Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments Part 56

The white man has an exaggerated will, more than he has use for; because it frequently drives his own muscles beyond their physical capacity of endurance. The will is not a faculty confined within the periphery of the body. It can not, like the imagination, travel to immeasurable distances from the body, and in an instant of time go and return from Aldabran, or beyond the boundaries of the solar system. Its flight is confined to the world and to limits more or less restricted--the less restricted in some than in others. The will has two powers--direct and indirect. It is the direct motive power of the muscular system. It indirectly exerts a dynamic force upon surrounding objects when a.s.sociated with knowledge. It gives to knowledge its power. Every thing that is made was made by the Infinite Will a.s.sociated with infinite knowledge. The will of man is but a spark of the Infinite Will, and its power is only circ.u.mscribed by his knowledge. A man possessing a knowledge of the negro character can govern an hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand of the prognathous race by his will alone, easier than one ignorant of that character can govern a single individual of that race by the whip or a club. However disinclined to labor the negroes may be, they can not help themselves; they are obliged to move and to exercise their muscles when the white man, acquainted with their character, _wills_ that they should do so. They can not resist that will, so far as labor of body is concerned. If they resist, it is from some other cause than that connected with their daily labor. They have an instinctive feeling of obedience to the stronger will of the white man, requiring nothing more than moderate labor. So far, their instincts compel obedience to will as one of his rights. Beyond that, they will resist his will and be refractory, if he encroaches on what they regard as their rights, viz: the right to hold property in him as he does in them, and to disburse that property to them in the shape of meat, bread and vegetables, clothing, fuel and house-room, and attention to their comforts when sick, old, infirm, and unable to labor; to hold property in him as a conservator of the peace among themselves, and a protector against trespa.s.sers from abroad, whether black or white; to hold property in him as impartial judge and an honest jury to try them for offenses, and a merciful executioner to punish them for violations of the usages of the plantation or locality.

With those rights acceded to them, no other compulsion is necessary to make them perform their daily tasks than _his will be done_. It is not the whip, as many suppose, which calls forth those muscular exertions, the result of which is sugar, cotton, breadstuffs, rice, and tobacco.

These are products of the white man's will, acting through the muscles of the prognathous race in our Southern States. If that will were withdrawn, and the plantations handed over as a gracious gift to the laborers, agricultural labor would cease for the want of that spiritual power called the will, to move those machines--the muscles. They would cease to move here, as they have in Hayti. If the prognathous race were expelled the land, and their place supplied with double their number of white men, agricultural labor in the South would also cease, as far as sugar and cotton are concerned, for the want of muscles that could endure exercise in the smothering heat of a cane or cotton field. Half the white laborers of Illinois are prostrated with fevers from a few days' work in stripping blades in a Northern corn field, owing to the confinement of the air by the close proximity of the plants. Cane and cotton plants form a denser foliage than corn--a thick jungle, where the white man pants for breath, and is overpowered by the heat of the sun at one time of day, and chilled by the dews and moisture of the plants at another. Negroes glory in a close, hot atmosphere; they instinctively cover their head and faces with a blanket at night, and prefer laying with their heads to the fire, instead of their feet. This ethnical peculiarity is in harmony with their efficiency as laborers in hot, damp, close, suffocating atmosphere--where instead of suffering and dying, as the white man would, they are healthier, happier, and more prolific than in their native Africa--producing, under the white man's will, a great variety of agricultural products, besides upward of three millions of bales of cotton, and three hundred thousand hogsheads of sugar. Thus proving that subjection to his will is normal to them, because, under the influence of his will, they enjoy life more than in any other condition, rapidly increase in numbers, and steadily rise in the scale of humanity.

