DESPOTISM IN AMERICA : 
 
 AN INQUIRY 
 
 INTO 
 
 THE NATURE, RESULTS, AND LEGAL BASIS 
 
 SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEM 
 
 IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 
 RICHARD HILDRETH, 
 
 ATJTHOB OF THE HISTORY OP THE UNITED STATES, THEOBY OP 
 POLITICS, WHITE SLAVE, ETC. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 PUBLISHED BY JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY. 
 
 CLEVELAND, OHIO: 
 JEWETT, PROCTOR & WORTHINGTON. 
 
 NEW YORK : SHELDON, LAMPORT & BLAKEMAN. 
 1854. 
 

 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by 
 
 JOHN P. JKWKTT AND COMPANY, 
 In the Clerk s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 STEREOTYPED AT THE 
 BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY. 
 
*" The impression which has gone abroad of the weakness 
 of the South, as connected with the slave-question, exposes 
 us to such constant attacks, has done us so much injury, 
 and is calculated to produce such infinite mischiefs, that I 
 embrace the occasion presented by the remarks of the gen 
 tleman from Massachusetts, to declare that we are ready to 
 meet the question promptly and fearlessly. It is one from 
 ivhich we are not disposed to shrink, IN WHATEVER FORM, OR 
 
 UNDER WHATEVER CIRCUMSTANCES IT MAY BE PRESSED UPON 
 
 us. We are ready to make up the issue as to the influence 
 of slavery on individual and national character on the 
 prosperity and greatness either of the United States, or 
 particular States. Sir, when arraigned at the bar of pub 
 lic opinion, on this charge of slavery, we can stand up with 
 conscious rectitude, plead not guilty, and put ourselves 
 upon God and our country." Speech of ROBERT Y. 
 HAYNE, of South Carolina, in reply to Mr. Webster, deliv 
 ered in the Senate of the United States, Jan. 21, 1830. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION Pfl8 6 
 
 CHAPTER FIRST. 
 
 THE RELATION OF MASTER AND SLAVE. 
 
 SECT. I. Origin of Slavery 35 
 
 SECT. II. General idea of a Slave-holding Community .... 36 
 
 SECT. III. Empire claimed by the American Slave Master ... 38 
 
 SECT. IV. Means of enforcing the Master s Empire 41 
 
 SECT. V. Methods of resistance on the part of the Slaves ... 48 
 SECT. VI. The treatment of American Slaves considered as ani 
 mals 56 
 
 SECT. VII. The treatment of American Slaves considered as men 62 
 SECT. VIII. Wealth and luxury of the Masters, as it affects the 
 
 condition of Slaves 74 
 
 SECT. IX. Improvement in physical condition, as it affects the 
 
 condition of servitude 77 
 
 CHAPTER SECOND. 
 
 POLITICAL RESULTS OP THE SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEM. 
 
 SECT. I General view of the subject 83 
 
 SECT. II. Slavery as it affects the security of the privileged class 86 
 SECT. III. Slavery as it affects the liberty of the privileged class 92 
 
 SECT. IV. Slavery in its influence upon Equality 96 
 
 SECT. V. Education in the Slave-holding States 104 
 
 SECT.V! Military strength of the Slave-holding States .... 107 
 
 CHAPTER THIRD. 
 
 ECONOMICAL RESULTS OF THE SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEM. 
 
 SECT. I. Effect of Slavery upon the Sources of Wealth . . . .111 
 SECT. II. Slavery as it affects the amount of Capital required for 
 
 industrious undertakings 119 
 
 SECT. Ill Agriculture in the Slave-holding States 123 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 SECT. IV. Manufactures and Commerce in the Slave-holding 
 States 132 
 
 SECT. V. Instability and uncertainty of values in the Slave-hold 
 ing States 134 
 
 SECT. VI. Comparative Progress and Prosperity of the Tree and 
 of the Slave-holding States 138 
 
 CHAPTER FOURTH. 
 
 PERSONAL RESULTS OP THE SLAVE-HOLDING-SYSTEM. 
 
 SECT. I. Personal effects of Slavery npon the privileged class . 142 
 SECT. II. Personal effects of Slavery upon the unprivileged class 157 
 SECT. III. Points of diversity in the personal character of the 
 privileged and unprivileged class 164 
 
 CHAPTER FIFTH. 
 
 LEGAL BASIS OF THE SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEM. 
 
 SECT. I. Preliminary observations 169 
 
 SECT. II. Slavery as a Colonial Institution 177 
 
 SECT. III. Slavery in the States and under the Federal Constitu 
 tion 219 
 
 SECT. IV. The Fugitive Act of 1850 253 
 
 APPENDIX . . 304 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 It has been said, and is often repeated, that the 
 United States of America are trying a great social ex 
 periment, upon the result of which hangs the future 
 fate not of America only, but to a certain extent, of 
 all mankind. 
 
 The consequences likely to flow from the success or 
 failure of this experiment, are doubtless exaggerated ; 
 for those universal laws which regulate the feelings 
 and the actions of men, will ultimately produce their 
 necessary effects, in spite of narrow systems of policy 
 and morals, founded upon the success or failure of 
 any single experiment. 
 
 But whatever we may think of its probable conse 
 quences, however fancy may magnify, or reason may 
 diminish them, the experiment itself is a great one. 
 It is in fact far more complicated and more critical, and 
 therefore greater and more interesting, than it is com 
 monly represented. 
 
 The American experiment is usually described, as 
 purely an experiment of democracy ; an attempt to 
 establish a perfect equality of political rights; an es 
 say towards the equal distribution among all the 
 members of the community, o freedom, property, 
 knowledge, social advantages, and those other good 
 things which make up the mass of human happiness. 
 And this experiment as we are assured by every 
 writer, native, or foreign, who has touched upon the 
 subject, owing to the peculiar circumstances of the 
 country, is carried on to the greatest possible advan- 
 
: /. CTESPOTISM 
 
 tage, not being compelled to encounter a multitude of 
 hostile influences, by which such an undertaking, any 
 where else, would be most vigorously opposed. 
 
 This is not a true representation of the case. If in 
 certain parts of the American Union, the experiment 
 of Democracy be steadily and quietly pursued, and 
 with an influence and a feeling in its favor which have 
 at length become predominant, in certain other parts of 
 the country it is quite overshadowed, and is reduced 
 to creep pale and sickly on the ground, by another ex 
 periment, less talked about, less celebrated, but not 
 the less real or important, to wit, the experiment of 
 Despotism. 
 
 The Northern. States of the Union are unquestion 
 able Democracies, and every day they are verging 
 nearer and nearer towards the simple idea and theo 
 retic perfection of that form of government. The 
 Southern States of the Union, though certain demo 
 cratic principles are to be found in their constitutions 
 and their laws, are in no modern sense of the word 
 entitled to the appellation of Democracies : They are 
 Aristocracies; and aristocracies of the sternest and 
 most odious kind. Property, and all the rights, ad 
 vantages and enjoyments which the laws bestow, are 
 limited to certain families and their descendants. Cer 
 tain other families and their olfspring, to the latest 
 generation, are not only deprived of all political priv 
 ileges and social advantages, but they are the hered 
 itary subjects, servants, bondsmen of the privileged 
 class. Every man of the privileged order who is pos 
 sessed of any property at all, is apt to own at least 
 one slave ; if he is rich, he may own a thousand ; but 
 whether one or a thousand, of those he does own, the 
 laws create him with but a single slight, and in fact 
 merely nominal exception, the absolute master, lord 
 and despot. In their relation towards each other, the 
 members of the privileged class are nominally equal ; 
 and in that aspect, it may happen that the lord of a 
 plantation and five hundred slaves, shall be a great 
 stickler for liberty and equality. But the liberty and 
 
.IN AMERICA. 
 
 equality for which he contends, is wholly confined to 
 the privileged order ; and the total subjection and 
 eternal servitude of the unprivileged class is consid 
 ered a matter of course, a first principle, a fixed and 
 established ordinance, as inevitable and as incapable 
 of alteration, as the laws of nature. 
 
 It is evident then, how complicated is the American 
 experiment. If the democratical part of it, has hith 
 erto been pursued in silence and quiet, and with such 
 apparent success that the admirers of Democracy 
 have been ready to cry out that the problem is already 
 solved ; that quiet and silence have been merely ac 
 cidental ; that success has been only a progress which 
 was comparatively speaking, but slightly opposed; 
 and it is but now that Democracy and Despotism face 
 to face, like Gabriel and the Arch-enemy, make ready 
 for a desperate and dreadful struggle. The prepara 
 tion, the courage, the arms, the loftiness of soul were 
 not on the part of the " angelic squadron" alone : 
 
 On t other side, Satan alarm d 
 
 Collecting all his might, dilated stood 
 Like Teneriffe, or Atlas, unremoved. 
 His stature reached the sky, and on his crest 
 Sat horror plum d ; nor wanted in his grasp 
 What seem d both spear and shield. 
 
 The struggle that impends is of a nature to shake 
 the country to the centre, and to end, if we believe 
 the prophecies of our southern friends, in civil com 
 motions, infuriated hostilities, and savage war. 
 
 So it may be. The event is in their power. Let 
 them be wise in time. The balance of justice is 
 stretched across the sky, and is it not their scale that 
 kicks the beam ? Let them look up and read their lot 
 in that celestial sign, and know themselves, how light, 
 how weak, if they resist. Even the arch-fiend cared 
 not to struggle against inevitable fate, and fled a strife 
 in which he could but suffer. 
 
 That heterogeneous mixture of aristocracies and 
 
10 DESPOTISM 
 
 democracies, which makes up the American Union ; 
 that strange compound of liberty and despotism, which 
 pervades the laws of so many of the States, and lurks 
 demurely, in the federal constitution ; such hostile and 
 repulsive elements having been so long quietly in con 
 tact without producing an explosion, it has thence 
 been argued, and believed, that they might always re 
 main so. But those who reason thus, have not well 
 considered the history of the American States, nor the 
 kind of progress which Democracy has hitherto made. 
 
 The dispute which severed the colonies from Great 
 Britain, gave rise to constitutions in the northern 
 States of the confederacy, which acknowledged to a 
 greater or less degree, the leading principles of liberty 
 and equality ; principles which before hardly had an 
 existence, except in the speculations of a few political 
 theorists. In no part of the country, were the funda 
 mental theorems of this modern system of policy, more 
 generally received or more warmly maintained, than 
 in the New England States, where the equal distribu 
 tion of property seemed to open the way for the easy 
 introduction of a purely democratical system. 
 
 But property is not the only source of political pow 
 er. From the earliest settlement of those States, the 
 Clergy had always exercised a predominant influence. 
 They formed a distinct order, acting together with 
 decision and promptitude, and monopolizing all the 
 learning and no small share of the active talent of the 
 community. The mass of the people, though all could 
 read, an inestimable accomplishment, and under fa 
 vorable circumstances, capable in itself of becoming 
 the foundation of the most liberal knowledge, were 
 yet extremely ignorant ; for they had no book but the 
 bible, and for the most part they relied upon their re 
 ligious teachers with a submissive and superstitious 
 dependance, for such expositions of its contents as they 
 saw fit to give. In this state of the case, the power 
 which the clergy exercised was very great. It was 
 however for the most part a moral power, a power not 
 over the bodies, but over the minds of men, and of 
 
IN AMERICA. 11 
 
 course, it was least felt ly those who yielded to it the 
 most implicit submission. Some harsh acts of perse 
 cution and punishment were occasionally dealt out to 
 such insubordinate persons as were bold enough to 
 think for themselves, or to question the infallible and 
 divine authority of the " standing order." But in 
 general, that veneration which the " ministers" claim 
 ed, was spontaneously yielded, and the power thus 
 conferred was judiciously fortified by being shared 
 with such of the laymen as most excelled in shrewd 
 ness, ambition, and spiritual gifts. 
 
 The Revolution, and those questions of constitu 
 tional law to which it gave rise, and more yet, those 
 extensive and iniquitous fluctuations of property which 
 the paper money system produced, raised into conse 
 quence another body of men, superior to the clergy in 
 active talent ; almost their equals in learning ; and if 
 they were not regarded with the same affectionate 
 awe, yet both feared and respected by the people. 
 These were the Lawyers. 
 
 This new order did not hazard its influence nor 
 waste its strength in a struggle for power, with the 
 clergy. On the contrary, the clergy and the lawyers 
 soon formed an intimate union ; and though these lat 
 ter were sometimes a little wanting in respect for the 
 theological dogmas, and the austere morality of their 
 allies, these deficiencies of faith and practice were 
 more than made up for, by the zeal and subtlety 
 with which they defended the legal privileges of the 
 clergy, and labored to uphold their influence and au 
 thority. 
 
 This double hierarchy of law and divinity, long 
 maintained a predominating influence over the yeo 
 manry of New England. Bred up on their farms in 
 the simplest way, and with a deep reverence for reli 
 gion and the law, a reverence easily and naturally 
 transferred to the clergy and the lawyers ; depending 
 upon the pulpit for their weekly supply of knowledge 
 and opinions, or if they read a newspaper, and 
 American newspapers in those times were but small 
 
12 DESPOTISM 
 
 affairs choosing such an one as the minister recom 
 mended ; the Legislature filled with lawyers, whose 
 superior information, eloquence and adroitness, put 
 every thing in their power ; the judges, secure in the 
 tenure of their office, and the profound respect with 
 which it was regarded, contributing by their decisions, 
 to -uphold a system of which they formed a part ; 
 thus beset, hemmed in, controlled and over-awed, all 
 the weaker spirits and more submissive tempers, that 
 is to say, the mass of the community, cowered and 
 submitted to a power, so boldly claimed, so vigorously 
 enforced, and exercised on the part of those who held 
 it, with a serious and sincere belief that superior 
 knowledge, virtue and capacity justly entitled them 
 to pre-eminent authority. 
 
 But notwithstanding this moral oligarchy to which 
 New England was subjected, the spirit of democracy 
 had nestled in the bosoms of her people ; and cherished 
 by degrees into energy and strength, it presently be 
 gan to plume its wings, and to make ready for assert 
 ing its just dominion. 
 
 The history of the contest in New England, be 
 tween Democracy on the one hand, and the priestly 
 and legal alliance on the other, has never yet been 
 written. It is not adorned with any of those palpable 
 acts, those scenes of devastation and slaughter, which 
 have hitherto formed the chief topics of historic nar 
 ration ; and though a most violent and bitter struggle, 
 so little has it attracted the attention of political wri 
 ters, that the progress of American Democracy, thus 
 far, has been generally described as quiet, silent and 
 almost unresisted. 
 
 To one, who from the the array of the combatants, 
 had divined the probable termination of the conflict, 
 the speedy discomfiture of the democratical party 
 would have appeared inevitable. Behind the legal 
 and clerical champions who proudly led the van of the 
 opposing forces, there followed a goodly host, including 
 by far the most respectable, and apparently the most 
 worthy portions of society. The wealthy, almost to 
 
IN AMERICA. 13 
 
 a man, enlisted in behalf of the established order of 
 things, which having made them rich, in their estima 
 tion, could not but be good. Besides, their wealth 
 enabled them to purchase by gifts to pious uses, and 
 without any special personal merit, high seats in the 
 synagogue ; and sufficed to enrol them in the list of 
 "gentlemen," with whom the ministers and the lawyers 
 were accustomed to share their authority. Next fol 
 lowed the great mass of the religiously disposed ; for 
 it requires an unusual degree of discernment and de 
 cision, to escape from the influences of education and 
 habit, and to distinguish between a reverence for reli 
 gion, and a blind submission to spiritual guides. The 
 literature of the country, such as it was, naturally 
 appeared on the side of those who were its principal 
 patrons ; and crowding in the rear, came the young 
 talent and ambition of the times, anxious to sus 
 tain a system, which seemed to offer a rightful pre 
 eminence to talent, and to ambition a station above 
 the vulgar level. 
 
 The array upon the other side, was contemptible 
 in comparison. Some leaders there were, " sons of 
 liberty," who had been nursed in the cradle of the 
 revolution, whose character, whose honor, whose pat 
 riotism was unquestionable, and upon whose clear 
 reputation not all the outrageous calumny of their op 
 ponents could fix the shadow of a stain. And there 
 were some followers too, who seemed to love democra 
 cy for itself; men enamoured of the idea of equality, 
 who sought no private advantage, but only the public 
 good. But these, whether leaders or followers, were 
 comparatively few. The mass of the party seemed 
 made up like the band of David, when he rose in rebel 
 lion against the Lord s anointed ; all who were in 
 debt, all who were in distress, all who were discon 
 tented, enlisted beneath this banner; and to believe 
 the account of their opponents, not the tatterdemalions 
 of Falstaff s enlistment were more idle, vicious, dis 
 honest and dangerous. 
 
 The truth is, that so stern, severe, active and influ- 
 2 
 
14 DESPOTISM 
 
 ential was the authority which the allied hierarchy 
 exercised, that few men who had property, standing, 
 character, friends, to lose, cared to risk the consequen 
 ces of those bulls of excommunication which were 
 fulminated from the pulpit and the press, and those 
 torrents of calumny, denunciation, and abuse, poured 
 forth by a thousand fluent tongues, against whomso 
 ever deserted the ark of the covenant, and allied him 
 self to the uncircumcised Philistines. 
 
 The democratic party were not wanting in efforts 
 to enlist the powerful aid of religion upon their side. 
 They made friends with the Baptists and other dis 
 senters from the established creed, who cherished an 
 hereditary hatred toward the congregational priest 
 hood, and who were struggling to escape from the le 
 gal disabilities with which their heresies still continued 
 to be visited. These clerical allies, in imitation of 
 their opponents, mingled religion with politics, and 
 sought to turn the excited feelings of their hearers, 
 into political channels. They were denounced by the 
 regular order, as hedge-priests, sectarians, wild enthu 
 siasts, puffed up with a ridiculous over-estimate of 
 their spiritual endowments, ignorant, turbulent, bad 
 men, who in attempting to overturn the platform on 
 which was raised the sober edifice of congregational- 
 ism, sought to destroy the foundations of society, and 
 to mix up all things in chaotic confusion. 
 
 In this situation of affairs, democratical principles 
 were still enabled to gain the ascendency in New Eng 
 land, and to become the prevailing creed, by the joint 
 effect of two separate causes, each of which was per 
 haps potent enough in itself to have ensured the vic 
 tory. 
 
 Though the professors of these principles were pro 
 scribed by the New England oligarchy, declared desti 
 tute of any claims to attention or indulgence, represented 
 as wild political fanatics, the disciples of Robespierre, 
 desirous to abolish religion, and to root up morals, to 
 destroy the natural instincts of humanity, and to sprin 
 kle the land with fire and blood; they found encourage- 
 
IN AMERICA. 15 
 
 ment, support and aid, where there was the least rea 
 son to expect it, to wit, at the hands of the southern 
 slave-holders. Who could have anticipated that the 
 apostle of American democracy should himself have 
 been an aristocrat and a despot ! Yet so it was. Jeffer 
 son is revered, and justly, as the earliest, ablest, boldest 
 and most far-going of those who became the expounders 
 and advocates of the democratical system in America. 
 Most of the others, whether leaders or followers, 
 seemed driven on by a blind instinct. They felt, but 
 did not reason. Jefferson based his political opinions 
 upon general principles of human nature. Men were 
 supposed, in other systems of politics, to be helpless, 
 blind, incapable children, unfit to take care of them 
 selves, and certain, if the experiment were tried, to do 
 themselves presently some dreadful and irreparable 
 harm. Jefferson argued, that however weak and blind 
 men might be, yet their own strength and eye-sight 
 were still their surest hope, and best dependance. If 
 aid were elsewhere sought, whence could it come? 
 These guides, these guardians, these governors, who 
 are they ? Are they not men, weak and blind ? Worse 
 yet, men ready to betray the confidence placed in them, 
 and under pretence of protection, themselves to plun 
 der and oppress ? It is therefore better to make each 
 man, blind and weak though he be, the chief guardian 
 of his own welfare. Subject no man to the arbitrary 
 control of another, who if he may be wiser and bet 
 ter, may just as likely, be blinder and be worse. Such 
 necessary rules of social conduct as the judgment of 
 the majority shall approve, let them be laws, so long 
 as that judgment continues to approve them ; and let 
 the laws govern, and the laws alone. 
 
 Such was the political creed of Jefferson. It is the 
 creed of democracy ; and he espoused it with a warm, 
 an active, almost a fanatic zeal. The perfect political 
 equality of all men ; the absolute right of every man 
 to be guided by his own pleasure and judgment, so 
 long as he transgresses no law, and his equal claim to 
 a fair participation in the enactment and repeal of 
 
16 DESPOTISM 
 
 every law ; these were the very fundamental principles 
 of this political system. Yet Jefferson remained all 
 his life the tyrant of a plantation, in the enforcement 
 of an usurped authority, either personally, or by his 
 delegate, which he himself describes, as " a perpetual 
 exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most 
 unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading 
 submission on the other." Ah Truth ! Tis thee 
 alone that men should reverence ! Do they reverence 
 men, it is an idolatry as base as if they bowed to stocks 
 and stones. Men are blind and weak, the wisest and 
 the best ! But Truth, it is unblemished, in itself 
 complete, divine, pure, perfect ! 
 
 Had Jefferson attempted to preach the full extent of 
 his doctrines in his native state, he would doubtless 
 have drawn down upon his head a storm of hatred and 
 reproach, not rashly to have been encountered, nor eas 
 ily to have been withstood. But that was an adven 
 ture of difficulty and peril, which he felt no call to 
 undertake. Like Henry and Washington, and those 
 other great men whose devoted patriotism and many 
 virtues would make us willingly forget that on their 
 own estates they were tyrants, though he acknowl 
 edged the trampled rights and crying wrongs of the 
 disenfranchised half of his fellow countrymen, he yet 
 despaired to make any impression upon the ignorance, 
 the prejudices, the blind and narrow self-interest of 
 the privileged class, and he contented himself with 
 now and then a protest against a system of tyrannical 
 usurpation, which carried away by custom and con 
 venience, he still continued to uphold through the sup 
 port of his own example. 
 
 The democracy which he preached at home, was 
 democracy among the aristocrats ; and the perfect 
 equality of all the members of the privileged order, has 
 ever been a popular doctrine in all aristocracies. The 
 " love of liberty" is a phrase under which are includ 
 ed two feelings of a very distinct, and sometimes of 
 an opposite kind. Each individual is always the ar 
 dent and zealous champion of his own liberty, be- 
 
IN AMERICA. 17 
 
 cause the hatred of all extraneous control, the desire 
 to be solely governed by the free impulses of his own 
 mind, is a part of the constitution of human nature 
 too essential ever to be wanting. Hence it is that we 
 find kings and emperors among the champions of lib 
 erty and equal rights, by which they understand, the 
 liberty of governing their own realms without foreign 
 control, and the absolute equality of all crowned 
 heads. Have we not seen the Austrian and Russian 
 despots, leaguing with th6 king of Prussia and the 
 haughty aristocracy of England to vindicate the liber 
 ties of Europe against the usurpation and tyrannies of 
 a Bonaparte 1 When the chains threatened to bind 
 them, when they were like to be compelled to bow 
 their necks beneath the yoke of a master, who more 
 sensitive than they to the degradations of servitude ? 
 Who more zealous, more earnest, more sincere in lib 
 erty s cause ? Alexander of Russia turned a dema 
 gogue, and the princes of Germany harangued their 
 subjects, not in the dry and austere style of absolute 
 authority, but with the supplicating tone, the humble 
 and insinuating eloquence, the flattery and fair prom 
 ises, with which ambitious men, in popular states, seek 
 to inveigle the popular favor. 
 
 This passion for personal liberty burns fiercely in 
 the soul of every human being, and no where fiercer 
 than in the hearts of an aristocracy bred to its posses 
 sion, and who have learned to estimate its value by 
 having constantly before their eyes the terrible con 
 trast of servitude. 
 
 But the "love of liberty" has also another mean 
 ing. It describes a passion not for individual freedom, 
 but for the freedom of all men; a wide, expansive 
 feeling, the offspring of benevolence, the height of phi 
 lanthropy, the extension to others of that which we 
 find best and most desirable for ourselves ; its exten 
 sion not only to those to whom we are bound by fa 
 miliar ties of interest and sympathy, our friends and 
 kindred, or those whom however otherwise uncon 
 nected with us, we still assimilate to ourselves by 
 2* 
 
18 DESPOTISM 
 
 some real or fanciful analogies ; but absolutely, its ex 
 tension to all men, the love of freedom wherever, by 
 whomsoever, exercised, as an abstract good. 
 
 It is evident that the love of liberty in this high 
 sense, can shine out in perfection only from hearts the 
 warmest, souls the most cultivated, minds the most 
 lofty, unclouded and serene. But fragments of it, 
 sparks from this celestial flame, sometimes but dim, 
 the smallest atom almost, and that too buried, and quite 
 smothered amid the ashes of selfish passions, yet 
 dim or bright, smothered or burning clear, this passion 
 for universal freedom is still a part of human nature, 
 but a part of it which lies dead and dark in unculti 
 vated souls, and which only begins to kindle and to 
 blaze, in the forward and quick feeling minds of a pol 
 ished and reflecting age. 
 
 To this latter feeling, noble and refined, and which 
 lurks, however invisible, even in the hearts of a slave- 
 holding aristocracy, Jefferson did not dare to appeal. 
 He was content to act the humble and comparatively 
 inconsiderable part of a champion for equality among 
 the aristocrats ; and laboring to forget that the unpriv 
 ileged class some of whom, to believe the voice of 
 common report, were his own children, had any 
 greater capacities or rights than beasts of burden, he 
 curtailed the expansive and universal clauses of his 
 political creed, till the mantle of liberty which should 
 have extended its protection to every citizen, embraced 
 within its torn and mutilated folds only the privileged 
 order. 
 
 The oligarchical party in the southern aristocracies, 
 the aristocracy, so to speak, of the privileged order, 
 though they were richer and better educated than their 
 neighbors of the common sort, had no such moral hold 
 upon men s minds as the hierarchy of the north. The 
 prejudices in favor of family and rank to which they 
 were indebted for the general acknowledgment of 
 their superiority, had been shaken by the revolution, 
 and after a short and ineffectual resistance, the oli 
 garchical party in Virginia and the Oarolinas was 
 
IN AMERICA. 19 
 
 completely broken down by the vigorous assault which 
 the Jeffersonians made upon them. Henceforward the 
 most complete and democratical equality among all the 
 members of the privileged class, became the settled 
 and established creed of southern politics. But the 
 Jeffersonian party, while it aimed at overturning the 
 oligarchies of the southern states, aimed also at supre 
 macy in the federal government ; and the same victory 
 which assured their ascendency at home, raised their 
 leader to the presidential chair. 
 
 From that elevation, Jefferson stretched forth a help 
 ing hand to the struggling democrats of New Eng 
 land ; and by means of the honors and offices within 
 his gift, he enlisted into their cause divers mercenaries 
 of courage and ability, who were seduced from the 
 ranks of the hierarchy, and having taken pay at the 
 hands of democracy, fought valiantly in her cause. 
 
 As the Jeffersonians con tinned for twenty-four years 
 at the head of the federal government, and during all 
 that time, consoled, comforted, aided and abetted the 
 democrats of New England, the party began presently 
 to grow somewhat more respectable ; and as the ad 
 vantages to be derived from belonging to it became 
 more and more numerous, converts were multiplied, 
 and presently there might be numbered among them 
 even some of the clergy and the lawyers. 
 
 It is evident that this process alone would at length 
 have given to democratical principles a nominal, if not 
 a practical ascendency. But as I have mentioned, 
 there was another cause in operation, in itself suffi 
 cient to have ensured an ultimate, and a more sub 
 stantial triumph. Notwithstanding the grand array 
 of followers mustered by the hierarchy, there were 
 many among them who at heart were traitors to the 
 cause. They had been bred up in a horror of demo 
 cracy, which they were taught to regard as the con 
 centration of all possible evil, and to the repetition of 
 certain dogmas containing the substance of the oligar 
 chical creed. Yet insensibly they became democrats 
 themselves ; and the superior order, to maintain its 
 
20 DESPOTISM 
 
 influence and preserve its ascendency, was soon oblig 
 ed to descend to all those arts of popularity, which 
 when practised by their opponents, they had denounc 
 ed as fit only for demagogues. 
 
 The power of the priestly and legal hierarchy consist 
 ed in their monopoly of talent and education, and in a 
 certain superstitious reverence with which they were 
 regarded by the people. So long as these two sources 
 of power continued in full operation, their credit could 
 not be shaken, and their influence carried every thing 
 before it. But with the progress of time, and the in 
 creasing wealth of the community, education became 
 more general, books and periodicals were multiplied, 
 and knowledge was disseminated. The oligarchical 
 order lost their superiority in this respect, and with it, 
 they lost the awe and veneration of the people. To 
 complete their discomfiture, they quarrelled among 
 themselves on certain points of theology ; and as the 
 dispute waxed warm, the parties to it became more in 
 tent upon destroying each other s influence, than upon 
 maintaining their own. 
 
 Such was the end of the oligarchical rule in New 
 England, of which some vestiges yet remain, but of 
 which the life and spirit has departed. The political 
 creed, generally and it may be said, universally, pro 
 fessed, albeit the ancient regime has still many se 
 cret adherents, is a purely democratic creed, and the 
 struggle for influence and office between contending 
 politicians, turns wholly upon the question, who among 
 them are the best democrats, who are most devoted to 
 the interests of the people? 
 
 Though the New England States formed that part 
 of the Union which held out longest against the general 
 reception of the democratic theory, yet the equal distri 
 bution of property, the more extensive diffusion of 
 knowledge, and that feeling of personal independence 
 and equality long cherished among the people, made 
 them from the beginning, the best adapted of all the 
 states, to enter fully into the spirit of democracy, and to 
 display, in the most striking light, the advantages of 
 
IN AMERICA. 21 
 
 that form of government. Accordingly it may be said 
 that the New England States, notwithstanding some 
 gross defects in their political and social system, afford, 
 at this moment, the most remarkable approach any 
 where to be found, toward the theoretical perfection of 
 ideal democracy. 
 
 But it was not in New England alone, that the pro 
 gress of the democratical experiment met with opposi 
 tion. The middle states New York, New Jersey and 
 Pennsylvania, at the era of the revolution, contained 
 an oligarchy of rich land-holders, who assumed, and 
 for some time retained, the exclusive political control 
 of their respective communities. To this landed aris 
 tocracy the lawyers joined themselves, as also the cler 
 gy, whose influence though by no means equal to that 
 of their brethren in New England, was far from con 
 temptible. The yeomanry of those states were in 
 general, rude and ignorant. As there was no system 
 of public schools, many of them were unable to read ; 
 and if they were free from some of the prejudices of 
 the New En glanders, they were far behind them, in 
 knowledge, industry, self-respect, and that sensibility 
 of mind and heart, which civilization produces. 
 
 If the members of the oligarchical party in these 
 states, could have agreed among themselves, they might 
 long have maintained their influence and authority. 
 But presently they quarrelled, and divided into hostile 
 and bitter factions. Certain persons among them, 
 whether to secure the popular favor by putting them 
 selves forward as the champions of popular rights, or 
 some of them perhaps, sincere converts to the creed, 
 soon declared themselves the patrons and champions 
 of democracy; but as they had a powerful resistance 
 to contend against at home, and opponents who, though 
 discomfited, still kept the field, they were fain to yield 
 the precedence to Jefferson and his southern supporters, 
 and to be content with the second part, where they 
 would gladly have claimed the first. 
 
 As to the states north-west of the Ohio, which are 
 now beginning to occupy so conspicuous a place in the 
 
22 DESPOTISM 
 
 Union, their origin is so recent, and their population 
 has hitherto been so much engrossed with the cares 
 and occupations incident to new settlements, that as 
 yet, they have exercised but a limited influence upon 
 the sentiment and opinions of the country. That in 
 fluence however has been almost purely democratic, 
 and from the very birth of those communities, democ 
 racy has always been their prevailing political creed. 
 
 These slight and imperfect historical sketches lead 
 us to a fact of the greatest importance towards a cor 
 rect understanding of the progress, present state, and 
 future prospects of political opinion and political action, 
 in America. Ever since the formation of the federal 
 constitution, down almost to the present moment, 
 strange as it may seem, the democratic party of the 
 Union has been headed, guided, governed and con 
 trolled by certain slave-holding aristocrats of the south; 
 JeiFerson, Madison, Monroe, and Jackson have been 
 successively, its leaders, and its idols. 
 
 Under Jefferson, theoretical democracy was a new 
 thing ; and it was embraced with all the warmth which 
 novelty is apt to inspire. It formed a principal topic 
 of public discussion ; and was defended, if not always 
 by sound reasonings and substantial arguments, yet 
 with the enthusiastic zeal of sincere conviction. 
 
 But presently the public attention was diverted into 
 other channels, and became engrossed by matters 
 with which democracy had little or no connection. 
 Under Madison, the great question was, whether the 
 United States should resent and repel the insults and 
 the wrongs heaped upon them by foreign powers, and 
 if so, whether they should make war against the 
 tyrant Bonaparte, or the English aristocracy. The 
 democratic party was in general favorable to Bona 
 parte, for he was the child, and he had declared him 
 self the heir, and had seized upon the inheritance of 
 the French Revolution. But the very fact that they 
 were led by irrational sympathies, and the ardor of 
 political controversy, to wink at, to apologize for, and 
 almost to defend, the violence and outrages of a mili- 
 
IN AMERICA. 23 
 
 tary usurper, was so contrary to their principles, and 
 produced such a confusion of ideas, that the great 
 doctrines of their creed dropped almost out of sight, 
 and whether or not one was favorable to a war with 
 Great Britain, presently became the test of political 
 orthodoxy, a test altogether aside from the funda 
 mental principles of the democratical system. 
 
 Under Monroe, the great controversies of the day, 
 respected the protection of American industry ; a pure 
 question of national economy, upon which people 
 took sides, for the most part, not according to their 
 political opinions, but according to the views they en 
 tertained of the effect which this protection would be 
 likely to have upon their own private pecuniary in 
 terests. 
 
 During the administrations of. Madison and Mon 
 roe though the democratic creed was predominant 
 throughout the greater part of the country, and 
 though during the interval, it achieved its final tri 
 umph in New England, yet beginning in those states 
 where it had earliest prevailed, and extending gradual 
 ly to the rest, it degenerated almost into a mere form 
 of words without force or vitality. 
 
 This state of things is easily explained. The 
 leaders of the democratic, as of all other political par 
 ties, were for the most part adventurers, mere sol 
 diers of fortune, who sought credit, honors, office, and 
 power, by the zealous advocacy of principles which 
 they saw to have many adherents, but for which they 
 themselves felt no very devoted love, apart from the 
 advancement to which they hoped these principles 
 might help them. That advancement attained, the 
 party triumphant, themselves in office, they looked 
 with feelings of contempt upon the ladder by which 
 they had ascended, they were even desirous to cast it 
 down, lest perchance stronger men might climb up 
 thereby, and thrust them from their places. 
 
 The mouths of the prophets being closed, the peo 
 ple wandered as sheep without a shepherd ; and 
 though the democratic creed was publicly professed 
 
24 DESPOTISM 
 
 by all, there lurked in the hearts of many a cold in 
 difference, a sneering scepticism, a silent disbelief. 
 
 With Monroe terminated the direct line of the Jef- 
 fersonian succession; and then began that struggle 
 for the possession of the presidential chair, which has 
 ever since been so pertinaciously kept up, a contest 
 in the earlier part of which no one had a larger share 
 than John C. Calhoun, a person likely to figure in 
 history, for the instruction and amusement of man 
 kind. 
 
 That able, but restless and unprincipled man, first 
 came into public life as a leading democrat ; but that 
 was at a time when democracy in its current sense, 
 meant little more than hostility to Great Britain. 
 Coming from South Carolina as he did, it was but 
 natural that he should be, as he was, a thorough 
 aristocrat ; and that not content with the mere supre 
 macy of one race over another, he desired to concen 
 trate all political power in the hands of a chosen 
 few, of whom he himself should be the chief and. 
 leader. 
 
 But satisfied by the result of his earlier experi 
 ments, that the aristocratical party was not strong 
 enough to bestow that power at which he aimed, and 
 that even if it were, he would encounter on. that side, 
 some dangerous competitors ; he turned short about, 
 and recollecting the success of Jefferson, resolved to 
 try a new means of advancement, and to summon 
 up, from the slumbers of some sixteen years, the 
 genius of Democracy, which he fondly hoped to be 
 able to convert into the mere servant of his political 
 schemes. 
 
 The magician was able, and the charm worked 
 well. Dimly in the distance, hazy and indistinct, ap 
 peared a figure, whose broad proportions told that 
 time and slumber had but increased its stature and 
 its power. One foot upon the western prairies, the 
 other amid the snowy hills of New England, it strode 
 across the land. The people saw and worshipped. 
 A new enthusiasm was kindled in their hearts. No- 
 
IN AMERICA. 25 
 
 thing could resist it. Those who put themselves 
 forward as the priests, the favored, the chosen of tins 
 new avatar of democratical reform, were received 
 with confidence, welcomed with acclamation, and en 
 trusted with power. So far the thing worked well, 
 and he who had called up this apparition of democra 
 cy, succeeded in installing, as its high-priest and 
 chosen minister, a man who had been a slave-trader, 
 a man who was a slave-holder, who preached liberty 
 and equality at Washington, but who at home was 
 the despot of the Hermitage ! 
 
 His purposes thus far accomplished, he who had 
 raised the spirit sought to lay it. But it defies his 
 power. Among the crowd of hypocritical worship 
 pers and blind devotees, there are found a few whose 
 homage is at once enlightened and sincere. They 
 look upon democracy not with a stupid gaze of admi 
 ration, unable to distinguish between the apparent 
 and the real, but with a discernment, upon which the 
 arts of political cunning will not easily impose. De 
 mocracy, in their estimation, is not a mere phantom 
 by whose aid the credulous may be deluded, and offi 
 ces and honors be secured to the deluders ; it is a real 
 existence, a substantial thing, a powerful and essen 
 tial means of advancing the public welfare. It is to 
 these adherents, that Democracy now entrusts herself. 
 From being the nursling, the pupil, the instrument of 
 Southern despotism, she is about to become a rival 
 and an enemy. The allegiance she has so long yield 
 ed to Southern step-fathers, she will yield no longer. 
 The alliance is broken ; and conscious of superior 
 power and higher claims, Democracy demands hom 
 age and submission, where hitherto she has paid 
 them. 
 
 She prepares to act. She points in sorrow, shame 
 and anger, to the capital turned into a slave market; 
 to the broad plains of the south, watered with the 
 blood of their cultivators ; and to the thousand petty 
 despots, each arbitrary lord and irresponsible tyrant, 
 upon his own plantation. 
 3 
 
26 DESPOTISM 
 
 It is in vain that southern oppressors console them 
 selves with ideas of the insignificance of those who 
 make the first assault. They may ridicule them as 
 fools, fanatics, women. What of that ? Does the re 
 sult of an attack depend upon the prudence, or the 
 wisdom of those who have volunteered for the forlorn 
 hope 1 What matter who or what they are, those 
 who rush blindly and devotedly upon the open-mouth 
 ed cannon, the leveled bayonets of the enemy ? They 
 are but food for powder, and they know it. In every 
 great cause it is necessary that some should perish. 
 But if the cause be great, for one that falls, ten will 
 be found ambitious so to suffer ! 
 
 It is in vain we at the North, cry out that the con 
 test is unseasonable and premature. It has begun ; it 
 must go on. Grant that over-zealous and fanatical 
 haste has precipitated a struggle which we would 
 gladly have deferred, and slumbering out our own 
 time in quiet, have thrust upon the days of our chil 
 dren. No matter. In this thing we cannot have our 
 way. The trumpet has sounded ; the bold and un 
 quiet are rushing to the field. We may cry peace, 
 peace, but there is no peace. Fight we must, upon 
 one side or the other. The contest is begun already, 
 and will soon become general. In such a struggle 
 there can be no neutrality. It is time to be choosing 
 under which banner we will stand ! 
 
 To every one at the North, Democracy is to some 
 extent familiar. Many have doubtless viewed it 
 through a deceptive medium, and have seen it only 
 as it has been reflected by ignorance, or distorted by 
 prejudice; all however have formed some opinion 
 about it, and that opinion is founded upon knowledge 
 either actual or imaginary. But Despotism, the des 
 potism of the slave states, is a thing known at the 
 north only by name, and in general. Few have seen 
 it; fewer still have studied it ; and the greater part 
 are totally ignorant of its real character. 
 
 Before enlisting, it is well to know the cause in 
 which we are to serve. It is the purpose of the fol- 
 
IN AMERICA. 27 
 
 lowing pages to exhibit the system of social polity 
 established in the southern states, such as it is in its 
 operation and effects ; not in particular and accidental 
 instances, but generally, and by virtue of those laws 
 of human nature upon which the working of social 
 and political institutions must depend. 
 
 This inquiry is necessary for our own satisfaction. 
 Without making it, how can we act either reasonably 
 or safely? Here is a question with two sides to it, 
 and one side or the other, we must take. How can 
 we choose without knowledge ? Despotism may be 
 an excellent thing, well entitled to our warmest sup 
 port; but how can we know it to be so, without 
 knowing what it is ? 
 
 Yet are we stopped short, in the very threshold of this 
 inquiry, by the threats and execrations of the south. 
 Dare to inquire ; dare look behind the veil that hides 
 our private doings ; dare question us, or any of our 
 acts, and we dissolve the Union ! Such an imperti 
 nence is lawful cause of war, and we will wage it ! 
 
 Indeed ! It is necessary then to weigh these threats. 
 
 The Union of the States has been made the occasion 
 and the theme of a great deal of unmeaning declama 
 tion. An idea seems to prevail, that excellent a thing 
 as the Union is, the people, ignorant and short-sight 
 ed, may sometime take it into their heads to think 
 otherwise ; and therefore it is necessary to create a 
 prejudice in favor of the Union, a sort of feeling for 
 it like that feeling of loyalty, which has often upheld 
 a throne in spite of the vices and the tyranny of him 
 who sat upon it. 
 
 Under a democratic government, prejudices of this 
 sort are not only useless, they are highly mischievous ; 
 they are but manacles and fetters put into the hands 
 of the artful and designing, by means of which the 
 people are bound, and shorn, against their interest, 
 and against their judgment. 
 
 The men who formed the Union were neither bet 
 ter nor wiser than ourselves. For certain arguments 
 and reasons in its favor, they formed it ; for certain 
 
28 DESPOTISM 
 
 arguments and reasons in its favor, we should sustain 
 it; not for itself; for in itself, it is neither good nor 
 bad. It may be either, as circumstances are. 
 
 What are these reasons and arguments in favor of 
 the Union ? Briefly these ; that the Union serves to 
 protect us against aggressions from abroad, and civil 
 war at home ; that it is the best guarantee of our 
 independence and our freedom. 
 
 But suppose this same Union to be made the pre 
 text for a violent interference with our dearest rights? 
 Suppose that under pretence of preserving the Union, 
 we are to be deprived of the liberty of the press, the 
 liberty of discussion, the liberty of thought. nay 
 more, the liberty of feeling, the right of sympathy 
 with those who suffer ? Suppose this Union requires 
 to be cemented with blood, and that we are called 
 upon to surrender up the noblest of our sons and 
 daughters to be tortured to death by southern whips, 
 for the grievous sin of having denounced despotism 
 with the generous emphasis of freedom ? 
 
 Are we ready to bow thus submissively before the 
 grim and bloody shrine of this political Moloch ? Are 
 we prepared to make these sacrifices? When the 
 thing has changed its nature, what though it still re 
 tain its former name? Though it be called a Union, 
 what is it but a base subjection, a miserable servitude? 
 
 Some eighty years ago, we had a Union with Great 
 Britain, a Union that had lasted for near two centu 
 ries, a cherished Union, the recollection of which 
 kindled a glow in every American bosom ; not a fra 
 ternal Union merely, but closer yet, maternal, filial. 
 That connection had many things to recommend it. 
 It sustained our weakness ; it brightened our ob 
 scurity ; it made us partakers in the renown of 
 Britain, and part and parcel of a great nation. 
 What curses, eighty years ago, would have blighted 
 the parricide, who should have gone about to sever 
 that connection, so dear, so beneficial ! 
 
 The mother country, not satisfied with the affec 
 tion of her daughter, sought to abuse her power, and 
 
IN AMERICA. 
 
 29 
 
 to extort a tribute. But were all the advantages of 
 our Union with Britain to be given up, merely to 
 avoid the payment of a paltry tax on tea ? Were all 
 the calamities of civil war to be hazarded, all the 
 miseries of a hostile invasion, intrigues with foreign 
 powers, and their dangerous interference, public debts, 
 standing armies, the risk of anarchy, and of military 
 usurpation ? 
 
 Yes, all, said our fathers, all is to be risked, rather 
 than surrender our pecuniary independence, rather 
 than become tributary to a British parliament ; rather 
 than be taxed at the pleasure of the mother country. 
 A Union upon such terms is a mockery ; it is not the 
 Union we have loved and cherished. We scorn it, 
 and we spurn it. 
 
 So our fathers said. And when it is undertaken to 
 deprive us not of our money, which, for the sake of 
 peace, we might be willing to part with, but of that 
 whose value money cannot estimate ; when it is at 
 tempted to shut out from us the atmosphere, the essen 
 tial life-breath of liberty; when it is sought to gag 
 our free mouths, to forbid and stop the beating of our 
 free hearts; to subdue us by penal statutes into a 
 servile torpidity, and an obsequious silence, shall we 
 hesitate one moment to repel this impudent effort of 
 despotism, because, if we refuse to submit, it will en 
 danger the Union ? Perish the Union ; let it ten times 
 perish, from the moment it becomes inconsistent with 
 humanity and with freedom ! 
 
 Should South Carolina declare that war, for which, 
 as she asserts, she has such lawful cause, and march an 
 army northward to enforce silence at the point of the 
 bayonet, the sons of those men who fought at Lexington 
 and Bunker Hill, will perhaps know how to repel the 
 invaders ; and those states which furnished soldiers, 
 generals, arms and money, to re-conquer Carolina from 
 Cornwallis and Rawdon, will be able, peradventure, 
 to vindicate their own liberties against any force which 
 Carolinian despots may be able to send against them. 
 
 In this matter, let us learn a lesson from these very 
 3* 
 
30 DESPOTISM 
 
 Carolinians. It is now some twenty years since, that 
 South Carolina considered herself aggrieved, by what 
 she esteemed the usurpations of the federal govern 
 ment. She accused Congress of levying taxes, which 
 the constitution did not authorize. No matter wheth 
 er the charge were true or false ; those who made it, 
 doubtless were sincere. And did they quietly submit 
 to this aggression, rather than endanger the Union by 
 their resistance? Not they. 
 
 Though denounced at the north as rebels and traitors, 
 though coldly looked upon even by those states which 
 shared the grievance, and which had promised to as 
 sist in the redress; though unaided and alone, and 
 harassed too by a large party at home, who threat 
 ened, in the event of hostilities, to take sides with the 
 general government, the South Carolinian leaders 
 magnanimously dared to " calculate the value of the 
 Union ; " arid they concluded, like brave men as they 
 were, that rather than give place to what they es 
 teemed oppression, rather than be ruled in a manner 
 which no constitution authorized, rather than submit 
 to an usurped authority, it were better to break the 
 Union, and risk a war. 
 
 The bold are always less in danger than the timid. 
 The strength and resources of South Carolina com 
 pared with those of the remaining states, were but as 
 dust in the balance ; yet rather than provoke violent 
 resistance, by an exercise of doubtful authority, Con 
 gress yielded ; the tariff was modified, and the prin 
 ciple of pure and unlimited protection was totally 
 abandoned. 
 
 If South Carolina calculated the value of the Union, 
 when it was only a question of tariffs and of taxes, 
 shall we hesitate to calculate its value, when the 
 dearest rights of manhood are in danger? when we 
 are commanded to submit in silence, and not dare to 
 criticise the despotism that controls us? 
 
 Let them break the Union, if they choose ; it is a 
 matter wherein they are free to act. But before they 
 break it, they will do well to revise their calculations 
 
IN AMERICA. 31 
 
 of its value. What the southern States would be, if 
 they stood alone ; what elements they have within 
 themselves of civilization, greatness, safety, strength, 
 and power ; what sort of a nation they would form, if 
 isolated, and cut off from intercourse with their north 
 ern neighbors, is an inquiry which will find its proper 
 place hereafter. But there are some more obvious 
 considerations, which our southern friends will do 
 well deliberately to weigh, before they judge fit to 
 dissolve the confederacy, and to break up those con 
 stitutional guarantees by which they are now protect 
 ed. As sister states, talk as they may of the mis 
 chievous intermeddlings of the north, they enjoy 
 privileges and an impunity, they never could expect 
 from a foreign, an offended and a hostile nation. 
 Those unhappy fugitives who had once reached the 
 borders of States then truly free, could never be re 
 claimed ; as between independent nations, the tortures 
 and the death wantonly inflicted upon northern citi 
 zens would no longer be regarded with a careless un 
 concern; and how many forays from the frontiers, 
 how many crusades of liberty would there not be un 
 dertaken, by men anxious to redeem from slavery, if 
 not their own relatives, those at least whom they re 
 gard as brothers ? These collisions, sooner or later, 
 would inevitably bring on war ; and the broad banner 
 of emancipation, with fifty thousand men to back it, 
 once displayed, and gayly flaunting on the southern 
 breeze, farewell, and forever, to the despotisms of the 
 south ! 
 
 But here we are met again. 
 
 If you have no regard for yourselves, say our south 
 ern friends, fool-hardy and fanatical, if you do not 
 tremble at that annihilation with which we threaten 
 you, pray, at least, have some consideration for us. 
 Remember the delicacy of our situation. Do you 
 wish to involve us in all the horrors of a servile in 
 surrection ? Why scatter "seed that will presently 
 germinate, and sooner or later will ripen into a har 
 vest of desolation and blood?" 
 
32 DESPOTISM 
 
 How this solemn objurgation is to be reconciled with 
 the loud threat of severing the Union, and enforcing 
 silence and submission at the point of the bayonet, 
 those can best tell who are accustomed to join that 
 threat and this objurgation. In the mean time, we 
 may remark a curious analogy. 
 
 When the JefTersoniaii aristocrats of the south first 
 began to preach the doctrines of democracy, it was in 
 terms like these that they were greeted by the north 
 ern oligarchs. " Bad men, wicked, turbulent, sedi 
 tious, fanatical, contrivers of mischief, what mean ye, 
 what do ye desire ? Would you uproot society from 
 its foundations ? Would you abolish religion ? Would 
 you overturn morality ? Would you do away with 
 government ? Would you dissolve all ties ? Would 
 you put an end to the established order and rightful 
 propriety of things ? 
 
 " What ? Do you seek to elevate the most ignorant 
 and abandoned of society to a level with us, their bet 
 ters and natural superiors ? Would you deprive us of 
 that power and authority which God has seen fit to 
 entrust to us, which is our natural right, and which 
 we exercise so much to our own honor, arid the bene 
 fit of those we rule ? 
 
 " Yes : and you talk of guillotines too ; you dare 
 to denounce us as tyrants ; you are organizing a con 
 spiracy for a general insurrection, and for the slaugh 
 ter and destruction of all good men. Out upon ye, ye 
 Robespierres, ye Dan tons, ye blood-thirsty knaves ! 
 Democrats forsooth ! Jacobins, atheists, murderous 
 villains ! Why scatter seed that will presently germi 
 nate, and sooner or later, will ripen into a harvest 
 of desolation and blood ? " 
 
 So they preached, and so they prated, from pul 
 pits and the press. Yes, and they passed laws too. 
 There was the Alien Law, whereby all dangerous 
 foreigners were to be excluded from the country ; and 
 there was the Sedition Lav), intended to gag the press, 
 and to subject those who spoke disrespectfully of the 
 powers that were, to the penalty of fine and imprison 
 ment. 
 
IN AMERICA. 33 
 
 When the southern aristocrats offered to our fathers 
 the precious boon of democracy, such was the loath 
 ing, such the struggling reluctance, and such the pas 
 sionate indignation with which they received, and 
 would have rejected it. And now that we, in our 
 turn, recollecting with gratitude, the good offices of 
 the South, seek to repay the favor, and commend to 
 their lips that same draught, of their own concocting, 
 which however bitter to the taste has health and vigor 
 in it, life and strength ; they in their turn, with the rage 
 and malice of spoiled and wayward children, reject the 
 medicine, snap at the nurse, and load their best friends 
 with frantic maledictions. 
 
 Let us be patient with them ; they are sick. Yes 
 very sick; and when the fit is on, light-headed. Com 
 pared with their disorder, all the fierce fevers that in 
 fest their clima are mild and trivial. What angry 
 passions, what tormenting fury, what anxious fears, 
 what cares, forebodings, terrors, tremors, seize upon 
 the despot, when he feels the sceptre slipping from his 
 grasp, and sees his subjects ready to claim their free 
 dom? 
 
 How he has governed ; how he has trodden under 
 foot men good as he ; what wrongs he has inflict 
 ed ; what cruel, bloody, barbarous, bitter wrongs, he 
 knows fall well. He dreads a retribution ; he shakes 
 and changes color when he thinks how just that retri 
 bution, and if complete, how ample ! Though he be 
 brave, a coward conscience chases away his courage ; 
 a cold sweat stands upon his brow ; and he becomes 
 as fearful as a child, while phantom images of guilty 
 actions flit round his pillow, 
 
 By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night 
 Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard, 
 Than could the substance of ten thousand soldiers 
 Armed in proof. 
 
 Those frightful visions which afflict the south ; 
 they are but shadows. One act of generous justice, 
 
34 DESPOTISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 of prudent justice, which yields what it can safely 
 keep no longer, shall absolve the greatest tyrant of 
 them all, and send him forth, a neophyte from the 
 baptismal font of freedom, pure, washed, and spotless ; 
 and he may walk, like Sylla the ex-dictator, through 
 the streets of Rome, unguarded, undisguised, and 
 meet at every turn one he has injured, yet never 
 surfer harm ! 
 
 But an act like this requires a moral courage a noble 
 ness of soul, not common. That justice is the highest 
 expediency, is a maxim which our southern friends 
 sometimes repeat, but a doctrine which they have not 
 the wisdom, nor the magnanimity to practise. 
 
 In the mean time they need our help, our most judi 
 cious care. But to afford it, we ought to understand 
 their actual condition ; we must make ourselves fa 
 miliar with that melancholy state of things, of which 
 they are at once the champions and the victims. 
 
 And this knowledge is necessary to us not on their 
 account only, but also on our own. We form a part 
 of the same nation. It is hardly possible for one mem 
 ber to surfer, and the disease not to extend sympatheti 
 cally to the whole body. Suppose a general insurrec 
 tion at the south, who would be called upon for men, 
 arms, and money, to put it down ? Suppose the slaves 
 rise upon their masters, is it not the democrats of the 
 north, who are constitutionally bound to draw their 
 swords in behalf of despotism ? those very democrats, 
 who have said and sworn, that resistance to tyrants 
 is obedience to God? 
 
 Let us learn, then, the full extent of this obligation ; 
 let us know what that system is, which we may thus 
 be called upon to uphold ! 
 
CHAPTER FIRST. 
 
 THE RELATION OF MASTER AND SLAVE. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 The Origin of Slavery. 
 
 THE relation of master and slave, like most other 
 kinds of despotism, has its origin in war. By the 
 confession of its warmest defenders, slavery is at best, 
 but a substitute for homicide. 
 
 Savages take no prisoners; or those they do take, 
 they first torture, and then devour. But when the 
 arts of life have made some progress, and the value 
 of labor begins to be understood, it is presently dis 
 covered that to eat prisoners, is not the most profitable 
 use to which they can be put. Accordingly their lives 
 are spared ; and they are compelled to labor for the 
 benefit of their captors. Such is the origin of Slavery. 
 
 It was formerly a practice in America to sell as 
 slave s such Indian prisoners as were captured during 
 the frequent wars waged with the aboriginal inhabit 
 ants. But the great mass of those unfortunate per 
 sons held in servitude throughout the southern states, 
 derive their origin from another source. 
 
 A Virginian planter deduces the legitimacy of his 
 dominion by the follow ing process. Your great-grand 
 mother being captured by a certain African prince, 
 in a war, undertaken, doubtless, for the mere purpose 
 of making prisoners, was sold upon the coast of 
 Guinea to a certain Yankee slave-trader ; and being 
 transported by him to James River, was there sold to 
 
36 DESPOTISM 
 
 a certain tobacco planter. In time, your great-grand 
 mother died ; but she left children, to which as a part 
 of her produce, the owner of the mother was justly 
 entitled. From that owner, through diverse aliena 
 tions and descents, the title has passed to me ; and as 
 you are descended from the woman above referred to, 
 it is quite clear, how perfectly reasonable and just my 
 empire is. 
 
 Whether in point of logic and morals, the above 
 deduction is completely satisfactory, is not now the 
 question. The nature of the master s claim is stated 
 here, only as an assistance towards obtaining a clear 
 er apprehension of the relations which must grow out 
 of it. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 General idea of a Slave-holding Community. 
 
 Slavery then is a continuation of the state of war. 
 It is true that one of the combatants is subdued and 
 bound ; but the war is not terminated. If I do not 
 put the captive to death, this apparent clemency does 
 not arise from any good-will towards him, or any ex 
 tinction on my part of hostile feelings and intentions. 
 I spare his life merely because I expect to be able to 
 put him to a use more advantageous to myself. And 
 if the captive, on the other hand, feigns submission, 
 still he is only watching for an opportunity to escape 
 my grasp, and if possible to inflict upon me evils as 
 great as those to which I have subjected him. 
 
 War is justly regarded, and with the progress of 
 civilization it comes every day more and more to be 
 regarded, as the very greatest of social calamities. 
 The introduction of slavery into a community, amounts 
 to an eternal protraction of that calamity, and a uni- 
 
91 AMERICA. 37 
 
 versal diffusion of it through the whole mass of socie 
 ty, and that too, in its most ferocious form. 
 
 When a country is invaded by a hostile army, 
 within the immediate neighborhood of the camp it 
 becomes impossible to make any effectual resistance. 
 However fierce may be the hate with which they look 
 upon the invaders, the inhabitants within the range 
 of their scouting parties, are obliged to submit. They 
 are made to furnish wood, forage and provisions; 
 they are forced to toil in the entrenchment of the 
 camp; their houses are liable to be ransacked and 
 plundered, and their women to be subjected to the 
 lusts of the soldiers. Upon certain emergencies, the 
 ablest bodied among them will be armed, surrounded 
 .by foreign squadrons, and obliged to fight against 
 their own countrymen. But though plundered with 
 out mercy, and liable to the most frightful injuries, 
 yet as their services are valuable, and even necessary 
 to the invaders, they must be allowed to retain the 
 means of sustaining existence ; and if under all the 
 discouragements to which they are subjected, they 
 neglect or refuse to cultivate their fields, they must 
 be driven to work at the point of the bayonet, Jest the 
 invaders might suffer from their negligence, and fall 
 short of forage and provisions. 
 
 Now every plantation in the slave states is to be 
 looked upon as the seat of a little camp, which over 
 awes and keeps in subjection the surrounding peasan 
 try. The master claims and exercises over his slaves 
 all the rights of war above described, and others yet 
 more terrible. Consider too that this infliction is not 
 limited to a single neighborhood, as in the case of an 
 invading army, but is scattered and diffused over the 
 whole extent of the country ; nor is it temporary as 
 in the other case, but constant and perpetual. It is 
 by taking a view like this, that we are enabled to form 
 a primary, general, outline idea of the social condition 
 of a slave-holding community. 
 4 
 
38 DESPOTISM 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 The Empire claimed by the Master. 
 
 The relation of master and slave, as we may con 
 clude from the foregoing statements, is a relation 
 purely of force and terror. Its only sanction is the 
 power of the master ; its best security, the fears of the 
 slave. It bears no resemblance to any thing like a 
 social compact. Mutual interest, faith, truth, hon 
 esty, duty, affection, good-will, are not included, in 
 any form whatever, under this relation. 
 
 But let us descend somewhat into particulars, and 
 inquire more specifically what is the nature of the 
 empire claimed by the master. 
 
 That empire is the most absolute and comprehen 
 sive which it is possible to imagine. The master 
 considers his slaves as existing solely for his benefit. 
 He has purchased, and he possesses them for his own 
 sake, not for theirs. His sole object is to obtain the 
 greatest possible profit out of them. 
 
 Perhaps to obtain this greatest profit, it may be ne 
 cessary to feed them plentifully, and clothe them well, 
 and to allow them certain, intervals of rest, and other 
 like indulgences. If the master is of that opinion, he 
 acts accordingly. But in so acting he merely pursues 
 his own advantage. If he has adopted the contrary 
 opinion, if he imagines that he can save more by re 
 trenchment than he can make by outlay, in that case 
 he cuts down the allowance of rest, food, and clothing, 
 and endeavours to supply the deficiency by the stim 
 ulus of the lash. It is a mere matter of calculation 
 either way; not a question of morals, but a mere 
 problem of domestic economy. The slaves are not 
 thought of as sentient beings, but as machines to be 
 kept in profitable operation. 
 
 One who visits a slave-holding community, for the 
 first time, if he have any feeling of humanity and 
 any spirit of observation, is puzzled and shocked, by 
 
IN AMERICA. 39 
 
 what appears to him a series of distressing uncongrui- 
 ties. Men who in their relations towards those whom 
 they acknowledge as fellow-citizens, fulfil with promp 
 titude and exactness all the duties of benevolence and 
 justice, in their conduct towards their slaves, often 
 seem destitute of all human sympathies. 
 
 This course of action results from the very position 
 of a master ; and men naturally of the most benevo 
 lent dispositions, become reconciled to it by force of 
 custom and education. The soldier, frank, generous, 
 warm-hearted, ready to share his last dollar with his 
 comrade, from the moment he enters an enemy s 
 country becomes a violent, fierce, and brutal robber, 
 who plunders whenever he has opportunity, without 
 hesitation or remorse. 
 
 It is exactly so with the master of slaves. His con 
 duct towards his fellow-citizens, and towards his ser 
 vants, is regulated by rules and considerations totally 
 distinct. In making this distinction, he is supported 
 by the laws of the land, and the dogmas of the church; 
 upheld by the example and countenance of his friends 
 and neighbors ; and encouraged by the approbation, 
 open or implied, of all the world. If nobody finds 
 fault with his conduct, why should he think of chang 
 ing it? Why relinquish a lordship and a revenue, 
 which every body tells him he does right to retain ? 
 
 The value of this lordship, and the amount of this 
 revenue, would be nothing at all, if instead of looking 
 steadfastly, and with a single eye, to his own interest, 
 the master should trouble himself about the well-be 
 ing of his slaves. Their well-being evidently requires 
 the liberty on their part of pursuing their own hap 
 piness, according to their own notions of it ; and it 
 clearly demands the disposal at their pleasure of the 
 entire fruits of their own labor. That is, it requires 
 the complete cessation of the master s empire. But it 
 is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be at 
 the same time ; so that whoever wishes to retain the 
 character of a master, and to exercise the preroga 
 tives which that character confers and implies, is 
 
40 DESPOTISM 
 
 driven, by an invincible necessity, to disregard the well- 
 being of his slaves, and to consider solely his own 
 profit. Whether indeed that profit is best promoted 
 by retaining the character of master at all ; whether 
 the master s interest, upon a full and comprehensive 
 view of it, might not best be advanced by ceasing to 
 be a master, is a question not now under discussion. 
 
 But in communities where all are free, how many 
 are there, who regard any interest except their own ? 
 And wherein is the particular evil of slavery in this 
 respect ? 
 
 The peculiar evil of slavery consists in the very 
 fact, that the slaves do not stand in this particular on 
 a level with other men; they are not allowed to 
 pursue their own interest. Not only is the well-be 
 ing of the slaves disregarded by the masters, it is 
 deliberately sacrificed.. Left to themselves, like other 
 men, they would pursue their own happiness, with 
 success, less or greater. But their own happiness is 
 a thing they are not suffered to pursue ; and if yield 
 ing to the instinctive impulses of nature, they make 
 the attempt, they are thwarted and driven back at 
 every turn. Their own comfort or pleasure is a thing 
 they are not allowed to think of at all ; or to think of 
 only at the risk of the lash. 
 
 In free communities, selfishness itself is enlisted 
 into the service of benevolence. In order to obtain 
 favors, it is necessary to confer them. Mutual ser 
 vices are secured by the attraction of mutual interest. 
 But mutuality is a thing which slavery knows not. 
 The master does not say, " Work for me, and I will 
 give you in return wherewith to feed and clothe 
 yourself and family." " Work for me," he says, " or 
 I will torture you with the lash ! " If the master 
 supplies the slave with food and clothes, he does riot 
 do it by way of compensation for labor. It is a ne 
 cessary expenditure, grudgingly laid out, in order to 
 keep these human machines in motion. So far from 
 being in the nature of a bargain or contract, slavery 
 is nothing but violence upon one side, and compulsive 
 obedience upon the other. 
 
IN AMERICA. 41 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 Means of enforcing the Master s Empire. 
 
 To sustain an empire of the kind above described, 
 it is evident that the most vigorous means must be es 
 sential. 
 
 The means employed are chiefly three, to wit : force, 
 terror ) fraud; and accord ing to the different tempers, tal 
 ents, habits and notions of the master, one or the other 
 of these three means, is made the key of his system. 
 
 I. FORCE. Those masters whose tempers are harsh, 
 violent, and brutal, especially those who have never 
 been softened by education, and who are strangers to 
 the refinements of cultivated life, and others who are 
 endowed with a firm, decided vigor that moves direct 
 ly to the point, and by the shortest way, rely princi 
 pally upon force. 
 
 Is the slave late in coming into the field? Twenty 
 lashes. Is he idle ? Thirty lashes. Does he disobey 
 or neglect an order ? Forty lashes. Does he negligently 
 waste or destroy his master s property ? Fifty lashes. 
 Is he detected in a lie ? Sixty lashes. Is he strongly 
 suspected of theft ? Seventy lashes. Does he say 
 or do any thing that can be construed into insolence ? 
 Eighty lashes. Is he guilty of the slightest act of 
 insubordination ? One hundred lashes. Does he ven 
 ture to run away ? Let him be pursued by men and 
 dogs, disabled by small shot, and so soon as he is ta 
 ken, be flogged till he faints, then be worked in chains, 
 locked up every night, and kept on half allowance, till 
 his spirits are broken, and he becomes obedient and 
 contented. Should he dare, upon any occasion, to offer 
 any resistance ? Let him be shot, stabbed, beat to the 
 ground with a club, and should he not be killed in the 
 process, as soon as he is so far recovered as to be able 
 to stand, let him be subjected to all the discipline men 
 tioned in the preceding sentence, and in addition, be 
 flogged every night, for thirty days in succession. 
 4* 
 
42 DESPOTISM 
 
 Such is a brief specimen of this system of plantation 
 management, which some call cruel, but which those 
 who follow it, merely describe as vigorous and efficient. 
 
 II. TERROR. But there are many men. naturally soft 
 hearted, who cannot look without some feelings of 
 sympathetic pain, or at least of instinctive disgust, 
 upon the body of an old man, or a woman perhaps, 
 cut up with the lash, and scored with bloody gashes. 
 The screams and outcries of the victims affect them 
 disagreeably. They lack that harsh, unfeeling vigor, 
 that stern promptitude, tyranny s steadiest and most 
 efficient support. They endeavor to avoid the actual 
 use of the whip, and to govern as far as possible, by 
 the fear of it. They utter most tremendous threats, 
 and strive to supply by bitter and alarming words, the 
 place of action. But words, when they are found to 
 be intended only as scare-crows, soon lose their effica 
 cy. It is therefore necessary to maintain a steady 
 stream, and the master who governs upon this wordy 
 plan, soon comes to keep both himself and his slaves, 
 in a constant state of irritation and ill feeling, by a 
 process of fault-finding, scolding and threats, which 
 becomes a habit, and goes on from morning to night, 
 from day to day, from one year s end to another. 
 
 The slaves, who are thus made to feel every mo 
 ment the weight of tyranny, and the humiliation of 
 servitude, contract towards these snarling masters, the 
 sincerest hate ; and from hating, being soon satisfied 
 that with all their bluster, they have not the vigor to 
 act up to their threats, they come presently to despise 
 them. Whether they do well or ill, it is much the 
 same, the master scolds on by habit ; but though he 
 scolds, as yet he does not punish ; and the bolder among 
 the slaves soon begin to try experiments upon his pa 
 tience. They are encouraged by the impunity of first 
 transgressions to take greater and greater liberties. 
 Their example finds imitators, till presently the whole 
 plantation falls into a state of idleness and insubordi- 
 nacy, which cannot be longer overlooked or endured. 
 
