Chapter XXVII: Slavery (3)

[Footnote 285: The attempts to represent the Roman Catholic clergy as ardent abolitionists (Cochin, _L'abolition de l'esclavage_, ii. 443; de Locqueneuille, _L'esclavage, ses promoteurs et ses adversaires_, p. 193) are certainly not justified by facts. Among the Catholics of the United States there were some advocates of emancipation, but their number was not large (Goodell, _Slavery and Anti-Slavery_, 195 _sq._; Parker, _Collected Works_, vi. 127 _sq._). Dr. England, the Catholic bishop of Charleston, South Carolina, undertook in public to prove that the Catholic Church had always been the uncompromising friend of slave-holding (Parker, _op. cit._ v. 57). In Brazil it was common for clergymen not only to possess slaves, but to buy and sell them with as little scruple as other merchandises (da Fonseca, _A esravidão, o clero e o abolicionismo_, pp. 28, 33). Bishop Bouvier wrote (_op. cit._ p. 568):--"Servi autem dominis suis obedire, sortem suam patienter tolerare et officia sibi imposita fideliter exsequi debent, quoadusque libertas ipsis concedatur. Meminerint præsentem vitam esse momentaneam, futuram vero æternam."]

[Footnote 286: von Holst, _op. cit._ ii. 231 _sqq._]

[Footnote 287: Barnes, _The Church and Slavery_, p. 15. Birney, _Letter to the Churches_, p. 3 _sq._ Bledsoe, _Essay on Liberty and Slavery_, p. 138 _sqq._ Gerrit Smith, _Letter to Rev. James Smylie_, p. 3. Cobb, _op. cit._ p. 54 _sqq._ Goodell, _Slavery and Anti-Slavery_, pp. 154-156, 167, 176, 181, 184, 186, &c. Parker, _Collected Works_, v. 157.]

[Footnote 288: Thornton, quoted by Goodell, _Slavery and Anti-Slavery_, p. 147. Fisk, quoted _ibid._ p. 147.]

[Footnote 289: Bledsoe, _op. cit._ p. 138.]

[Footnote 290: Smylie, quoted by Gerrit Smith, _op. cit._ p. 3.]

[Footnote 291: Quoted by Goodell, _Slavery and Anti-Slavery_, p. 347.]

[Footnote 292: Barnes, _op. cit._ p. 16.]

[Footnote 293: _Ibid._ p. 18. Newman, _Anglo-Saxon Abolition of Negro Slavery_, p. 56. Bledsoe, _op. cit._ p. 223.]

[Footnote 294: Newman, _op. cit._ p. 53. von Holst, _op. cit._ ii. 118, n. 1.]

[Footnote 295: Gurney, _Views and Practices of the Society of Friends_, p. 390. 'Anti-Slavery Declaration of 1833,' quoted by Goodell, _Slavery and Anti-Slavery_, p. 398. Birney, _Second Letter_, p. 1.]

[Footnote 296: Parker, _op. cit._ v. 56.]

[Footnote 297: von Holst, _op. cit._ ii. 230.]

Nobody would suppose that this attitude towards slavery was due to religious zeal. It was one of those cases, only too frequent in the history of morals, in which religion is called in to lend its sanction to a social institution agreeable to the leaders of religious opinion. Many clergymen and missionaries were themselves slave-holders,[298] the chapel funds largely rested on slave property,[299] and the ministers naturally desired to be on friendly terms with the more important members of their respective congregations, who were commonly owners of slaves. Adam Smith observes that the resolution of the Quakers in Pennsylvania to set at liberty all their slaves, was due to the fact that the principal produce there was corn, the raising of which cannot afford the expense of slave cultivation; had the slaves "made any considerable part of their property, such a resolution could never have been agreed to."[300]

[Footnote 298: Barnes, _op. cit._ p. 13. Goodell, _Slavery and Anti-Slavery_, pp. 151, 186 _sq._]

[Footnote 299: Newman, _op. cit._ p. 53.]

[Footnote 300: Adam Smith, _Wealth of Nations_, p. 172.]

