The Illinois Labor History Society
28 E. Jackson, Chicago, IL 60604
Phone: (312) 663-4107
November 4, 1843, pp. 17-19. The Phalanx was a labor magazine.
...This great question must be met and solved, but it may be done peaceably by the exercise of reason, and for the benefit of all classes, both the slave-holder and the slave, or it may be done violently by appealing to passion, in a spirit of fanatici sm and headlong fury which will be destructive to the interests of all. It must be solved by science. A thorough and complete extinction of slavery can only be effected upon just and scientific principles.
But it is in vain to suppose that slavery can be tolerated as a permanent institution, that it can continue forever, as may perhaps be desired by some who would confiscate the future to false conservatism and mistaken individual interests. It is oppose d both to the spirit of Democracy, and to the spirit of Christianity, which after centuries of struggles are bearing down all old Happiness among mankind, of which as yet they have had but such a faint glimmering in the future, and have possessed so littl e.
But whilst we predict this great result, let us hasten to state that the institution of Slavery should not be attacked violently, as it is by the Abolition party, which seems to think that nothing else is false in our social organization, and that slav ery is the only social evil to be extirpated. This one-sided view, with the dangerous rashness to which one-sided and partial considerations of social questions generally give rise, will if persisted in, inevitably lead to violence and revolution, and bes ide producing fatal consequences, will terminate in most meagre and inadequate results. The rights of the master may be spoliated, and the slave freed from personal bondage by insurrection and violence, but without a wise provision for an altered conditio n, the change would only bring servitude and oppression in another and more aggravated form.
A reform in the institution of Slavery in this and all other countries, must proceed hand in hand with a great and radical Social Reform, and chattel slavery like all other kinds of servitude, should be extinguished gradually as the false relations and unnatural conditions connected with Industry, which originate and maintain it, are corrected and abolished.
The primary cause of Slavery is repugnant and dishonorable industry. So long as Labor is allowed to re-main in its present repugnant, degrading and ill-requited condition, slavery and servitude under various forms will continue to exist. We must go to the root of the Evil; we must extirpate the cause before we attempt to destroy the effect.
In attempting so great a reform as that of Slavery, which is of such vast national importance, and affects so many interests, the first steps to be taken are to ex-amine carefully and analyze the various kinds of slavery and servitude existing on the e arth-search for and ascertain the fundamental causes of their existence and then proceed to the discussion and adoption of the wisest and the best, the most prudent and peaceable means of eradicating the causes. The effects will disappear of themselves as the causes are removed.
The whole Industry of the South -particularly agriculture- is dependent upon slave-labor. Hence the question is so important. If you abolish slavery suddenly, and without any preparatory measures to establish in its stead a better system of Industry, which will guaranty a continued prosecution of labor, you derange and paralyze production and produce a state of things in which the slaves are worse off than before, and suffer more than at present. No other system of Labor, no other Organization of Indu stry than that of Hired Labor, or Labor for Wages, is known by any party, (of reformers or politicians who have heretofore agitated the question of slavery,) and as we before mentioned, this system is but little better than slavery itself viewed in any li ght, and worse than slavery as a permanent institution, and would, therefore, be a wretched substitution. Before attempting to abolish slavery in the South, then, a new system of Industry must be discovered and provided....
This is from an influential essay by Professor Dew in the wake of Virginia's Constitutional Convention of 1829. Public opinion was swinging toward emancipation and this helped to quiet the debate.
"...A merrier being does not exist on the face of the globe, than the negro slave of the United States...
...It has been contended that slavery is unfavorable to a republican spirit: but the whole history of the world proves that this is far from being the case. In the ancient republics of Greece and Rome, where the spirit of liberty glowed with most inte nsity, the slaves were more numerous than the freemen.... In modern times, too, liberty has always been more ardently desired by slave holding communities.... Burke* says, " it is because freedom is to them not only an enjoyment, but a kind of rank and pr ivilege." Another, and perhaps more efficient cause of this, is the perfect spirit of equality so prevalent among the whites of all the slave holding states.... The menial and low offices being all performed by the blacks, there is at once taken away the greatest cause of distinction and separation of the ranks of society. The man to the north will not shake hands familiarly with his servant, and converse, and laugh, and dine with him, no matter how honest and respectable he may be. But go to the south, a nd you will find that no white man feels such inferiority of rank as to be unworthy of association with those around him. Color alone is here the badge of distinction, the true mark of aristocracy, and all who are white are equal in spite of the variety o f occupation...." * Burke is obviously the British political philosopher Edmund Burke (1729-97).
The Illinois Labor History Society
28 E. Jackson, Chicago, IL 60604
Phone: (312) 663-4107