We are told that the Slaves are not fit to be free; and therefore our scheme of immediate emancipation, if adopted, would prove a curse to them and the country. Nothing is more false. The Slaves are men; and therefore they are more fit for freedom than for slavery; more fit to be treated as persons than as things; to be governed by appeals to the reason and conscience than by brute force. God made man to be free and adapted him to that condition. A state of Slavery is unnatural to him. Nor can his nature so change, that he shall be more fit to be treated as a brute, than as a free moral agent. Slaves have often been set at liberty, and have always proved their capacity for freedom, by their industry, frugality and ready obedience to the laws.
And why, we would ask, should they be thought unfit to be put under the control and protection of the same laws, which govern freemen? Do their vices or their ignorance, disqualify them? While Slavery lasts, they will remain equally degraded.
Are they Sabbath breakers? Slavery has taught them to desecrate the day of rest, by making it to them almost the only day of recreation, the only day for visiting, for trading and for tilling their gardens. Are they thieves? They consider stealing from their masters to be only making reprisals for the robbery of their just wages; while many of them are strongly tempted to steal by the desire of more or better food. Are they liars? They will continue such, while they are slaves. They will pretend sickness, to avoid labor; they will say they do not wish to be free, lest their masters should sell them into distant banishment; they will lie to conceal the unavoidable delinquences, for which slaves are daily upbraided and beaten. Are they idle? As slaves they have no hope of reward to stimulate their exertions. They will work much better, as one facetiously expresses it, for Mr. Cash than for Mr. Lash. Let their wives and children be dependent on their industry for support, a far more noble and efficient motive than the fear of violence, to call forth the energies of man. Are they improvident? They cannot learn to save property, until they are allowed to hold it in their own right. Make them free, and then that faculty of their nature, which the phrenologists call “acquisitiveness” will prompt them to save their earnings. Are they licentious? Then give them their liberty, that the husband and father may be the legal protector of his wife and daughters. Are they revengeful? Redress their wrongs, and they will forgive their oppressors. Are they heathen? Take your foot from their necks, before you disgrace christianity, by attempting to convert them. Are they ignorant of letters? So are a majority of the freemen of the world; nor is it to be expected that slave-holders will teach their slaves to read and write, until they repent of Slavery itself. The vices of the Slaves are inseparable from their condition. If they are not now fit for freedom, Slavery, which unfitted them, will perpetuate their unfitness. Nor is their degradation of mind and morals a disqualification for freedom. You may find its counterpart in the characters of a large class of citizens in every country.
While Slavery continues, what is the prospect of their becoming better fitted for freedom? Where are the men and the means? Who will teach them? Who will support the teachers? The south cannot supply her free population with instruction. Even with the aid of the north, she is very destitute of the means of religion. Nor would she be willing to adopt a general system of education for the improvement of the Slaves. Instead of giving her money to fit them for freedom, she would hunt from society any persons, who should seriously propose the measure. They know little of the spirit of Slavery, who imagine, that the south was disposed to prepare her Slaves for freedom, until the abolitionists roused her to resistance. Had she really wished to free her Slaves, she would have welcomed us as coadjutors, at least she would not have abandoned her own plan, because ours was offensive to her. She never intended to fit her Slaves for freedom. She does not intend it now. Her laws, in most of the States, are against it. The mass of her Slaves will, no doubt, be as unfit for freedom fifty years hence, if Slavery should continue so long, as they are to day. The British abolitionists were once deceived by this syren song of preparation, but now in allusion to the words of Paul; “the glorious gospel of the blessed God;” they exclaim, THE GLORIOUS DOCTRINE OF IMMEDIATE EMANCIPATION! They found it the power of God, to awaken the slumbering conscience of the nation; and the wisdom of God as a measure of relief to their Slaves. We shall find it so.
Our opponents also object to emancipation upon the soil. Not all, but some of them, are in favor of Colonization as a remedy for Slavery, and others execrate us for our opposition to it as a scheme for benefiting Africa. We are especially averse to the former class. When men say, that the Slaves ought not to be freed, until they can be colonized, we ought to make resistance, for the following reasons:
1. We ought to resist every wicked prejudice; and they who object to emancipation on the soil, do so, in obedience to such a prejudice. They say the colored people can never rise in this country. They maintain that our aversion to the race is instinctive and natural; though we find no one averse to associating with them as slaves. The two races are certainly on very intimate terms at the South. It is only when they come as freemen between the wind and our nobility, that they taint the air. We, therefore, say, this prejudice is unnatural and sinful; and instead of fostering it, we ought to rebuke, and check it in ourselves and others. Some of us recollect the time, when as Colonizationists we wished to get rid of the colored people, and were indignant at them for being unwilling to leave the country. May we not repent of such a feeling and condemn in it others, without being hunted from society?
2. By retaining the emancipated slaves on the soil, we can at less expense of men and means educate and christianize them. Were we to send them beyond the Mississippi or to Africa, it would take ten times the number of Missionaries and Teachers, that we are now supporting among the heathen, to save them from sinking into barbarism. But if they should be retained as free laborers in the service of their present masters, those masters would provide for their instruction, and without diverting means from other objects, the delightful spectacle would soon be witnessed of Schools and Churches springing up among them, through the voluntary efforts of the ministers and christians of the South.
3. The labor of the Slaves is wanted on the plantations at the South. To withdraw such an amount of labor would bankrupt the entire country. Nor could their places be supplied, except by the worst population of the old world; by men, whose religion, whose morals, whose politics are all, in the highest degree, hostile to our national interests. The emancipated Slaves, on the contrary, would be prejudiced in favor of the protestant faith, and prove the staunchest friends of our free institutions.
4. The South will not consent to the colonization of the Slaves. She is willing we should contribute to carry off the free people of color, “the nuisances,” “the disturbing force,” as she terms them; and also those Slaves, whom the more conscientious of her citizens, who dare not die Slave-holders, may emancipate for the purpose. But she is unwilling we should go a step further. She does not believe we can get the means of doing more. We think, if a place were provided in Africa, and we had the means necessary to transport every Slave there, and were to go and tell the south, about the sinfulness of holding Slaves, when they can be colonized, and call upon her in good earnest, to give them up, she would denounce us as fanatics, and pass no more resolutions in favor of colonization. She is now at peace with it, because she does not fear it, and hopes to find it of use in repelling the abolitionists, in letting off, as by a safety valve, the pious feeling of her own citizens, and in expelling the free people of color.
5. The Slaves are unwilling to leave the country; and will never consent to do it, but on such a dread alternative as no christian people should impose. First give them their liberty, put them under the protection of impartial law, and treat them with kindness, and then if they ask our aid to remove their families to Africa, their determination to leave this country will evidently be spontaneous.