CHAPTER VII
=Injurious Effect of Misinformation=
In connection with this claim of the slave power were the most shocking misrepresentations of the condition of the slaves themselves and of the social relations of the Southern people, in order to array the prejudices of the world against their cause. This course of misrepresentation had long been pursued before the war, and was not confined to American writers, but many works appeared from the British press containing libels upon the society of the Southern states and false views of slavery as established there. Such works in both countries were evidently written by persons with prejudiced minds or who knew little practically of slavery as it existed in the South. Such was the intolerance of the public sentiment which had been fostered in both countries upon the subject, that no candid and impartial account of the workings of domestic slavery as it existed in the Southern states would be received with the slightest favor, whilst the exaggerated accounts of cruelty practiced by the slave-owners, and consequent sufferings of the slaves were eagerly accepted as the truth.
A very striking evidence of this prejudice was furnished by the reception given to the works of two female writers not many years since. The one, Miss Harriett Beecher, later Mrs. Stowe, wrote a work of fiction called "Uncle Tom's Cabin," containing misrepresentations of slavery and slanders upon Southern society. Drawing upon a fertile imagination and pandering to the prejudices of the uninformed, she published the book, which had a great run in Europe as well as America, and was translated into almost all of the continental languages. The incidents contained in the book were either erroneous in point of fact or greatly exaggerated, but the book itself was still more untrue as a picture of Southern society and slavery, and would have been a misrepresentation if every fact contained in it had been true in isolated cases. But the book was received as a true and faithful picture of society and slavery in the South, not merely by the agitators of abolition, but by that very considerable class of persons in the world who allow others to do their thinking, and when the authoress visited Great Britain, she was treated with great attention and extensively feted by the nobility, gentry and others. The view of Southern slavery which she drew is perhaps accepted by nine-tenths of the otherwise well informed persons in Europe.
In remarkable contrast to Miss Beecher's case, was that of Miss Murray, a lady of talents and refinement, who held the position of maid of honor to Queen Victoria. Miss Murray visited the United States as a tourist with all of her predilections against slavery, but she happened to be one of those persons who, not satisfied with hearsay report, took the necessary trouble to inform herself intelligently upon the subject. In the course of her travels, she went into the Southern states, where she remained for some time as a guest on some of the plantations. She had the opportunity of observing the workings of domestic slavery as it actually existed and in all of its details, and she availed herself of that opportunity to make her own reflections. In letters to friends at home she gave the result of her actual observations and upon her return to England was induced to publish her letters. These letters represented slavery in the Southern states in a very different light from that in which it was accustomed to be presented to the British public, and the consequence was that Miss Murray was notified by the ministry that it was not desirable that she should longer occupy the relation she held to the Queen, as the views she expressed in regard to slavery were not consonant with the policy of the British government; so she was retired.
This illustrates the difference in the reception of two works on the subject of slavery given by the British public: one a work of fiction from a prejudiced writer, the other a matter-of-fact account of an eye witness of what she undertook to describe.
If British ministers could thus view the subject and be guilty of the injustice they perpetrated in Miss Murray's case, what could be expected of the great mass of British readers? It is hard to conceive how the glory or prosperity of a nation could be advanced by giving currency to fallacies, or suppressing the truth in regard to the actual condition of African slavery in the Southern states.
It would seem that as Great Britain had had so much to do with fostering the institution in those states, it would be rather gratifying, than otherwise, to its ministers and its people, to know that the descendants of those who had been ravished from their native country by the cupidity of their predecessors, were in a contented and comfortable condition. But such was not then "the policy of the government" and perhaps the philanthropic disciple of Exeter Hall who callously passed by the misery, want and immorality at her own door in the great city of London, while she shed tears over the imaginary woes pictured by Miss Beecher, would have been equally as indignant as the British ministers with Miss Murray for attempting to disabuse her of the delusion which caused those tears to flow.
Such is, and perhaps ever will be, the character of human philanthropy, that it troubles itself more about the sufferings which exist a long way off or only in imagination, than those which are before its eyes. One weeps over the trials of the hero or heroine in a novel or a play, while we pass the miserable child of want and sin in the street with perfect indifference. If slavery did not have its evils and its wrongs, it would not be a human institution, and as long as "man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn," so long will evils and wrongs exist in every relation of human society. These exist in the relation of governor and governed, parent and child, husband and wife, master and servant, employer and employed, neighbor and neighbor, and are not excluded even from the church.
It is not pretended therefore that some masters did not abuse their servants, but these were rare instances, more perhaps than in any other relation of like, and if for no other reason, the great mass of masters were induced to treat their slaves well, because it was their interest to do so. Let any one compare the condition of the African in his native land, with that of the slaves of the South before the violent abolition of slavery, and then say whether that institution, which had produced such a vast improvement in his condition was so great a wrong after all.[B]
[Footnote B: Note--Professor Draper, in his "History of the American Civil War" thus represents the condition of the negro in his native land. "The Negro in Africa."
