It is argued by abolitionists, that slavery regularly exerts many influences tending to degrade the moral character of both masters and servants. Their charge cannot be better stated than in the Words of Dr. Wayland. ["Moral Science," Personal Liberty, Ch. I., § 2.]
"Its effects must be disastrous upon the morals of both parties. By presenting objects on whom passion may be satiated without resistance, and without redress, it tends to cultivate in the master, pride, anger, cruelty, selfishness, and licentiousness. By accustoming the slave to subject his moral principles to the will of another, it tends to abolish in him all moral distinctions, and thus fosters in him, lying, deceit, hypocrisy, dishonesty, and a willingness to yield himself up to minister to the appetites of his master. That in all slaveholding countries there are exceptions to this remark, and that there are principles in human nature which, in many cases, limit the effect of these tendencies, may be gladly admitted. Yet that such is the tendency of slavery as slavery, we think no reflecting person can for a moment hesitate to allow."
This is a flattering picture of us, truly! By good fortune, it is drawn by one who knows nothing of us. Just such are the current representations which Yankees have made of Southern morals, down to the notable instance of Senator Sumner's speech on the "Barbarism of Slavery." The question whether the system of slave labour deteriorates the morals of master and servant, as compared with that of free labour, may be treated as one of deduction and reasoning, or one of fact. The latter is the more trustworthy way to decide it. Dr. Wayland undertakes to settle it solely by the former. And it is manifest to the first glance, that his whole reasoning begs the question. If the very relation is wicked, if every act of authority on the master's part is a wrong, and of submission on the servant's part is a surrender of his right, then the reasoning is plausible. But let us suppose, for argument's sake, (what may be true, as it is the very point undecided,) that the relation may be right, the authority exercised lawful, and the things our servants are usually enjoined to do, innocent acts. Then, the fact that there is authority on one side and obedience on the other, cannot tend, of itself, to degrade ruler and ruled: for if this were so, the parental relation itself (ordained by God as His school of morals for young human beings) would be a school of vice. But the argument is a sophism, in a yet more audacious and insulting sense. Its author argues the degradation of the slave, chiefly because his wicked master compels him by fear to do so many wicked things. But suppose the master to be a gentleman, and not a brute, so that the things he customarily compels the slave to do, are right things; where, then, is the argument? Which of the two characters masters usually bear, is the question to be solved at the conclusion of the reasoning, and, yet more, to be decided by the surer testimony of fact. But Dr. Wayland chooses to begin by presuming, à priori, that masters are generally rascals.
Wisdom would infer, on the contrary, that the habitual exercise of authority, approved as righteous by the ruler's conscience, tends to elevate his character. He who would govern others must first govern himself. Hence, we should expect to find him who is compelled to exercise a hereditary and rightful authority, a man more self-governed, thoughtful, considerate, firm, and dignified, than other men. The habit of providing constantly for a number of persons, whom he is impelled by the strongest self-interest to care for efficiently, should render a man considerate of others, and benevolent. Experience will soon teach the head of such an estate, that his relation with his dependents must be any thing else than a carnival of self-indulgence, violence, and tyranny; for such a life will speedily leave him no servants to abuse. On the contrary, the very necessities of his position compel him to be, to a certain extent, provident, methodical, and equitable. Without these virtues, his estate slips rapidly away. And who, that knows human nature, can fail to see the powerful effects of the institution in developing, in the ruling caste, a higher sentiment of personal honour, chivalry, and love of liberty? This was asserted of the slaveholders of Virginia and the Carolinas by the sagacious Burke. It is very true, that if every man in the country were under the vital influence of Christian sanctification, he would not need these more human influences to elevate his character. But the wise statesman takes men as they are, not as they should be. Until the millennium, the elevating influences of social position will continue to be of great practical value. Yankeedom, at least, continues thus far to exhibit a great want of them.
