Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments / Comprising the Writings of Hammond, Harper, Christy, Stringfellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, and Cartrwright on this Important Subject

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[1] Strange that we should be compelled to call those border States, which lie in the very midst of our Union.

[2] Randall's Life of Jefferson, vol. i. page 370.

[3] Randall's Life of Jefferson, vol. i. page 370, Note.

[4] That Mr. Jefferson was considered as having no settled plans or views in relation to the disposal of the blacks, and that he was disinclined to risk the disturbance of the harmony of the country for the sake of the negro, appears evident from the opinions entertained of him and his schemes by John Quincy Adams. After speaking of the zeal of Mr. Jefferson, and the strong manner in which, at times, he had spoken against slavery, Mr. Adams says: "But Jefferson had not the spirit of martyrdom. He would have introduced a flaming denunciation of slavery into the Declaration of Independence, but the discretion of his colleagues struck it out. He did insert a most eloquent and impassioned argument against it in his Notes on Virginia; but, on that very account, the book was published almost against his will. He projected a plan of general emancipation, in his revision of the Virginia laws, but finally presented a plan leaving slavery precisely where it was; and, in his Memoir, he leaves a posthumous warning to the planters that they must, at no distant day, emancipate their slaves, or that worse will follow; but he withheld the publication of his prophecy till he should himself be in the grave."—Life of J. Q. Adams, page 177, 178.

[5] See a more extended detail of the proceedings in relation to this subject, both in England and the colonies, in the Appendix.

[6] Providence, Rhode Island.

[7] See Table I, Appendix.

[8] The sentiment of the Colonization Society, was expressed in the following resolution, embraced in its annual report of 1826:

"Resolved,—That the society disclaims, in the most unqualified terms, the design attributed to it, of interfering, on the one hand, with the legal rights and obligations of slavery; and, on the other, of perpetuating its existence within the limits of the country."

On another occasion Mr. Clay, on behalf of the society, defined its position thus:

"It protested, from the commencement, and throughout all its progress, and it now protests, that it entertains no purpose, on its own authority, or by its own means, to attempt emancipation, partial or general; that it knows the General Government has no constitutional power to achieve such an object; that it believes that the States, and the States only, which tolerate slavery, can accomplish the work of emancipation; and that it ought to be left to them exclusively, absolutely, and voluntarily, to decide the question."—Tenth Annual Report, p. 14, 1828.

[9] Gerrit Smith, 1835.

[10] Lundy's Life.

[11] On the floor of an Ecclesiastical Assembly, one minister pronounced colonization "a dead horse;" while another claimed that his "old mare was giving freedom to more slaves, by trotting off with them to Canada, than the Colonization Society was sending of emigrants to Liberia."

[12] This portion of the work is left unchanged, and the statistics of the increase of slave labor products, up to 1859, introduced elsewhere.

[13] Deuteronomy, xxxii. 32, 33.

[14] See Appendix, Table I.

[15] It may be well here to illustrate this point, by an extract from McQueen, of England, in 1844, when this highly intelligent gentleman was urging upon his government the great necessity which existed for securing to itself, as speedily as possible, the control of the labor and the products of tropical Africa. In reference to the benefits which had been derived from her West India colonies, before the suppression of the slave trade and the emancipation of the slaves had rendered them comparatively unproductive, he said: "During the fearful struggle of a quarter of a century, for her existence as a nation, against the power and resources of Europe, directed by the most intelligent but remorseless military ambition against her, the command of the productions of the torrid zone, and the advantageous commerce which that afforded, gave to Great Britain the power and the resources which enabled her to meet, to combat, and to overcome, her numerous and reckless enemies in every battle-field, whether by sea or land, throughout the world. In her the world saw realized the fabled giant of antiquity. With her hundred hands she grasped her foes in every region under heaven, and crushed them with resistless energy."

In further presenting the considerations which he considered necessary to secure the adoption of the policy he was urging, Mr. McQueen referred to the difficulties which were then surrounding Great Britain, and the extent to which rival nations had surpassed her in tropical cultivation. He continued: "The increased cultivation and prosperity of foreign tropical possessions is become so great, and is advancing so rapidly the power and resources of other nations, that these are embarrassing this country, (England,) in all her commercial relations, in her pecuniary resources, and in all her political relations and negotiations." ...... "Instead of supplying her own wants with tropical productions, and next nearly all Europe, as she formerly did, she had scarcely enough, of some of the most important articles, for her own consumption, while her colonies were mostly supplied with foreign slave produce." ...... "In the mean time tropical productions had been increased from $75,000,000, to $300,000,000 annually. The English capital invested in tropical productions in the East and West Indies, had been, by emancipation in the latter, reduced from $750,000,000, to $650,000,000; while, since 1808, on the part of foreign nations $4,000,000,000 of fixed capital had been created in slaves and in cultivation wholly dependent upon the labor of slaves." The odds, therefore, in agricultural and commercial capital and interest, and consequently in political power and influence, arrayed against the British tropical possessions, were very fearful—six to one. This will be better understood by giving the figures on the subject. The contrast is very striking, and reveals the secret of England's untiring zeal about slavery and the slave trade. Indeed, Mr. McQueen frankly acknowledges, that "If the foreign slave trade be not extinguished, and the cultivation of the tropical territories of other powers opposed and checked by British tropical cultivation, then the interests and the power of such states will rise into a preponderance over those of Great Britain; and the power and the influence of the latter will cease to be felt, feared and respected, amongst the civilized and powerful nations of the world."

