Mr. Davis,
While those who call themselves friends to liberty (who hold no slaves) are publishing their sentiments to the world with a view to lessen the value of that kind of property in the hands of the holders, and thereby amass wealth at the expences of their neighbours; permit me to tell them to beware of the inevitable consequences which from the nature of things will result from such iniquitous proceedings!
They may reflect that slaves in one respect are not like cattle, as they are by a late writer said to be:—Cattle being devoid of common understanding may be bought and sold without knowing any change in their situation, but slaves have understanding, enough to know, when so much noise is made by a part of the community about their emancipation, that the time perhaps may come when they shall be free—and that the time being spun out longer than they have patience to wait for, will be the cause of much bloodshed, by insurrections or other means equally as unlawful and unnatural!—For a little time they will hope, but when the mode proposed appears not to answer their expectation, it will cause them to devise other means which may hasten that which they have but in vain waited for!
It was perhaps an irreversible decree from the mouth of God that slavery in former ages took place in the world, because it has remained ever since in the world, and I fear there will be no end of slavery, so long as men have power and predominant passions in the world!—If this be the case, in vain will the friends of liberty seek to abolish it, but if they have money to spare, I could point out another object more worthy of their patronage than the present:—Why not first extend their charity toward the relief of thousands of their own colour in other parts of the world—let them rather have pity on their own brethren who are galley slaves in Turkey, and the, if their money is not exhausted, let them come again and assist the Ethiopian King in the redemption of his subjects.
I was not a contemporary with Moses, and therefore know not what colour the people were of whom the Almighty called “the Heathen in the 25th chapter of Exodus,” but that one people were to be in perpetual bondage to another is as clear a truth as any we have recorded in the holy book.—Verse the first. “The Lord spoke unto Moses in Mount Sainai, saying—39v. If thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond servant—40—But as an hired servant and as a sojourner he shall be until the year of jubilee—41—And then shall he depart from thee, both he and his little children with him, and shall return unto his own family and unto the possession of his father—42—For they are my servants whom I brought out of Egypt—they shall not be sold as bond men—43—Thou shall not rule over him with rigor, but shall fear thy God—44—Both thy bond men and bond maids which thou shalt have, shall be of the Heathen that are round about you—Of them, (i.e.) of the Heathen ye shall buy bond men and maids—45—Moreover of the children of the strangers who sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy and of their families that are with you which they begat in your land—they shall be your possession—46—And ye shall take them as an heritage for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession—they shall be your bond men for ever!”
This quotation proves that bond men were in former ages of the world—that they are now in different parts of the world, and if the decree means for ever as it is so written, will remain to the end of the world!
I am one who believe the writings contained in the holy books to be of divine authority, and they teach me to believe one paragraph as much as another; but, unfortunately for the present generation, too many read by paragraph and choose only such, as found doctrine, which agree with their own enlightened understanding!
It has been insinuated by a late writer that political speculators in America are wiser than those of any other country—This I must grant, for I have not heard it denied—Permit me therefore among other friends to liberty in America, to draw another scheme to further the grand design: permit me to point out a mode by which the galling yoke of bondage may be eradicated and no more heard of in this enlightened hemisphere, without hurt to any one of our citizens, and at the same time place those unfortunate blackamores in a better situation, generally, than if they were emancipated.
A writer who stiles himself A real Friends to the Abolition of Slavery, seems to insinuate that the General Assembly might pass a law granting pecuniary aid according to the circumstances of our finances: But, I am sure he must be young indeed in the political world, to suppose, because the General Assembly called in the militia certificates by a tax (which to be sure were the property of the holders as much as slaves) that, that august body will now say that negroes shall be called in and redeemed in the same manner!—He has forgot that militia certificates when redeemed by that political act, were burnt—This the poor negroes would not of choice agree to—they would rather continue in bondage: but away with this kind of argumentation—away with speculations which appear to be forging instruments to build castles in the air, and let the friends to liberty attend to the plan beforementioned:—This the Assembly are not forbid to do by our chartered rights—this will injure no body, and by abolishing slavery, set these poor unfortunate Ethiopeans in as good, if not a better situation, than if they were all emancipated to morrow!
Let the Assembly make an act declaring all men, women and children who are now in slavery to be free and entirely emancipated, and that thereafter slavery shall for ever be abolished within the limits of their jurisdiction—In the next clause let it be declared that by the bill of rights and form of government, neither they nor any future Assembly have power to wrest from their citizens their property, but to answer such purposes as are therein particularly enumerated, but that all men, women and children who were slaves, and now emancipated, and their descendants, shall nevertheless be, and remain with their owners, their heirs, and assigns, under the character of servants for and during the term of ninety-nine years—that their said masters shall find and provide for them necessary clothes, meat, drink, and all other necessaries fit and convenient for such servants—that in case of unmerciful abuse they shall thereafter be entirely emancipated, unless it shall before some tribunal, to which they shall have resort by the said act, that their owner was not blameable for this conduct therein.—Here then is a concise and easy mode by which the abolition of slavery may be brought about, and sure I am if nothing else but the dictates of the christian mind has influence—if some pecuniary advantages over one anther are not sought for by those who stile themselves friends to liberty, this, better than any other scheme, will answer the intended purpose!—thus the master will not be deprived of his servant—the value of him will not be lessened—the friends to liberty will sleep quiet on their downy pillows, having found the philospher’s stone sooner than they expected, and the poor negroes will be put on a better footing than if they were let to wander up and down the country by whole families as free for forty years without land to seat on—houses to dwell in—money to subsist on—or clothes to cover them.
A.C.
