In New England, with an equal population, we find that three thousand eight hundred and twenty-nine of her white children have been crushed by sufferings of some sort, to the condition of insanity, while in these five old slave States there are only two thousand three hundred and twenty-six of her white children who have been called to suffer, in their earthly pilgrimage, a degree of anguish beyond mental endurance. Here is a difference of more than sixty per cent. in favor of these five States, as to conditions of suffering that are beyond endurance among men. Very poor evidence this, of the superior happiness and comfort of New England.

But while her white children are called to suffer over sixty per cent. more of these crushing sorrows than those of these five States, how is it with her black children in freedom, compared with the family here in slavery, from which the most of them have fled, that they might enjoy the blessings of liberty? It is exceedingly interesting to see the benefits and blessings which New England freedom and Puritan sympathy have conferred upon them.

Here are the facts of the census upon this subject:

Among the free negroes of New England, one is deaf or dumb for every three thousand and five; while among the slaves of these States there is only one for every six thousand five hundred and fifty-two. In New England one free negro is blind for every eight hundred and seventy; while in these States there is only one blind slave for every two thousand six hundred and forty-five. In New England there is one free negro insane or an idiot for every nine hundred and eighty; while in these States there is but one slave for every three thousand and eighty.

Can any man bring himself to believe, with these facts before him, that freedom in New England has proved a blessing to this race of people, or that slavery is to them a curse in the Southern States? In non-slaveholding States, money will be the master of poverty. These facts enumerated show the fruits of such a relation the world over. The slave of money, while nominally free, has none to care for him at those periods, and in those conditions of his life, when he is not able to render service or labor. Childhood, old age, and sickness, are conditions which make sympathy indispensable. Nominal freedom, combined with poverty, can not secure it in those conditions, because it can not render service or labor. The slave of the South enjoys this sympathy in all conditions from birth till death. There is a spontaneous heart-felt flow of it, to soothe his sorrows, to supply his wants, and smooth his passage to the grave. Interest, honor, humanity, public opinion, and the law, all combine to awaken it, and to promote its activity.

Many facts of the character here examined have been disclosed in State statistics, and others in the Federal census; some of which I shall hereafter notice, that show with the most unquestionable certainty, that freedom to this race, in our country, is a curse.

The facts which we have now examined, if they prove any thing, prove that religion has prospered more among slaveholders at the South, than it has among free men in New England. Slaveholders have made a much more extensive and suitable provision for the people of all classes to hear the gospel, than has been made by the freemen of New England. Slaveholders have almost entirely frowned down the attempts of blind-guides to corrupt the gospel, or mislead the people. Among them organized bodies to overthrow the moral, social, and religious institutions of society, are unknown.

If the facts already examined prove any thing, they prove that wealth, among slaveholders, is much more equally distributed—so that very few, compared with New England, are without homes.

The facts examined prove also, beyond question, that the unbearable miseries which have their source in the heartless exactions of excessive wealth, or extreme poverty, are more than sixty per cent. greater in New England than in these States, and that one hundred and thirty-five per cent. more of New England's toiling millions have to bear the degradation of the poor-house, or die of want, than are to be found in this condition in these five slave States.

The facts we have examined, prove also, that under all the disadvantages of climate, the natural increase of the slave States is sixty per cent. greater than it is in New England—twenty-seven per cent. of it by increased annual births, and thirty-three per cent. of it by diminished annual deaths. These are the most astonishing facts ever presented to the world. They speak a language that ought to be read and studied by all men. In the present state of our country, they ought to be prayerfully pondered and not disregarded.

But notwithstanding all this, the aggregate wealth of New England is a source of exultation and pride among her sons. They believe, with a blind and stubborn tenacity, that slavery tends to poverty, and freedom to wealth.

It cannot be denied that the aggregate earnings of the toiling millions—when hoarded by a few—may grow faster than it will when these millions are allowed to take from it a daily supply, equal to their reasonable wants. And it cannot be denied that New England has great aggregate wealth.

The facts of the census show, however, that it is very unequally divided among her people. The question now to be tried is, whether the few in New England have hoarded this wealth, and can now show it, or whether they have squandered it upon their lusts, and are unable to show it.

This last and prominent boast of increased aggregate wealth in New England, over that accumulated by slaveholders, we will now test by the census of 1850. This is the standard adopted by our National Legislature for its decision.

Before we examine the facts, however, let a few reflections which belong to the subject be weighed.

The people of these five slave States are now, and ever have been, an agricultural people. The people of the New England States are a commercial and manufacturing people. New England has, in proportion to numbers, the richest and most extensive commerce in the world. In manufacturing skill and enterprise, they have no superiors on the globe. They have ever reproached the South for investing their income in slavelabor, in preference to commerce and manufactures. It has been the settled conviction among nations, that investments in commerce and manufactures give the greatest, and those in agriculture the smallest profits. It is the settled conviction of the non-slaveholding States that investments in slave labor, for agricultural purposes, is the worst of all investments, and tends greatly to lessen its profits. This has been proclaimed to the South so long by our Northern neighbors, that many here have been brought to believe it, and to regret the existence of slavery among us on that account, if on no other. With these observations we turn to the census.

The census of 1850 tells us that New England, with a population now numbering two million seven hundred, and twenty-eight thousand and sixteen, with all the advantages of a commercial and manufacturing investment, and with the most energetic and enterprising free men on earth, to give that investment its greatest productiveness, has accumulated wealth, in something over two hundred years, to the amount of one billion three million four hundred and sixty-six thousand one hundred and eighty-one dollars; while these five slave States, with an equal population, have, in the same time, accumulated wealth to the amount of one billion four hundred and twenty million nine hundred and eighty-nine thousand five hundred and seventy-three dollars.

Here we see the indisputable fact that these five agricultural States, with slavery, have accumulated an excess of aggregate wealth over the amount accumulated in New England in the same time, of four hundred and seventeen million five hundred and twenty-three thousand three hundred and two dollars—so that the property belonging to New England, if equally divided, would give to each citizen but three hundred and sixty-seven dollars, while that belonging to the five slave States, if equally divided, would give to each citizen the sum of five hundred and twenty dollars—a difference in favor of each citizen in these five slave States of one hundred and fifty-three dollars.

I am aware, however, of an opinion that some other non-slaveholding States, have been much more successful in the accumulation of wealth, than the six New England States, and that New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, are of this favored number. Lest a design to deceive, by concealing this supposed fact, should be attributed to the writer, we will see what the census says as to these three more favored States. By the census of 1850 we learn that New York, instead of being able to divide three hundred and sixty-seven dollars with her citizens, as New England could with hers, is only able to divide two hundred and thirty-one dollars; Pennsylvania two hundred and fourteen, and Ohio two hundred and nineteen. These several averages among freemen at the North, and in New England, stand against the average of five hundred and twenty dollars, which these five old impoverished Southern slave States could divide with their citizens.

