Discussion on American Slavery

by George Thompson; Robert J. Breckinridge

In the first evening's discussion, page 6, Mr. Breckinridge says that the British people 'had sent out agents to America, who had returned defeated. They have failed—they admit they have failed in their object.' To say nothing of the accuracy which speaks in the plural number of a single individual, and which can easily be excused to one who in encountering him, probably felt that that individual was himself a host,—when or where has the alleged admission been made? Never. Nowhere. The assertion is untrue.

During the same evening, page 7, Mr. B. tells his audience that 'of the twelve [free] states, at least four, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Maine never had a slave.' What says the United States' census? In 1830, there were 2 slaves in Maine, 6 in Ohio, 3 in Indiana, and 747[A] in Illinois. In 1820, there were 190 in Indiana, and 917 in Illinois. In 1810, Indiana contained 237, Illinois 168. In 1800, there were 135 in Indiana. But Mr. B. says, that 'since 1785, till this hour, there never had been one slave in any of these states.'

'America,' he tells us, 'was the first nation upon earth, which abolished the slave trade and made it piracy.' See page 8. This will be unwelcome news to Messrs. Franklin and Armfield of Alexandira, D. C., whose standing advertisements in the Washington papers, offer cash for negroes of both sexes, from 12 to 25 years of age, and announce the 'regular trips' twice a month, of their vessels engaged in the slave trade between the District and New Orleans. It will be unpleasant intelligence in the city of Washington, where for $400 a year, the 'trade or traffic in slaves' is licensed for the benefit of the canal fund. It will be news to the keepers of the prisons in the District, who, in their official capacity, carry on the slave trade by selling men 'for their prison and other expenses, as the law directs.'

But Mr. B. means the foreign slave trade, not the domestic. The latter, indeed, may be licensed, and protected, and deemed honorable as it is lucrative. Those who engage in it, may be like Armfield and Woolfolk, gentlemen 'of engaging and graceful manners,' reported to be 'mild, indulgent, upright, and scrupulously honest,' but the foreign trade is piracy by the law of the land. Very meritorious truly! and worthy of abundant eulogy! to prohibit piracy on the high seas, or the African coast, while selling permission to do along her own coast, and on her own territories, the same acts which, when done abroad, constitute piracy. But to what does her abolition of even the foreign slave trade amount? Do her cruizers ever capture a slave ship? Seldom, if ever. Does she consent to such arrangements, in her treaties with other nations which are in earnest in their endeavors to suppress the slave trade, as will prevent her flag from being made a protection to the detestable traffic? No. The N. Y. Journal of Commerce, in a recent article very truly asserts, that 'We neither do any thing ourselves to put down the accursed traffic, nor afford any facilities to enable others to put it down. Nay, rather, we stand between the slave and his deliverer. We are a drawback—a dead weight on the cause of bleeding humanity.' And a late number of the Edinburgh Review, speaking of the application of the British Government to this, for its co-operation, says, 'The final answer, however, is, that under no condition, in no form, and with no restrictions, will the United States enter into any convention or treaty, or make combined efforts of any sort or kind, with other nations for the suppression of the trade.' With what face, then, can she claim praise for having merely made a law, which she almost never executes, and to the execution of which, by others, she permits her flag to be used as a hindrance.

The next assertion of Mr. B's that we notice, is the astounding one, that America, 'as a nation, has done every thing in her power' for the abolition of slavery. See page 8. This, while the national domain is the home of slavery and the seat of the slave trade! While the domestic slave trade, so far from being abolished by the National Legislature, as it may constitutionally be, is shielded and licensed! This, while the moral power of the nation is slumbering, or if awake, arrayed to a great extent, in the defence of slavery! That a man who values his reputation—that a minister of the gospel of Mr. B's intelligence and knowledge of the country's condition and history in regard to this matter, should make such a declaration, is truly most wonderful. Could he have expected it to be believed? Could he have believed it himself?

Mr. B., page 15, by way of explaining why Mr. Thompson was so differently received in Glasgow and Boston, applauded in the one place, and abused in the other, says that he took up the question of slavery as one of political organization. We give to this assertion, the answer of the editor of the Emancipator. 'This we pronounce utterly and unequivocally false. We were with Mr. Thompson, while he was in this country, as much probably as any other one individual. We were with him in private and in public, in the house and by the way, in the public convention and the public lecture, and we most solemnly declare, that we never heard George Thompson, on any occasion, take up or discuss the question of American Slavery, 'as one of civil organization.' He always discussed it primarily and essentially as a moral and religious question, and never went into its political relations and bearings, except to answer the objections of cavillers and opponents. And we are astonished that R. J. Breckinridge should dare to make such an assertion, when, we venture to say, he never heard George Thompson in America.'

The same editor has furnished a better solution than Mr. B's, of the—not very difficult—problem of Mr. Thompson's different reception in Boston and Glasgow. 'For the same reason that Knibb, and Taylor, and Burchell did not meet with the same reception in Glasgow and Jamaica—because, and simply because the slave spirit was diffused through the land, infecting and corrupting alike the leading influences of Church and State, so that Mr. T. could not condemn slavery and prejudice 'in Boston as in Glasgow,' without constraining the conviction and the outcry from the implicated and the prejudiced, "so saying thou condemnest us also."'

'There is not a sane man in the free states, who does not wish the world rid of slavery.' This Mr. B. states as his conviction, page 15. Perhaps it is correct, but if so, there are a great many insane men in the free states, or a great many who have a very strange way of manifesting their wishes. The fact is notorious, that Northern men who remove to the South, almost uniformly become slaveholders the moment their convenience or pecuniary interest can thereby be promoted.

On page 20, Mr. B. accuses Garrison of having written placards to stir up a mob against him, when he lectured in Boston, in behalf of colonization. A charge more utterly false was never made, and it requires a great exercise of charity to believe that Mr. B. did not know its falsehood. It will have been seen that Mr. Thompson challenged proof of the accusation, but none was produced except the word of the accuser—evidence on which, any reader who compares his assertions in several other instances, with facts, will place very little reliance.

Another of Mr. B's accusations against 'some of the friends of the Anti-Slavery Society,' is, that they procured a writ to take the two 'African princes,' who had been sent to the Maryland Colonization Society to be educated, and that Elizur Wright was the instigator of the measure, on pretence that the boys had been kidnapped. See page 20. The truth of this matter as given in the Emancipator, on Mr. Wright's authority, is that, on learning that two native African boys, supposed to be slaves, were on board a schooner in New York harbor, bound for Baltimore, Mr. Wright made inquiries on board, and could only learn that they were brought from Africa by a passenger, and consigned to some one in Baltimore. To make sure of the means of prosecuting a legal inquiry, a writ was obtained, but as soon as Mr. W. discovered that the lads were sent to this country to be educated, he ordered the officer not to serve it.