But here are the figures upon which this humiliating acknowledgement is made. The productions of the tropical possessions of Great Britain and foreign countries, respectively, at the period alluded to by Mr. McQueen, and as given by himself, stood as follows:

Sugar—1842.

British Possessions.			Foreign countries.
West Indies,	cwts.	2,508,552	Cuba,	cwts.	5,800,000
East Indies,	"	940,452	Brazil,	"	2,400,000
Mauritius,(1841)	"	544,767	Java,	"	1,105,757
	Total	3,993,771	Louisiana,	"	1,400,000
				Total	10,705,757

Coffee—1842.

West Indies,	lbs.	9,186,555	Java,	lbs.	134,842,715
East Indies,	"	18,206,448	Brazil,	"	135,000,800
	Total	27,393,003	Cuba,	"	33,589,325
			Venezuela,	"	34,000,000
				Total	337,432,840

Cotton—1840.

West Indies,	lbs.	427,529	United States,	lbs.	790,479,275
East Indies,	"	77,015,917	Java,	"	165,504,800
To China from do.	"	60,000,000	Brazil,	"	25,222,828
	Total	137,443,446		Total	981,206,903

[16] See Appendix, Table II.

[17] Table III. For Statistics up to 1859, see chapter VI. and Appendix.

[18] See Appendix, Table II.

[19] Paganism has, long since, attained its maximum in agricultural industry, and the introduction of Christian civilization, into India, can, alone, lead to an increase of its productions for export.

[20] 1839.

[21] England and Slavery.—In the London Times of October 7th, 1858, there is a long and very able and candid article on the subject of cotton. The proportions of the article used by different nations are thus stated:

Great Britain,	51.28
France,	13.24
Northern Europe,	6.84
Other foreign ports,	5.91
Consumption of the U. S.,	23.58

Thus it appears that England uses more of the raw material than all the rest of the world. After giving the great facts the writer uses the following language:

"An advance of one pence per pound on the price of American cotton is welcomed by the slave-owner of the Southern States as supplying him with the sinews of war for the struggle now waging with the Northern abolitionists. This mere advance of one pence on our present annual consumption is equivalent to an annual subscription of sixteen millions of dollars toward the maintainance of American slavery."—American Missionary.

[22] See the speech of the Hon. Gerrit Smith, on the "Kansas-Nebraska Bill," in which he asserts, that the invention of the Cotton Gin fastened slavery upon the country; and that, but for its invention, slavery would long since have disappeared.

[23] This is only the consumption north of Virginia.

[24] This estimate is probably too low, being taken from the census of 1850. The exports of cottons for 1850 were $4,734,424; and for 1353, $8,768,894; having nearly doubled in four years.

[25] These figures were taken from the official documents for the first edition. They vary a little from the revised documents from which Table VII is taken, but not so as to affect our argument.

[26] See Table VII, in Appendix.

[27] See Table VI, in Appendix; and in this connection it may be explained that the crop year ends August 31st.

[28] See Table II, in Appendix. We have of course to limit our statements in relation to some of these amounts to the figures used in the first edition, because they can only be ascertained from the census tables of 1850. While it will be found that the exports of bread-stuffs and provisions have increased considerably, it will be seen from Table VIII that it is not in a greater ratio than the exports of cotton and tobacco. To show that the statement as it stands was a fair one at the time, it is only necessary for the reader to look at the last named table to see that the three years preceding 1853 exported considerably less than that year.

[29] See Table III, Appendix.

[30] These estimates have not been recast and adapted to 1859, for the third edition, because, as will be seen from Tables VII, VIII and X, there has been no great change in the amount of these commodities consumed since 1853.

[31] This includes the period from 1806 to 1826, though the decline began a few years before the latter date.

[32] Benton's Thirty Year's View.

[33] The Tariff of 1846, under which our imports are now made, approximates the Free Trade principles very closely.

[34] These figures are taken from a part of the Economist's article not copied. For the difference between the imports from India, in the whole of the years 1850 to 1855, see Table I.

[35] The commercial year is five days shorter for 1855 than in former years.

[36] See Table VIII, in Appendix.

[37] Compendium of United States Census, 1850.

[38] Mr. C. Buxton, in Edinburgh Review, April, 1859.

[39] Parliamentary Papers, Population Returns for the West Indies, (of course the decrease by manumission is not included.)

[40] Mr. C. Buxton, in Edinburgh Review, April, 1859, from which these extracts are made.

[41] North British Review, August, 1848.

[42] This point will be examined more fully in a subsequent chapter.

[43] Mr. C. Buxton, in Edinburgh Review, April, 1859.

[44] London Economist, Feb. 12, 1859.

[45] See African Repository, October, 1859.

[46] See African Repository, October, 1859.

[47] The progressive increase is indicated by the following figures:

	1820.	1830.	1840.	1853.
Total slaves in United States,	1,538,098	2,009,043	2,487,356	3,296,408
Cotton exported, lbs.,	127,800,000	298,459,102	743,941,061	1,111,570,370
Average export to each slave, lbs.,	83	143	295	337

[48] The remarks in this chapter remain as they were in the first edition.

