The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 42, April, 1861: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 42, April, 1861: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
had become humane and enlightened, it would be safe to venture on a
change; but, as this system has destroyed morality, and prevented the
development of the intellect,--as it has turned men, who might, under
different training, have formed a virtuous and happy community, into
savage and stupid wild beasts, therefore it ought to last forever.
Perhaps the counsellors of King Cotton think that in this case it will;
but all history teaches us another lesson. If there be one spark of love
for freedom in the nature of the African,--whether it be a love common
to him with the man or the beast, the Caucasian or the chimpanzee,--the
love of freedom as affording a means of improvement or an opportunity
for sloth,--the policy of King Cotton will cause it to work its way out.
It is impossible to say how long it will be in so doing, or what weight
the broad back of the African will first be made to bear; but, if the
spirit exist, some day it must out. This lesson is taught us by the
whole recorded history of the world. Moses leading the Children of
Israel up out of Egypt,--Spartacus at the gates of Rome,--the Jacquerie
in France,--Jack Cade and Wat Tyler in England,--Nana Sahib and the
Sepoys in India,--Toussaint l'Ouverture and the Haytiens,--and, finally,
the insurrection of Nat Turner in this country, with those in Guiana,
Jamaica, and St. Lucia: such examples, running through all history,
point the same moral. This last result of the Cotton dynasty may come at
any moment after the time shall once have arrived when, throughout any
great tract of country, the suppressing force shall temporarily, with
all the advantages of mastership, including intelligence and weapons, be
unequal to coping with the force suppressed. That time may still be far
off. Whether it be or not depends upon questions of government and
the events of the chapter of accidents. If the Union should now be
dissolved, and civil convulsions should follow, it may soon be upon us.
But the superimposed force is yet too great under any circumstances, and
the convulsion would probably be but temporary. At present, too, the
value of the slave insures him tolerable treatment; but, as numbers
increase, this value must diminish. Southern statesmen now assert that
in thirty years there will be twelve million slaves in the South; and
then, with increased numbers, why should not the philosophy of the
sugar-plantation prevail, and it become part of the economy of the
Cotton creed, that it is cheaper to work slaves to death and purchase
fresh ones than to preserve their usefulness by moderate employment?
Then the value of the slave will no longer protect him, and then the
end will be nigh. Is this thirty or fifty years off? Perhaps not for
a century hence will the policy of King Cotton work its legitimate
results, and the volcano at length come to its head and defy all
compression.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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