OF THE DEGRADATION OF LABOR.
Labor degrades no man. Labor is honorable, because the products of labor feed and clothe the world, and thus conduce to the welfare and happiness of mankind. Coerced labor is better than no labor. Coercion itself does not necessarily degrade man; rather may it ennoble and elevate, when it is exercised to summon the barbarian to the lessons of civilization. Coercion degrades not the man whom it compels to do right; it only exposes that degradation which is the result of doing wrong. The man only is degraded who, voluntarily or by coercion, does wrong, or neglects to do right. To talk of the degradation of labor, whether coerced or free, is, therefore, preposterous.
HUMAN EQUALITY.
But the question of emancipation is started and agitated on the ground of human equality. It is the supposed equality of the African with the white race, that is the pretext for emancipation, and the foundation of the assumed right and expediency of emancipation. It has been supposed by some, that the enunciation of human equality in the American Declaration of Independence was intended for all the races of men in the world. Such a supposition is totally unfounded, and unwarrantable in the very nature of things. In the first place, it is not true; and in the next place, the writer of that Declaration meant no such thing, for he held slaves, and knew their inferiority. What a monstrous act of hypocrisy and folly it would have been in the author of that instrument, and his cotemporaries, to declare that all men are created free when they knew millions are born slaves, or when they knew no equality existed, even of right, between the barbarian and the man whose sense of justice and perception of right secured to him the approbation of Heaven and his own conscience, by a recognition of and obedience to the laws of morality, and conformity to the just rules of civilization. They wrote that Declaration for white men,—meaning white men,—because it did not and could not apply to the barbarous and savage nations. They saw the world in chains, and knew the bondage of mankind to be the result of their violation of moral right, and their incapacity for self-government. They estimated rightly when they announced freedom to the white race in these colonies; for, up to this time, the fact of self-government by our people has verified their prophetic annunciation; but the sages who founded this Republic, excluded, by legislation, the African and the Indian from this boon of freedom, and they and their descendants have held the African in the condition of servitude.
INCAPACITY OF THE MINGLED RACES FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT.
The question of the enfranchisement of the African, therefore, involves the question of the capacity of the mingled races for self-government; a problem which is already solved in Mexico, in Jamaica, in San Domingo, and several of the Spanish American States. There, the mixed races have no common bond of union. The predominance of one petty State, or military chieftain, is the signal for the semi-barbarous hordes of mingled races to combine for the purpose of destruction. Urged on by the emissaries of that colossal superstition which casts its shadow over this Republic (whose home is a foreign kingdom, and whose head is a foreign prince), the semi-barbarous hordes of mingled races in the South American States, are a prey to successive bloody revolutions, through that imbecility which is the sure result of the amalgamation of civilization with barbarism.
WRONG SHOULD SUBSERVE RIGHT.
In considering the subject of slavery, there is one principle which must not, and cannot be lost sight of, as it underlies all else, and is the root from which springs the tree of all knowledge on this subject, as well as all others; to wit: That right holds a just and hereditary control over wrong. Not because right is the strongest, but because it is the best. It is very common when right asserts its prerogative, that we hear the subjects and votaries of wrong denounce right as mere might. This is a common foible of vice, to conceal its own deformity; a mere subterfuge, which, when pushed to the wall, vice adopts, and meets the executioner of justice with the accusation that he is the mere instrument of might; the servile tool of arbitrary power. This glozing of vice avails not. Justice stands erect in the dignity of its own moral beauty, and commends itself to the intellect and conscience of mankind. All the affections, all the wisdom, and all the experience of men, do homage at the shrine of justice, as the arbiter of right. This great moral tribunal, established at the dawn of creation, has existed through all time, and still exists; and at this tribunal we try barbarism, and find it to be wrong, because it conduces to the misery and degradation of men. At this tribunal, we find civilization to be right, because it conduces to the happiness and welfare of mankind. This being so (and the man who denies it, is a barbarian), it follows, that civilization, carrying with it the preponderating elements of right and justice, holds a just and hereditary control over barbarism, which is wrong. When we assert, therefore, the right of slavery, because it is just that barbarism shall subserve civilization, we only say it is just that wrong should subserve right;—a proposition, which, certainly, ought to commend itself to the common sense, the intellect, and the conscience of every good man.
Some assert that civilization should subserve barbarism; but when tried by our rule, they at once see that it is preposterous to assume that right should subserve wrong.