Chapter XII
Consideration of foreign cultivation of Cotton further considered--Facts and opinions slated by the London Economist--Consumption of Cotton tending to exceed the production--India affords the only field of competition with the United States--Its vast inferiority--Imports from India dependent upon price--Free Labor and Slave Labor cannot be united on the same field--Supply of the United States therefore limited by natural increase of slaves--Limited supply of labor tends to renewal of slave trade--Cotton production in India the only obstacle which Great Britain can interpose against American Planters--Africa, too, to be made subservient to this object--Parliamentary proceedings on this subject--Successful Cotton culture in Africa--Slavery to be permanently established by this policy--Opinions of the American Missionary--Remarks showing the position of the Cotton question in its relations to slavery--Great Britain building up slavery in Africa to break it down in America.
THE remark which closes the preceding chapter was made in 1856. An opportunity is now offered for recording the results of the movements of Great Britain to promote cotton culture in her own possessions between that and 1859. The results will be startling. Few anti-slavery men in the United States expected that Great Britain would so soon be engaged zealously in establishing slave labor in Africa, or that Lord Palmerston should publicly commend the measure. The question is one of so much importance as to demand a full examination. The extracts are taken, mainly, from the London Economist, a periodical having the highest reputation for candor and fair dealing. On Feb. 12, 1859, the Economist said:
"We are not surprised that the future supply of cotton should have engaged the attention of Parliament on an early night of the Session. It is a question the importance of which can not well be overrated, if we refer only to the commercial interests which it involves, or to the social comfort or happiness of the millions who are now dependent upon it for their support. But it has an aspect far loftier and even more important. At its root lies the ultimate success of a policy for which England has made great struggles and great sacrifices--the maintaining of existing treaties, and perhaps the peace of the world. Every year as it passes, proves more and more that the question of slavery, and even of the slave trade, is destined to be materially affected, if not ultimately governed, by considerations arising out of the cultivation of this plant. It is impossible to observe the tendency of public opinion throughout America, not even excepting the Free States, with relation to the slave trade, without feeling conscious that it is drifting into indifference, and even laxity. In every light, then, in which this great subject can be viewed, it is one which well deserves the careful attention equally of the philanthropist and the statesman.
"It has been said, that in the case of cotton we have found an exception to the great commercial principle of supply and demand. Is this so? We doubt it. We doubt if, on the contrary, we shall not find, upon investigation, that it presents one of the strongest examples of the struggle of that principle to maintain its conclusions. No doubt the conditions of its production have made that struggle a severe one; but, nevertheless, it has not been altogether unsuccessful. Eighteen years ago, (in 1840) the total supply of cotton imported into this country was 592,488,000 lbs.: with temporary fluctuations, it had steadily grown until it had reached, in the last three years, upwards of 900,000,000 lbs., showing an increase of more than fifty per cent. Nevertheless, the demand had been constantly pressing upon the supply, the consumption has always shown a tendency to exceed the production, and the consequent result of a high price has, during a majority of those years, acted as a powerful stimulant to cultivation. But, practically speaking, we possess but two sources of supply, and both present such powerful obstacles to extended cultivation, that we are not surprised at the habitual uneasiness of those whose interests demand a continually increasing quantity. Those two sources are the United States and British India. It is true that Brazil, Egypt, the West Indies, and some other countries, furnish small quantities of cotton; but when we state that of the 931,847,000 lbs., imported into the United Kingdom in 1858, the proportion furnished by America and India was 870,656,000 lbs., leaving for all other places put together, a supply of only 61,191,000 lbs., notwithstanding the many laudable efforts, both on the part of Government, and of the mercantile community, to encourage its growth in new countries, it will be admitted that, as an immediate and practical question, it is confined to those two sources. They are not only the sources from whence the largest supplies are received, but they are also those where the chief increase has taken place.
"In 1840 the supply received from the United States was 487,856,000 lbs. Since that time, with some considerable fluctuations, it has steadily increased, until in 1858 it rose to 732,403,000 lbs.--the maximum quantity having reached in 1856, 780,040,000 lbs. Yet, great as this increase has been, it appears that it has not been equal to the increased demand, if we may judge from the price, at the two periods.[36] The large supplies of the last three years have commanded prices at least sixteen per cent. higher than the smaller supplies from 1840 to 1842. Every encouragement, therefore, which high and remunerative prices could give to increased cultivation has been liberally afforded to the cotton-growing States of America.
"But whatever the price, there is a condition which places an absolute limit upon the growth. Land in every way suited for the purpose, is abundant and cheap. Means of transport is of the cheapest and best kind, and is without limit. The limit lies in the necessary ingredient of labor. If cotton had been the produce of free labor, no doubt the principle of supply and demand would have solved the difficulty. The surplus of the Old World would have steadily maintained the balance between the two in the New World. Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, the Southern parts of France, and Portugal, would have sent their surplus labor to the best market. As it is, the two kinds of labor--that of the freeman and that of the slave--can not be united in the same cultivation. The slave States of America are, therefore, dependent for any increase of labor only upon themselves. The consuming States can draw supplies only from the breeding States. It is, therefore, exactly in proportion as the slave population increases that the cotton crop becomes larger. Taking the average of three or four years at any period of the history of the United States for the last forty years, it will be found that the growth of cotton is equal to one bale for each person of the slave population. The calculation is well known. When the slave population was two millions, the average produce of cotton was two millions of bales:--as the one rose the other increased. The slave population is now about three millions and a half; the cotton crop of the present year is computed at from 3,500,000 to 3,700,000 bales. The high price of cotton, and the great profit attached to its cultivation, have no doubt furnished the greatest stimulant to an increase of that part of the population. In the competition for more labor, the price of slaves was enormously increased. Some years ago the price of a slave was about £100; now they are worth from £200 to £400. But what must be the tendency of this fearful competition for a limited supply of human labor--limited as long as the slave trade is prohibited--unlimited as soon as the slave trade is legalized? What is the actual condition of the Southern States at this moment? There is on the ground and being secured, according to computation, the largest cotton crop ever known. The last estimates vary from 3,550,000 bales to 3,700,000 bales. A very few years ago it was calculated that cotton at any thing above four cents the pound for "middling quality" on the spot was a profitable crop. Now, the price for the same quality on the spot is fully ten cents the pound;--and it has been about the same or higher for a long time. What is the consequence? A correspondent writing by the last mail says: 'The people of this section of the country feel made of gold, and every thing here is, of course, going at full cry--every planter wants to open more land and buy more negroes.' What do these facts suggest? Do they furnish no explanation of the strong desire in the Southern States to possess Cuba? Do they furnish no explanation of the exaggerated irritation got up last year in respect to the West India squadron, and the demand of the American Government, we fear too successfully made, that the right of search in the mitigated form in which it existed should be altogether abandoned? A people familiarized not only with slavery, but also with the slave trade as between one class of States and another, can hardly be expected to entertain a very strong repugnance to a slave trade from beyond the seas. That cargoes of imported slaves have recently been landed in the United States is not denied:--that vessels fitted out as slavers have recently been seized in American ports, we know upon official authority. The same correspondent whom we have already quoted, says there are two great questions which occupy the Southern States at this moment. The one is the acquisition of Cuba. 'The other,' he says, 'is one which has been presented to me forcibly during my sojourn in the South, and that is the increase of slave population. You must have noticed an illicit importation of negroes from Africa landed in Georgia. This has undoubtedly been done, and I doubt not also that other negroes have been landed. It is of course the desire of every honest man that the whole force of the government should be used to put down such a trade, and punish the offenders; but I fear the profits of the trade are so enormous that it will be carried on in the face of all opposition. Negroes are now worth here from 1,000 to 2,000 dollars a-piece. The subject of their being introduced is being openly discussed, and the propriety of the trade being again legalized. It is plain this discussion will by and by take shape. Will not the government be obliged to listen to it, and what will be the result? When labor is so profitable it will be obtained. How? I confess to looking upon this subject with great anxiety. The feeling with regard to slavery both in the North and South has undergone a material change in the last four years. It is now looked upon with far less abhorrence.' Is it possible to separate the danger which is here presented so forcibly from the question of the high price of cotton? We know by experience the influence which the Southern States can exercise upon the election of a President. . . . . . . If the free States are indifferent, we know that, at whatever risk, the slave States will have their own way; and with them it is plain that much must depend upon the price of cotton and the motives which it furnishes to 'open more land and buy more negroes.'
"But with what an enormous interest does this view of the case invest the cultivation of cotton in India. It is the only real obstacle that we can interpose to the growing feeling in favor of slavery, to the diminishing abhorrence of the slave trade in the United States. It is the only field, competition with which can, for many years to come, redress the undue stimulant which high prices are giving to slave labor in America. Nor do the facts as regard the past discourage the hope that it may be successfully used for that purpose. In 1840 the supply of cotton from India was 77,011,000 lbs.;--in 1858 it had risen to 138,253,000 lbs.: having been in the immediately preceding year no less than 250,338,000 lbs. The average importation for four years from 1840 to 1843 amounted to 83,300,000 lbs.:--the average importation for the last four years has been 178,000,000 lbs. or somewhat more than double that of the former period. In some important respects the conditions of supply from India differ very much from those which attach to and determine the supply from America. In India there is no limit to the quantity of labor. There may be said to be little or none to the quantity of land. The obstacle is of another kind; it lies almost exclusively in the want of cheap transit. Our supplies of India cotton are not even determined by the quantity produced, but by that which, when produced, can profitably be forwarded to England. It is, therefore, a question of price whether we obtain more or less. A rise in the price of one penny the pound in 1857, suddenly increased the supply from 180,000,000 lbs. in 1856 to 250,000,000 lbs. in 1857. A fall in the price in 1858 again suddenly reduced it to 138,000,000 lbs. It was not that the production of cotton varied in these proportions in those years, but that at given prices it was possible to incur more cost in the transit than at others. The same high price, therefore, which at present renders a large supply possible from India, creates an unusual demand for slaves in the United States. But would not the same corrective consequence be produced if we could diminish the cost of transit in India? Every farthing a pound saved in carriage is equivalent to so much added to the price of cotton. Four-pence the pound in the Liverpool market for good India cotton, with a cost of two-pence from the spot of production, would command just as great a supply as a price of five-pence the pound if the intermediate cost were three-pence. The whole question resolves itself into one of good roads and cheap conveyance. Labor in India is infinitely more abundant than in the United States, and much cheaper; land is at least as cheap; the climate is as good;--but the bullock trains on the miserable roads of Hindostan cannot compete with the steamers and other craft on the Mississippi. No doubt we have new hopes in the district of Scinde, and in the aid of the Indus. We have new hopes in the railways which are being constructed,--not only in cheapening transit, but even more in improving the condition in which native produce will be brought to market. Whatever, therefore, be the financial sacrifice which in the first place must be made for the purpose of opening the interior of India, it should be cheerfully made, as the only means by which we can hope permanently to improve the revenues of India, to increase and cheapen the supply of the most important raw material of our own industry, and to bring in the abundant labor of the millions of our fellow-subjects in India, to redress the deficiency in the slave States of America, and thus to give the best practical check to the growing attractions of slavery and the slave trade."
On March 5, 1859, the editor resumes the subject, and discusses the bearing which the movements making in Africa are likely to have upon these interests.
"We pointed out in a recent number the very close connection between the traditional policy of England in resisting the slave trade, and the efforts which are now making to find other sources of cotton supply besides the United States. We showed that a cry is now arising in the United States, for the renewal of the slave trade--a cry stimulated principally by the high price of cotton. We showed that for every slave in the Southern States there is on the average a bale of cotton produced annually, and that as the demand for cotton, and consequently the price of cotton rises, the demand for slaves and the price of slaves rises with it. In the words of a correspondent whom we then quoted, 'every planter wants to open more land and buy more negroes.' Hence the demand in the South for the recently successful attempt to smuggle slave-cargoes into Georgia. If, then, either in India or any other quarter of the world, it be possible either to cheapen the carriage or facilitate the growth of cotton, so as to bring it into the English markets at a price that can compete successfully with the American cotton, we are conferring a double benefit on mankind--we are increasing the supply of one of the most necessary, and, relatively to the demand, one of the least abundant, articles of commerce, on the steady supply of which the livelihood of millions, and the comfort of almost every civilized nation on the face of the earth, depends, and by means of the increased competition we are diminishing the force of the motive which is now threatening the United States with a renewal of the slave trade. We cannot, therefore, well conceive of stronger considerations than those which are now urging Englishmen to do what may be in their power for the promotion of an increased supply from cotton-growing countries other than the States of America.
"Besides these reasons which apply to the promotion of the cotton-supply in India, or in our own West Indian islands, there is one peculiar to the case of Africa which makes it important that no opportunities of encouraging the cotton-growth of that continent should be neglected. The African supply, if ever it become large, will not only check the rise in the price of cotton, and therefore of slaves in America,--but it will diminish the profits of slave exportation on the coast of Africa. Experience has now sufficiently proved to us, that no one agency has been so effective in paralyzing the slave trade as the growth of any branch of profitable industry which convinces the native African chiefs that they can get a surer and, in the long run, larger profit by employing their subjects in peaceful labor, than they can even get from the large but uncertain gains of the slave trade. . . . . Once let the African chiefs find out, as in many instances they have already found out, that the sale of the laborer can be only a source of profit once, while his labor may be a source of constant and increasing profit, and we shall hear no more of their killing the hen which may lay so many golden eggs, for the sake only of a solitary and final prize."
The American Missionary, of April, 1859, gives a condensed statement of a discussion in the British Parliament, last summer, in which the condition of cotton culture in Africa was brought out, and its encouragement strongly urged as a means of suppressing the slave trade, and of increasing the supplies of that commodity to the manufacturers of England. S. Fitzgerald, Under Secretary of State, said:
"He did not scruple to say that, looking at the papers which he had perused, it was to the West Coast of Africa that we must look for that large increase in our supply of cotton which was now becoming absolutely necessary, and without which he and others who had studied this subject foresaw grave consequences to the most important branch of the manufactures of this country. Our consul at Lagos reported:
"The whole of the Yoruba and other countries south of the Niger, with the Houssa and the Nuffe countries on the north side of that river, have been, from all time, cotton-growing countries; and notwithstanding the civil wars, ravages, disorders and disruptions caused by the slave trade, more than sufficient cotton to clothe their populations has always been cultivated, and their fabrics have found markets and a ready sale in those countries where the cotton plant is not cultivated, and into which the fabrics of Manchester and Glasgow have not yet penetrated. The cultivation of cotton, therefore, in the above-named countries is not new to the inhabitants; all that is required is to offer them a market for the sale of as much as they can cultivate, and by preventing the export of slaves from the seaboard render some security to life, freedom, property, and labor." Another of our consuls, speaking of the trade in the Bight of Benin in 1856, said:
"'The readiness with which the inhabitants of the large town of Abbeokuta have extended their cultivation of the cotton plant merits the favorable notice of the manufacturer and of the philanthropist, as a means of supplanting the slave trade.'"
"It was worthy of notice that while the quantity of cotton obtained from America between 1784 and 1791, the first seven years of the importation into this country was only 74 bales; during the years 1855 and 1856 the town of Abbeokuta alone exported nearly twenty times that quantity. He thought he might fairly say that if we succeed in repressing the slave-trade, as he believed we should, we should in a few years receive a very large supply of this most important article from the West Coast of Africa."
"Mr. J. H. Gurney said he had received from Mr. Thomas Clegg, of Manchester, a few figures, from which it appeared that while in 1852 only 1800 lbs. of cotton had been brought into Great Britain from Africa, in the first five months of the present year it was 94,400 lbs.
