Discussion on American Slavery

What, then, is slavery? for the question relates to the action of certain principles on it, and to its probable and proper results; what is slavery as it exists among us? We reply, it is that condition enforced by the laws of one half of the states of this confederacy, in which one portion of the community, called masters, is allowed such power over another portion called slaves; as

1. To deprive them of the entire earnings of their own labor, except only so much as is necessary to continue labor itself, by continuing healthful existence, thus committing clear robbery.

2. To reduce them to the necessity of universal concubinage, by denying to them the civil rights of marriage; thus breaking up the dearest relations of life, and encouraging universal prostitution.

3. To deprive them of the means and opportunities of moral and intellectual culture, in many states making it a high penal offence to teach them to read; thus perpetuating whatever of evil there is that proceeds from ignorance.

4. To set up between parents and their children an authority higher than the impulse of nature and the laws of God; which breaks up the authority of the father over his own offspring, and, at pleasure, separates the mother at a returnless distance from her child; thus abrogating the clearest laws of nature; thus outraging all decency and justice, and degrading and oppressing thousands upon thousands of beings, created like themselves, in the image of the most high God! This is slavery as it is daily exhibited in every slave state.

Here, continued Mr. T., is slavery acknowledged to be clear robbery, and yet it is not to be instantly abolished! Universal concubinage and prostitution, which must not immediately be put an end to! Oh, these wicked abolitionists, who seek to put an immediate close to such a state of things. What an immensity of good have the emancipationists of the South, as they wish to be called, of the colonizationists as they ought to be called, done during their fifty years labor, when this is yet left for the Rev. R. J. Breckinridge to say. Dear, delightful, energetic men! Truly, if this is all they have been able to effect it is time that the work were committed to abler hands. Mr. Thompson then read an extract from the Philadelphia declaration. Mr. Breckinridge had called it a declaration of independence, but it was only a declaration of sentiments; —

We have met together for the achievement of an enterprise, without which, that of our fathers is incomplete, and which, for its magnitude, solemnity, and probable results upon the destiny of the world, as far as transcends theirs, as moral truth does physical force.

In purity of motive, in earnestness of zeal, in decision of purpose, in intrepidity of action, in steadfastness of faith, in sincerity of spirit, we would not be inferior to them.

Their principles led them to wage war against their oppressors, and to spill human blood like water, in order to be free. Ours forbid the doing of evil that good may come, and lead us to reject, and entreat the oppressed to reject the use of all carnal weapons, for deliverance from bondage – relying solely upon those which are spiritual, and mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds.

Their measures were physical resistance – the marshalling in arms – the hostile array – the mortal encounter. Ours shall be such only as the opposition of moral purity to moral corruption – the destruction of error by the potency of truth – the overthrow of prejudice by the power of love – and the abolition of slavery by the spirit of repentance.

Their grievances, great as they were, were trifling in comparison with the wrongs and sufferings of those for whom we plead. Our fathers were never slaves – never bought and sold like cattle – never shut out from the light of knowledge and religion – never subjected to the lash of brutal task masters.

But those, for whose emancipation we are striving, constituting at the present, at least one-sixth part of our countrymen, – are recognised by the laws, and treated by their fellow-beings as marketable commodities – as goods and chattels – as brute beasts; are plundered daily of the fruits of their toil, without redress; – really enjoy no constitutional or legal protection from licentious and murderous outrages upon their persons – are ruthlessly torn asunder – the tender babe from the arms of its frantic mother – the heart-broken wife from her weeping husband – at the caprice or pleasure of irresponsible tyrants; – for the crime of having a dark complexion – they suffer the pangs of hunger, the infliction of stripes, and the ignominy of brutal servitude. They are kept in heathenish darkness by laws expressly enacted to make their instruction a criminal offence.

These are the prominent circumstances in the condition of more than two millions of our people, the proof of which may be found in thousands of indisputable facts, and in the laws of the slaveholding states.

