Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments Part 3

The savage, liberated from bondage, is a savage still.

The slave States adopted opinions, as to the negro character, opposite to those of the free States, and would not risk the experiment of emanc.i.p.ation. They said, if the free States feel themselves burdened by the few Africans they have freed, and whom they find it impracticable to educate and elevate, how much greater would be the evil the slave States must bring upon themselves by letting loose a population nearly twelve times as numerous. Such an act, they argued, would be suicidal--would crush out all progress in civilization; or, in the effort to elevate the negro with the white man, allowing him equal freedom of action, would make the more energetic Anglo-Saxon the slave of the indolent African.

Such a task, onerous in the highest degree, they could not, and would not undertake; such an experiment, on their social system, they dared not hazard; and in this determination they were encouraged to persevere, not only by the results of emanc.i.p.ation, then wrought out at the North, but by the settled convictions which had long prevailed at the South, in relation to the impropriety of freeing the negroes. This opinion was one of long standing, and had been avowed by some of the ablest statesmen of the Revolution. Among these Mr. Jefferson stood prominent. He was inclined to consider the African inferior "in the endowments both of body and mind" to the European; and, while expressing his hostility to slavery earnestly, vehemently, he avowed the opinion that it was impossible for the two races to live equally free in the same government--that "nature, habit, opinion, had drawn indelible lines of distinction between them"--that, accordingly, emanc.i.p.ation and "deportation" (colonization) should go hand in hand--and that these processes should be gradual enough to make proper provisions for the blacks in a new country, and fill their places in this with free white laborers.[2]

Another point needs examination. Notwithstanding the well-known opinions of Mr. Jefferson, it has been urged that the Declaration of Independence was designed, by those who issued it, to apply to the negro as well as to the white man; and that they purposed to extend to the negro, at the end of the struggle, then begun, all the privileges which they hoped to secure for themselves. Nothing can be further from the truth, and nothing more certain than that the rights of the negro never entered into the questions then considered. That doc.u.ment was written by Mr.

Jefferson himself, and, with the views which he entertained, he could not have thought, for a moment, of conferring upon the negro the rights of American citizenship. Hear him further upon this subject and then judge:

"It will probably be asked, why not retain and incorporate the blacks into the State, and thus save the expense of supplying by importation of white settlers, the vacancies they will leave? Deep-rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made; and many other circ.u.mstances, will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions, which will probably never end, but in the extermination of the one or the other race. To these objections, which are political, may be added others, which are physical and moral"[3]

Now it is evident, from this language, that Mr. Jefferson was not only opposed to allowing the negroes the rights of citizenship, but that he was opposed to emanc.i.p.ation also, except on the condition that the freedmen should be removed from the country. He could, therefore, have meant nothing more by the phrase, "all men are created equal," which he employed in the Declaration of Independence, than the announcement of a general principle, which, in its application to the colonists, was intended most emphatically to a.s.sert their equality, before G.o.d and the world, with the imperious Englishmen who claimed the divine right of lording it over them. This was undoubtedly the view held by Mr.

Jefferson, and the extent to which he expected the language of the Declaration to be applied.[4] Nor could the signers of that instrument, or the people whom they represented, ever have intended to apply its principles to any barbarous or semi-barbarous people, in the sense of admitting them to an equality with themselves in the management of a free government. Had this been their design, they must have enfranchised both Indians and Africans, as both were within the territory over which they exercised jurisdiction.

But testimony of a conclusive character is at hand, to show that quite a different object was to be accomplished, than negro equality, in the movements of the colonists which preceded the outbreak of the American Revolution. They pa.s.sed resolutions upon the subject of the slave trade, it is true, but it was to oppose it, because it increased the colored population, a result they deprecated in the strongest language. The checking of this evil, great as the people considered it, was not the princ.i.p.al object they had in view, in resolving to crush out the slave trade. It was one of far greater moment, affecting the prosperity of the mother country, and designed to force her to deal justly with the colonies.