 The master must now give up the hope of revenue 
 
IN AMERICA. 43 
 
 from his slaves, or he must re-establish his authority. 
 He begins with moderate whippings. But his first at 
 tempts in this way are laughed at, or perhaps resisted. 
 He is alarmed and inflamed. Anger and fear supply 
 a vigor he does not naturally possess. He storms and 
 raves ; flogs without mercy ; shoots, stabs, chains, im 
 prisons, starves, tortures. His nature seems to be 
 changed, and for a while he acts out the tyrant, in the 
 most savage and vindictive spirit of despotism. The 
 slaves bend and bow beneath this whirlwind of tyran 
 ny. The most turbulent and unmanageable, those 
 of them at least, who have escaped with their lives, 
 are sent off and sold ; arid presently things subside in 
 to their former state. The master grows ashamed of 
 his violence, and perhaps endures some twinges of re 
 morse ; the lash is disused, and the tongue supplies its 
 place. The discipline of the plantation is presently 
 relaxed ; the servants become idle and insubordinate as 
 before; but this flattering calm cannot be relied upon; 
 a new storm of tyranny is secretly brewing, which 
 will burst at a moment when it is least expected. 
 
 III. FRAUD. There are some masters, who pride 
 themselves upon their cunning and superior knowledge 
 of human nature, who make considerable use of fraud, 
 in the management of their slaves ; but this is a means 
 employed only occasionally, and of which the efficacy 
 is not great. 
 
 One of the most usual applications of it, is the at 
 tempt to take advantage of the religious feelings of 
 the slaves, and to impress them with the idea, that 
 obedience, honesty towards their masters, humble sub 
 mission, and other like plantation virtues, are religious 
 duties, which God commands, under the penalty of 
 damnation. 
 
 This stratagem is chiefly practised by slave-holding 
 clergymen and church members. The religious peo 
 ple of the South have been at the pains of preparing 
 a slave catechism ; in some places they have establish 
 ed slave Sunday schools; and meetings for slave- 
 worship are regularly held. The immediate agents 
 
44 DESPOTISM 
 
 in these proceedings, are generally men of good in 
 tentions, but of very feeble understandings. They 
 are mere tools in the hands of crafty hypocrites. The 
 motive of their labors is doubtless the spiritual welfare 
 of the slaves ; but those by whom they are supported 
 and encouraged, however tender a regard they may 
 have for the salvation of their own souls, look upon 
 religion among slaves merely as a means of plantation 
 discipline ; and please themselves with the idea that 
 the more religious their slaves are, the easier they may 
 be managed. 
 
 The agents employed in this double service of Chris 
 tianity and despotism, often succeed in kindling a 
 warm spirit of devotion in the hearts of the slaves j 
 but they have often occasion to deplore the inconsist 
 ency, the back-sliding, the delusion of their converts, 
 who cannot be made to realize in its full extent, the 
 enormous sinfulness of any attempt to elude that ty 
 ranny under which providence requires them patient 
 ly, and even joyfully to submit. 
 
 Deeply sympathizing with the sad, and almost an 
 gry feelings, with which these pious people are accus 
 tomed to lament the small success of their labors, and 
 to accuse that stony-heartedness and inherent deprav 
 ity which prevents even the converted slaves from at 
 taining to the perfection of humility and obedience, 
 the remark nevertheless may with all due deference, 
 be permitted, that so long as these pious teachers are 
 able to construe the generous precepts of the gospel 
 into an apology and a justification for tyranny, it can 
 not be considered very surprising that their pupils 
 among the slaves, should instinctively acquire the art 
 of reconciling with Christian patience and submission, 
 any and every means, whereby they can shake off, 
 alleviate, or elude the usurped authority of their mas 
 ters. 
 
 But this piece of pious fraud is falling into bad odor 
 at the South. It has been found that religion causes 
 an excitement among the slaves, both dangerous and 
 troublesome. The rascals preach and pray when they 
 
IN AMERICA. 45 
 
 ought to be working. Besides, that religious enthusi 
 asm, which kindles so readily in the most ignorant as 
 well as the most cultivated minds, gives rise to a dan 
 gerous exaltation of soul which makes the subjects 
 of it obstinate and unmanageable. Religion once 
 awakened in such savage and untaught bosoms, is apt 
 to degenerate into a superstitious fanaticism. The 
 gifted and the artful begin to see visions, and to dream 
 dreams. They are not content with being hearers 
 and pupils, they aspire to be speakers and teachers. 
 In their sermons and exhortations, it is the vices, the 
 luxury, the cruelty, the wickedness of the masters, 
 upon which they principally dwell, and whence they 
 draw examples and illustrations ; and who knows but 
 some one more enraptured than the rest, may imagine 
 himself called, like Moses of old, to smite the task 
 master, and to lead forth the oppressed children? 
 
 For these reasons the bible has been proscribed at 
 the South, as an incendiary publication ; a book not 
 fit for slaves to read or hear. In some parts of the 
 country the catechism is looked upon with almost equal 
 suspicion ; and many masters forbid their slaves to 
 hear any preacher, black or white, since they consider 
 religion upon a plantation as quite out of place, a thing 
 dangerous to the master s authority, and therefore not 
 to be endured in the slave. 
 
 Another stratagem, occasionally employed, when it 
 is desired to stimulate the efforts of the slaves, is the 
 distribution of little prizes among those who accom 
 plish the greatest labor in the shortest time. This 
 contrivance works wonderfully well for a few days ; 
 but as soon as it is discovered who are the ablest work 
 men, the emulation is confined to them, and the greater 
 number, who have no chance to win the prize, pres 
 ently relapse into their former apathy. Besides, this 
 distribution of prizes, is apt to give rise among the 
 slaves to the inconvenient notion, that they ought to 
 be paid for working, and the moment it ceases, they 
 work more grudgingly, unwillingly and negligently 
 than ever. Moreover it is expensive; in the minds of 
 most planters, a decisive objection against it. 
 
46 DESPOTISM 
 
 But there are cases when force and terror cannot be 
 employed, or fail to answer the purpose, and where 
 stratagem is necessarily resorted to. The most com 
 mon of these, cases, are the detection and prevention 
 of theft, and the recovery of runaways. 
 
 Upon these occasions, the most respectable and re 
 ligious masters do not hesitate to descend to every pet 
 ty art of fraud and falsehood. They have hired spies 
 and informers among the slaves ; they blacken their 
 own faces, and lurk in disguise about the cabins, peep 
 ing through the cracks, and listening at the doors. 
 They lure the fugitives back into their power, by the 
 most ample promises of pardon, which they break with 
 as little hesitation as they make them. Not uncom 
 monly they attempt to take advantage of the supersti 
 tious ignorance of the slaves, and pretend to magical 
 and supernatural powers, in hopes of frightening the 
 culprit into confession. They exult over the success 
 of these fraudulent arts ; and in all transactions with 
 their slaves, their total want of respect for their own 
 word has given ample occasion for the proverb com 
 mon among the unprivileged class, which describes 
 white men as "mighty uncertain." 
 
 Of the three principal means above enumerated, and 
 briefly explained, upon which the sustentation of the 
 slave-master s empire depends, it is evident that the 
 first involves the second: for the surest way of striking 
 a deep terror into the heart is, to punish every trans 
 gression with a stern and unrelenting severity. 
 
 It accordingly happens that those who act upon this 
 plan not only have the least trouble upon their planta 
 tions, but are often comparatively popular, so to speak, 
 with their servants. The certainty of punishment 
 greatly diminishes the necessity of its frequent inflic 
 tion. The slaves know exactly what to expect; how 
 far they can go ; and what is the limit they cannot 
 safely transgress. If the rule is an iron one, it is never 
 theless steady and sure. It does not partake of that 
 uncertainty, which besides being a dangerous tempta 
 tion, is in itself one of the greatest of evils. Slaves 
 
IN AMERICA. 47 
 
 are like other men; and in general, they far prefer to 
 take a punishment, and have it over, to being perpetu 
 ally scolded, threatened, cursed and stormed at, even 
 though there may be hope that the storm will end in 
 words, and pass over without raining blows. 
 /J3ut this regular and systematic discipline, resem 
 bling the despotic precision of a well drilled army, is 
 to be found only upon a very few plantations. Most 
 masters and most overseers are too negligent, or too 
 good humored for their business, or else are ignorant of 
 the real nature, and only sure support of the authority 
 they exercise. They overlook some offences because 
 they do not want the trouble of punishment; some they 
 permit to go unnoticed, because they hate to flog a wo 
 man, or a child ; some allowances they make for the 
 petulance of old age, or the hot temper of youth. But 
 every liberty that goes unpunished is made a pretence 
 for yet greater liberties ; the slaves, always eager and 
 watchful to regain any particle of freedom, perceive 
 in an instant, and with unerring sagacity, every indi 
 cation of weakness, or want of vigor on the part of 
 their master ; they artfully break, now this link, and 
 now that, from their chains; till at length, beginning 
 to feel something of the spirit of liberty, their " inso 
 lence," to use the master s phrase, becomes intolera 
 ble, and waking from his dream of indulgence and 
 good nature, their despot is obliged to vindicate his 
 authority, and to repress the licentiousness of his slaves, 
 by a sudden outbreak of violence and cruelty, which, 
 however he may excuse it by the plea of necessity, he 
 cannot think of, in his sober moments, without some 
 disagreeable feelings of self-condemnation. 
 
 Thus it is that the greater part of Southern planta 
 tions are the scenes of a constant struggle ; idleness, 
 encroachments, a passive resistance upon one side ; 
 negligence and yielding first, then passion, violence 
 and cruelty upon the other. 
 
48 DESPOTISM 
 
 SECTION V. 
 Means of resistance on the part of the slaves. 
 
 We come now more minutely to consider, with what 
 feelings the slaves look upon their own lot, and what 
 resistance they make to the usurped authority of their 
 masters. For by the very constitution of human na 
 ture, it happens of necessity, that such an authority 
 must be resisted, in some shape or other. 
 
 As to escaping from a condition to which they seem 
 to have been born, and in which they are held by the 
 joint interest, real or supposed, of all the members of 
 the privileged class, that is, of all those who make and 
 enforce the laws, and who alone possess knowledge, 
 wealth and influence in the community ; such a de 
 liverance appears impossible, and rarely enters into 
 their thoughts. It is true that running away is ex 
 tremely frequent ; but in ninety-nine cases out of a 
 hundred, the runaway is speedily retaken and severe 
 ly punished ; and the attempt is generally made, not 
 with any hope of ultimate escape, but as a means of 
 eluding for the moment some threatened misery, which 
 the unhappy fugitive has not the courage to face. 
 
 However, if a door were opened for their escape ; if 
 by any circumstance they were induced to entertain 
 the idea of it, and if that idea budded into hope, it is not 
 to be supposed that they would stickle, or hesitate at 
 any means, however horrible, that seemed necessary 
 or convenient, towards the accomplishment of that 
 great end. Prisoners of war, if they can but take their 
 guards at unawares, are accustomed to stab them with 
 their own bayonets, and by that bloody means, to break 
 away. Captives, such as slaves are, must be expected 
 to act upon the same ideas ; but with a promptitude 
 the readier, and a hate the more earnest, in proportion 
 to their longer restraint and their greater provocation. 
 When has the master respected the person of his slaves? 
 Would he hesitate one moment to stab, shoot, hang, or 
 
IN AMERICA. 49 
 
 burn the best beloved of his servants, if he supposed 
 that servant s life inconsistent with his safety, or with 
 the security of that tyrannical empire, upon which de 
 pends his condition of master ? Let there be the whis 
 per of an insurrection, and the old trees of the plant 
 ation, shall dance with dying men strung thick as 
 acorns. This the slaves know ; and knowing it, what 
 wonder, when the desperate project of insurrection is 
 resorted to, what wonder, if they grant no mercy where 
 they can expect none ? What wonder, if with the tor 
 ture of death by a slow fire, or by some other means 
 equally cruel, before their eyes, they feel no clemency 1 
 What wonder, if they steel their hearts to pity, and 
 emulate their masters in bloody cruelties and barbar 
 ous revenge ? In so doing, they merely practise a les 
 son they have been all their lives learning ; all their 
 lives, the sword has been pointed at their hearts, and 
 if they in any way succeed in grasping it by the hilt, 
 what wonder if they use it ? 
 
 If it were possible to speak otherwise than seriously 
 upon so grave a matter, it would be difficult to point 
 out any thing more ridiculous than the frantic fear, 
 the panic terror, the ineffable alarm spread throughout 
 the South, by the slightest suspicion of insurrection 
 among the slaves. That the women and children 
 should be terrified, is natural enough ; but that men, 
 men of violence and blood, accustomed to go their 
 daily rounds with the pistol in one hand and the whip 
 in the other, men who have every advantage on their 
 side with the single exception of justice, an exception 
 however, which they affect to deny arid disregard ; 
 that such men should stagger and turn pale at the 
 mere report of a distant insurrection, can only be, be 
 cause a guilty conscience disturbs their reason, and 
 frights away their courage. 
 
 Do they not know the stake for which they play? 
 Have they not considered the conditions of the game 1 
 What ! Do they entertain the puerile notion, that an 
 eternal war can be waged, and all the blows, the 
 thrusts, the cuts, the wounds, the danger, be only on 
 5 
 
60 DESPOTISM 
 
 one side? Is it so terrible and atrocious a thing, that 
 my enemy dares to struggle in my grasp? What 
 though I have him on the ground, my knee upon his 
 breast, and a dagger at his throat, is it so strange that 
 even in that position, still he resists, and strives to push 
 his weapon to my heart? 
 
 Slavery being in its nature, a permanent state of war, 
 although the overwhelming force of the masters re 
 strains the slaves for the most part to an apparent sub 
 mission, yet occasional outbreaks must from time to 
 time be expected. The ignorance in which the slaves 
 are kept, makes them incapable of perceiving the utter 
 hopelessness of success ; and there are some hot tempers, 
 and enthusiastic minds, which, though they did per 
 ceive it, would still be ready to risk any thing and every 
 thing, for the most trifling chance of freedom and re 
 venge. The danger from these outbreaks is extremely 
 small. They will cost the masters now and then a few 
 lives ; but that is the fortune of war, and those brave 
 soldiers who can slaughter the enemy with such per 
 fect indifference, if not with absolute gusto, ought to be 
 able to lose a few of their own number, without being 
 so wholly carried away with panic terror. 
 
 An intended rising requires preparations, means, and 
 an extended combination, which generally lead to its 
 detection before the conspirators are ready to act. Be 
 sides, it is only under peculiar circumstances, that any 
 thing of the kind can be attempted. The slaves are 
 so much in the power, and at the mercy of their mas 
 ters, that they seldom venture upon any thing like vio 
 lent opposition ; they content themselves, for the most 
 part, with a passive resistance. 
 
 The master claims, arid endeavors to possess him 
 self of the whole time, capacity and labor of the slave. 
 The slave does not venture openly to resist this rob 
 bery; but he attempts, by all the silent and quiet means 
 in his power, to evade it, to escape the exactions, and 
 to diminish the plunder of his master. 
 
 He yields his time from day-light, until dark ; or 
 rather he seems to yield it ; for if he be not constantly 
 
IN AMERICA. 51 
 
 watched, he contrives to regain hours and moments, 
 which as he can apply them to no better use, he spends 
 in idleness or sleep. His capacity is a thing more in his 
 own power. It is in general, only certain simple acts 
 of manual labor that can be extorted by force. The 
 mind is free. A master cannot force his slave to rea 
 son, to remember, or except in certain cases, to hear, 
 or see. If he is sent with a message, he forgets it. He 
 never considers that if the fence is broken, the cattle 
 will get among the corn : and if they do, he neither sees 
 nor hears them. The thing he is commanded to do, 
 that single thing he does, and nothing else. The mas 
 ter would go hunting, and he sends his slave to bring 
 his powder-flask. The slave sees there is no powder 
 in it; but what is that to him? he does as he was 
 bid, and carries the flask. When the gun is to be 
 loaded, it appears then there is no ammunition. " Go 
 home," says the master, "in the closet on the upper 
 shelf there is a canister of powder : fill the flask, and 
 bring it to me." As it happens, there are two canis 
 ters, one good, the other damaged. The slave takes 
 down the damaged canister first, and without further 
 examination fills the flask with powder that cannot be 
 used, and carries it to his master. He is set to plant 
 ing corn. The seed, it chances, is worm-eaten and de 
 cayed. What is that to him ? He goes on planting. 
 It is just so in every thing else. He neglects to exer 
 cise his reasoning faculties at all. He becomes appa 
 rently as stupid and thoughtless as the mule he drives. 
 Whatever capacity or understanding he may have, he 
 sinks it, hides it, annihilates it, rather than its fruits 
 should be filched from him by his owner. 
 
 He is compelled to labor so many hours ; but he 
 takes care to labor to the least possible advantage. 
 Nothing stimulates him but the fear of the whip ; and 
 under the show of diligence he proceeds with the 
 greatest possible dawdling and deliberation. Is he a 
 brick-layer? He selects a brick with caution and 
 solemnity ; he turns it over a dozen times ; he looks 
 as carefully at every side of it as if it were covered 
 
52 DESPOTISM 
 
 with intelligible hieroglyphics ; he feels the corners and 
 the edges ; he fits it to its place ; removes it ; takes 
 up the mortar; spreads and slowly arranges it with 
 his trowel ; and at last lays the brick. 
 
 In all those processes which require any thing of 
 skill or judgment, it is impossible to extort a large 
 amount of labor from a slave. He conceals his idle 
 ness so cunningly, any attempt to drive him seems to 
 put him into such a flutter and confusion, that he- 
 bungles or spoils his work, and it becomes necessary 
 that it should be done over again, allowing the work 
 man his own time. The master can only insist that 
 he shall devote his whole time to the work, but he 
 must be content to let him dally and trifle with it as 
 he chooses. 
 
 Hence it is that slave labor is only profitable for 
 those rude and simple processes, which demand no 
 thing but an exertion of muscular strength. A slave 
 may be driven by the whip to cut up grass with the 
 hoe, or to pick cotton with his fingers, nearly or quite 
 as fast as a freeman, who labors for himself ; but to 
 compel this labor he must be constantly watched and 
 pressed ; and if the whip is not used upon his shoul 
 ders, he must at least see it brandished in the air as a 
 spur to his activity. 
 
 The day, from earliest dawn oft times till long past 
 dark is all the master s ; but the night, since the hu 
 man machine requires some rest and relaxation, is 
 principally yielded to the slave. He is thus trans 
 formed into a nocturnal animal. During the day, he 
 appears a dull, stupid, sleepy, inanimate thing, with 
 out sense or spirit, little better than an idiot, and 
 neither so sprightly nor so sensible as the horse he 
 drives. At night, he becomes quite another creature. 
 He runs laughing, singing, jesting, to his cabin. With 
 his calabash of corn, he hastens to the hand mill; and 
 as one grinder succeeds another, the rumbling of the 
 stones is heard all night, a doleful sound, mixed with 
 the curses and execrations of those who grind. But 
 it rumbles on with a steadiness which shows with 
 
IN AMERICA. 53 
 
 what incessant industry the mill is plied, and which 
 is evidence enough that those who grind, labor not 
 for their master, but themselves. His corn cracked 
 into hominy, or ground to meal, he kindles up a fire, 
 and prepares his simple, and too often scanty supper; 
 his family gathers about the smoking dish ; they eat 
 with lively talk and laughing repartee ; and as no 
 whip cracks in their ears, they readily forget that 
 such a thing exists. 
 
 The meal ended, they do not think of sleep. They 
 meet for talk and dances. The more daring secretly 
 mount their master s horses and ride to visit their 
 cronies upon some neighboring plantation. One goes 
 courting, another to see his wife ; some with dogs and 
 axes hunt the opossum, a night-walker like them 
 selves ; some meet to preach and pray ; others prowl 
 about to see what thing of value they can lay their 
 hands upon. Others yet, with bags of stolen corn or 
 cotton on their heads, secretly set off to visit some 
 petty trader, who receives their stolen goods in ex 
 change for whiskey. Some have a bottle on hand, 
 and collecting their intimates about them, they drink, 
 and emboldened by the liquor, they discuss the con 
 duct of their masters, or the overseer, with a keen 
 freedom, a critical observation, an irony as bitter as it 
 is just; happy if a prowling overseer, or some false 
 hearted spy does not stand listening, and make them 
 presently pay the penalty of free discussion. It is 
 only toward morning that they think of sleep ; and it 
 is surprising with how little sleep they exist. But in 
 fact, their day time is but a lethargy, during which, 
 though the body be active, the mind slumbers. 
 
 But as the slaves become more numerous, and the 
 masters more timid and more exacting, tyranny takes 
 possession even of the night. At dark, the slaves are 
 penned up like cattle, and forbidden to leave their 
 huts, lest they should employ themselves in plunder, 
 or in plotting insurrection ; or if merely indulging in 
 sports and amusements, lest they should exhaust that 
 strength and vigor, which the master claims as wholly 
 
54 DESPOTISM 
 
 his. The dance is forbidden ; no merry laugh iy 
 heard, no torch-lights are seen glancing and streaming 
 on the darkness, or eclipsing the splendor of the moon, 
 as the slaves pass from one cabin to another. All is 
 still as night and tyranny can make it ; and if the 
 slaves, spite of this despotism, yet have their meet 
 ings, for talk, for drinking, for plunder, or for prayer, 
 all are equally prohibited, and they steal forth with 
 slow and stealthy steps, watchful and cautious as the 
 midnight wolf. 
 
 The masters grievously complain of this night- 
 walking propensity on the part of the slaves. Besides 
 the efforts of each planter to suppress it on. his own 
 estate, and the barbarous severity, with which it is 
 customary to punish slaves for being found visiting 
 on a plantation to which they do not belong, public 
 patrols are established for the purpose of arresting, 
 flogging, and sending home, all slaves caught wander 
 ing at large without a pass, that is, a written permission. 
 
 The two grand charges, however, brought against 
 the slaves, and which are quoted by the masters as 
 decisive proofs of their lamentable depravity, and to 
 tal destitution of all moral principle, are the accusa 
 tions of tying, and of theft. 
 
 1. The slaves, we are told, are arrant liars. They 
 lie for themselves ; they lie for each other ; and to de 
 ceive their master or the overseer is esteemed among 
 them as an action, not blameless only, but even 
 praiseworthy. 
 
 Well, why not? Falsehood has ever been con 
 sidered a lawful art of war ; and slavery, as we have 
 seen, is but a state of protracted hostilities. Do we 
 not applaud a general for the stratagems and arts by 
 which he deceives, misleads, entraps his enemy ? Do 
 not the very masters themselves, chuckle and exult 
 over the ingenious falsehoods by which they have de 
 tected a theft, or recovered a runaway? Though 
 they be tyrants let them use a little philosophy. Di- 
 onysius did so, and so did Pisistratus. With their 
 masters, enemies who have seized them, and who 
 
IN AMERICA. 55 
 
 keep them by force, the slaves are not connected by 
 any ties of social duty. It is a condition of open war ; 
 and as in point of strength, the slaves are wholly 
 overmatched, stratagem and falsehood are their only 
 resource; and if by bold lying, vociferous protesta 
 tions, and cunning frauds, they can escape some 
 threatened aggression, if they can so secure some par 
 ticle of liberty from the prying search and greedy grasp 
 of despotism, why blame them for acts, which in like 
 cases, all the world has justified, and has even exalt 
 ed to the character of heroism ? 
 
 In a slave, considered as a slave, cunning is almost 
 the sole quality of mind which he has any occasion to 
 exercise ; and by long practice it is sometimes carried 
 to an astonishing perfection. Under an air of the great 
 est heedlessness and stupidity, and an apparent apathy 
 more than brutal, there is occasionally veiled a quick 
 and accurate observation, a just estimate of temper and 
 disposition, lively and ardent feelings, and a loftiness 
 of spirit, which some day perhaps, will burst its ordi 
 nary cautious bounds, and terminate the life of its 
 possessor, by bullets, knives, the gibbet, or the flames. 
 
 2. It is astonishing say the masters, how destitute 
 of all conscience these rascals are. The best among 
 them, the most pious and obedient, are no more to be 
 trusted than so many foxes. Even our domestic ser 
 vants steal every thing they can touch. There must 
 be a lock on every door, every trunk, every closet. 
 But even the strictest watchfulness is no match for 
 their arts ; and the sternest severities cannot repress 
 their spirit of plunder. 
 
 The slaves it seems then, however overmastered 
 and subdued, do still, in a silent and quiet way, and 
 to the best of their ability, retort upon their masters 
 the aggressions and the robbery that are perpetrated 
 on themselves. 
 
 Property, it is to be recollected, is a thing establish 
 ed among men, by mutual consent, and for mutual 
 convenience. The game I have killed, the fish I have 
 caught, the vegetables I have cultivated, are decided 
 
66 DESPOTISM 
 
 to be mine, and are secured to me by the consent and 
 warranty of all my tribe, because the security and 
 comfort of each member of it requires for himself the 
 like privilege and protection. But between slaves and 
 masters, there is no such compact, no such consent, no 
 such mutual arrangement. The masters claim all ; and 
 so far as they are able, they take all ; and if the slaves 
 by stealth, by art, by cunning, can secretly regain 
 the possession of some gleanings from the fruits of 
 their own labor, why should they not 1 It is in their 
 eyes a spoiling of the Egyptians ; it is a seizure and 
 appropriation of things to which they surely have a 
 better title than the masters. 
 
 Is it to be supposed that in the prosecution of a per 
 petual war, the plunder will be all upon one side 7 
 The disproportion is doubtless very great ; the aggres 
 sors, as their strength and means are so superior, car 
 ry off rich trophies and abundant spoils ; the con 
 quered are well pleased to gather some fragments, to 
 filch some trifles from the over-loaded stores of the 
 triumphant invaders, who plundering upon a great 
 scale themselves, are yet astonished at the depravity 
 of those who plunder on a small one. To expect, 
 as between masters and slaves the virtues of truth, 
 probity and benevolence, is ridiculous. Slavery re 
 moves the very foundation of those virtues. 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 
 The treatment of American slaves considered as ani 
 mals. 
 
 The slave-master desires to look upon his slaves as 
 he does upon his horses ; to persuade himself that his 
 empire over both is equally just ; and that the claims 
 and rights of horses and of slaves, are confined with 
 in the same limits. 
 
IN AMERICA. 
 
 57 
 
 But even in this view of the case, narrow and false 
 as it is, the slave-holder too often falls lamentably 
 short of what common humanity, and ordinary good 
 nature require. 
 
 A slave is an expensive animal, since he must be 
 supplied not only with shelter and food, but with fire, 
 and clothing. There are however several circum 
 stances in the condition of the southern states, which 
 operate at present to reduce these expenses to a mini 
 mum. 
 
 The houses of the slaves for the most part, are lit 
 tle miserable log cabins, with chimneys of sticks and 
 clay, without windows, and often without a floor, 
 but one step in advance of the primeval wigwam. 
 They contain but one room, in which the wliole fami 
 ly is huddled together without any regard to the pri 
 vacies or decencies of life ; nor are they in any respect 
 superior, if indeed they are equal, to the stables or the 
 cow house. The furniture is as rude as the dwelling, 
 and betokens the lowest state of poverty and destitu 
 tion. When these cabins have become thoroughly 
 rotten, and ready to tumble to the ground, they are re 
 built at no other expense except a few days labor of 
 the plantation carpenter. Other things have under 
 gone great improvements; but in the construction and 
 comforts of a slave s cabin, there has been little or no 
 change for upwards of a century. 
 
 Clothing, especially in the more northern of the 
 slave states is an expensive item; but as its necessity 
 in those parts of the country is the more apparent, 
 the good economy of furnishing a tolerable supply is 
 more generally acknowledged, and the suffering of 
 the slaves from deficiency of clothing, is probably 
 much less than in the more southern states, where the 
 mildness of the climate encourages the masters to 
 stint the allowance, and where the numerous deaths 
 among the slaves from quinsy, influenza, and pleu 
 risy, are a proof how insufficiently they are guarded 
 against the sudden changes from heat to cold, to 
 which the whole climate of the United States is so 
 
58 DESPOTISM 
 
 liable. The children, till they reach the age of twelve 
 or fourteen, run about almost naked, being covered, if 
 at all, only by an unwashed shirt of tattered osna- 
 burgs. Their sufferings from cold must sometimes be 
 excessive. 
 
 Firewood is still so abundant throughout all the 
 southern states, as in most parts of the country to 
 have no exchangable value ; or to owe that value en 
 tirely to the labor expended in preparing it. The 
 slaves are at liberty to take from the woods on Sun 
 days, or by night, such supplies as they choose. Foi 
 the most part, they carry it on their heads ; though 
 sometimes on Sunday, they are allowed the use of a 
 pair of oxen and a cart. To save steps and trouble, 
 if they can do it without detection, they generally 
 prefer to lay their hands upon the first fence they 
 come to. 
 
 Very different opinions prevail in different portions 
 of the southern states, as to the quantity of food 
 which it is necessary or expedient to allow a slave. 
 In Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee, where corn 
 and bacon are produced in great abundance, and 
 where their value is small, the slaves are allowed as 
 much coarse food as they desire ; and the plump con 
 dition and buoyant vivacity of the children are an 
 evidence that they seldom suffer from hunger. 
 
 In Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina, where 
 corn is seldom worth above fifty cents the bushel, 
 some sixteen bushels of it is considered a competent 
 yearly supply for a slave, to which is generally added, 
 a weekly allowance larger or smaller, of fish or meat. 
 
 In the states further south, which may be properly 
 designated as the cotton growing states, where corn is 
 generally worth a dollar or upwards the bushel, and 
 where provisions of all sorts are comparatively scarce 
 and high, twelve bushels of dry corn by the year, 
 without any allowance of meat or fish, or any thing 
 beside, is esteemed a large enough supply of food for 
 a working hand. Sweet potatoes, are sometimes serv 
 ed out during the fall and winter months, instead of 
 
IN AMERICA. 69 
 
 corn ; and on the rice plantations, broken or damaged 
 rice furnishes the chief supply of food; but whether 
 it be corn, potatoes, or rice, the allowance is often 
 scanty enough ; and the starved, shriveled, peaked 
 condition of the children upon many plantations, are 
 too evident proofs how cruelly they are stinted. 
 
 With respect to this subject, the following observa 
 tion is worthy of attention. A certain quantity of 
 food may suffice to sustain life, and even strength, 
 yet not be enough to appease the cravings of appetite, 
 nor to stay or prevent the torments of hunger. Most 
 laboring men at the North, might probably live and 
 enjoy health, though their daily food were diminished 
 in quantity one half, or even more; yet this is a sac 
 rifice they would very reluctantly make ; and the cer 
 tainty of life and health would be no sufficient conso 
 lation for the gnawings of hunger, and the disquie 
 tudes of an unsatisfied appetite? 
 
 It happens very unluckily, that the slaves in that 
 part of the country where they are worst supplied 
 with food and clothing, are yet subjected to the se 
 verest and most unremitting labors. 
 
 In Missouri, Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia 
 and Maryland, except in those limited tracts in which 
 the culture of tobacco is pursued, there are considerable 
 intervals in every year, when the labor of the slaves 
 is little needed, and when the tasks imposed are suf 
 ficiently light. But the cultivation of tobacco, and 
 still more, that of rice, sugar and cotton, is an inces 
 sant round of labor, from one year s end to the other. 
 These plants are a long time in coming to perfection. 
 The labor of securing the crop, and preparing it for 
 market, is very great; and one year s work is hardly 
 ended, before it is time to begin upon the next. Win 
 ter or Summer, there is no rest nor relaxation from 
 constant, steady toil. 
 
 On the whole, it may be stated that the physical 
 condition of the slaves throughout the southern states, 
 is far inferior in every respect, to that of the unfortu 
 nate men, confined for the punishment of their crimes 
 
60 DESPOTISM 
 
 in our Northern prisons and penitentiaries. Their 
 food is less savoury, less abundant, and far less vari 
 ous, and a certain variety of diet seems as essentia 
 to health as it is agreeable to the taste. The work de 
 manded of them is far more fatiguing and severe, the 
 time of labor is longer, the clothing with which they are 
 supplied is far less comfortable ; and their exposure 
 far more trying. That sort of discipline which we 
 have fixed upon as the most terrible and exemplary 
 punishment of crime, or rather a discipline much 
 more severe than that, is the regular, constant, per 
 petual condition of a large proportion of our fellow- 
 countrymen at the south. 
 
 What has been observed with respect to food, ap 
 plies with equal force to physical condition in general. 
 That which is sufficient to sustain existence, is by no 
 means sufficient for comfort, or for pleasure. Life 
 may be supported, and protracted under such a series 
 of privations that it ceases to be any thing but a con 
 tinuity of suffering. 
 
 That the physical condition of the slaves is far in 
 ferior on an average to that of the free, may be made 
 evident by some statistical considerations. During 
 the fifty years from 1790 to 1840, the white popula 
 tion of the United States had a uniform increase at 
 the rate of thirty-five per cent, in each period of ten 
 years ; while during the same time the slave popula 
 tion increased at the rate of only twenty-nine per cent. 
 In the period of ten years, from 1830 to 1840, while 
 the free population increased 34.6 per cent., the slave 
 population increased only 23.8 per cent. ; a striking 
 proof of the alteration for the worse, in the condition 
 of the slaves, produced by their transfer to the cotton 
 fields of the far south. The increase of the white 
 population, by immigration from abroad, could not 
 have amounted, during those ten years, to more than 
 five per cent. ; still leaving a balance of increase over 
 the slave population of more than seven per cent. An 
 examination of the returns of the recent census of 
 1850 would afford results not materially different. 
 
IN AMERICA. 61 
 
 Now it is to be recollected that there are certain 
 prudential checks, as they are denominated, constant 
 ly operating to retard the increase of the white popu 
 lation. The extent to which these checks operate, 
 even in those parts of the country in which the white 
 population increases with the greatest rapidity, will 
 be obvious, when it is considered, that in the state of 
 New York, as appears from the results of the State 
 census, in 1825 and in 1835, out of all the women in 
 the state between the ages of sixteen and forty-five, 
 that is, of an age to bear children, two fifths are un 
 married. 
 
 Among the slaves, these prudential checks are to 
 tally unknown. There is nothing to prevent them 
 from yielding to the instincts of nature. Child-bear 
 ing is stimulated and encouraged by the masters, and 
 so far as it depends upon the mere production of chil 
 dren, the slave population ought to increase, two fifths 
 faster than the free. Instead of doubling once in 
 twenty-five years, it ought to double once in fifteen 
 years. If the increase is kept down to the former 
 level, it is only because disease and death are busier 
 among the slaves than among the free ; and as the 
 slaves escape all those kinds of disorders which spring 
 from luxury and over-indulgence, this greater mortality 
 can only be ascribed to greater severity of labor, and 
 to destitution of the physical supports of life. 
 
 It is often argued that self-interest alone is enough 
 to make the master attentive to the lives and health 
 of his slaves ; on the same principle that he provides 
 corn for his horses, and fodder for his cattle. But that 
 provident and enlightened economy which makes a 
 present sacrifice for the sake of avoiding a future 
 greater loss, however it may be generally recommend 
 ed and applauded, is but seldom practised ; and he 
 who is familiar with the domestic management of the 
 southern states, must know that of all places in the 
 world, it is least practised there. 
 
 An anecdote is related of a Virginian planter, who 
 discharged his overseer, because sufficient cattle had 
 6 
 
62 DESPOTISM 
 
 not died during the winter to furnish leather enough 
 to supply the slaves with shoes. This story though 
 perhaps a little exaggerated, will serve to give an idea 
 of the domestic economy of the south; and he who 
 knows how many mules and horses yearly drop in 
 the furrow, through starvation, over-work, and the 
 abusive treatment which the slaves, emulous of their 
 masters,, heap upon the only creatures in their power; 
 he who has seen the condition of southern cattle in 
 the month of March, hundreds actually starved to 
 death, and those which are alive, a mere anatomy of 
 skin and bones, with hardly substance enough to cast 
 a shadow, searching with feeble steps, and woeful 
 countenance, for a spear or two of withered grass, 
 wherewith to protract their miserable existence ; he 
 who has seen these things, would not much care to 
 have his life or his sustenance dependent upon the 
 good economy of a management so utterly thriftless 
 and unfeeling. 
 
 SECTION VII. 
 
 The treatment of American slaves, considered as men. 
 
 There are some people whose sympathies have been 
 excited upon the subject of slavery, who if they can 
 only be satisfied that the slaves have enough to eat, 
 think it is all very well, and that nothing more is to 
 be said, or done. 
 
 If slaves were merely animals, whose only or chief 
 enjoyment consisted in the gratification of their bodily 
 appetites, there would be some show of sense in this 
 conclusion. But in fact, however crushed and bruti- 
 fied, they are still men^ men whose bosoms beat with 
 the same passions as our own; whose hearts swell with 
 the same aspirations, the same ardent desire to im- 
 
IN AMERICA. 63 
 
 prove their condition ; the same wishes for what they 
 have not ; the same indifference towards what they 
 have ; the same restless love of social superiority ; the 
 same greediness of acquisition ; the same desire to 
 know; the same impatience of all external control. 
 
 The excitement which the singular case of Casper 
 Hauser produced a few years since, in Germany, is 
 not yet, forgotten. From the representations of that 
 enigmatical personage, it was believed that those from 
 whose custody he declared himself to have escaped, 
 had endeavoured to destroy his intellect, or rather to 
 prevent it from being developed, so as to detain him 
 forever in a state of infantile imbecility. This sup 
 posed attempt at what they saw fit to denominate, the 
 murder of the soul, gave rise to great discussions 
 among the German Jurists ; and they soon raised it 
 into a new crime, which they placed at the very head 
 of social enormities. 
 
 It is this very crime, "the murder of the soul, which 
 is in the course of continuous and perpetual perpetra 
 tion throughout the southern states of the American 
 Union ; and that not upon a single individual only, 
 but upon nearly one half the entire population. 
 
 Consider the slaves as men, and the course of treat 
 ment which custom and the laws prescribe, is an art 
 ful, deliberate, and well -digested scheme to break 
 their spirit; to deprive them of courage and of man 
 hood ; to destroy their natural desire for an equal par 
 ticipation in the benefits of society ; to keep them 
 ignorant, and therefore weak ; to reduce them if possi 
 ble to a state of idiocy ; to crowd them down to a 
 level with the brutes. 
 
 A man, especially a civilized man, possessed of a 
 certain portion of knowledge, and well skilled in some 
 art or science, is a much more valuable piece of prop 
 erty, and capable of producing for his master a far 
 greater revenue, than a mere, two-legged human ani 
 mal, with all the failings and defects, and none of the 
 virtues of a savage. But if such a slave is more 
 valuable, he is far more dangerous, and far more dif- 
 
64 DESPOTISM 
 
 fictilt to manage. To extort the services of such a 
 slave, by mere severity, would always be hazardous, 
 and often impossible. Drive him to despair, of which 
 such a man in such circumstances, is easily suscepti 
 ble, and he might violently end a life from which he 
 derived no enjoyment, and court a death which offer 
 ed him, at least, the pleasure of thwarting the hopes 
 of a too greedy master. With such slaves, it has al 
 ways been found necessary, to enter into a sort of 
 compromise, a treaty of peace, in which, if the claims 
 of the conqueror were largely provided for. some re 
 spect has also been paid to the rights and the happi 
 ness of the conquered. The claims of the master 
 have been commuted for a monthly or daily tribute; 
 and what else the slave could make or gain, has been 
 relinquished to his own use. He has been further en 
 couraged by the prospect of presently purchasing his 
 freedom ; or of obtaining it by the free gift of a mas 
 ter well satisfied with his services. 
 
 But though such slaves are very profitable, they 
 are also, as has been above observed, very dangerous. 
 Put thus upon a level with their masters, in all that 
 constitutes the moral strength of men ; keenly sensi 
 tive to the injustice that is done them, and to the un 
 fair advantage that has been taken of their weakness, 
 they have ever been ready to burst into rebellion, 
 have sometimes succeeded in overpowering their mas 
 ters, and have often maintained a long, a bloody, and 
 a doubtful contest. 
 
 All this is perfectly well understood at the south. 
 A slave who can read is valuable on many accounts, 
 and will sell for more money than one who cannot. 
 A slave who can read, write, and compute, and who 
 by reason of these accomplishments is able to fulfil 
 the duties of a merchant s clerk, is plainly far more 
 valuable than a mere field hand. One who under 
 stands the art of printing, an armorer, an apothecary, 
 are evidently capable of performing more profitable 
 operations, than he who knows only how to handle a 
 hoe. 
 
IN AMERICA. 65 
 
 But well aware how dangerous such slaves would 
 be, the privileged order have preferred to sacrifice 
 profit to safety. In most of the slave holding states, 
 it is specially enacted that no slave shall be taught to 
 read. This inability to read, disqualifies them at once 
 for all the higher occupations. Some few are rudely 
 instructed in those simple handicrafts indispensable 
 upon every plantation ; but custom and public opinion, 
 if not the law, imperiously forbid, that any slave 
 should be bred up to the knowledge or practice of any 
 of the superior arts. Some publishers of newspapers, 
 in defect of white journeymen, introduced slaves into 
 their offices as compositors ; but the experiment was 
 pronounced too dangerous, and they were obliged to 
 relinquish it. 
 
 With the exception of those employed in domestic 
 service, and in the few mechanic arts above mention 
 ed, the great mass of the slaves are occupied in agri 
 culture, which, for the most part, is prosecuted in the 
 rudest possible way. This is a subject which will be 
 more fully considered in a subsequent chapter. Every 
 thing is done by main strength, and under the direc 
 tion of an overseer. The slaves are confined to the 
 constant repetition of a few simple mechanical acts ; 
 and continually employed as they are in this constant 
 round of stupefying labor, which is not enlivened by 
 hardly a single glimpse of art or intellect ; thus shut 
 out from the means and opportunity of exercising their 
 higher faculties, no wonder that the soul falls into a 
 deep and death-like slumber. Drugged with such a 
 stupefying cup, so artfully administered, the soul 
 murder if not complete, is closely approximated. The 
 man loses his manhood, and is a man no longer. 
 Those mental and moral capabilities which are his 
 pride and glory, fall into abeyance, and apparently 
 he dwindles down into something little better than 
 a mere animal. 
 
 The domestic slaves, being constantly attendant 
 upon their masters, and listeners to their daily con 
 versation, cannot but pick up some crumbs of knowl- 
 6* 
 
66 DESPOTISM 
 
 edge, and acquire a certain habit of reasoning and re 
 flection. In consequence of these accomplishments 
 they are feared, suspected, and very narrowly watch 
 ed. In all the towns and villages of the south, the 
 strictest regulations are established and enforced, by 
 which among other things, the slaves are forbidden to 
 leave their master s houses after an early hour in the 
 evening, and in many other respects, are subjected to 
 a constant system of the most prying and suspicious 
 espionage. 
 
 Some writers misled by a spirit of patriotism, or de 
 ceived by views too superficial, have represented the 
 system of American slavery as extremely mild, and 
 quite a different thing from slavery in any other age 
 or country. There is a difference it is true; but that 
 difference is not favorable to us. It is easy to show, 
 that in certain most essential points, those fundamen 
 tal points by which alone a social system ought to be 
 judged, ^American slavery is a far more deadly and 
 disastrous thing, more fatal to all the hopes, the sen 
 timents, the rights of humanity, than almost any other 
 system of servitude which has existed in any other 
 community. 
 
 Slavery as it existed among the ancient Greeks and 
 Romans has been often referred to, as a system of the 
 extremest severity, cruel beyond any thing to be found 
 in modern times.* No doubt that system was bad 
 enough. It would be well however, if other systems 
 were not worse. 
 
 The Roman master had the power of life and death 
 over his slaves ; but the slaves, in this respect, stood 
 upon a level with the freemen ; for the Roman hus 
 band and father had the same power over his wife 
 and his children, and he might claim and exercise it, 
 long after those children had passed the age of puber 
 ty, and even after they had attained to the highest 
 honors and distinctions of the state. It is true that the 
 laws do not confer an equal authority upon the Ameri 
 can master; but it is equally true that the lives of his 
 
 * See Charming on Slavery. 
 
IN AMERICA. 67 
 
 slaves are not the less in his power. It is easy for the 
 master to invent a thousand pretences for taking the 
 life of any slave, against whom he may have conceiv 
 ed a prejudice. If he does not think it prudent to use 
 the pistol or the knife, he needs only to have recourse 
 to a somewhat more lingering process of. torture, or 
 starvation. 
 
 ; But the great distinction between the slavery of the 
 ancient world and that of America is this. The Greek 
 and Roman slaves, in the estimation of their masters 
 and themselves, though slaves, were yet men., . It was 
 true doubtless, as Homer says, that the day a man 
 became a slave he lost half his manly virtues. From 
 the nature of things it must have been so ; but man 
 hood or a portion of it, remained, though darkened 
 and eclipsed, still visible. To a certain extent at least, 
 in point of knowledge, accomplishments, and the de 
 velopment of mind, the slaves stood upon a level 
 with the free ; and if there be something terrible in 
 the idea, terrible because we need no preparation to 
 comprehend it, of a city sacked and plundered, and 
 all its inhabitants, the noblest, the wealthiest, the deli 
 cate women, as well as the hewers of wood and the 
 drawers of water, sold under the hammer of a mili 
 tary auctioneer, and thence dragged into servitude, 
 we must recollect that the accomplishments, the 
 knowledge, the refinement of these unhappy captives, 
 furnished also many means of alleviating the calamity 
 of servitude, and presently of escaping it altogether. 
 The Athenian captives taken in the unlucky expe 
 dition against Syracuse, purchased their liberty by re 
 citing the verses of Euripides. Slaves first cultivated 
 the art of Latin poetry, and introduced at Rome an 
 imitation of the Grecian drama. Such were Plautus 
 and Terence, and almost all the elder Roman poets. 
 All the arts which give comfort and refinement to life, 
 and the mere practice of which confers a certain so 
 cial distinction, music, poetry, literature in general, 
 painting, medicine, education, and many others, were 
 principally, or commonly practised by slaves, who 
 
68 DESPOTISM 
 
 thus acquired favor, fame, freedom, and finally wealth 
 and social elevation. Horace, educated at Athens 
 among the sons of Roman nobles, and afterwards the 
 friend and intimate of the lords of the empire, and 
 the delight and pride of the Roman people, was the 
 son of a freedman. Emancipations were frequent 
 and were favored. The slave constantly had before 
 his eyes the hope and the prospect of liberty ; he thus 
 had a noble object for which to live ; and although 
 there were in general, some political disqualifications 
 which he could not expect to shake off from himself, 
 wealth, consideration, and all the more common ob 
 jects of human hopes and wishes, were still spread 
 out before him ; and for his children and men live 
 as much for their children as for themselves, he had 
 every thing to anticipate. 
 
 Undoubtedly the condition of the country slave, 
 employed in agriculture, more nearly resembled that 
 of slaves with us. But still there was an opening for 
 talent and for hope. No slave was so low or misera 
 ble, that he might not aspire to freedom and to social 
 elevation. 
 
 Under this system, there existed that compromise 
 between the master and the slave, Avhich has been ex 
 plained above. If the slave lived and labored for his 
 master, he also lived and labored for himself. He 
 was secured by custom, which is stronger and more 
 effectual than law, in the enjoyment of a peculium, or 
 property of his own. The relation of master and slave 
 lost to a certain degree, the character of pure despo 
 tism, and approached towards that of lord and vassal, 
 patron and client ; while the frequency of emancipation 
 introduced into the relation of servitude, sentiments 
 totally opposite to those which naturally spring from 
 it. There were gleams of benevolence and of grati 
 tude; there was a twilight of good- will. Compared 
 to a condition of freedom, it was as the gray morning 
 dawn to the brilliancy of noon. Compare-d to the 
 system of our own country, it is as that same morn 
 ing dawn to the blackness of midnight. 
 
IN AMERICA. 69 
 
 It is true that we read of savage atrocities, exercis 
 ed in those ancient times, by masters towards their 
 slaves. The Spartans, we are told, were accustomed 
 from time to time, to send out assassins who put to 
 death the boldest and most intelligent of the Helots ; 
 and it is undeniable that the frequent servile insurrec 
 tions which took place in the ancient states, were sup 
 pressed and punished by a series of the most dread 
 ful cruelties. 
 
 But these fierce acts ought to be regarded as proofs 
 not so much of the degradation of the slaves, as of 
 an approach on their part, towards an equality with 
 their masters. No repose is so perfect as the repose 
 of absolute despotism. The unfrequent and always 
 trifling disturbances among the slaves of America fur 
 nish palpable evidence how sunk they are. It is only 
 where a certain portion of liberty is enjoyed, that 
 more begins to be strenuously claimed, or boldly 
 sought. To him that hath, shall be given; from him 
 that hath not, shall be taken away, even that which 
 he hath. Such servile insurrections as take place in 
 America, are faint flashes of folly or despair. The 
 insurrections of slaves in ancient times, were the 
 promptings of genius and of hope. 
 
 Had the Greek and Roman masters been the same 
 indolent, scattered, untrained, unready people as are 
 the American planters, such were the means, the 
 courage, the spirit of their slaves that they could not 
 have retained their dominion for a day. In those 
 times the free were all soldiers. War was their con 
 stant study and pursuit. They lived too in cities, 
 ready to combine and act at a moment s warning. 
 Thus they were able, by constant preparation, and su 
 perior means, aided as they were by the moral causes 
 above enumerated, to maintain their authority over 
 slaves, enjoying an intellectual equality with them 
 selves. Under the Roman empire, the standing army 
 by which the emperors maintained their authority, 
 served also to hold the slaves in subjection. Besides, 
 the masters had a strong body of firm friends and 
 
70 DESPOTISM 
 
 allies in the numerous class of freedmen. The emanci 
 pations constantly going on would soon, in fact, have 
 put an end to the condition of servitude, had not the 
 numbers of the enslaved been kept good by fresh im 
 portations and purchases. When at length these im 
 portations ceased, slavery in towns and cities soon 
 came to an end; the slavery of the country was 
 changed into villanage, and villanage ended at last, in 
 liberty. 
 
 To a certain extent, many of these observations ap 
 ply to slavery as it exists in Brazil and Spanish Ame 
 rica. However disastrous may be the social condi 
 tion of those countries, it is not destitute of allevia 
 tions. The slave is at least regarded as a man, and 
 is always cheered by the prospect and the hope of free 
 dom. His efforts to obtain it by purchase, by gaining 
 the good -will of his master, or by other peaceable 
 means, are encouraged by the laws and by public 
 opinion ; and if he attempt to qualify himself for the 
 more advantageous possession of it, so laudable an 
 ambition is approved and applauded. 
 
 In the United States, with all their democracy, there 
 prevails a totally different system. It is laid down, 
 as an indisputable maxim, that the freedom, the equal 
 ity, the moral and social elevation of the servile class, 
 or any of its members, are totally inconsistent with 
 the dignity, the interest, the existence even of the 
 privileged order. That contempt, that antipathy, that 
 disgust which the degraded condition of servitude na 
 turally inspires, is sedulously aggravated by the whole 
 course of education, and is artfully, though impercep 
 tibly, transferred from condition to race; and to crown 
 the whole, the idea is earnestly and industriously incul 
 cated, that these suggestions of prejudice and igno 
 rance, are the very innate promptings of nature. 
 
 In consequence, the natural sympathies of human 
 ity are first smothered and then extinguished. The 
 privileged cease to consider the servile class as belong 
 ing to the same scale of being with themselves. The 
 slaves in the estimate of their masters, lose all the at- 
 
IN AMERICA. 
 
 tributes of humanity. The kindest, the most tender 
 hearted, the most philanthropic of the privileged or 
 der, learn to be perfectly satisfied when the animal 
 wants of the servile class are tolerably provided for. 
 To make any account of their mental wants, that is, 
 to entertain the idea that they are men, is consid 
 ered an absurd, a misplaced and a fanatical tender 
 ness, certain, if persevered in, to uproot the founda 
 tions of society, and to end in results indeterminate, 
 but terrible. 
 
 For the slaves are regarded not merely as animals, 
 but as animals of the wildest and most ferocious char 
 acter. They are thought to be like tigers, trained to 
 draw the plough, whom nothing but fear, the whip, and 
 constant watchfulness, keep at all in subjection ; who 
 would take advantage of the slightest relaxation of the 
 discipline that restrains them, to break away from their 
 unwilling labors ; and who if left to themselves, would 
 quickly recover their savage nature, and find no en 
 joyment except to riot in blood. 
 
 Whether or not there is any thing of reason and 
 truth in these ideas, is not now the question. Suffice 
 it to say, that they are universally prevalent throughout 
 the southern states. They are the received, the author 
 ized, the established creed. They are interwoven into 
 the very frame- work of society : laws, customs, chari 
 ties, morals, arid religion, all are modified by them. 
 Doubtless there are men of reflection and discernment, 
 and men in whom a warm benevolence supplies the 
 place of reflection and discernment, who perceive more 
 or less clearly, the monstrous and extravagant absurdi 
 ty of these popular ideas. But for their lives they 
 dare not whisper the suspicion of a doubt. To do so 
 would be high treason against the authority of the 
 privileged order, an order as jealous, fretful and 
 suspicious as ever was the aristocracy of Venice ; and 
 as apt to punish too, on vague suspicion, without a 
 trial, or a responsible accuser. 
 
 It is plain that emancipation can form no part of 
 such a system. In South Carolina, Georgia, Alaba- 
 
72 DESPOTISM 
 
 ma and Mississippi, no master can emancipate his 
 slave, except with the express permission of the state 
 legislature, a permission not easily to be obtained. In 
 North Carolina and Tennessee, the emancipating mas 
 ter must have the approbation and consent of the 
 County Court. In Virginia, he must remove the 
 emancipated slave, beyond the limits of the State. In 
 Maryland a similar law prevails. In Kentucky, Mis 
 souri and Louisiana, the master still retains the right; of 
 emancipation under certain restrictions. But through 
 out all the slave states, this exertion of power the 
 only act of justice which the owner of slaves, in his 
 character of owner, is able to perform is totally dis 
 couraged by public opinion. The emancipated class 
 is studiously subjected to mortifications and disabili 
 ties without number. They are considered as noxious 
 vermin whose extermination is required for the com 
 fort and security of the privileged order. They are 
 hunted down by legislative enactments as bears and 
 foxes are in other states ; and by depriving them of all 
 the rights of citizenship, advantages of society, and 
 opportunities for labor, the attempt is made to ren 
 der them if possible, even more miserable than the 
 slaves. These efforts have been to a certain extent, 
 successful. The condition of the emancipated class, 
 would seem to be wretched enough to satisfy their 
 worst enemies. Yet wretched as they are, still they 
 are envied by the slaves. What conclusive evidence 
 of the miseries of servitude ! 
 
 Some few emancipations occasionally take place; 
 but it is obvious that the value of the boon is exceed 
 ingly diminished, by the miserable condition to which 
 the emancipated class is studiously reduced. As to 
 passing from the unprivileged into the privileged or 
 der, that is a thing entirely out of the question. No 
 slave can expect it for himself, for his children, or 
 even for his remotest posterity. The feeling which 
 exists upon this subject throughout the South, is a 
 perfect fanaticism. In one or two rare instances, a 
 good-natured master has attempted to elevate his own 
 
IN AMERICA. 73 
 
 children, born of slave mothers, to the rank of free 
 dom. But in every such case, the penalty of setting 
 public opinion at defiance, has been dearly paid. The 
 transgressor has been assailed in every form of ridi 
 cule, and reproach; he has been pursued with the 
 most inveterate malice ; has been overwhelmed with 
 torrents of obloquy ; and held up to public scorn and 
 indignation, as a blasphemous violator of the decen 
 cies of life and the sacred laws of nature. 
 
 Here is the point at which the slaves of the United 
 States sink into a depth of misery, which even the 
 imagination can hardly measure. What is life with 
 out hope ? All men of reflection, whether poets or 
 philosophers, have agreed, that life even in the better 
 aspects of it, if we did but see things as they are and 
 as they will be, would be a dreary and a worthless 
 thing. It is hope that cheers, supports, sustains us. 
 It is in the anticipation of future joys, that we are 
 happy. But what hope, what anticipations has the 
 American slave? His hopes are all fears; his antici 
 pations, if he has any, are anticipations of suffering. 
 This is a state of existence which could not be endur 
 ed by cultivated or reflecting minds. The slightest 
 gleam, the faintest and most uncertain glimmer, a 
 hope, a chance which to all beside ourselves may ap 
 pear but the faintest, will suffice often to lead and 
 guide us on, through defiles dark and gloomy as the 
 valley of the shadow of death. But when that light 
 goes out, that glimmer ceases, that hope expires, what 
 shall save us from the horrors of despair ? 
 7 
 
74 DESPOTISM 
 
 SECTION VIII. 
 
 Wealth and luxury of the masters, as it a/ects the 
 condition of slaves. 
 
 It is a fact well worthy of consideration, that with 
 the progress of wealth and luxury among the masters, 
 the sufferings, the misery, the degradation of the slaves 
 have been steadily aggravated ; till at length, in the 
 wealthiest and most refined of our slave holding com 
 munities, a point has heen reached, both in theory and 
 ru practice, beyond which it does not seem easy to go. 
 
 The mildest form of American slavery is to be found, 
 not among the polite and well educated citizens of 
 Richmond and Charleston, but amid the rude and 
 wild abodes of the Creeks, the Choctaws, the Semi- 
 noles, tribes whom we describe and stigmatize, as 
 savages. 
 
 The indian slaves, are in many respects, almost 
 upon a level with their masters. The wants of sav 
 age life are few and simple. The avarice of the mas 
 ter is not stimulated by the greediness of luxury. He 
 is content with a moderate annual tribute of corn and 
 other provisions ; and provided this be paid, the slave 
 is left at liberty to procure it as he pleases, and to em 
 ploy his time and strength as he best sees fit. It thus 
 happens that an indian slave is sometimes richer than 
 his master; and if he have talents and ambition, 
 though still a slave, he may become one of the most 
 influential persons of the tribe. 
 
 The indian slaves are well aware how superior is 
 their condition to that of the miserable sufferers, who 
 labor for white masters, upon cotton and sugar planta 
 tions ; and the dread they have of that lot, as well as 
 the influence they are able to exercise, may be clearly 
 illustrated by the case of the Seminole war. That war, 
 according to the statement of those best acquainted 
 with the subject, had the following origin. It was 
 not that the indians themselves had such serious ob- 
 
IN AMERICA. 75 
 
 jections to removal ; but as the time for the execution 
 of the treaty approached, their country was overrun 
 with speculators and adventurers from the states, who 
 came partly to set up claims, true or false, to certain 
 indian slaves, on the ground that they were runa 
 ways, or the children of runaways, who had years 
 ago fled to the Seminoles for protection ; and partly to 
 set on foot a slave trade with the indians, who, it was 
 hoped might be induced at the moment of their re 
 moval to part with their servants for little or nothing. 
 The indian slaves were filled with terror and alarm 
 at this prospect of falling into the hands of white mas 
 ters; and it is believed to have been by their instiga 
 tion and encouragement, that the Seminoles were in 
 duced to resist the execution of the treaty, and to 
 commence the war. 
 
 The small planter, who can neither read nor write, 
 who has been bred up in poverty and ignorance, but 
 who has wandered into some new settlement and has 
 earned by his own personal labor, the means to pur 
 chase two or three slaves, next to the wild indian, is 
 the most mild and indulgent master. He works with 
 his slaves in the field, he converses with them and 
 consults them. If either of them exhibits any pecu 
 liar shrewdness or good judgment, the master per 
 ceives it, and avails himself of it ; and such a slave 
 often becomes his owner s chief confidant and adviser. 
 
 In his fits of drunkenness, or those bursts of passion 
 to which the rude and uneducated are peculiarly lia 
 ble, such a master beats and abuses his slaves. But 
 he does the same thing to his wife and children. In 
 general he treats them with a certain degree of ten 
 derness and familiarity ; and as they are always about 
 him, by flattery, management and importunity, they 
 are able to carry a thousand points, and to secure a 
 thousand indulgences. 
 
 But as such a planter grows rich, and increases the 
 number of his slaves, his feelings and his conduct 
 change with his condition. He appears in the field, 
 not as a laborer, but on horseback, whip in hand. He 
 
6 DESPOTISM 
 
 begins to copy the airs and to imbibe the sentiments of 
 his aristocratic, refined, and educated neighbors. He 
 forgets the equal terms upon which he once lived with 
 his slaves ; he feels himself transmuted into a being 
 of a superior order, born to be idle while they were 
 born to work. He ceases to have any sympathies for 
 them. He learns to despise them; to hear their com 
 plaints and appeals with indifference ; and to push 
 them to labors, which when he worked by their side, 
 he did not exact. 
 
 Under this new discipline, and with the frugal 
 habits which he acquired in his youth, this planter s 
 property rapidly increases. He becomes one of the 
 wealthiest men of the neighborhood ; and his son and 
 heir takes rank with the choicest aristocracy. Con 
 scious of his own deficiencies in education and man 
 ners, the father secures for that son, the best instruc 
 tion he can obtain. He is sent early to school, and 
 perhaps to some northern college to finish his educa 
 tion. He returns well mannered, and accomplished, 
 with the refinement of sentiment and the gentle bear 
 ing which education and good company impart. The 
 father dies, and the son succeeds to the inheritance. 
 He has no taste for agriculture ; or if he has, he can 
 not bear the constant annoyances of a plantation. 
 He leaves every thing in the hands of an overseer ; 
 and is almost a perpetual absentee. 
 
 Every reduction in the allowances to his slaves, is 
 so much net addition to his own revenue. He is al 
 ways in want of money ; and as he finds it less disa 
 greeable to retrench the comforts of his slaves than 
 his own luxuries, the slaves are soon reduced to the 
 merest subsistence. What are their sufferings or 
 complaints to him? He is not at home to witness or 
 to hear them. He leaves the execution of his orders 
 to an overseer. This overseer is desirous to secure 
 the good graces of his employer. The surest way of 
 doing so is, to make a great crop. For this purpose 
 the quantity of land in cultivation is increased. The 
 tasks are extended, and the additional labor necessan 
 
IN AMERICA. 77 
 
 to their execution, is extorted by the whip. Between 
 this new labor and these new punishments, the slaves 
 grow insubordinate and discontented. The boldest 
 a -.id most enterprising take to the woods. They are 
 pursued with guns and dogs; retaken; mangled with 
 the lash, and loaded with fetters. These examples 
 terrify the others. They submit in silence. Order is 
 restored. The discipline of the plantation is spoken 
 of with admiration. The crop is unusually large. 
 The owner is delighted with the result, and urgent for 
 its continuance, and thus extortion and severity are 
 carried to their highest pitch. 
 
 At the same time that the physical comforts of the 
 slaves are diminished, all their moral qualities are de 
 teriorated. Every bad passion is called into play. 
 That state of hostility and warfare in which slavery 
 orginates and consists, from being lulled, and half-qui 
 escent, becomes open and flagrant. The masters learn 
 to hate the slaves, as fiercely as the slaves hate the 
 masters. Presently they begin to fear them. Fear 
 and hate upon both sides ! God have mercy upon 
 the weaker party ! 
 
 SECTION IX. 
 
 Improvement in physical condition, as it affects the 
 condition of servitude. 
 
 Benevolence is one of those native impulses of the 
 human heart, which never can be wholly eradicated ; 
 and which may be seen mingling itself with actions 
 that proceed from motives of a totally opposite char 
 acter. 
 
 It is plain that the whole system of slavery is in 
 violation of the dictates of benevolence ; yet no impar 
 tial observer, who has resided in the southern states 
 7* 
 
78 DESPOTISM 
 
 of America, attempts to deny, that mingled with all 
 its wrongs and crimes, there may be perceived, in 
 many cases, much kind feeling on the part of the 
 masters. Indeed it is out of this fringe of benevolence 
 with which the dark garment of slavery is more or 
 less scantily ornamented, that most of its defenders 
 have woven the frail texture of their apologies. 
 
 This benevolence however is of a very limited char 
 acter. It is confined almost entirely to physical con 
 dition. It conforms itself to the established sentiment 
 of the country; it considers the slaves not in their 
 character of human beings, of men, but merely as 
 animals. 
 
 It is asserted that within the last twenty or thirty 
 years, as the tobacco cultivation has declined in Vir 
 ginia, there has been a great amelioration in the treat 
 ment of slaves. Many benevolent individuals have 
 exerted themselves to bring about this state of things, 
 by creating in the public mind a spirit of reprobation 
 against instances of excessive cruelty. It may be ob 
 served in passing, that this amelioration in the treat 
 ment of the Virginia slaves, is a strong confirmation 
 of the doctrines of the preceding chapter. As the 
 masters have grown poor, and have been obliged to 
 retrench their splendors and their luxury, at the same 
 time, they have grown comparatively humane. 
 
 The Kentuckians boast, that of all the American 
 masters, they are the kindest and the best ; and they 
 take to themselves no little credit, for the liberal sup 
 ply of food and clothing which they bestow upon 
 their servants, and the moderate labor which they de 
 mand. 
 
 This course of treatment, so much applauded by its 
 authors, is worthy of all approbation on the score of 
 domestic economy. It is also gratifying to the hu 
 mane feelings of all those persons of sensibility, to 
 whom the constant presence of visible suffering, is the 
 source of emotions far from agreeable. But when we 
 consider the matter a little deeper, when we see how 
 this merely physical kindness operates upon the intel- 
 
IN AMERICA. 79 
 
 lect and the heart, we may well doubt whether this 
 sort of benevolence, however well intended, and how 
 ever on that account worthy of applause, does not in 
 fact, greatly aggravate the miseries of servitude. 
 
 So long as men are constantly pressed by merely 
 physical wants, those wants absorb almost their whole 
 attention. The peculiar attributes of humanity are 
 scantily, or not at all, developed. They have the 
 form and the aspect of men, but in character they are 
 little more than mere animals ; and the gratification 
 of their animal wants occupies their total attention. 
 
 But so soon as these merely physical necessities are 
 satisfied, the mental and moral attributes begin to un 
 fold themselves. The passions bud and blossom ; the 
 feelings, the desires, the aspirations of manhood dis 
 play their various forms and colors. If they might 
 bear their natural fruits, those fruits would be good 
 and wholesome. But crushed, withered, blasted, 
 plucked up as it were by the roots, their premature 
 decay evolves a deadly miasm, which poisons the 
 soul, corrodes the heart, and sets the brain on fire. 
 
 Let us consider this matter more minutely. We 
 read in ancient fables and eastern tales, of men trans 
 formed by the power of magic into beasts. Here is 
 an operation of an analogous kind. Here are men 
 who have advanced so far as to feel that they are 
 men, whom law, custom, prejudice, and the potent 
 force of public opinion, confine to the condition of 
 mere beasts of labor. The more their humanity de 
 velops itself, and the more conscious of it they be 
 come, the more irritating and oppressive this condi 
 tion must be. To be penned up, driven to labor, and 
 foddered by the hand of a master, and what conse 
 quence is it though the fodder be plentiful, and the 
 labor be light ? to be repulsed from that condition 
 of manhood to which they now begin ardently to as 
 pire ; to be expelled from the circle of social emula 
 tion and made mere counters in a game, of which 
 they so long themselves to be the players ; to be de 
 spised, scorned, and degraded into a fellowship with 
 
80 DESPOTISM 
 
 the beasts they drive ; forbidden to indulge their na 
 tural and irrepressible inclinations ; prisoners though 
 at large ; forever watched ; forever thwarted ; ag 
 grieved still further by the constant spectacle of 
 privileges, enjoyments, objects and pursuits to share 
 in which they cannot even dream, but which increase 
 in estimated value, with the hopelessness of their at 
 tainment ; what wonder, if in souls so beset with 
 grievous temptations, there should spring up and 
 grow, a fierce envy, a desperate hate, an impotent in 
 dignation preying on itself, a dark, ferocious, restless 
 spirit of revenge, which delay irritates, concealment 
 sharpens, and fear embitters I What wonder, if all 
 the mild feelings which soften man, and make him ca 
 pable of happiness himself, and of conferring happiness 
 on others, are choked and blasted by a rank 
 growth of deadly passions ; and that he, who under 
 better auspices, might have been an ornament and a 
 benefactor to society, becomes a plague to others, a 
 torment to himself? 
 
 Such are the effects which must inevitably be pro 
 duced upon that sensitive and irritable disposition, 
 the usual accompaniment of genius ; and the same 
 effects, to a greater or less extent, may be expected to 
 result in the case of every slave, whose physical wants 
 are so far satisfied, that he becomes capable of reflec 
 tion, and passes from the narrow circle of animal 
 desire, into the boundless amphitheatre of human 
 wishes. 
 
