Part 2 (1/2)

And by the general law in case of pauper's suits; the complainants shall have writs of subpoena gratis; and by the practice of the courts, he is permitted to attend the taking the depositions of witnesses, and go and come freely to and from court, for the prosecution of his suit.]

Among the Romans, the _libertini_, or freedmen, were formerly distinguished by a threefold division [Just. Inst. lib. 1. t.i.t. 5.].

They sometimes obtained what was called the greater liberty, thereby becoming _Roman citizens_. To this privilege, those who were enfranchised by testament, by the census, or by the vindicta, appear to have been alone admitted: sometimes they obtained the lesser liberty only, and became _Latins_; whose condition is thus described by Justinian. ”They never enjoyed the right of succession [to estates].--For although they led the lives of free men, yet with their last breath they lost both their lives and liberties; for their possessions, like the goods of slaves, were detained by the manumittor [Harris's Inst. lib. 3. t.i.t. 8.].” Sometimes they obtained only the inferior liberty, being called _dedit.i.tii_: such were slaves who had been condemned as criminals, and afterwards obtained manumission through the indulgence of their masters: their conditions was equalled with that of conquered revolters, whom the Romans called, in reproach, _dedit.i.tii, quia se suaque omnia dediderunt_: but all these distinctions were abolished by Justinian [Inst. lib. 1. t.i.t. 5. s. 3.], by whom all freed men in general were made citizens of Rome, without regard to the form of manumission.--In England, the presenting the villein with _free arms_, seems to have been the symbol of his restoration to all the rights which a feudatory was ent.i.tled to. With us, we have seen that emanc.i.p.ation does not confer the rights of citizens.h.i.+p on the person emanc.i.p.ated; on the contrary, both he and his posterity, of the same complexion with himself, must always labour under many civil incapacities. If he is absolved from personal restraint, or corporal punishment, by a master, yet the laws restrain his actions in many instances, where there is none upon a free white man. If he can maintain a suit, he cannot be a witness, a juror, or a judge in any controversy between one of his own complexion and a white person. If he can acquire property in lands, he cannot exercise the right of suffrage, which such a property would confer on his former master; much less can he a.s.sist in making those laws by which he is bound. Yet, even under these disabilities, his present condition bears an enviable pre-eminence over his former state.

Possessing the liberty of loco-motion, which was formerly denied him, it is in his choice to submit to that civil inferiority, inseparably attached to his condition in this country, or seek some more favourable climate, where all distinctions between men are either totally abolished, or less regarded than in this.

The extirpation of slavery from the United States, is a task equally arduous and momentous. To restore the blessings of liberty to near a million[20] of oppressed individuals, who have groaned under the yoke of bondage, and to their descendants, is an object, which those who trust in Providence, will be convinced would not be unaided by the divine Author of our being, should we invoke his blessing upon our endeavours.

Yet human prudence forbids that we should precipitately engage in a work of such hazard as a general and simultaneous emanc.i.p.ation. The mind of man must in some measure be formed for his future condition. The early impressions of obedience and submission, which slaves have received among us, and the no less habitual arrogance and a.s.sumption of superiority, among the whites, contribute, equally, to unfit the former for _freedom_, and the latter for _equality_.[21] To expel them all at once, from the United States, would in fact be to devote them only to a lingering death by famine, by disease, and other acc.u.mulated miseries: ”We have in history but one picture of a similar enterprize, and there we see it was necessary not only to open the sea by a miracle, for them to pa.s.s, but more necessary to close it again to prevent their return [Letter from Jas. Sullivan, Esq. to Dr. Belknap.].” To retain them among us, would be nothing more than to throw so many of the human race upon the earth without the means of subsistence: they would soon become idle, profligate, and miserable. Unfit for their new condition, and unwilling to return to their former laborious course, they would become the caterpillars of the earth, and the tigers of the human race. The recent history of the French West Indies exhibits a melancholy picture of the probable consequences of a general, and momentary emanc.i.p.ation in any of the states, where slavery has made considerable progress. In Ma.s.sachusetts the abolition of it was effected by a single stroke; a clause in their const.i.tution [Dr. Belknap.]: but the whites at that time, were as sixty-five to one, in proportion to the blacks. The whole number of free persons in the United States, south of Delaware state, are 1,233,829, end there are 648,439 slaves; the proportion being less than two to one. Of the cultivators of the earth in the same district, it is probable that there are four slaves for one free white man.--To discharge the former from their present condition, would be attended with an immediate general famine, in those parts of the United States, from which not all the productions of the other states, could deliver them; similar evils might reasonably be apprehended from the adoption of the measure by any one of the southern states; for in all of them the proportion of slaves is too great, not to be attended with calamitous effects, if they were immediately set free.[22] These are serious, I had almost said unsurmountable obstacles, to general, simultaneous emanc.i.p.ation.--There are other considerations not to be disregarded. A great part of the _property_ of individuals consists in _slaves_. The laws have sanctioned this species of property. Can the laws take away the property of an individual without his own consent, or without a _just compensation_? Will those who do not hold slaves agree to be taxed to make this compensation? Creditors also, who have trusted their debtors upon the faith of this visible property will be defrauded. If justice demands the emanc.i.p.ation of the slave, she also, _under these circ.u.mstances_, seems to plead for the owner, and for his creditor. The claims of nature, it will be said are stronger than those which arise from social inst.i.tutions, only. I admit it, but nature also dictates to us to provide for our _own_ safety, and authorizes all _necessary_ measures for that purpose. And we have shewn that our own security, nay, our very existence, might be endangered by the hasty adoption of any measure for the _immediate_ relief of the _whole_ of this unhappy race.

