejudices, and

habits of thought, have thoroughly and permanently biased them to one

fixed way of looking at the matter: while there are peculiarities in the

operation of every social system, and special local as well as moral

causes materially affecting it, which no one, placed at the distance you

are from us, can fully comprehend or properly appreciate. Besides, it

may be possibly, a novelty to you to encounter one who conscientiously

believes the domestic slavery of these States to be not only an

inexorable necessity for the present, but a moral and humane

institution, productive of the greatest political and social advantages,

and who is disposed, as I am, to defend it on these grounds.

I do not propose, however, to defend the African slave trade. That is no

longer a question. Doubtless great evils arise from it as it has been,

and is now conducted: unnecessary wars and cruel kidnapping in Africa:

the most shocking barbarities in the middle passage: and perhaps a less

humane system of slavery in countries continually supplied with fresh

laborers at a cheap rate. The evils of it, however, it may be fairly

presumed, are greatly exaggerated. And if I might judge of the truth of

transactions stated as occurring in this trade, by that of those

reported as transpiring among us, I should not hesitate to say, that a

large proportion of the stories in circulation are unfounded, and most

of the remainder highly colored.

On the passage of the Act of Parliament prohibiting this trade to

British subjects rests, what you esteem, the glory of your life. It

required twenty years of arduous agitation, and the intervening

extraordinary political events, to convince your countrymen, and among

the rest your pious king, of the expediency of the measure: and it is

but just to say, that no one individual rendered more esessential

service to the cause than you did. In reflecting on the subject, you can

not but often ask yourself: What, after all, has been accomplished; how

much human suffering has been averted; how many human beings have been

rescued from transatlantic slavery? And on the answers you can give

these questions, must in a great measure, I presume, depend the

happiness of your life. In framing them, how frequently must you be

reminded of the remark of Mr. Grosvenor, in one of the early debates

upon the subject, which I believe you have yourself recorded, "that he

had twenty objections to the abolition of the slave trade: the first

was, _that it was impossible_--the rest he need not give." Can you say

to yourself, or to the world, that this _first_ objection of Mr.

Grosvenor has been yet confuted? It was estimated at the commencement of

your agitation in 1787, that forty-five thousand Africans were annually

transported to America and the West Indies. And the mortality of the

middle passage, computed by some at five, is now admitted not to have

exceeded nine per cent. Notwithstanding your Act of Parliament, the

previous abolition by the United States, and that all the powers in the

world have subsequently prohibited this trade--some of the greatest of

them declaring it piracy, and covering the African seas with armed

vessels to prevent it--Sir Thomas Fowel Buxton, a coadjutor of yours,

declared in 1840, that the number of Africans now annually sold into

slavery beyond the sea, amounts, at the very least, to one hundred and

fifty thousand souls; while the mortality of the middle passage has

increased, in consequence of the measures taken to suppress the trade,

to twenty-five or thirty per cent. And of the one hundred and fifty

thousand slaves who have been captured and liberated by British

men-of-war, since the passage of your Act, Judge Jay, an American

abolitionist, asserts that one hundred thousand, or two-thirds, have

perished between their capture and liberation. Does it not really seem

that Mr. Grosvenor was a prophet? That though nearly all the

"impossibilities" of 1787 have vanished, and become as familiar _facts_

as our household customs, under the magic influence of steam, cotton,

and universal peace, yet this wonderful prophecy still stands, defying

time and the energy and genius of mankind. Thousands of valuable lives,

and fifty millions of pounds sterling, have been thrown away by your

government in fruitless attempts to overturn it. I hope you have not

lived too long for your own happiness, though you have been spared to

see that in spite of all your toils and those of your fellow laborers,

and the accomplishment of all that human agency could do, the African

slave trade has increased three-fold under your own eyes--more rapidly,

perhaps, than any other ancient branch of commerce--and that your

efforts to suppress it, have affected _nothing more_ than a

three-fold increase of its horrors. There is a God who rules this

world--all-powerful--far-seeing: He does not permit his creatures to

foil his designs. It is he who, for his all-wise, though to us often

inscrutable purposes, throws "impossibilities" in the way of our fondest

hopes and most strenuous exertions. Can you doubt this?

Experience having settled the point, that this trade _can not be

abolished by the use of force_, and that blockading squadrons serve only

to make it more profitable and more cruel, I am surprised that the

attempt is persisted in, unless it serves as a cloak to other purposes.

It would be far better than it now is, for the African, if the trade was

free from all restrictions, and left to the mitigation and decay which

time and competition would surely bring about. If kidnapping, both

secretly, and by war made for the purpose, could be by any means

prevented in Africa, the next greatest blessing you could bestow upon

that country would be to transport its actual slaves in comfortable

vessels across the Atlantic. Though they might be perpetual bondsmen,

still they would emerge from darkness into light--from barbarism into

civilization--from idolatry to Christianity--in short from death to

life.

But let us leave the African slave trade, which has so signally defeated

the _philanthropy_ of the world, and turn to American slavery, to which

you have now directed your attention, and against which a crusade has

been preached as enthusiastic and ferocious as that of Peter the

Hermit--destined, I believe, to be about as successful. And here let me

say, there is a vast difference between the two, though you may not

acknowledge it. The wisdom of ages has concurred in the justice and

expediency of establishing rights by prescriptive use, however tortuous

in their origin they may have been. You would deem a man insane, whose

keen sense of equity would lead him to denounce your right to the lands

you hold, and which perhaps you inherited from a long line of ancestry,

because your title was derived from a Saxon or Norman conqueror, and

your lands were originally wrested by violence from the vanquished

Britons. And so would the New England abolitionists regard any one who

would insist that he should restore his farm to the descendants of the

slaughtered red men, to whom God had as clearly given it as he gave life

and freedom to the kidnapped African. That time does not consecrate

wrong, is a fallacy which all history exposes; and which the best and

wisest men of all ages and professions of religious faith have

practically denied. The means, therefore, whatever they may have been,

by which the African race now in this country have been reduced to

slavery, cannot affect us, since they are our property, as your land is

yours, by inheritance or purchase and prescriptive right. You will say

that man cannot hold _property in man_. The answer is, that he can and

_actually does_ hold property in his fellow all the world over, in a

variety of forms, and _has always done so_. I will show presently his

authority for doing it.

If you were to ask me whether I am an advocate of slavery in the

abstract, I should probably answer, that I am not, according to my

understanding of the question. I do not like to deal in abstractions. It

seldom leads to any useful ends. There are few universal truths. I do

not now remember any single moral truth universally acknowledged. We

have no assurance that it is given to our finite understanding to

comprehend abstract moral truth. Apart from revelation and the inspired

writings, what ideas should we have even of God, salvation, and

immortality? Let the heathen answer. Justice itself is impalpable as an

abstraction, and abstract liberty the merest phantasy that ever amused

the imagination. This world was made for man, and man for the world as

it is. We ourselves, our relations with one another and with all matter,

are real, not ideal. I might say that I am no more in favor of slavery

in the abstract, than I am of poverty, disease, deformity, idiocy, or

any other inequality in the condition of the human family; that I love

perfection, and think I should enjoy a millennium such as God has

promised. But what would it amount to? A pledge that I would join you to

set about eradicating those apparently inevitable evils of our nature,

in equalizing the condition of all mankind, consummating the perfection

of our race, and introducing the millennium? By no means. To effect

these things, belongs exclusively to a higher power. And it would be

well for us to leave the Almighty to perfect his own works and fulfill

his own covenants. Especially, as the history of the past shows how

entirely futile all human efforts have proved, when made for the purpose

of aiding him in carrying out even his revealed designs, and how

invariably he has accomplished them by unconscious instruments, and in

the face of human expectation. Nay more, that every attempt which has

been made by fallible man to extort from the world obedience to his

"abstract" notions of right and wrong, has been invariably attended with

calamities dire, and extended just in proportion to the breadth and

vigor of the movement. On slavery in the abstract, then, it would not be

amiss to have as little as possible to say. Let us contemplate it as it

is. And thus contemplating it, the first question we have to ask

ourselves is, whether it is contrary to the will of God, as revealed to

us in his Holy Scriptures--the only certain means given us to ascertain

his will. If it is, then slavery is a sin. And I admit at once that

every man is bound to set his face against it, and to emancipate his

slaves, should he hold any.

Let us open these Holy Scriptures. In the twentieth chapter of Exodus,

seventeenth verse, I find the following words: "Thou shalt not covet thy

neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his

man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any

thing that is thy neighbor's"--which is the tenth of those commandments

that declare the essential principles of the great moral law delivered

to Moses by God himself. Now, discarding all technical and verbal

quibbling as wholly unworthy to be used in interpreting the word of God,

what is the plain meaning, undoubted intent, and true spirit of this

commandment? Does it not emphatically and explicitly forbid you to

disturb your neighbor in the enjoyment of his property; and more

especially of that which is here specifically mentioned as being

lawfully, and by this commandment made sacredly his? Prominent in the

catalogue stands his "man-servant and his maid-servant," who are thus

distinctly _consecrated as his property_, and guaranteed to him for his

exclusive benefit, in the most solemn manner. You attempt to avert the

otherwise irresistible conclusion, that slavery was thus ordained by

God, by declaring that the word "slave" is not used here, and is not to

be found in the Bible, And I have seen many learned dissertations on

this point from abolition pens. It is well known that both the Hebrew

and Greek words translated "servant" in the Scriptures, means also, and

most usually, "slave." The use of the one word, instead of the other,

was a mere matter of taste with the translators of the Bible, as it has

been with all the commentators and religions writers, the latter of whom

have, I believe, for the most part, adopted the term "slave," or used

both terms indiscriminately. If, then, these Hebrew and Greek words

include the idea of both systems of servitude, the conditional and

unconditional, they should, as the major includes the minor proposition,

be always translated "slaves," unless the sense of the whole text

forbids it. The real question, then is, what idea is intended to be

conveyed by the words used in the commandment quoted? And it is clear to

my mind, that as no limitation is affixed to them, and the express

intention was to secure to mankind the peaceful enjoyment of every

species of property, that the terms "men-servants and maid-servants"

include all classes of servants, and establish a lawful, exclusive, and

indefeasible interest equally in the "Hebrew brother who shall go out in

the seventh year," and "the yearly hired servant," and "those purchased

from the heathen round about," who were to be "bond-men forever," _as

the property of their fellow-man_.