 Would it promote the happiness of our domestic 
 animals, our horses and our oxen, supposing them to 
 remain in their present external condition, to endow 
 them with the passions and the intellect of men 1 Who 
 will maintain the affirmative of a proposition so ab 
 surd ? Yet the attempt to alleviate the condition of 
 slavery, merely by improving the physical condition 
 of the slaves, is an attempt, the absurdity of which, 
 if it be less obvious, is precisely of the same nature. 
 
 Keep your slaves pinched with hunger arid worn 
 down with fatigue, and they remain merely animals, 
 
IN AtofattiCA. 81 
 
 or very little more. They suffer it is true ; but they 
 suffer as animals. There is a certain fixed limit to 
 their misery. It has its intervals of cessation. The 
 imagination has no power over it. What it is, it is. 
 The present is the whole ; for the past is forgotten, 
 and the future is not anticipated. 
 
 But satisfy their hunger ; put them physically at 
 ease ; give them leisure for thought, and you create 
 new sufferings more bitter than those you have re 
 moved. The man finds that yoke intolerable, of 
 which the animal hardly perceived the existence. 
 For two or three wants that you have relieved, you 
 have created twenty others, or caused them to be felt, 
 wants incessant, unquiet, unappeaseable ; and for 
 these wants there is no remedy, no remedy, while 
 you remain a master, and they slaves ! After the 
 sybil had cast two volumes into the fire, the third 
 remained, as costly and as precious as all the three. 
 In like manner, the chain of servitude loses none of 
 its weight, by parting with a portion of its links. 
 While one remains, that one is heavy as the whole ! 
 Nay, heavier ; and as it dwindles to the sight, still 
 it pierces deeper to the soul; it frets and ulcerates the 
 heart. At first it only bound the limbs ; but now it 
 penetrates, and with its murderous touch, tortures the 
 vitals ! 
 
 It is a common remark at the South, that the more 
 intelligent a slave is, the more unquiet, dangerous, 
 and troublesome he is. The remark is just. The 
 more intelligent a slave is. the more grievously he 
 feels the yoke of slavery. If a master then, through 
 indulgence towards his slaves, has placed them in a 
 situation of comparative physical comfort, so far from 
 having a reason for stopping at that point, it becomes 
 more imperatively his duty to go on. By doing what 
 he has done, he has sharpened the appetite for liber 
 ty ; and this appetite which he has sharpened, is he 
 not the more urgently called upon to gratify ? 
 
 Let it not be said that this argument is no bet 
 ter than an apology for a system of hard labor and 
 
82 DESPOTISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 starvation, nor let any man so use it. God forbid ! 
 Those are obvious cruelties; and so clearly percepti 
 ble to the senses, that no man of common humanity, 
 however thoughtless and unobservant, can fail to per 
 ceive them ; and no man of common sensibility can 
 bear to inflict them. I have desired to call attention 
 to sufferings of another kind mental sufferings, not 
 so obvious, yet far more excruciating; slavery s se 
 cond growth, a rank and poisonous growth, more 
 deadly than the first. 
 
 I have desired to point to the slave-holder, the fear 
 ful dilemma by which he is hemmed in. The moment 
 he ceases to inflict tortures at which his sensibilities 
 revolt, the moment he yields to those prayers for mer 
 cy which his own heart re-echoes to him, at that very 
 moment he becomes the author of new sufferings ten 
 times more severe, than those he puts a stop to. He 
 irritates while attempting to soothe ; and the oil which 
 he drops into the wounds of servitude becomes a bit 
 ter and acrid poison. 
 
 This is one of those cases in which all must be 
 done, or nothing. Half measures, palliatives, do but 
 inflame the disease. The only cure for slavery, is, 
 freedom ! 
 
CHAPTER SECOND. 
 
 POLITICAL RESULTS OF THE SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEM. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 General View of the Subject. 
 
 The great objects aimed at, or which should be 
 aimed at, in the political constitution of a government, 
 are 1st, Security, 2nd, Freedom, 3d, Equality. 
 
 Security has two principal branches, of which one 
 relates to the person, and the other to property. A 
 good degree of security in both these respects, is es 
 sential to the com fortj and to the advancement of 
 society. 
 
 Freedom is either political or civil. Political Free 
 dom consists in a participation, more or less direct, in 
 the appointment of magistrates, the enactment of laws, 
 and other public acts. Civil Freedom depends upon 
 the supremacy of the laws. It guarantees every citi 
 zen against arbitrary and capricious interference. It 
 admits of no punishments except according to exist 
 ing statutes ; and it allows the enactment of no law 
 founded upon any other reason than the public good. 
 
 Equality divides itself into three sorts ; 1st, Political 
 Equality, or the equal participation in political priv 
 ileges, and the equal chance to enjoy political power; 
 in other words the perfection of political freedom; 2nd, 
 Equality of property, or the most equal distribution, 
 consistent with security, of the wealth already exist 
 ing, and the equal chance to produce or acquire new 
 wealth ; 3d, Social Equality, or the equal chance of 
 acquiring estimation and regard by the exhibition of 
 
84 DESPOTISM 
 
 amiable and useful qualities, or the performance of 
 meritorious actions. 
 
 Now so far as regards the unprivileged class of the 
 community, it is obvious at a single glance, that the 
 constitutions of the Southern States fail totally, in se 
 curing any one of the above objects. They not only 
 fail, but they do worse j they make a deliberate sacri 
 fice of them all. 
 
 This sacrifice is said to be necessary in order to se 
 cure the well being of the privileged class. If in fact 
 it is so, it must needs be confessed that the alternative 
 is very unfortunate. . The Southern people, if we al 
 low this necessity, are in the unhappy predicament of 
 a savage tribe of which one half, in order to sustain 
 existence, are driven to kill and to devour the other 
 half. Before we can admit the necessity of any such 
 horrible experiment, every other means must first 
 have been tried, and must have failed. What should 
 we think of a tribe of savages who lived fat and com 
 fortable upon the blood and flesh of their brethren, 
 without the slightest attempt to devise any other 
 means of subsistence; and who repulsed with impa 
 tient anger and bitter reproaches, the benevolent ef 
 forts of those who would point out to them a more 
 decent and innocent way? 
 
 It is clear that so far as the unprivileged class are 
 concerned, the political results of slavery are most 
 disastrous. Slaves suffer at one and the same time, 
 all the worst evils of tyranny and of anarchy. The 
 laws so far as they are concerned, are all penal ; they 
 impose a multitude of obligations, but they create no 
 rights. .The compendious definition of a slave is, a 
 man, who has no rights, but with respect to whom the 
 rights of his owner are unlimited. If the law in some 
 respects, seems to protect him, it is riot in his charac 
 ter of a man, but in his character of a thing, a piece 
 of property. Exactly the same protection which the 
 law extends to a slave, it extends to a dog, a horse, 
 or a writing desk. The master does as he pleases 
 with either. If any other person undertakes to dam- 
 
IN AMERICA. 85 
 
 age, steal, or destroy them, he is answerable to the 
 owner, and is punished not as a violator of personal 
 rights, but for having disregarded the laws of prop 
 erty. 
 
 The constant sacrifice of so many human victims, 
 amounting in several states of the American Union to 
 a majority of the population, such a sweeping depri 
 vation of rights as the slave-holding states exhibit, if 
 it can be justified at all, must find that justification in 
 some vast amount of good, which that sacrifice pro 
 duces. This good must be principally sought for 
 among the privileged class. If it exist at all it must 
 be either political, by increasing the security, free 
 dom and equality of the privileged class ; economical, 
 by increasing wealth, comfort and civilization ; or 
 personal, by its beneficial influences on individual 
 character. When Mr. McDufiie pronounces slavery 
 the best and only sure foundation of a free govern 
 ment, if he has any meaning at all, if this declaration 
 be any thing more than a passionate paradox. he 
 must mean to imply, that the political consequences 
 of slavery are of a kind highly beneficial to the mas 
 ter ; in fact so beneficial to the master as to form a 
 counterpoise, and more than a counterpoise to all the 
 evils it inflicts upon the slave. It becomes then an 
 important question, what are the effects which slave 
 ry produces upon the political, economical, and per 
 sonal condition of the privileged class? And in the 
 first place of its political results. 
 8 
 
86 DESPOTISM 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 Slavery , as it affects the security of the privileged class. 
 
 I. We will consider in the first place how the secu 
 rity of property is affected by the institution of sla 
 very. 
 
 Property is better secured in proportion as a greater 
 part of the population is made to feel a direct interest 
 in its security. The moral force of opinion in this as 
 in other cases, has an efficacy greater than law. Laws 
 unsustained by public opinion can only be enforced 
 by a great and constant exertion of physical power. 
 
 1. With regard to the slave holding states, a large 
 part of the population, to wit, the slaves, so far from 
 having any personal interest in upholding the laws of 
 property, have a direct and powerful interest the other 
 way. The laws of property in their eyes, so far from 
 being designed to promote the public good, and to con 
 fer a benefit upon all, are but a cunningly devised 
 system by means of which the character and the name 
 of Right is bestowed upon the rankest injustice, and 
 the most flagrant usurpation. This attempt to mono 
 polize the benefits of property, this system by which 
 a large portion of the community are not only depri 
 ved of those benefits but are actually themselves con 
 verted into articles of property, has the necessary 
 effect to create in the very bosom of the community, 
 a state of feeling utterly hostile to security. Slaves are 
 universally depredators upon the property of their 
 masters. Such depredation they regard as perfectly 
 justifiable and even praiseworthy. It requires the 
 most incessant vigilance to guard against it, nor 
 will the most incessant vigilance always suffice. The 
 security of the slave-master is the security of a house 
 keeper who knows that he entertains a gang of thieves 
 upon his premises, and who is in constant apprehen 
 sion of being robbed. 
 
 Nor is this systematic spirit of plunder confined to 
 
IN AMERICA. 87 
 
 the unprivileged class. It embraces also the large 
 class of .free traders who gain their livelihood by a 
 traffic in stolen goods. It is these persons who offer 
 inducement for a large part of the depredations which 
 the slaves commit upon their masters. These depre 
 dations, though small in the individual instances, are 
 enormous in the total amount. The extreme severity 
 with which the laws of the southern states visit the 
 offence of trading with slaves in articles suspected to 
 be stolen, and the terrible outrages occasionally com 
 mitted upon this sort of offenders by planters who 
 think the inflictions of the law to be too mild, or too 
 uncertain, are a sufficient proof in how serious a light 
 these depredations are regarded. j 
 
 2. By the institution of slavery, the slaves them-v 
 selves become the chief article of property. Property 
 of all kinds has a certain tendency to take wings to 
 itself and fly away. This is peculiarly the case with 
 slave property. In addition to all the other acci 
 dents to which slaves, in common with other species of 
 property, are exposed, they have a propensity to im 
 poverish their masters by absconding. How frequent 
 ly this propensity comes into exercise, any body may 
 learn by examining the columns of the southern news 
 papers. Of the slaves that run away, the greater part 
 are recovered : this is true, but still the master is a 
 loser. He loses their services during their absence, 
 often at the most critical moment of the crop, besides 
 the expense of their apprehension and conveyance 
 home, including the reward offered, which in itself is 
 often equal to half the money value of the slave. 
 
 3. Many slaves submit with great reluctance to the 
 station and duties which the law assigns to them. To 
 keep these unquiet creatures in due subordination, it 
 becomes necessary to wound, to maim, and sometimes 
 to kill them. This chance of loss takes away in a 
 certain degree, from the security of this kind of pro 
 perty. 
 
 4. We come now to a cause of insecurity of a more 
 serious character than any yet enumerated. Property 
 
88 DESPOTISM 
 
 in slaves is not a kind of property generally acknow 
 ledged. There are whole nations who deny that any 
 such kind of property ought to exist. All the most 
 enlightened people in the world are precisely of that 
 opinion. Within the last fifty years, an effort has 
 been begun, an effort which every day gathers new 
 force and earnestness. for the total abolition of this 
 kind of property. The alarm which this effort pro 
 duces among the holders of slaves is natural, and it is 
 great. An alarm exists at all times among slave 
 holders, because there is always a certain apprehen 
 sion lest the slaves themselves may reclaim their 
 liberty by force. But that alarm reaches an extreme 
 height when it is known that there are other persons, 
 over whom the slave-masters have no control, who 
 sympathize with the slaves, and who profess the inten 
 tion of using every moral means to bring about their 
 emancipation. Moral means is a phrase which slave- 
 masters find it difficult to understand. Force, violence, 
 is the only means with which they are familiar ; and 
 this means which they themselves so constantly em 
 ploy, they naturally apprehend, will be used against 
 them. The degree of alarm thus produced, is suffi 
 ciently indicated by the ferocity with which the per 
 sons called abolitionists have been assailed by the 
 slave-holders, and by { the savage barbarities exercised 
 upon such abolitionists, or supposed abolitionists, as 
 have fallen into their hands ; exercised generally upon 
 mere suspicion, and with hardly any evidence that 
 the sufferers were guilty of entertaining the opinions 
 ascribed to them. 
 
 Thus it appears that under a constitution authoriz 
 ing slavery, one of the chief items of property, name 
 ly, slave property, from its very nature, its total want 
 of any foundation of mutual benefit, is peculiarly inse 
 cure ; and this insecurity spreads to every other kind 
 of property, because the institution of slavery, by its 
 necessary effect destroys all respect for property of 
 any kind, in a large part of the population, arid also 
 creates a vast number of depredators. 
 
IN AMERICA. 89 
 
 II. We come now to that branch of Security, 
 which relates to the person. 
 
 Here again the privileged class of a slave holding 
 community are beset with alarms and dangers. These 
 dangers and alarms are of two kinds, dangers from 
 the slaves, dangers from one another. 
 
 1. Dangers from the slaves. The master retains his 
 authority only by the constant exercise of violent 
 means. This violence is liable at any time to be re 
 torted upon himself. The subjugation and cowardice 
 of those over whom he tyrannizes, afford the master 
 a certain degree of security. But passion often sup 
 plies the place of courage ; and we frequently hear of 
 terrible acts of vengeance committed upon the person 
 or family of the master, by outraged and infuriated 
 servants. 
 
 But this danger is trifling compared with that anti 
 cipated from a rising of the servile class. Every two 
 or three years the report of an insurrection, real or 
 imaginary, spreads the most frantic terror through the 
 southern states. The antics enacted upon such occa 
 sions, would be in the highest degree farcical, did 
 they not generally terminate in bloody tragedies. 
 Men who are individually brave, and who would 
 march to the assault of a battery without flinching, 
 work each other into a complete paroxism of fear. A 
 single negro seen in the woods with a gun upon his 
 shoulder, suffices to put a whole village to flight. 
 Half-a-dozen unintelligible words overheard and 
 treasured up by some evesdropping overseer, or invent 
 ed perhaps by some miscreant, who delights himself 
 with the public alarm, are enough to throw all the 
 southern states into commotion, and to bring nights of 
 agony and sleeplessness to hundreds of thousands. 
 But this is not the worst of it. When terror makes 
 cowards it always makes bloody-minded cowards. 
 
 Blood ! blood ! nothing else can appease the gene 
 ral alarm. Committees of safety with the most abso 
 lute authority, are every where established. On these 
 committees sit many a village Tinville, many a rustic 
 8* 
 
90 DESPOTISM 
 
 Danton. Before these tribunals the unhappy victims 
 are dragged; accusation and condemnation keep close 
 company. Hanging, shooting, and burning become 
 the order of the day. The headlong ferocity of these 
 proceedings betrays the greatness of that alarm which 
 produces them. 
 
 It has been shown in another place, that notwith 
 standing the extreme degree of terror to which the 
 apprehension of slave vengeance gives rise throughout 
 the south, the actual danger is by no means propor 
 tionately great. Many causes contribute to this dis 
 proportion, of which one leading one is, a secret con 
 sciousness of the cruel injustice of slavery. Tyranny 
 is ever timid, always full of fears. 
 
 2. Danger from one another. In this case, the alarm 
 is less, but the danger is more real. Throughout the 
 greater part of the southern states it is considered es 
 sential to personal safety, to carry concealed weapons. 
 This single fact shows that personal security is at the 
 lowest ebb. When a man must protect himself, for 
 what is he indebted to the laws ? These weapons are 
 no doubt carried partly as a protection against the 
 slaves ; but they are chiefly used, in quarrels between 
 freemen. Of these quarrels the laws take but little 
 notice. In such a case it is considered the mark of a 
 mean spirit to appeal to the law. If I am assaulted 
 or beaten, it is expected that I stab or shoot the ag 
 gressor. In several of the southern states it seems to 
 make very little difference, whether I challenge him 
 to a duel, or assault him without previous notice given, 
 in a tavern, or the streets. Murders are constantly 
 committed in this way. For the most part they go 
 entirely unpunished, or if punished at all, it is only 
 by a short imprisonment, or a trifling fine. They fix 
 no imputation upon a man s character. Persons guilty 
 of homicide are to be met with in the best society of 
 the southern states. If it be inquired what is the con 
 nection between this condition of manners and the 
 existence of slavery, the answer is, that the imperious 
 ferocity of temper which the exercise of despotic 
 
IN AMERICA. 91 
 
 power produces or inflames, is the main cause of the 
 existence and the toleration of an insecurity of person 
 and a recklessness of human life, such as hardly else 
 where prevails in the most barbarous countries. 
 
 But even this is not the worst aspect of the case. 
 The panic terror which the rumor of an insurrection 
 produces at the south has been already mentioned. 
 That terror levels all distinction between slaves and 
 freemen, and so long as it lasts, no man s person is 
 secure. During the period of the Mississippi insurrec 
 tion, or pretended insurrection, in the summer of 1835, 
 the committee of safety appointed upon that occasion, 
 by a tumultuous popular assembly, were vested with 
 ample authority " to try, acquit, condemn, and punish 
 white or black, who should be charged before them." 
 By virtue of this commission, the committee proceeded 
 to try a large number of persons, principally white 
 men, accused of having instigated, or favored the al 
 leged intended insurrection. Many of those tried 
 were found guilty, and were hung upon the spot. A 
 great many others were cruelly whipped, and were 
 ordered to quit the state in twenty-four hours. 
 
 The case of Mr. Sharkey will clearly exhibit the 
 degree of personal security existing in the state of 
 Mississippi at that time. Mr. Sharkey was a magis 
 trate, and in the exercise of his legal authority, he set 
 at liberty three men, of whose entire innocence of the 
 charges alleged against them he was well assured, 
 although they had been seized by the pursuivants of 
 the committee of safety. This gentleman was a plant 
 er, a man of property, a large slave-holder, brother 
 to the chief justice of the state, a person not very 
 likely to be implicated in a slave insurrection. But 
 his opposition to the despotic authority of the com 
 mittee was considered to be plenary proof of guilt, 
 and a large party was sent to arrest him. Mr. Shar 
 key had no relish for being hung upon suspicion ; so 
 he barricadoed his doors, built fires about his house, 
 in order that the darkness of the night might not con 
 ceal the approach of the pursuivants, wrapped his 
 
92 DESPOTISM 
 
 infant child in the bed clothes to save it from the bul 
 lets, loaded his muskets, and quietly waited the at 
 tack. His left hand was dreadfully shattered by the 
 first lire of the assailants; but he succeeded in killing 
 their leader, in wounding several of the rest, and in 
 compelling a retreat. By this time his friends and 
 connections began to collect about him, and a party 
 was formed in his favor. Had he been less wealthy, 
 or less influential, he would inevitably have perished. 
 
 SECTION TIL 
 
 Slavery as it affects the liberty of the privileged class. 
 
 One of the chief branches of civil liberty consists 
 in the unrestricted disposal of one s property. There 
 are restrictions which are necessary; but the more 
 these restrictions are multiplied, the more is liberty 
 restrained. 
 
 By the institution of slavery, slaves become one of 
 the principal kinds of property ; but in the free dis 
 posal of this kind of property, the slave-master at the 
 South is very much restricted. The "sacred rights 
 of property," as to which he is apt to be so eloquent, 
 with regard to that very subject-matter with respect 
 to which he considers them most sacred, are closely 
 restrained by laws of his own enacting. 
 
 To set a slave free, is certainly the highest act of 
 ownership ; the only one indeed which a truly virtuous 
 man ought to exercise; and certainly the last one 
 which a person of any manly spirit would be willing 
 to surrender. But in the greater part of the southern 
 states, the master is deprived by law of the right of 
 emancipation. Here certainly is a most grievous in 
 fringement upon liberty. 
 
 The right to improve one s property so as to increase 
 
IN AMERICA. 93 
 
 its productiveness and give it an additional value, is an 
 essential, part of civil liberty. But this is a right of 
 which, as respects his slaves, the southern master is 
 in a great degree deprived. In most of the slave 
 states it is a highly penal offence to teach a slave to 
 read. Now reading and writing are essential to many 
 employments. These accomplishments, and others 
 which by their means the slave might acquire, would 
 greatly tend to enhance his value, by making him 
 capable of more valuable services. But the master is 
 riot allowed to improve his property in this way. The 
 law interferes to prevent it. 
 
 Considering slaves merely as property, here are two 
 grievous infringements upon the master s liberty. But 
 consider them as men, and the infringement upon the 
 master s freedom of action is still more intolerable. 
 1 am deprived by law of the capacity to be benevolent 
 and just. I am ready to confer upon a fellow being 
 the highest boon which man can give or receive ; 
 but the laws do not permit me to confer it. Perhaps 
 the slave is my own child. No matter ; he shall re 
 main a slave to the day of his death, unless I can 
 obtain as a particular grace and favor, a special per 
 mission to set him free. Is this liberty? Is not the 
 servitude of the father as miserable almost as that 
 of the son ? 
 
 The authors of these laws have plainly perceived 
 that the natural dictates of humanity are at war with 
 the institution of slavery ; and that if left to their own 
 operation, sooner or later, they would accomplish its 
 overthrow. To perpetuate the slavery of the un 
 privileged class, they have fettered up those senti 
 ments of the human heart, which are the foundation 
 of morality and of all the charities of life. For the 
 sake of brutalizing others, they nave sought to bar 
 barize themselves. 
 
 Liberty of opinion, liberty of speech, and liberty of 
 the press do not exist in the southern states of the 
 American Union, any more than under any other 
 despotism. No doubt there are some subjects which 
 
94 DESPOTISM 
 
 may be very freely discussed there ; but the same is 
 the case under all despotisms. Any body may freely 
 discuss at Rome or Moscow, the merits and demerits of 
 American slavery. The only prohibited subjects are 3 
 the plans of government and systems of policy upheld 
 by the pope or the czar. So at Charleston or Rich 
 mond, one is at full liberty to discuss subjects having 
 no obvious bearing upon the political system and 
 social condition of Virginia or South Carolina. But 
 approach that subject, lisp the word, slavery ; dare to 
 insinuate that the existing system of southern society 
 is not the best possible system ; assail ever so cau 
 tiously the tyranny of the slave-masters; point out 
 ever so temperately the inevitable wretchedness of 
 the slaves, and you will soon be taught that despotism 
 is as jealous, as watchful, and as fierce, in America 
 as in Europe. 
 
 The discussion of this prohibited subject is not only 
 visited by severe legal penalties, under pretence that it 
 has a tendency to produce insurrections, the same 
 reason, by the way, which is given at Rome and Mos 
 cow, but it is still more effectually suppressed by the 
 terrors of Lynch law, a system of procedure, which 
 in cases of this sort is either openly countenanced, or 
 secretly abetted by the gravest jurists of the South. 
 
 Not only is discussion prevented, but it is dangerous 
 to receive, to read, even to have in possession, any 
 book, pamphlet or newspaper which has been en 
 rolled in the Index Expurgatorius of the slave-holding 
 Inquisition, or which, though not proscribed byname, 
 appears to treat upon the evils of slavery and their 
 remedies. 
 
 The United States post-office at Charleston was 
 violently assaulted \^ a mob, headed by the principal 
 inhabitants of the city, and a large part of its con 
 tents publicly burnt, under pretence that among the 
 newspapers and pamphlets contained in it, there were 
 some of an insurrectionary character. 
 
 At Richmond a bookseller received a box of books 
 containing copies of a certain work compiled by a 
 
IN AMERICA. 95 
 
 Virginia clergyman, to aid the Colonization Society. 
 It was principally made tip of extracts from speeches 
 delivered in the Virginia House of Delegates in favor 
 of a project for the gradual abolition of slavery by 
 shipping off the slaves to Africa, broached shortly 
 after the Southampton insurrection. This book was 
 denounced as incendiary by the Richmond Com 
 mittee of Safety, and by their order all the copies 
 were delivered up, and burnt in the public square. 
 
 In the District of Columbia an unlucky botanist 
 happened to have among his papers used for the pre 
 servation of plants, some copies of a prohibited news 
 paper. He was arrested, almost torn in pieces by the 
 mob, thrown into prison where he lay upwards of six 
 months, and it was with great difficulty that his ac 
 quittal was obtained. 
 
 It is a curious fact that at the very moment at 
 which the Richmond Whig was assailing Louis 
 Phillippe and his ministers for their restrictions upon 
 the French press, the Journal des Debats was defend 
 ing those restrictions by the example of Virginia ! It 
 must be confessed that the French restrictions are per 
 fect liberty, c ompared with the law and practice of 
 the southern states. 
 
 The Secret Tribunal of Venice, which received anon 
 ymous accusations, and which proceeded to judgment 
 without notice given to the culprit, has been always 
 denounced as an institution the most hostile to liberty 
 that can possibly be imagined. Tribunals very simi 
 lar, and in many respects much more to be dreaded, 
 exist throughout almost the whole of the slave-holding 
 states. They pervade the country and hold all the 
 citizens in awe. The punishments inflicted are of the 
 most dreaded kind, death by the gallows or a slow 
 fire, banishment, scourging, tar and feathers. This 
 jurisdiction is known as Lynch law, and the accusers, 
 judges and executioners are generally the same per 
 sons. As was the case with the Secret Tribunal, it 
 confines itself principally to state crimes, that is, to 
 such actions as are supposed to have a tendency to 
 
96 DESPOTISM 
 
 overthrow the existing system of despotism. This 
 system of Lynch law which sprung into existence 
 among the barbarous settlers of the backwoods, where 
 no law existed, and which was invented by them as 
 a substitute for law, has of late been introduced into 
 the oldest and most civilized of the slave states, and 
 has been made to supersede the regular administration 
 of justice in a variety of the most serious and im 
 portant cases. The terror of this tribunal is sufficient 
 to preserve a dead silence at the South, and to pro 
 duce an apparent unanimity of opinion. There are 
 no doubt numbers who still entertain the opinions of 
 Washington, of Henry, and of Jefferson upon the sub 
 ject of slavery ; but no one dares in public or in private 
 to utter those opinions. No one known or suspected 
 to be an abolitionist, and this word at the South ob 
 tains a very extensive signification, can reside or 
 even travel in the slave states without imminent dan 
 ger. Such, under a system of despotism, is the lib 
 erty even of those called free. 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 Slavery in its influence upon Equality. 
 
 Equality it has been stated, may be considered under 
 three points of view, Political Equality, Social Equal 
 ity, and Equality of Wealth. 
 
 Political and social equality are essentially depend 
 ent upon equality of wealth. The truth of this ob 
 servation is confirmed by universal experience. Those, 
 who possess the property of a country, have always 
 succeeded in obtaining the political power. Revolu 
 tions of property have always produced political revo 
 lutions. 
 
 Look for example to the history of England. So 
 
IN AMERICA. 97 
 
 long as the wealth of that country consisted princi 
 pally in land, and that land was possessed by a few 
 feudal and ecclesiastical barons, the whole political 
 power of the country was in their hands. Towns 
 having sprung into existence, inhabited by artisans 
 and traders, whose industry created a new species of 
 wealth, these towns presently attained a representa 
 tion in the national legislature. Their influence at 
 first was trifling ; but it has steadily increased with 
 the increase of manufacturing and commercial wealth, 
 till now it has become almost predominant. 
 
 The history of France furnishes proof to the same 
 point. So long as the nobility, the clergy and the 
 magistrature, possessed the larger portion of property, 
 they found no difficulty in maintaining their political 
 superiority. But no sooner had the progress of events 
 thrown a preponderancy of wealth into the hands of 
 the tiers etat, than they began to devise means for ob 
 taining political power. Hence the French Revolution ; 
 which, after immense struggles, resulted in putting the 
 government into the hands of the more wealthy pro 
 prietors. The unfortunate adoption of too narrow a 
 basis led, in the end, to the present imperial usurpation, 
 which, however, could not stand for a moment, did not 
 the French property holders support it as a means of 
 defence against those who have no property. 
 
 If in the Northern States of the American Union 
 there exists a degree of political equality of which 
 the world offers no other example on so large a scale, 
 the equal distribution of property throughout those 
 states, is not less striking and remarkable. 
 
 It is an observation as curious as it is important, 
 that in countries in which industry is respectable, and 
 where the fruits of labor are secure, property always 
 tends towards an equal distribution. Everyman pos 
 sesses as a means of acquirement, his own labor ; and 
 though there be a very considerable difference in the 
 capacity, the industry, the good fortune of individuals, 
 yet this difference has its limits; and diversities of ac 
 quisition are still more limited ; for in general the in- 
 9 
 
98 DESPOTISM 
 
 dustry of the rich man is relaxed ; he is more inclined 
 to spend than to accumulate ; while the poor man is 
 still stimulated by the desire of acquisition. 
 
 It appears then that in civilized communities, the 
 natural tendency of things is towards equality. In 
 equality can only be maintained by artificial means : 
 by laws which give to some individuals exclusive ad 
 vantages not possessed by others, such as laws of 
 primogeniture, of entail, laws conferring hereditary 
 rights and privileges; laws creating monopolies of 
 any and every kind. 
 
 If political equality be dependent upon equality of 
 wealth, social equality is equally dependent upon it. 
 Social distinctions which appear to spring from other 
 sources, rise in fact from this, arid by means of this 
 are kept in activity. Blood and family are esteemed 
 of great importance, and according to a vulgar notion 
 which we hear every day repeated, are said to afford 
 a much nobler and more respectable aristocracy, than 
 that of mere wealth. But the founder of every noble 
 family was first rich before he became noble. It is 
 his wealth transmitted to his descendants to which 
 they are principally indebted for distinction. When 
 they become poor they soon fall into contempt. This 
 is so well understood that whenever a Marlborough or 
 a Wellington is raised to the highest rank of the peer 
 age for services or supposed services rendered to his 
 country, an estate is bestowed by parliament, to ac 
 company the title. 
 
 Equality in general, may be resolved into equality 
 of wealth. All depends upon that. 
 
 Now it is a fact clear and indisputable, that the ex 
 istence of slavery in a country, is the surest and most 
 inevitable means of producing and maintaining an 
 inequality of wealth. This is not said with any re 
 ference to the unprivileged class, who are to be regard 
 ed in this view not as men, but merely as things. 
 Reference is had only to the free. Slavery necessarily 
 produces a great inequality of wealth among the free. 
 
 The method of this operation is obvious. The la- 
 
IN AMERICA. 99 
 
 bor of each individual, is as we have seen, the natural 
 and original source of individual wealth. But when 
 a man is enabled to possess himself of the fruits pro 
 duced by the labor of a large number of individuals, 
 to whom he is not obliged to make any compensation 
 beyond a bare support, his wealth tends to increase in 
 a vast and disproportionate ratio, over the wealth of 
 that individual who relies solely upon his own labor. 
 
 Moreover slaves are a sort of property much less 
 valuable when held in small portions, than when pos 
 sessed in masses. Where four or five hundred slaves 
 are owned together, the doctrine of chances may be 
 applied to the numerous casualties to which this kind 
 of property is liable. The average annual loss and 
 gain under ordinary circumstances will be pretty regu 
 lar, and may be made a subject of calculation. But 
 the owner of only four or five slaves may at any time 
 lose them all by a sudden disorder. They may all be 
 taken sick at the same time, and the crop may perish 
 for want of hands to tend it. They may all run 
 away together. The income expected from them is 
 thus liable to fail entirely, and the poor man is con 
 stantly thrown back in his attempts to accumulate, by 
 the necessity he is under of investing his gains, or a 
 considerable part of them, in a species of property 
 which when possessed in small quantities, is peculiar 
 ly insecure.^ 
 
 But there is another effect of the existence of slav 
 ery in a community, much more extensive and power 
 ful in its operation. Wherever slavery exists, la 
 bor comes to share the degradation and contempt of 
 servitude, while idleness is regarded as the peculiar 
 badge of freedom. But when idleness is general, the 
 great mass of the community must inevitably be poor. 
 In every country the number of those who inherit 
 any considerable portion of wealth, is small. Per 
 sonal industry is the only resource of the great bulk 
 of the citizens. W^here labor is honorable, it proves 
 
 * See Chapter TIL Sec. II. for additional and important reasons of 
 the tendency of slave-holding property to accumulate in a few hands. 
 
100 DESPOTISM 
 
 to the prudent and industrious, a resource sufficient 
 not only for support, but for the accumulation of 
 wealth. When labor is not honorable, the mass of the 
 citizens rather than degrade themselves by submitting 
 to it, will be content with the merest subsistence. 
 Thus it happens that in countries in which slavery 
 has existed for a considerable length of time, the citi 
 zens are divided into two classes, of which the first 
 and much the smaller, comprises a few rich proprie 
 tors who at the same time are large slave-holders, 
 while the second class contains the great mass of the 
 free people, persons of little property, or none at all. 
 
 This was the state of society in all the republics of 
 ancient Greece. Those republics were constantly di 
 vided into two parties or factions. The oligarchical or 
 aristocratic party, composed of the few rich and their 
 immediate connections and dependents, and the demo 
 cratic party, as it was called, composed of the bulk of 
 poor freemen, headed and led on by some ambitious 
 deserter from the aristocratic ranks. The history of 
 ancient Greece consists for the most part, in the mu 
 tual struggle of these two parties. In general, the 
 aristocratic party had the ascendency ; when the op 
 posite faction came into power, it was only by a sort 
 of accident commonly of very limited duration. 
 
 This serves to explain a curious part of ancient his 
 tory, to which we have no parallel in modern times, 
 namely, the frequent projects for an artificial distri 
 bution of property, and of laws for the remission of 
 debts. It was clearly perceived by many politicians 
 of antiquity, that a certain equality of wealth was 
 absolutely essential to political equality. They saw 
 that the nominal equality of all the citizens amounted 
 to but little, so long as all the wealth of the state was 
 possessed by a few, and the great bulk of the citizens 
 not only had nothing, but were even deeply in debt to 
 the few rich. Hence the various projects for abolish 
 ing debts, prohibiting usury, limiting the amount of 
 property which any individual might possess, and 
 making new and equal distributions of existing wealth. 
 
IN AM2ftTCJL 101 
 
 But these schemes did not touch the root of the evil. 
 So long as slavery existed, it was a natural and inev 
 itable consequence that all property, however equally 
 it might at first be divided, should presently concen 
 trate in the hands of a few, leaving the mass, idle and 
 poor, poor, because idle. 
 
 The operation of the same cause is very evident 
 in the history of the Roman Republic. A few patri 
 cians were possessed of enormous, wealth, counting 
 their slaves by tens of thousands, and owning almost 
 entire provinces, while the great bulk of the citizens 
 were in a state of the most deplorable poverty, depend 
 ing for their support upon distributions of corn from 
 the public granaries, upon gratuities bestowed upon 
 the commonality by the ambitious rich, and on the 
 pay and plunder of the military service. 
 
 Such are some of the instances which history af 
 fords, of the natural effect of slavery in concentrating 
 wealth in a few hands, and in reducing the mass of 
 the free to poverty and political degradation. His 
 tory also furnishes instances of the contrary process, 
 by which liberty has given a spring to industry, and 
 has thus operated to disseminate wealth, and to create 
 an intermediate body between the rich and the poor, 
 a body which with the increase of civilization and 
 knowledge, is destined perhaps to embrace the great 
 mass of mankind. About the tenth century of the 
 Christian era the greater part of Europe was reduced 
 by a combination of causes, to a most barbarous con 
 dition. A few great lords, who were in fact little bet 
 ter than so many Tartar or African chiefs of the pre 
 sent day, possessed all the land, the only sort of pro 
 perty which remained in existence. This land was 
 cultivated by slaves. The mass of the free population 
 depended for its support upon the bounty of the feudal 
 chiefs, which bounty was repaid by the constant at 
 tendance and warlike services of those who received 
 it. The sole occupation of the free was, hunting and 
 war. 
 
 Tn this state of things we can discover no element 
 9* 
 
108 DESPOTISM 
 
 of social improvement. What then has changed the 
 condition of Europe to the state of comparative ad 
 vancement in which we now see it? A few serfs 
 flying from the tyranny of their lords, founded here 
 and there, a little settlement. They built walls to 
 protect themselves from feudal aggression. In many 
 cases they resorted to some ancient city, a remnant of 
 former times, dwindled to a ruin, but which their in 
 dustry helped to repair, and their courage to defend. 
 They applied themselves to the mechanic arts and to 
 trade. Gradually they amassed wealth. In these 
 cities slavery was riot tolerated, and the serfs of the 
 neighborhood found first protection, and presently 
 citizenship. These cities thus founded and thus built 
 up, are the origin of that great class of merchants, 
 manufacturers, and industrious men, to whom Europe 
 is indebted for its present advancement, and on whom 
 its future hopes depend. 
 
 The same tendency of servitude to produce great 
 inequalities of condition among the free is as visible 
 in the history of America as of Europe. The insur 
 rection of the slaves of St. Domingo had for its imme 
 diate occasion a violent quarrel between the white 
 and the mulatto slave-holders of the island. While 
 these two factions of the free were engaged in a bloody 
 contest on the question of political equality, the slaves 
 seized the opportunity to reclaim their liberties. 
 
 Slavery produces the same effects in the southern 
 states of the American union, which it ever has pro 
 duced in all the world beside. Several cases have 
 hitherto operated to retard, or to disguise these effects, 
 but they are becoming every day more and more 
 visible. 
 
 The poor whites of the old slave states have hitherto 
 found a resource in emigration. All of them who had 
 any spirit of enterprise and industry have quitted a 
 home where labor was disgraceful, and in the wide 
 regions beyond the mountains have attained a com 
 fortable livelihood, and have amassed wealth by means 
 which however innocent or laudable, thoy could not 
 
IN AMERICA. 103 
 
 employ in the places where they were born, without 
 a certain degree of self-abasement. But by a fatal 
 oversight, a most disastrous ignorance, they omitted 
 to exclude that great source of evil, the bitter effects 
 of which they had experienced in their own persons ; 
 arid that same train of causes is now in full operation 
 in Kentucky and Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas, 
 which drove the original settlers of those states from 
 Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. 
 
 As to the southwestern states, they offer no re 
 sources to the poor whites. The cultivation of cotton 
 has attracted thither, and still continues to attract, a 
 host of slave-masters, and whole gangs of slaves. No 
 man can emigrate to those states who expects to live by 
 the labor of his hands, unless he is prepared to brave 
 that very ignominy, and to plunge anew into that very 
 social condition which makes him uneasy, and cuts 
 him off from all chance of advancement at home. 
 
 Political parties in the slave-holding states, within 
 a few years past, have begun to assume an aspect en 
 tirely new, and one which gives fearful omen that 
 these slave-holding republics are about to follow in 
 the career of those ancient states, whose policy was 
 founded, like theirs, upon a system of slavery. There 
 is already, throughout most or all of the slave-holding 
 states, an aristocratic party, and a party which calls 
 itself democratic. The aristocratic party is composed 
 of the rich planters, and of those whom their wealth 
 enables them to influence and control. The demo 
 cratic party, so called, is composed in a great measure 
 of the poor white folks, with a sprinkling of ambitious 
 aristocrats for leaders. This miscalled democratic 
 party, for it is in fact only a faction of the white 
 aristocracy, by the natural operation of the slave- 
 holding system, is rapidly increasing in numbers, and 
 with the increase of its numbers, the social degrada 
 tion and the destitution of its members will also in 
 crease. Measures of enlightened policy are hardly to 
 be expected from such a party, even if it could obtain 
 power and keep it, which indeed is hardly to be ex- 
 
104 DESPOTISM 
 
 pected. Such is the force of habit, the power of preju 
 dice, the invincible stupidity of ignorance that these 
 people seem incapable of perceiving the real cause 
 of their own degradation. They are apparently as 
 much attached to slavery and are as ardent in its 
 support as is the aristocratic party, thus regarding 
 with a blind and fatal reverence those very institu 
 tions which crush them to the dust. The influence, 
 however, of such a party, composed of men, poor, 
 degraded, ignorant and ferocious, and headed by some 
 desperate Catiline of the aristocracy, may at times, 
 prove extremely disastrous, not to the southern states 
 alone, but to the whole union. 
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 Education in the Slave-holding States. 
 
 That the state ought to provide for all its citizens 
 the means of at least that primary education which 
 consists in the knowledge of reading and writing, has 
 come to be a political maxim generally acted upon in 
 all civilized communities. Even such despotic gov 
 ernments as Austria and Prussia have admitted this 
 most important article into their political code ; and 
 primary instruction is provided by those governments 
 for all the people at the public expense. This shows 
 the progress which the idea of equality has lately 
 made ; for equality of knowledge is a most essential 
 part of political and social equality. 
 
 The despotisms existing in the southern states of 
 the American Union, are almost wholly regardless of 
 this important political duty of general education. 
 We have already seen that so far as regards the un 
 privileged class, the attempt to impart any instruction 
 to them, so far from being considered a duty, is de- 
 
IN AMERICA. 105 
 
 nounced as a crime. There are also obvious reasons 
 why no general public provision for the education of 
 the privileged class has ever been established. 
 
 The privileged class consists, as we have seen, of 
 an oligarchy of rich planters, and a comparatively 
 large body of persons with little or no property. The 
 rich planters know the value of education, and their 
 wealth enables them to secure it for their own children 
 by the employment of private tutors, or by sending 
 them to schools and colleges at the North. The poor 
 whites, bred up in ignorance, have no adequate idea 
 of the value of knowledge, or of the importance of its 
 diffusion. The rich planters have no inclination to 
 tax themselves for the benefit of their poor neighbors. 
 Their wealth, education and influence, enables them 
 to control the legislation of their respective states ; 
 and perhaps they imagine that they shall best secure 
 their own importance and political power, by keeping 
 the mass of the free population in ignorance. The 
 same stroke of policy which they play off against their 
 slaves, they play oif also against their poorer fellow 
 citizens. 
 
 What has been done in a public way for the ad 
 vancement of education in the southern states, has 
 consisted almost entirely in the establishment of col 
 leges, institutions of but little use to the mass of the 
 population, and which are almost exclusively fre 
 quented by the sons of the rich planters. For this 
 purpose money has been liberally appropriated. 
 
 It is true that in Virginia, South Carolina, and per 
 haps in some other of the slave-holding states, a trifling 
 sum is annually appropriated expressly for the educa 
 tion of poor children. But the very form of this ap 
 propriation, which extorts from those who wish to 
 avail themselves of it, a humiliating confession of 
 poverty, is an insult to those for whose benefit it is 
 intended. That aid which might be justly demanded 
 as a right, is made to assume the character of a charity. 
 Besides, the amount of these appropriations is so small, 
 and their management is so miserable, that little or no 
 benefit results. 
 
106 DESPOTISM 
 
 The facts of the case then, appear to be these. Not 
 one of the slave-holding states possesses any thing like 
 a regular system of common schools, or has made any 
 provision at all worthy of notice, for disseminating 
 the rudiments of education among its citizens. In 
 equality of wealth has produced, as a natural conse 
 quence, inequality of knowledge. 
 
 This condition of things tends greatly to aggra 
 vate the social and political inequalities which pre 
 vail throughout the southern states. It is in vain 
 that people who cannot read, boast of their political 
 rights. There is no power more easily abused for the 
 promotion of private ends, than the power conferred 
 by superior knowledge. A man who cannot read, 
 may be said to be politically blind. Those who see 
 may miss the way, but the blind have hardly a chance 
 to find it. Nothing is more easy than leading them 
 into the pit, and thus making them the instruments 
 of their own destruction. It is the extreme ignorance 
 of those who compose what is called the democratic 
 party at the South, which incapacitates that party 
 from projecting and carrying through any real and 
 useful reforms in the social polity of those states, and 
 which converts it into the mere tool and stepping-stone 
 of artful and ambitious men, who insinuate them 
 selves into its confidence, and then employ that con 
 fidence for the accomplishment of their merely private 
 ends. In the nature of things, the aristocracy of rich 
 planters, as they possess all the wealth and all the 
 knowledge, will succeed, in the long run, in usurping 
 the whole political power. As might be expected, 
 South Carolina, the state in which slavery is most 
 predominant, is also the state in which the aristocracy 
 of rich planters domineers without control. Already 
 the doctrine, sanctioned by the constitution of that 
 state, that every freeman is entitled to vote at elec 
 tions, is violently assailed by the leaders of the aris 
 tocratic faction. They insist upon a property qualifi 
 cation. It is easy to see whither this doctrine will 
 lead. By the concentration of wealth in few hands, 
 
IN AMERICA. 107 
 
 which is the natural result of slavery, the number of 
 those who possess the requisite qualifications will 
 continue to dimmish, till at last the whole political 
 power concentrates in form, as it now does in fact, 
 in the hands of a little oligarchy of rich slave-holders. 
 But though the equality secured to all freemen by 
 the constitutions of the slave-holding states, is little 
 more than nominal, though the few wealthy and well 
 informed generally succeed in obtaining the political 
 control, and then employ it to promote their^own pri 
 vate ends, it is not. therefore, to be hastily concluded 
 that the constitutional rights of the poor freemen are 
 valueless, or that the loss of those rights with which 
 they are threatened, is not a thing to be most seriously 
 deprecated. Having a vote at elections, every free 
 man, however humble his condition, is sure of being 
 treated with a certain degree of respect. If the mass 
 of the people are cajoled out of their votes, they still 
 receive for them a sort of equivalent, in kind words 
 and fair speeches. Let them be deprived of this title 
 to consideration, and the native insolence of power 
 would soon display itself, and they would be trampled 
 under foot with the same remorseless violence now 
 exercised upon the free blacks and the slaves. 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 
 The military strength of the Slave-holding States. 
 
 The military strength of states has ever been es 
 teemed of the highest importance in a political point 
 of view; since it is upon their military strength that 
 states are often obliged to depend for their defence 
 against internal, as well as external foes. In this 
 particular the slave-holding states of the South pre 
 sent an aspect of extreme weakness. 
 
108 DESPOTISM 
 
 When all the inhabitants of a country have arms 
 in their hands, and are ready and zealo.us to meet and 
 repulse any invader, the military strength of a coun 
 try may be said to be at the highest point, for experi 
 ence has abundantly demonstrated how easy it is to 
 transform citizens into soldiers. But those citizens 
 who are capable of being transformed into soldiers 
 must be principally drafted from the laborious classes 
 of society. The hardy cultivators of the soil, when 
 driven to the dire necessity of beating their plough 
 shares into swords, have ever furnished the best and 
 most patriotic soldiers, soldiers, who after repulsing 
 the hostile invader, have willingly resumed again the 
 useful labors of their former calling. Men of this class 
 composed those armies of the revolution to whose cour 
 age, fortitude and patient spirit of endurance, we are 
 indebted for our national independence. 
 
 But in the slave states, these cultivators of the earth, 
 these very men upon whom reliance ought to be prin 
 cipally placed in the hour of danger, would in that 
 hour, be regarded with more dread and terror even 
 than the invaders themselves. In case of a threaten 
 ed invasion, so far from aiding in the defence of the 
 country, they would create a powerful diversion in 
 favor of the enemy. 
 
 When the French, in the first years of the revolu 
 tion, marched into the neighboring countries proclaim 
 ing "liberty and equality," they were received with 
 such good-will on the part of the inhabitants as en 
 sured a speedy triumph, notwithstanding the superior 
 force arrayed to resist their progress. The events of 
 those wars placed in a strong light, the fact obvious 
 enough in itself, but which had not then attracted 
 sufficient attention, that the inclination of the inhab 
 itants of a country is much more apt to decide its fate, 
 than the strength of armies in the field. When half 
 the inhabitants of a country wish success to invaders, 
 it is not easy to resist them. 
 
 Considering the odious light in which slavery is 
 now regarded by all civilized nations, it is not likely, 
 
IN AMERICA. 109 
 
 in case the United States became involved in war 
 with any people of Europe, that any repugnance would 
 be felt on the part of the hostile state, in seeking aid 
 at the hands of the slaves. A lodgement being effect 
 ed upon some part of the Southern coast, by an army 
 of respectable strength, and emancipation being pro 
 mised to all such slaves as would join the invaders, a 
 force would soon be accumulated which the unassist 
 ed efforts of the slave-holding states would find it im 
 possible to resist. If the invaders were expelled it 
 would only be by troops marched from the North. In 
 such a crisis the fear of outbreaks on their own plant 
 ations would keep the planters at home; or if they 
 assembled in force to resist the invaders, their absence 
 would be likely to produce such outbreaks. When 
 a servile was added to a foreign war, between the 
 rage of the masters and the hatred of the slaves, it 
 would assume a most savage aspect. 
 
 There exist, indeed, sufficient reasons for entertain 
 ing the belief that an experiment of this sort was 
 projected during the war of 1812, and that nothing 
 but the fact that Great Britain at that time had slave 
 colonies of her own, prevented it from being carried 
 into effect. 
 
 The difficulty of raising troops in the slave-holding 
 states is obvious from the fact, that Massachusetts 
 alone furnished more soldiers to the revolutionary ar 
 mies, than all the slave-holding states united. The 
 obstacles in the way of raising troops in those states, 
 have greatly increased since that time. 
 
 The military weakness of a slave-holding commu 
 nity was strikingly illustrated in the capture of the 
 city of Washington by the British in 1814. Could 
 such an army have marched such a distance, and ef 
 fected such destruction in any of the free states ? To 
 that question let Concord and Lexington reply. Had 
 the slaves of those counties through which the British 
 army marched, been free citizens, had not Washing 
 ton itself been a slave market, the British troops would 
 never have arrived within sight of the capitol. 
 10 
 
110 DESPOTISM 
 
 Should the slave-holding states become involved in 
 a war, which it would be necessary for them to pro 
 secute from their own resources, they would be oblig 
 ed to depend upon a standing army levied from among 
 the dregs of the population. Such an army would be 
 likely to become quite as much an object of terror to 
 those for whose defence it would be levied, as to those 
 against whom it would be raised. It would not be 
 easy to disband an army composed of men destitute 
 of every other resource, but who had found in mil 
 itary service a means of living at the expense of 
 others. It would be insisted, and with some show of 
 justice too, that the country was bound to maintain 
 and provide for those to whom it was indebted for de 
 fence and even existence. 
 
 One other observation will place the military weak 
 ness of the slave-holding states in a clear point of 
 view. They are dependent for all manufactured arti 
 cles upon foreign supply. Even the very tools with 
 which the plantations are cultivated, are furnished 
 from abroad. Every article of equipment necessary 
 to enable an army to take the field, must be imported, 
 and unless their agricultural productions can be freely 
 exported in return, they have no means whereby to 
 purchase, or to pay. The coast of the slave-holding 
 states is but scantily furnished with harbors ; all the 
 trade of export and import, centres at a few points. 
 These points may be easily blockaded by a small na 
 val force. The slave states have no facilities for 
 equipping or manning a fleet. In a naval warfare, 
 half a dozen of the fishing towns of New England 
 might compete with the whole of them, and a strict 
 blockade of their harbors for three or four years, would 
 reduce the whole of the Southern States to a condi 
 tion of the greatest distress. 
 
 In point of military strength the slave-holding states 
 are not by any means all to be placed upon the same 
 level. Such states as Kentucky and Tennessee where 
 the proportion of slaves is small, are very strong in 
 comparison with Carolina and Louisiana, where the 
 unprivileged class form a majority of the population. 
 
CHAPTER THIRD. 
 
 ECONOMICAL RESULTS OF THE SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEM. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 Effect of Slavery upon the Sources of Wealth. 
 
 The public wealth consists in the sum total of the 
 wealth possessed by all the individual members of 
 the community. Generally speaking a community is 
 wealthy in proportion to the relative number of its 
 members who are possessors of property. A few very 
 rich men may make a great show, and create a false 
 impression as to the wealth of a community ; but a 
 large number of small properties added together will 
 far outrun . the sum total of a few large ones. The 
 pay of the officers of an army is very large compared 
 with that of the rank and file ; but the sum total of 
 the pay of the rank and file, far exceeds in amount 
 the sum total of the pay of the officers. 
 
 That the slave states of the American Union are 
 excessively poor compared with the free states, is con 
 ceded on all hands. The slaves, forming in some of 
 the states, the majority of the population, are incapa 
 ble of holding property. They are not the owners 
 even of their own labor, and of course they can con 
 tribute nothing to the sum total of the public wealth. 
 The class of poor whites, including a large proportion 
 of the free population, are possessed of a very trifling 
 property. Almost the entire capital of the country is 
 in the hands of a comparatively small number of 
 slave-holders ; and of the property which they possess, 
 a great portion consists in the minds and muscles of 
 the unprivileged class. In free communities, every 
 
112 DESPOTISM 
 
 man is the proprietor of his own muscles and intel 
 lect ; but as these commodities however valuable, are 
 not the subject of bargain and sale in the market, they 
 are not usually reckoned as property. Compare the 
 tax Valuations of the slave-holding states with that of 
 the free states, and it will be discovered, that almost 
 the only kind of property, in the usual acceptation of 
 that word, which exists at the South, is, the land, and 
 the buildings upon it. Exclude the slaves, and the 
 amount of what is called personal property existing 
 in those states, is exceedingly small ; and upon exam 
 ination it will be found to fall greatly short of the 
 amount of debt always due to the North and to Eu 
 rope. 
 
 In estimating the actual wealth of the slave-hold 
 ing states, the amount of this debt ought always to be 
 taken into account. A great part of the banking capi 
 tal of those states is borrowed ; and so of the money 
 invested in rail-roads and other public works. A 
 large proportion of the planters have beside great pri 
 vate debts of their own, secured by mortgage upon 
 their plantations and slaves, many of them being lit 
 tle better than tenants at will to some northern capi 
 talist, to whom all their property in fact belongs. 
 
 As the Southern States possess advantages of soil 
 and climate peculiar to themselves, it becomes an in 
 teresting inquiry, what is the cause of this compara 
 tive poverty ? 
 
 1. Political economists have generally agreed that 
 labor is the sole source of wealth. Whether this doc 
 trine be literally and absolutely true, may perhaps be 
 doubted ; it is however beyond all doubt, that labor 
 is a very principal source of value. 
 
 The great motive to labor, the great inducement to 
 exertion, that motive, that inducement which has 
 raised man from the primitive barbarism of the woods 
 to such degrees of refinement and civilization as have 
 yet been attained, has been, expectation of reward. 
 There is in this motive a sort of creative power, which 
 seems to give new strength and alacrity. It even 
 
IN AMERICA. 113 
 
 possesses the capacity of making labor delightful. The 
 only other motive powerful enough to overcome the 
 natural indolence of man, is the fear of punishment ; 
 but that is a melancholy and miserable motive which 
 seems to add a new distastefulness to labor, and to 
 wither up the energies of those whom it influences. 
 
 Now with respect to the whole unprivileged class, 
 that is to say the principal laboring class in the slave- 
 holding states, their only motive to industry, is this 
 second, this enfeebling motive, the fear of punishment. 
 Their labor is compulsive and reluctant, and its results 
 are proportionably small. 
 
 With respect to the other laboring class at the south, 
 to wit, the poor whites, their industry is paralyzed by 
 a fatal prejudice which regards manual labor as the 
 badge of a servile condition, and therefore as disgrace 
 ful, a prejudice which not even the expectation of 
 reward is strong enough to overcome. It is a preju 
 dice similar to this which has operated in no small 
 degree to keep Spain in a stationary state, two centu 
 ries behind the civilization of the rest of Europe. But 
 even Spain in this respect, is more fortunate than the 
 American slave holding states. It is the mechanic 
 arts which the Spaniards regard as derogatory, 
 whereas agriculture is comparatively respectable. In 
 the slave holding states of America, agricultural labor 
 is the most derogatory of all, because the labor of the 
 field most assimilates the condition of a freeman to 
 that of a slave. Whenever such notions prevail, they 
 are fatal to public prosperity. Poverty keeps pace 
 with pride. 
 
 Take the slave-holding states together, and the free 
 inhabitants are about twice as numerous as the slaves. 
 Yet all the great articles of production in which the 
 wealth of the slave-holding states consists, cotton, to 
 bacco, rice, sugar and flour, are produced almost ex 
 clusively by slave labor. 
 
 What then is the occupation of the free ? One class, 
 the larger slave-masters, contribute absolutely nothing 
 to the public stock. They hardly bestow a thought 
 
114 DESPOTISM 
 
 even upon the management of their own estates. 
 Their sole business is, to receive the income and to 
 spend it. Another class of the free population ob 
 tain a livelihood by acting as overseers or viceroys 
 for their richer neighbors. They are thus saved from 
 the degradation of manual labor ; but it is a hard ser 
 vice by which they earn their bread. So hard, that it 
 is very seldom performed to the satisfaction of their 
 employers. The planters give a terrible character of 
 the overseers as a class. According to their account, 
 the overseers as a general rale, are ignorant, stupid, 
 obstinate, negligent, drunken and dishonest. For 
 their ignorance they are hardly to blame, considering 
 what scanty means of education this class enjoy. 
 Stupidity and obstinacy are the natural fruits of igno 
 rance. Negligence and drunkenness they learn from 
 their employers ; and if overseers are dishonest it is 
 little to be wondered at, considering the temptations 
 and opportunities by which they are surrounded, and 
 the total confusion of all ideas of right and wrong, 
 justice and injustice, which the nature of their employ 
 ment is likely to produce. 
 
 The third and largest division of the privileged 
 class, compelled by absolute want to the disgraceful 
 necessity of manual labor, work with an unwilling 
 ness as great as that of the slaves, and with still less 
 of efficiency. The produce of their labor is very small. 
 In general it is hardly sufficient to support them in 
 that rude and semi-barbarous condition to which they 
 have been accustomed. 
 
 The disastrous effects of slave-holding upon free 
 industry, are particularly obvious in the families of 
 the small planters, and of those farmers who possess 
 but five or six slaves. These slaves suffice to perform 
 the labors of the farm, and when the land is fertile 
 the owner of it lives in a rustic plenty. A family of 
 sons grows up around him. He has no occasion for 
 their assistance on the farm, and if he had, they would 
 regard the labor as an intolerable disgrace. The boys 
 grow up in idleness, with little or no education, be- 
 
IN AMERICA. 115 
 
 cause there is no system of public instruction, and the 
 father cannot afford to send them to a distance in pur 
 suit of schools. They arrive at man s estate without 
 having been bred to any regular employment. Each 
 has his horse, his dog and his gun ; and while the father 
 lives the sons have a home ; they spend their time in 
 hunting, or in riding about the country, or at horse 
 races, frolics, barbecues, or political meetings. There 
 are thousands of young men in Kentucky and Tennes 
 see in this unhappy predicament. Full of spirit and 
 ambition, active, capable, eager for some honorable 
 employment ; but condemned by the social system of 
 which they form a part, and by the unhappy prejudi 
 ces against useful industry which that system engen 
 ders, to an idleness which presently becomes as irk 
 some to themselves, as it is fatal to the public pros 
 perity. When habit has made indolence inveterate, 
 and when they are too old to apply themselves with 
 zeal or success to a new course of life, the death of 
 the father cuts off the support they have hitherto en 
 joyed. His property divided among a numerous fam 
 ily, gives but a pittance to each. That pittance is 
 soon spent. Want stares the unhappy sufferers in the 
 face. They lose by degrees their standing and re 
 spectability. The weaker spirited among them sink 
 down to the lowest depths of poverty and vice. Those 
 of more energy emigrate to the new states of the far 
 west, and having escaped the charmed circle in which 
 they were so long bound up, they develop a new 
 character, and like their fathers before them, by means 
 of their own personal industry, they bring a farm into 
 cultivation and gradually acquire wealth. But if they 
 have settled in a slave state, that wealth is generally 
 invested in slaves ; and their own children are bred 
 up in that same style of helpless indolence of which 
 they themselves were so near becoming the victims, 
 and which their children perhaps will not so fortunate 
 ly escape. 
 
 Thus it appears that one plain and obvious effect of 
 the slave-holding system is, to deaden in every class 
 
116 DESPOTISM 
 
 of society that spirit of industry essential to the in 
 crease of public wealth. 
 
 2. The spirit of industry is riot however alone suf 
 ficient for the accumulation of property. Industry 
 quickens production ; but to accumulate, it is neces 
 sary not only to produce but to save. Economy then, 
 may justly be regarded as the second great source of 
 public wealth. 
 
 But to expect any thing like economy from the un 
 privileged class, would be extremely ridiculous. Econ 
 omy is like industry, it is like every other virtue, it 
 never will be exercised unless there is a motive con 
 stantly operating to produce it. Now in the condition 
 of servitude no such motive exists. In fact, the mo 
 tives are all the other way. The slave receives from 
 his master a certain weekly allowance of food. Any 
 attempt to lay by a part of it, would be absurd, for 
 as soon as a store was accumulated, the master, if he 
 discovered it, would stop the allowance till that store 
 was consumed ; or at all events, he would immediate 
 ly diminish an allowance which experience had shown 
 to be more than sufficient. It would be the same with 
 respect to clothing. But why dwell upon this topic? 
 Is it not plain that he who is incapable of possessing 
 property is alike destitute of motives to produce or to 
 save ? 
 
 If slaves are improvident with respect to themselves, 
 it is not remarkable that they are still more so with 
 respect to their owners. No matter what occurs ; if 
 the cotton house is on fire ; if the fences are down, 
 and the cattle destroy the corn ; if the horses stray 
 away ; if the tools are lost or broken ; it there hap 
 pens one or all the thousand accidents which are al 
 ways liable to diminish the value of their master s 
 property, and which a little care or foresight might 
 have prevented, any or all of these occurrences are 
 a matter of perfect unconcern to the slave, nor will he 
 voluntarily lift a finger to prevent them. If indeed he 
 has any feeling about the matter, it is rather an in 
 clination to destroy than to save. He experiences a 
 
IN AMERICA. 117 
 
 secret delight, in the losses and sorrows of a master 
 whom he hates. 
 
 Nor is economy likely to be practised to any con 
 siderable extent by the hireling overseers to whom the 
 management of the great plantations is intrusted. 
 These overseers are frequently changed, and they 
 have little or no interest in the economical manage 
 ment of the property intrusted to their charge. 
 
 As little can we look to the conduct of the slave- 
 masters for any exhibition of the virtue now under 
 consideration. It is an old observation that what 
 comes easy goes easy. This saying is verified by the 
 conduct of brigands, pirates, and robbers, and all 
 that class of men who live upon plunder. It applies 
 with equal force and for the same reason, to slave- 
 masters, who generally contrive to spend all they get 
 and to run into debt all they can. 
 
 We have thus seen that with respect to the slaves 
 and their owners, idleness and improvidence keep 
 close company. The same is the fact with respect to 
 the poorer class of freemen. Though their resources be 
 next to nothing, they still contrive to imitate in their 
 small way, the careless extravagance of their richer 
 neighbors. 
 
 It thus appears that there is a great deficiency of 
 the second principal source of public wealth, to wit, 
 economy, arrrong all classes of the population of the 
 slave-holding states of America. 
 
 3. A third great source of public wealth consists in 
 invention, by which is meant, the discovery of new 
 and more productive applications of industry. But to 
 call this great means of increasing the productive 
 power of a community into action, industry must be 
 honorable. That ingenuity which busies itself in ob 
 servations and experiments for the discovery of means 
 to produce the same effect with less labor, seldom 
 displays itself except in communities in which the 
 useful arts are held in high esteem. Even inventions 
 made elsewhere, are for the most part brought into 
 use with great difficulty, in those societies in which 
 
11.8 DESPOTISM 
 
 men of education and reflection, if such there are, 
 despise useful industry, and in which the great, busi- 
 ne.,s of production is intrusted to ignorant and stupid 
 slaves, and to overseers equally ignorant and stupid. 
 Under these circumstances every thing proceeds in the 
 same dull round, without change or attempt at im 
 provement. The more men know, and the more they 
 reflect, the more convinced they are how limited is 
 the actual extent of their progress. Ignorance is arro 
 gant, dogmatical, certain that it knows every thing 
 already. The idea of improvement does not enter into 
 all its thoughts. Hence it is that the early progress 
 of a people from barbarism to civilization takes place 
 by such hardly perceptible steps, and is subjected to 
 so many hindrances and interruptions, as almost to 
 discourage the most sanguine believers in human per 
 fectibility, and to have given rise to the common 
 opinion that savage nations are incapable of being 
 civilized ; while on the other hand, the history of our 
 own age serves to show, how civilization, once set 
 fairly in motion, advances with an impulse continu 
 ally accelerated, and which not even the most serious 
 obstacles can long retard. 
 
 The southern states derive no inconsiderable advan 
 tage from their close and intimate connection with the 
 free states of the north, of which the social system is 
 so essentially different. By this meanPme natural 
 effect of the institutions of the south, are to a certain 
 extent counteracted, especially in those newly settled 
 states into which there has been a considerable influx 
 of northern population. 
 
IN AMERICA. U9 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 Slavery as it affects the amount of capital required 
 for industrious undertakings. 
 
 All enterprises of industry, whether agricultural, 
 mechanical or mercantile, require a certain amount of 
 capital for their successful prosecution. Every thing 
 which enables these enterprises to be carried on with 
 a less amount of capital, contributes to the increase of 
 national wealth; arid on the other hand, every thing 
 which causes a greater amount of capital to be re 
 quired, is an obstacle in the way of all new under 
 takings. 
 
 In free communities, where the laborers have their 
 own labor at their own disposal, and where in conse 
 quence, they are ready to sell it, either by the day, 
 the year, or the hour, in any quantities, that is, in 
 which it may be needed, beside the fixed capital in 
 vested in lands, workshops, tools, ships, steamboats, 
 &c.. there are required two separate portions of floating 
 capital, one to be invested in the stock to be operated 
 upon, and the other to be employed in paying the 
 wages of labor. But no more labor need be paid for 
 than is actually employed. Whenever a smaller quan 
 tity will answer, a portion of the laborers may be dis 
 missed ; whenever more is needed, more laborers may 
 be employed. 
 
 But in a slave-holding community, in addition to 
 these three portions of capital, another and a very 
 large portion is required, in order to commence any 
 industrious enterprise whatever ; for though in such 
 a community there is no payment of wages, yet a 
 corresponding quantity of capital is necessary to fur 
 nish food, clothing, and medicines for the slaves. A 
 fourth and additional portion of capital is also required, 
 to be invested in the purchase of the laborers them 
 selves, a necessity which constitutes a great obstacle 
 in the way of all industrious enterprises. 
 
120 DESPOTISM 
 
 Take the business of agriculture for example. In 
 the new cotton-growing states, a very small sum of 
 money will suffice to purchase a plantation of several 
 hundred acres; but a very large sum of money is 
 needed to purchase the laborers necessary to carry on 
 the cultivation of it. Could laborers be hired by the 
 month or the day, as in free communities, a moderate 
 capital would enable the planter to command the labor 
 he would need, whereas, under existing circumstances, 
 no person can start a new plantation in Alabama or 
 Mississippi, who is not already possessed of a large 
 capital, or able to command it in the shape of loans. 
 
 We shall fall, probably, much under the mark, if 
 we assume that a capital of five thousand dollars in 
 vested in hired labor, would enable as many acres to 
 be cultivated, as a capital of fifty thousand dollars 
 invested in slave labor. The consequence of this 
 state of things is obvious. It gives a monopoly of 
 the command of labor to those who are already pos 
 sessed of large means, either in the shape of property 
 or of credit. Persons of small capital have no chance 
 to compete with persons of large capital, because by 
 this system, a large capital is rendered absolutely 
 necessary to obtain that command of labor without 
 which no industrious enterprise can be carried on. 
 This single fact is sufficient to explain that tendency of 
 the wealth of a slave community to concentrate in a few 
 hands, which has been stated in a preceding chapter. 
 
 This system not only gives a monopoly of the com 
 mand of labor to those who are already rich, but it 
 is also a very wasteful and extravagant system. It 
 compels the operator to purchase and to support a 
 much larger number of laborers than he ordinarily 
 has occasi5n for. He is obliged constantly to own 
 and to feed the largest number ever necessary in his 
 business, or else to submit, occasionally, to severe loss, 
 for want of a sufficiency of labor. In the cotton 
 planting business, for instance, a given number of 
 slaves can cultivate a considerably larger quantity of 
 cotton than they can gather in ; so that the planter is 
 
IN AMERICA. 121 
 
 either obliged to submit to an annual loss of a portion 
 of the crop which he has brought to maturity, or else 
 to cultivate less than he otherwise might, for the sake 
 of gathering all. 
 
