Read Ebook: The Right of American Slavery by Hoit T W True Worthy

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Labor degrades no man. Labor is honorable, because the products of labor feed and clothe the world, and thus conduce to the welfare and happiness of mankind. Coerced labor is better than no labor. Coercion itself does not necessarily degrade man; rather may it ennoble and elevate, when it is exercised to summon the barbarian to the lessons of civilization. Coercion degrades not the man whom it compels to do right; it only exposes that degradation which is the result of doing wrong. The man only is degraded who, voluntarily or by coercion, does wrong, or neglects to do right. To talk of the degradation of labor, whether coerced or free, is, therefore, preposterous.

HUMAN EQUALITY.

INCAPACITY OF THE MINGLED RACES FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT.

The question of the enfranchisement of the African, therefore, involves the question of the capacity of the mingled races for self-government; a problem which is already solved in Mexico, in Jamaica, in San Domingo, and several of the Spanish American States. There, the mixed races have no common bond of union. The predominance of one petty State, or military chieftain, is the signal for the semi-barbarous hordes of mingled races to combine for the purpose of destruction. Urged on by the emissaries of that colossal superstition which casts its shadow over this Republic , the semi-barbarous hordes of mingled races in the South American States, are a prey to successive bloody revolutions, through that imbecility which is the sure result of the amalgamation of civilization with barbarism.

WRONG SHOULD SUBSERVE RIGHT.

Some assert that civilization should subserve barbarism; but when tried by our rule, they at once see that it is preposterous to assume that right should subserve wrong.

FORFEITURE OF NATURAL RIGHT.

Some propose, that the advantages of the great and little, the served and the servant, the good and the bad, should be reciprocal; that that which is used is, or should be, as much advantaged in the using as is the user. I would ask them--what particular advantage it is to the oyster to be devoured? or what return can the earth make to the sun for his rays, constantly poured upon it? Some assert that every human being is unqualifiedly endowed by nature with the right of individual freedom. This we deny. We assert that barbarism is not humanity, and cannot claim to exercise the prerogative of civilization, which it has ignored, or which it never knew. We assert that the murderer has forfeited that right; and more than this, with the element of murder developed in him, originally, he never was entitled to freedom. Prisons, and even dungeons, are as necessary and proper as schools and colleges, but not more so than servitude to the barbarian. They are all appliances of right and justice and civilization, not to make the good subserve the bad, but to make the bad subserve the good.

TAKING THE EXCEPTION FOR THE RULE.

PASSION; SYMPATHY MISAPPLIED.

Nor will it do to ignore reason, and adopt passion when we consider the subject of slavery. Passions have their uses, but how often they are perverted! Reason is sometimes perverted too, and never more than when exercised against truth, justice, and civilization, and in favor of barbarism. There is false sympathy, amounting to passion, that is blindly lavished upon objects which neither need nor appreciate it. We often see it exercised in behalf of the brute animals, whose proper natures are totally unconscious of it; while their gentleness and quietness seem to rebuke this shallow, human sentimentality, as something wandering from its sphere, or as seed wasted upon the sand. Your sympathy has its legitimate uses, and it is against the economy of nature to misuse it, or bestow it upon natures foreign to its own. If we pity the slave because he is not like ourselves, we shall probably receive his pity, in return, for some weakness or power in us, that covers an abyss which he cannot fathom, and from which he turns away in terror. He is adapted to his place, and so are we, if we are content.

PERFECTION OF NATURE'S WORK.

It has been said, with how much truth let us consider,

"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise;"

the reverse of which is, "Where knowledge is bliss, 'tis folly to be ignorant." The first proposition was evidently intended for the Negro, and the last for the white man; as intellectual pleasures and knowledge are esteemed highest by the latter, and animal pleasures by the former. Happiness is the aim of both; the difference is in the mode of attaining it, and the degree of it when attained. The negro is perfect in his kind. Sympathy will not make him a white man. Would you interrogate nature on the wisdom of her works? Would you denounce them as imperfect? Can you improve upon the architecture of the honey-bee, or the method of his distillation? or on nature's processes of germination and vegetation? Your cup of liquid poison is but a mean equivalent for his treasured nectar; your hot-house culture yields nought for the beauties of Flora, nor the sweetness of her priceless perfumes. The spider would not be a butterfly even if you could give him wings. The power to fly would only enable him to spin his web in air, and obscure the sunlight. His own way is best, both for him and man.

THE NEGRO SATISFIED WITH HIS CONDITION.

Reason will bring all things right. We must take things as they ARE, not as fancy would paint them. It is of no use to get exasperated because the Negro is dark of skin, and because his inferiority and degradation adapt him to the rougher, or rudimental departments and pursuits of civilization. Pity for him on account of the labor which makes his sleep sweet, and his digestion perfect, is thrown away. He knows nothing of the ennui of sloth, nor the misanthropy of idle declaimers. He has his rude affections, and does not hate wrongs which he does not know nor feel, nor is he shocked at manacles which he cannot see, and which hold him from falling into the abyss of barbarism, whence they have lifted him. He loves his condition as a slave to civilization, because his instinct tells him it is better than subjection to the usages and wrongs of the condition from whence he has risen. If he is satisfied with his present condition, it is from an intuitive instinct, teaching him his fitness for it, and shows, by the slowness of the transition from barbarism to civilization, how wide and deep is the gulf which divides the one from the other.

