There are features in the organization of society, resulting from slavery, which are conducive to any thing but the union of these States.
A large cla.s.s are without employment, are accustomed to command, and have a strong contempt for habits of industry. This cla.s.s, like the n.o.bility of feudal times, are restless, impetuous, eager for excitement, and prompt to settle all questions with the sword. Like the fierce old barons, at the head of their va.s.sals, they are ever ready to resist and nullify the _central_ power of the State, whenever it interferes with their individual interests, or even approaches the strong holds of their prejudices. All history shows, that men possessing hereditary, despotic power, cannot easily be brought to acknowledge a superior, either in the administrators of the laws, or in the law itself. It was precisely such a cla.s.s of men that covered Europe with camps, for upwards of ten centuries.
A Southern governor has dignified duelling with the name of an "inst.i.tution;" and the planters generally, seem to regard it as among those which they have denominated their "peculiar inst.i.tutions." General Wilkinson, who was the son of a slave-owner, expresses in his memoirs, great abhorrence of duelling, and laments the powerful influence which his father"s injunction, when a boy, had upon his after life: "James,"
said the old gentleman, "if you ever take an insult, I will disinherit you."
A young lawyer, who went from Ma.s.sachusetts to reside at the South, has frequently declared that he could not take any stand there as a lawyer, or a gentleman, until he had fought: he was subject to continual insult and degradation, until he had evinced his readiness to kill, or be killed. It is obvious that such a state of morals elevates mere physical courage into a most undue importance. There are indeed emergencies, when all the virtues, and all the best affections of man, are intertwined with personal bravery; but this is not the kind of courage, which makes duelling in fashion. The patriot n.o.bly sacrifices himself for the good of others; the duellist wantonly sacrifices others to himself.
Browbeating, which is the pioneer of the pistol, characterizes, particularly of late years, the Southern legislation. By these means, they seek to overawe the Representatives from the free States, whenever any question even remotely connected with slavery is about to be discussed; and this, united with our strong reverence for the Union, has made our legislators shamefully cautious with regard to a subject, which peculiarly demands moral courage, and an abandonment of selfish considerations. If a member of Congress does stand his ground firmly, if he wants no preferment or profit, which the all-powerful Southern influence can give, an effort is then made to intimidate him. The instances are numerous in which Northern men have been insulted and challenged by their Southern brethren, in consequence of the adverse influence they exerted over the measures of the _Federal_ government.
This turbulent evil exists only in our slave States; and the peace of the country is committed to their hands whenever _twenty-five_ votes in Congress can turn the scale in favor of war.
The statesmen of the South have generally been planters. Their agricultural products must pay the merchants--foreign and domestic,--the ship-owner, the manufacturer,--and all others concerned in the exchange or manipulation of them. It is universally agreed that the production of the raw materials is the least profitable employment of capital. The planters have always entertained a jealous dislike of those engaged in the more profitable business of the manufacture and exchange of products; particularly as the existence of slavery among them destroys ingenuity and enterprise, and compels them to employ the merchants, manufacturers, and sailors, of the free States.[AD] Hence there has ever been a tendency to check New-England, whenever she appears to shoot up with vigorous rapidity. Whether she tries to live by _hook_ or by _crook_, there is always an effort to restrain her within certain limited bounds. The embargo, pa.s.sed without limitation of time, (a thing unprecedented,) was fastened upon the bosom of her commerce, until life was extinguished. The ostensible object of this measure, was to force Great Britain to terms, by distressing the West Indies for food. But while England commanded the seas, her colonies were not likely to starve; and for the sake of this doubtful experiment, a certain and incalculable injury was inflicted upon the Northern States. Seamen, and the numerous cla.s.ses of mechanics connected with navigation, were thrown out of employment, as suddenly as if they had been cast on a desert island by some convulsion of nature. Thousands of families were ruined by that ill-judged measure. Has any government a right to inflict so much direct suffering on a very large portion of their own people, for the sake of an indirect and remote evil which may possibly be inflicted on an enemy?
