§ 2. STATE LEGISLATION AND INDIVIDUAL ENFRANCHISEMENT.

Americans who deny to Congress the right of proscribing slavery, at least agree that individual States possess this power, in so far as it concerns themselves, of which the example of the Northern States is a proof. Another way is thus opened to men of heart; surer, since it is not fettered by any legal objection, shorter, since it does not require the consent of the entire Congress; more pacific, since it does not at once disturb the whole nation.

We may add, that the interests of many States, in default of morality, impel them to this course. From the angry outbreaks and complaints of slave-owners, and still more rarely from their confessions, we discover that this disgraceful species of property is already very onerous; that, , except in three or four States, the products of which are a rich monopoly, slavery is not remunerative, don't pay, and that the masters would willingly give away their slaves. In some States, the number of slaveholders is very small: Delaware numbers but 809; Florida, 3,520; Texas, 7,747; Arkansas, 5,999. Let us hope that many States, prompted by interest as well as morality, will some day voluntarily rid themselves at once of a burden and a crime.

There remains the means of individual enfranchisement. A man always has the right to obey his conscience; it was by appealing to this that early Christianity broke the bonds of servitude. The Roman, the German, every law penetrated by a spark of justice or religion, encouraged voluntary enfranchisement. But in America, the law has taken precautions against virtue, and statutes exist in most of the Slave States prohibiting, or at least imposing taxes on emancipation.

In South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi the consent of the legislature is required. In other Stat

no one can be emancipated under thirty years of age. In Georgia, every man who effects emancipation by will is subjected to a fine of 1,000 pounds.*

Lastly, we may cite the laws of Louisiana, to show the progress which evil has made in legislation.

According to the laws of Louisiana, Article 184, any master might emancipate his slave; since 1852 (statute of March 18) no slave can be emancipated except on condition of being transported, after payment of 150 piasters for the expenses of his voyage, to Africa.

The slaves to whom freedom is due at the expiration of a certain time, shall be transported as soon as they become free (statute of March 16, 1842).

That servitude shall be lawful and emancipation forbidden, is a reversal of morality which one scarcely dare decorate by the name of law! Doubtless, should frequent examples of voluntary emancipation be given, should an entire State decree abolition, such an event would create in the rest of the States, among slaves and slaveholders, a disturbance and agitation that may be easily comprehended; the breaking up of the ice begins with a melted icicle. In this is their fear, and my hope.

Shame to the United States, if laws like these, unknown to ancient Rome, can long endure, and if the historian of the first republic of modern times be doomed again to ask and reply: "Can the common law abolish slavery?" "No." "Can the master, in obedience to his conscience, emancipate his slave, and make him instead his servant or friend?" "No." "Is there hope that liberty will some day be born of virtue ?” "There is none."

From law, let us proceed to practice.

*Theodore Parker, p. 93. See the excellent résumé of the legal system of servitude of the different States, Études, etc., by P. Van Biervliet, pp. 44 – 67.

§ 3. WHAT IS THE BEST SYSTEM OF EMANCIPATION.

But

Who may effect emancipation? I have just shown. how effect emancipation? If Congress or the legislature of an individual State were to broach this great question of expropriation for the sake of public morality, how should it proceed?

It is evident that this question cannot be answered offhand, without entering into details and circumstances. But the examples of gradual emancipation by England and sudden emancipation by France prove that both modes are equally practicable. The most important point is the immediate proclamation of the principle of freedom; the rest is simply a series of conditions in favor either of the master, the products, or, above all, the slave and his family. Of the two modes, the better will be the speedier.

Is an indemnity due? To whom? It would seem that it should be to the slaves, in return for their gratuitous labor. At least, it is strict justice to impose on the masters the charge of the aged and invalid slaves, who have been worn out in their service; and to exact from them an immediate subsidy for the families who have been precluded by slavery from laying up savings for themselves. Is an indemnity due the masters? In the sight of rigorous justice, none; they restore what they held unjustly. But equity is more accommodating; it considers good faith a valid excuse for most of those who have been born in a land infected by a custom by which they have profited, but which they did not make. The interests of national labor, which are also bound up with those of the former slaves themselves, add powerfully to this motive. If the masters are ruined, where will they find capital to cultivate their lands? how can they employ or pay free laborers? An indemnity appears, then, if not just, at least necessary, as a subsidy designed to defray the expenses of transition.

Raised in part by a tax, and in part from the former slaves, who would be bound to labor for a certain number of days, this subsidy, designed for the support of labor, far from being unproductive, would add to the public wealth.

It is calculated that there are in the United States 347,525 slave-owners, in a total population of 23,047,898 inhabitants. These 347,525 masters possess some 3,200,304 slaves,* divided as follows:

Owners of a single slave

*

69,820 103,683

If the value of the slaves be estimated at $ 400 per head, the slave property amounts to $1,280,121,600, to which corresponds an enormous expense on the part of the own

ers.

The indemnity would be therefore a much smaller sum, to be apportioned in numerous annuities. It assuredly does not exceed the means of the United States, the government of which still possesses, besides the product of imposts, immense territorial wealth.

§4. POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES IF EMANCIPATION TAKE PLACE. PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES IF EMANCIPATION DO NOT

TAKE PLACE.

What would be the consequences of the abolition of slavery in America? They are looked upon only with ex

* According to the census of 1850.

aggerated terror; the examples of France and England, as we have seen, are on record to reassure us. It is true that the number of slaves to be affranchised is larger, the countries to which they may flee are more extensive, the authority to compel them to tranquillity is less concentrated.

I do not deny these difficulties, but the fearful consequences which are made to spring from them are exaggerated.

All the slaves would abandon the country and labor, it is said, and go to people the deserts together with the wrecks of the Indian tribes.

Admitted! room would not be lacking, but the fear of hunger is a motive strong enough to secure us from the danger of a general flight; it would be, besides, a sad but certain means of causing this poor population erelong to diminish and die out, or rather to separate into two parts; the idle, who would soon become extinct, and the industrious, who would gain a livelihood in new lands, or return to their former labor.

It should not be forgotten that there are already 196,116 free blacks in the Free States, and 228,138 free blacks in the Slave States; * in all, 424,254 free blacks, who labor without compulsion when the whites are not cruel enough to banish them.

During this time, the masters will be ruined. Assuredly, a transient loss, compensated insufficiently, I grant, by the indemnity, would weigh upon the Slave States. But in what country is labor so plentiful as in America? Nearly 400,000 immigrants land there every year. The tide of immigration, almost completely turned aside from the South by slavery, would set thither in abundance, and if there be really some limited regions, the climate of which is intoler

* According to the Nashville Journal, 80,000 inhabit Maryland; 60,000, Virginia; 30,000, North Carolina; 20,000, Delaware; 20,000, Louisiana; 11,500, Kentucky; 11,000, District of Columbia; 10,000, South Carolina; 8,000, Tennessee; the remainder, the other States, in less numbers.