f A. 
 
 , University of California. 
 
 FROM THF. l.IHKAKY OF 
 
 DR. FRANCIS LIEUER, 
 Professor of History and Law in Columbia College, New York. 
 
 T1IK CUKT OF 
 
 MICHAEL REESE 
 
 ( )f San Francisco 
 
 i 
 
THE SOUTH VINDICATED 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 TREASON AND FANATICISM 
 
 NORTHERN ABOLITIONISTS. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY H. MANLY. 
 1836. 
 
? - * As^ 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 THE following work, having been undertaken 
 solely with the view of vindicating the South from 
 the calumnies of the abolitionists, and of directing 
 public attention to the origin and nature of Domes 
 tic Slavery, and to the facts connected with the 
 question of Emancipation it was considered ad 
 visable to present it to the public as early as possi 
 ble. The very brief period allowed the author in 
 preparing the volume for the press, necessarily 
 precluded much attention to grace of style, or 
 propriety of arrangement. He has sought to pre 
 sent the prominent features of this important subject 
 to the attention of the public, in a plain, distinct, and 
 intelligible manner. If he has succeeded if he 
 has aided, even in the slightest degree, in unmask 
 ing the evils and dangers of Emancipation, as now 
 urged by the fanatics of the North the writer has 
 attained his sole object and is content. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION -.! - . .- ,. IK.) r - - 13 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Origin of Slavery Slavery among the Ancients either 
 voluntary or involuntary Involuntary Slavery from War 
 Piracy Crime Bargain and Sale : , .-- - . - 19 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Slavery among the Ancients continued Voluntary Slavery 
 Roman Mercenarii Grecian Prodigals German Enthu 
 siasts Condition of Slaves Power and Inhumanity of Mas 
 ters 27 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Slave-trade Origin Progress Mode of collecting Slaves 
 African co-operation Transportation of Slaves Extent of 
 Trade Abolition -.-,.,. 32 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Origin of Slavery in this country Common to all the Colo 
 nies Cause of present exemption of northern states from 
 a slave population Progress of importation of slaves into 
 the Colonies Great numerical superiority of Slaves in the 
 South Comparative progress of Population Insurrection of 
 Slaves Abolition of the slave-trade by states Constitutional 
 provisions on the subject Abolition of slave-trade by Con 
 gress Course of the South in relation to the slave-trade 40 
 1* 
 
VI 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 America not responsible for the Introduction of slavery into 
 this country Course of Great Britain Slavery in England 
 White captives exported by the English to the Colonies 
 African slavery introduced into this country by England 
 Trade sanctioned and enforced by government Aversion of 
 the Colonies^ Ineffectual remonstrances and resistance In 
 structions to colonial governors British slave-trade one of 
 the causes of American rebellion ... 47 
 
 CHAPTER VI, 
 
 English slave-trade Extent Cruelty Motives of abolition 
 selfish and hypocritical Violation of the law abolishing 
 the trade West India emancipation 57 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Slavery in this country Extent Productiveness North 
 ern labourers and Southern slaves Education of Negroes 
 Religion Slaves protected by law Treatment of Slaves 
 Testimony of different writers 66 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Slavery considered The right, of man to hold his fellow 
 man in bondage Exposition of the phrase "all men created 
 free and equal" Blackstone, and Professor Dew in reply 
 Admitted by writers on national law Justifiable in this coun 
 try from peculiar circumstances under which it exists, and the 
 impracticability of emancipation The debtor in the North a 
 slave Laws of every country justify a certain state of do 
 mestic bondage 80 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Slavery considered in continuation Sanctioned by the Old 
 and New Testaments, and accordant with the precepts arid 
 spirit of Christianity 88 
 
Vll 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Slavery considered in continuation Influence of slavery 
 on civilization on the female sex on morality on the po 
 litical character and destinies of a country on our country 
 Insincerity of abolitionists Influence on the character of the 
 citizens of the South Testimony of Burke Influence on 
 the character of the people of Greece and Rome Induces 
 political independence and intelligence Consequences of the 
 peculiar complexion of the slave Necessity of Negroes for 
 the cultivation of the South Free and slave labour Pros 
 perity and prospects of the South .... 100 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Schemes for the removal of slavery Colonization and 
 abolition History of Colonization Description of the set 
 tlement Extract from the speech of Mr. Clay in its sup- \ - 
 port Views of its friends Objections Extract from Pro 
 fessor Dew in opposition to colonization Observations on 
 the scheme - i ^V/: !-=- -JHn?r^l^il(nirvsr3i"" " 123 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ^Abolition of slavery in the United States Objects and 
 designs of Abolitionists Emancipation universal imme 
 diate unconditional without compensation to the master 
 
 Elevation of the slave to political equality with the whites 
 
 right of bearing arms of voting of holding office Amal 
 gamation 172 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Character of leading abolitionists Garrison Tappan 
 
 Thompson the British agent, &c. General character of the 
 faction - - - - . . -157 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Policy of Abolitionists Agitation in the Northin the 
 South with the slave-holders with the slaves Fanaticism 
 Female influence Organization of the party Agents 
 
Vlll 
 
 Publications Political influence Revolution Disunion 
 Insurrection - - - - - - . 172 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Resources and power of the Abolitionists Number of So 
 cieties Amount of Collections Number and nature of pub 
 lications, &c. 189 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Consequences of the course of the abolitionists War upon 
 the slave-holder Emancipation retarded or rendered impos 
 sible Bondage of the blacks made more severe Address 
 of the coloured people of Baltimore, &c. - - 199 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Rights of the South Nature of those rights Intangible 
 to Northern interference Recognised by the North Obliga 
 tion to respect them North not accountable for Southern 
 slavery Treason of abolitionists Laws of the South against 
 incendiarism Abolitionists violate those laws Right of the 
 South to demand the offenders for punishment Duty of the 
 northern states to suppress incendiarism - - 208 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 The abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia 
 Congress has no jurisdiction over the subject Consequences 
 of making Congress an abolition engine Emancipation a vir 
 tual infraction of the compact between the General Govern 
 ment and Virginia and Maryland A violation of the rights 
 of the citizens of the District Consequences of abolishing 
 slavery in the District of Columbia ... 218 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Impossibility of effecting emancipation, even under the 
 sanction of the slave-holders, without collision and war be 
 tween the whites and blacks. Blacks would, when free, 
 claim political equality Consequences if denied Conse- 
 
IX 
 
 quences if granted Impossibility of social amalgamation 
 Numerous subjects of quarrel Free blacks of the North 
 Their character and condition Unable to attain social or 
 political equality Anecdote Character and capabilities of 
 the negro race Equality only attained by sexual amalgama 
 tion Impracticable Consequences if otherwise - 226 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Consequences of abolition, even if effected with the con 
 sent of slave-holders. To the North Negro emigration 
 to the North Depreciation of labour Distress of white 
 labouring population Black Lazaroni Political move 
 ments of blacks in the North Destructive influence of 
 emancipation on Commerce and Manufactures of the North 
 Consequences to the South Loss of negro labour and im 
 poverishment of the country Negro indolence, &c. Vio 
 lence and insurrection Picture of the ravages of the eman 
 cipated slave Philanthropy of Abolitionists Consequences 
 of emancipation to slaves Improvidence, poverty, vice and 
 wretchedness Instances Results of collision with the 
 whites - ""nr " " " 2 ^7 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 St. Domingo before the revolution Insurrection originated 
 in the policy of France AMIS DES NOIRS Agitation of the 
 colony by the French Domestic dissentions Oge Insur 
 rection French commissioners proclaim abolition of slavery 
 Massacres Cruelty of the revolted slaves Touissant 
 Le Clerc lands Evacuates the island Dessalines Massa 
 cres Christophe Petion Boyer Present state of Hayti, 
 Government Population Character of inhabitants Agri 
 culture Commerce Free labour Finances Army, &c. 254 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Consequences of agitating abolition in opposition to the 
 wishes,and in violation of the rights,of the South Individual 
 agitation Party and popular excitement Danger of servile 
 
insurrection THE UNION ENDANGERED Disunion can only 
 be produced by the course of the North Consequences To 
 the North Confederacy dissolved never re-united Destruc 
 tion of manufactures and commerce of the North Collision 
 between the North and South National glory Motives of 
 abolitionists 276 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 British agency in urging abolition Motives, &c. Reli 
 gious interference Extent Nature Consequences of cleri 
 cal influence in the agitation of this question - - 288 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Ability of the South to hold its slaves Anxiety of Abo 
 litionists unnecessary Croakers Posterity Comparative 
 increase of whites and blacks Increase unattended by dan 
 ger Impossibility of successful insurrrection Moral supe 
 riority of whites Superior intelligence and skill Organiza 
 tion Resources Slaves contented, and averse to insurrection 
 Incendiarism suppressed by the South - 295 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Course of the South vindicated Her indignant resistance 
 of incendiary agitation Her punishment of those found ex 
 citing her slaves to insurrection Duty of Congress Post 
 Office, &c. Duty of non-slave-hoiding states Freedom of 
 the press, &c. Conclusion - 307 
 
 ERRATUM. 
 
 The Note on page 79 should have been subjoined to the 
 commencement of Chapter VIII., on the subsequent page. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE framers of our government, when confronted 
 in their labours by the question of slavery, prudent 
 ly turned aside from a topic, which menaced their 
 councils with division, and the embryo constitution 
 with death. They left the unquestioned sovereignty 
 of the Southern States over all connected with this 
 most important branch of their domestic relations, 
 untouched. The controversy was buried, as they 
 hoped, for ever; and they departed from the scene 
 of their labours, in the happy confidence that our 
 country did not contain one man so lost to reason 
 and patriotism, as madly to violate the grave in 
 which they saw this exciting question quietly inurn- 
 ed, and drag it forth to madden and distract the 
 land. 
 
 The result has proven that their confidence was 
 ill-founded. Every land comprises men prepared, 
 by nature, for treasons, stratagems, and spoils men 
 who rejoice to tear open and irritate the wounds of 
 their country, and who seek, with sedulous diligence, 
 for those weak and unguarded spots in the body 
 politic, where it may be struck with the most fatal 
 effect. Of their individual character, it is unneces- 
 2 
 
XIV 
 
 sary here to speak. Treason finds disciples of every 
 description and variety. Heated fanaticism and 
 reckless villany, hypocritical guile and honest stu 
 pidity, often combine to forward the most nefarious 
 plots. Our own country is not- without such men. 
 The sun warms the reptile into life; and freedom 
 often animates into existence beings whose life is a 
 reproach and a calamity to her. There are men 
 who take an unnatural pleasure in the afflictions of 
 their country, and who live only to foment disturb 
 ance. Their nature and enjoyments are like those 
 of the sailors bird of evil omen, which flutters with 
 delight in the breath of the tempest, looks down 
 upon the foundering wreck, and screams, with ex 
 ultation, in answer to the shrieks of the wretches 
 who perish in the waves. There arc others, who, 
 from a leaden vanity, thrust themselves into matters 
 for which their capacities are not suited. They ex 
 pend time and money in forwarding the designs of 
 their crafty leaders, and arc well satisfied with the 
 sacrifice. These men mistake notoriety for fame; 
 their hearts flutter with pleasure when their names 
 are consigned to the contempt of the public, through 
 the medium of the newspapers; and they hear the 
 hiss of outraged propriety with the complacent 
 smirk of gratified pride. There is another class 
 fanatics who mistake the promptings of their over 
 heated fancy the vapours that rise from the molten 
 lead of their own seething brains for the dictates 
 
 o 
 
 of inspiration. They are a troublesome race, to 
 whom the tranquillizing chair or strait jacket is the 
 
XV 
 
 only effective argument. Still, they should be re 
 garded rather with compassion than anger, as they 
 make themselves fools from conscientious mo 
 tives. A fourth class remains to be mentioned, en 
 titled only to our contempt and abhorrence. They 
 affect an enthusiasm which they do not feel. Hypo 
 crisy is their professional pursuit. They live upon 
 cant cant themselves into influence, luxury, and 
 power; and use their sway over the weak and credu 
 lous, to forward schemes of ambition, aggrandize 
 ment, or malevolence. These men (and there are 
 such men) are capable of any act, however atro 
 cious; they would dip their hands in human gore, 
 and then, with their crimson fingers, turn over the 
 leaves of the Bible to find a sanction for the deed. 
 
 We have fallen upon evil times. Men have been 
 found w r ho do not scruple to tear off the seals which 
 our fathers set upon the question of slavery. They 
 have broken open, with reckless hands, this maga 
 zine, filled with all that can excite and endanger; 
 and are lighting the torch to apply to its~materials 
 of fury and desolation. The consequences are such 
 as might have been anticipated. Distrust and fear, 
 indignation and violence, are abroad in our land. 
 Every fibre of our country is quivering with excite 
 ment. How could it be otherwise ? Our people can 
 not be expected to stand by, with complacent tran 
 quillity, while mad hands are digging under the 
 foundation stone of our government. They cannot 
 be asked to witness, unmoved, the violation of one 
 of the first of the sacred and unalienated rights of 
 
XVI 
 
 the States a right achieved by the right arm of our 
 fathers, and hallowed in the baptism of blood a 
 right which existed before our government was call 
 ed into being, and to which our National Constitu 
 tion bows in deference. They cannot be desired to 
 gaze on, without alarm or anger, while treason and 
 fanaticism place the brand and the torch in the hands 
 of the savage negro, and, pointing to the whites, bid 
 him rise and destroy. These things must produce 
 excitement. They must alarum the fears they 
 must awaken the resentment of the people. 
 
 "The flesh will quiver when the pincers tear 
 The blood will follow where the knife is driven." 
 
 To be indifferent is impossible; and if possible, would 
 be weak and unwise. The people that submit to 
 such wrong will submit to any thing. The freeman 
 who can, without alarm, witness the development 
 of the abolition conspiracy, would scarcely be 
 roused by the " crack of doom." The true patriot, 
 instead of lulling the people into dangerous lethargy, 
 instead of encouraging a slumbrous indifference 
 will pray heaven to 
 
 " Fool them not so much 
 To bear it tamely ; touch them with noble auger." 
 
 The crisis is one which calls for the aroused and 
 excited energies of the nation. It is in vain that we 
 are told that the abolitionists arc few and feeble 
 that they are regarded with contempt, and meet daily 
 with the emphatic expression of popular abhorrence. 
 
XV11 
 
 Circumstances give them power. When the train 
 is laid a child may fire it. Such is our situation; and 
 the people are called upon, by all that is dear or 
 sacred to them, to interpose, arrest the brand of the 
 incendiary, and save the country from the calamities 
 which menace it. 
 
 The people must be made acquainted with this 
 subject they must be apprized of the rights of the 
 South, and informed of the hollowness and falsehood 
 of the appeals which are daily made to them by the 
 abolitionists. We do not, at the North, claim a right 
 so to discuss this subject as to disturb or agitate the 
 South; but when reckless men have sent forth, for 
 the w T orst purposes, hosts of falsehoods, it is our 
 right and duty to step aside and crush the misbegot 
 ten and dangerous brood. This, and this alone, is 
 our aim. 
 
 The incendiaries appeal only to the passions; and 
 endeavour, by falsehood and misrepresentation, to 
 mislead and excite the unthinking. Their argu 
 ments consist altogether of specious but misty and 
 unintelligible abstractions. They industriously en 
 deavour to enlist religious feelings in favour of their 
 designs; and are constantly fulminating religious de 
 nunciations to move and appal the conscientious but 
 weak. They address themselves peculiarly to women 
 and children: and, by maudlin verses and lying pic 
 tures, essay not only to rouse the passions of the slave, 
 but to excite the prejudices of the ignorant and un 
 reflecting of our citizens. 
 
 Against these arts, the friends of the Constitution 
 
XV111 
 
 and the Union the lovers of peace and order with 
 confidence oppose the force of reason and truth. Let 
 the facts connected with this subject be known to 
 our people, and the frothy effusions of the abolition 
 ists will cease to be dangerous. 
 
SLAVERY AT THE SOUTH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Origin of Slavery Slavery among the ancients, 
 either Involuntary or Voluntary Involun 
 tary Slavery from War Piracy Crime 
 Bargain and Sale. 
 
 THERE are few topics which have been subjected 
 to so much vague abstraction and empty declamation 
 as slavery. Various theories have been suggested in 
 relation to its origin; but, separated from hypocriti 
 cal flourish and unmeaning cant, they amount at last 
 to little else than an admission, that slavery origi- 
 ginally sprung from the inequality of the race, and 
 the necessities arising from that inequality. The 
 sagacious and powerful subjected their inferiors to 
 their control; and their inferiors, in return, were 
 protected and fed. Nature and necessity created 
 classes, which nothing but the refinements of educa 
 tion could remove. Mind subjected matter to its 
 sway; the bold controlled the timid; the wise di 
 rected the weak; and while one class toiled, another 
 counselled, fought and governed. This state of things 
 is not, it must be admitted, accordant with our prin- 
 
20 
 
 ciples or feelings; but it would be difficult to prove 
 that it is at war with nature. 
 
 "Slavery," says Voltaire, "is as ancient as war; 
 war, as human nature." As far back as history gives 
 us a record of the race, we find proofs of the exist 
 ence of slavery. Immediately after the deluge, re 
 ference is made to it, (see Gen. ix. 25,) and from 
 that period, throughout the whole range of Hebrew 
 history, numberless evidences are given of its preva 
 lence. Slavery existed and was common before and 
 during the siege of Troy. Homer frequently refers 
 to it. " No legislator of antiquity," to quote again 
 from Voltaire, " attempted to abrogate slavery. So 
 ciety w r as so accustomed to this degradation of the 
 species, that Epictetus, who was assuredly worth 
 more than his master, never expresses any surprise 
 at his being a slave." 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to designate the nations of 
 antiquity in which slavery prevailed. It was es 
 tablished in all. In those countries most celebrated 
 for their liberality and refinement, the institution of 
 slavery existed in its greatest extent. Egypt was 
 crowded with a servile population. Hardy Sparta 
 and liberal Athens owed much of their power to 
 their numerous slaves. Carthage was also celebrated 
 for the number of her bondmen; and her triumphant 
 rival, Rome, won, in her countless conquests, mil 
 lions of slaves. Paulus Emilius brought one hun 
 dred and fifty thousand slaves to Rome; and Au 
 gustus sold thirty-six thousand of the Salassii into 
 slavery. Indeed, throughout the whole known world 
 the institution of slavery appears to have prevailed. 
 Sages and patriots, the wise and benevolent, joined 
 in sustaining it; and the slaves themselves, while 
 they suffered under a bondage not always the most 
 lenient, regarded it as their destiny, and endured it 
 without a murmur. 
 
21 
 
 Slavery among the ancients was of two species, 
 involuntary and voluntary. Involuntary slavery was 
 that which resulted from war, from piracy or kid 
 napping, from crime, and from commerce. 
 
 Most nations have considered their right over 
 their captives taken in war as absolute. Barbarous 
 conquerors, and those impelled only by a sanguinary 
 thirst for vengeance, sacrificed the lives of the sub 
 dued. When a gentler spirit, or more just idea of 
 war, prevailed, the victim was spared, and became 
 the slave of the conqueror. The Romans called 
 their slaves servi, from servare, to save. The origin 
 of the custom of sparing and enslaving captives, has 
 been ascribed by some writers to Assyria, and by 
 others to Lacedemon; but the probability is, that it 
 prevailed long before it was practised by either of 
 these nations. The improvement of agriculture, 
 the organization of society, the increase of inhabit 
 ants, and the establishment of principles in relation 
 to the right of property, tended to dissuade men 
 from unnecessary slaughter, and to make the ser 
 vices 6f a bondman valuable. We may, therefore, 
 suppose that the practice of enslaving prisoners was 
 one of the earliest incidents of warfare. The hu 
 mane principles now established as the law of na 
 tions that in war we have a right only to the use 
 of those means which have a connexion morally 
 necessary with the end in view, was unknown to 
 the ancients; and whenever prisoners were not saved 
 as slaves, they were slaughtered without mercy. 
 The most clement of the Roman generals acted 
 upon this principle; and the nations which combined 
 to overturn the colossal power of the mistress of the 
 world, adopted a similar policy. The latter, being 
 generally pastoral in their mode of life, did not need 
 the labour of slaves; and in their incursions on the 
 Roman empire, waged a war of extermination, spar- 
 
22 
 
 ing neither women nor children. The period which 
 elapsed from the reign of Theodosius to the reign 
 of Alboinus, in Lombardy, (from A. D. 395 to A. D. 
 571,) is, in consequence, considered by Robertson, 
 the most calamitous epoch in the history of the 
 world. * 
 
 * We subjoin from Professor Dew s pamphlet on Slavery, 
 a work written with great ability, and to which we invite the 
 attention of the reader, the following instance of the manner 
 in which war is prosecuted in Africa. It affords, by the way, 
 an interesting fact, from which to estimate the comparative 
 condition of the African in this country, and in his native 
 land. 
 
 " It is needless to multiply instances further to illustrate 
 the ideas of the ancient worfd in regard to t^eir rights to kill 
 or enslave at pleasure the unfortunate captive. We will not 
 cite the example of Africa, the great storehouse of slavery 
 for the modern world, which so completely sustains our po 
 sition in regard to the opinions of men on this subject, farther 
 than to make an extract from a speech delivered in the British 
 House of Commons, by Mr. Henniker, in 1789, in which the 
 speaker asserts that a letter had been received by George III. 
 from one of the most powerful African potentates, the Em 
 peror of Dahomey, which letter admirably exemplifies the 
 African s notions about the right to kill or enslave prisoners 
 of war. He (Emperor of Dahomey,) states, said Mr, H. 
 that as he understood King George was the greatest of white 
 kings, so he thought himself the greatest of black ones. He 
 asserted that he could lead five hundred thousand men armed 
 into the field ; that being the pursuit to which all his sub 
 jects were bred, and the women only staying at home to plant 
 and manure the earth. He had himself fought two hundred 
 and nine battles, with great reputation and success ; and had 
 conquered the great King of Ardah the king s head was 
 to this day preserved with the flesh and hair; the heads of 
 his generals were distinguished by being placed on each side 
 of the doors of their fetiches : with the heads of the inferior 
 officers they paved the space before the doors ; and the heads 
 of the common soldiers formed a sort of fringe or outwork 
 round the walls of the palace. Since this war he had expe 
 rienced the greatest good fortune, and he hoped in good time 
 to be able to 9 complete the out-walls of all his great houses, 
 to the number of seven, in the same manner. " 
 
23 
 
 One of the earliest examples of this species of 
 warfare may be found in holy writ. The Israelites 
 in invading Canaan, waged against the inhabitants a 
 war of extermination; and the only people (the 
 Gibeonites,) rescued from the sword, were reserved 
 for bondage, " We will even let them live; but let 
 them be hewers of wood and drawers of water unto 
 all the congregation." 
 
 War, therefore, appears to have been the first and 
 great source of slavery among the ancients. As the 
 nations of that period were generally warlike, the 
 number of captives must have been very great. In 
 truth, the slaves in many countries exceeded in 
 number the free; and the insurrections, which were 
 not unfrequent, were always bloody and destructive. 
 
 Another fruitful source of slavery in the ancient 
 world was piracy. This practice prevailed to the 
 greatest extent in the earliest ages, when the human 
 reason had not emerged from the indistinctness of 
 its dawn, when the rights of property were but 
 dubiously understood, and when the skill and cou 
 rage required in piratical incursions into neighbour 
 ing nations were regarded with admiration. " The 
 Grecians," says Thucydides, "in their primitive state, 
 as well as the contemporaneous barbarians who in- 
 
 Mr. ?Iorris, who visited this empire in 1772, actually tes 
 tifies to the truth of this letter. He found the palace of the 
 emperor an immense assemblage of cane and mud huts, en 
 closed by a high wall. The skulls and jaw-bones of enemies 
 slain in battle, formed the favourite ornaments of the palaces 
 and temples. The king s apartments were paved, and the 
 walls and roof stuck over with these horrid trophies; "and if 
 a further supply appeared at any time desirable, he announced 
 to his general that his "house wanted thatch," when a war 
 for that purpose was immediately undertaken. Who can for 
 a moment be so absurd as to imagine, that such a prince as 
 this could doubt of his right to make slaves in war, when he 
 gloried in being able to thatch his house with the heads of 
 his enemies ?" 
 
24 
 
 habited the sea coasts and islands, addicted them 
 selves wholly to piracy: it was, in short, their only 
 profession and support." The most complete con 
 firmation of this account may be found in Homer 
 and other writers. Indeed, the pursuit was consi 
 dered heroic and honourable. The dangers attend 
 ing such enterprizes the skill, strength, agility and 
 valour required for them excited the bold and am 
 bitious, while the valuable nature of the spoil recom 
 mended it to the selfish and rapacious. At length, 
 however, piracy sunk in reputation as the nations 
 advanced in civilization. It fell into the hands of 
 low and lawless robbers. Their only object was gain; 
 and the practice was continued, accompanied by the 
 perpetration of every species of outrage and rapine. 
 Slaves becoming more and more valuable, the prac 
 tice was furtively pursued to an immense extent. 
 Many were seized and sold into slavery by their 
 own countrymen; and every coast had its commerce 
 in slaves. The merchants of Thessaly, it is said, 
 were particularly infamous for this species of depre 
 dation. The Athenians practised the kidnapping of 
 their own people to so alarming an extent, that it 
 was found necessary to enact a law r punishing the 
 offence with death. 
 
 In all ages the perpetration of crime has been 
 punished with slavery. This appears to be the most 
 natural and just of the many causes of bondage. The 
 necessities of society require that men guilty of atro 
 cious offences, should be deprived of a freedom which 
 has become dangerous to their fellow beings. If 
 society can require the forfeit of life, it may de 
 mand the loss of liberty. Accordingly, \ve find that 
 among the Greeks and Romans, crime was often the 
 cause of slavery; and in our own times, not only 
 most savage, but civilized countries, among which 
 our own land may be mentioned, have made many 
 
25 
 
 offences punishable with bondage. Even insolvency 
 was punished in Greece and Rome with slavery. 
 The same custom now obtains in Africa. 
 
 The traffic of slaves consisted, not only in the sale 
 of the children of freemen by their parents, and the 
 sale of freemen from a want of the means of suste 
 nance, but of the sale of captives and of those born 
 in bondage. 
 
 The first instance of slavery by bargain and sale is 
 given in the Scripture History of Joseph. The ac 
 count of the sale of Joseph to the Ishmaelites for 
 twenty pieces of silver and his conveyance to Egypt, 
 prove that the practice was common at that time, 
 and that Egypt was a mart for the traffic in slaves. 
 There is, in the Bible, frequent mention of the pur 
 chase and sale of slaves. The purest patriarchs par 
 ticipated in the commerce; and the inspired code of 
 the Jews justified and regulated the traffic. The 
 Hebrews were allowed to sell their own country 
 men for six years; to sell their sons and daughters; 
 and unlimited power to purchase slaves from the 
 neighbouring nations was expressly given. 
 
 " If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years he shall 
 serve, and in the seventh he shall go free for no 
 thing." 
 
 " If a man sell his daughter to be a maid-ser 
 vant, she shall not go out as the men servants." 
 
 "Both thy bondmen and bondmaids which thou 
 shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round 
 about you: of them shall ye buy bondmen and bond 
 maids. Moreover of the children of strangers who 
 sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy; and of the 
 families that are with you, which they begat 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 for a possession; they shall 
 be your bondmen for ever." 
 3 
 
26 
 
 Egypt appears to have been one of the principal 
 markets for the sale of the human species. Homer 
 refers to Cyprus and Egypt as the common marts for 
 slaves in the Trojan war. The traffic was also prac 
 tised, at that time, in many of the islands of the* 
 JEgean sea. Tyre and Sidon are described by the 
 Scriptures, as prosecuting this commerce. In truth, 
 it prevailed in the whole of the known world. In 
 Greece and Rome, and their colonies, the trade was 
 universal; and among the nations which overran the 
 South of Europe, it prevailed until the establishment 
 of the Feudal System. That system was little else 
 than a modification of the slavery of the ancients, to 
 suit the circumstances and necessities of the rude and 
 warlike nations in which it was adopted. It was ad 
 mirably adapted to the purposes of defence; but did 
 little, if any thing, to lighten the bonds of the slave, 
 or ameliorate the condition of the race. 
 
 Slavery continued to exist, even in Europe, up to 
 a late period. In the middle ages the Venetians car 
 ried on a very extended commerce in slaves; which 
 was prohibited by the pope, only so far as it in 
 cluded trade in Christians. In England the Anglo- 
 Saxon nobility sold their servants as slaves to fo 
 reigners; and even after the conquest, and until the 
 reign of Henry II. slaves were exported, in numbers, 
 from England to Ireland. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Slavery among the Ancients continued Volun 
 tary Slavery Roman Mercenarii Grecian 
 Prodigals German Enthusiasts Condition 
 of Slaves Power and inhumanity of Masters. 
 
 PERHAPS slavery, when resulting from insolvency, 
 might with propriety be regarded as voluntary. 
 The freeman who pursued a course which resulted 
 in bondage, and thus incurred a fate which might 
 have been avoided, may be considered as having 
 assumed it. If this be admitted, the number of vo 
 luntary bondmen in Greece and Rome, where the 
 refinement of society rendered the vicissitudes of 
 fortune frequent, must be accounted very great. 
 
 In Rome there existed a large body of slaves, or 
 servants, known as mercenarii. This title was 
 given them because they received hire. They were 
 free-born citizens, set down in the books as liberi, 
 and distinguished from the foreigners, or alieni, 
 \vho served the rich. 
 
 In the time of the Emperor Claudian, the Roman 
 Senate passed a decree permitting those who were 
 born free to sell their freedom and become slaves. 
 This law remained in force until abrogate^ by Leo. 
 
 The Grecian Thetes were servants of a character 
 somewhat similar to the mercenarii. They re 
 ceived are compense for their labours; and, though 
 treated as slaves and obliged to perform the most 
 servile offices, were not completely subject to the 
 
28 
 
 will of their master, but could, at the expiration of 
 a certain term, obtain their discharge if used with 
 illegal severity. 
 
 There was, amongst the Greeks, a species of slaves 
 denominated Prodigals. They were those who, 
 having incurred debts which they were unable to 
 liquidate, were sold for the satisfaction of their cre 
 ditors. The Delinquents were debtors of a simi 
 lar description, who having imprudently subjected 
 themselves to the loss of their liberty, were sen 
 tenced to the gallics and laboured at the oar. 
 
 The most singular class of which we have an ac 
 count, were the German Enthusiasts. They were 
 gamblers, who, pursuing their intoxicating and fatal 
 passion to the last stake, maddened by the excite 
 ment of the game, placed their persons on the hazard 
 of the die, and, in case of failure, were sold as slaves. 
 The whole account exhibits, in vivid colours, the 
 strength of the passion for gaming a passion which 
 prevails with equal power, in the hut of the savage 
 and the hell of the more finished gamester of refined 
 society. Tacitus gives the following description of 
 the Enthusiasts. "The loser," says the historian, 
 " goes into voluntary servitude; and though younger 
 and stronger than the person with whom he played, 
 patiently suffers himself to be bound and sold. Their 
 perseverance in so bad a custom is styled honour. 
 The slaves thus obtained are immediately exchanged 
 away in commerce, that the winner may get clear 
 of the scandal of his victory." 
 
 The condition of slaves among the ancients was 
 totally different from that of modern slaves. In 
 stead of being protected, as now, not only from un 
 just severity on the part of the master, but from 
 suffering or want, they were wholly in the power of 
 their owners. There was no limit to the power of 
 the master over the slave. The latter was, in a civil 
 
29 
 
 sense, dead. His limbs, life, faculties and affections 
 were all at the mercy of his lord. In a legal point 
 of view, he had neither name nor tribe; he was re 
 cognized as possessing no rights; and was, in fact, 
 as completely within the power of the master as his 
 horse or his dog. 
 
 There were, however, some partial exceptions to 
 this general description. The Egyptian slave, though 
 perhaps a greater drudge than any other, was pro 
 tected from murder, and could, if he succeeded in 
 reaching the temple of Hercules, secure a retreat 
 from the oppressive severity of his master. The 
 Hebrews also appear to have treated their slaves 
 with lenity. 
 
 Athens, however, was distinguished above all the 
 nations of antiquity for her peculiar humanity to 
 slaves. In no place were they allowed so many 
 privileges or treated with so much kindness. De 
 mosthenes, in his Second Philippic, states that " the 
 condition of a slave in Athens was preferable to that 
 of a free citizen in many other countries." They 
 were allowed great liberty of speech, and were per 
 mitted to enjoy a certain portion of time in their 
 own peculiar pursuits, their private labours, amuse 
 ments, amours or hours of relaxation and rest. 
 They also had a temple of refuge; and were allowed 
 the privilege of appealing to the legal tribunal 
 against their masters in case of harshness or inhu 
 manity. Besides these advantages, they possessed 
 the invaluable privilege of redeeming themselves 
 from bondage. They had an opportunity of work 
 ing for themselves; and when their skill or industry 
 had enabled them to accumulate a sufficient sum, 
 they might purchase manumission, and become free 
 for ever. 
 
 In Sparta and Carthage, the slaves were treated 
 with more severity. In Rome, the power of the 
 3* 
 
30 
 
 master over his slave was absolute, extending to the 
 right of depriving him of life. This severity was 
 moderated under the emperors; and by a law of 
 Adrian, the right of the master to slay his slave was 
 withdrawn. By the Roman law, if a master was kill 
 ed, all the slaves under the same roof or near enough 
 to be able to hear his cries, were put to death. This 
 severe provision was, we presume, intended to pre 
 vent those bloody acts of vengeance to which the 
 cruelty of the master, at times, impelled the slave. 
 The slave, and all that belonged, or could belong 
 to him, was considered the property of the master. 
 From the conduct of some of the most venerated 
 patriots of Rome, it appears that inhumanity to 
 slaves excited neither surprise nor censure. It was 
 the practice of the elder Cato to sell his superannuated 
 slaves at any price rather than maintain an useless 
 burthen. Indeed, it appears to have been a custom 
 in Rome to expose old, useless and sick slaves on an 
 island of the Tiber to perish ; and a law of Claudian 
 upon the subject, instead of punishing and suppress 
 ing the barbarous practice, merely gave liberty to 
 any slave who chanced to recover after having been 
 thus exposed and abandoned. The same law pro 
 hibits masters from killing their slaves, merely for 
 old age or sickness. Italy and Sicily were full of 
 places of confinement, called Ergastula, in which 
 slaves were kept at labour. One of the most for 
 midable insurrections was occasioned by the break 
 ing up of these Ergastula, and the simultaneous 
 liberation of sixty thousand slaves. 
 
 From the facts, stated in this and the preceding 
 chapter, it will be seen that slavery has always pre 
 vailed; and is so interwined with the necessities of 
 the race, that while man exists, slavery will proba 
 bly exist also. It will also be seen, that the wisest 
 and most liberal nations of antiquity did not hesi- 
 
31 
 
 tate to encourage domestic slavery; and, instead of 
 regarding it as inconsistent with political liberty or 
 injurious to national weal, they sanctioned it as one 
 of the greatest securities and auxiliaries of both. It 
 will be observed, in addition, that the institution of 
 slavery has not only had the assent and sanction of 
 all the patriots, philanthropists and sages of anti 
 quity, but that the divine will has been distinctly 
 and actively expressed in its favour. A comparison 
 of the condition of ancient and modern slavery may, 
 also, perhaps, enlighten the prejudices of some of 
 those who affect to sympathize with the bondman, 
 and lament over the fictitious recital of the stern 
 ness of the American master and the hardships of 
 the American slave. But on these points we will 
 speak more at large hereafter. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Origin, progress, and abolition of the African 
 Slave Trade. 
 
 THE African slave trade was commenced by the 
 Portuguese. In 1434 a Portuguese captain landed in 
 Guinea; and having captured some negro lads, he 
 bore them to the south of Spain, and sold them to 
 great advantage. The opening thus made was soon 
 crowded with adventurers. The Portuguese made 
 descents upon the coast of Africa, seized the inhabit 
 ants, and carried them into slavery. These depre 
 dations at length became so frequent and formidable, 
 that the blacks retreated into the interior. Thither, 
 however, their persecutors followed them. The 
 Portuguese entered their rivers, and penetrating 
 into the country, continued and extended their 
 spoliations. 
 
 The traffic soon became so important, as to render 
 a more permanent and secure system necessary to 
 furnish the traders with the requisite supply of 
 slaves. The plan was changed. Recourse to force 
 was abandoned, and a peaceful commerce was com 
 menced with the natives. Settlements were made, 
 forts built, and factories erected; and the trade soon 
 became extended and mutual. 
 
 The Portuguese erected their first fort at D El- 
 mina, in 1481. Other European nations soon fol 
 lowed their example. Treaties were made with the 
 African kings; they agreed to furnish slaves, and 
 
33 
 
 the traders, in return, brought them the luxuries 
 and ornaments of Europe. 
 
 The object of this trade, on the part of the Euro 
 peans, was to supply the necessities of their extensive 
 western colonies. The newly discovered and settled 
 portions of the western world, being generally in a 
 latitude fatal to European constitutions, it was found 
 necessary to subject the natives to labour. In most 
 instances this proved unsuccessful; and recourse 
 was, at length, had to the natives of Africa, whose 
 constitutions were found to agree with the exposure 
 and hardships required. In 1517, Las Casas, who 
 had seen the poor Indians melting away like dew, 
 proposed to the Emperor Charles V. to substitute 
 negro labour; and a charter was accordingly granted 
 for the importation of four thousand slaves annually 
 into Hispaniola. 
 
 The slave trade, which at first consisted wholly 
 in the transportation of those who had forfeited their 
 liberty in their own country, as criminals or pri 
 soners of war, was at length extended by the wants 
 of the colonies, and the rapacity of the African 
 chiefs. Those who were suspected of crime became 
 slaves; and causeless wars were undertaken, for the 
 sole purpose of making captives for the slave trade. 
 The traffic continued to extend with the growth 
 and wants of the colonies, up to the close of the 
 eighteenth century. 
 
 Those who collect the slaves for the traders have 
 been divided into several classes. The first consisted 
 of a chain of black traders from the interior to the 
 sea-board. They procured slaves, sometimes at a 
 distance of twelve hundred miles in the country, 
 and forwarded them on to the factories. The second 
 class was composed of individuals who travelled in 
 land, and collecting as many slaves as they could 
 transport, brought them to the stations. The third 
 class comprised those who ascended the rivers to a 
 
34 
 
 great height, in large canoes, and thus collected num 
 bers of slaves. The prices paid for slaves were ge 
 nerally trivial, but advanced as the trader approached 
 the coast The articles given in exchange consisted 
 generally of liquor, muskets, powder, &c. 
 
 Large numbers of slaves were procured by the 
 depredations of native princes, dignified with the 
 name of wars. It appears that the native Africans, 
 instead of being in the state of primeval innocence 
 and undisturbed tranquillity, in which they have 
 been frequently painted, may be regarded as the 
 most savage of the barbarous races of mankind. 
 They are in continual war with each other. Differ 
 ent tribes are constantly struggling to make pri 
 soners of each other, in order to provide slaves for 
 the Europeans; and when enemies cannot be thus 
 obtained, the chiefs frequently assail their own vil 
 lages, make their own people slaves, and sell them 
 to the whites. Perhaps a more revolting picture of 
 humanity has never been drawn than may be found 
 in the description of Africa; and much as the evils 
 of slavery are to be deplored, it is extremely doubt 
 ful whether the lot of the African is not absolutely 
 improved, by being, even forcibly, placed under the 
 protection of the laws of a civilized and Christian 
 country. 
 
 Clarkson, the great champion of Africa, divides 
 the slaves into seven classes. The first and largest 
 class consists of those who are kidnapped. It seems 
 that the inhabitants of Africa prey upon each other 
 like wild beasts. Kidnapping prevails throughout 
 the whole country. It is said to be the first princi 
 ple of the natives never to go unarmed. This pre 
 caution is rendered necessary by the predatory habits 
 of their countrymen. The second order of slaves is 
 composed of those whose villages are depopulated 
 in capturing them. The third class consists of those 
 convicted of crime. The fourth class includes pri- 
 
35 
 
 soners of war. The fifth class comprehends those 
 who are slaves by birth. The number of native 
 slaves is said to be very large; and a humane writer 
 alleges that many make a regular business of breed 
 ing slaves for commerce. The sixth and seventh 
 classes are composed of gamblers and insolvents. 
 
 All writers agree in describing the habits of the 
 native negro as extremely savage, and their conduct 
 towards each other as treacherous, lawless, and to 
 the last degree inhuman. Violence, rapine, and 
 slaughter appear to prevail throughout that unhappy 
 country. The native wars are described as merci 
 less and wanton, having no motive but the capture 
 of prisoners, and being regulated by no law human 
 or divine. Mr. Ashmun, the agent at Liberia, gives 
 the following account of the extermination of a tribe 
 by one of the native chiefs. The incident took place 
 in 1822. 
 
 " I wish to afford the board a full view of our situa 
 tion, and of the African character. The following 
 incident I relate, not for its singularity, for similar 
 events take place perhaps every month in the year; 
 but it has fallen under my own observation, and I 
 can vouch for its authenticity. King Boatswain, our 
 most powerful supporter and steady friend among 
 the natives, (so he has uniformly shown himself,) 
 received a quantity of goods in trade from a French 
 slaver, for which he stipulated to pay young slaves. 
 He makes it a point of honour to be punctual to his 
 engagements. The time was at hand when he ex 
 pected the return of the slaver. He had not the 
 slaves. Looking round on the peaceable tribes about 
 him for his victims, he singled out the Queahs, a 
 small agricultural and trading people of most inof 
 fensive character. His warriors were skilfully dis 
 tributed to the different hamlets, and making a si 
 multaneous assault on the sleeping inhabitants, in 
 the dead of night, accomplished, without difficulty 
 
36 
 
 or resistance, the annihilation (with the exception 
 of a few towns) of the whole tribe. Every adult 
 man and woman was murdered; every hut was fired; 
 very young children generally shared the fate of 
 their parents. The boys and girls alone were re 
 served to pay the Frenchman." Such are the hor 
 rors which surround the African in his native coun 
 try. 
 
 The natives of Africa, instead of regarding the 
 slave-trade as oppressive or calamitous, do all in 
 their power to foster and encourage it, and oppose 
 every effort made by the European governments to 
 suppress it. When, in consequence of the French 
 revolution, the demand for slaves had lessened, the 
 king of Dahoiney, on the slave coast, sent, in 1796, 
 an embassy to Lisbon, consisting of his brother and 
 son, for the purpose of effecting a treaty with Por 
 tugal and reviving the slave traffic. Upon the Afri 
 can coast, since the abolition of the slave trade, 
 whenever attempts have been made to dislodge the 
 factories and fortifications of the slavers, the natives 
 have gathered and interposed to protect them. 
 
 When the slaves are collected in the ship of the 
 slave trader, they are bound two and two together, 
 and placed in their apartments, the men occupying 
 the fore part, the women the after part, and the 
 boys the middle, of the vessel. The tops of these 
 apartments are grated for the admission of air. The 
 vessels are generally from eleven to eight hun 
 dred tons, and carry from thirty to fifteen hun 
 dred slaves at a time. The apartments vary in 
 height from six feet to less than three feet. In this 
 confined room, they are packed in the smallest pos 
 sible shape each individual being allowed, in the 
 best regulated ships, but sixteen English inches in 
 width, two feet eight inches in height, and five feet 
 eleven inches in length. It is unnecessary to paint 
 
37 
 
 the horrors of such a situation. In an atmosphere 
 heated and polluted to suffocation, with scarcely 
 space to move, and crowded by hundreds in the hold 
 of a vessel, it is not strange that they die in great 
 numbers. In fine weather, they are brought upon 
 deck and made to exercise themselves, by dancing 
 and singing; and, as the death or illness of the slaves 
 is a heavy loss to the trader, we have no reason to 
 believe that they neglect the means in their power 
 to preserve their health, or that they treat them with 
 unnecessary and wanton cruelty. Their design is 
 gain; and, though they exhibit but little humanity 
 in its pursuit, and are willing to perpetrate any 
 enormity for money, it is not probable that they 
 would indulge a cruelty equally unnecessary and 
 unprofitable. The negro is regarded, in their horrid 
 philosophy, as a valuable animal, and is treated with 
 neither more nor less humanity than they would 
 treat a valuable horse. The sufferings of the poor 
 negro, during the voyage, are, however, undeniable, 
 and may be conceived from the fact that from fifteen 
 to twenty per cent, die on the passage. Indeed, the 
 number is sometimes much greater; and Wilber- 
 force stated, that " out of every lot of one hundred 
 shipped from Africa, seventeen died in about nine 
 weeks, and not more than fifty lived to become ef 
 fective labourers in our islands." 
 
 Of the extent of the slave trade it is difficult to 
 speak with confidence. When the subject was taken 
 up in the British House of Commons, it was assert 
 ed, that the British alone bought 40,000 slaves annu 
 ally. Mr. Dundas of the British Parliament, stated, 
 that, in 1791, the British importation consisted of 
 74,000. From the commencement of the trade up 
 to the present time, there is reason to believe that 
 several millions of slaves have been taken from the 
 shores of Africa. 
 4 
 
38 
 
 The slave trade received, at different times, the 
 express sanction of the governments of all the com 
 mercial nations of Europe. The Spanish govern 
 ment, the French under Louis XIII., and the Eng 
 lish under queen Elizabeth, formally permitted the 
 traffic. The trade was regarded as legitimate and 
 proper; and received the decided encouragement of 
 the governments interested in its support. 
 
 The slave trade was abolished by Virginia, a sove 
 reign and independent state, in 1778. To the Old 
 Dominion, therefore, belongs the honour of having 
 struck the first decisive blow at that inhuman traffic. 
 Several other states of this confederacy followed. In 
 1792, Denmark passed a law, providing for the abo 
 lition of the trade in 1803. The importation of slaves 
 ceased in the United States in January, 1808, and in 
 Great Britain and her colonies in March of the same 
 year. In 1815, Portugal provided for the abolition 
 of the slave trade in 1823. France, in 1815, con 
 sented to its immediate abolition. Spain, in 1817, 
 agreed to abolish it in 1820. The Netherlands pro 
 hibited it in 1818; Sweden in 1813; and Brazil in 
 1826. 
 
 Notwithstanding the prohibition of the slave trade 
 by almost every government in Christendom, and 
 the great efforts made for its effectual suppression, 
 there is every reason to believe that it still exists to 
 a frightful degree, and that what it may have lost in 
 extent it has gained in cruelty. The trade is now 
 carried on by stealth, and many restraints are add 
 ed, which before the abolition of the trade were 
 unnecessary. Mr. Walsh, in his notices of Brazil, 
 in 1828 and 1829, says, "this horrid traffic in human 
 flesh is nearly as extensively carried on as ever, and 
 under circumstances perhaps of a more revolting 
 character. The restriction of slavery to the south 
 of the line, was, in fact, nugatory, and evaded on 
 
39 
 
 all occasions. The whole number of slaves captured 
 by our cruisers, and afterwards emancipated, for 
 nine years, from June 1819 to July 1828, was 13,281, 
 being about 1400 on an average each year. During 
 that period, it is supposed that nearly 100,000 hu 
 man beings were annually transported as slaves 
 from different parts of the coast, of whom more 
 than 43,000 were legally imported into one city 
 alone." 
 
CHAPTER IV, 
 
 Origin and Progress of Slavery in this Country. 
 
 SLAVERY has existed in this country from a very 
 early period. It was introduced shortly after its 
 settlement, contributed to its infant vigour, and has 
 since " grown with its growth and strengthened 
 with its strength." It was at, and after, the time 
 of its introduction, common to all the European 
 colonies in America. Each of the Anglo-American 
 provinces comprised, afc different times, a greater or 
 less number of slaves; and all were equally involved 
 in the sanction of slave holding. It is true, that the 
 North has never contained so large a number of 
 slaves as the South. The climate of the southern 
 provinces, the nature of their agricultural pursuits, 
 and the necessities of their inhabitants, induced the 
 extensive employment of slave labour. In the North, 
 the negro would have been a burthen, not an aid. 
 The hardy pilgrims of New England, so far from 
 needing the labour of the African, could scarce have 
 spared him the means of subsistence. Had the pil 
 grims fainted beneath the .sultry sun of the South, 
 had they been engaged in the same pursuits as their 
 southern brethren, and felt the same necessity for 
 aid, they would not now be enabled to boast their 
 exemption from a slave population. The absence 
 of slavery in the Northern states, is wholly to be 
 ascrib^i to the fact, that slaves have not been neces 
 sary nor even valuable to the inhabitants of that sec- 
 
41 
 
 tion of our country. It is true that they have always 
 felt a repugnance to the introduction of Africans into 
 the country, but that repugnance has not been more 
 warmly cherished, or more forcibly manifested than 
 by the people of the South; and those citizens of our 
 Northern states who express such a holy abhorrence 
 of slavery in other sections of our country, should 
 be reminded that their exemption is wholly the re 
 sult of the accidents of situation and climate; and 
 that they would themselves be slave-holders, had it 
 not been their interest, or the interest of their an 
 cestors, to be otherwise. 
 
 The importation of slaves from Africa to the 
 West India islands was commenced, and had at 
 tained a considerable height, before the enterprize 
 of England, excited by the gallant Raleigh, had 
 been turned to the settlement of North America. 
 England had already engaged successfully in the 
 slave trade. Hawkins, in 1562, entered into the 
 commerce, and found its profits so great, that Queen 
 Elizabeth herself did not scruple, not only to sanc 
 tion its prosecution, but to share its responsibility 
 and profits. This was the commencement of a pur 
 suit which was afterwards followed by England with 
 unequalled ardour and unequalled success. At a sub 
 sequent period, she almost monopolized the slave 
 trade; and attained a degree of skill, hardihood and 
 cruelty in its prosecution, which her rivals in the 
 hateful traffic were never able to surpass. To Eng 
 land, that nation of philanthropists, whose people 
 have taken so deep an interest in the subject of 
 American slavery, is to be ascribed the importation 
 of a majority of those wretched beings who were 
 torn from their native country and sold into slavery. 
 But of this hereafter. 
 
 African slaves were first introduced into the North 
 American colonies, in 1620. A Dutch ship arrived 
 4* 
 
42 
 
 in Virginia, having on board twenty slaves, who 
 were sold to individuals in the colony. The trade 
 thus commenced was continued, but, in consequence 
 of the opposition of the colony, did not, for many 
 years, become extensive. Thirty years after the 
 first arrival of slaves in Virginia, that colony con 
 tained fifty whites to one negro. Even after seventy 
 years had elapsed from the date of the foundation of 
 the colony, it comprised, proportionally, much fewer 
 slaves than several of the Northern states at the time 
 of the war of independence. It was not until the 
 slave trade fell into the hands of the British, and was 
 prosecuted under the immediate smile of the Eng 
 lish government, that the number of blacks in the 
 North American colonies was greatly increased. 
 
 Under the auspices of the mother country, slavery 
 was rapidly extended. The want of labourers in the 
 Southern colonies enabled the traders, notwithstand 
 ing the opposition of the local legislatures, to throw 
 large numbers of slaves into the country. Some 
 years after, we find that the blacks outnumbered the 
 whites in the South. In 1730, there were twenty- 
 eight thousand negroes in South Carolina. In 1740, 
 the slaves in South Carolina were three times as 
 numerous as the whites. The blacks in Virginia 
 were also, at that period, greatly superior in num 
 bers to their masters. For a long time afterwards, 
 the slaves continued to be a majority. In 1763, the 
 black population of Virginia was one hundred thou 
 sand; and the white seventy thousand. In South 
 Carolina the blacks were ninety thousand; and the 
 whites only forty thousand. 
 
 The slave trade, notwithstanding the repugnance 
 of the colonies, was prosecuted up to the era of the 
 revolution. The number of slaves continued to in 
 crease accordingly up to that time. The number 
 of slaves, and their proportion to the whites, from 
 
43 
 
 to 1830, will appear by the following 
 
 1790 up 
 table. 
 
 Census of 
 1790, - 
 1800, - 
 1810, - 
 1820, - 
 1830, - 
 
 The relative proportion of the free and slave 
 population, may be better understood by the fol 
 lowing: 
 
 In 1790, for every 100 free persons there were 21.59 slaves. 
 1800, " do. " 18.99 " 
 
 Slaves. 
 697,697 
 896,849 
 1,191,364 
 * 1,538,064 
 2,010,436 
 
 Total Population 
 3,929,827 
 5,305,925 
 7,289,314 
 9,638,181 
 12,856,407 
 
 1810, " 
 1820, " 
 1830, " 
 
 do. 
 do. 
 do. 
 
 19.53 " 
 18.99 " 
 18.53 " 
 
 It is well known that the African, fresh from his 
 savage wilds, is much more intractable than the ne 
 gro born in this country. The genial influence of 
 civilization, the advantages of Christianity, and a 
 sense of the kindness and protection of the master, 
 render the American-born negro often a domestic 
 friend, and attach him to the family of his master 
 so fondly that he is prepared to defend them with 
 his life rather than assail them. The early Africans 
 i|i this country, though more gentle and voluptuous 
 than those imported into the West Indies, were 
 fiercer and more prone to insurrection than any of 
 their descendants. Upon several different occasions 
 they rose upon their masters; but notwithstanding 
 their fearful superiority in numbers, were, without 
 difficulty, quelled. In 1738, the blacks of South 
 Carolina revolted, but were subdued. At an earlier 
 period, in 1712, the negroes in New York rose, set 
 fire to the city, and killed those who attempted to 
 
44 
 
 stay the conflagration. They were, without serious 
 difficulty quelled; and a large number were executed 
 for their offences. 
 
 The rapid increase of the negro population of the 
 south, until the time of the revolution, is tobe ascribed 
 not merely to natural increase, the result of the kind 
 treatment of the southern slave holder, the lightness 
 of his work, and the abundance of his food, but to ex 
 tensive and continued importation. The slave trade 
 was prosecuted with energy until the declaration of 
 independence enabled the Americans to suppress it. 
 The privilege was embraced as soon as circumstances 
 rendered it prudent. Virginia abolished the slave 
 trade in 1778. Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Con 
 necticut, and Rhode Island suppressed it in 1780, 87, 
 88. The American continental congress passed a 
 resolution against the purchase of imported slaves; 
 and, not having power to suppress it, published an 
 exhortation to the colonies to abandon the trade al 
 together. 
 
 In the formation of a constitution for the United 
 States, in 1787, the following clauses in relation to 
 slavery, were incorporated with the national charter. 
 
 " Representation and direct taxes shall be appor 
 tioned among the several states which may be in 
 cluded within this union, according to their respec 
 tive numbers, which shall be determined by adding 
 to the whole number of free persons, including those 
 bound to service for a term of years, and exclud 
 ing Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other per 
 sons" 
 
 " The migration or importation of such persons as 
 any of the states now existing shall think proper to 
 admit, shall not be prohibited by the congress prior 
 to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight; 
 but a tax, or duty, may be imposed on such importa 
 tion, not exceeding ten dollars for each person." 
 
45 
 
 Though the last quoted provision of the constitu 
 tion prevented the suppression of the importation of 
 slaves, before 1808, the third congress, under the 
 present government, prohibited the carrying on of 
 the slave trade from our ports. Several subsequent 
 enactments discouraging and restraining the trade 
 were passed: and on the 2d of March, 1807, the 
 importation of slaves was fully and effectually pro 
 hibited under the heaviest penalties. 
 
 Of the course of the South, in relation to this sub 
 ject, Mr. Walsh makes the following remarks: " In 
 truth, the representatives from our southern states 
 have been foremost in testifying their abhorrence 
 of the traffic; an abhorrence springing from a deep 
 sense, not merely of its iniquity, but of the magni 
 tude of the evil which it has entailed upon the 
 country. It was only at the last session of the 
 American congress (March 1, 1819,) that a member 
 from Virginia proposed the following regulation, to 
 which the house of representatives agreed without a 
 division. * Every person who shall import into the 
 United States, or knowingly aid or abet the impor 
 tation into the United States, of any African negro, 
 or other person, with intent to sell or use such negro, 
 or other person, as a slave, or shall purchase any 
 such slave, knowing him or her to be thus imported, 
 shall, on conviction thereof, in any circuit court of 
 the United States, be punished with death. The 
 rarity of capital punishment in the penal code of 
 the United States, and the extreme aversion from a 
 recourse to it, universally prevailing, make this in 
 stance a potent proof of the sincerity of the disposi 
 tions which we profess respecting the slave trade." 
 
 At the same session, congress passed a law pro 
 viding for the effectual suppression of the slave 
 traffic. From that time to the present, the importa 
 tion of slaves, denounced as it is by the laws, and 
 
46 
 
 abhorred by the people, must have been extremely 
 limited. Our slave population has since increased 
 with that rapidity which the comforts and abundance 
 of their condition induce; but not, as will be seen 
 hereafter, in a ratio greater than the increase of the 
 whites, nor sufficient to justify the fears of those 
 nervous patriots who apprehend danger from their 
 numbers. They have remained quiet and contented, 
 with the exception of a limited insurrection caused 
 by the sinister interference of misguided fanatics. 
 The South has grown affluent in her slave popula 
 tion; and the South-west, with the aid of their ro 
 bust and well-directed labour, is improving with a 
 rapidity almost unequalled. Meanwhile, the North 
 has shared generously in the universal welfare. Her 
 manufactories have been supplied with Southern 
 cotton, and have again found outlets in the Southern 
 markets. North and South have filled the stations 
 and performed the duties assigned them by nature; 
 and each have equally benefited by the institution 
 of slavery. The slaves themselves, without a com 
 plaint, or a cause of complaint, have lived on in 
 tranquillity and comfort, and attained a degree of 
 moral and religious excellence which in no other 
 country or condition have they been able to reach. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 America not responsible for the introduction of 
 Slavery into this country Of the course of 
 the British Government, fyc. 
 
 As the bitterest invective has been used by the 
 writers and speakers of Great Britain against this 
 country on account of its sanction of slavery, and as 
 even among our own citizens at the North many are 
 found who regard it as a national crime, it may be 
 well to show how far the Americans are responsible 
 for it, and who, if it be a crime, are the guilty au 
 thors of African slavery. It will be our aim, by a 
 plain and succinct narrative of the facts connected 
 with the introduction of Africans into this country 
 to prove, 
 
 1. That the people of this country did not intro 
 duce slavery within its borders. 
 
 2. That they opposed its introduction with ardour 
 and energy. 
 
 3. That this opposition was general with the co 
 lonies commenced at the introduction of slavery, 
 and continued until it succeeded in effecting the 
 abolition of the slave trade. 
 
 4. That the course of the colonies on this subject 
 was not only repulsed, but resented by the English 
 government. 
 
 5. That some of the Southern states were pre 
 eminently distinguished by the boldness and energy 
 with which they opposed the slave trade. 
 
48 
 
 6. That the anxiety of the Americans to prevent 
 the introduction of slaves into the country, was one 
 of the causes which induced the declaration of in 
 dependence. 
 
 7. That slavery was introduced into, and entailed 
 upon, this country, by Great Britain. 
 
 8. That the English government directly sanc 
 tioned and aided the importation of Africans into 
 America. 
 
 9. That the English are accountable for a greater 
 amount of atrocity in the prosecution of the slave 
 trade, than any other people. 
 
 10. That they engaged more extensively in the 
 ferade, urged it with more skill and cruelty, and 
 effected a greater amount of importation, than any of 
 their rivals. 
 
 11. That they opposed the abolition of the trade 
 until it became their interest to abolish it, and then 
 made a merit of an act of craft and policy. 
 
 12. That the English people, ever since its abo 
 lition by parliament, have been engaged in the 
 trade to a great extent. 
 
 The English government has been no stranger to 
 those acts of oppression in which slavery originates. 
 We have seen that the Anglo-Saxons sold their ser 
 vants as slaves. In the reign of Edward VI. a law 
 was passed, authorizing the sale of "all idle vaga 
 bonds" as slaves. The Scots taken at the battle of 
 Dunbar were sent into involuntary slavery in New 
 England. Indeed, it seems to have been the esta 
 blished practice of the times to ship prisoners to this 
 country. At the same time, crowded and cruel ex- 
 portations of Irish Catholics were made, accompa 
 nied by all the atrocities of the negro slave trade. 
 "In 1685," says Bancroft, in his History of the 
 United States, " when nearly a thousand of the pri 
 soners, condemned for participating in the insurrec- 
 
49 
 
 tion of Monmouth, were sentenced to transportation, 
 some gentlemen of influence at court, among others 
 sir Christopher Musgrave, begged of the monarch 
 the convicted insurgents as a merchantable com 
 modity, and satisfied their avarice by the sale of their 
 countrymen into slavery." These cases differ in no 
 particular from African slavery. If the people of 
 England, at so late and refined a period, were willing 
 to traffic in the flesh and blood of their own kin and 
 colour we need not wonder at their eager and in 
 human ardour in the African slave trade. 
 
