Jefferson
From Notes on the State of Virginia
"Population"
The number of its inhabitants?
Population
The following table shews the number of persons imported for
the establishment of our colony in its infant state, and the census of inhabitants
at different periods, extracted from our historians and public records, as
particularly as I have had opportunities and leisure to examine them. Successive
lines in the same year shew successive periods of time in that year. I have
stated the census in two different columns, the whole inhabitants having
been sometimes numbered, and sometimes the tythes only. This term, with us,
includes the free males above 16 years of age, and slaves above that age
of both sexes. A further examination of our records would render this history
of our population much more satisfactory and perfect, by furnishing a greater
number of intermediate terms. Those however which are here stated will enable
us to calculate, with a considerable degree of precision, the rate at which
we have increased. During the infancy of the colony, while numbers were small,
wars, importations, and other accidental circumstances render the progression
fluctuating and irregular. By the year 1654, however, it becomes tolerably
uniform, importations having in a great measure ceased from the dissolution
of the company, and the inhabitants become too numerous to be sensibly affected
by Indian wars. Beginning at that period, therefore, we find that from thence
to the year 1772, our tythes had increased from 7209 to 153,000. The whole
term being of 118 years, yields a duplication once in every 27 1/4 years.
The intermediate enumerations taken in 1700, 1748, and 1759, furnish proofs
of the uniformity of this progression. Should this rate of increase continue,
we shall have between six and seven millions of inhabitants within 95 years.
If we suppose our country to be bounded, at some future day, by the meridian
of the mouth of the Great Kanhaway, (within which it has been before conjectured,
are 64,491 square miles) there will then be 100 inhabitants for every square
mile, which is nearly the state of population in the British islands.
Here I will beg leave to propose a doubt. The present desire
of America is to produce rapid population by as great importations of foreigners
as possible. But is this founded in good policy? The advantage proposed is
the multiplication of numbers. Now let us suppose (for example only) that,
in this state, we could double our numbers in one year by the importation
of foreigners; and this is a greater accession than the most sanguine advocate
for emigration has a right to expect. Then I say, beginning with a double
stock, we shall attain any given degree of population only 27 years and 3
months sooner than if we proceed on our single stock. If we propose four
millions and a half as a competent population for this state, we should be
54 1/2 years attaining it, could we at once double our numbers; and 81 3/4
years, if we rely on natural propagation, as may be seen by the following
table.
In the first column are stated periods of 27 1/4 years; in the
second are our numbers, at each period, as they will be if we proceed on
our actual stock; and in the third are what they would be, at the same periods,
were we to set out from the double of our present stock.
I have taken the term of four millions and a half of inhabitants
for example's sake only. Yet I am persuaded it is a greater number than the
country spoken of, considering how much inarrable land it contains, can clothe
and feed, without a material change in the quality of their diet. But are
there no inconveniences to be thrown into the scale against the advantage
expected from a multiplication of numbers by the importation of foreigners?
It is for the happiness of those united in society to harmonize as much as
possible in matters which they must of necessity transact together. Civil
government being the sole object of forming societies, its administration
must be conducted by common consent. Every species of government has its
specific principles. Ours perhaps are more peculiar than those of any other
in the universe. It is a composition of the freest principles of the English
constitution, with others derived from natural right and natural reason.
To these nothing can be more opposed than the maxims of absolute monarchies.
Yet, from such, we are to expect the greatest number of emigrants. They will
bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in
their early youth; or, if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange
for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to
another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of
temperate liberty. These principles, with their language, they will transmit
to their children. In proportion to their numbers, they will share with us
the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its
direction, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass. I
may appeal to experience, during the present contest, for a verification
of these conjectures. But, if they be not certain in event, are they not
possible, are they not probable? Is it not safer to wait with patience 27
years and three months longer, for the attainment of any degree of population
desired, or expected? May not our government be more homogeneous, more peaceable,
more durable? Suppose 20 millions of republican Americans thrown all of a
sudden into France, what would be the condition of that kingdom? If it would
be more turbulent, less happy, less strong, we may believe that the addition
of half a million of foreigners to our present numbers would produce a similar
effect here. If they come of themselves, they are entitled to all the rights
of citizenship: but I doubt the expediency of inviting them by extraordinary
encouragements. I mean not that these doubts should be extended to the importation
of useful artificers. The policy of that measure depends on very different
considerations. Spare no expence in obtaining them. They will after a while
go to the plough and the hoe; but, in the mean time, they will teach us something
we do not know. It is not so in agriculture. The indifferent state of that
among us does not proceed from a want of knowledge merely; it is from our
having such quantities of land to waste as we please. In Europe the object
is to make the most of their land, labour being abundant: here it is to make
the most of our labour, land being abundant.
It will be proper to explain how the numbers for the year 1782
have been obtained; as it was not from a perfect census of the inhabitants.
It will at the same time develope the proportion between the free inhabitants
and slaves. The following return of taxable articles for that year was given
in.
53,289 free males above 21 years of age.
211,698 slaves of all ages and sexes.
23,766 not distinguished in the returns, but said to be titheable slaves.
195,439 horses.
609,734 cattle.
5,126 wheels of riding-carriages.
191 taverns.
There were no returns from the 8 counties of Lincoln, Jefferson,
Fayette, Monongalia, Yohogania, Ohio, Northampton, and York. To find the
number of slaves which should have been returned instead of the 23,766 titheables,
we must mention that some observations on a former census had given reason
to believe that the numbers above and below 16 years of age were equal. The
double of this number, therefore, to wit, 47,532 must be added to 211,698,
which will give us 259,230 slaves of all ages and sexes. To find the number
of free inhabitants, we must repeat the observation, that those above and
below 16 are nearly equal. But as the number 53,289 omits the males between
16 and 21, we must supply them from conjecture. On a former experiment it
had appeared that about one-third of our militia, that is, of the males between
16 and 50, were unmarried. Knowing how early marriage takes place here, we
shall not be far wrong in supposing that the unmarried part of our militia
are those between 16 and 21. If there be young men who do not marry till
after 21, there are as many who marry before that age. But as the men above
50 were not included in the militia, we will suppose the unmarried, or those
between 16 and 21, to be one-fourth of the whole number above 16, then we
have the following calculation:
53,289 free males above 21 years of age.
17,763 free males between 16 and 21.
71,052 free males under 16.
142,104 free females of all ages.
-- -- -- -
284,208 free inhabitants of all ages.
259,230 slaves of all ages.
-- -- -- -
543,438 inhabitants,
exclusive of the 8 counties from which were no returns. In these
8 counties in the years 1779 and 1780 were 3,161 militia. Say then,
3,161 free males above the age of 16.
