Part 35 (1/2)

President Edwards, the younger, in a sermon preached half a century ago, at New Haven, Conn., says, speaking of the allowance of food given to slaves--”They are supplied with barely enough to keep them from starving.”

In the debate on the Missouri question in the U.S. Congress, 1819-20, the admission of Missouri to the Union, as a slave state, was urged, among other grounds as a measure of humanity to the slaves of the south.

Mr. Smyth, a member of Congress, from Virginia, and a large slaveholder, said, ”The plan of our opponents seems to be to confine the slave population to the southern states, to the countries where sugar, cotton, and tobacco are cultivated. But, sir, by confining the slaves to a part of the country where crops are raised for exportation, and the bread and meat are purchased, _you doom them to scarcity and hunger_. Is it not obvious that the way to render their situation more comfortable is to allow them to be taken where there is not the same motive to force the slave to INCESSANT TOIL that there is in the country where cotton, sugar, and tobacco are raised for exportation. It is proposed to hem in the blacks _where they are_ HARD WORKED and ILL FED, that they may be rendered unproductive and the race be prevented from increasing. * *

* The proposed measure would be EXTREME CRUELTY to the blacks. * * *

You would * * * doom them to SCARCITY and HARD LABOR.”--[Speech of Mr. Smyth, of Va., Jan. 28, 1820.]--See National Intelligencer. ]

[Footnote D: See law of Louisiana, Martin's Digest, 6, 10. Mr. Bouldin, a Virginia slaveholder, in a speech in Congress, Feb. 16, 1835, (see National Intelligencer of that date,) said ”_he knew_ that many negroes had died from exposure to weather.” Mr. B. adds, ”they are clad in a flimsy fabric that will turn neither wind nor water.” Rev. John Rankin says, in his Letters on slavery, page 57, ”In every slaveholding state, _many slaves suffer extremely_, both while they labor and while they sleep, _for want of clothing_ to keep them warm. Often they are driven through frost and snow without either stocking or shoe, until the path they tread is died with their blood. And when they return to their miserable huts at night, they find not there the means of comfortable rest; but _on the cold ground they must lie without covering, and s.h.i.+ver while they slumber_.” ]

[Footnote E: See law of Louisiana, act of July 7, 1806, Martin's Digest, 6, 10-12. The law of South Carolina permits the master to _compel_ his slaves to work fifteen hours in the twenty-four, in summer, and fourteen in the winter--which would be in winter, from daybreak in the morning until _four hours_ after sunset!--See 2 Brevard's Digest, 243. The preamble of this law commences thus: ”Whereas, _many_ owners of slaves _do confine them so closely to hard labor that they have not sufficient time for natural rest:_ be it therefore enacted,” &c. In a work ent.i.tled ”Travels in Louisiana in 1802,” translated from the French, by John Davis, is the following testimony under this head:--

”The labor of Slaves in Louisiana is _not_ severe, unless it be at the rolling of sugars, an interval of from two to three months, then they work _both night and day_. Abridged of their sleep, they scarce retire to rest during the whole period.” See page 81. On the 87th page of the same work, the writer says, _”Both in summer and winter_ the slaves must be _in the field_ by the _first dawn of day.”_ And yet he says, ”the labor of the slave is _not severe_, except at the rolling of sugars!”

The work abounds in eulogies of slavery.

In the ”History of South Carolina and Georgia,” vol. 1, p. 120, is the following: ”_So laborious_ is the task of raising, beating, and cleaning rice, that had it been possible to obtain European servants in sufficient numbers, _thousands and tens of thousands_ MUST HAVE PERISHED.”

In an article on the agriculture of Louisiana, published in the second number of the ”Western Review” is the following:--”The work is admitted to be severe for the hands, (slaves) requiring, when the process of making sugar is commenced, TO BE PRESSED NIGHT AND DAY.”

Mr. Philemon Bliss, of Ohio, in his letters from Florida, in 1835, says, ”The negroes commence labor by daylight in the morning, and excepting the plowboys, who must feed and rest their horses, do not leave the field till dark in the evening.”

Mr. Stone, in his letter from Natchez, an extract of which was given above, says, ”It is a general rule on all regular plantations, that the slaves rise in season in the morning, to _be in the field as soon as it is light enough for them to see to work_, and remain there until it is _so dark that they cannot see_. This is the case at all seasons of the year.”

President Edwards, in the sermon already extracted from, says, ”The slaves are kept at hard labor from _five o'clock in the morning till nine at night_, excepting time to eat twice during the day.”

Hon. R.J. Turnbull, a South Carolina slaveholder, already quoted, speaking of the harvesting of cotton, says: _”All the pregnant women_ even, on the plantation, and weak and _sickly_ negroes incapable of other labor, are then _in requisition_.” * * * See ”Refutation of the Calumnies circulated against the Southern and Western States,” by a South Carolinian. ]

[Footnote F: A late number of the ”Western Medical Reformer” contains a dissertation by a Kentucky physician, on _Cachexia Africana_, or African consumption, in which the writer says--

”This form of disease deserves more attention from the medical profession than it has heretofore elicited. Among the causes may be named the mode and manner in which the negroes live. They are _crowded_ together in a _small hut_, sometimes having an imperfect, and sometimes no floor--and seldom raised from the ground, illy ventilated, and surrounded with filth. Their diet and clothing, are also causes which might be enumerated as exciting agents. They live on a coa.r.s.e, crude and unwholesome diet, and are imperfectly clothed, both summer and winter; sleeping upon filthy and frequently damp beds.”

