Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments Part 48

Though an imperfect standard, it is the best we have, and perhaps the Creator did not intend that we should arrive at perfect certainty with regard to the morality of many actions. If, after the most careful examination of consequences that we are able to make, with due distrust of ourselves, we impartially, and in good faith, decide for that which appears likely to produce the greatest good, we are free from moral guilt. And I would impress most earnestly, that with our imperfect and limited faculties, and short-sighted as we are to the future, we can rarely, very rarely indeed, be justified in producing considerable present evil or suffering, in the expectation of remote future good--if indeed this can ever be justified.

In considering this subject, I shall not regard it in the first instance in reference to the present position of the slaveholding States, or the difficulties which lie in the way of their emanc.i.p.ating their slaves, but as a naked, abstract question--whether it is better that the inst.i.tution of praedial and domestic slavery should, or should not, exist in civilized society. And though some of my remarks may seem to have such a tendency, let me not be understood as taking upon myself to determine that it is better that it should exist. G.o.d forbid that the responsibility of deciding such a question should ever be thrown on me or my countrymen. But this I will say, and not without confidence, that it is in the power of no human intellect to establish the contrary proposition--that it is better it should not exist. This is probably known but to one being, and concealed from human sagacity.

There have existed in various ages, and we now see existing in the world, people in every stage of civilization, from the most barbarous to the most refined. Man, as I have said, is not born to civilization. He is born rude and ignorant. But it will be, I suppose, admitted that it is the design of his Creator that he should attain to civilization: that religion should be known, that the comforts and elegancies of life should be enjoyed, that letters and arts should be cultivated; in short, that there should be the greatest possible development of moral and intellectual excellence. It can hardly be necessary to say any thing of those who have extolled the superior virtues and enjoyments of savage life--a life of physical wants and sufferings, of continual insecurity, of furious pa.s.sions and depraved vices. Those who have praised savage life, are those who have known nothing of it, or who have become savages themselves. But as I have said, so far as reason or universal experience instruct us, the inst.i.tution of slavery is an essential process in emerging from savage life. It must then produce good, and promote the designs of the Creator.

I add further, _that slavery antic.i.p.ates the benefits of civilization, and r.e.t.a.r.ds the evils of civilization_. The former part of this proposition has been so fully established by a writer of great power of thought--though I fear his practical conclusions will be found of little value--that it is hardly necessary to urge it.[237] Property--the acc.u.mulation of capital, as it is commonly called--is the first element of civilization. But to acc.u.mulate, or to use capital to any considerable extent, the combination of labor is necessary. In early stages of society, when people are thinly scattered over an extensive territory, the labor necessary to extensive works cannot be commanded.

Men are independent of each other. Having the command of abundance of land, no one will submit to be employed in the service of his neighbor.

No one, therefore, can employ more capital than he can use with his own hands, or those of his family, nor have an income much beyond the necessaries of life. There can, therefore, be little leisure for intellectual pursuits, or means of acquiring the comforts or elegancies of life. It is hardly necessary to say, however, that if a man has the command of slaves, he may combine labor, and use capital to any required extent, and therefore acc.u.mulate wealth. He shows that no colonies have been successfully planted without some sort of slavery. So we find the fact to be. It is only in the slaveholding States of our Confederacy, that wealth can be acquired by agriculture--which is the general employment of our whole country. Among us, we know that there is no one, however humble his beginning, who, with persevering industry, intelligence, and orderly and virtuous habits, may not attain to considerable opulence. So far as wealth has been acc.u.mulated in the States which do not possess slaves, it has been in cities by the pursuits of commerce, or lately, by manufactures. But the products of slave labor furnish more than two-thirds of the materials of our foreign commerce, which the industry of those States is employed in transporting and exchanging; and among the slaveholding States is to be found the great market for all the productions of their industry, of whatever kind. The prosperity of those States, therefore, and the civilization of their cities, have been for the most part created by the existence of slavery. Even in the cities, but for a cla.s.s of population, which our inst.i.tutions have marked as servile, it would be scarcely possible to preserve the ordinary habitudes of civilized life, by commanding the necessary menial and domestic service.

Every stage of human society, from the most barbarous to the most refined, has its own peculiar evils to mark it as the condition of mortality; and perhaps there is none but omnipotence who can say in which the scale of good or evil most preponderates. We need say nothing of the evils of savage life. There is a state of society elevated somewhat above it, which is to be found in some of the more thinly peopled portions of our own country--the rudest agricultural state--which is thus characterized by the author to whom I have referred: "The American of the back woods has often been described to the English as grossly ignorant, dirty, unsocial, delighting in rum and tobacco, attached to nothing but his rifle, adventurous, restless, more than half savage. Deprived of social enjoyments or excitements, he has recourse to those of savage life, and becomes (for in this respect the Americans degenerate) unfit for society." This is no very inviting picture, which, though exaggerated, we know not to be without likeness.

The evils of such a state, I suppose, will hardly be thought compensated by unbounded freedom, perfect equality, and ample means of subsistence.

But let us take another stage in the progress--which to many will appear to offer all that is desirable in existence, and realize another Utopia.

Let us suppose a state of society in which all shall have property, and there shall be no great inequality of property--in which society shall be so much condensed as to afford the means of social intercourse, without being crowded, so as to create difficulty in obtaining the means of subsistence--in which every family that chooses may have as much land as will employ its own hands, while others may employ their industry in forming such products as it may be desirable to exchange with them.

Schools are generally established, and the rudiments of education universally diffused. Religion is taught, and every village has its church, neat, though humble, lifting its spire to heaven. Here is a situation apparently the most favorable to happiness. I say _apparently_, for the greatest source of human misery is not in external circ.u.mstances, but in men themselves--in their depraved inclinations, their wayward pa.s.sions and perverse wills. Here is room for all the petty compet.i.tion, the envy, hatred, malice and dissimulation that torture the heart in what may be supposed the most sophisticated states of society; and though less marked and offensive, there may be much of the licentiousness.

