Chapter 25

Ignorance of Abolitionists--Arguments of Abolitionists refuted--Abolitionism leads to Infidelity--Law of Force a law of Love--Wages of Slaves and of hired labor--Results of emancipation to the world--Falsehoods of Abolitionists--English estimate of our Northern citizens--British interference in the politics of our country--Sensitiveness of the Southern People--Rise and progress of Fanaticism.

SILVER BLUFF, S. C., March 24, 1845.

SIR--In my letter to you of the 28th January--which I trust you have received ere this--I mentioned that I had lost your circular letter soon after it had come to hand. It was, I am glad to say, only mislaid, and has within a few days been recovered. A second perusal of it induces me to resume my pen. Unwilling to trust my recollections from a single reading, I did not, in my last communication, attempt to follow the course of your argument, and meet directly the points made and the terms used. I thought it better to take a general view of the subject, which could not fail to traverse your most material charges. I am well aware, however, that for fear of being tedious, I omitted many interesting topics altogether, and abstained from a complete discussion of some of those introduced. I do not propose now to _exhaust_ the subject; which it would require volumes to do; but without waiting to learn--which I may never do--your opinion of what I have already said, I sit down to supply some of the deficiencies of my letter of January, and, with your circular before me, to reply to such parts of it as have not been fully answered.

It is, I perceive, addressed, among others, to "such as have never visited the Southern States" of this confederacy, and professes to enlighten their ignorance of the actual "condition of the poor slave in their own country." I can not help thinking you would have displayed prudence in confining the circulation of your letter altogether to such persons. You might then have indulged with impunity in giving, as you have done, a picture of slavery, drawn from your own excited imagination, or from those impure fountains, the Martineaus, Marryatts, Trollopes, and Dickenses, who have profited by catering, at our expense, to the jealous sensibilities and debauched tastes of your countrymen. Admitting that you are familiar with the history of slavery, and the past discussions of it, as I did, I now think rather broadly, in my former letter, what can _you know_ of the true _condition_ of the "poor slave" here? I am not aware that you have ever visited this country, or even the West Indies. Can you suppose, that because you have devoted your life to the investigation of the subject--commencing it under the influence of an enthusiasm, so melancholy at first, and so volcanic afterwards, as to be nothing short of hallucination--pursuing it as men of _one idea_ do every thing, with the single purpose of establishing your own view of it--gathering your information from discharged seamen, disappointed speculators, factious politicians, visionary reformers and scurrilous tourists--opening your ears to every species of complaint, exaggeration and falsehood, that interested ingenuity could invent, and never for a moment questioning the truth of any thing that could make for your cause--can you suppose that all this has qualified you, living the while in England, to form or approximate toward the formation of a correct opinion of the condition of slaves among us? I know the power of self-delusion. I have not the least doubt, that you think yourself the very best informed man alive on this subject, and that many think so likewise. So far as facts go, even after deducting from your list a great deal that is not fact, I will not deny that, probably, your collection is the most extensive in existence. But as to the _truth_ in regard to slavery, there is not an adult in this region but knows more of it than you do. _Truth_ and _fact_ are, you are aware, by no means synonymous terms. Ninety-nine facts may constitute a falsehood: the hundredth, added or alone, gives the truth. With all your knowledge of facts, I undertake to say that you are entirely and grossly ignorant of the real condition of our slaves. And from all that I can see, you are equally ignorant of the essential principles of human association revealed in history, both sacred and profane, on which slavery rests, and which will perpetuate it forever in some form or other. However you may declaim against it; however powerfully you may array atrocious incidents; whatever appeals you may make to the heated imaginations and tender sensibilities of mankind, believe me, your total blindness to the _whole truth_, which alone constitutes _the truth_, incapacitates you from ever making an impression on the sober reason and sound common sense of the world. You may seduce thousands--you can convince no one. Whenever and wherever you or the advocates of your cause can arouse the passions of the weak-minded and the ignorant, and bringing to bear with them the interests of the vicious and unprincipled, overwhelm common sense and reason--as God sometimes permits to be done--you may triumph. Such a triumph we have witnessed in Great Britain. But I trust it is far distant here; nor can it, from its nature, be extensive or enduring. Other classes of reformers, animated by the same spirit as the abolitionists, attack the institution of marriage, and even the established relations of parent and child. And they collect instances of barbarous cruelty and shocking degradation, which rival, if they do not throw into the shade, your slavery statistics. But the rights of marriage and parental authority rests upon truths as obvious as they are unchangeable--coming home to every human being,--self-impressed forever on the individual mind, and can not be shaken until the whole man is corrupted, nor subverted until civilized society becomes a putrid mass. Domestic slavery is not so universally understood, nor can it make such a direct appeal to individuals or society beyond its pale. Here, prejudice and passion have room to sport at the expense of others. They may be excited and urged to dangerous action, remote from the victims they mark out. They may, as they have done, effect great mischief, but they can not be made to maintain, in the long run, dominion over reason and common sense, nor ultimately put down what God has ordained.

You deny, however, that slavery is sanctioned by God, and your chief argument is, that when he gave to Adam dominion over the fruits of the earth and the animal creation, he stopped there. "He never gave him any further right over his fellow-men." You restrict the descendants of Adam to a very short list of rights and powers, duties and responsibities, if you limit them solely to those conferred and enjoined in the first chapter of Genesis. It is very obvious that in this narrative of the Creation, Moses did not have it in view to record any part of the law intended for the government of man in his social or political state. Eve was not yet created; the expulsion had not yet taken place; Cain was unborn; and no allusion whatever is made to the manifold decrees of God to which these events gave rise. The only serious answer this argument deserves, is to say, what is so manifestly true, that God's not expressly giving to Adam "any right over his fellow-men" by no means excluded him from conferring that right on his descendants; which he in fact did. We know that Abraham, the chosen one of God, exercised it and held property in his fellow-man, even anterior to the period when property in land was acknowledged. We might infer that God had authorized it. But we are not reduced to inference or conjecture. At the hazard of fatiguing you by repetition, I will again refer you to the ordinances of the Scriptures. Innumerable instances might be quoted where God has given and commanded men to assume dominion over their fellow-men. But one will suffice. In the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus, you will find _domestic slavery--precisely such as is maintained at this day in these States--ordained and established by God, in language which I defy you to pervert so as to leave a doubt on any honest mind that this institution was founded by him, and decreed to be perpetual_. I quote the words:

Leviticus xxv. 44-46: "Both thy bond-men and thy bond-maids which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen [Africans] that are round about you: of _them ye shall buy bond-men and bond-maids_.

"Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, _and of their families that are with you which they begat in your land_ [descendants of Africans?] and they shall be your possession.

"_And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession._ THEY SHALL BE YOUR BOND-MEN FOREVER."

What human legislature could make a decree more full and explicit than this? What court of law or chancery could defeat a title to a slave couched in terms so clear and complete as these? And this is the _law of God_, whom you pretend to worship, while you denounce and traduce us for respecting it.

It seems scarcely credible, but the fact is so, that you deny this law so plainly written, and in the face of it have the hardihood to declare that "though slavery is not _specifically_, yet it is _virtually_, _forbidden_ in the Scriptures, because all the crimes which necessarily arises out of slavery, and which can arise from no other source, are reprobated there and threatened with divine vengeance." Such an unworthy subterfuge is scarcely entitled to consideration. But its gross absurdity may be exposed in few words. I do not know what crimes you particularly allude to as arising from slavery. But you will perhaps admit--not because they are denounced in the decalogue, which the abolitionists respect only so far as they choose, but because it is the _immediate interest_ of most men to admit--that disobedience to parents, adultery, and stealing, are crimes. Yet these crimes "necessarily arise from" the relations of parent and child, marriage, and the possession of private property; at least they "can arise from no other sources." Then, according to your argument, it is "virtually forbidden" to marry, to beget children, and to hold private property! Nay, it is forbidden to live, since murder can only be perpetrated on living subjects. You add that "in the same way the gladiatorial shows of old, and other barbarous customs, were not specifically forbidden in the New Testament, and yet Christianity was the sole means of their suppression." This is very true. But these shows and barbarous customs thus suppressed were not _authorised by God_. They were not ordained and commanded by God for the benefit of his chosen people and mankind, as the purchase and holding of bond-men and bond-maids were. Had they been they would never have been "suppressed by Christianity" any more than slavery can be by your party. Although Christ came "not to destroy but fulfill the law," he nevertheless did formally abrogate some of the ordinances promulgated by Moses, and all such as were at war with his mission of "peace and good-will on earth." He "specifically" annuls, for instance, one "barbarous custom" sanctioned by those ordinances, where he says, "ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth; but I say unto you that ye resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." Now, in the time of Christ, it was usual for masters to put their slaves to death on the slightest provocation. They even killed and cut them up to feed their fishes. He was undoubtedly aware of these things, as well as of the law and commandment I have quoted. He could only have been restrained from denouncing them, as he did the "_lex talionis_," because he knew that in despite of these barbarities the institution of slavery was at the bottom a sound and wholesome, as well as lawful one. Certain it is, that in his wisdom and purity he did not see proper to interfere with it. In your wisdom, however, you make the sacrilegious attempt to overthrow it.

You quote the denunciation of Tyre and Sidon, and say that "the chief reason given by the prophet Joel for their destruction, was, that they were notorious beyond all others for carrying on the slave trade." I am afraid you think we have no Bibles in the slave States, or that we are unable to read them. I can not otherwise account for your making this reference, unless indeed your own reading is confined to an expurgated edition, prepared for the use of abolitionists, in which every thing relating to slavery that militates against their view of it is left out. The prophet Joel denounces the Tyrians and Sidonians, because "the children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians." And what is the divine vengeance for this "notorious slave trading?" Hear it. "And I will sell your sons and daughters into the hands of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off; for the Lord hath spoken it." Do you call this a condemnation of slave trading? The prophet makes God himself a participator in the crime, if that be one. "The Lord hath spoken it," he says, that the Tyrians and Sidonians shall be _sold into slavery to strangers_. Their real offense was, in enslaving the chosen people; and their sentence was a repetition of the old command, to make slaves of the heathen round about.

I have dwelt upon your scriptural argument, because you profess to believe the Bible; because a large proportion of the abolitionists profess to do the same, and to act under its sanction; because your circular is addressed in part to "professing Christians;" and because it is from that class mainly that you expect to seduce converts to your anti-christian, I may say, infidel doctrines. It would be wholly unnecessary to answer you, to any one who reads the Scriptures for himself, and construes them according to any other formula than that which the abolitionists are wickedly endeavoring to impose upon the world. The scriptural sanction of slavery is in fact so palpable, and so strong, that both wings of your party are beginning to acknowledge it. The more sensible and moderate admit, as the organ of the Free Church of Scotland, the _North British Review_, has lately done, that they "_are precluded by the statements and conduct of the Apostles from regarding mere slaveholding as essentially sinful_," while the desperate and reckless, who are bent on keeping up the agitation at every hazard, declare, as has been done in the _Anti-Slavery Record_, "If our inquiry turns out in favor of slavery, IT IS THE BIBLE THAT MUST FALL, AND NOT THE RIGHTS OF HUMAN NATURE." You can not, I am satisfied, much longer maintain before the world the Christian platform from which to wage war upon our institutions. Driven from it, you must abandon the contest, or, repudiating REVELATION, rush into the horrors of NATURAL RELIGION.

You next complain that our slaves are kept in bondage by the "law of force." In what country or condition of mankind do you see human affairs regulated merely by the law of love? Unless I am greatly mistaken, you will, if you look over the world, find nearly all certain and permanent rights, civil, social, and I may even add religious, resting on and ultimately secured by the "law of force." The power of majorities--of aristocracies--of kings--nay of priests, for the most part, and of property, resolves itself at last into "force," and could not otherwise be long maintained. Thus, in every turn of your argument against our system of slavery, you advance, whether conscious of it or not, radical and revolutionary doctrines calculated to change the whole face of the world, to overthrow all government, disorganize society, and reduce man to a state of nature--red with blood, and shrouded once more in barbaric ignorance. But you greatly err, if you suppose, because we rely on force in the last resort to maintain our supremacy over our slaves, that ours is a stern and unfeeling domination, at all to be compared in hard-hearted severity to that exercised, not over the mere laborer only, but by the higher over each lower order, wherever the British sway is acknowledged. You say, that if those you address were "to spend one day in the South, they would return home with impressions against slavery never to be erased." But the fact is universally the reverse. I have known numerous instances, and I never knew a single one, where there was no other cause of offense, and no object to promote by falsehood, that individuals from the non-slaveholding States did not, after residing among us long enough to understand the subject, "return home" _to defend our slavery_. It is matter of regret that you have never tried the experiment yourself. I do not doubt you would have been converted, for I give you credit for an honest though perverted mind. You would have seen how weak and futile is all abstract reasoning about this matter, and that, as a building may not be less elegant in its proportions, or tasteful in its ornaments, or virtuous in its uses, for being based upon granite, so a system of human government, though founded on force, may develope and cultivate the tenderest and purest sentiments of the human heart. And our patriarchal scheme of domestic servitude is indeed well calculated to awaken the higher and finer feelings of our nature. It is not wanting in its enthusiasm and its poetry. The relations of the most beloved and honored chief, and the most faithful and admiring subjects, which, from the time of Homer, have been the theme of song, are frigid and unfelt compared with those existing between the master and his slaves--who served his father, and rocked his cradle, or have been born in his household, and look forward to serve his children--who have been through life the props of his fortune, and the objects of his care--who have partaken of his griefs, and looked to him for comfort in their own--whose sickness he has so frequently watched over and relieved--whose holidays he has so often made joyous by his bounties and his presence; for whose welfare, when absent, his anxious solicitude never ceases, and whose hearty and affectionate greetings never fail to welcome him home. In this cold, calculating, ambitious world of ours, there are few ties more heartfelt, or of more benignant influence, than those which mutually bind the master and the slave, under our ancient system, handed down from the father of Israel. The unholy purpose of the abolitionists is, to destroy by defiling it; to infuse into it the gall and bitterness which rankle in their own envenomed bosoms; to poison the minds of the master and the servant; turn love to hatred, array _"force" against force_, and hurl all

"With hideous rain and combustion, down To bottomless perdition."

You think it a great "crime" that we do not pay our slaves "wages," and on this account pronounce us "robbers." In my former letter, I showed that the labor of our slaves was not without great cost to us, and that in fact they themselves receive more in return for it than your hirelings do for theirs. For what purpose do men labor, but to support themselves and their families in what comfort they are able? The efforts of mere physical labor seldom suffice to provide more than a livelihood. And it is a well known and shocking fact, that while few operatives in Great Britain succeed in securing a comfortable living, the greater part drag out a miserable existence, and sink at last under absolute want. Of what avail is it that you go through the form of paying them a pittance of what you call "wages," when you do not, in return for their services, allow them what alone they ask--and have a just right to demand--enough to feed, clothe and lodge them, in health and sickness, with reasonable comfort. Though we do not give "wages" _in money_, we do this for _our slaves_, and they are therefore better rewarded than _yours_. It is the prevailing vice and error of the age, and one from which the abolitionists, with all their saintly pretensions, are far from being free, to bring every thing to the standard of money. You make gold and silver the great test of happiness. The American slave must be wretched indeed, because he is not compensated for his services _in cash_. It is altogether praiseworthy to pay the laborer a shilling a day, and let him starve on it. To supply all his wants abundantly, and at all times, yet withhold from him _money_, is among "the most reprobated crimes." The fact can not be denied, that the mere laborer is now, and always has been, everywhere that barbarism has ceased, enslaved. Among the innovations of modern times, following "the decay of villeinage," has been the creation of a new system of slavery. The primitive and patriarchal, which may also be called the sacred and natural system, in which the laborer is under the personal control of a fellow-being endowed with the sentiments and sympathies of humanity, exists among us. It has been almost everywhere else superseded by the modern _artificial money power system_, in which man--his thews and sinews, his hopes and affections, his very being, are all subjected to the dominion of _capital_--a monster without a heart--cold, stern, arithmetical--sticking to the bond--taking ever "the pound of flesh"--working up human life with engines, and retailing it out by weight and measure. His name of old was "Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell from heaven." And it is to extend his empire that you and your deluded coadjutors dedicate your lives. You are stirring up mankind to overthrow our heaven-ordained system of servitude, surrounded by innumerable checks, designed and planted deep in the human heart by God and nature, to substitute the absolute rule of this "spirit reprobate," whose proper place was hell.

You charge us with looking on our slaves "as chattels or brutes," and enter into a somewhat elaborate argument to prove that they have "human forms," "talk," and even "think." Now the fact is, that however you may indulge in this strain for effect, it is the abolitionists, and not the slaveholders, who, practically, and in the most important point of view, regard our slaves as "chattels or brutes." In your calculations of the consequences of emancipation, you pass over entirely those which must prove most serious, and which arise from the fact of their being _persons_.

You appear to think that we might abstain from the use of them as readily as if they were machines to be laid aside, or cattle that might be turned out to find pasturage for themselves. I have heretofore glanced at some of the results that would follow from breaking the bonds of so many _human beings_, now peacefully and happily linked into our social system. The tragic horrors, the decay and ruin that would for years, perhaps for ages, brood over our land, if it could be accomplished, I will not attempt to portray. But do you fancy the blight would, in such an event, come to us alone? The diminution of the sugar crop of the West Indies affected Great Britain only, and there chiefly the poor. It was a matter of no moment to capital, that labor should have one comfort less. Yet it has forced a reduction of the British duty on sugar. Who can estimate the consequences that must follow the annihilation of the cotton crop of the slaveholding States? I do not undervalue the importance of other articles of commerce, but no calamity could befall the world at all comparable to the sudden loss of two millions of bales of cotton annually. From the deserts of Africa to the Siberian wilds--from Greenland to the Chinese wall,--there is not a spot of earth but would feel the sensation. The factories of Europe would fall with a concussion that would shake down castles, palaces, and even thrones; while the "purse-proud, elbowing insolence" of our Northern monopolist would soon disappear forever under the smooth speech of the pedlar, scourging our frontiers for a livelihood, or the bluff vulgarity of the South Sea whaler, following the harpoon amid storms and shoals. Doubtless the abolitionists think we could grow cotton without slaves, or that at worst the reduction of the crop would be moderate and temporary. Such gross delusions show how profoundly ignorant they are of our condition here.

You declare that "the character of the people of the South has long been that of _hardened infidels_, who fear not God, and have no regard for religion." I will not repeat what I said in my former letter on this point. I only notice it to ask you how you could possibly reconcile it to your profession of a Christian spirit, to make such a malicious charge--to defile your soul with such a calumny against an unoffending people?

"You are old; Nature in you stands on the very verge Of her confine. You should be ruled and led By some discretion."

May God forgive you.

Akin to this, is the wanton and furious assault made on us by Mr. Macaulay, in his late speech on the sugar duties, in the House of Commons, which has just reached me. His denunciations are wholly without measure, and, among other things, he asserts "that slavery in the United States wears its worst form; that, boasting of our civilization and freedom, and frequenting Christian churches, we breed up slaves, nay, beget children for slaves, and sell them at so much a-head." Mr. Macaulay is a reviewer, and he knows that he is "nothing if not critical." The practice of his trade has given him the command of all the slashing and vituperative phrases of our language, and the turn of his mind leads him to the habitual use of them. He is an author, and as no copy-right law secures for him from this country a consideration for his writings, he is not only independent of us, but naturally hates every thing American. He is the representative of Edinburgh; it is his cue to decry our slavery, and in doing so he may safely indulge the malignity of his temper, his indignation against us, and his capacity for railing. He has suffered once, for being in advance of his time in favor of abolition, and he does not intend that it shall be forgotten, or his claim passed over, to any crumb which may now be thrown to the vociferators in the cause. If he does not know that the statements he has made respecting the slaveholders of this country are vile and atrocious falsehoods, it is because he does not think it worth his while to be sure he speaks the truth, so that he speaks to his own purpose.

"Hic niger est, hunc tu, Romane caveto."

Such exhibitions as he has made, may draw the applause of a British House of Commons, but among the sound and high-minded thinkers of the world they can only excite contempt and disgust.

But you are not content with depriving us of all religious feelings. You assert that our slavery has also "demoralized the Northern States," and charge upon it not only every common violation of good order there, but the "Mormon murders," the "Philadelphia riots," and all "the exterminating wars against the Indians." I wonder that you did not increase the list by adding that it had caused the recent inundation of the Mississippi, and the hurricane in the West Indies--perhaps the insurrection of Rebecca, and the war in Scinde. You refer to the law prohibiting the transmission of abolition publications through the mail, as proof of general corruption! You could not do so, however, without noticing the late detected espionage over the British post office by a minister of state. It is true, as you say, it "occasioned a general outburst of national feeling"--from the opposition; and a "Parliamentary inquiry was instituted"--that is, moved, but treated quite cavalierly. At all events, though the fact was admitted, Sir James Graham yet retains the Home Department. For one, I do not undertake to condemn him. Such things are not against the laws and usages of your country. I do not know fully what reasons of state may have influenced him and justified his conduct. But I do know that there is a vast difference in point of "national morality" between the discretionary power residing in your government to open any letter in the public post office, and a well-defined and limited law to prevent the circulation of certain specified incendiary writings by means of the United States mail.

Having now referred to every thing like argument on the subject of slavery, that is worthy of notice in your letter, permit me to remark on its tone and style, and very extraordinary bearing upon other institutions of this country. You commence by addressing certain classes of our people, as belonging to "a nation whose character is _now so low_ in the estimation of the civilized world;" and throughout you maintain this tone. Did the Americans who were "under your roof last summer" inform you that such language would be gratifying to their fellow-citizens "having no practical concern with slaveholding?" Or do the infamous libels on America, which you read in our abolition papers, induce you to believe that all that class of people are, like the abolitionists themselves, totally destitute of patriotism or pride of country? Let me tell you that you are grossly deceived. And although your stock-brokers and other speculators, who have been bitten in American ventures, may have raised a stunning "cry" against us in England, there is a vast body of people here besides slaveholders, who justly

"Deem their own land of every land the pride, Beloved by heaven o'er all the world beside,"

and who _know_ that at this moment we rank among the first powers of the world--a position which we not only claim, but are always ready and able to maintain.

The style you assume in addressing your Northern friends, is in perfect keeping with your apparent estimation of them. Though I should be the last, perhaps, to criticise mere style, I could not but be struck with the extremely simple manner of your letter. You seem to have thought you were writing a tract for benighted heathen, and telling wonders never before suggested to their imagination, and so far above their untutored comprehension as to require to be related in the primitive language of "the child's own book." This is sufficiently amusing; and would be more so, but for the coarse and bitter epithets you continually apply to the poor slaveholders--epithets which appear to be stereotyped for the use of abolitionists, and which form a large and material part of all their arguments.

But, perhaps, the most extraordinary part of your letter is your bold denunciation of "_the shameful compromises_" of our Constitution, and your earnest recommendation to those you address to overthrow or revolutionize it. In so many words you say to them, "_you must either separate yourselves_ from all political connection with the South, and make your own laws; or if you do not choose such a separation, you must break up _the political ascendency which the Southern have had for so long a time over the Northern States_. The italics in this, as in all other quotations, are your own. It is well for those who circulate your letter here, that the Constitution you denounce requires an overt act to constitute treason. It may be tolerated for an American by birth, to use on his own soil the freedom of speaking and writing which is guaranteed him, and abuse our Constitution, our Union, and our people. But that a foreigner should use such seditious language, in a circular letter addressed to a portion of the American people, is a presumption well calculated to excite the indignation of all. The party known in this country as the abolition party has long since avowed the sentiments you express, and adopted the policy you enjoin. At the recent presidential election, they gave over 62,000 votes for their own candidate, and held the balance of power in two of the largest States--wanting but little of doing it in several others. In the last four years their vote has quadrupled. Should the infatuation continue, and their vote increase in the same ratio for the next four years, it will be as large as the vote of the _actual slaveholders_ of the Union. Such a prospect is, doubtless, extremely gratifying to you. It gives hope of a contest on such terms as may insure the downfall of slavery or our Constitution. The South venerates the Constitution, and is prepared to stand by it forever, _such as it came from the hands of our fathers_; to risk every thing to defend and maintain it _in its integrity_. But the South is under no such delusion as to believe that it derives any _peculiar_ protection from the Union. On the contrary, it is well known we incur _peculiar danger_, and that we bear far more than our porportion of the burdens. The apprehension is also fast fading away that any of the dreadful consequences commonly predicted will necessarily result from a separation of the States. And _come what may_, we are firmly resolved that OUR SYSTEM OF DOMESTIC SLAVERY SHALL STAND. The fate of the Union, then--but, thank God, not of republican government--rests mainly in the hands of the people to whom your letter is addressed--the "professing Christians of the Northern States having no concern with slaveholding," and whom with incendiary zeal you are endeavoring to stir up to strife--without which fanaticism can neither live, move, nor have any being.

We have often been taunted for our sensitiveness in regard to the discussion of slavery. Do not suppose it is because we have any doubts of our rights, or scruples about asserting them. There was a time when such doubts and scruples were entertained. Our ancestors opposed the introduction of slaves into this country, and a feeling adverse to it was handed down from them. The enthusiastic love of liberty fostered by our Revolution strengthened this feeling. And before the commencement of the abolition agitation here, it was the common sentiment that it was desirable to get rid of slavery. Many thought it our duty to do so. When that agitation arose, we were driven to a close examination of the subject in all its bearings, and the result has been an _universal conviction_ that in holding slaves we violate no law of God,--inflict no injustice on any of his creatures--while the terrible consequences of emancipation to all parties and the world at large, clearly revealed to us, make us shudder at the bare thought of it. The slaveholders are, therefore, indebted to the abolitionists for perfect ease of conscience, and the satisfaction of a settled and unanimous determination in reference to this matter. And could their agitation cease now, I believe, after all, the good would preponderate over the evil of it in this country. On the contrary, however, it is urged on with frantic violence, and the abolitionists, reasoning in the abstract, as if it were a mere moral or metaphysical speculation, or a minor question in politics, profess to be surprised at our exasperation. In their ignorance and recklessness, they seem to be unable to comprehend our feelings or position. The subversion of our rights, the destruction of our property, the disturbance of our peace and the peace of the world, are matters which do not appear to arrest their consideration. When revolutionary France proclaimed "hatred to kings and unity to the republic," and inscribed on her banners "France risen against tyrants," she professed to be only worshiping "abstract rights." And if there can be such things, perhaps she was. Yet all Europe _rose_ to put her sublime theories down. They declared her an enemy to the common peace; that her doctrines alone violated the "law of neighborhood," and, as Mr. Burke said, justly entitled them to anticipate the "damnum nondum factum" of the civil law. Danton, Barrere, and the rest were apparently astonished that umbrage should be taken. The parallel between them and the abolitionists holds good in all respects.

The rise and progress of this fanaticism is one of the phenomena of the age in which we live. I do not intend to repeat what I have already said, or to trace its career more minutely at present. But the legislation of Great Britain will make it historical, and doubtless you must feel some curiosity to know how it will figure on the page of the annalist. I think I can tell you. Though I have accorded and do accord to you and your party, great influence in bringing about the parliamentary action of your country, you must not expect to go down to posterity as the only cause of it. Though _you_ trace the progenitors of abolition from 1516, through a long stream with divers branches, down to the period of its triumph in your country, it has not escaped contemporaries, and will not escape posterity, that England, without much effort, sustained the storm of its scoffs and threats, until the moment arrived when she thought her colonies fully supplied with Africans; and declared against the slave trade, only when she deemed it unnecessary to her, and when her colonies, full of slaves, would have great advantages over others not so well provided. Nor did she agree to West India emancipation, until, discovering the error of her previous calculation, it became an object to have slaves free throughout the Western world, and, on the ruins of the sugar and cotton-growers of America and the Islands, to build up her great slave empire in the East; while her indefatigable exertions, still continued, to engraft the right of search upon the law of nations, on the plea of putting an end to the forever increasing slave trade, are well understood to have chiefly in view the complete establishment of her supremacy at sea.[256] Nor must you flatter yourself that your party will derive historic dignity from the names of the illustrious British statesmen who have acted with it. Their country's ends were theirs. They have stooped to use you, as the most illustrious men will sometimes use the vilest instruments, to accomplish their own purposes. A few philanthropic common places and rhetorical flourishes, "in the abstract," have secured them your "sweet voices," and your influence over the tribe of mawkish sentimentalists. Wilberforce may have been yours, but what was he besides, but a wealthy county member? You must, therefore, expect to stand on your own merits alone before posterity, or rather that portion of it that may be curious to trace the history of the delusions which, from time to time, pass over the surface of human affairs, and who may trouble themselves to look through the ramifications of transcendentalism, in this era of extravagances. And how do you expect to appear in their eyes? As Christians, piously endeavoring to enforce the will of God, and carry out the principles of Christianity? Certainly not, since you deny or pervert the Scriptures in the doctrines you advance; and in your conduct, furnish a glaring contrast to the examples of Christ and the apostles. As philanthropists, devoting yourselves to the cause of humanity, relieving the needy, comforting the afflicted, creating peace and gladness and plenty round about you? Certainly not, since you turn from the needy, the afflicted; from strife, sorrow and starvation which surround you; close your eyes and hands upon them; shut out from your thoughts and feelings the human misery which is real, tangible, and within your reach, to indulge your morbid imagination in conjuring up woes and wants among a strange people in distant lands, and offering them succor in the shape of costless denunciations of their best friends, or by scattering among them "firebrands, arrows and death." Such folly and madness, such wild mockery and base imposture, can never win for you, in the sober judgment of future times, the name of philanthropists. Will you even be regarded as worthy citizens? Scarcely, when the purposes you have in view, can only be achieved by revolutionizing governments and overturning social systems, and when you do not hesitate, zealously and earnestly, to recommend such measures. Be assured, then, that posterity will not regard the abolitionists as Christians, philanthropists, or virtuous citizens. It will, I have no doubt, look upon the mass of the party as silly enthusiasts, led away by designing characters, as is the case with all parties that break from the great, acknowledged ties which bind civilized man in fellowship. The leaders themselves will be regarded as _mere ambitious men_; not taking rank with those whose ambition is "eagle-winged and sky-aspiring," but belonging to that mean and selfish class, who are instigated by "rival-hating envy," and whose base thirst is for _notoriety_; who cloak their designs under vile and impious hypocrisies, and, unable to shine in higher spheres, devote themselves to fanaticism, as a trade. And it will be perceived that, even in that, they shunned the highest walk. Religious fanaticism was an old established vocation, in which something brilliant was required to attract attention. They could not be George Foxes, nor Joanna Southcotes, nor even Joe Smiths. But the dullest pretender could discourse a jumble of pious bigotry, natural rights, and driveling philanthropy. And, addressing himself to aged folly and youthful vanity, to ancient women, to ill-gotten wealth, to the reckless of all classes, who love excitement and change, offer each the cheapest and the safest glory in the market. Hence, their numbers; and, from number and clamor, what impression they have made on the world.

Such, I am persuaded, is the light in which the abolitionists will be viewed by the posterity their history may reach. Unless, indeed--which God forbid--circumstances should so favor as to enable them to produce a convulsion which may elevate them higher on the "bad eminence" where they have placed themselves.

I have the honor to be Your obedient servant, J. H. HAMMOND.

THOMAS CLARKSON, Esq.

NOTE.--The foregoing Letters were not originally intended for publication. In preparing them for the press, they have been revised. The alterations and corrections made, however, have been mostly verbal. Had the writer felt at liberty to condense the two letters into one, and bring up the history of abolition to the period of publication, he might have presented a more concise and perfect argument, and illustrated his views more forcibly, by reference to facts recently developed. For example, since writing the first, the letter of Mr. Clarkson, as President of the British Anti-Slavery Society, to Sir Robert Peel, denouncing the whole scheme of "Immigration," has reached him; and after he had forwarded the last, he saw it stated, that Mr. Clarkson had, as late as the first part of April, addressed the Earl of Aberdeen, and declared, that all efforts to suppress the African slave trade had fully failed. It may be confidently expected, that it will be ere long announced from the same quarter, that the "experiment" of West India emancipation has also proved a complete abortion.

Should the terms which have been applied to the abolitionists appear to any as unduly severe, let it be remembered, that the direct aim of these people is to destroy us by the most shocking of all processes; and that, having a large portion of the civilized world for their audience, they daily and systematically heap upon us the vilest calumnies and most unmitigated abuse. Clergymen lay aside their Bibles, and females unsex themselves, to carry on this horrid warfare against slave holders.

FOOTNOTE:

[256] On these points, let me recommend you to consult a very able Essay on the Slave Trade and Right of Search, by M. Jollivet, recently published; and as you say, since writing your Circular Letter, that you "burn to try your hand on another little Essay, if a subject could be found," I propose to you to "try" to answer this question, put by M. Jollivet to England: "_Pourquoi sa philanthropie n'a pas daigne, jusqu' a present, doubler le cap de Bonne-Esperance?_"

SLAVERY

IN THE LIGHT OF ETHNOLOGY.

BY

S. A. CARTWRIGHT, M.D.

OF LOUISIANA.

SLAVERY

IN

THE LIGHT OF ETHNOLOGY.

PHILOSOPHY OF THE NEGRO CONSTITUTION, ELICITED BY QUESTIONS PROPOUNDED BY DR. C. R. HALL, OF TORQUAY, ENGLAND, THROUGH PROF. JACKSON, OF MASSACHUSETTS MEDICAL COLLEGE, BOSTON, TO SAML. A. CARTWRIGHT, M.D., NEW ORLEANS.

[Reprinted from the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal.]

To PROF. JACKSON, Boston:--

_Dear Sir:_--The paper of mine, alluded to by your London correspondent, Dr. Hall, which he saw in the medical work you mention, is not, as he supposes, "_The Report on the diseases and physical peculiarities of the Negro race_," the physicians of Louisiana, in convention assembled, appointed me to make; but only some additional observations intended for students and those persons whose want of knowledge of Comparative Anatomy prevented them from understanding the Report. The Appendix, intended for students, was published in the _Charleston_ (South Carolina) _Medical Journal_, and also in the work you mention, under the caption of the original Report to the Medical Convention, and _the Report itself was omitted_ by the editors of those works under the erroneous impression, that the Appendix for students contained the substance of that paper; whereas it does so only in the sense that the four first rules contain the substance of the arithmetic. No wonder your intelligent correspondent should not find, in the Appendix of the Report, the information he was seeking, and hence the questions he asks you to refer to me for solution. I herewith beg leave to send you a copy of the "_Report on the diseases and physical peculiarities of the Negro race_," which the Louisiana physicians appointed me to make to the State Medical Society. In that paper your correspondent will find most of the questions he asks already answered.

I thank you for the opportunity thus afforded me of supplying an omission in the Southern works above alluded to, of a paper, very imperfect and defective, it is true, yet embodying in a small space the results of the experience and observation of a Southern practitioner, extending through a period of active service of a third of a century's duration, and which had the honor to meet with the approbation of the physicians generally of the South. To the few questions not answered therein I propose to reply, and at the same time to extend my remarks on that branch of the subject more directly connected with the particular object of your correspondent's investigations.

To the question, "Is not Phthisis very common among the slaves of the slave States and unknown among the native Africans at home?" I reply in the negative, that Phthisis, so far from being common among the slaves of the slave States, is very seldom met with. As to the native Africans at home, little or nothing is known of their diseases. They have no science or literature among them, and never had. The word Consumption, is applied to two very different diseases among negroes. The Cachexia Africana, Dirt-eating of the English, and Mal d'Estomac of the French, commonly called Negro Consumption, is a very different malady from Phthisis Pulmonalis, properly so called. The Cachexia Africana, like other spanoemic states of the system, may run into Phthisis, or become complicated with it. Dr. Hall asks, in what does the peculiarity of Negro Consumption consist? It consists in being an anoematosis and not a tuberculosis. Not having seen my Report, he may have inferred that it was a tubercular disease--whereas it is an erythism of mind connected with spanoemia. Negroes, however, are sometimes, though rarely, afflicted with tubercula pulmonum, or Phthisis, properly so called, which has some peculiarities. With them it is more palpably a secondary disease than it appears to be among white people. European physicians are just beginning to see and acknowledge the truth taught by our Rush in the last century, that what is called Phthisis Pulmonalis is not a primary, but a secondary disease; the tubercles of the lungs not being a cause, but an effect of the primary or original vice of blood origin, or as he called it, general debility. For half a century the attention of the medical profession has been directed to the special and ultimate results of Phthisis, instead of the primary condition of the system causing the formation of tubercles. The new knowledge, derived from the stethoscope, by detecting those abnormal deposits of abortive nutrition, called tubercles, has been received for more than its worth, and has greatly served to keep up the delusion of treating effects instead of causes. The tubercular deposits, revealed by auscultation, are not only the effects of abortive nutrition, but the latter is itself the effect of some derangement in the digestive and respiratory functions, vitiating the nutritive fluids, and producing what Rush called general debility. The defect in the respiratory organs arises from the fact, long overlooked, that in a great many persons, particularly the Anglo-Saxons, the lungs are inadequate to the task of depurating the superabundant blood, which is thrown upon them at the age of maturity, unless aided by an occasional blood-letting, active and abundant exercise of the muscles in the open air, and a nutritious diet, as advised by the American Hippocrates, Benjamin Rush. White children sometimes have Phthisis, but here, as everywhere, it is a rare complaint before maturity (twenty-one in the male and eighteen in the female.) The lymphatic and nervous temperament predominating until then, secures them against this fell destroyer of the master race of men. Phthisis is, par excellence, a disease of the sanguineous temperament, fair complexion, red or flaxen hair, blue eyes, large blood vessels, and a bony encasement too small to admit the full and free expansion of the lungs, enlarged by the superabundant blood, which is determined to those organs during that first half-score of years immediately succeeding puberty. Well-formed chests offer no impediment to its inroads, if the volume of blood be out of proportion to the expansibility and capacity of the pulmonary organs. Hence it is most apt to occur precisely at, and immediately following, that period of life known as matureness, when the sanguineous system becomes fully developed and gains the mastery, so to speak, over the lymphatic and nervous systems. With negroes, the sanguineous never gains the mastery over the lymphatic and nervous systems. Their digestive powers, like children, are strong, and their secretions and excretions copious, excepting the urine, which is rather scant. At the age of maturity they do not become dyspeptic and feeble with softening and attenuation of the muscles, as among those white people suffering the ills of a defective system of physical education, and a want of a wholesome, nutritious diet.

Your correspondent asks, "_Do the slaves consume much sugar, or take rum in intoxicating quantities?_"

They do not consume much sugar, but are occasionally supplied with molasses. Their diet consists principally of pickled pork and corn bread, rice, hominy, beans, peas, potatoes, yams, pumpkins and turnips. Soups, tea, coffee and slops, are seldom used by those in health, and they object to all such articles of diet, as making them weak. They prefer the fattest pork to the lean. In the Atlantic States salted fish is substituted for or alternated with pork--the shad, mackerel and herring, principally the latter. In Cuba pickled beef is used, but they prefer pork. Their diet is of the most nutritious kind, and they will not labor with much effect on any other than a strong, rich diet. With very few exceptions, they do not take rum or other intoxicating drinks, except as a medicine, or in holiday times. Something equivalent to the "_Maine Liquor Law_," (which you can explain to your correspondent,) has long been in practical operation on all well regulated Southern plantations. The experience of two centuries testifies to the advantages of restraining the black population, _by arbitrary power_, from the free use of intoxicating poisons. Man has no better natural right to poison himself or his neighbor, than to maim, wound or kill himself or his neighbor. In regard to intoxicating drinks, the negroes of the South are under wiser laws than any other people in the Union--those of Maine excepted. But these wise unwritten laws do not so well protect those negroes who reside in or near towns and villages, and are not under proper discipline. The Melanic race have a much stronger propensity to indulge in the intemperate use of ardent spirits than white people. They appear to have a natural fondness for alcoholic drinks and tobacco. They need no schooling, as the fair skin races do, to acquire a fondness for either. Nearly all chew tobacco or smoke, and are not sickened and disgusted with the taste of that weed as white men always are when they first begin to use it. As an instance of their natural love for ardent spirits, I was called to a number of negro children, who found a bottle of whisky under a bed, and drank it all without dilution, although it was the first they had ever tasted. It contained arsenic, and had been placed where they found it by the father of some of the children, with a view of poisoning a supposed enemy. But with that want of forethought, so characteristic of the negro race, he did not think of the greater probability of his own children finding and drinking the poison than the enemy he intended it for.

I am asked, "_If I have determined by my own observation the facts in regard to the darker color of the secretions, the flesh, the membranes and the blood of the negro than the white man--or is the statement made on the authority of others?_"

The statement is made on the authority of some of the most distinguished anatomists and physiologists of the last century, confirmed by my own repeated observations. The authorities to which I particularly refer are Malpighi, Stubner, Meckel, Pechlin, Albinus, Soemmering, Virey and Ebel. Almost every year of my professional life, except a few years when abroad, I have made post mortem examinations of negroes, who have died of various diseases, and I have invariably found the darker color pervading the flesh and the membranes to be very evident in all those who died of acute diseases. Chronic ailments have a tendency to destroy the coloring matter, and generally cause the mucous surfaces to be paler and whiter than in the white race.

I now come to the main and important question--the last of the series, and the most important of all, viz: "_How is it ascertained that negroes consume less oxygen than white people?_"

I answer, by the spirometer. I have delayed my reply to make some further experiments on this branch of the subject. The result is, that the expansibility of the lungs is considerably less in the black than the white race of similar size, age and habit. A white boy expelled from his lungs a larger volume of air than a negro half a head taller and three inches larger around the chest. The deficiency in the negro may be safely estimated at 20 per cent, according to a number of observations I have made at different times. Thus, 174 being the mean bulk of air receivable by the lungs of a white person of five feet in height, 140 cubic inches are given out by a negro of the same stature. It must be remembered, however, that great variations occur in the bulk of air which can be expelled from the chest, depending much upon the age, size, health and habits of each individual. But, as a general rule, it may be safely stated, that a white man, of the same age and size, who has been bred to labor, is, in comparison to the negro, extra capacious. To judge the negro by spirometrical observations made on the white man, would indicate, in the former a morbid condition when none existed. But I am free to confess that this is a subject open to further observations. My estimate may be under or over the exact difference of the capacity of the two races for the consumption of oxygen.

The question is also answered _anatomically_, by the comparatively larger size of the liver, and the smaller size of the lungs; and _physiologically_, by the _roule_ the liver performs in the negro's economy being greater, and that of the lungs and kidneys less, than in the white man. But I have not the honor to be the first to call attention to the difference in the pulmonary apparatus of the negro and the white man, and to the fact of the deficiency in the renal secretion. The honor is due to Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States. In his Notes on Virginia, Mr. Jefferson suggested that there was a difference in the pulmonary apparatus of negroes, and that they do not extricate as much caloric from the air by respiration, and consesequently consume less oxygen. He also called attention to the fact of the defective action of the kidneys. He remarks, "To our reproach be it said, that although the negro race has been under our eye for a century and a half, it has not been considered as a subject of natural history." Another half century has passed away, and nothing has yet been done to acquire a knowledge of the diseases and physical peculiarities of a people, constituting nearly a moiety of the population of fifteen States of the American confederacy, and whose labor, in cultivating a single plant, which no other operatives but themselves can cultivate without sacrificing ease, comfort, health and life, affords a cheap material, in sufficient abundance, to clothe the naked of the whole world. Even the little scientific knowledge heretofore acquired concerning them, has been so far forgotten, that when I enumerated a few of their anatomical and physical peculiarities, well known to the medical men of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, I was supposed by some of my cotemporaries in the South to be broaching novelties and advancing speculations wild and crude. But I would not be understood as underrating the editors of the _Charleston Medical Journal_ and some other Southern writers, for mistaking anatomical facts for wild speculations, and condemning them as such in their editorial apologies for not publishing the same. The fault lies not with them, but in that system of education which seems intended to keep physicians, divines, and all other classes of men in Egyptian darkness of every thing pertaining to the philosophy of the negro constitution. It is only the country and village practitioners of the Southern States (among professional men,) who appear to know any thing at all about the peculiar nature of negroes--having derived their knowledge, not from books or schools, but in the field of experience. It is the latter class of medical men, by far the most numerous in the South, who have with great unanimity sustained my feeble efforts to make the negro's peculiar nature known, and the important fact that he consumes less oxygen than the white man. Until his defective haematosis be made an element in calculating the best means for improving the negro's condition, our Northern people ought not to wonder at finding their colored population, born to freedom by the side of the church and school-house door, in a lower species of degradation, after trying for half a century or more to elevate them, than an equal number of slaves any where to be found in the South. "Will not a lover of natural history," says Mr. Jefferson, "one who views the gradations in all the races of animals with the eye of philosophy, excuse an effort to keep those of the department of man as distinct as nature formed them?" But no effort has since been made to draw the distinctions between the black and the white races by the knife of the anatomist, but much false logic has been introduced into our books and schools, to argue down the distinctions which nature has made. It is to anatomy and physiology we should look, when vindicating the liberty of human nature, to see that its dignity and best interest be preserved. "Among the Romans," says Mr. Jefferson, "emancipation required but one effort, but with us a second is necessary, unknown to history." This second belongs properly to natural history; the difference in the last not being artificial, as among the Romans, or the present Britons, requiring only an act of legislation or a revolution to efface forever, but natural, which no human laws or governmental changes can ever obliterate. The framers of our Constitution were aware of these facts, and built the Constitution upon the basis of natural distinctions or physical differences in the two races composing the American population. A very important difference between the two will be found in the fact of the greater amount of oxygen consumed by the one than the other. If the Constitution be worth defending, surely the great truths of natural history, on which it rests as a basis, are worth being made known and regarded by our statesmen. That negroes consume less oxygen than the white race, is proved by their motions being proverbially much slower, and their want of muscular and mental activity. But to comprehend fully the weight of this proof of their defective haematosis, it is necessary to bear in mind one of the great leading truths disclosed by comparative anatomy. Cuvier was the first to demonstrate beyond a doubt that muscular energy and activity are in direct proportion to the development and activity of the pulmonary organs. In his 29th lesson, vol. vii, p. 17, D'Anatomie Comparee, he says, "_Dans les animaux vertebres cette quantite de respiration fait connaitre presque par un calcul mathematique la nature particuliere de chaque class_." In the preceding page he says,--"That the relations observed in the different animals, between the quantity of their respiration and the energy of their motive force, is one of the finest demonstrations that comparative anatomy can furnish to physiology, and at the same time one of the best applications of comparative anatomy to natural history." The slower motions of the owl prove to the natural historian that it consumes less oxygen than the eagle. By the same physiological principle he can tell that the herring is the most active among fish, and the flounder the slowest, by merely seeing the gills of each: those of the herring being very large, prove that it consumes much oxygen and is very active; while the flounder, with its small gills, consumes but little, and is very slow in its motions as a necessary consequence. Hence the habitual slower motions of the negro than the white man, is a positive proof that he consumes less oxygen. The slow gait of the negro is an important element to be taken into consideration in studying his nature. I have the authority of one of the very best observers of mankind, that this element in the negro's economy is particularly worthy of being studied. It is no less an authority than the father of his country, the first President of the United States, the illustrious Washington. Washington knew better, perhaps, than any other man what the white man could do; his power of endurance and strength of wind under a given speed of motion. Yet he found that all his observations on the white race were inapplicable to negroes. To know what they could do, and to ascertain their power of endurance and strength of wind, new observations had to be made, and he made them accordingly. He made them on his own negroes. He saw they did not move like the soldiers he had been accustomed to command. Their motions were much slower, and they performed their tasks in a more dilatory manner; the amount of labor they could perform in a given time, with ease and comfort to themselves, could not be told by his knowledge of what white men could do. He therefore noted the gait or movements natural to negroes, and made observations himself of how much they could effect in a given time, under the slow motions or gait natural to them. He did this to enable him to judge of what would be a reasonable service to expect from them, and to know when they loitered and when they performed their duty. Those persons unacquainted with the important truth that negroes are naturally slower in their motions than white people, judging the former by the latter, often attempt to drive them into the same brisk motions. But a day's experience ought to be enough to teach them that every attempt to drive negroes to the performance of tasks equal to what the white laborer would voluntarily impose upon himself, is an actual loss to the master; who, instead of getting more service out of them, actually gets less, and soon none, if such a course be persisted in; because they become disabled in body and indisposed in mind to perform any service at all. Every master or overseer, although he may know nothing of the law above mentioned, discovered by Cuvier, may soon learn from experience the important fact, that there is no other alternative than to let their negroes assume, _by their own instincts_, the natural gait or movement peculiar to them, and then, like Washington, observe what can be effected in a given time by that given gait or movement, and to ask for nor expect more. In vol. ii, pages 511 to 512, (Washington's Writings, published by Jared Sparks) are recorded a few of the observations made by the father of his country on his own slaves, as an illustration of the preceding remarks. It is to be regretted that Mr. Sparks, out of deference to a modern species of idolatry (all fanaticism is idolatry,) which has taken deep root in Great Britain and despotic Europe, and has from thence been transplanted into our republic, particularly in the Northern portion of it, should have suppressed so much of the valuable observations of Washington on the negro race, as only to publish a small fragment of the extensive knowledge his comprehensive mind had stored up on this important subject, well known to his neighbors. The fragment informs us, that on a certain day he visited his plantations, and found that certain negro slaves there mentioned, by the names of George, Tom and Mike, had only hewed a certain number of feet--whereupon Washington sat down and observed their motions, letting them proceed their own way," and ascertained how many feet each hewed in one hour and a quarter. He also made observations on his sawyers at the same time and in the same manner. From the data thus acquired he ascertained, in the short space of an hour and a quarter, how many feet would be a day's work for hewing, and how many for sawing, under their usual slow gait or movement. This hewing and sawing were of poplar. "What may be the difference, therefore," says Washington, "between the working of this wood and other, some future observations must make known." But Mr. Sparks, out of deference to the new school of idolatry, having its head quarters in Exeter Hall, omitted, almost entirely, the publication of any more observations on the subject. It is no less idolatry to set up an anti-scriptural dogma and to make it a rule of action, than to worship a block or a graven image in the place of the true God. The true God has said in the Pentateuch, the most authentic books of the Bible, "_And of the heathen shall ye buy bond-men and bond-maids_ [slaves] _and your children shall inherit them after you, and they shall be your bondmen_ [slaves] _forever._" Leviticus, chap. xxv, verses 44, 45, 46. But the Dogma or Negro god of Exeter Hall says that "_negro slavery is sin_," and that it is contrary to the moral sense or conscience. Medicine was anciently called the divine art; to be entitled to hold that appellation, ought it not to lend its aid to arrest in this happy republic the progress of idolatry, which is only another name for fanaticism? And will your learned correspondent help to arrest it in England? Or will he, like Prichard, Todd, and others, make science bow to the policy of his government?--To build up India at the expense of our Union? The subject of his investigations, tubercular disease, if properly studied, leads directly to that species of knowledge, enabling him to determine on physiological principles, which is the best system of ethics, that taught in the Bible, _to enslave the Canaanite_, or that taught in Exeter Hall, _to set him free_? It will lead him to the discovery, that the negro, or Canaanitish race, consume less oxygen than the white, and that as a necessary consequence of the deficient aeration of the blood in the lungs, a hebetude of mind and body is the inevitable physiological effect; thus making it a mercy and a blessing to negroes to have persons in authority set over them, to provide for and take care of them. Under the dogma or new commandment to free the Canaanite, practically exercised in Van Dieman's Land and at the Cape of Good Hope, the poor negro race have become nearly annihilated. Whereas under that system of ethics taught in the Bible and made a rule of action in the Southern States, the descendants of Canaan are more rapidly increasing in numbers, and have more of the comforts and pleasures of life, and more morality and Christianity among them than any others of the same race on any other portion of the globe. They are daily bought and sold, and inherited as property, as the Scriptures said they should be. Whereas in all those countries and places in which they are set free, in obedience to the dogma that "slavery is sin," they rapidly degenerate into barbarism, as they are doing in the West Indies, or become extinct as in Van Dieman's Land. The physiological fact that negroes consume less oxygen indicates the superior wisdom of the precepts taught in the Bible regarding those people, to any promulgated from Exeter Hall. Experience also proves the former to be the best. You hear of the poor negroes, or colored people, as you call them, being beaten with many stripes by their masters and overseers. But owing to the fact that they consume less oxygen than white people, and the other physical differences founded on difference of structure, they beat one another, when free from the white man's authority, with ten stripes where they would get one from him. They are as much in slavery in Boston as in New Orleans. They suffer more from corporeal or other punishments in the cellars and dark lanes and alleys of Boston, New York and Philadelphia, by the cruel tyranny practiced by the strong over the weak and helpless, than an equal number in Southern slavery. In slavery the stripes fall upon the evil disposed, vicious, buck negro fellows. But when removed from the white man's authority, the latter make them fall on helpless women and children, the weak and the infirm. Good conduct, so far from being a protection, invites aggression.

