Society in America, Volume 1 (of 2)

by Harriet Martineau

There was but one sign of the times which was amusing to me; and that was the tumult of opinions and prophecies offered to me on the subject of the duration of slavery, and the mode in which it would be at last got rid of; for I never heard of any one but Governor M'Duffie who supposed that it can last for ever. He declared last year, in his message to the legislature of South Carolina, that he considers slavery as the corner-stone of their republican liberties: and that, if he were dying, his latest prayer should be that his children's children should live nowhere but amidst the institutions of slavery. This message might have been taken as a freak of eccentricity merely, if it had stood alone. But a committee of the legislature, with Governor Hamilton in the chair, thought proper to endorse every sentiment in it. This converts it into an indication of the perversion of mind commonly prevalent in a class when its distinctive pecuniary interest is in imminent peril. I was told, a few months prior to the appearance of this singular production, that though Governor M'Duffie was a great ornament to the State of South Carolina, his opinions on the subject of slavery were ultra, and that he was left pretty nearly alone in them. Within a year, those who told me so went, in public, all lengths with Governor M'Duffie.

I believe I might very safely and honourably give the names of those who prophesied to me in the way I have mentioned; for they rather court publicity for their opinions, as it is natural and right that they should, as long as they are sure of them. But it may suffice to mention that they are all eminent men, whose attention has been strongly fixed, for a length of years, upon the institution in question.

A. believes that slavery is a necessary and desirable stage in civilisation: not on the score of the difficulty of cultivating new lands without it, but on the ground of the cultivation of the negro mind and manners. He believes the Haytians to have deteriorated since they became free. He believes the white population destined to absorb the black, though holding that the two races will not unite after the third mixture. His expectation is that the black and mulatto races will have disappeared in a hundred and fifty years. He has no doubt that cotton and tobacco may be well and easily grown by whites.

B. is confident that the condition of slaves is materially improved, yet believes that they will die out, and that there will be no earlier catastrophe. He looks to colonisation, however, as a means of lessening the number. This same gentleman told me of a recent visit he had paid to a connexion of his own, who had a large "force," consisting chiefly of young men and women: not one child had been born on the estate for three years. This looks very like dying out; but does it go to confirm the materially improved condition of the slaves?

C. allows slavery to be a great evil; and, if it were now non-existent, would not ordain it, if he could. But he thinks the slaves far happier than they would have been at home in Africa, and considers that the system works perfectly. He pronounces the slaves "the most contented, happy, industrious peasantry in the world." He believes this virtue and content would disappear if they were taught anything whatever; and that if they were free, they would be, naturally and inevitably, the most vicious and wretched population ever seen. His expectation is that they will increase to such a degree as to make free labour, "which always supersedes slave labour," necessary in its stead; that the coloured race will wander off to new regions, and be ultimately "absorbed" by the white. He contemplates no other than this natural change, which he thinks cannot take place in less than a century and a half. A year later, this gentleman told a friend of mine that slavery cannot last above twenty years. They must be stringent reasons which have induced so great a change of opinion in twelve months.

D. thinks slavery an enormous evil, but doubts whether something as bad would not arise in its stead. He is a colonisationist, and desires that the general government should purchase the slaves, by annual appropriations, and ship them off to Africa, so as to clear the country of the coloured people in forty or fifty years. If this is not done, a servile war, the most horrible that the world has seen, is inevitable. Yet he believes that the institution, though infinitely bad for the masters, is better for the slaves than those of any country in Europe for its working classes. He is convinced that the tillage of all the crops could be better carried on by whites, with the assistance of cattle and implements, than by negroes.

E. writes, (October 1835,) "Certain it is that if men of property and intelligence in the north have that legitimate influence which that class has here, nothing will come of this abolition excitement. All we have to say to them is, 'Hands off!' Our political rights[21] are clear, and shall not be invaded. We know too much about slavery to be slaves ourselves. But I repeat, nothing will come of the present, or rather recent excitement, for already it is in a great degree passed. And the time is coming when a struggle between pauperism and property, or, if you choose, between labour and capital in the north, stimulated by the spirit of Jacksonism, will occupy the people of that quarter to the exclusion of our affairs. If any external influence is ever to affect the institution of slavery in the south, it will not be the vulgar and ignorant fanaticism of the northern States, intent upon a cheap charity which is to be done at our expense; but that influence will be found in English literature, and the gradual operation of public opinion. Slavery, so to speak, may be evaporated;—it cannot be drawn off. If it were, the whole land would be poisoned and desolated."

The best reply to this letter will be found in the memorable speech of Mr. Preston, one of the South Carolina senators, delivered in Congress, last spring. It may be mentioned, by the way, that the writer of the above is mistaken in supposing that there is at present, or impending, any unhappy struggle in the north between pauperism and property, or labour and capital. It is all property there, and no pauperism, (except the very little that is superinduced;) and labour and capital were, perhaps, never before seen to jog on so lovingly together. The "cheap charity" he speaks of is the cheap charity of the first Christians, with the addition of an equal ability and will to pay down money for the abolition of the slaves, for whose sake the abolitionists have already shown themselves able to bear,—some, hanging;—some, scourging, and tarring and feathering; some, privation of the means of living; and all, the being incessantly and deeply wounded in their social relations and tenderest affections. Martyrdom is ever accounted a "cheap devotion," or "cheap charity," to God or man, by those who exact it of either religious or philanthropic principle.

Mr. Preston's speech describes the spread of abolition opinions as being rapid and inevitable. He proves the rapidity by citing the number of recently-formed abolition societies in the north; and the inevitableness, by exhibiting the course which such convictions had run in England and France. He represents the case as desperate. He advises,—not yielding, but the absolute exclusion of opinion on the subject,—exclusion from Congress, and exclusion from the slave States. This is well. The matter may be considered to be given up, unless this is merely the opinion of an individual. The proposal is about as hopeful as it would be to draw a cordon round the Capitol to keep out the four winds; or to build a wall up to the pole-star to exclude the sunshine.

One more sample of opinions. A gentleman who edits a highly-esteemed southern newspaper, expresses himself thus. "There is a wild fanaticism at work to effect the overthrow of the system, although in its fall would go down the fortunes of the south, and to a great extent those of the north and east;—in a word, the whole fabric of our Union, in one awful ruin. What then ought to be done? What measures ought to be taken to secure the safety of our property and our lives? We answer, let us be vigilant and watchful to the last degree over all the movements of our enemies both at home and abroad. Let us declare through the public journals of our country, that the question of slavery is not, and shall not be open to discussion;—that the system is deep-rooted amongst us, and must remain for ever;—that the very moment any private individual attempts to lecture us upon its evils and immorality, and the necessity of putting measures into operation to secure us from them, in the same moment his tongue shall be cut out and cast upon the dung-hill. We are freemen, sprung from a noble stock of freemen, able to boast as noble a line of ancestry as ever graced this earth;—we have burning in our bosoms the spirit of freemen—live in an age of enlightened freedom, and in a country blessed with its privileges—under a government that has pledged itself to protect us in the enjoyment of our peculiar domestic institutions in peace, and undisturbed. We hope for a long continuance of these high privileges, and have now to love, cherish, and defend, property, liberty, wives and children, the right to manage our own matters in our own way, and, what is equally dear with all the rest, the inestimable right of dying upon our own soil, around our own firesides, in struggling to put down all those who may attempt to infringe, attack, or violate any of these sacred and inestimable privileges."