CHAPTER X.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
The thing to be done, of which I shall chiefly speak, is that the whole American church, of all denominations, should unitedly come up, not _in form_, but _in fact_, to the noble purpose avowed by the Presbyterian Assembly of 1818, to seek the ENTIRE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY THROUGHOUT AMERICA AND THROUGHOUT CHRISTENDOM.
To this noble course the united voice of Christians in all other countries is urgently calling the American church. Expressions of this feeling have come from Christians of all denominations in England, in Scotland, in Ireland, in France, in Switzerland, in Germany, in Persia, in the Sandwich Islands, and in China. All seem to be animated by one spirit. They have loved and honored this American church. They have rejoiced in the brightness of her rising. Her prosperity and success have been to them as their own, and they have had hopes that God meant to confer inestimable blessings through her upon all nations. The American church has been to them like the rising of a glorious sun, shedding healing from his wings, dispersing mists and fogs, and bringing songs of birds and voices of cheerful industry, and sounds of gladness, contentment and peace. But, lo! in this beautiful orb is seen a disastrous spot of dim eclipse, whose gradually widening shadow threatens a total darkness. Can we wonder that the voice of remonstrance comes to us from those who have so much at stake in our prosperity and success? We have sent out our missionaries to all quarters of the globe; but how shall they tell their heathen converts the things that are done in Christianized America? How shall our missionaries in Mahometan countries hold up their heads, and proclaim the superiority of our religion, when we tolerate barbarities which they have repudiated!
A missionary among the Karens, in Asia, writes back that his course is much embarrassed by a suspicion that is afloat among the Karens that the Americans intend to steal and sell them. He says:
I dread the time when these Karens will be able to read our books, and get a full knowledge of all that is going on in our country. Many of them are very inquisitive now, and often ask me questions that I find it very difficult to answer.
No, there is no resource. The church of the United States is shut up, in the providence of God, to one work. She can never fulfil her mission till this is done. So long as she neglects this, it will lie in the way of everything else which she attempts to do
She must undertake it for another reason,—because she alone can perform the work peaceably. If this fearful problem is left to take its course as a mere political question, to be ground out between the upper and nether millstones of political parties, then what will avert agitation, angry collisions, and the desperate rending the Union? No, there is no safety but in making it a religious enterprise, and pursuing it in a Christian spirit, and by religious means.
If it now be asked what means shall the church employ, we answer, this evil must be abolished by the same means which the apostles first used for the spread of Christianity, and the extermination of all the social evils which then filled a world lying in wickedness. Hear the apostle enumerate them: “BY PURENESS, BY KNOWLEDGE, BY LONG-SUFFERING, BY THE HOLY GHOST, BY LOVE UNFEIGNED, BY THE ARMOR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS ON THE RIGHT HAND AND ON THE LEFT.”
We will briefly consider each of these means.
First, “by Pureness.” Christians in the Northern free states must endeavor to purify themselves and the country from various malignant results of the system of slavery; and, in particular, they must endeavor to abolish that which is the most sinful,—the unchristian prejudice of caste.
In Hindostan there is a class called the Pariahs, with which no other class will associate, eat or drink. Our missionaries tell the converted Hindoo that this prejudice is unchristian; for God hath made of one blood all who dwell on the face of the earth, and all mankind are brethren in Christ. With what face shall they tell this to the Hindoo, if he is able to reply, “In your own Christian country there is a class of Pariahs who are treated no better than we treat ours. You do not yourselves believe the things you teach us.”
Let us look at the treatment of the free negro at the North. In the States of Indiana and Illinois the most oppressive and unrighteous laws have been passed with regard to him. No law of any slave state could be more cruel in its spirit than that recently passed in Illinois, by which every free negro coming into the state is taken up and sold for a certain time, and then, if he do not leave the state, is sold again.
With what face can we exhort our Southern brethren to emancipate their slaves, if we do not set the whole moral power of the church at the North against such abuses as this? Is this course justified by saying that the negro is vicious and idle? This is adding insult to injury.
What is it these Christian states do? To a great extent they exclude the colored population from their schools; they discourage them from attending their churches by invidious distinctions; as a general fact, they exclude them from their shops, where they might learn useful arts and trades; they crowd them out of the better callings where they might earn an honorable livelihood; and, having thus discouraged every elevated aspiration, and reduced them to almost inevitable ignorance, idleness and vice, they fill up the measure of iniquity by making cruel laws to expel them from their states, thus heaping up wrath against the day of wrath.
