We think it must strike every intelligent observer—every one certainly that lays claims to any knowledge in the workings of society—that immediate Abolition, whenever acquired by the measures now in operation—admitting it can be effected without a civil war, though we do not believe it can—must find the two conflicting parties in the worst possible humour in relation to each other. On the one side would be arrayed the Abolitionists with their protégés; and on the other the party defeated after a long and violent struggle. In the mean time all the colored people, now free or in bondage, will have been filled with the most violent hatred and animosity towards the opponents of their claims. The feeling already produced in that class of colored people, that has come under the influence of Abolitionists, may serve as an illustration; and the well known principles of human nature may fill out the complement of the lesson. It would be seen by the people of this country, in the progress of events, long before this object shall have been attained, that an immediate emancipation at any time, brought about by such means, will place the country in a most undesirable and perilous condition. These anticipations and apprehensions must necessarily, as we think, mount to an insuperable barrier.—Self-preservation is the first law of nature; and when that comes to be the question, either with individuals or with society, people are not wont to suspend action to discuss casuistry or right.—The drowning man seizes the plank within his reach, even though he should hear the voice of a remonstrant, giving some very subtle reasons why he ought not to do so. So society, finding itself in peril, from within or from without, will save itself, if it can. We are inclined to believe, that the harder Abolition is pushed in its present shape, and under its present avowed principles, so much greater will be the apprehensions of the people, as to the consequences of its success. We think they will never consent, that three millions of the colored race should be raised by one step, from the condition in which they now are, to a full equality of privilege with all other citizens, backed by such a party as the Abolitionists, and actuated by their principles. The dangers would be too obvious and too imminent to admit of parley. They must first be made to believe in perfectionism, before they would venture on such an experiment. Every stage of the progress of Abolitionism hitherto, instead of allaying those apprehensions, has only served to augment them. If the peace of the country can hardly be maintained now, and is more and more disturbed at every successive stage of the movement, under its present organization, who can answer for it a little while to come?—Much more, who could answer for it in the hottest of the conflict? The Abolitionists insist on principles, apart from emancipation, which rouse popular indignation, and occasionally blow it into flame, even while the people know that the power is in their own hands. But when once they shall be obliged to see, that these principles are actually going into practice by force, throughout the length and breadth of the land, it requires no prophet to foretell how they will feel, and how they will act. Honestly, we do not think it among the possible events of the future, that Abolition principles, as they now stand forth before the public, can be forced upon the people of this country; but on the contrary, that, foreseeing the evil, they will take care to prevent it.
The Abolitionists cannot appeal to the effects of emancipation in the British West Indies, even on the ground of their own showing, to allay these apprehensions; for there is no parallel between the two cases. Every circumstance and every attribute of the question, as it exists here, in its essential influences, are at variance with that example.
But so long as our political fabric remains such as it is, it would seem to be folly to discuss this subject on this hypothetical basis. We have only taken this license for a moment, for the sake of showing, that, if this political structure of our society were all out of the way, and if the slave-holders had no interest or voice in the question, the avowed principles of the Abolitionists, apart from the difficulty of political rights, would erect an insuperable barrier in the public mind to the accomplishment of their designs.
[CHAPTER XVII.]
ABOLITIONISM CONSIDERED AS PROPOSING NO COMPENSATION FOR SLAVE-PROPERTY.
The political frame of society governs the world, the doctrines of perfectionists to the contrary notwithstanding; and we shall be heartily thankful that it is so, until we can fall into better hands than this visionary fraternity. And since the Abolitionists have come into the political field, it might be wise for them to consider, whether they can carry their measures in contempt of established political principles. The responsibility of slavery is divided among the community of nations; and there are few of those which profess respect for the code of international law, and feel obliged by their political relations to regard it, that have not some share in it, directly or indirectly. Among these exceptions, if there is any, is the Government of the United States. For we have seen, that it has never made itself responsible for the slavery of individual States. We have also seen, that the slave States are not responsible for its introduction, but that it was imposed upon them by authority. And before the public conscience of the parties concerned had become alive to the enormities and guilt of the slave trade, and much more before slavery itself had become the subject of public remonstrance, it had attained to a growth in the Southern States, not easily to be eradicated. So long, therefore, as political society is dominant, and is bound together by common ties, by common interests, and by common principles, no part of such society can claim of another part the relinquishment of property in slaves without an indemnification. This principle, it will be observed, does not vitiate the claim of the slave to his own freedom; it only affects the parties concerned in the political structure of general society.