"Mr. Buxton said: 'There was no question now, that any required amount of cotton, equal to that of New Orleans in quality, might be obtained. A very short time ago Mr. Clegg, of Manchester, aided by the Rev. H. Venn, and a few other gentlemen, trained and sent out two or three young negroes as agents to Abbeokuta. These young men taught the natives to collect and clean their cotton, and sent it home to England. The result was, that the natives had actually purchased 250 cotton-gins for cleaning their cotton. Mr. Clegg stated that he was in correspondence with seventy-six natives and other African traders, twenty-two of them being chiefs. With one of them Mr. Clegg had a transaction, by which he (the African) received £3500. And the amount of cotton received at Manchester had risen, hand over hand, till it came last year to nearly 100,000 lbs.' Well might Mr. Clegg say, that this was 'a rare instance of the rapid development of a particular trade, and the more so because every ounce of cotton had been collected, all labor performed, and the responsibility borne by native Africans alone.' The fact was, that the West African natives were not mere savages. In trade no men could show more energy and quickness. And a considerable degree of social organization existed. He could give a thousand proofs of this, but he would only quote a word or two from Lieutenant May's despatch to Lord Clarendon, dated the 24th of November, 1857. Lieutenant May crossed overland from the Niger to Lagos, and he says:
"A very pleasing and hopeful part of my report lies in the fact, that certainly three-quarters of the country was under cultivation. Nor was this the only evidence of the industry and peace of the country; in every hut is cotton spinning; in every town is weaving, dyeing; often iron smelting, pottery works, and other useful employments are to be witnessed; while from town to town, for many miles, the entire road presents a continuous file of men, women, and children carrying these articles of their production for sale. I entertain feelings of much increased respect for the industry and intellect of these people, and admiration for their laws and manners."
"Lord Palmerston said: 'I venture to say that you will find on the West Coast of Africa a most valuable supply of cotton, so essential to the manufactures of this country. The cotton districts of Africa are more extensive than those of India. The access to them is more easy than to the Indian cotton district; and I venture to say that your commerce with the Western Coast of Africa, in the article of cotton, will, in a few years, prove to be far more valuable than that of any other portion of the world, the United States alone excepted.'"
The London Anti-Slavery Reporter, as quoted by the American Missionary of March, 1859, says:
"A few days ago, Mr. Consul Campbell addressed us, saying: 'African cotton is no myth. A vessel has just arrived from Lagos with 607 bales on board, on native account. Several hundred bales more have been previously shipped this year.'
"In order to afford our readers some idea of the extraordinary development of this branch of native African industry and commerce, we append a statement which will exhibit it at a single glance. We have only to observe that we are indebted to Mr. Thomas Clegg, of Manchester, for these interesting particulars, and that the quantities ordered have been obtained from Abbeokuta alone. He is about to extend the field of his operations. Four Europeans have gone out, expressly to trade in native cotton; and several London houses, encouraged by the success which has attended Mr. Clegg's experiment, are about to invest largely in the same traffic. The quantity of raw cotton which has already been imported into England, from Abbeokuta, since 1851, is 276,235 lbs., and the trade has developed itself as follows:
1851-52 9 Bags or Bales lbs. 1810 1853 37 ditto 4617 1854 7 ditto 1588 1855 14 ditto 1651 1856 103 ditto 11,492 1857 283 ditto 35,419 1858 1819 ditto 220,099
"The last importation includes advices from Lagos up to the 1st of last November. Since that time, the presses and other machinery sent out, have been got into full work, and the quantity of the raw staple in stock has rapidly accumulated, the bulk shipped being on 'native account.' Each bag or bale weighs about 120 lbs. Let it be borne in mind that the whole of this quantity has been collected, all the labor performed and the responsibility borne by native Africans; while the cost of production, Mr. Clegg informs us, does not exceed one half-penny a pound in the end. It can be laid down in England at about 4 1/4_d._ a pound, and sells at from 7_d._ to 9_d._"
The great point of interest in this movement consists in the fact, that in promoting the production of cotton in Africa, Englishmen are giving direct encouragement to the employment of slave labor. It is an undeniable fact, that from eight-tenths to nine-tenths of the population of Africa are held as slaves by the petty kings and chiefs; and that, more especially, the women, under the prevailing system of polygamy, are doomed to out-doors' labor for the support of their indolent and sensual husbands. Hitherto the labor of the women has, in general, been comparatively light, as the preparation of food and clothing limited the extent of effort required of them; but now, the cotton mills of England must be supplied by them, and the hum of the spindles will sound the knell of their days of ease. That we are not alone in this view of the question, will appear from the opinions expressed by the American Missionary, when referring to this subject. It says:
"An encouraging feature in this movement is, that the men engaged in it all feel that the suppression of the slave trade is absolutely essential to its success. The necessity of this is the great burden of all their arguments in its behalf. It thus acts with a double force. There can be no question that the development of the resources of Africa will be an effectual means, in itself, of discouraging the exportation of slaves, while at the same time those who would encourage this development are seeking the overthrow of that infamous traffic as the necessary removal of an obstacle to their success.
"There is, however, one danger connected with all this that can not be obviated by any effort likely to be put forth under the stimulus of commerce, or the spirit of trade. This danger can be averted only by sending the missionaries of a pure gospel, a gospel of equal and impartial love, into Africa, in numbers commensurate with the increase of its agricultural resources and its spirit of general enterprise.
"The danger to which we allude is not merely that of worldliness, such as in a community always accompanies an increase of wealth, but that the slavery now existing there may be strengthened and increased by the rapid rise in the value of labor, and thus become so firmly rooted that the toil of ages may be necessary for it removal. All this might have been prevented if the spirit of Christian enterprise had gone ahead of that of commerce, and thus prepared the way for putting commerce, under the influence of Christianity. For years Africa has been open to the missionary of the cross, to go everywhere preaching love to God and man, with nothing to hinder except the sickliness of the climate. This evil, and the dangers arising from it, business men are willing to risk, and within the next ten years there will be thousands, and tens of thousands, looking to Africa for the means of increasing their riches."
From all this it appears, that the question of slavery is becoming more intimately blended with cotton culture than at any former period; and that the urgent demand for its increased production must establish the system permanently, under the control of Great Britain, in Africa itself. Look at the facts, and especially at the position of Great Britain. The supply of cotton is inadequate to the demands of the manufacturing nations. Great Britain stands far in advance of all others in the quantity consumed. The ratio of increased production in the United States cannot be advanced except by a renewal of the slave trade, or a resort to the scheme of immigration on the plan of England and France. It is thought by English writers, that the renewal of the slave trade by the United States is inevitable, as a consequence of the present high prices of cotton and slaves, unless the slave traders can be shut out from the slave markets of Africa. They assume it as a settled principle, that the immigration system is impracticable wherever slavery exists; and that the American planter can only succeed in securing additional labor by means of the slave trade. Then, according to this theory, to prevent an increased production of cotton in the United States, it is only necessary to make it impracticable for us to renew that traffic.
The supply of cotton from India is not on the increase, nor can be, except when prices rule high in England, or until rail roads shall be constructed into the interior, a work requiring much time and money. The renewal of the slave trade by the United States, on a large scale, would, of course, cheapen cotton in the proportion of the amount of labor supplied. In this view the writers referred to are correct. They are right also in supposing that a reduction below present prices, of a cent or two per pound, would be ruinous to India in the present condition of her inland transportation. They desire, very naturally, therefore, that prices should be kept up for the advantage of India, so that its cotton can bear export. But while high prices benefit India, they also enrich the American planter, and afford him inducements to renew the slave trade.
Here Great Britain is thrown into a dilemma. The slave trade to America must be prevented, in her opinion, or it will ruin the East Indies. To prevent the renewal of this traffic--to keep up the price of cotton as long as may be necessary, for the benefit of India, and prevent a supply of African slaves from reaching the American planter--is a problem that requires more than an ordinary amount of skill to solve. That skill, if it exists any where, is possessed by British statesmen, and they are now employed in the execution of this difficult task. They are convinced that free labor cannot be found, at this moment, any where in the world, to meet the growing demands for cotton. To supply this increasing demand, a new element must be brought into requisition; or rather old elements must be employed anew. Her cotton spindles must not cease to whir, or millions of the people of Great Britain will starve at home, or be forced into emigration, to the weakening of her strength. The old sources of supply being inadequate, a new field of operations must be opened up--new forces must be brought into requisition in the cultivation of cotton. Slave labor and free labor, both combined, are not now able to furnish the quantity needed. Free labor cannot be increased, at present, in this department of production. Slave labor, therefore, is the only means left by which the work can be accomplished--not slave labor to the extent now employed, but to the extent to which it may be increased from the ranks of the scores of millions of the population of Africa.
This is the true state of the case; and the important question now agitated is: Who shall have the advantages of this labor? Two fields, only, present themselves in which this additional labor can be employed--Africa and America. Great Britain is deeply interested in limiting it to Africa, which she can only do by preventing a renewal of the slave trade to America: for she takes it for granted that we will renew the slave trade if we can make money by the operation. South Africa is unavailable for this purpose, as it is under British rule, and slavery abolished within its limits by law. Nothing can be done there, as it is filling up with English emigrants who will not toil, under a burning sun, in the cotton fields; and they can not be permitted to reduce the natives again to slavery. West Africa alone, affords the climate, soil, and population, necessary to success in cotton culture. To this point the attention of Englishmen is now mainly directed. One feature in the civil condition of West Africa must be specially noticed, as adapting it to the purposes to which it is to be devoted. The territory has not been seized by the British crown, as in South Africa, and British law does not bear rule within its limits. The tribes are treated as independent sovereignties, and are governed by their own customs and laws. This is fortunate for the new policy now inaugurating, as the native chiefs and kings hold the population at large as slaves. Heretofore they have sold their slaves at will, as well as their captives taken in war, to the slave traders. Now they are to be taught a different policy by Englishmen; and the African slaveholders are to be convinced that they will make more money by employing their slaves in growing cotton, than in selling them to be carried off to the American planters. This done, and the transportation of laborers to the United States will be prevented. This will put it out of the power of our planters, to increase their production of cotton so as to reduce prices; and this will enable India to complete her rail roads, so as to be able to compete with American cotton at any price whatever.
But this new policy, if successful, will do more than stop the slave trade, to the supposed injury of the American planter. England will thereby have the benefit of the labor of Africa secured to herself. With its scores of millions of population under her direction, she hopes to compete with American slavery in the production of cotton; and not only to compete with it, but to surpass it altogether, and, in time, to render it so profitless as to force emancipation upon us. She will there have access to a population ten fold greater than that of the slave population of the United States; and the only doubt of success exists in the question, as to whether the negro master in Africa can make the slave work as well there as the white master in America has done here.
But how shall England, in this measure, preserve her "traditional policy," in which she pledged herself no longer to cherish slave labor. This will be very easily done. She need not authorize slavery in Western Africa; but as it already exists among all the tribes "by local law," she has only to recognize their independence, and bargain with the chiefs for all the cotton they can force their slaves to produce. This has already been done, by Englishmen, at several points in Africa, and will doubtless be resorted to in many other portions of that country. The moral responsibility of establishing slavery permanently in Africa, will thus be thrown upon the chiefs and kings, as it has heretofore been upon the American planter; and Great Britain can reap all the advantages of the increased production of slave labor cotton, while her moralists can easily satisfy the conscience of the people at home, by declaiming against the system which secures to them their bread.
Here now the policy of British statesmen can be comprehended. They must have cotton. The products of free labor would be preferred, but as it can not be had, in sufficient quantities, they must take that of slave labor. To allow the American planter to supply this want, by renewing the slave trade, would ruin India and benefit America. To save India, and, at the same time, to secure the cotton demanded by the manufacturers, slavery is to be encouraged in Africa; and this is to be done as a means not only of preventing the slave trade, and checking the extension of slavery in America, but of multiplying the fields of cotton cultivation--a policy very essential to the wants of the British nation. Thus, slavery is to be promoted in Africa as an effectual means of checking it in America; it is to be converted into a blessing there, and made instrumental in wiping out its curse here!
And this, now, is the result of England's philanthropic efforts for African freedom. Her economical errors, in West Indian emancipation, are to be repaired by the permanent establishment of slavery in Africa! But what must be the practical moral effect of her policy? What must be the opinion entertained of the negro race, when Great Britain abandons her policy in reference to them? This is not hard to divine. It will wipe out the odium she has managed to cast upon the system; and, so far as her example is concerned, will justify the American planter in refusing to emancipate his slaves. Her conduct is a practical acknowledgment of the Southern theory of the African race--that slavery is their normal condition, otherwise she must have adopted the same policy in West Africa that she has in South Africa.
But before closing this part of our investigations, it may be well to examine the claims of Great Britain in relation to her humanity towards the African, or any of the inferior races doomed to lives of toil--such as the coolies of India and the laborers of China.
The contest for the advantages of supplying the increasing demands for cotton, is between Great Britain operating in India and Africa, and the American planter operating by an increased amount of labor furnished by means of the slave trade. The contest between the parties may be imagined as assuming this form: A portion of the American planters insist, that they should be allowed to manage this matter; but Great Britain says, nay: my subjects can do it better than you can. You Americans are governed by mercenary motives: we Britons by philanthropic intentions. You Americans have made no sacrifices for the cause of humanity: we Britons have emancipated our West India slaves.
Aye, aye, replies the American planter; we understand all about the humanity of which you boast. Your special type of philanthropy is fully displayed in the history of your West Indies. Look at it. The total importation of slaves from Africa into your West Indian Islands, was 1,700,000 persons; of whom and their descendants, in 1833, only 660,000 remained for emancipation; we had less than 400,000 imported Africans, of whom and their descendants there existed among us, in 1850, more than 3,600,000 persons of African descent; that is to say, the number of Africans and their descendants in the United States, is nearly eight or ten to one of those that were imported, whilst in the British West Indies there are not two persons remaining for every five imported.[37] And besides, we have 500,000 free colored persons among us, a number nearly equal to that which your emancipation act set at liberty, and more than the whole number imported. Your slavery seems to have been a system of wholesale slaughter: ours the reverse.
All true, says Britain: but then we have ceased to do evil, and are learning to do well. We found "that slavery was bearing our colonies down to ruin with awful speed; that had it lasted but another half century, they must have sunk beyond recovery."[38]
What! says the planter; sunk beyond recovery! why, we find our slaves rapidly increasing, and ourselves almost "made of gold." Be pleased to explain, why slavery in the hands of Englishmen should be so destructive, while with the American it is not only profitable to the slaveholder himself, but the comfort of the slaves has been so well secured, from the first, that their natural increase has been about equal to that of any other people in the full enjoyment of the necessaries of life.
Certainly, says Britain: having done our duty, we are free to confess, that "what gave the death blow to slavery, in the minds of English statesmen, was the population returns, which showed the fact, 'the appalling fact,' that although only eleven out of the eighteen islands had sent them in, yet in those eleven islands the slaves had decreased in twelve years, by no less than 60,219, namely: from 558,194 to 497,975![39] Had similar returns been procured from the other seven colonies (including Mauritius, Antigua, Barbadoes, and Granada,) the decrease must have been little, if at all, less than 100,000! Now it was plain to every one that if this were really so, the system could not last. The driest economist would allow that it would not pay, to let the working classes be slaughtered. To work the laboring men of our West Indies to death, might bring in a good return for a while, but could not be a profitable enterprise in the long run. Accordingly, this was the main, we had almost said the only, topic of the debates on slavery in 1831 and 1832. Is slavery causing a general massacre of the working classes in our sugar islands, or is it not, was a question worth debating, in the pounds, shillings, and pence view, as well as in the moral one. And debated it was, long and fiercely. The result was the full establishment of the dreadful fact. The slaves, as Mr. Marryatt said, were 'dying like rotten sheep.' Whatever then may be said for West Indian slavery, this damning thing must be said of it, that the slaves were dying of it. Then came emancipation."[40] And in performing this act--in demonstrating to the world the destructive character of slavery--Englishmen expected America to follow their example, and to emancipate her slaves also.
