Cotton is king, and pro-slavery arguments : $b comprising the writings of Hammond, Harper, Christy, Stringfellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, and Cartwright, on this important subject
History
Cotton is king, and pro-slavery arguments : $b comprising the writings of Hammond, Harper, Christy, Stringfellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, and Cartwright, on this important subject
Scott, Dred, 1809-1858; Slavery -- Justification; Slavery -- United States; United States -- Fugitive slave law (1850)
Look at your prisons and your
penitentiary, and behold the fearful preponderance of their black over
their white inmates in proportion to the population of each. . . . . We
have no desire to show hostility toward the colored people, no desire to
banish them from the Province. On the contrary, we are willing to assist
in any well-devised scheme for their moral and social advancement. Our
only desire is, that they shall be separated from the whites, and that
no encouragement shall hereafter be given to the migration of the
colored man from the United States, or any where else. The idea that we
have brought the curse upon ourselves, through the establishment of
slavery by our ancestors, is false. As Canadians, we have yet to learn
that we ought to be made a vicarious atonement for European sins.
"Canadians: The hour has arrived when we should arouse from our
lethargy; when we should gather ourselves together in our might, and
resist the onward progress of an evil which threatens to entail upon
future generations a thousand curses. Now is the day. A few short years
will put it beyond our power. Thousands and tens of thousands of
American negroes, with the aid of the abolition societies in the States,
and with the countenance given them by our philanthropic institutions,
will continue to pour into Canada, if resistance is not offered. Many of
you who live at a distance from this frontier, have no conception either
of the number or the character of these emigrants, or of their poisonous
effect upon the moral and social habits of a community. You listen with
active sympathy to every thing narrated of the sufferings of the poor
African; your feelings are enlisted, and your purse strings unloosed,
and this often by the hypocritical declamation of some self-styled
philanthropist. Under such influences many of you, in our large cities
and towns, form yourselves into societies, and, without reflection, you
supply funds for the support of schemes prejudicial to the best
interests of our country. Against such proceedings, and especially
against any and every attempt to settle any township in this District
with negroes, we solemnly protest, and we call upon our countrymen, in
all parts of the Province, to assist in our opposition.
"Fellow Christians: Let us forever maintain the sacred dogma, that all
men have equal, natural, and inalienable rights. Let us do every thing
in our power, consistent with international polity and justice, to
abolish the accursed system of slavery in the neighboring Republic. But
let us not, through a mistaken zeal to abate the evil of another land,
entail upon ourselves a misery which every enlightened lover of his
country must mourn. Let the slaves of the United States be free, but let
it be in their own country. Let us not countenance their further
introduction among us; in a word, let the people of the United States
bear the burthen of their own sins.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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