If we say that every Christian at the South who does not use his utmost influence against their iniquitous slave-laws is guilty, as a republican citizen, of sustaining those laws, it is no less true that every Christian at the North who does not do what in him lies to procure the repeal of such laws in the free states is, so far, guilty for their existence. Of late years we have had abundant quotations from the Old Testament to justify all manner of oppression. A Hindoo, who knew nothing of this generous and beautiful book, except from such pamphlets as Mr. Smylie’s, might possibly think it was a treatise on piracy, and a general justification of robbery. But let us quote from it the directions which God gives for the treatment of the stranger: “If a stranger sojourn with you in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth among you shall be as one born among you: thou shall love him as thyself.” How much more does this apply when the stranger has been brought into our land by the injustice and cruelty of our fathers!
We are happy to say, however, that the number of states in which such oppressive legislation exists is small. It is also matter of encouragement and hope that the unphilosophical and unchristian prejudice of caste is materially giving way, in many parts of our country, before a kinder and more Christian spirit.
Many of our schools and colleges are willing to receive the colored applicant on equal terms with the white. Some of the Northern free states accord to the colored free man full political equality and privileges. Some of the colored people, under this encouragement, have, in many parts of our country, become rich and intelligent. A very fair proportion of educated men is rising among them. There are among them respectable editors, eloquent orators, and laborious and well-instructed clergymen. It gives us pleasure to say that among intelligent and Christian people these men are treated with the consideration they deserve; and, if they meet with insult and ill-treatment, it is commonly from the less-educated class, who, being less enlightened, are always longer under the influence of prejudice. At a recent ordination at one of the largest and most respectable churches in New York, the moderator of the presbytery was a black man, who began life as a slave; and it was undoubtedly a source of gratification to all his Christian brethren to see him presiding in this capacity. He put the questions to the candidate in the German language, the church being in part composed of Germans. Our Christian friends in Europe may, at least, infer from this that, if we have had our faults in times past, we have, some of us, seen and are endeavoring to correct them.
To bring this head at once to a practical conclusion, the writer will say to every individual Christian, who wishes to do something for the abolition of slavery, begin by doing what lies in your power for the colored people in your vicinity. Are there children excluded from schools by unchristian prejudice? Seek to combat that prejudice by fair arguments, presented in a right spirit. If you cannot succeed, then endeavor to provide for the education of these children in some other manner. As far as in you lies, endeavor to secure for them, in every walk of life, the ordinary privileges of American citizens. If they are excluded from the omnibus and railroad-car in the place where you reside, endeavor to persuade those who have the control of these matters to pursue a more just and reasonable course. Those Christians who are heads of mechanical establishments can do much for the cause by receiving colored apprentices. Many masters excuse themselves for excluding the colored apprentice by saying that if they receive him all their other hands will desert them. To this it is replied, that if they do the thing in a Christian temper and for a Christian purpose, the probability is that, if their hands desert at first, they will return to them at last—all of them, at least, whom they would care to retain.
A respectable dressmaker in one of our towns has, as a matter of principle, taken colored girls for apprentices, thus furnishing them with a respectable means of livelihood. Christian mechanics, in all the walks of life, are earnestly requested to consider this subject, and see if, by offering their hand to raise this poor people to respectability and knowledge and competence, they may not be performing a service which the Lord will accept as done unto himself.
Another thing which is earnestly commended to Christians is the raising and comforting of those poor churches of colored people, who have been discouraged, dismembered and disheartened, by the operation of the fugitive slave law.
In the city of Boston is a church, which, even now, is struggling with debt and embarrassment, caused by being obliged to buy its own deacons, to shield them from the terrors of that law.
Lastly, Christians at the North, we need not say, should abstain from all _trading in slaves_, whether direct or indirect, whether by partnership with Southern houses or by receiving immortal beings as security for debt. It is not necessary to expand this point. It speaks for itself.
By all these means the Christian church at the North must secure for itself purity from all complicity with the sin of slavery, and from the unchristian customs and prejudices which have resulted from it.
The second means to be used for the abolition of slavery is “Knowledge.”
Every Christian ought thoroughly, carefully and prayerfully, to examine this system of slavery. He should regard it as one upon which he is bound to have right views and right opinions, and to exert a right influence in forming and concentrating a powerful public sentiment, of all others the most efficacious remedy. Many people are deterred from examining the statistics on this subject, because they do not like the men who have collected them. They say they do not like abolitionists, and therefore they will not attend to those facts and figures which they have accumulated. This, certainly, is not wise or reasonable. In all other subjects which deeply affect our interests, we think it best to take information where we can get it, whether we like the persons who give it to us or not.
Every Christian ought seriously to examine the extent to which our national government is pledged and used for the support of slavery. He should thoroughly look into the statistics of slavery in the District of Columbia, and, above all, into the statistics of that awful system of legalized piracy and oppression by which hundreds and thousands are yearly torn from home and friends, and all that heart holds dear, and carried to be sold like beasts in the markets of the South. The smoke from this bottomless abyss of injustice puts out the light of our Sabbath suns in the eyes of all nations. Its awful groans and wailings drown the voice of our psalms and religious melodies. All nations know these things of us, and shall we not know them of ourselves? Shall we not have courage, shall we not have patience, to investigate thoroughly our own bad case, and gain a perfect knowledge of the length and breadth of the evil we seek to remedy?
