Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/438

 increase of the blacks, except a law to prevent the intercourse of the sexes, or Herod's scheme of patting the children to death. The toleration of slavery was said to bring down reproach upon America, but that reproach belongs only to those who tolerate it, and he was ready to bear his share. It was said, also, that slavery vitiates and debases the mind of the slave-holder; but where is the proof? Do the citizens of the south exhibit more ferocity in their manners, more barbarity in their dispositions, than those of the other states? Slavery was first introduced into the West Indies by Las Casas from motives of humanity. The French promote the slave-trade by premiums; and are not the French a polished people, sensible of the rights of mankind, and actuated by just sentiments? The Spaniards encourage slavery, and they are people of the nicest honor, proverbially so. The Greeks and Romans held slaves, and are not their glorious achievements still held up as incitements to great and magnanimous actions? Sparta teemed with slaves at the time of her greatest fame as a valiant republic. Much had been said of the cruel treatment of slaves in the southern states and the West Indies. As to the southern states, from experience and information, he denied the fact; he believed in his conscience that the slaves in South Carolina were a happier people than the lower order of whites in many countries he had visited. As to the West Indies, Lord Rodney and Admiral Barrington, both of whom had spent some time there, had lately declared in the house of commons that they had never heard of a negro being cruelly treated, and that they should rejoice exceedingly if the English day-laborers were half as happy.

The abolition of the slave-trade would cause an African massacre, for it was well known to be the custom to put to death all such slaves as were brought to the coast and not sold. The cruelty of the method of transportation was alleged as a motive for abolishing the traffic; but surely the merchants would so far attend to their own interests as to preserve the lives and health of the slaves on the passage. All voyages must be attended with inconveniences, and those from Africa to America not less than others. The confinement on board was no more than was necessary. The space allowed was more than to soldiers in a camp; for the cubical measurement of air breathed by encamped soldiers fell below that allowed in the slave-ships, in the ratio of seventeen to thirty.

Baldwin "was in hopes that the experience of the house had convinced them of the impropriety of entering at all on this business. It was a reckless wandering without guidance, and the longer it was continued, the more inextricable their perplexities would become. The same memorial, he was informed, had been presented to the senate, but they had taken no notice of it. They had even negatived a motion that it should lie upon the table; they would not blot their paper with the subject at all. He hoped this house would imitate the wisdom of the senate, and pursue the subject no further. The most important business of the Union, the plan for the support of the public credit, the division of North Carolina into collection districts, the post-office act, additional revenue act, on which nearly half the resources of the year depended,