3,161 ditto under 16.
6,322 free females.
-- -- --
12,644 free inhabitants in these 8 counties.
To find the number of slaves, say, as 284,208 to 259,230, so
is 12,644 to 11,532. Adding the third of these numbers to the first, and
the fourth to the second, we have,
296,852 free inhabitants.
270,762 slaves.
-- -- -- -
567,614 inhabitants of every age, sex, and condition.
But 296,852, the number of free inhabitants, are to 270,762,
the number of slaves, nearly as 11 to 10. Under the mild treatment our slaves
experience, and their wholesome, though coarse, food, this blot in our country
increases as fast, or faster, than the whites. During the regal government,
we had at one time obtained a law, which imposed such a duty on the importation
of slaves, as amounted nearly to a prohibition, when one inconsiderate assembly,
placed under a peculiarity of circumstance, repealed the law. This repeal
met a joyful sanction from the then sovereign, and no devices, no expedients,
which could ever after be attempted by subsequent assemblies, and they seldom
met without attempting them, could succeed in getting the royal assent to
a renewal of the duty. In the very first session held under the republican
government, the assembly passed a law for the perpetual prohibition of the
importation of slaves. This will in some measure stop the increase of this
great political and moral evil, while the minds of our citizens may be ripening
for a complete emancipation of human nature.
"Laws"
The administration of justice and description of the laws?
Laws
The state is divided into counties. In every county are appointed
magistrates, called justices of the peace, usually from eight to thirty or
forty in number, in proportion to the size of the county, of the most discreet
and honest inhabitants. They are nominated by their fellows, but commissioned
by the governor, and act without reward. These magistrates have jurisdiction
both criminal and civil. If the question before them be a question of law
only, they decide on it themselves: but if it be of fact, or of fact and
law combined, it must be referred to a jury. In the latter case, of a combination
of law and fact, it is usual for the jurors to decide the fact, and to refer
the law arising on it to the decision of the judges. But this division of
the subject lies with their discretion only. And if the question relate to
any point of public liberty, or if it be one of those in which the judges
may be suspected of bias, the jury undertake to decide both law and fact.
If they be mistaken, a decision against right, which is casual only, is less
dangerous to the state, and less afflicting to the loser, than one which
makes part of a regular and uniform system. In truth, it is better to toss
up cross and pile in a cause, than to refer it to a judge whose mind is warped
by any motive whatever, in that particular case. But the common sense of
twelve honest men gives still a better chance of just decision, than the
hazard of cross and pile. These judges execute their process by the sheriff
or coroner of the county, or by constables of their own appointment. If any
free person commit an offence against the commonwealth, if it be below the
degree of felony, he is bound by a justice to appear before their court,
to answer it on indictment or information. If it amount to felony, he is
committed to jail, a court of these justices is called; if they on examination
think him guilty, they send him to the jail of the general court, before
which court he is to be tried first by a grand jury of 24, of whom 13 must
concur in opinion: if they find him guilty, he is then tried by a jury of
12 men of the county where the offence was committed, and by their verdict,
which must be unanimous, he is acquitted or condemned without appeal. If
the criminal be a slave the trial by the county court is final. In every
case however, except that of high treason, there resides in the governor
a power of pardon. In high treason, the pardon can only flow from the general
assembly. In civil matters these justices have jurisdiction in all cases
of whatever value, not appertaining to the department of the admiralty. This
jurisdiction is twofold. If the matter in dispute be of less value than 4
1/6 dollars, a single member may try it at any time and place within his
county, and may award execution on the goods of the party cast. If it be
of that or greater value, it is determinable before the county court, which
consists of four at the least of those justices, and assembles at the court-house
of the county on a certain day in every month. From their determination,
if the matter be of the value of ten pounds sterling, or concern the title
or bounds of lands, an appeal lies to one of the superior courts.
There are three superior courts, to wit, the high-court of chancery,
the general court, and court of admiralty. The first and second of these
receive appeals from the county courts, and also have original jurisdiction
where the subject of controversy is of the value of ten pounds sterling,
or where it concerns the title or bounds of land. The jurisdiction of the
admiralty is original altogether. The high-court of chancery is composed
of three judges, the general court of five, and the court of admiralty of
three. The two first hold their sessions at Richmond at stated times, the
chancery twice in the year, and the general court twice for business civil
and criminal, and twice more for criminal only. The court of admiralty sits
at Williamsburgh whenever a controversy arises.
There is one supreme court, called the court of appeals, composed
of the judges of the three superior courts, assembling twice a year at stated
times at Richmond. This court receives appeals in all civil cases from each
of the superior courts, and determines them finally. But it has no original
jurisdiction.
If a controversy arise between two foreigners of a nation in
alliance with the United States, it is decided by the Consul for their State,
or, if both parties chuse it, by the ordinary courts of justice. If one of
the parties only be such a foreigner, it is triable before the courts of
justice of the country. But if it shall have been instituted in a county
court, the foreigner may remove it into the general court, or court of chancery,
who are to determine it at their first sessions, as they must also do if
it be originally commenced before them. In cases of life and death, such
foreigners have a right to be tried by a jury, the one half foreigners, the
other natives.
All public accounts are settled with a board of auditors, consisting
of three members, appointed by the general assembly, any two of whom may
act. But an individual, dissatisfied with the determination of that board,
may carry his case into the proper superior court.
A description of the laws.
The general assembly was constituted, as has been already shewn,
by letters-patent of March the 9th, 1607, in the 4th year of the reign of
James the First. The laws of England seem to have been adopted by consent
of the settlers, which might easily enough be done whilst they were few and
living all together. Of such adoption however we have no other proof than
their practice, till the year 1661, when they were expressly adopted by an
act of the assembly, except so far as `a difference of condition' rendered
them inapplicable. Under this adoption, the rule, in our courts of judicature
was, that the common law of England, and the general statutes previous to
the 4th of James, were in force here; but that no subsequent statutes were,
unless we were named in them, said the judges and other partisans of the
crown, but named or not named, said those who reflected freely. It will be
unnecessary to attempt a description of the laws of England, as that may
be found in English publications. To those which were established here, by
the adoption of the legislature, have been since added a number of acts of
assembly passed during the monarchy, and ordinances of convention and acts
of assembly enacted since the establishment of the republic. The following
variations from the British model are perhaps worthy of being specified.
Debtors unable to pay their debts, and making faithful delivery
of their whole effects, are released from confinement, and their persons
for ever discharged from restraint for such previous debts: but any property
they may afterwards acquire will be subject to their creditors.
