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)
"On the order of the day for the third reading of the emigrants' law
amendment bill being called, Hon. Col. Prince said he was wishful to
move a rider to the measure. The black people who infested the land were
the greatest curse to the Province. The lives of the people of the West
were made wretched by the inundation of these animals, and many of the
largest farmers in the county of Kent have been compelled to leave their
beautiful farms, because of the pestilential swarthy swarms.--What were
these wretches fit for? Nothing. They cooked our victuals and shampooned
us; but who would not rather that these duties should be performed by
white men? The blacks were a worthless, useless, thriftless set of
beings--they were too indolent, lazy and ignorant to work, too proud to
be taught; and not only that, if the criminal calendars of the country
were examined, it would be found that they were a majority of the
criminals. They were so detestable that unless some method were adopted
of preventing their influx into this country by the "underground rail
road," the people of the West would be obliged to drive them out by open
violence. The bill before the House imposed a capitation tax upon
emigrants from Europe, and the object of his motion was to levy a
similar tax upon blacks who came hither from the States. He now moved,
seconded by Mr. Patton, that a capitation tax of 5_s_ for adults, and
3_s_ 9_d_ for children above one year and under fourteen years of age,
be levied on persons of color emigrating to Canada from any foreign
country.
"Ought not the Western men to be protected from the rascalities and
villainies of the black wretches? He found these men with fire and food,
and lodging when they were in need; and he would be bound to say that
the black men of the county of Essex would speak well of him in this
respect. But he could not admit them as being equal to white men; and,
after a long and close observation of human nature, he had come to the
conclusion that the black man was born to and intended for slavery, and
that he was fit for nothing else. [Sensation.] Honorable gentlemen might
try to groan him down, but he was not to be moved by mawkish sentiment,
and he was persuaded that they might as well try to change the spots of
the leopard as to make the black a good citizen. He had told black men
so, and the lazy rascals had shrugged their shoulders and wished they
had never ran away from their "good old massa" in Kentucky. If there was
any thing unchristian in what he had proposed, he could not see it, and
he feared that he was not born a Christian."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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