Hence we maintain: —

That in the view of the civil and religious privileges of this nation, the guilt of its oppression is unequalled by any other on the face of the earth – and, therefore,

That it is bound to repent instantly, to undo the heavy burden, to break every yoke and let the oppressed go free.

We further maintain: —

That no man has a right to enslave or imbrute his brother – to hold or acknowledge him, for one moment, as a piece of merchandise – to keep back his hire by fraud – or to brutalize his mind by denying him the means of intellectual, social, and moral improvement.

The right to enjoy liberty is inalienable. To invade it is to usurp the prerogative of Jehovah. Every man has a right to his own body – to the products of his own labor – to the protection of law – and to the common advantages of society. It is piracy to buy or steal a native African, and subject him to servitude. Surely the sin is as great to enslave an American as an African.

Therefore, we believe and affirm: —

That there is no difference in principle, between the African slave-trade and American slavery.

That every American citizen who retains a human being in involuntary bondage, as his property is (according to Scripture) a man-stealer.

That the slaves ought instantly to be set free, and brought under the protection of law.

That if they had lived from the time of Pharaoh down to the present period, and had been entailed through successive generations, their right to be free could never have been alienated, but their claims would have constantly risen in solemnity.

That all those laws which are now in force, admitting the right of slavery, are therefore, before God, utterly null and void; being an audacious usurpation of the Divine prerogative, a daring infringement on the law of nature, a base overthrow of the very foundations of the social compact, a complete extinction of all the relations, endearments, and obligations of mankind, and a presumptuous transgression of all the holy commandments – and that, therefore, they ought to be instantly abrogated.

He would ask if there was any thing here different from what he had read from his respected opponent? The sentiments were the same, though not given in Mr. Breckinridge's strong and glowing language. Mr. Breckinridge's description of slavery was even more methodical, clearer, and better arranged; he was therefore inclined to prefer it to the other. He would, however, ask Mr. Breckinridge not to persevere in speaking of the violence, as he called it, of the abolitionists, only in general terms. He hoped he would point out the instances to which he alluded, and not take advantage of them, because they were a handful and odious. They were not singular in being called odious. Noah was called odious by the men of his day, because he pointed out to them the wickedness of which they were guilty. Every reformer had been called odious, and he trusted to be always among those who were deemed odious by slaveholders and their apologists. He repeated, that he wished Mr. Breckinridge to forsake general allegations, and to specify time and place when he brought forward his charges. The time was passed, when, in Glasgow, vague assertions could produce any effect. The time was not, indeed, distant when even here the friends of negro freedom had been deemed odious – when they were a mere handful, met in a room in the Black Bull Inn. But from being odious they had become respectable, and from respectable triumphant, in consequence of their having renounced expediency, and taken their stand on the broad principles of truth and justice.