But now, in considering the actual influences of slavery on the morals of the Africans, let the reader remember what they actually were before they were placed under this tutelage. He may be sure they were not what abolitionism loves to picture them, a sort of Ebony Arcadians, full of simple, pastoral purity, and of what infidels vainly prate as the dignity of native virtue. It is not slavery which has degraded them from that imaginary elevation. On the contrary, they were what God's word declares human depravity to be under the degrading effects of paganism. Let the reader see the actual and true picture, in the first chapter of Romans, and in authentic descriptions of the negro in his own jungles, such as the invaluable work of Dr. John Leighton Wilson, on the tribes of the Guinea coast. And here, moreover, he will find proof, that the type of savage life brought to America originally by the slave trade, was far below that witnessed in Africa among the more noticeable tribes; because the great bulk of the slaves were either the Pariahs of that barbarous society, or the kidnapped members of the feeble fragments of bush tribes, who had nearly perished before the comparative civilization of the Mandingoes and Greboes, living but one remove above the apes around them. Now cannot common sense see the moral advantage to such a people, of subjection to the will of a race elevated above them, in morals and intelligence, to an almost measureless degree? Is it no moral advantage to be compelled to wear decent clothing, and to observe at least the outward proprieties which should obtain between the sexes? None to be taught industry, in place of pagan laziness; and methodical habits, in place of childish waste and unthrift? The destructive effects of the savage's common vices, lying, theft, drunkenness, laziness, waste, upon business and pecuniary interests, will of course prompt masters to repress those vices, if no higher motive does. Is this no gain for the poor pagan? Especially does the matter of drunkenness illustrate, in a splendid manner, the benign effects of our system on African character and happiness. Place any savage race beside a civilized and commercial people, and leave them free; and the speedy result is, that the "fire-water" consumes and depopulates them. Witness the North American Indians. But here was just such a race, in the midst of the temptation and opportunity, and yet preserved from all appreciable evil from this source, and advancing in physical comfort, manners, and numbers, more rapidly than any white race in Christendom. While numbers of Africans exhibited just that weakness for ardent spirits, which is to be expected in people lately barbarians, yet so wholesome were the restraints of that regular and constant occupation enforced upon them, it was the rarest thing in the world that a farm-servant filled a drunkard's grave among us. But now the flood-gates are opened. Was not Dr. Wayland a temperance man? Southern slavery was the most efficient temperance society in the world.
Once more, was it nothing, that this race, morally inferior, should be brought into close relations to a nobler race, so that the propensity to imitation should be stimulated by constant and intimate observation, by domestic affection, by the powerful sentiment of allegiance and dependence? And above all, was it nothing that they should be brought, by the relation of servitude, under the consciences and Christian zeal of a Christian people, in circumstances which most powerfully enlisted their sense of responsibility, and gave free scope to their labour of love? Let the blessed results answer, of a nation of four millions lifted, in four generations, out of idolatrous debasement, "sitting clothed, and in their right mind;" of more than half a million adult communicants in Christian churches! And all this glorious work has been done exclusively by Southern masters; for never did foreign or Yankee abolitionist find leisure from the more congenial work of slandering the white, to teach or bless the black man in any practical way. This much-abused system has thus accomplished for the Africans, amidst universal opposition and obloquy, more than all the rest of the Christian world together has accomplished for the rest of the heathen.
It is the delight of abolitionists to impute to slavery a result peculiarly corrupting as to sins of unchastity. Witness the repetitions charges by Dr. Wayland, of these sins, as contaminating both masters and slaves, in consequence of slavery. The evidence of facts has been already given as to the comparative justice of this charge. But reason itself would suggest to the least reflection, that Southern households are not the only ones where young men and female domestics are thrown together, amidst all the temptations and opportunities of privacy and domestic intimacy; that the power of corporal punishment, unlawful here for this end, is not the only power which a superior may apply to an inferior to overcome her chastity, nor the most effective. But, on the other hand, reason would suggest that the employment of free persons of the same colour and race would greatly enhance the force of those temptations; while among us, the differences of colour, race, and personal attractions, would greatly diminish them; while the very sentiment of superior caste would render the intercourse more repulsive and unnatural.
