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M E M O 1 11 
 
 ON SLAVERY, 
 
 READ BEFORE THE 
 
 SOCIETY FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OP LEARNING, 
 
 OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 
 
 AT ITS ANNfJAL MEETING AT COLUAIBIA. 
 
 1837. 
 
 BY CHANCELLOR HARPER. 
 
 CHARLESTON: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY JAMES S. BURGErJ. 
 
 1838, 
 

 E. C. COUNCELL'S PlllNT. 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 Page 6, 23d line from bottom for " equality" read inequulUy. 
 
 Page 6, 20th line from bottom, for "make" read mark. 
 
 Page 6, 9th " " for " would" read could. 
 
 Page 16, 16th " from top, for " labour" read labourer. 
 
 Page 17, 12th " from top, for " animate" read alleviate. 
 
 Page 26, 5th " from bottom, for " our" read one. 
 
 Page 43, 11th " from top, for " rich" read zoeak. 
 
 Page 45, 20th " from bottom, for " there" read then. 
 
 Page 49, 16th " from bottom, for " severe" read more. 
 
 Page 49, 14th " from bottom, for "necessary" read unnecessary. 
 
 Page 49, 17th " from top, for " horrid flame" read lurid flame. 
 
 Page 53, 20th " from top, for " Meotic Sea," read Sea of Moeris 
 
 Page 58, 26th " from bottom, for " prevalent" read pi-urient. 
 
 Page 59, 15th " from bottom, for " undoing" read undergoing. 
 
 Page 60, 22d " from bottom, for "fierce" read pure. 
 
 Page 60, 22d " from bottom, for •' defeated" read defecated. 
 
 Page 61, 5th " from bottom, for "uproot" read uproar. 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 The institution of domestic slavery exists over far the greater por- 
 tion 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 por- 
 tions of it which had made any advances towards 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 far- 
 thest advanced in civilization and intelligence, but which have had the 
 smallest opportunity of observing its true character and eflects — 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 coun- 
 tries alluded to, who regard it with the most indulgence or the least ab- 
 liorrence — 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 socie- 
 ties which admit it. This is no longer regarded as a subject of ar- 
 gument 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 inhab- 
 itants of the slave holding States of America, insulated as we are, by 
 this institution, and cut off, in some degree, from the communion and 
 sympathies of tiie world by which we are surrounded, oi' with which 
 we have intercourse, and exposed continually to their animadversions 
 and attacks, should thoroughly vmderstand this subject and our 
 strength and weakness in relation to it. If it be thus criminal, dan- 
 gerous and fatal ; and if it be possible to devise means of freeing our- 
 selves 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 tlie current of our fate," till we are overwhelmed in the final 
 destruction. If we are tyrants, cruel, unjust, oppressive, let us hum- 
 ble ourselves and repent in the siglit 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 o 
 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.* seems not to have attracted the 
 slightest attention out of the limits of the slave holding States them- 
 selves. If truth, reason and conclusive argument, propounded with 
 admirable temper and perfect candour, 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 in- 
 appreciable service to the South in enlightening them on the subject 
 of their own institutions, and turning back thatinonstrous tide of follv 
 and m^-idness which, if it had rolled on, would have involved his own 
 great Stale along with the rest of the slave holding States in a com- 
 mon ruin. But beyond these, he seems to have produced no effect 
 whatever. The denouncers of Slavery, with whose productions the 
 press groans, seem to be unaware of his existence — unaware tliat 
 there is 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 honour to American literature. t With 
 conckisive argument, and great force of expression he has defended 
 Slavery from the charge of injustice or immorahty, and shewn clearly 
 the unspeakable cruelty and mischief which must result from any 
 scheme of abolition. He does not live among slave holders, and it 
 cannot be said of him as of others, that his mind is warped by inter- 
 est, or his moral sense blunted by habit and familiarity with abuse. 
 These circumstances, it might be supposed, would have secured hnn 
 hearing and consideration. He seems to be equally unheeded, and 
 the work of denunciation disdaining argument, still goes on. 
 
 President Dew has shewn that the institution of Slavery is a prin- 
 cipal cause of civilization. Perhaps nothing can be more evident 
 than that it is the sole cause. If any thing can be ])redicated as uni- 
 versally true of uncultivated man, it is that he will not Jabour be- 
 yond what is absolutely necessary to maintain his existence. I^abour 
 is pain to those who are unaccustomed to it, and the nature of man 
 
 "President Dew's Review of tlie Virginia Dcliatos on tlie subject of Slavery. 
 tPaulding on Slavery. 
 
5 
 
 is averse to p;iin. Even with all the training', tlie lielps and motives 
 of civilization, we faid that this aversion cannot be overcome in many 
 individnals of the most cultivated societies. The coercion of Slavery 
 alouo is adequate to form man to habits of labour. Without it, there 
 can be no accumulation of property, no providence for the future, 
 no taste for comforts or elegancies, which are the characteristics and 
 essentials of civilization. He who has obtained the command of ano- 
 ther's labour, 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 ad- 
 vanced to it through this process. 
 
 Will those who regard Slaveiy 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 1 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 attained ? It is true 
 that the Creator can make the wickedness as well as the wrath of 
 man to praise him, and bring forth tlie 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 he approved by him, 
 if that result only were intended. Do they not blaspheme the provi- 
 dence of God who denounce as wickedness and outrage, that which 
 is rendered indispensable to his pur))oses in the government of the 
 world 1 Or at what stage of the progress of society will they say that 
 Slavery ceases to be necessary, and its very existeiice becomes sin and 
 crime t I am aware that such argument would have little clicct on 
 those with whom it would be degrading to contend — who j>ervert 
 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 per- 
 ceptions, and darkens and confuses the understandings and moral 
 feelings of men. Tell them th.at, of necessity, in every civilized 
 society, there must be an infinite variety of conditions and employ- 
 ments, from the most eminentiand intellectual, to the most servile and 
 laborious ; that the negro race, from their temperament and capacity, 
 are peculiarly suited to the situation which tliey occupy, and not less 
 happy in it than any corresponding clas-s to be found in the worl.d ; prove 
 incontestably that no scheme of emancipation could be carried into 
 efiect 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 riglU ; that man has a right to himself, and ma» 
 cannot have a 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 Cieator 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 obseiTe 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 1 Man is bom 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 attain the maturity of his faculties. Then 
 equality 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, make the endless diversity in the condition 
 of men. 
 
 But we have not arrived at the profundity of the maxim. This 
 inequahty is iu 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 inequali- 
 ties to which I have referred, with the misery resulting from them, 
 would exist in fact under the freest and most popular form of govern- 
 ment that man would 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 1 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 occuj)y 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 woidd be alike miserable and degraded. Lo\^ 
 as we descend in combatting 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 
 inust 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 conven- 
 tion, 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 1 Yet this Avould 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 pri- 
 vation on others, unless with a view, after full and impartial delibera- 
 tion, 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 1 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 requir- 
 ing 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 presumptu- 
 ous philosophy, which theorizes on the affairs of men as of 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 pleased 
 to indicate them, in their creation and destiny. Man is born to sub- 
 jection. Not only during infancy is he dependant and under the 
 control of others ; at all ages, it is the very bias of his nature, that 
 the strong and tlie wise should control the weak and the ignorant. 
 So it has been since the days of Ninu-od. 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 eft'orts 
 
of successive generaLi(in.<, and tUc diliyeiit training and imvvearied 
 exertions of the individual arc requisite. To make progress in moral 
 virtue, not less time and ctVort, aided by superior help, are necessary ; 
 and it is only by the matured exercise of his knowledge and his vir- 
 tue, that he can attaiu to civil freedom. Of all things, the existence 
 of civil liberty is most the result of artificial institution. The procli- 
 vity 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 he 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 enlight- 
 ened lover of liberty will know that there must remain much inequal- 
 ity, 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 iu any institution, is only to say that it is human. 
 
 And can we doubt but that this long discipline and laborious pro- 
 cess, by which men are required to Avork out the elevation and im- 
 provement of their individual nature and their social condition, is 
 imposed for a great and benevolent end ? Our faculties arc not ade- 
 quate 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 univer- 
 sal knowledge or goodness or happiness or freedom. 
 
 Man has hceii endowed by his CreatOKwith certain inalienahle rights, 
 among tvhich are life, liberty and tlie pursuit of hapjiiness. What is 
 meant by the inalienahle 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 per- 
 mitted 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 permit- 
 led it, the man would be guilty of an immoral act who should thus 
 alienate his liberty. A lit question for schoolmen to discuss, and the 
 consequences resulting from ils decision as important as from t\\\y of 
 
theirs. Yet who will say that the mtn pressed by famine and in 
 pz'ospect of death, would be criminal for such an act 1 Self-preser- 
 vation as is tridy said, is the first law of nature. High and peculiar 
 characters, by elaborate cultivation, may be taught to i)refer 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 lib- 
 erty for offences against society. Restrain them in the pursuit of hap- 
 piness ! Why all the la^vs 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 hfe or liberty ? Not on account of the moral guilt of the crim- 
 inal — not liy impiously and arrogantly assuming the i)rerogative of 
 the Almighty, to dispense justice or suftering, according to moral 
 desert. It is for iis own protection — it is the right of self-defence. 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 Avitli 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 privileges, 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 1 " Man cannot have 
 property in man" — a ])hrase as full of meaning as, " who slays fat 
 oxen should himself be fat." Certainly he may, if tlie laws of society 
 allow it, and if it be on sulficient 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 ver- 
 biage of natural equality and inalienable riglits, that our lives are to 
 be put in jeopardy, our property destroyed, and our political institu- 
 tions 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 tlu; right to enslave them, and keep them in slavery 
 so long as the same danger would be incurred by their manumission '? 
 2 
 
10 
 
 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 1 Woidd this not be the strictest self-defence ] I do not now 
 consider, how far we can make out a similar case to justify our ensla- 
 ving of the negroes. I speak to those who contend for inalienable 
 rights, and that the existence of slavery always, and under all circum- 
 stances, 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 theoiy which resolves all right 
 into f o rce. 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 lias hitherto been tasked in vain to discover an unerring 
 standard of morality. It is a common and undoubted maxim of mo- 
 rality, 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 others 1 It is because it inflicts pain or suffering, present or pros- 
 pective, or cuts them ofl" from enjoyment which they might other- 
 wise attain. The Creator has sufficiently revealed to us that happi- 
 ness 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, Avhatever good may appear to 
 us likely to follow. Yet are we in no instance to inflict pain or suffer- 
 ing, 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 eflectually instructed to provide for 
 his own future Imppiness % Is the surgeon guilty of wrong who am- 
 putates a limb to preserve life ] Is it not the object of all penal legis- 
 lation, 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 labour, 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 mea- 
 sure 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 argimient for affording them the brief enjoy- 
 ment of which it is capable, ll 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 other- 
 wise have enjoyed it, and the enjoyment of their existence is better 
 
11 
 
 provided for while it lasts. It belongs to the being of superior facul- 
 ties to judge of the relations wliich 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 fii'st 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 dispa- 
 ragement to the dignity of human nature, even in its humblest form, 
 when I say that on the very same foundation, with the diflerence only 
 of circumstance and degree, rests tlie right of the civilized and culti- 
 vated man, over the savage and ignorant. It is the order of nature 
 and of Goil, 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 sufiering than brutes, with- 
 out 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 ob- 
 tain 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 
 liave been driven from their native seats and exterminated, and no 
 doubt with much justice. No doubt, much fraud and injustice has been 
 practised 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 1 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 1 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 
 only be tamed by being enslaved or by having slaves. By enslaving 
 alone could he have preserved tliem.* And who shall take upon liim- 
 self 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 applica- 
 tion to general nature, or the mass of human kind, which teaches that 
 existence is not the greatest of all boons, and worthy of being pre- 
 served 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 
 
 * I refer to President Dew on this subject. 
 
12 
 
 traces of ]iis blood will be found among our enslaved population* 
 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 th.e rights of man over inferior animals, 
 we arc referred to revelation, which pronounces — " ye shall have do- 
 minion over the beasts of the held, and over the fowls of the air," we 
 refer to the same which declares not the less explicitly — 
 
 " Both tlie bondmen and bondmaids which thou shalt have, shall 
 be of the Jieathenthat are among you. Of them shall you buy bond- 
 men and bondmaids." 
 
 " Moreover of the children of strangers that do sojourn among you, 
 of them shall ye buy, and of their tamilies 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 bondmen forever." 
 
 In moral investigations, ami^iguity is often occasioned by confound- 
 ing 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, practised 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 practised, the motive and tlie act were alike bad. But 
 if we could be sure that the entire cfiectof the trade has been to pro- 
 duce more happiness than Avould otherwise have existed, we must 
 pronounce it good, and that it has happened in the 'ordering of God's 
 providence, to Avhom 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 in- 
 flicted, 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 car- 
 ried 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 de- 
 termined 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 utihty. The Utilitarian Philosophy, as it is 
 commonly understood, referring oidy to the animal wants and en- 
 ]>loyments, and physical condition of man, is utterly false and degra- 
 ding. If a sufficiently extended definition be given to utility, so as to 
 
 * It is not uiicommon, especially in Charleston, to see slaves, after many descents 
 and having mingled tlieir blood with the Africans, possessing Indian liair and features. 
 
13 
 
 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 understanrling, the taste and the 
 imagination, Avith the animal enjoynionts of the senses — the gratifica- 
 tion derived from a line poem with that from a rich lianquet < How 
 are we to weigh the pains and enjoyments of one man highly cultiva- 
 ted and of great sensibility, against those of many men of blunter ca- 
 pacity for enjoyment or sufl'ering 1 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 whicli appears likely to produce the great- 
 est good, we are free fiom 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 ex- 
 pectation 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 Slave-Holding 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 uot exist in civi- 
 lized 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 m ill say, and not without confi- 
 dence, 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 developement of mo- 
 ral and intellectual excellence. It can hardly be necessary to say 
 any thing of those who ha\e extolled the superior virtues and enjoy- 
 ments of savage life — a life of physical wants and sufferings, of con- 
 tinual insecurity, of furious passions and depraved vices. Those who 
 
14 
 
 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 pro- 
 duce good, and promote the designs of the Creator. 
 
 I add further, that Slavery anticipates the henejits of civilization, and, 
 retards the evils of CIV iUzation. 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 vahic — 
 that it is hardly necessary to urge it.* Property — the accumulation 
 of capital, as it is commonly called, is the first element of civUization. 
 But to accumulate, or to use capital to any considerable extent, the 
 combination of labor is necessary. In early si ages of society, when 
 people are thinly scattered over an extensive teriitory, the labor neces- 
 sary to extensive works, cannot be commanded. Men are indepen- 
 dent 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 intellec- 
 tual 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 ex- 
 tent, 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 Slave-Holding States of our con- 
 federacy, 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, Avho 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 pur- 
 suits of commerce, or lately, by manufactures. But the products of Slave 
 labor furnish more than two-tbirds of the materials of our foreign com- 
 merce, which the industry of those States is employed in transporting 
 and exchanging ; and among the Slave-Holding 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 oAvn peculiar evils to mark it as the condition of mor- 
 
 *Tlie author of " Eugland and America" Wc do,' iTowcver, most indignantly 
 repudiate his conclusion, that we are bound to submit to a tariff of protection, as 
 an expedient for retaining our Slaves "the force of the whole Union, being required 
 to preserve Slavery, to keep down the Slaves." 
 
15 
 
 tality ; 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 eleva- 
 ted somewhat above it, which is to be found in some of the more thinly 
 peopled portions of our own country — the rudest agriculttiral state — 
 Avhich is thus characterized by the author to whom 1 have referred. 
 " The American of tiie backwoods has often been described to the 
 English as grossly ignorant, dirty, unsocial, delighting in rum and to- 
 bacco, 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 like- 
 ness. 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 ofter all that is desirable in existence, and realize another 
 Utopia. Let us suppose a state of society in which all shall have 
 })roperty, and there shall be no great inequality of property — in which 
 society shall be so much condensed as to aftbrd the means of social in- 
 tercourse, w itliout 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 diftused. Religion is taught, and 
 every village has its church, neat thou«h humble, lifting its spire to 
 Heaven. Here is a situation apparently the most favorable to happi- 
 ness. 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 pei-verse wills. Here is room 
 for all the petty competition, the envy, hatred, malice and dissimula- 
 tion, that torture the heart in what may be supposed the most sophisti- 
 cated 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 crea- 
 ted, 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 
 
16 
 
 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 
 societj, 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 cannot continue. Mutation and 
 progress is the condition of human atfairs. 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 dif- 
 ficulty 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 obtain- 
 ing employment. Then competition is established. The remunera- 
 tio.i of the labor 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 encls in the establishment of such a state of things, as the 
 same author describes as now existing in England. After a most im- 
 posing picture of her greatness and resources; of her superabounding 
 capital, and all-pervading industry and enterprize ; of her public in- 
 stitutions 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 employ- 
 ments; of all, in short, that places her at the head of modern civili- 
 zation, 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 v/hich English writers and speakers 
 usually describe those whose only property is their labor." 
 
