MEANS OF REMOVING SLAVERY.
How slavery shall be removed, is a question for the slaveholder, and one
which he alone can fully answer. He alone has an intimate knowledge of
the character and habits of the slaves, to which the means of
emancipation should be carefully adapted. General views and principles
may and should be suggested at a distance; but the mode of applying them
can be understood only by those who dwell on the spot where the evil
exists. To the slaveholder belongs the duty of settling and employing
the best methods of liberation, and to no other. We have no right of
interference, nor do we desire it. We hold that the dangers of
emancipation, if such there are, would be indefinitely increased, were
the boon to come to the slave from a foreign hand, were he to see it
forced on the master by a foreign power. It is of the highest
importance, that slavery should be succeeded by a friendly relation
between master and slave; and to produce this, the latter must see in
the former his benefactor and deliverer. His liberty must seem to him
an expression of benevolence and regard for his rights. He must put
confidence in his superiors, and look to them cheerfully and gratefully
for counsel and aid. Let him feel, that liberty has been wrung from an
unwilling master, who would willingly replace the chain, and jealousy,
vindictiveness, and hatred would spring up, to blight the innocence and
happiness of his new freedom, and to make it a peril to himself and all
around him. I believe, indeed, that emancipation, though so bestowed,
would be better than everlasting bondage; but the responsibility of so
conferring it is one that none of us are anxious to assume.
We cannot but fear much from the experiment now in progress in the West
Indies, on account of its being the work of a foreign hand. The
planters, especially of Jamaica, have opposed the mother-country with a
pertinaciousness bordering on insanity; have done much to exasperate the
slaves, whose freedom they could not prevent; have done nothing to
prepare them for liberty; have met them with gloom on their
countenances, and with evil auguries on their lips; have taught them to
look abroad for relief, and to see in their masters only obstructions to
the amelioration of their lot. It is possible that under all these
obstacles emancipation may succeed. God grant it success! If it fail,
the planter will have brought the ruin very much on himself. Policy, as
well as duty, so plainly taught him to take into his own hands the work
which a superior power had begun, to spare no effort, no expense, for
binding to him by new ties those who were to throw off their former
chains, that we know not how to account for his conduct, but by
supposing that his unhappy position as a slaveholder had robbed him of
his reason, as well as blunted his moral sense.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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