This point can only be understood by an examination of the history of that period, so as to comprehend the relations existing between Great Britain and her several colonies. Let us, then, proceed to the performance of this task.

The whole commerce of Great Britain, in 1704, amounted, in value, to thirty-two and a half millions of dollars. In less than three quarters of a century thereafter, or three years preceding the outbreak of the American Revolution, it had increased to eighty millions annually. More than thirty millions of this amount, or over one-third of the whole, consisted of exports to her West Indian and North American colonies and to Africa. The yearly trade with Africa, alone, at this period--1772--was over four and a third millions of dollars: a significant fact, when it is known that this African traffic was in slaves.

But this statement fails to give a true idea of the value of North America and the West Indies to the mother country. Of the commodities which she imported from them--tobacco, rice, sugar, rum--ten millions of dollars worth, annually, were re-exported to her other dependencies, and five millions to foreign countries--thus making her indebted to these colonies, directly and indirectly, for more than one-half of all her commerce.

If England was greatly dependent upon these colonies for her increasing prosperity, they were also dependent upon her; and upon each other, for the mutual promotion of their comfort and wealth. This is easily understood. The colonies were prohibited from manufacturing for themselves. This rendered it necessary that they should be supplied with linen and woolen fabrics, hardware and cutlery, from the looms and shops of Great Britain; and, in addition to these necessaries, they were dependent upon her ships to furnish them with slaves from Africa. The North American colonies were dependent upon the West Indies for coffee, sugar, rum; and the West Indies upon North America, in turn, for their main supplies of provisions and lumber. The North Americans, if compelled by necessity, could do without the manufacures of England, and forego the use of the groceries and rum of the West Indies; but Great Britain could not easily bear the loss of half her commerce, nor could the West India planters meet a sudden emergency that would cut off their usual supplies of provisions.

Such were the relations existing between Great Britain and the colonies, and between the colonies themselves, when the Bostonians cast the tea overboard. This act of resistance to law, was followed by the pa.s.sage, through Parliament, of the Boston Port Bill, closing Boston Harbor to all commerce whatsoever. The North American colonies, conscious of their power over the commerce of Great Britain, at once obeyed the call of the citizens of Boston, and united in the adoption of peaceful measures, to force the repeal of the obnoxious act. Meetings of the people were held throughout the country, generally, and resolutions pa.s.sed, recommending the non-importation and non-consumption of all British manufactures and West India products; and resolving, also, that they would not export any provisions, lumber, or other products, whatever, to Great Britain or any of her colonies. These resolutions were accompanied by another, in many of the counties of Virginia, in some of the State conventions, and, finally, in those of the Continental Congress, in which the slave trade, and the purchase of additional slaves, were specially referred to as measures to be at once discontinued. These resolutions, in substance, declare, as the sentiment of the people: That the African trade is injurious to the colonies; that it obstructs the population of them by freemen; that it prevents the immigration of manufacturers and other useful emigrants from Europe from settling among them; that it is dangerous to virtue and the welfare of the population; that it occasions an annual increase of the balance of trade against them; that they most earnestly wished to see an entire stop put to such a wicked, cruel, and unlawful traffic; that they would not purchase any slaves hereafter to be imported, nor hire their vessels, nor sell their commodities or manufactures to those who are concerned in their importation.

From these facts it appears evident, that the primary object of all the resolutions was to cripple the commerce of England. Those in relation to the slave trade, especially, were expected, at once, when taken in connection with the determination to withhold all supplies of provisions from the West India planters--to stop the slave trade, and deprive the British merchants of all further profits from that traffic. But it would do more than this, as it would compel the West India planters, in a great degree, to stop the cultivation of sugar and cotton, for export, and force them to commence the growing of provisions for food--thus producing ruinous consequences to British manufactures and commerce.[5]

