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

We need not scruple to admit that if injustice or any similar idea should be found to enter as an element into the abstract principle, it is a poisoned principle, upon which no honest man will allow himself to act. But is this the case? Doubtless, there may be injustice in slavery, as in every system which has persons for its subjects: that is, any master acting under the authority of this system may perpetrate great injustice; but we maintain that when he does so he introduces a principle foreign to the system, and for which he is individually responsible: he does that which mars the character of the whole performance, and stamps his own personal conduct with the guilt of injustice.

However carelessly many persons are accustomed to speak on this subject, yet we may assure ourselves that a little reflection will satisfy any candid mind that the principle is a legitimate one, and cannot with any degree of propriety be regarded as sinful. It will readily occur to all intelligent minds, that this principle enters more or less as an essential element into every form of human government. No government can be appropriate to human beings, in their present fallen condition, that does not embody this generic element in a greater or less degree.

A form of control, clearly embodying the idea of government, and at the same time conferring absolute freedom, is a solecism. If men would uniformly govern themselves aright by their own wills, there could be no necessity for government, or room for its exercise, at least in the sense in which we now understand the term. A government adapted to such a people, I allow, might be without the element of physical control, so indispensable in human governments. It would be (compared to human) a modification of government—if government it might be called—for which our language supplies no term. We cannot conceive it to be appropriate to any intelligences this side of the “spirits of just men made perfect in heaven.” These, we conceive, are sufficiently intelligent to understand clearly and correctly all the duties appertaining to the various relations they sustain, and so perfected in moral feeling as to fulfil these duties from the impulses of their own spontaneous volitions. Government, as it may be understood and applied to such intelligences, must be essentially different from that which is appropriate to beings of arbitrary volition; and who, therefore, should be held to accountability in the exercise of their freedom by the most rigid restrictions from penal sanctions. To these latter a government that did not embody the principle of slavery would be no government at all.

Authoritative control, with its correlative, (according to the more general classification given,) is the abstract principle of slavery. But a state of freedom is the opposite of a state of slavery. The abstract principle of a state of freedom or liberty is, therefore, the opposite to that of slavery. Hence self-control is the abstract principle of freedom, as its opposite—control by another—is the principle of slavery.

Now every government adapted to fallen beings whose personal or mental liberty consists in arbitrary volition, is necessarily a combination of these two opposite elements—the principle of freedom and the principle of slavery. Either of these entering alone into the system of government, would in the end defeat the legitimate object of government—the happiness of the people. If the government were based upon the principle of freedom alone, allowing every man the unrestricted liberty of self-control, the wildest anarchy would result: if to avoid this the opposite principle should be adopted, allowing no liberty of self-control, but subjecting all to control by the will of another, it would be found as impracticable as the other was disastrous, and, as far as successful, only appropriate to idiots and infants. A good government is such a harmonious union of these opposing elements, as adapts it to the wants of the people. For as, in chemistry, elements in opposite states of electricity unite and form valuable compounds, so in political science, antagonistic principles enter necessarily into the composition of government. The character or kind of the government is defined by the ratios in which these elements enter into its formation. If the principle of slavery enter very largely into the government, in a highly consolidated form, it is then an absolute monarchy or military despotism. If the exercise of this supreme power is distributed among the heads of families, it assumes the patriarchal or domestic form. If this principle enter in a less degree, but still in a much greater degree than the principle of self-control, some one of the forms of constitutional monarchy or hereditary aristocracy will result. If these opposite principles enter into the government in somewhat equal ratios, it is then a democratic republic—a well-balanced government—such as ours is designed to be. Hence we see that God has rendered the blessing of civil freedom inseparable from the presence and operation of the principle of slavery. Such is the present arrangement, that government can no otherwise secure freedom to its subjects than by abridging them to a certain extent of self-control; or, in other words, government must place its subjects under the operation of the principle of slavery in some things, the more effectually to secure their practical freedom in other things. And the citizen who may be determined not to submit to this order of things, and shall persist to do, from the action of a depraved will, what the State—his master—says he shall not do, will, sooner or later, find himself reduced to a condition of most abject slavery, within the walls of a public prison.

It is entirely obvious that a government, to secure the highest amount of happiness to its subjects, must be adapted to their social and moral condition. This adaptation, as before intimated, can only be effected by the ratios in which the antagonistic elements of liberty and of slavery shall enter into the composition of the government. Now this is virtually the position, after all, of a no less distinguished abolitionist and literary man than Dr. Wayland, the author of your text. On the subject “of the mode in which the objects of society are accomplished,” after bringing to view the different forms of government—“wholly hereditary”—“partly hereditary”—“partly elective”—and “wholly elective”—he asks, “Which of these is the preferable form of government?” and adds, “The answer must be conditional. The best form of government for any people, is the best that its present moral and social condition render practicable. A people may be so entirely surrendered to the influence of passion, and so feebly influenced by moral restraint, that a government which relied on moral restraint could not exist for a day. In this case a subordinate and inferior principle yet remains—the principle of fear; and the only resort is to a government of force, or a military despotism.” Now what is all this but a statement of the great truth which we have already discussed, only in different terms, that a government over a people, in the moral and social condition described by Dr. Wayland, which relied upon “moral restraint,” that is, upon the principle of self-control, “could not exist for a day;” and that for such a people, “the only resort is to a government of force, or a military despotism”—that is, the highest conceivable form or system of slavery. Now this is said, by Dr. Wayland, after waging a relentless war against both the principle and practice of slavery! Is not this an instance in which a great and honest mind, having adopted certain false notions in antagonism with the system of slavery, wars against this system; whilst, at the same time, this system is underlaid, even in his own method of reasoning, by a vast mine of fundamental principles which, in spite of him, give it both being and activity? Why need one so learned as Dr. Wayland allow the truth to escape his notice, because in one connection it wears the livery of one form of words, and in another connection very properly assumes the livery of a different form of language?

