“We are told, Thirdly, that men may be born slaves, by being the children of slaves. But this being built upon the two former rights must fall together with them, if neither captivity, nor contract can by the plain law of nature and reason, reduce the parent to a state of slavery, much less can they reduce the offspring.” It clearly follows, that all slavery is as irreconcileable to justice as to mercy.
4. That slave-holding is utterly inconsistent with mercy, is almost too plain to need a proof. Indeed it is said, “That these negroes being prisoners of war, our captains and factors buy them, merely to save them from being put to death. And is not this mercy?” I answer, 1. Did Sir John Hawkins, and many others, seize upon men, women and children, who were at peace in their own fields and houses, merely to save them from death? 2. Was it to save them from death, that they knock’d out the brains of those they could not bring away? 3. Who occasioned and fomented those wars, wherein these poor creatures were taken prisoners? Who excited them by money, by drink, by every possible means, to fall upon one another? Was it not themselves? They know in their own conscience it was, if they have any conscience left. But 4. To bring the matter to a short issue. Can they say before God, That they ever took a single voyage, or bought a single negro from this motive? They cannot, they well know, to get money, not to save lives, was the whole and sole spring of their motions.
5. But if this manner of procuring and tearing negroes is not consistent either with mercy or justice, yet there is a plea for it which every man of business will acknowledge to be quite sufficient. Fifty years ago, one meeting an eminent statesman in the lobby of the House of Commons, said, “You have been long talking about justice and equity, Pray which is this bill? Equity or justice?” He answered, very short, and plain, “D—n justice: it is necessity.” Here also the slave-holder fixes his foot: here he rests the strength of his cause. “If it is not quite right, yet it must be so: there is an absolute necessity for it. It is necessary we should procure slaves: and when we have procured them, it is necessary to use them with severity, considering their stupidity, stubbornness and wickedness.”
I answer, You stumble at the threshold: I deny that villany is ever necessary. It is impossible that it should ever be necessary, for any reasonable creature to violate all the laws of justice, mercy, and truth. No circumstances can make it necessary for a man to burst in sunder all the ties of humanity. It can never be necessary for a rational being to sink himself below a brute. A man can be under no necessity, of degrading himself into a wolf. The absurdity of the supposition is so glaring, that one would wonder any one could help seeing it.
6. This in general. But to be more particular, I ask, 1. What is necessary? And secondly, To what end? It may be answered, “The whole method now used by the original purchasers of negroes, is necessary to the furnishing our colonies yearly with a hundred thousand slaves.” I grant this is necessary to that end. But how is that end necessary? How will you prove it necessary that one hundred, that one of those slaves should be procured? “Why, it is necessary to my gaining an hundred thousand pounds.” Perhaps so: but how is this necessary? It is very possible you might be both a better and a happier man, if you had not a quarter of it. I deny that your gaining one thousand is necessary, either to your present or eternal happiness. “But however you must allow, these slaves are necessary for the cultivation of our Islands: inasmuch as white men are not able to labour in hot climates.” I answer, 1. It were better that all those Islands should remain uncultivated for ever, yea, it were more desirable that they were altogether sunk in the depth of the sea, than that they should be cultivated at so high a price, as the violation of justice, mercy and truth. But, secondly, the supposition on which you ground your argument is false. For white men, even English men, are well able to labour in hot climates: provided they are temperate both in meat and drink, and that they inure themselves to it by degrees. I speak no more than I know by experience. It appears from the thermometer, that the summer heat in Georgia, is frequently equal to that in Barbadoes, yea to that under the line. And yet I and my family (eight in number) did employ all our spare time there, in felling of trees and clearing of ground, as hard labour as any negro need be employed in. The German family likewise, forty in number, were employed in all manner of labour. And this was so far from impairing our health, that we all continued perfectly well, while the idle ones round about us, were swept away as with a pestilence. It is not true therefore that white men are not able to labour, even in hot climates, full as well as black. But if they were not, it would be better that none should labour there, that the work should be left undone, than that myriads of innocent men should be murdered, and myriads more dragged into the basest slavery.
