Discourses of slavery.

Preface

There can hardly fail at the present time to attach a mournful interest to these Discourses on Slavery by Theodore Parker. Few will read them and see how deeply their author's heart was engaged in the cause of Negro Emancipation, without being touched by the thought that in the great struggle now passing m America, the voice which would have spoken loudest for right and justice has been silent, and the brave soul which would have exulted in the triumph of freedom has passed away from earth beyond the tidings of the conflict, perhaps beyond the echoes of that last, glad Te Deum which shall arise from an enfranchised race and a regenerated land.

Another and a brighter interest will doubtless cling to these Discourses in times to come, when slavery shall have been swept from the world, and men look back to its stupendous wrong with the same wondering horror vi

PREFACE.

wherewith we now regard the tyrannies of feudalism and the cruelties of the Inquisition. It will then be remembered with joy that the first preacher of pure Theism was also the fearless denouncer of the great National Crime of his age — that crime which the Churches of his land were rarely found to condemn, and often to justify and defend.

F. P. C.

Switzerland, Augu&U 1863.

Contents

PAGE

Seraon of Slavery . . . . . • • • • • 1

Letter touching the matter of Slavery . . 17 Speech on the Abolition of Slavery by.the French Republic . . 85 Speech at Faneuil Hall before the New England Anti-slavery Convention, May 31, 1848 . . . . . . . . . . 93

I. Statistics And History Op Slavery

I will first call your attention to the statistics and history of slavery. In 1790 there were but 697,897 slaves in the Union ; in 1840, 2,487,355. At the present day their number probably is not far from 3,000,000. In 1790, Mr Gerry estimated their value at $10,000,000 ; in 1840 Mr Clay fixed it at $1,200,000,000. They are owned by a population of perhaps about 300,000 pereons, and represented by about 100,000 voters.

At the time of the Declaration of Independence slavery existed in all the States ; it gradually receded from the North. In the religious colonies of New England it was always unpopular and odious. It was there seen and felt to be utterly inconsistent with the ideas and spirit of their institutions, their churches, and their State itself. After the revolution therefore it speedily disappeared — here perishing by default, there abolished by statute. Thus it successively disappeared from Bhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. By the celebrated Ordinance of 1787, involuntary servitude, except as a punishment after legal conviction of crime, was for ever prohibited in the North-West Territory. Thus the new States, formed in the western parallels, were, by the action of the Federal Government, at once cut off from that institution. Besides, they were mainly settled by men from the eastern States, who had neither habits nor principles which favoured slavery. Thus Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa, have been without any legal slaves from the beginning.

In the South the character of the people was different ; their manners, their social and political ideas, were unlike those of the North. The Southern States were mainly colonies of adventurers, rather than establishments of men who for conscience' sake fled to the wilderness. Less pains were taken with the education — intellectual, moral,

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and religious — of the people. Religion never held so prominent a place in the consciousness of the mass as in the sterner and more austere colonies of the North. In the Southern States — Now Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, — slavery easily found a footing at an early day. It was not at all repulsive to the ideas, the institutions, and habits of Georgia and South Carolina. The other Southern States protested against it ; — they never.

Consequences follow causes j it is not easy to avoid the results of a first principle. The Northern States, in all their constitutions and social structure, consistently and continually tend to Democracy — tLe government of all, for all, and by all ; — to equality before the State and its laws ; to moral and political ideas of universal application. In the mean time the Southern States, in their constitutions and social structure, as consistently tend to Oligarchy — the government over all, by a few, and for the sake of that few ; — to privilege, favouritism, and class-legislation ; to conventional limitations j to the rule of force, and inequality before the law. In such a state of things when slavery comes, it is welcome. In 1787, South Carolina and Georgia refused to accept the Federal Constitution unless the right of importing slaves was guaranteed to them for twenty years. The new States formed in the Southern parallels— -Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi — retaining the ideas and habits of their parents, kept also the institution of slavery.

