assume, on less satisfactory testimony, that God has created I know not how many classes of angels, why should there not be several classes of men? Swans are different from geese; cats cannot be trained like dogs; by the noblest charger stands a wretched hack;-and all without detriment to the wisdom and justice of God.

In so

Let us then leave the mazes of intangible and unfounded hypothesis, to seek for aid and instruction in historical facts. doing we find that only the white race of men, and not the black and red, who here come under consideration, possess a history in the higher sense of the term; and that, although among individual white men and white nations great differences prevail, yet far greater ones are discovered between whites, negroes, and Indians. These latter have never formed a leading, dominant state, that filled and enlarged the history of the world; only in a few solitary cases have negroes reached that height to which, as a general rule, every white man is capable of being raised. The physical difference, moreover, by no means consists in the color merely (when a white man paints himself black, it does not make him a negro); but also in the essentially different conformation of the head and of several other parts of the body; so that a nobility graduated according to the color and form of the body has a far more natural foundation than the separating and opposing of men of the same stock on the mere ground of ancestry. Again, this diversity of race is shown no less in the mind than in the body. The negro, along with an uncontrollable sensuality, has less memory, foresight, and understanding than the white man, and single exceptions do not destroy the rule.

If now we consider the physical and moral nature of the colored people, i. e. the mulattoes, &c.,* this mixture of two races cannot in the first place be termed wholly unnatural; the horror naturalis, or natural aversion, cannot be said to be wholly unconquerable. On the contrary the question suggests itself, whether a sort of men inferior in body and mind is actually produced by this mixture of races, and whether the new variety thus arisen may not also have its own peculiar value. By combining together the various characteristics of each race, might not a truly perfect whole be produced, and thus their several defects be obviated? Did perhaps Adam occupy a middle place between

*The several gradations of color are: 1. Whites; 2. Negroes; 3. Indians; 4. Mulattoes, from whites and negroes; 5. Mestizoes, from whites and Indians; 6. Samboes, from negroes and Indians; 7. Terzeroons, from a white man and mulatto woman; 8. Quarteroons, from a white man and a terzeroon; 9. Quinteroons, from a white man and a quarteroon.-In Mexico the law places all classes on an equal footing; but in fact almost all the power is in the hands of the creoles, or American descendants of Southern Europeans. Mühlenpfordt's Mexico, i. 200-204. Encyclopædia Americana, art. Mexico.

↑ Almost all travellers praise the corporeal beauty and mental amiability of the

white and black, and did that which was united in him afterwards become separated among his posterity into harsh contrarieties?

It is certain that the mulattoes, although by reason of their white fathers they possess a mental superiority over the blacks (being squeezed in as it were between the two races), hold an unnatural and far from satisfactory position, which impels them to discontentedness and vice. Above all, experience shows that it is a delusion to think of ennobling the races by mixing and crossing them; for the white race loses at least as much as the black gains. The mixture of races, too, which is common in Central America, where it is considered a mere matter of taste, has not produced the slightest improvement.*

The aversion between negroes and mulattoes is in general not less than that between blacks and whitest Mulattoes also seldom have children. That there are fewer lunatics and deaf and dumb among the slaves than among the free negroes is far from well attested, inasmuch as slaves who suffer from these infirmities are seldom placed in public institutions. Neither is it satisfactorily proved that slaves live longer than white men; for the year of their birth is often uncertain, and they purposely make themselves out to be older than they are, in order to escape hard labor and excite compassion. Still, moderate labor, want of care, and simple food, contribute to keep them in good health; while so many whites perish from dyspepsia, which prevails in America to a greater extent than in any other country.

With respect to this asserted difference of races, it is objected: "If it be possible for the negro to be as moral as the white man, he can also make equal advances in knowledge. Somewhat more or less cannot decide on this possibility and on the general position which should be granted according to reason and equity." To this it is replied: "Negroes can certainly attain to the morality (or at least it should be required of them) which the laws prescribe for private life; but of the grand morality of public political life they have no conception, and in this respect they stand even much more in need of guardianship than women and children. The greatest gain for them, on the contrary, is their

quarteroons, especially in Louisiana. Other writers testify, on the contrary, that they are neither as handsome nor as well bred as the whites. But as custom and prejudice exclude them from honorable marriage, many of them (at least those of the poorer sort) are driven to a course of life which seeks to throw the appearance of mental culture over their levity in other respects, and usually charms the ennuyeed traveller. The social connection into which many quarteroons enter with the whites is very defective and blameable from the very fact that it can be dissolved at pleasure on the part of the man, and the children are always regarded as illegitimate,

*Stephens, i. 12.

† Poussin, Richesses Américaines, ii. 412.

subjection to a race of men of greater mental development and whose vocation it is to rule over the earth. Wherever different races of men have come in contact, this aristocracy has existed; it is more natural, wholesome, and necessary, than the domination of priests, nobles, and soldiers."

Even from these brief intimations it will be seen, that where masters and slaves (or serfs) were of the same race, as in ancient times and in Europe, the too long delayed amelioration or even abolition of this evil state of things, was a perfectly easy matter in comparison with the United States of North America, where different races have become involved in these difficulties.

Let us begin with the history. Negro slavery in North America by no means proceeded from republican forms, neither does it stand in any connection therewith, as is seen from the fact that one half of the twenty-six states are free; on the contrary, it was brought thither by Europeans, and England thought she had achieved something allowable and even great and praiseworthy, when she obtained from the king of Spain, by the Assiento treaty of 1713, the exclusive right of supplying his colonies with slaves, and obliged him to be content with taking some shares in this detestable trade.* Even while the number of negro slaves in the North American settlements was still small, many perceived the lasting wrong and increasing danger of this traffic in human flesh; but no proposition, no bill of the individual colonies for taxing, impeding, diminishing, or abolishing it, received the sanction of the mother-country.

