MEANS OF REMOVING SLAVERY.
How slavery shall be removed, is a question for the slaveholder, and one
which he alone can fully answer. He alone has an intimate knowledge of
the character and habits of the slaves, to which the means of
emancipation should be carefully adapted. General views and principles
may and should be suggested at a distance; but the mode of applying them
can be understood only by those who dwell on the spot where the evil
exists. To the slaveholder belongs the duty of settling and employing
the best methods of liberation, and to no other. We have no right of
interference, nor do we desire it. We hold that the dangers of
emancipation, if such there are, would be indefinitely increased, were
the boon to come to the slave from a foreign hand, were he to see it
forced on the master by a foreign power. It is of the highest
importance, that slavery should be succeeded by a friendly relation
between master and slave; and to produce this, the latter must see in
the former his benefactor and deliverer. His liberty must seem to him
an expression of benevolence and regard for his rights. He must put
confidence in his superiors, and look to them cheerfully and gratefully
for counsel and aid. Let him feel, that liberty has been wrung from an
unwilling master, who would willingly replace the chain, and jealousy,
vindictiveness, and hatred would spring up, to blight the innocence and
happiness of his new freedom, and to make it a peril to himself and all
around him. I believe, indeed, that emancipation, though so bestowed,
would be better than everlasting bondage; but the responsibility of so
conferring it is one that none of us are anxious to assume.
We cannot but fear much from the experiment now in progress in the West
Indies, on account of its being the work of a foreign hand. The
planters, especially of Jamaica, have opposed the mother-country with a
pertinaciousness bordering on insanity; have done much to exasperate the
slaves, whose freedom they could not prevent; have done nothing to
prepare them for liberty; have met them with gloom on their
countenances, and with evil auguries on their lips; have taught them to
look abroad for relief, and to see in their masters only obstructions to
the amelioration of their lot. It is possible that under all these
obstacles emancipation may succeed. God grant it success! If it fail,
the planter will have brought the ruin very much on himself. Policy, as
well as duty, so plainly taught him to take into his own hands the work
which a superior power had begun, to spare no effort, no expense, for
binding to him by new ties those who were to throw off their former
chains, that we know not how to account for his conduct, but by
supposing that his unhappy position as a slaveholder had robbed him of
his reason, as well as blunted his moral sense.
In this country no power but that of the slaveholding States can remove
the evil, and none of us are anxious to take the office from their
hands. They alone can do it safely. They alone can determine and apply
the true and sure means of emancipation. That such means exist I cannot
doubt; for emancipation has already been carried through successfully in
other countries; and even were there no precedent, I should be sure,
that, under God's benevolent and righteous government, there could not
be a necessity for holding human beings in perpetual bondage. This
faith, however, is not universal. Many, when they hear of the evils of
slavery, say, "It is bad, but remediless. There are no means of relief."
They say, in a despairing tone, "Give us your plan;" and justify their
indifference to emancipation, by what they call its hopelessness. This
state of mind has induced me to offer a few remarks on the means of
removing slavery; not that I suppose, that an individual so distant can
do the work to which the whole intellect and benevolence of the South
should be summoned, but that I may suggest a few principles, which I
think would insure a happy result to the benevolent enterprise, and that
I may remove the incredulity of which I have complained.
What, then, is to be done for the removal of slavery? In the first
place, the slaveholders should solemnly disclaim the right of property
in human beings. The great principle, that man cannot belong to man,
should be distinctly, solemnly recognised. The slave should be
acknowledged as a partaker of a common nature, as having the essential
rights of humanity. This great truth lies at the foundation of every
wise plan for his relief. The cordial admission of it would give a
consciousness of dignity, of grandeur, to efforts for emancipation.
There is, indeed, a grandeur in the idea of raising more than two
millions of human beings to the enjoyment of human rights, to the
blessings of Christian civilization, to the means of indefinite
improvement. The slaveholding States are called to a nobler work of
benevolence than is committed to any other communities. They should
comprehend its dignity. This they cannot do, till the slave is truly,
sincerely, with the mind and heart, recognised as a Man, till be ceases
to be regarded as Property.