But what connection have these observations, you may say, with the subject of Dr. Hall's inquiries, and what light do they throw on tubercular disease? They show that there exists an intimate connection between the amount of oxygen consumed in the lungs and the phenomena of body and mind. They point to a people whose respiratory apparatus is so defective, that they have not sufficient industry and mental energy to provide for themselves, or resolution sufficiently strong to prevent them, when in freedom, from being subjected to the arbitrary, capricious will of the drunken and vicious of their own color, who may happen to have greater physical strength and more cunning; they show that Phthisis is a disease of the master race, and not of the slave race--that it is the bane of that master race of men, known by an active haematosis; by the brain receiving a larger quantity of aerated blood than it is entitled to; by the strong development of the circulating system; by the energy of intellect; by the strength and activity of the muscular system; the vivid imagination; the irritable, mobile, ardent and inflammatory temperament, and the indomitable will and love of freedom. Whereas the negro constitution, being the opposite of all this, is not subject to Phthisis, although it partakes of what is called the scrofulous diathesis. In the negro constitution, as the Frenchman would say, "_l'arbre arteriel cede sa prominance a l'arbre veineuse_," spreading coldness, languor and want of energy over the entire system. The white fluids, or lymphatic temperament, predominating, they are not so liable as the fair race, to inflammatory diseases of the lungs, or any other organ; but from the superabundant viscidities and mucosities of their mucous surfaces, they are more liable to engorgements and pulmonary congestions than any other race of men. In proof of which I beg leave to refer your correspondent to a standard work entitled "Observations sur les Maladies des Negres, par M. Dazille. Paris, 1776."

Pneumonia, without subjective symptoms, is very common among them. Diphtheretic affections, so common among white children, are very rare among negroes. Intercurrent Pneumonia is more common among them than any other class of people. It is met with in Typhoid fevers, Rheumatism and hepatic derangements, to which they are very liable in the cold season. The local malady requires a different treatment, to correspond with the general disorder. Bad, vicious, ungovernable negroes are subject, to what might properly be termed, Scorbutic Pneumonia--a blood disease, requiring anti-scorbutics. Scorbutic negroes are always vicious or worthless. A course of anti-scorbutics will reform their morals, and make good negroes out of worthless ones. They are liable to suffocative orthopnoea after measles, and die unless bled and purged. But purgatives are injurious in almost all their other affections involving the respiratory organs, except such as act especially on the liver. They check expectoration, says Dazille, and lay the foundations of those effusions and depots of matter so often mistaken for genuine Phthisis. Auscultation cannot well be made available with them. The nose pleads to the eye and touch to form the diagnosis, without calling into requisition the ear. A single examination by auscultation, in persons abounding with so much phlegm, is not sufficient to arrive at a correct diagnosis. Repeated examinations in various postures are too tedious in execution, and too offensive to the auscultator, to come into general use in diagnosing the diseases of the Melanic race. This valuable mode of exploration, so useful in many cases, as practiced by experts, has of late years been carried to a ridiculous extreme, in being made to deceive and delude more practitioners than it enlightens, from the haste and inexperience of those who practice it. With negroes it is unnecessary, except in some rare instances. Their diseases, like their passions, have each its peculiar expression stamped in the countenance. They are like young children in this respect. They cannot disguise their countenance like white people. An intelligent and observant observer can tell from their countenance when they are plotting mischief, or have committed some crime; when they are satisfied or dissatisfied; when in pleasure or in pain; when troubled or disturbed in mind; or when telling a falsehood instead of the truth. An observant physician has only to bring the old science of prosoposcopia, so much used by Hippocrates in forming his diagnosis, to bear upon negroes, to be able, by a little experience, to ascertain the most of them at a glance by the expression of their countenance.

They are very subject to fevers, attended with an obstructed circulation of air and blood in the pulmonary organs. Their abundant mucosities often prevent the ingress of air into the air cells, bloating their lips and cheeks, which are coated with a tenacious saliva. A cessation of digestion from too full a meal, or some hepatic or other derangement, is soon attended with such a copious exudation of mucosities, filling the air cells and tracheal passages, as to cause apoplexy, which with them is only another name for asphyxia. The head has nothing to do with it. So abundant are the mucosities in negroes, that those in the best health have a whitish, pasty mucus, of considerable thickness on the tongue, leading a physician not acquainted with them to suppose that they were dyspeptic, or otherwise indisposed. The lungs of the white man are the main outlets for the elimination of carbonic acid formed in the tissues. Negroes, however, by an instinctive habit of covering their mouth, nose, head and face with a blanket, or some other covering, when they sleep, throw upon the liver an additional duty to perform, in the excretion of carbonic acid. Any cause, obstructing the action of the liver, quickly produces with them a grave malady, the retention of carbonic acid in the blood soon poisoning them.

Hence with white people a moderate degree of hepatic obstruction, by a residence in swampy districts, is often found beneficial in diminishing the exalted sensibility and irritability of phthisical patients. Viscous engorgements of the lungs destroy more negroes than all other diseases combined. They are distinguished from inflammatory affections by the pyrexial symptoms not being strongly marked, or marked at all--by the puffy or bloated appearance of the face and lips--by the slavering mouth--the highly charged tongue--and by the torpor of mind and body. In a word, all the symptoms point to a deficient aeration of the blood, or a kind of half way asphyxia. A torpid state of the system, listlessness and inactivity almost approaching to asphyxia from the diminished quantity of oxygen consumed by the lungs of the negro, form a striking contrast with the energetic, active, restless, persevering Anglo-Saxon, with a tendency to phlogosis and phthisis pulmonalis, from the surplus quantity of oxygen consumed by his lungs. Blistering the nape of the neck, so irritating in nearly all of the diseases of the Saxon race, is almost a sovereign remedy or specific for a large proportion of the complaints that negroes are subject to; because most of them arise from defective respiratory action. Hence whipping the lungs to increased action by the application of blisters over the origin of the respiratory nerves, a remedy so inexpedient and so often contra-indicated in most of the maladies of the white man, has a magic charm about it in the treatment of those of the negro. The magic effect of a blister to that part of the Ethiopian's body, in a large class of his ailments, although well known to most of the planters and overseers of the Southern States, is scarcely known at all to the medical profession beyond those boundaries. Even here, where that portion of the profession who have had much experience in the treatment of their diseases, and are aware of the simple fact itself, do not profit by it in many cases where it is indicated; because they do not perceive the indication clearly, so long as the rationale of the remedy remains unexplained.

Your asking for the proofs of my assertion, "that the negro consumes less oxygen than the white man," has led me into a new, extensive and unexplored field of science, where the rationale of that and many other important facts may be found springing up spontaneously. We have medical schools in abundance teaching the art of curing the ailments, and even the most insignificant sores, incident to the half-starved, oppressed pauper population of Europe--a population we have not got, never had and never can have, so long as we have negro slaves to work in the cane, cotton and rice fields, where the white man, from the physiological laws governing his economy, _can not labor and live_: but where the negro thrives, luxuriates and enjoys existence more than any laboring peasantry to be found on the continent of Europe; yet we have no schools or any chair in our numerous institutions of medical learning to teach the art of curing and preventing the diseases peculiar to our immense population of negro slaves, or to make them more efficient and valuable, docile and manageable; comfortable, happy and contented by still further improving their condition, which can only be done by studying their nature, and not by the North and South bandying epithets--not by the quackery which prescribes the same remedy, the liberty elixir, for all constitutions. The two races, the Anglo-Saxon and the negro, have antipodal constitutions. The former abounds with red blood, even penetrating the capillaries and the veins, flushing the face and illuminating the countenance; the skin white; lips thin; nose high; hair auburn, flaxen, red or black; beard thick and heavy; eyes brilliant; will strong and unconquerable; mind and muscles full of energy and activity. The latter, with molasses blood sluggishly circulating and scarcely penetrating the capillaries; skin ebony, and the mucous membranes and muscles partaking of the darker hue pervading the blood and the cutis; lips thick and protuberant; nose broad and flat; scalp covered with a coarse, crispy wool in thick naps; beard wanting or consisting of a few scattering woolly naps, in the "_bucks_," provincially so called; mind and body dull and slothful; will weak, wanting or subdued. The study of such opposite organizations, the one prone to Phthisis and the other not, can not fail to throw some light on tubercular disease, the subject of your correspondent, Dr. Hall's present investigation. In contrasting the typical white man, having an excess of red blood and a liability to inflammatory and tuberculous complaints and disorders of the digestive system, with the typical negro, deficient aerated blood, and abounding in mucosites, having an active liver and a strong digestion, and a proclivity strongly marked to fall into congestions, or cold humid engorgements approaching asphyxia, I hope he will be able to find in this unpolished communication something useful.

I have the honor to be, with great respect, SAML. A. CARTWRIGHT, M.D.

_New Orleans, July 19th, 1852._

APPENDIX.

NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PROGNATHOUS SPECIES OF MANKIND.

It is not intended by the use of the term Prognathous to call in question the black man's humanity or the unity of the human races as a _genus_, but to prove that the species of the genus homo are not a unity, but a plurality, each essentially different from the others--one of them being so unlike the other two--the oval-headed Caucasian and the pyramidal-headed Mongolian--as to be actually prognathous, like the brute creation; not that the negro is a brute, or half man and half brute, but a genuine human being, anatomically constructed, about the head and face, more like the monkey tribes and the lower order of animals than any other species of the genus man. Prognathous is a technical term derived from _pro_, before, and _gnathos_, the jaws, indicating that the muzzle or mouth is anterior to the brain. The lower animals, according to Cuvier, are distinguished from the European and Mongol man by the mouth and face projecting further forward in the profile than the brain. He expresses the rule thus: _face anterior, cranium posterior_. The typical negroes of adult age, when tried by this rule, are proved to belong to a different species from the man of Europe or Asia, because the head and face are anatomically constructed more after the fashion of the simiadiae and the brute creation than the Caucasian and Mongolian species of mankind, their mouth and jaws projecting beyond the forehead containing the anterior lobes of the brain. Moreover, their faces are proportionally larger than their crania, instead of smaller, as in the other two species of the genus man. Young monkeys and young negroes, however, are not prognathous like their parents, but become so as they grow older. The head of the infant ourang outang is like that of a well formed Caucasian child in the projection and hight of the forehead and the convexity of the vertea. The brain appears to be larger than it really is, because the face, at birth, has not attained its proportional size. The face of the Caucasian infant is a little under its proportional size when compared with the cranium. In the infant negro and ourang outang it is greatly so. Although so much smaller in infancy than the cranium, the face of the young monkey ultimately outgrows the cranium; so, also, does the face of the young negro, whereas in the Caucasian, the face always continues to be smaller than the cranium. The superfices of the face at puberty exceeds that of the hairy scalp both in the negro and the monkey, while it is always less in the white man. Young monkeys and young negroes are superior to white children of the same age in memory and other intellectual faculties. The white infant comes into the world with its brain inclosed by fifteen disunited bony plates--the occipital bone being divided into four parts, the sphenoid into three, the frontal into two, each of the two temporals into two, which, with the two parietals, make fifteen plates in all--the vomer and ethmoid not being ossified at birth. The bones of the head are not only disunited, but are more or less overlapped at birth, in consequence of the largeness of the Caucasian child's head and the smallness of its mother's pelvis, giving the head an elongated form, and an irregular, knotty feel to the touch. The negro infant, however, is born with a small, hard, smooth, round head like a gourd. Instead of the frontal and temporal bones being divided into six plates, as in the white child, they form but one bone in the negro infant. The head is not only smaller than that of the white child, but the pelvis of the negress is wider than that of the white woman--its greater obliquity also favors parturition and prevents miscarriage.

Negro children and white children are alike at birth in one remarkable particular--they are both born _white_, and so much alike, as far as color is concerned, as scarcely to be distinguished from each other. In a very short time, however, the skin of the negro infant begins to darken and continues to grow darker until it becomes of a shining black color, provided the child be healthy. The skin will become black whether exposed to the air and light or not. The blackness is not of as deep a shade during the first years of life, as afterward. The black color is not so deep in the female as in the male, nor in the feeble, sickly negro as in the robust and healthy. Blackness is a characteristic of the prognathous species of the genus homo, but all the varieties of all the prognathous species are not equally black. Nor are the individuals of the same family or variety equally so. The lighter shades of color, when not derived from admixture with Mongolian or Caucasian blood, indicate degeneration in the prognathous species. The Hottentots, Bushmen and aborigines of Australia are inferior in mind and body to the typical African of Guinea and the Niger.

The typical negroes themselves are more or less superior or inferior to one another precisely as they approximate to or recede from the typical standard in color and form, due allowance being made for age and sex. The standard is an oily, shining black, and as far as the conformation of the head and face is concerned and the relative proportion of nervous matter outside of the cranium to the quantity of cerebral matter within it, is found between the simiadiae[257] and the Caucasian. Thus, in the typical negro, a perpendicular line, let fall from the forehead, cuts off a large portion of the face, throwing the mouth, the thick lips, and the projecting teeth anterior to the cranium, but not the entire face, as in the lower animals and monkey tribes. When all, or a greater part of the face is thrown anterior to the line, the negro approximates the monkey anatomically more than he does the true Caucasian; and when little or none of the face is anterior to the line, he approximates that mythical being of Dr. Van Evrie, a _black white man_, and almost ceases to be a negro. The black man occasionally seen in Africa, called the _Bature Dutu_, with high nose, thin lips, and long straight hair, is not a negro at all, but a Moor tanned by the climate--because his children, not exposed to the sun, do not become black like himself. The typical negro's nervous system is modeled a little different from the Caucasian and somewhat like the ourang outang. The medullary spinal cord is larger and more developed than in the white man, but less so than in the monkey tribes. The occipital foramen, giving exit to the spinal cord, is a third longer, says Cuvier, in proportion to its breadth, than in the Caucasian, and is so oblique as to form an angle of 30 deg. with the horizon, yet not so oblique as in the simiadae, but sufficiently so to throw the head somewhat backward and the face upward in the erect position. Hence, from the obliquity of the head and the pelvis, the negro walks steadier with a weight on his head, as a pail of water for instance, than without it; whereas, the white man, with a weight on his head, has great difficulty in maintaining his centre of gravity, owing to the occipital foramen forming no angle with the cranium, the pelvis, the spine, or the thighs--all forming a straight line from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot without any of the obliquities seen in the negro's knees, thighs, pelvis and head--and still more evident in the ourang outang.

The nerves of organic life are larger in the prognathous species of mankind than in the Caucasian species, but not so well developed as in the simiadiae. The brain is about a tenth smaller in the prognathous man than in the Frenchman, as proved by actual measurement of skulls by the French savans, Palisot and Virey. Hence, from the small brain and the larger nerves, the digestion of the prognathous species is better than that of the Caucasian, and its animal appetites stronger, approaching the simiadiae but stopping short of their beastiality. The nostrils of the prognathous species of mankind open higher up than they do in the white or olive species, but not so high up as in the monkey tribes. In the gibbon, for instance, they open between the orbits. Although the typical negro's nostrils open high up, yet owing to the nasal bones being short and flat, there is no projection or prominence formed between his orbits by the bones of the nose, as in the Caucasian species. The nostrils, however, are much wider, about as wide from wing to wing, as the white man's mouth from corner to corner, and the internal bones, called the turbinated, on which the olfactory nerves are spread, are larger and project nearer to the opening of the nostrils than in the white man. Hence the negro approximates the lower animals in his sense of smell, and can detect snakes by that sense alone. All the senses are more acute, but less delicate and discriminating, than the white man's. He has a good ear for melody but not for harmony, a keen taste and relish for food but less discriminating between the different kinds of esculent substances than the Caucasian. His lips are immensely thicker than any of the white race, his nose broader and flatter, his chin smaller and more retreating, his foot flatter, broader, larger, and the heel longer, while he has scarcely any calves at all to his legs when compared to an equally healthy and muscular white man. He does not walk flat on his feet but on the outer sides, in consequence of the sole of the foot having a direction inwards, from the legs and thighs being arched outwards and the knees bent. The verb, from which his Hebrew name is derived, points out this flexed position of the knees, and also clearly expresses the servile type of his mind. Ham, the father of Canaan, when translated into plain English, reads that a black man was the father of the slave or knee-bending species of mankind.

The blackness of the prognathous race, known in the world's history as Canaanites, Cushites, Ethiopians, black men or negroes, is not confined to the skin, but pervades, in a greater or less degree, the whole inward man down to the bones themselves, giving the flesh and the blood, the membranes and every organ and part of the body, except the bones, a darker hue than in the white race. Who knows but what Canaan's mother may have been a genuine Cushite, as black inside as out, and that Cush, which means blackness, was the mark put upon Cain? Whatever may have been the mark set upon Cain, the negro, in all ages of the world, has carried with him a mark equally efficient in preventing him from being slain--the mark of blackness. The wild Arabs and hostile American Indians invariably catch the black wanderer and make a slave of him instead of killing him, as they do the white man.

Nich. Pechlin, in a work written last century entitled "De cute Athiopum," Albinus, in another work, entitled "De sede et causa coloris Athiop," as also the great German anatomists, Meiners, Ebel, and Soemmering, all bear witness to the fact that the muscles, blood, membranes, and all the internal organs of the body, (the bones alone excepted,) are of a darker hue in the negro than in the white man. They estimate the difference in color to be equal to that which exists between the hare and the rabbit. Who ever doubts the fact, or has none of those old and impartial authorities at hand--impartial because they were written before England adopted the policy of pressing religion and science in her service to place white American republican freemen and Guinea negroes upon the same platform--has only to look into the mouth of the first healthy typical negro he meets to be convinced of the truth, that the entire membraneous lining of the inside of the cheeks, lips and gums is of a much darker color than in the white man.

The negro, however, must be healthy and in good condition--sickness, hard usage and chronic ailments, particularly that cachexia, improperly called consumption, speedily extracts the coloring matter out of the mucous membranes, leaving them paler and whiter than in the Caucasian. The bleaching process of bad health or degeneration begins in the blood, membranes and muscles, and finally extracts so much of the coloring pigment out of the skin, as to give it a dull ashy appearance, sometimes extracting the whole of it, converting the negro into the albino. Albinoism or cucosis does not necessarily imply hybridism. It occurs among the pure Africans from any cause producing a degeneration of the species. Hybridism, however, is the most prolific source of that degeneration. Sometimes the degeneration shows itself by white spots, like the petals of flowers, covering different parts of the skin. The Mexicans are subject to a similar degeneration, only that the spots and stripes are black instead of white. It is called the pinto with them. Even the pigment of the iris and the coloring matter of the albino's hair is absorbed, giving it a silvery white appearance, and converting him into a clairvoyant at night. According to Professors Brown, Seidy and Gibbs, the negro's hair is not tubular, like the white man's, but it is eccentrically elliptical, with flattened edges, the coloring matter residing in the epidermis, and not in tubes. In the place of a tube, the shaft of each hair is surrounded with a scaly covering like sheep's wool, and, like wool, is capable of being felted. True hair does not possess that property. The degeneration called albinoism has a remarkable influence upon the hair, destroying its coarse, nappy, wooly appearance, and converting it into fine, long, soft, silky, curly threads. Often, the whole external skin, so remarkably void of hair in the healthy negro, becomes covered with a very fine, silky down, scarcely perceptible to the naked eye, when transformed into the albino.

Mr. Bowen, the celebrated Baptist missionary, [see his work entitled Central Africa and Missionary Labors from 1849 to 1856, by T. J. Bowen, Charleston, Southern Baptist Publication Society, 1857,] met with a great many cases of leucosis in Soudan or Negroland, back of Liberia, and erroneously concluded that these people had very little, if any negro blood in them, and would be better subjects for missionary labors than the blacks of the same country. They are, however, nothing but _white_ black men, a degeneration of the negro proper, and are even less capable of perpetuating themselves than the hybrids or mulattoes. Mr. Bowen is at a loss to account for the depopulation, which he verifies has been going on in Soudan the last fifty years, threatening to leave the country, at no distant time, bare of inhabitants, unless roads be constructed by the Christians of the Southern States for commercial intercourse, and double exertions made to civilize and Christianize the waning population of Central Africa before it entirely disappears. The good missionary, though sent out from Georgia, was evidently taught in that British school which assumes that there is only a single species in the genus homo, in opposition to the Bible, that clearly designates three. That school quotes the references in the sacred volume, implying unity in the genus--a unity which no one denies--to disprove the existence of distinct species, and upon this fallacy builds the theory that negro, Indian and white men are beings exactly alike, because they are human beings. _Ergo_, the liberty so beneficial to the white man, would be equally so to the negro--disregarding as a fable those words of the Bible expressly declaring that the latter _shall be servant of servants_ to the former--words which would not have been there if that kind of subordination called slavery was not the normal condition of the race of Ham. To expect to civilize or Christianize the negro without the intervention of slavery is to expect an impossibility.

Mr. Bowen's experience and natural good sense occasionally got the better of his theoretical views. Thus, at page 90, we find him confessing that "the native African negroes ought to have masters in obedience to the demands of natural justice." At page 149 he lets us into the secret of the depopulating process which has been going on in Central Africa the last fifty years. While standing among some negroes in Ikata, a town in Central Africa, a capricious mulatto chief sent some officers among the company, who singled out a poor fellow who had offended the chief by saying that as he let a white man into town, he might let in a Dahomey man also, and presented him with an empty bag with the message: "_The king says you must send me your head._" The Rev. missionary, who was present at the beheading, made no comment further than to state the fact. But he might have added that the blood of that negro, and millions of others, will be required at the hands of Victoria Regina and the United States for having officiously destroyed the value of negro property in Africa by breaking up the only trade that ever protected the native Africans against the butcheries, cruelties and oppressions of their mulatto, Moorish and Mahommedan tyrants. It is these butcheries and cruelties, and the little care taken of the black man in Africa, the last fifty years, since he became valueless through British and American philanthropy, that lie at the root of the depopulating process which is going on in the dark land of the Niger. Empty bags are now filled with heads instead of cowries. Mr. Bowen was surprised to see so few black men in Soudan, where, half a century ago, he says they were so numerous. But he rather regards it as a fortunate circumstance, as he has no hope of Christianizing the typical negro, except through slavery to Christian masters--and that idea is abhorrent to the school in which he was taught; but he has more hope from the mixed races, and these, he confesses, can not be effectually Christianized until civilized. He deplores the bad example of the black race, among them, their polygamy, etc., as greatly in the way of civilizing the mulattoes. But he has overlooked the important fact, as many do, that the existence of the hybrids themselves depends upon the existence of the typical Africans. The extinction of the latter must, of necessity, be soon followed by the extinction of the former, as they can not, for any length of time, propagate among themselves.

Mr. Bowen inferred that the negroes of Central Africa, although diminishing in numbers, are rising higher in the scale of humanity, from the very small circumstance that they do not emit from their bodies so strong and so offensive an odor as the negro slaves of Georgia and the Carolinas do, nor are their skins of so deep a black. This is a good illustration of the important truth, that all the danger of the slavery question lies in the ignorance of Scripture and the natural history of the negro. A little acquaintance with the negro's natural history would prove to Mr. Bowen that the strong odor emitted by the negro, like the deep pigment of the skin, is an indication of high health, happiness, and good treatment, while its deficiency is a sure sign of unhappiness, disease, bad treatment, or degeneration. The skin of a happy, healthy negro is not only blacker and more oily than an unhappy, unhealthy one, but emits the strongest odor when the body is warmed by exercise and the soul is filled with the most pleasurable emotions. In the dance called _patting juber_, the odor emitted from the men, intoxicated with pleasure, is often so powerful as to throw the negro women into paroxysms of unconsciousness, vulgo hysterics. On another point of much importance there is no practical difference between the Rev. missionary and that clear-headed, bold, and eccentric old Methodist, Dr. McFarlane. Both believe that the Bible can do ignorant, sensual savages no good; both believe that nothing but compulsatory power can restrain uncivilized barbarians from polygamy, inebriety, and other sinful practices.

The good missionary, however, believes in the possibility of civilizing the inferior races by the money and means of the Christian nations lavishly bestowed, after which he thinks it will be no difficult matter to convert them to Christianity. Whereas the venerable Methodist believes in the impossibility of civilizing them, and therefore concludes that the Written Word was not intended for those inferior races who can not read it. When the philosophy of the prognathous species of mankind is better understood, it will be seen how they, the lowest of the human species, can be made partakers, equally with the highest, in the blessings and benefits of the Written Word of God. The plantation laws against polygamy, intoxicating drinks, and other besetting sins of the negro race in the savage state, are gradually and silently converting the African barbarian into a moral, rational, and civilized being, thereby rendering the heart a fit tabernacle for the reception of Gospel truths. The prejudices of many, perhaps the majority of the Southern people, against educating the negroes they hold in subjection, arise from some vague and indefinite fears of its consequences, suggested by the abolition and British theories built on the false assumption that the negro is a white man with a black skin. If such an assumption had the smallest degree of truth in it, the more profound the ignorance and the deeper sunk in barbarism the slaves were kept, the better it would be for them and their masters. But experience proves that masters and overseers have nothing at all to fear from civilized and intelligent negroes, and no trouble whatever in managing them--that all the trouble, insubordination and danger arise from the uncivilized, immoral, rude, and grossly ignorant portion of the servile race. It is not the ignorant semi-barbarian that the master or overseer intrusts with his keys, his money, his horse or his gun, but the most intelligent of the plantation--one whose intellect and morals have undergone the best training. An educated negro, one whose intellect and morals have been cultivated, is worth double the price of the wild, uncultivated, black barbarian of Cuba and will do twice as much work, do it better and with less trouble.

The prejudice against educating the negroes may also be traced to the neglect of American divines in making themselves acquainted with Hebrew literature. What little the most of them know of the meaning of the untranslated terms occurring in the Bible, and the signification of the verbs from which they are derived, is mostly gathered from British commentators and glossary-makers, who have blinked the facts that disprove the Exeter Hall dogma, that negro slavery is sin against God. Hence, even in the South, the important Biblical truth, that the white man derives his authority to govern the negro from the Great Jehovah, is seldom proclaimed from the pulpit. If it were proclaimed, the master race would see deeper into their responsibilities, and look closer into the duties they owe to the people whom God has given them as an inheritance, and their children after them, so long as time shall last. That man has no faith in the Scriptures who believes that education could defeat God's purposes, in subjecting the black man to the government of the white. On the contrary, experience proves its advantages, to both parties. Aside and apart from Scripture authority, natural history reveals most of the same facts, in regard to the negro that the Bible does. It proves the existence of at least three distinct species of the genus man, differing in their instincts, form, habits and color. The white species having qualities denied to the black--one with a free and the other with a servile mind--one a thinking and reflective being, the other a creature of feeling and imitation, almost void of reflective faculties, and consequently unable to provide for and take care of himself. The relation of master and slave would naturally spring up between two such different species of men, even if there was no Scripture authority to support it. The relation thus established, being natural, would be drawn closer together, instead of severed, by the inferior imitating the superior in all his ways, or in other words, acquiring an education.

FOOTNOTE:

[257] Monkey tribes.--_Editor._

ON THE CAUCASIANS AND THE AFRICANS.

SEVERAL years ago we published some original and ingenious views of Dr. Cartwright, of New Orleans, upon the subject of negroes and their characteristics. The matter is more elaborately treated by him in the following paper:--_De Bows Review._

THE Nilotic monuments furnish numerous portraits of the negro races, represented as slaves, sixteen hundred years before the Christian era. Although repeatedly drawn from their native barbarism and carried among civilized nations, they soon forget what they learn and relapse into barbarism. If the inherent potency of the prognathous type of mankind had been greater than it actually is, sufficiently great to give it the independence of character that the American Indian possesses, the world would have been in a great measure deprived of cotton and sugar. The red man is unavailable as a laborer in the cane or cotton field, or any where else, owing to the unalterable ethnical laws of his character. The white man can not endure toil under the burning sun of the cane and cotton field, and live to enjoy the fruits of his labor. The African will starve rather than engage in a regular system of agricultural labor, unless impelled by the stronger will of the white man. When thus impelled, experience proves that he is much happier, during the hours of labor in the sunny fields, than when dozing in his native woods and jungles. He is also eminently qualified for a number of employments, which the instincts of the white man regard as degrading. If the white man be forced by necessity into employments abhorrent to his instincts, it tends to weaken or destroy that sentiment or principle of honor or duty, which is the mainspring of heroic actions, from the beginning of historical times to the present, and is the basis of every thing great and noble in all grades of white society.

The importance of having these particular employments, regarded as servile and degrading by the white man, attended to by the black race, whose instincts are not repugnant to them, will be at once apparent to all those who deem the sentiment of honor or duty as worth cultivating in the human breast. It is utterly unknown to the prognathous race of mankind, and has no place in their language. When the language is given to them they can not comprehend its meaning, or form a conception of what is meant by it. Every white man, who has not been degraded, had rather be engaged in the most laborious employments, than to serve as a lacquey or body servant to another white man or being like himself. Whereas, there is no office which the negro or mulatto covets more than that of being a body servant to a real gentleman. There is no office which gives him such a high opinion of himself, and it is utterly impossible for him to attach the idea of degradation to it. Those identical offices which the white man instinctively abhors, are the most greedily sought for by negroes and mulattoes, whether slave or free, in preference to all other employments. North or South, free or slave, they are ever at the elbow, behind the table, in hotels and steamboats; ever ready, with brush in hand, to brush the coat or black the shoes, or to perform any menial service which may be required, and to hold out the open palm for the dime. The innate love to act as body servant or lacquey is too strongly developed in the negro race to be concealed. It admirably qualifies them for waiters and house servants, as their strong muscles, hardy frames, and the positive pleasure that labor in a hot sun confers on them, abundantly qualify them for agricultural employment in a hot climate.

Hence, the primordial cell germ of the Nigritians has no more potency than what is sufficient to form a being with physical power, when its dynamism becomes exhausted, dropping the creature in the wilderness with the mental organization too imperfect to enable him to extricate himself from barbarism. If Nature had intended the prognathous race for barbarism as the end and object of their creation, they would have been like lions and tigers, fierce and untamable. So far from being like ferocious beasts, they are endowed with a will so weak, passions so easily subdued, and dispositions so gentle and affectionate, as readily to fall under subjection to the wild Arab, or any other race of men. Hence they are led about in gangs of an hundred or more by a single individual, even by an old man, or a cripple, if he be of the white race and possessed of a strong will. The Nigritian has such little command over his own muscles, from the weakness of his will, as almost to starve, when a little exertion and forethought would procure him an abundance. Although he has exaggerated appetites and exaggerated senses, calling loudly for their gratification, his will is too weak to command his muscles to engage in such kinds of labor as would readily procure the fruits to gratify them. Like an animal in a state of hibernation, waiting for the external aid of spring to warm it into life and power, so does the negro continue to doze out a vegeto-animal existence in the wilderness, unable to extricate himself therefrom--his own will being too feeble to call forth the requisite muscular exertion. His muscles not being exercised, the respiration is imperfect, and the blood is imperfectly vitalized. Torpidity of body and hebetude of mind are the effects thereof, which disappear under bodily labor, because that expands the lungs, vitalizes the blood, and wakes him up to a sense of pleasure and happiness unknown to him in the vegeto-animal or hibernating state. Nothing but will is wanting to transform the torpid, unhappy tenant of the wilderness into a rational and happy thing--the happiest being on earth, as far as sensual pleasures are concerned.

The white man has an exaggerated will, more than he has use for; because it frequently drives his own muscles beyond their physical capacity of endurance. The will is not a faculty confined within the periphery of the body. It can not, like the imagination, travel to immeasurable distances from the body, and in an instant of time go and return from Aldabran, or beyond the boundaries of the solar system. Its flight is confined to the world and to limits more or less restricted--the less restricted in some than in others. The will has two powers--direct and indirect. It is the direct motive power of the muscular system. It indirectly exerts a dynamic force upon surrounding objects when associated with knowledge. It gives to knowledge its power. Every thing that is made was made by the Infinite Will associated with infinite knowledge. The will of man is but a spark of the Infinite Will, and its power is only circumscribed by his knowledge. A man possessing a knowledge of the negro character can govern an hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand of the prognathous race by his will alone, easier than one ignorant of that character can govern a single individual of that race by the whip or a club. However disinclined to labor the negroes may be, they can not help themselves; they are obliged to move and to exercise their muscles when the white man, acquainted with their character, _wills_ that they should do so. They can not resist that will, so far as labor of body is concerned. If they resist, it is from some other cause than that connected with their daily labor. They have an instinctive feeling of obedience to the stronger will of the white man, requiring nothing more than moderate labor. So far, their instincts compel obedience to will as one of his rights. Beyond that, they will resist his will and be refractory, if he encroaches on what they regard as their rights, viz: the right to hold property in him as he does in them, and to disburse that property to them in the shape of meat, bread and vegetables, clothing, fuel and house-room, and attention to their comforts when sick, old, infirm, and unable to labor; to hold property in him as a conservator of the peace among themselves, and a protector against trespassers from abroad, whether black or white; to hold property in him as impartial judge and an honest jury to try them for offenses, and a merciful executioner to punish them for violations of the usages of the plantation or locality.

With those rights acceded to them, no other compulsion is necessary to make them perform their daily tasks than _his will be done_. It is not the whip, as many suppose, which calls forth those muscular exertions, the result of which is sugar, cotton, breadstuffs, rice, and tobacco. These are products of the white man's will, acting through the muscles of the prognathous race in our Southern States. If that will were withdrawn, and the plantations handed over as a gracious gift to the laborers, agricultural labor would cease for the want of that spiritual power called the will, to move those machines--the muscles. They would cease to move here, as they have in Hayti. If the prognathous race were expelled the land, and their place supplied with double their number of white men, agricultural labor in the South would also cease, as far as sugar and cotton are concerned, for the want of muscles that could endure exercise in the smothering heat of a cane or cotton field. Half the white laborers of Illinois are prostrated with fevers from a few days' work in stripping blades in a Northern corn field, owing to the confinement of the air by the close proximity of the plants. Cane and cotton plants form a denser foliage than corn--a thick jungle, where the white man pants for breath, and is overpowered by the heat of the sun at one time of day, and chilled by the dews and moisture of the plants at another. Negroes glory in a close, hot atmosphere; they instinctively cover their head and faces with a blanket at night, and prefer laying with their heads to the fire, instead of their feet. This ethnical peculiarity is in harmony with their efficiency as laborers in hot, damp, close, suffocating atmosphere--where instead of suffering and dying, as the white man would, they are healthier, happier, and more prolific than in their native Africa--producing, under the white man's will, a great variety of agricultural products, besides upward of three millions of bales of cotton, and three hundred thousand hogsheads of sugar. Thus proving that subjection to his will is normal to them, because, under the influence of his will, they enjoy life more than in any other condition, rapidly increase in numbers, and steadily rise in the scale of humanity.

The power of a stronger will over a weaker, or the power of one living creature to act on and influence another, is an ordinance of nature, which has its parallel in the inorganic kingdom, where ponderous bodies, widely separated in space, influence one another so much as to keep up a constant interplay of action and reaction throughout nature's vast realms. The same ordinance which keeps the spheres in their orbits and holds the satellites in subordination to the planets, is the ordinance that subjects the negro race to the empire of the white man's will. From that ordinance the snake derives its power to charm the bird, and the magician his power to amuse the curious, to astonish the vulgar, and to confound the wisdom of the wise. Under that ordinance, our four millions of negroes are as unalterably bound to obey the white man's will, as the four satellites of Jupiter the superior magnetism of that planet. If individual masters, by releasing individual negroes from the power of their will, can not make them free or release them from subordination to the instinctive public sentiment or will of the aggregate white population, which as rigidly excludes them, in the so-called free States, from the drawing room and parlor as it does pots and kettles and other kinds of kitchen furniture. The subjugation of equals by artifice or force is tyrrany or slavery; but there is no such thing in the United States, because equals are on a perfect equality here. The subordination of the Nigritian to the Caucasian would never have been imagined to be a condition similar to European slavery, if any regard had been paid to ethnology. Subordination of the inferior race to the superior is a normal, and not a forced condition. Chains and standing armies are the implements used to force the obedience of equals to equals--of one white man to another. Whereas, the obedience of the Nigritian to the Caucasian is _spontaneous_ because it is normal for the weaker will to yield obedience to the stronger. The ordinance which subjects the negro to the empire of the white man's will, was plainly written on the heavens during our Revolutionary war. It was then that the power of the united will of the American people rose to its highest degree of intensity.

Every colony was a slaveholding colony excepting one; yet the people, particularly that portion of them residing in districts where the black population was greatest, hastened to meet in the battle-field the powerful British armies in front of them, and the interminable hosts of Indian warriors in the wilderness behind them, leaving their wives and children, their old men and cripples, for seven long years, _to their negroes to take care of_. Did the slaves, many of whom were savages recently imported from Africa, butcher them, as white or Indian slaves surely would have done, and fly to the enemy's standard for the liberty, land, money, rum, savage luxuries and ample protection so abundantly promised and secured to all who would desert their master's families? History answers that not one in a thousand joined their masters' enemies; but, on the contrary, they continued quietly their daily labors, even in those districts where they outnumbered the white population ten to one. They not only produced sufficient breadstuffs to supply the families of their masters, but a surplus of flour, pork, and beef was sent up from the slaveholding districts of Virginia to Washington's starving army in Pennsylvania. [See Botta's History.] These agricultural products were created by savages, naturally so indolent in their native Africa, as to prefer to live on ant eggs and caterpillars rather than labor for a subsistence; but for years in succession they continued to labor in the midst of their masters' enemies--dropping their hoes when they saw the red coats, running to tell their mistress, and to conduct her and the children through by-paths to avoid the British troopers, and when the enemy were out of sight returning to their work again. The sole cause of their industry and fidelity is due to the spiritual influence of the white race over the black.

The empire of the white man's will over the prognathous race is not absolute, however. It can not force exercise beyond a certain speed; neither the will nor physical force can drive negroes, for a number of days in succession, beyond a very moderate daily labor--about one-third less than the white man voluntarily imposes on himself. If force be used to make them do more, they invariably do less and less, until they fall into a state of impassivity, in which they are more plague than profit--worthless as laborers, insensible and indifferent to punishment, or even to life; or, in other words, they fall into the disease which I have named Dysesthaesia Ethiopica, characterized by hebetude of mind and insensibility of body, caused by over working and bad treatment. Some knowledge of the ethnology of the prognathous race is absolutely necessary for the prevention and cure of this malady in all its various forms and stages. Dirt eating, or Cachexia Africana, is another disease, like Dysesthaesia Ethiopica, growing out of ethnical elements peculiar to the prognathous race. The ethnical elements assimilating the negro to the mule, although giving rise to the last named disease, are of vast importance to the prognathous race, because they guarantee to that race an ample protection against the abuses of arbitrary power. A white man, like a blooded horse, can be worked to death. Not so the negro, whose ethnical elements, like the mule, restricts the limits of arbitrary power over him.

Among the four millions of the prognathous race in the United States, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to find a single individual negro, whom the white man, armed with arbitrary power, has ever been able to make hurt himself at work. It is beyond the power of the white man to drive the negro into this long continued and excessive muscular exertions such as the white laborers of Europe often impose upon themselves to satisfy a greedy boss, under fear of losing their places, and thereby starving themselves and families. Throughout England, nothing is more common than decrepitude, premature old age, and a frightful list of diseases, caused by long continued and excessive muscular exertion. Whereas, all America can scarcely furnish an example of the kind among the prognathous race. The white men of America have performed many prodigies, but they have never yet been able to make a negro overwork himself.

There are other elements peculiar to the Nigritian, on which the disease, called negro consumption, or Cachexia Africana, depends. But these belong to that class which subject the negro to the white man's spiritual empire over him. When that spiritual empire is not maintained in all its entirety, or in other words, when the negro is badly governed, he is apt to fall under the spiritual influence of the artful and designing of his own color, and Cachexia Africana, or consumption, is the consequence. Better throw medicine to the dogs, than give it to a negro patient impressed with the belief that he has walked over poison specially laid for him, or been in some other way tricked or conjured. He will surely die, unless treated in accordance with his ethnological peculiarities, and the hallucination expelled.

There never has been an insurrection of the prognathous race against their masters; and from the nature of the ethnical elements of that race, there never can be. Hayti is no exception, it will be seen, when the true history of the so-called insurrection of that island is written. There have been neighborhood disturbances and bloodshed, caused by fanaticism, and by mischievous white men getting among them and infusing their will into them, or mesmerizing them. But, fortunately, there is an ethnological law of their nature which estops the evil influence of such characters by limiting their influence strictly to personal acquaintances. The prognathous tribes in every place and country are jealous and suspicious of all strangers, black or white, and have ever been so.

Prior to the emancipation act in the British West Indies, the famous Exeter Hall Junto sent out a number of emissaries of the East India Company to Jamaica, in the garb of missionaries. After remaining a year or two in the assumed character of Christian ministers, they began to preach insurrectionary doctrines, and caused a number of so-called insurrections to break out simultaneously in different parts of the island. The insurgents in every neighborhood were confined to the personal acquaintances of the Exeter Hall miscreants, who succeeded in infusing their will only into those who had listened to their incendiary harangues. This was proved upon them by the genuine missionaries, who had long been on the island, and had gathered into their various churches a vast number of converts. For, in no instance, did a single convert, or any other negro, join in the numerous insurrectionary movements who had not been personally addressed by the wolves in sheep's clothing. The Christian missionaries, particularly the Methodists, Baptist, Moravians, and Catholics, were very exact in collecting the evidence of this most important ethnological truth, in consequence of some of the planters, at the first outbreak, having confounded them with the Exeter Hall incendiaries.

The planters finally left the Christian missionaries and their flocks undisturbed, but proceeded to expel the false missionaries, to hang their converts, and to burn down their chapels. The event proved that they were wrong in not hanging the white incendiaries; because they went home to England, preached a crusade--traveling all over the United Kingdom--proclaiming, as they went, that they had left God's houses in flames throughout Jamaica, and God's people hanging like dogs from the trees in that sinful island. This so inflamed public sentiment in Great Britain against the planters, as to unite all parties in loud calls for the immediate passage of the emancipation act. There is good reason to believe that the English ministry, in view of the probable effect of that measure on the United States, and the encouragement it would afford to the culture of sugar and other tropical products in the East Indies and Mauritius, had previously determined to make negro freedom a leading measure in British policy, well knowing that its effect would be to Africanize the sugar and cotton growing regions of America. The ethnology of the prognathous race does not stop at proving that subordination to the white race is its normal condition. It goes further, and proves that social and political equality is abnormal to it, whether educated or not. Neither negroes nor mulattoes know how to use power when given to them. They always use it capriciously and tyrannically. Tschudi, a Swiss naturalist, [see Tschudi's Travels in Peru, London, 1848,] says, "that in Lima and Peru generally, the free negroes are a plague to society. Dishonesty seems to be a part of their very nature. Free born negroes, admitted into the houses of wealthy families, and have received, in early life, a good education, and treated with kindness and liberality, do not differ from their uneducated brother."