At the time of forming the Federal Constitution some of the Southern statesmen were hostile to slavery, and would gladly have got rid of it. Economical considerations prevailed in part, but political and moral objections to it extended yet more widely. The Ordinance of 1787, the work mainly of the same man who drafted the Declaration of Independence, passed with little opposition. The proviso for surrendering fugitive slaves came from a Northern hand. Subsequently opposition to slavery, in the North And the South, became less. The culture of cotton, the wars in Europe creating a demand for the productions of American agriculture, had rendered slave labour more valuable. The day of our own oppression was more distant and forgotten. So in 1802, when Congress purchased

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from Georgia the western part of her territory, it was easy for the South to extend slavery over that virgin soil. In

1803, Louisiana was purchased from France ; then, or in

1804, when it was organized into two territories, it would have been easy to apply the Ordinance of 1787, and prevent slavery from extending beyond the original thirteen States. But though some provisions restricting slavery were made, the ideas of that Ordinance were forgotten. Since that time five new States have been formed out of territory acquired since the revolution, — Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Florida, Texas, — all slave States ; the last two with constitutions aiming to make slavery perpetual. The last of these was added to the Union on the 22nd of December, 1845, two hundred and twenty-five years after the day when the Forefathers first set foot on Plymouth Bock ; while the sons of the Pilgrims vere eating and drinking and making merry, the deed of Annexation was completed, and slavery extended over nearly 400,000 square miles of new territory, whence the semi-barbarous Mexicans had driven it out.

Slavery might easily have been abolished at the time of the Declaration of Independence. Indeed in 1744 the Continental Congress, in their celebrated " non-importation Agreement/' resolved never to import or purchase any slaves after the last of December in that year. In 1775, they declare in a "Report" that it is not possible " for men r?Ko exercise their reason to believe that the Divine Author of our existence intended a part of the human race to hold an absolute property in and unbounded

Sower over others." Indeed the Declaration itself is a enial of the national right to allow the existence of slavery : " We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights ; that among these are [the right to] life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ; — that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the con- * sent of the governed."

But the original draft of this paper contained a condemnation yet more explicit : " He [the king of England] has waged cruel war against human nature itself ; r violating its most s&cred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a

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distant people who never offended him j captivating and carrying them into slavery. . . . Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce." This clause, says its author himself, "was struck out in compliance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and vho, on the contrary, still wished to continue it. Our northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little tender under these censures ; for though their people have very few .*ves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others."

These were not the sentiments of a single ei lusiastic young Republican. Dr Bush, in the Continental Congress, wished "the colonies to discourage slavery and encourage the increase of the froe inhabitants." Another member of the American Congress declared, in 1779, "Men are by nature free ; " " the right to be free can never be alienated." In 1776, Dr Hopkins, the head of the New England divines, declared that " slavery is, in every instance, wrong, unrighteous, and oppressive ; a very great and crying sin."

In the articles of Confederation, adopted in 1778, no provision is made for the support of slavery j none for the delivery of fugitives. Slavery is not once referred to in that document. The General Government had nothing to do with it. "If any slave elopes to those States where slaves are free," said Mr Madison in 1787, " he becomes emancipated by their laws."

In the Convention of 1787, which drafted the present Constitution of the United States, this matter of slavery was abundantly discussed ; it was the great obstacle in the way of forming the Union, as now of keeping it. But for the efforts of South Carolina, it is probable slavery would have been abolished by the Constitution. The South claimed the right of sending Representatives to Congress on account of their slaves. Mr Pattei*son, of New Jersey, contended that as the slaves had no representative or vote at home, their masters could not claim additional votes in Congress on account of the slaves. Nearly all the speakers in that Convention, except the members from South

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Carolina and Georgia, referred to the slave-trade with horror, Mr Gerry^ of Massachusetts, declared in the Convention, that it was " as humiliating to enter into compact with the slaves of the Southern States, as with the horses and mules of the North." It was contended, that if slaves werti men, then they should be taxed as men, and have their vote as men j if mere property, they should not entitle their owners to a vote, more than other property. It might be proper to tax slaves, " because it had a tendency to discourage slavery, but to take them into account in giving representatives tended to encourage the slave-trade, and to make it the interest of the States bo continue that infamous traffic." It was said, that " we had just assumed a place among independent nations, in consequence of our opposition to the attempts of Great Britain to enslave us j that this opposition was grounded upon the preservation of those rights to which God and Nature had entitled us, not in particular, but in common with all the rest of mankind. That we had appealed to the Supreme Being for his assistance, as the God of heaven, who could not but approve our efforts to preserve the rights which he hud imparted to his creatures; that now, when we had scarcely risen from our knees from supplicating his aid and protection in forming our government over a free people, — a government formed pretendedly on the principles of liberty, and for its preservation, — in that government to have a provision, not only putting it' out of its power to restrain or prevent the slave-trade, evon encouraging that most infamous traffic, and giving States power and influence in the Union in proportion as they cruelly and wantonly sport with the rights of their fellow-creatures,— ought to be considered as a solemn mockery of, and insult to, that God, whose protection we had then implored, and could not fail to hold us up in detestation, and render us contemptible to every true friend of liberty m the world.