The third means for the abolition of slavery is “Long-suffering.”
Of this quality there has been some lack in the attempts that have hitherto been made. The friends of the cause have not had patience with each other, and have not been able to treat each other’s opinions with forbearance. There have been many painful things in the past history of this subject; but is it not time when all the friends of the slave should adopt the motto, “_forgetting_ the things that are behind, and reaching forth unto those which are before”? Let not the believers of immediate abolition call those who believe in gradual emancipation time-servers and traitors; and let not the upholders of gradual emancipation call the advocates of immediate abolition fanatics and incendiaries. Surely some more brotherly way of convincing good men can be found, than by standing afar off on some Ebal and Gerizim, and cursing each other. The truth spoken in love will always go further then the truth spoken in wrath: and, after all, the great object is to persuade our Southern brethren to admit the idea of _any_ emancipation at all. When we have succeeded in persuading them that _anything_ is necessary to be done, then will be the time for bringing up the question whether the object shall be accomplished by an immediate or a gradual process. Meanwhile, let our motto be, “Whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same things; and if any man be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto him.” “Let us receive even him that is weak in the faith, but not to doubtful disputations.” Let us not reject the good there is in any, because of some remaining defects.
We come now to the consideration of a power without which all others must fail,—“the Holy Ghost.”
The solemn creed of every Christian church, whether Roman, Greek, Episcopal or Protestant, says, “_I believe in the Holy Ghost_.” But how often do Christians, in all these denominations, live and act, and even conduct their religious affairs, as if they had “never so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.” If we trust to our own reasonings, our own misguided passions, and our own blind self-will, to effect the reform of abuses, we shall utterly fail. There is a power, silent, convincing, irresistible, which moves over the dark and troubled heart of man, as of old it moved over the dark and troubled waters of Chaos, bringing light out of darkness, and order out of confusion.
Is it not evident to every one who takes enlarged views of human society that a gentle but irresistible influence is pervading the human race, prompting groanings and longings and dim aspirations for some coming era of good? Worldly men read the signs of the times, and call this power the _Spirit of the Age_,—but should not the church acknowledge it as the spirit of God?
Let it not be forgotten, however, that the gift of his most powerful regenerating influence, at the opening of the Christian dispensation, was conditioned on prayer The mighty movement that began on the day of Pentecost was preceded by united, fervent persevering prayer. A similar spirit of prayer must precede the coming of the divine Spirit, to effect a revolution so great as that at which we aim. The most powerful instrumentality which God has delegated to man, and around which cluster all his glorious promises, is prayer. All past prejudices and animosities on this subject must be laid aside, and the whole church unite as one man in earnest, fervent prayer. Have we forgotten the promise of the Holy Ghost? Have we forgotten that He was to abide with us forever? Have we forgotten that it is He who is to convince the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment? O, divine and Holy Comforter! Thou promise of the Father! Thou only powerful to enlighten, convince and renew! Return, we beseech thee, and visit this vine and this vineyard of thy planting! With thee nothing is impossible; and what we, in our weakness, can scarcely conceive, thou canst accomplish!
Another means for the abolition of slavery is “Love unfeigned.”
In all moral conflicts, that party who can preserve, through every degree of opposition and persecution, a divine, un-provokable spirit of love, must finally conquer. Such are the immutable laws of the moral world. Anger, wrath, selfishness and jealousy, have all a certain degree of vitality. They often produce more show, more noise and temporary results, than love. Still, all these passions have, in themselves, the seeds of weakness. Love, and love only, is immortal; and when all the grosser passions of the soul have spent themselves by their own force, love looks forth like the unchanging star, with a light that never dies.
In undertaking this work, we must love both the slave-holder and the slave. We must never forget that both are our brethren. We must expect to be misrepresented, to be slandered, and to be hated. How can we attack so powerful an interest without it? We must be satisfied simply with the pleasure of being true friends, while we are treated as bitter enemies.
