Chapter 7

“Slavery discourages arts and manufactures. The poor despise labor, when performed by slaves. They prevent the emigration of whites, who really enrich and strengthen a country.They produce the most pernicious effect on manners.Every Master of Slaves is born a petty tyrant.They bring the judgment of Heaven on a country.”[55]

Thus, with a few touches, does this Slave-Master portray his class, putting them in that hateful list which, according to every principle of liberty, must be resisted so long as we obey God. And this clear testimony received kindred support from the fiery soul of Jefferson. Here are his words:—

“There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of Slavery among us. The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions,THE MOST UNREMITTING DESPOTISMon the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it.…The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances.And with what execration should the statesman be loaded, who, permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other,transforms those into despotsand these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part and theamor patriæof the other!… With the morals of the people, their industry also is destroyed.”[56]

Next comes thePhilosophic Authority. Here, while the language which I quote may be less familiar, it is hardly less commanding. Among names of such weight I shall not discriminate, but simply follow the order of time. First is John Locke, the great author of the English system of Intellectual Philosophy, who, though once unhappily indulgent to American Slavery, in another place describes it, in words which every Slave-Master should know, as—

“The state of war continued between a lawful conqueror and a captive.” “So directly opposite to the generous temper and courage of our nation, that’tis hardly to be conceivedthat an Englishman,MUCH LESS A GENTLEMAN,should plead for ’t.”[57]

Then comes Adam Smith, the founder of the science of Political Economy, who, in his work on Morals, thus utters himself:—

“There is not a negro from the coast of Africa who does not possess a degree of magnanimity which the soul of his sordid master is too often scarce capable of conceiving. Fortune never exerted more cruelly her empire over mankind than when she subjected those nations of heroes to the refuse of the jails of Europe, to wretches who possess the virtues neither of the countries which they come from nor of those which they go to,and whose levity, brutality, and baseness so justly expose them to the contempt of the vanquished.”[58]

This judgment, pronounced just a century ago, was repelled by the Slave-Masters of Virginia in a feeble publication, which attests at least their own consciousness that they were the criminals arraigned by the distinguished philosopher. This was soon followed by the testimony of the great English moralist, Dr. Johnson, who, in a letter to a friend, thus shows his opinion of Slave-Masters:—

“To omit for a year, or for a day, the most efficacious method of advancing Christianity, in compliance with any purposes that terminate on this side of the grave, is a crime of which I know not that the world has yet had an example, except in the practice ofthe planters of America, a race of mortals whom, I suppose, no other man wishes to resemble.”[59]

These are British voices. There are French also of equal character, whose is the same implacable judgment. First I name Condorcet, who did so much to develop the idea of Human Progress. Constantly he testifies against Slavery. His brand of it as Barbarism is sententiously expressed in a letter to Voltaire, describing a successful Slave-Master:—

“L’Éprémesnil is a little American, who, by dint of plying his negroes with the lash, has succeeded in getting enough sugar and indigo to buy an office of King’s Councillor in the revenue service.”[60]

Voltaire adds to this expression other words kindred in scorn:—

“The American savage of whom you speak does not astonish me; but he frightens me, for I know beyond doubt that he is of the horde of other French savages who have sworn immortal hate to reason.”[61]

In harmony with these is that famous irony of Montesquieu, where, speaking of the Africans, he says:—

“It is impossible that we should suppose these people men; because, if we supposed them men, the world would begin to think that we ourselves were not Christians.”[62]

Other countries might testify; but this is enough.

With such authorities, Personal and Philosophic, American and Foreign, I need not hesitate in this ungracious task; but Truth, which is mightier than Mason and Jefferson, than John Locke, Adam Smith, and Samuel Johnson, than Condorcet, Voltaire, andMontesquieu, marshals the evidence in unbroken succession.

Proceeding with the argument, broadening as we advance, we shall see Slave-Masters (1) in the Law of Slavery, (2) in relations with Slaves, (3) in relations with each other and with Society, and (4) in that unconsciousness which renders them insensible to their true character.

