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Show 156 DESPOTISI\1 portation, which can be stolen. Jn general, to pick the pockets of the planters by the help of a faro table or a pack of cards, is not only a safe, but a surer operation than to attempt it in any other way. .Party politics, state and national, afford the only topic, to any extent of an intellectual character, in which any considerable number of the southern population, take any deep interest, or which serves to tmy considerable extent, to dispel the fog of wearisome idleness, by which they are constantly threatened to he enveloped. Politics at the south, are rather speculative than practical. Every slave-holding community is essentially conservative, and opposed to all change. The southern politicians puzzle and lose themselves in vain attempts to reconcile the metaphysical system of liberty acknowledged by their own state constitutions, with the actual system of despotism amid which they live. Their ablest reasoners, can boast no more than to be subtle logicians, and ingenious sophists. Statesmanship is a thing they have no idea of. Yet the study of pohucs, barren, empty and profitless as southern politics are, has saved many of the finest minds at the south from a total stagnation, and affords to great numb?rs a stunnlant altogether more harmless than gamblmg and strong drink. Great numbers of the southern planters arc as great adepts in political metaphysics, as the Scotch peasantry are or were, in Calvinistic divinity. Grant their premises,-which for the most part. arc utterly false -and they reason like a book. There have been enumerated above, five capital defects in the character and conduct of the privileged class at the south, viz: ferocity of temper, improvidence, idleness, drunkenness, and gambling. It. IS but justice to say, that the female portion of the pnvtleged class are in general entirely free from the two last mentioned faults nor does ferocity of temper exhtbtt itse!f amana th~m to any thing the same extent as in the m0ale se.J.. Idleness and improvidence are their greatest and most striking defects. IN Al\tERICA. 157 Among the men however, the whole five arc palpahlc, obvwns, undemahle. As to this matter there cannot ~c. any dispute. It must be confessed, however unwtllmgly that these faults arc characteristic of the southern people. It has been shown how they are all aggravated, and rendered incurable, by the existence of slavery. Any attempt to remove or palliate them, while that cause of aggravation remains can have only a partial and limited success. It is ir:,possible to make men VIrtuous or happy unless by giving them some steady employment that shall innocently engage their attent1~m, and pl_easantly occupy their time. 'rhe most essenttal step 111 the progress of civilization is to render useful industry, respectable. But this ~tcp can never be taken, so long as Jabor remains the badge of a servile condition. SECTION II. Personal effects of slavery upon the members of the unprivileged class. Extremes meet. The truth of this proposition, in a physical point of view is evident from the fact that every motion upon the earth's snrface describes an elliptical curve. Experience would seem to show that this proposition is almost as true in morals as in phySics. At all events it is a curious fact, that the existence o~ sla~e.ry in a ~ommunity, instead of producing such dtverstttes as mtght be supposed, docs in fact, in many very Important particulars, operate almost exactly alike upon the masters and the slaves. Ferocity o~ temper, idleness, improvidence, drunkenness, gamblmg-these are vices for \\chich the masters are distinguisheQ, and these same vices are conspicuous traits in the character and conduct of slaves. 14 |
