Be taught by Russia. The Emperor there did not content himself with naked Emancipation. He followed this glorious act with minute provisions for rights of all kinds,—as, to hold property, to sue and testify in court, to vote, and to enjoy the advantages of education. All this by the same power which decreed Emancipation.
Be taught also by England, speaking by her most illustrious statesmen, who solemnly warn against trusting to any local authorities for justice to the colored race. I begin with Burke, who saw all questions with the intuitions of the statesman, and expressed himself with the eloquence of the orator. Here are his words, uttered in 1792:—
“I have seen what has been done by the West Indian Assemblies [in reference to the improvement of the condition of the negro]. It is arrant trifling. They have done little; and what they have done is good for nothing,—for it is totally destitute of an executory principle.”[67]
Should we leave this question to the States, we, too, should find all they did “arrant trifling,” and wanting “an executory principle.”
Edmund Burke was followed shortly afterwards by Canning, who, in 1799, exclaimed:—
“There is something in the nature of the relation between the despot and his slave which must vitiate and render nugatory and null whatever laws the former might make for the benefit of the latter,—which, however speciously these laws might be framed, however well adapted they might appear to the evils which they were intended to alleviate, must infallibly be marred and defeated in the execution.”[68]
Then again he says:—
“Trust not the masters of slaves in what concerns legislation for slavery. However specious their laws may appear, depend upon it, they must be ineffectual in their application. It is in the nature of things that they should be so.… Their laws can never reach, will never cure the evil.… There is something in the nature of absolute authority, in the relation between master and slave, which makes despotism, in all cases and under all circumstances, an incompetent and unsure executor even of its own provisions in favor of the objects of its power.”[69]
The same testimony was repeated at a later day by Brougham, who, in one of his most remarkable speeches, while protesting against leaving to the colonies legislation for the freedmen, said,—
“I entirely concur in the observations of Mr. Burke, repeated and more happily expressed by Mr. Canning: that the masters of slaves are not to be trusted with making laws upon slavery; that nothing they do is ever found effectual; and that, if, by some miracle, they ever chance to enact a wholesome regulation, it is always found to want what Mr. Burke calls the executory principle,—it fails to execute itself.”[70]