Among those who have done most to press forward in Russia that sublime act of emancipation by which the present Emperor is winning lustre, not only for his own country, but for our age, is M. Tourgueneff. Originally a Slave-Master himself, with numerous slaves, and residing where Slavery prevailed, he saw, with the instincts of a noble character, the essential Barbarism of this relation, and in an elaborate work on Russia, which is now before me, exposed it with rare ability and courage. Thus he speaks of its influence on Slave-Masters:—
“But if Slavery degrades the slave, it degrades the master more. This is an old adage, and long observation has proved to me that this adage is not a paradox. In fact, how can that man respect his own dignity, his own rights, who has not learned to respect either the rights or the dignity of his fellow-man? What control can the moral and religious sentiments have over a person who sees himself invested with a power so eminently contrary to morality and religion? The continual exercise of an unjust claim, even when moderated, ends in corrupting the character of the man, and perverting his judgment.… The possession of a slave being the result of injustice, the relations of the master with the slave cannot be otherwise than a succession of wrongs. Among good masters (and it is agreed so to call those who do not abuse their power as much as they might) these relations are invested with forms less repugnant than among other masters; but here the difference ends. Who can remain always pure, when, induced by disposition, excited by temper, influenced by caprice, he may with impunity oppress, insult, humiliate his fellow-men? And be it remarked, that enlightenment, civilization, do not avail here. The enlightened man, the civilized man, is nevertheless a man; that he may not oppress, it is necessary that it should be impossible for him to oppress. All men cannot, like Louis the Fourteenth, throw the cane out of the window, when they feel an inclination to strike.”[122]
Another authority, unimpeachable at all points, whose fortune it has been, from extensive travels, to see Slavery in the most various forms, and Slave-Masters under the most various conditions,—I refer to the great African traveller, Dr. Livingstone,—thus touches the character of Slave-Masters:—
“I can never cease to be most unfeignedly thankful that I was not born in a land of slaves. No one can understand the effect of the unutterable meanness of the slave system on the minds of those who, but for the strange obliquity which prevents them from feeling the degradation of not being gentlemen enough to pay for services rendered, would be equal in virtue to ourselves. Fraud becomes as natural to them as ‘paying one’s way’ is to the rest of mankind.”[123]
And so does the experience of Slavery in other countries confirm the sad experience among us.
Second Assumption of Slave-Masters.
Discarding now all presumptuous boasts for Slavery, and bearing in mind its essential Barbarism, I come to consider that second assumption of Senators on the other side, which is, of course, inspired by the first, even if not its immediate consequence, that, under the Constitution, Slave-Masters may take their slaves into the National Territories, and there continue to hold them, as at home in the Slave States,—and that this would be the case in any territory newly acquired, by purchase or by war, as of Mexico on the South or Canada on the North.
Here I begin with the remark, that, as the assumption of Constitutional Law is inspired by the assumption of fact with regard to the “ennobling” character of Slavery, so it must lose much, if not all of its force, when the latter assumption is shown to be false, as has been done to-day.
When Slavery is seen to be the Barbarism which it is, there are few who would not cover it from sight, rather than insist upon sending it abroad with the flag of the Republic. Only because people have been insensible to its true character have they tolerated for a moment its exorbitant pretensions. Therefore this long exposition, where Slavery stands forth in fivefold Barbarism, with the single object of compelling men to work without wages, naturally prepares the way to consider the assumption of Constitutional Law.