 From 1567, when queen Elizabeth became the 
 partner of sir John Hawkins in stealing slaves from 
 the shores of Africa, and smuggling them, against 
 the laws of Spain, into the Spanish colonies from 
 that period, up to the time of the American Revolu 
 tion, the English commerce in slaves was prosecuted 
 without intermission, and to an almost incredible ex 
 tent. Mr. Walsh s Appeal a work which does 
 honour to American literature, and from which we 
 have derived much valuable information on this 
 subject says, " England herself supplied her North 
 American colonies from the outset with negroes, 
 whom she sought, seized, and manacled on the coast 
 of Africa, and dragged and sold into this continent. 
 The institution of negro slavery the great curse 
 of America lies at her door. What was her mo 
 tive ? The alleviation of the lot of her sons, whom 
 she had driven into the distant wilderness? No 
 British writer has counted so far upon the simplicity 
 of mankind, as to hazard this explanation. The 
 motive was sheer love of gain; omniverous avarice, 
 looking not merely to the immediate profit upon the 
 cargo of human flesh, but to the greater and perma 
 nent productiveness of the settlements, whose staples 
 were to be monopolized by the mother country." 
 
 The slave trade received the sanction of the Bri- 
 5 
 
50 
 
 tish government from its commencement, and retain 
 ed it to its close. The reigns of Elizabeth, Charles 
 I. and II., James II., and William III.* afforded it 
 the most marked and active encouragement. The 
 minister of the latter declared the trade to be "high 
 ly beneficial to the nation." The sanction of govern 
 ment was expressed not only by acts of Parliament, 
 bat by the aid of every department, and the policy 
 of every administration. The course pursued to 
 wards the colonies, on this subject, was uniform. 
 In 1765, the governor of Jamaica, in opposition to 
 an attempt made by- that colony to abolish the slave 
 trade to the island, said that his instructions would 
 never allow him to approve the measure; and when, 
 in 1774, the attempt was repeated, Great Britain, by 
 the Earl of Dartmouth, President of the Board, re 
 plied " We cannot allow the colonies to check or 
 discourage, in any degree, a traffic so beneficial to 
 the nation/ 
 
 The slave-trade was commenced in England be- 
 
 * In the 16th of James I. a royal charter was granted to 
 a number of eminent citizens of London, as a joint stock 
 company, to trade with Africa. Another company was cre 
 ated by Charles I. " On the accession of Charles II." says 
 Davenant, "a representation being- soon made to him, that 
 the British plantations in America were, by degrees, advanc 
 ing to such a condition as necessarily required a greater sup 
 ply of servants and labourers than could well be spared from 
 England, without the danger of depopulating his majesty s 
 native dominions, his majesty did (upon account of supplying 
 these plantations with negroes} publicly invite all his subjects 
 to the subscription of a new joint stock, for recovering and 
 carrying on the trade to Africa/ In 1792, twenty-six acts 
 of Parliament could be enumerated, encouraging and sanction 
 ing the trade. The English government, in several treaties 
 with Spain, engaged to supply her colonies with negroes ; 
 and, by the treaty of Utrecht, Spain granted to the English 
 sovereign the contract for introducing 4800 negroes annually 
 into the Spanish dominions, for thirty years. 
 
51 
 
 fore the existence of the American colonies. After 
 their settlement, and the introduction of slavery 
 by the mother country, the colonies had no power 
 over the commerce, and cannot be regarded as an 
 swerable for its continuance. That they were sin 
 cerely and decidedly opposed to it, is demonstrated 
 by their early, anxious, and continued efforts 
 against it. 
 
 On the introduction of slaves into South Carolina, 
 that colony passed a law prohibiting further impor 
 tation; but Great Britain rejected. the law, rebuked 
 the colony, and declared the trade beneficial and 
 necessary to the mother country/ 
 
 Virginia was early and constant in her efforts to dis 
 courage the trade. " The negro race," says Bancroft, 
 " was, from the first, regarded with disgust, and its 
 union with the whites forbidden under ignominious 
 penalties." " The laws of Virginia," he also re 
 marks, " at a very early period discouraged its in 
 crease by a special tax upon female slaves." In 
 1662, the Virginia legislature passed a law prohibit 
 ing " Englishmen, traders and others" from bring 
 ing Indians, as servants or slaves, into the colony, 
 thus expressing their anxiety to suppress the trade 
 when permitted to do so by the mother country. 
 Judge Tucker, in his Notes on Blackstone, enume 
 rates twenty-three acts by the Virginia legislature, 
 imposing duties on slaves imported into the colony. 
 This duty amounted, at one time, to twenty per 
 cent. The following passage occurs in Brougham s 
 Colonial Policy. " Every measure proposed by the 
 Colonial legislatures that did not meet the entire 
 concurrence of the British cabinet, was sure to be 
 rejected, in the last instance, by the crown. In the 
 colonies, the direct power of the crown, backed by 
 all the resources of the mother country, prevents 
 any measure obnoxious to the crown from being 
 
52 
 
 carried into effect, even by the unanimous efforts of 
 the Colonial legislature. If examples were required, 
 we might refer to the history of the abolition of the 
 slave-trade in Virginia. A duty on the importation 
 of negroes had been imposed, amounting to a prohi 
 bition. The assembly, induced by a temporary pe 
 culiarity of circumstances, repealed this law by a 
 bill which received the immediate sanction of the 
 crown. But never afterwards could the royal assent 
 be obtained to a renewal of the duty, although, as 
 we are told by Mr. Jefferson, all manner of expedi 
 ents were tried for this purpose, by almost every 
 subsequent assembly that met under the colonial 
 government. The very first assembly that met 
 under the new constitution, finally prohibited the 
 traffic." 
 
 In 1772, the Virginia assembly prepared, and 
 transmitted to the throne, a petition for leave to 
 abolish the slave-trade to that colony, from which 
 the following is extracted. 
 
 " We are encouraged to look up to the throne 
 and implore your Majesty s paternal assistance in 
 averting a calamity of a most alarming nature. 
 
 " The importation of slaves into the colonies 
 from the coast of Africa, hath long been considered 
 as a trade of great inhumanity, and, under its pre 
 sent encouragement, we have too much reason to 
 fear, will endanger the very existence of your Ma 
 jesty s American dominions. 
 
 " We are sensible that some of your Majesty s 
 subjects of Great Britain may reap emolument from 
 this sort of traffic, but when we consider that it 
 greatly retards the settlement of the colonies with 
 more useful inhabitants, and may in time have the 
 most destructive influence, we presume to hope 
 that the interest of a few will be disregarded when 
 placed in competition with the security and happi- 
 
53 
 
 ness -of such numbers of your Majesty s dutiful and 
 loyal subjects. 
 
 " Deeply impressed with these sentiments, we 
 most humbly beseech your Majesty to remove all 
 those restraints on your Majesty s governors of 
 this colony which inhibit their assenting to such 
 laws as might check so very pernicious a com 
 merce" The petition was rejected. 
 
 Massachusetts exhibited equal boldness and ardour 
 in her opposition to the slave-trade. In 1645, two 
 citizens of Boston, one a member of the church, 
 fitted out a ship and sailed for Guinea, to trade for 
 negroes. It is somewhat remarkable that the first 
 instance of participation in the traffic, on the part of 
 the colonies, is to be referred to that state which has 
 since become the favourite laboratory of the aboli 
 tionists and incendiaries. The colonial commerce 
 in slaves was always confined, principally, if not 
 wholly, to the traders of the North. Whatever 
 might have been the conduct of individuals, the co 
 lony manifested the most anxious determination to 
 discourage the trade. When the vessel, above re 
 ferred to, arrived, the traders were committed for 
 the offence; and the General Court directed that the 
 negroes be restored to their native country. About 
 the same time, a law was passed prohibiting com 
 merce in slaves, except such as were taken in lawful 
 war or condemned to servitude for their crimes; 
 and, at a much earlier date, the colony incorporated 
 with its penal code, an enactment punishing man- 
 stealing with death. In 1703, Massachusetts im 
 posed a duty of 4 upon every negro imported into 
 the colony. Other efforts were made, but failed in 
 consequence of the opposition of the crown. The 
 instructions to Governor Wentworth of New Hamp 
 shire, dated June 30th, 1761, contained this clause: 
 " You are not to give your assent to, or pass any 
 5 * 
 
54 
 
 ) imposing duties on negroes imported into 
 New Hampshire." This appears to have been the 
 tenor of the orders of all the governors on this sub 
 ject. In 1774, when the legislature of Massachu 
 setts passed a bill, entitled, " An act to prevent the 
 importation of negroes and others, as slaves into this 
 province, 77 Governor Huchinson refused his sanc 
 tion and dissolved the assembly. He afterwards, in 
 answer to a deputation of blacks, stated that he had 
 acted under his instructions. His successor, General 
 Gage, was also instructed to refuse his sanction to 
 any law, the object of which was the discourage 
 ment of the slave-trade. 
 
 Pennsylvania adopted a similar policy, and passed 
 various laws intended to discourage the introduction 
 of slaves. All the colonies, in short, united in de 
 precating and abhorring the introduction of negro 
 slavery into the country, and passed ineffectual en 
 actments for its discouragement. The efforts of the 
 colonies, stripped as they were of all power of legis 
 lation on the subject without the royal assent, neces 
 sarily proved unavailing. The mother country was 
 not to be turned aside from her purpose. If the 
 shrieks of afflicted Africa were unable to move her, 
 if she was willing to glut her " omnivorous ava 
 rice," as Mr. Walsh has justly termed it, on the 
 tears and blood of the slave, it was not to be ex 
 pected that the prayers and remonstrances of her 
 feeble colonies always the victim of her selfish 
 and merciless policy could shake or soften her 
 stern and unscrupulous pursuit of gold. 
 
 That the policy of England on this subject, and 
 her cold and sneering disregard of the interests and 
 anxiety of the colonies, did much to accelerate 
 their subsequent alienation we have every reason 
 to believe. Mr. Burke, in his speech on the conci 
 liation with America, referred to her " refusal to 
 
55 
 
 deal any more in the inhuman traffic of the negro 
 slaves, as one of the causes of her quarrel with Great 
 Britain/ The first clause of the constitution of the 
 state of Virginia, framed immediately after the com 
 mencement of the revolution, mentions " the inhu 
 man use of the royal negative" to prevent the 
 discouragement of the slave-trade, as one of the 
 grievances which induced a recourse to the despe 
 rate remedy of revolution. The course of Great 
 Britain on this subject is detailed, with great force 
 and justice, in Mr. Jefferson s original draught of 
 the Declaration of American Independence. 
 
 "He (King George) has waged civil war against 
 human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights 
 of life and liberty, in the persons of a distant people 
 who never offended him: captivating and carrying 
 them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to 
 incur miserable death in their transportation thither. 
 This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel 
 powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great 
 Britain: determined to keep open a market where 
 men should be bought and sold, he prostituted his 
 negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to 
 prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce; and 
 that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact 
 of distinguished dye, he is now exciting these very 
 people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase 
 that liberty of which he has deprived them, by 
 murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded 
 them, thus paying off former crimes, committed 
 against the liberties of one people, with crimes 
 which he urges them to commit against the lives of 
 another." 
 
 This, it must be reluctantly admitted, is a correct 
 portraiture of the policy of Great Britain towards 
 this country, in relation to the subject of slavery. 
 While it was her interest to darken our shores with 
 
56 
 
 African slaves, the inhumanity of the commerce 
 was disregarded; the prayers of the colonies were 
 repulsed; and her government and people united to 
 entail upon us for ever a servile population. No 
 sooner, however, is the commerce checked by the 
 oppressed colonies, than, in a sudden burst of piety, 
 she is agonized at the existence of slavery; shocked 
 at our turpitude in holding in bondage those whom 
 she has forced upon us in such numbers, that to free 
 them would involve both them and us in common 
 ruin; and, by a policy the most insidious, she endea 
 vours, of course from motives of the purest philan 
 thropy, to excite the slaves to insurrection and 
 murder! Such was her policy during the revolu 
 tion, such was her policy in the late war such is 
 her policy now. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 English Slave Trade Extent Cruelty Mo 
 tives of Abolition Violation of the Law Mo- 
 lishing the Trade. 
 
 OF the various nations who have stained their 
 escutcheon with the blood of Africa, who have torn 
 her children from their homes, and sold them into 
 slavery England is the most profoundly guilty. 
 "The truth is," said Mr. Pitt, in the English par 
 liament, " there is no nation in Europe which has 
 plunged so deeply into this guilt as Britain. We 
 stopped the natural progress of civilization in Africa. 
 We cut her off from the opportunity of improve 
 ment. We kept her down in a state of darkness, 
 bondage, ignorance, and bloodshed. We have there 
 subverted the whole order of nature; we have ag 
 gravated every national barbarity, and furnished to 
 every man motives for committing, under the name 
 of trade, acts of perpetual hostility and perfidy 
 against his neighbour. Thus has the perversion of 
 British commerce carried misery instead of happi 
 ness to one whole quarter of the globe." The hu 
 miliating confession was true. In the extent and 
 atrocity of her human traffic, England had no rival. 
 
 England may be considered as having been the 
 slave merchant of the world. She engrossed two- 
 thirds of the trade. She trafficked in flesh and blood 
 with every country, and became the unfeeling factor 
 of the slave dealers in all sections of the world. 
 England furnished the French colonies with ne- 
 
,58 
 
 groes, and stocked the Spanish dominions by con 
 tract. It is stated on good authority, that England 
 conveyed from Africa to America annually, more 
 than one hundred thousand slaves. Anderson s 
 History of Trade and Commerce, says, " England 
 supplies her American colonies with negro slaves, 
 amounting in number to above one hundred thou 
 sand every year." Wilberforce, in parliament, re 
 minded his countrymen, that they enjoyed the largest 
 share of the guilty profits of the slave trade. Mr. 
 Walsh thus sums up the extent and consequences of 
 the English commerce in slaves. " If we state it (the 
 annual import of slaves) in round numbers, at thirty 
 thousand, we shall have, for the one hundred and six 
 years, three millions one hundred and eighteen thou 
 sand negroes, imported into the British possessions 
 alone. But to have the whole number which Great 
 Britain obtained from Africa, we must bring into 
 the account those whom she procured antecedent to 
 the year 1680, and after the year 1786, those whom 
 she imported directly into the foreign possessions 
 under her contracts, and otherwise; and also those 
 who perished on her hands on the coast of Africa, 
 and in the transportation. The aggregate of her 
 immediate prey must have exceeded six millions; 
 and we may rate the direct mortality, for which she 
 is answerable, at two millions, for the century of 
 the trade, preceding the abolition." Such is the 
 extent of the slave trade as prosecuted by England, 
 that England which reviles America, because two 
 millions of slaves thus entailed upon her, live in 
 comfort and content within her borders. 
 
 The cruelties perpetrated in such a traffic may be 
 easier conceived than painted. But it may be re 
 marked, that England was, in this also, equally pre 
 eminent. It was England that fomented the wars 
 among the native tribes to procure slaves. It was 
 England that numbered, among her chief exports to 
 
59 
 
 Africa, spirits, rum, and brandy, guns, cutlasses, and 
 ammunition. It was England that carried on the 
 heartless commerce, with such merciless disregard of 
 human life, that " sometimes a third or more pe 
 rished on the passage." 
 
 The parliamentary report of 1789, on the slave 
 trade, states, that of the slaves introduced into Ja 
 maica, from 1655 to 1787, thirty-one thousand one 
 hundred and eighty-one died in the harbour from 
 the noxious quality of the drugs employed in 
 making them up for sale. 
 
 A work on English commerce, entitled " Liver 
 pool Memorandum," states, "that it may be pre 
 sumed, that at a moderate computation of slaves, 
 who are purchased by our African merchants in a 
 year, near thirty thousand die upon the voyage and 
 in the seasoning." 
 
 Mr. Wiiberforce denounced the English slave- 
 trade as " a scene of uniform, unadulterated, unso 
 phisticated wickedness." Mr. Beaufoy, in the same 
 debate said, " superstition herself is less obdurate, 
 less persevering, less steadfast in her cruelty than 
 this cool, reflecting, deliberate, remorseless com 
 merce." Mr. Pitt said, he had no doubt that Bri 
 tish arms were placed in the hands of the Africans 
 to promote universal war and desolation. Mr. Fox 
 observed, that " the acts of barbarity proved upon 
 the slave captains in the course of the voyages, were 
 so extraordinary, that they had been attributed to 
 insanity." One case was narrated in which the cap 
 tain of a British ship, in 1781, threw into the sea 
 one hundred and thirty-two slaves alive, in order 
 to defraud the underwriters. Another case was 
 mentioned by Wiiberforce, in which six English 
 vessels anchored off an African town agreed to fire 
 on the town, to force the inhabitants to sell their 
 slaves at a lower price. The cruelties of the pas- 
 
60 
 
 sage appear to have combined the greatest amount 
 of horrors. Mr. Walsh, in referring to the mortality 
 induced by this and other causes, says, " it may be 
 asserted with confidence, that the British trade 
 caused immediately, during the two centuries of its 
 legal prosecution, the destruction of more negroes 
 than have existed, altogether, in North America 
 since the first settlement!"* 
 
 As the awful atrocities committed by England in 
 the prosecution of the slave trade are not, and cannot 
 be denied nor palliated, the merit of its abolition is 
 dwelt on with great triumph, as sufficient to efface the 
 remembrance of all her former offences. It may be 
 doubted, whether a nation is entitled to any peculiar 
 credit or commendation for abstaining, after unin 
 terrupted centuries of crime, from acts of open 
 rapine. Still less is praise merited, if the reform 
 tardily follows twenty years after a full conviction 
 arid appreciation of the guilt of the course pursued. 
 But every lingering claim on our gratitude and re 
 spect is effaced, if it be discovered, that the act of 
 justice was induced, not even by a cold and reluctant 
 sense of duty, but by motives wholly sordid and 
 interested. 
 
 In the year 1787, a few individuals, whose hu 
 manity has rendered their names illustrious, brought 
 the subject of the slave trade before the English 
 parliament. The facts in relation to the traffic were 
 collected with incredible labour, and placed, in the 
 strongest light, before the house. The cause was for 
 tunate in obtaining the advocacy of several of the 
 noblest spirits of the times; and was urged with all 
 the force of reason and eloquence. Session after 
 session the contest was renewed; but years came 
 and passed, and the trade not only continued but 
 
 * It is estimated that more than twenty millions of Afri 
 cans have been transported to America. 
 
61 
 
 increased. At length, in 1807, after a twenty-years 
 war, a bill was passed providing for the abolition of 
 the slave trade. 
 
 This result was obtained by the success of the 
 abolitionists in convincing the people and parliament 
 of the inexpediency of the commerce. A very ex 
 tensive edition of Clarkson s Essay on the Impolicy 
 of the Trade was published. In the debate, the 
 advocates of abolition argued, that the trade was a 
 disadvantage to England. They alleged, that it in 
 jured her commerce, restricted her manufactures, 
 and ruined her seamen. They alleged also, that the 
 islands were then well stocked with labourers; that 
 additional importation would lessen the value of the 
 slaves already obtained, and crowd the population 
 of the island without benefit to the planter. They 
 also urged, that the natural increase would now be 
 adequate to support the number of the labouring 
 population; and represented that a much more lu 
 crative commerce with Africa might be substituted 
 for the slave trade. These arguments prevailed, and 
 the commerce was abolished. 
 
 Mr. Whitbread, in the final debate on the subject, 
 complained that it was almost entirely a cold cal 
 culation of profit and loss. In the General Con 
 ference, held at Vienna, on the subject of the aboli 
 tion of the slave trade. Lord Castlereagh communi 
 cated authentic documents, to prove that " abolition 
 was particularly for the real advantage, and even 
 indispensable for the security of the colonial coun 
 tries." In 1807, Lord Lauderdale, when urging 
 abolition upon the French government, was told, 
 "that England, with her colonies well stocked with 
 negroes, and affording a larger produce, might abo 
 lish the trade without inconvenience; but that France, 
 with colonies ill-stocked, and deficient in produce, 
 could not abolish it without conceding to England 
 6 
 
62 
 
 the greatest advantages, and sustaining a proportion 
 ate loss." The Spanish minister, in answer to the 
 same application, said to Lord Castlereagh: "If the 
 Spanish colonies of America were, as to the supply 
 of negroes, in the same state as the English colonies, 
 his Catholic majesty would not hesitate a moment in 
 decreeing immediate abolition; but the question 
 having been before the British parliament from 1788 
 to 1807, the English traders and planters had full 
 time to make extraordinary purchases of slaves; 
 and, in fact, they did so. This was proved by the 
 case of Jamaica, which in 1787 had only 250,000; 
 whereas, at the period of the abolition, in 1807, she 
 possessed 400,000." Mr. Wilberforce, as late as 
 1818, in urging a grant to Spain, in consideration of 
 abolishing the trade, did it on the ground of the 
 commercial advantages accruing to great Britain, by 
 opening the continent of Africa to British industry. 
 It is unnecessary to multiply proofs, that the English 
 government, as it was induced by avarice to sanction 
 the trade for centuries, was at length induced by 
 the same motive, under a change of circumstances, 
 to abolish it. 
 
 The reader has no doubt seen, in his time, men 
 who have devoted the greenness and worth of their 
 lives to profligacy; who have laughed at every re 
 straint, overthrown and trampled upon every bar 
 rier which separated them from lawless enjoyment, 
 and, in the pursuit of pleasure, or fortune, or both, 
 have rushed madly into the most guilty and sordid 
 excesses. He has perhaps seen these same men, when 
 the chill of age came upon them when their ears 
 could no longer catch the tones of the syren voice, 
 nor their benumbed flesh thrill to the touch of plea 
 sure when sin was stripped of its attraction, and 
 the sinners incapable of gratification smooth their 
 faces into the demureness of sanctity, expend their 
 ill-gotten gains in the erection of churches, and 
 
63 
 
 essay to compensate, by the zeal of their piety, for its 
 insincerity and selfishness. Such men are seen daily; 
 but, though as remarkable for their intolerance as 
 their zeal though bitter in their denunciation of 
 those vices which they cherished while they could, 
 and those pleasures which they followed until they 
 ceased to please yet we have never found one so 
 fortunate as to persuade the public to admire or re 
 spect that sanctity 
 
 "Which doth but skin and film the ulcerous part, 
 Whiles rank corruption, mining all within, 
 Infects unseen." 
 
 It remains to be seen, how far the world will re 
 spect the sincerity of a nation that surpassed all 
 others in the slave traffic, until that traffic ceased to 
 be profitable to her; and then, when constrained to 
 reform, becomes outrageous in her sanctity, and 
 abusive in her censures of others, even when the 
 offences which she denounces, were, in fact, perpe 
 trated, not by those whom she presumes to rebuke, 
 but by herself alone. 
 
 It must not be supposed, because the government 
 of Great Britain found it expedient to abolish the 
 slave trade, that the English people abandoned it. 
 On the contrary, the English themselves have af 
 forded us ample proofs of the extent of their illicit 
 commerce in slaves since the passage of the act of 
 abolition. 
 
 The Report of the London African Institution, of 
 1809, states, that the slave merchants had succeeded 
 in eluding the provisions of the act. The report of 
 1810 says: "It has been discovered that, in defi 
 ance of all the penalties imposed by the act of Par 
 liament, vessels under foreign flags have been fitted 
 out in the ports of Liverpool and London, for the 
 purpose of carrying slaves from Africa to the Spanish 
 
64 
 
 and Portuguese settlements in America." The re 
 port proceeds to state, that persons of high consider 
 ation were implicated in this illicit traffic. The re 
 port of 1810 states, that " accounts from various 
 quarters concur with certain judicial proceedings 
 which have taken place in this country, to prove 
 that a very considerable trade in slaves has been 
 carried on of late, and a large portion of it by means 
 of the capital and credit of British subjects." 
 " There is a large class of contraband slave ships 
 fitted out, chiefly in London or Liverpool, destined 
 to the coast of Africa." The report of 1812 esti 
 mates the amount of this illicit commerce at from 
 70,000 to 80,000 slaves during the year 1810. The 
 reports of 1813-14 reaffirm the same facts, and 
 in addition, complain of a new branch of trade 
 opened by the British between Egypt and Malta. 
 It also describes the condition of the slaves in seve 
 ral of the new British conquests as wretched in the 
 extreme; and while it denounces the slave trade 
 on the north coast of Africa, complains of the ex 
 portation of British arms and gunpowder to that 
 continent. In 1815, Mr. Barham stated in Parlia 
 ment, that " it was a well known fact, that a large 
 British capital was employed in British ships, in the 
 slave trade." In 1818, Lord Castlereagh said, that 
 "in numberless instances, he was sorry to say, it 
 had come to his knowledge, that British subjects 
 were indirectly and largely engaged in the slave 
 trade." The report of the African Institution for 
 1815, affirmed that 20,000 negroes had been yearly 
 smuggled into the English colonies. The com 
 merce thus extensively but illicitly carried on, 
 though checked by the recent act of abolition, is no 
 doubt still prosecuted with the colonies of other 
 European nations, and will probably be continued 
 so long as it proves profitable. England, at least, 
 will never be entitled to praise for its termination. 
 
65 
 
 In the act referred to, by which slavery was abolish 
 ed in the English colonies, we can see nothing in 
 consistent with the spirit always exhibited by the 
 British government. Wholly unmindful, not only of 
 the interests, but of the rights of her colonies, she has 
 robbed them of a property, the legitimacy of which 
 she recognised for centuries. She thrust -forced a 
 slave population upon them, notwithstanding their 
 remonstrances, and did so, not because she conceived 
 such a population valuable to the colonies, but be 
 cause the traffic was "beneficic.l to the mother coun 
 try." Having exhausted this source of gain, and 
 persuaded herself that her colonies would, if slavery 
 were abolished, afford an outlet for her surplus popu 
 lation, she does not scruple to rifle her own subjects, 
 throw the colonies into confusion, and endanger the 
 lives, as she has violated the rights, of the planters 
 of the West Indies. That this policy has been 
 adopted under the momentary sway of ignorant 
 fanaticism may be conceded; but fanaticism would 
 never have controlled the policy of Britain, had it 
 not appealed to her avarice, and, by captivating but 
 hollow representations of the superiority of free 
 labour, persuaded her that the measure would render 
 the colonies more valuable to the mistress country. 
 The profits realized by Great Britain in the slave 
 trade may well enable her to afford a few millions 
 of compensation to the plundered planters, and the 
 increased revenue expected from the colonies will, 
 it is expected, amply justify this investment. Great 
 Britain has not, however, upon all occasions, found 
 her system of colonial wrong and exaction to answer 
 her expectations. The time has not yet arrived to 
 write the history of West India abolition, but the 
 system has sufficiently developed itself to enable us 
 to predict, with confidence, loss to the mother coun 
 try ruin to the colonies. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Condition of Slaves in the United States. 
 
 THE extent of slavery in the different slave-hold 
 ing states of this union, may be seen by the follow 
 ing table, digested from the census of 1830. 
 
 
 Whites. 
 
 Free 
 col d. 
 
 Slaves. 
 
 Total 
 col d. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Maryland, 
 
 291,093 
 
 52,912 
 
 102,873 
 
 155,820 
 
 446,913 
 
 Virginia, 
 
 694,270 
 
 47,348 
 
 469,757 
 
 517,105 
 
 1,211,375 
 
 North Carolina, 
 
 472,843 
 
 19,543 
 
 245,601 
 
 265,444 
 
 737,987 
 
 South Carolina, 
 
 257,863 
 
 7,921 
 
 315,401 
 
 323,322 
 
 518,185 
 
 Georgia, 
 
 296,806 
 
 2,486 
 
 217,531 
 
 220,017 
 
 516,823 
 
 Al v mn J North, 
 
 81,173 
 
 422 
 
 44,130 
 
 44,552 
 
 125,725 
 
 Aiaoama, > S i th 
 
 109,233 
 
 1,150 
 
 73,419 
 
 74,569 
 
 183,802 
 
 Mississippi, 
 
 114,795 
 
 569 
 
 25,091 
 
 25,660 
 
 140,455 
 
 Kentucky, 
 
 517,787 
 
 4,917 
 
 165,213 
 
 170,130 
 
 687,917 
 
 Louisiana, 
 
 89,291 
 
 16,710 
 
 109,588 
 
 126,298 
 
 215,589 
 
 Tennessee, 
 
 535,748 
 
 4,555 
 
 141,603 
 
 146,158 
 
 681,906 
 
 Missouri, 
 
 114,795 
 
 569 
 
 25,091 
 
 25,660 
 
 140,455 
 
 District of Columbia, 
 
 27,647 
 
 6,093 
 
 6,058 
 
 12,151 
 
 39,868 
 
 Arkansaw, 
 
 25,671 
 
 141 
 
 4,576 
 
 4,717 
 
 30,388 
 
 Florida, 
 
 18,375 
 
 844 
 
 15,501 
 
 16,345 
 
 34,720 
 
 The states in which slavery prevails, have been 
 distinguished for their affluence. Notwithstanding 
 the policy of the national government has borne 
 heavily upon the South, notwithstanding the occa 
 sional depression of her staples, and the proverbially 
 unfortunate pecuniary habits of her citizens, that 
 portion of the union may still be regarded as pecu- 
 
67 
 
 liarly favoured. The slave-labour of the South has 
 thus far practically disproved the theories of the 
 North; and demonstrated that the institution of slave 
 ry, whatever objections may be alleged against it, is 
 not calculated to diminish the national wealth, or re 
 tard the national prosperity. It will be seen hereafter, 
 that the South pays nearly one-third of the revenue 
 of the government; and of the one hundred millions 
 of dollars annual exports sent from the country, 
 nine-tenths are raised by the South. Of the pro 
 ductiveness of slave-labour, who can, after a know 
 ledge of these facts, affect a doubt? The North, as 
 well as the South, is enriched by that labour; and 
 should any disastrous occurrences disturb the insti 
 tutions of the South, not only the whites and negroes 
 of the slave-holding states would sink into poverty 
 and suffering,but the decayed manufactures, shrunken 
 commerce, and ruined prosperity of the North, would 
 show how near and vital is the connexion of the dif 
 ferent sections of our common country. 
 
 Every country must have its labourers, men who 
 are willing to be directed by the mind and capital 
 of others, and to undergo, in consideration of sup 
 port, the physical toil requisite for the attainment 
 of the goods of life. In the North, this labour is 
 done by the poor; in the South, by the negro. In 
 both, the labourer is forced to endure the privations 
 of his condition in life. In the North, not only is 
 his toil severe, but poverty and anxiety attend him 
 in his humble path in life. His family must be 
 sustained; his wife attended in sickness; his chil 
 dren supported in youth. His means are often ina 
 dequate to his wants. He is bowed down by the 
 consciousness of inequality, and haunted by the fear 
 of the prison. Incertitude and anxiety are with him 
 each hour of his life; and when sickness or age steals 
 upon him, it often finds him without resources or 
 hope. Thus is he dogged through life by poverty, 
 
68 
 
 fear, humiliation and oppression (for the title of 
 freeman does not protect the poor from oppression) 
 and dies with the unhappy consciousness that for 
 his children is reserved the same lot of wretched 
 ness. The labourer of the South knows none of 
 these evils. He is scarcely acquainted with the 
 meaning of the word care. He never suffers from 
 inordinate labour he never sickens from unwhole 
 some food. No fear of want disturbs his slumbers. 
 Hunger and cold are strangers to him; and in sick 
 ness or age he knows that he has a protector and a 
 friend able and willing to shield him from suffering. 
 His pleasures are such as his nature enjoys, and are 
 unrestricted. He enjoys all the privileges which his 
 simple heart craves, and which are wholesome for 
 him. Thus protected from all the other has to fear, 
 and secured in the enjoyment of all he desires he 
 is as happy as circumstances can render him. 
 
 We are aware that certain pseudo philanthropists 
 affect great concern for the benighted state of the 
 negro, and condemn the enactments which, in some 
 of the states, discourage his education. We may be 
 permitted to remark, that, but for the intrusive and 
 intriguing interference of pragmatical fanatics, such 
 precautionary enactments would never have been 
 necessary. When such foes are abroad, industrious 
 in scattering the seeds of insurrection, it becomes 
 necessary to close every avenue by which they may 
 operate upon the slaves. It becomes necessary to 
 check or turn aside the stream, which instead of 
 flowing healthfully upon the negro, is polluted and 
 poisoned by the abolitionists, and rendered the 
 source of discontent and excitement. Education, 
 thus perverted, would become equally dangerous to 
 the master and the slave: and while fanaticism con 
 tinue, its war upon the South, the measures of ne 
 cessary precaution and defence must be continued. 
 
 The situation of the slave is, in every particular, 
 
69 
 
 incompatible with the cultivation of his mind. It 
 would not only unfit him for his station in life, 
 and prepare him for insurrection, but would be 
 found wholly impracticable in the performance of 
 the duties of a labourer. However, those who re 
 gard the absence of education in*the negro with 
 such peculiar compassion, would do well to assure 
 themselves that the free blacks of the North, and 
 even a large class of the white labourers, are, in this 
 particular, superior to him. The charity of these 
 fanatics is generally of so expanded and ambitious a 
 character, that it overlooks worthy objects of bene 
 volence at their feet, to light upon some scheme of 
 thwart and ill-omened philanthropy abroad. 
 
 The absence of science is no misfortune to the 
 slave. He is averse to study; and, with every ad 
 vantage, seldom makes sufficient progress to render 
 education a source of pleasure or profit to him. 
 Inert and unintellectual, he exhibits no craving for 
 knowledge; and prefers, in his hours of recreation, 
 indulgence in his rustic pleasures to the pursuit of 
 intellectual improvement. It has been a question, 
 whether the pains or enjoyments of a cultivated 
 mind preponderate. The extended expanse of the 
 mind, if it is opened to more of the sunshine of 
 heaven, is exposed also to more of its gloom; and 
 as, in this life, our sky is more frequently clouded 
 than clear, the prerogative, however ennobling, is 
 perhaps a source of more anxiety than enjoyment. 
 Be this as it may, the negro never suffers from the 
 thirst for knowledge. Voluptuous and indolent, he 
 knows few but animal pleasures; is incapable of 
 appreciating the pride and pleasure of conscious in 
 tellectual refinement; and passes through existence, 
 perhaps with few of the white man s mental enjoy 
 ments, but certainly with still fewer of his harass 
 ing cares and anxieties. The dance beneath the 
 
70 
 
 shade surpasses, for him, the groves of the academy ; 
 and the simple tones of the banjo have charms which 
 even the lyre of Phoebus could not rival. 
 
 Misguided or malevolent writers have endea 
 voured to produce an impression in the North that 
 the slaves of the* South are debarred the privilege of 
 public worship. So far is this statement from being 
 based on truth, that it may be doubted whether the 
 free blacks in the North, under the immediate wing 
 of the abolitionists, enjoy the same religious advan 
 tages, or profit by them to the same extent. Clergy 
 men are encouraged by the citizens of the Southern 
 states to visit and preach to their slaves; and the 
 cause of religion was, and unless the mad course of 
 the abolitionists has checked it, still is, rapidly ad 
 vancing in the South. The clergy of the South are 
 equally distinguished for their zeal and ability; and 
 labour, with commendable activity, in the vineyard 
 thus opened to them. The absence of all temporal 
 cares in the mind of the slave, fits him to receive 
 religious impressions; and may, perhaps, account 
 for the success of the ministry in their efforts among 
 that portion of our population. Of the numerous 
 and exemplary clergy of the South, not a man can 
 be found willing to sanction the course of the North 
 ern fanatics, to represent the condition of the slaves 
 in an unfavourable light, or to breathe a word to 
 countenance the calumnies of the abolitionists. They 
 imitate the example of our blessed Saviour, who, 
 instead of preaching abolition to the slaves, went 
 among them breathing the spirit of humility and 
 peace, and directing them to " render unto Ca3sar 
 the things that are Caesar s." When the soi disant 
 philanthropists do likewise, they will cease to be 
 objects of alarm and abhorrence to the people whose 
 tranquillity they have so recklessly endangered. 
 
 Since the recent manifestations of a determination 
 
71 
 
 on the part of the abolitionists to break up the foun 
 tains of the great deep of public order to throw 
 the whole organization of southern society into 
 chaos light the torch of rapine and whet the knife 
 of murder it has become necessary for the South 
 to guard, with sleepless vigilance, every channel 
 through which their poison might be disseminated. 
 Some of the fanatics, more mutinous than their bre 
 thren, have visited the South, in the abused charac 
 ter of clergymen, and brought reproach upon the 
 holy office, by using it for the worst purposes. 
 These reverend preachers of insurrection and mur 
 der have excited some distrust at the South; and the 
 planters are wisely determined to be more careful 
 hereafter. Wandering vagabonds will therefore find 
 it difficult to approach and poison the minds of the 
 slaves in clerical costume; or, should they succeed, 
 will probably discover, to their surprise, that the 
 crime of inciting the ignorant negro to murder, is 
 punished at the South quite as summarily and se 
 verely, when committed in a black coat, as in one 
 of a less reverend and awe-exciting hue. But how 
 ever watchful necessity may render the Southron, 
 the respectable and pure-hearted clergyman will 
 always receive from him, in the performance of his 
 holy duties among the slave population, protection, 
 encouragement and support. Christianity truly 
 taught and sincerely cherished, cannot fail to render 
 the slave population more tranquil and happy in 
 themselves, and more valuable to their masters. Had 
 the planter, therefore, no higher motive, his own 
 obvious interests would constrain him to encourage 
 and aid the means by which his slaves are rendered 
 quiet, moral, and industrious. 
 
 The slaves of the South are protected from abuse 
 or wrong by liberal laws, justly administered. Im 
 proper punishment, under-feeding or over-working, 
 
72 
 
 are prevented by enactments, which, should any 
 master incur their penalties, effectually vindicate the 
 cause of justice. The laws protect the slave as fully 
 as the white man: they go further, and, as the slave 
 is supposed to be completely dependent upon his 
 master, they require that he should be supplied with 
 the necessaries and comforts of his station, and 
 treated with unvarying kindness. In some of the 
 states it has, indeed, been necessary to pass rigid 
 police laws to protect the country from insurrections; 
 but these laws remain a dead letter, until the inter 
 ference of insidious and evil men excites and stirs up 
 the slaves, and renders caution and severity indispen 
 sable for the safety of the master. When abolition 
 ists make the application of these laws necessary, it 
 is they, and they alone, who are the authors of the 
 restraint placed upon the slaves. 
 
 The slave-holders of this country have always 
 been celebrated for their kindness to their depend 
 ants. The following passages in Beverley s History 
 of Virginia, dated 1720, shows the manner in which, 
 even at that early period, the slaves were treated. 
 " It hath been so represented to the common people 
 of England, as to make them believe that the ser 
 vants in Virginia are made to draw in carts, and 
 plough as the oxen do in England, and that the coun 
 try turns all people black who go to live there; with 
 other such prodigious phantasms." "I can assure, 
 with great truth, that, generally, the slaves in Vir 
 ginia are not worked near so hard, nor so many 
 hours in a day as the husbandmen and day-labour 
 ers in England; and that no people more abhor the 
 thoughts of cruel usage to servants than do Virgi 
 nians." The treatment of slaves in this country, 
 always lenient, has improved since the revolution. 
 The apprehensions which existed while the slave 
 trade poured its thousands upon our shores, have 
 
73 
 
 been removed by its abolition; the whites also have 
 become more numerous, and bear a much larger pro 
 portion to the slaves; and a sense of security is the 
 consequence, which has operated greatly to soften 
 the system of the master, and ameliorate the condi 
 tion of the slave. The division of the negro popu 
 lation into smaller masses, has, by bringing them 
 nearer to the master, connected them with his family 
 associations and feelings; while the advance of libe 
 ral and humane feelings has given to the relation of 
 master and slave often the most affectionate charac 
 ter. The editor of the Encyclopedia Americana, 
 remarks, "We believe it is generally admitted that 
 the slave is nowhere better treated than in the slave- 
 holding states of this union." Mr. Walsh, in his 
 Appeal, gives the following description of the treat 
 ment of slaves in the South. " The master who 
 would deprive his negro of his peculium the pro 
 duce of his poultry -house, or his little garden; who 
 should force him to work on holidays or at night; 
 who should deny him the common recreations, or 
 leave him without shelter or provision in his old 
 age, would incur the aversion of the community, 
 and raise obstacles to the advancement of his own 
 interest and external aims." 
 
 The same author says, " American negro-slavery 
 is almost wholly free from two of the grievances 
 which characterize that of the W T est Indies under 
 feeding and over working. With regard to the 
 great article of food, the American negroes are, 
 assuredly, better supplied than the free labourers of 
 most parts of Europe. Flesh meat is not attainable 
 for the latter in the same quantity which is com 
 monly given to the first; it would seem not to be 
 attainable at all for the poorer classes of Great Bri 
 tain and Ireland. In respect to clothing and lodging, 
 the comparison would give nearly the same result 
 7 
 
74 
 
 On the score of fuel, the want of which occasions so 
 much suffering in particular counties of Great Bri 
 tain, and, as to the point of labour, also, the advan 
 tage is greatly on the side of the American negro. 
 I cannot here enter into the details of the system, 
 upon which they are worked on the Southern plan 
 tations; but I can say of it, that it involves nothing 
 like the same intensity, duration, or continuity of 
 exertion, which would appear to be indispensable in 
 Great Britain, in almost all the lower walks of me 
 chanical industry, for the mere support of animal 
 life." 
 
 Professor Dew, from whose invaluable work on 
 this subject we have already quoted, speaks as fol 
 lows of the usage of the slaves: " In the debate in 
 the Virginia legislature, no speaker insinuated even, 
 we believe, that the slaves in Virginia were not 
 treated kindly; and all, too, agreed that they were 
 most abundantly fed; and we have no doubt but that 
 they form the happiest portion of our society. A 
 merrier being does not exist on the face of the globe, 
 than the negro slave of the United States. Even 
 Captain Hall himself, with his thick crust of pre 
 judice/ is obliged to allow that they are happy and 
 contented, and the master much less cruel than is 
 generally imagined." 
 
 Mr. Dew remarks that we are all too prone to make 
 seethe standard by which we measure the condition 
 of the slaves; and adds, with equal justice and elo 
 quence: " We might rather die than be the ob 
 scure slave that waits at our back our education 
 and our habits generate an ambition that makes us 
 aspire at something loftier and disposes us to look 
 upon the slave as unsusceptible of happiness in his 
 humble sphere, when he may indeed be much hap 
 pier than we are, and have his ambition too; but his 
 ambition is to excel all his other slaves in the per- 
 
75 
 
 formance of his servile duties to please and gratify 
 his master and to command the praise of all who 
 witness his exertions. Let the wily philanthropist 
 but come and whisper into the ear of such a slave 
 that his situation is degrading and his lot a misera 
 ble one let him but light up the dungeon in which 
 he persuades the slave that he is caged and that 
 moment, like the serpent that entered the garden of 
 Eden, he destroys his happiness and his usefulness." 
 
 We add the following testimony of T. Flint, Esq., 
 a gifted native of New England, and from education, 
 habit, and feeling, averse to the institution of slavery. 
 Of the fidelity of his statements, no one, we flatter 
 ourselves, will hazard a doubt. His opportunities 
 for acquiring, from personal observation, a know 
 ledge of slavery, have been unlimited; and from his 
 established reputation as a sagacious and accurate 
 observer, and a writer of ability and character, his 
 authority must be regarded as entitled to great con 
 sideration. 
 
 " We can pronounce, from what we consider a 
 thorough knowledge of the subject, that the condi 
 tion of the slaves here,* the treatment which they 
 receive, and the character of their masters, have been 
 much misrepresented in the non-slave-holding states. 
 We pretend to none but historical knowledge of 
 the state of things which has existed here in past 
 time. At present, we are persuaded, there are but 
 few of those brutal and cruel masters which the 
 greatest portion of the planters were formerly sup 
 posed to be. The masters now study popularity 
 with their slaves. There is now no part of the 
 slave-holding country in the Southwest, where it 
 would not be a deep stain on the moral character to 
 
 * In Louisiana, one of the most rigid states, in the govern 
 ment of her slaves, in the Union. 
 
76 
 
 be generally reputed a cruel master. In many plan 
 tations no punishment is inflicted except after a trial 
 by a jury, composed of the fellow servants of the 
 party accused. Festival prizes and rewards are in 
 stituted, as stimulants to exertion, and compensa 
 tions for superior accomplishments of labour. They 
 are generally well fed, and well clothed, and that 
 not by an arbitrary award, which might vary with 
 the feelings of the master, but by a periodical appor 
 tionment, like the distributed rations of soldiers, of 
 what has been experimented to be sufficient to ren 
 der them comfortable. Considerable attention is 
 paid to their quarters, and most of them comfortably 
 lodged and housed. Nor are they destitute, as has 
 been supposed, of any legal protection coming be 
 tween them and the cupidity and cruelty of their 
 masters. The code noir of Louisiana is a curious 
 collection of statutes, drawn partly from French and 
 Spanish law and usage, and partly from the customs 
 of the islands, and usages which have grown out of 
 the peculiar circumstances of Louisiana while a 
 colony. It has the aspect, it must be admitted, of 
 being formed rather for the advantage of the master 
 than the servant, for it prescribes an unlimited ho 
 mage and obedience to the former. It makes a mis 
 demeanor on his part towards his master a very 
 different offence from a wanton abuse of power to 
 wards the servant* But, at the same time, it de 
 fines crimes that the master can commit in relation 
 to the slave: and prescribes the mode of trial, and 
 the kind and degree of punishment. It constitutes 
 unnecessary correction, maiming, and murder, pun 
 ishable offences in the master. It is very minute in 
 prescribing the number of hours which the master 
 
 * Such a distinction is prompted by the dangers arising 
 from the peculiar position of the slave, and the necessity of 
 greater restraint and security. 
 
77 
 
 may lawfully exact to be employed in labour, and 
 the number of hours which he must allow his slave 
 for meal-times and for rest. It prescribes the time 
 and extent of his holidays. In short, it settles with 
 minuteness and detail, the whole circle of relations 
 between master and slave, defining and prescribing 
 what the former may, and may not, exact of the 
 latter. Yet after all these minute provisions, the 
 slave finds the chief alleviation of his hard condi 
 tion, and his best security against cruel treatment, 
 and his most valid bond for kind and proper deport 
 ment towards him, in the increasing light, human 
 ity and force of public opinion. That the slave is 
 in the general circumstances of his condition, as 
 happy as this relation ivill admit of his being) is 
 
 AN UNQUESTIONABLE FACT."* 
 
 * It can scarcely be necessary to swell the evidences of a 
 fact, which every intelligent and candid man who has in 
 spected for himself the domestic relations of the Southern 
 planter, will readily admit. We will, however, add the fol 
 lowing. Mr. Noah, of New York, remarks, in relation to 
 the slave population of the South: " We speak advisedly, for 
 we have studied the condition of the whites and blacks mi 
 nutely, and can freely say, that we would infinitely prefer to 
 be a black slave in Carolina, or*Virginia, or Cuba, or Barba- 
 does, to the emaciated and haggard wretches who people the 
 workshops of Birmingham and Manchester, or the poor, 
 shiftless, dissolute free negroes who live in our Northern 
 states." The able editor of the Courier and Enquirer, thus 
 describes the slaves of the South, before the " pernicious 
 labours of the abolitionist destroyed the confidence of the 
 master, and with it, the comfort of the slave." " We speak 
 from our own experience, when we say, they were the gay 
 est, the most contented, and the most comfortable race of 
 labouring people that ever came under our observation ; for, 
 as to the pictures and representations which the abolitionists 
 are daily putting forth, of chains, stripes, oppression, and 
 cruelty, we pronounce them wilful and malicious falsehoods, 
 invented to impose upon the world, and stimulate the slaves 
 to insurrection and murder." 
 
 7* 
 
78 
 
 Were there no other evidences of the kindness 
 with which the Southern slaves are treated, and the 
 comfort in which they live, it would be sufficient to 
 direct the attention of the reader to the rapidity of 
 their increase. This, at least, is a proof of the pros 
 perous state of the negro, which will not be contest 
 ed. In the British West Indies, the slave population 
 has required, it is said, renewal every fifteen years: 
 in this country, the natural increase is nearly equal 
 to that of the whites. In England and Wales, the 
 population has nearly doubled in the last hundred 
 years; one fourth of that time is sufficient for the 
 duplication of our Southern negroes. These facts 
 will not be denied, and cannot be explained away. 
 They demonstrate that the condition of the Ameri 
 can negro is, at least, not one of physical suffering. 
 
 In conclusion, we may remark, that there is rea 
 son to doubt whether any country comprises a la 
 bouring people better clothed, fed and treated than 
 the slave population of the South a population 
 with less discontent and fewer causes calculated to 
 excite it. Their intellectual inferiority, the absence 
 of ambition in their character, their improvidence 
 and want of a master to direct and sustain them, 
 and the peculiar adaptation of their physical consti 
 tution to labour in a Southern climate, all combine 
 to render their present the best possible condition 
 in which they can be placed; while the kindness 
 and attention of their masters make that condition 
 still more comfortable and happy. It is an error to 
 suppose that the blacks do not regard the kindness 
 of their masters with gratitude and affection. They 
 look up to their liberal and generous masters, and 
 their amiable mistresses, with a feeling absolutely 
 fond and filial. They take pleasure in repaying 
 their care with every service in their power; and, 
 instead of desiring an opportunity to dissolve the 
 
79 
 
 connexion between them, would, in many cases, be 
 found ready to die in defence of the families in 
 which they are so kindly protected and cherished. 
 With these views of the Southern population, how 
 sinister and fiendlike appears that intermeddling 
 spirit which seeks to render the poor slave discon 
 tented to transform his nature into that of a re 
 vengeful and sanguinary demon, thirsting for the 
 blood of his protectors, anxious to redden the skies 
 of his clime with the glare of conflagration, and dye 
 the soil he has so long and peacefully tilled with the 
 hue of murder. Is it strange that the proceedings 
 of such men are regarded, by every reflecting and 
 benevolent mind, with horror?* 
 
 * " In this country it has been argued," said the Rev. Mr. 
 Tracy, in a sermon before the Vermont Colonization Society, 
 " that the world belongs to all men equally, and labour be 
 longs to those who perform it, are conclusions as inevitable, 
 as that a man s right hand is his own." And on these 
 grounds, a convention was proposed and publicly urged in 
 the state of New York, in the year 1830, which should 
 order, 
 
 An immediate abolition of all debts; 
 
 An inventory of all real and personal property within the 
 state; 
 
 A census of all the inhabitants, white or black; 
 
 An equal division of all the property, real and personal, 
 among such citizens indiscriminately, as have arrived at the 
 age of eighteen, without regard to colour; 
 
 An apportionment of a full share to every citizen, as he 
 shall hereafter arrive at the age of eighteen; 
 
 The abolition of all interest on money, and the right of 
 making wills. 
 
 Do you say, there is no danger that men will reason thus! I 
 answer, men have thus reasoned, and been confident in their 
 reasonings. They have published them, with the intention 
 of inducing nations to adopt them. The party, from one of 
 whose organs the last extract was taken, proposed to have 
 20,000 followers in the city of New York alone, and nomi 
 nated its candidate for the Presidency of the United States. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Slavery considered. The right of man to hold 
 his fellow-man in bondage. 
 
 WITH all the clamour made by the abolitionists, 
 in relation to "free discussion/ 7 there is nothing 
 which they so studiously avoid. They seldom, if 
 ever, resort to candid or manly argument. They 
 appeal to settled prejudices; and, by applying ab 
 stract but cherished axioms, without reference to 
 consequences, they urge a course which could never 
 bear the test of cool and practical examination. It 
 is the misfortune of our country that we reason from 
 abstractions. We establish the principle that all men 
 are created free and equal; and following it out, with 
 out regard to consequences, often infer that a com 
 munity of goods is required by a rigid respect for 
 the rights of man. It was this delusion, this prone- 
 ness to rush recklessly on in the course marked out 
 by some dreamy abstraction, which plunged revo 
 lutionary France into the reign of terror. Her 
 principles were generally sound; but pushed to 
 extremes, and followed without regard to practical 
 results, they led to consequences at which the world 
 even now turns pale. It was the prevalence of the 
 spirit alluded to, which induced the French policy 
 towards St. Domingo; and not only lost that colony 
 to France and to the world, but rendered it a Phle- 
 gethon, in which evil spirits held, for years, their 
 carnival of blood. Let our people profit by their 
 
81 
 
 experience. Let them rely rather on common sense, 
 practically applied, than on the misty abstractions of 
 fanatical enthusiasts. 
 
 It should be distinctly understood, that while the 
 South acknowledges no accountability to any power 
 under heaven for her course or sentiments on the 
 subject of slavery, she freely avows her conviction 
 of her right to hold the negroes in bondage, and her 
 persuasion that the domestic slavery of that section 
 of our country, is not a moral or political evil. 
 These sentiments are the result of a full and general 
 investigation of the subject: and were the people of 
 the North equally well acquainted with it, they 
 would probably subscribe to the opinions of the 
 South. The original importation of the African is 
 regarded by us as a moral wrong, because associated 
 with acts of violence and cruelty, which nothing 
 can justify. But of the justice, necessity, and advan 
 tages of the institution, as now entailed upon the 
 South, we cannot, after an examination of the sub 
 ject, feel a doubt. To the negro himself, we con 
 sider it no calamity. He is happier here than on 
 the shores of his own degraded, savage, and most 
 unhappy country or rather the country of his fa 
 thers. He is happier, also, as a slave, than he could 
 be as a freeman. This is the result of the peculiari 
 ties of his character; and will, we trust, be demon 
 strated in the course of this work to the satisfaction 
 of the reader. Jt may be said that the slave-holders 
 have no right to constitute themselves the tribunal 
 for the decision of this question. If we do not judge 
 for ourselves, of the propriety of our own conduct, 
 who shall judge for us? But were we, or rather the 
 people of the South, not immediately interested in 
 the determination of the question, the ignorance, 
 childlike simplicity and acknowledged incapacity of 
 the blacks, would justify their masters in deciding 
 
82 
 
 on the course which their welfare, as well as that of 
 the whites, rendered necessary. 
 
 The abolitionists deny the right of the people of 
 the South, under any circumstances, to hold their 
 fellow men in bondage. Upon what grounds is this 
 position assumed? If the master is guilty of a wrong, 
 it becomes his accusers to give some evidence of his 
 crime. It is their duty to prove that an institution, 
 which has existed almost from the creation of the 
 world to the present time, which has been en 
 couraged by the best men of the most enlightened 
 ages, and which has met the sanction of the Highest 
 has become, since these moral luminaries arose 
 upon the world, guilty and calamitous. It will be 
 found difficult to obtain a direct and rational answer 
 to so plain a demand. They deal wholly in rheto 
 rical flourishes; and if they reply at all, will tell us 
 that the negro slave should not be a slave, because 
 " he was created free." The fact is exactly the re 
 verse. He comes into the world a slave. Nay, we 
 might go further, and assert that nature, in her ear 
 liest developments, exhibits the necessity of recip 
 rocal command and protection. We are all, in early 
 life, slaves; the laws of necessity and nature, as well 
 as those of the land, constitute us bond, and we re 
 main so until we have passed through nearly one- 
 third of our earthly pilgrimage. Who, then, will 
 pretend to assert that the negro should not be a 
 slave because he is born free? But they tell us 
 " it is the will of God that he should be free." It is 
 somewhat strange, that the will of God, in this 
 point, has never been expressed until it came from 
 the oracular mouths of the abolitionists. Such mani 
 festations of the divine will never took place among 
 the Jews, where slavery was universal, nor among 
 the nations to which the disciples of our Saviour 
 preached nations which were overrun with slaves. 
 
83 
 
 The will and desire of God is the welfare of the 
 species. If negro slavery in the South be incon 
 sistent with the happiness of the human family, the 
 argument may apply: but if, as we confidently assert, 
 its existence is not at war with the well-being of the 
 greatest number of those interested, it is wholly 
 justifiable. And if, to go one step further, the mea 
 sures of abolition, projected by the fanatics, are 
 calculated to result in consequences calamitous to 
 the race, they are, notwithstanding their ostenta 
 tious and obtrusive piety, guilty, in the face of hea 
 ven and earth, of crimes of the darkest and deepest 
 crimson. 
 
 The phrase which occurs in the Declaration of 
 American Independence " all men are created free 
 and equal" is perpetually upon the lips of the abo 
 litionist, to sanction his violation of the rights of the 
 South. The following extract from a speech, deli 
 vered at the late public meeting in Philadelphia, by 
 Mr. J. R. Burden, formerly Speaker of the Senate, 
 and an early, fervent, and fearless advocate of the 
 rights of the slave-holder, admirably illustrates the 
 perversion and desecration of that celebrated sen 
 tence of Jefferson. 
 
 " On the 4th of July, 1776, in the immediate neigh 
 bourhood of this place, the Declaration of Independ 
 ence was made. From it the advocates of black 
 emancipation take their text, < All men are created 
 free and equal, 7 &c. The construction they put upon 
 it is unlimited. Let us examine the subject care 
 fully. Did the framers of the Declaration, the re 
 presentatives of the people, intend to declare that 
 domestic slavery was incompatible with the freedom 
 of the colonies? If they did not, their words are of 
 no use in the defence of negro emancipation. If 
 they did, why were not all the slaves then eman 
 cipated? 
 
84 
 
 "In 1781, the t Articles of Confederation were 
 ratified. Domestic slavery ^still existed. Why did 
 it exist, if the construction of the abolitionists be 
 correct ? 
 
 " The people of the United States, in order to form 
 a more perfect union and secure the blessings of li 
 berty, established the constitution in 1787. Do 
 mestic slavery still existed. No constitution could 
 have been formed, had emancipation been persisted 
 in. No union could have been perfected, if theorists 
 and dreamers had determined to deprive the slave- 
 holding states of their property. 
 
 " The constitution was adopted; the union was esta 
 blished; the world looked on it with admiration; yet 
 it did not prohibit domestic slavery. So far from it, 
 one of its main features, that of representation, was 
 based upon it. Further, it declared that the traffic 
 should not be prohibited by Congress prior to the 
 year 1808. Perhaps the framersof the constitution 
 thought that, by that period, the increased popula 
 tion of the blacks, would supersede the necessity of 
 importation. 
 
 " We hear, in our day, much prating about liberty 
 and philanthropy. The signers of the Declaration 
 of Independence, and the framers of the constitu 
 tion, were quite as conversant with the rights of 
 man, as the best of us; they had as much philan 
 thropy; and, if you will have it, as much Chris 
 tianity as we profess to have. They possessed the 
 confidence of the people, and deserved it; they 
 passed through the times that tried men s souls; 
 and, without the fear, favour, or affection of power, 
 but in the spirit of virtue, wisdom, and patriotism, 
 perfected a union as imperishable as the globe we 
 inhabit. Shall it be said that such men put a blot 
 and a stain upon our country ? So much for the 
 text of emancipation!" 
 
85 
 
 We have already shown, that slavery originated 
 in the practice of sparing and enslaving captives 
 taken in war. Judge Blackstone, whose argument 
 on this subject is triumphantly cited by the aboli 
 tionists, denies the right to make prisoners of war 
 slaves; for, he says, we have no right to enslave, un 
 less we had the right to kill; and we had no right to 
 kill, unless " in cases of absolute necessity for self- 
 defence; and it is plain this absolute necessity did 
 not subsist, since the victor did not actually kill 
 him, but made him prisoner." (See chap. 6, on 
 Civil Government.) Professor Dew, in his work 
 on slavery, furnishes the following conclusive refu 
 tation of Blackstone s position. " Upon this we 
 proceed to remark: 1st. That Judge Blackstone 
 here speaks of slavery in its pure unmitigated form, 
 whereby an unlimited power is given to the master 
 over the life and fortune of the slave. Slavery 
 scarcely exists any where in this form, and if it did, 
 it would be a continuance of a state of war, as Ros- 
 seau justly observes, between the captive and the 
 captor. Again : Blackstone, in his argument on this 
 subject, seems to misunderstand the grounds upon 
 which civilians place the justification of slavery, as 
 arising from the laws of war. It is well known, 
 that most of the horrors of war spring from the 
 principle of retaliation, and not, as Blackstone sup 
 poses, universally from ( absolute necessity. 
 
