That it would be worth the while of this country, in case of a war with the United States, to offer 4 pounds a-head to able seamen, is most certain. It would swell the naval estimates, but it would shorten the duration of the war, and in the end would probably be the saving of many millions. But the question is, cannot and ought not something to be done, now in time of peace, to relieve our mercantile shipping interest, and hold out a bounty for a return to those true principles of naval architecture, the deviation from which has proved to be attended with such serious consequences.
Fast-sailing vessels will always be able to pay higher wages than others, as what they lose in increase of daily expense, they will gain by the short time in which the voyage is accomplished; but it is by encouragement alone that we can expect that the change will take place.
Surely some of the onerous duties imposed by the Trinity House might be removed, not from the present cla.s.s of vessels, but from those built hereafter with first-rate sailing properties. These, however, are points which call for a much fuller investigation than I can here afford them; but they are of vital importance to our maritime superiority, and as such should be immediately considered by the government of Great Britain.
VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER FORTY TWO.
REMARKS--SLAVERY.
It had always appeared to me as singular that the Americans, at the time of their Declaration of Independence, took no measures for the gradual, if not immediate, extinction of slavery; that at the very time they were offering up thanks for having successfully struggled for their own emanc.i.p.ation from what they considered foreign bondage, their grat.i.tude for their liberation did not induce them to break the chains of those whom they themselves held in captivity. It is useless for them to exclaim, as they now do, that it was England who left them slavery as a curse and reproach us as having originally introduced the system among them. Admitting, as is the fact, that slavery did commence when the colonies were subject to the mother country admitting that the pet.i.tions for its discontinuance were disregarded, still there was nothing to prevent immediate manumission at the time of the acknowledgement of their independence by Great Britain. They had then everything to recommence they had to select a new form of government, and to decide upon new laws; they p.r.o.nounced, in their declaration, that "all men were equal;" and yet, in the face of this declaration, and their solemn invocation to the Deity, the negroes, in _their_ fetters, pleaded to them in vain.
I had always thought that this sad omission, which has left such an anomaly in the Declaration of Independence as to have made it the taunt and reproach of the Americans by the whole civilised world, did really arise from forgetfulness; that, as is but too often the case, when we are ourselves made happy, the Americans in their joy at their own deliverance from the foreign yoke, and the repossessing themselves of their own rights, had been too much engrossed to occupy themselves with the undeniable claims of others. But I was mistaken; such was not the case, as I shall presently show.
In the course of one of my sojourns in Philadelphia, Mr Vaughan, of the Athenium of that city, stated to me that he had found the _original draft_ of the Declaration of Independence, in the hand-writing of Mr Jefferson, and that it was curious to remark the alterations which had been made previous to the adoption of the manifesto which was afterwards promulgated. It was to Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin, that was entrusted the primary drawing up of this important doc.u.ment, which was then submitted to others, and ultimately to the Convention, for approval and it appears that the question of slavery had NOT been overlooked when the doc.u.ment was first framed, as the following clause, inserted in the original draft by Mr Jefferson, (but _expunged_ when it was laid before the Convention,) will sufficiently prove. After enumerating the grounds upon which they threw off their allegiance to the king of England, the Declaration continued in Jefferson"s nervous style:
"He [the king] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of _life and liberty_, in the person of a distant people who never offended him; captivating and carrying them into slavery, in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain, determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold; he has prost.i.tuted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce; and that this a.s.semblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished dye, he is now exciting these very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another."
Such was the paragraph which had been inserted by Jefferson, in the virulence of his democracy, and his desire to hold up to detestation the king of Great Britain. Such was at that time, unfortunately, the truth; and had the paragraph remained, and at the same time emanc.i.p.ation been given to the slaves, it would have been a lasting stigma upon George the Third. But the paragraph was expunged; and why I because they could not hold up to public indignation the sovereign whom they had abjured, without reminding the world that slavery still existed in a community which had declared that "all men were equal;" and that if, in a monarch, they had stigmatised it as "violating the most sacred rights of life and liberty," and "waging cruel war against human nature," they could not have afterward been so barefaced and unblushing as to continue a system which was at variance with every principle which they professed.
Note. Miss Martineau, in her admiration of democracy, says, that, in the formation of the government, "The rule by which they worked was no less than the golden one, which seems to have been, by some unlucky chance, omitted in the Bibles of other statesmen, "_Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you_"" I am afraid the American Bible, by some unlucky chance, has also omitted that precept.