The power of a stronger will over a weaker, or the power of one living creature to act on and influence another, is an ordinance of nature, which has its parallel in the inorganic kingdom, where ponderous bodies, widely separated in s.p.a.ce, influence one another so much as to keep up a constant interplay of action and reaction throughout nature's vast realms. The same ordinance which keeps the spheres in their orbits and holds the satellites in subordination to the planets, is the ordinance that subjects the negro race to the empire of the white man's will. From that ordinance the snake derives its power to charm the bird, and the magician his power to amuse the curious, to astonish the vulgar, and to confound the wisdom of the wise. Under that ordinance, our four millions of negroes are as unalterably bound to obey the white man's will, as the four satellites of Jupiter the superior magnetism of that planet. If individual masters, by releasing individual negroes from the power of their will, can not make them free or release them from subordination to the instinctive public sentiment or will of the aggregate white population, which as rigidly excludes them, in the so-called free States, from the drawing room and parlor as it does pots and kettles and other kinds of kitchen furniture. The subjugation of equals by artifice or force is tyrrany or slavery; but there is no such thing in the United States, because equals are on a perfect equality here. The subordination of the Nigritian to the Caucasian would never have been imagined to be a condition similar to European slavery, if any regard had been paid to ethnology. Subordination of the inferior race to the superior is a normal, and not a forced condition. Chains and standing armies are the implements used to force the obedience of equals to equals--of one white man to another. Whereas, the obedience of the Nigritian to the Caucasian is _spontaneous_ because it is normal for the weaker will to yield obedience to the stronger. The ordinance which subjects the negro to the empire of the white man's will, was plainly written on the heavens during our Revolutionary war. It was then that the power of the united will of the American people rose to its highest degree of intensity.

Every colony was a slaveholding colony excepting one; yet the people, particularly that portion of them residing in districts where the black population was greatest, hastened to meet in the battle-field the powerful British armies in front of them, and the interminable hosts of Indian warriors in the wilderness behind them, leaving their wives and children, their old men and cripples, for seven long years, _to their negroes to take care of_. Did the slaves, many of whom were savages recently imported from Africa, butcher them, as white or Indian slaves surely would have done, and fly to the enemy's standard for the liberty, land, money, rum, savage luxuries and ample protection so abundantly promised and secured to all who would desert their master's families?

History answers that not one in a thousand joined their masters'

enemies; but, on the contrary, they continued quietly their daily labors, even in those districts where they outnumbered the white population ten to one. They not only produced sufficient breadstuffs to supply the families of their masters, but a surplus of flour, pork, and beef was sent up from the slaveholding districts of Virginia to Washington's starving army in Pennsylvania. [See Botta's History.] These agricultural products were created by savages, naturally so indolent in their native Africa, as to prefer to live on ant eggs and caterpillars rather than labor for a subsistence; but for years in succession they continued to labor in the midst of their masters' enemies--dropping their hoes when they saw the red coats, running to tell their mistress, and to conduct her and the children through by-paths to avoid the British troopers, and when the enemy were out of sight returning to their work again. The sole cause of their industry and fidelity is due to the spiritual influence of the white race over the black.

The empire of the white man's will over the prognathous race is not absolute, however. It can not force exercise beyond a certain speed; neither the will nor physical force can drive negroes, for a number of days in succession, beyond a very moderate daily labor--about one-third less than the white man voluntarily imposes on himself. If force be used to make them do more, they invariably do less and less, until they fall into a state of impa.s.sivity, in which they are more plague than profit--worthless as laborers, insensible and indifferent to punishment, or even to life; or, in other words, they fall into the disease which I have named Dysesthaesia Ethiopica, characterized by hebetude of mind and insensibility of body, caused by over working and bad treatment. Some knowledge of the ethnology of the prognathous race is absolutely necessary for the prevention and cure of this malady in all its various forms and stages. Dirt eating, or Cachexia Africana, is another disease, like Dysesthaesia Ethiopica, growing out of ethnical elements peculiar to the prognathous race. The ethnical elements a.s.similating the negro to the mule, although giving rise to the last named disease, are of vast importance to the prognathous race, because they guarantee to that race an ample protection against the abuses of arbitrary power. A white man, like a blooded horse, can be worked to death. Not so the negro, whose ethnical elements, like the mule, restricts the limits of arbitrary power over him.

Among the four millions of the prognathous race in the United States, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to find a single individual negro, whom the white man, armed with arbitrary power, has ever been able to make hurt himself at work. It is beyond the power of the white man to drive the negro into this long continued and excessive muscular exertions such as the white laborers of Europe often impose upon themselves to satisfy a greedy boss, under fear of losing their places, and thereby starving themselves and families. Throughout England, nothing is more common than decrepitude, premature old age, and a frightful list of diseases, caused by long continued and excessive muscular exertion. Whereas, all America can scarcely furnish an example of the kind among the prognathous race. The white men of America have performed many prodigies, but they have never yet been able to make a negro overwork himself.