But apart from this, in such a condition of society, if there is little suffering, there is little high enjoyment. The even flow of life forbids the high excitement which is necessary for it. If there is little vice, there is little place for the eminent virtues, which employ themselves in controlling the disorders and remedying the evils of society, which, like war and revolution, call forth the highest powers of man, whether for good or for evil. If there is little misery, there is little room for benevolence. Useful public inst.i.tutions we may suppose to be created, but not such as are merely ornamental. Elegant arts can be little cultivated, for there are no means to reward the artists; nor the higher literature, for no one will have leisure or means to cultivate it for its own sake. Those who acquire what may be called liberal education, will do so in order to employ it as the means of their own subsistence or advancement in a profession, and literature itself will partake of the sordidness of trade. In short, it is plain that in such a state of society, the moral and intellectual faculties cannot be cultivated to their highest perfection.

But whether that which I have described be the most desirable state of society or no, it is certain that it can not continue. Mutation and progress is the condition of human affairs. Though r.e.t.a.r.ded for a time by extraneous or accidental circ.u.mstances, the wheel must roll on. The tendency of population is to become crowded, increasing the difficulty of obtaining subsistence. There will be some without any property except the capacity for labor. This they must sell to those who have the means of employing them, thereby swelling the amount of their capital, and increasing inequality. The process still goes on. The number of laborers increases until there is a difficulty in obtaining employment. Then compet.i.tion is established. The remuneration of the laborer becomes gradually less and less; a larger and larger proportion of the product of his labor goes to swell the fortune of the capitalist; inequality becomes still greater and more invidious, until the process ends in the establishment of just such a state of things, as the same author describes as now existing in England. After a most imposing picture of her greatness and resources; of her superabounding capital, and all pervading industry and enterprise; of her public inst.i.tutions for purposes of art, learning and benevolence; her public improvements, by which intercourse is facilitated, and the convenience of man subserved; the conveniences and luxuries of life enjoyed by those who are in possession of fortune, or have profitable employments; of all, in short, that places her at the head of modern civilization, he proceeds to give the reverse of the picture. And here I shall use his own words: "The laboring cla.s.s compose the bulk of the people; the great body of the people; the vast majority of the people--these are the terms by which English writers and speakers usually describe those whose only property is their labor."

"Of comprehensive words, the two most frequently used in English politics, are distress and pauperism. After these, of expressions applied to the state of the poor, the most common are vice and misery, wretchedness, sufferings, ignorance, degradation, discontent, depravity, drunkenness, and the increase of crime; with many more of the like nature."

He goes on to give the details of this inequality and wretchedness, in terms calculated to sicken and appal one to whom the picture is new.

That he has painted strongly we may suppose; but there is ample corroborating testimony, if such were needed, that the representation is substantially just. Where so much misery exists, there must of course be much discontent, and many have been disposed to trace the sources of the former in vicious legislation, or the structure of government; and the author gives the various schemes, sometimes contradictory, sometimes ludicrous, which projectors have devised as a remedy for all this evil to which flesh is heir. That ill-judged legislation may have sometimes aggravated the general suffering, or that its extremity may be mitigated by the well-directed efforts of the wise and virtuous, there can be no doubt. One purpose for which it has been permitted to exist is, that it may call forth such efforts, and awaken powers and virtues which would otherwise have slumbered for want of object. But remedy there is none, unless it be to abandon their civilization. This inequality, this vice, this misery, this _slavery_, is the price of England's civilization.

They suffer the lot of humanity. But perhaps we may be permitted humbly to hope, that great, intense and widely spread as this misery undoubtedly is in reality, it may yet be less so than in appearance. We can estimate but very, very imperfectly the good and evil of individual condition, as of different states of society. Some unexpected solace arises to alleviate the severest calamity. Wonderful is the power of custom, in making the hardest condition tolerable; the most generally wretched life has circ.u.mstances of mitigation, and moments of vivid enjoyment, of which the more seemingly happy can scarcely conceive; though the lives of individuals be shortened, the aggregate of existence is increased; even the various forms of death accelerated by want, familiarized to the contemplation, like death to the soldier on the field of battle, may become scarcely more formidable than what we are accustomed to regard as nature's ordinary outlets of existence. If we could perfectly a.n.a.lyze the enjoyments and sufferings of the most happy, and the most miserable man, we should perhaps be startled to find the difference so much less than our previous impressions had led us to conceive. But it is not for us to a.s.sume the province of omniscience.

The particular theory of the author quoted, seems to be founded on an a.s.sumption of this sort--that there is a certain stage in the progress, when there is a certain balance between the demand for labor, and the supply of it, which is more desirable than any other--when the territory is so thickly peopled that all can not own land and cultivate the soil for themselves, but a portion will be compelled to sell their labor to others; still leaving, however, the wages of labor high, and the laborer independent. It is plain, however, that this would in like manner partake of the good and the evil of other states of society. There would be less of equality and less rudeness, than in the early stages; less civilization, and less suffering, than in the latter.

It is the compet.i.tion for employment, which is the source of this misery of society, that gives rise to all excellence in art and knowledge. When the demand for labor exceeds the supply, the services of the most ordinarily qualified laborer will be eagerly retained. When the supply begins to exceed, and compet.i.tion is established, higher and higher qualifications will be required, until at length when it becomes very intense, none but the most consummately skillful can be sure to be employed. Nothing but necessity can drive men to the exertions which are necessary so to qualify themselves. But it is not in arts, merely mechanical alone, that this superior excellence will be required. It will be extended to every intellectual employment; and though this may not be the effect in the instance of every individual, yet it will fix the habits and character of the society, and prescribe everywhere, and in every department, the highest possible standard of attainment.