It may be asked, whether, in calling the slaveholding States to abolish
property in the slave, I intend that he should be immediately set free
from all his present restraints. By no means. Nothing is farther from my
thoughts. The slave cannot rightfully and should not be owned by the
Individual. But, like every other citizen, he belongs to the Community,
he is subject to the community, and the community has a right and is
bound to continue all such restraints, as its own safety and the
well-being of the slave demand. It would be cruelty, not kindness, to
the latter to give him a freedom, which he is unprepared to understand
or enjoy. It would be cruelty to strike the fetters from a man, whose
first steps would infallibly lead him to a precipice. The slave should
not have an owner, but he should have a guardian. He needs authority, to
supply the lack of that discretion which he has not yet attained; but it
should be the authority of a friend; an official authority, conferred by
the state, and for which there should be responsibleness to the state,
an authority especially designed to prepare its subjects for personal
freedom. The slave should not, in the first instance, be allowed to
wander at his will beyond the plantation on which he toils; and if he
cannot be induced to work by rational and natural motives, he should be
obliged to labor; on the same principles on which the vagrant in other
communities is confined and compelled to earn his bread. The gift of
liberty would be a mere name, and worse than nominal, were he to be let
loose on society under circumstances driving him to crimes, for which he
would be condemned to severer bondage than he had escaped. Many
restraints must be continued; but continued, not because the colored
race are property, not because they are bound to live and toil for an
owner, but solely and wholly because their own innocence, security, and
education, and the public order and peace, require them, during the
present incapacity, to be restrained. It should be remembered, that this
incapacity is not their fault, but their misfortune; that not they, but
the community, are responsible for it; and that the community cannot
without crime profit by its own wrong. If the government should make any
distinctions among the citizens, it should be in behalf of the injured.
Instead of urging the past existence of slavery, and the incapacity
which it has induced, as apologies or reasons for continuing the yoke,
the community should find in these very circumstances new obligations to
effort for the wronged.
There is but one weighty argument against immediate emancipation,
namely, that the slave would not support himself and his children by
honest industry; that, having always worked on compulsion, he will not
work without it; that, having always labored from another's will, he
will not labor from his own; that there is no spring of exertion in his
own mind; that he is unused to forethought, providence, and self-denial,
and the responsibilities of domestic life; that freedom would produce
idleness; idleness, want; want, crime; and that crime, when it should
become the habit of numbers, would bring misery, perhaps ruin, not only
on the offenders, but the state. Here lies the strength of the argument
for continuing present restraint. Give the slaves disposition and power
to support themselves and their families by honest industry, and
complete emancipation should not be delayed one hour.
The great step, then, towards the removal of slavery is to prepare the
slaves for self-support. And this work seems attended with no peculiar
difficulty. The colored man is not a savage, to whom toil is torture,
who has centred every idea of happiness and dignity in a wild freedom,
who must exchange the boundless forest for a narrow plantation, and bend
his proud neck to an unknown yoke. Labor was his first lesson, and he
has been repeating it all his life. Can it be a hard task to teach him
to labor for himself, to work from impulses in his own breast?
Much may be done at once to throw the slave on himself, to accustom him
to work for his own and his family's support, to awaken forethought, and
strengthen the habit of providing for the future. On every plantation
there are slaves, who would do more for wages than from fear of
punishment. There are those, who, if entrusted with a piece of ground,
would support themselves and pay a rent in kind. There are those, who,
if moderate task-work were given them, would gain their whole
subsistence in their own time. Now every such man ought to be committed
very much to himself. It is a crime to subject to the whip a man who can
be made to toil from rational and honorable motives. This partial
introduction of freedom would form a superior class among the slaves,
whose example would have immense moral power on those who needed
compulsion. The industrious and thriving would give an impulse to the
whole race. It is important that the property, thus earned by the slave,
should be made as sacred as that of any other member of the community,
and for this end he should be enabled to obtain redress of wrongs. In
case of being injured by his master in this or in any respect, he should
either be set free, or, if unprepared for liberty, should be transferred
to another guardian.
As another means of raising the slave and fitting him to act from higher
motives than compulsion, a system of bounties and rewards should be
introduced. New privileges, increased indulgences, honorable
distinctions, expressions of respect, should be awarded to the honest
and industrious. No people are more alive to commendation and honorable
distinction than the colored race. Prizes for good conduct, adapted to
their tastes and character, might in a good degree supersede the lash.
Their love of ornament might be turned to a good account. The object is
to bring the slave to labor from other motives than brutal compulsion.
Such motives may easily be found, if the end be conscientiously
proposed.
One of the great means of elevating the slave, and calling forth his
energies, is to place his domestic relations on new ground. This is
essential. We wish him to labor for his family. Then he must have a
family to labor for. Then his wife and children must be truly his own.
Then his home must be inviolate. Then the responsibilities of a husband
and father must be laid on him. It is agreed that he will be fit for
freedom, as soon as the support of his family shall become his habit and
his happiness; and how can he be brought to this condition, as long as
he shall see no sanctity in the marriage-bond, as long as he shall see
his wife and his children exposed to indignity and to sale, as long as
their support shall not be entrusted to his care? No measure for
preparing the slave for liberty can be so effectual as the improvement
of his domestic lot. The whole power of religion should be employed to
impress him with the sacredness and duties of marriage. The chaste and
the faithful in this connexion should receive open and strong marks of
respect. They should be treated as at the head of their race. The
husband and wife, who prove false to each other, and who will not labor
for their children, should be visited with the severest rebuke. To
create a sense of domestic obligation, to awaken domestic affections, to
give the means of domestic happiness, to fix deeply a conviction of the
indissolubleness of marriage, and of the solemnity of the parental
relation, these are the essential means of raising the slave to a
virtuous and happy freedom. All other men labor for their families; and
so will the slave, if the sentiments of a man be cherished in his
breast. We keep him in bondage, because, if free, he will leave his wife
and children to want; and this bondage break down all the feelings and
habits which would incite him to toil for their support. Not a step will
be taken towards the preparation of the slave for voluntary labor, till
his domestic rights be respected. The violation of these cries to God,
more than any other evil of his lot.
To carry this and all other means of improvement into effect, it is
essential that the slave should no longer be bought and sold. As long as
he is made an article of merchandise, he cannot be fitted for the
offices of a man. He will have little motive to accumulate comforts and
ornaments in his hut, if at any moment he may be torn from it. While
treated as property, he will have little encouragement to accumulate
property, for it cannot be secure. While his wife and children may be
exposed at auction, and carried, he knows not where, can he be expected
to feel and act as a husband and father? It is time, that this Christian
and civilized country should no longer be dishonored by one of the worst
usages of barbarism. Break up the slave-market, and one of the chief
obstructions to emancipation will be removed.
Let me only add, that religious instruction should go hand in hand with
all other means for preparing the slave for freedom. The colored race
are said to be peculiarly susceptible of the religious sentiment. If
this be addressed wisely and powerfully, if the slave be brought to feel
his relation and accountableness to God, and to comprehend the spirit of
Christianity, he is fit for freedom. To accomplish this work, perhaps
preaching should not be the only or chief instrument. Were the whole
colored population to be assembled into Sunday-schools, and were the
whites to become their teachers, a new and interesting relation would be
formed between the races, and an influence be exerted which would do
much to insure safety to the gift of freedom.
In these remarks I have not intended to say that emancipation is an easy
work, the work of a day, a good to be accomplished without sacrifices
and toil. The colored man is, indeed, singularly susceptible of
improvement, in consequence of the strength of his propensities to
imitation and sympathy. But all great changes in society have their
difficulties and inconveniences, and demand patient labor. I ask for no
precipitate measures, no violent changes. I ask only that the
slaveholding States would resolve conscientiously and in good faith to
remove this greatest of moral evils and wrongs, and would bring
immediately to the work all their intelligence, virtue, and power. That
its difficulties would yield before such energies, who can doubt? Our
weakness for holy enterprises lies generally in our own reluctant wills.
Breathe into men a fervent purpose, and you awaken powers before
unknown. How soon would slavery disappear, were the obligation to remove
it thoroughly understood and deeply felt! We are told that the
slaveholding States have recently prospered beyond all precedent. This
accession to their wealth should be consecrated to the work of
liberating their fellow-creatures. Not one indulgence should be added to
their modes of life, until the cry of the oppressed has ceased from
their fields, until the rights of every human being are restored.
Government should devote itself to this as its great object.
Legislatures should meet to free the slave. The church should rest not,
day or night, till this stain be wiped away. Let the deliberation of
the wise, the energies of the active, the wealth of the prosperous, the
prayers and toils of the good, have Emancipation for their great end.
Let this be discussed habitually in the family circle, in the conference
of Christians, in the halls of legislation. Let it mingle with the first
thoughts of the slaveholder in the morning and the last at night. Who
can doubt that to such a spirit God would reveal the means of wise and
powerful action? There is but one obstacle to emancipation, and that is,
the want of that spirit in which Christians and freemen should resolve
to exterminate slavery.
I have said nothing of colonization among the means of removing slavery,
because I believe that to rely on it for this object would be equivalent
to a resolution to perpetuate the evil without end. Whatever good it may
do abroad, and I trust it will do much, it promises little at home. If
the slaveholding States, however, should engage in colonization, with a
firm faith in its practicableness, with an energy proportionate to its
greatness, and with a sincere regard to the welfare of the colored race,
I am confident it will not fail from want of sympathy and aid on the
part of the other States. In truth, these States will not withhold their
hearts or hands from any well considered plan for the removal of
slavery.
I have said nothing of the inconveniences and sufferings, which, it is
urged, will follow emancipation, be it ever so safe; for these, if real,
weigh nothing against the claims of justice. The most common objection
is, that a mixture of the two races will be the result. Can this
objection be urged in good faith? Can this mixture go on faster or more
criminally than at the present moment? Can the slaveholder use the word
"amalgamation" without a blush? Nothing, nothing, can arrest this evil
but the raising of the colored woman to a new sense of character, to a
new self-respect; and this she cannot gain but by being made free. That
emancipation will have its evils we know; for all great changes, however
beneficial, in the social condition of a people, must interfere with
some interests, must bring loss or hardship to one class or another; but
the evils of slavery exceed beyond measure the greatest which can attend
its removal. Let the slaveholder desire earnestly, and in the spirit of
self-sacrifice, to restore freedom, to secure the rights and the
happiness of the slave, and a new light will break upon his path. "Every
mountain of difficulty will be brought low, and the rough places be made
smooth;" the means of duty will become clear. But without this spirit,
no eloquence of man or angel can persuade the slaveholder of the safety
of emancipation.