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Page 13
[1] The reader will see Chapter 8; where the subject of slavery
in Africa is treated at length.
Most of the native Africans that were transported to this country,
were not only the lowest grade of barbarians, but they were the
servants of barbarians. Here, in the United States, they have enjoyed
to a considerable extent, the advantages of civilization, and so far
as religious instruction is concerned; there is not, I suppose, four
millions of human beings on earth, of what are called the lower
classes of society, white or black, who have had superior religious
advantages. I have remarked, however, at the close of chapter 11, that
in consequence of their ignorance; religious instruction had failed to
produce that decided, thorough and permanent influence, which
otherwise it might have done. But I think it probable that there are
not four millions of ignorant illiterate human beings living, on whom
the doctrines of Christianity have exerted as salutary an influence;
nor can there be found a body of ministers of the gospel in the world,
who have made so great sacrifices to Christianize the "lowly," as Mrs.
Stowe chooses to denominate them. The devotion of the Southern clergy
to the best interests of the poor African, is worthy of all praise.
Men without a tithe of their piety may calumniate and reproach them;
but there is one who seeth not as man seeth, who has taken cognizance
of their sacrifices and "labors of love." Ah! my friends, you may
deceive yourselves, and deceive one another, but of one thing you may
rest assured--you cannot deceive your God. Nor are you as successful
in deceiving your fellow creatures, as some of you probably imagine.
Some of us understand you.
SECTION VI.
Is it the duty of American slaveholders to liberate their slaves? I
feel no hesitancy in replying to this interrogatory. It would be their
duty, as Christians, to liberate their slaves, provided the condition
of the slave would be improved thereby; otherwise it is their duty to
retain them in bondage, and make that provision for them which their
circumstances require. They should make ample provision for their
physical wants--enlighten their minds; and so far as is practicable
under existing circumstances, they should elevate their characters
above that debasement and degradation, in which, ignorance, prejudice
and vice has involved them. It is clearly the duty of slaveholders to
place their slaves in that condition, which will conduce most to their
happiness here and hereafter. But if this is their object, they could
not, as a general rule, take a worse step, than to liberate them in
their present condition and turn them loose among us. Nor do I
consider the mass of the negro population in this country as yet
prepared for colonization: but I would rejoice to see all
well-disposed and intelligent negroes manumitted and colonized.
The poverty, vice and degradation of free negroes is notorious,
throughout the length and breadth of this country--North and South;
but having so frequently alluded to it, I deem it unnecessary to say
more on the subject. I will however remark, that if the entire African
population were manumitted and turned loose among us; they would be
forced to subsist almost entirely by theft, and all the county jails
and state prisons in the Union, would not contain one in a hundred of
the convicts. The fact is, such would be their depredations on the
white population, that the whites would shoot them down with as little
ceremony as they now shoot a mad dog; and their ultimate extermination
would be the inevitable consequence! I appeal to facts. It was stated
a few years ago by an able writer; that in Massachusetts the free
negroes were 1 to 74, viz., there were 74 white persons for every free
negro in the State; and yet one-sixth of all the convicts were free
negroes. That in Connecticut the free negroes were 1 to 34; and that
one-third of the convicts were free negroes. That in New York the free
negroes were 1 to 35; but that one-fourth of the convicts were free
negroes. That in New Jersey the free negroes were 1 to 13; negro
convicts one-third. That in Pennsylvania the free negroes were 1 to 34,
and that one-third of the convicts were free negroes. He moreover
stated, that one-fourth of the whole expense connected with the prison
system of the entire North was incurred by crime committed by free
negroes; and that the same was true with regard to the pauper
expenditures of the entire North. In view of these facts, we can feel
but little surprise, that Indiana and Illinois have enacted laws to
interdict the immigration of free negroes into those States.
It appears from the above named States, that in 1845, about
_one-fortieth_ of the entire population in the free States were
colored persons; and yet about _one-fourth_ of the convicts were free
negroes; but notwithstanding that the colored and the white population
are very nearly balanced in the slave States, I do not suppose that
one in a hundred of the convicts are negroes! But there is another
fact with regard to free negroes North, that is still more remarkable!
Few, comparatively, very few, are members of any branch of the
church--probably not one in twenty of the entire adult population.
But, on the contrary, in the slave States, I think it probable that at
least three-fourths of the entire adult slave population are church
members; and I presume, that near one-half of the African professors
of the Christian religion, in the slave States, are attached to the
Methodist Episcopal Church South; and strange as it may appear, it is
nevertheless true, that in the very hot-bed of abolitionism, viz., in
the extensive territory of New England, Providence, Maine, Vermont and
New Hampshire Conferences, there was not a solitary free negro in
connection with the Methodist Episcopal Church! Is not this a
remarkable fact? Here, we have a territory of vast extent; embracing
something more than a half dozen states, and containing within its
limits multiplied thousands of free negroes; and not one! No! not a
solitary free negro is found in the bosom of the Methodist Episcopal
Church! Many of them left pious and humane masters in the South, and
were withal pious themselves when they left their masters; or,
otherwise, they were stolen from good men in the South by pseudo
Christians of the North, _and taken to that free and happy land! the
land of their dear friends_, and consigned to poverty, vice,
degradation and the devil!!!
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