The Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign | Page 8

have required, even at that price, the enormous sum
of................................ £500,000,000
Had the numbers in this country been reduced by the same process
there practised, emancipation could now be carried out at cost of less
than.. £4,000,000

To emancipate them now, paying for them at the same rate, would
require nearly................ £100,000,000
or almost five hundred millions of dollars. The same course, however,
that has increased their numbers, has largely increased their value to the
owners and to themselves. Men, when well fed, well clothed, well
lodged, and otherwise well cared for, always increase rapidly in
numbers, and in such cases labour always increases rapidly in value;
and hence it is that the average price of the negro slave of this country
is probably four times greater than that which the planters of the West
Indies were compelled to receive. Such being the case, it would follow
that to pay for their full value would require probably four hundred
millions of pounds sterling, or nearly two thousand millions of dollars.
It will now be seen that the course of things in the two countries has
been entirely different. In the islands the slave trade had been cherished
as a source of profit. Here, it had been made the subject of repeated
protests on the part of several of the provinces, and had been by all but
two prohibited at the earliest moment at which they possessed the
power so to do. In the islands it was held to be cheaper to buy slaves
than to raise them, and the sexes were out of all proportion to each
other. Here, importation was small, and almost the whole increase,
large as it has been, has resulted from the excess of births over deaths.
In the islands, the slave was generally a barbarian, speaking an
unknown tongue, and working with men like himself, in gangs, with
scarcely a chance for improvement. Here, he was generally a being
born on the soil, speaking the same language with his owner; and often
working in the field with him, with many advantages for the
development of his faculties. In the islands, the land-owners clung to
slavery as the sheet-anchor of their hopes. Here, on the contrary,
slavery had gradually been abolished in all the States north of Mason &
Dixon's line, and Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky were all,
at the date of emancipation in the islands, preparing for the early
adoption of measures looking to its entire abolition. In the islands, the
connection with Africa had been cherished as a means of obtaining
cheap labour, to be obtained by fomenting discord among the natives.
Here, on the contrary, had originated a grand scheme for carrying

civilization into the heart of Africa by means of the gradual
transplantation of some of the already civilized blacks. In the islands, it
has been deemed desirable to carry out "the European policy," of
preventing the Africans "from arriving at perfection" in the art of
preparing their cotton, sugar, indigo, or other articles, "from a fear of
interfering with established branches of commerce elsewhere."[12]
Here, on the contrary, efforts had been made for disseminating among
them the knowledge required for perfecting themselves in the modes of
preparation and manufacture. In the islands, every thing looked toward
the permanency of slavery. Here, every thing looked toward the gradual
and gentle civilization and emancipation of the negro throughout the
world. In the islands, however, by a prompt measure forced on the
people by a distant government, slavery was abolished, and the planters,
or their representatives in England, received twenty millions of pounds
sterling as compensation in full for the services of the few who
remained in existence out of the large number that had been imported.
Here, the planters are now urged to adopt for themselves measures of a
similar kind. The whole course of proceeding in the two countries in
reference to the negro having been so widely different, there are,
however, difficulties in the way that seem to be almost insuperable.
The power to purchase the slaves of the British colonies was a
consequence of the fact that their numbers had not been permitted to
increase. The difficulty of purchasing them here is great, because of
their having been well fed, well clothed, and otherwise well provided
for, and having therefore increased so rapidly. If, nevertheless, it can be
shown that by abandoning the system under which the negro race has
steadily increased in numbers and advanced towards civilization, and
adopting that of a nation under whose rule there has been a steady
decline of numbers, and but little, if any, tendency toward civilization,
we shall benefit the race, it will become our duty to make the effort,
however great may be the cost. With a view to ascertain how far duty