The poor, unable to support themselves, are maintained by an
assessment on the titheable persons in their parish. This assessment is levied
and administered by twelve persons in each parish, called vestrymen, originally
chosen by the housekeepers of the parish, but afterwards filling vacancies
in their own body by their own choice. These are usually the most discreet
farmers, so distributed through their parish, that every part of it may be
under the immediate eye of some one of them. They are well acquainted with
the details and ;oeconomy of private life, and they find sufficient inducements
to execute their charge well, in their philanthropy, in the approbation of
their neighbours, and the distinction which that gives them. The poor who
have neither property, friends, nor strength to labour, are boarded in the
houses of good farmers, to whom a stipulated sum is annually paid. To those
who are able to help themselves a little, or have friends from whom they
derive some succours, inadequate however to their full maintenance, supplementory
aids are given, which enable them to live comfortably in their own houses,
or in the houses of their friends. Vagabonds, without visible property or
vocation, are placed in workhouses, where they are well cloathed, fed, lodged,
and made to labour. Nearly the same method of providing for the poor prevails
through all our states; and from Savannah to Portsmouth you will seldom meet
a beggar. In the larger towns indeed they sometimes present themselves. These
are usually foreigners, who have never obtained a settlement in any parish.
I never yet saw a native American begging in the streets or highways. A subsistence
is easily gained here: and if, by misfortunes, they are thrown on the charities
of the world, those provided by their own country are so comfortable and
so certain, that they never think of relinquishing them to become strolling
beggars. Their situation too, when sick, in the family of a good farmer,
where every member is emulous to do them kind offices, where they are visited
by all the neighbours, who bring them the little rarities which their sickly
appetites may crave, and who take by rotation the nightly watch over them,
when their condition requires it, is without comparison better than in a
general hospital, where the sick, the dying, and the dead are crammed together,
in the same rooms, and often in the same beds. The disadvantages, inseparable
from general hospitals, are such as can never be counterpoised by all the
regularities of medicine and regimen. Nature and kind nursing save a much
greater proportion in our plain way, at a smaller expence, and with less
abuse. One branch only of hospital institution is wanting with us; that is,
a general establishment for those labouring under difficult cases of chirurgery.
The aids of this art are not equivocal. But an able chirurgeon cannot be
had in every parish. Such a receptacle should therefore be provided for those
patients: but no others should be admitted.
Marriages must be solemnized either on special licence, granted
by the first magistrate of the county, on proof of the consent of the parent
or guardian of either party under age, or after solemn publication, on three
several Sundays, at some place of religious worship, in the parishes where
the parties reside. The act of solemnization may be by the minister of any
society of Christians, who shall have been previously licensed for this purpose
by the court of the county. Quakers and Menonists however are exempted from
all these conditions, and marriage among them is to be solemnized by the
society itself.
A foreigner of any nation, not in open war with us, becomes
naturalized by removing to the state to reside, and taking an oath of fidelity:
and thereupon acquires every right of a native citizen: and citizens may
divest themselves of that character, by declaring, by solemn deed, or in
open court, that they mean to expatriate themselves, and no longer to be
citizens of this state.
Conveyances of land must be registered in the court of the county
wherein they lie, or in the general court, or they are void, as to creditors,
and subsequent purchasers.
Slaves pass by descent and dower as lands do. Where the descent
is from a parent, the heir is bound to pay an equal share of their value
in money to each of his brothers and sisters.
Slaves, as well as lands, were entailable during the monarchy:
but, by an act of the first republican assembly, all donees in tail, present
and future, were vested with the absolute dominion of the entailed subject.
Bills of exchange, being protested, carry 10 per cent. interest
from their date.
No person is allowed, in any other case, to take more than five
per cent. per annum simple interest, for the loan of monies.
Gaming debts are made void, and monies actually paid to discharge
such debts (if they exceeded 40 shillings) may be recovered by the payer
within three months, or by any other person afterwards.
Tobacco, flour, beef, pork, tar, pitch, and turpentine, must
be inspected by persons publicly appointed, before they can be exported.
The erecting iron-works and mills is encouraged by many privileges;
with necessary cautions however to prevent their dams from obstructing the
navigation of the water-courses. The general assembly have on several occasions
shewn a great desire to encourage the opening the great falls of James and
Patowmac rivers. As yet, however, neither of these have been effected.
The laws have also descended to the preservation and improvement
of the races of useful animals, such as horses, cattle, deer; to the extirpation
of those which are noxious, as wolves, squirrels, crows, blackbirds; and
to the guarding our citizens against infectious disorders, by obliging suspected
vessels coming into the state, to perform quarantine, and by regulating the
conduct of persons having such disorders within the state.
The mode of acquiring lands, in the earliest times of our settlement,
was by petition to the general assembly. If the lands prayed for were already
cleared of the Indian title, and the assembly thought the prayer reasonable,
they passed the property by their vote to the petitioner. But if they had
not yet been ceded by the Indians, it was necessary that the petitioner should
previously purchase their right. This purchase the assembly verified, by
enquiries of the Indian proprietors; and being satisfied of its reality and
fairness, proceeded further to examine the reasonableness of the petition,
and its consistence with policy; and, according to the result, either granted
or rejected the petition. The company also sometimes, though very rarely,
granted lands, independantly of the general assembly. As the colony increased,
and individual applications for land multiplied, it was found to give too
much occupation to the general assembly to enquire into and execute the grant
in every special case. They therefore thought it better to establish general
rules, according to which all grants should be made, and to leave to the
governor the execution of them, under these rules. This they did by what
have been usually called the land laws, amending them from time to time,
as their defects were developed. According to these laws, when an individual
wished a portion of unappropriated land, he was to locate and survey it by
a public officer, appointed for that purpose: its breadth was to bear a certain
proportion to its length: the grant was to be executed by the governor: and
the lands were to be improved in a certain manner, within a given time. From
these regulations there resulted to the state a sole and exclusive power
of taking conveyances of the Indian right of soil: since, according to them,
an Indian conveyance alone could give no right to an individual, which the
laws would acknowledge. The state, or the crown, thereafter, made general
purchases of the Indians from time to time, and the governor parcelled them
out by special grants, conformed to the rules before described, which it
was not in his power, or in that of the crown, to dispense with. Grants,
unaccompanied by their proper legal circumstances, were set aside regularly
by scire facias, or by bill in Chancery. Since the establishment of our new
government, this order of things is but little changed. An individual, wishing
to appropriate to himself lands still unappropriated by any other, pays to
the public treasurer a sum of money proportioned to the quantity he wants.