[Footnote AD: Virginia has great natural advantages for becoming a manufacturing country; but slavery, that does evil to all and good to none, produces a state of things which renders that impossible.]
It is true, agriculture suffered as well as commerce; but agricultural products could be converted into food and clothing; they would not decay like ships, nor would the producers be deprived of employment and sustenance, like those connected with navigation.
Whether this step was intended to paralyze the North or not, it most suddenly and decidedly produced that effect. We were told that it was done to save our commerce from falling into the hands of the English and French. But our merchants earnestly entreated not to be thus saved. At the very moment of the embargo, underwriters were ready to _insure_ at the _usual_ rates.
The non-intercourse was of the same general character as the embargo, but less offensive and injurious. The war crowned this course of policy; and like the other measures, was carried by slave votes. It was emphatically a Southern, not a national war. Individuals gained glory by it, and many of them n.o.bly deserved it; but the amount of benefit which the country derived from that war might be told in much fewer words than would enumerate the mischiefs it produced.
The commercial States, particularly New-England, have been frequently reproached for not being willing to go to war for the protection of their own interests; and have been charged with pusillanimity and ingrat.i.tude for not warmly seconding those who were so zealous to defend their cause. Mr. Hayne, during the great debate with Mr. Webster, in the Senate, made use of this customary sarcasm. It is revived whenever the sectional spirit of the South, or party spirit in the North, prompts individuals to depreciate the talents and character of any eminent Northern man. The Southern States have even gone so far on this subject, as to a.s.sume the designation of "_patriot States_," in contra-distinction to their northern neighbors--and this too, while Bunker Hill and Faneuil Hall are still standing! It certainly was a pleasant idea to exchange the appellation of _slave_ States for that of _patriot_ States--it removed a word which in a republic is unseemly and inconsistent.
Whatever may be thought of the justice and expediency of the last war, it was certainly undertaken against the earnest wishes of the commercial States--two thirds of the Representatives from those States voted in opposition to the measure. According to the spirit of the const.i.tution it ought not to have pa.s.sed unless there were two thirds in favor of it.
Why then should the South have insisted upon conferring a boon, which was not wanted; and how happened it, that _Yankees_, with all their acknowledged shrewdness in money matters, could never to this day perceive how they were protected by it? Yet New-England is reproached with cowardice and ingrat.i.tude to her Southern benefactors! If one man were to knock another down with a broad-axe, in the attempt to brush a fly from his face, and then blame him for not being sufficiently thankful, it would exactly ill.u.s.trate the relation between the North and the South on this subject.
If the protection of commerce had been the real object of the war, would not some preparations have been made for a navy? It was ever the policy of the slave States to destroy the navy. Vast conquests by _land_ were contemplated, for the protection of Northern commerce. Whatever was intended, the work of destruction was done. The policy of the South stood for awhile like a giant among ruins. New-England received a blow, which crushed her energies, but could not annihilate them. Where the system of free labor prevails, and there is work of any kind to be done, there is a safety-valve provided for _any_ pressure. In such a community there is a vital and active principle, which cannot be long repressed.
You may dam up the busy waters, but they will sweep away obstructions, or force a new channel.
Immediately after the peace, when commerce again began to try her broken wings, the South took care to keep her down, by multiplying permanent embarrasments, in the shape of duties. The _direct_ tax (which would have borne equally upon them, and which in the original compact was the equivalent for slave representation,) was forthwith repealed, and commerce was burdened with the payment of the national debt. The encouragement of _manufactures_, the consumption of domestic products, or _living within ourselves_, was then urged upon us. This was an ancient doctrine of the democratic party. Mr. Jefferson was its strongest advocate. Did he think it likely to bear unfavorably upon "the nation of shopkeepers and pedlers?"[AE] The Northerners adopted it with sincere views to economy, and more perfect independence. The duties were so adjusted as to embarra.s.s commerce, and to guard the interests of a few in the North, who from patriotism, party spirit, or private interest, had established manufactures on a considerable scale. This system of protection opposed by the North, was begun in 1816 by Southern politicians, and enlarged and confirmed by them in 1824. It was carried nearly as much by Southern influence, as was the war itself; and if the votes were placed side by side, there could not be a doubt of the ident.i.ty of the interests and pa.s.sions, which lay concealed under both.
