Negroes and Negro "Slavery:" the first an inferior race: the latter its normal condition.

by John H. Van Evrie

The great revolutionary movement of 1776 gave full expression to the new modes of thought, the grand ideas, the glorious truths thus developed in the mind of Virginia, and relatively in the other colonies, where this cause, this negro element had anything like a stationary existence. It was no accident or chance that made Mr. Jefferson the author of the great idea, or rather the exponent of the idea embodied in the Declaration of Independence, the grand and immortal truth, that all white men are created equal, and therefore entitled to equal rights, or, as he expressed it, to “life, liberty, and happiness.” True, some other Virginian might have done this, and possibly some mind in the Middle Provinces, New Jersey, or New York, might have formed a tolerably clear conception of this great fixed and unchangeable truth that underlies the whole superstructure of our political society; but no man in the Northern Provinces could have risen to this mental elevation at that period in our history; indeed comparatively few are even now capable of it. Massachusetts and the neighboring colonies grasped the idea of independence with great clearness, and urged it with an earnestness, bravery, and indomitable perseverance certainly unsurpassed, if equalled elsewhere, but it was independence of a foreign dominion, and not independence of foreign ideas or of a hostile system. They were without negroes, without any natural substratum in the social elements, without any test or standard to determine men’s natural relations to each other, and clinging to the mental habits of their British ancestors, they were therefore incapable of forming those grand and truthful conceptions of equality which Mr. Jefferson, and Virginians generally, under the influences that have been stated, so clearly apprehended. The accidental and artificial distinctions of society—family influence, wealth, education, etc., were as in England, though, of course, not to the same extent—the standards, the tests, the landmarks of the political as well as the social order, and the phrase often used by New England writers of our own day, that “representation was inseparable from taxation,” fully expressed the mental habits and imperfect political conceptions of the Northern mind. In England, except the titled aristocracy, the House of Lords or Peerage, which pretends to rest on blood or birth (?), wealth alone gives rights. The man is nowhere, no part or portion, or element even of the political system. In every county where he happens to have property, he has a vote, but if without property, he has no voice whatever, and, as observed, is not even an element of representation, as are the negroes of the South. Taxation and representation, therefore, are inseparable, so far as forms are concerned, in the British system, though, as a fact, it is the working classes, who are not represented at all, that must pay all the taxes in the end. The mental habits of the North, in 1776, were fashioned on this model; they saw only those accidental things that separate classes in England, as, wealth, education, etc., and though they had an earnest desire for liberty, this liberty was a vague, undefined, shadowy sentiment, rather than any precise idea resting on fact as in Virginia. The immediate want and common impulse of independence, however, impelled all parties to act harmoniously for its accomplishment, and though the grand truths presented by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence were far above the then intellectual standard of the North, it did not conflict with the mental habits of the Northern people sufficiently to interfere with the common object. But when that object was accomplished—when the foreign dominion was overthrown and the common independence secured, and a new political system was to be created, then a conflict of ideas was developed that was found to be so grave, that many good and patriotic men for some time feared it could not be compromised. The leading men of the North—the representative men—the men who desired independence from foreign domination, but with, at best, vague notions of liberty, or of a new political system—Hamilton, Adams, Morris, etc.—now came into serious conflict with the democratic ideas of Virginia. They desired a monarchy without a king, or a republic without the rule of the masses. The general notion was, the British model without its defects, or the British system without its corruptions, and so entirely were some wedded to this, that they declared it, with all its corruptions, the best government in the world.

