JHHammond_Slavery

J. H. Hammond, Slavery in the Light of Political Science (1845)

J. H. Hammond's Slavery in the Light of Political Science is a classic example of a pro-slavery argument. Hammond wrote the essay as a letter in 1845 to counter an abolitionist letter that was being circulated in the nation at the time. In 1852 Hammond's letter was published and distributed widely in a collection of essays, The Pro-Slavery Argument. Hammond's essay is an example of the common trend among Southerners in the 1840s and 1850s to stop defending slavery as a "necessary evil" but rather as a "positive good."

Letter I

Statement of the Question Slave Trade increased by the efforts made to suppress itTitle to Slaves, to LandsAbstract Ideas Is Slavery Sin? Argument from the Old TestamentArgument from the. New TestamentThe “Higher Law"Political Influence of SlaveryFree Labor PoliceIn war, Slavery is StrengthCode of HonorMercantile CreditReligion and EducationLicentiousness and PurityEconomy of Slave Labor, and of Free LaborResponsibility of PowerKindness end CrueltyCurtailment of Privileges-Punishment of Slaves, children and soldiersPolice of SlaveryCondition of SlavesCondition of Free Laborers in England a necessary condition of human SocietyMoral Suasion of the Abolitionists-Coolie LaborResults of Emancipation in the West IndiesRadicalism of the Present Age

SILVER BLUFF, (SO.CA.,) JANUARY 28, 1845

SIR: I received, a short time ago, a letter from the Rev. Willoughby Dickinson, dated at your residence, “Playford Hall, near Ipswich, 26th November 1844", in which was inclosed a copy of your circular Letter, addressed to professing Christians in our Northern States , having no concern with slavery, and to others there. I presume that Mr. Dickinson’s letter was written with your knowledge, and the document inclosed with your consent and approbation. I therefore feel that there is no impropriety in my addressing my reply directly to yourself, especially as there is nothing in Mr. Dickinson’s communication requiring serious notice. Having abundant leisure, it will be a recreation to devote a portion of it to an examination and free discussion of the question of slavery as it exists in our southern states: and since you have thrown down the gauntlet to me , I do not hesitate to take it up.

Familiar as you have been with the discussions of this subject in all its aspects, and under all the excitements it has occassioned for sixty years past, I may not be able to present much that will be new to you. Nor ought I to indulge the hope of materially affecting the opinions you have so long cherished and so zealously promulgated. Still, time and experience have developed facts, constantly furnishing fresh tests to opinions formed sixty years since, and continually placing this great question in points of view, which could scarcely occur to the most consummate intellect even a quarter of a century ago: and which may not have occurred yet to those whose previous convictions, prejudices, and habits of thought, have thoroughly and permanently biased them to one fixed way of looking at the matter: while there are peculiarities in the operation of every social system, and special local as well se moral causes materially affecting it, which no one, placed at the distance yon are from us, can fully comprehend or properly appreciate. Besides, it may be possibly, a novelty to you to encounter one who conscientiously believes the domestic slavery of these States to be not only an inexorable necessity for the present, but a moral and humane institution, productive of the greatest political and social advantages, and who is disposed, as I am, to defend it on these grounds.

I do not propose, however, to defend the African slave trade. That is no longer a question. Doubtless great evils arise from it as it has been, and is now conducted: unnecessary wars and cruel kidnapping in Africa: the most shocking barbarities in the middle passage: and perhaps a less humane system of slavery in countries continually supplied with fresh laborers at a cheap rate. The evils of it, however, it may be fairly presumed, are greatly exaggerated. And if I might judge of the truth of transactions stated as occurring in this trade, by that of those reported as transpiring among us, I should not hesitate to say that a large proportion of the stories in circulation are unfounded, and most of the remainder highly colored. On the passage of the Act of Parliament prohibiting this trade to British subjects rests, what you esteem, the glory of your life. It required twenty years of arduous agitation, and the intervening, extraordinary political events, to convince your countryman, and among the rest your pious king, of the expediency of the measure: and it is but just to say, that no one individual rendered more essential service to the cause than you did. In reflecting on the subject, you can not but often ask yourself: What, after all has been accomplished; how much human suffering has been averted; how many human beings have been rescued from transatlantic slavery? And on the answers you can give these questions, must in a great measure, I presume, depend the happiness of your life: In framing them, how frequently must you be reminded of the remark of Mr. Grosvenor, in one of the early debates upon the subject, which I believe you have yourself recorded, that he had twenty objections to the abolition of the slave trade: the first was, that it was impossiblethe rest he need not give.” Can you say to yourself, or to the world, that this first objection of Mr. Grosvenor has been yet confuted? It was estimated at the commencement of your agitation in 1787, that fortyfive thousand Africans were annually transported to America and the West Indies. And the mortality of the middle passage; computed by some at five, is now admitted not to have exceed nine per cent. Notwithstanding your Act of Parliament, the previous abolition by the United States, and that all the powers in the world have subsequently prohibited this tradesome, of the greatest of them declaring it piracy and covering the African Seas with armed vessels to prevent itSir Thomas Fowel Buxton, a coadjutor of yours, declared in 1840, that the number of Africans now annually sold into slavery beyond the sea, amounts, at the very least, to one hundred and fifty thousand souls; while the mortality of the middle passage has increased, in consequence of the measures taken to suppress the trade, to twentyfive or thirty per cent. And of the one hundred and fifty thousand slaves who have been captured and liberated by British menofwar, since the passage of your. let, Judge Jay, an American abolitionist, asserts that one hundred thousand, or twothirds, have perished between their capture and liberation. Dose it not really seem that Mr. Grosvenor was a prophet? That though nearly all the “impossibilities” of 1787 have vanished, and become as familiar fasts as our household customs under the magic influence of steam, cotton, and universal peace, yet this wonderful prophecy still stands, defying time and the energy and genies of mankind. Thousands of valuable lives, and fifty millions of pounds sterling, have been thrown away by your government in fruitless attempts to overturn it. I hope you have not lived too long for your own happiness, though you have been spared to see that in spite of all your toils and those of your fellow laborers and the accomplishment of all that human agency could do, the African slave trade increased threefold under your own eyesmore rapidly, perhaps, than any other ancient branch of commerceand that your efforts to suppress it, have affected nothing more than a threefold increase of its horrors. There is a God who rules this worldallpowerfulfarseeing: He does not permit his creatures to foil his designs. It is he who, for his allwise, though to us often inscrutable purposes, throws “impossibilities” in the way of our fondest hopes and most strenuous exertions. Can you doubt this?

Experience having settled the point, that this trade can not be abolished by the use of force,and that blockading squadrons serve only to make it more profitable and more cruel, I am surprised that the attempt is persisted in, unless it serves as a cloak to other purposes. It would be far better than it now is, for the African, if the trade was free from all restrictions, and left to the mitigation and decay which time and competition would surely bring about. If kidnapping, both secretly, and by war made for the purpose, could be by any means prevented in Africa, the next greatest blessing you could bestow upon that country would be to transport its actual slaves in comfortable vessels across the Atlantic Though they might be perpetual bondsmen, still they would emerge from darkness into lightfrom barbarism into civilization from idolatry to Christianityin short from death to life.

But let us leave the African slave trade, which has so signally defeated the philanthropyof the world, and turn to American slavery, to which you have now directed your attention, and against which a crusade has been preached so enthusiastic and, ferocious as that of Peter the Hermitdestined, I believe, to be about as successful. And here let me say, there is a vast different rate between the two, though you may not acknowledge it. The wisdom of ages has concurred in the justice and expediency of establishing rights by prescriptive use, however tortuous in the origin they may have been. You would deem a man insane whose keen sense of equity would load him to denounce your right to the lands yon hold, and which perhaps you inherited from a long line of ancestry, because your title was derived from a Saxon or Norman conqueror, and your lands were originally wrested by violence from the vanquished Britons. And so would the New England abolitionists regard any one who world insist that be should restore his farm to the descendants of the slaughtered red men, to whom God had as clearly given it as he gave life and freedom to the kidnapped African. That time does not consecrate wrong, is a fallacy which all history exposes; and which the best and wisest men of all age and professions of religious faith have practically denied. The means, therefore, whatever they may have been, by which the African race now in this country have been reduced to slavery, cannot affect us, since they are our property, as your land is yours, by inheritance or purchase prescriptive right. You will say that man cannot hold property in man. The answer is, that he can and actually does hold property in his fellow all the world over, in a variety of forms, and has always done so I willshow presently his authority for doing it.

If you were to ask me whether I am an advocate of slavery in the abstract, I should probably answer, that I am not, according to my understanding of the question. I do not like to deal in abstractions. It seldom leads to any useful ends. There are few universal truths. I do not now remember any single moral truth universally acknowledged. We have no assurance that it is given ell to our finite understanding to comprehend abstract moral truth. Apart from revelation and the inspired writings, what ideas should we have even of God, salvation, and immortality? Let the heathen answer. Justice itself is impalpable as and abstract liberty the merest phantasy that ever amused the imagination. This world was made for man, and man for the world as it is. We ourselves, our relations with one another and with all matter, are real, not ideal. I might say that I am no more in favor of slavery in the abstract, than I am of poverty disease, deformity, idiocy, or any other inequality in the condition of the human family; that I love perfection, and think I should enjoy a millennium each as God has promised. But what would it amount to? A pledge that I would join you to set about nit eradicating those apparently inevitable evils of our nature, equalizing the condition of all mankind, consummating the perfection of our race, and introducing the millennium? By no means. To effect these things, belongs exclusively to a higher power And it would be well for us to leave the Almighty to perfect his own works and fulfill his own covenants. Especially as the history of the past shows how entirely futile all human efforts have proved, when made for the purpose of riding him in carrying out even his revealed designs, and how invariably he has accomplished them by unconscious instruments, and in the face of human expectation. Nay more, that every attempt which has been trade by fallible man to extort from the world obedience to his “abstract” notions of right and wrong, has been invariably attended with calamities dire, and extended just in proportion to the breadth and vigor of the movement. On slavery in the abstract then, it world not be amiss to have as little as possible to say. Let us contemplate it as it is. And thus contemplating it, the first question we have to ask ourselves is, whether it is contrary to the will of God, as revealed to us in his Holy Scriptures the only certain means given us, to ascertain his will. If it is. then slavery is a sin. And I admit at once that every man is,bound to set his face against it, and to emancipate his slave, should he hold any.

