386
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, empoverishes 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
In perusing this report, which is evidently drawn up by an able hand, one is astonished at the facility with which the author gets rid of all arguments founded upon reason and natural right, which he designates as abstract and theoretical principles. The more I contemplate the difference between civilized and uncivilized man with regard to the principles of justice, the more I observe that the former contests the justice of those rights, which the latter simply violates.
