Part 2

I do not see how we can escape from the conclusion that the slave-owner is an accomplice of the slave-trader. So long as a profitable market is kept open, the article will be supplied, despite of difficulties and dangers. The only way to stop the trade, is to shut up the market; and this can be done only by the entire abolition of the system of slavery. When nobody will buy a man, nobody will be tempted to steal a man. Slavery never exists without having more or less of the slave-trade involved _in_ it. There is in the very heart of our land a slave-trade constantly carried on, and sanctioned by our laws, which is as disgraceful and cruel as the foreign slave trade. The new slave States at the extreme South have not slaves enough, and the climate, together with the hard labor of the sugar plantations, kills them very fast. The old slave States have a surplus of slaves, which they send off to supply these markets. About ten thousand are annually exported from Virginia alone. Niles, in his Register, vol. 35, page 4, says: “Dealing in slaves has become a _large_ business. Establishments are made at several places in Maryland and Virginia, at which they are sold like cattle. These places are strongly built, and well supplied with _thumbscrews_, _gags_, _cow-skins_, _and other whips_, _often bloody_.” In these sales no regard is paid to domestic ties. The newly married wife is torn shrieking from her husband, and the mother with her little ones are sold in “_separate_ lots to suit purchasers.” A gentleman in Charleston, S. C., writes to his friend in New York: “Curiosity sometimes leads me to the auction sales of the negroes. There I saw the father looking with sullen contempt on the crowd, and expressing an indignation in his countenance that he dares not speak; and the mother pressing her infants closer to her bosom, exclaiming, in wild and simple earnestness, ‘I can’t leff my children! I won’t leff my children!’ But the hammer went on, reckless whether it united or sundered for ever. On another stand I saw a man apparently as white as myself exposed for sale.”

_Q._ I have heard some people say that the negroes do not care so much about such separations as we should suppose.

_A._ There is no doubt that their degraded situation tends to blunt the feelings, as well as to stultify the intellect; and it is a fearful thing to think what Christians have to answer for, who thus brutalize immortal souls. But there are numerous instances to prove that the poor creatures do often suffer the most agonizing sensations when torn from those they love. Near Palmyra, in Marion county, Missouri, two boys were sold to a slave-trader, who did not intend to leave the place until morning. During the night, the mother was kept chained in an out-house, that she might not make any effort to prevent the departure of her children. She managed to get loose from her fetters, seized an axe, cut off the heads of her sleeping boys, and then ended her own life by the same instrument.

The Missouri Intelligencer, a few months ago, gave an account of a slave named Michael, who was sold by his master to Mr. J. E. Fenton, by whom he was to be immediately shipped for the Southern markets. At the mouth of the Ohio, he filed off his irons, and contrived to escape. He immediately returned to the place where his wife resided, and having armed himself, declared he never would be sent to the South, unless his wife was allowed to accompany him. He was finally taken by stratagem, and lodged in jail for safe keeping. Finding that his oppressors were determined to separate him from his beloved wife, he committed suicide. I believe the attachments of slaves are even stronger than ours; for these ties constitute the only pleasure they are allowed to have. Hundreds of instances might be told, where they have preferred death to separation.

_Q._ I have been told they sometimes kidnapped free colored persons, to sell them as slaves. Is it so?

_A._ It is unquestionably true that this is carried on to a considerable extent. More than twenty free colored children were kidnapped in the single city of Philadelphia, in 1825; and in 1827 two were stolen in open day. It is a common thing to decoy the unsuspecting victims on board a vessel, or to some retired spot, and then seize and bind them. A New York paper of 1829, says: “Beware of kidnappers! It is well understood that there is at present in this city, a gang of kidnappers, busily engaged in their vocation of stealing colored children for the Southern market.” As the law supposes every colored person to be a slave unless he can _prove_ himself free, and as no person of his own complexion is allowed to be evidence for him, the kidnappers have an easy time of it.

