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FOOTNOTES:
[A] Mr. Clapp is said to have changed his opinions since 1838. We hope he has. But he has not favored the world with any statement of what his change consists in. The statement which recently appeared in the "Picayune," even if reliable, shows that Mr. Clapp had changed his opinion somewhat, but not essentially, as it seems to us.
[B] We quote from Mr. Jones's work just referred to. His work contains a summary of all that has been done for the religious instruction of the negroes from their first introduction here; an account of their actual moral condition, and what he thinks should be done for their elevation. His testimony is unimpeachable, and is of the very highest authority. Our faith in his sincerity is sometimes tried, when we read language like this applied to the adult slave, p. 117: "He marries and settles in life; his children grow up around him, and tread in his footsteps, as he did in the footsteps of his father before him."
For a loan of this book we are indebted to the kindness of our friend, William Lloyd Garrison.
[C] Sandy Jenkins tried to impress Douglass with the belief, that if he would always carry a root which he gave him, on his right side, it would render it impossible for any white man to whip him ("Narrative," p. 70). And before Wm. W. Brown made his last successful effort to escape, he paid the old slave fortune-teller, Frank, twenty-five cents for his advice.
[D] "If they make you partakers of their temporal things (of their strength and spirits, and even of their offspring), you ought to make them partakers of your spiritual things." —Bishop of London in 1727 (Jones, p. 20).
[E] How carefully does Mr. Jones teach the slaves "to search the Scriptures"! ("Catechism," p. 103.)
"Q. Is not our duty, on the sabbath, to go to the house of God, to the meeting for prayer, to the sabbath-school, and wherever we may worship God and learn his will? – A. Yes.
"Q. What was done with the man that gathered sticks on the sabbath-day, not caring for God's commandment? – A. He was stoned.
"Q. Is sabbath-breaking a great sin in the sight of God? – A. Yes. (Ib. p. 104) He who breaks the sabbath robs God of his own; for the day is the Lord's."
[F] "Were it now revealed to us," says Mr. Jones (ib. p. 180), "that the most extensive system of instruction which we could devise, requiring a vast amount of labor, and protracted through ages, would result in the tender mercy of our God in the salvation of the soul of one poor African, we should feel warranted in cheerfully entering upon our work, with all its costs and sacrifices; for our reward would exceed all our toil and care above the computation of any finite mind." Badly educated, misguided, we believe Mr. Jones to be; but these are the words of honest, sincere conviction.
[G] For a loan of this book we are indebted to our friend Parker Pillsbury.
[H] "A Catechism of Scripture Doctrine and Practice for Families and Sabbath Schools, designed also for the Oral Instruction of Colored Persons, by Charles C. Jones," 6th edit.; Charleston, 1845. In his preface, Mr. Jones says, "The Catechism has been prepared expressly for the religious instruction of the negroes; and it has been extensively tried and approved by those engaged in that good work." It is unquestionably much more used than any other. It has already passed through six editions. It really merits this position. – For a perusal of this book we are indebted to the kindness of our friend Samuel Brooke, of Ohio.
[I] "Let us ever remember the name that Hagar gave to God, 'Thou God seest me,' and act as in his presence. Let us be afraid to steal or lie or curse, or break the Sabbath, or do any wicked thing. God will see and know." – Jones's "Catechism," p. 28.
"Ought not you to try and keep the fear of God always before your eyes? Do not be tempted to say, as too many wicked people do, 'Oh! nobody will know it; nobody will see it.' Remember that God is always looking at you. He sees all that you do: he hears every word that you say: he knows all that you think about: and he can in a moment strike you dead: he is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Knowing these things, fear him, so as not willingly to offend him." —Rev. Alexander Glennie's Sermons, p. 32. See also to the same point, Bishop Ives's "Catechism," p. 13, 14, 42.