There are other elements peculiar to the Nigritian, on which the disease, called negro consumption, or Cachexia Africana, depends. But these belong to that cla.s.s which subject the negro to the white man's spiritual empire over him. When that spiritual empire is not maintained in all its entirety, or in other words, when the negro is badly governed, he is apt to fall under the spiritual influence of the artful and designing of his own color, and Cachexia Africana, or consumption, is the consequence. Better throw medicine to the dogs, than give it to a negro patient impressed with the belief that he has walked over poison specially laid for him, or been in some other way tricked or conjured.

He will surely die, unless treated in accordance with his ethnological peculiarities, and the hallucination expelled.

There never has been an insurrection of the prognathous race against their masters; and from the nature of the ethnical elements of that race, there never can be. Hayti is no exception, it will be seen, when the true history of the so-called insurrection of that island is written. There have been neighborhood disturbances and bloodshed, caused by fanaticism, and by mischievous white men getting among them and infusing their will into them, or mesmerizing them. But, fortunately, there is an ethnological law of their nature which estops the evil influence of such characters by limiting their influence strictly to personal acquaintances. The prognathous tribes in every place and country are jealous and suspicious of all strangers, black or white, and have ever been so.

Prior to the emanc.i.p.ation act in the British West Indies, the famous Exeter Hall Junto sent out a number of emissaries of the East India Company to Jamaica, in the garb of missionaries. After remaining a year or two in the a.s.sumed character of Christian ministers, they began to preach insurrectionary doctrines, and caused a number of so-called insurrections to break out simultaneously in different parts of the island. The insurgents in every neighborhood were confined to the personal acquaintances of the Exeter Hall miscreants, who succeeded in infusing their will only into those who had listened to their incendiary harangues. This was proved upon them by the genuine missionaries, who had long been on the island, and had gathered into their various churches a vast number of converts. For, in no instance, did a single convert, or any other negro, join in the numerous insurrectionary movements who had not been personally addressed by the wolves in sheep's clothing. The Christian missionaries, particularly the Methodists, Baptist, Moravians, and Catholics, were very exact in collecting the evidence of this most important ethnological truth, in consequence of some of the planters, at the first outbreak, having confounded them with the Exeter Hall incendiaries.

The planters finally left the Christian missionaries and their flocks undisturbed, but proceeded to expel the false missionaries, to hang their converts, and to burn down their chapels. The event proved that they were wrong in not hanging the white incendiaries; because they went home to England, preached a crusade--traveling all over the United Kingdom--proclaiming, as they went, that they had left G.o.d's houses in flames throughout Jamaica, and G.o.d's people hanging like dogs from the trees in that sinful island. This so inflamed public sentiment in Great Britain against the planters, as to unite all parties in loud calls for the immediate pa.s.sage of the emanc.i.p.ation act. There is good reason to believe that the English ministry, in view of the probable effect of that measure on the United States, and the encouragement it would afford to the culture of sugar and other tropical products in the East Indies and Mauritius, had previously determined to make negro freedom a leading measure in British policy, well knowing that its effect would be to Africanize the sugar and cotton growing regions of America. The ethnology of the prognathous race does not stop at proving that subordination to the white race is its normal condition. It goes further, and proves that social and political equality is abnormal to it, whether educated or not. Neither negroes nor mulattoes know how to use power when given to them. They always use it capriciously and tyrannically. Tschudi, a Swiss naturalist, [see Tschudi's Travels in Peru, London, 1848,] says, "that in Lima and Peru generally, the free negroes are a plague to society. Dishonesty seems to be a part of their very nature. Free born negroes, admitted into the houses of wealthy families, and have received, in early life, a good education, and treated with kindness and liberality, do not differ from their uneducated brother."

Tschudi is mistaken in supposing that dishonesty is too deeply rooted in the negro character to be removed. They are dishonest when in the abnormal condition without a master. They are also dishonest when in a state of subordination, called slavery, badly provided for and not properly disciplined and governed. But when properly disciplined, instructed, and governed, and their animal wants provided for, it would be difficult to find a more honest, faithful, and trustworthy people than they are. When made contented and happy, as they always should be, they reflect their master in their thoughts, morals, and religion, or at least they are desirous of being like him. They imitate him in every thing, as far as their imitative faculties, which are very strong, will carry them. They take a pride in his wealth, or in any thing which distinguishes him, as if they formed a part of himself, as they really do, being under the influence of his will, and in some measure a.s.similated, in their spiritual nature, to him--loving him with all the warm and devoted affection which children manifest to their parents. He is sure of their love and friendship, although all the world may forsake him. But to create and maintain this happy relation, he must govern them with strict reference to their ethnological peculiarities. He must treat them as inferiors, not as equals, as they are not satisfied with equality, and will despise a master who attempts to raise any one or more of them to an equality with himself; because they become jealous and suspicious that their master's favorites will exercise a sinister influence over him against them.