7. “But the furnishing us with slaves is necessary, for the trade, and wealth, and glory of our nation:” here are several mistakes. For 1. Wealth is not necessary to the glory of any nation; but wisdom, virtue, justice, mercy, generosity, public spirit, love of our country. These are necessary to the real glory of a nation; but abundance of wealth is not. Men of understanding allow, that the glory of England was full as high, in Queen Elizabeth’s time as it is now: although our riches and trade were then as much smaller, as our virtue was greater. But, secondly, it is not clear, that we should have either less money or trade, (only less of that detestable trade of man-stealing) if there was not a negro in all our Islands, or in all English America. It is demonstrable, white men, inured to it by degrees can work as well as them: and they would do it, were negroes out of the way, and proper encouragement given them. However, thirdly, I come back to the same point: better no trade, than trade procured by villany. It is far better to have no wealth, than to gain wealth at the expence of virtue. Better is honest poverty, than all the riches bought by the tears, and sweat and blood of our fellow-creatures.
8. “However this be; it is necessary when we have slaves, to use them with severity.” What, to whip them for every petty offence, till they are all in gore blood? To take that opportunity, of rubbing pepper and salt into their raw flesh? To drop burning sealing-wax upon their skin? To castrate them? To cut off half their foot with an axe? To hang them on gibbets, that they may die by inches, with heat, and hunger, and thirst? To pin them down to the ground, and then burn them by degrees, from the feet, to the head? To roast them alive?—When did a Turk or a Heathen find it necessary to use a fellow-creature thus?
I pray, to what end is this usage necessary? “Why, to prevent their running away: and to keep them constantly to their labour, that they may not idle away their time. So miserably stupid is this race of men, yea, so stubborn and so wicked.” Allowing them to be as stupid as you say, to whom is that stupidity owing? Without question it lies altogether at the door of their inhuman masters: who give them no means, no opportunity of improving their understanding: and indeed leave them no motive, either from hope or fear, to attempt any such thing. They were no way remarkable for stupidity, while they remained in their own country: the inhabitants of Africa where they have equal motives and equal means of improvement, are not inferior to the inhabitants of Europe: to some of them they are greatly superior. Impartially survey in their own country, the natives of Benin, and the natives of Lapland. Compare, (setting prejudice aside) the Samoeids and the Angolans. And on which side does the advantage lie, in point of understanding? Certainly the African is in no respect inferior to the European. Their stupidity therefore in our plantations is not natural; otherwise than it is the natural effect of their condition. Consequently it is not their fault, but your’s: you must answer for it, before God and man.
9. “But their stupidity is not the only reason of our treating them with severity. For it is hard to say, which is the greatest, this or their stubbornness and wickedness.”——It may be so: But do not these as well as the other, lie at your door; are not stubbornness, cunning, pilfering, and divers other vices, the natural, necessary fruits of slavery? Is not this an observation which has been made, in every age and nation?——And what means have you used to remove this stubbornness? Have you tried what mildness and gentleness would do? I knew one that did: that had prudence and patience to make the experiment: Mr. Hugh Bryan, who then lived on the borders of South-Carolina. And what was the effect? Why, that all his negroes (and he had no small number of them) loved and reverenced him as a father, and chearfully obeyed him out of love. Yea, they were more afraid of a frown from him, than of many blows from an overseer. And what pains have you taken, what method have you used, to reclaim them from their wickedness? Have you carefully taught them,
“That there is a God, a wise, powerful, merciful being, the Creator and Governor of heaven and earth? That he has appointed a day wherein he will judge the world, will take an account of all our thoughts, words and actions? That in that day he will reward every child of man according to his works: that “then the righteous shall inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world: and the wicked shall be cast into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” If you have not done this, if you have taken no pains or thought about the matter, can you wonder at their wickedness? What wonder, if they should cut your throat? And if they did, whom could you thank for it but yourself? You first acted the villain in making them slaves, (whether you stole them or bought them.) You kept them stupid and wicked, by cutting them off from all opportunities of improving either in knowledge or virtue: and now you assign their want of wisdom and goodness as the reason for using them worse than brute beasts!