It results at once, from this preponderance of the South and brutality of parties, that men of intellect and heart, of noble character and refined talent, inspired with a disgust of public life, have abandoned it, and live in retreat, devoting themselves to isolated labors. A handful of merchants produced Washington and his illustrious contemporaries. A rich and powerful nation has not a single statesman!

3*

CHAPTER III.

REASONS FOR MAINTAINING SLAVERY. - OBJECTIONS AND

REPLIES.

ONE hesitates to believe in such a subversion of justice, religion, and honor. He asks himself whether there is not some powerful reason, some sacred interest, involved in the support of slavery; he gladly hears it said, that all stories are exaggerated, and that, if the name of slavery exists, the thing is metamorphosed; he seeks, too, for some tokens of a peaceful solution.

I experience these doubts and wishes.

Ah! it is by no means to accuse America, it is by no means for the base pleasure of calumniating a great nation, that I probe its wounds: it is with the eager desire to see this young and powerful community cured of the malady which is consuming it. Let us enter, then, upon this new examination: after the history of slavery, let us draw its portrait; let us listen to its defence, and pass judgment on its cause.

Slavery is usually defended by a few general arguments, by a few special reasons, and by a few practical difficulties.

§ 1.

THE ORIGIN HISTORY, AND THEORY OF SLAVERY.

I.

Open history, it is said, -slavery has existed everywhere; it is the infancy of races, must we complain because all men are not born twenty years old? Slavery is a natural and universal fact; it is the education of barbarism by civilization; it is the novitiate of Liberty.

In fact, slavery appears in history in the position of universal fact, like idolatry, like polygamy,—in a word, like evil! But history acquaints us, that slaves in ancient times were from conquered races, subjugated by arms; American slaves are from races purchased or bred by their masters: the ancient slaves came from war; the modern slaves come from the counter or the stud.

History teaches, again, that it has not been the barbarian races that have been enslaved by civilized nations, but, on the contrary, the most polished people that have been invaded and reduced to slavery by barbarians.* The Assyrians fell under the yoke of the Medes; the Medes, the Bactrians, the Lydians, the whole of Asia Minor and Egypt, under the yoke of the Persians; the Arabs rule where Alexander reigned; the Turkish hordes progress in nothing but slavery; the Moguls carry death and servitude from the Mediterranean to the farthest bounds of India. In Europe, the Pelasgians were driven out by the Hellenes; the Achaians became slaves. Barbarian Rome enslaved Etruria, Sicily, Carthage, then Greece. Almost everywhere, the subjugated race has been the most advanced, and has civilized the conquering race; when the barbarian has been vanquished, he has corrupted the victor. Such is the lesson of history, which never presents servitude to us as the first step towards civilization, but only as the victory of force.

The lesson, again, which arises from modern history is still more striking; it presents to us all the great nations of modern Europe practising slavery at once during three centuries, without the education of the subjugated race having been elevated a single degree, advanced a single step, by servitude; while wherever it has been established, especially in the United States, this servitude has corrupted and

* Histoire de l'esclavage dans l'antiquité, by M. Wallon, Introduction, p. xix.

debased the ruling race, and brought it back towards barbarism.

We cannot insist too strongly on this striking lesson. It was hoped that the black race would people America, and that the white race would civilize the black: let us open our eyes and look at the facts.

Four centuries have not yet passed since America was revealed to the world. All the races, all the tongues, all the creeds of Europe, then already arrived at a high degree of civilization, have shared in this admirable gift of the Creator. When we read the extensive statistics collected by Humboldt; when we follow, grouped in unequal numbers, the whites, the blacks, the Indians, the mixed breeds, the Catholics, the Protestants, the idolaters, into the vast and magnificent regions of the three Americas, Northern, Southern, and Insular, where are spoken the English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, and Swedish tongues, all the languages of Latin origin, and all those of Germanic stock, without counting the Indian dialects, we exclaim, with the illustrious author of these researches: "There is something solemn and prophetic in these inventories of the human race; the whole future of the New World seems writ ten in them."* Yes, the whole future; but the past also. For, at the date that Humboldt wrote, the white race was to the black in Continental and Insular America as 38 to 19. What, then, had become of the black race? for it was this, it was the African race that had really colonized America. For three centuries, America had received ten Africans to one European. At the time of its discovery, Europe had not a population numerous enough to spare; the people were neither accustomed to long voyages, nor had they the means for them; missionaries, public functionaries, merchants, and criminals were for a long time the sole trayellers. In Africa had been found a numerous, wretched,

*Voyages de Humboldt, Tom. III. pp. 339, 340, 344.

and docile race, ready or easily constrained to change countries and masters; men persuaded themselves that to subject this race to Christians was to subject it to Christianity. The most reliable authors agree in estimating at about 40,000,000 the number of Africans transported to America during three centuries, and the number of deaths during the passage at more than 20 per cent. Since then several millions more have been carried thither by the slavetrade, according to official documents.* In the hands of the whites, those two unfortunate races, the Indians and the Africans, have been, the one driven back, the other enslaved both are on the road to decrease and extinction. There are not to-day 10,000,000 of blacks in all America. In the United States there are only 4,000,000 in 20,000,000 inhabitants. Since the suppression of the slave-trade, as yet very incomplete, this population, no longer receiving any increase except from births, has been decreasing, as the births have been everywhere exceeded by the deaths.† In the United States alone there has been, and still is, an increase, because entire States make a trade of raising and selling negroes, the domestic thus taking the place of the foreign slave-trade. Yet, notwithstanding, in this, as in all countries which receive slaves by thousands, laborers are lacking, and the States are driven to extremities. In Europe, labor is also scarce; yet we do not think of mingling Chinese or Indians among our honest peasantry. In the Southern States, as in Cuba and Brazil, the reopening of the slave-trade is demanded, immigrants are called for, conquests are projected.

It is a law of nature, that the human species (and some species of the animal kingdom share in this title of nobility)

*In the documents on Slavery, collected by Gregory, ex-Bishop of Blois, is found a curious speech, delivered at Philadelphia in 1790, by the Rev. Dr. Dana, estimating the slaves imported into America at more than 80,000 per year. (Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, fonds Grégoire.)

↑ In Brazil and Cuba, this amounts to more than 5 per cent. (Don José Saco.)