"On the west coast of Africa, the true negro-land, the thermometer not infrequently stands at 120° in the shade. For months together it remains, night and day, above 80°. The year is divided into the dry and the rainy season; the latter setting in with an incessant drizzle, continues until May. It culminates in the most awful thunderstorms and overwhelming rains. This is particularly the case in the mountains. When the dry season has fairly begun a pestiferous miasm is engendered from the vast quantities of vegetable matter brought down into the low lands by torrents. From the fevers thus arising the negroes themselves suffer severely.
"Moisture and heat, thus so fatal in their consequences to man, give to that country its amazing vegetable luxuriance. For hundreds of square miles there is an impenetrable jungle, infested with intolerable swarms of musquitoes. The interior is magnificently wooded. The mangrove thickets that line the river banks upon the coast are here replaced by a dark evergreen verdure, interspersed with palms and aloes. A rank herbage obstructs the course of the streams. The crocodile, hippopotamus, pelican find here a suitable abode. Monkeys swarm in the woods; in the more gloomy recesses live the chimpanzee, gorilla and other anthropoid apes approaching man most closely in stature and habits of life. In the open land--the prairie of equatorial Africa--game is infrequent; there are a few antelopes and horned cattle, but no horses. Man--or perhaps more truly woman--is the only beast of burden.
"Plantains, sweet potatoes, cassava, pumpkins, ground-nuts, Indian corn, the flesh of the deer, antelope, bear, snake, furnish to the negro, his food. He lives in a hut constructed of bamboo or flakes of bark, thatched with matting or palm leaves. His villages are often palisaded. Too lazy, except when severely pressed, to attend to the labors of the field, he compels his wives to plant the roots or seeds, and gather the scanty harvest. In hunting and in war, his main occupation, he relies upon cunning and will follow his prey with surprising agility, crawling like a snake prone upon the ground. He has little or no idea of property in land; slaves are his currency; he makes his purchase and pays his debts with them. 'A slave is a note of hand that may be discounted or pawned. He is a bill of exchange that carries himself to his destination, and pays a debt bodily. He is a tax that walks corporeally into the chieftain's treasury.'
"Ferocious in his amours, the African negro has no sentiment of love. The more wives he possesses the richer he is. If he inclines to traffic, each additional father-in-law is an additional trading connection; if devoted to war, an ally. His animal passions too often disdain all such mercenary suggestions; he brings home new wives for the sake of new gratifications. Fond of ornaments, his prosperity is displayed in thick bracelets and anklets of iron or brass. An old European hat or a tattered dress-coat, without any other article of clothing is a sufficient badge of kingship. He inclines to nocturnal habits. He will spend all the night lolling with his companions on the ground at a blazing fire, though the thermometer may be at more than 80°, occupying himself in smoking native tobacco, drinking palm wine and telling stories about witches and spirits. He is an inveterate gambler, a jester and a buffoon. He knows nothing of hero-worship; his religion is a worship of fetiches.
"They are such objects as the fingers and tails of monkeys, human hair, skin, teeth, bones, old nails, copper chains, claws and skulls of birds, seeds of plants. He believes that evil spirits walk at the sunset hour by the edge of forests; he adores the devil, who is thought to haunt burial-grounds and, in mortal terror of his enmity, leaves food for him in the woods. He welcomes the new moon by dancing in her shine. Whatever misfortune or sickness befalls him, he imputes to sorcery and punishes the detected wizard or witch with death. He determines guilt by the ordeal of fire: the accused who can seize a red-hot copper ring without being burned is innocent. His medicine-man--a wind raiser and rain-maker--pursues his main business of exorcism in a head-dress of black feathers, with a string of spirit-charms around his neck and a basket of snake-bone incantations. The more advanced tribes have already risen to idol worship; they adore grotesque figures of the human form, and following the course through which intelligence in other races has passed, they have wooden gods who can speak and nod and wink.
"In this deplorable, this benighted condition, the negro nevertheless shows tokens of a capacity for better things. He is an eager trader, and knows the value of his ebony, bar-wood, beeswax, palm oil, ivory. He has learned how to cheat; nay, more, infrequently he can out-cheat the white man. He can adulterate the caoutchouc and other products he brings down to the coast and pass them off as pure. His color secures him from the detection of a blush when he lies. Though utterly ignorant of any conception of art, he is not unskillful in the manufacture of cooking pots and tobacco pipes of clay; he has a bellows-forge of his own invention; he can reduce iron from its ores and manufacture it. He makes shields of elephants' hide, cross-bows, and other weapons of war. But in the construction of musical instruments his skill is chiefly displayed. From drums of goat-skins, from harps and gourds, he extracts their melancholy sounds and disturbs the nocturnal African forests with his plaintive melodies.
"It has been affirmed by those who have known them well, that the equatorial negro tribes do not increase but tend to die out spontaneously. This is attributed to infanticide and to the ravages of miasmic fever, which in its most malignant form will often destroy its victim in a single day. Even though quinine be taken as a prophylactic no white man can enter their country with impunity. The night dews are absolutely mortal."]