You cannot deny that there were among the Hebrews "bond-men forever."

You cannot deny that God especially authorized his chosen people to

purchase "bond-men forever" from the heathen, as recorded in the

twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus, and that they are there designated by

the very Hebrew word used in the tenth commandment. Nor can you deny

that a "BOND-MAN FOREVER" is a "SLAVE;" yet you endeavor to hang an

argument of immortal consequence upon the wretched subterfuge, that the

precise word "slave" is not to be found in the _translation_ of the

Bible. As if the translators were canonical expounders of the Holy

Scriptures, and _their words_, not _God's meaning_, must be regarded as

his revelation.

It is vain to look to Christ or any of his apostles to justify such

blasphemous perversions of the word of God. Although slavery in its most

revolting form was everywhere visible around them, no visionary notions

of piety or philanthropy ever tempted them to gainsay the LAW, even to

mitigate the cruel severity of the existing system. On the contrary,

regarding slavery as an _established_, as well as _inevitable condition

of human society_, they never hinted at such a thing as its termination

on earth, any more than that "the poor may cease out of the land,"

which God affirms to Moses shall never be: and they exhort "all servants

under the yoke" to "count their masters as worthy of all honor:" "to

obey them in all things according to the flesh; not with eye-service as

men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God;" "not only the

good and gentle, but also the froward:" "for what glory is it if when ye

are buffeted for your faults ye shall take it patiently? but if when ye

do well and suffer for it ye take it patiently, this is acceptable to

God." St. Paul actually apprehended a run-away slave, and sent him to

his master! Instead of deriving from the gospel any sanction for the

work you have undertaken, it would be difficult to imagine sentiments

and conduct more strikingly in contrast, than those of the apostles and

the abolitionists.

It is impossible, therefore, to suppose that slavery is contrary to the

will of God. It is equally absurd to say that American slavery differs

in form or principle from that of the chosen people. _We accept the

Bible terms as the definition of our slavery, and its precepts as the

guide of our conduct._ We desire nothing more. Even the right to

"buffet," which is esteemed so shocking, finds its express license in

the gospel. 1 Peter ii. 20. Nay, what is more, God directs the Hebrews

to "bore holes in the ears of their brothers" to _mark_ them, when under

certain circumstances they become _perpetual slaves_. Exodus xxi. 6.

I think, then, I may safely conclude, and I firmly believe, that

American slavery is not only not a sin, but especially commanded by God

through Moses, and approved by Christ through his apostles. And here I

might close its defense; for what God ordains, and Christ sanctifies,

should surely command the respect and toleration of man. But I fear

there has grown up in our time a transcendental religion, which is

throwing even transcendental philosophy into the shade--a religion too

pure and elevated for the Bible; which seeks to erect among men a higher

standard of morals than the Almighty has revealed, or our Saviour

preached; and which is probably destined to do more to impede the

extension of God's kingdom on earth than all the infidels who have ever

lived. Error is error. It is as dangerous to deviate to the right hand

as to the left. And when men, professing to be holy men, and who are by

numbers so regarded, declare those things to be sinful which our Creator

has expressly authorized and instituted, they do more to destroy his

authority among mankind than the most wicked can effect, by proclaiming

that to be innocent which he has forbidden. To this self-righteous and

self-exalted class belong all the abolitionists whose writings I have

read. With them it is no end of the argument to prove your propositions

by the text of the Bible, interpreted according to its plain and

palpable meaning, and as understood by all mankind for three thousand

years before their time. They are more ingenious at construing and

interpolating to accommodate it to their new-fangled and ethereal code

of morals, than ever were Voltaire and Hume in picking it to pieces, to

free the world from what they considered a delusion. When the

abolitionists proclaim "man-stealing" to be a sin, and show me that it

is so written down by God, I admit them to be right, and shudder at the

idea of such a crime. But when I show them that to hold "bond-men

forever" is ordained by God, _they deny the Bible, and set up in its

place a law of their own making_. I must then cease to reason with them

on this branch of the question. Our religion differs as widely as our

manners. The great Judge in our day of final account must decide between

us.

Turning from the consideration of slaveholding in its relations to man

as an accountable being, let us examine it in its influence on his

political and social state. Though, being foreigners to us, you are in

no wise entitled to interfere with the civil institutions of this

country, it has become quite common for your countrymen to decry slavery

as an enormous political evil to us, and even to declare that our

Northern States ought to withdraw from the Confedracy rather than

continue to be contaminated by it. The American abolitionists appear to

concur fully in these sentiments, and a portion, at least, of them are

incessantly threatening to dissolve the Union. Nor should I be at all

surprised if they succeed. It would not be difficult, in my opinion, to

conjecture which region, the North or South, would suffer most by such

an event. For one, I should not object, by any means, to cast my lot in

a confederacy of States whose citizens might all be slaveholders.

I indorse without reserve the much abused sentiment of Governor

M'Duffie, that "slavery is the corner-stone of our republican edifice;"

while I repudiate, as ridiculously absurd, that much lauded but nowhere

accredited dogma of Mr. Jefferson, that "all men are born equal."[255]

No society has ever yet existed, and I have already incidentally quoted

the highest authority to show that none ever will exist, without a

natural variety of classes. The most marked of these must, in a country

like ours, be the rich and the poor, the educated and the ignorant. It

will scarcely be disputed that the very poor have less leisure to

prepare themselves for the proper discharge of public duties than the

rich; and that the ignorant are wholly unfit for them at all. In all

countries save ours, these two classes, or the poor rather, who are

presumed to be necessarily ignorant, are by law expressly excluded from

all participation in the management of public affairs. In a Republican

Government this can not be done. Universal suffrage, though not

essential in theory, seems to be in fact a necessary appendage to a

republican system. Where universal suffrage obtains, it is obvious that

the government is in the hands of a numerical majority; and it is hardly

necessary to say that in every part of the world more than half the

people are ignorant and poor. Though no one can look upon poverty as a

crime, and we do not here generally regard it as any objection to a man

in his individual capacity, still it must be admitted that it is a

wretched and insecure government which is administered by its most

ignorant citizens, and those who have the least at stake under it.

Though intelligence and wealth have great influence here, as everywhere,

in keeping in check reckless and unenlightened numbers, yet it is

evident to close observers, if not to all, that these are rapidly

usurping all power in the non-slaveholding States, and threaten a

fearful crisis in republican institutions there at no remote period. In

the slaveholding States, however, nearly one-half of the whole

population, and those the poorest and most ignorant, have no political

influence whatever, because they are slaves. Of the other half, a large

proportion are both educated and independent in their circumstances,

while those who unfortunately are not so, being still elevated far above

the mass, are higher toned and more deeply interested in preserving a

stable and well-ordered government, than the same class in any other

country. Hence, slavery is truly the "corner-stone" and foundation of

every well-designed and durable "republican edifice."

With us every citizen is concerned in the maintenance of order, and in

promoting honesty and industry among those of the lowest class who are

our slaves; and our habitual vigilance renders standing armies, whether

of soldiers or policemen, entirely unnecessary. Small guards in our

cities, and occasional patrols in the country, insure us a repose and

security known no where else. You can not be ignorant that, excepting

the United States, there is no country in the world whose existing

government would not be overturned in a month, but for its standing

armies, maintained at an enormous and destructive cost to those whom

they are destined to overawe--so rampant and combative is the spirit of

discontent wherever nominal free labor prevails, with its extensive

privileges and its dismal servitude. Nor will it be long before the

"_free States_" of this Union will be compelled to introduce the same

expensive machinery, to preserve order among their "free and equal"

citizens. Already has Philadelphia organized a permanent battalion for

this purpose; New York, Boston and Cincinnati will soon follow her

example; and then the smaller towns and densely populated counties. The

intervention of their militia to repress violations of the peace is

becoming a daily affair. A strong government, after some of the old

fashions--though probably with a new name--sustained by the force of

armed mercenaries, is the ultimate destiny of the non-slaveholding

section of this confederacy, and one which may not be very distant.

It is a great mistake to suppose, as is generally done abroad, that in

case of war slavery would be a source of weakness. It did not weaken

Rome, nor Athens, nor Sparta, though their slaves were comparatively far

more numerous than ours, of the same color for the most part with

themselves, and large numbers of them familiar with the use of arms. I

have no apprehension that our slaves would seize such an opportunity to

revolt. The present generation of them, born among us, would never think

of such a thing at any time, unless instigated to it by others. Against

such instigations we are always on our guard. In time of war we should

be more watchful and better prepared to put down insurrections than at

any other periods. Should any foreign nation be so lost to every

sentiment of civilized humanity, as to attempt to erect among us the

standard of revolt, or to invade us with black troops, for the base and

barbarous purpose of stirring up servile war, their efforts would be

signally rebuked. Our slaves could not be easily seduced, nor would any

thing delight them more than to assist in stripping Cuffee of his

regimentals to put him in the cotton-field, which would be the fate of

most black invaders, without any very prolix form of "apprenticeship."

If, as I am satisfied would be the case, our slaves remained peaceful on

our plantations, and cultivated them in time of war under the

superintendence of a limited number of our citizens, it is obvious that

we could put forth more strength in such an emergency, at less

sacrifice, than any other people of the same numbers. And thus we should

in every point of view, "out of this nettle danger, pluck the flower

safety."

How far slavery may be an advantage or disadvantage to those not owning

slaves, yet united with us in political association, is a question for

their sole consideration. It is true that our representation in Congress

is increased by it. But so are our taxes; and the non-slaveholding

States, being the majority, divide among themselves far the greater

portion of the amount levied by the Federal Government. And I doubt not

that, when it comes to a close calculation, they will not be slow in

finding out that the balance of profit arising from the connection is

vastly in their favor.