But how is it that the existence of slavery, as with us, will r.e.t.a.r.d the evils of civilization? Very obviously. It is the intense compet.i.tion of civilized life, that gives rise to the excessive cheapness of labor, and the excessive cheapness of labor is the cause of the evils in question.

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

Political economists have established as the natural standard of wages in a fully peopled country, the value of the laborer's existence. I shall not stop to inquire into the precise truth of this proposition. It certainly approximates the truth. Where compet.i.tion is intense, men will labor for a bare subsistence, and less than a competent subsistence. The employer of free laborers obtains their services during the time of their health and vigor, without the charge of rearing them from infancy, or supporting them in sickness or old age. This charge is imposed on the employer of slave labor, who, therefore, pays higher wages, and cuts off the princ.i.p.al source of misery--the wants and sufferings of infancy, sickness, and old age. Laborers too will be less skillful, and perform less work--enhancing the price of that sort of labor. The poor laws of England are an attempt--but an awkward and empirical attempt--to supply the place of that which we should suppose the feelings of every human heart would declare to be a natural obligation--that he who has received the benefit of the laborer's services during his health and vigor, should maintain him when he becomes unable to provide for his own support. They answer their purpose, however, very imperfectly, and are unjustly and unequally imposed. There is no attempt to apportion the burden according to the benefit received--and perhaps there could be none. This is one of the evils of their condition.

In periods of commercial revulsion and distress, like the present, the distress, in countries of free labor, falls princ.i.p.ally on the laborers.

In those of slave labor, it falls almost exclusively on the employer. In the former, when a business becomes unprofitable, the employer dismisses his laborers or lowers their wages. But with us, it is the very period at which we are least able to dismiss our laborers; and if we would not suffer a further loss, we can not reduce their wages. To receive the benefit of the services of which they are capable, we must provide for maintaining their health and vigor. In point of fact, we know that this is accounted among the necessary expenses of management. If the income of every planter of the Southern States were permanently reduced one-half, or even much more than that, it would not take one jot from the support and comforts of the slaves. And this can never be materially altered, until they shall become so unprofitable that slavery must be of necessity abandoned. It is probable that the acc.u.mulation of individual wealth will never be carried to quite so great an extent in a slaveholding country, as in one of free labor; but a consequence will be, that there will be less inequality and less suffering.

_Servitude_ is the condition of civilization. It was decreed, when the command was given, "be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it," and when it was added, "in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." And what human being shall arrogate to himself the authority to p.r.o.nounce that our form of it is worse in itself, or more displeasing to G.o.d, than that which exists elsewhere? Shall it be said that the servitude of other countries grows out of the exigency of their circ.u.mstances, and therefore society is not responsible for it? But if we know that in the progress of things it is to come, would it not seem the part of wisdom and foresight, to make provision for it, and thereby, if we can, mitigate the severity of its evils? But the fact is not so.

Let any one who doubts, read the book to which I have several times referred, and he may be satisfied that it was forced upon us by the extremest exigency of circ.u.mstances, in a struggle for very existence.

Without it, it is doubtful whether a white man would be now existing on this continent--certain, that if there were, they would be in a state of the utmost dest.i.tution, weakness, and misery. It was forced on us by necessity, and further fastened upon us by the superior authority of the mother country. I, for one, neither deprecate nor resent the gift. Nor did we inst.i.tute slavery. The Africans brought to us had been, speaking in the general, slaves in their own country, and only underwent a change of masters. In the countries of Europe, and the States of our Confederacy, in which slavery has ceased to exist, it was abolished by positive legislation. If the order of nature has been departed from, and a forced and artificial state of things introduced, it has been, as the experience of all the world declares, by them and not by us.

That there are great evils in a society where slavery exists, and that the inst.i.tution is liable to great abuse, I have already said. To say otherwise, would be to say that they were not human. But the whole of human life is a system of evils and compensations. We have no reason to believe that the compensations with us are fewer, or smaller in proportion to the evils, than those of any other condition of society.

Tell me of an evil or abuse; of an instance of cruelty, oppression, licentiousness, crime or suffering, and I will point out, and often in five fold degree, an equivalent evil or abuse in countries where slavery does not exist.

Let us examine without blenching, the actual and alleged evils of slavery, and the array of horrors which many suppose to be its universal concomitants. It is said that the slave is out of the protection of the law; that if the law purports to protect him in life and limb, it is but imperfectly executed; that he is still subject to excessive labor, degrading blows, or any other sort of torture, which a master pampered and brutalized by the exercise of arbitrary power, may think proper to inflict; he is cut off from the opportunity of intellectual, moral, or religious improvement, and even positive enactments are directed against his acquiring the rudiments of knowledge; he is cut off forever from the hope of raising his condition in society, whatever may be his merit, talents, or virtues, and therefore deprived of the strongest incentive to useful and praiseworthy exertion; his physical degradation begets a corresponding moral degradation: he is without moral principle, and addicted to the lowest vices, particularly theft and falsehood; if marriage be not disallowed, it is little better than a state of concubinage, from which results general licentiousness, and the want of chast.i.ty among females--this indeed is not protected by law, but is subject to the outrages of brutal l.u.s.t; both s.e.xes are liable to have their dearest affections violated; to be sold like brutes; husbands to be torn from wives, children from parents;--this is the picture commonly presented by the denouncers of slavery.

It is a somewhat singular fact that when there existed in our State no law for punis.h.i.+ng the murder of a slave, other than a pecuniary fine, there were, I will venture to say, at least ten murders of freemen, for one murder of a slave. Yet it is supposed they are all less protected, or less secure than their masters. Why they are protected by their very situation in society, and therefore less need the protection of law.

