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قراءة كتاب The Right of American Slavery

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The Right of American Slavery

The Right of American Slavery

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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Caffrarian, the New-Zealander, and the Hottentot, are stamped by nature with the unmistakable character of unmitigated barbarism, and absolute antagonism to civilization; and their improvement when brought in contact with civilization is so slow as almost to escape detection. Indeed it is doubtful whether the arts of European and American civilization have succeeded in so fascinating the African race among us as to warrant the expectation of permanency to the colony of Liberia, except from the light reflected by constant and continued emigration; and it is believed, by many shrewd philanthropists whose efforts have been long devoted to the cause of African colonization, that should emigration to the colony cease, the Negroes there would immediately relapse into their former habits and customs, and ultimately resume their original character of cannibals.

THE AFRICAN NOT INTENDED FOR FREEDOM.

No race will remain slaves which the God of nature intended, or which is fit, to be free; and it is the history of the African in this country, that the more fit to be free the more he is inclined to remain a slave. That portion of the African race here which have been most benefited by our civilization, scorn the false philanthropy which would restore them to barbarism, and beg the immunity of perpetual thralldom. This is a clear proof that the African is not intended for freedom, and at the same time shows that instinct teaches him, as it teaches all our domestic animals, to know the path of safety better than it can be learned in the school of fanaticism, or from the dialect of fools.

It is, therefore, in the philosophical aspect of the subject, in which it should be viewed, since philosophy searches down into the deep recesses of nature, and drags to light those hideous deformities of a race of barbarians, whose inherent passions revel in a sphere infinitely beneath the dignity of our domestic animals, and from whose frenzied rage for self-annihilation, enkindled by a morbid desire to devour their kind, the gentler beasts of the forest turn away in disgust, and humanity shrinks back with unmitigated horror!

BARBARISM SHOULD SUBSERVE CIVILIZATION.

To say, then, that it is just that barbarism should subserve civilization is a laconical axiom, which decides a plain question of right and wrong. The wrong is, that the African is a barbarian, and devours his kind; the right is, that in his service due and rendered to civilization, he receives its protection, and is compelled to forego the, to him, exquisite pleasure of devouring his kind. It will be observed that this view of the subject justifies, not only the perpetuation, but the inception of slavery, and renders emancipation absurd and cruel, and the inception of slavery just; leaving the continued transfer of barbarians to the midst of civilized communities, a right, the exercise of which could not involve or sacrifice any right of the barbarian, but must depend upon the enlightened decision of civilization, as to the reciprocal benefits to be derived therefrom. The conscience of civilization is the tribunal at which to try barbarism, as well as every other grade of inferior subjective existence. It stands above and controls all below it. The conscience of civilization decides both the right to summon the barbarian, and to hold him subject to its dictates; to weigh the benefits to civilization against the evils resulting from the adoption of the element of this super-animal force as an aid to civilization. Civilization deciding to take and hold the barbarian, it becomes right by the decision of the highest arbiter. The taking of the barbarian, and his employment as an adjunct of civilization, being in consequence of his moral delinquency, and his consequent mental imbecility, is no arrogation of right, because it is just; it is no assumption of right, because the empire of right is universal; it is no violation of right, because the act in itself is the exercise of the prerogative of right, of justice, in civilization, to suppress wrong and compel it to subserve right. In this view emancipation is no less unjust to the African than opposed to the law of right. To seize him and drag him away to barbarism, against his will, is an act in favor of barbarism and in violation of right. It restores to barbarism its victim, and robs the African of his supposed natural prerogative and choice, of service to civilization. The act, of itself, is the abnegation of that same right which it is designed or intended to assert.

THE AFRICAN'S AVERSION TO COLONIZATION.

Go ask the African his opinion of Liberia! Consult him as to the choice of his future home. He looks upon this land as a paradise, and upon that with instinctive dread and apprehension. Go ask the very slaves of the inventor of Central American Colonization (that devout apostle of political philanthropy, and most zealous advocate of emancipation), go ask his slaves their opinion of the merits of their master's invention, and their faces will kindle with the half ingenuous blush of conscious degradation, as they denounce his project, as the last device of insolence to degrade and oppress them.

IMPRACTICABILITY OF COLONIZATION.

The impracticability of African colonization[5] had long since become a foregone conclusion, so far as it could be made applicable to the present or prospective transfer of 4,000,000 of negroes from this republic to Liberia. A mathematical solution of that problem shows the cost of purchase and transportation to be no less a sum than $2,400,000,000, or ten times the amount of all the gold and silver coin in the United States. The purchase of these Negroes, alone, would cost $2,000,000,000, or eight times the amount of all our coin; and if we add to this the cost of transportation to Central America, the entire cost would not be less than $2,200,000,000. It will be seen that one scheme is as practicable as the other; and the alternative remains, of either robbing the people of nearly half the States of the Union of their property, or the Negro must remain a slave. No sane man will say that the purchase of this property is practicable or possible. Fancy, if you please, the Negroes bought and paid for; the estates of all the people of this country involved in the vain chimera of transferring to our Southern States, in remuneration, all the coin in Europe and America, and all that will be added thereto in a hundred years to come, and you have a picture not very suggestive of practicability or expediency.

But, even if the citizens of our Southern States should magnanimously propose the totally improbable act of voluntary and gratuitous manumission of their slaves, for the purpose of elevating them to political equality, what would be the effect upon our country? Three millions and a half of Negroes let loose upon our community, in competition, in the main departments of industry, with free white labor. Or would you, in accordance with the legislation of many of the States, exclude the negro from the Northern, Middle, and Western States, and the Territories, and thus, by confining him to the South, give him political preponderance over the white man in many of the States of the Union? Imagine the pure crystal pillars of this temple of freedom turned to ebony; the radiant eyes of Freedom's Goddess shocked at the gloomy spectacle of symbolic night, and suffused with tears at such a desecration of her shrine!

GRADUAL OR PROSPECTIVE

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