These facts must astonish our Northern neighbors, so long accustomed to believe that slavery was the fruitful source of poverty, with all its imagined evils; and these facts will astonish many at the South, so long accustomed to hear it affirmed that slavery had produced these evils, and while they were without the means of knowing, of course they feared that it was so.

That every thing may appear, however, which will throw additional light on the subject, I will state that Massachusetts, which is the richest non-slaveholding State, could divide with each of her citizens five hundred and forty-eight dollars. But on the other hand, South Carolina could divide one thousand and one dollars, Louisiana eight hundred and six dollars, Mississippi seven hundred and two dollars, and Georgia six hundred and thirty-eight dollars, with their citizens.

Rhode Island, which is the next richest non-slaveholding State to that of Massachusetts, could divide with her citizens five hundred and twenty-six dollars; one other non-slaveholding State (Connecticut) could divide with her citizens three hundred and twenty-one dollars. After this, the next highest non-slaveholding State could divide two hundred and eighty; the next highest two hundred and thirty-one; the next highest two hundred and twenty-eight; the next highest two hundred and nineteen; the next highest two hundred and fourteen dollars. After this, the division ranges, among the non-slaveholding States, from one hundred and sixty-six down to one hundred and thirty-four dollars—which last sum is the amount that the so-called rich and prosperous Illinois could divide with her population.

In the slaveholding States that are less wealthy than South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Georgia, already noticed; Alabama could divide with her citizens five hundred and eleven dollars; Maryland four hundred and twenty-three; Virginia four hundred and three; Kentucky three hundred and seventy-seven; and North Carolina three hundred and sixty-seven. All these States are much richer than the third richest non-slaveholding State of the Union, viz: Connecticut. After this, Tennessee could divide two hundred and forty-eight dollars, and Missouri, which is the poorest of all the slave States, one hundred and sixty-six dollars.

We will now give the general average of the non-slaveholding States, (California excepted, which in 1850 had not had time to exhibit any fixed character,) and then the general average of the slaveholding States of the whole Union.

The population of all the free States is thirteen million two hundred and fourteen thousand three hundred and eighty; the free population of all the slave States is six million three hundred and twelve thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine. These thirteen million two hundred and fourteen thousand three hundred and eighty of freemen have accumulated an aggregate of property estimated at three billion one hundred and eighty-six million six hundred and eighty-three thousand eight hundred and twenty four dollars; while these six million three hundred and twelve thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine of slaveholders have accumulated an aggregate of two billion seven hundred and seventy-five million one hundred and twenty-one thousand, six hundred and forty-four dollars' worth of property.

Here we see that a population of Northern freemen, one hundred and nine per cent. greater than the number of Southern freemen in the slave States, have accumulated but sixteen per cent. more of property.

In a division of the property accumulated by all the non-slaveholding States, it will give to each citizen two hundred and thirty-three dollars; while all accumulated by the various slave States, will give to each citizen four hundred and thirty-nine dollars—nearly double. Were we to give the slaves an equal share with the whites, in an average division of aggregate wealth, the slaveholding States, with their slaves included, would then be able to give each person two hundred and ninety-one dollars instead of two hundred and thirty-three dollars, which is all the free States have to divide with their people.

Is it possible, with these facts before us, to believe that slavery tends to poverty. Such is the testimony of the census on the relative wealth of these two sections of our country. It proves that slavery, as an agricultural investment, is more profitable than an investment in commerce and manufactures. The facts which have been reviewed prove with equal clearness, that where slavery exists, the white race, and the black, have prospered more in their religious, social and moral condition, than either race has prospered, where slavery has been excluded. We see that an increased amount of poverty and wretchedness has to be borne in New England by both races. Ecclesiastical statistics will show an increased amount of prosperity in religion that is overwhelming.

Such is the prostration of moral restraint at the North, that, in their cities, standing armies are necessary to guard the persons and property of unoffending citizens, and to execute the laws upon reckless offenders. This state of things is unknown in the slave States.

The census shows that slavery has been a blessing to the white race in these slave States. They have prospered more in religion, they have more homes, are wealthier, multiply faster, and live longer than in New England, and they are exempt from the curse of organized infidelity and lawless violence.

A comparison of the slave's condition at the South, with that of his own race in freedom at the South, shows with equal clearness, that slavery, in these States, has been, and now is, a blessing to this race of people in all the essentials of human happiness and comfort. Our slaves all have homes, are bountifully provided for in health, cared for and kindly nursed in childhood, sickness, and old age; multiply faster, live longer, are free from all the corroding ills of poverty and anxious care, labor moderately, enjoy the blessings of the gospel, and let alone by wicked men, are contented and happy.

Ex-Governor Smith, a few years past, in his message to the Legislature of this State, showed, if I remember correctly, that seven-tenths more of crime was chargeable to free negroes than to the whites and slaves. By the census of 1850, the ratio of whites in the Penitentiary of Virginia, for ten years, was one to twenty-three thousand and three, while the ratio for the free negroes was one to three thousand and one. For the same length of time, in the Penitentiary of Massachusetts, the average of whites was one to seven thousand five hundred and eighty-seven, instead of one to twenty-three thousand and three, as in Virginia; and in Massachusetts the average of free negroes in the Penitentiary, for this length of time, was one to two hundred and fifty, instead of one to three thousand and one, as in Virginia. Here we see that for an average of ten years, two hundred and fifty free negroes at the North, commit annually as much crime as twenty-three thousand and three white persons at the South; and that two hundred and fifty free negroes, in a non-slaveholding State, commit annually as much crime as three thousand and one free negroes in a slaveholding State. We see, also, that seven thousand five hundred and eighty-seven white persons at the North, commit annually as much crime as twenty-three thousand and three white persons commit at the South. In the cities, criminal degradation at the North is from three to five times greater with the whites than at the South, and from ten to ninety-three times greater with the free negroes at the North, than with the whites at the South, and about twelve times greater than with the free negroes at the South.

The Federal census, and the State records, show not very far from this proportion of criminal degradation, chargeable to this race of people when invested with the freedom of New England. Can we, with these facts before us, think that freedom to this race, in our country, is a blessing to them?

In Africa, the condition of the aborigines in freedom is now, and ever has been, as much below that of their enslaved sons in these States, as the condition of a brute, is beneath that of a man. Slavery is becoming, to this people, so manifestly a blessing in our country, that fugitives from labor are constantly returning to their masters again, after tasting the blessings, or rather the awful curse to them, of freedom in non-slaveholding States; and while I write, those who are lawfully free in this State, are praying our Legislature for a law that will allow them to become slaves.