With any other person than their master, it is hardly possible for them to come into such sort of collision as usually gives rise to furious and revengeful pa.s.sions; they offer no temptation to the murderer for gain; against the master himself, they have the security of his own interest, and by his superintendence and authority, they are protected from the revengeful pa.s.sions of each other. I am by no means sure that the cause of humanity has been served by the change in jurisprudence, which has placed their murder on the same footing with that of a freeman. The change was made in subserviency to the opinions and clamor of others who were utterly incompetent to form an opinion on the subject; and a wise act is seldom the result of legislation in this spirit. From the fact which I have stated, it is plain that they less need protection. Juries are, therefore, less willing to convict, and it may sometimes happen that the guilty will escape all punishment. _Security_ is one of the compensations of their humble position. We challenge the comparison, that with us there have been fewer murders of slaves, than of parents, children, apprentices, and other murders, cruel and unnatural, in society where slavery does not exist.

But short of life or limb, various cruelties may be practiced as the pa.s.sions of the master may dictate. To this the same reply has been often given--that they are secured by the master's interest. If the state of slavey is to exist at all, the master must have, and ought to have, such power of punishment as will compel them to perform the duties of their station. And is not this for their advantage as well as his? No human being can be contented, who does not perform the duties of his station. Has the master any temptation to go beyond this? If he inflicts on him such punishment as will permanently impair his strength, he inflicts a loss on himself, and so if he requires of him excessive labor. Compare the labor required of the slave, with those of the free agricultural or manufacturing laborer in Europe, or even in the more thickly peopled portions of the non-slaveholding States of our Confederacy--though these last are no fair subjects of comparison--they enjoying, as I have said, in a great degree, the advantages of slavery along with those of an early and simple state of society. Read the English Parliamentary reports, on the condition of the manufacturing operatives, and the children employed in factories. And such is the impotence of man to remedy the evils which the condition of his existence has imposed on him, that it is much to be doubted whether the attempts by legislation to improve their situation, will not aggravate its evils. They resort to this excessive labor as a choice of evils. If so, the amount of their compensation will be lessened also with the diminished labor; for this is a matter which legislation can not regulate. Is it the part of benevolence then to cut them off even from this miserable liberty of choice? Yet would these evils exist in the same degree, if the laborers were the _property_ of the master--having a direct interest in preserving their lives, their health and strength?

Who but a driveling fanatic has thought of the necessity of protecting domestic animals from the cruelty of their owners? And yet are not great and wanton cruelties practiced on these animals? Compare the whole of the cruelties inflicted on slaves throughout our Southern country, with those elsewhere, inflicted by ignorant and depraved portions of the community, on those whom the relations of society put into their power--of brutal husbands on their wives; of brutal parents--subdued against the strongest instincts of nature to that brutality by the extremity of their misery--on their children; of brutal masters on apprentices. And if it should be asked, are not similar cruelties inflicted, and miseries endured, in your society? I answer, in no comparable degree. The cla.s.s in question are placed under the control of others, who are interested to restrain their excesses of cruelty or rage. Wives are protected from their husbands, and children from their parents. And this is no inconsiderable compensation of the evils of our system; and would so appear, if we could form any conception of the immense amount of misery which is elsewhere thus inflicted. The other cla.s.s of society, more elevated in their position, are also (speaking of course in the general) more elevated in character, and more responsible to public opinion.

But besides the interest of their master, there is another security against cruelty. The relation of master and slave, when there is no mischievous interference between them, is, as the experience of all the world declares, naturally one of kindness. As to the fact, we should be held interested witnesses, but we appeal to universal nature. Is it not natural that a man should be attached to that which is _his own_, and which has contributed to his convenience, his enjoyment, or his vanity?

This is felt even toward animals and inanimate objects. How much more toward a being of superior intelligence and usefulness, who can appreciate our feelings towards him, and return them? Is it not natural that we should be interested in that which is dependent on us for protection and support? Do not men everywhere contract kind feelings toward their dependents? Is it not natural that men should be more attached to those whom they have long known,--whom, perhaps, they have reared or been a.s.sociated with from infancy--than to one with whom their connection has been casual and temporary? What is there in our atmosphere or inst.i.tutions, to produce a perversion of the general feelings of nature? To be sure, in this as in all other relations, there is frequent cause of offense or excitement--on one side, for some omission of duty, on the other, on account of reproof or punishment inflicted. But this is common to the relation of parent and child; and I will venture to say, that if punishment be justly inflicted--and there is no temptation to inflict it unjustly--it is as little likely to occasion permanent estrangement or resentment as in that case. Slaves are perpetual children. It is not the common nature of man, unless it be depraved by his own misery, to delight in witnessing pain. It is more grateful to behold contented and cheerful beings, than sullen and wretched ones. That men are sometimes wayward, depraved and brutal, we know. That atrocious and brutal cruelties have been perpetrated on slaves, and on those who were not slaves, by such wretches, we also know. But that the inst.i.tution of slavery has a natural tendency to form such a character, that such crimes are more common, or more aggravated than in other states of society, or produce among us less surprise and horror, we utterly deny, and challenge the comparison. Indeed, I have little hesitation in saying, that if full evidence could be obtained, the comparison would result in our favor, and that the tendency of slavery is rather to humanize than to brutalize.