This holy controversy must be one of principle, and not of sectional bitterness. We must not suffer it to degenerate, in our hands, into a violent prejudice against the South; and, to this end, we must keep continually before our minds the more amiable features and attractive qualities of those with whose principles we are obliged to conflict. If they say all manner of evil against us, we must reflect that we expose them to great temptation to do so when we assail institutions to which they are bound by a thousand ties of interest and early association, and to whose evils habit has made them in a great degree insensible. The apostle gives us this direction in cases where we are called upon to deal with offending brethren, “Consider thyself, lest thou also be tempted.” We may apply this to our own case, and consider that if we had been exposed to the temptations which surround our friends at the South, and received the same education, we might have felt and thought and acted as they do. But, while we cherish all these considerations, we must also remember that it is no love to the South to countenance and defend a pernicious system; a system which is as injurious to the master as to the slave; a system which turns fruitful fields to deserts; a system ruinous to education, to morals, and to religion and social progress; a system of which many of the most intelligent and valuable men at the South are weary, and from which they desire to escape, and by emigration are yearly escaping. Neither must we concede the rights of the slave; for he is also our brother, and there is a reason why we should speak for him which does not exist in the case of his master. He is poor, uneducated and ignorant, and cannot speak for himself. We must, therefore, with greater jealousy, guard his rights. Whatever else we compromise, we must not compromise the rights of the helpless, nor the eternal principles of rectitude and morality.
We must never concede that it is an honorable thing to deprive working men of their wages, though, like many other abuses, it is customary, reputable, and popular, and though amiable men, under the influence of old prejudices, still continue to do it. Never, not even for a moment, should we admit the thought that an heir of God and a joint heir of Jesus Christ may lawfully be sold upon the auction-block, though it be a common custom. We must repudiate, with determined severity, the blasphemous doctrine of property in human beings.
Some have supposed it an absurd refinement to talk about separating principles and persons, or to admit that he who upholds a bad system can be a good man. All experience proves the contrary. Systems most unjust and despotic have been defended by men personally just and humane. It is a melancholy consideration, but no less true, that there is almost no absurdity and no injustice that has not, at some period of the world’s history, had the advantage of some good man’s virtues in its support.
It is a part of our trial in this imperfect life;—were evil systems only supported by the evil, our moral discipline would be much less severe than it is, and our course in attacking error far plainer.
On the whole, we cannot but think that there was much Christian wisdom in the remark, which we have before quoted, of a poor old slave-woman, whose whole life had been darkened by this system, that we must “_hate the sin, but love the sinner_.”
The last means for the abolition of slavery is the “Armor of Righteousness on the right hand and on the left.”
By this we mean an earnest application of all straight-forward, honorable and just measures, for the removal of the system of slavery. Every man, in his place, should remonstrate against it. All its sophistical arguments should be answered, its biblical defences unmasked by correct reasoning and interpretation. Every mother should teach the evil of it to her children. Every clergyman should fully and continually warn his church against any complicity with such a sin. It is said that this would be introducing politics into the pulpit. It is answered, that since people will have to give an account of their political actions in the day of judgment, it seems proper that the minister should instruct them somewhat as to their political responsibilities. In that day Christ will ask no man whether he was of this or that party; but he certainly will ask him whether he gave his vote in the fear of God, and for the advancement of the kingdom of righteousness.
It is often objected that slavery is a distant sin, with which we have nothing to do. If any clergyman wishes to test this fact, let him once plainly and faithfully preach upon it. He will probably then find that the roots of the poison-tree have run under the very hearth-stone of New England families, and that in his very congregation are those in complicity with this sin.
It is no child’s play to attack an institution which has absorbed into itself so much of the political power and wealth of this nation, and they who try it will soon find that they wrestle “not with flesh and blood.” No armor will do for this warfare but the “armor of righteousness.”
To our brethren in the South God has pointed out a more arduous conflict. The very heart shrinks to think what the faithful Christian must endure who assails this institution on its own ground; but it _must be done_. How was it at the North? There was a universal effort to put down the discussion of it here by mob law. Printing-presses were broken, houses torn down, property destroyed. Brave men, however, stood firm; martyr blood was shed for the right of free opinion and speech; and so the right of discussion was established. Nobody tries that sort of argument now,—its day is past. In Kentucky, also, they tried to stop the discussion by similar means. Mob violence destroyed a printing-press, and threatened the lives of individuals. But there were brave men there, who feared not violence or threats of death; and emancipation is now open for discussion in Kentucky. The fact is, the South _must_ discuss the matter of slavery. She _cannot_ shut it out, unless she lays an embargo on the literature of the whole civilized world. If it be, indeed, divine and God-appointed, why does she so tremble to have it touched? If it be of God, all the free inquiry in the world cannot overthrow it. Discussion must and will come. It only requires courageous men to lead the way.
Brethren in the South, there are many of you who are truly convinced that slavery is a sin, a tremendous wrong: but, if you confess your sentiments, and endeavor to propagate your opinions, you think that persecution, affliction, and even death, await you. How can we ask you, then, to come forward? _We_ do not ask it. Ourselves weak, irresolute and worldly, shall we ask you to do what perhaps we ourselves should not dare? But we will beseech _Him_ to speak to you, who dared and endured more than this for your sake, and who can strengthen you to dare and endure for His. He can raise you above all temporary and worldly considerations. He can inspire you with that love to himself which will make you willing to leave father and mother, and wife and child, yea, to give up life itself, for his sake. And if he ever brings you to that place where you and this world take a final farewell of each other, where you make up your mind solemnly to give all up for his cause, where neither life nor death, nor things present nor things to come, can move you from this purpose,—then will you know a joy which is above all other joy, a peace constant and unchanging as the eternal God from whom it springs.
