The Anti Slavery Examiner, Part 2 of 4 by American Anti Slavery Society

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But, independently of any abstract reasoning drawn from the nature of
moral and intelligent beings, FACTS have been elicited in the discussion
of the point before us, proving slavery everywhere (especially Southern
slavery, maintained by enlightened Protestants of the nineteenth
century) replete with torments and horrors--the direst form of
oppression that upheaves itself before the sun. These facts have been so
successfully impressed on a large portion of the intelligent mind of the
country, that the slaves of the South are beginning to be considered as
those whom God emphatically regards as the "poor," the "needy," the
"afflicted," the "oppressed," the "bowed down;" and for whose
consolation he has said, "Now will I arise--I will set him in safety
from him that puffeth at him."

This state of the public mind has been brought about within the last two
or three years; and it is an event which, so far from lessening, greatly
animates, the hopes and expectations of abolitionists.

3. The abolitionists believed from the first, that the tendency of
slavery is to produce, on the part of the whites, looseness of morals,
disdain of the wholesome restraints of law, and a ferocity of temper,
found, only in solitary instances, in those countries where slavery is
unknown. They were not ignorant of the fact, that this was disputed; nor
that the "CHIVALRY OF THE SOUTH" had become a cant phrase, including,
all that is high-minded and honorable among men; nor, that it had been
formally asserted in our National legislature, that slavery, as it
exists in the South, "produces the highest toned, the purest, best
organization of society that has ever existed on the face of the earth."
Nor were the abolitionists unaware, that these pretensions, proving
anything else but their own solidity, had been echoed and re-echoed so
long by the unthinking and the interested of the North, that the
character of the South had been injuriously affected by them--till she
began boldly to attribute her _peculiar_ superiority to her _peculiar_
institution, and thus to strengthen it. All this the abolitionists saw
and knew. But few others saw and understood it as they did. The
revelations of the last three years are fast dissipating the old notion,
and bringing multitudes in the North to see the subject as the
abolitionists see it. When "Southern Chivalry" and the _purity_ of
southern society are spoken of now, it is at once replied, that a large
number of the slaves show, by their _color_, their indisputable claim to
white paternity; and that, notwithstanding their near consanguineous
relation to the whites, they are still held and treated, in all
respects, _as slaves_. Nor is it forgotten now, when the claims of the
South to "hospitality" are pressed, to object, because they are grounded
on the unpaid wages of the laborer--on the robbery of the poor. When
"Southern generosity" is mentioned, the old adage, "be just before you
are generous," furnishes the reply. It is no proof of generosity (say
the objectors) to take the bread of the laborer, to lavish it in
banquetings on the rich. When "Southern Chivalry" is the theme of its
admirers, the hard-handed, but intelligent, working man of the North
asks, if the espionage of southern hotels, and of ships and steamboats
on their arrival at southern ports; if the prowl, by day and by night,
for the solitary stranger suspected of sympathizing with the enslaved,
that he may be delivered over to the mercies of a vigilance committee,
furnishes the proof of its existence; if the unlawful importation of
slaves from Africa[A] furnishes the proof; if the abuse, the scourging,
the hanging on suspicion, without law, of friendless strangers, furnish
the proof; if the summary execution of slaves and of colored freemen,
almost by the score, without legal trial, furnishes the proof; if the
cruelties and tortures to which _citizens_ have been exposed, and the
burning to death of slaves by slow fires,[B] furnish the proof. All
these things, says he, furnish any thing but proof of _true_
hospitality, or generosity, or gallantry, or purity, or chivalry.

[Footnote A: Mr. Mercer, of Virginia, some years ago, asserted in
Congress, that "CARGOES" of African slaves were smuggled into the
southern states to a deplorable extent. Mr. Middleton, of South
Carolina, declared it to be his belief, that THIRTEEN THOUSAND Africans
were annually smuggled into the southern states. Mr. Wright, of
Maryland, estimated the number at FIFTEEN THOUSAND. Miss Martineau was
told in 1835, by a wealthy slaveholder of Louisiana, (who probably spoke
of that state alone,) that the annual importation of native Africans was
from THIRTEEN THOUSAND to FIFTEEN THOUSAND. The President of the United
States, in his last Annual Message, speaking of the Navy, says, "The
large force under Commodore Dallas [on the West India station] has been
most actively and efficiently employed in protecting our commerce, IN
PREVENTING THE IMPORTATION OF SLAVES, &c."]