 " Of comprehensive words, the two most frequently used in Englisfi 
 politics, are distress and pauperism. After these, of expressions ap- 
 plied to the state of the poor, the most common ai-e 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 repre- 
 .sentation is substantially just. Where so much misery exists, there 
 must of course be mucli 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 legis- 
 lation may have sometimes aggravated the general suffering, or that 
 
17 
 
 its extremity may be mitigated by the well directed eftbrts of the wise 
 and virtuous, there can be no doubt. One purpose for whicii it has 
 been permitted to exist is, that it may call forth such efforts, and awa- 
 ken powers and virtues wliich 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 suifer 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. Wc can estimate but very, very im- 
 perfectly the good and evil of individual condition, as of ditlerent 
 states of society. Some unexpected solace arises to animate the seve- 
 rest calamity. Wonderful is the power of custom, in making the 
 hardest condition tolerable ; the most generally wretched life, has cir- 
 cumstances of mitigation, and moments of vivid enjoyment, of which 
 the more seemingly happy can scarcely conceive; though the lives of 
 individuals bg 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 per- 
 fectly analyze the enjoyments and sutferings 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 pro- 
 gress, when there is a certain balance between the demand for labor, 
 and the supply of it, which is more desirable tiian any other — when 
 the territory is so thickly peopled that all cannot own land and culti- 
 vate the soil for themselves, but a portion will be compelled to sell their 
 labor to others; still leaving, however, the wages of labor hifih, 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 suftering, 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 consum- 
 mately skilful can be sure to be employed. Nothing but necessity 
 can drive men to the exertions which are necessary so to qualify them- 
 selves. But it is not in arts, merely mechanical alone, that this supe- 
 rior excellence will be required. It will be extended to every intellectual 
 employment; and though this may not be the eftect in the instance of 
 3 
 
18 
 
 every individual, yet it will fix the liabits and character of the society, 
 and prescribe every where, and in every department, the highest pos- 
 sible standard of attainnieiit. 
 
 But how is it that the existence of Slavery as with us, will retard the 
 evils of civilization 'i Very obviously. It is the intense competition 
 of civilized life, that gives rise to the excessive clieapness 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. Politi- 
 cal economists have established as the natural standard of wages in a 
 fully peopled country, the value of the laborer's subsistence. J shall 
 not stop Jo inquire into the precise truth of this proposition. It cer- 
 tainly approximates the truth. Whei-e competition is intense, men 
 will labor for a bare subsistence, and less than a competent sub- 
 sistence. 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 sutferiags of infancy, sickness, and 
 old age. Laborers too will be less skilful, 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 re- 
 ceived the benefit of the laborer's services during his health and vigor, 
 should maintain him when lie becomes unable to provide for his own 
 suppoxt. They answer their purpose, however, very imperfectly, and 
 are unjustly, and unequally imposed. There is no attempt to appor- 
 tion the burden according to the benefit received — and perhaps there 
 oould 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 suifer a further loss, we cannot 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 manaffn- 
 ment. If the income of every planter of the Southern States, m. e 
 permanently reduced one half, or even much more than that, it wo id 
 not take one jot from the support and comforts of the Slaves. And 
 this can never be materially altered, until they shall become so unpr j- 
 fitable that Slavery must be of necessity abandoned. It is probable 
 that the accumulation of individual wealth will never be carried to 
 ([uite so great an extent in a Slave-Holding country, as in one of free 
 labor ; but a consequence will be, that there will be less inequality and 
 less sufi'eruig. 
 
19 
 
 Servitude is the condition of civilization. It was decreed, when the 
 command was given, " be fruitful, and multiply and replemsh the 
 earth, and subdue it," and when it was added, " in the sweat of thy 
 face shalt thou eat bread." And what luiman being shall arrogate to 
 himself tlic authority to pronounce tliat our form of it is worse m itself, 
 or more displeasing to God than tliat wliich exists elsewhere ] Shall 
 it be said that the servitude of other coimtries grows out of the exi- 
 gency of their circurastances,'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 
 hiive 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, neitlier deprecate 
 nor resent the gift. Nor did we institute Slavery. The Atricans 
 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 de- 
 clares, 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 Avithout blenching, the actual and alleged evils of 
 Slavery, and the array of horrors which many suppose to be its uni- 
 versal 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 la- 
 bor, degi-ading 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 intellec- 
 tual, moral, or religious improvement, and even positive enactments 
 are directed against his acquiring tlic 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 depri- 
 
-20 
 
 ved of the strongest incentive to useful and praiseworthy exertion ', 
 his physical degradation begets a corresponding moral degradation j 
 he is without moral principle, and addicted to the lowest vices, parti- 
 cularly theft and falsehood; if marriage be not disallowed, it is little 
 better than a state of concubinage, from which results general licen- 
 tiousness, and the want of chastity amongfemales — this indeed is not 
 protected by law, but is subject to the outrages of brutal lust ; both 
 Bexes are liable to have their dearest affections violated ; to be sold 
 like brutes; husbands to be torn from wives, children from pai-ents ; — 
 this is the picture commonly presented by the denouncers of Slavery. 
 
 It is a somewhat singular fact, that when there existed in our State 
 no law for punishing the murder of a slave, other than a pecuniary 
 fine, there were, I will venture to say, at least ten murders of free- 
 men, for one murder of a slave. Yet it is supposed they are less 
 protected, or less secure than their masters. Why they ai'e protected 
 by their very situation in society, and therefore less need the protec- 
 tion of law. With any other person than their master, it is hardly 
 possible for them to come into such sort of collision as usually gives 
 rise to furious and revengeful passions ; they offer no temptation to 
 the murderer for gain ; against the master himself, they have the secu- 
 rity of his own interest, and by his superintendence and authority, they 
 are protected from the revengeful passions of each other. I am by no 
 means sure that the cause of humanity has been served by the change 
 in jurisprudence, which has placed their murder on the same footing 
 with that of a freeman. The change was made in subserviency to the 
 opinions and clamor of others, who were utterly incompetent to form 
 an opinion on the subject ; and a wise act is seldom the result of le- 
 gislation in this spirit. From the fact which I have stated, it is plain 
 that they less need protection Juries are, therefore, less willing to 
 convict, and it may sometimes happen that the guilty will escape all 
 punishment. Hecuritij is one of the compensations of their humble 
 position. We challenge the comparison, that with us there have been 
 fewer murders of Slaves, than of parents, children, apprentices, and 
 other murders, cruel and unnatural, in society where Slavery does 
 not exist. 
 
 But short of life or limb, various cruelties may be practised as the 
 passions of the master may dictate. To this the same reply has beerl 
 often given — that they are secured by the master's interest. If the 
 state of Slavery is to exist at all, the master must have, and ought to 
 have, such power of punishment as will compel them to perform the 
 duties of their station. And is not this for their advantage as well 
 as his ? No human being can be contented, who does not perform 
 the duties of his station. Has the master any temptation to go be- 
 yond this % If he inflicts on him such punishment as will perma- 
 nently impair his strength, he inflicts a loss on himself, and so if he 
 requires of him excessive labor. Compare the labor required of the 
 Slave, with those of the free agricultural, or manufacturing laborer 
 in Europe, or even in the more thickly peopled portions of the non- 
 Slave-Holding States of our Confederacy — though these last are uo^ 
 
21 
 
 fair subjects of comparison — they enjoying, as I have saitl, in a great 
 degi-ee, the advantages of Slavery along.with those of an early and 
 simple state of society, Kead the English Parliamentary reports, 
 on the condition of the manufacturing operatives, and the children 
 employed in factories. And such is the impotence of man to reme- 
 dy the evils which the condition of his existence has imposed on him, 
 that it is much to be doubted whether the attempts by legislation to 
 improve their situation, will not aggravate its evils. They resort to 
 this excessive labor as a choice of evils. If so, the amount of their 
 compensation will be lessened also with the diminished labor ; for 
 this is a matter which legislation cannot regulate. Is it the part of 
 benevolence then to cut them off' even from this miserable liberty of 
 choice ? Yet would these evils exist in the same degree, if the labo- 
 rers were the property of the master — having a direct interest in pre- 
 serving their lives, their health and strength 1 Who but a drivelling 
 fanatic, has thought of the necessity of protecting domestic animals 
 from the cruelty of their owners 1 And yet are not great and wan- 
 ton cruelties practised on these animals % Compare the whole of 
 the cruelties inflicted on Slaves throughout our Southern country, 
 with those elsewhere, inflicted by ignorant and depraved portions of 
 the community, on those whom the relations of society put into their 
 power — of brutal husbands on their wives ; of brutal parents — sub- 
 dued against the strongest instincts of nature to that brutality by the 
 extremity of their misery — on their children; of brutal maste:r ~n 
 apprentices. And if it should be asked, are not similar cruelties in- 
 flicted, and miseries endured in your society % I answer in no com- 
 parable degree. The class in question are placed under the control 
 of others, who are interested to restrain their excesses of cruelty or 
 rage. Wives are protected fiom their husbands, and children from 
 their parents. And this is no inconsiderable compensation of the 
 evils of our system ; and would so appear, if we could form any 
 conception of the immense amount of misery which is elsewhere thus 
 inflicted. The other class of society, more elevated in their position, 
 are also (speaking of course in the general) more elevated in charac- 
 ter, and more responsible to public opinion. 
 
 But besides the interest of their master, there is another security 
 against cruelty. The relation of Master and Slave, when there is no 
 mischievous interference between them, is as the experience of all 
 the world declares, naturally one of kindness. As to the fact, we 
 should be held interested witnesses, but we appeal to universal na- 
 ture. Is it not natural that a man should be attached to that which is 
 This ovm, and which has contributed to his convenience, his enjoyment, 
 or his vanity ? This is felt even towards animals, and inanimate ob- 
 jects. How much more towards a being of superior intelligence and 
 usefulness, who can appreciate our feelings towards him, and return 
 them ] Is it not natural that we should be interested in that which is 
 dependant onus for protection and support? Do not men every 
 where contract kind feelings towards their dependants % Is it not 
 natural that men should be more attached to those -vvhom they have 
 
22 
 
 long known — whom, perhaps, they have reared or been associated 
 with from infancy — than to one with whom their connexion has been 
 casual and temporary 1 What is there in our atmosphere or institu- 
 tions, to produce a perversion of the general feeHngs of nature 1 To 
 be sure, in this as in all other relations, there is frequent cause of of- 
 fence or excitement — on one side, for some omission of duty, on the 
 other, on account of reproof or punishment inflicted. But this is 
 common to the relation of j^arent and child; and I will venture to 
 say that if punishment be justly inflicted — and there is no temptation 
 to inflict it unjustly — it is as little likely to occasion permanent es- 
 trangement or resentment as in that case. Slaves are perpetual chil- 
 dren. It is not the common nature of man, unless it be depraved by 
 his own misery, to delight in witnessing pain. It is more grateful to 
 behold contented and cheerful beings, than sullen and wretched ones. 
 That men are sometimes wayward, depraved and brutal, we know. 
 That atrocious and brutal cruelties have been perpetrated on Slaves, 
 and on those who were not Slaves, by such wretches, we also know. 
 But that the institution of Slavery has a natural tendency to form 
 such a character, that such crimes are more common, or more aggra- 
 vated than in other states of society, or produce among us less sur- 
 prise and horror,*\ve utterly deny, and challenge the comparison. 
 Indeed I have little hesitation in saying, that if full evidence could be 
 obtained, the comparison would result in our favor, and that the ten- 
 dency of Slavery is rather to humanize than to brutalize. 
 
 The accounts of travellers in oriental countries, give a very favora- 
 ble representation of the kindly relations which exist between the 
 Master and Slave ; the latter being often the friend, and sometimes the 
 heir of the fomier. Generally, however, especially if they be English 
 travellers — if they say any thing which may seem to give a favorable 
 complexion to Slavery, they think it necessary to enter their protest, 
 that they shall not be taken to give any sanction to Slavery as it exists 
 in America. Yet human nature is the same in all countries. There 
 ai*e very obvious reasons why in those countries there should be a 
 nearer approach to equality in their manners. The master and Slave 
 are often of cognate races, and therefore tend more to assimilate. 
 There is in fact less inequality in mind and character, where the mas- 
 ter is but imperfectly civilized. Less labor is exacted, because the 
 master has fewer motives to accumulate. But is it an injury to a 
 human being, that regular, if not excessive labor should be required 
 of him ] The primeval curse, with the usual benignity of providen- 
 tial contrivance, has been turned into the solace of an existence that 
 Avould be much more intolerable without it. If they labor less, they 
 are much more subject to the outrages of capricious passion. If it 
 were put to tlie choice of any human being, would he prefer to be the 
 Slave of a civilized man, or of a barbarian or semi-barbarian 1 But 
 if the general tendency of the institution in those countries is to cre- 
 ate kindly relations, can it be imagined why it should operate diffe- 
 rently in^this ] It is true, as suggested by President Dew — with the 
 exception of the ties of close consanguinity, it forms one' of the most 
 
2» 
 
 intimate relations of society. AnJ it will be more and more so, the 
 longer it continues to exist. The harshest features of Slavery were 
 created by those who were strangers to Slavery — who supposed that 
 it consisted in keeping savages in subjection by violence and terror. 
 The severest laws to be found on our statute book, were enacted by 
 such, and such are still found to be the severest masters. As society 
 becomes settled, and the wandering habits of our countrymen altered, 
 there will be a larger and larger proportion of those who were reared 
 by the owner, or derived to him from his ancestors, and who there- 
 fore will 1)0 more and more intimately regarded, as forming a portion 
 of his family. 
 
 It is true that the Slave is driven to labor by stripes ; and if the ob- 
 ject of punishment be to produce obedience or reformation, with the 
 least permanent injury, it is the best method of punishment. But is it 
 not intolerable, that a being formed in the image of his B'laker, should 
 be degraded by hloios ? This is one of the perversions of mind and 
 feeling, to which I shall have occasion again to refer. Such punish- 
 ment would be degrading to a freeman, who had the thoughts and 
 aspirations of a freeman. In general it is not degrading to a Slave, 
 nor is it felt to be so. The evil is the bodily pain. Is it degi'ading to 
 a child ] Or if in any particular instance it would be so felt, it is sure 
 not to be inflicted — unless in those rare cases which constitute the 
 startling and eccentric evils, from which no society is exempt, and 
 against which no institutions of society can provide. 
 
 The ^ilave is cut off from the means of intellectual, moral, and reli- 
 gious improvement, and in consequence his moral character becomes 
 depraved, and he addicted to degrading vices. The Slave receives 
 such instruction as qualifies him to discharge the duties of his particu- 
 lar station. The Creator did not intend that every individual human 
 being should be highly cultivated, morally and intellectually, for as we 
 have seen, he has imposed conditions on society which would render 
 this impossible. There must be general mediocrity, or the highest 
 cultivation must exist along with ignorance, vice, and degi-adation. But 
 is there in the aggregate of society, less opportunity for intellectual 
 and moral cultivation, on account of the existence of Slavery 1 We 
 must estimate institutions from their aggregate of good or evil. I 
 refer to the views which I have before expressed to this society. It is 
 by the existence of Slavery, exempting so Jarge a portion of our citi- 
 zens from the necessity of bodily labor, that we have a greater propor- 
 tion than any other people, who have leisure for intellectual pursuits, 
 and the means of attaining a liberal education. If we throw away 
 this opportunity, we shall be morally responsible for the neglect or 
 abuse of our advantages, and shall most unquestionably pay the pe- 
 nalty. But the blame will rest on ourselves, and not on the character 
 of our institutions. 
 
 I add further, notwithstanding ihdX equality seem^ to be the passion 
 of the day, if, as Providence has evidently decreed, there can be but 
 a certain portion of intellectual excellence in any community, it is 
 better that it should be unequally divided. It is better that a part 
 
24 
 
 should be fully, and higldy cultivated, and the rest utterly ignorant. 
 To constitute a society, a variety of offices must be discharged, from 
 those requiring but the lowest degree of intellectual power, to those 
 requiring the very highest, and it should seem that the endowments 
 ought to be apportioned according to the exigencies of the situation. 
 In the course of human affairs, there arise difficulties which can only 
 be comprehended, or surmounted by the strongest native power of 
 intellect, strengthened by the most assiduous exercise, and enriched 
 with tlie most extended knowledge — and even these are sometimes 
 found inadequate to the exigency. The first want of society is — 
 leaders. Who shall estimate the value to Athens, of Solon, Aris- 
 tides, TKemistocles, Cymon, or Pericles ] If society have not lea- 
 ders qualified as I have said, they will have those who will lead them 
 blindly to their loss and ruin. Men of no great native power of in- 
 tellect, and of imperfect and superficial knowledge, are the most 
 mischievous of all — none are so busy, meddling, confident, presump- 
 tuous, and intolerant. The whole of society receives the benefit of 
 the exertions of a mind of extraordinary endowments. Of all com- 
 munities, one of the least desirable, would be that in which imperfect, 
 superficial, half-education should be universal. The first care of a 
 State which regards its own safety, prosperity and honor, should be, 
 that when minds of extraordinary power appear, to whatever depart- 
 ment of knowledge, art or science, their exertions may be directed, 
 the means should be provided of their most consummate cu.ltivation. 
 Next to this, that education should be as widely extended as possible. 
 Odium has been cast upon our legislation, on account of its for- 
 bidding the elements of echication to be communicated to Slaves. 
 But in truth what injury is done to them by this 1 He who works 
 during the day with his hands, does not read in intervals of leisure 
 for his amusement, or the improvement of his mind — or the excep- 
 tions are so very rare, as scarcely to need the being provided for. Of 
 the many Slaves whom I have known capable of reading, I have 
 never known one to read any thing but the Bible, and this task they 
 impose on themselves as matter of duty. Of all methods of reli- 
 gious instruction, however, this, of reading for themselves would be 
 the most inefficient — their comprehension is defective, and the em- 
 ployment is to them an imusual and laborious one. There are but 
 very few who do not enjoy other means, more effectual for religious 
 instruction. There is no place of worship opened for the white 
 pop"^"tion, from which they are excluded. I believe it a mistake, to 
 say liiai the instructions there given are not adapted to their compre- 
 hension, or calculated to improve them. If they are given as they 
 ought to be — practically, and without pretension, aiid are such as are 
 generally intelligible to the free part of the audience, comprehending 
 all grades of intellectual capacity, they will not be unintelligible to 
 Slaves. I doubt whether this be not better than instruction, addressed 
 specially to themselves — which they might look upon as a device of 
 the master's, to make them more obedient and profitable to himself. 
 Their minds, generally, shew a strong religious tendency, and they 
 
&r6 foiul of assuming llie office of religioils ihsttuctel's loeacli othfer', 
 and perhaps their religious notions are not much mf)re extravagant 
 than those of a large portion of the fi-ee population of our countryt 
 I am ilot sure that there is a much smaller pioportion of them, than of 
 the free population, who make some sort of l-eligious profession. It 
 is ceitainly the master's interest that they should havepropeV religious 
 sentiments, and if he fails in his duty towards them, we may be sure 
 that the consequences will be visited not upon them, but upon him. 
 