Let us open these Holy Scriptures. In the twentieth chapter of Exodus, seventeenth verse, I find the following words: “thou, shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, D'’ his ox, nor his age, nor any thing that is thy neighbor’s” which is the tenth of those commandments that declare the essential principles of the great moral law delivered to Moses by God himself. Now, discarding all technical and verbal quibbling wholly unworthy to be used in interpreting the word of God what is the plain meaning, undoubted intent, and true spirit of this commandment? Does it not emphatically and explicitly forbid you to disturb your neighbor in the enjoyment of his property; and more especially of that which is here specifically mentioned as being lawfully, and by this commandment made sacredly his? Prominent in the catalogue stands his “manservant and his maidservant,” who are thus distinctly consecrated as his property, and guaranteed to him for his exclusive benefit, in the most solemn manner. You attempt to avert the otherwise irresistible conclusion, that slavery was thus ordained by God, by declaring that the word “slave” is not used here, and is not to be found in the Bible. And I have seen many learned dissertations, on this point from abolition pens. It is well known that both Hebrew and Greek words translated “servant” in the Scriptures means also, and most usually, “slave,” The use of the one word, instead of the other, was a mere matter of taste with the translators of the Bible, as it has been with all the commentators and religious writers, the latter of whom have, I believe, for the most part, adapted the term “slave,” or need both terms indiscriminately. If, then, these Hebrew and Greek words include the idea of both systems of servitude, the conditional and unconditional, they should, as the major includes the minor proposition he always translated “slaves,” unless the sense of the whole text forbids it. The real question, then is, what idea is intended to be conveyed by the words need in the commandment quote? And it is clear to my mind, that as no limitation is affixed to them, and the express intention was to secure to mankind the peaceful enjoyment of every species of property, that the terms “men and maidservants” include all classes of servants, and establish a lawful, exclusive, and indefeasible interest equally in the “Hebrew brother who shall go out in the seventh year,” and the yearly hired servant,” and “those purchased from the heathen round about,” who were to be” bondmen forever;” as the property of their fellowman.

You cannot deny that there were among the Hebrews “bondmen forever.” You cannot deny that God especially authorized chosen people to purchase “bondmen forever” from the heathen as recorded in the twentyfifth chapter of Leviticus’ and that they are there designated by the very Hebrew word used in tenth commandment. Nor can you deny that a ” BONDMAN FOREVER” is a “SLAVE;” you endeavor to hang an argument of immortal consequence upon the wretched subterfuge, that the precise word “slave” is not to be found in the translation of the Bible. As if the translators were canonical expounders of the Holy Scriptures, and their words, not God’s meaning, must be regarded as his revelation.

It is vain to look to Christ or any of his apostles to justify such blasphemous perversions of the word of God. Although slavery in its most revolting form was everywhere visible around them, visionary notions of piety or philanthropy ever tempted them to gainsay the law, even to mitigate the cruel severity of the existing system On the contrary, regarding slavery as an established as well as inevitable condition of human society, they never hinted at such a thing as its termination on earth, any more than that “the poor may cease out of the land,” which God affirms to Moses shall never be: and they exhort “all servants under the yoke” to “count their masters as worthy of all honor:” “to obey them in all things according to the flesh; not with eye-service as menpleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God;” “not only the good and gentle, but also the froward: “for what glory is it if when ye are buffeted for your faults ye shall take it patiently? But if when ye do well and suffer for it ye take it patiently, this is acceptable to God.” St. Paul actually apprehended a runaway slave, and sent him to his master! Instead of deriving from the gospel any sanction for the work you have undertaken, it would be difficult to imagine sentiments and conduct more strikingly in contrast, than those of the apostles and the abolitionists.

It is impossible, therefore, to suppose that slavery is contrary to the will of God. It is equally absurd to say that American slavery differs in form or principle from that of the chosen people. We accept the Bible terms as the definition of our slavery, and its precepts as the guide of our conduct. We desire nothing more. Even the right to buffet,” which is esteemed so shocking, finds its express license in the gospel. 1 Peter ii. 20. Nay, what is more, God directs the Hebrews to “bore holes in the ears of their brothers” to mark them, when under certain circumstances they be. come perpetual slaves. Exodus xxi. 6.

I think, then, I may safely conclude, and I firmly believe, that American slavery is not only not a sin, but especially common led by God through Moses, and approved by Christ through his apostles. And here I might close its defense; for what God ordains, and Christ sanctifies should surely command the respect and toleration of man. But I fear there has grown up in our time, a transcendental religion, which is throwing even transcendental philosophy into the shade a religion too pure and elevated for the Bible; which seeks to erect among men a higher standard of morals than the Almighty has revealed, or our Saviour preached and which is probably destined to do more to impede the extension of God’s kingdom on earth than all the infidels who have ever lived. Error is error. It is as dangerous to deviate to the right hand as to the left. And when men, professing to be holy men, and who are by numbers so regarded, declare those things to be sinful which our Creator has expressly authorized and instituted, they do more to destroy his authority among mankind than the most wicked can effect, by proclaiming that to be innocent which lie has forbidden. To this self-righteous and self-exalted class belong all the abolitionists whose writings I have read. With them it is no end of the argument to prove your propositions by the text of the Bible, interpreted according to its plain and palpable meaning, and as understood by all mankind for three thousand years before their time. They are more, ingenious at construing and interpolating to accommodate it to their newfangled and ethereal code of morals, than ever were Voltaire and Hums in picking it to pieces, to free the world from what they considered a delusion. When the abolitionists proclaim “manstealing” to be a sin, and show me that it is so written down by God, I admit them to be right and shudder at the idea of such a crime. But when I show them that to hold “bondmen forever” is ordained, by God they deny the Bible, and set up in its place a law of their own making. I must then cease to reason with them on this branch of the question. Our religion differs as widely as our manners. The great Judge in our day of final account must decide between us.

Turning from the consideration of slaveholding in its relations to man as an accountable being, let us examine it in its influence , on his political and social state. Though, being foreigners to us, you are in no wise entitled to interfere with the civil institutions of this country, it has become quite common for your country men to decry slavery as an enormous political evil to you and even to declare that our Northern States ought to withdraw from the Confederacy rather than continue to be contaminated by it. The American abolitionists appear to concur fully in these sentiments, and a portion, at least, of them are incessantly threatening to dissolve the Union. Nor should I be at all surprised if they succeed. It would not be difficult, in my opinion, to conjecture which region, the North or South, would suffer most by such an event. For one, I should not object, by any means, to cast my lot in a confederacy of States whose citizens might all be slave holders.

I indorse without reserve the much abused sentiment of Governor M'Duffie, that “slavery is the cornerstone of our republican edifice;” while I repudiate, as ridiculously absurd, that much lauded but nowhere accredited dogma of Mr. Jefferson that all men are born equal."[1] No society has ever yet existed and I have already incidentally quoted the highest authority to show that none ever will exist, without a natural variety of classes. The most marked of these must, in a country like ours, be the rich and the poor, the educated and the ignorant. It will scarcely be disputed that the very poor have less leisure to prepare themselves for the proper discharge of public duties than the rich; and that the ignorant are wholly unfit for them at all. In all countries save ours, these two classes, or the poor rather, who are presumed to be necessarily ignorant, are by law expressly excluded from all participation in the management of public affairs. In a Republican Government this can not be done. Universal suffrage, though not essential in theory, seems to be in fact a necessary appendage to a republican system. Where universal suffrage obtains, it is obvious that the government is in the hands of a numerical majority; and it is hardly necessary to say that in every part of the world more than half the people are ignorant and poor. Though no one can look upon poverty as a crime, and we do not here generally regard it as any objection to a man in his individual capacity, still it must be admitted that it is a wretched and insecure government which is administered by its moat ignorant citizens, and those who have the least at stake under it. Though intelligence and wealth have greatinfluence here, as everywhere, in keeping in check reckless and unenlightened numbers, yet it is evident to close observers, if not to all, that these are rapidly usurping all power in the nonslaveholding States, and threaten a fearful crisis in republican institutions there at no remote period. In the slaveholding States, however, nearly onehalf of the whole population, and those the poorest and moat ignorant, have no political influence whatever, because they are slaves. Of the other half, a large proportion are both educated and independent in their circumstances, while those who unfortunately are not so, being still elevated far above the mass, are higher toned and more deeply interested in preserving a stable and well ordered government, than the same class in any other Country. Hence slavery is truly the “cornerstone” and foundation of every well designed and durable “republican edifice.”

With us every citizen is concerned is the maintenance of order, and in promoting honesty and industry among those of the lowest class who are our slaves; and our habitual vigilance renders standing armies, whether of soldiers or policemen, entirely unnecessary. Small guards in our cities, and occasional patrols is the country, insure us a repose and security known no where else. You can not be ignorant that, excepting the United States , there is no country in the world whose existing government would not be overturned in a month, but for its standing armies, maintained at an enormous and destructive cost to those whom they are destined to overawe so rampant and combative is the spirit of discontent wherever nominal free labor prevails, with its extensive privileges and its dismal servitude. Nor will it be long before the “free States” of this Union will be compelled to introduce the same expensive machinery, to preserve order among their “free and equal” citizens. Already has Philadelphia organized a permanent battalion for this purpose; New York, Boston and Cincinnati will soon follow her example; and. then the smaller towns and densely populated counties. The intervention of their militia to repress violations of the peace is becoming a daily affair. A strong government, after some of the old fashions — though probably with a new name — sustained by the force of armed mercenaries, is the ultimate destiny of the non-slaveholding section of this confederacy, and one which may not be very distant

It is a great mistake to suppose, as is generally done abroad; that in case of war slavery would be a source of weakness. It did not weaken Rome, nor Athens, nor Sparta, though their slaves were comparatively far more numerous than ours, of the same color for the most part with themselves, and large numbers of them familiar with the use of arms. I have no apprehension that our slaves would seize such an opportunity to revolt. The present generation of them, born among us, would never think of such a thing at anytime, unless instigated to it by others. Against such instigations we are always on our guard. In time of war we should be more watchful and better prepared to put down insurrections than at any other periods Should any foreign nation be so lost to every sentiment of civilized humanity, as to attempt to erect among us the standard of revolt, or to invade us with black troops, for the base and barbarous purpose of stirring up servile war, their efforts world be signally rebuked. on, slaves could not be easily seduced, nor would any thing delight them more than to assist in stripping Cuffee of his regimentals to put him in the cottonfield, which would be the fate of most black invaders, without any very prolix form of “apprenticeship". If, as I am satisfied would be the case, our slaves remained peaceful on our plantations, and cultivated them in time of war under the superintendence of a limited number of our citizens, it is obvious that we could put forth more strength in such an emergency, at less sacrifice, than any other people of the same numbers. And thus we should in every point of view, “out of this nettle danger, pluck the flower safety.”

