Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 1.
Frank Moore, Ed.

[421] of India smothered their Christian prisoners in the loathsome dungeon of Calcutta; but here is a proposition, deliberately made by a Christian people, under the immediate influence of the Gospel of God, teaching charity and humanity, “peace on earth. good will to men” --a proposition to confine forever 4,000,000 of unoffending people within a boundary, where, from the natural increase of numbers in a few years, they must perish from famine, pestilence, and war, or drive 8,000,000 of white men into exile to avoid the same calamities. Can the philanthropist, the Christian, the civilized man, find a place in his heart, or a precept in his religion, for a sentiment which contemplates the misery or destruction of so many millions of the human race? Can the statesman find a place in his mind, or a principle in his philosophy of government, to justify a policy, which must produce ruin to so many of his countrymen, and bring desolation to so large a portion of the country? Is the design merciful? Is the intent charitable? Is the institution of slavery so shocking to humanity, so repugnant to the principles of Christianity and civilization, as to justify the destruction of the slave, and the ruin of the master, in its abolition? If so, in what new school of humanity has this sublimated refinement of the Christian charities been matured to this heaven-born perfection? In the New England school of morals, religion, and benevolence. In the same New England whose men, ships, and money, were foremost in catching the wild barbarian on the coast of Africa, and bringing the “merchandise of human flesh, and human souls and bodies,” to the colonies of Britain. The same New England that peopled America with the African race, would now commit greater barbarity by destroying millions of civilized people. The same New England whose present commercial and manufacturing wealth is founded on the rich inheritance derived from the profit of the African slave trade, and the profitable productions of African slave labor.

But if the confinement of slavery within its present limits should produce consequences less terrible and fatal, if it should be followed only by the abolition of slavery; while it would be a palpable violation of the Constitution of the United States, would it elevate the slave? would it make him more comfortable, more happy, than he is in his present condition? Would it provide him with a better home? would it give him a more elevated social position? would it make him more the equal of the white man than he now is? Let these questions be answered by New England men, with a third and fourth generation of liberated Africans among them, where the number is not so great as to crowd the humble place they fill in New England life and society. Let them say what they, with all their charitable sympathy for the African — with all their religious benevolence and humane generosity, have been able to accomplish by an experiment of half a century, in giving elevation, dignity, and social equality to the free African. Let men of Old England answer and say, what liberty has done for the African in Jamaica; let Frenchmen answer for the liberated African in Hayti. Search through the history of all time, and you will search in vain to find any portion of the African race, from its first appearance on record until the present day, in the aggregate, so elevated, intelligent, enlightened, civilized, comfortable, and happy, as that portion of this degraded race found as slaves in our country. You will not find it among the barbarian hordes of Africa. You will not find it under the Crescent, in Europe or Asia. You will not find it under the sign of the Cross, of South America. You will not find it in Hayti, Jamaica, or New England. In every country where there is an approach to equality between the races, it is in the degradation of the one, and not the elevation of the other. If then the condition of the African slave would be rendered worse by liberation, why this mad crusade against African slavery? The theory of universal human freedom is the mad offspring of delusion and passion, and not the result of enlightened reason. Liberty is the refinement of blessing to enlightened people, capable of its rational enjoyments, while it is the greatest curse which can befall a race incapable of estimating the value of freedom. History is full of proofs to illustrate this truth. History proves that the votaries of freedom of a great nation, in an enlightened age, once in their madness placed the Goddess of Liberty in their adoration above the God of nature, and the night of atheism closed upon these deluded worsippers of a false divinity, until they saw no other light, and they impiously denied the existence of a living God. New England will not go so far in her madness. There is a conservative power of wisdom and virtue among her great and enlightened people, and a moral energy, which, although it has long slumbered, is not yet dead, and it will come forth in dignified authority to rebuke fanaticism, and, with the sceptre of reason, expel the idolatrous worshippers of negro freedom from their altars, as Napoleon drove the mad votaries from the worship of their heathen divinity, and restored the worship of the true and living God. But the time has arrived when she must awake and come to the judgment — when she must aid, by her counsel, in deciding the most vital question, and one involving more stupendous considerations than any other that can arise in the relations of mankind. It is time that New England--Old England — Europe — America — and the whole civilized world, should come to the judgment bar, to consider the mission, the relations, the value of the institution of African slavery. It has too long been considered as a mere question of right in the master to property in slaves. It has so been regarded for ages, and the universal judgment of all civilized nations has confirmed