(1.) As in considering the Character of Slavery, so in considering the Character of Slave-Masters, we must begin with theLaw of Slavery, which, as their work, testifies against them. In the face of this unutterable abomination, where impiety, cruelty, brutality, and robbery all strive for mastery, it is vain to assert humanity or refinement in its authors. Full well I know that the conscience, which speaks so powerfully to the solitary soul, is often silent in the corporate body, and that, in all ages and countries, numbers, when gathered in communities and States, have sanctioned acts from which the individual revolts. And yet I know no surer way of judging a people than by its laws, especially where those laws have been long continued and openly maintained.

Whatever may be the eminence of individual virtue,—and I would not so far disparage humanity as to suppose that offences so general where Slavery exists are universal,—it is not reasonable or logical to infer that the body of Slave-Masters are better than the Law of Slavery. And since the Law itself degrades the slave to be a chattel, and submits him to irresponsible control,—with power to bind and to scourge, to usurp the fruits of another’s labor, to pollute the body, and tooutrage all ties of family, making marriage impossible,—we must conclude that such enormities are sanctioned by Slave-Masters; while the refusal of testimony, and the denial of instruction, by supplementary law, complete the evidence of complicity. And this conclusion must stand unquestioned, just so long as the Law of Slavery exists unrepealed. So mild and philosophical a judge as Tocqueville says, in his authoritative work: “The legislation of the Southern States with regard to slaves at the present day exhibits such unparalleled atrocities as suffice to show that the laws of humanity have been totally perverted, and to betray the desperate position of the community in which that legislation has been promulgated.”[63]All of which is too true. Cease, then, to blazon the humanity of Slave-Masters. Tell me not of the lenity with which this cruel Code is tempered to its unhappy subjects. Tell me not of the sympathy which overflows from the mansion of the master to the cabin of the slave. In vain you assert such “happy accidents.” In vain you show individuals who do not exert the wickedness of the law. The Barbarism still endures, solemnly, legislatively, judicially attested in the verySlave Code, and proclaiming constantly the character of its authors. And this is the first article in the evidence against Slave-Masters.

(2.) I am next brought toSlave-Masters in their relations with Slaves; and here the argument is founded on facts, and on presumptions irresistible as facts. Only lately has inquiry burst into that gloomy world of bondage,and disclosed its secrets. But enough is already known to arouse the indignant condemnation of mankind. For instance, here is a simple advertisement—one of thousands—from theGeorgia Messenger:—

“Run Away.—My man Fountain; has holes in his ears, a scar on the right side of his forehead; has been shot in the hind parts of his legs; is marked on his back with the whip. Apply to Robert Beasley, Macon, Ga.”

Holes in the ears; scar on the forehead; shot in the legs; and marks of the lash on the back! Such are tokens by which the Slave-Master identifies his slave.

Here is another advertisement, revealing Slave-Masters in a different light. It is from theNational Intelligencer, published at the capital; and I confess the pain with which I cite such an indecency in a journal of much respectability. Of course it appeared without the knowledge of the editors; but it is none the less an illustrative example.

“For Sale.—An accomplished and handsome lady’s-maid. She is just sixteen years of age; was raised in a genteel family in Maryland; and is now proposed to be sold, not for any fault, but simply because the owner has no further use for her. A note directed to C. D., Gadsby’s Hotel, will receive prompt attention.”

A sated libertine, in a land where vice is legalized, could not expose his victim with apter words.

These two instances illustrate a class.

In the recent work of Mr. Olmsted, a close observer and traveller in the Slave States, which abounds in pictures of Slavery, drawn with caution and evident regard to truth, is another, where a Slave-Master thus frankly confesses his experience:—

“‘I can tell you how you can break a nigger of running away, certain,’ said the Slave-Master. ‘There was an old fellow I used to know in Georgia, that always cured his so. If a nigger ran away, when he caught him, he would bind his knee over a log, and fasten him so he couldn’t stir; then he’d take a pair of pincers, and pull one of his toe-nails out by the roots, and tell him, that, if he ever run away again, he would pull out two of them, and if he run away again after that, he told him he’d pull out four of them, and so on, doubling each time. He never had to do it more than twice; it always cured them.’”[64]

Like this story, from the lips of a Slave-Master, is another, where the master, angry because his slave sought to regain his God-given liberty, deliberately cut the tendons of his heel, thus horribly maiming him for life.