He carries the treasurer's receipt to the auditors of public accompts, who
thereupon debit the treasurer with the sum, and order the register of the
land-office to give the party a warrant for his land. With this warrant from
the register, he goes to the surveyor of the county where the land lies on
which he has cast his eye. The surveyor lays it off for him, gives him its
exact description, in the form of a certificate, which certificate he returns
to the land-office, where a grant is made out, and is signed by the governor.
This vests in him a perfect dominion in his lands, transmissible to whom
he pleases by deed or will, or by descent to his heirs if he die intestate.
Many of the laws which were in force during the monarchy being
relative merely to that form of government, or inculcating principles inconsistent
with republicanism, the first assembly which met after the establishment
of the commonwealth appointed a committee to revise the whole code, to reduce
it into proper form and volume, and report it to the assembly. This work
has been executed by three gentlemen, and reported; but probably will not
be taken up till a restoration of peace shall leave to the legislature leisure
to go through such a work.
The plan of the revisal was this. The common law of England,
by which is meant, that part of the English law which was anterior to the
date of the oldest statutes extant, is made the basis of the work. It was
thought dangerous to attempt to reduce it to a text: it was therefore left
to be collected from the usual monuments of it. Necessary alterations in
that, and so much of the whole body of the British statutes, and of acts
of assembly, as were thought proper to be retained, were digested into 126
new acts, in which simplicity of stile was aimed at, as far as was safe.
The following are the most remarkable alterations proposed:
To change the rules of descent, so as that the lands of any
person dying intestate shall be divisible equally among all his children,
or other representatives, in equal degree.
To make slaves distributable among the next of kin, as other
moveables.
To have all public expences, whether of the general treasury,
or of a parish or county, (as for the maintenance of the poor, building bridges,
court-houses, &c.) supplied by assessments on the citizens, in proportion
to their property.
To hire undertakers for keeping the public roads in repair,
and indemnify individuals through whose lands new roads shall be opened.
To define with precision the rules whereby aliens should become
citizens, and citizens make themselves aliens.
To establish religious freedom on the broadest bottom.
To emancipate all slaves born after passing the act. The bill
reported by the revisors does not itself contain this proposition; but an
amendment containing it was prepared, to be offered to the legislature whenever
the bill should be taken up, and further directing, that they should continue
with their parents to a certain age, then be brought up, at the public expence,
to tillage, arts or sciences, according to their geniusses, till the females
should be eighteen, and the males twenty-one years of age, when they should
be colonized to such place as the circumstances of the time should render
most proper, sending them out with arms, implements of houshold and of the
handicraft arts, feeds, pairs of the useful domestic animals, &c. to
declare them a free and independant people, and extend to them our alliance
and protection, till they shall have acquired strength; and to send vessels
at the same time to other parts of the world for an equal number of white
inhabitants; to induce whom to migrate hither, proper encouragements were
to be proposed. It will probably be asked, Why not retain and incorporate
the blacks into the state, and thus save the expence of supplying, by importation
of white settlers, the vacancies they will leave? Deep rooted prejudices
entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of
the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions
which nature has made; and many other circumstances, will divide us into
parties, and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the
extermination of the one or the other race. -- To these objections, which
are political, may be added others, which are physical and moral. The first
difference which strikes us is that of colour. Whether the black of the negro
resides in the reticular membrane between the skin and scarf-skin, or in
the scarf-skin itself; whether it proceeds from the colour of the blood,
the colour of the bile, or from that of some other secretion, the difference
is fixed in nature, and is as real as if its seat and cause were better known
to us. And is this difference of no importance? Is it not the foundation
of a greater or less share of beauty in the two races? Are not the fine mixtures
of red and white, the expressions of every passion by greater or less suffusions
of colour in the one, preferable to that eternal monotony, which reigns in
the countenances, that immoveable veil of black which covers all the emotions
of the other race? Add to these, flowing hair, a more elegant symmetry of
form, their own judgment in favour of the whites, declared by their preference
of them, as uniformly as is the preference of the Oranootan for the black
women over those of his own species. The circumstance of superior beauty,
is thought worthy attention in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and other
domestic animals; why not in that of man? Besides those of colour, figure,
and hair, there are other physical distinctions proving a difference of race.
They have less hair on the face and body. They secrete less by the kidnies,
and more by the glands of the skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable
odour. This greater degree of transpiration renders them more tolerant of
heat, and less so of cold, than the whites. Perhaps too a difference of structure
in the pulmonary apparatus, which a late ingenious 30 experimentalist has
discovered to be the principal regulator of animal heat, may have disabled
them from extricating, in the act of inspiration, so much of that fluid from
the outer air, or obliged them in expiration, to part with more of it. They
seem to require less sleep. A black, after hard labour through the day, will
be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later,
though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning. They are
at least as brave, and more adventuresome. But this may perhaps proceed from
a want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present.
When present, they do not go through it with more coolness or steadiness
than the whites. They are more ardent after their female: but love seems
with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment
and sensation. Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions,
which render it doubtful whether heaven has given life to us in mercy or
in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them. In general, their
existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection. To this
must be ascribed their disposition to sleep when abstracted from their diversions,
and unemployed in labour. An animal whose body is at rest, and who does not
reflect, must be disposed to sleep of course. Comparing them by their faculties
of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they
are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely
be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid;
and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous. It would
be unfair to follow them to Africa for this investigation. We will consider
them here, on the same stage with the whites, and where the facts are not
apocryphal on which a judgment is to be formed. It will be right to make
great allowances for the difference of condition, of education, of conversation,
of the sphere in which they move. Many millions of them have been brought
to, and born in America. Most of them indeed have been confined to tillage,
to their own homes, and their own society: yet many have been so situated,
that they might have availed themselves of the conversation of their masters;
many have been brought up to the handicraft arts, and from that circumstance
have always been associated with the whites. Some have been liberally educated,
and all have lived in countries where the arts and sciences are cultivated
to a considerable degree, and have had before their eyes samples of the best
works from abroad. The Indians, with no advantages of this kind, will often
carve figures on their pipes not destitute of design and merit. They will
crayon out an animal, a plant, or a country, so as to prove the existence
of a germ in their minds which only wants cultivation. They astonish you
with strokes of the most sublime oratory; such as prove their reason and
sentiment strong, their imagination glowing and elevated. But never yet could
I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration;
never see even an elementary trait of painting or sculpture. In music they
are more generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune and
time, and they have been found capable of imagining a small catch. 31 Whether
they will be equal to the composition of a more extensive run of melody,
or of complicated harmony, is yet to be proved. Misery is often the parent
of the most affecting touches in poetry. -- Among the blacks is misery enough,
God knows, but no poetry. Love is the peculiar ;oestrum of the poet. Their
love is ardent, but it kindles the senses only, not the imagination. Religion
indeed has produced a Phyllis Whately; but it could not produce a poet. The
compositions published under her name are below the dignity of criticism.