And thereby deceived yourselves, says the planter, into the ruin of your islands, without effecting any good for the Africans at large, and but little for those upon whom your bounties were bestowed. And, then, we cannot see the vastness of your philanthropy, in allowing such destructive cruelties to prevail so long, and in only emancipating your slaves when it was apparent they must soon become extinct under the lash, as applied by the hands of Britons. We know that you claimed that slavery was the same everywhere, and that humane men in our country were deceived into the belief that American slavery was as ruinous to life as British West Indian slavery. We know that the elder Mr. Buxton, in 1831, used this language, "where the blacks are free they increase. But let there be a change in only one circumstance, let the population be the same in every respect, only let them be slaves instead of freemen, and the current is immediately stopped;" and, in support of this, his biographer adds: "This appalling fact was never denied, that at the time of the abolition of the slave trade, the number of slaves in the West Indies was 800,000; in 1830 it was 700,000; that is to say, in twenty-three years it had diminished by 100,000."[41] This assertion, that slavery is always destructive of life, was made by Mr. Buxton, in the face of the fact, that ten distinct sets of our Census tables were then accessible to him, in each one of which he had the evidence that American slavery, instead of reducing the number of our slave population, tended to its rapid increase. From this and kindred acts of that gentleman, we came to the conclusion, that, though he might be very benevolent, he was not very truthful; and was, therefore, a very unsafe guide to follow, as you must now acknowledge; unsafe, because your emancipation on a small scale, before securing a general emancipation by other countries, has thrown you under the necessity of now attempting to establish slavery elsewhere on a large scale; unsafe, because your negro population have not made half the moral progress under freedom, that ours have done under slavery; and because, that, where cultivation has depended upon the emancipated negro alone, with a single exception, the islands have almost gone to ruin.[42]
You misinterpret facts, says Britain: our islands are not ruined; no, by no means. Under slavery they would have been totally ruined; but emancipation has placed them in a position favorable to a full development of all their resources. "It is to be borne in mind that the influx of free labor is exactly one of those advantages of which a land is debarred by slavery. It is a part of the curse of slavery that it repels the freeman. When we are told that to judge of the effect of emancipation we must exclude those colonies that imported coolies, we reply at once that this useful importation has been one of the many blessings that freedom has brought in her train."[43]
I understand your views now, says the planter: but for emancipation, your colonies would have sunk to irretrievable destruction. That measure has prepared the way for the coolie system; and under its operations the prosperity of your islands is on the increase. But what is the character of this coolie system, that is working such wonders? In what does it differ from the slave trade, of which you desire to deprive us? And what must be its effects upon the colored population, which have received their freedom at your hands, and whose moral elevation your Christian missionaries are laboring to promote? On this point I would not multiply testimony. The character of the coolie traffic is but too well understood, and is now believed by all intelligent men to be the slave trade in disguise. A writer, representing the anti-slavery society of Great Britain, makes these statements.[44]
"I am prepared to show, that fraud, misrepresentation, and actual violence are the constituent elements of the immigration system, even as it is now conducted, and that no vigilance on the part of the government which superintends its prosecution can prevent the abuses incidental to it. . . . . In China, especially, this is notoriously the case, and I refer you to Sir John Bowring's despatches on Immigration from China, for the fullest revelations. I need only add, that he designates the Chinese coolie traffic as being in every essential particular 'as bad as the African slave trade,' and that he recommends its entire prohibition. . . . . The mortality during the sea-voyage is so great, that the Emigration Commissioners declare 'these results to be shocking to humanity, and disgraceful to the manner in which the traffic is carried on.' I beg to call your special attention to the term 'traffic,' and to refer you for particulars of the mortality, to the Emigration Commissioners' Report for 1858. They may be briefly summarised. During the season 1856-57 the deaths at sea amounted to 17. 26/100 per cent. on 4,094 coolies shipped from Calcutta--a rate which, if computed for the whole year, instead of 90 days, the term of the voyage, would average upwards of 70 per cent. The rate of mortality on shipments of Chinese bound to British Guiana, varied from 14 per cent. to 50. . . . . On shipments of Chinese bound to Havanna, on board British vessels, the death-rate fluctuated between 20 per cent. and 60. Yet, sir, immigration is said, by its advocates, to be now conducted on an improved system. . . . . We come now to the treatment of the coolie, as soon as he is discharged from the ship. There is no official evidence, that I am yet aware of, to show what abuses of authority he is subjected to, but the Jamaica Immigration Bill, now awaiting the sanction of Her Majesty's Government, proves that the imported laborer is, during his term of service, subject to conditions quite incompatible with a system of free labor, and the same remark applies to other colonies. That the immigrants are liable to ill usage and neglect, may be gathered from the reports of travelers who have seen them in every stage of destitution and misery; and that they are peculiarly affected by the kind of service they contract to render, and by climate, is sufficiently proved by the awful mortality during industrial residence, which we are assured the Immigration Agent General's returns for Jamaica show to be equal to 50 per cent. Sir E. B. Lytton admits it to be 33 per cent. But if we accept his correction--which I confess I am not prepared to do without knowing upon what evidence he makes it--I maintain that even this death-rate establishes the startling fact, that coolie labor in Jamaica is proportionately more destructive to human life than slave labor in Cuba."
On the question of the influence that the coolie immigration exerts upon the emancipated blacks in the West Indies, the Editor of the London Economist very justly remarks:
"Bringing with them depraved heathen habits, and the detestable traditions of the worst forms of idolatry, and always looking forward to their return as the epoch when they will renew their heathen worship and find themselves again among heathen standards of action,--they are almost proof against the best influences which can be brought to bear upon them, and, what is worse, they are not only proof against the good, but missionaries for evil. They are closely associated in their labor with a race that is just emerging out of barbarism with the fostering care of Christianity, and we need not say that their social influence on such a race is deteriorating in the extreme. The difficulty would be indefinitely diminished, were the new immigrants a permanent addition to the population. By careful regulations for that purpose, they might, in that case, be subdued by the higher influences of their English teachers; but the prospect of speedy restoration to the country and habits of their birth, entirely foils such attempts as these. How far this great difficulty can be overcome; and if it cannot, how far it may more than balance the moral and physical advantages of a fuller labor market,--it requires the most careful inquiry to determine." Here now are four distinct points upon which the testimony shows, conclusively, that the coolie system is worse than ever the slave trade has been represented to be; and that as the slave trade is opposed on the ground of the destruction of human life which attends it, so the coolie system should be abandoned upon the same grounds. The points are these: 1st, the frauds and cruelties incident to the procuring of immigrants; 2d, the mortality during the middle passage; 3d, the mortality in the islands where they are employed; 4th, the influence of the heathen coolies in demoralizing the emancipated blacks among whom they are intermingled. These points demand serious consideration by Britons, as well as Americans--by those who would reopen the slave trade, as well as those who would substitute for that traffic the immigration system.
And now, in conclusion, says the planter, I must beg to demur to Britain's claiming a monopoly of all the philanthropy in the world toward the African race; and upon that claim founding another which, if granted, will secure to her the monopoly of all the labor of Africa itself; and I would beg, further, that myself and my fellow planters may be excused, if we cannot see any thing more in all her movements than a determination to have a full supply of cotton, even at the risk of dooming Africa to become one vast slave plantation.
While a faithful view of the plans and expectations of the British, in relation to the production of cotton in Africa, has been presented, it would be doing injustice to the reader not to give a few facts, in closing, which indicate that their success, after all, may not equal their anticipations. The Rev. T. J. Bowen,[45] says of African cotton generally, that "the staple is good, but the yield can not be more than one-fourth of what it was on similar lands in the Southern States;" and of Yoruba, in particular, he says, that "both upland and sea island cotton are planted; but neither produces very well, owing to the extreme and constant heat of the climate." Of this, Mr. Bowen, who is a native of Georgia, must be regarded as a good judge. He spent six years as a missionary of the Baptist Church in exploring the Abbeokuta and Yoruba country. This cause of short crops in Yoruba is evidently incurable. It does not exist in equal force in Liberia and its vicinity. Mr. Bowen says: "The average in the dry season is about 80 degrees at Ijaye, and 82 at Ogbomoshaw, and a few degrees lower during the rains. I have never known the mercury to rise higher than 93 degrees in the shade, at Ijaye. The highest reading at Ogbomoshaw was 97.5." These places are from 100 to 150 miles inland.[46]
Another remark. The confidence with which it is asserted, that immigration is impracticable as a means of obtaining labor, wherever slavery prevails, will remind the reader of another theory to which Englishmen long tried to make us converts: that slave labor is necessarily unprofitable and should be abandoned on economical grounds. Now they are forced to admit that our planters seem to "be made of gold." Perhaps these same planters can use immigrant labor as successfully as slave labor. If necessary, doubtless, they will make the attempt, notwithstanding the opinions entertained beyond the sea.
FOOTNOTES:
[36] See Table VIII, in Appendix.
[37] Compendium of United States Census, 1850.
[38] Mr. C. Buxton, in Edinburgh Review, April, 1859.
[39] Parliamentary Papers, Population Returns for the West Indies, (of course the decrease by manumission is not included.)
[40] Mr. C. Buxton, in Edinburgh Review, April, 1859, from which these extracts are made.
[41] North British Review, August, 1848.
[42] This point will be examined more fully in a subsequent chapter.
[43] Mr. C. Buxton, in Edinburgh Review, April, 1859.
[44] London Economist, Feb. 12, 1859.
[45] See African Repository, October, 1859.
[46] See African Repository, October, 1859.
Chapter XIII
Rationale of the Kansas-Nebraska movement--Western Agriculturists merely Feeders of Slaves--Dry goods and groceries nearly all of Slave labor origin--Value of Imports--How paid for--Planters pay for more than three-fourths--Slavery intermediate between Commerce and Agriculture--Slavery not self-sustaining--Supplies from the North essential to its success--Proximate extent of those supplies--Slavery the central power of the industrial interests depending on Manufactures and Commerce--Abolitionism contributing to this result--Protection prostrate--Free Trade dominant--The South triumphant--Country ambitious of territorial aggrandizement--The world's peace disturbed--our policy needs modifying to meet contingencies--Defeat of Mr. Clay--War with Mexico--Results unfavorable to renewal of Protective policy--Dominant political party at the North gives its adhesion to Free Trade--Leading Abolition paper does the same--Ditches on the wrong side of breastworks--Inconsistency--Free Trade the main element in extending Slavery--Abolition United States Senators' voting with the South--North thus shorn of its power--Home Market supplied by Slavery--People acquiesce--Despotism and Freedom--Preservation of the Union paramount--Colored people must wait a little--Slavery triumphant--People at large powerless--Necessity of severing the Slavery question from politics--Colonization the only hope--Abolitionism prostrate--Admissions on this point, by Parker, Sumner, Campbell--Other dangers to be averted--Election of Speaker Banks a Free Trade triumph--Neutrality necessary--Liberia the colored man's hope.
FROM what has been said, the dullest intellect can not fail, now, to perceive the rationale of the Kansas-Nebraska movement. The political influence which these Territories will give to the South, if secured, will be of the first importance to perfect its arrangements for future slavery extension--whether by divisions of the larger States and Territories, now secured to the institution, its extension into territory hitherto considered free, or the acquisition of new territory to be devoted to the system, so as to preserve the balance of power in Congress. When this is done, Kansas and Nebraska, like Kentucky and Missouri, will be of little consequence to slaveholders, compared with the cheap and constant supply of provisions they can yield. Nothing, therefore, will so exactly coincide with Southern interests, as a rapid emigration of freemen into these new Territories. White free labor, doubly productive over slave labor in grain-growing, must be multiplied within their limits, that the cost of provisions may be reduced and the extension of slavery and the growth of cotton suffer no interruption. The present efforts to plant them with slavery, are indispensable to produce sufficient excitement to fill them speedily with a free population; and if this whole movement has been a Southern scheme to cheapen provisions, and increase the ratio of the production of sugar and cotton, as it most unquestionably will do, it surpasses the statesman-like strategy which forced the people into an acquiescence in the annexation of Texas.
And should the anti-slavery voters succeed in gaining the political ascendency in these Territories, and bring them as free States triumphantly into the Union; what can they do, but turn in, as all the rest of the Western States have done, and help to feed slaves, or those who manufacture or who sell the products of the labor of slaves. There is no other resource left, either to them or to the older free States, without an entire change in almost every branch of business and of domestic economy. Reader, look at your bills of dry goods for the year, and what do they contain? At least three-fourths of the amount are French, English, or American cotton fabrics, woven from slave labor cotton. Look at your bills for groceries, and what do they contain? Coffee, sugar, molasses, rice--from Brazil, Cuba, Louisiana, Carolina; while only a mere fraction of them are from free labor countries. As now employed, our dry goods' merchants and grocers constitute an immense army of agents for the sale of fabrics and products coming, directly or indirectly, from the hand of the slave; and all the remaining portion of the people, free colored, as well as white, are exerting themselves, according to their various capacities, to gain the means of purchasing the greatest possible amount of these commodities. Nor can the country, at present, by any possibility, pay the amount of foreign goods consumed, but by the labor of the slaves of the planting States. This can not be doubted for a moment. Here is the proof:
Commerce supplied us, in 1853, with foreign articles, for consumption, to the value of $250,420,187, and accepted, in exchange, of our provisions, to the value of but $33,809,126; while the products of our slave labor, manufactured and unmanufactured, paid to the amount of $133,648,603, on the balance of this foreign debt. This, then, is the measure of the ability of the Farmers and Planters, respectively, to meet the payment of the necessaries and comforts of life, supplied to the country by its foreign commerce. The farmer pays, or seems only to pay, $33,800,000, while the planter has a broad credit, on the account, of $133,600,000.
This was true in 1853: is it so in 1859? The amounts are not now the same, but the proportions have not varied materially. Reference to Table VIII, in the Appendix, will show, that while the provisions exported, for the three years preceding 1859, amounted to a yearly average of $67,512,812, the value of the cotton and tobacco exported, during the same period, amounted to an annual average of $147,079,647.
But is this seeming productiveness of slavery real, or is it only imaginary? Has the system such capacities, over the other industrial interests of the nation, in the creation of wealth, as these figures indicate? Or, are these results due to its intermediate position between the agriculture of the country and its foreign commerce? These are questions worthy of consideration. Were the planters left to grow their own provisions, they would, as already intimated, be unable to produce any cotton for export. That their present ability to export so extensively, is in consequence of the aid they receive from the North, is proved by facts such as these:
In 1820, the cotton-gin had been a quarter of a century in operation, and the culture of cotton was then nearly as well understood as at present. The North, though furnishing the South with some live stock, had scarcely begun to supply it with provisions, and the planters had to grow the food, and manufacture much of the clothing for their slaves. In that year the cotton crop equaled 109 lbs. to each slave in the Union, of which 83 lbs. per slave were exported. In 1830 the exports of the article had risen to 143 lbs., in 1840 to 295 lbs., and in 1853 to 337 lbs. per slave. The total cotton crop of 1853 equaled 395 lbs. per slave--making both the production and export of that staple, in 1853, more than four times as large, in proportion to the slave population, as they were in 1820.[47] Had the planters, in 1853, been able to produce no more cotton, per slave, than in 1820, they would have grown but 359,308,472 lbs., instead of the actual crop of 1,305,152,800 lbs.; and would not only have failed to supply any for export, but have barely supplied the home demand, and been minus the total crop of that year, by 945,844,328 lbs.
In this estimate, some allowance, perhaps, should be made, for the greater fertility of the new lands, more recently brought under cultivation; but the difference, on this account, can not be equal to the difference in the crops of the several periods, as the lands, in the older States, in 1820, were yet comparatively fresh and productive.
Again, the dependence of the South upon the North, for its provisions, may be inferred from such additional facts as these: The "Abstract of the Census," for 1850, shows, that the production of wheat, in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas, averaged, the year preceding, very little more than a peck, (it was 27/100 of a bushel,) to each person within their limits. These States must purchase flour largely, but to what amount we can not determine. The shipments of provisions from Cincinnati to New Orleans and other down river ports, show that large supplies leave that city for the South; but what proportion of them is taken for consumption by the planters, must be left, at present, to conjecture. These shipments, as to a few of the prominent articles, for the four years ending August 31, 1854, averaged annually the following amounts:
Wheat flour brls. 385,204 Pork and Bacon lbs. 43,689,000 Whisky gals. 8,115,360
Cincinnati also exports eastward, by canal, river and railroad, large amounts of these productions. The towns and cities westward send more of their products to the South, as their distance increases the cost of transportation to the East. But, in the absence of full statistics, it is not necessary to make additional statements.
From this view of the subject, it appears that slavery is not a self-sustaining system, independently remunerative; but that it attains its importance to the nation and to the world, by standing as an agency, intermediate, between the grain-growing States and our foreign commerce. As the distillers of the West transformed the surplus grain into whisky, that it might bear transport, so slavery takes the products of the North, and metamorphoses them into cotton, that they may bear export.
