HKB
blood, and without violating a single great principle of morality in the eyes of the world.[236] It is impossible to destroy men with more respect for the laws of humanity.
SITUATION OF THE BLACK POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES, AND DANGERS WITH WHICH ITS PRESENCE THREATENS THE WHITES.
Why it is more difficult to abolish Slavery, and to efface all Vestiges of it among the Moderns, than it was among the Ancients.--In the United States the prejudices of the Whites against the Blacks seem to increase in Proportion as Slavery is abolished.--Situation of the Negroes in the Northern and Southern States.--Why the Americans abolish Slavery.--Servitude, which debases the Slave, impoverishes the Master.--Contrast between the left and the right Bank of the Ohio.--To what attributable.--The black Race, as well as Slavery, recedes toward the South.--Explanation of this fact.--Difficulties attendant upon the Abolition of Slavery in the South.--Dangers to come.--General Anxiety.--Foundation of a black Colony in Africa.--Why the Americans of the South increase the Hardships of Slavery, while they are distressed at its Continuance.
The Indians will perish in the same isolated condition in which they have lived; but the destiny of the negroes is in some measure interwoven with that of the Europeans. These two races are attached to each other without intermingling; and they are alike unable entirely to separate or to combine. The most formidable of all the ills which threaten the future existence of the United States, arises from the presence of a black population upon its territory; and in contemplating the causes of the present embarrassments or of the future dangers of the United States, the observer is invariably led to consider this as a primary fact.
The permanent evils to which mankind is subjected are usually produced by the vehement or the increasing efforts of men; but there is one calamity which penetrated furtively into the world, and which was at first scarcely distinguishable amid the ordinary abuses of power: it originated with an individual whose name history has not preserved; it was wafted like some accursed germ upon a portion of the soil, but it afterward nurtured itself, grew without effort, and spreads naturally with the society to which it belongs. I need scarcely add that this calamity is slavery. Christianity suppressed slavery, but the Christians of the sixteenth century re-established it--as an exception, indeed, to their social system, and restricted to one of the races of mankind; but the wound thus inflicted upon humanity, though less extensive, was at the same time rendered far more difficult of cure.
It is important to make an accurate distinction between slavery itself and its consequences. The immediate evils which are produced by slavery were very nearly the same in antiquity as they are among the moderns; but the consequences of these evils were different. The slave, among the ancients, belonged to the same race as his master, and he was often the superior of the two in education[237] and instruction. Freedom was the only distinction between them; and when freedom was conferred, they were easily confounded together. The ancients, then, had a very simple means of avoiding slavery and its evil consequences, which was that of enfranchisement; and they succeeded as soon as they adopted this measure generally. Not but, in ancient states, the vestiges of servitude subsisted for some time after servitude was abolished. There is a natural prejudice which prompts men to despise whomsoever has been their inferior, long after he has become their equal; and the real inequality which is produced by fortune or by law, is always succeeded by an imaginary inequality which is implanted in the manners of the people. Nevertheless, this secondary consequence of slavery was limited to a certain term among the ancients; for the freedman bore so entire a resemblance to those born free, that it soon became impossible to distinguish him from among them.