On the 6th of April, 1776, Congress prohibited the importation of slaves; an example not imitated elsewhere till a long time after. This decree, it is true, was not put into immediate execution in such a manner as to stop the introduction of slaves from Africa altogether; although it has now for years had that effect. So much the greater was the increase of the negroes in the slave-states themselves. An opposition arose between those states which condemned slavery on moral grounds, and regarded it as unnecessary in a politico-economical point of view, and those states which laid greater stress on the natural differences between the races of mankind, and which declared slavery to be indispensable, because otherwise large tracts of land would remain untilled, and the most profitable kinds of cultivation must It was declared, too, that it was above all impossible to carry on the cultivation of cotton, rice, and the sugar-cane, in the southern states of the Union by the labor of whites; that here the connection between the two races was necessary beyond a doubt; and that the white man must guide and govern the black. -In reply it was alleged (although it had not yet been proved * Bancroft, iii. 232,411, 415. Grahame, iv. 326.

cease.

by long continued experiments) that white men might also be successfully employed on cotton and sugar plantations.* It is certain that every white man dies who in summer passes only a night in the rice-swamps of Georgia and Carolina, while the negroes never get sick there; and my own experience has convinced me that the heat, even in the more healthy regions of the South, is so great, that white laborers must very soon perish. So, too, the white girls in a factory at Columbia, South Carolina, looked very sickly and miserable; while the negresses on the contrary were healthy, strong, and sprightly.

While the opponents of slavery, in order to strengthen their cause, detail a long series of instances of wanton tyranny and cruelty, the defenders of the system do not deny that such horrors have really occurred in individual cases, especially in former times; but they assert that a great deal is owing to pure invention, that some are raked together from times long past, and that self-interest and fear (even if not very noble inducements) cause the owners of slaves to treat them in the main so well and mildly, that, as their increase of itself demonstrates, they are in a healthy, comfortable, and contented condition.†

A slave in Columbia, South Carolina, said to me in private: "There are good and bad masters, easy and hard labor; on the whole the treatment is milder than formerly, and the slave of a good master is far better off than the free negro who is left to himself. Religious principles and humanity are of more consequence than general precepts, while there are so many obstacles to prevent their being carried out."

If we compare the condition of the negroes in Africa and in North America, it cannot be doubted that on the latter continent they are both physically and mentally improved, and are in a far better condition than in their primitive home. Even where no mixture with the whites has taken place, the form and character of the head, as also the whole carriage and movement of the body, are improved; while their manner of life, employment, intercourse with the whites, the learning of a far more perfect language, &c. are not without an elevating and salutary influence: and thus Dr. Skinner says truly, in writing from Liberia, Slavery exists in Africa in a far more dreadful form than in the United States."-There are certainly found here, especially

66

p. 147.

*Hinton, Topography, ii. 205. Wappius, Die Republiken von Südamerika, † Southern American Review, October, 1843. Latrobe, ii. 15. Flint, Mississippi, i. 528. Vigne, ii. 33. It is said that the French, the Irish, and planters newly arrived from the North, are severer masters than the native, habituated Southerners, or the moderate Germans,

Perhaps because a stop has been put to the deforming compression of the head. Wilkeson's History of Liberia, p. 59.

among the house-slaves, instances of the greatest fidelity and the fondest attachment, such as scarcely ever exist between masters and free servants. Many have refused the offer of freedom, or, after being set at liberty, have voluntarily returned to their old quiet and secure condition. When Madison, an excellent master by the by, formed the noble design of giving liberty to all his slaves, they begged him to remain their protector, and not to change their ancient relations.-Respecting the reception of the much calumniated Jefferson on his return to Monticello from Paris, an eye-witness relates: "The negroes discovered the approach of the carriage as soon as it reached Shadwell, and such a scene I never witnessed in my life. They collected in crowds around it, and almost drew it up the mountain by hand. The shouting, &c. had been sufficiently obstreperous before; but the moment the carriage arrived on the top, it reached the climax. When the door of the carriage was opened, they received him in their arms, and bore him into the house, crowding around, and kissing his hands and feet-some blubbering and crying-others laughing. It appeared impossible to satisfy their eyes, or their anxiety to touch and even kiss the very earth that bore him. They believed him to be one of the greatest, and they knew him to be one of the best of men, and kindest of masters. They spoke to him freely, and applied confidingly to him in all their difficulties and distresses; and he watched over them in sickness and in health; interested himself in all their concerns; advising them and showing esteem and confidence in the good, and indulgence to all."*

Although these justifications or excuses have their weight,and that there is even much that is praiseworthy is not to be denied, still the question returns, Should the slave be contented with a condition founded on unlimited obedience; and ought he not rather to be educated for a higher existence? The whole tendency of the age, the greater publicity, and many other causes, doubtless conduce to a constantly milder treatment of the slaves. The wounds and scars too, spoken of in descriptions, are not always produced by the masters, but are owing, as several physicians testified to me, to fights, scrofula, and contagious diseases. But the alleged harshness and cruelty cannot be wholly denied, for the very reason that where despotism is permitted, it will also be practised more or less. Besides, the grand question is not respecting the good or bad dispositions of individual masters; but has reference to the general laws of several slave states, which are prejudicial to the negroes, while they give the masters a literal right to the exercise of despotism in various ways. Thus, for instance, the power of the masters to inflict *Tucker's Life of Jefferson, i. 302.