Tschudi is mistaken in supposing that dishonesty is too deeply rooted in the negro character to be removed. They are dishonest when in the abnormal condition without a master. They are also dishonest when in a state of subordination, called slavery, badly provided for and not properly disciplined and governed. But when properly disciplined, instructed, and governed, and their animal wants provided for, it would be difficult to find a more honest, faithful, and trustworthy people than they are. When made contented and happy, as they always should be, they reflect their master in their thoughts, morals, and religion, or at least they are desirous of being like him. They imitate him in every thing, as far as their imitative faculties, which are very strong, will carry them. They take a pride in his wealth, or in any thing which distinguishes him, as if they formed a part of himself, as they really do, being under the influence of his will, and in some measure assimilated, in their spiritual nature, to him--loving him with all the warm and devoted affection which children manifest to their parents. He is sure of their love and friendship, although all the world may forsake him. But to create and maintain this happy relation, he must govern them with strict reference to their ethnological peculiarities. He must treat them as inferiors, not as equals, as they are not satisfied with equality, and will despise a master who attempts to raise any one or more of them to an equality with himself; because they become jealous and suspicious that their master's favorites will exercise a sinister influence over him against them.

Impartiality of treatment in every particular, down to a hat or pair of shoes, is what they all regard as one of their dearest rights. Hence, any special favors or gifts to one, is an offense to all the rest. They also regard as a right, when punished, not to be punished in anger, but with cool deliberation. They will run from an angry or enraged master or overseer, armed with a gun or a pistol. They regard all overseers who come into the field armed with deadly weapons as cowards, and all cowards have great difficulty in governing them. It is not physical force which keeps them in subjection, but the spiritual force of the white man's will. One unarmed brave man can manage a thousand by the moral force of his will alone, much better than an hundred cowards with guns in their hands. They also require as a right when punished, to be punished with a switch or a whip, and not with a stick or the fist. In this particular the ethnical law of their nature is different from all other races of men. It is exactly the reverse of that of the American Indian. The Indian will murder any man who strikes him with a switch, a cowhide, or a whip, twenty years afterward, if he gets an opportunity; but readily forgets blows, however severe, inflicted on him with the fist, a cudgel, or a tomahawk. A remarkable ethnological peculiarity of the prognathous race is, that any deserved punishment, inflicted on them with a switch, cowhide, or whip, puts them into good humor with themselves and the executioner of the punishment, provided he manifest satisfaction by regarding the offense as atoned for.

The negro requires government in every thing, the most minute. The Indian, on the contrary, submits to government in nothing whatever. Mr. Jefferson was the first to notice this ethnical law of the red man. [See his letter to Gilmer, June 7, 1816, vol. iv, page 279, Jefferson's Correspondence.] "Every man with them," (the Indians,) says Mr. Jefferson, "is perfectly free to follow his own inclinations; but if, in doing this, he violates the rights of another, he is punished by the disesteem of society or tomahawked. Their leaders conduct them by the influence of their characters only; and they follow or not, as they please, him of whose character, for wisdom or war, they have the highest opinion, but, of all things, they least think of subjecting themselves to the will of one man." Whereas the black man requires government even in his meat and drink, his clothing, and hours of repose. Unless under the government of one man to prescribe rules of conduct to guide him, he will eat too much meat and not enough of bread and vegetables; he will not dress to suit the season, or kind of labor he is engaged in, nor retire to rest in due time to get sufficient sleep, but sit up and doze by the fire nearly all night. Nor will the women undress the children and put them regularly to bed. Nature is no law unto them. They let their children suffer and die, or unmercifully abuse them, unless the white man or woman prescribe rules in the nursery for them to go by. Whenever the white woman superintends the nursery, whether the climate be cold or hot, they increase faster than any other people on the globe; but on large plantations, remote from her influence, the negro population invariably diminishes, unless the overseer take upon himself those duties in the lying-in and nursery department, which on small estates are attended to by the mistress. She often sits up at night with sick children and administers to their wants, when their own mothers are nodding by them, and would be sound asleep if it were not for her presence. The care that white women bestow on the nursery, is one of the principal causes why three hundred thousand Africans, originally imported into the territory of the United States have increased to four millions, while in the British West Indies the number imported, exceeded, by several millions, the actual population. It is also the cause why the small proprietors of negro property in Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri are able to supply the loss on the large Southern plantations, which are cut off from the happy influence of the presiding genius over civilization, morality, and population--the white woman.

The prognathous race require government also in their religious exercises, or they degenerate into fanatical saturnalia. A discreet white man or woman should always be present to regulate their religious meetings.

Here the investigation into the ethnology of the prognathous race must close, at least, for the present, leaving the most interesting part, Fetichism, the indigenous religion of the African tribes, untouched. It is the key to the negro character, which is difficult to learn from mere experience. Those who are not accustomed to them have great trouble and difficulty in managing negroes; and in consequence thereof treat them badly. If their ethnology was better and more generally understood, their value would be greatly increased, and their condition, as a laboring class, would be more enviable, compared to the European peasants, than it already is.

SLAVERY

IN THE

LIGHT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW.

BY

E. N. ELLIOTT, L.L.D.,

OF MISSISSIPPI.

SLAVERY

IN THE

LIGHT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW.

THERE are some who deny the unity of the human race; with such we have no controversy, but it is a part of our religious belief, that "God made of one blood all nations that dwell on the face of the earth;" and on this we would base one of our arguments for the subordination of a part of the human family. It is not necessary to the vindication of our cause, or of truth, to deny the authority, or to fritter away the evident meaning of any part of the word of God, as is done by most of the abolitionists. It is sufficient for our purpose that we have shown that the negro is an inferior variety of the human race; that he is inferior in his physical structure, and in his mental and moral organization. This orgnization incapacitates him for emerging, by his own will and power, from barbarism, and achieving civilization and refinement. History teaches the same lesson. We find Africa to-day, just as it was three thousand years ago. When God created man he said to him, "Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth on the face of the earth." And again, upon the re-creation after the flood, he repeated the command, in almost the same words, to Noah and his sons. This command shows that God had a purpose with regard to the physical world, in placing man upon it, and that man has a mission to fulfill in subduing it, and acquiring a control, not only over animate but also over inanimate nature. Indeed, the one is essential to the other. Man can not control and subdue the inferior animals, until he has acquired some control over the powers of nature. Place him in the forest naked and unarmed, and many of the animals are his superiors; but endow his mind with a knowledge of nature's laws, and thus enable him to make them subservient to his purposes, and he becomes irresistible; a god on earth. In fulfilling this command, man elevates his nature as he increases his knowledge, and thereby extends his powers. God requires that every part of the human family shall fulfill this great command, and contribute their part in rendering subservient to human use, all the faculties of nature. Nay, even where the one talent is misimproved, he takes it away and gives it to him, who has ten talents. It is on this principle that it is right and in accordance with the ordinance of God, to dispossess of their lands, mines, waterpowers, harbors, etc., a savage nation, possessing, but not improving them, and convert them to the uses of the world of mankind. This is the warrant for the conflict of civilization with barbarism. Not to go back to former times, it is this precept which has converted the former howling wilderness of this Western World, into an earthly paradise, affording an ample subsistence to happy millions of the most enlightened of the human family. It is this that causes effete dynasties and nations to disappear from the face of the world, and their places to be supplied by those full of life and energy. It is this that is rolling back and blotting out the mongrel races of the New World, to make room for the onward march of a higher civilization.

The manifest destiny men are not so far wrong after all; but instead of destiny, it is the purpose and ordinance of God. Upon this principle has England acted in reference to India, Australia, China, and in almost every region of the globe. It is upon this principle that Europe is now controlling the destinies of the Old World, as the United States, if they are true to themselves, will control the destinies of the New. This has governed us in requiring that Japan should open her ports to the commerce, and her coal mines to the navies of the world; that she should enrol herself in the brotherhood of nations, and perform her part in the great drama of life. It is upon this principle that England, France, and the United States, are requiring the same thing of China; and it is upon this principle that the vagrant is arrested in your streets and sent to the work-house.

These principles are clearly enunciated, and ably defended by J. Q. Adams in his celebrated speech on the Chinese question, delivered in 1841. It is true, that he applies them to the rights of commerce only; but by legitimate deduction, they are as applicable to the rights of labor, as to the rights of commerce. Although nations and races have always acted on these principles, yet at the time of the delivery of this speech, so startling were the positions assumed by Mr. Adams, that but few could be found who were prepared to defend them, yet none were able to controvert them. Their general adoption at the present day only shows what history has so long taught, that master minds are generally in advance of their age.

In the "Memoir of J. Q. Adams," by Josiah Quincy, we have a report of this speech. Speaking of the Chinese war, Mr. Adams says, "that by the law of nations is to be understood, not one code of laws, binding alike on all nations of the earth, but a system of rules, varying according to the condition and character of the nations concerned. There is a law of nations among Christian communities, which is the law recognized by the Constitution of the United States, as obligatory upon them in their intercourse with European States and colonies. But we have a different law of nations regulating our intercourse with the Indian tribes on this continent; another between us and the woolly-headed nations of Africa; another with the Barbary powers; another with the flowery land, or Celestial empire." Then, reasoning on the rights of property, established by labor, by occupation, by compact, he maintains "that the right of exchange, barter--in other words, of commerce--necessarily follows; that a state of nature among men is a state of peace; the pursuit of happiness, man's natural right; that is the duty of all men to contribute, as much as is in their power, to one another's happiness, and that there is no other way by which they can so well contribute to the comfort and well-being of one another, as by commerce, or the mutual exchange of equivalents." These views and principles he thus illustrates:

"The duty of commercial intercourse between nations, is laid down in terms sufficiently positive by Vattel, but he afterwards qualifies it by a restriction, which, unless itself restricted, annuls it altogether. He says that, although the general duty of commercial intercourse is incumbent upon nations, yet every nation may exclude any particular branch or article of trade, which it may deem injurious to its interests. This can not be denied. But then a nation may multiply these particular exclusions, until they become general, and equivalent to a total interdict of commerce; and this, time out of mind, has been the inflexible policy of the Chinese empire. So says Vattel, without affixing any note of censure upon it. Yet it is manifestly incompatible with the position which he had previously laid down, that commercial intercourse between nations is a moral obligation upon them all."

The same doctrine, with regard to the duties of _individuals_ in a community, that is here advanced by Mr. Adams with regard to _races_ and _nations_, is thus set forth in Blackstone's Commentaries, book iv, chap. xxxiii: "_There is not a more necessary, or more certain maxim, in the frame and constitution of society, than that every individual must contribute his share, in order to the well-being of the community._"

The first principle laid down by Mr. Adams is, that the same code of international law does not apply to all nations alike, but that it varies with the condition and character of the people; that one code of laws applies to the enlightened and Christian nations of Europe, but an entirely different one to the pagan, woolly-headed, barbarians of Africa. What would be just and right with regard to the African, would be eminently unjust towards the European. Though it would be a great wrong to reduce the European to a condition of servitude, it does not follow that it would be equally wrong to enslave the African. If all the human races were alike, one code of international laws would apply to the whole, but so long as the African continues to be an inferior race, they must be treated as such.

But again, Mr. Adams clearly lays down the principle that no nation or race can be permitted, in any way, to isolate itself from the community of nations, but is morally bound to contribute all in its power to the well-being of the whole race, at the same time that it secures its own. If it possesses territory which it occupies, but does not improve, it must yield it to the claims of civiilization. If it has productions valuable to the world, it is morally bound to exchange them. If it has ports, harbors, coal mines, or other facilities for commerce and manufactures, it must allow other nations to participate in its advantages. If it has a superabundant supply of labor, it must be rendered available. If, then, it is right that civilization and progress should appropriate the hunting grounds of the Indian race; if it is right that China and Japan should be required to open their ports to the commerce of the world, it must be equally right that the great store house of labor in Africa should be opened for the benefit of the human race. In the Western World, a vast continent of fertile land and propitious climate, was possessed, not improved, by a sparse hunter race; but the law of God and of nations required that the earth should be subdued and replenished, and now God has enlarged Japheth, and he dwells in these tents of Shem. China, Japan, and other regions of Asia, are inhabited by teeming millions, rich in the productions of art, yet scarcely able to obtain a meagre sustenance, and rigidly excluding all intercourse with the outer world, but at the demands of commerce the barriers are broken down, and they, in common with other nations, are benefited by the change. Africa has long possessed a superabundant population of indolent, degraded, pagan savages, useless to the world and to themselves. Numberless efforts have been made to elevate them in the scale of existence, in their own country, but all in vain. Even when partially civilized, under the control of the white man, they soon relapse into barbarism, if emancipated from this control. But a colony of them, some two hundred years since, were imported into the Western World, and placed subordinate to the white race; and now, if we are to believe the abolitionists, they have improved so rapidly as to have become equal, if not superior, to the white race. Certainly they are far superior to their ancestors, or their brethren in Africa. At the same time, they have conferred an equal benefit on the world. They supply a demand for labor which can not otherwise be met, and their products not only clothe the civilized world, but also are the life-blood of its commerce.

It is not necessary to the discussion of this topic, that we should show _what_ are the laws of nations, applicable to the different races enumerated by Mr. Adams; though it is manifest to the most casual observer, that the laws applicable to them are radically different. What would be thought of a minister at the court of St. James, who should propose to carry out with Great Britain, the same course of policy we pursue towards the Indian tribes; or of the English minister at our capital, who would exact from us the concessions required of the rajahs of India, or the chiefs of Australia? The radical difference is this: among civilized and Christian nations, the law recognizes a perfect equality, and requires an entire reciprocity; but between an elevated and a degraded or inferior race, this inequality is recognized, and an influence and a superiority is accorded to the one, which is denied to the other. This is well illustrated by our present intercourse with Mexico, and should we establish a protectorate over that unhappy country, for their good and our own, it would be in strict accordance with these principles. With some nations we have diplomatic intercourse, on terms of perfect equality and reciprocity; others we treat as inferiors, and assume over them some degree of control, while we nevertheless recognize them as legitimate governments. But there are other nations or races, with whom we form no diplomatic relations, and whose governments we do not recognize. In this latter class are included most of the inhabitants of Africa, and of Hayti; or in other words, the _negro race_. The reason is, that those nations performing their duties to the human race, according to the ordinance of God, are to be recognized as not needing our assistance, or requiring our guardianship; those fulfilling only in part, should be considered in a state of tutelage, but those that fulfill none, or but few of these duties, require to be made subservient to the superior races, in order that they may fulfill the great ends of their existence. This subordination has existed in all times, among all nations, and with all races. But as soon as any race became so developed as no longer to require it, it ceased to exist. In this way, and in this alone,--except by the deportation of the slaves--has slavery ever ceased to exist, in any community; nor can it be otherwise in the future. Emancipation in name, is not always freedom in reality. The free blacks of our Northern States and the West Indies, are, as a mass, more abject slaves than any on our Southern plantations. Nor is it possible for them to acquire a more elevated position, until they shall have acquired the requisite qualifications for that position.

At the present time, with the exception of serfdom, peonage, and political slavery, this subordination is confined to the negro race. Why is this so? Manifestly because they have shown themselves incapable, in their own land, of emerging from barbarism, achieving civilization and refinement, performing their duties to the human race, and becoming entitled to a position as equals among the nations of the earth. Until such improvement takes place as shall entitle them to this exalted position, their own happiness and well-being, their duties to the human race, the claims of civilization, the progress of society, the law of nations, and the ordinance of God, require that they should be placed in a subordinate position to a superior race. Experience also shows us that this is their normal and natural position. In their native land they still are what they have always been, a pagan, savage, servile race, fulfilling their duties neither to themselves, to God, nor to the human race; but under the tutelage of a superior race, they are elevated in the scale of existence, improved mentally, morally, and physically, and are thus enabled to do their part in contributing to the well-being of the human race. But so far as our experience goes, this development is not permanent, but is liable to retrogression as soon as the influence of the superior race is removed. Like the electro-magnet, whose power is lost the moment it is insulated from the vivifying power of electricity, so the servile race loses its power when removed from the control of a superior intellect. The example of our own free blacks, those emancipated in the West Indies, Sierra Leone, and even Liberia, are conclusive on this point.

It becomes us not to speculate too curiously concerning God's plan in governing the world, much less to strive to thwart his purposes with our puny arms; he will work out his purposes of good to the human race, in his own good time and way, whether it meets our views or not. But from the revelation of his purpose concerning the descendants of the three progenitors of the human race after the flood, it is manifest that the children of Ham were to be a servile race; as their final disinthrallment is nowhere spoken of, it is exceedingly improbable that slavery will cease to exist till the end of time. It is true that Ethiopia shall stretch forth her hands to God; but this is being fulfilled on a grander scale than ever before has been witnessed, even in our midst, in this Western World, where God has enlarged Japheth, where he dwells in the tents of Shem, and where Cainan is his servant.

PORT GIBSON, MISSISSIPPI, _February 22, 1860_.

DECISION

OF THE

SUPREME COURT

OF THE UNITED STATES

IN THE

DRED SCOTT CASE.

DRED SCOTT DECISION.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES,

DECEMBER TERM, 1856.

DRED SCOTT

_versus_

JOHN F. A. SANDFORD.

DRED SCOTT, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR, _v._ JOHN F. A. SANDFORD.

THIS case was brought up, by writ of error, from the Circuit Court of the United States for the district of Missouri.

It was an action of trespass _vi et armis_ instituted in the Circuit Court by Scott against Sandford.

Prior to the institution of the present suit, an action was brought by Scott for his freedom in the Circuit Court of St. Louis county, (State court,) where there was a verdict and judgment in his favor. On a writ of error to the Supreme Court of the State, the judgment below was reversed, and the case remanded to the Circuit Court, where it was continued to await the decision of the case now in question.

The declaration of Scott contained three counts: one, that Sandford had assaulted the plaintiff; one, that he had assaulted Harriet Scott, his wife; and one, that he had assaulted Eliza Scott and Lizzie Scott, his children.

Sandford appeared, and filed the following plea:

DRED SCOTT } _v._ } _Plea to the Jurisdiction of the Court._ JOHN F. A. SANDFORD. }

APRIL TERM, 1854.

And the said John F. A. Sandford, in his own proper person, comes and says that this court ought not to have or take further cognizance of the action aforesaid, because he says that said cause of action, and each and every of them, (if any such have accrued to the said Dred Scott,) accrued to the said Dred Scott out of the jurisdiction of this court, and exclusively within the jurisdiction of the courts of the State of Missouri, for that, to wit: the said plaintiff, Dred Scott, is not a citizen of the State of Missouri, as alleged in his declaration, because he is a negro of African descent; his ancestors were of pure African blood, and were brought into this country and sold as negro slaves, and this the said Sandford is ready to verify. Wherefore, he prays judgment whether this court can or will take further cognizance of the action aforesaid.

JOHN F. A. SANDFORD.

* * * * *

To this plea there was a demurrer in the usual form, which was argued in April, 1854, when the court gave judgment that the demurrer should be sustained.

In May, 1854, the defendant, in pursuance of an agreement between counsel, and with the leave of the court, pleaded in bar of the action:

1. Not guilty.

2. That the plaintiff was a negro slave, the lawful property of the defendant, and, as such, the defendant gently laid his hands upon him, and thereby had only restrained him, as the defendant had a right to do.

3. That with respect to the wife and daughters of the plaintiff, in the second and third counts of the declaration mentioned, the defendant had, as to them, only acted in the same manner, and in virtue of the same legal right.

In the first of these pleas, the plaintiff joined issue; and to the second and third, filed replications alleging that the defendant, of his own wrong and without the cause in his second and third pleas alleged, committed the trespasses, etc.

The counsel then filed the following agreed statement of facts, viz:

In the year 1834, the plaintiff was a negro slave belonging to Dr. Emerson, who was a surgeon in the army of the United States. In that year, 1834, said Dr. Emerson took the plaintiff from the State of Missouri to the military post at Rock Island, in the State of Illinois, and held him there as a slave until the month of April or May, 1836. At the time last mentioned, said Dr. Emerson removed the plaintiff from said military post at Rock Island to the military post at Fort Snelling, situate on the west bank of the Mississippi river, in the Territory known as Upper Louisiana, acquired by the United States of France, and situate north of the latitude of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north, and north of the State of Missouri. Said Dr. Emerson held the plaintiff in slavery at said Fort Snelling, from said last-mentioned date until the year 1838.

In the year 1835, Harriet, who is named in the second count of the plaintiff's declaration, was the negro slave of Major Taliaferro, who belonged to the army of the United States. In that year, 1835, said Major Taliaferro took said Harriet to said Fort Snelling, a military post, situated as hereinbefore stated, and kept her there as a slave until the year 1836, and then sold and delivered her as a slave at said Fort Snelling unto the said Dr. Emerson hereinbefore named. Said Dr. Emerson held said Harriet in slavery at said Fort Snelling until the year 1838.

In the year 1836, the plaintiff and said Harriet at said Fort Snelling, with the consent of said Dr. Emerson, who then claimed to be their master and owner, intermarried, and took each other for husband and wife. Eliza and Lizzie, named in the third count of the plaintiff's declaration, are the fruit of that marriage. Eliza is about fourteen years old, and was born on board the steamboat Gipsey, north of the north line of the State of Missouri, and upon the river Mississippi. Lizzie is about seven years old, and was born in the State of Missouri, at the military post called Jefferson Barracks.

In the year 1838, said Dr. Emerson removed the plaintiff and said Harriet and their said daughter Eliza, from said Fort Snelling to the State of Missouri, where they have ever since resided.

Before the commencement of this suit, said Dr. Emerson sold and conveyed the plaintiff, said Harriet, Eliza, and Lizzie, to the defendant, as slaves, and the defendant has ever since claimed to hold them and each of them as slaves.

At the times mentioned in the plaintiff's declaration, the defendant, claiming to be owner as aforesaid, laid his hands upon said plaintiff, Harriet, Eliza, and Lizzie, and imprisoned them, doing in this respect, however, no more than what he might lawfully do if they were of right his slaves at such times.

Further proof may be given on the trial for either party.

It is agreed that Dred Scott brought suit for his freedom in the Circuit Court of St. Louis county; that there was a verdict and judgment in his favor; that on a writ of error to the Supreme Court, the judgment below was reversed, and the same remanded to the Circuit Court, where it has been continued to await the decision of this case.

In May, 1854, the cause went before a jury, who found the following verdict, viz: "As to the first issue joined in this case, we of the jury find the defendant not guilty; and as to the issue secondly above joined, we of the jury find that before and at the time when, etc., in the first count mentioned, the said Dred Scott was a negro slave, the lawful property of the defendant; and as to the issue thirdly above joined, we, the jury, find that before and at the time when, etc., in the second and third counts mentioned, the said Harriet, wife of said Dred Scott, and Eliza and Lizzie, the daughters of the said Dred Scott, were negro slaves, the lawful property of the defendant."

Whereupon, the court gave judgment for the defendant.

After an ineffectual motion for a new trial, the plaintiff filed the following bill of exceptions.

On the trial of this cause by the jury, the plaintiff, to maintain the issues on his part, read to the jury the following agreed statement of facts, (see agreement above.) No further testimony was given to the jury by either party. Thereupon the plaintiff moved the court to give to the jury the following instruction, viz:

"That, upon the facts agreed to by the parties, they ought to find for the plaintiff. The court refused to give such instruction to the jury, and the plaintiff, to such refusal, then and there duly excepted."

The court then gave the following instruction to the jury, on motion of the defendant:

"The jury are instructed, that upon the facts in this case, the law is with the defendant." The plaintiff excepted to this instruction.

Upon these exceptions, the case came up to this court.

It was argued at December term, 1855, and ordered to be reargued at the present term.

* * * * *

It was now argued by Mr. Blair and Mr. G. F. Curtis for the plaintiff in error, and by Mr. Geyer and Mr. Johnson for the defendant in error.

* * * * *

Mr. Chief Justice Taney delivered the opinion of the court.

This case has been twice argued. After the argument of the last term, differences of opinion were found to exist among the members of the court; and as the questions in controversy are of the highest importance, and the court was at that time much pressed by the ordinary business of the term, it was deemed advisable to continue the case, and direct a reargument on some of the points, in order that we might have an opportunity of giving to the whole subject a more deliberate consideration. It has accordingly been again argued by counsel, and considered by the court; and I now proceed to deliver its opinion.

There are two leading questions presented by the record:

1. Had the Circuit Court of the United States jurisdiction to hear and determine the case between these parties? And

2. If it had jurisdiction, is the judgment it has given erroneous or not?

The plaintiff in error, who was also the plaintiff in the court below, was, with his wife and children, held as slaves by the defendant, in the State of Missouri; and he brought this action in the Circuit Court of the United States for that district, to assert the title of himself and his family to freedom.

The declaration is in the form usually adopted in that State to try questions of this description, and contains the averment necessary to give the court jurisdiction; that he and the defendant are citizens of different States; that is, that he is a citizen of Missouri, and the defendant a citizen of New York.

The defendant pleaded in abatement to the jurisdiction of the court, that the plaintiff was not a citizen of the State of Missouri, as alleged in his declaration, being a negro of African descent, whose ancestors were of pure African blood, and who were brought into this country and sold as slaves.

To this plea the plaintiff demurred, and the defendant joined in demurrer. The court overruled the plea, and gave judgment that the defendant should answer over. And he therefore put in sundry pleas in bar, upon which issues were joined; and at the trial the verdict and judgment were in his favor. Whereupon the plaintiff brought this writ of error.

Before we speak of the pleas in bar, it will be proper to dispose of the questions which have arisen on the plea in abatement.

That plea denies the right of the plaintiff to sue in a court of the United States, for the reasons therein stated.

If the question raised by it is legally before us, and the court should be of opinion that the facts stated in it disqualify the plaintiff from becoming a citizen, in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution of the United States, then the judgment of the Circuit Court is erroneous and must be reversed.

It is suggested, however, that this plea is not before us; and that as the judgment in the court below on this plea was in favor of the plaintiff, he does not seek to reverse it, or bring it before the court for revision by his writ of error; and also that the defendant waived this defense by pleading over, and thereby admitted the jurisdiction of the court.

But in making this objection, we think the peculiar and limited jurisdiction of courts of the United States has not been adverted to. This peculiar and limited jurisdiction, has made it necessary, in these courts, to adopt different rules and principles of pleading, so far as jurisdiction is concerned, from those which regulate courts of common law in England, and in the different States of the Union which have adopted the common-law rules.

In these last-mentioned courts, where their character and rank are analagous to that of a Circuit Court of the United States; in other words, where they are what the law terms courts of general jurisdiction; they are presumed to have jurisdiction, unless the contrary appears. No averment in the pleadings of the plaintiff is necessary, in order to give jurisdiction. If the defendant objects to it, he must plead it specially, and unless the fact on which he relies is found to be true by a jury, or admitted to be true by the plaintiff, the jurisdiction can not be disputed in an appellate court.

Now, it is not necessary to inquire whether in courts of that description a party who pleads over in bar, when a plea to the jurisdiction has been ruled against him, does or does not waive his plea; nor whether upon a judgment in his favor on the pleas in bar, and a writ of error brought by the plaintiff, the question upon the plea in abatement would be open for revision in the appellate court. Cases that may have been decided in such courts, or rules that may have been laid down by common-law pleaders, can have no influence in the decision in this court. Because, under the Constitution and laws of the United States, the rules which govern the pleadings in its courts, in questions of jurisdiction, stand on different principles and are regulated by different laws.

This difference arises, as we have said, from the peculiar character of the Government of the United States. For although it is sovereign and supreme in its appropriate sphere of action, yet it does not possess all the powers which usually belong to the sovereignty of a nation. Certain specified powers, enumerated in the Constitution, have been conferred upon it; and neither the legislative, executive, nor judicial departments of the Government can lawfully exercise any authority beyond the limits marked out by the Constitution. And in regulating the judicial department, the cases in which the courts of the United States shall have jurisdiction are particularly and specifically enumerated and defined; and they are not authorized to take cognizance of any case which does not come within the description therein specified. Hence, when a plaintiff sues in a court of the United States, it is necessary that he should show, in his pleadings, that the suit he brings is within the jurisdiction of the court, and that he is entitled to sue there. And if he omits to do this, and should, by any oversight of the Circuit Court, obtain a judgment in his favor, the judgment would be reversed in the appellate court for want of jurisdiction in the court below. The jurisdiction would not be presumed, as in the case of a common-law English or State court, unless the contrary appeared. But the record, when it comes before the appellate court, must show, affirmatively, that the inferior court had authority, under the Constitution, to hear and determine the case. And if the plaintiff claims a right to sue in a Circuit Court of the United States, under that provision of the Constitution which gives jurisdiction in controversies between citizens of different States, he must distinctly aver in his pleadings that they are citizens of different States; and he can not maintain his suit without showing that fact in the pleadings.

This point was decided in the case of Bingham _v._ Cabot, (in 3 Dall., 382,) and ever since adhered to by the court. And in Jackson _v._ Ashton (8 Pet., 148,) it was held that the objection to which it was open could not be waived by the opposite party, because consent of parties could not give jurisdiction.

It is needless to accumulate cases on this subject. Those already referred to, and the cases of Capron _v._ Van Noorden, (in 2 Cr. 126.,) and Montalet _v._ Murray, (4 Cr., 46,) are sufficient to show the rule of which we have spoken. The case of Capron _v._ Van Noorden strikingly illustrates the difference between a common-law court and a court of the United States.

If, however, the fact of citizenship is avered in the declaration, and the defendant does not deny it, and put it in issue by plea in abatement, he can not offer evidence at the trial to disprove it, and consequently can not avail himself of the objection in the appellate court, unless the defect should be apparent in some other part of the record. For if there is no plea in abatement, and the want of jurisdiction does not appear in any other part of the transcript brought up by the writ of error, the undisputed averment of citizenship in the declaration must be taken in this court to be true. In this case, the citizenship is averred, but it is denied by the defendant in the manner required by the rules of pleading, and the fact upon which the denial is based is admitted by the demurrer. And, if the plea and demurrer, and judgment of the court below upon it, are before us upon this record, the question to be decided is, whether the facts stated in the plea are sufficient to show that the plaintiff is not entitled to sue as a citizen in a court of the United States.

We think they are before us. The plea in abatement and the judgment of the court upon it, are a part of the judicial proceedings in the Circuit Court, and are there recorded as such; and a writ of error always brings up to the superior court the whole record of the proceedings in the court below. And in the case of the United States _v._ Smith, (11 Wheat., 172,) this court said, that the case being brought up by writ of error, the whole record was under the consideration of this court. And this being the case in the present instance, the plea in abatement is necessarily under consideration; and it becomes, therefore, our duty to decide whether the facts stated in the plea are or are not sufficient to show that the plaintiff is not entitled to sue as a citizen in a court of the United States.

This is certainly a very serious question, and one that now for the first time has been brought for decision before this court. But it is brought here by those who have a right to bring it, and it is our duty to meet it and decide it.

The question is simply this: Can a negro whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights and privileges and immunities guaranteed to the citizen? One of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution.

It will be observed, that the plea applies to that class of persons only whose ancestors were negroes of the African race, and imported into this country, and sold and held as slaves. The only matter in issue before the court, therefore, is, whether the descendants of such slaves, when they shall be emancipated, or who are born of parents who had become free before their birth, are citizens of a State, in the sense in which the word citizen is used in the Constitution of the United States. And this being the only matter in dispute on the pleadings, the court must be understood as speaking in this opinion of that class only, that is, of those persons who are the descendants of Africans who were imported into this country, and sold as slaves.

The situation of this population was altogether unlike that of the Indian race. The latter, it is true, formed no part of the colonial communities, and never amalgamated with them in social connections or in government. But although they were uncivilized, they were yet a free and independent people, associated together in nations or tribes, and governed by their own laws. Many of these political communities were situated in territories to which the white race claimed the ultimate right of dominion. But that claim was acknowledged to be subject to the right of the Indians to occupy it as long as they thought proper, and neither the English nor colonial Governments claimed or exercised any dominion over the tribe or nation by whom it was occupied, nor claimed the right to the possession of the territory, until the tribe or nation consented to cede it. These Indian Governments were regarded and treated as foreign Governments, as much so as if an ocean had separated the red man from the white; and their freedom has constantly been acknowledged, from the time of the first emigration to the English colonies to the present day, by the different Governments which succeeded each other. Treaties have been negotiated with them, and their alliance sought for in war; and the people who compose these Indian political communities have always been treated as foreigners not living under our Government. It is true that the course of events has brought the Indian tribes within the limits of the United States under subjection to the white race; and it has been found necessary, for their sake as well as our own, to regard them as in a state of pupilage, and to legislate to a certain extent over them and the territory they occupy. But they may, without doubt, like the subjects of any other foreign Government, be naturalized by the authority of Congress, and become citizens of a State, and of the United States; and if an individual should leave his nation or tribe, and take up his abode among the white population, he would be entitled to all the rights and privileges which would belong to an emigrant from any other foreign people.

We proceed to examine the case as presented by the pleadings.

The words "people of the United States" and "citizens" are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing. They both describe the political body who, according to our republican institutions, form the sovereignty, and who hold the power and conduct the Government through their representatives. They are what we familiarly call the "sovereign people," and every citizen is one of this people, and a constituent member of this sovereignty. The question before us is, whether the class of persons described in the plea in abatement compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the government might choose to grant them.

It is not the province of the court to decide upon the justice or injustice, the policy or impolicy, of these laws. The decision of that question belonged to the political or law-making power; to those who formed the sovereignty and framed the Constitution. The duty of the court is, to interpret the instrument they have framed, with the best lights we can obtain on the subject, and to administer it as we find it, according to its true intent and meaning when it was adopted.

In discussing this question, we must not confound the rights of citizenship which a State may confer within its own limits, and the rights of citizenship as a member of the Union. It does not by any means follow, because he has all the rights and privileges of a citizen of a State, that he must be a citizen of the United States. He may have all the rights and privileges of the citizen of a State, and yet not be entitled to the rights and privileges of a citizen in any other State. For, previous to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, every State had the undoubted right to confer on whomsoever it pleased the character of citizen, and to endow him with all its rights. But this character of course was confined to the boundaries of the State, and gave him no rights or privileges in other States beyond those secured to him by the laws of nations and the comity of States. Nor have the several States surrendered the power of conferring these rights and privileges by adopting the Constitution of the United States. Each State may still confer them upon an alien, or any one it thinks proper, or upon any class or description of persons; yet he would not be a citizen in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution of the United States, nor entitled to sue as such in one of its courts, nor to the privileges and immunities of a citizen in the other States. The rights which he would acquire would be restricted to the State which gave them. The Constitution has conferred on Congress the right to establish an uniform rule of naturalization, and this right is evidently exclusive, and has always been held by this court to be so. Consequently, no State, since the adoption of the Constitution, can by naturalizing an alien invest him with the rights and privileges secured to a citizen of a State under the Federal Government, although, so far as the State alone was concerned, he would undoubtedly be entitled to the rights of a citizen, and clothed with all the rights and immunities which the Constitution and laws of the State attached to that character.

It is very clear, therefore, that no State can, by any act or law of its own, passed since the adoption of the Constitution, introduce a new member into the political community created by the Constitution of the United States. It cannot make him a member of this community by making him a member of its own. And for the same reason it cannot introduce any person or description of persons, who were not intended to be embraced in this new political family, which the Constitution brought into existence, but were intended to be excluded from it.

The question then arises, whether the provisions of the Constitution, in relation to the personal rights and privileges to which the citizen of a State should be entitled, embraced the negro African race, at that time in this country, or who might afterward be imported, who had then or should afterward be made free in any State; and to put it in the power of a single State to make him a citizen of the United States, and endue him with the full rights of citizenship in every other State without their consent? Does the Constitution of the United States act upon him whenever he shall be made free under the laws of a State, and raised there to the rank of a citizen, and immediately clothe him with all the privileges of a citizen in every other State, and in its own courts?

The court think the affirmative of these propositions cannot be maintained. And if it cannot, the plaintiff in error could not be a citizen of the State of Missouri, within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, and, consequently, was not entitled to sue in its courts.

It is true, every person, and every class and description of persons, who were at the time of the adoption of the Constitution recognized as citizens in the several States, became also citizens of this new political body; but none other; it was formed by them, and for them and their posterity, but for no one else. And the personal rights and privileges guaranteed to citizens of this new sovereignty were intended to embrace those only who were then members of the several State communities, or who should afterward by birthright or otherwise become members, according to the provisions of the Constitution and the principles on which it was founded. It was the union of those who were at that time members of distinct and separate political communities into one political family, whose power, for certain specified purposes, was to extend over the whole territory of the United States. And it gave to each citizen rights and privileges outside of his State which he did not before possess, and placed him in every other State upon a perfect equality with its own citizens as to rights of person and rights of property; it made him a citizen of the United States.

It becomes necessary, therefore, to determine who were citizens of the several States when the Constitution was adopted. And in order to do this, we must recur to the governments and institutions of the thirteen colonies, when they separated from Great Britain and formed new sovereignities, and took their places in the family of independent nations. We must inquire who, at that time, were recognized as the people or citizens of a State, whose rights and liberties had been outraged by the English Government; and who declared their independence, and assumed the powers of Government to defend their rights by force of arms.

In the opinion of the court, the legislation and histories of the times, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show, that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument.

It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in relation to that unfortunate race, which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted. But the public history of every European nation displays it in a manner too plain to be mistaken.

They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made by it. This opinion was at that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race. It was regarded as an axiom in morals as well as in politics, which no one thought of disputing, or supposed to be open to dispute; and men in every grade and position in society daily and habitually acted upon it in their private pursuits, as well as in matters of public concern, without doubting for a moment the correctness of this opinion.

And in no nation was this opinion more firmly fixed or more uniformly acted upon than by the English Government and English people. They not only seized them on the coast of Africa, and sold them or held them in slavery for their own use; but they took them as ordinary articles of merchandise to every country where they could make a profit on them, and were far more extensively engaged in this commerce, than any other nation in the world.

The opinion thus entertained and acted upon in England was naturally impressed upon the colonies they founded on this side of the Atlantic. And, accordingly, a negro of the African race was regarded by them as an article of property, and held, and bought and sold as such, in every one of the thirteen colonies which united in the Declaration of Independence, and afterward formed the Constitution of the United States. The slaves were more or less numerous in the different colonies, as slave labor was found more or less profitable. But no one seems to have doubted the correctness of the prevailing opinion of the time.

The legislation of the different colonies furnishes positive and indisputable proof of this fact.

It would be tedious, in this opinion, to enumerate the various laws they passed upon this subject. It will be sufficient, as a sample of the legislation which then generally prevailed throughout the British colonies, to give the laws of two of them; one being still a large slaveholding State, and the other the first State in which slavery ceased to exist.

The province of Maryland, in 1717, (chap, xiii, s. 5,) passed a law declaring "that if any free negro or mulatto intermarry with any white woman, or if any white man shall intermarry with any negro or mulatto woman, such negro or mulatto shall become a slave during life, excepting mulattoes born of white women, who, for such intermarriage, shall only become servants for seven years, to be disposed of as the justices of the county court, where such marriage so happens, shall think fit; to be applied by them toward the support of a public school within the said county. And any white man or white woman who shall intermarry as aforesaid, with any negro or mulatto, such white man or white woman shall become servants during the term of seven years, and shall be disposed of by the justices as aforesaid, and be applied to the uses aforesaid."

The other colonial law to which we refer was passed by Massachusetts in 1705, (chap, vi.) It is entitled "An act for the better preventing of a spurious and mixed issue," etc.; and it provides, that "if any negro or mulatto shall presume to smite or strike any person of the English or other Christian nation, such negro or mulatto shall be severely whipped, at the discretion of the justices before whom the offender shall be convicted."

And "that none of her Majesty's English or Scottish subjects, nor of any other Christian nation, within this province, shall contract matrimony with any negro or mulatto; nor shall any person, duly authorized to solemnize marriage, presume to join any such in marriage, on pain of forfeiting the sum of fifty pounds; one moiety thereof to her Majesty, for and toward the support of the Government within this province, and the other moiety to him or them that shall inform and sue for the same in any of her Majesty's courts of record within the province, by bill, plaint, or information."

We give both of these laws in the words used by the respective legislative bodies, because the language in which they are framed, as well as the provisions contained in them, show, too plainly to be misunderstood, the degraded condition of this unhappy race. They were still in force when the Revolution began, and are a faithful index to the state of feeling toward the class of persons of whom they speak, and of the position they occupied throughout the thirteen colonies, in the eyes and thoughts of the men who framed the Declaration of Independence and established the State Constitutions and Governments. They show that a perpetual and impassable barrier was intended to be erected between the white race and the one which they had reduced to slavery, and governed as subjects with absolute and despotic power, and which they then looked upon as so far below them in the scale of created beings, that intermarriages between white persons and negroes or mulattoes were regarded as unnatural and immoral, and punished as crimes, not only in the parties, but in the person who joined them in marriage. And no distinction in this respect was made between the free negro or mulatto and the slave, but this stigma, of the deepest degradation, was fixed upon the whole race.

We refer to these historical facts for the purpose of showing the fixed opinions concerning that race, upon which the statesmen of that day spoke and acted. It is necessary to do this, in order to determine whether the general terms used in the Constitution of the United States, as to the rights of man and the rights of the people, was intended to include them, or to give to them or their posterity the benefit of any of its provisions.

The language of the Declaration of Independence is equally conclusive:

It begins by declaring "that when in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

It then proceeds to say: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among them is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

The general words above quoted would seem to embrace the whole human family, and if they were used in a similar instrument at this day would be so understood. But it is too clear for dispute, that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration; for if the language, as understood in that day, would embrace them, the conduct of the distinguished men who framed the Declaration of Independence would have been utterly and flagrantly inconsistent with the principles they asserted; and instead of the sympathy of mankind, to which they so confidently appealed, they would have deserved and received universal rebuke and reprobation.

Yet the men who framed this declaration were great men--high in literary acquirements--high in their sense of honor, and incapable of asserting principles inconsistent with those on which they were acting. They perfectly understood the meaning of the language they used, and how it would be understood by others; and they knew that it would not in any part of the civilized world be supposed to embrace the negro race, which by common consent, had been excluded from civilized Governments and the family of nations, and doomed to slavery. They spoke and acted according to the then established doctrines and principles, and in the ordinary language of the day, and no one misunderstood them. The unhappy black race were separated from the white by indelible marks, and laws long before established, and were never thought of or spoken of except as property, and when the claims of the owner or the profit of the trader were supposed to need protection.

This state of public opinion had undergone no change when the Constitution was adopted, as is equally evident from its provisions and language.

The brief preamble sets forth by whom it was formed, for what purposes, and for whose benefit and protection. It declares that it is formed by the _people_ of the United States; that is to say, by those who were members of the different political communities in the several States; and its great object is declared to be to secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity. It speaks in general terms of the _people_ of the United States, and of _citizens_ of the several States, when it is providing for the exercise of the powers granted or the privileges secured to the citizen. It does not define what description of persons are intended to be included under these terms, or who shall be regarded as a citizen and one of the people. It uses them as terms so well understood, that no further description or definition was necessary.

But there are two clauses in the Constitution which point directly and specifically to the negro race as a separate class of persons, and show clearly that they were not regarded as a portion of the people or citizens of the Government then formed.

One of these clauses reserves to each of the thirteen States the right to import slaves until the year 1808, if it thinks proper. And the importation which it thus sanctions was unquestionably of persons of the race of which we are speaking, as the traffic in slaves in the United States had always been confined to them. And by the other provision the States pledge themselves to each other to maintain the right of property of the master, by delivering up to him any slave who may have escaped from his service, and be found within their respective territories. By the first above-mentioned clause, therefore, the right to purchase and hold this property is directly sanctioned and authorized for twenty years by the people who framed the Constitution. And by the second, they pledge themselves to maintain and uphold the right of the master in the manner specified, as long as the Government they then formed should endure. And these two provisions show, conclusively, that neither the description of persons therein referred to, nor their descendants, were embraced in any of the other provisions of the Constitution; for certainly these two clauses were not intended to confer on them or their posterity the blessings of liberty, or any of the personal rights so carefully provided for the citizen.

No one of that race had ever migrated to the United States voluntarily; all of them had been brought here as articles of merchandise. The number that had been emancipated at that time were but few in comparison with those held in slavery; and they were identified in the public mind with the race to which they belonged, and regarded as a part of the slave population rather than the free. It is obvious that they were not even in the minds of the framers of the Constitution when they were conferring special rights and privileges upon the citizens of a State in every other part of the Union.

Indeed, when we look to the condition of this race in the several States at the time, it is impossible to believe that these rights and privileges were intended to be extended to them.

It is very true, that in that portion of the Union where the labor of the negro race was found to be unsuited to the climate and unprofitable to the master, but few slaves were held at the time of the Declaration of Independence; and when the Constitution was adopted, it had entirely worn out in one of them, and measures had been taken for its gradual abolition in several others. But this change had not been produced by any change of opinion in relation to this race; but because it was discovered, from experience, that slave labor was unsuited to the climate and productions of these States: for some of the States, where it had ceased or nearly ceased to exist, were actively engaged in the slave trade, procuring cargoes on the coast of Africa, and transporting them for sale to those parts of the Union where their labor was found to be profitable, and suited to the climate and productions. And this traffic was openly carried on, and fortunes accumulated by it, without reproach from the people of the States where they resided. And it can hardly be supposed that, in the States where it was then countenanced in its worst form--that is, in the seizure and transportation--the people could have regarded those who were emancipated as entitled to equal rights with themselves.

And we may here again refer, in support of this proposition, to the plain and unequivocal language of the laws of the several States, some passed after the Declaration of Independence and before the Constitution was adopted, and some since the Government went into operation.

We need not refer, on this point, particularly to the laws of the present slaveholding States. Their statute books are full of provisions in relation to this class, in the same spirit with the Maryland law which we have before quoted. They have continued to treat them as an inferior class, and to subject them to strict police regulations, drawing a broad line of distinction between the citizen and the slave races, and legislating in relation to them upon the same principle which prevailed at the time of the Declaration of Independence. As relates to these States, it is too plain for argument, that they have never been regarded as a part of the people or citizens of the State, nor supposed to possess any political rights which the dominant race might not withhold or grant at their pleasure. And as long ago as 1822, the Court of Appeals of Kentucky decided that free negroes and mulattoes were not citizens within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States; and the correctness of this decision is recognized, and the same doctrine affirmed, in 1 Meig's Tenn. Reports, 331.

And if we turn to the legislation of the States where slavery had worn out, or measures taken for its speedy abolition, we shall find the same opinions and principles equally fixed and equally acted upon.

Thus, Massachusetts, in 1786, passed a law similar to the colonial one of which we have spoken. The law of 1786, like the law of 1705, forbids the marriage of any white person with any negro, Indian, or mulatto, and inflicts a penalty of fifty pounds upon any one who shall join them in marriage; and declares all such marriages absolutely null and void, and degrades thus the unhappy issue of the marriage by fixing upon it the stain of bastardy. And this mark of degradation was renewed and again impressed upon the race, in the careful and deliberate preparation of their revised code, published in 1836. This code forbids any person from joining in marriage any white person with any Indian, negro, or mulatto, and subjects the party who shall offend in this respect, to imprisonment, not exceeding six months in the common jail, or to hard labor, and to a fine of not less than fifty nor more than two hundred dollars; and like the law of 1786, it declares the marriage to be absolutely null and void. It will be seen that the punishment is increased by the code upon the person who shall marry them, by adding imprisonment to a pecuniary penalty.