It does, however, satisfactorily prove, that the question of slavery was not _overlooked_; on the contrary, their determination to take advantage of the system was deliberate, and, there can be no doubt, well considered--the very omission of the paragraph proves it. I mention these facts to show that the Americans have no right to revile us on being the cause of slavery in America. They had the means, and were bound, as honourable men, to act up to their declaration but they entered into the question, they decided otherwise, and decided that they would retain their ill-acquired property at the expense of their principles.
The degrees of slavery in America are as various in their intensity as are the communities composing the Union. They may, however, be divided with great propriety under two general heads--eastern and western slavery. By eastern slavery, I refer to that in the slave states bordering on the Atlantic, and those slave states on the other side of the Alleghany mountains, which may be more directly considered as their colonies, viz, in the first instance, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, North and South Carolina; and, secondly, Kentucky and Tennessee. We have been accustomed lately to cla.s.s the slaves as non-predial and predial,--that is, those who are domestic, and those who work on the plantations. This cla.s.sification is not correct, if it is intended to distinguish between those who are well, and those who are badly treated.
The true line to be drawn is between those who work separately, and those who are worked in a gang and superintended by an overseer. This is fully exemplified in the United States, where it will be found that in all states where they are worked in gangs the slaves are harshly treated, while in the others their labour is light.
Now, with the exception of the rice grounds in South Carolina, the eastern states are growers of corn, hemp, and tobacco; but their chief staple is the breeding of horses, mules, horned cattle, and other stock: the largest portion of these states remain in wild luxuriant pasture, more especially in Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, either of which states is larger than the other four mentioned.
The proportion of slaves required for the cultivation of the purely agricultural and chiefly grazing farms or plantations in these states is small, fifteen or twenty being sufficient for a farm of two hundred or three hundred acres; and their labour, which is mostly confined to tending stock, is not only very light, but of the quality most agreeable to the negro. Half the day you will see him on horseback with his legs idly swinging--as he goes along, or seated on a shaft-horse driving his wagons. He is quite in his glory; nothing delights a negro so much as riding or driving, particularly when he has a whole team under his control. He takes his wagon for a load of corn to feed the hogs, sits on the edge of the shaft as he tosses the cobs to the grunting mult.i.tude, whom he addresses in the most intimate terms; in short, everything is done leisurely, after his own fashion.
In these grazing states, as they may very properly be called, the negroes are well fed; they refuse beef and mutton, and will have nothing but pork; and are, without exception, the fattest and most saucy fellows I ever met with in a state of bondage; and such may be said generally to be the case with all the negroes in the eastern states which I have mentioned. The rice grounds in South Carolina are unhealthy, but the slaves are very kindly treated. But the facts speak for themselves.
When the negro works in a gang with the whip over him, he may be overworked and ill-treated; but when he is not regularly watched, he will take very good care that the work he performs shall not injure his const.i.tution.
It has been a.s.serted, and generally credited, that in the eastern states negroes are regularly bred up like the cattle for the western market.
That the Virginians, and the inhabitants of the other eastern slave states, do sell negroes which are taken to the west, there is no doubt; but that the negroes are bred expressly for that purpose, is, as regards the majority of the proprietors, far from the fact: it is the effect of circ.u.mstances, over which they have had no control. Virginia, when first settled, was one of the richest states, but, by continually cropping the land without manuring it, and that for nearly two hundred years, the major portion of many valuable estates has become barren, and the land is no longer under cultivation; in consequence of this, the negroes, (increasing so rapidly as they do in that country.) so far from being profitable, have become a serious task upon their masters, who have to rear and maintain, without having any employment to give them.
The small portion of the estates under cultivation will subsist only a certain portion of the negroes; the remainder must, therefore, be disposed of, or they would eat their master out of his home. That the slaves are not willingly disposed of by many of the proprietors I am certain, particularly when it is known, that they are purchased for the west. I know of many instances of this, and wins informed of others; and by wills, especially, slaves have been directed to be sold for _two-thirds_ of the price which they would fetch for the western market, on condition that they were not to leave the state. These facts establish two points, viz, that the slaves in the eastern states is well treated, and that in the western states slavery still exists with all its horrors. The common threat to, and ultimate punishment of, a refractory and disobedient slave in the east, is to sell, him for the western market. Many slave proprietors, whose estates have been worn out in the east, have preferred migrating to the west with their slaves rather than sell them, and thus is the severity of the western treatment occasionally and partially mitigated.
But doing justice, as I always will, to those who have been unjustly calumniated, at the same time I must admit that there is a point connected with slavery in America which renders it more odious than in other countries; I refer to the system of amalgamation, which has, from promiscuous intercourse, been carried on to such an extent, that you very often meet with slaves whose skins are whiter than their master"s.
