Читать книгу Slavery and the Constitution - Bowditch William Ingersoll - Страница 3

"It is universally the fact throughout the Slaveholding States, that either custom or law prohibits them [i. e. the slaves] the acquisition of letters." —Report made to Synod of South Carolina and Georgia in 1833.

At a recent annual meeting of the American Colonization Society, the Rev. Joel Parker, D.D. of Philadelphia, a member of the Presbyterian Church, speaking of the instruction of the colored race, is reported to have used the following language: – "There seems to me, in connection with this subject, a beautiful illustration of what Hall calls 'a fetch in Divine Providence.' God had a design in bringing these people to this country in the way he did. We cannot probably comprehend the whole of it; but this we can see, he has secured the education of those who, to all human appearance, would not and could not have been educated in any other way. There are now in this country more than three hundred thousand Africans who can read and write, who could not have done it if it had not been for the slave-trade. There are many in this country and in Liberia who are capable of preaching the gospel, editing papers, and performing all the duties of civil life, who must have remained in total darkness but for this trade. How came this people by all this knowledge? Did anybody go to Africa and teach them? No! It has been done by slavery… And now we send them back to Africa, with a preparation for doing a great work there, which we never could have imparted to them in any other way… In this view of the subject, we may perceive at least one good which slavery has done to Africa; and the question may with propriety be asked, whether it has not done for Africa more good than harm."

If we may believe this spiritual teacher, the Being who made of one blood all the nations of men, the common Father of us all, himself designed the scheme by which millions of men, women, and children were torn from their homes and friends, and all they held dear, and brought to this country, through all the horrors of the middle passage, where a terrible death relieved on an average at least one fifth of the victims from a scarcely less terrible life, – for this end in part, that, after two centuries of wrongs, not even a tithe of their descendants might be returned to the land of their fathers, to teach the Africans the religion of their oppressors! A truly touching example of God's loving-kindness and tender mercy to all his children!

That many slaves have been instructed to the extent stated by Dr. Parker is true; but they have been educated, not in consequence, but in spite, of slavery. So hostile to mental culture is slavery, that but a slight examination is needed to satisfy us that it is neither profitable nor safe to educate a slave beyond a certain point. Without some education, a slave would be worse than valueless. Far the larger number of them, as field slaves, are simply taught to use the hoe, and other instruments of agriculture. Others are brought up as carpenters, masons, blacksmiths, house-servants, &c. Frederick Douglass earned a dollar and a half a day at caulking; whilst William Craft, as a cabinet-maker and occasional waiter at an hotel, supported himself, and paid his owner twenty dollars a month for the right to use his own muscles. We occasionally meet with such advertisements as the following, cut from the "New Orleans Picayune," of Oct. 18, 1846: —

"Credit Sale of Valuable Negro Mechanics, &c. – By Beard, Calhoun, and Co. auctioneers, will be sold at auction, on Tuesday the 20th October, at twelve o'clock, at Banks's Arcade, the following valuable slaves: – Ezekiel, 25 years, a superior carpenter, fully guarantied; Jacob, 25 years, a superior carpenter and wheelwright, fully guarantied; Dick, 35 years, a superior carpenter and wheelwright, fully guarantied; Charles, 28 years, engineer and rough carpenter; Charles, 22 years, field hand, fully guarantied, excepting slightly ruptured; Sancho, 26 years, good house carpenter, fully guarantied; Maria, mulattress, 28 years, first-rate washer and ironer, fully guarantied; Maria, negress, 13, child's nurse, fully guarantied.

"Terms: Twelve months' credit for notes drawn and endorsed to the satisfaction of the vendor, with mortgage on the property, bearing interest eight per cent per annum, from date of sale until paid. Slaves not to be delivered until the notes are approved of. The servants can be seen on the morning of sale. Act of sale before D. I. Ricardo, notary public, at the expense of the purchaser."

In the same paper, Alexander Daggett advertises "for sale a negro man, a first-rate blacksmith." In the "Richmond Whig" of Jan. 25, 1848, Benjamin Davis advertises for sale a negro man "who is a first-rate carpenter by trade; also a rough blacksmith." In the "Charleston (S.C.) Mercury," Thomas W. Mordecai, broker and auctioneer, under date Sept. 1, 1847, advertises at private sale —

"An uncommonly prime and likely black man, about 22.

A prime woman, a superior washer, and good cook and farm hand.

A very prime axeman and field hand.

A superior man-cook."

It is not, however, necessary to teach a slave-mechanic or field hand, or even "a prime woman," to read or write, in order to make him or her a profitable investment. If we suppose William Craft's value as a slave to have been two thousand dollars, his master received from his investment only twelve per cent clear profit! Yet William could neither read nor write. He was a valuable working machine. To have him educated farther, to have taught him to read or write, would have lessened his market value. To teach a slave these things is to teach him his rights, and to make him keenly feel his wrongs. Mrs. Hugh Auld taught Frederick Douglass his letters before slavery had hardened her naturally kind heart. She gave him the inch, as he says, and no precaution could prevent his taking the ell. He taught himself to read and write, and thus describes the effect produced by reading a book called "The Columbian Orator." This book contains one or more of Sheridan's speeches, and a dialogue between a master and his slave, wherein the slave is made to refute all the arguments usually brought forward in support of slavery.