So, too, in Connecticut. We refer more particularly to the legislation of this State, because it was not only among the first to put an end to slavery within its own territory, but was the first to fix a mark of reprobation upon the African slave trade. The law last mentioned was passed in October, 1788, about nine months after the State had ratified and adopted the present Constitution of the Unitied States; and by that law it prohibited its own citizens, under severe penalties, from engaging in the trade, and declared all policies of insurance on the vessel or cargo made in the State to be null and void. But up to the time of the adoption of the Constitution, there is nothing in the legislation of the State indicating any change of opinion as to the relative rights and position of the white and black races in this country, or indicating that it meant to place the latter, when free, upon a level with its citizens. And certainly nothing which would have led the slaveholding States to suppose that Connecticut designed to claim for them, under the new Constitution, the equal rights and privileges and rank of citizens in every other State.

The first step taken by Connecticut upon this subject was as early as 1774, when it passed an act forbidding the further importation of slaves into the State. But the section containing the prohibition is introduced by the following preamble:

"And whereas the increase of slaves in this State is injurious to the poor, and inconvenient."

This recital would appear to have been carefully introduced, in order to prevent any misunderstanding of the motive which induced the Legislature to pass the law, and places it distinctly upon the interest and convenience of the white population--excluding the inference that it might have been intended in any degree for the benefit of the other.

And in the act of 1784, by which the issue of slaves, born after the time therein mentioned, were to be free at a certain age, the section is again introduced by a preamble assigning a similar motive for the act. It is in these words:

"Whereas sound policy requires that the abolition of slavery should be effected as soon as may be consistent with the rights of individuals, and the public safety and welfare"--showing that the right of property in the master was to be protected, and that the measure was one of policy, and to prevent the injury and inconvenience, to the whites, of a slave population in the State.

And still further pursuing its legislation, we find that in the same statute passed in 1774, which prohibited the further importation of slaves into the State, there is also a provision by which any negro, Indian, or mulatto servant, who was found wandering out of the town or place to which he belonged, without a written pass such as is therein described, was made liable to be seized by any one, and taken before the next authority to be examined and delivered up to his master--who was required to pay the charge which had accrued thereby. And a subsequent section of the same law provides, that if any free negro shall travel without such pass, and shall be stopped, seized, or taken up, he shall pay all charges arising thereby. And this law was in full operation when the Constitution of the United States was adopted, and was not repealed till 1797. So that up to that time free negroes and mulattoes were associated with servants and slaves in the police regulations established by the laws of the State.

And again, in 1833, Connecticut passed another law, which made it penal to set up or establish any school in that State for the instruction of persons of the African race not inhabitants of the State, or to instruct or teach in any such school or institution, or board or harbor for that purpose, any such person, without the previous consent in writing of the civil authority of the town in which such school or institution might be.

And it appears by the case of Crandall _v._ the State, reported in 10 Conn. Rep., 340, that upon an information filed against Prudence Crandall for a violation of this law, one of the points raised in the defense was, that the law was a violation of the Constitution of the United States; and that the persons instructed, although of the African race, were citizens of other States, and therefore entitled to the rights and privileges of citizens in the State of Connecticut. But Chief Justice Dagget, before whom the case was tried, held, that persons of that description were not citizens of a State, within the meaning of the word citizen in the Constitution of the United States, and were not therefore entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens in other States.

The case was carried up to the Supreme Court of Errors of the State, and the question fully argued there. But the case went off upon another point, and no opinion was expressed on this question.

We have made this particular examination into the legislative and judicial action of Connecticut, because, from the early hostility it displayed to the slave trade on the coast of Africa, we may expect to find the laws of that State as lenient and favorable to the subject race as those of any other State in the Union; and if we find that at the time the Constitution was adopted, they were not even there raised to the rank of citizens, but were still held and treated as property, and the laws relating to them passed with reference altogether to the interest and convenience of the white race, we shall hardly find them elevated to a higher rank any where else.

A brief notice of the laws of two other States, and we shall pass on to other considerations.

By the laws of New Hampshire, collected and finally passed in 1815, no one was permitted to be enrolled in the militia of the State but free white citizens; and the same provision is found in a subsequent collection of the laws, made in 1855. Nothing could more strongly mark the entire repudiation of the African race. The alien is excluded, because, being born in a foreign country, he can not be a member of the community until he is naturalized. But why are the African race, born in the State, not permitted to share in one of the highest duties of a citizen? The answer is obvious; he is not, by the institutions and laws of the State, numbered among its people. He forms no part of the sovereignty of the State, and is not therefore called on to uphold and defend it.

Again, in 1822, Rhode Island, in its revised code, passed a law forbidding persons who were authorized to join persons in marriage, from joining in marriage any white person with any negro, Indian, or mulatto, under the penalty of two hundred dollars, and declaring all such marriages absolutely null and void; and the same law was again re-enacted in its revised code of 1844. So that, down to the last-mentioned period, the strongest mark of inferiority and degradation was fastened upon the African race in that State.

It would be impossible to enumerate and compress in the space usually allotted to an opinion of a court, the various laws, marking the condition of this race, which were passed from time to time after the Revolution, and before and since the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. In addition to those already referred to, it is sufficient to say, that Chancellor Kent, whose accuracy and research no one will question, states in the sixth edition of his Commentaries (published in 1846, 2 vols., 258, note _b_,) that in no part of the country except Maine, did the African race, in point of fact, participate equally with the whites in the exercise of civil and political rights.

The legislation of the States therefore shows, in a manner not to be mistaken, the inferior and subject condition of that race at the time the Constitution was adopted, and long afterward, throughout the thirteen States by which that instrument was framed; and it is hardly consistent with the respect due to these States, to suppose that they regarded at that time, as fellow citizens and members of the sovereignty, a class of beings whom they had thus stigmatized; whom, as we are bound, out of respect to the State sovereignties, to assume they had deemed it just and necessary thus to stigmatize, and upon whom they had impressed such deep and enduring marks of inferiority and degradation; or that when they met in convention to form the Constitution, they looked upon them as a portion of their constituents, or designed to include them in the provisions so carefully inserted for the security and protection of the liberties and rights of their citizens. It cannot be supposed that they intended to secure to them rights, and privileges, and rank, in the new political body throughout the Union, which every one of them denied within the limits of its own dominion. More especially, it can not be believed that the large slaveholding States regarded them as included in the word citizens, or would have consented to a Constitution which might compel them to receive them in that character from another State. For if they were so received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities to citizens, it would exempt them from the operation of the special laws and from the police regulations which they considered to be necessary for their own safety. It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognized as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State.

It is impossible, it would seem, to believe that the great men of the slaveholding States, who took so large a share in framing the Constitution of the United States, and exercised so much influence in procuring its adoption, could have been so forgetful or regardless of their own safety and the safety of those who trusted and confided in them.

Besides, this want of foresight and care would have been utterly inconsistent with the caution displayed in providing for the admission of new members into this political family. For, when they gave to the citizens of each State the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States, they at the same time took from the several States the power of naturalization, and confined that power exclusively to the Federal Government. No State was willing to permit another State to determine who should or should not be admitted as one of its citizens, and entitled to demand equal rights and privileges with their own people, within their own territories. The right of naturalization was therefore, with one accord, surrendered by the States, and confided to the Federal Government. And this power granted to Congress to establish an uniform rule of _naturalization_ is, by the well understood meaning of the word, confined to persons born in a foreign country, under a foreign Government. It is not a power to raise to the rank of a citizen any one born in the United States, who, from birth or parentage, by the laws of the country, belongs to an inferior and subordinate class. And when we find the States guarding themselves from the indiscreet or improper admission by other States of emigrants from other countries, by giving the power exclusively to Congress, we can not fail to see that they could never have left with the States a much more important power--that is, the power of transforming into citizens a numerous class of persons, who in that character would be much more dangerous to the peace and safety of a large portion of the Union, than the few foreigners one of the States might improperly naturalize

The Constitution upon its adoption obviously took from the States all power by any subsequent legislation to introduce as a citizen into the political family of the United States any one, no matter where he was born, or what might be his character or condition; and it gave to Congress the power to confer this character upon those only who were born outside of the dominions of the United States. And no law of a State, therefore, passed since the Constitution was adopted, can give any right of citizenship outside of its own territory.

A clause similar to the one in the Constitution, in relation to the rights and immunities of citizens of one State in the other States, was contained in the articles of Confederation. But there is a difference of language, which is worthy of note. The provision in the Articles of Confederation was "that the _free inhabitants_ of each of the States, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice, excepted, should be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States."

It will be observed, that under this Confederation, each State had the right to decide for itself, and in its own tribunals, whom it would acknowledge as a free inhabitant of another State. The term _free inhabitant_, in the generality of its terms, would certainly include one of the African race who had been manumitted. But no example, we think, can be found of his admission to all the privileges of citizenship in any State of the Union after these articles were formed, and while they continued in force. And, notwithstanding the generality of the words "free inhabitants," it is very clear that, according to their accepted meaning in that day, they did not include the African race, whether free or not: for the fifth section of the ninth article provides that Congress should have the power "to agree upon the number of land forces to be raised, and to make requisitions from each State for its quota in proportion to the number of _white_ inhabitants in such State, which requisition should be binding."

Words could hardly have been used which more strongly mark the line of distinction between the citizen and the subject; the free and the subjugated races. The latter were not even counted when the inhabitants of a State were to be embodied in proportion to its numbers for the general defense. And it can not for a moment be supposed, that a class of persons thus separated and rejected from those who formed the sovereignty of the States, were yet intended to be included under the words "free inhabitants," in the preceding article, to whom privileges and immunities were so carefully secured in every State.

But although this clause of the articles of Confederation is the same in principle with that inserted in the Constitution, yet the comprehensive word _inhabitant_, which might be construed to include an emancipated slave, is omitted; and the privilege is confined to _citizens_ of the State. And this alteration in words would hardly have been made, unless a different meaning was intended to be conveyed, or a possible doubt removed. The just and fair inference is, that as this privilege was about to be placed under the protection of the General Government, and the words expounded by its tribunals, and all power in relation to it taken from the State and its courts, it was deemed prudent to describe with precision and caution the persons to whom this high privilege was given--and the word _citizen_ was on that account substituted for the words _free inhabitant_. The word citizen excluded, and no doubt intended to exclude, foreigners who had not become citizens of some one of the States when the Constitution was adopted; and also every description of persons who were not fully recognized as citizens in the several States. This, upon any fair construction of the instruments to which we have referred, was evidently the object and purpose of this change of words.

To all this mass of proof we have still to add, that Congress has repeatedly legislated upon the same construction of the Constitution that we have given. Three laws, two of which were passed almost immediately after the Government went into operation, will be abundantly sufficient to show this. The two first are particularly worthy of notice, because many of the men who assisted in framing the Constitution, and took an active part in procuring its adoption, were then in the halls of legislation, and certainly understood what they meant when they used the words "people of the United States" and "citizen" in that well-considered instrument.

The first of these acts is the naturalization law, which was passed at the second session of the first Congress, March 26, 1790, and confines the right of becoming citizens "_to aliens being free white persons_."

Now, the Constitution does not limit the power of Congress in this respect to white persons. And they may, if they think proper, authorize the naturalization of any one of any color, who was born under allegiance to another Government. But the language of the law above quoted, shows that citizenship at that time was perfectly understood to be confined to the white race; and that they alone constituted the sovereignty in the Government.

Congress might, as we before said, have authorized the naturalization of Indians, because they were aliens and foreigners. But, in their then untutored and savage state, no one would have thought of admitting them as citizens in a civilized community. And, moreover, the atrocities they had but recently committed, when they were the allies of Great Britain in the Revolutionary war, were yet fresh in the recollection of the people of the United States, and they were even then guarding themselves against the threatened renewal of Indian hostilities. No one supposed then that any Indian would ask for, or was capable of enjoying the privileges of an American citizen, and the word white was not used with any particular reference to them.

Neither was it used with any reference to the African race imported into or born in this country; because Congress had no power to naturalize them, and therefore there was no necessity for using particular words to exclude them.

It would seem to have been used merely because it followed out the line of division which the Constitution has drawn between the citizen race, who formed and held the Government, and the African race, which they held in subjection and slavery, and governed at their own pleasure.

Another of the early laws of which we have spoken, is the first militia law, which was passed in 1792, at the first session of the second Congress. The language of this law is equally plain and significant with the one just mentioned. It directs that every "free able-bodied white male citizen" shall be enrolled in the militia. The word _white_ is evidently used to exclude the African race, and the word "citizen" to exclude unnaturalized foreigners; the latter forming no part of the sovereignty, owing it no allegiance, and therefore under no obligation to defend it. The African race, however, born in the country, did owe allegiance to the Government, whether they were slaves or free; but it is repudiated, and rejected from the duties and obligations of citizenship in marked language.

The third act to which we have alluded is even still more decisive; it was passed as late as 1813, (2 Stat., 809,) and it provides: "that from and after the termination of the war in which the United States are now engaged with Great Britain, it shall not be lawful to employ, on board of any public or private vessels of the United States, any person or persons except citizens of the United States, _or_ persons of color, natives of the United States."

Here the line of distinction is drawn in express words. Persons of color, in the judgment of Congress, were not included in the word citizens, and they are described as another and different class of persons, and authorized to be employed, if born in the United States.

And even as late as 1820, (chap. civ, sec. 8,) in the charter to the city of Washington, the corporation is authorized "to restrain and prohibit the nightly and other disorderly meetings of slaves, free negroes, and mulattoes," thus associating them together in its legislation; and after prescribing the punishment that may be inflicted on the slaves, proceeds in the following words: "And to punish such free negroes and mulattoes by penalties not exceeding twenty dollars for any one offense; and in case of the inability of any such free negro or mulatto to pay any such penalty and cost thereon, to cause him or her to be confined to labor for any time not exceeding six calendar months." And in a subsequent part of the same section, the act authorizes the corporation "to prescribe the terms and conditions upon which free negroes and mulattoes may reside in the city."

This law, like the laws of the States, shows that this class of persons were governed by special legislation directed expressly to them, and always connected with provisions for the government of slaves, and not with those for the government of free white citizens. And after such an uniform course of legislation as we have stated; by the colonies, by the States, and by Congress, running through a period of more than a century, it would seem that to call persons thus marked and stigmatized, "citizens" of the United States, "fellow-citizens," a constituent part of the sovereignty, would be an abuse of terms, and not calculated to exalt the character of an American citizen in the eyes of other nations.

The conduct of the Executive Department of the Government has been in perfect harmony upon this subject with this course of legislation. The question was brought officially before the late William Wirt, when he was Attorney General of the United States, in 1821, and he decided that the words "citizens of the United States" were used in the acts of Congress in the same sense as in the Constitution; and that free persons of color were not citizens, within the meaning of the Constitution and laws; and this opinion has been confirmed by that of the late Attorney General, Caleb Cushing, in a recent case, and acted upon by the Secretary of State, who refused to grant passports to them as "citizens of the United States."

But it is said that a person may be a citizen, and entitled to that character, although he does not possess all the rights which may belong to other citizens; as, for example, the right to vote, or to hold particular offices; and that yet, when he goes into another State, he is entitled to be recognized there as a citizen, although the State may measure his rights by the rights which it allows to persons of a like character or class resident in the State, and refuse to him the full rights of citizenship.

This argument overlooks the language of the provision in the Constitution of which we are speaking.

Undoubtedly, a person may be a citizen, that is, a member of the community who form the sovereignty, although he exercises no share of the political power, and is incapacitated from holding particular office. Women and minors, who form a part of the political family, can not vote; and when a property qualification is required to vote or hold a particular office, those who have not the necessary qualification can not vote or hold the office, yet they are citizens.

So, too, a person may be entitled to vote by the law of the State, who is not a citizen even of the State itself. And in some of the States of the Union foreigners not naturalized are allowed to vote. And the State may give the right to free negroes and mulattoes, but that does not make them citizens of the State, and still less of the United States. And the provision in the Constitution giving privileges and immunities in other States, does not apply to them.

Neither does it apply to a person who, being the citizen of a State, migrates to another State. For then he becomes subject to the laws of the State in which he lives, and he is no longer a citizen of the State from which he removed. And the State in which he resides may then, unquestionably, determine his _status_ or condition, and place him among the class of persons who are not recognized as citizens, but belong to an inferior and subject race; and may deny him the privileges and immunities enjoyed by its citizens.

But so far as mere rights of persons are concerned, the provision in question is confined to citizens of a State who are temporarily in another State without taking up their residence there. It gives them no political rights in the State, as to voting or holding office, or in any other respect. For a citizen of one State has no right to participate in the government of another. But if he ranks as a citizen in the State to which he belongs, within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, then, whenever he goes into another State, the Constitution clothes him, as to the rights of person, with all the privileges and immunities which belong to citizens of the State. And if persons of the African race are citizens of a State, and of the United States, they would be entitled to all these privileges and immunities in every State, and the State could not restrict them; for they would hold these privileges and immunities under the paramount authority of the Federal Government, and its courts would be bound to maintain and enforce them, the Constitution and laws of the State to the contrary notwithstanding. And if the States could limit or restrict them, or place the party in an inferior grade, this clause of the Constitution would be unmeaning, and could have no operation; and would give no rights to the citizen when in another State. He would have none but what the State itself chose to allow him. This is evidently not the construction or meaning of the clause in question. It guaranties rights, to the citizen, and the State can not withhold them. And these rights are of a character and would lead to consequences which make it absolutely certain that the African race were not included under the name of citizens of a State, and were not in the contemplation of the framers of the Constitution when these privileges and immunities were provided for the protection of the citizen in other States.

The case of Legrand _v._ Darnall (2 Peters, 664) has been referred to for the purpose of showing that this court has decided that the descendant of a slave may sue as a citizen in a court of the United States; but the case itself shows that the question did not arise and could not have arisen in the case.

It appears from the report, that Darnell was born in Maryland, and was the son of a white man by one of his slaves, and his father executed certain instruments to manumit him, and devised to him some landed property in the State. This property Darnall afterward sold to Legrand, the appellant, who gave his notes for the purchase-money. But becoming afterward apprehensive that the appellee had not been emancipated according to the laws of Maryland, he refused to pay the notes until he could be better satisfied as to Darnell's right to convey. Darnall, in the mean time, had taken up his residence in Pennsylvania, and brought suit on the notes, and recovered judgment in the Circuit Court for the district of Maryland.

The whole proceeding, as appears by the report, was an amicable one; Legrand being perfectly willing to pay the money, if he could obtain a title, and Darnall not wishing him to pay unless he could make him a good one. In point of fact, the whole proceeding was under the direction of the counsel who argued the case for the appellee, who was the mutual friend of the parties, and confided in by both of them, and whose only object was to have the rights of both parties established by judicial decision in the most speedy and least expensive manner.

Legrand, therefore, raised no objection to the jurisdiction of the court in the suit at law, because he was himself anxious to obtain the judgment of the court upon his title. Consequently, there was nothing in the record before the court to show that Darnall was of African descent, and the usual judgment and award of execution was entered. And Legrand thereupon filed his bill on the equity side of the Circuit Court, stating that Darnall was born a slave, and had not been legally emancipated, and could not therefore take the land devised to him, nor make Legrand a good title; and praying an injunction to restrain Darnall from proceeding to execution on the judgment, which was granted. Darnall answered, averring in his answer that he was a free man, and capable of conveying a good title. Testimony was taken on this point, and at the hearing the Circuit Court was of opinion that Darnall was a free man and his title good, and dissolved the injunction and dismissed the bill; and that decree was affirmed here, upon the appeal of Legrand.

Now, it is difficult to imagine how any question about the citizenship of Darnall, or his right to sue in that character, can be supposed to have risen or been decided in that case. The fact that he was of African descent was first brought before the court upon the bill in equity. The suit at law had then passed into judgment and award of execution, and the Circuit Court, as a court of law, had no longer any authority over it. It was a valid and legal judgment, which the court that rendered it had not the power to reverse or set aside. And unless it had jurisdiction as a court of equity to restrain him from using its process as a court of law, Darnall, if he thought proper, would have been at liberty to proceed on his judgment, and compel the payment of the money, although the allegations in the bill were true, and he was incapable of making a title. No other court could have enjoined him, for certainly no State equity court could interfere in that way with the judgment of a Circuit Court of the United States.

But the Circuit Court as a court of equity certainly had equity jurisdiction over its own judgment as a court of law, without regard to the character of the parties; and had not only the right, but it was its duty--no matter who were the parties in the judgment--to prevent them from proceeding to enforce it by execution, if the court was satisfied that the money was not justly and equitably due. The ability of Darnall to convey did not depend upon his citizenship, but upon his title to freedon. And if he was free, he could hold and convey property, by the laws of Maryland, although he was not a citizen. But if he was by law still a slave, he could not. It was therefore the duty of the court, sitting as a court of equity in the latter case, to prevent him from using its process, as a court of common law, to compel the payment of the purchase-money, when it was evident that the purchaser must lose the land. But if he was free and could make a title, it was equally the duty of the court not to suffer Legrand to keep the land, and refuse the payment of the money, upon the ground that Darnall was incapable of suing or being sued as a citizen in a court of the United States. The character or citizenship of the parties had no connection with the question of jurisdiction, and the matter in dispute had no relation to the citizenship of Darnall. Nor is such a question alluded to in the opinion of the Court.

Beside, we are by no means prepared to say that there are not many cases, civil as well as criminal, in which a Circuit Court of the United States may exercise jurisdiction, although one of the African race is a party; that broad question is not before the court. The question with which we are now dealing is, whether a person of the African race can be a citizen of the United States, and become thereby entitled to a special privilege, by virtue of his title to that character, and which, under the Constitution, no one but a citizen can claim. It is manifest that the case of Legrand and Darnall has no bearing on that question, and can have no application to the case now before the court.

This case, however, strikingly illustrates the consequences that would follow the construction of the Constitution which would give the power contended for to a State. It would in effect give it also to an individual. For if the father of young Darnall had manumitted him in his lifetime, and sent him to reside in a State which recognized him as a citizen, he might have visited and sojourned in Maryland when he pleased, and as long as he pleased, as a citizen of the United States; and the State officers and tribunals would be compelled, by the paramount authority of the Constitution, to receive him and treat him as one of its citizens, exempt from the laws and police of the State in relation to a person of that description, and allow him to enjoy all the rights and privileges of citizenship without respect to the laws of Maryland, although such laws were deemed by it absolutely essential to its own safety.

The only two provisions which point to them and include them, treat them as property, and make it the duty of the Government to protect it; no other power, in relation to this race, is to be found in the Constitution; and as it is a Government of special, delegated, powers, no authority beyond these two provisions can be constitutionally exercised. The Government of the United States had no right to interfere for any other purpose but that of protecting the rights of the owner, leaving it altogether with the several States to deal with this race, whether emancipated or not, as each State may think justice, humanity, and the interests and safety of society, require. The States evidently intended to reserve this power exclusively to themselves.

No one, we presume, supposes that any change in public opinion or feeling, in relation to this unfortunate race, in the civilized nations of Europe or in this country, should induce the court to give to the words of the Constitution a more liberal construction in their favor than they were intended to bear when the instrument was framed and adopted. Such an argument would be altogether inadmissible in any tribunal called on to interpret it. If any of its provisions are deemed unjust, there is a mode prescribed in the instrument itself, by which it may be amended; but while it remains unaltered, it must be construed now as it was understood at the time of its adoption. It is not only the same in words, but the same in meaning, and delegates the same powers to the Government, and reserves and secures the same rights and privileges to citizens; and as long as it continues to exist in its present form, it speaks not only in the same words, but with the same meaning and intent with which it spoke when it came from the hands of its framers, and was voted on and adopted by the people of the United States. Any other rule of construction would abrogate the judicial character of this court, and make it the mere reflex of the popular opinion or passion of the day. This court was not created by the Constitution for such purposes. Higher and graver trusts have been confided to it, and it must not falter in the path of duty.

What the construction was at that time, we think can hardly admit of doubt. We have the language of the Declaration of Independence and of the Articles of Confederation, in addition to the plain words of the Constitution itself; we have the legislation of the different States, before, about the time, and since, the Constitution was adopted; we have the legislation of Congress, from the time of its adoption to a recent period; and we have the constant and uniform action of the Executive Department, all concurring together, and leading to the same result. And if any thing in relation to the construction of the Constitution can be regarded as settled, it is that which we now give to the word "citizen" and the word "people."

And upon a full and careful consideration of the subject, the court is of opinion, that, upon the facts stated in the plea in abatement, Dred Scott was not a citizen of Missouri within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, and not entitled as such to sue in its courts; and, consequently, that the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction of the case, and that the judgment on the plea in abatement is erroneous.

We are aware that doubts are entertained by some of the members of the court, whether the plea in abatement is legally before the court upon this writ of error: but if that plea is regarded as waived, or out of the case upon any other ground, yet the question as to the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court is presented on the face of the bill of exception itself, taken by the plaintiff at the trial; for he admits that he and his wife were born slaves, but endeavors to make out his title to freedom and citizenship by showing that they were taken by their owner to certain places, hereinafter mentioned, where slavery could not by law exist, and that they thereby became free, and upon their return to Missouri became citizens of that State.

Now, if the removal, of which he speaks, did not give them their freedom, then by his own admission he is still a slave, and whatever opinions may be entertained in favor of the citizenship of a free person of the African race, no one supposes that a slave is a citizen of the State or of the United States. If, therefore, the acts done by his owner did not make them free persons, he is still a slave, and certainly incapable of suing in the character of a citizen.

The principle of law is too well settled to be disputed, that a court can give no judgment for either party, where it has no jurisdiction; and if, upon the showing of Scott himself, it appeared that he was still a slave, the case ought to have been dismissed, and the judgment against him and in favor of the defendant for costs, is, like that on the plea in abatement, erroneous, and the suit ought to have been dismissed by the Circuit Court for want of jurisdiction in that court.

But, before we proceed to examine this part of the case, it may be proper to notice an objection taken to the judicial authority of this court to decide it; and it has been said, that as this court has decided against the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court on the plea in abatement, it has no right to examine any question presented by the exception; and that any thing that it may say upon that part of the case will be extra judicial, and mere orbita dicta.

This is a manifest mistake; there can be no doubt as to the jurisdiction of this court to revise the judgment of a Circuit Court, and to reverse it for any error apparent on the record, whether it be the error of giving judgment in a case over which it had no jurisdiction, or any other material error; and this, too, whether there is a plea in abatement or not.

The objection appears to have arisen from confounding writs of error to a State court, with writs of error to a Circuit Court of the United States. Undoubtedly, upon a writ of error to a State court, unless the record shows a case that gives jurisdiction, the case must be dismissed for want of jurisdiction in _this court_. And if it is dismissed on that ground, we have no right to examine and decide upon any question presented by the bill of exceptions, or any other part of the record. But writs of error to a State Court, and to a Circuit Court of the United States, are regulated by different laws, and stand upon entirely different principles. And in a writ of error to a Circuit Court of the United States, the whole record is before this court for examination and decision; and if the sum in controversy is large enough to give jurisdiction, it is not only the right, but it is the judicial duty of the court, to examine the whole case as presented by the record; and if it appears upon its face that any material error or errors have been committed by the court below, it is the duty of this court to reverse the judgment, and remand the case. And certainly an error in passing a judgment upon the merits in favor of either party, in a case which it was not authorized to try, and over which it had no jurisdiction, is as grave an error as a court can commit.

The plea in abatement is not a plea to the jurisdiction of this court, but to the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court. And it appears by the record before us, that the Circuit Court committed an error, in deciding that it had jurisdiction, upon the facts in the case, admitted by the pleadings. It is the duty of the appellate tribunal to correct this error; but that could not be done by dismissing the case for want of jurisdiction here--for that would leave the erroneous judgment in full force, and the injured party without remedy. And the appellate court therefore exercises the power for which alone appellate courts are constituted, by reversing the judgment of the court below for this error. It exercises its proper and appropriate jurisdiction over the judgment and proceedings of the Circuit Court, as they appear upon the record brought up by the writ of error.

The correction of one error in the court below does not deprive the appellate court of the power of examining further into the record, and correcting any other material errors which may have been committed by the inferior court. There is certainly no rule of law--nor any practice--nor any decision of a court--which even questions this power in the appellate tribunal. On the contrary, it is the daily practice of this court, and of all appellate courts where they reverse the judgment of an inferior court for error, to correct by its opinions whatever errors may appear on the record material to the case; and they have always held it to be their duty to do so where the silence of the court might lead to misconstruction or future controversy, and the point has been relied on by either side, and argued before the court.

In the case before us, we have already decided that the Circuit Court erred in deciding that it had jurisdiction upon the facts admitted by the pleadings. And it appears that, in the further progress of the case, it acted upon the erroneous principle it had decided on the pleadings, and gave judgment for the defendant, where, upon the facts admitted in the exception, it had no jurisdiction.

We are at a loss to understand upon what principle of law, applicable to appellate jurisdiction, it can be supposed that this court has not judicial authority to correct the last-mentioned error, because they had before corrected the former; or by what process of reasoning it can be made out, that the error of an inferior court in actually pronouncing judgment for one of the parties, in a case in which it had no jurisdiction, cannot be looked into or corrected by this court, because we have decided a similar question presented in the pleadings. The last point is distinctly presented by the facts contained in the plaintiff's own bill of exceptions, which he himself brings here by this writ of error. It was the point which chiefly occupied the attention of the counsel on both sides in the argument--and the judgment which this court must render upon both errors is precisely the same. It must, in each of them, exercise jurisdiction over the judgment, and reverse it for the errors committed by the court below; and issue a mandate to the Circuit Court to conform its judgment to the opinion pronounced by this court, by dismissing the case for want of jurisdiction in the Circuit Court. This is the constant and invariable practice of this court, where it reverses a judgment for want of jurisdiction in the Circuit Court.

It can scarcely be necessary to pursue such a question further. The want of jurisdiction in the court below may appear on the record without any plea in abatement. This is familiarly the case where a court of chancery has exercised jurisdiction in a case where the plaintiff had a plain and adequate remedy at law, and it so appears by the transcript when brought here by appeal. So also where it appears that a court of admiralty has exercised jurisdiction in a case belonging exclusively to a court of common law. In these cases there is no plea in abatement. And for the same reason, and upon the same principles, where the defect of jurisdiction is patent on the record, this court is bound to reverse the judgment, although the defendant has not pleaded in abatement to the jurisdiction of the inferior court.

The cases of Jackson _v._ Ashton and of Capron _v._ Van Noorden, to which we have referred in a previous part of this opinion, are directly in point. In the last-mentioned case, Capron brought an action against Van Noorden in a Circuit Court of the United States, without showing, by the usual averments of citizenship, that the court had jurisdiction. There was no plea in abatement put in, and the parties went to trial upon the merits. The court gave judgment in favor of the defendant with costs. The plaintiff thereupon brought his writ of error, and this court reversed the judgment given in favor of the defendant, and remanded the case with directions to dismiss it, because it did not appear by the transcript that the Circuit Court had jurisdiction.

The case before us still more strongly imposes upon this court the duty of examining whether the court below has not committed an error, in taking jurisdiction and giving a judgment for costs in favor of the defendant; for in Capron _v._ Van Noorden the judgment was reversed, because it did _not appear_ that the parties were citizens of different States. They might or might not be. But in this case it _does appear_ that the plaintiff was born a slave; and if the facts upon which he relies have not made him free, then it appears affirmatively on the record that he is not a citizen, and consequently his suit against Sandford was not a suit between citizens of different States, and the court had no authority to pass any judgment between the parties. The suit ought, in this view of it, to have been dismissed by the Circuit Court, and its judgment in favor of Sandford is erroneous, and must be reversed.

It is true that the result either way, by dismissal or by a judgment for the defendant, makes very little, if any, difference in a pecuniary or personal point of view to either party. But the fact that the result would be very nearly the same to the parties in either form of judgment, would not justify this court in sanctioning an error in the judgment which is patent on the record, and which, if sanctioned, might be drawn into precedent, and lead to serious mischief and injustice in some future suit.

We proceed, therefore, to inquire whether the facts relied on by the plaintiff entitled him to his freedom.

The case, as he himself states it, on the record brought here by his writ of error, is this:

The plaintiff was a negro slave, belonging to Dr. Emerson, who was a surgeon in the army of the United States. In the year 1834, he took the plaintiff from the State of Missouri to the military post at Rock Island, in the State of Illinois, and held him there as a slave until the month of April or May, 1836. At the time last-mentioned, said Dr. Emerson removed the plaintiff from said miltary post at Rock Island to the military post at Fort Snelling, situate on the west bank of the Mississippi river, in the territory known as Upper Louisiana, acquired by the United States of France, and situate north of the latitude of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north, and north of the State of Missouri. Said Dr. Emerson held the plaintiff in slavery at said Fort Sneling, from said last-mentioned date until the year 1838.

In the year 1835, Harriet, who is named in the second count of the plaintiff's declaration, was the negro slave of Major Taliaferro, who belonged to the army of the United States. In that year, 1835, said Major Taliaferro took said Harriet to said Fort Snelling, a military post, situated as hereinbefore stated, and kept her there as a slave until the year 1836, and then sold and delivered her as a slave, at said Fort Snelling, unto the said Dr. Emerson hereinbefore named. Said Dr. Emerson held said Harriet in slavery at said Fort Snelling until the year 1838.

In the year 1836, the plaintiff and Harriet intermarried, at Fort Snelling, with the consent of Dr. Emerson, who then claimed to be their master and owner. Eliza and Lizzie, named in the third count of the plaintiff's declaration, are the fruit of that marriage. Eliza is about fourteen years old, and was born on board the steamboat Gipsey, north of the north line of the State of Missouri, and upon the river Mississippi. Lizzie is about seven years old, and was born in the State of Missouri, at the military post called Jefferson Barracks.

In the year 1838, said Dr. Emerson removed the plaintiff and said Harriet, and their said daughter Eliza, from said Fort Snelling to the State of Missouri, where they have ever since resided.

Before the commencement of this suit, said Dr. Emerson sold and conveyed the plaintiff, and Harriet, Eliza, and Lizzie, to the defendant, as slaves, and the defendant has ever since claimed to hold them, and each of them, as slaves.

In considering this part of the controversy, two questions arise: 1. Was he, together with his family, free in Missouri by reason of the stay in the territory of the United States hereinbefore mentioned? And, 2. If they were not, is Scott himself free by reason of his removal to Rock Island, in the State of Illinois, as stated in the above admissions?

We proceed to examine the first question.

The act of Congress, upon which the plaintiff relies, declares that slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, shall be forever prohibited in all that part of the territory ceded by France, under the name of Louisiana, which lies north of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north latitude, and not included within the limits of Missouri. And the difficulty which meets us at the threshold of this part of the inquiry is, whether Congress was authorized to pass this law under any of the powers granted to it by the Constitution; for if the authority is not given by that instrument, it is the duty of this court to declare it void and inoperative, and incapable of conferring freedom upon any one who is held as a slave under the laws of any one of the States.

The counsel for the plaintiff has laid much stress upon that article in the Constitution which confers on Congress the power "to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States;" but, in the judgment of the court, that provision has no bearing on the present controversy, and the power there given, whatever it may be, is confined, and was intended to be confined, to the territory which at that time belonged to, or was claimed by, the United States, and was within their boundaries as settled by the treaty with Great Britain, and can have no influence upon a territory afterward acquired from a foreign Government. It was a special provision for a known and particular territory, and to meet a present emergency, and nothing more.

A brief summary of the history of the times, as well as the careful and measured terms in which the article is framed, will show the correctness of this proposition.

It will be remembered that, from the commencement of the Revolutionary war, serious difficulties existed between the States, in relation to the disposition of large and unsettled territories which were included in the chartered limits of some of the States. And some of the other States, and more especially Maryland, which had no unsettled lands, insisted that as the unoccupied lands, if wrested from Great Britain, would owe their preservation to the common purse and the common sword, the money arising from them ought to be applied in just proportion among the several States to pay the expenses of the war, and ought not to be appropriated to the use of the State in whose chartered limits they might happen to lie, to the exclusion of the other States, by whose combined efforts and common expense the territory was defended and preserved against the claim of the British Government.

These difficulties caused much uneasiness during the war, while the issue was in some degree doubtful, and the future boundaries of the United States yet to be defined by treaty, if we achieved our independence.

The majority of the Congress of the Confederation obviously concurred in opinion with the State of Maryland, and desired to obtain from the States which claimed it a cession of this territory, in order that Congress might raise money on this security to carry on the war. This appears by the resolution passed on the 6th of September, 1780, strongly urging the States to cede these lands to the United States, both for the sake of peace and union among themselves, and to maintain the public credit; and this was followed by the resolution of October 10th, 1780, by which Congress pledged itself, that if the lands were ceded, as recommended by the resolution above mentioned, they should be disposed of for the common benefit of the United States, and be settled and formed into distinct republican States, which should become members of the Federal Union, and have the same rights of sovereignty, and freedom, and independence, as other States.

But these difficulties became much more serious after peace took place, and the boundaries of the United States were established. Every State, at that time, felt severely the pressure of its war debt; but in Virginia, and some other States, there were large territories of unsettled lands, the sale of which would enable them to discharge their obligations without much inconvenience while other States, which had no such resource, saw before them many years of heavy and burdensome taxation; and the latter insisted, for the reasons before stated, that these unsettled lands should be treated as the common property of the States, and the proceeds applied to their common benefit.

The letters from the statesmen of that day will show how much this controversy occupied their thoughts, and the dangers that were apprehended from it. It was the disturbing element of the time, and fears were entertained that it might dissolve the Confederation by which the States were then united.

These fears and dangers were, however, at once removed, when the State of Virginia, in 1784, voluntarily ceded to the United States the immense tract of country lying northwest of the river Ohio, and which was within the acknowledged limits of the State. The only object of the State, in making this cession, was to put an end to the threatening and exciting controversy, and to enable the Congress of that time to dispose of the lands, and appropriate the proceeds as a common fund for the common benefit of the States. It was not ceded because it was inconvenient to the State to hold and govern it, nor from any expectation that it could be better or more conveniently governed by the United States.

The example of Virginia was soon afterward followed by other States, and, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, all of the States similarly situated, had ceded their unappropriated lands, except North Carolina and Georgia. The main object for which the cessions were desired and made, was on account of their money value, and to put an end to a dangerous controversy, as to who was justly entitled to the proceeds when the land should be sold. It is necessary to bring this part of the history of these cessions thus distinctly into view, because it will enable us the better to comprehend the phraseology of the article in the Constitution, so often referred to in the argument.

Undoubtedly the powers of sovereignty and the eminent domain were ceded with the land. This was essential, in order to make it effectual, and to accomplish its objects. But it must be remembered that, at that time, there was no Government of the United States in existence with enumerated and limited powers; what was then called the United States, were thirteen separate, sovereign, independent States, which had entered into a league or confederation for their mutual protection and advantage, and the Congress of the United States was composed of the representatives of these separate sovereignties, meeting together, as equals, to discuss and decide on certain measures which the States, by the Articles of Confederation, had agreed to submit to their decision. But this Confederation had none of the attributes of sovereignty in legislative, executive, or judicial power. It was little more than a congress of ambassadors, authorized to represent separate nations, in matters in which they had a common concern.

It was this congress that accepted the cession from Virginia. They had no power to accept it under the Articles of Confederation. But they had an undoubted right, as independent sovereignties, to accept any cession of territory for their common benefit, which all of them assented to; and it is equally clear, that as their common property, and having no superior to control them, they had the right to exercise absolute dominion over it, subject only to the restrictions which Virginia had imposed in her act of cession. There was, at we have said, no Government of the United States then in existence with special enumerated and limited powers. The territory belonged to sovereignties, who, subject to the limitations above mentioned, had a right to establish any form of Government they pleased, by compact or treaty among themselves, and to regulate rights of person and rights of property in the territory, as they might deem proper. It was by a Congress, representing the authority of these several and separate sovereignties, and acting under their authority and command (but not from any authority derived from the Articles of Confederation,) that the instrument usually called the ordinance of 1787 was adopted; regulating in much detail the principles and the laws by which this territory should be governed; and among other provisions, slavery is prohibited in it. We do not question the power of the States, by agreement among themselves, to pass this ordinance, nor its obligatory force in the territory, while the confederation or league of the States in their separate sovereign character continued to exist.

This was the state of things when the Constitution of the United States was formed. The territory ceded by Virginia, belonged to the several confederated States as common property, and they had united in establishing in it a system of government and jurisprudence, in order to prepare it for admission as States, according to the terms of cession. They were about to dissolve this federative Union, and to surrender a portion of their independent sovereignty to a new Government, which, for certain purposes, would make the people of the several States one people, and which was to be supreme and controlling, within its sphere of action throughout the United States; but this Government was to be carefully limited in its powers, and to exercise no authority beyond those expressly granted by the Constitution, or necessarily to be implied from the language of the instrument, and the objects it was intended to accomplish; and as this league of States would, upon the adoption of the new Government, cease to have any power over the territory, and the ordinance they had agreed upon be incapable of execution and a mere nullity, it was obvious that some provision was necessary to give the new Government sufficient power to enable it to carry into effect the objects for which it was ceded, and the compacts and agreements which the States had made with each other in the exercise of their powers of sovereignty. It was necessary that the lands should be sold to pay the war debt; that a Government and system of jurisprudence should be maintained in it, to protect the citizens of the United States who should migrate to the territory, in their rights of person and of property. It was also necessary that the new Government, about to be adopted, should be authorized to maintain the claim of the United States to the unappropriated lands of North Carolina and Georgia, which had not then been ceded, but the cession of which was confidently anticipated upon some terms that would be arranged between the General Government and these two States. And, moreover, there were many articles of value besides this property in land, such as arms, military stores, munitions, and ships of war, which were the common property of the States, when acting in their independent characters as confederates, which neither the new Government nor any one else would have a right to take possession of, or control, without authority from them; and it was to place these things under the guardianship and protection of the new Government, and to clothe it with the necessary powers, that the clause was inserted in the Constitution which gives Congress the power "to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States." It was intended for a specific purpose, to provide for the things we have mentioned. It was to transfer to the new Government the property then held in common by the States, and to give to that Government power to apply it to the objects for which it had been destined by mutual agreement among the States before their league was dissolved. It applied only to the property which the States held in common at that time, and has no reference whatever to any territory or other property which the new sovereignty might afterward itself acquire.

The language used in the clause, the arrangement and combination of the powers, and the somewhat unusual phraseology it uses, when it speaks of the political power to be exercised in the government of the territory, all indicate the design and meaning of the clause to be such as we have mentioned. It does not speak of _any_ territory, nor of _Territories_, but uses language which, according to its legitimate meaning, points to a particular thing. The power is given in relation only to _the_ territory of the United States--that is, to a territory then in existence, and then known or claimed as the territory of the United States. It begins its enumeration of powers by that of disposing, in other words, making sale of the lands, or raising money from them, which, as we have already said, was the main object of the cession, and which is accordingly the first thing provided for in the article. It then gives the power which was necessarily associated with the disposition and sale of the lands--that is, the power of making needful rules and regulations respecting the territory. And whatever construction may now be given to these words, every one, we think, must admit that they are not the words usually employed by statesmen in giving supreme power of legislation. They are certainly very unlike the words used in the power granted to legislate over territory which the new Government might afterwards itself obtain by cession from a State, either for its seat of Government, or for forts, magazines, arsenals, dock yards, and other needful buildings. And the same power of making needful rules respecting the territory is, in precisely the same language, applied to the _other_ property belonging to the United States--associating the power over the territory in this respect with the power over movable or personal property--that is, the ships, arms, and munitions of war, which then belonged in common to the State sovereignties. And it will hardly be said, that this power, in relation to the last-mentioned objects, was deemed necessary to be thus specially given to the new Government, in order to authorize it to make needful rules and regulations respecting the ships it might itself build, or arms and munitions of war it might itself manufacture or provide for the public service.

No one, it is believed, would think a moment of deriving the power of Congress to make needful rules and regulations in relation to property of this kind from this clause of the Constitution. Nor can it, upon any fair construction, be applied to any property, but that which the new Government was about to receive from the confederated States. And if this be true as to this property, it must be equally true and limited as to the territory, which is so carefully and precisely coupled with it--and like it referred to as property in the power granted. The concluding words of the clause appear to render this construction irresistible; for, after the provisions we have mentioned, it proceeds to say, "that nothing in the Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular State."

Now, as we have before said, all of the States, except North Carolina and Georgia, had made the cession before the Constitution was adopted, according to the resolution of Congress of October 10, 1780. The claims of other States, that the unappropriated lands in these two States should be applied to the common benefit, in like manner, was still insisted on, but refused by the States. And this member of the clause in question evidently applies to them, and can apply to nothing else. It was to exclude the conclusion that either party, by adopting the Constitution, would surrender what they deem their rights. And when the latter provision relates so obviously to the unappropriated lands not yet ceded by the States, and the first clause makes provision for those then actually ceded, it is impossible, by any just rule of construction, to make the first provision general, and extend to all territories, which the Federal Goverenment might in any way afterwards acquire, when the latter is plainly and unequivocally confined to a particular territory; which was a part of the same controversy, and involved in the same dispute, and depended upon the same principles. The union of the two provisions in the same clause shows that they were kindred subjects; and that the whole clause is local, and relates only to lands, within the limits of the United States, which had been or then were claimed by a State; and that no other territory was in the mind of the framers of the Constitution, or intended to be embraced in it. Upon any other construction it would be impossible to account for the insertion of the last provision in the place where it is found, or to comprehend why, or for what object, it was associated with the previous provision.

This view of the subject is confirmed by the manner in which the present Government of the United States dealt with the subject as soon as it came into existence. It must be borne in mind that the same States that formed the Confederation also formed and adopted the new Government, to which so large a portion of their former sovereign powers were surrendered. It must also be borne in mind that all of these same States which had then ratified the new Constitution were represented in the Congress which passed the first law for the government of this territory; and many of the members of that legislative body had been deputies from the States under the confederation--had united in adopting the ordinance of 1787, and assisted in forming the new Government under which they were then acting, and whose powers they were then exercising. And it is obvious from the law they passed to carry into effect the principles and provisions of the ordinance, that they regarded it as the act of the States done in the exercise of their legitimate powers at the time. The new Government took the territory as it found it, and in the condition in which it was transferred, and did not attempt to undo any thing that that had been done. And, among the earliest laws passed under the new Government, is one reviving the ordinance of 1787, which had become inoperative and a nullity upon the adoption of the Constitution. This law introduces no new form or principles for its government, but recites, in the preamble, that it is passed in order that this ordinance may continue to have full effect, and proceeds to make only those rules and regulations which were needful to adapt it to the new Government, into whose hands the power had fallen. It appears, therefore, that this Congress regarded the purposes to which the land in this Territory was to be applied, and the form of government and principles of jurisprudence which were to prevail there, while it remained in the territorial state, as already determined on by the States when they had full power and right to make the decision; and that the new Government, having received it in this condition, ought to carry substantially into effect the plans and principles which had been previously adopted by the States, and which, no doubt, the States anticipated when they surrendered their power to the new Government. And if we regard this clause of the Constitution as pointing to this Territory, with a Territorial Government already established in it, which had been ceded to the States for the purposes hereinbefore mentioned--every word in it is perfectly appropriate and easily understood, and the provisions it contains are in perfect harmony with the objects for which it was ceded, and with the condition of its government as a Territory at the time. We can, then, easily account for the manner in which the first Congress legislated on the subject--and can also understand why this power over the Territory was associated in the same clause with the other property of the United States, and subjected to the like power of making needful rules and regulations. But if the clause is construed in the expanded sense contended for, so as to embrace any territory acquired from a foreign nation by the present Government, and to give it in such territory a despotic and unlimited power over persons and property, such as the confederated States might exercise in their common property, it would be difficult to account for the phraseology used, when compared with other grants of power--and also for its association with the other provisions in the same clause.