 The cotton crop, however, as it extends the labor 
 of cultivation and gathering in, through almost the 
 entire year, is less surely attended with this sort of 
 loss, than are the grain crops and farm cultivation of 
 the more northern slave-holding states. In those states, 
 during the winter, there is comparatively little occasion 
 for labor on the farms. During all that time, the capi 
 tal invested in the ownership of slaves, is unproductive, 
 and the slave -master is saddled in addition with the 
 expense of supporting laborers, for whose services he 
 has no occasion. 
 
 What a great discouragement to the poor, that is, to 
 the great mass of the free population, this system pre 
 sents, will be evident from a few considerations. In 
 those parts of the slave states in which slavery pre 
 dominates, it is impossible to hire free laborers. To 
 work at all, even on one s own little tract of land, is 
 considered a sufficient degradation ; but to work for 
 another person, to put one s self under his direction, 
 seems to approach too near to the condition of slavery, 
 to be at all endurable. If a person, therefore, wishes to 
 employ any other labor than his own, he must have re 
 course to slave labor. But the employment of the labor 
 of other people is in general absolutely essential to the 
 accumulation of wealth. Where a man merely hoards 
 up the profits of his own labor, his wealth increases only 
 as money does when placed at simple interest, and 
 the industry and economy of a long life will accumu 
 late but a moderate sum. But if those profits are in 
 vested in the employment of the labor of other people, 
 his wealth then increases like money at compound 
 interest. 
 
 But when to employ other labor than one s own, it 
 
 is necessary to buy the laborers, a considerable sum 
 
 must be first accumulated, before it can be employed 
 
 at all ; and as has been shown in another place, so 
 
 11 
 
122 DESPOTISM 
 
 long as the number of slaves which a person possesses, 
 is small, the investment is exceedingly precarious. 
 
 The necessity of a great capital, and the wasteful 
 ness with which that capital is employed, sufficiently 
 explain the fact, why in all those occupations in which 
 the industry of the free states has come into competi 
 tion with the labor of slaves, the free states have been 
 able to undersell their rivals. Slave labor is only 
 profitably employed in those kinds of business, such 
 as the cultivation of cotton, rice, and sugar, in which 
 the climate and soil of the northern states prevent 
 the people of those states from engaging. In the cul 
 tivation of grain, the raising of stock, and all the 
 operations of farming agriculture, the profits of the 
 slave-holding cultivators are notoriously small, and 
 many a large slave-holder grows poor in that same 
 pursuit, which enriches the farmer of Ohio, Pennsyl 
 vania and New York, who begins life with no other 
 resource than his own capacity to labor. Hence that 
 heavy drain of emigration, hence that fatal domestic 
 slave trade, which aggravates the poverty of the older 
 of the slave states, by carrying off that labor, which 
 constitutes the principal means of economical pros 
 perity. 
 
 This same necessity for a great capital, in order to 
 undertake any industrious enterprise, and the same 
 necessary wastefulness in the employment of that capi 
 tal, afford also one reason among many others, why it 
 has been found unprofitable to set up manufacturing 
 establishments at the south. It is not only necessary 
 to build your factory, and to buy your machinery and 
 stock, but before you can commence operations, you 
 must expend a still larger sum in the purchase of 
 laborers. Apart from everything else, a sufficient rea 
 son for the non-establishment of manufactures at the 
 South, is to be found in the fact, that at the North, the 
 same annual quantity of manufactured products can 
 be turned out, with the employment of much less than 
 half the amount of capital, which would be necessary 
 for the same purpose at the South. 
 
IN AMERICA. 123 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 Agriculture in the Slave-holding States. 
 
 If we may believe John Taylor of Caroline, the 
 author of Arator, or Mr. Ruffin, the ingenious editor 
 of the Virginia Farmers 1 Register, the best agricul 
 tural periodical ever published in the United States, 
 agriculture at the South does not consist so much in 
 cultivating land, as in killing it. The process is as 
 follows. 
 
 A quantity of virgin soil, in those of the slave states 
 in which any such soil is yet to be found, is cleared 
 up every winter. The trees are cut down and burnt, 
 or merely girdled, and left to decay and fall with the 
 lapse of time. When tobacco is the crop, this fresh 
 land is planted with tobacco each successive year till 
 its fertility is exhausted. When it will no longer pro 
 duce tobacco, it is planted with corn or wheat, till it 
 will not afford a crop worth gathering. It is then 
 turned out, that is, left unfenced and uncultivated, to 
 grow up with thickets of sassafras or persimmon 
 bushes, or with forests of the short-leaved pine, a 
 majestic tree in appearance, but the timber of which 
 is subject to so rapid a decay, as to be of little or no 
 value. 
 
 In the cotton-growing states, corn and cotton are 
 planted alternately, till the land is completely worn 
 out. When its original fertility is exhausted, no fur 
 ther attempt is made at its cultivation. It is turned 
 out, and the labor of the plantation is applied to new 
 fields, which presently undergo a similar fate. Thus, 
 every year, a certain quantity of land is given over 
 as worthless, and new inroads are made upon the 
 original forest. Agriculture becomes a continual pro 
 cess of opening new fields, and abandoning the old. 
 
 This brief account of southern agriculture, will serve 
 to explain the remarkable fact, that what we should 
 call improved lands, that is, lands which have been 
 
124 DESPOTISM 
 
 brought into cultivation, are generally of inferior value 
 and price to the adjoining wild lands which must be 
 cleared up before they can be planted. Every crop 
 taken from a field diminishes its value ; and as the 
 number of successive crops which can be taken with 
 out reducing the land to a state of barrenness, is not 
 great, the diminution in its value, is sufficiently rapid. 
 This is one cause of the sparseness of population at 
 the south. No planter ever thinks he has land enough. 
 Knowing that he destroys a quantity every year, he 
 is anxious still to enlarge his domain so as to be cer 
 tain of having a supply sufficient to meet the con 
 sumption. 
 
 Almost the only wealth in the southern states consists 
 in lands and slaves. But slaves are only valuable as 
 cultivators of the soil ; and as the productive power 
 of the soil diminishes, the value of slaves must decline 
 with the decreasing amount which they are able to 
 produce. The inevitable consequences to which this 
 system of agriculture must finally lead, are sufficiently 
 obvious. The soil in its whole extent, being at length 
 exhausted, the slaves will hardly be able to produce 
 enough for their own support. They will cease to 
 possess any marketable value ; and the entire mass of 
 the population will sink down into a state of misera 
 ble poverty, from which they can emerge only by a 
 complete change of manners and habits, and a tho 
 rough revolution in the social system. 
 
 Nor is this period by any means so distant as may 
 at first appear. For though the superficial extent of 
 the slave holding states is very great, the quantity of 
 land which they afford of sufficient natural fertility to 
 admit of being cultivated according to the southern 
 method, is not great. Deduct the mountains, the mo 
 rasses and the vast pine barrens, and but a moderate 
 extent of land will remain, a part of which has already 
 been exhausted and deserted, and all of which, with 
 the exception of some alluvial tracks, along the water 
 courses, is of a description riot fitted long to withstand 
 the destructive processes of southern agriculture. 
 
IN AMERICA. 125 
 
 This progress of pauperism, presents itself under 
 very different aspects, in different states of the union, 
 according to the antiquity of their settlement, and the 
 density of their population. In the newer states, in 
 which the proportion of virgin land is still very great, 
 to a superficial view it is altogether non-apparent. 
 Its early operation suggests nothing but ideas of pub 
 lic prosperity and increasing wealth. But there is a 
 certain point where the tide turns. The spendthrift, 
 so long as his money holds out, has the appearance 
 and enjoys the reputation of abundant riches. It is 
 only when his resources begin to fail, that the reality 
 of his condition, and the true nature of his conduct 
 become apparent. 
 
 Virginia is the oldest of the slave states. All the 
 rest are treading in her footsteps. From her unfortu 
 nate condition at the present moment it is easy to 
 portend what theirs must presently become. Eastern 
 Virginia, including all that portion of the state east of 
 the Blue Ridge, presented to the original colonists, a 
 most inviting country. Washed on one side by a spa 
 cious bay, into which poured numerous rivers, broad, 
 deep and navigable, all the lower part of the state had 
 received from the hand of nature such unusual facili 
 ties of water communication, that hardly a point could 
 be found twenty miles distant from navigable waters ; 
 and for the most part, every plantation had its land 
 ing place. These numerous rivers were stored and 
 still continue to be stored with such an abundance of 
 fish, fowl and oysters as might alone suffice to support 
 a numerous population. Above the falls of the rivers 
 was a hilly diversified country, generally rich, and if 
 it had some barren tracts, affording spots of the most 
 exuberant fertility. 
 
 When Eastern Virginia first began to be settled, it 
 afforded beyond all question, the richest and most 
 desirable country any where to be found along the 
 Atlantic coast of the union. 
 
 The cultivation of tobacco soon became so profita 
 ble, that the more industrious of the colonists grew 
 11* 
 
126 DESPOTISM 
 
 rich by it. Most unfortunately they invested these 
 profits in the purchase of slaves from Africa. The 
 introduction of slave labor presently proved fatal to 
 the industry of the free. But this circumstance was 
 little thought of or regarded, so long as the tobacco 
 cultivation continued to increase, and to bring in rich 
 returns. The wealthier planters rose to the condition 
 of nabobs. They extended their plantations, increas 
 ed the number of their slaves, and spent freely the 
 large incomes which their estates produced. The 
 apparent wealth and prosperity of the country was 
 very great. 
 
 By degrees, the entire surface in the older portions 
 of the state had been cleared, planted and exhausted. 
 Tobacco requires a rich soil, and the impoverished 
 land would no longer produce it. It became neces 
 sary to abandon this species of cultivation, first in the 
 tide-water districts, and afterwards in all that portion 
 of the state north of the James River. The culture of 
 tobacco in Virginia is now confined, for the most part, 
 to a few of the southern counties, in the vicinity of the 
 Blue Ridge, in which some virgin land is still to be 
 found. 
 
 The cultivation of grain succeeded to that of tobac 
 co. These crops were far less profitable; but even 
 these, when taken in constant succession from the 
 same soil, are scarcely less exhausting. The lands 
 have continued to deteriorate till large tracts have been 
 abandoned as absolutely worthless. Meantime, a 
 constant stream of emigration has been pouring out 
 of Virginia. It was first directed to Kentucky, and 
 the states north-west of the Ohio. It then consisted of 
 the poorer portions of the white population, who were 
 the first to suffer from the general decline. This emi 
 gration is now directed towards the cotton growing 
 states of the south-west. It is greater than ever, and 
 embraces the wealthiest men and the largest slave-hold 
 ers, who find that slave property, which is valueless 
 in Virginia, except as an article of exportation, can be 
 put to profitable use in the cultivation of cotton. The 
 
IN AMERICA. 127 
 
 domestic slave-trade produces another equally serious 
 drain upon the population of Eastern Virginia. In 
 default of crops, the planters have no other means to 
 meet their expenses, except selling their slaves. This 
 affords a momentary relief, but it is fatal to the per 
 manent prosperity of the country, which in losing its 
 laboring men, in losing its cultivators, loses the only 
 means whereby it can recover from its present decline. 
 
 That part of Virginia which lies upon tide waters, 
 presents an aspect of universal decay. Its population 
 diminishes, and it sinks day by day, into a lower 
 depth of exhaustion and poverty. The country be 
 tween tide waters and the Blue Ridge is fast passing 
 into the same condition. Mount Vernon is a desert 
 waste ; Monticello is little better ; and the same cir 
 cumstances which have desolated the lands of Wash 
 ington and Jefferson, have impoverished every plant 
 er in the state. Hardly any have escaped save the 
 owners of the rich bottom lands along James River, 
 the fertility of which it seems difficult utterly to destroy. 
 
 This thriftless system of cultivation, which consists 
 in exhausting a field and then abandoning it, prevail 
 ed originally in the more northern states as well as in 
 Virginia. So long as the quantity of new land ap 
 peared inexhaustible, this method of culture was a 
 natural and profitable operation, and it was continued 
 by habit long after its bad policy became apparent. 
 Soon after the close of the revolutionary war the same 
 symptoms of exhausted fertility which begun to show 
 themselves in Virginia, made their appearance also in 
 the more northern states. The farmers presently 
 became fully sensible of the ruinous course they were 
 pursuing, and the more intelligent began to turn their 
 attention towards an improved method of cultivation. 
 The custom of manuring, introduced by degrees, is 
 now considered in all the older parts of the country, 
 an essential part of husbandry. A proper rotation of 
 crops is very generally attended to, and at present it 
 is well understood, that lands under a proper system 
 of cultivation ought to increase rather than decline 
 
128 DESPOTISM 
 
 in fertility. In fact, within the last twenty years so 
 great has been the improvement in agriculture in the 
 older portions of the northern states, that the face of 
 the country has assumed a new aspect, and large tracts 
 which were formerly considered as naturally barren, 
 and worthless, have been transformed into fertile arid 
 productive farms. Improvements in culture keep pace 
 with increase of population, and the soil, instead of 
 being constantly deteriorated, is constantly increasing 
 in productiveness and value. 
 
 Some patriotic citizens of Virginia have from time 
 to time made great exertions to promote in their own 
 state, an emulation of these northern improvements. 
 But their well-intended efforts have utterly failed. In 
 deed they are opposed by irresistible obstacles. In the 
 free states the land is portioned out into small farms, 
 tilled by the hands of the owners, whose attention is 
 exclusively bestowed upon the business of agriculture. 
 There is a certain portion of intellect devoted to the 
 improvement of every hundred acres. In Virginia the 
 land is held for the most part in portions ten or twenty 
 times larger, and even were the owners zealous for im 
 provement, on farms so large that same careful over 
 sight and attention could not be bestowed on every 
 part. But then the owners of the land will not give 
 their attention to the matter. It is contrary to the 
 whole tenor of their habits, taste and education. They 
 have slaves, and can hire an overseer. Why should 
 they plague themselves with the details of a business 
 which they do not like, and do not understand? 
 
 From the overseer and the slaves, as they have no 
 interest in improvement, of course nothing is to be ex 
 pected. In fact it is the obvious interest of the over 
 seer to scourge as much out of the plantation as pos 
 sible, without the slightest regard to future conse 
 quences, especially if he is paid, as overseers often are, 
 by a portion of the crop. 
 
 But there are obstacles, to be encountered still more 
 serious than these. Improvements cannot be made 
 except by the expenditure of a certain portion of capi- 
 
IN AMERICA. 129 
 
 tal upon the land. Either additional slaves must be 
 purchased, or else a certain portion of the labor now 
 employed in producing a small crop, must be diverted 
 from immediate production, and employed in opera 
 tions undertaken with a view to distant returns. But 
 this is an expenditure which the greater number of 
 planters cannot afford. As it is, with all their slaves 
 employed in scourging out of the land the greatest 
 immediate produce, their expenses exceed their in 
 comes, and they are running into debt every year. 
 They are in no condition to risk the loss or curtail 
 ment of a single crop by changing the established 
 method of cultivation, and attempting the introduc 
 tion of improvements. 
 
 More yet, it is positively bad economy for a Virginia 
 planter to undertake the improvement of his estate. 
 Labor is the only means of resuscitating the exhausted 
 lands of Virginia. Slave labor is the only kind of la 
 bor which in the present condition of things can be 
 employed for that purpose. But in the slave market, 
 the Virginia planter, even though he has money at 
 command which is a case sufficiently unusual, can 
 not afford to compete with the slave traders from the 
 South west. The profits which he can possibly derive 
 from slave labor will not warrant him in paying so 
 high a price. Of course he does not purchase; the 
 slaves are driven off to be employed upon cotton plant 
 ations, while the lands of Virginia are left unimprov 
 ed, and still declining in value. Even as regards the 
 labor of slaves already in the planter s possession, it is 
 a much more profitable operation to emigrate with 
 these slaves to Mississippi or Louisiana, and there to 
 employ their labor in raising cotton, and killing land, 
 than to attempt the improvement of the worn out 
 lands at home. 
 
 That high price of slaves in the south western mar 
 ket, which the Virginians regard as a fortunate addi 
 tion to their diminishing resources, is likely to prove 
 in its ultimate results, the greatest curse with which 
 the state could be visited. If it were not for the do- 
 
130 DESPOTISM 
 
 mestic slave trade, slaves would scarcely have an ex 
 changeable value in Virginia; the great cheapness of 
 labor would facilitate agricultural improvements, and 
 the total impossibility of going on any longer in the 
 old way, would lead to important changes in the ex 
 isting system. As it is, the laboring population of the 
 country, that population upon which all its wealth 
 and consequence depends, is daily drained away. The 
 state is bleeding at every pore, and a fatal lethargy 
 must be the consequence. The richest soil, the most 
 exuberant fertility without labor is unproductive and 
 worthless. What will be the condition of a state 
 which has sold to the slave traders, the only laborious 
 part of her population, whose most enterprising citi 
 zens have deserted their homes, and whose exhaust 
 ed lands hold out no temptation to emigrants from 
 abroad ? 
 
 In addition to the obstacles already pointed out in 
 the way of agricultural improvement at the South, 
 there is one yet to be mentioned, of a still more per 
 manent and decisive nature. It is a well established 
 doctrine, that a rotation of crops, a variety and a very 
 considerable variety in the articles cultivated, is es 
 sential to a highly improved state of agriculture. But 
 such a rotation and variety is impossible in a country 
 which is exclusively agricultural, and which must 
 necessarily confine itself to some crops that will pay 
 the expense of distant transportation. The number 
 of these crops is exceedingly few, and they are all of a 
 very exhausting character. The greater number of 
 vegetable productions are only of use to be consumed 
 on the spot; and such a consumption cannot take 
 place to any considerable extent, except there be in 
 the neighborhood a manufacturing population to take 
 off the extra supply. Agricultural improvements have 
 ever kept pace with the extension of manufacturing 
 industry. The reasons have been already given why 
 the creation of a manufacturing population under 
 existing circumstances, is impossible at the south, and 
 that subject will be further considered in the follow 
 ing section. 
 
IN AMERICA. 131 
 
 The condition of agriculture in Eastern Virginia, 
 is in a greater or less degree its condition in Mary 
 land, in North Carolina, in South Carolina, and in the 
 older parts of Georgia. In the two latter states the 
 cultivation of cotton has been attended by conse 
 quences exactly similar to those produced in Virginia, 
 by the culture of tobacco. After pouring in upon 
 those states a momentary flood of wealth, which glit 
 tered and disappeared, it has left the soil in a state of 
 exhaustion and barrenness, for which no present reme 
 dy appears. 
 
 The south-western states, Alabama, Mississippi and 
 Louisiana are now the El Dorado of the slave-holders. 
 In those states, cotton at present prices is a very pro 
 fitable crop. The demand for slaves is brisk. Good 
 field hands sell for nine hundred, or ten hundred dol 
 lars. The slaves of Maryland, Virginia and North 
 Carolina are purchased up in droves for this market, 
 and numbers equally large are moved off to the south 
 west by emigrating planters. But these slaves, if they 
 are lucratively employed in cultivating cotton, are 
 employed at the same time, in killing land. Slavery 
 will presently visit the south-west with the same blight 
 of exhaustion and barrenness, which has already 
 alighted upon Virginia and the Carolinas. In propor 
 tion to the rapidity with which the apparent immedi 
 ate prosperity of the south-western states is now ad 
 vancing, will be hastened the era of their decay. 
 
 In the free states of the Union, the wealth of the 
 west promotes the wealth of the east. The more 
 prosperous are the new states, the more prosperous 
 are the old. At the south it is not so. The new 
 states are aggrandized at the expense of the old 
 ones. But this aggrandizement has nothing in it, 
 solid or permanent. For a short time a great annual 
 income is obtained ; but it is obtained only by the an 
 nual consumption of a portion of that natural fertility, 
 in which consists the only real capital of those com 
 munities, and this capital being presently exhausted, 
 their short lived prosperity vanishes like a shadow. 
 
132 DESPOTISM 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 Manufactures and Commerce in the Slave-holding 
 States. 
 
 No merely agricultural nation ever yet attained a 
 high degree of prosperity, or civilization. To attain 
 that result it is necessary that manufacturing and 
 commercial industry should combine with agriculture. 
 All these three branches of industry are so sympathet 
 ically connected, that neither of them alone can be 
 carried to any great degree of perfection. 
 
 There have already been suggested several reasons 
 why manufactures cannot prosper in the slave-holding 
 states. It is necessary here to recapitulate them and 
 to bring them together in a single point of view. 
 
 1. Skill in the greater part of the mechanic and 
 manufacturing arts, is not consistent with the state of 
 total ignorance and barbarism in which it is judged 
 the best policy that the unprivileged class should be 
 kept. Skilled laborers are and must be, more intel 
 ligent and better informed, than those of an ordinary 
 kind. 
 
 2. Such skill is still less consistent with that social 
 condition which deprives those subjected to it, of all 
 motive to acquire that degree of expertness, on which 
 the success of most mechanical operations so essen 
 tially depends. 
 
 3. With respect to the laboring part of the free pop 
 ulation, the acquisition of manufacturing skill is little 
 to be expected from the state of ignorance, indolence 
 and depression which are to them the natural results 
 of the existence of slavery in the community of which 
 they form a part. 
 
 These three reasons go to cut off the supply of that 
 kind of labor essential to the prosecution of manufac 
 turing operations. But besides labor, there is needed 
 knowledge, tact, skill and judgment in the oversight 
 and direction of labor, and capital to set it m operation. 
 
IN AMERICA. 133 
 
 1. With regard to the oversight and direction of 
 manufacturing operations, persons are very rarely to 
 be found among the native population of the southern 
 states, possessed of the necessary qualifications. The 
 whole course of their education and habits is averse to 
 that system of order, economy, and minute and exact 
 attention, which such a business requires. 
 
 2. As regards capital, it has been shown in a pre 
 vious section, under what disadvantages all industri 
 ous operations labor at the south, from the compara 
 tively large amount of it, necessary to set them in ope 
 ration. In any manufacturing business for example, it 
 is necessary to have capital enough over and above all 
 that is required for the fixtures and stock, to purchase 
 the laborers who are to carry it on. 
 
 From the combined operation of these several causes 
 it results, both in theory and in fact, that manufac 
 turing processes, on any large scale, are almost un 
 known at the south, and that even the commonest me 
 chanical arts are at a very low ebb. 
 
 It is obvious at once, when the condition of the 
 various classes of the population at the south is con 
 sidered, and when regard is had to the state of manu 
 factures, that trade cannot greatly flourish. The un 
 privileged class have nothing to sell except what they 
 steal, and of course they have but little to buy. The 
 laboring freemen, produce but little, and of course are 
 able to purchase but little. The class of wealthy 
 slave-holders is very limited in number, and a large 
 part of their income is often spent at a distance from 
 home. The principal mercantile operations consist 
 in the purchase and shipment of the great agricultural 
 staples, a business which is carried on for the most 
 part by means of English or northern capital, and at 
 the same time by English or northern agents, and 
 English or northern shipping. 
 
 Neither manufactures nor commerce can be regard 
 ed as adding any thing considerable to the wealth of 
 the slave-holding states. 
 12 
 
134 DESPOTISM 
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 Instability and uncertainty of values in the Slave- 
 Holding- States. 
 
 The necessity which the southern planters are un 
 der of confining themselves to the production of a few 
 great staple crops, has been already stated arid ex 
 plained. Slave labor in the United States, was first 
 applied to the cultivation of tobacco. But the foreign 
 demand for that article has been stationary ever since 
 the revolutionary Avar, while the domestic demand 
 increases only in proportion to the increase of the pop 
 ulation. Since the facilities of transportation between 
 the western states and the Atlantic seaboard have been 
 so much increased by the construction of canals and 
 railroads, the farmers of Ohio have gone extensively 
 into the cultivation of tobacco. They produce it by 
 free labor, and the quantity of slave labor which can 
 be profitably employed in this culture is more likely 
 to increase than to diminish. 
 
 The second application of slave labor in the United 
 States, was to the cultivation of rice. That cultiva 
 tion however is and always has been, confined to a 
 narrow tract of country along the sea coast of South 
 Carolina and Georgia ; and as the demand for the 
 article is nearly stationary, any considerable increase 
 of the production would so diminish the price as to 
 make it an unprofitable business. 
 
 Sugar is produced chiefly in the southern districts 
 of Louisiana. This culture has been fostered by a 
 protective duty, but the climate is too cold and un 
 steady for its extensive prosecution. A few favorable 
 seasons created a very false idea of the profits of this 
 cultivation. A series of cold seasons has corrected 
 these hasty impressions. Even including Texas and 
 Florida, the production of cane sugar in the United 
 States must always be restricted to a limited area. 
 
 The cultivation of cotton, an article of which the 
 
IN AMERICA. 135 
 
 consumption has so remarkably increased within the 
 last fifty years, has alone prevented the entire depre 
 ciation of southern property. There has been thus 
 furnished a crop, to the production of which the labor 
 of slaves could be profitably applied, and which has 
 prevented such a competition in the other limited ap 
 plications of slave labor above enumerated, as would 
 have rendered them utterly ruinous. 
 
 The cotton cultivated in the United States is of two 
 distinct kinds, known in commerce, as Sea island, and 
 upland or short staple. The Sea island cotton has a 
 long silky fibre which adheres so slightly to the seed, 
 as to be easily removed by means of two wooden roll 
 ers turning upon each other, which suffer the cotton 
 wool to pass between them, but which exclude and 
 separate the seed. This kind of cotton is employed 
 only in the finest manufactures, and its consumption is 
 very limited. It bears a much higher value than the 
 other description but it is less productive, and requires 
 great care and labor in its preparation for market. 
 The sea air seems essential to it, and its cultivation 
 is limited to an alluvial tract along the sea coast of 
 South Carolina and Georgia. The cultivation of this 
 kind of cotton was introduced about the conclusion of 
 the revolutionary war ; but it has always been of so 
 limited an extent as to hold out no relief to the great 
 body of the slave-holders. 
 
 The upland or short staple cotton, has a short fibre 
 adhering with such tenacity to the seed, as to require 
 the saw gin, an invention of the ingenious Whitney, 
 for its separation. This kind of cotton succeeds as 
 well in the interior as near the sea, and it is this kind, 
 the consumption of which has so rapidly increased. 
 It first began to be cultivated as a crop about the be 
 ginning of the present century. For the first twenty 
 years its production was principally confined to Geor 
 gia and the Carolinas. Since that time it has spread 
 into the new states of the south-west, which now pro 
 duce more than three fourths of the entire crop, which 
 in the period since the peace with Great Britain in 
 
136 DESPOTISM 
 
 1815, has risen from two hundred thousand bales, to 
 upwards of three millions, per annum. 
 
 The cultivation of cotton is the only employment of 
 slave labor which admits of profitable extension. The 
 price of cotton regulates the price of slaves, and in 
 cidentally, the value of all kinds of property at the 
 south. When all values are thus made dependent 
 1 upon a single pursuit, they are necessarily subject to 
 great fluctuations. When there is a great variety of 
 employments, there is established in consequence, a sort 
 of average permanency of profits. Agriculture may 
 be flourishing, though manufactures and commerce are 
 suffering a temporary depression ; and some branches 
 of agriculture may be profitable, though others fail. 
 At the south, every thing is staked upon the cast of 
 a single die ; and as is apt to happen in all such cases, 
 the planters are either in a state of high prosperity 
 which leads to great speculations and the creation of 
 great debts, or else in a state of depression, ruinous 
 both to northern lenders, and to southern borrowers. 
 
 The commercial fluctuations of the United States 
 generally take their origin at the south. A high price 
 of cotton creates at the south a feeling of wealth and 
 a strong disposition to contract debts, while it pro 
 duces at the north, a strong disposition to give credit. 
 Even though the price of cotton continues high, the 
 expectation of the planters runs so far beyond the 
 reality, that they presently become unable to fulfil 
 their engagements; and if a decline in the price of 
 cotton should follow, their inability becomes total, and 
 the severe losses experienced in consequence by the 
 merchants and manufacturers of the north, throw 
 their business also into a temporary confusion. 
 
 There is much reason to expect that these violent 
 fluctuations in the value of southern property will 
 presently terminate in a general and permanent de 
 preciation. Whether lands and slaves, ten years 
 hence, shall have any considerable value in any of 
 the southern states, seems to depend very much upon 
 the fact, whether or not the consumption of cotton 
 
IN AMERICA. 137 
 
 shall keep pace with its production. If production 
 should overrun consumption, the market will be glut 
 ted, the price will fall, the business will become un 
 profitable, and unless some new, extensive and profita 
 ble application of slave labor should unexpectedly be 
 discovered, an event which is highly improbable 
 land and labor throughout the south, must undergo a 
 great decline in value. 
 
 There are weighty reasons for anticipating this result 
 within a moderate period. Twice already within the 
 last twenty years the production of cotton has so over 
 run consumption as to reduce the profits of the busi 
 ness to the lowest ebb. The price has since rallied, 
 but this rise of profits has produced a new rush into 
 the business, and a vast emigration from the more 
 northern of the slave-holding states, which must re 
 sult in a great increase of the production. On the 
 other hand the consumption of cotton goods has al 
 ready reached a point, which makes its extension con 
 tinually more difficult. There is no reason to suppose 
 that it can go on increasing for twenty years to come, 
 as it has for twenty years past. That increase has 
 been principally caused by cotton fabrics superseding 
 for certain purposes, the use of linen and woollen cloths. 
 That is a process which has a certain limit and which 
 cannot be repeated. The consumption of cotton goods 
 will doubtless continue to increase ; but this increase 
 of consumption will be more upon a par than hereto 
 fore, with the increased consumption of other manu 
 factures. 
 
 Whatever the increased demand for cotton may be, 
 the slave-holding states of the Union, are liable to en 
 counter a severe competition in supplying it. All that 
 portion of the American continent south of the United 
 States is well fitted for the production of this article. 
 Cotton of a very superior quality is produced to a 
 large amount, in Brazil, and all Spanish America 
 will presently be entering the market as a rival. 
 
 Great exertions are now making in India, by British 
 cultivators, to improve the quality of Indian cotton, 
 
138 DESPOTISM 
 
 and not without success. The quantity of this article 
 worked up by the British manufacturers is steadily 
 increasing; and when we recollect how completely 
 the British indigo planters in India, succeeded in de 
 stroying the cultivation of indigo in the United States, 
 which was once a very considerable business, by pro 
 ducing a superior article at a less price, the competition 
 of the Indian cotton planters, however some ignorant 
 persons may ridicule it, is by no means to be despised. 
 
 Additional competition is to be expected from Africa. 
 The Egyptian cottons are already well known as of 
 very superior quality; and it seems highly probable 
 that the French will presently introduce the same sort 
 of cultivation into their Algerine possessions. 
 
 On the whole it must be confessed that the single 
 prop of the cultivation of cotton, forms a most slender, 
 fragile and uncertain support, on which to rest the 
 prosperity of an extensive and increasing population. 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 
 Comparative Progress and Prosperity of the Free 
 and of the Slave-holding States. 
 
 It is a fact too obvious to be denied even by the 
 most prejudiced observers, that the slave-holding states 
 of the Union are far inferior to the free states, in every 
 thing that constitutes civilization, in wealth, in ed 
 ucation, in the useful and ornamental arts, in public 
 institutions, in public spirit, in literature, in science, 
 in density of population, in facility of intercourse, in 
 the splendor of cities, the neatness of towns, the com 
 forts and conveniency of individual dwellings. 
 
 Of the thirteen states which originally composed the 
 Union, slavery still prevails in six. It has been abol 
 ished in the others, where indeed it never existed to 
 
IN AMERICA. 139 
 
 any considerable extent. These old free states, by 
 the separation of Maine from Massachusetts and the 
 admission of Vermont, increased to nine in number, 
 include an area of about one hundred and fifty thou 
 sand square miles; the extent of the six old slave 
 states is upwards of two hundred thousand square 
 miles. By the first census in 1790, the former contained 
 a population of 1,908,000 souls ; the population of 
 the latter amounted to 1,848,000. Fifty years after, 
 by the census of 1840, the population of the old free 
 states amounted to 6,760,880, while the population of 
 the six old slave states was only 3,826,323. The cen 
 sus of 1850 shows the continued operation of the same 
 causes, the free section having gained upon the popu 
 lation of 1840 to the extent of 1,553,834, while the 
 increase in the slave section is but 713,312, or less 
 than half as much. 
 
 Density of population, and the existence of towns and 
 cities, are essential to any great degree of social pro 
 gress. Brought thus into contact, mind acts upon mind ; 
 what is discovered by one soon becomes known to all ; 
 emulation leads to new discoveries and enterprises 
 competition constantly exerts its beneficial influence ; 
 the division of labor, that essential means of improve 
 ment, is not practicable among a scattered population ; 
 cities are the central points from which knowledge, en 
 terprise, and civilization stream out upon the surround 
 ing country. 
 
 In the eight free States above referred to, we find 
 three large cities, New York, Philadelphia, and Bos 
 ton, the first of which is generally regarded as the 
 commercial metropolis of the Union. There are not 
 less than twenty other considerable towns which are 
 growing with rapidity, and several of which promise 
 to rise to the first importance. Villages containing five 
 or six thousand inhabitants, are quite numerous ; new 
 ones are springing up every day, and others are pass 
 ing from the class of villages into that of towns. 
 
 How different a picture is presented by the old slave 
 States ! They contain but one city deserving the 
 name, and that one ? be it observed, is situated upon 
 
140 DESPOTISM 
 
 the verge of the free States, and owes the principal 
 part of its importance to that very circumstance. In 
 wealth, trade and public institutions, in literature, 
 science and general refinement, Baltimore is far in 
 ferior to either of the great cities of the north. Charles 
 ton is a little more than a place of deposite for the pro 
 duce of the surrounding country, and a retreat for the 
 neighboring planters from the unhealthiness of their 
 plantations. It has been about stationary for this last 
 thirty years, and the same is true of Alexandria, Nor 
 folk, Savannah, and other ancient towns. Jamestown, 
 the original capital of Virginia, has ceased to exist, the 
 ruins of an old church steeple are its only memorial. 
 Williamsburg the second capital of Virginia, has long 
 been in decay. Such existence as it has, it owes to the 
 ancient college established there. Richmond, the pre 
 sent capital presents a more thriving appearance, 
 but to judge by the depopulation and impoverishment 
 of the surrounding country, it must soon share a simi 
 lar fate. 
 
 What are called towns in these States, would for 
 the most part, be esteemed at the north, as little better 
 than villages. In addition to the small number scat 
 tered along the sea-coast, there are a few of more re 
 cent growth, situated on the great rivers, generally at 
 the head of steam-boat navigation. They are points 
 at which the produce of the country is collected for 
 shipment, and whence imported goods are distributed 
 through the adjoining country ; but so few and far be 
 tween, as scarcely at all to vary the dull monotony of 
 a poorly peopled country which presents at the same 
 time, all the rudeness of a new settlement, and all the 
 marks of old age and decay. 
 
 If the slave holding states formed a separate and in 
 sulated nation, cut off from communication and inter 
 course with the free states of the north, there is good 
 reason to suppose that they would fall rapidly behind 
 hand, in the career of civilization. As it is. they are 
 sustained and dragged along by the energy of their 
 northern sisters. Improvements are first started and 
 
IN AMERICA. 141 
 
 put into execution at the north, then slowly and faint 
 ly imitated at the south. The best educated and most 
 accomplished men of the southern states have passed 
 their youth at northern schools and colleges ; such 
 seminaries for education as the southern states possess, 
 are supplied almost entirely with northern or foreign 
 teachers. The whole trade of the south, so far as re 
 lates to transactions on the large scale, is in the hands 
 of northern merchants who carry on this important 
 branch of business for which the native citizens of 
 those states, seem to lack the requisite knowledge, sa 
 gacity, perseverance and application. The learned 
 professions, physic, divinity, and even the law, are 
 more or less, recruited from the same source. The 
 newspapers have northern editors ; even the composi 
 tors who set the types are imported. The same is the 
 case with all mechanics who have any considerable 
 skill in the art they profess. Southern rail roads are 
 built with northern capital and by northern engineers 
 and contractors. It is hardly possible to erect a large 
 hotel, or block of ware-houses without the aid of north 
 ern artificers. The southern states are supplied with 
 books and periodicals from northern presses ; and it 
 seems to be only by a close and intimate union with 
 the north, that civilization at the south is enabled to 
 make any progress, or even to preserve itself from de 
 cline. It is worthy of special remark however, that 
 those northern men who emigrate to the south imbibe 
 by degrees, the feelings and the habits, the indolence, 
 and the incapacity of the population by which they 
 are surrounded. They are unable to transmit to their 
 children any of those qualities which they carried with 
 them from home. These children, bred up after the 
 southern fashion, are thoroughly southern. It is con 
 stantly necessary that new blood should be transferred 
 from the warm and vigorous circulation of the north, 
 to revive and quicken the veins, palsied, and made 
 stagnant by the poison of slavery. 
 
CHAPTER FOURTH. 
 
 PERSONAL RESULTS OF THE SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEM. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 Personal Effects of Slavery upon the members of the 
 privileged class. 
 
 By personal results of the slave-holding system 
 those results are intended, which exhibit themselves 
 in the personal character of the members of a slave- 
 holding community. 
 
 Slavery has already been explained to be in its na 
 ture, a protracted state of war. All its results are 
 sufficiently conformable to such an origin. 
 
 Soldiers possess a free and self-confident air, and 
 when among friends and not irritated or opposed, they 
 exhibit a frank good humor, an easy, companionable 
 disposition, which renders their society agreeable, and 
 causes their company to be generally courted. Their 
 military duties often leave them an abundance of lei 
 sure ; for long intervals, they often have nothing to do 
 but to seek amusement, and they give a warm and 
 hearty welcome to all who are disposed to join and aid 
 them in that pursuit. 
 
 These same traits of manners are sufficiently con 
 spicuous among the privileged class of our southern 
 aristocracies. Though a large portion of that class is 
 / destitute of education, and of any real refinement, yet 
 almost every member of it has more or less, a certain 
 patrician bearing, a consciousness of his own superi 
 ority which gives him an air of manliness and dignity, 
 
DESPOTISM IN AMERICA. 143 
 
 but which it must be confessed, degenerates too often 
 into rudeness and braggadocio. The wealthier and 
 better educated, passing almost the whole of their 
 lives in a round of social pleasures, have attained to a 
 considerable perfection in the art of pleasing ; and 
 those who visit the southern states of the Union for the 
 first time, are generally captivated by the politeness, 
 the hospitality, the attentions, the good humor of the 
 people. 
 
 Manners however are far from being any certain in 
 dex of character, and they are often carried to a high 
 pitch of refinement, in cases where all the virtues 
 which they seem to indicate, are lamentably deficient. 
 
 The soldier nursed in blood and robbery, however 
 mildly and gently he conducts himself, is at best only 
 a tame tiger, not rashly to be trusted. His passions 
 are violent arid unmanageable, accustomed to indul 
 gence, and impatient of control. It is the same with 
 the slave-master. Habituated to play the tyrant at 
 home, unshackled regent and despotic lord upon his 
 own plantation, where his wish, his slightest whim is 
 law, the love of domineering possesses all his heart. The 
 intercourse of society has taught him the policy and 
 the advantages of mutual concession in little things, 
 and the trifling points of ordinary politeness he yields 
 with the ready willingness of a well-bred man. Be 
 yond this he is not to be trusted. Alarm his preju- 1 
 dices, his self-love, his jealousy, his avarice, his ambi 
 tion ; cross his path in any shape whatever ; assume 
 the character of a rival or a censor ; presume to doubt 
 his perfect wisdom and immaculate virtue; and from a 
 laughing, good natured companion, he is changed at 
 once, into a fierce, furious, raving and raging enemy. 
 He boils and almost bursts with passion ; he answers 
 argument with invective ; instead of reasons, he re 
 plies to you with insults. Not content to restrain his 
 hate within the usual limits of civilized life, he thirsts 
 for your blood. He murders you in a duel ; assaults 
 you in the streets with pistols and Bowie knife ; or de 
 liberately shoots you from the door of his house, with 
 
144 DESPOTISM 
 
 a double-barrelled gun. The fear of the law does not 
 restrain him. In the southern states, a gentleman is 
 never hung. The most cold-blooded and deliberate 
 murderers, in the upper classes of society, escape with 
 a fine or a short imprisonment. The gallows is re 
 served for abolitionists, negro-stealers, and poor white 
 folks. 
 
 I. The condition of society in the southern states, 
 even among the most refined and best educated por 
 tion of the people, exhibits frightful evidences of FE 
 ROCITY OF TEMPER, such as a state of everlasting war 
 might be expected to produce. Thucidides remarks, 
 that from the time the Athenians laid aside the cus 
 tom of going armed, civility and refinement began to 
 make a steady progress among them. This is a point 
 to which the people of the southern states have not 
 yet attained. They generally carry arms ; but the 
 pistols, knives and dirks, their favorite weapons, are 
 of a kind more fit for foot-pads and assassins, than for 
 well-intentioned citizens. In several of the states it 
 has been attempted to suppress by penal enactments, 
 this barbarous practice of carrying deadly weapons. 
 These laws are never enforced, and it is scarcely pos 
 sible they should be. To carry arms in the state of 
 things existing at the south, seems absolutely neces 
 sary. If his slaves resist, how else shall the mastei 
 maintain his authority ? Those who have been sub 
 dued by force, must be kept under by force ; and if 
 the armed conquerors, in moments of anger, some 
 times turn their weapons against each other, that 
 is what is liable to happen among all collections of 
 armed men. What wonder if that inhuman and 
 blood-thirsty spirit, which the tyrannical rule they ex 
 ercise, keeps more or less alive in the bosom of all 
 slave masters, often bursts out in full fury in their 
 quarrels with each other ? The familiarity with which, 
 under the influence of excited passion, they talk of 
 murder is only to be equalled, by the savage ferocity 
 with which, under the same influence, they often com 
 mit it. The atrocity of southern duels has long been 
 
IN AMERK A, 145 
 
 notorious, but what duel can be compared with those 
 "rencontres" of which we so often read accounts in 
 the southern papers, accounts which among the peo 
 ple of those states seem to carry with them all the in 
 terest of a bull-baiting or a cock-fight, in which two 
 men or more, armed to the teeth, meet in the streets, 
 at a court-house or a tavern, shoot at each other with 
 pistols, then draw their knives, close, and roll upon 
 the ground, covered with dust and blood, struggling 
 and stabbing till death, wounds, or the submission of 
 one of the parties, put an end to the contest ? These 
 scenes, which if they take place at the north at all, ap 
 pear but once an age, and then only among the lowest 
 and most depraved of the emigrantpopulation, are of fre 
 quent and almost daily occurrence at the south, among 
 those who consider themselves the most respectable 
 people. Andrew Jackson, late president of the United 
 States, and regarded as a most illustrious citizen, had 
 been engaged in several such affrays. 
 
 II. IMPROVIDENCE is a vice of the most dangerous 
 character. The ancients were so impressed with the 
 multitudinous evils and miseries to which it gives 
 occasion, that they raised prudence to the dignity of 
 one of the four cardinal virtues. Improvidence is 
 however a failing, which is apt to prevail to a great 
 extent in a slave-holding community. The care 
 less, headlong rapidity with which a planter spends 
 his money, is proverbial. This childish profusion 
 has even been raised among them to the rank of a vir 
 tue ; it is described as the mark of a noble minded 
 man ; while economy is decried and stigmatized as 
 mean and little. This sort of profusion may dazzle 
 and delight the weak-minded and the thoughtless. It 
 is very clear however that it seldom implies any of 
 that benevolence or magnanimity which it has been 
 supposed to indicate. 
 
 It generally originates in the desire to gratify some 
 whim of the moment, or, what is oftener the case, in the 
 desire to be admired as a person of wealth and liber 
 ality. It is one way of gratifying the universal de- 
 13 
 
146 DFSPOT1SM 
 
 sire of social superiority. A planter will spend some 
 hundreds upon an entertainment, and the next morn 
 ing will refuse an extra pair of shoes to a lame old 
 negro, who has labored for him all his life. Ask one 
 of these lavish spendthrifts to do an act, not of be 
 nevolence merely, but of justice, by setting a slave at 
 liberty, and he will laugh in your face. We hear of 
 many acts of profusion at the south, few acts of gen 
 erosity. It is not there, that institutions are endowed 
 for purposes of public charity. No associations exist 
 there, or next to none, for charitable purposes. When 
 a subscription is to be raised for some object of public 
 benevolence, the contribution of our southern planters 
 is extremely scanty. They lavish thousands on their 
 own pleasures, and the companions of those plea 
 sures ; they bestow little or nothing upon the suffer 
 ings of strangers. Indeed it would be absurd to ex 
 pect it. They who are not moved by the scene of 
 poverty, degradation and distress, which their own 
 plantations every day present, how can they be affect 
 ed by the comparatively little miseries of which they 
 only hear, or which they but casually see? 
 
 The quantity of money that can be got is a limited 
 sum; the quantity that can be spent is indefinite. 
 Take the southern states throughout, and it is probable 
 that seven slave-masters out of ten. live beyond their 
 income. The labor, the fruits of which would have suf 
 ficed to make fifty families comfortable and happy, be 
 ing engrossed, with the exception of the barest subsist 
 ence to the laborers, by a single family, does not suffice 
 to make that single family happy or even comforta 
 ble. Improvidence subjects to all the miseries of ac 
 tual poverty. Men in the possession of large estates 
 are tormented all their lives by sheriffs and duns, and 
 at their death, leave large families brought up in all 
 the luxury of wealth, and the helplessness of habitual 
 indolence, penniless and unprovided for 5 a prey to the 
 bitterest miseries of want. 
 
 111. IDLENESS, says the copy book, is the mother 
 of all the vices. If any one doubt the truth of this 
 
IN AMERICA. 147 
 
 ancient and homely maxim, to be convinced of it, 
 he need only spend a year or two in the south. He 
 will find a great many idle people there. Almost 
 all the owners of slaves have hardly any occupa-* 
 tion except to amuse themselves. Born and bred; 
 to this occupation they become incapable of any other.! 
 One would suppose that having so much leisure time, 
 they might turn their attention to the study of agri 
 culture, an art upon which so wholly depends not their 
 private income only, but the public wealth of the com 
 munities to which they belong. But no, they have 
 no taste for such pursuits, and they leave the man 
 agement of their plantations, entirely to their over 
 seers. This neglect however ought not to be wholly 
 ascribed to their disinclination for regular and useful 
 pursuits. If they go much upon their plantations, so 
 many cruel sights come under their view, they are so 
 harrassed by petitions and complaints, they find them 
 selves so oppressed by the cares of authority, that they 
 hasten to relieve themselves from the burden, and to 
 shift it to the shoulders of some case-hardened mana 
 ger. All despotisms are alike. What happens to an 
 oriental sultan, happens to an occidental slave-master. 
 The weight of empire presses too heavily upon their 
 effeminate and feeble necks. Both alike spend in idle 
 luxury all that can be spunged from the forced labor 
 of their subjects, but both alike transfer the task of 
 spunging to a vizier, or an overseer. 
 
 Thus freed from all the cares of business, it might 
 be imagined that the wealthy slave-masters of the 
 south would bestow their time and thoughts upon the 
 pursuit of knowledge, the cultivation of literature, and 
 the agreeable arts. We might suppose that they would 
 push scientific investigations to their utmost limits, 
 astonish the world with new discoveries in morals and 
 in physics, or delight it with all the graces of poetry, 
 the beauties and sublimities of painting, sculpture, 
 music and architecture. 
 
 In these expectations we are totally disappointed. 
 Books are a rare commodity at the south ; literature 
 
148 DESPOTISM 
 
 is uncommon and science still more so. Libraries, 
 whether public or private, are seldom to be met with. 
 A few classics thumbed over at school, a few novels 
 old or new, a sprinkling of political pamphlets, and 
 some favorite newspaper, form the whole circuit of 
 letters and learning, ordinarily trodden by the most 
 studious of the planters. The education of the fe 
 males, even among the wealthiest classes, is still more 
 superficial. In this connection, it ought to be remem 
 bered, that a very considerable portion of the priv 
 ileged class are totally destitute even of the rudiments 
 of learning. To read is an accomplishment they have 
 never acquired. Of course, it is not to be expected 
 that persons so unfortunately circumstanced, can find 
 employment for their leisure in literary pursuits. 
 
 Thus situated, with no resources for the occupation 
 of their time, the privileged class are constantly beset 
 1 by a weariness of soul, perhaps the most distressing 
 I disorder to which men are subject. "Thank God I 
 am not a negro !" said a planter one day, as he sat 
 beneath the shade of his porch, and watched his slaves 
 in a neighboring field, at work beneath a burning sun. 
 Yet it may well be doubted whether the most miser 
 able of those slaves was half as miserable, as their 
 unfortunate master, who lived in a lonely part of the 
 country, and suffered from a forced idleness and soli 
 tude, the most poignant distresses. 
 
 It is a common remark among the planters that the 
 slaves are happier than the masters. Many will re 
 ject this idea with indignation, as a mere falsehood, 
 invented to gloss over the abominations of tyranny. 
 No doubt the observation is generally urged with that 
 intent. But the truth of a fact does not depend upon 
 the use intended to be made of it, by those who assert 
 it. The more closely a man meditates upon the state 
 of things at the south, the more inclined he will be 
 to admit the truth of the above remark touching the 
 comparative happiness of the masters and the slaves. 
 Instead however of saying that the masters and the 
 slaves are equally happy, the idea might be more 
 
IN AMERICA. 149 
 
 A 
 
 clearly and distinctly expressed by saying, that both j 
 masters and slaves are equally miserable. Slavery > 
 is an invention for dividing the goods and ills of life 
 into two separate parcels, so as to bestow all the ills 
 upon the slaves, and all the good upon the masters. 
 So far as regards the slaves, this attempt is successful 
 enough. The miseries of life are concentrated upon 
 their heads in a terrible mass. But as respects the 
 masters the experiment fails entirely. The coveted 
 good, like that manna which the too greedy Israel 
 ites sought wrongfully to appropriate, corrupts, putre 
 fies, changes its nature, and turns into evil. Occupa 
 tion too long continued is destructive to happiness, but 
 idleness is riot less so ; and it may well be doubted 
 whether the compulsive labor of the slaves is any more 
 copious a source of misery than the forced idleness of 
 the masters. I say forced idleness, for in depriving 
 themselves of the motives to labor and exertion, they 
 force themselves to be idle. 
 
 To obtain some relief from the weariness that con 
 stantly besets them, the planters seek to divert and 
 occupy their thoughts by social intercourse. This is 
 the origin of that hospitality for which the people of 
 the south are so famous, and which is often brought 
 forward as a virtue ample enough to cover the ac 
 knowledged multitude of their sins. Hospitality, it is 
 true, bears a certain relation to benevolence ; but it is 
 to benevolence no more than is the flounce to the gar 
 ment. The attempt to conceal the nakedness of the 
 land by such a rag, is as contemptible as it is futile. 
 In truth, the visitors who arrive at a plantation confer 
 a real benefit upon the lord of it. They give him oc 
 cupation. The efforts necessary to entertain, are not 
 less agreeable to him who makes them, than to those 
 for whom they are made. If the visiter be a total 
 stranger so much the better. There is the zest of nov 
 elty added to the excitement of occupation. If he 
 come from a distant part of the country, better yet. 
 He will probably be able to suggest a great many new 
 and interesting ideas, likely to give an agreeable mo- 
 13* 
 
150 DESPOTISM 
 
 tion to the stagnant soul of his host. Hospitality has 
 ever been a virtue abundantly practised among all 
 idle and indolent races. The indian tribes of America, 
 are all celebrated for its exercise. The plundering 
 Arabs of the desert look upon it as a religious duty, 
 for conscience and inclination are always apt to pull 
 together. 
 
 But the exercise of this virtue among the people of 
 the south, becomes the occasion of several practices of 
 the most dangerous and deleterious kind. It is not 
 the cause of those practices, but only the occasion for 
 them. In itself, it is essentially good, and displays 
 the character of the slave-holder in the most amiable 
 light it ever assumes. Hospitality is benevolence on 
 a small scale, and how can benevolence on any other 
 scale be expected, from men whose total existence is 
 a continued violation of its clearest and most urgent 
 commands ? 
 
 1. The spirit of improvidence, above described, as 
 one of the evil results of the slave-holding system, 
 when it becomes associated with the passion for hos 
 pitality, is reenforced by two very powerful motives, 
 which give it new impetus ; first, the desire of at 
 tracting visiters, by the superior luxury and expen- 
 siveness of the entertainment offered ; and second and 
 principally, the love of superiority, that spirit of emu- 
 
 t lation and rivalry, which leads each planter to outvie 
 his neighbor in the profusion of his hospitality. It is 
 
 \astonishing what a number of southern planters have 
 been ruined in their pecuniary affairs by the joint ope 
 ration of these means. 
 
 2. The Hospitality of the south, not only stimulates 
 \ improvidence, it is the nursing mother of the vice of 
 
 v DRUNKENNESS, which prevails throughout the whole 
 country to a frightful extent. Dinner parties end too 
 often in general intoxication. What is called the 
 Temperance Reform, has made but trifling progress 
 in the slave-holding states. The obstacles in its way 
 are immense. To drink is absolutely necessary as a 
 means of killing time. Among me lower orders of the 
 
IN AMERICA. 151 
 
 privileged class, every social meeting ends in drunk 
 enness. Attend an election, and by the time the polls 
 are closed, you will find a great collection of citizens 
 at the place of voting, all or most of them, " gloriously 
 drunk." Stay long enough and you will see a fight, 
 [n Kentucky such occasions are apt to wind up, with 
 what is called a free fight, that is, a general and indis 
 criminate knock-down, in which every body present 
 is at liberty to participate. This is the grand finale, or 
 concluding chorus ; but before this part of the per 
 formance is reached, there are duets, trios, quartets 
 and quintets, in all possible variety In Mississippi 
 Tennessee, and elsewhere, laws have been enacted, 
 prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors in small 
 quantities. Some movements have also been made in 
 Georgia and South Carolina, towards obtaining the 
 passage of similar laws. Laws of this kind are easily 
 enacted in those states, much more so than at the 
 north, because in those states, the wholesale trade in 
 liquors is almost entirely confined to a few northern 
 merchants and traders, who have no political influ 
 ence, while the retail trade is in the hands of a set of 
 rr white shopkeepers, rendered odious and infamous 
 their habit of secret traffic with the slaves, and 
 belonging to that inferior class of the privileged order, 
 which though it exceeds in numbers, is deprived for 
 the most part, of any political authority. But how 
 ever easy it may be to enact such laws, it will be 
 impossible to enforce them, so long as the very legis 
 lators by whose votes they are enacted, are themselves 
 perpetually in the habit of excessive drinking. These 
 laws will fall into the same total neglect with the 
 statutes against wearing concealed weapons already 
 referred to, and those against gaming, to which we 
 shall presently refer. 
 
 3. But such is the total stagnation of intellect and 
 sentiment at the south, that even the stimulus of in 
 toxicating liquors is not enough to give life and zest 
 to social intercourse. There is need of more potent 
 means. Necessity is the mother of invention. That j 
 means is at hand. It is GAMING. v 
 
152 DESPOTISM 
 
 This vice, more dangerous and dreadful, if possible, 
 even than drunkenness itself, is equally prevalent at 
 the south. Many attempts have been made to eradi 
 cate it. There are penal laws against it, in all the 
 slave holding states. Of late, we have seen the sum 
 mary process of Lynch Law applied to the same pur 
 pose. In Vicksburgh, one of the principal towns in 
 the state of Mississippi, the most respectable people of 
 the place assembled in the month of July, 1835, and 
 after pulling down several buildings used as gambling 
 houses, proceeded to seize the persons of five profes 
 sional gamblers and to hang them on the spot, with 
 out judge or jury. " These unfortunate men," says 
 the Louisiana Advertiser, "claimed to the last the 
 privilege of American citizens, the trial by jury, 
 and professed themselves willing to submit to any 
 thing their country would legally inflict upon them ; 
 but we are sorry to say, their petition was in vain ! 
 The black musicians were ordered to strike up, and 
 the voices of the suppliants were drowned by the fife 
 and drum. Mr. Riddell, the cashier of the Planter s 
 Bank, ordered them to play Yankee Doodle, a tune 
 which we believe has never been so prostituted before, 
 and which we hope, and we trust will never be again. 
 The unhappy sufferers frequently implored a drink of 
 water, but were refused. $= * =fc =fc The wife of 
 one of them, half distracted at the cruel treatment 
 and murder of her husband, trembling for her own 
 safety, in tears begged permission to inter her hus 
 band s body, but in vain. She was afterwards 
 compelled to fly, with her orphan child, in an open 
 skiff, for her personal security. The same fate was 
 threatened to any person who should dare to cut down 
 the bodies before the expiration of twenty-four hours. 
 At eleven o clock the next day, they were cut down 
 and thrown together into a hole, which had been dug 
 near the gallows, without coffins or any other pre 
 parations, except a box into which one of them was 
 put." 
 
 Of the persons who assisted at this execution there 
 
IN AMERICA. 153 
 
 was not probably one, who was not himself in the 
 constant habit of gambling. Yet is the horror of this 
 vice so great in the southern states, and its ill effects, 
 brought home to the public mind by constant expe 
 rience are so generally acknowledged, that the actors 
 in this tragedy were never called to account before 
 any judicial tribunal, and their conduct, throughout 
 the entire south, was either openly approved, or very 
 faintly condemned. The tone of reprobation in which 
 the Louisiana Advertiser speaks, found but a slight 
 and indistinct echo from the other southern prints. 
 
 Yet notwithstanding all the horror, with which this 
 vice of gambling is regarded, the indulgence in it, at 
 least among the men, is next to universal. Among 
 those who have been swept away by the prevailing 
 current, may be reckoned some of the most able and 
 distinguished of our southern and south-western ora 
 tors and politicians, unable to withstand this any 
 more than other popular sins. When such men lead, 
 followers are always plenty. Every little village of 
 the south has its race-course, its billiard room, its 
 faro table, and its gambling house, and of the three 
 latter, perhaps several. This grows out of the moral 
 necessity of things. Men, in all ages, and in every 
 country, who have had much leisure on their hands, 
 which they knew not how else to empk>y, have ever 
 sought relief in some sort of(gambling.) It is so al 
 ways with savages, sailors and soldiers, and so it is 
 with the idle population of the south. The habit 
 once acquired, it becomes almost impossible to resist 
 its seductions. To reform a gambler is much the 
 same difficult task as to reform a drunkard. The 
 planter who has been secluded upon his estate for a 
 week or a month, in irksome and wretched indolence, 
 his heart all the time devouring itself, orders his horse 
 or his carriage in a fit of desperation, and sets out for 
 the nearest village. The gaming table offers him the 
 speediest and most certain means of excitement, the 
 surest method of shaking off the listless misery which 
 oppresses him. To the gaming table he goes. It 
 
154 DESPOTISM 
 
 stands always ready, for the necessity of the case has 
 created a peculiar class of men at the south, who are 
 gamblers by profession. It was to this class that those 
 men belonged who were hanged at Vicksburg. This 
 is a profession which has sprung up naturally at the 
 south, and as has been said necessarily, and which 
 can boast of more talent and accomplishment among 
 its members, than the three learned professions of law, 
 physic and divinity united. 
 
 The institution of slavery deprives a large portion of 
 the people of their natural occupation. But as man is 
 essentially an active animal, to supply this deficiency 
 it is necessary to create artificial occupations. Gam 
 bling is the employment, which under similar circum 
 stances, has ever presented itself to men, as a means 
 of killing time. In order that this employment may 
 be indulged in, whenever the want of it is felt, it is 
 necessary that a peculiar class should exist, as it were, 
 the priesthood of the gaming table, always ready at 
 all times, to gamble with all comers. These are the 
 professional gamblers. They practise gaming not for 
 amusement, but as a livelihood. If they left every 
 thing to chance and strictly observed the laws of play, 
 it would be impossible for them to live by their busi 
 ness, because, in the long run, they would be certain to 
 lose as much as they won, and so could have nothing 
 left whereupon to live. Hence they are compelled 
 to play false. They must cheat, or starve. They are 
 not merely gamblers, but swindlers. This explains 
 the odium attached to their occupation. Merely to 
 gamble is no imputation upon any body s character 
 in the southern states, or at most it is an imputation 
 of which nobody is ashamed. To be a gambler by 
 profession is infamous, because it is well understood, 
 that every professional gambler is a cheat. 
 
 But though the profession is infamous, still it is 
 crowded. Its members throng the steam-boats, the 
 hotels, the cities, and the villages of the south, and 
 among them may be found, the most gentlemanly, 
 agreeable, insinuating, talented, well informed men of 
 
IN AMERICA. 155 
 
 the whole population, constantly on the watch, and 
 always laboring to attract, to allure, to please, many 
 of them attain a peculiar polish and elegance of man 
 ners. New recruits are always crowding in. The 
 planter who has ruined himself by improvidence, dis 
 sipation or losses at the gaming table, the young dis 
 appointed heir, bred up in indolence and luxury by a 
 father who dies insolvent, these persons find scarcely 
 any other way of gaining their daily bread, except to 
 adopt gambling as a profession. There is no other 
 business for which they are qualified, there is no other 
 art, which they understand. It seems hard to hold 
 these individuals strictly responsible for the evil they 
 do. You cannot expect them to starve. They are 
 the victims of a social system intolerably bad. 
 
 The professional gamblers are above described such 
 as they are, when at the head of their profession, and 
 in the heyday of success. In general, they soon begin 
 to go down hill. Proverbially improvident, they are 
 abundantly supplied with money, or wholly without it. 
 The latter presently comes to be their habitual condi 
 tion. Their fate closely resembles that of prostitutes in 
 a great city. Drunkenness relieves their distresses for 
 the moment, but by destroying their health and their 
 intellect, soon precipitates them into lower depths of 
 misery. They become at last a burden upon relatives 
 and friends ; find in an early death a refuge from de 
 spair; or are precipitated into crimes which carry 
 them to the penitentiary or the gallows. 
 
 The vice of gambling is not confined to the supe 
 rior portion of the privileged order. It pervades the 
 lower class also. There are blacklegs and gambling 
 houses adapted to the taste and manners of all. 
 
 To the business of gambling, the professional gam 
 blers from time to time, add several other occupations. 
 They become passers of counterfeit money, horse- 
 thieves, and negro-stealers. Nothing except the ex 
 treme poverty of the country, prevents them from 
 organizing an extensive system of plunder. Horses 
 and slaves are almost the only thing, capable of trans- 
 
156 DESPOTISM 
 
 portation, which can be stolen. In general, to pick 
 the pockets of the planters by the help of a faro table 
 or a pack of cards, is not only a safe, but a surer 
 operation than to attempt it in any other way. 
 
 Party politics, state and national, afford the only 
 topic, to any extent of an intellectual character, in 
 which any considerable number of the southern pop 
 ulation, take any deep interest, or which serves to any 
 considerable extent, to dispel the fog of wearisome 
 idleness, by which they are constantly threatened to 
 be enveloped. Politics at the south, are rather specu 
 lative than practical. Every slave-holding commu 
 nity is essentially conservative, and opposed to all 
 change. The southern politicians puzzle and lose 
 themselves in vain attempts to reconcile the metaphy 
 sical system of liberty acknowledged by their own 
 state constitutions, with the actual system of despo 
 tism amid which they live. Their ablest reasoners, 
 can boast no more than to be subtle logicians, and in 
 genious sophists. Statesmanship is a thing they have 
 no idea of. Yet the study of politics, barren, empty 
 and profitless as southern politics are, has saved 
 many of the finest minds at the south from a total 
 /stagnation, and affords to great numbers a stimulant 
 v altogether more harmless than gambling and strong 
 drink. Great numbers of the southern planters are as 
 great adepts in political metaphysics, as the Scotch 
 peasantry are or were, in calviriistic divinity. Grant 
 their premises, which for the most part are utterly 
 false, and they reason like a book. 
 
 There have been enumerated above, five capital de 
 fects in the character and conduct of the privileged 
 class at the south, viz : ferocity of temper, improvi 
 dence, idleness, drunkenness, and gambling. It is but 
 justice to say, that the female portion of the privileg 
 ed class are in general entirely free from the two last 
 mentioned faults, nor does ferocity of temper exhibit 
 itself among them, to any thing the same extent 
 as in the male sex. Idleness and improvidence are 
 their greatest and most striking defects. 
 
IN AMERICA. 157 
 
 Among the men however, the whole five are palpa 
 ble, obvious, undeniable. As to this matter there can 
 not be any dispute. It must be confessed, however 
 unwillingly that these faults are characteristic of the 
 southern people. It has been shown how they are all 
 aggravated, and rendered incurable, by the existence 
 of slavery. Any attempt to remove or palliate them, 
 while that cause of aggravation remains, can have 
 only a partial and limited success. It is impossible to 
 make men virtuous or happy unless by giving them 
 some steady employment that shall innocently engage 
 their attention, and pleasantly occupy their time. The 
 most essential step in the progress of civilization, is, 
 to render useful industry, respectable. But this step 
 can never be taken, so long as labor remains the badge 
 of a servile condition. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 Personal effects of slavery upon the members of the 
 unprivileged class. 
 
 Extremes meet. The truth of this proposition, in a 
 physical point of view is evident from the fact that 
 every motion upon the earth s surface describes an 
 elliptical curve. Experience would seem to show that 
 this proposition is almost as true in morals as in phy 
 sics. At all events it is a curious fact, that the exist 
 ence of slavery in a community, instead of producing 
 such diversities as might be supposed, does in fact, in 
 many very important particulars, operate almost ex 
 actly alike upon the masters and the slaves. Fero 
 city of temper, idleness, improvidence, drunkenness, 
 gambling these are vices for which the masters are 
 distinguished, and these same vices are conspicuous 
 traits in the character and conduct of slaves. 
 14 
 
158 DESPOTISM 
 
 / 
 
 1. Ferocity of Temper. The first access of suf 
 fering softens the heart, the long continuance of suffer 
 ing tends to harden it. Suffering when long continu 
 ed, begins to be looked upon as a thing of course. He 
 who constantly fears to feel the whip upon his own 
 shoulders, ceases to weep because it falls upon another. 
 Those who are accustomed to see authority exercised 
 1 almost solely in the infliction of pain, form present 
 ly a close association between the two things. They 
 seem to be inseparable, and a liberal use of violent 
 means comes to be looked upon as the only method of 
 showing one s power. Now the love of power, or to 
 speak more correctly, that love of superiority, which 
 the exercise of power is a means of gratifying, is one 
 of the native, and one of the strongest impulses of the 
 human heart. The slave feels it like other men. 
 He indulges it, when, where, and as, he can, upon his 
 wife, his children and the horse he drives, or upon 
 such of his companions as superior strength, or the 
 appointment of his master has submitted to his con 
 trol. He exercises his authority in the same way in 
 which authority has been exercised over him. In this 
 as in many other respects, he closely copies the exam 
 ple of his master. 
 
 Let it be recollected also that ferocity of temper is a 
 peculiar trait of a savage or barbarous state of society. 
 In civilized countries, it is principally to be seen 
 among the most ignorant and least refined. Civiliza 
 tion is perhaps more remarkable for its effect in soft 
 ening the tempers of men than for any other single 
 thing. Slaves are purposely kept in a state of barbar 
 ism and ignorance. That they should have little con 
 trol over their tempers, and should give way to vio 
 lent and sudden gusts of passion, is a matter of course. 
 J 2. Improvidence. Among freemen, the pleasures 
 of accumulation are perhaps not inferior to the pleas 
 ures of consumption. The pleasure that a house keep 
 er enjoys from knowing that he has laid by a stock of 
 provisions sufficient to support his family through the 
 winter, is sufficient to counterbalance a great deal of 
 
IN AMERICA. 159 
 
 saving and self-denial. But the pleasures of accumu 
 lation are pleasures which a slave cannot enjoy. His 
 sole pleasure consists in consuming. It is therefore 
 his object to consume all he possibly can. To gratify 
 a present appetite is almost all he ever thinks of. He 
 knows that his master will not suffer hirn to perish for 
 want of absolute necessaries. Any thing he should 
 lay by, he would be in constant danger of losing, be 
 cause property is a thing which the laws do not allow 
 him to possess. When he has consumed a thing he is 
 sure of it, and only then 
 
 Be fair or foul, or rain or shine 
 
 The joys I have possessed in spite of fate are mine, 
 
 Nor heaven itself upon the past has power, 
 
 But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour. 
 