[Footnote B: Within the last few years, four slaves, and one citizen of
color, have been put to death in this manner, in Alabama, Mississippi,
Missouri, and Arkansas.]

Certain it is, that the time when southern slavery derived countenance
at the North, from its supposed connection with "chivalry," is rapidly
passing away. "Southern Chivalry" will soon be regarded as one of the
by-gone fooleries of a less intelligent and less virtuous age. It will
soon be cast out--giving place to the more reasonable idea, that the
denial of wages to the laborer, the selling of men and women, the
whipping of husbands and wives in each others presence, to compel them
to unrequited toil, the deliberate attempt to extinguish mind, and,
consequently, to destroy the soul--is among the highest offences against
God and man--unspeakably mean and ungentlemanly.

The impression made on the minds of the people as to this matter, is one
of the events of the last two or three years that does not contribute to
lessen the hopes or expectations of abolitionists.

4. The ascendency that Slavery has acquired, and exercises, in the
administration of the government, and the apprehension now prevailing
among the sober and intelligent, irrespective of party, that it will
soon overmaster the Constitution itself, may be ranked among the events
of the last two or three years that affect the course of abolitionists.
The abolitionists regard the Constitution with unabated affection. They
hold in no common veneration the memory of those who made it. They would
be the last to brand Franklin and King and Morris and Wilson and Sherman
and Hamilton with the ineffaceable infamy of attempting to ingraft on
the Constitution, and therefore to _perpetuate_, a system of oppression
in absolute antagonism to its high and professed objects, one which
their own practice condemned,--and this, too, when they had scarcely
wiped away the dust and sweat of the Revolution from their brows! Whilst
abolitionists feel and speak thus of our Constitutional fathers, they do
not justify the dereliction of principle into which they were betrayed,
when they imparted to the work of their hands _any_ power to contribute
to the continuance of such a system. They can only palliate it, by
supposing, that they thought, slavery was already a waning institution,
destined soon to pass away. In their time, (1787) slaves were
comparatively of little value--there being then no great slave-labor
staple (as cotton is now) to make them profitable to their holders.[A]
Had the circumstances of the country remained as they then were,
slave-labor, always and every where the most expensive--would have
disappeared before the competition of free labour. They had seen, too,
the principle of universal liberty, on which the Revolution was
justified, recognised and embodied in most of the State Constitutions;
they had seen slavery utterly forbidden in that of Vermont
--instantaneously abolished in that of Massachusetts--and laws
enacted in the New-England States and in Pennsylvania, for its gradual
abolition. Well might they have anticipated, that Justice and Humanity,
now starting forth with fresh vigor, would, in their march, sweep away
the whole system; more especially, as freedom of speech and of the
press--the legitimate abolisher not only of the acknowledged vice of
slavery, but of every other that time should reveal in our institutions
or practices--had been fully secured to the people. Again; power was
conferred on Congress to put a stop to the African slave-trade, without
which it was thought, at that time, to be impossible to maintain
slavery, as a system, on this continent,--so great was the havoc it
committed on human life. Authority was also granted to Congress to
prevent the transfer of slaves, as articles of commerce, from one State
to another; and the introduction of slavery into the territories. All
this was crowned by the power of refusing admission into the Union, to
any new state, whose form of government was repugnant to the principles
of liberty set forth in that of the United States. The faithful
execution, by Congress, of these powers, it was reasonably enough
supposed, would, at least, prevent the growth of slavery, if it did not
entirely remove it. Congress did, at the set time, execute _one_ of
them--deemed, then, the most effectual of the whole; but, as it has
turned out, the least so.

[Footnote A: The cultivation of cotton was almost unknown in the United
States before 1787. It was not till two years afterward that it began to
be raised or exported. (See Report of the Secretary of the Treasury,
Feb. 29, 1836.)--See Appendix, D.]