The Constitution has always been remarkable for the felicity of its arrangement of different subjects, and the perspicuity and appropriateness of the language it uses. But if this clause is construed to extend to territory acquired by the present Government from a foreign nation, outside of the limits of any charter from the British Government to a colony, it would be difficult to say, why it was deemed necessary to give the Government the power to sell any vacant lands belonging to the sovereignity which might be found within it; and if this was necessary, why the grant of this power should precede the power to legislate over it and establish a Government there; and still more difficult to say, why it was deemed necessary so specially and particularly to grant the power to make needful rules and regulations in relation to any personal or movable property it might acquire there. For the words, _other property_, necessarily, by every known rule of interpretation, must mean property of a different description from territory or land. And the difficulty would perhaps be insurmountable in endeavoring to account for the last member of the sentence, which provides that "nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States or any particular State," or to say how any particular State could have claims in or to a territory ceded by a foreign Government, or to account for associating this provision with the preceding provisions of the clause, with which it would appear to have no connection.

The words "needful rules and regulations" would seem, also, to have been cautiously used for some definite object. They are not the words usually employed by statesmen, when they mean to give the powers of sovereignty, or to establish a Government, or to authorize its establishment. Thus, in the law to renew and keep alive the ordinance of 1787, and to re-establish the Government, the title of the law is: "An act to provide for the government of the territory northwest of the river Ohio." And in the Constitution, when granting the power to legislate over the territory that may be selected for the seat of Government independently of a State, it does not say Congress shall have power "to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory;" but it declares that "Congress shall have power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular States and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the Government of the United States.

The words "rules and regulations" are usually employed in the Constitution in speaking of some particular specified power which it means to confer on the Government, and not, as we have seen, when granting general powers of legislation. As, for example, in the peculiar power to Congress "to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces, or the particular and specific power to regulate commerce;" "to establish an uniform _rule_ of naturalization;" "to coin money and _regulate_ the value thereof." And to construe the words of which we are speaking as a general and unlimited grant of sovereignty over territories which the Government might afterward acquire, is to use them in a sense and for a purpose for which they were not used in any other part of the instrument. But if confined to a particular Territory, in which a Government and laws had already been established, but which would require some alterations to adapt it to the new Government, the words are peculiarly applicable and appropriate for that purpose.

The necessity of this special provision in relation to property and the rights or property held in common by the confederated States, is illustrated by the first clause of the sixth article. This clause provides that "all debts, contracts, and engagements entered into before the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Government as under the Confederation." This provision, like the one under consideration, was indispensable if the new Constitution was adopted. The new Government was not a mere change in a dynasty, or in a form of government, leaving the nation or sovereignty the same, and clothed with all the rights, and bound by all the obligations of the preceding one. But when the present United States came into existence under the new Government, it was a new political body, and a new nation, then for the first time taking its place in the family of nations. It took nothing by succession from the Confederation. It had no right, as its successor, to any property or rights of property which it had acquired, and was not liable for any of its obligations. It was evidently viewed in this light by the framers of the Constitution. And as the several States would cease to exist in their former confederated character upon the adoption of the Constitution, and could not, in that character, again assemble together, special provisions were indispensable to transfer to the new Government the property and rights which at that time they held in common; and at the same time to authorize it to lay taxes and appropriate money to pay the common debt which they had contracted; and this power could only be given to it by special provisions in the Constitution. The clause in relation to the territory and other property of the United States provided for the first, and the clause last quoted provides for the other. They have no connection with the general powers and rights of sovereignty delegated to the new Government, and can neither enlarge nor diminish them. They were inserted to meet a present emergency, and not to regulate its powers as a Government.

Indeed, a similar provision was deemed necessary, in relation to treaties made by the Confederation; and when in the clause next succeeding the one of which we have last spoken, it is declared that treaties shall be the supreme law of the land, care is taken to include, by express words, the treaties made by the confederated States. The language is: "and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land."

Whether, therefore, we take the particular clause in question, by itself, or in connection with the other provisions of the Constitution, we think it clear, that it applies only to the particular territory of which we have spoken, and cannot, by any just rule of interpretation, be extended to territory which the new Government might afterward obtain from a foreign nation. Consequently, the power which Congress may have lawfully exercised in this Territory, while it remained under a Territorial Government, and which may have been sanctioned by judicial decision, can furnish no justification and no argument to support a similar exercise of power over territory afterward acquired by the Federal Government. We put aside, therefore, any argument, drawn from precedents, showing the extent of the power which the General Government exercised over slavery in this Territory, as altogether inapplicable to the case before us.

But the case of the American and Ocean Insurance Companies _v._ Canter (1 Pet., 511) has been quoted as establishing a different construction of this clause of the Constitution. There is, however, not the slightest conflict between the opinion now given and the one referred to; and it is only by taking a single sentence out of the latter and separating it from the context, that even an appearance of conflict can be shown. We need not comment on such a mode of expounding an opinion of the court. Indeed it most commonly misrepresents instead of expounding it. And this is fully exemplified in the case referred to, where, if one sentence is taken by itself, the opinion would appear to be in direct conflict with that now given; but the words which immediately follow that sentence show that the court did not mean to decide the point, but merely affirmed the power of Congress to establish a Government in the Territory, leaving it an open question, whether that power was derived from this clause in the Constitution, or was to be necessarily inferred from a power to acquire territory by cession from a foreign Government. The opinion on this part of the case is short, and we give the whole of it to show how well the selection of a single sentence is calculated to mislead.

The passage referred to is in page 542, in which the court, in speaking of the power of Congress to establish a Territorial Government in Florida until it should become a State, uses the following language:

"In the mean time Florida continues to be a Territory of the United States, governed by that clause of the Constitution which empowers Congress to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property of the United States. Perhaps the power of governing a Territory belonging to the United States, which has not, by becoming a State, acquired the means of self-government, may result, necessarily, from the facts that it is not within the jurisdiction of any particular State, and is within the power and jurisdiction of the United States. The right to govern may be the inevitable consequence of the right to acquire territory. _Whichever may be the source from which the power is derived, the possession of it is unquestionable._"

It is thus clear, from the whole opinion on this point, that the court did not mean to decide whether the power was derived from the clause in the Constitution, or was the necessary consequence of the right to acquire. They do decide that the power in Congress is unquestionable, and in this we entirely concur, and nothing will be found in this opinion to the contrary. The power stands firmly on the latter alternative put by the court--that is, as "_the inevitable consequence of the right to acquire territory_."

And what still more clearly demonstrates that the court did not mean to decide the question, but leave it open for future consideration, is the fact that the case was decided in the Circuit Court by Mr. Justice Johnson, and his decision was affirmed by the Supreme Court. His opinion at the circuit is given in full in a note to the case, and in that opinion he states, in explicit terms, that the clause of the Constitution applies only to the territory then within the limits of the United States, and not to Florida, which had been acquired by cession from Spain. This part of his opinion will be found in the note in page 517 of the report. But he does not dissent from the opinion of the Supreme Court; thereby showing that, in his judgment, as well as that of the court, the case before them did not call for a decision on that particular point, and the court abstained from deciding it. And in a part of its opinion subsequent to the passage we have quoted, where the court speak of the legislative power of Congress in Florida, they still speak with the same reserve. And in page 546, speaking of the power of Congress to authorize the Territorial Legislature to establish courts there, the court say: "They are legislative courts, created in virtue of the general right of sovereignty which exists in the Government, or in virtue of that clause which enables Congress to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory belonging to the United States."

It has been said that the construction given to this clause is new, and now for the first time brought forward. The case of which we are speaking, and which has been so much discussed, shows that the fact is otherwise. It shows that precisely the same question came before Mr. Justice Johnson, at his circuit, thirty years ago--was fully considered by him, and the same construction given to the clause in the Constitution which is now given by this court. And that upon an appeal from his decision the same question was brought before this court, but was not decided because a decision upon it was not required by the case before the court.

There is another sentence in the opinion which has been commented on, which even in a still more striking manner shows how one may mislead or be misled by taking out a single sentence from the opinion of a court, and leaving out of view what precedes and follows. It is in page 546, near the close of the opinion, in which the court say: "In legislating for them," (the territories of the United States,) "Congress exercises the combined powers of the General and of a State Government." And it is said, that as a State may unquestionably prohibit slavery within its territory, this sentence decides in effect that Congress may do the same in a territory of the United States, exercising there the powers of a State, as well as the power of the General Government.

The examination of this passage in the case referred to, would be more appropriate when we come to consider in another part of this opinion what power Congress can constitutionally exercise in a Territory, over the rights of person or rights of property of a citizen. But, as it is in the same case with the passage we have before commented on, we dispose of it now, as it will save the court from the necessity of referring again to the case. And it will be seen upon reading the page in which this sentence is found, that it has no reference whatever to the power of Congress over rights of person or rights of property--but relates altogether to the power of establishing judicial tribunals to administer the laws constitutionally passed, and defining the jurisdiction they may exercise.

The law of Congress establishing a Territorial Government in Florida, provided that the Legislature of the Territory should have legislative powers over "all rightful objects of legislation; but no law should be valid which was inconsistent with the laws and Constitution of the United States."

Under the power thus conferred, the Legislature of Florida passed an act, erecting a tribunal at Key West to decide cases of salvage. And in the case of which we are speaking, the question arose whether the Territorial Legislature could be authorized by Congress to establish such a tribunal, with such powers; and one of the parties among other objections, insisted that Congress could not under the Constitution authorize the Legislature of the Territory to establish such a tribunal with such powers, but that it must be established by Congress itself; and that a sale of cargo made under its order, to pay salvors, was void, as made without legal authority, and passed no property to the purchaser.

It is in disposing of this objection that the sentence relied on occurs, and the court begin that part of the opinion by stating with great precision the point which they are about to decide.

They say: "It has been contended that by the Constitution of the United States, the judicial power of the United States extends to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; and that the whole of the judicial power must be vested 'in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as Congress shall from time to time ordain and establish.' Hence it has been argued that Congress can not vest admiralty jurisdiction in courts created by the Territorial Legislature."

And after thus clearly stating the point before them, and which they were about to decide, they proceed to show that these Territorial tribunals were not constitutional courts, but merely legislative, and that Congress might, therefore, delegate the power to the Territorial Government to establish the court in question; and they conclude that part of the opinion in the following words: "Although admiralty jurisdiction can be exercised in the States in those courts only which are established in pursuance of the third article of the Constitution, the same limitation does not extend to the Territories. In legislating for them, Congress exercises the combined powers of the General and State Governments."

Thus it will be seen by these quotations from the opinion, that the court, after stating the question it was about to decide in a manner too plain to be misunderstood, proceeded to decide it, and announced, as the opinion of the tribunal, that in organizing the judicial department of the Government in a Territory of the United States, Congress does not act under, and is not restricted by, the third article in the Constitution, and is not bound, in a Territory, to ordain and establish courts in which the judges hold their offices during good behaviour, but may exercise the discretionary power which a State exercises in establishing its judicial department, and regulating the jurisdiction of its courts, and may authorize the Territorial Government to establish, or may itself establish, courts in which the judges hold their offices for a term of years only; and may vest in them judicial power upon subjects confided to the judiciary of the United States. And in doing this, Congress undoubtedly exercises the combined power of the General and a State Government. It exercises the discretionary power of a State Government in authorizing the establishment of a court in which the judges hold their appointments for a term of years only, and not during good behaviour; and it exercises the power of the General Government in investing that court with admiralty jurisdiction, over which the General Government had exclusive jurisdiction in the Territory.

No one, we presume, will question the correctness of that opinion; nor is there any thing in conflict with it in the opinion now given. The point decided in the case cited has no relation to the question now before the court. That depended on the construction of the third article of the Constitution, in relation to the judiciary of the United States, and the power which Congress might exercise in a Territory in organizing the judicial department of the Government. The case before us depends upon other and different provisions of the Constitution, altogether separate and apart from the one above mentioned. The question as to what courts Congress may ordain or establish in a Territory to administer laws which the Constitution authorizes it to pass, and what laws it is or is not authorized by the Constitution to pass, are widely different--are regulated by different and separate articles of the Constitution, and stand upon different principles. And we are satisfied that no one who reads attentively the page in Peters' Reports to which we have referred, can suppose that the attention of the court was drawn for a moment to the question now before this court, or that it meant in that case to say that Congress had a right to prohibit a citizen of the United States from taking any property which he lawfully held into a Territory of the United States.

This brings us to examine by what provision of the Constitution the present Federal Government, under its delegated and restricted powers, is authorized to acquire territory outside of the original limits of the United States, and what powers it may exercise therein over the person or property of a citizen of the United States, while it remains a Territory, and until it shall be admitted as one of the States of the Union.

There is certainly no power given by the Constitution to the Federal Government to establish or maintain colonies bordering on the United States or at a distance, to be ruled and governed at its own pleasure; nor to enlarge its territorial limits in any way, except by the admission of new States. That power is plainly given; and if a new State is admitted, it needs no further legislation from Congress, because the Constitution itself defines the relative rights and powers, and duties of the State, and the citizens of the State, and the Federal Government. But no power is given to acquire a Territory to be held and governed permanently in that character.

And indeed the power exercised by Congress to acquire territory and establish a Government there, according to its own unlimited discretion, was viewed with great jealousy by the leading statesmen of the day. And in the Federalist, (No. 38,) written by Mr. Madison, he speaks of the acquisition of the Northwestern Territory by the confederated States, by the cession from Virginia, and the establishment of a Government there, as an exercise of power not warranted by the Articles of Confederation, and dangerous to the liberties of the people. And he urges the adoption of the Constitution as a security and safeguard against such an exercise of power.

We do not mean, however, to question the power of Congress in this respect. The power to expand the territory of the United States by the admission of new States is plainly given; and in the construction of this power by all the departments of the Government, it has been held to authorize the acquisition of territory, not fit for admission at the time, but to be admitted as soon as its population and situation would entitle it to admission. It is acquired to become a State, and not to be held as a colony and governed by Congress with absolute authority; and as the propriety of admitting a new State is committed to the sound discretion of Congress, the power to acquire territory for that purpose, to be held by the United States until it is in a suitable condition to become a State upon an equal footing with the other States, must rest upon the same discretion. It is a question for the political department of the Government, and not the judicial; and whatever the political department of the Government shall recognize as within the limits of the United States, the judicial department is also bound to recognize, and to administer in it the laws of the United States, so far as they apply, and to maintain in the Territory the authority and rights of the Government, and also the personal rights and rights of property of individual citizens, as secured by the Constitution. All we mean to say on this point is, that, as there is no express regulation in the Constitution defining the power which the General Government may exercise over the person or property of a citizen in a Territory thus acquired, the court must necessarily look to the provisions and principles of the Constitution, and its distribution of powers, for the rules and principles by which its decision must be governed.

Taking this rule to guide us, it may be safely assumed that citizens of the United States who migrate to a Territory belonging to the people of the United States, cannot be ruled as mere colonists, dependent upon the will of the General Government, and to be governed by any laws it may think proper to impose. The principle upon which our Government rests, and upon which alone they continue to exist, is the union of States, sovereign and independent within their own limits in their internal and domestic concerns, and bound together as one people by a General Government, possessing certain enumerated and restricted powers, delegated to it by the people of the several States, and exercising supreme authority within the scope of the powers granted to it, throughout the dominion of the United States. A power, therefore, in the General Government to obtain and hold colonies and dependent territories, over which they might legislate without restriction, would be inconsistent with its own existence in its present form. Whatever it acquires, it acquires for the benefit of the people of the several States who created it. It is their trustee acting for them, and charged with the duty of promoting the interests of the whole people of the whole Union in the exercise of the powers specifically granted.

At the time when the Territory in question was obtained by cession from France, it contained no population fit to be associated together and admitted as a State; and it therefore was absolutely necessary to hold possession of it, as a Territory belonging to the United States, until it was settled and inhabited by a civilized community capable of self-government, and in a condition to be admitted on equal terms with the other States as a member of the Union. But, as we have before said, it was acquired by the General Government, as the representative and trustee of the people of the United States, and it must therefore be held in that character for their common and equal benefit; for it was the people of the several States, acting through their agent and representative, the Federal Government, who in fact acquired the Territory in question, and the Government holds it for their common use until it shall be associated with the other States as a member of the Union.

But until that time arrives, it is undoubtedly necessary that some Government should be established in order to organize society, and to protect the inhabitants in their persons and property; and as the people of the United States could act in this matter only through the Government which represented them, and through which they spoke and acted when the Territory was obtained, it was not only within the scope of its powers, but it was its duty to pass such laws and establish such a Government as would enable those by whose authority they acted to reap the advantages anticipated from its acquisition, and to gather there a population which would enable it to assume the position to which it was destined among the States of the Union. The power to acquire necessarily carries with it the power to preserve and apply to the purposes for which it was acquired. The form of government to be established necessarily rested in the discretion of Congress. It was their duty to establish the one that would be best suited for the protection and security of the citizens of the United States, and other inhabitants who might be authorized to take up their abode there, and that must always depend upon the existing condition of the Territory, as to the number and character of its inhabitants, and their situation in the Territory. In some cases a Government, consisting of persons appointed by the Federal Government, would best subserve the interests of the Territory, when the inhabitants were few and scattered, and new to one another. In other instances, it would be more advisable to commit the powers of self-government to the people who had settled in the Territory, as being the most competent to determine what was best for their own interests. But some form of civil authority would be absolutely necessary to organize and preserve civilized society, and prepare it to become a State; and what is the best form must always depend on the condition of the territory at the time, and the choice of the mode must depend upon the exercise of a discretionary power by Congress, acting within the scope of its constitutional authority, and not infringing upon the rights of person or rights of property of the citizen who might go there to reside, or for any other lawful purpose. It was acquired by the exercise of this discretion, and it must be held and governed in like manner, until it is fitted to be a State.

But the power of Congress over the person or property of a citizen can never be a mere discretionary power under our Constitution and form of Government. The powers of the Government and the rights and privileges of the citizen are regulated and plainly defined by the Constitution itself. And when the Territory becomes a part of the United States, the Federal Government enters into possession in the character impressed upon it by those who created it. It enters upon it with its powers over the citizen strictly defined, and limited by the Constitution, from which it derives its own existence, and by virtue of which alone it continues to exist and act as a Government and sovereignty. It has no power of any kind beyond it; and it cannot, when it enters a Territory of the United States, put off its character, and assume discretionary or despotic powers which the Constitution has denied to it. It cannot create for itself a new character separated from the citizens of the United States, and the duties it owes them under the provisions of the Constitution. The Territory being a part of the United States, the Government and the citizen both enter it under the authority of the Constiution, with their respective rights defined and marked out; and the Federal Government can exercise no power over his person or property, beyond what that instrument confers, nor lawfully deny any right which it has reserved.

A reference to a few of the provisions of the Constitution will illustrate this proposition.

For example, no one, we presume, will contend that Congress can make any law in a Territory respecting the establishment of religion, or the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people of the Territory peacably to assemble, and to petition the Government for the redress of grievances.

Nor can Congress deny to the people the right to keep and bear arms, nor the right to trial by jury, nor compel any one to be a witness against himself in a criminal proceeding.

These powers, and others, in relation to rights of person, which it is not necessary here to enumerate, are, in express and positive terms, denied to the General Government; and the rights of private property have been guarded with equal care. Thus the rights of property are united with the rights of person, and placed on the same ground by the fifth amendment to the Constitution, which provides that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, and property, without due process of law. And an act of Congress which deprives a citizen of the United States of his liberty or property, merely because he came himself or brought his property into a particular Territory of the United States, and who had committed no offense against the laws, could hardly be dignified with the name of due process of law.

So, too, it will hardly be contended that Congress could by law quarter a soldier in a house in a Territory without the consent of the owner, in time of peace; nor in time of war, but in a manner prescribed by law. Nor could they by law forfeit the property of a citizen in a Territory who was convicted of treason, for a longer period than the life of the person convicted; nor take private property for public use without just compensation.

The powers over person and property of which we speak are not only not granted to Congress, but are in express terms denied, and they are forbidden to exercise them. And this prohibition is not confined to the States, but the words are general, and extend to the whole territory over which the Constitution gives it power to legislate, including those portions of it remaining under Territorial Government, as well as that covered by States. It is a total absence of power everywhere within the dominion of the United States, and places the citizens of a Territory, so far as these rights are concerned, on the same footing with citizens of the States, and guards them as firmly and plainly against any inroads which the General Government might attempt, under the plea of implied or incidental powers. And if Congress itself cannot do this--if it is beyond the powers conferred on the Federal Government--it will be admitted, we presume, that it could not authorize a Territorial Government to exercise them. It could confer no power on any local Government, established by its authority, to violate the provisions of the Constitution.

It seems, however, to be supposed, that there is a difference between property in a slave and other property, and that different rules may be applied to it in expounding the Constitution of the United States. And the laws and usages of nations, and the writings of eminent jurists upon the relation of master and slave and their mutual rights and duties, and the powers which Governments may exercise over it, have been dwelt upon in the argument.

But in considering the question before us, it must be borne in mind that there is no law of nations standing between the people of the United States and their Government, and interfering with their relation to each other. The powers of the Government, and the rights of the citizen under it, are positive and practical regulations plainly written down. The people of the United States have delegated to it certain enumerated powers, and forbidden it to exercise others. It has no power over the person or property of a citizen but what the citizens of the United States have granted. And no laws or usages of other nations, or reasoning of statesmen or jurists upon the relations of master and slave, can enlarge the powers of the Government, or take from the citizens the rights they have reserved. And if the Constitution recognizes the right of property of the master in a slave, and makes no distinction between that description of property and other property owned by a citizen, no tribunal, acting under the authority of the United States, whether it be legislative, executive, or judicial, has a right to draw such a distinction, or deny to it the benefit of the provisions and guarantees which have been provided for the protection of private property against the encroachments of the Government.

Now, as we have already said in an earlier part of this opinion, upon a different point, the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution. The right to traffic in it, like an ordinary article of merchandise and property, was guaranteed to the citizens of the United States, in every State that might desire it, for twenty years. And the Government in express terms is pledged to protect it in all future time, if the slave escapes from his owner. This is done in plain words--too plain to be misunderstood. And no word can be found in the Constitution which gives Congress a greater power over slave-property, or which entitles property of that kind to less protection than property of any other description. The only power conferred is the power coupled with the duty of guarding and protecting the owner in his rights.

Upon these considerations, it is the opinion of the court that the act of Congress which prohibited a citizen from holding and owning property of this kind in the territory of the United States north of the line therein mentioned, is not warranted by the Constitution, and is therefore void; and that neither Dred Scott himself, nor any of his family, were made free by being carried into this territory; even if they had been carried there by the owner, with the intention of becoming a permanent resident.

We have so far examined the case, as it stands under the Constitution of the United States, and the powers thereby delegated to the Federal Government.

But there is another point in the case which depends on State power and State law. And it is contended, on the part of the plaintiff, that he is made free by being taken to Rock Island, in the State of Illinois, independently of his residence in the territory of the United States; and being so made free, he was not again reduced to a state of slavery by being brought back to Missouri.

Our notice of this part of the case will be very brief; for the principle on which it depends was decided in this court, upon much consideration in the case of Strader et al. _v._ Graham, reported in 10th Howard, 82. In that case, the slaves had been taken from Kentucky to Ohio, with the consent of the owner, and afterward brought back to Kentucky. And this court held that their _status_ or condition, as free or slave, depended upon the laws of Kentucky, when they were brought back into that State, and not of Ohio; and that this court had no jurisdiction to revise the judgment of a State court upon its own laws. This was the point directly before the court, and the decision that this court had not jurisdiction turned upon it, as will be seen by the report of the case.

So in this case. As Scott was a slave when taken into the State of Illinois by his owner, and was there held as such, and brought back in that character, his _status_, as free or slave, depended on the laws of Missouri, and not of Illinois.

It has, however, been urged in the argument, that by the laws of Missouri he was free on his return, and that this case, therefore, can not be governed by the case of Strader et al. _v._ Graham, where it appeared, by the laws of Kentucky, that the plaintiffs continued to be slaves on their return from Ohio. But whatever doubts or opinions may, at one time, have been entertained upon this subject, we are satisfied, upon a careful examination of all the cases decided in the State courts of Missouri referred to, that it is now firmly settled by the decisions of the highest court in the State, that Scott and his family upon their return were not free, but were, by the laws of Missouri, the property of the defendant; and that the Circuit Court of the United States had no jurisdiction, when, by the laws of the State, the plaintiff was a slave, and not a citizen.

Moreover, the plaintiff, it appears, brought a similar action against the defendant in the State Court of Missouri, claiming the freedom of himself and his family upon the same grounds and the same evidence upon which he relies in the case before the court. The case was carried before the Supreme Court of the State; was fully argued there; and that court decided that neither the plaintiff nor his family were entitled to freedom, and were still the slaves of the defendant; and reversed the judgment of the inferior State court, which had given a different decision. If the plaintiff supposed that this judgment of the Supreme Court of the State was erroneous, and that this court had jurisdiction to revise and reverse it, the only mode by which he could legally bring it before this court was by writ of error directed to the Supreme Court of the State, requiring it to transmit the record to this court. If this had been done, it is too plain for argument that the writ must have been dismissed for want of jurisdiction in this court. The case of Strader and others _v._ Graham is directly in point; and, indeed, independent of any decision, the language of the 25th section of the act of 1789 is too clear and precise to admit of controversy.

But the plaintiff did not pursue the mode prescribed by law for bringing the judgment of a State court before this court for revision, but suffered the case to be remanded to the inferior State court, where it is still continued, and is, by agreement of parties, to await the judgment of this court on the point. All of this appears on the record before us, and by the printed report of the case.

And while the case is yet open and pending in the inferior State court, the plaintiff goes into the Circuit Court of the United States, upon the same case and the same evidence, and against the same party, and proceeds to judgment, and then brings here the same case from the Circuit Court, which the law would not have permitted him to bring directly from the State court. And if this court takes jurisdiction in this form, the result, so far as the rights of the respective parties are concerned, is in every respect substantially the same as if it had in open violation of law entertained jurisdiction over the judgment of the State court upon a writ of error, and revised and reversed its judgment upon the ground that its opinion upon the question of law was erroneous. It would ill become this court to sanction such an attempt to evade the law, or to exercise an appellate power in this circuitous way, which it is forbidden to exercise in the direct and regular and invariable forms of judicial proceedings.

Upon the whole, therefore, it is the judgment of this court, that it appears by the record before us that the plaintiff in error is not a citizen of Missouri, in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution; and that the Circuit Court of the United States, for that reason, had no jurisdiction in the case, and could give no judgment in it. Its judgment for the defendant must, consequently, be reversed, and a mandate issued, directing the suit to be dismissed for want of jurisdiction

POINTS DECIDED.

I.

1. Upon a writ of error to a Circuit Court of the United States, the transcript of the record of all the proceedings in the case is brought before this court, and is open to its inspection and revision.

2. When a plea to the jurisdiction, in abatement, is overruled by the court upon demurrer, and the defendant pleads in bar, and upon these pleas the final judgment of the court is in his favor--if the plaintiff brings a writ of error, the judgment of the court upon the plea in abatement is before this court, although it was in favor of the plaintiff--and if the court erred in overruling it, the judgment must be reversed, and a mandate issued to the Circuit Court to dismiss the case for want of jurisdiction.

3. In the Circuit Courts of the United States, the record must show that the case is one in which by the Constitution and laws of the United States, the court had jurisdiction--and if this does not appear, and the court gives judgment either for plaintiff or defendant, it is error, and the judgment must be reversed by this court--and the parties cannot by consent waive the objection to the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court.

4. A free negro of the African race, whose ancestors were brought to this country and sold as slaves, is not a "citizen" within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States.

5. When the Constitution was adopted, they were not regarded in any of the States as members of the community which constituted the State, and were not numbered among its "people or citizens." Consequently, the special rights and immunities guaranteed to citizens do not apply to them. And not being "citizens" within the meaning of the Constitution, they are not entitled to sue in that character in a court of the United States, and the Circuit Court has not jurisdiction in such a suit.

6. The only two clauses in the Constitution which point to this race, treat them as persons whom it was morally lawful to deal in as articles of property and to hold as slaves.

7. Since the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, no State can by any subsequent law make a foreigner or any other description of persons citizens of the United States, nor entitle them to the rights and privileges secured to citizens by that instrument.

8. A State, by its laws passed since the adoption of the Constitution, may put a foreigner or any other description of persons upon a footing with its own citizens, as to all the rights and privileges enjoyed by them within its dominion, and by its laws. But that will not make him a citizen of the United States, nor entitle him to sue in its courts, nor to any of the privileges and immunities of a citizen in another State.

9. The change in public opinion and feeling in relation to the African race, which has taken place since the adoption of the Constitution, cannot change its construction and meaning, and it must be construed and administered now according to its true meaning and intention when it was formed and adopted.

10. The plaintiff having admitted, by his demurrer to the plea in abatement, that his ancestors were imported from Africa and sold as slaves, he is not a citizen of the State of Missouri according to the Constitution of the United States, and was not entitled to sue in that character in the Circuit Court.

11. This being the case, the judgment of the court below, in favor of the plaintiff on the plea in abatement, was erroneous.

II.

1. But if the plea in abatement is not brought up by this writ of error, the objection to the citizenship of the plaintiff is still apparent on the record, as he himself, in making out his case, states that he is of African descent, was born a slave, and claims that he and his family became entitled to freedom by being taken by their owner to reside in a territory where slavery is prohibited by act of Congress--and that, in addition to this claim, he himself became entitled to freedom by being taken to Rock Island, in the State of Illinois--and being free when he was brought back to Missouri, he was by the laws of that State a citizen.

2. If, therefore, the facts he states do not give him or his family a right to freedom, the plaintiff is still a slave, and not entitled to sue as a "citizen," and the judgment of the Circuit Court was erroneous on that ground also, without any reference to the plea in abatement.

3. The Circuit Court can give no judgment for plaintiff or defendant in a case where it has not jurisdiction, no matter whether there be a plea in abatement or not. And unless it appears upon the face of the record, when brought here by writ of error, that the Circuit Court had jurisdiction, the judgment must be reversed.

The case of Capron _v._ Van Noorden (2 Cranch, 126) examined, and the principles thereby decided, reaffirmed.

4. When the record, as brought here by writ of error, does not show that the Circuit Court had jurisdiction, this court has jurisdiction to revise and correct the error, like any other error in the court below. It does not and cannot dismiss the case for want of jurisdiction here; for that would leave the erroneous judgment of the court below in full force, and the party injured without remedy. But it must reverse the judgment, and, as in any other case of reversal, send a mandate to the Circuit Court to conform its judgment to the opinion of this court.

5. The difference of the jurisdiction in this court in the cases of writs of error to State courts and to Circuit Courts of the United States, pointed out; and the mistakes made as to the jurisdiction of this court in the latter case, by confounding it with its limited jurisdiction in the former.

6. If the court reverses a judgment upon the ground that it appears by a particular part of the record that the Circuit Court had not jurisdiction, it does not take away the jurisdiction of this court to examine into and correct, by a reversal of the judgment, any other errors, either as to the jurisdiction or any other matter, where it appears from other parts of the record that the Circuit Court had fallen into error. On the contrary, it is the daily and familiar practice of this court to reverse on several grounds, where more than one error appears to have been committed. And the error of a Circuit Court in its jurisdiction stands on the same ground, and is to be treated in the same manner as any other error upon which its judgment is founded.

7. The decision, therefore, that the judgment of the Circuit Court upon the plea in abatement is erroneous, is no reason why the alleged error apparent in the exception should not also be examined, and the judgment reversed on that ground also, if it discloses a want of jurisdiction in the Circuit Court.

It is often the duty of this court, after having decided that a particular decision of the Circuit Court was erroneous, to examine into other alleged errors, and to correct them if they are found to exist. And this has been uniformly done by this court, when the questions are in any degree connected with the controversy, and the silence of the court might create doubts which would lead to further and useless litigation.

III.

1. The facts upon which the plaintiff relies did not give him his freedom, and make him a citizen of Missouri.

2. The clause in the Constitution authorizing Congress to make all needful rules and regulations for the government of the territory and other property of the United States, applies only to territory within the chartered limits of some one of the States when they were colonies of Great Britain, and which was surrendered by the British Government to the old Confederation of the States, in the treaty of peace. It does not apply to territory acquired by the present Federal Government, by treaty or conquest, from a foreign nation.

The case of the American and Ocean Insurance Companies _v._ Canter (1 Peters, 511) referred to and examined, showing that the decision in this case is not in conflict with that opinion, and that the court did not, in the case referred to, decide upon the construction of the clause of the Constitution above mentioned, because the case before them did not make it necessary to decide the question.

3. The United States, under the present Constitution, cannot acquire territory to be held as a colony, to be governed at its will and pleasure. But it may acquire territory which, at the time, has not a population that fits it to become a State, and may govern it as a Territory until it has a population which, in the judgment of Congress, entitles it to be admitted as a State of the Union.

4. During the time it remains a Territory, Congress may legislate over it within the scope of its constitutional powers in relation to citizens of the United States--and may establish a Territorial Government--and the form of this local Government must be regulated by the discretion of Congress, but with powers not exceeding those which Congress itself, by the Constitution, is authorized to exercise over citizens of the United States, in respect to their rights of persons or rights of property.

IV.

1. The territory thus acquired, is acquired by the people of the United States for their common and equal benefit, through their agent and trustee, the Federal Government. Congress can exercise no power over the rights of person or property of a citizen in the Territory which is prohibited by the Constitution. The Government and the citizen, whenever the Territory is open to settlement, both enter it with their respective rights defined and limited by the Constitution.

2. Congress has no right to prohibit the citizens of any particular State or States from taking up their home there, while it permits citizens of other States to do so. Nor has it a right to give privileges to one class of citizens which it refuses to another. The territory is acquired for their equal and common benefit--and if open to any, it must be open to all upon equal and the same terms.

3. Every citizen has a right to take with him into the Territory any article of property which the Constitution of the United States recognizes as property.

4. The Constitution of the United States recognizes slaves as property, and pledges the Federal Government to protect it. And Congress cannot exercise any more authority over property of that description than it may constitutionally exercise over property of any other kind.

5. The act of Congress, therefore, prohibiting a citizen of the United States from taking with him his slaves when he removes to the Territory in question to reside, is an exercise of authority over private property which is not warranted by the Constitution--and the removal of the plaintiff, by his owner, to that Territory, gave him no title to freedom.

V.

1. The plaintiff himself acquired no title to freedom by being taken, by his owner, to Rock Island, in Illinois, and brought back to Missouri. This court has heretofore decided that the _status_ or condition of a person of African descent depended on the laws of the State in which he resided.

2. It has been settled by the decisions of the highest court in Missouri, that by the laws of that State, a slave does not become entitled to his freedom, where the owner takes him to reside in a State where slavery is not permitted, and afterwards brings him back to Missouri.

Conclusion. It follows that it is apparent upon the record that the court below erred in its judgment on the plea in abatement, and also erred in giving judgment for the defendant, when the exception shows that the plaintiff was not a citizen of the United States. And as the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction, either in the case stated in the plea in abatement, or in the one stated in the exception, its judgment in favor of the defendant is erroneous, and must be reversed.

THE

FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.

BY

REV. CHARLES HODGE, D.D.

OF NEW JERSEY.

THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.

NOTE.--We have affixed, by way of comment to "the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case," the following able paper from the pen of Prof. Hodge. It lucidly explains the source and sanction of Civil Government, and deduces therefrom the duties and responsibilities of the governed.--ED.

* * * * *

Alleged Immorality of the Law answered--Duty of Obedience--Government a Divine Institution--The Warrant of Government is not the consent of the governed--Infidel Doctrines--Deductions from this Doctrine--Decision of the Supreme Court--Objections answered--Conscience and the Law--Duty of Executive Officers--Duty of Private Citizens--Objections answered--Right of Revolution--Summary application of these principles to the Fugitive Slave Law--Conclusion.

THERE is no more obvious duty, at the present time, resting on American Christians, ministers and people, than to endeavor to promote kind feelings between the South and the North. All fierce addresses to the passions, on either side, are fratricidal. It is an offense against the gospel, against our common country, and against God. Every one should endeavor to diffuse right principles, and thus secure right feeling and action, under the blessing of God in every part of the land. If the South has no such grounds of complaint as would justify them before God and the human race, whose trustees in one important sense they are, in dissolving the Union, how is it with the North? Are they justifiable in the violent resistance to the fugitive slave bill, which has been threatened or attempted? This opposition in a great measure has been confined to the abolitionists as a party, and as such they are a small minority of the people. They have never included in their ranks either the controlling intellect or moral feeling at the North. Their fundamental principle is anti-scriptural and therefore irreligious. They assume that slaveholding is sinful. This doctrine is the life of the sect. It has no power over those who reject that principle, and therefore it has not gained ascendency over those whose faith is governed by the word of God.

We have ever maintained that the proper method of opposing this party, and of counteracting its pernicious influence, was to exhibit clearly the falsehood of its one idea, viz: that slaveholding is a sin against God. The discussion has now taken a new turn. It is assumed that the fugitiue slave law of the last Congress, (1850) is unconstitutional, or if not contrary to the Constitution, contrary to the law of God. Under this impression many who have never been regarded as abolitionists, have entered their protest against the law, and some in their haste have inferred from its supposed unconstitutionality or immorality that it ought to be openly resisted. It is obvious that the proper method of dealing with the subject in this new aspect, is to demonstrate that the law in question is according to the Constitution of the land; that it is not inconsistent with the divine law; or, admitting its unconstitutionality or immorality, that the resistance recommended is none the less a sin against God. We do not propose to discuss either of the two former of these propositions. The constitutionality of the law may safely be left in the hands of the constituted authorities. It is enough for us that there is no flagrant and manifest inconsistency between the law and the constitution; that the first legal authorities in the land pronounce them perfectly consistent; and that there is no difference in principle between the present law and that of 1793 on the same subject, in which the whole country has acquiesced for more than half a century. We would also say that after having read some of the most labored disquisitions designed to prove that the fugitive slave bill subverts the fundamental principles of our federal compact, we have been unable to discover the least force in the arguments adduced.

As to the immorality of the law, so far as we can discover, the whole stress of the argument in the affirmative rests on two assumptions. First, that the law of God in Deuteronomy, expressly forbids the restoration of a fugitive slave to his owner; and secondly, that slavery itself being sinful, it must be wrong to enforce the claims of the master to the service of the slave. As to the former of these assumptions, we would simply remark, that the venerable Prof. Stuart in his recent work, "Conscience and the Constitution," has clearly proved that the law in Deuteronomy has no application to the present case. The thing there forbidden is the restoration of a slave who had fled from a heathen master and taken refuge among the worshipers of the true God. Such a man was not to be forced back into heathenism. This is the obvious meaning and spirit of the command. That it has no reference to slaves who had escaped from Hebrew masters, and fled from one tribe or city to another, is plain from the simple fact that the Hebrew laws recognized slavery. It would be a perfect contradiction if the law authorized the purchase and holding of slaves, and yet forbid the enforcing the right of possession. There could be no such thing as slavery, in such a land as Palestine, if the slave could recover his liberty by simply moving from one tribe to another over an imaginary line, or even from the house of his master to that of his next neighbor. Besides, how inconsistent is it in the abolitionists in one breath to maintain that the laws of Moses did not recognize slavery, and in the next, that the laws about the restoration of slaves referred to the slaves of Hebrew masters. According to their doctrine, there could be among the Israelites no slaves to restore. They must admit either that the law of God allowed the Hebrews to hold slaves, and then there is an end to their arguments against the sinfulness of slaveholding; or acknowledge that the law representing the restoration of slaves referred only to fugitives from the heathen, and then there is an end to their argument from this enactment against the law under consideration.

The way in which abolitionists treat the Scriptures makes it evident that the command in Deuteronomy is urged not so much out of regard to the authority of the word of God, as an argumentum ad hominem. Wherever the Scriptures either in the Old or New Testament recognize the lawfulness of holding slaves, they are tortured without mercy to force from them a different response; and where, as in this case, they appear to favor the other side of the question, abolitionists quote them rather to silence those who make them the rule of their faith, than as the ground of their own convictions. Were there no such law as that in Deuteronomy in existence, or were there a plain injunction to restore a fugitive from service to his Hebrew master, it is plain from their principles that they would none the less fiercely condemn the law under consideration. Their opposition is not founded on the scriptural command. It rests on the assumption that the master's claim is iniquitous and ought not to be enforced.[258] Their objections are not to the mode of delivery, but to the delivery itself. Why else quote the law in Deuteronomy, which apparently forbids such surrender of the fugitive to his master? It is clear that no effective enactment could be framed on this subject which would not meet with the same opposition. We are convinced, by reading the discussions on this subject, that the immorality attributed to the fugitive slave law resolves itself into the assumed immorality of slaveholding. No man would object to restoring an apprentice to his master; and no one would quote Scripture or search for arguments to prove it sinful to restore a fugitive slave, if he believed slaveholding to be lawful in the sight of God. This being the case, we feel satisfied that the mass of people at the North, whose conscience and action are ultimately determined by the teachings of the Bible, will soon settle down into the conviction that the law in question is not in conflict with the law of God.

But suppose the reverse to be the fact; suppose it clearly made out that the law passed by Congress in reference to fugitive slaves is contrary to the Constitution or to the law of God, what is to be done? What is the duty of the people under such circumstances? The answers given to this question are very different, and some of them so portentous that the public mind has been aroused and directed to the consideration of the nature of civil government and of the grounds and limits of the obedience due to the laws of the land. As this is a subject not merely of general interest at this time, but of permanent importance, we purpose to devote to its discussion the few following pages.

Our design is to state in few words in what sense government is a divine institution, and to draw from that doctrine the principles which must determine the nature and limits of the obedience which is due the laws of the land.

That the Bible, when it asserts that all power is of God, or the powers that be are ordained of God, does not teach that any one form of civil government has been divinely appointed as universally obligatory, is plain because the Scriptures contain no such prescription. There are no directions given as to the form which civil governments shall assume. All the divine commands on this subject, are as applicable under one form as another. The direction is general; obey the powers that be. The propsition is unlimited; all power is of God; i. e., government, whatever its form, is of God. He has ordained it. The most pointed scriptural injunctions on this subject were given during the usurped or tyrannical reign of military despots. It is plain that the sacred writers did not, in such passages, mean to teach that a military despotism was the form of government which God had ordained as of perpetual and universal obligation. As the Bible enjoins no one form, so the people of God in all ages, under the guidance of his Spirit, have lived with a good conscience, under all the diversities of organization of which human government is susceptible.

Again, as no one form of government is prescribed, so neither has God determined preceptively who are to exercise civil power. He has not said that such power must be hereditary, and descend on the principle of primogeniture. He has not determined whether it shall be confined to males to the exclusion of females; or whether all offices shall be elective. These are not matters of divine appointment, and are not included in the proposition that all power is of God. Neither is it included in this proposition that government is in such a sense ordained of God that the people have no control in the matter. The doctrine of the Bible is not inconsistent with the right of the people, as we shall endeavor to show in the sequel, to determine their own form of government and to select their own rulers.

When it is said government is of God, we understand the Scriptures to mean, first, that it is a divine institution and not a mere social compact. It does not belong to the category of voluntary associations such as men form for literary, benevolent, or commercial purposes. It is not optional with men whether government shall exist. It is a divine appointment, in the same sense as marriage and the church are divine institutions. The former of these is not a mere civil contract, nor is the church as a visible spiritual community a mere voluntary society. Men are under obligation to recognize its existence, to join its ranks and submit to its laws. In like manner it is the will of God that civil government should exist. Men are bound by his authority to have civil rulers for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well. This is the scriptural doctrine, as opposed to the deistical theory of a social compact as the ultimate ground of all human governments.

It follows from this view of the subject that obedience to the laws of the land is a religious duty, and that disobedience is of the specific nature of sin; this is a principle of vast importance. It is true that the law of God is so broad that it binds a man to every thing that is right, and forbids every thing that is wrong; and consequently that every violation even of a voluntary engagement is of the nature of an offense against God. Still there is a wide difference between disobedience to an obligation voluntarily assumed, and which has no other sanction than our own engagement, and disregard of an obligation directly imposed of God. St. Peter recognizes this distinction when he said to Annanias, Thou hast not lied unto men but unto God. All lying is sinful, but lying to God is a higher crime than lying to men. There is greater irreverence and contempt of the divine presence and authority, and a violation of an obligation of a higher order. Every man feels that the marriage vows have a sacred character which could not belong to them, if marriage was merely a civil contract. In like manner the divine institution of government elevates it into the sphere of religion, and adds a new and higher sanction to the obligations which it imposes. There is a specific difference, more easily felt than described, between what is religious and what is merely moral; between disobedience to man and resistance to an ordinance of God.

A third point included in the scriptural doctrine on this subject is, that the actual existence of any government creates the obligation of obedience. That is, the obligation does not rest either on the origin or the nature of the government, or on the mode in which it is administered. It may be legitimate or revolutionary, despotic or constitutional, just or unjust, so long as it exists it is to be recognized and obeyed within its proper sphere. The powers that be are ordained of God in such sense that the possession of power is to be referred to his providence. It is not by chance, nor through the uncontrolled agency of men, but by divine ordination that any government exists. The declaration of the apostle just quoted was uttered under the reign of Nero. It is as true of his authority as of that of the Queen of England, or that of our own President, that it was of God. He made Nero Emperor. He required all within the limits of the Roman empire to recognize and obey him so long as he was allowed to occupy the throne. It was not necessary for the early Christians to sit in judgment on the title of every new emperor, whenever the pretorian guards chose to put down one and put up another; neither are God's people now in various parts of the world called upon to discuss the titles and adjudicate the claims of their rulers. The possession of civil power is a providential fact, and is to be regarded as such. This does not imply that God approves of every government which he allows to exist. He permits oppressive rulers to bear sway, just as he permits famine or pestilence to execute his vengeance. A good government is a blessing, a bad government is a judgment; but the one as much as the other is ordained of God, and is to be obeyed not only for fear but also for conscience sake.

A fourth principle involved in the proposition that all power is of God is, that the magistrate is invested with a divine right. He represents God. His authority is derived from Him. There is a sense in which he represents the people and derives from them his power; but in a far higher sense he is the minister of God. To resist him is to resist God, and "they that resist shall receive unto themselves damnation." Thus saith the Scriptures. It need hardly be remarked that this principle relates to the nature, and not to the extent, of the power of the magistrate. It is as true of the lowest as of the highest; of a justice of the peace as of the President of the United States; of a constitutional monarch as of an absolute sovereign. The principle is that the authority of rulers is divine, and not human, in its origin. They exercise the power which belongs to them of divine right. The reader, we trust, will not confound this doctrine with the old doctrine of "the divine right of kings." The two things are as different as day and night. We are not for reviving a defunct theory of civil government; a theory which perished, at least among Anglo-Saxons, at the expulsion of James II. from the throne of England. That monarch took it with him into exile, and it lies entombed with the last of the Stuarts. According to that theory God had established the monarchical form of government as universally obligatory. There could not consistently with his law be any other. The people had no more right to renounce that form of government than the children of a family have to resolve themselves into a democracy. In the second place, it assumed that God had determined the law of succession as well as the form of government. The people could not change the one any more than the other; or any more than children could change their father, or a wife her husband. And thirdly, as a necessary consequence of these principles, it inculcated in all cases the duty of passive obedience. The king holding his office immediately from God, held it entirely independent of the will of the people, and his responsibility was to God alone. He could not forfeit his throne by any injustice however flagrant. The people, if in any case they could not obey, were obliged to submit; resistance or revolution was treason against God. We have already remarked that the scriptural doctrine is opposed to every one of these principles. The Bible does not prescribe any one form of government; it does not determine who shall be depositories of civil power; and it clearly recognizes the right of revolution. In asserting, therefore, the divine right of rulers, we are not asserting any doctrine repudiated by our forefathers, or inconsistent with civil liberty in its widest rational extent.

