INJURY TO THE WELL-BEING OF THE SLAVES.
It is presumed, that the great object contemplated by the British
nation is to civilize the blacks living in our colonies. The crime
of taking them from their own country is long past by; but it surely
cannot be intended to compensate them for their former wrongs, by
replunging them into barbarism. Yet it is to be feared that this is
the consummation to result from compulsory manumission.
_Section 1._
COUNTERACTS THE INCENTIVES TO CIVILISATION.
A free peasantry in the colonies is the desideratum sought by the
framers of the measure. It is argued, that men are creatures of
habit, and that if the negro, by voluntary industry, amass such
a sum as will procure his ransom, the habit of working will have
become firmly established, and he will continue to labour when he has
obtained his freedom.
This argument has been entirely refuted by the simple question, What
is the _motive_ for exertion in the two cases? Before the negro
became free, he had the strongest of inducements perpetually present
to his mind—the attainment of freedom, or the privilege of enjoying
himself uncontrolled. It was not for the money that he worked, but
for that which the money would procure him. When he has, at length,
attained his freedom, what motive has he to work further? Name one
object, equivalent, in his estimation, to the irksomeness of labour;
the one-inspiring aim is attained, the stimulus is gone.
But it is not enough for our purpose to show, that industry is
eventually superseded. We can establish, that the very means held
out are themselves the most efficacious in producing this pernicious
result. It is said that men are creatures of habits, and do not
speedily change them. We meet our opponents on this ground.
If you demand of a man, living in a country imperfectly civilised,
for what reason he works, he will answer, that he may purchase food.
But put the same question to a man in a state highly civilised, and
he will reply, that besides the purchase of food, he requires good
clothing, lodging, and other comforts which have become _habitual_
to him, and in which custom would make it disreputable in him not to
indulge.
Let us apply this to the negro in the West Indies. At present his
artificial wants are extremely low; and if certain habits, such as
above described, have to operate hereafter upon him as incentives
to exertion, is it not requisite that they should now begin to
be established? Suppose a negro, by rearing stock of various
descriptions, can earn a dollar per week—should he not be taught
to lay out that sum in the purchase of articles, for instance,
of personal decoration for himself and family, or of additional
conveniences in his hut, in the display of which he will henceforth
take a pride?
By such means it must be, that, in the lapse of time, he will feel
that he must work longer than is merely necessary to procure him
food, because he has other wants to satisfy.
But compulsory manumission directly counteracts this process. It
prompts him to the most sordid self-denial. Its language to him
is—“Spend not your weekly dollar, but rather hoard it with the most
scrupulous rigour; improve not the condition of your family:—in a
word, confine your wants to the state of the savage.”
The necessary consequence will be, that when he attains to freedom,
all his physical wants remain unchanged. And are these the boasted
steps which have been taken to elevate the condition of the slaves?
It is certainly a novel mode of establishing a free peasantry, to
commence by divesting them of every stimulus to exertion.
_Section 2._
DEBAUCHERY AND CRIME ENCOURAGED.
It will not have escaped the observation of the intelligent reader,
that if compulsory manumission leads to self-depreciation, by
directly suggesting and encouraging a suppression of dexterity and
usefulness, the same end may be attained by debasing the moral
character. Every species of debauchery is, in point of fact,
encouraged, to constrain the proprietor to offer little impediment to
the freedom of his slaves.
Good conduct frequently renders a negro more valuable even than
skill, and it thus becomes a principal impediment to the attainment
of his freedom. In the case of a drunken, worthless character on
a plantation, the proprietor, instead of opposing his liberation,
will be glad to get rid of him at a small amount, because he is
continually giving trouble and setting a bad example.
If there be any truth in the maxim of moralists, that the road to
vice is alluring in itself, what must be the result when men are
urged upon it, by the strongest incentives which can be supposed to
operate with them? The profligate slave may purchase his freedom
within a year,—the virtuous has to wait for it ten years, and perhaps
all his life, without success. What is this but to teach him, in the
most emphatic manner, that if he were but profligate and worthless,
he would find no such difficulties? Under the common operations
of human nature, it is impossible, when the whole moral code is
reversed—when virtue is punished and vice rewarded, that any number
of men in a state like that of the negroes will continue virtuous.
We shall here be again reminded about the certificate of good
character which is to be required. But if this question be to be
discussed at all by men of business, it is surely time to dismiss
this alleged safeguard of a certificate. It can never, as we have
shown, be of the least avail in reference to skill; and as a real
preventive it must equally prove nugatory in regard to moral conduct.