How far slavery may be an advantage or disadvantage to those not owning slaves, yet united with us in political association, is a question for their sole consideration. It is true that our representation in Congress is increased by it. But so are our taxes; and the nonslaveholding States, being the majority, divide among themselves far the greater portion of the amount levied by the Federal Government. And I doubt not that, when it comes to a close calculation, they will not be slow in finding out that the balance of profit arising from the connection is vastly in their favor.

In a social point of view the abolitionists pronounce slavery to be a monstrous evil. If it was so, it would be our own peculiar concern, and superfluous benevolence in them to lament over it. Seeing their bitter hostility to us, they might leave us to cope with our own calamities. But they make war upon us out of excess of charity, and attempt to purify by covering us with calumny. Yon have read and assisted to circulate a great deal about affrays, duels and murders, occurring here, and all attributed to the terrible demoralization of slavery. Not a single event of this sort takes place among us, but it is caught up by the abolitionists, and paraded over the world, with endless comments, variations and exaggerations. Yon should not take what reaches you as a mere sample, and infer that there is a vast deal more you never hear. You hear all, and more than all, the truth.

It is true that the point of honor is recognized throughout the slave region, and that disputes of certain classes are frequently referred for adjustment, to the “trial by combat'? It would not be appropriate for me to enter, in this letter, into a defense of the practice of duelling, nor to maintain at length, that it does not tarnish the character of a people to acknowledge a standard of honor. Whatever evils may arise from it, however, they can not be attributed to slavery, since the same custom prevails both in France and England. Few of your Prime Ministers, of the last half century even, have escaped the contagion, I believe. The affrays, of which so much is said, and in which rifles, bowieknives and pistols are so prominent, occur mostly in the frontier States of the SouthWest. They are naturally incidental to the condition of society, as it exists in many sections of these recently settled countries, and will as naturally cease in due time. Adventurers from the older States, and from Europe, as desperate in character as they are in fortune, congregate in these wild regions, jostling one another and often forcing the peaceable and honest into rencontres in selfdefense. Slavery has nothing to do with these things. Stability and peace are the first, desires of every slaveholder, and the true tendency of the system. It could not possibly exist amid the eternal anarchy and civil broils of the ancient Spanish dominions in America. And for this very reason, domestic slavery has ceased there. So far from encouraging strife, such scenes of riot and bloodshed, as have within the last few years disgraced our Northern cities, and as you have lately witnessed in Birmingham and Bristol and Wales, not only never have occurred, but I will venture to say, never will occur in our slaveholding States. The only thing that can create a mob (as you might call it) here, is the appearance of an abolitionist, whom the people assemble to chastise. And this is no more of a mob, than a rally of shepherds to chase a wolf out of their pastures would be one.

But we are swindlers and repudiators? Pennsylvania is not a slave State. A majority of the States which have failed to meet their obligations punctually are nonslaveholding; and twothirds of the debt said to be repudiated is owed by these States. Many of the States of this Union are heavily encumbered with debt — none so hopelessly as England. Pennsylvania owes $22 for each inhabitantEngland $222, counting her paupers in. Nor has there been any repudiation definite and final, of a lawful debt that I am aware of. A few States have failed to pay some installments of interest. The extraordinary financial difficulties which occurred a few years ago will account for it. Time will set all things right again. Every dollar of both principal and interest, owed by any State, North or South, will be ultimately paid, unless the abolition of slavery overwhelms us all in one common ruin. But have no other nations failed to pay? When were the French Assignats redeemed? How much interest did your National Bank pay on its immense circulation from1797 to 1821, during which period that circulation was inconvertible, and for the time repudiated? How much of your national debt has been incurred for money borrowed to meet the interest on it, thus avoiding delinquency in detail, by insuring inevitable bankruptcy and repudiation in the end? And what sort of operation was that by which your present Ministry recently expunged a handsome amount of that debt by substituting, through a process just not compulsory, one species of security for another? I am well aware that the faults of others do not excuse your own, but when failings are charged to slavery, which are shown to occur to equal extent where it does not exist, surely slavery must be acquitted of the accusation.

It is roundly asserted , that we are not so well educated nor so religious here as elsewhere. I will not go into tedious statistical statements on these subjects. Nor have I, to tell the truth, much confidence in the details of what are commonly set forth as statistics. As to education, you will probably admit that slaveholders should have more leisure for mental cultures than most people. And I believe it is charged against them, that they are peculiarly fond of power and ambitious of honors. If this be so, as all the power and honors of this country are won mainly by intellectual superiority, it may be fairly presumed that slaveholders would not be neglectful of education. In proof of the accuracy of this presumption, I point you to the facts, that our Presidential chair has been occupied for forty four out of forty six years by slaveholders; that another has been recently elected to fill it for four more, over an opponent who was a slaveholder also; and that is the Federal Offices and both Houses of Congress, considerably more than a due proportion of those acknowledged to stand in the first rank are from the south. In this arena, the intellects of the free and slave states meet in full and fair competition.

Nature must have been unusually beautiful to us, or we have been at least assiduous in the cultivation of such gifts as she has bestowed — unless indeed you refer our superiority to moral quantities, which I am sure you will not. More wealthy we are not; nor would mere wealth avail in such rivalry.

The piety of the South is unobtrusive. We think it proves but little, though it is a confident thing for a man to claim that he stands higher in the estimation of his Creator, and is less a sinner than his neighbor. If vociferation is to carry the question of religion , the North and probably the Scotch have it. Our sects are few and harmonious, pretty much united among themselves and pursue their avocations in humble peace. In fact, our professors of religion seem to think — whether correctly or not — that it is their duty “to do good in secret” and to carry their holy comforts to the heart of each individual, without reference to class or color, for his special enjoyment, and not with a view to exhibit their zeal before the world. So far as numbers are concerned, I believe our clergymen when called to make a showing, have never had occasion to blush, if comparisons were drawn between the free and slave States. And although our presses do not teem with controversial pamphlets, nor our pulpits shake with excommunicating thunders, the daily walk of our religious communicants furnishes, apparently, as little food for gossip as is to be found in most other regions. It may be regarded as a mark of our want of excitability — though that is a quality accredited to us in an eminent degree — that few if the remarkable religious Isms of the present day have taken root among us. We have been so irreverent as to laugh at Mormonism and Millerism which have created such commotions further North; and modern prophets have no honor in our country. Shakers, Rappists, Dunkers, Socialists, Fourrierists, and the like, keep themselves afar off. Even Puseyism has not yet moved us. You may attribute this to our domestic slavery if you choose. I believe you would do so justly. There is no material here for such characters to operate upon.

But your grand charge is, the licentiousness in intercourse between the sexes, is a prominent trait of our social system, and that it necessarily arises from slavery. This is a favorite theme with the abolitionists, male or female. Folios have been written on it. It is a common observation, that there is no subject on which ladies of eminent virtue so much delight to dwell, and our which in especial learned old maids; like Miss Martineau, linger with Such an insatiable relish. They expose it in the slave States with the most minute observance and endless iteration. Miss Martineau, with peculiar gusto, relates a series of scandalous Stories, which would have made Boccacio jealous of her pen, but which are so ridiculously false as to leave no doubt, that some wicked wag, knowing she would write a book, has furnished her materialsa game too often played on tourists in this country. The constant recurrence of the female abolitionists to this topic, and their bitterness in regard to it, cannot fail to suggest to even the most charitable mind, that

“Such rage without betrays the fires within.”

Nor are their immaculate coadjutors of the other sex, though perhaps less specific in their charges, less violent in their denunciacate lions. But recently in your island, a clergyman hue, at a public meeting, stigmatized the whole slave region as a “brothel.” Do those people thus cast stones, being “without sin?” Or do they only

“Compound for sins they are inclined to

By damning those they have no mind to.”

Alas that David and Solomon should be allowed to repose peace that Leo should be almost canonized, and Luther more than saintedthat in our own day courtezans should be formally licensed in Paris, and tenements in London rented for years to women of the town for the benefit of the church, with the knowledge of the bishop and the poor slave States of America alone pounced upon, and offered up as a holocaust on the altar of immaculateness to atone for the abuse of natural instinct by mankind; and if not actually consumed, at least exposed, unauthematized and held up to scorn, by those who

“Write,

Or with a rival’s or an eunuch’s spite.”