Such, as we understand it, is the true nature of civil government. It is a divine institution and not a mere voluntary compact. Obedience to the magistrate and laws is a religious duty; and disobedience is a sin against God. This is true of all forms of government. Men living under the Turkish Sultan are bound to recognize his authority, as much as the subjects of a constitutional monarch, or the fellow-citizens of an elective president, are bound to recognize their respective rulers. All power is of God, and the powers that be are ordained of God, in such sense that all magistrates are to be regarded as his ministers, acting in his name and with his authority, each within his legitimate sphere; beyond which he ceases to be a magistrate.

That this is the doctrine of the Scriptures on this subject can hardly be doubted. The Bible never refers to the consent of the governed, the superiority of the rulers, or to the general principles of expediency, as the ground of our obligation to the higher powers. The obedience which slaves owe their masters, children their parents, wives their husbands, people their rulers, is always made to rest on the divine will as its ultimate foundation. It is part of the service which we owe to God. We are required to act, in all these relations, not as men-pleasers, but as the servants of God. All such obedience terminates on our Master who is in heaven. This gives the sublimity of spiritual freedom even to the service of a slave. It is not in the power of man to reduce to bondage those who serve God, in all the service they render their fellow-men. The will of God, therefore, is the foundation of our obligation to obey the laws of the land. His will, however, is not an arbitrary determination; it is the expression of infinite intelligence and love. There is the most perfect agreement between all the precepts of the Bible and the highest dictates of reason. There is no command in the word of God of permanent and universal obligation, which may not be shown to be in accordance with the laws of our own higher nature. This is one of the strongest collateral arguments in favor of the divine origin of the Scriptures. In appealing therefore to the Bible in support of the doctrine here advanced, we are not, on the one hand appealing to an arbitrary standard, a mere statute book, a collection of laws which create the obligations they enforce; nor, on the other hand, to "the reason and nature of things" in the abstract, which after all is only our own reason; but we are appealing to the infinite intelligence of a personal God, whose will, because of his infinite excellence, is necessarily the ultimate ground and rule of all moral obligation. This, however, being the case, whatever the Bible declares to be right is found to be in accordance with the constitution of nature and our own reason. All that the Scriptures, for example, teach of the subordination of children to their parents, of wives to their husbands, has not its foundation, but its confirmation, in the very nature of the relation of the parties. Any violation of the precepts of the Bible, on these points, is found to be a violation of the laws of nature, and certainly destructive. In like manner it is clear from the social nature of man, from the dependence of men upon each other, from the impossibility of attaining the end of our being in this world, otherwise than in society and under an ordered government, that it is the will of God that such society should exist. The design of God in this matter is as plain as in the constitution of the universe. We might as well maintain that the laws of nature are the result of chance, or that marriage and parental authority have no other foundation than human law, as to assert that civil government has no firmer foundation than the will of man or the quicksands of expediency. By creating men social beings, and making it necessary for them to live in society, God has made his will as thus revealed the foundation of all civil government.

This doctrine is but one aspect of the comprehensive doctrine of Theism, a doctrine which teaches the existence of a personal God, a Spirit infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, justice, holiness, goodness, and truth; a God who is everywhere present upholding and governing all his creatures and all their actions. The universe is not a machine left to go of itself. God did not at first create matter and impress upon it certain laws and then leave it to their blind operation. He is everywhere present in the material world, not superseding secondary causes, but so upholding and guiding their operations, that the intelligence evinced is the omnipresent intelligence of God, and the power exercised is the _potestas ordinata_ of the Great First Cause. He is no less supreme in his control of intelligent agents. They indeed are free, but not independent. They are governed in a manner consistent with their nature; yet God turns them as the rivers of waters are turned. All events depending on human agency are under his control. God is in history. Neither chance nor blind necessity determine the concatenation or issues of things. Nor is the world in the hands of its inhabitants. God has not launched our globe on the ocean of space and left its multitudinous crew to direct its course without his interference. He is at the helm. His breath fills the sails. His wisdom and power are pledged for the prosperity of the voyage. Nothing happens, even to the falling of a sparrow, which is not ordered by him. He works all things after the counsel of his will. It is by him that kings reign and princes decree justice. He puts down one, and raises up another. As he leads out the stars by night, marshaling them as a host, calling each one by its name, so does he order all human events. He raises up nations and appoints the bounds of their habitation. He founds the empires of the earth and determines their form and their duration. This doctrine of God's universal providence is the foundation of all religion. If this doctrine be not true, we are without God in the world. But if it is true, it involves a vast deal. God is everywhere in nature and in history. Every thing is a revelation of his presence and power. We are always in contact with him. Every thing has a voice, which speaks of his goodness or his wrath; fruitful seasons proclaim his goodness, famine and pestilence declare his displeasure. Nothing is by chance. The existence of any particular form of government is as much his work, as the rising of the sun or falling of the rain. It is something he has ordained for some wise purpose, and it is to be regarded as his work. If all events are under God's control, if it is by him that kings reign, then the actual possession of power is as much a revelation of his will that it should be obeyed, as the possession of wisdom or goodness is a manifestation of his will that those endowed with those gifts, should be reverenced and loved. It follows, therefore, from the universal providence of God, that "the powers that be are ordained of God." We have no more right to refuse obedience to an actually existing government because it is not to our taste, or because we do not approve of its measures, than a child has the right to refuse to recognize a wayward parent; or a wife a capricious husband.

The religious character of our civil duties flows also from the comprehensive doctrine that the will of God is the ground of all moral obligation. To seek that ground either in "the reason and nature of things," or in expediency, is to banish God from the moral world, as effectually as the mechanical theory of the universe banishes him from the physical universe and from history. Our allegiance on that hypothesis is not to God but to reason or to society. This theory of morals therefore, changes the nature of religion and of moral obligation. It modifies and degrades all religious sentiment and exercises; it changes the very nature of sin, of repentance and obedience, and gives us, what is a perfect solecism, a religion without God. According to the Bible, our obligation to obey the laws of the land is not founded on the fact that the good of society requires such obedience, or that it is a dictate of reason, but on the authority of God. It is part of the service which we owe to him. This must be so if the doctrine is true that God is our moral governor, to whom we are responsible for all our acts, and whose will is both the ground and the rule of all our obligations.

We need not, however, dwell longer on this subject. Although it has long been common to look upon civil government as a human institution, and to represent the consent of the governed as the only ground of the obligation of obedience, yet this doctrine is so notoriously of infidel origin, and so obviously in conflict with the teachings of the Bible, that it can have no hold on the convictions of a Christian people. It is no more true of the state than it is of the family, or of the church. All are of divine institution. All have their foundation in his will. The duties belonging to each are enjoined by him and are enforced by his authority. Marriage is indeed a voluntary covenant. The parties select each other, and the state may make laws regulating the mode in which the contract shall be ratified; and determining its civil effects. It is, however, none the less an ordinance of God. The vows it includes are made to God; its sanction is found in his law; and its violation is not a mere breach of contract or disobedience to the civil law, but a sin against God. So with regard to the church, it is in one sense a voluntary society. No man can be forced by other men to join its communion. If done at all it must be done with his own consent, yet every man is under the strongest moral obligation to enter its fold. And when enrolled in the number of its members his obligation to obedience does not rest on his consent; it does not cease should that consent be withdrawn. It rests on the authority of the church as a divine institution. This is an authority no man can throw off. It presses him everywhere and at all times with the weight of a moral obligation. In a sense analogous to this the state is a divine institution. Men are bound to organize themselves into a civil government. Their obligation to obey its laws does not rest upon their compact in this case, any more than in the others above referred to. It is enjoined by God. It is a religious duty, and disobedience is a direct offense against him. The people have indeed the right to determine the form of the government under which they are to live, and to modify it from time to time to suit their changing condition. So, though to a less extent, or within narrower limits, they have a right to modify the form of their ecclesiastical governments, a right which every church has exercised, but the ground and nature of the obligation to obedience remains unchanged. This is not a matter of mere theory. It is of primary practical importance and has an all-pervading influence on national character. Every thing indeed connected with this subject depends on the answer to the question, Why are we obliged to obey the laws? If we answer because we made them; or because we assent to them, or framed the government which enacts them; or because the good of society enjoins obedience, or reason dictates it, then the state is a human institution; it has no religious sanction; it is founded on the sand; it ceases to have a hold on the conscience and to commend itself as a revelation of God to be reverenced and obeyed as a manifestation of his presence and will. But, on the other hand, if we place the state in the same category with the family and the church, and regard it as an institution of God, then we elevate it into a higher sphere; we invest it with religious sanctions and it become pervaded by a divine presence and authority, which immeasurably strengthens, while it elevates its power. Obedience for conscience' sake is as different from obedience from fear, or from voluntary consent, or regard to human authority, as the divine from the human.

Such being, as we conceive, the true doctrine concerning the nature of the state, it is well to inquire into the necessary deductions from this doctrine. If government be a divine institution, and obedience to the laws a matter resting on the authority of God, it might seem to follow that in no case could human laws be disregarded with a good conscience. This, as we have seen, is in fact the conclusion drawn from these premises by the advocates of the doctrine "of passive obedience." The command, however, to be subject to the higher powers is not more unlimited in its statement than the command, "children obey your parents in all things." From this latter command no one draws the conclusion that unlimited obedience is due from children to their parents. The true inference doubtless is, in both cases, that obedience is the rule, and disobedience the exception. If in any instance a child refuse compliance with the requisition of the parent, or a citizen with the law of the land, he must be prepared to justify such disobedience at the bar of God. Even divine laws may in some cases be dispensed with. Those which indeed are founded on the nature of God, such as the command to love Him and our neighbor, are necessarily immutable. But those which are founded on the present constitution of things, though permanent as general rules of action, may on adequate grounds, be violated without sin. The commands, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy, are all of permanent authority; and yet there may be justifiable homicide, and men may profane the sabbath and be blameless. In like manner the command to obey the laws, is a divine injunction, and yet there are cases in which disobedience is a duty. It becomes then of importance to determine what these cases are; or to ascertain the principles which limit the obedience which we owe to the state. It follows from the divine institution of government that its power is limited by the design of God in its institution, and by the moral law. The family, the church and the state are all divine institutions, designed for specific purposes. Each has its own sphere, and the authority belonging to each is necessarily confined within its own province. The father appears in his household as its divinely appointed head. By the command of God all the members of that household are required to yield him reverence and obedience. But he can not carry his parental authority into the church or the state; nor can he appear in his family as a magistrate or church officer. The obedience due to him is that which belongs to a father, and not to a civil or ecclesiastical officer, and his children are not required to obey him in either of those capacities. In like manner the officers of the church have within their sphere a divine right to rule, but they can not claim civil authority on the ground of the general command to the people to obey those who have the care of souls. Heb. xiii: 17. As the church officer loses his power when he enters the forum; so does the civil magistrate when he enters the church. His right to rule is a right which belongs to him as representing God in the state--he has no commission to represent God either in the family or the church; and therefore, he is entitled to no obedience if he claims an authority which does not belong to him. This is a very obvious principle, and is of wide application. It not only limits the authority of civil officers to civil affairs, but limits the extent due to the obedience to be rendered even in civil matters to the officers of the state. A justice of the peace has no claim to the obedience due to a governor of a state; nor a governor of a state to that which belongs to the President of the Union; nor the President of the Union to that which may be rightfully claimed by an absolute sovereign. A military commander has no authority over the community as a civil magistrate, nor can he exercise such authority even over his subordinates. This principle applies in all its force to the law-making power. The legislature can not exercise any power which does not belong to them. They can not act as judges or magistrates unless such authority has been actually committed to them. They are to be obeyed as legislators; and in any other capacity their decisions or commands do not bind the conscience. And still further, their legislative enactments have authority only when made in the exercise of their legitimate powers. In other words, an unconstitutional law is no law. If our Congress, for example, were to pass a bill creating an order of nobility, or an established church, or to change the religion of the land, or to enforce a sumptuary code, it would have no more virtue and be entitled to no more deference than a similar enactment intended to bind the whole country passed by a town council. This we presume will not be denied. God has committed unlimited power to no man and to no set of men, and the limitation which he has assigned to the power conferred, is to be found in the design for which it was given. That design is determined in the case of the family, the church and the state, by the nature of these institutions, by the general precepts of the Bible, or by the providence of God determining the peculiar constitution under which these organizations are called to act. The power of a parent was greater under the old dispensation than it is now; the legitimate authority of the church is greater under some modes of organization than under others; and the power of the state as represented in its constituted authorities is far more extensive in some countries than in others. The theory of the British government is that the parliament is the whole state in convention, and therefore it exercises powers which do not belong to our Congress, which represents the state only for certain specified purposes. These diversities, however, do not alter the general principle, which is, that rulers are to be obeyed in the exercise of their legitimate authority; that their commmands or requirements beyond their appropriate spheres are void of all binding force. This is a principle which no one can dispute.

A second principle is no less plain. No human authority can make it obligatory on us to commit sin. If all power is of God it can not be legitimately used against God. This is a dictate of natural conscience, and is authenticated by the clearest teachings of the word of God. The apostles when commanded to abstain from preaching Christ refused to obey, and said: "Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye." No human law could make it binding on the ministers of the gospel, in our day, to withhold the message of salvation from their fellow-men. It requires no argument to prove that men can not make it right to worship idols, to blaspheme God, to deny Christ. It is sheer fanaticism thus to exalt the power of the government above the authority of God. This would be to bring back upon us some of the worst doctrines of the middle ages as to the power of the pope and of earthly sovereigns. Good men in all ages of the world have always acted on the principle that human laws can not bind the conscience when they are in conflict with the law of God. Daniel openly, in the sight of his enemies, prayed to the God of heaven in despite of the prohibition of his sovereign. Shadrach, Mesheck and Abednego refused to bow down, at the command of the king, to the golden image. The early Christians disregarded all those laws of Pagan Rome requiring them to do homage to false gods. Protestants with equal unanimity refused to submit to the laws of their papal sovereigns enjoining the profession of Romish errors. That these men were right no man, with an enlightened conscience, can deny; but they were right only on the principle that the power of the state and of the magistrate is limited by the law of God. It follows then from the divine institution of government, that its power to bind the conscience to obedience is limited by the design of its appointment and the moral law. All its power being from God, it must be subordinate to him. This is a doctrine which, however, for a time and in words, it may be denied, is too plain and too important not to be generally recognized. It is a principle too which should at all times be publicly avowed. The very sanctity of human laws requires it. Their real power and authority lie in their having a divine sanction. To claim for them binding force when destitute of such sanction, is to set up a mere semblance for a reality, a suit of armor with no living man within. The stability of human government and the authority of civil laws require that they should be kept within the sphere where they repose on God, and are pervaded by his presence and power. Without him nothing human can stand. All power is of God; and if of God, divine; and if divine, in accordance with his holy law.

But who are the judges of the application of these principles? Who is to determine whether a particular law is unconstitutional or immoral? So far as the mere constitutionality of a law is concerned, it may be remarked, that there is in most states, as in our own, for example, a regular judicial tribunal to which every legislative enactment can be submitted, and the question of its conformity to the constitution authoritatively decided. In all ordinary cases, that is, in all cases not involving some great principle or some question of conscience, such decisions must be held to be final, and to bind all concerned not only to submission but obedience. A law thus sanctioned becomes instinct with all the power of the state, and further opposition brings the recusants into conflict with the government; a conflict in which no man for light reasons can with a good conscience engage. Still it can not be denied, and ought not to be concealed, that the ultimate decision must be referred to his own judgment. This is a necessary deduction from the doctrine that obedience to law is a religious duty. It is a primary principle that the right of private judgment extends over all questions of faith and morals. No human power can come between God and the conscience. Every man must answer for his own sins, and therefore every man must have the right to determine for himself what is sin. As he can not transfer his responsibility, he can not transfer his right of judgment. This principle has received the sanction of good men in every age of the world. Daniel judged for himself of the binding force of the command not to worship the true God. So did the apostles when they continued to preach Christ, in opposition to all the constituted authorities. The laws passed by Pagan Rome requiring the worship of idols had the sanction of all the authorities of the empire, yet on the ground of their private judgment the Christians refused to obey them. Protestants in like manner refused to obey the laws of Papal Rome, though sustained by all the authority both of the church and state. In all these cases the right of private judgment can not be disputed. Even where no question of religion or morality is directly concerned, this right is undeniable. Does any one now condemn Hampden for refusing to pay "ship-money?" Does any American condemn our ancestors for resisting the stamp-act, though the authorities of St. Stephen's and Westminster united in pronouncing the imposition constitutional? However this principle may be regarded when stated in the abstract, every individual instinctively acts upon it in his own case. Whenever a command is issued by one in authority over us, we immediately and almost unconsciously determine for ourselves, first, whether he had a right to give the order; and secondly, whether it can with a good conscience be obeyed. If this decision is clearly in the negative, we at once determine to refuse obedience on our own responsibility. Let any man test this point by an appeal to his own consciousness. Let him suppose the President of the United States to order him to turn Romanist or Pagan; or Congress to pass a bill requiring him to blaspheme God; or a military superior to command him to commit treason or murder--does not his conscience tell him he would on the instant refuse? Would he, or could he wait until the constitutionality of such requisitions had been submitted to the courts? or if the courts should decide against him, would that at all alter the case? Men must be strangely oblivious of the relation of the soul to God, the instinctive sense which we possess of our allegiance to him, and of the self-evidencing power with which his voice reaches the reason and the conscience, to question the necessity which every man is under to decide all questions touching his duty to God for himself.

It may indeed be thought that this doctrine is subversive of the authority of government. A moment's reflection is sufficient to dispel this apprehension. The power of laws rests on two foundations, fear and conscience. Both are left by this doctrine in their integrity. The former, because the man refuses obedience at his peril. His private conviction that the law is unconstitutional or immoral does not abrogate it, or impede its operation. If arraigned for its violation, he may plead in his justification his objections to the authority of the law. If these objections are found valid by the competent authorities, he is acquitted; if otherwise, he suffers the penalty. What more can the state ask? All the power the state, as such, can give its laws, lies in their penalty. A single decision by the ultimate authority in favor of a law, is a revelation to the whole body of the people that it can not be violated with impunity. The sword of justice hangs over every transgressor. The motive of fear in securing obedience, is therefore, as operative under this view of the subject, as it can be under any other. What, however, is of far more consequence, the power of conscience is left in full force. Obedience to the law is a religious duty, enjoined by the word of God and enforced by conscience. If, in any case, it be withheld, it is under a sense of responsibility to God; and under the conviction that if this conscientious objection be feigned, it aggravates the guilt of disobedience as a sin against God an hundred fold; and if it be mistaken, it affords no palliation of the offense. Paul was guilty in persecuting the church, though he thought he was doing God service. And the man, who by a perverted conscience, is led to refuse obedience to a righteous law, stands without excuse at the bar of God. The moral sanction of civil laws, which gives them their chief power, and without which they must ultimately become inoperative, cannot possibly extend further than this. For what is that moral sanction? It is a conviction that our duty to God requires our obedience; but how can we feel that duty to God requires us to do what God forbids? In other words, a law which we regard as immoral, can not present itself to the conscience as having divine authority. Conscience, therefore, is on the side of the law wherever and whenever this is possible from the nature of the case. It is a contradiction to say that conscience enforces what conscience condemns. This then is all the support which the laws of the land can possibly derive from our moral convictions. The allegiance of conscience is to God. It enforces obedience to all human laws consistent with that allegiance; further than this it can not by possibility go. And as the decisions of conscience are, by the constitution of our nature, determined by our own apprehensions of the moral law, and not by authority, it follows of necessity that every man must judge for himself, and on his own responsibility, whether any given law of man conflicts with the law of God or not.

We would further remark on this point that the lives and property of men have no greater protection than that which, on this theory, is secured for the laws of the state. The law of God says: Thou shalt not kill. Yet every man does, and must judge when and how far this law binds his conscience. It is admitted, on all hands, that there are cases in which its obligation ceases. What those cases are each man determines for himself, but under his two fold responsibility to his country and to God. If, through passion or any other cause, he errs as to what constitutes justifiable homicide, he must bear the penalty attached to murder, by the law of God and man. It is precisely so in the case before us. God has commanded us to obey the magistrate as his minister and representative. If we err in our judgment as to the cases in which the command ceases to be binding, we fall into the hands of justice, both human and divine. Can more than this be necessary? Can any thing be gained by trying to make God require us to break his own commands? Can conscience be made to sanction the violation of the moral law? Is not this the way to destroy all moral distinctions, and to prostrate the authority of conscience, and with it the very foundation of civil government? Is not all history full of the dreadful consequences of the doctrine that human laws can make sin obligatory, and that those in authority can judge for the people what is sin? What more than this is needed to justify all the persecutions for righteousness' sake since the world began? What hope could there be, on this ground, for the preservation of religion or virtue, in any nation on the earth? If the principle be once established, that the people are bound to obey all human laws, or that they are not to judge for themselves when their duty to God requires them to refuse such obedience, then there is not only an end of all civil and religious liberty, but the very nature of civil government, as a divine institution, is destroyed. It becomes first atheistical, and then diabolical. Then the massacre of St. Bartholomew's, the decrees of the French National Assembly, and the laws of Pagan Rome against Christians, and of its Papal successor against Protestants, were entitled to reverent obedience. Then, too, may any infidel party which gains the ascendency in a state, as has happened of late in Switzerland, render it morally obligatory upon all ministers to close their churches, and on the people to renounce the gospel. This is not an age or state of the world in which to advance such doctrines. There are too many evidences of the gathering powers of evil, to render it expedient to exalt the authority of man above that of God, or emancipate men from subjection to their Master in heaven, that they may become more obedient to their masters on earth. We are advocating the cause of civil government, of the stability and authority of human laws, when we make every thing rest on the authority of God, and when we limit every human power by subordinating it to him. We hold, therefore, that it is not only one of the plainest principles of morals, that no immoral law can bind the conscience, and that every man must judge of its character for himself, and on his own responsibility; but that this doctrine is essential to all religious liberty, and to the religious sanction of civil government. If you deny this principle, you thereby deny that government is a divine institution, and denying that, you deprive it of its vital energy, and send it tottering to a dishonored grave.

But here the great practical question arises, What is to be done when the law of the land comes into conflict with the law of God--or, which is to us the same thing, with our convictions of what that law demands? In answer to this question we would remark, in the first place, that in most cases, the majority of the people have nothing to do, except peaceably to use their influence to have the law repealed. The mass of the people have nothing actively to do with the laws. Very few enactments of the government touch one in a thousand in the population. We may think a protective tariff not only inexpedient, but unequal and therefore unjust. But we have nothing to do with it. We are not responsible for it, and are not called upon to enforce it. The remark applies even to laws of a higher character, such, _e. g._ as a law proclaiming an unjust war; forbidding the introduction of the Bible into public schools; requiring homage or sanction to be given to idolatrous services by public officers, etc., etc. Such laws do not touch the mass of the people. They do not require them either to do or abstain from doing, any thing which conscience forbids or enjoins; and therefore their duty in the premises may be limited to the use of legitimate means to have laws of which they disapprove repealed.

In the second place, those executive officers who are called upon to carry into effect a law which requires them to do what their conscience condemns, must resign their office, if they would do their duty to God. Some years since, General Maitland (if we remember the name correctly) of the Madras Presidency, in India, resigned a lucrative and honorable post, because he could not conscientiously give the sanction to the Hindoo idolatry required by the British authorities. And within the last few months, we have seen hundreds of Hessian officers throw up their commissions rather than trample on the constitution of their country. On the same principles the non-conformists in the time of Charles II. and the ministers of the Free Church of Scotland, in our day, gave up their stipends and their positions, because they could not with a good conscience carry into effect the law of the land. It is not intended that an executive officer should, in all cases, resign his post rather than execute a law which in his private judgment he may regard as unconstitutional or unjust. The responsibility attaches to those who make, and not to those who execute the laws. It is only when the act, which the officer is called upon to perform, involves personal criminality, that he is called upon to decline its execution. Thus in the case of war; a military officer is not the proper judge of its justice. That is not a question between him and the enemy, but between his government and the hostile nation. On the supposition that war itself is not sinful, the act which the military officer is called upon to perform is not criminal, and he may with a good conscience carry out the commands of his government, whatever may be his private opinion of the justice of the war. All such cases no doubt are more or less complicated, and must be decided each on its own merits. The general principle, however, appears plain, that it is only when the act required of an executive officer involves personal criminality, that he is called upon to resign. This is a case that often occurs. In Romish countries, as Malta, for example, British officers have been required to do homage to the host, and on their refusal have been cashiered. An instance of this kind occurred a few years ago, and produced a profound sensation in England. This was clearly a case of great injustice. The command was an unrighteous one. The duty of the officer was to resign rather than obey. Had the military authorities taken a fair view of the question, they must have decided that the command to bow to the host, was not obligatory, because _ultra vires_. But if such an order was insisted upon, the conscientious Protestant must resign his commission.

The next question is, What is the duty of private citizens in the case supposed, _i. e._, when the civil law either forbids them to do what God commands, or commands them to do what God forbids? We answer, their duty is not obedience, but submission. These are different things. A law consists of two parts, the precept and the penalty. We obey the one, and submit to the other. When we are required by the law to do what our conscience pronounces to be sinful, we can not obey the precept, but we are bound to submit without resistance to the penalty. We are not authorized to abrogate the law, nor forcibly to resist its execution, no matter how great its injustice or cruelty. On this principle holy men have acted in all ages. The apostles did not obey the precept of the Jewish laws forbidding them to preach Christ, but neither did they resist the execution of the penalty attached to the violation of those laws. Thus it was with all the martyrs; they would not offer incense to idols, but refused not to be led to the stake. Had Cranmer, on the ground of the iniquity of the law condemning him to death, killed the officers who came to carry it into effect, he would have been guilty of murder. Here is the great difference which is often overlooked. The right of self-defense is appealed to as justifying resistance even to death, against all attempts to deprive us of our liberty. We have this right in reference to unauthorized individuals, but not in reference to the officers of the law. Had men without authority entered Cranmer's house, and attempted to take his life, his resistance, even if attended with the loss of life, would have been justifiable. But no man has the right to resist the execution of the law. What could be more iniquitous than the laws condemning men to death for the worship of God. Yet to these laws Christians and Protestants yielded unresisting submission. This is an obvious duty, flowing from the divine institution of government. There is no power but of God, and the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God; and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. Thus Paul reasoned. If the power is of God, it can not be rightfully resisted; it must be obeyed or submitted to. Are wicked, tyrannical, Pagan powers of God? Certainly they are. Does not he order all things? Does any man become a king without God's permission granted in mercy or in judgment? Was not Nero to be recognized as emperor? Would it not be a sin to refuse submission to Nicholas of Russia, or to the Sultan of Turkey? Are rulers to be obeyed only for their goodness? Is it only kind and reasonable masters, parents, or husbands, who are to be recognized as such? It is no doubt true, that in no case is unlimited authority granted to men; and that obedience to the precepts of our superiors is limited by the nature of their office, and by the moral law; but this leaves their authority untouched, and the obligation to submission where we can not obey, unimpaired.

Have we then got back to the old doctrine of "passive obedience" by another route? Not at all. The scriptural rule above recited relates to individuals. It prescribes the duty of submission even to unjust and wicked laws, on the part of men in their separate capacity; but it does not deny the right of revolution as existing in the community. What the Scriptures forbid, is that any man should undertake to resist the law. They do not forbid either change in the laws or change in the government. There is an obvious difference between these two things, viz: the right of resistance on the part of individuals, and the right of revolution on the part of the people. This latter right we argue from the divine institution of government itself. God has revealed his will that government should exist, but he has not prescribed the form which it shall assume. In other words, he has commanded men to organize such government, but has left the form to be determined by themselves. This is a necessary inference. It follows from the mere silence of Scripture and nature on this subject, that it is left free to the determination of those to whom the general command is given. In the next place, this right is to be inferred from the design of civil government. That design is the welfare of the people. It is the promotion of their physical and moral improvement; the security of life and property; the punishment of evil doers, and the praise of those who do well. If such is the end which God designs government to answer, it must be his will that it should be made to accomplish that purpose, and consequently that it may be changed from time to time, so as to secure that end. No one form of government is adapted to all states of society, any more than one suit of clothes is proper to all stages of life. The end for which clothing is designed, supposes the right to adapt it to that end. In like manner the end government is intended to answer, supposes the right to modify it whenever such modification is necessary. If God commands men to accomplish certain ends, and does not prescribe the means, he does thereby leave the choice of the means to their discretion. And any institution which fails to accomplish the end intended by it, if it has not a divine sanction as to its form, may lawfully be so changed as to suit the purpose for which it was appointed. We hold, therefore, that the people have, by divine right, the authority to change, not only their rulers, but their form of government, whenever the one or the other, instead of promoting the well-being of the community, is unjust or injurious. This is a right which, like all other prerogatives, may be exercised unwisely, capriciously, or even unjustly, but still it is not to be denied. It has been recognized and exercised in all ages of the world, and with the sanction of the best of men. It is as unavoidable and healthful as the changes in the body to adapt it to the increasing vigor of the mind, in its progress from infancy to age. The progress of society depends on the exercise of this right. It is impossible that its powers should be developed, if it were to be forever wrapt up in its swaddling clothes, or coffined as a mummy. The early Christians submitted quietly to the unjust laws of their Pagan oppressors, until the mass of the community became Christians, and then they revolutionized the government. Protestants acted in the same way with their papal rulers. So did our forefathers, and so may any people whose form of government no longer answers the end for which God has commanded civil government to be instituted. The Quakers are now a minority in all the countries in which they exist, and furnish an edifying example of submission to the laws which they can not conscientiously obey. But should they come, in any political society, to be the controlling power, it is plain they would have the right to conduct it on their own principles.

The right of revolution therefore is really embedded in the right to serve God. A government which interferes with that service, which commands what God forbids, or forbids what he commands, we are bound by our duty to him to change as soon as we have the power. If this is not so, then God has subjected his people to the necessity of always submitting to punishment for obeying his commands, and has cut them off from the only means which can insure their peaceful and secure enjoyment of the liberty to do his will. No one, however, in our land, or of the race to which we belong, will be disposed to question the right of the people to change their form of government. Our history forbids all diversity of sentiment on this subject. We are only concerned to show that the scriptural doctrine of civil government is perfectly consistent with that right; or rather that the right is one of the logical deductions from that doctrine.

We have thus endeavored to prove that government is a divine institution; that obedience to the laws is a religious duty; that such obedience is due in all cases in which it can be rendered with a good conscience; that when obedience can not be yielded without sinning against God, then our duty as individuals is quietly to submit to the infliction of the penalty attached to disobedience; and that the right of resistance or of revolution rests only in the body of people for whose benefit government is instituted.

The application of these principles to the case of the fugitive slave law is so obvious, as hardly to justify remark. The great body of the people regard that law as consistent with the constitution of the country and the law of God. Their duty, therefore, in the premises, whether they think it wise or unwise, is perfectly plain. Those who take the opposite view of the law, having in the great majority of cases, nothing to do with enforcing it, are in no measure responsible for it. Their duty is limited to the use of peaceable and constitutional means to get it repealed. A large part of the people of this country thought the acquisition of Louisiana; the admission of Texas into the Union by a simple resolution; the late Mexican war; were either unjust or unconstitutional, but there was no resistance to these measures. None was made, and none would have been justifiable. So in the present case, as the people generally are not called upon either to do, or to forbear from doing, any thing their conscience forbids, all resistance to the operation of this law on their part must be without excuse. With regard to the executive officers, whose province it is to carry the law into effect, though some of them may disapprove of it as unwise, harsh, or oppressive, still they are bound to execute it, unless they believe the specific act which they are called upon to perform involves personal criminality, and then their duty is the resignation of their office, and not resistance to the law. There is the most obvious difference between an officer being called upon, for example, to execute a decision of a court, which in his private opinion he thinks unjust, and his being called upon to blaspheme, or commit murder. The latter involves personal guilt, the former does not. He is not the judge of the equity or propriety of the decision which he is required to carry into effect. It is evident that the wheels of society would be stopped, if every officer of the government, and every minister of justice should feel that he is authorized to sit in judgment on the wisdom or righteousness of any law he was called upon to execute. He is responsible for his own acts, and not for the judgments of others, and therefore when the execution of a law or of a command of a superior does not require him to sin, he is free to obey.

Again, in those cases in which we, as private individuals, may be called upon to assist in carrying the fugitive slave law into effect, if we can not obey, we must do as the Quakers have long done with regard to our military laws, _i. e._ quietly submit. We have no right to resist, or in any way to impede the operation of the law. Whatever sin there is in it, does not rest on us, any more than the sin of our military system rests on the Quakers.[259]

And finally as regards the fugitives themselves, their obvious duty is submission. To them the law must appear just as the laws of the Pagans against Christians, or of Romanists against Protestants, appeared to those who suffered from them. And the duty in both cases is the same. Had the martyrs put to death the officers of the law, they would in the sight of God and man have been guilty of murder. And any one who teaches fugitive slaves to resort to violence even to the sacrifice of life, in resisting the law in question, it seems to us, is guilty of exciting men to murder. As before remarked, the principle of self-defense does not apply in this case. Is there no difference between a man who kills an assassin who attempts his life on the highway, and the man who, though knowing himself to be innocent of the crime for which he has been condemned to die, should kill the officers of justice? The former is a case of justifiable homicide, the other is a case of murder. The officers of justice are not the offenders. They are not the persons responsible for the law or the decision. That responsibility rests on the government. Private vengeance can not reach the state. And if it could, such vengeance is not the remedy ordained by God for such evils. They are to be submitted to, until the government can be changed. How did our Lord act when he was condemned by an oppressive judgment, and with wicked hands crucified and slain? Did he kill the Roman soldiers? Has not he left us an example that we should follow his steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth; who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself unto him that judgeth righteously. On this principle did all his holy martyrs act; and on this principle are we bound to act in submitting to the laws of the land, even when we deem them oppressive or unjust.

The principles advocated in this paper appear to us so elementary, that we feel disposed to apologize for presenting them in such a formal manner. But every generation has to learn the alphabet for itself. And the mass of men are so occupied with other matters, that they do not give themselves time to discriminate. Their judgments are dictated, in many cases, by their feelings, or their circumstances. One man simply looks to the hardship of forcing a slave back to bondage, and he impulsively counsels resistance unto blood. Another looks to the evils which follow from resistance to law, and he asserts that human laws are in all cases to be obeyed. Both are obviously wrong. Both would overthrow all government. The one by justifying every man's taking the law into his own hands; and the other by destroying the authority of God, which is the only foundation on which human government can rest. It is only by acting on the direction of the Divine Wisdom incarnate: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's," that these destructive extremes are to be avoided. Government is a divine institution; obedience to the laws is commanded by God; and yet like all other divine commands of the same class, there are cases in which it ceases to be obligation. Of these cases every one must judge for himself on his own responsibility to God and man; but when he cannot obey, his duty is to submit. The divinely appointed remedy for unjust or oppressive legislation is not private or tumultuous opposition, but the repeal of unrighteous enactments, or the reorganization of the government.

What, however, we have had most at heart in the preparation of this article, is the exhibition of the great principle that all authority reposes on God; that all our obligations terminate on him; that government is not a mere voluntary compact, and obedience to law an obligation which rests on the consent of the governed. We regard this as a matter of primary importance. The character of men and of communities depends, to a great extent on their faith. The theory of morals which they adopt determines their moral charactcter. If they assume that expediency is the rule of duty, that a thing is right because it produces happiness, or wrong because it produces misery, that this tendency is not merely the test between right and wrong, but the ground of the distinction, then, the specific idea of moral excellence and obligation is lost. All questions of duty are merged into a calculation of profit and loss. There is no sense of God; reason or society takes his place, and an irreligious, calculating cast of character is the inevitable result. This is counteracted, in individuals and the community by various causes, for neither the character of a man nor that of a society is determined by any one opinion; but its injurious influence may nevertheless be most manifest and deplorable. No man can fail to see the deteriorating influence of this theory of morals on public character both in this country and in England. If we would make men religious and moral, instead of merely cute, let us place God before them; let us teach them that his will is the ground of their obligations; that they are responsible to him for all their acts; that their allegiance as moral agents is not to reason or to society, but to the heart-searching God; that the obligation to obey the laws of the land does not rest on their consent to them, but to the fact government is of God; that those who resist the magistrate, resist the ordinance of God, and that they who resist, shall receive unto themselves damnation. This is the only doctrine which can give stablity either to morals or to government. Man's allegiance is not to reason in the abstract, nor to society, but to a personal God, who has power to destroy both soul and body in hell. This is a law revealed in the constitution of our nature, as well as by the lips of Christ. And to no other sovereign can the soul yield rational obedience. We might as well attempt to substitute some mechanical contrivance of our own, for the law of gravitation, as a means of keeping the planets in their orbits, as to expect to govern men by any thing else than the fear of an Infinite God.

FOOTNOTES:

[258] In the _New York Independent_ for January 2, 1851, there is a sermon delivered by Rev. Richard S. Storrs, Jr., of Brooklyn, Dec. 12, 1850, in which his opposition to the fugitive slave bill is expressly placed on the injustice of slavery. He argues the matter almost exclusively on that ground. "To what," he asks, "am I required to send this man [the slave] back? To a system which . . . no man can contemplate without shuddering." Again, "Why shall I send the man to this unjust bondage? The fact that he has suffered it so long already is a reason why I should NOT. . . . . Why shall I not HELP him, in his struggle for the rights which God gave him indelibly, when he made him a man? There is nothing to prevent, but the simple requirement of my equals in the State; the parchment of the law, which they have written." This is an argument against the Constitution and not against the fugitive slave law. It is an open refusal to comply with one of the stipulations of our national compact. If it has any force, it is in favor of the dissolution of the Union. Nay, if the argument is sound it makes the dissolution of the Union inevitable and obligatory. It should, therefore, in all fairness be presented in that light, and not as an argument against the law of Congress. Let it be understood that the ground now assumed is that the Constitution can not be complied with. Let it be seen that the moralists of our day have discovered that the compact framed by our fathers, which all our public men in the general and state governments have sworn to support, under which we have lived sixty years, and whose fruits we have so abundantly enjoyed, is an immoral compact, and must be repudiated out of duty to God. This is the real doctrine constantly presented in the abolition prints; and if properly understood we should soon see to what extent it commends itself to the judgment and conscience of the people.

[259] The doctrine that the executive officers of a government are not the responsible judges of the justice of its decisions, is perfectly consistent with the principle advanced above, viz: that every man has the right to judge for himself whether any law or command is obligatory. This latter principle relates to acts for which we are personally responsible. If a military officer is commanded to commit treason or murder, he is bound to refuse; because those acts are morally wrong. But if commanded to lead an army against an enemy he is bound to obey, for that is not morally wrong. He is the judge of his own act, but not of the act of the government in declaring the war. So a sheriff, if he thinks all capital punishment a violation of God's law, he can not carry a sentence of death into effect, because the act itself is sinful in his view. But he is not the judge of the justice of any particular sentence he is called on to execute. He may judge of his own part of the transaction: but he is not responsible for the act of the judge and the jury.

THE BIBLE ARGUMENT ON SLAVERY.

BY CHARLES HODGE, D.D., OF PRINCETON, N. J.

NOTE.--This Essay of Dr. Hodge, was designed by the Editor, to follow that of Dr. Stringfellow, but the copy was not received until the stereotyping had progressed nearly to the close of the volume. PUBLISHER.

* * * * *

Infatuation of the Abolitionists--Necessity of Correct Opinions--Statement of the Question--Slavery as Treated by Christ and his Apostles--Slaveholding not Sinful--Answer to this Argument--Dr. Channing's Answer--Admissions--Reply to the Abolition Argument--Mr. Birney's Admissions--Argument from the Old Testament--Polygamy and Divorce--Inalienable Rights.

EVERY one must be sensible that a very great change has, within a few years, been produced in the feelings, if not in the opinions of the public in relation to slavery. It is now the most exciting topic of discussion. Nor is the excitement in society confined to discussion alone. Designs and plans, of the most reprehensible character, are boldly avowed and defended. What has produced this lamentable state of things? No doubt many circumstances have combined in its production. We think, however, that all impartial observers must acknowledge, that by far the most prominent cause is the conduct of the abolitionists. . . . . Nor is it by argument that the abolitionists have produced the present unhappy excitement. Argument has not been the characteristic of their publications. Denunciations of slaveholding, as manstealing, robbery, piracy, and worse than murder; consequent vituperation of slaveholders as knowingly guilty of the worst of crimes; passionate appeals to the feelings of the inhabitants of the Northern States; gross exaggerations of the moral and physical condition of the slaves, have formed the staple of their addresses to the public.[260] We do not mean to say that there has been no calm and Christian discussion of the subject. We mean merely to state what has, to the best of our knowledge, been the predominent character of the anti-slavery publications. There is one circumstance which renders the error and guilt of this course of conduct chargeable, in a great measure, on the abolitionists as a body, and even upon those of their number who have pursued a different course. We refer to the fact that they have upheld the most extreme publications, and made common cause with the most reckless declaimers. The wildest ravings of the _Liberator_ have been constantly lauded; agents have been commissioned whose great distinction was a talent for eloquent vituperation; coincidence of opinion as to the single point of immediate emancipation has been sufficient to unite men of the most discordant character. There is in this conduct such a strange want of adaptation between the means and the end which they profess to have in view, as to stagger the faith of most persons in the sincerity of their professions, who do not consider the extremes to which even good men may be carried, when they allow one subject to take exclusive possession of their minds. We do not doubt their sincerity, but we marvel at their delusion. They seem to have been led by the mere impulse of feeling, and a blind imitation of their predecessors in England, to a course of measures, which, though rational under one set of circumstances, is the hight of infatuation under another. The English abolitionists addressed themselves to a community, which, though it owned no slaves, had the power to abolish slavery, and was therefore responsible for its continuance. Their object was to rouse that community to immediate action. For this purpose they addressed themselves to the feelings of the people; they portrayed in the strongest colors the misery of the slaves; they dilated on the gratuitous crime of which England was guilty in perpetuating slavery, and did all they could to excite the passions of the public. This was the course most likely to succeed, and it did succeed. Suppose, however, that the British parliament had no power over the subject; that it rested entirely with the colonial Assemblies to decide whether slavery should be abolished or not. Does any man believe the abolitionists would have gained their object? Did they in fact make converts of the planters? Did they even pretend that such was their design? Every one knows that their conduct produced a state of almost frantic excitement in the West India Islands; that so far from the public feeling in England producing a moral impression upon the planters favorable to the condition of the slaves, its effect was directly the reverse. It excited them to drive away the missionaries, to tear down the chapels, to manifest a determination to rivet still more firmly the chains on their helpless captives, and to resist to the utmost all attempts for their emancipation or even improvement. All this was natural, though it was all, under the circumstances, of no avail, except to rouse the spirit of the mother country, and to endanger the result of the experiment of emancipation, by exasperating the feelings of the slaves. Precisely similar has been the result of the efforts of the American abolitionists as regards the slaveholders of America. They have produced a state of alarming exasperation at the South, injurious to the slave and dangerous to the country, while they have failed to enlist the feelings of the North. This failure has resulted, not so much from diversity of opinion on the abstract question of slavery; or from want of sympathy among Northern men in the cause of human rights, as from the fact, that the common sense of the public has been shocked by the incongruity and folly of hoping to effect the abolition of slavery in one country, by addressing the people of another. We do not expect to abolish despotism in Russia, by getting up indignation meetings in New York. Yet for all the purposes of legislation on this subject, Russia is not more a foreign country to us than South Carolina. The idea of inducing the Southern slaveholder to emancipate his slaves by denunciation, is about as rational as to expect the sovereigns of Europe to grant free institutions, by calling them tyrants and robbers. Could we send our denunciations of despotism among the subjects of those monarchs, and rouse the people to a sense of their wrongs and a determination to redress them, there would be some prospect of success. But our Northern abolitionists disclaim, with great earnestness, all intention of allowing their appeals to reach the ears of the slaves. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at, that the course pursued by the anti-slavery societies, should produce exasperation at the South, without conciliating sympathy at the North. The impolicy of their conduct is so obvious, that men who agree with them as to all their leading principles, not only stand aloof from their measures, but unhesitatingly condemn their conduct. This is the case with Dr. Channing. Although his book was written rather to repress the feeling of opposition to these societies, than to encourage it, yet he fully admits the justice of the principal charges brought against them. We extract a few passages on the subject. "The abolitionists have done wrong, I believe; nor is their wrong to be winked at, because done fanatically, or with good intentions; for how much mischief may be wrought with good designs! They have fallen into the common error of enthusiasts, that of exaggerating their object, of feeling as if no evil existed but that which they opposed, and as if no guilt could be compared with that of countenancing and upholding it. The tone of their newspapers, as far as I have seen them, has often been fierce, bitter, and abusive." p. 133. "Another objection to their movements is, that they have sought to accomplish their object by a system of agitation; that is, by a system of affiliated societies gathered, and held together, and extended, by passionate eloquence." "The abolitionists might have formed an association; but it should have been an elective one. Men of strong principles, judiciousness, sobriety, should have been carefully sought as members. Much good might have been accomplished by the co-operation of such philanthropists. Instead of this, the abolitionists sent forth their orators, some of them transported with fiery zeal, to sound the alarm against slavery through the land, to gather together young and old, pupils from schools, females hardly arrived at years of discretion, the ignorant, the excitable, the impetuous, and to organize these into associations for the battle against oppression. Very unhappily they preached their doctrine to the colored people, and collected these into societies.[261] To this mixed and excitable multitude, minute, heartrending descriptions of slavery were given in the piercing tones of passion; and slaveholders were held up as monsters of cruelty and crime." p. 136. "The abolitionists often speak of Luther's vehemence as a model to future reformers. But who, that has read history, does not know that Luther's reformation was accompanied by tremendous miseries and crimes, and that its progress was soon arrested? and is there not reason to fear, that the fierce, bitter, persecuting spirit, which he breathed into the work, not only tarnished its glory, but limited its power? One great principle which we should lay down as immovably true, is, that if a good work can not be carried on by the calm, self-controlled, benevolent spirit of Christianity, then the time for doing it has not come. God asks not the aid of our vices. He can overrule them for good, but they are not to be chosen instruments of human happiness." p. 138. "The adoption of the common system of agitation by the abolitionists has proved signally unsuccessful. From the beginning it created alarm in the considerate, and strengthened the sympathies of the free States with the slaveholder. It made converts of a few individuals, but alienated multitudes. Its influence at the South has been evil without mixture.[262] It has stirred up bitter passions and a fierce fanaticism, which have shut every ear and every heart against its arguments and persuasions. These effects are the more to be deplored, because the hope of freedom to the slaves lies chiefly in the dispositions of his master. The abolitionist indeed proposed to convert the slaveholders; and for this end he approached them with vituperation, and exhausted on them the vocabulary of abuse! And he has reaped as he sowed." p. 142.

Unmixed good or evil, however, in such a world as ours, is a very rare thing. Though the course pursued by the abolitionists has produced a great preponderance of mischief, it may incidentally occasion no little good. It has rendered it incumbent on every man to endeavor to obtain, and, as far as he can, to communicate definite opinions and correct principles on the whole subject. The community are very apt to sink down into indifference to a state of things of long continuance, and to content themselves with vague impressions as to right and wrong on important points, when there is no call for immediate action. From this state the abolitionists have effectually roused the public mind. The subject of slavery is no longer one on which men are allowed to be of no mind at all. The question is brought up before all of our public bodies, civil and religious. Almost every ecclesiastical society has in some way been called to express an opinion on the subject; and these calls are constantly repeated. Under these circumstances, it is the duty of all in their appropriate sphere, to seek for truth, and to utter it in love.

