In discussing the views presented in my last letter with Southerners, the labors of a society for the religious instruction of negroes in Liberty County, Georgia, have frequently been referred to as an instance of the great privileges which the negroes may be blessed with in Slavery. This Society has been in operation for many years, though I believe its operations were interrupted, as were nearly all public efforts to improve the condition of negroes at the South, during the periods of extreme sectional excitement. The Thirteenth Annual [173] Report of the Society, which has been sent me, conveys to a stranger abundant evidence of the general debased moral and intellectual condition of the slaves. It demonstrates that the tendency of the circumstances of ordinary slave life is exceedingly debasing and demoralizing, and it fails to show that the means used by the Society are generally effectual to counteract this tendency.

The view presented in my last, of the difficulties in the way of the elevation of the negro, inherent in the system of Slavery, is strikingly confirmed by the Missionary of the Society, in some remarks on the proposition that “the moral discipline and culture of the negroes is a duty equally binding upon all who hold the responsible relation of masters and managers with the improvement of their physical condition.”

As it is a point upon which many of your Southern readers will, I fear, have disagreed with me, and in which I may be thought to have observed superficially and judged with prejudice, I shall quote several passages, which will indicate the result of thirteen years’ experience in the duties of a special instructor and pastor of negroes, by a Southern Presbyterian clergyman (since appointed Professor of Theology at Columbia, S.C.):

A right estimation of servants as immortal and accountable beings, lies at the foundation of attention to their moral discipline and culture. And I am free to confess that while it is hard, in our corrupt and imperfect state, to estimate rightly even our children and relations as immortal and accountable beings, and to treat them accordingly, there are difficulties in the way of forming such an estimation of servants, because they are servants, (i.e. slaves.) You inquire why it is so? I presume your experience, if you have watched your own thoughts and feelings, will suggest the reply.

They are, in the language of Scripture, “your money.” They are the source, the means of your wealth; by their labor do you obtain the necessaries, the conveniences and comforts of life. The increase of them is the general standard of your worldly prosperity; without them, you would be comparatively poor. They are consequently sought after and desired as property, and when possessed, must be so taken care of and managed as to be made profitable.

Now it is exceedingly difficult to use them as money; to treat them as property, and at the same time render to them that which is just and equal as immortal and accountable beings, and as heirs of the grace of life, equally with ourselves. They are associated in our business, and thoughts, and feelings, with labor, and interest, and gain, and wealth. Under the influence of the powerful feeling of self-interest, there is a tendency to view and to treat them as instruments of labor, as a means of wealth, and to forget, or pass over lightly, the fact that they are what they are, under the eye and government of God. There is a tendency to rest satisfied with very small and miserable efforts for their moral improvement, and to give one’s self but little trouble to correct immoralities and reform wicked practices and habits, should they do their work quietly and profitably, and enjoy health, and go on to multiply and increase upon the earth.”

This is addressed to a body of professing evangelical Christians, in a district in which more is done for the elevation of the slaves than in any other of [174] the South. What they are called to witness from their own experience, as the tendency of a system, which recognizes slaves as absolute property, mere instruments of labor and means of wealth, “exceedingly difficult” for them to resist, it is evident to me, is the entirely irresistible effect upon the mass of slave holders. In general, I assert that they rest satisfied with “very small and miserable efforts (if they make any at all) for their moral improvement,” that they give themselves “but little (if any) trouble to correct immoralities and reform wicked practices and habits,” caring for little, if for anything, else but that “they do their work quietly and profitably, and enjoy health, and go on to multiply and increase upon earth.” More even than this. Fearing that moral and intellectual culture may injure their value as property, they oftener interfere to prevent, than they endeavor to assist, their slaves from using the poor opportunities that chance may throw in their way. Without referring to state enactments of this character, I could mention some instances of individuals so doing that have come within my personal observation.

But beside this direct influence of the system, it is remarked that there is, indirectly, an additional effect:

The current of the conversation and of business in society, in respect to negroes, runs in the channel of interest, and thus increases the blindness and insensibility of owners. We have a right to their obedience and service, it is true; but it is equally true that they have a right to our consideration, and care, and government, as immortal and accountable beings.

Now, see what effect the Christian missionary laboring among slaves has discovered this tendency of the system to have on their moral elevation, aside from its denying them the means of improvement:

The negroes themselves, seeing, and more than seeing, feeling and knowing, that their owners regard and treat them as their money—as property only—are inclined to lose sight of their better character and higher interests, and, in their ignorance and depravity, to estimate themselves, and religion, and virtue, no higher than their owners do.