But I do not intend to admit that this charge is just or true. Without meaning to profess uncommon modesty, I will say I wish the topic could be avoided. I am of opinion, and 1 doubt not every rightminded man will concur, that the public exposes and discussion of this vice, even to rebuke, invariably does more harm than good; and that if it cannot be checked by instilling pure and virtuous sentiments, it is far worse than useless to attempt to do it, by exhibiting its deformities. I may not, however, pass it over; nor ought I to feel any delicacy in examining a questions to which the slaveholder is invited and challenged by clergymen and virgins. So far from allowing, then, that licentiousness pervades this region, I broadly assert, and I refer to the records of our courts, to the public press, and to the knowledge of all who have ever lived here, that among our white population there are fewer cases of divorce, separation, crim. con., seduction, rape and bastardy, than among any other five millions of people on the civilized earth. And this fact I believe will be conceded by the abolitionists of this country themselves. I am almost willing to refer it to them and submit to their decision on it. I would not hesitate to do so, if I thought them capable of an impartial judgment on any matter where slavery is in question. But it is said, that the licentiousness consists in the constant intercourse between white males and colored females. One of your heavy charges against us has been, that we regard and treat those people as brutes; you now charge us with habitually taking them to our bosoms. I will not comment on the inconsistency of these accusations. I will not deny that some intercourse of the sort does take place. Its character and extent, however, are grossly and atrociously exaggerated. No authority, divine or human, has yet been found sufficient to arrest all each irregularities among men. But it is a known fact, that they are perpetrated here for the most part, in the cities. Very few mulattoes are rearded on our plantations. In the cities, a large proportion of the inhabitants do not own slaves. A still larger proportion are natives of the North, or foreigners. They should share and justly, too an equal part in this sin with the slaveholders. Facts cannot be ascertained, or I doubt not, it world appear that they are the chief offenders. If the truth be otherwise, then persons from abroad have stronger prejudices against the African race than we have Be this as it may, it is well known, that this intercourse regarded in our society as highly disreputable. If carried on habitually it seriously affects a man’s standing, so far as it is known and he who takes a colored mistress with rare and extraordinary exceptions loses caste at once. You will say exception should damn our whole country. How much less criminal is it to take a white mistress? In your eyes it should be least an equal offense. Yet look around you at home, from the cottage to the throne, and count how many mistresses are kept in unblushing notoriety, without lose of caste. Such cases are nearly unknown here, and down even to the lowest walks of life, it is almost invariably fatal to a man’s position and prospects to keep a mistress openly, whether white or black. What Miss Martineau relates of a young man’s purchasing a colored concubine from a lady, and avowing his designs, is too absurd even for contradiction. No person would dare to allude to such a subject, in such a manner, to any decent female in this country.

After all, however, the number of the mixed breed, in proportion to that of the black, is infinitely small, and out of the towns next to nothing. And when it is considered that the African race has been among us for two hundred years, and that those of the mined breed continually intermarry — often rearing large families it is a decided proof of our continence, that so few comparatively are to be found. Our misfortunes are twofold. From the prolific propagation of these mongrels among themselves, we are liable to be charged by tourists with delinquencies where none have been committed, while, where one has been, it cannot be concealed. Color marks indelibly the offense, and reveals it to every eye. Conceive that, even in your virtuous and polished country, if every bastard, though all the circles of your social system, was thus branded by nature and known to all, what shocking developments might there not be! How little indignation might your saints have to spare for the licentiousness of the slave region. But I have done with this disgusting topic. And I think I may justly conclude, after all the scandalous charges which teatable gossip, and longgowned hypocrisy have brought against the slaveholders, that a people whose men are proverbially brave, intellectual and hospitable, and whose women are unaffectedly chaste, devoted to domestic life, and happy in it, can neither be degraded nor demoralized, whatever their institutions may be. My decided opinion is, that our system of slavery contributes largely to the development and culture of those high and noble qualities.

In an economical point of view — which I will not omit — slavery presents some difficulties. As a general rule, I agree it must be admitted, that free labor is cheaper than slave labor. It is a fallacy to suppose that ours is unpaid labor. The slave himself must be paid for, and thus his labor is all purchased at once, and for no trifling sum. His price was, in the first place, paid mostly to your countrymen, and assisted in building up some of those colossal English fortunes, since illustrated by patents of nobility, and splendid piles of architecture, stained and cemented, if you like the expression, with the blood of kidnapped innocents; but loaded with no heavier curses than abolition and its begotten fanaticisms have brought upon your land some of them fulfilled, some yet to be. But besides the first coat of the slave, he must be fed and clothed, well fed and well clothed, if not for humanity’s sake, that he may do good work, retain health and life, and rear a family to supply his place. When old or sick, he is a clear expense, and so is the helpless portion of his family. No poor law provides for him when unable to work, or brings up his children for our service when we need them. These are all heavy charges on slave labor. Hence, in all countries where the denseness of the population has reduced it to a matter of perfect certainty, that labor can be obtained, whenever wanted, and the laborer be forced, by sheer necessity, to hire for the smallest pittance that will keep soul and body together, and rags upon his back while in actual employment dependent at all other times on alms or poor rates — in all such countries it is found cheaper to pay this pittance, than to clothe, feed, nurse, support through childhood, and pension in old age, a race of slaves. Indeed, the advantage is so great as speedily to compensate for the loss of the value of the slave. And I have no hesitation in saying, that if I could cultivate my lands on these terms, I would, without a word, resign my slaves, provided they could be properly disposed of. But the question is, whether free or slave labor is cheapest to us in this country, at this time, situated as we are. And it is decided at once by. the fact that we can not avail ourselves of any other than slave labor. We neither have, nor can we procure, other labor to any extent, or on any thing like the terms mentioned. We must, therefore, content ourselves with our dear labor, under the consoling reflection that what is lost to us, is gained to humanity; and that, inasmuch as our slave coats us more than your flee men costs you, by so much is he better off. You will promptly say, emancipate your slaves, and then you will have free labor on suitable terms. That might be if there were five hundred where there now is one and the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific, was as densely populated as your Island. But until that comes to pass, no labor can be procured in America on the terms you have it.

While I thus freely admit that to the individual proprietor slave labor is dearer than free, I do not mean to admit as equally clear that it is dearer to the community and to the State. Though it is certain that the slave is a far greater consumer than your laborer, the year round, yet your pauper system is costly and wasteful. Supported by your community at large, it is not administered by your hired agents with that, interested care and economy not to speak of humanity which mark the management of ours, by each proprietor, for his own noneffectives; and is both more expensive to those who pay, and less beneficial to those who receive its bounties. Besides this, slavery is rapidly filling up our country with a hardy and healthy race, peculiarly adapted to our climate and productions, and conferring signal political and social advantages on us as a people, to which I have already referred.

I have yet to reply to the main ground on which you and your coadjutors rely for the overthrow of our system of slavery. hailing in all your attempts to prove that it is sinful in its nature immoral in its effects, a political evil, and profitless to those who maintain it, you appeal to the sympathies of mankind, and attempt to arouse the world against us by the most shocking charges of tyranny and cruelty. You begin by a vehement denunciation of “the irresponsible power of one man over his fellow men.” The question of the responsibility of power is a vast one. It is the great political question of modern times. Whole nations divide off upon it and establish different fundamental systems of government. That “responsibility,” which to one set of millions seems amply sufficient to check the government, to the support of which they devote their lives and fortunes, appears to another set of millions a mere mockery of restraint. And accordingly as the opinions of these millions differ, they honor each other with the epithets of “serfs” or “anarchists.” It is ridiculous to introduce each an idea as this into the discussion of a mere domestic institution; but since you have introduced it, I deny that the power of the slaveholder in America is “irresponsible.” He is responsible to God. He is responsible to the world a responsibility which abolitionists do not intend to allow him to evade and in acknowledgment of which, I write you this letter. He is responsible to the community in which he lives, and to the laws under which he enjoys his civil rights. Those laws do not permit him to kill, to maim, or to punish beyond certain limits, or to overtask, or to refuse to feed and clothe his slave. In short, they forbid him to be tyrannical or cruel. If any of these laws have grown obsolete, it is because they are so seldom violated, that they are forgotten. You have disinterred one of them, from a compilation by some Judge Stroud of Philadelphia, to stigmatize its inadequate penalties for killing, maiming, etc. Your object appears to be you can have no other to produce the impression, that it must be often violated on account of its insufficiency. You say as much, and that it marks our estimate of the slave. You forget to state that this law was enacted by English and only indicates their opinion of the reparation duo for these offenses. Ours is proved by the fact, though perhaps unknown to Judge Stroud or yourself, that we have essentially altered this law; and the murder of a slave has for many years been punishable with death in this State. And so it is, I believe, in most or all of the slave States. You seem well aware, how ever that laws have been recently passed in all these States, making it penal to teach slaves to read. Do you know what occasioned their passage, and renders their stringent enforcement necessary? I can tell you. It was the abolition agitation. If the slave is not allowed to read his Bible, the sin rests upon the abolitionists; for they stand prepared to furnish him with a key, to it, which would make it, not a book of hope, and love, and peace but of despair, hatred and blood; which would convert the reader, not into a Christian, but a demon. To preserve him from such a horrid destiny, it is a sacred duty which we owe to our slaves, not least than to ourselves, to interpose the most decisive means. If the Catholics deem it wrong to trust the Bible to the hands of ignorance, shall we be excommunicated because we will not give it, and with it the corrupt and fatal commentaries of the, abolitionists to our slaves? Allow our slaves to read your writing stimulating them to cut our throats! Can you believe us to be such unspeakable fools?