[49] Mr. Wilson, the Missionary at St. Catharines, still remained there, but not under the care of the Association.

[50] 11th Annual Report, pages 36, 37.

[51] American Missionary, October, 1858.

[52] African Repository, October, 1859.

[53] African Repository, January, 1858.

[54] Page 170.

[55] Extract from the report of a missionary, quoted in the Report, page 172.

[56] Extract from the report of another missionary, page 171, of the Report.

[57] The average exports from the Island of Jamaica, omitting cotton, during the three epochs referred to—that of the slave trade, of slavery alone, and of freedom—for periods of five years, during the first two, and for the three years separately, in the last, will give a full view of this point:

	Years of Exports.	lbs. Sugar.	P. Rum. lbs.	Coffee.
Annual average,	1803 to 1807,[A]	211,139,200	50,426	23,625,377
Annual average,	1829 to 1833,[A]	152,564,800	35,505	17,645,602
Annual average,	1839 to 1843,[A]	67,924,800	14,185	7,412,498
Annual exports,	1846,[B]	57,956,800	14,395	6,047,150
Annual exports,	1847,[B]	77,686,400	18,077	6,421,122
Annual exports,	1848.[B]	67,539,200	20,194	5,684,921

[A] Blackwood's Magazine 1848, p. 225.

[B] Littel's Living Age, 1850, No. 309, p. 125.—Letter of Mr. Bigelow.

[58] Macgregor, London ed., 1847.

[59] De Bow's Review, August, 1855.

[60] Macgregor, London ed., 1847.

[61] Ibid.

[62] De Bow's Review, 1855.

[63] 1800.

[64] 1840.

[65] 1847.

[66] American Missionary Association's Report, 1857, p. 32.

[67] The West Indies as they were and are—Edinburgh Review, April, 1859.—The article said to be by Mr. C. Buxton.

[68] The statement was made at a meeting which met to consider the evils of the Chinese and coolie system of immigration into the West Indies and Mauritius. It is not stated whether the amounts given are the whole production or only the exports.

[69] The reader will remember that the Emancipation Act, of 1833, left the West India blacks in the relation of apprentices to their masters, but that the system worked so badly that total emancipation was declared in 1838.

[70] They must refer to slavery in its later years, after the suppression of the slave trade. Previous to that event, the production of Jamaica was more than seventy-five per cent. greater than at present.

[71] See Table IV, Appendix.

[72] See Table V, Appendix.

[73] Rev. Mr. Phillippo, for twenty years a missionary in Jamaica, in his "Jamaica, its Past and Present Condition."

[74] New York Evangelist, 1858.

[75] New York Observer, March, 1856.

[76] Lynchburgh (Va.) Courier, quoted by African Repository, January, 1858.

[77] Southern Monitor, quoted by African Repository, January, 1858.

[78] Express—Ibid.

[79] Synod of Virginia, quoted by African Repository, 1858.

[80] Quoted in African Repository, April, 1858.

[81] The Methodist Episcopal Church North, in 1858, had a total of 22,326 of colored members, in all the States.

[82] Page 102.

[83] American Missionary, July, 1859.

[84] Matthew's Gospel, xv: 14.

[85] "A Subaltern's Furlough," by Lt. Coke, 45th Regiment, being a description of scenes in various parts of America, in 1833.

[86] Clarkson's History of the Slave Trade.

[87] Wadstrom, page 220.

[88] Memoirs of Granville Sharp.

[89] The testimony here offered is the more important, as the Western District is the center of emigration from the United States.

[90] The Hon. Mr. Harrison was one of the candidates at the time alluded to.

[91] See the resolution copied into the Preface to the present edition.

[92] This is the phrase, nearly verbatim, used by Mr. Sumner in his speech on the Fugitive Slave Bill. Language, a little more to the point, is used in "The Friendly Remonstrance of the People of Scotland, on the Subject of Slavery," published in the American Missionary, September, 1855. In depicting slavery it speaks of it as a system "which robs its victims of the fruits of their toil."

[93] An anecdote, illustrative of the pliability of some consciences, of this apparently rigid class, where interest or inclination demands it, has often been told by the late Governor Morrow, of Ohio. An old Scotch "Cameronian," in Eastern Pennsylvania, became a widower, shortly after the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. He refused to acknowledge either the National or State Government, but pronounced them both unlawful, unrighteous, and ungodly. Soon he began to feel the want of a wife, to care for his motherless children. The consent of a woman in his own Church was gained, because to take any other would have been like an Israelite marrying a daughter of the land of Canaan. On this point, as in refusing to swear allegiance to Government, he was controlled by conscience. But now a practical difficulty presented itself. There was no minister of his Church in the country—and those of other denominations, in his judgment, had no Divine warrant for exercising the functions of the sacred office. He repudiated the whole of them. But how to get married, that was the problem. He tried to persuade his intended to agree to a marriage contract, before witnesses, which could be confirmed whenever a proper minister should arrive from Scotland. But his "lady-love" would not consent to the plan. She must be married "like other folk," or not at all—because "people would talk so." The Scotchman for want of a wife, like Great Britain for want of cotton, saw very plainly that his children must suffer; and so he resolved to get married at all hazards, as England buys her cotton, but so as not to violate conscience. Proceeding with his intended to a magistrate's office, the ceremony was soon performed, and they twain pronounced "one flesh." But no sooner had he "kissed the bride," the sealing act of the contract at that day, than the good Cameronian drew a written document from his pocket, which he read aloud before the officer and witnesses; and in which he entered his solemn protest against the authority of the Government of the United States, against that of the State of Pennsylvania, and especially against the power, right, and lawfulness of the acts of the magistrate who had just married him. This done, he went his way, rejoicing that he had secured a wife without recognizing the lawfulness of ungodly governments, or violating his conscience.

