Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments / Comprising the Writings of Hammond, Harper, Christy, Stringfellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, and Cartrwright on this Important Subject

by Unknown

I have hitherto, as I proposed, considered it as a naked, abstract question of the comparative good and evil of the institution of slavery. Very far different indeed is the practical question presented to us, when it is proposed to get rid of an institution which has interwoven itself with every fibre of the body politic; which has formed the habits of our society, and is consecrated by the usage of generations. If this be not a vicious prescription, which the laws of God forbid to ripen into right, it has a just claim to be respected by all tribunals of man. If the negroes were now free, and it were proposed to enslave them, then it would be incumbent on those who proposed the measure to show clearly that their liberty was incompatible with the public security. When it is proposed to innovate on the established state of things, the burden is on those who propose the innovation, to show that advantage will be gained from it. There is no reform, however necessary, wholesome or moderate, which will not be accompanied with some degree of inconvenience, risk or suffering. Those who acquiesce in the state of things which they found existing, can hardly be thought criminal. But most deeply criminal are they who give rise to the enormous evil with which great revolutions in society are always attended, without the fullest assurance of the greater good to be ultimately obtained. But if it can be made to appear, even probably, that no good will be obtained, but that the results will be evil and calamitous as the process, what can justify such innovations? No human being can be so mischievous—if acting consciously, none can be so wicked as those who, finding evil in existing institutions, run blindly upon change, unforeseeing and reckless of consequences, and leaving it to chance or fate to determine whether the end shall be improvement, or greater and more intolerable evil. Certainly the instincts of nature prompt to resist intolerable oppression. For this resistance no rule can be prescribed, but it must be left to the instincts of nature. To justify it, however, the insurrectionists should at least have a reasonable probability of success, and be assured that their condition will be improved by success. But most extraordinary is it, when those who complain and clamor are not those who are supposed to feel the oppression, but persons at a distance from them, and who can hardly at all appreciate the good or the evil of their situation. It is the unalterable condition of humanity, that men must achieve civil liberty for themselves. The assistance of allies has sometimes enabled nations to repel the attacks of foreign power, never to conquer liberty against their own internal government.

In one thing I concur with the abolitionsts; that if emancipation is to be brought about, it is better that it should be immediate and total. But let us suppose it to be brought about in any manner, and then inquire what would be the effects.

The first and most obvious effect, would be to put an end to the cultivation of our great Southern staple. And this would be equally the result, if we suppose the emancipated negroes to be in no way distinguished from the free laborers of other countries, and that their labor would be equally effective. In that case, they would soon cease to be laborers for hire, but would scatter themselves over our unbounded territory, to become independent land owners themselves. The cultivation of the soil on an extensive scale, can only be carried on where there are slaves, or in countries superabounding with free labor. No such operations are carried on in any portions of our own country where there are not slaves. Such are carried on in England, where there is an overflowing population and intense competition for employment. And our institutions seem suited to the exigencies of our respective situations. There, a much greater number of laborers is required at one season of the year than at another, and the farmer may enlarge or diminish the quantity of labor he employs, as circumstances may require. Here, about the same quantity of labor is required at every season, and the planter suffers no inconvenience from retaining his laborers throughout the year. Imagine an extensive rice or cotton plantation cultivated by free laborers, who might perhaps strike for an increase of wages, at a season when the neglect of a few days would insure the destruction of the whole crop. Even if it were possible to procure laborers at all, what planter would venture to carry on his operations under such circumstances? I need hardly say that these staples can not be produced to any extent where the proprietor of the soil cultivates it with his own hands. He can do little more than produce the necessary food for himself and his family.