Without intending any disrespect, it must be pronounced to savour a
little of the ludicrous.
Let us suppose some measure introduced into one of the counties
of England, affecting its population as vitally as compulsory
manumission affects the slaves in our colonies, and what would be
thought of any person who should gravely propose, that a public
officer, amid other multifarious duties, should certify minutely as
to the individual character of every man in the county? If we were to
circumscribe his jurisdiction to a few square miles, or even to a few
streets of one town, the thing must plainly be impossible.
Dissimulation, hypocrisy, and craft, are often described as the
parents of crime, and they will be inevitably resorted to, to screen
the vices of the slave. His maxim will be, Let me become a vicious
subject, to lower my value with my master, and let me become an adept
in cunning to deceive the protector.
The higher his intellectual attainments, the easier will it be for
him to practise this deception with success; and while, as has been
shown in the preceding section, the beneficial attributes of future
civilisation are checked, the slave is habituated to its corruptions.
None of the palliators of the measure can get over this conclusion,
that if flagrant crime be not openly encouraged, it cannot be
denied that it is fostered secretly. How many will be the plans
laid for stealing in the dark; and for this evil there is no cure.
If the delinquent be detected, it depreciates his character, and,
consequently, his value; and, if undiscovered, it swells the fund
which is to make him free.
_Section 3._
VIRTUOUS UNION OF THE SEXES IMPEDED.
If we wish to infuse a higher sense of moral feeling among the
slaves, it is indispensable to elevate their ideas in regard to the
virtuous union of the sexes. There is no one of the measures of
amelioration which has attracted more attention, or which is more
desired by the British community.
We often hear that there is too great a temptation to immorality in
this particular among the colonists. It may undoubtedly be true;
but still illicit connexions are materially checked by the dread of
bringing into existence an offspring whose lot by birth would be
slavery.
If compulsory manumission be enforced, this salutary barrier is
removed, because the freedom of any female slave could be purchased
by the person desirous of cohabiting with her, and her offspring
would be free. Thus, on the parties colluding to take advantage of
the new measure, the greatest mischiefs would accrue to the community.
If this practice once obtained, and were found easy of
accomplishment, the female slaves would have a powerful inducement
to court illicit connexion with the whites, in preference to
marriage with men of their own condition. One of the chief objects
of amelioration would thus be frustrated, and the offspring of
these connexions become liable to be left destitute in case of the
sickness, absence, or death of the father, and consequently thrown
upon the casual charity of the public.
Besides the immorality thus in the first instance produced, how
fruitful a source of future crime is presented!
_Section 4._
TASK-WORK PREVENTED.
When we examine the measure as it will more immediately affect the
domestic government of each plantation, we find objections equally
forcible with those already stated.
In none of Mr. Canning’s orations on the subject has he been so
eloquent as when he described the effect of abolishing impending
coercion, upon the feelings of the slave. He depicted in the most
powerful manner the beautiful effects that would ensue when the slave
performed his work with alacrity, and his condition assimilated
to that of the voluntary labourer. It was here that he expatiated
upon the wisdom of allowing benefits to the slave to flow from the
master, since it would incite them to work without the necessity for
coercion. The system of task-work would be introduced, which perhaps
is the greatest practical improvement in the condition of slavery.
It is quite evident that this system can only exist with the
agreement and reciprocal feeling of both parties. The slave knows
well that his master can return to the old system at his will, and
this reflection is the chief cause for establishing the improvement.
The master knows well, that the law empowers him to keep his slaves
at work till six in the evening; but he considers that, if he can
elicit their spontaneous skill and assiduity, they will get through
an equal quantity of work by an earlier hour, and will pursue their
labour cheerfully. He is therefore disposed to approve of task-work
wherever it is practicable, both under the influence of that more
humane spirit which pervades the colonies, and from the desire to
save himself the trouble and expense of superintendence in the field.
Under this beneficial regulation, the negroes are found to complete
their day’s work by as early an hour as three or four o’clock,
having then the remainder of the day at their own disposal, to earn
money for themselves. The master never thinks of objecting to such
earnings, which benefit his people without injuring himself. On the
contrary, it is to his advantage, by increasing their contentment,
the salutary operation of which we have described in a preceding
section.
But let compulsory manumission be insisted on, and how differently
will he then contemplate the earnings of his slaves! At present their
little funds are spent in harmless amusements—in adorning their
persons, and giving Christmas and other holiday entertainments, in
which it is their delight to mimic the manners of the whites. But
change the scene, and let them employ their earnings to procure
their freedom, and what will be the master’s course? He will be
constrained, in self-defence to stop their means of earning. He
will discontinue task-work, and keep his negroes working until six
o’clock, as the law allows him.