[94] National Intelligencer, 1854.

[95] Psalm 1: 16, 18.

[96] See Table XII, in Appendix.

[97] See Speech of Edmund Burke, in Appendix.

[98] See Table VIII, in Appendix.

[99] It has been denied that "Cotton is King," and claimed that Hay is entitled to that royal appellation; because its estimated value exceeds that of Cotton. The imperial character of Cotton rests upon the fact, that it enters so largely into the manufactures, trade, and commerce of the world, while hay is only in demand at home.

[100] See Table XII in Appendix, for the statistics on this subject.

[101] See Table VIII, in Appendix.

[102] See Table XII.

[103] This paper is published at Kingston, Jamaica, and in confirmation of the views of the London Economist, quoted in the body of the work, the following extract is copied from its columns:

"Barbadoes, we all know, is prosperous because she possesses a native population almost as dense as that of China, with a very limited extent of superficial soil. In Barbadoes, therefore, population presses on the means of subsistence, in the same way, if not to the same extent, as in England, and the people are industrious from necessity. Trinidad and British Guiana, on the other hand, have taken steps to produce this pressure artificially, by large importations of foreign labor. The former colony, by the importation of eleven thousand coolies, has trebled her crops since 1854, while the latter has doubled hers by the introduction of twenty-three thousand immigrants.

"While Jamaica is the single instance of retrogression, she affords also the solitary example of non-immigration.

"Mauritius, by importing something like one hundred and seventy thousand laborers, has increased her exports of sugar from 70,000,000 lbs. in 1844, to 250,000,000 lbs. in 1858. Jamaica, by depending wholly on native labor, has fallen from an export of 69,000 hhds. in 1848, to one of 28,000 hhds. in 1859.

"It is believed that there are not at this moment above twenty thousand laborers who employ themselves in sugar cultivation for wages."

[104] Martin's British Colonies. See also Ethiopia, by the author, page 132, for full details on this question.

[105] The hhd. of sugar, as in Martin's tables, is here estimated at 1,600 lbs. See foot note on page 222.

[106] See American Archives, vol i. folio 1749.

[107] His estimates are in pounds sterling. It is here, for sake of uniformity, reduced to dollars, the pound being estimated at five dollars.

[108] Investigations before the Committee on the Petition of the West India Planters. See American Archives, vol i. folio 1736.

[109] American Archives, vol. i. folio 1519.

[110] American Archives, vol. i. folio 1531.

[111] Testimony of Geo. Walker, Esq, American Archives, vol. i. folios 1723-24.

[112] Testimony of Geo. Walker, Esq, American Archives, vol. i. folios 1728-29,

[113] Testimony of Geo. Walker, Esq, American Archives, vol. i. folio 1730.

[114] American Archives, vol i. folio 1737.

[115] American Archives, vol. i. folio 494.

[116] American Archives, vol. i. folio 523.

[117] American Archives, vol. i. folio 525.

[118] American Archives, vol. i. folio 530.

[119] American Archives, vol. i. folio 541.

[120] American Archives, vol. i. folio 593.

[121] American Archives, vol. i. folio 600.

[122] American Archives, vol. i. folio 616.

[123] American Archives, vol. i. folio 641.

[124] American Archives, vol. i. folio 687.

[125] American Archives, vol. i. folio 735.

[126] American Archives, vol. i. folio 914.

[127] American Archives, vol i. folio 573.

[128] American Archives, 4th series, vol. iii. folio 11.

[129] American Archives, 5th series, vol. i. folio 1178.

[130] American Archives, 5th series, vol. i. folio 192.

[131] American Archives, 4th series, vol. iii. folio 1385.

[132] Decrease.

[133] Not organized in 1840.

[134] Not organized in 1850.

[135] The London Economist, from which we copy, observes, that the figures in this table differ slightly from some other estimates, as must be the case in all computations that are not official, but that from examination it has reason to think them as near the truth as any practical object can require. The quantities consumed in each country include the direct imports from the producing countries, as well as the indirect imports, chiefly from England. The consumption on the Continent, for 1858, was not known. January 15, 1859, the date of publication of the Economist. The bales are estimated at 400 lbs. each.

[136] Locke on Civil Government, chap. ii.

[137] Robert Hall.

[138] Political Philosophy, chap. v.

[139] Reflections on the Revolution in France.

[140] Locke on Civil Government, chap. ix.

[141] Chap. ii. § x.

[142] Channing's Works, vol. ii. p. 126.

[143] Elements of Moral Science, Part ii. chap. i. sec. 11.

[144] Moral Science, Part ii. chap. i. sec. 2.

[145] Letters on Slavery, p. 89.

[146] Ibid, p. 92.

[147] Letters, p. 50.

[148] Letters, p. 50.

[149] Letters, p. 50.

[150] Letters, p. 113.