 If there were any chartce of their elevating their rank and condition 
 in society, it might be matter of liaidship, tliat they should be de^ 
 barred those rudiments of knowledge which open the way to fuither 
 attainments. But this they know cannot be, and that fuither attain- 
 ments would be useless to them. Of the evil of this, I shall speak 
 hereafter; A knowledge of reading, writing, and the elements of 
 arithmetic, is Convenient and important to the free laborer, who is 
 the transactor of his own affairs, and the guardian of his own inte- 
 l-e<5t;s — but of wh-it use would they be to the slave 1 These al<me do 
 not elevate the mind or character, if such elevation were desiral)le. 
 
 If we estimate their morals act^ording to that which should be the 
 standard of a free man's morality, then I grant they are degiaded in 
 morals — though by no means to the extent wiiich those who are un- 
 acquainted with the institution seem to suppose. We justly suppo?e> 
 that the Creator will require of man; the performance of the duties of 
 the station in which his Providence has placed him, and the cultivition 
 of the virtues which are adapted to their performance; that he will 
 make allov/ance for all imperfection of knowledge, and the absence of 
 the usual helps and motives whicli lead to self correction and improve- 
 ment The degi-udatioti of morals relates principally to loo?e noliors 
 of honesty, leading to petty thefts ; to falsehood and to licenticus in* 
 tercourse between the sexes. Though with resj-ect even to these, I 
 protest against the opinion which seems to be elsewhere enteitaincd, 
 that tliey arc universal, or that slaves, in respect to them, might not 
 Well bear a comparison with the lowest laborious class of other coun^ 
 tries. But certainly there is much dishonesty leading to petty thefts. 
 It leads, however, to nothing else. They have no contracts or dea-* 
 lings which might be a temptation to fraud, nor do I know that their 
 characters have any tendency that way. They are restrained by the 
 constant, vijrilant, and interested superintendence which is exerc sad 
 over them, from the commission of otfences of greater magnitude— 'cven 
 ifthev were disposed to them — which I am satisfied they are not. 
 Notliinor is so rarely heard of, as an atrocious crime c<nnmitted by a 
 slave ; especially since they have worn off the savage character which 
 their progenitors brought with them fiom Africa. Their offences are 
 confined to petty depredations, principally for the gratification of their 
 appetites, and these for reasons already given, are chiefly confined to 
 the property of their owner, which is most exposed to theniv They 
 could make no use of a considerable booty, if they should obtain it, 
 It is plain that this is a less evil to society in its consequences and 
 example, than if committed by a freeman, whg iw master of his owa 
 4 
 
3C 
 
 time and actions. "With reference to society tiien, tiie oftence is les* 
 in itself — rind may we not hope that it is less in the sight of God. A 
 slave has no hope that hy a course of integrity, he can materially ele- 
 vate his condition in society, nor csin iiis offence materially depress it, 
 or aff.^ct his means of support, or that of his family. Compared to 
 the freeman, he has no character to establish or to lose. He has not 
 been exercised to self-government, and being without intelieclual re- 
 sources, can less resist the solicitations of appetite. Theft in a free- 
 mnn is a crime; in a slave, it is a vice. I recollect to have heard it 
 said, in reference to some (]i?estion of a slave's theft which was agi- 
 tated in a Court, " Courts of Justice have no more to do with a slave's 
 stealing, than with his lying — that is a matter for the domestic forum." 
 It was truly said — the theft of a slave is no offence against society^ 
 Compare ail the evils resulting from this, with the enormous amount 
 of vice, crime and depravity, which in an European, or one of our 
 Northern cities, disgusts the moral feelings, and. render life and pro- 
 perty insecure. So with respect to his fdsehood. I have never heard 
 or observed, that slaves have any peculiar proclivity to falsehood, un- 
 l3ss it he ill denying, or concealinof their own offences, or those of 
 their fellows. I have never heard of falsehood told by a slave for a 
 in dicious purpose. Lies of vanity are sometimes told, as amony the 
 weak and igimrant of other conditions. Falsehood is not attributed 
 to an individud charged with an offence before a Court of" Justice, who 
 pleaJs nift guiltij — - md certainly the strong temptation to escape puu- 
 ishmen% in the highest degree extenuates, if it does not excuse, false- 
 hood told by a slain'. If the object be to screen a fellow slave, the act 
 bears some semblance of hdelity, and perhaps truth could not be told 
 without breach of confidence. 1 know not how to characterize the 
 falsehood of a slave. 
 
 it has often been said by the denouncers of Slavery, that marriage 
 does not exist among slavt's. It isclilhcult to understand this, unless 
 wilful falsehdod were intended. We know timt marriages are con- 
 tracted ; may be, and often are, solemnized with the forms usual 
 amoanf other classes of society, and often faithfully adhered to du- 
 ring life. The law has not provided for makins" those marriages in- 
 dissoluble, nor coidd it do so- If a man abandons his wife, being 
 without property, and being both property themselves, he cannot be 
 FRijuired to maintain her. If he abandons his wife, and lives in a state 
 of co.icidiinaire with another, the law cannot punish him for bigamy. 
 It mav perhaps be meant that the chastity of wives is not protected 
 by law from the outrages of violence. I answer, as with respect to 
 their lives, that they are protected by manners, and their position. 
 Who ever heard of such outrages being offered ? At least as seldom, 
 I will ven'ure to say, as in other communities of different forms of 
 polity* Our reason doubtless may be, that often there is no disposi- 
 tio 1 to resist. Another reason also may be, that there is little tempta 
 tion to such violence, as there is so large a proportion of this class of 
 familes who set little value on chastity, and afford easy gi-atification to 
 tlte bot pasatous of men. It migUt U: supposed, from tiie i-cpreseat^ 
 
tions of some \rritGrs, that a slave-holding country were oor wide 
 stew for the indulgiiiice of unbridled lust. Particular instan:;es of in- 
 temperate and sliam^less dshauchery are related, \vh':cli may per- 
 haps be true, and it is left to be inferred that this is the universal state 
 of m.inners. Brutes and shameless debauchees there are in every 
 country; w^ know th:it if such things are related as general or cha- 
 racteristic, the re|)resent:iti()n is false. Who would argue from the 
 existence of a Col. Chartres in England, or of some individuals who 
 might, perhaps, be named in other portions of this country, of the 
 horrid dissoluteness of manners occasiuned by the want of the insti- 
 tution of Slavery. Yet the argument might be urged quite as fairl}', 
 and really it seems to me with a little more justice — for there such 
 depravity is attended with much more pernicious consequences. Yet 
 let us not deny or extenuate the truth. It is true that in this respect 
 the morals of this class arc very loose, (by no means so universally so 
 as is often supposed,) and that the passions of men of the superior 
 caste, tempt and lind gratification in the easy chastity of the females. 
 This is evil, and to be remedied, if we can do so, without the intro- 
 duction of greater evil. But evil is incident to every condition of so- 
 ciety, and as I have said, we have only to consider in which institution 
 it most predominates. 
 
 Compare these prostitutes of our country, (if it is not injustice to 
 call them so,) and their condition with those of other countries — the 
 seventy thousand prostitutes of London, or of Paris, or the ten thou- 
 sand of New- York, or our other Aorthern cities. Take the pic'ure 
 given of the first from the author whom I have before quoted. " The 
 laws and customs of England, conspire to sink this class of English 
 women into a state of vice and misery, below that which necessarily 
 belongs to their condition. Hence, their extreme degradation, their 
 troopers' oaths, their love of <rin, their <lesperate recklessness, and 
 the shortness of then- miserable lives." 
 
 " English women of this class, or rather ffirls, for few of them live 
 to be women, die like sheep with the rot ; so fast that soon there would 
 be none lefr, if a fresh supply wcn^ not obtained equ.d to the number 
 of deaths. But a fresh supply is always obtained without the least 
 trouble : seduction easily keeps pace with prostitution or moitality. 
 Those that die are, like factory children that die, instantly succeeded 
 by new competitors for misery and death," There is no hour of a 
 summer's or a wiiUer's night, i:i which there may not be found in the 
 streets a gh is:lv wretch, expiring under the double tortures of disease 
 and fimiiie. Thongli less aggravated in its features, the picture of 
 prostitution in New-York or Philadelphia would be oflike character. 
 
 In such communities, the unmarried woman who becomes a mo- 
 ther, is an outc ist from soci'-ty — ind though sentimentalists lament 
 the hardship of the case, it is justly and necessarily so. She is cut off 
 from the hope of useful and profii able employment, and driven by ne- 
 cessity to further vice, ijcr misery, and the hopelessness of retriev- 
 ing, render her desperate, u)itil slic siidis in o every depth of depravity, 
 aad is prepared for every crime that cuu coutamiuate aud iuf«»( 89ei««' 
 
9B 
 
 ty. She has given birth to a human being, who, if it be so unfortu- 
 nate as to survive its miserable infVincy, is commonly educated to a 
 like course of vice, depravity and crime. 
 
 Compare with this tije female slave under similar circumstances. 
 She is not a less useful member of society than before. If shame 
 be attached to her conduct, it is such shame as would be elsewhere 
 felt for a venial impropriety. She has not impaired her means of 
 support, nor materially impaired her character, or lowered her station 
 in society ; she has done no great injury to herself, or any other hu- 
 man being. Her oflspring is not a burden, but an acquisition to her 
 owner; bis support is provided for, and he is brought up to usefulness j 
 if the IVuit of intercourse with a freeman, his condition is, perhaps, 
 raised somewhat above that of his mother. Under these circum- 
 stances, with imperfect knowledge, tempted by the strongest of hu- 
 man passions — unrestrained by the motives which operate to restrain, 
 but are so often found insufficient to restrain the conduct of females 
 elsewhere, can it be matter of surprise that she should so often yield 
 to the temptation 1 Is not the evil less in itself, and in reference to 
 society-— much less in the sight of God and man. As was said of 
 th, t — the want of chastity, which among females of other countries, 
 is sometimes vice, sometimes crime — among the free of our own, much 
 more aggravated ; among slaves, hardly deserves a harsher turn than 
 tha' of weakness, I have heard of complaint made by a free pros- 
 titute, of the greater countenance and indulgence shewn by society 
 towards colored persons of her profession, (always regarded as of an 
 inferior and servile class, though individually free,) than to those of 
 her own complexion. The former readily obtain employment; are 
 even admitted into families, and treated with some degree of kindness 
 and familiarity, while any approach to intercourse with the latter is 
 shuinied as contamination. The distinction is habitually made, and 
 it is foinided on the unerring instinct of nature. The colored prosti- 
 tute is, in foct, a far less contaminated and depraved being. Still 
 many, in spile of temptation, do preserve a perfectly virtuous conduct, 
 and I imagine it barilly ever entered into the mind of one of these, 
 that she was likely to be forced from it by authority or violence. 
 
 It may be asked, if we have no prostitutes from the free class of 
 society among ourselves. I answer in no assignable proportion. "With 
 general truth, it might be said, that there are none. When such a 
 case occurs, it is among the rare evils of society. And apart from 
 other and better reasons, which we believe to exist, it is plain that it 
 must be so, from the comparative absence of temptation. Our 
 brtjtbels, comparatively very few — -and these should not be permitted to 
 exisi; at all — are filled, for the most part, by importation from the cities 
 of our confederate States,^ where Slavery does not exist. In return 
 for the benefits which they receive from oiu- Slavery, along with tariffs, 
 bbels, opinions moral, religious, or political--»they furnish us also 
 with a supply of thieves and prostitutes. Never, but in a single in- 
 stance, have I heard of an imputation on the general purity of man- 
 «ers, among tiie free females of the slave-holding States, Such aa 
 
a) 
 
 imputation, however, antl made in coarse terms, we have never heard 
 },ere — Jure when^ divorce was never kno'.vn — where no Court was ever 
 polluted hv an action for criminal conversation with a wife — where it 
 is related rather as matter of tradition, not unmingled with wonder, 
 that a Carolinian woman of education and family, proved false to her 
 conjugal faith — an imputation descrvinir only of such reply as self-re- 
 spect would forbid us to jrive, if respect for the author of it did not. 
 And can it be doubted, that this purity is caused by, and is a com- 
 pensation for the evils resulting from the existence of an enslaved class 
 of more relaxed morals? 
 
 It is mostly the warm passions of youth, which give rise to licen- 
 tious intercourse. But 1 do not hesitate to say, that the intercourse 
 which takes place with enslaved females, is less depraving in its eflects, 
 than when it is carried on with females of their own caste. In the first 
 place, as like attracts like, that which is unlike repels ; and though the 
 strength of passion be sufficient to overcome the repulsion, still the at- 
 traction is less. He feels that he is connecting himself with one of an 
 inferior and servile caste, and that there is something of degradation in 
 the act. The intercourse is generally casual ; he does not make her 
 habitually an associate, and is less likely to receive any taint from her 
 habits and manners. He is less liable to those cxtraordinaiy fascina- 
 tions, Avith which worthless women sometimes entangle their victims, 
 to the utter destruction of all })rinciple, worth and vigor of character, 
 The female of his own race offers greater allurements. The haunrs 
 of vice often present a sliew of elegance, and various luxury tempts 
 the senses. They are made an habitual resort, and their inmates as- 
 sociates, till the general character receives a taint from the corrupted 
 atmosphere. Not only the practice is licentious, but the understanding 
 is sophisticated ; the moral feelings are bewildered, and the boundaries 
 of virtue and vice confused. Where such licentiousness \ery exten-- 
 sively prevails, society is rotten to the heart. 
 
 But is it a small compensatioji for the evils attending the relation of 
 the sexes among the enslaved class, that they have "universally the 
 opportunity of indulg-ng the first instinct ofnatm-e, bv forming matri- 
 nmnial connexions 1 What painful restraint — what constant eftbrt to 
 struggle against the strongest impulses, are habitually practised else^ 
 where, and by other classes 'i And they must be practised, unless 
 greater evils would he encountered. On the one side, all the evils of 
 vice, with the miseries to which it leads — on the other, a marriao-e 
 cursed and made hateful by want— the sufl'erings of children, and 
 agonizmg apprehensions concerning their fiiture fate. Is it a small 
 good, that the slave is free from all this ] He knows that his own 
 subsistence is secure, and that his children will be in as good a condi, 
 tion as himself To a refined and intellectual nature, it may not be 
 dithcuh topra tise the restraint of which I have spoken. But the 
 reasoning from such to the great mass of mankind, is most fallacious, 
 lo these, the supply of their natural and physical wants, and the in- 
 dulgence of the natural domestic afibc tions, must, for the most part. 
 Bttord the greatest good pf wlUch thej are capable To the evils 
 
30 
 
 which sometimes attend tiieir matrimonial connexions, aiisino- from 
 their looser morality, slaves, for cbri )us reasons, are comparatively 
 insensible. I am no apologist of vice, nor would I extenuate the 
 conduct of the profligate and unfeeling, who would violate the sanctity 
 of even these engagements, and occasion the pain which such violations 
 no doubt do often inflict. Yet such is the truth, and we cannot make 
 it otherwise. We know, that a woman's having been before a mother, 
 is very seldom indeed an oijjection to her being made a wife. I 
 know perfectly well how this will be regarded by a class of reasoners 
 or declaimers, as imposing a character of deeper horror on the whole 
 system ; but still, I will say, that if they are to be exposed to tiie evil, 
 it is mercy that the sensibility to it should be bluirted. Is it no com- 
 pensation also for the vices incident to Slavery, that they are, to a 
 great degree, secured against the temptation to greater crimes, and 
 more atrocious vices, and the miseries which attend them ; a"-aiiist 
 their own disposhion to indolence, and the profligacy which is its com- 
 mon result 1 
 
 But if they are subject to the vices, they have also the virtues of 
 slaves. Fidelity— often proof against all temptation — even death it- 
 self — an eminently cheerful and social temper — what the Bible im- 
 poses as a duty, but which might seem an equivocal viitue in the cade 
 of modern morality — -submission to constituted authorilv, and a dis- 
 position to be attached to, as well as to respect those whom they are 
 taught to regard as suj>eriors. They may have all the knowledge 
 which will make.them useful in the station in which God has been 
 pleased to place them, and may cultivate the virtues which will render 
 them acceptable to him. But what has the slave of any country^o 
 do with heroic virtues, liberal knowledge, or elegant accoinplishmerM ? 
 Jt is for the master ; arising out of his situation — imposed on him as 
 jduty — dangerous and disgraceful if neglected— to compensate for 
 this, by his own more assiduous cultivation, of the more generous vir- 
 tues, and liberal attainments. 
 