 It seems, that almost every distinguished writer 
 on the jus gentium, has admitted the justice of 
 slavery, under certain circumstances. Grotius says 
 that, as the law of nature permits prisoners of war 
 to be killed, so the same law has introduced the 
 right of making them slaves, that the captors, in 
 view of the benefits arising from the labour or sale 
 of their prisoners, might be induced to spare them. 
 Puffendorf speaks of slavery as established " by the 
 8 
 
86 
 
 free consent of the opposing parties." Rutherford, 
 in his Institutes, says, " the law of nations will allow 
 those who are prisoners to be made slaves by the 
 nation which takes them/ Other authors confirm 
 the same rule. Vattel asks, "are prisoners of war to 
 be made slaves?" and answers, " yes; in cases which 
 give a right to kill them." Locke says, "he, to whom 
 a prisoner has forfeited his life, may, when he has 
 him in his power, delay to take it, and make use of 
 him to his own service, and he does him no injury 
 by it." 
 
 But whatever may have been the origin of slavery 
 in this country, or the grounds on which it was jus 
 tified, it has, in its present state, in the recognition 
 of the laws, in the practice of centuries, in the sup 
 port afforded to the slave in infancy and weakness, 
 in the peculiarities of his race and position, and in the 
 necessities arising from them; in the impracticability 
 of legal or peaceful abolition, and in the great advan 
 tages arising to the states, in which it exists, to the 
 nation at large, to the slaves themselves, and to the 
 whites a sanction more potential and conclusive 
 than the dicta of philosophers. 
 
 The abolitionist, who is fired at the thought of the 
 negro in contented and comfortable bondage, scru 
 ples not, should his debtor, sinking under the heavy 
 hand of poverty, fail to pay his claim, to seize and 
 consign him to a jail. Here, debarred from common 
 food and common air tlie damp straw his couch, 
 the mouldering and filth-mantled prison walls his 
 home, abandoned to suffering, horror, and infamy, 
 he may weep over the fate of his lone and helpless 
 wife and little ones and admire the philanthropy 
 of the abolitionist! Such things are of daily occur 
 rence. Has the abolitionist then no compassion for 
 the white slave? Does he think it justifiable to in 
 flict upon him cruelties which the negro never fears 
 
87 
 
 and never suffers? He will answer that the white 
 man incurred an obligation to pay him. Does the 
 negro incur no such obligation in return for the 
 abundance provided him by his master? He will 
 urge that the laws of the land sanction it. And has 
 the South no laws, or are their laws alone to be de 
 spised and trampled on? But he will persist the 
 white man is not held for life. In certain cases he is 
 held for life, condemned to respire only in the loath 
 some atmosphere of a dungeon; and if he sees at all 
 the blessed sky, to gaze at it, with a pallid cheek and 
 an aching heart, through the grates of that perpetual 
 prison to which his white brother perchance an 
 abolitionist a pious philanthropist, who expends 
 tens of thousands to excite the happy negro to dis 
 content and murder has condemned him for the 
 crime of poverty! Such things may occur, even at 
 the enlightened and sanctimonious North and East. 
 The poor white slave may thus live perish thus 
 -and who tells him that his slavery is unlawful, 
 an offence against God, or bids him destroy his 
 jailor and set himself free? 
 
 The laws of every community justify a certain 
 state of domestic bondage. The child is, to a cer 
 tain extent, the slave of his father, the servant or 
 the apprentice of his master. True, the master is 
 restricted by law; and he can neither punish unne 
 cessarily, nor use those, whose care is entrusted with 
 him, with cruelty or neglect. But is not the slave 
 holder of the South equally controlled ? Is not the 
 slave equally protected? If the law is justified in 
 the sanction of slavery, for the undoubted benefit of 
 society and of those concerned, for a term of ten or 
 fifteen years, why not of twenty, or fifty, or an hun 
 dred? The welfare of society is the object of both 
 species of servitude; both are sanctioned by national 
 law, and both must be continued. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Slavery considered in continuation Sanctioned 
 by the Old and Neio Testaments, and accord 
 ant with the precepts and spirit of Christianity. 
 
 THE scheme of abolition had its origin in religious 
 fanaticism; and is still urged on religious grounds. 
 Religious feelings and prejudices are invoked in its 
 favour; religious periodicals are enlisted in its sup 
 port; and even religious persecution has been 
 already used to aid and urge its advance. These 
 measures have, it is feared, deceived some, who 
 have not examined this subject, into a belief that 
 slavery is inconsistent with religion; and good, but 
 weak men, have thus been induced to lend their 
 names to one of the most sanguinary schemes which 
 ever borrowed the cloak of religion to conceal the 
 purpose and perpetration of crime. To such it may 
 be well to mention, that the whole clergy of the 
 South, certainly not inferior, in any particular, to 
 their brethren in any part of the world, lend their 
 express sanction to slavery. If inconsistent with 
 the letter or spirit of Christianity, if cruel or op 
 pressive, could they be thus induced unanimously 
 to approve and countenance it? Such an imputa 
 tion on their purity and holiness cannot for a mo 
 ment be cherished. 
 
 We will, however, proceed by quotations from 
 Scripture, to prove that slavery, so far from being 
 irreconcilable to religion, is fully sanctioned by the 
 clear and unequivocal expression of the divine will. 
 
89 
 
 Immediately after the deluge, Noah, an inspired 
 prophet, pronounced the following curse upon the 
 posterity of Ham, from whom the African race is 
 supposed to have sprung: " Cursed be Canaan; a 
 servant of servants shall he be to his brethen. And 
 he said, blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Ca 
 naan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, 
 and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan 
 shall be his servant." Gen. ix. 25, 26, 27. Thus 
 when there was but one family on the face of the 
 earth, a portion of that family was doomed to be 
 slaves to the others. 
 
 In the covenant made by God with Abraham, the 
 patriarch is directed to ratify it with the ceremonial 
 of circumcision. Among those included in the co 
 venant, were slaves. " He that is born in thy house, 
 and he that is bought with thy money, must needs 
 be circumcised. " Gen. xvii. 13. In the 27th verse 
 of the same chapter, we are informed that this direc 
 tion was obeyed: "And all the men of his house, 
 born in the house, and bought with money of the 
 stranger, were circumcised with him." From these 
 passages, it is evident that slavery existed in the 
 time of Abraham; that the patriarch was himself a 
 slave-holder; that his slaves were not captives in 
 war, nor convicts of crime, but " bought with mo 
 ney, of the stranger;" that Abraham, notwithstand 
 ing that he was a slave-holder, was the chosen of 
 God among the families of the earth; and that God, 
 in making the covenant, mentions the slaves ? and 
 impliedly sanctions their bondage. 
 
 After this time, the patriarch increased his stock 
 of slaves. In Gen. xx. 14, it is said, " And Abime- 
 lech took sheep and oxen, and men servants and 
 women servants, and gave them unto Abraham." 
 In a subsequent chapter, a servant of Abraham says, 
 " And the Lord hath blessed my master greatly, and 
 8* 
 
90 
 
 he is become great: and he hath given him flocks and 
 herds, and silver and gold, and men servants and 
 maid servants, and camels and asses." Gen. xxiv. 35. 
 Jacob also, Gen. xxx. 43, is spoken of as follows: 
 " And the man increased exceedingly, and had much 
 cattle, and maid servants and men servants, and ca 
 mels and asses." There is but little doubt, notwith 
 standing the Lord frequently declares himself " the 
 God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob/ 7 that all those 
 holy and faithful patriarchs were slaveholders; and 
 that men servants and maid servants constituted a 
 large constituent in the wealth, which the favour of 
 Providence conferred upon them. 
 
 The book of Exodus furnishes many conclusive 
 evidences of the direct sanction of slavery. In the 
 12th chapter, a distinction is made between hired 
 servants and slaves, the latter being entitled to the 
 benefit of the covenant, the former excluded. u But 
 every man servant that is bought for money, when 
 thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof. 
 A foreigner and a hired servant shall not eat there 
 of." See verses 44 and 45. The following passages 
 recognize slavery in the most distinct manner; and 
 refer to slaves as property. "And if a man smite 
 his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die 
 under his hand, he shall be surely punished. Not 
 withstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall 
 not be punished : for he is his money " The whole 
 chapter abounds in evidence of the existence of sla 
 very, in some cases limited in duration, in others 
 perpetual. 
 
 In Leviticus, the subject is still further elucidated. 
 The following passages, from the 25th chapter, give 
 a full account of slavery among the Jews, as regu 
 lated by the ordinances of God. " And if thy bro 
 ther, that dwelleth by thee, be waxen poor, and be 
 sold unto thee; thou shalt not compel him to serve 
 
91 
 
 as a bond servant: but as a hired servant, and as a 
 sojourner he shall be with thee, and shall serve thee 
 unto the year of the jubilee: and then shall he de 
 part from thee, both he and his children with him, 
 and shall return unto his own family, and unto the 
 possession of his fathers shall he return. For they 
 are my servants which I brought forth out of the 
 land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as bondmen. 
 Thou shalt not rule over him with rigour, but shalt 
 fear thy God. Both thy bondmen and the bond 
 maids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the hea 
 then that are round about you j of them shall ye buy 
 bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover, of the children 
 of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them 
 shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, 
 which they begat 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 for a possession; they shall be your bondmen 
 for ever; but over your brethren, the children of 
 Israel, ye shall not rule one over another w r ith 
 rigour." 
 
 From these passages, it appears that the divine 
 code discouraged the holding of the children of Is 
 rael as slaves; and, when they fell into bondage, 
 secured them certain privileges, in consideration of 
 their being members of the favoured nation. But 
 a policy wholly different is directed towards fo 
 reigners or the descendants of foreigners. The Jews 
 are not merely permitted but directed to procure 
 from them slaves " of them shall ye buy bondmen 
 and bondmaids." The " strangers" occupied to 
 wards the Jews the relative position which the 
 Africans bear towards us, except that they were not, 
 like the Africans, separated by the hand of nature 
 from their masters, and from difference in colour 
 and inferiority of character, rendered incapable of 
 
92 
 
 equality and amalgamation. It also appears by the 
 passage quoted, that God directly sanctioned the 
 purchase and sale of slaves " of them shall ye 
 BUY" and regards them as a "possession." The 
 term of bondage, sanctioned by Heaven, was perpe 
 tual "for ever;" and the slaves are directed to be 
 held " as an inheritance for your children after 
 you to inherit them for a possession; they shall 
 be your bondmen for ever." It is impossible to 
 conceive or express a sanction of slavery, as it exists 
 in this country, more full, unequivocal and conclu 
 sive. 
 
 The decalogue contains several allusions to sla 
 very, accompanied by an implied sanction of the 
 institution. The Fourth Commandment provides 
 for an exemption from labour in favour of the " man 
 servant and maid servant; 7 and the Tenth Com 
 mandment prohibits the coveting a neighbour s 
 " man servant or maid servant." In Samuel, xxv. 
 10, there is reference to the existence of slavery, 
 and to the escape of slaves from their masters 
 " there be many servants now-a-days that break 
 away every man from his master." In the 4th and 
 5th chapters of Nehemiah, the existence of slavery 
 is mentioned; and David, the man after God s own 
 heart, thus refers to slavery to illustrate the fervour 
 of his adoration: "As the eyes of servants look 
 unto the hands of their master, and the eyes of a 
 maiden to her mistress, so our eyes wait upon the 
 Lord our God." Solomon says, "The king s fa 
 vour is towards a wise servant;" and thus sanctions 
 domestic discipline, " a servant will not be corrected 
 by words." Job, " a perfect and an upright man," 
 sighs, in his afflictions, for that grave, where, he 
 pathetically says, " the prisoners rest together, and 
 the slave is free from his master:" intimating that 
 the slave was not free until death. 
 
93 
 
 Having proved by various passages from the Old 
 Testament, that slavery not only existed among the 
 Jews, but received the direct sanction of God, we 
 might ask the advocates of abolition to prove, that, 
 under the Christian dispensation, this sanction was 
 ever withdrawn. But we will not wait for the per 
 formance of an impossibility, but proceed to show 
 that the same sanction was renewed by our Saviour 
 and his disciples.* 
 
 At the period of the advent of Christ, slavery 
 prevailed throughout the world. In that portion of 
 Asia, in which Christianity \vas first preached, it 
 existed in its severest form, and to a very great ex 
 tent. Had it been regarded as an evil, it could not 
 have escaped the animadversion, not only of Christ, 
 but of all the holy men who became, at his depar 
 ture, the preachers of his faith. A subject so nearly 
 connected with the happiness of the mass of man 
 kind, could not have escaped, and did not escape, 
 their attention: and, had it not possessed their ap 
 probation, must have been condemned. Instead of this, 
 however, we find the institution sanctioned, slave 
 holders admitted into the bosom of the church, and 
 slaves admonished to humility and obedience. " The 
 apostles," (says a citizen of Georgia, the author of a 
 valuable pamphlet on this subject, entitled, Remarks 
 
 * If it be meant that in the Christian religion there is a 
 special denunciation against slavery that slavery and Chris 
 tianity cannot exist together I think the honourable gentle 
 man must himself admit that the proposition is historically 
 false. 
 
 One peculiar characteristic of the Christian dispensation, if 
 I must venture in this place upon such a theme, is, that it has 
 accommodated itself to all states of society, rather than that 
 it has selected any particular state of society for the peculiar 
 exercise of its influence. If it has added lustre to the sceptre 
 of the sovereign, it has equally been the consolation of the 
 slave. Speech of Mr. Canning. 
 
94 
 
 upon Slavery,) " did not go forth and organize abo 
 lition societies, or attempt to disturb the civil rela 
 tions of men, under the pretence that the order of 
 things, which, under God, had been established, 
 must be overturned. They preached the gospel to 
 masters and servants, and promised its rewards to 
 all who should obey its precepts. They told mas 
 ters, to give unto their servants that which was just 
 and equal, and told servants, to be obedient to their 
 masters; and thus they endeavoured, by prescribing 
 the duty, to promote the comfort, of both. ( Ser 
 vants, says the apostle Peter, < be subject to your 
 masters with all fear; not only to the good and 
 gentle, BUT ALSO TO THE FROWARD. For this is 
 thankworthy, if a man, for conscience towards God, 
 endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory 
 is it, if, when you are buffeted for your faults, you 
 take it patiently; but if when you do well and 
 suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable 
 to God. 7 Let it not be said that this express recog 
 nition of the obligation and duties of slavery, by 
 him, of whom the Saviour said, i on this rock will 
 I build my church, applies only to hired service. 
 The institution, as it then existed, was one of ri 
 gorous and perpetual domestic servitude; and it 
 was in express reference to that system, that the 
 apostle prescribed the domestic code of relative duty 
 between master and slave. Nor can any thing averse 
 to this be inferred from the use of the word < ser 
 vants 9 in our translation; the original Greek word 
 is l douloi, the proper rendering of which, in Eng 
 lish, is < slaves. We cannot imagine any stronger 
 recognition of the legality of slavery than this solemn 
 injunction of PETER to the slave, not only to be 
 faithful to the just and kind owner, but to be hum 
 ble and submissive to the buffets and stripes of even 
 the capricious, unjust, and tyrannical master. If St. 
 
95 
 
 Peter did not deem it his duty to pronounce domes 
 tic bondage unlawful, and proclaim liberty to the 
 captive, and freedom to the slave, how comes it to 
 be incumbent on the self-constituted missionaries of 
 modern fanaticism, to preach down slavery as a sin 
 against Christianity, and to preach up abolition as a 
 Christian duty? Are they wiser and better than 
 the apostle, nay, than even their gracious and divine 
 Master; and is it their high province to overturn a 
 domestic relation, which Christ and his early disci 
 ples were content to regulate? Regulation, not 
 abolition, was all the author and first teachers of 
 Christianity aimed at; and while they taught the 
 slave his duty to his master, they also humanely 
 bade masters do the same things to your servants, 
 forbearing threatening, knowing that your master 
 also is in heaven, neither is there respect of persons 
 with him. (Ephesians, chap. 16.)" 
 
 The case of the centurion affords an instance where 
 our divine Master himself, at the request of the mas 
 ter, restored a sick slave. The centurion avowed 
 himself a slave-holder. "I am," said he, "a man 
 under authority, having soldiers under me. I say 
 to one go, and he goeth, and to another come, 
 and he cometh, and to my servant < do this] and 
 he doeth it." Yet our Saviour healed his sick ser 
 vant without desiring his master to free him, or 
 uttering a word in censure of their relation to each 
 other. 
 
 " Let every man," says Paul, " abide in the same 
 calling wherein he is called. Art thou called being 
 a servant? Care not for it; but if thou mayest be 
 made free, use it rather. (1 Corinthians, vii. 20, 21.) 
 Again : " Let as many servants as are under the 
 yoke, count their own masters worthy of all honour, 
 that the name of God and his doctrines be not blas 
 phemed; and they that have believing masters, let 
 
96 
 
 them not despise them, because they are brethren, 
 but rather do them service; because they are faithful 
 and beloved partakers of the benefit. These things 
 teach and exhort." 1 Tim. vi. 1, 2. 
 
 The Epistle of Paul to Philemon, deserves pecu 
 liar attention, not only because it furnishes a distin 
 guished instance in which the justice and legality of 
 slavery is admitted, but exhibits the holy and emi 
 nent apostle as exerting his influence to restore the 
 runaway slave to his master. Philemon, whom 
 Paul had converted, owned a slave, named Onesi- 
 mus, who ran away from his master, and fled to 
 Rome. Paul subsequently visited Rome; and there 
 converted Onesimus. He persuaded Onesimus to 
 return to his master and his duty; and writes to 
 Philemon to receive him with kindness. The fol 
 lowing passage shows in what estimation Paul, the 
 great apostle of the Gentiles, held Philemon, the 
 slave-holder. " Paul a prisoner of Jesus Christ, 
 and Timothy our brother, unto Philemon, our dear 
 ly beloved and fellow labourer: grace to you, and 
 peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. I thank my God: making mention of thee 
 always in my prayers; hearing of thy love and faith 
 which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus, and toward 
 all the saints; that the communication of thy faith 
 may become effectual, by the acknowledging of 
 every good thing, which is in you, in Jesus Christ. 
 For we have great joy and consolation in thy love, 
 because the bowels of the saints are refreshed by 
 thee, brother." 
 
 The spirit which pervades the following passage, 
 cannot fail to strike the Christian reader with admi 
 ration; and constitutes an illustrious contrast to the 
 troublous, fierce and insurrectionary disposition ma 
 nifested by the fanatics. 
 
 " Wherefore," continues Paul, " though I might 
 
97 
 
 be much bold in Christ to enjoin thee, that which is 
 convenient, yet for love sake I rather beseech thee, 
 being such an one as Paul the aged, and now also a 
 prisoner of Jesus Christ; I beseech thee for my son 
 Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds: 
 which in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now 
 profitable to thee and me; whom I have sent again. 
 Thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own 
 bowels. Whom 1 would have retained with me, 
 that in thy stead he might have ministered unto me 
 in the bonds of the gospel: but without thy mind 
 would I do nothing; that thy benefit should not be 
 as it were of necessity, but willingly. For perhaps 
 he therefore departed for a season, that thou should- 
 est receive him for ever; not now as a servant, but 
 above a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, 
 but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh and 
 in the Lord? If thou count me therefore as a part 
 ner, receive him as myself, if he hath wronged thee, 
 or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account: I 
 Paul have written it with mine own hand, I will 
 repay it, albeit I do not say how thou owest unto 
 me thine own self besides. Yea, brother, let me 
 have joy of thee in the Lord: refresh my bowels in 
 the Lord. Having confidence in thy obedience, I 
 wrote unto thee, knowing that thou wilt also do 
 more than I say." 
 
 The fanatics who find it impossible to explain 
 away these cases of the direct sanction of slavery, 
 and who seek in vain for a line or word which dis 
 courages or condemns that institution, seize, in their 
 despair, upon the golden rule " do unto others as 
 you would that others should do unto you," and so 
 pervert it as to make it condemn what our Saviour 
 and his apostles directly sanctioned. This presump 
 tuous and profane attempt to make our Saviour s 
 precepts inconsistent with his conduct, to distort his 
 9 
 
98 
 
 language, by a laboured and false inference, into a 
 censure of that which he impliedly encouraged, 
 cannot be regarded without indignation. It exhi 
 bits the desperate character of that fanaticism, which 
 would rather cast a reproach upon the Divine Found 
 er of our blessed religion, than relinquish one of the 
 cherished chimeras of their overheated and bewil 
 dered fancies. 
 
 Their application of the " golden rule," strips it 
 of its golden attributes, and makes it sanction all 
 that it was intended to condemn. They insist that 
 the maxim, as interpreted by them, requires that 
 the authority of the master over the slave should be 
 immediately relinquished. We may add that, it 
 requires further, that the authority of the father over 
 his child, of the master over his apprentice, of the 
 tutor over his pupil, should also be given up. It 
 requires that the ruler should not control the pri 
 vate citizen; that the judge should not sentence the 
 convict, nor the jailor confine the thief. Neither 
 the child, servant, nor scholar the citizen, convict, 
 nor thief are dealt with according to their desires; nor 
 as those, in whose power they are placed, would de 
 sire, if their relative position were reversed. That 
 rule which would require that their wishes should 
 be regarded as rights, and conceded accordingly, 
 would abrogate all law, would place the innocent at 
 the mercy of the guilty, involve right and wrong in 
 indistinguishable confusion, and render society a 
 chaotic and jarring mass of wretchedness and crime. 
 
 The direct and only rational exposition of the 
 golden rule is, that, in every relation of life, we 
 should do that which we believe to be our strict 
 duty; that we should free ourselves from the preju 
 dices and errors which our selfishness begets, and 
 consider our duties rigidly and disinterestedly, un 
 swayed by the flattery, weakness and self-deceit of 
 
99 
 
 our own natures. For this purpose we should ima 
 gine ourselves in the place of him with whom we 
 are acting, and do unto him that which we, pos 
 sessed of our present knowledge of the circum 
 stances of the case, would conceive proper, and 
 which we would, if guided by a right intelligence, 
 wish done unto us. The father should do unto his 
 child as he would, if a child, and informed of his 
 own interest, wish his father should do unto him; 
 in like manner slave-holders should act towards 
 their slaves, as a slave, possessed of their know 
 ledge of the calamitous results of emancipation, and 
 willing to be guided by that knowledge, would wish 
 them to act. If the slave-holder, by placing him 
 self, in fancy, in the condition of the slave, can 
 imagine that the emancipation of the mass of igno 
 rant, indolent and savage blacks in the South would 
 result in consequences favourable to the greatest 
 good of the greatest number, he has a right to eman 
 cipate them. But until he can arrive at that con 
 viction, he has no moral right to flood the country 
 with the horrors which must ensue, and would be 
 guilty of an act of patricidal and guilty madness 
 ruinous to his country, his race, and even to the 
 objects of his ill-directed and malign benevolence. 
 
,- V vV. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Slavery considered, in continuation Influence 
 of Slavery on civilization on the female sex 
 on morality on the political character and 
 destinies of a country on our country. 
 
 A PIOUS and correct mind cannot but hesitate to 
 question the general benevolence of an institution 
 which appears to have resulted from the laws of na 
 ture, to have existed from the earliest period, and to 
 have prevailed beneath the eye and sanction of our 
 Saviour himself. We cannot but believe, that if 
 slavery were an evil, it could not have been thus 
 linked with the necessities of the race; thus entailed, 
 generation after generation, upon millions of the 
 human family, and permitted to exist in its most 
 rigorous form, even among God s favoured people, 
 and in the immediate presence of the Divine Found 
 er of Christianity. An examination of its influence 
 upon the prosperity of nations, will vindicate Provi 
 dence from the presumptuous charge of having con 
 tinued and sustained an institution inimical to the 
 moral and physical interests of the race; and prove 
 that slavery, instead of operating injuriously, has, in 
 its general influence, tended to ameliorate the condi 
 tion and elevate the character of mankind. 
 
 The civilization of the race, if not kindled, was 
 aided and heightened by the institution of slavery. 
 Slaves are only valuable where regular labour is to 
 be performed ; and must, in all ages, have been en- 
 
101 
 
 gaged in agriculture. The pursuit of agriculture has 
 always tended, more than any other cause, to soften 
 and enlighten the character of man. It wins him from 
 the chase or the battle-field; it gives him permanent 
 employment; connects him with a fixed spot; and 
 acquaints him with the comforts of home. Domes 
 tic attachments soon spring up, and, cherished be 
 neath the roof of the cotter, succeed in introducing 
 new and more refined pursuits and pleasures. Sla 
 very, probably coeval with the birth of agriculture, 
 continued to impel the master onward in the career 
 of civilization; it gathered around him the comforts 
 of life; it accumulated wealth for him; and by crea 
 ting artificial wants, and furnishing the means for 
 their gratification, excited new desires and awakened 
 new faculties for their attainment. Manufactures and 
 commerce succeeded; the arts of civilized life sprang 
 into existence; and man became a refined and intel 
 lectual being. 
 
 In America, the only states in which, at its dis 
 covery, slavery existed, were Peru and Mexico. 
 " When compared," says Robertson, " with the 
 other parts of the new world, Mexico and Peru 
 may be considered as polished states." The people 
 had collected in cities; possessed a government, laws, 
 and system of religion, and had acquired some pro 
 ficiency in the arts attainments resulting, no doubt, 
 from slavery. 
 
 In the islands of the South Sea, Captain Cook was 
 astonished at the populousness of the Otaheite and 
 Society Islands. It is ascribed to the existence of 
 slavery, which prevailed in those islands. 
 
 In a late history of Africa, (Family Library, No. 
 1 6, ) the following remark occurs : " It deserves par 
 ticular notice, that the nations in this degrading 
 state (slavery) are the most numerous, the most 
 9* 
 
102 
 
 powerful, and the most advanced in the arts and 
 improvements of life." 
 
 Professor Dew is of opinion that the introduction 
 of slavery among the Indians of this country, would 
 have averted the approaching annihilation of the 
 aboriginal race. He says, " When our ancestors 
 first settled on this continent, the savages were 
 around and among them, and were everywhere 
 spread over this immense territory. Now, where 
 are they? Where are the warlike tribes that 
 went to battle under their chieftains? They have 
 rapidly disappeared, as the pale faces have advanced. 
 Their numbers have dwindled to insignificance. 
 Within the limits of the original states, the primi 
 tive stock has been reduced to 15,000. Within the 
 whole of the United States, east of the Mississippi, 
 there are but 105,000; and on the whole of our ter 
 ritory, east and west of the Mississippi, extending 
 over thirty-four degrees of latitude and fifty-eight of 
 longitude, there are but 313,130! Miserable rem 
 nant of the myriads of former days! And yet the 
 government of our country has exhausted every 
 means for their civilization; and the philanthropist 
 has not been idle in their behalf. Schools have 
 been erected, both public and private; missionaries 
 have been sent among them and all in vain. The 
 President of the United States now tells you that 
 their removal further to the West, is necessary - 
 that those who live on our borders, in spite of all 
 our efforts to civilize them, are rapidly deteriorating 
 in character, and becoming every day more misera~ 
 ble and destitute." 
 
 " Slavery," Mr. Dew continues, " we assert 
 again, appears to be the only means that we know 
 of, under heaven, by which the ferocity of the sav 
 age can be conquered, his wandering habits eradi^ 
 
103 
 
 cated, his slothfulness by which, in fine, his nature 
 can be changed. The Spaniards enslaved the In 
 dians in South America, and they were the most 
 cruel and relentless of masters. Still, under their 
 system of cruel and harsh discipline, an infinitely 
 larger portion of the aborigines were saved than 
 with us, and will, no doubt, in the lapse of ages, 
 mix and harmonize with the Europeans, and be in 
 all respects their equals. From their inhuman treat 
 ment of the Indians at first, numbers died in the 
 process of taming and subjugating; but in the end, 
 their system Jias proved more humane than ours, 
 and demonstrates, beyond a doubt, that nothing is 
 so fit as slavery to change the nature of the savage. 
 i We observe, says Humboldt, and the observa 
 tion is consoling to humanity, that not only has the 
 number of Indians in South America and Mexico 
 been on the increase for the last century, (he pub 
 lished his work in 1808,) but that the whole of the 
 vast region which we designate by the general name 
 of Tsfew T Spain is much better inhabited at present 
 than it was before the arrival of the Europeans. 
 He gives a very remarkable instance of the effects 
 of an unjust slavery on the industry and agriculture 
 of the country. He speaks of the alcaldias may- 
 ores, a sort of provincial magistrates and judges in 
 Mexico, forcing the Indians to purchase cattle of 
 them, and afterwards reducing them to slavery for 
 non-payment of the debts thus contracted; and he 
 adds, upon the authority of Fray Antonio, monk of 
 St. Jerome, that the individual happiness of these 
 unfortunate wretches was not certainly increased by 
 the sacrifice of their liberty for a horse or a mule, 
 to work for their master s profit. But yet, in the 
 midst of this state of things, brought on by abuses, 
 agriculture and industry were seen to increase? 
 The views of Professor Dew on this subject are 
 
104 
 
 4 
 
 confirmed by Secretary Cass, who, referring to the 
 Cherokees as the only tribe that has acquired partial 
 civilization, says: " The causes which have led to 
 this state of things are too peculiar ever to produce an 
 extensive result. They have been operating for many 
 years; and among the most prominent of them has 
 been the introduction of slaves, by which means 
 that unconquerable aversion to labour, so charac 
 teristic of all savage tribes, can be indulged. 77 
 
 One of the most pleasing incidents of slavery is 
 its amelioration of the condition of the female sex. 
 Among all savage people women are degraded into 
 slaves, the abject drudges of their brutal lords. The 
 men indulge in the chase, or pursue their wars, and 
 leave to helpless woman a lot of cruelty and degra 
 dation, of labour without intermission, suffering 
 without sympathy. One of the first fruits of slavery 
 is the rescue of the gentle victims from their unde 
 served and wretched fate. The slave relieves the 
 woman. Released from a condition worse than that 
 of bondage, leisure is afforded; and with woman, in 
 her rudest state, leisure must result in improve 
 ment. Her faculties are developed; her gentle and 
 softening influence is seen and felt; she assumes the 
 high station for which nature designed her; and, 
 happy in the hallowed affections of her own bosom, 
 unweariedly exerts those powers so well adapted to 
 the task of humanizing and blessing others. 
 
 It has been asserted, that slavery exerts an unfor 
 tunate influence over the morals of the people among 
 whom it prevails. This result is produced, it is said, 
 by the vicious example set by the slave-holder to his 
 child: but we have no reason to believe that a mas 
 ter of slaves is more liable than another to exhibit 
 an example dangerous to the morals of his child. 
 On the contrary, the slave-holding portion of our 
 citizens are known, by all acquainted with their 
 
105 
 
 *. 
 
 character, and uninfluenced by the calumnies of the 
 abolitionists, to be as moderate, as refined, as moral, 
 as studious and scrupulous in the performance of 
 their duties as citizens and Christians, as the inha 
 bitants of any section of our country, or any other 
 country. Indeed it has been frequently remarked, 
 that slavery tends to exalt and refine the character, 
 and that the class of our people referred to are gene 
 rally more elevated in their sense of duty, more 
 polished, than any other portion of our population. 
 This fact has been remarked not only by the unpre 
 judiced of our own citizens, but by intelligent and 
 candid foreigners. The institution appears to exert a 
 beneficial influence on the slave also. There is no 
 instance on record of so rapid an improvement in the 
 character of a people, as has taken place in the Afri 
 cans and their descendants in this country. Civili 
 zation and conversion to Christianity could not have 
 been so rapidly and effectually accomplished in any 
 other manner. The moral influence of slavery upon 
 those subject to its obligation, may be perhaps as 
 cribed to the fact, that the slave has, in that condi 
 tion, nothing to tempt or urge him into immorality, 
 and every thing both in hope and fear, to restrain 
 him from it. Mr. Giles of Virginia, with that proud 
 exultation with which the citizens of the Old Domi 
 nion regard their native state, said, that " the whole 
 population of Virginia, consisting of three castes, of 
 free white, free coloured, and slave-coloured popu 
 lation, is the soundest and most moral of any other, 
 according to numbers, in the whole world, as far as 
 is known to me." Mr. Walsh also remarks on this 
 subject: " When we investigate the dispositions and 
 morals of the European nations, it is not with the 
 < lowest and least of them alone, but with the high 
 est and greatest, that we venture to compare the 
 white population of our slave-holding states," 
 
106 
 
 The advocates of abolition refer with great confi 
 dence to the danger which menaces the political 
 character of our country and people from the influ 
 ence of slavery. We cannot but marvel at the pre 
 sumption of men who can affect a regard for the 
 interests of their country at the moment they are 
 urging schemes which they know must sunder the 
 bonds which knit it together, and hurl it down from 
 the proud elevation which, as a united confederacy, 
 it has so long occupied. They have urged abolition 
 for years, and continue to urge it. Do they persist 
 in the hope that they will persuade the slave-holder 
 to relinquish his property ? On the contrary, they 
 have adopted a course of abuse towards the southron 
 which they know must, and which they intend 
 shall, irritate and madden him. They cherish no 
 object which requires the assent of the slave-holder; 
 they expect to urge the north into measures to coerce 
 abolition, and failing in that, to incite the negroes 
 to insurrection! These are the patriots who affect 
 such peculiar concern for the influence of slavery 
 upon the political interests of the country men 
 who are plotting not merely its political ruin, but 
 its desolation with fire and sword its destruction 
 with all the horrors of a civil and servile war, hor 
 rors which would make our cities a solitude, our 
 valleys deserts, and redden our rivers with the blood 
 of our people. The political character of the coun 
 try must sink low indeed before it can need such 
 protectors. 
 
 Slavery has existed in this country, as we have 
 seen, from its earliest settlement. Where and how 
 has it deteriorated its political character? Who were 
 they that first denounced the oppressions of Great 
 Britain? The slave-holders of Virginia. Who first 
 declared themselves independent, and dared the 
 hazards of a contest with the colossal power of the 
 
107 
 
 mother country? The slave-holders of North Caro 
 lina. Who, when exempted from the severities of 
 England and offered the advantages accruing from 
 the restrictions on New England commerce, rejected 
 the proffered privilege with disdain, and preferred 
 suffering with their brethren to profiting by their 
 adversity? The slave-holders of South Carolina. 
 Who, in the hour of our country s trial, have been 
 foremost in her defence who in her councils have 
 displayed the most profound political wisdom, 
 united to the warmest and holiest patriotism? The 
 slave-holders Washington and Jefferson, Madison and 
 Marshall, Henry and Calhoun, Clay and Jackson, 
 and a host whose illustrious lives present a noble 
 vindication of their country. What means the con 
 stant iteration of these paltry charges against the 
 south? Has the north a right to decide that she is 
 superior to her sister south, in political virtue: to say 
 stand aside , for lam holier than thou? Is this mo 
 dest assumption of superior virtue creditable to her? 
 Above all, is it true? The political history of our 
 country responds emphatically and indignantly in the 
 negative. In politics, if the south has been ardent she 
 has ever been honest; if she has maintained her own 
 rights with intrepidity, she has also bared her breast 
 with eager and patriotic zeal whenever the north 
 was endangered. It will be conceded that in no 
 part of the Union is the same jealous devotion 
 to liberty manifested; nowhere do the usurpations 
 of power meet so prompt and stern a rebuke, the in 
 trigues of the demagogue so general and contemptu 
 ous an opposition; nowhere are the public men more 
 intrepid, able and independent, or the people them 
 selves more intractable and proud-spirited in the 
 consciousness and maintenance of their freedom. 
 On this subject we have the testimony of the splen 
 did and philosophical mind of Burke. The whole 
 
108 
 
 passage, which we extract from his speech on con 
 ciliation with America, is equally brilliant and sound. 
 
 " There is a circumstance attending the southern 
 American colonies, which makes the spirit of liberty 
 still more high and haughty there than in those to 
 the northward. It is that in Virginia and the Caroli- 
 nas, they have vast multitudes of slaves. Where this 
 is the case in any part of the world, those who are free 
 are by far the most proud and jealous of their freedom. 
 Freedom is to them not only an enjoyment, but a 
 kind of rank and privilege. Not seeing there that 
 freedom, as in countries where it is a common bless 
 ing, and as broad and general as the air, may be 
 united with much abject toil, with great misery, 
 with all Ike exterior of servitude, liberty looks 
 amongst them like something that is more noble and 
 liberal. I do not mean to commend the superior mo 
 rality of this sentiment, which has at least as much 
 pride as virtue in it; but I cannot alter the nature 
 of man. The fact is so: and these people of the 
 southern colonies are much more strongly, and 
 with a higher and more stubborn spirit, attached 
 to liberty than those of the northward. Such 
 were all the ancient commonwealths; such were our 
 Gothic ancestors; such, in our days, were the Poles; 
 and such will be all masters of slaves who are 
 not slaves themselves. In such a people the haughti 
 ness of domination combines with the spirit of free 
 dom, fortifies it, and renders it invincible." 
 
 To him who contemplates the "high and haughty" 
 virtues of the south, and then recurs to the treachery 
 and tergiversation, the degrading appeals to popular 
 errors, the corrupt arts of electioneering, the ser 
 vility and indifference to principle, and the universal 
 and ravenous appetite for office, exhibited in the 
 politics of the north we say, that to him who con 
 templates the contrast thus presented, the objections 
 
109 
 
 made to slavery on account of its influence in pro 
 ducing political degeneracy, appear too absurd for 
 serious refutation. 
 
 In the republics of Greece and Rome, when the 
 spirit of freedom was cherished with the sternest 
 devotion, when their people were, in its defence, 
 performing deeds which have made their names the 
 synonymes of all that is noble and illustrious, slavery 
 prevailed to such an extent that the bond doubled 
 the number of the free. So far were the sages or 
 patriots of those countries from regarding it as an 
 evil, that they considered it essential for the preser 
 vation of an elevated national character. Aristotle 
 and the philosophers of old, deemed slavery neces 
 sary to maintain the spirit of freedom. In Sparta, 
 so strong was their conviction of the necessity of 
 slavery to encourage a free and independent spirit 
 in their citizens, that it was made penal for a free 
 man to perform the offices of a slave. Ferguson, in 
 his essay on the history of civil society, says: " We 
 feel the injustice of the institution of slavery at 
 Sparta. We suffer for the Helot: but we think only 
 of the superior order of men in this state, when we 
 attend to that elevation and magnanimity of spirit 
 for which danger had no terror, interest no means 
 to corrupt: when we consider them as friends or as 
 citizens, we are apt to forget, like themselves, that 
 slaves have a title to be treated like men." 
 
 It will be admitted, that one of the first and most 
 essential requisites in the formation of republican 
 character is intelligence. Without that, patriotism 
 is blind and inefficient. Without it, a virtuous peo 
 ple may be readily deceived and betrayed, and lose 
 their freedom before they dream that it is in peril. 
 The slave-holder has, in this particular, the inestima 
 ble advantage of leisure. Relieved from the labour 
 required for actual support, he is enabled to direct 
 10 
 
110 
 
 his attention to public affairs; to investigate political 
 subjects, and exercise his privileges understandingly. 
 This result has been fully attained at the south. In 
 no population in the world is the same time devoted 
 to political investigations; and nowhere are the rights 
 of man so fully canvassed and understood by the 
 mass of the citizens. 
 
 While we acknowledge that some of the noblest 
 spirits which our race has boasted have been linked, 
 through life, with poverty, and while we are proud 
 to be enabled to boast that in no country are the 
 poor more pure and virtuous than in our own, yet 
 we must also admit that poverty has its temptations. 
 Men who enter into politics, as do many in the north, 
 for the purpose of making money, are but danger 
 ous agents. The public council, which is constituted 
 of men who from situation and character are acces 
 sible to pecuniary temptation, is but a frail barrier 
 against the designs of the ambitious. In most cases 
 it becomes not merely treacherous in its inactivity, 
 but active in its treason the pliant and efficient en 
 gine of power. The institution of slavery, by form 
 ing the character of the citizen on a more elevated 
 standard, by lifting him above the necessities and 
 temptations of poverty, secures, to the councils of 
 the country, men for whom, to repeat the words of 
 Ferguson, " danger has no terror, interest no means 
 to corrupt." 
 
 There is one result which has been accomplished 
 by slavery, and which no other cause has hitherto 
 completely effected it has introduced a complete 
 equality among the whites. Professor Dew thus 
 describes the difference which prevails in the north 
 and south in this particular. " The menial and low 
 offices being all performed by the blacks, there is at 
 once taken away the greatest cause of distinction 
 and separation of the ranks of society. The man 
 
Ill 
 
 at the north will not shake hands familiarly with 
 his servant, arid converse and laugh, and dine with 
 him, no matter how honest and respectable he may 
 be. But go to the south, and you will find that no 
 white man feels such inferiority of rank as to be 
 unworthy of association with those around him. 
 Colour alone is here the badge of distinction, the 
 true mark of aristocracy, and all who are white are 
 equal in spite of variety of occupation." That this 
 equality upon the part of the whites is occasioned 
 by the presence of slavery is demonstrated by the 
 fact, that it exists also in the West Indies, as will be 
 seen by the following passage from Bryan Edward s 
 History of these Islands. " Of the character," says 
 this author, " common to the white residents of the 
 West Indies, it appears to me, that the leading fea 
 ture is an independent spirit, and a display of con 
 scious equality, throughout all ranks and conditions. 
 The poorest white person seems to consider himself 
 nearly on a level with the richest, and, emboldened 
 by this idea, approaches his employer with extended 
 hand, and a freedom which, in the countries of Eu 
 rope, is seldom displayed by men in the lower orders 
 of life towards their superiors. It is not difficult to 
 trace the origin of this principle. It arises, without 
 doubt, from the pre-eminence and distinction which 
 are necessarily attached even to the complexion of 
 a white man in a country where the complexion, 
 generally speaking, distinguishes freedom from 
 slavery." 
 
 No one who has resided at the north will be will 
 ing to deny the alleged inequality in the rank of our 
 citizens. It must be acknowledged that there has 
 sprung up amongst us that most odious of all species 
 of aristocracy the aristocracy of gold. Wealth has 
 already attained a power which, it must be admitted, 
 elevates it to a rank unapproachable to the poor. 
 
Already have we the upper, middle, and lower 
 ranks of society: and no one will presume to assert 
 that any personal merit will entitle the unfortunate 
 member of the lower caste, to mingle with the 
 higher. It is the inevitable consequence of the 
 revolution which divides society into ranks, that 
 while one rises the other sinks. This has been the 
 case at the north; and while the wealthy have at 
 tained rank and power, the poor have lost both. 
 True, they still possess the elective franchise; but 
 even in the exercise of this they are driven in heady 
 and unreflecting masses by demagogues, or swayed 
 by rich patrons and employers. Any one conver 
 sant with the influence attained by those whose capi 
 tal places them at the head of large numbers, will 
 admit, that whatever may be the cant of the poli 
 ticians of the day, the irresistible force of circum 
 stances has destroyed for ever the boasted equality 
 of the people. The climate of our northern lati 
 tude, and the pursuits of our people, have prevented 
 the introduction of slaves into the north, and we 
 rejoice that it is so: but had the lower offices of 
 labour been performed by servile hands, we would 
 not find the poor of our section of the Union occu 
 pying their present position. 
 
 The slavery of the southern states of this Union 
 is, in some of its features, peculiar, and is not liable 
 to many of the objections alleged against slavery in 
 general. One of these peculiarities is the complex 
 ion of the slave. 
 
 We are aware that the colour of the slave is made 
 the constant theme of artful declamation by the 
 abolitionists. The negroes are said to be punished 
 for the hue of their skin; and the right to hold the 
 slave is made to arise from that peculiarity. It is 
 scarcely necessary to say that these representations, 
 like most others from the same source, are wilfully 
 
113 
 
 false, and are intended only to excite the slave to 
 violence and revenge. But since they refer thus 
 triumphantly to the colour of the slave, we may re 
 mark, that it does constitute, among the numerous 
 and overwhelming considerations which constrain 
 the slave-holder to reject the mad projects of the 
 abolitionists, an argument " of great pith and mo 
 ment." 
 
 In most countries in which slavery has prevailed, 
 the slave has been of the same race, form, and com 
 plexion as his master; and was frequently not only 
 his equal but superior in mental and personal accom 
 plishments. These facts could not but impart to the 
 aspect of slavery an expression of peculiar severity 
 and injustice, and excite in the bosom of the slave 
 a sense of wrong, and a desire for redress. Here no 
 such jealousy exists. The slave sees himself "quoted 
 and marked" as a different, perhaps an inferior race, 
 of the human species; and never, unless under the 
 benign influence of the abolition mischief-makers, 
 regards the superiority of his master with envy or 
 ill will. Among the ancients, the act of manumis 
 sion annihilated all distinction between the master 
 and the slave, or between the latter and the mass of 
 society. He merged with the body of the popula 
 tion, and was marked by no peculiarity to distin 
 guish or separate him from others, and to render 
 him, in the midst of the population, an exile and an 
 outcast. Here, on the contrary, the colour of the 
 slave is the badge of his condition; and does much 
 to make him regard it as his destiny. Even manu 
 mission cannot materially change his lot cannot 
 give him the privileges of the whites lift him to 
 the rank of a freeman, or wipe away the colour 
 which separates him from the mass of our people, 
 and dooms him to inevitable and perpetual infe 
 riority. In the countries referred to, the 
 10* 
 
114 
 
 cence of the slave often comprised a record of for 
 mer opulence, power, and pride, from which the 
 fortunes of war or the tyranny of power had torn 
 him, to consign him to the most abject and cruel 
 slavery. With our negro the past is either a blank 
 or a record of wretchedness. His nation is a peo 
 ple of slaves: all of his colour were, in their pro 
 genitors or themselves, bondmen. His country, 
 instead of being an object of desire and regret, is a 
 terror; and nothing can appal him more than the 
 prospect of returning to it. His present condition, 
 so far from being a lapse or fall from former happi 
 ness, is superior to any lot which his ancestors or 
 himself had dared to hope. The abolitionists sym 
 pathise profoundly with the degradation of the negro. 
 Their sympathies are wasted. He knows no degra 
 dation. His situation is now as proud as it has ever 
 been; and his ambition, unless perverted by the abo 
 litionists, seeks no higher distinction, and can know 
 no greater pride, than the praise of his master for 
 superior morality, diligence, and good conduct. Such 
 is the slavery of the negro; and his complexion, not 
 withstanding the poetic appeals of the enthusiasts, 
 has a great and beneficial influence in rendering him 
 humble and content with the situation in which 
 Providence has placed him. 
 
 We consider it impossible for any candid mind 
 acquainted with the subject, to doubt that slavery is 
 indispensable to the South; that it is the source of 
 its wealth, influence, power, and prosperity; and 
 that its abolition would make the southern states a 
 desert. That such is and has long been the opinion 
 of the intelligent citizens of the South, no one will 
 deny. The following paragraph is copied from the 
 66 Charleston Courier," and was published some 
 years ago. It must be remembered, that the " Cou 
 rier is an Union print, and is distinguished for its 
 
115 
 
 zeal and ability in opposing the ruling party in 
 South Carolina. 
 
 " We must be permitted, however, to say to the 
 Boston editor, that he is utterly mistaken in suppos 
 ing that the people of the South regard domestic 
 slavery, as it exists among them 3 in the light of a 
 curse; on the contrary, they hold it to be absolutely 
 necessary to the proper cultivation of the soil, and 
 to be the great source of their prosperity, wealth, 
 and happiness; without it their fertile fields would 
 become a wilderness and a desert, their real curse 
 not being slavery, but a climate, which, although 
 congenial to the constitution of the negro, would 
 mow down the whites with the scythe of destruc 
 tion. Nor do the people of the South deem slavery 
 4 a curse to the negroes themselves it exists with 
 us in a mild parental form the relation between 
 master and slave being cemented as well by affec 
 tion as interest and the slaves of the South are be 
 lieved, and, we may indeed say, known to be, a 
 better and a happier race than the idle and vagabond 
 free coloured population of the North, the worn out 
 and half-starved manufacturers of England, and the 
 labouring classes in most other countries." 
 
 The soil and productions, but more particularly 
 the climate of the South, preclude the possibility 
 of the successful employment of white labourers 
 there. Severe physical toil in the South has always 
 proved fatal to the white man; to the negro, on the 
 contrary, it is attended with neither danger nor in 
 convenience. The torrid sun has no terrors for him; 
 and the hot breath of the South, before which the 
 white labourer faints and perishes, is found to be 
 accordant with the constitution and nature of the 
 black. It was the impracticability of employing 
 white labour, that induced the original introduc 
 tion of slavery, and that has continued and will 
 
117 
 
 continue it. Of the unfitness of the white man for 
 continued exposure and labour in the South, there 
 is, with those acquainted with the facts, no doubt. 
 If there were, to banish them it would be sufficient 
 to mention that white labour never there has been 
 successfully employed; that when tried it has been 
 found to result in the extended destruction of life; 
 and that, with all the characteristic enterprise and 
 hardihood of our countrymen, and with the unri 
 valled advantages of the South to the agriculturist 
 the entire South is still cultivated by blacks. On 
 this subject, an intelligent journalist of a northern 
 city, (M. M. Noah, Esq.) says 
 
 " Setting aside all that has been said in favour of 
 the position, that slavery is a natural condition of 
 the negro, which must of necessity exist as a natu 
 ral consequence of the imperfect organization of the 
 negro, we now come to the question whether it is 
 not absolutely necessary as a component element in 
 the structure of society in this country. Whatever 
 might have been the result of a dense population in 
 the southern states, exclusively composed of whites, 
 we would now put the question whether it would 
 have been possible to have cultivated the soil of the 
 southern states, possessing the peculiarities of cli 
 mate which they do, without the aid of a negro 
 population? Whether the staple commodities of 
 cotton, tobacco, rice, &c., which are the growth of 
 that peculiar climate and soil, could have ever been 
 brought to the successful cultivation that they have 
 been without slave labour? Is it not clear that these 
 rich staples to which we of the North, as well as of 
 the South, owe all the wealth, prosperity and great 
 ness of our country, would have been a dead letter 
 without the aid of slave labour? Is it not certain 
 that, without this dispensation in our behalf, the 
 whole South would have been an entire swamp and 
 
117 
 
 morass of stagnant pools and weeds, and overgrown 
 forests? We think this undeniable. And who are 
 those that have been most benefitted and most en 
 riched by this state of things? The North and her 
 enterprising citizens, who have been the active 
 traders that have brought this wealth into the mar 
 ket, and who, for want of any peculiar staples them 
 selves, have become the factors and merchants, and 
 ship-builders and manufacturers, by which the great 
 southern staple of cotton has been consumed and 
 turned into a most profitable source of wealth. The 
 North, therefore, in countenancing any interference 
 with the slave property of the South, or in endea 
 vouring by emancipation, abolition, or otherwise, 
 to weaken the relation existing between master and 
 slave, is stabbing her own vital interests to the 
 heart." 
 
 Even those who advocate abolition do not deny 
 the necessity of retaining the labour of the blacks. 
 They admit that the climate of the South is fatal to 
 the labouring white man, and acknowledge, to the 
 fullest extent, the desolating consequences of a re 
 mission of negro labour in that section of the repub 
 lic. Drs. Reed and Matheson, delegates from the 
 congregational union of England and Wales, to the 
 American churches, have since their return pub 
 lished two volumes of letters, in which the subject 
 of slavery is handled with all the presumptuous 
 boldness of ignorance, and many abolition slanders 
 repeated with confident assurances of their veracity. 
 It is unnecessary here to speak of the conduct of 
 these gentlemen, who visit the country on a mission 
 of piety, and after having received the most fraternal 
 and affectionate attention, return to calumniate us. 
 We refer to the work to quote the following im 
 portant admissions. " To transport all the slaves to 
 a foreign shore would inflict on America herself a 
 
118 
 
 most deadly wound. She wants the coloured peo 
 ple; she cannot doivithout them" Again. " If the 
 Africans were removed to-morrow ONE HALF OP 
 HER TERRITORIES WOULD BE A MERE DESOLA 
 TION!" Such is the language even of abolitionists. 
 The following description of the details of slave 
 labour in Louisiana is interesting and important. 
 We extract them from Flint s History of the Mis 
 sissippi Valley." In all the better managed plan 
 tations, the mode of building the quarters is fixed. 
 The arrangement of the little village has a fashion, 
 by which it is settled. Interest, if not humanity, 
 has defined the amount of food and rest necessary 
 for their health: there is on a large and respectable 
 plantation as much precision in the rules, as much 
 exactness in the times of going to sleep, awakening, 
 going to labour, and resting before and after meals, as 
 in a garrison under military discipline, or in a ship of 
 war. A bell gives all the signals. Every slave at 
 the assigned hour in the morning is forthcoming to 
 his labour, or his case is reported, either as one of 
 idleness, obstinacy, or sickness, in which case he is 
 sent to the hospital, and there he is attended by a 
 physician, who, for the most part, has a yearly salary 
 for attending all the sick of the plantation. The 
 union of physical force, directed by one will, is now 
 well understood to have a much greater effect upon 
 the amount of labour which a number of hands so 
 managed can bring about, than the same force di 
 rected by as many wills as there are hands. Hence 
 it happens, that while one free man, circumstances 
 being the same, will perform more labour than one 
 slave, one hundred slaves will accomplish more on 
 one plantation, than so many hired free men acting 
 at their own discretion. Hence, too, it is that such 
 a prodigious quantity of cotton and sugar is made 
 here in proportion to the number of labouring hands. 
 
119 
 
 All the process of agriculture is managed by sys 
 tem. Every thing goes strait forward. There is 
 no pulling down to-day the scheme of yesterday, 
 and the whole amount of force is directed, by the 
 teaching of experience, to the best result." 
 
 It would be well for those who assert the supe 
 riority of free labour, to explain the causes of its 
 want of success. If free labour be more profitable, 
 why is it not introduced at the South? Of the mil 
 lions who pour from the Atlantic board into the 
 West, why are there none to try their system of 
 labour in the slave states? And the southern planters 
 themselves, why do they not seize this method of in 
 creasing their profits? With all the shrewdness and 
 enterprise of the American character, how is it that 
 this source of wealth has been undiscovered and un 
 disturbed? It is a marvel which those who underrate 
 slave labour cannot explain. The spirit of our coun 
 try would long since have reformed such an evil 
 had it been an evil would long since have resorted 
 to free labour, had free labour been able to compete 
 with the labour of slaves. The conclusion is irre 
 sistible, that the present mode of cultivating the 
 South is more profitable than any scheme which 
 the northern abolitionists can devise, or such schemes 
 would have been heretofore adopted; and that any 
 change in the domestic institutions of the South 
 would be disastrous to her and to the North. 
 
 It will be freely admitted, that in the North, 
 among free and intelligent whites, free labour is 
 infinitely more profitable than the labour of slaves 
 could there be. Had it been otherwise, slavery 
 would now be as prevalent there as at the South. 
 But it is vain and idle to pretend, that in a hot and 
 sultry climate, w r here every thing invites even the 
 more diligent white to indolence, that the slothful 
 negro would labour without compulsion. In no 
 
120 
 
 southern country that we are acquainted with, is 
 free labour found to be so profitable as that which 
 is urged by coercion. The labour of Spain and 
 Italy is decidedly inferior to that of our southern 
 states. But if this be true of white labourers be- 
 jieath a southern sun, it is peculiarly so of the blacks. 
 We have no instance of profitable free labour among 
 the free blacks. St. Domingo, once the greatest 
 sugar growing island in the world, is now almost a 
 wilderness. Mr. Franklin, in his " Present State 
 of Hayti," gives the following account of the con 
 sequences of free labour in that island. " I cannot 
 avoid repeating that Hayti must not be held up as 
 an example of what can be accomplished by free 
 labour; but that it ought rather to be the beacon to 
 warn the government of England against an experi 
 ment which may prove absolutely fatal to her colo 
 nial system. If it be not wished that a fate similar 
 to that which has befallen Hayti should overtake 
 our colonies, that they should be rendered wholly 
 unproductive to the revenue of the country, and 
 that the property invested in them should be pre 
 served from destruction, the advisers of the crown 
 must pause before they listen to the ill-judged sug 
 gestions of enthusiasts; for they must banish from 
 their minds the idea that the work of cultivation 
 can be made productive by means of free labour. 
 Such a thing appears to me impossible. The negro, 
 constituted as he is, has such an aversion to labour, 
 and so great a propensity for indulgence and vice, 
 that no prospect of advantage can stimulate him; 
 and as for emulation it has not the slightest influence 
 over him. Without force he will sink into lethargy, 
 and revert to his primitive savage character, and the 
 only feasible and effectual plan to promote his civi 
 lization is to persist in those measures which com 
 pel him to labour, inculcate morality, and tend to 
 
121 
 
 extirpate those vices which are inherent in the de 
 scendants of the African race." Of the success of 
 fche Haytien experiment it may become necessary 
 to treat more fully hereafter. St. Domingo, how 
 ever, is not the only example of the settled and in 
 vincible aversion of the negro in warm latitudes 
 to labour. In the English West Indies the most 
 rigid police system is, even in their present state of 
 apprenticeship, insufficient to constrain them to the 
 same amount of labour as formerly; and at our own 
 colony of Liberia, the population of which has been 
 selected with care, it has always been found impos 
 sible to induce the settlers to engage in agricultural, 
 or any permanent and regular labour. 
 
 Of the general productiveness of slave-labour there 
 are innumerable examples. The ancient nations of 
 the East owed their unbounded wealth to slave-la 
 bour. Egypt, Greece, and Rome, all densely popu 
 lated, boundless in affluence and power, were slave- 
 holding nations, and owed their prosperity to slave 
 labour. In our own times, the wealth of the West 
 India colonies, of Brazil, of our own southern coun 
 try, particularly the south-western states, illustrates 
 the productiveness of slave-labour. It is true that a 
 portion of the South has not advanced recently as ra 
 pidly as many sections of the North and West. On 
 examination, however, it will be found that those states 
 were, up to the period of the protective policy, more 
 prosperous than their sisters; and though that policy, 
 joined with southern extravagance, the amount of 
 labour lost in the sickly season, the loss by emigra 
 tion to the West, and the emoluments of her factor, 
 the shrewder and more shifting North, has retarded 
 her onward progress, we believe that the South is 
 destined to rival, perhaps outstrip, her most fortu 
 nate sisters in wealth and prosperity. If the abo 
 litionists do not dissolve the bonds of our union, the 
 11 
 
122 
 
 North will continue to thrive on the fatness of the 
 South; and all the members of our national family, 
 not only united by the recollections of the past and 
 the hopes of the future, by our common interest 
 in the heritage of freedom and glory left by our an 
 cestors, but knit together in an intercourse of mu 
 tual benefits will advance hand in hand to affluence 
 and power. Should, however, the blows which 
 have already been given, and are daily redoubled, 
 succeed in severing the links that bind us together, 
 the evil will be upon the North. Those who are 
 tugging at the pillars of the temple of Union will, 
 Sampson-like, be buried in its ruins the South 
 will remain unharmed. United and tranquil, with 
 her slave-labour, and its golden produce the rich 
 staples cotton, sugar, tobacco, rice, &c., with a com 
 merce of her own untaxed and richly sustained by 
 her immense exports, she would (were her sons 
 true and when have they proved recreant?) hold 
 undisturbed her onward course to power and afflu 
 ence. She may wax poor, but slavery will never 
 impoverish her; her fertile valleys may be bathed in 
 blood, but, unless northern philanthropy excites it, 
 it will not be shed by the hands of her slaves; she 
 may become shrunken in spirit and power, craven 
 and degenerate, and fall from her present high es 
 tate, but the philosophic historian will never ascribe 
 her downfall to the institution of slavery. Her in 
 stitutions are such as have grown out of her wants, 
 such as suit her situation; they have promoted her 
 prosperity and will insure its continuance. If un 
 molested, she will remain tranquil, prosperous, and 
 happy; if disturbed, she may lose her tranquillity, 
 but is fully capable of maintaining her own safety, 
 and promoting her own welfare. Her course is on 
 ward; and the raving of the fanatics will not check 
 nor turn her aside. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Schemes for the removal of Slavery Coloniza 
 tion and Abolition History of Colonization 
 Statement of its friends, of its opponents, $c. 
 