Consider, with such an influence constantly acting upon them from all sides (and impossible to be counteracted by anyone or two masters, if it were desired), what advance it is probable the slaves are making, as men, and personally accountable beings. Does it not wholly bear out the judgment expressed in my last letter?

Many of the difficulties in the way of the progressive elevation of the negroes, while they continue to be considered as property, are mentioned. Owners are likely to provide them with only such accommodations for spending the time in which they are not actively employed, as shall be favorable to their bodily health, and enable them most rapidly to comply with the commandment, obedience to which will be most profitable to them, to “increase and multiply upon the earth,” without regard to their moral health, without caring much for their obedience to the more pure and spiritual commands of the Scriptures.

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The mingling up of husbands and wives, children and youths, banishes the privacy and modesty essential to domestic peace and purity, and opens wide the door to dishonesty, oppression, violence, and profligacy. The owner may see or hear, or know little of it. His servants may appear cheerful, and go on in their usual way, and enjoy health and do his will, yet their actual moral state may be miserable. * * If family relations are not preserved and protected, we cannot look for any considerable degree of moral and religious improvement.

No one can doubt the truth of this last proposition, and it must be acknowledged of slavery, as a system, as that system finds the expression of the theory on which it is based in the laws of every Southern State, that family relations are not preserved and protected under it, as we should therefore expect. The missionary finds that:

One of the chief causes of the immorality of negroes, arises from the indifference both of themselves, and of owners, to their family relations.

The rice planters generally, and some others owning a large number of slaves, do not allow their negroes to marry off the plantation to which they belong, conceiving “that their own convenience and interest, and,” the missionary thinks, “the comfort and real happiness of their people, are promoted by such a regulation.” He disagrees with them, and in endeavoring to convince them of their error, asks a few questions practical to his duty as their agent to Christianize their property, which they could hardly answer in a way that would justify them in continuing the restriction. One of these questions is this:

Admitting that they are people having their preferences as well as others, and there be a supply, can that love which is the foundation and essence of the marriage state, be forced?

Did a missionary in “infidel France” ever have occasion to seriously ask such a question? And is the system defensible under the name of “the largest and most effective missionary operation in the world, in steady, earnest action,” which the combined legislative wisdom of every Slave State has always thought to require, that any poor, depraved mortal of a white citizen should possess power like this over numbers of such people, in the ratio of his talent for the acquisition of property? And while this is the case, does it seem likely that it will exert a beneficent moral influence upon the race? Is Slavery, for them, a reforming, civilizing, Christianizing process? Is the whole world wrong, and the Christian Church of the Southern United States of America alone right, in its theory and practice on this point? If so, then truly has it found godliness, great gain.

It is not denied that an owner’s people may be healthy and increase, and do their work, and be in a manner cheerful, and that, externally, things may wear a good appearance—but what is the actual morality of the people? That is the question.

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And so I understand “B.,” whom a native Southerner undertakes to answer, to wish to know of the South—not denying that its people are healthy and multiplying in the most exemplary manner, that they are well fed and sufficiently well clothed, soft-bedded and lovingly cared for, and that externally things wear a good aspect—but now what is the actual Christianity they are acquiring? That is the question. And I must answer, from all I have heard and seen, that the great body of them are only dragged bodily along, as it were, in the path of Christianity, because they are attached to the skirts of the civilization and social customs that attend it.

“It is said by some,” continues the missionary, “that laws and regulations and punishments, in matters of this kind, can effect no good; that they amount to nothing; and the best, and least troublesome, plan, is to let the people alone.” He contends against this indolent view of the difficulty with some warmth of language, and evident bitterness of feeling, but finally acknowledges—“It may not be possible effectually to restrain immorality, even by the best and wisest regulations. Yet much will be accomplished. ’We speak what we do know, and testify to that which we have seen.’” How far a people may be made to swallow religion, or wear morality by “laws, regulations and punishments,” Spain, Italy, Prussia and New-England have given greater or less testimony precisely in proportion to the duration of the experiment in each.

The missionary calls attention to the character and conduct of the negro drivers, who, he says, “have it amply in their power to oppress and corrupt the people intrusted to their supervision.”

Yea, such may be the influence of these men, and the fear inspired by them, that they may carry on their immoralities among the people to a great extent, and the owner be kept in profound ignorance of the fact.

What, then, is the power, and how great the evil influence, of a corrupt and immoral owner! Is it right to give such power to any human beings?

Touching honesty and thrift among the negroes, the missionary observes:

While some discipline their people for every act of theft committed against their interests, they have no care whatever what amount of pilfering and stealing the people carry on among themselves. Hence, in some places, thieves thrive and honest men suffer, until it becomes a practice “to keep if you can what is your own, and get all you can besides that is your neighbor’s.” Things come to such a pass, that the saying of the negroes is literally true, “the people live upon one another.”

