Letters on slavery from the old world: written during the canvass for the presidency of the United States in 1860

Front matter

F/Lom the.

Llbnjcuty o^ AmeMcana

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Letter I

Introduction — Slavery established in North America by Great Britain — Slavery denounced by England only after the American Revolution— The New Republics obliged to adopt the existing Institution — Causes of Antagonism between the White and Black Races — M. De Tocqueville on Slavery in America Page 9

LETTER IL

Reasons why Slavery could not be Abolished, and proofs that it should not have been Abolished — Emancipation would make the condition of the Slaves worse — The Abolitionists cannot accomplish their purposes even with the assent of the Slaveholders — Slavery was abolished in the North by selling the Slaves to the South , 30

LETTER IIL

Classification of the Adversaries of Slavery in the Southern States — The London Times on the causes of English Opposition to Slavery — What position would England occupy towards the Belligerents, if the Republican party should attempt to carry its measures into effect ? — Would the South hesitate about defending herself to the last extremity ? 44

LETTER- IV.

Opposition to abstract Slavery resolved into opposition to Slavery in America, without considering the circumstances of its existence — Slavery Romances have misled the Public Mind — The manifest injustice of crediting them as History — The attitude of the present adversariesof Slavery in times past — Achievements of Slavery... 61

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IV CONTENTS.

LETTER V

Labor, the Foundation of the Wealth of Nations — Duties of Government— Declaration of Independence, and its correct interpretation — Classification of Rulers, and the Governed — Names do not express the Qualities of Objects Page 73

LETTER VL

Different systems of Labor considered — Free Labor more or less dependent upon Capital — Southey on English Labor System — Unhappy Condition of the Factory Operatives — Products of Slave and Free Labor Compared 86

LETTER VII.

Unfavorable results of Emancipation by England — Beneficial results of Slave Labor in the United States — Comparison of the condition of the Slave and Free States of the American Continent — Great importance attached by England to tropical productions — The interests of England and the Planting States identical 103

LETTER VIII.

Opposing interests combined in the Anti-Slavery Party— rCauses of disaster to Republics — Tendency of Slavery to produce equality in the dominant race — Causes of opposition to Slavery by aristocratic bodies — Morals of Slave and Free States — Capital and Labor united in Slave States 118

LETTER IX.

Influence of Public Opinion-r-Origin of the Anti-Slavery Sentiment in England — Failure of schemes to destroy the value of Slave Labor in America — Revolting Inhumanity of the systems instituted to supersede Slave Labor — Comparison of the Slavery System with those proposed as Substitutes — Subjugation of India by England — Atrial by the Moral Law 136

CONTENTS.

LETTER X.

Summary of the relative advantages of different systems of Labor — Results of the Comparison — Characteristics of Great Britain — An Anti-Slavery Poem — Does not fairly illustrate John Bull — Reflections- of a Philanthropist upon subjects suggested by the Poem — The Institution of Slavery more humane now than formerly, . . . p 156

LETTER XI.

Great Britain — Her interests in American Affairs — Public mind of Europe excited by misrej reseutations against the South — The London Times on Sumner's last Speech — "Republican" party of America— Its purposes hostile to the South 175

LETTER XII.

Influence of Anti-Slavery Fanaticism upon Religion — Bible Authority on Slavery — Increase of Infidelity — Influence of the Clergy for Good and Evil 189

LETTER XIIL

Present Attitude of Parties in the United States — Success of the Republican Party will accomplish Disunion — Its Measures Examined, etc 200

LETTER XIV.

A Confederacy could never be established which did not recognize the equality of the States — Position of Parties illustrated — Aggressions of the South and North considered 213

LETTER XV.

Duty of Citizens — Republican Measures are the results of unfriendly feeling; not th^^ cause — Spirit of the Republican Party inconsistent with a desire to maintain the Union in its integrity 225

VI CONTENTS.

LETTER XVI.

The madness of the hour — In Europe the Dissolution of the Union is expected — A few words to Northern Enemies of the South — Conclusion Page 234

LETTER TO LORD BROUGHAM on the John Brown raid 249

THE RESULT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

Interest excited abroad by the last canvass for the Presidency, and its results — Amazement at the consequences — The South tranquilly living under the same laws as before, while the North is in a state of Revolution — -Atrocities of the invaders — Fremont's Proclamation— Spectacle presented to mankind — Nature of the late compact of Union — Reserved rights of the States — While the Monarchies of Europe are upholding, the Lincoln Government is denying the rights of the people to self-government — The Union of South and North is opposed to the freedom of the former, and the happiness of the latter, and can never be restored — Characteristic differences between them — "Puritans," "Cavaliers" — The South will stand higher in the estimation of the civilized world after separation — ■ The only issue is subjection or independence — Providence smiles upon the Southern people — Through the murky clouds the sunlight is already visible — President Lincoln's declaration that the States derived their powers from the General Government disproved, Note to page 288 — The nature and terms of the compact of union between the States considered, Note to page 293 277

