Lectures on the Philosophy and Practice of Slavery: As Exhibited in the Institution of Domestic Slavery in the United States, with the Duties of Masters to SlavesSmith, William A. (William Andrew)
Philosophy
Lectures on the Philosophy and Practice of Slavery: As Exhibited in the Institution of Domestic Slavery in the United States, with the Duties of Masters to Slaves
Smith, William A. (William Andrew)
Slavery -- United States
non-slaveholding sections of the country; and that at least a private
but painful impression or suspicion that there must be something wrong
in the principle of domestic slavery, should be found to pervade a
portion even of the Southern mind. Reluctant as we may be to admit the
truth, necessity compels us to do so. Let the following facts bear
witness.
No communities on earth are so free from domestic insurrections, and
the disturbing influences which come up from the lower orders of
society as those of the Southern States of this Union. The social
condition of England and Ireland, and the states of the continent of
Europe, are perpetually subject to the disturbing and ruinous
influence of local, and often widely spread, insurrectionary movements
against the social order, and even the safety of the governments. Nor
are the Northern States of this Union any more free from these
agrarian movements, than may be accounted for by the relative
sparseness of their population. Yet a general feeling of security
pervades all these people, whilst it is notorious that there are a
great many in Southern communities who are in a constant state of
feverish excitement on the subject of domestic insurrections. Any
announcement of that kind is sufficient to convulse a whole community.
The trifling affair of Nat. Turner (trifling compared with the
frequent disturbances and loss of life common in the communities just
referred to) painfully agitated the whole State of Virginia; and
occupied her Legislature through a whole winter in grave discussions
as to the “best means of freeing the State from the incubus of
slavery.” These results have all followed from the causes at which we
have glanced.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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