Dear brethren, is this system to go on forever in your land? Can you think these slave-laws anything but an abomination to a just God? Can you think this internal slave-trade to be anything but an abomination in his sight?
Look, we beseech you, into those awful slave-prisons which are in your cities. Do the groans and prayers which go up from those dreary mansions promise well for the prosperity of our country?
Look, we beseech you, at the mournful march of the slave-coffles; follow the bloody course of the slave-ships on your coast. What, suppose you, does the Lamb of God think of all these things? He whose heart was so tender that he wept, at the grave of Lazarus, over a sorrow that he was so soon to turn into joy,—what does he think of this constant, heart-breaking, yearly-repeated anguish? What does he think of Christian wives forced from their husbands, and husbands from their wives? What does he think of Christian daughters, whom his church first educates, indoctrinates and baptizes, and then leaves to be sold as merchandise?
Think you such prayers as poor Paul Edmondson’s, such death-bed scenes as Emily Russell’s, are witnessed without emotion by that generous Saviour, who regards what is done to his meanest servant as done to himself?
Did it never seem to you, O Christian! when you have read the sufferings of Jesus, that you would gladly have suffered with him? Does it never seem almost ungenerous to accept eternal life as the price of such anguish on his part, while you bear no cross for him? Have you ever wished you could have watched with him in that bitter conflict at Gethsemane, when even his chosen slept? Have you ever wished that you could have stood by him when all forsook him and fled,—that you could have owned when Peter denied,—that you could have honored him when buffeted and spit upon? Would you think it too much honor, could you, like Mary, have followed him to the cross, and stood a patient sharer of that despised, unpitied agony? _That_ you cannot do. That hour is over. Christ, now, is exalted, crowned, glorified,—all men speak well of him; rich churches rise to him, and costly sacrifice goes up to him. What chance have you, among the multitude, to prove your love,—to show that you would stand by him discrowned, dishonored, tempted, betrayed, and suffering? Can you show it in any way but by espousing the cause of his suffering poor? Is there a people among you despised and rejected of men, heavy with oppression, acquainted with grief, with all the power of wealth and fashion, of political and worldly influence, arrayed against their cause,—Christian, you can acknowledge Christ in them!
If you turn away indifferent from this cause,—“if thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that be ready to be slain; if thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not, doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it, and he that keepeth the soul, doth he not know it, shall he not render to every man according to his works?”
In the last judgment will He not say to you, “I have been in the slave-prison,—in the slave-coffle. I have been sold in your markets; I have toiled for naught in your fields; I have been smitten on the mouth in your courts of justice; I have been denied a hearing in my own church,—and ye cared not for it. Ye went, one to his farm, and another to his merchandise.” And if ye shall answer, “_When_, Lord?” He shall say unto you, “Inasmuch as ye have done it to the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”
APPENDIX. FACT _vs._ FIGURES; OR, THE NINE ARAB BROTHERS. BEING A NEW ARABIAN NIGHT’S ENTERTAINMENT.
It is a favorite maxim that “_figures cannot lie_.” We are loth to assail the time-honored reputation for veracity of this ancient and most respectable race. There may have been days of pastoral innocence and primitive simplicity, when they did not lie. When Abraham sat contemplatively in his tent-door, with nothing to do, all the long day, but compose psalms and pious meditations, it is likely that he had implicit faith in this maxim, and never thought of questioning the statistical tables of Eliezer of Damascus, with regard to the number of camels, asses, sheep, oxen and goats, which illustrated the prairie where he was for the time being encamped. Alas for those good old days! Figures did not lie then, we freely admit; but we are sadly afraid, from their behavior in recent ages, that this arose from no native innocence of disposition, but simply from want of occasion and opportunity. In those days, they were young and green, and had not learned what they could do. The first inventor, who commenced making a numeration table, with the artless primeval machine of his toes and fingers, had, like other great inventors, very little idea of what he was doing, and what would be the mighty uses of these very simple characters, when men got to having republican governments, and elections, and discussions of all sorts of unheard-of questions in politics and morals, and to electioneering among these poor simple Arab herdsmen, the nine digits, for their votes on all these complicated subjects. No wonder that figures have had their heads turned! Such unprecedented power and popularity is enough to turn any head. We are sorry to speak ill of them; but really we must say, that, like many of our political men, they have been found on all sides of every subject to an extent that is really very confusing. Of course, there is no doubt of their veracity _somewhere_; the only problem being, on which side, and where. Is any great measure to be carried, now-a-days? Of course, the statistics, cut and dried, in regular columns, on both sides of the question, contradict each other point-blank as two opposite cannons; and each party marshals behind them, firing them off with infinite alacrity, but with no particular effect, except the bewilderment of the few old-fashioned people, who, like Mr. Pickwick at the review, stand on the middle ground.
