Lectures on the Philosophy and Practice of Slavery / As Exhibited in the Institution of Domestic Slavery in the United States, with the Duties of Masters to Slaves

by William A. Smith

Third. The rights of man in the savage or uncivilized state.

No savage community was ever known to rise unaided to a state of civilization; and every example of savage society furnishes evidence that it is a state into which they have fallen by the tendencies of depraved nature. They are instances in which the government originally enjoyed—both human and Divine—has failed to preserve to the individual that liberty of will in the pursuit of the good which government is designed to secure. The pure intelligence is not sufficiently developed to constitute an enlightened conscience. Dwelling apart from civilized society, the absence of all the artificial wants of civilization is highly favorable to many of the natural virtues—such as hospitality to strangers, truth, fidelity, and generosity to their friends; but the undeveloped state of the pure reason leaves the moral sense in a state of so much immaturity, as to characterize them as unfaithful, cruel, and revengeful to their enemies. These are characteristics which, in their condition of physical maturity, make them terrible to their neighbors.

Now the question is, What are the rights of such a people? It is useless to discuss this question so far as it relates to mere savage government; for in this view it is a question of no interest. But the question, What rights can they claim of a civilized people? is the one with which we have to deal.

They certainly have a natural right to protection under given circumstances, and freedom from oppression under all circumstances. If a civilized people, holding a balance of power in virtue of superior intelligence, have an undisputed right to protect themselves from the cruelty and infidelity of neighboring savages, still it will be admitted that oppression in any proper sense of the term would be an invasion of their natural rights. They have a right to be left in the enjoyment of the highest amount of freedom which their mental state will allow them to use legitimately. And more than this, their natural rights claim for them reasonable exertions to elevate their moral condition. Hence the noble efforts now being made by the Christian people of this country to evangelize the savages on our border, and the no less commendable efforts of the United States government to favor this design, by an annual appropriation from the national treasury. All this is only according them their rights. But do these rights entitle them to claim social equality with a civilized people? That which it is the right of another to claim of me, it is my duty to grant. Is it then my duty to grant social equality to any or to every wandering savage that may chance to pass my dwelling? Should I not only extend to him the rights of hospitality due to a wandering savage—give him food and shelter in given circumstances, and treat him kindly in all respects—but extend to him true social equality, such as it is my duty to do to other men in certain states of civilization! No man—himself not a savage—would dare affirm this! The savage has no right to claim it. The reason is obvious on the principles discussed. Certain social rights arise only on certain conditions of moral development, and the fulfilment of the duties which attach to that state. The savage has not reached this condition; hence has not fulfilled its duties, and is not entitled to the right of social equality which attaches to that state. For a sensible man to affirm that he has this right in virtue of his mere humanity, would be simply ridiculous. And this being so, it follows, a fortiori, that it is much less our duty to allow him an equal participation in the sovereignty of the State—allow him a control in the affairs of government—share the authority to regulate our relations, domestic and foreign; and even to participate in governing our families.

The man who should gravely propose in Congress to annex the savage tribes of our border, as sovereign States of this Union, would, by all right-minded men, be regarded as insane. No one of the managers of looms, spindles, and other machinery, among the agrarian portion of our northern community, with all their boasted knowledge of the natural rights of man, and their readiness to accord equal rights to all men, and to protect them in asserting those rights, have, as yet, made up their minds to go thus far—although we may be at a loss to account for it that they so far falsify their principles as not to do so.