In a social point of view the abolitionists pronounce slavery to be a

monstrous evil. If it was so, it would be our own peculiar concern, and

superfluous benevolence in them to lament over it. Seeing their bitter

hostility to us, they might leave us to cope with our own calamities.

But they make war upon us out of excess of charity, and attempt to

purify by covering us with calumny. You have read and assisted to

circulate a great deal about affrays, duels and murders, occurring here,

and all attributed to the terrible demoralization of slavery. Not a

single event of this sort takes place among us, but it is caught up by

the abolitionists, and paraded over the world, with endless comments,

variations and exaggerations. You should not take what reaches you as a

mere sample, and infer that there is a vast deal more you never hear.

You hear all, and more than all, the truth.

It is true that the point of honor is recognized throughout the slave

region, and that disputes of certain classes are frequently referred for

adjustment, to the "trial by combat." It would not be appropriate for me

to enter, in this letter, into a defense of the practice of duelling,

nor to maintain at length, that it does not tarnish the character of a

people to acknowledge a standard of honor. Whatever evils may arise from

it, however, they can not be attributed to slavery, since the same

custom prevails both in France and England. Few of your Prime Ministers,

of the last half century even, have escaped the contagion, I believe.

The affrays, of which so much is said, and in which rifles, bowie-knives

and pistols are so prominent, occur mostly in the frontier States of the

South-West. They are naturally incidental to the condition of society,

as it exists in many sections of these recently settled countries, and

will as naturally cease in due time. Adventurers from the older States,

and from Europe, as desperate in character as they are in fortune,

congregate in these wild regions, jostling one another and often forcing

the peaceable and honest into rencontres in self-defense. Slavery has

nothing to do with these things. Stability and peace are the first

desires of every slaveholder, and the true tendency of the system. It

could not possibly exist amid the eternal anarchy and civil broils of

the ancient Spanish dominions in America. And for this very reason,

domestic slavery has ceased there. So far from encouraging strife, such

scenes of riot and bloodshed, as have within the last few years

disgraced our Northern cities, and as you have lately witnessed in

Birmingham and Bristol and Wales, not only never have occurred, but I

will venture to say, never will occur in our slaveholding States. The

only thing that can create a mob (as you might call it) here, is the

appearance of an abolitionist, whom the people assemble to chastise. And

this is no more of a mob, than a rally of shepherds to chase a wolf out

of their pastures would be one.

But we are swindlers and repudiators? Pennsylvania is not a slave State.

A majority of the States which have failed to meet their obligations

punctually are non-slaveholding; and two-thirds of the debt said to be

repudiated is owed by these States. Many of the States of this Union are

heavily encumbered with debt--none so hopelessly as England.

Pennsylvania owes $22 for each inhabitant--England $222, counting her

paupers in. Nor has there been any repudiation definite and final, of a

lawful debt, that I am aware of. A few States have failed to pay some

installments of interest. The extraordinary financial difficulties which

occurred a few years ago will account for it. Time will set all things

right again. Every dollar of both principal and interest, owed by any

State, North or South, will be ultimately paid, _unless the abolition of

slavery overwhelms us all in one common ruin_. But have no other nations

failed to pay? When were the French Assignats redeemed? How much

interest did your National Bank pay on its immense circulation, from

1797 to 1821, during which period that circulation was inconvertible,

and for the time _repudiated_? How much of your national debt has been

incurred for money borrowed to meet the interest on it, thus avoiding

delinquency in detail, by insuring inevitable bankruptcy and repudiation

in the end? And what sort of operation was that by which your present

Ministry recently expunged a handsome amount of that debt, by

substituting, through a process just not compulsory, one species of

security for another? I am well aware that the faults of others do not

excuse our own, but when failings are charged to slavery, which are

shown to occur to equal extent where it does not exist, surely slavery

must be acquitted of the accusation.

It is roundly asserted, that we are not so well educated nor so

religious here as elsewhere. I will not go into tedious statistical

statements on these subjects. Nor have I, to tell the truth, much

confidence in the details of what are commonly set forth as statistics.

As to education, you will probably admit that slaveholders should have

more leisure for mental culture than most people. And I believe it is

charged against them, that they are peculiarly fond of power, and

ambitious of honors. If this be so, as all the power and honors of this

country are won mainly by intellectual superiority, it might be fairly

presumed, that slaveholders would not be neglectful of education. In

proof of the accuracy of this presumption, I point you to the facts,

that our Presidential chair has been occupied for forty-four out of

fifty-six years, by slaveholders; that another has been recently elected

to fill it for four more, over an opponent who was a slaveholder also;

and that in the Federal Offices and both Houses of Congress,

considerably more than a due proportion of those acknowledged to stand

in the first rank are from the South. In this arena, the intellects of

the free and slave States meet in full and fair competition. Nature

must have been unusually bountiful to us, or we have been at least

reasonably assiduous in the cultivation of such gifts as she has

bestowed--unless indeed you refer our superiority to moral qualities,

which I am sure _you_ will not. More wealthy we are not; nor would mere

wealth avail in such rivalry.

The piety of the South is inobtrusive. We think it proves but little,

though it is a confident thing for a man to claim that he stands higher

in the estimation of his Creator, and is less a sinner than his

neighbor. If vociferation is to carry the question of religion, the

North, and probably the Scotch, have it. Our sects are few, harmonious,

pretty much united among themselves, and pursue their avocations in

humble peace. In fact, our professors of religion seem to think--whether

correctly or not--that it is their duty "to do good in secret," and to

carry their holy comforts to the heart of each individual, without

reference to class _or color_, for his special enjoyment, and not with a

view to exhibit their zeal before the world. So far as numbers are

concerned, I believe our clergymen, when called on to make a showing,

have never had occasion to blush, if comparisons were drawn between the

free and slave States. And although our presses do not teem with

controversial pamphlets, nor our pulpits shake with excommunicating

thunders, the daily walk of our religious communicants furnishes,

apparently, as little food for gossip as is to be found in most other

regions. It may be regarded as a mark of our want of excitability--though

that is a quality accredited to us in an eminent degree--that few of the

remarkable religious _Isms_ of the present day have taken root among us.

We have been so irreverent as to laugh at Mormonism and Millerism, which

have created such commotions further North; and modern prophets have no

honor in our country. Shakers, Rappists, Dunkers, Socialists,

Fourrierists, and the like, keep themselves afar off. Even Puseyism has

not yet moved us. You may attribute this to our domestic slavery if you

choose. I believe you would do so justly. There is no material here for

such characters to operate upon.

But your grand charge is, that licentiousness in intercourse between the

sexes, is a prominent trait of our social system, and that it

necessarily arises from slavery. This is a favorite theme with the

abolitionists, male and female. Folios have been written on it. It is a

common observation, that there is no subject on which ladies of eminent

virtue so much delight to dwell, and on which in especial learned old

maids, like Miss Martineau, linger with such an insatiable relish. They

expose it in the slave States with the most minute observance and

endless iteration. Miss Martineau, with peculiar gusto, relates a series

of scandalous stories, which would have made Boccacio jealous of her

pen, but which are so ridiculously false as to leave no doubt, that some

wicked wag, knowing she would write a book, has furnished her

materials--a game too often played on tourists in this country. The

constant recurrence of the female abolitionists to this topic, and their

bitterness in regard to it, cannot fail to suggest to even the most

charitable mind, that

"Such rage without betrays the fires within."

Nor are their immaculate coadjutors of the other sex, though perhaps

less specific in their charges, less violent in their denunciations. But

recently in your island, a clergyman has, at a public meeting,

stigmatized the whole slave region as a "brothel." Do these people thus

cast stones, being "without sin?" Or do they only

"Compound for sins they are inclined to

By damning those they have no mind to."

Alas that David and Solomon should be allowed to repose in peace--that

Leo should be almost canonized, and Luther more than sainted--that in

our own day courtezans should be formally licensed in Paris, and

tenements in London rented for years to women of the town for the

benefit of the church, with the knowledge of the bishop--and the poor

slave States of America alone pounced upon, and offered up as a

holocaust on the altar of immaculateness, to atone for the abuse of

natural instinct by all mankind; and if not actually consumed, at least

exposed, anathematized and held up to scorn, by those who

"Write,

Or with a rival's or an eunuch's spite."

But I do not intend to admit that this charge is just or true. Without

meaning to profess uncommon modesty, I will say that I wish the topic

could be avoided. I am of opinion, and I doubt not every right-minded

man will concur, that the public exposure and discussion of this vice,

even to rebuke, invariably does more harm than good; and that if it

cannot be checked by instilling pure and virtuous sentiments, it is far

worse than useless to attempt to do it, by exhibiting its deformities. I

may not, however, pass it over; nor ought I to feel any delicacy in

examining a question, to which the slaveholder is invited and challenged

by clergymen and virgins. So far from allowing, then, that

licentiousness pervades this region, I broadly assert, and I refer to

the records of our courts, to the public press, and to the knowledge of

all who have ever lived here, that among our white population there are

fewer cases of divorce, separation, crim. con., seduction, rape and

bastardy, than among any other five millions of people on the civilized

earth. And this fact I believe will be conceded by the abolitionists of

this country themselves. I am almost willing to refer it to them and

submit to their decision on it. I would not hesitate to do so, if I

thought them capable of an impartial judgment on any matter where

slavery is in question. But it is said, that the licentiousness consists

in the constant intercourse between white males and colored females. One

of your heavy charges against us has been, that we regard and treat

those people as brutes; you now charge us with habitually taking them to

our bosoms. I will not comment on the inconsistency of these

accusations. I will not deny that some intercourse of the sort does take

place. Its character and extent, however, are grossly and atrociously

exaggerated. No authority, divine or human, has yet been found

sufficient to arrest all such irregularities among men. But it is a

known fact, that they are perpetrated here, for the most part, in the

cities. Very few mulattoes are reared on our plantations. In the cities,

a large proportion of the inhabitants do not own slaves. A still larger

proportion are natives of the North, or foreigners. They should share,

and justly, too, an equal part in this sin with the slaveholders. Facts

cannot be ascertained, or I doubt not, it would appear that they are the

chief offenders. If the truth be otherwise, then persons from abroad

have stronger prejudices against the African race than we have. Be this

as it may, it is well known, that this intercourse is regarded in our

society as highly disreputable. If carried on habitually, it seriously

affects a man's standing, so far as it is known; and he who takes a

colored mistress--with rare and extraordinary exceptions--loses caste at

once. You will say that _one_ exception should damn our whole country.