If that most respectable female person, Mrs. Partington, who, like most unsophisticated old ladies, is a most vehement and uncompromising abolitionist, could only hear the statistics that are to be shown up in favor of slavery, she would take off her spectacles and wipe her eyes in pious joy, and think that the millennium, and nothing less, had come upon earth. Such statistics they are, about the woe, and want, and agony, and heathenish darkness of Africa, which, by that eminent foreign missionary operation, the slave-trade, have been turned into light and joy and thanksgiving; here she has them, in round figures; she only needs to put on her spectacles and look. “Here, ma’am, you have it,” says the illustrator; “look on this side of the column: here are three hundred million of heathen,—don’t spare the figures,—down in Africa, sunk in heathenism—never heard the sound of the gospel—actually eating each other alive. Now, turn to this side of the column, and here they all are, over in America, clothed and in their right mind, going to church with their masters, and finding the hymns in their own hymn-books. Now, ma’am, can you doubt the beneficial results of the slave-trade?”
But Mrs Partington has heard something about that middle passage which she thought was horrid.
“By no means, my dear madam,” says the illustrator, whisking over his papers. “I have that all in figures,—average of deaths in the first cargoes, 25 _per cent._,—large average, certainly; they didn’t manage the business exactly right; but then the rate of increase in a Christian country averages twenty-five per cent. over what it would have been in Africa. Now, Mrs. Partington, if these had been left in Africa, they would have been all heathen; by getting them over here, you have just as many, and all Christians to boot. Because, you see, the excess of increase balances the percentage of loss, and we make no deduction for interest in those cases.”
Now, as Mrs. Partington does not know with very great clearness what “percentage” and “average” mean, and as mental philosophers have demonstrated that we are always powerfully affected by the unknown, she is all the more impressed with this reasoning, on that account; being one of the simple, old-fashioned people, who have not yet gotten over the impression that “figures cannot lie.”
“Well, now, really,” says she, “strange what these figures will do! I always thought the slave-trade was monstrous wicked. But it really, seems to be quite a missionary work.”
The fact is, that these nomadic Arabs, the digits, are making a very unfair use, among us, of the family reputation gotten up during the palmy days of their innocence, when they were a breezy, contemplatively unsophisticated race of shepherds, and, to use an American elegance of expression, had not yet “cut their eye-teeth.” All that remains of their Oriental origin in this country seems to be a characteristic turn for romancing. Not an addition of slave territory has been made to the United States, wherein these same Arab brothers have not, with grave faces, been brought in as witnesses, to swear, by the honor of the family, that it was absolutely essential, for the best interest of the African race, that there should be more slavery and more slave territory. To be sure, it was for the pecuniary gain of the _American_ race, but that was not the point insisted on. O no! we are always very glad when our interest coincides with that of the African race; but the extension of slavery is not to be considered in that light principally; it is entirely a system of Christian education, and evangelization of one race by another. Left to himself, Quashy goes right back into heathenism. His very body deteriorates; he becomes idiotic, insane, deaf, dumb, blind,—everything that can be thought of. “Is this an actual fact?” asks some incredulous Congress man, as innocent as Mrs. Partington. “O yes! for only look; here are the statistics. Just see; here in the town of Kittery, in Maine, are twenty-seven insane and idiotic black people, and down here in the town of Dittery, South Carolina, not a single one. Some simple-minded Kittery man, who overhears this conversation in the lobby, perhaps opens his eyes, and reflects with wonder that he never knew that there were so many black people in the town. But the Congress man shows it to him in the census, and he concludes to look for them when he goes home, as figures cannot lie.”
On the census of 1840 conclusions innumerable as to the capacity of the colored race to subsist in freedom have been based. It has been the very beetle, sledge-hammer and broad-axe; and when all other means fail, the objector, with a triumphant flourish, exclaims, “There, sir, what do you think of the census of 1840? You see, sir, the thing’s been tried, and it’s _no go_.” We poor common folks cannot tell what to think. Some of us suppose that we know that there were more insane and idiotic and variously dilapidated negroes reported in certain states than their entire negro population. But, of course, as it’s down in the census, and as “figures never lie,” we must believe our own eyes. We can only say what some people have thought.