It seems, indeed, when the whole of the facts brought to view are considered, that American slavery, though of little force unaided, yet properly sustained, is the great central power, or energizing influence, not only of nearly all the industrial interests of our own country, but also of those of Great Britain and much of the Continent; and that, if stricken from existence, the whole of these interests, with the advancing civilization of the age, would receive a shock that must retard their progress for years to come.
This is no exaggerated picture of the present imposing power of slavery. It is literally true. Southern men, at an early day, believed that the Protective Tariff would have paralyzed it--would have destroyed it. But the abolitionists, led off by their sympathies with England, and influenced by American politicians and editors, who advocated free trade, were made the instruments of its overthrow. No such extended mining and manufacturing, as the Protective system was expected to create, has now any existence in the Union. Under it, according to the theory of its friends, more than one hundred and sixty millions in value, of the foreign imports for 1853, would have been produced in our own country. But free trade is dominant: the South has triumphed in its warfare with the North: the political power passed into its hands with the defeat of the Father of the Protective Tariff, ten years since, in the last effort of his friends to elevate him to the Presidency: the slaveholding and commercial interests then gained the ascendency, and secured the power of annexing territory at will: the nation has become rich in commerce, and unbounded in ambition for territorial aggrandizement: the people acquiesce in the measures of Government, and are proud of the influence it has gained in the world: nay, more, the peaceful aspect of the nations has been changed, and the policy of our own country must be modified to meet the exigencies that may arise.
One word more on the point we have been considering. With the defeat of Mr. Clay, came the immediate annexation of Texas, and, as he predicted, the war with Mexico. The results of these events let loose from its attachments a mighty avalanche of emigration and of enterprise, under the rule of the free trade policy, then adopted, which, by the golden treasures it yields, renders that system, thus far, self-sustaining, and able to move on, as its friends believe, with a momentum that forbids any attempt to return again to the system of protection. Whether the Tariff controversy is permanently settled, or not, is a question about which we shall not speculate. It may be remarked, however, that one of the leading parties in the North gave its adhesion to free trade many years since, and still continues to vote with the South. The leading abolition paper, too, ever since its origin, has advocated the Southern free trade system; and thus, in defending the cause it has espoused, as was said of a certain general in the Mexican war, its editors have been digging their ditches on the wrong side of their breastworks. To say the least, their position is a very strange one, for men who profess to labor for the subversion of American slavery. It would be as rational to pour oil upon a burning edifice, to extinguish the fire, as to attempt to overthrow that system under the rule of free trade. For, whatever differences of opinion may exist on the question of free trade, as applied to the nations at large, there can be no question that it has been the main element in promoting the value of slave labor in the United States; and, consequently, of extending the system of slavery, vastly, beyond the bounds it would otherwise have reached. But the editors referred to, do not stand alone. More than one United States Senator, after acquiring notoriety and position by constant clamors against slavery at home, has not hesitated to vote for free trade at Washington, with as hearty a good will as any friend of the extension of slavery in the country!
All these things together have paralyzed the advocates of the protection of free labor, at present, as fully as the North has thereby been shorn of its power to control the question of slavery. Indeed, from what has been said of the present position of American slavery, in its relation to the other industrial interests of the country, and of the world, there is no longer any doubt that it now supplies the complement of that home market, so zealously urged as essential to the prosperity of the agricultural population of the country: and which, it was supposed, could only be created by the multiplication of domestic manufactures. This desideratum being gained, the great majority of the people have nothing more to ask, but seem desirous that our foreign commerce shall be cherished; that the cultivation of cotton and sugar shall be extended; that the nation shall become cumulative as well as progressive; that, as despotism is striving to spread its raven wing over the earth, freedom must strengthen itself for the protection of the liberties of the world; that while three millions of Africans, only, are held to involuntary servitude for a time, to sustain the system of free trade, the freedom of hundreds of millions is involved in the preservation of the American Constitution; and that, as African emancipation, in every experiment made, has thrown a dead weight upon Anglo-Saxon progress, the colored people must wait a little, until the general battle for the liberties of the civilized nations is gained, before the universal elevation of the barbarous tribes can be achieved. This work, it is true, has been commenced at various outposts in heathendom, by the missionary, but is impeded by numberless hindrances; and these obstacles to the progress of Christian civilization, doubtless will continue, until the friends of civil and religious liberty shall triumph in nominally Christian countries; and, with the wealth of the nations at command, instead of applying it to purposes of war, shall devote it to sweeping away the darkness of superstition and barbarism from the earth, by extending the knowledge of science and revelation to all the families of man.
But we must hasten.
There are none who will deny the truth of what is said of the present strength and influence of slavery, however much they may have deprecated its acquisition of power. There are none who think it practicable to assail it, successfully, by political action, in the States where it is already established by law. The struggle against the system, therefore, is narrowed down to an effort to prevent its extension into territory now free; and this contest is limited to the people who settle the territories. The question is thus taken out of the hands of the people at large, and they are cut off from all control of slavery both in the States and Territories. Hence it is, that the American people are considering the propriety of banishing this distracting question from national politics, and demanding of their statesmen that there shall no longer be any delay in the adoption of measures to sustain the Constitution and laws of our glorious Union, against all its enemies, whether domestic or foreign.
The policy of adopting this course, may be liable to objection; but it does not appear to arise from any disposition to prove recreant to the cause of philanthropy, that a large portion of the people of the free States are desirous of divorcing the slavery question from all connection with political movements. It is because they now find themselves wholly powerless, as did the colonizationists, forty years since, in regard to emancipation, and are thus forced into a position of neutrality on that subject.
A word on this point. The friends of colonization, in the outset of that enterprise, found themselves shut up to the necessity of creating a Republic on the shores of Africa, as the only hope for the free colored people--the further emancipation of the slaves, by State action, having become impracticable. After nearly forty years of experimenting with the free colored people, by others, colonizationists still find themselves circumscribed in their operations, to their original design of building up the Republic of Liberia, as the only rational hope of the elevation of the African race--the prospects of general emancipation being a thousand-fold more gloomy in 1859 than they were in 1817.
Abolitionists, themselves, now admit that slavery completely controls all national legislation. This is equivalent to admitting that all their schemes for its overthrow have failed. Theodore Parker, of Boston, in a sermon before his congregation, recently, is reported as having made the following declaration: "I have been preaching to you in this city for ten years; and beside the multitudes addressed here, I have addressed a hundred thousand annually in excursions through the country; and in that time the area of slavery has increased a hundred fold." Gerrit Smith, in his late speech in Congress, said, that cotton is now the dominant interest of the country, and sways Church, and State, and commerce, and compels all of them to go for slavery. Mr. Sumner, in his thrice repeated lecture, in New York, in May, 1855, declared, that, "notwithstanding all its excess of numbers, wealth, and intelligence, the North is now the vassal of an oligarchy, whose single inspiration comes from slavery." . . . . . It "now dominates over the Republic, determines its national policy, disposes of its offices, and sways all to its absolute will." . . . . "In maintaining its power, the slave oligarchy has applied a new test for office"--. . . . "Is he faithful to slavery?" . . . . "With arrogant ostracism, it excludes from every national office all who can not respond to this test." Hon. L. D. Campbell, in a letter to the Cincinnati Convention of Colored Freemen, January 5, 1852, said: "I regard the present position of your race in this country as infinitely worse than it was ten years ago. The States which were then preparing for gradual emancipation, are now endeavoring to extend, perpetuate, and strengthen slavery! . . . . A vast amount of territory which was then free is now everlastingly dedicated to slavery. . . . . From the lights of the past, I confess, I see nothing to justify a promise of much to your future prospects."
That these gentlemen state a great truth, as to the present position of the slavery question, and the darkening prospects of emancipation, will be denied by no man of intelligence and candor. Doubtless, a certain class of politicians, because of the present dearth of political capital, of any other kind, will continue to agitate this subject. But, sooner or later, it must take the form we have stated, and become a question of minor importance in politics. This result is inevitable, because the people at large are beginning to realize their want of power over the institution of slavery, and the futility of any measures hitherto adopted to arrest its progress, and elevate the free colored people on terms of equality among the whites.
But, I am told that the North has recently achieved a great victory over the South, in the election of Mr. Banks, as Speaker.[48] Time was when such a result would have been considered far otherwise than a Northern triumph. Mr. Banks is an ultra free trade man, and his sentiments will assuredly work no ill to the commercial interests of the South. His election provoked no threats of secession. What, then, has been gained to the North, in the wild excitement consequent upon the controversy relative to the Speakership? The opponents of slavery are further than ever from accomplishing any thing practicable in checking the demand for the great staple of the South. Cotton is King still.
In such a crisis as this, shall the friends of the Union be rebuked, if they determine to take a position of neutrality, in politics, on the subject of slavery; while, at the same time, they offer to guarantee the free colored people a Republic of their own, where they may equal other races, and aid in redeeming a Continent from the woes it has suffered for thousands of years!
FOOTNOTES:
[47] The progressive increase is indicated by the following figures:
=1820.= =1830.= =1840.= =1853.= Total slaves in United States, 1,538,098 2,009,043 2,487,356 3,296,408 Cotton exported, lbs., 127,800,000 298,459,102 743,941,061 1,111,570,370 Average export to each slave, lbs., 83 143 295 337
[48] The remarks in this chapter remain as they were in the first edition.
Chapter XIV
THE INDUSTRIAL, SOCIAL, AND MORAL CONDITION OF THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR IN THE BRITISH COLONIES, HAYTI, AND IN THE UNITED STATES; AND THE INFLUENCE THEY HAVE EXERTED ON PUBLIC SENTIMENT IN RELATION TO SLAVERY, AND TO THEIR OWN PROSPECTS OF EQUALITY WITH THE WHITES.
Effects of opposition to Colonization on Liberia--Its effects on free colored people--Their social and moral condition--Abolition testimony on the subject--American Missionary Association--Its failure in Canada--Degradation of West India free colored people--American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society--Its testimony on the dismal condition of West India free negroes--London Times on same subject--Mr. Bigelow on same subject--Effect of results in West Indies on Emancipation--Opinion of Southern Planters--Economical failure of West India Emancipation--Ruinous to British Commerce--Similar results in Hayti--Extent of diminution of exports from West Indies resulting from Emancipation--Results favorable to American Planter--Moral condition of Hayti--Later facts in reference to the West Indies--Negro free labor a failure--Necessity of education to render freedom of value--Franklin's opinion confirmed--Colonization essential to promote Emancipation.
We have noticed the social and moral condition of the free colored people, from the days of Franklin, to the projection of colonization. We have also glanced at the main facts in relation to the abolition warfare upon colonization, and its success in paralyzing the enterprise. This subject demands a more extended notice. The most serious injury from this hostility, sustained by the cause of colonization, was the prejudice created, in the minds of the more intelligent free colored men, against emigration to Liberia. The Colonization Society had expressed its belief in the natural equality of the blacks and whites; and that there were a sufficient number of educated, upright, free colored men, in the United States, to establish and sustain a Republic on the coast of Africa, "whose citizens, rising rapidly in the scale of existence, under the stimulants to noble effort by which they would be surrounded, might soon become equal to the people of Europe, or of European origin--so long their masters and oppressors." These were the sentiments of the first Report of the Colonization Society, and often repeated since. Its appeals were made to the moral and intelligent of the free colored people; and, with their co-operation, the success of its scheme was considered certain. But the very persons needed to lead the enterprise, were, mostly, persuaded to reject the proffered aid, and the society was left to prosecute its plans with such materials as offered. In consequence of this opposition, it was greatly embarrassed, and made less progress in its work of African redemption, than it must have done under other circumstances. Had three-fourths of its emigrants been the enlightened, free colored men of the country, a dozen Liberias might now gird the coast of Africa, where but one exists; and the slave trader be entirely excluded from its shores. Doubtless, a wise Providence has governed here, as in other human affairs, and may have permitted this result, to show how speedily even semi-civilized men can be elevated under American Protestant free institutions. The great body of emigrants to Liberia, and nearly all the leading men who have sprung up in the colony, and contributed most to the formation of the Republic, went out from the very midst of slavery; and yet, what encouraging results! It has been a sad mistake to oppose colonization, and thus to retard Africa's redemption!
But how has it fared with the free colored people elsewhere? The answer to this question will be the solution of the inquiry, What has abolitionism accomplished by its hostility to colonization, and what is the condition of the free colored people, whose interests it volunteered to promote, and whose destinies it attempted to control?
The abolitionists themselves shall answer this question. The colored people shall see what kind of commendations their tutors give them, and what the world is to think of them, on the testimony of their particular friends.
The concentration of a colored population in Canada, is the work of American abolitionists. The American Missionary Association, is their organ for the spread of a gospel untainted, it is claimed, by contact with slavery. Out of four stations under its care in Canada, at the opening of 1853, but one school, that of Miss Lyon, remained at its close. All the others were abandoned, and all the missionaries had asked to be released,[49] as we are informed by its Seventh Annual Report, chiefly for the reasons stated in the following extract, page 49:
"The number of missionaries and teachers in Canada, with which the year commenced, has been greatly reduced. Early in the year, Mr. Kirkland wrote to the committee, that the opposition to white missionaries, manifested by the colored people of Canada, had so greatly increased, by the interested misrepresentations of ignorant colored men, pretending to be ministers of the gospel, that he thought his own and his wife's labors, and the funds of the association, could be better employed elsewhere."
This Mission seems never to have been in a prosperous condition. Passing over to the Eleventh Annual Report, 1857, it is found that the Association had then but one missionary, the Rev. David Hotchkiss, in that field. In relation to his prospects, the Report says:
"It has, however, happened to him, as it frequently did to Paul and his fellow-laborers, that his faithfulness and his success have been the occasion of stirring up certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, so that at one time it was thought by some lookers-on that his life was in danger, and that he might be compelled to leave the scene of his present labors." He had succeeded, however, in gathering a church of 28 members, but "on the 21st of June, the house in which the little church worshiped was burned to the ground. This was undoubtedly the work of an incendiary, as there had been no fire in it for more than two weeks. Threats now were freely used against Mr. Hotchkiss and the church, but he continued his labors, and procured another house, and had it fitted up for worship. On the 24th of August, this also was burned down. They have since had to meet in private houses, and much doubt has been felt relative to ultimate duty. At later dates, however, the opposition was more quiet, and hopes revived. This field is emphatically a hard one, and requires much faith and patience from those who labor there."[50]
On the 30th of August, 1858, Mr. Hotchkiss writes: "My wife's school is in a prosperous condition. She has had nearly forty scholars, and they learn well. There are numbers who can not come to school for want of suitable clothing. They are nearly naked."[51]
On a late occasion it is remarked, that "this society seems to meet with the trouble which accompanies the efforts of other missionary societies in their endeavors to 'to seek and to save that which was lost.' They say they find it 'extremely difficult to win the confidence of the colored people of Canada.'"[52]
But we have a picture of a different kind to present, and one that proves the capacity of the free colored people for improvement--not when running at large and uncared for, but when subjected to wholesome restraint. This is as essential to the progress of the blacks as the whites, while they are in the course of intellectual, moral and industrial training:
"Some years ago the Rev. William King, a slave owner in Louisiana, manumitted his slaves and removed them to Canada. They now, with others, occupy a tract of land at Buxton and the vicinity, called the Elgin Block, where Mr. King is stationed as a Presbyterian missionary.
"A recent general meeting there was attended by Lord Althorp, son of Earl Spencer, and J. W. Probyn, Esq., both members of the British Parliament, who made addresses. The whole educational and moral machinery is worked by the presiding genius of the Rev. W. King, to whom the entire settlement are under felt and acknowledged obligations. He teaches them agriculture and industry. He superintends their education, and preaches on the Lord's day. He regards the experiment as highly successful."[53]
It is not our purpose to multiply testimony on this subject, but simply to afford an index to the condition of the colored people, as described by abolition pens, best known to the public. We turn, therefore, from the British colonies in the North, to her possessions in the Tropics.