Now, as it is not our duty to do this in behalf of a neighboring race of uncivilized people, for the reason that they have no right to it, how does the question stand in regard to a numerous class of such persons, spread through a definite section of our country? Does this change of position and contact with civilization confer on them higher rights than it has already been admitted belong to them in a separate state in virtue of their humanity? Is it our duty to accord to them equality of political rights? and for the reason that they are diffused through the mass of society? Can this position be maintained? On the contrary, the change of position, and the service which in that position they render to the cause of civilization, which is assumed to acquire for them a right that does not belong to their class of persons in a separate position, so far from affording a vindication of this doctrine, furnishes a still stronger reason against it. They are not only uncivilized, but are now in a position to exert an evil influence, which in a separate state they could not do, although they might dwell upon our border. In a separate state, the artificial wants of civilized life are unknown to them. The great sources of temptation to do wrong by invading the rights of neighbors, is not supplied to them by their position. But when in immediate contact with civilization, a great many of these artificial wants are learned by them, and felt to be objects of desire. These desires, by a fixed law of the human mind, must be a constant source of temptation—they clamor for gratification. If the indulgence should not be restrained, either by a system of laws which reached the case, or by the motives which a state of civilization supplies, they would inevitably result in a disregard of the rights of property, and a general depravation of morals. They are without the latter, for they are uncivilized. Hence the demands of their position must be met by laws appropriate to an uncivilized people. The laws appropriate to a state of civilization, coöperating as they do with the motives supplied by that state, are not more than equal to the task of restraining the passions of civilized men. To rely upon them in the case of uncivilized men would be the grossest folly. Hence if it were not our duty to share our political rights with such a people, dwelling upon our border, in a separate state, for a much stronger reason it is not our duty to do this for those dwelling in our midst. If it is not our duty to do it, it cannot be their right to claim it; for rights and duties are always reciprocal. But, on the contrary, for the same general reasons by which it becomes the duty of a civilized state to place all its minors under the despotism of parental control, as before defined, it is the duty of the state to place an uncivilized race which may chance to dwell within its borders, under a similar form of government. This despotism need not be oppressive in the one case any more than in the other. It is the proud boast of all our native citizens that they have always lived under a free government; and yet they were brought up to the age of twenty-one under a pure despotism. But this does not deprive them of their right to boast. True, the government conferred almost absolute control upon the parent, or guardian, or master of the apprentice! These might have oppressed them. But the government, which stood ready to vindicate their rights, did not do it. The government, in what it did, only accorded them their natural rights, as we have seen—provided to confer on them the highest amount of freedom of which their condition would admit. It was to them essentially a free government, though in one of the forms of despotism. So in that form of despotism appropriate to a race of uncivilized people dwelling in the midst of a civilized people, if adapted to their condition, or securing to them (as in the case of minors) their natural rights, it is, for them, and to them, a free government. So far from being a curse, as many of our philosophers teach, it is a blessing, which their essential rights entitle them to claim. Any other form of government would be, in their case, as well as in that of minors, a practical denial of their rights; because it would result in the annihilation of their essential rights; that is, the enslavement of their wills to the basest passions of fallen nature.

Hence, we find that government, both human and Divine, is a special necessity of man’s fallen condition, and coeval with the history of the race: that its legitimate object is to preserve him from that annihilation of his essential liberty of will which would inevitably follow if there were no government, and to secure him in the enjoyment of the highest amount of this liberty which his condition will allow: that to do this, various forms of civil government are admissible; and that the one best adapted to the condition of the people is the one that should be applied, and is the only strictly free government for the people to whom it is appropriate. A democracy applied to minors or savages, in the midst of a civilized people, would be the most grinding of all oppressions. We have seen that the means appropriate to government are suitable penalties addressed to our passions of hope and fear: that the only right which a man has to exercise his inherent liberty—that is, the only right he has of self-control—is the authority to do that which, in itself, is right—not a right to do wrong: that the exclusive authority of government is to restrain man from doing wrong, and to protect and encourage him in doing right—restrain his power to do wrong, not his power to do right—this it seeks to strengthen. We have seen that the rights of man in a state of minority—and the same of uncivilized men dwelling in a community of the civilized—are to the benefits of an absolute form of government; any other would be only a system of ruinous oppression to them: that at his maturity as a civilized man, he should be protected in the exercise of all the rights which naturally belong to a state of maturity, and also the enjoyment of all those rights which he has acquired by availing himself of the privileges afforded by his condition. Of his acquired rights, we see that on certain conditions he is entitled to social equality; and that on certain further conditions, he is entitled to the right of political sovereignty.

Now, we ask, in what sense can it be said that legitimate government is a concession of some rights, in order to secure others? Certainly, in no good sense, seeing it only limits his power to do wrong, by laying him under suitable disabilities, and that it does this in order to secure both the power and the privilege of doing right. But by falsely assuming that government is a concession of rights, and that the government in which every citizen does not make a voluntary concession of the rights exercised by government is a cruel oppression, men fall upon conclusions which, when carried out, (and principles will tend to work out their results,) lead to agrarianism: that is, the destruction of all rights, by the annihilation of all civilization.

And again we ask, How does it follow that the domestic slavery of the negro in America is an abridgment of his inalienable rights? Certainly not from the fact that he is placed under an absolute form of control, for we have seen that, in certain conditions of humanity, that is the only form of government that will secure any freedom at all: as in the case of all minors, and the case of an uncivilized race that may chance to be diffused among the mass of a civilized people. If, then, his government be an oppression at all, it is because his state of civilization, and the relative circumstances of his condition, have acquired for him the rights of social equality and the rights of political sovereignty. These are questions of fact that will be considered in their proper place.