But enterprise, that moral perpetual motion, overcomes all obstacles.
Neat and flourishing villages rose in every valley of New-England.
The busy hum of machinery made music with her neglected waterfalls.
All her streams, like the famous Pactolus, flowed with gold. From her discouraged and embarra.s.sed commerce arose a greater blessing, apparently indestructible. Walls of brick and granite could not easily be overturned by the Southern _lever_, and left to decay, as the ship-timber had done. Thus Mordecai was again seated in the king"s gate, by means of the very system intended for his ruin. As soon as this state of things became perceptible, the South commenced active hostility with manufactures. Doleful pictures of Southern desolation and decay were given, and all attributed to manufactures. The North was said to be plundering the South, while she, poor dame, was enriching her neighbors, and growing poor upon her extensive labors. (If this statement be true, how much grat.i.tude do we owe the _negroes_; for they do all the work that is done at the South. Their masters only serve to keep them in a condition, where they do not accomplish half as much as they otherwise would.)
[Footnote AE: Mr. Jefferson"s description of New-England.]
New-England seems to be like the poor lamb that tried to drink at the same stream with the wolf. "You make the water so muddy I can"t drink,"
says the wolf: "I stand below you," replied the lamb, "and therefore it cannot be." "You did me an injury last year," retorted the wolf. "I was not born last year," rejoined the lamb. "Well, well," exclaimed the wolf, "then it was your father or mother. I"ll eat you, at all events."
The bitter discussions in Congress have grown out of this strong dislike to the free States; and the crown of the whole policy is nullification.
The single State of South Carolina has undertaken to abolish the revenues of the whole nation, and threatened the Federal Government with cecession from the Union, in case the laws were enforced by any other means, than through the judicial tribunals.
"It is not a little extraordinary that this new pretention of South Carolina, the State which above all others enjoys this unrequited privilege of excessive representation, released from all payment of the direct taxes, of which her proportion would be nearly double that of any non-slaveholding State, should proceed from that very complaint that she bears an unequal proportion of duties of imposts, which, by the const.i.tution of the United States, are required to be uniform throughout the Union. Vermont, with a free population of two hundred and eighty thousand souls, has five representatives in the popular House of Congress, and seven Electors for President and Vice-President. South Carolina, with a free population of less than two hundred and sixty thousand souls, sends nine members to the House of Representatives, and honors the Governor of Virginia with eleven votes for the office of President of the United States. If the rule of representation were the same for South Carolina and for Vermont, they would have the same number of Representatives in the House, and the same number of Electors for the choice of President and Vice-President. She has nearly double the number of both."
What would the South have? They took the management at the very threshold of our government, and, excepting the rigidly just administration of Washington, they have kept it ever since. They claimed slave representation and obtained it. For their convenience the revenues were raised by imposts instead of direct taxes, and thus they give little or nothing in exchange for their excessive representation. They have increased the slave States, till they have twenty-five votes in Congress--They have laid the embargo, and declared war--They have controlled the expenditures of the nation--They have acquired Louisiana and Florida for an eternal slave market, and perchance for the manufactory of more slave States--They have given five presidents out of seven to the United States--And in their attack upon manufactures, they have gained Mr. Clay"s _concession_ bill. "But all this availeth not, so long as Mordecai the Jew sitteth in the king"s gate." The free States must be kept down. But change their policy as they will, free States _cannot_ be kept down. There is but one way to ruin them; and that is to make them slave States. If the South with all her power and skill cannot manage herself into prosperity, it is because the difficulty lies at her own doors, and she will not remove it. At one time her deserted villages were attributed to the undue patronage bestowed upon settlers on the public lands: at another, the tariff is the cause of her desolation. Slavery, the real root of the evil, is carefully kept out of sight, as a "delicate subject," which must not be alluded to. It is a singular fact in the present age of the world, that delicate and indelicate subjects mean precisely the same thing.