Mr. BRECKINRIDGE said, he had on so many occasions and in so many different forms uttered the sentiments contained in the passages which had just been read as his, that he was unable to say from what particular speech or writing they were taken. But he had no doubt that if the whole passage to which they belonged were read, it would be seen that they contained, in addition to what they had heard, the most unqualified condemnation of the irrational course pursued by the abolitionists. He believed also, that, whatever it was, that writing had been uttered by him in a slave state. For he could say for himself, that he had never said that of a brother behind his back, which he would be afraid or unwilling to repeat before his face. He had never gone to Boston, to cry back to Baltimore, how great a sin they were guilty of in upholding slavery. The worst things which he had said against slavery had been said in the slave states, and had Mr. Thompson gone there and seen with his two eyes, what he describes wholly upon hearsay, he would, perhaps, have understood the subject better than he seems to do. As he felt himself divinely commissioned, he should have felt no fear, he should have gone at whatever hazard, he should have seen slavery in its true colors, though he had read it in his own blood. If Saul of Tarsus had gone to America to see slavery – I dare to say, with the help of God, he would have been right sure to see it. He did not say that Mr. T. should have gone to the Southern states if his life was likely to be endangered by his going there; but he would say this, that Mr. Thompson ought not to pretend, that he had been, in the least degree, a martyr in the cause, when, in reality, he had exercised the most masterly discretion. With regard to the acts of the abolitionists, as he had been called on to mention particulars, he could not say that he had ever heard of their having killed any person, nor had he ever heard of any of them being killed. He might mention, however, that he himself had once almost been mobbed in Boston, and, that too, by a mob stirred up against him, by placards, written, as he believed, by William Lloyd Garrison. He had never obtained direct proof of this, but he might state, as a reason for his belief, that the inflammatory placards were of the precise breadth and appearance of the columns of Garrison's paper – the Liberator, and the breadth of the columns of no other newspaper in that city. Mr. B. stated a second case, in which, on the arrival at the city of New York of the Rev. J. L. Wilson, a missionary to Western Africa, in charge of two lads, the sons of two African kings, committed by their fathers to the Maryland Colonization Society for education; some friends of the Anti-Slavery Society of that city, with the concurrence, if not by the procurement, as was universally believed, of Elizur Wright, Jr., a leading person, and Secretary of the principal society of abolitionists – got out a writ to take the bodies of the boys, under the pretence of believing, that they had been kidnapped in Africa. These two cases he considered, would perhaps satisfy Mr. T's appetite for facts in the meantime; he would have plenty more of them when they came to the main question of debate. One other instance, and he would have done. There was a law in the United States, that if a slave run away from one of the slaveholding states, to any of the non-slaveholding states, the authorities of the latter were bound to give him up to his master. A runaway slave had been confined in New York prison, previous to being sent home, an attempt was made to stir up a mob, for the purpose of liberating him. A bill instigating the people to take the laws into their own hands, was traced to an abolitionist – the same Elizur Wright, Jr. He brought to the office of one of the principal city papers, a denial of the charge – in a note signed by him in his official capacity. He was told that was insufficient, as it was in his individual, not in his official capacity, that he was supposed to have done the act in question. He replied, it would be time to make the denial in that form, when the charge was so specifically made; meantime he considered the actual denial sufficient. Then, sir, said one present, I charge you with writing the