"The more I read," he says ("Narrative," p. 40), "the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange land reduced us to slavery. I loathed them as being the meanest as well as the most wicked of men. As I read and contemplated the subject, behold! that very discontentment which Master Hugh had predicted would follow my learning to read had already come, to torment and sting my soul to unutterable anguish. As I writhed under it, I could at times feel that learning to read had been a curse, rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out. In moments of agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity. I have often wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my own, – any thing, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! It was this everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented me. There was no getting rid of it."

As a necessary result of his learning to read, Douglass loathed slavery, and detested his enslavers. If he had never read, his eyes would never have been fully opened to the extent of his wrongs; and what is true of him is true of all other slaves. Any slave who can read Sheridan's denunciations of slavery must, like Douglass, loathe his condition, and detest his oppressors.

But a slave who loathes his condition, and detests his oppressors, will be refractory and disobedient. A late writer in the "Charleston Mercury" admits this when he remarks ("William Jay's Letter to Bishop Ives," 1848, p. 12): —

"It has been the policy of this State not to admit the teaching to the slaves, either of reading or writing. We all know why this is so. It needed no great scope of argument to satisfy those who framed our laws, that the expansion of intellect, the hundred influences which education generates, would be very inconsistent with habits of obedience, which was the corner-stone of the institution."

Such a slave will also try to escape at every fair opportunity; and, being able to write passes or forge free papers, the chances for successful escape are very much increased. The owner's hold upon him becomes daily more and more precarious, and consequently the slave's value as property daily diminishes. So true is this, that in Louisiana a buyer may legally refuse to take a slave, if he has only "absented himself from his master's house twice for several days, or once for more than a month." The "Civil Code" (Art. 2496, 2505) declares that the "vice of character," as it is called, which is proved by either of these Acts, renders the slave absolutely useless, or renders his use so inconvenient or imperfect that it must be supposed no one would buy a slave who was known to have this vice.

Every particle of instruction given to a slave beyond what is consistent with his remaining a passive and obedient, working machine, is so much money taken from the master's pocket. Nobody wants to invest his money in a slave who is refractory or disobedient, or who runs away at every opportunity, – unless, indeed, he buys the stock, in consequence, at very much under par! The value of Douglass as a slave decreased just as fast as his manhood increased; and Capt. Price now candidly avows, that he hesitated some time before he invested seven hundred dollars in William W. Brown; for William was a noted runaway! The love of money impels the slaveholders to keep their slaves in ignorance.

Not only this, but an educated slave, who loathes his condition and hates his oppressors, is an unsafe member of a household or a community. His means for taking a fearful vengeance are ample, and what consideration shall stay his hands? None but an educated slave can plan or head an insurrection. Such are the ones who always do take active part in rebellions. The house-servants constitute everywhere the most educated class. None are more dreaded than they, for this reason in part, and partly because of their living under the same roof with their masters. In a pamphlet published in Charleston, S. C. in 1822, p. 14, by Gen. Thomas Pinckney, speaking of house-servants, he remarks: —

"They are the most dangerous. Their intimate acquaintance with all the circumstances relating to the interior of the dwellings, the confidence reposed in them, and the information they unavoidably obtain from hearing the conversation and observing the habitual transactions of their owners, afford them the most ample means for treacherous bloodshed and devastation. The success, therefore, of servile conspiracies mainly depends on this class for taking off, by midnight murder, their unsuspecting owners; and the late trials, by exhibiting so large a portion of this description among the ringleaders of the conspiracy, afford a melancholy proof of their promptitude to become actors in such scenes." —William Jay's Letter, &c. p. 9.

The love of life itself, the desire for the safety of their wives and children, impels the slaveholders to keep their slaves in ignorance.

Two of the strongest motives which can be brought to bear upon man, the love of money and the love of life, are therefore constantly urging the slaveholder to darken the minds of his slaves. If the former of these motives leads to the commission of so much wrong everywhere, what will not both motives together accomplish to the injury of the slave? But the slaveholders have not been willing to trust wholly to these motives, strong though they are. In many of the States, it is a penal offence to teach a slave to read or write; and, where laws of this kind do not exist, custom, as universal, powerful, and remorseless as the law, accomplishes the same wrong. The following are some of these laws: —

The "Revised Statutes" of North Carolina, chap. 34, sec. 74 ("Revision of Stat." 1830, chap. 6, § 1), provide that

"Any free person who shall hereafter teach, or attempt to teach, any slave within this State to read or write, the use of figures excepted, or shall give or sell to such slave or slaves any books or pamphlets, shall be liable to indictment in any court of record in this State having jurisdiction thereof; and, upon conviction, shall, at the discretion of the court, if a white man or woman, be fined not less than one hundred dollars, nor more than two hundred dollars, or imprisoned; and, if a free person of color, shall be fined, imprisoned, or whipped, at the discretion of the court, not exceeding thirty-nine lashes, nor less than twenty lashes."