 It has been supposed one of the great evils of Slavery, that it af- 
 fords tiie slave no opportunity of raising himself to a higher rank in 
 society, and that he has, therefore, no inducement to meritorious exer- 
 tion, or the cultivation of his faculties. The indolence and careless- 
 ness of the slave, and the less productive quality of his lab^r,* ai'e 
 traced to the want of such excitement. The first compensation for 
 this disadvantage, is his security. If he can rise no higher, he is just 
 in the same degree secured against the chanCes of falling lower. It 
 has been sometimes made a q^uestion whether it were better for man 
 to be freed from the perturbations of ho|)e and fvar, or to be exposed to 
 their vicissitudes. But I suppose there could be little question with 
 respect to a situation, in which the fears must greatly predominate over 
 the hopes. And such, I apprehend, to be the condition of the laboring 
 poor in countries where Slavery do-^^s not exist. If not exposed to 
 present sufterinir, there is continual apprehension for the future — for 
 themselves — for^their children— -of sickness and want, if not of actual 
 starvatiotj. They expect to improve theii- circumstaaces ! WquIU 
 
any person ot onlinary candor, say that there is one in a hundred oi 
 them, who does not well knovr, that with all tiie exertion lie can makCi 
 it is out of his power materially to improve his circumstances ? I 
 speak not so much of menial servants, who are j>;cnerally of a snpe- 
 rior class, as of the agricultural and nKinufacturing laborers. They 
 labor with no such view. It is the instinctive strusgle to preserve 
 existence, and when the superior efficiency of their labor over that of 
 oiy slaves is pointed oUtj as being animated by a free man's hopes, 
 might it not well be replied— it is because they labor under a sterner 
 compulsion. The laws interpose no obstacle to their raising their 
 condition in society. ''J'is a great boon — but as to the great mass, they 
 know that they never will be able to raise it — and it should seem not 
 very important in effect, whether it be the interdict of law, or imposed 
 by the circumstances of the society. One in a thousand is successful. 
 But does iiis success compensate for the sutierinas of the many who 
 are tantalized, baffled, and tortured in vain attempts to attfpn a like 
 result ? If the individual be conscious of intellectual power, the suffer- 
 ing is greater. Even where success is apparently attained, he some- 
 times gains it but to die — or with all capacity to enjoy it exhausted — - 
 Worn out inathe struggle with fortune. If it be true that the African is 
 an inferior variety of the human race, of less elevated character, and 
 more limited intellect, is it not desirable that the inferior laboring class 
 should be made up of such, who will conform to their condition v.itli^ 
 out painful aspirations, and vain struggles 1 
 
 The slave is certainly liable to be sold. But, ])erhaps, it may be 
 questioned, whether this is a greater evil than the liability of the laborer, 
 in fully peopled countries, to be dismissed by his employer, with the 
 Uncertainty of being able to obtain em[»loyment, or the means of sub- 
 sistence elsewhere. " With us, the employer cannot dismiss his laborer 
 with(»ut providing liim with another employer. His means of subsis-^ 
 tence are secure, and this is a compensation for much. lie is also 
 liable to be separated from wife or child — thoujjh not moi-e fre<(uentlyf 
 that I am aware of, than the exigency of their condiion compels the 
 separation of families among the laboring poor elsewhere — but fronf 
 native character and temperament, the separation is much less severe« 
 ly felt. And it is one of the compensations, that he may s!'stain these 
 relations without suffering a still severer penalty for the indulgence. 
 
 The love of liberty is a noble passion — to have the free, uncontrolled 
 disposition of ourselves, oUr words and actions. But alasf it is one 
 in which we know that a large portion of the human race can never be 
 gratified. It is mockery, to say that the laborer any where has suclJ 
 disposition of himself — though there may be an approach to it in some 
 peculiar, and those, perhaps, not the most desirable, states of society. 
 But unless he be properly disciplined and prepared for its enjoyment, 
 it is the most fatal boon that could be conferred^— fatal to himself and 
 others; If slaves have less freedom of action than other laliorers, 
 which I by no means admit, they are saved in a great degree from the 
 responsibility of self-govenunent, and the evils "springing from their 
 
own penefse wills. Those who have looked most closeif iiitA Iifc} 
 Hiid know how threat a portion of litiman misery is derived" from these 
 sources — the undecided and waverinjr purpose — producinir ineffectual 
 exertion, or indolence with its thousand attendant evils-^the wayward 
 conduct— intemperance or protlioacy---will most appreciate this bene^ 
 tit. The line of a slave's duty is marked out with precision, and he 
 has no choice but to follow it. He is saved the double ditficulty, fir.'<t 
 of determining the proper course for himself, and then of summoning 
 Up the energy which will sustain him in pursuing it; 
 
 If some superior power sholdd impose on the laborious poor of any 
 other country- — this as their unalterable condition^-you shall be saved 
 from the torturing anxiety concerning- your own future support, and 
 that of youi' children, which now pursues you through life, and 
 haunts you in death— you shall be under the necessity of regular and 
 healthful, though not excessive lab{)r"---in return, you shall have the 
 ample supply of your natin-al Wants-^you may f(jllow the instinct of 
 nature in becoming parents, without apprehending that this supply 
 will fail yourselves or yoUr children — yoU shall be supj)orted and re- 
 lieved in sickness, and in old age, Wear out the remains of existence 
 among familiar scenes and accustomed associates, without being 
 driven to beg, or to resort to the hard and miserable charity of a work 
 house— you shall of necessity be temperate, and shall have neither the 
 temptation nor opportunity to commit great crimes, or practice the 
 more destructive vices — how inappreciable would the boon be thought ! 
 And is not this a very near a|)proach to the condition of our slaves ] 
 The evils of their situation they but lightly feel, and would hardly feel 
 at all, if they were not sedulously instructed into sensibility. Certain 
 it is, that if their fate were at the absolute disposal of a council of the 
 most enlightened philanthropists in Christendom, with unlimited re-* 
 sources, they could place them in no situation so favorable to them^ 
 selves, as that which they at present occupy. But whatever good 
 there mav be, or whatever mitigation of evil, it is worse than valueless^ 
 because it is the result of SUivary, 
 
 I am aware, that however often answered, it is likely to be repeated 
 aimin and again— how can that institution be tolerable, by which a 
 large class of society is cut oft' from the hope of improvement in 
 knowledge; to whom blows are not degrading ; theft no more than a 
 fixuh; falsehood and the want of chastity almost venial, and in which 
 a husband or parent looks with comparative indiftcrence, on that 
 which, to a freeman, would be the dishonoi of a wife or child '( 
 
 But why not, if it produces the greatest aggregate of good 1 Sin 
 and ignorance are only evils because they lead to misery. It is not 
 our institution, but the institution of nature, that in the progress of 
 society a portion of it should be exposed to want, and the misery 
 which it brings, and therefore involved in ignorance, vice, and depr<i- 
 vity. In anticipatinv some of the good, we also anticipate a portion 
 of the evil of civilization. But we have it in a mitigated form. The 
 want and the misery are unknown; the ignorance is less a misfortune, 
 
03 
 
 Vecause tlie being in not tlie guardian of himself, and partly on ac- 
 count of that involuntary ignorance, the vice is less vice — less hurtful 
 to man, and less displeasing to God. 
 
 There is something in this word tSlaveri/ which seems to partake of 
 the qualities of the insane root, and distempers the minds of men. 
 That which would be true in relation to one predicament, they mis- 
 apply to another, to which it has no application at all. Some of the 
 virtues of a freeman would be the vices of slaves. To submit to a 
 blow, would be degrading to a freeman, because he is the protector of 
 himself. It is not degrading to a slave — neither is it to a priest or a 
 woman. And is it a misfortune that it should be so 1 The freeman 
 of other countries is compelled to submit to indignities hardly more 
 endurable than blows — indignities to make the sensitive feelings 
 shrink, and the proud heart swell ; and this very name of freeman, 
 gives them double rancour. If when a man is born in Europe, it 
 v/ere certainly foreseen that lie was destined to a life of painful la- 
 bor — to obscurity, contempt and privation — would it not be mercy that 
 he should be reared in ignorance and apathy, and trained to the en- 
 durance of the evils he must encounter? It is not certainly foreseen 
 as to any individual, but it is foreseen as to the great mass of those 
 born of the laboring poor ; and it is for the mass, not for the excep- 
 tion, that the institutions of society are to provide. Is it not better 
 that the character and intellect of the individual should be suited to 
 the station which he is to occupy ? Would you do a benefit to the 
 horse or the ox, by giving him a cultivated understanding or fine 
 feelings 1 So far as the mere laborer has the pride, the knowledge, or 
 the aspirations of a freeman, he is unfitted for his situation, and must 
 doubly feel its infelicity. If there arc sordid, servile, and laborious 
 offices to be performed, is it not better that there should be sordid, ser- 
 vile, and laborious beings to perform them 1 If there were infallible 
 marks by which individuals of inferior intellect, and inferior charac- 
 ter, could be selected at their birth — would not the interests of society 
 be served, and would not some sort of fitness seem to require, that they 
 should be selected for the inferior and servile ofiices ? And if this race 
 be generally marked by such inferiority, is it not fit that they should fill 
 them l 
 
 I am well aware that those whose aspirations are after a state of 
 society from which evil shall be banished, and who look in life for that 
 which life will never afford, contenq)lalc that all the offices of life 
 may be performed without conlv-mpt or degradation — all be regarded 
 as cujually liberal, or e(|ually respected. I5ut tlieorists cannot control 
 jiature and bend her to their views, and the inequality of which I 
 have before spoken is deeply founded in nature. The oftlces which 
 employ knowledge and intellect, will ahvays be regaided as more libe- 
 ral than those which only require the labor of the hands. When there 
 is competition for euq)loyment, he who gives it bestows a favor, and it 
 will be so received. He will assume; superiority from the power of 
 dismissing his laborers, and from fear of this, the latter will practise 
 deference^ often amounting to ser\ iluy. Such in time will become the 
 
34 
 
 established relation between the enii)l()yer and the employed, the rich 
 and the poor. If want be accoin])aiiied with sordidness and squalor, 
 though it be pitied, the pity will be mixed with some degree of con- 
 tempt. If it lead to misery, and misery to vice, there will be disgust 
 and aversion. 
 
 What is the essential character of Slavery, and in what does it 
 dift'er from the servitude of other countries ? If I should venture on 
 a delinition, I should say that where a man is compelled to labor at 
 the will of another, and to give him much the greater portion of the pro- 
 duct of his laboi", there Slavery exists; and it is immaterial by what 
 sort of compulsion the will <if the laborer is subdued. It is what no 
 liuman being would do without some sort <jf compulsion. He cannot 
 be compelled to labor by blows. No — but what difference does it 
 make, if you can inflict any other sort of torture which will be equally 
 effectual in subduing the will 1 if you can starve him, or alarm him 
 for the subsistence of himself or his family '( And is it not under this 
 compulsion that the freeman labors % I do not mean in every parti- 
 cular case, but in the general. Will any one be hardy enough to say 
 that he is at his own disposal, or has the government of himself ? True, 
 lie may chaiige his employer if he is dissatisfied with his conduct to- 
 wards him ; but this is a privilege he would in the majority of cases 
 gladly abandon, and render the connexion between them indissoluble. 
 There is far less of the interest and attachment in his relation to his 
 employer, which so often exists between the master and the slave, and 
 mitigates the condition of the latter. An intelligent English traveller 
 has characterized as the most miserable and degraded of all beings, 
 " a masterless slave." And is not the condition of the laboring poor 
 of other countries too often that of masterless slaves % Take the fol- 
 lowing description of a free laborer, no doubt highly colored, quoted 
 by the author to whom I have before referred. 
 
 "What is that defective being, with callless legs and stooping shoul- 
 ders, weak in body and mind, inert, pusillanimous and stupid, whose 
 premature wrinkles and furtive glance, tell of misery and degradation ? 
 That is an English peasant or pauper, for the words are synonimous. 
 His sire was a pauper, and his mother's milk wanted nourishment. 
 From infancy his food has been bad, as well as insujfficient ; and he 
 now feels the pains of unsatisfied hunger nearly whenever he is awake. 
 But half clothed, and never supplied with more warmth than suffices 
 to cook his scanty meals, cold and wet come to him, and stay by him 
 with the weather. He is married of course ; for to this he would 
 have been driven by the poor laws, even if he had been, as he never 
 was, sufficiently comfortable and prudent to dread the burden of a 
 family. But though instinct, and the overseer have given him a wife, 
 he has not tasted tlie highest joys of husband and father. His part- 
 ner and his little ones being like himself, often hungry, seldom warm, 
 sometimes sick without aid, and always sorrov.ful without hope, are 
 greedy, selfish, and vexhig; so, to use his OAvn expression, he hates 
 the sight of them, and resorts to his hovel, only because a hedg^e af- 
 fords les.- shelter IVoni Ihr wind and rain, (/itni|)ell<'d by pari.^h lawM(» 
 
support his family, wliicii means to join them in consmningan allow- 
 ance from the ])aVif-h, he frequently conspires with his wife to get that 
 allowance increased, or prevent its heing- diminished. This brings 
 beggary, trickery and (juarrelling, and ends in settled craft. Though 
 Ije iiave the inclination, he wants the courage to become, like more 
 energetic men of his class, a poacher or smuggler on a large scale, 
 bvit he pilfers occasionally, and teaches his children to lie and steal. 
 His subdued and slavish manner towards his great neighbors, shews 
 that they treat him with suspicion and harshness. Consequently, he 
 at once dreads and liates them ; but he will never harm them by vio- 
 lent means. Too degraded to be desperate, he is only thoroughly 
 depraved. His miserable career will be short ; rheumatism and asth- 
 ma arc conducting him to the work house ; where he will breathe las 
 last without one pleasant recollection, and so make room for another 
 wretch, who nmy live and die in the same way." And this description 
 or some other, not much less revolting, is applied to "the bulk of the 
 people, the great body of the people." Take the following description 
 of the condition of childhood, which has justly been called eloquent.* 
 
 "The children of the very poor have no young times ; it makes the 
 very heart bleed, to over-hear the casual street talk between a poor 
 woman and her little girl, a woman of the better sort of poor, in a 
 condition rather above die squalid beisigs we have been contemida- 
 tino-. It is not of toys, of nursery books, of summer holidays (fitting 
 that age) of the promised sight or play ; of praised sufficiency at 
 school. It is of mangling and clearstarching; of the price of coals, 
 or of potatoes. The questions of the child, that should be the very 
 outpourings of curiosity in idleness, are marked with forecast and 
 melanchofy providence. It has come to be a woman, before it was a 
 child. It has learnt to go to market ; it chaffers, it haggles, it envies, 
 it murmers ; it is knowing, acute, sharpened ; it never prattles." Ima- 
 gine such a description applied to the children of negro slaves, the 
 most vacant of human beings, Avhose life is a holiday. 
 
 And this people, to whom these horrors arc familiar, are those who 
 fill the world with clamor, conctjrning the injustice and cruelty of 
 slavery. I speak in no invidious spirit. Neitlier the laws nor the 
 government of England are to bo reproached with the evils which are 
 inseparable from the state of their society — as little, undoubtedly, are 
 we to be reproached with the existence of our Slavery. Including the 
 whole of the United States— and for reasons already given, the whole 
 ou«vht to be included, as receiving in no unequal degree the lieneht— 
 may we not say justly diat we have less Slavery, and more mitigated 
 Slavery, than any other country in the civilized world (■ 
 
 That they arc called fr(>e, undoubtedly aggravates the suilerings of 
 the slaves of other regions. They see the enormous inequality winch 
 exists, and feel their own misery, and can hardly conceive otherwise, 
 than that there is some injustice in the institutions of society to occa- 
 sion tlvfise. They regard the apparently more fortunate class as op- 
 
 Essays of Elia. 
 
3G 
 
 pressors, ami it acids bitterness, tliat thcj should be of tlie same nanre 
 and race. They feel indignity more acutely, and more of discontent 
 and evil passion is excited ; they feel that it is mockery that calls them 
 free. Men do not so much hate and envy those who are separated 
 from them by a wide distance, and some apparently impassible barrier, 
 as those who approach nearer to their own condition, and with whom 
 they habitually bring themselves into comparison. The slave with us 
 is liot tantalized with the name of freedom, to which his whole condi- 
 tion gives the lie, and would do so if he were emancipated to-morrow. 
 The African slave sees that nature herself has marked him as a sepc- 
 rate — and if left to himself, I have no doubt he would feel it to be an 
 inferior — race, and interposed a barrier almost insuperable to his be- 
 coming a member of the same society, standing on the same footing 
 of right and privilege with his master. 
 