But before I dismiss the subject of wealth entirely, let me remark, that while the census testifies that an agricultural people, with African slave labor, increases wealth faster than free labor, employed in agriculture, manufactures and commerce, yet reason demands that it should be satisfactorily accounted for. It is well known that laboring freemen at the North are more skillful, work longer in a day, labor harder while at it, live on cheaper food, and less of it, than laborers at the South.

How, then, is it to be accounted for that the aggregate increase of wealth is less with them than it is with Southern slaveholders? Among many reasons that might be assigned, I will mention three. The first is, that half the people at the North (this is ascertained to be about the amount) live in villages, towns and cities. The second reason is, that the cost of living in cities (as has been ascertained) is about double what it is in the country—to this cost we must add, for the imprudent indulgences of pride and fashion; and to this we must add, for a thousand indulgences, in violation of moral propriety, all of which are almost unknown in country life. The third reason is to be found in the great amount of pauperism and crime produced by city life. In the city of New York, for instance, according to the American Almanac, there were received in 1847, at the principal alms-houses of the city, twenty-eight thousand six hundred and ninety-two persons, and out-door relief was given from the public funds to thirty-four thousand five hundred and seventy-two more—making in all seventy-three thousand two hundred and sixty-four persons, or one out of every five, in the city of New York, dependent, more or less, on public charity. The total cost of this, to the city, was three hundred and nineteen thousand two hundred and ninety-three dollars and eighty-eight cents. In 1849, in the Mayor's message, the estimate for the same thing is four hundred thousand dollars. In Massachusetts, according to the report of the Secretary of State in 1848, the number of constant and occasional paupers, in the whole State, was one to every twenty of the whole population. The proportion in the cities, I suppose, would equal New York, which, as we have seen, is one to five. To this public burden in cities, we must add an immense unknown amount of private charity, which is not needed in country life.

Crime in Northern cities keeps pace with pauperism. In Boston, according to official State reports a few years past, one person out of every fourteen males, and one out of every twenty-eight females, was arraigned for criminal offenses. According to the census of 1850, there were in the State of Massachusetts, in a population of nine hundred and ninety-four thousand five hundred and fourteen, the number of seven thousand two hundred and fifty convictions for crime. In Virginia, the same year, in a population of one million four hundred and twenty-one thousand six hundred and sixty-one, there were one hundred and seven convictions for crime.

In the State of New York the proportion of crime is about the same as in Massachusetts. In the city of New York, in 1848 or 1849, there were sentenced to the State Prison one hundred and nineteen men and seventeen women; to the Penitentiary seven hundred men and one hundred and seventy women; to the City Prison one hundred and sixty-two men and sixty-seven women—making a total of one thousand two hundred and thirty-five criminals. Here is an amount of crime in a single city, that equals all in the fifteen slave States together. In the State of New York, according to the census of 1850, there was, in a population of three million and ninety-seven thousand three hundred and four, the number of ten thousand two hundred and seventy-nine convictions for crime; while in South Carolina, in a population of six hundred and sixty-eight thousand five hundred and seven, (which is considerably over one-fifth) there were only forty-six convictions for crime.

To live in cities filled with such an amount of poverty and criminal degradation, as the census discloses, at the North, standing armies of policemen, firemen, etc., are absolutely necessary to secure the people against lawless violence. Now subtract from the products of labor the cost of city life—the cost of vain and criminal indulgences, the support of paupers, and the machinery to guard innocence and punish crime—and the wonder ceases that wealth accumulates slowly—the wonder is that it accumulates at all. What is accumulated, must be principally from commerce and manufactures. The system of abandoning the country and congregating in cities, tends directly to concentrate wealth into the hands of a few, and to diffuse poverty and crime among the masses of the people.

These facts of poverty and crime at the North, which are exhibited by the census, will help to explain the seeming mystery that the South multiplies by natural increase faster than the North. In 1845, according to her statistical report, Massachusetts had seven-eighths of her marriageable young women working in factories under male overseers. The census of 1840 shows that, with fewer adults, Virginia had one hundred thousand more children than Massachusetts. In the census of 1850 the proportion in favor of Virginia is still greater.

Pauperism, in Massachusetts and New York, according to the State census, increased between 1836 and 1848 ten times faster than wealth or population.

In the slaveholding States there is less than a tenth of the people in cities—pauperism is almost unknown—the people are on farms—the style of living is less costly by half, but greatly superior in quality and comfort—according to the census, there is but little crime—almost all have homes—the amount of agricultural labor does not fluctuate—the farms are not cultivated by the spade and hoe, but are large enough to justify a system of enlarged agricultural operations by the aid of horse power. The result is that more is saved, and the proceeds more equally distributed between capital and labor, or the rich and the poor.

The South did not seek or desire the responsibility, and the onerous burden, of civilizing and christianizing these degraded savages; but God, in his mysterious providence, brought it about. He allowed England, and her Puritan sons at the North, from the love of gain, to become the willing instruments, to force African slaves upon the Cavaliers of the South. These Cavaliers were a noble race of men. They remonstrated against this outrage to the last. They preferred indented labor from the mother country, which they were securing as they needed it. A descendant of theirs, in drafting the Declaration of Independence, made this outrage one of the prominent causes for dissolving all political connection with the mother country. But God intended (as we now see) to bless these savages, by forcing us against our wills, to become their masters and guardians; and he has abundantly blessed us, also, (as we now see) for allowing his word to be our counselor in this relation. We were forced by his word to admit the relation to be lawful, and he enabled us to admit and feel the great responsibility devolved upon us as their divinely appointed protectors.

The North, after pocketing the price of these savages, refused to bear any part of the burden of training and elevating them; and finally, with France and England, turned them loose by emancipation, and ignored the word of God in justification of the deed, by declaring that to hold them in slavery was sinful. The result is, that the portion they held of this degraded race, is immersed in poverty, wretchedness and crime, without a parallel in civilized communities, and are less in number now, than the original importations from Africa, (so says the Superintendent of the census;) while the portion held by us is in high comfort, regularly improving in morals and intellect, and multiplying more rapidly than the white race at the North. It does seem, from the facts of the census, that this (so-called) philanthropy has been a curse to both races, at the North, and in the West Indies, and that it is displeasing in the sight of God. The census exhibits unmistakable evidence that, without a change, the emancipated portion of the race, in these localities, will ultimately perish, and that this catastrophe is to be hastened by poverty and criminal degradation. The census shows that those who are responsible for this deed are subjected in our country, by annual births and deaths, to a decrease of sixty per cent., and to a much heavier per cent. than this, of poverty and crime.