 As the introduction of slavery into this country 
 was originally opposed, its continuance has also been 
 deplored, by many of our citizens. At the North, 
 where there was no inducement to continue to hold 
 their slaves in bondage, they were gradually eman 
 cipated. In the South, where the number of the slaves 
 was so great as to render abolition impracticable, 
 other schemes have been suggested. Many differ 
 ent plans have, at different times, been proposed ; and 
 those who, not having properly considered the sub 
 ject, regard negro slavery as an evil, have encour 
 aged and sustained them. Some have even urged the 
 expediency of confining the slaves, and compelling 
 them to labour, the sexes being separated, in Ergas- 
 tula, until the race may thus be extinguished; others 
 have recommended that they be conveyed to some 
 distant point in our own territory, and established 
 as a separate community. It would, however, be 
 useless and tiresome to revive the bubbles that have 
 been, at different times, raised to burst beneath the 
 first touch of investigation. Of the countless plans 
 suggested by the quacks who, having conjectured 
 that slavery was an evil, have also conjectured a 
 cure, the only ones which have survived, are colo 
 nization on the western coast of Africa, and thej 
 
124 
 
 immediate or gradual abolition of slavery without 
 expatriation. 
 
 The scheme of colonization was conceived at an 
 early period, and appears to have been regarded 
 with favour by some of the greatest minds our coun 
 try has produced. Mr. Jefferson, as early as 1777, 
 is said to have suggested colonization. In 1801 the 
 legislature of Virginia, a state that appears to have 
 been always restive on the subject of slavery, re 
 commended colonization. In 181 G the same body 
 passed the following resolutions: 
 
 " Whereas, the general assembly of Virginia have 
 repeatedly sought to obtain an asylum beyond the 
 limits of the United States for such persons of co 
 lour as had been or might be emancipated under 
 the laws of this commonwealth, but have hitherto 
 found all their efforts frustrated, either by the dis 
 turbed state of other nations, or domestic causes 
 equally unpropitious to success. 
 
 " They now avail themselves of a period when 
 peace has healed the wounds of humanity, and the 
 principal nations of Europe have concurred with 
 the government of the United States in abolishing 
 the African slave trade (a traffic which this com 
 monwealth, both before and since the revolution, 
 zealously sought to exterminate,) to renew this 
 effort, and do therefore 
 
 " Resolve, That the executive be requested to 
 correspond with the president of the United States, 
 for the purpose of obtaining a territory on the west 
 ern coast of Africa, or at some other place not within 
 any of the states or territorial governments of the 
 United States, to serve as an asylum for such per 
 sons of colour as are now free and may desire the 
 same, and for those who may hereafter be emanci 
 pated within this commonwealth; and that the sena 
 tors and representatives of this state in the congress 
 
125 
 
 of the United States be requested to use their best 
 efforts to aid the president of the United States in 
 the attainment of the above objects. 
 
 " Provided, That no contract or arrangement re 
 specting such territory shall be obligatory on this 
 commonwealth, until ratified by the legislature." 
 
 In December, 1816, the American Colonization 
 Society was organized at Washington under the 
 auspices of Dr. Finley of New Jersey, Hon. C. F. 
 Mercer, F. S. Key, and some others. Measures 
 were taken as early as possible to select a site for 
 the proposed colony. In 1818, Messrs. Mill and 
 Burgess visited Africa by the way of England, and 
 gained much important information. In 1820, the 
 first expedition sailed, and attempted to make a 
 settlement on the Island of Sherbo. The climate 
 proved fatal to the settlers, and the effort failed. In 
 1821 another expedition sailed, and the colonists 
 remained at Sierra Leone until a settlement could 
 be made. In 1821, Dr. Eli Ayres, with Captain 
 Stockton of the U. S. navy, purchased from the 
 natives the territory called Montserado in the name 
 of the Society. In 1822, a settlement was effected, 
 and the colony placed under the government of Mr. 
 Ashmun, as agent of the Society. The first year 
 of the settlement was marked by many disasters. 
 The natives assailed the colony in great force, but 
 were repelled with intrepidity and success. In 1824 
 a form of government was adopted by the colonists. 
 The board of managers of the Society appoint the 
 colonial agent, who is a white man: all the other 
 officers are men of colour, the most important of 
 which are elected annually. Mr. Ashmun continued 
 to preside over the colony until 1828, when he was 
 constrained by illness, which soon proved fatal, to 
 return to America. He was succeeded by Dr. 
 
126 
 
 Richard Randall, who shortly after died, when Dr. 
 Mechlin became agent.* 
 
 * The following account of the colony is extracted from 
 an address published by the Board in 1832. 
 
 * Description of the Colony. The name of Liberia has been 
 given to the colony, because it is the land of the freed. Cape 
 Montserado, on which stands the principal town (Monrovia, 
 so called, in honour of President Monroe,) lies in about the 
 sixth degree of North latitude. The tract of country under 
 the colonial jurisdiction, has been obtained by fair purchase, 
 from time to time, from the natives, and extends from one 
 hundred and fifty to two hundred miles along the coast, and 
 indefinitely into the interior. Two important districts, Grand 
 Bassa and Cape Mount, have recently been acquired in this 
 way. There are several rivers, most of them small however. 
 The St. Paul s is half a mile wide at its mouth, and were it 
 not obstructed by falls, would admit of boat navigation two 
 or three hundred miles. The three principal towns are Mon 
 rovia and Caldwell, about seven miles distant on the St. 
 Paul s (which is connected with the Montserado river, by 
 Stockton Creek,) and Mills and Burgess, (or by contraction 
 Millsburg,) about fifteen miles above Caldwell, on the same 
 river. The houses in Monrovia are substantially built, many 
 of them of stone. 
 
 Fertility and Agriculture. In their address the colonists 
 say: A more fertile soil, and a more productive country, so 
 far as it is cultivated, there is not, we believe, on the face of 
 the earth. Dr. Randall says, that the land on both sides 
 of Stockton Creek is equal in every respect, to the best on 
 the southern rivers of the United States. 
 
 " Mr. Ashmun thus enumerates the animals and products of 
 the country : horses, cattle, sheep, goats, swine, ducks, geese, 
 chickens, and Guinea fowls, in abundance: fish in the great 
 est plenty ; plantains, bananas, vines, lemons, oranges, tama 
 rinds, mangoes, cashew, prunes, guava, pine-apple, grape, 
 cherry, and a species of peach ; sweet potato, cassada, yams, 
 cocoa, ground-nuts, arrow-root, egg-plant, okra, every va 
 riety of beans and peas, cucumbers and melons, pumpkins, 
 &c. &c.; rice, Indian corn, Guinea corn, millet, pepper, ex 
 cellent coffee, sugar, cotton, and indigo. Indeed sugar, cot 
 ton, coffee, and indigo, grow wild. 
 
 " Climate, and Health of the Settlers. In the early years of 
 the colony, want of good houses, the great fatigues and dan 
 gers of the settlers, the discouragements they met with, their 
 
127 
 
 The society soon numbered among its active 
 friends, many of the most illustrious names in the 
 republic. Jefferson, Madison, Marshall, Monroe, 
 Judge Washington, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, 
 W. H. Crawford, and many others, gave the scheme 
 
 ignorance of the proper mode of living, and of the best reme 
 dies, aided the other causes of sickness, and produced great 
 mortality. But those times are past and forgotten. Their 
 houses and circumstances are now comfortable ; they are 
 abundantly supplied with medical assistance ; and for the 
 last five years (as stated in the address of the colonists in 
 1827,) not one person in forty, from the middle and southern 
 states, has died from change of climate. The effect is most 
 severely felt by those from the northern states, or from moun 
 tainous parts of the middle states ; but experience has proved 
 that, with ordinary prudence, no danger is to be apprehended 
 even by persons from those places, who are sober and have 
 no radical defects of constitution. As the country becomes 
 more thickly settled and better cultivated, it wili, like all 
 other new countries, become more healthy. From the past 
 mortality or present sickliness, no discouragement will be felt 
 by those who have read an account of the early attempts to 
 found colonies in this favoured land. At a little distance 
 from the sea, the land becomes more elevated, and there is 
 the best reason to believe that the causes of disease on the 
 coast are unknown in the interior. On these highlands, set 
 tlements will doubtless soon be established. Under date of 
 the 28th of April, 1832, Dr. Meehlin writes among the emi 
 grants by the Volador, Criterion, Orion, James Perkins, Mar 
 garet, Mercer, and Crawford, the number of deaths will not 
 average quite four per cent. For emigrants from the wide ex 
 tent of our southern country, the climate may be pronounced 
 salubrious." 
 
 " Commerce. The colonists are actively engaged in trade, 
 disposing of goods supplied by this country and England, 
 for dye woods, ivory, hides, gold, palm oil, and rice, which 
 they purchase by barter from the natives. The nett profits 
 on the two articles of wood and ivory, passing through the 
 hands of the settlers, from January 1st, 182-6, to June 15, 
 1826, was $30,786. In 1829, the exports of African pro 
 ducts amounted to $60,000. In 1831, forty-six vessels, twen 
 ty-one of which were American, visited the colony in the 
 course of the year, and the amount of exports was $88,911, 
 
128 
 
 of colonization, their active and ardent support. 
 Auxiliary societies were formed; agents were ap 
 pointed; the legislatures of many of the states en 
 couraged the effort; and the funds of the society 
 became sufficient to authorize vigorous measures, 
 to promote the object for which it was formed. 
 
 The views of the friends of the scheme are fully 
 and eloquently set forth in the address, delivered 
 by Mr. Clay, before the society at its tenth annual 
 meeting. The following extracts are sufficiently 
 important to warrant us in extracting them entire. 
 
 " The object of the Society was the colonization 
 of the free coloured people, not the slaves, of the 
 country. Voluntary in its institution, voluntary in 
 its continuance, voluntary in all its ramifications, 
 all its means, purposes, and instruments are also 
 voluntary. But it was said, that no free coloured 
 persons could be prevailed upon to abandon the 
 comforts of civilized life, and expose themselves to 
 all the perils of a settlement in a distant, inhospita 
 ble, and savage country; that, if they could be in 
 duced to go on such a quixotic expedition, no terri 
 tory could be procured for their establishment as a 
 colony; that the plan was altogether incompetent to 
 effectuate its professed object, and that it ought to 
 be rejected as the idle dream of visionary enthusiasm. 
 The Society has outlived, thank God, all these dis 
 astrous predictions. It has survived to swell the 
 list of false prophets. It is no longer a question of 
 speculation whether a colony can or cannot be plant 
 ed from the United States of free persons of colour 
 on the shores of Africa. It is a matter demonstrated. 
 Such a colony in fact exists, prospers, has made suc 
 cessful war, and honourable peace, and transacts all 
 the multiplied business of a civilized and Christian 
 community. It now has about five hundred souls, 
 disciplined troops, forts, and other means of defence* 
 
129 
 
 sovereignty over an extensive territory, and exerts 
 a powerful and salutary influence over the neigh 
 bouring clans." 
 
 " The Society has experienced no difficulty in the 
 acquisition of a territory, upon reasonable terms, 
 abundantly sufficient for a most extensive Colony. 
 And land in ample quantities, it has been ascertain 
 ed, can be procured in Africa, together with all 
 rights of sovereignty, upon conditions as favourable 
 as those on which the United States extinguish the 
 Indian title to territory within their own limits." 
 
 " The Colonization Society has never imagined 
 it to be practicable, or within the reach of any 
 means which the several Governments of the Union 
 could bring to bear on the subject, to transport the 
 whole of the African race within the limits of the 
 United States. Nor is that necessary to accom 
 plish the desirable objects of domestic tranquillity, 
 and render us one homogeneous people. The popu 
 lation of the United States has been supposed to 
 duplicate in periods of twenty-five years. That 
 may have been the case heretofore, but the terms of 
 duplication will be more and more protracted as we 
 advance in national age; and I do not believe that 
 it will be found, in any period to come, that our 
 numbers will be doubled in a less term than one of 
 about thirty-three and a third years. I have not 
 time to enter now into details in support of this 
 opinion. They would consist of those checks which 
 experience has shown to obstruct the progress of 
 population, arising out of its actual augmentation 
 and density, the settlement of waste lands, &c. As 
 suming the period of thirty -three and a third, or 
 any other number of years, to be that in which our 
 population will hereafter be doubled, if, during that 
 whole term, the capital of the African stock could 
 be kept down, or stationary, whilst that of Euro- 
 
130 
 
 pean origin should be left to an unobstructed in 
 crease, the result, at the end of the term, would be 
 most propitious. Let us suppose, for example, that 
 the whole population at present of the United States 
 is twelve millions, of which ten may be estimated 
 of the Anglo-Saxon, and two of the African race. 
 If there could be annually transported from the 
 United States, an amount of the African portion 
 equal to the annual increase of the whole of that 
 caste, while the European race should be left to 
 multiply, we should find, at the termination of the 
 period of duplication, whatever it may be, that the 
 relative proportions would be as twenty to two. 
 And if the process were continued, during a second 
 term of duplication, the proportion would be as 
 forty to two one which would eradicate every 
 cause of alarm or solicitude from the breasts of the 
 most timid. But the transportation of Africans, by 
 creating, to the extent to which it might be carried, 
 a vacuum in society, would tend to accelerate the 
 duplication of the European race, who, by all the 
 laws of population, would fill up the void space." 
 
 " It will be borne in mind that the aim of the 
 Society is to establish in Africa a Colony of the free 
 African population of the United States; to an ex 
 tent which shall be beneficial both to Africa and 
 America. The whole free coloured population of 
 the United States amounted, in 1790, to 59,481; in 
 1800, to 110,072; in 1810, to 186,446; and in 1820, 
 to 233,530. The ratio of annual increase during 
 the first term of ten years, was about eight and a 
 half per cent, per annum j during the second, about 
 seven per cent, per annum 5 and during the third, a 
 little more than two and a half. The very great 
 difference in the rate of annual increase, during 
 those several terms, may probably be accounted for 
 by the effect of the number of voluntary emancipa* 
 
131 
 
 tions operating with more influence upon the total 
 smaller amount of free coloured persons at the first 
 of those periods, and by the facts of the insurrection 
 in St. Domingo, and the acquisition of Louisiana, 
 both of which occurring during the first and second 
 terms, added considerably to the number of our 
 free coloured population. 
 
 " Of all descriptions of our population, that of the 
 free coloured, taken in the aggregate, is the least proli 
 fic, because of the checks arising from vice and want 
 During the ten years, between 1810 and 1820, when 
 no extraneous causes existed to prevent a fair com 
 petition in the increase between the slave and the 
 free African race, the former increased at the rate of 
 nearly three per cent, per annum, whilst the latter 
 did not much exceed two and a half. Hereafter, it 
 may be safely assumed, and I venture to predict 
 will not be contradicted by the return of the next 
 census, that the increase of the free black popula 
 tion will not surpass two and a half per cent, per 
 annum. Their amount at the last census, being 
 233,530, for the sake of round numbers, their annual 
 increase may be assumed to be 6000, at the present 
 time. Now, if this number could be annually 
 transported from the United States during a term of 
 years, it is evident that, at the end of that term, the 
 parent capital will not have increased, but will have 
 been kept down at least to what it was at the com 
 mencement of the term. Is it practicable then to 
 colonize annually six thousand persons from the 
 United States, without materially impairing or af 
 fecting any of the great interests of the United 
 States ? This is the question presented to the judg 
 ments of the Legislative authorities of our country. 
 This is the whole scheme of the Society. From 
 its actual experience, derived from the expenses 
 which have been incurred in transporting the per- 
 
132 
 
 sons already sent to Africa, the entire average ex 
 pense of each Colonist, young and old, including 
 passage money and subsistence, may be stated at 
 twenty dollars per head. There is reason to believe 
 that it may be reduced considerably below that sum. 
 Estimating that to be the expense, the total cost of 
 transporting 6000 souls annually, to Africa, would 
 be $120,000. The tonnage requisite to effect the 
 object, calculating two persons to every five tons 
 (which is the provision of existing law) would be 
 15,000 tons. But as each vessel could probably 
 make two voyages in the year, it may be reduced 
 to 7,500. And as both our mercantile and military 
 marine might be occasionally employed on this col 
 lateral service, without injury to the main object of 
 the voyage, a further abatement might be safely 
 made in the aggregate amount of the necessary ton 
 nage. The navigation concerned in the commerce 
 between the Colony and the United States, (and it 
 already begins to supply subjects of an interesting 
 trade,) might be incidentally employed to the same 
 end. 
 
 "Is the annual expenditure of a sum no larger than 
 $120,000, and the annual employment of 7,500 tons 
 of shipping, too much for reasonable exertion, con 
 sidering the magnitude of the object in view ? Are 
 they not, on the contrary, within the compass of 
 moderate efforts ? 
 
 " Here is the whole scheme of the Society a 
 project which has been pronounced visionary by 
 those who have never given themselves the trouble 
 to examine it, but to which I believe most unbiassed 
 men will yield their cordial assent, after they have 
 investigated it." 
 
 " Assuming the future increase to be at the rate 
 of three per cent, per annum, the annual addition to 
 the number of slaves in the United States, calculated 
 
133 
 
 upon the return of the last census (1,538,128) is 
 46,000. Applying the data which have been al 
 ready stated and explained, in relation to the colo 
 nization of free persons of colour from the United 
 States to Africa, to the aggregate annual increase 
 both bond and free of the African race, and the re 
 sult will be found most encouraging. The total 
 number of the annual increase of both descriptions, 
 is 52,000. The total expense of transporting that 
 number to Africa, (supposing no reduction of pre 
 sent prices,) would be one million and forty thousand 
 dollars, and the requisite amount of tonnage would 
 be only 130.000 tons of shipping, about one-ninth 
 part of the mercantile marine of the United States; 
 Upon the supposition of a vessel s making two 
 voyages in the year, it would be reduced to one 
 half, 65,000. And this quantity would be still fur 
 ther reduced, by embracing opportunites of inci 
 dental employment of vessels belonging both to the 
 mercantile and military marines. 
 
 "But, is the annual application of $1,040,000, 
 and the employment of 65 or even 130,000 tons of 
 shipping, considering the magnitude of the object, 
 beyond the ability of this country ? Is there a pat 
 riot, looking forward to its domestic quiet, its happi 
 ness and its glory, that would not cheerfully con 
 tribute his proportion of the burthen to accomplish 
 a purpose so great and so humane ? During the 
 general continuance of the African slave trade, 
 hundreds of thousands of slaves have been, in a 
 single year, imported into the several countries 
 whose laws authorized their admission. Notwith 
 standing the vigilance of the powers now engaged 
 to suppress the slave trade, I have received infor 
 mation, that in a single year, in the single island of 
 Cuba, slaves equal in amount to one half of the 
 above number of 52,000 have been illicitly intro- 
 12 
 
134 
 
 duced. Is it possible lhat those who are concerned 
 in an infamous traffic, can effect more than the States 
 of this Union, if they were seriously to engage in 
 the good work ? Is it credible is it not a libel upon 
 human nature to suppose, that the triumphs of fraud 
 and violence and iniquity, can surpass those of vir 
 tue and benevolence and humanity ?" 
 
 " Further, by the annual withdrawal of 52,000 
 persons of colour, there would be annual space 
 created for an equal number of the white race. The 
 period, therefore, of duplication of the whites, by 
 the laws which govern population, would be accele- 
 rajed." 
 
 CThe friends of colonization urge the scheme on 
 other grounds, many of which are entitled to atten 
 tion. 
 
 They allege that, notwithstanding the severe 
 enactments against the slave-trade, it is continued 
 to a great extent, and that nothing can effectually 
 suppress it but the establishment of colonies along 
 the coast. This statement has not been, so far as 
 we are informed, assailed. The extent of the inhu 
 man traffic is conceded; and the usefulness of the 
 colony in discouraging it has been fully attested. 
 
 It is urged also, that the influence of colonies 
 along the African coast upon the savage nations can 
 not but be beneficial. The settlers will introduce 
 to the benighted negro the light of Christianity and 
 civilization, and rescue them from the moral dark 
 ness and physical wretchedness in which that con 
 tinent has, since the creation of the world, been 
 buried. The settlements, it is supposed, will be 
 missionary stations from which Christian ministers 
 may operate upon the African; while the trade 
 already commenced between the natives and the 
 settlers, and the more intimate and amicable inter 
 course which, should the colonies prosper, will take 
 
135 
 
 place hereafter, will tend greatly to impart to the 
 negroes the advantages of civilization. Mr. Clay 
 thus eloquently refers to this consequence of civili 
 zation. " There is a moral fitness in the idea of 
 returning to Africa her children, whose ancestors 
 have been torn from her by the ruthless hand of 
 fraud and violence. Transplanted in a foreign land, 
 they will carry back to their native soil the rich 
 fruits of religion, civilization, law and liberty. 
 May it not be one of the great designs of the Ruler 
 of the Universe, (whose ways are often inscrutable 
 by short sighted mortals,) thus to transform an ori 
 ginal crime into a signal blessing to that most un 
 fortunate portion of the Globe." 
 
 The commercial advantages to be derived from 
 the colonization of Africa have also been urged by 
 its friends as a cogent argument in favour of the 
 scheme. The commerce already created is said to 
 be valuable; and should the expectations of the 
 friends of colonization be realized and large civilized 
 and wealthy nations be raised up on the Western 
 Coast of Africa, the commercial advantages to this 
 country would, it is thought, be incalculably valu 
 able. 
 
 The advance of the Society has perhaps been as 
 rapid as those acquainted with the difficulties of 
 colonization could have expected. The settlement 
 comprises more than three thousand souls. The in 
 habitants are temperate and moral, but addicted to 
 barter, and indisposed to agricultural labour. Many 
 of the colonists have realized fortunes; but, in con 
 sequence of the neglect of agriculture, the settle 
 ment does not wear an air of permanence and com 
 fort Several large tracts have been added to the 
 territory of the colony; and new and successful set 
 tlements have been made. The scheme has been 
 extensively discussed in the periodicals of the coun- 
 
136 
 
 try, and a decided feeling has- been manifested in 
 many sections of the Union in its favour. Several 
 of the State Legislatures have extended direct pe 
 cuniary aid to promote the cause; and a number of 
 the most able and influential men in the country 
 continue to advocate colonization with ardour and 
 confidence. 
 
 The project is not however without its opponents. 
 Within a few years past this opposition has increas 
 ed both in extent and ardour, and is still maintained 
 with a vigor which endangers the efficiency and 
 success of the scheme of colonization. So huge a 
 scheme of benevolence, requiring immense re 
 sources, and relying almost exclusively upon indi 
 vidual benevolence, is not, however meritorious, 
 prepared to sustain a vigorous and bitter opposition. 
 Those who argue on the side of selfishness are gene 
 rally considered cogent and persuasive reasoners; 
 and when argument unites with interest and avarice 
 to withhold the hand of charity, the sense of duty 
 is seldom strong enough to extend it. The friends 
 of colonization continue, however, to urge it with 
 spirit; its collections are large; and should it sur 
 vive the present opposition, it will perhaps come, 
 strengthened and stabilitated, from the trial. 
 
 The opponents of colonization may be divided 
 into two classes. The first is composed of the 
 friends of immediate abolition. They oppose colo 
 nization, as unjust to the negro, who is, they urge, 
 a native of this country and entitled by the law of 
 nature to immediate and unconditional emancipation, 
 and to a full participation in the rights of the whites, 
 without expatriation. The other class of anti-colo- 
 nizationists are those, who regard all interference 
 with the subject of slavery as calculated to endan 
 ger the prosperity, and disturb the tranquillity of the 
 citizens of the South. 
 
137 
 
 The abolitionists have succeeded in detaching 
 many excited religionists from the cause of coloniza 
 tion, and also in raising on the part of the free 
 coloured people a strong and almost universal pre 
 judice against the African settlement. The conse 
 quence is, that the views of the Society have been 
 necessarily limited principally to the colonization 
 of emancipated slaves. 
 
 Many objections are made against the scheme of 
 African colonization, which we have not space to 
 present. Among others, the insalubrity of the cli 
 mate, the difficulties of colonization, the great length 
 of time required to prepare the colony for the re 
 ception of any considerable number of emigrants, 
 and the indisposition of the colonists to agricultural 
 labour, which can alone furnish means for the sup 
 port of a large population. Many of these obsta 
 cles might be obviated, but the question of the 
 practicability of colonization would still remain un 
 determined. Having given the views of Mr. Clay 
 in support of the scheme, we will extract those of 
 Professor Dew, on the opposite side of the question. 
 Professor Dew s arguments are intended for the 
 State of Virginia, but are equally applicable to any 
 of the Southern States. 
 
 " We take it for granted, that the right of the 
 owner to his slave is to be respected, and, conse 
 quently, that he is not required to emancipate him, 
 unless his full value is paid by the State. Let us, then 
 keeping this in view, proceed to a very simple cal 
 culation of the expense of emancipation and depor 
 tation in Virginia. The slaves, by the last census 
 (1830) amounted, within a small fraction, to four 
 hundred and seventy thousand, the average value 
 of each one of these is two hundred dollars, con 
 sequently, the whole aggregate value of the slave 
 population in Virginia in 1830, was ninety -four 
 12* 
 
138 
 
 million dollars; and allowing for the increase since, 
 we cannot err far in putting the present value at 
 one hundred million dollars. The assessed value of 
 all the houses and lands in the State amounts to 
 two hundred and six million dollars, and these con 
 stitute the material items in the wealth of the State, 
 the whole personal property besides bearing but a 
 very small proportion to the value of slaves, lands, 
 and houses. Now, do not these very simple statis 
 tics speak volumes upon this subject ? It is gravely 
 recommended to the State of Virginia to give up a 
 species of property which constitutes nearly one 
 third of the wealth of the whole State, and almost 
 one half of that of Lower Virginia, and with the 
 remaining two thirds to encounter the additional 
 enormous expense of transportation and colonization 
 on the Coast of Africa. But the loss of one hun 
 dred million dollars of property is scarcely the half 
 of what Virginia would lose, if the immutable laws 
 of nature could suffer (as fortunately they cannot) 
 this tremendous scheme of colonization to be car 
 ried into full effect. Is it not population which 
 makes our lands and houses valuable? Why are lots 
 in Paris and London worth more than the silver 
 dollars which it might take to cover them ? Why 
 are lands of equal fertility in England and France 
 worth more than those of our Northern States, and 
 those again worth more than our Southern soils, and 
 those in turn worth more than the soils of the dis 
 tant West ? It is the presence or absence of popula 
 tion, which alone can explain the fact. It is, in 
 truth, the slave labour in Virginia which gives value 
 to her soil, and her habitations: take away this, and 
 you pull down the atlas that upholds the whole 
 system; eject from the State the whole slave popu 
 lation, and we risk nothing in the prediction that on 
 the day in which it shall be accomplished, the worn 
 
139 
 
 soils of Virginia will not bear the paltry price of 
 the government lands in the West, and the Old 
 Dominion will be a waste howling wilderness; 
 the grass shall be seen growing in the streets, and 
 the foxes peeping from their holes. 
 
 " But the favourers of this scheme say they do not 
 contend for the sudden emancipation and deporta 
 tion of the whole black population; they would 
 send off only the increase, and thereby keep down 
 the population to its present amount, while the 
 whites, increasing at their usual rate, would finally 
 become relatively so numerous as to render the pre 
 sence of the blacks among us for ever afterwards 
 entirely harmless. This scheme which at first to 
 the unreflecting seems plausible, and much less wild 
 than the project of sending off the whole, is neverthe 
 less impracticable and visionary, as we think a few 
 remarks will prove. It is computed that the an 
 nual increase of the slaves and free coloured popu 
 lation of Virginia is about six thousand. Let us 
 first, then, make a calculation of the expense of 
 purchase and transportation. At two hundred dollars 
 each, the six thousand will amount in value to one mil 
 lion two hundred thousand dollars. At thirty dollars 
 each for transportation, which we shall soon see is too 
 little, we have the whole expense of purchase and 
 transportation one million three hundred and 
 eighty thousand dollars, an expense to be annually 
 incurred by Virginia to keep down her black popu 
 lation to its present amount. And let us ask, is 
 there any one who can seriously argue that Virginia 
 can incur such an annual expense as this for the 
 next twenty-five or fifty years, until the whites have 
 multiplied so greatly upon the blacks, as in the 
 opinion of the alarmists, for ever to quiet the fears 
 of the community ? Vain and delusive hope, if any 
 were ever wild enough to entertain it! Poor old 
 
140 
 
 Virginia! the leader of the poverty stricken team, 
 which has been for years so heavtily dragging 
 along under the intolerable burthen of the Federal 
 Government, must inevitably be crushed whenever 
 this new weight is imposed on her, in comparison 
 with which federal exactions, are light and mild. 
 We should as soon expect the chamois, the hardy 
 rover over Alpine regions, by his unassisted 
 strength to hurl down the snowy mantle which for 
 ages has clothed the lofty summit of Mount Blanc, 
 as that Virginia will be ever able by her own re 
 sources, to purchase and colonize on the Coast of 
 Africa six thousand slaves for any number of years 
 in succession/ 
 
 " We have already shown that the first operation 
 of the plan, if slave property were rigidly respect 
 ed, and never taken without full compensation, 
 would be to put a stop to the efflux from the State 
 through other channels; but this would not be the 
 only effect. Government, entering into the market 
 with individuals, would elevate the price of slaves 
 beyond their natural value, and consequently the 
 raising of them would become an object of primary 
 importance throughout the whole State. We can 
 readily imagine that the price of slaves might be 
 come so great, that each master would do all in his 
 power to encourage marriage among them would 
 allow the females entire exception from labour, that 
 they might the better breed and nurse and would 
 so completely concentrate his efforts upon this ob 
 ject as to neglect other schemes, and less productive 
 sources of wealth. Under these circumstances, the 
 prolific African might no doubt be stimulated to 
 press hard upon one of the limits above stated, 
 doubling in numbers, in fifteen years; and such is 
 the tendency which our abolition schemes, if seri 
 ously engaged in, will most undoubtedly produce. 
 
141 
 
 They will be certain to stimulate the procreative 
 powers of the very race which they are aiming to 
 diminish; they will enlarge and invigorate the very 
 monster which they are endeavouring to stifle, and 
 realize the beautiful but melancholy fable of Sisyphus, 
 by an eternal renovation of hope and disappoint 
 ment. If it were possible for Virginia to purchase 
 and send off annually for the next twenty-five or fifty 
 years 12,000 slaves, we should have very little hesi 
 tation in affirming, that the number of slaves in 
 Virginia would not be at all lessened by the opera 
 tion, and at the conclusion of the period such habits 
 would be generated among our blacks, that for a 
 long time after the cessation of the drain, popula 
 tion might advance so rapidly, as to produce among 
 us, all the calamities and miseries of an overcrowd 
 ed people." 
 
 " But, say some, if Virginia cannot accomplish 
 this work, let us call upon the general Government 
 for aid let Hercules be requested to put his shoul 
 der to the wheels, and roll us through this formida 
 ble quagmire of our difficulties. Delusive pros 
 pect! corrupting scheme! We will throw all 
 constitutional difficulties out of view, and ask if 
 the Federal Government can be requested to under 
 take the expense for Virginia, without encountering 
 it for the whole slave holding population? And 
 then, whence can be drawn the funds to purchase 
 more than 2,000,000, of slaves, worth at the lowest 
 calculation $400,000,000? or if the increase alone be 
 sent off, can Congress undertake, annually to purchase 
 at least 60,000 slaves at an expense of $12,000,000, 
 and deport and colonize them at an expense of 
 twelve or fifteen millions more? But the fabled 
 hydra would be more than realized in this project. 
 We have no doubt that, if the United States in good 
 faith should enter into the slave markets of the 
 
142 
 
 country, determined to purchase up the whole an 
 nual increase of our slaves, so unwise a project, by 
 its artificial demand would immediately produce a 
 rise in this property throughout the whole Southern 
 country, of at least thirty-three and a third per 
 cent. ; it would stimulate and invigorate the spring 
 of black population, which, by its tremendous action, 
 would set at naught the puny efforts of man, and, 
 like the Grecian matron, unweave in the night 
 what had been woven in the day. We might well 
 calculate upon an annual increase of at least four 
 and a half per cent, upon our two millions of slaves, 
 if ever the United States should create the artificial 
 demand which we have just spoken of; and then, in 
 stead of an increase of 60,000, there will be 90,000, 
 bearing the average price of $300 each, making the 
 enormous annual expense of purchase alone 27 mil 
 lions! and difficulties, too, on the side of the colony, 
 would more than enlarge with the increase of the evil 
 at home. Our Colonization Society has been more 
 than fifteen years at work; it has purchased, accord 
 ing to its friends, a district of country as congenial 
 to the constitution of the black as any in Africa; it 
 has, as we have seen, frequently over-supplied the 
 Colony with emigrants; and mark the result, for it 
 is worthy of all observation there are now not 
 more than 2,000 or 2,500 inhabitants in Liberia; 
 and these are alarmed lest the Southampton insur 
 rection, may cause such an emigration as to inundate 
 the Colony. When, then, in the lapse of time, can we 
 ever expect to build up a colony which can receive 
 sixty or ninety thousand slaves per annum? And if 
 this should ever arrive, what guarantee could be fur 
 nished us that their ports would always be open to our 
 emigrants? Would law or compact answer? Oh, no! 
 some legislator in the plentitude of his wisdom, 
 might arise, who could easily and truly persuade 
 
143 
 
 his countrymen that these annual importations of 
 blacks were nuisances, and the laws of God, what 
 ever might be those of men, would justify their 
 abatement. And the drama would be wound 
 up in this land of promise and expectation, by 
 turning the cannon s mouth against the liberated 
 emigrant and deluded philanthropist. The scheme 
 of colonizing our blacks on the Coast of Africa, or 
 any where else, by the United States, is thus seen 
 to be more stupendously absurd than even the Vir 
 ginia project. King Canute the Dane, seated on the 
 sea-shore, and ordering the rising flood to recede 
 from his royal feet, was not guilty of more vanity 
 and presumption than the Government of the 
 United States would manifest, in the vain effort of 
 removing and colonizing the annual increase of our 
 blacks. So far from being able to remove the whole 
 annual increase every year, we shall not be enabled 
 to send off a number sufficiently great to check 
 even the geometrical rate of increase. Our black 
 population is now producing sixty thousand per an 
 num, and next year we must add to this sum 
 eighteen hundred, which the increment alone is 
 capable of producing, and the year after, the incre 
 ment upon the increment, &c. Now, let us throw 
 out of view for a moment, the idea of grappling 
 with the whole annual increase, and see whether, 
 by colonization we can expect to turn this geomet 
 rical increase into an arithmetical one. We will 
 then take the annual increase 60,000, as our capital, 
 and it will be necessary to send off the increase 
 upon this, 1,800, to prevent the geometrical increase 
 of the whole black population. Let us then, for a 
 moment, inquire whether the abolitionists can ex 
 pect to realize this petty advantage. 
 
 "Mr. Bacon admits that 1,000 emigrants now 
 thrown into Liberia would ruin it. We believe that 
 
144 
 
 every reflecting, sober member of the Colonization 
 Society, will acknowledge that five hundred an 
 nually, are fully as many as the colony can now 
 receive. We will assume this number, though no 
 doubt greatly beyond the truth; and we will admit 
 further, what we could easily demonstrate to be 
 much too liberal a concession, that the capacity of 
 the Colony for the reception of emigrants, may be 
 made to enlarge in a geometrical ratio, equal to that 
 of the rate of increase of the blacks in the United 
 States. Now with these very liberal concessions on 
 our part, let us examine into the effect of the Colo 
 nization scheme. At the end of the first year, we 
 shall have for the amount of the 60,000, increasing 
 at the rate of three and a-half per cent, 61,800; and 
 subtracting 500 we shall begin the second year with 
 the number of 61,300, which, increasing at the rate 
 of three and a-half per centum, gives 63,139 for the 
 amount at the end of the second year. Proceeding 
 thus, we obtain, at the end of twenty-five years, for 
 the amount of the 60,000, 101,208. The number 
 taken away, that is the sum of 500+500X1,003+ 
 500X1,003 2 &c. will be 18,197. It is thus seen 
 that, in spite of the efforts of the Colonization 
 scheme, the bare annual increase of our slaves, will 
 produce 41,208 more than can be sent off; which 
 number of course must be added to the capital of 
 60,000; and long, very long, before the Colony in 
 Africa, upon our system of calculation ever could 
 receive the increase upon this accumulating capital, 
 its capacity as a recipient would be checked by the 
 limitation of territory and the rapid filling up of 
 the population, both by emigration and natural in 
 crease. And thus by a simple arithmetical calcula 
 tion, we may be convinced that the effort to check 
 even the geometrical rate of increase, by sending 
 off the increment upon the annual increase of our 
 
145 
 
 slaves, is greatly more than we can accomplish, and 
 must inevitably terminate in disappointment more 
 than realizing the fable of the frog and the ox for 
 in this case we should have the frog swelling, not 
 for the purpose of rivalling the ox in size, but to 
 swallow him down horns and all ! 
 
 " Seeing, then, that the effort to send away the in 
 crease on even the present increase of our slaves, 
 must be vain and fruitless how stupendously ab 
 surd must be the project, proposing to send off the 
 whole increase, so as to keep down the negro popu 
 lation at its present amount! There are some things 
 which man arrayed in all his " brief authority" 
 cannot accomplish, and this is one of them. Colo 
 nization schemers, big and busy in the management 
 of all their little machinery and gravely proposing 
 it as an engine, by which our black population may 
 be sent to the now uncongenial home of their ances 
 tors, across an ocean of thousands of miles in 
 width, but too strongly reminds us of the vain man, 
 who, in all the pomp and circumstance of power, 
 ordered his servile attendants to stop the rise of 
 ocean s tide by carrying off its accumulating waters. 
 Emigration has rarely checked the increase of popu 
 lation, by directly lessening its number it can only 
 do it by the abstraction of capital and by paralyz 
 ing the spring of population, and then it blights and 
 withers the prosperity of the land. The population 
 of Europe has not been thinned by emigration to 
 the New World the province of Andalusia in 
 Spain, which sent out the greatest number of emi 
 grants to the Islands and to Mexico and Peru, has 
 been precisely the district in Spain which has in 
 creased its population most rapidly. Ireland now 
 sends forth a greater number of emigrants than any 
 other country in the world, and yet the population 
 13 
 
146 
 
 of Ireland is now increasing faster than any other 
 population of Europe!" 
 
 The scheme of colonization has heen popular in 
 this country, and is still clung to with partial fond 
 ness. Those who are prejudiced against domestic 
 slavery and averse to the presence of a negro popu 
 lation in the country, and who regard the mad pro 
 ject of emancipation in its proper light, view the 
 plan of colonization as the only remedy for what 
 they consider a national evil. They are perhaps 
 correct in regarding it as the best plan which has 
 been suggested: but whether the object desired the 
 removal of the negro race from this country be 
 within the scope of any justifiable exertion of hu 
 man energy, remains to be determined. Many of 
 the objections urged against colonization might be 
 obviated. There is no necessity for adhering to 
 the present experiment if a better can be suggested. 
 If the object desired can be better, easier, or sooner 
 attained by colonization elsewhere, than in Africa; 
 if a healthier or cheaper site can be selected, there 
 is no reason why Liberia should not be abandoned. 
 It is unfair to argue against the scheme from the 
 errors and misfortunes of the present colony 
 errors and misfortunes from which another colony 
 might be exempt. That colonization is practicable, 
 every page of history demonstrates. Our own ex 
 istence answers all objections on that score. The 
 success of the English at New South Wales, and in 
 all sections of the habitable world, proves that large 
 and flourishing colonies, sufficient for the bases of 
 future empires, may, even by a moderate exertion 
 of the energies of a commercial nation, be estab 
 lished. But the question of the practicability of 
 removing the negro race, or its increase, from this 
 country, remains to be settled. The great obsta 
 cles alleged, those which no change of the plan 
 
147 
 
 could obviate, and which appear appallingly formid 
 able are, briefly, as follows: 
 
 1. The expense of the scheme. To purchase and 
 transport 60,000 slaves annually (and the increase 
 is now more than that number) would cost, it is 
 supposed, $25,000,000. How is this to be raised? 
 Private benevolence cannot even attempt it. The 
 slave-holding States will not undertake it, for it is 
 not only beyond their power, but would, if at 
 tempted, utterly ruin them. Shall the General 
 Government undertake it? The Constitution will 
 not sanction it. If it would, or if it could be 
 changed, where or how could that sum be raised? 
 A direct tax would not be borne. If raised by 
 duties on imports, the burthen would fall upon the 
 South and a double ruin be thus visited upon that 
 hapless and persecuted section of our country. The 
 sale of public lands would in the last resort be look 
 ed to; and if adequate to the object, would only be 
 an indirect mode of impoverishing the country. 
 Our people possess such elasticity and enterprize, 
 that they can bear what would crush any other: but 
 could they, without the worst afflictions, endure the 
 loss of the labouring population of the South, and 
 pay for that loss at the rate of upwards of 25 mil 
 lion dollars per annum, for an indefinite period? 
 
 2. The second obstacle is the difficulties attend 
 ant on colonization under the most favourable cir 
 cumstances; the fearful expense of nursing an in 
 fant colony into vigor; and the very great time that 
 must elapse before it can have attained sufficient 
 maturity to bear an annual access of 60,000 to its 
 numbers. 
 
 3. The habits of the negro render it doubtful 
 whether a successful colony of that race can ever, 
 under the most auspicious circumstances, be effect 
 ed. They will not work without compulsion; and 
 
148 
 
 colonization requires severe and continued toil. If 
 the negro, when left to himself, can be induced 
 to labour, or withheld from relapsing into barbar 
 ism it remains to be proven. No such case has yet 
 occurred. 
 
 4. Will the South consent to relinquish her slaves? 
 Will she consent to contribute her own money to 
 buy her own property? Is she convinced, or can 
 she be persuaded to believe, that her lands can be 
 cultivated without negro labour? or could she con 
 sent to relinquish that labour without seeing her 
 rich soil relapse into a wilderness? 
 
 5. The great difficulty, however, appears to be, 
 the tendency of the natural increase to swell with 
 the increase of the deportation. The law of po 
 pulation, by which the chasm left in a country by 
 emigration is filled up by the increased activity of 
 procreation, appears to be generally conceded, and 
 is beyond the reach of philosophers and legislators. 
 Unless the position assumed by the anti-coloniza- 
 tionists on this point can be refuted, apprehensions 
 may be rationally entertained that the effort made 
 to remove the slave population will only tax and 
 enfeeble the country, without advancing one step 
 towards the result desired. 
 
 Whatever may be the advantages or disadvan 
 tages of colonization, recent events have made the 
 South indisposed to the agitation of emancipation 
 in any of its shapes. At present the South is satis 
 fied with her domestic institutions, and seeks no 
 change. In answer to the colonizationists of the 
 North, she bids them proceed in their work, colo 
 nize their own free blacks, the most degraded, dan 
 gerous, and unhappy population in our country 
 and when that is effected, it will be time to decide 
 on the proposal of emancipating and deporting the 
 slaves of the South. If it be urged that the free 
 
149 
 
 blacks have a right to choose for themselves, and 
 decline emigration, it may be answered, that, if the 
 slave has a right to freedom, he may demand it 
 unconditionally, and would be equally averse to 
 leaving his native land. Unless the scheme of colo 
 nization can offer advantages sufficient to invite emi 
 gration, it must be abandoned, or sustained by coer 
 cive transportation, and in reference to the adoption 
 of such measures, the different sections of our coun 
 try are situated alike. If the deportation of the 
 blacks be expedient, practicable, and proper, let the 
 North so approve it by the colonization of their 
 blacks and the South will be then better enabled 
 to determine upon the scheme. 
 
 We cannot, however, dismiss this subject, without 
 doing justice to the motives and feelings of the found 
 ers and friends of colonization. The scheme was 
 conceived in an anxious and enlarged spirit of pa 
 triotism. Its objects are such as appeal, with irre 
 sistible force, to the heart of every American, Chris 
 tian, and philanthropist. Its friends have manifested 
 in its support a zeal, liberality, and disinterestedness 
 which cannot be sufficiently praised. That such a 
 scheme should have received, from the voluntary 
 contributions of individuals, a sufficient sum to ad 
 vance it to its present stage, is a fact honourable to 
 the American people; and those who have yielded 
 the colony, in this country, their disinterested sup 
 port those who have, on the pestilential shores of 
 Africa, fallen victims to the cause merit the grati 
 tude and veneration of every friend of humanity. 
 Time must determine the success of their efforts; 
 but of their justice, purity, and patriotism, the white 
 man and the slave, the North and South, America 
 and Africa, will unite to bear grateful testimony. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Abolition of Slavery in the United States. Ob 
 jects and designs of the Abolitionists. 
 
 WE will now consider the scheme of emancipa 
 tion a scheme which, but a few years since, found 
 our country united, tranquil and happy, and which, 
 in that brief period, has planted in her bosom dis 
 trust, jealousy, rage and terror which has endan 
 gered the industry of the North, the security of life 
 in the South, and has shaken to its very centre the 
 Government of our common country. 
 
 The object of those who have espoused the cause 
 of the slave is averred to be emancipation. They 
 pronounce his bondage a sin against heaven, and 
 claim the freedom of every negro in the country 
 young and old, male and female, ignorant and edu 
 cated. Universal and sweeping emancipation is the 
 object of their efforts; and they express their de 
 termination never to remit their exertions until the 
 two millions of slaves in the South are released 
 from all restraint. 
 
 This emancipation is claimed immediately. 
 They will not submit to any gradual measures for 
 the attainment of their wishes. The word is to be 
 spoken by these necromancers in philanthropy, and 
 the chains of the 2,250,000 slaves are to be shiver 
 ed, as by one blow. The negro is to be instanta 
 neously released, and turned forth, without the in 
 telligence to direct his conduct, the habits of self 
 
151 
 
 restraint to withhold him from the brutal gratifica 
 tion of animal passions, or even the means of sav 
 ing himself from starvation. When asked, what 
 will be the consequences of so mad and precipitate 
 a movement, they inform us that consequences do 
 not enter into their calculations slavery is a sin, of 
 which the slave-holder should repent, not gradually, 
 but at once the consequences of his repentance 
 rest with Providence. That we may not misrepre 
 sent their views on this important point, we give 
 the following extract from one of the publications 
 of the American Anti-Slavery Society. 
 
 " The, safety of the remedy. 
 
 4 Oh, but immediate emancipation would be un 
 safe, -the slave would butcher his master and fill 
 the land with rapine and murder. 
 
 Suppose, said Mr. S. the intelligence should 
 reach this city to-day that the slaves had risen in 
 insurrection and were scattering dismay and death 
 through the South. Would not the veriest child 
 know the cause? 6 THEY ARE FIGHTING FOR THEIR 
 FREEDOM would be the universal cry. Give the 
 slave his freedom, then; will he fight because you 
 give it to him? First, he fights because he is robbed 
 of liberty, and when it is restored, he fights because 
 he s got it." 
 
 The following is from the Anti-Slavery Re 
 porter: "Gradual Abolition, an indefinite term, 
 but which is understood to imply the draining away 
 drop by drop of the great ocean of wrongs, pluck 
 ing off at long intervals some straggling branches 
 of the moral Upas holding out to unborn gene 
 rations the shadow of a hope which the present 
 may never feel, gradually ceasing to do evil; 
 gradually refraining from robbery, lust and murder: 
 
152 
 
 in brief, obeying a short-sighted and criminal 
 policy rather than the commands of God." 
 
 The immediate emancipation, thus claimed for 
 the blacks, is required to be unconditional. They 
 admit no restraint upon the negro. He is to be 
 turned loose at once. No barrier, no bond, no 
 check, nothing to guard the negroes from their 
 own improvidence and passions, nothing to protect 
 the master or his wife and daughters from the savage 
 passions, the lust, revenge and cruelty of the brutal 
 and unchained slave. The abolitionists have no 
 doubt read of the Roman Senators who opened their 
 gates to the Gauls, and received them in state, ex 
 pecting to subdue their fierce passions into awe and 
 gentleness; they have perhaps heard also of the fana 
 tic, who, in the confidence of religious insanity, 
 caused himself to be exposed to lions. They have, 
 however, it seems, forgotten that the Romans were 
 slaughtered and their city burned; and that the poor 
 bigot was devoured without scruple by the hungry 
 lions. They would, with the same confidence and 
 the same wisdom, unloose the ignorant negro upon 
 the fair and gentle ones of the South, and, stand 
 ing at a safe distance, would watch the result of 
 the fearful experiment! 
 
 The following is another extract from the publi 
 cation quoted above. 
 
 " Turning loose. 
 
 1 But would you turn the slave loose? Loose! 
 What does the objector mean? Turn the slave 
 loose! No. We turn freemen loose. We dont un 
 chain the tiger, but we strike off his chain, and by 
 that act make him a lamb, and then turn him loose." 
 
 Such is the childish and wretched device by 
 which the abolitionists evade an objection so start 
 ling, so awful, so full of calamity to the race, that 
 
153 
 
 it would shake a fiend from his purpose, and visit his 
 bosom with the strugglings of remorse and com 
 passion. The abolitionist, however, when told that 
 he is about to deluge his native land with blood, 
 receives the warning with a quibble, and turns tran 
 quilly to his work of horror. 
 
 The emancipation, thus urged, is expected to be 
 attained without compensation to the master. It is 
 of no consequence that not merely individuals, but 
 States, w r ould be thus beggared; that those gentle 
 beings, who have been nurtured with all the soli 
 citude of affection, and treated with the homage of 
 Southern chivalry that those fair creatures, whose 
 guardians 
 
 Would not permit the winds of Heaven 
 Visit their cheeks too roughly, 
 
 thus fostered, are, by Northern philanthropists to be 
 plunged into the most sordid poverty, and, as they 
 are inferior to the blacks in capacity for toil, to be 
 degraded beneath those who have heretofore minis 
 tered to their wants. The slave-holder, says the 
 abolitionist, is a "robber," a " felon," a " man- 
 stealer," &c., and has no right to expect that, when 
 deprived of his victim, he will be paid for his past 
 crimes in the shape of compensation or ransom! 
 The fanatics are marvellously philanthropic: they 
 would beggar and ruin the citizens of the South to 
 realize their childish abstractions; but have not yet 
 attained that point of delusion which would prompt 
 them to bear a share of the burthen. Men can 
 afford to be charitable, who give away the property 
 of others; and none urge self-denial so ardently as 
 those who are not called upon to participate in the 
 sacrifice. The abolitionists, in advocating emanci 
 pation without compensation, do not forget, but do 
 not regard, the fact, that the slaves have fallen into 
 
154 
 
 the hands of their present owners as proper iy, 
 that the laws of the Southern States, the laws of 
 the General Government, and even the laws of the 
 Northern States, regard them and respect them, as 
 property. These facts are wholly immaterial to 
 the abolitionists. The obligation of justice, the 
 sanction of the laws, the rights of humanity, are 
 subjects of equal indifference to those who are pre 
 pared to stride over the graves of millions of their 
 brethren, over the ruins of their Government and 
 country, to the consummation of their visionary 
 and perilous schemes. 
 
 But the abolitionists do not pause at emancipa 
 tion. Their demands go further. They require 
 for the slave, not merely his freedom, but an elevation 
 to all the political privileges of his master. It may 
 be observed that the abolition party is constituted 
 mostly of men, who are opposed to an extension of 
 the political powers of the whites, to universal suf 
 frage, and to that policy which contemplates politi 
 cal equality; they have generally been found op 
 posed to what are considered the liberal doctrines 
 and measures of this country, and are, in some cases, 
 the remains of those who opposed the American 
 revolution: yet, when the blacks are interested, 
 their fears of popular power vanish; the ignorance 
 of the blacks, their incapacity, their want of politi 
 cal or moral principles constitute no objections to 
 their political elevation. This disposition, it will 
 be seen, is manifested throughout, by the abolition 
 ists. They have, from some strange perversion of 
 nature, acquired an affection for the black which 
 has blunted their sensibilities for their own race; 
 and, in case of opposing interests, they uniformly 
 espouse the cause of the negro against the white man. 
 
 In claiming, for the blacks of the South, political 
 equality with the whites, they of course include the 
 
155 
 
 right of arming and disciplining themselves. The ne 
 groes might, therefore,immediately after the consum 
 mation of the abolitionist s designs, meet and make ar 
 rangements for the military execution of the whites. 
 With the sanction of the law, with arms, ammuni 
 tion, discipline, and savage ferocity, they would pro 
 bably outdo the horrors of St. Domingo. But what 
 is that to the pious abolitionists? 
 
 The right of suffrage, and the right to hold office, 
 are of course included in the benevolent scheme of 
 the fanatics. The first fruits of abolition would be 
 the extensive emigration of the whites. The blacks 
 would be thus rendered a majority; and going to 
 the polls with their prejudice against the rival race, 
 (a prejudice which no power under Heaven has re 
 moved, or can remove, in any country) the whole 
 civil and military power would fall into their hands. 
 Of the extent of their qualifications for the safe ex 
 ercise of this power, it is unnecessary to speak; but 
 with this mass of ignorance, prejudice and savage 
 passion in the high places of the Southern Govern 
 ments, what would become of the whites? The abo 
 litionists neither know nor care. Nor is the North 
 wholly uninterested in this view of the case. A 
 number of the States of our republic would become 
 negro communities; they would send black repre 
 sentatives into Congress; and as they would, pro 
 bably, by their close union against the whites, attain 
 great power, they might give us a black President. 
 "To this COMPLEXION must we come at last!" 
 
 Should the reader be incredulous on the points 
 referred to, should he consider it impossible that hu 
 man delusion, even under the impulses of a heady 
 fanaticism, can rush into absurdities so gross, and 
 disgusting, we will, to determine his doubts, refer 
 him to the organs of the party, to the declarations 
 of their conventions, to the resolutions of their 
 
156 I 
 
 meetings, to the articles of their Constitutions, and 
 to the freely expressed sentiments of the advocates 
 and supporters of the abolition scheme. 
 
 Another object has been extensively attributed to 
 them. We refer to the sexual amalgamation of the 
 two races. We are unwilling to press this charge. 
 The design, has, without a doubt, been freely avow 
 ed by some individuals among the abolitionists, and 
 tacitly countenanced by many more. It is well 
 known, that in New York the prominent and 
 wealthy advocates of abolition have given dinners, 
 and other parties, at which the sexes, and races were 
 studiously mingled. It is well known, that the 
 social habits of many encourage the most intimate, 
 equal, and familiar intercourse between the two 
 colours of different sexes. It is well known, that 
 matrimonial connexions of the unnatural character 
 referred to, have not been discouraged; and that, 
 though the abolitionists have been frequently and 
 forcibly charged with the design of encouraging 
 such connexions, their denials have been but late, 
 faint, and partial.* From all these facts it is diffi 
 cult to escape the belief that the abolitionists, if not 
 decidedly and actively favourable to amalgamation, 
 are by no means opposed to it. 
 
 * " Let it be the glory of our SONS AND DAUGHTERS," says 
 one of the reports of Anti-Slavery Society, " to have been 
 educated in Seminaries which were open to worthy appli 
 cants, without regard to complexion." 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Character of Prominent Abolitionists Garrison, 
 Tappan, Thompson, &c. General character of 
 the party. 
 
 BUT a few years have elapsed since the com 
 mencement of the abolition movement. It origi 
 nated in a few heated and disturbed minds, and was 
 urged in the face of every obstacle. Wm. Lloyd 
 Garrison, Lundy, and some others, who conceived 
 themselves the chosen instruments of accomplish 
 ing abolition, proclaimed their peculiar doctrines 
 with an ardour, which, if it did not excite respect, 
 at least attracted attention. Garrison, the most 
 talented and rabid of the corps, soon became noto 
 rious. In the fury of his zeal he did not scruple 
 to borrow the aid of fiction; arid, at times, indulged 
 his talent for invective, at the expense of truth, and 
 of the character of respectable citizens. The diffi 
 culties into which this unfortunate propensity 
 plunged him, only excited his ardour anew. The 
 strict confinement and low diet to which the ir- 
 reverend administrators of the law consigned him, 
 did not allay the violence of his zeal. He regarded 
 his misfortune as a partial martyrdom. It certain 
 ly had one advantage it lifted him to an elevation 
 which, like that of the pillory, rendered him the 
 observed of all observers. He renewed his denun 
 ciations with spirit. He raved, and the world laugh- 
 14 
 
159 
 
 ed; but in the end he proved that, so ricketty and un 
 stable a thing is the world, even the efforts of a 
 madman can disturb it. He gained disciples what 
 fanatic ever raved without converts? and soon be 
 came an object of attention to the crack-brained 
 enthusiasts and antiquated ladies of the whole land. 
 The Colonization Society had, by agitating the sub 
 ject, prepared the country for the coming of this 
 second Peter the Hermit; and the crusade preached 
 by him against the institutions of the South, found 
 supporters and advocates. At length, he enlisted a 
 sufficient force in behalf of abolition, to enable him 
 to visit England, and crave foreign influence against 
 the laws and lives of his fellow countrymen. Eng 
 land was herself reeling under the potions of 
 quacks and enthusiasts, and lent a willing ear to the 
 crazed abstractions, wild appeals, and exaggerated 
 statements, of Garrison. He found himself in his 
 element. He preached against his country to ap 
 plauding multitudes; he denounced Washington as 
 a robber, because a slave-holder; characterized the 
 American Constitution as a guilty and blood-stained 
 instrument, because it recognized the domestic laws 
 of the South; and, in short, indulged, to his heart s 
 content, in foul and frothy invective against all that 
 is dear and sacred to Americans. Having suffi 
 ciently blackened his country abroad, he returned 
 to renew his treasonable efforts at home. He was 
 received by the fanatics with rapture; and the work 
 was resumed with fresh ardour. The efforts of 
 these conspirators, at their midnight meetings, 
 where the bubbling cauldron of abolition was filled 
 with its pestilential materials, arid the fire beneath 
 kindled by the breath of the fanatics, has often re 
 minded us of the witch scene in Macbeth. Their 
 chorus is peculiarly in character for the amalgama- 
 tionists. 
 
159 
 
 " Black spirits and white, 
 
 Red spirits and gray, 
 Mingle, mingle, mingle, 
 
 You that mingle may." 
 
 It requires no excited imagination to conceive 
 them gathered in their secret councils, where, at 
 first, a few half-crazed enthusiasts, with a bevy of 
 female fanatics, met to hatch and prepare this pre 
 cious scheme. In such a conclave, assembled for 
 such a purpose, the incantation of the scene referred 
 to, would have been wholly appropriate. 
 
 " For a charm of powerful trouble, 
 Like a hell-broth, boil and bubble. 
 Double, double, toil and trouble, 
 Fire burn and cauldron bubble !" 
 
 In these scenes we may suppose that Garrison, 
 gloomy, wild, and malignant, was the ruling spirit. 
 His religious madness, his vehement cant and vio 
 lence of spirit naturally gained for him the mastery 
 in their councils. Whatever may be the character 
 of his coadjutors, Garrison has, in his whole career, 
 betrayed the worst purposes allied to the worst 
 passions. His writings have been blackened with 
 the vilest slanders, and the most vindictive abuse. 
 Indeed, so vehement, rancorous and fiend-like have 
 been his exhibitions of passion against his oppo 
 nents, that most persons have considered, and do 
 still consider, him insane. It is a probable and 
 certainly a charitable supposition; for if he is to be 
 considered as strictly accountable for his ravings, he 
 must be held in general execration. The following 
 extract from his writings is a specimen of his style, 
 and certainly affords no evidence of the soundness 
 of either his head or his heart. He addresses the 
 slave-holders. The reader will be reminded of the 
 celebrated sermon of Maw-worm. 
 
160 
 
 " Ye crafty calculators! Ye hard-hearted incor 
 rigible sinners! Ye greedy and relentless robbers! 
 Ye contemners of justice and mercy! Ye trembling, 
 pitiful, pale-faced usurpers! My soul spurns you 
 with unspeakable disgust!" 
 
 The style of Garrison is turgid, but often effec 
 tive. His compositions appear intended to operate 
 principally upon the ignorant blacks; and are filled 
 with declamation, denunciation and cant. In abus 
 ing his opponents, he exhibits a frantic and frontless 
 disregard of the decencies of the press. In advo 
 cating his doctrines, he pauses at no difficulty. If 
 good men sanction slavery they are robbers; if 
 the Constitution maintains it it must be crushed; 
 if the Union is an obstacle it must be overthrown. 
 He never writes without raving; he even reasons 
 like a bedlamite; and in his paper, which has great 
 influence over the blacks, he has done much to ex 
 cite a spirit of insubordination and violence. 
 