The heroes of the Dunciad are to her, as Hercules to the author of that poem.
Ignatius Sancho has approached nearer to merit in composition; yet his letters
do more honour to the heart than the head. They breathe the purest effusions
of friendship and general philanthropy, and shew how great a degree of the
latter may be compounded with strong religious zeal. He is often happy in
the turn of his compliments, and his stile is easy and familiar, except when
he affects a Shandean fabrication of words. But his imagination is wild and
extravagant, escapes incessantly from every restraint of reason and taste,
and, in the course of its vagaries, leaves a tract of thought as incoherent
and eccentric, as is the course of a meteor through the sky. His subjects
should often have led him to a process of sober reasoning: yet we find him
always substituting sentiment for demonstration. Upon the whole, though we
admit him to the first place among those of his own colour who have presented
themselves to the public judgment, yet when we compare him with the writers
of the race among whom he lived, and particularly with the epistolary class,
in which he has taken his own stand, we are compelled to enroll him at the
bottom of the column. This criticism supposes the letters published under
his name to be genuine, and to have received amendment from no other hand;
points which would not be of easy investigation. The improvement of the blacks
in body and mind, in the first instance of their mixture with the whites,
has been observed by every one, and proves that their inferiority is not
the effect merely of their condition of life. We know that among the Romans,
about the Augustan age especially, the condition of their slaves was much
more deplorable than that of the blacks on the continent of America. The
two sexes were confined in separate apartments, because to raise a child
cost the master more than to buy one. Cato, for a very restricted indulgence
to his slaves in this particular, 32 took from them a certain price. But
in this country the slaves multiply as fast as the free inhabitants. Their
situation and manners place the commerce between the two sexes almost without
restraint. -- The same Cato, on a principle of ;oeconomy, always sold his
sick and superannuated slaves. He gives it as a standing precept to a master
visiting his farm, to sell his old oxen, old waggons, old tools, old and
diseased servants, and every thing else become useless. `Vendat boves vetulos,
plaustrum vetus, ferramenta vetera, servum senem, servum morbosum, &
si quid aliud supersit vendat.' Cato de re rusticâ. c. 2. The American
slaves cannot enumerate this among the injuries and insults they receive.
It was the common practice to expose in the island Suet. Claud.25. of Aesculapius,
in the Tyber, diseased slaves, whose cure was like to become tedious. The
Emperor Claudius, by an edict, gave freedom to such of them as should recover,
and first declared, that if any person chose to kill rather than to expose
them, it should be deemed homicide. The exposing them is a crime of which
no instance has existed with us; and were it to be followed by death, it
would be punished capitally. We are told of a certain Vedius Pollio, who,
in the presence of Augustus, would have given a slave as food to his fish,
for having broken a glass. With the Romans, the regular method of taking
the evidence of their slaves was under torture. Here it has been thought
better never to resort to their evidence. When a master was murdered, all
his slaves, in the same house, or within hearing, were condemned to death.
Here punishment falls on the guilty only, and as precise proof is required
against him as against a freeman. Yet notwithstanding these and other discouraging
circumstances among the Romans, their slaves were often their rarest artists.
They excelled too in science, insomuch as to be usually employed as tutors
to their master's children. Epictetus, Terence, and Phaedrus, were slaves.
But they were of the race of whites. It is not their condition then, but
nature, which has produced the distinction. -- Whether further observation
will or will not verify the conjecture, that nature has been less bountiful
to them in the endowments of the head, I believe that in those of the heart
she will be found to have done them justice. That disposition to theft with
which they have been branded, must be ascribed to their situation, and not
to any depravity of the moral sense. The man, in whose favour no laws of
property exist, probably feels himself less bound to respect those made in
favour of others. When arguing for ourselves, we lay it down as a fundamental,
that laws, to be just, must give a reciprocation of right: that, without
this, they are mere arbitrary rules of conduct, founded in force, and not
in conscience: and it is a problem which give to the master to solve, whether
the religious precepts against the violation of property were not framed
for him as well as his slave? And whether the slave may not as justifiably
take a little from one, who has taken all from him, as he may slay one who
would slay him? That a change in the relations in which a man is placed should
change his ideas of moral right and wrong, is neither new, nor peculiar to
the colour of the blacks. Homer tells us it was so 2600 years ago.
Jove fix'd it certain, that whatever day
Makes man a slave, takes half his worth away.
But the slaves of which Homer speaks were whites. Notwithstanding
these considerations which must weaken their respect for the laws of property,
we find among them numerous instances of the most rigid integrity, and as
many as among their better instructed masters, of benevolence, gratitude,
and unshaken fidelity. -- The opinion, that they are inferior in the faculties
of reason and imagination, must be hazarded with great diffidence. To justify
a general conclusion, requires many observations, even where the subject
may be submitted to the Anatomical knife, to Optical glasses, to analysis
by fire, or by solvents. How much more then where it is a faculty, not a
substance, we are examining; where it eludes the research of all the senses;
where the conditions of its existence are various and variously combined;
where the effects of those which are present or absent bid defiance to calculation;
let me add too, as a circumstance of great tenderness, where our conclusion
would degrade a whole race of men from the rank in the scale of beings which
their Creator may perhaps have given them. To our reproach it must be said,
that though for a century and a half we have had under our eyes the races
of black and of red men, they have never yet been viewed by us as subjects
of natural history. advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks,
whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances,
are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind. It is
not against experience to suppose, that different species of the same genus,
or varieties of the same species, may possess different qualifications. Will
not a lover of natural history then, one who views the gradations in all
the races of animals with the eye of philosophy, excuse an effort to keep
those in the department of man as distinct as nature has formed them? This
unfortunate difference of colour, and perhaps of faculty, is a powerful obstacle
to the emancipation of these people. Many of their advocates, while they
wish to vindicate the liberty of human nature, are anxious also to preserve
its dignity and beauty. Some of these, embarrassed by the question `What
further is to be done with them?' join themselves in opposition with those
who are actuated by sordid avarice only. Among the Romans emancipation required
but one effort. The slave, when made free, might mix with, without staining
the blood of his master. But with us a second is necessary, unknown to history.
When freed, he is to be removed beyond the reach of mixture.