Must we then quit the subject, in despair of the success of any project for the amendment of their, as well as our own, condition? I think not.--Strenuously as I feel my mind opposed to a simultaneous emanc.i.p.ation, for the reasons already mentioned, the abolition of slavery in the United States, and especially in that state, to which I am attached by every tie that nature and society form, is _now_ my _first_, and will probably be my last, expiring wish. But here let me avoid the imputation of inconsistency, by observing, that the abolition of slavery may be effected without the _emanc.i.p.ation_ of a single slave; without depriving any man of the _property_ which he _possesses_, and without defrauding a creditor who has trusted him on the faith of that property. The experiment in that mode has already been begun in some of our sister states. Pennsylvania, under the auspices of the immortal Franklin,[23] begun the work of gradual abolition of slavery in the year 1780, by enlisting nature herself, on the side of humanity. Connecticut followed the example four years after.[24] New-York very lately made an essay which miscarried by a very inconsiderable majority. Mr. Jefferson informs us, that the committee of revisors, of which he was a member, had prepared a bill for the emanc.i.p.ation of all slaves born after pa.s.sing that act. This is conformable to the Pennsylvania and Connecticut laws.--Why the measure was not brought forward in the general a.s.sembly I have never heard. Possibly because objections were foreseen to that part of the bill which relates to the disposal of the blacks, after they had attained a certain age.[25] It certainly seems liable to many, both as to the policy and the practicability of it. To establish such a colony in the territory of the United States, would probably lay the foundation of intestine wars, which would terminate only in their extirpation, or final expulsion. To attempt it in any other quarter of the globe would be attended with the utmost cruelty to the colonists, themselves, and the destruction of their whole race. If the plan were at this moment in operation, it would require the annual exportation of 12,000 persons. This requisite number must, for a series of years be considerably increased, in order to keep pace with the increasing population of those people. In twenty years it would amount to upwards of twenty thousand persons; which is half the number which are now supposed to be annually exported from Africa.--Where would a fund to support this expence be found? Five times the present revenue of the state would barely defray the charge of their pa.s.sage. Where provisions for their support after their arrival? Where those necessaries which must preserve them from peris.h.i.+ng?--Where a territory sufficient to support them?--Or where could they be received as friends, and not as invaders? To colonize them in the United States might seem less difficult. If the territory to be a.s.signed them were beyond the settlements of the whites, would they not be put upon a forlorn hope against the Indians? Would not the expence of transporting them thither, and supporting them, at least for the first and second year, be also far beyond the revenues and abilities of the state? The expence attending a small army in that country hath been found enormous. To transport as many colonists, annually, as we have shewn were necessary to eradicate the evil, would probably require five times as much money as the support of such an army. But the expence would not stop there: they must be a.s.sisted and supported at least for another year after their arrival in their new settlements. Suppose them arrived. Illiterate and ignorant as they are, is it probable that they would be capable of inst.i.tuting such a government, in their new colony, as would be necessary for their own internal happiness, or to secure them from destruction from without?

European emigrants, from whatever country they arrive, have been accustomed to the restraint of laws, and to respect for government.