Impartiality of treatment in every particular, down to a hat or pair of shoes, is what they all regard as one of their dearest rights. Hence, any special favors or gifts to one, is an offense to all the rest. They also regard as a right, when punished, not to be punished in anger, but with cool deliberation. They will run from an angry or enraged master or overseer, armed with a gun or a pistol. They regard all overseers who come into the field armed with deadly weapons as cowards, and all cowards have great difficulty in governing them. It is not physical force which keeps them in subjection, but the spiritual force of the white man's will. One unarmed brave man can manage a thousand by the moral force of his will alone, much better than an hundred cowards with guns in their hands. They also require as a right when punished, to be punished with a switch or a whip, and not with a stick or the fist. In this particular the ethnical law of their nature is different from all other races of men. It is exactly the reverse of that of the American Indian. The Indian will murder any man who strikes him with a switch, a cowhide, or a whip, twenty years afterward, if he gets an opportunity; but readily forgets blows, however severe, inflicted on him with the fist, a cudgel, or a tomahawk. A remarkable ethnological peculiarity of the prognathous race is, that any deserved punishment, inflicted on them with a switch, cowhide, or whip, puts them into good humor with themselves and the executioner of the punishment, provided he manifest satisfaction by regarding the offense as atoned for.

The negro requires government in every thing, the most minute. The Indian, on the contrary, submits to government in nothing whatever. Mr.

Jefferson was the first to notice this ethnical law of the red man. [See his letter to Gilmer, June 7, 1816, vol. iv, page 279, Jefferson's Correspondence.] "Every man with them," (the Indians,) says Mr.

Jefferson, "is perfectly free to follow his own inclinations; but if, in doing this, he violates the rights of another, he is punished by the disesteem of society or tomahawked. Their leaders conduct them by the influence of their characters only; and they follow or not, as they please, him of whose character, for wisdom or war, they have the highest opinion, but, of all things, they least think of subjecting themselves to the will of one man." Whereas the black man requires government even in his meat and drink, his clothing, and hours of repose. Unless under the government of one man to prescribe rules of conduct to guide him, he will eat too much meat and not enough of bread and vegetables; he will not dress to suit the season, or kind of labor he is engaged in, nor retire to rest in due time to get sufficient sleep, but sit up and doze by the fire nearly all night. Nor will the women undress the children and put them regularly to bed. Nature is no law unto them. They let their children suffer and die, or unmercifully abuse them, unless the white man or woman prescribe rules in the nursery for them to go by.

Whenever the white woman superintends the nursery, whether the climate be cold or hot, they increase faster than any other people on the globe; but on large plantations, remote from her influence, the negro population invariably diminishes, unless the overseer take upon himself those duties in the lying-in and nursery department, which on small estates are attended to by the mistress. She often sits up at night with sick children and administers to their wants, when their own mothers are nodding by them, and would be sound asleep if it were not for her presence. The care that white women bestow on the nursery, is one of the princ.i.p.al causes why three hundred thousand Africans, originally imported into the territory of the United States have increased to four millions, while in the British West Indies the number imported, exceeded, by several millions, the actual population. It is also the cause why the small proprietors of negro property in Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri are able to supply the loss on the large Southern plantations, which are cut off from the happy influence of the presiding genius over civilization, morality, and population--the white woman.

The prognathous race require government also in their religious exercises, or they degenerate into fanatical saturnalia. A discreet white man or woman should always be present to regulate their religious meetings.

Here the investigation into the ethnology of the prognathous race must close, at least, for the present, leaving the most interesting part, Fetichism, the indigenous religion of the African tribes, untouched. It is the key to the negro character, which is difficult to learn from mere experience. Those who are not accustomed to them have great trouble and difficulty in managing negroes; and in consequence thereof treat them badly. If their ethnology was better and more generally understood, their value would be greatly increased, and their condition, as a laboring cla.s.s, would be more enviable, compared to the European peasants, than it already is.

