OCR Text |
Show 270 'l'liE MIS 'OUR! QUESTION. Let them view the ]ower chtRscs of their inhabitants, by far the mo t numerous of the whole; the thousands of beg(')'ars that infest thcit· street , more than half starved, half naked, and in the mo" L wretched slate of human degradation. Let him then go to England; the comforts, if they have any, of the lower classes of whose inhabitant are far inferior to those of onr slaves. Let him, when tltcre, ask of their economists, what arc the numbers of millions daily fed by the hand of charity; a.n<l, when sati, ficcl there, then let him come nearer home, and examine into the situation of the free negroes now rt'sidcnt in New York and Philad elphia, and compare them with the situation of our slaves, and he wi 11 tell yon that, perlmp , the most m iscrablc and degmded 13tatc of human nature i to be found among tho frco ne(')'roes of New York and Philadelphia, most of whom are fugitives from the Southern States, received and sheltered in those StaLes. I did not go to N cw York, bnt I did to Philadel. phia, and particularly exami ned this subject while there. I saw th eir streets crowded with idle, drunken negroes, at every corner ; and, on visiting their penitentiary, found, to my a tonishment, that, ont of five hundred convicts there confined, more than one-half were blacks; and, as all tho convicts throughout that State are sent Lo that penitentiary, and, if Penn:ylvania contains eight hund red thousand white inhabitants, and only twenty-six thonsand blacks, of course the crimes and vices of il.lc blacks in those States are, com· paratively, twenty times greater than those of the whites in the same States, and clearly proves thn.t n. stuto of freedom is one of the greatest curse yon can in fi ict on them. Ft·om the opin ionR expr ssed rc. peeling the Southcm States anu the , laves there, it appears to me mo. t clear, that the members ott the opposite sitle know nothing of tho Southern States, their land , products, or slaves. 'l'hoso who vi it u , or go to the southward, find so great a difference that many of them remain and settle there. I per· ; ' THE MISSOURI QUESTION. 271 fcctly recollect when, in 1701, General Washington visited South Carolina, he \vas r-;o snrpriHcu at the ri chn ess, order, and soil of our conntry, that he expressed his great astoni. hrncnt at the state of ngricultural improvement and excellence our tic1c-lands exhibited. IIc said, he had no id ra the Uni te<l StaLPs posse. sed it. Jfacl T then seen as much of JDnropc as I have since, I wou ld have r plied to him, that he would not sec its cqu nl in Europe. Sir, 'rvhcn we recollect that our form er pnrcnt tate was the ori o·inal cause of introducing slnvcry in to America, and that neither ourselves nor an cc tors arc chargeable wi th it ; that it cannot be got rid of without rniuing the co nn tl'y, certainly the present mild treatment of onr slnvcs is most honorable to that part of the connLry where slavery exist. . Every lave bas a comfortable hon. c, is well fed, cloth ed, and taken caro of; he has his family about him, an (l in sickness has the same medical aid as his master, ancl has a sure and comfortable rctt·cat in old age, to Jl i'Otect him agn in8t its infirmities and wcakncs. . Duri ng the whole of llis life he is free from care, that cnnk r of the human heart, which destroys at least one-half of the thinking part of mankind, and from which a favored few, very few, if iucl eecl any, can be said to be free. Being without cd ncalion, and born to obey, to persons of that dcscri pti on moderate labor and discipline arc essential. The discipline ought to be mild, but still, while slavery is to exist, there must be di sc ipline. In this state they arc happier than they can possibly be if free. A free black can only be hnppy where he has some sh ar~ of education, and hns been bred to a trade, or some kind of business. The nTeat body of slaves arc happier in their present situation than they could be in any oth r, and the man or men who would attempt to give them freedom would be their greatest en emies. All the writers who contend that the slaves increase faster than the free Llacks, if thr.y assert what is true, prove |