Part 7 (1/2)

In fact, the negroes are our fellows and our equals much more than we imagine; they adapt themselves better than the Indians to our civilization. They seek to be instructed, and not only do the free blacks of the English islands hasten, as we have seen, to provide themselves with teachers, but even those of the United States, crushed as they are by contemptuous treatment, neglect no means of introducing their children into the schools, where is found one-ninth of their total number. In Liberia, they have shown themselves. .h.i.therto very capable of ruling. In Hayti, since their deliverance from the ridiculous and odious yoke of Soulouque, they have advanced rapidly, it is affirmed, in the way of true progress; legal marriages increase, popular instruction is becoming established, religious liberty is respected.

Lastly, in the negro colony of Buxton, in Canada, the fugitive slaves have become industrious landholders, and are respected by all.

Let us not say that prejudice of skin is indestructible; the suppression of slavery may modify it profoundly. What degrades the free negro to-day, is the existence of the negro slave. To be respectable, we all need to be respected. The poor, free negro is ashamed of himself; he dares not aspire to any thing n.o.ble and great; he preserves, besides, as the legacy of slavery, the idea that labor is dishonoring, that idleness is a sign of independence. This is enough to make him remain a stranger to honorable occupations, and confine himself to the practice of vile trades. When slavery shall have disappeared, the situation of the free blacks will become quite different: they will be numerous; they will have an appreciable share in the regulation of national affairs; their vote will count, and, thenceforth, we may be tranquil, no one will be afraid to treat them with respect, and perhaps to pay court to them.

The law of New York, as well as the Supreme Court of that State, has already admitted that color exercises no influence over the rights of citizens. The time draws near when the North will no longer contest the intervention of free negroes at the ballot-box. This will be a great step in advance. Let us remark, moreover, that, after general emanc.i.p.ation, the black population, while exercising its share of influence, will never be able, through the number of suffrages at its disposal, to alarm the jealous susceptibility of the whites; the latter, in fact, will be continually recruited by European immigration, and the day will come when the few negroes of the United States will be scarcely perceptible in the heart of a gigantic nation.

The honor of the North is at stake; it belongs to it to give an example at this time, and to show, by the reform of its own habits, that it has the right to combat the crime of the South. It must set to work seriously, resolutely, to resolve the problem of the coexistence of races, while the South resolves, willing or unwilling, the problem of emanc.i.p.ation. Liberty in the South, equality in the North; the one is no less necessary than the other; it may even be said that one great obstacle to the idea of emanc.i.p.ation is this other idea that blacks and whites cannot live together, but that one must some day exterminate the other.

Why suffer the establishment of this lying axiom which checks all progress? Why not cast our eyes on the neighboring colonies where the prejudice of color reigned supremely before emanc.i.p.ation, and where it has since become rapidly effaced. The United States have a lofty end to attain; let them beware how they take too low an aim! They will not have more than they need, with the efforts of all, the charity of all, the sacrifices of all, the earnest endeavors by which all can elevate themselves above vulgar prejudices, to accomplish a task at once the most difficult and most glorious that has ever been proposed to a great people.

The North, I repeat, is bound to give a n.o.ble example by obtaining a s.h.i.+ning victory over itself. Let it say to itself that coexistence is not amalgamation; the question is not to marry negroes, but to treat them with justice. The fear of amalgamation once vanished, many things will change in appearance. Why, in fact, is the prejudice of race stronger in the free States than in the slave States? Because the latter know that slavery is a sufficient line of demarcation, and because they have not to dread amalgamation. Now, this is and will be nowhere to be dreaded; the instinct of both races will prevent such mingling, and the blacks are as anxious to remain separate from the whites as the whites are to avoid alliance with the blacks. As I have said, nothing but slavery, and the perverse habits that it engenders, could have succeeded in some sort in breaking down this barrier. If the cla.s.s of mullattoes thus formed rule in some republics of South America, it proceeds from the absence of a numerous and powerful white race, like that which is covering the United States with its continually increasing population.