Hon. R.J. Turnbull, of South Carolina, whose testimony on another point has been given above, says of the slaves, that they live in ”_clay cabins_, with clay chimneys,” &c. Mr. Clay, a Georgia slaveholder, from whom an extract has been given already, says, speaking of the dwellings of the slaves, ”Too many individuals of both s.e.xes are crowded into one house, and the proper separation of apartments _cannot_ be observed.

That the slaves are insensible to the evils arising from it, does not in the least lessen the unhappy consequences.” Clay's Address before the Presbytery of Georgia.--P. 13. ]

[Footnote G: Rev. C.C. Jones, late of Georgia, now Professor in the Theological Seminary at Columbia, South Carolina, made a report before the presbytery of Georgia, in 1833, on the moral condition of the slave population, which report was published under the direction of the presbytery. In that report Mr. Jones says, ”They, the slaves, are shut out from our sympathies and efforts as immortal beings, and are educated and disciplined as creatures of profit, and of profit only, for this world.” In a sermon preached by Mr. Jones, before two a.s.sociations of planters, in Georgia, in 1831, speaking of the slaves he says, ”They are a nation of HEATHEN in our very midst.” ”What have we done for our poor negroes? With shame we must confess that we have done NOTHING!” ”How can you pray for Christ's kingdom to come while you are neglecting a people peris.h.i.+ng for lack of vision around your very doors.” ”We withhold the Bible from our servants and keep them in ignorance of it, while we _will_ not use the means to have it read and explained to them.” Jones'

Sermon, pp. 7, 9.

An official report of the Presbyterian Synod of South Carolina and Georgia, adopted at its session in Columbia, S.C., and published in the Charleston Observer of March 22, 1834, speaking of the slaves, says, ”There are over _two millions_ of _human beings_, in the condition of HEATHEN, and, in some respects, _in a worse condition_!” * * * ”From long continued and close observation, we believe that their moral and religious condition is such, as that they may justly be considered the _heathen_ of this Christian country, and will _bear comparison with heathen in any country in the world_.” * * * ”The negroes are dest.i.tute of the privileges of the gospel, and _ever will be under the present state of things.”_ Report, &c., p. 4.

A writer in the Church Advocate, published in Lexington, Ky., says, ”The poor negroes are left in the ways of spiritual darkness, no efforts are being made for their enlightenment, no seed is being sown, nothing but a moral wilderness is seen, over which the soul sickens--the heart of Christian sympathy bleeds. Here nothing is presented but a moral waste, as _extensive as our influence_, as appalling as the valley of death.”

The following is an extract of a letter from Bishop Andrew of the Methodist Episcopal Church, to Messrs. Garrit and Maffit, editors of the ”Western Methodist,” then published at Nashville, Tennessee.

”_Augusta, Jan. 29, 1835._

”The Christians of the South owe a heavy debt to slaves on their plantations, and the ministers of Christ especially are debtors to the whole slave population. I fear a cry goes up to heaven on this subject against us; and how, I ask, shall the scores who have left the ministry of the Word, that they may make corn and cotton, and buy and sell, and get gain, meet this cry at the bar of G.o.d? and what shall the hundreds of money-making and money-loving masters, who have grown rich by the toil and sweat of their slaves, and _left their souls to perish_, say when they go with them to the judgment of the great day?”

”The Kentucky Union for the moral and religious improvement of the colored race,”--an a.s.sociation composed of some of the most influential ministers and laymen of Kentucky, says in a general circular to the religious public, ”To the female character among the black population, we cannot allude but with feelings of the bitterest shame. A similar condition of moral pollution, and utter disregard of a pure and virtuous reputation, is to be found only _without the pale of Christendom_. That such a state of society should exist in a Christian nation, without calling forth any particular attention to its existence, though ever before our eyes and in our families, is a moral phenomenon at once unaccountable and disgraceful.”

Rev. James A. Thome, a native of Kentucky, and still residing there, said in a speech in New York, May 1834, speaking of licentiousness among the slaves, ”I would not have you fail to understand that this is a _general_ evil. Sir, what I now say, I say from deliberate conviction of its truth; that the slave states are Sodoms, and almost every village family is a brothel. (In this, I refer to the inmates of the kitchen, and not to the whites.)”

A writer in the ”Western Luminary,” published in Lexington, Ky., made the following declaration to the same point in the number of that paper for May 7, 1835: ”There is one topic to which I will allude, which will serve to establish the heathenism of this population. I allude to the UNIVERSAL LICENTIOUSNESS which prevails. _Chast.i.ty is no virtue among them_--its violation neither injures female character in their own estimation, or that of their master or mistress--no instruction is ever given, _no censure p.r.o.nounced_. I speak not of the world. I SPEAK OF CHRISTIAN FAMILIES GENERALLY.”