SLAVERY

IN THE

LIGHT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW.

BY

E. N. ELLIOTT, L.L.D.,

OF MISSISSIPPI.

SLAVERY

IN THE

LIGHT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW.

THERE are some who deny the unity of the human race; with such we have no controversy, but it is a part of our religious belief, that "G.o.d made of one blood all nations that dwell on the face of the earth;" and on this we would base one of our arguments for the subordination of a part of the human family. It is not necessary to the vindication of our cause, or of truth, to deny the authority, or to fritter away the evident meaning of any part of the word of G.o.d, as is done by most of the abolitionists. It is sufficient for our purpose that we have shown that the negro is an inferior variety of the human race; that he is inferior in his physical structure, and in his mental and moral organization. This orgnization incapacitates him for emerging, by his own will and power, from barbarism, and achieving civilization and refinement. History teaches the same lesson. We find Africa to-day, just as it was three thousand years ago. When G.o.d created man he said to him, "Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth on the face of the earth." And again, upon the re-creation after the flood, he repeated the command, in almost the same words, to Noah and his sons. This command shows that G.o.d had a purpose with regard to the physical world, in placing man upon it, and that man has a mission to fulfill in subduing it, and acquiring a control, not only over animate but also over inanimate nature. Indeed, the one is essential to the other. Man can not control and subdue the inferior animals, until he has acquired some control over the powers of nature. Place him in the forest naked and unarmed, and many of the animals are his superiors; but endow his mind with a knowledge of nature's laws, and thus enable him to make them subservient to his purposes, and he becomes irresistible; a G.o.d on earth. In fulfilling this command, man elevates his nature as he increases his knowledge, and thereby extends his powers. G.o.d requires that every part of the human family shall fulfill this great command, and contribute their part in rendering subservient to human use, all the faculties of nature. Nay, even where the one talent is misimproved, he takes it away and gives it to him, who has ten talents. It is on this principle that it is right and in accordance with the ordinance of G.o.d, to dispossess of their lands, mines, waterpowers, harbors, etc., a savage nation, possessing, but not improving them, and convert them to the uses of the world of mankind. This is the warrant for the conflict of civilization with barbarism. Not to go back to former times, it is this precept which has converted the former howling wilderness of this Western World, into an earthly paradise, affording an ample subsistence to happy millions of the most enlightened of the human family. It is this that causes effete dynasties and nations to disappear from the face of the world, and their places to be supplied by those full of life and energy. It is this that is rolling back and blotting out the mongrel races of the New World, to make room for the onward march of a higher civilization.

The manifest destiny men are not so far wrong after all; but instead of destiny, it is the purpose and ordinance of G.o.d. Upon this principle has England acted in reference to India, Australia, China, and in almost every region of the globe. It is upon this principle that Europe is now controlling the destinies of the Old World, as the United States, if they are true to themselves, will control the destinies of the New. This has governed us in requiring that j.a.pan should open her ports to the commerce, and her coal mines to the navies of the world; that she should enrol herself in the brotherhood of nations, and perform her part in the great drama of life. It is upon this principle that England, France, and the United States, are requiring the same thing of China; and it is upon this principle that the vagrant is arrested in your streets and sent to the work-house.

These principles are clearly enunciated, and ably defended by J. Q.

Adams in his celebrated speech on the Chinese question, delivered in 1841. It is true, that he applies them to the rights of commerce only; but by legitimate deduction, they are as applicable to the rights of labor, as to the rights of commerce. Although nations and races have always acted on these principles, yet at the time of the delivery of this speech, so startling were the positions a.s.sumed by Mr. Adams, that but few could be found who were prepared to defend them, yet none were able to controvert them. Their general adoption at the present day only shows what history has so long taught, that master minds are generally in advance of their age.