In vain these instances are denied. Their accumulating number, authenticated in every possible manner, by the press, by a cloud of witnesses, and by the confession of Slave-Masters, stares us constantly in the face.

Here we are brought again to the Slave Code, under the shelter of which these things, and worse, are done with complete impunity. Listen to the remarkable words of Mr. Justice Ruffin, of North Carolina, who, in a solemn decision, thus portrays, affirms, and deplores this terrible latitude. The obedience of the slave, he says,—

“is the consequence only ofuncontrolled authority over the body.… The power of the master must be absolute, to render the submission of the slave perfect.I most freely confess my sense of the harshness of this proposition. I feelit as deeply as any man can. And, as a principle of moral right, every person in his retirement must repudiate it. But in the actual condition of things it must be so. There is no remedy.This discipline belongs to the state of Slavery.…It is inherent in the relation of master and slave.”[65]

This same license is thus expounded in a recent judicial decision of Virginia:—

“It is the policy of the law in respect to the relation of master and slave, and for the sake of securing proper subordination and obedience on the part of the slave,to protect the master from prosecution, even if the whipping and punishment be malicious, cruel, and excessive.”[66]

Can Barbarism further go? Here is irresponsible power, rendered more irresponsible still by the seclusion of the plantation, and absolutely fortified by supplementary law excluding the testimony of slaves. That under its shelter enormities should occur, stranger than fiction, too terrible for imagination, and surpassing any attested experience, is simply according to the course of Nature and the course of history. Antiquity has illustrations which are most painful. From Ovid we learn how the porter was chained at his master’s gate;[67]by Plautus we are introduced to the various instruments of punishment, in fearful catalogue;[68]and in the pages of the philosopher Seneca we are saddened by the cruelties of which the slave was victim.[69]A later writer, the great teacher of medicine, Galen, describes menknocking out the teeth of slaves with the fist, falling upon them not only with fist, but with the heels, and gouging the eyes with a pen, if at hand, as did the Emperor Adrian on one occasion;[70]while Tacitus shows how four hundred slaves in the house of an assassinated master were handed over to vindictive death.[71]St. Chrysostom portrays a mistress dragging a slave-girl by the hair, and herself applying the whip, until the cries of her bruised victim filled the whole house and penetrated the street.[72]

All this is ancient Barbarism, according to the evidence; but the analogies of life show that such things must be, where Slavery prevails. The visitation of the abbeys in England disclosed vice and disorder in startling forms, cloaked by the irresponsible privacy of monastic life. A similar visitation of plantations would disclose more fearful results, cloaked by the irresponsible privacy of Slavery. Every Slave-Master on his plantation is a Bashaw, with all the prerogatives of a Turk. According to Hobbes, he is a “petty king.” This is true; and every plantation is of itself a petty kingdom, with more than the immunities of an abbey. Six thousand skulls of infants are reported to have been taken from a single fish-pond near a nunnery, to the dismay of Pope Gregory.[73]Under the Law of Slavery,infants, the offspring of masters “who dream of Freedom in a slave’s embrace,” are not thrown into a fish-pond, but something worse is done. They are sold. This is a single glimpse only. Slavery, in its recesses, is another Bastile, whose horrors will never be known until it shall be razed to the ground; it is the dismal castle of Giant Despair, which, when captured by the Pilgrims, excited their wonder, as they saw “the dead bodies that lay here and there in the castle-yard, and how full of dead men’s bones the dungeon was.” The recorded horrors of Slavery are infinite, and each day, by the escape of its victims, they are still further attested, while the door of the vast prison-house is left ajar. But, alas! unless examples of history and lessons of political wisdom are alike delusive, its unrecorded horrors must assume a form of more fearful dimensions. Baffling all attempts at description, they sink into that chapter of Sir Thomas Browne entitled “Of some Relations whose Truth we fear,” and among kindred things whereof, according to this eloquent philosopher, “there remains no register but that of Hell.”