[151] Moral Science, Part ii. chap. i. sec. 2.

[152] Letters, p. 119, 120.

[153] Moral Science Part ii. chap. i. sec. 2.

[154] Moral Science, Part ii. chap. i. sec. 2.

[155] Ibid.

[156] The Italics are our own.

[157] Lev. chap. xxv.

[158] Exod. chap. xxi.

[159] In the first chapter.

[160] Mr. Chase, of Ohio.

[161] "By nature," in the Original Bill of Rights.

[162] Mr. Seward, of New York.

[163] Lev. xxv. 44, 45, 56.

[164] Lev. xxv. 44, 45, 46.

[165] Exod. xxi. 20, 21.

[166] Exod. xxi. 7, 8.

[167] Deut. xxiii. 15, 16.

[168] Moses Stewart, a divine of Massachusetts, who had devoted a long and laborious life to the interpretation of Scripture, and who was by no means a friend to the institution of slavery.

[169] Speech in the Metropolitan Theatre, 1855.

[170] Speech at the Metropolitan Theatre, 1855.

[171] Fools may hope to escape responsibility by such a cry. But if there be any truth in moral science, than every man should examine and decide, or else forbear to act.

[172] The Italics are ours.

[173] The emphasis is ours.

[174] Elliott on Slavery, vol. i. p. 205.

[175] Life of Joseph John Gurney, vol. ii. p. 214.

[176] Bigelow's Notes on Jamaica in 1850, as quoted in Carey's "Slave Trade, Foreign and Domestic."

[177] Quoted by Mr. Carey.

[178] Carey's Slave Trade.

[179] "The West Indies and North America," by Robt. Baird, A. M., p. 145.

[180] "The West Indies and North America," by Robt. Baird, A. M., p. 143.

[181] The Corentyne.

[182] East bank of the Berbice River.

[183] West bank of the Berbice River.

[184] West coast of Berbice River.

[185] Quoted in Carey's Slave Trade.

[186] Gurney's Letters on the West Indies.

[187] Ibid.

[188] Ibid.

[189] Dr. Channing.

[190] We moot a higher question: Is he fit for the pulpit,—for that great conservative power by which religion, and morals, and freedom, must be maintained among us? "I do not believe," he declares, in one of his sermons, "the miraculous origin of the Hebrew church, or the Buddhist church, or of the Christian church, nor the miraculous character of Jesus. I take not the Bible for my master—nor yet the church—nor even Jesus of Nazareth for my master...... He is my best historic ideal of human greatness; not without errors—not without the stain of his times, and I presume, of course, not without sins; for men without sins exist in the dreams of girls." Thus, the truth of all miracles is denied; and the faith of the Christian world, in regard to the sinless character of Jesus, is set down by this very modest divine as the dream of girls! Yet he believes that half a million of men were, by the British act of emancipation, turned from slaves into freemen! That is to say, he does not believe in the miracles of the gospel; he only believes in the miracles of abolitionism. Hence, we ask, is he fit for the pulpit,—for the sacred desk,—for any holy thing?

[191] See extract, p. 156.

[192] Spirit of Laws, vol. i. book xv. chap. vii.

[193] Spirit of Laws, vol. i. book xv. chap. viii.

[194] The emphasis is ours.

[195] See pages 155, and 159, 160.

[196] See chap. i. § 2.

[197] Works, vol. v. p. 63.

[198] See chap. i. § 2.

[199] We have in the above remark done Boston some injustice. For New York has furnished the Robespierre, and Massachusetts only the Brissot, of "les Amis des Noirs" in America.

[200] This reply is sometimes attributed to Robespierre and sometimes to Brissot; it is probable that in substance it was made by both of these bloody compeers in the cause of abolitionism.

[201] See Alison's History of Europe, vol. ii. p. 241.

[202] EncyclopÆdia of Geo. vol. iii. pp. 302, 303.

[203] Prov. xxx. 22.

[204] Encyc. of Geo., vol. iii. p. 303. Mackenzie's St. Domingo, vol. ii. pp. 260, 321.

[205] Franklin's Present State of Hayti, etc., p. 265.

[206] Dr. Channing's Works, vol. v. p. 47.

[207] April No., 1855.

[208] Dr. Channing's Works, vol. vi. p. 50, 51.

[209] On this point, see page 176.

[210] XIV. Wendell, Jack v. Martin, p. 528

[211] XIV. Wendell's Reports, Jack v. Martin.

[212] In asserting that freedom is national, Mr. Sumner may perhaps mean that it is the duty of the National Government to exclude slavery from all its territories, and to admit no new State in which there are slaves. If this be his meaning, we should reply, that it is as foreign from the merits of the Fugitive Slave Law, which he proposed to discuss, as it is from the truth. The National Government has, indeed, no more power to exclude, than it has to ordain, slavery; for slavery or no slavery is a question which belongs wholly and exclusively to the sovereign people of each and every State or territory. With our whole hearts we respond to the inspiring words of the President's Message: "If the friends of the Constitution are to have another struggle, its enemies could not present a more acceptable issue than that of a State, whose Constitution clearly embraces a republican form of government, being excluded from the Union because its domestic institutions may not, in all respects, comport with the ideas of what is wise and expedient entertained in some other State."

[213] Chap. ii § x.

[214] Madison Papers, p. 1448.

[215] One member seems to have been absent from the House.