UNITY OF THE AFRICAN RACES.

TRAVELERS IN AFRICA.

CANNIBALISM.

CANNIBALISM IN AFRICA.

According to Pritchard, "the Mumbas, a numerous and savage people who live at the east and northeast of Te-te, and at Chicorango, are cannibals."

Dos Sanctas says, "They have in their principal town a slaughter-house, where they butcher men every day."

We learn from Pritchard, that "the Zimbas, or Mazimbas, are a man-eating tribe near Senna." Also, that "the M?l?a tribe slaughter fifteen or twenty men every day."

SUPREMACY OF PAGANISM IN AFRICA.

This is the fate to which emancipation would consign the Negro. These are a few of the selected examples of the horrors of barbarism, furnished by historians, scientific travelers, and Christian missionaries, whose testimony, as eye-witnesses, has become history during the last few hundred years. Meanwhile, the light of civilization has blazed upon Africa from three quarters of the globe, even as the rays of the sun have enveloped the globe itself. Missionaries from Europe and America, from Rome, and London, and New York, have striven with a zeal and fidelity known only to religious enthusiasm, incited by mutual emulation, and armed with those terrors which awe the soul, those allurements which beguile the affections, and those fascinations which enkindle hope; but they have striven in vain against the colossal power of barbarism; and to-day, those heathen orgies which have darkened the annals of the world for four thousand years, are as sacred, to paganism in Africa, as are the rites and ceremonies of Christianity in London or in Rome.

Is this no evidence of the unfitness of the African for civilization? And is it just, in the sight of heaven, to force him from his present willing position of service to civilization, and consign him to a fate more terrible than even death itself!

THE AFRICAN RACE ON THIS CONTINENT.

Look at the African race on this continent, in this Republic, in Canada, and in the Islands of San Domingo and Jamaica. Compare the African in this Republic, under the wholesome regimen of civilization, with his emancipated brethren in the West Indies, or his recusant, fugitive brother in the Canadas. Has he not advanced here, and retrograded there? Compare his condition in these States, North and South. Why do the free States enact laws to prohibit the African from coming into them to settle? Is it because he is a civilized man, an equal, and a good citizen? Is it not rather, because the Anglo-Saxon race shuns the supposed contamination of barbarism? The wisdom of these prohibitory laws will be seen in the future time; when the idea of Negro equality has become exploded and obsolete; after the question of emancipation has served its purpose in political combination; but alas! not until the fallacy of negro equality has resulted in a mongrel race which will have spread itself like the shadow of a cloud over some of the fairest portions of freedom's heritage.

THE AFRICAN IS DEEMED A BARBARIAN IN THE NORTHERN STATES.

It will be seen that the arguments here advanced are predicated, to some extent, upon the fact that the African is a barbarian. That he is so in his native wilds, we have shown by high authority. That he is so in this country, is obvious, from the fact that in the South he is held a slave, and is satisfied with his condition; and because, as a race, the African in this country, and on this continent, shows not the least capacity for self-control. In the South, the African, in his best estate, is a slave. In the North, laws are wisely enacted to prevent him from going there, because of his barbarism, and because that portion of the most advanced race on earth shrinks from contact with it. The fact, then, of his barbarism is sustained, fully,--by his normal condition in Africa; his condition of retrogradation in Jamaica and San Domingo, where the experiment of emancipation has proved a failure, where the relapse into barbarism is sure and irrevocable; and in this country, where common sense and public opinion and public law, both North and South, hold him in the condition of social, moral, and physical vassalage and servitude, and confine him effectually within certain prescribed limits, or hold him in that marked estimation of inferiority which makes him forever conscious of his own degradation. I have felt justified, therefore, not by way of opprobrium, nor in the spirit of invidious or odious comparison, to name the category in which he belongs, and then, by fair moral and philosophical argument to deduce the justice and right of civilization in holding dominion over him.

EMANCIPATION IS WRONG.

It is not our purpose to blame the African for being a barbarian; but to insist that emancipation is wrong because it restores him to barbarism, and that slavery is right because it holds him to those roles of justice which pertain to civilization, and protects him from the injustice, violence, and degradation which are the concomitants of barbarism. As the slave of civilization, he is raised infinitely above his former condition as the subject of barbarism. He knows this, and it satisfied. His instinct teaches him to love his master, because he is his protector, and because, mistrusting his own capacity for self-government, he knows the necessity for a master; and instances are numerous, of slaves, having misjudged their own capacity for self-government, having fled from supposed wrongs, they found they were mistaken as to the means of bettering their condition, and returned to voluntary servitude, begging, with tears, to be again admitted to the sacred precincts of the patriarchial care.