West India emancipation, under the guidance of English abolitionists, has always been viewed as the grand experiment, which was to convince the world of the capacity of the colored man to rise, side by side, with the white man. We shall let the friends of the system, and the public documents of the British Government, testify as to its results, both morally and economically. Opening, again, the Seventh Annual Report of the American Missionary Association, page 30, where it speaks of their moral condition, we find it written:
"One of our missionaries, in giving a description of the moral condition of the people of Jamaica, after speaking of the licentiousness which they received as a legacy from those who denied them the pure joys of holy wedlock, and trampled upon and scourged chastity, as if it were a fiend to be driven out from among men--that enduring legacy, which, with its foul, pestilential influence, still blights, like the mildew of death, every thing in society that should be lovely, virtuous, and of good report; and alluding to their intemperance, in which they have followed the example set by the governor in his palace, the bishop in his robes, statesmen and judges, lawyers and doctors, planters and overseers, and even professedly Christian ministers; and the deceit and falsehood which oppression and wrong always engender, says: 'It must not be forgotten that we are following in the wake of the accursed system of slavery--a system that unmakes man, by warring upon his conscience, and crushing his spirit, leaving naught but the shattered wrecks of humanity behind it. If we may but gather up some of these floating fragments, from which the image of God is well nigh effaced, and pilot them safely into that better land, we shall not have labored in vain. But we may hope to do more. The chief fruit of our labors is to be sought in the future, rather than in the present.' It should be remembered, too, (continues the Report,) that there is but a small part of the population yet brought within the reach of the influence of enlightened Christian teachers, while the great mass by whom they are surrounded are but little removed from actual heathenism." Another missionary, page 33, says, it is the opinion of all intelligent Christian men, that "nothing save the furnishing of the people with ample means of education and religious instruction will save them from relapsing into a state of barbarism." And another, page 36, in speaking of certain cases of discipline, for the highest form of crime, under the seventh commandment, says: "There is nothing in public sentiment to save the youth of Jamaica in this respect."
The missions of this Association, in Jamaica, differ scarcely a shade from those among the actual heathen. On this point, the Report, near its close, says:
"For most of the adult population of Jamaica, the unhappy victims of long years of oppression and degradation, our missionaries have great fear. Yet for even these there may be hope, even though with trembling. But it is around the youth of the island that their brightest hopes and anticipations cluster; from them they expect to gather their principal sheaves for the great Lord of the harvest."
The American Missionary, a monthly paper, and organ of this Association, for July, 1855, has the following quotation from the letters of the missionaries, recently received. It is given, as abolition testimony, in further confirmation of the moral condition of the colored people of Jamaica:
"From the number of churches and chapels in the island, Jamaica ought certainly to be called a Christian land. The people may be called a church-going people. There are chapels and places of worship enough, at least in this part of the island, to supply the people if every station of our mission were given up. And there is no lack of ministers and preachers. As far as I am acquainted, almost the entire adult population profess to have a hope of eternal life, and I think the larger part are connected with churches. In view of such facts some have been led to say, 'The spiritual condition of the population is very satisfactory.' But there is another class of facts that is perfectly astounding. With all this array of the externals of religion, one broad, deep wave of moral death rolls over the land. A man may be a drunkard, a liar, a Sabbath-breaker, a profane man, a fornicator, an adulterer, and such like--and be known to be such--and go to chapel, and hold up his head there, and feel no disgrace from these things, because they are so common as to create a public sentiment in his favor. He may go to the communion table, and cherish a hope of heaven, and not have his hope disturbed. I might tell of persons guilty of some, if not all, these things, ministering in holy things."
What motives can prompt the American Missionary Association to cast such imputations upon the missions of the English and Scotch Churches, in Jamaica, we leave to be determined by the parties interested. Few, indeed, will believe that the English and Scotch Churches would, for a moment, tolerate such a condition of things, in their mission stations, as is here represented.
Next we turn to the Annual Report of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1853, which discourses thus, in its own language, and in quotations which it indorses:[54]
"The friends of emancipation in the United States have been disappointed in some respects at the results in the West Indies, because they expected too much. A nation of slaves can not at once be converted into a nation of intelligent, industrious, and moral freemen." . . . . "It is not too much, even now, to say of the people of Jamaica, . . . . their condition is exceedingly degraded, their morals woefully corrupt. But this must, by no means, be understood to be of universal application. With respect to those who have been brought under a healthful educational and religious influence, it is not true. But as respects the great mass, whose humanity has been ground out of them by cruel oppression--whom no good Samaritan hand has yet reached--how could it be otherwise? We wish to turn the tables; to supplant oppression by righteousness, insult by compassion and brotherly kindness, hatred and contempt by love and winning meekness, till we allure these wretched ones to the hope and enjoyment of manhood and virtue."[55] . . . . "The means of education and religious instruction are better enjoyed, although but little appreciated and improved by the great mass of the people. It is also true, that the moral sense of the people is becoming somewhat enlightened. . . . . But while this is true, yet their moral condition is very far from being what it ought to be. . . . . It is exceedingly dark and distressing. Licentiousness prevails to a most alarming extent among the people. . . . . The almost universal prevalence of intemperance is another prolific source of the moral darkness and degradation of the people. The great mass, among all classes of the inhabitants, from the governor in his palace to the peasant in his hut--from the bishop in his gown to the beggar in his rags--are all slaves to their cups."[56]
This is the language of American abolitionists, going out under the sanction of their Annual Reports. Lest it may be considered as too highly colored, we add the following from the London Times, of near the same date. In speaking of the results of emancipation, in Jamaica, it says:
"The negro has not acquired, with his freedom, any habits of industry or morality. His independence is but little better than that of an uncaptured brute. Having accepted few of the restraints of civilization, he is amenable to few of its necessities; and the wants of his nature are so easily satisfied, that at the present rate of wages, he is called upon for nothing but fitful or desultory exertion. The blacks, therefore, instead of becoming intelligent husbandmen, have become vagrants and squatters, and it is now apprehended that with the failure of cultivation in the island will come the failure of its resources for instructing or controlling its population. So imminent does this consummation appear, that memorials have been signed by classes of colonial society hitherto standing aloof from politics, and not only the bench and the bar, but the bishop, clergy, and ministers of all denominations in the island, without exception, have recorded their conviction, that, in the absence of timely relief, the religious and educational institutions of the island must be abandoned, and the masses of the population retrogade to barbarism."
One of the editors of the New York Evening Post, Mr. Bigelow, a few years since, spent a winter in Jamaica, and continues to watch, with anxious solicitude, as an anti-slavery man, the developments taking place among its colored population. In reviewing the returns published by the Jamaica House of Assembly, in 1853, in reference to the ruinous decline in the agriculture of the island, and stating the enormous quantity of lands thrown out of cultivation, since 1848, the Post says:
"This decline has been going on from year to year, daily becoming more alarming, until at length the island has reached what would appear to be the last profound of distress and misery, . . . . when thousands of people do not know, when they rise in the morning, whence or in what manner they are to procure bread for the day."
We must examine, more closely, the economical results of emancipation, in the West Indies, before we can judge of the effects, upon the trade and commerce of the world, which would result from general emancipation in the United States. We do this, not to afford an argument in behalf of the perpetuation of slavery, because its abolition might injuriously affect the interests of trade and commerce; but because the whole of these results have long been well known to the American planter, and serve as conclusive arguments, with him, against emancipation. He believes that, in tropical cultivation, African free labor is worthless; that the liberation of the slaves in this country, must, necessarily, be followed with results similar to what has occurred in the West Indies; and, for this reason, as well as on account of the profitable character of slavery, he refuses to give freedom to his slaves. We repeat, we do not cite the fact of the failure, economically, of free labor in Jamaica, as an argument for the perpetuation of slavery. Not at all. We allude to the fact, only to show that emancipation has greatly reduced the commerce of the colonies, and that the logic of this result militates against the colored man's prospects of advancement in the scale of political and social equality. But to the facts:
The British planters, up to 1806, had received from the slave traders an uninterrupted supply of laborers, and had rapidly extended their cultivation as commerce increased its demands for their products. Let us take the results in Jamaica as an example of the whole of the British West India islands. She had increased her exports of sugar from a yearly average of 123,979,000 lbs. in 1772-3, to 234,700,000 lbs. in 1805-6. No diminution of exports had occurred, as has been asserted by some anti-slavery writers, before the prohibition of the slave trade. The increase was progressive and undisturbed, except so far as affected by seasons, more or less favorable. But no sooner was her supply of slaves cut off, by the act of 1806, which took effect in 1808, than the exports of Jamaica began to diminish, until her sugar had fallen off from 1822 to 1832, to an annual average of 131,129,000 lbs., or nearly to what they had been sixty years before. It was not until 1833 that the Emancipation Act was passed; so that this decline in the exports of Jamaica, took place under all the rigors of West India slavery. The exports of rum, coffee, and cotton, were diminished in nearly the same ratio.
To arrest this ruinous decline in the commercial prosperity of the islands, emancipation was adopted in 1833 and perfected in 1838. This policy was pursued under the plea, that free labor is doubly as productive as slave labor; and, that the negroes, liberated, would labor twice as well as when enslaved. But what was the result? Ten years after final emancipation was effected, the exports of sugar from Jamaica were only 67,539,200 lbs. a year, instead of 234,700,000 lbs., as in 1805-6. The exports of coffee, during the same year, were reduced to 5,684,921 lbs., instead of 23,625,377 lbs., as in 1805-6; and the extinction of the cultivation of cotton, for export, had become almost complete, though in 1800, it had nearly equaled that of the United States. These are no fancy sketches, drawn for effect, but sober realities, attested by the public documents of the British government.[57] The Jamaica negro, ignorant and destitute of forethought, disappointed the English philanthropists.
In Hayti, emancipation had been productive of results, fully as disastrous to its commerce, as it had been to that of Jamaica. There was an almost total abandonment of the production of sugar, soon after freedom was declared. This took place in 1793. In 1790 the island exported 163,318,810 lbs. of sugar. But in 1801 its export was reduced to 18,534,112 lbs., in 1818, to 5,443,765 lbs., and in 1825 to 2,020 lbs.;[58] since which time its export has nearly ceased. Indeed, it is asserted, that, "at this moment there is not one pound of sugar exported from the island, and all that is used is imported from the United States."[59]
The exports of coffee, from Hayti, in 1790, were 76,835,219 lbs.; and of cotton, 7,004,274 lbs. But the exports of the former article, in 1801, were reduced to 43,420,270 lbs., and the latter to 474,118 lbs.[60] The exports of coffee have varied, annually, since that period, from thirty to forty million pounds; and the cotton exported has rarely much exceeded one million pounds.[61] At present, "with the exception of Gonaives, there is not a pound of cotton produced, and only a very limited quanity there, barely sufficient for consumption; and instead of exporting indigo, as formerly, they import all they use from the United States."[62]
According to the authorities before cited, the deficit of free labor tropical cultivation, as compared with that of slave labor, while sustained by the slave trade, including the British West Indies and Hayti, stands as follows:--a startling result, truly, to those who expected emancipation to work well for commerce, and supersede the necessity of employing slave labor:
Contrast of Slave Labor and Free Labor Exports from the West Indies.
SLAVE LABOR.
Years. lbs. Sugar. lbs. Coffee. lbs. Cotton. British West Indies, 1807, 636,025,643 31,610,764 17,000,000[63] Hayti, 1790, 163,318,810 76,835,219 7,286,126 ----------- ----------- ---------- Total 809,344,453 108,245,983 24,286,126
FREE LABOR.
Years. lbs. Sugar. lbs. Coffee. lbs. Cotton. British West Indies, 1848, 313,306,112 6,770,792 427,529[64] Hayti 1848, very little. 34,114,717[C] 1,591,454[65] ----------- ---------- --------- Total 313,306,112 40,885,509 2,018,983
Free Labor Deficit 496,038,341 67,360,474 22,267,143
To understand the bearing which this decrease of production, by free labor, has upon the interests of the African race, it must be remembered, that the consumption of cotton and sugar has not diminished, but increased, vastly; and that for every bale of cotton, or hogshead of sugar, that the free labor production is diminished, an equal amount of slave labor cotton and sugar is demanded to supply its place; and, more than this, for every additional bale or hogshead required by their increased consumption, an additional one must be furnished by slave labor, because the world will not dispense with their use. As no material change has occurred, for several years, in the commercial condition of the islands, it is not necessary to bring this statement down to a later date than 1848. The causes operating to encourage the American planters, in extending their cultivation of cotton and sugar, can now be understood.
In relation to the moral condition of Hayti, we need say but little. It is known that a great majority of the children of the island are born out of wedlock, and that the Christian Sabbath is the principal market day in the towns. The American and Foreign Christian Union, a missionary paper of New York, after quoting the report of one of the missionaries in Hayti, who represents his success as encouraging, thus remarks: "This letter closes with some singular incidents not suitable for publication, showing the deplorable state of community there, both morally and socially. There seems to be a mixture of African barbarism with the sensuous civilization of France. . . . . That dark land needs the light which begins to dawn thereon."
Thus matters stood when the second edition of this work went to press. An opportunity is now afforded, of embracing the results of emancipation to a later date, and of forming a better judgment of the effects of that policy on the question of freedom in the United States. For, if the negro, with full liberty, in the West Indies, has proved himself unreliable in voluntary labor, the experiment of freeing him here will not be attempted by our slaveholders.
Much has been said, recently, about British emancipation, and the returning commercial prosperity of her tropical islands. The American Missionary Association[66] gives currency to the assertion, that "they yield more produce than they ever did during the existence of slavery." It is said, also, in the Edinburgh Review, that existing facts "show that slavery was bearing our colonies down to ruin with awful speed; that had it lasted but another half century, they must have sunk beyond recovery. On the other hand, that now, under freedom and free trade, they are growing day by day more rich and prosperous; with spreading trade, with improving agriculture, with a more educated, industrious and virtuous people; while the comfort of the quondam slaves is increased beyond the power of words to portray."[67]
Now all this seems very encouraging; but how such language can be used, without its being considered as flatly contradicting well known facts, and what the American Missionary Association, Mr. Bigelow, and others, have heretofore said, will seem very mysterious to the reader. And yet, the assertions quoted would seem to be proved, by taking the aggregate production of the whole British West India islands and Mauritius, as the index to their commercial prosperity. But if the islands be taken separately, and all the facts considered, a widely different conclusion would be formed, by every candid man, than that the improvement is due to the increased industry of the negroes. On this subject the facts can be drawn from authorities which would scorn to conceal the truth with the design of sustaining a theory of the philanthropist. This question is placed in its true light by the London Economist, July 16, 1859, in which it is shown that the apparent industrial advancement of the islands is due to the importation of immigrants from India, China, and Africa, by the "coolie traffic," and not to the improved industry of the emancipated negroes. Says the Economist:
"We find one of the Emigration Commissioners, Mr. Murdock,[68] in an interesting memorandum on this subject, giving us the following comparison between the islands which have been recently supplied with immigrants, and those which have not:
_Sugar, pounds. The _Sugar, pounds. _Number of three years before the last three Immigrants. Immigration. years._ Mauritius 209,490 217,200,256 469,812,784 British Guiana 24,946 173,626,208 250,715,584 Trinidad 11,981 91,110,768 150,579,072
"With these are contrasted the results in Jamaica and Antigua, where there has been very little immigration:--
_Sugar, pounds. _Sugar, pounds. The last The three years after three years._ apprenticeship._[69] Jamaica 202,973,568 139,369,776 Antigua 63,824,656 70,302,736
Here, now, is presented the key to the mystery overhanging the British West Indies. Men, high in station, have asserted that West India emancipation has been an economic success; while others, equally honorable, have maintained the opposite view. Both have presented figures, averred to be true, that seemed to sustain their declarations. This apparent contradiction is thus explained. The first take the aggregate production in the whole of the islands, which, they say, exceeds that during the existence of slavery;[70] the second take the production in Jamaica alone, as representing the whole; and, thus, the startling fact appears, that the sugar crop of the last three years in Jamaica, has fallen 63,603,000 lbs., below what it was during the first three years of freedom. This argues badly for the free negroes; but it must be the legitimate fruits of emancipation, as no exterior force has been brought into that island to interfere, materially, with its workings. In Mauritius, Trinidad, and British Guiana, it will be seen that the production has greatly increased; but from a very different cause than any improvement in the industry of the blacks who had received their freedom--the increase in Mauritius having been more than double what it had been when the production depended upon them. The sugar crop, in this island, for the three years preceding the introduction of immigrant labor, was but 217,200,000 lbs.; while, during the last three years, by the aid of 210,000 immigrants, it has been run up to 469,812,000 lbs.