 That the African negro is an inferior variety of the haman race, is-, 
 I think,, now generally admitted, and his distinguishing characteristics 
 are such as peculiarly mark him out for tlie situation which he occu- 
 pies among us. And these are no less marked in their original coun- 
 try, than as .we have daily occasion to observe them. Tlie most 
 remarkable is their indifference to personal liberty. In this they have 
 followed their instincts siiice we have any knowledge of their continent, 
 by enslaving each other; but contrary to the cxjierience of every other 
 race, the possession of slaves has no material eftect in raising the 
 character, and promoting the civilization of the master. Another trait 
 is the want of domestic aftections, and insensibility to tlic tics of kin- 
 dred. In the travels of the Landers, after speaking of a single ex- 
 ception, in the person of a woman who betrayed some ti-ansient emo- 
 tion in passing by the country from which slie had been torn as a slave, 
 the authors add : " that Africans, generally speaking, betray the 
 most perfect indifference on losing their liberty, and being de])rived of 
 tlieir relatives, while love of country is equally a stranger to their 
 breasts, as social tenderness or domestic affection." " Blarriage is 
 celebrated by the nations as unconcernedly as possible ; a man thinks 
 as little of taking a wife, as of cutting an ear of co-rn — affection is 
 altogether out of the question." Tliey are, however, very submissive 
 to authority, and seem to. entertain great rt;vercnce for chiefs, priests, 
 and masters. No greater indignity cair be ofl'ered an individual, than 
 to throw approbrium on his parents. On this point of their character, 
 I think I have remarked, that, contrary to the instir.ct of nature in 
 other races, they entertain less regard for ehiklren than for parents, 
 to whose authority they have been accustomed to submit. Their 
 character is thus summed up by the travellers quoted, " the few op- 
 portunities we have had of studying their characters, induce us to 
 iielieve that they are a simple, honest, inoffensive, but weak, timid, 
 and cowardly race. They seem to have no social tenderness, very 
 few of those amiable pri\ ate virtues which could win our affections, 
 and none of those public (pialities that claim respect or command ad- 
 miration. The love of country is not strong enough in their bosoms 
 to incite them to defend it against a despicable foe ; and of the actire 
 
:J7 
 
 cncrcy, nnblc sentiment?, and contempt of clanger wliicli distiniruisbes 
 the North American tribes and otlier savages, no traces are to he 
 found among this slothful people. Regardless of the past, as reckless 
 of the future, the present alone iniliiciiees their aefions. In this re- 
 spect, they approach nearer to the nature of the brute creation, than 
 perhaps any other people on the face of the globe." Let me ask if 
 this people do not furnish the very material out of which slaves ought 
 to be made, and whether it be not an improving of their condition to 
 make them the slaves of civilized masters. There is a variety in the 
 character of the tribes. Some arc brutally, and savagely ferocious 
 and bloody, whom it would be mercy to enslave. From the travellers' 
 account, it seems not unlikely that the negro race is tending to exter- 
 mination, being daily encroached on, and overrun by the superior 
 Arab race. It may be, that when they shall have been lost fronj their 
 native seats, they may be found numerous, and in no unhappy condi- 
 tion, on the contiucnt to which they have been transplanted. 
 
 The opinion which connects form and features with character and 
 intellectual power, is one so deeply impressed on the human mind, 
 that perhaps there is scarcely any man who does not almost daily act 
 upon it, and in some measure verify its truth. Yet in spite of this 
 intimation of nature, and though the anatomist and physiologist may 
 tell them that the races difter in every bone and muscle, and in the 
 proportion of brain and nerves, yet there are some, who with a most 
 bigoted and fanatical determination to free themselves from what they 
 have prejudged to be prejudice, will still maintain that tliis physiog- 
 nomy, evidently tending to that of the brute when compared to that 
 of the Caucasian race, may be enlightened by as much thought, and 
 animated by as lofty sentiment, Wc who have the best opportunity 
 of judging, are pronouiiccd to be incompetent to do so, and to be 
 blinded by our interest and prejudices — often by those who have no 
 opportunity at all — and we are to be taught to distrust or disbelieve 
 that which we daily observe, and familiarly know, on such authority. 
 Our prejudices are spoken of. But the truth is, that, until very lately, 
 since circumstances have compelled us to think for ourselves, wc 
 took our opinions on this subject, as on every other, ready formed from 
 the country of our origin. And so deeply rooted were they, that we 
 adhered to them, as most men will do to deeply rooted opinions, even 
 against the evidence of our own observation, and our own senses. 
 If the inferiority exists, it is attributed to the apathy and degradation 
 produced by Slavery. Though of the hundreds of thousand scattered 
 over other countries, where the laws impose no diability upon them, 
 none has given evidence of an approach to even mediocrity of intel- 
 lectual excellence, this too is attributed to the Slavery of a portion of 
 their race. Tiiey are regarded as a scrvde caste, and degraded by 
 opinion, and thus every generous efl'ort is repressed. Yet tliough this 
 should be the general effect, this very estimation is calculated to 
 produce the contrary efllect.in particular instances. It is observed by 
 Bacon, widi respect to deformed persons and eunuchs, that tiiough in 
 general there is something of perversity in the character, the disad- 
 
38 
 
 vantan^e often lends to extraordinary displays of virtue and excel- 
 lence. "Whosoever hath any thing fixed in his person that doth 
 induce contempt, hath also a perpetual spur in himself, to rescue and 
 deliver himself from scorn." So it would be with them, if they were 
 capable of European aspirations — genius, if they possessed it, would 
 be doubly ilrcd wilh noble rage to rescue itself from this scorn. Of 
 course, I do not mean to say that there may not be found among them 
 some of superior capacity to many white persons ; but that great 
 intellectual powers are, perhaps, never found among them, and that 
 in general their capacity is very limited, and their feelings animal and 
 coarse — fitting them peculiarly to discharge the lower, and merely me- 
 chanical offices of society. 
 
 And why sliould it not be so ] We have among domestic animals 
 infinite varieties, distinguished by various degrees of sagacity, con- 
 rage, strength, swiftness, and other qualities. And it may be observed, 
 that this is no objection to their being derived from a common origin, 
 which we su])pose them to have had. Yet these accidental qualities, 
 as they may be termed, liowever acquired in the first instance, we 
 know that they transmit unimpaired to their posterity for an indefinite 
 succession of generations. It is most important that these varieties 
 should be preserved, and that each should be applied to the purposes 
 for which it is best adapted. No i)liilo-zoost, I believe, has sug- 
 gested it as desirable that these varieties should be melted down into 
 one equal, undistinguished race of curs or road horses. 
 
 Slavery, as it is said in an eloquent article published in a Southern 
 periodical work,* to which I am indeljted for other ideas, " has done 
 more to elevate a degraded race in the scale of humanity ; to tame the 
 savage ; to civilize tlie barbarous ; to soften the ferocious ; to enlighten 
 the ignorant, and to spread the blessings of Christianity among the 
 hcatiien, than ;dl the missionaries that philanthropy and religion have 
 ever sent forth." Yet unquestionable as this is, and though human 
 ingenuity and thought may be tasked in vain to devise any other 
 means by which these blessings covdd have been conferred, yet a sort 
 of sensibility which would be only mawkish and contemptible, if it 
 were not mischievous, aflects still to weep over the wrongs of " injured 
 Africa." Can there be a dou])t of the immense benefit which has 
 been conferred on the race, by transplanting them from their native, 
 dark, and barbarous regions, to the American Continent and Islands 1 
 There, three-fourths of the race are in a state of the most deplorable 
 personal Slavery. And those who arc not, are in a scarcely less de- 
 plorable condition of political Slavery, to barbarous chiefs — who value 
 neither life nor any other human right, or enthralled by priests to the 
 most abject and atrocious superstitions. Take tlie following testimony 
 of one of the few disinterested observers, who has had an opportunity 
 of observing them in both situations.! " The wild savage is the child 
 
 * Southern Literary Messenger, for Januury, 1S35. Note to Blackstonc's Com- 
 mentaries. 
 
 t.Tonrnal of an oflicer employed in the expedition, luuler the connnand of Capt. 
 Owen, on tlie Western Coast of Africa, 182i?. 
 
V)F passion, iiiiaiilca l.y one ray of religion or rnorahly to direct lurf 
 course, in consequence of wliieli his existence is stained with every 
 crime that can debase human nature lo alevel with the biute creation. 
 Who can say that the shivcs in our cok)nies arc such 1 Are they not, 
 by comparison with their still savage brethren, enUghtencd beings ? 
 Is not the West Indian negro, therefore, greatly indebted to his mas- 
 ter for making him what he is— for having raised him from the state 
 of debasement' in which he was born, and placed him in a scale of 
 civilized society] How can he repay him? He is possessed of 
 nothing — the only return in his power is his servitude. The man who 
 has seen the wild African, roamhig hi his native woods, and the well 
 fed, happy looking negro of the West Indies, may, perhaps, be alile to 
 judge of their comparative happiness : the former I strongly suspect 
 would be glad to change his state of boasted freedom, starvation and 
 disease, to become the slave of sinners, and the commiseration of 
 saints." It was a useful and benificent work, ajjproachiiig the heroic, 
 to tame the wild horse, and subdue him to the use of man ; how much 
 more to tame the nobler animal that is capable of reason, and subdue 
 him to usefulness ? 
 
 We believe that the tendency of Slavery is to elevate the character 
 of the master. No doubt the character — especially of youth — has 
 sometimes received a taint and premature knowledge of vice, from 
 the contact and association with ignorant and servile beings of gross 
 manners and morals. Yet still we believe that the entire tendency is to 
 inspire disgust and aversion towards their peculiar vices. It was not 
 without a knowledge of nature, that the Spartans exhibited the vices of 
 slaves by way of negative example to their children. We flatter our- 
 selves that the view of this degradation, mitigated as it is, has the eflect 
 of making probity more strict, the pride of character more high, the 
 sense of honor more strong, than is commonly found where this insti- 
 tution does not exist. Whatever may be the prevailing faults or vices 
 of the masters of slaves, they have not commonly been understood to 
 be those of dishonesty, cowardice, meanness or falsehood. And so 
 most unquestionably it ought to be. Our institutions would indeed l)e 
 intolerable in the sight of God and man, if, condemning one portion 
 of society to hopeless ignorance and comparative degradation, they 
 should make no atonement by elevating the other class by higlicr 
 virtues, and more liberal attainments — if, besides degraded slaves, 
 there should be ignorant, ignoble, and degraded freemen. There is a 
 broad and well marked line, beyond which no slavish vice should be 
 regarded with the least toleration <jr allowance. One class is cut off 
 from all interest in the State — that abstraction so potent to the feelings 
 of a generous nature. The other must make compensation by in- 
 creased assiduity, and devotion to its honor and welfare. The love of 
 wealth — so laudable when kept within proper limits, so base and mis- 
 chievous when it exceeds thein — so infectious in its example — an in- 
 fection to which I fear we have been too much exposed — should be 
 pursued by no arts in any degree ecpiivocal, or at any risk of in- 
 justice to others. So surely us there is a just and wise governor of 
 
 ^ 
 
40 
 
 the universe, who punishes the sins of nations and communities, as well 
 as of individuals, so surely shall wc sufter ])unishmcnt, if we are indif- 
 ferent to that moral and intellectual cultivation of which the means 
 are furnished to us, and to which we are called and incited by our 
 situation. 
 
 I would to heaven I could express, as I feel, the conviction how 
 necessary this cultivation is, not only to our prosperity and considera- 
 tion, but to our safety and very existence. We, the slave-holding 
 States, arc in a hopeless minority in our own confederated republic — 
 to say nothing of the great confederacy of civilized States. It is ad- 
 mitted, I believe, not only by slave-holders, but by others, that we have 
 sent to our common councils more than our due share of talent, Jiigh 
 character and eloquence. Yet in spite of all these most strenuously 
 exerted, measures have been sometimes adopted which we believed to 
 be dangerous and injurious to us, and threatening to be fatal. What 
 would be our situation, if, instead of these, we were only represented 
 by ignorant and grovclhng men, incapable of raising their views 
 beyond a job or petty office, and incapable of commanding hearing 
 or consideration. May I be permitted to advert — by no means invi- 
 diously — to the late contest carried on by South-Carolina against 
 Federal authority, and so happily terminated by the moderation 
 which prevailed in our pubhc counsels. I have often reflected, what 
 one circumstance, more than any other, contributed to the successful 
 issue of a contest, apparently so hopeless, in which one weak and 
 divided state was arrayed against the whole force of the Confederacy — 
 unsustained, and uncountenanced, even by those who had a common 
 interest with her. It seemed to me to be, that we had for leaders an 
 unusual number of men of great intellectual power, co-operating cor- 
 dially and in good faith, and commanding respect and confidence at 
 liome and abroad, by elevated and honorable character. It was from 
 these that we — the followers at home — caught hope and confidence in 
 the gloomiest aspect of our aftairs. These, by their eloquence and 
 the largeness of their views, at least shook the faith of the dominant 
 majority in the wisdom and justice of their measures — or the practi- 
 cability of carrying them into successful eftect, and by their bearing 
 and wdl known character, satisfied them that South-Carolina would 
 do all that she had pledged herself to do. AVithout these, how differ- 
 ent miaht have been the result 1 And who shall say what at this day 
 would liavc been the aspect of the now flourishing fields and cities of 
 South-Carohna'^ Or rather without these, it is probable the contest 
 would never have been begun ; but that without even the animation of 
 a struggle, we should have sunk silently into a hopeless and degradirig 
 subjection. While I have memory — in the extremity of age— m 
 sickness — under all the reverses and calamities of life — I shall have 
 one source of pride and consolation — that of having been associated — 
 according to my humbler poshion— v»'ith the noble spirits who stood 
 prepared" to devote tliemselvcs for liiberty — the Constitution — the 
 Union. May such character and such talent, never be wanting to 
 South-Carolina. 
 
 J 
 
41 
 
 I am sure tliat it is unnecessary to say to an assembly like this, that 
 the conduct of the master to his slave should be distinguished by the 
 utmost humanity. That we should indeed regard them as wards and 
 dependants on our kindness, for whose well being in every way we 
 are deeply responsible. This is no less the dictate of wisdom and 
 just policy, than of right feehng. It is wise with respect to the ser- 
 vices to be expected from them. I have never heard of an owner 
 whose conduct in their management was distinguished by undue 
 severity, whose slaves were not in a great degree worthless to him. A 
 cheerful and kindly demeanor, Avitli the expression of interest in them- 
 selves and their alfairs, is, perhaps, calculated to have a better effect 
 on them, than what might be esteemed more substantial favors and 
 indulgencies. Throughout nature, attachment is the reward of attach- 
 ment. It is wise too in relation to the civilized world around us, to 
 avoid giving occasion to the odium which is so industriously excited 
 against ourselves and our institutions. For this reason, public opinion 
 .should, if possible, bear even more strongly and indignantly than it 
 does at pi'esent, on masters who practise any wanton cruelty ou their 
 slaves. The miscreant who is guilty of this, not only violates the law 
 of God and of humanity, but as far as in him lies, by bringing odium 
 upon, endangers the institutio)is of his country, and the safety of his 
 countrymen. He casts a shade upon the character of every indivi- 
 dual of his fellow-citizens, and does every one of them a personal 
 injury. So of him who indulges in any odious excess of intemperate 
 or licentious passion. It is detached instances of this sort, of which 
 the existence is, perhaps, hardly known among ourselves, that, collec- 
 ted with pertinacious and malevolent industry, affords the most formi- 
 dable weapons to the mischievous zealots, who array them as being 
 characteristic of our general manners and state of society. 
 
 I would by no means be understood to intimate, that a visorous, as 
 well as just government, should not be exercised over slaves. This is 
 part of our duty towards them, no less obligatory than any other duty, 
 and no less necessary towards their well being than to ours. I believe 
 that at least as much injury has been done and suffering inflicted by 
 weak and injudicious indulgence, as by inordinate severity. He whose 
 business is to labor, should be made to labor, and that with due dili- 
 gence, and should be vigorously restrained from excess or vice. This 
 is no less necessary to his happiness than to his usefulness. The 
 master who neglects this, not only makes his slaves unprofitable to 
 himself, but discontented and wretched — a nuisance to his neiuhbors 
 and to society. 
 
 I have said that the tendency of our institution is to elevate the 
 female character, as well as that of the other sex, and for similar rea- 
 sons. In other states of society, there is no well defined limit to sepe- 
 ratc virtue and vice. There are degrees of vice from the most flagrant 
 and odious, to that which scarcely incurs the censure of society. 
 Many individuals occupy an unequivocal position; and as society be- 
 comes accustomed to this, there will be a less peremptory requirement 
 of purity in female manners and conduct ; and ofren the whole of the 
 6 
 
42 
 
 society will be in a tainted and uncertain condition with respect to 
 female virtue, Here, there is that certain and marked line, above 
 which there is no toleration or allowance for any approach to license 
 of manners or conduct, and she who falls below it, will fall far be- 
 low even the slave. How many will incur this penalty? 
 
 And permit me to say that this elevation of the female character is 
 no less important and essential to us, than the moral and intellectual 
 cultivation of the other sex. It would indeed be intolerable, if, when 
 one class of the society is necessarily degraded in this respect, no 
 compensation were made by the supeiior elevation and purity of the 
 other. Not only essential purity of conduct, but the utmost purity of 
 manners, and I will add, though it may incur the formidable charge 
 of affectation or prudery, — a greater severity of decorum than is re- 
 quired elsewhere, is necessary among us. Always should be strenu- 
 ously resisted the attempts which have been sometimes made to in- 
 troduce among us the freedom of foreign European, and especially 
 of continental manners. This freedom, the remotest in the world 
 from that which sometimes springs from simplicity of manners is cal- 
 culated and commonly intended to confound the outward distinctions 
 of virtue and vice. It is to prepare the way for licentiousness — to 
 produce this effect — that if those who are clothed with the outward 
 color and garb of vice, may be well received by society, those who 
 are actually guilty may hope to be so too. It may be said, that there 
 is often perfect purity where there is very great freedom of manners. 
 And, I have no doubt, this may be true in particular instances, bvit it 
 is never true of any socictj/ in which this is the general state of man- 
 ners. What guards can there be to purity, when every thing that 7nay 
 ^ossfiZy be done innocently, is habitually practised; when there can 
 be no impropriety which is not vice. And what must be the depth 
 of the depravity when there is a departure from that which they ad- 
 mit as principle. Besides, things which may perhaps be practised 
 innocently where they are familiar, produce a moral dilaceration in 
 the course of their being introduced where they are new. Let us 
 say, we will not have the manners of South-Carolina changed. 
 
 I have before said that that free labor is cheaper than the labor of 
 slaves, and so far as it is so, the condition of the free laborer is worse. 
 But I think President Dew has sufficiently shown that this is only true 
 of Northern countries. It is matter of familiar remark that the ten- 
 dency of warm climates is to relax the human constitution and mdis- 
 pose to labor. The earth yields abundantly — in some regions almost 
 spontaneously — under the influence of the sun, and the means of sup- 
 porting life are obtained with but slight exertion; and men will use no 
 greater exertion than is necessary to the purpose. This very luxu- 
 riance of vegetation, where no other cause concurs, renders the air 
 less salubrious, and even when positive malady does not exist, the 
 health is habitually impaired. Indolence renders the constitution 
 more liable to these effects of the atmosphere, and these again aggra- 
 vate the indolence. N(jthiug but the coercion of slavery can over- 
 
43 
 
 come the repugnance to laboi- nndcr these circumstances, and by sub- 
 duiug the soil, improve and render wholesome the climate. 
 