How much less criminal is it to take a white mistress? In your eyes it

should be at least an equal offense. Yet look around you at home, from

the cottage to the throne, and count how many mistresses are kept in

unblushing notoriety, without loss of caste. Such cases are nearly

unknown here, and down even to the lowest walks of life, it is almost

invariably fatal to a man's position and prospects to keep a mistress

openly, whether white or black. What Miss Martineau relates of a young

man's purchasing a colored concubine from a lady, and avowing his

designs, is too absurd even for contradiction. No person would dare to

allude to such a subject, in such a manner, to any decent female in this

country.

After all, however, the number of the mixed breed, in proportion to that

of the black, is infinitely small, and out of the towns next to nothing.

And when it is considered that the African race has been among us for

two hundred years, and that those of the mixed breed continually

intermarry--often rearing large families--it is a decided proof of our

continence, that so few comparatively are to be found. Our misfortunes

are two-fold. From the prolific propagation of these mongrels among

themselves, we are liable to be charged by tourists with delinquencies

where none have been committed, while, where one has been, it cannot be

concealed. Color marks indelibly the offense, and reveals it to every

eye. Conceive that, even in your virtuous and polished country, if every

bastard, through all the circles of your social system, was thus branded

by nature and known to all, what shocking developments might there not

be! How little indignation might your saints have to spare for the

licentiousness of the slave region. But I have done with this disgusting

topic. And I think I may justly conclude, after all the scandalous

charges which tea-table gossip, and long-gowned hypocrisy have brought

against the slaveholders, that a people whose men are proverbially

brave, intellectual and hospitable, and whose women are unaffectedly

chaste, devoted to domestic life, and happy in it, can neither be

degraded nor demoralized, whatever their institutions may be. My decided

opinion is, that our system of slavery contributes largely to the

development and culture of those high and noble qualities.

In an economical point of view--which I will not omit--slavery presents

some difficulties. As a general rule, I agree it must be admitted, that

free labor is cheaper than slave labor. It is a fallacy to suppose that

ours is _unpaid labor_. The slave himself must be paid for, and thus

his labor is all purchased at once, and for no trifling sum. His price

was, in the first place, paid mostly to your countrymen, and assisted in

building up some of those colossal English fortunes, since illustrated

by patents of nobility, and splendid piles of architecture, stained and

cemented, if you like the expression, with the blood of kidnapped

innocents; but loaded with no heavier curses than abolition and its

begotten fanaticisms have brought upon your land--some of them

fulfilled, some yet to be. But besides the first cost of the slave, he

must be fed and clothed, well fed and well clothed, if not for

humanity's sake, that he may do good work, retain health and life, and

rear a family to supply his place. When old or sick, he is a clear

expense, and so is the helpless portion of his family. No poor law

provides for him when unable to work, or brings up his children for our

service when we need them. These are all heavy charges on slave labor.

Hence, in all countries where the denseness of the population has

reduced it to a matter of perfect certainty, that labor can be obtained,

whenever wanted, and the laborer be forced, by sheer necessity, to hire

for the smallest pittance that will keep soul and body together, and

rags upon his back while in actual employment--dependent at all other

times on alms or poor rates--in all such countries it is found cheaper

to pay this pittance, than to clothe, feed, nurse, support through

childhood, and pension in old age, a race of slaves. Indeed, the

advantage is so great as speedily to compensate for the loss of the

value of the slave. And I have no hesitation in saying, that if I could

cultivate my lands on these terms, I would, without a word, resign my

slaves, provided they could be properly disposed of. But the question

is, whether free or slave labor is cheapest to us in this country, at

this time, situated as we are. And it is decided at once by the fact

that we can not avail ourselves of any other than slave labor. We

neither have, nor can we procure, other labor to any extent, or on any

thing like the terms mentioned. We must, therefore, content ourselves

with our dear labor, under the consoling reflection that what is lost to

us, is gained to humanity; and that, inasmuch as our slave costs us more

than your free men costs you, by so much is he better off. You will

promptly say, emancipate your slaves, and then you will have free labor

on suitable terms. That might be if there were five hundred where there

now is one, and the continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, was as

densely populated as your Island. But until that comes to pass, no labor

can be procured in America on the terms you have it.

While I thus freely admit that to the individual proprietor slave labor

is dearer than free, I do not mean to admit as equally clear that it is

dearer to the community and to the State. Though it is certain that the

slave is a far greater consumer than your laborer, the year round, yet

your pauper system is costly and wasteful. Supported by your community

at large, it is not administered by your hired agents with that

interested care and economy--not to speak of humanity--which mark the

management of ours, by each proprietor, for his own non-effectives; and

is both more expensive to those who pay, and less beneficial to those

who receive its bounties. Besides this, slavery is rapidly filling up

our country with a hardy and healthy race, peculiarly adapted to our

climate and productions, and conferring signal political and social

advantages on us as a people, to which I have already referred.

I have yet to reply to the main ground on which you and your coadjutors

rely for the overthrow of our system of slavery. Failing in all your

attempts to prove that it is sinful in its nature, immoral in its

effects, a political evil, and profitless to those who maintain it, you

appeal to the sympathies of mankind, and attempt to arouse the world

against us by the most shocking charges of tyranny and cruelty. You

begin by a vehement denunciation of "the irresponsible power of one man

over his fellow men." The question of the responsibility of power is a

vast one. It is the great political question of modern times. Whole

nations divide off upon it and establish different fundamental systems

of government. That "responsibility," which to one set of millions seems

amply sufficient to check the government, to the support of which they

devote their lives and fortunes, appears to another set of millions a

mere mockery of restraint. And accordingly as the opinions of these

millions differ, they honor each other with the epithets of "serfs" or

"anarchists." It is ridiculous to introduce such an idea as this into

the discussion of a mere domestic institution; but since you have

introduced it, I deny that the power of the slaveholder in America is

"irresponsible." He is responsible to God. He is responsible to the

world--a responsibility which abolitionists do not intend to allow him

to evade--and in acknowledgment of which, I write you this letter. He

is responsible to the community in which he lives, and to the laws under

which he enjoys his civil rights. Those laws do not permit him to kill,

to maim, or to punish beyond certain limits, or to overtask, or to

refuse to feed and clothe his slave. In short, they forbid him to be

tyrannical or cruel. If any of these laws have grown obsolete, it is

because they are so seldom violated, that they are forgotten. You have

disinterred one of them, from a compilation by some Judge Stroud of

Philadelphia, to stigmatize its inadequate penalties for killing,

maiming, etc. Your object appears to be--you can have no other--to

produce the impression, that it must be often violated on account of its

insufficiency. You say as much, and that it marks our estimate of the

slave. You forget to state that this law was enacted by _Englishmen_,

and only indicates _their_ opinion of the reparation due for these

offenses. Ours is proved by the fact, though perhaps unknown to Judge

Stroud or yourself, that we have essentially altered this law; and the

murder of a slave has for many years been punishable with death in this

State. And so it is, I believe, in most or all of the slave States. You

seem well aware, however, that laws have been recently passed in all

these States, making it penal to teach slaves to read. Do you know what

occasioned their passage, and renders their stringent enforcement

necessary? I can tell you. It was the abolition agitation. If the slave

is not allowed to read his Bible, the sin rests upon the abolitionists;

for they stand prepared to furnish him with a key to it, which would

make it, not a book of hope, and love, and peace, but of despair, hatred

and blood; which would convert the reader, not into a Christian, but a

demon. To preserve him from such a horrid destiny, it is a sacred duty

which we owe to our slaves, not less than to ourselves, to interpose the

most decisive means. If the Catholics deem it wrong to trust the Bible

to the hands of ignorance, shall we be excommunicated because we will

not give it, and with it the corrupt and fatal commentaries of the

abolitionists, to our slaves? Allow our slaves to read your writings,

stimulating them to cut our throats! Can you believe us to be such

unspeakable fools?

I do not know that I can subscribe in full to the sentiment so often

quoted by the abolitionists, and by Mr. Dickinson in his letter to me:

"_Homo sum humani nihil a me alienum puto_," as translated and

practically illustrated by them. Such a doctrine would give wide

authority to every one for the most dangerous intermeddling with the

affairs of others. It will do in poetry--perhaps in some sorts of

philosophy--but the attempt to make it a household maxim, and introduce

it into the daily walks of life, has caused many a "homo" a broken

crown; and probably will continue to do it. Still, though a slaveholder,

I freely acknowledge my obligations as a man; and that I am bound to

treat humanely the fellow-creatures whom God has intrusted to my charge.

I feel, therefore, somewhat sensitive under the accusation of cruelty,

and disposed to defend myself and fellow-slaveholders against it. It is

certainly the interest of all, and I am convinced that it is also the

desire of every one of us, to treat our slaves with proper kindness. It

is necessary to our deriving the greatest amount of profit from them. Of

this we are all satisfied. And you snatch from us the only consolation

we Americans could derive from the opprobrious imputation of being

wholly devoted to making money, which your disinterested and

gold-despising countrymen delight to cast upon us, when you nevertheless

declare that we are ready to sacrifice it for the pleasure of being

inhuman. You remember that Mr. Pitt could not get over the idea that

self-interest would insure kind treatment to slaves, until you told him

your woful stories of the middle passage. Mr. Pitt was right in the

first instance, and erred, under your tuition, in not perceiving the

difference between a temporary and permanent ownership of them.

Slaveholders are no more perfect than other men. They have passions.

Some of them, as you may suppose, do not at all times restrain them.