 Until recently, these outrages were allowed to 
 pass unpunished; but the time has at length arrived 
 when a wronged and insulted people will no longer 
 permit these madmen to tamper with the peace and 
 welfare of our country. The citizens of Boston 
 recently took possession of the person of Garrison, 
 with a view to summary punishment, and were only 
 deterred by compassion, from bestowing on him 
 the honorary ointment and robe which has, time 
 immemorial, been decreed in the East to traitors. 
 He was, however, committed to prison as a pro 
 tection from the just indignation of the people, and 
 in the morning escaped from the city in disguise. 
 
 Perhaps, after Garrison, the noted Arthur Tap- 
 pan solicits the next place in the roll of the aboli 
 tionists. He is a well known and wealthy mer 
 chant of New York, who has become affluent by 
 
161 
 
 the patronage of those whom he is so eager to ex 
 pose to the horrors of a servile insurrection. He 
 is generally described as an amiable, weak, well- 
 meaning man, whose limited portion of intellect 
 has been turned topsy-turvy by religious excite 
 ment He has not sufficient mind to originate, or 
 resist, any religious delusion. He is made the dupe 
 of every fanatic or impostor, who thunders religious 
 denunciations in his ears. New York appears to 
 have been for some years afflicted with a prevailing 
 tendency to fanaticism. Not a fanatic so stupid, 
 but in New York he could find admirers; not an 
 impostor so degraded, but in New York he could 
 enlist followers. Nor has this weakness been con 
 fined to the ignorant alone. Col. Stone s life of 
 Matthias, informs us, that the delusion has ascend 
 ed to the very highest ranks of society; and 
 even Matthias found his dupes and victims among 
 the intelligent and wealthy merchants of New 
 York. Of this class of fanatics, perhaps the most 
 distinguished is the President of A. A. S. Society. 
 The able and fearless editor of the New York 
 Courier and Enquirer, a print that merits the grati 
 tude of every Southron, for its early, consistent and 
 inflexible opposition to the abolitionists, in an article 
 on Fanaticism, holds the following language. 
 
 "Let our fathers of families our upright, ho 
 nest educated, thousands be convinced, and act 
 while there is yet time for action! Let them shut 
 up the doors of their houses, and of their hearts, 
 against all fanatics, for all are evil all are mad ! 
 Whether beginning by advocating the claims, which 
 all good men allow, of temperance, they proceed 
 from step to step, till they reach the mad insanity 
 of stigmatising the Redeemer like the Pharisees 
 of old, as a wine-bibber and a glutton. Whether 
 14* 
 
162 
 
 starting with a society for the suppression of prosti 
 tution, they end by advocating promiscuous inter 
 course and unlimited concubinage! or whether, 
 pretending a zeal for the unhappy negroes, they 
 tread the path that must inevitably lead to discord, 
 and to civil war, with all its kindred horrors of 
 rape, and sack and slaughter. And let them hear 
 this too, those who deem it unconstitutional and un 
 just to crush this reptile in the egg let them hear 
 this! The man who set on foot the madness of 
 Matthias, and the man who is now whetting my 
 riads of swords for civil massacre, from one end to 
 the other of these powerful and peaceful United 
 States, is ONE AND THE SAME! Tappan the founder 
 of the Magdalen Societies of 1832 the causer of 
 McDowalPs infamous publications the original 
 head of that sect whence sprung the followers of 
 Matthias; Tappan the head of the abolition societies 
 of 1835! whither his teachings led in the first in 
 stance, we have seen; whither his teachings now 
 shall lead futurity alone can prove, although it needs 
 no prophet s eye to pierce the secret. 
 
 "0! if that man be virtuous if he have a heart 
 if he have human feeling let him pause. He 
 has seen, he must knoiu the results of that mad 
 zeal, which he then set on foot, although we well 
 believe, he dreamed not of its terrible effects. He 
 has witnessed the guilt of those wretched victims 
 and his own heart, his own conscience if he have 
 a heart, or conscience must tell him that he is in 
 truth the origin of all this ruin. And if it be so 
 if the religious zeal to which he then, piously we 
 will believe and for good purposes, gave its first 
 stimulus, has produced results the most opposite to 
 his intentions; if it has disappointed his wishes, 
 while it has confirmed the opinions all wise men 
 
163 
 
 even then entertained of it, will he not pause, and 
 consider that this cry of abolition, to which he 
 has now piously and for good purposes, given its 
 first stimulus, may in like manner produce results 
 the most opposite to his intentions; may in like 
 manner disappoint his wishes, and confirm the pre 
 sent predictions of all, who are not, like him, blind 
 ed by overweening confidence in their own self- 
 idolizing sanctity." 
 
 It may be doubted, notwithstanding Mr. Tap- 
 pan s fanaticism, whether his piety would have 
 pressed him into so conspicuous a station among 
 the abolitionists, had not another passion pleaded in 
 its favour. Weak men are generally vain. Inca 
 pable of great or useful ambition; they cherish a 
 pruriency for praise, or an anxiety to escape from 
 their natural insignificance, by notoriety of any 
 kind. Even abuse is grateful to them, for it is an 
 acknowledgment of their importance; the praise 
 and censure incurred by Mr. Tappan are acceptable 
 incense to him, and are purchased cheaply by his 
 large contributions to the abolitionists. He finds 
 himself rendered, by his connection with them, " a 
 marvellous proper man," and clings with delight to 
 a cause which has ministered so successfully to the 
 little vanity of a feeble and contracted mind. 
 
 Ourattention is next directed to George Thompson, 
 occasionally dignified with the title of the Reverend 
 George Thompson, and otherwise simply designat 
 ed as George Thompson, Esquire, from England. 
 Who, it will be asked, is this foreigner, and what 
 does he here? The answer will flush every Ameri 
 can cheek with shame and indignation. 
 
 The first knowledge we have of Thompson, is as 
 lecturer in England on Slavery in this country. 
 How he acquired any knowledge of the subject, or 
 how he was interested in it, we are left to conjee- 
 
164 
 
 ture. But we see by the Manchester Times, of 
 August 2, 1834, that Thompson, at a great meeting 
 in that city asserted that a slave-holder in this coun 
 try, possessing five hundred slaves, in addition to 
 his own vote, threw into the ballot box three hun 
 dred more to represent three fifths of his property. 
 His geography appears to have been equal to his 
 other accomplishments, as he gravely informed that 
 intelligent audience, that the United States "consist 
 ed of twenty-four states exclusive of three small 
 Districts called Columbia," and detailed the manner 
 in which "slaves were smuggled up the rivers of 
 that territory for the purpose of supplying the mar 
 kets!" But plain misrepresentation constitutes but 
 a slight portion of his claims to our regard. The 
 burthen of his song in England was abuse of this 
 country.* Among other matters he stated, upon 
 
 * The following is a copy of a letter, from a highly re 
 spectable gentleman in Manchester, England, and was origi 
 nally published in the New York Courier and Enquirer. 
 
 " Manchester July 29, 1834. 
 
 Dear Sir: My object in writing at the present time is to 
 inform you that a vile Fanatic by the name of THOMPSON, is 
 about to visit the United States, under the patronage of (as 
 I am informed) Mr. Arthur Tappan, and a few men of that 
 clique. 
 
 Mr. Thompson gave a lecture last evening upon the sub 
 ject of slavery in America, during which he took occasion to 
 SLANDER the country MOST VILELY, and told many false 
 hoods too gross to be repeated. Mr. B. W. Richards, (the late 
 respected Mayor of Philadelphia,) was present, and told me 
 this day that he was upon the point of getting up and telling 
 him his statements were false, but was only restrained from 
 so doing by being a stranger in a strange land. My only 
 object in writing you is to inform you and the intelligent 
 readers of your paper, that Mr. Thompson embarks in the 
 ship United States, (the packet of the 8th August) and put 
 them on their guard against his proceedings. 1 am as much 
 
165 
 
 one occasion, that female slaves were publicly sold by 
 weight in this country; and scrupled not to make 
 the institutions of the United States the subject of 
 the most vehement abuse. So much for his public 
 character. It may now be well to inquire into the 
 private standing of this, favourite and foreign malig- 
 ner of our people and institutions. The individual 
 who has the presumption to land upon our shores, 
 and go from city to city to denounce our people 
 and laws, should be immaculate himself elevated so 
 far above ordinary humanity, as to be worthy to re 
 buke even the most exalted of his fellow beings. 
 What are the facts? From rumours afloat, in rela 
 tion to his former character, it was considered ne 
 cessary to make some inquiries in his native coun 
 try. The following paragraph, extracted from a 
 respectable daily journal of Philadelphia, will ex 
 hibit the result of this investigation. 
 
 "SERIOUS CHARGE. The Editor of the New 
 York Commercial Advertiser, says that he is au 
 thorized to state that the proofs of Mr. George 
 Thompson s embezzlement of moneys from Messrs. 
 Marshal & Dale, of London, for which he was dis 
 missed from their employ, and but for their forbear 
 ance would have been sent on a mission to Botany 
 Bay, as also the proofs of his expulsion from the 
 literary and scientific institutions. &c., have arrived, 
 and may be seen in the hands of James Jarret, Esq. 
 They are in the shape of affidavits, taken before 
 Thomas Aspinwall, Esq. U. S. consul for the city 
 of London." 
 
 From this it appears, that the man who has arro- 
 
 opposed to slavery as Mr. Thompson or any other person can 
 be, yet I am not willing that he or any other foreigner should 
 interfere in our concerns at all. Very respectfully, Your 
 obedient servant." 
 
166 
 
 gantly presumed to stand upon our own soil and 
 malign the people and institutions of our country, is 
 a vagabond, an outcast, a felon, one who owes his 
 exemption from the most infamous penalty of the 
 English laws, not to his innocence, out to the for 
 bearance of those from whom he embezzled money! 
 How, it will be asked, did Thompson assume his 
 present prominent position in relation to the aboli 
 tion movement? When Garrison was in England, 
 an arrangement was made with individuals in that 
 country, to obtain for their designs English co-ope 
 ration. It will be seen hereafter, that English 
 funds and English influence are at work to disturb 
 and distract this country. Thompson was considered 
 a suitable agent for such a design. Fluent, decla 
 matory, impudent, and unscrupulous, he was pecu 
 liarly qualified for the task of fomenting discord 
 among our citizens, and insurrection among the 
 slaves. He was, therefore, chosen as agent by a 
 British society, and sent over for the express and ex 
 clusive purpose of agitating this country on the sub 
 ject of slavery. 
 
 On his arrival, he was received with open arms, 
 and caressed and honoured by Tappan, Garrison, 
 Cox, and their brethren. He immediately com 
 menced operations; and has already traversed a 
 large portion of the North, preaching opposition 
 to the existing institutions of our country. 
 
 Such are the singular facts connected with the 
 public mission of this man. A wretch who has 
 been guilty of an infamous offence, and is prepared 
 for any act, is selected, appointed, and paid by a 
 British society for what? To visit our country 
 in a capacity worse than that of the spy, to foment 
 discord among our people, array brother against 
 brother, and father against son; to excite treasonable 
 opposition to our government; to preach hatred and 
 
167 
 
 hostility against our sacred Union; to excite our 
 slave population to rise and butcher their masters; 
 to render the South a desert, and the country at 
 large the scene of fraternal war, weakness, suffering 
 and crime. Such is his errand hither. Can the 
 memory of the reader furnish him with an instance 
 of more flagrant violation of the rights of an inde 
 pendent nation of more open, gross, and insulting 
 outrage on national intelligence, spirit, and honor? 
 England has wronged us heretofore but it was as 
 an open foe; and as an open and honourable foe was 
 she met and chastised. But the amount of former 
 wrongs^-even those which have reddened land and 
 sea with the blood of our people is trifling com 
 pared with the injuries contemplated in this inter 
 ference. Mr. Buckingham, a member of the Eng 
 lish parliament, lately asserted at a public meeting 
 " The greater proportion of the people of England 
 DEMAND not merely emancipation, but the im 
 mediate emancipation of the slaves, in whatever 
 quarter of the world they may be found" Mr. 
 Thompson is the bearer of these DEMANDS! 
 Daniel O Connell, shortly before the passage of the 
 English act of abolition, declared in public: "The 
 West Indies will be obliged to grant emancipation, 
 and then WE WILL TURN TO AMERICA, and RE 
 QUIRE emancipation." It is now REQUIRED 
 by Mr. Thompson, the British agent! The cala 
 mities which may ensue from these movements are 
 anticipated with pleasure, rather than regret. The 
 insurrection of our slaves, and the agony and horror 
 which must ensue the distraction of the American 
 people, the dissolution of the American Union, the 
 degradation of the American name these are the 
 aim and end of British philanthropy. In what spirit 
 has this hostile and contemptuous interference been 
 
168 
 
 received? How would a similar wrong have been 
 received by England? Should we send emissaries 
 into hapless Ireland to excite rebellion and war, 
 how would they be treated? They would be con 
 signed to the keeping of the gibbet. Had a foreign 
 power sent an agent into this country, in the early 
 days of the republic, to foment insurrection and dis 
 cord, how would our fathers have received him? 
 They would have regarded him as too offensive for 
 indifference, yet too contemptible for serious resent 
 ment, and would have conferred upon him the ho 
 nours of " a balmage of humble tar, and a hierogly 
 phic of feathers." Hoiv have their descendants 
 received Thompson? They have followed him by 
 thousands; listened, in silence, while the pensioned 
 felon of a foreign people maligned all that is illus 
 trious in our annals, cast reproach and shame upon 
 our country and her institutions, and called upon our 
 people to rise and trample upon the rights of their 
 brethren, the legacy of our common parentage, the 
 charter of our common country. To what must we 
 ascribe this unworthy conduct upon the part of a 
 portion of our people? To a respect for the foreign 
 agent to a traitor spirit which delights in the dis 
 grace of our own land or to that weakness which, 
 with undistinguishing credulity, receives and reve 
 rences all that comes from those who wear " the 
 livery of heaven," no matter for what purpose assum 
 ed, and use the cant and slang of hypocrisy, however 
 destitute of all real claims to confidence or respect? 
 We will not enter further into an account of the 
 leaders of the abolition conspiracy. It is unneces 
 sary to describe the Reverend Dr. Beman of Troy, 
 one of the most noisy and violent of the canting 
 supporters of abolition, who first sold out his 
 slaves, and then denounced those "who sell the 
 
169 
 
 image of Jesus."* It is equally unnecessary to 
 refer particularly to the Rev. Dr. Cox, who pro- 
 
 * The following is an extract from one of the abolition 
 speeches of Dr. Beman. 
 
 " But, I have heard of another remedy : Just leave that 
 question to the slave states. What have we of the North to 
 do with slavery 1 ? But, here is ground for caution. Have 
 not we at the North our share in the government of the Dis 
 trict of Columbia] Do we not in fact govern it. Yet that 
 district is the central mart of the traffic in human flesh. Yes, 
 sir, we at the North do govern slave shambles. Our hands 
 art not quite so clean as we have supposed. 
 
 ** My Southern brethren never heard me slander them. I 
 am candid on this subject. Often do we hear it said, * What 
 do Northern people know about slavery V Sir, I am not a 
 stranger to slavery. I have resided eleven years at the South, 
 and three or four winters into the bargain; and I know some 
 thing about it. It is an immense evil. I can go, chapter 
 and verse, with the able document that has just been read. 
 It is even so the very picture of slavery. Are our Southern 
 brethren infallible 1 They are very kind-hearted brethren: 
 yet some of them SELL THE IMAGE OF JESUS IN 
 THEIR SLAVES ! Are they competent judges in the case? 
 The wise man says, * A gift blindeth the eyes. THEY 
 JUDGE WITH THE PRICE OF HUMAN FLESH IN 
 THEIR HANDS !" 
 
 The following is a copy of a Bill of sale executed by this 
 same Reverend and consistent champion of abolition. 
 
 State of Georgia, 7 
 
 Hancock county. 5 Know all men by these presents, that 
 I, Nathan S. S. Beman, of the county and State aforesaid, 
 have this day bargained and sold to Jacob Wilcox of Savan 
 nah, of the said state, THREE NEGRO SLAVES, viz. 
 Cloe, a negro woman, about thirty-four years of age, her son 
 George, four years of age, and her daughter Cuyline, an in 
 fant, for and in consideration of the sum of SEVEN HUN 
 DRED DOLLARS, to me in hand paid, the receipt and 
 payment of which sum in full are hereby acknowledged : and 
 I, the said Nathan S. S. Beman, do agree to warrant and de 
 fend the right of the aforesaid negroes to him, the said Jacob 
 Wilcox, his heirs and assigns, forever, against all claims 
 whatever. 
 15 
 
170 
 
 nounced Jesus Christ a coloured man; or to Mr. 
 Thome who said -" The slave States are Sodoms 
 and almost every village family a brothel. 7 Or to 
 the Reverend Mr. May, who preaches that the Con 
 stitution ought to be violated if counter to what he 
 considers the will of Heaven; or to scores of others, 
 whose violence and extravagance have excited, in 
 every reasonable citizen, sentiments of alarm and 
 disgust. 
 
 The abolition party comprises an unusual num 
 ber of fervent champions men accustomed to 
 speaking and writing, and possessed of influence 
 and resources to sustain their views. They are 
 ardent, active, and united. Many are actuated by 
 honest fanaticism; others are impelled by a sinister 
 ambition, by hatred of the South, or by a natural 
 proneness, " to make trouble." They are perse 
 vering, courageous where no physical danger exists, 
 and determined, as will be seen hereafter, to urge 
 their scheme to the greatest lengths. Opposition 
 has naturally increased their zeal, until in the 
 warmth of their sympathy for the negroes, they 
 have, in many cases, actually imbibed a prejudice 
 against their own colour. It must not be supposed 
 that their support of their Quixotical plan of eman 
 cipation is a proof of benevolence or love of free 
 dom. A knowledge of the character of the aboli 
 tionists will dissipate any such opinion. They have 
 
 In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and affix 
 ed my seal, this llth day of April, 1822. 
 
 NATHAN S. S. BEMAN. [L. s.] 
 Signed, sealed and delivered 
 
 in presence of 
 Leavitt Thaxter, 
 Wm. Greene Macon, 1. I. C.J 
 
 Registered the 15th June, 1822. 
 
 PHIL. L. SIMMS, Clerk Sup r. Court. 
 
171 
 
 taken up the cause from various motives, and now 
 maintain it from a love of contest and of notoriety, 
 and from that hair-brained heat and invincible ob 
 stinacy that characterize fanatical warfare. Marat, 
 Robespierre, and the monsters of the French reign 
 of terror, were among the first and most devoted 
 champions of abolition; but it may be doubted 
 whether they cherished a real love of liberty or of 
 man. Enthusiasts are as often evil as good; and 
 when a cause like abolition is maintained in the 
 face of an affrighted and afflicted country, and 
 against the remonstrances and prayers of the best 
 men in the land, the fire that warms the hearts of 
 its frantic, angry, and head-strong champions, is sel 
 dom caught from the altars of the Most High. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Policy of Abolitionists Agitation in the North 
 in the South with the, slave-holders with 
 Slaves Fanaticism Female Influence Or 
 ganization Agents Publications Political 
 Influence Revolution Disunion Insurrec 
 tion. 
 
 THE great engine by which the abolitionists ex 
 pect to effect their designs, is agitation not reason 
 not argument not candid appeals to the patriot 
 ism and common sense of our people but agitation 
 of popular prejudices and passions. Their first effort 
 is to raise a party in the North. They admit, for 
 they cannot deny, that the North can, under the 
 present constitution, have no control over the insti 
 tutions of the South. Why then agitate it? Why 
 seek to excite in the North feelings of aversion and 
 hostility against the South? No good motive can 
 prompt a course so indirect and unnecessary. This 
 policy is pursued for the purpose of perverting the 
 sentiments and feelings of the North, souring its 
 affection for the South, cooling its attachment to the 
 Union, and urging it into a course designed to force 
 the South into emancipation. The North also offers 
 a field peculiarly favourable to their designs. Here 
 they do not dread the penalty of the violated law. 
 Here they do not apprehend the fiery indignation 
 of a people whose lives are endangered by their 
 reckless agitation. Here, too, they find a popula 
 tion generally ignorant of the nature and necessity 
 
173 
 
 of negro slavery at the South, and prepared, by pre 
 vious prejudices, to listen to the dangerous counsels 
 of those who oppose it. But, perhaps, a still greater 
 inducement for making the North the present scene 
 of their labours is, that it presents a secure position 
 from which to operate on the South. Here they 
 may safely plant the lever by which they hope to 
 overthrow the institutions of the slave-holding states. 
 Here they may mix and prepare their poisons; may 
 arrange their magazine of incendiary weapons; and 
 send forth their publications through the South, on 
 their errand of insurrection and death. They are 
 heroic men, but not sufficiently heroic to perpe 
 trate their offences in person. They are philan 
 thropic, but dare not visit the slaves and minister 
 to their alleged wants upon the spot. They are 
 determined to " war until death with the tyrants 
 of the South," but it is no part of their philosophy 
 to meet their foe in the face of day; they war with 
 poison, or in the dark. They are vastly pious, they 
 quote scripture with peculiar unction, and repeat 
 incessantly the divine command " GO unto all na 
 tions." But they take the liberty of modifying the 
 command, and read it, " SEND unto all nations." 
 
 The apostles did " GO," even with the prospect 
 of certain death before them: the abolitionists are 
 so much more holy than the apostles, that they can 
 not sanction what they did not scruple to approve 
 and sustain domestic slavery but, with all their 
 marvellous sanctity and heroic courage, for some 
 reason hitherto unexplained, they have not yet ven 
 tured to " GO." 
 
 In attempting to operate on the South, they tell 
 us that their object is to waken the conscience of the 
 slave-holder. How they can expect, by endanger 
 ing the life of the slave-holder, and the security of 
 his family, by exciting his indignation and fears, 
 15* 
 
174 
 
 and irritating him to madness, to gain his confidence 
 and sway his convictions, it is impossible for us to 
 imagine. That they have not succeeded thus far, 
 will be admitted. Had they really desired or de 
 signed to operate favourably on the feelings or opin 
 ions of the slave-holder, would they not, after so 
 complete a failure, have abandoned or changed their 
 plan? 
 
 Their operations are prosecuted through the me 
 dium of the post-office. They thus avoid expense, 
 and make the nation pay for the transportation of 
 their incendiary pamphlets. The arteries of the 
 body politic are thus made to disseminate those 
 poisons which are designed to destroy it. The 
 propriety of such a course has never been doubted 
 by the abolitionists honesty being a virtue alto 
 gether beneath the consideration of such exalted 
 philanthropists. The circulation of such publica 
 tions throughout many of the states of the South is 
 a capital offence. They, conscientious men, do not 
 violate the laws in person; but throw the offence 
 upon the unconscious carrier of the mail. This 
 might disturb the ethics of some people, but the 
 violation of law is, with the fanatics, a praiseworthy 
 act, where the motives of the offender are so pure 
 and lofty. The publications are generally directed 
 "to the clergyman" of the post-office town, or to 
 the post-master. The number of individuals to 
 whom it is directed by name is very limited. 
 
 The real object of transmitting these publications 
 to the South is, that they may reach the slave. No 
 one who has read their publications, particularly 
 those designed for the South, can for a moment sup 
 pose that they are intended or expected to operate 
 on intelligent or educated men. They are designed 
 for the ignorant slaves. The box of anti-slavery 
 publications intercepted on its way to the South, 
 
175 
 
 and destroyed at Philadelphia, contained a large 
 number of handkerchiefs, with inflammatory de 
 vices. Were these intended for the master? It 
 contained also books, with representations of slaves 
 in chains, suffering under the lash. These, also, we 
 are to believe, were designed for the intelligent 
 planters of the South. The fact that they were not 
 directed to the slaves, is immaterial. They could 
 not have been so directed, with a possibility of 
 reaching their destination. They were sent in the 
 only manner in which they could reach the slave. 
 The mails were swelled with them the whole 
 South was flooded with them. They were scat 
 tered broad-cast, and overspread the South as a 
 pestilence. How is it possible that the slave could 
 escape them? It was not intended that he should. 
 They were written for him, printed for him were 
 suited only to his capacity, were forwarded for his 
 use, and were intended, as will be seen hereafter, to 
 excite him to a forcible assertion of his freedom. 
 
 In referring to the means used by the abolitionists 
 to effect their design of popular agitation, we must 
 not omit their constant recourse to religious cant. 
 They appeal, for the most part, to fanatical weak 
 ness. They do not presume to urge abolition as 
 patriots, philosophers, or political economists: they 
 press it almost exclusively on religious grounds, in 
 religious phraseology, and to religious men. Their 
 policy, in this particular, manifests a deep insight 
 into human nature, particularly in this country, and 
 is the great cause of their past success. 
 
 The following passages, hastily extracted from 
 an abolition paper lying before us, exhibit the 
 manner in which their cause is urged. 
 
 " 1st. Resolved, (at one of the abolition meet 
 ings,) That slave-holding being totally at variance 
 with Christianity, its toleration in Christian churches 
 
176 
 
 is in effect saying, that righteousness hath fellow 
 ship with unrighteousness that light hath com 
 munion with darkness that Christ hath concord 
 with Belial. 
 
 2d. Resolved, that the toleration of slave-holding 
 in the church must prove fatal to vital piety. 
 
 3d. Resolved, That slave-holding is incompatible 
 with church fellowship." 
 
 " For success in this sacred enterprize, we cease 
 from man, and look to God alone. In him is ever 
 lasting strength with him the residue of the Spirit 
 and plenteous redemption. His word has gone out 
 of his mouth: < For the oppression of the poor, and 
 for the sighing of the needy, now will I rise, saith 
 the Lord; I will set him in safety from him that 
 puffeth at him. His wisdom is our guide, his 
 power our defence, his truth our weapon, his Spirit 
 our comforter, his promise the anchor of our souls, 
 his approval our exceeding great reward, and his 
 blessing upon our past labors, a sure presage of the 
 glory to be revealed in the triumphs of a redemp 
 tion which already draweth nigh. Solemnly con 
 secrated to the cause of EMANCIPATION, IMMEDIATE 
 TOTAL AND UNIVERSAL, we subscribe our names to 
 this Declaration." Ohio Convention. 
 
 Extract from the Speech of the Rev. Mr. <Aikin. 
 " The responsibilities of ministers were indeed 
 momentous momentous as two and a half millions 
 of human beings were valuable momentous as 
 heaven was important, and hell awful momentous 
 as the worth of the soul. Almost every thing in 
 relation to this cause depended upon the ministers 
 of Christ. It was so in England; little was done 
 there until ministers were enlisted in the work. 
 While Clarkson was sending out his thrilling ap 
 peals, and Wilberforce was lifting up his solitary 
 
177 
 
 note of warning in Parliament, the ministers of the 
 gospel were holding back. It was ( a delicate sub 
 ject, had political bearings, &c. and nothing 
 was done, until God in his providence, compelled 
 his ministers to take up the subject Then the work 
 went on at such a rate, that it took four men to 
 carry the petitions which came in from all parts of 
 the kingdom. Then Parliament began to act. And 
 he despaired of ever seeing the great work accom 
 plished in our own country, until the ministers of 
 the gospel came up to it like men, with united ef 
 fort and unflinching nerve." Emancipator. 
 
 " Yes, it is written in the decrees of high heaven, 
 that the injured slave shall finally be for ever free. 
 And the church must take the lead in this great 
 work. It has taken the lead in my own country. 
 If legislatures do not look after it, this will not ex 
 cuse the church, for deliverance must come out of 
 Zion." Speech of Rev. Mr. Cox, English Moli- 
 tion Emissary. 
 
 " The cry of the oppressed of the millions who 
 have perished among us as the brute perisheth, shut 
 out from the glad tidings of salvation, has gone 
 there before us, to Him who as a father pitieth all 
 his children. Their blood is upon us as a nation; 
 woe unto us, if we repent not, as a nation, in dust 
 and ashes. Woe unto us if we say in our hearts, 
 The Lord shall not see, neither shall the God of 
 Jacob regard it. He that planted the ear, shall he 
 not hear? He who formed the eye, shall He not 
 see? " JLnti- Slavery Reporter. 
 
 The time is hastening on when SLAVERY, in all 
 its forms, must come to an end; for the mouth of 
 the Lord has spoken it." Observer. 
 
 " PRAYER AND ACTION GO TOGETHER. A friend 
 in Utica, writes us as follows: 
 
 " Our friends in this region are becoming more 
 
178 
 
 prayerful and earnest in behalf of the oppressed 
 colored man. Our friends Boardman, Pettibone, 
 (of Evan s Mills, Jefferson co.) and Waters, at the 
 monthly concert of Monday evening, took hold, by 
 prayer and addresses, with a Christian and strong 
 hand, of the glorious cause of emancipation/ 
 Emancipator. 
 
 " O, Heaven! 0, thou Great Eternal, is this jus 
 tice! is this equity!! Equal rights! Save, thou 
 Great Eternal, save our country from the practice 
 of such equal rights!!" Human Rights. 
 
 " We appeal to you as Christians, as servants of 
 the Most High God, as bearing his image, as repre 
 sentatives of his character, as imitators of all his 
 imitable perfections. 
 
 " Dear brethren, will you consent to the continu 
 ance of this iniquitous and impolitic system? Will 
 you allow to continue a bondage, more terrible in 
 its moral and physical effects than the slavery of 
 Egypt, the cry of which ascended unto heaven, and 
 brought down in terrible abundance the curses of 
 Omnipotence! Will you still support a system, 
 (which you do, so long as you do not remonstrate 
 against it) which, trampling the badge of Christian 
 discipleship under its unhallowed feet, acts in dar 
 ing violation of the great precept of its founder, 
 4 Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto 
 you, do ye even so to them; can you with any con 
 sistency ask a blessing for the diffusion of Christian 
 knowledge whilst your own hands are tainted with 
 the plague-spots of slavery, and whilst the accusing 
 voice of our whole church, whispers in their ears 
 * Cast out the beam out of thine own eye, &c. " 
 Address of the Episcopal Church of Ohio. 
 
 In this, as in every thing else, the abolitionists do 
 not hesitate to go to the greatest extremes. While 
 they denounce against slavery, and against the land 
 
179 
 
 on its account, the most direful judgments; while 
 they consign the slave-holder and all who counte 
 nance him to certain damnation; while they call 
 upon every Christian, to come forth and aid in the 
 prostration of Slavery they do not shrink from 
 the practical application of their principles, and re 
 fuse all Christian communion with those who sanc 
 tion what God has sanctioned what the laws have 
 sanctioned what good men in all ages have not 
 hesitated to sanction domestic slavery. This bold 
 and daring step by which every man is subjected to 
 religious proscription, who is not willing to become 
 virtually a traitor, and join in conspiring against his 
 country and his race, while it excites the indigna 
 tion of the just, appals the weak, and has, when 
 joined with their cant, hypocrisy and fanaticism, 
 added greatly to the religious power previously en 
 listed beneath their banner. This success encourages 
 them to a more ostentatious exhibition of fanatical 
 fervor. Their columns are almost nasal with cant; 
 and it might be supposed, from the aspect of their 
 publications, that the days of Cromwell were re 
 vived, and that his fanatical followers, heated into 
 tenfold fury, were abroad in the land. 
 
 It is not however merely to religious feelings that 
 they appeal. They publish statements of the con 
 dition of the slaves in the South, made up, either of 
 utter falsehoods, or of artful exaggerations, and calcu 
 lated to excite the deepest sympathy in their behalf. 
 Particular narratives, embodying fictitious cases of 
 unnatural oppression, are extensively circulated; and 
 poetical and pictorial representations are added to 
 complete the sinister appeal. It is unnecessary to 
 state that in all this the boldest falsehood is freely 
 pressed into service. Representations of an equally 
 moving character, and of equal truth, might be 
 made up of the cases of parental cruelty, or the 
 
180 
 
 barbarity of masters to apprentices, in the North 
 ern, or any other section of our, or any other coun 
 try. 
 
 The abolitionists, as another auxiliary in the at 
 tainment of their ends, have succeeded in enlisting 
 female societies in their support. They sew for the 
 cause; collect money for it; and render it all the 
 aid which extraordinary zeal, combined with activi 
 ty and leisure, can yield. When the most pro 
 found intellects in our country regard this exciting 
 and momentous subject with awe, we cannot, with 
 out regret, see ladies rushing boldly into it. They 
 forget that it is a political subject of the most im 
 portant character: and, easily led away by the re 
 ligious appeals of the abolitionists and the gentle 
 and generous, but in this case misguided, promptings 
 of their own nature, they unreflectingly lend their 
 aid to designs, the tendency and consequence of 
 which they are incapable of understanding. Poli 
 tics is not the sphere in which the sex is either use 
 ful or honored; and their interference with subjects 
 of this character, if sufficiently important to have 
 any influence, must have an evil one. It is pecu 
 liarly to be regretted, that the false eloquence of the 
 abolition preachers could ever have attained such in 
 fluence over them, as to render them forgetful of the 
 situation of their fair and gentle sisters of the South. 
 Have they studied the history of St. Domingo; and 
 are they prepared to let loose upon the refined and 
 innocent ladies of the South, the savage negro, inca 
 pable of restraint, and wild with ungovernable pas 
 sions? Are they aware of the present apprehen 
 sions of the females of the slave-holding states; 
 and are they willing to add another to the fears that 
 now haunt their pillows? It is impossible that fana 
 ticism can so far have perverted their sympathies, 
 or steeled the holier charities of their nature. 
 
181 
 
 The possibility of insurrection and the negroes 
 saturnalia of blood and lust, should appal every 
 female bosom, and deter them from a scheme of be 
 nevolence so dubious in its character, and so fearful 
 in its consequences.* 
 
 But the eager fanatics have even sought to draw 
 children into their ranks. For this purpose, they 
 have encouraged the formation of children s Aboli 
 tion Societies. They have also published abolition 
 magazines and periodicals for children, filled with 
 
 * We marvel that the abstractions of the abolitionists con 
 cerning the rights of man, have never suggested to their 
 female disciples, the propriety of asserting the rights of wo 
 men. The same abstract reasoning will sustain both. "All 
 men are created free and equal ;" and why not, pray, all 
 women 1 ? Why are they debarred the right of voting, the 
 right of legislating, the right of holding office 1 Why are 
 they made the dependants and slaves of the " lords of crea 
 tion" their civil existence, and even their name being for 
 feited by matrimony 1 Is this just dealing, in a free country 1 
 These positions are by no means novel. They have been 
 seriously urged, as will be seen by the following extract 
 from the Free Enquirer: " Are not all women endowed 
 with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty 
 arid the pursuit of happiness? Are not governments (both 
 matrimonial and legal) instituted among men to secure these 
 rights V Do not marriages, as well as governments, * derive 
 their just power from the consent of the contracting parties ? 
 4 Whenever any marriage (be it of a king to his subjects, or 
 a husband to his wife) becomes destructive of these ends, 
 is it not right that it should be dissolved ?" These views 
 have not been left to theory. The French revolutionists, 
 from whom the fanatics derive their notions of abolition, 
 directly undertook to assert the rights of women. The 
 French legislature took up this subject in 1789. " Succeed 
 ing Assemblies," says Burke in his Regicide Peace, " went 
 the full length of the principle, and gave a license to divorce 
 at the mere pleasure of either party, and at one month s 
 notice." The reason alleged was " that women had been 
 too long under the tyranny of parents and husbands." To 
 euch lengths will these abstractionists carry their insane teal. 
 16 
 
182 
 
 pictures, calculated to operate on the uninformed 
 and youthful mind. Handkerchiefs, with matter of 
 the same character, are printed and distributed. A 
 double object is thus attained whilst these books 
 and handkerchiefs are adapted to their ostensible 
 purpose, they are found equally suited to excite the 
 ignorant slave. We will not now pause to com 
 ment on that party-spirit, which scruples not to en 
 list, in opposition to the established institutions of 
 the country, the aid of women and children. Those 
 who seek thus to carry a polical measure, can have 
 but little confidence in their claims to the support 
 of prudent and reasoning men. 
 
 The organization of the party is effective. It con 
 sists of the general society, and those which have 
 been subsequently formed for the advancement of the 
 cause. The latter are divided into state and county 
 societies. They have already held several conven 
 tions. In these conventions blacks and whites are 
 mingled indiscriminately. 
 
 The more direct means, by which the abolitionists 
 operate on the popular mind, are their emissaries and 
 agents, and their publications and pictures. Their 
 agents are generally clergymen. They traverse the 
 North, preaching sermons in support of abolition; 
 and when they can muster courage, enter the South 
 and skulk among the slaves, for the alleged pur 
 pose of preaching the Gospel, but in reality to excite 
 discontent and opposition. The reader is aware, 
 that several of these emissaries have been detected 
 in the South; and that justice has been meted out to 
 them according to their deserts. One was recently 
 detected in the vicinity of Nashville, scattering in 
 surrectionary prints and devices, under the pretence 
 of distributing the cottage bible. A number of these 
 agents are engaged in travelling through the South, 
 and writing letters, filled with the most revolting 
 
183 
 
 falsehoods in relation to the condition and treatment 
 of the slaves. 
 
 The most powerful instrument of mischief in the 
 hands of the abolitionists is the press. A number 
 of books, magazines, tracts, and newspapers are pub 
 lished and distributed gratuitously through all sec 
 tions of the Union. These publications are made 
 up with skill and effect; and embody every thing in 
 the shape of false statements, hollow declamation, 
 and religious cant, which, it is supposed, can mis 
 lead or excite the unthinking. 
 
 In the accomplishment of their aims, the abolition 
 ists do not scruple to resort to every measure calcu 
 lated to influence the result. They may be already 
 regarded as a political party. It is true, that they 
 have not, thus far, nominated candidates, and for 
 mally entered the political arena. But they have, 
 in those communities, where their strength warrants 
 it, procured lists of those opposed to them, and op 
 pose and proscribe them in political life, whenever 
 an opportunity is afforded. Their complete union, 
 and the secrecy of their operations, render them 
 even now important; and should their future pro 
 gress in the North equal that of the last two years, 
 they will be enabled to raise their banner before the 
 world. In the attitude of political partizans they 
 cannot, with their zeal, resources, ability, and 
 successful recourse to electioneering and religious 
 cant and slang fail to attain a dangerous influence 
 and power. 
 
 We have before said, that the abolitionists regard 
 nothing as sacred which intervenes between them 
 and their object. If they can pervert the present 
 government into an instrument of agitation, and 
 succeed in their designs upon the South, they will, 
 of course, be satisfied. But should they fail in this, 
 
184 
 
 should they find the constitution of the Union an 
 ^Ggis for the South, which their efforts are inade 
 quate to shatter they will not pause nor hesitate 
 to change it. They have, indeed, in some of their do 
 cuments avowed their disapproval of the provisions 
 of the present constitution, and their determination to 
 advocate such a change as will leave the South open 
 to national legislation on the question of slavery. 
 This change has been mostly advocated as a peace 
 ful measure. Should the proposed reform however 
 fail, they are prepared to make open war upon the 
 constitution, and preach revolution. They have al 
 ready made several direct advances to this position; 
 not insidiously and with fear, but openly and before 
 all the world. They preach that no law or consti 
 tution can be binding which is opposed to the will 
 of heaven; and as they denounce slavery as a sin, 
 the inference is plain, that our constitution, which 
 sanctions it, has no binding force. 
 
 It is scarce credible that, in this happy country, 
 men can be found willing to avow their treasonable 
 hostility to our sacred government; yet such is the 
 fact, as will be seen by the following extracts: 
 
 " Suppose the constitution did sanction slavery? 
 What then? While there is a God in heaven, CAN 
 WE BE BOUND by any compacts of our own, or 
 ANY ENACTMENTS of our fellow worms, to 
 sin against him?" Speech of the Rev. Mr. May-, 
 one of the leading champions of abolition. 
 
 The following passages are from the " Declaration 
 of the Anti-Slavery Convention;" and may be re 
 garded as the solemn and official expression of the 
 fixed principles of the party. 
 
 " The guilt of this nation is unequalled by any 
 other on the face of the earth. 
 
 " Every American citizen who retains a human 
 
185 
 
 being in involuntary bondage, is (according to scrip 
 ture) a man stealer.* 
 
 " Jill those laws which are now in force, ad 
 mitting the right of slavery, are, before God, 
 NULL AND VOID." 
 
 This, it must be admitted, is distinct and intelli 
 gible enough. 
 
 If the South could be given up to the slaves, and 
 the Union still preserved, the abolitionists would 
 probably be content. But we have every evidence 
 of their determination, that the Union, with its pre 
 sent institutions, shall not continue. Their whole 
 policy betrays this sentiment. Their violation of the 
 rights of the South; their efforts to irritate the peo 
 ple of the slave-holding states into acts of hostility 
 against the Union; their anxiety to agitate the dis 
 tracting subject of slavery in the United States 
 Districts, and their thousand different schemes of 
 incendiarism and agitation, evidence, not an in 
 difference to the Union but a fixed and stern de 
 termination to overthrow it. 
 
 We have not been left to infer the existence of 
 this disposition from their course; they have directly 
 avowed it. The Human Rights, a paper published 
 by the A. S. Society, says 
 
 " Abolitionists are probably as fond of the Union 
 as slave-holders ; BUT NOT OF A UNION TO OPPRESS 
 THE POOR. If this Union is severed, slavery will 
 be to blame for it." 
 
 This declaration is only one of innumerable ex 
 pressions of a like character. It cannot be doubted 
 that the abolitionists, instead of feeling disposed to 
 
 * If there be any such declaration in Scripture, in relation 
 to "American citizens," or any other citizens, we have been 
 unable to discover it. We have already shown that the 
 scripture sanction of slavery is ample and distinct. 
 
186 
 
 abandon their schemes, because dangerous to the 
 Union, are opposed to the Union from prejudice and 
 feeling, and determined, if possible, to overthrow it, 
 as the great obstacle in the way of accomplishing 
 their own mad designs. 
 
 The abolitionists have disclaimed a desire to ex 
 cite insurrection among the slaves. If a man should 
 thrust a lighted torch into a powder magazine, he 
 would find it difficult to convince the world that he 
 did not design to produce an explosion. The aboli 
 tionists studiously pursue a course which they know 
 must have a tendency to excite insurrection; a course 
 for which we can assign no other rational object 
 and yet assure us that it is innocent. Their Southern 
 emissaries, their inflammatory papers, and their still 
 more inflammatory devices, are all intended for the 
 slave-holder ! Such assertions exhibit a degree of 
 bold presumption, of brassy assurance, for which it 
 would be difficult to find a parallel. While they 
 pronounce the restraints of the law upon the slave 
 " null and void," while they own that their love 
 of union does not extend to the present union, which 
 " oppresses the poor" while their professed prin 
 ciples and acknowledged practice all join to prove 
 that servile insurrection, instead of being inconsis 
 tent with their sentiments or feelings, is a part of 
 their policy while all this stands manifest before 
 us, we canot but marvel at the boldness which dares 
 to deny their desire to see the slaves rise upon their 
 masters, and assert their freedom at the point of the 
 sword. Let the following extracts from their official 
 publications speak for them on this subject: 
 
 " How long can the smiles of Heaven rest on a 
 people who boldly and shamelessly avow their de 
 termination at all hazards to uphold the most foul 
 and crushing system of tyranny that ever disgraced 
 this tyrant-trodden world? But hush ! we must not 
 
187 
 
 speak of tyranny, lest the word should penetrate the 
 sealed ear of the bondman ! Mark the reason aye, 
 MARK THE REASON. It is not because your charge 
 is FALSE but because your words may arouse the 
 victim. Heavens! is there in free America a class 
 so basely, cruelly trampled in the mire, that their 
 ears must never be saluted with a word of sympathy, 
 that their rights must never be called in remem 
 brance, lest they should be goaded to uncontrollable 
 and murderous vengeance? IF SO, WE SAY, BET 
 TER MEET THEIR VENGEANCE THAN 
 GOD S. 7 
 
 "A very important TRUTH it is indeed, that the 
 slave-holders are ( united as one man in the fixed 
 and unalterable determination to maintain their 
 RIGHTS, and defend their PROPERTY! Who attacks 
 their rights or their property? Nobody. We 
 only ask that they should restore to other people 
 their RIGHTS and ( PROPERTY. Be the conse 
 quences what, they may, we will not, say the slave 
 holders. THEN YOU MUST TAKE THE 
 CONSEQUENCES. We have done our duty. 
 
 " THE LAWS ADMITTING THE RIGHT OP SLAVERY 
 ARE A COMPLETE EXTINCTION OF ALL THE OBLIGA 
 TIONS OF MANKIND." 
 
 " Suppose the intelligence should reach this city 
 to-day, that the slaves had risen in insurrection, and 
 were scattering dismay and death through the South, 
 would not the veriest child know the cause? < THEY 
 ARE FIGHTING for their FREEDOM, would be the 
 universal cry." 
 
 " It may be supposed that the press can be shack 
 led, and made to say nothing seriously offensive to 
 slave-holders the wildest nonsense. To effect it 
 the nation must pass through the crucible of an 
 archy into a new mode of existence." 
 
188 
 
 The following is the conclusion of a narrative of 
 the efforts of a slave to escape from bondage. The 
 cause of the negro is described with apparent appro 
 bation. 
 
 "They went on board a vessel; and, during a 
 serene evening in that delicious climate, the trader 
 reposed himself upon the deck. In the dead of the 
 night, the slave contrived to rid himself of his hand 
 cuffs, and groped until he grasped an axe; and, thus 
 armed, stood over the sleeping man. He waked 
 him and told his purpose. < Then God have mercy 
 on me, said the slave-trader. God will not have 
 mercy on you, neither will I, said the slave, and 
 beat out his brains." 
 
 We will not, by multiplying our extracts, aid in 
 giving circulation to their ravings. We have pre 
 sented sufficient to satisfy the candid reader, that 
 the abolitionists, so far from entertaining a repug 
 nance to insurrection, have directed their efforts to 
 that object, and pursued a course which has, and can 
 have, no other motive. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Resources and power of the abolitionists Num 
 ber of Societies Collections Publications, 8?c. 
 
 IT requires no profound investigation of the 
 character, progress, and resources of the abolition 
 ists to convince us, that the cause of union and order 
 has, in them, dangerous opponents. It will be seen 
 by the following statements, mostly derived from 
 their own publications, that their past progress has 
 been rapid almost beyond parallel. But a few years 
 have elapsed, since their black banner was given to 
 the breeze. At that time the scheme was novel; 
 and its advocates were regarded with universal con 
 tempt. To what must we ascribe their advance ? 
 To the justice of their cause, answers the abolition 
 ist. The crusades then are to be regarded with 
 admiration; and Mahomet and his fanatical follow 
 ers, whose progress was even more rapid than the 
 abolitionists, are also to be considered as triumph 
 ing in the justice of their cause. Joanna Southcote, 
 too, was a true prophetess; and Matthias, by the 
 same rule, is entitled to all the reverence which 
 some of the fanatics of New York manifested to 
 wards him. Human nature is not always to be de 
 pended on. Few schemes of imposture or fanati 
 cism are too gross for popular credulity; and when 
 talents, wealth, and religious zeal or hypocrisy unite 
 to urge a cause, it must bear features singularly re 
 pulsive if it fails to make proselytes. 
 
190 
 
 The abolitionists commenced their operations at 
 a period peculiarly fortunate for their designs. A 
 protracted peace, our undisturbed tranquillity and 
 growing wealth, had relaxed the love of country 
 which once characterized our people, had engender 
 ed jealousies between different sections of our coun 
 try, had encouraged religious fanaticism, and engen 
 dered a general discontent, an impatience of the 
 monotony of the times, and a thirst for excitement, 
 highly favourable to any scheme of agitation. This 
 state of the popular mind has been artfully consult 
 ed, by the abolitionists. How far they have already 
 succeeded will be seen: how far they will be per 
 mitted to carry their treasonable designs hereafter, 
 time must make manifest. 
 
 The success of the agitators in organizing socie 
 ties is almost incredible. But a few months since 
 they were sneered at as " a few miserable fanatics." 
 Since that time they have formed societies through 
 out all the non-slave-holding states; and are pro 
 gressing in this organization with undiminished 
 rapidity. The following extracts state the number 
 of the societies to be two hundred and fifty 
 subsequent publications boast of THREE HUNDRED. 
 
 From "Human Rights." 
 
 "This new paper is not started as a means of 
 pecuniary profit; it is not sent out by any one man. 
 Thousands of our fellow citizens have associated in 
 different parts of our country to obtain the freedom 
 of the slaves, yes, of two and a quarter mil 
 lions of Americans, who, shame to tell it, are in 
 this Republic slaves. Already there are numbered 
 more than TWO HUNDRED Anti-Slavery Societies, 
 acting through a central Society, called the " Ameri 
 can Anti-Slavery Society. J? 
 
191 
 From "Human Rights." 
 
 " PROGRESS OP THE ANTI-SLAVERY CAUSE. 
 
 " Dead fish do not swim up stream. We may be 
 sure, therefore, that when we see a tenant of the 
 water making fine headway against the current, 
 there is life in it. 
 
 " The anti-slavery cause has made progress, every 
 body knows. Who does not remember the ridicule 
 that was thrown upon the handful of " Fanatics" 
 in Boston three years ago upon the twenty-two 
 men and two women in New York two years ago 
 upon the fifty or sixty men who met in Philadelphia 
 a year and a-half ago what a fine joke it was that 
 such a handful should meet to form an American 
 Society? Now this same Society numbers 250 
 Auxiliaries, in 13 states. 
 
 "Five of these are State Societies." 
 
 From the second Annual Report of the New 
 England Jinti- Slavery Society, presented \5th 
 January, 1834. 
 
 " What is now the prospect? 
 
 " A few pens, a few periodicals, a few tracts, and 
 a few limited agencies have electrified the nation, 
 and already stirred up a mighty host to plead and 
 labor for the oppressed. Our cause is rapidly get 
 ting supremacy in New England. It has received 
 accession of wealth, of talent, of free and of un 
 conquerable zeal, that insures its speedy triumph." 
 
 From the same publication. 
 
 " In addition to that Society (American A. S. S.) 
 and our own, (New England A. S. S.) we have a 
 large number of male and female Anti-Slavery So 
 cieties in various parts of our land, which embrace 
 
192 
 
 the names of thousands who are pledged to the doc 
 trine of immediate emancipation. These Societies 
 are multiplying with a rapidity which is truly as 
 tonishing." 
 
 From the Emancipator of August. 
 "PROGRESS OF ANTI-SLAVERY. 
 
 " Several letters announcing the formation of auxiliaries, 
 and containing copies of constitutions and lists of officers, 
 must be omitted for want of room. The organization of 
 Anti-Slavery Societies is going on with most cheering ra 
 pidity. 
 
 "In Bennington, Vt., an Anti-Slavery Society was formed 
 on the 4th of July, with 140 members. President, Stephen 
 Hinsdill ; Secretary, James Ballard. A liberal subscription 
 was raised for publications. 
 
 " In Union Village, Washington co., N. Y., the Green 
 wich Aux. Anti-Slavery Society, was formed on the 4th of 
 July. President, Henry Holmes ; Secretary, Edwin An 
 drews. Large number of members. 
 
 * In Nunda, Livingston co., N. Y., a society was formed 
 on the same day, with 160 members. 
 
 " At Oberlin, Loraine co., Ohio, on the 25th June, an aux 
 iliary was formed with 230 members. 
 
 Auxiliary societies have been also formed in the follow 
 ing places, not heretofore acknowledged. 
 Brunswick, Medina co., Ohio. Geneva, Ashtabula co., Ohio. 
 Milan, Huron co., do. Morgan, do. do. 
 
 Lyme, do. do. Kingsville, do. do. 
 
 Kinsman, Trumbull co., do. Jefferson, do. do. 
 
 Hartford, do. do. Huntsburgh, Georgia co., do. 
 
 Cadiz, do. Claridon, do. do. 
 
 Greenville, Mercer co., Pa. Streetsboro , Portage co., do. 
 Butler, Butler co., do. Kingston, N. H. 
 
 W. Middletown, , Pa. Ware, Mass. 
 
 Mount Pleasant, Ohio. Andover, Ashtabula co., Ohio. 
 
 Boscawen, N. H. (Rev. Samuel Wood, D. D., Pres.; Abra 
 ham Robertson, Cor. Sec.) 
 
 " Most of those in the above list in Ohio and Pa. were 
 formed by the agency of Mr. James Loughhead. Mr. Joseph 
 G. Wilson has been labouring with good success in Medina 
 and Huron counties, Ohio. Mr. Theodore D. Weld is lec 
 turing with his usual success in the towns on the Ohio River. 
 
193 
 
 Most cheering have been the results of his labours in Wash 
 ington, Pa. and Stuebenville, Ohio. In the former place h 
 delivered fifteen lectures and two addresses to the colored 
 people. 
 
 " Messrs. Phelps and Thompson have recently visited 
 Andover, and notwithstanding the forbidding neutrality, 
 which the authorities of the Theological Seminary have 
 thought it important to adopt, there is a fair prospect that 
 immediate abolition will be openly espoused at length by a 
 large portion of the students. 
 
 " In Middlebury College, Vt., the students are sympathiz 
 ing deeply in the good cause." 
 
 From " Human Rights" of September. 
 "NEW SOCIETIES. 
 
 " At the late meeting of the Methodist Episco 
 pal Conference of New-Hampshire, an Anti-Slavery 
 Society was formed of about 70 members, ministers 
 of that denomination. 
 
 66 In Northeast, Erie co., Pa., a society has been 
 organized auxiliary to the Am. A. S. Society, with 
 encouraging prospects. 
 
 " The following are reported as organized in R. 
 I. by Mr. Stanton: One at Natick, 125 members; 
 a Ladies Society in that vicinity, 150 members; a 
 Young Men s Society in the same neighbourhood, 
 number of members not known; at North Scituate, 
 220 members; at Valley Falls, 70 members. On 
 the 1st of August an auxiliary Anti-Slavery Society 
 was formed at Clarksfield, Ohio John Hough, Pres. 
 Thomas T. Husted, Sec. 
 
 " The A. S. Society of Bradford, Ms. was formed 
 on the 27th July. Rev. Gardner B. Perry, Pres. 
 Dr. Geo. Cogswell, Secretary." 
 
 Their collections and resources appear to be al 
 most boundless. They are able to raise any amount 
 necessary to prosecute, with effect, their scheme of 
 incendiary agitation. Their prominent abettors are 
 17 
 
194 
 
 generally affluent and zealous men; and it appears 
 only necessary to vote that a certain sum is requir 
 ed, and it is immediately contributed. The follow 
 ing extract is from a late address. 
 
 " DEAR BRETHREN, At the last annual meeting 
 of the American Anti-Slavery Society it was 
 
 " Resolved, That an effort be made to raise 30,000 
 dollars for the use of the Society the present year, 
 and that the abolitionists present, pledge themselves 
 to raise such sums as they may respectively offer. 
 
 " Donations and pledges were immediately ob 
 tained, amounting $14,500. 
 
 " Additional pledges have since been obtained in 
 Boston, to the amount of 4,000 dollars. The sum 
 of 1 1,500 remains to be raised. As there are known 
 to be more than TWO HUNDRED Anti-Slavery Socie 
 ties on kindred principles with the American, we 
 have no doubt this sum can speedily be made up. 
 Each society has only to raise 150 dollars, and the 
 work is done. We believe that those societies which 
 remain unpledged will joyfully come forward to do 
 their proportion, as soon as called on." 
 
 This $30,000 was exclusively appropriated to the 
 support of their publications for one year. The im 
 mense sums expended on agents, schools, &c. &c. 
 are raised in addition to the above. The pecuniary 
 resources of the abolitionists, had they no other 
 source of power, are sufficient almost to revolution 
 ize a land. The peculiar position and character of 
 our national Government render any direct opposi 
 tion to the domestic rights of the South, danger 
 ous; but when a large and well organized party, 
 comprising many men of talent and energy, and 
 possessed of pecuniary resources almost as great as 
 those of the confederacy under which our revolu 
 tionary contest was commenced, wars directly and 
 
195 
 
 openly against the rights, feelings, and even the 
 existence of certain members of the Union who 
 can be so blind as not to see the consequences? Who 
 cannot see that submission on the part of the South 
 would end in her destruction? 
 
 The following extract from the September No. 
 of the Human Rights, cannot fail to undeceive those 
 who have hitherto regarded the abolitionists as a 
 powerless band of malcontents. 
 
 " RESOURCES OF ABOLITIONISTS. Those editors 
 who have complimented Mr. Arthur Tappan as de 
 fraying nearly the whole expense of the American 
 Anti-Slavery Society, are requested to examine the 
 receipts of our Treasurer, as published in the Anti- 
 Slavery Record. The numbers of that work, up 
 to the present month, acknowledge the receipt of 
 $8512,01; of which $1750 is, or might be, credited 
 to Mr. A. Tappan. Liberal as his donations are, if 
 he were to withhold them altogether, we believe 
 the deficiency would not long be felt. Even the 
 most infatuated slave-holders must be blinder than 
 we suppose them, if they do not understand by this 
 time, that the hearts and purses of tens of thou 
 sands are devoted to this cause." 
 
 The resources and power of the abolitionists are 
 exhibited in the number and extent of their publi 
 cations. Perhaps no party in this country ever ex 
 pended as much as the abolitionists in publications 
 intended to operate on the public mind. We are 
 told in one of their reports, that " the society has 
 published one hundred and twenty-two thousand 
 copies of various pamphlets, besides the gratuitous 
 distribution of copies of the Emancipator and nu 
 merous circulars. They have also assisted in the 
 circulation of large works. 77 The resources and 
 
196 
 
 energies of a society which can, in addition to its 
 regular expenses, circulate 122,000 copies of pam 
 phlets, must be much greater than those of any 
 political association, which this country has yet wit 
 nessed. The following "Plan of Publications," 
 from the August number of the Emancipator, will 
 exhibit the number of their regular publications and 
 the extent of the different editions. 
 
 " This number of the Emancipator is the first 
 of the monthly series. It will be issued to a 
 great extent gratuitously. Already 50,000 copies 
 of the small paper entitled HUMAN RIGHTS, 
 have been sent forth, and 50,000 copies of the 
 ANTI-SLAVERY RECORD, for July. The 
 EMANCIPATOR and the SLAVE S FRIEND 
 will complete the series for the month. Next 
 month the same series will be repeated." 
 
 It must be remembered that these papers are 
 gratuitously distributed. Thus it will be seen 
 that every week fifty thousand publications, made 
 up with great skill, and containing the most inflam 
 matory and dangerous matter are distributed. A 
 large portion of these, no doubt, inundate the 
 South. The remainder are intended for those in 
 the North, " who read but cannot reason." Who 
 can wonder at the results effected by the abolition 
 ists, when he contemplates the tremendous energy 
 of the means employed? 
 
 The following statement is made by the Emanci 
 pator, of the number of papers distributed in the 
 month of July. 
 
 " Human Rights, 50,000 copies, 
 
 A. S. Record, 50,000 " 
 
 Emancipator, 50,000 " 
 
 Slave s Friend, 25,000 
 
 Total, 175,000 
 
197 
 
 The Slave s Friend, here mentioned, is a periodi 
 cal designed ostensibly for children, but intended, 
 beyond a doubt, in reality, to operate on the slaves. 
 It is written in very simple language, and is deco 
 rated with inflammatory pictures. Its very title 
 betrays its real character; and its contents prove it 
 to be intended for the slave alone. 
 
 It must not be supposed that the publications of 
 the Anti-Slavery Society, comprise all the periodi 
 cals which sustain their principles. The following 
 extract from the Emancipator will correct any such 
 erroneous impression. "Among the things that 
 encourage us, not the least, is the rapid increase of 
 anti-slavery presses. Nearly half the newspapers 
 in our exchange list, about one hundred, admit arti 
 cles favourable to emancipation, and a large number 
 of them are decidedly anti-slavery. We shall en 
 deavour soon to exhibit a list of the anti-slavery 
 newspapers in the United States."* 
 
 It is impossible that any reasoning man, can con 
 template the resources and activity of the abolition 
 ists, and wonder at their progress. It is impossible 
 that any patriot can view, in connection, their past 
 success, their present energies and activity, and 
 their future prospects, without coming to the con- 
 
 * In the list of anti-slavery publications advertised by the 
 Society, we find upwards of fifty different publications, 
 prints, &c., offered for sale. The following are some of the 
 articles advertised. 
 
 41 Picture of a slave in chains, with the negro s complaint, 
 in poetry. Our countrymen in chains, with poetry, by J. G. 
 Whittier. 
 
 Anti-Slavery handkerchiefs, ornamented with 4 cuts, and 
 extracts from the Slave s Friend, printed with indelible ink, 
 price 50 cents per dozen. 
 
 "Anti-Slavery Seals, giving a fair impress of a shive in 
 ehains on sealing wax, price, single, 20 cents. 
 