The most conclusive answer to all the slanders against Southern slave owners is to be found in the rapid multiplication of the slaves by natural increase, which could not have taken place if such barbarities had been practiced or such immorality had existed, as has been represented. Our detractors have convicted themselves of the slanders they have uttered by taking the Southern slave from the Cotton fields to the ballot box and vested him with all the privileges of an American citizen. If the institution of slavery has so tutored the negro that immediately his bonds are loosened, he is qualified for the privileges of the ballot box, what a civilizing tendency that institution must have had. If on the contrary that institution has kept him in utter ignorance of moral and Christian duty and made him the cringing, degraded creature he has been represented, what a monster must be he who proposes to vest in the untutored savage the power of governing others while the white man is disfranchised. In his native land he has never reached the dignity of a civilized being, and he has never been civilized until transplanted into slavery. Even till this day there are native Africans who continue in a state of barbarism despite the civilizing influence of the British government and the efforts of missionaries. In the western country away from the coast and civilization, tribes of the "hinterland" practice cannibalistic rites, the victim being preferably a blood relation of the sacrificer. The unfortunates are kidnapped, then with ghoulish ceremony and weird incantations they are frightfully mutilated; while life still remains a demoniacal feast is held and human flesh consumed to offset the "Ju-Ju" or spell of evil omen. Then the victim is put out of his misery and buried so that the white man shall know nothing of the mysteries ages old, which the tribes of Africa revere; many of the victims are young women and girls, captured by members of secret societies and taken to some remote spot in the bush.
Whatever of eminence any individual of the race has attained, is due directly or indirectly to the civilizing influence of the institution of slavery. It was the master of slaves who accomplished the greatest missionary success and the progress of his ward since is due to the training and influence of the past.
Foreign people have said that if the Confederate Government had freed the slaves, it might have been recognized by European nations. Such persons should recall that when Don Quixote freed the galley slaves he had then to defend himself against them--they would see the absurdity of such an idea. What could the people of the South have done in the prosecution of the war if 3,000,000 slaves had been turned loose among them and the whole labor system of the country deranged?
Our victors say that having submitted "to the arbitrament of arms," and having been overcome, the question of right has been decided against us, and that we are a conquered people who must submit to the fate of the conquered; but though the gordian knot was cut with the sword, constitutional questions cannot be solved in the same way, such a view would but prove the wrong of the whole doctrine of coercion. The Constitution created by sovereign states, whatever the powers delegated, could never have contemplated the possibility of one of those states being reduced to the condition of a conquered province. That Constitution was as binding in those states, which remained after the secession of the Southern states as before, and it was as much an outrage to make war upon those latter for the act of secession, as it would have been to have destroyed their existence as states while they remained in the Union.
It is true that the South claimed to be a sovereign independent people after their withdrawal, and were so by every principle of right and justice, but that position did not authorize the making of war against them. A counter-claim was that the seceding states had no right to withdraw, and therefore those arrayed in opposition undertook to compel them to submission to the rule and laws of the Union: upon that ground alone could they justify the war. They were the aggressors and disregarded the Constitution and the Union and they also were the ones who violated the principle and precept of that Constitution, which they were sworn to support and defend.
The doctrine has been broached that the highest law that can exist is that established by force of arms. That the red-handed conquerors or the armed robber on the highway should assert this, is not to be wondered at, but when it comes from the men who have been compelled to yield to force of arms while struggling for the right, the mantle of charity should be allowed to fall over the weakness which cannot resist the temptations of adversity.
In regard to this question of submitting our rights to "the arbitrament of arms," much irrational language has been used and very erroneous opinions have been expressed as to the result. There was never a greater mistake of terms or perversion of language than that made in saying that the Southern states submitted their right to be withdrawn from the Union to the arbitrament of arms or having lost, that the question of right has been decided against them. Those states proposed to withdraw peaceably, tendered a peaceful solution of all of the questions which might arise out of their former relations to the United States government. That government declared a war of coercion, and the Southern states of necessity resorted to arms to defend their rights and homes when most wrongfully and unjustly invaded. In no sense can they be said to have submitted any of their rights to the arbitrament of arms any more than the traveller on the highway submits his money to the arbitrament of arms between himself and the robber, and the result of the war decided no question of principle, but simply furnished another instance of the fact that in this world, the truth does not always prevail and that might is often more powerful than right.
Not only has the question of right not been decided by the arbitrament of arms, but the proposition that "The voice of the people is the voice of God" is no better established now than on that memorable occasion when the people cried "crucify him! crucify him!"
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=ERRATA=
Page 51, line 17-- "obitu" should be "obitur."
Page 58, lines 15 and 19-- "Elden" should be "Eldon."
Page 77, line 11-- the letter "a" should be inserted before the word "felony."
Page 82, line 26-- "interferfence" should be "interference."
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Transcriber Note
Minor typos were corrected. All corrections in the ERRATA have been applied. Due to the length of Footnote B, the footnotes were indented.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Heritage of The South, by Jubal Anderson Early