Neither do husbands, parents and friends. And in each of these

relations, as serious suffering as frequently arises from uncontrolled

passions, as ever does in that of master and slave, and with as little

chance of indemnity. Yet you would not on that account break them up. I

have no hesitation in saying that our slaveholders are kind masters, as

men usually are kind husbands, parents and friends--as a general rule,

kinder. A bad master--he who overworks his slaves, provides ill for

them, or treats them with undue severity--loses the esteem and respect

of his fellow-citizens to as great an extent as he would for the

violation of any of his social and most of his moral obligations. What

the most perfect plan of management would be, is a problem hard to

solve. From the commencement of slavery in this country, this subject

has occupied the minds of all slaveholders, as much as the improvement

of the general condition of mankind has those of the most ardent

philanthropists; and the greatest progressive amelioration of the system

has been effected. You yourself acknowledge that in the early part of

your career you were exceedingly anxious for the _immediate_ abolition

of the slave trade, lest those engaged in it should so mitigate its

evils as to destroy the force of your arguments and facts. The

improvement you then _dreaded_ has gone on steadily here, and would

doubtless have taken place in the slave trade, but for the measures

adopted to suppress it.

Of late years we have not only been annoyed, but greatly embarrassed in

this matter, by the abolitionists. We have been compelled to curtail

some privileges; we have been debarred from granting new ones. In the

face of discussions which aim at loosening all ties between master and

slave, we have in some measure to abandon our efforts to attach them to

us, and control them through their affections and pride. We have to rely

more and more on the power of fear. We must, in all our intercourse with

them, assert and maintain strict mastery, and impress it on them that

they are slaves. This is painful to us, and certainly no present

advantage to them. But it is the direct consequence of the abolition

agitation. We are determined to continue masters, and to do so we have

to draw the rein tighter and tighter day by day to be assured that we

hold them in complete check. How far this process will go on, depends

wholly and solely on the abolitionists. When they desist, we can relax.

We may not before. I do not mean by all this to say that we are in a

state of actual alarm and fear of our slaves; but under existing

circumstances we should be ineffably stupid not to increase our

vigilance and strengthen our hands. You see some of the fruits of your

labors. I speak freely and candidly--not as a colonist, who, though a

slaveholder, has a master; but as a free white man, holding, under God,

and resolved to hold, my fate in my own hands; and I assure you that my

sentiments, and feelings, and determinations, are those of every

slaveholder in this country.

The research and ingenuity of the abolitionists, aided by the invention

of run-away slaves--in which faculty, so far as improvizing falsehood

goes, the African race is without a rival--have succeeded in shocking

the world with a small number of pretended instances of our barbarity.

The only wonder is, that considering the extent of our country, the

variety of our population, its fluctuating character, and the publicity

of all our transactions, the number of cases is so small. It speaks well

for us. Yet of these, many are false, all highly colored, some occurring

half a century, most of them many years ago; and no doubt a large

proportion of them perpetrated by foreigners. With a few rare

exceptions, the emigrant Scotch and English are the worst masters among

us, and next to them our Northern fellow-citizens. Slaveholders born and

bred here are always more humane to slaves, and those who have grown up

to a large inheritance of them, the most so of any--showing clearly that

the effect of the system is to foster kindly feelings. I do not mean so

much to impute innate inhumanity to foreigners, as to show that they

come here with false notions of the treatment usual and necessary for

slaves, and that newly acquired power here, as everywhere else, is apt

to be abused. I cannot enter into a detailed examination of the cases

stated by the abolitionists. It would be disgusting, and of little

avail. I know nothing of them. I have seen nothing like them, though

born and bred here, and have rarely heard of any thing at all to be

compared to them. Permit me to say that I think most of _your_ facts

must have been drawn from the West Indies, where undoubtedly slaves were

treated much more harshly than with us. This was owing to a variety of

causes, which might, if necessary, be stated. One was, that they had at

first to deal more extensively with barbarians fresh from the wilds of

Africa; another, and a leading one, the absenteeism of proprietors.

Agents are always more unfeeling than owners, whether placed over West

Indian or American slaves, or Irish tenantry. We feel this evil greatly

even here. You describe the use of _thumb screws_, as one mode of

punishment among us. I doubt if a thumb screw can be found in America. I

never saw or heard of one in this country. Stocks are rarely used by

private individuals, and confinement still more seldom, though both are

common punishments for whites, all the world over. I think they should

be more frequently resorted to with slaves, as substitutes for flogging,

which I consider the most injurious and least efficacious mode of

punishing them for serious offenses. It is not degrading, and unless

excessive, occasions little pain. You may be a little astonished, after

all the flourishes that have been made about "cart whips," etc., when I

say flogging is not the most degrading punishment in the world. It may

be so to a white man in most countries, but how is it to the white boy?

That necessary coadjutor of the schoolmaster, the "birch," is never

thought to have rendered infamous the unfortunate victim of pedagogue

ire; nor did Solomon in his wisdom dream that he was counseling parents

to debase their offspring, when he exhorted them not to spoil the child

by sparing the rod. Pardon me for recurring to the now exploded ethics

of the Bible. Custom, which, you will perhaps agree, makes most things

in this world good or evil, has removed all infamy from the punishment

of the lash to the slave. Your blood boils at the recital of stripes

inflicted on a man; and you think you should be frenzied to see your own

child flogged. Yet see how completely this is ideal, arising from the

fashions of society. You doubtless submitted to the rod yourself, in

other years, when the smart was perhaps as severe as it would be now;

and you have never been guilty of the folly of revenging yourself on the

Preceptor, who, in the plenitude of his "irresponsible power," thought

proper to chastise your son. So it is with the negro, and the negro

father.

As to chains and irons, they are rarely used; never, I believe, except

in cases of running away. You will admit that if we pretend to own

slaves, they must not be permitted to abscond whenever they see fit; and

that if nothing else will prevent it, these means must be resorted to.

See the inhumanity necessarily arising from slavery, you will exclaim.

Are such restraints imposed on no other class of people, giving no more

offense? Look to your army and navy. If your seamen, impressed from

their peaceful occupations, and your soldiers, recruited at the

gin-shops--both of them as much kidnapped as the most unsuspecting

victim of the slave trade, and doomed to a far more wretched fate--if

these men manifest a propensity to desert, the heaviest manacles are

their mildest punishment. It is most commonly death, after summary

trial. But armies and navies, you say, are indispensable, and must be

kept up at every sacrifice. I answer, that they are no more

indispensable than slavery is to us--and to _you_; for you have enough

of it in your country, though the form and name differ from ours.

Depend upon it that many things, and in regard to our slaves, most

things which appear revolting at a distance, and to slight reflection,

would, on a nearer view and impartial comparison with the customs and

conduct of the rest of mankind, strike you in a very different light.

Remember that on our estates we dispense with the whole machinery of

public police and public courts of justice. Thus we try, decide, and

execute the sentences, in thousands of cases, which in other countries

would go into the courts. Hence, most of the acts of our alleged

cruelty, which have any foundation in truth. Whether our patriarchal

mode of administering justice is less humane than the Assizes, can only

be determined by careful inquiry and comparison. But this is never done

by the abolitionists. All our punishments are the outrages of

"irresponsible power." If a man steals a pig in England, he is

transported--torn from wife, children, parents, and sent to the

antipodes, infamous, and an outcast forever, though probably he took

from the superabundance of his neighbor to save the lives of his

famishing little ones. If one of our well fed negroes, merely for the

sake of fresh meat, steals a pig, he gets perhaps forty stripes. If one

of your cottagers breaks into another's house, he is hung for burglary.

If a slave does the same here, a few lashes, or it may be, a few hours

in the stocks, settles the matter. Are our courts or yours the most

humane? If slavery were not in question, you would doubtless say ours is

mistaken lenity. Perhaps it often is; and slaves too lightly dealt with

sometimes grow daring. Occasionally, though rarely, and almost always in

consequence of excessive indulgence, an individual rebels. This is the

highest crime he can commit. It is treason. It strikes at the root of

our whole system. His life is justly forfeited, though it is never

intentionally taken, unless after trial in our public courts. Sometimes,

however, in capturing, or in self-defense, he is unfortunately killed. A

legal investigation always follows. But, terminate as it may, the

abolitionists raise a hue and cry, and another "shocking case" is held

up to the indignation of the world by tender-hearted male and female

philanthropists, who would have thought all right had the master's

throat been cut, and would have triumphed in it.

I cannot go into a detailed comparison between the penalties inflicted

on a slave in our patriarchal courts, and those of the Courts of

Sessions, to which freemen are sentenced in all civilized nations; but I

know well that if there is any fault in our criminal code, it is that of

excessive mildness.

Perhaps a few general facts will best illustrate the treatment this race

receives at our hands. It is acknowledged that it increases at least as

rapidly as the white. I believe it is an established law, that

population thrives in proportion to its comforts. But when it is

considered that these people are not recruited by immigration from

abroad, as the whites are, and that they are usually settled on our

richest and least healthy lands, the fact of their equal comparative

increase and greater longevity, outweighs a thousand abolition

falsehoods, in favor of the leniency and providence of our management of

them. It is also admitted that there are incomparably fewer cases of

insanity and suicide among them than among the whites. The fact is, that

among the slaves of the African race these things are almost wholly

unknown. However frequent suicide may have been among those brought from

Africa, I can say that in my time I cannot remember to have known or

heard of a single instance of deliberate self-destruction, and but of

one of suicide at all. As to insanity, I have seen but one permanent

case of it, and that twenty years ago. It cannot be doubted that among

three millions of people there must be some insane and some suicides;

but I will venture to say that more cases of both occur annually among

every hundred thousand of the population of Great Britain, than among

all our slaves. Can it be possible, then, that they exist in that state

of abject misery, goaded by constant injuries, outraged in their

affections, and worn down with hardships, which the abolitionists

depict, and so many ignorant and thoughtless persons religiously

believe?

