The Right of American Slavery

by T. W. Hoit

We are considering the subject of the enslavement of the African race in this Republic. We are inquiring into the right of African Slavery. We have asserted the right of slavery, as founded upon the principle that universal right holds a just and hereditary control over wrong; and as the African is a race of barbarians, and barbarism is wrong, it follows that it is the right of civilization to hold the African subject to those rules of justice which pertain to civilization, and to protect him from the injustice, violence, and degradation, which are the concomitants of barbarism. To deny this is to deny the superiority of right over wrong. He who denies this, becomes the advocate of barbarism; for, barbarism being below civilization, he asserts its equality with civilization, and thus becomes its apologist and advocate.

VIOLATION OF NATURAL RIGHT.

Such an one will claim that involuntary labor performed by the African, in behalf of civilization; or the production, by his labor, of material or fabrics to hide his nakedness, or adorn the human race, or protect them from the cold, degrades the barbarian, because it encroaches upon his natural right to go naked and houseless, and perish with the cold. He is quite primitive in his ideas of dress, and ought to emigrate to a warm climate, like South Africa or South America, where the elements of nature do not conspire with civilization to degrade and oppress him. He perceives that our unjust and oppressive laws actually punish, as an offense, the exposure to view of man's natural external beauties! This is about as far as it is safe to go on the subject of natural right, both from considerations of propriety and modesty, and also, as it almost amounts to a digression from the subject immediately under consideration; but we are merely following the advocate of emancipation, on the score of equality and natural right, just where his principles lead him; and as it forcibly suggests the inexpediency of emancipation, and consequent barbarism, on the score of morality and decency, it seems entirely apposite to the subject.

But it is claimed by some, that the African slave here has ceased to be a barbarian, which I deny. His nature is not essentially changed; his habits are forced; and he would at once fall, as he has fallen, and is falling, in San Domingo, Jamaica, and Canada, but for coercion. It is, therefore, an external power which holds him up, and no innate principle within him.

THE DEBT OF THE BARBARIAN.

But even for argument, admitting the African were civilized, still he is not legally entitled to his freedom. Why? Because on account of his barbarism he became the property of another, who has a vested right in him. His transition from barbarism to civilization was at the expense of civilization, and he owes a just equivalent therefor. His debt is the difference between barbarism and civilization, and will be estimated according as the one in held higher than the other.

THE RIGHT OF THE AFRICAN TO REMAIN A SLAVE.

If the African is entitled to his freedom, he is also entitled to the privilege of remaining in servitude; a privilege which nine tenths of the Negroes in this country are well known to crave. But we deny his right of choice in the premises. His barbarism was the oblivion of his right to choose his own proper position; and the absence of inherent right in him subjects him at once to the dominion of universal or external right in civilization. His right of choice, therefore, has no real validity, and should not even be tolerated to denounce the heinous wrong of his emancipation, and consequent restoration to barbarism. His right to remain a slave is not his own, but the right of civilization; and even his willingness to remain in servitude, though a double evidence of his barbarism and of his appreciation of his partially ameliorated condition as an accessory of civilization, is not available in deciding as to his present or future condition; because the right exercised in his subjection to the rules of civilization is primordial, and sovereign, and all-controlling, as Universal Right, and is in no case subject to the will of barbarism.

THE MELIORATION OF THE AFRICAN.

With regard to the degradation of the African slave, that is admitted; but at the same time his position as an accessory to civilization is far higher than that wherein he was wholly the subject of barbarism. Now, he is dignified to the useful avocations of the civilized race; learns their rudimental arts and customs, and methods of subsistence; is subject to, and protected by law; becomes semi-civilized, and in rare, individual instances, as a lusus naturæ, even aspires to the nobler prerogatives of mind. The meanest slave that wears the shackle or feels the whip of civilization, in the reluctant performance of coerced labor, is a far nobler being than the African barbarian in his native wilds.