Such Has Not Been Our Experience Of Any Slave
Country; Such Has Not Been Our Experience Of Any Tropical Country;
And Such Especially Has Not Been Our Experience Of The Southern
States Of The North American Union.
I am no abolitionist, but to me
it seems impossible that any Englishman should really advocate the
cause of slavery against the cause of free soil.
There are the
slaves, and I know that they cannot be abolished - neither they nor
their chains; but, for myself, I will not willingly join my lot with
theirs. I do not wish to have dealings with the African negro,
either as a free man or as a slave, if I can avoid them, believing
that his employment by me in either capacity would lead to my own
degradation.* Such, I think, are the feelings of Englishmen
generally on this matter. And if such be the case, will it not be
acknowledged that the Northern men have done well to fight for a
line which shall add five or six States to that Union which will in
truth be a union of free men, rather than to that confederacy which,
even if successful, must owe its success to slavery?
* In saying this I fear that I shall be misunderstood, let me use
what foot note or other mode of protestation I may to guard myself.
In thus speaking of the African negro, I do not venture to despise
the work of God's hands. That He has made the negro, for His own
good purposes, as He has the Esquimaux, I am aware. And I am aware
that it is my duty, as it is the duty of us all, to see that no
injury be done to him, and, if possible, to assist him in his
condition. When I declare that I desire no dealings with the negro,
I speak of him in the position in which I now find him, either as a
free servant or a slave. In either position he impedes the
civilization and the progress of the white man.
In considering this matter it must be remembered that the five or
six States of which we are speaking are at present slave States, but
that, with the exception of Virginia - of part only of Virginia - they
are not wedded to slavery. But even in Virginia - great as has been
the gain which has accrued to that unhappy State from the breeding
of slaves for the Southern market - even in Virginia slavery would
soon die out if she were divided from the South and joined to the
North. In those other States, in Maryland, in Kentucky, and in
Missouri, there is no desire to perpetuate the institution. They
have been slave States, and as such have resented the rabid
abolition of certain Northern orators. Had it not been for those
orators, and their oratory, the soil of Kentucky would now have been
free. Those five or six States are now slave States; but a line of
secession drawn south of them will be the line which cuts off
slavery from the North.
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