Autobiography of a Female Slave

by Martha Griffith Browne

"I have listened to you entire argument," rejoined Mr. Winston, "very patiently, with the expectation of hearing the proposition sustained with which you so vauntingly set out. You will, perhaps, accord to me the credit of being—what in this age of ceaseless talk is rarely met—'a good listener.' But, after all my patience and attention, I am still unsatisfied—if not unshaken. You have failed to meet the argument drawn from the 'curse' pronounced on the progenitors of the unfortunate race: you have failed to present or notice what is generally considered by theologians and moralists the right of a purchaser—in your illustration from stolen goods—to something for the money with which he parts; and here, I think, you manifested great unfairness; and, above all, you have failed to propose any feasible remedy for the state of things against which you inveigh. What have you to say on these material points?"

"Very much, my good sir, as you will find, if, instead of taking advantage of every momentary pause to make out such a 'failure' as you desire, you only prolong your very complimentary patience. I wish you to watch the argument narrowly; to expose the faintest flaw you can detect in it; and, at the end, if unsatisfied, cry out 'failure,' or let it wring from you a reluctant confession. You will, at least, before I shall have done, withdraw the illiberal imputation of unfairness. It would be an easy task for me to anticipate all you can say, and to refute it; but such a course would leave you nothing to say, and, since I intend this discussion to be strictly a conversation, I shall leave you at liberty to present your own arguments in your own way. Now, as to the argument from 'the curse,' you must permit me to observe, that your interpretation is too free and latitudinarian. Mine is more literal, more in accordance with the character of God; it fully satisfies the Divine vengeance, and, whether correct or not, has, at least, as much authority in its favor. Granting the dominion of the white over the black race to be in virtue of 'the curse,' it by no means conveys such power as your Southern institution seeks to justify. The word slave nowhere occurs in that memorable malediction; but there is an obvious distinction between its import and that of the word servant, which it does employ. Surely, for the offence of looking upon the nakedness of his father, Ham could not have incurred and entailed upon his posterity a heavier punishment than they would necessarily suffer as the simple servants of their brethren. And this consideration should induce you to give them, at least, the same share of freedom as is enjoyed by the white servants to be found in many a household in the South. Such servitude would be the utmost that a merciful God could require. Even this, however, was under the old dispensation; and the reign of its laws, customs, and punishments, should melt under the genial rays of the sun of Christianity. Many of your own patriots, headed by Washington and Jefferson, have long since thought so; and but few in these days plead 'the curse' as excuse or justification for that 'damned spot' which all will come ultimately to consider the disgrace of this enlightened age and nation. As to your next point, the right which a purchaser of stolen goods may acquire in them in consideration of the money which he pays, I grant all the benefit that even the most generous theologian or moralist can allow in the best circumstances of such a case. And what does this amount to? A return of the purchase-money, with a reasonable or very high rate of interest for the detention, would be as much as any one could demand. Applying this to the case of the stolen Africans, how many of those who were forced from their native land to this have died on their master's hands without yielding by their labor, not alone the principal, but a handsome percentage upon the money invested in their purchase? Thus purchasers were indemnified—abundantly indemnified, against loss. The indemnity, however, should have been sought from the seller, not from the article or person sold. But, at best, purchasers of stolen goods, to entitle themselves to any indemnity, should at least be innocent; for if they buy such goods, knowing them to be stolen, they are guilty of a serious misdemeanor, which is everywhere punishable under the law. 'He who asks equity must do equity.' When, therefore, you of the South would realize the benefit of the concession of theologians and moralists—the benefit of justice—you should bring yourselves within the conditions they require; you should come into court with clean hands, and with the intention of acting in good faith. Have you done so? Did your fathers do so before you? Not at all. They were not ignorant purchasers of the poor, ravished African; they knew full well that he had been stolen and brought by violence from his distant home: consequently, they were guilty of a misdemeanor in purchasing; consequently, too, they come not within the case proposed by the theologians and moralists, which might entitle them to indemnity; nor were they in a condition to ask it. The present generation, claiming through them, find themselves in the same predicament, with the same title only, and the same unclean hands, perpetuating their foul oppression. None of them, as I have shown, had a right to claim indemnity by reason of having invested their money in that way; and, if they ever had such right, they have been richly indemnified already. Therefore, it is absurd for you to continue the slave business upon this plea. Having thus answered your only objections to my position, I might remind you of your determination, and call upon you to 'liberate your slaves,' and take sides with me in opposition to the cruel institution. You are greatly mistaken in supposing that my omission to propose a plan, by which slave-holders could conveniently, and without pecuniary loss, emancipate their slaves, constitutes the slightest objection to the argument I have advanced. If you defer their emancipation until such a plan is proposed; if you are unwilling to incur even a little sacrifice, what nobility will there be in the act, to entitle you to the consideration of the just and good, or to the approval of your own consciences? I sought by this discussion, to convince you that slavery is an enormous evil; the proposition was declared in all its boldness. You volunteered a pledge to release your slaves if I could sustain it, let the sacrifice be what it might. Some sacrifice, then, you must have anticipated; and, should your conviction now demand it, you have no cause to complain of me. Your pledge was altogether voluntary; I did not even ask it; nor did I design to suggest any such plan of universal emancipation as would suit the convenience of everybody. I am not so extravagantly silly as to hope to do that. But, after all, why wait for a plan? Immediate, universal emancipation is not impracticable, and numberless methods might and would at once be devised, if the people of your States were sincere when they profess to desire its accomplishment. Their real wish, however, whatever it may be, need not interfere between your individual pledge, and its prompt fulfilment."