These people, accustomed to be ruled with a rod of iron, will not easily submit to milder restraints. They would become hordes of vagabonds, robbers and murderers. Without the aids of an enlightened policy, morality, or religion, what else could be expected from their still savage state, and debased condition?--”But why not retain and _incorporate_ the _blacks into the state_?” This question has been well answered by Mr. Jefferson,[26] and who is there so free from prejudices among us, as candidly to declare that he has none against such a measure? The recent scenes transacted in the French colonies in the West Indies are enough to make one shudder with the apprehension of realizing similar calamities in this country. Such probably would be the event of an attempt to smother those prejudices which have been cherished for a period of almost two centuries. Those who secretly favour, whilst they affect to regret, domestic slavery, contend that in abolis.h.i.+ng it, we must also abolish that scion from it which I have denominated _civil_ slavery. That there must be no distinction of rights; that the descendants of Africans, as men, have an equal claim to all civil rights, as the descendants of Europeans; and upon being delivered from the yoke of bondage have a right to be admitted to all the privileges of a citizen.--But have not men when they enter into a state of society, a right to admit, or exclude any description of persons, as they think proper? If it be true, as Mr. Jefferson seems to suppose, that the Africans are really an inferior race of mankind,[27] will not sound policy advise their exclusion from a society in which they have not yet been admitted to partic.i.p.ate in civil rights; and even to guard against such admission, at any future period, since it may eventually depreciate the whole national character? And if prejudices have taken such deep root in our minds, as to render it impossible to eradicate this opinion, ought not so general an error, if it be one, to be respected? Shall we not relieve the necessities of the naked diseased beggar, unless we will invite him to a seat at our table; nor afford him shelter from the inclemencies of the night air, unless we admit him also to share our bed? To deny that we ought to abolish slavery, without incorporating the Negroes into the state, and admitting them to a full partic.i.p.ation of all our civil and social rights, appears to me to rest upon a similar foundation. The experiment so far as it has been already made among us, proves that the emanc.i.p.ated blacks are not ambitious of civil rights. To prevent the generation of such an ambition, appears to comport with sound policy; for if it should ever rear its head, its partizans, as well as its opponents, will be enlisted by nature herself, and always ranged in formidable array against each other. We must therefore endeavour to find some middle course, between the tyrannical and iniquitous policy which holds so many human creatures in a state of grievous bondage, and that which would turn loose a numerous, starving, and enraged banditti, upon the innocent descendants of their former oppressors. _Nature_, _time_, and _sound policy_ must co-operate with each other to produce such a change: if either be neglected, the work will be incomplete, dangerous, and not improbably destructive.

[Footnote 20: The number of slaves in the United States at the time of the late census, was something under 700,000.]

[Footnote 21: Mr. Jefferson most forcibly paints the unhappy influence on the manners of the people produced by the existence of slavery among us. The whole commerce between master and slave, says he, is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous pa.s.sions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning what he sees others do. If a parent had no other motive either in his own philanthropy or his self love, for restraining the intemperance of pa.s.sion towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to his worst of pa.s.sions; and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circ.u.mstances. And with what execrations would the statesman be loaded, who permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms them into despots, and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part, and the amor patriae of the other. For if a slave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that in which he is born to live and labour for another; in which he must lock up the faculties of his nature, contribute as far as depends on his individual endeavours to the evanishment of the human race, or entail his own miserable condition on the endless generations proceeding from him. With the morals of the people, their industry also, is destroyed.

For in a warm climate, no man will labour for himself who can make another labour for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labour. And can the liberties of a nation be ever thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people, that these liberties are of the gift of G.o.d? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that G.o.d is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever: that considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.--But it is impossible to be temperate and to pursue this subject through the various considerations of policy, of morals, of history, natural and civil. We must be contented to hope they will force their way into every one's mind. I think a change already perceptible, since the origin of the present revolution. The spirit of the master is abating, that of the slave rising from the dust; his condition mollifying; the way I hope preparing, under the auspices of Heaven, for a total emanc.i.p.ation, and that this is disposed in the order of events, to be with the consent of their masters, rather than by their extirpation. Notes on Virginia, 298.]

[Footnote 22: What is here advanced is not to be understood as implying an opinion that the labour of slaves is more productive than that of freemen.--The author of the Treatise on the Wealth of Nations, informs us, ”That it appears from the experience of all ages and nations, that the work done by freemen comes cheaper in the end than that done by slaves. That it is found to do so, even in Boston, New-York and Philadelphia, where the wages of common labour are very high.” Vol. 1.

pa. 123. Lond. edit. oct. Admitting this conclusion, it would not remove the objection that emanc.i.p.ated slaves would not willingly labour.]

[Footnote 23: Doctor Franklin, it is said, drew the bill for the gradual abolition of slavery in Pennsylvania.]

[Footnote 24: It is probable that similar laws have been pa.s.sed in some other states; but I have not been able to procure a note of them.]

[Footnote 25: The object of the amendment proposed to be offered to the legislature, was to emanc.i.p.ate all slaves born after a certain period; and further directing that they should continue with their parents to a certain age, then be brought up, at the public expence, to tillage, arts, or sciences, according to their geniuses, till the females should be eighteen, and the males twenty-one years of age, when they should be colonized to such a place as the circ.u.mstances of the time should render most proper; sending them out with arms, implements of household and of the handicraft arts, seeds, pairs of the useful domestic animals, &c. to declare them a free and independent people, and extend to them our alliance and protection, till they shall have acquired strength; and to send vessels at the same time to other parts of the world for an equal number of white inhabitants; to induce whom to migrate hither, proper encouragements should be proposed. Notes on Virginia, 251.]