At Louisville, Kentucky, I saw a girl, about twelve years old, carrying a child; and, aware that in a slave state the circ.u.mstance of white people hiring themselves out to service is almost unknown, I inquired of her if she were a slave. To my astonishment, she replied in the affirmative. She was as fair as snow, and it was impossible to detect any admixture of blood from her appearance, which was that of a pretty English cottager"s child.
I afterward spoke to the master, who stated when he had purchased her, and the sum which he had paid.
I took down the following advertis.e.m.e.nt for a runaway slave, which was posted up in every tavern I stopped at in Virginia on my way to the springs. The expression of, "_in a manner white_" would imply that there was some shame felt it holding a white man in bondage:--
"_Fifty Dollars Reward_.
"Ran away from the subscriber, on Sat.u.r.day, the 21st instant, a slave named George, between twenty and twenty-four years of age, five feet five or six inches high, slender made, stoops when standing, a little bow legged; generally wears right and left boots and shoes; had on him when he left a fur cap, a checked stock, and linen roundabout; had with him other clothing, a jean coat with black horn b.u.t.tons, a pair of jean pantaloons, both coat and pantaloons of handsome grey mixed; no doubt other clothing not recollected. He had with him a common silver watch; he wears his pantaloons generally very tight in the legs. _Said boy_ is in a manner _white_, would be pa.s.sed by _and taken for a white man_.
His _hair_ is _long and straight_, like that of a _white_ person; looks very steady when spoken to, speaks slowly, and would not be likely to look a person full in the face when speaking to him. It is believed he is making his way to Canada by way of Ohio. I will give twenty dollars for the apprehension of said slave if taken in the county, or fifty dollars if taken out of the county, and secured so that I recover him again.
"Andrew Beirne, junior,
"Union Monroe City,
"July 31st, 1838. Virginia."
The above is a curious doc.u.ment, independently of its proving the manner in which man preys upon his fellow-man in this land of liberty and equality. It is a well-known fact, that a considerable portion of Mr Jefferson"s slaves were his own children. If any of them absconded, he would smile, thereby implying that he should not be very particular in looking after them; and yet this man, this great and _good_ man, as Miss Martineau calls him, this man who penned the paragraph I have quoted, as having been erased from the Declaration of Independence, who a.s.serted that the slavery of the negro was a violation of the most sacred rights of life and liberty, permitted these his slaves and his children, the issue of his own loins, to be sold at auction after his demise, not even emanc.i.p.ating them, as he might have done, before his death. And, but lately, a member of congress for Georgia, whose name I shall not mention, brought up a fine family of children, his own issue by a female slave; for many years acknowledged them us his own children; permitted them to call him by the endearing t.i.tle of _papa_, and eventually the whole of them were sold by public auction, and that, too, during his own lifetime!
But there is, I am sorry to say, a more horrible instance on record and one well authenticated. A planter of good family (I shall not mention his name or the state in which it occurred, as he was not so much to blame as were the laws), connected himself with one of his own female slaves, who was nearly white; the fruits of this connexion were two daughters, very beautiful girls, who were sent to England to be educated.
They were both grown up when their father died. At his death his affairs were found in a state of great disorder; in fact, there was not sufficient left to pay his creditors. Having brought up and educated these two girls and introduced them as his daughters, it quite slipped his memory that, having been born of a slave, and not manumitted, they were in reality slaves themselves. This fact was established after his decease; they were torn away from the affluence and refinement to which they had been accustomed, sold and purchased as slaves, and with the avowed intention of the purchaser to reap his profits from their prost.i.tution it must not, however, be supposed that the planters of Virginia and the other Eastern states, encourage this intercourse; on the contrary, the young men who visit at the plantations cannot affront them more than to take notice of their slaves, particularly the lighter coloured, who are retained in the house and attend upon their wives and daughters. Independently of the moral feeling which really guides them (as they naturally do not wish that the attendants of their daughters should be degraded) it is against their interest in case they should wish to sell; as a mulatto or light male will not fetch so high a price as a full-blooded negro; the cross between the European and negro; especially the first cross, i.e. the mulatto, is of a sickly const.i.tution, and quite unable to bear up against the fatigue of field labour in the West. As the race becomes whiter, the stamina is said to improve.
Examining into the question of emanc.i.p.ation in America, the first inquiry will be, how far this consummation is likely to be effected by means of the abolitionists. Miss Martineau, in her book, says, "The good work has begun, and will proceed." She is so far right; it has begun, and has been progressing very fast, as may be proved by the single fact of the abolitionists having decided the election in the state of Ohio in October last. But let not Miss Martineau exult; for the stronger the abolition party may become, the more danger is there to be apprehended of a disastrous conflict between the states.