placard – for I saw it in your hand writing. These instances were sufficient to prove the charge of violence which he had made was not unfounded. In reference to the statement made by Mr. Thompson regarding the number of slaves in the United States, at the commencement of the Revolution, Mr. B. said, it was impossible to know precisely what number there was at that time, as there had been no statistical returns before 1790, at which time there were six hundred and sixty-five thousand slaves in the five original slave states. The exertions of the American nation to put an end to slavery were treated with ridicule, but he would have them to bear in mind, that there were in the United States four hundred thousand free people of color, all of whom, or their progenitors, had been set free by the people of America, and not one of these, so far as he knew, had been liberated by an abolitionist. In addition to these, there were not less than four thousand more in Africa, many of whom had been freed from fetters and sent to that country. He would ask if all this was to be counted as nothing. If they were to consider for a moment the enormous sum which it would take to ransom so many slaves, they would perceive the value of the sacrifice. They might say that they had given $150,000,000 towards the abolition of slavery. It might seem selfish to talk of it thus; but if the conduct of Great Britain, rich and powerful as she was, was not reckoned worthy of praise for having done an act of justice, in granting emancipation to the West India slaves, at the cost of $100,000,000, or £20,000,000, how much more might be said of £30,000,000, being paid by a few comparatively poor and scattered communities, and individual men. They had been told some fine stories of a mahogany table, to which the people of America had tied themselves, and they were left to infer that it was quite easy, that it merely required the exertion of will, for them to set their slaves free. Now, on this head, he would only ask, had he the power of fixing the place of his birth? No. Nor had he any hand in making the laws of the place where he was born, nor the power of altering them. They might, indeed, be altered and he ought to add, they would have been altered already, but for the passionate and intemperate zeal of the abolitionists; but for the conduct of those who tell the slaveholders of the Southern states, that they must at once give freedom to the slaves, at whatever cost or whatever hazard, and unless they do so, they will be denounced on the house-tops, by all the vilest names which language can furnish, or the imagination of man can conceive. And what was the answer the planters gave to these disturbers of the public peace? First, coolly, 'there's the door;' and next, 'if you try to tell these things to those, who, when they learn them, will at once turn round and cut our throats, we must take measures to prevent your succeeding.' Such conduct was just what was to be expected on the part of the slaveholders. They saw these men coming among their slaves, and where they could not appeal to their judgments, endeavoring to speak to the eyes of the black population by prints, representing their masters, harsh and cruel. It was not surprising that such unwise conduct should beget a bitter feeling of opposition among the inhabitants of the Southern states. They themselves knew too well the critical nature of their position, and the dangers of tampering with the passions of the black population. Let him who doubted go to the Southern states, and he would learn that those harsh laws, in regard to slavery, which had been so much condemned, were passed immediately after some of those insurrections, those spasmodic efforts of the slaves to free themselves by violence, which could never end in good, and which the conduct of the abolitionists was calculated continually to renew. They ought to take these things into account when they heard statements made about the strong excitement against the abolitionists. He would repeat what he had before stated, that the cause of emancipation had been ruined by that small party with which Mr. Thompson had identified himself: but to whose chariot wheels he trusted the people of this country would never suffer themselves to be bound.

