Upon this subject the Baron Montesquieu has gathered the choicest materials of every age, clime, and nation. With a mind, formed in the mould of patience itself; strong by nature and enriched with a philosophic cultivation, he hath executed the task of analysis with the most profound and discriminating sagacity. With no object in view but the advancement of political knowledge, he hath unmasked all the forms of government, traced to the fountain the principles of their action, and exposed to the meanest capacity the deep-hidden reasons of all the diversified relations of man, and the true genius of the laws necessary to support them.
In his Spirit of Laws, Vol. I, p. 291 et seq., to 298, he treats of the subject of slavery, and informs us as the result of his inquiries that in governments whose policy is warlike, and the citizens ever ready with arms in their hands to quell attempts to regain liberty, slaves may be treated with great rigor and severity without the hazard of servile wars; but that in republics, where the policy is essentially pacific, and the citizens devoted to the arts of peace and industry, the treatment of slaves should be mild and humane; that the power of the master should not be absolute, and that the slave should be put within the keeping of the law. If that candid and ingenious writer be not deceived in his conclusions, he has given us a hint for the regulation of our domestic servitude, the neglect of which may lead to the most fatal sequel. Our government is perhaps the most pacific on earth, and the citizens most addicted to the pursuits of civilized life. How inconsistent, then, will it be in us to adopt a policy in relation to our slaves which must be either yielded up or must change the habits and character of our people, and ultimately our form of government, with the blessing of liberty itself.
We may not expect that the danger of servile wars will only operate to arm the citizens generally in their own defense. The recent insurrection may show, indeed, the formation of numerous companies of yeomanry for the purpose of being always ready to meet and vanquish the earliest movements of insurrectionary slaves; but a little observation at this time, so soon, too, after the panic that gave rise to these preparations, will serve to show that at the present moment there remains scarcely a single one of the many associations which were then formed. They grew up with the panic, and they have vanished with it. It must be apparent, then, if ever ready arms are necessary to our safety, they must be lodged in hands not filled with other occupations, but responsible to the public for efficiency and dispatch. In other words, if a display of force be requisite to chain down the spirit of insurrection or stop the bloody career of its actual march, a standing army, which will leave the great body of citizens to pursue their favorite occupations of peace in perfect security, will be the loud demand of the community. How certainly such a permanent association of armed men, first formed to preserve the relations of our slavery, will ultimately introduce a civil slavery over the whole land, the experience of other nations, and the warning of our own Constitution, will most fearfully answer. I know it has been frequently said, and with some it is a favorite idea, that the more cruel the master, the more subservient will be the slave. This precept is abhorrent to humanity, and is a heresy unsupported by the great mass of historic experience. The despair of individuals cannot last forever; neither will that of a numerous people afflicted with common wrongs, and exchanging a common sympathy. Rome had no servile wars till her masters had outraged every feeling of justice and benevolence and made their slaves drink the cup of unmitigated cruelty to its last drop; nor had she any, that I remember, after the first Christian prince of the empire had relaxed the intolerable degradations of that unfortunate class of her people.
I feel and acknowledge, as strongly as any man can, the inexorable necessity of keeping our slaves in a state of dependence and subservience to their masters. But when shooting becomes necessary to prevent insolence and disobedience, it only serves to show the want of proper domestic rules, but it will never supply it; and never can a punishment like this effect any other purpose than to produce open conflicts or secret assassinations.
In adjusting the balance of this delicate subject, let it not be believed that the great and imminent danger is in overloading the scale of humanity. The courts must pass through Scylla and Charybdis; and they may be assured that the peril of shipwreck is not avoided, by shunning with distant steerage, the whirlpool of Northern fanaticism. That of the South is equally fatal. It may not be so visibly seen, but it is as deep, as wide, and as dangerous.
J. JOHNSTON PETTIGREW.