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THE

MONTHLY REVIEW.

JULY, 1839.

ART. I. Remarks on the Slavery Question, in a Letter to Jonathan Phillips, Esq. By W. E. CHANNING. London: Wiley and Putnam, 1839.

THE continued existence of slavery in the United States of America, the land of boasted liberty and equality, presents a contradiction which may well excite the astonishment and the severest reproach of the citizens of the Old World. The spectacle is of such a frightful nature, and the system involves such an amount of guilt, that one would fain believe the pictures brought home to us of its existence were imaginary, exaggerated, or at least only chargeable against barbarians or professed unbelievers in Christianity. We have, however, irrefragable proofs that the reverse is the case, nay, that men of the highest legislative standing in the Union, not only by their private conduct countenance the most appalling system of slavery, and to an enormous ever-increasing extent, but that they loudly and with unshamed faces defend the institution, proclaiming publicly their share in it, and their determination to perpetuate all its cruelties and criminality. Mr. Clay, for example, has lately delivered an elaborate speech to the effect mentioned, and has had all he uttered applauded and echoed by many of his fellow-legislators.

We have often directed the attention of our readers to the slavetrade and to slavery, believing that such crying and inveterate enormities require to be constantly assailed by the moral force of public opinion, as now held throughout the most enlightened parts of Christendom. It is absolutely necessary that the power of this moral agency should be heartily joined to the physical means, so energetically employed by England, and brought to bear against such a dreadful scourge of mankind. Mr. Buxton has lately proved that physical resistance to the spread of the monstrous evil, that all the protection which our ships and their crews can afford to the poor Africans, that all the just severity of punishment which we inflict VOL. II. (1839). No. III.

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upon the detected traffickers in human beings, cannot stem the slave-trade, nor prevent thousands being annually destroyed or enslaved to supply the ravenous American market. Let us therefore lose not an opportunity of raising our voices, and to the utmost of our means making ourselves be heard, uniting in the execrations and the pleadings that burst from all humane and Christianized hearts on the subject of slavery; for if there was no fiendlike demand for bondsmen, no torturous use made of the African to serve the cupidity of slave-owners, there would be no slave-trade.

The present opportunity is one of the most inviting that ever occurred, for joining with the throng of Abolitionists in exposing and denouncing slavery in one of its greatest strongholds. Dr. Channing, one of the greatest men of the age, a man possessed of the richest mind, whose reputation has extended wherever letters and Christianity have sped, whose eloquence is massive, profound, and mightily earnest, like to his intellect, and the power and compass of his purposes and sympathies,-has once more taken the field in behalf of the bondsman to the condemnation of hosts of his country. men, and to the furtherance, without a doubt, of the triumph of liberty, truth, and civilization. A nobler champion and herald cannot be found: let us follow him,-let us echo his far-sounding words.

Some two or three years ago we accompanied the celebrated author of the present letter, and gave an abstract of his work on slavery. In that publication he addressed himself chiefly to an exposition of its evils, and to the demolition of the hackneyed efforts made to defend or excuse the infernal system, wherever established. In the production before us, he has taken new ground and confines himself to one field, where the enormity still exists in all its vigour, and where in its development certain peculiarities are made manifest. It is slavery within the American Union that he seizes upon, and the stand made for it by many of his fellow-citizens that he assails,-the speech of Mr. Clay being taken for his text. That speech which, from the status of its author, the comprehensiveness and uncompromising nature of its doctrines, representing as it does the sentiments of the slave-holding community, has very properly been thus chosen. Before we have done, we shall let our readers partake in our enjoyment at the manner in which the legislator is stripped and demolished by a "greater than he." In the meanwhile, seeing that Dr. Channing has recurred to one deceitful apology for slavery, (which he also formerly exposed) on account of the still common use made of it, which apology, he says, is uniformly advanced by "the whole South, and not a few of the North" of the Union, we shall, preliminarily to our review of that part of the Letter which directly meets Mr. Clay's harangue, turn our eyes for a moment towards this famous bulwark by which men con

ceal from themselves the real character of the evil, and repel as unwarrantable every effort for its destruction.

The apology alluded to is this-that through the lenity of the master, the slave in America suffers less than the labourer in most other countries. He has more comforts,-is happier. How often have we ourselves listened with disgust and wonder to the abettors of the system in the West Indies when uttering such a defence, full as it is of the grossest fallacies; and have had our replies and reproofs ready, which even in our hands were sufficient to drive the advocate of evil from his refuge, or, at least, from his propriety. But Dr. Channing's expoundings and refutations are much stronger, closer, more abundant, and rich; therefore to him we shall have recourse for the triumphant arguments now to be glanced at.

That the apology in question is urged at the present day, it is pertinently observed by our author, is a hopeful circumstance; for it shows that the slave-masters feel that they have the eye of the world upon them, a world becoming every day more enlightened and therefore humane; so that in self-defence it has become necessary to assert the beneficence of slavery, and this being the footing that is most confidently adopted as the firmest in its support, the day of its fall cannot be far distant. "The master feels, that he can only keep himself within the pale of civilized society, by practising kindness to a certain extent. All his defenders of the North plead his kindness. Who does not see, that, under these influences, the severities of the system must be mitigated, and that the advocates of freedom are doing immediate good to the poor creatures whose cause they espouse?"

