It was natural, and it was right, that Mr. Blackstone should manifest a zeal for the institutions of his own country, disposing him to excuse what might be amiss, to vindicate what might be questionable, and to place in the highest relief and in the most favorable light whatever is praiseworthy. But while I acknowledge this, I cannot allow to him, and them who think with him, a monopoly of this pious reverence for the institutions of their forefathers. I would rather follow their example, and, cherishing this sentiment so essential to the preservation of every thing that is valuable, would ask, on behalf of it, the like indulgence to what may be urged in defence of domestic slavery.
I shall not stop to show (what is incontestibly true) that it has done more to elevate a degraded race in the scale of humanity; to tame the savage; to civilize the barbarous; to soften the ferocious; to enlighten the ignorant; and to spread the blessings of christianity among the heathen, than all the missionaries that philanthropy and religion have ever sent forth. This would be no vindication, for he who can make the wrath of man to praise him; who can overrule evil, and make it an instrument of good, might have made it conducive to these ends, however wicked in itself it might be. "Be it a spirit of health, or goblin damned," on his errand it has gone forth. "Be its intents wicked or charitable," it is his instrument, in his hands, doing his work. When that is done, and not till then, it will cease, as will all things else, when their appointed course is run, and their appointed end fulfilled.
It is hardly necessary to expose the sophistry by which Mr. Blackstone affects to prove, that slavery cannot have had a lawful origin. We do not pretend to trace our title to its source. We have no call to sit in judgment between the conquered African and his conqueror. We rest our defence on principles which legitimate our title, whatever its origin may have been. Yet it may not be amiss to say a few words to show the fallacy of those plausible and imposing dogmas, with which we too often suffer ourselves to be talked down.
"Slavery," says Mr. Blackstone, "cannot originate in compact, because the transaction excludes the idea of an equivalent." For an answer to this specious fallacy, I shall content myself by referring you to the masterly essay of Professor Dew, who has so clearly exposed it as to leave me nothing to add.
But the commentator farther tells us, that "slavery cannot lawfully originate in conquest, as a commutation for the right to kill; because this right rests on necessity; and this necessity plainly does not exist, because the victor does not kill his adversary, but makes him captive." Is this a fair inference? Let us examine it.
There is a triple alternative in the case: to kill, to enslave, or to set at large. It may be practicable to do either of the two first; and yet dangerous in the extreme to do the last. With a savage and treacherous foe it is always so, unless his power of annoyance be completely annihilated. And how can this be between two tribes of nearly equal force? Among such is one victory an assured pledge of future and bloodless victory to the end of time? May it not, must it not, often be, that the victorious party can have no security against future and fatal mischief, but in the destruction, or something equivalent to the destruction, of the vanquished? This is obtained by deportation to distant lands, by which alone, or by incarceration, or something equivalent, or by extermination, or a near approach to extermination, the enmity of a savage neighbor ever can be rendered harmless. The necessity of the case, so long as it exists, justifies the choice of these alternatives. Among these, no argument is necessary to prove that foreign slavery is the mildest. But were this not so, the laws even of civilized war do not peremptorily dictate to the victor the choice he shall make among these remedies. He may kill; he may incarcerate; or he may enlarge on parol, clogged with such conditions as he may please to prescribe, according to the nature and measure of a necessity, of which he is the only judge.1
1 It may be said that the laws of civilized war do not permit that prisoners be slain or incarcerated; for that if this be done, the other party may retaliate. This will prove, that he who is cruel to his prisoners, does a wrong to his own people who may happen to be in his enemy's hands; but that is all. The laws of civilized warfare acknowledge the right to retaliate, and therefore make a case, if there was no other, where slavery by conquest would be lawful. Even though he who first enslaves his prisoners be wrong; yet ex concessis he who retaliates is right. Can Mr. Blackstone tell us which of the savage African chiefs began the game?
When Col. Campbell, at the head of a few militia, stooped from the mountains of Virginia on Carolina, and bore off the corps of Col. Fergusson in his pounces, had he been pursued and overtaken by Tarleton, he must have killed his prisoners. He could not have held them, and to have enlarged them would have been to sacrifice the lives of thousands. He who doubts this, knows nothing of the horrors of the tory war that raged in that quarter. If he had had no place of refuge, he might have handed them over to any custody, civilized or savage, in which they might have been removed from the theatre of war. This is one example among ten thousand, to show that the captivity of an enemy by no means implies the security of the captor, should he allow his prisoner to go free. The snared tiger is in your power: you may kill him—you may cage him. "Therefore," says Mr. Blackstone, "you are under no necessity to do either, and the noble beast has a fair claim to his liberty."
But I have given too many words to the exposure of this grave sophistry. In self-defence it might have been pardoned; in crimination it is intolerable.
But, as I remarked in the outset, we have nothing to do with the origin of any particular mode of slavery. In some shape or other it exists, and has existed every where, since first the decree went forth, which cursed the earth, and denounced to man, "that in the sweat of his face he should eat the fruit thereof." Here is its origin; and, as might be expected of any thing so originating, the thing is evil in itself, and in all its modes. The problem is to choose among them. To the practical man it is a thing of small difficulty; left to itself, it assumes, in every country, the form and texture best suited to the physical peculiarities of that country, and the condition of society there. But we have grown so wise, that we leave nothing to itself. The world is full of associations and combinations of men, who make it the business of their lives to regulate every thing but what concerns themselves. We every where find a sort of moral treasuries of supererogatory virtue, made up by voluntary contribution, for the benefit of all who do not affect to be wiser and better than their fathers. Turn where we will, we have the edifying spectacle of one half the world repenting for the sins of the other half.