To proceed: History informs us of many such communities as those defined by Dr. Wayland, to which any other form of government would be entirely inappropriate but the one he calls a “government of force or a military despotism,” which is none other than the very highest form of slavery. And your own good sense, young gentlemen, must assure you that it would be grossly absurd to confer on reckless boys of fifteen, or a mass of stupid pagans, all the rights of free citizens of this great republic. No: the one class should be retained under the slavery (for let us not scruple to call things by their right names) of authoritative control by their parents; and the other should be subjected to the operation of the same general principle by the State. And to adopt Dr. Wayland’s own language on this point—suicidal as it is to him—we add, in regard to such citizens as are “entirely surrendered to the influence of passion,” that “after a government of force has been established, and habits of subordination have been formed, while the moral restraints are yet too feeble for self-government, an hereditary government, which addresses itself to the imagination, and strengthens itself by the influence of domestic connections and established usage, may be as good a form of government as they can sustain. As they advance in intellectual and moral cultivation, it may advantageously become more and more elective; and in a suitable moral condition, it may be wholly so.” Now, to vary the language in which these important facts are expressed, so as to bring out the great philosophical principles which so evidently underlie them, we would say, that when the government adapted to an ignorant and depraved people has operated under wise appliances to form habits of subordination among the masses, a modification of the elements of government is indicated as best suited to their condition. Some one of the forms of hereditary government may be adopted. In this government, the principle of slavery is made to operate less actively, and there is more room for the play of the opposite principle of self-control. But as the moral principle is yet too feeble for self-government proper, it is still held in strong check by its antagonistic principle—the principle of slavery. As they advance in intellectual and moral cultivation, a further modification of the relative operation of these principles is indicated as proper. It may become more and more elective: that is, more and more of a democratic republic; and in a suitable moral condition it may be wholly so: that is, a government in which the principle of slavery and the principle of liberty operate in about equal ratios. We call this a well-balanced government. If it fulfil this condition, it is because these opposing principles so check and counterpoise each other that the government is not likely to be unbalanced. One holds the other in equilibrio. The principle of self-control is in such vigorous operation among the masses, and so craned up to a vigilant activity by coincident forces derived from intelligence and interest, that the principle of slavery—control by the will of another, which in this instance is the will of the majority—is not competent, according to the theory of this government, to override and crush the liberties of the country. On the other hand, the principle of slavery, which is the great practical force of the government, enfeebled as it is by a prevailing popular enthusiasm for the widest freedom, and deriving no present aid from interest, finds this deficiency so fully supplied by the fact that its impersonation is the will of the majority, that it is competent to resist the most violent shocks which may come up from the misguided self-control of the masses. How often have we seen, in the history of our glorious republic, the excited passions of the masses, misdirecting their power of self-control, sweep like a hurricane over the bosom of our political sea, and lash the waters into a storm that threatened to engulf the hopes of the nation! But so vital and so active was that principle which constitutes the true force of the government, that that great ideal, the State—the “Ship of State!”—outrode the tempest in perfect safety; and last, as first, the flag of liberty still streamed from the mast-head.

Now, this is as far as the science of free government, so called, has been carried into practical operation; and in this we cannot fail to see that the restraining and controlling principle of slavery is still in vigorous operation. We call it, by way of eminence, a free government; and so it is, relatively to other forms, a very free government. But then it is only relatively, not absolutely, so; for if it were rendered entirely free, by excluding the operation of the principle of slavery altogether, it would be reduced at once to a form of government which authorizes every man to do in all things and in all respects just as he might please to do—a guaranty which in the present state of fallen human nature it could never make good, and, therefore, virtually it would be no government at all.

Seeing that the abstract principle of slavery enters necessarily and essentially as an element into every form of civil government, it is worse than idle to affirm that it is wrong, per se. But more than this, it has the sanction of Jehovah: for government, of which we have seen it is a necessary element, is expressly declared in Holy Scripture to be his ordinance. It entered largely into the theocracy by which he governed the Jewish nation; and indeed is equally prominent in the government which he exercises over all mankind, if we take it in its wide sense as comprehending the ultimate rewards and punishments that await us in a future state. How imbecile then is it to say of the system of slavery that it is wrong in the abstract—wrong in principle! How little do men consider what they affirm in this declaration! Certainly no man in his senses will gravely affirm of an essential principle of government that it is wrong! We repeat, then, it is really time that certain politicians, as well as ecclesiastics, had learned to chasten their language on this subject. They have already accomplished incalculable mischief. They have conceded that to the folly of fanaticism which, if it were true, would render domestic slavery, with every other form of civil government, wholly indefensible, and their supporters the objects of the pity and scorn of the civilized world.