The revised code further proposes to proportion crimes and punishments.
This is attempted on the following scale.
I. Crimes whose punishment extends to Life.
1. High treason. Death by hanging.
Forfeiture of lands and goods
to the commonwealth.
2. Petty treason. Death by hanging.
Dissection.
Forfeiture of half the lands
and goods to the representatives of the party slain.
3. Murder. 1. by poison. Death
by poison.
Forfeiture of one-half as before.
2. in Duel. Death by hanging.
Gibbeting, if the challenger.
Forfeiture of one-half as before,
unless it be the party challenged, then the forfeiture is to the commonwealth.
3. in any other way. Death by
hanging.
Forfeiture of one-half as before.
4. Manslaughter. The second offence
is murder.
II. Crimes whose punishment goes to Limb.
1. Rape,} Dismemberment.
2. Sodomy,}
3. Maiming,} Retaliation, and the forfeiture of half the
lands and goods to the sufferer.
4. Disfiguring}
III. Crimes punishable by Labour.
1. Manslaughter, 1st offence. Labour VII. years for the
public. Forfeiture of half as in murder.
2. Counterfeiting money. Labour VI. years.
Forfeiture of lands and goods to the commonwealth.
3. Arson.} Labour V. years. Reparation
three-fold.
4. Asportation of vessels.}
5. Robbery.} Labour IV.years. Reparation
double.
6. Burglary.}
7. Housebreaking.} Labour III. years. Reparation.
8. Horse-stealing.}
9. Grand Larcency. Labour II. years. Reparation.
Pillory.
10. Petty Larcency. Labour I. year. Reparation.
Pillory.
11. Pretensions to witch-craft, &c. Ducking.
Stripes.
12. Excusable homicide.} to be pitied, not punished.
13. Suicide.}
14. Apostacy. Heresy.}
Pardon and privilege of clergy are proposed to beabolished;
but if the verdict be against the defendant, the court in their discretion,
may allow a new trial. No attainder to cause a corruption of blood, or forfeiture
of dower. Slaves guilty of offences punishable in others by labour, to be
transported to Africa, or elsewhere, as the circumstances of the time admit,
there to be continued in slavery. A rigorous regimen proposed for those condemned
to labour.
Another object of the revisal is, to diffuse knowledge more
generally through the mass of the people. This bill proposes to lay off every
county into small districts of five or six miles square, called hundreds,
and in each of them to establish a school for teaching reading, writing,
and arithmetic. The tutor to be supported by the hundred, and every person
in it entitled to send their children three years gratis, and as much longer
as they please, paying for it. These schools to be under a visitor, who is
annually to chuse the boy, of best genius in the school, of those whose parents
are too poor to give them further education, and to send him forward to one
of the grammar schools, of which twenty are proposed to be erected in different
parts of the country, for teaching Greek, Latin, geography, and the higher
branches of numerical arithmetic. Of the boys thus sent in any one year,
trial is to be made at the grammar schools one or two years, and the best
genius of the whole selected, and continued six years, and the residue dismissed.
By this means twenty of the best geniusses will be raked from the rubbish
annually, and be instructed, at the public expence, so far as the grammer
schools go. At the end of six years instruction, one half are to be discontinued
(from among whom the grammar schools will probably be supplied with future
masters); and the other half, who are to be chosen for the superiority of
their parts and disposition, are to be sent and continued three years in
the study of such sciences as they shall chuse, at William and Mary college,
the plan of which is proposed to be enlarged, as will be hereafter explained,
and extended to all the useful sciences. The ultimate result of the whole
scheme of education would be the teaching all the children of the state reading,
writing, and common arithmetic: turning out ten annually of superior genius,
well taught in Greek, Latin, geography, and the higher branches of arithmetic:
turning out ten others annually, of still superior parts, who, to those branches
of learning, shall have added such of the sciences as their genius shall
have led them to: the furnishing to the wealthier part of the people convenient
schools, at which their children may be educated, at their own expence. --
The general objects of this law are to provide an education adapted to the
years, to the capacity, and the condition of every one, and directed to their
freedom and happiness. Specific details were not proper for the law. These
must be the business of the visitors entrusted with its execution. The first
stage of this education being the schools of the hundreds, wherein the great
mass of the people will receive their instruction, the principal foundations
of future order will be laid here. Instead therefore of putting the Bible
and Testament into the hands of the children, at an age when their judgments
are not sufficiently matured for religious enquiries, their memories may
here be stored with the most useful facts from Grecian, Roman, European and
American history. The first elements of morality too may be instilled into
their minds; such as, when further developed as their judgments advance in
strength, may teach them how to work out their own greatest happiness, by
shewing them that it does not depend on the condition of life in which chance
has placed them, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health,
occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits. -- Those whom either the wealth
of their parents or the adoption of the state shall destine to higher degrees
of learning, will go on to the grammar schools, which constitute the next
stage, there to be instructed in the languages. The learning Greek and Latin,
I am told, is going into disuse in Europe. I know not what their manners
and occupations may call for: but it would be very ill-judged in us to follow
their example in this instance. There is a certain period of life, say from
eight to fifteen or sixteen years of age, when the mind, like the body, is
not yet firm enough for laborious and close operations. If applied to such,
it falls an early victim to premature exertion; exhibiting indeed at first,
in these young and tender subjects, the flattering appearance of their being
men while they are yet children, but ending in reducing them to be children
when they should be men. The memory is then most susceptible and tenacious
of impressions; and the learning of languages being chiefly a work of memory,
it seems precisely fitted to the powers of this period, which is long enough
too for acquiring the most useful languages antient and modern. I do not
pretend that language is science. It is only an instrument for the attainment
of science. But that time is not lost which is employed in providing tools
for future operation: more especially as in this case the books put into
the hands of the youth for this purpose may be such as will at the same time
impress their minds with useful facts and good principles. If this period
be suffered to pass in idleness, the mind becomes lethargic and impotent,
as would the body it inhabits if unexercised during the same time. The sympathy
between body and mind during their rise, progress and decline, is too strict
and obvious to endanger our being misled while we reason from the one to
the other. -- As soon as they are of sufficient age, it is supposed they
will be sent on from the grammar schools to the university, which constitutes
our third and last stage, there to study those sciences which may be adapted
to their views. -- By that part of our plan which prescribes the selection
of the youths of genius from among the classes of the poor, we hope to avail
the state of those talents which nature has sown as liberally among the poor
as the rich, but which perish without use, if not sought for and cultivated.