Luther Martin, the attorney-general of Maryland, thought it " inconsistent with the principles of the revolution, and dishonourable to the American character," to have the importation of slaves allowed by the Constitution.

The Northern States, and some of the Southern, wished to abolish the slave-trade at once. Mr Pinckney, of South Carolina, thought that State 'would never accede to the

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Constitution, if it prohibits the slave-trade ; " she "would not stop her importation of slaves in any short time." Said Mr Rutledge, of South Carolina, " the people of the Carolinas and Georgia will never be such fools as to give up so important an interest." "Religion and humanityhave nothing to do with this question. Interest alone is the governing principle with nations/' In apportioning taxes, he thought three slaves ought to be counted as bat one free man ; while in apportioning representatives, his colleagues — Messrs Butler and Pinckney — declared, " the blacks ought to stand on an equality with the whites." Mr Pinckney would " make blacks equal to whites in the ratio of representation ; " he went further, — he would have " some security against an emancipation of slaves ; " and, says Mr Madison, " seemed to wish some provision should be includ d. [in the Constitution] in favour of property in slaves." " South Carolina and Georgia," said Mr Pinckney, " cannot do without slaves." " The importation of slaves would be for the interest of the whole Union ; the more slaves, the more produce to employ the carrying trade, the more consumption also."

On the other hand, Mr Bedford of Delaware thought " South Carolina was puffed up with he:; wealth and her negroes." Mr Madison, cool and far-sighted, always referring to first principles, was unwilling to allow the importation of slaves till 1808 : — " So long a term will be more dishonourable to the American character than to say nothing about it in the Constitution."

Mr Williamson of North Carolina, in 1783, thought " slaves an encumbrance to society," and was " both in opinion and practice against slavery ." Col. Mann, of Virginia, in the Convention, called the slave-trade an " infernal traffic," and said that " slavery discourages arts and manufactures j the poor despise labour when performed by slaves." "They produce the most pernicious effect on manners. Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of Heaven on a country." Mr Dickinson, of Delaware, thought it " inadmissible on every principle of honour and safety that the importation of slaves should be authorized." Gouverneur Morris, of Pennsylvania, "never would concur in upholdingdomestic slavery." It was a " nefarious institution ; " "the curse of Heaven

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was on the States where it prevailed ! " " Are the slaves men ? then make them citizens, and let them vote. Are they property ? why then is no other property included [in the ratio of representation] ? The houses in this city [Philadelphia] are worth more than all the wretched slaves who cover the rice-swamps of South Carolina." Mr Gerry declared we " ought to be careful not to give any 3anction to it."

All the North was at first opposed to slavery and the slave-trade. Both parties seemed obstinate ; the question of " taxes on exports " and of " navigation laws " remained to be decided. Gouverneur Morris recommended that the whole subject of slavery might be referred to a committee, " including the clauses relating to the taxes on exports and to the navigation laws. These things may form a bargain among the Northern and Southern States." Says Luther Martin, " I found the Eastern States, notwithstanding their aversion to slavery, were very willing to indulge the Southern States, at least with a temporary liberty to prosecute the slave-trade, provided the Southern States would in their turn gratify them by laying no restriction on navigation acts." The North began to understand if the contemplated navigation laws should be enacted, that, as Mr Grayson afterwards said, " all the produce of the Southern States will be carried by the Northern. States on their own terms, which must be high." Mr Clymer, of Pennsylvania, declared, "The Western and Middle States will be ruined, if not enabled to defend themselves against foreign regulations ;" will be ruined if they do not have some navigation laws giving Americans an advantage over foreign vessels. Mr Gorham of Massachusetts said, " The Eastern States had no motives to union but a commercial one." The proffered compromise would favour their commercial interests. It was for the commercial interest, of the South, said Mr Pinckney, to have no restrictions upon commerce, but " considering the loss brought on the Eastern Statec by the revolution, and their liberal conduct towards the views of South Carolina, [in consenting to allow slavery and the importation of slaves,] he thought that no fetters should be imposed on the power of making commercial regulations, and his constituents would be reconciled to the liberality." So the North took the boon,