But, in the opposition thus made to the slave trade, there is no act warranting the conclusion that the negroes were to be admitted to a position of equality with the whites. The sentiments expressed, with a single exception,[6] are the reverse, and their increase viewed as an evil. South Carolina and Georgia did not follow the example of Virginia and North Carolina in resolving against the slave trade, but acquiesced in the non-intercourse policy, until the grievances complained of should be remedied. Another reason existed for opposing the slave trade; this was the importance of preventing the increase of a population that might be employed against the liberties of the colonies. That negroes were thus employed, during the Revolution, is a matter of history; and that the British hoped to use that population for their own advantage, is clearly indicated by the language of the Earl of Dartmouth, who declared, as a sufficient reason for turning a deaf ear to the remonstrances of the colonists against the further importation of slaves, that "Negroes cannot become Republicans--they will be a power in our hands to restrain the unruly colonists."

And, now, will any one say, that the fathers of the Revolution ever intended to declare the negro the equal of the white man, in the sense that he was ent.i.tled to an equality of political privileges under the const.i.tution of the United States!

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Randall's Life of Jefferson, vol. i. page 370.

[3] Randall's Life of Jefferson, vol. i. page 370, Note.

[4] That Mr. Jefferson was considered as having no settled plans or views in relation to the disposal of the blacks, and that he was disinclined to risk the disturbance of the harmony of the country for the sake of the negro, appears evident from the opinions entertained of him and his schemes by John Quincy Adams. After speaking of the zeal of Mr. Jefferson, and the strong manner in which, at times, he had spoken against slavery, Mr. Adams says: "But Jefferson had not the spirit of martyrdom. He would have introduced a flaming denunciation of slavery into the Declaration of Independence, but the discretion of his colleagues struck it out. He did insert a most eloquent and impa.s.sioned argument against it in his Notes on Virginia; but, on that very account, the book was published almost against his will. He projected a plan of general emanc.i.p.ation, in his revision of the Virginia laws, but finally presented a plan leaving slavery precisely where it was; and, in his Memoir, he leaves a posthumous warning to the planters that they must, at no distant day, emanc.i.p.ate their slaves, or that worse will follow; but he withheld the publication of his prophecy till he should himself be in the grave."--_Life of J. Q. Adams, page 177, 178._

[5] See a more extended detail of the proceedings in relation to this subject, both in England and the colonies, in the Appendix.

[6] Providence, Rhode Island.

CHAPTER IV.

Dismal condition of Africa--Hopes of Wilberforce disappointed--Organization of the American Colonization Society--Its necessity, objects, and policy--Public sentiment in its favor--Opposition developes itself--Wm. Lloyd Garrison, James G.

Birney, Gerrit Smith--Effects of opposition--Stimulants to Slavery--Exports of Cotton--England sustaining American Slavery--Failure of the Niger Expedition--Strength of Slavery--Political action--Its failure--Its fruits.

ANOTHER question, "How shall the slave trade be suppressed?" began to be agitated near the close of the last century. The moral desolation existing in Africa, was without a parallel among the nations of the earth. When the last of our Northern States had freed its slaves, not a single Christian Church had been successfully established in Africa, and the slave trade was still legalized to the citizens of every Christian nation. Even its subsequent prohibition, by the United States and England, had no tendency to check the traffic, nor ameliorate the condition of the African. The other Europeon powers, having now the monopoly of the trade, continued to prosecute it with a vigor it never felt before. The inst.i.tution of slavery, while lessened in the United States, where it had not yet been made profitable, was rapidly acquiring an unprecedented enlargement in Cuba and Brazil, where its profitable character had been more fully realized. How shall the slave trade be annihilated, slavery extension prevented, and Africa receive a Christian civilization? were questions that agitated the bosom of many a philanthropist, long after Wilberforce had achieved his triumphs. It was found, that the pa.s.sage of laws prohibiting the slave trade, and the extermination of that traffic, were two distinct things--the one not necessarily following the other. The success of Wilberforce with the British Parliament, only increased the necessity for additional philanthropic efforts; and a quarter of a century afterwards found the evil vastly increased which he imagined was wholly destroyed.