The effect of the interdiction of the African slave-trade was, not to
diminish the trade itself, or greatly to mitigate its horrors; it only
changed its name from African to American--transferred the seat of
commerce from Africa to America--its profits from African princes to
American farmers. Indeed, it is almost certain, if the African
slave-trade had been left unrestrained, that slavery would not have
covered so large a portion of our country as it does now. The cheap rate
at which slaves might have been imported by the planters of the south,
would have prevented the rearing of them for sale, by the farmers of
Maryland, Virginia, and the other slave-selling states. If these states
could be restrained from the _commerce_ in slaves, slavery could not be
supported by them for any length of time, or to any considerable extent.
They could not maintain it, as an economical system, under the
competition of free labor. It is owing to the _non-user_ by Congress, or
rather to their unfaithful application of their power to the other
points, on which it was expected to act for the limitation or
extermination of slavery, that the hopes of our fathers have not been
realized; and that slavery has, at length, become so audacious, as
openly to challenge the principles of 1776--to trample on the most
precious rights secured to the citizen--to menace the integrity of the
Union and the very existence of the government itself.

Slavery has advanced to its present position by steps that were, at
first, gradual, and, for a long time, almost unnoticed; afterward, it
made its way by intimidating or corrupting those who ought to have been
forward to resist its pretensions. Up to the time of the "Missouri
Compromise," by which the nation was wheedled out of its honor, slavery
was looked on as an evil that was finally to yield to the expanding and
ripening influences of our Constitutional principles and regulations.
Why it has not yielded, we may easily see, by even a slight glance at
some of the incidents in our history.

It has already been said, that we have been brought into our present
condition by the unfaithfulness of Congress, in not _exerting_ the power
vested in it, to stop the domestic slave-trade, and in the _abuse_ of
the power of admitting "_new_ states" into the Union. Kentucky made
application in 1792, with a slave-holding Constitution in her
hand.--With what a mere _technicality_ Congress suffered itself to be
drugged into torpor:--_She was part of one of the "Original States"--and
therefore entitled to all their privileges._

One precedent established, it was easy to make another. Tennessee was
admitted in 1796, without scruple, on the same ground.

The next triumph of slavery was in 1803, in the purchase of Louisiana,
acknowledged afterward, even by Mr. Jefferson who made it, to be
unauthorized by the Constitution--and in the establishment of slavery
throughout its vast limits, actually and substantially under the
auspices of that instrument which declares its only objects to be--"to
form a more perfect union, establish JUSTICE, insure DOMESTIC
TRANQUILITY, provide for the common defence, promote the general
welfare, and secure the blessings of LIBERTY to ourselves and our
posterity."[A]

[Footnote A: It may be replied, The colored people were held as
_property_ by the laws of Louisiana previously to the cession, and that
Congress had no right to divest the newly acquired citizens of their
property. This statement is evasive. It does not include, nor touch the
question, which is this:--Had Congress, or the treaty-making power, a
right to recognise, and, by recognising, to establish, in a territory
that had no claim of privilege, on the ground of being part of one of
the "Original States," a condition of things that it could not establish
_directly_, because there was no grant in the constitution of power,
direct or incidental, to do so--and because, _to do so_, was in
downright oppugnancy to the principles of the Constitution itself? The
question may be easily answered by stating the following case:--Suppose
a law had existed in Louisiana, previous to the cession, by which the
children--male and female--of all such parents as were not owners of
real estate of the yearly value of $500, had been--no matter how
long--held in slavery by their more wealthy land-holding
neighbors:--would Congress, under the Constitution, have a right (by
recognising) to establish, for ever, such a relation as one white
person, under such a law, might hold to another? Surely not. And yet no
substantial difference between the two cases can be pointed out.]

In this case, the violation of the Constitution was suffered to pass
with but little opposition, except from Massachusetts, because we were
content to receive in exchange, multiplied commercial benefits and
enlarged territorial limits.

The next stride that slavery made over the Constitution was in the
admission of the State of Louisiana into the Union. _She_ could claim no
favor as part of an "Original State." At this point, it might have been
supposed, the friends of Freedom and of the Constitution according to
its original intent, would have made a stand. But no: with the exception
of Massachusetts, they hesitated and were persuaded to acquiesce,
because the country was just about entering into a war with England, and
the crisis was unpropitious for discussing questions that would create
divisions between different sections of the Union. We must wait till the
country was at peace. Thus it was that Louisiana was admitted without a
controversy.

