Part 3

OF THE RIGHT TO ENSLAVE THE BARBARIAN.

It is pretended by certain sophists and visionary theorists, that the RIGHT does not exist to enslave the barbarian; that to assert such right is fatal to the principle of human equality. To which I answer, that barbarity is not humanity, but its opposite, and the right of the one to control the other is supported by law, founded upon the immutable principles of justice. The experience of mankind has demonstrated, and the judgment of mankind has decided, that certain acts are wrong in themselves; that to kill is an act abhorrent to the soul of man, and as it is also a violation of natural right, the murderer shall die--that in his death an element of chaos and destruction, in him, is annihilated--and the principle or element of murder in the wicked be thereby repressed. Here is an instance wherein the right is asserted, to take, not only the liberty, but the life of an individual. Some deny this right, but they do not deny the right to deprive the murderer of his liberty. All will agree that the murderer shall, at least, be deprived of his liberty. So with other crimes. There is a tolerable agreement in civilized communities, that for certain crimes men shall be deprived of their natural right to freedom. So, the principle is established, that communities have the right to deprive men of their liberties. Laws are established and executed by this principle. Every State, and almost every small community, endorses this principle, and constantly illustrates it by the punishment of offenders against law, who are confined in jails and prisons. And it is folly to deny a right founded upon the universal usage and experience of mankind. So with nations. Did we not repress the wrong exercised against us by Mexico and Algeria? Did we not even deny the right of maritime isolation to Japan, on the score of cruelty or neglected hospitality to our shipwrecked mariners? Suppose she slay our ambassador, or our resident minister; would we not still further force upon her, in a summary manner, those well-known rules of law, and amenities of civilization, and principles of justice, which are proclaimed to be right by the united voice of nations?

We are considering the subject of the enslavement of the African race in this Republic. We are inquiring into the RIGHT of African Slavery. We have asserted the right of slavery, as founded upon the principle that universal right holds a just and hereditary control over wrong; and as the African is a race of barbarians, and barbarism is wrong, it follows that it is the right of civilization to hold the African subject to those rules of justice which pertain to civilization, and to protect him from the injustice, violence, and degradation, which are the concomitants of barbarism. To deny this is to deny the superiority of RIGHT over wrong. He who denies this, becomes the advocate of barbarism; for, barbarism being below civilization, he asserts its equality with civilization, and thus becomes its apologist and advocate.

VIOLATION OF NATURAL RIGHT.

Such an one will claim that involuntary labor performed by the African, in behalf of civilization; or the production, by his labor, of material or fabrics to hide his nakedness, or adorn the human race, or protect them from the cold, degrades the barbarian, because it encroaches upon his natural right to go naked and houseless, and perish with the cold. He is quite primitive in his ideas of dress, and ought to emigrate to a warm climate, like South Africa or South America, where the elements of nature do not conspire with civilization to degrade and oppress him. He perceives that our unjust and oppressive laws actually punish, as an offense, the exposure to view of man's natural external beauties! This is about as far as it is safe to go on the subject of natural right, both from considerations of propriety and modesty, and also, as it almost amounts to a digression from the subject immediately under consideration; but we are merely following the advocate of emancipation, on the score of equality and natural right, just where his principles lead him; and as it forcibly suggests the inexpediency of emancipation, and consequent barbarism, on the score of morality and decency, it seems entirely apposite to the subject.

But it is claimed by some, that the African slave here has ceased to be a barbarian, which I deny. His nature is not essentially changed; his habits are forced; and he would at once fall, as he has fallen, and is falling, in San Domingo, Jamaica, and Canada, but for coercion. It is, therefore, an external power which holds him up, and no innate principle within him.

THE DEBT OF THE BARBARIAN.

But even for argument, admitting the African were civilized, still he is not legally entitled to his freedom. Why? Because on account of his barbarism he became the property of another, who has a vested right in him. His transition from barbarism to civilization was at the expense of civilization, and he owes a just equivalent therefor. His debt is the difference between barbarism and civilization, and will be estimated according as the one in held higher than the other.

THE RIGHT OF THE AFRICAN TO REMAIN A SLAVE.

If the African is entitled to his freedom, he is also entitled to the privilege of remaining in servitude; a privilege which nine tenths of the Negroes in this country are well known to crave. But we deny his right of choice in the premises. His barbarism was the oblivion of his right to choose his own proper position; and the absence of inherent right in him subjects him at once to the dominion of universal or external right in civilization. His right of choice, therefore, has no real validity, and should not even be tolerated to denounce the heinous wrong of his emancipation, and consequent restoration to barbarism. His right to remain a slave is not his own, but the right of civilization; and even his willingness to remain in servitude, though a double evidence of his barbarism and of his appreciation of his partially ameliorated condition as an accessory of civilization, is not available in deciding as to his present or future condition; because the right exercised in his subjection to the rules of civilization is primordial, and sovereign, and all-controlling, as Universal Right, and is in no case subject to the will of barbarism.