Preface

The following letters upon slavery in the Southern States of the late American Union, were written at Constantinople during the canvass for the Presidency of the United States in 1860, and forwarded at the time for publication in a political journal. In deference to the desire of a number of intelligent gentlemen, they are now issued in their present form, as a single atom in the history of that great struggle which terminated in the election of a President by the united votes of the Northern States, to be speedily followed by the dismemberment of the Confederacy.

It will be necessary that the reader should bear constantly in mind that the letters were written before, not after the occurrence of these events. Although the anticipations of the author have been strikingly verified, both in Europe and in America, he does not pretend to have furnished new facts, or to have thrown new light upon the interesting and important subjects upon which he has written. But his position abroad afibrded him opportunities, which were possessed by but few of his fellow-countrymen, for acquiring an insight into the real opinions, and feelings, and general public sentiment of Europe, in regard to the contest which was then in active progress between the North and the South ; and also of the designs of those statesmen and politicians of the Old World, between whom and the active leaders of the anti-

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VIU PREFACE.

slavery party in America there existed a coincidence and agreement of sentiment and purpose.

In Europe, moreover, there was no attempt to conceal the ultimate objects which the leading "Republicans" of the North and their European allies proposed to accomplish, if the former should succeed in obtaining the undivided control of the G-eneral Government.

In Great Britain, as in America, tlie anti-slavery party was divided into two general classes : the one comprising the prominent statesmen, together with their less distinguished adherents, who looked to the political, and personal, and national advantages which might follow a gradual but sure process of emancipation in the Southern planting States ; the other comprising the fanatics of one idea, and the extreme advocates of prompt action. Between the former and the leaders of the " Republican party," there was understood to be a perfect accord. Both agreed that the process of abolitionizing the South should be so gradual as not to produce any convulsion in the commercial world, by a sudden diminution in the products of slave labor ; while it should be so cautious in its development as not to awaken any serious alarm among the great body of the Southern people.

Under whatever vail the anti-slavery leaders in the North may have attempted to conceal their real purpose in America, there was no effort to disguise the fact in Europe that " the mission of the Republican party was to effect the extinction of slavery in the American Confederacy." This opinion was so thoroughly implanted in the public mind, that any intimation of a doubt in regard thereto would have been received with incredulity by thepublic at large, and repelled by their European friends as an imputation against the personal integrity of their American allies.

It is a remarkable fact that the only intelligent observers

PREFACE. IX

of the events whicli were transpiring in the United States, who were surprised at the immediate eflFects of the success of the " Republicans/' were those who were themselves the instigators or actors in that great political crusade against the South. These seem, in their calculation of consequences, to. have ignored alike the existence of that great body of earnest fanatics whose passions they had aroused to madness, while invoking their necessary aid, and of that natural instinct of self-preservation which would teach the freemen of the South, while fathoming the hostile intent of their enemies, that although it might be swift destruction to resist, it would be but an ignoble life and a lingering death to submit ! They alone seemed blind to the consequences which would follow, as a necessary sequence, upon the heels of their victory. They alone seem not to have considered, that whilst the multitude of their mad followers would not be content to postpone gathering the fruits of their victory, and would press forward at once to reach the promised goal, the South would, AS ONE MAN, gird on its armor for defence, and by accepting the challenge to immediate combat, make " gradual emancipation" for ever impossible.

While it was universally understood throughout Europe that the only question at issue in the struggle for the presidency was that of slavery in the Southern States, and that the result would involve the destrijctipn of that institution, or the dissolution of the Confederacy, in the event of the success of the " Republican party," the greater number believed that the only result would be the ultimate emancipation of the slaves. So active and successful have been the enemies of the South, in misrepresenting the character and qualities of the Southern people, there were but few who supposed that they could offer any serious resistance to the encroachments of their powerful neighbor. The events of

X PREFACE.

the last few months have not only dispelled this delusion from the public mind, but they have created a revulsion in the sentiment and opinion of the civilized world, as startling in its magnitude as it is just in its conclusions. Europe is at length beginning to discover, as passing events are developing with a rapid movement, the true merits of this life-and-death struggle for supremacy over the soil of the South ; how egregiously it has been deceived by the persistent misrepresentations of the Southern people by their unscrupulous enemies.