If this picture of the relations of Slave-Masters with their slaves could receive any darker coloring, it would be by introducing figures of the congenial agents through which the Barbarism is maintained,—the Slave-Overseer, the Slave-Breeder, and the Slave-Hunter, each without a peer except in the brothers, and the whole constituting a triumvirate of Slavery, in whom its essential brutality, vulgarity, and crime are all embodied. There is the Slave-Overseer, with bloody lash,—fitly described, in his Life of Patrick Henry, by Mr. Wirt, who, born in a Slave State, knew the class, as“last and lowest, most abject, degraded, unprincipled,”[74]—and his hands wield at will the irresponsible power, being proper successor to “the devil,” described by the English dramatist, who appeared

“in Virginia, and commandedWith many stripes; for that’s his cruel custom.”[75]

“in Virginia, and commanded

With many stripes; for that’s his cruel custom.”[75]

There is next the Slave-Breeder, who assumes a higher character, even entering legislative halls, where, in unconscious insensibility, he shocks civilization by denying, like Mr. Gholson, of Virginia, any alleged distinction between the “female slave” and the “brood mare,” by openly asserting the necessary respite from work during the gestation of the female slave as the ground of property in her offspring, and by proclaiming that in this “vigintial” crop of human flesh consists much of the wealth of his State,—while another Virginian, not yet hardened to this debasing trade, whose annual sacrifice reaches twenty-five thousand human souls, confesses the indignation and shame with which he beholds his State “converted intoone grand menagerie, where men are reared for the market, like oxen for the shambles.” Verily the question may be asked, Have we a Guinea among us? And, lastly, there is the Slave-Hunter, with the bloodhound as his brutal symbol, who pursues slaves as the hunter pursues game, and does not hesitate in the public prints to advertise his Barbarism thus:—

“BLOODHOUNDS.—I have TWO of the FINEST DOGS for CATCHING NEGROES in the Southwest. They can take the trail TWELVE HOURS after the NEGRO HAS PASSED, and catch him with ease. I live four milessouthwest of Bolivar, on the road leading from Bolivar to Whitesville. I am ready at all times to catch runaway negroes.“David Turner.“March 2, 1853.”[76]

“David Turner.

“March 2, 1853.”[76]

The bloodhound was known in early Scottish history; it was once vindictively put upon the trail of Robert Bruce, and in barbarous days, by cruel license of war, was directed against the marauders of the Scottish border. Walter Scott makes one of his heroes “cheer the dark blood-hound on his way”; but more than a century has passed since the last survivor of the race was seen in Ettrick Forest.[77]The bloodhound was employed by Spain against the natives of this continent, and the eloquence of Chatham never touched a truer chord than when, gathering force from the condemnation of this brutality, he poured his thunder upon the kindred brutality of the scalping-knife, adopted as an instrument of war by a nation professing civilization. Tardily introduced into this Republic some time after the Missouri Compromise, when Slavery became a political passion and Slave-Masters began to throw aside all disguise, the bloodhound has become the representative of our Barbarism, when engaged in the pursuit of a fellow-man asserting his inborn title to himself; and this brute becomes typical of the whole brutal leash of Slave-Hunters, who, whether at home on Slave Soil, under the name of Slave-Catchers and Kidnappers, or at a distance, under politer names, insult Human Nature by the enforcement of this Barbarism.

(3.) From this dreary picture of Slave-Masters with their slaves and their triumvirate of vulgar instruments, I pass to another more dreary still, and more completely exposing the influence of Slavery: I mean therelations of Slave-Masters with each other, alsowith SocietyandGovernment,—or, in other words, the Character of Slave-Masters, as displayed in the general relations of life. Here again I need your indulgence. Not in triumph or in taunt do I approach this branch of the subject. Yielding only to the irresistible exigency of the discussion, and in direct reply to the assumptions on this floor, especially by the Senator from Virginia [Mr.Mason], I proceed. If I touch Slavery to the quick, and make Slave-Masters see themselves as others see them, I shall do nothing beyond the strictest line of duty in this debate.