[216] Annals of Congress; 2d Congress, 1791-1793, p. 861.

[217] This error was by no means a capital one.

[218] Speech in the Senate, in 1855.

[219] Speech in Boston, October 3d, 1850.

[220] Mr. Sumner has a great deal to say, in his speech, about "the memory of the fathers." When their sentiments agree with his own, or only seem to him to do so, then they are "the demi-gods of history." But only let these demi-gods cross his path or come into contact with his fanatical notions, and instantly they sink into sordid knaves. The framers of the Constitution of the United States, says he, made "a compromise, which cannot be mentioned without shame. It was that hateful bargain by which Congress was restrained until 1808 from the prohibition of the foreign slave trade, thus securing, down to that period, toleration for crime." .... "The effrontery of slaveholders was matched by the sordidness of the Eastern members." .... "The bargain was struck, and at this price the Southern States gained the detestable indulgence. At a subsequent day, Congress branded the slave trade as piracy, and thus, by solemn legislative act, adjudged this compromise to be felonious and wicked."

But for this compromise, as every one who has read the history of the times perfectly well knows, no union could have been formed, and the slave trade might have been carried on to the present day. By this compromise, then, the Convention did not tolerate crime nor the slave trade; they merely formed the Union, and, in forming it, gained the power to abolish the slave trade in twenty years. The gain of this power, which Congress had not before possessed, was considered by them as a great gain to the cause of humanity. If the Eastern members, from a blind and frantic hatred of slavery, had blasted all prospects of a union, and at the same time put the slave trade beyond their power forever, they would have imitated the wisdom of the abolitionists, who always promote the cause they seek to demolish.

If any one will read the history of the times, he will see that "the fathers," the framers of the Constitution, were, in making this very compromise, governed by the purest, the most patriotic, and the most humane, of motives. He who accuses them of corruption shows himself corrupt; especially if, like Mr. Sumner, he can laud them on one page as demi-gods, and on the very next denounce them as sordid knaves, who, for the sake of filthy lucre, could enter into a "felonious and wicked" bargain. Yet the very man who accuses them of having made so infamous and corrupt a bargain in regard to the slave trade can and does most eloquently declaim against the monstrous injustice of supposing them capable of the least act in favor of slavery!

[221] XII. Wendell, p. 314.

[222] XIV. Wendell, p. 530; XVI. Peters, p. 608.

[223] Indeed, if we had produced all the arguments in favor of the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Law, it would have carried us far beyond our limits, and swelled this single chapter into a volume.

[224] This decision of the Supreme Court, which authorizes the master to seize his fugitive slave without process, (see his speech, Appendix to Congressional Globe, vol. xxii., part 2, p. 1587,) is exceedingly offensive to Mr. Chase of Ohio; and no wonder, since the Legislature of his own State has passed a law, making it a penitentiary offense in the master who should thus prosecute his constitutional right as declared by this decision. But, in regard to this point, the Supreme Court of the United States does not stand alone. The Supreme Court of New York, in the case of Jack v. Martin, had previously said: "Whether the owner or agent might have made the arrest in the first instance without any process, we will not stop to examine; authorities of deserved respectability and weight have held the affirmative. 2 Pick. 11, 5 Serg. & Rawle, 62, and the case of Glen v. Hodges, in this court, before referred to, (in 9 Johnson,) seem to countenance the same conclusion. It would indeed appear to follow as a necessary consequence, from the undoubted position, that under this clause of the Constitution the right and title of the owner to the service of the slave is as entire and perfect within the jurisdiction of the State to which he has fled as it was in the one from which he escaped. Such seizure would be at the peril of the party; and if a freeman was taken, he would be answerable like any other trespasser or kidnapper."

[225] Story on Constitution, vol. iii. book iii., chap. xl.

[226] The framers of the Constitution in that Congress were:—"John Langdon and Nicholas Gilmer, of New Hampshire; Caleb Strong and Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts; Roger Sherman and Oliver Elsworth, of Connecticut; Rufus King, of New York; Robert Morris and Thomas Fitzsimmons, of Pennsylvania; George Reid and Richard Basset, of Delaware; Jonathan Dayton, of New Jersey; Pierce Butler, of South Carolina; Hugh Williamson, of North Carolina; William Few and Abraham Baldwin, of Georgia; and last, but not least, James Madison, of Virginia." Yet from not one of these framers of the Constitution—from not one of these illustrious guardians of freedom—was a syllable heard in regard to the right of trial by jury in connection with the Fugitive Slave Law then passed. The more pity it is, no doubt, the abolitionist will think, that neither Mr. Chase, nor Mr. Sumner, nor Mr. Seward, was there to enlighten them on the subject of trial by jury and to save the country from the infamy of such an Act. Alas! for the poor, blind fathers!

[227] This crime of kidnapping, says Mr. Chase, of Ohio, is "not unfrequent" in his section of country; that is, about Cincinnati.

[228] Appendix to Congressional Globe, vol. xxii., part ii., p. 1587.

[229] The property in slaves in the United States is their service or labor. The Constitution guarantees this property to its owner, both in apprentices and slaves. And the Supreme Court has decided, Judge Baldwin presiding, that all the means "necessary and proper" to secure this property, may be constitutionally used by the master, in the absence of all statute law. The Roman law made the slave of that law, to be, not a personal chattel, held to service or labor only, as is the American apprentice or slave, but to be a mere thing; and guaranteed to the master the right to do with that mere thing, just as he pleased. To cut it up, for instance, as the master sometimes did, to feed fishes.

