The Right of American Slavery Part 4

5. It is right to summon the barbarian to the lessons of civilization, and to teach him its _primary_ lessons; to elevate him to the dignity of labor.

6. It is right to HOLD the barbarian subject to the rules of civilization; to protect him by its laws, and rescue him from the wrongs and miseries of barbarism. In this way, only, he can be made happier and better. He falls, if unsupported by external power.

7. American Slavery promotes civilization by the production of materials wherewith to clothe the nakedness of mankind, and the useful medium or knowledge and intelligence, through books, and literature, printed upon materials which are the product of slave labor.

8. It is just that barbarism should subserve civilization; that Wrong should subserve Right.

9. The African is not equal to the white man, but is a barbarian, and as such has no political rights.

10. American Slavery is Right.

CONCLUSION.

If, then, it is not right, nor practicable, nor possible, to restore these 4,000,000 of Africans to barbarism, why any longer agitate the subject? Why keep the negro in perpetual dread of change, and the owner dubious of the future? Why, by this negro agitation, create apprehension in the minds of our own people for the stability and permanence of this government, and hope in the minds of all the monarchists of the world that this agitation will divide and destroy this last great bulwark of human freedom?

Why shall we put to hazard that freedom which is already secure? Why involve in experiments those tangible acquisitions which we have made to this priceless inheritance of freedom? Washington is gone, but he has left us his bright example, and his solemn admonitions. Let those who are greater, and wiser, and purer than Washington, impeach him.

Let those whose precepts or examples excel his, question the superiority of his virtue and valor. Let those who have done more for human freedom, denounce him as the enemy of mankind, and erect for themselves a standard of moral action, which shall rise to the stupendous height of their own boundless egotism!

But if it is found to be inexpedient and wrong to agitate the subject of slavery, when it is known to be impracticable, impossible, and unjust to emanc.i.p.ate the slaves, then let us go on in our career of greatness, with success and tranquility. Let us watch with jealous care the honor of our country, and scorn the aspersions of its vilifiers. Let us honor and vindicate our country in its att.i.tude of justice, and in its mission of civilization, and mark with the imputation of opprobrium every recreant defamer of our government and its inst.i.tutions. Let the emissaries of despotism find some other means of subduing us than to "divide and conquer." Let the name of Washington be revered; let his admonitions be heeded: let his commands be obeyed, and his example followed. Let barbarism still be blessed with the light of civilization; let the glory and dominion of freedom be established, and the citizens of this Republic rest in security and peace within their patriarchal bowers!

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Leo Africa.n.u.s says, Book vii., "The King of Borno sent for the merchants of Barbary, and willed them to bring the great store of horses; for in this country they used to exchange horses for slaves, and to give fifteen and sometimes twenty slaves for one horse; and by this means there were abundance of horses brought; howbeit, the merchants were constrained to stay for their slaves till the king returned home with a great number of captives and satisfied his creditors for their horses." "The king maketh invasions but every year once, and that at one set and appointed time of the year."--_Geogr.

Hist. of Africa, trans. by Pory, pp. 293, 294, Lon., 1600._

[2] "From Abyssinia, the caravans carry yearly to Cairo nearly two thousand Negroes, those poor creatures having unfortunately been captured in war. Most of the chiefs and sovereigns in the interior of Africa sell or put to death all their prisoners."--_Narrative of a Ten Years' Residence at Tripoli, p. 185, London, 1816._

[3] Hegel, the distinguished German philosopher, in his Philosophy of History, says, pp. 102, 103:

An English traveler states that when a war is determined on in Ashantee, solemn ceremonies precede it. Among other things, the bones of the king's mother are laved with human blood. As a prelude to the war, the king ordains an onslaught upon his own metropolis, as if to excite the due degree of frenzy.

In Dahomey, when the king dies, the bonds of society are loosed; in his palace begins indiscriminate havoc and disorganization. All the wives of the king (in Dahomey their number is exactly 3,333) are ma.s.sacred, and through the whole town plunder and carnage run riot.

The wives of the king regard their deaths as a necessity; they go richly attired to meet it. The authorities have to hasten to proclaim the new governor, simply to put a stop to ma.s.sacre.