 The slaves never read either Horace or Dryden, 
 but they feel and they reason in the same way. 
 
 The spirit of improvidence has for its associate on 
 the part of the slaves as well as on the part of the 
 masters, a remarkable disposition for hospitality. But 
 the hospitality of the slaves may justly be regarded 
 as a virtue of a much higher order, than the hospi 
 tality of the masters, inasmuch as the slaves bestow 
 out of their necessities, whereas the masters in gener 
 al, give from their abundance. Sunday for the most 
 part is allowance day, and on those plantations where 
 meat forms a part of the allowance, it often happens, 
 where the vigilance of masters or overseers does not 
 prevent it, that within six hours, the portion of meat 
 given out for the whole week, is consumed in treating 
 friends and acquaintances from some neighboring 
 plantations, where meat is a luxury that forms no por 
 tion of the regular allowance. The slaves are as fond 
 of nocturnal entertainments as the masters are of din 
 ner parties, and the profuse liberality with which, 
 from the scanty means within their power, they con 
 tribute to get them up, shows them in point of good 
 fellowship, to be not less free hearted than their mas 
 ters. 
 
160 DESPOTISM 
 
 3. Idleness. The natural stimulus of labor is, the 
 hope of reward. The expectation of reward is capa 
 ble of exciting the most strenuous exertions, and when 
 properly presented, never fails of effect. Where this 
 motive does not exist, industry is unknown. The 
 fear of punishment cannot produce it. The most it 
 can do is, to produce an empty appearance of it, 
 which is in fact little better than idleness in the dis 
 guise of labor. 
 
 But it is not alone the absence of reward that makes 
 a slave necessarily idle. In his mind labor is asso 
 ciated indissolubly with the lash. Pain, weariness, 
 fear, the sense of inferiority, these are in his eyes, 
 the natural companions of labor. What wonder if he 
 regard it with disgust? On the other hand, idleness, 
 to his limited view, appears to be the distinguishing 
 badge of freedom, and with freedom he associates every 
 j[dea of pleasure and content. 
 
 Idleness again, in point of fact, is in the case of a 
 slave a real luxury, a true delight, much more so, 
 than it ever can be in the case of a freeman, and that 
 for three reasons. First, because rest is ever delightful 
 to the weary, and those who labor by compulsion are 
 always weary. Second, because being idle, as has 
 been shown in a previous chapter, is a sort of means 
 whereby the slave is enabled to regain, as it were, a 
 certain portion of his liberty. Third, because idle 
 ness is a means of lessening the value of that stolen 
 labor upon which the master has seized, and so of in 
 dulging that indignation and hatred which the slave 
 naturally feels. Do we not commonly destroy our 
 property, whether public or private, whenever that is 
 the only way to save it from falling into the hands of 
 an enemy ? 
 
 To make men industrious, who have all these mo 
 tives for idleness, is out of the question. The experi 
 ence of the world has proved ten thousand times over, 
 and every individual who will but consider his own 
 motives of action, must be abundantly, satisfied, that 
 the only stimulus that can be relied upon as able to 
 
IN AMERICA. 161 
 
 produce a life of regular industry is, the hope of re 
 ward, a fair prospect of being permitted to enjoy un 
 disturbed, the fruits of our labor, 
 
 4. Drunkenness. The excitement which drunk 
 enness produces is of so very pleasurable a kind, that 
 those who have once experienced it, have need of very 
 strong motives to enable them to resist the temptation 
 it holds out. Especially is this the case with those who 
 lack that steady, regular yet innocent stimulus sup 
 plied by a daily occupation in which they take pleasure. 
 When occupation is wanting, or when instead of be 
 ing pleasurable the occupation to which a man is 
 obliged to submit, is irksome and disagreeable, there 
 results a miserable weariness of soul, against which 
 drunkenness offers an opiate so tempting that even 
 the most intelligent and best educated are not always 
 able to resist it. That the slaves as a body should 
 greedily snatch at it, is not surprising. 
 
 5. Gambling. That same wearisome state of 
 mind, which among both bond and free is the greatest 
 temptation to drink, proves also the strongest induce 
 ment to gamble. The human mind craves excite 
 ment. It is the very vital air of the soul, as essential 
 to it as motion is to the health of the body. If this 
 desire cannot be gratified by innocent means, means 
 of gratification will be devised which are not inno 
 cent. Of these means gambling is one of the most po 
 tent and pernicious ; and a means as popular among the 
 slaves as among the masters. It ought to be observ 
 ed however with respect both to this vice and to that 
 of drunkenness, that both of them prevail to a much 
 less extent among the slaves than with the free, be 
 cause the opportunities, means, and facility for these 
 kinds of indulgences which the slaves possess, are far 
 inferior to those possessed by the free. 
 
 It is proper also to observe that the five great de 
 fects of character and conduct common as we have 
 seen to the privileged and the unprivileged classes 
 at the south, all exhibit themselves among the free, 
 in a form more aggravated, and more disgusting 
 
162 DESPOTISM 
 
 at all events in a form far more pregnant with mis 
 chief than among the slaves. Slavery it would seem 
 is but the foster-mother of vice ; tyranny is the real 
 parent, for the privileged class at the south have 
 not yet reached that point of refinement indicated by 
 Burke, at which vice by losing all its grossness loses 
 half its evil. 
 
 The ferocity of the slaves is a mild thing compared 
 with the ferocity of the masters. It is rare to hear of a 
 slave murdered by a slave, while the murder of white 
 men by white men, is an every day occurrence. 
 The instrument of vengeance which the slave most 
 commonly employs, is his list, or at most a club. The 
 master uses pistols, dirks, knives, and double barrel 
 led guns. With all the bad reputation of Spain and 
 Italy ; assassinations were never a quarter so common 
 in those countries as they now are in the south-western 
 states of the American Union. The chance or rather 
 I might say, the probability of dying a violent death 
 seems to be far greater in the states of Mississippi, 
 Arkansas and Texas, than in any other part of the 
 known world, not even the most barbarous countries 
 excepted. 
 
 Idleness we must consider, presents itself to the 
 slaves under the aspect of a pure good. In them it 
 cannot be regarded as a vice. Is it a crime to evade 
 as far as possible, the violence of robbery ? 
 
 The privileged class on the contrary, are able to 
 view idleness in its true light. It is not only the 
 cause, and to the privileged class perceptibly the 
 cause of all those evils traced to it above, but the love 
 of idleness is in fact, the real foundation of slavery. 
 The masters wish to enjoy without working ; to reap 
 where they have not sowed, to gather where they 
 have not strawed. This is the whole secret of the 
 social system of the south. This unjust desire, which 
 in the nature of things never can be fully gratified 
 for the enjoyment thus obtained is poisoned and cor 
 rupted by a certain secret inherent flavor of bitter 
 ness 
 
IN AMERICA, 163 
 
 Medio de fonte leporum, 
 Surgit amari aliquid, quod in ipsis floribus angat, 
 
 this unjust desire to possess without labor, may be 
 looked upon as the fruitful source of all the evils which 
 the system of slavery involves. Under such circum 
 stances, idleness ceases to be merely a vice, it becomes 
 a crime, and a crime too of the very blackest die ; for 
 it is the immediate cause of all kinds of crimes which 
 men have agreed most to stigmatize, and those crimes 
 too not perpetrated one by one, arid in defiance of law, 
 but perpetrated wholesale and systematically, not by 
 individual upon individual, but by one half the com 
 munity upon the other half, and that too with the 
 sanction of legislatures and tribunals. 
 
 As regards improvidence, drunkenness and gam 
 bling, on the part of the slaves they are comparatively 
 venal offences. The harm they can do is limited, and 
 is confined almost entirely to the person of the offen 
 der himself. There is no danger that by giving way 
 to them, he will precipitate a whole family into pov 
 erty and distress. There is no danger that his ex 
 ample will have a pernicious influence upon society 
 at large. What is the example of a slave? Nor is 
 there any likelihood that by giving way to these 
 temptations he may render useless gifts which prop 
 erly exercised might have redounded to the benefit of 
 the community. The only talent proper to a slave is the 
 talent of handling a hoe. With him, these vices ter 
 minate for the most part in themselves. The seconda 
 ry evils which they produce are comparatively speak 
 ing, inconsiderable. Among the privileged class these 
 indulgences give rise to a train of secondary evils of 
 which the mere catalogue would fill a volume ; evils, 
 which instead of confining themselves to the person 
 of the offender, overflow, spread abroad, sweep away 
 whole families, and inundate society. No language 
 is too strong to describe the dangerous and fatal char 
 acter, which when practised by the privileged class, 
 these vices assume. 
 
164 DESPOTISM 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 Points of diversity in the character of the privileged 
 and the unprivileged classes. 
 
 1. COURAGE is one of those chivalrous virtues much 
 boasted of among the freemen of the south. They 
 are brave beyond question. All freemen are so. 
 Courage is a virtue which always exists in the great 
 est perfection among freemen, because among freemen, 
 it is most esteemed and most cultivated. Courage is 
 essential to the maintenance of liberty. When it 
 happens that freemen are also tyrants, courage is cul 
 tivated and fostered for the additional reason that it 
 is essential also to the maintenance of tyranny. 
 What importance is attached to this virtue at the south, 
 may be conjectured from the braggadocio spirit, which 
 so universally prevails there. Listen to southern 
 conversation, or read the southern newspapers, and 
 one would suppose that every mother s son of the free 
 population, was an Orlando Furioso, or a Richard 
 C<zur de Lion at the least. What wonder if courage 
 abound where it is so highly esteemed and so greatly 
 encouraged. 
 
 The slaves, on the other hand, are cowards. A brave 
 man may be found among them here or there, but 
 cowardice is their general characteristic. If it were 
 not so, the system of slavery would be very short liv 
 ed. To organize a successful insurrection, something 
 more than mere courage is no doubt necessary. But 
 courage alone is sufficient to produce a series of un 
 successful insurrections, and however individually un 
 successful ; a series of insurrections would shortly ren 
 der the masters empire not worth preserving. If the 
 slaves are cowards, it is a vice to which they have 
 been diligently trained up from their earliest childhood. 
 Were a tenth part of the pains bestowed to make 
 them brave, which are taken to render them otherwise, 
 they would be as courageous as their masters. The 
 
IN AMERICA. 165 
 
 boldest heart very soon becomes subdued, when every 
 indication of spirit, every disposition to stand at bay 
 is shortly visited by the whip, irons, or a prison. 
 
 2. The CHASTITY of their women is another chivalrous 
 virtue, much boasted of by the freemen of the south. 
 The southern people have reason to be proud of their 
 women. From the most disgusting vices of the men, 
 they are, as we have mentioned already, in a great 
 measure free, and such active virtue as is to be found 
 at the south, at least the larger portion of it, is to be 
 looked for among the female sex. 
 
 If however the women have escaped to a certain ex 
 tent, the blighting influences of tyranny it is because 
 they are sedulously shielded from its worst effects. 
 
 Chastity like courage is to a great extent, an artifi 
 cial virtue, the existence of which principally depends 
 upon education and public opinion. Both education 
 and public opinion are stretched to their utmost influ 
 ence to preserve the chastity of the southern women, 
 while the free and more luxurious indulgence which 
 ihe men find elsewhere, causes the seduction of free 
 women to be a thing seldom attempted. 
 
 Among the slaves, a woman, apart from mere natu 
 ral bashfulness, has no inducement to be chaste ; she 
 has many inducements the other way. Her person 
 is her only means of purchasing favors, indulgences, 
 presents. To be the favorite of the master or one of 
 his sons, of the overseer, or even of a driver, is an ob 
 ject of desire, and a situation of dignity. It is as much 
 esteemed among the slaves, as an advantageous mar 
 riage would be, among the free. So far from involv 
 ing disgrace, it confers honor. Besides, where mar 
 riage is only a temporary contract, dissolvable at any 
 time, not by the will of the parties alone, but at the 
 caprice and pleasure of the masters, what room is 
 there for any such virtue as chastity ? Chastity con 
 sists in keeping the sexual appetite under a close re 
 straint except when its indulgence is sanctioned by 
 marriage. But among slaves every casual union, 
 though but for a day, is a marriage. To persons so 
 
166 DESPOTISM 
 
 situated, we cannot justly apply ideas founded upon 
 totally different circumstances. If we choose how 
 ever to understand by chastity the restriction of one s 
 self to a single partner, chastity is very far from being 
 so rare a virtue among the women of the unprivileg 
 ed class as is often asserted, and generally supposed. 
 Though the union may be dissolved in a moment, 
 at the slightest caprice of the parties, sach separations 
 are much more rare than might be imagined. More 
 husbands and wives among the slaves are separated 
 by the hammer of the auctioneer, than by the united 
 influence of infidelity, disgust, or the desire of change. 
 
 3. FRAUD, FALSEHOOD. AND DISHONESTY are represent 
 ed by the masters, as distinguishing traits in the cha 
 racter of the unprivileged class. This charge is un- 
 founded. It has been shown already, that as between 
 master and slave, from the very nature of that rela 
 tion, mutual confidence, trust and reliance, are out of 
 the question. To deceive his master is almost the 
 only means of self-defence in the power of the slave. 
 What ground of mutual confidence is it possible to es 
 tablish between the robber and the robbed ? To hold 
 those promises binding which are extorted by force, 
 to maintain that one is obliged to keep faith with a 
 plunderer, is to surrender up, to the hands of violence, 
 through the influence of a weak and cruel superstition, 
 or a piece of miserable and empty sophistry, not the 
 body only, but the soul ; not only actions, but the will ; 
 the future as well as the present ; it is to strip weak 
 ness and suffering of their last defence, and to give 
 omnipotence to tyranny. 
 
 In their transactions with each other the members 
 of the unprivileged class at the south, are by no means 
 deficient in the great and necessary virtues of truth, 
 honesty and fidelity. The difficulty of inducing them 
 to betray each other is proverbial, and is a matter 
 of grievous complaint among masters and overseers. 
 There are amon g the slaves, as among all bodies of 
 men, some who set up honesty for sale, and who be 
 come instruments of tyranny in the hands of the pri- 
 
IN AMERICA. 167 
 
 vileged class. There are others shrewd and slippery, 
 upon whom no dependence whatever can be placed, 
 even by their friends and relations. Characters of this 
 sort, are quite as common among the privileged order. 
 Indeed more so. There has been already mentioned 
 that great class of professional gamblers, whose sole 
 business it is to prey upon the community, to inveigle 
 the unwary, and entrap the ignorant. There is no 
 such class among the slaves. There is still another 
 great class among the privileged order, who live al 
 most wholly upon the plunder of their richer neigh 
 bors, the receivers, namely, of stolen goods, the keep 
 ers of the petty trading stores, scattered throughout 
 the south. They take in the com, cotton and rice 
 stolen by the slaves, and give in exchange whisky 
 and other luxuries. This class of traders is very 
 large. The severest laws have been enacted to 
 suppress them, but without success. Lynch law is 
 now and then administered upon them in all its sever 
 ity, but the nuisance cannot be abated. These men, 
 compared with the slaves, are wholly \vithout excuse. 
 They live by constant violations of laws, by constant 
 breaches of a social compact to which they have them 
 selves assented. This is a case in which the receiver, 
 even in a legal point of view, is a thousand times 
 worse than the thief. Yet to speak within bounds, 
 for every five or six acts of theft, (or what is called 
 so,) committed on the part of slaves, there is at least 
 one act of reception committed on the part of some 
 freeman. We may therefore consider it to be reduced 
 to an arithmetical demonstration, that so far as relates 
 to violations of property, the offences of the free are 
 greater than those of the slaves. To this conclusion 
 we must come, even without taking into account the 
 appalling fact that the entire existence of a large part 
 of the privileged class is but one constant, steady vio 
 lation of all those principles upon which the very idea 
 of property depends, and upon which the virtues of 
 truth, honesty, justice and fidelity must rest for their 
 only sure support. We may apply to the southern 
 
168 DESPOTISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 slave-holders, a.jeu $ esprit of Talleyrand s. A certain 
 person was complaining that every body consider 
 ed him a worthless, infamous fellow, yet said the 
 complainant, I do not know why, for I have never 
 committed but one fault in my life. " Ah !" said 
 Talleyrand, " but when will that one fault be end 
 ed?" 
 
 To those accustomed to look only at the outside of 
 things, the results to which this chapter has brought 
 us, will no doubt seem strange. It is impossible, they 
 will say, that men whose circumstances are so contra 
 dictory, and whose whole appearance is so different, 
 can after all, be so much alike. Such readers will do 
 well to call to mind the lines of Shakspeare, 
 
 Through tatter d clothes small vices do appear ; 
 Robes and furr d gowns, hide all. Plate sin with gold, 
 And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks 
 Arm it in rags, a pigmy s straw doth pierce it. 
 
 That gold however, with which the system of south 
 ern slavery is plated, is not the true metal. 5 Tis but a 
 fairy, shadowy, imaginary gold which cannot cross the 
 running waters of truth, without being changed back 
 again to its original worthlessness. 
 
CHAPTER FIFTH. 
 
 LEGAL BASIS OF THE SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEM. 
 
 ,., j 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 Preliminary Observations. 
 
 One main pillar of domestic slavery, as it now ex 
 ists in the United States, is the idea that it rests upon 
 law. Law is regarded with veneration, and no 
 where more so than in the United States, as the great 
 foundation and support of the right of property, of 
 personal rights, in a word of social organization. 
 Jurists, with a natural disposition to exaggerate the 
 importance of a profession to which most of them 
 have belonged, have been induced to overlook or to 
 disregard the natural foundation of rights. Most of 
 them represent the idea of property as resting on a 
 merely artificial basis the law ; not the law of na 
 ture, but the law of convention. Upon that same 
 artificial basis, too, they are inclined mainly to rest 
 even the most important of personal rights. These 
 ideas, widely spread through the community, greatly 
 modify public opinion upon the question of slavery. 
 In the abstract, slavery, all admit, is sheer cruelty and 
 injustice. But slavery, as it exists in the United 
 States, is supposed to be legal; and being legal, is 
 supposed to acquire a certain character of right. To 
 use our best efforts for the suppression of cruelty and 
 injustice, is admitted to be a moral duty. But then 
 it is a moral duty, and, in the opinion of many, a 
 paramount duty, to obey the law. 
 
 15 (169) 
 
170 , DESPOTISM 
 
 Prevailing ideas on the theory of government tend 
 precisely the same way. Those ideas, derived from 
 Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, represent government 
 as a contract. The natural state of man, the state of 
 nature, is assumed to be a state of hostility on the 
 part of each individual against every other, or, ac 
 cording to Rousseau, of total isolation. To escape 
 out of this wretched condition, men, we are told, 
 resorted to the artificial expedient of societies and gov 
 ernments founded on contract. According to this 
 theory, the only moral principle involved in the idea 
 of government is Contract ; and this contract, we 
 are told, must be preserved inviolate, or government 
 is at an end, and chaos comes again. No matter how 
 absurd ; no matter how unjust towards ourselves or 
 others: a bargain is a bargain ; and though it stipu 
 lates for the pound of flesh, it must be fulfilled. 
 Many excellent men, ready to denounce slavery in 
 the abstract as the sum of all iniquities, will tell us, 
 in the same breath, that the " compromises of the 
 constitution" guaranty its existence. It is morally 
 wrong, they say, to attempt to evade or get over, 
 or set aside, those compromises an appeal to 
 notions of mercantile honor not without a powerful 
 influence upon the best portion of the community. 
 
 These opinions respecting law and government in 
 volve, indeed, the inconsistency and absurdity of sup 
 posing that men have power, by arrangement and 
 convention, to make that artificially right which 
 naturally is wrong an inconsistency and absurdity 
 which there have not been wanting able writers to 
 expose. These writers have shown clearly enough, 
 that the basis of law, the basis of property, the basis 
 of personal rights, the basis of government, are to be 
 sought for and found not in any artificial contracts, or 
 arbitrary statutes or usages, but in the nature and 
 constitution of man. They have shown clearly 
 enough, that law, so far as it has any binding moral 
 force, is and must be conformable to natural princi 
 ples of right; indeed, that in this conformity alone its 
 
IN AMERICA. 171 
 
 moral binding force consists; and that so far as this 
 conformity is wanting, what is called law is mere 
 violence and tyranny, to which a man may submit 
 for the sake of peace, but which he has a moral right 
 to resist passively at all times, and forcibly when he 
 has any fair prospect of success. Such, indeed, was 
 the principle upon which the American Revolution 
 was justified. The acts of parliament of which the 
 colonies complained, had all the fo^rns of law, and 
 Mansfield and other great lawyers said they were law. 
 But in the view of the colonists, they lacked the 
 substance without which law cannot exist. They sub 
 verted those fundamental rights embodied in that 
 maxim and usage of the English constitution, which 
 couples taxation and representation together. Tax 
 ation without representation was denounced by the 
 colonists as mere robbery, to which, though concealed 
 under the form of law, they were not legally obliged 
 to, and would not, submit. 
 
 The principle of the perpetuity and inviolability of 
 contracts, no matter what their object, character, or 
 operation, has been attacked with no less energy and 
 success. It has been triumphantly shown, that the 
 very essence and substratum of contract is, mutual 
 benefit. Contracts, whether in law or morals, have no 
 binding force without a consideration, a good and 
 valuable consideration. Men cannot bargain away 
 either their own rights or the rights of others. All 
 such pretended contracts are void from the beginning 
 the spawn of fraud in the one party, and ignorance 
 in the other, or of injustice and immoral intentions in 
 both. To say, that by committing the folly or the 
 crime of contracting to do an immoral act, a man 
 lays himself under a moral obligation to do that im 
 moral act, is to overturn the very foundations of 
 morality. Nor are these principles the mere notions 
 of theoretical moralists. So far as relates to private 
 contracts, they are fully acknowledged and admitted 
 by all courts of law throughout the civilized, world. 
 They constitute, indeed, the fundamental principle 
 
172 DESPOTISM 
 
 upon which those courts administer the law of con 
 tracts. 
 
 But all these appeals to general principles, however 
 able and conclusive, have, when applied to the ques 
 tion of slavery, but little weight with the great body 
 of the community. Did they relate to points in 
 which that body had a direct, obvious, personal in- 
 terest, the appeal, no doubt, would be irresistible. 
 When Andros, governor of New England, undertook 
 to deprive people of their lands, under pretence of 
 defective titles, " the men of Massachusetts did much 
 quote Lord Coke ; " and finding that useless, they 
 stripped Andros of his power. When Grenville at 
 tempted to levy taxes without their consent, they 
 were ready at once to resort to fundamental princi 
 ples, and, when those principles failed, to their mus 
 kets. Then, the case touched themselves. When it 
 only touches the unfortunate negroes of the southern 
 states, or a few poor colored people of the north, it is 
 quite a different matter. Appeal to principle is then 
 denounced as wild and visionary. Always fearful of 
 effort and responsibility, the great mass of the com 
 munity intrench themselves on this question behind 
 statutes, decisions, usage, the opinions of lawyers, 
 and the current notions of the day. To be sure, 
 slavery is wrong and unjust, and impolitic and wick 
 ed, but then it is legal. 
 
 Nor, indeed, is this conduct to be wondered at, 
 the very courts, those reverend depositories of the 
 knowledge of the law, those vicegerents upon earth 
 of eternal equity and justice, having themselves set the 
 example. In mere questions of private right, the 
 courts resort, without hesitation, to those eternal prin 
 ciples of right reason, that is, of true morality, which 
 they boast to be the foundation of law ; and they set 
 aside, without hesitation, every private contract which 
 has in it any trace or tincture of fraud or crime. But 
 when it comes to the enforcement of so called politi 
 cal contracts, a sad change is observable. Individual 
 lawyers, indeed even judges on the bench, of the 
 
IN AMERICA. 173 
 
 highest eminence, have not hesitated to say, that an 
 act of parliament contrary to the law of God, that is, 
 contrary to the eternal principles of right, is void. 
 Such opinions have been thrown out incidentally, 
 with great apparent boldness and decision. But when 
 has an act of legislation been set aside on that ground ? 
 No court in England or America has ever yet dared 
 to do it. Courts have bowed submissively at the feet 
 of the governments, their creators, ascribing to those 
 creators an omnipotence over right and wrong greater 
 than the philosophy of our day is willing to allow 
 even to God himself. They hold, indeed, to the 
 maxim Fiat justitia^ ruat cailum, but in this sense : 
 " the will of the government mast be done, though 
 heaven itself be trampled under foot." It must be 
 admitted as the settled doctrine of courts of law, that 
 the supreme legislative authority has the power to 
 declare to be law even that which is against right. 
 But this has been a forced concession ; and as Gal 
 ileo, when obliged by the Inquisition to confess that 
 the earth stood still, mumbled yet between his teeth, 
 as he rose from his knees, "It moves though," so 
 our courts of law, blushing and stammering at the 
 disgraceful concession extorted from them by fear and 
 power, have done their best to limit and to nullify 
 that concession. If the supreme legislature chooses 
 to say that manifest wrong shall be law, the courts 
 submit to enforce it as such. But then they will 
 never presuppose that the supreme legislature in 
 tends to do any thing so absurd and cruel. If the 
 intention is plain, manifest, and clear, it must be 
 enforced; but the courts will never resort to implica 
 tion, or conjecture, or construction, to make out any 
 such intention. This principle in the interpretation 
 of legal enactments, perfectly well settled and estab 
 lished in all the courts of England and America, is 
 thus laid down by Chief Justice Marshall, in the case 
 of United States v. Fisher, 2 Cranch, 390. " Where 
 rights are infringed, where fundamental principles are 
 overthrown, where the general system of the laws is 
 15* 
 
174 DESPOTISM 
 
 departed from, the legislative intention must be ex 
 pressed with irresistible clearness, to induce a court 
 of justice to suppose a design to effect such objects." 
 
 It is thus that, in all cases of injustice attempted 
 under the form of legislation, courts, while admitting 
 the power of the legislature, yet reserve to themselves 
 a power to defeat the wicked legislative intention, by 
 refusing to suppose the legislature capable of any 
 such intention. But the extent to which this indirect 
 veto power is carried out in particular cases, must 
 evidently depend very much upon circumstances, and 
 especially upon the character and position of the 
 court. Where a court is exceedingly indisposed to 
 see, and is so situated as to be able to give effect to 
 its inclinations, "irresistible clearness" is out of the 
 question. No possible form of words can produce it. 
 Now the disposition on the part of the court to see or 
 not to see a wicked intention, will depend upon two 
 things : first, the opinion of the court as to the degree 
 and aggravation of the wickedness ; secondly, their 
 opinion as to the amount of support likely to be found 
 in the community, should an attempt be made to de 
 feat that wicked intention. 
 
 Take the case of slavery for example. Suppose 
 that in a slave-holding community the question of the 
 legality of slavery is raised, and certain legislative 
 acts are quoted to sustain it. If the court should 
 happen to entertain the opinions professed by Mr. 
 Calhoun, that slavery is not only a blessing in itself, 
 but the essential foundation of a republican govern 
 ment, of course they would see, with great facility, 
 an intention in the quoted acts to give to slavery a 
 legal basis. Even if they entertained the more com 
 mon opinion, avowed by Mr. Clay, that slavery, 
 though an evil in itself, is yet, under existing circum 
 stances, a necessary evil, the only means of preserving 
 the two races of whites and blacks from a war of 
 extermination, they would still find no great difficulty 
 in perceiving a legislative intention to legalize slavery. 
 But suppose the judges have the feelings proper to 
 
IN AMERICA. 175 
 
 men enlightened and humane ; suppose their eyes 
 fully open to the enormous criminality of slavery ; 
 suppose they saw in vivid colors all its multiplied 
 evils and miseries, both for masters and slaves it 
 would be very difficult for any form of words to es 
 tablish, with " irresistible clearness," in the minds of 
 such men, a legislative intention to legalize so much 
 folly and crime. If, besides, they saw opinions hos 
 tile to slavery openly avowed and spreading around 
 them; if they saw a certainty of being powerfully 
 sustained in reinstating justice on her seat, what 
 form of words would be able to satisfy such a court 
 that the supreme legislative authority intended to 
 sanction a system so horribly unjust ? At all events, 
 a court so constituted and so situated, would surely 
 never discover any such intention in a case where 
 there were either no words at all, or but very obscure 
 and vague ones. 
 
 ! It is the glory of the tribunals of the common law, 
 that, even when trampled in the mud by the feet of 
 power, they have never consented to lie there in quiet. 
 They have struggled, always to a certain extent, often 
 nobly, to rise again, to cleanse the ermine robes of 
 justice from the mire of ignorant, weak, cruel, self- 
 seeking legislation, to lift again on high the balance 
 of equity, and, to the full extent of their power and 
 their light, to weigh out again equal justice to all. 
 But to enable them to do this, the community about 
 them must uphold their hands. What can four or 
 five gray-haired men do against the ferocity, the 
 wrongheadedness, the intentional injustice of a whole 
 community ? Men formed by long experience of the 
 world in its least amiable aspects, will not cast their 
 pearls before swine s feet. The sort of men who oc 
 cupy the judicial bench are seldom much inclined to 
 outrun popular opinion ; yet however it may be fash 
 ionable among them to affect to despise such opinion, 
 it is none the less true that their own views are greatly 
 influenced, if not indeed mainly determined, by the 
 prevailing sentiment of the community about them. 
 
176 DESPOTISM 
 
 In these considerations we shall find a complete 
 reply to a taunt frequently thrown in our teeth by the 
 advocates of the legality of slavery. What more 
 absurd, they say, than to question a legality recog 
 nized and admitted ever since the settlement of the 
 country ! 
 
 But why absurd ? 
 
 From a period long preceding the settlement of 
 North America down to the famous decision in 
 Somerset s case, three or four years before our decla 
 ration of independence, the legality of slavery was 
 also recognized and admitted in England. It required 
 the indefatigable perseverance of a Granville Sharpe, 
 the enlightened humanity of a Mansfield, an age 
 awake to the rights of humanity, and a community 
 free, in a great measure, from the bias of interest, to 
 draw up "from the deep well of the law" that " ami 
 able and admirable secret," 
 
 " No slave can breathe in England." 
 
 " The knowledge of the law," says my Lord Coke, " is 
 like a deep well, out of which each man draweth 
 according to the strength of his understanding." Is 
 it too much to hope, that we shall yet have American 
 judges with hearts and understandings strong enough 
 to draw up out of that same deep well the twin 
 secret, that there is not, and never was, any legal 
 slavery in America? It is not strength of under 
 standing that has failed us. Have we not had on the 
 bench of the United States Supreme Court a Jay, a 
 Wilson, a Marshall, a Story ? What has been lack 
 ing is heart, conscience, courage ; more than all, the 
 surrounding support of an enlightened and humane 
 public opinion, to sustain our judges in looking this 
 lurking devil of slavery in the face. No court of 
 justice in the United States has ever yet dared do it, 
 lest being called upon to decide against the legality of 
 slavery, they might be called upon, in so doing, to set 
 at defiance a conglomeration of interests and preju 
 dices which they have not had courage to brave, 
 
IN AMERICA. 177 
 
 which no prudent court could be expected to brave. 
 And what has been wanting, no less than a fearless 
 court, a court daring enough to face, in the cause of 
 justice and right, the ferocious prejudices of a fero 
 cious nation has been, a learned, independent, fearless 
 bar. The court alone, unaided by the bar, is incapa 
 ble of administering justice. Points must first be 
 presented, before they can be decided ; and how much 
 depends on the manner and the medium of their 
 presentation! Would the English law of treason 
 ever have been stripped of so many of its terrors, and 
 reduced so much within the limits of justice and 
 moderation, but for the earnest struggles of an Erskine 
 and a Curran ? Had O Connell been an ordinary 
 lawyer, or an ordinary culprit, would the English 
 House of Lords ever have seen those flaws in his 
 indictment which the Irish judges had overlooked? 
 
 No council has ever yet been retained for the slaves ; 
 no body of influential friends has ever appeared, to 
 impress upon the judges the necessity of serious in 
 vestigation, and to assure them of support in sus 
 taining the right. The case has gone by default; 
 or rather, it has never yet been entered in court. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 Slavery as a Colonial Institution. 
 
 Servitude in the Middle Ages existed in England 
 under two forms. Villeins in gross were slaves, in 
 several respects the same as ours, transferable from 
 master to master, like any other chattel. Villeins 
 regardant were serfs, attached to the soil, inseparable 
 from it, and transferable only with it. These same 
 two forms of servitude, but recently abolished in 
 Hungary, may still be seen in Russia. Villeinage 
 
178 DESPOTISM 
 
 was hereditary the villeins being the descendants 
 of the ancient Britons and Saxons, held in servitude 
 from a time whereof the memory of man ran not to 
 the contrary. 
 
 Previous to the discovery of America, or shortly 
 after that period, English villeinage in gross had 
 almost ceased to exist. So late as the reign of Eliza 
 beth, only a few villeins regardant remained, in 
 some obscure corners. The lawyers and the clergy, 
 in whom the principal intelligence of that age was 
 vested, had both greatly contributed to this result. 
 In all questions touching villeinage, the English com 
 mon law courts had made it a point to lean in favor 
 of freedom. All men were supposed to be free, and 
 the burden of proof lay on the claimant. To prove a 
 man a villein, unless he confessed himself such in 
 open court, and the last recorded confession of this 
 kind was in the nineteenth year of Henry VI., (1441,) 
 it was necessary to show title to him by proscrip 
 tion ; that is, to show that, being born in lawful wed 
 lock, he was descended of a stock of villeins on the 
 father s side time out of memory. For the English 
 common law courts refused to recognize the doctrine 
 of the civil law that favorite doctrine of all slave- 
 holding communities that the children of female 
 slaves inherit from the mother the condition of slavery. 
 They held, on the contrary, that the child followed the 
 condition of the father. Bastard children, being in 
 the eye of the law children without fathers, of course 
 were born free a doctrine which gave freedom to 
 great numbers, for, in all slave-holding communities, 
 the masters esteem it a part of their right to use the 
 slave women as concubines. 
 
 Taking a hint apparently from the Mahometans, 
 the clergy had denounced it as a scandalous and out 
 rageous thing for one Christian to hold another in sla 
 very; and their preaching on this point had been so 
 successful, that about the time of the discovery of 
 America it had come to be considered a settled mat 
 ter, not in England only, but throughout Western 
 
IN AMERICA. 179 
 
 Europe, that no Christian ought to be, or lawfully 
 could be, held as a slave. 
 
 But with the customary narrowness of that age, this 
 immunity from slavery was not thought to extend to 
 infidels or pagans. While the emancipation of serfs 
 was going on, black slaves, brought by the Portu 
 guese from the coast of Guinea, became common in 
 the south of Europe, and a few found their way to 
 England. The first Englishman who engaged in this 
 business was Sir John Hawkins, who, during the reign 
 of Elizabeth, made several voyages to the coast of 
 Guinea for negroes, whom he disposed of to the 
 Spaniards of the West Indies. The queen granted 
 several patents to encourage this traffic; yet she is 
 said to have expressed to Hawkins her hope that the 
 negroes went voluntarily from Africa, declaring that 
 if any force were used to enslave them, she doubted 
 not it would bring down the vengeance of Heaven 
 upon those guilty of such wickedness. The newly- 
 discovered coasts of America were also visited by 
 kidnappers. Few, if any, of the early voyagers scru 
 pled to seize the natives, and to carry them home as 
 slaves. Sir Ferdinando Gorges, so active and so 
 conspicuous in the early settlement of New England, 
 had a number of these captured natives, whom he 
 claimed as his property, kept under restraint, and 
 employed as guides and pilots. The Mosaic law, 
 then recently made familiar by the English transla 
 tion of the Bible, and considered high authority on 
 all questions of right, seemed to countenance this 
 distinction between Christians and infidels. The 
 Jews, according to the Mosaic code, could hold their 
 brethren as servants only for a period of seven years, 
 or at the utmost, till the next Jubilee, (for it is not 
 very easy to reconcile the apparently conflicting pro 
 visions on this subject in Exodus and Leviticus ;) but 
 of "the heathen round about," they might buy "bond 
 men, as an inheritance for ever." The practice of 
 the early English settlers in America, and their ideas 
 of the English law on the subject, corresponded ex- 
 
180 DESPOTISM 
 
 actly with these Jewish provisions, indeed would seem 
 to have been regulated by them. Thus they took 
 with them, or caused to be brought out, a large num 
 ber of indented Christian servants, whose period of 
 bondage was limited to seven years, and who, till 
 after the Revolution, constituted a distinct class in 
 the community. Indeed, of the white immigrants to 
 America preceding that era, the larger portion would 
 seem to have arrived there under this servile charac 
 ter. But while the servitude of Christians was thus 
 limited, the colonists supposed themselves justified in 
 holding negroes and Indians as slaves for life. The 
 first English colonists arrived in Virginia in 1607. In 
 1620 a Dutch trading vessel entered James River 
 with twenty negroes on board, who were sold to the 
 settlers. Other similar importations continued to be 
 made from time to time ; but it not being imagined 
 that any local legislation was necessary to give to 
 the purchasers of these black servants the right to 
 hold them and their posterity as bondmen for ever, 
 more than forty years elapsed before any notice was 
 taken of slaves by the Virginia statutes, as distinct 
 from other servants. 
 
 It was not in Virginia, but in New England, that 
 the earliest colonial legislation on the subject of 
 slavery occurred. The Massachusetts " Body of Lib 
 erties," or " Fundamentals," as they were called, first 
 promulgated in 1641, contain the following provision : 
 " There shall never be any bond slavery, villeinage, 
 nor captivity among us, unless it be lawful captives 
 taken in just wars, and such strangers as willingly sell 
 themselves, or are sold, unto us" But in thus giving 
 an express sanction to negro and Indian slavery, the 
 freemen of Massachusetts did not conceive themselves 
 to be running at all counter to the law of England, 
 to which, by their charter, they were bound to con 
 form, though on ecclesiastical points somewhat in 
 clined to deviate from it. On the contrary, they sup 
 posed themselves to be conforming as well to the 
 
IN AMERICA. 181 
 
 law of England, as to " the law of God, established 
 in Israel." This Massachusetts law, it will be per 
 ceived, not only sanctioned slavery, but also the slave- 
 trade. An American historian, always too much a 
 panegyrist or an apologist to be implicitly relied on, 
 has indeed undertaken to claim for Massachusetts the 
 honor of having denounced, at that early day, as 
 " malefactors and murderers," those " who sailed to 
 Guinea, to trade for negroes" a claim founded upon 
 a misapprehension of a passage in Winthrop s Jour 
 nal. It appears, on the contrary, from other passages 
 in Winthrop, that "the trade to Guinea for negroes" 
 was recognized as a just and lawful traffic. New 
 England vessels, after carrying cargoes of staves to 
 Madeira, were accustomed to sail to Guinea for 
 slaves, who generally, as there was little or no de 
 mand for them at Boston, were carried to Barba- 
 does, or the other English settlements in the West 
 Indies, there to be sold. In the particular case above 
 referred to, instead of buying negroes, in the regular 
 course of the Guinea trade, the Boston crew had 
 joined with some Londoners already on the coast, 
 and, on pretence of some quarrel with the natives, had 
 landed " a murderer," the expressive name of a 
 small piece of cannon, had attacked a negro village 
 on a Sunday, and after killing many of the inhab 
 itants, had made a few prisoners, of whom two boys 
 fell to the share of the Bostonians. A violent quarrel 
 between the master, mate, and owners, as to the 
 mutual settlement of their accounts, brought out the 
 whole history of this voyage before the magistrates, 
 one of whom presented a petition to the General 
 Court, charging the master and mate, not with having 
 " sailed for Guinea to trade for negroes," as the case is 
 represented, but with the threefold offence of murder, 
 manstealing, and Sabbath-breaking, the first two 
 capital, by the Fundamental Laws of the colony, and 
 all three " capital, by the laws of God." It was right 
 enough to purchase slaves, but wrong to steal them, 
 especially on a Sunday, and to commit murder in 
 16 
 
182 DESPOTISM 
 
 doing so. The kidnapped negroes were ordered to be 
 sent back ; but no other punishment was inflicted, the 
 court doubting their authority to punish crimes com 
 mitted on the coast of Africa. 
 
 The honor of having made the first American pro 
 test against negro slavery, really belongs not to Mas 
 sachusetts, but to Roger Williams and his fellow- 
 settlers at Providence in Rhode Island, exiles and 
 refugees from the colony of Massachusetts because 
 they had embraced the doctrine of " soul liberty," by 
 which they signified perfect freedom of opinion in 
 matters of religion. The people of Providence, think 
 ing probably that body liberty was a necessary sup 
 plement to soul liberty, enacted a law in 1652, placing 
 "black mankind" on the same level, with regard to 
 limitation of service, as white servants, and absolutely 
 prohibiting perpetual slavery within their territories. 
 Unfortunately for the honor of Rhode Island, this 
 law, never in force except in the town of Providence, 
 presently fell into abeyance ; and within a century 
 not only did negro slavery become common in Rhode 
 Island, but its inhabitants engaged in the African 
 trade, for the supply of the other colonies. 
 
 In Virginia the ratio of slaves to the white popula 
 tion, though for many years not large, was much 
 greater than in New England; but it was not till 
 cases arose for which the English common law, as 
 the colonists understood it, made no provisions satis 
 factory to the slave-holders, that any distinct mention 
 of slavery occurs in the legislation of that colony. 
 In the course of forty years, by which time the slaves 
 numbered two thousand in a population of forty 
 thousand, mulatto children had been born and grown 
 to manhood. What should be the condition of these 
 children ? 
 
 By the English law, when the fathers were free the 
 children were free also. But this did not suit the 
 interest of the slave-holders. The mulattoes were 
 few, ignorant, and helpless, and the Virginia legisla- 
 
IN AMERICA. 183 
 
 ture, notwithstanding its acknowledged obligation to 
 conform strictly to English law, did not hesitate to 
 disregard a great and well-established doctrine of 
 that law, and substituting a provision of the civil, that 
 is, of the Roman code, to enact that children should 
 follow the condition of the mother ; and this principle, 
 thus unwarrantably introduced into Virginia in 1662, 
 was ultimately adopted, by statute or usage, in all 
 the British colonies. 
 
 Another question, not less interesting to the slave 
 holders, presently arose. Of the negroes brought to 
 Virginia, some. had been converted and baptized, and 
 this was the case to a still greater extent with those 
 born in the colony. By what right were these Chris 
 tians held as slaves ? 
 
 The law of England, even according to the colonial 
 view of it, did not allow the slavery of Christians. It 
 was only pagans and infidels who could be enslaved. 
 But the Virginia assembly came to the relief of the 
 masters ; and with that audacious disregard of all law 
 and all right except its own good pleasure, by which 
 slave-holding legislation has ever been characterized, 
 they enacted, in utter defiance of the English law, 
 even their own version of it, that negroes convert 
 ed and baptized should not thereby . become free. 
 This act bears date in 1669. Another act, passed 
 the same year, in equal defiance of the English law, 
 provided, that killing slaves by extremity of correction 
 should not be esteemed felony, " since it cannot be 
 presumed that prepense malice should induce any 
 man to destroy his own estate." 
 
 For reasons of policy or humanity, it had been pro- 
 vided that Indians should not be held as slaves, a 
 provision, whatever the reason of it, which places the 
 legislation of Virginia, on this point, in honorable 
 contrast to that of New England, where the contrary 
 practice prevailed. But did this prohibition extend 
 to Indian captives taken in war, elsewhere than in 
 Virginia, and brought to that colony for sale ? 
 
 This question was settled in 1670, by enacting that 
 
184 DESPOTISM 
 
 " all servants, not being Christians, imported by ship 
 ping, shall be slaves for their lives," those imported 
 by land to serve for a limited time. Freedom had just 
 been denied to Christian negroes converted in the col 
 ony, or born there ; but the assembly did not venture to 
 usurp any such jurisdiction over stranger Christians. 
 
 As a necessary pendant to the slave code, the sys 
 tem of subjecting the free to disabilities now also 
 began. Thus it was enacted in 1670, that negro wo 
 men, though free, should be rated and taxed as " tith- 
 ables," that is, should pay a poll tax, exacted in the 
 case of whites only from the men. Free negroes and 
 Indians were also disqualified to purchase or hold 
 white servants. 
 
 These acts, the legislative basis of slavery in Vir 
 ginia, were enacted during the government of Sir 
 William Berkeley, well known for his famous apos 
 trophe " I thank God we have no free schools nor 
 printing, and I hope we shall not have these hundred 
 years; for learning has brought disobedience, and 
 heresy, and sects into the world, and printing has 
 divulged them ; and libels against the best govern 
 ment. God keep us from both ! " Nor was this wish 
 uttered in vain. The establishment of slavery secured 
 its fulfilment. Virginia has no free schools to this day; 
 none, at least, worthy of the name. She has, indeed, 
 a few printing-presses ; but they are muzzled, gagged, 
 effectually restrained from libels against "the best 
 government " for such in that state the oligarchy of 
 slave-holders is held to be. 
 
 The virtuous resolution of Virginia on the subject 
 of Indians did not last long ; nor did freedom from 
 schools and printing-presses keep out disobedience and 
 rebellion. The immediate cause of Bacon s insur 
 rection, so famous in the colonial annals of Virginia, 
 was the refusal of Berkeley to authorize expeditions 
 against the Indians, who had lately committed some 
 depredations. Berkeley preferred a scheme of defence 
 by forts. The colonists alleged that his interest in 
 the fur-trade made him too tender of the Indians ; 
 
IN AMERICA, 185 
 
 but a law enacted in 1676, by Bacon s insurgent as 
 sembly, might seem to imply, that the eagerness of 
 the colonists for offensive war was not altogether dis 
 interested. Into an act for the prosecution of the 
 Indian war a provision was inserted, that Indian 
 prisoners might be held as slaves ; and notwithstand 
 ing the repeal, after the suppression of the insurrec 
 tion, of all the other of Bacon s laws, this provision 
 was still continued in force. 
 
 In 1682, during Culpepper s administration, the 
 slave code of Virginia received some additions. 
 Slaves were forbidden to carry arms, offensive or 
 defensive ; or to go off their masters plantation, with 
 out a written pass ; or to lift hand against a Chris 
 tian, even in self-defence. Runaways, who refused 
 to be apprehended, might be lawfully killed. Already 
 had the internal slave-trade begun, that trade in 
 which Virginia still bears so unhappy a part. As 
 yet, however? the colony was purchaser, not seller, 
 and by a partial repeal of the existing provision in 
 favor of stranger Christians, facilities for purchasing 
 were extended. The assembly enacted that all ser 
 vants, whether negroes, Moors, mulattoes, or Indians, 
 (including those bought of the neighboring or other 
 Indian tribes,) brought into the colony by sea or land, 
 whether converted to Christianity or not, provided 
 they were not of Christian parentage and country, 
 might be held as slaves. Yet, with all this eagerness 
 for new purchases, the evils of the slave system were 
 already felt. The colony was suffering severely from 
 an over-production of tobacco ; to such a degree, that 
 the poorer free people could scarcely purchase clothes 
 for themselves ; an over-production to which, as 
 Culpepper stated, in an official report, " the buying of 
 blacks had exceedingly contributed." 
 
 In 1691, shortly after the breaking out of the first 
 French and Indian war, policy or humanity, or both 
 combined, recovered the mastery, and the slavery of 
 Indians, sanctioned by statute since the time of 
 Bacon s rebellion, was now finally abolished, Such 
 16* 
 
186 DESPOTISM 
 
 at least was the interpretation given by the courts of 
 Virginia, subsequently to the revolution, (see Pallas 
 Sf al. v. Hill fy al, 2 Henings and Mumford s Re- 
 ports, 149,) to an act of this date, repealing all 
 restraints on traffic with the Indians, and declaring 
 that trade thenceforth free and open with " all Indians 
 whatsoever." But, too ignorant or too helpless to 
 vindicate their rights, " multitudes of the descendants 
 of Indians in Virginia," so says Hening, the learned 
 and laborious editor of the Virginia statutes, " are 
 still unjustly deprived of their liberty," in spite of 
 this decision, one proof, among others, how little 
 mere legal right, though officially declared by the 
 highest tribunals, avails the feeble and defenceless. 
 
 By the Virginia code, as revised in 1705, " all ser 
 vants imported by sea or land, who were not Chris 
 tians in their native country, (except Turks and Moors 
 in amity with her Majesty, and others who can make 
 due proof of their being free in England, or any 
 other Christian country, before they were shipped in 
 order to transportation hither,) shall be accounted and 
 be slaves, and as such be here bought and sold, not 
 withstanding a conversion to Christianity afterwards;" 
 " all children to be bond or free, according to the 
 condition of their mothers." But even in this act, 
 under which near half the population of Virginia are 
 still held as slaves, the original idea, that no Christian 
 could be reduced to slavery, is still sufficiently ap 
 parent. In the case of servants newly brought into 
 the colony, religion, not color, nor race, is made the 
 sole test of distinction between slavery and indented 
 service. Whatever may have been the practice, it 
 is plain enough, that under this act, which con 
 tinued unaltered down to the Revolution, and which 
 still forms the basis of slave property in Virginia, no 
 negro, even, who was a Christian in his native coun 
 try, could, if brought to Virginia, be held there as a 
 slave. 
 
 This code of 1705 also provided, that persons con 
 vict in England of crimes punishable with loss of 
 
IN AMERICA. 187 
 
 life or member, and " all negroes, mulattoes, and 
 Indians," should be incapacitated to hold office in the 
 colony. White women having bastard children by 
 negroes or mulattoes were to pay the parish fifteen 
 pounds, or, in default of payment, to be sold for five 
 years, the child to be bound out as a servant for 
 thirty-one years. " And for a further prevention of 
 that abominable mixture and spurious issue, which 
 hereafter may increase in this her Majesty s colony 
 and dominion, as well by English and other white 
 men and women intermarrying with negroes and 
 mulattoes," as by unlawful connection with them, 
 it was enacted, that any man or woman intermarry 
 ing with a negro or mulatto, bond or free, should be 
 imprisoned six months and fined ten pounds, the 
 minister celebrating the marriage to be fined also. 
 Thus early was the bugbear cry of " amalgamation " 
 raised in Virginia. Similar laws enacted in the 
 other colonies operated to degrade and keep down the 
 colored race, and to prevent the institution of slavery 
 from assuming that patriarchal character, by which, 
 in other countries, it is greatly softened, and some 
 times has been superseded. 
 
 Nothing, indeed, is more striking than the different 
 treatment bestowed by Anglo-American slave-holders, 
 especially those of the United States, upon their own 
 children by slave mothers, and the behavior of Dutch, 
 Spanish, Portuguese, and French slave-holders to 
 wards their children similarly begotten. In the slave- 
 holding colonies of these latter nations, That white 
 man is regarded as unnatural, mean, and cruel, who 
 does not, if his ability permit, secure for his colored 
 children emancipation and some pecuniary provision. 
 Colored children are not less numerous in the United 
 States ; but there conventional decorum forbids the 
 white father to recognize his colored offspring at all, 
 or to make any provision for them. They are still held 
 and sold as slaves ; and among this unfortunate class 
 may be found the descendants of more than one 
 signer of the Declaration of Independence, patriot 
 
188 DESPOTISM 
 
 of the Revolution, leading politician, and presidential 
 candidate. 
 
 The example of the Jews in their treatment of the 
 Canaanites, was cited as good authority in all the 
 English colonies for prohibiting intermarriage with 
 negroes and Indians; and for denouncing the mix 
 ture of races as unnatural and wicked. But no law 
 could control the appetite of the planters nor prevent 
 that intermixture which inevitably takes place, when 
 ever two races are brought into contact, especially if 
 one race be held in slavery. That austere morality 
 (pretending to be religious,) for which the United 
 States are distinguished above all nations on the face 
 of the earth, unless kideed the palm in this respect 
 ought to be yielded to the mother country, has been 
 obliged, in this case, as in others, to content itself, in 
 defect of conformity to its rules, with cruel grimace, 
 and a lie acted out. Hypocrisy, is said to be the trib 
 ute which vice pays to virtue, a tribute of which the 
 religious treasuries of America are full. The vir 
 tuous man, southern church-member, or peradven- 
 ture minister of the gospel, expiates his peccadilloes 
 with his female slaves, by looking on his own children 
 with cold glances, in which no recognition dwells; 
 and as a farther proof of his austere morals, oppor 
 tunity offering, he sells them at auction! 
 
 Yet in Virginia, this antipathy to the mixture of 
 races was not and is not carried so far as in some of 
 the more southern colonies. The grand child of an 
 Indian, the great-great grand child of a negro, all 
 the other links being white, become themselves white 
 in the eye of the law, and therefore presumably free. 
 
 In Maryland slavery had existed from its first set 
 tlement ; but the oldest statute on the subject bears 
 date thirty years afterwards, in 1663, when it was 
 enacted, " that all negroes and other slaves within this 
 province, and all negroes and other slaves to be here 
 after imported, shall serve during life, and all children 
 born of any negro or other slave, shall be slaves as 
 
IN AMERICA. 189 
 
 their fathers were, for the term of their lives." In 
 1715, however, by which time the negroes held in 
 bondage composed a fifth part of the population, this 
 apparent conformity to the principles of the English 
 law of villeinage touching the hereditary descent of 
 servitude, was silently dropped. In that year, upon 
 occasion of the restoration of the government to the 
 Calvert family, the laws of Maryland were revised, 
 and the new code provided, " that all negroes and 
 other slaves, already imported or hereafter to be im 
 ported into this province, and all children now born 
 or hereafter to be born of such negroes and slaves, 
 shall be slaves during their natural lives." Upon this 
 statute rest all the claims of the colonial slave-holding 
 system of Maryland to a legal foundation. 
 
 The " grand model," the first proprietary constitu 
 tion of Carolina, the production of the celebrated 
 Locke, drawn up in 1670, contained the following 
 clause: u Every freeman of Carolina shall have abso 
 lute power and authority over his negro slaves, of 
 what opinion and religion soever." But " the grand 
 model," in compliance with the repeated and earnest 
 requests of the colonists, was abrogated in 1693, and 
 for nineteen years the system of slavery in South 
 Carolina remained without any legal basis, except 
 that furnished by the mistaken notions of the colonists 
 as to the English law. The assembly, however, at 
 length thought it necessary to provide some statute 
 authority of their own for holding two thirds of the 
 population in servitude; and an act for that purpose, 
 passed in 1712, provided, " that all negroes, mulattoes, 
 mestizoes, or Indians, which at any time heretofore 
 were sold, or now are held or taken to be, or hereafter 
 shall be, bought and sold for slaves, are hereby declared 
 slaves, to all intents and purposes ; " with exceptions, 
 however, in favor of those who have been or shall be, 
 " for some particular merit, made or declared free," 
 and also of such " as can prove that they ought not 
 to be sold as slaves." This extraordinary piece of 
 
190 DESPOTISM 
 
 legislation, reenacted in 1722, and again in 1735, was 
 modified by an act of 1740, as follows: "All negroes, 
 Indians, mulattoes, and mustazoes, (free Indians in 
 amity with this government, and negroes, mulattoes, 
 and mustazoes who are now free, excepted,) who now 
 are or shall hereafter be in this province, and all their 
 issue and offspring, born or to be born, shall be, and 
 they are hereby declared to be and remain for ever 
 hereafter, absolute slaves, and shall follow the con 
 dition of the mother, and shall be deemed in law 
 chattels personal." In all claims of freedom, the 
 burden of proof was to be on the claimant, and it 
 was to be always presumed that every negro, Indian, 
 mulatto, and mestizo is a slave, unless the contrary 
 appear. The word mestizo seems to be employed 
 (though sometimes used else\vhere in a different 
 sense) to designate the mixed Indian blood ; any ad 
 mixture, however slight, of negro or Indian blood 
 being included, according to South Carolina usage, 
 under the epithets mulatto and mestizo, and carrying 
 the presumption of slavery with them. This act, 
 which forms the legal basis, such as it is, of the 
 existing slave-holding system of South Carolina, was 
 preceded and followed by all the customary barbarous 
 enactments of slave codes, which in South Carolina 
 were carried to a degree of unusual ferocity both in 
 substance and expression. Yet the South Carolina 
 assembly seem to have supposed themselves to be le 
 gislating within the limits of the English law ; for at 
 the very same session at which the slave act of 1712 
 was enacted, the common law of England was de 
 clared to be in force in South Carolina. 
 
 In North Carolina no colonial act seems ever to 
 have given a legislative basis to the authority of the 
 master, which rested, and still rests, upon mere cus 
 tom, and the old imaginary right, under the English 
 common law, to reduce infidels and their descendants 
 to servitude. So far as relates to the slavery of In 
 dians, the Carolinians of both provinces had been from 
 
IN AMERICA. 191 
 
 the beginning notorious sinners. They had an irre 
 sistible propensity to kidnap the unhappy natives, 
 and reduce them to slavery. Indeed, one chief ground 
 of quarrel with the proprietaries of the province, grew 
 out of efforts made by them to put a stop to this 
 iniquity. 
 
 Georgia, it is well known, was originally intended 
 to be a free colony ; and during the eighteen years that 
 its affairs were administered by the Trustees who had 
 planted it, slavery was strictly prohibited. But the 
 vagabonds from the streets of London, (for such were 
 the English settlers in Georgia,) raised a loud outcry 
 against this prohibition, ascribing to it the poverty 
 and slow progress of the colony, the natural result of 
 their own incapacity and idleness. The famous 
 Whitefield pleaded with the Trustees in favor of 
 slavery, under the old slave-trading pretence of propa 
 gating, by that means, the Christian religion. The 
 German Lutherans settled in Georgia long had scru 
 ples ; but they were reassured by the heads of their 
 sect in Germany : " If you take slaves in faith, and 
 with the intent of conducting them to Christ, the 
 action will not be a sin, but may prove a benedic 
 tion." Thus, as usual, the religious sentiment and 
 its most disinterested votaries were made the tools of 
 worldly selfishness, for the enslavement and plunder 
 of mankind. One of the first acts of the new 
 government, which succeeded to the authority of the 
 Trustees, (1752,) was, the repeal of the prohibition of 
 slavery. It was not, however, till thirteen years after 
 wards that the legislature of Georgia reinforced what 
 they supposed to be the common law on this subject, 
 by positive enactment. In 1765, they copied the 
 South Carolina act of 1740 ; excepting, however, from 
 the stern doom of slavery, not only such negroes, 
 tnulattoes, mestizoes, and Indians as already were free, 
 but such also as might afterwards become free ; thus 
 acknowledging a possibility of future manumissions, 
 which the South Carolina statutes seemed to cut off. 
 
192 
 
 DESPOTISM 
 
 Such is the legislation, and all the legislation, by 
 which it can be pretended that slavery, as it now 
 exists in the United States, acquired during the 
 colonial times the character and the dignity of a 
 Legal Institution. Was this legislation valid ? Could 
 it have the effect to legalize slavery in America ? 
 
 As our state legislatures are now restricted in their 
 powers by constitutions, state and federal, so the 
 colonial legislatures were restricted in their powers 
 by the law of England. Contrary to the great prin 
 ciples of that law they could not make any acts. 
 This limitation was expressly declared in the colonial 
 charters. Thus, for instance, the charter of Maryland 
 provided, that all laws to be enacted by the provincial 
 legislature " be consonant to reason, and be not re 
 pugnant or contrary, but (so far as conveniently may 
 be) agreeable to the laws, statutes, customs, and 
 rights of this our kingdom of England." Similar 
 provisions are to be found in the charters of Virginia, 
 Carolina, and Georgia. It is true, that these charters, 
 except that of Maryland, were surrendered or taken 
 away, previous to the Revolution. But this proceed 
 ing, so far from extending the authority of the 
 colonial legislatures, operated the other way; con 
 formity to the law of England being still more strictly 
 demanded in the royal than in the chartered provinces. 
 The very commissions of the governors, under the 
 authority of which alone the legislative assemblies 
 of the crown (or unchartered) colonies had any ex 
 istence, expressly restricted the enactments of those 
 assemblies to such acts as " were not repugnant, but 
 as near as may be agreeable, to the laws and statutes 
 of the kingdom of England." This doctrine of the 
 restricted powers of the colonial legislatures was 
 perfectly well established, and it has been repeatedly 
 recognized by the Supreme Court of the United 
 States, as well as by the state courts. No lawyer 
 would pretend that any colonial legislature had pow 
 er, for instance, to abolish trial by jury. The limits 
 of colonial legislative authority may be well exem- 
 
IN AMERICA.. 193 
 
 plified by a transaction in South Carolina. That 
 province being violently distracted by disputes be 
 tween churchmen and dissenters, in 1704 the church 
 men, happening to have a majority of one in the 
 assembly, passed an act, by the help of a good quan 
 tity of good liquor, that none but churchmen should 
 vote. This act was approved by the proprietaries; 
 and as the charter of Carolina reserved no negative 
 to the crown, it thus obtained the form of law. But 
 the dissenters, indignant at this outrage, sent an agent 
 to England, on whose petition the House of Lords, 
 swayed by the eloquence of Somers, pronounced this 
 disfranchising act unreasonable and contrary to the 
 laws of England, of which, since the revolution of 
 1789, the toleration of all regular Protestant sects had 
 become an established principle; and Queen Anne, 
 by the advice of the attorney and solicitor-general, 
 issued a proclamation declaring the obnoxious act 
 void, because it violated that clause in the charter 
 which required the laws of the colony not to contra 
 dict those of England. 
 
 If the colonial legislatures could not abolish trial 
 by jury ; if, after the toleration of all Protestant sects 
 had become the law of England, they had no power 
 to enact laws disfranchising any Protestant had they 
 any legal power to establish slavery ? 
 
 Certainly not, if slavery was contrary to the law of 
 England. And that it was contrary to the law of 
 England we now proceed to show. 
 
 And here again, as in the whole of this discussion, 
 it becomes necessary clearly to distinguish between 
 law and practice; between that which might legally 
 have been done, and that which actually was done 
 without law, or against it. It has already been men 
 tioned, that while the last remnants of the old system 
 of villeinage were disappearing, the nascent maritime 
 enterprise of England had led to the occasional im 
 portation of the pagan natives of other countries, 
 who were claimed and held as slaves. On the trial 
 of the impeachment against the judges of the Star 
 17 
 
194 DESPOTISM 
 
 Chamber, ordered by the Long Parliament in 1640, 
 and reported in Rushworth s Collections, a case was 
 cited, said to have occurred in the eleventh year of 
 Elizabeth, (1569,) in which "one Cartwright brought 
 a slave from Russia, and would scourge him ; for 
 which he was questioned, and it was resolved that 
 England was too pure an air for a slave to breathe- 
 in." But the first recorded English case, in which 
 the legality of holding men in slavery came in ques 
 tion, was that of Butts v. Penny, decided in 1677, in 
 the Court of King s Bench. (2 Levintz, 251 ; 3 Keble, 
 785.) Though in form an action of trover, brought 
 in London, to recover damages for the taking away 
 of ten negroes, this case in fact related to a 
 transaction between the parties in India, (see Har- 
 grave s statement on the subject, in his published 
 argument in the case of Somerset;) and it being 
 found by a special verdict "that the negroes were 
 infidels and subjects of an infidel prince, and are 
 usually bought and sold in India as merchandise," 
 and that the plaintiff bought these, and was in pos 
 session of them till the defendant took them, the 
 court held "that being usually bought and sold among 
 merchants as merchandise, there might be a property 
 in them sufficient to maintain trover." And the same 
 doctrine appears also to have been held in the Common 
 Pleas in 1694, in the case of Gilly v. Clive, (1 Lord 
 Raymond, 147.) But in 1705, in the case of Smith 
 v. Gould, (Salkeld, 666; 2 Lord Raymond, 1774,) 
 which was also an action of trover for a negro, the 
 case of Butts v. Penny was expressly overruled. " The 
 common law," said Lord Holt, " takes no notice of 
 negroes being different from other men. By the com 
 mon law, no man can have a property in another but 
 in special cases, as in a villein, but even in him not to 
 kill him; so in captives taken in war, but the taker 
 cannot kill them, but may sell them to ransom them. 
 There is no such thing as a slave by the law of Eng- 
 
 dr 
 
 Nor was this the only occasion upon which Lord 
 
IN AMERICA. 195 
 
 Holt, one of the most illustrious names in English 
 jurisprudence, vindicated this principle of the com 
 mon law. In the case of Smith v. Brown Sf Cooper, 
 (Holt, 495; Salkeld, 666,) the court over which he 
 presided refused to sustain an action of assumpsit to 
 recover the price of a slave, " because," said Lord 
 Holt, " as soon as a negro comes into England he is 
 free. One may be a villein in England, but not a 
 slave." It was indeed suggested that the decision 
 might have been different, had the sale been stated 
 in the declaration to have bei made in Virginia, 
 with an averment that, by the laws of that country, 
 negroes were saleable, " for the laws of England," 
 said Lord Holt, " do not extend to Virginia : being a 
 conquered country, their law is what the king pleases, 
 and we cannot take notice of it but as set forth." 
 This, however, was a view of the relation of the 
 mother country to the colonies, and of the rights of 
 the inhabitants, the correctness of which (though it 
 was held down to Lord Holt s time by the English 
 lawyers generally) was never admitted by the col 
 onists themselves, and which, in the course of the 
 next half century, as to all the colonies originally 
 planted by English emigrants, was, by the general 
 consent of the English bench and bar, given up as 
 untenable. Nor would even the existence in the crown 
 of such an arbitrary power of colonial legislation 
 have afforded any legislative basis for slavery to stand 
 upon ; for, so far from any authority having been 
 given by the crown to the colonial legislatures to 
 legalize slavery, it had been expressly provided in all 
 the American charters, and in all the instructions to 
 the royal governors, that no local laws were to be 
 enacted repugnant to those of England ; so that the 
 question of the legality of slavery in the colonies 
 would still come back to the question of its repug 
 nancy to English jurisprudence. 
 
 Yet notwithstanding the two express decisions above 
 cited of the Court of King s Bench, that negro slavery 
 was a thing unknown to the English law, which 
 
196 DESPOTISM 
 
 recognized no distinction between negroes and other 
 men, and which had never admitted slavery except 
 in the peculiar and now extinct form of villeinage, 
 negroes still continued, as before, to be brought to 
 England, and there to be held and treated as slaves 
 a practice which, with the growth of the African 
 slave trade and the increase of slaves in the colonies, 
 became, during the first half of the 18th century, 
 more and more frequent. 
 