THE MELIORATION OF THE AFRICAN.

With regard to the degradation of the African slave, that is admitted; but at the same time his position as an accessory to civilization is far higher than that wherein he was wholly the subject of barbarism. Now, he is dignified to the useful avocations of the civilized race; learns their rudimental arts and customs, and methods of subsistence; is subject to, and protected by law; becomes semi-civilized, and in rare, individual instances, as a lusus naturæ, even aspires to the nobler prerogatives of mind. The meanest slave that wears the shackle or feels the whip of civilization, in the reluctant performance of coerced labor, is a far nobler being than the African barbarian in his native wilds.

OF THE DEGRADATION OF LABOR.

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.

But the question of emancipation is started and agitated on the ground of human equality. It is the supposed equality of the African with the white race, that is the pretext for emancipation, and the foundation of the assumed right and expediency of emancipation. It has been supposed by some, that the enunciation of human equality in the American Declaration of Independence was intended for all the races of men in the world. Such a supposition is totally unfounded, and unwarrantable in the very nature of things. In the first place, it is not true; and in the next place, the writer of that Declaration meant no such thing, for he held slaves, and knew their inferiority. What a monstrous act of hypocrisy and folly it would have been in the author of that instrument, and his cotemporaries, to declare that all men are created free when they knew millions are born slaves, or when they knew no equality existed, even of right, between the barbarian and the man whose sense of justice and perception of RIGHT secured to him the approbation of Heaven and his own conscience, by a recognition of and obedience to the laws of morality, and conformity to the just rules of civilization. They wrote that Declaration for white men,--meaning white men,--because it did not and could not apply to the barbarous and savage nations. They saw the world in chains, and knew the bondage of mankind to be the result of their violation of moral right, and their incapacity for self-government. They estimated rightly when they announced freedom to the white race in these colonies; for, up to this time, the fact of self-government by our people has verified their prophetic annunciation; but the sages who founded this Republic, excluded, by legislation, the African and the Indian from this boon of freedom, and they and their descendants have held the African in the condition of servitude.

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 (whose home is a foreign kingdom, and whose head is a foreign prince), 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.

In considering the subject of slavery, there is one principle which must not, and cannot be lost sight of, as it underlies all else, and is the root from which springs the tree of all knowledge on this subject, as well as all others; to wit: That RIGHT holds a just and hereditary control over wrong. Not because right is the strongest, but because it is the BEST. It is very common when right asserts its prerogative, that we hear the subjects and votaries of wrong denounce RIGHT as mere might. This is a common foible of vice, to conceal its own deformity; a mere subterfuge, which, when pushed to the wall, vice adopts, and meets the executioner of justice with the accusation that he is the mere instrument of might; the servile tool of arbitrary power. This glozing of vice avails not. Justice stands erect in the dignity of its own moral beauty, and commends itself to the intellect and conscience of mankind. All the affections, all the wisdom, and all the experience of men, do homage at the shrine of justice, as the arbiter of right. This great moral tribunal, established at the dawn of creation, has existed through all time, and still exists; and at this tribunal we try barbarism, and find it to be wrong, because it conduces to the misery and degradation of men. At this tribunal, we find civilization to be right, because it conduces to the happiness and welfare of mankind. This being so (and the man who denies it, is a barbarian), it follows, that civilization, carrying with it the preponderating elements of right and justice, holds a just and hereditary control over barbarism, which is wrong. When we assert, therefore, the right of slavery, because it is just that barbarism shall subserve civilization, we only say it is just that wrong should subserve right;--a proposition, which, certainly, ought to commend itself to the common sense, the intellect, and the conscience of every good man.

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.

It will not do for men to pretend that they do not know which is right and which is wrong; what is civilization and what is barbarism. The exception for the rule is as proper to adopt in the one case as in the other. We cannot condemn civilization for the incidents of bad government in some cases, false religion in others, and crime in others, when the general tenor of civilization is to protect the weak against the strong, give security to life and property, and by developing the intellect and cultivating the moral faculties, elevate and ennoble the race. Neither can we acquit barbarism if it affords occasional instances of immoderate instinct, closely approximating to intellect, or even intellect itself, and moral worth, or the absence of ferocity, or the presence of positive amiability, render it possible that the barbarian is not a fiend, or that he may be schooled to tolerable docility, while the general tenor of barbarism is to wrong, cruelty, violence, and self-annihilation.

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.