Decidedly, fears of amalgamation are puerile in such a country; and decidedly also, any other solution than the coexistence of races would be wrong. Doubtless, a natural concentration of the emanc.i.p.ated negroes will be some day effected; they will flock to those States where their relative number will ensure to them the most influence. Perhaps we may even obtain a glimpse of the time when, by the result of a providential compensation, the countries which have been the witnesses of their sufferings, and which they have watered with their tears, these countries where they, better than any others, can devote themselves to labor, will belong to them in great part. Are the Antilles and the regions of the Gulf of Mexico destined to become the refuge and almost the empire of Africans torn from their own continent? It is possible, but not certain. In any case, this geographical repart.i.tion of the races would be wrought peaceably; the effort to effect it by violent measures would justly arouse the conscience of the human race. So long as we talk of transporting the blacks to Africa, to St. Domingo, or elsewhere, so long as the peaceable coexistence of the races be not accepted, the barbarous proceedings which dishonor America will not cease, the Northern States will maltreat their free negroes, and the South will cling to slavery as to the only means of preventing a struggle for extermination.

At the North as well as the South, men need to accustom themselves in fine to the idea of coexistence. Yes, there will be whites and free blacks in various parts of the Union; yes, it is certain that in some parts, the black population will be possessed of influence; it may even happen that, in one or two points of the extreme South, it will come to rule. If this hypothesis, improbable in my opinion, should ever be realized, it would not be a cause of shame, but of glory, to the Union.

It is said that the great Indian tribes of the Southwest think of forming a State, which will demand admission into the Union, and which has a chance to obtain it. Why should there not be, at need, a negro State by the side of an Indian State? This reparation would be fully due to the oppressed race, and America would be honored in treading her repugnance under foot, and in showing to the whole world that her so much vaunted liberty is not a vain word.

She would show, at the same time, that her Christian faith is not a vain formality. If the desire of avoiding amalgamation has legitimate grounds, the antipathy of race is simply abominable. Words cannot be found severe enough to censure the conduct of those _Christians_ who, pursuing with their indignation the slavery of the South, refuse to fulfil the simplest duties of kindness, or even of common equity, towards the free negroes of the North.

But I hope that the Gospel, accustomed to work miracles, will also work this. Let us be just; we have already seen the pious ladies of Philadelphia lavis.h.i.+ng their cares on black and white without distinction at the time of the cholera invasion. They washed and dressed with their own hands, in the hospital which they had founded, the children rendered orphans by the scourge, without taking account of the differences of color. This is a sign of progress, and I could cite several others; I could name cities, Chicago, for instance, where the schools are opened by law to the blacks as well as the whites. There is a power in the United States which will overthrow the obstacle of the North as well as that of the South, which will abolish both slavery and prejudice of skin.

This power has shown in the Antilles what it can do. There, pastors and missionaries, schools, works of charity pursued in common, have placed on a level the blacks and the whites, devoted to the same cause, and ransomed by the same Saviour. In the United States; likewise, the Christian faith will raise up the one, and will teach the others to humble themselves; it will destroy the vices of the negro, and will break the detestable pride of the Anglo-Saxon. The real influence of faith on both--this is the true solution, this is the true bond of the races. Through this, will be established relations of mutual love and respect. What a mission is reserved for the churches of the United States! Checked hitherto by enormous difficulties, which it would be unjust not to take into account, they have not acted the part in the recent struggle against slavery which reverted to them of right. They have done a great deal, whatever may be said; they are disposed to do still more, and their att.i.tude has improved visibly within a year. But this cannot suffice; there are two problems to resolve instead of one; the question is now, to approach both face to face. True equality is founded, under the eye of G.o.d, through the community of hopes and of repentance, through close a.s.sociation in wors.h.i.+p, in prayer, in action; and this equality has nothing in common with the jealous spirit of levelling which suffers old grievances to subsist, and continually invents new; it is peaceable, forgetful of evil, confiding, truly fraternal. I do not dream, of course, of the universal conversion of the population of the United States, both black and white; I know only that the Gospel, though it deeply penetrates comparatively few hearts, extends its influence much further, and acts on those that it has not won. Let the Christians of America set to work, let them reject, for it is time, the scandals still presented here and there by their apologists for slavery, let them forbear to spare that which is culpable, to call good evil, or evil good, and they will render to their country a service which they alone can render it, and to which nothing on earth can be compared.