 The negroes thus imported were too ignorant and 
 too helpless to vindicate their own rights ; nor was 
 there any thing in the public sentiment of that gross 
 age, of which Mammon was the peculiar god, to 
 check the growth of this new system of slavery. 
 Some little annoyance seems indeed to have been 
 occasionally given to the slave-holders, by claims of 
 freedom set up on the ground of baptism, or on the 
 common law principle of the right of all men to 
 liberty; but these claims were met, and to a great 
 extent silenced, by a legal opinion obtained in 1729, 
 from Sir Philip Yorke and Charles Talbot, (after 
 wards Lord Talbot,) in which " they pledged them 
 selves to the merchants of London to save them 
 harmless from all inconvenience " growing out of such 
 claims ; an ex parte opinion to which a judicial sanc 
 tion seemed to be given by Yorke, then become Lord 
 Hardwicke, and Chancellor, by his decision in 1749, 
 in the case of Pearne v. Lisle, (Ambler, Reports, 75.) 
 In that case an application was made for a writ of 
 ne exeat regno, a prohibition, that is, to Lisle to leave 
 the kingdom, till he had first paid to the plaintiff a 
 certain stipulated rent, due for certain negroes hired 
 and held as slaves in the island of Antigua, and had 
 also returned the negroes; which application Hard 
 wicke declined to grant, on the ground that the plain 
 tiff had a sufficient remedy in the ordinary course of 
 law. "I have no doubt," he said, "that trover will 
 lie for a negro slave ; it is as much property as any 
 other thing. The case in Salkeld, 66(3, (Smith v. 
 Gould,) was determined on the want of a proper de- 
 
IN AMERICA. 197 
 
 scription. It was trover pro uno JEthiope vocat. negro, 
 (for one Ethiopian called a negro,) without saying 
 ^lave. The being negro did not necessarily imply 
 slave." [Here we have a specimen of the cool assur 
 ance of eminent lawyers in explaining away cases 
 which they do not venture to overrule, since it is 
 abundantly apparent from the report of the case in 
 Salkeld, and still more so from that in Lord Raymond, 
 that so far from the decision having been grounded 
 on this alleged defect in description, its very basis was 
 the fact that the negro was claimed as a slave. Indeed, 
 Lord Holt stated in so many words, as the reason of 
 the decision, that " there is no such thing as a slave by 
 the law of England."] " The reason said at the bar," 
 so Lord Hardwicke proceeded, " to have been given 
 by Chief Justice Holt as the cause of his doubt," 
 [another specimen of bold judicial misrepresentation, 
 since it was no doubt of Lord Holt s, but a solemn 
 decision of the Court of King s Bench,] "viz., that 
 the moment that a slave sets his foot in England he 
 becomes free," [this reason was not given in the case 
 of Smith v. Gould, but in the other case of Smith v. 
 Brown Sf Cooper, which is found indeed on the same 
 page in Salkeld,] "has no weight with it, nor can any 
 reason be found why they should not be equally so 
 when they set foot in Jamaica, or any other English 
 plantation. All our colonies are subject to the laws 
 of England, although, to some purposes, they have 
 laws of their own." [On this point doubtless Hard 
 wicke had the advantage of Holt; for the opinions of 
 the English lawyers, since the English revolution, had 
 gradually been brought into coincidence with that of 
 the colonists, who had all along claimed that the 
 common law was as much in force in the colonies as 
 in England.] " There was once a doubt," continued 
 the judge, " whether, if they were christened, they 
 would not become free by that act ; and there were 
 precautions taken in the colonies to prevent them 
 from becoming baptized, till the opinion of Lord 
 Talbot and myself, then attorney and solicitor-general, 
 17* 
 
198 DESPOTISM 
 
 was taken on that point. We were both of opinion 
 that it did not at all alter their state." [The opinion 
 indeed went much further, but the judge perhaps did 
 not think it decorous to mention the pledge which he 
 had given to the London slave-holders to save them 
 harmless from all claims of freedom.] " There were 
 formerly villeins or slaves in England, and these of 
 two sorts, regardant and in gross; and although tenures 
 are taken away, there are no laws that have destroyed 
 servitude absolutely. Trover might have been brought 
 for a villein. If a man were to come into a court of 
 record and confess himself villein to another, (which 
 was one way of being a villein,) what the conse 
 quence would be I would not say, but there is no law 
 to abolish it at this time." Such is the reasoning, 
 and all the reasoning, upon which Lord Hardwicke, 
 sitting as an equity judge, undertook to overturn two 
 solemn decisions of the King s Bench on a point of 
 common law. Villeinage, though it had died away 
 and disappeared, had not been formally abolished ; 
 and therefore negro slavery, a relation wholly different 
 in its origin and incidents, agreeing with villeinage 
 only in the fact of involving personal servitude a 
 relation introduced within two or three centuries, 
 quite within the time of legal memory, and without 
 any basis or foundation, except the convenience and 
 gain of certain London merchants this relation, by 
 some unexplained transfusion, had inherited all the 
 legal character of villeinage ! There was no law to 
 prevent a man from going into court and confessing 
 himself the villein of another, and therefore there was 
 no law to prevent London merchants from holding 
 negroes in slavery against their will! 
 
 The personal character of a judge will often throw 
 no little light upon his judicial opinions, especially 
 those in which general principles are involved. 
 Hardwicke, we are told by Lord Campbell, in his 
 Lives of the Chancellors, was " the most consummate 
 judge who ever sat in the Court of Chancery," the 
 " greatest contributor to the English equity code," 
 
IN AMERICA. 199 
 
 not any very high commendation, perhaps, with those 
 who have had much experience of chancery suits. 
 But the character of a "consummate judge" has 
 too often been obtained by a ready ingenuity in giving 
 plausible reasons to sustain power against right, or 
 in defect of plausible reason, by a bold effrontery in 
 trampling under foot the weak and helpless, for the 
 benefit and convenience of the rich and powerful. 
 That there was nothing in Lord Hardwicke s personal 
 character to deter him from such a course, but much 
 to prompt him to it, Lord Campbell himself shall be 
 our witness. " His career was not checkered by any 
 youthful indiscretions or generous errors. He ever had 
 a keen and steady eye to his own advantage, as well 
 as to the public good. [Is there not a little irony in 
 this last clause ?] Amid the aristocratic connections 
 which he formed, he forgot the companions of his 
 youth, and his regard for the middle classes of society, 
 from which he sprang, cooled down to indifference. 
 He became jealous of all who could be his rivals for 
 power, and he contracted a certain degree of selfish 
 ness and hardness of character which excited much 
 envy [?] and ill will amid the flatteries which sur 
 rounded him." His first patron, for whom he assidu 
 ously worked, and by whose partial favor he was 
 brought into notice, was the Earl of Macclesfield, 
 that "trafficker in judicial robes, and robber of widows 
 and orphans," who was afterwards impeached and 
 found guilty of corruption. He then attached him 
 self to the Duke of Newcastle, who, in a long political 
 career, endeavored to make up for personal imbecility 
 by the freest use of patronage and money. " The 
 best thing that can be remembered of the chancellor," 
 says Horace Walpole, " is his fidelity to his patron ; 
 for let the Duke of Newcastle betray whom he would, 
 the chancellor always stuck to him in his perfidy, and 
 was only not false to the falsest of mankind ! " Such 
 was precisely the sort of "consummate judge" from 
 whom might have been anticipated an attempt to 
 give to the enslavement of man a character of legality. 
 
200 DESPOTISM 
 
 What sympathy for the mere laborers could be felt 
 by one who, engrossed by his aristocratic connections, 
 had become coldly indifferent even to the middle 
 classes, from whence he sprang ? 
 
 Bat in spite of the glosses of Lord Hardwicke, and 
 the increasing number of slaves in England, there 
 were still those who felt and those who held that 
 Lord Holt s version of the common law was the true 
 one. An attempt having been made in 1762, in the 
 case of Shanley v. Hervey, (3 Eden s Reports, 126,) be 
 fore Lord Hardwicke s successor as chancellor, Lord 
 Northington, characterized by Lord Eldon as " a great 
 lawyer, and very firm in delivering his opinions," 
 to appropriate to the use of a pretended master a gift 
 or legacy to a negro, he indignantly dismissed the 
 bill with the exclamation " As soon as a man puts 
 foot on English ground he is free. A negro may 
 maintain an action against his master for ill usage, 
 and may have a habeas corpus if restrained of his 
 liberty." The famous Granville Sharpe embraced 
 this opinion with so much enthusiasm as in fact to 
 devote his life to its vindication. Many cases, through 
 his agency, were brought before the courts; and 
 though often foiled, he succeeded at last in obtaining 
 for this great question a solemn rehearing and a final 
 decision. 
 
 James Somerset, an African by birth, carried to 
 Virginia as a slave, and purchased there by James 
 Stewart, had been brought from Virginia to England, 
 where he refused to serve any longer, in consequence 
 of which Stewart seized him, and put him on board a 
 ship to be sent to Jamaica. Being taken before 
 Lord Mansfield (1771) on a writ of habeas corpus, and 
 these facts appearing on the return, the question was 
 referred to the fall Court of King s Bench, before which 
 it was argued at different times by five lawyers re 
 tained by Sharpe, while two of the most eminent 
 counsel of the day (Wallace and Dunning) appeared 
 on the other side. 
 
 Mansfield was endowed with a warmth of senti- 
 
IN AMERICA. 201 
 
 ment, a sympathy with humanity, and a philosophical 
 spirit, which, in giving a vitality to his legal learning 
 and abilities, has elevated hirn high over the heads 
 of so many other "consummate lawyers." Yet he 
 was not celebrated either for intrepidity of spirit, or 
 for any special enthusiasm in behalf of personal liber 
 ty. Here was an opportunity for the establishment 
 of a great principle ; but an opportunity which he did 
 not court, and from which indeed he strove to escape. 
 He was not insensible to the wealth and social stand 
 ing of the parties interested as slave-holders, and he 
 attempted to get rid of this case, as he had done of 
 several similar ones, by urging the settlement of it by 
 an agreement between the parties. The decision 
 seems indeed to have been once or twice postponed, 
 to give Stewart an opportunity to act upon the hint, 
 that if he would manumit Somerset the case might 
 be ended in that way, without any formal decision, 
 which Mansfield openly expressed his anxiety to avoid. 
 If the decision went against the master, it would 
 overturn the established practice and prevailing ideas 
 of the last fifty years, backed by the legal opinion of 
 " two of the greatest men " such were the terms in 
 which Lord Mansfield referred to Yorke and Talbot 
 " of this or any other time."* But on the other hand 
 was the extreme difficulty of adopting the relation of 
 slavery as it existed in the colonies, without adopting 
 it in all its consequences, many of which were " abso 
 lutely contrary to the municipal law of England." 
 " The setting fourteen or fifteen thousand men " for 
 that had been stated by the counsel for the claimant 
 as the estimated number of negro slaves in England 
 " at once loose by a solemn opinion " was " very 
 disagreeable in the effects it threatened." " Fifty 
 pounds" the estimate of Stewart s counsel "may 
 
 * Yet in the course of the argument, he had spoken of their opin 
 ion above referred to with no great respect, as a case " upon & pe 
 tition in Lincoln s Inn Hall, after dinner, therefore probably might 
 not be taken with much accuracy, as he believed was not unusual 
 at that hour." See Loff s Reports. 
 
202 DESPOTISM 
 
 not be a high price. Then a loss follows to the pro 
 prietors of about <700,000 sterling. How would the 
 law stand in respect of their settlement, their wages ? 
 How many actions for any slight coercion by the 
 master ? " 
 
 But though these prudential considerations made 
 the tirnid Mansfield anxious to escape a formal judg 
 ment, they did not alter his opinion of the law. 
 " We cannot, in any of these points, direct the law ; 
 the law must direct us." " If the parties will have 
 judgment, fiatjusticia mat cesium let justice be done 
 whatever be the consequence." At the same time he 
 suggested, as a consolation to the slave-holders, " an 
 application to parliament, if the merchants think the 
 question of great commercial concern," as " the best, 
 arid perhaps only, method of settling the question for 
 the future," a suggestion, however, upon which, in 
 the existing state of public sentiment, the London 
 slave-holders did not venture to act. 
 
 At last, after several postponements, as Stewart 
 declined to terminate the case by manumitting Somer 
 set, Mansfield proceeded to render judgment; which 
 he did very briefly ; and yet, as his peculiar manner 
 was, in terms sufficiently comprehensive not only to 
 decide the case before him, but to establish a principle 
 for the decision of other cases. 
 
 " We pay all due attention," he said, " to the opin 
 ion of Sir Philip Yorke and Lord Talbot, whereby 
 they pledged themselves to the British planters for all 
 the legal consequences of slaves coming over to this 
 kingdom, or being baptized, recognized by Lord 
 Hardwicke, sitting as chancellor," in the case of 
 Pearne v. Lisle. " The only question before us is, 
 whether the cause on the return is sufficient. If it is, 
 the negro must be remanded ; if it is not, he must be 
 discharged. The return states that the slave departed 
 and refused to serve, whereupon he was seized to be 
 sold abroad. So high an act of dominion must be 
 recognized by the law of the country where it is used. 
 The power of a master over his slave has been exceed- 
 
IN AMERICA. 203 
 
 ingly different in different countries. The state of 
 slavery is of such a nature, that it is incapable of being- 
 introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only 
 by positive law, which preserves its force long after the 
 reasons, occasions, and time itself from whence it was 
 created, is erased from memory. It is so odious that 
 nothing can be suffered to support it but positive law. 
 Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from 
 the decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or ap 
 proved by the law of England, and therefore the black 
 must be discharged." 
 
 It is very true that this decision is limited in its 
 terms to the case of persons claimed as slaves within 
 the realm of England, that being the particular case 
 before the court. It is also true that the counsel for 
 Somerset, conscious of the pecuniary influence weigh 
 ing against their client, and anxious to limit that 
 influence as much as possible, were very careful not 
 to question the legality of slavery in the colonies. 
 But as all the colonial assemblies were specially re 
 stricted, either by charter or the royal commissions 
 under which they met and legislated, to the enactment 
 of laws not repugnant to those of England, how 
 could those assemblies be competent to legalize a 
 condition, many of the consequences of which were 
 pronounced by Lord Mansfield "absolutely contrary * 
 to English law? and did it not follow, as one of the 
 "inconveniences" of that decision, as Hardwicke had 
 suggested it would, that slavery, illegal in England, 
 was also illegal in the English colonies? 
 
 To evade this conclusion, the omnipotence of par 
 liament was invoked, as having, at least by way of 
 inference and recognition, legalized slavery in Amer 
 ica ; for which purpose several acts were cited re 
 lating to the African trade, particularly that of 9 and 
 10 Wil. III. ch. 26; also the act of 1732, for the 
 speedy recovery of debts in the colonies. The first 
 of these acts plainly speaks of negroes as a species 
 of merchandise, the export of which from the African 
 coast in British ships was particularly favored, by 
 
204 DESPOTISM 
 
 their exemption from a duty of ten per cent., imposed, 
 for the sustentation of the West African forts, on all 
 exports from that coast, "negroes excepted." The 
 great object of the other act was, to make real estate 
 in the colonies liable to be levied upon for debts the 
 same with personal property; and as some of the 
 colonies, to protect the planters against their creditors, 
 had declared negroes to be real estate, such negroes 
 too were made by this act seizable for debt along 
 with the lands to which they were attached. But so 
 great an innovation upon the common law as the 
 legalization of negro slavery, is not to be sustained by 
 a mere statute implication ; especially when the pro 
 visions relied upon do not necessarily imply any thing 
 more than what the long-established common law had 
 fully recognized. The importation into the colonies, 
 and the sale there, of servants, to be held for a limited 
 period, to be esteemed during that period Ihe goods 
 and chattels of the purchaser, to be sold at his pleas 
 ure, and liable to be seized for his debts, was un 
 doubtedly permitted by the law of England. Such 
 servants were regularly imported from England, 
 Scotland, Ireland, and Germany, in numbers at least 
 equal to the negroes ; nor is there any thing more 
 than this necessarily implied in the acts above cited. 
 There is nothing to show that parliament intended to 
 place Africans in this respect on a different ground 
 from other men. Such, indeed, would seem to have 
 been the view taken of these acts by Lord Mansfield. 
 The exportation of negroes was not limited to Amer 
 ica. In the act above referred to for regulating the 
 African trade, England was mentioned in precisely 
 the same terms as the colonies, as one of the places 
 to which African merchandise, including negroes, 
 might be brought; and the holding of negroes in 
 slavery, so far as that act goes, was just as much 
 authorized by it in the one country as in the other. 
 But though these statutes were cited in Somerset s 
 case, Lord Mansfield allowed them no weight. And in 
 the case of Forbes v. Cochrane, (2 Barnwell & Cress- 
 
IN AMERICA. 205 
 
 well, 443,) decided in 1824 in the Court of King s 
 Bench, Chief Justice Best expressly stated "that he 
 did not feel himself fettered by any thing expressed 
 in either of these acts, [the acts, that is, in relation 
 to the trade with Africa,] in pronouncing the same 
 opinion on the rights growing out of slavery as if they 
 had never passed." 
 
 There is indeed a still further distinction as to the 
 case of those held as slaves in the colonies, apt to be 
 overlooked in these discussions, but which cannot be 
 disregarded, at least by those who coincide with 
 Lords Camden and Chatham and the Continental 
 Congresses of 1765 and 1774, in their views of colo 
 nial and metropolitan relations. Whatever the con 
 dition might legally have been of those unfortunate 
 aliens purchased in Africa as slaves, and brought to 
 America and sold to the planters; suppose even that 
 it might have been consonant to English law to hold 
 them as servants for life, as Blackstone seems to have 
 imagined ; yet the case was very different as to their 
 children born in the colonies, who were in every 
 respect, according to the views above stated, natural- 
 born subjects of the King of England, and entitled to 
 all the rights of Englishmen, from which not even 
 parliament itself, and much less the colonial legisla 
 tures, had any power to exclude them. Such was 
 the ground taken by James Otis, in his famous 
 pamphlet on Colonial Rights^ published (1764) in 
 anticipation of the Stamp Act, and justly regarded 
 as the first trumpet blast of the American Revolution* 
 in which pamphlet he laid it down as a fundamental 
 proposition, the basis of all his reasoning, that all the 
 colonists, whether " black or white," born in America, 
 were free born British subjects, entitled to all the 
 essential rights of such. 
 
 The decision in Somerset s case is sometimes 
 spoken of, even by judges on the bench, as having 
 changed the law of England. But such a view of it 
 is entirely false. Judgments of courts do not change 
 the law. They are not the law, but only evidence of 
 18 
 
206 DESPOTISM 
 
 the law. The Somerset case did not make nor alter 
 the law of England ; it only freed it from the false 
 glosses with which ignorance, avarice, violence, and the 
 practice of two or three hundred years had obscured 
 it. It did but repeat, and now, from the altered state 
 of the public sentiment, in a more authoritative 
 and effectual tone, the very declaration which Lord 
 Holt, three quarters of a century before, had then 
 ineffectually made, that the law of England did not 
 allow the reducing men to slavery, and did not regard 
 negroes as any way different, in this respect, from 
 other men. Such being the fact, there surely existed 
 no power in any colonial assembly, restricted as all 
 those assemblies were to the enactment of Jaws " not 
 repugnant to those of England," to legalize a con 
 dition many of the consequences of which were, in 
 the words of Lord Mansfield, " absolutely contrary" to 
 English law. 
 
 But it is not by the mere declaration of what the 
 law is especially where there is no spirit or dispo 
 sition on the part of those in authority to enforce or 
 even to recognize it that wrong is ever to be rectified ; 
 nor has it been in America alone that courts and law 
 yers have trampled law as well as justice under foot, 
 in their zeal to gain the favor and to conform to the 
 wishes of those possessed of wealth and of social and 
 political influence. The American Declaration of 
 Independence, which took place within a little more 
 than four years after the decision in Somerset s case, 
 Removed the colonies, now become the United State?, 
 from all further control by English tribunals or Eng 
 lish authority ; but there were several other colonial 
 dependencies of the British empire, in which, for 
 more than sixty years after that decision, negro slavery 
 continued in full energy, too strong, too rampant, for 
 any English judge to dare to apply to it the principle 
 of the Somerset case ; since here it was not a ques 
 tion of ,700,000 and fourteen thousand negroes, but 
 of a sum and a number near a hundred times as 
 great ; the difficulty of redressing wrongs unfortunate- 
 
IN AMERICA. 207 
 
 ly increasing in something like geometrical proportion 
 to the number of those whom they crush. Even such 
 a judge as Chief Justice Best, while giving such au 
 thority to the case of Somerset as to hold, (in Forbes 
 v. Cochrane, above referred to,) that slaves flying from 
 a Spanish colony, and taking refuge on board a 
 British ship on the high seas, thereby became free, 
 was very careful to add, " There may possibly be a 
 distinction between the situation of these persons, and 
 that of slaves coming from our own islands, for we 
 have unfortunately recognized the existence of slavery 
 there, though we have never recognized it in our own 
 country." Indeed, he specially desired that nothing 
 he might say in that case [and he said several very 
 fine things] " might be considered as trenching on the 
 local rights of the West India proprietors to the 
 services of their slaves in that country." 
 
 Nor when, at last, the question of the legality of 
 slavery in the colonies was distinctly raised before an 
 English court, (unfortunately not a court of common 
 law,) did the slave-holders fail to find, in the person 
 of Lord Stowell, another " consummate judge," not 
 less ready than Lord Hardwicke had been, in his day, 
 to give to a cruel and oppressive custom all the 
 character and attributes of a solemn legislative au 
 thority. The case of The Slave Grace, (2 Haggard s 
 Admiralty Reports, 106,) decided in 1827, is indeed 
 most instructive, as showing to what extent your 
 "consummate lawyer" will go, on behalf of the 
 interests, or what he esteems such, of property and 
 commerce, no matter at what expense of human 
 agony, and disregard of the plainest principles of 
 justice. Set aside the state of Mississippi, under the 
 chief justiceship of the notorious Sharkey, and the 
 circuits of Judges Grier and Curtis, of the United 
 States Supreme Court, and it would be impossible to 
 match that case in all the American Reports. Indeed, 
 the main point decided in it has been ruled the other 
 way in some half dozen American slave-holding 
 states, in all, in fact, Mississippi excepted, in which 
 
208 DESPOTISM 
 
 the point has been directly raised. For it is to be 
 noted, that, until quite recently, the courts even of the 
 slave-holding states have exhibited no little alacrity 
 in giving freedom to individuals, and even to families 
 claimed to be held as slaves, speaking out in such 
 cases very warmly for liberty, and exhibiting evident 
 gusto and satisfaction in knocking off the fetters. It 
 has only been in cases likely to prove too sweeping 
 as precedents, cases involving principles comprehen 
 sive enough to give freedom to large numbers, that 
 this judicial tendency in favor of liberty has been 
 checked. The case above referred to was that of a 
 girl born in slavery in the Island of Antigua. She had 
 been brought to England, but whether from ignorance 
 or want of inclination had failed to claim her liberty 
 there, and had returned to Antigua, where she was 
 still held as a slave. The circumstance, however, that 
 she had been in England, was presently set up as 
 having made her free ; and since the local courts would 
 not recognize the claim, to give her and others in her 
 condition the chance of an English adjudication, with 
 out the heavy expenses of an ordinary appeal, (if 
 indeed it were possible, by the ordinary course of 
 appeal, to carry such a case to England,) she was 
 libelled in the Vice Admiralty Court of Antigua, as 
 having been introduced into that island as a slave, 
 contrary to the acts abolishing the slave trade ; and 
 the local admiralty judge having decided against her, 
 the case came before Lord Stowell by appeal. It was 
 but a decent regard for appearances for an English 
 judge in Lord Stowell s position, and especially one 
 about to make such a decision as he did, to indulge 
 in some flourishes on the subject of liberty, which his 
 lordship did very cheaply, and with a sort of judicial 
 demagoguism sufficiently common both in England 
 and America, by breaking out into a burst of indig 
 nation that a person claiming to be free should suffer 
 herself to be libelled as an illegally introduced slave ! 
 when, without resorting to any such humiliating 
 method of vindicating her rights, she had nothing 
 
IN AMERICA. 209 
 
 to do but to claim to be free, and to act as such ! 
 As if such a claim made in Antigua, as it then was, 
 would have availed poor Grace! As if my lord did 
 not perfectly well know why a procedure in the 
 Admiralty Court had been resorted to ! 
 
 Stowell had gained the reputation of a "consum 
 mate judge," by a series of learned and ingenious 
 decisions, by which, during the war between France 
 and England, he had zealously, and, according to a 
 common enough view of such matters, patriotically la 
 bored to secure to the merchants of England a much 
 coveted monopoly of ocean commerce an object 
 which he had accomplished by giving to a few ques 
 tionable old precedents, and especially to an arbitrary 
 rule introduced by England during the war of 1756, 
 the character of the Law of Nations, and on that 
 ground, justifying the wholesale capture and plunder 
 of American and other neutral vessels, trading be 
 tween France and her colonies. As was natural 
 enough for such a judge, he did not at all share in the 
 sentiment then fast spreading in England against 
 negro slavery; indeed, he was eager to give to that 
 crumbling institution all the support of his profession 
 al reputation. Yet he felt obliged to admit, however 
 good a thing slavery might be, that the practice of 
 dragging back into it those who had once enjoyed the 
 blessings of freedom, had been attended by lamenta 
 ble consequences. " Persons, though possessed of in 
 dependence and affluence, acquired in the mother 
 country, have, upon a return to the colonies, been held 
 and treated as slaves, and the unfortunate descend 
 ants of these persons, if born within the colony, have 
 come slaves into the world, and, in some instances, 
 have suffered all the consequences of real slavery." 
 Yet in the eyes of such a man as Stowell, what 
 were these agonies of oppressed humanity in compe 
 tition with the necessity of giving to the holders of 
 property a sentiment of security, and especially to 
 the holders of property in men, attacked at that mo 
 ment by so many wicked or thoughtless abolitionists? 
 18* 
 
210 DESPOTISM 
 
 for it was in the midst of the anti-slavery agitation 
 in England, that this judgment was rendered. 
 
 Yet, if Grace had left England a free British sub 
 ject, as the decision in Somerset s case would seem to 
 imply, by what process, on landing in Antigua, had 
 she been transformed into a slave? The case of 
 Somerset was directly opposed to the decision which 
 Stowell s antecedent and present associations and 
 opinions had predetermined him to make ; and, there 
 fore, it was necessary to explain that decision away. 
 That Somerset had been properly discharged, he did 
 not venture to deny, but the reasons given by Lord 
 Mansfield for that discharge he set aside altogether. 
 Putting those reasons aside, that case, according to 
 Lord Stowell, went no further than this : " The slave 
 continues a slave, though the law of England re 
 lieves from the rigor of that code while he is in Eng 
 land, and that is all that it does." All that had been 
 said about a slave not being able to breathe in Eng 
 land, was a mere flourish of rhetoric, and as soon as 
 Grace returned to Antigua, her master, freed from the 
 annoying interference of the English law, regained 
 all his rights ! 
 
 But supposing that to be so, yet by what law of 
 Antigua was Grace held as a slave? The legislature 
 of Antigua had no power to make laws repugnant 
 to those of England ; and not only had they no power, 
 but taking it for granted that slavery was recognized 
 by the common law, they had allowed it to rest on 
 that basis alone. Not only was there no statute of 
 Antigua expressly authorizing the slavery of negroes, 
 but by a statute passed in 1705, and never repealed, 
 the common law of England was declared to be the 
 law of that colony, except when altered by written 
 laws of the island, and " all customs and pretended 
 customs and usage, contradictory thereto," were pro 
 nounced " illegal, null, and void." Here was fresh 
 and urgent occasion for attacking the reasoning of 
 Lord Mansfield in Somerset s case ; for where, so far 
 as Antigua was concerned, was that basis of positive 
 
IN AMERICA. 
 
 law which he had demanded as the only one upon 
 which so " odious " an institution could be made to 
 stand? an institution which he had pronounced 
 incapable of being introduced upon any reasons moral 
 or political, but only by positive law. 
 
 Lord Hardwicke, in his attempt to legalize slavery, 
 had seemed disposed to represent it as a mere con 
 tinuation of the system of villeinage. Lord Stowell 
 did not fail to perceive the weakness of that position ; 
 for if villeinage was too odious a system to stand 
 against the public sentiment even of the fifteenth 
 century, how could any mere copy or imitation of it 
 in the shape of negro slavery be expected to be tol 
 erated in the nineteenth ? Alarmed apparently lest 
 the same strict constructions and legal principles 
 which had operated to abolish villeinage might be 
 brought to bear against the enslavement of negroes, 
 he labored to distinguish and exalt that " as part of a 
 system extending into foreign countries and trans 
 marine possessions," and therefore not to be subject 
 ed to the narrow constructions and local humanities 
 of English jurisprudence. The English sailors have 
 a proverb, " No Sunday off soundings," and exactly 
 in the spirit of that proverb seem to be conceived 
 many of the decisions of the English Admiralty Courts, 
 and indeed much of the foreign policy of Great Britain, 
 of which the Chinese opium war may be cited as a 
 flagrant instance. Yet the Law of Nations, a mantle 
 wide enough, as it proved in Lord Stowell s hands, to 
 cover such a multitude of wrongs, could not by itself 
 alone sustain slavery in an English colony. In the 
 particular case of Antigua, it became necessary not 
 only to set aside the reasons given by Lord Mans 
 field for his decision in the Somerset case, but to 
 take issue on the very turning point of those reasons. 
 Lord Stowell therefore, under the form of modestly 
 questioning, proceeded to deny, point blank, the fun 
 damental proposition of Lord Mansfield, that to up 
 hold slavery some " positive law " must be shown 
 for it. " Ancient custom," so he suggested, " is gen- 
 
212 DESPOTISM 
 
 erally recognized as a just foundation of all law." 
 " A great part of the common law itself, in all its re 
 lations, has little other foundation than this same 
 custom." " That villeinage which is said to be the 
 prototype of slavery, had no other origin than ancient 
 custom." And on the strength of these observations, 
 he held slavery to be legalized in Antigua by a 
 usage not two hundred years old, (since Antigua was 
 first settled in 1632,) and though the local statutes of 
 the island, coinciding in this particular with the met 
 ropolitan authority, expressly denied any validity to 
 any usage not conformable to the law of England ! 
 
 These ideas, upon which Lord Stowell thus at 
 tempted to base the legality of negro slavery in the 
 colonies, and which would just as well have sustained 
 it in England, though not unusual on both sides of 
 the Atlantic, involve, however, a total ignorance or 
 disregard of the perfectly well established doctrine of 
 the English courts as to the nature and origin of law. 
 According to that doctrine, there are only two possi 
 ble sources of law ; viz., 1st, enlightened reason, 
 equity, natural justice ; and 2dly, positive legis 
 lation. The character and force of law is never con 
 ceded to customs and usages unsustained by positive 
 enactments, except so far as they appear to corre 
 spond to the dictates of enlightened reason, equity, 
 and natural justice, and not to contradict any posi 
 tive law. When the common lawyers first began to 
 consider law in a systematic and scientific point of 
 view, they found, indeed, the institutions of the state, 
 and the proceedings, maxims, and methods of the 
 courts, to be principally based upon certain ancient 
 usages, as to the origin of which no record or memo 
 rial existed. But whatever the historical fact might 
 have been, (as to which we have no resource beyond 
 probable conjecture,) the English courts of common 
 law never based the authority of these ancient usages, 
 institutions, and maxims on custom, or the mere lapse 
 of time during which they had prevailed, nor on the 
 inconvenience of disturbing them. On the other 
 
IN AMERICA. 213 
 
 hand, they constantly represented these usages and 
 institutions, including among the rest the preroga 
 tives of the king, the authority of parliament, the 
 jurisdiction of the courts, the privileges of the peers, 
 the rights of the commons, and the servitude of the 
 villeins, as being founded, in the words of Lord 
 Mansfield, on " positive law " that is, on formal stat 
 utes and precise enactments, of which, however, from 
 the lapse of time and the dilapidation of records, no 
 memorial any longer existed, except in the general 
 usage of the realm and the memory of the courts. 
 But thus to invest a usage or institution with the 
 character of " positive law," (which the courts held 
 themselves bound to carry out without stopping to 
 inquire into its justice, expediency, or reasonable 
 ness, of which the legislature was admitted to be the 
 sole authoritative judge,) that usage or institution 
 must, like the peerage, villeinage, or the rights of pri 
 mogeniture, be traceable back to a time beyond the 
 period of legal memory, which period was held by 
 the courts to commence with the reign of Richard 
 L, A. D. 1189, very few records of an earlier date 
 being in existence. As to customs and usages of a 
 more modern date, the origin of which could be 
 shown, they must depend exclusively for their sanc 
 tion upon their reasonableness, their conformity, 
 that is, to natural equity and justice, and to an en 
 lightened view of the public welfare ; and it was still 
 further necessary that they should not conflict with 
 any rights already established by law, that is, 
 that they should conform to the general policy of the 
 realm. 
 
 Undoubtedly the modern common law consists to a 
 great extent of modern customs introduced by the 
 growing exigencies of society, and confirmed and 
 sanctioned by the courts. Nobody ever did more, nor 
 indeed any thing near so much, as Lord Mansfield 
 himself, thus to amplify and enrich the common law, 
 grafting upon it the best portions of the civil law 
 and of the commercial codes of modern Europe. But 
 
214 DESPOTISM 
 
 negro slavery being an institution neither reasonable, 
 just, nor tending to the good of society, nor to the 
 mutual benefit of the parties concerned, and being 
 moreover, in many of its consequences, " absolutely 
 contrary" to English law, it was impossible for Lord 
 Mansfield to hold either that the pecuniary con 
 venience of the London merchants, or that the two 
 or three hundred years during which such slavery had 
 prevailed, could make it legal. And if negro slavery 
 could not be legalized by mere usage in England, 
 neither could it be so legalized in the colonies. That 
 which the colonial assemblies had no power to do di 
 rectly, could not be done indirectly by the mere act 
 of the inhabitants. Even admitting that negro sla 
 very, as Lord Stowell seems strongly disposed to argue, 
 though a bad and unreasonable custom in England, 
 was a good and reasonable one in the colonies, in fact 
 he secretly thought that slavery was a good custom 
 everywhere; nor on any other assumption could it 
 have been logically possible to render the judgment 
 which he did; yet even that admission could not 
 alter the case ; because whether good or bad, yet 
 being an institution "repugnant" to the law of Eng 
 land, neither the legislation of the assemblies nor the 
 usage of the planters could give to it, in the colonies, 
 the character of law. 
 
 The difference between Lord Mansfield and Lord 
 Stowell is, it will be perceived, absolute and funda 
 mental. According to Lord Mansfield and the com 
 mon lawyers, injustice never can be clothed with the 
 character of law by mere usage, however long con 
 tinued, nor in any way, except by some positive act 
 of the governing power. Some legislator must be 
 found on whom the responsibility of such injustice 
 can be fixed. Some positive law must be pointed 
 out by which this privileged wrong is expressly and 
 plainly authorized in its whole extent. Here is surely 
 a great check to oppression, the greatest perhaps 
 which existing circumstances admit of a check which 
 Lord Stowell and the lawyers of his school seek to 
 
I 
 
 IN AMERICA. 215" 
 
 break down. Besides the government openly legis 
 lating, and thus in tbe face of public opinion assum 
 ing the responsibility for whatever it enacts, the dread 
 authority of making unjust laws is to be conferred 
 in addition upon private interest working secretly in 
 the dark ! Whatever advantages superior force and 
 cunning may, as in the case of negro slavery, have 
 been able to take and to keep for a generation or two 
 over weakness and ignorance, shall thereby become 
 law! Surely a most alarming doctrine, tending to 
 create the most terrible of tyrannies, infinitely more to 
 be dreaded, infinitely more fruitful in wrong than 
 crime and violence ever could be if compelled to 
 show themselves and to act openly in the face of the 
 world! No other comparison will suit such legisla 
 tion but that of the snake swallowing down by im 
 perceptible degrees his crushed and slavered victim. 
 
 This doctrine of the power of possession and usage 
 to give legal validity to slavery is the natural conse 
 quence of confounding men with things. With re 
 spect to things, that which the peace of the community 
 chiefly requires, that in which the interests of com 
 merce are concerned, is, that every thing should have 
 a certain definite owner ; and therefore public con 
 venience imperatively demands that the neglect, for 
 a certain period, to vindicate one s claim to the prop 
 erty of a thing should be esteemed a relinquishment 
 of that claim in favor of the person already in posses 
 sion. But this doctrine can have no application 
 whatever to the case of men, in whom the English 
 law does not admit any power to convey away or sur 
 render up even their own liberty, and still less that 
 of their unborn children ; and whom therefore no 
 mere lapse of time can ever bar from claiming their 
 personal freedom whenever they feel the impulse to 
 do so. 
 
 In the particular case of the British slave-holding 
 colonies, it may have been very true, as Lord Stowell 
 suggests, (and the same idea is dropped also by Chief 
 Justice Best in the case of Forbes v. Cochrane,) thai 
 
 

 216 DESPOTISM 
 
 a sovereign state like England, looking quietly on, 
 and allowing slavery to prevail without law and 
 against law in her colonies, was quite as guilty of 
 the wrong as the colonies themselves, if not indeed 
 more so. That might have been a very good reason 
 why the act of parliament about which Lord Mans 
 field had spoken, (though perhaps in a somewhat dif 
 ferent sense,) when it came at length to be enacted 
 and its passage was probably hastened by Lord 
 StowelFs decision took upon the mother country 
 a large share of the burden of the abolition of sla 
 very. And the same reasoning might be forcibly 
 urged as between the slave states and the free states 
 of our American confederacy. But the question of 
 the relative guilt of those who trampled on the weak 
 and of those who connived at it, and of the distribu 
 tion between them of the burden of restitution, can 
 not in any way affect the legal status of those who, 
 in the mean time, are deprived of their rights; nor can 
 any distribution of the blame of it give to that dep 
 rivation any of the qualities of legality. 
 
 Overlooking this undeniable fact, the apologists 
 for American slavery, not content with insisting that 
 the mother country connived at, and indeed positive 
 ly authorized, its original introduction, have gone still 
 further, and have boldly asserted that slavery was 
 forced upon the colonies by the mother country, 
 against their will, and in spite of their efforts to pre 
 vent it. Bancroft, in his History, has labored, with 
 his usual patriotic partiality, to give color to this 
 charge, which originated with Jefferson, and which 
 made its first appearance in the declamatory intro 
 duction to the first constitution of Virginia. Jeffer 
 son wished to repeat it, in a still more direct and em 
 phatic form, in the Declaration of Independence ; but 
 it was rather too much to ask the delegates from 
 Georgia to denounce the slave-trade as "a cruel war 
 against human nature, violating its most sacred 
 rights of life and liberty." Having struggled against, 
 and finally defeated, the attempt to make her a free 
 
IN AMERICA. 217 
 
 community, how could Georgia charge the mother 
 country with forcing upon her that " execrable com 
 merce," the slave-trade? Jefferson hated Britain, he 
 hated slavery, and he wished to bring these hatreds 
 into juxtaposition ; but to do so required a very ex 
 cited imagination. Had any colony ever prohibited 
 the introduction of negroes; had any colony ever 
 enacted that negroes should stand on the same 
 ground as white servants, and be discharged at the 
 end of seven years service ; and had the king vetoed 
 such enactments he might then have been justly 
 charged with forcing slavery on the colonies. But 
 no colony ever passed any such law, or thought of 
 doing so. The vetoes on which Jefferson relied were 
 of a very different sort. The colonies, especially 
 those of the south, wished to raise a part of their 
 revenue by duties on imports, with the double object 
 of lightening the burden of direct taxation, and giv 
 ing protection to domestic manufactures. Among 
 the chief imports into the southern colonies were 
 negroes. But in seeking to impose a tax of a few 
 pounds on each negro imported, the colonial legisla 
 tures, as a general thing, no more intended to abolish 
 or even to restrict slavery or the slave-trade, than 
 Congress, when it agreed to the square yard mini 
 mum duty upon cotton goods, intended to abolish or 
 restrict the use of muslins and calicoes. The Eng 
 lish merchants, in whose hands the commerce of 
 the colonies was, were then, as now, advocates of 
 free trade; they complained of these duties, the 
 one on negroes among the rest, as an interference 
 with their commercial rights; and they had interest 
 enough with the British government to procure a 
 standing instruction to all the royal governors not 
 to consent to such sort of taxes. Finally, however, 
 the matter was compromised by allowing the colonial 
 legislatures to impose such duty as they pleased on 
 negroes imported, provided it were made payable, 
 not by the seller, the English trader, but by the buyer, 
 the colonist planter. 
 
 id 
 

 218 DESPOTISM 
 
 It seems, then, to be very plainly made out, that at 
 the commencement of our Revolution, slavery had 
 no legal basis in any of the North American colonies.* 
 It existed, as many other wrongs existed, in all of 
 them. In many of the colonies, the assemblies, under 
 a mistaken view of the law of England or of their own 
 powers, or through wilful disregard of acknowledged 
 restraints, had attempted to give to it the sanction of 
 law. But by that same law of England, which the 
 colonists claimed as their birthright, and to which 
 they so loudly appealed against the usurpations of 
 the mother country, all such statutes were void. The 
 negroes were too ignorant to know their rights, and 
 too helpless to vindicate them. They could not ap 
 peal to England, like the South Carolina dissenters, 
 nor had they a powerful party there to support their 
 rights ; but, legally speaking, they were all free ; and 
 this, as to all of them at least who had been born in 
 the colonies, was fully admitted, as has been already 
 noticed, eight years previous to the decision in Som 
 erset s case, by James Otis, in his famous tract on 
 the " Rights of the Colonists." 
 
 It remains, then, to inquire, whether that Revolu 
 tion, which we are accustomed to extol as an out 
 burst of liberty, a memorable vindication of the 
 Rights of Man, did, in fact, give to slavery a legal 
 character; whether men, entitled by British law to 
 their freedom, because slaves under the State and Fed 
 eral Constitutions ; and this is the question which we 
 propose to discuss in the following section. 
 
 * For further details on this subject, and an account of the partic 
 ular incident upon which Jefferson s charges seem to have been 
 chiefly based, see Hildreth s History of the United States > vol. ii. 
 chap, xxvii. 
 
f 
 
 IN AMERICA. 219 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 Slavery in the States, and under the Federal Con 
 stitution. 
 
 WE examined in the previous section the preten 
 sions of slavery as it existed in the British North 
 American colonies prior to the Revolution which con 
 verted those colonies into the United States of 
 America to rest upon a legal basis. We found, in 
 most of the colonies, statutes of the colonial assem 
 blies of an earlier or later date, and in all of them, a 
 practice assuming to legalize the slavery of negroes, 
 Indians, and the mixed race ; to make that slavery 
 hereditary wherever the mother was a slave ; and, as 
 to all claims of freedom, to throw the burden of proof 
 on the claimant. But we also found that this prac 
 tice, and all the statutes attempting to legalize it, 
 were in direct conflict with great and perfectly well 
 settled principles of the law of England, which was 
 also the supreme law of the colonies ; principles 
 which the colonial legislatures and the colonial courts 
 had no authority to set aside or to contradict; 
 and thence we concluded that American slavery, 
 prior to the Revolution, had no legal basis, but exist 
 ed as it had done in England for some two centuries 
 or more prior to Somerset s case a mere usurpation 
 on th part of the masters, and a mere wrong as re 
 spected those alleged to be slaves. 
 
 Nor is this view of the matter by any means ori 
 ginal, or at all of recent origin. It was taken and 
 acted on and made the basis of emancipation in 
 Massachusetts, while the British rule still prevailed 
 in America. The best account, indeed, almost the 
 only original account of the abolition of slavery in 
 Massachusetts, is contained in a paper by Dr. Bel- 
 knap, printed in the Massachusetts Historical Collec 
 tions. Dr. Belknap states, that about the time of the 
 commencement of the revolutionary disputes, sev- 
 

 220 DESPOTISM 
 
 eral opponents of slavery " took occasion publicly to 
 remonstrate against the inconsistency of contending 
 for our own liberty, and at the same time depriving 
 other people of theirs." Nathaniel Appleton and 
 James Swan, merchants of Boston, distinguished 
 themselves as writers on the side of liberty. " Those 
 on the other side generally concealed their names, 
 but their arguments were not suffered to rest long 
 without an answer. The controversy began about 
 the year 1766, and was renewed at various times till 
 1773, when it was very warmly agitated, and became 
 the subject of forensic disputation at the public Com 
 mencement in Harvard College." 
 
 So far, at least, as concerned the further impor 
 tation of negroes and others " as slaves," the subject 
 was introduced also into the General Court ; but nei 
 ther Bernard, Hutchinson, nor Gage would concur in 
 any legislation upon it. " The blacks," says Belknap, 
 " had better success in the judicial courts. A pam 
 phlet containing the case of a negro who had accom 
 panied his master from the West Indies to England, 
 and had there sued for and obtained his freedom, was 
 reprinted" at Boston, in 1771, "and this encouraged 
 several negroes to sue their masters for their freedom, 
 and for recompense of their services after they had 
 attained the age of twenty-one years." " The ne 
 groes collected money among themselves to carry on 
 the suit, and it terminated favorably. Other suits 
 were instituted between that time and the Revolu 
 tion, and the juries invariably gave their verdict in 
 favor of liberty." The old fundamental law of Mas 
 sachusetts authorizing the slavery of Indians and 
 negroes was no longer in force ; it had fallen 
 with the first charter. Under the second charter no 
 such statute had been reenacted, but slavery had con 
 tinued by custom, and had apparently been recog 
 nized by the statutes of the province, as a legal rela 
 tion. " The pleas on the part of the masters were, 
 that the negroes were purchased in open market, and 
 bills of sale were produced in evidence; that the 
 
IN AMERICA. 
 
 laws of the province recognized slavery as existing in 
 :<t, by declaring that no person should manumit his 
 slave without giving bond for his maintenance, &c. 
 On the part of the blacks it was pleaded, that the 
 royal charter expressly declared all persons born or 
 residing in the province to be as free as the king s 
 subjects in Great Britain; that by the law of Eng 
 land, no man could be deprived of his liberty but by 
 the judgment of his peers; that the laws of the prov 
 ince respecting an evil existing, and attempting to 
 mitigate or regulate it, did not authorize it ; and on 
 some occasions the plea was, that though the slavery 
 of the parents be admitted, yet that no disability of 
 that kind could descend to the children." " The 
 juries invariably gave their verdict in favor of lib 
 erty ; " nor does it appear that these verdicts were in 
 any respect inconsistent with the instructions of the 
 judges as to matter of law. 
 
 The blow thus dealt at slavery in Massachusetts 
 might perhaps have been repeated in other colonies ; 
 but before there was time for any thing of the sort, 
 the Revolution occurred, and new governments 
 stepped in to take the places of the old ones. This 
 brings us back to the question started at the close of 
 the preceding section : Did the new governments, 
 established at the Revolution, do any thing, or could 
 they do any thing, to give an additional character of 
 legality to the institution of slavery ? 
 
 Let us begin with the commonwealth of Virginia. 
 The convention of delegates and representatives from 
 the several counties and corporations which assumed 
 the responsibility of framing a new government for 
 that state, very properly prefaced their labors by set 
 ting forth a Declaration of Rights, as its " basis and 
 foundation." This Declaration of Rights, bearing 
 date June 12, 1776, announced, among other things, 
 " that all men are by nature equally free and inde 
 pendent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, 
 when they enter into a state of society, they cannot by 
 19* 
 
 I 
 
222 DESPOTISM 
 
 any compact deprive or divest their posterity; name 
 ly, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means 
 of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing 
 and obtaining happiness and safety." Upon "the 
 basis and foundation " of this Declaration of Rights, 
 the convention proceeded to erect a " constitution, or 
 form of government," in which it was provided that 
 the " common law of England," and all statutes of 
 parliament not local in their character, made in aid 
 of the common law prior to the settlement of Vir 
 ginia, " together with the several acts of the Gen 
 eral Assembly of this colony now in force, so far as 
 the same may consist with the several ordinances, 
 declarations, and resolutions of the general conven 
 tion, shall be considered as in full force until the 
 same shall be altered by the legislative power of this 
 colony." But this provision could give no validity 
 to the colonial acts for the establishment of slavery; 
 in the first place, because those acts, legally speaking, 
 were not in force, and never had been, being void 
 from the beginning, enacted in defiance of great 
 principles of the English law, by which the powers 
 of the colonial assembly were restricted ; and in the 
 second place, because they did not and could not 
 consist with the above quoted "declaration," laid 
 down by the convention itself as " the basis and 
 foundation " of the new government. 
 
 Immediately after the adoption of this constitution, 
 provision was made for revising the laws of Virginia, 
 and a committee was appointed for that purpose; 
 but nothing was done till 1785, when several bills 
 prepared by the committee of revision were sanctioned 
 by the assembly and enacted as laws. In one of 
 these acts it was provided, "that no persons shall 
 henceforth be slaves in this commonwealth, except 
 such as were so on the first day of this present "ses 
 sion of assembly, and the descendants of the females 
 of them." This act, embodied into the codification 
 of 1792, still remains in force ; and through it all 
 legal titles to slave property in Virginia must be 
 
IN AMERICA. 223 
 
 traced. But in 1785, there were no persons legally 
 held as slaves in Virginia. The practice on this sub 
 ject, and the acts of the colonial assembly which 
 countenanced that practice, were contradictory to the 
 law of England, always binding on the colonial 
 assembly, and specially adopted by the revolutionary 
 government as the law of Virginia; and contra 
 dictory, also, to those general principles and that 
 declaration of natural rights specially adopted as 
 "the basis and fonnclation " of the new government. 
 The convention which framed the constitution of 
 Virginia was far from conferring, or from claiming 
 any power to confer, on the assembly any authority 
 to reduce any of the inhabitants of that state to a 
 condition of slavery. The assembly was far from 
 claiming the possession of any such power, or from 
 attempting to add any thing to the legal basis upon 
 which slavery rested prior to the Revolution. It re 
 mained then what it had been in colonial times, a 
 mere usurpation, without any legal basis ; a usurpa 
 tion in direct defiance of the Declaration of Rights, 
 upheld by mere force and terror, and the overwhelm 
 ing power and influence of the masters, without law 
 and against law. 
 
 The convention of Maryland, (which upon the 
 breaking out of hostilities with the mother country 
 had displaced the proprietary government,) following 
 in the footsteps of Virginia, adopted, on the 3d of 
 November, 1776, a Declaration of Rights, the intro 
 ductory part of a new constitution, in which they 
 declared, " that all government of right originates from 
 the people ; is founded in compact only, and is con 
 stituted solely for the good of the whole ; " and " that 
 the inhabitants of Maryland are entitled to the com 
 mon law of England ; to all English statutes appli 
 cable to their situation, passed before the settlement 
 of Maryland, and introduced and practised on in the 
 colony ; and also to all acts of the old colonial assem 
 bly "in force 5 on the 1st of June, 1774. But the 
 
224 DESPOTISM 
 
 acts of assembly sanctioning and legalizing slavery 
 were not " in force " on the 1st of June, 1774, nor at 
 any other time. They never had been in force ; they 
 were contrary to the law of England, to a corre 
 spondency with which the colonial assembly was 
 specially limited by charter. Yet it is on these void 
 acts that the supposed legality of slavery in Mary 
 land still continues to rest. 
 
 The constitution of North Carolina, formed Decem 
 ber 17, 1776, contains not one single word respecting 
 slavery. That institution did not receive even the 
 semblance of support derived in Virginia and 
 Maryland from the continuation in force of the colo 
 nial acts ; for no act of the colonial assembly of 
 North Carolina had ever attempted to define who 
 were or might be slaves. Nor was any such attempt 
 made by the newly-established assembly. Slavery 
 remained in the state of North Carolina what it had 
 been in the colony, a mere custom, a sheer usurpa 
 tion, not sustained by even the semblance of law. 
 
 Neither the first constitution of South Carolina, 
 adopted in March, 1776, nor the second constitution, 
 adopted March, 1778, contains a single word attempt 
 ing to legalize slavery, nor even any clause contin 
 uing in force the old colonial acts. Bat in February, 
 1777, in the interval between the two constitutions, 
 an act of assembly revived and continued in force 
 for five years certain of those acts, among others the 
 act of 1740, on the subject of slavery, of which a 
 synopsis was given in the preceding section ; and in 
 1783, this act was made perpetual. But the act of 
 1740 was void from the beginning, by reason of nu 
 merous contradictions to the law of England which 
 the colonial assembly of South Carolina had no 
 power to enact into law. If, then, the reviving acts 
 of 1777 and 1783 are to have any validity, they must 
 be considered as original acts, subjecting half the 
 population of South Carolina to perpetual slavery. 
 
IN AMERICA. 225 
 
 Had the assembly of South Carolina any authority 
 to pass such acts ? Has it any such authority at this 
 moment? Could the South Carolina democrats, 
 having a majority in the assembly, pass a valid act 
 for selling all the whigs into perpetual slavery? or 
 all inhabitants of Irish descent? or all white men not 
 freeholders and not possessed of visible property ? or 
 all citizens of Massachusetts who might land on her 
 hospitable coast? 
 
 We must always remember, in considering ques 
 tions of this sort, that not the federal government 
 only, but the state governments, also, are govern 
 ments of limited powers. The sovereign power is in 
 the people, or that portion of it possessed of political 
 rights ; the holders of offices created by the state con 
 stitutions possess no authority not specially conferred 
 on them by those constitutions. Admit, for the sake 
 of the argument, that the sovereign people of South 
 Carolina are omnipotent, and can give the character 
 of law to the most atrocious wrongs ; yet, surely, no 
 state legislature can exercise any such authority, un 
 less it be expressly delegated. But the constitutions 
 of South Carolina delegated no such power; and 
 a power in a state legislature to reduce, at its pleas 
 ure, to the condition of perpetual servitude, any 
 portion of the inhabitants of a state, and that not for 
 public but for private uses, is hardly to be presumed 
 as one of the ordinary powers of legislation, at least 
 in a state which, in the solemn act of separation 
 from the mother country, had united in declaring 
 that all men are born free and equal, and that life, 
 liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable 
 rights. 
 
 The first constitution of Georgia, formed in Feb 
 ruary, 1777, contains no allusion to slavery. The 
 legislative power of the assembly is restricted to 
 " such laws and regulations as may be conducive to 
 the good order and well being of the state." Unsup 
 ported by any new authority, the system of slavery 
 
226 DESPOTISM 
 
 was left in Georgia, as in the other states, to rest on 
 such legal basis as it might have had during colonial 
 times. The rottenness of that basis was not per 
 ceived by the state legislatures nor by the state courts. 
 Their preconceived prejudices, their unwillingness to 
 look into the matter at all, kept them blind to it; 
 but their blindness, their ignorance, their mistakes, 
 could not alter the law, rior make that legal which in 
 fact was not so. 
 
 There was, indeed, the best of reasons why none 
 of the States however several of them might be will 
 ing to leave to slavery such character of legality as 
 it had acquired from colonial legislation should have 
 ventured upon any direct attempts, by virtue of their 
 newly-assumed powers, to bestow upon it a new and 
 original character of legality. For, however jurists 
 and courts of law may have admitted a legal omnipo 
 tence in governments, the people of the United States, 
 in rising against the mother country, and establishing 
 themselves as a separate nation, had expressly re 
 nounced any such claims. Not to mention particu 
 lar State Bills of Rights, their joint Declaration of 
 Independence that public and official exhibition of 
 reasons for the steps they had taken in breaking up 
 their union with Great Britain proceeded on the 
 very ground that men possess certain inherent and 
 unalienable Rights, including life, liberty, and the pur 
 suit of happiness rights which no government has 
 authority to take away, unless, indeed, in the way of 
 punishment for crimes and any deliberate and con 
 tinuous attempt to invade which, justifies resistance 
 even unto death. With what face could governments 
 which had just made such a declaration of principles 
 proceed to enact laws subjecting to perpetual and he 
 reditary servitude one half or more of their inhab 
 itants ? How paltry, how trifling, side by side with 
 such a terrible assumption, must have appeared the 
 parliamentary claim to tax the colonies, out of which 
 the Revolution grew ! 
 
IN AMERICA. 227 
 
 Nor was the renunciation thus made without a more 
 direct and positive influence in many of the states ; 
 for the Supreme Court of Massachusetts decided, in 
 1784, that the natural freedom and political equality 
 of all men, proclaimed in the Declaration of Inde 
 pendence, and in the Bill of Rights prefixed to the 
 Constitution adopted in that state in 1780, were to 
 tally inconsistent with the existence of involuntary 
 servitude, and that slavery under that Bill of Rights 
 could not be legal. A similar clause in the second 
 constitution of New Hampshire was held to guarantee 
 personal freedom to all persons born in that state after 
 the adoption of that constitution. In Pennsylvania, 
 Connecticut, and Rhode Island, personal liberty was 
 secured by statute to all future natives of those 
 states ; and, to complete this scheme of abolition in 
 these three states, as well as in New Hampshire, the 
 further introduction of persons claimed as slaves, or 
 the exportation of such persons from those states, was 
 prohibited. 
 
 In five of the eight remaining states, New York, New 
 Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, slavery 
 was regarded, by the more intelligent and enlightened 
 citizens, including all those distinguished men who 
 had taken a conspicuous part in the late Revolution, 
 as an evil and a wrong inconsistent with the princi 
 ples on which that Revolution was founded. Its ter 
 mination was anxiously looked for, and confidently 
 hoped. All those five states had taken the first step 
 in that direction by prohibiting the further introduc 
 tion of persons claimed as slaves ; while Virginia and 
 Maryland, by repealing the old colonial acts which 
 forbade manumissions, except by the allowance of 
 the governor and council, had opened a door for the 
 action of individual sentiment in favor of liberty 
 which came soon into active exercise. 
 
 Such was the state of things in the ten northern 
 states when the Federal convention came together ; 
 and, pending the session of that convention, the fa 
 mous ordinance of 1787 was passed by the Congress 
 
228 DESPOTISM 
 
 of the confederation, by which involuntary servitude, 
 except for crime, was forever prohibited in the terri 
 tory north-west of the Ohio, the only territory to 
 which, as yet, the confederacy had any title. 
 
 Yet this rising sentiment in favor of impartial lib 
 erty encountered a formidable opposition. The abo 
 lition of slavery had been carried, indeed, in five of 
 the states, but in only one of those five had it been 
 thorough, sweeping, and complete. Four had pro 
 vided for the future, but had not thought it expedient 
 to interfere with the present. In five other states, a 
 commencement only had been made. The mass of 
 the slave-holders in those five states clung with te 
 nacity to their prey ; and the friends of emancipation, 
 though their influence was apparent, did not yet ven 
 ture to propose any very decisive measures. In the 
 Carolinas and Georgia the case was much worse. 
 The Quakers of North Carolina had indeed com 
 menced the emancipation of their slaves, but the as 
 sembly of that state put a stop to that " dangerous 
 practice," as they pronounced it, by forbidding emanci 
 pations, except by allowance of the County Courts, and 
 directing all slaves hitherto emancipated without that 
 allowance to be seized and resold into slavery. Since 
 the peace, the importation of slaves from the coast of 
 Africa into the three southern states had been recom 
 menced, and was vigorously carried on. In those 
 states there was little thought of foregoing a system 
 ffom which great gains were hoped ; though the legis 
 lature of North Carolina, in a recent act imposing a 
 duty on future importations, expressly admitted the 
 further introduction of slaves to be of " evil conse 
 quence, and highly impolitic." 
 
 Let it be remembered, however, and this consid 
 eration, though frequently overlooked or disregarded, 
 is absolutely essential to a correct understanding of 
 the case, that the Federal convention did not assem 
 ble to revise the laws or institutions of the states ; nor 
 to determine or enforce the political or social rights 
 
IN AMERICA. 229 
 
 appertaining to the inhabitants of the states, as such. 
 That had been done already by the state constitu 
 tions. The states existed as bodies politic ; they had 
 their laws defining the rights of their citizens and in 
 habitants, and their courts for enforcing those rights ; 
 and with none of those arrangements, either by way 
 of enforcement or alteration, was it any part of the 
 business of the Federal convention to interfere, un 
 less in cases where these arrangements had or might 
 have an injurious bearing upon the citizens of other 
 etates, or upon the foreign, relations of the confederacy. 
 The business of the Federal convention was, so to 
 amend the articles of confederation as to carry into 
 effect the objects at which that confederation aimed ; 
 namely, the enabling the states to act as one nation 
 in their foreign affairs, and securing the several states 
 and their individual inhabitants against injustice, op 
 pression, or injury, on the part of other states or their 
 individual inhabitants. 
 
 It might indeed become necessary, for the accom 
 plishment of these objects, to interfere to some extent 
 with some of the existing laws and institutions of the 
 states, or at least to reserve to the authorities, to be 
 created by the new constitution, the power of doing 
 so ; and under the plan adopted of submitting that 
 constitution to be separately ratified by each of the 
 states, any alterations so made or authorized would 
 rest on the same basis of popular consent with the 
 state constitutions themselves. But this interference 
 with state constitutions or state laws, any interference 
 in any shape with the internal affairs of the states, was 
 a power to be very daintily exercised, especially in its 
 application to particular cases, as, otherwise, any con 
 stitution which the convention might form would be 
 sure of being rejected. 
 
 Thus the Federal convention had chiefly to do 
 with the people of America, not in their character as 
 individuals about to enter into a primary political 
 organization, but in their character as inhabitants of 
 certain states already constituted and organized. Their 
 
230 DESPOTISM 
 
 rights as inhabitants of each particular state it be 
 longed to the state governments to settle : the Fed 
 eral constitution had only to declare what should be 
 their additional and supplementary rights as citizens 
 and inhabitants of the confederacy. 
 
 It was from this view of the work before them that 
 the convention omitted to prefix to the Federal Con 
 stitution any general Bill of Rights an omission 
 much complained of by those who opposed its adop 
 tion. Slavery in the states, under this view of the 
 subject, was a matter with which the convention was 
 not called upon directly to interfere, and which, in 
 deed, could not be directly interfered with without 
 exposing the proposed constitution to certain rejec 
 tion. It did, however, come before the convention 
 incidentally; and the question which we now have 
 to consider is, Whether, in dealing with it thus inci 
 dentally, the Federal constitution has acknowledged 
 the legal existence of slavery in any such way as to 
 bind the confederacy. 
 
 The first article in the Federal constitution relied 
 upon by those who maintain the affirmative on this 
 point is that which determines the ratio of repre 
 sentation in the House of Representatives. That 
 article, indeed, is frequently spoken of as though it 
 were the great compromise ; the fundamental conces 
 sion upon which the .constitution was based. But 
 this was not by any means the case. The great dif 
 ficulty that occurred at the outset was, to reconcile 
 the pretensions of the larger and the smaller states. 
 The smaller states insisted upon that political equality 
 which they already possessed under the articles of 
 confederation ; the larger states maintained that repre 
 sentation in the national legislature ought to be based 
 on " wealth and numbers." A resolution to that ef 
 fect, as to both branches of the legislature, having been 
 carried by the larger states, the smaller states threat 
 ened to quit the convention ; and this result was only 
 prevented by a concession recommended by a com 
 mittee of one from each state, to whom the subject 
 
IN AMERICA. 
 
 was referred, and which was finally adopted by the 
 convention yielding to the small states an equal rep 
 resentation in one branch of the national legislature, 
 namely, in the Senate, in which each state, large or 
 small, was to have two delegates. 
 
 This was the great compromise : the particular 
 ratio of representation to be adopted in the other 
 branch was quite a subordinate matter. Yet, though 
 subordinate, it was interesting and important. One 
 party, headed by Gouverneur Morris, wished to leave 
 the ratio of representation in the lower house entirely 
 to the discretion of Congress, with the avowed object 
 of enabling the existing states to retain a political 
 ascendency over such new states as might be admit 
 ted into the Union. But this was objected to as 
 unjust, and it became necessary to fix upon some 
 precise rule of distribution. There was a general 
 agreement that this distribution should be regulated 
 by " wealth and numbers ; " numbers might easily be 
 ascertained by a census ; but how was wealth to be 
 measured ? 
 
 This was a point upon which, under the existing 
 confederation, difficulties had already occurred. In 
 framing the articles of confederation it had been pro 
 posed on the ground that population, on the whole, 
 was the best practicable test of wealth, and ability 
 to pay taxes to distribute the charges of the war, 
 and other common expenses, among the states in 
 proportion to their population. But the southern 
 states had strongly objected to that arrangement, 
 alleging that the labor of their slaves was far less pro 
 ductive than the labor of the same number of north 
 ern freemen ; and the value of buildings and culti 
 vated lands, to be ascertained by an appraisement 
 made by the authorities of each state, was finally 
 adopted as the basis of taxation and pecuniary lia 
 bility. But such an appraisement was found liable to 
 great difficulties, expenses, delays, and objections; 
 very few states had made it; and Congress, since the 
 peace, by a concession to the slave-holders, and an 
 
232 DESPOTISM 
 
 admission of the wealth-producing inefficiency of 
 slaves as compared with freemen, had proposed to 
 amend the articles of confederation by substituting 
 as the basis of taxation, and of the distribution among 
 the states of the expenses of the Revolutionary war, 
 "the whole number of white and other free citizens 
 and inhabitants of every age, sex, and condition, in 
 cluding those bound to servitude for a term of years, 
 and three fifths of all other persons not comprehended 
 in the foregoing description ; " and this proposed 
 amendment, agreed to in Congress after a good 
 deal of higgling between the northern and southern 
 members as to the relative productiveness of free and 
 slave labor, had been already acceded to by eleven 
 out of the thirteen states. The question of the meas 
 ure of wealth as the basis of representation being now 
 raised in the convention, the same compromise was 
 suggested there ; and, having first agreed that repre 
 sentation and direct taxation should go together, it 
 was finally arranged, and so it now stands in the Fed 
 eral constitution, that the number of representatives 
 from each state shall be determined " by adding to the 
 whole number of free persons, including those bound 
 to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians 
 not taxed, three fifths of all other persons" 
 
 The question then is, whether the phrase three fifths 
 of all other persons recognizes the validity of the slave 
 laws of any particular state, and affords a sufficient 
 basis for those laws to stand upon, notwithstanding 
 their original defects already pointed out. Let us ob 
 serve, in the first place, that the validity of those laws 
 was not of the least consequence in settling the point 
 under consideration, to wit, the productiveness of the 
 industry in other words, the relative wealth of the 
 several states. Whether the negroes of Virginia, for 
 instance, were held in slavery by law or against law, 
 made, in that point of view, no difference. Suppose, 
 for example, (as we hold,) that they were illegally de 
 prived of their liberty; the illegality of their servitude 
 would not increase their industry, nor the wealth of 
 
IN AMERICA. 
 
 the state, so as to entitle her whole population to be 
 counted in determining her representation. What 
 the constitution had to deal with, in settling this 
 distribution of representation, was a question of ex 
 ternal fact, not a question of law or right. The 
 question of the individual rights of the inhabitants 
 of the states was one over which this article re 
 quired the assumption of no control. Their con 
 dition in fact, not their condition in law, was the 
 real point according to which the distribution was to 
 be regulated. 
 
 But even in referring to the matter of fact great 
 caution was used. " The question of slavery in the 
 states," said Gerry, in reference to another point to 
 be presently considered, " ought not to be touched, 
 but we ought to be careful not to give it any sanc 
 tion." Madison thought it wrong to admit into the 
 constitution "the idea that there could be property 
 in men ;" and in his report of the doings of that con 
 vention, to which we are mainly indebted for what 
 we know of it, he represents the whole phraseology 
 of the instrument to have been carefully settled in 
 accordance with that view. Thus, in the original 
 draft of the clause above cited, instead of bound to 
 service, the phrase bound to servitude had been used, 
 following in this respect the proposed amendment to 
 the articles of confederation from which the idea of 
 the Federal ratio was derived ; but servitude was 
 struck out, and service substituted, as Madison in 
 forms us, because servitude seemed to be only appro 
 priate to express the condition of slavery. 
 
 It is fair enough to conclude that the " other per 
 sons, referred to in this article, were those, held as 
 slaves in the several states. But the constitution 
 takes care not to commit itself by calling them slaves, 
 nor by using any term that would seem to pass a 
 judgment on the legal character or particular legal 
 incidents of their condition. That remained what it 
 was ; this article did not affect it in any way ; and if 
 the laws of the states fail, as we maintain, to give any 
 20* 
 
234 DESPOTISM 
 
 legal authority to those who claim to be masters, they 
 will surely look for it in vain in this article of the Fed 
 eral constitution. 
 
 When the Federal convention, in tne course of its 
 labors, arrived at the clauses investing Congress with 
 the power to regulate navigation and foreign com 
 merce, a new occasion for compromise arose. Ten 
 states out of the thirteen had already prohibited the 
 importation of slaves from abroad, and if the Federal 
 government were invested with unlimited control over 
 the intercourse with foreign countries, it was plain 
 enough that one of its first acts would be the pro 
 hibition of the African slave trade. 
 
 For this Georgia and the Carolinas were not pre 
 pared ; and the opinion was very warmly and confi 
 dently expressed by their delegates, that such an un 
 limited power conferred upon Congress would insure 
 in those states the rejection of the constitution. To 
 avoid this result, and to induce, also, the southernmost 
 states to concede this power over commerce, to which 
 in common with all the merely agricultural states, they 
 had several other objections, a provision was inserted, 
 " that the emigration or importation of such persons 
 as any of the states now existing shall think proper 
 to admit, shall not be prohibited by Congress prior to 
 the year 1808 ; but a tax or duty may be imposed on 
 such importation not exceeding ten dollars for each 
 person." 
 
 Observe in this clause the same cautious phrase 
 ology as in that already discussed. As to the legal 
 character or condition of the persons so to be admit 
 ted, nothing is said. There is not the slightest impli 
 cation that the constitution assented in any way that 
 any of the persons so introduced into the states should 
 be held in slavery. If that was done, it could only 
 be on the responsibility of those who did it, and of the 
 states that allowed it. The constitution did not as 
 sent to it, and by the power which it reserved to Con 
 gress, all the power which was possible under the 
 
IN AMERICA. 235 
 
 circumstances, it secured the right, after the lapse 
 of twenty years, of preventing the possibility of such 
 an occurrence. But for this right, thus reserved to 
 the Federal government, there is every reason to be- 
 Jieve that in all the states south of Virginia the 
 foreign slave trade would be now vigorously prose 
 cuted. The concession made to Georgia and the 
 Carolinas was temporary and limited ; the point car 
 ried was of a permanent character. 
 