Taking all these facts into consideration, it is apparent that West India emancipation has been a failure, economically considered. The production in Jamaica, when it has depended upon the labor of the free blacks alone, has materially declined in some of the islands, since the abandonment of slavery, and is not so great now as it was during the first years of freedom; and, so far is it from being equal to what it was while slavery prevailed, and especially while the slave trade was continued, that it now falls short of the production of that period by an immense amount. In no way, therefore, can it be claimed, that the cultivation of the British West India islands is on the increase, except by resorting to the pious fraud of crediting the products of the immigrant labor to the account of emancipation--a resort to which no conscientious Christian man will have recourse, even to sustain a philanthropic theory.
But the Island of Barbadoes is an exception. It is said to have suffered no diminution in its production since emancipation, and that this result was attained without the aid of immigrant labor. The London Economist must be permitted to explain this phenomenon; and must also be allowed to give its views on the subject of the effects of emancipation, after the lapse of a quarter of a century from the date of the passage of the Emancipation Act:
"We are no believers in Mr. Carlyle's gospel of the 'beneficent whip' as the bearer of salvation to tropical indolence. But we can not for a moment doubt that the first result of emancipation was, in most of the islands, to substitute for the worst kind of moral and political evil, one of a less fatal but still of a very pernicious kind. The negroes had been treated as mere machines for raising sugar and coffee. They were suddenly liberated from that mechanical drudgery; they became free beings--but without the discipline needful to use freedom well, and unfortunately with a larger amount of practical freedom than the laboring class of any Northern or temperate climate could by any possibility enjoy. They suddenly found themselves, in most of the islands, in a position in many respects analagous to that of a people possessed of a moderate property in England, who can supply their principal wants without any positive labor, and have no ambition to rise into any higher sphere than that into which they were born. The only difference was, that the negroes in most of the West India islands wanted vastly less than such people as these in civilized States,--wanted nothing in fact, but the plantains they could grow almost without labor, and the huts which they could build on any waste mountain land without paying rent for it. The consequence naturally was, that when the spur of physical tyranny was removed, there was no sufficient substitute for it, in most of the islands, in the wholesome hardships of natural exigencies. The really beneficent 'whip' of hunger and cold was not substituted for the human cruelty from which they had escaped. In Barbadoes alone, perhaps, the pressure of a dense population, with the absence of any waste mountain lands on which the negroes could squat, rent free, was an efficient substitute for the terrors of slavery. And, consequently, in Barbadoes alone, has the Emancipation Act produced unalloyed and conspicuous good. The natural spur of competition for the means of living, took the place there of the artificial spur of slavery, and the slow, indolent temperament of the African race was thus quickened into a voluntary industry essential to its moral discipline, and most favorable to its intellectual culture."
In further commenting on the figures quoted, the Economist remarks:
"These results, do not of course, necessarily represent in any degree the fresh spur to diligence on the part of the old population, caused by the new labor. In islands like Trinidad, where the amount of unredeemed land suited for such production is almost unlimited, the new labor introduced cannot for a long time press on the old labor at all. But wherever the amount of land fitted for this kind of culture is nearly exhausted, the presence of the new competition will soon be felt. And, in any case, it is only through this gradual supply of the labor market that we can hope to bring the wholesome spur of necessity to act eventually on the laboring classes. Englishmen, indeed, may well think that at times the good influences of this competitive jostling for employment are overrated and its evil underrated. But this is far from true of the negro race. To their slow and unambitious temperament, influences of this kind are almost unalloyed good, as the great superiority in the population of Barbadoes to that of the other islands sufficiently shows."
The Economist, in further discussing this question, favors the introduction of a permanent class of laborers, not only that the cultivation may be increased, but because there is "no doubt at all that if a larger supply of labor could be attained in the West Indies, without any very great incidental evils, the benefit experienced even by the planters would be by no means so great as that of the negro population themselves;" and thinks that "the philanthropic party, in their tenderness for the emancipated Africans, are sometimes not a little blind to the advantages of stern industrial necessities;" and that, "what the accident of population and soil has done for Barbadoes, it cannot be doubted that a stream of immigration, if properly conducted, might do in some degree for the other islands."
Lest it should be thought that the Economist stands alone in its representations in relation to the failure of negro free labor in Jamaica, we quote a statement of the Colonial Minister, which recently appeared in the New York Tribune, and was thence transferred to the American Missionary, February, 1859:
"The Colonial Minister says: 'Jamaica is now the only important sugar producing colony which exports a considerable smaller quantity of sugar than was exported in the time of slavery, while some such colonies since the passage of the Emancipation Act have largely increased their product.'"
Time is thus casting light upon the question of the capacity of the African race for voluntary labor. Jamaica included 311,692 negroes, at the time of emancipation, out of the 660,000 who received their freedom in the whole of the West Indian islands. This was but little less than half of the whole number. It was a fair field to test the question of the willingness of the free negro to work. But what is the result? We have it admitted by both the Economist and the Colonial Minister, that there has been a vast falling off in the exports from Jamaica, and that a spur of some kind must be applied to secure their adopting habits of industry. The spur of the "whip" having been thrown away, the remedy proposed is to press them into a corner, by immigration from India and China, so that the securing of bread shall become the great necessity with them, and they be compelled to labor or starve, as has been the case in Barbadoes. This is the opinion of the Economist, always opposed to slavery, but now convinced that the "slow, indolent temperament of the African race" needs such a "spur" to quicken it "into a voluntary industry essential to its moral discipline, and most favorable to its intellectual culture."
The West India emancipation experiments have demonstrated the truth of a few principles that the world should fully understand. It must now be admitted that mere personal liberty, even connected with the stimulus of wages, is insufficient to secure the industry of an ignorant population. It is intelligence, alone, that can be acted upon by such motives. Intelligence, then, must precede voluntary industry. And, hereafter, that man, or nation, may find it difficult to command respect, or succeed in being esteemed wise, who will not, along with exertions to extend personal freedom to man, intimately blend with their efforts adequate means for intellectual and moral improvement. The results of West India emancipation, it must be further noticed, fully confirm the opinions of Franklin, that freedom, to unenlightened slaves, must be accompanied with the means of intellectual and moral elevation, otherwise it may be productive of serious evils to themselves and to society. It also sustains the views entertained by Southern slaveholders, that emancipation, unaccompanied by the colonization of the slaves, could be of little value to the blacks, while it would entail a ruinous burden upon the whites. These facts must not be overlooked in the projection of plans for emancipation, as none can receive the sanction of Southern men, which does not embrace in it the removal of the colored people. With the example of West India emancipation before them, and the results of which have been closely watched by them, it can not be expected that Southern statesmen will ever risk the liberation of their slaves, except on these conditions.
FOOTNOTES:
[49] Mr. Wilson, the Missionary at St. Catharines, still remained there, but not under the care of the Association.
[50] 11th Annual Report, pages 36, 37.
[51] American Missionary, October, 1858.
[52] African Repository, October, 1859.
[53] African Repository, January, 1858.
[54] Page 170.
[55] Extract from the report of a missionary, quoted in the Report, page 172.
[56] Extract from the report of another missionary, page 171, of the Report.
[57] The average exports from the Island of Jamaica, omitting cotton, during the three epochs referred to--that of the slave trade, of slavery alone, and of freedom--for periods of five years, during the first two, and for the three years separately, in the last, will give a full view of this point:
Years of Exports. lbs. Sugar. P. Rum. lbs. Coffee.
Annual average, 1803 to 1807,[A] 211,139,200 50,426 23,625,377 Annual average, 1829 to 1833,[A] 152,564,800 35,505 17,645,602 Annual average, 1839 to 1843,[A] 67,924,800 14,185 7,412,498 Annual exports, 1846,[B] 57,956,800 14,395 6,047,150 Annual exports, 1847,[B] 77,686,400 18,077 6,421,122 Annual exports, 1848.[B] 67,539,200 20,194 5,684,921
[A] Blackwood's Magazine 1848, p. 225.
[B] Littel's Living Age, 1850, No. 309, p. 125.--Letter of Mr. Bigelow.]
[58] Macgregor, London ed., 1847.
[59] De Bow's Review, August, 1855.
[60] Macgregor, London ed., 1847.
[61] Ibid.
[62] De Bow's Review, 1855.
[63] 1800.
[64] 1840.
[65] 1847.
[66] American Missionary Association's Report, 1857, p. 32.
[67] The West Indies as they were and are--Edinburgh Review, April, 1859.--The article said to be by Mr. C. Buxton.
[68] The statement was made at a meeting which met to consider the evils of the Chinese and coolie system of immigration into the West Indies and Mauritius. It is not stated whether the amounts given are the whole production or only the exports.
[69] The reader will remember that the Emancipation Act, of 1833, left the West India blacks in the relation of apprentices to their masters, but that the system worked so badly that total emancipation was declared in 1838.
[70] They must refer to slavery in its later years, after the suppression of the slave trade. Previous to that event, the production of Jamaica was more than seventy-five per cent. greater than at present.
Chapter XV
Moral condition of the free colored people in United States--What have they gained by refusing to accept Colonization?--Abolition testimony on the subject--Gerrit Smith--New York Tribune--Their moral condition as indicated by proportions in Penitentiaries--Census Reports--Native whites, foreign born, and free colored, in Penitentiaries--But little improvement in Massachusetts in seventy years--Contrasts of Ohio with New England--Antagonism of Abolitionism to free negroes.
In turning to the condition of our own free colored people, who rejected homes in Liberia, we approach a most important subject. They have been under the guardianship of their abolition friends, ever since that period, and have cherished feelings of determined hostility to colonization. What have they gained by this hostility? What has been accomplished for them by their abolition friends, or what have they done for themselves? Those who took refuge in Liberia have built up a Republic of their own; and with the view of encouraging them to laudable effort, have been recognized as an independent nation, by five of the great governments of the earth. But what has been the progress of those who remained behind, in the vain hope of rising to an equality with the whites, and of assisting in abolishing American slavery?
We offer no opinion, here, of our own, as to the present social and moral condition of the free colored people in the North. What it was at the time of the founding of Liberia, has already been shown. On this subject we might quote largely from the proceedings of the Conventions of the colored people, and the writings of their editors, so as to produce a dark picture indeed; but this would be cruel, as their voices are but the wailings of sensitive and benevolent hearts, while weeping over the moral desolations that, for ages, have overwhelmed their people. Nor shall we multiply testimony on the subject; but in this, as in the case of Canada and the West Indies, allow the abolitionists to speak of their own schemes. The Hon. Gerrit Smith, in his letter to Governor Hunt, of New York, in 1852, while speaking of his ineffectual efforts, for fifteen years past, to prevail upon the free colored people to betake themselves to mechanical and agricultural pursuits, says:
"Suppose, moreover, that during all these fifteen years, they had been quitting the cities, where the mass of them rot, both physically and morally, and had gone into the country to become farmers and mechanics--suppose, I say, all this--and who would have the hardihood to affirm that the Colonization Society lives upon the malignity of the whites--but it is true that it lives upon the voluntary degradation of the blacks. I do not say that the colored people are more debased than the white people would be if persecuted, oppressed and outraged as are the colored people. But I do say that they are debased, deeply debased; and that to recover themselves they must become heroes, self-denying heroes, capable of achieving a great moral victory--a two-fold victory--a victory over themselves and a victory over their enemies."
The New York Tribune, September 22, 1855, in noticing the movements of the colored people of New York, to secure to themselves equal suffrage, thus gives utterance to its views of their moral condition:
"Most earnestly desiring the enfranchisement of the Afric-American race, we would gladly wean them, at the cost of some additional ill-will, from the sterile path of political agitation. They can help win their rights if they will, but not by jawing for them. One negro on a farm which he has cleared or bought patiently hewing out a modest, toilsome independence, is worth more to the cause of equal suffrage than three in an Ethiopian (or any other) convention, clamoring against white oppression with all the fire of a Spartacus. It is not logical conviction of the justice of their claims that is needed, but a prevalent belief that they would form a wholesome and desirable element of the body politic. Their color exposes them to much unjust and damaging prejudice; but if their degradation were but skin-deep, they might easily overcome it. . . . . Of course, we understand that the evil we contemplate is complex and retroactive--that the political degradation of the blacks is a cause as well as a consequence of their moral debasement. Had they never been enslaved, they would not now be so abject in soul; had they not been so abject, they could not have been enslaved. Our aborigines might have been crushed into slavery by overwhelming force; but they could never have been made to live in it. The black man who feels insulted in that he is called a 'nigger,' therein attests the degradation of his race more forcibly than does the blackguard at whom he takes offense; for negro is no further a term of opprobrium than the character of the blacks has made it so. . . . . If the blacks of to-day were all or mainly such men as Samuel R. Ward or Frederick Douglass, nobody would consider 'negro' an invidious or reproachful designation.
"The blacks of our State ought to enjoy the common rights of man; but they stand greatly in need of the spirit in which those rights have been won by other races. They will never win them as white men's barbers, waiters, ostlers and boot blacks; that is to say, the tardy and ungracious concession of the right of suffrage, which they may ultimately wrench from a reluctant community, will leave them still the political as well as social inferiors of the whites--excluded from all honorable office, and admitted to white men's tables only as waiters and plate-washers--unless they shall meantime have wrought out, through toil, privation and suffering, an intellectual and essential enfranchisement. At present, white men dread to be known as friendly to the black, because of the never-ending, still-beginning importunities to help this or that negro object of charity or philanthrophy to which such a reputation inevitably subjects them. Nine-tenths of the free blacks have no idea of setting themselves to work except as the hirelings and servitors of white men; no idea of building a church, or accomplishing any other serious enterprise, except through beggary of the whites. As a class, the blacks are indolent, improvident, servile and licentious; and their inveterate habit of appealing to white benevolence or compassion whenever they realize a want or encounter a difficulty, is eminently baneful and enervating. If they could never more obtain a dollar until they shall have earned it, many of them would suffer, and some perhaps starve; but, on the whole, they would do better and improve faster than may now be reasonably expected."
In tracing the causes which led to the organization of the American Colonization Society, the statistics of the penitentiaries down to 1827, were given, as affording an index to the moral condition of the free colored people at that period. The facts of a similar kind, for 1850, are added here, to indicate their present moral condition. The statistics are compiled from the Compendium of the Census of the United States, for 1850, and published in 1854.
Tabular Statement of the number of the native and foreign white population, the colored population, the number of each class in the Penitentiaries, the proportion of the convicts to the whole number of each class, the proportion of colored convicts over the foreign and also over the native whites, in the four States named, for the year 1850:
Classes, etc. Mass._ N. York. Penn. Ohio. NATIVE WHITES, 819,044 2,388,830 1,953,276 1,732,698 In the Penitentiary, 264 835 205 291 Being 1 out of 3,102 2,860 9,528 5,954
FOREIGN WHITES, 163,598 655,224 303,105 218,099 In the Penitentiary, 125 545 123 71 Being 1 out of 1,308 1,202 2,464 3,077
COLORED POPULATION, 9,064 49,069 53,626 25,279 In the Penitentiary, 47 257 109 44 Being 1 out of 192 190 492 574
Colored convicts over foreign, 6.8 times 6.3 times 5 times 5.3 times
Colored convicts over native whites, 16.1 times 15 times 19.3 times 10.3 times
It appears from these figures, that the amount of crime among the colored people of Massachusetts, in 1850, was 6 8/10 times greater than the amount among the foreign born population of that State, and that the amount, in the four States named, among the free colored people, averages five-and-three-quarters times more, in proportion to their numbers, than it does among the foreign population, and over fifteen times more than it does among the native whites. It will be instructive, also, to note the moral condition of the free colored people in Massachusetts, the great center of abolitionism, where they have enjoyed equal rights ever since 1780. Strange to say, there is nearly three times as much among them, in that State, as exists among those of Ohio! More than this will be useful to note, as it regards the direction of the emigration of the free colored people. Massachusetts, in 1850, had but 2,687 colored persons born out of the State, while Ohio had 12,662 born out of her limits. Take another fact: the increase, per cent., of the colored population, in the whole New England States, was, during the ten years, from 1840 to 1850, but 1 71/100, while in Ohio, it was, during that time, 45 76/100.