The British Government acquitted itself honorably on this point, in decreeing the abolition of slavery in its West India Colonies, and voted a full indemnification for the property, the right to which was thus effaced from the statute book. We say, a full indemnification, notwithstanding it is commonly rated higher, as quoted in this country. The reason of this high quotation results from the fact, that it is not commonly considered, perhaps not known, that slave property in the British West Indies had depreciated so greatly and so rapidly in a few years, by political aspects having a bearing upon it, as to have passed, in very large amounts, into other hands, at the depreciated price, by the necessities of bankruptcy, and consequently graduated the valuation of all such property in the same circumstances. Whenever, therefore, that property should be transferred to other holders for any purpose whatever, the commercial valuation at the time would of course be assumed as the rule of estimate. That was the rule consulted by the British Parliament, and it was considered, that the 20,000,000 sterling was a fair estimate of the property redeemed. But, whether this be the exact truth or not, the principle of indemnification was recognized, and was supposed to have been honorably respected in this transaction.
Clearly, it must be seen, that by the political history of the world, and the action of general society, under the sanction of which all those commercial transactions have been carried on, which have determined and graduated the valuation of slave property from time to time, in all and any States where it exists, the public faith of the world that has sanctioned and tolerated slavery so long, and thereby profited by it, is pledged as the guardian of that property to the indemnification of the holders, whenever the public conscience shall demand it to be annihilated, as to its previous form, and return to that law which generally prevails in human society. There is not a man, woman, or child, in the circle of Christendom, hardly in the world, that has not profited by slavery, in a commercial point of view, which is the only point we are here concerned to notice. Much less is there one such individual in the free States of our country, that has not profited by it. All the property of the Northern States, and all their commercial interests, have been interwoven with it. It is that property which has determined the value of ours, and ours that has determined the value of that, reciprocally. And just in proportion to the foreign commercial relations and transactions of our country, does the same rule apply to the respective communities with which we have maintained such intercourse. The amount of the slave property of the South is not theirs, except in the convenient title of a regulation of general society; but it is the world’s, or all that part of the world’s, where commercial transactions have determined its estimate. But since it has been convenient for the world, for general society, that it should vest in certain persons, in the same manner as any other property vests in certain other persons, either here or there, in this country or any other, and that no persons should have any other title in any other property than that which is held by this conventional rule for general good, it would be a manifest and flagrant injustice, robbery, for one part of general society to demand of another part, to resign this title without indemnification, while the party making this demand claims to hold its own. Of course, this question does not touch the right of the slave to himself, or in any way affect that claim.
It may be seen, then, how this matter stands in the United States. We strike at the very foundations of society, when we use our influence to impair the rights of property, as established by general consent; and the impulse of the blow, in the circle of its action, must necessarily return to ourselves, in its natural, or rather artificial, channel, as society in all its parts is an artificial edifice. We can no more move upon the South for such an object, than they can move upon us; in laying our hand upon their property to impair its title, we impair our own in the same degree. For our convenience and profit, be it known, the title to slave property has happened to vest in them; and for their convenience and profit the title to our property has happened to vest in us, because we happen to be here and not there, and they there and not here. Both titles are equally sacred in the relations we bear to each other.
Unless, therefore, the Abolitionists have made up their minds to go into this field in the character of pirates and brigands, we see not how they can move an inch, till they are prepared to make the tender of indemnification for the release of the property which they claim. We aver solemnly, that it is with pain we have written the last sentence, and that if any other terms would have represented the exact truth of the case, as it stands before our mind, we should have preferred them. We agree with the Abolitionists as to the wrong of slavery, though we dissent from them, both as to the expediency and duty of immediate emancipation, in view of all the facts and circumstances of the case; and we dissent from them utterly, ab imo pectore, as to the validity of slave property, not in relation to the slave, however, but in relation to general society; and we are prepared to go with the nation for redemption by a fair indemnification. Though we may have little at stake in such a concern, yet he who has little may feel the burden more than he that has much. We are prepared, however, to point out a way, the burden of which no man will feel, and one that is practicable, too. To enforce abolition without indemnification, would be as bad for the slave, as for the master, because it would be the ruin of both; it would blot from future history all those political Commonwealths, because they would be absolutely too poor to maintain themselves.