Slavery in Maryland briefly considered

by John L. Carey

Men can not associate with children without holding them to obedience; and children expect such control. If they do not find it, they regard their weak elders slightingly enough. Tinctured with love and kindness, this control is a delightful bond of affinity, blending the solicitude of mature years with the tenderest affections of childhood.

What other principle can hold in respect to the intercourse of different classes of men brought into association, no matter by what means, in one community, the disparity between the two being as great as that between childhood and maturity? The two elements of civilization and primitive rudeness entering together into the social organization, the control of the superior element must take the permanent form of an institution; the relations of the two must be fixed upon a firm basis. Otherwise how could there be a permanent organization?

If the inferior race should remain in a mass to themselves, it would be in a position antagonistic to the superior, and must perish. Like the Helots of Sparta, they might be slaves to the community; but only so when the community was the only personality, the citizens living in common, and merging each his individual character in that of the State. Upon reflection it will be seen that personal servitude to particular masters would constitute the only mode by which the interests of the two races could be harmonized; by which the inferior might be diffused through the other, so as to come most beneficially in contact with it, by which, in short, the safety of the inferior might be secured, and a domestic relationship be established in place of implacable hostility. This, however, presupposes docility in the inferior race.

The authority of a parent over the child is as absolute as that of the master over the slave, so far as the power to enforce obedience goes. The first, however, is mingled with parental affection, which gives assurance of kindness and the tenderest care. But it may be abused, and often it is.

There is no such assurance that the authority of the master will be tempered and regulated by kindness and solicitude. Hence in due time come the evils of the relation—the master forgetting the obligations of his position, and looking upon his servants as so many chattels fit only to minister to his avarice or his pleasure.

A further analogy may be stated: that as the control of parental authority, proper over the child, would be improper after the child has become a man, so the condition of servitude, rightly to be regarded as one of tutelage, and proper only in that view, must after a time cease to be just—because incompatible with progress after a certain point. It can not be supposed that any race of men, the most humble in the grade of civilization, are destined to be always slaves.

III. Of Slavery as it relates to the Negroes in the United States.

The negro race in the United States have derived great benefits from their condition of servitude. Let us have done with the wailings of weak sympathizers who know not what they would be at. No African has come as a slave to this country who was not a slave before. The exchange of masters which transferred the service of the negro from a barbarous owner in Africa to a civilized proprietor in America is likely to prove the salvation of the race. From time immemorial slavery has prevailed in Africa. The characteristics of slavery there, so terrible, so abominable that any condition of existence would seem preferable—how utterly are they forgotten by those who delight to dwell upon the “wrongs of the negro!” In the United States the negro has attained the Pisgah height from which he can look forward into a land of promise, rich in blessings. No event has happened in the history of Africa, since her degradation, so likely to result in good to her as the residence of Africans in this country. At this moment the negro colonist, conveyed from Maryland to the settlement at Cape Palmas, stands a superior being among the natives that surround him in the land of his progenitors. Servitude in the United States has been the school of discipline and of progress by means of which the black man may become fit for freedom.

Here, surrounded by the elements of civilization and Christian knowledge, the negro has imbibed largely of both. His nature is admirably adapted to catch the hue and quality of any notable characteristic of the superior people about him. He is imitative in a high degree; he is quick of apprehension; docile; easy of control, without a sense of degradation connected with his service. The position of servitude, then, in a civilized community is adapted to him; he improves by it.

The natives of Africa at this day are just such a people as were the slaves first brought to America; just such a people as all the slaves were who have come from Africa to this country. If none had been brought to our shores; if the progenitors of the negroes now here had remained in Africa, their descendants would have been of like pattern with themselves; they would have been in all respects similar to the native tribes now found in Africa, because they would have been a portion of them.