Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 20.djvu/277

 Unveiling of the Howitzer Monument. 271

between them and the whites in some of the States, and when not absolutely contrary to law, they are revolting and regarded as an offence against public decorum. By the Revised Statutes of Illinois, published in 1829, marriages between whites and negroes or mulat- toes are declared void, and the persons so married are liable to be whipped, fined, and imprisoned. By an old statute of Massachusetts, of 1705, such marriages were declared void, and are so still." [This summary was cited and corroborated by the Chief-Justice of Connec- ticut as late as 1834.] The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania decided in 1837 that a negro or mulatto was not entitled to exercise the right of suffrage. It was not until July 4, 1827, that New York was ranked among the free States, and when the Constitution of 1846 was adopted negro suffrage was negatived by a vote of four to one. As late, certainly, as the date of the Dred Scott decision the Consti- tution of New Jersey restricted the right of suffrage to all white per- sons. This course of legislation in the North illustrated the recog- nized discrepancy of the races. Statute did not confer it, and statute could not take it away. Slavery in the South rested upon the natu- ral supremacy of the white race over the black, and the total and inevitable disqualification of the latter for an equal struggle with the former.

THOSE SUBJECTED NOT OUR EQUALS.

Slavery in the South, unlike Oriental bondage, Roman servitude, and feudal villainage, was not the subjection of equals, differing only in opportunity,' but the subordination of one extreme of humanity to the other; of the most abject to the most enlightened. The real inequality of the races had made subordination prescriptive. No higher encomium could possibly be pronounced upon the practical beneficence of Southern institutions, than the one tacitly sanctioned by the last amendment viz. : that they had been sufficient to educate the lowest of earth's savages to take his place among the highest of earth's freemen.

As population increases it becomes cheaper to hire labor than to buy or own it; or, borrowing the phrase of Carlyle, to hire for years rather than for life. The labor of slavery ceases to be worth the capital involved in its support. The coercion of authority is replaced by the coercion of want, and the obligation to protect by the liberty to oppress. Nothing could be truer or wiser than that which was said by John Randolph in the Senate of the United States: " The natu-