The accounts of travelers in oriental countries, give a very favorable representation of the kindly relations which exist between the master and slave; the latter being often the friend, and sometimes the heir of the former. Generally, however, especially if they be English travelers--if they say any thing which may seem to give a favorable complexion to slavery, they think it necessary to enter their protest, that they shall not be taken to give any sanction to slavery as it exists in America. Yet human nature is the same in all countries. There are very obvious reasons why in those countries there should be a nearer approach to equality in their manners. The master and slave are often of cognate races, and therefore tend more to a.s.similate. There is, in fact, less inequality in mind and character, where the master is but imperfectly civilized. Less labor is exacted, because the master has fewer motives to acc.u.mulate. But is it an injury to a human being, that regular, if not excessive labor, should be required of him? The primeval curse, with the usual benignity of providential contrivance, has been turned into the solace of an existence that would be much more intolerable without it. If they labor less, they are much more subject to the outrages of capricious pa.s.sions. If it were put to the choice of any human being, would he prefer to be the slave of a civilized man, or of a barbarian or semi-barbarian? But if the general tendency of the inst.i.tution in those countries is to create kindly relations, can it be imagined why it should operate differently in this? It is true, as suggested by President Dew--with the exception of the ties of close consanguinity, it forms one of the most intimate relations of society.

And it will be more and more so, the longer it continues to exist. The harshest features of slavery were created by those who were strangers to slavery--who supposed that it consisted in keeping savages in subjection by violence and terror. The severest laws to be found on our statute book, were enacted by such, and such are still found to be the severest masters. As society becomes settled, and the wandering habits of our countrymen altered, there will be a larger and larger proportion of those who were reared by the owner, or derived to him from his ancestors, and who therefore will be more and more intimately regarded, as forming a portion of his family.

It is true that the slave is driven to labor by stripes; and if the object of punishment be to produce obedience or reformation, with the least permanent injury, it is the best method of punishment. But is it not intolerable, that a being formed in the image of his Maker, should be degraded by _blows_? This is one of the perversions of mind and feeling, to which I shall have occasion again to refer. Such punishment would be degrading to a freeman, who had the thoughts and aspirations of a freeman. In general, it is not degrading to a slave, nor is it felt to be so. The evil is the bodily pain. Is it degrading to a child? Or if in any particular instance it would be so felt, it is sure not to be inflicted--unless in those rare cases which const.i.tute the startling and eccentric evils, from which no society is exempt, and against which no inst.i.tution of society can provide.

_The slave is cut off from the means of intellectual, moral, and religious improvement, and in consequence his moral character becomes depraved, and he addicted to degrading vices._ The slave receives such instruction as qualifies him to discharge the duties of his particular station. The Creator did not intend that every individual human being should be highly cultivated, morally and intellectually, for, as we have seen, he has imposed conditions on society which would render this impossible. There must be general mediocrity, or the highest cultivation must exist along with ignorance, vice, and degradation. But is there in the aggregate of society, less opportunity for intellectual and moral cultivation, on account of the existence of slavery? We must estimate inst.i.tutions from their aggregate of good or evil. I refer to the views which I have before expressed to this society. It is by the existence of slavery, exempting so large a portion of our citizens from the necessity of bodily labor, that we have a greater proportion than any other people, who have leisure for intellectual pursuits, and the means of attaining a liberal education. If we throw away this opportunity, we shall be morally responsible for the neglect or abuse of our advantages, and shall most unquestionably pay the penalty. But the blame will rest on ourselves, and not on the character of our inst.i.tutions.

I add further, notwithstanding that _equality_ seems to be the pa.s.sion of the day, if, as Providence has evidently decreed, there can be but a certain portion of intellectual excellence in any community, it is better that it should be _unequally_ divided. It is better that a part should be fully and highly cultivated, and the rest utterly ignorant. To const.i.tute a society, a variety of offices must be discharged, from those requiring but the lowest degree of intellectual power, to those requiring the very highest, and it should seem that the endowments ought to be apportioned according to the exigencies of the situation. In the course of human affairs, there arise difficulties which can only be comprehended or surmounted by the strongest native power of intellect, strengthened by the most a.s.siduous exercise, and enriched with the most extended knowledge--and even these are sometimes found inadequate to the exigency. The first want of society is--leaders. Who shall estimate the value to Athens, of Solon, Aristides, Themistocles, Cymon, or Pericles?

If society have not leaders qualified, as I have said, they will have those who will lead them blindly to their loss and ruin. Men of no great native power of intellect, and of imperfect and superficial knowledge, are the most mischievous of all--none are so busy, meddling, confident, presumptuous, and intolerant. The whole of society receives the benefit of the exertions of a mind of extraordinary endowments. Of all communities, one of the least desirable, would be that in which imperfect, superficial, half-education should be universal. The first care of a State which regards its own safety, prosperity, and honor, should be, that when minds of extraordinary power appear, to whatever department of knowledge, art or science, their exertions may be directed, the means should be provided for their most consummate cultivation. Next to this, that education should be as widely extended as possible.

Odium has been cast upon our legislation, on account of its forbidding the elements of education to be communicated to slaves. But, in truth, what injury is done to them by this? He who works during the day with his hands, does not read in intervals of leisure for his amus.e.m.e.nt, or the improvement of his mind--or the exceptions are so very rare, as scarcely to need the being provided for. Of the many slaves whom I have known capable of reading, I have never known one to read any thing but the Bible, and this task they impose on themselves as matter of duty. Of all methods of religious instruction, however, this, of reading for themselves, would be the most inefficient--their comprehension is defective, and the employment is to them an unusual and laborious one.

There are but very few who do not enjoy other means more effectual for religious instruction. There is no place of wors.h.i.+p opened for the white population, from which they are excluded. I believe it a mistake, to say that the instructions there given are not adapted to their comprehension, or calculated to improve them. If they are given as they ought to be--practically, and without pretension, and are such as are generally intelligible to the free part of the audience, comprehending all grades of intellectual capacity,--they will not be unintelligible to slaves. I doubt whether this be not better than instruction, addressed specially to themselves--which they might look upon as a devise of the master's, to make them more obedient and profitable to himself. Their minds, generally, show a strong religious tendency, and they are fond of a.s.suming the office of religious instructors to each other; and perhaps their religious notions are not much more extravagant than those of a large portion of the free population of our country. I am not sure that there is a much smaller proportion of them, than of the free population, who make some sort of religious profession. It is certainly the master's _interest_ that they should have proper religious sentiments, and if he fails in his duty toward them, we may be sure that the consequences will be visited not upon them, but upon him.