To explain the establishment of colonial slavery, the difficulties in the way of its abolition, and the laws relating to it, it is necessary to consider not only economic conditions and the motive of self-interest, but, as a factor of equal importance, the want of sympathy for, or positive antipathy to, the coloured race. The negro was looked upon almost as an animal, according to some he was a being without a soul.[301] Even when free he was a pariah, subject to special laws and regulations. In the Code of {714} Louisiana it is said:--"Free people of colour ought never to insult or strike white people, nor presume to conceive themselves equal to the whites; but, on the contrary, they ought to yield to them on every occasion, and never speak or answer them but with respect, under the penalty of imprisonment, according to the nature of the offence."[302] The Code Noir prohibited white men and women from marrying negroes, "à peine de punition et d'amende arbitraire";[303] and in the Revised Statutes of North Carolina we read:--"If any white man or woman, being free, shall intermarry with an Indian, negro, mustee or mulatto man or woman, or any person of mixed blood to the third generation, bond or free, he shall, by judgment of the county court, forfeit and pay the sum of one hundred dollars to the use of the county."[304] In Mississippi a free negro or mulatto was legally punished with thirty-nine lashes if he exercised the functions of a minister of the Gospel.[305] Coloured men in the North were excluded from colleges and high schools, from theological seminaries and from respectable churches, as also from the town hall, the ballot, and the cemetery where white people were interred.[306] The Anglo-Saxon aversion to the black race is thus expressed by an English writer:--"We hate slavery, but we hate the negroes still more."[307] Among the Spaniards and Portuguese racial antipathies were not so strong, and their slaves were consequently better treated.[308]

[Footnote 301: von Holst, _op. cit._ i. 279. Malloch, 'How the Church dealt with Slavery,' in _The Month_, xxvii. 454.]

[Footnote 302: Quoted by Stroud, _op. cit._ p. 157.]

[Footnote 303: _Code Noir_, Édit donné au mois de Mars 1724, art. 6, p. 286.]

[Footnote 304: _Revised Statutes of North Carolina_, lxxi. 5, vol. i. 386 _sq._]

[Footnote 305: Alden and van Hoesen, _op. cit._ p. 771.]

[Footnote 306: Parker, _op. cit._ v. 58. Goodell _Slavery and Anti-Slavery_, p. 200.]

[Footnote 307: Seward, quoted by Newman, _Abolition of Negro Slavery_, p. 54.]

[Footnote 308: Couty, _L'esclavage au Brésil_, p. 8 _sqq_.]

Thus we notice in the opinions regarding slavery throughout the same distinction as in the judgments on other matters of moral concern. A person is, as a rule, allowed to enslave or to keep as slaves only persons belonging to a different community or a different race from his own, or their descendants. To deprive anybody of his liberty is to inflict an injury on him, and is regarded as {715} wrong whenever the act gives rise to sympathetic resentment, whereas nothing is thought of it where no sympathy is felt for its victim. Thus, whilst slavery grows up only under economic conditions favourable to slave labour, it is always limited by feelings of an altruistic character, and where these feelings are sufficiently broad and powerful it is not tolerated at all. The same factor also influences the condition of the slaves where slavery exists. We have seen that native slaves are better treated than foreign ones and slaves born in the household better than those who have been captured or purchased. The advancement of a nation, again, is frequently attended with greater severity in the treatment of the slaves, because, whilst the simplicity of early ages admits of little distinction between the master and his servants in their employments and manner of living, the introduction of wealth and luxury gradually destroys the equality. Besides, the number of slaves maintained in a wealthy nation makes them formidable both to their owners and to the State, hence it is necessary that they should be strictly watched and kept in the utmost subjection.[309]

[Footnote 309: Millar, _op. cit._ p. 256 _sqq._]

The condition of slaves is in various respects influenced by the selfish considerations of their masters. Stuart Mill observes:--"When, as among the ancients, the slave-market could only be supplied by captives either taken in war, or kidnapped from thinly scattered tribes on the remote confines of the human world, it was generally more profitable to keep up the number by breeding, which necessitates a far better treatment of them, and for this reason, joined with several others, the condition of slaves . . . was probably much less bad in the ancient world, than in the colonies of modern nations."[310] Among the Bedouins, says Burckhardt, "the slaves are treated with kindness, and seldom beaten, as severity might induce them to run away."[311] Superstition may also help to {716} improve the lot of the slave. In West Africa "the authority which a master exercises over a slave is very much modified by his constitutional dread of witchcraft. If he treats his slave unkindly, or inflicts unmerited punishment upon him, he exposes himself to all the machinations of witchcraft which that slave may be able to command."[312] It is said in the Proverbs, "Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty."[313] The same danger threatens the cruel master. We read in the Apostolic Constitutions, "Thy man-servant or thy maid-servant who trust in the same God, thou shalt not command with bitterness of spirit; lest they groan against thee, and wrath be upon thee from God."[314]

[Footnote 310: Mill, _Principles of Political Economy_, i. 307. _Cf._ _supra_, p. 701.]

[Footnote 311: Burckhardt, _Bedouins and Wahábys_, p. 103.]

[Footnote 312: Wilson, _Western Africa_, p. 271. See also _ibid._ p. 179; Cruickshank, _Eighteen Years on the Gold Coast_, ii. 180 _sqq._; Du Chaillu, _Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa_, p. 331; Landtman, _Origin of Priesthood_, p. 198, n. 2.]

[Footnote 313: _Proverbs_, xxx. 10.]

[Footnote 314: _Constitutiones Apostolicæ_, vii. 13.]

END OF VOL. I

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THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE MORAL IDEAS

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