The testimony of facts, however, is the conclusive evidence on the question, whether our system is relatively more corrupting than that of free labour. In this department of the discussion, Providence has given us a refutation against the Yankees so terribly biting, as fully to satisfy any indignation which their arrogant railings may have excited in our bosoms. We were placed together at the beginning of our national existence, under the same Federal government, and under similar religious and State institutions. Our union presented a common field for constant meeting and comparison. And what were the results disclosed? It has been shown that while the South, as a great section of the Union, never, in one single instance, made any general or united movement to pervert Federal laws and powers for unfair local purposes; while the South ever manifested a chivalrous patriotism against any assaults upon the common rights; the North has never failed, from the first year of the government, to use it as a machine for legislative extortion and local advantage; and the North has usually played the traitor to the common cause when assailed from without, even when, as in the second war with England, the interests assailed by the foreign enemy, and generously defended by the South, were more peculiarly her own. It has appeared that when at last legislative peculation grew so foul that the publick demanded inquiry, every member of the Congress convicted of that disgraceful iniquity, was from the North, and not one from the South. If we pass to personal comparisons, the publick men of the South have shown themselves, on the federal arena, superior, in general, in the talent of command, in personal honour, in dignity, in the amenities of life, in forbearance and self-controul; while that very petulance, wilfulness, and love of arbitrary power, which, abolition philosophers infer, must be the peculiar fruits of slaveholding, were exhibited in marked contrast, by the few Northern Presidents who had the fortune to reach that high position. Compare, for instance, the benign Washington, a great slaveholder, with that petty tyrant, the elder Adams; or Jefferson, Madison and Monroe with his son, (worthy son of such a sire,) John Quincy Adams; or Jefferson Davis with Abraham Lincoln; or our Lee, Johnstons, Jackson and Beauregard, with a McNeill and a Butler! So well proved are the superior courtesy, liberality, and humanity of the Southern gentleman, that the very porters on the wharves, and waiters in the hotels, of Northern cities, recognize them by these traits. It has been the fashion of a certain type of poltroons among the Yankees, who wish to indulge the anger and malignity of the bully, along with the safety and impunity of the Quaker, to represent the resort of Southerners to the code of honour, as a peculiar proof of their uncivilized condition. They exclaim triumphantly that we fight duels, while Yankees do not. Now the code of honour is certainly irrational, unchristian, and wicked. But there is another thing that is greatly more wicked; and this is the disposition to inflict upon a fellow-man the injuries and insults which that code proposes to prevent; and then cloak one's self under the cowardly pretence of a conscience which forbids to fight. The duellist sins by anger and revenge: these sneaking hypocrites sin by anger and revenge, and cowardice and lying, at once. The truly good man is forbidden by his conscience from seeking retaliation; but the same conscience equally forbids him to inflict on others the injuries which provoke retaliation. The man who wilfully injures his fellow, has therefore no right to plead conscience, for refusing satisfaction. It is not conscience, but cowardice. While, then, we mourn the crimes of violent retaliation which sometimes occur at the South, the citizens of the North have occasion for a deeper blush, at the crimes of malignant slander and vituperation which their people are accustomed to launch at us from the vile hiding-place of their hypocritical puritanism.
It will be seen by every one, that the females of the ruling class must be very intimately concerned in the duties of the relation of master and servant. It is properly termed domestic slavery; and woman's functions are wholly domestic. If then, slavery is morally corrupting, Southern ladies should show the sad result very plainly. But what says fact? Its testimony is one which fills the heart of every Southern man with grateful pride; that the Southern lady is proverbially eminent for all that adorns female character, for grace, for purity and refinement, for benevolence, for generous charity, for dignified kindness and forbearance to inferiours, for chivalrous moral courage, and for devout piety.
We might safely submit the comparative soundness of Southern society to this test: that it has never generated any of those loathsome isms, which Northern soil breeds, as rankly as the slime of Egypt its spawn of frogs. While the North has her Mormons, her various sects of Communists, her Free Lovers, her Spiritualists, and a multitude of corrupt visionaries whose names and crimes are not even known among us, our soil has never proved congenial to the birth or introduction of a single one of these inventions.