 " Plaster images of a slave in chains, price, single, 50 cts." 
 
198 
 
 elusion, that, either this band of traitors must be 
 crushed, or the Union abandoned. They cannot 
 exist together. 
 
 Let the South look to it. We have demonstrated 
 that the advocates of abolition are neither few nor 
 feeble; that they are wealthy, powerful and united; 
 possessed of a number of influential presses; and 
 led on by men whose intemperate zeal is only 
 equalled by their untiring energy. Their strength 
 is despised because it is not known. Let him who 
 takes an interest in this matter examine the open 
 evidence of facts; let him observe the extended and 
 insidious operation of presses, agents and societies; 
 let him mark the progress and results of these ef 
 forts for the last few years; and then, if he is still 
 incredulous, and still secure, he may sleep on, until 
 he is roused by the glare of the midnight conflagra 
 tion, or startled by the whoops of the negro at his 
 chamber door. 
 
 Let the North beware. Let not the wise and 
 well affected regard the operations of the incen 
 diaries with a sneer. The Union and its glories, 
 the commerce and manufactures of the North, the 
 peace and safety of the South, the tranquillity, integ 
 rity, and honour of our country are in peril in im 
 minent peril. If the abolitionists are permitted to 
 make the North the scene of a warfare the most 
 deadly upon the South it is vain to affect igno 
 rance of the results separation is inevitable. We 
 repeat, they must be crushed or the Union aban 
 doned. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 The course of the Molitionists prevents abolition 
 Aggravates the condition of the slaves, fyc. 
 
 THE abolitionists never deign to weigh the con 
 sequences of their actions. They determine that a 
 peculiar course is required by an accordance with 
 their sublimated notions of abstract right, and pur 
 sue it, wholly regardless of the results. Are they 
 mad, or guilty, or both? Think they that they can 
 deluge our land with blood and preserve their 
 souls from the crimson taint of murder? Think 
 they that they can unloose rapine, and lust, and 
 slaughter upon their native country and that her 
 shrieks will not rise to Heaven against them? Not 
 responsible for the consequences of their madness! 
 It has ever been the plea of the bigot and tyrant. 
 The darkest crimes on record have been committed 
 under the frenzy, real or affected, of fanaticism. 
 Cities have been wasted, realms destroyed, in the 
 name of God. But will God hold them guiltless 
 because profanity was added to guilt, and His holy 
 name impiously borrowed to sanction a wanton 
 waste of the blood of his creatures? 
 
 In the responsibility incurred by the abolitionists, 
 the consequences of their policy to the slave, will 
 not be the lightest article. If slavery be the evil 
 they proscribe, how much have they to answer for 
 in its perpetuation. If abolition be a benevolent and 
 holy scheme, how can they be justified for the pros- 
 
200 
 
 tration of every reasonable hope of final emancipa 
 tion. They are the real anti-abolitionists of the land. 
 They are the worst foes of the slave. Their mad 
 ness has riveted his chains; and if his freedom be 
 ever attained, it will be when their reckless opposi 
 tion to the rights of the South is forgotten. 
 
 They admit that the slave can only be emanci 
 pated by his master. To effect that result, the master 
 must be convinced and conciliated. What measures 
 have they taken to persuade or win him into their 
 views? They have trampled upon his rights en 
 dangered his property denounced him in the vilest 
 billingsgate the language can afford excited his 
 slaves to discontent, and endangered his life, and the 
 honour of his wife and daughters. Are not these 
 most winning persuasives to abolition! Is not this 
 policy certain to soothe the feelings, sway the senti 
 ments, and insure the confidence of the slave-holder? 
 
 " The truth is, and it must be suppressed no 
 longer we have been hired to abet oppression, to 
 be the tool of tyrants to look on coolly, while ten 
 millions of our brethren have been stripped of every 
 right, and WORSE THAN MURDERED." First An 
 nual Report. 
 
 " The man who seizes another in New York, and 
 drags him into bondage, (alluding to the legal arrest 
 of a fugitive slave, under the constitution of the 
 United States) whatever laws he may have in his 
 favour, is to be REGARDED AS A ROBBER 
 AND PIRATE!"/foW. 
 
 " Slave-holding is PIRACY, equally atrocious with 
 slave-trading; and if there is any difference in crimi 
 nality, slave-holding is THE WORST OF THE TWO!" 
 Speech of Mr. P helps. 
 
 " The slave-states are SODOMS, and almost every 
 village family is a brothel." SpeechofMr. Thome. 
 
 But why should we multiply quotations? Suffice 
 
201 
 
 it that they never speak of them, save to calumniate 
 and abuse them never address them but in the gen 
 tle and paternal language of " robbers," " pirates," 
 " tyrants," " monsters," " wretches," and other epi 
 thets of an equally conciliatory character. And 
 can these men affect to believe that this course is 
 prompted by a sincere desire is persuade the slave 
 holder to free his slave! 
 
 The very act of interference itself is a violation 
 of their rights, and an outrage on their feelings. If 
 there existed a disposition in favour of emancipation, 
 this act of indelicate and insulting interference, this 
 pragmatical and irritating violation of the rights and 
 proprieties of social life, would be certain to extin 
 guish it. If slavery be an evil who so likely to 
 know it as those who live in the midst of it? If 
 slavery be cruel, the Southern people lack neither 
 religion nor benevolence, and would be just as likely 
 to feel the " gentle dint of pity" without, as with, 
 vituperation and insult. Previous to the movements 
 of the abolitionists, in many parts of the South, a 
 disposition favourable to emancipation prevailed. 
 They would, if undisturbed, have done all that was 
 possible. Foreign interference, while it has natu 
 rally irritated the South, has rendered any act tend 
 ing to encourage abolition, altogether dangerous and 
 imprudent. They will not allow strangers to in 
 trude to their fire-sides and kick them into certain 
 measures; and if they were so singularly destitute of 
 manly spirit, they cannot be ignorant that such a 
 policy would be attended with inevitable destruc 
 tion. 
 
 The abolitionists have been at work for years; 
 they have, probably, expended hundreds of thou 
 sands of dollars; they have enlisted the sympathy 
 and aid of misguided thousands yet what good have 
 they done? Have they liberated a slave? Not one! 
 
202 
 
 On the contrary, the process of individual emanci 
 pation has been wholly checked. Have they con 
 vinced or converted a single slave-holder? NOT 
 ONE ! And those who before encouraged the hope 
 of eventual emancipation now regard the scheme 
 and its authors with abhorrence. If their policy have 
 not succeeded in attaining a single advantage, why 
 persist in it? If their past exertions have not won 
 over a single slave-holder, their future efforts can 
 not. Why then agitate and endanger a nation; why 
 expend thousands, not only without benefit, but with 
 out the reasonable hope, however remote, of future 
 advantage? They know that they cannot win the 
 slave-holder into the support of their schemes; why 
 persist in their present policy ? Because the pretence 
 is affected is the mask of deep and dangerous de 
 signs upon the slaves. The abolitionists are not all 
 insane; they do not spend their money, exert their 
 talents, and waste their time, in a hopeless and ab 
 surd attempt to win the master. They care not for 
 his aid. Years ago they said in the Emancipator, 
 " Slavery will never be abolished until it is done 
 BY THE SWORD, or the fear of the sword;" 
 and added, that " the slaves will soon be free." 
 This was then, and still is the policy. They cry 
 peace, peace but pursue a course which is designed 
 to end, and must end (unless the South erect herself 
 and interpose the only shield which can ward off 
 the blow,) in a servile war, and render the whole 
 South a Pandemonium, from which the shout of 
 exulting rapine, and the shriek of murder and vio 
 lation will go forth. 
 
 " But the slave has cause to reproach the aboli 
 tionist, not merely for the prostration of all future 
 hope of emancipation, but for the aggravation of his 
 present condition. It is impossible that the intem 
 perate advocacy of the emancipation of the slaves, 
 
203 
 
 can fail to excite the prejudice and ill-feeling of a 
 majority of the slave-holders; and it is equally im 
 possible to prevent a share of those feelings being 
 extended to the unfortunate object of the abolitionist s 
 benevolence. Even where the irritating interference 
 of the abolitionists is insufficient to alienate the kind 
 ness of the master from the slave, it succeeds in cre 
 ating danger and suspicion. The slave, misled by 
 his new friends, becomes discontented and refrac 
 tory; the master loses his confidence, and measures 
 of precaution and restraint become absolutely ne 
 cessary. The Charleston Courier, speaking of these 
 fruits of abolition, says: "It is certain that their 
 labours thus far have produced only evil to the race 
 which they have selected as the objects of their de 
 vilish philanthropy. At the North they have raised 
 the mob against the property and lives of their sable 
 proteges, and at the South they have only added to 
 the rigor of the code noir, and caused a repeal of 
 laws permitting emancipation." 
 
 Another moderate and respectable Southern jour 
 nal says, " They certainly cannot be assured of the 
 detestation in which they are already held by the 
 free blacks of the South, whose happiness and liberty 
 they have sensibly abridged, and whose lives, in 
 some instances, they have put in jeopardy. Even 
 those of the slaves who have heard of them, curse 
 their names as the authors of numerous vexations 
 and privations to which they are now necessarily 
 subjected. The inquisitorial visits, patroles, searches, 
 confinement to plantations the refusal of usual in 
 dulgences, and the exaction of additional duties, are 
 all the fruits of fanaticism. The blacks, who see 
 and know the cause, would be as ready to inflict 
 summary vengeance upon Tappan, Garrison, Cox, 
 Thompson, arid their co-labourers, as their masters. 
 Do the incendiaries know that they are absolutely 
 
204 
 
 riveting the chains they profess to wish to see 
 loosened? We should think not. But let them be 
 satisfied that such is the fact/ 
 
 The following from the Richmond Inquirer is also 
 entitled to attention. 
 
 " These men are not only impertinent, but per 
 nicious intermeddlers. They not only bring mis 
 chief upon the whites, but they aggravate the very 
 evils which they profess to remedy. They strengthen 
 the cord of slavery itself. They compel us to treat 
 them with a severity which is as painful to the slave 
 as it is irksome to the owner. A regard for our own 
 security must impose upon them additional restric 
 tions and in case these vile miscreants should ever 
 succeed in raising rebellion among them, they alone 
 will be held responsible, in the eyes of God and 
 man, for all the blood which will flow. It is thus 
 that they are doing serious mischief, both to the 
 whites and to the blacks aggravating the very evil 
 which they profess to palliate." 
 
 In confirmation of these statements we subjoin an 
 extract from the address of the members of the 
 African Methodist Church of Baltimore. 
 
 " We do most firmly and sincerely believe, that 
 the dissemination of inflammatory appeals addressed 
 mainly to the prejudices and passions, without re 
 ference to reason, instead of promoting the object 
 professed to be had in view, will greatly aggravate 
 the evils already existing, and create others of a far 
 more alarming and calamitous nature; will render 
 the situation of that portion of the coloured people 
 now in possession of liberty, awfully precarious 
 rivet the fetter still more closely on the slave, and 
 jeopard the prosperity and happiness, nay, the life 
 itself, of the whole population of the southern states, 
 both white and black. 
 
 "The conviction thus expressed is the rational 
 
205 
 
 consequence of cool and deliberate reflection on the 
 subject, when contemplated abstractly and without 
 regard to actual occurrences; but it has been power 
 fully corroborated by the developements which have 
 already attended the efforts of the licentious and 
 misguided fanaticism now in progress. But a short 
 time has elapsed since all of us were permitted to 
 worship God undisturbedly in our own sanctuaries, 
 under our own vine and fig-tree since we were 
 protected in the enjoyment of civil privileges, and 
 allowed a common participation with our white 
 brethren, in many of the comforts of domestic life. 
 Now, in many sections of the country, both north 
 and south of us, our congregation for religious ex 
 ercises is either prohibited altogether, or watched 
 with a jaundiced eye; the civil blessings with which 
 we were measurably favoured are denied or re 
 stricted; our most innocent actions are exposed to 
 the scrutiny of suspicion; and our homes and fire 
 sides threatened with ruin. 
 
 " Influenced by these considerations, and deter 
 mined by the harmless rectitude of our deportment 
 to manifest our heartfelt and unconquerable abhor 
 rence of the atrocious attempts of mistaken, hot 
 headed zealots to plunge the country into anarchy 
 and discord, and to deluge it with torrents of blood, 
 we do hereby sacredly pledge ourselves not to re 
 ceive any of the vile, mischievous, and incendiary 
 publications, now so industriously scattered abroad; 
 to arrest the circulation of such as may come under 
 our observation of which we respectfully ask the 
 postmasters to take notice and to destroy them with 
 out perusal; and, in fine, by every effort within our 
 power, to put a period to the operations of this en 
 gine of bloodshed and torture. We do most earnestly 
 entreat those over whom we have any control or 
 influence, either officially or as friends, to co-operate 
 18 
 
206 
 
 with us in the suppression of this most pernicious 
 this fatal evil to lend their most ardent and 
 cheerful endeavours to prevent the diffusion of a 
 spirit of insubordination and rebellion. And being 
 fully persuaded that our opinions faithfully and truly 
 reflect those 1 of the church to which we are attached, 
 we do most unfeignedly and anxiously beseech those 
 engaged in the propagation of abolition principles, 
 and the distribution of abolition tracts, periodicals, 
 and pamphlets, to abstain from their unasked and 
 unwelcome interference in our concerns, and if they 
 have a spark of compassion, sympathy, or philan 
 thropy in their bosoms, to permit us to enjoy our 
 existence in security and peace." 
 
 To this eloquent and affecting appeal this pa 
 thetic detail of the sufferings visited upon the 
 blacks of the South, by the sinister efforts of their 
 false friends the abolitionists alone could be in 
 sensible. Careless of the consequences, they go on. 
 The union of the States may be sundered by their 
 madness still they persist; the afflicted patriots of 
 their country beseech them to forbear but they 
 heed it not; the unhappy objects of their affected 
 benevolence implore them to desist but onward 
 still, over the trampled constitution, the peace, the 
 hopes, and the happiness of their country, they stride 
 forward to their object. Such is their philanthropy.* 
 
 * A late number of the Emancipator contains the following 
 article. It will be seen that the abolitionists are aware of the 
 dreadful consequences of their policy but are determined to 
 persevere in it. It will be seen also that while they acknow 
 ledge the calamitous tendency of their course, their only re 
 sponse is " Let them drive out missionaries and school 
 teachers bury the key of knowledge double the fetters, and 
 lengthen the lash." Such is their kindness and affection for 
 the slaves. Their direct aim is also acknowledged to be, riot to 
 convince the slave-holder, but to excite others against him. 
 "To use this very madness and cruelty of the slave-holder as 
 
207 
 
 They would wade to their purpose through a sea of 
 kindred blood cheer on the hell-hounds of civil 
 war, and in their horrible triumph, while the shrieks 
 of an expiring land ring in their ears, \vave above 
 the scene the crimson and reeking banner of Phi 
 lanthropy! 
 
 an argument to rouse the Christian world against the sin of 
 slavery." 
 
 " The. fruits of Abolitionism. Some enemies of immediate 
 emancipation, with great apparent delight, point us to the pre 
 sent state of the South. There, say they, we told you so. 
 See the masters exasperated, and recanting all their purposes 
 of ultimate emancipation. See the slave bound in double 
 fetters. See the free coloured man persecuted, and trembling 
 with fear of banishment or death. See the schools for the 
 coloured people all shut, and the last rays of hope and know 
 ledge blotted out together. See every Northern man who had 
 visited the South on an errand of mercy, fleeing for his life. 
 This is the fruit of your labours. 
 
 "Some, we can hardly call them friends of the oppressed, 
 may be persuaded by such arguments to give over. They 
 may say, We have borne our testimony, but it is of no avail ; 
 now, therefore, let us wash our hands of the guilt, and leave 
 the slave-holders to themselves. Not so, brethren we have 
 more to do. Thousands of prayers are going up to God daily, 
 from those who in the midst of slavery, have not bowed the 
 knee to Baal, for our perseverance. Let them drive out mis 
 sionaries and school-teachers bury the key of knowledge 
 double the fetters, and lengthen the lash. Let them destroy 
 or banish every man who will not receive on his forehead 
 the brand of the monster perpetual slavery. What is the 
 language of God s providence to usl Clearly this : To use 
 this very madness and cruelty of the slave-holders as an argument 
 to rouse the Christian world against the SIN OF SLAVERY." 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Course of the abolitionists a violation of the 
 Constitution Jin infraction of the rights and 
 the laws of the South, fyc. 
 
 IN discussing the subject of Domestic Slavery in 
 this country, it is proper that we should refer spe 
 cially and distinctly to the sovereign rights. of the 
 Southern states on this question and all minor ques 
 tions arising from it. It is, however, scarcely ne 
 cessary to prove what is not doubted, or to urge the 
 truth of assertions which no individual in the coun 
 try will venture to deny. 
 
 The rights of the South do not exist under, but 
 ver, the Constitution. They existed before this 
 Government was called into being. The Constitu 
 tion is rather sanctioned by them, than they by the 
 Constitution. Had not that instrument admitted 
 the sovereignty of those rights, it would never have 
 itself been admitted by the South. It bowed in 
 deference to rights older in their date, stronger in 
 their claims, and holier in their nature, than any 
 which the Constitution of the confederacy can 
 boast. 
 
 Let no man then deceive himself. Let him not 
 think that the rights of the South may be changed 
 by a change of our national Constitution. Those 
 rights are out of the reach of the nation as a nation. 
 The confederacy may crumble to pieces, the Con- 
 
209 
 
 stitution may pass away but these rights will re 
 main unshaken will exist while the South exists 
 and when they fall the South will perish with 
 them. It will be admitted, that the states which 
 entered into the compact of Union were possessed, 
 individually, of full sovereignty, and were as inde 
 pendent of any and all earthly power as nations can 
 be. If they were not thus sovereign and indepen 
 dent, they had no authority or power to enter into 
 the articles of confederation. 
 
 It will be admitted, that in entering into this con 
 federacy, and in adopting the Constitution of 1787, 
 they lost none of their exclusive right of legisla 
 tion on the subject of domestic slavery in their own 
 borders, but remained, as to that question, as 
 sovereign and independent as at first. 
 
 It will be admitted, that instead of losing any 
 of their high and sovereign power on the subject 
 referred to, that power was expressly reserved both 
 in the articles of confederation and in the Constitu 
 tion of the United States, and that the non-slave- 
 holding states not only admitted and sanctioned it, 
 but bound themselves to restore fugitive slaves 
 from the South, and to secure a representation based 
 upon the slave population. 
 
 It will be admitted, that the rights of the slave* 
 holding states on the subject of slavery, have never 
 been surrendered, never been questioned, never been 
 weakened nor diminished; that they are, in rela 
 tion to that question, what they were before they 
 entered into the confederation, sovereign and inde 
 pendent; and that the non-slaveholding states are, 
 in reference to the same question, what they were 
 before that compact foreign communities. 
 
 Virginia or South Carolina, then, has, in refer 
 ence to the subject of slavery, no more connexion 
 with us than Russia or Great Britain; we have no 
 13* 
 
210 
 
 greater right to interfere with her domestic legisla 
 tion on the subject of slavery, than with the inter 
 nal relations of those kingdoms; nor is she under 
 any greater obligation than they would be, to sub 
 mit to such interference, without vindicating her 
 rights, and punishing those who dare to disturb her 
 tranquillity. 
 
 If a Northern State directly violates these rights, 
 or permits her citizens to do so,* she not only 
 breaks the compact, but makes it the duty of the 
 injured state to defend herself, as an independent 
 state should, from a violation of her sovereignty. 
 
 The non-slaveholding states entered into this 
 union with their eyes open. They knew that the 
 compact was subject to this reservation. They 
 pledged themselves to observe it. Every thing 
 sacred to us as patriots, Americans, and men stands 
 pledged for our honourable adherence to the faith 
 then plighted the promise then solemnly and un- 
 derstandingly extended. 
 
 Did our fathers right? No union could have been 
 effected unless the rights of the South had been 
 thus secured. Conscious of this, they were willing 
 to suffer what they could not cure, and gave their 
 sanction to the only union that could have been 
 formed. The result has shown that they were 
 right. Our people have prospered. The friends 
 of freedom, humanity, and religion throughout the 
 world, have reason to rejoice in the compromise 
 then entered into. 
 
 The North is not responsible, morally nor politi 
 cally, for the existence of slavery in this country. 
 
 * The sovereign who refuses to cause a reparation to be 
 made of the damage caused by his subject, or to punish th 
 guilty, or, in short, to deliver him up, renders himself in 
 some measure an accomplice in the injury, and becomes re 
 sponsible for it. Falters Law of Nations. 
 
211 
 
 It never had, has not now, and never will have, 
 power over the subject. If it be a sin, the blame 
 rests not upon the North if it be a curse, the 
 North, at least, is not blasted by it. The North 
 has not been compelled to pay for the support of 
 the South; she has not been taxed to encourage her 
 labour, nor have her exports passed through her 
 ports and given the breath of life to her commerce. 
 The North need not trouble her conscience nor 
 excite her sympathies, in relation to the sins or the 
 afflictions of the South. The South will bear her 
 afflictions with what fortitude she may; and as for 
 the sins which excite so holy a horror in the bosoms 
 of the immaculate abolitionists, she will take care 
 that the North is not burthened with any accounta 
 bility for them. Let the North stand off, and all 
 will be well. 
 
 It ought not to be necessary to urge the obligation, 
 which requires us to regard, with reverence, the 
 sacred charter of our national existence. It ought 
 not to be necessary to remind any portion of our 
 people, that honour, probity, patriotism require 
 us to observe its provisions. If the violator of the 
 law be entitled to punishment and abhorrence, what 
 should be the penalty of him who strikes at the 
 source of all law; who would tear asunder the 
 bond which unites millions happily together, and 
 leave our country to all the horrors of jarring an 
 archy and lawless violence? If any thing be enti 
 tled to reverence or regard, it is our sacred Consti 
 tution the barrier which protects us from popular 
 turbulence, from intestine war, from social and 
 political confusion and collision. The consequence 
 of its downfall or of the violation of its provisions, no 
 faney can adequately conceive. All that we desire 
 as a people is attained all that we fear is avoided, 
 by its aid. Let it be destroyed, whether by open 
 
212 
 
 violence, or insidious opposition, and where will 
 the consequences terminate? Will the violator pause 
 there; or, having trampled on the charter of the 
 country, will he strike at those of the states, and 
 break down all the barriers which protect weakness 
 and innocence from lawless and brutal force? Let 
 the principle be established, that a direct and solemn 
 political compact may be vacated, without moral 
 offence, by scheming and ambitious individuals 
 and human foresight cannot anticipate the calami 
 ties which will ensue. 
 
 There may be, particularly in this country, trea 
 son without overt crime, which, though secured 
 from the penalty of our lenient code is still, in 
 the eye of reason and justice, and before God and 
 man, the basest treason. An evasion of an obliga 
 tion is as great a moral offence as its violation. The 
 prosecution of an insidious but energetic war upon 
 the slave-holding members of the Union upon 
 their liberties as states, and their existence as com 
 munities, must be regarded as a crime of the most 
 dangerous and guilty character. The traitor who 
 stabs at the life or honour of his country, in the 
 mask of piety, and from behind a legal quibble, is 
 as guilty as the open desperado who strikes at her 
 in the face of day, and before all the world. 
 
 The abolitionists, in urging their designs against 
 the South, are guilty of infringing the acknowledged 
 rights of those states; of disregarding their own 
 solemnly pledged faith to observe those rights, as 
 sanctioned by the Federal compact; and of violat 
 ing that sense of propriety and duty, which requires 
 that we should respect the domestic privileges and 
 pursuits of others. 
 
 Can this course of conduct result in any advan 
 tage to the objects of their benevolence, or to their 
 white brethren of the South? It menaces evil to 
 
213 
 
 both. It seeks to effect evil. It looks to revolu 
 tion; it teaches that the Constitution is "null and 
 void," when opposed to their schemes; and contem 
 plates the prostration of every right, the dissolution 
 of every tie, and the disregard of every obligation 
 between them and the object of their ill-omened 
 ambition. 
 
 The Southern states have passed laws, prohibit 
 ing the dissemination of incendiary publications 
 within their borders, and denouncing severe penal 
 ties against the offenders. In some states the offence is 
 capital, and is punished with death. The abolition 
 ists, who send such publications into the state, vio 
 late these laws and incur their penalties. It is of 
 no consequence in what manner they commit the 
 crime, whether through the medium of the mails 
 or by private emissaries; it is equally unimportant 
 whether they are within the borders of the state at 
 the time they committed the outrage upon its 
 laws the crime is equally great, and equally cer 
 tain. It may be alleged, in extenuation of the 
 offence, that the offender is beyond the reach of 
 justice: the same plea would palliate the crime of 
 the fugitive murderer. The offence is committed; 
 the laws are violated; the crime is registered in 
 heaven; and the criminal stands accountable to his 
 own conscience and to God, as a felon one who, if 
 justice had its way, would perish ingnominiously 
 on the scaffold. Such is the nature of the proceed 
 ings of the abolitionists. They are guilty of a 
 CAPITAL CRIME a crime which is regarded by 
 those authorised to decide, as equal in guilt and 
 peril, to MURDER. Yet they ask and obtain the 
 aid of Christians; they call themselves philanthro 
 pists, and expect the praise and support of the 
 lovers of virtue, peace, and order. 
 
 So clear and distinct is their offence, so full the 
 
214 
 
 evidence of its commission, that, should they be 
 found within the borders of the states whose laws 
 they have violated, they would be at once arrested, 
 tried, and doubtless found guilty and hung. In 
 deed, as it is, there are great doubts whether the 
 Southern states may not demand them from the 
 states in which they now reside, as fugitives from 
 justice. Many profound jurists regard the right 
 of the South to demand, and the duty of the North 
 to give up, these violators of the law, as clear and 
 unquestionable. 
 
 The following able exposition of these views, 
 extracted from the New York Courier and Enquir 
 er, merits an attentive perusal. 
 
 " If Tappan be guilty of violation of the laws of 
 the South, and can be proved guilty, let some of 
 the Southern executives demand him as a criminal 
 at the hands of our executive, and if their demand 
 be legal he will doubtless be surrendered. 
 
 "If the distribution of inflammatory and sedi 
 tious papers in any Southern state, be an offence 
 against their laws, and if it can be proved that 
 Arthur Tappan has delivered or caused to be de 
 livered, in such state or states, papers coming with 
 in the bearing of the enactments then we believe 
 that on such charge he may be legally demanded, 
 and must be surrendered. 
 
 "The objections to this are: Firstly, that the al- 
 ledged offence is not here capital. But what of that? 
 In some of our states rape is not while in others it 
 is a capital felony. But let a ravisher commit his 
 crime in a state wherein that crime is punished as 
 it should be punished every where with death, 
 and let him subsequently to the commission, escape 
 into a state by whose enactment the punishment is 
 milder that ravisher might be demanded and 
 would be ceded to be tried, and if guilty, to suffer, 
 
215 
 
 according the code of that state wherein the offence 
 is committed. 
 
 " Therefore, if Arthur Tappan has committed in 
 all or any of the Southern states, a crime punished 
 capitally in such states or state he may be demand 
 ed and must be surrendered to be tried and to suffer 
 if proved guilty according to the laws of that 
 state. 
 
 " Again it is contended that the crime of Arthur 
 Tappan if a crime by the laws of any Southern 
 state is not committed in that state. 
 
 "In answer to this statement, we will first ad 
 vance an argument, and a most strong one, which has 
 been brought to bear on this point before, as we find 
 by an article in the Charleston Courier, wherein it 
 is demonstrated that in England the author of a 
 libellous paper is tried by the laws and jury of the 
 place wherein the libellous paper is delivered at the 
 post office not at the place where it is composed. 
 And that such author is transferred by the sheriff of 
 his own county to the sheriff of that next adjoining, 
 till he be delivered for trial at the place w r herein the 
 libel was committed by the delivery of the libel- 
 lous paper at the office. Now if this be true of 
 libellous papers it is much more true of seditious 
 papers; and if the delivery of these papers be sedi 
 tious at Charleston, the crime of sedition was com 
 mitted at Charleston, and Arthur Tappan may be 
 demanded to take his trial for sedition at Charles 
 ton. And in this state, as we happen to know, the 
 law is similar to the law in England. In the case 
 of Root vs. King for a libel, the venire was laid in 
 Delaware County, the residence of the Plaintiff, and 
 there the question of libel was tried. And recent 
 ly, in our own case, the Grand Jury of the County 
 of Sullivan found an indictment against us for the 
 publication of an alleged libel on the Post-master 
 
216 
 
 at Monticello in Sullivan county, and although the 
 libel was published in the county of New York, 
 we were tried, and if found guilty, would have 
 been punished in the former county. The same 
 rule of law should, we conceive, be applicable to 
 states as to counties in this instance; but we have 
 a still stronger argument in favor of our position. 
 
 " A citizen of New York, resident in this state, 
 suborns another, or directly instigates him to go 
 into South Carolina and there commit a murder, 
 thereby rendering himself an accessary before the 
 fact to murder, and therefore liable to capital pun 
 ishment. The murder is committed in South Caro 
 lina the murderer escapes to New York is de 
 manded, and of course delivered up to take his trial 
 at the place wherein the murder was committed. 
 On his trial, proof is developed of the agency in 
 the murder of an accessary before the fact to this 
 murder committed in South Carolina, who is a resi 
 dent of New York, which place he has not quitted. 
 Where would that accessary be tried? clearly 
 in the place where the crime to which he was an 
 accessary was committed. On this point no one we 
 presume can entertain a doubt; otherwise, as he 
 cannot be tried in New York as an accessary to a 
 crime not committed within her jurisdiction, he 
 would escape punishment. 
 
 " If, then, this be true in a case of murder, it 
 must be equally true in case of Treason; and if the 
 putting into circulation of the abolition pamphlets 
 in South Carolina be treason and if it can be 
 proved that Arthur Tappan be accessary before the 
 fact to the putting into circulation of those pam 
 phlets in South Carolina then is Arthur Tappan, 
 though he has not quitted New York, accessary be 
 fore the fact to treason committed in South Caro 
 lina. 
 
217 
 
 " And again, if the circulation of abolition pam 
 phlets be a capital offence in Carolina, and if persons 
 charged with capital offences be mutually delivera 
 ble between the states of the Union as the Consti 
 tution provides, then Arthur Tappan, as accessary 
 before the fact to a capital offence committed in 
 South Carolina, may be demanded at the hands of 
 our Executive, and if demanded must be delivered 
 up to take his trial in South Carolina." 
 
 If the South have not, under the Constitution, the 
 right to demand and punish those who stand on her 
 borders, and fling amid her slaves incendiary and 
 seditious publications it is to be regretted that so 
 important and necessary a protection was not pro 
 vided. Those who are willing to violate the laws 
 and disturb the tranquillity of a state of this Union, 
 should find no shelter from its sister states. 
 
 But it may be doubted whether, if this right were 
 fully conceded to the South, she would descend to 
 exercise it. The wrong comes, not from individu 
 als, but from a party in the North, which is per 
 mitted, by those states, to prosecute a systematic 
 and organized war against the rights and the peace 
 of the South. It is the duty of the North to crush 
 them;* and any attempt on the part of the South to 
 secure individuals of the mass, would be unworthy 
 her dignity, and inadequate to the prostration, or 
 even the discouragement of the conspiracy against 
 her. 
 
 * What would you say, if your own operatives were to 
 become discontented and rebellious threatening your houses 
 with the torch and your families with the knife and if we 
 were to erect presses in our own bosom to print and circulate 
 papers to blow them into flame"? Would you not call upon 
 us, to interfere for their suppression 1 And may we not 
 call upon you in the like spirit ? Richmond Enquirer. 
 19 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 The. Abolition of Slavery in the District of Co 
 lumbia. 
 
 THE abolitionists, with all their presumption, do 
 not venture to assert that Congress has a right to 
 legislate on the slave question for the States. They 
 do not, however, hesitate to allege the existence, and 
 claim the exercise of that right in the District of 
 Columbia. They have turned their whole force 
 against this District. Falsehoods and calumnies 
 against the slave-holders of the District are circu 
 lated throughout the Union; and the people of the 
 remotest States are told, with all the declamatory 
 cant of the abolition school, that, for the atrocities 
 thus conjured up and presented to their imagina 
 tions, they are responsible. They are called upon, 
 therefore, by every consideration, to clear their skirts 
 from the horrid sin, by insisting on the abolition of 
 slavery in the District. Great efforts are made to 
 procure petitions to Congress on the subject; and it 
 is probable that their application will be presented 
 during the ensuing session, with several thousand 
 names attached to it. The following is a copy of 
 one of the petitions in circulation. 
 
 " To the honourable the Senate and House of 
 Representatives of the United States of America: 
 
 The petition of the undersigned, citizens of , 
 
 humbly sheweth, That your petitioners feel them 
 selves bound by their duty to their country, to their 
 
219 
 
 fellow-men, and to their God, to protest against the 
 continuance of SLAVERY and the SLAVE-TRADE in 
 the District of Columbia, and to pray your honour 
 able bodies to exercise your constitutional powers 
 for their immediate abolition. 
 
 " Remembering that the traffic in hitman flesh, 
 when practised on the ocean, has been solemnly de 
 clared piracy by our own, and that it is so considered 
 by almost all Christian nations, your petitioners do 
 most earnestly implore that slavery, the necessary 
 cause of the traffic, may no longer be permitted to 
 exist in the Capital of this Republic." 
 
 The subject thus forced upon the attention of our 
 people, is one involving the most momentous con 
 siderations. Fully understood, the scheme of abo 
 lition in the District, must be generally reprehended. 
 It may be regarded as the outposts of the great ques 
 tion; and, if carried, will insure a final and complete 
 triumph to the conspirators in all their designs. 
 
 The general government has no right to abolish 
 slavery in the District of Columbia. 
 
 The framers of the constitution could never have 
 intended to give to the government jurisdiction over 
 this delicate subject. So far as they could, they se 
 cured to the South exclusive control of the slave 
 question. The difficulty before us could not be fore 
 seen by them, or express provisions would have been 
 made to secure the country from this species of agi 
 tation. The South would never have sanctioned a 
 constitution which gave to the general government 
 any power, direct or indirect, to legislate on the 
 slave question. They denied that power then, as 
 they deny it now. They would not then submit to 
 it; and subsequent events have induced no change 
 of sentiment or feeling. 
 
 The constitution, which so expressly withheld 
 from the general government the power of legislation 
 
220 
 
 on the subject of slavery, could not have designed 
 to give it the power of agitation a power which 
 would have annihilated all restraints, and laid the 
 domestic rights of the South at the very feet of the 
 central government. Let the general government 
 but possess and exercise a right to agitate the subject 
 of slavery in the South, to use the influence of her 
 public councils, the power of her immense patronage, 
 and of the treasury of the country and she will not 
 need the empty privilege of legislation. The South 
 will be completely at her mercy. 
 
 Should the abolitionists triumph in the approach 
 ing effort, they would make the general government 
 an abolition engine. The measure of abolition in 
 the District would be regarded as a direct and em 
 phatic approval of the course of the abolitionists. 
 The fanatics would take fresh courage; the venal 
 and time-serving would flock to a standard sustained 
 by the government; and the cause would soon be 
 considered " the cause of the country." The pas 
 sage of the act referred to would put the seal of 
 national sanction on the calumnies and vituperation 
 of the abolitionists against the South; and would hold 
 the citizens of that section of the country up to the 
 detestation of the world, as brutal and fiendlikc 
 monsters, destitute of mercy and justice, and wholly 
 sordid and savage in their character and habits. It 
 would do more it would extend to the slaves of 
 the South, hopes that would madden them. The 
 government itself would become incendiary; and 
 the slaves, like those of St. Domingo, under a like 
 policy of the French government, would respond to 
 the lure held out, and rise in a mass to commence 
 the work of murder and desolation. With the coun 
 tenance of the general government, it is impossible 
 to say what would be the results of an insurrection 
 of the slaves of the South. The dangers are, at least, 
 
221 
 
 sufficient to make it the duty of the South to guard 
 against them. The lives of the citizens of the South, 
 and all that is dear to them, depend on their pre 
 serving, wholly untouched, their jurisdiction over 
 the slave question. The power that violates these 
 rights, is their worst foe and as such, must and will 
 be met. 
 
 The passage of such an enactment by Congress 
 would he a virtual infraction of the compact between 
 the general government and the States of Virginia 
 and Maryland. It cannot be supposed, even by the 
 most insane of the fanatics, that those States would 
 have ceded their territory to the United States, if 
 they had supposed that the national government pos 
 sessed the power to pass an act of abolition; or could 
 ever so far forget its own character as to assume 
 such power. Would they have exposed their own 
 citizens to be thus robbed of their property? Would 
 they would Washington himself, have sanctioned 
 a measure which would be certain to endanger the 
 institutions of Virginia and Maryland, and found a 
 city of refuge for the reception and shelter of the run 
 away slaves from those States? It cannot be, for one 
 moment, believed. These States would be deeply 
 injured by such a measure; and they, as well as the 
 citizens of the District, would regard it as unauthor 
 ized, unjust, and oppressive. The general govern 
 ment would be petitioned by the whole District, to 
 remove the seat of government, and recede the 
 District to the States from which it was received. 
 Amid such opposition and contention, surrounded 
 by an indignant and injured population, the govern 
 ment would find itself placed, by its injustice, in a 
 situation so embarrassing, that in all probability it 
 would be constrained to remove the seat of its de 
 liberations to some remote and more tranquil spot. 
 
 The government of the United States, in adopting 
 19* 
 
222 
 
 the District of Columbia as the site of the capital, 
 never contemplated an interference with the exist 
 ing right of the inhabitants to their slaves. Had 
 the measures now urged been anticipated, the seat 
 of government would have been fixed in one of the 
 non-slaveholding States, where the government 
 would not have been disturbed by the agitation of 
 this ill-fated question. It may be added, also, that 
 the slave-holders in the administration, of which the 
 sainted Washington a slave-holder was the chief, 
 would never have sanctioned the measure, had they 
 supposed that the question of slavery in the District 
 was open to Northern interference. 
 
 But whatever right may be claimed, for Congress, 
 in the District of Columbia, it will be admitted that 
 it has no greater power than a local legislature would 
 have, were the District a State, and Congress its 
 legislature. No republican, no lover of freedom, 
 no friend of justice, will deny that it would be 
 improper and oppressive, should Congress assume 
 powers which such a legislature would not possess. 
 It may, therefore, be presumed, that Congress will be 
 guided by the rules which would control such a 
 legislature; and will consult the interests, but more 
 than all, the will of the community. If the voters 
 of the District are anxious for the abolition of slavery, 
 it is well. If, on the contrary, they are opposed to 
 it to trample on their will, would be but a humi 
 liating specimen of American liberty and justice. 
 When the national government is convinced that the 
 will of the community, for which she legislates, 
 the community of which she is the protector, craves 
 abolition, then let its inhabitants be robbed of their 
 property, despoiled of their rights, and offered up 
 as sacrifices at the shrine of Northern fanaticism. 
 
 The surrender of the District of Columbia would 
 prove one of the most afflicting calamities which 
 
2-23 
 
 could be visited upon the South. It would become 
 the focus of the abolitionists. They would make it 
 their head-quarters the laboratory for the prepara 
 tion of their incendiary weapons. From this place, 
 they would operate, with irresistible effect, upon the 
 surrounding country; and in a short time completely 
 pervade the south with their insurrectionary spirit. 
 The district, too, would become the shelter of tens 
 of thousands of fugitive slaves. Arrangements would 
 be made to receive them, and forward them by sea 
 to the North. Thus the District would become the 
 avenue, by which the slaves of the south would pass 
 on to freedom, at the North. 
 
 The opposition to slavery in the District of Co 
 lumbia has existed ever since its cession to the 
 United States. As early as in 1805, the following 
 resolution was brought forward in the House of Re 
 presentatives. 
 
 " Resolved, That from and after the 4th of July, all 
 blacks and people of colour that shall be born with 
 in the District of Columbia, whose mothers shall be 
 the property of any person residing within said 
 
 District shall be free; the males at the age of , 
 
 and the females at the age of ." 
 
 This resolution was rejected; ayes 31, noes 77. 
 
 The views of the South on this subject are dis 
 tinctly understood. The people of the slaveholding 
 States deny the right of Congress to discuss the sub 
 ject; and are prepared to act, as one man, in vigorous 
 and determined opposition to any measure,calculated 
 to undermine their rights and endanger their tran 
 quillity and safety. In some of the meetings recently 
 held at the South on this subject, the representatives 
 of the South in Congress were requested, to vacate 
 their seats the moment the discussion of abolition 
 commenced. The following firm and eloquent ap 
 peal from the South to the North, published in the 
 
224 
 
 Richmond Inquirer, and extensively recopied, will 
 exhibit the feelings and determination of the South 
 on this subject. 
 
 " The South, therefore, calls upon the North to 
 put forth her strength, and assist us in putting down 
 the emissaries of the fanatics, and their poisonous 
 presses and, moreover, to keep off their hands 
 from the District of Columbia. It is neutral ground, 
 with which neither party is permitted to meddle. 
 Pass not the Iberus, (as the Romans warned the 
 Carthagenians.) Touch not Saguntum. We warn 
 you in the most ingenuous but respectful terms, 
 touch not the District disturb not the order of 
 things, which has been established there since the 
 foundation of the government violate none of the 
 rights of property which belong to her people, ori 
 ginally the citizens of two slave States, and protected 
 by their laws. Open no asylum in the slave region, 
 and on the borders of Virginia, for fugitive slaves 
 or incendiary emissaries. The federal constitution 
 never could have intended to convey any jurisdic 
 tion to Congress over this delicate and agitating 
 subject. Beware, then, we beseech you ! You are 
 kindling a flame which must consume the sacred 
 temple of the Union itself. The South has taken 
 her stand on this subject, from which she will not 
 depart. She will not permit the discussion for one 
 moment of such petitions. She will consider the 
 abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia as 
 forbidden ground in debate. Here they are on a 
 footing as firm, and occupy a position as strong, as 
 they do, when they reject interference, in an open 
 manner, with the institution of slavery within their 
 limits. They may with safety point to the constitu 
 tion, and demand whether agitation can be justified 
 and upheld by the authority of Congress, and whe 
 ther it does not impair the securities to slave pro- 
 
225 
 
 perty, which constitute a part of that instrument. 
 They may not only allege the evil tendency of en 
 tertaining discussions and receiving petitions on this 
 subject, but they may take higher grounds, and say, 
 that should Congress, through a misguided majority, 
 acting under fanatical impulses, make any declara 
 tion affecting the rights of slave-owners in the Dis 
 trict of Columbia, either now or prospectively, it 
 would be, in effect, a sentence of confiscation, bound 
 ed, it is true, as to place, but co-extensive with the 
 limits of the Union." 
 
 It cannot be denied, and need not be concealed, 
 that the abolition of slavery in the District of Co 
 lumbia by Congress, would be the signal for an im 
 mediate dissolution of the Union. The South does 
 not shrink from an avowal of her determination on 
 this point. Her course will be adopted, not from 
 resentment or rage, but from a calm and stern con 
 viction of necessity. On a separation of the Union, 
 the District of Columbia would probably revert to 
 its original States; and the very act of abolition 
 would be thus abrogated. Thus the fanatics urge a 
 measure, which, though it may dissolve the Union,, 
 cannot free a single slave. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Impossibility of effecting abolition, even under 
 the sanction of the slave-holders, without col 
 lision and war between the whites and blacks 
 Amalgamation. 
 
 WE are willing, for the sake of investigating the 
 practicability of abolition, to suppose impossibilities 
 to imagine that the Southern states are willing to 
 witness, with apathy and indifference, the most sa 
 cred provisions of the Constitution violated, and 
 their domestic institutions and domestic rights 
 trampled, by their brethren, in the dust. We are 
 willing to suppose, that they will voluntarily surren 
 der their chartered rights, quietly beggar them 
 selves and their children, and tamely give them 
 selves up to the management of the Northern 
 fanatics: in short that the slave-holders will them 
 selves become abolitionists. Still it would be im 
 possible to effect abolition, without commotion 
 and bloodshed, without the desolation of the 
 entire South, and the extermination of one or the 
 other of the races which inhabit it. 
 
 Were the slaves emancipated they would claim 
 political and social equality. This is already claim 
 ed by the abolitionists; and it is not to be supposed 
 that a mass of ignorant freed men, drunken with 
 the excitement of unwonted exemption from re 
 straint, would be more moderate in their views or 
 
227 
 
 desires, than their pious and temperate advocates 
 in the North. They would claim political and 
 social equality. Would it be denied? If so, they 
 would, in the exultation and boastfulness of newly 
 acquired importance, demand it. Pleased with a 
 pretext for collision, they would at once fall upon 
 the whites, and wrest, or attempt to wrest, the poli 
 tical power of the Southern states from their hands, 
 at the point of the sword. Whatever might be the 
 final result the immediate consequences would be 
 a war of extermination. 
 
 But let us suppose that these rights were conceded, 
 and that the slave was at once elevated to all the privi 
 leges and powers of complete citizenship the right 
 to vote, to hold office, to make laws, organize 
 armies, &c. &c. Can any man, in the maturity ot 
 reason, uninfluenced by fanaticism, and disposed to 
 look dispassionately at facts, suppose that the two 
 races could exist together, in tranquillity under such 
 circumstances? Can it be conceived that social 
 amalgamation will, or can, take place? The reader 
 has no doubt noted with apprehension and regret 
 the prescriptive and bitter prejudices of parties as 
 they now exist in this country. A population, 
 united by every national tie, identical in language, 
 character, interests and feelings, and knit together 
 by all the bonds of kindred are still so divided by 
 the spirit of faction, that the tranquillity and even 
 the existence of the Union have been at times en 
 dangered. If such excitements distract our present 
 population, what must be expected when the South 
 is possessed by two races, differing in colour, char 
 acter and interests? What power will overthrow 
 the barrier which indissolubly divides them? What 
 magic will remove the distinction w r hich makes 
 social amalgamation impossible? Without kindred 
 connections, without social or sexual intercourse, 
 
228 
 
 with every thing that can separate and embitter the 
 races it is impossible that they could move in the 
 same sphere. It is impossible that they could sit 
 in the same legislative hall, stand in the same mili 
 tary ranks, occupy the same civil posts, or mingle 
 in the same political meetings. So long as inter 
 marriage is out of the question, so long must these 
 prejudices the necessary result of social separation 
 prevail. On one side will be the whites, on the 
 other the blacks; on one side the intelligence and 
 refinement of the country, on the other the igno 
 rance and barbarity; on one side the wealth, on the 
 other the poverty; on one side contempt and the 
 feeling produced by former power, on the other 
 dark brooding feelings of malice and revenge. The 
 blacks, too, would be unwilling to work, and when 
 pressed by want would wrench the means of ex 
 istence from the white man, and in case of resist 
 ance, resort to the torch and the knife. The lands 
 would remain in the possession of the whites, and 
 being the only source of wealth, the impoverished 
 negroes would insist on their division. A thousand 
 subjects of contention would arise; and when the 
 parties are indissolubly divided, separated by the 
 hand of Nature, marked, on the front, as foes, arid 
 embittered by every feeling of hostility which can 
 enter into human quarrels the arbitrament must 
 eventually be by the sword.* 
 
 * The following extract from De Lamartine, contains im 
 pressive and preernant truths, which should not be overlooked 
 by the political philosopher. 
 
 " The more I have travelled, the more I am convinced that 
 races of men form the great secret of history and manners. 
 Man is not so capable of education as philosophers imagine. 
 The influence of governments and laws has less power, 
 radically, than is supposed, over the manners and instincts 
 of any people, while the primitive constitution and the blood 
 of the race have always their influence, and manifest them- 
 
29 
 
 The abolitionist will, perhaps, point to the North 
 ern states, as furnishing a proof of the safety of 
 abolition. It is true, that the slaves have been eman 
 cipated in the North it is also true that they have 
 not destroyed the lives of our citizens. But the 
 facts prove nothing for the abolitionists. Notwith 
 standing the paucity of the numbers of the blacks, 
 they have given the greatest trouble to the authori 
 ties of the Northern cities. Insignificant in power 
 and resources, they are still insolent and arrogant to 
 a degree which renders them dangerous to the com 
 munity. The officers of justice scarce venture to 
 arrest them; and it is a task of great and mortal 
 peril to take a fugitive slave, or a fugitive from jus 
 tice, from among them. It is unnecessary to refer 
 the reader to the columns of our newspapers, which 
 give, almost weekly, accounts of rescues by the 
 blacks. The very hall of the Court House in 
 Philadelphia, was made the scene of a rescue but a 
 short time since; and the Judge himself saw, through 
 the window, the officers of the court assailed and 
 the prisoner seized by a negro mob. 
 
 While referring to the free negroes of the North, 
 it may be well to inquire whether the social and 
 
 selves, thousands of years afterwards, in the physical forma 
 tions and moral habits of a particular family or tribe. Hu 
 man nature flows in rivers anil streams into the vast ocean of 
 humanity ; but its waters mingle but slowly, sometimes 
 never ; and it emerges again, like the Rhone from the Lake of 
 Geneva, with its own taste and colour. Here is indeed an 
 abyss of thought and meditation, and at the same time a 
 grand secret for legislators. As long as they keep the spirit 
 of the race in view they succeed ; but they fail when they 
 strive against this natural predisposition : nature is stronger 
 than they are. This sentiment is not that of the philosophers 
 of the present time, but it is evident to the traveller; and 
 there is more philosophy to be found in a caravan journey of 
 a hundred leagues, than in ten years reading and meditation." 
 20 
 
230 
 
 moral improvement, promised by the abolitionists 
 as the result of emancipation, has been there attain 
 ed. The negro in the North has equal, if not su 
 perior advantages to the mass of poor white men. 
 Our public institutions afford him the advantages of 
 an education; and the partiality of the negroites 
 furnishes him with every advantage for the prose 
 cution of business. It cannot, however, be boasted, 
 that his intellectual character has been materially 
 elevated, or his moral nature greatly improved. The 
 free blacks are, in the mass, the most ignorant, vo 
 luptuous, idle, vicious, impoverished, and degraded 
 population of this country. They are seldom seen 
 
 Eursuing regular trades, and avoid all continuous 
 ibour with characteristic solicitude. They have 
 sunk lower than the Southern slaves, and constitute 
 but a melancholy proof of the advantages of aboli 
 tion. 
 
 Some time since, a respectable Quaker of Phila 
 delphia, who was called upon to aid the abolition 
 ists, in reply to the request of the solicitor, asked 
 him what he would think of a settler in the far 
 West, who would cut the wood from a tract of 
 land preparatory to cultivation. The abolitionist 
 replied, that he would consider it a natural and pru 
 dent course. But suppose, urged the friend, instead 
 of cultivating what he had cleared, he should pro 
 ceed to cut off another tract? I would regard him 
 as a most imprudent man answered the other. 
 And should he still proceed, cutting and clearing a 
 third, a fourth, a fifth tract, without stopping to 
 cultivate any? He would be a madman responded 
 the unconscious abolitionist. What then, urged the 
 querist, are ye, who, having freed a large body of 
 the blacks, would proceed to clear new and bound 
 less tracts, without cultivating those already cleared. 
 Raise the negroes of the North to the moral and 
 
231 
 
 intellectual elevation necessary to make them good 
 and happy men and valuable citizens and I will 
 give thee my money to char a neiv tract. 
 
 The condition of the free negroes of the North 
 demonstrates the utter impossibility of effecting a 
 social or political amalgamation of the races. They 
 are free at the North possessed of all the rights of 
 the whites and elevated, in many states, to a com 
 plete political equality. Do they exercise those 
 rights? They do not, and dare not. Weak as they 
 are, the jealousy of the whites renders an attempt 
 on their part to exercise their political rights, dan 
 gerous. Were they more numerous, the prejudice 
 would be stronger. The late difficulties in the 
 North between the whites and blacks, prove the 
 strength and bitterness of this feeling. Those dif 
 ficulties arose from the presumption of the blacks; 
 and were quelled by their flight and submission. 
 Had the blacks nearly or quite equalled the whites 
 in numbers and strength, it is probable that resist 
 ance would have been made. Such a conflict 
 would have led to consequences which no power 
 under heaven could have checked. The contest 
 would have widened to embrace the entire popula 
 tion, and deepened into a civil war. That war 
 would have been waged with all the horrors of a 
 civil contest between hostile races; and would have 
 been terminated only by the submission or extinc 
 tion of one of the parties. Imagine such a contest 
 at the South, and what mind can regard the results 
 without horror. 
 
 A review of the history and condition of the free 
 blacks of the North, cannot but result in the con 
 viction, that they are incapable of rising to a level 
 with the whites; and that, if they could, their eleva 
 tion would only precipitate a conflict between them, 
 
23-2 
 
 and the whites, and render that conflict mare dubi 
 ous and destructive. 
 
 It may be justly doubted, whether, under the 
 most favourable auspices, the negro character i:- 
 adequate to the task of self elevation and support, 
 whether he can, when left to himself, win or retain 
 the advantages of civilization and self control; and 
 it is certain that, where the circumstances are ad 
 verse, he must sink, when the supporting hand of 
 the white man is withdrawn, into barbarity anc 1 
 wretchedness. We know that many intelligent 
 men profess to believe, that the intellectual and 
 moral faculties of the negro are equal to those of 
 any other race. We have no prejudice against the 
 coloured man to gratify; but we cannot but doubt 
 the truth of the position. We have no proof of 
 their capacity for self-sustained civilization. Since 
 the sun first shone upon Africa, that vast continent, 
 has, so far as the negro race is concerned, remained 
 in unbroken gloom. Of the flood of moral radiance 
 which has irradiated the whole globe, not a strag 
 gling ray has been able to pierce the dense gloom 
 which overshadows Africa. In the West Indies, 
 we find the same insusceptibility to mental refine 
 ment. Kven in Hayti, as will be seen hereafter, 
 the negro has been unable to raise his nature above 
 its ordinary level. In this country, the coloured 
 man has greater advantages, and has attained a 
 somewhat greater degree of civilization: but who. 
 that contemplates the race, as a mass, is prepared to 
 say that they are capable of self government, or fit 
 to be merged, politically, in the free white popula 
 tion of the country. Personal observation must 
 convince every candid man, that the negro is con 
 stitutionally indolent, voluptuous, and prone to 
 vice; that his mind is heavy, dull, and unambitious; 
 and that the doom which has made the African in 
 
233 
 
 all ages and countries, a slave is the natural conse 
 quence of the inferiority of his character.* 
 
 * The foil owing extract is from the Courier and Enquirer, of 
 New York. The view here taken of the subject is equally 
 forcible and correct. 
 
 " We will suppose, what is scarcely possible, that the 
 blacks should finally succeed, and become masters where be 
 fore they were slaves. We would ask does there now exist, 
 or did there ever exist an independent community of blacks 
 in any age or clime, that affords one single ennobling reflec 
 tion to the friends of the human race 1 Are they not in St. 
 Domingo, and every where else, where they exist in a state 
 of freedom, without mora s, without industry, and divested 
 of every characteristic of civilized nations! They have no 
 ideas of freedom except exemption from labour, and their 
 conception of political rights is limited to abject despotism 
 on the one hand, unrestrained licentiousness on the other. In 
 their native land they are the slaves of their kings, who 
 exercise over them unlimited discretion, and in St. Domingo, 
 where their minds, and their habits were in some degree 
 modified by an association with the whites, the only use they 
 have made of their freedom is to indulge in a latitude of 
 idleness and debauchery which has entailed upon them a 
 system of coercion and punishment from their rulers, far 
 more severe than they ever suffered from their old masters. 
 
 "To the task of self government they have been found 
 totally inadequate, at all times, and every where. As inde 
 pendent communities they are political bondmen ; as free in 
 dividuals, they nine times in ten, become either a burthen or 
 a pest to society. The cities of New York and Philadelphia, 
 the great refuges of the free coloured population, afford such 
 melancholy examples of the truth of this latter assertion, that 
 we shall not waste words to establish its correctness. No 
 one can walk the streets by day, and more especially by 
 night, without having his feelings outraged by continued ex 
 amples of such disgusting obscenity, such filthy, nauseating, 
 beastly corruption, as it is reserved to the free negroes alone 
 to exhibit among us. They pay no more respect to the laws 
 of the land, than to the decencies of society. A white man 
 offending against the laws, can be arrested and made answer 
 able for his crime, without raising a mob to effect his libera 
 tion and arrest the course of justice. But let a Southern 
 planter attempt to reclaim his runaway slave, and the whole 
 20* 
 
234 
 
 Mr. Walsh says, in his Appeal: " I know of but 
 one mode of correcting these feelings, and prevent 
 ing altercation, hostility, and civil war; of making 
 the experiment of general instruction and emanci 
 pation, with any degree of safety. We must assure 
 the blacks of a perfect equality in all points with 
 ourselves; we must labour to incorporate them 
 with us, so that we shall become of one flesh and 
 blood, and of one political family /"Mr. Walsh 
 is right; and events which have transpired since the 
 publication of his work, prove that this "amalga 
 mation," is recognized as the only means of attain 
 ing complete social equality, and is therefore re 
 garded, by the abolitionists, with favour. Their 
 feelings and views, on this point, were originally 
 expressed with more frankness; but the indignation 
 with which, the plan was received by the people, 
 has induced them to defer its public avowal and ad 
 vocacy. It must, however j be admitted by every 
 reasoning man that sexual amalgamation is the only 
 means, under heaven, .by which the races can be 
 "mingled,, like kindred drops, in one." This is the 
 only plan by which the vagaries of the abolition 
 ists can, by the most remote possibility, be realized. 
 It is the sole recourse, in case of emancipation, by 
 which the colliding races can be harmonized, their 
 prejudices. removed, and the divided and conflicting 
 population welded into one mass. 
 
 But is such an amalgamation possible? The fana- 
 
 mass of black population is in arms to oppose him. He does 
 it at the risk of his life, and his appeal to the laws of his 
 country to recover his property, endangers his very existence. 
 Even if he should escape this danger, he incurs the scoffs 
 and opprobium of the offscourings of society, and too often 
 must submit his claim to the decision of a magistrate whose 
 conscience will, not permit him to enforce the laws of his 
 country. 
 
235 
 
 tics, who pause not at the prospect of insurrection 
 and slaughter, may, perhaps, regard without nausea, 
 this process of harmonization. They may have 
 sufficiently schooled and perverted their natural 
 feelings, to endure a prospect at which ordinary 
 human nature sickens. But can they, with all their 
 abstractions, persuade- the people of this country 
 that white is black? Can^they induce them to be 
 lieve that Cupid is a young negro; or to regard, 
 without a revolt of their feelings, the combination 
 of charms which grace the sooty and fragrant 
 favourites of the fanatics? But this subject can 
 scarce be even referred to, without a breach of pro 
 priety, without feelings of nauseated disgust and 
 excited indignation. The man who* can insult the 
 fair and accomplished ladies of this country, by con 
 ceiving, much less avowing, a belief of the possi 
 bility of such deep, unnatural and damning degrada 
 tiondeserves, the most emphatic expression of 
 the abhorrence of society. Yet strange to say, the 
 North does contain men, who openly vindicate the 
 revolting and guilty suggestion and who- yet walk 
 our streets " untarred and unfeathored." 
 
 Can these philanthropists blind themselves to the 
 real character of such schemes? Can they not see 
 beneath the mask of benevolence, the hot and hide 
 ous features of a monstrous and unnatural lust? Can 
 they not foresee^ in the results of the unholy union, 
 the utter annihilation; of all sense of virtue? Are 
 they not aware that it would plunge the race into a 
 pit of fathomless- and irretrievable degradation and 
 perdition? They are not, they cannot be- ignorant, 
 that such guilt would bring down upon us the curse 
 of God and man; that we would be regarded, with 
 loathing and contempt, by all created beings; and 
 sink into a depth of crime and infamy, of feeble- 
 ness and horror, fpr which fancy has no picture 
 
236 
 
 and history no parallel. Commerce would fly our 
 guilty shores; crime would stalk through our street* 
 at mid-day; genius and virtue, and peace would be, 
 unknown among us; and we would become, to 
 ourselves, a mass of rottenness and wretchedness 
 to the world, a hissing and a reproach. 
 
