The Right Way the Safe Way: Proved by Emancipation in the British West Indies, and Elsewhere
History
The Right Way the Safe Way: Proved by Emancipation in the British West Indies, and Elsewhere
Slavery -- United States; Slavery -- West Indies
emancipated slaves, who had worked so many years without wages_.
History proves that emancipation has _always_ been safe. It is an
undeniable fact, that not one white person has ever been killed, or
wounded, or had life or property endangered by any violence attendant
upon immediate emancipation, in any of the many cases where the
experiment has been tried. On the contrary, it has always produced a
feeling of security in the public mind.
CHAPTER VII.
CONCLUDING REMARKS.
I appeal to candid readers whether I have not, in the preceding pages,
fairly made out a case in favor of immediate emancipation. I have not
advanced opinions, or theories; I have simply stated facts. In view of
these facts, is it not unjust and irrational to persist in calling
immediate emancipation a "fanatical" idea? Leaving the obvious
considerations of justice and humanity entirely out of the question, I
ask whether experience has not proved it to be a measure of plain,
practical good sense, and sound policy. The trouble in forming a correct
estimate on this subject arises mainly from our proneness to forget that
negroes are _men_, and, consequently, governed by the same laws of human
nature, which govern all men. Compulsion always excites resistance;
reward always stimulates exertion. Kindness has upon the human soul an
influence as renovating as sunshine upon the earth; and no race is so
much and so easily influenced by it as the negroes. Jamaica overseers,
blinded by the long habit of considering slaves as cattle, said to them,
after they became apprentices, "Work faster, you black rascal! or I'll
flog you." That excited the apprentice to remind them they had no power
to do it. The retort enraged the overseers; and the magistrate was
called upon to punish the laborer for his insolence in expressing the
feelings of a man. The Antigua planters acted with more enlightened
policy. They wisely gave up their power into the hands of the law. If
they chanced to see a laborer rather dilatory, they said, "We expect
better things of _freemen_:" and that simple appeal to their manhood, we
are told, invariably quickened their motions, while it gratified their
feelings.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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