"The African slave-trade was frightful," says he; "but its prey were savages, accustomed to suffering and misery, and to endure them with patience almost amounting to apathy. The victims of the American slave-trade have been bred in a highly-cultivated community. Their dispositions have been softened, their intellects sharpened, and their sensibilities excited, by society, by Christianity, and by all the ameliorating but enervating influences of civilization. The savage submits to be enslaved himself, or have his wife or his child carried off by his enemies, as merely a calamity. His misery is not embittered by indignation. He suffers only what—if he could—he would inflict. He cannot imagine a state of society in which there shall not be masters and slaves, kidnapping and man-selling, coffles and slave-traders, or in which any class shall be exempt from misfortunes which appear to him to be incidental to humanity."
Thus, according to this very sagacious, honest, consistent writer, it matters little what you do with the native African: he has no moral sense; he feels no wrong; he suffers only what he would inflict. But when you come to deal with the American slave, or, as this writer calls him, "the civilized Virginian," it is quite another thing! His dispositions have been softened, his intellect sharpened, and his sensibilities roused to a new life, by society and by Christianity! And yet, according to this very writer, this highly civilized Virginian is the man who, by American slavery, has been degraded from the native African into a brute! We dismiss his lawless savage, and his equally lawless pen, from our further consideration.
We proceed, in like manner, to condemn Dr. Channing out of his own mouth. He has repeatedly asserted that slavery among us degrades its subjects into brutes. Now hear him on the other side of this question.
"The European race," says he, "have manifested more courage, enterprise, invention; but in the dispositions which Christianity particularly honors, how inferior are they to the African? When I cast my eyes over our Southern region,—the land of bowie-knives, lynch-law, and duels, of 'chivalry,' 'honor,' and revenge; and when I consider that Christianity is declared to be a spirit of charity, 'which seeketh not its own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and endureth all things,' and is also declared to be 'the wisdom from above,' which is 'first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits;' can I hesitate in deciding to which of the races in that land Christianity is most adapted, and in which its noblest disciples are most likely to be reared?"[208]
It was by casting his eyes over "our Southern region" that Dr. Channing concluded "that we are holding in bondage one of the best races of the human family." If he had cast them over the appallingly dark region of Africa, he would have been compelled, in spite of the wonder-working power of his imagination, to pronounce it one of the very worst and most degraded races upon earth. If, as he imagines, this race among us is now nearer to the kingdom of heaven than we ourselves are, how dare he assert—as he so often has done—that our slavery has "degraded them into brutes?" If, indeed, they had not been elevated—both physically and morally—by their servitude in America, it would have been beyond the power of even Dr. Channing to pronounce such a eulogy upon them. We say, then, that he knew better when he asserted that we have degraded them into brutes. He spoke, not from his better knowledge and his conscience, but from blind, unreflecting passion. For he knew—if he knew any thing—that the blacks have been elevated and improved by their contact with the whites of this enlightened portion of the globe.
The truth is, the abolitionist can make the slave a brute or a saint, just as it may happen to suit the exigency of his argument. If slavery degrades its subjects into brutes, then one would suppose that slaves are brutes. But the moment you speak of selling a slave, he is no longer a brute,—he is a civilized man, with all the most tender affections, with all the most generous emotions. If the object be to excite indignation against slavery, then it always transforms its subjects into brutes; but if it be to excite indignation against the slaveholder, then he holds, not brutes, but a George Harris—or an Eliza—or an Uncle Tom—in bondage. Any thing, and every thing, except fair and impartial statement, are the materials with which he works.
No fact is plainer than that the blacks have been elevated and improved by their servitude in this country. We cannot possibly conceive, indeed, how Divine Providence could have placed them in a better school of correction. If the abolitionists can conceive a better method for their enlightenment and religious improvement, we should rejoice to see them carry their plan into execution. They need not seek to rend asunder our Union, on account of the three millions of blacks among us, while there are fifty millions of the same race on the continent of Africa, calling aloud for their sympathy, and appealing to their Christian benevolence. Let them look to that continent. Let them rouse the real, active, self-sacrificing benevolence of the whole Christian world in behalf of that most degraded portion of the human family; and, after all, if they will show us on the continent of Africa, or elsewhere, three millions of blacks in as good a condition—physically and morally—as our slaves, then will we most cheerfully admit that all other Christian nations, combined, have accomplished as much for the African race, as has been done by the Southern States of the Union.
