What then are we to expect from man in a savage state, whose ancestors have been degenerating from generation to generation, through untold ages,—him, who has scarcely a feeling in common with civilized man, except such as is common to the mere animal,—him, whom deteriorating causes have reduced to the lowest grade above the brute?
Domberger spent twelve years in passing through the central parts of Africa, from north to south. He found the negroes, in a large district of country, in a state of total brutality. Their habits were those only of the wild brutes. They had no fixed residences. They lay down wherever they might be when disposed to sleep. They were not more gregarious than the wild goats. So far as he could discover, they had not a language even, by which to hold intercourse with each other. They possessed no power by which they were enabled to exhibit moral degradation, any more than the wild beasts.
Hanno, the Carthaginian navigator, in his Periplus, eight hundred years before the birth of Christ, gives a similar account of a race he calls Gætuli.
It is possible that man, in these extreme cases, where there is very little to unlearn, might sooner be regenerated, elevated to civilization, physical and mental power, than in other cases where there may be far more proof of mental capacity, but where the worst of intellectual and physical habits have stained soul and body with, perhaps, a more indelible degradation.
It would be a curious experiment, and add much to our knowledge of the races of man, to ascertain how many generations, under the most favourable treatment, it would require to produce an equal to Moses, or a David, a Newton, or the learned Dr. Wayland himself, (if such be possible,) from these specimens of man presented before us! And we now inquire, what course of treatment will you propose, as the most practical, to elevate such a race to civilization?
It appears to us God has decided that slavery is the most effectual.
“Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge.” Isa. v. 13. “And they forsook the Lord, and served Baal and Ashteroth. And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of the spoilers that spoiled them, and he sold them into the hands of their enemies round about.” Judg. ii. 13, 14. See also, iii. 6–8. “If his children forsake my law and walk not in my judgments: if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments: then will I visit their transgressions with the rod and their iniquity with stripes.” Ps. lxxxviii. 30–32. “He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool shall be the servant (עֶבֶדʿebed ebed, slave) to the wise of heart.” Prov. ii. 29. “And her daughters shall go into captivity. Thus will I execute judgments in Egypt: and they shall know that I am the Lord.” Ezek. xxx. 18. See also the preceding part of the chapter.
It is highly probable that among savage tribes, punishment and the infliction of pain are often applied with no higher view than to torture the object of displeasure. But to us it seems remarkably unfortunate, in a student of moral and civil jurisprudence, to suggest that legal punishment, among civilized men, is ever awarded or ordered with any such feeling. If our education has given us a correct view of the subject, the man who inflicts pain even on the brute, solely on the account of such a feeling, instantly, so far as it is known, sinks to the grade of a savage; and much more explicitly when the object of revenge is his fellow man. On the contrary, when “the offender” has given unquestionable evidence of a depravity too deeply seated for any hope of regeneration, and the law orders his death, it selects that mode of execution which inflicts the least suffering, and which shall have also the greatest probable influence to deter others who may be downward bound in the road of moral deterioration. There never has been a code of laws among civilized nations, where the object of punishment was to inflict pain on the implicated; only so far as was thought necessary to influence a change of action for the better. The object of punishment invariably has been the improvement of society.
If the Rev. Dr. Wayland had been teaching legislation to savages, or, perhaps, their immediate descendants, his remarks, to which we allude, might have been in place. But may we inquire to what cause are we indebted for them?
Permit us to inquire of the Doctor, where now are to be found the “systems of criminal jurisprudence” to which he alludes? Does he imagine that such system has some likeness to the government of the civilized man over his slave? Or, in their government, does he propose to abolish corporeal punishment, because he may think that will destroy the institution itself? For “a servant (עָ֑בֶדʿabed abed, a slave) though he understand, he will not answer.” Prov. xxix. 19.