PERIOD IV.

EMANCIPATION.

CHAPTER I.

AMERICAN SLAVERY.

"What execrations should the statesman be loaded with, who, permitting one-half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms the one into despots, and the other into enemies, - destroying the morals of the one part, and the amor patriæ of the other! And can the liberties of a nation be thought secured, when we have removed their only firm basis, -a conviction in the minds of the people that their liberties are the gift of God? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that justice cannot sleep forever. The Almighty has no attribute that can take sides with us in such a contest."-JEFFERSON.

In another part of this work, we have seen that slavery in America was a legitimate result of caste in England. The distinction between labor and government became usurpation and oppression. The idea that certain classes were born to serve was the complement of the feeling that wealth and high birth were a release from labor. An hereditary nobility harmonized with the doctrine of hereditary government and hereditary subjection. True, the formal assertion of this doctrine, in its legitimate consequences, was not common in England at the time when this deadly evil began to work in the colony of Virginia; but it was vital and practical in the customs of society, and it came here in the form of indentured apprenticeship. It most conveniently adopted from the Spaniards the practice of enslaving the helpless Indians; and when, in 1620, the Dutch landed twenty negroes at

Jamestown, and offered them for sale as slaves, it was not difficult to find customers.

The slave-trade, which had been in progress for more than four hundred years, was at this time led on by Portugal, and became an extended and lucrative traffic by maritime nations generally. It had no reference to color; but when a few black men were brought from Africa, and exchanged for Moorish captives, it was found that they were a strong, powerful race of men, and they soon became a coveted article of traffic. The African slave-trade thus began, under the patronage of Prince Henry III., son of John I. of Portugal, in 1418. It received a new impulse from the great revival of commercial activity following the discovery by Columbus, and the entrance of Africa by the enemies of the

race.

MEN ENSLAVED.

The first great fact which deserves to be mentioned here is, that slaves were human beings. In each of these plain, muscular bodies was a soul, formed, by the power of God, to think and feel, to reason and will,- a soul with a conscience, capable of enjoying and suffering, redeemed by the blood of Christ, and stamped with immortality.

Each slave might be taught to fear God and read his holy Word, exercise saving faith in Christ, receive forgiveness of sins, and be thrilled with the hope of heaven. And the grandest fact of his natural being was, that he was free. God had made his power of volition a fundamental part of him. He had a right to breathe this free air, walk abroad when he pleased, work and earn his living, support and educate his family, keep around him the dear objects of paternal love, and obey the laws of chastity.

But this cruel love of personal ease and aggrandizement, this lust of power, came in, and robbed him of all these rights. It bound his body, so that it could not go where his interest and duty required; it seized his hands, his feet, his

muscles, his brain, his nerves, and said they should all work for the benefit of a master.

And there was no hope. Children's children were doomed, down to the latest generation. Their numbers swelled, and their value increased. Every additional pound of sugar, tobacco, and rice, told the increasing woe of their bondage. The vast cotton-fields, and the triumphs of Whitney and Arkwright, all rose up to show how utterly hopeless was their future. Christians and infidels enslaved men,- thouands, millions, of men, women, and children,—and made laws to protect their villany. Is a greater crime than this possible?

MIND SUBJUGATED.

Slave-owners were right in the judgment that the body could not be "held to service," and the soul be free. There was dangerous power in soul-liberty. God made it to take control of brain and muscle, hands and feet. It must be suppressed, controlled absolutely, or it would break chains asunder like the withs of Samson. It was a crime to teach a slave to read. His intellect, expanded, might seize with more power the thought of his natural right to freedom; he might catch in a newspaper a glimpse of the condemnation of the tyranny that bound him; he might put on paper some allusions to his personal rights, and the rights of his wife and children: he must not learn to read, therefore.

But the limitation of rights could not stop here. Ignorance required by a great system of wrong would not be confined to slaves. The common people must not be educated. They had no slaves, and might inquire why the few who held them were the governors of the land. They might expect even to associate with gentlemen. Education must, therefore, be the privilege of the few, of the wealthy, of the children of slaveholders, their blood-relations, and high-born friends. Common schools were dangerous. They would

make the poor whites impudent, and difficult to manage at the elections. They might originate ideas of liberty that would be exceedingly inconvenient to an oligarchy.

But mental subjection must extend farther than this, or the cherished institution would not be entirely safe. Popular sentiment must be moulded so as to force humanity itself to tolerate this enormous wrong; nay, to accept it, call it right, extol it as the best and purest form of society. Slaveholders themselves must not indulge a doubt of their right to make "chattels" of human beings; much less might a stranger, a man who had been accustomed to free thought and free speech, utter sentiments of condemnation in the midst of slavery. He would soon find that he had a master. The tyranny of custom and popular sentiment could not be restrained for lack of argument. It was learned and ingenious; and the violence of the mob would help in the last extremity to a summary conclusion and a glorious triumph.

Laws which would allow a slave no will of his own, which would subject him in every respect to the will of his master which made it a felony to teach him to read, or to believe that he had a right to himself or his wife or children, were necessary. The will of the people, the popular sentiment, must sustain these laws at all hazards, and, whenever the most reckless deemed it necessary, deal out summary punishment to all advocates of liberty. This was mind subjugated.

GOVERNMENT INTHRALLED.

For a time, it seemed as if the whole United States might become slave territory. But the cold and the rocks of the North would not allow the negro to become a perpetual slave here. State sovereignty was, therefore, the next strong hope of Southern political leaders. Slavery must enter into every department of government, and absolutely rule the State. If an emancipationist should find his way into