The fact is that, by the const.i.tution of the United States, the federal government have not only no power to _interfere_ or to _abolish_ slavery, but they are bound to _maintain_ it; the abolition of slavery is expressly _withheld_. The citizens of any state may abolish slavery in their own state but the federal government cannot do so without an express violation of the federal compact. Should all the states in the Union abolish slavery, with the exception of one, and that one be Maryland, (the smallest of the whole of the states,) neither the federal government, or the other states could interfere with her. The federal compact binds the general government, "first, not to _meddle_ with the slavery of the states where it exists, and next, to _protect_ it in the case of runaway slaves, and to _defend_ it in case of _invasion_ or _domestic violence_ on account of it."
It appears, therefore, that slavery can only be abolished by the slave state itself in which it exists; and it is not very probable that any cla.s.s of people will voluntarily make themselves beggars by surrendering up their whole property to satisfy the clamour of a party. That this party is strong, and is daily becoming stronger, is very true: the stronger it becomes the worse will be the prospects of the United States. In England the case was very different; the government had a right to make the sacrifice to public opinion by indemnification to the slave-holders; but in America the government have not that power; and the efforts of the abolitionists will only have the effects of plunging the country into difficulties and disunion. As an American author truly observes, "The American abolitionists must trample on the const.i.tution, and wade through the carnage of a civil war, before they can triumph--"
Already the abolition party have done much mischief. The same author observes, "The South has been compelled, in self-defence, to rivet the chains of slavery afresh, and to hold on to their political rights with a stronger hand. The conduct of the abolitionists has arrested the improvements which were in progress in the slave states for the amelioration of the condition of the slave; it has broken up the system of intellectual and moral culture that was extensively in operation for the slave"s benefit, lest the increase of his knowledge should lend him a dangerous power, in connection with these crusading efforts; it has rivetted the chains of slavery with a greatly increased power, and enforced a more rigorous discipline; it has excluded for the time being the happy moral influence which was previously operating on the South from the North, and from the rest of the world, by the lights of comparison, by the interchange of a friendly intercourse, and by a friendly discussion of the great subject, all tending to the bettering of the slave"s condition, and, as was supposed, to his ultimate emanc.i.p.ation. Before this agitation commenced, this subject, in all its aspects and bearings, might be discussed as freely at the South as anywhere; but now, not a word can be said. It has kindled a sleepless jealousy in the South toward the North, and made the slave-holders feel as if all the rest of the world were their enemies, and that they must depend upon themselves for the maintenance of their political rights.
We say rights, because they regard them as such; and so long as they do so, it is all the same in their feelings, whether the rest of the world acknowledge them or not. And they are, in fact, _political_ rights, guaranteed to them by the const.i.tution of the United States."
It is not, however, impossible that the abolition party in the Eastern and Northern states may be gradually checked by the citizens of those very states. Their zeal may be as warm as ever; but public opinion will compel them, at the risk of their lives, to hold their tongues. This possibility can, however, only arise from the Northern and Eastern states becoming manufacturing states, as they are most anxious to be.
Should this happen, the raw cotton grown by slave labour will employ the looms of Ma.s.sachusetts; and then, as the Quarterly Review very correctly observes, "by a cycle of commercial benefits, the Northern and Eastern states will feel that there is some material compensation for the moral turpitude of the system of slavery."
The slave proprietors in these states are as well aware as any political economist can be, that slavery is a loss instead of a gain, and that no state can arrive at that degree of prosperity under a state of slavery which it would under free labour. The case is simple. In free labour, where there is compet.i.tion, you exact the greatest possible returns for the least possible expenditure; a man is worked as a machine; he is paid for what he produces, and nothing more. By slave labour, you receive the least possible return for the greatest possible expense, for the slave is better fed and clothed than the freeman, and does as little work as he can. The slave-holders in the eastern states are well aware of this, and are as anxious to be rid of slavery as are the abolitionists; but the time is not yet come, nor will it come until the country shall have so filled up as to render white labour attainable.
Such, indeed, are not the expectations expressed in the language of the representatives of their states when in congress; but, it must be remembered, that this is a question which has convulsed the Union, and that, not only from a feeling of pride, added to indignation at the interference, but from if feeling of the necessity of not yielding up one t.i.ttle upon this question, the language of determined resistance is in congress invariably resorted to. But these gentlemen have one opinion for congress, and another for their private table; in the first, they stand up unflinchingly for their slave rights; in the other, they reason calmly, and admit what they could not admit in public. There is no labour in the eastern states, excepting that of the rice plantations in South Carolina, which cannot be performed by white men; indeed, a large proportion of the cotton in the Carolinas is now raised by a _free white_ population. In the grazing portion of these states, white labour would be subst.i.tuted advantageously, could white labour be procured at any reasonable price.