But while these are the results to both races at the North, prosperity, unequaled in the annals of the world, has attended us (as the census shows) in almost every thing we have put our hands to, both for this life and that which is to come. The satisfaction is ours, also, of knowing that these degraded outcasts, which were thrown upon our hands, have not only been cared for, but elevated in the scale of being, and brought to share largely in the blessings of intellectual, social, and religious culture.

But for their enslaved condition here, they would have remained until this hour in their original degradation.

In view of all the facts compared, I would ask all who feel interested in the great question now agitating our country, to let these facts be their guide and counselor in deciding the issue. Are the people of the North warranted from these facts, in believing they would honor God and benefit men by overthrowing the institution of slavery, if they could.

These facts testify plainly, that where African slavery has existed in our country for more than two hundred years, the social and religious condition of men has improved more rapidly than it has under the best arrangements of exclusive freedom.

These facts show that, with the advantages of the best location and climate upon the globe, and a high degree of moral, religious, and social intelligence to commence with, those communities at the North who excluded this element from their organizations, are actually behind slaveholding communities, in religion, in wealth, in the increase of their race, and in the comforts of their condition. If this be so, (and the census testifies that it is,) what will justify the North in efforts to involve both sections of our country in civil war and disunion, because slavery exists in one section of it? And if the institution of African slavery has certainly improved the condition of both races in our country, (and the census testifies that it has,) why should they hazard all the blessings vouchsafed to the North and the South sooner than suffer its expansion over new territory?

The expansion of African slavery (according to the test by which we are now trying it) has never yet done injury in this Union. In Texas slaveholders were called to organize a State, (not in this Union at the time,) which in 1850 had a population of two hundred and twelve thousand five hundred and ninety-two. The individuals composing it originally, were the most lawless set of adventurers that ever lived. Did slavery disqualify slaveholders from organizing a social body, even out of these materials, that could secure the highest results in human progress? What is now the social, moral, and religious complexion of Texas? In the essentials of prosperity it is ahead, under equal circumstances, of any portion of the Union. Slaveholders, in the providence of God, had to organize States on the Gulf of Mexico, and on the banks of the Mississippi, after the acquisition of Louisiana from France, and Florida from Spain. The original materials (numbering upwards of seventy thousand) of which these States were composed, had been trained under the most pernicious system of morals that ever existed among a civilized people. The result in this case, also, will testify that slavery does not paralyze communities in the accumulation of wealth, or in the correction of moral, social, and religious evils. The census shows that in all these items these new slave States which have been added to our Union, have greatly outstripped their non-slaveholding equals in age. The temples of the Lord are now seen studding these slaveholding localities over, and are vocal with his praise—the moral majesty of the law is a paramount power. The amount of paupers and criminals, in some of them, is less than one-seventieth part that is chargeable to some of their twin sisters of equal age, (who are free[232]) nurseries of literature and science are multiplying rapidly, and promising the highest results—prosperity, in these slaveholding communities, in crowning the efforts of good men to arrest vice, to promote virtue, to diminish want, to create plenty, and to arrange the elements of progress for the highest social, moral, and religious results.

There is another historical fact which deserves to be weighed, in making up a judgment on the expansion of slavery. Within the present century, the colonies of Mexico and South America, in imitation of our example, threw off the colonial yoke, and established independent governments. All of these States, except one, preferred the non-slaveholding model, and excluded the element of slavery: that one, which is Brazil, preferred the model adopted by the Southern States of this Union, and retained African slavery.

All of those States, which excluded slavery, have been visited, in rapid succession, with insurrection, revolution, and fearful anarchy; while Brazil has enjoyed tranquillity, from the commencement of her independent political existence until the present hour. This remarkable fact has occurred, too, in a State where the slaves are two to one of the other race. The slaves in the United States are one to two of the other race. Is not this fact, like all those examined, God's providential voice? and does He not, in these facts, speak a language that we can read and understand?

Now, shall we, in view of these facts, rebel against the teachings of His providence, as it is now made known to us in the census, and claim for ourselves more wisdom than he has displayed, in allowing such results to be the product of slaveholding communities?

We cannot put an end to African slavery, if we would—and we ought not, if we could—until God opens a door to make its termination a blessing, and not a curse. When He does that, slavery in this Union will end.

With Christian affection, yours, THORNTON STRINGFELLOW.

FOOTNOTES:

[231] This letter was addressed to ELDER JAMES FIFE.

[232] Texas and Michigan; see also, Arkansas and Indiana, Florida and Wisconsin.



SLAVERY

IN THE LIGHT OF SOCIAL ETHICS.

BY

CHANCELLOR HARPER,

OF SOUTH CAROLINA.



SLAVERY

IN

THE LIGHT OF SOCIAL ETHICS.

INFLUENCE OF SLAVERY ON SOCIAL LIFE.

Necessity of Investigation—Vindicators of Slavery—Slavery a means of Civilization—Prejudices of Abolitionism—Discussion of the Declaration of Independence—Rights of Society—Self-Preservation—The greatest good to the greatest number—Ambiguity in moral Investigation—Influence of Slavery on Civilization—The Slavery of England's Civilization—How Slavery retards the evils of Civilization—Servitude Inevitable—Abuses of Slavery and of Free Labor—Social ties, master and slave—Intellectual advancement—Morals of Slavery, and of Free Labor—Marriage relation and licentiousness—Virtues of Slavery—Security from Evils—Insecurity of Free Labor—Menial occupations necessary—Utopianism—Slavery and the servitude of Civilization contrasted—The African an inferior variety of the human race—Elevating influence of Slavery on the slave, on the master, on statesmen—Duties of master—Elevation of female character—Necessity of Slavery in tropical climates—Examples from history—Southern States—Insurrections impossible—Military strength of Slavery—Advantageous consequences of the increase of slaves—Destructive consequences of Emancipation to our country, and to the world—Kakistocracy—White emigration—Amalgamation—Deplorable results of Fanaticism.