I do not know that I can subscribe in full to the sentiment so often quoted by the abolitionists, and by Mr. Dickinson is his letter to me “Homo sum humani nihil a me alienum puto” as translated and practically illustrated by them. Such a doctrine would give wide authority to every one for the most dangerous intermeddling with the affairs of others. It will do in poetry perhaps in some sorts of philosophy but the attempt to make it a household maxim, and introduce it into the daily walks of life, has caused many a “home” a broken crown; and probably will continue to do it. Still, though a slaveholder, I freely acknowledge my obligations as a man; and that I am bound to treat humanely the fellowcreatures whom God has intrusted to my charge. I feel, therefore, somewhat sensitive under the accusation of cruelty, and disposed to defend myself and fellowslaveholders against it. It is certainly the interest of all, and I am convinced that it is also the desire of every one of us, to treat our slaves with proper kindness. It is necessary to our deriving the greatest amount of profit from them. Of this we are all satisfied. And you snatch from us the only consolation we Americans could derive from the opprobrious imputation of being wholly devoted to making money, which your disinterested and golddespising countrymen delight to cast upon us, when you nevertheless declare that we are ready to sacrifice it for the pleasure of being inhuman. Yes remember that Mr. Pitt could not get over the idea that selfinterest would insure kind treatment to slaves, until you told him your woeful stories of the middle passage, Mr. Pitt was right in the first instance; and erred, under your tuition, in not perceiving the difference between a temporary and permanent ownership of them. Slaveholders are no more perfect than other men. They have passions. Some of them, as you may suppose, do not at all times restrain them. Neither do husbands, parents and friends. And in each of these relations, as serious suffering se frequently arises from uncontrolled passions, as ever does in that of master d with as little chance of indemnity. Yet you would not on that account break them up. I have no hesitation in saying that our slaveholders are kind masters, as men usually are kind husbands, parents and friends — as a general rule, kinder. A bad master — he who overworks his slaves, provides ill for them or treats them with undue severity — loses the esteem and respect of his fellow citizens to as great an extent as he would for the violation of any of his social and most of his moral obligations. What the most perfect plan of management would be , is a problem hard to solve. From the commencement of slavery in this country, this subject has occupied the minds of all slaveholders, as much as the improvement of the general condition of mankind has those of the most, ardent philanthropists; and the greatest progressive amelioration of the system has been effected. You yourself acknowledge that in the early part of your career you were exceedingly anxious for the immediate abolition of the slave trade, lest those engaged in it should so mitigate its evils as to destroy the force of your arguments and facts. The improvement you then dreaded has gone on steadily here, and world doubtless have taken place in the slave trade, but for the measures adopted to suppress it.

Of late years we have not only been annoyed, but greatly embarrassed in this matter, by the abolitionists. We have been compelled to curtail some privileges; we have been debarred from granting new ones. In the face of discussions which aim at loosening all ties between master and slave, we have in some measure to abandon our efforts to attach them to us, and control them through their affection and pride. We have to rely more and more on the power of fear. We must in all our intercourse with them assert and maintain strict mastery, and impress in on them that they are slaves. This is painful to us, and certainly no present advantage to them. But it is the direct consequence of the abolition agitation. We are determined to continue masters, and to do so we have to draw the rein tighter and tighter, day by day to be assured that we hold them in complete check. How far this process will go on, depends wholly and solely on the abolitionists. When they desist, we can relax. We may not before. I do not mean by all this to say that we are in a state of actual alarm and fear of our slaves; but under existing circumstances we should be ineffably stupid not to increase our vigilance and strengthen our hands. You see some of the fruits of our labors. I speak freely and candidly — not a colonist, who, though a slaveholder, has a master; but as a free white man, holding under God, and resolved to hold, my fate in my own hands; and I assure you that my sentiments are those of every slaveholder in this country.

The research and ingenuity of the abolitionists, aided by the invention of run-away slaves — in which faculty, so far as improvising falsehood goes, the African race is without a rival — have succeeded in shocking the world with a small number of pretended instances of our barbarity. The only wonder is, that considering the extent of our country, the variety of our population, its fluctuating character, and the publicity of all our transactions, the number of cases is so small. It speaks well for us. Yet of these, many are false, all highly colored, some occurring half a century, most of them many years ago; And no doubt a large proportion of them perpetrated by foreigners. With a few rare exceptions, the emigrant Scotch and English are the worst masters among us, and next to them our Northern fellowcitizens. Slaveholders born and bred here are always more humane to slaves; and those who have grown up to a large inheritance of them, the moat so of any showing clearly that the effect of the system is to foster kindly feelings. I do not mean so much to impute innate inhumanity to foreigners, as to show that they come here with (also notions of the treatment usual and necessary for slaves, and that newly acquired power here, as everywhere else, is apt to be abused. I cannot enter into a detailed examination of the cases stated by the abolitionists. It would be disgusting, and of little avail. I know nothing of them. I have seen nothing like them, though born and bred hero, and have rarely heard of any thing at all to be compared to them. Permit me to say that I think most of your facts must have been drawn from the West Indies, where undoubtedly slaves were treated much more harshly than with us. This was owing to a variety of causes, which might, if necessary, be stated. One was, that they had at first to deal more extensively with barbarians fresh from the wilds of Africa; another, and a leading one, the absenteeism of proprietors. Agents are always more unfeeling than owners, whether placed over West Indian or American slaves, or Irish tenantry. We feel this evil greatly seen here. You describe the use of thumb screws, as one mode of punishment among us. I doubt if a thumb screw can be found in America. I never saw or heard of one in this country. Stocks are rarely used by private individuals, and confinement still were seldom, though both are common punishments for whites, all the world over. I think they should be more frequently resorted to, with slaves, as substitutes for flogging, which I consider the most injurious and least efficacious mode of punishing them for serious offenses. It is not degrading, and unless excessive, occasions little pain. You may be a little astonished, after all the flourishes that have been made about “cart whips,” etc., when I say flogging is not the most degrading punishment in the world. It may be so to a white man in moat countries, but how is it to the white boy? That necessary coadjutor of the schoolmaster, the “birch,” never thought to have rendered infamous the unfortunate victim of pedagogue ire; nor did Solomon in his wisdom dream that he was counseling parents to debase their offspring, when he exhorted them not to spoil the child by sparing the rod. Pardon me for recurring to the now exploded ethics of the Bible. Custom, which, you will perhaps agree makes most things in this world good or evil, has removed all infamy from the punishment of the lash to the slave. Your blood boils at the recital of stripes inflicted on a man; and you think you should be frenzied to see your own child flogged. Yet see how completely this is ideal, arising from the fashions of society. You doubtless submitted to the rod yourself, in other years, when the smart was perhaps as severe as it would be now; and you have never been guilty of the folly of revenging yourself on the Preceptor, who, in the plenitude of his “irresponsible power,” thought proper to chastise your son. So it is with the negro, and the negro father.

As to chains and irons, they are rarely used; never, I believe, except in cases of running away. You will admit that if we pretend to own slaves, they must not be permitted to abscond when ever they see fit; and that if nothing else will prevent it, these means must be resorted to. See the inhumanity necessarily arising from slavery, you will exclaim. Are such restraints imposed on no other class of people, giving no more offense? Look to your army and navy. IF your seamen, impressed from their peaceful occupations, and your soldiers, recruited at the ginshops both of them as much kidnapped as the most unsuspecting victim of the slave trade, and doomed to a far more wretched fate if these men manifest a propensity to desert, the heaviest manacles are their mildest punishment. It is most commonly death, after summary trial. But armies and navies, you say, are indispensable, and must be kept up at every sacrifice. I answer, that they are no more indispensable than slavery is to us and to you; for you have enough of it in your country, though the form and name differ from ours.

Depend upon it that many things, and in regard to our slaves, most things which appear revolting at a distance, and to slight reflection, would, on a nearer view and impartial comparison with the customs and conduct of the rest of mankind, strike yon in very different light. Remember that on our estates we dispense with the whole machinery of public police and public courts of justice. Thus we try, decide, and execute the sentences, in thousands of cases, which in other countries would go into the courts. Hence, most of the acts of our alleged cruelty, which have any foundation in truth. Whether our patriarchal mode of administering faring justice is less humane than the Assizes, can only be determined by careful inquiry and comparison. But this is never done by the abolitionists. All our punishments are the outrages of “irresponsible power.” If a man steals a pig in England, he is transported torn from wife, children, parents, and sent to the antipodes, infamous, and an outcast forever, though probably he took from the superabundance of his neighbor to save the lives of his famishing little ones. If one of our well fed negroes, merely for the sake of fresh meat, steals a pig, be gets perhaps forty stripes. If one of your cottagers breaks into another’s house, he is hung for burglary. If a slave does the same here, a few lashes, or it may be, a few hours in the stocks, settles the matter. Are our courts or yours the most humane? If slavery were not in question, you would doubtless say ours is mistaken lenity. Perhaps it often is; and slaves too lightly dealt with sometimes grow daring. Occasionally, though rarely, and almost always in consequence of excessive indulgence, an individual rebels. This is the highest crime he can commit. It is treason. It strikes at the root of our whole system. His life is justly forfeited, though it is never intentionally taken, unless after trial in our public courts. Sometimes, however, in capturing, or is selfdefense, he is unfortunately killed. A legal investigation always follows But, terminate as it may, the abolitionists raise a hue and cry and another “shocking case” is held up to the indignation of the world by tenderhearted male and female philanthropists, who would have thought all right had the master’s throat been cut, and would have triumphed in it.

I cannot go into a detailed comparison between the penalties inflicted on a slave in our patriarchal courts, and those of the Courts of Sessions, to which freemen are sentenced in all civilized nations; but I know well that if there is any fault in our criminal code, it is that of excessive mildness.

Perhaps a few general facts will best illustrate the treatment this race receives at our hands. It is acknowledged that it increases at least as rapidly as the white. I believe it is ear established law, that population thrives in proportion to its comforts. But when it is considered that these people are not recruited by immigration from abroad, as the whites are, and that they are usually settled on our richest and least healthy lends, the fact of their equal comparative increase and greater longevity, outweighs a thousand abolition falsehoods of in favor of the leniency and providence of, our management of them It is also admitted that there are incomparably fewer cases of insanity and suicide among them than among the whites. The fact is, that among the slaves of the African race these things are almost wholly unknown. However frequent suicide may have been among those brought from Africa, I can say that in my time I cannot remember to have known or heard of a single instance of deliberate selfdestruction, and but of one of suicide at all. As to insanity, I have seen but one permanent case of it, and that twenty years ago. It cannot be doubted that among three millions of people there must be some insane and some suicides; but I will venture to say that more cases of both occur annually among every hundred thousand of the population of Great Britain, than among all our slaves. Can it be possible, then, that they exist in that state of abject misery, goaded by constant injuries, outraged in their affections, and worn down with hardships, which the abolitionists depict, and so many ignorant and thoughtless persons religiously believe?