The leaders very generally assumed, as they often expressed it, that society was naturally divided into the few and the many—the educated minority, and the laboring majority—and as such was the actual social condition of the population as well as the mental habits of the leaders, it is not at all surprising that they sought to found a government on such a basis. The agricultural population of the Northern and Middle States were then very ignorant indeed, when compared with the present. Feudalism had not been long overthrown in England or Europe, and the serf transformed into the peasant, and though the American farmer of 1776 was a great advance over the latter, he still largely partook of that general apathy, stolidity, and ignorance which in all times, until now, in our own favored land, have distinguished the tillers of the soil. The large population at the North otherwise employed, the mechanics, artisans, shop-keepers, laborers, etc., were generally, as in the mother country, without representation in the provincial legislatures, and as the interests of the educated classes, the capitalists, merchants, lawyers, divines, etc., were supposed to be, and were in fact, in conflict with those of the former, they always desired strong governments to hold them in order. Indeed, the idea of mob ascendency, of anarchy, the wild rule of the rabble, was the constant terror of the Northern leaders, and in all the arguments of Hamilton, the Adamses, etc., this was put prominently forward. Their rhetorical formula was always the same—“the rule of the uneducated mass will degenerate into license and anarchy, from which the country can only be saved by the strong hand of some military chief, who, first a dictator, will finally don the purple, and the rôle so often played in the Old World will be repeated in the New.” This notion and this reasoning was legitimate—the consistent result of the social condition as well as the offspring of the inherited traditions of the Northern mind. The capitalists, all those who inherited wealth, the “well-born” and educated class, in short, the few who had the power in their hands, naturally sought, to preserve it and to build up a strong government; which, while it specially benefited themselves, should always be able to “preserve order”—that is, while founded on existing social distinctions, was sufficiently strong to repress the efforts of the multitude to change the social condition. They had no negroes, no natural substratum in the social elements or natural distinctions of society. They had nothing before their eyes but the results of chance, of the accidents of life—nothing but wealth and education—nothing, in short, but the débris of the old societies—those class distinctions which in the Old World constitute the basis of the political and social order, and their mental habits, their opinions, their notions of government and its uses, were, of course, in accord with these things, and their minds were incapable of rising above the existing condition, of over-leaping the barriers and escaping from the external circumstances that surrounded them. There were, doubtless, individual exceptions—some men who were deeply imbued with the grand idea promulgated by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. There were many in the Middle States who had an imperfect but advancing conception of this glorious truth, and there was still a larger number, perhaps, who were groping in darkness with a vague but earnest desire to embrace it. But the dominant thought, the prevalent opinion, the general mental habit, was reflected by the representative men, the great Northern leaders, Hamilton, Adams, Otis, and their companions, who desired to found a government on the British model, which, though it should be a great improvement over the former, was to be based on the same foundation—for, to their minds, their mental habits, there was no other, or, at all events, no other safe basis for government. They were honest and patriotic men—men of gifted minds and large attainments—men sorely tried and tested by the hardships and sufferings of a seven years’ war, through which they walked with their lives in their hands, and the scaffold always frowning on them in the distance, and the purity of intentions, the unselfish and patriotic desires of such men, should never be questioned. They could not rise above the circumstances that surrounded them; they could not comprehend the grand idea of Mr. Jefferson; they saw before them only class distinctions, the rich and the poor, the educated few and the toiling many, and they desired to build the government on the status quo, and therefore demanded a strong government, that should always be able to restrain the multitude and keep them in subjection to their “rulers.”

On the contrary, as has been stated, Virginia had cast off the mental habits of the Old World, the offspring had long since outgrown the traditions of their ancestors; the descendants of English cavaliers had changed entirely about in their opinions, and the children of those who held to the doctrine of “passive obedience” and “non-resistance” declared that “resistance to tyrants was obedience to God.” The cause or the causes of this wonderful transformation of opinion, this radical change in mental habitudes, which has made the descendants of the supporters of royalty the originators and special champions of democracy in America, have been already considered.

The presence of the negro, the existence in their midst of a different race, was and is, and always must be, a test that shows us the insignificance and indeed nothingness of those artificial distinctions which elsewhere govern the world, and constitute the basis of the political as well as the social order.

The importance of education, of cultivation, the refinement of mind and manners, the possession of wealth, of family influence and social distinction, may all be duly appreciated, as all have their value or social consideration, but where there is a natural substratum of society, where a different and subordinate race are in juxtaposition, where negroes exist in any considerable number and in natural relation to the whites, then it naturally follows that the great natural distinctions fixed forever by the hand of the Almighty become the dividing lines and the fixed landmarks of the social order.