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and winked at the " infernal traffic." When the question was put, there were in favour of the importation of slaves, Georgia, the two Carolinas, and Maryland, with New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. Opposed to it were Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Virginia ! Subsequently Mr Ames, in the Massachusetts Convention for the adoption of the Constitution, said the Northern States "have great advantages by it in respect of navigation;" in the Virginia Convention Patrick Henry said, " Tobacco will always make our peace with them," for at that time cotton was imported from India, not having become a staple of the South. When the article which binds the free States to deliver up the fugitive slaves came to be voted on, it was a new feature in American legislation ; not hinted at in the "articles of confederation;" hostile to the well-ki^vra principles of the common law of England — which always favours liberty — and the usages and principles of modern civilized nations. Yet new as ;i was and hostile, it seems not a word was said against a the Convention. It " was agreed to, nem. con." \et "The Northern delegates," says Mr Madison, " owing to their particular scruples on the subject of slavery, did not choose the word slave to be mentioned." In the Conventions of the several States it seems no remonstrance was made to this article.

Lather Martin returning home, said to the House of Delegates in Maryland, " At this time we do not generally hold this commerce in so great abhorrence as we have done ; when our liberties were at stake, we warmly felt for the common rights of men ; the danger being thought to be past, we are daily growing more insensible to their rights."

When the several States came to adopt the Constitution, some hesitancy was shown at tolerating the slave-trade or even slavery itself. In the Massachusetts Convention, Mr Neal would not " favour the making merchandise of the bodies of men." General Thompson exclaimed, " Shall it be said, that after we have established our own independence and freedom we make slaves of others ?" Washington has immortalized himself, " but he holds those in slavery who have as good a right to be free as he has." All parties deprecated the slave-trade in most pointed

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terms. " Slavery was generally detested." It was thought that the new States could not claim the sad privilege of their parents, that the South itself would noon hate and abolish it. " Slavery is not smitten by an apoplexy," said Mr Dawes, " yet it has received a mortal wound, and will die of consumption." This reflection, with the " tobacco " and " navigation laws," turned the scale. Patrick Henry was no son of New England, but knew well on what hinges her political morality might turn, by what means and which way.

In the New York Convention, Mr Smith could " not see any rule by which slaves were to be included in the ratio of representation, the very operation of it was to give certain privileges to men who were so wicked as to keep slaves to which Mr Hamilton replied, that "without this indulgence no union could possibly have been formed. But . . . considering those peculiar advantages which we derived from them, [the Southern States,] it is entirely just that they should be gratified. The Southern States possess certain staples, tobacco, rice, indigo, &c, which must be capital objects in treaties of commerce with foreign nations ; and the advantage . . . will be felt in all the States."

In the Pennsylvania Convention, Mr Wilson considered that the Constitution laid the foundation for abolishing slavery out of this country," though !3ie period was more distant than he could wish. Yet " the new States . . . will be under the control of Congress in this particular, and slavery will never be introduced amongst them "yefc the lapse of a few years, and Congress will have power xo exterminate slavery from within our borders."

In the Vir; : nia Convention Gov. Bandolph regarded the slave-trade at "infamous" and "detestable." Slavery was one of our vulnerable points. " Are we not weakened by the population of those whom we hold in slavery ? " he asked. Col. Mason thought the trade " diabolical in itself and disgraceful to mankind." He would " not admit the Southern States [Georgia and the Carolinas] into the Union unless they agreed to the discontinuance of this disgraceful trade." Mr Tyler thought "nothing could justify it." Patrick Henry, who contended for slavery, confessed " slavery is detested, — we feel its fatal effects, —

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we deplore it with all the pity of humanity." " It would rejoice my very soul that every one of my fellow-being? was emancipated." Said Mr Johnson, " Slavery has been the foundation of that impiety and dissipation which have been so much disseminated among our countrymen. If it were totally abolished it would do mnr^ good."

In the North Carolina Convention, xu was found necessary to apologize for the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. Mr Iredell in defence said, the matter of slavery "was regulated with great difficulty, and by a spirit of concession which it would not be prudent to disturb for a good many years." " It is probable that all the members reprobated this inhuman traffic [in slaves], but those of Sooth Carolina and Georgia would not consent to an immediate prohibition of it." " Were it practicable to put an end to the importation of slaves immediately, it would give him the greatest pleasure." " When the entire abolition of slavery takes place it will be an event which must be pleasing to every generous mind and every friend of human nature." Mr McDowall looked upon the slave-trade "as a very objectionable part of the system." Mr Goudy did not wish " to be represented with negroes."

