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

The African is now here. Whether right or wrong originally, is not the question before us. He is here. What form of government is best suited to him, and those with whom he is necessarily associated? And,

I. Let it be observed, that they are a distinct race of people, separated by strongly marked lines of moral and physical condition from those amongst whom they reside. This difference is so strongly marked that there can be no spontaneous amalgamation by intermarriage, and consequently no reciprocity of social rights and privileges between the races. Their history in the whole country shows this to be the case. They must therefore continue to exist as a separate race. To this state of things the government over them should be adapted, unless we would violate a material condition of the problem to be solved. For if the law should not provide for this state of the case, the conventional usages of the superior race amongst whom they dwell will certainly do so. This is in proof from the example of all those States which have failed to provide for the African as a separate and distinct race; for the usages of society always supply the deficiency. This omission on the part of the law is evidently to the injury of the African. The history of the race in the Northern States will show this. Essential liberty is founded in, and is inseparable from, certain social rights and privileges. But in these respects, the African is a far more proscribed and degraded race in the Northern than in the Southern States.

A government, then, should be provided for the African, as a distinct and separate race, existing in the bosom of another and superior race. Of course this will be an imperium in imperio. And as they are confessedly the inferior race, who can never enjoy essential liberty or reciprocity of social condition with the whites, the government adapted to them must be inferior and subordinate to that of the whites amongst whom they dwell. It must be subordinate; for, in the nature of things, it must be an independent or a subordinate one. But two independent civil governments cannot coëxist, and control distinct races dwelling together in the same community. It follows that it must be subordinate. As subordinate, it must either assume some form of military government, or it must conform to the patriarchal species of government—a kind of family government—that is, the domestic form for which we contend. And as between a subordinate military or patriarchal form of government, both as regards the expense and the comfort, there can be no controversy, we may consider the claims of the patriarchal form, or the system of domestic slavery, as established in this case.

But it may be supposed that the experiment in the Northern States invalidates the position, that this, being a distinct race of people, must be controlled by a separate and subordinate form of government. These States have a portion of this race, and it is said they find no difficulty to result from having placed them on a political footing with other citizens. But this is a mere assumption. It is not borne out by the facts of history.

As before stated, the conventional usages of society have denied them the social rights and privileges of free citizens! They have proscribed them as an inferior and degraded race.

The usage which forbids intermarriage is at once a bar to all social equality. The road to offices of trust, honor, and profit, is closed against them—nay, even the means of subsistence beyond a scanty supply of the necessaries of life. These facts are undeniable. Now, to talk of liberty when we effectually deny to a people all that essentially constitutes it, is idle in the extreme. It is a mere paper liberty!—liberty to submit to the crushing usages of society!—liberty to perish, in many instances, and that without sympathy from the State. In these respects the condition of the race is unquestionably better in the Southern States. If they must be a degraded race in the North as well as in the South, I hesitate not to affirm that our domestic system affords them a much better security for a competent and comfortable living. It makes better provision for them in old age and in youth, in sickness and in health, than is secured to them by their so-called liberty in the Northern States.

Of course, poor families (in the literal sense) in the South do not own slaves. They are usually held by those who at least enjoy the necessaries of life. Now, the progress of civilization has established the custom in all such families of sharing with their slaves the necessaries, and, not unfrequently, many of the comforts of life. The exceptions only make the rule general.

Again, the Southern system, by making the African a part of the family circle, brings him into more immediate contact with the habits of civilized life, and cultivates a high degree of sympathy between him and his owners. Hence, the well-known attachment of slaves to the families in which they were brought up; and their utter repugnance to being hired to a Northern family, whatever may be their reputation for piety. They are without practical sympathy for them. They often subject them to a degree of hard labor to which they are not accustomed. Many humane men in the South decline hiring their servants to such persons.

There are evils, it is true, inseparable from the presence of the race in this country, under any circumstances. By conferring on them a mere paper liberty, the Northern States have adroitly freed themselves of a portion of these evils; but then they have evidently accumulated them upon the African. The policy is marked by no sympathy for the blacks. There is much more of selfishness than of benevolence in the working of the system. We conclude that our position is true, that the Africans, being a separate and distinct race of people, who cannot spontaneously amalgamate with the whites, should be placed under a separate and subordinate form of government, if we consult either their welfare or our own. The examples referred to, as proof of the contrary, are strongly confirmatory of the position.

But to claim for the African political equality with the whites is subject to still stronger objections. We may further appeal to facts in support of our proposition.