There is another point worthy of notice. Though the New England abolition States have offered equal political rights to the colored man, it has afforded him little temptation to emigrate into their bounds. On the contrary, several of these States have been diminishing their free colored population, for many years past, and none of them can have had accessions of colored immigrants; as is abundantly proved by the fact, that their additions, of this class of persons, have not exceeded the natural increase of the resident colored population.[71] Another fact is equally as instructive. It will be noted, that, in Ohio, the largest increase of the free colored population, is in the anti-abolition counties--the abolition counties, often, having increased very little, indeed, between 1840 and 1850. But the most curious fact is, that the largest majorities for the abolition candidate for governor, in 1855, were in the counties having the fewest colored people, while the largest majorities against him, were in those having the largest numbers of free negroes and mullatoes.[72] From these facts, both in regard to New England and Ohio, one of two conclusions may be logically deduced: Either the colored people find so little sympathy from the abolitionists, that they will not live among them; or else their presence, in any community, in large numbers, tends to cure the whites of all tendencies toward practical abolitionism!
FOOTNOTES:
[71] See Table IV, Appendix.
[72] See Table V, Appendix.
Chapter XVI
Disappointment of English and American Abolitionists--Their failure attributed to the inherent evils of Slavery--Their want of discrimination--The differences in the system in the British Colonies and in the United States--Colored people of United States vastly in advance of all others--Success of the Gospel among the Slaves--Democratic Review on African civilization--Vexation of Abolitionists at their failure--Their apology not to be accepted--Liberia attests its falsity--The barrier to the colored man's elevation removable only by Colonization--Colored men begin to see it--Chambers, of Edinburgh--His testimony on the crushing effects of New England's treatment of colored people--Charges Abolitionists with insincerity--Approves Colonization--Abolition violence rebuked by an English clergyman.
The condition of the free colored people can now be understood. The results, in their case, are vastly different from what was anticipated, when British philanthropists succeeded in West India emancipation. They are very different, also, from what was expected by American abolitionists: so different, indeed, that their disappointment is fully manifested, in the extracts made from their published documents. As an apology for the failure, it seems to be their aim to create the belief, that the dreadful moral depravation, existing in the West Indies, is wholly owing to the demoralizing tendencies of slavery. They speak of this effect as resulting from laws inherent in the system, which have no exceptions, and must be equally as active in the United States as in the British colonies. But in their zeal to cast odium on slavery, they prove too much--for, if this be true, it follows, that the slave population of the United States must be equally debased with that of Jamaica, and as much disqualified to discharge the duties of freemen, as both have been subjected to the operations of the same system. This is not all. The logic of the argument would extend even to our free colored people, and include them, according to the American Missionary Association, in the dire effects of "that enduring legacy which, with its foul, pestilential influences, still blights, like the mildew of death, every thing in society that should be lovely, virtuous, and of good report." Now, were it believed, generally, that the colored people of the United States are equally as degraded as those of Jamaica, upon what grounds could any one advocate the admission of the blacks to equal social and political privileges with the whites? Certainly, no Christian family or community would willingly admit such men to terms of social or political equality! This, we repeat, is the logical conclusion from the Reports of the American Missionary Association and the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society--a conclusion, too, the more certain, as it makes no exceptions between the condition of the colored people under the slavery of Jamaica and under that of the United States.
But in this, as in much connected with slavery, abolitionists have taken too limited a view of the subject. They have not properly discriminated between the effects of the original barbarism of the negroes, and those produced by the more or less favorable influences to which they were afterward subjected under slavery. This point deserves special notice. According to the best authorities, the colored people of Jamaica, for nearly three hundred years, were entirely without the gospel; and it gained a permanent footing among them, only at a few points, at their emancipation, twenty-five years ago; so that, when liberty reached them, the great mass of the Africans, in the British West Indies, were heathen.[73] Let us understand the reason of this. Slavery is not an element of human progress, under which the mind necessarily becomes enlightened; but Christianity is the primary element of progress, and can elevate the savage, whether in bondage or in freedom, if its principles are taught him in his youth. The slavery of Jamaica began with savage men. For three hundred years, its slaves were destitute of the gospel, and their barbarism was left to perpetuate itself. But in the United States, the Africans were brought under the influence of Christianity, on their first introduction, over two hundred and thirty years since, and have continued to enjoy its teachings, in a greater or less degree, to the present moment. The disappearance from among our colored people, of the savage condition of the human mind--the incapacity to comprehend religious truths--and its continued existence among those of Jamaica, can now be understood. The opportunities enjoyed by the former, for advancement, over the latter, have been six to one. With these facts before the mind, it is not difficult to perceive that the colored population of Jamaica can not but still labor under the disadvantages of hereditary barbarism and involuntary servitude, with the superadded misfortune of being inadequately supplied with Christian instruction, along with their recent acquisition of freedom. But while all this must be admitted, of the colored people of Jamaica, it is not true of those of our own country; for, long since, they have cast off the heathenism of their fathers, and have become enlightened in a very encouraging degree. Hence it is, that the colored people of the United States, both bond and free, have made vastly greater progress, than those of the British West Indies, in their knowledge of moral duties and the requirements of the gospel; and hence, too, it is, that Gerrit Smith is right, in asserting that the demoralized condition of the great mass of the free colored people, in our cities, is inexcusable, and deserving of the utmost reprobation, because it is voluntary--they knowing their duty but abandoning themselves to degrading habits.
This brings us to another point of great moment. It will be denied by but few--and by none maintaining the natural equality of the races--that the free colored people of the United States are sufficiently enlightened, to be elevated by education, in an encouraging degree, where proper restraints from vice, and encouragements to virtue prevail. A large portion, even, of the slave population, are similarly enlightened. We speak not of the state of the morals of either class.
As the public are not well informed, in relation to the extent to which the religious instruction of the slaves at the South prevails, the following information will prove interesting, and show that a good work has long been in progress, and has been producing its fruits:
"The South Carolina Methodist Conference have a missionary committee devoted entirely to promoting the religious instruction of the slave population, which has been in existence twenty-six years. The Report[74] of the last year shows a greater degree of activity than is generally known. They have twenty-six missionary stations in which thirty-two missionaries are employed. The Report affirms that public opinion in South Carolina is decidedly in favor of the religious instruction of slaves, and that it has become far more general and systematic than formerly. It also claims a great degree of success to have attended the labors of the missionaries."
The Report of the Missionary Board, of the Louisiana Conference, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1855, says:[75]
"It is stated upon good authority, that the number of colored members in the Church South, exceeds that of the entire membership of all the Protestant missions in the world. What an enterprise is this committed to our care! The position we, of the Methodist Church South, have taken for the African, has, to a great extent, cut us off from the sympathy of the Christian Church throughout the world; and it behooves us to make good this position in the sight of God, of angels, of men, of churches, and to our own consciences, by presenting before the throne of His glory multitudes of the souls of these benighted ones abandoned to our care, as the seals of our ministry. Already Lousiana promises to be one vast plantation. Let us--we must gird ourselves for this Heaven-born enterprise of supplying the pure gospel to the slave. The great question is, How can the greatest number be preached to?--The building roadside chapels is as yet the best solution of it. In some cases planters build so as to accommodate adjoining plantations, and by this means the preacher addresses three hundred or more slaves, instead of one hundred or less. Economy of this kind is absolutely essential where the labor of the missionary is so much needed and demanded.
"On the Lafourche and Bayou Black Missionwork, several chapels are in process of erection, upon a plan which enables the slave, as his master, to make an offering towards building a house of God. Instead of money, the hands subscribe labor. Timber is plenty; many of the servants are carpenters. Upon many of the plantations are saw mills. Here is much material; what hindereth that we should build a church on every tenth plantation? Let us maintain our policy steadily. Time and diligence are required to effect substantial good, especially in this department of labor. Let us continue to ask for buildings adapted to the worship of God, and set apart; to urge, when practicable, the preaching to blacks in the presence of their masters, their overseers, and the neighbors generally."
"One of the effects of the great revival among colored people has been the establishment of a regular system of prayer-meetings for their benefit. Meetings are held every night during the week at the tobacco factories, the proprietors of which have been kind enough to place those edifices at the disposal of the colored brethren. The owners of the several factories preside over these meetings, and the most absolute good conduct is exhibited."[76]
"In Newbern, N. C., the slaves have a large church of their own, which is well attended. They pay a salary of $500 per annum to their white minister. They have likewise a negro preacher in their employ, whom they purchased from his master.[77]
And Newbern in this respect is not isolated. For in nearly every town of any size in the Southern States, the colored people have their churches, and what is more than is always known at the North, they sustain their churches and pay their ministers,[78]
"Resolved, that the religious instruction of our colored population be affectionately and earnestly commended to the ministry and eldership of our churches generally, as opening to us a field of most obligatory and interesting Christian effort, in which we are called to labor more faithfully and fully, by our regard for our social interests, as well as by the higher considerations of duty to God and the souls of our fellow men.[79]
The following extracts are copied from the New York Observer, of the present year:
The Presbytery of Roanoke, Virginia, (O. S.) has addressed a Pastoral letter, on the instruction of the colored people, to the churches under its care, and ordered the same to be read in all the churches of the Presbytery, in those that are vacant, as well as where there are pastors or stated supplies. It commences by saying: "Among the important interests of the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, which have claimed our special attention since the organization of the Presbytery in April last,--that the work of the Lord may be vigorously and efficiently carried forward within our bounds,--the religious instruction of the colored people, is hardly to be placed second to any other." After speaking of the obstacles and encouragements to the work, it gives the following statistics:
"In the Presbytery of Charleston, S. C., 1637 out of 2889 members, or considerably over one-half, are colored. In the whole Synod of South Carolina, 5,009 out of 13,074, are colored members. The Presbyteries of Mississippi and Central Mississippi, of Tuscaloosa and South Alabama, of Georgia, of Concord, and Fayetteville, also show many churches with large proportions of colored communicants, from one-third to one-seventh of the whole. Our own Presbytery reports 276 out of 1737 members. In the whole of the above mentioned bodies, there are 9,076 colored, out of 33,667 communicants. Among the churches of these Presbyteries, we find twenty with an aggregate colored membership of 3,600, or an average of 130 to each. We find also, such large figures as these, 260, 333, 356, 525! These facts speak for themselves and forbid discouragement."
Speaking of the obligations to instruct this class, the letter says:
"But these people are among us, at our doors, in our own fields, and around our firesides! If they need instruction, then the command of our Lord, and every obligation of benevolence, call us to the work of teaching them, with all industry, the doctrines of Christ. The first and kindest outgoings of our Christian compassion should be toward them. They are not only near us, but are also entirely dependent upon us. As to all means of securing religious privileges for themselves, and as to energy and self-directing power, they are but children,--forced to look to their masters for every supply. From this arises an obligation, at once imperative, and of most solemn and momentous significance to us, to make thorough provision for their religious instruction, to the full extent that we are able to provide it for ourselves. This obligation acquires great additional force when it is further considered, that besides proximity and dependence, they are indeed members of our 'households.' As the three hundred and eighteen 'trained servants' of Abraham were 'born in his own house;' i. e., were born and bred as members of his household, so are our servants. Of course no argument is needed, to show that every man is bound by high and sacred obligations, for the discharge of which he must give account, to provide his family suitably, or to the extent of his ability, with the means of grace and salvation.
After dwelling on the duties of the ministry, the letter goes on:
"But the work of Christianizing our colored population can never be accomplished by the labors of the ministry alone, unaided by the hearty co-operation of families, by carrying on a system of home instruction. We must begin with the children. For if the children of our servants be left to themselves during their early years, this neglect must of necessity beget two enormous evils. Evil habits will be rapidly acquired and strengthened; since if children are not learning good, they will be learning what is bad. And having thus grown up both ignorant and vicious, they will have no inclination to go to the Lord's house; or if they should go, their minds will be found so dark, so entirely unacquainted with the rudimental language and truths of the gospel, that much of the preaching must at first prove unintelligible, unprofitable at the time, and so uninteresting as to discourage further attendance. In every regard, therefore, masters are bound to see that religious instruction is provided at home for their people, especially for the young.
"If there be no other to undertake the work, (the mistress, or the children of the family,) the master is bound to deny himself and discharge the duty. It is for him to see that the thing is properly done; for the whole responsibility rests on him at last. It usually, however, devolves upon the mistress, or upon the younger members of the family, where there are children qualified for it, to perform this service. Some of our young men, and, to their praise be it spoken, still more of our young women, have willingly given themselves to this self-denying labor; in aid of their parents, or as a duty which they themselves owe to Christ their Redeemer, and to their fellow creatures. We take this occasion, gladly, to bid all these 'God speed' in their work of love. Co-workers together with us, we praise you for this. We bid you take courage. Let no dullness, indifference, or neglect, weary out your patience. You are laboring for Christ, and for precious souls. You are doing a work the importance of which eternity will fully reveal. You will be blessed, too, in your deed even now. This labor will prove to you an important means of grace. You will have something to pray for, and will enjoy the pleasing consciousness, that you are not idlers in the Lord's vineyard. You will be winning stars for your crowns of rejoicing through eternity. Grant that it will cost you much self-denial. Can you, notwithstanding, consent to see these immortal beings growing up in ignorance and vice, at your very doors?
"The methods of carrying on the home instruction are various, and we are abundantly supplied with the needful facilities. We need not name the reading of the Bible; and judiciously selected sermons, to be read to the adults when they cannot attend preaching, should not be omitted. Catechetical instruction, by means of such excellent aids as our own 'Catechism for young children,' and 'Jones' Catechism of Scripture doctrine and practice,' will of course be resorted to; together with teaching them hymns and singing with them. The reading to them, for variety, such engaging and instructive stories as are found in the 'Children's column' of some of our best religious papers; and suitable Sabbath school, or other juvenile books, such as 'The Peep of Day,' 'Line upon Line,' etc., will, in many cases, prove an excellent aid, in imbuing their minds with religious truth. Masters should not spare expense or trouble, to provide liberally these various helps to those who take this work in hand, to aid and encourage them to the utmost in their self-denying toil.
"Brethren, the time is propitious to urge your attention to this important duty. A deep and constantly increasing interest in the work, is felt throughout the South. Just at this time, also, extensively throughout portions of our territory, an unusual awakening has been showing itself among the colored people. It becomes us, and it is of vital importance on every account, by judicious instruction, both to guide the movement, and to improve the opportunity.
"We commend this whole great interest to the Divine blessing; and, under God, to your conscientious reflection, to devise the proper ways; and to your faithful Christian zeal, to accomplish whatever your wisdom may devise and approve."
The Mobile Daily Tribune, in referring to the religious training of the slaves, says:[80]
"Few persons are aware of the efforts that are continually in progress, in a quiet way, in the various Southern States, for the moral and religious improvement of the negroes--of the number of clergymen of good families, accomplished education, and often of a high degree of talent, who devote their whole time and energies to this work; or of the many laymen--almost invariably slaveholders themselves--who sustain them by their purses and by their assistance as catechists, Sunday school teachers, and the like. These men do not make platform speeches, or talk in public on the subject of their 'mission,' or theorize about the 'planes' on which they stand: they are too busy for this, but they work on quietly in labor and self-denial, looking for a sort of reward very different from the applause bestowed upon stump agitators. Their work is a much less noisy one, but its results will be far more momentous.
"We have very limited information on this subject, for the very reasons just mentioned, but enough to give some idea of the zeal with which these labors are prosecuted by the various Christian denominations. Thus, among the Old School Presbyterians it is stated that about one hundred ministers are engaged in the religious instruction of the negroes exclusively. In South Carolina alone there are forty-five churches or chapels of the Episcopal Church, appropriated exclusively to negroes; thirteen clergymen devote to them their whole time, and twenty-seven a portion of it; and one hundred and fifty persons of the same faith are engaged in imparting to them catechetical instruction. There are other States which would furnish similar statistics if they could be obtained.
"It is in view of such facts as these, that one of our cotemporaries, (the Philadelphia Inquirer,) though not free from a certain degree of anti-slavery proclivity, makes the following candid admission:
"'The introduction of African slavery into the colonies of North America, though doubtless brought about by wicked means, may in the end accomplish great good to Africa; a good, perhaps, to be effected in no other way. Hundreds and thousands have already been saved, temporally and spiritually, who otherwise must have perished. Through these and their descendants it is that civilization and Christianity have been sent back to the perishing millions of Africa.'"