That the war in which the gallant sons of the South are now engaged will end in securing their independence, cannot be questioned ; that its prosecution may be attended with heavy sacrifices, is equally true. But amidst all the evils which may accompany it, or the blessings which will succeed its successful close, not the least gratifying of the results achieved will be the vindication of the character of the Southern people before the civilized world, against the aspersions and misrepresentations which have been so unjustly and so profusely heaped upon them by those who claimed to be their fellow-countrymen.

ttttxs u Slahrg.

LETTER I

Introduction — Slavery established in North America by Great Britain — Slavery denounced by England only after the American Revolution— The New Republic obliged to adopt the existing Institution — Causes of Antagonism between the White and Black Races — M. De Tocqueville on Slavery in America.

The American-born citizen, wlio has been called to reside for a time in a distant country, may, after the lapse of a few years, cease to feel any great personal solicitude in regard to the mere material out of which a Presidential ticket is composed ; yet he is all the more deeply concerned in observing and noting the popular impulses, the sentiments, and the purposes which animate the electors, and which are supposed to be represented by their respective candidates. However intense may have been his feelings when at home, touching the local, sectional, or personal controversies, which are often turned to account by ambitious men as auxiliaries to their personal aggrandizement, they are softened by continued absence, and soon become merged into that broad American sentiment, which embraces every foot of territory over which floats the flag of the Union ! Not that he loves less the home and the friends which he has left behind him, or that the local attachments which have had their origin in education or association are less strong or active, for on the contrary these feelings which spring from and encircle the heart, are only intensified by absence. But the expanded vision discovers more clearly the magnificence of that great confederacy, of which each particular part forms an essential element ; and in the contemplation of which the geographical lines which define these minute divisions, become fainter and more faint, until they are lost in the outline — the form — the dimensions — the aspect of that grand unit, which represents to the nations of the world the single sovereignty of the Great Republic.

I am sure that if these letters ever meet the eye of those for whom they are intended, they will not find therein the expression of a thought, or a sentiment, or a feeling, or an impulse, which is not recon- ■ cilable with that broad and comprehensive Americanism which embraces each and everj- member of the federal Union.

That the writer is a Southerner by birth and education, may be readily inferred. That he feels in every fibre of his heart an earnest and unchangeable attachment for the political institutions of the State in which he was born, which no time can eradicate, and which neither obloquy nor misfortune can abate, he is proud to declare : yet he trusts that this frank avowal will not close the eyes and ears of those who may have difierent local attachments, against the truths which he may enunciate. However iinsuccessful lie may be in implanting his own convictions in the minds of others, he only asks that they be considered with the same frankness, and under the influence of the same American feeling which animates him in their utterance.

In order to arrive at just conclusions in regard to the merits of a question, which enlists, to a greater or less extent, the passions and prejudices, as well as the interests of those who are arrayed upon one side or the other, it is well to understand the relative positions of the parties to the controversy. A knowledge of the motives of human actions is essential to an understanding of the merits of these actions themselves, and we may reasonably distrust the arguments of those who have a great personal, selfish interest behind the ostensible object which they propose to accomplish. The passions, the prejudices, the interest, or the ignorance of men often impel them to act unjustly towards their fellow-men; and no injustice is more common than that of condemning others for apparent or real faults — as tested by the standard of abstract right — without considering the circumstances of those against whom such censures are directed. In order to comprehend fully the true merits of the subject of controversy between the JSTorth and the South, upon which the respective sections have arrayed themselves in the now pending contest for the Presidency, it is necessary to begin at the beginning — to commence at the foundation, and to trace step by step the origin and progress of the causes that liave produced a conflict within the heart of the Confederacy, which may end in disaster to one or both. Many statesmen and wise men in the old world, both of the friends and enemies of the Republic, declare unreservedly their belief, that the Chief Magistrate now in the occupancy of the Executive Chair is the last of the line of American Presidents who will rule over the present confederacy of States. At home and abroad the danger is apparent, and as the writer of these letters cannot participate personally and actively in the conflict, he adopts this as the only means by which he may communicate with his countrymen. For this he ofiers no other apology or explanation, than that he is an American citizen.

The first African slaves who were introduced into what now constitutes the United States of America, but which at that time formed the larger part of the ll^orth American provinces of Great Britain, were transported thither in British ships, under the sanction and by the authority of the British G-overnment. The speculation was pecuniarily successful, and under the special patronage of this Power, slaves were imported in such large numbers as to alarm the European inhabitants for their personal safety. The colonists thereupon urged the British Government to abandon, or at least to suspend, the farther introduction of these barbarians, and seconded their request by a detailed statement of the evils which they believed that they had reason to apprehend, if the system should be continued.