And what would be the effect of putting an end to the cultivation of these staples, and thus annihilating, at a blow, two-thirds or three-fourths of our foreign commerce? Can any sane mind contemplate such a result without terror? I speak not of the utter poverty and misery to which we ourselves would be reduced, and the desolation which would overspread our own portion of the country. Our slavery has not only given existence to millions of slaves within our own territories, it has given the means of subsistence, and therefore existence, to millions of freemen in our confederate States; enabling them to send forth their swarms to overspread the plains and forests of the West, and appear as the harbingers of civilization. The products of the industry of those States are in general similar to those of the civilized world, and are little demanded in their markets. By exchanging them for ours, which are everywhere sought for, the people of these States are enabled to acquire all the products of art and industry, all that contributes to convenience or luxury, or gratifies the taste or the intellect, which the rest of the world can supply. Not only on our own continent, but on the other, it has given existence to hundreds of thousands, and the means of comfortable subsistence to millions. A distinguished citizen of our own State, than whom none can be better qualified to form an opinion, has lately stated that our great staple, cotton, has contributed more than any thing else of later times to the progress of civilization. By enabling the poor to obtain cheap and becoming clothing, it has inspired a taste for comfort, the first stimulus to civilization. Does not self-defense, then, demand of us steadily to resist the abrogation of that which is productive of so much good? It is more than self-defense. It is to defend millions of human beings, who are far removed from us, from the intensest suffering, if not from being struck out of existence. It is the defense of human civilization.

But this is but a small part of the evil which would be occasioned. After President Dew, it is unnecessary to say a single word on the practicability of colonizing our slaves. The two races, so widely separated from each other by the impress of nature, must remain together in the same country. Whether it be accounted the result of prejudice or reason, it is certain that the two races will not be blended together so as to form a homogenous population. To one who knows any thing of the nature of man and human society, it would be unnecessary to argue that this state of things can not continue; but that one race must be driven out by the other, or exterminated, or again enslaved. I have argued on the supposition that the emancipated negroes would be as efficient as other free laborers. But whatever theorists, who know nothing of the matter, may think proper to assume, we well know that this would not be so. We know that nothing but the coercion of slavery can overcome their propensity to indolence, and that not one in ten would be an efficient laborer. Even if this disposition were not grounded in their nature, it would be a result of their position. I have somewhere seen it observed, that to be degraded by opinion, is a thousand fold worse, so far as the feelings of the individuals are concerned, than to be degraded by the laws. They would be thus degraded, and this feeling is incompatible with habits of order and industry. Half our population would at once be paupers. Let an inhabitant of New-York or Philadelphia conceive of the situation of their respective States, if one-half of their population consisted of free negroes. The tie which now connects them, being broken, the different races would be estranged from each other, and hostility would grow up between them. Having the command of their own time and actions, they could more effectually combine insurrection, and provide the means of rendering it formidable. Released from the vigilant superintendence which now restrains them, they would infallibly be led from petty to greater crimes, until all life and property would be rendered insecure. Aggression would beget retaliation, until open war—and that a war of extermination—were established. From the still remaining superiority of the white race, it is probable that they would be the victors, and if they did not exterminate, they must again reduce the others to slavery—when they could be no longer fit to be either slaves or freemen. It is not only in self-defense, in defense of our country and of all that is dear to us, but in defense of the slaves themselves, that we refuse to emancipate them.

If we suppose them to have political privileges, and to be admitted to the elective franchise, still worse results may be expected.[251] It is hardly necessary to add any thing to what has been said by Mr. Paulding on this subject who has treated it fully. It is already known, that if there be a class unfavorably distinguished by any peculiarity from the rest of society, this distinction forms a tie which binds them to act in concert, and they exercise more than their due share of political power and influence—and still more, as they are of inferior character and looser moral principle. Such a class form the very material for demogogues to work with. Other parties court them, and concede to them. So it would be with the free blacks in the case supposed. They would be used by unprincipled politicians, of irregular ambition, for the advancement of their schemes, until they should give them political power and importance beyond even their own intentions. They would be courted by excited parties in their contests with each other. At some time, they may perhaps attain political ascendancy, and this is more probable, as we may suppose that there will have been a great emigration of whites from the country. Imagine the government of such legislators. Imagine then the sort of laws that will be passed, to confound the invidious distinction which has been so long assumed over them, and, if possible, to obliterate the very memory of it. These will be resisted. The blacks will be tempted to avenge themselves by oppression and proscription of the white race, for their long superiority. Thus matters will go on, until universal anarchy, or kakistocracy, the government of the worst, is fully established. I am persuaded that if the spirit of evil should devise to send abroad upon the earth all possible misery, discord, horror, and atrocity, he could contrive no scheme so effectual as the emancipation of negro slaves within our country.