-- But of all the views of this law none is more important, none more legitimate,
than that of rendering the people the safe, as they are the ultimate, guardians
of their own liberty. For this purpose the reading in the first stage, where
they will receive their whole education, is proposed, as has been said, to
be chiefly historical. History by apprising them of the past will enable
them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other
times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and
designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise
it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views. In every government on
earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy,
which cunning will discover, and wickedness insensibly open, cultivate, and
improve. Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people
alone. The people themselves therefore are its only safe depositories. And
to render even them safe their minds must be improved to a certain degree.
This indeed is not all that is necessary, though it be essentially necessary.
An amendment of our constitution must here come in aid of the public education.
The influence over government must be shared among all the people. If every
individual which composes their mass participates of the ultimate authority,
the government will be safe; because the corrupting the whole mass will exceed
any private resources of wealth: and public ones cannot be provided but by
levies on the people. In this case every man would have to pay his own price.
The government of Great-Britain has been corrupted, because but one man in
ten has a right to vote for members of parliament. The sellers of the government
therefore get nine-tenths of their price clear. It has been thought that
corruption is restrained by confining the right of suffrage to a few of the
wealthier of the people: but it would be more effectually restrained by an
extension of that right to such numbers as would bid defiance to the means
of corruption.
Lastly, it is proposed, by a bill in this revisal, to begin
a public library and gallery, by laying out a certain sum annually in books,
paintings, and statues.
"Religion"
The different religions received into that state?
Religion
The first settlers in this country were emigrants from England,
of the English church, just at a point of time when it was flushed with complete
victory over the religious of all other persuasions. Possessed, as they became,
of the powers of making, administering, and executing the laws, they shewed
equal intolerance in this country with their Presbyterian brethren, who had
emigrated to the northern government. The poor Quakers were flying from persecution
in England. They cast their eyes on these new countries as asylums of civil
and religious freedom; but they found them free only for the reigning sect.
Several acts of the Virginia assembly of 1659, 1662, and 1693, had made it
penal in parents to refuse to have their children baptized; had prohibited
the unlawful assembling of Quakers; had made it penal for any master of a
vessel to bring a Quaker into the state; had ordered those already here,
and such as should come thereafter, to be imprisoned till they should abjure
the country; provided a milder punishment for their first and second return,
but death for their third; had inhibited all persons from suffering their
meetings in or near their houses, entertaining them individually, or disposing
of books which supported their tenets. If no capital execution took place
here, as did in New-England, it was not owing to the moderation of the church,
or spirit of the legislature, as may be inferred from the law itself; but
to historical circumstances which have not been handed down to us. The Anglicans
retained full possession of the country about a century. Other opinions began
then to creep in, and the great care of the government to support their own
church, having begotten an equal degree of indolence in its clergy, two-thirds
of the people had become dissenters at the commencement of the present revolution.
The laws indeed were still oppressive on them, but the spirit of the one
party had subsided into moderation, and of the other had risen to a degree
of determination which commanded respect.
The present state of our laws on the subject of religion is
this. The convention of May 1776, in their declaration of rights, declared
it to be a truth, and a natural right, that the exercise of religion should
be free; but when they proceeded to form on that declaration the ordinance
of government, instead of taking up every principle declared in the bill
of rights, and guarding it by legislative sanction, they passed over that
which asserted our religious rights, leaving them as they found them. The
same convention, however, when they met as a member of the general assembly
in October 1776, repealed all acts of parliament which had rendered criminal
the maintaining any opinions in matters of religion, the forbearing to repair
to church, and the exercising any mode of worship; and suspended the laws
giving salaries to the clergy, which suspension was made perpetual in October
1779. Statutory oppressions in religion being thus wiped away, we remain
at present under those only imposed by the common law, or by our own acts
of assembly. At the common law, heresy was a capital offence, punishable
by burning. Its definition was left to the ecclesiastical judges, before
whom the conviction was, till the statute of the 1 El. c. 1. circumscribed
it, by declaring, that nothing should be deemed heresy, but what had been
so determined by authority of the canonical scriptures, or by one of the
four first general councils, or by some other council having for the grounds
of their declaration the express and plain words of the scriptures. Heresy,
thus circumscribed, being an offence at the common law, our act of assembly
of October 1777, c. 17. gives cognizance of it to the general court, by declaring,
that the jurisdiction of that court shall be general in all matters at the
common law. The execution is by the writ De haeretico comburendo. By our
own act of assembly of 1705, c. 30, if a person brought up in the Christian
religion denies the being of a God, or the Trinity, or asserts there are
more Gods than one, or denies the Christian religion to be true, or the scriptures
to be of divine authority, he is punishable on the first offence by incapacity
to hold any office or employment ecclesiastical, civil, or military; on the
second by disability to sue, to take any gift or legacy, to be guardian,
executor, or administrator, and by three years imprisonment, without bail.
A father's right to the custody of his own children being founded in law
on his right of guardianship, this being taken away, they may of course be
severed from him, and put, by the authority of a court, into more orthodox
hands. This is a summary view of that religious slavery, under which a people
have been willing to remain, who have lavished their lives and fortunes for
the establishment of their civil freedom. 33 The error seems not sufficiently
eradicated, that the operations of the mind, as well as the acts of the body,
are subject to the coercion of the laws. But our rulers can have authority
over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of
conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for
them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts
only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour
to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks
my leg. If it be said, his testimony in a court of justice cannot be relied
on, reject it then, and be the stigma on him. Constraint may make him worse
by making him a hypocrite, but it will never make him a truer man. It may
fix him obstinately in his errors, but will not cure them. Reason and free
enquiry are the only effectual agents against error. Give a loose to them,
they will support the true religion, by bringing every false one to their
tribunal, to the test of their investigation. They are the natural enemies
of error, and of error only. Had not the Roman government permitted free
enquiry, Christianity could never have been introduced. Had not free enquiry
been indulged, at the aera of the reformation, the corruptions of Christianity
could not have been purged away. If it be restrained now, the present corruptions
will be protected, and new ones encouraged. Was the government to prescribe
to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls
are now. Thus in France the emetic was once forbidden as a medicine, and
the potatoe as an article of food. Government is just as infallible too when
it fixes systems in physics. Galileo was sent to the inquisition for affirming
that the earth was a sphere: the government had declared it to be as flat
as a trencher, and Galileo was obliged to abjure his error. This error however
at length prevailed, the earth became a globe, and Descartes declared it
was whirled round its axis by a vorteo. The government in which he lived
was wise enough to see that this was no question of civil jurisdiction, or
we should all have been involved by authority in vortices. In fact, the vortices
have been exploded, and the Newtonian principle of gravitation is now more
firmly established, on the basis of reason, than it would be were the government
to step in, and to make it an article of necessary faith. Reason and experiment
have been indulged, and error has fled before them. It is error alone which
needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion
to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors? Fallible men; men governed
by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons. And why subject it
to coercion? To produce uniformity. But is uniformity of opinion desireable?