The time will come, and I do not think it very distant, say perhaps twenty or thirty years, when, provided America receives no check, and these states are not injudiciously interfered with, that Virginia, Kentucky, Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, (and, eventually, but probably somewhat later, Tennessee and South Carolina) will, of their own accord, enrol themselves among the free states. As a proof that in the eastern slave states the negro is not held in such contempt, or justice toward him so much disregarded, I extract the following from an American work:--
"An instance of the force of law in the southern states for the protection of the slave has just occurred, in the failure of a pet.i.tion to his excellency, PM Butler, governor of South Carolina, for the pardon of Nazareth Allen, a white person, convicted of the murder of a slave, and sentenced to be hung. The following is part of the answer of the governor to the pet.i.tioners:--
""The laws of South Carolina make no distinction in cases of deliberate murder, whether committed on a black man or a white man; neither can I.
I am not a law-maker, but the executive officer of the laws already made; and I must not act on a distinction which the legislature might have made, but has not thought fit to make."
"That the crime of which the prisoner stands convicted was committed against one of an inferior grade in society, is a reason for being especially cautious in intercepting the just severity of the law. This cla.s.s of our population are subjected to us as well for their protection as our advantage. Our rights, in regard to them, are not more imperative than their duties; and the inst.i.tutions, which for wise and necessary ends have rendered them peculiarly dependent, at least pledge the law to be to them peculiarly a friend and a protector.
"The prayer of the pet.i.tion is not granted.
"Pierce M Butler."
In the western states, comprehending Missouri, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama, the negroes are, with the exception perhaps of the two latter States, in a worse condition than they ever were in the West India islands. This may be easily imagined, when the character of the white people who inhabit the larger portion of these states is considered a cla.s.s of people, the majority of whom are without feelings of honour, reckless in their habits, intemperate, unprincipled, and lawless, many of them having fled from the eastern states, as fraudulent bankrupts, swindlers, or committers of other crimes, which have subjected them to the penitentiaries--miscreants defying the climate, so that they can defy the laws. Still this representation of the character of the people inhabiting these states must, from the chaotic state of society in America, be received with many exceptions.
In the city of New Orleans, for instance, and in Natchez and its vicinity, and also among the planters, there are many most honourable exceptions. I have said the majority: for we must look to the _ma.s.s_-- the exceptions do but prove the rule. It is evident that slaves, under such masters, can have but little chance of good treatment, and stories are told of them at which humanity shudders.
It appears, then, that the slaves, with the rest of the population of America, are _working their way west_, and the question may now be asked:--Allowing that slavery will be soon abolished in the eastern states, what prospect is there of its ultimate abolition and total extinction in America?
I can see no prospect of exchanging slave labour for free in the western states, as, with the exception of Missouri, I do not think it possible that white labour could be subst.i.tuted, the extreme heat and unhealthiness of the climate being a bar to any such attempt. The cultivation of the land must be carried on by a negro population, if it is to be carried on at all. The question, therefore, to be considered is, whether these states are to be inhabited and cultivated by a free or a slave negro population. It must be remembered, that not one-twentieth part of the land in the southern states is under cultivation; every year, as the slates are brought in from the east, the number of acres taken into cultivation increases. Not double or triple the number of the slaves at present in America would be sufficient for the cultivation of the whole of these vast territories. Every year the cotton crops increase, and at the same time the price of cotton has not materially lowered; as an everywhere increasing population takes off the whole supply, this will probably continue to be the case for many years, since it must be remembered, that, independently of the increasing population increasing the demand, cotton, from its comparative cheapness, continually usurps the place of some other raw material; this, of course, adds to the consumption. In various manufactures, cotton has already taken the place of linen and fur; but there must eventually be a limit to consumption: and this is certain, that as soon as the supply is so great as to exceed the demand, the price will be lowered by the compet.i.tion; and, as soon as the price is by compet.i.tion so lowered as to render the cost and keeping of the slave greater than the income returned by his labour, then, and not till then, is there any chance of slavery being abolished in the western states of America. See Note 4.
The probability of this consummation being brought about sooner is in the expectation that the Brazils, Mexico, and particularly the independent State of Texas, will in a few years produce a crop of cotton which may considerably lower its price. At present, the United States grow nearly, if not more, than half of the cotton produced in the whole world, as the return down to 1831 will substantiate.