Next followed, in 1817 and 1820, Mississippi and Alabama--admitted after
the example of Kentucky and Tennessee, without any contest.

Meantime, Florida had given some uneasiness to the slaveholders of the
neighboring states; and for their accommodation chiefly, a negociation
was set on foot by the government to purchase it.

Missouri was next in order in 1821. She could plead no privilege, on the
score of being part of one of the original states; the country too, was
relieved from the pressure of her late conflict with England; it was
prosperous and quiet; every thing seemed propitious to a calm and
dispassionate consideration of the claims of slaveholders to add props
to their system, by admitting indefinitely, new slave states to the
Union. Up to this time, the "EVIL" of slavery had been almost
universally acknowledged and deplored by the South, and its termination
(apparently) sincerely hoped for.[A] By this management its friends
succeeded in blinding the confiding people of the North. They thought
for the most part, that the slaveholders were acting in good faith. It
is not intended by this remark, to make the impression, that the South
had all along pressed the admission of new slave states, simply with a
view to the increase of its own relative power. By no means: slavery had
insinuated itself into favor because of its being mixed up with (other)
supposed benefits--and because its ultimate influence on the government
was neither suspected nor dreaded. But, on the Missouri question, there
was a fair trial of strength between the friends of Slavery and the
friends of the Constitution. The former triumphed, and by the prime
agency of one whose raiment, the remainder of his days, ought to be
sackcloth and ashes,--because of the disgrace he has continued on the
name of his country, and the consequent injury that he has inflicted on
the cause of Freedom throughout the world. Although all the different
Administrations, from the first organization of the government, had, in
the indirect manner already mentioned, favored slavery,--there had not
been on any previous occasion, a direct struggle between its pretensions
and the principles of liberty ingrafted on the Constitution. The friends
of the latter were induced to believe, whenever they should be arrayed
against each other, that _theirs_ would be the triumph. Tremendous
error! Mistake almost fatal! The battle was fought. Slavery emerged from
it unhurt--her hands made gory--her bloody plume still floating in the
air--exultingly brandishing her dripping sword over her prostrate and
vanquished enemy. She had won all for which she fought. Her victory was
complete--THE SANCTION OF THE NATION WAS GIVEN TO SLAVERY![B]

[Footnote A: Mr. Clay, in conducting the Missouri compromise, found it
necessary to argue, that the admission of Missouri, as a slaveholding
state, would aid in bringing about the termination of slavery. His
argument is thus stated by Mr. Sergeant, who replied to him:--"In this
long view of remote and distant consequences, the gentleman from
Kentucky (Mr. Clay) thinks he sees how slavery, when thus spread, is at
last to find its end. It is to be brought about by the combined
operation of the laws which regulate the price of labor, and the laws
which govern population. When the country shall be filled with
inhabitants, and the price of labor shall have reached a minimum, (a
comparative minimum I suppose is meant,) free labor will be found
cheaper than slave labor. Slaves will then be without employment, and,
of course, without the means of comfortable subsistence, which will
reduce their numbers, and finally extirpate them. This is the argument
as I understand it," says Mr. Sergeant; and, certainly, one more
chimerical or more inhuman could not have been urged.]

[Footnote B: See Appendix, E.]

Immediately after this achievement, the slaveholding interest was still
more strongly fortified by the acquisition of Florida, and the
establishment of slavery there, as it had already been in the territory
of Louisiana. The Missouri triumph, however, seems to have extinguished
every thing like a systematic or spirited opposition, on the part of the
free states, to the pretensions of the slaveholding South.

Arkansas was admitted but the other day, with nothing that deserves to
be called an effort to prevent it--although her Constitution attempts to
_perpetuate_ slavery, by forbidding the master to emancipate his bondmen
without the consent of the Legislature, and the Legislature without the
consent of the master. Emboldened, but not satisfied, with their success
in every political contest with the people of the free states, the
slaveholders are beginning now to throw off their disguise--to brand
their former notions about the "_evil_, political and moral" of slavery,
as "folly and delusion,"[A]--and as if to "make assurance double sure,"
and defend themselves forever, by territorial power, against the
progress of Free principles and the renovation of the Constitution, they
now demand openly--scorning to conceal that their object is, to _advance
and establish their political power in the country_,--that Texas, a
foreign state, five or six times as large as all New England, with a
Constitution dyed as deep in slavery, as that of Arkansas, shall be
added to the Union.

