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Page 49
Some people at the North are constantly harping on the subject of
slavery, and yet lo! when some one emancipates a slave in the South,
and he straggles off to the North, every one with whom he meets gives
him a kick. Benevolent souls, look at the treatment which the Randolph
negroes received in the state of Ohio. If slaves are emancipated where
are they to go? Where will they find an asylum? Not in the North? For
Northern legislatures are already telling them by prohibitory
enactments, here, you cannot come. "O consistency! thou art a jewel, a
pearl of great price," a virtue rarely met with.
Abolitionists make a great noise about slavery, some of them, no
doubt, conscientious and sincere; but there are many among them,
should they remove to the South, that would in less than five years
own a cotton farm or a sugar plantation well stocked with negroes.
Facts have in many instances verified the truth of this assertion. Men
have frequently emigrated from the free states to the South,
professedly abolitionists, and after getting into one or two
difficulties with the excitable Southerners, they would all at once
throw off their garb of abolitionism, and then, they too, must have
slaves. Perhaps they thought that a change of location justified a
change of opinion; or, it may be, that they reasoned thus: poor
creatures, they are in bondage, and why should they not as well belong
to us as to any one else? We can treat them as well as any one. The
Southern slaves, however, tell a different tale. They say that
Northern men have no business with slaves, for the reason, that they
are very hard masters. The negroes of the South have as little
sympathy for the Yankees, as their pro-slavery masters.
I have said that we all are guilty; yes, England is guilty! America is
guilty! The Northern states are guilty! The Southern states are
guilty! There is guilt everywhere! We should therefore beware how we
censure one another. Mother England furnished her American colonies
with slaves, and pocketed the money, and now she tells us, that we
have no right to that property which she forced on us, when we were a
weak and defenceless people, and could not do otherwise than obey her
commands. The eagle eyed, shrewd, and sagacious Yankees, ever alive to
all that pertains to their own pecuniary interests, with that
keen-witted penetration and over-reaching foresight, for which they
are remarkable, soon made the discovery, that slave labor in a
Northern latitude, and on a comparatively barren soil, must prove
unproductive. Hence, they strike a bargain with their Southern
neighbors. The Yankees say to the Southern planters, gentlemen, you
can employ these slaves profitably in the cultivation of tobacco and
cotton. Your climate and soil is adapted to slave labor, ours is not,
take our slaves, and let us have in return, gold and silver. It will
be a profitable investment on your part, and will relieve us of a
species of property, which, to us, is unprofitable. The Southern
planters accept their offer and purchase their slaves, and what next?
The Yankees turn around and say to the Southern men, you have no right
to hold these slaves as property. Kentucky and Tennessee might now,
with equal propriety and consistency sell their slaves to the Texan
planters, pocket the money, turn on their heels and say, why
gentlemen, it is true that we sold you these slaves, and you have paid
us for them; but you have no right to hold them in bondage. Refund our
money, cry the Texan planters. If you have sold us property which we
have no right to hold as property, refund our money? No, say the
sturdy Kentuckian and the stalwart Tennessean, not we. Help yourselves
the best way you can, we have got your money, and we shall hold on to
it. We make no children's bargains, and thus the matter ends.
If slave labor had been profitable in the North, Northern men would
have remained in possession of their slaves to the present day. No
one, I suppose, doubts it, and it is a good and sufficient reason why
they should be a little more modest in their denunciation of their
Southern brethren. Slavery is perpetuated by selfishness. Northern
men, to say the least, are as selfish as Southern men; and it would
require nothing, but a change of location, to make them as oppressive
task-masters. Where there is most selfishness, there we will find most
oppression; provided, that surrounding circumstances are favorable.
Most men, in this world, consult their own pecuniary interests. If
they are enhanced by African slavery, African slaves they will have,
provided they can get them; but if they cannot get African slaves,
they will make slaves of unfortunate and ignorant individuals of their
own color. It is the same dominant principle the world over. The
Northern man with his leagues of land, surrounded by ignorant,
indigent and impoverished families, is virtually a slaveholder. He
gets all their labor, and what do they receive in return? A bare
subsistence. Southern slaves get that. These tenants spend their lives
in laboring for their landlords, and receive in return, barely a
sufficiency of coarse food and coarse clothing, to keep soul and body
together through a protracted and miserable existence; the condition
of many of them being worse than that of a majority of Southern
slaves. Most of operatives who live on their daily wages, do nothing
more than earn their victuals and clothes, and slaves are generally as
well clothed, and better fed than they are. It is clear to my mind,
that a majority of slaves are better compensated for their labor, than
the poorer class of people, North or South. I base this conclusion on
the fact, that neither the one, nor the other, receive any thing more
than their victuals and clothes, and the slave is better fed, and
better clothed than the poor white man. This is neither a far-fetched
conclusion, nor yet an exaggeration. It is literally true. I repeat,
that the slaves of the South are generally better provided for, than
the generality of the tenantry, North or South. Hence, the slave is
better paid for his labor than the white man, under these
circumstances, slaves are also exempt from those corroding cares,
perplexities and anxieties, which embitter the lives of the poorer
class of white people. He has but to finish his task, and eat and
sleep; the cares of the family devolve on master and mistress. The
storms of adversity, the losses and crosses incident to all families,
pass over his humble hut. The poor white man has bread and meat
to-day, but God only knows from whence it will come to-morrow. Not so
with the slave, he knows well from whence his bread and meat is to
come "for the morrow." Master is bound to make provision for him, and
he feels no concern about the matter. "He takes no thought for the
morrow." Well, but says one, the white man has liberty, poor as he may
be. He can work to-day, and forbear to-morrow, if it suits his ease,
convenience, or inclination. Very true, and the misfortune is, that he
too often works to-day, and gets drunk to-morrow; or, otherwise,
squanders away his time foolishly. Indigence and ignorance subject men
to oppression in all countries, and under all circumstances, it
matters not whether you call them slaves or freemen. There is
oppression and injustice everywhere. It originates in the supreme
selfishness of our natures--our self-love. It was the original design
of Christianity to eradicate this principle from the human heart.
"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." "Whatsoever ye would that
men should do to you, do ye even so to them." This is the language of
the author of our religion. The great apostle had direct reference to
the selfishness of our hearts when he said, "the love of money is the
root of all evil." While selfishness is the dominant principle of our
hearts, we can neither love God, nor yet our neighbor. The Holy spirit
can never enter our hearts, while this principle reigns supreme
within. He has been trying to expel the monster from the hearts of the
human family, for nearly two thousand years; but as yet he has
accomplished his object but partially. He pleads for entrance, but too
often pleads in vain. We must relinquish our self-love, before we can
love God supremely, and our neighbor as ourselves.
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