 It is worthy of remark that there does not now exist on the face of 
 the earth, a people in a tropical climate, or one approaching to it, 
 wliere slavery does not exist, that is in a state of high civilization, or 
 exhibits the energies which mark the progress towards it. Mexico 
 and the South American republics,* starting ou their new career of 
 independence, and having gone through a farce of abolishing slavery, 
 are rapidly degenerating, even from semi-barbarism. The only por- 
 tion of the South American continent which seems to be making any 
 favorable progress, in spite of a rich and arbitrary civil government, is 
 Brazil, in which slavery has been retained. Cuba, of die same I'ace 
 with the continental republics, is dally and rapidly advancing in in- 
 dustry and civilization; and this is owing exclusively to her slaves. 
 St. Domingo is struck out of the map of civilized existence, and the 
 British West Indies will shortly be so. On the other continent, Spain 
 and Portugal are degenerate, and their rapid progress is downward. 
 Their southern coast is infested by disease, arising from causes which 
 industry might readily overcome, but that industry they will never ex- 
 ert. Greece is still barbarous and scantily peopled. The work of 
 an English physician distinguished by strong sense and power of ob- 
 servation,* gives a most affecting picture of the condition of Italy, — 
 especially south of the Appenines. With the decay of industry, the 
 climate has degenerated towards the condition from which it was first 
 rescued by the labor of slaves. There is poison in every man's veins, 
 affecting the very springs of life, dulling or extinguishing, with the 
 energies of the body, all energy of mind, and often exhibiting itself 
 in the most appalling forms of disease. From year to year the pes- 
 tilential atmosphere creeps forward, narrowing the circles within 
 which it is possible to sustain human life. With disease and misery, 
 industry still more rapidly decays, and if the process goes on, it seems 
 
 * The author of England and America thus speaks of the Colomhian republic : 
 " During some j-ears, this colony has been an independent state ; but the people 
 dispersed over this vast and fertile plains, have almost ceased to cultivate tlie good 
 land at their disposal; they subsist principally, many of them entirely on the flesh 
 of wild cattle; they have lost most of the arts of civilized hfe ; not a few of them are 
 in a state of deplorable misery; and if they should continue, as it seems probable 
 they will, to retrograde as at present, the beautiful pampas of Buenos Ayres will 
 soon be fit for another experiment in colonization. Slaves, black or yellow, 
 would have cultivated those plains, would have kept together, would have been 
 made to assist each other ; would, by keeping together and assisting each other, 
 have raised a surplus produce exchangeable in distant markets ; would have' 
 kept their masters together for the sake of markets; would, by combination of 
 labor, have preserved among their masters the arts and habits of civilized life." 
 Yet this writer, the whole practical eflect of whose work, whatever he may have 
 thought or intended, is to show the absolute necessity, and immense benefits of 
 slavery, finds it necessary to add, I suppose, in deference to the general sentiment 
 of his countrymen, " that slavery might have done all) this, seems not more plain, 
 than that so much good would have been bought too dear, if its price had been sla- 
 very." Well may we say that the word makes men mad. 
 t Johnson on Change of Air. 
 
44 
 
 that Italy too will soon 1)C ready for another experiment in coloniza- 
 tion. 
 
 Yet once it was not so, when Italy was possessed by the masters of 
 slaves; when Rome contained her millions, and Italy was a garden ; 
 when their iron energies of body corresponded with the energies of 
 mind which made them conquerors in every climate and on every 
 soil; rolled the tide of conquest, not as in later times, from the South 
 to the North; extended their laws and their civilization, and created 
 them Lords of the earth. 
 
 "What conflux issuing forth or entering in ; 
 Praetors, pro-consuls to their provinces, 
 Hasting, or on return in robes of state. 
 Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power, 
 Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings ; 
 Or embassies from regions far remote, 
 In various habits, on the Appian road, 
 Or on th' Emilian ; some from farthest South, 
 Syene, and where the shadow both way falls, 
 Meroe, Nilotic isle, and more to West, 
 The realms of Bocclnis to the Blackmoor sea ; 
 From th' Asian kings, and Parthian among these ; 
 From India and the golden Chersonese, 
 And utmost Indias isle, Taprobona, 
 Dusk fiices, with white silken turbans wreathed ; 
 From Gallia, Gades and the British West ; 
 Germans, and Scythians, and Sarmatians, North 
 Beyond Danubius to the Tauric Pool! 
 All nations now to Rome obedience pay." 
 
 Snch was and such is the picture of Italy. Greece presents a 
 contrast not less striking. What is the cause of the great change 1 
 Many causes, no doubt, have occurred ; but though 
 
 "War, famine, jDestilence and flood and Are 
 Have dealt uiiou the seven-hilled city's pride," 
 
 I will venture to say that nothing has dealt upon it more lieavily 
 than the loss of domestic slavery. Is not tliis evident 1 If they had 
 slaves, with an energetic civil government, would the deadly miasma 
 be permitted to overspread the Campagna and invade Rome herself] 
 Would not the soil be cultivated, and the wastes reclaimed] A late 
 traveller* mentions a canal, cut for miles through rock and mountain, 
 for the purpose of carrying off the waters of the lake of Celano, on 
 which thirty thousand Roman slaves were employed for eleven years, 
 and which remains almost perfect to the present day. This, the gov- 
 ernment of Naples was ten years in repairing with an hundred work- 
 men. The imperishable works of Rome which remain to the pre- 
 sent day were for the most part executed by slaves. How difterent 
 would be the condition of Naples, if for her wretched lazzaroni were 
 substituted negro slaves, employed in rendering productive the plains 
 whose fertility now serves only to infect the air! 
 
 * Eight days in the Abnizzi. — Blackwood's Magazine, November, 1835. 
 
To us, on whom tliis instituliou is fastened, and who could nol shake 
 it off, even if we desired to do so, the great republics of antiquity of- 
 fer instruction of inestimable value. They teach us that slavery is 
 compatible with the freedom, stability and long duration of civil gov- 
 ernment, with denseness of population, great power, and the highest 
 civilization. And in what respect does this modern Europe, which 
 claims to give opinions to the world, so far excel them — notwithstand- 
 incr the immense advantages of the christian religion and the discov- 
 ery of the art of printing?- They are not more free, nor have per- 
 formed more glorious actions, nor displayed more exalted virtue. In 
 the higher departments of intellect — in all that relates to taste and 
 imagination — they will hardly venture to claim equality. Where they 
 liave gone beyond them in the results of mechanical philosophy, or 
 discoveries which contribute to the wants and enjoyments of physical 
 life, they have done so by the help of means with which they were 
 furnished by the Grecian mind — the mother of civilization — and only 
 pursued a little further the tract which that had always pointed out. 
 Ln the development of intellectual power, they will hardly bear com- 
 parison. Those noble republics in the pride of their strength and 
 greatness, may have anticipated for themselves — as some of their po- 
 ets did for them, an everlasting duration and predominance. But 
 they could not have anticipated, that when they had fallen under bar- 
 barous arms, tliat when arts and civilization were lost, and the whole 
 earth in darkness — the first light should break from their tombs — that 
 in a renewed world, unconnected with them by ties of locality, lan- 
 guage or descent, they should still be held the models of all that is 
 profound in science, or elegant in literature, or all that is great in 
 character, or elevated in imagination. And perhaps when England 
 herself, wdio now leads the war with which we arc on all sides threat- 
 ened, shall have fulfilled her mission, and like the other glorious things 
 of the earth, shall have passed aw^ay; when she shall have diffused her 
 noble race and noble language, her laws, her literature and her civili- 
 zation, over all quarters of the earth, and shall perhaps be overrun by 
 some Northern horde — sunk into an ignoble and anarchical demo- 
 cracy,* or subdued to the dominion of some Caesar, — demagogue 
 and despot, — there, in Southern regions, there may be found many 
 republics, triumphing in Grecian arts and civilization, and worthy of 
 British descent and Roman institutions. 
 
 If after a time, when the mind and almost the memory of the re- 
 public were lost, Romans degenerated, they furnish conclusive evi- 
 dence that this was owing not to their domestic, but to their political 
 slavery. The same thing is observed over all the eastern monarchies; 
 and so it must be, wherever property is insecure, and it is dangerous 
 for a man to raise himself to such eminence by intellectual or mo- 
 ral excellence, as would give him influence over his society. So it is 
 in Egypt; and the other regions bordering the Mediterranean which 
 once comprehended the civilization of the world, where Carthage, 
 
 * I do not use the word democracy in the Athenian sense, but to describe the 
 government in which the slave and his master have an equal voice iu pubUc aftairs. 
 
40 
 
 Tyre and Plicenecia flourished. In short, the uncontradicted expe- 
 rience of the world is, that in Southern States where good govern- 
 ment and predial and domestic slavery are found, there are prosper- 
 ity and greatness; where either of these conditions is wanting, degen- 
 eracy and barbarism. Tlie former however is equally essential in all 
 climates and under all institutions. And can we suppose it to be the 
 design of the creator, that these regions, constituting half of the 
 earth's surface, and the more fertile half and more capable of sustain- 
 ing life, should be abandoned forever to depopulation and bai-barism? 
 Certain it is that they will never be reclaimed by the labour of free- 
 men. In our own country, look at the lower valley of the Mississip- 
 pi, which is capable of being made a far greater Egypt. In our own 
 state, there are extensive tracts of the most fertile soil, which are ca- 
 pable of being made to swarm with life. These are at i)resent pesti- 
 lential swamps, and valueless, because there is abundance of other fer- 
 tile soil in more favorable situations, which demand all and more than 
 all the labour which our country can supply. Are these regions of 
 fertility to be abandoned at once and forever to the alligator and tor- 
 toise — with here and there perhaps a miserable, shivering, crouching 
 free black savage? Does not the finger of heaven itself seem to point 
 to a race of men — not to be enslaved by us but already enslaved, and 
 who will be in every way benefitted by the change of masters — to 
 whom such climate is not uncongenial, who though disposed to indo- 
 lence are yet patient and capable of labor, on whose whole features, 
 mind and character, nature has indelibly written — slave; — and indi- 
 cate that we should avail ourselves of these in fulfilling the first great 
 command to subdue and replenish the earth. 
 
 It is true that this labor will be dearer than that of northern coun- 
 tries, where under the name of freedom, they obtain cheaper and 
 perhaps better slaves. Yet it is the best we can have, and this too 
 has its compensation. We see it compensated at present bj the su- 
 perior value of our agricultural pi^oducts. And this superior va- 
 lue they must probably always have. The Southern climate ad- 
 mits of a greater variety of productions. Whatever is produced in 
 Northern cUmates, the same thing, or something equivalent, may be 
 produced in the Southern. But the Northern have no equivalent for 
 the products of Southern climates. The consequence will be, that the 
 products of Southern regions will be demanded all over the civilized 
 world. The agricultural products of Northern regions are chiefly 
 for their own consumption. They must therefore apply themselves 
 to the manufacturing of articles of luxury, elegance, convenience or 
 necessity, — which requires cheap labor — for the purpose of exchang- 
 ing them with their Southern neighbors. Thus nature herself indi- 
 cates that agriculture should be tlie predominating employment in 
 Southern countries, and manufactures in Northern. Commerce is ne- 
 cessary to both — but less indispensable to the Southern, which pro- 
 duce within themselves a greater variety of things desirable to life. 
 They will therefore have somewhat less of the commercial spirit. We 
 must avail ourselves of such labor as we can command. Tiie slave 
 must labour and is inured to it; v\^hile the necessity of energy in his 
 
47 
 
 government, of watclifulncss, and of preparation and power to sti[>- 
 press insurrection, added to the moral ftjrcc derived from the habit of 
 command, may help to prevent the degeneracy of the master. 
 
 Tlie task of keeping down insurrection is commonly supposed, by 
 those who are strangers to our institutions, to be a very formidable 
 one. Even among ourselves; accustomed as we have been to take 
 our opinions on this as on every other subject, ready formed from 
 those whom we regarded as instructors, in the teeth of our own ob- 
 servation and experience , fears have been entertained which are abso- 
 lutely ludicrous. We have been supposed to be nightly reposing over 
 a mine, which may at any instant explode to our destruction. The 
 first thought of a foreigner sojourning in one of our cities, who is 
 awakened by any nightly alarm, is of servile insurrection and mas- 
 sacre. Yet if any thing is certain in human aft'airs, it is certain and 
 from the most obvious considerations, that we are more secure in this 
 respect than any civilized and fully peopled society upon the face of 
 the earth. In every such society, there is a much larger proportion 
 than with us, of persons who have more to gain than to lose by the 
 overthrow of government, and the embroiling of social order. It is in 
 such a state of things that those who were before at the bottom of society, 
 rise to the surface. From causes already considered, they are pecu- 
 liarly apt to consider their sufferings the result of injustice and mis- 
 government, and to be rancorous and embittered accordingly. They 
 have every excitement therefore of resentful passion, and every temp- 
 tation which tlie hope of increased opulence, or power or considera- 
 tion can hold out, to urge them to innovation and revolt. Supposing 
 the same disposition to exist in equal degree among our slaves, what 
 are their comparative means or prospect of gratifying iti The poor 
 of other countries are called free. They have, at least, no one interest- 
 ed to exercise a daily and nightly superintendence and control over 
 their conduct and actions. Emissaries of their class may traverse, 
 unchecked, every portion of the country, for the purpose of organizing 
 insurrection. From their greater intelligence, they have greater means 
 of communicating with each other. They may procure and secrete 
 arms. It is not alone the ignorant, or those who are commonly call- 
 ed the poor, that will be tempted to revolution. There will be many 
 disappointed men and men of desperate fortune — men perhaps of ta- 
 lent and daring — to combine them and direct their energies. Even 
 those in the higher ranks of society who contemplate no such result, 
 will contribute to it, by declaiming on their hardships and rights. 
 
 With us, it is almost physically impossible, that there should be any 
 very extensive combination among the slaves. It is absolutely impos- 
 sible that they should procure and conceal efficient arms. Their em- 
 issaries traversing the country, would carry their commission on their 
 foreheads. If we suppose amcMig them an individual of sufficient ta- 
 lent and energy to quaJify hinr for a revolutionary leader, he could not 
 be so extensively known as to command tlie confidence, which would 
 be necessary to enable him to combine and direct them. Of the class 
 of freemen, there would be no individual so poor or degraded (with 
 
48 
 
 the exception perhaps of here and there a reckless and desperate out- 
 Jaw and felon) who woidd not have much to lose by the success of such 
 an attempt; every one therefore would be vigilant and active to de- 
 tect and suppress it. Of all impossible things, one of the most im- 
 possible would be a successful insurrection of our slaves, originating 
 with themselves. 
 
 Attempts at insurrection have indeed been made — excited, as we 
 believe, by tlie agitation of the abolitionists and declaimers on slavery; 
 but these have been in every instance promptly suppressed. We fear 
 not to compare the riots, disorder, revolt and bloodshed which hav- 
 been committed in our own, with those of any other civilized commu- 
 nities, during the same lapse of time. And let it be observed under 
 Avhat extraordinary circumstances our peace has been preserved. For 
 the last half century, one half of our population has been admonish- 
 ed in terms the most calculated to madden and excite, that they 
 are the victims of the most grinding and cruel injustice and oppres- 
 sion. We know that these exhortations continually reach them, 
 through a thousand channels which we cannot detect, as if carried by 
 the birds of the air — and what human being, especially when unfa- 
 vorably distinguished by outward circumstances, is not ready to give 
 credit when he is told that he is the victim of injustice and oppression? 
 In effect, if not in terms, they have been continually exhorted to in- 
 surrection. The master has been painted a criminal, tyrant and rob- 
 ber, justly obnoxious to the vengeance of Grod and man, and they have 
 been assured of the countenance and sympathy, if not of the active 
 assistance of all the rest of the world. We ourselves liave in some 
 measure pleaded guilty to the impeachment. It is not long since a 
 great majority of our free population, servile to the opinions of those 
 whose opinions they had been accustomed to follow, would have ad- 
 mitted slavery to be a great evil, vxnjust and indefensible in principle, 
 and only to be vindicated by the stern necessity which was imposed 
 upon us. Thus stimulated by every motive and jiassion which ordi- 
 narily actuate human beings — not as to a criminal enterprize, but as 
 to something generous and heroic — what has been the result] A few 
 imbecile and uncombined plots — in every instance detected before 
 they broke out into action, and which perhaps if undetected would 
 never have broken into action. One or two sudden, unpremeditated 
 attempts, frantic in their character, if not prompted by actual insan- 
 ity, and these instantly crushed. As It is, we are not less assured of 
 safety, order and internal peace than any other people; and but for the 
 pertinacious and fanatical agitation of the subject, would be much 
 more so. 
 