Abolitionists are guilty of the inexcusable wickedness of holding up this ancient Roman slavery, as a model of American slavery; although they know that the personal rights of apprentices and slaves, are as well defined and secured, by judicial decisions and statute laws, as the rights of husband and wife, parent and child.

[230] These letters were first published in the Religious Herald, Richmond.

[231] This letter was addressed to Elder James Fife.

[232] Texas and Michigan; see also, Arkansas and Indiana, Florida and Wisconsin.

[233] President Dew's Review of the Virginia Debates on the subject of Slavery.

[234] Paulding on Slavery.

[235] I refer to President Dew on this subject.

[236] It is not uncommon, especially in Charleston, to see slaves, after many descents and having mingled their blood with the Africans, possessing Indian hair and features.

[237] The author of "England and America." We do, however, most indignantly repudiate his conclusion, that we are bound to submit to a tariff of protection, as an expedient for retaining our slaves, "the force of the whole Union being required to preserve slavery, to keep down the slaves."

[238] Fourierites, Socialists.

[239] The Irish levee and rail-road laborers are driven by blows.

[240] English papers propose this for the West India negroes.

[241] Essays of Elia.

[242] Southern Literary Messenger, for January, 1835. Note to Blackstone's Commentaries..

[243] See Missionary reports, statistics; also, Prof. Christy's Ethiopia.—Editor.

[244] Journal of an officer employed in the expedition, under the command of Captain Owen, on the Western coast of Africa, 1822.

[245] The slaves of the "Wanderer" were returned to Africa against their wills.—Editor.

[246] In relation to the Missouri Controversy, J. Q. Adams said:—Editor.

"There is now every appearance that the slave question will be carried by the superior ability of the slavery party. For this much is certain, that if institutions are to be judged by their results in the composition of the councils of the Union, the slaveholders are much more ably represented than the simple freemen."—Life of J. Q. Adams, by Josiah Quincy, p. 98."

"Never, since human sentiment and human conduct were influenced by human speech, was there a theme for eloquence like the free side of this question, now before the Congress of the Union. By what fatality does it happen that all the most eloquent orators are on its slavish side?"—Ibid. p. 103.

"In the progress of this affair the distinctive character of the inhabitants of the several great divisions of this Union has been shown more in relief than perhaps in any national transaction since the establishment of the Constitution. It is, perhaps, accidental that the combination of talent and influence has been the greatest on the slave side."—Ibid. p. 118.

[247] The author of England and America thus speaks of the Colombian Republic:

"During some years, this colony has been an independent state; but the people dispersed over this vast and fertile plain, have almost ceased to cultivate the good land at their disposal; they subsist principally, many of them entirely, on the flesh of wild cattle; they have lost most of the arts of civilized life; not a few of them are in a state of deplorable misery; and if they should continue, as it seems probable they will, to retrograde as at present, the beautiful pampas of Buenos Ayres will soon be fit for another experiment in colonization. Slaves, black or yellow, would have cultivated those plains, would have kept together, would have been made to assist each other; would, by keeping together and assisting each other, have raised a surplus produce exchangeable in distant markets; would have kept their masters together for the sake of markets; would, by combination of labor, have preserved among their masters the arts and habits of civilized life." Yet this writer, the whole practical effect of whose work, whatever he may have thought or intended, is to show the absolute necessity, and immense benefits of slavery, finds it necessary to add, I suppose in deference to the general sentiment of his countrymen, "that slavery might have done all this, seems not more plain, than that so much good would have been bought too dear, if its price had been slavery." Well may we say that the word makes men mad.

[248] Johnson on Change of Air.

[249] Eight days in the Abruzzi.—Blackwood's Magazine, November, 1835.

[250] I do not use the word democracy in the Athenian sense, but to describe the government in which the slave and his master have an equal voice in public affairs.

[251] Example of St. Domingo.

[252] Effects in Mexico and South American republics among the mongrel races. See Prof. Christy's Ethiopia.

[253] On the abolition of slavery, Mr. Adams observed: "It is the only part of European democracy which will find no favor in the United States. It may aggravate the condition of slaves in the South, but the result of the Missouri question, and the attitude of parties, have silenced most of the declaimers on the subject. This state of things is not to continue forever. It is possible that the danger of the abolition doctrines, when brought home to Southern statesmen, may teach them the value of the Union, as the only means which can maintain their system of slavery."—Life of J. Q. Adams, page 177.—Editor.

[254] Invariably true.

[255] On this subject, J. Q. Adams, in his letter to the citizens of Bangor, Maine, July 4th, 1843, said: "It is only as immortal beings that all mankind can in any sense be said to be born equal; and when the Declaration of Independence affirms as a self-evident truth that all men are born equal, it is precisely the same as if the affirmation had been that all men are born with immortal souls."—Life of J. Q. Adams, page 395.—Editor.

[256] On these points, let me recommend you to consult a very able Essay on the Slave Trade and Right of Search, by M. Jollivet, recently published; and as you say, since writing your Circular Letter, that you "burn to try your hand on another little Essay, if a subject could be found," I propose to you to "try" to answer this question, put by M. Jollivet to England: "Pourquoi sa philanthropie n'a pas daigne, jusqu' a present, doubler le cap de Bonne-Esperance?"