[Footnote 26: It will probably be asked, why not retain the blacks among us and _incorporate them into the state_? Deep-rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the _real distinctions_ which _nature_ has made; and many other circ.u.mstances will divide us into parties and produce convulsions, which will probably never end but in the extermination of one or the other race. To these objections which are political may be added others which are physical and moral. The first difference which strikes us is that of colour.--&c.

The circ.u.mstance of superior beauty is thought worthy attention in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and other domestic animals; Why not in that of man? &c. In general their existence appears to partic.i.p.ate more of sensation than reflection. Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason and imagination, it appears to me that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior; that in imagination they are dull, tasteless and anamolous. &c. The improvement of the blacks in body and mind, in the first instance of their mixture with the whites, has been observed by every one, and proves that their inferiority is not the effect merely of their condition of life. We know that among the Romans, about the Augustan age, especially, the condition of their slaves was much more deplorable, than that of the blacks on the continent of America. Yet among the Romans their slaves were often their rarest artists. They excelled too in science, insomuch as to be usually employed as tutors to their masters' children. Epictetus, Terence, and Phoedrus were slaves. But they were of the race of whites. It is not their condition then, but nature, which has produced the distinction.

The opinion that they are inferior in the faculties of reason and imagination, must be hazarded with great diffidence. To justify a general conclusion requires many observations. &c.--I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circ.u.mstances, are inferior to the whites both in the endowments of body and mind. &c. This unfortunate difference of colour, and perhaps of faculty, is a powerful obstacle to the emanc.i.p.ation of these people. Among the Romans emanc.i.p.ation required but one effort. The slave, when made free, might mix with, without staining, the blood of his master. But with us a second is necessary, unknown to history.--See the pa.s.sage at length, Notes on Virginia, page 252 to 265.

”In the present case, it is not only the slave who is beneath his master, it is the Negroe who is beneath the white man. No act of enfranchis.e.m.e.nt can efface this unfortunate distinction.” Chatelleux's Travels in America.]

[Footnote 27: The celebrated David Hume, in his Essay on National Character, advances the same opinion; Doctor Beattie, in his Essay on Truth, controverts it with many powerful arguments. Early prejudices, had we more satisfactory information than we can possibly possess on the subject at present, would render an inhabitant of a country where Negroe slavery prevails, an improper umpire between them.]

The plan therefore which I would presume to propose for the consideration of my countrymen is such, as the number of slaves, the difference of their nature, and habits, and the state of agriculture, among us, might render it _expedient_, rather than _desirable_ to adopt: and would partake partly of that proposed by Mr. Jefferson, and adopted in other states; and partly of such cautionary restrictions, as a due regard to situation and circ.u.mstances, and even to _general_ prejudices, might recommend to those, who engage in so arduous, and perhaps unprecedented an undertaking.

1. Let every female born after the adoption of the plan be free, and transmit freedom to all her descendants, both male and female.

2. As a compensation to those persons, in whose families such females, or their descendants may be born, for the expence and trouble of their maintenance during infancy, let them serve such persons until the age of twenty-eight years: let them then receive twenty dollars in money, two suits of clothes, suited to the season, a hat, a pair of shoes, and two blankets. If these things be not voluntarily done, let the county courts enforce the performance, upon complaint.

3. Let all Negroe children be registered with the clerk of the county or corporation court, where born, within one month after their birth: let the person in whose family they are born take a copy of the register, and deliver it to the mother, or if she die to the child, before it is of the age of twenty-one years. Let any Negroe claiming to be free, and above the age of p.u.b.erty, be considered as of the age of twenty-eight years, if he or she be not registered, as required.

4. Let all such Negroe servants be put on the same footing as white servants and apprentices now are, in respect to food, raiment, correction, and the a.s.signment of their service from one to another.

5. Let the children of Negroes and mulattoes, born in the families of their parents, be bound to service by the overseers of the poor, until they shall attain the age of twenty-one years.--Let all above that age, who are not housekeepers, nor have voluntarily bound themselves to service for a year before the first day of February annually, be then bound for the remainder of the year by the overseers of the poor. Let the overseers of the poor receive fifteen per cent. of their wages, from the person hiring them, as a compensation for their trouble, and ten per cent. per annum out of the wages of such as they may bind apprentices.

6. If at the age of twenty-seven years, the master of a Negroe or mulattoe servant be unwilling to pay his freedom dues, above mentioned, at the expiration of the succeeding year, let him bring him into the county court, clad and furnished with necessaries as before directed, and pay into court five dollars, for the use of the servant, and thereupon let the court direct him to be hired by the overseers of the poor for the succeeding year, in the manner before directed.