Religion fares worse in Virginia than education. Before the war, the episcopal waz the established religion of the province, and the churches were liberally endowed by law. A parish usually contained four churches, in eech of which a clergyman officiated in rotation, one Sunday in a month. But this greevous burthen waz remooved by the revolution, and great numbers of parishes hav no officiating minister. A motion waz brot forward in 1785, to make some legal provizion for supporting clergymen; but the proposition waz suspended til the next session of the legislature. In the meen time a pompous retorical memorial waz circulated and subscribed, in oppozition to the mezure. The arguments uzed against any ecclesiastical establishments were splendid, liberal and efficacious; and at the following session, the legislature passed a declaratory argumentativ resolv against giving religion any establishment and protection.[163]
When men hav thrown off a restraint that iz disagreeable and unreezonable, it iz to be expected that they wil run into the extreme of licentiousness. Yet it iz one of the most difficult problems in the history of theze states, that the liberal and eminently lerned men, who conduct the guvernment of Virginia, (and many of their leeding karacters are of this description) should not view the ministers of religion, in America, az destitute of that odious and tremendous authority over human consciences, which waz assumed under the papal hierarky. I can hardly beleev a man of reeding and reflection to be serious, when he asserts that legislatures hav no right to compel the subject to contribute to the support of clergymen, because they hav no authority over men's consciences. Neether clergymen nor human laws hav the leest authority over the conscience; nor iz any such power implied in a law compelling every citizen to contribute annually to the support of a clergyman. But any sovereign authority may justly command the citizens to establish and attend religious assemblies, az wel az to meet for the choice of representativs, or send their children to a skool; powers which were never questioned. A man iz not bound in conscience to beleev all the instructions of hiz preceptor; nor are the citizens compellable to beleev the opinions and decisions of a court of justice; but the legislature haz a right to compel every citizen to pay hiz proportion of taxes to maintain preceptors and judges. This iz precisely the fact with respect to a legal support of clergymen.
No man iz bound in law or conscience to beleev all a preecher says; but the whole question iz this; are clergymen, az moral instructors, a beneficial order of men? Haz their ministration a good effect upon society? If this should be admitted, there iz no more dout of the right of a legislature to support such men by law, than there iz of their right of instituting universities or courts of justice. That enormous error which seems to be rivetted in popular opinion, that the functions of clergymen are of a spiritual and divine nature, and that this order of men should hav no concern with secular affairs, haz laid the foundation of a separation of interest and influence between the civil and ecclesiastical orders; haz produced a rivalship az fatal to the peece of society az war and pestilence, and a prejudice against all orders of preechers, which bids fair to banish the "gospel of peece" from some parts of our empire. The Kristian religion, in its purity, iz the best institution on erth for softening the ferocious tempers, and awakening the benevolent affections of men. To this religion, Europe and America are indetted for half their civilization. There hav been periods, when mankind hav suffered from ecclesiastical tyranny; but information iz demolishing all systems of despotism, civil and ecclesiastical. And when the clergy themselves leev all rangling about speculativ points, which neether they nor philosophers understand, and confine themselves to publishing and enforcing the benevolent precepts of a gospel which breethes nothing but universal luv and peece to all mankind, they wil remoov the prejudices against their order, they wil be really the messengers of peece, they wil conciliate affection, and thus open the harts of men to receev impressions of virtue, they wil make men good citizens here, without which they are never prepared to be members of a heavenly society; and finally they wil establish a rational moral influence over an enlightened peeple, equally fatal to the declamation of ranting fanatics, and the pernicious amusement of gambling at inns and horse-races.
In the Carolinas and Georgia, we find the state of property, literature and religion, resembling that in Virginia and Maryland. Charleston iz remarkable for its hospitality and good order. But in the states south of Pensylvania and Delaware, the divisions of property, the habits of the peeple, and the dispersed local situation of the planters, are all unfavorable to improovments of any kind. Men who liv remote from society, surrounded only by slaves, acquire manners singular and often disagreeably imperious, ruf and clownish. Urbanity iz acquired only in societies of wel bred peeple. They cannot hav the benefit of skools and churches, without which the body of a peeple cannot be wel informed, and wil not acquire social and virtuous habits. This manner of settlement therefore, tho it may be necessary and beneficial to individuals, may be considered az highly inauspicious in a yung country, whoze constitutions of guvernment are founded on the principle of equality, and cannot flurish without mildness of manners and a general diffusion of knowlege.
In the agricultural improovments of the united states, there iz a remarkable difference, which must hav proceeded principally from the slavery of the suthern. In Virginia and Maryland, I should question whether a tenth of the land iz yet cultivated. In New England, more than half the whole iz cultivated, and in Connecticut, scarcely a tenth remains in a wild state. Yet Virginia haz been settled longer than New England.
I once heerd the Prezident remark, "that from the northern to the suthern states, the agricultural improovments are in an inverse proportion to the number of slaves." This remark, like the actions of that illustrious karacter, dezerves to be engraven on monuments of marble. Slaves hav no motiv to labor; at leest, none but what iz common to horses and cattle. They want the only stimulus that unites industry with economy, viz. the prospect of a permanent advantage from their labor.
It haz been obzerved in Europe, that land rented on long leeses, iz better cultivated, than that which iz farmed on short leeses. A man who holds lands in fee, will uze them to the best advantage, for he expects hiz children wil enjoy the benefit. A man who haz lands on very long leeses, haz neerly the same motivs to improov them. Tenants for life wil make the most of lands for themselves; but wil probably leev them in the most impoverished condition. Lessees for a yeer hav few motivs to keep a farm in good repair; and slaves are the worst cultivaters on erth, az they hav the leest interest in the fruits of their labor. One yeman, who iz master of himself and hiz labors, and eets substantial food, wil perform the work of four slaves.
This iz not the whole evil. Slaves not only produce less than freemen, but they waste more; every slave, az Dr. Franklin haz remarked in hiz Miscellaneous wurks, being, from the nature of situation, a theef. In addition to this, wherever slavery exists, a great proportion of inhabitants are rendered indolent, and indolence iz followed by vices and dissipation.
Suppoze twenty thousand men to do no productiv business; what an immense difference wil this make in the cultivation of a state and in the annual income. In New England every man does some kind of business: In the suthern states, the proprietors of large plantations do little or no business. The reezon why the planters make such a profit on the labor of their slaves iz, that the subsistence of negroes iz not very expensiv. The northern yemanry not only require more clothing than the suthern, but they liv on expensiv food and drinks. Every man, even the poorest, makes use of tee, sugar, spirits, and a multitude of articles, which are not consumed by the laborers of any other country.[164]
But however cheep may be the subsistence of slaves, while every thing iz left to a mercenary unprincipled overseer and to lazy negroes, a state wil never be wel cultivated. In autumn, 1785, a gentleman in Richmond informed me he had just carried some manure upon a field to make an experiment for the first time. This fact wil hardly be beleeved in the northern states. In travelling thro Virginia, from Alexandria to Williamsburg, and also to Petersburg, I saw not one mill dam, except what consisted of mere sand, thrown across a streem. The idea of constructing dams of timber and planks, laid so az to make an angle of forty five or fifty degrees with the horizon, that it might gain strength and stability in proportion to the pressure of the incumbent water, seemed not, at that time, to hav prevailed in Virginia. In a variety of particulars, the slow progress of invention in the suthern states, waz equally remarkable.