One of the choicest passages of the master Italian poet, Dante, is where we are permitted to behold a passage of transcendent virtue sculptured in “visible speech” on the long gallery leading to the Heavenly Gate. The poet felt the inspiration of the scene, and placed it on the wayside, where it could charm and encourage. This was natural. Nobody can look upon virtue and justice, if only in images and pictures, without feeling a kindred sentiment. Nobody can be surrounded by vice and wrong, by violence and brutality, if only in images and pictures, without coming under their degrading influence. Nobody can live with the one without advantage; nobody can live with the other without loss. Who could pass life in the secret chamber where are gathered the impure relics of Pompeii, without becoming indifferent to loathsome things? But if these loathsome things are not merely sculptured andpainted,—if they exist in living reality,—if they enact their hideous, open indecencies, as in the criminal pretensions of Slavery,—while the lash plays and the blood spurts,—while women are whipped and children are sold,—while marriage is polluted and annulled,—while the parental tie is rudely torn,—while honest gains are filched or robbed,—while the soul itself is shut down in all the darkness of ignorance, and God himself is defied in the pretension that man can have property in his fellow-man,—if all these things are “visible,” not merely in images and pictures, but in reality, the influence on character must be incalculably deplorable.

According to irresistible law men are fashioned by what is about them, whether climate, scenery, life, or institutions. Like produces like, and this ancient proverb is verified always. Look at the miner, delving low down in darkness, and the mountaineer, ranging on airy heights, and you will see a contrast in character, and even in personal form. The difference between a coward and a hero may be traced in the atmosphere which each has breathed,—and how much more in the institutions under which each is reared! If institutions generous and just ripen souls also generous and just, then other institutions must exhibit their influence also. Violence, brutality, injustice, barbarism, must be reproduced in the lives of all living within their fatal sphere. The meat eaten by man enters into and becomes part of his body; the madder eaten by the dog changes his bones to red; and the Slavery on which men live, in all its fivefold foulness, must become part of themselves, discoloring the very soul, blotting the character, and breaking forth in moral leprosy. This language isstrong, but the evidence is even stronger. Some there may be of happy natures—like honorable Senators—who can thus feed and not be harmed. Mithridates fed on poison, and lived. It may be that there is a moral Mithridates, who can swallow without bane the poison of Slavery.

Instead of “ennobling” the master, nothing is clearer than that the slave drags his master down; and this process, beginning in childhood, is continued through life. Living much in association with his slave, the master finds nothing to remind him of his own deficiencies, to prompt his ambition or excite his shame. He is only a little better than his predecessor in ancient Germany, as described by Tacitus, who was distinguishable from his slave by none of the charms of education, while the two burrowed among the same flocks and in the same ground.[78]Without provocation to virtue, or elevating example, he naturally shares the Barbarism of the society he keeps. Thus the very inferiority which the Slave-Master attributes to the African explains the melancholy condition of the communities in which his degradation is declared by law.

A single false principle or vicious thought may debase a character otherwise blameless; and this is practically true of the Slave-Master. Accustomed to regard men as property, the sensibilities are blunted and the moral sense is obscured. He consents to acts from which Civilization recoils. The early Church sacrificed its property, and even its sacred vessels, for the redemption of captives. On a memorable occasion this was done by St. Ambrose,[79]and successive canons confirmedthe example. But in the Slave States all is reversed. Slaves there are hawked as property of the Church[80]; and an instance is related of a slave sold in South Carolina to buy plate for the communion-table. Who can estimate the effect of such an example?

