If slavery be not abolished by law, is it not probable, that it will, in time, be terminated by violence?

Do the precepts of christianity, and the lessons of history, recommend gradual in preference to immediate emancipation?

CHAPTER XI.

DANGER OF CONTINUED SLAVERY.

WHILE slave holders and Colonizationists delight to expatiate on the danger of immediate emancipation, and to represent its advocates as reckless incendiaries, ready to deluge the country in blood, they seem scarcely conscious that any danger is to be apprehended from slavery itself. Yet the whole history of slavery is a history of the struggles of the oppressed to recover their liberty. The Romans had their servile wars, in one of which forty thousand slaves were embodied in arms—Italy ravaged, and Rome herself menanced.

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A European writer remarks: The formidable rebellion of the Jamaica slaves, in 1762, is well known; and in almost every island in the Archipelago, have repeated insurrections broken out; sometimes the result of plans laid with the utmost secrecy, and very widely extended, always accompanied by the horrors

of African warfare."

The destruction of property in Jamaica, in the insurrection of 1832, was estimated by the Legislature at £1,154,583. Any commotion of the emancipated slaves, that should cost the island one-hundredth part of this sum, would be hailed both there and here, as demonstrative of the folly and hazard of emancipation. And have we not in our own country, had melancholy, heartrending proofs of the danger of slavery?

In 1712, and 1741, negro insurrections occurred in NewYork, and we may judge of the alarm they excited, by the shocking means used to prevent their recurrence. Of the leaders of the last insurrection, thirteen were burned alive, eighteen hung, and eighty transported. In the single State of SouthCarolina, there have been no less than seven insurrections designed or executed. In 1711, the House of Assembly complained of certain fugitive slaves, who "keep out armed, and

robbing and plundering houses and plantations, and putting the inhabitants of this province in great fear and terror." In 1730, an open rebellion occurred, in which the negroes were actually armed and embodied. In 1739, there were no less than three rebellions, as appears from a petition from the Council and Assembly to the king, in which they complain of an "insurrection of our slaves, in which many of the inhabitants were murdered in a barbarous and cruel manner; and that was no sooner quelled, than another projected in Charleston, and a third lately in the very heart of the settlements, but happily discovered time enough to be prevented." In 1816, there was a conspiracy of the slaves in Camden and its vicinity, "the professed design of which was to murder all the whites and free themselves." The conspiracy in Charleston in 1822, and the sacrifice of human life to which it led, are well known. But in no instance, has the danger of slavery been so vividly illustrated, as in the tragedy of Southampton.

A fanatic slave conceived, from some supposed signs in the heavens, or peculiarity in the weather, that he was called by God to destroy the whites. He communicated his commission to five other slaves, who engaged to aid him in executing it.

The conspirators agreed to meet at a certain place, on the night of the 21st August, 1831. They assembled at the appointed hour, and the leader, Nat Turner, beheld with surprise a sixth man, who had not been invited by him to join the enterprise, but who had learned from another source, the cause of the meeting; and on inquiring for what purpose he had come, received the remarkable answer: My life is worth no more than that of others, and my liberty as dear to me." With these six associates, Turner commenced the work of destruction. By sunrise, the number of murderers was swelled to fourteen, and by ten o'clock the same morning, to forty!

From the testimony given on the trial of Turner, and which has been published, it appears, that there was no previous concert, except between Turner and his six original associates, and that no white or free colored man was privy to their design.

The dates we have given of the various insurrections, prove conclusively, that they were in no degree connected with discussions respecting Abolition; and at the time of the Southampton massacre, there was no Anti-Slavery Society in the United States advocating immediate emancipation.

Abolitionists have been often charged with a desire to foment insurrections; but the charge is wholly gratuitous, and no proof whatever of such sublimated wickedness has ever been adduced against them. On the contrary, their characters, professions and conduct repel the calumny. The whole history of Abolition shows, that its only tendency is to insure peace and safety.

We have brought facts to establish the danger of slavery; let us now attend to the confessions of slave holders to the same point. A South Carolina writer, while urging the necessity of a stricter police over the slaves, thus describes them:

Let it never be forgotten, that our negroes are truly the Jacobins of the country; that they are the anarchists, and the domestic enemy; THE COMMON ENEMY OF CIVILIZED SOCIETY,

AND THE BARBARIANS WHO WOULD IF THEY COULD, BECOME THE DESTROYERS OF OUR RACE.

The Southern Religious Telegraph says:

"Hatred to the whites, with the exception in some cases of attachment to the person and family of the master, is nearly universal among the black population. We have then a FOE cherished in our very bosoms-a foe WILLING TO DRAW OUR LIFE-BLOOD, whenever the opportunity is offered, and, in the mean time, intent on doing us all the mischief in his

power."

Now, be it recollected, that these "destroyers of our race,' these foes, willing "to draw the life-blood" of the whites, are rapidly advancing to an immense numerical majority. And on what grounds do the whites rest their hope of security from these Jacobins, and anarchists-on equal laws, the diffusion of education, and the influence of religion? Let Governor Haynes of South Carolina, answer the question.

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A STATE OF MILITARY PREPARATION, must always be with us a state of perfect domestic security. A profound peace, and consequent apathy, may expose us to the danger of domestic insurrection."-Message to the Legislature, 1833.

Thus, profound peace, which is a blessing to all other people, will be a curse to the slave holders, and they are to hold all that is dear to them by the tenure of military preparation!

Is it, we ask, possible, for any nation to have a worse population than that described in the preceding extracts, or to be

A refutation of the calumnies inculcated against the Southern and Western States.-Charleston, 1822.

doomed to a more deplorable fate, than that of perpetual military preparation?

We have now seen, what are the religious and political principles, and what are the historical facts which lead the American Anti-Slavery Society to recommend immediate emancipation to their Southern brethren.

But it is demanded, with an air of supercilious triumph, what have Northern men to do with slavery, and what right have they to interfere with the domestic institutions of the South? And is this question addressed to the followers of HIM who commanded his disciples to "go into all the world, and to preach the Gospel to every creature?" As well might it be asked of the Christians of America, what they have to do with the religion of Brahma,-what right they have to interfere to rescue the widow from the burning pile, or the devotee from the wheels of Juggernaut ? Christians are no less bound by the injunction to "do good unto all men," to endeavor, by lawful means, to break the fetters of the slave, than to deliver the victim of Pagan superstition. The obligation is imperative, and they who duly respect its authority, will not be deterred by violence or denunciation from obeying its monitions. The same moral sense which has led Abolitionists to oppose slavery, will, we trust, forever lead them to repudiate in their practice the detestable doctrine, that the end sanctifies the means. The means they employ, except in relation to slavery under the authority of Congress, are wholly confined to arguments addressed to the conscience and understanding; and intended only to excite the voluntary action of the masters. With them, and with them alone, rests the power of deciding on the course they will pursue. But let them ponder well the consequences to themselves and their posterity, of their momentous decision. By rejecting Abolition, they reject all the rich and varied. blessings in morals, in security, in political power and wealth, which it offers to their acceptance. And what do they retain -the licentiousness, cruelty, and injustice; the depression of enterprise, the wasting of strength, the fearful forebodings, the hourly jeopardy, the frowns of public opinion, and the reproaches of conscience, which are and must be the inseparable attendants on slavery. Before they refuse to retreat from the volcano on which they are standing, let them look into the terrific crater which yawns beneath them,

at all.

If slavery is to be perpetual, it will be well to estimate, not only the number of slaves with which our Southern country is to be peopled, but also the ratio they are to bear to their masters. It must be recollected, that all those moral checks on population which arise from religion, the refinements of civilized life, and the difficulty of sustaining a family are wanting to the slave. Hence there is always a tendency to a far more rapid multiplication in a slave than a free population. Certain circumstances may indeed check this tendency, but experience proves, that in this country, they exist to a very slight extent, if Our slaves are increasing in a constantly accelerated ratio. In the ten years, from 1810 to 1850, judging from the result of the last census, the increase will be 1,049,275, a number greater than all the slaves just liberated in the West Indies! The next ten years, a still greater number will be added, and so on indefinitely. In the mean time, new and powerful checks will be operating to retard the progress of the white population. The evils attendant on slavery, will offer strong inducements to the young and indigent to forsake the land of their fathers, and to seek a safer home, and a wider field for enterprise. Virginia affords a striking illustration of this remark. The domestic slave trade annually relieves that State of more than six thousand slaves, and yet, notwithstanding this drain, they continue to

increase.

In 1830, the colored population in the counties east of the Blue-ridge, exceeded the white by 81,078, whereas, forty years before, in the same counties, the whites had a majority of 25,098!

The number of slaves must at length reach the point of profitable employment, after which, each additional one becomes an incumbrance. Soon after this point is reached, the traffic in slaves must cease, and the owners will be unable to dispose of their superfluous hands. The consequence will be, the gradual impoverishment of the proprictors. As the slaves increase in number, and diminish in value, their masters will gradually become less interested in their welfare, and more apprehensive of their physical strength. Fear is a cruel passion, and especially as it silences the remonstrances of conscience, by the plea of selfpreservation. As the danger becomes more pressing, the precautions of the master will become more and more rigorous; every slave being regarded and treated as an enemy, will, in fact,