The Sun.
London, England, 1860-09-29 00:00:00

of that labour vast tracts of fertile :land have been

cultivated that would else have TeMZTed7;ilder-
derness, and made to contribute to the comfort and
accommodation of man. I need not enumerate all

the products of slave labour whien freight so largely
the commerce of all nations, which employ therefore
so much capital and industry and supply so many
wants and luxuries, I will mention only cotton, that
wonderful plant, which, in some of its forms, enters
every household, however high or however hunible,
in Europe and America. How much of comfort,
cleanliness, and refinement has it given to the poor;
how much of these, and of elegance and beauty too,
has it furnished to the rich ? Cotton is the basis of
the wealth and prosperity of our Southern States,

and enters largely as an element of the growing
power of the North. But an article of such universal
use becomes necessarily a part of the foundation of
general commerce and of the wealth of nations. If
it has enriched us, has it not enriched England too,
and in ampler measure ? Look at your newspapers,
and the daily reports of your markets ; at your
statistics of commerce and manufactures, and see
what a lordly and commanding part cotton plays in
your affairs. It gives to us who grow it, who have
the responsibility, the risks and the evils of the
system of labour that produces it, an annual income
of less than 200,000,000 dols. ; it gives to you who
manufacture it, who send it abroad in your ships
over all the world, a yearly profit of many hundred
millions of pounds sterling. Some of the richest
towns and counties in England owe their wealth to
cotton. It affords food and employment to many thou-
sands of Englishmen who else would want both ; it
furnishes profit on many millions of English capital;
it had helped, therefore, in no small degree, to erect
the towering structure of English manufactures and
commerce. By creating a home market and a supply
of manure cotton has also largely promoted the
growth of En glish agriculture,and has thus supported
the-splendour of many a noble home as well as the
comfort of the farmhouse and the cottage. This
wondrous growth of population, industry, and
wealth, thus produced by cotton, must be sustained
by it. Take away from beneath the massy fabric
the delicate fibres of this little plant, and I have
the authority of your own leading journal for say-
ing that the power and prosperity of England, the
order of society, and the stability of the Throne
itself would be in danger. I say this from no
I ' envious or grudging sentiment. You are welcome
to our cotton—nay, it is a matter of business; you
pay for it. If you make more out of it than we do
it is a fair reward of your ingenuity, skill, and
statesmanship. I allude to the subject merely to
remind you that cotton is the result of slave labour;
that without slavery that labour would be ineffi-
cient and unproductive ; that, therefore, the hoes of
our slave gangs on the Mississippi are building up
the edifice of English wealth and power, as the
trowl of the stonemason erects the walls of a
palace ; that if slavery be an evil, we in America
bear all the brunt of it, and receive a part only of
the gain; and that if it be a wrong and a crime,
England shares with us the guilt, for she does as
much to sustain it as we do. It may be said, more-
over, that the origin of slavery belongs to the colo-
nial period of our history. England landed the
first negro on our shores, and planted there an in-
stitution which has struck its roots so deeply, and
bears such tempting and golden, though also bitter
fruits, that it seems to be part of our destiny for
ever. If slavery be a crime, therefore, England is
particeps crintinis, and it does not lie in her mouth
to reproach us with it, more especially as she
enjoys its abundant harvest, bearing herself none
of the heat and burden of the day. In one of the
noblest dramas of your—l mean of our, greatest
poet, a guilty king tries to pray but cannot.
"Forgive me my foul murder—
That cannot be, since I am still possessed
Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardoned, and retain the offence I "
If we are guilty, so is England; and both to her
penitence for her share of the crime, and to her con-
demnation of our share, the mills of Manchester are
an answer. It would ill become me, however, in
such a presence as this, when attempting to justify
slavery, to confine my argument to the mere mate-
rial view of the question, momentous as that really
is—to say that slavery is a source of wealth to us,
and to the world ; that it maintains social peace
and order in a large portion of our country, and
that it secures also the physical well-being of the
subject race. The reply is obvious, that being, as
we are, the guardians of the negro, we are bound
to look to something higher than our own selfish
good or his bodily needs, and to provide for his
moral and intellectual improvement. At least, we
may fairly be required to show that slavery is no
bar to such improvement. It would be a sad thing
indeed, if true, that these 4,000,000 negroes of ours
are well fed and clothed only that they may toil
for our mercenary advantage, and at the same time
by our laws and our practice are intentionally kept
in a state of mental and moral degradation. I ad-
mit that no temporal good to them or to us could
justify such tyranny. And herein lies the difficulty
of the case, felt in America more deeply than any-
where, because to us it seems well-nigh hopeless.
But the evil arises from the nature of the negro,
and not from slavery. He makes no spontaneous
moral or intellectual progress, whether a slave or
free; he never has made any in his native regions.
He has never risen, at any period of his history,
even to the low grade of Chinese civilisation. He
acquires no arts, he builds no cities or ships, he in-
vents no machinery, he paints no pictures, he writes
no books, he forms no organised communities, he
makes no laws, he cannot appreciate truth
or beauty, and he is a fetich worshipper at all
times and all places if left to himself. He is
naturally a savage and a heathen, and may enjoy
in Africa such happiness as belongs to that condi-
tion. But in that condition he cannot remain when
he forms part of a civilised community. We cannot
permit him to remain in it, both for his own
sake and for ours. What, then, are we to do ? He
cannot raise himself to our level—he cannot take
care of himself amid the energetic struggles of a
superior race. He would sink to lower depths
than his original barbarism, and our 4,000,000 of
his race would become a dangerous and intolerable
) mass of ignorance, degradation, and pauperism. He
must, therefore, be governed, guided, cared for ;
and slavery, which gives him a governor and care-
taker, does not depress but elevates him. It sup-
plies the want of his nature—a directing mind.
Without slavery he would fall into a state far worse
for him—that of a slave without a master. In con-
tact or competition with the white race he would
be everybody's slave, and no one would be bound
by duty or induced by interest to support or pro-
tect him. Our slaves in America are not without
religious instruction, and the arts of industry
which they are taught, and association with the
white race, are an education, imperfect indeed, but
superior to that of Africa, and without slavery
they would get none at all. They have been ele
vated by this education. The race now with us is
superior to its brethren in Africa, to its ancestors
who first landed on our shores. This is well known,
and is made manifest whenever the native African
is brought to our country, as he sometimes is, in
captured slave-ships. I have said that I could not
but believe the " coloured gentleman" from Canada
to possess talents and education which makes him
a very rare exception to the general character of
his race, else he would not be found in such good
company. What fortunate circumstances in his
history have produced such a result I do not know.
I would not venture to assert that slavery encou-
rages, or even permits, such a development of
mind as he, no doubt, exhibits; for I have never
seen a negro, slave or free, whom I considered
worthy to be a member of this learned society,
or the companion of the cultivated and distin-
guished gentlemen around me. Nevertheless it is
true that negroes do often, as slaves, rise to em-
ployments which require thought and skill, and
which imply integrity. Many can read and write ;
they become mechanics, sometimes book-keepers,
and are frequently intrusted with the management
of farms and plantations, and with the direction
and control of their fellow-labourers. Slavery,
therefore, if it depresses, also elevates. It elevates
the mass, and works well on the whole. That it is
' the best possible system, as now constituted and
administered, by which to govern the large and
increasing numbers of the negro race in America I
will not affirm. Time and experience may improve
it. But it is that which we now think the best,
though we are not entirely satisfied with it, for it
produces evil as well as good. We would gladly
exchange it for a better system, did we know of
one; but the interests at stake are too important
for experiment or rash innovation. We therefore
maintain slavery, not because we do not love
liberty, but because we believe the negro unfit for
it, and because we believe slavery in some form, or
the complete subordination of the black to the
white race, in harmony with natural laws, and
essential to the social security, and to the wealth,
progress, and power of our country. For all these
reasons a system of caste has grown up in the
North and South of the United States similar to
that which prevailed for so many centuries in the
grand and noble civilization of ancient India,
founded on inequality of race, the black having
been there, as with us, the serviie and lowest.
With this system the exclusiveness of caste has
been introduced. It is not the custom in the
United States for white and black to meet on terms
of equality ; and this arises, not from hatred or
contempt of the negro, who is neither hateful nor
despicable, but from the pride of race. This feel-
ing is by no means inconsistent with mutual re-
spect and affection between individuals of the two
races, for such sentiments are very common, more
especially between master and slave, and throw a
Softening veil over the harsher features of the relpe-