In the South Carolina Convention, Gen. Pinckney admitted that the Carolinas and Georgia were so weak that they " could not form a union strong enough for the purpose of effectually protecting each other ; " it was their policy therefore " to form a close union with the Eastern States who are strong;" the Eastern States had been the greatest sufferers in the revolution, they had "lost everything but their country and their freedom ; " " we," the Carolina* and Georgia, "should let them, in some measure, partake of our prosperity." But the union could come only from a compromise ; " we have secured an unlimited importation of negroes for twenty years." " We have obtained a right to recover our slaves in whatever part of America they shall take refuge, which is a right we had not before." " We have made the best terms for the security of this species of property it was in our power to make ; we would have made better if we could, but on the whole I do not think them bad." No one in South Carolina, it seems, thought slavery an evil.

Thus the Constitution was assented to as " the result of

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accommodation," though 'containing clauses confessedly " founded on unjust principles." The North had been false W its avowed convictions, and in return "higher tonnage duties were imposed on foreign than on American bottoms/' and goods imported in American vessels " paid ton per cent, less duty than the same goods brought in those owned by foreigners." The " navigation laws " and the " tobacco " wrought after their kind ; South Carolina and Georgia had their way. The North, said Gouverneur Morris, in the national Convention, for the " sacrifice of every principle of right, of every impulse of humanity," had this compensation, "to bind themselves to march their militia for the defence of the Southern States, for their defence against those very slaves of ^vhom they complain. They must Buppiy vessels and seamen in case of foreign attack. The legislature will have indefinite power to tax them by excises and duties on imports."

Still, with many there lingered a vague belief that slavery would soon perish. In the first Congress Mr Jackson, of Georgia, admitted that "it was an evil habit." Mr Gerry and Mr Madison both thought that Congress had " the right to regulate this business," and, " if they see proper, to make a proposal to purchase all the slaves." But the most obvious time for ending the institution had passed by ; the feeling of hostility to it grew weaker and weaker as the nation became united, powerful, and rich ; its " mortal wound " was fast getting healed.

n.

CONDITION AND TREATMENT OF SLAVES.

I will next consider the general condition and treatment of the slaves themselves. The slave is not theoretically considered as a person; he is only a thing, a3 much so as an axe or a spade; accordingly he is wholly subject to his master, and has no rights — which are an attribute of persons only, not of things. All that he en-

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joys therefore is but a privilege. He may be damaged but not wronged. However ill treated, he cannot of himself, in his own name and right, bring a formal action in any court, no more than an axe or a spade, though his master may bring an action for damages. The slave cannot appear as a witness when a freeman is on trial. His master can beat, maim, mutilate, or mangle him, and the slave has, theoretically, no complete an* . legal redress ; practically, no redress at all. The master may force him to marry or forbid his marriage; can sell him away from wife and children. He can force the lover to beat his beloved ; the husband his wife, the child his parent. " A slave is one who is in the power of his master, to whom he belongs. The master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry, and his labour ; he can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire anything but what must belong to his master." No contract between master and slave, however solemnly made and attested, is binding on the master. Ia the freeborn child of the freeman likewise theoretically subject to his father ? — natural and instinctive affection prevent the abuse of that power. The connection between father and child is one of guardianship and reciprocal love, a mutual gain j that of master and slave is founded only on the interest of the owner ; the gain is only on the master's side

The relation of master and slave begins in violence ; it must be sustained by violence — the systematic violence of general laws, or the irregular violence of individual caprice. There is no other mode of conquering and subjugating a man. Regarding the slave as a thing, " an instrument of husbandry," the master gives him the least, and takes the most that is possible. He takes all the result of the slave's toil, leaving only enough to keep him in a profitable working condition. His work is the most he can be made to do ; his food, clothing, shelter, amusement, the least he can do with. " A Southern Planter," in his " Notes on Political Economy as applicable to the United States," says to his fellow slave-holders : " You own this labour, can regulate it, work it many or few hours in the day, accelerate it, stimulate it, control it, avoid turn-outs and combinations, and pay no wages. You can dress it plainly, feed it coarsely and cheap, lodge it, on simple forms, as

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the plantations do, house it in cabins costing 7 ittle." " The slaves live without beds or houses worth so calling, or family cares, or luxuries, or parade or show ; have no relaxations, or whims, or frolics, or dissipations ; instead of sun to sun, in their hours are worked from daylight till nine o'clock at night. Where the freeman or labourer would require a hundred dollars a year for food and clothing alone, the slave can be supported for twenty dollars a year, and often is." " Let us bestow upon them the worst, the most unhealthy and degrading sort of duties and labour/' Said Mr Jefferson, "the whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other."