Surrounded by pernicious influences of all kinds, positive and negative, the first making him do that which he ought not to do, and the second making him leave undone that which he ought to have done,—through childhood, youth, and manhood, even unto age,—unable, while at home, to escape these influences, overshadowed constantly by the portentous Barbarism about him, the Slave-Master naturally adopts the bludgeon, the revolver, and the bowie-knife. Through these he governs his plantation, and secretly armed with these enters the world. These are his congenial companions. To wear these is his pride; to use them becomes a passion, almost a necessity. Nothing contributes to violence so much as wearing the instruments of violence, thus having them always at hand to obey a lawless instinct. A barbarous standard is established; the duel is not dishonorable; a contest peculiar to our Slave-Masters, known as a “street fight,” is not shameful; and modern imitators of Cain have a mark set upon them, not for reproach and condemnation, but for compliment and approval. In kindred spirit, the Count of Eisenburg, presenting to Erasmus a handsome dagger, called it “the pen with which he used to combat saucyfellows.”[81]How weak that dagger against the pen of Erasmus! I wish to keep within bounds; but unanswerable facts, accumulating in fearful quantities, attest that the social system so much vaunted by honorable Senators, which we are now asked to sanction and extend, takes its character from this spirit, and, with professions of Christianity on the lips, becomes Cain-like. And this is aggravated by the prevailing ignorance in the Slave States, where one in five of the adult white population of native birth is unable to read and write.

“The boldest they who least partake the light,As game-cocks in the dark are trained to fight.”

“The boldest they who least partake the light,

As game-cocks in the dark are trained to fight.”

There are exceptions, which we all gladly recognize; but it is this spirit which predominates and gives the social law. Again we see the lordlings of France, as pictured by Camille Desmoulins, “ordinarily very feeble in arguments, since from the cradle they are accustomed to use theirwillas right hand and theirreasonas left hand.”[82]Violence ensues. And here mark an important difference. Elsewhere violence shows itself inspiteof law, whether social or statute; in the Slave States it isbecauseof law, both social and statute. Elsewhere it is pursued and condemned; in the Slave States it is adopted and honored. Elsewhere it is hunted as a crime; in the Slave States it takes its place among the honorable graces of society.

Let not these harsh statements stand on my authority. Listen to the testimony of two Governors of Slave States in messages to their respective Legislatures.

Said the Governor of Kentucky, in 1837:—

“We long to see the day when the law will assert its majesty, and stop the wanton destruction of life which almostdailyoccurs within the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth.Men slaughter each other with almost perfect impunity.A species of Common Law has grown up in Kentucky, which, were it written down, would, in all civilized countries, cause it to be re-christened, in derision,the Land of Blood.”

Such was the official confession of a Slave-Master, Governor of Kentucky. And here is the official confession made the same year by the Slave-Master Governor of Alabama:—

“We hear of homicides in different parts of the State continually, and yet have few convictions, and still fewer executions. Why do we hear ofstabbings and shootings almost dailyin some part or other of our State?”

A land of blood! Stabbings and shootings almost daily! Such is official language. It was natural that contemporary newspapers should repeat what found utterance in high places. Here is the confession of a newspaper in Mississippi:—

“The moral atmosphere in our State appears to be in adeleterious and sanguinary condition. Almost every exchange paper which reaches us containssome inhuman and revolting case of murder or death by violence.”[83]

Here is another confession, by a newspaper in New Orleans:—

“In view of the crimes which are daily committed, we are led to inquire whether it is owing to the inefficiency of our laws, or to the manner in which these laws are administered,that this frightful deluge of human blood flows through our streets and our places of public resort.”[84]

And here is testimony of a different character:—

“As I left my native State on account of Slavery, and deserted the home of my fathers to escape the sound of the lash and the shrieks of tortured victims, I would gladly bury in oblivion the recollection of those scenes with which I have been familiar; but this may not, cannot be.”[85]

These are the words of a Southern lady, daughter of the accomplished Judge Grimké, of South Carolina.