[Footnote A: Mr. Calhoun is reported, in the National Intelligencer, as
having used these words in a speech delivered in the Senate, the 10th
day of January:--

"Many in the South once believed that it [slavery] was a moral and
political evil; that folly and delusion are gone. We see it now in its
true light, and regard it as the most safe and stable basis for free
institutions in the world."

Mr. Hammond, formerly a Representative in Congress from South Carolina,
delivered a speech (Feb. 1, 1836) on the question of receiving petitions
for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. In answering
those who objected to a slaveholding country, that it was "assimilated
to an aristocracy," he says--"In this they are right. I accept the
terms. _It is a government of the best._ Combining all the advantages,
and possessing but few of the disadvantages, of the aristocracy of the
old world--without fostering, to an unwarrantable extent, the pride, the
exclusiveness, the selfishness, the thirst for sway, the contempt for
the rights of others, which distinguish the nobility of Europe--it gives
us their education, their polish, their munificence, their high honor,
their undaunted spirit. Slavery does indeed create an aristocracy--an
aristocracy of talents, of virtue, of generosity, of courage. In a slave
country, every freeman is an aristocrat. Be he rich or poor, if he does
not possess a single slave, he has been born to all the natural
advantages of the society in which he is placed; and all its honors lie
open before him, inviting his genius and industry. Sir, I do firmly
believe, that domestic slavery, regulated as ours is, produces the
highest toned, the purest, best organization of society, that has ever
existed on the face of the earth."

That this _retraxit_ of former _follies and delusions_ is not confined
to the mere politician, we have the following proofs:--

The CHARLESTON (S.C.) UNION PRESBYTERY--"Resolved. That in the opinion
of this Presbytery, the holding of slaves, so far from being a sin in
the sight of God, is nowhere condemned in his holy word; that it is in
accordance with the example, or consistent with the precepts, of
patriarchs, prophets, and apostles; and that it is compatible with the
most fraternal regard to the good of the servants whom God has committed
to our charge."--Within the last few months, as we learn from a late No.
of the Charleston Courier, the late Synod of the Presbyterian Church, in
Augusta, (Ga.) passed resolutions declaring "That slavery is a CIVIL
INSTITUTION, with which the General Assembly [the highest ecclesiastical
tribunal] has NOTHING TO DO."

Again:--The CHARLESTON BAPTIST ASSOCIATION, in a memorial to the
Legislature of South Carolina, say--"The undersigned would further
represent, that the said Association does not consider that the Holy
Scriptures have made the FACT of slavery a question of morals at all."
And further,--"The right of masters to dispose of the time of their
slaves, has been distinctly recognised by the Creator of all things."

Again:--The EDGEFIELD (S.C.) ASSOCIATION--"Resolved, That the practical
question of slavery, in a country where the system has obtained as a
part of its stated policy, is settled in the Scriptures by Jesus Christ
and his apostles." "Resolved, That these uniformly recognised the
relation of master and slave, and enjoined on both their respective
duties, under a system of servitude more degrading and absolute than
that which obtains in our country."

Again we find, in a late No. of the Charleston Courier, the following:--

"THE SOUTHERN CHURCH.--The Georgia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, at a recent meeting in Athens, passed resolutions, declaring
that slavery, as it exists in the United States, is not a moral evil,
and is a civil and domestic institution, with which Christian ministers
have nothing to do, further than to meliorate the condition of the
slave, by endeavoring to impart to him and his master the benign
influence of the religion of Christ, and aiding both on their way
to heaven."]

The abolitionists feel a deep regard for the integrity and union of the
government, _on the principles of the Constitution_. Therefore it is,
that they look with earnest concern on the attempt now making by the
South, to do, what, in the view of multitudes of our citizens, would
amount to good cause for the separation of the free from the slave
states. Their concern is not mingled with any feelings of despair. The
alarm they sounded on the "annexation" question has penetrated the free
states; it will, in all probability, be favorably responded to by every
one of them; thus giving encouragement to our faith, that the admission
of Texas will be successfully resisted,--that this additional stain will
not be impressed on our national escutcheon, nor this additional peril
brought upon the South.[A]