Studies on Slavery, in Easy Lessons

by John Fletcher

The family of the slave-owner is taught to regard the negro as a race of man radically inferior, in moral capacity, in mental power, and even in physical ability, to the white man; that, although he is susceptible of improvement in all these things, and even does improve in the state of slavery to the white man, yet that it would require untold generations to elevate him and his race to the present standing of the white races.

The child, the mere youth, and those of more experience, see proofs of these facts in every comparison. The master feels them to be true, and is taught, that, while he governs with compassion, forbearance, and mercy, and as having regard to their improvement, any familiarity on terms of equality, beyond that of command on his side, and obedience on theirs, is, and must be, disgrace to him. He is taught to consider the negro race, from some cause, to have deteriorated to such extent that his safety and happiness demand the control of a superior; he regards him as a man, entitled to receive the protection of such control; and that he, like every other man, will be called to account unto God, according to the talents God has given him. He is taught, by every hour’s experience, to know that slavery to the negro is a blessing. He is taught to feel it a duty to teach, as he would an inferior, the negro his moral duty, his obligations to God, the religion of the Bible, the gospel of Christ.

But the man born and educated in the Free States is taught that “he who cannot see a brother, a child of God, a man possessing all the rights of humanity, under a skin darker than his own, wants the vision of a Christian.” Channing, vol. ii. p. 14. “To recognise as brethren those who want all outward distinctions, is the chief way in which we are to manifest the spirit of him who came to raise the fallen and save the lost.” Ibidem.

Vol. ii. pp. 20, 21, 22, he says—“Another argument against property (in slaves) is to be found in the essential equality of men.” * * * “Nature indeed pays no heed to birth or condition in bestowing her favours. The noblest spirits sometimes grow up in the obscurest spheres. Thus equal are men;—and among these equals, who can substantiate his claim to make others his property, his tools, the mere instruments of his private interest and gratification?” * * * “Is it sure that the slave, or the slave’s child, may not surpass his master in intellectual energy, or in moral worth? Has nature conferred distinctions, which tell us plainly who shall be owners and who shall be owned? Who of us can unblushingly lift up his head and say that God has written ‘master’ there? Or who can show the word ‘slave’ engraven on his brother’s brow? The equality of nature makes slavery a wrong.”

May we aid the disciples of Dr. Channing by referring them to Prov. xvii. 2, “A wise servant (עֶֽבֶדʿebed ebed, slave) shall have rule over a son that causeth shame, and shall have part of the inheritance among the brethren?” And will the doctor and his disciples believe the proverb any the more true, when we inform them that it is a matter of frequent occurrence in slave-holding communities. Vol. v. p. 89, 90, he says—“But we have not yet touched the great cause of the conflagration of the Hall of Freedom. Something worse than fanaticism or separation of the Union was the impulse to this violence. We are told that white people and black sat together on the benches of the hall, and were even seen walking together in the streets! This was the unheard-of atrocity which the virtues of the people of Philadelphia could not endure. They might have borne the dissolution of the national tie; but this junction of black and white was too much for human patience to sustain. And has it indeed come to this? For such a cause are mobs and fires to be let loose on our persons and most costly buildings? What! Has not an American citizen a right to sit and walk with whom he will? Is this common privilege denied us? Is society authorized to choose our associates? Must our neighbour’s tastes as to friendship and companionship control our own? Have the feudal times come back to us, when to break the law of caste was a greater crime than to violate the laws of God? What must Europe have thought, when the news crossed the ocean of the burning of the Hall of Freedom, because white and coloured people walked together in the streets?

“Europe might well open its eyes in wonder. On that continent, with all its aristocracy, the coloured man mixes freely with his fellow-creatures. He sometimes receives the countenance of the rich, and has even found his way into the palaces of the great. In Europe, the doctrine would be thought to be too absurd for refutation, that a coloured man of pure morals and piety, of cultivated intellect and refined manners, was not a fit companion for the best in the land. What must Europe have said, when brought to understand that, in a republic, founded on the principles of human rights and equality, people are placed beyond the laws for treating the African as a man. This Philadelphia doctrine deserves no mercy. What an insult is thrown on human nature, in making it a heinous crime to sit or walk with a human being, whoever it may be? It just occurs to me, that I have forgotten the circumstance which filled to overflowing the cup of abolitionist wickedness in Philadelphia. The great offence was this, that certain young women of anti-slavery faith were seen to walk the streets with coloured young men!”

Such are the lessons taught the youth as well as the aged of the Free States, even by Dr. Channing himself. We now ask, under the teachings of which school will the pupils be the best prepared for this cohabitation with the negro?

The burning of the Hall of Freedom was, no doubt, a very great outrage, well meriting severe condemnation. Yet we cannot but notice, that Dr. Channing has nowhere, in all his works, said one word about the burning of the Convent on Mount Benedict, by his own townsmen, the good people of Boston.

We care not with what severity he punishes such outrages. But it is the influence of his lesson in palliating the familiarity, and mitigating the evil consequences of a coalition of the white man with the negro, that we present to view. It is with grief that we find him infusing into his disciples this nauseating, disgusting, moral poison; preparing their minds to feel little or no shame in a cohabitation with the negro, so degrading to the white man, and so disgraceful in all Slave States. Yea further, what are we to think of the judgment, of the taste,—may we not add, habits, of a man who could unblushingly publish to the world his partiality to the negro of Jamaica, after his visit there, as follows:

“I saw too, on the plantation where I resided, a gracefulness and dignity of form and motion, rare in my own native New England.” Vol. vi. p. 51.