FITNESS OF THE AFRICAN FOR SLAVERY.

It is the fitness of things that makes the African a slave. His brawny limbs, seconding and aiding the intellect of the superior race, constitute the left hand and foot of labor. Slavery is the left hand of our body politic. Free labor is the right hand. Intellect is the head. All combined, constitute a power which is felt and feared by the foes of this Republic. Hence their endeavor to detach one portion from the other, and thus weaken the whole. To change the position of the slave is to interrupt or reverse the order of nature.

"What if the foot, ordained the dust to tread, Or hand to toil, aspired to be the head? What if the head, the eye, or ear repined To serve, mere engines of the ruling mind? Just as absurd for any part to claim To be another in this general frame; Just as absurd to mourn the tasks or pains The great directing Mind of All ordains."

ABSURDITY OF NEGRO EQUALITY.

The truth is, slavery is right, and is proved to be so, notwithstanding all the noisy declamation we hear about human equality. The Negro is a barbarian, and barbarism is not humanity but inhumanity; hence the unfitness to the case, of such illogical reasoning as is adopted by the advocates of Negro equality. Human equality, as applied to the Negro, is an idle fantasy, without even the shadow or semblance of plausibility. White men are equals in few things; certainly not in physical nor mental capacity, nor power. The equality declared by our Revolutionary Sires was the political equality of white men. Let us arise from that lethargy in which we have dreamed of universal equality, and escape the dangers of that moral and intellectual somnambulism in which we have been groping to the verge of social and political destruction.

AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN RADICALISM.

This restless spirit of change, in a portion of our people, this craving for universal equality, by the blind victims of popular fanaticism, finds its parallel in the destructive element of European radicalism, which mistakes freedom for the right of plunder, and Democracy for the right of popular despotism. It is that blind spirit of rage which adapts not the means to the end, but overreaches itself, and falls a prey to its own cupidity, duplicity, and folly.

INEQUALITY OF RACES.

Universal equality,--the equality of the African with the Caucasian, or the savage with the civilized races, is no more possible than to blend right with wrong. The inequality exists in nature, as indubitably as the varied magnitudes of the stars. And the characteristics of the various savage races differ as widely as their varied physiognomy. There is no equality among them, mental or physical,--not even equality of degradation. The gigantic Patagonian, and the dwarfish Laplander; the wild Feejeeian, and docile Guinea Negro; the stolid Indian, and ant-like plodder of teeming India,--are but the outward symbols of that contrariety of moral, or rather immoral existence which is the fate of barbarism. They have no equality of beauty nor ugliness, leanness nor obesity, vice nor virtue, but varying differences, such as the spontaneous growth of uncultured nature in different climes exhibits in the vegetable and lower orders of the animal creation. What a contrast is this to that trained, drilled conformation to the order and proper conventionalities of civilized life, which our free schools, free press, social rites, laws, and customs impose.

QUIBBLE OF THE SOPHIST.--TAKING THE EXCEPTION FOR THE RULE.

THE SUPREMACY OF MIND OVER MATTER.

He framed the universe, and instant twirled Upon its orbit, this terrestrial world; Bid chaos flee, and called the glittering train Of constellations to the ethereal plain; He built the fabric of creation fair; Lit every sun that shines in glory there; Strewed with his hand, to deck heaven's argent fields, Each starry atom that refraction yields; And holds in order, as it moves along, Each seraph bright, of the celestial throng!

SHALL BARBARISM CONTROL CIVILIZATION?

THE RAGE OF PASSION.

What are these dreams of sophists, these vagaries of imagination, this rage of passion, this perversion of reason, and high-sounding declamation, confounding right with wrong, civilization with barbarism, but the paraphernalia of despotism arrayed against the liberties of mankind? Emancipation is all a delusion, a foible, a fantasy, an idle dream! The soul and intellect of man is heaven-derived, and knows its order and beauty, and will hold in abeyance these elements of chaos. The barbarian is indeed dark of skin, and the radiance of a million constellations in a thousand ages will not change him, nor the light of civilization fade to moral brightness his gloomy mind!

EMANCIPATION OF THE WHITE RACES.

It will be observed that my argument on the subject of slavery is new, and is drawn from the actual nature of the case. I offer no antique authority to sustain the RIGHT of slavery. The history of the African race for four thousand years is sufficient, which is, that in no country nor condition has that race shown the capacity for or enjoyed self-government. And, indeed, self-government with the superior white races is still deemed but an experiment. The great mass of the white races ever have been, and still are, governed by the strong hand of despotism, or by the more plausible, but ofttimes not less diabolical power of constitutional sovereignties, or hereditary or revolutionary oligarchies. It is not, then, so great a disparagement to the African that he is unfit for freedom, when nine-tenths of the foremost of the white races, show not the capacity to enjoy it. Certainly, the African is not their superior. Why, then, demand for him more than is allowed to the superior white races? If emancipation is to be thought of, would it not be well to emancipate the white races first?

THE ARGUMENT INVULNERABLE.

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