Let us banish Utopian views from our thoughts, and consider, as
practical men, is it ever to be expected—is it reasonable, that
colonial proprietors would act otherwise? You drive them to it. They
have vested their property on the express declaration of the law,
that they are entitled to the labour of their slaves until _six
o’clock_. You cannot change this hour for an earlier one, without
infringing the rights of property, in a manner which could never
possibly be contemplated by any legislature. There is therefore no
regulation which can obviate the evil. Task-work, consisting of a
multiplicity of details, cannot in its very nature be commanded
or enforced by any other authority than that of the master. Its
beneficial effects upon the slaves consist in the master’s entering
into their feelings, and giving them encouragement precisely in the
degree that personal trouble in management is removed.
When property in slaves is made but a precarious interest, dependent
upon the slaves themselves, it is no more than the truth to assert,
that a rigorous system of coercion, such as prevailed in the colonies
some twenty years ago, would return.
If it be argued, that this involves a contradiction in reference to
the _contentment_, described as being the proprietor’s chief object
to establish, let it be recollected that he is now in a dilemma. If
he allows his slaves to accumulate earnings, they may be employed
to his own _total ruin_; he has therefore to get, as speedily as
possible, the utmost degree of work from his labourers that the law
allows him.
_Section 5._
INVIDIOUS FEELINGS EXCITED BY PROMPTING
TO A GENERAL RUSH FOR FREEDOM.
Several of His Majesty’s ministers, in various declarations and
speeches, have alluded to the institution of slavery in ancient
times; and availing themselves of the great experience thus
presented for guidance and direction, have affirmed that the same
measures of amelioration should be introduced to mitigate slavery in
the West India colonies, which had in times past mitigated slavery in
Europe. By obvious analogy, if the experience of times past be the
true guide in measures relating to amelioration, the same experience
should be the guide for measures relating to emancipation.
Let us examine, then, if this be the case.
In all ages and records of history, and in every nation on the globe
in which slavery has existed, the difficulties of manumission have
become less and less as civilisation advanced. But by the mode of
operation laid down by Lord Bathurst, the difficulties in the present
case must gradually increase. In a gang of one hundred negroes, the
first man applying for freedom would have his relative utility to
the plantation estimated at a small sum, the loss of the services of
an individual not materially impeding its cultivation. But if thirty
or forty men were to be abstracted from the estate, the sum to be
assessed as relative utility must rise in a rapidly increased ratio,
the remaining hands being wholly incompetent to render the fixed
capital productive.
Supposing, then, the measure to possess an executory principle: in
the first year, according to its projectors, a man might procure his
freedom at 100_l._ At the end of the second year, a man of precisely
the same capabilities and abstract value would find the price of
manumission risen to 150_l._ At the end of the third year it might
rise to 200_l._; and so on, progressively, until it mounted to
500_l._, or a still higher sum.
This is the operation consequent on the terms employed by Earl
Bathurst, and subsequently, indeed, explicitly avowed by him, to
illustrate the measure.
It has been considered, and repeatedly declared by His Majesty’s
ministers, that a progressive amelioration in the condition of the
slaves, the diffusion of moral instruction, the just appreciation
of the blessings of a pure religion, and a gradual reformation in
manners and opinions, should continue to exercise their salutary
influence, until slavery insensibly glided into freedom.
Yet compulsory manumission proceeds in express contradiction to this
principle. It teaches the slave, that the sooner he demands his
freedom the easier it will be for him to succeed. It discourages the
idea of delaying till the morals be improved by instruction, and it
urges him to rush forward at once by the most expeditious course,
by teaching him, that those only who delay incur the danger of
disappointment.
The public at large have been harangued about the _gradual operation_
of the measure. What will be their surprise when they understand,
that the meaning of such gradual operation simply is, that the
difficulties in attaining the object sought should become greater
by degrees instead of less? It is, indeed, a notable specimen of
legislation, to announce to the slaves,—Now that you are ignorant,
you may procure your freedom for 100_l._; but some years hence, when
you have improved by instruction, you will have to pay five times as
much.
Under such excitements, a measure which works on the predominant
passions of men, awakening in them mutual feelings of envy and
distrust, prompting each to take advantage of his fellow, and
universally forestalling the fruits of civilisation, must be utterly
incompatible with the well-being of the slave.
Who, therefore, can maintain, all the circumstances enumerated in the
foregoing sections taken in conjunction, that compulsory manumission
is in conformity with the Resolution of Parliament?