The United States do not know how great will be the transformation of their internal condition, and the increase of their good renown abroad, when their churches, their schools, their public vehicles, their ballot-boxes, shall be widely accessible to persons of color, when equality and liberty shall have become realities on their soil; they do not know how great will be their peace and their prosperity. Let the two inseparable problems of slavery and the coexistence of races be resolved among them under the ruling influence of the Gospel, and they will witness the birth of a future far better than the past. No more fears, no more rivalries, no more separations in perspective, their conquests will become accomplished of themselves; and, no longer destined to swell the domain of servitude, they will win the applause of the entire world.

And all this will not be purchased, as men seem to believe, by the sacrifice of the cotton culture. At the present time, this culture incurs but one serious risk: the momentary triumph of a party that dreams of a slavery propaganda; it will be saved alone by the progress of liberty. On the day when emanc.i.p.ation shall be achieved, if wrought by the action of moral agents and social necessities, instead of by that of civil wars and insurrections, the cultivation of cotton in the Southern States will receive the impetus to a magnificent development.

The emanc.i.p.ated negroes make large quant.i.ties of sugar in the Antilles; why should they not make cotton on firm ground? If affranchis.e.m.e.nt produced the destruction of planting in St. Domingo, we know now the reason. It is a proved fact that negroes who do not owe their liberty to insurrection, remain disposed to devote themselves to labor in the fields.

With slavery, observe, disappear, one after the other, the obstacles in the way of agricultural progress. The capital which no one dares risk to-day in the Southern States, will flow into them emulously as soon as slavery shall be abolished; I say more: as soon as its progressive abolition shall be no longer doubtful in the sight of all. European immigration, the current of which turns aside with so much circ.u.mspection, avoiding a territory accursed and given over to calamities, will flock towards those countries more beautiful, more fertile, and broader than those of the Far West. Machinery will come, to more than fill up the void caused by the pa.s.sing diminution of the number of laborers. The slaves can be intrusted with none but the simplest implements: every one knows that the plough, introduced originally into our French colonies, disappeared to make room for the hoe as soon as Colbert had authorized the slave trade. Ploughs have reappeared there since emanc.i.p.ation. Their agricultural and industrial progress date from the same epoch: to-day, our colonists understand the use of manures, and make improvements in manufacture. A new era is dawning, in fine; what will it be in the United States, among that people which seems destined to surpa.s.s all others in the application of mechanics to agriculture?

Still, I have made one concession too much in admitting the diminution of the number of laborers. Supposing that a few negroes quit the field, many whites will come to take their place. White labor is fully possible in the majority of the slave States, and immigrants from Europe will not hesitate to engage in it. Wherever slavery reigns, it is that, and not the climate, that must be arraigned if the whites fold their hands; labor has become there a servile act--it is blighted, as it were, in its essence. A competent writer said the other day: ”If Algeria had been subjected to the sway of slavery, cultivation there would have been reputed impracticable for the French, and examples of mortality would not have been wanting.” The whites have labored in the Antilles; the whites can labor, not only in all the slave States of the intermediate region, but in Louisiana. Cotton is already produced in Texas, thanks to its German settlers. The question is only, to go on in this way. Slavery once abolished, the small proprietors, who at present carry all the criminal extravagancies of the South further than any others, will be compelled to set their hands to work. This will be an advantage both to the country and themselves. Who will not pray for the coming of the time when so considerable a part of the population will cease to possess slaves which it is incapable of feeding, when it will be transformed into the middle cla.s.s, and thus escape the real servitude which embitters it?

Moreover, let us not forget new cultures, that of the vine among others, which are fitted to become introduced into these new countries, or to develop there, and which lack nothing but liberty in order to flourish.

The arts and manufactures also have their place; independently of the tillers of the soil, properly called, the Southern States will have need of workmen in manufactories, and of managers of agricultural machines; large plantations will often, become divided, as has happened in the Antilles, and we shall witness the appearance of the small estate, that essential basis of social order. There will be employment for all, and the rich Southern cultures will be less neglected than before.

