Society in America, Volume 1 (of 2)

by Harriet Martineau

"O, you know, they would all go away. Nothing would make them stay when they were once free."

"They would change masters, no doubt. But as many would remain in the area as before. Why not?"

"The masters could not possibly employ them. They could never manage them, except as slaves."

"So you think that the masters could not have the labourers, because they would go away: and the labourers must go away, because the masters would not have them."

To prevent any escape by a nibble in this circle, the other is brought up round it, to prove that there is no other place than Africa for the blacks to go to: and thus, the alternative of slavery or colonisation is supposed to be established.

All action, and all conversation, on behalf of this institution, bears the same character,—of arguing in a circle. A magic ring seems drawn round those who live amidst slavery; and it gives a circular character to all they think and say and do upon the subject. There are but few who sit within it who distinctly see anything beyond it. If there were but any one moral giant within, who would heave a blow at it with all the force of a mighty principle, it would be shattered to atoms in a moment; and the white and black slaves it encloses would be free at once. This will be done when more light is poured in under the darkness which broods over it: and the time cannot now be far off.

Whenever I am particularly strongly convinced of anything, in opposition to the opinion of any or many others, I entertain a suspicion that there is more evidence on the other side than I see. I felt so, even on this subject of slavery, which has been clear to English eyes for so long. I went into the slave States with this suspicion in my mind; and I preserved it there as long as possible. I believe that I have heard every argument that can possibly be adduced in vindication or palliation of slavery, under any circumstances now existing; and I declare that, of all displays of intellectual perversion and weakness that I have witnessed, I have met with none so humbling and so melancholy as the advocacy of this institution. I declare that I know the whole of its theory;—a declaration that I dare not make with regard to, I think, any other subject whatever: the result is that I believe there is nothing rational to be said in vindication or palliation of the protraction of slavery in the United States.—Having made this avowal; it will not be expected that I should fill my pages with a wide superficies of argument which will no more bear a touch than pond-ice, on the last day of thaw. As I disposed in my mind the opposite arguments of slave-holders, I found that they ate one another up, like the two cats that Sheridan told of; but without leaving so much as an inch of tail.

One mistake, perhaps, deserves notice. Restless slave-holders, whose uneasiness has urged them to struggle in their toils, and find themselves unable to get out but by the loss of everything, (but honour and conscience,) pointed out to me the laws of their States, whereby the manumission of slaves is rendered difficult or impossible to the master, remaining on the spot, and prospectively fatal to the freed slave;—pointed out to me these laws as rendering abolition impossible. To say nothing of the feebleness of the barriers which human regulations present to the changes urged on by the great natural laws of society,—it is a sufficient answer that these State laws present no obstacle to general, though they do to particular, emancipation. They will be cancelled or neglected by the same will which created them, when the occasion expires with which they sprang up, or which they were designed to perpetuate. The institution of slavery was not formed in accordance with them: they arose out of the institution. They are an offset; and, to use the words of one of their advocates, spoken in another connexion, "they will share the fate of offsets, and perish with the parent."

It is obvious that all laws which encourage the departure of the blacks must be repealed, when their slavery is abolished. The one thing necessary, in the economical view of the case, is that efficient measures should be taken to prevent an unwise dispersion of these labourers: measures, I mean, which should in no way interfere with their personal liberty, but which should secure to them generally greater advantages on the spot than they could obtain by roaming. It has been distinctly shown that slavery originated from the difficulty of concentrating labour in the neighbourhood of capitalists. Where the people are few in proportion to the land, they are apt to disperse themselves over it; so that personal coercion has been supposed necessary, in the first instance, to secure any efficient cultivation of the land at all. Though the danger and the supposed necessity are past, in all but the rawest of the slave States, the ancient fact should be so borne in mind as that what legislation there is should tend to cause a concentration, rather than a dispersion of the labourers. Any such tendency will be much aided by the strong local attachments for which negroes are remarkable. It is not only that slaves dread all change, from the intellectual and moral dejection to which they are reduced; fearing even the removal from one plantation to another, under the same master, from the constant vague apprehension of something dreadful. It is not only this, (which, however, it would take them some time to outgrow,) but that all their race show a kind of feline attachment to places to which they are accustomed, which will be of excellent service to kind masters when the day of emancipation comes. For the rest, efficient arrangements can and will doubtless be made to prevent their wandering further than from one master to another. The abolition of slavery must be complete and immediate: that is to say, as a man either is or is not the property of another, as there can be no degrees of ownership of a human being, there must be an immediate and complete surrender of all claim to negro men, women, and children as property: but there may and will doubtless be arrangements made to protect, guide, and teach these degraded beings, till they have learned what liberty is, and how to use it. Liberty to change their masters must, under certain reasonable limitations, be allowed; the education of their children must be enforced. The amount of wages will be determined by natural laws, and cannot be foreseen, further than that they must necessarily be very ample for a long time to come. It will probably be found desirable to fix the price of the government lands, with a view to the coloured people, at that amount which will best obviate squatting, and secure the respectable settlement of some who may find their way to the west.

Suggestions of this kind excite laughter among the masters of slaves, who are in the habit of thinking that they know best what negroes are, and what they are capable of. I have reasons for estimating their knowledge differently, and for believing that none know so little of the true character and capabilities of negroes as their owners. They might know more, but for the pernicious and unnatural secrecy about some of the most important facts connected with slave-holding, which is induced partly by pride, partly by fear, partly by pecuniary interest. If they would do themselves and their slaves the justice of inquiring with precision what is the state of Hayti; what has taken place in the West Indies; what the emancipation really was there; what its effects actually are, they would obtain a clearer view of their own prospects. So they would, if they would communicate freely about certain facts nearer home: not only conversing as individuals, but removing the restrictions upon the press by which they lose far more than they gain, both in security and fortune,—to say nothing of intelligence. Of the many families in which I enjoyed intercourse, there was, I believe, none where I was not told of some one slave of unusual value, for talent or goodness, either in the present or a former generation. A collection of these alone, as they stand in my journal, would form no mean testimony to the intellectual and moral capabilities of negroes: and if to these were added the tales which I could tell, if I also were not bound under the laws of mystery of which I have been complaining, many hearts would beat with the desire to restore to their human rights those whose fellow-sufferers have given ample proof of their worthiness to enjoy them. The consideration which binds me to silence upon a rich collection of facts, full of moral beauty and promise, is regard to the safety of many whose heroic obedience to the laws of God has brought them into jeopardy under the laws of slave-holders, and the allies of slave-holders. Nor would I, by any careless revelations, throw the slightest obstacle in the way of the escape of any one of the slaves who may be about to shirk their masters, by methods with which I happen to be acquainted.