[J] What a beautiful commentary on this teaching is afforded us by Douglass! ("Narrative," p. 47.) Speaking of his grandmother, he says, – "She had served my old master faithfully from youth to old age. She had been the source of all his wealth; she had peopled his plantation with slaves; she had become a great-grandmother in his service. She had rocked him in infancy, attended him in childhood, served him through life, and at his death wiped from his icy brow the cold death-sweat, and closed his eyes for ever. She was, nevertheless, left a slave, – a slave for life, – a slave in the hands of strangers. And in their hands she saw her children, her grandchildren, and her great-grandchildren, divided, like so many sheep, without being gratified with the small privilege of a single word as to their or her own destiny. And, to cap the climax of their base ingratitude and fiendish barbarity, my grandmother, who was now very old, having outlived my old master and all his children, having seen the beginning and end of all of them, and her present owners finding she was of but little value, her frame already racked with the pains of old age, and complete helplessness fast stealing over her once-active limbs, they took her to the woods, built her a little hut, put up a little mud chimney, and then made her welcome to the privilege of supporting herself there in perfect loneliness; thus virtually turning her out to die"! Who that has read Douglass's account of his grandmother, of which this is a small extract, has not been moved both to pity for the slave, and loathing for slavery? Who has not asked with him, "Will not a righteous God visit for these things"?
[K] A slave may die in consequence of "moderate correction," as that term is understood in some of the Slave States.
The Constitution of Georgia, Art. 4, sec. 12, reads thus (Hotchkiss's "Codification," p. 71, 1845): – "Any person who shall maliciously dismember or deprive a slave of life shall suffer such punishment as would be inflicted in case the like offence had been committed on a free white person, and on the like proof, except in case of insurrection of such slave, and unless such death should happen by accident in giving such slave moderate correction."
[L] Our friend Francis Jackson procured us this book.
[M] Mr. Jones thinks ("Rel. Inst." p. 135), that "the crime of infanticide" among the slaves is "restrained in good measure … by the moral degradation of the people, that takes away the disgrace of bastardy." We remember hearing from Prof. Greenleaf the account of a successful defence, on this ground, of a female slave in this State, who was tried for committing this offence. A female slave, it was argued, could not feel shame at the birth of an illegitimate child, and therefore her affection as a mother would prevent her from committing the crime. But experience has demonstrated, that a slave-mother may be led to take her child's life from very love itself.
[N] "The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church recently expelled a minister from both the ministry and the church, for marrying a sister of his deceased wife." —The Church as it is, p. 76.
[O] Colored persons are not competent witnesses on the trial of a white man. Any white man, therefore, can, with perfect impunity, commit any excess whatever upon any slaves, so long as they or their companions alone are witnesses. So carefully does the law guard the honor of the female slave!
[P] The original of this advertisement may be seen at the Anti-Slavery office, Boston, 21, Cornhill, pasted on one side of a copy of the newspaper called "Spirit of Liberty"! How appropriate a heading!
[Q] For this and other advertisements from Boston papers, I am indebted to my friend Wendell Phillips.
[R] We cut this advertisement from the "Boston Daily Republican" of Aug. 30, 1849. It previously appeared in the "Providence Journal."
[S] A writer in the "New Orleans Argus," Sept. 1830, in an article on the culture of the sugar-cane, says, – "The loss by death in bringing slaves from a northern climate, which our planters are under the necessity of doing, is not less than twenty-five per cent"! Our tables prove the same thing. Of the 40,000 slaves annually carried south, only 29,101 are found to survive; – a greater sacrifice of life than that caused by the middle passage!
[T] The Act of 1741, of which this law is in part a revision, reads thus, sec. 45: "Which proclamation shall be published on a sabbath-day at the door of every church or chapel, or, for want of such, at the place where divine service shall be performed in the said county, by the parish clerk or reader, immediately after divine service; and, if any slave or slaves, against whom proclamation hath been thus issued, stay out and do not immediately return home, it shall be lawful for any person or persons whatsoever to kill and destroy such slave or slaves by such ways or means as he or she shall think fit, without accusation or impeachment of any crime for the same." – In those happy days, Father Taylor would not have been called on to thank God, that the man who was on the point of strangling his brother according to law was not troubled by any feeling of sentimentalism!
[U] The Rev. Dr. Furman, of North Carolina, another Baptist clergyman, like Dr. Fuller wrote a defence of slavery. After his death, his legal representative advertised for sale at auction his real estate, and "a library of a miscellaneous character, chiefly theological; twenty-seven negroes, some of them very prime," &c. ("The Church as it is," p. 73.)
[V] This point, and the legality of Colonial and State Slavery, are more elaborated in an article called "The Constitutionality of Slavery," printed in the "Massachusetts Quarterly Review;" a purely legal, uninteresting examination, which needs not to be repeated here.
For a more extended proof of the constitutionality of slavery, we refer to Wendell Phillips's very able Review of Lysander Spooner's Essay.
[W] 5 Hen. Stat. 547.
[X] 6 Ibid. 356.