It was at the period in the history of Africa, and of public sentiment on slavery, which we have been considering, that the American Colonization Society was organized. It began its labors when the eye of the statesman, the philanthropist, and the Christian, could discover no other plan of overcoming the moral desolation, the universal oppression of the colored race, than by restoring the most enlightened of their number to Africa itself. Emanc.i.p.ation, by States, had been at an end for a dozen of years. The improvement of the free colored people, in the presence of the slave, was considered impracticable. Slave labor had become so profitable, as to leave little ground to expect general emanc.i.p.ation, even though all other objections had been removed. The slave trade had increased twenty-five per cent. during the preceding ten years. Slavery was rapidly extending itself in the tropics, and could not be arrested but by the suppression of the slave trade. The foothold of the Christian missionary was yet so precarious in Africa, as to leave it doubtful whether he could sustain his position.

The colonization of the free colored people in Africa, under the teachings of the Christian men who were prepared to accompany them, it was believed, would as fully meet all the conditions of the race, as was possible in the then existing state of the world. It would separate those who should emigrate from all further contact with slavery, and from its depressing influences; it would relax the laws of the slave States against emanc.i.p.ation, and lead to the more frequent liberation of slaves; it would stimulate and encourage the colored people remaining here, to engage in efforts for their own elevation; it would establish free republics along the coast of Africa, and drive away the slave trader; it would prevent the extension of slavery, by means of the slave trade, in tropical America; it would introduce civilization and Christianity among the people of Africa, and overturn their barbarism and b.l.o.o.d.y superst.i.tions; and, if successful, it would react upon slavery at home, by pointing out to the States and General Government, a mode by which they might free themselves from the whole African race.

The Society had thus undertaken as great an amount of work as it could perform. The field was broad enough, truly, for an a.s.sociation that hoped to obtain an income of but five to ten thousand dollars a year, and realized annually an average of only $3,276 during the first six years of its existence. It did not include the destruction of American slavery among the objects it labored to accomplish. That subject had been fully discussed; the ablest men in the nation had labored for its overthrow; more than half the original States of the Union had emanc.i.p.ated their slaves; the advantages of freedom to the colored man had been tested; the results had not been as favorable as antic.i.p.ated; the public sentiment of the country was adverse to an increase of the free colored population; the few of their number who had risen to respectability and affluence, were too widely separated to act in concert in promoting measures for the general good; and, until better results should follow the liberation of slaves, further emanc.i.p.ations, by the States, were not to be expected. The friends of the Colonization Society, therefore, while affording every encouragement to emanc.i.p.ation by individuals, refused to agitate the question of the general abolition of slavery. Nor did they thrust aside any other scheme of benevolence in behalf of the African race. Forty years had elapsed from the commencement of emanc.i.p.ation in the country, and thirty from the date of Franklin's Appeal, before the society sent off its first emigrants. At that date, no extended plans were in existence, promising relief to the free colored man. A period of lethargy, among the benevolent, had succeeded the State emanc.i.p.ations, as a consequence of the indifference of the free colored people, as a cla.s.s, to their degraded condition. The public sentiment of the country was fully prepared, therefore, to adopt colonization as the best means, or, rather, as the only means for accomplishing any thing for them or for the African race. Indeed, so general was the sentiment in favor of colonization, somewhere beyond the limits of the United States, that those who disliked Africa, commenced a scheme of emigration to Hayti, and prosecuted it, until eight thousand free colored persons were removed to that island--a number nearly equaling the whole emigration to Liberia up to 1850. Haytien emigration, however, proved a most disastrous experiment.

