BARBARISM SHOULD SUBSERVE CIVILIZATION.
To say, then, that it is just that barbarism should subserve civilization is a laconical axiom, which decides a plain question of right and wrong. The wrong is, that the African is a barbarian, and devours his kind; the right is, that in his service due and rendered to civilization, he receives its protection, and is compelled to forego the, to him, exquisite pleasure of devouring his kind. It will be observed that this view of the subject justifies, not only the perpetuation, but the inception of slavery, and renders emancipation absurd and cruel, and the inception of slavery just; leaving the continued transfer of barbarians to the midst of civilized communities, a right, the exercise of which could not involve or sacrifice any right of the barbarian, but must depend upon the enlightened decision of civilization, as to the reciprocal benefits to be derived therefrom. The conscience of civilization is the tribunal at which to try barbarism, as well as every other grade of inferior subjective existence. It stands above and controls all below it. The conscience of civilization decides both the right to summon the barbarian, and to hold him subject to its dictates; to weigh the benefits to civilization against the evils resulting from the adoption of the element of this super-animal force as an aid to civilization. Civilization deciding to take and hold the barbarian, it becomes right by the decision of the highest arbiter. The taking of the barbarian, and his employment as an adjunct of civilization, being in consequence of his moral delinquency, and his consequent mental imbecility, is no arrogation of right, because it is just; it is no assumption of right, because the empire of right is universal; it is no violation of right, because the act in itself is the exercise of the prerogative of right, of justice, in civilization, to suppress wrong and compel it to subserve right. In this view emancipation is no less unjust to the African than opposed to the law of right. To seize him and drag him away to barbarism, against his will, is an act in favor of barbarism and in violation of right. It restores to barbarism its victim, and robs the African of his supposed natural prerogative and choice, of service to civilization. The act, of itself, is the abnegation of that same right which it is designed or intended to assert.