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Show 76 NOTES ON "Yankee.-Well, I suppose $800. "Southerner.-'l'hat woultl be $5,600. Now what would. one large, strong horse cost? " Yankee.-! guess about $100. "Upon this the Southerner looked a little quizzically at his neighbour, who, without waiting to hear the conclusion, stuttered and stammered- " Well, I-I-I knew it was ad--d lie!"' The physical comfort of the negro, then, is admitted. Ilow is it with his intellect? lias slavery deteriorated it, or has it improved it? Let those who have seen the Guinea negro side by sido with the descendants of the original stock imported into this country two-hundred years ago, answer the question; they will all answer it one way, for it admits of but one answer. The same may be said of their moral condition, only here the contrast is still more striking. Of all the inhabitants of the earth, I suppose it would be difficult to find any others so low in the scale of morality as the West African negroes. Certainly none lower can be found, for they are at the bottom of the scale. Says Mr. Fletcher in his "Studies on Slavery," (a work that should be read by all who would thoroughly understand the subject,) in answer to the allegation of Dr. Wayland that slavery "tends to abolish all moral distinc· tiona in the slave, and fosters in him lying, deceit, hypocrisy," &c. If the doctor had seen the native African and slave in the wild, frantic joy of his savage worship, tendered to his chief idol-god, the embodiment of concupiscence; if he had seen all the power of the Christian master centered to effect the eradication of this heathen belief, awl tho habits it engendered; had he witnessed tho anxiety of the master for the substitution of the precepts of Christianity; if he fiad seen the untiring efforts of the masters, sometimes for several generations, before this great object could be accomplished, UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 77 anJ. the absolute necessity of its accomplishment before the labour of the sla.ve could ordinarily become to him an article of full ~nd desimble profit,-he would probably never havo wntten the paragraph we have quoted!" (p. 26.) And ::tgam ; " ~,he African negro has no idea of marriage as a ·Sacred ordmancc of God. Ma.ny of the tribes worship a l?etlsh, ':'hich is a personification of their gross notions of procreatwn; but it inculcates no idea like that of marriage; and we .have known the posterity of that people, four. or five gcncrn.ttons removed from the African native, as firmly attached to those strange habits as if they had been constitutional.'' (p. 38.) Of course, the moral elevation of such a people must be mor: than ordinarily an uphill work; yet slavery h~s effected tt to a considerable degree. Of the three milliOns of );}ayes in this country, there arc, I suppose, at least one hundred thousand exemplary Chri~tians. ':J.1heso stand at the head of the scale. At the foot of it, is, of course, a very different class; yet take ten t110usand of tho dregs of the slave population, and place them alongside of ten thousand of the elite of West-African negroes, and the companson ''nll be greatly to the advantage of the former. But take the average moral condition of the American and the Africa,~ negro, und the former will be found incomparably supenor to the latter in every element of moral worth. Say I this, of myself? Nay, every one that has the means .of forming an opir.ion says the same ; he cannot say othcrWISC. But it will be Sltid, admitting that it is so,-admitting tlmt slavery has ... elevated the negro, freedom would have e~cvatcd him still more. 'l1his allegation requires consideratwn .. Before considering it, however, and as a help to tho solut~o.n of the proLlem invoi,·ed in it, let us glance at the eonchtwn of the laboring classes n.t the North and in Europe. In n. subsequent note I will recur to this subject. a·> |