With regard to the separation of husbands and wives, parents and children, nothing can be more untrue than the inferences drawn from what is so constantly harped on by abolitionists. Some painful instances perhaps may occur. Very few that can he prevented. It is, and it always has been, an object of prime consideration with our slaveholders, to keep families together. Negroes are themselves both perverse and comparatively indifferent about this matter. It is a singular trait, that they almost invariably prefer forming connections with slaves belonging to other masters, and at some distance. It is, therefore, impossible to prevent separations sometimes, by the removal of one owner, lurk death, or failure, and dispersion of his property. In all such cases, however, every reasonable effort is made to keep the parties together, if they desire it. And the negroes forming these connections, knowing the chances of their premature dissolution, rarely complain more than we all do of the inevitable strokes of fate Sometimes it happens that a negro prefers to give up his family rather than separate from his master. I have known such instances. As to willfully selling off a husband, or wife, or child, I believe it is rarely, very rarely done, except when some offense has been committed demands “transportation.” At sales of estates, and even at sheriff’s sales they are always, if possible, sold in families. On the whole, notwithstanding the migratory character of our population, I believe there are .more families among our slaves, who have lived and died together without losing a single member from their circle, except by the process of nature, and in the enjoyment of constant, uninterrupted communion, than have flourished in the same space of time, and among the same number of civilized people in modern times. And to sum up all, if pleasure is correctly defined to be the absence of pain which, so far as the great body of mankind is concerned, re undoubtedly its true definition I believe our slaves are the happiest three millions of human beings on whom the sun shines. Into their Eden is coming Satan in the guise of an abolitionist.

As regards their religions condition, it is well known that a majority of the communicants of the Methodist and Baptist churches of the South are colored. Almost everywhere they have precisely the same opportunities of attending worship that the whites have, and, beside special occasions for themselves exclusively, which they prefer. In many places not so accessible to clergymen in ordinary, missionaries are sent, and mainly supported by their masters, for the particular benefit of the slaves. There are none I imagine who may not, if they like, hear the gospel preached at least once a month most of them twice a month, and very many every week. In our thinly settled country the whites fare no better. But in addition to this, on plantations of any size, the slaves who have joined the church are formed into a class, at the head of which is placed one of their number, acting as deacon or leader, who is also sometimes a licensed preacher. This class assembles for religions exercises weekly, semiweekly, or oftener, if the members choose. In some parts, also, Sunday schools for blacks are established, and Bible classes are orally instructed by discreet and pious persons. Now where will yon find a laboring population possessed of greater religious advantages than these? Not in London, I am sure, where it is known that your churches; chapels, and religions meetinghouses of all sorts, can not contain onehalf of the inhabitants.

I have admitted, without hesitation what it would be untrue and profitless to deny’ that slaveholders are responsible to the world for the humane treatment of the fellowbeings whom God has placed in their hands. It would be only fair for you to admit, what is equally undeniable, that every man in independent circumstances, all the world over, and every government, is to the same extent responsible to the whole human family, for the condition of the poor and laboring classes in their own country, and around them, wherever they may be placed, to whom God has denied the advantages he has given themselves. If so, it would naturally seem the duty of true humanity and rational philanthropy to devote their time and labor, their thoughts, writings and charity, first to the objects, placed as it were under their own immediate charge, And it must be regarded as a clear evasion and skillful neglect of this cardinal duty, to pace from those whose destitute situation they can plainly see, minutely examine, and efficiently relieve, to inquire after the condition of others in no way intrusted to their care, to exaggerate evils of which they can not be cognizant, to expend all their sympathies and exhaust all their energies on these remote objects of their unnatural, not to say dangerous, benevolence; and. finally’ to calumniate, denounce, and endeavor to excite the indignation of the world against their unoffending fellowcreatures for not hastening, under their dictation, to redress wrongs which are stoutly and truthfuily denied, while they themselves go but little further in alleviating those chargeable on them than openly and unblushingly to acknowledge them. There may be indeed a sort of merit in doing so much as to make each an acknowledgment, but it meet be very modest if it expects appreciation.

Now I affirm, that in Great Britain the poor and laboring classes of your own race and color, not only your fellowbeings, but your fellowcitizens are more miserable and degraded morally and physically, than our slaves; to be elevated to the actual condition of whom, would be to these; your fellowcitizens, a most glorious act of emancipation And I also affirm, that the poor and laboring classes of our older free States would not be in a much more enviable condition; but for our slavery. One of their own Senators has declared in the United States Senate, “that the repeal of the Tariff would reduce New England to a howling wilderness.” And the American Tariff is neither more or less than a system by which the slave States are plundered for the benefit of those States which do not tolerate slavery.

To prove what I say of Great Britain to be true, I make the following extracts from the Reports of Commissioners appointed by Parliament, and published, by order of the House of Commons. I can make but few and short ones. But similar quotations might be made to any extent, and I defy you to deny that these specimens exhibit the real condition of your operatives in every branch of your industry. There is of course a variety in their sufferings. But the same incredible amount of toil, frightful destitution, and utter want of morals, characterize the lot of every class of them.

Collieries “I wish to call the attention of the Board to the pits about Brampton. The seams are so thin that several of them have only two feet headway to all the working. They are worked altogether by boys from eight to twelve years of age, on allfours, with a dog belt and chain. The passages being neither ironed, nor wooded, and often an inch or two thick with mud. In Mr. Barnes’ pit these poor boys have to drag the barrows with one hundred weight of coal or slack sixty times a day sixty yards, and the empty barrows back, without once straightening their backs, unless they choose to stand under the shaft, and run the risk of having their heads broken by a falling coal.” Report on Mines, 1842, p. 71. ” In Shropshire the seams are no more than eighteen or twenty inches."Ibid, p. 67. “At the Booth pit,” says Mr. Striven, “I walked, rode, and crept eighteen hundred yards to one of the nearest faces."Ibid. ” Chokedamp, fire damp, wild fire, sulphur and water, at all times menace instant death to the laborers in these mines.” “Robert North, aged 16: Went into the pit at seven years of age, to fill up skips. I drew about twelve months. When I drew by the girdle and chain me skin was broken, and the blood ran down. I durst not say any thing. If we said any thing, the batty, and the reeve, who work under him, world take a stick and beat us."Ibid. “The usual punishment for theft is to place the culprit’s head between the legs of one of the biggest boys, and each boy in the pit some times there are twenty inflicts twelve lashes on the back and rump with a cat."Ibid. “Instances occur in which children are taken into these mines to work as early as four years of age, sometimes at five, not unfrequently at six and seven, while from eight to nine is the ordinary age at which these employments commence.-"Ibid. ” The wages paid at these mines is from two dollar fifty cents to seven dollars fifty cents per month for laborers, according to age and ability, out of this they must support themselves. They work twelve hours a day."Ibid..

In Calico Printing — “It is by no means uncommon in all the districts for children five or six years old to be kept at work fourteen to sixteen hours consecutively.”Report on Children, v 1842, p. 59.

I could furnish extracts similar to these in regard to every branch of your manufactures, but I will not multiply them. Every body knows that your operatives habitually labor from twelve to sixteen hours, men, women, and children, and the men occasionally twenty hours per day. In lacemaking, says the last quoted report, children sometimes commence work at two years of age.

Destitution — It is stated by your Commissioners that forty thousand persons in Liverpool, and fifteen thousand in Manchester, live in cellars; while twentytwo thousand in England pass the night in barns, tents, or the open air. “There have been found such occurrences as seven, eight, and ten persons in one cottage, I cannot say for one day, but for whole days, without a morsel of food. They have remained on their beds of straw for two successive days, under the impression that in a recumbent posture the pangs of hunger were less felt."Lord Brougham’s Speech, 11th July 1842. A volume of frightful scenes might he quoted to corroborate the inferences to be necessarily drawn from the facts here stated. I will not add more, but pass on to the important inquiry as to

Morals and Education — “Elizabeth Barrett, age 14: I always work without stockings, shoes or trowsers. I wear nothing but a shift. I have to go to up to the headings with the men. They are all naked there. I am got used to that.” Report on Mines. “As to explicit sexual intercourse, it seems to prevail universally, and from an early period of life,” “The evidence might have been doubled, which attest the early commencement of sexual and promiscuous intercourse among boys and girls.” “a lower condition of morals, in the fullest sense of the term, could not, I think be found. I do not mean by this that there are many more prominent vices among them, but that moral feelings and sentiments do not exist. They have no morals,” “Their appearance, manners and moral natures — so far as the word moral can be applied to them — are in accordance with their half civilized condition.” — Report on Children. “More than half a dozen instances occurred in Manchester, where a man , his wife and his wife’s grown up sister, habitually occupied the same bed.” — Report on Sanitary Condition. “Robert Crucilow, aged 16: I don’t know anything of Moses — never heard of France. I don’t know what America is. Never heard of Scotland or Ireland. Can’t tell how many weeks there are in a year. There are twelve pence in a shilling, and twenty shillings in a pound. There are eight pints in a gallon of ale.” Report on Mines. “Ann Eggly, aged 18: I walk about and get fresh air on Sundays. I never go to church or chapel. I never heard of Christ at all.” Ibid. Others: “I don’t know Jesus Christ — I never saw him — but I have seen Foster who prays about him.” “Employer: You have expressed surprise at Thomas Mitchel’s not hearing of God. I judge that there are few colliers here about that have.” Ibid. I will quote no more. It is shocking beyond endurance to turn over your records, in which the condition of your laboring class is but too faithfully depicted. Could our slaves but see it, they would join us in lynching abolitionists, which by the way, they would not know be loth to do. We never think of imposing on them such labor, either in amount or kind. We never put them to any work, under ten, more generally at twelve years of age, and then the very lightest. Destitution is absolutely unknown — never did a slave starve in America; while in moral sentiments and feelings, in religious information and even in general intelligence, they are infinitely the superiors of your wretched laborers, you and every Briton who is not one of them , are responsible before God and man. If you are really humane, philanthropic and charitable, here are objectives for you. Relieve them. Emancipate them. Raise them from the condition of brutes, to the level of human beings — of American slaves at least. Do not for an instant suppose that the name of being freemen is the slightest comfort to them, situated as they are , or that the bombastic boast that “whoever touches British soil stands redeemed, regenerated and disenthralled,” can meet with anything but the ridicule and contempt of mankind, while that soil swarms , both on and under its surface, with the most abject and degraded wretches that ever bowed beneath the oppressors yoke.