No more than of face and stature. Introduce the bed of Procrustes then, and
as there is danger that the large men may beat the small, make us all of
a size, by lopping the former and stretching the latter. Difference of opinion
is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor
morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men,
women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt,
tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and
the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.
Let us reflect that it is inhabited by a thousand millions of people. That
these profess probably a thousand different systems of religion. That ours
is but one of that thousand. That if there be but one right, and ours that
one, we should wish to see the 999 wandering sects gathered into the fold
of truth. But against such a majority we cannot effect this by force. Reason
and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these,
free enquiry must be indulged; and how can we wish others to indulge it while
we refuse it ourselves. But every state, says an inquisitor, has established
some religion. No two, say I, have established the same. Is this a proof
of the infallibility of establishments? Our sister states of Pennsylvania
and New York, however, have long subsisted without any establishment at all.
The experiment was new and doubtful when they made it. It has answered beyond
conception. They flourish infinitely. Religion is well supported; of various
kinds, indeed, but all good enough; all sufficient to preserve peace and
order: or if a sect arises, whose tenets would subvert morals, good sense
has fair play, and reasons and laughs it out of doors, without suffering
the state to be troubled with it. They do not hang more malefactors than
we do. They are not more disturbed with religious dissensions. On the contrary,
their harmony is unparalleled, and can be ascribed to nothing but their unbounded
tolerance, because there is no other circumstance in which they differ from
every nation on earth. They have made the happy discovery, that the way to
silence religious disputes, is to take no notice of them. Let us too give
this experiment fair play, and get rid, while we may, of those tyrannical
laws. It is true, we are as yet secured against them by the spirit of the
times. I doubt whether the people of this country would suffer an execution
for heresy, or a three years imprisonment for not comprehending the mysteries
of the Trinity. But is the spirit of the people an infallible, a permanent
reliance? Is it government? Is this the kind of protection we receive in
return for the rights we give up? Besides, the spirit of the times may alter,
will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single
zealot may commence persecutor, and better men be his victims. It can never
be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right on
a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united. From
the conclusion of this war we shall be going down hill. It will not then
be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will
be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves,
but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting
to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which
shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war, will remain on us
long, will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire
in a convulsion.
"Manners"
The particular customs and manners that may happen to be received in that
state?
Manners
It is difficult to determine on the standard by which the manners
of a nation may be tried, whether catholic, or particular. It is more difficult
for a native to bring to that standard the manners of his own nation, familiarized
to him by habit. There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners
of our people produced by the existence of slavery among us. The whole commerce
between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions,
the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions
on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is
an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From
his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a
parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love,
for restraining the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should
always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is
not sufficient. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments
of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a
loose to his worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised
in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man
must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such
circumstances. And with what execration should the statesman be loaded, who
permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other,
transforms those into despots, and these into enemies, destroys the morals
of the one part, and the amor patriae of the other. For if a slave can have
a country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that in which
he is born to live and labour for another: in which he must lock up the faculties
of his nature, contribute as far as depends on his individual endeavours
to the evanishment of the human race, or entail his own miserable condition
on the endless generations proceeding from him. With the morals of the people,
their industry also is destroyed. For in a warm climate, no man will labour
for himself who can make another labour for him. This is so true, that of
the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to
labour. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have
removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that
these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated
but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when reflect that God
is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever: that considering numbers,
nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange
of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural
interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in
such a contest. -- But it is impossible to be temperate and to pursue this
subject through the various considerations of policy, of morals, of history
natural and civil. We must be contented to hope they will force their way
into every one's mind. I think a change already perceptible, since the origin
of the present revolution. The spirit of the master is abating, that of the
slave rising from the dust, his condition mollifying, the way I hope preparing,
under the auspices of heaven, for a total emancipation, and that this is
disposed, in the order of events, to be with the consent of the masters,
rather than by their extirpation.
"Manufactures"
The present state of manufactures, commerce, interior and exterior trade?
Manufactures
We never had an interior trade of any importance. Our exterior
commerce has suffered very much from the beginning of the present contest.
During this time we have manufactured within our families the most necessary
articles of cloathing. Those of cotton will bear some comparison with the
same kinds of manufacture in Europe; but those of wool, flax and hemp are
very coarse, unsightly, and unpleasant: and such is our attachment to agriculture,
and such our preference for foreign manufactures, that be it wise or unwise,
our people will certainly return as soon as they can, to the raising raw
materials, and exchanging them for finer manufactures than they are able
to execute themselves.
The political oeconomists of Europe have established it as a
principle that every state should endeavour to manufacture for itself: and
this principle, like many others, we transfer to America, without calculating
the difference of circumstance which should often produce a difference of
result. In Europe the lands are either cultivated, or locked up against the
cultivator. Manufacture must therefore be resorted to of necessity not of
choice, to support the surplus of their people. But we have an immensity
of land courting the industry of the husbandman. Is it best then that all
our citizens should be employed in its improvement, or that one half should
be called off from that to exercise manufactures and handicraft arts for
the other? Those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God, if
ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit
for substantial and genuine virtue. It is the focus in which he keeps alive
that sacred fire, which otherwise might escape from the face of the earth.
Corruption of morals in the mass of cultivators is a phaenomenon of which
no age nor nation has furnished an example. It is the mark set on those,
who not looking up to heaven, to their own soil and industry, as does the
husbandman, for their subsistance, depend for it on the casualties and caprice
of customers. Dependance begets subservience and venality, suffocates the
germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition. This,
the natural progress and consequence of the arts, has sometimes perhaps been
retarded by accidental circumstances: but, generally speaking, the proportion
which the aggregate of the other classes of citizens bears in any state to
that of its husbandmen, is the proportion of its unsound to its healthy parts,
and is a good-enough barometer whereby to measure its degree of corruption.
While we have land to labour then, let us never wish to see our citizens
occupied at a work-bench, or twirling a distaff. Carpenters, masons, smiths,
are wanting in husbandry: but, for the general operations of manufacture,
let our work-shops remain in Europe. It is better to carry provisions and
materials to workmen there, than bring them to the provisions and materials,
and with them their manners and principles. The loss by the transportation
of commodities across the Atlantic will be made up in happiness and permanence
of government. The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of
pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the
manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigour. A degeneracy
in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.