With regard to the separation of husbands and wives, parents and

children, nothing can be more untrue than the inferences drawn from what

is so constantly harped on by abolitionists. Some painful instances

perhaps may occur. Very few that can be prevented. It is, and it always

has been, an object of prime consideration with our slaveholders, to

keep families together. Negroes are themselves both perverse and

comparatively indifferent about this matter. It is a singular trait,

that they almost invariably prefer forming connections with slaves

belonging to other masters, and at some distance. It is, therefore,

impossible to prevent separations sometimes, by the removal of one

owner, his death, or failure, and dispersion of his property. In all

such cases, however, every reasonable effort is made to keep the parties

together, if they desire it. And the negroes forming these connections,

knowing the chances of their premature dissolution, rarely complain more

than we all do of the inevitable strokes of fate. Sometimes it happens

that a negro prefers to give up his family rather than separate from his

master. I have known such instances. As to willfully selling off a

husband, or wife, or child, I believe it is rarely, very rarely done,

except when some offense has been committed demanding "transportation."

At sales of estates, and even at sheriff's sales, they are always, if

possible, sold in families. On the whole, notwithstanding the migratory

character of our population, I believe there are more families among our

slaves, who have lived and died together without losing a single member

from their circle, except by the process of nature, and in the enjoyment

of constant, uninterrupted communion, than have flourished in the same

space of time, and among the same number of civilized people in modern

times. And to sum up all, if pleasure is correctly defined to be the

absence of pain--which, so far as the great body of mankind is

concerned, is undoubtedly its true definition--I believe our slaves are

the happiest three millions of human beings on whom the sun shines. Into

their Eden is coming Satan in the guise of an abolitionist.

As regards their religious condition, it is well known that a majority

of the communicants of the Methodist and Baptist churches of the South

are colored. Almost everywhere they have precisely the same

opportunities of attending worship that the whites have, and, beside

special occasions for themselves exclusively, which they prefer. In many

places not so accessible to clergymen in ordinary, missionaries are

sent, and mainly supported by their masters, for the particular benefit

of the slaves. There are none I imagine who may not, if they like, hear

the gospel preached at least once a month--most of them twice a month,

and very many every week. In our thinly settled country the whites fare

no better. But in addition to this, on plantations of any size, the

slaves who have joined the church are formed into a class, at the head

of which is placed one of their number, acting as deacon or leader, who

is also sometimes a licensed preacher. This class assembles for

religious exercises weekly, semi-weekly, or oftener, if the members

choose. In some parts, also, Sunday schools for blacks are established,

and Bible classes are orally instructed by discreet and pious persons.

Now where will you find a laboring population possessed of greater

religious advantages than these? Not in London, I am sure, where it is

known that your churches, chapels, and religions meeting-houses, of all

sorts, can not contain one-half of the inhabitants.

I have admitted, without hesitation, what it would be untrue and

profitless to deny, that slaveholders are responsible to the world for

the humane treatment of the fellow-beings whom God has placed in their

hands. I think it would be only fair for you to admit, what is equally

undeniable, that every man in independent circumstances, all the world

over, and every government, is to the same extent responsible to the

whole human family, for the condition of the poor and laboring classes

in their own country, and around them, wherever they may be placed, to

whom God has denied the advantages he has given themselves. If so, it

would naturally seem the duty of true humanity and rational philanthropy

to devote their time and labor, their thoughts, writings and charity,

first to the objects placed as it were under their own immediate charge.

And it must be regarded as a clear evasion and skillful neglect of this

cardinal duty, to pass from those whose destitute situation they can

plainly see, minutely examine, and efficiently relieve, to inquire after

the condition of others in no way intrusted to their care, to exaggerate

evils of which they can not be cognizant, to expend all their sympathies

and exhaust all their energies on these remote objects of their

unnatural, not to say dangerous, benevolence; and finally, to

calumniate, denounce, and endeavor to excite the indignation of the

world against their unoffending fellow-creatures for not hastening,

under their dictation, to redress wrongs which are stoutly and

truthfully denied, while they themselves go but little further in

alleviating those chargeable on them than openly and unblushingly to

acknowledge them. There may be indeed a sort of merit in doing so much

as to make such an acknowledgment, but it must be very modest if it

expects appreciation.

Now I affirm, that in Great Britain the poor and laboring classes of

your own race and color, not only your fellow-beings, but your

_fellow-citizens_, are more miserable and degraded, morally and

physically, than our slaves; to be elevated to the actual condition of

whom, would be to these, _your fellow-citizens_, a most glorious act of

_emancipation_. And I also affirm, that the poor and laboring classes of

our older free States would not be in a much more enviable condition,

but for our slavery. One of their own Senators has declared in the

United States Senate, "that the repeal of the Tariff would reduce New

England to a howling wilderness." And the American Tariff is neither

more or less than a system by which the slave States are plundered for

the benefit of those States which do not tolerate slavery.

To prove what I say of Great Britain to be true, I make the following

extracts from the Reports of Commissioners appointed by Parliament, and

published by order of the House of Commons. I can make but few and short

ones. But similar quotations might be made to any extent, and I defy you

to deny that these specimens exhibit the real condition of your

operatives in every branch of your industry. There is of course a

variety in their sufferings. But the same incredible amount of toil,

frightful destitution, and utter want of morals, characterize the lot of

every class of them.

_Collieries_--"I wish to call the attention of the Board to the pits

about Brampton. The seams are so thin that several of them have only two

feet headway to all the working. They are worked altogether by boys from

eight to twelve years of age, on all-fours, with a dog belt and chain.

The passages being neither ironed nor wooded, and often an inch or two

thick with mud. In Mr. Barnes' pit these poor boys have to drag the

barrows with one hundred weight of coal or slack sixty times a day sixty

yards, and the empty barrows back, without once straightening their

backs, unless they chose to stand under the shaft, and run the risk of

having their heads broken by a falling coal."--Report on Mines, 1842, p.

71. "In Shropshire the seams are no more than eighteen or twenty

inches."--Ibid, p. 67. "At the Booth pit," says Mr. Scriven, "I walked,

rode, and crept eighteen hundred yards to one of the nearest

faces."--Ibid. "Chokedamp, firedamp, wild fire, sulphur and water, at

all times menace instant death to the laborers in these mines." "Robert

North, aged 16: Went into the pit at seven years of age, to fill up

skips. I drew about twelve months. When I drew by the girdle and chain

my skin was broken, and the blood ran down. I durst not say any thing.

If we said any thing, the butty, and the reeve, who works under him,

would take a stick and beat us."--Ibid. "The usual punishment for theft

is to place the culprit's head between the legs of one of the biggest

boys, and each boy in the pit--sometimes there are twenty--inflicts

twelve lashes on the back and rump with a cat."--Ibid. "Instances occur

in which children are taken into these mines to work as early as four

years of age, sometimes at five, not unfrequently at six and seven,

while from eight to nine is the ordinary age at which these employments

commence."--Ibid. "The wages paid at these mines is from two dollar

fifty cents to seven dollars fifty cents per month for laborers,

according to age and ability, and out of this they must support

themselves. They work twelve hours a day."--Ibid.

_In Calico Printing._--"It is by no means uncommon in all the districts

for children five or six years old to be kept at work fourteen to

sixteen hours consecutively."--Report on Children, 1842, p. 59.

I could furnish extracts similar to these in regard to every branch of

your manufactures, but I will not multiply them. Every body knows that

your operatives habitually labor from twelve to sixteen hours, men,

women, and children, and the men occasionally twenty hours per day. In

lace-making, says the last quoted report, children sometimes commence

work at two years of age.

_Destitution._--It is stated by your Commissioners that forty thousand

persons in Liverpool, and fifteen thousand in Manchester, live in

cellars; while twenty-two thousand in England pass the night in barns,

tents, or the open air. "There have been found such occurrences as

seven, eight, and ten persons in one cottage, I cannot say for one day,

but for whole days, without a morsel of food. They have remained on

their beds of straw for two successive days, under the impression that

in a recumbent posture the pangs of hunger were less felt."--Lord

Brougham's Speech, 11th July, 1842. A volume of frightful scenes might

be quoted to corroborate the inferences to be necessarily drawn from the

facts here stated. I will not add more, but pass on to the important

inquiry as to

_Morals and Education._--"Elizabeth Barrett, aged 14: I always work

without stockings, shoes, or trowsers. I wear nothing but a shift. I

have to go up to the headings with the men. _They are all naked there._

I am got used to that."--Report on Mines. "As to illicit sexual

intercourse it seems to prevail universally, and from an early period of

life." "The evidence might have been doubled, which attest the early

commencement of sexual and promiscuous intercourse among boys and

girls." "A lower condition of morals, in the fullest sense of the term,

could not, I think, be found. I do not mean by this that there are many

more prominent vices among them, but that moral feelings and sentiments

do not exist. _They have no morals._" "Their appearance, manners, and

moral natures--so far as the word _moral_ can be applied to them--are in

accordance with their half-civilized condition."--Report on Children.

"More than half a dozen instances occurred in Manchester, where a man,

his wife, and his wife's grown-up-sister, habitually occupied the same

bed."--Report on Sanitary Condition. "Robert Crucilow, aged 16: I don't

know any thing of Moses--never heard of France. I don't know what

America is. Never heard of Scotland or Ireland. Can't tell how many

weeks there are in a year. There are twelve pence in a shilling, and

twenty shillings in a pound. There are eight pints in a gallon of

ale."--Report on Mines. "Ann Eggly, aged 18: I walk about and get fresh

air on Sundays. I never go to church or chapel. I never heard of Christ

at all."--Ibid. Others: "The Lord sent Adam and Eve on earth to save

sinners." "I don't know who made the world; I never heard about God." "I

don't know Jesus Christ--I never saw him--but I have seen Foster who

prays about him." "Employer: You have expressed surprise at Thomas

Mitchel's not hearing of God. I judge there are few colliers here about

that have."--Ibid. I will quote no more. It is shocking beyond endurance

to turn over your records, in which the condition of your laboring

classes is but too faithfully depicted. Could our slaves but see it,

they would join us in lynching the abolitionists, which, by the by, they

would not now be loth to do. We never think of imposing on them such

labor, either in amount or kind. We never put them to _any work_, under

ten, more generally at twelve years of age, and then the very lightest.