If there were any chance of their elevating their rank and condition in society, it might be matter of hards.h.i.+p, that they should be debarred those rudiments of knowledge which open the way to further attainments.

But this they know can not be, and that further attainments would be useless to them. Of the evil of this, I shall speak hereafter. A knowledge of reading, writing, and the elements of arithmetic, is convenient and important to the free laborer, who is the transactor of his own affairs, and the guardian of his own interests--but of what use would they be to the slave? These alone do not elevate the mind or character, if such elevation were desirable.

If we estimate their morals according to that which should be the standard of a free man's morality, then I grant they are degraded in morals--though by no means to the extent which those who are unacquainted with the inst.i.tution seem to suppose. We justly suppose, that the Creator will require of man the performance of the duties of the station in which his providence has placed him, and the cultivation of the virtues which are adapted to their performance; that he will make allowance for all imperfection of knowledge, and the absence of the usual helps and motives which lead to self-correction and improvement.

The degradation of morals relate princ.i.p.ally to loose notions of honesty, leading to petty thefts; to falsehood and to licentious intercourse between the s.e.xes. Though with respect even to these, I protest against the opinion which seems to be elsewhere entertained, that they are universal, or that slaves, in respect to them, might not well bear a comparison with the lowest laborious cla.s.s of other countries. But certainly there is much dishonesty leading to petty thefts. It leads, however, to nothing else. They have no contracts or dealings which might be a temptation to fraud, nor do I know that their characters have any tendency that way. They are restrained by the constant, vigilant, and interested superintendence which is exercised over them, from the commission of offenses of greater magnitude--even if they were disposed to them--which I am satisfied they are not. Nothing is so rarely heard of, as an atrocious crime committed by a slave; especially since they have worn off the savage character which their progenitors brought with them from Africa. Their offenses are confined to petty depredations, princ.i.p.ally for the gratification of their appet.i.tes, and these for reasons already given, are chiefly confined to the property of their owner, which is most exposed to them. They could make no use of a considerable booty, if they should obtain it. It is plain that this is a less evil to society in its consequences and example, than if committed by a freeman, who is master of his own time and actions. With reference to society then, the offense is less in itself--and may we not hope that it is less in the sight of G.o.d? A slave has no hope that by a course of integrity, he can materially elevate his condition in society, nor can his offense materially depress it, or affect his means of support, or that of his family. Compared to the freeman, he has no character to establish or to lose. He has not been exercised to self-government, and being without intellectual resources, can less resist the solicitations of appet.i.te. Theft in a freeman is a crime; in a slave, it is a vice. I recollect to have heard it said, in reference to some question of a slave's theft which was agitated in a Court, "Courts of Justice have no more to do with a slave's stealing, than with his lying--that is a matter for the domestic forum." It was truly said--the theft of a slave is no offense against society. Compare all the evils resulting from this, with the enormous amount of vice, crime, and depravity, which in an European, or one of our Northern cities, disgusts the moral feelings, and render life and property insecure. So with respect to his falsehood. I have never heard or observed, that slaves have any peculiar proclivity to falsehood, unless it be in denying or concealing their own offenses, or those of their fellows. I have never heard of falsehood told by a slave for a malicious purpose. Lies of vanity are sometimes told, as among the weak and ignorant of other conditions. Falsehood is not attributed to an individual charged with an offense before a Court of Justice, who pleads _not guilty_--and certainly the strong temptation to escape punishment, in the highest degree extenuates, if it does not excuse, falsehood told by a _slave_. If the object be to screen a a fellow slave, the act bears some semblance of fidelity, and perhaps truth could not be told without breach of confidence. I know not how to characterize the falsehood of a slave.

It has often been said by the denouncers of slavery, that marriage does not exist among slaves. It is difficult to understand this, unless willful falsehood were intended. We know that marriages are contracted; may be, and often are, solemnized with the forms usual among other cla.s.ses of society, and often faithfully adhered to during life. The law has not provided for making those marriages indissoluble, nor could it do so. If a man abandons his wife, being without property, and being both property themselves, he cannot be required to maintain her. If he abandons his wife, and lives in a state of concubinage with another, the law cannot punish him for bigamy. It may perhaps be meant that the chast.i.ty of wives is not protected by law from the outrages of violence.

I answer, as with respect to their lives, that they are protected by manners, and their position. Who ever heard of such outrages being offered? At least as seldom, I will venture to say, as in other communities of different forms of polity. One reason doubtless may be, that often there is no disposition to resist. Another reason also may be, that there is little temptation to such violence, as there is so large a proportion of this cla.s.s of females who set little value on chast.i.ty, and afford easy gratification to the hot pa.s.sions of men. It might be supposed, from the representations of some writers, that a slaveholding country was one wide stew for the indulgence of unbridled l.u.s.t. Particular instances of intemperate and shameless debauchery are related, which may perhaps be true, and it is left to be inferred that this is the universal state of manners. Brutes and shameless debauchees there are in every country; we know that if such things are related as general or characteristic, the representation is false. Who would argue from the existence of a Col. Chartres in England, or of some individuals who might, perhaps, be named in other portions of this country, of the horrid dissoluteness of manners occasioned by the want of the inst.i.tution of slavery? Yet the argument might be urged quite as fairly, and really it seems to me with a little more justice--for there such depravity is attended with much more pernicious consequences. Yet let us not deny or extenuate the truth. It is true that in this respect the morals of this cla.s.s are very loose, (by no means so universally so as is often supposed,) and that the pa.s.sions of men of the superior caste, tempt and find gratification in the easy chast.i.ty of the females. This is evil, and to be remedied, if we can do so, without the introduction of greater evil. But evil is incident to every condition of society, and as I have said, we have only to consider in which inst.i.tution it most predominates.