Chap. 111, sec. 27 (Statute, 1830, chap. 6, § 2), provides that, —

"If any slave shall teach, or attempt to teach, any other slave to read or write, the use of figures excepted, he or she may be carried before any justice of the peace, and, on conviction thereof, shall be sentenced to receive thirty-nine lashes on his or her bare back."

In South Carolina, the "Negro Act" (1740, § 45; "2 Brev. Dig." 243), provides that —

"All and every person and persons whatsoever who shall hereafter teach, or cause any slave or slaves to be taught to write, or shall use or employ any slave as a scribe in any manner of writing whatsoever, hereafter taught to write; every such person and persons shall, for every such offence, forfeit the sum of one hundred pounds current money."

In Alabama (Statute, 1832, chap. 8, § 10; "Clay's Digest," p. 543, § 24), —

"Any person or persons who shall attempt to teach any free person of color, or slave, to spell, read, or write, shall, upon conviction thereof by indictment, be fined in a sum not less than two hundred and fifty dollars, nor more than five hundred dollars."

In Georgia ("Penal Code approved Dec. 23, 1833," 13th div., sec. 18; "Prince's Digest," p. 658; "William A. Hotchkiss's Codification," 1845, p. 772), —

"If any person shall teach any slave, negro, or free person of color, to read or write either written or printed characters, or shall procure, suffer, or permit a slave, negro, or person of color, to transact business for him in writing, such person so offending shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction, shall be punished by fine, or imprisonment in the common jail of the county, or both, at the discretion of the court."

In Mississippi ("Howard & Hutchinson's Laws," p. 673),

"No slave or free person of color can be employed in the setting of types in any printing office."

In Missouri, the "Revised Statutes" (chap. 8, sec. 10, p. 117) provide that, —

"When an apprentice is a negro or mulatto, it shall not be the duty of the master to cause such colored apprentice to be taught to read or write, or a knowledge of arithmetic; but he shall be allowed, at the expiration of his term of service, a sum of money in lieu of education, to be assessed by the county court."

The Act of 1847 (approved Feb. 16, § 1) reads, —

"No person shall keep or teach any school for the instruction of negroes or mulattoes in reading or writing in this State."

Other similar laws might be produced; but these suffice to exhibit, in a clear light, the opportunities presented for the mental instruction of slaves! In some States, it is unlawful to teach even a FREE colored person to read or write!

That these laws have been almost universally respected and obeyed, there is no room to doubt. No one has given more attention to this subject than the Rev. Chas. C. Jones, of Savannah, Ga. In 1842 he published, at Savannah, a work, containing the result of his researches, entitled "The Religious Instruction of the Negroes in the United States." In this work, p. 115, he says, "The statutes of our respective Slave States forbid all knowledge of letters to the negroes; and, where the statutes do not, custom does. It is impossible to form an estimate of the number of negroes that read. My belief is, that the proportion would be expressed by AN ALMOST INCONCEIVABLE FRACTION. The greatest number of readers is found in and about towns and cities, and among the FREE negro population some two or three generations removed from servitude." – As a confirmation of this testimony of Mr. Jones, we know no greater proof that the degraded class in any community is almost wholly uneducated, than that a large portion of the privileged class is so. The law of compensation is divine. We cannot degrade or brutalize our fellow-men, without degrading or brutalizing ourselves. Now, we find that, in the Slave States, almost one tenth of the free white population over twenty years of age are unable to read and write! To some persons this may seem a small proportion; but, in the Free States, with all our ignorance, there are less than one in one hundred and fifty! and Horace Mann, the best authority on this subject, says that "at least four fifths of these are foreigners, who ought not to be included in the computation." In Connecticut, out of 163,843 free persons over twenty years of age, there are only 526 who are unable to read and write; while, in the model Slave State of South Carolina, out of only 111,663 free white persons over twenty years of age, there are 20,615 who cannot read and write! "In South Carolina," says Theodore Parker, "out of each 626 free whites more than twenty years of age, there are more than 58 wholly unable to read or write; out of that number of such persons in Connecticut, not quite two"! More than the sixth part of the adult freemen of South Carolina are unable to read the vote they deposit in the ballot-box! And Gov. Clarke, of Kentucky, declared in his message to the legislature in 1837, that one third of the adult population of that State were unable to write their names! While such is the state of the freemen, it is impossible that any considerable number of the slaves should become educated. With these facts before us, it is impossible not to admit the correctness of Mr. Jones's conclusion. Only an "almost inconceivable fraction" of three millions of slaves can read or write! These are taught by their owners, or with their connivance; and of them we shall speak hereafter. But, taken as a mass, the slaves are truly described by a writer in the "Marysville (Tennessee) Intelligencer" as being "degraded, stupid savages." We may add, not naturally degraded and stupid, but made and kept so in open violation of their rights as human beings, for the sake of gain!