 Mr. Walsh, referring to this subject, in the work 
 already quoted, says: "there must remain, in any 
 case, a broad line of demarcation, not viewed as an 
 inconvenience by them, but indispensable for our 
 feelings and interests. Nature and accident com 
 bine to make it impossible; their colour is a per 
 petual memento of their servile origin, and a double 
 disgust is thus created. We will not, must not, 
 expose ourselves to lose our identity as it were; to 
 be stained in our blood, and disparaged, in our rela 
 tion of being, towards the stock of our forefathers 
 in Europe. This may be called prejudice: but i; 
 is one which no reasoning can overcome, and which 
 we cannot wish to see extinguished. We are sure 
 that it would exist in an equal degree with any na 
 tion of Europe, who might be circumstanced like 
 ourselves; we do not find it so gross in itself, or so 
 hurtful and unjust in its operation, as those of an 
 analogous cast which prevail in England. Men of 
 true speculation, says Mr. Burke, * exploring gene 
 ral prejudices, employ their sagacity to discover 
 the latent wisdom which inheres in them. If they 
 find what they seek, they think it more wise to 
 continue the prejudice, with the reason involved, 
 than to cast away the coat of prejudice, and leave 
 nothing but the naked reason. 7 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Consequences of Abolition , if effected with the 
 assent of the Slave-holder. 
 
 IT will be said by the Southern reader, that it is 
 unnecessary and idle to inquire into the conse 
 quences of an event which is impossible. We ad 
 mit that it is utterly impossible that the citizens of 
 the South can ever consent to stake their lives upon 
 the perilous and absurd scheme of the abolitionists: 
 but it may be well, by a brief and cursory view of 
 the results which would inevitably flow from such 
 a measure, to open the eyes of honest abolitionists, 
 if such there be, to the real character of the designs 
 which they have been induced to sustain. 
 
 The consequences of abolition would be wide- 
 sweeping and general; the} 7 would be felt and de 
 plored by the North as well as the South by the 
 negro as well as the white man. 
 
 To the North its influence would be truly disas 
 trous. The instant the act f emancipation went 
 into effect, a torrent of black emigration would set 
 from the South t& the North. The blow given to 
 the South, and the convulsion which would pervade 
 its whole extent, would derange all the pursuits of 
 industry, and drive the negroes to the North for 
 subsistence. They would seek the free States also 
 as the land of promise, and the North would soon 
 be blackened by the ingress of Southern slaves. One 
 of the first results of this emigration would be a 
 
238 
 
 depreciation in the price of labour. The added 
 number of labourers would, of itself, occasion this 
 fall of prices; but the limited wants ot the negro, 
 which enable him to under-work the white labourer, 
 would tend still further to produce this result. The 
 honest white poor of the North would, therefore, be 
 either thrown out of employment entirely by the 
 blacks, or forced to descend to an equality with the 
 negro, and work at his reduced prices. It behooves 
 the working men of the North to look into this sub 
 ject, and take efficient measures to ward off the fatal 
 blow aimed at their rights and interests by the 
 abolitionists. Let the mad scheme of abolition be 
 carried into effect, and the honest poor of the North 
 will be degraded into a state worse than that from 
 which the slaves will be freed. The chains will be 
 taken from the blacks of the South, and fastened 
 upon the poor whites of the North. Degradation, 
 suffering, and oppression will be their lot, thence 
 forth, for ever; and for the wretchedness thus entailed 
 upon them, they may thank the benevolence of the 
 fanatics. 
 
 The North already deplores, not without reason, 
 the number of the free coloured population within her 
 borders. The immense increase of that population, 
 by abolition, would render the burthen thus inflicted 
 upon the community, intolerable. With the increase 
 of their strength, they would become more insolent 
 and overbearing. Their idleness would render them 
 dependent upon the industrious whites; their vices 
 would urge them into crime; and our community 
 would be filled with confusion, violence, and out 
 rage. Our jails and alms-houses would overflow with 
 the lazaroni thus crowded upon us; and the North 
 would be afflicted with all the evils of a worthless 
 coloured population evils hitherto confined to the 
 
239 
 
 South, but which abolition would spread over the 
 whole country. 
 
 It cannot be supposed that this population, igno 
 rant, insolent, and violent, would abstain from the 
 exercisje of the political rights extended to them by 
 most of the Northern States. They would enter the 
 arena with their united strength; and the whites 
 would either be driven from the polls, or compelled 
 to maintain their rights, by force. Bitter party con 
 flicts between the blacks and whites, could not be 
 prosecuted without violence; and among the other 
 direful triumphs of abolition, our peaceful streets 
 would be filled with the din of mortal conflict, and 
 our cities exposed to the lust and rage of infuriated 
 and savage negro mobs. 
 
 Let the North pause ere she consent to see her 
 peace thus invaded, her safety endangered, and her 
 happiness for ever destroyed. We are now an united, 
 tranquil, and happy people; and every consideration 
 of prudence and duty requires that we should not 
 suffer, much less seek, the triumph of a measure 
 which must involve us in the evils which it would 
 inflict upon the South, and render the free and happy 
 States of the North the scene of an eternal contest 
 between the original white population and a black 
 emigration, ignorant, savage, vicious, and idle. The 
 hour that sees the slaves of the South emancipated, 
 witnesses the prosperity and glory of the North 
 clouded for ever. 
 
 If the scheme of emancipation should prove, as 
 we are assured it must, ruinous in its influence on 
 the industry and agriculture of the South, the blow 
 would be still more severely felt at the North. If 
 emancipation is attended here as in St. Domingo, 
 with the destruction of the plantations, and the con 
 sequent failure to supply the usual exports, what 
 will become of Northern commerce or manufactures? 
 
ele 
 
 Where will our vessels find employment? Whence 
 Will our manufactories procure their cotton, or where 
 find their market? Without exports and the mass 
 of ours is raised at the South the country must sink 
 into irremediable penury. The blow will not be for 
 a month, or a year, but for ever. It will fall upon 
 the land, like palsy upon the limbs of age nothing 
 will turn its feebleness into strength, or restore the 
 living principle which before animated it. 
 
 Of the consequences of abolition to the South it is 
 difficult to speak in terms of moderation. The ex 
 tent of those consequences cannot now be conceived: 
 but we know enough, to give to the mad scheme oi 
 emancipation an aspect of unequalled horror. 
 
 One of the first consequences of emancipation 
 would be the loss of the negro s labour. Indolent 
 from constitution, the moment he is allowed the 
 privilege of abstaining from toil, no persuasion, no 
 inducement, not even the stern voice of necessity, 
 can bring him back to it. In St. Domingo, the blacks 
 are forced to toil by the most oppressive enact 
 ments, and labour literally at the point of the bayo 
 net. The negro is the same every where, and, re 
 leased from legal obligation, he would abandon all 
 toil, and trust to chance for the necessaries of life. 
 The plantations of the South would become, in con 
 sequence, unproductive. The wilderness would re 
 claim them; and the rich fields which now teem 
 with fertility would, like the plantations of Hayti, 
 revert to the forest. The pursuit of agriculture thus 
 abandoned, the South must sink into poverty. The 
 rich exports, now sent from that section of the Union, 
 would no longer go forth, to bring back a return of 
 wealth and comfort to the enterprizing planter. Pe 
 nury and wretchedness would fall upon and blight 
 the land. Its spirit would be broken down; indus 
 try and enterprise would be discouraged; capitalists 
 
241 
 
 would emigrate with their wealth; and, with the 
 
 feneral decay, even the proud political spirit of the 
 outh would be bowed to the dust. Abolition, if 
 unloosed upon the South, will pass over it like a 
 curse. He who visits it after its pestilential influ 
 ence has been fully exerted, will find that prosperous 
 portion of our happy country a desert still, lone, 
 and melancholy. 
 
 The following remarks, upon the consequences 
 of emancipation, were made by Judge Tucker, in 
 1803, long before the country was afflicted with an 
 organized band of conspiring abolitionists. " The 
 acrimony of the censures cast upon us must abate, 
 at least in the breasts of the candid, when they con 
 sider the difficulties attendant upon any plan for the 
 abolition of slavery, in a country where so large a 
 proportion of the inhabitants are slaves; and where 
 a still larger proportion of the cultivators of the 
 earth are of that description. The extirpation of 
 slavery from the United States is a task equally 
 momentous and arduous. Human prudence forbids 
 that we should precipitately engage in a work of 
 such hazard, as a general and simultaneous emanci 
 pation. The mind of man is, in some measure, to 
 be formed for his future condition. The early im 
 pressions of obedience and submission, which slaves 
 have received among us, and the no less habitual 
 arrogance and assumption of superiority among the 
 whites, contribute equally to unfit the former for 
 freedom, and the latter for equality. To expel them 
 all at once from the United States, would, in fact, 
 be to devote them only to a lingering death, by 
 famine, by disease, and other accumulated miseries. 
 To retain them among us, would be nothing more 
 than to throw so many of the human race upon the 
 earth without the means of subsistence; they would 
 soon become idle, profligate, and miserable. They 
 21 
 
would be unfit for their new condition, and unwil 
 ling to return to their former laborious course." 
 
 That it would be impossible to induce the eman 
 cipated negroes to work, and that the consequence 
 would be the impoverishment and ruin of the en 
 tire South, we have the most conclusive evidence- 
 Wherever the experiment has been tried it has failed 
 We will prove, in the next chapter, by a brief re 
 view of the history of St. Domingo, that emancipa 
 tion has been there attended with every disastei 
 which the most timid could have feared. The in 
 dustry of that island has been annihilated. Brougharr 
 in his Colonial Policy, says, "The free negroes ir. 
 the West Indies are, with very few exceptions, 
 chiefly in the Spanish and Portuguese settlements, 
 equally averse to all sorts of labour which do not 
 contribute to their immediate and most urgent wants. 
 Improvident and careless of the future, they are not 
 actuated by that principle which inclines more civil 
 ized men to equalize their exertions at all times, and 
 to work after the necessaries of the day have been 
 procured, in order to make up for the possible defi 
 ciencies of to-morrow; nor has their intercourse with 
 the whites taught them to consider any gratification 
 as worth obtaining, which cannot be produced by 
 slight exertion of desultory and capricious indus 
 try." It appears that the same aversion to labour 
 prevails in all the colonies. The author just quoted, 
 says, that " M. Malouet, who bore a special com 
 mission from the general government to examine the 
 character and habits of the Maroons in Dutch Guiana, 
 and to determine whether or not they were adapted 
 to become hired labourers, informs us that they will 
 only work one day in the week, which they find 
 abundantly sufficient, in the fertile soil and genial 
 climate of the new world, to supply all the wants 
 they have yet learnt to feel. The rest of their time 
 
243 
 
 is spent in absolute indolence and sloth. ( I*e reposj 
 says he, et Poisivete sont devenus dans leur &at 
 social leur unique passion? He gives the very 
 same description of the negroes in the French colo 
 nies, although many of them possessed lands and 
 slaves. The spectacle, he tells us, was never yet 
 exhibited of a free negro supporting his family by 
 the culture of his little property. All other authors 
 agree in giving the same description of free negroes 
 in the British, French, and Dutch colonies, by what 
 ever denomination they may be distinguished, whe 
 ther Maroons, Caraibes, free blacks, or fugitive 
 slaves. The Abbe Raynald, with all his ridiculous 
 fondness for savages, cannot, in the present instance, 
 so far twist the facts, according to his fancies and 
 feelings, as to give a favourable portrait of this de 
 graded race." "The British colony at Sierra Leone, 
 and our own at Liberia, both demonstrate the in 
 vincible aversion of the negro to regular labour. 
 Indeed, wherever the experiment has been tried, it 
 has produced the same result; and those who advo 
 cate the liberation of the slave must calculate upon 
 the consequences to them and to the country, of a 
 population of two millions and a quarter remaining 
 in a state of complete sloth and idleness. 
 
 To add to the burthens and afflictions of the 
 South, the emancipated population would acquire, 
 with fearful rapidity, those vices from which their 
 present restraint protects them. Drunkenness would 
 sweep over the South like a destroying spirit; and 
 every vice and every crime would follow in its 
 track. Even if such a population could be held in 
 subjection to the laws, how wasting and destructive 
 a burthen would it prove? 
 
 But the most fearful consequence to be anticipated 
 from emancipation, is the violence and insurrections 
 of the manumitted slaves. That this violence would 
 
244 
 
 be inevitable, cannot, we think, be doubted. Many 
 causes would combine to render the vast population, 
 thus suddenly freed from wonted restraint, fierce, 
 unquiet, and insurrectionary. Idleness itself would 
 prompt them to a war upon the whites, if for the 
 mere enjoyment of excitement. The want that suc 
 ceeds idleness would urge still more fiercely to hos 
 tilities. The vices that would flow in upon them, 
 drunkenness, sensuality, and impatience of restraint, 
 would also act as spurs to goad them on to deeds of 
 violence and blood. Their conscious degradation 
 could not fail to add to their discontent. To gain 
 the mere means of subsistence, the blacks would be 
 forced to work for their former masters; these mas 
 ters, freed from the sense of duty and dependence 
 which now softens their hearts towards the slave, 
 would probably exhibit a degree of rapacity and 
 cruelty now unknown. All these causes, with 
 many others, would conspire to render the South 
 the scene of constant violence and bloodshed. It is 
 probable, however, that instead of multiplied and 
 continued ebullitions of the dark passions of the 
 negro, they would, in the confidence of their num 
 bers, essay to make a general blow, and take posses 
 sion of the whole Southern portion of our country. 
 Many captivating inducements would urge them to 
 this course. The gratification of their ungoverned 
 passions, their lust, their love of blood, and their 
 hatred of the whites, would combine with the de 
 sire to secure the wealth of the citizens, possess their 
 cities, seize their plantations, and prosecute those 
 pursuits which, in the hands of the whites, have been 
 attended with such great success and profit. 
 
 The following extract from a speech by the cele 
 brated Mr. Canning, beautifully illustrates the dan 
 gers ot negro emancipation. " In dealing with a 
 negro, we must remember that we are dealing with 
 
245 
 
 a being possessing the form and strength of a man, 
 but the intellect only of a child. To turn him loose 
 in the manhood of his physical passions, but in the 
 infancy of his uninstructed reason, would be to raise 
 up a creature resembling the splendid fiction of a 
 recent romance, the hero of which constructs a 
 human form with all the physical capabilities of man, 
 and with the thews and sinews of a giant; but, being 
 unab!e to impart to the work of his hands a percep 
 tion of right and wrong, he finds, too late, that he has 
 only created a more than mortal power of doing 
 mischief, and himself recoils from the monster which 
 he has made." 
 
 Professor Dew thus speaks of the consequence of 
 emancipation. "The great evil of these schemes 
 of emancipation, remains yet to be told. They 
 are admirably calculated to excite plots, murders, 
 and insurrections; whether gradual or rapid in their 
 operations, this is the inevitable tendency. In the 
 former case, you disturb the quiet and contentment of 
 the slave who is left unemancipated,and he becomes 
 the midnight murderer to gain that fatal freedom 
 whose blessings he does not comprehend. In the 
 latter case, want and invidious distinction will 
 prompt to revenge. Two totally different races, as 
 we have before seen, cannot easily harmonize to 
 gether; and although we have no idea that any or 
 ganized plan of insurrection or rebellion can ever 
 secure for the black the superiority, even when free,, 
 yet his idleness will produce want and worthless- 
 ness, and his very worthlessness and degradation 
 will stimulate him to deeds of rapine and vengeance; 
 he will oftener engage in plots and massacres, and 
 thereby draw down on his devoted head the ven 
 geance of the provoked whites. But one limited 
 massacre is recorded in Virginia history; let her 
 liberate her slaves, and every year you would hear 
 21* 
 
246 
 
 of insurrections and plots, and every day would 
 perhaps record a murder; the melancholy tale of 
 Southampton wo-uld not alone blacken the page of 
 our history, and make the tender mother shed the 
 tear of horror over her babe as she clasped it to her 
 bosom; others of a deeper dye would thicken upon 
 us; those regions where the brightness of polished 
 life has dawned and brightened into full day, would 
 relapse into darkness thick and full of horrors." 
 
 The consequences of servile insurrection in the 
 South cannot be adequately portrayed. From the 
 revolt of the gladiators under Spartacus, 70 B. C., 
 to the insurrection in Barbadoes in 1816, the same 
 scene of horror has attended every servile contest. 
 The madness which a sudden freedom from restraint 
 begets the overpowering burst of long-buried pas 
 sion the wild frenzy of revenge, and the savage 
 lust for blood, all unite to give to the warfare of 
 liberated slaves, traits of cruelty and crime which 
 nothing earthly can equal. Fiends let loose upon 
 the earth could not wage a more desolating war 
 upon its inhabitants. The torrent of blood once 
 let loose, it sweeps the old and young, the innocent 
 and guilty, the hoary sire and the blooming maid, 
 in one undistinguished mass before it. Should such 
 a contest take place in this country, if the negro tri 
 umphed, the South would be left a blackened and 
 solitary waste. It is not, however, probable that 
 brutal force would succeed, in a contest against skill, 
 prudence, and science. The blacks would probably 
 be subdued, and, as their cruelties would excite 
 against them the bitterest hatred, perhaps extermi 
 nated. But, before this result could take place, the 
 blacks would, in all human probability, obtain pos 
 session of extensive portions of the country, and 
 extend their ravages to the desolation of large tracts 
 of territory, and the murder of tens or hundreds of 
 
247 
 
 thousands of innocent victims. There can be no 
 exaggeration of the horrors which would ensue 
 wherever they attained power. The most savage 
 of the Indian tribes the very cannibals excel 
 them in mildness and humanity. Their career is 
 one of unmixed desolation. They would burn every 
 mansion they would destroy every vestige of in 
 dustry and its triumphs -fire and sword would sweep 
 over the land, and leave behind them no traces of 
 life nothing but a black and blasted heath. The 
 inhabitants would be slaughtered with every cruelty 
 which ingenious malice could devise. The father 
 or the husband would be reserved to. witness the 
 violation of the daughter or the wife; and helpless 
 females would be spared to glut the savage and 
 brutal passions of their demoniac captors, amid the 
 palpitating bodies of murdered kindred, and the 
 shrieks of those reserved for peculiar and lingering 
 torture. Better that a blast from Heaven, like that 
 which fell upon Sodom and Gomorrah, should burst 
 upon the South, and destroy it utterly and for ever,, 
 than that it should be transformed into & pandemo 
 nium, where these human fiends may hold their in 
 fernal orgies, their Saturnalia of lust and blood. Such 
 are the triumphs of abolition. Two millions and 
 a half of negroes, hardy, robust, ferocious, igno 
 rant and brutal, let loose upon our brethren of the 
 South chartered to rob, burn, violate, and murder 
 to sweep the fair South like a pestilence and leave 
 it an added monument of the horrors of fanaticism. 
 History has no page which can afford a picture so? 
 fearful, so revolting, so full of dread. True we have 
 examples of negro revolt of the mkfftfgh-t confla 
 gration, and the noon-tide massacre scenes of lust,, 
 cruelty, and horror, over which the arch fiend him 
 self might sicken;, but they were contracted in ex 
 tent, and temporary in duration. Ours may spread 
 
248 
 
 over a continent, and destroy a people and that 
 people our brethren! 
 
 Yet the authors of these evils affect to be moved 
 by considerations of philanthropy! What a guilty 
 mockery is it to apply such a word to their schemes 
 of rapine and bloodshed. Philanthropy! Do they 
 consider it philanthropic to sound the war blast 
 through a land before peaceful and happy? Does 
 their philanthropy teach them to haunt the pillow 
 of the fair and spotless females of the South, with 
 dreams and images of dread and horror? Is it phi 
 lanthropic, to excite the negro of the South to insur 
 rection; to set one portion of our country against 
 another, and fill the bosoms of our people with 
 Stormy passions or excited fears? Philanthropy, 
 as heretofore understood, seeks the happiness of the 
 race. It is the shadow of the Prince of Peace. Its 
 form is mild and benignant its agents are persua 
 sive and gentle: hope precedes, and rejoicing fol 
 lows in its path. It has nought to do with the 
 stormy and the terrific: its task is not to sound the 
 war drum, nor to preside over midnight, conclaves of 
 treason and insurrection. The philanthropy of the 
 abolitionists is a Moloch, with a brow spotted with 
 blood, and hands crimsoned in slaughter. It leads 
 on the slave to the murder of the whites; and pre 
 sides over the scene, where the cot of our southern 
 brethren blazes to the skies, while the murdered 
 forms of its manly inmates mingle with its ashes, 
 and the female loveliness they perished in protect 
 ing is consigned to a doom worse than the grave. 
 Such is the spirit they let loose and upon whom? 
 Upon our own brethren those knit, to us by the 
 closest and holiest ties those who, in the hour of 
 our danger, have always opened their breasts, and 
 bared their arms, in our defence the refined, the 
 
249 
 
 chivalrous, the patriotic, and devoted Americans of 
 the South!* 
 
 But the consequences of emancipation to the 
 slave himself, should not be overlooked. They are 
 now tranquil and contented; they are well fed, well 
 clothed; debarred from those indulgences so dan 
 gerous to the negro, and secured in the enjoyment of 
 all that is really valuable to him. When emanci 
 pated, he loses the friend that sustained him in 
 youth and age, in sickness and distress. He is 
 without land, without money, without experience, 
 or intelligence, but more than all, without habits of 
 self restraint. Thus situated, he must sink to the 
 lowest wretchedness. Idleness, poverty, drunken 
 ness, vice, suffering, and discontent will ensue. 
 "You may manumit a slave," says an able writer, 
 " but you cannot make him a white man. He still 
 remains a negro or mulatto. The mark and recol 
 lection of his origin, and former state, still adhere 
 to him; the feelings produced by that condition, in 
 his own mind a.nd the minds of the whites, still 
 exist. The authority of the master being removed, 
 and its place not being supplied by moral restraints, 
 or incitement, he lives in idleness, and probably in 
 vice, and obtains a precarious support, by begging 
 
 * " Should the poor blacks of the South be instigated to 
 another insurrection by the agency of the abolitionisfs at the 
 North, and a servile war ensue followed, as it might be to 
 extermination, and as it would be, by all the untold and un 
 utterable miseries of such a contest, whose skirts will be 
 stained with the blood that would flow] Upon whom might 
 the widow charge the agony she was doomed to suffer? At 
 whose doors would lie the guilt of ravished innocence? To 
 whom would the orphan have occasion to point as the mur 
 derer of his parents? These are solemn considerations, which 
 some of our very neighbours may yet be called upon solemnly 
 to answer perhaps at a more awful bar than any upon earth!" 
 jZV. Y. Com, Adv.. 
 
250 
 
 or theft. If he should avoid these extremes, and 
 follow some regular course of industry, still the 
 habits of thoughtless improvidence which he con 
 tracted while a slave himself, or has caught from the 
 slaves, among whom he is forced to live, who, of 
 necessity, are his companions and associates, pre 
 vent him from making any permanent provision for 
 his support, by prudent foresight and economy; and 
 in case of sickness, or bodily disability from any other 
 cause, send him to live as a pauper, at the expense 
 of the community." This description is intended 
 for the emancipated slave under our present institu 
 tions: the emancipation of more than two millions 
 would, of course, greatly heighten the evils men 
 tioned by Mr. Harper, and add others still more 
 formidable. 
 
 The consequences of the emancipation of slaves, 
 when unfit for freedom, have uniformly been cala 
 mitous to those emancipated. The following in 
 stances we derive from Dew s work on this subject. 
 
 " We have already said, in the course of this re 
 view, that if we were to liberate the slaves, we 
 could not, in fact, alter their condition they would 
 still be virtually slaves; talent, habit and wealth, 
 would make the white the master still, and the eman 
 cipation would only have the tendency to deprive 
 him of those sympathies and kind feelings for the 
 black, which now characterize him. Liberty has 
 been the heaviest curse to the slave, when given too 
 soon; we have already spoken of the eagerness and 
 joy, with which the negroes of Mr. Steele, of Bar- 
 badoes, returned to a state of slavery. The East 
 of Europe affords hundreds of similar instances. 
 In 1791, Stanislaus Augustus, preparing a hopeless 
 resistance to the threatened attack of Russia, in 
 concert with the states, gave to Poland a constitu 
 tion which established the complete personal free- 
 
251 
 
 dom of the peasantry. The boon has never been 
 recalled, and what was the consequence? Finding, 
 says Jones, in his volume on Rents, their depen 
 dence on their proprietors for subsistence remained 
 undiminished, the peasants showed no very grateful 
 sense of the boon bestowed on them; they feared 
 they should now be deprived of all claim upon their 
 proprietors for assistance, when calamity or infir 
 mity overtook them. It is only since they have 
 discovered that the connection between them and 
 the owners of the estates, on which they reside, is 
 little altered in practice, and that their old mas 
 ters, very generally, continue, from expediency or 
 humanity, the occasional aid they formerly lent 
 them, that they have become reconciled to their 
 new character of freemen. "The Polish boors are, 
 therefore, in fact still slaves," says Bennet, in his 
 view of the Present State of Poland, "and rela 
 tively to their political existence, absolutely subject 
 to the will of their lords as in all the barbarism of 
 the feudal times. 
 
 " In Livonia, likewise, the serfs were prematurely 
 liberated; and mark the consequence. Van Halen, 
 who travelled through Livonia, in 1819, observes, 
 "along the high road through Livonia, are found, 
 at short distances, filthy public houses, called in the 
 country Ehatcharuas, before the doors of which 
 are usually seen, a multitude of wretched carts and 
 sledges, belonging to the peasants, who are so ad 
 dicted to brandy and strong liquors, that they spend 
 whole hours in those places. Nothing proves so 
 much the state of barbarism, in which these men 
 are sunk, as the manner in which they received the 
 decree issued about this time. These savages, un^ 
 willing to depend upon their own exertions for 
 support, made all the resistance in their power 
 
252 
 
 to that decree, the execution of which was, at 
 length, entrusted to an armed force" 
 
 The following picture of Guatemala, extracted 
 from "Dunn s Sketches of Guatemala, in 1827 
 28," will exhibit the effects of emancipation in that 
 place. " With a Lazaroni in rags and filth, a colour 
 ed population drunken and revengeful, her fe 
 males licentious, and her males shameless, she ranks 
 as a true child of that accursed city which still re 
 mains as a living monument of the fulfilment of pro- 
 phecy, and the forbearance of God, the hole of every 
 foul spirit, the cage of every unclean and hateful 
 bird. The pure and simple sweets of domestic life, 
 with its thousand tendernesses, and its gentle affec 
 tions, are here exchanged for the feverish joys of a 
 dissipated hour; and the peaceable home of love is 
 converted into a theatre of mutual accusations and 
 recriminations. This leads to violent excesses; men 
 carry a large knife in a belt; women, one fastened 
 in the garter. Not a day passes without murder. 
 On fast days, and on Sundays, the average number 
 killed is from four to five. From the number ad 
 mitted into the hospital of St. Juan Dios, it appears 
 that in the year 1827, near fifteen hundred were 
 stabbed; of whom, from three to four hundred died. 
 Nor is the freed African one degree raised in the 
 scale under fewer restraints, his vices display 
 themselves more disgustingly; insolent and proud, 
 indolent and a liar, he imitates only the vices of 
 his superiors; and, to the catalogue of his former 
 crimes, adds drunkenness and theft." 
 
 But the wretchedness which results from destitu 
 tion and vice, would not be the only evil that would 
 wait upon the emancipated slave. Collision with 
 his master would take place. Under the circum 
 stances, we conceive it to be inevitable. Can the 
 
253 
 
 abolitionist suppose, for one moment, that the re 
 sults of such a conflict would be favourable to the 
 slave? A philosophical writer has justly observed, 
 that "power can never be dislodged from the hands 
 of the intelligent, the wealthy, and the courageous, 
 by any plans that can be formed by the poor, the 
 ignorant, and the habitually subservient; history 
 scarce furnishes such an example." The slaves might 
 ravage the South, and murder hecatombs of vic 
 tims but they would be at length subdued. And 
 would their situation be improved? Would their 
 masters feel more kindly to them after such a con 
 test? Would their privileges be extended, or their 
 condition improved? Would their cruelties plead in 
 their favour? Would the remembrance of violated 
 purity, and slaughtered feebleness stir up the gentle 
 affections of the slaveholder; and, standing upon 
 his blackened hearth-stone, would his breast flow 
 out in kindness to the demons who had effected the 
 ruin? A war with the whites must produce horrors 
 unutterable. The whites would suffer terribly but 
 awful would be their retribution; and if the negroes 
 survived the contest, it would be to curse the trai 
 tors who fomented the quarrel. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 St. Domingo before the revolution Insurrection 
 originated in the policy of France Jlmis des 
 Noirs Agitation of the Colony by the French 
 Domestic Dissensions Oge Insurrection 
 French Commissioners proclaim abolition 
 of Slavery Massacres Cruelty of revolted 
 Slaves Touissant Le Clerc lands Evacu 
 ates the Island Dessalines Massacres 
 Christophe Petion Boyer Present state of 
 Hayti Government Population Character 
 of Inhabitants Agriculture Commerce 
 Free Labour Finances Jirmy^ fyc. 
 
 IN the present chapter, we will be enabled only to 
 present the prominent features of the history of the 
 revolution of Hayti, and its consequences as deve 
 loped in the present condition of that island. It is 
 to be regretted, that our citizens are not generally 
 more familiar with that history. It abounds in 
 truths highly important in the present political state 
 of this country; and would do much, if understood, 
 to dissipate the disastrous and malign influence of 
 the abolitionists. 
 
 " The question," said Mr. Canning, when arguing 
 this subject in the English parliament, " to be de 
 cided is, how civil rights, moral improvement, and 
 general happiness are to be communicated to this 
 overpowering multitude of slaves, with safety to the 
 lives, and security to the interests of the white po 
 
255 
 
 pulation, our fellow subjects, and fellow citizens. 
 Is it possible that there can be a difference of opin 
 ion on this question? Is it possible that those most 
 nearly concerned, and those who contemplate the 
 great subject with the eye of the philosopher and the 
 moralist, should look at it in any other than one 
 point of view?" Let the question alluded to by the 
 great statesman be decided by a reference to the 
 example of St. Domingo. 
 
 At the commencement of the French revolution, 
 the island of St. Domingo was in the highest state 
 of prosperity. Its inhabitants were tranquil and 
 contented; its soil was cultivated with the greatest 
 skill and assiduity. The sugar cane, the coffee tree, 
 and other articles of tropical culture, were produced 
 in abundance. " In the year 1791," says St. Mery, 
 a writer of great credit, " there were in the French 
 division alone, 793 sugar estates, 789 cotton planta 
 tions, 3117 of coffee, 3150 of indigo, 54 cocoa manu 
 factories, and 623 smaller settlements. There were 
 also 40,000 horses, 50,000 mules, and 250,000 cattle 
 and sheep; and the quantity of land actually in cul 
 tivation was about 2,289,480 acres." Mr. Edwards 
 and others state the amount of exports as follows: 
 163,400,000 pounds of sugar; 68,150,000 pounds of 
 coffee; 6,286,000 pounds of cotton; 930,000poundsof 
 indigo; 29,000 hogsheads of molasses, &c. Walton 
 says, that the amount of exports was about six mil 
 lions and ninety-four thousand, two hundred and 
 thirty pounds, English money. The population was, 
 at the same time, 40,000 whites, 28,000 free per 
 sons of colour, and about 455,000 slaves; and the 
 valuation of the plantations in culture was about 
 seventy millions sterling. This, it must be remem 
 bered, does not comprise the Spanish division one 
 third of the whole island. 
 
 The insurrection in St. Domingo did not com- 
 
256 
 
 mence with the blacks. They were tranquil and 
 happy, until the madmen of the mother country, 
 ignorant and fanatical, excited them to discontent 
 and rebellion. Franklin, in his " Present State of 
 Hayti," says " It has been erroneously thought by 
 some persons, who feel interested in the fate of the 
 slave population of the West Indies, or, at all events, 
 they have, with no little industry, propagated the 
 impression, that the revolution in Hayti began with 
 the revolt of the blacks, when it is evident, from 
 the very best authors, and from the testimony of 
 people now living, who were present during its 
 opening scenes, that such was not the fact; and that 
 the slaves remained perfectly tranquil for two years 
 after the celebrated Declaration of Rights was pro 
 mulgated in France. - This is an important fact, 
 and should not be lost sight of. 
 
 The first cause of the Haytien revolution was the 
 organization of an abolition Society in France, called 
 " Amis des Noirs" Friends of the Blacks. This 
 society, with one of like character in London, by a 
 systematic and vigorous course of agitation on the 
 subject of slavery, succeeded in enlisting the French 
 government in the support of their views, and of 
 exciting the people of St. Domingo, particularly 
 the mulattoes, to discontent. So strong was the 
 excitement in France against the colonial planters 
 that, says a writer on this subject, " their total anni 
 hilation was threatened." The resemblance between 
 this menace and those of the anti-slavery men in 
 this country will be recognised. We hope that the 
 results will not bear an equal resemblance. 
 
 In 1789, a deputation of the coloured people of St. 
 Domingo waited upon the French National Assem 
 bly, to crave a recognition of their alleged rights. 
 The assembly gave them a favourable answer; and 
 some of the members individually expressed their 
 
257 
 
 determination to advocate the emancipation of the 
 slaves. 
 
 The free mulattoes in the colony were the first to 
 catch the spirit of insurrection thus fomented by the 
 French. They claimed a participation in the go 
 vernment, revolted, and, though subdued, were still 
 encouraged by the French. 
 
 The commotions caused by the policy of the 
 French government having endangered the colony 
 to the crown, the National Assembly in 1790 disa 
 vowed the intention of altering the domestic insti 
 tutions of the island. 
 
 The colony, however, continued in a disturbed 
 state. The whites were divided; the mulattoes, a 
 free and powerful body of people, were urgent in 
 asserting their claims; and the administration and 
 legislature were at open war. So high did these 
 dissensions rise, that the governor dissolved the As 
 sembly; the members of which sailed to France, to 
 appeal to the king and National Assembly. 
 
 Oge, a mulatto, educated in France, and filled by 
 the French fanatics with insurrectionary principles 
 and feelings, about this time arrived in St. Domingo. 
 He raised the banner of insurrection, and was joined 
 by a number of coloured people, but was defeated, 
 taken, and executed. Oge, it is said, was encouraged 
 by the English abolitionists. 
 
 The slaves, during all these commotions, re 
 mained quiet, neither dreaming of, nor desiring, 
 a change of their condition. 
 
 The members of the Assembly were, on their 
 arrival at France, arrested; the government of the 
 colony was sustained in its policy; and troops were 
 sent to St. Domingo, to protect the governor in his 
 insidious efforts in favour of the coloured popula 
 tion. The news of the execution of Oge also ex 
 cited great indignation in the French legislature. 
 22* 
 
258 
 
 Robespierre, the great champion of abolition, said- 
 " Perish the colonies, rather than sacrifice one iota 
 of our principles." The policy thus recommended 
 was pursued, and the colony did perish. The French 
 legislature at once raised the mulattoes, or people of 
 colour, to the full privileges of French citizens, being 
 allowed all the rights of the whites. This law was 
 passed in May, 1791. 
 
 This decree was received, by the colonies, with 
 such violence and resentment, that the governor 
 was constrained to promise that it should not go 
 into operation. The mulattoes, however, flew to 
 arms, and insisted upon its recognition. " Here," 
 says Franklin, " it will be perceived the first serious 
 symptoms of tumult and insubordination appeared, 
 not from any revolt of the slave population, but 
 from the unhappy interference of the National As 
 sembly of France, influenced by the supporters and 
 advocates of the people of colour, and the society 
 Jimis des Noirs" 
 
 He proceeds to state, that, had this interference 
 been declined, St. Domingo would have remained 
 tranquil, the negro cultivators would have been hap 
 pier than they have been rendered, and oceans of 
 human blood would have been spared. 
 
 The same statement is made by other writers, and 
 is so completely borne out by the historical facts, 
 that we believe no attempt has been made to con 
 tradict it. The important lesson involved in the 
 statement, should not be lost upon this country. 
 
 The first act of open rebellion took place, on the 
 Cape, in August, 1791. The slaves murdered the 
 whites and burned all the improvements. The 
 slaves of the neighbouring plantations joined them; 
 and the whole South was threatened with ruin. 
 " The barbarity ," says Franklin, " which marked 
 their progress exceeds description^ an indiscrimi- 
 
259 
 
 nate slaughter of the whites ensued, except in in 
 stances where some of the females were reserved 
 for a more wretched doom, being made to submit 
 to the brutal lusts, of the most sanguinary wretches 
 that ever disgraced humanity. Cases are upon 
 record, where the most amiable of the female sex 
 were first brought forth to see their parents inhu 
 manly butchered, and were afterwards compelled 
 to submit to the embraces of the very villain who 
 acted as their executioner. The distinctions of age 
 had no effect on these ruthless savages; for even 
 girls of twelve and fourteen yeans, were made the 
 objects of satiating their lust and revenge. No 
 thing could exceed the consternation of the white 
 people; and the lamentations of the unhappy women 
 struck every one with horror. Such a scene of 
 massacre has scarcely been heard of, as that which 
 accompanied the commencement of the revolution 
 in the South." 
 
 Some of the mulattoes joined the blacks; and 
 with their united force, gained several advantages 
 over the troops sent against them and extended 
 their ravages over the country. 
 
 "The defeat of the whites/ says Franklin, "was 
 followed by a scene of cruelties and butcheries 
 which exceeds imagination; almost every individual 
 who fell into the hands of the revolters, met with a 
 wretched end, tortures of the most shocking de~ 
 scription being resorted to by these blood-thirsty 
 savages/ 
 
 It is deserving of remark, and should be remem 
 bered, that a number of Frenchmen encouraged and 
 assisted these revolts; and Mackenzie, in his notes 
 on Hayti. says, " The priests are accused of hav 
 ing sanctioned the murderous proceedings of the 
 negro chiefs, and several were executed" So 
 fiendlike is the temper of ianaticism* 
 
260 
 
 The danger of the whites induced them to enter 
 into a treaty with the coloured people, called the 
 concordat, hy which they agreed to unite for 
 mutual defence against the negroes. By the con 
 cordat, the national decree elevating the coloured 
 people to the rights of citizens, was recognized. 
 But scarcely was this union effected, before it was 
 blasted, by the arrival of another decree from 
 France, abrogating the former one, and restoring 
 the coloured population to their former state of in 
 feriority. The confusion created by this inconsis 
 tency, was still further heightened, by the subse 
 quent arrival of still another decree, re-establishing 
 the first and re-elevating the coloured people to an 
 equality with the whites. Thus were all hopes of 
 union and effectual defence overthrown, by the im 
 prudence and ignorance of the abolitionists of the 
 mother country. 
 
 The ravages of the slaves, meanwhile, continued. 
 The loss of the whites was extensive, but not equal 
 to that of the slaves. It is estimated, that 10,000 
 slaves perished, by the sword and by famine, in 
 the first revolt in the South. In their encounters 
 with the whites, they exhibited no courage; and 
 when successful, it was wholly to be ascribed to their 
 immense superiority of numbers. Cowardly, igno 
 rant, and unprovided with military resources, they 
 were cut down by thousands, and might have been 
 readily suppressed, had not the policy of the Na 
 tional Government, divided and distracted the free 
 inhabitants of the colony. 
 
 The anti-slavery men of France, instead of being 
 taught wisdom by the awful consequences of their 
 imprudences, succeeded in passing, on the 4th of 
 April, a decree directly contemplating complete 
 emancipation, elevating the free negroes and colour 
 ed people to complete equality with the whites, and 
 
261 
 
 directing, that 8,000 of the national guards be sent 
 out to enforce the decree. This fatal decree was 
 forcibly opposed by the colonists; and the French 
 Commissioners, sent over to enforce it, finding 
 themselves unable to subdue their opponents, " call 
 ed in the aid of the revolted slaves, offering them 
 their freedom, and promising that the city of the 
 Cape should be given up for plunder." Thus we 
 perceive the foreign abolitionists joining the slaves, 
 and aiding them in the perpetration of the atroci 
 ties which desolated the island. " Men, women, and 
 children," says Franklin, " were, without distinc 
 tion, unmercifully slaughtered by these barbarians; 
 and those who had escaped the first rush into the 
 city, and had reached the water side, for the pur 
 pose of getting on board the ships in the harbour, 
 were intercepted and their retreat cut off by these 
 merciless wretches, just at the moment when ar 
 rangements had been accomplished for their em 
 barkation. Here the mulattoes had an opportunity 
 of gratifying their revenge; here they had arrived 
 at the summit of their greatest ambition and glory; 
 here it was that these cowardly and infamous parri 
 cides, gorged with human blood, sacrificed their 
 own parents, and afterwards subjected their bodies 
 to every species of insult and indignity; here it was 
 that these disciples of Robespierre this injured and 
 oppressed race the theme of Gregoire s praise, and 
 the subject of his appeal and harangue, showed 
 themselves worthy disciples of such masters! If 
 any thing were wanting to establish the fact of 
 these scenes being unexampled, and without a pa 
 rallel, one thing, I am sure, will alone be sufficient, 
 and that is, that the commissioners, those amiable 
 representatives of the national assembly, the im 
 maculate Santhonax, and the equally humane 
 and virtuous Polverel, those vicegerents of the 
 
262 
 
 society of Jlmis des Noirs, those protectors of the 
 mulattoes, were struck with horror at the scene 
 which was presented to them, and repaired to the 
 ships, there to become spectators of the effects of 
 their own crimes, and of a splendid and opulent 
 city devoured by the flames which had been lighted 
 by the torch of anarchy and rebellion."* 
 
 * When the revolters first entered the city, every man, 
 woman, and child, were bayoneted or cut down with such 
 instruments as they could muster; but the young females 
 were, in most cases, spared for the momentary gratification of 
 the lust of those into whose hands they fell; one case of the 
 most singular enormity took place: the leader of the revolt 
 ed slaves, named Gautier, had entered the house of a re 
 spectable merchant in the square, in which were the proprie 
 tor, his wife, his two sons and three daughters. The sons 
 were young, not exceeding the age of ten, but the daughters 
 were elegant young women, the eldest about eighteen, and 
 the youngest not exceeding fourteen. Gautier, assisted by 
 one or two wretches, equally inhuman, promised to spare the 
 family, on account of his having received many acts of kind 
 ness from the father, to whom he was often sent by his mas 
 ter on business, he being a domestic slave. These poor 
 creatures, who were at first half expiring from the terror of 
 the scene around them, and from the idea of being the cap 
 tives of barbarians, recovered somewhat from the alarm into 
 which they had been thrown, through the promises of secu 
 rity, thus unconditionally pledged to them ; and although 
 not permitted to go out of the sight of their captors, they 
 did not apprehend that any mischief was in embryo, and 
 that their lives were to be sacrificed. Impressed with 
 the idea of safety, they proceeded to prepare a repast for 
 their supposed guardians, and set it before them in the same 
 splendour, as they were wont to do, when receiving their 
 best and dearest friends. Gautier drank freely, and his com 
 peers did no little justice to the rich repast. Night coming 
 on, and apprehensive of the consequences of a surprise from 
 the enemy s force, they began to deliberate upon what plan 
 they should adopt to secure their unhappy captives from 
 flight, when, not being able to devise any thing likely to be 
 effectual, they came to the savage resolution of murdering 
 them all. The daughters were locked up in a room, under 
 
263 
 
 Many of the planters having applied to England 
 for aid, the commissioners from France, to enable 
 themselves to raise a force sufficient to defend the 
 island from any attempts by the English troops, 
 "proclaimed the abolition of every species of 
 slavery, declaring that the negroes ivere thence 
 forth to be considered as free citizens" and 
 thereby, says Franklin, " assigned over, to a lawless 
 banditti, the fee-simple of every property in the 
 French part of the island of St. Domingo, placing 
 every white inhabitant within almost the grasp of a 
 set of people insensible to every feeling of humani 
 ty, rude and ruthless as in their native wilds." 
 The consequences were such as might have been 
 expected. A charter was given to crime. Blood 
 flowed in torrents; lust and violation were made 
 things of custom; and the population lost almost the 
 traits which distinguish humanity from the brute. 
 Franklin, in concluding his account of this sangui 
 nary commencement of the revolution, reiterates 
 that " the cause of those disturbances did not pro 
 ceed from the oppression and the tyranny practised 
 
 the watch of two of the revolters, whilst the remainder of 
 them commenced the bloody task by bayoneting the two 
 sons. The mother, on her knees, imploring mercy with 
 pitiful cries, met with the same fate; whilst the husband, 
 who was bound hand and foot, was barbarously mangled by 
 having, first his arms, and then his legs cut off, and after 
 wards run through the body. During this blood-thirsty 
 scene, the daughters, ignorant of the tragic end of their 
 parents, were in a state of alarm and terror not to be describ 
 ed, yet hoping that their lives were safe. But, alas ! how 
 deceitful that hope ! for their destiny was fixed and their 
 time but short. Gautier and his diabolical associates, went 
 into their room, stripped them naked, and committed on their 
 defenceless persons the most brutal enormities, when, with 
 the dead bodies of their parents, they were thrown into the 
 flames, which were then surrounding them, where they all 
 perished. Franklin. 
 
264 
 
 over the slaves, but from the measures of the na 
 tional assembly, the colonial assemblies, and by that 
 specious and intriguing body, the Society of *fl.mis 
 des Noirs, (the Anti-Slavery Society of France,) 
 and the coloured people then residing in France, 
 who had been tainted with the pernicious doctrines 
 then prevailing in that country/ 
 
 Immediately after the abolition of slavery, by the 
 representatives of the French Government, the 
 slaves rose simultaneously in the different parishes, 
 formed into bodies, took possession of the moun 
 tains, and secured themselves in the fastnesses of 
 the island. They then sallied forth, spreading deso 
 lation around them, burning and destroying the 
 plantations, demolishing every description of habi 
 tation, and murdering every white inhabitant that 
 fell into their power. In one part of the colony 
 the insurgents amounted to more than 100,000 men, 
 without any leader who had the least command 
 over them. In the North, their force, at first 25,000, 
 soon increased to 40,000, of the most desperate and 
 sanguinary character. 
 
 On the 19th of September, 1793, an English 
 force landed in the island and occupied the posts of 
 Jeremie and Nicholas Mole. The act of abolition 
 having removed all cause of war between the 
 French Government and the blacks, the French 
 soldiers and the natives united to oppose the Eng 
 lish. It is unnecessary to recite the details of this 
 destructive and sanguinary war. It continued for 
 five years, with various success, and was terminated 
 in 1798, by the evacuation of the island by the 
 British. 
 
 At the period of the evacuation of the island by 
 the British, Gen. Hidouville, agent of the French 
 Directory, elevated two negro chieftians, Touissant 
 and Rigaud, to the rank of Generals in Chief. This 
 
265 
 
 created a motive of contention not to be resisted. 
 The slaughter was recommenced by the rival chiefs; 
 and a war of extermination carried on until 1800, 
 when Rigaud was expelled from the island, and 
 Touissant left in supreme power. 
 
 Touissant did his utmost to raise the island from 
 the depths into which it had fallen. He was ac 
 quainted with the negro character, and ruled with 
 a rod of iron. No despotism could have been more 
 illimitable in its power. He encouraged the plan 
 ters to return to their estates, and issued, in 1800, 
 an edict, requiring the people, who had abandoned 
 all regular labour, to return to their agricultural 
 pursuits. The regulation of labour was the same 
 as those of the slaves in the English West Indies, 
 both in the extent and intensity of the labour. The 
 system was severe, but successful. " If degradation 
 accompanied labour," says the historian, " the cul 
 tivators under Touissant were the most abject peo 
 ple in existence, for they were driven to it under 
 the strong arm of military power, and for any of 
 fence which they committed they were liable to be 
 brought before a military tribunal. There were no 
 civil authorities by which the indolent or refractory 
 cultivator was to be tried for his offences; there was 
 no distinction between the vagrant, who was de 
 tected in idleness, and the soldier who fled from 
 his post, they were both answerable to the military, 
 power, were sentenced by court martial, and award 
 ed an equal punishment." The regulations of the 
 despotic Touissant, though they inflicted upon the 
 negroes a bondage and servitude, more oppressive 
 than the sway of their former masters, proved wise 
 and salutary, and did much to improve the state of 
 the country, and the condition of the people. 
 
 In 1802, the French Government determined to 
 restore the island to its former condition, as a colo- 
 23 
 
266 
 
 ny of France, to re-establish slavery, and reinstate 
 the planters in their original properties. To effect 
 this, an expedition of 25,000 men, under General 
 Le Clerc, landed in the island. They succeeded, after 
 a protracted struggle, in getting possession of Touis- 
 sant, who was sent to France. The war was however 
 renewed under Christophe and Dessalines, the lead 
 ers of the negroes, and was prosecuted with the 
 most sanguinary fury. After a struggle of unex 
 ampled ferocity, the French were, in November, 
 1803, forced to evacuate the island. The loss of the 
 French army in this war is estimated at 62,000. 
 The loss of the negroes, in battle and by famine, 
 must have been much greater. 
 
 On the first of January, 1804, Hayti was declared 
 independent. Dessalines, who had been invested 
 with the chief command, on the departure of the 
 French, permitted those who wished it, to leave the 
 island, but in the most solemn manner, promised 
 protection and security, to those who preferred re 
 maining. The inhabitants availed themselves of 
 this offer of clemency, and remained. But scarcely 
 were they in the power of this monster, before he 
 invited, by a general call, the people to revenge 
 their wrongs, and execute vengeance on the whites. 
 The white French people, therefore," says Frank 
 lin, " were indiscriminately sacrificed. No age nor 
 sex was spared; the brutal soldiers, led on by their 
 merciless officers, ran from door to door, and left 
 not one alive whom they could find within; the 
 females, whose amiable softness might have stayed 
 the hand of the savage in his native wilds, first 
 endured the most dreadful violation, and then were 
 bayoneted and most shockingly mangled." 
 
 This massacre of an entire population, was suc 
 ceeded by an act of crafty ferocity, which history 
 cannot parallel. " He gave out by proclamation, 
 
267 
 
 that, as he intended to stay his vengeance for the 
 sufferings to which his brethren had been exposed, 
 all those who had escaped execution under his mili 
 tary decree, should appear at an appointed spot, for 
 the purpose of receiving tickets, which might in 
 future protect them from the vengeance of the 
 people; and many who had been fortunate enough 
 to escape, as they thought, in the first massacre, be 
 came the victims of the second ; for no sooner did 
 these unsuspecting and deluded creatures obtain 
 what they conceived an assurance, that their lives 
 would be spared, than leaving their hiding places, 
 they ran with eagerness, to the place announced for 
 issuing the tickets, when they were immediately 
 seized and led away for instant execution." 
 
 On the 8th of October, Dessalines was crowned 
 emperor of Hayti. The emperor was scarcely 
 seated on his throne, before he endeavoured to re 
 vive the African slave-trade. His object was to 
 procure labourers, which were required for the cul 
 tivation of the lands. He entered into a negotia 
 tion with the English; and offered to give an ex 
 clusive grant for the prosecution of the trade, but 
 was unable to induce them to embark in it. 
 
 The code of Touissant was revived, to cause the 
 inhabitants to labour. Of this Franklin remarks, 
 " Whatever may be said about the freedom of the 
 cultivators, by the advocates of free labour, I must 
 be permitted to say, that no instance has yet been 
 adduced of such freedom in practice, and that the 
 code of Touissant, which was acted upon by his 
 successor, exhibits greater proof of the existence of 
 coercion than any thing I have seen." 
 
 Dessalines was murdered on the 17th of October, 
 1806, and Christophe succeeded him. Christophe 
 however, found a competitor in Petion; and a war 
 ensued. The former obtained and kept the com- 
 
268 
 
 mand of the Northern part of the island, and Petion 
 retained the control of the South. 
 
 An incident, which occurred in the commence 
 ment of Christophe s reign, affords a good example 
 to the abolitionists of the North, and proves that 
 even the barbarous negro chieftain had a better sense 
 of the rights of others than the philanthropic zealots 
 who interfere with the institutions of our southern 
 states. Discovering that some individuals in the 
 island were intriguing to excite insurrection in the 
 island of Jamaica, he had them arrested, and brought 
 to punishment, for violating the rights of an inde 
 pendent and stranger community. 
 
 The reign of Christophe was severe, tyrannical, 
 and despotic, while the government of Petion was 
 relaxed and mild. The former was successful and 
 efficient; the latter feeble and unfortunate. The 
 former cotrced his subjects for his subjects were 
 his slaves to labour, and agriculture and commerce 
 partially revived; the latter endeavoured by gentle 
 measures to induce his people to toil, and soon saw 
 his government bankrupt, and his people vicious, 
 idle, and impoverished. 
 
 In 1818 Petion died, and was succeeded by Boyer. 
 Christophe also died in 1820; and the whole island 
 was then consolidated under the government of 
 Boyer. From that period to the present the history 
 of Hayti presents no event worthy of mention in 
 this brief review. 
 
 We will now take a cursory view of the condition 
 and government of Hayti, to ascertain whether an 
 experiment, which cost seas of blood, has resulted in 
 an amelioration of the condition of the people. 
 
 The government is called a republic. The presi 
 dent holds his office for life, and appoints his suc 
 cessor; he appoints all functionaries; proposes all 
 laws, except those connected with taxation; can issue 
 
269 
 
 proclamations in conformity with the laws, and com 
 pel obedience. " In short," says Mackenzie, " the 
 whole power of the state is centred in the chief, ex 
 cept in points which may be easily nullified." 
 The President, in truth, is despotic. 
 
 The population of the island previous to the revo 
 lution was estimated at 643,000. The population in 
 1S02 was estimated by Humboldt at 375,000. Such 
 were the ravages of the revolution. The population 
 in 1826 appears to have been 423,042. The increase 
 of population is estimated at sixty-one hundredths 
 per cent, which is very little more than one half the 
 increase in densely peopled countries. The people 
 of Hayti are universally described as idle, improvi 
 dent, licentious, and immoral. Mackenzie, the Bri 
 tish consul, in his report to government says, " No 
 measures of the government can induce the young 
 Creoles to labour, or depart from their habitual licen 
 tiousness and vagrancy." " The few young females 
 that live on plantations seldom assist in any labour 
 whatever, but live in a constant state of idleness and 
 debauchery. This is tolerated by the soldiery and 
 military police, whose licentiousness is gratified by 
 this means." " Marriage, formally solemnized, is 
 not so common as unions of another kind; and it is 
 not uncommon for one man to be the protector of 
 many women." 
 
 (t In the interior," says Franklin, " the people 
 are in the lowest state of moral degradation every 
 thing shows it their habits and manner of living. 
 In secluded places they congregate and follow all the 
 propensities of nature; and indulge in all the vices 
 of lust and sensuality, without limits, and without 
 control. It is not possible, I think, for any one to 
 visit their habitations without returning from them 
 with the conviction that their present state is much 
 below anything that can be imagined to have existed 
 23* 
 
270 
 
 in the worst state of society in any part of the world. 
 In the new republics of South America, in which 
 society is very backward also, the prevailing habits 
 present some appearance of improvement; but in 
 the country districts of Hayti there are no demon 
 strations of advancement from that deplorable igno 
 rance in which they seem to have existed from the 
 period of the revolution; no change in their loose 
 and dissolute manners and customs, but a fixed and 
 determined perseverance in all the primitive vices 
 of the African race." 
 
 The catholic is the established religion of the 
 country. It is stated, however, that a large portion 
 of the inhabitants differ but little in their religion 
 from their African ancestors. " Three fourths of 
 them," says Franklin, " are as rank idolaters as 
 their forefathers were in Africa." The clergy con 
 sists in all of thirty-eight pastors y for the whole 
 republic. 
 
 In relation to the agriculture of Hayti, Mr. Mac 
 kenzie has collected much valuable and authentic 
 information. The rulers, who have at different times 
 swayed that unhappy country since the revolution, 
 established different codes regulating the labour of 
 the people. All these codes discarded the notion 
 of free labour, and coerced the people to toil. The 
 most severe of these codes proved the wisest and 
 most salutary in its results. Under Touissant " the 
 whip was abolished; but thick sticks, the stems of 
 creeping plants, called in Hayti < lianes, were used 
 without scruple; and, not unfrequently, the sabre, 
 the musket, and even burying alive, were resorted 
 to as punishments for refractory gangs, or ateliers." 
 The same punishments were used under Pessalines. 
 The code rural, which now regulates the labour of 
 the people, is thus described by Mackenzie: "Many 
 of the regulations correspond with some contained 
 
271 
 
 in the code noir and the subsequent laws of Chris- 
 tophe; but the consequences of delinquency are 
 heavy fine and imprisonment, and the provisions of 
 the law are as despotic as can well be conceived." 
 
 The following table of the exports from 1789 to 
 1826, will exhibit the ruinous consequences of the 
 revolution. A comparison of the present amount 
 raised, with the amount raised before the revolution, 
 will show the comparative advantages of slave and 
 free negro labour. 
 
-^ 
 co 
 oo 
 
 > 
 
 s 
 
 rf 
 
 ets^p 
 
 CM r-T 
 
 cj ^ ; O -^ tfcf 
 
 ?2 O O_ Tt P- Io 
 
 co oo v$<moi 
 
 Ci --I 
 
 j i co op to oo op" to" jJ 
 
 i i o QO t- r 
 
 co rt crj 10 oo 
 
 10 rH -M t^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 I 
 
 2- T;3 Z. T ^ f T -i l O l ^OOTio cr 
 
 oco*ef^u$ r 4 % oj t c , o 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 c 
 
273 
 
 " The general results of this table," observes Mr. 
 Mackenzie, from whose valuable work we extract 
 it, "appear fully to justify the conclusion of the 
 decline of systematic industry, and of the advance 
 of whatever, though chiefly done by nature, may be 
 finished at uncertain periods by man." 
 
 Every traveller in Hayti describes its present as 
 pect, as melancholy in the extreme. That opulent 
 island has been allowed, by the slothful inhabitants, 
 to revert almost to a state of nature. The buildings 
 are destroyed; the mills overthrown; the fertile val 
 leys overgrown; and the whole country, with few 
 exceptions, left to run waste. We have not space 
 for extracts to sustain this assertion, but refer the 
 reader to "Mackenzie s Notes on Hayti," and 
 " Franklin s Present State of Hayti." 
 
 " It is indisputable," says the author of the latter 
 work, "that the declaration of freedom to the slave 
 population in Hayti was the ruin of the country, and 
 that it has not been attended with those benefits 
 which the sanguine philanthropists of Europe an 
 ticipated. The inhabitants have neither advanced 
 in moral improvement, nor are their civil rights 
 more respected; their condition is not changed for 
 the better. They are not slaves, it is true, but they 
 are suffering under greater deprivations than can 
 well be imagined, whilst slaves have nothing to ap 
 prehend, for they are clothed, fed, and receive every 
 medical aid in time of sickness. The free labourer 
 in Hayti, from innate indolence, and from his state 
 of ignorance, obtains barely enough for his subsist 
 ence. He cares not for clothing, and, as to aid under 
 sickness, he cannot obtain it; thus he is left to follow 
 a course that sinks him to a level with the brute 
 creation; and the reasoning faculties of the one are 
 almost inferior to the instinct of the other," 
 
274 
 
 The commerce of Hayti has sunk with its agri 
 culture. It appears to be still unchecked in its down 
 ward career; and from the activity and permanence 
 of the causes of its depression, the general decay of 
 the country, the policy of the government, and the 
 character of the people, there is little room to hope 
 for an improvement. 
 
 The finances of the country appear to be in the 
 worst possible state. In 1827, the state of the finances 
 was represented as follows: 
 
 Annual expenditure $3,101,115 
 
 Interest on loan 450,000 
 
 Total expenditure $3,551,115 
 
 This sum of three and a half millions of dollars, 
 was to be provided for out of two millions and a 
 half, the estimated revenue of 18,25, or of one mil 
 lion and a half, the estimate for 1826. How the 
 financial necromancy of Hayti effected the miracle, 
 we are unable to explain. 
 
 The regular paid military of Hayti is about 30,000 
 men, in addition to the militia of the island. The 
 object of maintaining this large force is, no doubt, 
 to awe the people into submission to the despot who 
 bears the republican title of " president." Hayti 
 has no navy. 
 
 Such have been the consequences of abolition to 
 Hayti. The mad fanatics of Paris forced the slaves 
 into insurrection and after scenes of inconceivable 
 and diabolical atrocity after hundreds of thousands 
 of victims have perished after a war of thirty-one 
 years what does she exhibit to the world? A 
 despotic, military government; a people debased to 
 the lowest depths of moral degradation, and forced 
 
275 
 
 to labour at the point of the sword a country de 
 solate, and almost savage; its agriculture abandoned; 
 its commerce annihilated bowed down with debt, 
 and yet without resources. Is there anything in the 
 spectacle to encourage the wild hopes or mad designs 
 of the abolitionist? 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 WE have referred, in a former chapter, to the con 
 sequences of abolition, even if the slave-holders sanc 
 tioned the scheme; and have shown that, with every 
 obstacle and opposition removed, the emancipation 
 of the southern slaves cannot be effected without the 
 most desolating consequences. But we all know, that 
 the opposition thus gratuitously evaded, will not be 
 withdrawn, and cannot be avoided; and it becomes 
 proper that we should consider the subject with that 
 difficulty involved. 
 