 There still remains one other clause of the constitu 
 tion relied upon as sanctioning slavery in the states. 
 " No person held to service or labor in one state, 
 under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, 
 in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be 
 discharged from such service or labor ; but shall be 
 delivered up on claim of the party to whom such ser 
 vice or labor may be due." It may be worth while 
 to notice that in the article now under consideration, 
 the term service is employed " no person held to 
 service or labor ; " whereas, according to the distinc 
 tion above quoted from Madison, the term servi 
 tude would have been the proper one, had the 
 clause been expressly intended for the case of ref 
 ugee slaves. But, without dwelling on this distinc 
 tion, it is sufficient for our purpose to refer to the 
 pointed difference between this and the apportion 
 ment clause, in the express reference which this 
 clause makes to law. Practice, usage, fact merely, 
 is not sufficient, but law is required. " No person 
 held to service or labor in one state, under the laws 
 thereof" &c. The question, then, whether this clause 
 stipulates for the return of fugitive slaves, is entirely 
 dependent on the previous question whether there is 
 any lawful slavery in any of the states a question 
 upon which this clause expresses no opinion, and 
 throws not the slightest light whatsoever. If there be 
 any such slavery, it must exist by virtue of state 
 laws, laws complete and authoritative in themselves ; 
 for whatever might have been the intention, or what- 
 
236 DESPOTISM 
 
 ever may be the legal effect of this clause, it surely 
 neither intended to give, nor can it have any effect to 
 give, a legal or rightful character to any claims of ser 
 vice not previously rightful and legal. 
 
 From numerous recent speeches, published opin 
 ions, and other apologies for the fugitive slave act of 
 1850, one might be led to imagine that the surrender 
 of fugitive slaves had been one of the great questions 
 on which the Federal convention had divided, and 
 which, as an indispensable condition of union, it had 
 become necessary to settle by a solemn compromise 
 embodied in the article here under consideration. To 
 show how utterly fabulous these statements, so derog 
 atory to the convention and to the nation, are, we 
 subjoin, from Madison s Report of the Debates of the 
 Convention, all that is known of the history of this 
 clause ; merely premising, what seems to be some 
 times forgotten, that the Union did not originate 
 with the convention, but had been established by the 
 Articles of Confederation ratified by all the states some 
 years before articles which the convention had met 
 to amplify and amend so as to give greater efficiency 
 to the central administration. 
 
 After warm and protracted debates, and the com 
 promise, as already briefly mentioned, of two very 
 exciting questions one, that of the relative political 
 weight in the general government to be allowed to 
 the great and small states, which, by the articles of 
 confederation, possessed an equal voice ; the other as 
 to ratio of representation in the lower House, for the 
 third of the three great compromises, that relating to 
 the importation for twenty years of such persons as any 
 of the states might see fit to allow, did not take place 
 till a subsequent stage of proceedings, the conven 
 tion came at length to certain resolutions embodying 
 the result of its previous discussions and compro 
 mises, and supplying the rough material of the consti 
 tution as subsequently adopted. These resolutions, 
 which did not embrace any more than the articles 
 
IX AMERICA. 
 
 237 
 
 of confederation, any thing on the subject of fugi 
 tives, whether from justice or labor, were referred 
 to a committee of detail, whose report, among other 
 specific provisions, now first suggested, contained an 
 article giving to the citizens of each state all the 
 privileges of citizens in the several states, and an 
 other, providing for the mutual surrender by the states 
 of fugitives from other states charged with treason, 
 felony, or high misdemeanor. The first of these 
 articles coming up for debate, General Charles C. 
 Pinckney, of South Carolina, expressed himself not 
 satisfied with it. " He seemed to wish that some 
 provision should be inserted in it in favor of property 
 in slaves." Very likely he had in his head a provision 
 as to the states similar to the pretension lately set 
 up by the slave-holders as to the territories, giving 
 the right to hold slaves into whatever state the 
 holder might choose to carry them. But if so, 
 he did not venture upon any such barefaced prop 
 osition ; and the article, as it now stands in the con 
 stitution, was adopted by the votes of all the states 
 present except South Carolina in the negative, and 
 Georgia divided. The proposed article on the sub 
 ject of fugitives from justice coming up immediately 
 after, Butler, another South Carolina member, moved 
 " to require fugitive slaves and servants to be deliv 
 ered up like criminals." To this, Wilson, of Penn 
 sylvania, objected " that it would require the executive 
 of the state to do it at the public expense." Sherman, 
 of Connecticut, added that " he saw no more propri 
 ety in the public seizing and surrendering a slave or 
 servant than a horse." With a view to some sep 
 arate provision, Butler withdrew his proposition ; 
 but the next day offered the draft of a clause, 
 the idea of which was evidently derived from a sim 
 ilar provision in an ordinance just passed by the 
 Continental Congress, which, in prohibiting forever 
 slavery and involuntary servitude, except in punish 
 ment of crimes, in the territory north-west of the 
 Ohio, (lately ceded to the Union by the states of Vir- 
 
238 DESPOTISM 
 
 ginia, New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut,) 
 had also provided " that every person escaping into 
 the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully 
 claimed in any one of the original states, such fugi 
 tive may be lawfully returned, and conveyed to 
 the person claiming his or her labor as aforesaid." 
 Guided evidently by this precedent, Butler proposed, 
 and the convention in compliance, as we may rea 
 sonably conjecture, with an understanding come to 
 out of doors adopted without debate or dissent an 
 independent proposition in the following terms : " If 
 any person bound to service or labor in any of the 
 United States shall escape into another state, he or 
 she shall riot be discharged from such service or 
 labor in consequence of any regulations subsisting in 
 the state to which they escape, but shall be delivered 
 up to the person justly claiming their service or 
 labor." The committee on style, appointed to revise 
 and arrange all the articles agreed on, proposed to 
 amend this one as follows : " No person legally 
 held to service or labor in one state, escaping into 
 another, shall, in consequence of regulations subsist 
 ing therein, be discharged from such service or labor ; 
 but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to 
 whom such service or labor may be due ; " but, be 
 fore its final adoption, the phraseology was still fur 
 ther altered, and it was brought into the shape in 
 which it now stands in compliance, as Madison tells 
 us, with the wish of some who thought the word 
 legally equivocal, and favoring the idea that slavery 
 was legal in a moral point of view. 
 
 Wholly apart from any application of this clause 
 to the case of runaway slaves, there was ample mat 
 ter for it to operate upon, not only in apprentices and 
 minor children to whose labor the father has a legal 
 right, but in those indented servants who had consti 
 tuted, during the whole of the colonial times, so con 
 siderable a part of the population, especially in the 
 Middle States, and whom, as their importation, in 
 terrupted by the war, was again beginning to be 
 
IN AMERICA. 239 
 
 resumed, the convention might reasonably have ex 
 pected soon to become as numerous as ever. As 
 applying to apprentices, children, and indented ser 
 vants, the article in question confers a right in which 
 the citizens of all the states may share ; viewed 
 as a provision for the surrender of runaway slaves, 
 it assumes an unequal and exclusive character, con 
 ferring a very invidious power on the citizens of a 
 part only of the states a character not to be found 
 in any other article of the Federal constitution, and 
 wholly incompatible with its whole spirit. 
 
 The simple state of the fact seems then to be this. 
 A clause was inserted into the constitution perfectly 
 appropriate though there had not been a slave in. 
 the Union, and which may very properly stand there 
 after slavery shall be completely abolished, as it was 
 the general expectation in the convention that it soon 
 would be. But in framing this clause, terms were 
 used sufficiently comprehensive to enable the courts, 
 if so disposed, constructively to include under it, 
 during the temporary existence of slavery, the case 
 of runaway slaves provided, the courts should be of 
 opinion that in the states whence the fugitives had 
 fled, slavery existed not merely as a fact, but "under 
 the laws thereof." In this clause, so much vaunted 
 as a Federal recognition and indorsement of the legal 
 ity of slavery, not the slightest reference even to the 
 mere fact of its existence can be found, except by first 
 taking for granted the very point which it is so often 
 cited to prove, viz., that slavery did and does exist in 
 the states by virtue of law. (See Appendix.) 
 
 The three clauses of the Federal constitution above 
 considered are the only portions of that instrument 
 which have ever been set up as giving any sanction 
 to slavery. But, so far from finding in these clauses 
 any such sanction, we find, on the contrary, evidence 
 of a fixed determination in the constitution not to 
 yield it. They contain no indorsement of the slave 
 laws of the states ; no recognition of slavery as a 
 
240 DESPOTISM 
 
 state institution ; no express recognition even of the 
 bare fact of the existence of slavery, and much less 
 of its existence as an institution entitled to the favor 
 able regard and protecting care of the Federal gov 
 ernment. General Pinckney, of South Carolina, in 
 the course of the debates of the convention, more 
 than once asked for such guaranty for slave property ; 
 but, so far from yielding to this demand, the greatest 
 care was taken not to admit into the constitution " the 
 idea that there could be property in men ;" that is to 
 say, the very fundamental idea upon which the whole 
 slave system rests. It was impossible for the Federal 
 constitution, by its own proper vigor, to abolish sla 
 very, or to make its abolition one of the conditions 
 of the Federal compact for on such conditions no 
 constitution could be formed. It was even necessary 
 to take into account, in several of its provisions, the 
 actual, but, as it was hoped and expected, temporary, 
 existence of slavery. Yet, on the other hand, the 
 greatest care was had not to give any sanction to a 
 practice so inconsistent with those natural rights upon 
 which all the American constitutions professed to be 
 founded, nor indeed even to recognize, except by re 
 mote and obscure implication, its bare existence as 
 a fact. The utmost length to which the members of 
 the convention would go, was a silent toleration of sla 
 very as it existed; leaving it to be disposed of and, 
 as the convention expected, to be speedily abolished 
 by the states themselves. They were not anti-slavery 
 men in that sense which makes hostility to slavery 
 paramount to ail other considerations ; but, so far as 
 an extreme dislike of that system, and a hearty wish 
 for its speedy extinction, could go, the majority of 
 them wore decidedly anti-slavery men ; and the consti 
 tution, and especially the amendments to it subse 
 quently adopted, contain many provisions very incon 
 sistent with the existence of slavery. 
 
 This view of the Federal constitution corresponds 
 very nearly with the view taken of it, both north and 
 south, for many years subsequent to its adoption. It 
 
IN AMERICA. 241 
 
 is only within a recent period that the idea has been 
 set up, that the " compromises of the constitution " 
 include the recognition of slavery as an institution 
 of the statfcs, or some of them, entitled to protection 
 and support. Still more recent is the doctrine that 
 the distinguishing trait of " nationality " among us 
 is the recognition and support of the system of sla 
 very, and zeal for the return of fugitive slaves. Not 
 only does the Federal constitution, so far from recog 
 nizing slavery in any such character, take the greatest 
 pains to avoid doing so, but in point of fact, as we 
 maintain, slavery is not even a state institution, le 
 gally speaking, but a mere usurpation, unsupported 
 by law, and in that character certainly not entitled to 
 support or countenance from the Federal government 
 or any other. 
 
 But if the Federal constitution, though cautiously 
 avoiding to commit the Union to the support of sla 
 very, has yet left the determination of the rights of 
 the inhabitants of the states to the state authorities, 
 even allowing that slavery exists by usurpation and 
 not by law, has the Federal government any war 
 rant to interfere, in any way, to set this matter right ? 
 Is it not bound to wait patiently till the state author 
 ities shall themselves do it ? 
 
 Besides the specific and particular powers conferred 
 upon Congress by the Federal constitution, that body, 
 by a clause of a very extensive and comprehensive 
 character, is authorized " to provide for the common 
 defence and general welfare of the United States ; " 
 at least in all the cases in which that end can be ac 
 complished by the expenditure of money. Now, sup 
 pose the opinion to be adopted, by the majority of 
 the people, that the "common defence and general 
 welfare of the United States ; " their defence against 
 invasion from abroad, and insurrection at home ; their 
 welfare, moral, social, and economical, demand the 
 termination of the system of slavery ; and, in this 
 point of view, it seems to matter but little whether 
 21 
 
242 DESPOTISM 
 
 we consider that system an illegal usurpation or a 
 legal institution of those states in which it exists ; 
 suppose the conclusion to be arrived at, that the con 
 tinued existence of slavery, whether legal or not, will 
 be fatal to the success of that great democratic ex 
 periment which the American people are now mak 
 ing ; looking at the matter in this point of view, has 
 not the Federal government a right to interfere, and 
 to adopt such measures as seem best calculated to 
 stop the increase of this evil, and to bring it to an 
 end ? If, under the clause above cited, Congress had 
 power to buy Louisiana, to buy Florida, to annex 
 Texas, to buy California, has it not power, under the 
 same clause, to vote money towards the liberation of 
 some millions of native-born inhabitants from most 
 cruel servitude ? 
 
 It is true that, heretofore, Congress has not legis 
 lated with this intention. It is also true, that, on a 
 petition signed by Franklin and others, and presented 
 to the first Congress, praying that body to take meas 
 ures for the abolition of slavery, the conclusion was 
 arrived at, after a warm debate, that Congress had no 
 jurisdiction over the subject of slavery wkhin the 
 states. But this decision, binding only on the Con 
 gress that made it, though very generally acquiesced 
 in since, still remains open to revision ; and a change 
 of circumstances, changing the light in which the 
 question presents itself, cannot fail to have a seri 
 ous influence on the decision to be made upon it. 
 
 When the first Congress met, slavery was a crime 
 and disgrace in which the whole of Christendom was 
 more or less involved ; and in the wars which the na 
 tions of Europe carried on with each other, their prac 
 tices in this matter were mutually respected. When 
 France, England, Spain, and Holland invaded each 
 other s colonies, they never thought of putting arms 
 into the hands of the slaves. Early in our Revolu 
 tionary war, some suggestion was thrown out in the 
 British House of Commons, that the slaves in the 
 southern states might be liberated, armed, and em- 
 
IN AMERICA. 243 
 
 ployed to keep those colonies in subjection ; but the 
 opposition, headed by Burke and Fox, denounced the 
 idea as barbarous, atrocious, and infamous, and the 
 suggestion, never seriously entertained, remained, to 
 a great extent, unacted upon. Mason, of Virginia, 
 feelingly acknowledged in the Federal convention, 
 that if the British had availed themselves, as they 
 might have done, of the aid of the negroes, the war 
 in the southern states might have had a very different 
 termination. 
 
 During the last war with England, a plan, it is said, 
 was formed for occupying the peninsula between the 
 Chesapeake and the Delaware with a British army, 
 turning it into an asylum for the slaves of Virginia 
 and Maryland, to whom liberty was to be proclaimed ; 
 organizing and training a black army, under English 
 officers, and marching with it to the conquest of the 
 South. But Britain had slaves of her own ; it would 
 not do to set an example of insurrection and of liberty 
 won at the point of the bayonet ; and this brilliant 
 scheme was consequently abandoned. Had it been 
 energetically undertaken, something more might have 
 happened than the burning of the Capitol. 
 
 Since that period opinions have greatly changed. 
 England has abolished slavery throughout her wide 
 spread dominions. France has also abolished it in 
 her colonies. All Christendom cries out against it. 
 Should we become involved in war with France or 
 England, especially with England, and war with 
 England is one of the commonplaces of our politics, 
 no matter what the cause or origin of the war, a 
 proclamation of freedom to the enslaved would sanc 
 tify it in the eyes of the world. It would become the 
 cause of humanity against despotism a despotism 
 the more hateful from its attempt to cloak itself with 
 the. name of democracy, and from its audacious efforts 
 to trample out the doctrine of the rights of man in 
 the very states by which that doctrine was first pro 
 claimed as the basis of political organization. The 
 enemy would strike us in our vital parts, and Chris- 
 
244 DESPOTISM 
 
 tendom would honor and applaud the blow. Under 
 these circumstances, will not due regard to the " com 
 mon defence" justify Congress in adopting a course 
 of legislative policy such as may narrow, limit, re 
 strict, and tend to the extinction of a source of weak 
 ness which no provision of forts and steam frigates 
 can guard against? 
 
 The "welfare of the United States," their internal 
 well-being, apart from any dangers from without, and 
 more especially the welfare of the slave states them 
 selves, seem to call still louder for Congressional 
 interference. The perception of the evils of slavery 
 has, till recently, been confined to a speculative few 
 a class of persons more inclined to think than to 
 act, and disabled, by the small ness of their number, 
 from any effectual political action. But sensibility to 
 those evils, especially to the obstacles which the exist 
 ence of slavery opposes to the further extension of the 
 principles of equality and justice even in their appli 
 cation to the free, thanks to the efforts and labors 
 of those known as Abolitionists, is now beginning 
 to penetrate the mass, and to find representatives and 
 an expression in the legislatures of the free states, and 
 even in Congress. When a majority in Congress 
 come to be thoroughly impregnated with these ideas ; 
 when they come to look upon slavery, not merely as 
 an evil, a calamity, a thing to be lamented and regret 
 ted, but as a fatal obstacle to the progress of our free 
 institutions, a consuming cancer eating into the heart 
 of our liberties, and threatening the extinction of those 
 principles upon which our constitutions are founded ; 
 perceiving that the " welfare of the United States " 
 is seriously compromised, can they hesitate to come 
 to the rescue ? Will they not feel themselves called 
 upon, not alone by humanity, by patriotism, but by 
 the very letter of the constitution itself, to come to 
 the rescue ? 
 
 But even grant that Congress might not rightfully 
 assume to legislate upon the subject of slavery inde 
 pendently of and adverse to the states to be directly 
 
IN AMERICA. 24-) 
 
 affected by such legislation, yet their consent and co 
 operation would certainly go far to remove this obsta 
 cle. Nor is it to be supposed that such a feeling as 
 we have above referred to can become predominant 
 in Congress without penetrating, also, to a greater or 
 less extent, into the slave states themselves. But the 
 evil of slavery is so immense, and in most of our 
 slave states it has become so firmly rooted, swal 
 lowing up, as it were, the state and the church, and 
 enlisting in its support the wealth, the talent, the 
 intelligence, the education, the ignorance, the preju 
 dices, and the passions of the people, that to wait 
 for those states to take the leadership in the abolition 
 movement would be absurd. The effects of such 
 waiting have been long since manifest. The abo 
 lition of slavery in Maryland and Virginia, so confi 
 dently expected and so devoutly wished for by Henry, 
 Washington, Jefferson, Mason, Madison, did not 
 take place. The slave-holders of those states have, 
 on the contrary, added to the injustice of slave-hold 
 ing the cruelty and turpitude of slave-breeding and 
 slave-exporting ; and, in diffusing this evil over the 
 new regions of the south-west, they have found new 
 inducements for continuing it among themselves. 
 For the purpose of extending this slave market, they 
 do not hesitate to involve the Union in disgraceful 
 wars of conquest. Not content with the seizure of 
 Texas, the annexation of Cuba is already suggested 
 to which Virginia might serve as a new Africa, the 
 slave trade to that coast having been mainly cut off 
 by the vigilance of the English cruisers. This let- 
 alone policy, this waiting for the parties most imme 
 diately interested to take the lead, came near proving 
 fatal even to Congress itself. The right of petition, 
 even freedom of debate, seemed about to be extin 
 guished in that body. The Federal government has 
 put itself forward as the champion and defender of 
 slavery ; the antagonist, on this point, of all Christen 
 dom. What a change, even on the question of the 
 African slave trade ! that very government, which 
 21* 
 
246 DESPOTISM 
 
 had itself once proposed a mutual right of search on 
 the coast of Africa, exerting all its efforts, and not 
 without success, to defeat a treaty of that sort into 
 which Britain had induced the great powers of Eu 
 rope to enter! The thraldom, thank God, into which 
 Congress was fast sinking, has, by the steady efforts 
 of a few noble men, at last been partially shaken oft. 
 The attention of the people has been aroused to the 
 question Shall the Federal government be a slave- 
 holding or an anti-slave-holding government? Ex 
 perience seems to show that any middle ground, 
 practically speaking, is out of the question. If the 
 Federal government is not the one, it must be the 
 other. 
 
 But supposing the Federal government to have 
 power, to have a constitutional right to act in this 
 matter, how is it to act? Shall Congress employ 
 force ? Shall a law be passed declaring the right of the 
 southern negroes to freedom, and an army be marched 
 into the southern states to enforce such law ? Such 
 rude and violent methods of effecting political changes 
 correspond neither to the principles of our institutions 
 nor to the enlightened philosophy of the present age. 
 It is not the office of the Federal government to abol 
 ish slavery by a mere act of its own authority im 
 posed upon the slave-holding states an act which 
 might justly be denounced as arbitrary, and which 
 the whole white population of the South would unite 
 to resist. Great evils are not thus to be got rid of by 
 a single blow. To be effectually and peacefully abol 
 ished, slavery must be abolished by the legislatures 
 of the slave states themselves. There exist in all the 
 slave states ample materials for a party ready to un 
 dertake that great and illustrious task. Some mov 
 ing of the dry bones has been of late discernible ; but, 
 for the most part, the anti-slavery party of the South, 
 strong, morally and intellectually, and by no means 
 contemptible in point of numbers, lies at this moment 
 prostrate, completely paralyzed by terror, and pre- 
 
IN AMERICA.. 247 
 
 vented thereby from any movement or organiza 
 tion ; held down in as pitiable a state of fear and 
 helplessness as can well be imagined. The great 
 excitement of 1834 the alarm then raised among 
 the slave-holders by the symptoms of an anti-slavery 
 movement at the North caused the extemporaneous 
 introduction into the southern states of a suppressive 
 system, based apparently on the Spanish inquisition 
 but with the democratic improvements of turning 
 every slave-holder into an inquisitor, and the misera 
 ble, uneducated mob of the southern villages and 
 hamlets into spies and officers the proceedings, with 
 out any troublesome or tedious formalities, being reg 
 ulated by the code of Lynch law, the same parties 
 acting in the fourfold capacity of accusers, witnesses, 
 judges, and executioners. That same despotic spirit, 
 indeed, which holds the slaves in subjection without 
 law and against law, does not hesitate a moment to set 
 aside all the most sacred principles of law, all our 
 much-vaunted safeguards of personal security, for the 
 sake of speedy vengeance upon those inclined in any 
 way to question its authority. Such, indeed, is the 
 just retribution of nature. Establish despotism over 
 one class of the community, and it will soon extend 
 itself over all the others. Give your neighbor a right 
 to tyrannize over slaves, and he will soon assume a 
 right to tyrannize over you. 
 
 Yet it is to this down-trodden party, this humbled 
 and silenced party, this party existing, indeed, as yet 
 only in embryo, without organization or self-conscious 
 ness, these southern anti-slavery men, that we must 
 look for the abolition of slavery. The spirit of des 
 potism must be encountered in the slave states them 
 selves, by a power potent enough to awe it down, and 
 keep it under ; and this power can only be a mass of 
 citizens combined together, acting in concert, and 
 having such weight of social, and especially of po 
 litical influence, that it shall become necessary to 
 respect their feelings, their opinions, and their rights. 
 Such a combination must be formed in all the slave 
 
248 DESPOTISM 
 
 states before the first effectual steps can be taken, we 
 do not say towards the abolition of slavery merely, 
 but even towards the enforcement of the rights of 
 those nominally free ; those great rights of free dis 
 cussion and a free press which no despotism, or 
 would-be despotism, willingly tolerates. 
 
 Congress, however, or the friends of freedom in 
 Congress, are not to wait till such a party rises up. 
 It is their business to help it up, to reach out a 
 hand to it, on every possible occasion. Could the 
 immense patronage of the Federal government once 
 be directed to that point, we may judge of the result 
 likely to follow by the effect which that same patron 
 age has produced at the North, in a counter direction. 
 It is by calling upon the Federal government, on 
 every possible occasion that occurs, or can be made 
 to occur, to abjure all responsibility for slavery and 
 all countenance of it; it is by finding and making 
 perpetual occasions to point out the evils of slavery 
 in particular instances, its incompatibility with the 
 " general welfare," and the obstacles which it opposes 
 to the " common defence ; " it is by imitating the ex 
 ample of steadfast old Cato, and .repeating at every 
 opportunity, in season and out of season, "I think 
 also that slavery ought to be abolished ; " such are 
 the means by which even a very few members of Con 
 gress may effect great things ; not indeed by way of 
 direct legislation, for direct legislation constitutes, 
 after all, but a small part of the influence which Con 
 gress exerts, but by keeping this subject constantly 
 before the public mind ; enabling and compelling the 
 slave-holders to see what they have hitherto so obsti 
 nately shut their eyes to; and what is of more im 
 portance yet, giving the non-slave-holding freemen of 
 the South an opportunity to see what the slave-hold 
 ers hitherto have so dexterously kept out of their 
 sight. 
 
 Just in proportion as the anti-slavery party increases 
 in Congress ; just in proportion as that body shall 
 evince symptoms of a settled, firm, and steady oppo- 
 
IN AMERICA. 249 
 
 sition to slavery ; just in the same proportion will the 
 southern anti-slavery men be encouraged to confess 
 themselves, first to themselves, than to one another, 
 and then to the world. Only through the medium 
 of Congress, and the Federal government, can the 
 anti-slavery sentiment of the North be brought into 
 any active cooperation with the anti-slavery sentiment 
 of the South ; and surely, until northern representa 
 tives of non-slave-holding constituencies can stand up 
 on the floor of Congress and boldly speak their minds 
 upon the subject, and secure a hearing too, it is quite 
 too much to expect any such boldness, or any such 
 hearing, in the legislature of any slave-holding state. 
 
 It needs, as we believe, only this free discussion to 
 show that even the technical legality behind which 
 slavery claims to entrench itself cannot be maintained. 
 This point has hitherto been conceded to the slave 
 holders, hastily, without examination, and, as we be 
 lieve, without reason. The truth seems to be that, 
 although the people of the southern states were will 
 ing, and a large majority of them desirous, to allow 
 slavery to continue among them as a matter of fact, 
 they left its legality to rest upon the enactments and 
 practice of the colonial times, without undertaking 
 by any fundamental act of sovereignty on their part 
 to confer any new or additional legality upon it. The 
 legality of American slavery rests, then, upon a colo 
 nial usage a usage not only unsustained by the Eng 
 lish law, but, in several most important points, directly 
 contradictory to it ; a usage totally incapable of fur 
 nishing any legal foundation for any claim of right; 
 a usage upon which neither the state constitutions 
 nor the Federal constitution undertake to confer a 
 legal character; and upon which, indeed, taking into 
 account the very fundamental principles of the Amer 
 ican government, they could not confer a legal 
 character. 
 
 When the colonists set forth in their Declaration 
 of Independence, as the justification and basis of the 
 stand they had taken, the natural Right of all men to 
 
250 DESPOTISM 
 
 life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they must 
 be esteemed as pledging themselves to the world, 
 and to each other, for the recognition and mainte 
 nance, of that right. Nor was this declaration the mere 
 act of the Continental Congress, whose power might 
 be disputed ; for it was distinctly and solemnly rat 
 ified, adopted, and confirmed by every individual state 
 in the Union. From that moment, then, it was a 
 solemn pledge on the part of all the states, and a tacit 
 condition of the Union, that slavery should be done 
 away with as soon as possible. By adopting, two 
 years before, the non-importation agreement, known 
 as the American Association, the states had already 
 pledged themselves to import no more slaves ; a 
 pledge from which they were never released, though 
 the Carolinas and Georgia chose afterwards to violate 
 it, and to insist on a constitutional permission to 
 continue that violation for twenty years. The same 
 understanding as to the abolition of slavery prevailed 
 when the Federal constitution was adopted. Slavery 
 was regarded as a transitory evil, to be speedily re 
 moved, and the greatest care was taken not to men 
 tion it by name, nor to recognize in that instrument 
 any such idea as that of property in man. 
 
 The northern states have waited a great while, pa 
 tiently, for their southern neighbors to carry out their 
 agreement. If the conclusion should be arrived at, 
 that the southern states are unable or unwilling to 
 redeem their pledge, certainly the least w T e of the 
 North can do is, to proclaim, every where, our con 
 viction of the utter illegality of this accursed institu 
 tion, and of the bad faith of the South in prolonging 
 its existence. 
 
 Nor, indeed, can it reasonably be expected that the 
 men of the North will stop there. The abolition of 
 slavery, not to mention how essential it is to the 
 preservation of the rights and liberties of the free, is 
 a debt due from the United States to the memory and 
 honor of our Revolutionary fathers, to the principles 
 of democracy, to human nature itself; and just in 
 
IN AMERICA. 251 
 
 proportion as our southern brethren shall fail to take 
 the lead in this inevitable enterprise, that leadership 
 must of necessity devolve on us of the North. It 
 has only been by professions of ultra democracy, of 
 exceeding respect for the natural rights of men, and 
 of opposition to all arbitrary and unnecessary author 
 ity, that the slave-holding body have been enabled to 
 exercise so long-continued and so decided an influ 
 ence over our national politics. The time has now 
 come the ascendency of democratic ideas having, 
 under southern patronage, been firmly established at 
 the North, and the domination of the old aristocrat- 
 ical cliques completely put down that the northern 
 democracy can return the favor by aiding the south 
 ern states in the substitution of a democracy like 
 that of the North, in place of those slave-holding oli 
 garchies by which the entire laboring population of 
 the South, white as well as black, has hitherto been 
 held in such entire subjection. And, in adopting 
 such a course, the northern democracy will consult 
 not more the spirit of their own policy than the true 
 intent of the framers of the Federal constitution. For 
 whatever disputes may be raised as to the precise 
 intent of the framers of that instrument in partic 
 ular clauses, one thing at least is certain, whatever 
 monstrous assumptions to the contrary may have 
 lately been countenanced in quarters where more 
 knowledge and better feelings might naturally have 
 been expected; the framers of the constitution never 
 intended, the people who ratified the constitution 
 never intended, to found a slave-breeding and a sla 
 very-propagating republic. The barest suspicion that 
 the constitution could operate to perpetuate the insti 
 tution of slavery would have caused its indignant 
 rejection by all the northern and by a part of the 
 southern states. The general intent of the framers 
 of the constitution is clearly and comprehensively 
 expressed in its preamble, by which its objects are 
 declared to be, " To form a more perfect union, estab 
 lish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for 
 
252 DESPOTISM 
 
 the common defence, promote the general welfare, 
 and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and 
 our posterity." Now, to which of these great objects 
 has not the existence among us of domestic slavery 
 proved a stumbling-block from the day the first Con 
 tinental Congress met down to the current moment? 
 So long as slavery continues, the union of the states 
 never can be perfected; justice is but an empty name; 
 our domestic tranquillity will always be in danger 
 and that even less from the slaves, reluctantly held in 
 bondage, and watching an opportunity to throw off 
 the yoke, than from the idle, turbulent, hot-headed, 
 arid insolent among their masters, who, not content 
 with lynching private individuals, and even sovereign 
 states of the Union in the persons of their representa 
 tives, threaten separation and civil war whenever 
 thwarted in any of their pretensions. What aid does 
 the institution of slavery afford to the common de 
 fence ? Officers, perhaps, but neither men nor money. 
 As to securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves 
 and our posterity, the slave-holders, backed by the 
 mercantile interest of the North, in which they have 
 found a humble but zealous ally, have, within the 
 last fifteen years, made not less than two desperate 
 attempts entirely to suppress all freedom of speech 
 and of the press, and to make universal that reign of 
 terror so vigorously enforced during that entire period 
 throughout the southern part of the Union ! 
 
 And yet those who labor to eradicate this lasting 
 and inevitable source of discord, this eating cancer 
 of our liberties and peace, are accused of hostility to 
 the union of the states and that, too, by a set of po 
 litical pharisees, who, in parading their anxiety to 
 carry out the alleged implied intentions of the framers 
 of the constitution as to the return of runaway ne 
 groes, do at best but pay tithe of mint and cumin, 
 while they wholly neglect those weightier matters, 
 those great overruling intentions, not implied, alleged, 
 made out by construction, or discovered by a resort 
 to contemporaneous history, but proclaimed in the 
 
IN AMERICA. 253 
 
 preamble to the constitution, and throughout the 
 whole text of the instrument the growth of the 
 United States into a great, united, FREE republic ! 
 
 That which the fathers planned, and of which they 
 laid the foundations, building upon them according 
 to the measure of their means and enlightenment, it 
 becomes us of this generation, with the advantage 
 of far superior means, and greater experience, to carry 
 out and perfect. 
 
 That the abolition of slavery is by no means so 
 impracticable a thing as many represent, and that 
 even the slave-holders themselves may, by a reason 
 able regard to their claims to pecuniary indemnity, 
 be induced heartily to concur in it, an attempt will be 
 made to show in a subsequent treatise. 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 The Fugitive Act of 1850. 
 
 IT is upon the clause of the constitution of the 
 United States for the delivery up of " persons held to 
 service or. labor under the laws " of any state escap 
 ing into another, that the fugitive slave act (com 
 monly so called) of 1850 is founded. That act, how 
 ever, it is to be observed, notwithstanding its popular 
 title, and the avowed purpose of its enactment, says 
 nothing, any more than the constitution itself, in di 
 rect terms, about slaves or slavery. Its application to 
 the case of fugitive slaves proceeds entirely on the as 
 sumption that slavery exists in certain of the states 
 not merely in fact but by law, so that under the de 
 scription of persons bound to service and labor un 
 der state laws slaves are included an assumption 
 which judges and commissioners may declare too 
 plain to be argued about, or to require to be sustained 
 
254 DESPOTISM 
 
 by any reasons, but which, for all that, may be entire 
 ly groundless and gratuitous, as we have already at 
 tempted to show. 
 
 Wholly independently, however, of the argument 
 upon that point, or of the particular application of 
 the act of 1850 to the case of runaway slaves, two 
 distinct sets of objections have been taken to the con 
 stitutionality of that act, besides many others to its 
 arbitrary spirit, and its grossly evident disposition (so 
 abundantly illustrated as well by several of its pro 
 visions as by many of the proceedings which have 
 taken place under it) to sacrifice the rights of persons 
 claimed to the convenience and even to the rascality 
 of persons claimant. 
 
 I. The ground is taken, in the first place, that this 
 return of fugitives from labor is a matter which be 
 longs, at least in its initiative, wholly and exclusively 
 to the authorities and tribunals of the states, and with 
 which Congress has no right to interfere, nor to au 
 thorize any body else to interfere, until the proceed 
 ing shall have resulted in a suit cognizable by the Fed 
 eral tribunals. The intention and effect of the clause 
 in the Federal constitution respecting fugitives from 
 labor seems to be, that no right to service under the 
 laws of any state shall be defeated, notwithstand 
 ing any differences of local law, by any escape into 
 another state ; but to the extent of recapturing such 
 fugitive, and if the services to which he is bound be 
 of such a nature that the exaction of them is not per 
 mitted under the laws of the state in which he is 
 found, still, of holding him for a period sufficient for 
 his removal, that right shall be recognized and en 
 forced by the tribunals of the state in which the fugi 
 tive is found; the proceedings of such state tribunals 
 of course being liable, should the procedure take the 
 form of a judicial contest to be transferred to or re 
 viewed by the Federal courts, under the general juris 
 diction given to them in all cases arising under the 
 Federal constitution and laws, there to be proceeded 
 with according to the general methods prescribed in 
 
IN AMERICA. 255 
 
 the judiciary acts. To give thus to a South Caroli 
 nian, for instance, claiming service or labor from a 
 fugitive found in Massachusetts as due to him under 
 South Carolina law, precisely the same right and the 
 same means, neither more nor less, to reclaim that 
 fugitive, which a Massachusetts man has in Massa 
 chusetts in the case of his runaway child or appren 
 tice, would seem to be quite as much as any reasona 
 ble slave-holder could ask ; at all events quite as much 
 as the Federal constitution ever intended to allow. 
 
 According to this view of the matter, no special 
 legislation, whether state or Federal, respecting fugi 
 tives from one state into another, is necessary, nor even 
 allowable. The constitution of the United States 
 being the supreme law of the land, and recognized 
 as such by all the State courts and authorities, its 
 provision respecting fugitives is quite sufficient to 
 give, in each state of the Union, through the agency 
 .of the state tribunals and state authorities in the first 
 place, or if they fail of their duty, then through the 
 agency of the Federal courts, the same protection 
 and the same justice alike to all claimants and to 
 all fugitives, to whatsoever state they may belong, or 
 upon the laws of whatsoever state their respective 
 rights may be based. 
 
 Nor is this view of the case, so reasonable and sat 
 isfactory in itself, and so free from the multifarious 
 difficulties and objections to which any other inter 
 pretation of the clause in question is exposed,* want 
 ing in support from the most respectable quarters. 
 That Congress has no power to legislate for the re 
 turn of fugitives from labor, and that the act of 1793 
 on that subject (and of course the act of 1850) is 
 unconstitutional, was elaborately maintained by Chan 
 cellor Walworth, of New York, by his opinion given 
 in the New York Court of Errors in the case of Jack 
 
 * " If, as seems to be admitted, legislation is necessary to carry 
 into effect the object of the constitution, what becomes of the right 
 when there is no law on the subject ? " Opinion of Judge Thomp 
 son in Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 16 Peters 631. 
 
256 DESPOTISM 
 
 v. Martin, (14 Wendall, 507) ; and even Mr. Webster, 
 in his famous 7th of March speech, emphatically de 
 clared himself to entertain the same view. " I have 
 always thought," such are his words, " that the con 
 stitution addressed itself to the legislatures of the 
 states, or to the states themselves. It says that those 
 persons escaping to other states * shall be delivered 
 1 up, and I confess I have always been of the opinion 
 that it was an injunction upon the states themselves. 
 When it is said that a person escaping into another 
 state, and coming, therefore, within the jurisdiction 
 of that state, shall be delivered up, it seems to me 
 the import of the clause is, that the state itself, in 
 obedience to the constitution, shall cause him to be 
 delivered up. That is my judgment. I have always 
 entertained that opinion, and I entertain it now. But 
 when the subject, some years ago, was before the Su 
 preme Court, the majority of the judges held that the 
 power to cause fugitives from service to be delivered 
 up was a power to be exercised under the authority 
 of this (i. e., the .Federal) government." The case 
 here alluded to is that of Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 
 (16 Peters, 539,) of which we shall presently have 
 occasion to speak. 
 
 The necessity failing, of any legislation, and espe 
 cially of any Federal legislation, to carry into effect 
 the clause for the delivering up of fugitives from labor, 
 the only other ground on which any such Federal 
 legislation can be or has been attempted to be sus 
 tained, is the mere ground of precedent the notion 
 so great a favorite with a certain class of lawyers, 
 more learned than profound, that usage makes law, 
 or rather, that the law is to be determined by usage. 
 It is said that the right of Congress to legislate on 
 this subject cannot now be questioned, because that 
 right was exercised by the second Congress, some 
 sixty years ago, and has ever since been acquiesced 
 in ; an argument that seems to count for nothing the 
 adverse opinions of such lawyers as Walworth, Web 
 ster, and others to be presently mentioned. 
 
IN AMERICA, 257 
 
 The advocates of this estoppel have a great deal to 
 say (see Nelson s opinion in Jack v. Martin, in the 
 Supreme Court of New York, 12 Wendall, 311) 
 about the large number of members of the Federal 
 convention who sat also in the Congress of 1793, 
 and of the great and special knowledge which they, 
 and the other members of that Congress, must be 
 supposed to have had of the intimate intentions of 
 the framers of the Federal constitution, and of the 
 true meaning and proper interpretation of that instru 
 ment. But to all this there are two very sufficient 
 answers. Whatever knowledge there might have 
 been in the Congress of 1793 of the secret history 
 of the Federal constitution, and of the expectations, 
 hopes, wishes, or intentions of the individuals con 
 cerned in framing it, or procuring its ratification, we 
 of the present day since we have, besides the text of 
 the constitution, the labors of more than sixty years 
 bestowed by the courts and the bar upon its interpre 
 tation and exposition are in a vastly better position 
 for apprehending its real legal purview and effect 
 than the men of 1793, or even than the very men 
 that made it, who, in all the questions that speedily 
 arose as to its interpretation, were even less unani 
 mous than the expositors of to-day. In point of fact, 
 the members of the Federal convention, of whom 
 many subsequently sat in the early Congresses, seem 
 in general to have had but a very imperfect and con 
 fused idea of the real nature of the national govern 
 ment which they had created, and of its true relations 
 to the governments of the states. The idea of two, 
 or rather of sixteen coordinate governments so inti 
 mately intertwined, and yet each, in its own sphere, 
 sovereign and independent, was at tirst very difficult 
 to be apprehended, at least in its consequences; 
 arid no inconsiderable part of the legislation of 
 the early Congresses and the fugitive act of 1793 
 affords an instance of it proceeded upon the false 
 idea that in the execution of its own powers, Con 
 gress and the Federal executive had a right not 
 22* 
 
258 DESPOTISM 
 
 only to employ but to command the officers of the 
 states. 
 
 Bat, in the second place, quite apart from the errors 
 into. which a body no better suited for such purposes 
 than Congress would be likely to fall, especially at 
 first, as to the extent of its authority, the whole the 
 ory of the scope of Federal legislation, upon which 
 those who had the control of the early Congresses 
 proceeded, was subsequently greatly modified. The 
 Federalists, as they called themselves, the consolida- 
 tionists, as they were considered by their opponents, 
 who controlled the early Congresses, and who, like 
 the present Union men, so called, professed a special 
 attachment to the constitution and the Union, pro 
 ceeded upon the idea of making a strong national 
 government; indeed, of drawing within the range of 
 Federal legislation every thing that might be most 
 conveniently so dealt with that is to say, about 
 every thing. The Democratic or State Rights party 
 held, on the other hand, that the legislation of Con 
 gress ought to be strictly limited to cases expressly 
 authorized by the constitution. Such was the doc 
 trine so emphatically set forth in the famous Resolu 
 tions of 98 ; and such, at this moment, is the doc 
 trine not only ostentatiously professed by those at 
 the head of the Federal government, but which, in a 
 certain modified form at least, has obtained upon all 
 questions not involving the convenience of slave-hold 
 ers pretty entire possession even of the United States 
 tribunals. But surely it cannot be expected, without 
 counting more fully than facts would seem yet to 
 warrant upon the stupidity and patience of the 
 North, that a liberal interpretation of the powers 
 of Congress, rejected in all cases in which the indus 
 trial and pecuniary interests of the North have been 
 thought to be concerned, will be tolerated for the 
 sole purpose of propping up the crumbling system of 
 southern despotism. It was natural enough for Mr. 
 Webster, both as an ancient Federalist and as a modern 
 Union man, to yield up as he did, in his 7th of March 
 
IN AMERICA, 259 
 
 speech, his own deliberate opinion, long held, and 
 still unaltered, to the formal judgment even of a 
 mere majority of the judges of the Supreme Court 
 of the United States, for it was {he policy of the 
 old Federal, as it now is of our modern, self-styled 
 Union party, (more commonly known as Silver-Grays, 
 or Old Fogies,) to exalt that Supreme Court into a 
 final arbiter, if not indeed an infallible judge, not 
 in private controversies only, but in all political ques 
 tions also, involving the interpretation as what po 
 litical question does not ? ol the Federal constitu 
 tion and laws. But to see Franklin Pierce, who, 
 during his six years service in the Senate, sat a silent, 
 humble, admiring disciple at the feet of Calhoun ; 
 who, as presidential candidate, was the choice, be 
 cause the submissive catechumen, of the Democratic 
 State Rights party, whose doctrines he took speedy 
 occasion, after his election, to glorify and endorse ; 
 and who, as president, professes to walk in the foot 
 steps of Andrew Jackson, he who boldly claimed for 
 himself, and for all the coordinate branches of the gov 
 ernment, the right to act under the constitution as 
 they understood it, even in spite of decisions of the 
 Supreme Court; to see this Democratic State Rights 
 president inconsistently striking in with that con 
 sistent old Federalist, Mr. Webster, and running in 
 his company, on behalf of slavery, into the most ultra 
 Federal extremes this is a spectacle rather trying to 
 those who wish to regard the rising leaders of the 
 young democracy of the North as at least tolerably 
 true and sincere men, and not, as their political op 
 ponents so indiscriminately represent them, mere un 
 principled scamps in pursuit of office, ready to profess 
 and to do every thing tending thereto. 
 
 II. But even admitting that the surrender of fugi 
 tives from labor is a matter exclusively within the 
 scope of Federal authority, and not only a proper sub 
 ject for the legislation of Congress, but one upon 
 which Congress is imperatively bound to legislate, 
 (as was held by the majority of the Supreme Court 
 
260 DESPOTISM 
 
 of the United States in the case of Prigg v. Penn* 
 sylvanm,) nevertheless, the act of 1850 appear? to be 
 grossly unconstitutional in not less than three impor 
 tant particulars. ^ 
 
 1. It confers jurisdiction concurrent with that of 
 the judges of the Supreme and Circuit Courts of the 
 United States upon a set of commissioners, mere ap 
 pointees of the Circuit and Territorial United States 
 Judges ; holding office at the will of those who ap 
 point them; paid by fluctuating and uncertain fees, 
 and, in fugitive cases, bribed to decide in favor of 
 the claimant by a double fee in case they do so ; un 
 commissioned by the president, and unsworn when 
 the constitution of the United States expressly re 
 quires that all judges, whether of the Supreme or 
 inferior courts shall hold office during good behavior, 
 and shall, at stated times, receive for their services a 
 compensation which shall not be diminished during 
 their continuance in office; shall be nominated by the 
 president and confirmed by the senate ; shall be sworn 
 to support the constitution of the United States, and 
 shall be commissioned by the president. 
 
 2. It deprives the alleged fugitive of the right of 
 trial by jury. 
 
 3. It substantially denies the writ of habeas corpus 
 by its prohibition to all courts, State or Federal, to 
 inquire under that writ, or any other, into the grounds 
 of ihe commissioner s certificate, or to correct any 
 errors of fact or law into which he may have fallen. 
 
 Although Mr. Webster, in his 7th of March speech, 
 announced his intention to support the bill then on 
 the table of the senate and which subsequently be 
 came the act of 1850, "with all its provisions, to 
 its fullest extent," " with some amendments to it," 
 (which, however, he found no opportunity to offer) 
 yet he carefully avoided on that occasion the 
 slightest allusion to its odious and questionable de 
 tails. Instead of that he substituted "a solemn ap 
 peal to all the sober and sound minds at the North, 
 as a question of morals and a question of conscience, 
 
IN AMERICA. 261 
 
 what right they had in their legislative capacity, or 
 any other capacity, to endeavor to get round the con 
 stitution, or to embarrass the free exercise of the rights 
 secured by the constitution to the persons whose slaves 
 escape from them." A perilous appeal, in the mak 
 ing of which the orator seems to have forgotten that 
 sober and sound minds, honest citizens with no polit 
 ical expectations or hopes of mercantile profit to 
 warp their better judgments, might be apt, at the 
 same time, to ask themselves, as a question of mor 
 als and a question of conscience, and with even 
 stronger emphasis too, what right they had in their 
 legislative capacity, or in any other capacity, to open 
 a door to kidknapping, or to put to the slightest risk 
 or danger the personal liberty of a single fellow-cit 
 izen, hoy/ever humble his position, empty his purse, 
 or dark his complexion. Such persons, so appealed 
 to, might be apt to call to mind the adjudication of 
 " another Daniel come to judgment," a case quite as 
 generally known and approved as any recorded in the 
 law books. 
 
 Portia. A pound of that same merchant s flesh is thine ; 
 The court awards it, and the law doth give it. 
 
 Shi/lock. Most rightful judge ! 
 
 Portia. And you must cut this flesh from on? his breast ; 
 The law allows it, and the court awards it. 
 
 Shylock. Most learned judge ! A sentence: Come. Prepare. 
 
 Portia. Tarry a little : there is something else. 
 This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood ; 
 The words expressly are, a pound of flesh. 
 Take then thy bond, takethou thy pound of flesh; 
 But in the cutting it, if thou dost shed 
 One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods 
 Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate 
 Unto the state of Venice. 
 
 Gratiano. O upright judge! Mark, Jew. O learned judge! 
 
 Slu/iock. Is that the law ? 
 
 Portia. Thyself shall see the act ; 
 For as thou urgest justice, be assured 
 Thou shult have justice more than thou desir st 
 
 Though Mr. Webster, in his 7th of March speech, 
 perhaps on the principle that it is hard to touch 
 
262 DESPOTISM 
 
 pitch without being defiled by it, said not a word 
 on behalf of the particular provisions of the bill, 
 which, nevertheless, he so fully endorsed ; a bill 
 yielding up not merely the pound of flesh alleged to 
 be stipulated in the bond, but, along with it, the very 
 heart s blood of freedom ; yet he was soon driven, by 
 the storm of indignation on the part of many of the 
 soberest and soundest minds of the North which that 
 endorsement raised against him, to attempt an apol 
 ogy for the misshapen monster into standing god 
 father to which he had been so unfortunately whee 
 dled and seduced by such busy gossips as Hangman 
 Foote. This he did in his letter to the citizens of 
 Newburyport of May 15th following the delivery of 
 his 7th of March speech, and containing a double 
 apology for the bill in question first, a disquisition 
 on the nature of the process provided by it, and, sec 
 ondly, an attempt to justify it by precedent. 
 
 It would appear reasonable to judge of the nature 
 of any proceeding by its effects, which effects in the 
 case under consideration are sufficiently obvious. A 
 man lately possessed of freedom is converted into a 
 chattel, and as such is delivered up to a claimant 
 who has the whole power of the United States to 
 back him in carrying off this chattelized man or wo 
 man to a slave state, where the mere fact of posses 
 sion gives to the possessor the legal character and 
 the almost unbounded legal prerogatives and powers 
 of master and owner, including imprisonment at 
 pleasure, and the unrestricted use of the lash and of 
 starvation, with no liability to question for it, if death 
 do not immediately ensue. Yet we are gravely told 
 by Mr. Webster who, in defect of other arguments, 
 and destitute, as usual, of all originality, has eagerly 
 caught at a suggestion dropped probably without 
 much consideration thirty years before by Chief Jus 
 tice Tilghman, of Pennsylvania, in a case which we 
 shall presently have occasion to consider that a 
 claim, an adjudication upon it, and the delivery up 
 of the adjudged chattel into the thus unrestricted 
 
IN AMERICA. 263 
 
 power of the claimant, is no judicial act, no trial, 
 nothing but a mere executive procedure preliminary 
 and auxiliary to a trial, a mere case of extradition, a 
 sending back the fugitive to the state whence he 
 came, in order that his right to freedom may there 
 be tested. 
 
 Conscious sophistry and studied falsehood if not 
 somewhat excusable in a lawyer are at least some 
 what intelligible when there is an object to be an 
 swered by them. This suggestion of Tilgh man s, 
 adopted by Webster, notwithstanding an express 
 ruling to the contrary by the majority of the Supreme 
 Court of the United States in the case of Prigg v. 
 Pennsylvania^ (see 16 Peters, 616,) being afterwards 
 more fully elaborated and artfully set forth in a legal 
 opinion by an adroit lawyer, was soon followed by 
 that lawyer s elevation to a seat on the bench of 
 that same Supreme Court by the side of the judge of 
 the adjoining circuit, whose previous promotion had 
 a similar antecedent. But so far as concerns the vin 
 dication of the Fugitive Act of 1850, this elaborated 
 lie is perfectly gratuitous, because even if it were the 
 truth, it would not help the matter in the least. The 
 framers of the Federal constitution were neither so 
 foolish nor so cruel as to hold out a temptation to 
 kidnappers by giving to every mere private volunteer 
 claimant from any slave state, or pretending to be 
 from some slave state, the right to carry off, on his 
 mere claim, supported wholly by his own oath and 
 other ex parte evidence, any resident in any free state, 
 who thus, far removed from all friends and help, might 
 be put to prove his freedom in a country where his 
 very complexion alone would establish a prima facie 
 case against him. The constitution contains no pro 
 vision for delivering up fugitives from labor to parties 
 claimant to be conveyed elsewhere, to the end that 
 the validity of the claim to their service may there be 
 determined. It provides only for a delivery to the 
 party to whom such service or labor may be "due." As 
 to any conveyance elsewhere, not a word is said about 
 
264 DESPOTISM 
 
 it in the constitution ; that is only an incident to the 
 right to service or labor; and by the express terms of 
 the provision, no delivery is required, and of course 
 no such removal can take place till- it is first estab 
 lished that such service or labor is due, and due to 
 the claimant. And, notwithstanding what he wrote 
 in his Newburyport letter, Mr. Webster was fully 
 aware of the true character, in this respect, of the 
 clause in question. This abundantly appears from 
 his own draft of a Fugitive Bill in amendment of the 
 act of 1793, which, by a sort of judicial blindness, 
 such as often betrays prevaricators into furnishing 
 evidence against themselves, he was led to lay before 
 the senate for show, however, merely, not for use 
 some three weeks after the date of his Newburyport 
 letter, and perhaps as a supplement to it. That draft, 
 he told the senate, had been prepared early in the 
 session (and probably it was to go with it that the 
 greater part of his 7th of March speech had also been 
 prepared) in conference with some of the most em 
 inent members of the profession, and especially with 
 "a high judicial authority," [Judge McLean?] greatly 
 experienced in questions of this kind. These eminent 
 advisers had not, indeed, saved the great "expounder 
 of the constitution " from the obvious oversight of 
 conferring upon commissioners of the United States 
 courts complete judicial authority, including the de 
 termination upon evidence of "the identity of the 
 [alleged?] fugitive, the right of the claimant, and the 
 existence of slavery in the state whence the [alleged ?] 
 fugitive [was said to have?] absconded." But while 
 thus, for the convenience of the slave-holders, uncer 
 emoniously overriding the constitution in a point as 
 to which, at least, Mr. Webster s eminent judicial 
 adviser might have been expected to be specially 
 vigilant, some attention was still paid to that instru 
 ment in another important respect, in which the act 
 of 1850 entirely disregards it. Mr. Webster s draft 
 of a bill expressly provided " that if the [alleged ?] fugi 
 tive shall deny that he owes service or labor to the 
 
IN AMERICA. 265 
 
 claimant under the laws of the state where he was 
 [alleged to be ?] held, and after being duly cautioned 
 as to the solemnities and consequences of an oath, 
 shall swear to the same, the commissioner or judge 
 shall forthwith summon a jury of twelve to try the 
 right of the claimant, who shall be sworn to try the 
 cause according to evidence, and the commissioner or 
 judge shall preside at the trial, and determine the com 
 petency of the proof." 
 
 That the Circuit Court commissioners thus invested 
 by this draft, as well as by the act of 1850 with high 
 judicial powers, lacked, in several important respects 
 already mentioned, the constitutional qualifications 
 expressly required in judges, was too plain, when once 
 pointed out, to be denied. Hence the attempt to con 
 vert the powers bestowed upon them by the act of 
 1850 into a merely extraditionary authority an after 
 thought, which owes all the little plausibility it has, 
 first, to the accidental juxtaposition, in the text of the 
 Federal constitution, of the provision for the delivery 
 up of fugitives from labor on " the claim of the party 
 to whom such labor may be due" with another and 
 wholly distinct provision, for delivering up, " on de 
 mand of the executive authorities of the state," fugi 
 tives " charged^ in any state, with treason, felony, or 
 other crimes, to be removed to the state having juris 
 diction of the crime ;" and secondly, to a like accident 
 al connection of the two subjects in the old fugitive 
 act of 1793. How the two subjects happened to be 
 brought into juxtaposition in the text of the constitu 
 tion has been shown already in the preceding section. 
 How they happened to be also brought together in the 
 act of 1793, we shall proceed to show, to do which 
 will lead us back to Mr. Webster s second apology for 
 the bill of 1850, contained in his Newburyport letter 
 his allegation that the bill of 1850 in principle was 
 but the same thing with the act of 1793. 
 
 Of the act of 1793 Mr. Webster s letter gives the fol 
 lowing history. " The act of Congress of the 12th of 
 February, 1793, appears to have been well considered, 
 23 
 
266 DESPOTISM 
 
 and to have passed with little opposition. There is 
 no evidence known to me that any body, at the time, 
 regarded any of its provisions as repugnant to religion, 
 liberty, the constitution, or humanity. The two 
 senators of Massachusetts, at that time, were the dis 
 tinguished legislator and patriot of your own county, 
 George Cabot, and that other citizen of Massachu 
 setts, among the most eminent of his day for talent, 
 purity of character, and every virtue, Caleb Strong. 
 Mr. Cabot indeed was one of the committee for pre 
 paring the bill. It appears to have passed the senate 
 without a division. In the house of representatives 
 it was supported by Mr. Goodhue, Mr. Gerry, both, I 
 believe, of your county of Essex, (Mr. Goodhue af 
 terwards a senator of the United States, and Mr. 
 Gerry afterwards vice-president of the United States,) 
 Mr. Ames, Mr. Bourne, Mr. Leonard, and Mr. Sedge- 
 wick, members from Massachusetts, and was passed 
 by a vote of forty-eight to seven ; of these seven one 
 being from Virginia, one from Maryland, one from New 
 York, and four from the New England States, and of 
 these four one, Mr. Thacher, from Massachusetts.* 
 
 " I am not aware that there exists any published 
 account of the debates on the passage of this act. I 
 have been able to find none. I have searched the origi 
 nal files, however, and I find among the papers several 
 propositions for modifications and amendments of va 
 rious kinds, but none suggesting the propriety of any 
 jury trial in the state where the partv should be ar 
 rested." 
 
 This history of the act of 1793 is tolerably correct so 
 far as it goes. But it omits some details as to the 
 origin of that act curious in themselves, and some 
 what essential to the argument, and which therefore 
 we proceed to supply. On the llth of May 1788, a 
 
 * Mr. Thacher, it is proper to note, was, in these early Congresses, the 
 only consistent and uniform New England opposer of slavery and all 
 its pretensions. In those times, indeed for the first thirty years sub 
 sequent to the adoption of the Federal constitution, almost all the op 
 position to slavery came from Pennsylvania and New Jersey. 
 
IN AMERICA. 267 
 
 month or two before the Federal constitution became, 
 by the ratification of nine states, an authoritative act, 
 a negro named John was seized in the state of Penn 
 sylvania, (probably under the allegation that he was 
 a runaway slave,) by certain persons in disguise, who 
 bound him and carried him off. On the llth of No 
 vember following, bills of indictment were found 
 against one McGuire and two others, as having kid 
 napped John, and taken him out of the state with in 
 tent to sell him as a slave. This proceeding was 
 brought to the notice of Governor Mifflin on the 13th 
 of May, 1791, by a memorial of the "Pennsylvania 
 Society for promoting the abolition of slavery, the 
 relief of free negroes unlawfully held in bondage, and 
 for improving the condition of the African race," in 
 which memorial it was further stated that the indicted 
 parties had precipitately fled from justice either into 
 Virginia, where John was held in a state of slavery 
 by one Nicholas Casey, residing near Romney, or else 
 into the newly erected state of Kentucky. 
 
 Shortly after the receipt of this memorial, Mifflin 
 addressed an official letter to Beverly Randolph, gov 
 ernor of Virginia, enclosing the indictment, and the 
 memorial, and requesting him to take the proper steps 
 to cause the fugitives from justice to be delivered up, 
 as provided for in the constitution of the United 
 States. This letter, with its enclosures, Governor Ran 
 dolph submitted to James Innis, then attorney gen 
 eral of Virginia, who soon after gave an opinion to 
 the following eftect : 1st. That by the laws of Virginia 
 the matter charged in the indictments would amount, 
 as between the individual parties, only to a trespass, 
 and as between the offenders and the commonwealth 
 only to a breach of the peace ; that the trespass 
 might as well be sued for in Virginia as in Pennsylva 
 nia, and that, to an indictment for a mere breach of 
 the peace, the defendants might appear by attorney, 
 so that it would be soon enough to deliver them up 
 after they were convicted. On the presumption, how 
 ever, that the offence charged stood on the same 
 
268 DESPOTISM 
 
 ground in Pennsylvania that it did in Virginia, it was 
 of too trifling a nature to come under the description 
 of the term crime, as used in the Federal constitution. 
 2d. That the demand was insufficient, in not containing 
 any proof that the persons demanded were in the 
 state. 3d. That if the delivery and removal of the 
 persons demanded could be effected at all, it must be 
 under the authority of the constitution of the United 
 States; but as neither the laws of Virginia nor those 
 of Congress directed the mode, nor delegated any 
 authority by which the magistracy of the state could 
 acquire any legal control over the persons demanded, 
 no such delivery as requested could be made. 
 
 This opinion having been transmitted to Mifflin, 
 with Governor Randolph s regrets that no means had 
 yet been provided for carrying into effect so important* 
 an article of the Federal constitution, it was forthwith 
 laid before President Washington, with copies of all 
 the other documents, enclosed in a letter from Mifflin, 
 in which he pointed out Innis s apparent ignorance of 
 the act of Pennsylvania under which the indictments 
 had been found, (and which indeed had only been en 
 acted March 29, 1788,) by which the forcibly carry 
 ing any person out of the state to be sold as a slave 
 was subjected to a fine of a hundred pounds, and im 
 prisonment to hard labor for not less than six nor 
 more than twelve months.* 
 
 Washington, thus appealed to, submitted the case, 
 and all the papers connected with it, to Edmund 
 Randolph, late governor of Virginia, then attorney 
 general of the United States, who, on the 20th of July, 
 gave a very lucid opinion upon it. And here let us 
 observe, that no contemporary authority could be 
 greater than Edmund Randolph s as to the true in 
 terpretation of the constitution. No member of the 
 Federal convention, not even Madison himself, had 
 
 * This act had been copied from one passed just before in Massa 
 chusetts, where a great excitement had been produced by the 
 enticement, at Boston, of three colored persons on board a vessel, in 
 which they were carried to the West Indies and sold as slaves. 
 
IN AMERICA. 
 
 taken a more active part in framing it, while, as 
 a lawyer, he had then, and has since had, very i ew 
 equals, and no superiors. Randolph s opinion em 
 braced the following points : 1st. That an indictment 
 found was a sufficient charge on which to base a de 
 mand, under the clause of the constitution of the 
 United States, respecting fugitives from justice. 2d. 
 That the matter charged in the Pennsylvania indict 
 ments was a crime within the meaning of that clause, 
 and that Innis was mistaken in supposing that the 
 defendants could plead to those indictments by attor 
 ney. 3d. That some proof would seem to be necessa 
 ry, more than had been offered in this case, that the 
 parties demanded had fled from justice, and had been 
 found in the state on which the demand was made. 
 4th. That, these requisites being fulfilled, no law, either 
 state or federal, was necessary to authorize their arrest 
 and delivery. " To deliver up," said Randolph, and 
 the argument appears to be wholly unanswerable, 
 " to deliver up is an acknowledged federal duty ; and 
 the law couples with it the right of using 1 all incident 
 al measures in order to discharge it. I will not in 
 quire how far these incidental means, if opposed to 
 the constitution and laws of Virginia, ought notwith 
 standing to be exercised, because McGuire and his 
 associates may be surrendered without calling upon 
 any public officer of that state. Private persons may 
 be employed and clothed with a special authority. 
 The attorney general [of Virginia] agrees that a law 
 of the United States might so ordain ; and wherein 
 does a genuine distinction exist between a power de- 
 ducible from the constitution, or incidental to a duty 
 imposed by the constitution, and a power given by Con- 
 gress as auxiliary to the execution of such a duty ? 
 
 " From these premises I must conclude that it would 
 have been more precise in the governor of Pennsylania 
 to transmit to the governor of Virginia an authenti 
 cated copy of the law creating the offence ; that it 
 was essential that he should transmit sufficient evi 
 dence of McGuire and others having fled from the 
 
270 DESPOTISM 
 
 justice of the former, and being found in the latter ; 
 that without that evidence the executive of Virginia 
 ought not to have delivered them up ; that with it 
 they ought not to refuse. The governor of Pennsyl 
 vania, however, appears to be anxious that the matter 
 should be laid before Congress, and perhaps such a 
 step might content all scruples."* 
 
 This opinion of Randolph s was sent by "Washing 
 ton to Mifflin, who promised, in reply, to renew his 
 demand, accompanied with the additional evidence 
 pointed out by Randolph. Of the result we are not 
 informed ; but when the second Congress came to 
 gether, not long after, for its first session, all the 
 papers, agreeably to Mifflin s original request, were laid 
 by the president before that body. These papers 
 were suffered, in both houses, to lie on their tables 
 undisturbed. The opinion of Randolph was decided 
 and emphatic, that to carry out the provision of 
 the constitution respecting fugitives from justice, no 
 legislation was necessary ; and if not necessary, why, 
 then, not constitutional, though that was a considera 
 tion as yet not much attended to, since the legislative 
 power of Congress does not extend to the satisfying of 
 scruples, but only to cases in which authority to legis 
 late is expressly given, or is necessary to carry 
 out powers conferred by the constitution on the gen 
 eral government to neither of which categories did 
 this case belong. In the course, however, of the next 
 session, a committee was appointed in the senate, 
 consisting of Johnston, of North Carolina, Cabot, of 
 Massachusetts, and Reed, of Delaware, " to consider 
 the expediency of a law respecting fugitives from 
 justice, and persons escaping from the service of their 
 
 * It is rather curious that, although several judges have referred, 
 in their opinions, to the origin of the act of 1793, and the correspond 
 ence between Governor Mifflin and Randolph, not one of them 
 has even hinted at the existence of Attorney General Randolph s 
 opinion, which is republished, however, along with the other docu 
 ments, in Lowrie Franklin s great folio Collection of American 
 State Papers, Miscellaneous Documents, vol. i. p. 39. 
 
IN AMERICA. 271 
 
 masters, and to report by bill, (if they think proper ;) " 
 which committee, about a month after, did report a 
 bill, which bill, after some modifications, passed into 
 the fugitive act of 1793. 
 
 That act consists of four sections, the first two of 
 which, relating to fugitives from justice, have been 
 often vouched in to support the right of Congress to 
 legislate respecting fugitives from labor. They are 
 used for that purpose by Story, who, speaking on 
 behalf of himself and seven other judges of the Su 
 preme Court of the United States, in P-rigg v. Penn 
 sylvania, (p. 620,) triumphantly flourishes the consti 
 tutionality of those sections as never having been 
 called in question, and their provisions as having been 
 uniformly acted upon by all the state executives. And 
 for the best of reasons, too. These sections require 
 nothing which, independently of the act of 1793, the 
 governors of the states were not bound to do by the 
 constitution itself; and though having no authority 
 as a law, and in that respect a work of supereroga 
 tion, they may, doubtless, have been convenient as 
 suggesting a uniform method of complying with the 
 requisition of the constitution. As to the penalty 
 inflicted by the second section on persons rescuing 
 fugitives while under transportation, the constitution 
 ality of that provision seems to rest upon the same 
 alleged authority in Congress, under which the Federal 
 courts sustained the constitutionality of the Sedition 
 law, arid of the act to punish counterfeiters of the bills 
 of the Bank of the United States ; and I therefore turn 
 it over, without further comment, to be dealt wit|j by 
 the adherents of the Resolutions of 98, in which both 
 those penal acts were specially and emphatically de 
 nounced as unconstitutional, for want of power in 
 Congress to enact them. Yet, to help the better 
 to a decision of the point, I will venture to suggest 
 the inquiry, whether the governors of the states could 
 be subjected, by federal legislation, to fine and im 
 prisonment, for declining to surrender fugitives from 
 justice ? 
 
272 DESPOTISM 
 
 We come now to the two latter sections of the act 
 of 1793, those relating to fugitives from labor. 
 
 u For many years," so we are told by Mr. Webster 
 in his Newburyport letter, " little or no complaint was 
 made against this law, nor was it supposed to be 
 guilty of the offences and enormities which have since 
 been charged upon it. It was passed for the purpose 
 of complying with a direct and solemn injunction 
 of the constitution. It did no more than was be 
 lieved to be necessary to accomplish that single pur 
 pose ; and it did that in a cautious, mild manner, 
 to be every where conducted according to judicial 
 proceeding s. 
 
 " I confess I see no more objections to the provis 
 ions of this law than was seen by Mr. Cabot, Mr. 
 Strong, Mr. Goodhue, and Mr. Gerry ; and such pro 
 visions appear to me, as they appeared to them, to be 
 absolutely necessary, if we mean to fulfil the duties 
 positively and peremptorily enjoined upon us by the 
 constitution of the country." [How so, if, in Mr. 
 Webster s judgment, as declared in his 7th of March 
 speech, the constitutional injunction was entirely on 
 the states ?] 
 
 " But since the agitation caused by the abolition 
 societies and abolition presses has, to such an extent, 
 excited the public mind, these provisions have been 
 rendered obnoxious and odious. Unwearied efforts 
 have been made, and too successfully, to rouse the 
 passions of the people against them, and under the 
 cry of universal freedom, and under that other cry, 
 that there is a rule for the government of public men 
 and private men wliicli is of superior obligation to the 
 constitution of the country-, several of the states have 
 enacted laws to hinder, obstruct and defeat the enact 
 ments in this act of Congress to the utmost of their 
 power." 
 