_Q._ Some people say we ought to pity the masters as well as the slaves.

_A._ I agree with them entirely. The masters are to be deeply pitied; because the long continuance of a wicked system has involved them in difficulties, and at the same time rendered them generally blind to the best means of getting rid of those difficulties. They are likewise to be compassionated for the effects which early habits of power produce on their own characters. Mr. Jefferson, who lived in the midst of slavery, says: “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. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it. The parent storms; the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in a circle of smaller slaves, gives loose to the worst of passions; and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy, who can retain his morals and manners undepraved in such circumstances.” The general licentiousness produced by this system can never be described without using language too gross to be addressed to a civilized community. Some idea of it may be derived from the fact, that every female slave is completely in the power of her master, of his sons, of his overseers, and his drivers. The law does not allow her to offer resistance to a white man, under any circumstances; and the state of public opinion is such that any pretensions to virtue on her part would be treated with brutal ridicule. The slave is not allowed to have any right in his wife and children. If his master’s interest can be served by his keeping three or four wives, or by his wife’s having a succession of husbands, he cannot dispute the commands of his owner. The wife, or the husband, is sometimes sold, and sent thousands of miles from each other, and from their little ones, without the slightest hope of ever meeting again. Under these circumstances, the man, or the woman, is soon ordered to take another partner; because it is for the interest of the master that they should do so. It is a shameful fact that the laws and customs of our country make it absolutely impossible for a large portion of our population to be virtuous, even if they wish to be so. The wealth of Virginia is principally made by the breeding of slaves and horses; and persons unaccustomed to the system would be shocked by the detail of well authenticated facts, which prove that about as little regard is paid to decency in one case as the other. _Mulatto_ slaves bring a higher price than _black_ ones; hence licentiousness in slave States becomes a profitable vice, instead of being expensive, as it is under other forms of society.

_Q_. I have been told that a great many of the slaves have very light complexions. Is it so?

_A._ In the old slave States, where the process of amalgamation has been going on for a long time, this is remarkably the case. An old soldier, who lately visited the South, said he was not so much struck by any circumstance, as by the great change that had taken place in the complexion of the slaves since the Revolution. Now and then I have seen in the southern papers advertisements for a runaway slave, “who passes himself for a white man.” A Boston gentleman, who dislikes the abolitionists very much, visited Georgia a few years ago. He told me that when he was walking with a planter one day, they met a man driving a team, who had a perfectly fair complexion, with blue eyes and brown hair. The Bostonian remarked, “That must be an independent fellow, to be driving a team in this part of the country, where it is considered so disgraceful for a white man to work.” “O, that fellow is a slave,” replied the Georgian. Almost every body has heard of the recent case of Mary Gilmore, of Philadelphia, a perfectly white girl, of Irish parentage, who was taken up and tried as a runaway slave. A Missouri newspaper proves that a white man may, without a _mistake_, be adjudged a slave. “A case of a slave sueing for his freedom, was tried a few days since in Lincoln county, of which the following is a brief statement of particulars: A youth of about ten years of age sued for his freedom on the ground that he was a free white person. The court granted his petition to sue as a pauper upon inspection of his person. Upon his trial before the jury, he was examined by the jury and two learned physicians, all of whom concurred in the opinion that very little, if any, race of negro blood could be discovered by any of the external appearances. All the physiological marks of distinction, which characterize the African descent, had disappeared. His skin was fair, his hair soft, straight, fine and white, his eyes blue, but rather disposed to the hazel-nut color; nose prominent, the lips small, his head round and well formed, forehead high and prominent, ears large, the tibia of the leg straight, and feet hollow. Notwithstanding these evidences of his claims, he was proved to be the descendant of a mulatto woman, and that his progenitors on the mother’s side had been and still were slaves: _consequently he was found to be a slave_.” I have been told of a young physician, who went into the far Southern States to settle, and there became in love with a very handsome and modest girl, who lived at service. He married her; and about a year after that event, a gentleman called at the house, and announced himself as Mr. J*******y, of Mobile. He said to Dr. W*****, “Sir, I have a trifling affair of business to settle with you. You have married a slave of mine.” The young physician resented this language; for he had not entertained the slightest suspicion that the girl had any other than white ancestors since the flood. But Mr. J. furnished proofs of his claim, and Dr. W. knew very well that the laws of the country would uphold him in it. After considerable discussion, the best bargain he could make was either to pay eight hundred dollars, or have his wife put up at auction. He consented to the first alternative, and his unwelcome visiter departed. When he had gone, Dr. W. told his wife what had happened. The poor woman burst into tears and said, “That as Mr. J. _was her own father_, she had hoped that when he heard she had found an honorable protector, he would have left her in peace.”

