Cheered By No One Single Motive That Can Impel The Will, Or
Excite Their Efforts; Nothing But Terrors And Punishments
Are
presented to them; death is denounced if they run away; horrid
delaceration if they speak with their native freedom;
Perpetually
awed by the terrible cracks of whips, or by the fear of capital
punishments, while even those punishments often fail of their
purpose.
A clergyman settled a few years ago at George-Town, and feeling as I
do now, warmly recommended to the planters, from the pulpit, a
relaxation of severity; he introduced the benignity of Christianity,
and pathetically made use of the admirable precepts of that system
to melt the hearts of his congregation into a greater degree of
compassion toward their slaves than had been hitherto customary;
"Sir," said one of his hearers, "we pay you a genteel salary to read
to us the prayers of the liturgy, and to explain to us such parts of
the Gospel as the rule of the church directs; but we do not want you
to teach us what we are to do with our blacks." The clergyman found
it prudent to withhold any farther admonition. Whence this
astonishing right, or rather this barbarous custom, for most
certainly we have no kind of right beyond that of force? We are
told, it is true, that slavery cannot be so repugnant to human
nature as we at first imagine, because it has been practised in all
ages, and in all nations: the Lacedemonians themselves, those great
assertors of liberty, conquered the Helotes with the design of
making them their slaves; the Romans, whom we consider as our
masters in civil and military policy, lived in the exercise of the
most horrid oppression; they conquered to plunder and to enslave.
What a hideous aspect the face of the earth must then have
exhibited! Provinces, towns, districts, often depopulated! their
inhabitants driven to Rome, the greatest market in the world, and
there sold by thousands! The Roman dominions were tilled by the
hands of unfortunate people, who had once been, like their victors,
free, rich, and possessed of every benefit society can confer; until
they became subject to the cruel right of war, and to lawless force.
Is there then no superintending power who conducts the moral
operations of the world, as well as the physical? The same sublime
hand which guides the planets round the sun with so much exactness,
which preserves the arrangement of the whole with such exalted
wisdom and paternal care, and prevents the vast system from falling
into confusion; doth it abandon mankind to all the errors, the
follies, and the miseries, which their most frantic rage, and their
most dangerous vices and passions can produce?
The history of the earth! doth it present anything but crimes of the
most heinous nature, committed from one end of the world to the
other? We observe avarice, rapine, and murder, equally prevailing in
all parts. History perpetually tells us of millions of people
abandoned to the caprice of the maddest princes, and of whole
nations devoted to the blind fury of tyrants. Countries destroyed;
nations alternately buried in ruins by other nations; some parts of
the world beautifully cultivated, returned again to the pristine
state; the fruits of ages of industry, the toil of thousands in a
short time destroyed by a few! If one corner breathes in peace for a
few years, it is, in turn subjected, torn, and levelled; one would
almost believe the principles of action in man, considered as the
first agent of this planet, to be poisoned in their most essential
parts. We certainly are not that class of beings which we vainly
think ourselves to be; man an animal of prey, seems to have rapine
and the love of bloodshed implanted in his heart; nay, to hold it
the most honourable occupation in society: we never speak of a hero
of mathematics, a hero of knowledge of humanity; no, this
illustrious appellation is reserved for the most successful butchers
of the world. If Nature has given us a fruitful soil to inhabit, she
has refused us such inclinations and propensities as would afford us
the full enjoyment of it. Extensive as the surface of this planet
is, not one half of it is yet cultivated, not half replenished; she
created man, and placed him either in the woods or plains, and
provided him with passions which must for ever oppose his happiness;
everything is submitted to the power of the strongest; men, like the
elements, are always at war; the weakest yield to the most potent;
force, subtlety, and malice, always triumph over unguarded honesty
and simplicity. Benignity, moderation, and justice, are virtues
adapted only to the humble paths of life: we love to talk of virtue
and to admire its beauty, while in the shade of solitude and
retirement; but when we step forth into active life, if it happen to
be in competition with any passion or desire, do we observe it to
prevail? Hence so many religious impostors have triumphed over the
credulity of mankind, and have rendered their frauds the creeds of
succeeding generations, during the course of many ages; until worn
away by time, they have been replaced by new ones. Hence the most
unjust war, if supported by the greatest force, always succeeds;
hence the most just ones, when supported only by their justice, as
often fail. Such is the ascendancy of power; the supreme arbiter of
all the revolutions which we observe in this planet: so irresistible
is power, that it often thwarts the tendency of the most forcible
causes, and prevents their subsequent salutary effects, though
ordained for the good of man by the Governor of the universe. Such
is the perverseness of human nature; who can describe it in all its
latitude?
In the moments of our philanthropy we often talk of an indulgent
nature, a kind parent, who for the benefit of mankind has taken
singular pains to vary the genera of plants, fruits, grain, and the
different productions of the earth; and has spread peculiar
blessings in each climate.
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