If any proof were wanted, that _slavery_ is the cause of all this discord, it is furnished by Eastern and Western Virginia. They belong to the same State, and are protected by the same laws; but in the former, the slaveholding interest is very strong--while in the latter, it is scarcely any thing. The result is, warfare, and continual complaints, and threats of separation. There are no such contentions between the different sections of _free_ States; simply because slavery, the exciting cause of strife, does not exist among them.
The constant threat of the slaveholding States is the dissolution of the Union; and they have repeated it with all the earnestness of sincerity, though there are powerful reasons why it would not be well for them to venture upon that untried state of being. In one respect only, are these threats of any consequence--they have familiarized the public mind with the subject of separation, and diminished the reverence, with which the free States have hitherto regarded the Union.
The farewell advice of Washington operated like a spell upon the hearts and consciences of his countrymen. For many, many years after his death, it would almost have been deemed blasphemy to speak of separation as a possible event. I would that it still continued so! But it is now an every-day occurrence, to hear politicians, of all parties, conjecturing what system would be pursued by different sections of the country, in case of a dissolution of the Union. This evil is likewise chargeable upon slavery. The threats of separation have _uniformly_ come from the slaveholding States; and on many important measures the free States have been awed into acquiescence by their respect for the Union.
Mr. Adams, in the able and manly report before alluded to, says: "It cannot be denied that in a community spreading over a large extent of territory, and politically founded upon the principles proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, but differing so widely in the elements of their social condition, that the inhabitants of one-half the territory are wholly free, and those of the other half divided into masters and slaves, deep if not irreconcilable collisions of interest must abound.
The question whether such a community can exist under one common government, is a subject of profound, philosophical speculation in theory. Whether it can continue long to exist, is a question to be solved only by the experiment now making by the people of this Union, under that national compact, the const.i.tution of the United States."
The admission of Missouri into the Union is another clear ill.u.s.tration of the slaveholding power. That contest was marked by the same violence, and the same threats, as have characterized nullification. On both occasions the planters were pitted against the commercial and manufacturing sections of the country. On both occasions the democracy of the North was, by one means or another, induced to throw its strength upon the Southern _lever_, to increase its already prodigious power.
On both, and on all occasions, some little support has been given to Northern principles in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina; because in portions of those States there is a considerable commercial interest, and some encouragement of free labor. So true it is, in the minutest details, that slavery and freedom are always arrayed in opposition to each other.
At the time of the Missouri question, the pestiferous effects of slavery had become too obvious to escape the observation of the most superficial statesman. The new free States admitted into the Union enjoyed tenfold prosperity compared with the new slave States. Give a free laborer a barren rock, and he will soon cover it with vegetation; while the slave and his task-master, would change the garden of Eden to a desert.
But Missouri must be admitted as a slave State, for two strong reasons.
First, that the planters might perpetuate their predominant influence by adding to the slave representation,--the power of which is always concentrated against the interests of the free States. Second, that a new market might be opened for their surplus slaves. It is lamentable to think that two votes in favor of Missouri slavery, were given by Ma.s.sachusetts men; and that those two votes would have turned the scale.
The planters loudly threatened to dissolve the Union, if slavery were not extended beyond the Mississippi. If the Union cannot be preserved without crime, it is an eternal truth that nothing good can be preserved _by_ crime. The immense territories of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Florida, are very likely to be formed into slave States; and every new vote on this side, places the free States more and more at the mercy of the South, and gives a renewed and apparently interminable lease to the duration of slavery.