Mr. Trueman paused for full five minutes, and, as I peered out from my hiding-place, I thought there was a very quizzical sort of expression on his fine face.

"Well, what have you to say?" he at length asked.

"It seems to me," Mr. Winston began, in an angry tone, "you speak very flippantly and very wildly about general emancipation. Consider, sir, that slavery is so woven into our society, that there is scarcely a family that would not be more or less affected by a change. Fundamental alterations in society, to be safely made, must be the slow work of years:

'Not the hasty product of a day,

But the well-ripened fruit of wise delay.'

So it is only by almost imperceptible degrees that the emancipationists and impertinent Abolitionists can ever attain 'the consummation' they pretend to have so much at heart. If they would just stay at home and devote their spare time to cleansing their own garments, leaving us of the South to suffer alone what they are pleased to esteem the evil and sin and curse, the shame, burden and abomination of slavery, we should the sooner discover its blasting enormities, and strive more zealously to abolish them and the institution from which they proceed. Their super-serviceable interference, hitherto, has only riveted and tightened the bondage of those with whom they sympathize; and such a result will always attend it. Our slaves, as at present situated, are very well satisfied, as, indeed, they ought to be: for they are exempt from the anxious cares of the free, as to what they shall eat or what they shall drink, or wherewithal they shall be clothed. Many poor men of our own color would gladly exchange conditions with them, because they find life to be a hard, an incessant struggle for the scantiest comforts, with which our slaves are supplied at no cost of personal solicitude. Besides, sir, our institution of slavery is vastly more burdensome to ourselves than to the negroes for whom you affect so much fraternal love."

"One would suppose, that if you thought it burdensome, you would be making some effort to relieve yourselves," interposed Mr. Trueman, in that clear and pointed manner that was his peculiarity; "and, if immediate emancipation were deemed impracticable in consequence of the radical hold which this institution has at the South, you might naturally be expected to be doing something toward that end by the encouragement of education among those in bondage, by the sanction of marriage ties between them, and by other efforts to ameliorate their condition. Certain inducements might be presented for the manumission of slaves by individual owners, for there are some of this class, I am happy to think, who, in tender humanity, would release their slaves, if the stringency of the laws did not deter them from it. Would it not be well to abate somewhat of this rigor, and allow all slaves, voluntarily manumitted, to remain in the several States with at least the privileges of the free negroes now resident therein, so that the olden ties, which have grown up between themselves and their owners, might not be abruptly snapped asunder? Besides, to enforce the propriety of this alteration of the law, it would be well to reflect that the South is the native home of most of the slaves, who cherish their local attachments quite as much as ourselves; and hence the law which now requires them, when by any means they have obtained their freedom, to remove beyond the limits of the State, is a very serious hardship and should cease to exist. This would be a long stride toward your own relief from the burden of which you complain. As to the slaves, who you think should be content with their condition, in which they have, as you say, 'no care for necessary food and raiment,' I would suggest that they have the faculty of distinguishing between slavery and bondage, and have sense enough to see that though these things, which are generally of the coarsest kind, are provided by their masters, the means by which they are furnished are but a scanty portion of their own hard earnings. Were they free, they could work in the same way, and be entitled to all the fruits of their labor. Then they would have the same inducements to toil that we now have, and the same ambition to lift themselves higher and higher in the social scale. Those white men whom you believe willing to exchange situations with them, are too indolent to enjoy the privileges of freedom, and would be utterly worthless as slaves. You declaim against the course which the Abolitionists have pursued, and seem disposed, in consequence, to tighten the cords of servitude. You would be let alone, forsooth, to bear this burden as long as you please, and to get rid of it at pleasure. So long as there was any hope that you would do what you ought in the matter, you were let alone, and if you were the only sufferers from your peculiar institution, you might continue undisturbed; but the yoke lies heavy and galling upon the poor slaves themselves, whose voices are stifled, and it is high time for the friends of human rights to speak in their behalf, till they make themselves heard. At this momentous period, when new States and Territories are knocking for admission at the doors of our Union—States and Territories of free and virgin soil, which you are seeking to defile by the introduction of slavery—it is fit that they should persevere in their noble efforts, that they should resist your endeavors, and strive with all their energies to confine the obnoxious institution within its already too-extended bounds; for they know, that, if they would attain their object—the ultimate and entire abolition of slavery from our land—they should oppose strenuously every movement tending to its extension; for, the broader the surface over which it spreads, the more formidable will be the difficulty of its removal. Therefore it is that they are now so zealously engaged, and they address you as men whose 'judgment has not fled to brutish beasts,' with arguments against the evil itself and the weight of anguish it entails. Thus they have ever done, and you tell me that the result has been to rivet the chains of those in whose behalf they plead. As well might the sinner, whose guilt is pointed out to him by the minister of God, resolve for that very reason to plunge more deeply into sin."

His voice became gradually calmer and calmer, until finally it sank into the low notes of a solemn half-whisper. I held my breath in intense excitement, but this transport was broken by the harsh tones of the Virginian, who said: