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CHAPTER XXXVII.
ADDENDUM
Virginia, Nov. 18, 1856.
Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Esq.:
Dear Sir – I have observed so much fairness in the manner in which slavery and other sociological questions are treated in The Liberator, that it has occurred to me you would not consider suggestions from an ultra pro-slavery man obtrusive, and might deem them worth a place in your columns. I shall not promise that the example of your liberality will be followed at the South. It is a theory of mine, that "recurrence to fundamental principles" is only treason clothed in periphrastic phrase; and that the right of private judgment, liberty of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion, are subordinate to these "principles," and must not be allowed to assail them, – else there can be no stability in government, or security of private rights. The South thinks me heretical, but feels that I am right, and takes care to trammel these sacred rights quite as efficiently by an austere public opinion, as Louis Napoleon does by law or by mere volition.
I entirely concur in a theory I heard Mr. Wendell Phillips34 propound in a lecture at New Haven. I shall not attempt to give his eloquent words, for I am incapable of doing justice to his language; but the amount of his theory was, that governments are not formed by man, but are the gradual accretions of time, circumstance, and human exigencies; that they grow up like trees, and that man may cultivate, train and aid their growth and development, but cannot make them out and out. Now, I accept the theory, and propose, in the first place, to deter men from applying the axe to the root of our Southern institutions, (that is, discussing or recurring to "fundamental principles,") by moral suasion or monition; next, by tar and feathers, and, that failing, by the halter. The worst institutions that ever grew up in any country are better than the best that philosophers or philanthropists ever devised. As for ours, we deem them, since the days of Rome, Athens and Judea, the crack institutions of the world.
With these preliminary remarks, I will make the following suggestions or interrogations: —
Is not slavery to capital less tolerable than slavery to human masters?
Where a few, as in England, Ireland and Scotland, own all the lands, are not the mass, the common laborers, who own no capital, and possess neither mechanical nor professional skill, of necessity, the slaves to capital?
Was it not this slavery to capital that occasioned the great Irish famine, and is it not this same slavery that keeps the large majority of the laboring class in Western Europe in a state of hereditary starvation?
In old societies, where the laborers are domestic slaves, and exceed in number the demand for labor, would not emancipating them subject them at once to a mastery, or exacting despotism of capital, far more oppressive than domestic slavery?
Did not the emancipation of European serfs, or villiens, in all instances, injure their condition as a class?
In the event of the occurrence of such excess of domestic slaves, would it not be more merciful to follow the Spartan plan, and kill the surplus, than the abolition plan, which sets them all free, to live on half allowance, and to "make free labor cheaper than slave labor," by this fierce competition and underbidding to get employment?
Are there not fewer checks to superior wit, skill and capital, and less of protection afforded to the weak, ignorant and landless mass in Northern society, than in any other ever devised by the wit of man?
Is not "laissez-faire," in English, "Every man for himself, and devil take the hindmost," your whole theory and practice of government?
When your society grows older, your population more dense, and property, by your trading, speculating and commercial habits, gets into a few hands, will not the slavery to capital be more complete and unmitigated than in any part of Europe, where a throne, a nobility and established church, stand between the bosses, bankers and landlords, and the oppressed masses?
Do not almost all well-informed men of a philosophical turn of mind in Western Europe and our North, concur in opinion that the whole framework of society, religious, ethical, economic, legal and political, requires radical change?
Is not the absence of such opinion at the South, and its prevalence in free society, conclusive proof of the naturalness and necessity of domestic slavery?
Would not the North be willing to leave the settlement of the slavery question in Kansas to the public opinion of Christendom, (for it will be settled by all Christendom, of whom not one in a hundred will be slaveholders,) if it were not sensible that public opinion was about to decide in favor of negro slavery, and, therefore, that it must be forstalled by Federal legislation?
A Southerner.
Since our work was in the press, the above has appeared in the Liberator. We embrace the occasion to thank Mr. Garrison for his courtesy, and to make a few remarks that we hope will not be deemed ill-timed or impertinent.
A comparison of opinions and of institutions between North and South will lead to kinder and more pacific relations. Hitherto, such comparisons could not be made, because the South believed herself wrong, weak and defenceless; and that Abolition was but an attempt to apply the brand to the explosive materials of her social edifice. She is now equally confident of her justice and her strength, and believes her social system more stable, as well as more benevolent, equitable and natural, than that of the North. Whilst she will never tolerate radical agitation and demagoguical propagandism, she is ready for philosophical argument and discussion, and for historical and statistical comparison.
A Southerner employs the term "discussion," as equivalent to agitation; for the South does not proscribe the discussion of any subject, by proper persons, at proper places, and on proper occasions. (Who are proper persons, and what proper times and places, must be left to a healthy, just and enlightened public opinion to determine.) But men shall not lecture our children, in the streets, on the beauties of infidelity; parsons shall not preach politics from the pulpit; women shall not crop the petticoat, mount the rostrum, and descant on the purity of Free Love; incendiaries shall not make speeches against the right of landholders, nor teach our negroes the sacred doctrines of liberty and equality.
We are satisfied with our institutions, and are not willing to submit them to the "experimentum in vile corpus!" If the North thinks her own worthless, or only valuable as subjects for anatomical dissection, or chemical and phrenological experiments, she may advance the cause of humanity, by treating her people as philosophers do mice and hares and dead frogs. We think her case not so desperate as to authorize such reckless experimentation. Though her experiment has failed, she is not yet dead. There is a way still open for recovery.
As we are a Brother Socialist, we have a right to prescribe for the patient; and our Consulting Brethren, Messrs. Garrison, Greely, and others, should duly consider the value of our opinion. Extremes meet – and we and the leading Abolitionists differ but a hairbreadth. We, like Carlyle, prescribe more of government; they insist on No-Government. Yet their social institutions would make excellently conducted Southern sugar and cotton farms, with a head to govern them. Add a Virginia overseer to Mr. Greely's Phalansteries, and Mr. Greely and we would have little to quarrel about.
We have a lively expectation that when our Cannibals make their entreé, "Our Masters in the art of War" will greet them with applause, instead of hisses; with a "feu de joie," or gratulatory salute, instead of a murderous broadside. We want to be friends with them and with all the world; and, as the curtain is falling, we conclude with the valedictory and invocation of the Roman actor – "Vos valete! et plaudite!"
