A Defence of Virginia: And Through Her, of the South, in Recent and Pending Contests Against the Sectional PartyDabney, Robert Lewis
History
A Defence of Virginia: And Through Her, of the South, in Recent and Pending Contests Against the Sectional Party
Dabney, Robert Lewis
Slavery -- Justification; Slavery -- United States; Slavery -- United States -- History; Slavery -- Virginia
Every government in the world acknowledges this necessity, and
applies, in some form, this remedy. The abolition government of the
United States, for instance, imposed compulsory restraints and labour
upon multitudes of fugitive slaves, during the war. The only
difference was, that whereas our system of domestic slavery placed
this power in hands most powerfully interested to employ it humanely
and wisely, the anti-slavery authorities placed it in hands which had
every selfish inducement to abuse it to the misery of the slave, and
the detriment of the publick interest. And the same government is
to-day avouching every word of the above argument, by justifying
itself, from a pretended political necessity, for placing the white
race of the South under a much stricter bondage than that formerly
borne by the negroes; a bondage which places not only labour and
property, but life, at the irresponsible will of the masters. If
slavery is wrong, then the abolitionists are the greatest sinners; for
they have turned their own brethren into a nation of slaves.
Domestic servitude, as we define and defend it, is but civil
government in one of its forms. All government is restraint; and this
is but one form of restraint. As long as man is a sinner, and his will
perverted, restraint is righteous. We are sick of that arrogant and
profane cant, which asserts man's 'capacity for self-government' as a
universal proposition; which represents human nature as so good, and
democratic government as so potent, that it is a sort of miraculous
_panacea_, sufficient to repair all the disorders of man's condition.
All this ignores the great truths, that man is fallen; that his will
is disordered, and therefore ought not to be his rule; that God, his
owner and master, has ordained that he shall live under authority.
What fruit has radical democracy ever borne, except factious
oppression, anarchy, and the stern necessity for despotism?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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