The most feasible scheme of emancipation, and that which I verily believe would involve the least danger and sacrifice, would be that the entire white population should emigrate, and abandon the country to their slaves. Here would be triumph to philanthropy. This wide and fertile region would be again restored to ancient barbarism—to the worst of all barbarism—barbarism corrupted and depraved by intercourse with civilization. And this is the consummation to be wished, upon a speculation, that in some distant future age, they may become so enlightened and improved, as to be capable of sustaining a position among the civilized races of the earth. But I believe moralists allow men to defend their homes and their country, even at the expense of the lives and liberties of others.

Will any philanthropist say that the evils, of which I have spoken, would be brought about only by the obduracy, prejudices, and overweening self-estimation of the whites in refusing to blend the races by marriage, and so create a homogenous population?[252] But what, if it be not prejudice, but truth, and nature, and right reason, and just moral feeling? As I have before said, throughout the whole of nature, like attracts like, and that which is unlike repels. What is it that makes so unspeakably loathsome, crimes not to be named, and hardly alluded to? Even among the nations of Europe, so nearly homogenous, there are some peculiarities of form and feature, mind and character, which may be generally distinguished by those accustomed to observe them. Though the exceptions are numerous, I will venture to say that not in one instance in a hundred, is the man of sound and unsophisticated tastes and propensities so likely to be attracted by the female of a foreign stock, as by one of his own, who is more nearly conformed to himself. Shakspeare spoke the language of nature, when he made the senate and people of Venice attribute to the effect of witchcraft, Desdemona's passion for Othello—though, as Coleridge has said, we are to conceive of him not as a negro, but as a high bred Moorish chief.

If the negro race, as I have contended, be inferior to our own in mind and character, marked by inferiority of form and features, then ours would suffer deterioration from such intermixture. What would be thought of the moral conduct of the parent who should voluntarily transmit disease, or fatuity, or deformity to his offspring? If man be the most perfect work of the Creator, and the civilized European man the most perfect variety of the human race, is he not criminal who would desecrate and deface God's fairest work; estranging it further from the image of himself, and conforming it more nearly to that of the brute? I have heard it said, as if it afforded an argument, that the African is as well satisfied of the superiority of his own complexion, form, and features, as we can be of ours. If this were true, as it is not, would any one be so recreant to his own civilization, as to say that his opinion ought to weigh against ours—that there is no universal standard of truth, and grace, and beauty—that the Hottentot Venus may perchance possess as great perfection of form as the Medicean? It is true, the licentious passions of men overcome the natural repugnance, and find transient gratification in intercourse with females of the other race. But this is a very different thing from making her the associate of life, the companion of the bosom and the hearth. Him who would contemplate such an alliance for himself, or regard it with patience, when proposed for a son, or daughter, or sister, we should esteem a degraded wretch—with justice, certainly, if he were found among ourselves—and the estimate would not be very different if he were found in Europe. It is not only in defense of ourselves, of our country, and of our own generation, that we refuse to emancipate our slaves, but to defend our posterity and race from degeneracy and degradation.

Are we not justified then in regarding as criminals, the fanatical agitators whose efforts are intended to bring about the evils I have described? It is sometimes said that their zeal is generous and disinterested, and that their motives may be praised, though their conduct be condemned. But I have little faith in the good motives of those who pursue bad ends. It is not for us to scrutinize the hearts of men, and we can only judge of them by the tendency of their actions. There is much truth in what was said by Coleridge. "I have never known a trader in philanthropy who was not wrong in heart somehow or other. Individuals so distinguished, are usually unhappy in their family relations—men not benevolent or beneficent to individuals, but almost hostile to them, yet lavishing money and labor and time on the race—the abstract notion." The prurient love of notoriety actuates some. There is much luxury in sentiment, especially if it can be indulged at the expense of others, and if there be added some share of envy or malignity, the temptation to indulgence is almost irresistible. But certainly they may be justly regarded as criminal, who obstinately shut their eyes and close their ears to all instruction with respect to the true nature of their actions.