In the "Memoir of J. Q. Adams," by Josiah Quincy, we have a report of this speech. Speaking of the Chinese war, Mr. Adams says, "that by the law of nations is to be understood, not one code of laws, binding alike on all nations of the earth, but a system of rules, varying according to the condition and character of the nations concerned. There is a law of nations among Christian communities, which is the law recognized by the Const.i.tution of the United States, as obligatory upon them in their intercourse with European States and colonies. But we have a different law of nations regulating our intercourse with the Indian tribes on this continent; another between us and the woolly-headed nations of Africa; another with the Barbary powers; another with the flowery land, or Celestial empire." Then, reasoning on the rights of property, established by labor, by occupation, by compact, he maintains "that the right of exchange, barter--in other words, of commerce--necessarily follows; that a state of nature among men is a state of peace; the pursuit of happiness, man's natural right; that is the duty of all men to contribute, as much as is in their power, to one another's happiness, and that there is no other way by which they can so well contribute to the comfort and well-being of one another, as by commerce, or the mutual exchange of equivalents." These views and principles he thus ill.u.s.trates:

"The duty of commercial intercourse between nations, is laid down in terms sufficiently positive by Vattel, but he afterwards qualifies it by a restriction, which, unless itself restricted, annuls it altogether. He says that, although the general duty of commercial intercourse is inc.u.mbent upon nations, yet every nation may exclude any particular branch or article of trade, which it may deem injurious to its interests. This can not be denied. But then a nation may multiply these particular exclusions, until they become general, and equivalent to a total interdict of commerce; and this, time out of mind, has been the inflexible policy of the Chinese empire. So says Vattel, without affixing any note of censure upon it. Yet it is manifestly incompatible with the position which he had previously laid down, that commercial intercourse between nations is a moral obligation upon them all."

The same doctrine, with regard to the duties of _individuals_ in a community, that is here advanced by Mr. Adams with regard to _races_ and _nations_, is thus set forth in Blackstone's Commentaries, book iv, chap. x.x.xiii: "_There is not a more necessary, or more certain maxim, in the frame and const.i.tution of society, than that every individual must contribute his share, in order to the well-being of the community._"

The first principle laid down by Mr. Adams is, that the same code of international law does not apply to all nations alike, but that it varies with the condition and character of the people; that one code of laws applies to the enlightened and Christian nations of Europe, but an entirely different one to the pagan, woolly-headed, barbarians of Africa. What would be just and right with regard to the African, would be eminently unjust towards the European. Though it would be a great wrong to reduce the European to a condition of servitude, it does not follow that it would be equally wrong to enslave the African. If all the human races were alike, one code of international laws would apply to the whole, but so long as the African continues to be an inferior race, they must be treated as such.

But again, Mr. Adams clearly lays down the principle that no nation or race can be permitted, in any way, to isolate itself from the community of nations, but is morally bound to contribute all in its power to the well-being of the whole race, at the same time that it secures its own.

If it possesses territory which it occupies, but does not improve, it must yield it to the claims of civiilization. If it has productions valuable to the world, it is morally bound to exchange them. If it has ports, harbors, coal mines, or other facilities for commerce and manufactures, it must allow other nations to partic.i.p.ate in its advantages. If it has a superabundant supply of labor, it must be rendered available. If, then, it is right that civilization and progress should appropriate the hunting grounds of the Indian race; if it is right that China and j.a.pan should be required to open their ports to the commerce of the world, it must be equally right that the great store house of labor in Africa should be opened for the benefit of the human race. In the Western World, a vast continent of fertile land and propitious climate, was possessed, not improved, by a spa.r.s.e hunter race; but the law of G.o.d and of nations required that the earth should be subdued and replenished, and now G.o.d has enlarged j.a.pheth, and he dwells in these tents of Shem. China, j.a.pan, and other regions of Asia, are inhabited by teeming millions, rich in the productions of art, yet scarcely able to obtain a meagre sustenance, and rigidly excluding all intercourse with the outer world, but at the demands of commerce the barriers are broken down, and they, in common with other nations, are benefited by the change. Africa has long possessed a superabundant population of indolent, degraded, pagan savages, useless to the world and to themselves. Numberless efforts have been made to elevate them in the scale of existence, in their own country, but all in vain. Even when partially civilized, under the control of the white man, they soon relapse into barbarism, if emanc.i.p.ated from this control. But a colony of them, some two hundred years since, were imported into the Western World, and placed subordinate to the white race; and now, if we are to believe the abolitionists, they have improved so rapidly as to have become equal, if not superior, to the white race. Certainly they are far superior to their ancestors, or their brethren in Africa. At the same time, they have conferred an equal benefit on the world. They supply a demand for labor which can not otherwise be met, and their products not only clothe the civilized world, but also are the life-blood of its commerce.