But the Government of Great Britain was deaf to their representations and to their complaints, and the traffic in slaves was prosecuted with increased activity and effect. The trade was valuable to England in a double sense. First, the price paid for the slaves enriched the British subjects, who were either directly or indirectly interested in the traffic, while at the same time it gave profitable employment to her ships, and added to her power upon the ocean ; and secondly, the productions of the colonies rapidly increased, stimulated by this augmentation in the number of her operatives.

The treatment of these captives was necessarily harsh and cruel ; for besides being savages but just subjected to the galling and unaccustomed restraints of servitude under civilized masters, with no other feeling towards those by whom they had been enslaved and held in bondage but that of hatred, they were formidable in numbers ; and when added to the strength of the native races who were at enmity with the colonists, it will readily be seen that a lack of due circumspection or vigilance might have been attended with fatal consequences to the sparse population of European blood.

From that period up to the very moment when, after a long and sanguinary and cruel war, the American colonies achieved their independence and became one of the family of nations, the Government of Great Britain never ceased to encourage the importation of slaves. It constituted, up to

14 LETTERS ON SLAVERT.

that epocli, a most important branch of her commerce, and the great vahie which she attached thereto may be estimated by the fact, that at the end of a long and bloody European war, in which she figured as one of the chief combatants, she only claimed as her portion of the spoils of victory, the exclusive i^riulcge of prosecuting the slave trade. This dearly-bought concession she exercised and enforced with as much energy and zeal as she employed after the American Eevolution, in constituting her navy into a police of the seas for the suppression of the traffic.

It may with truth be said, that of all the nations of the earth, Great Britain has contributed most — first, towards the establishment of African slavery in America, and afterwards towards exciting against it the prejudices of the civilized world. Having forced the human chattels upon her reluctant subjects, that she might reap the rich harvest of their labors in the fertile fields of the new world, she never repented herself of the " sin of slavery " — she never felt the bowels of her compassion yearning towards the "miserable captives" of her own cupidity, until by a successful revolution these colonies threw off" their allegiance and erected themselves into one of the independent family ot nations. The sceptre of the slave power thus and then passed into the hands of a rival, and from that period dates the conversion of Great Britain to the doctrine of universal emancipation.

Scarcely had the American Revolution brought about tMs unanticipated and disastrous phase in the immediate and probable future condition of slavery, and the slave trade, than the British Government changed its tactics with most indecent haste, and caused her navy to institute a rigorous search after all vessels which were engaged in what she then denominated the "infamous traffic in human flesh," These, when found, were captured — carried into British ports — condemned as lawful prizes — the proceeds thereof placed in the pockets of the captors— and the liberated Africans were sent to work •for a term of years, as involuntary " free laborers," upon the plantations of British subjects. This is a curious but characteristic illustration of the facility with which English philanthropy adapts itself to the exigencies of British pecuniary interests.*

An enlightened and unprejudiced judgment would decide that her sudden conversion, and her ostentatious horror of the institution of slavery, occurred at an epoch well calculated to create doubts in regard to the genuineness of that philanthropy, which, however noisy in its demonstration-, was painfully at variance with her practice, as long as

* The reader is referred to the case of the American brig Fortuna — Dodson's A dm. Reports: toI. 1, page 95 — and of the American ship Arcadia — reported in Acton's Adm. Reports : vol. 1, page 24. The capture of the former occurred in 1807, and of the latter at a period somewhat later. In both instances the Ajnerican vessels ■were condemned as lawful prizes by the Lords of Appeal, and the products thereof divided among the crews of the vessels whicli had" seized them.

she retained a controlling interest in the traffic in slaves, and in the fruits ot their labor. And we have a right to assume that a strongly-impelling incentive to her present active intervention in the anti-slavery movement is, that by impairing or destroying, by a gradual but sure process, the institution of slavery in America, she may without a rival become the great producer of cotton for the consumption of the world, by means of her vast possessions in India. It is for this, among other causes, that her leading anti-slavery statesmen have misrepresented the institution of slavery, which she erected in the territory of the United States, and have endeavored to excite against that country the prejudices of the civilized world. Unable to achieve this result so readily by any other means at their command, they have adopted the subtle method of building up a powerful party within the Confederacy itself, and thus throwing upon American citizens the burden of working out their policy and purposes. They have leagued themselves in America with every abominable heresy which, under the license of unrestricted liberty, has obtained a partial success in certain parts of the Republic. They are in intimate alliance with impracticable foreign-born Red Republicans — ^Fourierites — Agrarians — the advocates of "Free Love" and "Woman's Rights" — Deists, and Atheists — all leagued together under the designation of the "Anti-slavery Party."

