In what way would they treat
the ruined owners of the slaves, and the acres of land which would
lie uncultivated?
Of all subjects with which a man may be called on
to deal, it is the most difficult. But a New England abolitionist
talks of it as though no more were required than an open path for
his humanitarian energies. "I could arrange it all to-morrow
morning," a gentleman said to me, who is well known for his zeal in
this cause!
Arrange it all to-morrow morning - abolition of slavery having become
a fact during the night! I should not envy that gentleman his
morning's work. It was bad enough with us; but what were our
numbers compared with those of the Southern States? We paid a price
for the slaves, but no price is to be paid in this case. The value
of the property would probably be lowly estimated at 100l. a piece
for men, women, and children, or 4,000,000l. sterling for the whole
population. They form the wealth of the South; and if they were
bought, what should be done with them? They are like children.
Every slaveowner in the country - every man who has had aught to do
with slaves - will tell the same story. In Maryland and Delaware are
men who hate slavery, who would be only too happy to enfranchise
their slaves; but the negroes who have been slaves are not fit for
freedom. In many cases, practically, they cannot be enfranchised.
Give them their liberty, starting them well in the world at what
expense you please, and at the end of six months they will come back
upon your hands for the means of support. Everything must be done
for them. They expect food and clothes, and instruction as to every
simple act of life, as do children. The negro domestic servant is
handy at his own work; no servant more so; but he cannot go beyond
that. He does not comprehend the object and purport of continued
industry. If he have money, he will play with it - he will amuse
himself with it. If he have none, he will amuse himself without it.
His work is like a school-boy's task; he knows it must be done, but
never comprehends that the doing of it is the very end and essence
of his life. He is a child in all things, and the extent of
prudential wisdom to which he ever attains is to disdain
emancipation and cling to the security of his bondage. It is true
enough that slavery has been a curse. Whatever may have been its
effect on the negroes, it has been a deadly curse upon the white
masters.
The preaching of abolition during the war is to me either the
deadliest of sins or the vainest of follies. Its only immediate
result possible would be servile insurrection. That is so
manifestly atrocious, a wish for it would be so hellish, that I do
not presume the preachers of abolition to entertain it. But if that
be not meant, it must be intended that an act of emancipation should
be carried throughout the slave States - either in their separation
from the North, or after their subjection and consequent reunion
with the North. As regards the States while in secession, the North
cannot operate upon their slaves any more than England can operate
on the slaves of Cuba. But if a reunion is to be a precursor of
emancipation, surely that reunion should be first effected. A
decision in the Northern and Western mind on such a subject cannot
assist in obtaining that reunion, but must militate against the
practicability of such an object. This is so well understood that
Mr. Lincoln and his government do not dare to call themselves
abolitionists.*
* President Lincoln has proposed a plan for the emancipation of
slaves in the border States, which gives compensation to the owners.
His doing so proves that he regards present emancipation in the Gulf
States as quite out of the question. It also proves that he looks
forward to the recovery of the border States for the North, but that
he does not look forward to the recovery of the Gulf States.
Abolition, in truth, is a political cry. It is the banner of
defiance opposed to secession. As the differences between the North
and South have grown with years, and have swelled to the proportions
of national antipathy, Southern nullification has amplified itself
into secession, and Northern free-soil principles have burst into
this growth of abolition. Men have not calculated the results.
Charming pictures are drawn for you of the negro in a state of
Utopian bliss, owning his own hoe and eating his own hog; in a
paradise, where everything is bought and sold, except his wife, his
little ones, and himself. But the enfranchised negro has always
thrown away his hoe, has eaten any man's hog but his own, and has
too often sold his daughter for a dollar when any such market has
been open to him.
I confess that this cry of abolition has been made peculiarly
displeasing to me by the fact that the Northern abolitionist is by
no means willing to give even to the negro who is already free that
position in the world which alone might tend to raise him in the
scale of human beings - if anything can so raise him and make him fit
for freedom. The abolitionists hold that the negro is the white
man's equal. I do not. I see, or think that I see, that the negro
is the white man's inferior through laws of nature. That he is not
mentally fit to cope with white men - I speak of the full-blooded
negro - and that he must fill a position simply servile. But the
abolitionist declares him to be the white man's equal. But yet,
when he has him at his elbow, he treats him with a scorn which even
the negro can hardly endure.
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