But the general acquiescence in the objects of the Colonization Society did not long continue. The exports of cotton from the South were then rapidly on the increase. Slave labor had become profitable, and slaves, in the cotton-growing States, were no longer considered a burden. Seven years after the first emigrants reached Liberia, the South exported 294,310,115 lbs. of cotton; and, the year following, the total cotton crop reached 325,000,000 lbs. But a great depression in prices had occurred,[7] and alarmed the planters for their safety. They had decided against emanc.i.p.ation, and now to have their slaves rendered valueless, was an evil they were determined to avert. The Report of the Boston Prison Discipline Society, which appeared at this moment, was well calculated, by the disclosures it made, to increase the alarm in the South, and to confirm slaveholders in their belief of the dangers of emanc.i.p.ation.

At this juncture, a warfare against colonization was commenced at the South, and it was p.r.o.nounced an abolition scheme in disguise. In defending itself, the society re-a.s.serted its principles of neutrality in relation to slavery, and that it had only in view the colonization of the free colored people. In the heat of the contest, the South were reminded of their former sentiments in relation to the whole colored population, and that colonization merely proposed removing one division of a people they had p.r.o.nounced a public burden.[8]

The emanc.i.p.ationists at the North had only lent their aid to colonization in the hope that it would prove an able auxiliary to abolition; but when the society declared its unalterable purpose to adhere to its original position of neutrality, they withdrew their support, and commenced hostilities against it. "The Anti-Slavery Society," said a distinguished abolitionist, "began with a declaration of war against the Colonization Society."[9] This feeling of hostility was greatly increased by the action of the abolitionists of England.

The doctrine of "Immediate, not Gradual Abolition," was announced by them as their creed; and the anti-slavery men of the United States adopted it as the basis of their action. Its success in the English Parliament, in procuring the pa.s.sage of the Act for West India emanc.i.p.ation, in 1833, gave a great impulse to the abolition cause in the United States.

In 1832, William Lloyd Garrison declared hostilities against the Colonization Society; in 1834, James G. Birney followed his example; and, in 1836 Gerritt Smith also abandoned the cause. The North everywhere resounded with the cry of "Immediate Abolition;" and, in 1837, the abolitionists numbered 1,015 societies; had seventy agents under commission, and an income, for the year, of $36,000.[10] The Colonization Society, on the other hand, was greatly embarra.s.sed. Its income, in 1838, was reduced to $10,000; it was deeply in debt; the parent society did not send a single emigrant, that year, to Liberia; and its enemies p.r.o.nounced it bankrupt and dead.[11]

But did the abolitionists succeed in forcing emanc.i.p.ation upon the South, when they had thus rendered colonization powerless? Did the fetters fall from the slave at their bidding? Did fire from heaven descend, and consume the slaveholder at their invocation? No such thing!

They had not touched the true cause of the extension of slavery. They had not discovered the secret of its power; and, therefore, its locks remained unshorn, its strength unabated. The inst.i.tution advanced as triumphantly as if no opposition existed. The planters were progressing steadily, in securing to themselves the monopoly of the cotton markets of Europe, and in extending the area of slavery at home. In the same year that Gerritt Smith declared for abolition, the t.i.tle of the Indians to fifty-five millions of acres of land, in the slave States, was extinguished, and the tribes removed. The year that colonization was depressed to the lowest point, the exports of cotton, from the United States, amounted to 595,952,297 lbs., and the consumption of the article in England, to 477,206,108 lbs.

When Mr. Birney seceded from colonization, he encouraged his new allies with the hope, that West India free labor would render our slave labor less profitable, and emanc.i.p.ation, as a consequence, be more easily effected. How stood this matter six years afterward? This will be best understood by contrast. In 1800, the West Indies exported 17,000,000 lbs. of cotton, and the United States, 17,789,803 lbs. They were then about equally productive in that article. In 1840, the West India exports had dwindled down to 427,529 lbs., while those of the United States had increased to 743,941,061 lbs.