_Q._ There can be no doubt that slavery is a bad system; but don’t you think it ought to be done away gradually? Ought not the slaves to be fitted for freedom, before they are emancipated?

_A._ The difficulty is, it is utterly impossible to fit them for freedom while they remain slaves. The masters know very well that their vassals will be servile just in proportion as they are brutally ignorant; hence all their legislation tends to keep them so. It is a disgraceful fact, that in half of these United States the working men are expressly forbidden to learn to read or write. The law ordains that twenty lashes shall be inflicted upon every slave found in an assembly met together for the purpose of “mental instruction.” Any white person who teaches a slave to read or write, or gives or sells him any book (the Bible not excepted), is fined two hundred dollars; and any colored person who commits the same _crime_, is punished with thirty-nine lashes, or with imprisonment. The Rev. Charles C. Jones, of Georgia, said in one of his sermons: “Generally speaking, the slaves appear to us to be without God and without hope in the world—a _nation of heathen in our very midst_. We cannot cry out against the Papists for withholding the Scriptures from the common people; for we withhold the Bible from _our_ servants, and keep them in ignorance of it.” A writer in the Observer, of Charleston, S. C. says: “I hazard the assertion, that throughout the bounds of our synod, there are at least one hundred thousand slaves, speaking the same language as ourselves, who never _heard_ of the plan of salvation by a Redeemer.” The reason assigned for these oppressive laws is, that “teaching slaves to read and write tends to excite dissatisfaction in their minds,” and to produce insurrection. In Georgia, a white man is fined five hundred dollars for teaching a slave or free negro to read or write; and if a colored man attempts to teach the alphabet even to his own child, he is liable to be fined or whipped, according to the discretion of the court. Such laws are necessary for the preservation of this detestable system; and while such laws exist, how can the slaves ever be better fitted for freedom? When the British government insisted that female slaves should no longer be flogged naked in the Colonies, the Jamaica legislature replied, that the practice could not possibly be laid aside, “_until_ the negro women acquired more of the sense of shame, which distinguishes European females.” Fitting men for freedom by keeping them slaves, is like the Jamaica mode of making women modest by whipping them without clothing.

_Q._ But don’t you think it would be dangerous to turn the slaves at once loose upon the community?

_A._ The abolitionists never desired to have them turned loose. They wish to have them governed by salutary laws, so regulated as effectually to protect both master and slave. They merely wish to have the power of punishment transferred from individuals to magistrates; to have the sale of human beings cease; and to have the stimulus of _wages_ applied, instead of the stimulus of the _whip_. The relation of master and laborer might still continue; but under circumstances less irksome and degrading to both parties. Even that much abused animal the jackass can be made to travel more expeditiously by suspending a bunch of turnips on a pole and keeping them before his nose, than he can by the continual application of the whip; and even when human beings are brutalized to the last degree, by the soul-destroying system of slavery, they have still sense enough left to be more willing to work two hours for twelve cents, than to work one hour for nothing.

_Q._ I should think this system, in the long run, must be an unprofitable one.