 That the South is opposed tc abolition, no one will 
 deny. She is opposed to it from principle, feeling, 
 and interest; and will not only maintain her institu 
 tions at every hazard, but regard as her enemies, all 
 who openly or insidiously assail them. 
 
 It must not be supposed, that it can be assailed by 
 the North, only through their authorities, by their 
 legislatures, or by Congress. Against such opposition 
 the South would interpose the shield of her sove 
 reignty, and laugh the malice of her foes to scorn. The 
 more dangerous, the more practicable mode of oppo 
 sition, is the one chosen by the Abolitionists indi 
 vidual agitation. For this, wealth alone is re 
 quired; and that can be furnished to any amount by 
 the Abolitionists themselves, or by their English 
 allies and coadjutors. They do not need numbers, 
 influence, or power; the press and the pulpit are en 
 gines of agitation, by which, without real respecta 
 bility, they can effect incalculable mischief. They 
 
277 
 
 an thus render the tranquillity, the very existence of 
 the slave-holders insecure; they can excite strong 
 and general prejudices at the North, and hot and 
 angry resentments at the South. Can any man be 
 ignorant of the inevitable consequences? 
 
 Mankind are strongly prone to blind themselves 
 to approaching ills. We are seldom willing to cloud 
 the enjoyment of the present, with fears for the fu 
 ture; and often would, like the Romans in their de 
 generacy, rather perish by our fire sides, and in the 
 midst of our festivities, than meet the enemy at the 
 borders, and defeat the threatened evil, before accu 
 mulated conquests render it irresistible. It was from 
 this strange and slothful pusillanimity, that the Per 
 sian continued his riot when the Greek was within 
 his borders; that the Parisians revelled when the 
 allies were thundering at their gates; and that the 
 Americans now affect a security they do not feel, and 
 shrink from the realization of the perils that surround 
 and menace them, from the distracting and treason 
 able activity of the Abolitionists. The miners are 
 at work beneath the temple of union. We know it: 
 we know what the consequences must be; yet they 
 continue at their labours unmolested, unchecked. 
 Let it not be said that they have been rebuked, put 
 down by public opinion. Our cities have, it is true, 
 been shaken by mobs, and the quiet of our people 
 disturbed. This is tvhat the Abolitionists seek. 
 But are their steam-presses stopped? are their huge 
 and various engines of agitation chained or checked? 
 Is the mischief restrained? or are they, on the con 
 trary, more active and more dangerous than before? 
 If the people of the North wish them put down if 
 they would save the Union let them, through their 
 legislatures, denounce and punish the treason and 
 the traitors. 
 
 The consequences of continued agitation are appa- 
 24 
 
278 
 
 rent. It will produce, nay it has already produced, 
 dangerous party excitement. It has given, to the po 
 litical discussions of the country, an aspect of menace 
 and asperity, which they never before assumed. In 
 the North, it has excited riots and disorders in all the 
 principal cities; and in the South kindled in the 
 minds of the people the hottest indignation. The 
 whole land is heaving with excitement. The laws 
 have been suspended, and revolutionary remedies 
 adopted in many sections of the country, both north 
 and south. Blood has already flowed; and should 
 the agitation be continued, the excitement thus kin 
 dled, will leap over every barrier, and overturn every 
 obstacle in its progress. 
 
 Are the patriots of the North willing to witness 
 these consequences? Are they willing to see the po 
 pular rage which, in the North, manifested itself in 
 burning the houses of the negroes, and even destroy 
 ing their lives, heightened to its utmost pitch? It 
 need not be supposed, that the South will find no 
 champions in the North. The earthquake, when it 
 does burst, will prove nearly as desolating here as in 
 the slave-holding states. The lower classes of our 
 people would be found prepared to sacrifice their 
 lives for the Union; and once excited, where will 
 their indignation pause? Let the friends of the co 
 loured man in the North think of this. Let the friends 
 of peace and order ponder on it; for a war between 
 the two races could not be confined to the South, and 
 once commenced, would probably be prosecuted 
 with all the horrible cruelty which marked the revo 
 lution in Hayti. 
 
 But must we think only of ourselves, in weighing 
 the consequences of emancipation? Shall we bestow 
 no thought on our brethren and sisters of the South? 
 Must the most horrible species of warfare desolate 
 that portion of our common country? Must the brave 
 
279 
 
 and the fair, the helpless and the innocent, our own 
 kindred too, be offered up to glut the lust and re 
 venge of the brutal negro and we be indifferent 
 spectators of the scene? The consequences of agi 
 tation at the South are not merely the rage of the 
 slave-holder not merely the terror and wretched 
 ness of the shrinking females thus exposed to the 
 most awful perils but inevitable insurrection. It 
 is impossible that the South can be inundated with 
 incendiary publications, and preserve her tranquil 
 lity. Already one extensive scheme of insurrec 
 tion, thus fomented, has been discovered and pros 
 trated. It is not in reason to suppose, that the same 
 exertions, continued and extended, will not produce, 
 still further, the same results. There is but one re 
 medy and that remedy, if forced to it, the South 
 will assuredly adopt. 
 
 It is impossible that this Union can survive the 
 period when it has ceased to be an advantage to those 
 embraced in it. When the South is constrained to 
 regard her northern sisters with distrust and terror, 
 no earthly power can long prevent her from sunder 
 ing the bond which unites us. The Union must be 
 a fraternal and kindly one; and when perverted into 
 a source of animosity and danger, it will lose its 
 power. If the South were a separate nation, she 
 could not only guard her territory from the machi 
 nations of the abolitionists, but she could demand 
 those who endangered her peace for punishment. If 
 then our federal conjunction is made the engine of 
 an agitation which endangers the life of every man, 
 woman, and child, in the slave-holding states; if her 
 worst foes stand behind the pillars of the Union to 
 stab the South to the heart; if, in short, it becomes 
 the source of the most awful perils and evils to the 
 people of that section of our country can we doubt 
 the eventual result? The people of the South are 
 
280 
 
 men, with the ordinary passions of the race and 
 dare we calculate on a forbearance which we know 
 that we never would, never could, exercise under 
 like circumstances a forbearance which would be 
 not merely weak but unwise? 
 
 It would be vain and criminal, on such a subject, 
 to deceive ourselves or others. Of abolition, or even 
 of a continued and extensive attempt to effect it, the 
 necessary and inevitable consequence must be a dis 
 solution of the Union. The people of the South 
 are protected from northern interference by strict 
 constitutional, as well as national, right. As lovers 
 of freedom, they would resist to the uttermost, and 
 with propriety, any effort, made even for laudable 
 purposes, to stretch the hand of northern interfe 
 rence over the prostrate barriers of the constitution, 
 and modify the domestic institutions of the different 
 states. But when this interference has for its avow^ed 
 object measures so destructive and abhorrent when 
 it would overthrow the organization of society, and 
 render the social system a convulsed, jarring, dark, 
 and bloody chaos it would be madness to calculate 
 on their quiescence. Their determination to sepa 
 rate from the Union, if the Union continues to be a 
 source of imminent and deadly peril to them, has 
 not been left to remote innuendo or misty menace. 
 It has been avowed, at all times and places, and in 
 the most solemn and emphatic manner, by the peo 
 ple of the South. By the people of the South, we 
 say ; for on this subject there are no parties. Every 
 southron heart cherishes the same stern and inflexi 
 ble resolution to brook, from no power under hea 
 ven, an interference that gives the throats of his 
 children to the knife, and offers up his taintless and 
 cherished ones to the lust of the negro. The South, 
 on this point, is as one man its attitude is one of 
 self-defence its voice one of warning. If the wrong 
 
281 
 
 be continued, it will act, it must act, not in revenge, 
 not in anger, but in the performance of a holy duty 
 in defending its firesides from murder its valleys 
 from desolation. That the South will not submit, 
 is now beyond all question that it ought not, we 
 ask no further proof than the unbid promptings of 
 every correct bosom. Would we, under like cir 
 cumstances, see a foreign and unconstitutional inter 
 ference wrench away the restraints which check the 
 brutality of our slaves; offer up our sons to their 
 ferocity, our daughters to their lust and see our 
 streams crimsoned with the hue of murder, and our 
 valleys startled with the shriek of violation? The 
 question is answered by the thrill of horror which 
 must shake every bosom at the bare thought of a 
 consummation so fearful and revolting. The sub 
 ject is then narrowed to this point which is to be 
 preferred, the preservation of the Union a union 
 necessary to our national independence and national 
 glory a union cemented by the blood, and hallowed 
 by the glory of our fathers or the prosecution of 
 an unauthorized, chimerical, and most perilous 
 scheme of interference with the domestic concerns 
 of our sister states? 
 
 It is a source of pain and humiliation to the pa 
 triot, that any circumstances should render it neces 
 sary or proper to calculate the advantages of the 
 Union, or the consequences of its dissolution and 
 downfall. The time, however, has arrived, when 
 such an examination is necessary when the atten 
 tion of the people of our country should be directed 
 to the unbounded, the incalculable, blessings derived 
 from our happy union, and the equally illimitable 
 calamities which must flow from its destruction. 
 
 In the confederacy the non-slave-holding states 
 have the preponderancy of power. They are there 
 fore in the national councils the legislators of the 
 25* 
 
282 
 
 Union. If there be a perversion of power if there 
 be oppression, mal-government, and consequent dis 
 content and division it must come from them. 
 
 The same states have, in every other particular, 
 such advantages as will always protect them from 
 wrong. They can, by their votes and power, shield 
 themselves from danger or injury. If they are 
 wronged, they are able legally to right themselves. 
 They will never, in any civil contest, be the injured 
 party, while they continue, as they ever must, to 
 possess a preponderancy in the Union. Disunion 
 will never take place unless occasioned by oppres 
 sion. The South cannot oppress the North, because 
 it is the feebler brother. If the Union be divided, 
 it will be sundered by the wrongs of the powerful 
 done to the weak, either through the national coun 
 cils, or by the acts of individual citizens of the 
 stronger states. 
 
 It will be well, therefore, to consider the conse 
 quences of disunion to the northern states. 
 
 If the union of these states should be severed, 
 they can never be re-united. They will become at 
 once rivals and foes. When jealousy or aversion 
 divides those knit together by the nearest and 
 holiest ties that division is eternal. No time, no 
 change can modify the hatred that springs from it. 
 Family quarrels, with nations as well as individuals, 
 are the bitterest; and all history proves that neigh 
 bouring communities, identical in origin and lan 
 guage, but clashing in feelings and interest, cherish 
 an animosity, which no lapse of time, or alteration 
 of circumstances, can extinguish or allay. Should 
 the North and South be divided, the prejudice, which 
 even identity of interests and government has not 
 suppressed, would burst forth with inextinguishable 
 force and intensity. 
 
 Such a separation would be immediately follow- 
 
283 
 
 ed by a cessation of all intercourse. The protection 
 of the South, from the incendiary efforts of the 
 abolitionists, would require the adoption of this 
 policy; and mutual animosity would confirm and 
 perpetuate it. Treaties would be made with foreign 
 nations. The carrying trade of the South would 
 be done by the British, and British manufactures 
 would be admitted, to the exclusion of those of the 
 North. 
 
 The consequences would be most ruinous to the 
 non slave-holding states. The prosperity of the 
 country depends upon its commerce, agriculture, 
 and manufactures. Without exports, our commerce 
 could not be maintained. If we had nothing to 
 sell, we would not have the means of buying; if 
 we had no exports, we could have no imports; and 
 without either, where would be our commerce? 
 Where the employment for our shipping? Where 
 the means of subsistence to the millions, who in 
 directly depend upon it? The annual exports of this 
 country amount to one hundred millions of dollars. 
 These exports bring us an equal amount of im 
 ports. Commerce is thus created; industry, in its 
 thousand different branches, employed; the revenue 
 of our country paid; and the wants of our thirteen 
 millions of people abundantly supplied. Under this 
 happy state of things, our country has prospered, 
 beyond the most sanguine hopes of the patriot. 
 We have become vigorous and opulent. Our towns 
 have become great cities; our forests have given 
 place to towns; and the vast wilderness, left by our 
 fathers, is smiling with a happy and abundant popu 
 lation. These results have been produced by the 
 South. The slave-holding states furnish nine- 
 tenths of the whole exports of the country, in 
 cotton, tobacco, rice, grain, &c. This produce is 
 the great fountain of our country s prosperity. It 
 
284 
 
 is received by the merchants of the North, and 
 shipped to Europe; its value in imports is returned, 
 and flows, in a thousand channels, back upon the 
 people. The South gives employment to our mer 
 chants, our manufacturers, our sailors, our store 
 keepers, and tradesmen. Let the South be cut off, 
 and what will be the consequences to the North? 
 We will answer in the language of an able writer 
 on this subject the editor of the Courier and En 
 quirer, of New York. " Our exports and our 
 imports would be, reduced NINE-TENTHS; NINE- 
 TENTHS of our shipping would be rotting at our 
 wharves; NINE-TENTHS of our population now 
 supported by commerce and the wealth it pro 
 duces and the industry it diffuses, would be 
 driven to agricultural pursuits; the staple arti 
 cles of Northern Agriculture command but small 
 prices abroad, and they would find but few cus 
 tomers at home; grass would grow in the streets 
 of our cities and villages, and, a general scene 
 of poverty and desolation would follow our pre 
 sent unexampled prosperity and generally dif 
 fused wealth" 
 
 In case of separation, the South might raise up a 
 commerce, might create and foster manufactures 
 for which her slave-labour is so well adapted; or 
 if she failed in this, might, with profit, throw both 
 into the lap of England, and iind her sources of 
 prosperity undiminished. But the North would be 
 unable to supply the loss of the South. How 
 would she find employment for her ships, her arti- 
 zans, her labourers? How could she maintain her 
 business activity, how pay her debts? She could 
 not raise cotton or tobacco, and without the re 
 sources of the South, would shrink into poverty. 
 Her great cities would be added to Tyre, Venice, 
 and other desolate monuments of the fluctuations 
 
285 
 
 of trade; and her impoverished people would im 
 precate the madness of those who sundered the 
 holy tie that knit them to the South. 
 
 But is pecuniary ruin the only, or the worst con 
 sequence of disunion? How is it possible to tear 
 asunder the limbs of this confederacy, without con 
 vulsion and bloodshed? Or, if it be possible, how 
 long could a good understanding be maintained be 
 tween people so peculiarly situated, and with so 
 many causes of difficulty? We cannot pourtray the 
 thousand evils, which must flow from the fratrici 
 dal blow that dissevers the Union. It is enough to 
 know, that misery and shame must follow it; that 
 poverty and want would stalk abroad, and violence 
 and crime dog their footsteps; and that civil war, 
 to fill the measure of our country s wretchedness, 
 would run riot, its tiger tooth dripping with the 
 best blood of our land. 
 
 " The picture of the consequences of disunion," 
 said the illustrious Madison, " cannot be too highly 
 coloured, or too often exhibited. Every man who 
 loves peace, every man who loves his country, every 
 man who loves liberty, ought to have it ever before 
 his eyes, that he may cherish in his heart a due 
 attachment to the Union of <ftmerica, and be. able 
 to set a due value on the means of preserving 
 it." 
 
 It is painful to know, that there are men, who re 
 gard the prospect of disunion, without emotion, and 
 who are determined to urge their insane projects, 
 indifferent what barriers are broken down, what 
 altars overthrown, what sacrifices made. To them 
 the recollection of our common war of indepen 
 dence, where the North stood breast to breast with 
 the South, when they poured out their blood, like 
 \vater, beneath the same proud flag, and in the same 
 holy cause appeals in vain. The glory of the 
 
286 
 
 past, the hopes of the future, are nothing to them. 
 They are willing to see the land of Washington 
 the glory and pride of the earth shattered, over 
 thrown and trampled in the dust her past glories 
 blotted out her future hopes forever blasted. To 
 such men nothing is sacred. They will follow their 
 phantom rending asunder the holiest ties, and 
 bringing shame and ruin upon all that should be 
 dear to them. 
 
 Yet they ask credit for their motives! A word 
 on this point. It is generally unsafe to judge men s 
 motives by any other test than their actions. If a 
 man places a torch to a magazine, the explosion of 
 which must destroy a city, and. tells you, when his 
 arm is arrested, that his motives are good you 
 would decide, that the man was either a dangerous 
 madman, who should be chained, or a guilty mis 
 creant, who would perpetrate the worst crimes un 
 der the holiest pretences. Men never avow evil 
 motives. The vilest felon has recourse to this pal 
 try defence; and the act which cannot borrow so 
 poor a gloss, so thin and common a veil, must be 
 base and black indeed. Hell itself, the proverb 
 tells us, is paved with good intentions. Until we 
 find some more satisfactory explanation of the 
 course of the abolitionists, we cannot see them busy 
 in their work of agitation 
 
 " While at their feet, 
 
 Leashed in like hounds, famine, and sword, and fire, 
 Crouch for employment," 
 
 we cannot see them coolly promoting the horrors 
 of civil discord, and hold them guiltless on the 
 score of pure intentions. Were there room for 
 error, they might plead the soundness of their 
 motives. But how can they be deceived? They 
 have already sown the wind and reaped the whirl- 
 
287 
 
 wind. Riots and violence in the North, popular 
 indignation and servile insurrection at the South 
 are the first and only fruits of their efforts. Can 
 they point us to any good they have accomplished, 
 or can reasonably hope to accomplish? They can 
 not. They shut their eyes to the manifold and 
 fearful consequences of their madness, exclaim, 
 " we are doing our duty," and rush on in their 
 headlong career. And they will continue to rush 
 on until arrested by legislative interference; until 
 they dash themselves to pieces against the rock of 
 our Union; or until they have toppled that Union 
 into the dust, and filled this happy country with 
 the din, and guilt, and terrors of fratricidal and 
 fraternal warfare. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 British Agency in urging Abolition Motives, 
 fyc. Religious interference Extent Nature, 
 consequences of clerical influence in the agita 
 tion of this question. 
 
 IF the scheme of emancipation were entitled to 
 our approbation and support, the manner in which 
 it is urged, would be sufficient to excite just and 
 general suspicion and alarm. A political cause that 
 comes before the people, sustained on the one side 
 by English influence, and on the other by an aspir 
 ing priesthood may well be regarded, by republi 
 cans, with distrust and terror. 
 
 It is not difficult to divine the motives which in 
 duce Great Britain to encourage the incendiary ef 
 forts of the abolitionists. They are the same, which 
 heretofore, at different periods, in our history, 
 prompted the same nation to endeavour to distract 
 and destroy our Union, and excite the slaves of the 
 South against their masters. Like their own 
 wreckers, they are anxious to decoy our vessel upon 
 the rocks, that they may be enriched by the spoil 
 of the wreck. Our ruined commerce and manufac 
 tures, would afford Great Britain a new and bound 
 less source of affluence; while the destruction of a 
 former foe and a present rival, would be regarded 
 with feelings of malicious satisfaction. Many of 
 her people also regard the example of republicanism 
 
289 
 
 in this country, as dangerous to the existing in 
 stitutions of Europe, and would rejoice to see the 
 fabric of our Union torn to pieces, and our land 
 bleeding and groaning beneath the parricidal arms 
 of her own infuriated children. 
 
 Such, we have every reason to believe, are the 
 motives that have induced England to send her 
 emissaries into this country, to aid the incendiary 
 schemes of the emancipationists, to volunteer and 
 contribute pecuniary support, in forwarding the 
 same cause; and in short, to exercise every means 
 in her power, to excite division and insurrection, 
 and consummate the infamy of our people, and the 
 downfall of our country. It is true, that she avows 
 only motives of philanthropy. But why is that 
 philanthropy directed hither? Why does it not turn 
 to their brethren, the oppressed and starving people 
 of Ireland, whose condition is so much worse than 
 that of our slaves? Why does it overlook the 
 perishing thousands, in the manufactories in Eng 
 land? Why is it not turned to the almost countless 
 millions of slaves who groan beneath English 
 tyrrany in India? Or, if their own brethren, or 
 their o\vn victims are beneath their notice, why 
 have not the oppressed of their neighbouring king 
 doms of Europe the serfs of Russia and Poland, 
 the slaves of Turkey, and the down-trodden of 
 other lands claimed their attention? England has 
 not, hitherto, exhibited such peculiar interest in our 
 welfare; and this sudden and singular anxiety can 
 not, under the circumstances, but excite suspicion 
 and terror. It remains to be seen, whether British 
 money will be allowed openly to circulate, in main 
 taining an opposition to our Union and our Consti 
 tution; and whether English emissaries will be 
 permitted to go from state to state, preaching trea 
 son against those sacred rights, which were wrested 
 25 
 
290 
 
 from English tyranny, and established at the price 
 of hundreds of thousands of American lives. 
 
 We have, heretofore, referred to the artful at 
 tempts of the abolitionists, to make emancipation a 
 theological question. In this they have succeeded. 
 The question of the abolition of slavery, one alto 
 gether political in its nature and bearings, has been 
 taken up by a body of clergymen, and is discussed 
 and urged by them, through the pulpit and the 
 press, as a religious topic. Their conventions have 
 been, for the most part, constituted of clergymen. 
 The officers of their societies, their agents, emissa 
 ries, and editors are also, generally ministers of the 
 gospel. In short, the movement originates in, and 
 is sustained and urged by, clerical influence. Many 
 of the religious papers of the North have espoused 
 the cause; theological institutions have been per 
 verted to the same end, and a large portion of the 
 influence of the northern clergy is actively engag 
 ed in the agitation of this distracting political 
 topic. 
 
 Every intelligent citizen is aware of the power 
 ful nature of the engine thus employed. When the 
 numbers of the northern clergy, or of those engaged 
 in preaching abolition, are computed; when their 
 moral influence, their resources, their union, their 
 perseverance, and experience in the control of the 
 human heart, are contemplated it will be admitted, 
 that such a cause, so urged, may well be a subject of 
 apprehension. 
 
 The abolition clergy do not merely denounce 
 slavery as a sin, and advocate its abolition as a 
 Christian duty but refuse all fellowship with those 
 who hold slaves, or sanction domestic.slavery. Not 
 only all the laity, but all the clergy of the South, 
 and a large portion of those of the North are thus 
 denounced; the tie of fellowship is sundered; and 
 
291 
 
 they are held by the abolitionists, as man-stealers 
 and murderers. The following extract is from "a 
 picture of slavery" a work sold at the office of 
 the Anti-Slavery Society. 
 
 " Every slave-holder peremptorily and without 
 delay, must be excommunicated from the Church 
 of God. 7 
 
 " It is of no importance, what title, what office, 
 what station, or what rank, the slave-holder may 
 hold, or what apparent virtues, or talents he may 
 possess and develop. To all these specious pleas, 
 and to all this anti-christian whitewashing, there is 
 a concise, significant, and irrefutable reply: He fs 
 a man-stealer. But as a man-stealer is the very 
 highest criminal in the judgment of God, and of all 
 rational, uncorrupted men, he cannot be a Christian; 
 and therefore it is an insult to the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 the head of the Church, to record the most notori 
 ous criminal as an acceptable member of the ( house 
 hold of faith. * * There must be a beginning, 
 and to the Christians of New England especially, 
 to the descendants of the puritan pilgrims, is re 
 served the honour of commencing upon a large 
 arena, and of effectually carrying on the warfare 
 which shall expel man-stealing from all connection 
 with American Churches. However plausible may 
 be the pretexts, and however ingenious and urgent 
 may be the excuses, they must categorically de 
 nounce the profession of Christianity in alliance 
 with slave-holding, as pestiferous hypocrisy. They 
 must sternly prohibit all slave-driving preachers 
 from officiating in the sanctuary, or leading in any 
 devotional exercises." 
 
 " Thus the Northern and Eastern Christians must 
 unsparingly act. They must eject every man-stealer, 
 without exception, from < the communion of Saints, 
 instantly and forever." 
 
292 
 
 We cannot pause to estimate the power of this 
 combination of the priesthood, or the dangers 
 which are to be apprehended to the liberties of the 
 country, from their systematic agitation of political 
 questions. Every one who has opened the pages 
 which record the history of the past, must know 
 the consequences which have ever flowed from the 
 political policy of the priesthood. He must know 
 that the most sanguinary and dreadful of those in 
 numerable wars, which have, in different ages deso 
 lated the earth, have been kindled by the breath of 
 fanaticism; and that even the religion of peace, has 
 been perverted, by the ambition or bigotry of 
 priests, into the cause of the slaughter of millions. 
 Religious interference has, in all cases, been attend 
 ed with violence; religious domination, in all cases, 
 followed by political despotism, popular degrada 
 tion, and national decay. So effective an agent is 
 fanaticism, in the agitation or control of the popular 
 mind, that the mask of religious fervour has been 
 frequently worn to cover the dark and blood-spot 
 ted brow of guilty ambition, of deep and insatiate 
 love of power. It would have been strange, had 
 the abolitionists overlooked such an engine such a 
 mask. It is a weapon peculiarly appropriate for 
 their cause. It accords admirably with the sleek 
 dissimulation, the canting affectation of superior 
 excellence, and the reckless disregard of the lives 
 and happiness of others, which characterize that 
 faction. The subject of abolition is, therefore, 
 argued wholly on religious grounds. The Consti 
 tution is arrayed against the Bible; and the South 
 is denounced as a moral " Sodom." Whatever sub 
 ject may be discussed, their arguments are still 
 directed to the fanatical; even declamation assumes 
 the whining tone of cant; and all their efforts be 
 tray the same determination to urge abolition, not 
 
293 
 
 as a grand political question, to be argued on political 
 grounds, but as a theological point, to be discussed 
 with nasal intonation and hypocritical slang, and to 
 be decided by a faction of presumptuous priests, and 
 the old women, male and female, whose political 
 opinions and feelings are in their holy keeping. 
 
 This fanaticism is equally dangerous, whether 
 affected or sincere, but not equally revolting. That 
 it is, with the leaders at least, counterfeit, is demon 
 strated by the fact that, among the most vociferous 
 of the preachers of abolition, are men, whose lives 
 constitute but a halting commentary on their doc 
 trines. How heartless must be the impiety of the 
 man, who can use the gospel of peace to forward a 
 plot that must move, if at all, axle deep in blood! 
 
 " No sound/ says the immortal Burke, " should 
 be heard in the church but the healing voice of 
 Christian charity. Those who quit their proper 
 character, to assume what does not belong to tbem, 
 are for the most part ignorant of the character 
 they assume, and of the character they leave off. 
 Wholly unacquainted with the world in which 
 they are so fond of meddling , and inexperienced 
 in all its affairs^ on which they pronounce with 
 so much confidence, they have nothing of politics 
 but the PASSIONS they excite. Surely the church is 
 a place, where one day s truce ought to be allowed 
 to the dissensions and animosities of mankind." 
 
 The men who renounce all Christian fellowship 
 with one half of the members of the American 
 Church, for maintaining, as Christ himself did, the 
 existing institutions of the country, can scarcely 
 expect that their course of treason, incendiarism 
 and violence, will be regarded in a more charitable 
 spirit. But we are willing, even by a violation of 
 probability, to suppose- that, at least some of these 
 bigots have really at heart the advancement of the 
 25* 
 
294 
 
 cause of religion; and will ask them, if they can 
 deceive themselves into a belief that the course 
 which they have adopted, is calculated to promote 
 that cause. Do they not know that it must divide 
 the Christian church into two bodies, those approv 
 ing, and those opposing, the legal institutions of the 
 South; that these parties must regard each other 
 with feelings of no Christian character; and that 
 the house, thus divided against itself, is in danger of 
 falling? Are they not aware, that by thus interfer 
 ing with the politics of the country, they not only 
 expose themselves to dangerous political errors 
 from their ignorance and inexperience, but that 
 they are exciting against themselves and against the 
 clergy in general, a wide-spread and popular feel 
 ing of distrust, suspicion, prejudice, and aversion? 
 Do they not know that they, by their present 
 course, assume the awful responsibility of endan 
 gering the cause of religion itself; of exciting even 
 against its holy and beneficent influence, that preju 
 dice which is and must be attached to an intermed 
 dling, ambitious, and selfish priesthood, whatever 
 political course they may pursue; and which, when 
 that course endangers the rights of the people, and 
 the honour and union of the country, cannot but be 
 intense and general? How can they answer these 
 questions to themselves? How can they answer them 
 to the great Master, whose holy name they have thus 
 abused whose holy cause they have thus betrayed 
 and injured? The prudent, the pious will shrink 
 and tremble, before they incur a responsibility so 
 fearful. They will hesitate before they throw by 
 the shepherd s crook, to grasp the weapon which 
 must be reddened in the blood of our brethren; and 
 ponder deeply and solemnly, before they sanction 
 those who thus dangerously pervert the religion of 
 Him who came into the world " not to destroy, but 
 to fulfil." 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Ability of the South to hold its Slaves Increase 
 of Slaves Slaves contented Impossibility of 
 successful insurrection Security of the South, 
 8?c. fyc. 
 
 IN extenuation of their lawless encroachments on 
 the rights of the South, the abolitionists plead the 
 great dangers which must arise from the existence 
 of slavery. This danger, if it exists at all, menaces 
 only the inhabitants of the South. Now they are 
 neither destitute of mental nor physical resources 
 to foresee or meet the alleged danger. They are 
 fully capable of the task of caring for themselves; 
 and the thankless interference of the abolitionists is 
 equally ill-timed, pragmatical, and unnecessary. The 
 South wants no protection, and, least of all, the pro 
 tection of the abolitionists. Their charity is alto 
 gether obtrusive; and it would be well if, in their 
 discursive and knight-errant benevolence, they would 
 seek other subjects for the exercise of their virtues. 
 These raven counsellors calculate the increase of 
 the slaves, and come to the conclusion that they are 
 gaining gradually upon the whites; that their power 
 will be thus regularly increased, until at length, in 
 future times, they may outnumber the whites, and 
 fall upon and massacre them. They, therefore, ap 
 pear to think that it is more prudent that the slaves 
 should be excited to this massacre at once; that the 
 " question should be met/ and that the throats des- 
 
296 
 
 lined to be cut should be operated upon without any 
 unnecessary delay. 
 
 These views are, at least, in character with the 
 abolitionists. But we would suggest to them the 
 propriety of allowing posterity to take care of itself. 
 We have quite as much on our hands as we can 
 manage properly; and as posterity will be, in all 
 probability, quite as wise and capable as we are, it 
 may be well to direct our time and attention to the 
 care of those more immediately within the scope of 
 our sympathies and duty. 
 
 Cool-headed and reflecting men cannot but regard 
 the ill-omened predictions of the abolitionists, on 
 this head, with scorn. Slavery has existed thus far 
 without any of the unfavourable results which ter 
 rify these nervous patriots. Every age has had its 
 croakers, men who see visions, and dream dreams; 
 who foresee for futurity evils and calamities which 
 futurity never realizes, and which only serve to ex 
 cite the imaginations of those who can be terrified 
 by the phantoms thus idly conjured up. We have 
 no right to expect an exemption from these prophets 
 of evil. Their raven voices will be heard even un 
 der the brightest sky; and, though time may venture 
 to belie their predictions, nothing will quiet their 
 croaking. It may be well, however, to examine the 
 basis of their apprehensions. 
 
 In answer to the oft-repeated objection, that the 
 increase of the slaves of this country is proportion 
 ally greater than that of the whites, we venture to 
 oppose a direct denial of the statement. The follow 
 ing extract from Mr. Walsh will correct all errors 
 on this point. "Our census of 1810 teaches that, 
 according to the ratio of increase for the twenty 
 years preceding, the number of years required for 
 the duplication of the whites was 22.48; and that re 
 quired for the slaves, as I have mentioned, 25.99. 
 
297 
 
 The whites increased from 1790 to 1810, 85.26 per 
 cent; the slaves 70.75. The mere natural increase 
 is not, however, shown exactly by this calculation. 
 We should deduct the annual addition made to the 
 numbers of both from without, which would proba 
 bly leave the proportion the same. The whole num 
 ber of slaves in 1810 was 1,191,364; and of free 
 people of colour, 186,466. Together they did not 
 equal one fourth of the w hite population, which was 
 5,862,092; nor make but little more than one sixth 
 of the whole. At present, (1819,) the proportion 
 must be still less, as the ratio of increase for the 
 white population is undoubtedly greater." The 
 views of Mr. Walsh have been confirmed by subse 
 quent experience; and the fears of those who dwell, 
 with trembling emphasis, upon the increase of the 
 slaves, demonstrated to be groundless and idle.* 
 
 * " We have no fears on this score; even if it were true, 
 the danger would not be very great. With the increase of 
 the blacks, we can afford to enlarge the police; and we will 
 venture to say, that with the hundredth man at cur disposal, 
 and faithful to us, we would keep down insurrection in any 
 large country on the face of the globe. But the speakers in 
 the Virginia legislature, in our humble opinion, made most 
 unwarrantable inferences from the census returns. They took 
 a period between 1790 and 1830, arid judged exclusively from 
 the aggregate results of that whole time. Mr. Brown pointed 
 out their fallacy, mid showed that there was but a small por 
 tion of the period in which the blacks had rapidly gained 
 on the whites (in Virginia,) but during the residue they 
 were most rapidly losing their high relative increase, and 
 would, perhaps in 1840, exhibit an augmentation less than 
 the whites. But let us go a little back. In 1740, the slaves 
 in South Carolina, says Marshall, were three times the whites: 
 the danger from them was greater then than it ever has been 
 since, or ever will be again. There was an insurrection in 
 that year, which was put down with the utmost ease, although 
 instigated and aided by the Spaniards. The slaves in Vir 
 ginia, at the same period, were much more numerous than 
 the whites. Now suppose some of those peepers into futu- 
 
298 
 
 The progressive increase of the two races has 
 been referred to as a source of danger. If the whites 
 increase, the blacks also multiply, and will in time, 
 it is urged, constitute so large a mass, that it will be 
 impossible to hold them in subjection. The facts 
 do not bear out the theory. A million can more 
 easily hold a million in subjection, than a thousand 
 can a thousand. The reason is obvious concert 
 and union are required to overturn an established 
 government; and the greater the number, the more 
 difficult is this of attainment. In a community of 
 one hundred, a police of one man would be wholly 
 incapable of controlling the ninety-nine; but in a 
 community of one million, a band of ten thousand 
 troops would be found amply sufficient for that pur 
 pose. 
 
 No one, who has examined this subject dispas 
 sionately, can entertain any serious doubts of the 
 ability of the whites of the South to hold their 
 slaves in subjection. There has been no instance 
 of a successful insurrection of negro slaves. Even 
 at St. Domingo, the revolt commenced with the free 
 mulattoes, who had been educated and disciplined 
 in France; who were nearly equal in number to the 
 whites; and who were encouraged by the French go 
 vernment; and, notwithstanding all this, it would 
 
 rity could have been present; would they not have predicted 
 the speedy arrival of the time when the hlacks, running 
 ahead of the whites in numbers, would have destroyed their 
 security! In 1763, the black population of Virginia was 
 100,000, and the white 70,000. In South Carolina the blacks 
 were 90,000, and the whites 40,000. Comparing them with 
 the returns of 1740, our prophets, could they have lived so 
 long, might have found some consolation in the greater in 
 crease of the whites. Again, when we see in 1830, that the 
 blacks in both states have fallen in numbers below the whites, 
 our prophets, were they alive, might truly be pronounced 
 false." Professor Dew. 
 
299 
 
 never have succeeded had not the island been in a state 
 of revolution, and distracted by a civil contest. In 
 Jamaica, where the blacks are eight-fold the whites, 
 and in Brazil, where they are three to one, they 
 have been controlled and held in bondage without 
 difficulty. In this country, the slave population, in 
 ferior in numbers and milder in temper, has never 
 given any trouble; and never will, unless poisoned 
 and maddened by foreign abolitionists. 
 
 The security of the whites may be ascribed to 
 several causes. Among the first, is the moral supe 
 riority of the master over the slave. This supe 
 riority consists in a greater natural elevation of cha 
 racter, in the feelings which arise from a habit of 
 command, and in the firmness and courage which 
 are produced by freedom. The slave, besotted, ser 
 vile, accustomed to degradation, and habituated to 
 regard his master with deference and awe, does not 
 presume to dream of contending with him. His 
 genius stands rebuked before that of the white man. 
 He has neither the aspirations, the spirit, nor the 
 ability, which would urge him into determined oppo 
 sition to his master. A late writer, the author of 
 "The South-West, by a Yankee," alleges, that the 
 South has little to apprehend from her slave popu 
 lation; and asserts that "the negro is wholly desti 
 tute of courage. He possesses an animal instinct, 
 which impels him, when roused, to the performance 
 of the most savage acts. He is a being of impulse, 
 and cowardice is a principle of his soul, as instinc 
 tive as courage in the white man. This may be caused 
 by their condition, and without doubt it is. But, 
 whatever may be the cause, the effect exists, and 
 will ever preclude any apprehensions of serious evil 
 from any insurrectionary combination of their num 
 ber. The spirit of insubordination will die as soon 
 as the momentary excitement which produced it has 
 
300 
 
 subsided; and negroes never can accomplish anything 
 of a tragic nature, unless under the influence of extra 
 ordinary temporary excitement. The negro has a 
 habitual fear of the white man, which has become 
 a second nature; and this, combined with the fear 
 less contempt of the white man for him, in his bel 
 ligerent attitude, will operate to prevent any very 
 serious evil resulting from their plans. A northerner 
 looks upon a band of negroes, as upon so many men , 
 but the planter, or southerner, views them in a very 
 different light; and, armed only with a hunting whip 
 or walking cane, he will fearlessly throw himself 
 among a score of them, armed as they may be, and 
 they will instantly flee with terror/ This supe 
 riority of the white man, and the deference and de 
 pendence of the slaves, preclude even the disposition 
 to insurrection. It renders the domination of the 
 master sovereign and complete, and prevents the 
 first movements of rebellion; or enables him to 
 crush it without difficulty at any subsequent stage. 
 
 But it is not merely the superiority of the master 
 in his towering, fearless, and commanding spirit, 
 which oversways the negro; the intelligence and 
 skill of the whites render that superiority still 
 greater. The white man has all the advantages of 
 science; he possesses, in superior intelligence, the 
 means not only of protecting himself, but of con 
 trolling his slaves. The negro regards him not 
 only as his protector, and the provider of his daily 
 bread, but as the possessor of the mysterious and 
 awful power conferred by education. He regards 
 his superiority with deference, and well he may; 
 for the ignorance and simplicity of the negro, op 
 posed to the sagacity and intelligence of the white 
 man, would have but little chance of success. 
 Should the negroes, by accident, attain a partial ad 
 vantage and be enabled to oppose the whites, their 
 
301 
 
 ignorance, want of discipline, and confidence would 
 make them an easy prey to the discipline and skill 
 of their masters. 
 
 The blacks from their position can never effect 
 organization. The police of the South effectually 
 prevents it; and even should that police be relaxed, 
 or withdrawn, the ignorance and stupidity of the 
 blacks would preclude the possibility of extensive 
 and effective combination. Even in case of suc 
 cessful insurrection, the ignorant and savage mob 
 collected together, could never be formed into a 
 regular or united mass. The whites, on the con 
 trary, have all the advantages afforded by an 
 effective code noir, carefully administered, of 
 vigorous organization by government, and of every 
 thing necessary to secure prompt and irresistible 
 combination and exertion of the organized energies 
 of the white population. 
 
 The blacks, it must also be remembered, would 
 be, in case of insurrection, without any of the re 
 sources necessary for effectual resistance. Destitute 
 of arms and ammunition, probably without food, 
 and certainly without discipline they might deso 
 late a hamlet, but could never endanger a state. 
 
 It is impossible to contemplate the character, con 
 dition, and resources of the two races in the Sotith, 
 and believe that any serious difficulty can arise 
 from the slaves. The superiority of the whites 
 in all that constitutes power, the effective police 
 adopted, and the character and position of the 
 slaves, render it morally impossible, that the safety 
 and tranquillity of the South can be disturbed by 
 negro insurrection. 
 
 But were the resources of the blacks adequate to 
 
 successful insurrection, they would not, unless 
 
 tainted by the incendiaries, desire a change in their 
 
 condition; they could not be persuaded to raise 
 
 26 
 
302 
 
 their hands against their masters. The following 
 remarks of Mr. Dew, on this subject, deserve atten 
 tion. " It seems to us that those who insist upon 
 it, commit the enormous error of looking upon 
 every slave in the slave-holding country, as actuated 
 by the most deadly enmity to the whites, and pos 
 sessing all that reckless, fiendish temper, which 
 would lead him to murder, and assassinate, the mo 
 ment the opportunity occurs. This is far from be 
 ing true. The slave, as we have already said, gene 
 rally loves the master and his family : aye, and few 
 indeed there are, who can coldly plot the murder 
 of men, women, and children; and if they do, 
 there are fewer still who can have the villany to 
 execute. We can sit down and imagine, that all the 
 negroes in the South have conspired to rise on a 
 certain night, and murder all the whites in their 
 respective families; we may suppose the secret to 
 be kept, and that they have the physical power to ex 
 terminate; and yet, we say, the whole is morally im 
 possible. No insurrection of this kind, has occurred 
 where the blacks are as much civilized as they are in 
 the United States. Savages and Koromantyn slaves 
 can cemmit such deeds, because their whole life and 
 education have prepared them; and they glory in 
 the achievment; but the negro of the United States 
 has imbibed the principles, the sentiments, and the 
 feelings of the white; in one word, he is civilized 
 at least, comparatively; his whole education, and 
 course of life, are at war with such fell deeds. No 
 thing, then, but the most subtle and poisonous prin 
 ciples, sedulously infused into his mind, can break 
 his allegiance, and transform him into the midnight 
 murderer. Any man who will attend to the his 
 tory of the Southampton massacre, must at once 
 see, that the cause of even the partial success of 
 the insurrectionists, was the very circumstance that 
 
303 
 
 there was no extensive plot, and that Nat, a dement 
 ed fanatic, was under the impression that heaven 
 had enjoined him to liberate the blacks, and had 
 made its manifestations by loud noises in the air, an 
 eclipse, and by the greenness of the sun. It was 
 these signs which determined him, and ignorance 
 and superstition, together with implicit confidence 
 in Nat, determined a few others; and thus the 
 bloody work began. So fearfully and reluctantly 
 did they proceed to the execution, that we have no 
 doubt that if Travis, the first attacked, could have 
 waked whilst they were getting into his house, or 
 could have shot clown Nat or Will, the rest would 
 have fled, and the affair would have terminated in 
 
 * So far are the negroes from cherishing any desire to ef 
 fect their freedom by force, that the virtuous among them 
 regard it as disgraceful to run away. The following anec 
 dotes from "The South- West, by a Yankee," illustrate this 
 feeling. 
 
 "I was sitting, not long since, in the portico of a house in 
 the country, engaged in conversation, when an old negro 
 entered the front gate, leading by the arm a negro boy, about 
 sixteen years of age. " Ah !" said the gentleman with whom 
 I was talking, "There is my runaway !" The old man ap 
 proached the steps, which led to the portico, and removing 
 his hat, as usual with slaves on addressing a white person, 
 said, " Master, I done bring John home. I cotch him 
 skulkin bout in Natchey ; 1 wish master sell him, where 
 ol nigger nebber see him more, if he run away gain ; he 
 disgrace he family : his ol mammy cry nough bout it when 
 she hearn it." This couple were father and son. A " good 
 negro" in the usual acceptation of the term, feels that there 
 is a kind of disgrace attached to himself and family, if any 
 one of them becomes a runaway. A negro lad, who had 
 absconded for a few days play, was apprehended, and led by 
 his overseer, through the streets on his way home, not long 
 ago, when an old negro washwoman standing by, exclaimed, 
 seeing him, " La, me ! who link he gin so young to act 
 bad." I will relate an instance of their readiness to ar- 
 
304 
 
 The following extract from the speech of Dr. 
 Burden, speaker of the Pennsylvania Senate, in the 
 debate on the Tariff, in January, 1833, gives the 
 same view of the slave population of the South. 
 
 66 The feelings of the Southern slave towards his 
 master are but little understood in the North. Born 
 and brought up in a family, he has no affections be 
 yond it. He eats his master s food and is his mas 
 ter s friend; in sickness or decrepitude he is sus 
 tained and comforted; and when his days are 
 drawing to a close, he finds in his master a friend 
 and protector, without resorting to the tender mer 
 cies of an alms-house. Slavery is abhorrent to 
 us all; yet in the fearful event of a civil war, the 
 slave of South Carolina would be trusted with 
 arms, and found, as on a former occasion, by 
 the side of his master." 
 
 It is true, that the people of the North are unable 
 to conceive the feeling which subsists between the 
 master and the slave, the protector and the protect 
 ed. The negro is a child in his nature, and the 
 white man is to him as a father. The slave, it is 
 true, regards him with awe, but that awe is mingled 
 with affection. He shares in his master s pride, 
 partakes in his prosperity, and feels, with sensibility, 
 his reverses, his sufferings, or his death. The work 
 already quoted gives the following account of a 
 slave-holder s funeral. 
 
 rest each other. " Missus, deres a runaway back de gar 
 den," said hastily a young negress, as a party were sitting 
 down to the tea table of a lady at whose house I was visit 
 ing. "Let me go catch him." " Let me go missus," said 
 the waiters, and they could hardly be kept in the hall. Per 
 mission was given to one to go, who in a few minutes re 
 turned, leading up to the hall-door, a stout half-naked negro, 
 whom he had caught prowling about the premises. " Here 
 de nigger, missus," said he exultingly, as though he him 
 self belonged to another race and colour." 
 
305 
 
 "An irregular procession, or rather crowd of 
 slaves in the rear of all, followed, with sorrowful 
 countenances, the remains of their master, to his 
 last, long home. When the heavy clods rattled 
 upon the hollow sounding coffin, these poor 
 wretches, who had anxiously crowded around the 
 grave, burst into one simultaneous flood of tears, 
 mingled with expressions of regret, sorrow, and af 
 fection. A group of slaves lamenting over the 
 grave of their master!" The author of the work 
 quoted says, "I am myself in favour of emancipa 
 tion;" the fidelity of the statement cannot there 
 fore be doubted. Can any one possessed of reason, 
 suppose that the masters, thus beloved while living, 
 and regretted when dead, by their slaves, are in 
 danger from those slaves? If the slaves had all the 
 power, they have not the disposition, to unsheath 
 the knife against the breasts of -their masters. That 
 disposition is cherished only in the bosoms of the 
 religious philanthropists of the North ! 
 
 But, it will be asked, what will become of the 
 South, snould the abolitionists succeed in poisoning 
 the minds of the slaves against their masters, and 
 should the efforts of the negroes against the whites 
 be aided by foreign powers? If such events were 
 possible, the results would be what we have, in a 
 former chapter described: but such a state of things 
 is not possible. It is not possible, that the South 
 will be so inert, so tame, so insensible to the dan 
 gers of her situation, as to allow the abolitionists of 
 the North to tamper with her slaves. She WILL 
 prevent it, at whatever sacrifice; and those who think 
 otherwise deceive themselves. The slaves will re 
 main what they now are; and should the South be 
 assailed by a foreign power, her slaves will be her 
 safety, her defence. As a labouring population, 
 they would furnish the supplies necessary for such a 
 26* 
 
306 
 
 contest; as a portion of the wealth of the land they, 
 would constitute " the sinews of war" or should 
 men be wanted, they would fight by the side of 
 their masters. But all these speculations are idle 
 and ill-omened. What nation on the face of the 
 earth, bearing a Christian name, and ranking among 
 civilized communities, would thus assail the South? 
 What nation would thus violate every law by which 
 the civilized world is ruled, outrage every feeling 
 of humanity, and seek to bring upon both races at 
 the South, wanton and sanguinary destruction, 
 wi-thout interest, or motive? Would the states of 
 the North adopt so inhuman and savage a policy? 
 Would the nations of Europe? The supposition is 
 gratuitous and far beyond the limit of possibility. 
 It would be a singular instance of national weak 
 ness and folly, if the predictions of the abolitionists 
 should succeed in frightening the people of this 
 country, into a support of their views. Such ap 
 peals constitute one of the oldest and most effective 
 arts of political quacks. Nations have been appal 
 led by an eclipse; and empires shaken by an astro 
 nomical prediction. We are told that the solar 
 system contains in itself the laws of its eventual 
 destruction; that the planets are gradually drawn 
 to the centre, and must at last shoot from their 
 spheres to the sun, and make one massive central 
 ruin of the system, which now moves in brightness 
 and beauty around us. The dangers foretold by the 
 abolitionists are of a similar character equally ter 
 rible and equally remote. He who can be shaken 
 by such predictions is unfit to deliberate on the con 
 cerns of a rational people. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Course of the South vindicated Duty of Con 
 gress Post Office Duty of Northern States 
 Freedom of the Press Conclusion. 
 
 WE have shown, it is hoped satisfactorily, that 
 the fears entertained of the safety of the South are 
 groundless; that the slaves have neither the disposi 
 tion nor the power to rise against their masters; and 
 that, neither now nor hereafter, are they likely to 
 become a source of danger, or well founded appre 
 hension. 
 
 The only danger which is to be apprehended, is 
 from the agitation of this subject by the people of 
 the North. The abolitionists may create danger to 
 the slave and the master, to the North and the South. 
 We have already shown that the paucity of their 
 numbers, were they few, or their want of power, 
 were they weak, does not prevent them from being 
 extensively mischievous. Hitherto, it is hoped, 
 their efforts among the slaves have been attended 
 with no extended consequences dangerous to the 
 South; but their agitation has, in its effects upon 
 the sentiments and temper of our people, produced 
 results which cannot be mistaken. The South is 
 alarmed and excited. Throughout the whole of the 
 slave-holding sections of our country, there prevails 
 a conviction of great danger arising from the agita 
 ting measures of the abolitionists, and a stern deter 
 mination to avert that danger, at whatever sacrifice. 
 
308 
 
 In many cases, the sense of undeserved injury 
 has excited intense and violent feelings of resent 
 ment. Those feelings have been freely expressed. 
 Can it excite surprise, or justify censure, that the 
 people of the South, smarting under their wrongs, 
 express in terms of indignation, the sentiments which 
 every manly heart must cherish? Or is it expected 
 that the southron will see his rights violated, and 
 the lives and honour of his wife and daughters en 
 dangered, and feel no throb of resentment. or that, 
 feeling it, he will express his sense of the wrong in 
 terms of meek regret and honied endearment? The 
 South is wronged deeply and dangerously wronged: 
 she will not submit to that wrong: and it would be hy 
 pocrisy as well as weakness, to suppress her feelings, 
 or conceal her determination. She must defend her 
 self, or perish. Those who trample upon her have 
 no right to complain that her remonstrances are not 
 made in the whining and craven tones of supplication. 
 Her very existence is endangered; and when she 
 says that she will not allow her domestic institutions 
 to be insidiously assailed, or her slaves tampered 
 with, she means it. Those, whose incendiary mea 
 sures excite these feelings at the South, have but 
 little reason to complain of the fashion of her speech. 
 
 It has been complained, also, that the citizens of 
 the South have punished such incendiaries as have 
 been detected in exciting the slaves to mutiny, in 
 an extra judicial manner. It is true that, when mis 
 creants have been found engaged in the fiend-like 
 task of persuading the slaves to murder the whites, 
 they have been tried before tribunals which, though 
 constituted with great care, and composed of the 
 best citizens, have not been directly authorised bv 
 law. But who dares say that such tribunals have, 
 in a single instance, exercised the powers conferred 
 upon them unjustly or improperly? 
 
309 
 
 It is somewhat singular, that certain northern 
 presses should have espoused, with such zeal, the 
 cause of these blood-stained preachers of negro in 
 surrection. It might be thought, that the fate of 
 such wretches would have excited but little sympa 
 thy with the virtuous; and that the patriot would 
 rather rejoice, than lament, that the knife which had 
 been whetted for an indiscriminate slaughter of the 
 whites of the South, had been directed, by the hand 
 of justice, to the bosoms which gave birth to the 
 bloody scheme. 
 
 The course of the people of Mississippi in the 
 late insurrection was wise and just. The danger 
 was of so imminent a character as to throw back the 
 people upon the first law of nature, for their protec 
 tion. The crisis was revolutionary, and the remedy, 
 adopted was necessarily above the law. Is it to be 
 expected that, in such an emergency, the people 
 will fold their arms and quietly wait for the knife 
 of the negro, because the existing regulations do not 
 furnish adequate means of defence? The idea is too 
 absurd to be entertained for a moment. But the 
 course pursued, in the case referred to, was not only 
 fully justified by extreme and imperative necessity, 
 but also was sanctioned by the highest authority 
 known to the state the entire mass of the citizens. 
 The laws under which the incendiaries were appre 
 hended and executed, and the insurrection sup 
 pressed, were dictated by supreme necessity, and 
 were enacted by the people not through the regu 
 lar organs no time was afforded for that but by 
 the people themselves, directly and unanimously. 
 If they did wrong, they are responsible to themselves 
 alone. We have nothing to do with it. It may be, 
 and has been said, that the precedent is dangerous. 
 We think otherwise. The people always have, and 
 always will, under like dangers, adopt a like course. 
 
310 
 
 When the emergency requires it, the precedent is 
 safe; when it does not, the precedent does not apply. 
 
 In the crisis which has fallen upon our country, 
 it becomes every patriot to enquire what is to be 
 done? The danger is general; and the efforts to 
 arrest the evil should be equally so. 
 
 Congress, in this emergency, should prove itself 
 worthy to guard the rights of a free people. It 
 should not only reject, with disdain, every petition 
 which the abolitionists may presume to send to that 
 body it should not only avoid, as fatal, every act 
 which may involve the agitation of the subject but 
 it should adopt stern and efficient measures to pre 
 vent any department of the general government from 
 being made an incendiary engine in the hands of the 
 fanatics. Such regulations should be at once adopt 
 ed as will rescue the post office, from the abolition 
 ists. The patriotic recommendation of the president 
 in his late message will, it is hoped, meet the con 
 currence and support of all parties in Congress. We 
 are aware that it objected that any corrective applied 
 to the evil would subject the mail to the abuses of 
 power. Power, however wholesome and necessary, 
 is liable to abuse; and it would be folly to hesitate 
 in removing a great and imminent danger, in the 
 apprehension of incurring a slight and remote one. 
 If, however, the general government should fail to 
 make such provisions as are obviously required to 
 check the influx of incendiary publications on the 
 South through the medium of the post office, the 
 southern states may, and no doubt will, in the exer 
 cise of their unquestioned rights, adopt efficient mea 
 sures to check the evil. But even without further 
 enactments, either by the general government or 
 the states, the post officers, in the performance of 
 their duties, should, and no doubt will, eject incen 
 diary matter from their mails. That they are legally 
 
311 
 
 justified in so doing, we entertain not a doubt; and, 
 certain it is, that the intelligence and patriotism of 
 the country have fully sustained the course hereto 
 fore adopted by the post office department. 
 
 The non-slaveholding states owe it to the Union, 
 to the South, to themselves, and to the cause of peace 
 and order, to adopt efficient measures to check the 
 madness of the incendiaries. The offenders are citi 
 zens of the northern states; their dangerous publica 
 tions are here prepared, and sent through the South; 
 while they themselves, screened by our law, pro 
 ceed in their work of treason in safety. It becomes 
 the duty of the northern states, to pass such enact 
 ments as will effectually prevent their citizens from 
 endangering the peace of the southern states, by ex 
 citing their slaves to insurrection. 
 
 Whenever such measures have been suggested, 
 the abolitionists and their apologists have raised a 
 clamour about the freedom of the press. This is 
 one of those empty and unmeaning war cries, 
 \vhich are raised upon every occasion. Such a 
 question should be decided, not by artful appeals to 
 popular axioms, the emptiest of which reverb the 
 loudest, but by cool and manly argument. 
 
 The liberty of the press is in no danger. Those 
 who recommend effective measures against the abo 
 litionists, are the most devoted friends of the true 
 liberty of the press. The press may be regulated 
 without being fettered. It is now restrained by 
 wholesome laws; does any one feel or regret the 
 loss of so much of its liberty? Not only the press, 
 but every thing, and every body, are under certain 
 restraints, in all civilized communities. Men can 
 not speak, write, nor act, in such manner as to en 
 danger the moral well-being of society, without 
 incurring the penalties of the violated law. 
 
 The liberty of the press may be abused; and 
 
31-2 
 
 these abuses should be checked. The press that 
 would advocate open immorality, that would espouse 
 the cause of the enemy in a dangerous war, that 
 would become the organ and signal of the thieves 
 of our different cities, ought to be, and would be 
 stopped. The press that endeavours to fill the 
 South with insurrection and bloodshed, is equally 
 dangerous; and should also be subjected, by the 
 community in which it is issued, to the penalty of 
 such laws as the evil requires. 
 
 The dangers which some affect to apprehend to 
 the liberty of the press, are of the most insubstan 
 tial nature. How could such laws endanger the 
 real, useful freedom of the press? Does the liberty 
 of the country depend upon the success of the in 
 cendiaries in exciting servile sedition; or is the 
 mad raving of the fanatics of such peculiar value, 
 that its non-continuance will involve the downfall 
 of the country? The Southern press is now, and 
 long has been, under the restraints which are re 
 commended here for the behoof of the abolitionists; 
 yet we presume, that it will not be pretended that 
 it is less free and fearless, less able and effective 
 in political discussion, than that of the North. The 
 same measures would be attended here with the 
 same results. 
 
 It must not be supposed, that the South requires 
 from the North more than is necessary for her 
 tranquillity. The right of discussion, the invaluable 
 privilege of talking of the concerns of others, may be 
 retained in full force and virtue by the abolitionists; 
 it is only required, that they should not flood the 
 South with appeals calculated to endanger its tran 
 quillity. Their own rights are not assailed; they 
 are only asked to respect the rights of others. 
 
 Some of the Northern presses say, and say truly, 
 that they have " a right to discuss what they please, 
 
313 
 
 and as they please." It is not denied that, under 
 existing enactments, it would be found difficult to 
 bring them to punishment for exciting insurrection 
 among the slaves. But if they have a right to act 
 towards the South as foes, has it not occurred to 
 them, that the South has a right to regard them in 
 the same light, and to secede from a union with 
 those who boast their right to be their worst ene 
 mies? The exercise of rights of so unfraternal a 
 character, will scarcely advance the interests of any 
 section of our country. 
 
 If the Northern states were not knit to the South 
 by the bonds of one happy union, but were foreign 
 and friendly powers, they would be forced by the 
 law of nations to suppress the hostile movements 
 of the incendiaries. Are they willing to make the 
 union a defence and justification of wrong? Are 
 they prepared to deny that to their brethren, which 
 they could not withhold from strangers? 
 
 The North is pledged to observe the rights of 
 the South. It is expected that she will avoid an 
 infraction of those rights, not nominally and in ap 
 pearance alone, but really and in fact. This cannot 
 be said to be the case, when she allows her citizens 
 to prosecute a continued and systematic warfare, and 
 refuses to adopt the measures necessary to suppress 
 them. While she thus virtually violates the com 
 mon compact how can she consider it binding on 
 others? How can she expect the South to remain 
 quiescent under acts of systematic hostility? It is 
 of no consequence that the blow which is aimed at 
 the South, is to be inflicted by the arm of a brother. 
 From whatever quarter it may come, it is equally 
 unfriendly and equally dangerous; and the South 
 will be constrained at least to ward it off, whatever 
 may be the consequence of her measures of de 
 fence. 
 
 27 
 
314 
 
 That the policy of the abolitionists has produced, 
 and is producing, consequences which involve the 
 integrity of the Union, and the peace, and welfare 
 of the country, can no longer be doubted. The 
 occurrences and disclosures of the last twelve 
 months, cannot but awaken, in every honest bosom, 
 the most serious reflections. The conscientious 
 abolitionists, if such there be, will pause to re- 
 examine a cause thus pregnant with violence and 
 peril; while the friends of Union, of freedom, of 
 the country, whatever their creed or party, whether 
 of the North or the South, will hasten, by energetic 
 and effective measures, to prostrate forever, the 
 treasonable conspiracy which menaces the existence 
 of our country, and the peace and safety of our 
 people. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
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