The purchase or the conquest of the Texas, is a favorite scheme with Southerners, because it would occasion such an inexhaustible demand for slaves. A gentleman in the Virginia convention thought the acquisition of the Texas so certain, that he made calculations upon the increased value of negroes. We have reason to thank G.o.d that the jealousy of the Mexican government places a barrier in that direction.
The existence of slavery among us prevents the recognition of Haytian independence. That republic is fast increasing in wealth, intelligence and refinement.--Her commerce is valuable to us and might become much more so. But our Northern representatives have never even made an effort to have her independence acknowledged, because a colored amba.s.sador would be so disagreeable to our prejudices.
Few are aware of the extent of _sectional_ dislike in this country; and I would not speak of it, if I thought it possible to add to it. The late John Taylor, a man of great natural talent, wrote a book on the agriculture of Virginia, in which he acknowledges impoverishment, but attributes it all to the mismanagement of _overseers_. In this work, Mr.
Taylor has embodied more of the genuine spirit, the ethics and politics, of planters, than any other man; excepting perhaps, John Randolph in his speeches. He treats merchants, capitalists, bankers, and all other people not planters, as so many robbers, who live by plundering the slave-owner, apparently forgetting by what plunder they themselves live.
Mr. Jefferson and other eminent men from the South, have occasionally betrayed the same strong prejudices; but they were more guarded, lest the democracy of the North should be undeceived, and their votes lost.
Mr. Taylor"s book is in high repute in the Southern States, and its sentiments widely echoed; but it is little known here.
A year or two since, I received a letter from a publisher who largely supplies the Southern market, in which he a.s.sured me that no book from the North would sell at the South, unless the source from which it came, were carefully concealed! Yet New-England has always yielded to Southern policy in preference to uniting with the Middle States, with which she has, in most respects, a congeniality of interests and habits. It has been the constant policy of the slave States to prevent the free States from acting together.
Who does not see that the American people are walking over a subterranean fire, the flames of which are fed by slavery?
The South no doubt gave her influence to General Jackson, from the conviction that a slave-owner would support the slaveholding interest.
The Proclamation against the nullifiers, which has given the President such sudden popularity at the North, has of course offended them. No person has a right to say that Proclamation is insincere. It will be extraordinary if a slave-owner does in _reality_ depart from the uniform system of his brethren. In the President"s last Message, it is maintained that the wealthy landholders, that is, the planters, are the _best_ part of the population;--it admits that the laws for raising of revenue by imposts have been in their operation oppressive to the South;--it recommends a gradual withdrawing of protection from manufactures;--it advises that the public lands shall cease to be a source of revenue, as soon as practicable--that they be sold to settlers--and in a _convenient time_ the disposal of the soil be surrendered to _the States respectively in which it lies_;--lastly, the Message tends to discourage future appropriations of public money for purposes of internal improvement.
Every one of these items is a concession to the slaveholding policy. If the public lands are taken from the nation, and given to the States in which the soil lies, who will get the largest share? That _best_ part of the population called planters.
The Proclamation and the Message are very unlike each other. Perhaps South Carolina is to obtain her own will by a route more certain, though more circuitous, than open rebellion. Time will show.
CHAPTER V.
COLONIZATION SOCIETY, AND ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.
It is not madness That I have utter"d:----For love of grace, Lay not that flattering unction to your soul, That not your trespa.s.s but my madness speaks: It will but _skin_ and _film_ the ulcerous place; While rank corruption, mining all within, _Infects unseen_. Confess yourself to Heaven; Repent what"s past; avoid what is to come; And do not spread the compost on the weeds, To make them ranker.
HAMLET, _Act III, Scene 3d_.
When doctrines meet with general approbation, It is not heresy, but reformation.