THE next inquiry which this subject suggests is, what are the consequences, moral and political, which must necessarily result from the practice of holding the people of colour in perpetual and hereditary slavery?

This inquiry might furnish matter for a volume. The consequences are so awful, and weave themselves into so many of the relations of society, that their full development would require much ampler space than the columns of a periodical journal can possibly afford. History, philosophy, and political economy might be successfully invoked for their contributions to this momentous work. The author of these essays must, however, be content to glean his observations from life's common field. And even within this field, a large part of the ground has been pre-occupied by the translations from Sismondi, published in the preceding numbers..

Nothing can more powerfully contribute to the happiness of a nation, Vol.I. -46

and the stability of governments, than the general prevalence of good morals. For forms of government let fools contestWhatever is best administered is best.

Without adopting the sentiment of the poet to its fullest extent, we may very safely admit, that the form is of little importance, except as it tends to secure a just and salutary administration. The checks of government, however prudently adjusted, are unavoidably weakened by a relaxed or dissolute state of public morals. And the greater the freedom guaranteed by the government to its individual members, the greater is the importance of general morality. The strong arm of despotism may often suppress the disorders originating in the unbridled passions of a ruthless populace, though the same disorders would present a formidable front to the ministers of mild and well defined laws. Indeed, political freedom is scarcely compatible with the general dissolution of

morals. Foreign aggression may be repelled by military force; but domestic tranquillity can be secured only by the freezing influence of despotic power, or the commanding energy of public opinion.

Free governments, without national virtue, naturally run into anarchy; and anarchy as naturally ends in despotism. The people, harassed with the disorders of anarchy, or which is nearly if not entirely the same thing, the domination of factions, naturally seek repose in the unbridled authority of a single ruler. The people of Israel, when they requested a king to reign over them, manifested, not only by the request, but by the disorders which led to it, their own deep-seated depravity. The prophet was commanded to grant their request, at the time that he expostulated with them on its impiety. This apparent inconsistency is easily explained by considering the transaction as an evidence that the people were too much depraved to maintain a more liberal government. The loss of liberty among the Greeks and Romans is to be attributed less to the ambition of their leaders, than to the vices of the people.

National morality can scarcely be preserved in the total absence of general religion. Morality is supported by public opinion. It has no fixed basis of its own; nor any permanent standard by which it is to be estimated. Religion is the true and original basis of morals: As genuine religion advances or recedes, the standard of morality must rise or fall. In every age and nation, the substantially pious are the salt of the earth. They give a tone and direction to public opinion; they

*Washington's Farewell Address.

support and exalt the standard of morality, and preserve from corruption the less considerate portion of the community.t

That evils of any description, when once admitted into the practice of individuals or the institutions of society, naturally pave the way for the admission of others of a deeper shade, is a truth too well attested by experience to require demonstration. The hedge of virtue being any where broken, the intrusion of a solitary vice is not to be expected.

If, then, slavery is admitted to be radically unjust, the inference, upon general principles, would be, that its presence must be adverse to the maintenance of morality and virtue. A system originally founded on violence and wrong, cannot be interwoven with the national institutions, without endangering, to a greater or less extent, the national morals. The inference can be but partially averted by the reflection, that the slavery of our time was not the work of the present generation. An institution which could not be formed without the blackest guilt, can hardly be maintained with perfect innocence. If those individuals who were originally seized on the African shore, and consigned to slavery in the

+ Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles.

It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?-Washington's Farewell Address.

western world, and the immediate authors of their captivity were now alive, and the authority thus obtained had never been transferred, there would be little doubt whether justice would permit the continuance of the unnatural relation. Any repentance on the part of the original aggressors for the injury inflicted, would obtain but little credit while the prize was retained. "Can one be pardoned and retain the offence?" The degree of criminality is doubtless very different in the case of successors; yet the nature of the ag-* gression cannot be completely changed, except by a change of the resulting relation.

Far be it from me to assert, that every person who holds slaves is on that account a criminal. No man can be accountable for evils, in the production of which he has had no agency, and over which he has no control. The system has been the growth of ages, and must probably require ages for its utter extinction. But it is of serious importance that we remember, that if we allow the unjust deeds of our fathers, we partake of their guilt. Probably few instances can be found which more forcibly illustrate the declaration that the sins of the fathers are visited on the children to the third and fourth generation, than the case before us. A heavy load has been entailed on the present generation, and the path of virtue rendered more difficult by the habits and institutions with which we are surrounded. What unsophisticated justice demands, our habits and prejudices sternly oppose.

If the slavery of a part of our species cannot be defended upon general principles, but in its first establishment was an obvious violation of natural law; if every man is justly entitled to

his freedom until he forfeits it by his crimes; if an unjust and oppressive institution cannot be innocently maintained; it is difficult to avert the conclusion, that our duty requires the extinction of slavery as speedily as the circumstances of the community can possibly admit. If the system has degraded its victims, and enervated its supporters to such an extent as to forbid a sudden change of the existing relation, we cannot innocently neglect the proper means of preparation for a safe and salutary change. To plead the degradation of the slaves as a reason for their detention in servitude, and at the same time to oppose their improvement, is to plead one crime in extenuation of another; to deny to the coloured race the common rights of humanity, because they are not more than human. Human beings are, in great measure, moulded by the circumstances in which they are placed, and rise or fall in the scale of moral and intellectual refinement, according as their condition in life is favourable or adverse to improvement.