[257] Monkey tribes.—Editor.

[258] In the New York Independent for January 2, 1851, there is a sermon delivered by Rev. Richard S. Storrs, Jr., of Brooklyn, Dec. 12, 1850, in which his opposition to the fugitive slave bill is expressly placed on the injustice of slavery. He argues the matter almost exclusively on that ground. "To what," he asks, "am I required to send this man [the slave] back? To a system which ... no man can contemplate without shuddering." Again, "Why shall I send the man to this unjust bondage? The fact that he has suffered it so long already is a reason why I should not..... Why shall I not help him, in his struggle for the rights which God gave him indelibly, when he made him a man? There is nothing to prevent, but the simple requirement of my equals in the State; the parchment of the law, which they have written." This is an argument against the Constitution and not against the fugitive slave law. It is an open refusal to comply with one of the stipulations of our national compact. If it has any force, it is in favor of the dissolution of the Union. Nay, if the argument is sound it makes the dissolution of the Union inevitable and obligatory. It should, therefore, in all fairness be presented in that light, and not as an argument against the law of Congress. Let it be understood that the ground now assumed is that the Constitution can not be complied with. Let it be seen that the moralists of our day have discovered that the compact framed by our fathers, which all our public men in the general and state governments have sworn to support, under which we have lived sixty years, and whose fruits we have so abundantly enjoyed, is an immoral compact, and must be repudiated out of duty to God. This is the real doctrine constantly presented in the abolition prints; and if properly understood we should soon see to what extent it commends itself to the judgment and conscience of the people.

[259] The doctrine that the executive officers of a government are not the responsible judges of the justice of its decisions, is perfectly consistent with the principle advanced above, viz: that every man has the right to judge for himself whether any law or command is obligatory. This latter principle relates to acts for which we are personally responsible. If a military officer is commanded to commit treason or murder, he is bound to refuse; because those acts are morally wrong. But if commanded to lead an army against an enemy he is bound to obey, for that is not morally wrong. He is the judge of his own act, but not of the act of the government in declaring the war. So a sheriff, if he thinks all capital punishment a violation of God's law, he can not carry a sentence of death into effect, because the act itself is sinful in his view. But he is not the judge of the justice of any particular sentence he is called on to execute. He may judge of his own part of the transaction: but he is not responsible for the act of the judge and the jury.

[260] See Cheever's "God against Slavery," and Wendell Phillips' Speech on Harper's Ferry, &c., &c.—Ed.

[261] Their object, evidently, has been to prevent the free people of color from emigrating to Liberia, and to retain them in this country as a cat's paw to work out their own designs.—Ed.

[262] But for this, a large proportion of our slaves, instead of being instructed orally, would have been taught to read the Scriptures for themselves.—Ed.

[263] Paley's definition is still more simple, "I define," he says, "slavery to be an obligation to labor for the benefit of the master, without the contract or consent of the servant." Moral Philosophy, book iii, ch. 3.

[264] Address, etc., p. 20.

[265] Elements of Moral Science, p. 225.

[266] It need hardly be remarked, that the command to obey magistrates, as given in Rom. xiii: 1-3, is subject to the limitation stated above. They are to be obeyed as magistrates; precisely as parents are to be obeyed as parents, husbands as husbands. The command of obedience is expressed as generally, in the last two cases, as in the first. A magistrate beyond the limits of his lawful authority (whatever that may be), has, in virtue of this text, no more claim to obedience, than a parent who, on the strength of the passage "Children, obey your parents in all things," should command his son to obey him as a monarch or a pope.

[267] Quoted by Pres. Young, p. 45, of the Address, etc.

[268] On the manner in which slaves were acquired, compare Deut. xx: 14. xxi: 10, 11. Ex. xxii: 3. Neh. v: 4, 5. Gen. xiv: 14. xv: 3. xvii: 23. Num. xxxi: 18, 35. Deut. xxv: 44, 46.

As to the manner in which they were to be treated, see Lev. xxv: 39-53. Ex. xx: 10. xxii: 2-8. Deut. xxv: 4-6, etc. etc.

[269] "The word of Christ, (Matt. xix; 9), may be construed by an easy implication to prohibit polygamy: for if 'whoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another committeth adultery' he who marrieth another without putting away the first, is no less guilty of adultery: because the adultery does not consist in the repudiation of the first wife, (for, however unjust and cruel that may be, it is not adultery), but in entering into a second marriage during the legal existence and obligation of the first. The several passages in St. Paul's writings, which speak of marriage, always suppose it to signify the union of one man with one woman."—Paley's Moral Phil., book iii, chap. 6.

[270] Elements of Moral Science, p. 221.

[271] Clarkson and Wilberforce were anxious, to have the slave trade speedily abolished, lest the force of their arguments should be weakened by its amelioration.—Ed.

[272] If the negro is susceptible of this degree of improvement, he ought then to be free.—Ed.

[273] Abolition has impeded this improvement.—Ed.

[274] We heard the late Dr. Wisner, after his long visit to the South, say, that the usual task of a slave in South Carolina and Georgia, was about the third of a day's work for a Northern laborer.

[275] Report of 1857, for the land in this parish.

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