Whoever has descended the Ohio has involuntarily compared its two banks: here, the State of Ohio, whose prosperity advances with rapid strides; there, the State of Kentucky, no less favored by Nature, yet which languishes as if abandoned. Why? Because slavery blights all that it touches. Could not the whites of Kentucky and Virginia labor as well as those of Ohio? The comparative poverty of these slave States reminds me of the dest.i.tution of our colonies and those of England before emanc.i.p.ation: mortgaged estates, plantations burdened with expenses, the complete destruction of credit--such was their position. We must read American statistics to form an idea of the truly unheard-of extent of this fact--impoverishment by slavery. With a larger extent and much richer lands, the slave States possess neither agricultural growth, nor industrial growth, nor advance of population, which can be compared far or near with that which is found in the free States. A book by Mr.

Hinton Rowan Helper, _The Impending Crisis of the South_, expresses these differences in figures so significant that it is impossible to contest them.

The Southern States, therefore, are certain to increase their cultures, and to found their lasting prosperity by entering the path that leads to emanc.i.p.ation. But if they take the contrary road, they will hasten to their destruction, and with strange rapidity. Already, their violent acts of secession, and the monstrous plans which are necessarily attached to them, have had the first effect, easily foreseen, of dealing a most dangerous blow to American cotton. In a few weeks, they have done themselves more harm than the North, supposing its hostility as great as it is little, could have done them in twenty years. The meeting of Manchester has replied to the manifestoes of Charleston; England has said to herself, that, from men so determined to destroy themselves, she should count on nothing; and, having taken her resolution, she will proceed with it speedily; let the Southern States take care. English India can produce as much cotton as America; before long, if the Carolinians persist, they will have obtained the glorious result of despoiling their country of its chief resource; they will have killed the hen that laid the golden eggs. The matter is serious; I ask them to reflect on it. As England, under pain of falling into want and riots, cannot dispense with cotton for a single day, she will act energetically. Cotton grows marvellously in many countries; in the Antilles, where it has been produced already; in Algeria, where the plantations are about to be increased; on the whole continent of Africa, in fine, where it enters perhaps into the plans of G.o.d thus to make a breach in indigenous slavery by the faults committed by slaveholders in America.

CHAPTER X.

THE PRESENT CRISIS WILL REGENERATE THE INSt.i.tUTIONS OF THE UNITED STATES.

It remains for me to inquire what influence the present crisis may exert on the inst.i.tutions of the United States. It is at the expense of these inst.i.tutions that the slave States, inferior in strength, in numbers, in progress of every kind, would reestablish their fatal and growing preponderance. Here again, therefore, my thesis subsists: the victories of the South had compromised every thing, the resistance of the North is about to save every thing; the election of Mr. Lincoln is a painful but salutary crisis, it is the first effort of a great people rising.

The party of slavery had introduced into the heart of American democracy, a permanent cause of debas.e.m.e.nt and corruption. In this respect, also, it was leading the Confederation to its death by the most direct and speedy way. I wish to show how it developed the worst sides of the democratic system. I hope to be impartial towards this system; although persuaded that the government of which England offers us the model is better suited to guaranty public liberties and to second true progress in every thing, I am not of those who place the shadow before the substance, and who condemn democracy without appeal. Are we destined some day to pa.s.s into its hands? Have we already begun to glide down the descent that leads to it? It is possible. In any case, it would be unjust to hate America on account of it, as is too often done. America has had no choice; in virtue of its origin and its history, it could be nothing else than a democracy. If it has the faults of democracy, the unamiable rudeness, the violent proceedings, the levelling pa.s.sions, I am scarcely surprised at it. I ask myself rather if it has known how to find a basis of support against the temptations of such a system, if it has prevented the subjugation of individuals by the ma.s.s, the absorption of consciences by the State, the subst.i.tution of the sovereignty of the end for that of the people. These are the shoals of democracy; have they been shunned by the United States? Have they been able to avoid transforming it either into tyranny or socialism? We shall see that, if it has not succ.u.mbed to the temptation, this has not been the fault of the party of slavery. Thanks to it, the corruption of democratic inst.i.tutions was rapidly advancing; a single adversary, constantly the same, has combated the progress of this work of destruction. We shall encounter again, upon the ground of political inst.i.tutions, the fundamental antagonism of the Gospel and slavery.