Destitution is absolutely unknown--never did a slave starve in America;

while in moral sentiments and feelings, in religious information, and

even in general intelligence, they are infinitely the superiors of your

operatives. When you look around you, how dare you talk to us before the

world of slavery? For the condition of your wretched laborers, you, and

every Briton who is not one of them, are responsible before God and man.

If you are really humane, philanthropic, and charitable, here are

objects for you. Relieve them. Emancipate them. Raise them from the

condition of brutes, to the level of human beings--of American slaves,

at least. Do not for an instant suppose that the _name_ of being

freemen is the slightest comfort to them, situated as they are, or that

the bombastic boast that "whoever touches British soil stands redeemed,

regenerated, and disenthralled," can meet with any thing but the

ridicule and contempt of mankind, while that soil swarms, both on and

under its surface, with the most abject and degraded wretches that ever

bowed beneath the oppressor's yoke.

I have said that slavery is an established and inevitable condition to

human society. I do not speak of the _name_, but the _fact_. The Marquis

of Normanby has lately declared your operatives to be "_in effect

slaves_." Can it be denied? Probably, for such philanthropists as your

abolitionists care nothing for facts. They deal in terms and fictions.

It is the _word_ "slavery" which shocks their tender sensibilities; and

their imaginations associate it with "hydras and chimeras dire." The

thing itself, in its most hideous reality, passes daily under their view

unheeded--a familiar face, touching no chord of shame, sympathy or

indignation. Yet so brutalizing is your iron bondage that the English

operative is a by-word through the world. When favoring fortune enables

him to escape his prison-house, both in Europe and America he is

shunned. "With all the skill which fourteen hours of daily labor from

the tenderest age has ground into him, his discontent, which habit has

made second nature, and his depraved propensities, running riot when

freed from his wonted fetters, prevent his employment whenever it is not

a matter of necessity. If we derived no other benefit from African

slavery in the Southern States than that it deterred your _freedmen_

from coming hither, I should regard it an inestimable blessing.

And how unaccountable is that philanthropy, which closes its eyes upon

such a state of things as you have at home, and turns its blurred vision

to our affairs beyond the Atlantic, meddling with matters which no way

concern them--presiding, as you have lately done, at meetings to

denounce the "iniquity of our laws" and "the atrocity of our practices,"

and to sympathize with infamous wretches imprisoned here for violating

decrees promulgated both by God and man? Is this doing the work of "your

Father which is in heaven," or is it seeking only "that you may have

glory of man?" Do you remember the denunciation of our Saviour, "Woe

unto you, Scribes and Pharisees; hypocrites! for ye make clean the

outside of the cup and platter, but within they are full of extortion

and excess."

But after all, supposing that every thing you say of slavery be true,

and its abolition a matter of the last necessity, how do you expect to

effect emancipation, and what do you calculate will be the result of its

accomplishment? As to the means to be used, the abolitionists, I

believe, affect to differ, a large proportion of them pretending that

their sole purpose is to apply "moral suasion" to the slaveholders

themselves. As a matter of curiosity, I should like to know what their

idea of this "moral suasion" is. Their discourses--yours is no

exception--are all tirades, the exordium, argument and peroration,

turning on the epithets "tyrants," "thieves," "murderers," addressed to

us. They revile us as "atrocious monsters," "violators of the laws of

nature, God and man," our homes the abode of every iniquity, our land a

"brothel." We retort, that they are "incendiaries" and "assassins."

Delightful argument! Sweet, potent "moral suasion!" What slave has it

freed--what proselyte can it ever make? But if your course was wholly

different--if you distilled nectar from your lips, and discoursed

sweetest music, could you reasonably indulge the hope of accomplishing

your object by such means? Nay, supposing that we were all convinced,

and thought of slavery precisely as you do, at what era of "moral

suasion" do you imagine you could prevail on us to give up a thousand

millions of dollars in the value of our slaves, and a thousand millions

of dollars more in the depreciation of our lands, in consequence of the

want of laborers to cultivate them? Consider: were ever any people,

civilized or savage, persuaded by any argument, human or divine, to

surrender voluntarily two thousand millions of dollars? Would you think

of asking five millions of Englishmen to contribute, either at once or

gradually, four hundred and fifty millions of pounds sterling to the

cause of philanthropy, even if the purpose to be accomplished was not of

doubtful goodness? If you are prepared to undertake such a scheme, try

it at home. Collect your fund--return us the money for our slaves, and

do with them as you like. Be all the glory yours, fairly and honestly

won. But you see the absurdity of such an idea. Away, then, with your

pretended "moral suasion." You know it is mere nonsense. The

abolitionists have no faith in it themselves. Those who expect to

accomplish any thing count on means altogether different. They aim,

first, to alarm us: that failing, to compel us by force to emancipate

our slaves, at our own risk and cost. To these purposes they obviously

direct all their energies. Our Northern liberty-men endeavored to

disseminate their destructive doctrine among our slaves, and excite them

to insurrection. But we have put an end to that, and stricken terror

into them. They dare not show their faces here. Then they declared they

would dissolve the Union. Let them do it. The North would repent it far

more than the South. We are not alarmed at the idea. We are well content

to give up the Union sooner than sacrifice two thousand millions of

dollars, and with them all the rights we prize. You may take it for

granted that it is impossible to persuade or alarm us into emancipation,

or to making the first step toward it. Nothing, then, is left to try,

but sheer force. If the abolitionists are prepared to expend their own

treasure and shed their own blood as freely as they ask us to do ours,

let them come. We do not court the conflict; but we will not and we

cannot shrink from it. If they are not ready to go so far; if, as I

expect, their philanthropy recoils from it; if they are looking only for

_cheap_ glory, let them turn their thoughts elsewhere, and leave us in

peace. Be the sin, the danger and the evils of slavery all our own. We

compel, we ask none to share them with us.

I am well aware that a notable scheme has been set on foot to achieve

abolition by making what is by courtesy called "free" labor so much

cheaper than slave labor as to force the abandonment of the latter.

Though we are beginning to _manufacture with slaves_, I do not think you

will attempt to pinch your operatives closer in Great Britain. You

cannot curtail the rags with which they vainly attempt to cover their

nakedness, nor reduce the porridge which barely, and not always, keeps

those who have employment from perishing of famine. When you can do

this, we will consider whether our slaves may not dispense with a pound

or two of bacon per week, or a few garments annually. Your aim, however,

is to cheapen labor in the tropics. The idea of doing this by exporting

your "bold yeomanry" is, I presume, given up. Cromwell tried it when he

_sold_ the captured followers of Charles into _West Indian slavery_,

where they speedily found graves. Nor have your recent experiments on

British and even Dutch constitutions succeeded better. Have you still

faith in carrying thither your coolies from Hindostan? Doubtless that

once wild robber race, whose highest eulogium was that they did not

murder merely for the love of blood, have been tamed down, and are

perhaps "keen for immigration," for since your civilization has reached

it, plunder has grown scarce in Guzerat. But what is the result of the

experiment thus far? Have the coolies, ceasing to handle arms, learned

to handle spades, and proved hardy and profitable laborers? On the

contrary, broken in spirit and stricken with disease at home, the

wretched victims whom you have hitherto kidnapped for a bounty, confined

in depots, put under hatches and carried across the ocean--forced into

"voluntary immigration," have done little but lie down and die on the

_pseudo_ soil of freedom. At the end of five years two-thirds, in some

colonies a larger proportion, are no more! Humane and pious contrivance!

To alleviate the fancied sufferings of the accursed posterity of Ham,

you sacrifice by a cruel death two-thirds of the children of the blessed

Shem--and demand the applause of Christians--the blessing of heaven! If

this "experiment" is to go on, in God's name try your hand upon the

Thugs. That other species of "immigration" to which you are resorting I

will consider presently.

But what do you calculate will be the result of emancipation, by

whatever means accomplished? You will probably point me, by way of

answer, to the West Indies--doubtless to Antigua, the great boast of

abolition. Admitting that it has succeeded there--which I will do for

the sake of the argument--do you know the reason of it? The true and

only causes of whatever success has attended it in Antigua are, that the

population was before crowded, and all or nearly all the arable land in

cultivation. The emancipated negroes could not, many of them, get away

if they desired; and knew not where to go, in case they did. They had,

practically, no alternative but to remain on the spot; and remaining,

they must work on the terms of the proprietors, or perish--the strong

arm of the mother country forbidding all hope of seizing the land for

themselves. The proprietors, well knowing that they could thus command

labor for the merest necessities of life, which was much cheaper than

maintaining the non-effective as well as effective slaves in a style

which decency and interest, if not humanity, required, willingly

accepted half their value, and at once realized far more than the

interest on the other half in the diminution of their expenses, and the

reduced comforts of the _freemen_. One of your most illustrious judges,

who was also a profound and philosophical historian, has said "that

villeinage was not abolished, but went into decay in England." This was

the process. This has been the process wherever (the name of) villeinage

or slavery has been successfully abandoned. Slavery, in fact, "went into

decay" in Antigua. I have admitted that, under similar circumstances, it

might profitably cease here--that is, profitably to the individual

proprietors. Give me half the value of my slaves, and compel them to

remain and labor on my plantation, at ten to eleven cents a day, as they

do in Antigua, supporting themselves and families, and you shall have

them to-morrow, and if you like dub them "free." Not to stickle, I would

surrender them without price. No--I recall my words: My humanity revolts

at the idea. I am attached to my slaves, and would not have act or part

in reducing them to such a condition. I deny, however, that Antigua, as

a community, is, or ever will be, as _prosperous_ under present

circumstances, as she was before abolition, though fully ripe for it.

The fact is well known. The reason is that the African, if not a

distinct, is an inferior race, and never will effect, as it never has

effected, as much in any other condition as in that of slavery.

I know of no _slaveholder_ who has visited the West Indies since slavery

was abolished, and published _his_ views of it. All our facts and

opinions come through the friends of the experiment, or at least those

not opposed to it. Taking these, even without allowance, to be true as

stated, I do not see where the abolitionists find cause for exultation.