 Such are the representations of Mr. Webster ; such 
 is his attempt to hide the nakedness of the act of 1850 
 and his own under the skirts of the act of 1793, and 
 of its respectable authors and supporters. Those of 
 
IN AMERICA. 273 
 
 them mentioned by Mr. Webster were all Federalists, 
 (with the single exception of Gerry) some of them 
 very ultra Federalists, but not one of them disposed 
 to erect the Federal constitution either into a Diana 
 of Ephesus by the perpetual shouting of whose name 
 all gainsayers were to be silenced, or into a golden 
 calf, which priests and people were alike to fall down to 
 and worship, to the forgetfulness of any Higher Law. 
 It is due, therefore, to the memory of these worthy 
 men, and no less so to the assailants of the act of 
 1793, to state, that although that act was complained 
 of from the very moment of its enactment by the 
 Pennsylvania Abolition Society and others in repeated 
 memorials to Congress, as opening altogether too 
 wide and dangerous a door to kidnappers, yet that 
 the indignation against it, to the results of which Mr. 
 Webster more particularly refers, grew mainly not so 
 much out of any thing really contained in the act 
 itself, or intended by those who enacted it, as out of 
 a most ungracious, cruel, and gratuitous interpretation 
 forced out of it by a set of " consummate lawyers " of 
 the Scott school, men who regard personal rights 
 in comparison with the protection of property, at 
 least the personal rights of the poor and helpless, as 
 nothing; and who, ridiculously expecting to chain 
 up and tie down the natural sentiments of justice and 
 equity by the dry withes of their subtle ingenuity, in 
 attempting, like the authors of the act of 1850, to 
 lay a rising breeze, succeeded only, as the authors of 
 that act have done, in raising a whirlwind. 
 
 An examination of the brief Federal statute book 
 of 1793, for then it was brief, will lead us to the 
 evident model after which the fugitive act of 1793 
 was drawn ; which model will not a little assist us to 
 ascertain the idea entertained by those who framed 
 the act of 1793, and by those who passed it with so 
 little debate, of its real meaning and practical opera 
 tion. 
 
 Among the acts passed by the first Congress was 
 one, approved July 20th, 1790, " For the government 
 
274 DESPOTISM 
 
 and regulation of seamen in the merchant service," 
 chiefly modelled after the English acts of parliaments 
 on that subject, and of which the 7th section con 
 tained the following provisions : " That if any seaman 
 or mariner, who shall have signed a contract to perform 
 a voyage, shall, at any port or place, desert, or shall 
 absent himself from such ship or vessel without leave 
 of the master, or officer commanding in the absence 
 of the master, it shall be lawful for any justice of the 
 peace within the United States (upon complaint of 
 the master) to issue his warrant to apprehend such 
 deserter, and bring him before such justice ; and if it 
 shall then appear, by due proof, that he has signed a 
 contract within the intent and meaning of this act, 
 and that the voyage agreed for is not finished, altered, 
 or the contract otherwise dissolved, and that such 
 seaman or mariner has deserted the ship or vessel, or 
 absented himself without leave, the said justice shall 
 commit him to the house of correction or common 
 jail of the city, town, or place, there to remain until 
 the said ship or vessel shall be ready to proceed on 
 her voyage, or till the master shall require his discharge, 
 and then to be delivered to the said master, he paying 
 all the costs of such commitment, and deducting the 
 same out of the wages due to such seaman or mariner." 
 Now, Mr. Cabot, one of the members of the com 
 mittee of three by which the act of 1793 was reported, 
 was not only a merchant, but he had been a shipmas 
 ter ; and it was undoubtedly he who suggested to his 
 colleagues this provision respecting fugitive seamen, 
 as a model to be followed in the case of other fugi 
 tives from labor. Hence the 3d section of the act of 
 1793, which provides, " That when a person held to 
 labor in any of the United States, or in either of the 
 territories on the north-west or south of the river Ohio, 
 under the laws thereof, shall escape into any other of 
 the said states, or territory, the person to whom such 
 labor or service may be due, his agent or attorney, 
 is hereby empowered to seize or arrest such fugitive 
 from labor, and to take him or her before any judge 
 
IN AMERICA. 275 
 
 of the Circuit or District Courts of the United States, 
 residing or being within the state, or before any 
 magistrate of a county, city, or town corporate, 
 wherein such seizure or arrest shall be made ; and 
 upon proof to the satisfaction of such judge or magis 
 trate, either by oral testimony, or affidavit taken be 
 fore and certified by a magistrate of any such state 
 or territory, that the person so seized and arrested 
 doth, under the laws of the state or territory from 
 which he or she fled, owe service or labor to the per 
 son claiming him or her, it shall be the duty of such 
 judge or magistrate to give a certificate thereof to 
 such claimant, his agent or attorney, which shall be 
 sufficient warrant for removing the said fugitive from 
 labor to the state or territory from which he or she 
 fled." The fourth and last section of the act imposes 
 a penalty of five hundred dollars, to be recovered in 
 any court proper to try the same, for the benefit of 
 the claimant, from any one who should obstruct him 
 in rescuing his fugitive, or should rescue such fugitive 
 from him, or should harbor or conceal such fugitive, 
 after notice that he was claimed as such. 
 
 As the resemblance is sufficiently obvious between 
 the provision for arresting fugitive seamen and that 
 for arresting other fugitives from labor, so the differ 
 ence of procedure in the two cases is easily explained. 
 In the latter case, there being no documentary evidence 
 like the shipping paper to go upon, no action was to 
 be taken by the judge or magistrate till after the arrest. 
 The whole responsibility of that, and of taking ca/e 
 to seize nobody to whose services he had not a legal 
 right, was very properly thrown upon the claimant, 
 who was thus precluded from making use of process 
 of arrest obtained on his own bare oath or other 
 ex parte evidence, for any fraudulent or kidnapping 
 purposes a particular in which there is an essential 
 difference between the act of 1793 and that of 
 1850. 
 
 The intention of the act for the arrest of fugitive 
 mariners, and that of 1793 for the arrest of fugitives 
 
276 DESPOTISM 
 
 from labor, seems to be clear. That intention evi 
 dently was to provide a summary process to be used 
 in cases where there was no dispute about the facts or 
 as to the right of the claimant, leaving open to any 
 person against whom such summary decision might be 
 made, all the courts, state and federal, and all the 
 processes, whether writ of habeas corpus, writ de 
 homine replegiando (or of personal replevin), this last 
 involving a trial by jury, or any other commonly 
 resorted to by persons restrained of their liberty, or 
 seeking to get possession of the persons of others. 
 The commitment of the justice in the one case, his 
 warrant in the other, was to be a lawful authority for 
 retaining the seaman, or adjudged fugitive from 
 labor, as against any private interference ; but neither 
 of them was intended to act as a bar to full investi 
 gation into the rights of the parties by the ordinary 
 course of law. I am not aware that any court or any 
 lawyer has ever yet pretended that the action of a 
 justice of the peace in committing an adjudged de 
 serting seaman to prison, or to the custody of the 
 master, is absolutely final and conclusive, turning the 
 seaman over to his suit for false imprisonment, and 
 not to be otherwise inquired into or reviewed by any 
 court, state or federal ; and it was the pretended 
 discovery in the act of 1793, of this alarming potency, 
 that first raised against it that loud and increasing 
 clamor of which Mr. Webster so bitterly complains. 
 
 Constant recourse to historical facts, and an explora 
 tion of contemporaneous ideas, have been deemed 
 essential to the true interpretation of the constitu 
 tional provisions bearing, or supposed to bear, on 
 slavery. Nor are such external aids any the less ne 
 cessary towards understanding the course of judicial 
 decisions touching the same subject. The conclusion 
 of the war of 1812-15 was followed by a rapid 
 extension of the cultivation of cotton, which speedily 
 grew, with the decline of the foreign demand for bread- 
 stuffs, to be the chief article of export. This extension 
 of cotton cultivation, besides those constantly expand- 
 
IN AMERICA. 277 
 
 ing schemes of territorial aggrandizement in a southern 
 direction, so vigorously sketched by Mr. Webster in his 
 7th of March speech, also gave rise to that domestic 
 slave-trade that breeding of slaves for sale a point 
 too delicate for that class of preachers who " never 
 mention hell to ears polite," and therefore omitted by 
 Mr. Webster, yet chiefly instrumental in producing 
 that change of opinion at the south on the subject 
 of slavery upon which he dwells with so much 
 emphasis in his 7th of March speech ; and, indeed, a 
 coincident change of opinion at the North, at least 
 among ship-owners, merchants, manufacturers, and 
 politicians, no less remarkable. 
 
 This domestic slave-trade was a rude shock to that 
 patriarchal character to which, on some of the older 
 plantations of Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas, 
 slavery had attained some shadow of title.* By keep 
 ing constantly before the eyes of the enslaved the 
 gloomy prospect of the auction-block and the slave 
 trader s chain-gang, it greatly increased their inclina 
 tion to run away. If they must quit the localities to 
 
 * This trade, at its first commencement, was not less loudly de 
 nounced in Maryland and Virginia than the African slave trade had 
 been during the revolutionary period. John Randolph stigmatized 
 it, in 1816, on the floor of Congress, as "heinous and abominable," 
 " inhuman and illegal." Even Governor Williams, of South Caro 
 lina, spoke of it, in one of his messages to the legislature of that 
 state, as " a remorseless and merciless traffic," " a ceaseless dragging 
 along the streets and highways of a crowd of suffering victims to 
 minister to insatiable avarice," not only " condemned by enlightened 
 humanity, wise policy and the prayers of the just," but tending, by 
 its introduction of slaves of all descriptions, to " defile the delightful 
 avocations of private life by the presence of convicts and malefactors." 
 (See Hildreth s History of the United States, vol. vi. pp. 613-14.) 
 
 This same traffic, however, proving the chief resource of the im 
 poverished planters of Virginia, Maryland and the Carolinas, many 
 of whom now live, to use the expressive local phraseology, by eating 
 their negroes, it has come to be cherished and defended in those 
 states with as much zeal as the merchants of Bristol and Liverpool 
 ever exhibited on behalf of the African slave-trade, or as is exhibited 
 on behalf of it to-day by the petty kings who live by it on the 
 African coast. 
 
 For Mr. Webster s remarks on the change of sentiment at the 
 South, and some corrections of the exaggerations into which he has 
 fallen, see Appendix. 
 
 24 
 
278 DESPOTISM 
 
 which habit had so strongly attached them, they 
 greatly preferred the free air of the North to the fever- 
 breeding swamps of the South. It produced, also, 
 another result not less deplorable. Traders for the 
 southern market were found ready enough to purchase 
 " likely negroes " without any particular inquiry into 
 the means by which the possession of them had been 
 acquired ; and in the free states nearest the slave- 
 holding frontier, and in which the free colored people 
 were the most numerous, so great were the abuses by 
 ignorant and corrupt justices of the peace and other 
 local magistrates, of the authority vested in them by 
 the act of 1793, and the facilities thereby afforded 
 for kidnapping, as soon to give occasion to very loud 
 complaints. An attempt was even made in 1817, in 
 the senate of the United States, to amend that law, 
 so as to guard against these abuses ; but apprehen 
 sions lest the proposed changes might diminish the 
 facilities for recovering runaways caused that attempt, 
 to be opposed and abandoned. The border slave 
 holders, on the other hand, provoked at the shelter, 
 aid and concealment often afforded in the free states, 
 and especially in Pennsylvania, to their runaway 
 slaves, called loudly for a still more stringent law ; 
 and in 1818, after a pretty warm struggle, they suc 
 ceeded in carrying a bill of that sort through both 
 houses of Congress. That bill, a sort of forerunner 
 of the act of 1850, authorized the claimant to estab 
 lish his claim on ex parte evidence before some judge 
 of his own state, having done which he was to be 
 entitled to an executive demand upon the governor 
 of the state in which the fugitive might be found, 
 heavy penalties being imposed upon all who refused to 
 aid in the arrest. The senate added a provision, that 
 after the removal, the person removed should be proved 
 to be the same with the person claimed by some evi 
 dence other than the oath of the claimant. This 
 amendment, by giving the northern members time to 
 bethink themselves, defeated the passage of the bill, 
 which, after its return from the senate, was left, not- 
 
IN AMERICA. 279 
 
 withstanding repeated attempts to take it up, to lie 
 and to die on the table of the house.* 
 
 The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania had lately 
 (1816) given high offence to the slave-holders by de 
 ciding, in the case of The Commonwealth v. Holloway, 
 2 Seargent & Rawle s Reports, 305, apparently on 
 impregnable grounds, that the children of fugitive 
 slave women born in Pennsylvania more than a year 
 after the arrival of their mothers in the state, were 
 born free ; and that, such children being neither fugi 
 tives, nor owing service to any body as slaves, no 
 claimant from abroad could touch them. In 1819 
 came before the same court the case of Wright 
 v. Deacon, 5 Seargent & Rawle, 62, on a writ of 
 de homine replegiando sued out against Deacon, 
 keeper of the Philadelphia jail, who held in custody 
 the plaintiff Wright, at the request, and for the tem 
 porary convenience, of a claimant who had obtained a 
 certificate to remove Wright, as a fugitive from service. 
 The object was to obtain a review, and a trial by 
 jury, of the grounds on which the certificate had been 
 granted. But the court, taking a far less lawyer-like as 
 well as less statesman-like view than that of Edmund 
 Randolph above cited, held, 1st. That " it required a 
 law [of Congress] to regulate the manner in which 
 the claim should be made and the fugitive delivered 
 up," and, on this ground, that the act of 1793 was 
 constitutional the first reported judicial decision ever 
 pronounced on that point ; and 2dly. That a certifi 
 cate granted under the act of 1793 was absolutely 
 conclusive as to the rights of both parties, at least until 
 the removal authorized by it had been completed ; and 
 that after such certificate had once been granted, no 
 state court, nor indeed any court, had any right to inter 
 fere, or to re-examine the case, either by writ of habeas 
 corpus, writ of personal replevin, or any other method. 
 This opinion, in which the three judges concurred, 
 
 * For further particulars respecting this bill, see Hildreth s History 
 of the United States, vol. vi. pp. 635-7. 
 
280 DESPOTISM 
 
 was delivered by William Tilghman, the chief justice. 
 It is quite short, and the following paragraph em 
 braces the most essential part of it. " It plainly appears 
 from the whole scope and tenor of the constitution 
 and act of Congress, that the fugitive was to be de 
 livered up on a summary proceeding, without the 
 delay of a formal trial in a court of common law. 
 But if he had really a right to freedom, that right 
 was not impaired by that proceeding ; he was placed 
 just in the situation in which he stood before he fled, 
 and might prosecute the right in the state to which 
 he belonged." Here we see the origin of Mr. Web 
 ster s idea of extradition, an idea involving a prejudg- 
 ment of the case in two of its most essential points ; 
 wholly cutting off from his most obvious rights 
 every person certified as a fugitive, but not such in 
 reality ; and every person actually a fugitive, but cer 
 tified as owing service to a claimant having no legal 
 title to such service. What a heartless, insolent 
 mockery to tell a native citizen of Pennsylvania, 
 about to be transferred to South Carolina on a certi 
 ficate, purchased perhaps by a bribe of five dollars 
 for it is but reasonable to suppose that some state 
 magistrates may be bought at the average price es 
 tablished by the act of 1850 for United States com 
 missioners ; what a mockery to tell such a person, 
 about to be placed in a pestiferous South Carolina 
 rice swamp, with an iron chain and ball of fifty 
 pounds weight attached to his leg, and an iron collar 
 with four prongs to it about his neck, that his right to 
 freedom will not be impaired by this proceeding; that 
 he is placed in the same situation in which he stood 
 before the certificate was granted, and that he can 
 prosecute his right in the state to which he belongs ! 
 Such is the enormous absurdity involved in this 
 opinion of Tilghman s, and in that .of every judge 
 and lawyer by whom it has been followed, all grow 
 ing out of the gratuitous assumption, contained also in 
 the very phraseology of Mr. Webster s draft of a bill, 
 that every person claimed, or at least every person certi- 
 
IN AMERICA. 281 
 
 fied, must be a fugitive, and a fugitive owing labor 
 to the person who claims him. But besides this pre- 
 judgment of the case in its most essential particulars, 
 this opinion and all its echoes totally overlook the 
 plain distinction between cases where the right of the 
 claimant is confessed, or not contested, as, for 
 instance, in the case of tenants holding over, in which 
 cases alone summary proceedings for the enforcement 
 of rights are ever allowed, and contested cases, in 
 which it is the undoubted common law right of every 
 party to have a thorough trial, both as to facts and 
 law ; especially before so serious a step is taken as 
 the delivering him up as a chattel into the absolute 
 power of another. So far from infringing that right, 
 the Federal constitution has taken care specially to 
 guard it; and, surely, it is one from which no party, 
 however humble or helpless, is to be ousted by any im 
 plication or construction, nor, indeed, by any thing short 
 of the most express and positive provision in terms. 
 
 Chief Justice Tilghman was a lawyer of moderate 
 temper and decent abilities, (and the same description 
 will apply to his colleagues), belonging to that very 
 large class of jurists, to make one of which requires 
 nothing but an ordinary share of judgment, diligence, 
 and experience, a kind of men sufficiently \vell 
 adapted to the ordinary routine of the bench, but 
 pretty certain to make some egregious blunder the mo 
 ment they attempt to step beyond it. A decided Fed 
 eralist, one of John Adams s midnight judges, Tilgh 
 man had been ousted from that seat by the repeal of the 
 act under which he held office, but shortly after had 
 been raised to the chief-justiceship of Pennsylvania by 
 Governor McKean, at a time when that political 
 gamester, having quarrelled with the more radical 
 Democrats to whom he was indebted for his original 
 election, had found it necessary to sustain himself in 
 office by courting the aid of the Federalists. Tilgh 
 man and his colleagues probably hoped that so per 
 emptory a decision might help to quiet the rising 
 excitement in Pennsylvania on the subject of the 
 24* 
 
282 DESPOTISM 
 
 reclamation of fugitives occasioned by the growing 
 frequency of such claims, and of kidnappings alleged 
 to be perpetrated under their cover, and to which 
 the contemporaneous controversy as to the extension 
 of slavery into Missouri added no little fervor. Bat 
 if such was their expectation, they found themselves 
 mistaken. Their harsh and unwarrantable interpreta 
 tion of the act of 1793 at once overwhelmed that 
 act with universal odium. Hence arose the agita 
 tion against it of which Mr. Webster so bitterly 
 complains ; an agitation in which the legislatures 
 of the Middle States took the lead, by enactments 
 of which the object was to put some restriction upon 
 the despotic energy which Tilghman and his colleagues 
 had construed into that act ; restrictions for which a 
 recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United 
 States seemed to open the way. 
 
 That court, in the celebrated and mur i contested 
 case of Hunter v. Martin s Lessee, (1 Wbeaton, 330,) 
 decided in 1816, in maintaining their rig^t under the 
 constitution to issue to the Supreme Courts of the 
 states writs of error, in cases involving i\ e interpreta 
 tion of the constitution and laws of the United States, 
 had called attention to a provision of the Federal 
 constitution, which, under the impulse of economizing 
 Federal officers and salaries, seems, on more occa 
 sions than one, to have escaped the attention of the 
 members of the earlier Congresses, though so many of 
 them had sat in the Federal convention. That pro 
 vision required that " the judicial power of the United 
 States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in 
 such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to 
 time order and establish;" which clause was held, in the 
 case above cited, to prohibit Congress "to vest any 
 portion of the judicial power of the United States, ex 
 cept in courts ordained and established by itself." Upon 
 the strength of this doctrine, and very soon after it was 
 declared, occasion was found, in the case of certain 
 parties bound over to trial for violation of the neutrality 
 acts in fitting out privateers to sail under the flags of the 
 
IN AMERICA. 283 
 
 new South American republics, to call in question 
 the authority conferred by the 33d section of the 
 judiciary act of 1789, upon justices of the peace, 
 concurrently with the judges of the United States 
 District Courts, to arrest and commit for trial, or to 
 release on bail, persons charged with offences against 
 the United States. This objection was sustained 
 by some of the district judges, and Congress, in 
 consequence, passed an act, (March 1, 1817,) con 
 ferring these same concurrent powers of arrest, ex 
 amination, commitment, and release on bail, upon 
 certain commissioners, whom, by a previous act of 
 February 20, 1812, the Circuit Courts had been au 
 thorized to appoint for the purpose of taking affidavits 
 and acknowledgments of bail in civil cases. Such 
 was the origin of judicial powers exercised by com 
 missioners of the Circuit Courts. But though these 
 new officers were " ordained and established " by 
 Congress, still they were obnoxious, in common with 
 justices of the peace, to other objections already men 
 tioned having neither the tenure of office nor the 
 stated salary required by the very same section of 
 the constitution, and being neither appointed by the 
 president nor subject to confirmation by the senate ; 
 guarantees against partiality and corruption quite as 
 necessary in committing officers, and especially in such 
 officers as these commissioners have come to be, under 
 the act of 1845 and the fugitive act of 1850, as in those 
 whose decisions as to matters of fact require the cooper 
 ation of a jury, and whose whole procedure is checked 
 by the solemnity and notoriety of a formal trial. 
 
 Availing themselves of the decision of the Supreme 
 Court of the United States, in Hunter v. Martin s 
 Lessee, that Congress had no authority to command 
 the services of the state tribunals, the assembly of 
 Pennsylvania, justly shocked at the new interpretation 
 put upon the act of 1793 by their Supreme Court, 
 passed a law, (March 22, 1820,) by which the execu 
 tion of the act of 1793 was restricted, so far as the 
 state officers of Pennsylvania were concerned, to the 
 
S81 DESPOTISM 
 
 judges of the County Courts, who were required, 
 whenever they granted a certificate, to file with the 
 clerk of the county a record of the whole proceedings, 
 containing the names of the parties and witnesses, 
 and a statement of the evidence upon which the cer 
 tificate had been granted. Aldermen and justices of 
 the peace were forbidden to grant certificates at all ; 
 and it was made a felony to carry any negro or mu 
 latto out of the state, without process, with intent to 
 hold him as a slave. Afterwards, by an act of 1826, 
 passed at the earnest request of the authorities of 
 Maryland, the law of 1820 was so far modified as, 
 under certain restrictions, to restore jurisdiction to 
 justices of the peace and aldermen ; but the other 
 provisions of the act of 1820, and especially the 
 penalties for removal without process, were continued 
 in full force. 
 
 Nor was Pennsylvania the only state to legislate 
 on this subject. Her act was subsequently (1836-7) 
 incorporated, with some trifling modifications, into 
 the statute book of New Jersey. At a still earlier 
 day the legislature of New York, in preparing a 
 revised code for that state, (1827-30,) imposed several 
 similar restrictions upon the action of her magistrates 
 and judges under the act of 1793. She not only pro 
 hibited, as Pennsylvania had, the carrying away 
 of any alleged fugitive slave without process, but all 
 claimants who failed to make out their claims were 
 subjected to heavy costs and damages. The same act, 
 in defiance of Tilghman s decision, specially reserved 
 to all alleged fugitives for whom certificates might be 
 granted, a right to review that proceeding, upon 
 habeas corpus or writ de homine replegiando, a pro 
 cess which involved, as we have already mentioned, 
 a trial by jury ; which trial by jury was also authorized 
 by a subsequent act in cases in which the rehearing 
 took place under a writ of habeas corpus. 
 
 The bench of the Supreme Court of the state of 
 New York has often been occupied by very able 
 jurists. At that time, under a recent reorganization, 
 
IN AMERICA. 
 
 285 
 
 it consisted of three judges, none of them of any ex 
 traordinary reputation, and whatever might be their 
 political professions, all of them as thoroughly Fede 
 ral, at least in slave cases, as Tilghman himself. 
 This Supreme Court, in 1834, in the case of Jack v. 
 Martin, (12 Wendall, 311,) set aside these provisions 
 of the state legislature by holding, 1st. That Congress 
 had the right to legislate to give effect to the clause 
 in the Federal constitution respecting fugitives from 
 labor ; 2dly. That the act of 1793 overrode and ousted 
 all state legislation on the subject ; and 3d. That the 
 object of the constitutional provision evidently being 
 the return of fugitive slaves, the act of 1793 " should 
 receive a construction such as, consistently with its 
 terms, would operate most effectually to secure the 
 end " in other words, that any protection of the cit 
 izens of New York against false or unfounded claims 
 ought not to be thought of or provided for, when such 
 provision might be liable to interfere with the most sum 
 mary proceedings in favor of southern slave claimants!* 
 This opinion, a mere wire-drawing in pages of what 
 TiJghman had expressed in paragraphs, was pro 
 nounced by Judge Nelson ; and according to a very 
 remarkable coincidence, (if, in fact, it was entirely 
 accidental,) upon the first vacancy he was raised to a 
 seat upon the bench of the Supreme Court of the 
 United States, successor to Thompson, and by the 
 side of Baldwin, both of whom, it is worthy of note, 
 had, previously to their appointments, taken strong 
 slave-holding ground on the question of extending 
 slavery into Missouri. And we may add, W 7 hat makes 
 these coincidences the more remarkable, that since the 
 date of the Missouri compromise, not a single northern 
 
 * This case afterwards went up to the New York Court of Errors, 
 but was decided there (14 Wendall, 507) in favor of the claimant, on 
 the ground that the plaintiff, by his pleas, bad confessed himself the 
 claimant s slave. Any expression of opinion by the court on the con 
 stitutionality of the act of 1793, or upon the New York statute provis 
 ions, was carefully avoided, although, Chancellor Walworth. sitting as 
 one of the judges, took that occasion to pronounce a formal opinion, 
 already referred to, against the constitutionality of the act of 1793. 
 
286 DESPOTISM 
 
 man with the exception of Judge McLean, who was 
 appointed for political convenience to get him out of 
 an office which it was desired to fill otherwise has 
 been raised to the bench of the Supreme Court of 
 the United States, except under similar circumstances ; 
 at least the only other possible exception is Judge 
 Grier, the successor of Baldwin, whose reputation, 
 previous to his appointment, though, like his prede 
 cessor, a man of decided legal ability, was so merely 
 local, that I am not at present able to specify the 
 particular services, if any, which he had rendered to 
 the slave power. But that the man was well known, 
 his violence, I may even say his ferocity, on the bench, 
 in behalf of the law of 1850, sufficiently shows. 
 
 Prior to the elevation of these latter serviceable 
 judges, and while Thompson and Baldwin still sat in 
 the Supreme Court, the question of the constitution 
 ality of the act of 1793, and of the true interpretation 
 and effect of the clause in the Federal constitution 
 respecting the delivering up of fugitives from service, 
 came before that court in the celebrated case, already 
 repeatedly referred to, of P^igg" v. Pennsylvania. 
 Prigg, a citizen of Maryland, had been indicted, 
 under the Pennsylvania act of 1826, for carrying out 
 of that state, without process or warrant, a negro 
 woman whom he claimed as his slave, and with her 
 several of her children, one of which, born more than 
 a year after the mother s arrival in Pennsylvania, ac 
 cording to a decision of the Supreme Court of> 
 Pennsylvania already cited, was born a free person. 
 
 After a great deal of controversy between the two 
 states, Prigg having been demanded as a fugitive 
 from the justice of Pennsylvania, and the governor 
 of Maryland, as usual in such cases, refusing to deliver 
 him up, by an arrangement of the state legislatures 
 the question of the validity of the law of "Pennsyl 
 vania was brought before the Supreme Court of the 
 United States on an agreed statement of facts, in the 
 form of a special verdict, in which it was admitted, 
 among other things, that the woman carried oft had 
 
IN AMERICA. 287 
 
 been Prigg s slave, and had escaped from him into 
 Pennsylvania, and also that one of the children car 
 ried off with her had been born in Pennsylvania more 
 than a year after her arrival there. 
 
 All the judges agreed that Prigg was entitled to be 
 discharged from the indictment ; but in the view 
 which they took of the law of the case, they differed 
 not a little. Story, who pronounced the judgment 
 of the court, began by a most remarkable avowal. 
 The court, he said, did not mean to be held to apply 
 to any other clause whatever of the constitution, any 
 rules which, in the present case, they might see fit to 
 lay down for interpreting the provision respecting 
 fugitives from labor. In fact the constitution was so 
 peculiar an instrument, made so much in the spirit of 
 compromise, that all general rules for its interpretation 
 seemed out of the question. It must be interpreted 
 in the same spirit in which it had been made, and each 
 clause must be handled by itself, according to the good 
 discretion of the court. 
 
 In promulgating this new rule of judicial interpre 
 tation, or rather this declaration of independence and 
 disregard of all rules, perhaps calculated to increase 
 the already somewhat too "glorious uncertainty of 
 the Ia\v," but also very convenient for timid and time 
 serving tribunals, the learned judge appears to have 
 forgotten or perhaps he only intended to confirm by a 
 striking practical application of it the strong remark 
 of Lord Camden, that " the discretion of a judge is 
 the law of tyrants, in the best ofttimes caprice, in the 
 worst every vice, folly, and passion of which human 
 nature is liable." Its immediate object, no doubt, was 
 to save his brethren, and indeed himself, from certain 
 obvious charges of inconsistency, some of which will 
 be presently pointed out. 
 
 After this singular preamble, Story proceeded to 
 state a point in which all the judges except McLean 
 agreed ; namely, that the clause in the Federal consti 
 tution respecting fugitives from labor is of potency 
 and vigor enough, independently of any special Fed- 
 
288 DESPOTISM 
 
 eral or state legislation, to give to a party to whom 
 labor is really due, under the laws of any state, the 
 right, in any and every other state, to seize, without 
 any process, and to carry off his fugitive whenever he 
 can do so without any act of violence amounting to 
 a breach of the peace. This point was in perfect 
 accordance with the opinion of Edmund Randolph, 
 heretofore cited. It had been expressly ruled by the 
 Supreme Courts of New York and Massachusetts in 
 the cases of Glen v. Hodges, (9 Johnson, 67,) and of 
 Commonwealth v. Griffith, (2 Pickering, 11,) as well as 
 by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in the case 
 of Wright v. Deacon. And according to the view set 
 forth at the beginning of this section, such a right 
 of seizure, without process, and without any special 
 legislative provision for it, must exist in all the states 
 whose local laws, as is generally the case, concede a 
 similar right of recaption whenever the control or 
 custody of the person of one individual is vested, by 
 the law, in another. But of course all such recaptions 
 are subject, as in all other cases of the exercise of a 
 similar power, to have their grounds inquired into by 
 the state courts. 
 
 Yet though supported by such authorities, the rule 
 of constitutional interpretation here adopted seems 
 in direct conflict with a decision made by this same 
 Supreme Court of the United States only the 
 very year before, in a case involving the effect and 
 force of a provision in the constitution of the state 
 of Mississippi. That constitution contained the fol 
 lowing clause : " The introduction of slaves into 
 this state as merchandise or for sale shall be prohibit 
 ed from and after the first day of May, 1833 ; provided 
 the actual settler or settlers shall not be prohibited 
 from purchasing slaves in any state in this Union, and 
 bringing them into this state for his own individual 
 use till 1845," which clause, in the case of Graves 
 fy al. v. Slaughter, (15 Wheaton, 449,) had been set 
 up as invalidating a note given for slaves brought into 
 Mississippi as merchandise, and sold there subsequent- 
 
IN AMERICA. 289 
 
 ly to May 1833. In that case, for the protection of 
 the slave-traders, who had retained Clay and Webster 
 as their counsel, the court held that this constitutional 
 provision was a mere injunction on the legislature, 
 and of no effect till first it had been complied with 
 by the enactment of a law for enforcing it. It is, 
 however, but justice to state, that three of the judges, 
 Story, McKinley, and Baldwin, dissented from this 
 decision, while a fourth, Daniel, who now concurred 
 with the majority, was not then a member of the 
 court. The two former had held, consistently enough 
 with their present opinion, that the constitutional 
 provision was efficacious in itself, and the contract 
 therefore void. Baldwin did not deny the right of a 
 state entirely to prohibit the introduction of slaves as 
 a matter of internal policy, but he regarded the pro 
 vision in the constitution of Mississippi as a bare 
 attempt to regulate the internal slave-trade, and to 
 give to residents in the state advantages over citizens 
 of other states, and on that ground he held the pro 
 vision void, as conflicting with the exclusive right of 
 Congress to regulate trade between the states. 
 
 Such had been the rule of constitutional interpreta 
 tion held by the Supreme Court of the United States 
 in 1841. In 1842 the convenience of slave-holding 
 seemed to require a totally opposite decision, and, 
 true to their doctrine of being tied up by no rules, 
 the majority of the court now ran headlong with 
 Story into the opposite extreme. Not only did they 
 find in the bare constitutional injunction, with respect 
 to fugitives from labor, an indefeasible right of recap 
 ture, independent of all special legislation state or 
 national, they allowed Story to put forth, in their 
 name, the extravagant statement that " the constitu 
 tional clause puts the right to the service and labor 
 upon the same ground, and to the same extent, in 
 every other state as in the state to which the slave 
 escaped, and in which he was held to service or labor; " 
 and that " any state law that interrupts , limits^ delays, 
 and postpones the right of the owner to the immediate 
 25 
 
290 DESPOTISM 
 
 possession of his slave, or the immediate command of 
 his services, operating pro tanto as a discharge, is un 
 constitutional." Whence it would follow, that a Vir 
 ginia slave-holder has the right, not only to recapture 
 his runaway slave in Massachusetts, but, if he pleases, 
 there to beat, work, imprison, or starve him, at his 
 pleasure, short of immediate death, (even the statute 
 against cruelty to animals being unconstitutional as 
 to him) ; and, if the slave be a woman, of compelling 
 her to share his bed as his concubine, all of which 
 are " incidents " in Virginia to the right of slave-hold 
 ing ; and to continue to enjoy these incidents for any 
 period that he may choose to remain in Massachusetts. 
 Some such rights have been claimed, indeed, by some 
 of the slave-holders as appertaining to them in the 
 territories ; but never yet, so far as I know, have any 
 of them pretended, under any circumstances, to any 
 such rights within the limits of a free state. Even 
 the claimants of fugitive slaves have been too modest 
 and forbearing to attempt any thing of the sort, not 
 withstanding this high judicial warrant for doing so. 
 
 But not content with thus giving to the master of a 
 fugitive slave, found within the limits of a free state, 
 all the rights, including the right of recapture without 
 warrant, which he would have had at home, Story, 
 with some other judges, (McLean now supplying the 
 place of Baldwin, who dissented,) goes on to hold, not 
 only to the right, but to the imperative duty, of Con 
 gress to reenforce this constitutional provision by special 
 legislation. The master " may not be able to lay his 
 hand upon the slave. He may not be able to enforce 
 his rights against persons who either secrete, or conceal, 
 or withhold the slave. He may be restricted, by local 
 legislation, as to the modes of proofs of his ownership, 
 as to the courts in which he shall sue, and as to the 
 actions which he may bring, or the process he may 
 use to compel the delivery of the slave ; " that is to 
 say, he may be put upon precisely the same level as 
 to his remedies with other claimants of property or 
 personal rights, whether native or foreign. But this, 
 
IN AMERICA. 291 
 
 according to the Supreme Court of the United States, 
 would be a gross and intolerable violation of the pe 
 culiar and sacred rights secured by the constitution to 
 the owners of fugitive slaves ; for the sustentation of 
 which rights it is the duty of Congress to interfere, 
 and, under the judicial authority vested in the general 
 government, to provide, at whatever risk to free cit 
 izens of non-slave-holding states, a swift and certain 
 method of delivery, such as will leave to fugitive slaves 
 no possible chance of escape. The constitutionality 
 of the act of 1793 is thus placed by the Supreme 
 Court of the United States upon the express ground 
 (Mr. Webster and other apologists for the act of 1850 
 to the contrary notwithstanding) that the surrender 
 of a fugitive from labor is, " in the strictest sense, a 
 controversy between the parties, and a case, under the 
 constitution of the United States, within the express 
 delegation of judicial power, given by that instrument." 
 As to the objection that the justices of the peace and 
 other state magistrates in whom the authority to grant 
 certificates is concurrently vested are state officers, the 
 court hastily pass by that, with the suggestion, that 
 though not bound to exercise this jurisdiction, still 
 they may do so, as long as the states do not pro 
 hibit them. But suppose this assertion to be consist 
 ent (which it hardly seems to be) with the doctrine so 
 peremptorily laid down in Martin v. Hunter s Lessee, 
 or supposing this new doctrine to be the better law, 
 which must be esteemed very doubtful, still it does 
 not touch the other and unanswerable objections of 
 want of proper tenure and salary. 
 
 We come now to another point of the case, in 
 which there was less unanimity. Story, Wayne, 
 McKinley, and Catron held and on this point they 
 Were again supported by McLean, thus still making 
 a majority of the court that not only was it the duty 
 as well as right of Congress to enforce by legislation 
 the surrender of fugitives from labor, but that the right 
 to legislate on this subject was vested exclusively in 
 Congress. It was this point doubtless that chiefly 
 
292 DESPOTISM 
 
 recommended the decision of the court to Story. Not 
 only did it gratify his ultra Federal ideas, in which, 
 though raised to the bench as a JefFersonian Democrat, 
 he far outran those eminent Federalists, Chief Justices 
 Marshall and Taney, but it seemed to him, as he 
 afterwards boasted in private conversation, to strike a 
 deadly blow at the surrender of fugitive slaves, by 
 relieving the states from all obligation to cooperate 
 in it. Of the four judges who went with Story on 
 this point, three were from slave-holding circuits ; but 
 as those circuits were remote from the frontier, they 
 did not feel the immediate smart either of having lost 
 slaves themselves, or of sympathy with friends and 
 neighbors who had. Taney and Daniel were differently 
 situated, and these two border judges, supported by 
 Thompson, whom the instinct and habit of servitude 
 naturally carried along with them, protested with all 
 their might against the decision of the majority. 
 They agreed, indeed, with Story and the others, for 
 Baldwin also went to this extent, that the states were 
 prohibited from passing any special laws that might 
 in any way conflict with the most summary recovery 
 of fugitive slaves ; but they insisted also (see Taney s 
 opinion, p. 627,) that the constitution enjoined it as 
 a duty, no less upon the states than upon Congress, 
 "to protect and support the owner while endeavoring 
 to obtain the possession of his property." That is to 
 say, while the states were prohibited by the Federal 
 constitution from affording the least protection to 
 their own citizens, seized by kidnappers under pretence 
 of being fugitives from labor, at the same time they 
 were bound to afford all possible aid to slave-owners, 
 even at the imminent risk of facilitating kidnapping! 
 Such is another of the absurd consequences, of which 
 this case is so full, to which false assumptions in 
 evitably lead, in legal no less than in mathematical 
 reasoning. It were well that lawyers and judges 
 were as sensible as mathematicians to the logical 
 effects of a reductio ad absurdum. 
 
 Baldwin, assenting to the constitutional right 
 
IN AMERICA. 293 
 
 maintained by all the judges except McLean, of re 
 caption and removal without warrant, notwithstand 
 ing special state laws to the contrary, concurred in the 
 judgment of the court because it was admitted that 
 the woman carried off was Prigg s slave. He also ad 
 mitted, that if any special legislation on the subject 
 were needed, Congress alone could so legislate. But he 
 held such legislation unnecessary, and therefore uncon 
 stitutional, thus seeming to come up very nearly, if not 
 quite, for we have no detailed statement of his views, 
 to the doctrine maintained in this section. Baldwin 
 was a lawyer, and a very able one ; nor is his author 
 ity to be set aside on the ground of any anti-slavery 
 leanings. His antecedents have been already alluded 
 to, as indeed they were by himself, in his opinion 
 delivered only a year before, in the case already men 
 tioned of Graves v. Slaughter, an opinion in which 
 he went far beyond any of the court in maintaining 
 that the Federal constitution recognizes slaves as 
 property as much as a bale of cotton ; and that, as 
 such, gangs of slaves might be driven to market 
 through intervening free states. He had also, on the 
 same occasion, attacked, with no little acrimony, the 
 idea set up by McLean, and seemingly countenanced 
 by some of the other judges, that the constitution 
 regards slaves not as property, but only as persons, 
 denouncing it as the first step in a career of doctrine 
 certain to prove fatal to the whole slave-holding 
 system. 
 
 McLean agreed with the other judges, that the act 
 of 1793 was constitutional, and that the states had 
 no right to legislate specially on the subject of the 
 surrender of fugitive slaves. But he differed from 
 them in maintaining, 1st. That Congress had aright, 
 in certain cases, to impose duties on state officers and 
 tribunals, and that this matter of the surrender of 
 fugitives from labor was one of those cases ; and 2d. 
 That the states, under their acknowledged police 
 power, had a right to preserve their own peace, and 
 to protect the rights of their citizens, by prohibiting 
 25* 
 
294 DESPOTISM 
 
 the removal of fugitives from justice, except under a 
 certificate granted in conformity to the act of Con 
 gress. This view he ingeniously supported by re 
 ferring to the act of 1793, which required, in express 
 terms, that all persons arrested as fugitives from labor 
 should be taken before a magistrate, and a certificate 
 obtained in order to their removal ; nor, indeed, 
 would it have been possible for his colleagues to have 
 answered him on this point, except by denouncing 
 that portion, at least, of the act of 1793 as unconsti 
 tutional. 
 
 Three general remarks may be made upon the 
 opinions delivered in this case. 1st. Forgetting the 
 chariness of the constitution and of the act of 1793, 
 as to the use of such shameful terms as slaves and 
 slavery, a decorum observed even by the act of 1850, 
 the judges, in their opinions, blurt out these obscene 
 words, which ought to raise a blush on the cheek of 
 every true man, at least of every judge, in a nation 
 whose government is based upon the declaration that 
 all men are born free, with a frequency that seems 
 almost affected, as if, like strumpets, desirous to show 
 how brazen they had grown. 2d. While the right 
 of the slave-holder to his fugitive slave is urged with 
 a vivacity which could not be exceeded, had. the sur 
 render of fugitive slaves been the sole end and aim 
 of the constitution, not one word is dropped, except 
 cursorily, in the opinion of McLean, about the dangers 
 from kidnappers and false claimants, or about the 
 duty of protecting, against the terrible fate of slavery, 
 native citizens, and even fugitives from labor, claimed 
 by scoundrels having no title to their services. 3d. It 
 is not a little remarkable, that not one of the judges 
 made the slightest allusion to the child born in Penn 
 sylvania, and free according to the decision of the 
 Supreme Court of that state, but carried off into 
 slavery along with its mother. The state law might 
 be inefficacious in the case of a person admitted to 
 be a slave, but was it also void in its application to a 
 native-born citizen of the state, seized and carried off 
 
IN AMERICA. 295 
 
 into slavery without any title or legal warrant? Per 
 haps on the principle de minimis non curat lex, the 
 law does not concern itself with trifles, the kidnapping 
 a negro child was thought to be too insignificant a 
 matter to engage the attention of so grave a tribunal. 
 Or are we to understand the court as reversing, by silent 
 implication, the doctrine of the Supreme Court of 
 Pennsylvania, and holding that the children of fugi 
 tive slaves, whenever and at whatever period born, are 
 also slaves ? 
 
 There is still one other extremely important obser 
 vation to be made upon this case. The point brought 
 directly to the notice of the court was, the validity 
 of a special law of Pennsylvania, in relation to fugi 
 tives from labor coming within her limits from other 
 states. This special legislation the court held to be 
 void, and, it would seern, soundly enough, whatever 
 we may think of some of the grounds and reasons on 
 which they based their decision. But, except by the 
 sweeping, yet very nebulous and unsubstantial tails 
 of some extravagant generalities the practical appli 
 cation of which the court itself, it may reasonably 
 be supposed, would be inclined to contract within 
 some defensible limits, the case of Prigg- v. Pennsyl 
 vania does not touch, it does not even evince the 
 least consciousness of the vastly more important 
 questions upon which, according to the views main 
 tained in this section, all rights and duties, existing 
 under the constitution of the United States, in the 
 case of fugitives from labor, must depend ; the ques 
 tions, namely, 1st, of the right of the states to regu 
 late, by general laws, the procedure to be adopted, in 
 all cases, for reclaiming, within their limits, actual 
 control over the persons of others by parties who 
 possess the legal right of control ; and 2d, of the neces 
 sity that citizens of other states should be satisfied 
 with being placed, in this respect, on a level with 
 resident and native citizens. These are points as yet 
 unadjudged by the Supreme Court of the United 
 States, or by any state court, except that of Penn- 
 
296 DESPOTISM 
 
 sylvania, in the unfortunate case of Wright v. Deacon, 
 already sufficiently criticized. 
 
 The decision of the case of Prigg* v. Pennsylvania 
 failed to give satisfaction any where. Every where it 
 was greeted with mingled groans and hisses ; in the 
 North, as a timid and disgraceful surrender of the 
 rights of the free states, and of the plainest principles 
 of common justice ; in the South as not having gone 
 half far enough. The free states very generally re 
 sponded to it, not by repealing the statutes which this 
 decision declared void, but by new laws, forbidding 
 their officers or magistrates to act under the statute 
 of 1793, or their jails to be employed for the detention 
 of fugitives. Mr. Webster, in his Newburyport let 
 ter, stigmatizes this latter prohibition, as putting a 
 serious obstacle in the way of trial by jury, in the 
 case of alleged fugitives from, labor. Lame apology 
 for his abandonment of his own bill, since the mar 
 shals of the United States are amply authorized, by 
 a joint resolution of both houses of Congress, to pro 
 vide, in all cases where the states refuse the use of 
 their jails to the Federal authorities, other safe places 
 for the custody of their prisoners, under which provis 
 ion, have we not seen the very court house of the 
 city of Boston converted into a slave jail, and by the 
 order of the city authorities, surrounded by chains, 
 under which even the state judges were obliged to 
 stoop, some of them, indeed, seeming even to make a 
 merit of their alacrity in doing so ? Nor is it true, as 
 Mr. Webster seems to insinuate, that this refusal of 
 the use of state jails was one of the devices of the 
 treasonable abolitionists. So far from it, it was first 
 brought into use by that good Federalist, Governor 
 Strong, so highly eulogized by Mr. Webster in this 
 very same Newburyport letter, in conjunction with 
 the legislature of the Federal and patriotic state of 
 Massachusetts, and with the full approbation, if we 
 mistake riot, of Mr. Webster himself. The occasion 
 was the attempt of President Madison, of which 
 the Federalists did not approve, to compel the British 
 
IN AMERICA. 297 
 
 government, by retaliations, to relinquish their scheme 
 of treating as deserters the natives of Ireland cap 
 tured in the American ranks, by shuting up in the state 
 jails certain British officers, prisoners of war, with 
 the prospect of death before them, should Great 
 Britain set the example. Afterwards, in the war, 
 almost, which sprung up in the Western States, about 
 the years 1820-1, against the second Bank of the 
 United States, a like expedient was resorted to by the 
 state of Ohio, by refusing the use of its jails for the 
 confinement of prisoners, in all cases in which that 
 bank was concerned ; and it was upon that occasion 
 that the joint resolution above referred to was adopted. 
 Upon the present occasion, also, Congress attempted 
 to meet the legislation of the states by an act, passed 
 in 1845, extending the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court 
 commissioners, as well to the cases of fugitives from 
 labor, as to the closely related one of deserting sea 
 men. But for all this, fugitives from servitude rapidly 
 increased, and reclamations of them were attended 
 with more and more difficulty. Every where in the 
 free states they received aid and comfort, at least to 
 the extent of a cup of cold water, a crust of bread, 
 and a barn to sleep in. Many of them turned lec 
 turers, and, travelling from village to village, revealed 
 the secrets of the prison-house in artless and homely 
 appeals to the natural sympathies of the human heart, 
 which washed away, in trickling tears, all the studied 
 and specious sophistries of the most learned and elo 
 quent advocates of despotism. The South became 
 more exasperated than ever. Those who had lived 
 and grown famous by defending and expounding the 
 constitution, hoping, at least, to levy new contribu 
 tions, if not to mount to high office in the midst of the 
 panic, raised anew the cry of " The Union in danger ; " 
 and never did the old English Tory cry of " The 
 church in danger" drive both clergymen and laymen 
 into greater follies. Such were the circumstances 
 under which, by the aid of half a dozen or more con 
 gressional northern candidates for the presidency, the 
 
298 DESPOTISM 
 
 act of 1850 was passed; an act which adopts, in express 
 terms, all the judicial extravagances, based on the 
 constitutional clause respecting fugitives from labor 
 and the act of 1793, adding, besides, others of its own ; 
 an act breathing, in every line, that disregard of all 
 right, except the right of the strongest, upon which 
 the system of slavery is founded, and most character 
 istically forced through the House of Representatives, 
 without the allowance of any debate upon it. Omit 
 ting the numerous other objections which have made 
 that despotic enactment of a professedly democratic 
 legislature a finger-post for the scorn of all the world, 
 it has b&9n enough for the present purpose to point 
 out the particulars in which it directly conflicts with 
 the constitution of the United States. The opinions 
 of some Federal judges, confidently pronounced, and 
 even ostentatiously volunteered, may affect to make 
 light of these objections. They may even be slurred 
 over and evaded by some state courts from whom 
 better things might have been expected. But they 
 have not been answered, nor obviated ; and, like the 
 drops of blood on the hands of the murderer, however 
 muffled and hidden, for the present, under the judicial 
 ermine, they still bear that silent but indestructible 
 testimony which will one day bring the guilty to 
 due punishment. 
 
 There is no more admirable chapter in Gibbon than 
 that in which he has given a condensed but compre 
 hensive sketch of the Roman jurisprudence, a chap 
 ter which goes far to show, that an historian, accus 
 tomed to generalize, and to view things in the whole 
 as well as by piecemeal, may have clearer apprehen 
 sions of a system of laws than were unitedly pos 
 sessed by scores and hundreds of laborious and erudite 
 jurists, who had made those same laws the sole study 
 of their lives, but who had still no conception of them, 
 except in detail. 
 
 After a humorous description of some of the formali 
 ties, the knowledge of which was confined to the early 
 
IN AMERICA. 299 
 
 Roman lawyers, and which continued to be observed 
 long after their origin and meaning were forgotten, 
 and even after the lawyers themselves had learned 
 to laugh at them, Gibbon proceeds as follows : 
 " A more liberal art was cultivated, however, by the 
 sages of Rome, who, in a stricter sense, may be con 
 sidered as the authors of the civil law. The alteration 
 of the idiom and manners of the Romans rendered 
 the style of the Twelve Tables less familiar to each 
 rising generation, and the doubtful passages were 
 imperfectly explained by the study of legal anti 
 quarians. To define the ambiguities, to circumscribe 
 the latitude, to apply the principles, to extend the 
 consequences, to reconcile the real or apparent con 
 tradictions, was a much nobler and more important 
 task, and the province of legislation was silently 
 invaded by the expounders of ancient statutes. Their 
 subtle interpretations concurred with the equity of the 
 prastor to reform the tyranny of the darker ages : 
 however strange or intricate the means, it was the 
 aim of artificial jurisprudence to restore the simple 
 dictates of nature and reason, and the skill of private 
 citizens was usefully employed to undermine the pub 
 lic institutions of their country." 
 
 The precise and simple truth can seldom be ex 
 pressed in epigrams. The last clause of this in 
 structive quotation is liable to a criticism which Gib 
 bon s sparkling phraseology somewhat too frequently 
 extorts, that of sacrificing to rhetorical point. To 
 remove the rotten materials which ignorance, thought 
 lessness, or the prevailing interest of the moment had 
 incorporated, substituting for them " the simple dic 
 tates of nature and reason," can hardly, with any 
 justice, be said to be an undermining of the institu 
 tions of one s country, since institutions thus piously 
 repaired, may stand forever, instead of being left, by 
 the failure of rotten supports, to fall by their own 
 weight. But whatever may be thought of the justice 
 of this criticism, the leading American lawyers and 
 courts of this present generation seem determined 
 
300 DESPOTISM 
 
 that no future Gibbon shall bring any similar charge 
 against them. Assuming and conscientiously believ 
 ing, as no doubt all of them who have consciences 
 do, though conscience is not commonly regarded 
 as indispensable to a " consummate lawyer," that 
 slavery is one of " the public institutions of their 
 country," guaranteed and endorsed by the Federal 
 constitution, so far from imitating the example of the 
 Roman lawyers, all their skill and subtlety is em 
 ployed, not in reforming the tyranny of darker ages, 
 but in twisting new whips and forging new fetters, to 
 perpetuate that tyranny to the latest times, and to 
 diffuse it over the whole face of the country. What 
 I have written on the subject of the legal basis of 
 slavery, I have not written with the least expectation 
 of producing any effect upon lawyers or judges already 
 committed to different views ; or, indeed, upon any 
 lawyer more than forty years of age. Harvey did 
 not convert a single physician above that age to his 
 view of the circulation of the blood ; and as to new 
 views, whether true or false, lawyers and doctors, for 
 obvious reasons, are very much alike. 
 
 At the present day, however, especially in America, 
 the current of public opinion sets strongly in favor 
 of personal freedom ; and to attempt, whether by 
 legislative or juridical devices, to dam up and stop 
 short any current of public opinion, is a very hazardous 
 thing. The experiment may seem to succeed for a 
 moment. It may answer sufficiently well where only 
 a temporary object is to be accomplished. The rush 
 ing waters of refreshment and fertility may be stayed. 
 The black and sharp rocks may be laid bare, and 
 industrious political fishermen may take much fish in 
 the pools. But presently, when least expected, and 
 without a moment s warning, the obstruction gives 
 way before the still and silently rising water, which 
 sweeps off dam, fishermen, every thing in the way to 
 inevitable destruction; a destruction which over 
 whelms, also, many innocent dwellers on the river s 
 bank, who, though they foresaw and remonstrated, 
 
IN AMERICA. 301 
 
 had not been able to prevent the disaster. Such 
 indeed is the catastrophe, as inevitable as it is for 
 midable, with which we are threatened at the present 
 moment. The dam has been building this twenty 
 years or more. The accumulating waters must and 
 will come down. To discover the means so to guide 
 them that the evil of slavery may be swept away with 
 out leaving others behind it hardly less deplorable, is a 
 problem to which all men of sense and judgment, whe 
 ther slave-holders or non-slave-holders, ought forthwith 
 to apply themselves. It is a question that interests all 
 alike for, much as we may quarrel among ourselves, 
 and loudly as, like Adam and Eve over the tasted 
 apple, we may accuse and berate each other, we are all 
 in this matter, equally concerned, equally unfortunate, 
 equally guilty. If the South has been the boisterous 
 youth who solicited, and even demanded, what the 
 blindness of passion made him think almost his right, 
 the North has been the weak, willing, profligate 
 maiden, who yielded for money what she knew to 
 be wrong. We are all, slave-holders and abolitionists, 
 citizens of the same community ; nor is it possible 
 for us to denationalize ourselves. Our state lines are 
 fast sinking into little more than county lines ; even 
 the old state rights Democratic party has adopted the 
 cry of The Republic one and indivisible ! We are 
 all in the same ship, and must sink or swim together. 
 We are slave-holders or abolitionists, not because we 
 differ much either in moral character or intellectual 
 capacity, either in sentiment or opinion, but mainly 
 from differences of social and topographical position. 
 So completely alike, in all fundamental points, are 
 some of our most ardent abolitionists and some of 
 the boldest of our southern defenders of slavery, that 
 if they could, in a night, be made to change places, 
 the one finding himself in possession of a cotton 
 plantation and a hundred slaves, and the other the 
 editor of a northern abolitionist newspaper, with a 
 tolerable prospect of going to Congress on that in 
 terest, and supposing, also, the memory of past com- 
 26 
 
302 DESPOTISM 
 
 mitments to be at the same time obliterated, there 
 is nothing whatever in their moral or intellectual con 
 stitution which would prevent them from exactly and 
 most conscientiously filling up each other s present 
 places. To the common eye, the moon appears, ac 
 cording to the relative position of the object and the 
 observer, a disc of light, or an absolute non-existence. 
 It is only to the philosopher that the new moon and the 
 full moon are the same thing. But in the present 
 age, we are all growing to be philosophers, and differ 
 ence of position cannot long stand out against coin 
 cidence of intellect and sentiment. The abolition of 
 slavery is the great work of the generation now in 
 being. What thoughtful man doubts it? Mr. Calhoun 
 certainly did not. Our Revolutionary Fathers did 
 what they could. Peace to their ashes and honor to 
 their memory, spite of the diatribes of those content 
 with nothing short of every thing! The abolition 
 of slavery in the Northern States, wretchedly and 
 inefficiently as that matter was managed ; its exclu 
 sion from the great North West; and the abolition 
 of the African slave-trade, were things great in them 
 selves, and in their consequences mighty. Who can 
 doubt that, if slavery had not been abolished in Mas 
 sachusetts, some wealthy Boston supporters of the 
 law of 1850 would be, at this moment, exhibiting 
 their attachment to the Union by filling their houses, 
 perhaps their cotton factories, with slaves purchased 
 in the South ? Who can doubt that, if the African 
 slave-trade had not been abolished as seasonably as it 
 was, negroes, freshly imported from Africa, would be 
 now selling in the New Orleans market for a hundred 
 dollars a head ? And what hope would there be for 
 liberty, were the fertile states of the North West now 
 cultivated, as, but for the ordinance of 1787, they 
 would have been, by servile hands, not servile by con 
 sent, but servile by compulsion ? 
 
 The abolition of slavery was desired, for their own 
 states, by all the more intelligent citizens of Mary 
 land and Virginia, even more ardently than any where 
 
IN AMERICA. 303 
 
 at the North ; but they had neither the courage nor 
 the means to overcome the mountains of ignorance, 
 prejudice, and interest which rose up before them. 
 They were obliged to content themselves with repeat 
 ing, after Lord Bacon, " Time is the greatest innova 
 tor," and with hoping from their children what they 
 could not accomplish themselves. But the result has 
 only served to confirm the philosophy of Lord Bacon, 
 whose mention of Time as the great innovator is so 
 generally quoted in a sense totally different from that in 
 which he uttered it. " Surely," he says, " every new 
 medicine is an innovation ; and he that refuses new 
 remedies must expect new evils ; for Time is the great 
 est innovator ; and if Time alter all things to the 
 worse, and wisdom and council alter them not to the 
 better, WHAT SHALL BE THE END ? " 
 
 A pregnant question truly. What shall be the end ? 
 a question the answer to which must make a part 
 of An Inquiry into the Feasibility, Expediency, and 
 Necessity of the Abolition of Slavery in the United 
 States of America, with Outlines of a Practical Plan 
 for its Accomplishment a second treatise to which 
 the present one is intended as an introduction. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 IN confirmation of the statement contained in the text, I give 
 here some extracts from Mr. Webster s too famous 7th of March 
 speech, (1850.) It has been attempted to glorify this speech by 
 giving to it the title "For the Constitution and the Union." Less 
 grandiloquently, perhaps, but quite as truthfully, it might have 
 been entitled " A job for the presidential chair." As if to magnify 
 the sacrifice he was about to make to the slave-holding Moloch, 
 the orator prefaces his declaration of adhesion to the fugitive bill 
 of 1850, "with all its provisions to the fullest extent," by some 
 historical statements, such as might rather have justified an indig 
 nant opposition to that disgraceful piece of slave-holding legisla 
 tion, and which even gives color to the conjecture that a large part 
 of that famous speech was prepared before Mr. Webster had quite 
 made up his mind to barter away his voice, and vote, and perma 
 nent reputation for the chance of southern votes in the presidential 
 caucus. 
 
 * Let us consider for a moment," says Mr. Webster, " what was 
 the state of sentiment north and south in regard to slavery at the 
 time when this constitution was adopted. A remarkable change 
 has taken place since ; but what did the wise and great men of 
 all parts of the country think of slavery then ? In what estimation 
 did they hold it at the time when this constitution was adopted ? 
 It will be found, sir, if we carry ourselves by historical research 
 back to that day, and ascertain men s opinions by authentic rec 
 ords still existing among us, that there was then no diversity of 
 opinion between the North and the South on the subject of sla 
 very. [This is rather overstating the matter. There was at the 
 time of the convention, and in the convention, a zealous pro-slavery 
 party, but it consisted exclusively of citizens of Georgia and 
 the Carolinas.] It will be found that both parts of the country 
 held it equally an evil, a moral and political evil. It will not be 
 found that either at the North or the South there was much, 
 though there was some, invective against slavery as inhuman and 
 cruel. The great ground of objection to it was political ; that it 
 weakened the social fabric ; that, taking the place of free labor, 
 society became less strong, and labor less productive ; and there 
 fore we find, from all the eminent men of the time, the clearest 
 
 (304) 
 
APPENDIX. 305 
 
 expression of their opinion that slavery is an evil. . . . The 
 eminent men, the most eminent men, and nearly all the conspic 
 uous politicians of the South, held the same sentiments ; that 
 slavery was an evil, a blight, a scourge, and a curse. There were 
 no terms of reprobation of slavery so vehement, in the North at 
 that day, as in the South. The North was not so much excited 
 against it as the South, and the reason is, I suppose, that there 
 was much less of it at the North, and the people did not see, or 
 think they saw, the evils so prominently as they were seen, or 
 thought to be seen, at the South. 
 
 " Then, sir, when this constitution was framed, this was the light 
 in which the Federal convention viewed it, [i. e. slavery]. That 
 body reflected the judgment and sentiments of the great men of the 
 South. The question then was, how to deal with it, and how to deal 
 with it as an evil. They came to this general result. They thought 
 that slavery could not be continued in the country, if the importation 
 of slaves were made to cease ; and, therefore, they provided that, after 
 a certain period, the importation might be prevented by the act of the 
 new government. ... It may not be improper here to allude to 
 that, I had almost said, celebrated opinion of Mr. Madison. You ob 
 serve, sir, that the term slave, or slavery, is not used in the constitution. 
 The constitution does not require that fugitive slaves shall be de 
 livered up. It requires that persons held to service in one state, 
 and escaping into another, shall be delivered up. Mr. Madison 
 opposed the introduction of the term slave, or slavery, into the con 
 stitution ; for he said that he did not wish to see it recognized by 
 the constitution of the United States of America, that there could 
 be property in men. 
 
 "Now, sir, all this took place in the convention of 1787; but, 
 connected with this, concurrent and contemporaneous, is another 
 important transaction, not sufficiently attended to. The convention 
 for framing this constitution assembled in Philadelphia in May, 
 and sat until September, 1787. During all that time, the Congress 
 of the United States was in session in New York. ... At 
 the very time when the convention in Philadelphia was framing 
 this constitution, the Congress in New York was framing the ordi 
 nance of 1787 for the organization and government of the territory 
 north-west of the Ohio. They passed that ordinance on the 13th 
 of July, 1787, at New York, the very month, perhaps the very day, 
 on which these questions about the importation of slaves and the 
 character of slavery were debated in the convention at Philadelphia. 
 So far as we can now learn, there was a perfect concurrence of 
 opinion between these two bodies ; and it resulted in this ordinance 
 of ]787, excluding slavery from all the territory over which the 
 Congress of the United States had jurisdiction. . . . Three 
 things are quite clear, as historical truths. One is, that there was 
 an expectation, that on the ceasing of the importation of slaves from 
 Africa, slavery would begin to run out here. That was hoped and 
 expected. Another is, that, as far as there was any power in 
 
 26* 
 
306 APPENDIX. 
 
 Congress to prevent the spread of slavery in the United States, 
 that power was executed in the most absolute manner, and to the 
 fullest extent. . . . Why, there it stands ! The vote of every 
 state in the Union was unanimous in favor of the ordinance, with 
 the exception of a single individual vote, and that individual vote 
 was given by a northern man. This ordinance, prohibiting slavery 
 forever north-west of the Ohio, has the hand and seal of every 
 southern member in Congress. It was, therefore, no aggression 
 of the North on the South. The other and third clear historical 
 truth is, that the convention meant to leave slavery in the states as 
 they found it, entirely under the authority and control of the states 
 themselves." 
 
 Yet, after all this historical detail, including the emphatic state 
 ment of the care taken, under the auspices of Mr. Madison, not to 
 admit into the constitution the idea that there could be property in 
 men, Mr. Webster has the inconsistency to speak, in the very next 
 paragraph, of the establishment of the constitution of the United 
 States " with a recognition of slavery as it existed in the states," 
 apparently intending to concede that the Federal constitution ex 
 pressly recognized slavery as an existing legal institution of the 
 states ; whereas the utmost that can be found in it is an obscure 
 recognition, and that only by implication, of the existence in the 
 states of a class of persons neither free nor bound to service for a 
 term of years, and that a recognition of the fact merely, without 
 the slightest acknowledgment of any legality in it. But this mis 
 representation of the constitution was essential to afford Mr. Web 
 ster a colorable pretence for fishing after southern votes, with his 
 favorite bait of devotion to the constitution and the Union a very 
 melancholy piece of fishery, as it proved on this particular occasion, 
 not even resulting in a glorious nibble. The cunning and vora 
 cious southern pike proved, indeed, altogether too nimble and adroit 
 for a fisherman whose chief practice had been, and a very suc 
 cessful practice too in catching northern gudgeons with the same 
 sort of bait. 
 
 The paragraph above alluded to is as follows, containing, along 
 with the treacherous concession above criticized, and some addi 
 tional historical mistakes, a good deal, however, of wholesome 
 truth. " This was the state of things, sir, and this the state of 
 opinion, under which those very important matters were arranged, 
 and those three important things done, that is, the establishment 
 of the constitution of the United States with a recognition of 
 slavery as it existed in the states [this is the admission criticized 
 above] ; the establishment of the ordinance for the government of 
 the North-Western Territory, prohibiting, to the full extent of all 
 territory owned by the United States, the introduction of slavery 
 into that territory, while leaving to the states all power over slavery 
 in their own limits ; and creating a power in the new government 
 to put an end to the importation of slaves, after a limited period. 
 There was entire coincidence and concurrence of sentiment, between 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 the North and the South, upon all these questions, at the period of 
 the adoption of the constitution. [Mr. Webster here again ignores 
 the existence, at that time, of the pro-slavery party of South 
 Carolina and Georgia, which has since became predominant in the 
 Union.] But opinions, sir, have, changed, greatly changed ; changed 
 North and changed South. Slavery is not regarded in the South 
 [it would be more correct to say in Maryland and Virginia, for 
 North Carolina, even then, was undetermined upon this point] now 
 as it was then. . . . What, then, have been the causes which 
 have created so new a feeling in favor of slavery in the South, 
 which have changed the whole nomenclature of the South on that 
 subject, so that, from being thought of and described in the terms 
 I have mentioned, and will not repeat, it has now become an institu 
 tion, a cherished institution, in that quarter ; no evil, no scourge, 
 but a great religious, social, and moral blessing, as I think I have 
 heard it lately spoken of? I suppose this, sir, is owing to the rapid 
 growth and sudden extension of the COTTON plantations of the 
 South. . . . The age of cotton became the golden age of our 
 southern brethren. It gratified their desire for improvement and 
 accumulation, at the same time that it excited it. The desire grew 
 by what it fed upon, and there soon came to be an eagerness for 
 new territory, a new area, or new areas, for the cultivation of the 
 cotton crop; and measures leading to this result were brought 
 about rapidly, one after another, under the lead of southern men at 
 the head of the government, they having a majority in both branches 
 of Congress to accomplish their ends. The honorable member 
 from South Carolina [Mr. Calhoun] observes, that there has been a 
 majority all along in favor of the North. If that be true, sir, the 
 North has acted either very liberally and kindly, or very weakly ; for 
 they never exercised that majority efficiently five times in the 
 history of the government, when a division or trial of strength 
 arose. Never. Whether they were out-generalled, or whether it 
 was owing to other causes, I shall not stop to consider; but no 
 man, acquainted with the history of the Union, can deny, that the 
 general lead in the politics of the country, for three fourths of the 
 period that has elapsed since the adoption of the constitution, has 
 been a southern lead." 
 
 See " Speech of the 7th of March, 1850, for the Constitution 
 and the Union." Webster s Works, Everett s edition, vol. v. pp. 
 333-339. 
 
 How lamentable that, after thus exposing the moral and political 
 weakness of the North, Mr. Webster should proceed to give a new, 
 and, if possible, still more humiliating instance of it, by voting for 
 Mason s unconstitutional and atrocious fugitive bill ! 
 
 Oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen ! 
 Then you and I and all of us fell down, 
 And bloody treason triumphed over us. 
 
RETURN 
 
 CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 
 
 198 Main Stacks 
 
 LOAN PERIOD 1 
 HOME USE 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS. 
 Renewls and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due date. 
 Books may be Renewed by calling 642-3405. 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 
 
 
 MAR ft n 3m 
 
 
 
 MAY C I 
 
 
 
 Jii|j i /MM- 
 
 
 
 J i Ct/tTO 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 MAR 1 3 2Q06 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 MAY 1 S 2006 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 FORM NO. DD6 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY 
 BERKELEY, CA 94720-6000 
 
GENERAL LIBRARY U.C. BERKELEY 
 
 BDDDfl7S7b7