"The first question," says Dr. Channing, "to be proposed by a rational being, is not what is profitable, but what is right. Duty must be primary, prominent, most conspicuous, among the objects of human thought and pursuit. If we cast it down from its supremacy, if we inquire first for our interests and then for our duties we shall certainly err. We can never see the right clearly and fully, but by making it our first concern. . . . Right is the supreme good, and includes all other goods. In seeking and adhering to it, we secure our true and only happiness. All prosperity, not founded on it, is built on sand. If human affairs are controlled, as we believe, by almighty rectitude and impartial goodness, then to hope for happiness from wrong doing is as insane as to seek health and prosperity by rebelling against the laws of nature, by sowing our seed on the ocean, or making poison our common food. There is but one unfailing good; and that is, fidelity to the everlasting law written on the heart, and re-written and re-published in God's word.

"Whoever places this faith in the everlasting law of rectitude must, of course, regard the question of slavery, first, and chiefly, as a moral question. All other considerations will weigh little with him compared with its moral character and moral influences. The following remarks, therefore, are designed to aid the reader in forming a just moral judgment of slavery. Great truths, inalienable rights, everlasting duties, these will form the chief subjects of this discussion. There are times when the assertion of great principles is the best service a man can render society. The present is a moment of bewildering excitement, when men's minds are stormed and darkened by strong passions and fierce conflicts; and also a moment of absorbing worldliness, when the moral law is made to bow to expediency, and its high and strict requirements are decried or dismissed as metaphysical abstractions, or impracticable theories. At such a season to utter great principles without passion, and in the spirit of unfeigned and universal good will, and to engrave them deeply and durably on men's minds, is to do more for the world, than to open mines of wealth, or to frame the most successful schemes of policy."

No man can refuse assent to these principles. The great question, therefore, in relation to slavery is, what is right? What are the moral principles which should control our opinions and conduct in regard to it? Before attempting an answer to this question, it is proper to remark, that we recognize no authoritative rule of truth and duty but the word of God. Plausible as may be the arguments deduced from general principles to prove a thing to be true or false, right and wrong, there is almost always room for doubt and honest diversity of opinion. Clear as we may think the arguments against despotism, there ever have been thousands of enlightened and good men, who honestly believe it to be of all forms of government the best and most acceptable to God. Unless we can approach the consciences of men, clothed with some more imposing authority than that of our own opinions and arguments, we shall gain little permanent influence. Men are too nearly upon a par as to their powers of reasoning, and ability to discover truth, to make the conclusions of one mind an authoritative rule for others. It is our object, therefore, not to discuss the subject of slavery upon abstract principles, but to ascertain the scriptural rule of judgment and conduct in relation to it. We do not intend to enter upon any minute or extended examination of scriptural passages, because all that we wish to assume, as to the meaning of the word of God, is so generally admitted as to render the labored proof of it unnecessary.

It is on all hands acknowledged that, at the time of the advent of Jesus Christ, slavery in its worst forms prevailed over the whole world. The Saviour found it around him in Judea; the apostles met with it in Asia, Greece and Italy. How did they treat it? Not by the denunciation of slaveholding as necessarily and universally sinful. Not by declaring that all slaveholders were men-stealers and robbers, and consequently to be excluded from the church and the kingdom of heaven. Not by insisting on immediate emancipation. Not by appeals to the passions of men on the evils of slavery, or by the adoption of a system of universal agitation. On the contrary, it was by teaching the true nature, dignity, equality and destiny of men; by inculcating the principles of justice and love; and by leaving these principles to produce their legitimate effects in ameliorating the condition of all classes of society. We need not stop to prove that such was the course pursued by our Saviour and his apostles, because the fact is in general acknowledged, and various reasons are assigned, by the abolitionists and others, to account for it. The subject is hardly alluded to by Christ in any of his personal instructions. The apostles refer to it, not to pronounce upon it as a question of morals, put to prescribe the relative duties of masters and slaves. They caution those slaves who have believing or Christian masters, not to despise them because they were on a perfect religious equality with them, but to consider the fact that their masters were their brethren, as an additional reason for obedience. It is remarkable that there is not even an exhortation to masters to liberate their slaves, much less is it urged as an imperative and immediate duty. They are commanded to be kind, merciful and just; and to remember that they have a Master in heaven. Paul represents this relation as of comparatively little account: "Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called. Art thou called being a servant (or slave), care not for it; though, should the opportunity of freedom be presented, embrace it. These external relations, however, are of little importance, for every Christian is a freeman in the highest and best sense of the word, and at the same time is under the strongest bonds to Christ," 1 Cor. vii: 20-22. It is not worth while to shut our eyes to these facts. They will remain, whether we refuse to see them and be instructed by them or not. If we are wiser, better, more courageous than Christ and his apostles, let us say so; but it will do no good, under a paroxysm of benevolence, to attempt to tear the Bible to pieces, or to exhort, by violent exegesis, a meaning foreign to its obvious sense. Whatever inferences may be fairly deducible from the fact, the fact itself can not be denied that Christ and his inspired followers did treat the subject of slavery in the manner stated above. This being the case, we ought carefully to consider their conduct in this respect, and inquire what lessons that conduct should teach us.

We think no one will deny that the plan adopted by the Saviour and his immediate followers must be the correct plan, and therefore obligatory upon us, unless it can be shown that their circumstances were so different from ours, as to make the rule of duty different in the two cases. The obligation to point out and establish this difference, rests of course upon those who have adopted a course diametrically the reverse of that which Christ pursued. They have not acquitted themselves of this obligation. They do not seem to have felt it necessary to reconcile their conduct with his; nor does it appear to have occurred to them, that their violent denunciations of slaveholding and of slaveholders is an indirect reflection on his wisdom, virtue, or courage. If the present course of the abolitionists is right, then the course of Christ and the apostles were wrong. For the circumstances of the two cases are, as far as we can see, in all essential particulars, the same. They appeared as teachers of morality and religion, not as politicians. The same is the fact with our abolitionists. They found slavery authorized by the laws of the land. So do we. They were called upon to receive into the communion of the Christian Church, both slave owners and slaves. So are we. They instructed these different classes of persons as to their respective duties. So do we. Where then is the difference between the two cases? If we are right in insisting that slaveholding is one of the greatest of all sins; that it should be immediately and universally abandoned as a condition of church communion, or admission into heaven, how comes it that Christ and his apostles did not pursue the same course? We see no way of escape from the conclusion that the conduct of the modern abolitionists, being directly opposed to that of the authors of our religion, must be wrong and ought to be modified or abandoned.

An equally obvious deduction from the fact above referred to, is, that slaveholding is not necessarily sinful. The assumption of the contrary is the great reason why the modern abolitionists have adopted their peculiar course. They argue thus: slaveholding is under all circumstances sinful, it must, therefore, under all circumstances, and at all hazards, be immediately abandoned. This reasoning is perfectly conclusive. If there is error any where, it is in the premises, and not in the deduction. It requires no argument to show that sin ought to be at once abandoned. Every thing, therefore, is conceded which the abolitionists need require, when it is granted that slaveholding is in itself a crime. But how can this assumption be reconciled with the conduct of Christ and the apostles? Did they shut their eyes to the enormities of a great offence against God and man? Did they temporize with a henious evil, because it was common and popular? Did they abstain from even exhorting masters to emancipate their slaves, though an imperative duty, from fear of consequences? Did they admit the perpetrators of the greatest crimes to the Christian communion? Who will undertake to charge the blessed Redeemer and his inspired followers with such connivance at sin, and such fellowship with iniquity? Were drunkards, murderers, liars, and adulterers thus treated? Were they passed over without even an exhortation to forsake their sins? Were they recognized as Christians? It can not be that slaveholding belongs to the same category with these crimes; and to assert the contrary, is to assert that Christ is the minister of sin.

This is a point of so much importance, lying as it does at the very foundation of the whole subject, that it deserves to be attentively considered. The grand mistake, as we apprehend, of those who maintain that slaveholding is itself a crime, is, that they do not discriminate between slaveholding in itself considered, and its accessories at any particular time or place. Because masters may treat their slaves unjustly, or governments make oppressive laws in relation to them, is no more a valid argument against the lawfulness of slaveholding, than the abuse of parental authority, or the unjust political laws of certain states, is an argument against the lawfulness of the parental relation, or of civil government. This confusion of points so widely distinct, appears to us to run through almost all the popular publications on slavery, and to vitiate their arguments. Mr. Jay, for example, quotes the second article of the constitution of the American Anti-Slavery Society, which declares that "slaveholding is a heinous crime in the sight of God," and then, to justify this declaration, makes large citations from the laws of the several Southern States, to show what the system of slavery is in this country, and concludes by saying, "This is the system which the American Anti-Slavery Society declares to be sinful, and ought therefore to be immediately abolished." There is, however, no necessary connection between his premises and conclusion. We may admit all those laws which forbid the instruction of slaves; which interfere with their marital or parental rights; which subject them to the insults and oppression of the whites, to be in the highest degree unjust, without at all admitting that slaveholding itself is a crime. Slavery may exist without any one of these concomitants. In pronouncing on the moral character of an act, it is obviously necessary to have a clear idea of what it is; yet how few of those who denounce slavery, have any well-defined conception of its nature. They have a confused idea of chains and whips, of degradation and misery, of ignorance and vice, and to this complex conception they apply the name slavery, and denounce it as the aggregate of all moral and physical evil. Do such persons suppose that slavery, as it existed in the family of Abraham, was such as their imaginations thus picture to themselves? Might not that patriarch have had men purchased with his silver who were well clothed, well instructed, well compensated for their labor, and in all respects treated with parental kindness? Neither inadequate remuneration, physical discomfort, intellectual ignorance, moral degradation, is essential to the condition of a slave. Yet if all these ideas are removed from the commonly received notion of slavery, how little will remain. All the ideas which necessarily enter into the definition of slavery are deprivation of personal liberty, obligation of service at the discretion of another, and the transferable character of the authority and claim of service of the master.[263] The manner in which men are brought into this condition; its continuance, and the means adopted for securing the authority and claim of masters, are all incidental and variable. They may be reasonable or unreasonable, just or unjust, at different times and places. The question, therefore, which the abolitionists have undertaken to decide, is not whether the laws enacted in the slaveholding States in relation to this subject are just or not, but whether slaveholding, in itself considered, is a crime. The confusion of these two points has not only brought the abolitionists into conflict with the Scriptures, but it has, as a necessary consequence, prevented their gaining the confidence of the North, or power over the conscience of the South. When Southern Christians are told that they are guilty of a heinous crime, worse than piracy, robbery, or murder, because they hold slaves, when they know that Christ and his apostles never denounced slaveholding as a crime, never called upon men to renounce it as a condition of admission into the church, they are shocked and offended, without being convinced. They are sure that their accusers can not be wiser or better than their divine Master, and their consciences are untouched by denunciations which they know, if well founded, must affect not them only, but the authors of the religion of the Bible.

The argument from the conduct of Christ and his immediate followers, seems to us decisive on the point, that slaveholding, in itself considered, is not a crime. Let us see how this argument has been answered. In the able "Address to the Presbyterians of Kentucky, proposing a plan for the instruction and emancipation of their slaves, by a committee of the Synod of Kentucky," there is a strong and extended argument to prove the sinfulness of slavery, _as it exists among us_, to which we have little to object. When, however, the distinguished draughter of that address comes to answer the objection, "God's word sanctions slavery, and it can not, therefore, be sinful," he forgets the essential limitation of the proposition which he had undertaken to establish, and proceeds to prove that the Bible condemns slaveholding, and not merely the kind or system of slavery which prevails in this country. The argument drawn from the Scriptures, he says, needs no elaborate reply. If the Bible sanctions slavery, it sanctions the kind of slavery which then prevailed; the atrocious system which authorized masters to starve their slaves, to torture them, to beat them, to put them to death, and to throw them into their fish ponds. And he justly asks, whether a man could insult the God of heaven worse than by saying he does not disapprove of such a system? Dr. Channing presents strongly the same view, and says, that an infidel would be laboring in his vocation in asserting that the Bible does not condemn slavery. These gentlemen, however, are far too clear-sighted not to discover, on a moment's reflection, that they have allowed their benevolent feelings to blind them to the real point at issue. No one denies that the Bible condemns all injustice, cruelty, oppression, and violence. And just so far as the laws then existing authorized these crimes, the Bible condemned them. But what stronger argument can be presented, to prove that the sacred writers did not regard slaveholding as in itself sinful, than that while they condemn all unjust or unkind treatment (even threatening), on the part of masters towards their slaves, they did not condemn slavery itself? While they required the master to treat his slave according to the law of love, they did not command him to set him free. The very atrocity, therefore, of the system which then prevailed, instead of weakening the argument, gives it tenfold strength. Then, if ever, when the institution was so fearfully abused, we might expect to hear the interpreters of the divine will, saying that a system which leads to such results is the concentrated essence of all crimes, and must be instantly abandoned, on pain of eternal condemnation. This, however, they did not say, and we can not now force them to say it. They treated the subject precisely as they did the cruel despotism of the Roman emperors. The licentiousness, the injustice, the rapine and murders of those wicked men, they condemned with the full force of divine authority; but the mere extent of their power, though so liable to abuse, they left unnoticed.

Another answer to the argument in question is, that "The New Testament does condemn slaveholding, as _practiced among us_, in the most explicit terms furnished by the language in which the sacred penman wrote." This assertion is supported by saying that God has condemned slavery, because he has specified the parts which compose it and condemned them, one by one, in the most ample and unequivocal form.[264] It is to be remarked that the saving clause "slaveholding _as it exists among us_," is introduced into the statement, though it seems to be lost sight of in the illustration and confirmation of it which follow. We readily admit, that if God does condemn all the parts of which slavery consists, he condemns slavery itself. But the draughter of the address has made no attempt to prove that this is actually done in the sacred Scriptures. That many of the attributes of the system as established by law in this country, are condemned, is indeed very plain; but that slaveholding in itself is condemned, has not been and can not be proved. The writer, indeed, says, "The Greek language had a word corresponding exactly, in signification, with our word servant, but it had none which answered precisely to our term slave. How then was an apostle writing in Greek, to condemn our slavery? How can we expect to find in Scripture, the words 'slavery is sinful,' when the language in which it is written contained no term which expressed the meaning of our word slavery?" Does the gentleman mean to say the Greek language could not express the idea that slaveholding is sinful? Could not the apostles have communicated the thought that it was the duty of masters to set their slaves free? Were they obliged from paucity of words to admit slaveholders into the Church? We have no doubt the writer himself could, with all ease, pen a declaration in the Greek language void of all ambiguity, proclaiming freedom to every slave upon earth, and denouncing the vengeance of heaven upon every man who dared to hold a fellow creature in bondage. It is not words we care for. We want evidence that the sacred writers taught that it was incumbent on every slaveholder, as a matter of duty, to emancipate his slaves (which no Roman or Greek law forbade), and that his refusing to do so was a heinous crime in the sight of God. The Greek language must be poor indeed if it can not convey such ideas.

Another answer is given by Dr. Channing. "Slavery," he says, "in the age of the apostle, had so penetrated society, was so intimately interwoven with it, and the materials of servile war were so abundant, that a religion, preaching freedom to its victims, would have armed against itself the whole power of the State. Of consequence Paul did not assail it. He satisfied himself with spreading principles, which, however slowly, could not but work its destruction." To the same effect, Dr. Wayland says, "The gospel was designed, not for one race or one time, but for all men and for all times. It looked not at the abolition of this form of evil for that age alone, but for its universal abolition. Hence the important object of its author was to gain it a lodgment in every part of the known world; so that, by its universal diffusion among all classes of society, it might quietly and peacefully modify and subdue the evil passions of men; and thus, without violence, work a revolution in the whole mass of mankind. In this manner alone could its object, a universal moral revolution, be accomplished. For if it had forbidden the _evil_ without subduing the _principle_, if it had proclaimed the unlawfulness of slavery, and taught slaves to _resist_ the oppression of their masters, it would instantly have arrayed the two parties in deadly hostility throughout the civilized world; its announcement would have been the signal of a servile war; and the very name of the Christian religion would have been forgotten amidst the agitations of universal bloodshed. The fact, under these circumstances, that the gospel does not forbid slavery, affords no reason to suppose that it does not mean to prohibit it, much less does it afford ground for belief that Jesus Christ intended to authorize it."[265]

Before considering the force of this reasoning, it may be well to notice one or two important admissions contained in these extracts. First, then, it is admitted by these distinguished moralists, that the apostles did not preach a religion proclaiming freedom to slaves; that Paul did not assail slavery; that the gospel did not proclaim the unlawfulness of slaveholding; it did not forbid it. This is going the whole length that we have gone in our statement of the conduct of Christ and his apostles, Secondly, these writers admit that the course adopted by the authors of our religion was the only wise and proper one. Paul satisfied himself, says Dr. Channing, with spreading principles, which, however slowly, could not but work its destruction. Dr. Wayland says, that if the apostles had pursued the opposite plan of denouncing slavery as a crime, the Christian religion would have been ruined; its very name would have been forgotten. Then how can the course of the modern abolitionists, under circumstances so nearly similar, or even that of these reverend gentlemen themselves be right? Why do not they content themselves with doing what Christ and his apostles did? Why must they proclaim the unlawfulness of slavery? Is human nature so much altered, that a course, which would have produced universal bloodshed, and led to the very destruction of the Christian religion, in one age, wise and Christian in another?

Let us, however, consider the force of the argument as stated above. It amounts to this: Christ and his apostles thought slaveholding a great crime, but they abstained from saying so, for fear of the consequences. The very statement of the argument, in its naked form, is its refutation. These holy men did not refrain from condemning sin from a regard to consequences. They did not hesitate to array against the religion which they taught, the strongest passions of men. Nor did they content themselves with denouncing the general principles of evil; they condemned its special manifestations. They did not simply forbid intemperate sensual indulgence, and leave it to their hearers to decide what did or what did not come under that name. They declared that no fornicator, no adulterer, no drunkard could be admitted into the kingdom of heaven. They did not hesitate, even when a little band, a hundred and twenty souls, to place themselves in direct and irreconcilable opposition to the whole polity, civil and religious, of the Jewish State. It will hardly be maintained that slavery was, at that time, more intimately interwoven with the institutions of society than idolatry was. It entered into the arrangements of every family; of every city and province, and of the whole Roman empire. The emperor was the Pontifex Maximus; every department of the State, civil and military, was pervaded by it. It was so united with the fabric of the government that it could not be removed without effecting a revolution in all its parts. The apostles knew this. They knew that to denounce polytheism, was to array against them the whole power of the State. Their divine Master had distinctly apprized them of the result. He told them that it would set the father against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; and that a man's enemies should be those of his own household. He said that he came not to bring peace, but a sword, and that such would be the opposition to his followers, that whosoever killed them, would think he did God service. Yet in view of these certain consequences, the apostles did denounce idolatry, not merely in principle, but by name. The result was precisely what Christ had foretold. The Romans, tolerant of every other religion, bent the whole force of their wisdom and arms to extirpate Christianity. The scenes of bloodshed, which century after century followed the introduction of the gospel, did not induce the followers of Christ to keep back or modify the truth. They adhered to their declaration, that idolatry was a heinous crime. And they were right. We expect similar conduct of our missionaries. We do not expect them to refrain from denouncing the institutions of the heathen, as sinful, because they are popular, or intimately interwoven with society. The Jesuits, who adopted this plan, forfeited the confidence of Christendom, without making converts of the heathen. It is, therefore, perfectly evident that the authors of our religion were not withheld by these considerations, from declaring slavery to be unlawful. If they did abstain from this declaration, as is admitted, it must have been because they did not consider it as in itself a crime. No other solution of their conduct is consistent with their truth or fidelity.

Another answer to the argument from Scripture is given by Dr. Channing and others. It is said that it proves too much; that it makes the Bible sanction despotism, even the despotism of Nero. Our reply to this objection shall be very brief. We have already pointed out the fallacy of confounding slaveholding itself with the particular system of slavery prevalent at the time of Christ, and shown that the recognition of slaveholders as Christians, though irreconcilable with the assumption that slavery is a heinous crime, gives no manner of sanction to the atrocious laws and customs of that age, in relation to that subject. Because the apostles admitted the masters of slaves to the communion of the church, it would be a strange inference that they would have given this testimony to the Christian character of the master who oppressed, starved, or murdered his slaves. Such a master would have been rejected as an oppressor, or murderer, however, not as a slaveholder. In like manner, the declaration that government is an ordinance of God, that magistrates are to be obeyed within the sphere of their lawful authority; that resistance to them, when in the exercise of that authority, is sinful,[266] gives no sanction to the oppression of the Roman emperors, or to the petty vexations of provincial officers. The argument urged from Scripture in favor of passive submission, is not so exactly parallel with the argument for slavery, as Dr. Channing supposes. They agree in some points, but they differ in others. The former is founded upon a false interpretation of Rom. xiii: 1-3; it supposes that passage to mean what it does not mean, whereas the latter is founded upon the sense which Dr. C. and other opponents of slavery, admit to be the true sense. This must be allowed to alter the case materially. Again, the argument for the lawfulness of slaveholding, is not founded on the mere injunction, "Slaves, obey your masters," analagous to the command, "Let every soul be subject to the higher powers," but on the fact that the apostles did not condemn slavery; that they did not require emancipation, and that they recognized slaveholders as Christian brethren. To make Dr. Channing's argument of any force, it must be shown that Paul not only enjoined obedience to a despotic monarch, but that he recognized Nero as a Christian. When this is done, then we shall admit that our argument is fairly met, and that it is just as true that he sanctioned the conduct of Nero, as that he acknowledged the lawfulness of slavery.

The two cases, however, are analogous as to one important point. The fact that Paul enjoins obedience under a despotic government, is a valid argument to prove, not that he sanctioned the conduct of the reigning Roman emperor, but that he did not consider the possession of despotic power a crime. The argument of Dr. C. would be far stronger, and the two cases more exactly parallel, had one of the emperors become a penitent believer during the apostolic age, and been admitted to the Christian church by inspired men, notwithstanding the fact that he retained his office and authority. But even without this latter decisive circumstance, we acknowledge that the mere holding of despotic power is proved not to be a crime by the fact that the apostles enjoined obedience to those who exercised it. Thus far the arguments are analogous; and they prove that both political despotism and domestic slavery, belong in morals to the _adiaphora_, to things indifferent. They may be expedient or inexpedient, right or wrong, according to circumstances. Belonging to the same class, they should be treated in the same way. Neither is to be denounced as necessarily sinful, and to be abolished immediately under all circumstances and at all hazards. Both should be left to the operation of those general principles of the gospel, which have peacefully ameliorated political institutions, and destroyed domestic slavery throughout the greater part of Christendom.

The truth on this subject is so obvious that it sometimes escapes unconsciously from the lips of the most strenuous abolitionists. Mr. Birney says: "He would have retained the power and authority of an emperor; yet his oppressions, his cruelties would have ceased; the very temper that prompted them, would have been suppressed; his power would have been put forth for good and not for evil."[267] Here every thing is conceded. The possession of despotic power is thus admitted not to be a crime, even when it extends over millions of men, and subjects their lives as well as their property and services to the will of an individual. What becomes then of the arguments and denunciations of slaveholding, which is despotism on a small scale? Would Mr. Birney continue in the deliberate practice of a crime worse than robbery, piracy, or murder? When he penned the above sentiment, he must have seen that neither by the law of God nor of reason is it necessarily sinful to sustain the relation of master over our fellow creatures; that if this unlimited authority be used for the good of those over whom it extends and for the glory of God, its possessor may be one of the best and most useful of men. It is the abuse of this power for base and selfish purposes which constitutes criminality, and not its simple possession. He may say that the tendency to abuse absolute power is so great that it ought never to be confided to the hands of men. This, as a general rule, is no doubt true, and establishes the inexpediency of all despotic governments, whether for the state or the family. But it leaves the morality of the question just where it was, and where it was seen to be, when Mr. Birney said he could with a good conscience be a Roman emperor, _i. e._ the master of millions of slaves.

The consideration of the Old Testament economy leads us to the same conclusion on this subject. It is not denied that slavery was tolerated among the ancient people of God. Abraham had servants in his family who were "bought with his money," Gen. xvii: 13. "Abimeleck took sheep and oxen and men servants and maid servants and gave them unto Abraham." Moses, finding this institution among the Hebrews and all surrounding nations, did not abolish it. He enacted laws directing how slaves were to be treated, on what conditions they were to be liberated, under what circumstances they might and might not be sold; he recognizes the distinction between slaves and hired servants, (Deut. xv: 18); he speaks of the way by which these bondmen might be procured; as by war, by purchase, by the right of creditorship, by the sentence of a judge, by birth; but not by seizing on those who were free, an offense punished by death.[268] The fact that the Mosaic institutions recognized the lawfulness of slavery is a point too plain to need proof, and is almost universally admitted. Our argument from this acknowledged fact is, that if God allowed slavery to exist, if he directed how slaves might be lawfully acquired, and how they were to be treated, it is in vain to contend that slaveholding is a sin, and yet profess reverence for the Scriptures. Every one must feel that if perjury, murder, or idolatry had been thus authorized, it would bring the Mosaic institutions into conflict with the eternal principles of morals, and that our faith in the divine origin of one or the other must be given up.

Dr. Channing says, of this argument also, that it proves too much. "If usages, sanctioned under the Old Testament and not forbidden under the New, are right, then our moral code will undergo a sad deterioration. Polygamy was allowed to the Israelites, was the practice of the holiest men, and was common and licensed in the age of the apostles. But the apostles no where condemn it, nor was the renunciation of it made an essential condition of admission into the Christian Church." To this we answer, that so far as polygamy and divorce were permitted under the old dispensation, they were lawful, and became so by that permission; and they ceased to be lawful when the permission was withdrawn, and a new law given. That Christ did give a new law on this subject is abundantly evident.[269] With regard to divorce, it is as explicit as language can make it; and with regard to polygamy it is so plain as to have secured the assent of every portion of the Christian churches in all ages. The very fact that there has been no diversity of opinion or practice among Christians with regard to polygamy, is itself decisive evidence that the will of Christ was clearly revealed on the subject. The temptation to continue the practice was as strong, both from the passions of men, and the sanction of prior ages, as in regard to slavery. Yet we find no traces of the toleration of polygamy in the Christian church, though slavery long continued to prevail. There is no evidence that the apostles admitted to the fellowship of Christians, those who were guilty of this infraction of the law of marriage. It is indeed possible that in cases where the converts had already more than one wife, the connection was not broken off. It is evident this must have occasioned great evil. It would lead to the breaking up of families, the separation of parents and children, as well as husbands and wives. Under these circumstances the connection may have been allowed to continue. It is however very doubtful whether even this was permitted. It is remarkable that among the numerous cases of conscience connected with marriage, submitted to the apostles, this never occurs.

Dr. Channing uses language much too strong when he says that polygamy was common and licensed in the days of the apostles. It was contrary both to Roman and Grecian laws and usages until the most degenerate periods of the history of those nations. It was very far from being customary among the Jews, though it might have been allowed. It is probable that it was, therefore, comparatively extremely rare in the apostolic age. This accounts for the fact that scarcely any notice is taken of, the practice in the New Testament. Wherever marriage is spoken of, it seems to be taken for granted, as a well understood fact, that it was a contract for life between one man and one woman; compare Rom. vii: 2, 3. 1 Cor. vii: 1, 2, 39. It is further to be remarked on this subject, that marriage is a positive institution. If God had ordained that every man should have two or more wives, instead of one, polygamy would have been lawful. But slaveholding is denounced as a _malum in se_; as essentially unjust and wicked. This being the case, it could at no period of the world receive the divine sanction, much less could it have continued in the Christian church under the direction of inspired men, when there was nothing to prevent its immediate abolition. The answer then of Dr. Channing is unsatisfactory, first, because polygamy does not belong to the same category in morals as that to which slaveholding is affirmed to belong; and secondly, because it was so plainly prohibited by Christ and his apostles as to secure the assent of all Christians in all ages of the church.

It is, however, argued that slavery must be sinful because it interferes with the inalienable rights of men. We have already remarked, that slavery, in itself considered, is a state of bondage, and nothing more. It is the condition of an individual who is deprived of his personal liberty, and is obliged to labor for another, who has the right to transfer this claim of service, at pleasure. That this condition involves the loss of many of the rights which are commonly and properly called natural, because belonging to men, as men, is readily admitted. It is, however, incumbent on those who maintain that slavery is, on this account, necessarily sinful, to show that it is criminal, under all circumstances, to deprive any set of men of a portion of their natural rights. That this broad proposition can not be maintained is evident. The very constitution of society supposes the forfeiture of a greater or less amount of these rights, according to its peculiar organization. That it is not only the privilege, but the duty of men to live together in a regularly organized society, is evident from the nature which God has given us; from the impossibility of every man living by and for himself, and from the express declarations of the word of God. The object of the formation of society is the promotion of human virtue and happiness; and the form in which it should be organized, is that which will best secure the attainment of this object. As, however, the condition of men is so very various, it is impossible that the same form should be equally conducive to happiness and virtue under all circumstances. No one form, therefore, is prescribed in the Bible, or is universally obligatory. The question which form is, under given circumstances, to be adopted, is one of great practical difficulty, and must be left to the decision of those who have the power to decide, on their own responsibility. The question, however, does not depend upon the degree in which these several forms may encroach upon the natural rights of men. In the patriarchal age, the most natural, the most feasible, and perhaps the most beneficial form of government was by the head of the family. His power by the law of nature, and the necessity of the case, extended without any other limit than the general principles of morals, over his children, and in the absence of other regular authority, would not terminate when the children arrived at a particular age, but be continued during life. He was the natural umpire between his adult offspring, he was their lawgiver and leader. His authority would naturally extend over his more remote descendants, as they continued to increase, and on his death, might devolve on the next oldest of the family. There is surely nothing in this mode of constituting society which is necessarily immoral. If found to be conducive to the general good, it might be indefinitely continued. It would not suffice to render its abrogation obligatory, to say that all men are born free and equal; that the youth of twenty-one had as good a right to have a voice in the affairs of the family as the aged patriarch; that the right of self-government is indefeasible, etc. Unless it could be shown that the great end of society was not attainable by this mode of organization, and that it would be more securely promoted by some other, it would be an immorality to require or to effect the change. And if a change became, in the course of time, obviously desirable, its nature and extent would be questions to be determined by the peculiar circumstances of the case, and not by the rule of abstract rights. Under some circumstances it might be requisite to confine the legislative power to a single individual; under others to the hands of a few; and under others to commit it to the whole community. It would be absurd to maintain, on the ground of the natural equality of men, that a horde of ignorant and vicious savages, should be organized as a pure democracy, if experience taught that such a form of government was destructive to themselves and others. These different modes of constituting civil society are not necessarily either just or unjust, but become the one or the other according to circumstances; and their morality is not determined by the degree in which they encroach upon the natural rights of men, but on the degree in which they promote or retard the progress of human happiness and virtue. In this country we believe that the general good requires us to deprive the whole female sex of the right of self-government. They have no voice in the formation of the laws which dispose of their persons and property. When married, we despoil them almost entirely of a legal existence, and deny them some of the most essential rights of property. We treat all minors much in the same way, depriving them of many personal and almost all political rights, and that too though they may be far more competent to exercise them aright than many adults. We, moreover, decide that a majority of one may make laws for the whole community, no matter whether the numerical majority have more wisdom or virtue than the minority or not. Our plea for all this is, that the good of the whole is thereby most effectually promoted. This plea, if made out, justifies the case. In England and France they believe that the good of the whole requires that the right of governing, instead of being restricted, to all adult males, as we arbitrarily determine, should be confined to that portion of the male population who hold a given amount of property. In Prussia and Russia, they believe with equal confidence, that public security and happiness demand that all power should be in the hands of the king. If they are right in their opinion, they are right in their practice. The principle that social and political organizations are designed for the general good, of course requires they should be allowed to change, as the progress of society may demand. It is very possible that the feudal system may have been well adapted to the state of Europe in the middle ages. The change in the condition of the world, however, has gradually obliterated almost all its features. The villein has become the independent farmer; the lord of the manor, the simple landlord; and the sovereign leige, in whom, according to the fiction of the system, the fee of the whole country vested, has become a constitutional monarch. It may be that another series of changes may convert the tenant into an owner, the lord into a rich commoner, and the monarch into a president. Though these changes have resulted in giving the people the enjoyment of a larger amount of their rights than they formerly possessed, it is not hence to be inferred that they ought centuries ago to have been introduced suddenly or by violence. Christianity "operates as alterative." It was never designed to tear up the institutions of society by the roots. It produces equality not by prostrating trees of all sizes to the ground, but by securing to all the opportunity of growing, and by causing all to grow, until the original disparity is no longer perceptible. All attempts, by human wisdom, to frame society, of a sudden, after a pattern cut by the rule of abstract rights, have failed; and whether they had failed or not, they can never be urged as a matter of moral obligation. It is not enough, therefore, in order to prove the sinfulness of slaveholding, to show that it interferes with the natural rights of a portion of the community. It is in this respect analagous to all other social institutions. They are all of them encroachments on human rights, from the freest democracy to the most absolute despotism.

It is further to be remarked, that all these rights suppose corresponding duties, and where there is an incompetence for the duty, the claim to exercise the right ceases. No man can justly claim the exercise of any right to the injury of the community of which he is a member. It is because females and minors are judged (though for different reasons), incompetent to the proper discharge of the duties of citizenship, that they are deprived of the right of suffrage. It is on the same principle that a large portion of the inhabitants of France and England are deprived of the same privilege. As it is acknowledged that the slaves may be justly deprived of political rights, on the ground of their incompetency to exercise them without injury to the community, it must be admitted, by parity of reason, that they may be justly deprived of personal freedom, if incompetent to exercise it with safety to society. If this be so, then slavery is a question of circumstances, and not a _malum in se_. It must be borne in mind that the object of these remarks is not to prove that the American, the British, or the Russian form of society, is expedient or otherwise; much less to show that the slaves in this country are actually unfit for freedom, but simply to prove that the mere fact that slaveholding interferes with natural rights, is not enough to justify the conclusion that it is necessarily and universally sinful.

Another very common and plausible argument on this subject is, that a man can not be made a matter of property. He can not be degraded into a brute or chattel, without the grossest violation of duty and propriety; and that as slavery confers this right of property in human beings, it must, from its very nature, be a crime. We acknowledge the correctness of the principle on which this argument is founded, but deny that it is applicable to the case in hand. We admit that it is not only an enormity, but an impossibility, that a man should be made a thing, as distinguished from a rational and moral being. It is not within the compass of human law to alter the nature of God's creatures. A man must be regarded and treated as a rational being, even in his greatest degradation. That he is, in some countries and under some institutions, deprived of many of the rights and privileges of such a being, does not alter his nature. He must be viewed as a man under the most atrocious system of slavery that ever existed. Men do not arraign and try on evidence, and punish on conviction, either things or brutes. Yet slaves are under a regular system of laws which, however unjust they may be, recognize their character as accountable beings. When it is inferred from the fact that the slave is called the property of his master, that he is thereby degraded from his rank as a human being, the argument rests on the vagueness of the term _property_. Property is the right of possession and use, and must of necessity vary according to the nature of the objects to which it attaches. A man has property in his wife, in his children, in his domestic animals, in his fields and in his forests. That is, he has the right to the possession and use of these several objects, according to their nature. He has no more right to use a brute as a log of wood, in virtue of the right of property, than he has to use a man as a brute. There are general principles of rectitude, obligatory on all men, which require them to treat all the creatures of God according to the nature which he has given them. The man who should burn his horse because he was his property, would find no justification in that plea, either before God or man. When, therefore, it is said that one man is the property of another, it can only mean that the one has a right to use the other _as a man_, but not as a brute, or as a thing. He has no right to treat him as he may lawfully treat his ox, or a tree. He can convert his person to no use to which a human being may not, by the laws of God and nature, be properly applied. When this idea of property comes to be analyzed, it is found to be nothing more than a claim of service either for life or for a term of years. This claim is transferable, and is of the nature of property, and is consequently liable for the debts of the owner, and subject to his disposal by will or otherwise. It is probable that the slave is called the property of his master in the statute books, for the same reason that children are called the servants of the parents, or that wives are said to be the same person with their husbands, and to have no separate existence of their own. These are mere technicalities, designed to facilitate certain legal processes. Calling a child a servant, does not alter his relation to his father; and a wife is still a woman, though the courts may rule her out of existence. In like manner, where the law declares, that a slave shall be deemed and adjudged to be a chattel personal in the hands of his master, it does not alter his nature, nor does it confer on the master any right to use him in a manner inconsistent with that nature. As there are certain moral principles which direct how brutes are to be used by those to whom they belong, so there are fixed principles which determine how a man may be used. These legal enactments, therefore, are not intended to legislate away the nature of the slave, as a human being; they serve to facilitate the transfer of the master's claim of service, and to render that claim the more readily liable for his debts. The transfer of authority and claim of service from one master to another, is, in principle, analagous to transfer of subjects from one sovereign to another. This is a matter of frequent occurrence. By the treaty of Vienna, for example, a large part of the inhabitants of central Europe changed masters. Nearly half of Saxony was transferred to Prussia; Belgium was annexed to Holland. In like manner, Louisiana was transferred from France to the United States. In none of these cases were the people consulted. Yet in all, a claim of service more or less extended, was made over from one power to another. There was a change of masters. The mere transferable character of the master's claim to the slave, does not convert the latter into a thing, or degrade him from his rank as a human being. Nor does the fact that he is bound to serve for life, produce this effect. It is only property in his time for life, instead of for a term of years. The nature of the relation is not determined by the period of its continuance.

It has, however, been argued that the slave is the property of his master, not only in the sense admitted above, but in the sense assumed in the objection, because his children are under the same obligation of service as the parent. The hereditary character of slavery, however, does not arise out of the idea of the slave as a chattel or thing, a mere matter of property, it depends on the organization of society. In England one man is born a peer, another a commoner; in Russia one man is born a noble, another a serf; here, one is born a free citizen, another a disfranchised outcast (the free colored man), and a third a slave. These forms of society, as before remarked, are not necessarily, or in themselves, either just or unjust; but become the one or the other, according to circumstances. Under a state of things in which the best interests of the community would be promoted by the British or Russian organization, they would be just and acceptable to God; but under circumstances in which they would be injurious, they would be unjust. It is absolutely necessary, however, to discriminate between an organization essentially vicious, and one which, being in itself indifferent, may be right or wrong, according to circumstances. On the same principle, therefore, that a human being in England is deprived, by the mere accident of birth, of the right of suffrage, and in Russia has the small portion of liberty which belongs to a commoner, or the still smaller belonging to a serf, in this country one class is by birth invested with all the rights of citizenship, another (females) is deprived all political and many personal rights, and a third of even their personal liberty. Whether this organization be right or wrong, is not now the question. We are simply showing that the fact that the children of slaves become by birth slaves, is not to be referred to the idea of the master's property in the body and soul of the parent, but results from the form of society, and is analagous to other social institutions, as far as the principle is concerned, that children take the rank, or the political or social condition of the parent.

We prefer being chargeable with the sin of wearisome repetition, to leaving any room for the misapprehension of our meaning. We, therefore, again remark that we are discussing the mere abstract morality of these forms of social organization, and not their expediency. We have in view the vindication of the character of the inspired writings and inspired men from the charge of having overlooked the blackest of human crimes, and of having recognized the worst of human beings as Christians. We say, therefore, that an institution which deprives a certain portion of the community of their personal liberty, places them under obligation of service to another portion, is no more necessarily sinful than one which invests an individual with despotic power (such as Mr. Birney would consent to hold); or than one which limits the right of government to a small portion of the people, or restricts it to the male part of the community. However inexpedient, under certain circumstances, any one of these arrangements may be, they are not necessarily immoral, nor do they become such, from the fact that the accident of birth determines the relation in which one part of the community is to stand to the other. In ancient Egypt, as in modern India, birth decided the position and profession of every individual. One was born a priest, another a merchant, another a laborer, another a soldier. As there must always be these classes, it is no more necessarily immoral, to have them all determined by hereditary descent, than it was among the Israelites to have all the officers of religion from generation to generation thus determined; or that birth should determine the individual who is to fill a throne, or occupy a seat in parliament.

Again, Dr. Wayland argues, if the right to hold slaves be conceded, "there is of course conceded all other rights necessary to insure its possession. Hence, inasmuch as the slave can be held in this condition only while he remains in the lowest state of mental imbecility, it supposes the master to have the right to control his intellectual development just as far as may be necessary to secure entire subjection."[270] He reasons in the same way, to show that the religious knowledge and even eternal happiness of the slave are as a matter of right conceded to the power of the master, if the right of slaveholding is admitted. The utmost force that can be allowed to this argument is, that the right to hold slaves includes the right to exercise all _proper_ means to insure its possession. It is in this respect on a par with all other rights of the same kind. The right of parents to the service of their children, of husbands to the obedience of their wives, of masters over their apprentices, of creditors over their debtors, of rulers over their subjects, all suppose the right to adopt proper means for their secure enjoyment. They, however, give no sanction to the employment of any and every means which cruelty, suspicion, or jealousy may choose to deem necessary, nor of any which would be productive of greater general evil than the forfeiture of the rights themselves. According to the ancient law even among the Jews, the power of life and death was granted to the parent; we concede only the power of correction. The old law gave the same power to the husband over the wife. The Roman law confided the person and even life of the debtor to the mercy of the creditor. According to the reasoning of Dr. Wayland, all these laws must be sanctioned if the rights which they were deemed necessary to secure, are acknowledged. It is clear, however, that the most unrighteous means may be adopted to secure a proper end, under the plea of necessity. The justice of the plea must be made out on its own grounds, and can not be assumed on the mere admission of the propriety of the end aimed at. Whether the slaves of this country may be safely admitted to the enjoyments of personal liberty, is a matter of dispute; but that they could not, consistently with the public welfare, be intrusted with the exercise of political power, is in on all hands admitted. It is, then, the acknowledged right of the state to govern them by laws in the formation of which they have no voice. But it is the universal plea of the depositaries of irresponsible power, sustained too by almost universal experience, that men can be brought to submit to political despotism only by being kept in ignorance and poverty. Dr. Wayland, then, if he concedes the right of the state to legislate for the slaves, must, according to his own reasoning, acknowledge the right to adopt all the means necessary for the security of this irresponsible power, and of consequence, that the state has the right to keep the blacks in the lowest state of degradation. If he denies the validity of this argument in favor of political despotism, he must renounce his own against the lawfulness of domestic slavery. Dr. Wayland himself would admit the right of the Emperor of Russia to exercise a degree of power over his present half civilized subjects, which could not be maintained over an enlightened people, though he would be loth to acknowledge his right to adopt all the means necessary to keep them in their present condition. The acknowledgment, therefore, of the right to hold slaves, does not involve the acknowledgment of the right to adopt measures adapted and intended to perpetuate their present mental and physical degradation.

We have entered much more at length into the abstract argument on this subject than we intended. It was our purpose to confine our remarks to the scriptural view of the question. But the consideration of the objections derived from the general principles of morals, rendered it necessary to enlarge our plan. As it appears to us too clear to admit of either denial or doubt, that the Scriptures do sanction slaveholding; that under the old dispensation it was expressly permitted by divine command, and under the New Testament is nowhere forbidden or denounced, but on the contrary, acknowledged to be consistent with the Christian character and profession (that is, consistent with justice, mercy, holiness, love to God and love to man), to declare it to be a heinous crime, is a direct impeachment of the word of God. We, therefore, felt it incumbent upon us to prove, that the sacred Scriptures are not in conflict with the first principles of morals; that what they sanction is not the blackest and basest of all offenses in the sight of God. To do this, it was necessary to show what slavery is, to distinguish between the relation itself, and the various cruel or unjust laws which may be made either to bring men into it, or to secure its continuance; to show that it no more follows from the admission that the Scriptures sanction the right of slaveholding, that it, therefore, sanctions all the oppressive slave laws of any community, than it follows from the admission of the propriety of parental, conjugal, or political relations, that it sanctions all the conflicting codes by which these relations have at different periods and in different countries been regulated.

We have had another motive in the preparation of this article. The assumption that slaveholding is itself a crime, is not only an error, but it is an error fraught with evil consequences. It not merely brings its advocates into conflict with the Scriptures, but it does much to retard the progress of freedom; it embitters and divides the members of the community, and distracts the Christian church. Its operation in retarding the progress of freedom is obvious and manifold. In the first place, it directs the battery of the enemies of slavery to the wrong point. It might be easy for them to establish the injustice or cruelty of certain slave laws, where it is not in their power to establish the sinfulness of slavery itself.[271] They, therefore, waste their strength. Nor is this the least evil. They promote the cause of their opponents. If they do not discriminate between slaveholding and the slave laws, it gives the slaveholder not merely an excuse but an occasion and a reason for making no such distinction. He is thus led to feel the same conviction in the propriety of the one that he does in that of the other. His mind and conscience may be satisfied that the mere act of holding slaves is not a crime. This is the point, however, to which the abolitionist directs his attention. He examines their arguments, and becomes convinced of their inconclusiveness, and is not only thus rendered impervious to their attacks, but is exasperated by what he considers their unmerited abuse. In the mean time his attention is withdrawn from far more important points;--the manner in which he treats his slaves, and the laws enacted for the security of his possession. These are points on which his judgment might be much more readily convinced of error, and his conscience of sin.

In the second place, besides fortifying the position and strengthening the purpose of the slaveholder, the error in question divides and weakens the friends of freedom. To secure any valuable result by public sentiment, you must satisfy the public mind and rouse the public conscience. Their passions had better be allowed to rest in peace. As the anti-slavery societies declare it to be their object to convince their fellow-citizens that slaveholding is necessarily a heinous crime in the sight of God, we consider their attempt as desperate, so long as the Bible is regarded as the rule of right and wrong. They can hardly secure either the verdict of the public mind or of the public conscience in behalf of this proposition. Their success hitherto has not been very encouraging, and is certainly not very flattering, if Dr. Channing's account of the class of persons to whom they have principally addressed their arguments, is correct. The tendency of their exertions, be their success great or small, is not to unite, but to divide. They do not carry the judgment or conscience of the people with them. They form, therefore, a class by themselves. Thousands who earnestly desire to see the South convinced of the injustice and consequent impolicy of their slave laws, and under this conviction, of their own accord, adopting those principles which the Bible enjoins, and which tend to produce universal intelligence, virtue, liberty and equality, without violence and sudden change, and which thus secure private and public prosperity, stand aloof from the abolitionists, not merely because they disapprove of their spirit and mode of action, but because they do not admit their fundamental principle.