THE institution of domestic slavery exists over far the greater portion of the inhabited earth. Until within a very few centuries, it may be said to have existed over the whole earth—at least in all those portions of it which had made any advances toward civilization. We might safely conclude then, that it is deeply founded in the nature of man and the exigencies of human society. Yet, in the few countries in which it has been abolished—claiming, perhaps justly, to be furthest advanced in civilization and intelligence, but which have had the smallest opportunity of observing its true character and effects—it is denounced as the most intolerable of social and political evils. Its existence, and every hour of its continuance, is regarded as the crime of the communities in which it is found. Even by those in the countries alluded to, who regard it with the most indulgence or the least abhorrence—who attribute no criminality to the present generation—who found it in existence, and have not yet been able to devise the means of abolishing it,—it is pronounced a misfortune and a curse injurious and dangerous always, and which must be finally fatal to the societies which admit it. This is no longer regarded as a subject of argument and investigation. The opinions referred to are assumed as settled, or the truth of them as self-evident. If any voice is raised among ourselves to extenuate or to vindicate, it is unheard. The judgment is made up. We can have no hearing before the tribunal of the civilized world. Yet, on this very account, it is more important that we, the inhabitants of the slaveholding States of America, insulated as we are, by this institution, and cut off, in some degree, from the communion and sympathies of the world by which we are surrounded, or with which we have intercourse, and exposed continually to their animadversions and attacks, should thoroughly understand this subject, and our strength and weakness in relation to it. If it be thus criminal, dangerous, and fatal; and if it be possible to devise means of freeing ourselves from it, we ought at once to set about the employing of those means. It would be the most wretched and imbecile fatuity, to shut our eyes to the impending dangers and horrors, and "drive darkling down the current of our fate," till we are overwhelmed in the final destruction. If we are tyrants, cruel, unjust, oppressive, let us humble ourselves and repent in the sight of heaven, that the foul stain may be cleansed, and we enabled to stand erect as having common claims to humanity with our fellow-men.

But if we are nothing of all this; if we commit no injustice or cruelty; if the maintenance of our institutions be essential to our prosperity, our character, our safety, and the safety of all that is dear to us, let us enlighten our minds and fortify our hearts to defend them.

It is a somewhat singular evidence of the indisposition of the rest of the world to hear any thing more on this subject, that perhaps the most profound, original, and truly philosophical treatise, which has appeared within the time of my recollection,[233] seems not to have attracted the slightest attention out of the limits of the slaveholding States themselves. If truth, reason, and conclusive argument, propounded with admirable temper and perfect candor, might be supposed to have an effect on the minds of men, we should think this work would have put an end to agitation on the subject. The author has rendered inappreciable service to the South in enlightening them on the subject of their own institutions, and turning back that monstrous tide of folly and madness which, if it had rolled on, would have involved his own great State along with the rest of the slaveholding States in a common ruin. But beyond these, he seems to have produced no effect whatever. The denouncers of slavery, with whose production the press groans, seems to be unaware of his existence—unaware that there is a reason to be encountered or argument to be answered. They assume that the truth is known and settled, and only requires to be enforced by denunciation.

Another vindicator of the South has appeared in an individual who is among those that have done honor to American literature.[234] With conclusive argument, and great force of expression, he has defended slavery from the charge of injustice or immorality, and shown clearly the unspeakable cruelty and mischief which must result from any scheme of abolition. He does not live among slaveholders, and it can not be said of him, as of others, that his mind is warped by interest, or his moral sense blunted by habit and familiarity with abuse. These circumstances, it might be supposed, would have secured him hearing and consideration. He seems to be equally unheeded, and the work of denunciation, disdaining argument, still goes on.

President Dew has shown that the institution of slavery is a principal cause of civilization. Perhaps nothing can be more evident than that it is the sole cause. If any thing can be predicated as universally true of uncultivated man, it is that he will not labor beyond what is absolutely necessary to maintain his existence. Labor is pain to those who are unaccustomed to it, and the nature of man is averse to pain. Even with all the training, the helps, and motives of civilization, we find that this aversion can not be overcome in many individuals of the most cultivated societies. The coercion of slavery alone is adequate to form man to habits of labor. Without it, there can be no accumulation of property, no providence for the future, no tastes for comfort or elegancies, which are the characteristics and essentials of civilization. He who has obtained the command of another's labor, first begins to accumulate and provide for the future, and the foundations of civilization are laid. We find confirmed by experience that which is so evident in theory. Since the existence of man upon the earth, with no exception whatever, either of ancient or modern times, every society which has attained civilization, has advanced to it through this process.

Will those who regard slavery as immoral, or crime in itself, tell us that man was not intended for civilization, but to roam the earth as a biped brute? That he was not to raise his eyes to Heaven, or be conformed in his nobler faculties to the image of his Maker? Or will they say that the Judge of all the earth has done wrong in ordaining the means by which alone that end can be obtained? It is true that the Creator can make the wickedness as well as the wrath of man to praise him, and bring forth the most benevolent results from the most atrocious actions. But in such cases, it is the motive of the actor alone which condemns the action. The act itself is good, if it promotes the good purposes of God, and would be approved by him, if that result only were intended. Do they not blaspheme the providence of God who denounce as wickedness and outrage, that which is rendered indispensable to his purposes in the government of the world? Or at what stage of the progress of society will they say that slavery ceases to be necessary, and its very existence becomes sin and crime? I am aware that such argument would have little effect on those with whom it would be degrading to contend—who pervert the inspired writings—which in some parts expressly sanction slavery, and throughout indicate most clearly that it is a civil institution, with which religion has no concern—with a shallowness and presumption not less flagrant and shameless than his, who would justify murder from the text, "and Phineas arose and executed judgment."

There seems to be something in this subject which blunts the preceptions, and darkens and confuses the understandings and moral feelings of men. Tell them that, of necessity, in every civilized society, there must be an infinite variety of conditions and employments, from the most eminent and intellectual, to the most servile and laborious; that the negro race, from their temperament and capacity, are peculiarly suited to the situation which they occupy, and not less happy in it than any corresponding class to be found in the world; prove incontestably that no scheme of emancipation could be carried into effect without the most intolerable mischiefs and calamities to both master and slave, or without probably throwing a large and fertile portion of the earth's surface out of the pale of civilization—and you have done nothing. They reply, that whatever may be the consequence, you are bound to do right; that man has a right to himself, and man cannot have property in man; that if the negro race be naturally inferior in mind and character, they are not less entitled to the rights of humanity; that if they are happy in their condition, it affords but the stronger evidence of their degradation, and renders them still more objects of commiseration. They repeat, as the fundamental maxim of our civil policy, that all men are born free and equal, and quote from our Declaration of Independence, "that men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

It is not the first time that I have had occasion to observe that men may repeat with the utmost confidence, some maxim or sentimental phrase, as self-evident or admitted truth, which is either palpably false, or to which, upon examination, it will be found that they attach no definite idea. Notwithstanding our respect for the important document which declared our independence, yet if any thing be found in it, and especially in what may be regarded rather as its ornament than its substance—false, sophistical or unmeaning, that respect should not screen it from the freest examination.