It is not necessary to the discussion of this topic, that we should show _what_ are the laws of nations, applicable to the different races enumerated by Mr. Adams; though it is manifest to the most casual observer, that the laws applicable to them are radically different. What would be thought of a minister at the court of St. James, who should propose to carry out with Great Britain, the same course of policy we pursue towards the Indian tribes; or of the English minister at our capital, who would exact from us the concessions required of the rajahs of India, or the chiefs of Australia? The radical difference is this: among civilized and Christian nations, the law recognizes a perfect equality, and requires an entire reciprocity; but between an elevated and a degraded or inferior race, this inequality is recognized, and an influence and a superiority is accorded to the one, which is denied to the other. This is well ill.u.s.trated by our present intercourse with Mexico, and should we establish a protectorate over that unhappy country, for their good and our own, it would be in strict accordance with these principles. With some nations we have diplomatic intercourse, on terms of perfect equality and reciprocity; others we treat as inferiors, and a.s.sume over them some degree of control, while we nevertheless recognize them as legitimate governments. But there are other nations or races, with whom we form no diplomatic relations, and whose governments we do not recognize. In this latter cla.s.s are included most of the inhabitants of Africa, and of Hayti; or in other words, the _negro race_. The reason is, that those nations performing their duties to the human race, according to the ordinance of G.o.d, are to be recognized as not needing our a.s.sistance, or requiring our guardianship; those fulfilling only in part, should be considered in a state of tutelage, but those that fulfill none, or but few of these duties, require to be made subservient to the superior races, in order that they may fulfill the great ends of their existence. This subordination has existed in all times, among all nations, and with all races. But as soon as any race became so developed as no longer to require it, it ceased to exist. In this way, and in this alone,--except by the deportation of the slaves--has slavery ever ceased to exist, in any community; nor can it be otherwise in the future. Emanc.i.p.ation in name, is not always freedom in reality. The free blacks of our Northern States and the West Indies, are, as a ma.s.s, more abject slaves than any on our Southern plantations.

Nor is it possible for them to acquire a more elevated position, until they shall have acquired the requisite qualifications for that position.

At the present time, with the exception of serfdom, peonage, and political slavery, this subordination is confined to the negro race. Why is this so? Manifestly because they have shown themselves incapable, in their own land, of emerging from barbarism, achieving civilization and refinement, performing their duties to the human race, and becoming ent.i.tled to a position as equals among the nations of the earth. Until such improvement takes place as shall ent.i.tle them to this exalted position, their own happiness and well-being, their duties to the human race, the claims of civilization, the progress of society, the law of nations, and the ordinance of G.o.d, require that they should be placed in a subordinate position to a superior race. Experience also shows us that this is their normal and natural position. In their native land they still are what they have always been, a pagan, savage, servile race, fulfilling their duties neither to themselves, to G.o.d, nor to the human race; but under the tutelage of a superior race, they are elevated in the scale of existence, improved mentally, morally, and physically, and are thus enabled to do their part in contributing to the well-being of the human race. But so far as our experience goes, this development is not permanent, but is liable to retrogression as soon as the influence of the superior race is removed. Like the electro-magnet, whose power is lost the moment it is insulated from the vivifying power of electricity, so the servile race loses its power when removed from the control of a superior intellect. The example of our own free blacks, those emanc.i.p.ated in the West Indies, Sierra Leone, and even Liberia, are conclusive on this point.

It becomes us not to speculate too curiously concerning G.o.d's plan in governing the world, much less to strive to thwart his purposes with our puny arms; he will work out his purposes of good to the human race, in his own good time and way, whether it meets our views or not. But from the revelation of his purpose concerning the descendants of the three progenitors of the human race after the flood, it is manifest that the children of Ham were to be a servile race; as their final disinthrallment is nowhere spoken of, it is exceedingly improbable that slavery will cease to exist till the end of time. It is true that Ethiopia shall stretch forth her hands to G.o.d; but this is being fulfilled on a grander scale than ever before has been witnessed, even in our midst, in this Western World, where G.o.d has enlarged j.a.pheth, where he dwells in the tents of Shem, and where Cainan is his servant.

PORT GIBSON, MISSISSIPPI, _February 22, 1860_.

DECISION

OF THE

SUPREME COURT

OF THE UNITED STATES