Gradual emancipation, the popular plan—It would operate to collect the slaves into a few States, cut them off from contact with civilization, and reduce them to barbarism—It would make an opening for Northern farmers and their menials to come into those States from which they retired—The modifications which the system of slavery has undergone within late years—A comparison of the menials of the free and of the slave States, and the only plan of emancipation admissible—The gospel the only remedy for the evils of slavery—Paul’s philosophy and practice, 1 Tim. vi. 1-5.
Immediate emancipation is the scheme of the abolitionists proper, whilst gradual emancipation is the favorite plan of the anti-slavery party. The ground we should take is this, that no plan of emancipation, either immediate or gradual, is adapted to the present moral condition and relative circumstances of our African population. Nothing of the kind could at this time be attended with good, but only with evil.
I limit this discussion to the subject of gradual emancipation, because the reasons by which we invalidate this doctrine will, a fortiori, disprove the doctrine of immediate emancipation.
It is said that a system of gradual emancipation succeeded well in the Northern States, and that it would succeed equally well in the Southern. But I deny the assumption in each case.
There never was a large slave population in the Northern States, owing to the unsuitableness of the climate. The question arises, How did this system operate with the few they had? It is well known that the owners anticipated the time appointed for the law of emancipation to go into operation, and sold their slaves in the South! This law only operated to transfer the slaves, for the most part, to a climate and soil more congenial to their constitution and habits. The operation of the scheme, therefore, resulted only in the emancipation of a few of the whole number, (see Lecture I., page 22;) and these few, as has been proved, have, by the social, and, we may add, in many instances, by the municipal regulations of the States within which they reside, been essentially injured by the change instead of benefited. Hence the scheme did not succeed well in the Northern States. And can it be assumed that it would succeed better in the Southern States? On the contrary, the result would be much more fatal in the Southern, for the reason that we have a much larger African slave population than existed in the Northern States at the time their emancipation laws were adopted. Now, suppose (what, however, can scarcely, if at all, be allowed a supposable case) that all the Southern States should simultaneously pass laws, providing for the gradual emancipation of the slaves, and hence, ultimately, effect their emancipation, as provided for by law, for the reason that there would be no market open for the sale of them, as was the case when the scheme was attempted at the North: even in such a state of things, you cannot fail to perceive that the propriety of such a measure turns entirely upon the truth or error of a position already discussed.
If my position be correct, (and it is evidently established by the facts adduced in the preceding lecture,) that their mental imbecility and moral degradation is such that, whilst it remains a fact that for physical and uncontrollable causes they cannot amalgamate, any material addition to our present number of free colored population would result in their extermination, humanity, leaving all other reasons out of the account, would forbid the measure! Nor can I persuade myself that there is an emancipationist, however fanatical, this side the strange delirium of a deliberately wicked purpose to do wrong, who would not “pause upon the brink of this Rubicon,” when assured that the Southern people generally believed that extermination would, in all probability, be the result of his priceless experiment.
But it is extremely idle to suppose that all the Southern States would simultaneously pass such a law; nor does the scheme assume that they would do so. No: the plan advocated is, that the District of Columbia, and the States of Delaware and Maryland, should first emancipate their slaves; then Virginia, then Kentucky, then Missouri, and so on, until the work should be consummated by a gradual process, requiring several years in each State. Let us now inquire what this plan promises.
If the owners of slaves in the States which first in order passed such a law, did not anticipate the time of its taking effect, (as in the case before referred to,) and sell them in the States where no such law had, as yet, been passed, the result would be, as already stated, an accumulation of free colored population, with its inevitable consequences. But this would certainly not be the general operation of such a law. For if cupidity should not prompt a different course, the owners, foreseeing the results of such an accumulation of free colored population, both to the whites and the blacks, would anticipate the law, in by far the greater number of instances, and sell their slaves in the States in which no such law had been passed. Still, many, no doubt, would not take this course: a want of forecast, and most generally a mistaken notion of humanity, would prevent its adoption. In this way, we cannot hesitate to believe that the accumulation of free colored population would be so great as to induce their extermination at no distant day. This calamity could be averted only by a sale of the slaves into some other State in anticipation of the law providing for their manumission.
Now, whatever of mere selfishness there may be in the proposed measure, nothing is more certain than that it is entirely destitute of all humanity for the slave, and of all just regard to his progress in civilization, and his more speedy elevation to moral fitness for freedom. For by the time this work had progressed through the District of Columbia, the States of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, and, it might be, North Carolina and Tennessee, the far greater part of the numerous slave population of the whole country would be accumulated in the remaining States of the South and South-west. This would be the inevitable result. For the free-soilers, it seems, are determined, if the effect of agitation can accomplish it at the ballot-box, that there shall be a cordon of free States, formed by the newly acquired territory of New Mexico and California; and in this case there would be no further outlet for the retiring slave.
Let us now inquire what would be the effect of the accumulation of the race within the limits of a few States: