 | Letters from New York |  |
LETTER XXIII.
It has been my fortune, in the course of a changing life,
to meet with many strange characters; but I never, till
lately, met with one altogether unaccountable.
Some six or eight years ago, I read a very odd pamphlet,
called “The Patriarchal System of Society, as it exists
under the name of Slavery; with its necessity and advantages.
By an inhabitant of Florida.” The writer assumes
that “the patriarchal system constitutes the bond of social
compact; and is better adapted for strength, durability, and
independence, than any state of society hitherto adopted.”
“The prosperous state of our northern neighbours,” says
he, “proceeds, in many instances, indirectly from southern
slave labour; though they are not aware of it.” This was
written in 1829; read in these days of universal southern
bankruptcy, it seems ludicrous; as if it had been intended
for sarcasm, rather than sober earnest.
But the main object of this singular production is to prove
that colour ought not to be the badge of degradation; that
the only distinction should be between slave and free—not
between white and coloured. That the free people of colour,
instead of being persecuted, and driven from the Southern
States, ought to be made eligible to all offices and means of
by which the interests of the two castes would become
united, and the slaves be kept in permanent subordination.
Intermarriage between the races he strongly
advocates; not only as strengthening the bond of union between
castes that otherwise naturally war upon each other,
but as a great improvement of the human race. “The intermediate
grades of colour,” says he, “are not only healthy,
but, when condition is favourable, they are improved in
shape, strength, and beauty. Daily experience shows that
there is no natural antipathy between the castes on account
of colour. It only requires to repeal laws as impolitic as
they are unjust and unnatural—laws which confound beauty,
merit, and condition, in one state of infamy and degradation
on account of complexion. It is only required to
leave nature to find out a safe and wholesome remedy for
evils, which of all others are the most deplorable, because
they are morally irreconcileable with the fundamental principles
of happiness and self-preservation.”
I afterwards heard that Z. Kinsley, the author of this
pamphlet, lived with a coloured wife, and treated her and
her children with kindness and consideration. A traveller,
writing from Florida, stated that he visited a planter, whose
coloured wife sat at the head of the table, surrounded by
healthy and handsome children. That the parlour was full
of portraits of African beauties, to which the gentleman
drew his attention, with much exultation; dwelling with
great earnestness on the superior physical endowments of
the coloured race, and the obvious advantages of amalgamation.
I at once conjectured that this eccentric planter was
the author of the pamphlet on the patriarchal system.
Soon after, it was rumoured that Mr. Kinsley had purchased
a large tract of land of the Haitien government; that
he had carried his slaves there, and given them lots. Then
I heard that it was a colony, established for the advantage
kind of slavery, by consent of the government; and
that he still held a large number of slaves in Florida.
Last week, this individual, who had so much excited my
curiosity, was in the city; and I sought an interview. I
found his conversation entertaining, but marked by the same
incongruity, that characterizes his writings and his practice.
His head is a peculiar one; it would, I think, prove
as great a puzzle to phrenologists, as he himself is to moralists
and philosophers.
I told him of the traveller's letter, and asked if he were
the gentleman described.
“I never saw the letter;” he replied; “but from what
you say, I have no doubt that I am the man. I always
thought and said, that the coloured race were superior to us,
physically and morally. They are more healthy, have more
graceful forms, softer skins, and sweeter voices. They are
more docile and affectionate, more faithful in their attachments,
and less prone to mischief, than the white race. If
it were not so, they could not have been kept in slavery.”
“It is a shameful and a shocking thought.” said I, “that
we should keep them in slavery by reason of their very virtues.”
“It is so, ma'am; but, like many other shameful things,
it is true.”
“Where did you obtain your portraits of coloured beauties?”
“In various places. Some of them I got on the coast of
Africa. If you want to see beautiful specimens of the human
race, you should see some of the native women there.”
“Then you have been on the coast of Africa?”
“Yes, ma'am; I carried on the slave trade several
years.”
“You announce that fact very coolly,” said I. “Do you
you know that, in New England, men look upon a slave-trader
with as much horror as they do upon a pirate?”
“Yes; and I am glad of it. They will look upon a
slaveholder just so, by and by. Slave trading was very
respectable business when I was young. The first merchants
in England and America were engaged in it. Some
people hide things which they think other people don't like.
I never conceal anything.”
“Where did you become acquainted with your wife?”
“On the coast of Africa, ma'am. She was a new nigger,
when I first saw her.”
“What led you to become attached to her?”
“She was a fine, tall figure, black as jet, but very handsome.
She was very capable, and could carry on all the
affairs of the plantation in my absence, as well as I could
myself. She was affectionate and faithful, and I could trust
her. I have fixed her nicely in my Haitien colony. I
wish you would go there. She would give you the best in
the house. You ought to go, to see how happy the human
race can be. It is in a fine, rich valley, about thirty miles
from Port Platte; heavily timbered with mahogany all
round; well watered; flowers so beautiful; fruits in
abundance, so delicious that you could not refrain from stopping
to eat, till you could eat no more. My son has laid
out good roads, and built bridges and mills; the people are
improving, and everything is prosperous. I am anxious to
establish a good school there. I engaged a teacher; but
somebody persuaded him it was mean to teach niggers,
and so he fell off from his bargain.”
“I have heard that you hold your labourers in a sort of
qualified slavery; and some friends of the coloured race
have apprehensions that you may sell them again.”
“My labourers in Haiti are not slaves. They are a kind
of indented apprentices. I give them land, and they bind
themselves to work for me. I have no power to take them
away from that island; and you know very well that I
could not sell them there.”
“I am glad you have relinquished the power to make
slaves of them again. I had charge of a fine, intelligent
fugitive, about a year ago. I wanted to send him to your
colony; but I did not dare to trust you.”
“You need not have been afraid, ma'am. I should be
the last man on earth to give up a runaway. If my own
were to run away, I wouldn't go after'em.”
“If these are your feelings, why don't you take all your
slaves to Haiti?”
“I have thought that subject all over, ma'am; and I have
settled it in my own mind. All we can do in this world is
to balance evils. I want to do great things for Haiti; and
in order to do them, I must have money. If I have no negroes
to cultivate my Florida lands they will run to waste;
and then I can raise no money from them for the benefit of
Haiti. I do all I can to make them comfortable, and they
love me like a father. They would do any thing on earth
to please me. Once I stayed away longer than usual, and
they thought I was dead. When I reached home, they
overwhelmed me with their caresses; I could hardly stand
it.”
“Does it not grieve you to think of leaving these faithful,
kind-hearted people to the cruel chances of slavery?”
“Yes, it does; but I hope to get all my plans settled in
a few years.”
“You tell me you are seventy-six years old; what if
you should die before your plans are completed?”
“Likely enough I shall. In that case, my heirs would
break my will, I dare say, and my poor niggers would be
badly off.”
“Then manumit them now; and avoid this dreadful risk.”
“I have thought that all over, ma'am; and I have
settled it that I can do more good by keeping them in slavery
a few years more. The best we can do in this world
is to balance evils judiciously.”
“But you do not balance wisely. Remember that all
the descendants of your slaves, through all coming time,
will be affected by your decision.”
“So will all Haiti be affected, through all coming time,
if I can carry out my plans. To do good in the world, we
must have money. That's the way I reasoned when I
carried on the slave trade. It was very profitable then.”
“And do you have no remorse of conscience, in recollecting
that bad business?”
“Some things I do not like to remember; but they were
not things in which I was to blame; they were inevitably
attendant on the trade.”
I argued that any trade must be wicked, that had such
inevitable consequences. He admitted it; but still clung
to his balance of evils. If that theory is admitted in morals
at all, I confess that his practice seems to me a legitimate,
though an extreme result. But it was altogether vain to
argue with him about fixed principles of right and wrong;
one might as well fire small shot at the hide of a rhinoceros.
Yet were there admirable points about him;—perseverance,
that would conquer the world; an heroic candour, that
avowed all things, creditable and discreditable; and kindly
sympathies, too—though it must be confessed that they go
groping and floundering about in the strangest fashion.
He came from Scotland; no other country, perhaps, except
New-England, could have produced such a character.
His father was a Quaker: and he still loves to attend
Quaker meetings; particularly silent ones, where he says
he has planned some of his best bargains. To complete
the circle of contradictions, he likes the abolitionists, and
is a prodigious admirer of George Thompson.
“My neighbours call me an abolitionist,” said he; “I
tell them they may do so, in welcome; for it is a pity they
shouldn't have one case of amalgamation to point at.”
This singular individual has been conversant with all
“I have known the Malay and the African, the North
American Indian, and the European,” said he; “and the
more I've seen of the world, the less I understand it. It's
a queer place; that's a fact.”
Probably this mixture with people of all creeds and customs,
combined with the habit of looking outward for his
guide of action, may have bewildered his moral sense, and
produced his system of “balancing evils!” A theory obviously
absurd, as well as slippery in its application; for
none but God can balance evils; it requires omniscience
and omnipresence to do it.
His conversation produced great activity of thought on
the subject of conscience, and of that “light that lighteth
every man who cometh into the world.” Whether this
utilitarian remembers it or not, he must have stifled many
convictions before he arrived at his present state of mind.
And so it must have been with “the pious John Newton,”
whose devotional letters from the coast of Africa, while he
was slave-trading there, record “sweet seasons of communion
with his God.” That he was not left without a
witness within him, is proved by the fact, that in his
journal he expresses gratitude to God for opening the door
for him to leave the slave trade, by providing other employment.
The monitor within did not deceive him; but his education
was at war with its dictates, because it taught him
that whatever was legalized was right. Plain as the guilt
of the slave trade now is, to every man, woman, and child,
it was not so in the time of Clarkson; had it been otherwise,
there would have been no need of his labours. He
was accused of planning treason and insurrection, plots were
laid against his life, and the difficulty of combating his obviously
just principles, led to the vilest misrepresentations
and the most false assumptions. Thus it must always be
with those who attack a very corrupt public opinion.
The slave trade, which all civilized laws now denounce
as piracy, was defended in precisely the same spirit that
slavery is now. Witness the following remarks from Boswell,
the biographer of Dr. Johnson, whose opinions echo
the tone of genteel society:
“I beg leave to enter my most solemn protest against
Dr. Johnson's general doctrine with respect to the slave
trade. I will resolutely say that his unfavourable notion of
it was owing to prejudice, and imperfect or false information.
The wild and dangerous attempt which has for
some time been persisted in, to obtain an act of our legislature
to abolish so very important and necessary a branch of
commercial interest, must have been crushed at once, had
not the insignificance of the zealots, who vainly took the
lead in it, made the vast body of planters, merchants, and
others, whose immense properties are involved in that
trade, reasonably enough suppose that there could be no
danger. The encouragement which the attempt has received,
excites my wonder and indignation; and though
some men of superior abilities have supported it, (whether
from a love of temporary popularity when prosperous, or a
love of general mischief when desperate,) my opinion is
unshaken. To abolish a status which in all ages God has
sanctioned, and man continued, would not only be robbery
to an innumerable class of our fellow subjects, but it would
be extreme cruelty to African savages; a portion of whom
it saves from massacre, or intolerable bondage in their own
country, and introduces into a much happier state of life;
especially now, when their passage to the West Indies,
and their treatment there, is humanely regulated. To
abolish that trade, would be to shut the gates of mercy on
mankind.”
These changes in the code of morals adopted by society,
by no means unsettle my belief in eternal and unchangeable
principles of right and wrong; neither do they lead
than they act. The slaveholder, when he manumits on
his death-bed, thereby acknowledges that he has known he
was doing wrong. Public opinion expresses what men
will to do; not their inward perceptions. All kinds of
crimes have been countenanced by public opinion, in some
age or nation; but we cannot as easily show how far they
were sustained by reason and conscience in each individual.
I believe the lamp never goes out, though it may shine
dimly through a foggy atmosphere.
This consideration should renew our zeal to purify public
opinion; to let no act or word of ours help to corrupt it, in
the slightest degree. How shall we fulfil this sacred trust,
which each holds for the good of all? Not by calculating
consequences; not by balancing evils; but by reverent
obedience to our own highest convictions of individual duty.
Few men ask concerning right and wrong of their own
hearts. Few listen to the oracle within, which can only be
heard in the stillness. The merchant seeks his moral
standard on 'Change—a fitting name for a thing so fluctuating;
the sectary in the opinion of his small theological
department; the politician in the tumultuous echo of his
party; the worldling in the buzz of saloons. In a word,
each man inquires of his public; what wonder, then, that
the answers are selfish as trading interest, blind as local
prejudice, and various as human whim?
A German drawing-master once told me of a lad who
wished to sketch landscapes from nature. The teacher told
him that the first object was to choose some fixed point of
view. The sagacious pupil chose a cow grazing beneath
the trees. Of course, his fixed point soon began to move
hither and thither, as she was attracted by the sweetness of
the pasturage; and the lines of his drawing fell into strange
confusion.
This a correct type of those who choose public opinion
the provender before it, and they who trust to it have but a
whirling and distorted landscape.
Coleridge defines public opinion as “the average prejudices
of the community.” Wo unto those who have no
safer guide of principle and practice than this “average of
prejudices.” Wo unto them in an especial manner, in these
latter days, when “The windows of heaven are opened,
and therefore the foundations of the earth do shake!”
Feeble wanderers are they, following a flickering Jack-o'lantern,
when there is a calm, bright pole-star for ever
above the horizon, to guide their steps, if they would but
look to it.
| Letters from New York | |