And what was England doing all this while? Having lost her supplies from the West Indies, she was quietly spinning away at American slave labor cotton; and to ease the public conscience of the kingdom, was loudly talking of a free labor supply of the commodity from the banks of the Niger! But the expedition up that river failed, and 1845 found her manufacturing 626,496,000 lbs. of cotton, mostly the product of American slaves! The strength of American slavery at that moment may be inferred from the fact, that we exported that year 872,905,996 lbs. of cotton, and our production of cane sugar had reached over 200,000,000 lbs.; while, to make room for slavery extension, we were busied in the annexation of Texas and in preparations for the consequent war with Mexico!

But abolitionists themselves, some time before this, had, mostly, become convinced of the feeble character of their efforts against slavery, and allowed politicians to enlist them in a political crusade, as the last hope of arresting the progress of the system. The cry of "Immediate Abolition" died away; reliance upon moral means was mainly abandoned; and the limitation of the inst.i.tution, geographically, became the chief object of effort. The results of more than a dozen years of political action are before the public, and what has it accomplished! We are not now concerned in the inquiry of how far the strategy of politicians succeeded in making the votes of abolitionists subservient to slavery extension. That they did so, in at least one prominent case, will never be denied by any candid man. All we intend to say, is, that the cotton planters, instead of being crippled in their operations, were able, in the year ending the last of June, 1853, to export 1,111,570,370 lbs. of cotton, beside supplying near 300,000,000 lbs. for home consumption; and that England, the year ending the last of January, 1853, consumed the unprecedented quant.i.ty of 817,998,048 lbs. of that staple.[12] The year 1854, instead of finding slavery perishing under the blows it had received, has witnessed the destruction of all the old barriers to its extension, and beholds it expanded widely enough for the profitable employment of the slave population, with all its natural increase, for a hundred years to come!!

If political action against slavery has been thus disastrously unfortunate, how is it with anti-slavery action, at large, as to its efficiency at this moment? On this point, hear the testimony of a correspondent of Frederick Dougla.s.s' Paper, January 26, 1855:

"How gloriously did the anti-slavery cause arise . . . . . . in 1833-4!

And now what is it, in our agency! . . . . . . What is it, through the errors or crimes of its advocates variously--probably quite as much as through the brazen, gross, and licentious wickedness of its enemies.

Alas! what is it but a mutilated, feeble, discordant, and half-expiring instrument, at which Satan and his children, legally and illegally, scoff! Of it I despair."

Such are the crowning results of both political and anti-slavery action, for the overthrow of slavery! Such are the demonstrations of their utter impotency as a means of relief to the bond and free of the colored people!

Surely, then, if the negro is capable of elevation, it is time that some other measures should be devised, than those hitherto adopted, for the melioration of the African race! Surely, too, it is time for the American people to rebuke that cla.s.s of politicians, North and South, whose only capital consists in keeping up a fruitless warfare upon the subject of slavery--nay! abundant in fruits to the poor colored man; but to him, "their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of gall, their cl.u.s.ters are bitter; their vine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps."[13]

The application of this language, to the case under consideration, will be fully justified when the facts, in the remaining pages of this work, are carefully studied.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] See Table I, Appendix.

[8] The sentiment of the Colonization Society, was expressed in the following resolution, embraced in its annual report of 1826:

"_Resolved_,--That the society disclaims, in the most unqualified terms, the design attributed to it, of interfering, on the one hand, with the legal rights and obligations of slavery; and, on the other, of perpetuating its existence within the limits of the country."

On another occasion Mr. Clay, on behalf of the society, defined its position thus:

"It protested, from the commencement, and throughout all its progress, and it now protests, that it entertains no purpose, on its own authority, or by its own means, to attempt emanc.i.p.ation, partial or general; that it knows the General Government has no const.i.tutional power to achieve such an object; that it believes that the States, and the States only, which tolerate slavery, can accomplish the work of emanc.i.p.ation; and that it ought to be left to them exclusively, absolutely, and voluntarily, to decide the question."--_Tenth Annual Report, p. 14, 1828._