Recommending the authority of the master to be used to restrain quarrelling, fighting and profanity, the “custom of husbands whipping and beating their wives” is referred to as a common thing, as I have otherwise learned it to be. “The negro always plays the nabob in his own cabin,” an old planter observed to me; his wife is the slave of a slave, and respects her husband the more if he is a tyrant.

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Referring to the evil of Intemperance, it is observed:

Whatever toleration masters use towards ardent spirits in others, they are generally inclined to use none in respect to their servants; and in effecting this reformation, masters and mistresses should set the example; for without example, precepts and persuasions are powerless. Nor can force effect this reformation as surely and perfectly as persuasion—appealing to the character and happiness of the servant himself, the appeal recognizes him in such a manner as to produce self-respect, and it tends to give elevation of conduct and character. I will not dwell upon this point.

Unfortunately this is the very point that needs to be dwelt upon. Here lies the whole insurmountable difficulty, and I will close the subject by reiterating it. Slavery, in itself, rendering impossible a strong appeal to the character and happiness of its subject, recognizing him solely in such a manner as produces self-humiliation, can tend only to degradation of conduct and character.

The present moral and intellectual condition of the majority of the plantation slaves at the South, as I have understood it, is such as must be explained on one of two theories: either that the original capacity of the race for improvement is very limited (in other words, that they constitute a distinct and inferior race), or that the effect of the system under which they live, is to reduce their natural capacity in some respects, to limit and forbid improvement in others, and is generally demoralizing and debasing. The latter effect may be counteracted by peculiar local and personal circumstances, such as confidential relations with cultivated whites, as often where the negroes reside in active trading communities, where they are family servants, or where they are the slaves of comparatively poor men, who, owning but a few of them, are brought into more intimate and constant personal association with them. The great contrast between the negroes living under these circumstances and the ordinary laboring plantation slaves, cannot but be manifest to the most superficial observer; it is much greater a degree than the difference between the corresponding classes of the white laboring people of the Free States. The character and intellectual condition of the more privileged negroes is so superior, that I deem it in itself the strongest evidence against the first hypothesis—which affirms that the negro race has but very little capacity for improvement.

This theory is that which was held by Mr. Calhoun, and which I find is sustained by most men of logical minds at the South—not so much, I imagine, because they have been convinced by evidence before them, as because only on this theory can Slavery be logically defended. An esteemed friend at the South writes to me: “Slavery has always existed about me, and without reasoning, I have accepted it as the natural condition of the black population.” Such is the situation of nearly all Southern-born men, and when called upon to reason about it, they must admit Slavery to be unjust, unnatural and cruel, or take the position that the negro is naturally incapacitated for personal freedom, for the attainment of such civilization or elevated moral character, or argue that the negro race needs training, cultivation and discipline to fit it for freedom; [178] and that to give it this education, it must be held in restraint as in a self-sustaining manual labor school. The argument for the first position is sustained on a strong basis of facts, in Ethnological science, by the present and past condition of the negroes in Africa, compared with other races of men; and it is supposed to be sustained by Scripture. It is simple, strong and consistent. At a future time, I will consider it more particularly, and examine whether, if it were admitted, the conclusions with regard to Slavery which are commonly based upon it are justifiable. At present, I take the hypothesis more generally accepted by the world, and more popular even at the South, especially among religious people, that the race is capable of indefinite elevation ; that the same general laws of progress apply to it that are admitted for our own race; that all are descended from one parent stock, and that difference of physique is due to outward circumstances, and has followed rather than caused the difference of mental character which has distinguished the races.

Admitting this, Slavery can only be justifiable temporarily—for so long a time, namely, be it for years, generations, or centuries, as shall suffice to elevate the subjects of it, or their descendants, to a mental and moral position in which they can be trusted to their own guidance with safety to themselves and others, and until their forced labor shall have paid fair. tuition fees to their masters; admitting this, it follows that the system of restraint (for it should no longer be revolting to the ear of a freeman under the odious name, even, of Slavery) should be carefully adapted, not only to the one purpose of self-sustentation, but to the other, namely, education.

In accordance with this theory, the state of bondage of the negroes is a painful but justifiable system, and under the circumstances in which they had to be dealt with at the Revolution, is no more inconsistent with republicanism, than the bondage of children or of the insane.

Such were the views and expectations of the earlier patriots and statesmen of the south; it was with such views and expectations, expressed by them and by many popular assemblies and legislative bodies at the South, that the compact of our Union was formed. Such views and purposes are still held by thousands of our fellow citizens of the South, who, holding slaves and sustaining Slavery on this theory, are, it is not to be doubted, consistent followers of Christ and true Democrats.