All men are born free and equal. Is it not palpably nearer the truth to say that no man was ever born free, and that no two men were ever born equal? Man is born in a state of the most helpless dependence on others. He continues subject to the absolute control of others, and remains without many of the civil and all of the political privileges of his society, until the period which the laws have fixed as that at which he is supposed to have attained the maturity of his faculties. Then inequality is further developed, and becomes infinite in every society, and under whatever form of government. Wealth and poverty, fame or obscurity, strength or weakness, knowledge or ignorance, ease or labor, power or subjection, mark the endless diversity in the condition of men.

But we have not arrived at the profundity of the maxim. This inequality is, in a great measure, the result of abuses in the institutions of society. They do not speak of what exists, but of what ought to exist. Every one should be left at liberty to obtain all the advantages of society which he can compass, by the free exertion of his faculties, unimpeded by civil restraints. It may be said that this would not remedy the evils of society which are complained of. The inequalities to which I have referred, with the misery resulting from them, would exist in fact under the freest and most popular form of government that man could devise. But what is the foundation of the bold dogma so confidently announced? Females are human and rational beings. They may be found of better faculties, and better qualified to exercise political privileges, and to attain the distinctions of society, than many men; yet who complains of the order of society by which they are excluded from them? For I do not speak of the few who would desecrate them; do violence to the nature which their Creator has impressed upon them; drag them from the position which they necessarily occupy for the existence of civilized society, and in which they constitute its blessing and ornament—the only position which they have ever occupied in any human society—to place them in a situation in which they would be alike miserable and degraded. Low as we descend in combating the theories of presumptuous dogmatists, it cannot be necessary to stoop to this. A youth of eighteen may have powers which cast into the shade those of any of his more advanced cotemporaries. He may be capable of serving or saving his country, and if not permitted to do so now, the occasion may have been lost forever. But he can exercise no political privilege, or aspire to any political distinction. It is said that, of necessity, society must exclude from some civil and political privileges those who are unfitted to exercise them, by infirmity, unsuitableness of character, or defect of discretion; that of necessity there must be some general rule on the subject, and that any rule which can be devised will operate with hardship and injustice on individuals. This is all that can be said, and all that need be said. It is saying, in other words, that the privileges in question are no matter of natural right, but to be settled by convention, as the good and safety of society may require. If society should disfranchise individuals convicted of infamous crimes, would this be an invasion of natural right? Yet this would not be justified on the score of their moral guilt, but that the good of society required or would be promoted by it. We admit the existence of a moral law, binding on societies as on individuals. Society must act in good faith. No man, or body of men, has a right to inflict pain or privation on others, unless with a view, after full and impartial deliberation, to prevent a greater evil. If this deliberation be had, and the decision made in good faith, there can be no imputation of moral guilt. Has any politician contended that the very existence of governments in which there are orders privileged by law, constitutes a violation of morality; that their continuance is a crime, which men are bound to put an end to, without any consideration of the good or evil to result from the change? Yet this is the natural inference from the dogma of the natural equality of men as applied to our institution of slavery—an equality not to be invaded without injustice and wrong, and requiring to be restored instantly, unqualifiedly, and without reference to consequences.

This is sufficiently common-place, but we are sometimes driven to common-place. It is no less a false and shallow, than a presumptuous philosophy, which theorizes on the affairs of men as a problem to be solved by some unerring rule of human reason, without reference to the designs of a superior intelligence, so far as he has been placed to indicate them, in their creation and destiny. Man is born to subjection. Not only during infancy is he dependent, and under the control of others; at all ages, it is the very bias of his nature, that the strong and the wise should control the weak and the ignorant. So it has been since the days of Nimrod. The existence of some form of slavery in all ages and countries, is proof enough of this. He is born to subjection as he is born in sin and ignorance. To make any considerable progress in knowledge, the continued efforts of successive generations, and the diligent training and unwearied exertions of the individual, are requisite. To make progress in moral virtue, not less time and effort, aided by superior help, are necessary; and it is only by the matured exercise of his knowledge and his virtue, that he can attain to civil freedom. Of all things, the existence of civil liberty is most the result of artificial institution. The proclivity of the natural man is to domineer or to be subservient. A noble result, indeed, but in the attaining of which, as in the instances of knowledge and virtue, the Creator, for his own purposes, has set a limit beyond which we cannot go.

But he who is most advanced in knowledge, is most sensible of his own ignorance, and how much must forever be unknown to man in his present condition. As I have heard it expressed, the further you extend the circle of light, the wider is the horizon of darkness. He who has made the greatest progress in moral purity, is most sensible of the depravity, not only of the world around him, but of his own heart, and the imperfection of his best motives; and this he knows that men must feel and lament so long as they continue men. So when the greatest progress in civil liberty has been made, the enlightened lover of liberty will know that there must remain much inequality, much injustice, much slavery, which no human wisdom or virtue will ever be able wholly to prevent or redress. As I have before had the honor to say to this Society, the condition of our whole existence is but to struggle with evils—to compare them—to choose between them, and, so far as we can, to mitigate them. To say that there is evil in any institution, is only to say that it is human.

And can we doubt but that this long discipline and laborious process, by which men are required to work out the elevation and improvement of their individual nature and their social condition, is imposed for a great and benevolent end? Our faculties are not adequate to the solution of the mystery, why it should be so; but the truth is clear, that the world was not intended for the seat of universal knowledge, or goodness, or happiness, or freedom.

Man has been endowed by his Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What is meant by the inalienable right of liberty? Has any one who has used the words ever asked himself this question? Does it mean that a man has no right to alienate his own liberty—to sell himself and his posterity for slaves? This would seem to be the more obvious meaning. When the word right is used, it has reference to some law which sanctions it, and would be violated by its invasion. It must refer either to the general law of morality, or the law of the country—the law of God or the law of man. If the law of any country permitted it, it would of course be absurd to say that the law of that country was violated by such alienation. If it have any meaning in this respect, it must mean that though the law of the country permitted it, the man would be guilty of an immoral act who should thus alienate his liberty. A fit question for schoolmen to discuss, and the consequences resulting from its decision as important as from any of theirs. Yet who will say that the man pressed by famine, and in prospect of death, would be criminal for such an act? Self-preservation, as is truly said, is the first law of nature. High and peculiar characters, by elaborate cultivation, may be taught to prefer death to slavery, but it would be folly to prescribe this as a duty to the mass of mankind.