A catalogue of affrays between politicians, commonly known as “street fights,”—I use the phrase furnished by the land of Slavery,—would show that these authorities are not mistaken. That famous Dutch picture, admired particularly from successful engraving, and calledThe Knife-Fighters,[86]presents a scene less revolting than one of these. Two or more men, armed to the teeth, meet in the streets, at a court-house, or a tavern, shoot at each other with revolvers, then gash each other with knives, close, and roll upon the ground, covered with dirt and blood, struggling and stabbing, till death, prostration, or surrender puts an end to the conflict. Each instance tells its shameful story, and cries out against the social system tolerating such Barbarism. A catalogue of duels would testify again to the reckless disregard of life where Slavery exists, while it exhibited Violence flaunting in the garb of Honor, and prating of a barbarous code disowned equally by reason and religion.But you have already surfeited with horrors, and I hasten on.

Ancient Civilization did not condemn assassination. Statues were raised to Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who slew Hipparchus. Brutus and Cassius were glorified. Modern Civilization judges otherwise; but Slavery, not content with the Duel, which was unknown to Antiquity, rejoices in assassinations also,—rejoices in both.

Pardon me, if I stop for one moment to expose and denounce the Duel. I do it only because it belongs to the brood of Slavery. Long ago an enlightened Civilization rejected this relic of Barbarism, and never was one part of the argument against it put more sententiously than by Franklin. “A duel decides nothing,” said this patriot philosopher; and the person appealing to it “makes himself judge in his own cause, condemns the offender without a jury, and undertakes himself to be the executioner.”[87]To these emphatic words I add two brief propositions, which, if practically adopted, make the Duel impossible: first, that the acknowledgment of wrong, with apology or explanation, can never be otherwise than honorable; and, secondly, that, in the absence of such acknowledgment, no wrong can be repaired by gladiatorial contest, where brute force, or skill, or chance must decide the day. Iron and adamant are not stronger than these arguments; nor can any one attempt an answer without exposing his feebleness. And yet Slave-Masters, disregarding its irrational character, insensible to its folly, heedless of its impiety, and unconscious of its Barbarism, openly adopt the Duel asregulator of manners and conduct. Two voices from South Carolina have been raised against it, and I mention them with gladness as testimony from that land of Slavery. The first was Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, who, in the early days of the Republic, after asking if there were “no way of abolishing throughout the Union this absurd andbarbarouscustom,” invoked the clergy of his State, “as a particular favor, at some convenient early day, to preach a sermon on the sin and folly of duelling.”[88]The other was Mr. Rhett, who, on this floor, openly declared, as his reason for declining the Duel, “that he feared God more than man.”[89]Generous words, for which many errors will be pardoned. But these voices condemn the social system of which the Duel is a natural product.

Looking at the broad surface of society where Slavery exists, we find its spirit actively manifest against all freedom of speech and the press, especially with regard to this wrong. Nobody in the Slave States can speak or print plainly about Slavery, except at peril of life or liberty; and a curious instance shows how this same spirit is carried by our Slave-Masters into foreign lands. As early as 1789, and in Paris, a poor play,[90]where Slavery was painted truthfully, excited the hostility of what Baron Grimm, who reports the incident, calls “an American cabal,” so that its failure was attributed by some to this influence, being the early prototype of that so strong among us. St. Paul could call upon the people of Athens to give up the worship of unknowngods; he could live in his own hired house at Rome, and preach Christianity in this Heathen metropolis; but no man can be heard against Slavery in Charleston or Mobile. We condemn the Inquisition, which subjects all within its influence to censorship and secret judgment; but this tyranny is repeated in American Slave-Masters. Truths as simple as the great discovery of Galileo are openly denied, and all who declare them are driven to recant. We condemn the “Index Expurgatorius” of the Roman Church; but American Slave-Masters have an Index where are inscribed all the generous books of the age. One book, the marvel of recent literature, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” is treated thus by the Church as by Slave-Masters, being honored by the same suppression at the Vatican as at Charleston.

