But look at the contrast which is presented when you take one of our Maryland men of color and compare him with a native African. They hardly seem to belong to the same race. The colonist of Cape Palmas is very nearly, if not altogether, as much superior to the natives on the coast of Africa as the first settlers of America were to the aborigines.
What has caused this difference? There is but one answer. Through the ordeal of servitude in the United States the negro has passed into the threshold of civilization, into the portals of Christianity. Every moment of his existence among enlightened people has been one of progress. Like a negative body brought into connection with one fully charged, he has been continually a recipient; imparting nothing he has acquired from every surrounding source.
Let us reverently acknowledge the overruling power of Providence, by whose dispensation an unrighteous traffic has been made the means of benefit to a benighted race. Africa herself will hail, on her own shores, the return of her children who went forth in chains, and the still heavier bondage of ignorance and barbarism—but restored to her as freemen; the heralds of civilization; not as Israelites, bearing away the spoil of the Egyptians, but enriched in knowledge and virtue, and followed by the good will of their former masters.
I have deemed it the more important to set forth these views, because of the style of language so much in vogue when the servitude of the negroes in this country is spoken of. How incessantly do we hear of the “wrongs of the African,” with abundance of that sort of phraseology which makes up so much of the cant of philanthropy.
I here say nothing of the slave trade. Let those condemn it who will; it is not for me to utter a word in its defence. But viewing the negroes in the United States as already here, no matter by what means brought, there is no question at all but that, as a race, their condition here has been a fortunate state of existence for them; whether as compared with their condition in Africa, where they were slaves, or as taken in connection with their moral and intellectual state and their adaptation to service.
It is perhaps too late in the day to hope for any assuaging of that strong feeling which prevails in some parts of the north on this subject—a feeling so strong and inflexible, that we see ecclesiastical organizations rent asunder by it. Yet must we deplore the prevalence of a spirit which exhibits itself in such unlovely forms of violence; and the more especially since there is no call for such manifestations. The race of people in whose behalf this agitation is made have never asked for it; nothing has done them so much harm already. It is a work of supererogation, so far as they are concerned—one of gratuitous injury. No thought seems to have been bestowed upon the condition in which the colored people would be placed, if abolitionism were every where successful. The active principle in the whole business, what has it been but an overpowering, inexorable sentiment of anathema and condemnation against slaveholders, who are so by the inevitable circumstances of their position, by the necessity of a transmitted heritage of social and political relationship? And this relationship is one for which Paul has given precepts and thus recognised—which Christianity has embraced as one of the varied features of social organization, bearing with it its peculiar obligations and duties.
If it were charged that the duties imposed by this peculiar relationship had been lost sight of; if the masters were arraigned for cruelty and injustice in their sphere—then would there be a charge which could be judged of according to the facts. Master and servant—both have their respective obligations: the one to render obedience, not with eye-service, but truly; the other to exercise his power of direction as one acting in the sight of the great Master of all men.
Unfortunately this view is not taken. It is deemed a crime that a man shall be a master—though by ceasing to be so his servants might be the chief sufferers. All circumstances, facts, conditions are lost sight of; denunciation does not stop to discriminate; the slaves are made the objects of sympathy whether they will or not; and with a self-assumed superiority of righteousness, these Pharisees, who thank God that they are not as other men, pronounce judgment of condemnation, because other men are not as they are.
It would be well if these displays of superfluous solicitude, these copious outpourings of random philanthropy, involved nothing more than the waste of so much of the raw material of sentimental morality. But the arrogance of some and the vindictiveness of others of the abolitionists, blended with such exhibitions of phrenzy, has produced the reaction of disgust in the minds of the southern people—the reaction of indignation and defiance. In Virginia, the disposition which had been manifested to hasten the extinction of Slavery in 1832 was suddenly checked. So also in Kentucky. And, more lamentable still, the relation between master and slave, previously one of simplicity and confidence, and of kind domestic regard, was disturbed by the infusion of a harsher ingredient. The servant became restless and discontented; the master suspicious. I speak of the result of this abolition movement in Maryland. Who does not remember the old domestic relation of master and servant, so full of kindly household sympathies? There yet remain many specimens of that class of faithful attached servitors, whose pride in the family name and respectability, whose identification with the family interests, was affiliated with the strongest personal affection for the master and his household. Many of those, we say, yet remain; they are to be found chiefly in the old families of Maryland, and in those parts of the State farthest removed from the abolition excitement. In the simple minds of those people no perception ever entered of the idea that their masters, the objects of their love and reverence, were robbers, man-stealers, or oppressors; they had no consciousness that they themselves were degraded by a service of which they were proud; and as to a deprivation of rights, they would have esteemed any rights hateful which would have compelled their separation from the hearth and home to which their affections were devoted. Is it not clear that in a position like this, so well adapted to the growth of good affections, a docile, mild, yet rude and simple people, might find the elements of improvement, might find themselves in circumstances beautifully suited to their state? What better school could there be for such a people in which to learn the rudiments of civilization? What a happy exchange for them to leave a barbarian master in Africa, a capricious and savage despot, who would inflict death or mutilation in any fit of passion, for the judicious control of the civilized white man, at once, a master, teacher, protector, and friend! How fortunate for the future prospects of the race that their lot was taken from the dreary barrenness of savage life, in Africa, with its cruelties, its debasing superstitions, its hideous brutalities and licentiousness, to be cast in the bosom of a Christian land, amid the elements of social refinement and political freedom? Of these the African in the United States has profited much. The well bred colored man in Maryland appreciates, to the full, the character of a gentleman; the self-governing colored man at Cape Palmas understands well the operation of republican institutions.