That most inconvenient and pertinacious man, John Quincy Adams, made a good deal of trouble in Congress about this same matter. At no less than five different times did this very persistent old gentleman rise in Congress, with the statement that the returns of the census had been notoriously and grossly falsified in this respect; and that he was prepared, if leave were given, to present before the House the most complete, direct, and overwhelming evidence to this effect. The following is an account of Mr. Adams’ endeavors on this subject, collected from the _Congressional Globe_, and _Niles’s Register_:
TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. _February 26, 1844._—Mr. Adams, on leave, offered the following resolution:
_Resolved_, That the Secretary of State be directed to inform this House whether any gross errors have been discovered in the “Sixth Census, or Enumeration of the Inhabitants of the United States, as corrected at the Department of State in 1841,” and, if so, how these errors originated, what they are, and what, if any, measures have been taken to rectify them.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. _May 6, 1844._—The journal having been read, Mr. Adams moved a correction of the same by striking out from the communication of the Secretary of State (in answer to a resolution of this House inquiring whether any gross errors had been discovered in the printing of the Sixth Census), as copied upon the journal, the following words: “That no such errors had been discovered.”
Mr. Adams accompanied his motion with some remarks. It could not possibly (Mr. Adams said) be a correct representation, as very gross errors had been discovered, as he intended and would pledge himself to show. He said they referred to the number of insane, blind, &c., among the colored population. This had been made the subject of a pamphlet on the annexation of Texas, and of a speech by a gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Hammett), which had been refuted on this floor. The United States were at this time placed in a condition very little short of war with Great Britain, as well as Mexico, on the foundation of these very errors. It was important, therefore, that the true state of facts should be made to appear.
The Speaker remarked that whether errors existed or not would be matter of investigation. In the opinion of the chair, there was no error of the journal, because it contained only a faithful transcript of the communication made by the Secretary of State.
Mr. Adams persisted in his motion. It was (he said) the most extraordinary communication ever made from the State Department. He would pledge himself to produce documents to prove that gross errors did exist. He would produce such proof as no man would be able to contradict.
The House refused to amend the journal.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. _May 16, 1844._—Mr. Adams wished to present a memorial from certain citizens in relation to errors which they say have been committed in compiling and printing the last census of the United States.
Objection being made, he moved to suspend the rules for the purpose of offering the resolution, and moving to refer it to a committee of five members. The yeas and nays were ordered, and, being taken, the rules were not suspended,—ayes 96, nays 49,—less than two-thirds voting in the affirmative.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. _Dec. 10, 1844._—Mr. Adams presented a petition from the American Statistical Society, in relation to certain errors in the last or sixth census.
Mr. Adams said a petition on this subject at the last session was referred to a select committee, and he hoped this petition would take the same direction. He moved the appointment of a select committee of nine members, and that the memorial be printed.
The speaker announced that a majority had decided in favor of a select committee. The motion to print was laid on the table.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. _Dec. 13, 1844._—The following is the Select Committee appointed, on the motion of Mr. Adams, to consider the petition from the American Statistical Society in relation to the errors in the sixth census: Messrs. Adams, Rhett, Rayner, Stiles, Maclay, Brengle, Foster, Sheppard, Cary, and Caleb B. Smith.
This was the end of the affair in Congress. _The false returns stand to this day in the statistical tables of the census_, to convince all cavillers of the unfitness of the negro for freedom. That the reader may know what kind of evidence Mr. Adams had with which to sustain his allegations, we append, as a specimen, an extract from the American Almanac for 1845, p. 156.
The “American Statistical Association,” established in Boston, Mass., sent a memorial to Congress during the past winter, drawn up by Messrs. William Brigham, Edward Jarvis, and J. W. Thornton, in which, though they “confined their investigations to the reports respecting education and nosology,” they exposed an extraordinary mass of errors in the census. We can find room only for a few extracts from this memorial.
* * * * *
“The most glaring and remarkable errors are found in the statements respecting nosology, the prevalence of insanity, blindness, deafness and dumbness, among the people of this nation.
“The undersigned have compared these statements with information obtained from other more reliable sources, and have found them widely varying from the truth; and, more than all, they have compared the statements in one part of the census with those in another part, and have found most extraordinary discrepances. They have also examined the original manuscript copy of the census, deposited by the marshal of the District of Massachusetts in the clerk’s office in Boston, and have compared this with the printed edition of both Blair and Rives, and Thomas Allen, and found here, too, a variance of statements.
“Your memorialists are aware that some of these errors in respect to Massachusetts, and perhaps also in respect to other states, were committed by the marshals. Mr. William H. Williams, deputy marshal, states that there were one hundred and thirty-three colored pauper lunatics in the family of Samuel B. Woodward, in the town of Worcester; but on another page he states that there are no colored persons in said Woodward’s family.
“Mr. Benali Blood, deputy marshal, states, on one page, that there were fourteen colored pauper lunatics and two colored lunatics, who were supported at private charge, in the family of Charles E. Parker, in the town of Pepperell; while on another page he states that there are no colored persons in the family of said Parker. Mr. William M. Packson states, on one page, that there are in the family of Jacob Cushman, in the town of Plympton, four pauper colored lunatics, and one colored blind person; while on another page he states that there are no colored persons in the family of said Cushman.