Compare these prost.i.tutes of our country, (if it is not injustice to call them so,) and their condition with those of other countries--the seventy thousand prost.i.tutes of London, or of Paris, or the ten thousand of New York, or our other Northern cities. Take the picture given of the first from the author whom I have before quoted. "The laws and customs of England conspire to sink this cla.s.s of English women into a state of vice and misery below that which necessarily belongs to their condition.

Hence their extreme degradation, their troopers' oaths, their love of gin, their desperate recklessness, and the shortness of their miserable lives.

"English women of this cla.s.s, or rather girls, for few of them live to be women, die like sheep with the rot; so fast that soon there would be none left, if a fresh supply were not obtained equal to the number of deaths. But a fresh supply is always obtained without the least trouble; seduction easily keeps pace with prost.i.tution or mortality. Those that die are, like factory children that die, instantly succeeded by new compet.i.tors for misery and death." There is no hour of a summer's or a winter's night, in which there may not be found in the streets a ghastly wretch, expiring under the double tortures of disease and famine. Though less aggravated in its features, the picture of prost.i.tution in New York or Philadelphia would be of like character.

In such communities, the unmarried woman who becomes a mother, is an outcast from society--and though sentimentalists lament the hards.h.i.+p of the case, it is justly and necessarily so. She is cut off from the hope of useful and profitable employment, and driven by necessity to further vice. Her misery, and the hopelessness of retrieving, render her desperate, until she sinks into every depth of depravity, and is prepared for every crime that can contaminate and infest society. She has given birth to a human being, who, if it be so unfortunate as to survive its miserable infancy, is commonly educated to a like course of vice, depravity, and crime.

Compare with this the female slave under similar circ.u.mstances. She is not a less useful member of society than before. If shame be attached to her conduct, it is such shame as would be elsewhere felt for a venial impropriety. She has not impaired her means of support, nor materially impaired her character, or lowered her station in society; she has done no great injury to herself, or any other human being. Her offspring is not a burden but an acquisition to her owner; his support is provided for, and he is brought up to usefulness; if the fruit of intercourse with a freeman, his condition is, perhaps, raised somewhat above that of his mother. Under these circ.u.mstances, with imperfect knowledge, tempted by the strongest of human pa.s.sions--unrestrained by the motives which operate to restrain, but are so often found insufficient to restrain the conduct of females elsewhere, can it be matter of surprise that she should so often yield to the temptation? Is not the evil less in itself, and in reference to society--much less in the sight of G.o.d and man? As was said of theft--the want of chast.i.ty, which among females of other countries is sometimes vice, sometimes crime--among the free of our own, much more aggravated; among slaves, hardly deserves a harsher term than that of weakness. I have heard of complaint made by a free prost.i.tute, of the greater countenance and indulgence shown by society toward colored persons of her profession, (always regarded as of an inferior and servile cla.s.s, though individually free,) than to those of her own complexion. The former readily obtain employment; are even admitted into families, and treated with some degree of kindness and familiarity, while any approach to intercourse with the latter is shunned as contamination. The distinction is habitually made, and it is founded on the unerring instinct of nature. The colored prost.i.tute is, in fact, a far less contaminated and depraved being. Still many, in spite of temptation, do preserve a perfectly virtuous conduct, and I imagine it hardly ever entered into the mind of one of these, that she was likely to be forced from it by authority or violence.

It may be asked, if we have no prost.i.tutes from the free cla.s.s of society among ourselves. I answer, in no a.s.signable proportion. With general truth, it might be said, that there are none. When such a case occurs, it is among the rare evils of society. And apart from other and better reasons, which we believe to exist, it is plain that it must be so, from the comparative absence of temptation. Our brothels, comparatively very few--and these should not be permitted to exist at all--are filled, for the most part, by importations from the cities of our confederate States, where slavery does not exist. In return for the benefits which they receive from our slavery, along with tariffs, libels, opinions, moral, religious, or political--they furnish us also with a supply of thieves and prost.i.tutes. Never, but in a single instance, have I heard of an imputation on the general purity of manners, among the free females of the slaveholding States. Such an imputation, however, and made in coa.r.s.e terms, we have never heard here--_here_ where divorce was never known--where no court was ever polluted by an action for criminal conversation with a wife--where it is related rather as matter of tradition, not unmingled with wonder, that a Carolinian woman of education and family, proved false to her conjugal faith--an imputation deserving only of such reply as self-respect would forbid us to give, if respect for the author of it did not. And can it be doubted, that this purity is caused by, and is a compensation for the evils resulting from the existence of an enslaved cla.s.s of more relaxed morals?

It is mostly the warm pa.s.sions of youth, which give rise to licentious intercourse. But I do not hesitate to say, that the intercourse which takes place with enslaved females, is less depraving in its effects, than when it is carried on with females of their own caste. In the first place, as like attracts like, that which is unlike repels; and though the strength of pa.s.sion be sufficient to overcome the repulsion, still the attraction is less. He feels that he is connecting himself with one of an inferior and servile caste, and that there is something of degradation in the act. The intercourse is generally casual; he does not make her habitually an a.s.sociate, and is less likely to receive any taint from her habits and manners. He is less liable to those extraordinary fascinations, with which worthless women sometimes entangle their victims, to the utter destruction of all principle, worth and vigor of character. The female of his own race offers greater allurements. The haunts of vice often present a show of elegance, and various luxury tempts the senses. They are made an habitual resort, and their inmates a.s.sociates, till the general character receives a taint from the corrupted atmosphere. Not only the practice is licentious, but the understanding is sophisticated; the moral feelings are bewildered, and the boundaries of virtue and vice are confused. Where such licentiousness very extensively prevails, society is rotten to the heart.