Mr. GEORGE THOMPSON said, the work he had to do in reference to the last speech was by no means great or difficult. They had heard a great many things stated by Mr. Breckinridge on the great question in debate, but every one of these had been stated a thousand times before, and answered again and again within the last sixty years. Within these very walls they had heard many of them brought forward and refuted within the last four years. But there was one part of his opponent's speech to which he would reply with emphasis. And he could not but confess that he had listened to that one part of it with surprise. He knew Mr. Breckinridge to be the advocate of gradual emancipation; he (Mr. Thompson) had therefore come prepared to hear all the arguments employed by the gradualists, urged in the ablest manner, but he had not been prepared to hear from that gentleman's lips the things he had heard – he did not expect that the foul charge of stirring up a mob against Mr. Breckinridge for advocating the principles of colonization, would be brought against William Lloyd Garrison. But they would here see the propriety and utility of his calling upon his opponent to leave generalities and come to something specific – to lay his finger on a fact which could be examined and tested circumstantially. And what did they suppose was the truth in the present case? Simply this, that when Mr. Breckinridge came forward to explain the principles of the Maryland colonization scheme, the noisy rabble who sought to mob, did so only so long as they were under the impression that he was an abolitionist. Mr. B. and his brother, who was along with him on that occasion, did their best to let the meeting know that they were not abolitionists but colonizationists, and whenever the mob learned that, they became quiet. This was the fact in regard to that case – he would willingly stake the merits of the whole question on the truth of what he had just stated, and he would call on Mr. B. to say whether it was not true; he would call on him to exhibit the placard which had been written by Mr. Garrison, or tell what it contained. He had a copy of the Liberator of the day referred to, and he would ask him to point out a single word in it which could be found fault with. He would dare Mr. B. to find a single sentence in that paper calculated to stir up a mob, or to induce any one to hurt a single hair of his head. With regard to the Maryland colonization scheme, he was not going to enter upon its discussion at that hour of the evening, but the next evening, if they were spared, he would endeavor to show the gross iniquity of that scheme, recommended as it was by Mr. Breckinridge. In the mean time, to return to the next charge, they were told of an active abolitionist – Elizur Wright. And here he would at once say, that it was too bad to bring such a charge against an individual like Elizur Wright, than whom he knew no man, either on this or the the other side of the Atlantic, whose nature was more imbued with the milk of human kindness, or whose heart was more alive to the dictates of Christian charity – it was too bad, he repeated, to bring such a charge against that man, unless it could be substantiated beyond the possibility of doubt. They were told that Elizur Wright had stirred up the people of New York to insurrection, by inflammatory placards. Here indeed was a serious charge, but they ought to know what these placards were. Again, he would call upon Mr. B. to show a copy of the placard, or to say what were its contents. In explanation of the matter he might state to the meeting that there was a little truth in what had been said about this matter; and in order to make them understand the case properly, they must first know, that in New York there were at all times a number of runaway slaves, and also, that there was in the same city a class of men, who, at least wore the human form, and who were even allowed to appear as gentlemen, whose sole profession was that of kidnappers; their only means of subsistence was derived from laying hold of these unfortunates, and returning them to their masters in the South. Nothing was more common than advertisements from these gentlemen kidnappers in the newspapers, in which they offered their services to any slave master whose slaves had run off. All that was necessary was merely that twenty dollars should be transmitted to them under cover, with the marks of the runaway who was soon found out if in the city, and with the clutch of a demon, seized and dragged to prison. These were the kidnappers. And who was Elizur Wright? He was the man who at all times was found ready to sympathise with those poor unfortunate outcasts, to pour the balm of consolation into their wounds – to come into the Recorder's Court, and stand there to plead the cause of the injured African at the risk of his life – undeterred by the execrations of the slave-masters, or the knife of his myrmidons. And was it a high crime that on some occasions he had been mistaken. But Elizur Wright would be able to reply to the charge himself. The account of this meeting would soon find its way to America, and he would then have an opportunity of justifying himself. As to the charge of error in his statistics, on the subject of American Slavery, it was very easily set at rest. He had said that the slave population amounted to but three hundred thousand, at the date of the Union, and that it was now two millions. The latter statement was not questioned, but it was said that there were no authentic returns at the date of the Union, and consequently, that it was impossible to say precisely. But although they could not say exactly, they could come pretty near the truth, even from the statement of Mr. Breckinridge. That gentleman admitted, that in 1790, there were only six hundred and sixty-five thousand slaves in the states. He (Mr. T.) had said, that in 1776, there were only three hundred thousand; but as the population in America doubled itself in twenty-four years, he was warranted in saying that there was no great discrepancy. But the question with him did not depend upon any particular number or any particular date. It would have been quite the same for his argument, he contended, whether he had taken six hundred and sixty-five thousand in 1790, or three hundred thousand in 1776. All that he had wished to show, was the rapid increase of the slave population, and consequently, of the vice and misery inherent in that system, even while the American people professed themselves to be so anxious to put an end to it altogether. Had he wished to dwell on this part of the argument, he could also have shown, that the increase of the slave population during the first twenty years of the Union, had gone on more rapidly even during that time, the trade in slaves having been formally recognised by the Constitution during that period, and a duty of $10 imposed on every slave imported into the United States. The following was the clause from the Constitution:

Sec. IX. The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited prior to the year 1808, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding $10 for each person.

To sum up Mr. Breckinridge's last address, what, he would ask, had been its whole aim? Clearly, that they should consider the abolitionists as the chief promoters of all the riots that had taken place in America on this question, by making inflammatory appeals to the passions of the people. He would call upon Mr. Breckinridge again, to lay his hand on a single proof of this. He would call upon him to point out a single instance where language had been used which was in any degree calculated to call up the blood-thirsty passions of the mob as had been represented. If the planters of the South were roused into fury by the declaration of anti-slavery sentiments – if they were unable to hear the everlasting truths which it promulgated, was that a sufficient reason for those to keep silent who felt it to be their duty, at all hazards, to make known these truths. Or were they to be charged with raising mobs, because the people were enraged to hear these truths. As well might Paul of Tarsus have been charged with the mobs which rose against his life, and that of his fellow-apostles. As well might Galileo be charged with those persecutions which immured him in a dungeon. As well might the apostles of truth in every age be charged with the terrible results which ensued from the struggle of light and darkness. In conclusion, Mr. Thompson said, that on the following evening, he would take up the question of the Maryland colonization scheme.