“But, on comparing the manuscript copy of the census at Boston with the printed edition of Blair and Rives, the undersigned are convinced that a large portion of the errors were made by the printers, and that hardly any of the errors of the original document are left out. The original document finds the colored insane in twenty-nine towns, while the printed edition of Blair and Rives places them in thirty-five towns, and each makes them more than ten-fold greater than the state returns in regard to the paupers. And one edition has given twenty, and the other twenty-seven, self-supporting lunatics, in towns in which, according to private inquiry, none are to be found. According to the original and manuscript copy of the census, there were in Massachusetts ten deaf and dumb and eight blind colored persons; whereas the printed editions of the same document multiply them into seventeen of the former and twenty-two of the latter class of unfortunates.
“The printed copy of the census declares that there were in the towns of Hingham and Scituate nineteen colored persons who were deaf and dumb, blind, or insane. On the other hand, the undersigned are informed, by the overseers of the poor and the assessors, who have cognizance of every pauper and tax-payer in the town, that in the last twelve years no such diseased persons have lived in the town of Scituate; and they have equally certain proof that none such have lived in Hingham. Moreover, the deputy marshals neither found nor made record of such persons.
“The undersigned have carefully compared the number of colored insane and idiots, and of the deaf and dumb and blind, with the whole number of the colored population, as stated in the printed edition of the census, in every city, town, and county of the United States; and have found the extraordinary contradictions and improbabilities that are shown in the following tables.
“The errors of the census are as certain, if not as manifest, in regard to the insanity among the whites, as among the colored people. Wherever your memorialists have been able to compare the census with the results of the investigations of the state governments, of individuals, or societies, they have found that the national enumeration has fallen far short of the more probable amount.
“According to the census, there were in Massachusetts six hundred and twenty-seven lunatics and idiots supported at public charge; according to the returns of the overseers of the poor, there were eight hundred and twenty-seven of this class of paupers.
“The superintendents of the poor of the State of New York report one thousand and fifty-eight pauper lunatics within that state; the census reports only seven hundred and thirty-nine.
“The government of New Jersey reports seven hundred and one in that state; the census discovers only four hundred and forty-two.
“The Medical Society of Connecticut discovered twice as many lunatics as the census within that state. A similar discrepancy was found in Eastern Pennsylvania, and also in some counties in Virginia.
“Your memorialists deem it needless to go further into detail in this matter. Suffice it to say, that these are but specimens of the errors that are to be found in the ‘sixth census’ in regard to nosology and education, and they suspect also in regard to other matters therein reported.
“In view of these facts, the undersigned, in behalf of said Association, conceive that such documents ought not to have the sanction of Congress, nor ought they to be regarded as containing true statements relative to the condition of the people and the resources of the United States. They believe it would have been far better to have had no census at all than such an one as has been published; and they respectfully request your honorable body to take such order thereon, and to adopt such measures for the correction of the same,—or, if the same cannot be corrected, for discarding and disowning the same,—as the good of the country shall require, and as justice and humanity shall demand.
“We have room for the tables for only three of the states.” [We will caution the reader not to skip this statistical table, as he probably never saw one like it before.]
MAINE.
Towns. Total col’d Inhab’ts. Col’d Insane. Limerick, 0 4 Lymington, 1 2 Scarboro’, 0 6 Poland, 0 2 Dixfield, 0 4 Calais, 0 1 Industry, 0 3 Dresden, 3 6 Hope, 1 2 Hartland, 0 2 Newfield, 0 5
NEW HAMPSHIRE.
Coventry, 0 1 Haverhill, 1 1 Holderness, 0 2 Atkinson, 0 1 Bath, 0 1 Lisbon, 0 1 Compton, 1 1 Stratham, 0 1 Northampton, 0 1 New Hampton, 0 1 Lyman, 0 1 Littleton, 0 1 Henniker, 0 1
MASSACHUSETTS.
Freetown, 0 2 Plympton, 2 4 Leominster, 0 2 Wilmington, 0 2 Sterling, 0 2 Danvers, 0 2 Hingham, 2 2 Georgetown, 1 2 Carver, 1 1 Northbridge, 1 1 Ashby, 1 1 Randolph, 1 1 Worcester, 151[32] 133
Every fable, allegory and romance, must have its moral. The moral of this ought to be deeply considered by the American people.
_In order to gain capital for the extension of slave territory, the most important statistical document of the United States has been boldly, grossly, and perseveringly falsified, and stands falsified to this day._
Query: If state documents are falsified in support of slavery, what confidence can be placed in _any_ representations that are made upon the subject?
Footnote 32:
36 of these under 10 years of age.
INDEX.