If the claim of every human being to the common privileges of the race, until they have been clearly forfeited by crimes against the community, is undeniable; and if the forfeiture of those privileges by the slaves in our country cannot be proved; and if the reasons for continuing the system are founded on a timid and questionable policy; it follows, that even the temporary maintenance of this system is at best of very doubtful morality.

We should conclude, from the nature of the case, without looking into the world for facts, and without attempting a comparison between slave-holding and non slave-holding communities, that the former would be generally

less attentive to the duties of religion than the latter, and that the general standard of morals would suffer a correspondent depression.

Adverting then to the acknowledged effect of religion and morals upon the stability of governments, a people so jealous of their liberty and so proud of their political fabric as the inhabitants of the United States, might well view the system of negro slavery with extreme suspicion. They might very justly fear that the fabric of our government would be weakened and eventually overthrown by a system so adverse to the growth of those principles upon which our republican institutions must essentially depend.

If we examine the specific operation of slavery, we still find ample reason to deplore its existence. The first effect of this system is to establish an invidious and degrading distinction between the different classes of the community. However complete the equality between the individual members of either class may be, the free, compared with the bond, constitute a privileged order. A patrician and a plebeian rank are formed: This powerfully tends to destroy or suppress a sense of the natural equality of man. Adventitious circumstances, instead of virtue and wisdom, become the basis of honour. A member of the privileged order, how low soever he may sink in the moral scale, has his pride sustained by the conviction that a numerous class is still below him. The member of the inferior order finds the energies of his nature cramped by his servile condition. No exertion of his physical or intellectual powers can place him on a level with his more favoured compatriots. Hence pride and contempt on the one side, and envy and aversion on the other,

are equally inimic to the virtue of both. It is true, these general results are occasionally modified by particular causes. Humanity on the one hand, and fidelity on the other, may produce sincere attachments between the master and slave. But these are only exceptions to the general law, and not a part of it. Instances of fidelity and attachment have occurred in persons of servile condition, which the nobler class might be proud to emulate. If the instances of tender attachment have been mostly on the side of the slave, it merely proves that a humble station is more congenial than an exalted one to the growth of the milder virtues. They no more disprove the unfavourable tendency of these degrading distinctions, than the cases of generosity and gratitude which are sometimes found to spring up amidst the strife of spears, between the aggressors and the aggrieved, disprove the excitement of the malignant passions by a state of

war.

That such is in reality the effect of slavery on the two classes who breathe its atmosphere, may be inferred from the general character of the laws in slave-holding districts. In popular governments, the laws are the index of public opinion,—an index, it must be acknowledged, which is sometimes rather behind its moving power. The general character of the laws in relation to slaves, both in our own country and in the British West Indies, has been already shown. It appears impossible to account for many of the existing statutes, without admitting the contempt for the servile class which has been attributed to the superior grade. Nor can we readily acquit the legislators of wanton cruelty, unless we suppose that the malignant passions

predominant among the slaves, indicate the necessity of energetic restraints. The impression produced by a perusal of those laws would be, that the masters and slaves are in a state of perpetual hostility, and that subordination must be preserved by military rather than civil authority. To suppose, as we are sometimes invited to do, that the slaves are a happy people, content with their condition, and sincerely attached to their masters, would be to imagine that the masters had framed and continued to support, a system of opprobrious laws to grind down a peaceful and unoffending race; would be to attribute to the slave-holding legislatures a degree of wanton cruelty, which ought not to be charged upon them without the clearest evidence, and for which it is believed no adequate testimony can be produced. On the other hand, to suppose the laws for the government of slaves all dictated by a just and liberal policy, would be to suppose that the slaves were almost perpetually plotting the destruction of their masters. The truth unquestionably lies between these extremes. This medium appears to be, that the moral qualities of both classes are deteriorated by slavery.

As virtue is essential to the maintenance of a republican government, so on the other hand, the equality of republicanism is favourable to virtue. When men move among their equals, the malignant passions are held under habitual restraint, and the milder virtues are cultivated from necessity as well as choice. But power without accountability is prone to corrupt the possessor. Few persons are possessed of virtue sufficiently firm to be safely trusted with it. Slavery, under every form of government, supports an aris

tocracy. It gives to the master a power without the proper checks, and feeds all the passions which spring from unbridled authority. The portrait of slavery drawn by an eminent writer, who was himself a slave-holder, though often cited, lies too directly in my road to be overlooked. "There must be an unhappy influence on the manners of the 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 despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this and learn to imitate it. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circles of smaller slaves, gives loose to the worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his morals undepraved by such circumstances."*

Admitting this picture to be even partially correct, we must be convinced that such an education must be highly injurious to the youth belonging to the magisterial class; and that this state of abject dependence, and servile submission, is scarcely compatible with the growth of independent virtue. Whether our political freedom can be long preserved within the sphere of such a system, is a question for politicians to answer. It is certainly of vital importance, that the principles, as well as the form, should be preserved, if we expect the fabric to stand. Slavery cannot be wrought into the

* Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, p. 241.