I have said that slavery is an established and inevitable condition to human society. I do not speak of the name but the fact. The Marquis of Normandby has lately declared your operatives to be “in effect slaves.” Can it be denied? Probably, for such philanthropists as your abolitionists care nothing for facts. They deal in terms and fictions. It is the word “slavery” which shocks their tender sensibilities; and their imaginations associate it with “hydras and chimeras dire.” The thing itself, in its most hideous reality, passes daily under their view unheeded — a familiar face, touching no chord of shame, sympathy or indignation. Yet so brutalizing is your iron bondage that the English operative is a by word through the world. When favoring fortune enables him to escape his prison-house, both in Europe and America he is shunned. With all the skill which fourteen hours of daily labor from the tenderest age has ground into him, his discontent, which habit has made second nature, and his depraved propensities, running riot when freed from his wonted fetters, prevent his employment whenever it is not a matter of necessity. If we derived no other benefit from African slavery in the Southern States than that it deterred your freedmen from coming hither, I should regard it an inestimable blessing.

And how unaccountable is that philanthropy, which closes its eyes upon such a state of things as you have at home, and turns its blurred vision to our affairs beyond the Atlantic, meddling with matters which no way concern them — presiding as you have lately done, at meetings to denounce the “iniquity of our laws” and “the atrocity of our practices,” and to sympathize with infamous wretches imprisoned here for violating decrees promulgated both by God and man? Is this doing the work of “your Father which is in heaven,” or is it seeking only “that you may have glory of man?” Do you remember the denunciation of our Saviour, “Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees; hypocrites! For ye make clean the outside of the cup and platter, but within they are fall of extortion and excess.”

But after all, supposing that every thing you say of slavery be true, and its abolition a matter of the last necessity, how do you aspect to effect emancipation, and what do you calculate will be the result of its accomplishment? As to the means to be used, the abolitionists, I believe, affect to differ, a large proportion of them pretending that their sole purpose is to apply moral suasion to the slaveholders themselves. As a matter of curiosity, I should like to know what their idea of this “moral suasion ” is. Their discourses yours is no exception are all tirades, the exordium argument and peroration, turning on the epithets ” tyrants,” “thieves,” “murderers,” addressed to us. They revile us as atrocious monsters,” “violators of the laws of nature, God and man,” our homes the abode of every iniquity, our land a ” brothel.” We retort, that they are ” incendiaries” and “assassins;’ Delightful argument! Sweet, potent moral evasion! “What slave has it freed what proselyte can it ever make? But if your course was, wholly different if you distilled nectar from your lips, and discoursed sweetest music, could you reasonably indulge the hope of accomplishing your object by such means? Nay, supposing that we were all convinced, and thought of slavery precisely as you do, at what era of “moral suasion ” do you imagine you could prevail on us to give up a thousand millions of dollars in the value of our slaves, and a thousand millions of dollars more in the depreciation of our lands, in consequence of the want of laborers to cultivate them? Consider: were ever any people, civilized or savage, persuaded by any argument, human or divine, to surrender voluntarily two thousand millions of dollars? Would you think of asking five millions of Englishmen to contribute, either at once or gradually, four hundred and fifty millions of pounds sterling to the cause of philanthropy, even if the purpose to be accomplished was not of doubtful goodness? It you are prepared to undertake such a scheme, try it at home. Collect your fundreturn us the money for our slaves, and do with them as you like. Be all the glory yours, fairly and honestly won. But you see the absurdity of such an idea. Away, then, with your pretended “moral suasion.” You know it is mere nonsense. The abolitionists have no faith in it themselves. Those who expect to accomplish any thing count on means altogether different. They aim, first, to alarm us: that. failing, to compel us by force to emancipate our slaves; at our own risk and cost. To these purposes they obviously direct all their energies. Our Northern libertymen endeavored to disseminate their destructive doctrine among our slaves, and excite them to insurrection. But we have putan end to that, and stricken terror into them. They dare not show their faces here. Then they declared they would dissolve the Union. Let them do it. The North would repent it far more than the South. We are not alarmed at the idea. We are well content to give up the Union sooner than sacrifice two thousand millions of dollars, and with them all the rights we prize. You may take it for granted that it is impossible to persuade or alarm us into emancipation, or to making the first step toward it. Nothing, then, is left to try, but sheer force. If the abolitionists are prepared to expend their own treasure and shed their own blood as freely as they ask us to do ours, let them come. We do not court the conflict; but we will not and we cannot shrink from it. If they are not ready to go so far; if, as I expect, their philanthropy recoils from it; if they are looking only for cheap glory, let them turn their thoughts elsewhere, and leave us in peace. Be the sin, the danger and the evils of slavery all our own. We compel, we ask none to share them with us.

I am well aware that a notable scheme has been set on foot to achieve abolition by making what is by courtesy called “free” labor so much cheaper than slave labor as to force the abandonment of the latter. Though we are beginning to manufacture with slaves, I do not think you will attempt to pinch your operatives closer in Great Britain. You cannot curtail the rags with which they vainly attempt to cover their nakedness, nor reduce the porridge which barely, and not always, keeps those who have employment from perishing of famine. When you can do this, we will consider whether our slaves may not dispense with a pound or two of bacon per week, or a few garments annually. Your aim, however, is to cheapen labor in the tropics. The idea of doing this by exporting your “bold yeomanry” is, I presume, given up. Cromwell tried it when he sold the captured followers of Charles into West Indian slavery, where they speedily found graves. Nor have your recent experiments on British and even Dutch constitutions succeeded better. Have you still faith in carrying thither your coolies from Hindostan? Doubtless that once wild robber race, whom highest eulogium was that they did not murder merely for the love of blood, have been tamed down, and are perhaps “keen for immigration,” for since your civilization has reached it, plunder hass grown scarce in Guzerat. But what is the result of the experiment thus far? Have the coolies, ceasing to handle arms, learned to handle spades, and proved hardy. and profitable laborers? On the contrary, broken in spirit and stricken with disease at home, the wretched victims whom you have hitherto kidnapped, for a bounty, confined in depots, put under hatches and carried across the oceanforced into “voluntary immigration,” have done little but lie down and die on the Pseudo soil of freedom. At the end of five years twothirds, in some colonies a larger proportion, are no more! Humane and pious contrivance! To alleviate the fancied sufferings of the accursed posterity of Hani, you sacrifice by a cruel death two thirds of the children of the blessed Shem and demons the applause of Christiansthe blessing of heaven! If this ” experiment” is to go on, in God’s name try your hand upon the Thugs. That other species of “immigration” to which you are restoring I will consider presently.

But what do you calculate will be the result of emancipation by whatever means accomplished? You will probably point me, by way of answer, to the West Indies doubtless to Antigua, the great boast of abolition. Admitting that it has succeeded there I will do for the sake of the argumentdo you know the reason of it? The true and only causes of whatever success has attended it in Antigua are, that the population was before crowded and all or nearly all the arable land in cultivation The emancipated negroes could not, many of them, get away if they desired; and knew not where to go, in case they did. They had, practically, no alternative but to remain on the spot; and remaining, they must work on the terms of the proprietors perish the strong arm of the mother country forbidding all hope of seizing the land for themselves. The proprietors, well know that they could then command labor for the merest necessities of life, which was much cheaper than maintaining the noneffective as well as effective slaves in a style which decency and interest, if not humanity, required, willingly accepted half their value and at once realized far more than the interest on the other half in the diminution of their expenses, and the reduced comforts of the freemen. One of your most illustrious judges, who was also a profound and philosophical historian, has said “that villeinage was not abolished, but went into decay in England.” This was the process. This has been the process wherever (the name of) villeinage or slavery has been successfully abandoned. Slavery, in fact, “went into decay” in Antigua. I have admitted that, under similar circumstances, it might profitably cease done that is, profitably to the individual proprietors. Give me half the value of my slaves, and compel them to remain and labor on my plantation, at ten to eleven cents a day, as they do in Antigua, supporting themselves and families, and you shall have them tomorrow, and if you like dub them “free.” Not to stickle , I would surrender them without price. No I recall my words; My humanity revolts at the idea. I am attached to my slaves; and would not have act or part in reducing them to such a condition. I deny, however, that Antigua, as a community, is or ever will be, as prosperous under present circumstances, as she was before abolition, though fully ripe for it. The fact is well known. The reason is that the African, if not a distinct, is an inferior race, and never will effect, as it never has effected; as mach in any other condition as in that of slavery.

I know of no slaveholder who has visited the West Indies since slavery was abolished, and published his views of it. All our facts and opinions come through the friends of the experiment, or at least those not opposed to it. Taking these, even without allowance, to be true as stated, I do not see where the abolitionists find cause for exultation. The tables of exports which are the best evidences of the condition of a people exhibit a woful falling off excused it is true, by unprecedented droughts and hurricanes, to which their free labor seems unaccountably more subject than slave labor used to be. I will not go into detail. It is well known that a large proportion of British legislation and expenditure and that proportion still constantly increasing, is most anxiously devoted to repairing the monstrous error of emancipation. You are actually galvanizing your expiring colonies. The truth, deduced from all the facts, was thus pithily elated by the London Quarterly Review, so long ago as 1840: “None of the benefits anticipated by mistaken good intentions have been realized, while very evil wished for by knaves and foreseen by the wise have been painfully verified. The wild rashness of fanaticism has made the emancipation of the slaves equivalent to the lose of onehalf of the West Indies, and yet put back the chance of negro civilization."Art. Ld. Dudley’s Letters: Such are the real fruits of your nevertobetoomuchglorified abolition, and the valuable dividend of your twenty millions of pounds sterling invested therein.