In the third place, the error in question prevents the adoption of the most effectual means of extinguishing slavery. These means are not the opinions or feelings of the non-slaveholding States, nor the denunciations of the holders of slaves, but the improvement, intellectual and moral, of the slaves themselves. Slavery has but two natural and peaceful modes of death. The one is the increase of the slave population until it reaches the point of being unproductive. When the number of slaves becomes so great that the master can not profitably employ them, he manumits them in self-defense. This point would probably have been reached long ago, in many of the Southern States, had not the boundless extent of the south-western section of the Union presented a constant demand for the surplus hands. Many planters in Virginia and Maryland, whose principles or feelings revolt at the idea of selling their slaves to the South, find that their servants are gradually reducing them to poverty, by consuming more than they produce. The number, however, of slaveholders who entertain these scruples is comparatively small. And as the demand for slave labor in the still unoccupied regions of the extreme south-west is so great, and is likely to be so long continued, it is hopeless to think of slavery dying out by becoming a public burden. The other natural and peaceful mode of extinction, is the gradual elevation of the slaves in knowledge, virtue, and property to the point at which it is no longer desirable or possible to keep them in bondage.[272] Their chains thus gradually relax, until they fall off entirely. It is in this way that Christianity has abolished both political and domestic bondage, whenever it has had free scope. It enjoins a fair compensation for labor; it insists on the moral and intellectual improvement of all classes of men; it condemns all infractions of marital or parental rights; in short, it requires not only that free scope should be allowed to human improvement, but that all suitable means should be employed for the attainment of that end. The feudal system, as before remarked, has, in a great measure, been thus outgrown in all the European states. The third estate, formerly hardly recognized as having an existence, is becoming the controlling power in most of those ancient communities. The gradual improvement of the people rendered it impossible, and undesirable to deprive them of their just share in the government. And it is precisely in those countries where this improvement is most advanced that the feudal institutions are the most completely obliterated, and the general prosperity the greatest. In like manner the gospel method of extinguishing slavery is by improving the condition of the slave. The grand question is, How is this to be done? The abolitionist answers, by immediate emancipation. Perhaps he is right, perhaps he is wrong; but whether right or wrong, it is not the practical question for the North. Among a community which have the power to emancipate, it would be perfectly proper to urge that measure on the ground of its being the best means of promoting the great object of the advancement of human happiness and virtue. But the error of the abolitionists is, that they urge this measure from the wrong quarter, and upon the wrong ground. They insist upon immediate abolition because slavery is a sin, and its extinction a duty. If, however, slaveholding is not in itself sinful, its abolition is not necessarily a duty. The question of duty depends upon the effects of the measure, about which men may honestly differ. Those who believe that it would advance the general good, are bound to promote it; while those who believe the reverse, are equally bound to resist it. The abolitionists, by insisting upon one means of improvement, and that on untenable ground, are most effectually working against the adoption of any other means, by destroying the disposition and power to employ them. It is in this way that the error to which we have referred throughout this article, is operating most disadvantageously for the cause of human liberty and happiness. The fact is, that the great duty of the South is not emancipation; but improvement.[273] The former is obligatory only as a means to an end, and, therefore, only under circumstances where it would promote that end. In like manner the great duty of despotic governments is not the immediate granting of free institutions, but the constant and assiduous cultivation of the best interests (knowledge, virtue, and happiness) of the people. Where free institutions would conduce to this object, they would be granted, and just so far and so fast as this becomes apparent.

Again, the opinion that slaveholding is itself a crime, must operate to produce the disunion of the States, and the division of all the ecclesiastical societies in this country. The feelings of the people may be excited violently for a time, but the transport soon passes away. But if the conscience is enlisted in the cause, and becomes the controlling principle, the alienation between the North and the South must become permanent. The opposition to Southern institutions will become calm, constant, and unappeasable. Just so far as this opinion operates, it will lead those who entertain it to submit to any sacrifices to carry it out, and give it effect. We shall become two nations in feeling, which must soon render us two nations in fact. With regard to the church, its operation will be more summary. If slaveholding is a heinous crime, slaveholders must be excluded from the church. Several of our judicatories have already taken this position. Should the General Assembly adopt it, the church is ipso facto, divided. If the opinion in question is correct, it must be maintained, whatever are the consequences. We are no advocates of expediency in morals. We have no more right to teach error in order to prevent evil, than we have a right to do evil to promote good. On the other hand, if the opinion is incorrect, its evil consequences render it a duty to prove and exhibit its unsoundness. It is under the deep impression that the primary assumption of the abolitionists is an error, that its adoption tends to the distraction of the country, and the division of the church; and that it will lead to the longer continuance and greater severity of slavery, that we have felt constrained to do what little we could towards its correction.

We have little apprehension that any one can so far mistake our object, or the purport of our remarks, as to suppose either that we regard slavery as a desirable institution, or that we approve of the slave laws of the Southern States. So far from this being the case, the extinction of slavery, and the amelioration of those laws are as sincerely desired by us, as by any of the abolitionists. The question is not about the continuance of slavery, and of the present system, but about the proper method of effecting the removal of the evil. We maintain, that it is not by denouncing slaveholding as a sin, or by universal agitation at the North, but by the improvement of the slaves. It no more follows that because the master has a right to hold slaves, he has a right to keep them in a state of degradation in order to perpetuate their bondage, than that the Emperor of Russia has a right to keep his subjects in ignorance and poverty, in order to secure the permanence and quiet possession of his power. We hold it to be the grand principle of the gospel, that every man is bound to promote the moral, intellectual, and physical improvement of his fellow men. Their civil or political relations are in themselves matters of indifference. Monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, domestic slavery, are right or wrong as they are, for the time being, conducive to this great end, or the reverse. They are not objects to which the improvement of society is to be sacrificed; nor are they strait-jackets to be placed upon the public body to prevent its free development. We think, therefore, that the true method for Christians to treat this subject, is to follow the example of Christ and his apostles in relation both to despotism and slavery. Let them enforce as moral duties the great principles of justice and mercy, and all the specific commands and precepts of the Scriptures. If any set of men have servants, bond or free, to whom they refuse a proper compensation for their labor, they violate a moral duty and an express command of Scripture. What that compensation should be, depends upon a variety of circumstances. In some cases the slaveholder would be glad to compound for the support of his slaves by giving the third or the half of the proceeds of his estate. Yet this at the North would be regarded as a full remuneration for the mere labor of production. Under other circumstances, however, a mere support, would be very inadequate compensation; and when inadequate, it is unjust. If the compensation be more than a support, the surplus is the property of the laborer, and can not morally, whatever the laws may be, be taken from him. The right to accumulate property is an incident to the right of reward for labor. And we believe there are few slaveholding countries in which the right is not practically acknowledged, since we hear so frequently of slaves purchasing their own freedom. It is very common for a certain moderate task[274] to be assigned as a day's work, which may be regarded as the compensation rendered by the slave for his support. The residue of the day is at his own disposal, and may be employed for his own profit. We are not now, however, concerned about details. The principle that "the laborer is worthy of his hire" and should enjoy it, is a plain principle of morals and command of the Bible, and can not be violated with impunity.

Again, if any man has servants or others whom he forbids to marry, or whom he separates after marriage, he breaks as clearly a revealed law as any written on the pages of inspiration, or on the human heart. If he interferes unnecessarily with the authority of parents over their children, he again brings himself into collision with his Maker. If any man has under his charge, children, apprentices, servants, or slaves, and does not teach them, or cause them to be taught, the will of God; if he deliberately opposes their intellectual, moral, or religious improvement, he makes himself a transgressor. That many of the laws of the slaveholding States are opposed to these simple principles of morals, we fully believe; and we do not doubt that they are sinful and ought to be rescinded. If it be asked what would be the consequence of thus acting on the principles of the gospel, of following the example and obeying the precepts of Christ? We answer, the gradual elevation of the slaves in intelligence, virtue, and wealth; the peaceable and speedy extinction of slavery; the improvement in general prosperity of all classes of society, and the consequent increase in the sum of human happiness and virtue. This has been the result of acting on these principles in all past ages; and just in proportion as they have been faithfully observed. The degradation of most eastern nations, and of Italy, Spain and Ireland, are not more striking examples of the consequences of their violation, than Scotland, England, and the non-slaveholding States are of the benefits, of their being even imperfectly obeyed. Men can not alter the laws of God. It would be as easy for them to arrest the action of the force of gravity, as to prevent the systematic violation of the principles of morals being productive of evil.

FOOTNOTES:

[260] See Cheever's "God against Slavery," and Wendell Phillips' Speech on Harper's Ferry, &c., &c.--ED.

[261] Their object, evidently, has been to prevent the free people of color from emigrating to Liberia, and to retain them in this country as a cat's paw to work out their own designs.--ED.

[262] But for this, a large proportion of our slaves, instead of being instructed orally, would have been taught to read the Scriptures for themselves.--ED.

[263] Paley's definition is still more simple, "I define," he says, "slavery to be an obligation to labor for the benefit of the master, without the contract or consent of the servant." Moral Philosophy, book iii, ch. 3.

[264] Address, etc., p. 20.

[265] Elements of Moral Science, p. 225.

[266] It need hardly be remarked, that the command to obey magistrates, as given in Rom. xiii: 1-3, is subject to the limitation stated above. They are to be obeyed as magistrates; precisely as parents are to be obeyed as parents, husbands as husbands. The command of obedience is expressed as generally, in the last two cases, as in the first. A magistrate beyond the limits of his lawful authority (whatever that may be), has, in virtue of this text, no more claim to obedience, than a parent who, on the strength of the passage "Children, obey your parents in all things," should command his son to obey him as a monarch or a pope.

[267] Quoted by Pres. Young, p. 45, of the Address, etc.

[268] On the manner in which slaves were acquired, compare Deut. xx: 14. xxi: 10, 11. Ex. xxii: 3. Neh. v: 4, 5. Gen. xiv: 14. xv: 3. xvii: 23. Num. xxxi: 18, 35. Deut. xxv: 44, 46.

As to the manner in which they were to be treated, see Lev. xxv: 39-53. Ex. xx: 10. xxii: 2-8. Deut. xxv: 4-6, etc. etc.

[269] "The word of Christ, (Matt. xix; 9), may be construed by an easy implication to prohibit polygamy: for if 'whoever putteth away his wife, and _marrieth_ another committeth adultery' he who marrieth another _without_ putting away the first, is no less guilty of adultery: because the adultery does not consist in the repudiation of the first wife, (for, however unjust and cruel that may be, it is not adultery), but in entering into a second marriage during the legal existence and obligation of the first. The several passages in St. Paul's writings, which speak of marriage, always suppose it to signify the union of one man with one woman."--PALEY'S Moral Phil., book iii, chap. 6.

[270] Elements of Moral Science, p. 221.

[271] Clarkson and Wilberforce were anxious, to have the slave trade speedily abolished, lest the force of their arguments should be weakened by its amelioration.--ED.

[272] If the negro is susceptible of this degree of improvement, he ought _then_ to be free.--ED.

[273] Abolition has impeded this improvement.--ED.

[274] We heard the late Dr. Wisner, after his long visit to the South, say, that the usual task of a slave in South Carolina and Georgia, was about the third of a day's work for a Northern laborer.

THE

EDUCATION, LABOR, AND WEALTH OF THE SOUTH.

BY SAMUEL A. CARTWRIGHT, M.D.,

OF LOUISIANA.

NOTE.--This article of Dr. Cartwright's was designed by the Editor to follow "Cotton is King," but the copy was not received until the stereotyping had progressed nearly to completion.--PUBLISHER.

* * * * *

It has long been a favorite argument of the abolitionists to assert that slave labor is unproductive, that the prevalence of slavery tends to diminish not only the productions of a country, but also the value of the lands. On this ground, appeals are constantly made to the non-slaveholders of the South, to induce them to abolish slavery; assigning as a reason, that their lands would rise in value so as to more than compensate the loss of the slaves.

That we may be able to ascertain how much truth there is in this assertion, let us refer to _figures_ and _facts_. The following deductions from the Report of the Auditor of Public Accounts of the State of Louisiana, speak in a language too plain to be misunderstood by any one, and prove conclusively, that, so far at least as the slave States are concerned, a dense slave population gives the highest value and greatest productiveness to every species of property. Similar deductions might he drawn from the Auditors' Reports of every slave State in the Union EDITOR.

1. _Annual Report of the Auditor of Public Accounts of the State of Louisiana._ Baton Rouge, 1859.

2. _Annual Report of the Superintendent of Public Education._ Baton Rouge, 1859.

3. _Les Lois concernant, les Ecoles Publique dons l'Etat de la Louisiane_, 1849.

4. _Agricultural Productions of Louisiana._ By Edward J. Forstal, New Orleans, 1845.

5. _Address of the Commissioners for the Raising the Endowment of the University of the South._ New Orleans, 1859.

IT is much easier to acquire knowledge from things cognizable to the senses than from books. American civilization is founded upon the laws of nature and upon moral virue. "Honesty is the best policy," says Washington, its founder. The laws of nature are discovered by observation and experience. A practical direction is given to them by that species of knowedge, which is derived from handling the objects of sense and working upon the materials the earth produces. Moral virtue puts a bridle on the evil passions of the heart, and, at the same time, infuses into it an invincible courage in demanding what is right. A knowledge of nature enables its possessor to bridle the natural forces of air, earth, fire, and water--to hold the reins and drive ahead. With its rail-roads and telegraphs, American civilization is waging war with time and space, and, by its moral power and Christian example, with sin and evil. With its labor-saving machiney, its thirty millions do more work for God and man than three hundred millions of such people as inhabit Asia, Africa, Central, and South America, and Mexico. Its thirty millions are equal to any hundred millions of most of the governments of Europe. It is far ahead of the most enlightened nations of Europe, because its people are in the possession of all the blessings and comforts that heaven, through nature's laws, accord to earth's inhabitants, while three-fourths of the two hundred and fifty millions of Europe are writhing in an artificially created purgatory--deprived of all the good things of earth. Whoever would catch up with the annals of American progress, fall into line with American policy, and get within the influence of the guiding spirit of American policy, must not depend upon libraries for information, or he will be left far behind the age in which he lives; must look to the statistics of the churches, to the reports of legislative and commercial bodies, and to the monthly reviews recording the principal transactions of the busy world around him. If he wants to keep pace with the exploits of mankind under European civilization, in cutting one another's throats, sacking cities, destroying commerce, and laying waste the smiling fields of agriculture, the daily press will give the required information; but he can not rely upon it for these statistical details and stubborn facts which tell what the Caucasian in America, aided by his black man, Friday, is doing for Christianity, for liberty, for civilization, and for the good of the world. Some of these details are regarded as too dry and uninteresting, and others too long for admission in the daily press. Much is written and said about the benefits of education. The rudiments are alike important in both kinds of civilization, American and European. But after acquiring the rudimentary knowledge, the paths of education in the two hemispheres diverge from each other at right angles. The further the American travels in the labyrinths of that system of education, so fashionable in Europe, purposely designed to bury active minds in the rubbish of past ages, or tangle them in metaphysical abstractions and hide from them the beauty of truth and the matter-of-fact world around them, the less he is qualified to appreciate the blessings and benefits of republican institutions, and the more apt he is to be found in opposition to American policy. By hard studies on subjects of no practical importance, physical or moral, the European system of education drives independence out of the mind, and virtue out of the heart, as a pre-requisite qualification for obedience to governments resting upon diplomacy, falsehood, artificial and unnatural distinctions among men. But in the United States, the various State governments being founded on moral truths and nature's laws, and not on the opinions of a privileged order, our system of education should be in harmony with our system of government; our youth should be taught to love virtue for virtue's sake; to study nature, bow to her truths, and to give all the homage that the crowned heads receive in Europe, to nature and to truth. Our government sets up no religious creed or standard of morals, but leaves every one perfectly free in religion and morals, to be governed by the Bible as _he understands it_, provided he does not trespass upon the rights of others. The principal books in our libraries give little or no aid in qualifying our youth for public office or to direct the legislation or policy of a government resting upon natural laws. The practical operation of our system is scarcely anywhere else recorded than in church history, gospel triumph, legislative reports, reviews, and pamphlets. There the facts may be found, but they are isolated and disconnected, teaching nothing; but could be made a most potent means, not only of instruction in the practical operation of our system of government, but of developing the human faculties, if introduced into our schools. They are full of objects for comparison. By comparison the mind is taught the difference between things; comparisons are at the bottom of all useful and practical knowledge. "They are suggestive," says Prof. Agassiz, "of further comparisons. When the objects of nature are the subjects of comparison, the mind is insensibly led to make new inquiries, is filled with delight at every step of progress it makes in nature's ever young and blooming fields, and study becomes a pleasure. No American knows what a good country he has got until he visits Europe and draws comparisons between the condition of the laboring classes there and those at home. Even in London, about half the people have neither church-room nor school-room."

The _Annual Report of the Auditor of Public accounts of the State of Louisiana_ abounds with objects which have only to be compared in their various relations to one another to give the mind a clear perception of the operation and practical working of some of the most important natural laws and moral truths lying at the bottom of American civilization and progress. Without comparisons they are like hieroglyphical characters telling nothing. Comparisons will decipher them and make them speak a language full of instruction, which every one can understand.

The more thorough the education in European colleges, or in American schools on a similar model, the more there will be to _unlearn_ before American institutions can be understood or their value appreciated, and the less will the American citizen be qualified to vote understandingly at the polls. The reason is, that the system of education which directs the policy of goverments founded upon artificial distinctions, is from necessity inimical to a government founded upon natural distinctions and moral truth. Education on the British model has set the North against the South, and has waylaid every step of American progress, from the acquisition of Louisiana to the last foot of land acquired from Mexico or the Indians, and it now stands across the path of the all-conquering march of American civilization into Cuba, Central America, and Mexico. The vicious system of education founded upon the European model has almost reconquered Massachusetts and several other Northern States, converting them, in many essential particulars, into British provinces. The people of the North are virtuous and democratic at heart; but they have been turned against their own country and the sentiments which experience teaches to be truths, the obvious benefits of negro slavery, for instance, by an education essentially monarchical. To sustain itself, American policy should have its own schools, to guide and direct it. Heretofore it has been guided and directed almost entirely by the light and knowledge derived from the great school of experience, in which the democratic masses are taught without the aid of other books than the Bible and hymn book. In that school they learned that the negro was not a white man with a black skin, but a different being, intended by nature to occupy a subordinate place in society; that school made known that the only place which nature has qualified him to fill was the place of a servant. That place was accordingly assigned him in the new order of civilization called American civilization, founded upon moral virtue and natural distinctions, and not upon artifice and fraud; upon nature's laws and God's truths, and not upon the fallacies of human reason, as that of Europe. They had not even the assistance of book education to tell them that the white man bore the name of Japheth in the Bible, and the negro that of Canaan; and that the negro's servile nature was expressed in his Hebrew name. American theologians had not paid sufficient attention to the Hebrew, and could not inform the American reader that both the Hebrew Bible and its Greek translation, called the Septuagint, plainly, and in direct terms, recognize two classes or races of mankind, one having a black skin, and the other being fair or white; and that, besides these two races, it recognizes a third race under the term Shem, a name which has no reference to color; but as the other two were plainly designated as _whites_ and _blacks_, the inference is, that the third class was red or yellow, or of an intermediate color. In the Septuagint (the Bible which our Saviour quotes), _AEthiop_ is the term used to designate the sons of Ham, a term synonymous with the Latin word _niger_, from which the Spanish word _negro_ is derived. The Bible tells in unmistakable terms that Japheth, or the white race, was to be _enlarged_. The discovery of the western hemisphere opened a wide field for the _enlargement_ of the white race, pent up for thousands of years in a little corner of the eastern hemisphere. The new hemisphere was found to be inhabited by nomads of the race of Shem, neither white nor black. The historical fact is, that the white race is every year _enlarging_ itself by dispossessing the nomadic sons of Shem, found on the American continent, of their tents, and dwelling in them; and that the black race are its servants. Thus literally, in accordance with the prophecy, "_Japheth will be enlarged, he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan_ (the negro) _shall be his servant_." The prophecy is not fulfilled, but only in process of fulfillment. It clearly points to a new order of civilization, in a wider world for enlargement than the old, in which the black race was to serve the white. The will of God that such a new order of civilization should be established, in which the negro and white man should mutually aid each other, and supply each other's deficiencies, is not only revealed in Hebrew words, written thousands of years ago, but revealed also in the laws of nature, and revealed by _Ethiop nowhere else but in our slaveholding States, stretching forth her arms to God_. American civilization, founded upon revealed truth and nature's laws, puts the negro in his natural position, that of subordination to the white man.

The observation and experience of those who founded a government resting on the basis of moral truth and natural, instead of artificial distinctions, revealed to them the necessity of consigning to the negro an inferior position, in order to carry out that democratic principle which demands a place for every thing, and every thing in its place. What are called the free States have provided no place for the poor negro. He is an outcast and a wanderer, hurtful instead of helpful to society. Mexico, Central and South America, in catching at the shadow, lost the substance of republicanism. Republican government has utterly failed with them, because they fell into the error of supposing that all men of all races are naturally equal to one another. The white race in those countries, acting upon that error, emancipated the inferior negro race, and amalgamated with that and with the Indian race. This disregard of the distinctions made by nature, between the white, black, and Indian races, was fatal to American civilization in those countries.

Mr. Jefferson never meant to say that negroes were equal to white men; but that white men, whether born in England or America were equal to one another. Our fathers contended for their own equality among Englishmen, which not being granted to them, they declared their independence. But scarcely had their swords won that independence, when the governing classes of Great Britain began to teach the rising generation, through the medium of books, schools, and colleges, that the democratic doctrine, which declared all white men equal to one another, _included negroes_. Thus making the learned world believe that democracy and negro slavery are incompatible--that there can be no such thing as a democracy, or a government where the people rule, so long as black people are held in slavery. The schools not only taught the doctrine that negro slavery is anti-republican, but that it is a moral, social and political evil, and soon it was denounced from the pulpit as _sin against God_!

Under the influence of such an education, imported from Europe, the American people, even in the South, began to regard negro slavery as an evil--not from any thing they saw, but from what they had been taught. Thence all manner of experiments were made with the negro to make his condition better out of slavery than in it. All of which proving a failure, the South took issue with Old and New England on the question of negro slavery being an evil, social, political, or moral, and called for the proof. No proof could be given except that drawn from England, from hearsay evidence, and from theoretical teaching of that system of education designed to support European despotisms, and to destroy American republicanism. This has opened the eyes of the South to the necessity of establishing schools and colleges of its own to uphold American civilization. The address of the commissioners for the raising of the endowment of the University of the South commends it to the attention of the American people, not as a sectional or Southern university, but as an American university, to be the house and home of the spirit of American civilization--a dwelling-place not lighted with fox-fire tapers or artificial lights to disguise nature, as the institutions of learning in Europe are, but with the light inherent in nature's truths and in the revealed word of God, honestly translated and interpreted. Some schools to aid American civilization have already been established, but there is a sad outcry for the proper kind of school books; those of Old and New England being rotten to the core with abolitionism and with that false democracy which would make the rising generation believe that the heroes of the American Revolution fought for ruining the negro by giving him liberty, fought to annul God's decrees, which made him a servant of servants, instead of fighting for the principle asserting their own equality with the lords of England and the crowned heads of Europe. Fortunately the work before us, the _Report of the Auditor of the Public Accounts of Louisiana_, will answer very well to supply the want of a proper kind of school book to indoctrinate beginners in the mysteries of the political institutions of their own country, and at the same time to discipline and expand their minds. It is only one of the numerous books of its class, which might be advantageously pressed into the service of the schools for a similar purpose. The statistics of the United States Census, and De Bow's _Industrial Resources_, and the _Minutes of the Progress of the American Churches_, would prove a very good beginning of a high school and college library. Comparisons being the basis of all useful and practical knowledge, in the works just referred to, and in the auditor's report and others of its class, will be found ample materials for comparison. Comparison will infuse a soul into the dry bones of the facts and figures of our religious and political institutions, and make them declare the hidden truths of nature which lie at the bottom of American republicanism, Christianity, prosperity, and progress. The task of comparing will be highly instructive to the youthful mind, and at the same time agreeable and interesting. As an example, here is the way a beginning is recommended, for a comparison in secular affairs.

LESSON NO. 1.--Let Lesson No. 1 consist in comparing the counties (or parishes, as they are called in Louisiana) having the largest white population and the fewest negroes, with those counties having the heaviest negro population and the fewest white people.

There are five parishes, or counties, found in the report of the auditor of public accounts, in which the white population exceeds the negro slaves three to one. Let these parishes be compared with five others in which the slave population exceeds the white seven to one.

Table I, represents the first class of parishes, and Table II, the second. Thus:

TABLE I.

Total acres of /-------------Population---------------\ land owned. Whites. Slaves. Free Negroes. Calcasieu, 35,486 2,367 947 280 Livingston, 60,885 3,998 1,297 7 Sabine, 85,446[275] 3,585 1,409 --- Vermillion, 73,654 3,260 1,378 19 Winn, 43,406 4,314 1,007 38 ------- ------ ------ --- 298,877 17,524 6,038 343 17,524 ------ Total whites and slaves, 23,562 343 ------ Aggregate population, 23,905

TABLE II.

Total acres of /-------------Population---------------\ land owned. Whites. Slaves. Free Negroes. Carroll, 246,582 2,409 9,529 --- Concordia, 318,395 1,384 11,908 11 Madison, 304,494 1,293 9,863 --- Tensas, 323,797 1,255 13,285 328 W. Feliciana, 230,966 1,985 10,450 68 --------- ------ ------ --- 1,224,234 8,326 55,035 407 8,326 ------ Total whites and slaves, 63,361 407 ------ Aggregate population, 63,768

It will be seen from the above, that the white population of the parishes in table I exceeds the slaves nearly three to one; while, in the parishes in table II, the slaves exceed the whites nearly seven to one.

If the land were divided equally among the aggregate population, each inhabitant of the parishes in table I would have 12 acres, and each inhabitant of the parishes in table II would have 22 acres. Here lesson 1 ends, by proving that there is not as great a demand for land, by nearly one half, where the population consists of one white man and seven negroes. By referring to a map of Louisiana, it will be seen that the territorial extent of the parishes in table I is much greater than those in table II. Hence it is not for the want of territory, that a population consisting of three whites to one negro, owns less land by nearly one half, than a population consisting of seven negroes to one white man.

LESSON NO. 2.--Lesson No. I requires the value of the land per acre, in tables I and II, to be ascertained and compared, with a view of solving the important problem: "_Which gives the most value to land, a dense white population with a few negroes, or a dense slave population with a few white people?_"

By referring to the report of the auditor of accounts of Louisiana, it will be seen that the assessed value of the lands of the parishes in table I amounts to $1,642,073, or $5 49 per acre; while that of table II amounts to $23,446,654, or $16 46 per acre. A population consisting of seven negro slaves to one white man, makes land three times as valuable as a population of three white men to one negro. The comparison drawn in this lesson, puts a soul in the dry bones of the facts and figures contained in the report of the auditor of public accounts, and makes them tell what it is which gives value to Southern land.

LESSON NO. 3.--Let this lesson be devoted to drawing comparisons to ascertain: "_Which pays the most taxes to the State, five parishes containing 17,524 whites with a few negroes, or five parishes containing less than half the whites (8,326) with a great many negroes?_" By referring to the report of the auditor it will be seen, that the 17,524 whites of the five parishes in table I pay the State only $25,487,93, or less than $1 50 each, while the 8,326 whites in the five parishes in table II pay the State $169,900 per annum, or upward of $20 each. The aggregate population of the parishes in table I pay only $1 06 each, while the aggregate population of the parishes in table II pay $2 66 each. Every three whites and twenty negroes pay the State $61 18. By making a calculation it will appear that it will require forty-three whites and fifteen negroes of the parishes in table I, to pay the State as much as three whites and twenty negroes pay in the parishes in table II.

COROLLARY.--Three white men with twenty negroes, financially considered, are worth as much to the State as forty-three white men with fifteen negroes.

This strange truth meets a steady explanation in the fact found in Lesson No. 2, that in those parishes where every three white inhabitants own twenty negroes, the land is more than three times as valuable as in the parishes, where every forty-three of the white population possess only fifteen negroes.

LESSON NO. 4.--In the last lesson the truth was brought out that forty-three white men and fifteen negroes are worth no more to the State, financially considered, than three white men and twenty negroes. Let this lesson examine the question: "_Whether forty-three white men in command of fifteen negroes are worth AS MUCH to the State, agriculturally and commercially considered, as three white men in command of twenty negroes?_" This is a bold question and requires some calculations. In making the calculations to base the comparisons upon, sugar will be estimated at $60 per hogshead; molasses at $7 per barrel; corn at $1 per bushel, and cotton at $40 dollars per bale. At these rates the value of the agricultural productions in the five parishes, where the white population is nearly three times as great as the negro, amounts to $446,550, in a population of 17,524 whites, 6,038 negro slaves, and 343 free negroes--the aggregate population 23,905, which gives to each inhabitant $18 68.

The value of the agricultural productions in the five parishes, viz: Carroll, Concordia, Madison, Tensas, and West Feliciana, where the negro slaves are nearly seven times as numerous as the white population, amounts to $8,854,770. In other words, 55,035 negroes under the command of 8,326 whites, in an aggregate population of 63,768 (407 being added for free negroes), produced $8,854,770 worth of agricultural products in one year, estimating cotton at $40 per bale, sugar $60 per hogshead, and corn at $1 a bushel; this amount divided by the aggregate population gives each individual, black and white, old and young, $138 87. Three whites in command of twenty negroes produce $3,194 worth of agricultral products. This lesson was to solve the question whether forty-three white men in command of fifteen negroes are worth as much to the State, agriculturally and commercially considered, as three white men in command of twenty negroes? It has been proved that in those five parishes where the whites nearly treble the negroes, each inhabitant only produces $18 68. This would give to forty-three white and fifteen negroes only $1,081 70 as their share of the value of the agricultural productions--whereas, the share of three whites and twenty negroes, in those parishes where the negro population is nearly seven to one of the white, has been ascertained to be $3,194. The student of political economy is now prepared to solve another question: "What number of inhabitants are required in those parishes where labor is isolated or disassociated, to produce as much as three white and twenty negroes produce in those parishes where labor is associated? The answer is 171; viz: 113 whites and 58 negroes. The question is proved to be correctly solved by multiplying 171 by $18.68 which gives $1,394 25, the exact amount and a quarter over, that twenty negroes and three whites produce in those parishes where labor is associated, or where the slave population is nearly seven times more numerous than the white.

LESSON NO. 5.--Let two more lots of parishes be compared; one in which the white population is not quite double that of the negro slaves, and the other in which the negro slaves are not quite double the number of the whites.

TABLE III.

_Parishes where whites exceed negroes less than two to one._

Whites. Slaves. Free negroes. Val. ag. prod.' 58.

Caldwell, 2,607 1,830 8 $121,920 St. Tammany, 2,588 1,945 -- 67,170 Union, 7,191 4,154 5 691,641 Washington, 2,910 1,551 10 47,532 Jackson, 5,220 3,803 1 702,742 ------ ------ -- ---------- 20,516 13,283 24 $1,631,005

Dividing the total value of the agricultural products by the aggregate population, gives $48 22 to each individual, as the average in five parishes, where the negro slaves are somewhat more than half the whole population. This is a considerable improvement on the five parishes in table I, where the whites exceed the negroes nearly three to one, the average to each inhabitant being only $18 68, instead of $48 22.

TABLE IV.

_Parishes where negroes exceed whites less than two to one._

Whites. Slaves. Free negroes. Val. ag. prod. '58.

Claiborne, 4,618 7,003 58 $857,675 De Soto, 4,459 7,301 29 739,945 Morehouse, 3,620 5,468 14 785,370 Nachitoches, 5,987 7,939 775 1,120,718 Caddo, 4,073 5,978 44 1,056,130 Bossier, 3,646 7,195 11 1,155,010 ------ ------ --- --------- 26,403 40,784 931 5,674,848

The total value of the agricultural productions, divided by the aggregate population, 68,168, gives to each inhabitant $83 25. In table II the aggregate population was 63,768, nearly seven negroes to one white man; the value of the agricultural products divided, gave each $138 07, instead of $83 25. The parishes of table II, with an aggregate population of 63,768, seven sixths of whom were slaves, produced $8,854,770 worth of agricultural products; whereas, the parishes of table IV, containing a population of 68,168, the slaves being less than double the number of whites, produced three millions less of agricultural products than a smaller aggregate population produced in those parishes where the negroes outnumbered the whites nearly seven to one.

The report of the auditor of public accounts for the year 1859, does not contain the necessary data for making comparisons in the parishes on the lower stem of the Mississippi river, by reason of crevasses and other disastrous causes. The valuable pamphlet of Edward J. Forstale, on the agricultural products of Louisiana, will supply that deficiency, though of a much older date. It appears from Mr. Forstale, that, so far back as 1844, "on well conducted estates, the average value of sugar and molasses, per slave, was $237 50, estimating sugar at 4 cents, and molasses at 15 cents," while the general average in the sugar district, per slave, was, in the year 1844, only $150 31, from which he deducted $75 for expenses. By examining his Monograph, it will be seen that the great bulk of the sugar and molasses was produced in those parishes having the heaviest negro population in proportion to the white. Thus, St. Martin's, with a total population more than three times as large as St. Charles, and with a negro population more than twice as numerous, produced, in 1844, only 5,000 hogsheads, while St. Charles produced upward of 12,000. The white population of St. Charles is only 883, while that of the slaves is 3,769. The white population of St. Martin is 6,400, and the negro population 8,200. Assumption and Ascension are adjoining parishes. Assumption contains more than three thousand whites, and three hundred slaves over and above the population of Ascension. It has more land than Ascension, yet it pays $2,200 less taxes on lands than Ascension, and its gross taxes are $1,500 less than Ascension. The value of its agricultural products is likewise less.

These lessons by comparison might be indefinitely extended, by dropping the report of the auditor of public accounts of Louisiana, and taking up the statistics of the churches, and the last United States census. The statistics of the American churches prove that the slaveholding States contain more Christian communicants, in proportion to the population, including black and white, than the non-slaveholding--South Carolina more than Massachusetts, Virginia more than Pennsylvania, Kentucky more than Ohio. The report proves that in the cotton and sugar region, the white people who have few or no negroes, are poor and helpless, but when supplied with seven times their own number of negroes, they are the richest and most powerful agricultural people on the earth. The census will prove that the landed property of those who are thus supplied with from three to seven times their own number of negroes, if sold at its assessed value, and the proceeds of sales divided equally among all the inhabitants, black and white, each individual would have a larger sum than any Pennsylvanian, New Yorker, or New Englander, would have, if the land in the richest counties were sold at its assessed value, and the proceeds of sales divided equally among the inhabitants of the said county. For instance, if the land in some of the richest counties of Pennsylvania, say Adams, Berks, Centre, Chester, and Washington, were all sold, and the proceeds divided among the inhabitants, each individual would have only about half as much as each negro and white man would have, if the lands of Carroll, Madison, Concordia, and Tensas, where the negroes outnumber the whites seven to one, were all sold, and the proceeds equally divided among blacks and whites.

Comparisons, instituted upon the data furnished by the United States census, will show that what Virginia wants _is more negroes_, and what Pennsylvania wants is _more white laborers_. In some counties in Pennsylvania, Cambria and Carbon for instance, the land, if sold and proceeds divided, would not give each inhabitant $75 a piece, the most of the land being uncultivated for want of laborers. Ohio, Wyoming, and Nicholas counties, in Virginia, with an aggregate population exceeding thirty thousand, have only 222 negro slaves. The land, if sold and divided, would not give each inhabitant one hundred dollars. In Accomac, Albemarle, York, Prince Edward, and Prince George, the negro population is about equal to the white. The land, if sold and equally divided, would give each individual from $150 to $220, which is nearly as much as the inhabitants of the best counties of Pennsylvania would have from the proceeds of sales of these lands. Land, per acre, is cheaper in Virginia than in Pennsylvania, because much the largest portion of the Virginia lands are unimproved for the want of laborers, while the largest portion of the Pennsylvania lands are under cultivation. The cotton States and Louisiana are sucking the life-blood out of Virginia by draining that noble old State of her agricultural laborers. The high price of negroes is ruining Virginia. In Sussex, Southampton, Northampton, and many other counties, which send most negroes to the cotton States, the inhabitants have lost more in the fall in the price of their land, than they have gained in the high price they got for their negroes. The land, if sold and divided, would give each individual only fifty-seven dollars, less than three dollars an acre. Oxford is Great Britain's eye, or rather the telescope which is used to see afar off, to direct British policy. Mr. Jefferson saw the importance of a university of the first class, to be used as a telescope to look into the distance, to direct Virginia, or what ought to be the same thing, American policy, as Oxford directs British policy. Hence he devoted the latter years of his life to establishing an institution for that very purpose.

Long before the West India emancipation act was passed, it was known by the learned graduates and fellows of Oxford, that negroes would not work as free laborers; and that their emancipation would ruin the British West Indies. British policy, however, to build up India, imperatively demanded the sacrifice to be made, as Russian policy demanded the sacrifice of Moscow. The African race furnished the only laborers, who could compete with the Mongolian race in producing the rich products of tropical agriculture. Great Britain had a hundred and fifty millions of the bronze and yellow-skin Asiatics under her command, and only wanted the black-skin Africans out of the way, to monopolize tropical agriculture. To carry out the British policy of becoming, not only mistress of the seas, but mistress of the boundless wealth of tropical and tropicoid climates, the learned graduates of Oxford and Cambridge raised a hue and cry against the inhumanity of the _middle passage_. So little truth was there in it, that when the committee of the United States Senate, appointed to consider the causes of the mortality prevailing on emigrant ships from Europe to this country, and the means for the better protection of the health of the passengers, did me the honor in 1854 to request my views on the subject, I replied (see "_Report of the Select Committee of U. S. Senate on the Sickness and Mortality on Emigrant Ships_," pages 119-144--Washington, 1854), recommending certain rules to be adopted to preserve the health and ameliorate the condition of emigrants on shipboard, which appeared to me to be the best. But, subsequently, a little volume fell into my hands containing the rules of the African slave-traders, half a century ago, which were so much better than those I had recommended, I called the attention of the chairman of the Senate's committee, the Hon. Hamilton Fish, to them, advising him by all means to adopt the African slave-traders' rules, if he had any regard for the health and comfort of the European emigrants. In the latter part of the last century no one pretended, as now, that the negro lost any thing by exchanging slavery in Africa for the more benign system of slavery in America. But it was the imaginary sufferings on the middle passage, which brought humanity with her eyes shut to lend to British policy a helping hand to close Africa and prevent her sable sons from exchanging their barbarous masters for civilized ones. America consented to that policy. The Southern tobacco-planters, believing they had as many negroes as the cultivation of tobacco required, had petitioned the king before the Revolution, to close the African slave trade. He did not do it. After the Revolution it was not only closed, but declared to be piracy, by the federal government. The policy which closed it may have been good policy or bad at that time. It soon gave the non-slaveholding States the ascendency in the Union. The question, whether they shall retain that ascendency, will depend very much upon whether they continue to abuse the power they acquired over the South by cutting off the supply of Southern laborers. Having ascertained that the negro would not work as a free man, the next move of British policy was, to set those free who were already in America. All parties in England, some by one artifice and some by another, were ultimately led to promote the British policy of negro abolitionism. From England it was brought over to the United States, took root and grew so rapidly as soon to become a most disturbing element in both church and state. We had no colleges at the North, and scarcely any churches which knew the advantages humanity and Christianity derived from the mutual aid the black and white races afford each other. The most of them are and were virtually European colleges located in America. This has enabled those learned men in Great Britain, who guide and direct British policy, to make a nose of wax of the great body of the educated classes in the United States. The prominence given to the Latin language, to the neglect of the Greek and Hebrew, in our schools and colleges, has greatly tended to fill the heads of the students with monarchical ideas, and to prevent them from understanding and appreciating the institutions of their own country. The study of Homer and the Greek classics favors genuine republicanism, by fostering a high-toned moral virtue, and by creating a love for nature and for political institutions founded upon her laws; while the study of Virgil, and other Latin text-books, used in our schools and colleges, has a strong tendency to lead to a sickly sentimental admiration for nominal instead of real freedom, and for governments founded upon usurpations and artificial distinctions, as that of the Caesars was, and as that of Great Britain is. There is as much difference between Homer and Virgil as between nature and art. The Latin, being a derivative language, and of very little use, would long since have been banished from the schools, but for the aid monarchy derives from its binding men of letters, as Virgil bound the Muses, to the footstool of thrones, to flatter the frail humanity thereon with the incense of divine honors. Homer's Muses, like true Americans, pay no higher honors to the diadem on the king's head than to the gaudy plumage of the peacock's tail. Young America would derive great advantages from an intimate acquaintance with Homer. He wrote in a language which gives to all the arts and sciences their technical terms. Hence, the previous study of the Greek makes the acquaintance of the various sciences comparatively easy to the learner. The Greek and Hebrew being original languages, can be acquired in much less time than the Latin, which is a derivative language. It is to be hoped that the great University of the South, about to be established on the cool and salubrious plateau of the Cumberland Mountains, if it does not banish Latin, will at least give a greater degree of prominence to the Greek and Hebrew, the two languages in which the Scriptures were originally written. By comparing "_The Annual Report of the Superintendent of Public Education_, 1859, with "_Les Lois concernant les Ecoles Publique dans l'Etat de la Louisiane_, 1849," it will be perceived, that the New England system of public education is not adapted to Louisiana and the South. The laws are excellent, if the system itself was in conformity to the spirit of our political institutions. After ten years' trial, we learn from the Report of the Superintendent, that they can not be carried out, as no laws can be, which are theoretical, burdensome, troublesome, expensive, and void of practical benefits. If a law were passed by the State of Louisiana appropriating three hundred thousand dollars per annum to furnishing every family with a loaf of bread every day, it could not be executed. More than half the families would not accept the bread. The Report of the Superintendent of Public Education proves that more than half the families in Louisiana will not accept of the mental food the State offers to their children. Some parishes will not receive any of it. Tensas, for instance, which is taxed $16,000 for the support of public schools, has "not a single public school," says the Report, "in it, yet nearly every planter has a school in his own house." The truth is, that government does more harm than good by interfering with the domestic concerns of our people. If let alone, they would not need governmental aid in furnishing food for either the body or the mind. The South would have been far ahead in education, manufactures, and internal improvements, if the federal government had not interfered, to shut out the only kind of laborers who can labor in the cane and cotton field and live. The system of public education, all admit, has failed in the country, but, it is asserted, has succeeded very well in New Orleans. If the tree be judged by its fruits it is poisonous instead of salutary, to republican institutions, in our great cities. If the boys whom it has taught to read novels, had been put to trades, they could not have been driven away from the polls after they had grown to be men. There has been virtually no election in New Orleans, and in many of our large cities, for the last five or six years; whether from fear or indifference, it proves that the system of education is defective. America wants a University to raise the standard of morals, manners, and learning, so high, that every individual will be as secure from personal violence at the sacred ballot-box, as at the church altar. America wants schools to raise the standard of moral virtue so high, that every American citizen, naturalized or native, may confidently rely upon government putting forth its whole power to protect him in all the rights and privileges of an American citizen, both at home and abroad.

FOOTNOTE:

[275] Report of 1857, for the land in this parish.

CONCLUDING REMARKS.

BY THE EDITOR.

HAVING thus finished our labors, and embodied in this work a range of discussion on slavery, occupying the whole ground, we have a word to say to those who are engaged in fomenting these mad schemes of the abolitionists. We ask you candidly and dispassionately to compare the spirit, tone, and style of argument in the work before you, with the writings and speeches of the anti-slavery propagandists, such as Cheever, Channing, Wendell Phillips, and _Sherman's protege_. In unsparing and vituperative denunciation they certainly excel; but are they not filled with the most gross exaggerations and misrepresentations, not to say willful falsehoods. Nowhere do you find that Christian candor and fairness of argument, that should characterize the search after truth, but in their stead only positive assertions, and inflammatory appeals to the most vindictive passions of human nature.

In this crusade of the North against the South, there is a most unwarrantable and impertinent interference with the concerns of others, that ought to be most sternly rebuked; and it is one of the encouraging signs of the times, that the Southern people are at last roused from their inaction, and are vigorously engaged in adopting means of self-protection. Many, however, in the North are engaged in this crusade in order to divert attention from their own plague-spot--AGRARIANISM. We all recollect the Patroon of Albany and the Van Rensellaer mobs,--the Fourerism and Socialism of the free States, and the ever-active antagonism of labor and capital. They are like the fleeing burglar, who, more loudly than his pursuers, cries stop thief! For the time perhaps they have succeeded in hounding on the rabble in full cry after the South, and in diverting attention from themselves. But how will they fare in the end? It is said of a certain animal, that when once it has tasted human blood it never relinquishes the chase; so when the mob shall have tasted the sweets of plunder and rapine in their raids upon the South, will they spare the hoarded millions of the money-princes and nabobs of the North? Are there not thousands of needy and thriftless adventurers, or of starving and vicious poor, in the free States and cities of the North, who look with ill-concealed envy, or with gloating rapacity, on the prosperity and wealth of the aristocrats, as they term them, of the spindle and loom, and of the counting-house? Ye capitalists, ye merchant princes, ye master manufacturers, you may excite to frenzy your Jacobin clubs, you may demoralize their minds of all ideas of right and wrong, but remember! the gullotine is suspended over your own necks!! The agrarian doctrines will ere long be applied to yourselves, for with whatsoever measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

Ye who profess to be the ministers of the Prince of peace, yet are engaged in preaching Sharp's rifles, or Brown's pikes; who teach that murder is no crime, if committed by a slave upon his best friend, his master; that midnight incendiarism is meritorious; that the breach of every command in the decalogue is commendable, if perpetrated under the guise of abolition philanthropy; who claim to possess a "higher law" than the law of God; in fine, who preach every thing except Jesus Christ, and him crucified; how shall you escape the sentence of holy writ: "If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him all the plagues that are written in this book; and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book."

Ye politicians, who, for the sake of place, power, and the spoils of office, are engaged in alienating the feelings of both sections of our Union; in producing division in our national councils; whose course is fast bringing about the dissolution of our Union; to whose skirts will cling the blood of the martyrs of liberty, so vainly shed?

Ye people of the North, our brothers by blood, by political associations, by a community of interest; why will ye be led away by a cruel and misguided philanthropy, or by designing demagogues? why will ye strive to inflict the most irreparable injury upon the objects of your misplaced sympathy? reduce to ruins this fair fabric of liberty, and this happy land to desolation? Your own leaders acknowledge that, hitherto, your agitation, far from bettering the condition of the slaves, has only made it worse; and in some respects this is true. So long as you confine yourselves to making or hearing abolition speeches, or forming among yourselves anti-slavery societies; so long as you confine the agitation to yourselves, you neither injure nor benefit the slaves; your exuberant philanthropy escapes through the safety-valve in the shape of gas. But when you attempt to circulate among them incendiary documents, intended to render them unhappy, and discontented with their lot, it becomes our duty to protect them against your machinations. This is the sole reason why most, if not all the slave States, have forbidden the slaves to be taught to read. But for your interference, most of our slaves would now have been able to read the word of God for themselves, instead of being dependent, as they now are, on that _oral_ instruction, which is now so generally afforded them. When emissaries come among them, to give them _oral_ instruction different from that contained in the word of God, instead of abridging the privileges of the slave, we deal directly with the emissary, and justly, too; for we are acting not only in self-defense, but we are guarding this dependent race, committed by God to our care, from those malign influences which would work evil, not only to us, but to themselves, also. Could you succeed in your efforts--which you will find to be impossible--as the red republicans did in St. Domingo, or as the English abolitionists did in Jamaica and Barbadoes, so far from having bettered the condition of the blacks, you would have inflicted on them an irreparable injury. But of this you will soon have an opportunity of satisfying yourselves. We have among us a few hundred thousand of this race, who have been emancipated through a mistaken philanthropy, and who, though not injurious, are almost useless to us; these we have concluded to colonize among you, that your lecturers, while lauding the black man as being far superior to the white race, may never be in want of a specimen of the genuine article, to point to, as a proof of the truth of their arguments. Some of the slave States--and most, if not all of them, will pursue the same policy--have already passed laws for the removal of the free blacks from their borders, but allowing them the option of remaining, by choosing their masters, and returning to a state of servitude; and strange as you may think it, many have already done so, in preference to going among their friends, the abolitionists. This is done, not so much because we wish to be rid of this heterogeneous element of our population, for at worst, they are, _with us_, only a kind of harmless dead weight, but because we wish to send them North as missionaries, to convert the abolitionists and free soilers. If we may judge from the census and votes in the different counties in Ohio, the experiment will be entirely successful, as those counties having the largest black population, voted, in 1859, against the anti-slavery ticket; whilst those which voted for it, possess but a meagre black population. Is this because an intimate acquaintance with the negro, convinces the community that freedom is not the normal or proper condition for him; or is it because he prefers to reside amongst those who make least pretensions of friendship for him? The anti-slavery men may take either horn of the dilemma.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR. 8

COTTON IS KING.

Preface to the Third Edition. 19 Preface to the Second Edition. 26 Preface to the First Edition. 31