_A._ It is admitted to be so. Southerners often declare that it takes six slaves to do what is easily performed by half the number of free laborers. Henry Clay says, “It is believed that slave-labor would no where be employed in the farming portions of the United States, if the proprietors were not tempted to raise slaves by the high price of the Southern market, which keeps it up in their own;” and he says the effects of introducing slavery into Kentucky have been to keep them in the rear of their non-slave-holding neighbors, in agriculture, manufactures, and general prosperity. General Washington, when writing to Sir John Sinclair on the comparative value of the soil in Pennsylvania and Virginia, ascribes the very low price of land in Virginia to the existence of slavery among them. John Randolph declared that Virginia was so impoverished by slavery, that slaves would soon be advertising for runaway masters. A distinguished writer on political economy says: “The slave system inflicts an incalculable amount of human suffering, for the sake of making a wholesale waste of labor and capital.”

_Q._ But the masters say the negroes would cut their throats, if they were emancipated.

_A._ It is safer to judge by uniform experience than by the assertions of the masters, who, even if they have no intention to deceive, are very liable to be blinded by having been educated in the midst of a bad system. Listen to facts on this subject. On the 10th of October, 1811, the Congress of Chili decreed that every child born after that day should be free. In April, 1812, the government of Buenos Ayres ordered that every child born after the 1st of January, 1813, should be free. In 1821, the Congress of Colombia emancipated all slaves who had borne arms in favor of the Republic, and provided for the emancipation, in eighteen years, of the whole slave population, of 900,000. In September, 1829, the government of Mexico granted immediate and entire emancipation to every slave. In all these instances, _not one case of insurrection or of bloodshed has ever been heard of, as the result of emancipation_.

In St. Domingo no measures were taken gradually to fit the slaves for freedom. They were suddenly emancipated during a civil war, and armed against British invaders. They at once ceased to be property, and were recognized as human beings. Col. Malefant, who resided on the island, informs us, in his Historical and Political History of the Colonies, that, “after this public act of emancipation, the negroes remained quiet both in the south and west, and they continued to work upon all the plantations. The colony was flourishing. The whites lived happily and in peace upon their estates, and the negroes continued to work for them.” General Lacroix, in his Memoirs of St. Domingo, speaking of the same period, says: “The colony marched as by enchantment towards its ancient splendor; cultivation prospered; every day produced perceptible proofs of its progress.” This prosperous state of things lasted about eight years, and would perhaps have continued to the present day, had not Bonaparte, at the instigation of the old French planters, sent an army to deprive the blacks of the freedom they had used so well. The enemies of abolition are always talking of the horrors of St. Domingo, as an argument to prove that emancipation is dangerous; but historical facts prove that the effort to _restore slavery_ occasioned all the bloodshed in that island; while _emancipation produced only the most peaceful and prosperous results_.

In June, 1794, Victor Hugo, a French republican general, retook Guadaloupe from the British, and immediately proclaimed freedom to all the slaves. They were 85,000 in number, and the whites only 13,000. _No disasters occurred in consequence of this step._ More than seven years after this, the Supreme Council of Guadaloupe, in an official document, alluding to the tranquillity which reigned throughout the island, observed: “We shall have the satisfaction of having given an example, which will prove that _all classes of people may live in perfect harmony with each other, under an administration which secures justice to all classes_.” In 1802, Bonaparte sent a powerful French force, and again reduced the island to slavery, at the cost of about 20,000 negro lives.

In July, 1828, thirty thousand Hottentots in Cape Colony were emancipated from their long and cruel bondage, and admitted by law to all the rights and privileges of the white colonists. Outrages were predicted, as the inevitable consequence of freeing human creatures so completely brutalized as the poor Hottentots; but all went on peaceably; and, as a gentleman facetiously remarked, “Hottentots as they were, they worked much better for Mr. _Cash_, than they had ever done for Mr. _Lash_.”

_Q._ But they say the British have had difficulties in their West Indies.