If any farther proof was wanted of the otter and wellknown, though not yet openly avowed, failure of West Indian emancipation it would be furnished by the startling fact, that THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE HAS BEEN ACTUALLY REVIVED UNDER THE AUSPICES AND PROTECTION OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT. Under the specious guise of “immigration,” they are replenishing those Islands with slaves from the coast of Africa. Your colony of Sierra Leone, founded on that coast to prevent the slave trade, and peopled, by the bye, in the first instance, by negroes stolen from these States during the Revolutionary War, is the depot to which captives taken from slavers by your armed vessels are transported. I might say returned, since nearly half the Africans carried across the Atlantic are understood to be embarked in this vicinity. The wretched survivors, who are there set at liberty, are immediately to ‘immigrate” to the West Indies. The business is systematically carded on by black “delegates,” sent expressly from the West Indies, where, on arrival, the “immigrants ” are sold into slavery for twentyone years, under conditions ridiculously trivial and wickedly void, since few or none will ever be able to derive any advantage from them. The whole prime of life thus passed in bondage, it is contemplated, and doubtless it will be carried into effect, to turn them out in their old age to shift for themselves, and to supply their places with fresh and vigorous “immigrants.” Was ever a system of slavery so far devised before? Can you think of comparing it with ours? Even your own religious missionaries at Sierra Leone denounce it “as worse than the slave state in Africa.” And your black delegates, fearful of the influence of these missionaries, as well as on account of the inadequate supply of captives, are now preparing to procure the ablebodied and comparatively industrious Kroomen of the interior, by purchasing from their headmen the privilege of inveigling them to the West India market’ So ends the magnificent farce perhaps I should say tragedy of West India abolition! I will not harrow your feelings by asking you to review the labors of your life and tell me what you arid your brother enthusiasts have accomplished for “injured Africa,” but while agreeing with Lord Stowell, that “villeinage decayed,” and admitting that slavery might do so also, I think I am fully justified by passed and passing events in saying, as Mr. Grosvenor said of the slave trade, that its abolition is ” impossible.”

You are greatly mistaken, however, if yon think that the consequences of emancipation here would be similar and no more injurious than those which followed from it in your little seagirt West India Islands, where nearly all were blacks. The system of slavery is not in “decay” with us. It flourishes in full and growing vigor. Our country is boundless in extent. Dotted here and there with villages and fields, it is, for the most part, covered with immense forests and swamps of almost unknown size. In each country, with a people so restless as ours, communicating of course some of that spirit to their domestics, can you conceive that any thing short of the power of the master over the slave, could confine the African race, notoriously idle and improvident, to labor on oar plantations? Break this bond, hat for a day, and these plantations will be solitudes. The negro loves change, novelty, and sensual excitements of all kinds, when awake “Reason and order,” of which Mr. Wilberforce said ‘’ liberty was the child,” do not characterize him. Released from his present obligations, his first impulse would be to go somewhere. And here no natural boundaries would restrain him. At first they would all seek the towns, and rapidly accumulate in squalid groups upon their outskirts. Driven thence by the “armed police,” which would immediately spring into existence, they would scatter in all directions. Some bodies of them might wander toward the “free” States, or to the Western wilderness, marking their tracks by their depredations and their corpses. Many would roam wild in our “big woods.” Many more would seek the recesses of our swamps for secure covert. Few, very few of them, could be prevailed on to do a stroke of work, none to labor continuously, while a head of cattle, sheep or swine could be found in our ranges, or an ear of corn nodded in our abandoned fields. These exhausted, our folds and poultry yards, barns and storehouses, would become their prey. Finally, our scattered dwellings world be plundered, perhaps fired, and the “inmates murdered. How long do yon suppose that we could bear these things? How long would it be before we should sleep with rifles at out bedsides, and never move without one in our hands? This work once began, let the story of out British ancestors and the aborigines of this country tell the sequel. Far more rapid, however; would be the catastrophe. “Ere many moons went by,” the African race would be exterminated, or reduced again to slavery, their ranks recruited, after your example, by fresh ” emigrants ” from their fatherland.

Is timely preparation and gradual emancipation suggested to avert these horrible consequences? I thought your experience in the West Indies had, at least, done so much as to explode that idea. If it failed there, much more would it fail here, where the two races, approximating to equality in numbers, are daily and hourly in the closest contact. Give room for but a single spark of real jealousy to be kindled between them, and the explosion would be instantaneous and universal. It is the most fatal of all fallacies to suppose that these two races can exist together, after any length of time, or any process of preparation, on terms at all approaching to equality. Of this, both of them are finally and fixedly convinced. They differ essentially, in all the leading traits which characterize the varieties of the human species, and color draws an indelible and insuperable line of separation between them. Every scheme founded upon the idea that they can remain together on the same soil, beyond the briefest period, in any other relation than precisely that which now subsists between them, is not only preposterous, but fraught with deepest danger If there was no alternative but to try the “experiment” here reason and humility dictate that the sufferings of ” gradualism” should be saved, and the catastrophe of “immediate abolition” enacted as rapidly as possible. Are you impatient for the performance to commence? Do you long to gloat over the scenes I have suggested, but could not hold the pen to portray? In your long life many each have passed under your review. You know that theyare not ‘'impossible.'’ Can they be to your taste? Do you believe that in laboring to bring them about, the abolitionist are doing the will of God? No! God is not there. It is the work of Satan. The archfiend, under specious guises, has found his way into their souls, and with false appeals to philanthropy and foul insinuations to ambition, instigates them to rush head to the accomplishment of his diabolical designs.

We live in a wonderful age. The events of the last three quarters of a century appear to have revolutionized the human mind. Enterprise and ambition are only limited in their purposes by the horizon of the imagination.. It is the transcendental era. In philosophy, religion, government, science, arts, commerce, nothing that has been is to be allowed to be. Conservatism, in any form, is scoffed at. The slightest taint of it is fatal. Where will all this end? If you can tolerate one ancient maxi, let it be that the best criterion of the future is the past. That, if any thing, will give a clue. And, looking back only through your time, what was the earliest feat of this same transcendentalism? The rays of the new moral Drummond Light were first concentrated to a focus at Paris, to illuminate the universe. In a twinkling it consumed the political, religions and social systems of France. It could not be extinguished there until literally drowned in blood. And then, from its ashes arose that supernatural man, who, for twenty years, kept affrighted Europe in convulsions. Since that time, its scattered beams, refracted by broader surfaces, have, nevertheless, continued to scathe wherever they have fallen. What political structure, what religious creed, but has felt the galvanic hock, and even now trembles to its foundations? Mankind, still horrorstricken by the catastrophe of France, have shrunk from rash experiments upon social systems. But they have been practicing in the East, around the Mediterranean, and through the West India Islands. And growing confident, a portion of them seem desperately bent on kindling the alldevouring flame in the bosom of our land. Let it once again blaze up to heaven, and another cycle of blood and devastation will dawn upon the world. For our own sake, and for the sake of those infatuated men who are madly driving on the conflagration; for the sake of human nature, we are called on to strain every nerve to arrest it. And be assured our efforts will be bounded only with our being. Nor I doubt that five millions of people, brave, intelligent, united, and prepared to hazard every thing, will, in such a cause, with the blessing of God, sustain themselves. At all events, come what may, it is ours to meet it.

We are well aware of the light estimation in which the abolitionists and those who are taught by them, profess to hold us. We have seen the attempt of a portion of the Free Church of ’ Scotland to reject our alma on the ground that we are “slavedrivers” after sending missionaries, to solicit them. And we have seen Mr. O'Connell, the “irresponsible master” of millions of ragged serfs, from whom, poverty stricken as they are, he contrives to wring a splendid privy puree, throw back with contumely, the “tribute” of his own countrymen from this land of “miscreants.” These people may exhaust their slang, and make blackguards of themselves, but they cannot defile us. And as for tire suggestion to exclude slaveholders from your London clubs, we scout it. Many of us, indeed, do go to London, and we have seen your breed of gawky lords, both there and here, but it never entered into our conceptions to look on them as better than ourselves. The American slaveholders, collectively or individually, ask no favors of any man or race who head the earth. In none of the attributes of men, mental or physical, do they acknowledge or fear superiority elsewhere. They stand in the broadest light of the knowledge, civilization and improvement of the age, as much favored of heaven as any of the eons of Adam. Exacting nothing undue, they yield nothing but justice and courtesy, even to, royal blood. They cannot be flattered, duped, nor bullied out of they rights or their propriety. They smile with contempt at scurrility and vaporing beyond the seas, and they turn their back,: upon it where it is “irresponsible;” but insolence that venture: to look them in the face, will never fail to be chastised.

I think I may trust you will not regard this letter as intrusive. I should never have entertained an idea of writing it, had you not opened the correspondence. If you think any thing in it harsh, review your own which I regret that I lost soon after is was receivedand you will probably find that yon have taken your revenge beforehand. If you have not, transfer an equitable share of what you deem severe, to the account of the abolitionists at large. They have accumulated against the slaveholders a balance of invective, which, with all our efforts, we shall not be able to liquidate much short of the era in which your national debt will be paid. At all events, I have no desire to offend you personally and, with the best wishes for your continued health. I have the honor to be,

Your obedient servant,

J. H. Hammond.

Thos. Clarkson, Esq

Endnotes

[1] On this subject, J. Q. Adams, in his letter to the citizens of Bangor, Maine, July 4th, 1843, said: “It is only as immortal beings that all mankind can in any sense be said to be born equal ; and when the Declaration of Independence affirms as a selfevident truth that all men are born equal, it is precisely the same as if the affirmation had been that all men are born with immortal souls.” — Life of J. Q. Adams, page 395. — Editor.

Questions to think about:

How does Hammond characterize the slave trade?

Does Hammond think there are any absolute moral truths? How does his answer help in his pro-slavery argument?

How does Hammond use the Old Testament to bolster his position on slavery?

What does Hammond say about slavery in Athens, Sparta, and Rome?

What are the supposed negative aspects of abolishing slavery?

Source: Elliot, E. N. Cotton is King, and Proslavery Arguments, 1860.