Not to dwell on these instances, there is one which has a most instructive ridiculousness. A religious discourse of the late Dr. Channing on West India Emancipation—the last effort of his beautiful life—was offered for sale by a book agent at Charleston. A prosecution by the South Carolina Association ensued, and the agent was held to bail in the sum of one thousand dollars. Shortly afterward, the same agent received for sale a work by Dickens, “American Notes,” freshly published; but, determined not to expose himself again to the tyrannical Inquisition, he gave notice through the newspapers that the book would “be submitted to highly intelligent members of the South Carolina Association forinspection, andifthe sale is approved by them, it will be for sale,—if not, not.”[91]

Listen also to another recent instance, as recounted in the “Montgomery Mail,” a newspaper of Alabama.

“Last Saturday we devoted to the flames a large number of copies of Spurgeon’s Sermons, and the pile was graced at the top with a copy of ‘Graves’s Great Iron Wheel,’ which a Baptist friend presented for the purpose. We trust that the works of the greasy cockney vociferator may receive the same treatment throughout the South. And if the Pharisaical author should ever show himself in these parts, we trust that a stout cord may speedily find its way around his eloquent throat. He has proved himself a dirty, low-bred slanderer, and ought to be treated accordingly.”

Very recently we had the opportunity of reading in the journals, that the trustees of a college in Alabama resolved against Dr. Wayland’s admirable work on Moral Science, as containing “Abolition doctrine of the deepest dye,” and proceeded to denounce “the said book, and forbid its further use in the Institute.”

The speeches of Wilberforce in the British Parliament, and especially those magnificent efforts of Brougham, where he exposed “the wild and guilty fantasy that man can hold property in man,” were insanely denounced by the British planters in the West Indies; but our Slave-Masters go further. Speeches delivered in the Senate are stopped at the Post-Office; booksellers receiving them have been mobbed; and on at least one occasion the speeches were solemnly proceeded against by a Grand Jury.[92]

All this is natural, for tyranny is condemned to be consistent with itself. Proclaim Slavery a permanent institution, instead of a temporary Barbarism, soon topass away, and then, by the unhesitating logic of self-preservation, all things must yield to its support. The safety of Slavery becomes the supreme law. And since Slavery is endangered by Liberty in any form, therefore all Liberty must be restrained. Such is the philosophy of this seeming paradox in a Republic. And our Slave-Masters show themselves apt. Violence and brutality are their ready instruments, quickened always by the wakefulness of suspicion, and perhaps often by the restlessness of uneasy conscience. The Lion’s Mouth of Venice is open everywhere in the Slave States; nor are wanting the gloomy cells and the Bridge of Sighs.

This spirit has recently shown itself with such intensity and activity as to constitute what is properly termed a Reign of Terror. Northern men, unless recognized as delegates to a Democratic Convention, are exposed in their travels, whether for business or health. They are watched and dogged, as in a land of Despotism,—are treated with the meanness of disgusting tyranny,—and live in peril always of personal indignity, often of life and limb. Complaint is sometimes made of wrongs to American citizens in Mexico; but the last year witnessed outrages on American citizens perpetrated in the Slave States exceeding those in Mexico. Here, again, I have no time for details, already presented in other quarters. Instances are from all conditions of life and in various quarters. In Missouri, a Methodist clergyman, suspected of being an Abolitionist, was taken to prison, amidst threats of tar and feathers. In Arkansas, a schoolmaster was driven from the State. In Kentucky, a plain citizen from Indiana, on a visit to his friends, was threatened with death by the rope. In Alabama, a simple person from Connecticut, peddlingbooks, was thrust into prison, amidst cries of “Shoot him! Hang him!” In Virginia, a Shaker, from New York, peddling garden-seeds, was forcibly expelled from the State. In Georgia, a merchant’s clerk, Irish by birth, who simply asked the settlement of a just debt, was cast into prison, robbed of his pocket-book containing nearly one hundred dollars, and barely escaped with life. In South Carolina, a stone-cutter, also an Irishman, was stripped naked, and then, amidst cries of “Brand him!” “Burn him!” “Spike him to death!” scourged so that blood came at every stroke, while tar was poured upon the lacerated flesh. These atrocities, calculated, according to the words of a great poet, to “make a holiday in Hell,” were all ordained by Vigilance Committees, or that swiftest magistrate, Judge Lynch, inspired by the demon of Slavery.

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