But is it a small compensation for the evils attending the relation of the s.e.xes among the enslaved cla.s.s, that they have universally the opportunity of indulging in the first instinct of nature, by forming matrimonial connections? What painful restraint--what constant effort to struggle against the strongest impulses are habitually practiced elsewhere, and by other cla.s.ses? And they must be practiced, unless greater evils would be encountered. On the one side, all the evils of vice, with the miseries to which it leads--on the other, a marriage cursed and made hateful by want--the sufferings of children, and agonizing apprehensions concerning their future fate. Is it a small good that the slave is free from all this? He knows that his own subsistance is secure, and that his children will be in as good a condition as himself. To a refined and intellectual nature, it may not be difficult to practice the restraint of which I have spoken. But the reasoning from such to the great ma.s.s of mankind, is most fallacious. To these, the supply of their natural and physical wants, and the indulgence of the natural domestic affections, must, for the most part, afford the greatest good of which they are capable. To the evils which sometimes attend their matrimonial connections, arising from their looser morality, slaves, for obvious reasons, are comparatively insensible. I am no apologist of vice, nor would I extenuate the conduct of the profligate and unfeeling, who would violate the sanct.i.ty of even these engagements, and occasion the pain which such violations no doubt do often inflict. Yet such is the truth, and we can not make it otherwise.

We know that a woman's having been before a mother, is very seldom indeed an objection to her being made a wife. I know perfectly well how this will be regarded by a cla.s.s of reasoners or declaimers, as imposing a character of deeper horror on the whole system; but still, I will say, that if they are to be exposed to the evil, it is mercy that the sensibility to it should be blunted. Is it no compensation also for the vices incident to slavery, that they are, to a great degree, secured against the temptation to greater crimes, and more atrocious vices, and the miseries which attend them; against their own disposition to indolence, and the profligacy which is its common result?

But if they are subject to the vices, they have also the virtues of slaves. Fidelity--often proof against all temptation--even death itself--an eminently cheerful and social temper--what the Bible imposes as a duty, but which might seem an equivocal virtue in the code of modern morality--submission to const.i.tuted authority, and a disposition to be attached to, as well as to respect those, whom they are taught to regard as superiors. They may have all the knowledge which will make them useful in the station in which G.o.d has been pleased to place them, and may cultivate the virtues which will render them acceptable to him.

But what has the slave of any country to do with heroic virtues, liberal knowledge, or elegant accomplishments? It is for the master; arising out of his situation--imposed on him as duty--dangerous and disgraceful if neglected--to compensate for this, by his own more a.s.sidious cultivation, of the more generous virtues, and liberal attainments.

It has been supposed one of the great evils of slavery, that it affords the slave no opportunity of raising himself to a higher rank in society, and that he has, therefore, no inducement to meritorious exertion, or the cultivation of his faculties. The indolence and carelessnes of the slave, and the less productive quality of his neighbor, are traced to the want of such excitement. The first compensation for this disadvantage, is his security. If he can rise no higher, he is just in the same degree secured against the chances of falling lower. It has been sometimes made a question whether it were better for man to be freed from the perturbations of hope and fear, or to be exposed to their vicissitudes. But I suppose there could be little question with respect to a situation, in which the fears must greatly predominate over the hopes. And such, I apprehend, to be the condition of the laboring poor in countries where slavery does not exist. If not exposed to present suffering, there is continual apprehension for the future--for themselves--for their children--of sickness and want, if not of actual starvation. They expect to improve their circ.u.mstances! Would any person of ordinary candor, say that there is one in a hundred of them, who does not well know, that with all the exertion he can make, it is out of his power materially to improve his circ.u.mstances? I speak not so much of menial servants, who are generally of a superior cla.s.s, as of agricultural and manufacturing laborers. They labor with no such view.

It is the instinctive struggle to preserve existence, and when the superior efficiency of their labor over that of our slaves is pointed out, as being animated by a free man's hopes, might it not well be replied--it is because they labor under a sterner compulsion. The laws interpose no obstacles to their raising their condition in society. 'Tis a great boon--but as to the great ma.s.s, they know that they never will be able to raise it--and it should seem not very important in effect, whether it be the interdict of law, or imposed by the circ.u.mstances of the society. One in a thousand is successful. But does his success compensate for the sufferings of the many who are tantalized, baffled, and tortured in vain attempts to attain a like result? If the individual be conscious of intellectual power, the suffering is greater. Even where success is apparently attained, he sometimes gains it but to die--or with all capacity to enjoy it exhausted--worn out in the struggle with fortune. If it be true that the African is an inferior variety of the human race, of less elevated character, and more limited intellect, is it not desirable that the inferior laboring cla.s.s should be made up of such, who will conform to their condition without painful aspirations and vain struggles?

The slave is certainly liable to be sold. But, perhaps, it may be questioned, whether this is a greater evil than the liability of the laborer, in fully peopled countries, to be dismissed by his employer, with the uncertainty of being able to obtain employment, or the means of subsistence elsewhere. With us, the employer can not dismiss his laborer without providing him with another employer. His means of subsistence are secure, and this is a compensation for much. He is also liable to be separated from wife and child--though not more frequently, that I am aware of, than the exigency of their condition compels the separation of families among the labering poor elsewhere--but from native character and temperament, the separation is much less severely felt. And it is one of the compensations, that he may sustain these relations, without suffering a still severer penalty for the indulgence.