An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called AfricansChild, Lydia Maria
History
An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans
Child, Lydia Maria
Antislavery movements -- United States; Slavery -- United States
At the North, every body is busy in some employment, and politics, with
very few exceptions, form but a brief episode in the lives of the
citizens. But the Southern politicians are men of leisure. They have
nothing to do but to ride round their plantations, hunt, attend the
races, study politics for the next legislative or congressional
campaign, and decide how to use the prodigious mechanical power, of
slave representation, which a political Archimedes may effectually wield
for the destruction of commerce, or any thing else, involving the
prosperity of the free States.[AC]
[Footnote AC: The Hon. W. B. Seabrook, a southern gentleman, has lately
written a pamphlet on the management of slaves, in which he says: "An
addition of one million dollars to the private fortune of Daniel
Webster, would not give to Massachusetts more than she now possesses
in the federal councils. On the other hand, every increase of slave
property in South Carolina, is a fraction thrown into the scale, by
which her representation in _Congress_ is determined."]
It has been already said, that most of the wealth in New-England was
made by commerce; consequently the South became unfriendly to commerce.
There was a class in New-England, jealous, and not without reason, of
their own commercial aristocracy. It was the policy of the South to
foment their passions, and increase their prejudices. Thus was the old
Democratic party formed; and while that party honestly supposed they
were merely resisting the encroachments of a nobility at home, they were
actually playing a game for one of the most aristocratic classes in the
world--viz. the Southern planters. A famous slave-owner and politician
openly boasted, that the South could always put down the aristocracy
of the North, by means of her own democracy. In this point of view,
democracy becomes a machine used by one aristocratic class against
another, that has less power, and is therefore less dangerous.
There are features in the organization of society, resulting from
slavery, which are conducive to any thing but the union of these States.
A large class are without employment, are accustomed to command, and
have a strong contempt for habits of industry. This class, like the
nobility of feudal times, are restless, impetuous, eager for excitement,
and prompt to settle all questions with the sword. Like the fierce old
barons, at the head of their vassals, they are ever ready to resist and
nullify the _central_ power of the State, whenever it interferes with
their individual interests, or even approaches the strong holds of their
prejudices. All history shows, that men possessing hereditary, despotic
power, cannot easily be brought to acknowledge a superior, either in the
administrators of the laws, or in the law itself. It was precisely such
a class of men that covered Europe with camps, for upwards of ten
centuries.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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