These are your American allies, 0 haughty England ! They are fhe leaders of these, who are feasted and honored in your Baronial Halls, when, after an assault of more than usual virulence against the institutions of their native land, they visit the shores of the father-land to receive the wages of their treachery !

There may arrive a period when England may regret that, in giving aid and comfort to these, she has repulsed those who certainly are not least noble, chivalrous, or generous among the descendants of English ancestry in the 'New World.

Upon the establishment of the independence of the United States, about one-fifth of the population, in round numbers, were slaves, many of whom had been but recently brought from the shores of Africa. Thoroughly barbarous — without even the instincts of civilization — they still formed a considerable portion of the population ; and in the formation of the new Government, it was necessary to assign for them a position. The questions arose : What shall be done with these wild and uncultivated savages ? What rank shall they occupy in the State ?

If these slaves had been at the time congregated together upon the neighboring tropical islands, or if they had been isolated from the body of the European inhabitants in provinces more or less remote, there would have been allowed a much wider latitude in determining what should be their future condition. Their emancipation, either immediate or prosjDective, would have been a mere question of expediency, involving only a certain sum of money, as a remuneration to the owners. Great Britain, under like circumstances, abolished slavery in her distant possessions, doubtless under the conviction that she could thus assail with greater advantage the institution of slavery in the United States, and in the end substitute for both, the labor of her millions of conquered Asiatics in India. "Whether her measures were well taken, or whether the speculation has proven to be a profitable one, it is not my present purpose to investigate.

But the revolted colonists found themselves in no position in which such an alternative was presented to them, even if it would have seemed the part of wisdom to have adopted it. By the policy of Great Britain in establishing these slaves upon the American Continent, they were intermingled with the white inhabitants in the greater part of the States of the new Confederacy. They were established as domestics or farm laborers at almost every domestic threshold, and hence the questions involved in d'eciding upon their future position were of much graver significance, and their choice of means was much more limited.

The new Government being a Republic, founded upon the principle of equality of rights, was bound in the beginning to confer upon all whom she recognized as citizens the same equality of rights under the Constitution. From this position there was no escape. To have conferred upon one class of citizens certain rights, Avhich should be withheld from another, would have been not only absurd, but in a

Republic, impossible. The primary — tbe essential condition of a Republic is the absolute political equality of the individual members composing it.

It certainly requires no argument to prove that these African slaves were totally unfit, by nature, habit, and education, to enter upon the discharge of the responsible duties of free citizens. To have created them such would, in the very act (ff inaugurating.the Republic, have sounded its death-knell ! Every instinct, every impulse, every feeling of the white race would have revolted against the contaminating association, while the friends of the infant Republic would have had the mortification of witnessing its destruction, even before the erection of the corner-stone of that edifice, which now stands in all its magnificent and complete proportions, the pride of every American and the wonder of mankind.

Wiser counsels prevailed. The African, unsuited to be a citizen, was continued in his condition of slavery, and the product of his labor and that of his descendants has enriched the world — has contributed largely towards bringing within the reach of the great masses of mankind the essential products of the warm latitudes ; and last, though not least, it has been a principal element in developing the resources and increasing the power of the Great Republic.

Soon after the establishment of the new Government, the Congress enacted a law fixing upon a period, not remote, after which no slaves should be introduced from abroad into any State or Territory of the Republic. Of the nearly four millions of slaves now held as such in the United States, not five hundred liave been introduced in contravention of that enactment.

It is, in this connection, worthy of special remark, that for the ancestors of the great body of Africans at this day held as slaves, within the limits of the American Republic, the estimated value thereof, was paid, under the sanction and approval of the British Government, to British subjects ! For nearly every drop of blood which flows in the veins of the slaves of the United States, England has received, the price in gold! And yet this England shakes her gory locks at us, and says "the sin" is ours ! ! She points to her desolated islands, with their famishing freed slaves, and tells us that her " skirts are clear."

Judas Iscariot betrayed his Lord and Master for the paltry bribe of thirty pieces of silve r ; but after the act of guilt and shame was past recall, reflection came, and with it came remorse. He cast away the guilty wages of his sin, and prayed for pardon, but his crime was too great for forgiveness. England, in what she now denominates the " unholy traflic in human flesh," also received the wages of her sin. She never reflected upon the " enormity of the crime against humanity," until "the great market for human blood and sinews " was closed against her. Then came her tardy repentance ; but worse even than Judas, she has never cast away from her, nor offered to restore the wages of her sin ; and shall she be forgiven ?