If any rational meaning can be attributed to the sentence I have quoted, it is this:—That the society, or the individuals who exercise the powers of government, are guilty of a violation of the law of God or of morality, when, by any law or public act, they deprive men of life or liberty, or restrain them in the pursuit of happiness. Yet every government does, and of necessity must, deprive men of life and liberty for offenses against society. Restrain them in the pursuit of happiness! Why all the laws of society are intended for nothing else but to restrain men from the pursuit of happiness, according to their own ideas of happiness or advantage—which the phrase must mean if it means any thing. And by what right does society punish by the loss of life or liberty? Not on account of the moral guilt of the criminal—not by impiously and arrogantly assuming the prerogative of the Almighty, to dispense justice or suffering, according to moral desert. It is for its own protection—it is the right of self-defense. If there existed the blackest moral turpitude, which by its example or consequences, could be of no evil to society, government would have nothing to do with that. If an action, the most harmless in its moral character, could be dangerous to the security of society, society would have the perfect right to punish it. If the possession of a black skin would be otherwise dangerous to society, society has the same right to protect itself by disfranchising the possessor of civil privilege, and to continue the disability to his posterity, if the same danger would be incurred by its removal. Society inflicts these forfeitures for the security of the lives of its members; it inflicts them for the security of their property, the great essential of civilization; it inflicts them also for the protection of its political institutions, the forcible attempt to overturn which, has always been justly regarded as the greatest crime; and who has questioned its right so to inflict? "Man can not have property in man"—a phrase as full of meaning as, "who slays fat oxen should himself be fat." Certainly he may, if the laws of society allow it, and if it be on sufficient grounds, neither he nor society do wrong.

And is it by this—as we must call it, however recommended to our higher feelings by its associations—well-sounding, but unmeaning verbiage of natural equality and inalienable rights, that our lives are to be put in jeopardy, our property destroyed, and our political institutions overturned or endangered? If a people had on its borders a tribe of barbarians, whom no treaties or faith could bind, and by whose attacks they were constantly endangered, against whom they could devise no security, but that they should be exterminated or enslaved; would they not have the right to enslave them, and keep them in slavery so long as the same danger would be incurred by their manumission? If a civilized man and a savage were by chance placed together on a desolate island, and the former, by the superior power of civilization, would reduce the latter to subjection, would he not have the same right? Would this not be the strictest self-defense? I do not now consider, how far we can make out a similar case to justify our enslaving of the negroes. I speak to those who contend for inalienable rights, and that the existence of slavery always, and under all circumstances, involves injustice and crime.

As I have said, we acknowledge the existence of a moral law. It is not necessary for us to resort to the theory which resolves all right into force. The existence of such a law is imprinted on the hearts of all human beings. But though its existence be acknowledged, the mind of man has hitherto been tasked in vain to discover an unerring standard of morality. It is a common and undoubted maxim of morality, that you shall not do evil that good may come. You shall not do injustice or commit an invasion of the rights of others, for the sake of a greater ulterior good. But what is injustice, and what are the rights of others? And why are we not to commit the one or invade the other? It is because it inflicts pain or suffering, present or prospective, or cuts them off from enjoyment which they might otherwise attain. The Creator has sufficiently revealed to us that happiness is the great end of existence, the sole object of all animated and sentient beings. To this he has directed their aspirations and efforts, and we feel that we thwart his benevolent purposes when we destroy or impede that happiness. This is the only natural right of man. All other rights result from the conventions of society, and these, to be sure, we are not to invade, whatever good may appear to us likely to follow. Yet are we in no instance to inflict pain or suffering, or disturb enjoyment, for the sake of producing a greater good? Is the madman not to be restrained who would bring destruction on himself or others? Is pain not to be inflicted on the child, when it is the only means by which he can be effectually instructed to provide for his own future happiness? Is the surgeon guilty of wrong who amputates a limb to preserve life? Is not the object of all penal legislation, to inflict suffering for the sake of greater good to be secured to society?

By what right is it that man exercises dominion over the beasts of the field; subdues them to painful labor, or deprives them of life for his sustenance or enjoyment? They are not rational beings. No, but they are the creatures of God, sentient beings, capable of suffering and enjoyment, and entitled to enjoy according to the measure of their capacities. Does not the voice of nature inform every one, that he is guilty of wrong when he inflicts on them pain without necessity or object? If their existence be limited to the present life, it affords the stronger argument for affording them the brief enjoyment of which it is capable. It is because the greater good is effected; not only to man but to the inferior animals themselves. The care of man gives the boon of existence to myriads who would never otherwise have enjoyed it, and the enjoyment of their existence is better provided for while it lasts. It belongs to the being of superior faculties to judge of the relations which shall subsist between himself and inferior animals, and the use he shall make of them; and he may justly consider himself, who has the greater capacity of enjoyment, in the first instance. Yet he must do this conscientiously, and no doubt, moral guilt has been incurred by the infliction of pain on these animals, with no adequate benefit to be expected. I do no disparagement to the dignity of human nature, even in its humblest form, when I say that on the very same foundation, with the difference only of circumstance and degree, rests the right of the civilized and cultivated man, over the savage and ignorant. It is the order of nature and of God, that the being of superior faculties and knowledge, and therefore of superior power, should control and dispose of those who are inferior. It is as much in the order of nature, that men should enslave each other, as that other animals should prey upon each other. I admit that he does this under the highest moral responsibility, and is most guilty if he wantonly inflicts misery or privation on beings more capable of enjoyment or suffering than brutes, without necessity or any view to the greater good which is to result. If we conceive of society existing without government, and that one man by his superior strength, courage or wisdom, could obtain the mastery of his fellows, he would have a perfect right to do so. He would be morally responsible for the use of his power, and guilty if he failed to direct them so as to promote their happiness as well as his own. Moralists have denounced the injustice and cruelty which have been practiced towards our aboriginal Indians, by which they have been driven from their native seats and exterminated, and no doubt with much justice. No doubt, much fraud and injustice has been practiced in the circumstances and the manner of their removal. Yet who has contended that civilized man had no moral right to possess himself of the country? That he was bound to leave this wide and fertile continent, which is capable of sustaining uncounted myriads of a civilized race, to a few roving and ignorant barbarians? Yet if any thing is certain, it is certain that there were no means by which he could possess the country, without exterminating or enslaving them. Savage and civilized man cannot live together, and the savage can be tamed only by being enslaved or by having slaves. By enslaving alone could he have preserved them.[235] And who shall take upon himself to decide that the more benevolent course, and more pleasing to God, was pursued towards them, or that it would not have been better that they had been enslaved generally, as they were in particular instances? It is a refined philosophy, and utterly false in its application to general nature, or the mass of human kind, which teaches that existence is not the greatest of all boons, and worthy of being preserved even under the most adverse circumstances. The strongest instinct of all animated beings sufficiently proclaims this. When the last red man shall have vanished from our forests, the sole remaining traces of his blood will be found among our enslaved population.[236] The African slave trade has given, and will give, the boon of existence to millions and millions in our country, who would otherwise never have enjoyed it, and the enjoyment of their existence is better provided for while it lasts. Or if, for the rights of man over inferior animals, we are referred to revelation, which pronounces—"ye shall have dominion over the beasts of the field, and over the fowls of the air," we refer to the same, which declares not the less explicitly—

"Both the bond-men and bond-maids which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are among you. Of them shall you buy bond-men and bond-maids."

