Page:Letters on the condition of the African race in the United States.djvu/12

10 slavery is so large already in the United States, that we can scarcely conceive of a time, when we would not have abundant room to operate with our slaves. These slaves were thrust upon us by Spanish, Dutch, and English cupidity, prior to 1776. And you know that, if the majority of Northern votes quadrupled our own, they could not abolish slavery at the South, without first abolishing the Constitution; as that instrument, in the letter and in the spirit, received us as slaveholders, and guaranteed our property; and God requires, when we swear to our neighbor, that we disappoint him not, even to our own hindrance. Mr. Calhoun said, that power was always aggressive, but these United States are bound together by such subtle chains, that, before they can be snapped, the whole people must be given up to believe a lie, and to commit national suicide; as, "united we stand, divided we fall," from all our hard-earned national glory, prosperity, happiness, and well-directed influence over other nations. In the higher questions, affecting the divine government, Africa, at the era of the discovery of America, furnished, under the most sordid influences, a portion of her population to supply the defect of the aborigines of this country in compulsory labor. But let us remember that, although it is too true that they were brought here by Spanish, Dutch, and English cupidity, they were taken from the very lowest state of barbarism. Not only were they destitute of the knowledge of God, but also destitute of social virtues. A brutal father often selling his own children for a glass of grog, or to obtain any of the lowest temporary gratifications. Dare any Christian man, therefore, assert that the degraded African heathen has not been benefited, for time and eternity, by being brought even as a slave to this Christianized country? Why, oh why! should we quarrel like children, about those things that have really no existence in the convictions of our judgment? Let the abolitionist rave as he pleases; he knows that there is such an inherent hatred of races in the human heart, that the black man can never rise to equality with the white race in America, or anywhere else, except it be in Africa. I sometimes think that the mark put upon Cain, by which all were to know him, was a black skin. You remember the remarkable prophecy of Noah, in Gen., chap.ix., 20th, 26th and 27th verses, "Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant." You know the Indian is generally