Still slavery necessarily includes much cruelty, even admitting what is urged about its comparative comforts. The plea, in fact, never touches the essential, fundamental evil, which is, the injustice it does to a human being. "It is no excuse for wronging a man, that you make him as comfortable as is consistent with the wrong;" the wrong in the present case being the denying him freedom. No matter that our chains are woven of silk; they are as iron, because they are chains. Is my being shut up in prison to be atoned for by feeding and clothing me abundantly? An instinct of the soul calls for personal freedom, to which slavery is such a violence that nothing but abjectness can reconcile a man to its loss.

But the apology is, that the slave suffers less than other labourers. And who gave them a right to inflict a suffering, greater or less, on an innocent fellow-creature? It is still injustice. Is a highwayman not a robber because he courteously, and in a gentlemanly style gives back part of the money he took from the traveller? Besides, how do we know that the man is made happier, and can a person be rendered happy against his will? Ordering and driving him, at any rate, is a strange method to take to please him.

"Pain as pain, is nothing compared with pain when it is a wrong. A blow, given me by accident, may fell me to the earth; but after all it is a trifle. A slight blow, inflicted in scorn or with injurious intent, is an evil, which, without aid from my principles, I could not bear?" But it will be said, the slave has nothing of this consciousness of his wrongs, which adds so much weight to suffering. To him, as to the ox, a blow is but a blow, whoever inflicts and whatever may be the motive. Has the apology come to this, that slavery is happiness compared with the condition of most free labourers, because it blunts the common sensibilities and prostrates all selfrespect? But the spirit of man is not wholly killed in the slave; the moral nature of man never wholly dies; and much is the physical cruelty which the bondsmen in the Union have to endure. Dr. Channing says,

“One instance of cruelty at the South has lately found its way into some of our papers, and that is, the employment of blood-hounds in parts of the new States, for the recovery, or if this be resisted, for the destruction of the fugitive slaves. This statement has been questioned or denied, by those who incline to favourable views of the whole subject, as an atrocity too monstrous for belief. I have not enquired into its authenticity. But that one breed of blood-hounds exists at the South, we know; a breed not armed with fangs, but with rifles, and who shoot down the fugitive when no other way is left for arresting his flight. And where lies the difference between tearing his flesh by teeth, or sending bullets through his heart, skull, or bowels. My humanity can draw no lines between these infernal modes of dispatching a fellow-creature, guilty of no offence, but that of asserting one of the primary, inalienable rights of his nature. It is bad enough to oppress a man; but, when he escapes from oppression, to pursue him with mortal weapons, to shatter his bones, to mutilate him, and thus send him from a weary life with an agonizing, bloody death, is murder in an aggravated form. The laws which sanction the shooting of the flying slave, are to my mind attempts to legalize murder. They who uphold them do, however unconsciously, uphold murder. It is vain to say that this is an accompaniment of slavery which cannot be avoided the accompaniment proves the character of the system. It is a fearful law of our condition, that crimes cannot stand alone. Slavery and murder go hand in hand. Having taken the first step in a system of cruelty and wrong, we can set no bounds to our career."

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But still the physical suffering is not the worst evil; it is not to be compared to the "contempt and violation of human rights, the injustice which treats a man as a brute, and which breaks his spirit to make him a human tool. It is the injustice which denies him scope for his powers, which dooms him to an unchangeable lot, which robs him of the primitive right of human nature, that of bettering his outward and inward state; it is the injustice, which converts his social connexions into a curse," of which Dr. Channing

most loudly complains. In regard to the social relations, those to wife and children, parents, brothers, and sisters, the most blighting evil of slavery is witnessed; for, all these ties must give way to the claims of the slave's owner, to the very man who wrongs the slave. We quote a document that presents a significant commentary upon the slavery system established in the Southern States of the American Union :

"The following extract is made from the Antislavery Record of Feb. 9, 1836:

"The following query was, not long since, presented to the Savannah River Baptist Association of Ministers :- Whether, in case of involuntary separation, of such a character as to preclude all prospect of future intercourse, the parties ought to be allowed to marry again?' This query was put in regard to husband and wife separated by sale; an every day result of the great internal slave-trade. They answered

"That such separation, among persons situated as our slaves are, is civilly a separation by death; and they believe, that in the sight of God it would be so viewed. To forbid second marriages in such case, would be to expose the parties, not only to stronger hardships and strong temptations, but to church censure for acting in obedience to their masters, who cannot be expected to acquiesce in a regulation at variance with justice to the slaves, and to the spirit of that command which regulates marriage among Christians. The slaves are not free agents; and a dissolution by death is not more entirely without their consent and beyond their control, than by such separation." "

See how religion is here made the tool of slavery, of the violation of the most sacred feelings of human nature, of the breach of the moral and divine law! It shows," adds our champion," that this iniquitous system pollutes by its touch the divinest, the holiest provision of God for human happiness and virtue."

But to return to the kindness which is said to be practised towards the slave; it never amounts to an illustration of sound principle; it is not of the right stamp ; for, as the human machine cannot work without food, raiment, and all that conduces to health and strength, the kindness spoken of is only such as is bestowed on dogs and horses, because they are a man's own, his profit prompting him, and rendering the very thing boasted of by slave-holders a wrong, for it is an insult. It is because a slave has the spirit of a slave that he is treated kindly. But "once let the spirit of a man wake in him, once let him know his rights, and show his knowledge in words, looks, and bearing, and immediately he falls under suspicion and dislike, and a severity, designed to break him down, is substituted for kindness."

Such are some of the ideas which the author, in his wonted masterly manner, expands and enforces, and by which he scatters to the winds all the falsehoods, fallacies, and contradictions which

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