This radical change in the mental habits of all brought face to face with the negro; this instinctive consciousness of their own natural equality that accompanied their perception of the negro’s inferiority; in short, this development of the democratic idea to which Mr. Jefferson gave such grand expression in the Declaration of Independence, was and is accompanied by corresponding uniformity or harmony of interests. Agriculture, labor, production, was and is the one great dominating interest of Virginia and of all other communities made up of these diverse social elements. It is impossible to divide the interests of “master” and “slave”—of the white man and negro—when placed in natural relation to each other. It is the utmost interest of the master to treat his “slave” kindly, to care for him in sickness, to feed him well, and not to overwork or abuse him, and it is the utmost interest of the latter to be faithful to the former. It is a sort of partnership, a species of socialism, when the brain of one being and the hands of fifty other beings labor for the common good, for the general welfare; and though possible exceptions are found where a brutal master beats and abuses his people, or a worthless “slave” runs off and hides in the swamp, both alike injure themselves, the master gets less work from his “slave,” and the “slave” brings upon himself a corresponding evil. The so-called “non-slaveholder,” if an agriculturist, has the same interest; he is also a producer, and can not separate his interests from the “slaveholder,” which, perhaps, he was himself yesterday, and may be again to-morrow. If he be a mechanic, a lawyer, physician, or merchant, then, though not identified as a producer with the “slaveholder” or “non-slaveholder,” and in a sense may be said to have different interests, these interests do not and can not conflict with the former, unless, as in the Northern States, government is called on to “protect labor.” But as government is confined to its legitimate sphere in Virginia and most other Southern States, and protects all, without favors to any, there is then no conflict of interests, even when some are engaged in widely different pursuits from the one great common interest of production. There is, therefore, universal harmony in Southern society; the interests of master and “slave” are entirely indivisible, while those of the “non-slaveholder,” if engaged in production, are similar, and as to all others, when they do not involve the government, though the pursuits or interests be widely different, there can be no social conflict.

The ideas of Jefferson, Madison, and their cotemporaries were naturally formed by these circumstances, and after the revolutionary contest was over and a common government was to be created, they naturally proposed a system in harmony with the condition they represented. The North, as has been said, with no social substratum or natural distinctions, desired a government based on artificial distinctions, those separating classes, the same substantially as in England, though, of course, dispensing with a titled class, a king, and laws of primogeniture. It is true all the States had a few negroes, and they were all in their normal condition of so-called slavery, but their numbers were so inconsiderable that they did not influence society or modify the mental habits of the Northern people. All over, and especially in the New England States, the same ideas were reflected by the representative men; they wanted a government based on the status quo, on wealth, that should keep power in the hands of the few who then exercised it, and with sufficient force to hold the multitude in subjection. They proposed an executive for life, who should also appoint the governors of the States, that senators should serve ten years, and various other projects of similar character—all ending in or embodying the same common idea, that is, a government for the few at the expense of the many.

The Southern men, on the contrary, proposed a government embodying their idea—the idea of democracy, and that should reflect the advanced opinion and living spirit of their own society, rather than a thing based on the model of Britishism, and involving substantially the principles of the old European order. While they duly appreciated education, cultivation, and other accidental social distinctions, those whose ideas were advanced by juxtaposition with negroes, or with this natural line of demarcation, would not listen to the creation of a central government that tended in any respect to place power in the hands of a class, or that enabled the few, however indirectly it might be, to govern the many. The contest, both in the convention and before the people, assumed the form of a contest for a strong or a weak government—a government that should be supreme, like the British Parliament, or a government of delegated powers, which, while carefully defined, should be extremely limited in its functions or scope of action. But back of all this were the fundamental ideas—the British and the American—the spirit of the old societies and the spirit of the new order—of British oligarchy and of American democracy.

Massachusetts and Virginia were respectively the head-quarters and embodiments of this conflict, this struggling of ideas, these tendencies to return to the past or to advance into the future, and it is as remarkable, perhaps, to find the former arrayed on the side of power and privilege, as that the descendants of the cavaliers should now be the champions of democracy, and the advocates of the broadest liberty. But, as has been observed, our ideas are the results of accident, our opinions originate in the circumstances that surround us, and therefore while the mental habits of the North were only slightly modified from those of the mother country, those of the South, under wholly different conditions—conditions, in fact, utterly unknown to the English mind—were radically different.

The Northern masses, as has been remarked, were then ignorant and helpless, and the agricultural class, though advanced considerably beyond the same class in England, as the tillers of the soil had then barely escaped from the old feudal slavery or serfdom, were utterly powerless and without defenders in the great civil contest that succeeded the revolution. As against the advocates of strong government—those who represented the governing class—they could make no resistance whatever, except a physical and revolutionary one. The right of suffrage was very limited, and, indeed, as in England at this time, property and not population was the basis of representation, and therefore the vast majority had no voice nor representation whatever. Under such circumstances, it is obvious and beyond question that if a similar state of things had existed at the South, a government would have been formed on the British model—a republic, doubtless, but a bastard one—with powers so extensive and absolute that, as we now witness in Europe, nothing but revolution and physical force could ever enable the masses to overthrow it or to regain their natural liberty.