Slavery in Maryland briefly considered

by John L. Carey

The disappearance of Slavery from certain States, and its continuance in others, constitute a notable point of observation. Why has it happened that Pennsylvania discarded an institution which South Carolina cherishes? Is the question one of morality or of political economy?

If slave labor had proved, upon the whole, profitable in Pennsylvania, is it likely that Slavery would have been abolished in that State? Let the same question be asked of New Jersey, New York, and New England.

There was a beginning of the system in Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. How happened it that the germ of an institution, planted about the same time in all the colonies, took root and increased in some of them only, while in others it did not grow? It could not have been from the superior morality of the northern people—because at that time there was no question about the morality of the thing at all. Scruples against the right to hold slaves were not entertained then; nor was the slave trade regarded as an unrighteous traffic.

The operation of causes similar to those which produced emancipation at the north, will bring about the abolition of Slavery in Maryland. Let us now consider this point.

If Slavery be regarded as a matter of political economy, it will be found, as when viewed in the light of a social relation, to require conditions and circumstances, in order to its vindication. It is only when the soil is uncommonly prolific, and calls for no great degree of skill in the cultivation; or when the productions are so valuable as to allow of large deductions for waste and bad management, that Slavery can be said to pay for its own subsistence.

In the long run, Slavery is always unprofitable. It can be applied only to one sort of labor—agriculture; and to that in its simplest forms. Its tendency is to exhaust the soil without providing for its resuscitation; because wherever Slavery is, there labor is regarded as drudgery, and the intelligence of the community, which resides with the masters, is not directed towards labor. Hence there are no improvements in the modes of labor; no well regulated system of economy; no foresight. The masters want to enjoy at once the proceeds of their plantations, for their business is mainly to enjoy; they live for the present; they leave all concerns of industry to their overseers, who are not likely to carry out systematic plans for the improvement of lands, when the owners of the estates are regardless of such things, and would not be disposed to forego immediate profits for the future benefit of such improvements. A thoughtful industry will wait some years for the fruition of its hopes, stinting itself in the meantime. It will vest in the soil the profits of the year, looking to be repaid abundantly hereafter. But with a system of Slavery these things can not be expected.

As a general remark, then, it may be observed that whenever from circumstances of soil, climate, and production, there is need of economy, skill, and careful industry in the cultivation of the ground; wherever nature, not yielding her fruits to indolent hands, has to be overcome by sturdy efforts, by labor directed by intelligence and aided at every turn by the appliances of art which inventive genius has discovered and adapted to use—there Slavery can not permanently exist, because it is incompatible with such conditions.

In this view it may be seen how it has happened that Slavery, once adopted in the northern States, failed to flourish there—how it was cast out as an uncongenial element. In this same view it may be seen also that Slavery must, by and by, cease to exist in Maryland. It has brought sterility already upon whole districts; it rests like a paralysing spell upon the enterprise and the active energies of the commonwealth. Of this, more as we proceed.

In the sugar and cotton growing States the products of the soil are so rich and abundant, that Slavery can exist in spite of the slovenly and wasteful manner in which its agency is employed. Yet even under these circumstances its profits are for the most part fallacious. No portion of the United States suffered so severely under the commercial revulsion of 1837 as the cotton and sugar growing region. The statistics of bankruptcies in Jamaica, as exhibited in reports to Parliament from time to time, show the same fact.

Again, the use of slave labor is deemed essential in hot climates. The productiveness of the British West India Islands certainly was impaired by the abolition of Slavery; nor can it be disguised that the British government is now attempting to substitute another species of Slavery, or Slavery under another name, in place of that which was abolished. If the emancipated slaves had shown a willingness to work; if they had been sufficiently advanced to appreciate freedom so far as to know that in their own industry lay the real elements of independence—the result of the Emancipation Act of the British Parliament would have been different from what it has thus far appeared to be. There would have been laborers enough; but laborers of such a sort that the white proprietors, a handful in the general population, would have been supplanted—and that ere now. The energy which would have impelled the Jamaica negroes to work of their own accord; the spirit which would have sustained them; if that energy and spirit had existed; would have made them masters of the island.