The Fourteenth Annual Report of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, 1859, says:
"In our colored missions great good has been accomplished by the labors of the self-sacrificing and zealous missionaries.
"This seems to be at home our most appropriate field of labor. By our position we have direct access to those for whom these missions are established. Our duty and obligation in regard to them are evident. Increased facilities are afforded us, and open doors invite our entrance and full occupancy. The real value of these missions is often overlooked or forgotten by Church census-takers and statistic-reporters of our benevolent associations. We can but repeat that this field, which seems almost, by common consent, to be left for our occupancy, is one of the most important and promising in the history of missions. At home even its very humility obscures, and abroad a mistaken philanthropy repudiates its claims. But still the fact exists; and when we look at the large number of faithful, pious, and self-sacrificing missionaries engaged in the work, the wide field of their labors, and the happy thousands who have been savingly converted to God through their instrumentality, we can but perceive the propriety and justice of assigning to these missions the prominence we have. Indeed, the subject assumes an importance beyond the conception even of those more directly engaged in this great work, when it is remembered that these missions absolutely number more converts to Christianity, according to statistics given, than all the members of all other missionary societies combined."
The Tennessee Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, in their Report for 1859, says:
"It is gratifying that so much has been done for the evangelization of this people. In addition to the missions presented in our report, thousands of this people are served by preachers in charge of circuits and stations. But still a great work remains to be accomplished among the negroes within your limits. New missions are needed, and increased attention to the work in this department generally demanded. Heaven devolves an immense responsibility upon us with reference to these sable sons of Ham. Providence has thrown them in our midst, not merely to be our household and agricultural servants, but to be served by us with the blessed gospel of the Son of God. Let us then, in the name of Him who made it a special sign of his Messiahship that the poor had the gospel preached unto them--let us in his name go forth, bearing the bread of life to these poor among us, and opening to them all the sources of consolation and encouragement afforded by the religion of Jesus."
The Texas Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, in their Report for 1859, say:
"At the last Conference, Gideon W. Cottingham and David W. Fly were appointed Conference African missionaries, whose duties were to travel throughout the Conference, visit the planters in person, and organize missions in regions unsupplied. They report an extensive field open, and truly white unto the harvest, and have succeeded in organizing several important missions. All the planters, questioned upon the subject, were willing to give the missionary access to their servants, to preach and catechize, not only on the Sabbath, but during the week. And this willingness was not confined to the professors alone, but the deepest interest was displayed by many who make no pretensions to religion whatever. An interest shown not merely by giving the missionary access to their servants, but by their pledging their prompt support. The servants themselves receive the word with the utmost eagerness. They are hungering for the bread of life; our tables are loaded. Shall not these starving souls be fed? Cases of appalling destitution are found: numbers who heard for the first time the word of life listened eagerly to the wonders it unfolded. The Greeks are truly at our doors, heathens growing up in our midst, revival fire flames around them, a polar frost within their hearts. God help the Church to take care of these perishing souls! Our anniversaries are usually scenes of unmingled joy. With our sheaves in our hands, we come from the harvest field, and though sad that so little has been done, yet rejoicing that we have the privilege of laying any pledge of devotion upon the altar."
The Mississippi Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in their Report for 1859, say:
"We are cheered to see a growing interest among our planters and slave-owners in our domestic missions. Still that interest is not what the importance of the subject demands. While few are willing to bar their servants all gospel privileges, there is a great want in many places of suitable houses for public worship. Too many masters think that to permit the missionary to come on the plantation, and preach in the gin, or mill, or elsewhere, as circumstances may dictate, is their only duty, especially if the missionary gets his bread. None of the attendant circumstances of a neat church, and suitable Sunday apparel, etc., to cheer and gladden the heart on the holy Sabbath, and cause its grateful thanksgiving to go up as clouds of incense before Him, are thought necessary by many masters.
"Notwithstanding, we are cheered by a brightening prospect. Christian masters are building churches for their servants. Owners in many places are adopting the wise policy of erecting their churches so as to bring two, three, or more plantations together for preaching. This plan is so consonant with the gospel economy, and so advantageous every way, that it must become the uniform practice of all our missionary operations among the slaves. Our late Conference wisely adopted a resolution, encouraging the building of churches for the accommodation of several plantations together, wherever it can be done."
The South Carolina Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in their Report for 1859, say:
"Meanwhile the increasing claims of the destitute colored population must not be ignored. New fields are opening before us, the claims of which are pressed with an earnestness which nothing but deeply-felt necessity could dictate. And the question is pressed upon us, What shall we do? Must not the contributions of the Church be more liberal and more systematic? Must not the friends of the enterprise become more zealous? Will not the wealthy patrons of our society, whose people are served, contribute a sum equal in the aggregate to the salary of the missionaries who serve their people? This done, and every claim urged upon your Board shall be honored.
"This is wondrous work! God loves it, honors it, blesses it! He has crowned it with success. The old negro has abandoned his legendary rites, and has sought and found favor with God through Jesus Christ. The catechumens have received into their hearts the gracious instructions given by the missionary, and scores of them are converted annually, and become worthy members of the Church. Here lies the most inviting field of labor. To instruct these children of Ham in the plan of salvation, to preoccupy their minds with "the truth as it is in Jesus," to see them renounce the superstitions of their forefathers, and embrace salvation's plan, would make an angel's heart rejoice."
Failing in securing the Reports of the Baptists at the South, we are unable to exhibit in detail, their operations among the slave population. The same failure has also occurred in reference to the Cumberland Presbyterians, and some of the other denominations at the South. The statistics, taken from the Southern Baptist Register, will indicate the extent of their success. The following statement made up from the Annual Reports of the Churches named, or from the Register, shows the extent to which the slave population, in the entire South, have been brought under the influence of the gospel, and led to profess their faith in the Saviour:
Methodist Episcopal Church South, 188,000 Methodist Episcopal Church North,[81] in Va. and Md., 15,000 Missionary and Anti-Missionary Baptist, 175,000 General Assembly Presbyterian, (O. S.,) 12,000 General Assembly Presbyterian, (N. S.,) estimated 6,000 Cumberland Presbyterians, 20,000 Protestant Episcopal Church, estimated 7,000 Christian Church, 10,000 All other denominations, 20,000 ------- Total 453,000
The remark has been made, in two of the reports quoted, that the number of slaves brought into the Christian Church, as a consequence of the introduction of the African race into the United States, exceeds all the converts made, throughout the heathen world, by the whole missionary force employed by Protestant Christendom. Newcomb's Encyclopedia of Missions, 1856, gives the whole number of converts in the Protestant Christian missions in Asia, Africa, Pacific islands, West Indies, and North American Indians at 211,389; but more recent estimates make the number approximate 250,000: thus showing that the number of African converts in the Southern States, is almost double the whole number of heathen converts. It is well enough to observe here, that these facts are not given to prove that slavery should be adopted as a means of converting the heathen, but to call attention to the mode in which Divine Providence is working for the salvation of the African race.
Our opinion as to the advancement of the free colored people of the United States, in general intelligence, does not stand alone. It is sustained by high authority, not of the abolition school. The Democratic Review, of 1852,[82] when discussing the question of their ability to conquer and civilize Africa, says:
"The negro race has, among its freemen in this country, a mass of men who are eminently fitted for deeds of daring. They have generally been engaged in employments which give a good deal of leisure, and stimulus toward improvement of the mind. They have associated much more freely with the cultivated and intelligent white than even with their own color of the same humble station; and on such terms as to enable them to acquire much of his spirit, and knowledge, and valor. The free blacks among us are not only confident and well informed, but they have almost all seen something of the world. They are pre-eminently locomotive and perambulating. In rail roads, and hotels, and stages, and steamers, they have been placed incessantly in contact with the news, the views, the motives, and the ideas of the day. Compare the free black with ordinary white men without advantages, and he stands well. Add to this cultivation, that the negro body is strong and healthy, and the negro mind keen and bright, though not profound nor philosophical, and you have at once a formidable warrior, with a little discipline and knowledge of weapons. There is no doubt that the picked American free blacks, would be five times, ten times as efficient in the field of battle as the same number of native Africans."
Why is it then, that the efforts for the moral elevation of the free colored people, have been so unsuccessful? Before answering this question, it is necessary to call attention to the fact, that abolitionists seem to be sadly disappointed in their expectations, as to the progress of the free colored people. Their vexation at the stubborness of the negroes, and the consequent failure of their measures, is very clearly manifested in the complaining language, used by Gerrit Smith, toward the colored people of the eastern cities, as well as by the contempt expressed by the American Missionary Association, for the colored preachers of Canada. They had found an apology, for their want of success in the United States, in the presence and influence of colonizationists; but no such excuse can be made for their want of success in Canada and the West Indies. Having failed in their anticipations, now they would fain shelter themselves under the pretense, that a people once subjected to slavery, even when liberated, can not be elevated in a single generation; that the case of adults, raised in bondage, like heathen of similar age, is hopeless, and their children, only, can make such progress as will repay the missionary for his toil. But they will not be allowed to escape the censure due to their want of discrimination and foresight, by any such plea; as the success of the Republic of Liberia, conducted from infancy to independence, almost wholly by liberated slaves, and those who were born and raised in the midst of slavery, attests the falsity of their assumption.
But to return. Why have the efforts for the elevation of the free colored people, not been more successful? On this point our remarks may be limited to our own free colored people. The barrier to their progress here, exists not so much in their want of capacity, as in the absence of the incitements to virtuous action, which are constantly stimulating the white man to press onward and upward in the formation of character and the acquisition of knowledge. There is no position in church or state, to which the poorest white boy, in the common school, may not aspire. There is no post of honor, in the gift of his country, that is legally beyond his reach. But such encouragements to noble effort, do not and cannot reach the colored man, and he remains with us a depressed and disheartened being. Persuading him to remain in this hopeless condition, has been the great error of the abolitionists. They accepted Jefferson's views in relation to emancipation, but rejected his opinions as to the necessity of separating the races; and thus overlooked the teachings of history, that two races, differing so widely as to prevent their amalgamation by marriage, can never live together, in the same community, but as superiors and inferiors--the inferior remaining subordinate to the superior. The encouraging hopes held out to the colored people, that this law would be inoperative upon them, has led only to disappointment. Happily, this delusion is nearly at an end; and some of them are beginning to act on their own judgments. They find themselves so scattered and peeled, that there is not another half a million of men in the world, so enlightened, who are accomplishing so little for their social and moral advancement. They perceive that they are nothing but branches, wrenched from the great African banyan, not yet planted in genial soil, and affording neither shelter nor food to the beasts of the forest or the fowls of the air--their roots unfixed in the earth, and their tender shoots withering as they hang pendent from their boughs.
That this is no exaggerated picture of the discouragements surrounding our free colored people, is fully confirmed by the testimony of impartial witnesses. Chambers, of Edinburgh, who recently made the tour of the United States, investigated this point very carefully. His opinions on the subject have been published, and are so discriminating and truthful, that we must quote the main portion of them. In speaking of the agitation of the question of slavery, he says:
"For a number of years, as is well known, there has been much angry discussion on the subject between the Northern and Southern States; and at times the contention has been so great, as to lead to mutual threats of a dismemberment of the Union. A stranger has no little difficulty in understanding how much of this war of words is real, and how much is merely an explosion of bunkum. . . . . I repeat, it is difficult to understand what is the genuine public feeling on this entangled question; for with all the demonstrations in favor of freedom in the North, there does not appear in that quarter to be any practical relaxation of the usages which condemn persons of African descent to an inferior social status. There seems, in short, to be a fixed notion throughout the whole of the States, whether slave or free, that the colored is by nature a subordinate race; and that, in no circumstances, can it be considered equal to the white. Apart from commercial views, this opinion lies at the root of American slavery; and the question would need to be argued less on political and philanthropic than on physiological grounds. . . . . I was not a little surprised to find, when speaking a kind word for at least a very unfortunate, if not brilliant race, that the people of the Northern States, though repudiating slavery, did not think more favorably of the negro character than those further South. Throughout Massachusetts, and other New England States, likewise in the States of New York, Pennsylvania, etc., there is a rigorous separation of the white and black races. . . . . The people of England, who see a negro only as a wandering curiosity, are not at all aware of the repugnance generally entertained toward persons of color in the United States: it appeared to amount to an absolute monomania. As for an alliance with one of the race, no matter how faint the shade of color, it would inevitably lead to a loss of caste, as fatal to social position and family ties as any that occurs in the Brahminical system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"Glad to have had an opportunity of calling attention to many cheering and commendable features in the social system of the Americans, I consider it not less my duty to say, that in their general conduct toward the colored race, a wrong is done which can not be alluded to except in terms of the deepest sorrow and reproach. I can not think without shame of the pious and polished New Englanders adding to their offenses on this score the guilt of hypocrisy. Affecting to weep over the sufferings of imaginary dark-skinned heroes and heroines; denouncing, in well-studied platform oratory, the horrid sin of reducing human beings to the abject condition of chattels; bitterly scornful of Southern planters for hard-hearted selfishness and depravity; fanatical on the subject of abolition; wholly frantic at the spectacle of fugitive slaves seized and carried back to their owners--these very persons are daily surrounded by manumitted slaves, or their educated descendants, yet shrink from them as if the touch were pollution, and look as if they would expire at the bare idea of inviting one of them to their house or table. Until all this is changed, the Northern abolitionists place themselves in a false position, and do damage to the cause they espouse. If they think that negroes are MEN, let them give the world an evidence of their sincerity, by moving the reversal of all those social and political arrangements which now, in the free States, exclude persons of color, not only from the common courtesies of life, but from the privileges and honors of citizens. I say, until this is done, the uproar about abolition is a delusion and a snare. . . . .
"While lamenting the unsatisfactory condition, present and prospective, of the colored population, it is gratifying to consider the energetic measures that have been adopted by the African Colonization Society, to transplant, with their own consent, free negroes from America to Liberia. Viewing these endeavors as, at all events, a means of encouraging emancipation, checking the slave trade, and, at the same time, of introducing Christianity and civilized usages into Africa, they appear to have been deserving of more encouragement than they have had the good fortune to receive. Successful only in a moderate degree, the operations of this society are not likely to make a deep impression on the numbers of the colored population; and the question of their disposal still remains unsettled."
That the Christian churches of the South are pursuing the true policy for the moral welfare of the slave population, will be admitted by every right minded man. The present chapter cannot be more appropriately closed, than by quoting the language of Rev. J. Waddington, of England, at a meeting in behalf of the American Missionary Association, held in Boston, July, 1859. The speakers had been very violent in their denunciations of slavery, and when Mr. Waddington came to speak, he thus rebuked their unchristian spirit:
"I have," said Mr. Waddington, "a strong conviction, that freedom can never come but of vital Christianity. It is not born of the intellect, it is not the product of the conscience; it can never be the result of the sword. It was with extreme horror that I heard the assertion made last night, that it must be through a baptism of blood that freedom must come. Never! never! The sword can destroy, it can never create. What do we want for freedom? Expansion of the heart. That we should honor other men; that we should be concerned for other men. What is it that causes slavery and oppression? Selfishness, intense, self-destroying selfishness if you will. Nothing can exorcise that selfishness but the constraining love of Christ. The gospel alone, by the Spirit of God, can waken freedom in men, in families, in nations."
Mr. Waddington, also remarked, that "every thing in America was extremely wonderful and surprising to him; and nothing more surprised him than the burning words with which his ministerial friends pelted each other; yet he had no doubt they were the kindest men in the world. He thought it was not intended that any harm should be done, but only that the cause of truth should be advanced."[83]
FOOTNOTES:
[73] Rev. Mr. Phillippo, for twenty years a missionary in Jamaica, in his "Jamaica, its Past and Present Condition."
[74] New York Evangelist, 1858.
[75] New York Observer, March, 1856.
[76] Lynchburgh (Va.) Courier, quoted by African Repository, January, 1858.
[77] Southern Monitor, quoted by African Repository, January, 1858.
[78] Express--Ibid.
[79] Synod of Virginia, quoted by African Repository, 1858.
[80] Quoted in African Repository, April, 1858.
[81] The Methodist Episcopal Church North, in 1858, had a total of 22,326 of colored members, in all the States.
[82] Page 102.
[83] American Missionary, July, 1859.