But this theory has never been accepted by the strength of the South. Popular legislation, custom, feeling and avowed purpose have not been in accordance with it. The negro is held in a state of pure and unmitigated slavery incompatible with his elevation, and only to be in the least degree defended as justifiable, on the theory on which our Government is based, on the ground that the negro is a brute, or on the plea of necessity for self-preservation. And in point of fact, all arguments for Slavery as it exists are reducible to one of these two. All other arguments which we hear from Southerners are in defence of Slavery as it should be—as I deny that it is. But I do not undertake to prove [179] that Slavery, intertwined with the most effective institutions for popular elevation in the world, can absolutely make the negro more degraded and debased in all points of character than heathen barbarism.

Along with the immense improvements of all other classes of the people, which the democratic and republican form of Government has occasioned, Slavery could not prevent an improvement of the physical condition of the negroes. They are better fed, better clothed and housed, and less often cruelly punished. This, in itself, would insure a better exercise of their moral and intellectual faculties. Admitting, therefore, in a certain sense, the better intellectual and moral aspect of the class, I deny that this shows that Slavery is an educating process. Under Slavery as it is now legalized by legislation and established in custom, I affirm that the negroes are instructed merely, that they acquire from without certain habits and forms, but that they are not educated in the primary and higher sense of the word; that their mind is not drawn out, that their capabilities are not developed, and that what is deemed their intellectual improvement is like the intellectual improvement of a parrot, who, once knowing only enough to croak when it was hungry, has now learned to call for food in a form of words.

I think it is obvious that the laws and customs of Slave States are such as to interfere with and prevent any general elevation of the negro. They are plainly and often avowedly contrived with reference to this end. The power of the master to govern his slaves with sole reference to his own profit, is not at all restricted by regulations to insure their intellectual elevation and eventual capacity for emancipation.

The order of society and the customs of the people, with exceptions that I have mentioned favorable to a moiety, are entirely opposed to the elevation of the negroes. Slaves are looked upon in law and in custom as property solely, and not in any sense in a state of pupilage. They are generally treated as property, and the restrictions upon the power of their masters, or the penalties for abusing it, enforced by law or in social usage, are of the same nature as those which restrict the power, or punish the abuse of power, of a man over his brutes in free countries. There are but few and unimportant exceptions to this rule.

The only defence for this course is the necessity which the danger of insurrection and anarchy is imagined or assumed, by those who are influenced by only low, cowardly and selfish views, to occasion. How far it is justifiable on this ground, it is difficult for a stranger to know. One thing I am certain of—if the slaves are satisfied with their present condition and prospects, they are more degraded and debased than I have described them to be. There is no reason why, in the future, the danger of treating them justly (by which I do not mean freeing them from the control of their masters) should be less than at present. If there is any such danger at present, it would seem likely to increase as their numbers increase and concentrate, unless this danger may be averted [180] by measures favorable to their improvement and elevation. Up to this time, there has been no disposition shown by the South to remove the difficulty before her in this way. On ’the contrary, the policy which most intelligent men of the more free and enlightened countries of the world consider suicidal in the despots of Austria and Sicily—the policy of restricting, holding down and keeping dark the minds of the dangerous class—is yet constantly adhered to. The laws of the South for this purpose are of precisely the same title, purport, tendency and effect (so far as a stranger in each can judge) with those of Russia, Germany, Italy and France. It would be equally dangerous for me to publish and circulate this letter in Charleston, Paris, or Naples. In Russia, I might do it—for I have but to insert this clause, reminding the serfs that only the power and goodness of the Emperor prevents them from being subject to the mere cupidity of their natural masters, equally with the American slaves, to obtain for it the approval of the censor. The only measure having reference to the difficulty, besides those of this character, generally and energetically advocated and pursued by the South, has been, and is, that of enlarging the area of the country which may be occupied by slaves—thus putting off the danger which their concentration will occasion.

Up to this point we of the North have politically nothing to do with it. Here we have much to do. Here we must be consulted, here we must assist; here, at least, we must permit, or here we must prevent.

Therefore, it is ’not impertinent for us to inquire if there is not a better way. There is nothing impracticable, nothing fanatical, nothing unconstitutional, in our holding and expressing the belief that there is.

For us to cry out for Abolition, the direct sundering of the tie of master and dependent, may be impracticable, fanatical, mischievous and unjust. For Amelioration, the improvement and elevation of the negro, it seems to me, in view of the honor, safety and future prosperity of the country whose institutions we unite to govern and protect, there is no impropriety for us to ask.