The tables of exports, which are the best evidences of the condition of

a people, exhibit a woful falling off--excused, it is true, by

unprecedented droughts and hurricanes, to which their free labor seems

unaccountably more subject than slave labor used to be. I will not go

into detail. It is well known that a large proportion of British

legislation and expenditure, and that proportion still constantly

increasing, is most anxiously devoted to repairing the monstrous error

of emancipation. You are actually galvanizing your expiring colonies.

The truth, deduced from all the facts, was thus pithily stated by the

_London Quarterly Review_, as long ago as 1840: "None of the benefits

anticipated by mistaken good intentions have been realized, while every

evil wished for by knaves and foreesen by the wise has been painfully

verified. The wild rashness of fanaticism has made the emancipation of

the slaves equivalent to the loss of one-half of the West Indies, and

yet put back the chance of negro civilization."--Art. Ld. Dudley's

Letters. Such are the _real fruits_ of your never-to-be-too-much-glorified

abolition, and the valuable dividend of your twenty millions of pounds

sterling invested therein.

If any further proof was wanted of the utter and well-known, though not

yet openly avowed, failure of West Indian emancipation, it would be

furnished by the startling fact, that THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE HAS BEEN

ACTUALLY REVIVED UNDER THE AUSPICES AND PROTECTION OF THE BRITISH

GOVERNMENT. Under the specious guise of "immigration," they are

replenishing those Islands with slaves from the coast of Africa. Your

colony of Sierra Leone, founded on that coast to prevent the slave

trade, and peopled, by the bye, in the first instance, by negroes stolen

from these States during the Revolutionary War, is the depot to which

captives taken from slavers by your armed vessels are transported. I

might say returned, since nearly half the Africans carried across the

Atlantic are understood to be embarked in this vicinity. The wretched

survivors, who are there set at liberty, are immediately seduced to

"immigrate" to the West Indies. The business is systematically carried

on by black "delegates," sent expressly from the West Indies, where, on

arrival, the "immigrants" are _sold into slavery_ for twenty-one years,

under conditions ridiculously trivial and wickedly void, since few or

none will ever be able to derive any advantage from them. The whole

prime of life thus passed in bondage, it is contemplated, and doubtless

it will be carried into effect, to turn them out in their old age to

shift for themselves, and to supply their places with fresh and vigorous

"immigrants." Was ever a system of slavery so barbarous devised before?

Can you think of comparing it with ours? Even your own religious

missionaries at Sierra Leone denounce it "as worse than the slave state

in Africa." And your black delegates, fearful of the influence of these

missionaries, as well as on account of the inadequate supply of

captives, are now preparing to procure the able-bodied and comparatively

industrious Kroomen of the interior, by _purchasing from their headmen_

the privilege of inveigling them to the West India market! So ends the

magnificent farce--perhaps I should say tragedy, of West India

abolition! I will not harrow your feelings by asking you to review the

labors of your life and tell me what you and your brother enthusiasts

have accomplished for "injured Africa," but while agreeing with Lord

Stowell, that "villeinage decayed," and admitting that slavery might do

so also, I think I am fully justified by passed and passing events in

saying, as Mr. Grosvenor said of the slave trade, that its _abolition_

is "impossible."

Yon are greatly mistaken, however, if you think that the consequences of

emancipation here would be similar and no more injurious than those

which followed from it in your little sea-girt West India Islands, where

nearly all were blacks. The system of slavery is not in "decay" with us.

It flourishes in full and growing vigor. Our country is boundless in

extent. Dotted here and there with villages and fields, it is, for the

most part, covered with immense forests and swamps of almost unknown

size. In such a country, with a people so restless as ours,

communicating of course some of that spirit to their domestics, can you

conceive that any thing short of the power of the master over the slave,

could confine the African race, notoriously idle and improvident, to

labor on our plantations? Break this bond, but for a day, and these

plantations will be solitudes. The negro loves change, novelty, and

sensual excitements of all kinds, _when awake_. "Reason and order," of

which Mr. Wilberforce said "liberty was the child," do not characterize

him. Released from his present obligations, his first impulse would be

to go somewhere. And here no natural boundaries would restrain him. At

first they would all seek the towns, and rapidly accumulate in squalid

groups upon their outskirts. Driven thence by the "armed police," which

would immediately spring into existence, they would scatter in all

directions. Some bodies of them might wander toward the "free" States,

or to the Western wilderness, marking their tracks by their depredations

and their corpses. Many would roam wild in our "big woods." Many more

would seek the recesses of our swamps for secure covert. Few, very few

of them, could be prevailed on to do a stroke of work, none to labor

continuously, while a head of cattle, sheep or swine could be found in

our ranges, or an ear of corn nodded in our abandoned fields. These

exhausted, our folds and poultry yards, barns and store-houses, would

become their prey. Finally, our scattered dwellings would be plundered,

perhaps fired, and the inmates murdered. How long do you suppose that we

could bear these things? How long would it be before we should sleep

with rifles at our bedsides, and never move without one in our hands?

This work once begun, let the story of our British ancestors and the

aborigines of this country tell the sequel. Far more rapid, however,

would be the catastrophe. "Ere many moons went by," the African race

would be exterminated, or reduced again to slavery, their ranks

recruited, after your example, by fresh "emigrants" from their

fatherland.

Is timely preparation and gradual emancipation suggested to avert these

horrible consequences? I thought your experience in the West Indies had,

at least, done so much as to explode that idea. If it failed there, much

more would it fail here, where the two races, approximating to equality

in numbers, are daily and hourly in the closest contact. Give room for

but a single spark of real jealousy to be kindled between them, and the

explosion would be instantaneous and universal. It is the most fatal of

all fallacies, to suppose that these two races can exist together, after

any length of time, or any process of preparation, on terms at all

approaching to equality. Of this, both of them are finally and fixedly

convinced. They differ essentially, in all the leading traits which

characterize the varieties of the human species, and color draws an

indelible and insuperable line of separation between them. Every scheme

founded upon the idea that they can remain together on the same soil,

beyond the briefest period, in any other relation than precisely that

which now subsists between them, is not only preposterous, but fraught

with deepest danger. If there was no alternative but to try the

"experiment" here, reason and humility dictate that the sufferings of

"gradualism" should be saved, and the catastrophe of "immediate

abolition" enacted as rapidly as possible. Are you impatient for the

performance to commence? Do you long to gloat over the scenes I have

suggested, but could not hold the pen to portray? In your long life many

such have passed under your review. You know that _they_ are not

"_impossible_." Can they be to your taste? Do you believe that in

laboring to bring them about, the abolitionists are doing the will of

God? No! God is not there. It is the work of Satan. The arch-fiend,

under specious guises, has found his way into their souls, and with

false appeals to philanthropy, and foul insinuations to ambition,

instigates them to rush headlong to the accomplishment of his diabolical

designs.

We live in a wonderful age. The events of the last three quarters of a

century appear to have revolutionized the human mind. Enterprise and

ambition are only limited in their purposes by the horizon of the

imagination. It is the transcendental era. In philosophy, religion,

government, science, arts, commerce, nothing that has been is to be

allowed to be. Conservatism, in any form, is scoffed at. The slightest

taint of it is fatal. Where will all this end? If you can tolerate one

ancient maxim, let it be that the best criterion of the future is the

past. That, if any thing, will give a clue. And, looking back only

through your time, what was the earliest feat of this same

transcendentalism? The rays of the new moral Drummond Light were first

concentrated to a focus at Paris, to illuminate the universe. In a

twinkling it consumed the political, religious and social systems of

France. It could not be extinguished there until literally drowned in

blood. And then, from its ashes arose that supernatural man, who, for

twenty years, kept affrighted Europe in convulsions. Since that time,

its scattered beams, refracted by broader surfaces, have, nevertheless,

continued to scathe wherever they have fallen. What political structure,

what religious creed, but has felt the galvanic shock, and even now

trembles to its foundations? Mankind, still horror-stricken by the

catastrophe of France, have shrunk from rash experiments upon social

systems. But they have been practicing in the East, around the

Mediterranean, and through the West India Islands. And growing

confident, a portion of them seem desperately bent on kindling the

all-devouring flame in the bosom of our land. Let it once again blaze up

to heaven, and another cycle of blood and devastation will dawn upon the

world. For our own sake, and for the sake of those infatuated men who

are madly driving on the conflagration; for the sake of human nature, we

are called on to strain every nerve to arrest it. And be assured our

efforts will be bounded only with our being. Nor do I doubt that five

millions of people, brave, intelligent, united, and prepared to hazard

every thing, will, in such a cause, with the blessing of God, sustain

themselves. At all events, come what may, it is ours to meet it.

We are well aware of the light estimation in which the abolitionists,

and those who are taught by them, profess to hold us. We have seen the

attempt of a portion of the Free Church of Scotland to reject our alms

on the ground that we are "slave-drivers," after sending missionaries

to solicit them. And we have seen Mr. O'Connell, the "irresponsible

master" of millions of ragged serfs, from whom, poverty stricken as they

are, he contrives to wring a splendid privy purse, throw back with

contumely, the "tribute" of his own countrymen from this land of

"miscreants." These people may exhaust their slang, and make blackguards

of themselves, but they cannot defile us. And as for the suggestion to

exclude slaveholders from your London clubs, we scout it. Many of us,

indeed, do go to London, and we have seen your breed of gawky lords,

both there and here, but it never entered into our conceptions to look

on them as better than ourselves. The American slaveholders,

collectively or individually, ask no favors of any man or race who tread

the earth. In none of the attributes of men, mental or physical, do they

acknowledge or fear superiority elsewhere. They stand in the broadest

light of the knowledge, civilization and improvement of the age, as much

favored of heaven as any of the sons of Adam. Exacting nothing undue,

they yield nothing but justice and courtesy, even to royal blood. They

cannot be flattered, duped, nor bullied out of their rights or their

propriety. They smile with contempt at scurrility and vaporing beyond

the seas, and they turn their backs upon it where it is "irresponsible;"

but insolence that ventures to look them in the face, will never fail to

be chastised.