 This experience of security however should admonish us of the 
 folly and wickedness of those who have sometimes taken upon them- 
 selves to supersede the regular course of law, and by rash and violent 
 acts to punish supposed disturbers of the peace of society. This can 
 admit of no justification or palliation whatever. Burke I think some- 
 where remarks something to this effect, — that when society is in the 
 last stage of depravity — when all parties are alike corrupt and alike 
 
49 
 
 tvickeduiid luijustifuible in their measures and objects, a good man 
 may content liimself with standing neuter, a sad and disheartened 
 spectator of the conflict b'itween the rival vices. But are we in this 
 wretched condition? It is fearful to see with what avidity the worst 
 and most dangerous characters of society seize on the occasion of ob- 
 taining the countenance of better men, for the purpose of throwing off 
 the restraints of law. It is alway? these who are most zealous and 
 forward in constituting themselves the protectors of the public peace. 
 To such men — men without re| utdti >n or principle or stake in soci- 
 ety — disorder is the natural element. In that, desperate fortunes and 
 the want of all moral principle and moral feeling constitute power. 
 They are eager to avenge themselves upon society. Anarchy is not 
 so much the absence of government as the government of the worst — 
 not aristocracy but kakistocrac}' — a state of things, which to the honor 
 of our nature, has seldom obtained amongst men, and which perhaps 
 was only fully exemplified during the worst times of the French re- 
 volution, when that horrid hell burnt with its most horrid flame. In 
 such a state of things, to be accused is to be condemned — to protect 
 the innocent is to be guilty; and what perhaps is the worst eflcct, even 
 men of better nature, to whom their own deeds are abhorrent, are 
 goaded by terror to be forward and emulous in deeds of guilt and vi- 
 olence. The scenes of lawless violence which have been acted in 
 some portions of our country, rare and restricted as they have been, 
 have done more to tarnish its reputation than a thousand libels. Thry 
 have done more to discredit, and if any thing cuuld, to endanger, not 
 only our domestic, l)Ut our republican institutions, than the abolition- 
 ists themselves. Men can never be permanently and elFectually dis- 
 graced but by themselves, and rarely endangered but by their own in- 
 judicious conduct, giving advantage t^ the enemy. Better, far better, 
 would it be to encounter the dangers with which we are supposed to 
 be threatened, than to employ such means for averting them. But 
 the truth is, that in relation to this matter, so far as respects actual in- 
 surrection, when alarm is once excited, danger is absolutely at an end. 
 Society can then employ legitimate and severe effectual measures for 
 its own protection. The very commission of such deeds, is proof 
 that they are necessary. Let those who attempt them then, or make 
 any demonstration towards them, understand that they will meet only 
 the discountenance and abhorrence of all good men, and the just 
 punishment of the laws they have dared to outrage. 
 
 It has commonly been supposed, that this institution will prove a 
 source of weakness in relation to military defence against a foreign 
 enemy. I will venture to say that in a slave holding community, a 
 larger military force may be maintained permanently in the field, 
 than in any State where there are not slaves. It is plain that almost 
 the whole of the able bodied fiee male population, making half of the 
 entire able bodied male population, maybe maintained in the field, 
 and this without taking in any material degi-ee from the labour and 
 resources of the countij. In general the labor of our country is per- 
 formed by slaves. In other countries, it is their laborers that form 
 7 
 
50 
 
 the material of their armies. What proportion of these can be taken 
 away without fatally cripplinor their industry and resources'? In the 
 war of the revolution, though the strength of our state was wasted 
 and paralyzed by the unfortunate divisions which existed among our- 
 selves, yet it iTiay be said with general truth, that every citizen was in 
 the fiel-l and acquired much of the qualities of the soldier. 
 ■- It is true that liiis advantage will ba attended with its compensating 
 evils and disadvantages; to which we must learn to submit, if we are 
 determined on the maintenance of our institutions. We are, as yet, 
 hardly at all aware how little the mixims and practices of modern civ- 
 ilized governments will apply to us. Standing armies, as they are 
 elsewhere constituted, we cannot have; for wo have not, and f<ir gen- 
 eiations cannot have the materials out of which they are to be form- 
 ed. If we should be involved in serious wars, I have no doubt but 
 that some sort of ci)nscri])tion, requiring the services i-f all cilizens 
 for a considerable term, will be necessary. Like the people of 
 Athens, it will be necessary that every citizen should be a soldier, and 
 qualified to discharge efficiently the duties of a soldier. It may seem 
 a melancholy consideration, that an army so made up should be op- 
 posed to the disciplined mercenaries of foreign nations. But we must 
 learn to know our tiue situation. But may we not hope, that made 
 up of superior materials, of men having home and country to defend; 
 inspired by higher pride of character, of greater intelligence and 
 trained by an eftective, though honorable discipline, such an army 
 will be more than a match for mercenaries. The efficiency of an ar- 
 my is determined by the qualities of its officers, and may we not ex- 
 pect to have a greater proportion of men better (jualified for officers, 
 and possessing the true spirit of military command. And let it be 
 recollected that if there were otherwise reason to apprehend danger 
 from insurrection, there will be*the greatest security when there is 
 the largest force on foot within the country. Then it is that any such 
 attempt Would be most instantly and crt'ectually crushed. 
 
 And perhaps a wise foresight should induce our State to provide, 
 that it should have within itself such military knowledge and skill as 
 may be sufficient to organize, disc pline and command armies, by es- 
 tablishing a military academy or school of discipline. Tlic school 
 of the mihtia will not do for this. From the general opinion of our 
 weakness, if our country should at any time come info hostile colli- 
 sion, we shall be selected for the point < f attack ; making us, accord- 
 ing to Mr, Adams' anticipation, the Flanders of the United States, 
 Come from what quarter it may, the storm will fall upon us. It is 
 known that lately when there was apprehension of hostility with 
 France, the scheme was inslan'ly devised of invading the Southern 
 States and organizing insurrection. In a popular English periodi- 
 cal work, I have seenthe ])lan suggested by an officer of high rank 
 and reputation in the British army, of invading the Southern States at 
 various points and operating by the same means. He is said to be a 
 gallant officer, and certainly had no conception that he was devising 
 atrocious crime, as alien to the true spirit of civilized warfare, as the 
 
81 
 
 poisoning of streams and fountains. But the folly of such schemes 
 is no less evident than tlieir wickedness. Apart from the considera* 
 tion of that whicli experience has most fully proved to he true — that 
 in aeneral their attachment and fidelity to their masters is not to bo 
 shaken, and that from sympathy with tlie feelings of those by whom 
 they are surrounded, and from whom they derive their impressions, 
 they contract no less terror and aversion towards an invading enemy; 
 it is manifest that this recourse would be an hundied fold more avail- 
 able to us than to such an enemy. They are already in our posses- 
 sion, and we might at will arm and organize them in any number that 
 we might tliink proper. The Helots were a regular constituent part 
 of the Spartan armies. Tlioroughly acquainted with their characters 
 and accustomed to command them, we might use any stiictness of 
 discipline wliich would he necessary to render them eflective, and 
 from their hahits of subordination already formed, this would be a 
 task of less difficulty. Thoigh morally most timid, they are by nrt 
 means wanting in physical strength of nerve. They are excitable by 
 praise; and directed by those in whom they have confidetice, would 
 rush fearlessly and unquestioning upon any sort of danger. With 
 white officers and accompanied by a strong white cavalry, there are 
 no troops in tlie world from wh(»m there would be so little reason to 
 apprehend insu'.jorliuation or mutiny. 
 
 This I admit might be a dangerous resource, and one not to be re- 
 sorted to but ill great extremity. But I am supposing the case of our 
 beitig driven to extremity. It might be dangerous to disband such an 
 army, and reduce them with the liabits of soldiers, to their former 
 condition of laborers, it might be found necessary, when once embo- 
 died to keep them so, and subject to military discipline — a permanent 
 standing arniy. This in time of peace would be expensive, if not 
 dangerous. Or if at any time we should be engag d in hostilities 
 with our neiijhbors, and it were thought advisable to send such an 
 army abroad to conquer settlements for themselves, the invaded re- 
 gions might have occasion to think that the scourge of God was again 
 let loose to afflict the earth. 
 
 President Dew has very fully shown how utterly vain are the fears 
 of those, who though there may be no danger for the present, yet ap- 
 prehend great danger for the future, when the number of slaves shall 
 be greatly increased. He has shown that the large and more con- 
 densed the society becomes, the easier it will be to maintain subordi- 
 nation, supposing the relative numbers of the different classes to re- 
 main the same — or even if there should he a very disproportionate in- 
 crease of the enslaved class. Of all vain things, the vainest and that 
 in which man most shows his impotence and folly, is the taking upon 
 himself to provide for a very distant future — at all events by any ma- 
 terial sacrifice of tlie present. Though experience has shown that 
 revoliiticns and j-.oliiica! movements — unless when they have baen 
 conducted with the most guarded caution and moderation — have gen- 
 erally terminated in results just the opposite of what was e.^pected 
 from them, the angry ape will still play his fantastic tricks, and put in 
 
52 
 
 motion machinery, the action of which he no more comprehends or 
 foresees than he comprehends the mysteries of infinity. The insect 
 that is borne upon the current, will fancy that he directs its course. Be- 
 sides the fear of insurrection and servile war, theie is also alarm lest 
 when their numbers shall be greatly increased, their labor will become 
 utterly unprofitable, so that it will be equally difficult for the master to 
 retain and support them, or to get rid of them. But at what age of tiie 
 world is this likely to happen] At present, it may be said that almost 
 the whole of the Southern portion of this continent is to be subdued 
 to cultivation; and in the oraer of providence, this is the task allotted 
 to them. For this purpose, more labour will be required for genera- 
 tions to come than they will be able to supply. When that task is 
 accomplished, there will he many objects to which their labour may 
 be directed. 
 
 At pre33nt they are employed in accumulating individuil wealth, 
 and this in one way, to wit, as agricultural labourers — and this is 
 perhaps the most useful purpose to which their labour can be ap- 
 plied. The eftect of slavery has not been to counteract the tendency 
 to dispersion, which seems epidemical among our countrymen, invi- 
 ted by the unbounded extent of fertile and unexhausted soil, th(»ugh 
 it counteracts many of the evils of dispersion. All the customary 
 trades, professions and employments, except the agricultural, require 
 a condensed population for iheir profitable exercise. The agricultu- 
 rist who can command no labor but that of his own hands or that of 
 his family, must remain comparatively poor and rude. He who ac- 
 quires wealth by the labor of slaves, has the means of imi>rovement 
 for himself and his children. He may have a more extended inter- 
 course, and consequently means of information aiid refinement, and 
 may seek education for his children where it may be found. I say, 
 what is obviously true, that he has the metnis of obtaining those ad- 
 vantages; but I say nothing to palliate or excuse the conduct of him, 
 who having such means neglects to avail himself of them. 
 
 I believe it to be true, that in consequence of our dispersion, thousrh 
 individual wealth is acquired, tlie face of the country is less adorned 
 and improved by useful and ornamental public works, than in other 
 societies of more condensed population, where there is less wealth. 
 But this is an effect of that, which constitutes perhaps our most conspi- 
 cuous advantage. Where popidation is condensed, they must have 
 the evils of condensed population, and among these is the difficulty 
 of finding profitable employment for capital He who has accumu- 
 lated even an inconsiderable sum, is often puzzled to know what use 
 to make of it. Ingenuity is therefore tasked to cast about for every 
 enterprise which may affoid a chance of profitable investment. Works 
 useful and ornamental to the country, are thus undertaken and accom- 
 plished, and though the proprietors may fail of profit, the comnmni- 
 ty no less receives the beneiit. Among us, there is no such difficul- 
 ty. A sale and profitable method of investment is offered to every one 
 v/ho has capital to dispose of, whicli is further recommended to his 
 ieelincrs hv the sense of independence and the comparative leisure. 
 
53 
 
 which the employment affords to the proprietor engaged in it. It is^ 
 for this reason that ^ew ot our citizens engage in the pursuits of 
 commeice. Thougli tliesemay be more profitable, they are also more 
 hazardous and more hd)orious. 
 
 When tlie demand for agricultural labour shall be fully supplied, 
 then of course the labour (jf shives will be directed to otliei- employ- 
 ments and ei.terprises. Already it begins to be found, ihat in some 
 instances it may* be used as prohtably in works of public improve- 
 ment. As it becomes cheaper and c heaper, it will be applied to more 
 various purposes and combined in larger masses. It may be com- 
 manded and combined with more faciUty than any otiicr sort of la- 
 bour; and the labouier. kept in stricter subordination, will be les3 
 dangerous to the security of society than in any other country, which 
 is crowded ;md overstocked with a class of what are called free labor- 
 ers. Let it be remembered that all the great and enduring monu- 
 ments of hunvc-n art and industry — the wonders of Egypt — the ever- 
 lasting works of Rome — were created by the labor of slaves. There 
 •will come a stage in our progress when we shall have facilities for 
 executing works as great as any of these — more usefid than the py- 
 ramids—not less magnificent than the I\[e(-tic sea. What the end of 
 all is to be; what mutations lie hid in the womb of the distant future; 
 to what convulsions our societies nriy beexp.xed — whether the mas- 
 ter, finding it impossible to live with his slaves, may not be compell- 
 ed to abandon the country to them — of all this it were presumptuous 
 and vain to speculate. 
 
 I have hitherto, as I proposed, considered it as a naked, abstract 
 question of the comparative good and evil of the institution of slave- 
 ry. Very far different indeed is the practical question presented to 
 us, when it is pniposed to get rid of an institution wliich has interwo- 
 ven itself with every fibre of the body politic; which has formed the 
 habits of owr society, and is consecrated by the usage of genera- 
 tions. If this be not a vicious presciiptiim, which the laws of God 
 forbid to ripen into right, it has a just claim to be respected by all Iri- 
 bunals of man. If the negroes were now free and it were proposed 
 to enslave tliem, then it would be incumbent on those who proposed 
 the measure to show clearly that their liberty was incompatible with 
 the public security. When it is proposed to innovate on the estab- 
 lished state of things, the bu»-den is on those who propose the inno- 
 vation, to show that advantage will be gained from it. There is no 
 reform, however necessary, wholesome or moderate, which will not 
 be accompanied with some degree of inconvenience, risque or suffer- 
 ing. Those who acquiesce in the state of things which they found 
 existing, can hardly be thought criminal. But most deeply criminal 
 are they who give rise to the enormous evil with which great revolu- 
 tions in society are always attended, without tl e fullest assurance of 
 the greater good to be ultimately obtampd. But if it can be made to 
 appear, even probably, that no good will be obtained, but that the re- 
 sults will be evil and calamitous as tiie process, what can justify such 
 innovations'? No human hcing can be so mischievous— if acting con- 
 
54 
 
 sciously, none can be so wicked, as those who finding evil in existing 
 institutions, rush blindly upon change, unforcsecmg and reckle.-s of 
 consequences, and leaving it to < hance or fate to determine whetlier 
 the end shall be improvement, or greater and more intolerable evil. 
 Certainly the instiiicls of nature prompt to rewist nitolerable oppres- 
 sion For this resistance nr) lule can be piescribed, but t must he 
 left to the instincts of nature. To justify it however, the insurrec- 
 tionists should at leisthave a reasonable probability of success, and 
 be assured that theit condition will l>e improved by success. But 
 most extraordiiiary is it. when those who complain and clamot, are 
 not those who are supposed to feel the oppression, but persons at a 
 distance from them, and who can hardly at all appreciate the good or 
 evil of their situation. It is the unalterable condition of humanity, 
 that men must achieve civil liberty for themselves. The assistance 
 of allies h;is sometimes enabled nations to repel the attacks of for- 
 eign power; never to conquei liberty as t:gainst their own internal 
 government. 
 
 In one th ng I concur with the abolitionists; that if emancipation 
 is to be brought about, it i~ belter that it should be immediate and to- 
 tal. But let us suppose it to be brought about in any manner, and 
 then enquire what would be the effects. 
 
 The first and most obvious effect, would be to put an end to the cul- 
 tivation of our great southern staple. And this would be equally tl e 
 result, if we suppose the emancipHied negroes to be in no way dis- 
 tinguished from the free laborers of other countries, and that their la- 
 bour would be equally effective. In that case, they would soon cease 
 to be laborers for hire, but w.mld scatter the n-ielves overour unboun- 
 ded territory, to become independent land owners themselves. The 
 cultivation of the soil on an extensive scale, can only be carried on 
 where there are slaves, or in countries superabounding with free la- 
 bour. No such operations are cariied on in any portions of our own 
 country when? there are not slaves Such are carried on in England, 
 where there is an overflowing population and intense compftition 
 for employment. And our institutions seem suited to the exigences 
 of our respective situations. There, a ranch greater number of labour- 
 ers is required atone season of the year than at another, and the Far- 
 mer may enlarge or dnninish the quantity of labour he employs, as 
 circumstance> may require. Here, about the same quantity of labour 
 is required at every season, and the j)lanter suffers no inconvenience 
 from retaining his labourers throughout the year. Imagine an ex- 
 tensive rice or c .ttoa ulantation cultivated by free laborers, who 
 might perhaps 5^/7'^e for an increase of wages, at a season when the 
 neglect of a iew days would insure the destruction of the whole 
 crop. Even if it were possible to procure laborers at all, what plan- 
 ter would venure to carry on his operaiions under such circumstan- 
 ces? I need hardly say that these staples cannot be produced to any 
 extent where the proprietor of the soil cultivates it with his own 
 hands. He can do little more than producu the necessary food for 
 himself and his family. 
 