The only essential connection that has existed and continued between the Negroes and Europeans is that of slavery. In this the Negroes see nothing unbecoming them; and the English, who have done most for abolishing the slave trade and slavery, are treated by the Negroes themselves as enemies. For it is a point of first importance with the kings to sell their captured enemies, or even their own subjects; and viewed in the light of such facts, we may conclude _slavery_ to have been the occasion of the increase of human feeling among Negroes.

Tyranny is regarded as no wrong, and _cannibalism is looked upon as quite customary and proper_. Among us, instinct deters from it, if we can speak of instinct at all as appertaining to man. But with the Negro this is not the case, and the _devouring of human flesh is altogether consistent with the general principles of the African race_; to the sensual Negro, human flesh is but an object of sense,--mere flesh. At the death of a king, hundreds are killed and eaten; prisoners are butchered, and _their flesh is sold in the markets_. The victor is accustomed to eat the heart of his slain foe.

When magical rites are performed, it frequently happens that the sorcerer kills the first that comes in his way, _and divides his body among the bystanders_.

[4] Says Herder,--But the peculiar formation of the members of the human body says more than all these; and this appears to me applicable in the African organization. According to various physiological observations, the lips, b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and private parts, are proportionate to each other; and as nature, agreeably to the simple principle of her plastic art, must have conferred on these people, to whom she was obliged to deny n.o.bler gifts, an ampler measure of sensual enjoyment, this could not but have appeared to the physiologist. _According to the rules of physiognomy, thick lips are held to indicate a sensual disposition_; as thin lips, displaying a slender, rosy line, are deemed symptoms of chaste and delicate taste; not to mention other circ.u.mstances. _What wonder, then, that in a nation for whom the sensual appet.i.te is the height of happiness, external marks of it should appear?_ A Negro child is born white; the skin round the nails, the nipples, and private parts, first become colored; and the same consent of parts in the disposition to color is observable in other nations. _A hundred children are a trifle to a Negro; and an old man who had not above seventy, lamented his fate with tears._

With this oleaginous organization to sensual pleasure, the profile and whole frame of the body must alter. _The projection of the mouth would render the nose short and small, the forehead would incline backwards, and the face would have at a distance the resemblance of that of an ape._ Conformably to this would be the position of the neck, the transition to the occiput, and the elastic structure of the whole body, which is formed, even to the nose and skin, for sensual, animal enjoyment.--_Herder's Philosophy of the History of Man, pp. 150, 151.

Translated by Churchill, London, 1800._

[5] Witness the following extract from the Report of the Committee of the Maryland Legislature in 1860, recommending the discontinuance of the annual appropriation of $5,000 to the Colonization Society for the purpose of sending free Negroes back to Africa. It will be seen by this extract, that the expense of transporting Negroes to Africa is much greater than I have stated, owing, perhaps, to an extravagant use or waste of the money by the Colonization Society; for if it costs $500,000 to transport 300 Negroes, it would certainly cost $6,668,000,000 to send away the 4,000,000 of Negroes in the United States. Add to this the value of the Negroes, to be paid in remuneration to the owners for their property, $2,000,000,000, and the total cost of purchase and transportation, based upon the experience and the statistics of the State of Maryland, would be $8,668,000,000!

or more than forty times the amount of all the gold and silver in the United States! It will be seen that my own is a low estimate compared with this, and either of those estimates shows the utter futility of the advocacy of emanc.i.p.ation. That Report says:--

"The pa.s.sage of the act of 1831, ch. 281, was framed with the design of removing our free Negroes beyond the limits of this State. But experience has shown that they will not willingly leave us. That act has been in operation for twenty-seven years, at an expense to the State of about $280,000, raised by taxation upon our citizen population. It is safe to say that $75,000 more has been cleared by the profits in trade to the coast of Africa in that time; and that $145,000 has probably been bestowed by voluntary contribution for the same object--making in all the sum of $500,000. And yet, with all this vast outlay of money, not over _three hundred free Negroes_ have been removed. Slaves to a larger number have been set free and sent to Africa. During the last year not one single free Negro was sent to Africa from this State. When this law went into effect, we had 52,000 free Negroes in the State; and after a trial of twenty-seven years, we now have 90,000 or 100,000. The inefficiency of this enterprise being so obvious to every one of the least reflection, your committee propose the repeal of all laws taxing the people for colonization purposes."

[6] Scroeder's Max. of Washington, p. 256.