"Moreover of the children of strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begot in your land, and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them by possession. They shall be your bond-men forever."

In moral investigations, ambiguity is often occasioned by confounding the intrinsic nature of an action, as determined by its consequence, with the motives of the actor, involving moral guilt or innocence. If poison be given with a view to destroy another, and it cures him of disease, the poisoner is guilty, but the act is beneficent in its results. If medicine be given with a view to heal, and it happens to kill, he who administered it is innocent, but the act is a noxious one. If they who begun and prosecuted the slave trade, practiced horrible cruelties and inflicted much suffering—as no doubt they did, though these have been much exaggerated—for merely selfish purposes, and with no view to future good, they were morally most guilty. So far as unnecessary cruelty was practiced, the motive and the act were alike bad. But if we could be sure that the entire effect of the trade has been to produce more happiness than would otherwise have existed, we must pronounce it good, and that it has happened in the ordering of God's providence, to whom evil cannot be imputed. Moral guilt has not been imputed to Las Casas, and if the importation of African slaves into America, had the effect of preventing more suffering than it inflicted, it was good, both in the motive and the result. I freely admit that, it is hardly possible to justify morally, those who begun and carried on the slave trade. No speculation of future good to be brought about, could compensate the enormous amount of evil it occasioned.

If we should refer to the common moral sense of mankind, as determined by their conduct in all ages and countries, for a standard of morality, it would seem to be in favor of slavery. The will of God, as determined by utility, would be an infallible standard, if we had an unerring measure of utility. The utilitarian philosophy, as it is commonly understood, referring only to the animal wants and employments, and physical condition of man, is utterly false and degrading. If a sufficiently extended definition be given to utility, so as to include every thing that may be a source of enjoyment or suffering, it is for the most part useless. How can you compare the pleasures resulting from the exercise of the understanding, the taste and the imagination, with the animal enjoyments of the senses—the gratification derived from a fine poem with that from a rich banquet? How are we to weigh the pains and enjoyments of one man highly cultivated and of great sensibility, against those of many men of blunter capacity for enjoyment or suffering? And if we could determine with certainty in what utility consists, we are so short-sighted with respect to consequences—the remote results of our best considered actions are so often wide of our anticipations, or contrary to them, that we should still be very much in the dark. But though we cannot arrive at absolute certainty with respect to the utility of actions, it is always fairly matter of argument. 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 emancipating their slaves, but as a naked, abstract question—whether it is better that the institution 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. God 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 passions 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 institution 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 anticipates the benefits of civilization, and retards 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 accumulation of capital, as it is commonly called—is the first element of civilization. But to accumulate, 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 accumulate 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 accumulated 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 class of population, which our institutions 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 circumstances, but in men themselves—in their depraved inclinations, their wayward passions and perverse wills. Here is room for all the petty competition, 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 institutions 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 retarded for a time by extraneous or accidental circumstances, 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 competition 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 institutions 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 class 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 circumstances 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 analyze 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 assume the province of omniscience. The particular theory of the author quoted, seems to be founded on an assumption 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 competition 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 competition 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 retard the evils of civilization? Very obviously. It is the intense competition of civilized life, that gives rise to the excessive cheapness of labor, and the excessive cheapness of labor is the cause of the evils in question. Slave labor can never be so cheap as what is called free labor. Political economists have established as the natural standard of wages in a fully peopled country, the value of the laborer's existence. I shall not stop to inquire into the precise truth of this proposition. It certainly approximates the truth. Where competition is intense, men will labor for a bare subsistence, and less than a competent subsistence. The employer of free laborers obtains their services during the time of their health and vigor, without the charge of rearing them from infancy, or supporting them in sickness or old age. This charge is imposed on the employer of slave labor, who, therefore, pays higher wages, and cuts off the principal source of misery—the wants and sufferings of infancy, sickness, and old age. Laborers too will be less skillful, and perform less work—enhancing the price of that sort of labor. The poor laws of England are an attempt—but an awkward and empirical attempt—to supply the place of that which we should suppose the feelings of every human heart would declare to be a natural obligation—that he who has received the benefit of the laborer's services during his health and vigor, should maintain him when he becomes unable to provide for his own support. They answer their purpose, however, very imperfectly, and are unjustly and unequally imposed. There is no attempt to apportion the burden according to the benefit received—and perhaps there could be none. This is one of the evils of their condition.

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

Servitude is the condition of civilization. It was decreed, when the command was given, "be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it," and when it was added, "in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." And what human being shall arrogate to himself the authority to pronounce that our form of it is worse in itself, or more displeasing to God, than that which exists elsewhere? Shall it be said that the servitude of other countries grows out of the exigency of their circumstances, and therefore society is not responsible for it? But if we know that in the progress of things it is to come, would it not seem the part of wisdom and foresight, to make provision for it, and thereby, if we can, mitigate the severity of its evils? But the fact is not so. Let any one who doubts, read the book to which I have several times referred, and he may be satisfied that it was forced upon us by the extremest exigency of circumstances, in a struggle for very existence. Without it, it is doubtful whether a white man would be now existing on this continent—certain, that if there were, they would be in a state of the utmost destitution, weakness, and misery. It was forced on us by necessity, and further fastened upon us by the superior authority of the mother country. I, for one, neither deprecate nor resent the gift. Nor did we institute slavery. The Africans brought to us had been, speaking in the general, slaves in their own country, and only underwent a change of masters. In the countries of Europe, and the States of our Confederacy, in which slavery has ceased to exist, it was abolished by positive legislation. If the order of nature has been departed from, and a forced and artificial state of things introduced, it has been, as the experience of all the world declares, by them and not by us.

That there are great evils in a society where slavery exists, and that the institution is liable to great abuse, I have already said. To say otherwise, would be to say that they were not human. But the whole of human life is a system of evils and compensations. We have no reason to believe that the compensations with us are fewer, or smaller in proportion to the evils, than those of any other condition of society. Tell me of an evil or abuse; of an instance of cruelty, oppression, licentiousness, crime or suffering, and I will point out, and often in five fold degree, an equivalent evil or abuse in countries where slavery does not exist.

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