55 
 
 And what would he the effect of putting an end to the cultivation 
 of these sta])Ies, and thus anTiihilatino- at a blow, two thirds rr three 
 f -urths of our fonign commerce? Can any sane mind contemplate 
 such a result without terror? I speak iiot of the utter poverty and 
 niisery to vvhicli we ourselves would be reduced, and the desolation 
 which would overspread our own portion of the counlrv. (Jur sla- 
 very has not only given existence to mdlions of slaves within our own 
 territories, it has given the meai.s of snb^istence and therefore exist- 
 ence to millions of fr^^emen in our ctmfederate States; enablingthem 
 to send forth theii- swarms, to overspread the plains and forests^of the 
 West and appear as the harbingers of civilization. The jn. -ducts of 
 the industry of those States are in general similar to tlnse of the 
 civilized world, and are little demanded in their markets. By ex- 
 chanfring iht m for ours, vvhicli are eveiy where sought for, the peo- 
 pie of the>e States are enabled to acquire all the products of art and 
 industry, all that contributes to convenience or luxury, orrrrntiHes the 
 taste or the inteleci, whicli th • rest of the world can sup[)ly. Not 
 only on our own continent, but on the other, it has given existence to 
 hundreds of thousands, and the means of comfortable subsistence to 
 millions. A distiiifjni^hed citizen of oui own state, than whom none 
 can be better qualified to form an oyrlnion, has lately stated that our 
 great stajjle, cotton, lias contributed more than any thing else of later 
 times to the pro,rress ..f civilization. By enabling the poor to obtain 
 cheip and becoming clothing, it has inspired a taste f)r comfort, tho 
 first stimulus to civilization. Does nnt self defence then demand of 
 us, steadily to resist the abiogation of that which is productive of so 
 much good? It is more than self defence. It is to defend millions of 
 human beings, who are far removed from us, from the intensest siif- 
 fering, if no; from being struck out of existence. It is the defence 
 of human civilization. 
 
 But this is but a small part of the evil which would be occasioned. 
 After President Dew, it is unnecessary to say a single word on the 
 practicability of colonizing our slaves. The two races, so widely sep- 
 erated from each other by the impress of ufjture. must remain togeth- 
 er in the same countiy. Whether it be accounted the result of°pre- 
 judice or reason, it is certain thnt the tw.. races will not be blended to- 
 gether soasto f -rm a h<miogenous population. To rme who knows 
 any thing of the nature of man and human society, it would be un- 
 i.ecessary to aiguo that this state of things cai'not continue; but 
 that one race must be driven out by the other, or exterminated, or 
 again enslaved. I have argued on the supposition that the emancipa- 
 ted negroes would be as efficient as other free laborers But what- 
 ever theorists, who know nothing of the matter, may think proper to 
 assume, we well know that t'lis would not be so. We know that 
 nothing but the coercion of slavery can overcome their propensity to 
 indolence, and that not one in ten would be an efficient laborer. 
 Even if this disposition were not grounded in their nature, it would 
 be a result of their position. I liave somewhere seen it observed, that 
 to be degraded by oi)inion, is a thousand fold worse, so far as the feel- 
 
56 
 
 ings of ihe individual are concerned, than to be degraded by llie iaWs. 
 T'//,e_y would be thus de'jraded, and this feelinw is incompatible with 
 habits of order and industry. Half our population would at once be 
 paupers. Lst an inhabitant of New York or Philadelphia conceive 
 of the situation of ih^ir respective l?*tates, if one half of iheir popu- 
 lation consisted of free negroes. The tie which now connects them 
 being broken, the ditt'erent races would be estranged from each other, 
 and hostility would grow up between them. Having the comman 1 of 
 their own time and actions, they could more etfectually combii.e in- 
 surrecion and provide the means of rendering it formidable. Re- 
 leased from the vigilant superintendance which now restrains them, 
 they would infallibly be led from petty to greater crimes, until all life 
 and property would be rendered insecure. Aggression would beget 
 retaliation, until open war — and that a war of extermination were es- 
 tablished. From the still remaining superiority of the white race, it is 
 probable that they would be the victors, and if they did not extermi- 
 nate, they must again reduce the others to slavery — when they could 
 be no lonofer fit to be either slaves or freemen. It is not only in self 
 defence, in defence of our country and of all that is dear to us, but in 
 defence of the slaves themselves that we refuse to emancipate them. 
 If we suppose them to have political privileges, and to be admitted 
 to the elective franchise, still worse results may be expected. It is 
 hardly necessary to add any thing to whathas beensaid by Mr. Pauld- 
 ing on this subject, who has treated it fully. It is already known, that 
 if there be a class unfavorably distinguished by any peculiarity from 
 the rest of society, this distinction forms a tie which binds them to act 
 in concert, and they exerci e more than their due share of political 
 power and influence — and still more, as they arc of inferior character 
 and looser moral principle. Such a class fotm the very material for 
 demagogues to work with. Other parties court them and concede to 
 them. So it would be withthe free blacks in the case supposed. They 
 would be used bv unprincipled politicians, of irregular ambition, for 
 the advancement of their schemes, until they should give them politi- 
 cal power and importance beyond even their own intentions. They 
 would be courted by excited parties in their contests with each other. 
 At some time, they may perhaps attain political ascendency, and this 
 is more probable, as we may suppose that there will have been a great 
 emiirration of whites from the country. Imagine the government of 
 such legislators. Imagine then the sort of laws that will be passed, to 
 confound the invidious distinction which has been so long assumed 
 over ihem, and if possible to obliterate the every memory of it. These 
 will be resisted. The blacks will be tempted to avenge themselves by 
 oppression and proscription of the white race, for their long superior- 
 ity. Thus matters will go on, until universal anarchy, or kakisto- 
 cracy. the government of the worst, is fully established. I am per- 
 suaded that if the spirit of evil should devise to send abroad upon the 
 earth all possible misery, discord, horror and atrocity, he could con- 
 trive no scheme so effectual as the emancipation of negro slaves with- 
 in our country. 
 
57 
 
 The most feasible scheme of emancipation, and that which I verily 
 believe would involve the least danger and sacrifice, would be that the 
 ejifirc white population should emigrate, and abandon the country to 
 their slaves. Here would be triumph to philanthrophy. This wide 
 and fertde region would l)e again restored to ancient barbarism — to 
 the worst of all barbarism — barbarism corrupted and depraved by in- 
 tercourse with civilization. And this is tiie consummation to be wish- 
 ed, upon a spi-vulatJun, that in some distant future age, they may be- 
 come so enlightened anil improved, as to be capable of sustaining a 
 position among the civilized races of the earth. But I believe mo- 
 ralists allow men to defend their homes and their country, even at the 
 expense of the lives and liberties of others. 
 
 Will any philanthropist say that the evils, of which I have spoken, 
 would be brought about on!}' by the obduracy, prejudices and over- 
 weaning sL'lf estimation of tlis whites i)i refusing to blend the races by 
 marriagj, and socreite an homogenous population. But what if it 
 be not prejudice, but truth, and nature, and right reason, and just mo- 
 ral feeling] As 1 have before said, throughout the whole of nature, 
 like attrasts like, and that which is unlike repels. What is it that makes 
 so unspeakably loarhsoms, crimes not to be named, and hardly allu- 
 ded to'^ Even amouifthe tiations of Europe, so nearly homogenous, 
 there aresom^ peculiarities of form and feature, mind and character, 
 which m ly be generally distinguished by those accustomed to observe 
 them. Thougli the exceptions are immerous, I will venture to sav 
 that not in one instance in a hundred, is the man of sound and unso- 
 phisticated tastes and propensiiies so likely to be attracted by the fe- 
 male (.>"a foreign stock, as by one «)f his own, who is more nearly con- 
 formed to himself. Sliakspeare spoke the language of nature, 
 when he made tlie senate and people of Venice attribute to the effect 
 of witchcraft, Desdemona's passion for Othello — though, as Cole- 
 ridge has said, we are to conceive of him not as a negro, but as a 
 high bred, Moorish Chief. 
 
 If the negro race, as 1 have contended, be inferior to our own in 
 mind and cliaracter. m irkeJ by inferiority of form and features, then 
 ours would suffer deteriora!:ion from such intermixture. What would 
 be thouglit of the moral conduct of the parent who should voluntarily 
 transmit disease, or fatuity, or deformity to his oftspringi If man be 
 the most perfect work of the creator, and the civilized European man 
 the most perfect variety of the human race, is he not criminal who 
 would desecrate and .leface God's fairest work; estranginsr it further 
 from the image of himself, and conforming it more nearly to that of 
 the brute. I have heard it said, as if it afforded an argument, that 
 the African is as well satisfied of the superiority of his own complex- 
 ion, form and features, as we can be of ours. If this were true, as it 
 is not, would any one be so recreant to his own civilization, as to say 
 that his opinion ought to wei»h against ours — that there is no univer- 
 sal standard of truth and grace and beauty — that the Hottentot Venuf5 
 may perchance possess as great perfection of form as the Medicean? 
 It is true, the Jicemious passioni* of men overcome the natural repug- 
 
68 
 
 nance, and find transient gratification in intercourse with females of 
 the other race. But this is a very ditFerent thing from making her 
 the associate of life, the companion of the bosom and the hearth. Him 
 who would contemplate duch an alliance for himself, or regard it with 
 patience, when proposed for a son or daughter or sister, we should 
 esteem a degraded wretch — with justice, ccrtaiidy, if he were found 
 among ourselves — and the estimate would not be very difl^'erent if he 
 were found in Europe. It is not only in defence of ourselves, of our 
 country and of our own generation, that we refuse to emancipate our 
 slaves, but to defend our posterity and race from degeneracy and de- 
 gradation. 
 
 Are we not justified then in regarding as criminals, the fanatical 
 agitators whose efforts are intended to bring about the evils I have 
 described. It is sometimes said that their zeal is generous and dissin- 
 terested, and that their motives may be praised, though their conduct 
 be condemned. But I have little faith in the good motives of those 
 who pursue bad ends. It is not for us to scrutinize the hearts of men, 
 and we can only judge of them by the tendency of their actions. 
 There is much truth in what was said by Coleridge. "I have never 
 known a trader in philanthropy who was not wrong in heart somehow 
 or other. Individuals so distinguished, are usually unhappy in their 
 family relations— men not benevolent or beneficent to individuals, but 
 almost hostile to them, yet lavishing money and labor and time on 
 the race — the abstract notion," The prevalent love of notoriety ac- 
 tuates some. There is much luxury in sentiment, especially if it can 
 be indu gcd at the expense of others, and if there be added some 
 share of envy or malignity, the temptation to indulgence is almost 
 irresistible. But certainly they may be justly regarded as criminal, 
 who obstinately shut their eyes and close their ears to all instruction 
 with respect to the true nature of their actions. 
 
 It must be manifest to every man of sane mind that it is impossible 
 for them to achieve ultimate success; even if every individual in our 
 country, out of the limits of the slave holding states, were united in 
 their purposes. They cannot have even the miserable tiiumph of 
 St. Domingo — of advancing through scenes of atrocity, blood and 
 massacre, to the restoration of barbarism. They may agitate and 
 perplex the world for a time. They may excite to desperate attempts 
 and particular acts of cruelty and horror, but these will always be 
 suppressed or avenged at the expense of the objects of their trucu- 
 lent philanthi-opy. But short of this, they can hardly be aware of 
 the extent of the mischief they perpetrate. As I have said, their 
 opinions, by means to us inscrutable, do very generally reach our 
 slave population. What human being, if unfavorably distinguished 
 by outward circumstances, is not ready to believe when he is told that 
 he is the victim of injustice? Is it not cruelty to make men restless 
 and dissatisfied in their condition, when no effort of theirs can alter 
 it"? The greatest injury is done to their characters, as well as to their 
 happiness. Even if no such feelings or designs should he entertain- 
 ed or conceived by the slave, they will be attributed to him by the mas- 
 
69 
 
 ter, and all his conduct scanned with a severe and jealous scrutiny. 
 Thus distrust and aversion are established, where, but for mischievous 
 interference, there would be confidence and good will, and a sterner 
 control is exercised over the slave who thus becomes the victim of his 
 cruel advocates. 
 
 An effect is sometimes produced on the minds of slave holders, by 
 the publications of the self styled philanthropists, and their judgments 
 staggered and consciences alarmed. It is natural that the oppressed 
 should hate the oppressor. It is still more natural that the opjiressor 
 should hate his victim. Convince the master that he is doing injus- 
 tice to his slave, and he at once begins to regard him with distrust 
 and malignity. It is a part of the constitution of the human mind, 
 that when circumstances of necessity or temptation induce men to 
 continue in the practice of what they believe to be wrong, they be- 
 come desperate and reckless of the degree of wrong. I have foitner- 
 ly heard of a master who accounted for his practising much severity 
 upon his slaves, and exacting from them an unusual degree of labor, 
 by saying that the thing (slavery) was altogether wrong, and therefore 
 it was well to make the greatest possible advantage out of it. This 
 agitation occasions some slave holders to hang more loosely on their 
 country. Regarding the institution as of questionable character, 
 condemned by the general opinion of the world, and one which must 
 shortly come to an end, they hold themselves in readiness to make 
 their escape from the evil which they anticipate. Some sell their 
 slaves to new masters (always a misfortune to the slave) and remove 
 themselves to other societies, of manners and habits uncongenial to 
 their own. And though we may suppose that it is only the weak and 
 the timid who are liable to be thus affected, still it is no less an injury 
 and public misfortune. Society is kept in an unquiet and restless 
 state, and every sort of improvement is retarded. 
 
 Some projectors suggest the education of slaves, with a view to pre- 
 pare them for freedom — as if tiiere were any method of a man's 
 being educated to freedom, but by hiniself. The truth is however, 
 that supposing that they are shortly to be emancipated, and that they 
 have the capacities of any other race, they are undoing the very best 
 education which it possible to give. They are in the course of be- 
 ing taught habits of regular and patient industry, and this is the first 
 lesson which is required. I suppose, that their most zealous advo- 
 cates would not desire that they should be placed in the high places 
 of society immediately upon their emancipation, but that they should 
 begin their course of freedom as laborers, and raise themselves after- 
 wards as their capacities and characters might enable them. But 
 how little would what are commonly called the rudiments of educa- 
 tion, add to their qualifications as laborers] But for the agitation 
 which exists however, their education would be carried further than 
 this. There is a constant tendency in our society to extend the sphere 
 ot their employments, and consequently to give them tlie information 
 which is necessary to the discharge of those employments. And this 
 for the most obvious reason, it promotes the master's interest. How 
 
60 
 
 much would it add to the value of a slave, that he should be capable 
 of being employed as a clt;rk, or be able to make calculations as a 
 mechanic? In consi'(iuence, however, of tlie fai.aiical spirit which 
 has been excited, it his been tliougiit necessary to repress this ten- 
 dencv by legislation, and to prevent their acqniring tii • kn(j\\ ledgr of 
 which t'ley might mike a dangerous use. If th.ssph-it were put down, 
 and wv restored to the coascioiisness of secin-it\, this would be no 
 longer necessary, and tha process of which I have sp(tken would be 
 accelerated. Wlie;iever indications of supeiior ca;jaciiy appeared in 
 a slave, it would be cultivated; gradual improvement would take 
 place, until they might be engagiid in as various employments as they 
 were amon<j tlie ancients — perhaps even liberal ones. Thus, if in the 
 adorable providence of God, at a time and in a manner which we 
 can neither foresee nor conjecture, they are to be rendered capable of 
 freedom and to enjoy it, they would be prepared for ii. in the best "and 
 most effectual, because in the most natural and gradual manner. But 
 fanaticism hurries to its eflect at once. 1 have heard it said, Gcd does 
 good, but it is by imperceptible degrees; the Devil is permilted to do 
 evil, and he does it in a hurry. The beneficent processes of nature 
 are not apparent to the senses. Yon connot see the plant irrow or the 
 flower expand. The volcano, the earthquake and the hurricane do 
 their work of desolation in a moment. Such would l.e the desola- 
 tion, if the schemes of fanatics were permitted to liave effect. They 
 do all that in them lies to thwart the benificent purposes of providence. 
 The whole tendency of their, efforts is to aggravate present suffering 
 and to cut off the cliance of future improvement, and in all their 
 bearings and results, have produced, and are likely to produce, noth- 
 ing but "fierce, umnixed, dephlegmated, defeated evil." 
 
 If Wilberforce or Clarkson were living, and it were enquired of 
 them "can you be sure that you have promoted the happiness of a 
 single human being!" 1 imagine that, if they considered conscien- 
 tiously, they would find it difficult lo answer in the affirmative. - If it 
 were asked "can you be sure tliatyou have not been the cause of suf- 
 fering, misery and death to thousands," — when we lecollect that they 
 probably stimulated the exeitions of the amis dcs jioirs in France and 
 that through the efforts of these, the horrors of >t. Domingo were 
 perpetrated. I think tliey must hesitate long to return a decided neg- 
 ative. It might seem cruel, if we could, to convince a man who has 
 devoted his life to what he esteemed a good and generous purpose, 
 that he has been doing only evil — that he has been worshipping a hor- 
 rid fiend, in the place of the true God. But fanaticism is in no dan- 
 ger of being convinced, it is one of the mysteries of our nature, and 
 of the divine government, how utterly disproportioned to each other, 
 are the powers of doinsf evil and of doing good. The poorest and 
 most abject instrument, that is utterly imbecile for any purpose of 
 good, seems sometimes endowed v/ith almost the powers of omnipo- 
 tence for mischief A mole may inundate a province — a spark from 
 aforge may conflagrate a city — a whisper may seperate friends, a ru- 
 mor may convulse an empire — but when we would do benefit to our 
 
61 
 
 race or country, the purest and most chastened motives, the most pa- 
 tient thought and labor, with the humblest self distrust, are hardly 
 sufficient to assure us that the results m ly not disappoint our expecta- 
 tations, and that we may not do evil instead of good. But are we 
 therefore to refrain from eftbrts to benefit our race and country f By 
 no means: but these motWes, this labour and self distrust are the on- 
 ly conditions upon which we are permitted to hope for success. Very 
 different indeed is the course of those, whose precipitate and ignorant 
 zeal would overturn the fundamental institutions of society, uproot its 
 peace and endanger its security, in pursuit of a distant and shadowy 
 good, of which they themselves have formed no definite conception— 
 whose atrocious philosophy would sacrifice a generation — and more 
 than one generation — for any hypothesis. 
 
54 
 
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